FINALLY, an update!

Hmmm, so to begin correctly I guess I will have to go back to Wednesday, Feb. 28--because I think that's the first day anything interesting or worth noting took place after my Feb. 19th entry.

Wednesday
was the day we had designated for the water park excursion. It went like this: I had had an absolutely exhausting day at work. I was also famished. I wanted nothing else in the world than to skip out on water park activities, especially since I hadn't donned a swimsuit in months and wasn't looking my grandest in a bikini--I was so white I was the "second sun of the earth" as my cousin Derek would say (when I heard him say it, it was in reference to Grandpa's bare legs). So I was a little miffed when, 15 minutes after I walked in the door, DJ and Sarah rush into the room and say we have to get ready and leave now. UGH. So I shove what I think I'll need into my bag, and get bundled up (it is FREEZING outside), mix up the quickest shake ever and shove some bread into my mouth just so I won't pass out from hunger, and go to wait in the lobby. They knew I had a door shift. They promised we'd be back in plenty of time.

There are more people going than I originally had thought. Becs, Jacqui and Wes came. Nick planned on it, but wasn't back from work yet.

We walked to the bus stop. Mind you, the water park closes at 8pm and it is past 6:30 at this point. Someone has the bright idea to actually look at the bus schedule and see IF we even had a bus back. Nope, we didn't. We were going to have to catch a cab. And guess who was the only one that had a phone OR the number of a cab place. Yeah, that's right. It grinds my gears the way people are so stupid and irresponsible when it comes to think like this--I mean, if I had decided to not go, what were they going to do? So I decided to let them stew for awhile, and not mention that I had a phone and the number for A-Team Taxis.

Finally the bus rounds the corner and we see Nick running down Micklegate to meet us. Great. Luckily, the York bus drivers are slow as hell at collecting fares--AND they do give change--so Nick made it onto the bus, and we were finally off.

A 10-minute bus ride took us to within 2 blocks of WaterWorld York. And I can't remember the last time I felt such strong, biting cold winds. Probably the last time I was in Kloten, ND, which was years ago now. So by the time we got inside, we were freezing to bits--with probably less than an hoor to spend in the damn water park.

But, the waterslides were pretty fun. There were three: fast, medium, and slow. The the fast one, you went down on your bare ass--or back, I guess. For the medium one, you had to sit on a mat--a new experience for me; in all my USA water park experience I've never had to sit on a mat--and for the slow one, you went down on inner tubes. Fun! The funniest thing was how giddy and excited we all got, especially when we saw that all of us had at least 12 years on every other waterslide "customer". It was great. Here we are, a bunch of 21-25 year-olds, waiting in line for waterslides with 7-and 8-year old kids. We had a good time. After we did each slide a few times, we went around the lazy river once or twice. It was not terribly lazy, though--the current knocked me off of my feet a couple of times and one couldn't really swim against it. There was also a wave pool, which we had great fun with. It wasn't huge like the ones I remember going to when I was little, but it was fun nonetheless.

After the wave pool, the whistle blew to signal closing-time, and we all had to get out. I was exhausted and famished again, and anxious to get home because that night I was on door shift, and I still had to shower and washout my bathing suit and set up for the night. So we got out and everyone kind of stood around like dunderheads wondering what we were to do now. I was to tired to mask my annoyance so I actually said, "Since I'm the only one with a phone and I assume the only one who has the number of a taxi place, I guess I'll be calling them now." And I did. And we were all set to wait for them; it would be 10-15 minutes. Good.

But then Jacqui says she wants McDonald's. Everyone pipes up that they want it too, and they implore me to call the cab place back and etll them to come in 45 minutes--at 9:15. I try to tell them that that's too long, and McD's will be closed by then, but they laugh in my face. So, gritting my teeth, I call A-Team and tell them to turn their minibus (for all 7 of us, ha) around and come later. I was madder now because I might not get back in time to start the door shift, and certainly I would not have time to shower or eat. So I had to spend more money, and on awful food. I was now cold, wet, and very annoyed. Sure enough, they finished eating at about 8:45--still 30 mins before A-Team would show up. Then the boys decide theyre going to the grocery store a few yards away. and Jacqui and Becs decide they want to harass the next-door Pizza Hut into letting them order just the all-you-can-eat ice cream. I try to tell them to make sure and pay right away, becuase we're on a time budget (British table service is notoriously slow, I've noticed). They tell me to stop being a stick in the mud. I didn't bother trying to tell them about my door shift; they didn't care. Only Sarah felt for me.

We did end up making the taxi. And DJ paid for it, which made me quite happy. And I did get there in time for my door shift, but barely. I hoped that the rinse-off at the water park showers had made me clean enough. All in all, it was a good time. I was annoyed throughout a bunch of it, but I'm trying to work on calming down and not getting upset over things I can't control--like other people's lack of foresight or consideration of others. And, well, I got some good exercise.

Thursday
was more fun. It was Christine's idea. We were supposed to start cooking the massive pasta dinner at 7:30, but since it was Christine, things didn't really get underway until after 8. We made pasta shells with both marinara and alfredo sauce (from scratch), two whole roast chickens, garlic bread, and mushrooms that I made. They were supposed to be for some sauce for the chicken, but it didn't work out right so I ended up trying to guess at my mom's sauteed-mushrooms recipe. It would have been great if I'd realized I should have used mainly butter to fry them in and not olive oil (the olive oil made them taste a little wrong), and that I should have used rose wine and not red or white). But it ended up OK. Yum. It was dinner for about 12 people, some of whom came especially for the occasion from elsewhere. Meimei showed up, which I was happy about because I hadn't seen her in almost two weeks. If Andrew hadn't shown up, it would have been absolutely perfect.

Haha, except for the monster cleanup job we had in the kitchen afterward. IF ONLY this hostel had a damn dishwasher!! IF ONLY the building didn't have to use little water-heater boxes for its hot water supply. The dishes took ages to complete because we kept running out of hot water. DJ got impatient and started heating water in the electric kettle and using that. But it got done eventually, and it was worth it. Good times.

Friday
Was Sarah's farewell bash. I woke up with an absolutely monstrous headache, and I couldn't imagine why! I had only had a couple of glasses of wine...I really couldn't figure it out. And I felt miserable! At work I did some Google research, and found something out: red wine has a special toxin that isn't present in any other wines, I think it's called tyramine--or something like that--and the cheaper the red wine, the more tyramine is in it. Add that to the general principle that the cheaper of any type of alcoholic beverage, the more toxins will be in it and the more likely you'll be to feel it in the morning. Anyway--whatever we were drinking with dinner the night before must have been about 90% tyramine becuase I'd had so little and my head felt like it was being sledgehammered. :-(. Or maybe the headache actaully was something else..I don't know. Either way, I held off taking any type of painkiller until I got back from work.

Before going home for the day, I stopped at Adecco. Sarah who is temping there told me to come in, becuase Adecco would certainly be able to find a good job for someone with my experience upon my return to York after my week's vacation. I was excited because Bridge (wo got me the Benenden job) and Kelly Services (didn't seem too optimistic when I talked to them). The Adecco ladies were fabulous, and flat-out told me that they'shave a good job for me--possibly with the British govt. here in York, at the city centre, and possibly paying £7.50/h!! that's almost £2 more than that I was making at Benenden...wow. So I left there feeling pretty good.

Got ready and went to Wetherspoon's for dinner. They're a chain pub 1 minute's walk from the hostel and they offer so-so food at cheap prices. What more could I ask for...:-). The company and food was great. Helen, Sarah's co-worker from Adecco and the one who had been helping me out, came along! She was great. And this guy named Ed who Sarah knew all the way back to Hobart, Tasmania (he is currently living in London) surprised her and showed up! I ate a burger, forgetting that it was Friday and Lent and I wasn't supposed to eat meat. I felt bad...but then I considered that I almost never eat meat these days--that McDonald's had been an exception--and, well, life goes on.

After Wetherspoons we stopped back at the hostel. Finally biting the bullet, I shed my coat and purse. We all did, becuase as per Sarah's farewell wish we were headed to a club, and there is never any space--let alone a safe space--to put down your things at these places. LuckilyYork is a small town and we didn't have to be in the cold for too long. Kennedy's--this would now be my third time here--wasn't crowded when we got there, but was to become so as the night wore on. Helen and I got into a good conversation as best we could over the blaring music. She talked about how her husband proposed to her right before he had to go away to Bosnia for 6 months (army). She talked about her baby girl. It was nice. Oh...and she bought me my first Sapphire tonic in months. I never thought of myself as being that much of a drinker that I could differentiate between gins, but wow. Could I taste the difference! I just found it interesting.

We danced for a while. The DJ was only so-so and kept playing lousy 70s crap that nobody really liked. Nick and Sarah complained a lot at first but I noticed the complaining lessen the more they drank. And boy did they drink a ton... Ed and Christine danced together most of the night. Helen, Meimei and I stepped abck and watched the show, dancing occasionally when a song we liked came on. Then my feet started to hurt and Meimei and I went and sat in the VIP booth. We talked for a while, about boys and underwear (giggle giggle. that's a joke, mind you). Then we realized we were tired, and kind of wanted to head back. So we said goodbye to Nick and Sarah, who probably didn't notice because they were too drunk, and headed out and went straight to sleep. I was glad; it was only 1.

Saturday
I was so happy I had gone home. Sarah was up and about and nursing a hangover. Nick wasn't showing any signs of waking up soon at 10:30. I went out for a nice breakfast with Sarah and Ed. It was nice, except I hadn't talked to him much the night before and now that I was, i realized that was a good thing. He is one of those individuals who thinks of himself as very cultured and refined and knows everything about wine and cheese and clothes and those who don't are clearly beneath him...so that vibe was unpleasant. I wondered how he and Sarah were such good friends. But the food was good, and the waiter nice. Outside the restaurant, we saw the man and his upright piano--he's downtown every weekend--, playing showtunes as usual. Today's choices were "I Dreamed a Dream" and "On My Own" from Les Mis, and "I Don't Know How To Love Him" from JC Superstar. Too bad he was playing in the keys he felt like and not keys they were written in for singing....actaully, that was just fine. I'm sure the passers-by didn't need to hear me karaoke haha. It might have been fun, though. I took a film.

After that I returned back to the hostel, while Sarah and Ed went to go pick up her car from the shop. She got home, finished packing, and I went with her to this secondhand store to drop off some of her clothes that she didn't want anymore. And I bought a VHS of Monsoon Wedding--it was only £2. Sarah took off after that, and it suddenly felt quite lonely in Micklegate House.

I went down to the kitchen with my laptop, put on The Aviator and drew. I like to draw with movies on on the background, and the kitchen is the only place besides the women's washroom that has good enough light for drawing. I worked on thispicture I'm doing til I needed a break. Christine came in and started cooking dinner. It was then that I got the bright idea that she should watch Monsoon Wedding with me, because in two weeks she is GOING TO INDIA (Bombay) to attend her friend's wedding. So we and a buch of others watched Monsoon Wedding together--everyone loved it!! An added cool thing was that the girl getting married in the movie is named Aditi, and that is Christine's friend's name as well.

After that we lounged around some...i met a girl who is from Chicago and getting her master's from Cambridge. I told her about my car search and strongly suggested Hyundais because they have a 10-year warranty and can be as cheap as $10-11k new. And the cars don't suck. The reason the warranty is so good is that in years past the cars did suck, but about 6-7 years ago the company turned around but to encourage people to buy they had to offer these warranties. A new Hyundai for $11k with a 10-year/100,000mi warranty vs. a used Toyota for the same price with 40k miles on it? Hmmmmm...the plot thickens.

Anyway, then she and her friend wanted to watch Braveheart. We wanted to stay up all night becuase that night there was a total lunar eclipse. I didn't make it through all of Braveheart, but I did wake up at 12:30 purely by accident and saw the eclipse. It was neat. The last time I remember seeing one was sometime in high school, same time of year. Cool.

Sunday
Was boring. I drew, ate, and waited ALL DAY for the TV so that I could watch a movie. At 10:30pm I finally had it free. I had a strange hankering to watch the 3-hr epic JFK. I told myself I'd only watch half, but, well...I didn't get to bed til 1:30. It happens.

Now I'm stewing. I am nervous for Mom's CAT scan results, which won't come out until Tuesday. I am scared...