24.10.01

Ain't interesting how a pathetic post sometimes makes people react....

When I walked into the room on the second day of their stay at the hotel, I almost screamed of anger. I couldn't imagine how you can make a mess of such a big bed-living-bathroom within 24 hours. I started to make that room a bit more tidy, but soon, this really got on my nerves. I mean, OK, I make the bed, I clean their bathroom, but am I really here to pick up the dirty socks they put under the sofa?

My answer is : no.

Never drive completely crazy the people that take care of your well-being. I decided to have fun. Took the little stinky mist they had received at the hotel reception and sprinkled it on their clothes in the wardrobe, in their open bags, hid the glasses - that I had found under a pile of dirty clothes - behind the cds next to the stereo, hid a hat in their backpack, stroke back with the mist in the conditionning air, put the heating off and then, having a bad cough, I gently spited on one toothbrush. I even thought about piercing the condoms they had with a needle, but that would have been far too much evil. And, oh yeah, I cleaned the toilet with the other toothbrush.

I used to be such a nice person.

Tomorrow is the day! This is the Hefner concert! The new Pulp album is also out here in Britain (unknown date in America), but I'm waiting for this concert tomorrow to pass to clear my mind a bit...

And well, I don't know what to think about it all.

18.10.01

Need to write in French.

Alors qu'aujourd'hui je recois un email qui me somme de repondre a mon acceptation a Katimavik et que je sais que je vais refuser, je me met a penser un peu (pour la premiere fois depuis longtemps).

Je venais en Angleterre pour trouver. Trouver la voie (la voie est sous mes pieds), la bonne, retrouver mes passions (pendant que j'en laissais une toute nouvelle derriere moi, comme une idiote), definir, ENFIN, ce qui me tente, ce que je veux, ce que je dois faire. Au bout d'un mois, on trouve quoi?

Un esprit encore plus trouble. De plus en plus deconnecte du sol, de la realite. J'anesthesie joliment le monde autour de moi depuis un mois. Pire encore qu'avant, alors que j'avais conscience de cette tendance a etouffer le monde exterieur. Depuis mon arrivee, je flotte, plus que jamais. Deja que j'avais des racines minces et quasi-inutiles dans mon propre monde, voila que je me suis transplantee dans un autre. Et moi qui m'attendais a y definir une nouvelle place. Peu importe ou je suis, je suis toujours l'etre fantasque, irresponsable, contradictoire a en crever et parfois un peu clairvoyant que j'ai toujours ete. Ce voyage m'amuse, mais ne me change en aucune chose. J'ai bien peur d'avoir rate mon but ....Et moi qui venais ici me refaire a neuf? Mon cul ouais.

NOTE : je me paie toujours un temps incroyable par contre, et puis, la semaine prochaine, je vais voir Hefner....alors hein, que je me vois essayer de faire pitie...;P

16.10.01

Now on display : another trip to London!

I have to admit it : London is perfect. I would like to pass the rest of my life there. I want to marry this incredible, silly, huge, spider-web-like city. I love it.

On the other side, everyone that actually LIVES in London hates it. Why? I've not met yet a native londoner who likes the city...

So there is Karine, this nice girl coming from Quebec, who's working with me, who's bored to death in Great Milton village and who just received (like me) her monthly pay check. And on the other side, London. How to resist?

That was a more usual trip and we pretended to be tourists (what we are) and visited all those places that we see on TV : Bukingham Palace, the Parliament, Westminster Abbey, took pictures in Trafalgar Square and on the Westminster Bridge and rested in Green Park for the only day without clouds since I have arrived here. And then, while leaving Leicester Square at 3:30am after dancing all the night, we met a quebecer. Won't we ever get out of there?

7.10.01

Trainspotting - Man City - Endless peace in the Peak District - Football crazyness - This is London, not Antartica.

This is an unusual, interesting day. How to have the breakfast in Oxford, the lunch at the top of a 400m hill in the Peak District, a McChicken in Manchester and a night snack at 2am in London within 20 hours.

I woke up this morning at 6am. Dressed up, packed the last things and left for the railway station in Oxford. Got in the train to Manchester for I expected to be a quiet, peaceful journey through the center of England and then a ressourcefull walk in the Peak District.

ALL WRONG GUYS!

When I got in the train, I noticed that there were a lot of people for a 8am saturday morning call, but I finally found a seat, put my headphones on and did not give anymore attention to the world around. The sun was shinning outside and the landscape was lovely. So let's go to Man City. As we got more and more far north, I noticed that most part of the people on the train were :
* male
* wearing white shirt with the England arms and Umbro logo.

Uh? What's going on?

First beers to open aboard were at around 8:30....then the flags came out, followed by the white with a red cross hats. I admitted at that point I had missed something quite important during the past 24 hours. It was not until I removed my heaphones and listen to my surrounders talking about the Football World Cup qualifications that I finally heard that the match England VS. Greece was held in Manchester...I am surrounded by potential hooligans who are certainly not potentially getting drunk.

I arrived in Man City at 12:30, while the passengers were singin :"HEEEEEY, HEEY BABY (OOOH! AAH!) I WANNA KNO-OW, WILL YOU BE MY GIRL?" Took a dive into the people outside the railway station, then came back to take my train to Hope Village, in the Peak District. Arrived there under a shining and quite unusual sun. At this part, I realised that I was totally unable to follow a map and a clear plan and got lost into the fields full of sheeps. After taking almost 10 pictures of the sheeps (soooooo lovely!), I tried to reach the path that was, well, I don't know where up this 400m high hill. The fastest way to get somewhere is the straight line, is'nt it? When I finally arrived at the top of the hill, 15 min later, I was about to die of hyperventilation. Resting was not an option but a need.

I finally made my way through the hills - I took a lot of pictures that you might see in a couple of days(weeks?) and arrived at Edale 3 hours later to find the village completely over-crowded by other walkers. Fuckin hell. Options were : go to Sheffield. I have never gone to this place before and I don't have an idea of how the city is made; go to Man. and try to find a place to stay for the night despite this damn football game or (option 3) going back right there to Oxford and give up the second walking day to Castleton. I took the train to Man, still not knowing what I was about to do and arrived in the total crazyness after the match. Instant reaction : Oxford, right now.

Departure : 19:20 - it was 19:21 on the station clock. RUUUUUUUUUUN!

I was almost the last one to be able to get on the over-crowded train; I was stucked between two wagons with a bunch of drunk people celebrating. Chat, chat chat.
Are you german?
No, I'm french-canadian.
And where do you live?
In Oxford
Where?
In Oxford.
I'm sorry?
In HAXFURD!
Ahhh, in Oxford! Student, hehehehhe?
[Fuckin hell]

The ride was so damn funny with all those drunk guys that I gave up the idea to sleep in my bed and stay on the train that ended up in London. We arrived around midnight in Euston station. I said good bye to my merry-singing fellows (ENG-LAND, ENG-LAND, ENG-LAAAAAAAND!!) and dived in the tube to Charing Cross. That was just the right hour to have a chat with all those in Quebec...So I finally got to have a chat with almost everyone I had missed quite a bit : Dan, JP, Mathieu, Joelle and even Frank (woa ;P ). Though the night was a certain point really difficult (I almost fell asleep between 3 and 5) I finally got through it all with the help of JP, who was with me during all those hours. I left the cafe at 6:30am.

When I got out, it was raining.

The sky was still dark, clouds hiding the morning light. Trafalgar Square was almost deserted, only haunted by some people looking as lost and sleepy as I was. The Charing Cross station was closed and I had to make my way to Piccadilly Circus, under one of the most heavy rain I had seen in Britain. I felt really grateful to be there. One of those moments of your life when you think : I am here. I will remember this precise moment for the rest of my miserable life. Now is almost perfect.

And as usual, the moment slipped away and suddenly I was in Piccadilly Circus station, with a drunk spanish guy, a bunch of young men wearing smokings, one of them holding a girl in a black dress who had removed her shoes, and a young girl with a huge wallet that looked like as sleepy as I was. I took the tube, then the bus to Oxford. I landed in my bed at 9:00 and slept for 10 hours.

And that's all.

5.10.01

This week end : walking in the Peak District for two days. I'll try to take some pictures for you all....

JRR Tolkien lived up the hill in Wheatley - the village where I live. Rowan Atkinson lives down the road to Cuddesdon. Richard Branson slept at the hotel this week and Mike Jagger's mother-in-law lives three doors from the Wheatley post office. Welcome in Oxfordshire.

I have been accepted in Katimavik for the next January. Since that, I don't know (once again) what to do of my life. I hate to make decisions, especially when those decisions concern me. What else? I hate Ox. buses.