Castles and Fantasy Worlds

Right, so I’m going to make an attempt to post more often. Really, I am! Yesterday, Jon had the day off, so we decided we ought to do something interesting. We spent the morning lazing about, as usual, but then in the afternoon we went to the castle. Yes, Colchester has a castle. It’s actually the oldest recorded town in England, dating back to Roman times. The castle nowadays is a museum with a really pretty garden outside it. There are tons of roses outside the entrance. Various colors all labeled with their name. Kind of like flower farms, only these weren’t for sale. On to the museumy bits!

When I was in London last fall, I learned about Boudica. She was the queen of the Iceni, a tribe of Britons in East Anglia (where I live). The Romans had an arrangement with the Iceni’s king that allowed the large tribe to remain mostly independent. When the king died, however, the Romans went back on virtually all of the deals they had made with the Iceni. To make things worse, they flogged Boudica and raped her daughters. The Iceni revolted, led by Boudica, and another, much less powerful tribe of Britons joined them. The Romans didn’t make any preparations for an attack, because they were sure that the legions would come to their rescue. Apparently the Iceni utterly destroyed the Romans in Colchester, and demolished the large temple that the people were barricaded in. Like I said, I learned about Boudica when I was in London. There is a large statue of her in the city, standing on a large chariot-type thing drawn by either 2 or 4 horses (I don’t remember which) with one hand on the reigns, and one hand in the air. She truly looks like a war queen. What I hadn’t realized when I first heard the story, was that Colchester was where Boudica’s revenge took place. Interesting stuff.

Anyway, after the castle, we went to see the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, which just came out yesterday here (I have no clue when it came out/will come out in the States). It was pretty much the same quality as the first one was. Entertaining for sure, but it was clearly no Momento (although it’s probably unfair of me to constantly compare movies to one that amazing). Today I’ll take an application to a restaurant near where I live, call Adecco and see if they have any work for me this weekend, and do my reading for my class this summer. I truly live an exciting life. : P

Tchau!

Long-overdue Update!

Wow, it has been far, FAR too long since I posted! On Friday the 13^th I went to the London Zoo with my friend Tom. It was really good to see him! We had fun geeking out over strange animals (i.e. marveling over naked mole rats and Bactrian camels). When we were looking at the Black Mamba in the reptile place, Jesse called and said that he and his girlfriend Jo were in London and invited Tom and I to come to dinner with them. So, we stayed at the zoo until it was closing, then went and met up with Jesse and Jo and walked to the Drunken Monkey. Lots of yummy Chinese food and a whiskey sour later, I walked back to the train station and said goodbye. They went out to a club or a pub that night, I believe. Anyway, it was a really fun day! That weekend, I worked at Care UK again. The people there are cool, so working is okay, but there definitely comes a point during the day when I just want to do something else. Answering phones for 8 hours is a tad boring. After working I had a week full of more sleep, TV, WoW, and job searching, as well as movies and walks when Jon’s home.

This last Friday I called up Adecco (the temp agency I’m signed with) to see if they had any work for me this weekend, and unfortunately they didn’t. There was an up side, though! Jon didn’t have to work this weekend either, so we got to hang out for the weekend. We spent the weekend as we spend most of our time, generally lazing about! On Sunday we heard what sounded like clapping or cheering outside, so we took a walk to the park, where there was some kind of marching competition going on. We only stayed for one group (it was the last group), and they were a drum and bugle corp. They had a large percussion section, around 30-ish people playing trumpet-like instruments in various sizes, and about 15 or so flag people (you know, the ones that dance around and spin huge flags on poles). The weird thing about the group we watched (as well as the group before them, we saw them leaving the field) was that the drum section wasn’t using marching equipment. They had to push timpani, mallet instruments (like bells and vibes), bass drums and other wheeled percussion designed for indoor use, onto a grass field. So basically, in the drum and bugle corp., the bugles and flag people were out on the field marching and flagging, while the drums chilled on the sidelines. Weirdness, that’s all I can say.

Yesterday Tom came down to Colchester to hang out for a bit. We listened to music and went on a walk, discussing the largest and smallest animals in the world, placing extra emphasis on contemplating the immensity of a blue whale. When Jon got home, we went out to Blockbuster to rent a DVD, since lovefilm (like netflix) hadn’t sent a new one yet. We rented Cloverfield, because Jon wanted to and I agreed to it. If you haven’t seen the movie, THANK GOD. I spent most of the movie expecting to be scared, and never actually getting there. I have no qualms with not being scared, but expecting to be the whole movie was a tad exhausting. I think Jon’s comment was something along the lines of, “I can’t believe how bad that film was.” To which I replied, “I can.” T’was a good laugh. Anyway, that’s about it for now!

Tchau!

Found a Bit of Work!

It seems like time is going by so quickly. Before I know it, it has been a week since I posted! When I stopped by Adecco to give them my bank account number and sign the temp contract, they had a bit of work for me! I worked in a call centre for Care UK, a company that provides in-home care for the elderly across southeast England. I spent 2 and a half hours training on Thursday night, and then worked from 6:30 AM to 2:30 PM on both Saturday and Sunday. It’s interesting work, to say the least. Mostly it involves speaking with carers and clients. An elderly client might be confused about what time (or day even) that their carer is supposed to be there, or a carer might not be able to get into a client’s house, and call us so that we can call the client and ask them to let the carer in. When I turned in my timesheet today, I was asked if I would be interested in doing it again this next weekend, and of course I said I would be. She said she would call me, which is good, because I need the money! At this point, it looks like I’m not going to be able to find a regular job, but hopefully Adecco will be able to keep finding me temp work.

On a side note, I have been absolutely miserable with allergies on and off. The flat gets a bit hot unless the windows are open a little, so I have no relief from this evil hay fever. At Jon’s suggestion, today I finally went down to the pharmacy and bought some allergy medicine. Hopefully it helps, because I might just kill myself if it doesn’t!

One thing I re-noticed when I went into town today: the British will put sunglasses on at the slightest hint of sun. I swear, during my walk into town, it was sunny for about 5 minutes, and during that time, I passed by several people wearing shades. They must just keep them in their pockets/purses so that they can slap them on when the sun starts to peek out from behind the clouds. Poor, hopeful fools.

Livin it Up in Colchester

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted, but things have been fairly uneventful lately. I've settled in well to the flat. 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 shower room, a decent sized living room and a small but (mostly) functional kitchen. The place is a mess, and I'm still living out of a suitcase in the living room (because there's really nowhere else to put it), but I do feel quite at home here now.

I've spent the time since I've been here job hunting, hanging out with Jon and playing WoW. The last two things often occur at the same time. For those that care/understand, my hunter hordie will ding 70 today, yay! Hanging out with Jon usually entails watching movies or going for walks, both of which are lovely. The job situation is somewhat less of something to cheer for. I have yet to find a job, unfortunately, so the search continues. Today I'm heading back into London to get a UK bank account. This will hopefully allow the temp agency I signed up with yesterday to find me some jobs, whoo hoo! I'm not thrilled about the idea of just temping while I'm here, but I need to work, so I'll do what I have to do to make ends meet. Honestly, I need the bank account anyway, so it's a good thing to get out of the way.

That's honestly all that's going on in my life at the moment, but certain nagging fathers have persuaded me to post. Hopefully I'll have a job soon, and then I'll have more interesting stories for you all.

Tchau!