~ ANNE! ~

Whew it's been a busy weekend. Friday was spent collapsed on my bed, as I was too tired from the week to do much else. Saturday, on the other hand...

To back up, a while ago I stuck an ad on thegumtree.com, a website mostly for Aussies, Kiwi, South Africans and other travellers (Cdns included) just saying I was new in the city and looking for company. There were a million replies, mostly badly spelled, some downright creepy! But a few that sounded okay. One of these was this guy called Jules who told me he hangs out with a big crowd of transplants, mostly Australians, and that they're super friendly and I should come along sometime. I said sure.

Got a call from him Friday inviting me to a barbeque (he promised a good one, as the Aussies were cooking). It was definitely a bit weird meeting up with a random stranger, but I figured if I'm serious about finding a social life quickly, I can't wimp out!

Jules (aka Julian) turned out to be great. I didn't talk to him much actually, but he's this Brit in his early 30s who (from what I can tell) is sort of into the activist thing. He lives in a beautiful house in North London with a big garden and tons of trees. His friends were cool as well. They were pretty crazy and definitely uninhibited. Once I got over the weirdness of the whole situation, I had a good time. He was lying about the Aussies, though. Couldn't barbeque to save their lives. Everything there was burnt black and then some!

One of the guys was an itinerant sheep-shearer (seriously!) who works his way around the world with the sheep-shearing season. Asked me if there were any sheep in Canada (does anyone know the answer to this?) There was a girl whos job is as a nanny to the two members of the band Everything But the Girl! There was another guy from Newcastle who, as of us meeting, had been up since the 8:30 on Thursday morning. He'd spent the previous night in a cell, as he'd been in a fight with some guy who was hassling him outside a bar. He knocked the guy down, then called all his friends for advice. They told him to "leg it", so he started to, but then his conscience got the better of him and he went back to the guy and called the police and told them he'd beat some guy up. The police were apparently quite sympathetic, didn't charge him, and gave him free cornflakes and coffee in the cell at the station! They let him out at 6 am, and he came back and woke his flatmates up by pushing them a bacon sandwich under the door. And there was one other guy there who had recently been to Toronto and spent the entire time yelling "Canada ROCKS!!!" (which I couldn't really argue with...)

So anyway, yeah, quite the day. The party broke up before the last Tube left, at which point I called my flatmates to see what they were up to. They were going to a club at the London School of Economics, so I met up with them there. Didn't think too much of it, though, to be honest. And then at the end my IDIOT flatmates left without me! I was so not impressed to be stranded in Central London at 3:30 in the morning, completely alone. Of course I made sure I knew where to catch the Night Bus before I left, so I wasn't completely at sea, but it was still not the most pleasant experience. I sent them a harshly worded text message from the bus and yelled at them when I got home... I was mostly just upset because it was a little scary, but also it's not cool to be abandoned! They have since apologised and promised it won't happen again, which I sincerely hope is the case.

Today I went to Camden Market, which I love. It would be Alex (ex-roomie)'s dream place - the whole time I was there I was wishing I could bring her because she'd just love it! As would my other gothy friends from home. Ah well. I bought a few (cheap) shirts, but don't worry dad, I did bargain the guy down. Then I went for dinner with my friend Scott the Aussie at a very delicious Chinese place. So today made up for the harrowing nature of last night!

Happy ANZAC day, everyone.