To the row of heaths! Faster driver faster, yah, yah! Or well yes, you can just sit there in sullen silence. It is 6:30am after all, can't really blame you, there are many other things I would like to be doing on a Sunday morning too.
They have Miniature costa coffee machines here now! This is smile making. Robista make me some of your finest crap-in-a-cup and don't spare the caramel syrups.
I feel this is something that warrants dissemination, so sneakily text it to one my friends as were about to take off. Apparently she already knows, and they have them there too. Damn, I thought this one was kind of special. I guess it'd be more of a discovery to find a Pret robista, then there'd be the coffee taste without the several kilos of sugar and crappy flavourings, maybe it could even dispense almond croissants. mmmmm.
Uneventful flight - "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter" was fairly decent as mixed genre vampire staking fests go.
Hello JFK i've never travelled through you before, I wonder if your CBP officers will be nicer than Atlanta's who questioned me for about an hour and then reduced by VWP length from three months to one.
Yey you are, though you know I used to have a girlfriend in California that's kind of scary.
Me: "So you really do record all that stuff?"
CBP: *knowing smile*
CBP: "So what are you doing for this company?"
Me: "Well sort of setting up a Dynamic DNS RADIUS driven cell service"
CBP: *blank stare*
Me: "Well you know how companies have equipment they put out in the field"
CBP: "Uhuh"
Me: "Well every time this equipment connects to the cell network, it updates something that lets other customers find it"
CBP: "Um... ok.."
Me: "I'm just looking at what equipment they have"
CBP: "But you're just looking right? You'll do the work back home"
Me: "Of course *big smile*"
CBP: "Ok you're fine"
This is a relief given the shenanigans with CBP that have occurred before.I imagine it's the same coming through the British version, only with more sarcasm, incredulity, and passive aggressivity.
I think the only pleasant mmigration experience i've ever had was in LA coming back from Costa Rica, where the CBP guy told me as long as I wasn't coming in to blow anything up then I was good to go, little did they know... hehehe.
Hello JFK! *walk walk walk*, Ooo train-in-the-sky, *walk walk walk*, Oooooooooo Harley shop buy buy buy. Ooooooooooooooooooo Sushi! Can haz California roles, Tempura roles and a giant Asahi plz? Nom nom nom, *walk stumble walk*. Oooooo train-in-the-sky *ride ride ride* Ooooo train-in-the-sky *ride back the other way*.
I will skip the details of the server inventorying. It was sort of frustrating, but I did get a job offer for when they open up a UK DC with something around a six figure salary. The person offering wasn't even drunk, we'd even worked together for a week! Good times !
Bye bye Atlanta, GA *wave wave* hello Puertorico! bye bye Puertorico, hello absolutely gorgeous inflight scenery, with little forrested uninhabited islands, and torquizey bluey mmm water. I think the flight from Puetorico to St Thomes is one of the prettiest standard commercial jet flights, despite only lasting 15 minutes... goodbye pretty scenery... oh crap were all going to die, a jet of this size should not be skimming that close to the top of the water, pull up, pull up!
Ahhh there's runway now *sigh of relief*.
Bye bye Jetblue jet, hello... Amber! Fancy seeing you here, on this island, in the middle of the Carribean, with amazing sunsets, surrounded by salty bathwater...
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Frolicking in France
So... the previous series of blogposts is like never to be finished. Pole. There are several reasons for this, but they're not entirely happy so I won't go on about them here. Melinda was also meant to write a bunch, but she never did, so lets shift the blame onto her, but she was being awesome and doing other things so never mind.
So whats happened between then and now?
Well I returned to France, but was extremely poor and could barely afford food, let alone French lessons, and then the French lessons I found were way too advanced, and, so, yes, my French is still only good enough to order beer and pizza.
Over the next few months I skipped between Grenoble and the UK, attempting to restore Pouncy Mc Fast (Large UK based cruiser bike) to its former travel evicerating glory. This was extremely frustrating, and i'm pretty sure nearly cost me employment multiple times, but thanks to an understanding employer didn't (yey!).
I also met a really awesome girl called Ceallai, who was kind enough to teach me colourful French words and expounded on the joys of being able to swear across multiple languages. She was also all round a very nice person, and made the being stuck in Grenoble thing much more pleasant. Or would have if I hadn't of left about six weeks after meeting her to go back to the UK for what turned out to be two months, to finish off the bike.
Finally did the extremely long and arduous journey from UK to Italy pouncy style. Fixed a tractor, helped reroof a barn and did the extremely long and arduous journey back to the UK. In between the coming and the going there was much zooming along perilous mountain passes, which I have to say, pouncy handled like a veritable mountain goat, given its size and nature. Oh and for those would be continental travellers, those signs on the autoroute are not advertising Free WiFi. Fortunately the long tradition of the French thinking it too much hassle to chase up those english bastards who treat their roads like race tracks still applied, and as of two months later, am still ticketless (despite setting a pouncy speed record of 118 mph).
8 months summed up in four paragraphs, yep, thats about how exciting it was. I hated working in France*, or at least I hated working with that particular team in France. It was an entirely demotivating and depressing experience. The French can do some things well, programming and technology is not one of them (unless you happen to work at Free).
There was also the business with the alcoholic landlord calling the police on house mates, and everyone leaving at the same time to spite him *sigh*. Still owes me 500 euros (grumble). Could have really used an Ambikins** at that point, but she was living it up in the USVI (which incidentally will probably be the subject of the next blog post).
Upon return I started a 3 month contract at BSkyB, which should hopefully fund future travels. Signed up for a couple more Open University courses, and started a Swahili class.
More recently there was camping in the new forrest, where many poneys were petted, despite the signs warning against it.
* Or more commuting to France to work in a French office
** Still she gets my heartfelt thanks for leaving that box of chocolatey marshmellow things. Definitely helped push back the dark thoughts.
So whats happened between then and now?
Well I returned to France, but was extremely poor and could barely afford food, let alone French lessons, and then the French lessons I found were way too advanced, and, so, yes, my French is still only good enough to order beer and pizza.
Over the next few months I skipped between Grenoble and the UK, attempting to restore Pouncy Mc Fast (Large UK based cruiser bike) to its former travel evicerating glory. This was extremely frustrating, and i'm pretty sure nearly cost me employment multiple times, but thanks to an understanding employer didn't (yey!).
I also met a really awesome girl called Ceallai, who was kind enough to teach me colourful French words and expounded on the joys of being able to swear across multiple languages. She was also all round a very nice person, and made the being stuck in Grenoble thing much more pleasant. Or would have if I hadn't of left about six weeks after meeting her to go back to the UK for what turned out to be two months, to finish off the bike.
Finally did the extremely long and arduous journey from UK to Italy pouncy style. Fixed a tractor, helped reroof a barn and did the extremely long and arduous journey back to the UK. In between the coming and the going there was much zooming along perilous mountain passes, which I have to say, pouncy handled like a veritable mountain goat, given its size and nature. Oh and for those would be continental travellers, those signs on the autoroute are not advertising Free WiFi. Fortunately the long tradition of the French thinking it too much hassle to chase up those english bastards who treat their roads like race tracks still applied, and as of two months later, am still ticketless (despite setting a pouncy speed record of 118 mph).
8 months summed up in four paragraphs, yep, thats about how exciting it was. I hated working in France*, or at least I hated working with that particular team in France. It was an entirely demotivating and depressing experience. The French can do some things well, programming and technology is not one of them (unless you happen to work at Free).
There was also the business with the alcoholic landlord calling the police on house mates, and everyone leaving at the same time to spite him *sigh*. Still owes me 500 euros (grumble). Could have really used an Ambikins** at that point, but she was living it up in the USVI (which incidentally will probably be the subject of the next blog post).
Upon return I started a 3 month contract at BSkyB, which should hopefully fund future travels. Signed up for a couple more Open University courses, and started a Swahili class.
More recently there was camping in the new forrest, where many poneys were petted, despite the signs warning against it.
* Or more commuting to France to work in a French office
** Still she gets my heartfelt thanks for leaving that box of chocolatey marshmellow things. Definitely helped push back the dark thoughts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)