I am NOT SWISS and I DON'T SOUND SWISS either!

i had this interview on tuesday (my first proper interview ever!) and the more i think about it, the more i'm convinced i screwed up! it started badly, with me ending up half way across the county/kanton a quarter hour before the interview was meant to start. stupid online timetable sent me on a train that doesn't go to dübendorf!!! luckily i'd planned in half an hour of wandering around lost, so i was only quarter of an hour late in the end. and thank goodness cecile told me how to get into the building (she had an interview there for a different job) cause not finding my way in just might have finished me off at that point ;-) luckily the last thing i'd done before leaving the house was to write down the number, so i was able to give them advance warning. they were very nice about it, but i can't believe i was late to the interview!!! me who's early everywhere (except to lectures of course *g*)!!!

anyway, i don't think i came across as particularly bright ;-) and to round things off, they'd read my blog! in particular the last post. as i posted it, i thought it might not be the best of ideas. ah well, what's life without a little risk every now and then ;-)

anyway, i'm now on tenterhooks, waiting for them to let me know what they've decided. i was surprised myself, but they didn't say 'sorry for wasting your time, but...'

the job sounds fabulous! it'd be so cool! difficult and challenging, but really fascinating :-) and it's near zürich :-)

help! i can't take the supense!

and now i don't dare post this for fear they might read it and think i'm trying to suck up or something. arrgh! grow up vicky!
*smacks self on head and clicks 'publish post'*

Labels: arrgghh, getting lost, i'm special, job search

you'd think i'd learn my lesson. but no, obviously i am less intelligent than a rat!

chris booked the old park hill tavern for jenny's birthday and we played skittles. it was lots of fun. i'd never played it before so my aim was, not to miss the alley and hurt someone with the wooden ball (repeat: i was hoping no one would get hurt). so i was quite surprised when i was suddenly one of the last three left. so i exceeded expectations: no one got hurt (hurray!) and i came third! but then we played it again and i missed completely both times. beginner's luck... (the first time round, of course)

at twelve that place closed so we went to morph's again, which was also good fun. for some reason, around 2am one guy decided he wanted to have a barbeque at his place. so we all went there and he started barbequeing a load of beef in the rain. very random. i did ask why, but i think the answer was something like 'because we can'... odd french person ;-)

i'm not sure what time it was when the others decided it was time to go home. i'd guess somewhere between four and five in the morning. they said one of the guys lived near me, so i went with him. problem: he wanted to walk. so we walked for quite a while, with me assuming he knew where he was going. i didn't have a clue of course. i think they said we started off on gloucester road, but i wouldn't recognize that, i've only ever caught a taxi from there when i accidentally ended up there after wandering around drunk for an hour or two.

eventually our ways parted with alex wandering off one way and me staring blankly the other way. it wasn't his fault, i absolutely insisted i'd find home no problem, not to worry, and 'don't you dare walk me home, i'll be fine!' cause i didn't want him to have to go out of his way (and i did think i would be fine...)

i got sooooo lost! and this time i couldn't find a taxi and i didn't have a phone number for a taxi service. i wandered past the golden hill tesco's (twice, i think), all round horfield, past the memorial stadium, up and down wellington hill, up and down kellaway avenue and loads more...

i tried to get into a house that i thought was ours, it just looked slightly different. thank goodness the key didn't work and i didn't wake anyone!!! i've got a big scratch on my leg from where i took a shortcut across a football field and had to climb through a rather large patch of brambles to get onto it. they tried to stop me but i won! there was a really high fence the other side which i was very tempted to (try to) climb, but luckily there was i tiny bit of common sense that hadn't been drowned by the beer, so i walked along to the gate which was much lower and i was able to vault that. i did fall over trying to get to the gate and got completely covered in mud. my jeans had were covered in a layer of mud almost an inch thick...

at one point i got so tired that i decided i must be home by now and that if i just waited a bit i'd wake up and i'd be home... but again the (admittedly minute amount of) common sense vetoed that and made me carry on walking.

at 7am the alarm on my phone went off while i was wandering through horfield. i think i broke into a run at that point... of course it didn't last. if i wasn't supposed to be somewhere i'd probably have carried on wandering all day, or randomly caught a bus somewhere (at about half past 7 a bus went past me, but there wasn't really time to wait for the next one and hope it went towards westbury). so around 7.45 i gave in and phoned jill, a) to tell her that i probably wouldn't make it to her house by 8.30 and b) to get her to work out where i was and how to get home from there... imagine her surprise 'i don't know where i am, there's this big round thing.' she thought it was a water tower, so i was on the downs 'i'm not on the downs. at least i don't think so. there are houses.' :-S gill looked the place up in the a-z (the thing turned out to be a gas container or something) and told me to walk towards gloucester road (just up the road from where i was) and she'd pick me up as soon as shed' sorted her kids out, tidied the house for the people coming to view it, got dressed... obviously it wasn't a good time for her. luckily her husband had a very clever idea so she phoned me up and gave me the number of a taxi company on gloucester road. i'd meant to ask her for a phone number for a taxi when i phoned, but i completely forgot (was still quite drunk).

so i made it home, came in the door to find tom standing there glaring at me 'where on earth have you been?!' i'd told the kids to come and wake me when they got up so that i wouldn't be late for volleyball, but of course i wasn't there...

i was soooo glad i'd packed my bag before i went out. i was able to just change out of the muddy stuff and scoff some cereal before gill picked me up. we weren't even late: we got there at nine o'clock exactly, and we were the first of our team to turn up!

i was very surprised, i actually played quite well, given that i was drunk and i'd been wandering around bristol for the previous three hours. cause there were only six of us i had to play the whole time. thank goodness the b&d league only plays best of 3 not 5 sets. but we actually managed to win one set and only just lost the third set, i think it was 13-15... so that was really good. it was probably because niall was playing for us. katrin'd twisted her ankle in training on wednesday and on friday night she managed to convince niall to stand in for her. he went home after the skittles though, so he was in a slightly better state than me or hannah who went home after morph's. i should have done that too, i've managed to find my way home from morph's before ;-)

driving back from the match was quite funny cause i kept saying 'ooh, i wandered along this road.' and 'i remember that petrol station/fish'n'chip shop/xxx' and gill and hannah would say 'oh no, what were you doing here, you must have walked along this road'. yep i walked up and down this road, that road and the other road...

the worst thing was walking to the church from gill's house afterwards (i couldn't find my key and marion and dave were there having joshy's birthday party). on the road that church is on, so five minutes from church, 20 minutes from home, i came across a bus stop that looked scarily familiar: i was there! i'd looked at the timetable on the other side of the road and not been able to make sense of it and wandered off in the wrong direction!!! noooooooooo!!!

so quite clearly i must in future remember the one big important rule for vicky's survival: never ever walk home!!! if i add any qualifications to the rule (such as 'alone' or 'when drunk') it won't work, cause i'll just go 'i'm not drunk, it's fine!' or 'i'm only alone for the last bit, i'll manage that'. so from now on it's no more wandering the streets of bristol for me!

dave says from the sounds of it i was never more than half 3 miles or so from home. i just kept going the wrong way... how awful :-\

oh no, i've just remembered: my brand new shoes are covered in mud!!! wahhhh!!!

Labels: drinking, getting lost, i'm special, volleyball

got lost again. blame the pints. but to start from somewhere closer to the beginning...

we just went to the beaufort last night but it was good fun :-D can't be bothered to recount the whole conversation, not even all the funny bits. was very tempted to get out a notepad and start taking notes just to see how much people would freak out about it. but i'm lazy so i couldn't be bothered...

ended up just serrie, alistair and me. talking to serrie and alistair's fun :-) we had this long (i think it was long) discussion about faith and religion and stuff. i'm far from eloquent at the best of times, but after all those pints (i lost track exactly how many it was), forgetting not just what i was trying to say half way through a sentence but actually forgetting what the whole conversation was about, that is not really the ideal moment to try and explain to people why i believe in jesus... i just hope i didn't say anything really bad to make them more against it. i don't think i did... ;-)

in the end we decided to get a taxi back together. i think the taxi driver was a rubbish moron, cause he couldn't find it. it might have been my fault, but as far as i could tell he couldn't even find westbury (and i couldn't direct anyone to westbury unless it's from the downs or somewhere easy). i think he said he'd found falcondale road at some point and then he stopped and got out a map. at which point i said 'right, i'll find my way from here, it'll be fine'. serrie and alistair tried to stop me (clever people) but i insisted (moron me). i didn't even think to ask which way along the road to westbury...

i thought the place i got out of the taxi looked quite like where church is. for some reason my beer soaked brain seized on that and decided to use it as my stategy for finding home. thank you, i do realise that it was one of my most ridiculous plans ever! so i went left down some street, cause if i had been at church i'd have gone left at that point, and then right, cause if i'd been in westbury... you get the picture. have i mentioned that it was absolutely pouring with rain? and i cleverly thought i'd be home soon, and it wasn't that cold, so i didn't put my hood up... so i was completely drenched and freezing. turns out my new coat is waterproof though. hurray!!! but my jacket's sleeves were longer than the coat's sleeves and they were hanging out so my arms were sodden, too, right up to my elbows... :-(

i wandered for ages and ages. ended up on some road with clubs, where people were getting taxis. very strange, we can't work out where that was :-S there were bus stops, so i had a look to see if there'd be one i could catch. i didn't have a clue what time it was, never occured to me that it might be too late for busses. but cause my brain had latched onto another idea, that i was now on whiteladies road (not a clue why, cause i never saw the downs, so it couldn't have been), i wanted the bus number 1. i couldn't find a timetable for the number 1, and didn't bother even looking at the others. won't take second best ;-) (moron me). carried on for a little bit, but in the end i gave up and decided to take another taxi. there was one just standing there at the side of the road, so i opened the door to get in, but the girls already inside weren't too impressed ;-) oops... in the end i found one just for me though :-) the driver said i had to pay up front. good idea, it took me ages to find my wallet and then i found i'd spent all my money 8-| managed to scrape together the 10 pounds he wanted and we set off. in the opposite direction to where i'd been going of course... so i was freaking a bit, convinced i knew best (well the last taxi driver had been rubbish) and going 'why are you going this way, why are you going this way?'. it took ages to get home, i was somewhere completely wrong (as usual). but this guy did actually find it ;-) hurray!

i got to the door (took a while, cause the taxi just dumped me at the end of the road, yes, i know it's not a long road, i was a bit drunk and very wet and very miserable and rather tired...) and couldn't find my keys. still didn't have a clue what time it was, thought it was probably around ten or eleven or so. but i though the kids would be in bed so i didn't want to ring the door bell. did the usual knocking on the door, knocking on the window of the green room, tried the back door, nothing. still looking for my keys, but i was shivering so much i nearly dropped everything. gave up and got out my phone and found marion had texted me. still didn't look at the time. so i texted her back. but since i could hardly hold the phone, let alone hit the right keys, the text was slightly weird: 'an home now, act'v edu' meant to say can't find my keys, but the can't went wrong and the find seemed to be going wrong, so i gave up and sent it like that. after a while marion came down and let me in. this morning she told me i'd phoned her and my phone agrees. once she said that, i vaguely remembered it.

i'd said i'd text serrie and alistair when i got home. but i haven't got either of their numbers... so i texted stuart to ask him. good thing my phone knows the 'word' serrie, cause i was still shivering, dropped the phone twice in fact. couldn't face trying to spell alistair... 'have you got serrie or cliqucip's number?' but stuart didn't have the numbers either. ah well.

what an adventure... :-D (glad it's over though)

[edit: just realised i never mentioned what time it was when i got home. thought it was ten or eleven o'clock. it was half past one... oops. i wonder what time it was when i got out of the first taxi. will have to ask serrie on monday. and i really didn't have my keys, i'd forgotten to transfer them when i changed my jeans...]

[monday: now i know why i thought it was still quite early: it was only 10.30 when we got the first taxi, so i would have been around 11.30 that i left them... oops, quite a wander then, no wonder i got drenched]

Labels: beer, drinking, getting lost, i'm special

hurray, i've got sensible trainers! ok, they're a tiny bit big but only at the front, so my feet don't slip in them. i just need to buy some thick socks to go with them ;-) but clever as i am i think 'need to get some thick sports socks, will get them now as i am actually in the shop' wander over to the till, buy the shoes, walk out and ten minutes down the road i realise that i haven't got the socks... :-(

polyp (got bored of lassie, especially since he started calling me lassie, he's confused. and then we were disussing cancers (bowel cancer) and polyps and paul's surname is ip, so it's appropriate, and it was his idea) suggested i go to jjb in broadmead to get the trainers.

marion, polyp, marion's lot, james (another of my many cousins) and polyp's kids who were here today were going to fly tom's kite on the downs. polyp dropped me in town to go shoe shopping (i am beginning to seem like i do nothing but buy shoes constantly, aren't i) and pointed me in the right direction. but of course it took me ages to find the shop, i must have walked right past it at least once.

found the shoes, they didn't have that many sensible sports shoes (only football boots which aren't really suitable...). there were three pairs that would have done in a pinch, but only the one really suitable pair. i tried the one on display on, cause it happened to be a size 8, but it was slightly big. so i asked for the size 7s but the 8s were the last ones left. i think size 7 would probably have been to small anyway, cause there's just more volume at the front than i'm used to, they're not actually too long or something...

after i'd bought the shoes i wanted to go to borders (the book shop). so off i went, being good, not taking the bus. i'd walked for about half an hour when i started recognising things, so i thought i was getting close to stuart's flat again. well, i was in that area, only what i hadn't realised was that i'd started out in that area ;-) i'd gone in a rather large circle. i was not impressed!

but after that i managed not to go wrong again (probably mostly dumb luck). was quite surprised (and a bit worried) when i came past the marriott hotel on whatsit green (as polyp put it), cause my circle had taken me past a marriott hotel as well. but as it turns out there are two marriotts in bristol (luckily for me, i'd have been really cross if i'd just done an even bigger circle!!!).

problem is, me going into borders is a really bad idea! i did manage to make myself not buy a lot of the books i'd have liked to get. *pats self on back*
only that still left the ten books i did buy... i am such an addict!!! *shakes head sadly*

from borders i wandered on to the next bus stop. originally i'd thought it might be fun to walk all the way home, but not carrying 12 books!!! (12 cause i took one with me, you can't go on a bus without having a book! and the other one i bought before i found jjb for £1.99 in a cheap book shop) the bus took ages to arrive (annoying britsh public transport!) but it did come eventually and now i'm home. my feet are absolutely killing me :-(

i'm babysitting tonight, marion's going to a friend's birthday and dave's still in moldova. so i'm just going to lie in front of a film. hurray for television ;-)

Labels: getting lost, shopping, volleyball

hmm, i've just reread that last post and i think i might still have been a little bit drunk. some of the places i started a new paragraph seem just slightly random... ah well!

realised i forgot the last bit: dia dropped me off in town this morning. it was something parade or some such i think. so i start off walking in the direction of westbury-on-trym, looking for bus stops. found one, bus 20, goes to westbury but just missed one. next one not due for another 10 minutes and i felt like walking some more so i carried on.

walked for a little while and then things started looking slightly familiar: i somehow ended up wandering right past stuart's flat. so that was clearly wrong, up some random hill, not a clue how i got there... but i know the way back from there, crashed at his place the first time i went out with the guys from infineon (i slept in a flatmate's room, she wasn't there...)

so i wandered back down the hill (i really hadn't realised i'd gone up it) and found the bus stop, deciding that walking all the way back to westbury probably wasn't a good idea after all. the bus was standing there waiting for the driver to arrive (???) so that was perfect timing.

but the best bit was when after a stop or two the bus suddenly drives into the square where dia dropped me off! i hadn't even realised i was going that far wrong!!! oopsy!

Labels: drinking, getting lost