Ahh...I finally have a job and it's summer in London! Wait, only one of those is actually a good thing...

Last night I celebrated my two month anniversary with London. I know, I know we’re still in that ‘lovey-dovey’ stage, but I’m beginning to think that she really could be The One. London is everything I’ve been looking for thus far: amazing nightlife, endless creative opportunities and outlets, central location for European travel, beautiful women, friendly people, and of course, the double-decker busses! Those really are amazing, by the way. If you’re lucky enough to grab the front seats on the top deck you’ve basically just been given the best sightseeing tour available for the cost of your one-way ticket! Why would anyone sign up for a cheesy tour when they can see the real London for a little over a quid (that’s slang for £ pound…like the American ‘buck’)?

To celebrate London and my two-month commitment to each other I decided to finally get out and attend an open mic night. I brought my new Italian housemate, Laura, along and we went to the closest open mic near our house, The Ship Aground—it’s a Jamaican Reggae bar! Needless to say my music didn’t necessarily impress the dreadlocked and grooving crowd, but I got many compliments after my two-song set and Laura said I did a great job…well she actually said “you-a did superb music-a style” but I got the gist:) The owner of Florence Villa (the name of my house, but don’t get too excited—it’s still East London) told me about two more open mic nights near our place up in Walthamstow that would probably be a little bit more conducive to my music-a style, so I’m going to try to start going to those regularly now that I’ve gotten my feet wet.

It’s strange how I feel, because not too long ago I was in Seattle surrounded by my family and closest friends feeling completely out of place. Leaving Kyrgyzstan due to political bullshit and director bias certainly didn’t help matters, but for the first time in a long while I feel like I’m really doing what I need to be…what I’m “meant” to be doing, if you will. I have been making excellent in-roads with my family over here and hope to see them again sometime very soon. My Grandfather is eager to have me stay with him and my Grandmother in the countryside for a weekend, and if I can get the time off from work I think I’m going to take them up on that. It’d be more refreshing than going to another house-party that keeps me occupied until 6:30am…though I did meet a great girl because of that; work the next day was horrible, but fuck it:)

Work. That’s something new as well. Coming out of unemployment for two and a half months I started working in The Terrace Bar on the fourth floor of Harrods doing 9 hour shifts behind the bar for seven days straight (now I’ve got two days off per week, but that first stint was torture!) and I love it! Being a bartender is amazing. I now know that beyond a shadow of a doubt when I retire as a multi-millionaire (one can always dream, right?) I’m going to buy a bar and run it with minimal staff for the rest of my life. There’s something about people and alcohol that have always clicked with me—not to mention the creativity required for mixing cocktails for princes and celebrities…seriously, but I can’t name name’s because I signed a VERY strict confidentiality agreement with Harrods (in fact, I’ve probably said too much already so don’t tell anyone, okay?). The people that I work with are from all over the world, there’s an Australian, a Spaniard, a couple Brazilians, and tons of Italians, oh, and one British girl. It’s strange to think about it, but the only British people that work in the service industry are bartenders. You almost never see Brits working as servers…interesting indeed, I wonder why? Must be a class status thing—although all but dead, there’s definitely remnants of the class system here. It’s most notable in the accents, but a lot of it comes down to job status and postcode. I live in E10 which basically translates to a Londoner as “I live in a shithole”. If you have any W1, or N1 postcode then you’re incredibly posh and probably drink in my bar. God, I love it here:)

Side note: For those of you that are curious about British culture and maybe fancy yourself a bit of an anglophile then google “Meet The British”. Although it’s no longer available through the BBC website a savvy techy could probably track down some clips elsewhere. Meet The British was a series of films created by the BBC to sell British culture abroad. All of these films were created in the 1960’s and have been compiled into one 60 minute show. I saw it at about 2:30 the other night/morning after coming back from yet another insanely crazy house-party. I was sitting on the couch drinking some water and eating toast when I almost fell off due to laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of it all! Seriously. If you can, look for Meet The British and tell your friends. It’s probably the greatest documentary of British life ever created and is hilarious in its poor 1960’s production quality.

London has also afforded me my first opportunity to save someone’s life. Before I get into that, allow me to lay the groundwork for how my day started and progressed. It was two Sunday’s ago and USA was playing Brazil (2-0, USA going into the half—incredible match!) so I mentioned to my friend Angela who works with me and is Brazilian that we should go to the pub and cheer our respective nations together. She agreed, and we went to a local pub in Knightsbridge just around the corner from Harrods to have a few pints and watch the game. After the incredible match we wanted to keep the party going so she suggested that we go to a Brazilian dance club she knows about near Holborn. I’m excited, she’s hot, we’re drunk, I’m thinking HELL YES! So we go. We ended up staying at this club until it closed just dancing, and drinking, having a blast before I walked her to her bus stop. We ended up making out obnoxiously but neither of us cared, and once her bus arrived to take her home I slowly made the walk back to my bus stop to go all the way back to East London…feeling pretty damn good, I might add:) Anyway, as I was standing at my bus stop I saw the number 38 complete a turn into the bus lane heading for my stop when a guy stepped right out in front of it and got clipped by the corner! He immediately fell to the pavement and the bus slammed on the brakes. Before I could even comprehend what had happened I was already at the poor man’s side holding his hand and staring at a seven inch long gash along his forehead that was open about an inch wide exposing his skull. Blood was pouring out of his head pooling on the pavement and another bloke came off the bus to help me with some napkins. So I pinched his head together and applied pressure to his wound with the napkins soaking up the blood. He was obviously in shock because his eyes kept rolling in the back of his head, then snapping back and looking at me with an iron grip on my hand asking “what happened?” It only took the ambulance about 3 minutes to arrive after another bus passenger dialed 999 (like 911, but in England) and they took him from there. I was able to stay remarkably calm during the whole incident because of my adrenaline, but once the cops started taking my statement and asking me what happened all I could do was stare at my hands covered in the man’s blood and I came this close to having a panic attack. Luckily I didn’t lose my shit completely and ended up talking to a nice lady cop for about an hour while they wrapped up the scene. She eventually drove me to the hospital to get blood work done (the last thing I want is to catch anything from this dude’s blood), and I eventually got back home at about six in the morning. Angela and I have decided it’s best that we just remain friends, and I recently completed the pile of paperwork the Metropolitan Police sent me to fill out as an eye-witness to the scene. All in a day’s work my friends, all in a day’s work!

London is CRAZY!!

Other than that bit of chaos, there’s really not too much more for me to report. I’ve got a great group of friends that seems to be ever-expanding, my family here is amazing—I’m going to Thai with Laura (my new Italian housemate) and my cousin Rose and her boyfriend in about two hours, and I finally have a job!

Things are looking good all around…if only the weather was better:)