Portugal: Day 4

Sunday

Sunday dawned balmy and gorgeous, but the beauty of the day was tinged with regret that this was our last day at the party. Not even a full day at that, as we had to leave by 12:30pm to have enough time for the drive back to Porto. Not only did we have but a few hours left of sunshine, we were also missing all the big name acts that we'd come to see. Eskimo, Ticon, Sub 6 - all the DJs that drew us to the festival in the first place were all playing Sunday afternoon through to evening. We knew the party was a 5 dayer, but we're used to trance parties in Cape Town finishing on Sundays, with Saturday night being the big night. Here, Saturday was just the warm up to the real deal on Sunday, and we were really bummed to have to leave just as it was reaching its peak. We couldn't even drown our sorrows as all the ice had melted and we had no cold booze (no ice was sold at the party - we had to make daily 20 minute trips to the nearest town to buy).

The plan was to get up, get dressed and washed, have breakfast and come back to pack up camp before we hit the dancefloor for our final hours. However, we didn't take OJ's natural inability to hurry up into account. As usual, the rest of us were up and ready to go to the food stalls while OJ was still disentangling himself from his sleeping bag. After much nagging and hustling, we finally set off for breakfast, OJ hopping along while trying to put on his shoes on the way. We love him, but his lagging behind and indecisiveness drove us dilly sometimes! Shoes and I split off from the group to find some sort of breakfast that included toast (we were delighted to discover toasted ham and cheese) and the others went to the crepe stall. While they ordered, OJ stood around wondering what to eat. As the others got their food, he decided to get some juice. But of course, he couldn't decide which type. Finally, he got his juice while everyone else was eating their breakfast, and then wondered off to find something to eat. Shoes and I met up with the rest of the group; by now we'd basically all finished eating, and OJ was off at another stall waiting in line to order. Blaaaaaahhhh! We'd told him we wanted to spend as much time on the dancefloor as possible, so we left him waiting for food while we went back to camp to pack up. 20 minutes later, after Shoes and I already had our tent down and folded up, OJ appears with his falafel and says he was kept waiting for 15 minutes for his food. By the time he'd finished eating, we all had our stuff packed and were headed to the car to drop it off. We seriously thought we'd see him at the dancefloor for 5 minutes just before we left, but somewhere down the line he must have realised we were serious about not waiting, and by the time we got back from the car he had everything packed in his bag and ready to go! We could hardly believe our eyes. :-)

Finally, we all went down to the dancefloor for Skazi's set at 9:30am. Except that Skazi hadn't started by 9:30... or 10:30... or 11 o'clock. They were running really late, and he finally came on at 11:30am - and he wasn't that great either! We'd been hoping to catch the beginning of Eskimo's set at 11:30, but with the delays we only had about half an hour left to dance, and no chance of seeing him. Skazi came out with his guitar and rocked out, but the music had a blandness to it which was disappointing. We were hoping for one more caner of a stomp before hometime, and we didn't really get it. Just before 12, we went down to the river for one last swim, and then settled into the van for our long drive back to Porto.

The drive took was a lot shorter than on our way there, which is always the case, and we made good time. Mostly we just dozed or read books - the energy expended over the previous 72 hours combined with the heat had made way for mass lethargy. After dropping off the van, we went for drinks and snacks at Porto Airport - not nearly as horrific as Windhoek's excuse for an airport, for those of you who have been, but quite small and quiet. There was a great souvenir shop though, and Shoes and I bought a mini bottle of the finest Port in a painted wooden box - it looks like pirate's treasure.

Of course, no conclusion to any trip we take would be complete without the pre-requisite drama. It started when our flight was delayed by half an hour. Half an hour was actually about 45 minutes, and by the time we boarded everyone was stressing about getting back to London before the last train and tubes. Eyes was the only one who had to work on Monday, and Scarf had to go to college, while the rest of us had wisely taken the day off for recovery purposes. Even so, we'd been travelling for 10 and a half hours by the time we got back to London, and irritation had set in. When we finally got our baggage at Gatwick, we went to check the train times only to find there were no trains to London Bridge! The station had been closed for some emergency, leaving us with no choice but to go a very round about route through Clapham Junction. We considered a cab, but they're really expensive for such a distance, and we were really broke after the weekend, so we opted for the train. At Clapham, we said goodbye to OJ and the rest of us ended up having to catch night buses home as we'd missed the last train. It couldn't have been a worse end to the weekend - standing in the pouring rain, soaked through and freezing, waiting for a bus that never seemed to come, and when it finally did, took absolute ages to reach home. Welcome back to bloody London!!!!! We walked through our front door 14 hours after we'd left the party - exhausted, dirty, cold and barely speaking to each other. And that was the end of our party in Portugal.

* I'm happy to say that we are now all on speaking terms again, a good night's sleep having restored our good spirits, and the photographs are now reminders of how fantastic the trip was, rather than how terrible we felt the night we got home!

Portugal: Days 2 & 3

Friday & Saturday

We woke up at 7am after a surprisingly good dos. You don't realise when you travel long distances how much it takes out of your body, especially as you often don't feel tired. Of course, the copious amounts of alcohol we'd consumed the night before might have had something to do with it, but luckily there were no hangovers to be seen. We were pretty fresh and more than ready for a day of chaos.

The sun rises at about 6am, so by the time we got up it was already fairly warm. Breakfast consisted of a tough omelette sandwiched between paper thin (and cardboard tasting) bread, and very very very shit coffee - I can't stress enough how bad the coffee is in this country. Trance party food is never gourmet, but Portugal had some new lows on that front. Then our day began.....

Basically it went like this: drink at campsite, wander down to dancefloor for a stomp, stroll off to stalls for ice-cream / fresh fruit salad and yoghurt (the best discovery of the party), ooze along to river for a swim.... repeat x 10, in random order. It was baking hot - around 30 degrees everyday, and we absolutely revelled in it.

We'd all brought chairs along with us on the trip; the four housemates had little fold up fishing stools and Neutrino and OJ bought these low plastic chairs with bendy backrests so you could lean. Of course, jealousy was rampant once the four of us realised how cool their chairs were, as we had to sit up straight the whole time while they could lounge around. It was therefore a source of great satisfaction to us when Neutrino, who was thoroughly enjoying our envy, attempted to show us just how far back his backrest could go - and snapped it in half, ending up sprawled in a heap on the ground. For the rest of the party, he alternated between squatting like a pauper and sitting tough in the dust.

One of the main attractions of the weekend was the contingent of Portuguese hippies, making up more than half of the attendees at the party. At trance parties in Cape Town, you do get a lot of hippies, but nothing like this. These hippies were a) dirtier (this could have been the dark skin / dark hair combo, but most of them looked as if they'd never seen a bath or hairbrush in their lives), b) skinnier - Cape Town hippies look normal, many of these ones were emaciated, and c) so, so, SO much crazier!!!! We were nearly crying with laughter at some of their antics. Our personal favourite was Naked Guy. Naked Guy was obviously tripping out on something serious, and he'd managed to lose his clothes in the river. He was doing the funky chicken on the banks of the river with just a little sling bag to cover his modesty, except that the bag was bouncing up and down as he did, so not really covering much at all. All the while, he was jabbering away to himself, and frequently bursting into manic laughter as he tapped his heels. We were absolutely broken. Eventually, security came to take him away as they figured he might be a danger to himself. He was having none of it though - this skinny little man trying to escape from two huge beefy bouncers... it was quite a sight to see. And he wasn't the only one. At one stage it was almost as if we were in a theatre, and various acts were coming out on stage to perform for us. You can't make this shit happen - you can only be so incredibly grateful you were there when it did. We christened the river the Put It Away Pool, because nearly everyone who came down there to swim should really have just put it away! Europeans are far more relaxed about nudity than South Africans, and it's therefore no biggie to waltz down to the water, strip off for a swim and then lie down with your package out to bask in the sun. But for us, conservative as we are about baring all in public, it was alternately funny and then rather gross as these, ahem, less than attractive people just keep whipping it out in front of our disintegrating retinas.

Friday also saw the arrival of our token friend, Max. We were sitting around camp, rather inebriated and cackling at everything, when we hear this South African accent going "Hey, are you guys from South Africa?" and out from behind a bush pops a lone ranger in a funky headband. So of course, we told him we were, and we established that we all come from Cape Town and that he went to Westerford High. Our buddy Old Cranky Man teaches at Westerford, and once Max told us that he knew him, he was welcomed into the group with open arms. We made him pitch his tent in our lager - something that had us in hysterics because it was a fold out tent that popped up like one of those car sunshields - and gave him a beer to settle him in. After that, Max was like our pet dog. Everyone morning we'd wake up and look for him, and when we found him we'd check how he was and what he'd been up to. We exposed him to our special brand of humour and he was cool with it, so we figured he could stay.

The music was really good, and we had some caner stomps on the dancefloor. We didn't go down there too much in the middle of the day as it was so hot, but we did the sunset and sunrise sessions, and occasionally a mini stomp in the blazing sun. They had good shade up and plenty of sprinklers, so it was bearable for a while. Friday night was our longest stomping session. We spent most of the night on the floor, and when it started getting a little chilly around 4am, Shoes and I came up with the great idea to go and fetch everyone coffee. What we didn't take into account though, was that the nearest coffee stall was a good 10 minutes away. This, plus the fact that the (very shit) coffee was served luke-warm in the first place, meant that our trip resulted in us bringing back four cups of cold coffee which were only filled halfway due to spillage - the ground was that uneven. Bad idea then.

We stayed up pretty late on Friday night, and then woke up early on Saturday, so most of the first half of Saturday was spent in a bit of a haze. The wind also picked up in the morning, and where we'd just been hot and sticky before, we were now hot, sticky and permanently covered in a layer of dust. Although we did swim and Shoes and I showered in the ice cold showers, there was nothing we could do to get away from it. We were lying in it, eating it and drinking it with our vodka. It became our friend after a while though; you really have no choice but to embrace it, otherwise you spend your whole party being annoyed. We could at this stage no longer look down on the hippies for their dirtiness, though.

Saturday was alot more chilled out than Friday. We went down to the river to watch the sunset and saw to our delight that there were statues in it - except they were moving! More craziness from the locals.... three people covered in what looked like grey plaster of paris were standing motionless knee deep in the water, occasionally moving with robot like slowness to change their positions. Love it.

We went to bed pretty early on Saturday night, in preparation for an early morning on Sunday. We intended to make the most of our last day at the party, but as you will see tomorrow, spanners get thrown in the works pretty easily when you're in a group....

To be continued....

Portugal: Day One

Thursday

We woke up at 2:50am to be at the airport at 4:30am. Our flight left at 6:30am. When we initially booked our tickets, this sounded like a fair option. However, as is so often the case, what seems like a good idea at the time is in many cases just not, and when six people are stumbling around, blinded by the sleep in their eyes and trying to rush through their routines in only 2 bathrooms, it's just plain chaos. We somehow managed to get ready on time, and we were out the door and into the cab with minimal issues, besides OJ "losing" his phone, something which he does with startling regularity, as will become evident. Definition of "losing" - to go into a flat panic when you cannot find a particular item, only to realise 10 seconds to a minute later that said item is in fact safely stowed away where you last put it. Unfortunately, OJ not only "loses" things, he really loses things as well, hence his name OJ, which comes from our constant sighs of 'Oh, J!" as he flaps around searching for yet another misplaced thing.

Our flight was fairly uneventful. We'd had the presence of mind to take our pillows on board with us, and we all caught up on a bit of much needed sleep. By the time we landed in Porto, we were fairly awake and good to go. We collected our car - a 7 seater van with aircon and tough front speakers - and off we went. Eyes took the first driving shift, and the rest of us in the back sat, white knuckled, holding on for dear life as he negotiated a few obstacles such as oncoming cars on the wrong side of the road, while OJ attempted to get the GPS software on his mobile working. It took a while to get over our raging fear that we were going to be hit by oncoming traffic every time we turned a corner, but Eyes did well to keep us all alive.

Our plan was to drive through to the city of Porto, wonder around there for a couple of hours to soak up a bit of Portuguese culture, and grab a bite to eat before heading out on the 420km trip to the party, which was near a little town called Elvas. However, even the best plans go awry, and when you're a group of tourists in a non-English speaking city with very little idea of what you're doing, it's a recipe for a botch. We drove to what we thought was the Museum of Transport and Communication, the place where the tourist info chick at the airport had told us we could park. It probably would have been a good idea to actually check that the building we thought was the museum was in fact the museum, but enthusiasm was high and sensibility was low, and our map-reading was clearly not as good as we thought, so we jumped out the car (after a minor pause as OJ "lost" his spare mobile battery) and started walking in what we thought was the direction of Old Porto, the cultural centre of the city. I should just take a moment here to say that none of us is particularly cultured, but we felt obliged to see a bit more of the country than just an out of the way trance party venue, so we were going to take photos of the cathedrals and pretty buildings in order to not appear complete savages (the pics at the trance party would do that for us anyway). Of course, our lack of caution and below-par map reading skills meant we got TOTALLY lost, and our confusion was only reinforced by the few people we stopped to ask for directions; all of whom failed to mention to us that we were not in fact where we thought we were. After walking for an hour and a half through the parts of Porto that tourists never see, and with good reason, we finally hit a main road and attempted to find a bus station. By this stage we had decided Porto was run-down, dirty, poor and not worth a 5 minute pit stop. After much debating, stopping to ask for directions and general moaning, we came across the main square by accident, and found Tourist Porto - the part we were supposed to see. By that stage however, we'd had enough. We couldn't possibly have grumbled anymore than we were. You could have shown us a stunning panorama worthy of a postcard at that point - we still wouldn't have cared. It was definitely time to leave. We found the bus stop about 45 minutes after we'd first started looking for it, and managed to make our way back to the car without further incident. Conclusion: Porto sucks. The drive through to the party was uneventful. Along the way we discovered that the Portuguese in general do not speak any English (although perhaps this is different in Lisbon) and they have rather bland and tasteless cuisine. They also have no sauce sachets and all their food is very dry.

We arrived at the 2007 Freedom Festival at about 6pm Thursday evening, and we were greeted by a large, very dusty open area with stony ground that was majorly averse to tent pegs. We dived headlong into an intense argument about where to pitch our camp (Shoes and Eyes were on Team Tree - the area under some sad looking trees for shade but miles from the dance floor; Scarf, Neutrino and I were on Team Toilet - the area close to the loos, dance floor and road leading to the food stalls; OJ was on his own team and was miffed that no-one agreed with him). We'd been travelling for 14 and a half hours and everyone was a tad tense. Eventually, Team Toilet won out - Team Tree and OJ gave in most ungracefully - and we started to set up camp. To say it was a good start to the party would be a lie. Even though we cracked open a few vodkas and beers to drink while working, the day had gotten to all of us and setting up was a tangle of guy ropes and tempers. Soon enough though, once we were fully settled, tempers abated and the joy of being at a trance party in another country returned, and we started to get into the spirit of things. The plan: to get well pissed and hit the dancefloor like there was no tomorrow.

The venue could have been better - it was so open and dry that when the wind came up on Sunday the dust storms choked us, and the terrain was tough and unforgiving, but things like that don't matter when you're on the dancefloor stomping it up to some banging tunes. We caned it that night, giving it all we had. We had to - we were in Portugal!!!!!! The beers and vodkas were flowing copiously (we'd stopped on the way to buy all our own booze) and finally, we were getting in the swing of things. No-one remembers too clearly how it went down that night, but we know we drank too much, danced a lot and stumbled to bed with the music still thundering in our ears - Team Tree had a point when they indicated Team Toilet's spot was going to make it tough to dos. We hadn't counted on the toll 14 hours of travelling would take on us though, and we all collapsed into bed at 12am, falling asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows; dreaming of another day of freedom and mayhem in Portugal.

To be continued tomorrow......

Travelling Band

It's 22:45 and we have to be up in 4 hours and 15 minutes to be at Gatwick by 4:30am. Ok, so the cheap flights seemed like a good idea at the time! We're all packed (took us 3 hours cos we kept taking breaks to wah-hey! around the house) and we're hoping that by some miracle we haven't forgotten anything. Sod's law says of course we have. But as long as we have passports, money and party tickets, everything else can be begged for, bought, borrowed or stolen. It's pissing with rain outside right now; we really couldn't have picked a better night to leave sodding old London behind.

I went for a job interview this morning - my first actual London interview rather than agency meet and greet. It's a role that I initially thought was kind of cool; now I am obssessed with getting it and feel that my life will be over if I don't. Yeah, it's definitely easier not to give a shit. It's for Accounts Assistant at Redwoods Publishing House, working on one of their client magazines. It's the oppotunity of a lifetime - I could have a career in publishing and who knows, maybe one day I'd even get to write a magazine article.

Anyway, I really meant this to be a full post but with all the excitement of the day, I never quite got there. So I think my best option is to get to sleep as soon as humanly possible so this frikkin holiday can finally arrive.

Later, my peeps, I will tell you all. Prepare yourself. ;-)

A Portuguesa!

NEUTRINO FOUND HIS PASSPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, to be exact, it got handed in to his local police station and when he made his daily call yesterday they told him it was waiting for him to collect. So, WE'RE ALL GOING TO PORTUGAL IN 3 DAYS! Sorry, I'll stop shouting now, but the situation does call for just a bit of enthusiasm. Now I am officially excited. All of us have been a bit down about the whole thing lately, and we were struggling to muster up some measure of eagerness. Now we can think of nothing else! :-)

No really, I can't think of anything else at all, not even anything further to write here. This is partly because we had a fairly tame weekend, and partly because I am imagining basking in the sun beside the river, trance music pumping in the background, vodka cocktail in hand....

Ok, erm, maybe I should stop right here. Instead of daydreaming all over my blog, I will save the post for the real stories, of which there will be many to recount. I'll take you through it, you'll feel like you were there. Something to look forward to. Right, back to those vodka cocktails then.....

Final Countdown

So, Neutrino, Scarf and I have exhausted all options, and it's a no go - unless someone hands in his passport and it gets returned to him by next Thursday, he will not be coming to Portugal with us. The Schengen Office can't get him a visa - again, not enough time. He can't travel on his drivers - we knew that anyway, but desperate times, you know? His fate lies entirely in someone else's hands, assuming someone has actually picked up the passport, and it hasn't somehow got swept up with some rubbish and landed in a bin somewhere. Also, not nearly as bad but still crap, the letter of verification I requested for Shoes to confirm he has held his license for more than 2 years is only getting posted out on Monday, so won't arrive in time to take with us. Therefore he can't drive in Portugal. All we need now is to get there and for some reason the car rental place refuses Eyes' SA license, even though they have confirmed in writing twice that they will rent him the car. With this trip, nothing is certain and nothing can be taken for granted.

I am crushed for Neutrino - having been the one left behind last time, I would wish death on my worst enemy over that. Scarf and I have agreed to remain hopeful, and not accept that he is not coming until the last minute. This trip has been so fraught with difficulty up til now, but somehow we have pushed through and overcome the obstacles. We're still going despite all the odds stacked against us, and we're viewing this as just one more irritating odd that needs to be knocked back. Granted, this is way bigger than all our other probelms put together - at least there's been a way around the rest. And until this moment we've been able to exhaust our energies looking for answers. Now, we have to rely completely on fate. Just like Turkey... except that for me with Turkey, there was no way out. For Neutrino, there still is - not a chance I'd put money on, but there's still a chance. And then, after Italy, I am staying put in London until next year January when we go to Cape Town - you couldn't pay me to move my ass across the borders of the UK for a million pounds!

Unbelievable....

This is just a short post again, as I am no doubt going to be updating quite regularly today as we monitor Neutrino's passport situation. He went of to the Italian embassy this morning to try and arrange for an emergency / temporary passport, and they told him there is nothing they can do for him as it is too short notice. I am having Turkey deja-vu visions all over again, except that as flabbergasted and crushed as I am, I am so frikkin' glad it's not me - does that make me a terrible person? Watch, just for saying that our visas are going to get denied - we're due a phone call from the Schengen Office today to tell us to come fetch our passports.

The next step is to try and get him a schengen visa on his South African passport. We have one week to do this, so he's going to phone the Schengen Office this morning when they open and see if they can do it. Obviously he stands no chance in trying to go to the embassy directly.

One of my colleagues thinks it might be possible for him to travel on his driving license, since EU citizens need only a form of photo ID. I have to say, I think this is seriously suspect, but right now we have to explore all our options. I am going to phone the Portuguese Embassy now.

I can't believe this is happening. I am starting to think that maybe we're supposed to die in Portugal, and that all these obstacles are in fact signs from the universe telling us to change our path, to avoid fatal consequences. Imagine we all actually make this trip as planned, only to perish in a car accident - wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake?

There are no words....

Ok, I have to leave in 3 minutes, but I couldn't go without quickly telling you the latest in the Portugal saga.... Neutrino lost his passport this morning! I mean, like, totally lost it - it was in his hands as he walked through a shopping centre and when he came out it was no longer there. Can you fucking believe.....

Don't even ask why he was carrying it through the shops, there's no point. He's going to the Italian embassy tomorrow to see if there's anything he can do. Right now I am throwing up my hands in complete disbelief.

Nuff said.

Walking On Sunshine

We had the most beautifully sunny weekend, and I feel like I'm walking on clouds and sunbeams, with rainbows in my hair and sea lapping at my toes. Ok, maybe a bit OTT on the imagery there, but really, two whole days of 27 degree plus heat and clear blue skies has made me want to wax lyrical about the weather. In non-poetic terms, I feel completely refreshed! I have been happy all day. Even a ghastly pile of photocopying couldn't dampen my spirits.

In fact, the sunshine has cheered me up and inspired me so much that I spent the morning applying for jobs with a vengeance - suddenly I think I might be exactly what someone is looking for, after a good few months of feeling like the dirt scrapings on someone's hiking boot. God helps those who help themselves. I am giving myself such a helping hand right now that I'm practically slapping my own ass. Good for me ;-)

On Friday night we had the braai / eviction party at Neutrino and OJ's place. Was fine, nothing amazing, but we had some drinks, ate WAY too many crisps (what is it about braais and crisps - why are you completely unable to stop eating crisps when you know you're having piles of meat in just half an hour? It's a fact - it's the most out of control one can get around crisps) and enjoyed the company. Saturday was divine - we spent the whole afternoon lying in the sun in Greenwich Park with a picnic, and came back for another braai and an evening of sitting on the balcony talking about life and philosophy (ok, that's bollocks: we were really just talking about our new neighbours upstairs - don't like them - and the weather - really liked that - and what to bring to Portugal). Sunday continued in much the same relaxed vein; Scarf had to work at Wembley Stadium, so I watched some Grey's, lay in the sun with my book, did my scrapbook and baked some muffins, which flopped about as hard as muffins can flop. Our oven blew a fuse the other day, and now only the one element works, so all cooking times have been thrown into disarray. I made strawberry and banana muffins that did a piss-poor job of actually rising, and I'm expecting Dubya to knock at our door any minute, enquiring as to the whereabouts of our hidden weapons of mass destruction - they're that heavy. My dear boyfriend, bless his heart, says they are the best muffins he's ever tasted. Not sure if he has a natural affinity for bland and stodgy lumps of dough or if he is just the best boyfriend ever for saying that, but we all know I should probably go with the latter. All of us got a bit of colour this weekend too, which is just about the best thing that could have happened next to Topshop having an 80% off sale. I am wearing white today, to show off my newly acquired tan. It is the first natural tan I have had in a year - a whole year!!!! Not that I have been white for that entire year of course; I have been various shades of golden, orange and streaky brown, depending on what natural tan disaster I was occupied with at the time. Nothing tans like the sun.

Am starting to get really excited about Portugal now. I know I shouldn't yet, as our visas are supposed to arrive on Wednesday, and until I have that visa-filled passport in my hand, I should keep it down to a mild war cry. Just in case. But the sun has made me almost taste what it's going to be like. Four uninterrupted days in the middle of nowhere, in 40 degree heat, with my best mates and thousands of other revellers partying like there's no tomorrow..... aaah, I can feel the sun on my skin and hear the pulsating trance beats already.

We've bought our tent and sleeping bags, with those stupid roll-up excuses for matresses that actually almost make you more uncomfortable they are so thin; two fishing stools and a tarp to make shade. I can't wait - unlike Mini-Me who grew up, discovered the hair straightener and promptly denounced all ties with my family's favourite pastime, I love camping and would quite happily spend a couple of weeks outdoors with no electricity. I don't even mind cold showers, just as long as there are showers - 2 weeks worth of underarm hair is not something anyone should ever inflict on anyone else, even the most long-suffering of partners.

Under My Skin

I am so, so, so frikkin tired. Not from lack of sleep, but tired of life in general. It's nothing in particular that has made me want to curl up in a room away from everybody for 100 years, but rather an amalgamation of everything that has me feeling miserable and so exhausted I can barely make myself attend to the tasks I have to do. It's ironic really, because just a few days ago, I was saying how recently I felt like I'd broken through the suface of a lake and was gulping fresh air for the first time in a long time. Well, scratch that - I am gumpy, crotchety, fatigued, stressed and sick and tired of having to tough it out. Life should be about experiences and finding the good in things, not about toughing it out day by day just to get through it because.... well, I don't know why. Because the alternative is to be suicidal and end it all, and I'm hardly that damaged. Luckily.

Ok, so maybe there was a tiny trigger. But it's so random and insignificant, I'm ashamed to admit it. Don't ever say I don't know how to get your attention... ;-)

It was my phone. My new phone that was supposed to arrive on Tuesday this week: the pink Samsung U600, at an absolute steal, complete with free PSP (Shoes was happier that I was). We ordered it last week, and it was due to arrive two days ago. Only, it didn't. Last night, we tracked the order online and found it had been returned to sender. So we phoned Dial-A-Phone, and the following conversation ensued:

Shoes: Hi, I'm Shoes and I ordered this phone blah blah reference number blah blah and it supposed to be delivered blah blah but it says on your website it has been returned to sender.
ESP (Extremely Stupid Person): Oh yes sir, I see here that it has been returned to us.
Shoes: Erm, yes, that's what I just said. Can you tell me why?
ESP: Well, didn't you send it back?
Shoes: Uh, no, I want the phone. I ordered the phone. I paid £30 up front for the phone - why would I send it back?
ESP: I don't know sir.
Shoes: Yes, well, me neither. That is why I have called you. Why have YOU got MY phone?
ESP: Can't answer that sir. You will have to phone Royalmail.
Shoes: Ok fine, forget about why. Can you please send it back to me?
ESP: No sir.
Shoes: Why not?
ESP: Because sir. That's our policy.
Shoes: Your policy is to steal other people's phones?
ESP: No sir. Our policy is to cancel the phone contract if the phone is returned to us.
Shoes: But I didn't return it to you. It got returned by someone else, without my permission.
ESP: It doesn't matter who returned it, sir, the fact is it got reuturned.
Shoes: So you mean I can't get my phone back.
ESP: It's no longer your phone sir. It's our phone again now. If you want another phone, you will have to order another one.
Shoes: But, I've already ordered. You have all my details on file. Can't you just send that phone back to me?
ESP: No sir. You have to place a new order.
Shoes: But I don't understand. You have my details. Just send me another phone, and link the registration number with my details, which you already have.
ESP: Sorry sir, I can't do that. It's against policy. You have to order a new phone.
Shoes (straining to hear over my cries of "I'm going to fucking kill them" in the background): What about my £30? Will that carry over to my new order?
ESP: No sir. We will transfer the £30 back to you in 7 - 10 working days.
Shoes: Wait a second. If I order this phone today, you are going to charge me another £30. Then, in 7 days time, you are going to transfer £30 back to me. Have I got that right?
ESP: Yes sir, that is what we're going to do.
Shoes: Can you not see the higher intelligence of simply keeping the £30 I have paid you and sending me a new phone?
ESP: I'm afraid it's against policy sir.
Shoes (physically restraining me from ripping the phone to shreds with my bare hands): Can I just tell you something?
ESP: Yes sir, of course.
Shoes: Your policy stinks. In fact, your choice of delivery stinks too. Actually, everything about this whole mess stinks.
ESP: Thank you sir. Goodbye sir.
Shoes: *%£$!%*$^!

And so, we now have to wait and see if the £30 ever materialises before we risk ordering another phone from them. I did phone Royalmail as well, and they can't tell me either why the phone was returned to sender, but apparently that happens either at the request of the recipient (clearly not us as we never even saw the delivery guy), or if the recipient does not live at the address given. In any other case, including if the recipient is not available to sign for the package, it goes back to the depot and you are left a card explaining what has happened (we had no card). You then have three weeks in which to collect your package. They are investigating the issue after I threw a major wobbly on the phone today.

The point is, it's not the phone that matters. It's not even the Stupid People Situation. It's the fact that I can't even place an online order without everything coming to a grinding, metal-crunching halt. After the last 3 weeks, with the visa situation for Portugal and then the driver's license issue (which is sorted now, by the way), all I am asking for is just a bit of slack. Let me have an easy day. Let me just do something, and have it work right first time. Just once. Just to explain to you how chronic this is, I was supposed to be at an agency for an interview today at 1pm. As I was topping up my oyster card at the station, an alarm sounded and everyone had to evacuate. The result? I had to walk all the way to the next station to get the tube and was late for my interview. Just one thing.

It sounds funny, I know, and believe me, if I can see any good at all in anything, it's when I'm writing, because then I can add black humour to what in real life is making me cry, through complete lack of other options.

I'm just tired. I haven't had a holiday in 2 years, and I have never been this desperate to get away from my life and out of my own skin. I cannot stand to be me right now - I just want to be someone else, somewhere else, where my problems are non-existent. A place where there is no stress about a money situation that is worsening by the day; a place where finding a permanent job that I would just like, never mind the perfect job, is actually possible, rather than as likely as finding a needle in a haystack; a place where I can relax and not have to cope single-handedly with all the curveballs that life is throwing my way because somehow it all just seems to fall into my lap, and everyone else is content to leave it there. A place where I can just not be me. Just for a few days.

I realise that I'm just running on empty, and some time away from London and my life here will fill me up, and then I won't break down next time a stupid phone order goes wrong. Then I'll laugh at it, and find the funny in the frustration. It just seems like the person who used to laugh at things like that has been missing for a long time. I have drastically underestimated the need for relaxing holidays. But then again, I have never worked flat out for 2 years without one.

I know Portugal is close. But with all the drama surrounding this trip, it is testing every ounce of strength and faith that I possess, and I truly believe I have been tested enough this year. I'm on the edge of the precipice now; it's only going to take one or two more of these situations to push me over. I can't wish hard enough for the days to fly by so Portugal will arrive. G-Days is with us this weekend, so I think I'll wait for him to go back to Chippenham and then take a day off next week. It's not great, but at least I can be at home by myself, watching Grey's and not speaking to anyone, and hopefully gather just enough to see me through the next month.

Just a Quickie

Just a really quick post before I head off to my staff drinks tonight..... I'm waiting for at least one of my overly dedicated team to pack it in and leave already so I will have someone to walk with!

It looks like the Potugal issue might be solved... I don't want to get too excited now, cos you know how these things go. Neutrino appears to have a fully valid Irish license - apparently it was the SA passport, SA drivers and numerous other things that were expired, but not his UK license. Still haven't actually seen this license, or spoken to him, but if the grapevine is to be believed, we might be saved.

More on that tomorrow - the herd is on the move!

Serenity Prayer

Saturday night was our first night out in a club since the smoking ban. We all went to Sugar Reef bar in Piccadilly Circus, and I can't even begin to tell to how awesome it was to get out of there smelling like roses instead of rubbish bags! It was Jez's birthday on Wednesday, and he's back in town from the oil rigs for 3 weeks, so his girlfriend organised him a surprise party. It was great - we drank, danced and cavorted in style - but made the rookie mistake of setting up a tab without first checking the prices. It turned out to be the most expensive bar we've been to in London, and our plan of spending £60 for the night was obliterated with a bill of £107; CRINGE. Oops. Oh well, it was worth it - I think. Yesterday we woke up to fresh smelling rooms (seriously, the usual aftermath of a night like Saturday has us waking up and hurling ourselves at the window to stick our heads out and gulp fresh air - it makes SUCH a difference!) and spent the day chilling at home. We'd decided on Friday to make a lamb roast for dinner. Recently the days have been cool, rainy and cloudy up until about 6pm, when the skies start to clear and it gets really warm. It's quite bizarre. We didn't take this into account when making our roast, and it started heating up at about 3pm yesterday. By 6pm, when the lamb had been in the oven for an hour and a half, the microwave was cooking the potatoes and we had the stove on to make gravy, our kitchen felt like the Namib Desert and we were all rushing onto the balcony every 5 seconds so we could breathe. The red wine we had with our dinner resembled tepid sea water from a baking rock pool in temperature - it's hard to get used to putting red wine in the fridge for 5 minutes - but other than that, the meal was delicious. We're all getting quite good at this Sunday lunch thing.

I have yet another saga from the Torturous Travel Diary to tell you today. At last look, we had bought our flights and party tickets for Portugal, and everything was looking good to go. Then we phoned to make our visa appointment, and found that the earliest appointment we could get was 14th August - and we fly on the 16th. What followed was 24 hours of harrowing fear that we wouldn't be able to go. The Portuguese Embassy was most unhelpful, saying that there was nothing they could do to bring our date forward by a few days. I was so desperate that, in a moment of illumination, I decided I was going to ask Shoes to marry me - in name only, for now, to be reaffirmed with the ring, the wedding and the pizazz when we eventually go back home. This would give me the passport I so desperately want, and would make my travel for the next 3 or 4 years 10 times easier and cheaper. I managed to convince my work colleagues that this was a great idea, and they were all cheering me on. Then I had a think about it on the train on the way home, realised that I might piss off quite a few people back in SA, never mind the fact that I think I would have to drug and drag Shoes to the altar (to say he's not quite ready to marry me now is an understatement), and decided against it - all in the space of about 3 hours. I know it wouldn't have helped me for Portugal, but I was thinking of Turkey - if we'd done this at the beginning of the year, I would have been able to go - and also my future travels; or rather non-travels, the way things are going. I haven't actually told him what I was thinking - don't want him running away for home or anything - and although I am still convinced it would be a good idea for ME, I do realise since it is not only me involved, I am unfortunately going to have to give up on the idea for everybody else's sake. Anyway. Moving on: we finally found out that the Schengen Office does Portuguese visas. We are now going to take our documents to them next week, and they will organise everything for us and have our passports back in 8 days - for three times the cost of what we would have paid had we gone to the embassy ourselves, but what can we do.

So, what's the problem, I hear you asking? Come on, if you've been reading this blog for 2 months or longer, you should know by now that there is ALWAYS ANOTHER FUCKING PROBLEM WHEN IT COMES TO ME ATTEMPTING TO TRAVEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pardon my french. So, this is the latest: our whole trip to Portugal revolves around going to the Freedom Festival (see pic to the left from last year's party), the mother of all trance parties in the universe. This means that we have to drive 400km from Porto, which is where we land, to the location of the party. Before you ask, no, we did not plan it that way - we decided to fly to Porto because it was cheaper than flying to Lisbon. In the party info, they said there would be two shuttles to collect people and take them to the party - one from Porto and the other from Lisbon. So, we figured that if there was transport from Porto, surely it couldn't be that far to the fesitval location? Not so. As is so often the case with trance parties, they kept the location secret until the last minute. In this case, they just so happened to release the location details 3 days after we booked our flights. It was a surprise; there was no prior warning, and it was too late to change our tickets. Lisbon is only 200km from the party - Porto is 400km. So we have no choice but to spend half a day in the car travelling there. Now, this in itself is not a disaster - hey, we're young, free-spirited and a road trip across Portugal doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Except that not a single one of us has a valid driver's license with which to hire a car. That's right people, in a group of 6 travellers, not one of us could pull ourselves together in time to get this sorted. Shoes has recently swapped his South African license for a British one - the whole purpose of this was so that he could do all the driving in Portugal and Italy. However, the license only indicates the date it was issued to him - ie May 2007, not how long he has actually been licensed for. Car rental companies require a minumum of one, and sometimes two, years on one's license before they will rent to you. With his current license, Shoes can't prove how long he has been driving for, and his SA license has been sent back to the depot for return to SA - in fact, I'm sure it is home / lost / stolen from the post office by now. We are going to see about getting a letter of endorsement from the SA Licensing Department to prove he has held his license for more than two years - but will it arrive in time? I still have my SA license, so I could get an International Drivers Permit. However, my license expires in October this year, and IDP's are usually valid for a minimum of one year. Will they grant me an IDP on a license that is about to expire? Eyes and Scarves both have valid SA licenses, but got themselves IDP's when they first came over here. Apparently, according to Eyes, they will only issue you with this once within the first year of your stay in the UK; thereafter you are required by law to swap your license. Which means neither of them can drive at all. Still need to confirm this. OJ does not have a license at all, and Neutrino is driving on an expired Irish license. Scheiße!

God, grant me the cunning to persuade those who are hard to manipulate; the balls to steamroll over those who won't help and the wisdom to know when to turn around and run. Ok, thanks.