march04th

Yesterday March 04th , 2004 Tomorrow

                To be completely honest, I haven't done much last week. On wednesday afternoon, I went to Uni to watch Pi (YEAH!), and then went to the city library with Coraline, where i finally registered ( just for the record, that's the first thing i wanted to do when i arrived in Newcastle....). Following Coco's advise, I rented A Beautiful Mind and also picked up Velvet Goldmine. Later, we went to McDonalds ( shame on us...) and took advantage of the clever discount they made on chicken burgers to lure punters into buying them, even if it includes that they may catch that weird disease which is currently all the rage in UK....Nevermind, considering the state of our bank accounts, we ran that risk pretty uncsrupulously...We talked a lot (until 11pm!) and it was nice to finally learn to know someone in here, as, in my opinion, people up here are congenial, yes indeed, but relationships you weave with them remain quite shallow... you probably talk to more people here than in france, but you never really get to know them... they are a bit of individualists, and are not really willing to meet new people....One day Darren told me that London is not a town where you make friends, it's a town where you hang around with the friends you had at school, it doesn't matter if you like them or not. I don't know if it's true, but if it is, I find it really sad....I remember that when I was in France, there was a time i kept going out every night at "Majos" and "Tabernacle"( my 2 fave bars in Moges-li) and I could meet 10 people per night and truly talk to them....People are not in pubs just to get drunk, they take time to talk to people, to share something.....And I've actually kept in touch with lots of them! But in UK.....I've been here for 7 months now and I had really few proper sensible conversation with british people... There was that night with Sean, Nat, Hannah of course, Darren-my-flatmate...Sam....and I think that's it.....5 bloody people.....not even one night in Moges-li...how sad....All these statements are only generalisations, of course but it still reflects the general feeling i have.
        Anyway, when i came back home on wednesday night, i had a little chat with Hannah and Strawb til 2:30, and then watched A Beautiful Mind with Hannah. When I finally went to bed around 4 o'clock, I thought my head was gonna explode with all these mathematics! Pi and A Beautiful Mind in the same day is a bit too much for someone who gave up mathematics 10 years ago!
          On tuesday I didn't manage to get up and consequently missed the world literature lesson (well done...). Sometimes, i kinda miss the time i was insomniac! I looked like a corpse,but i had so much time to do things!!!! I quickly popped up at uni to write some e-mails, to write that bloody papragraph about war in Iraq and the questionnaire about binge drinking that we had to hand in, and also picked up McGovern's Liam at the Language Resource Centre.
             On Friday, i went off to london at 1p.m. (Richard and his boring economics course will go and bugger off for once...). I was firstly alone on my double seat but a friendly granny unfortunately came and sat down next to me. Of course, as any self-repsecting granny, she started talking to me and it lasted til we reached london. it didn't matter if i try to sleep, if i'was on the phone or reading, she just kept rambling on and on.... Once at Victoria, i phoned darren to tell him i'll meet him at Charing Cross, as i couldn't see the point of letting him come round to Victoria. Though, i hadn't planned that I would need 1 hour and a half to, first, queue up to get a travelcard at the tickets machine, then realize that that bloody machine refuses to take 2-pound coins, then try to find a shopkeeper friendly enough to swap my 2-pound coin against two 1-pound coins, then accept the idea that it was definitely impossible, then queue up to access the check out , and finally get that fucking ticket and take the tube. Bloody hell what's wrong with this country! I'm sorry but each time it comes to organisation, England is simply incapable!
Aaaanyway! Once I managed to meet Darren at last, we went and bought some sushis ( i'm definitely a sushi addict now...) and then went back home. We rented Wenders' Paris-Texas and Kahn's L'Ennui and had chinese food ( for a change). At night we watched The Pledge as I 'd never seen it, and it is urthermore directed by Sean Penn, and as everybody knows, Sean Penn and I.....
On saturday, we had planned to meet Nico and Maria as it was their last weekend in London ( they had to go back to Paris this week). For this occasion, Cath came also from Reading to celebrate with us. The three of them first went to Camden (Good Mixer, as usual) to meet Marion, and we were meant to go too but I fell asleep, ahem. Which is a shame as i haven't seen Marion for ages. Anyway, we eventually met them at The Quad to go to AfterSkool, the indie-rock/garage/rock'n'roll night around 10:30. Charles and whatshisname, 2 american friends of Maria joined us later, and we really had a great night. We danced a bit, had some drinks, talked and stuff...Because i'm pukophobiac, or whatever the proper word is, I never get drunk. Though, it doesn't prevent me from getting a bit tipsy from time to time, and it'd been quite a while since the last time it happened. Oh god, I forgot the feeling....Anyway, the night was perfect until Darren, in the very middle of the night realized that he's lost his cloakroom ticket. Oh lord..... As in London, I have to admit, people are not as friendly as in Newcastle for instance, the cloakroom bitch categorically refused to give us Darren's coat before everybody's gone! GREAT! I tried to calm Darren down and then we finished our night. hoping that nobody would find the ticket and go and get the coat....
At 3 a.m., when we left, we had a hotdog, and took the night bus ( faithful N1...) and arrived arround 4:30 at home. We had a little nap and woke up ready for anything at 2pm on sunday....

Sunday, we lazed all day to recover, watching the films we rented on friday, and then Darren brought me back to Victoria station.
I arrived in Newcastle one hour early and there wasn't a single bus running. As I'm broke i couldn't afford a cab, so I opted for the metro. I only had to wait 15mins, that's true, but once in Chillingham Road station, I......ahem......lost myself......(not very glorious, i know...) I took the wrong exit and after a 30 min walk, I found myself in Walkergate ( the following metro station in the opposite direction of my home...) Shite....................I turned back and 1 h later, I was finally at home, my laps COMPLETELY anaesthetized by the bloody cold weather..... I couldn't get to sleep before 9am because the heater is broken in my bedroom and i don't dare to ask the landlord to fix it, as i still haven't paid my rent, which was due in January. Once I was finally asleep, I was awoken by someone knocking roughly on my door and, after several attempts to try to ignore it, i finally gave in and it was a painter the landlord sent. who wanted to open my door to be able to paint it properly, please. Go on, mate, I don't need to sleep, i just spent my night in an over crowded coach and i have a lesson at 11, but I'm fine....pffff.