Thursday 14 August 2008

Back in Blightie!

This was spent...packing and cleaning! We had to get out of the flat, and we stayed in my mate's flat for the last night. We had 40 pounds too much in luggage so it required some inventive use of hand luggage allowance and a lot of repacking (and ditching some stuff) to get it all home.

We had a bit of a dodgy final experience with a private (non -yellow) taxi driver who wanted to charge us $20 just for carrying all the bags- not like she helped or anything! And then she was wittering off in spanish to the guy at base, clearly saying something about us only speaking english or being english - she was annoying. And when we protested, saying she couldn't just make up prices, she went on some guff about how she had a camera in there and the 'other boss' would watch how many bags went in, would work out the cost accordingly and then would let her know how much by flashing lights whether to go up or down?! It's all a bit Bruce Forsyth for me, I'm afraid dear. I may be a Brit, but I wasn't born yesterday.

Anyway we got her license plate and registered number so HAH. Screw you lady!

Other than that, last day was fine - we just chilled out in the evening with Pizza and some films. It was too rainy to go anywhere, and in any case 8 hours of cleaning and packing I was a bit tired.
The person we leased from didn't seem to notice the burn stains and gave us back the entire deposit, which was good. Overall, that was a good experience - I think you have to be careful with Craigslist things, but if you use your common sense and get a good feel for someone it can work out ok.

So, by midnight I was back in London. I've missed home, family and friends- but, blimey the weather's crap!

6 comments:

Swiss Tony said...

Hey Mel, you may not have missed the weather, but we missed you.

Welcome back.

I popped in to wish you luck for your last exam tomorrow, but obviously am a week out somewhere along the line, so lets just hope it went better than you thought.

Any chance you can post on Barmaids blog so that she, bar Boy and I can do a get together thing. It looks like we are all starting in 2 weeks and should get an opportunity to get together and compare notes.

Swizz

Mel said...

Thanks Swiss!

Your intended good luck wishes are much appreciated. I'm a bit rubbish with the old blog and keeping my posts regular - particularly when I'm living with Boy (he doesn't know I have a blog, I'm a bit shy about it!).

Not sure I'm clear on your request? Let me have a look at Barmaid's blog...

Swiss Tony said...

Mel,

Barmaid has moderation on her blog, so if you post and say 'DON'T PRINT THIS' and give your email addy, then she will be able to get the 4 of us in contact and no-one else will know who we are.

Swizz

Mel said...

Aha, gotcha! You make it sound a bit cloak and dagger hehe.

Minx said...

Welcome home to (rain blighted) Blighty, Mel!!
Bloody TAXI drivers eh?!?! Rip off Merchants the WHOLE WORLD over! I wonder if they are par of some global cartel hell bent on price fixing!!!)
I'll bet you will never look at pizza in the UK in the same way ever again - as a rule, they are quite appalling pieces of expensive culinary rubbish!!

Mel said...

Merci Minxy!

Oh the free availability of decent pizza was a good thing, but I can make my own decent-ish pizza if I so desire (or plead to the Mother, she is a wicked Bakeress).

But just the food generally. Now, I'm no expert on food, I just like to shovel it in. And it was so good. Italian places in london are generally pants - but I really liked Little Italy, as cheesy as it was. Going to for a huge dinner, then walking over to a different place (you know, that 100 yards would walk off all the pasta I'm sure) for desert and espresso. Chocolate mousses light and fluffy like the clouds, tiramisu that didn't take like someone had spilled a cup of coffee on a victoria sponge.

*bites fist*

And yet HOW did the women manage to work the short shorts? It is a mystery to me!