Ok, it's been a month a half, I apologize, but changing countries is a full time job. So, incidently, is working full-time, which I have been doing for the past 3 weeks. I worked 8 days in a row recently for a neurotic hotel patroness who was too exhausted after her vacation to her Italian olive grove to talk to me about how she doesn't want to pay me the wages she promised, which are already shit, did I mention?
I'm all full of piss and annoyance. And it's all England's fault. Yeap, if it's one thing I lived from living in 4 different countries, it's that whatever doesn't your way is entirely the fault of your new surroundings. Whether it is ones inability to get money from the ATM cause it isn't directly linked to your foreign bank account, or misunderstanding the transit system and missing your stop by a a measly 200km, or having to endure alcohol for sale in the supermarket and wondering why everyone is puzzled by the high rates of alcoholism, distance lands are designed specially to frustrate non-natives. They have standing committees that conceive of and implement suggestions for making local colour and bureaucracy as redundant and irritating as possible, like making the bank card come one week apart from it's pin number, and giving young people the insatiable urge to steal bicycle accessories.
Perhaps the biggest let down was the lack of the 6 figure income and hordes of screaming fans instantly wanting to become my friend the moment I landed. I thought surely their would have been at least a welcoming ceremony Prince Charles in attendance; I understand the queen may have been too busy, but what does Charles have better to do with his time? Watch Wimbleton in the rain? And watching the new James Bond movie in it's native land didn't even make it any cooler. What freakin' gives?
I'll give England exactly 6 months to make it up to me, then I'm out of here.
3 comments:
On the flipside, foreign alcoholics come to BC and wonder why the fuck they can't buy a bottle of cheap-o hooch after 11:00 at night.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!"
As recently as the 1970s here in Canada you'd go into the package store and ask the government clerk for what you wanted. The transaction was conducted through a slot in the wire mesh, like some dystopian Money Mart.
I remember working in that awful liquor store in PR and lazily trying to close down 2 minutes early, and inevitably someone would roar up in their pickup, jump out and smear themselves forlornly against the glass like some horror movie denizen, mouthing curse words and pointing to their watch.
I can't say I blame them, really. Sometimes the party is just getting started then. I am also not an advocate of stone cold sobriety; I think a little vice (used judiciously) serves us all well.
Where's the real crime in purchasing a wee thing of hooch along with your mushrooms and melba toast, when Nike shoes and...and blood diamonds are still for sale?? My argument is impenetrable, I tell you.
Ok, I admit it, alcohol is not the root of all evil, especially with tea cozys and GM canola still for sale, but for Petes sake, tell me at least one percent of that recycling is Martinellis.
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