It's late Saturday night/early Sunday morning here and I can't fall asleep so I figured I'd give some good updates to the trip. Since my last post, I've begun working and I'm just starting to settle into life here. I'd love to say it's been all great stories and good times, but my afternoon on Saturday brought all the fun I've been having back to reality. But I'm getting ahead of myself so let's go back a few days.
Thursday was my first day at work and in many ways it felt like I was going to a new job. I had no clue where the office was, who anyone there was, or what exactly I would be doing there. Because of my excitement and possible lingering jet lag, I ended up waking up way too early so decided to read some emails and pace around for a bit as I knew I couldn't leave yet. I eventually left and headed for what I thought would be a decent walk to the office. Well, it turns out the office is a literally 100 yards from my flat. This was a good thing because it was absolutely pouring rain outside. I know I'm early into this trip, but I have a feeling rain will be a consistent theme throughout my time here.
I won't go too much into detail on the work stuff, but overall it went well. Everyone in my new team is solid and I have a feeling we will get along really well. I'm familiar with the general idea of how they do business so the work side of job shouldn't be too much of a problem or hard to pick up. The day went by quickly and of course was capped off by a trip to the pub. The team took me to a pub called the The Ship, which basically looks exactly how you would imagine every British pub looking. They had a good selection of beer, chips and my new favorite bar snack, pork scratchings. They are basically dried pork fat, much like pork rinds, except without the deep frying. Delicious.
The whole warm beer fad here is not as bad as the world makes it out to be. Certain beers are served at around room temperature and are pumped out as opposed to a draft beer like we are used to. The summer ale I had was quite good and while it was a bit on the warm side, it went down quite smoothly. And from what I can tell, places all still have beers we have on tap like in the US, which are all served cold. The mixed drinks, though, are a sad thing to see here. When I saw the bartender measuring out one shot of booze in each of my jack and cokes, my heart died a little bit. In the US, the formula is simple: glass, ice, pour coke and bourbon/whisky at equal pace at same time until glass is full. Sometimes bartenders even top off with additional booze to ensure bar patron will thoroughly enjoy their tasty beverage. No, not here in the UK. Everything is measured and sad, which is going to take a lot of getting used to.
After some good US vs. UK banter and inevitable boring finance talk, the guys who took me out slowly went off. Only one of them able to make it out to last call with me, which is 11pm for pubs, and we were both in pretty bad shape. Neither of us had eaten dinner (a rookie mistake on my part), but since I was basically already back at my flat, I decided to just call it a night and pass out. Sadly though, I woke up at like 4:30 in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep. That made for a very slow work day the next day.
After work on Friday, a few coworkers took me out for a beer again. After a couple beers and some party juice (Red Bull-vodkas for the non-Schuman readers of the audience), they decided to go to a housewarming party for another guy from my work and thankfully they felt like it would be fun to drag the new American guy along with them. Four of us grabbed a cab and headed on our way. British cabs are strange in that if more than two people get in, the other two people have to pull their seat down from the middle and face the other two people in the cab. I, of course, did not know this and just crouched until the rest of the group laughed and made me aware of why I'm an idiot. We went up the road to a place I couldn't find again no matter how hard I tried, where a pretty cool party was already under way. It was still pouring rain outside and what was supposed to be a rooftop party was forced to be inside. Everyone was drinking a ton and very friendly. A lot of the people there worked for my company so we had at least a little something in common.
The night progressed and the booze kept flowing. The person who lived in the flat had a girlfriend from Sweden and all of her sisters and friends were there as well. They were a hilarious group and were leading the party with an Icelandic drinking game called Spoof. It's too hard to explain now, but I will show you all when I come back; it's very fun and easy to pick up. We were all also now speaking very basic phrases in Swedish, most of which centered around how to order a drink and swear at bartenders. The rain had finally subsided and we eventually were able to go outside to drink there. This was even more fun because once outside, a swam of little dogs poured out of the house next door to greet us. I don't think there could have been anything more entertaining to a group of drunk people than about six little chihuahuas running around and being everyone's new best friend.
Eventually the night had to end and at around 2am I grabbed a cab to go home. I had again not eaten dinner, so once I got home I made myself what I think was sausage and onion pita with mustard. That may sound gross to most of you, but believe me it was delicious. I passed out for what may have been the longest sleep I've had in years. I woke up the next day at around 3pm and after chugging about a gallon of water to rehydrate myself, I decided to go for a walk and see where the streets of London would take me. Here is were my troubles began.
I took the path along the side of the south end of Thames and eventually wandered inland just see what I would find. After about an hour of walking and taking photos, the skies again turned an ominous shade of dark gray and before I could figure out where I was, it started absolutely pouring rain once again. In my haste to salvage my day, I forgot to grab my umbrella when I left (in my defense, it was perfectly sunny at the time), so I basically just had to suck it up and walk back through the rain. Once I finally admitted to myself that I was lost, I decided to get out my phone to see where I was on a map. While the map was loading, I placed it down on top of this large plastic thing so that I could take my backpack off. I now know that this plastic thing is actually a rainwater runoff contraption that almost all buildings here have. Now, I checked to make sure that there was a top on this thing so I felt confident that I could place my phone on top of it and all would be fine. Well, right when I put my phone in it, the screw top fell right through and my phone went down into about 6 feet of water. I tried to grab the phone before it sank all the way to the bottom, but to no avail. All I was able to grab was the top of the rain water thing, which I then discovered was broken. I also noticed that my hand had been sliced open a bit, probably when I was trying to grab my phone, and blood was now running down my hand.
After a few minutes of laughing at my situation, I took a few pictures of the stupid rain thing for the memories and just kept walking. It was probably pride that stopped me from just getting a cab, but I wasn't going to give up and thus I stubbornly kept walking in the hopes of finding my way. Sure enough, I finally saw some buildings off in the distance that I knew were by my flat so I knew I was going in the right direction. And about 30 minutes later, I was finally home and completely soaked through. I cleaned myself up and decided if this was the worst day I could have here, well then at least it's out the way. I just can't wait to hear my admin's reaction when I have to explain why I need a new phone sent to me.
And that's the latest from here. I plan on going another direction tomorrow and seeing what trouble I can get to over there. For a first weekend in new a city, I think I've had a pretty eventful one so far. Until next time.
At least you still have your thumb and both eyebrows so I'd call it a success!
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