cecilietc

First part of the day mostly consisted in doing the laundry. I was supposed to help Amy moving this day, but in the end it got quite late, so we just dumped all her suitcases in our kitchen, and then we went to St. Mary's Church to attend services. It was, to me, a quite different experience. It was a youth service, and the first half hour was worship, led by the "house band", there were some prayers and a bible text was read and the whole service ended with people stepping forward to the altar to have people praying for them. Some of them were filled with the holy spirit (?) and started shaking or jumping up and down, mumbling and waving their arms lively, quite a chock for me and Chrysoula since we've never experienced something like that before. Well back home I invited Amy for supper, we had pasta with pesto, and she decided to stay over since it had gotten a bit to late to move all her stuff to her new apartment. I recieved an expected call from Andrés (it was so wonderful to hear his voice again!) and we spoke for about an hour about everything that's happened since we last spoke. He seems to be doing fine over in the States, although there's a lot of studies and homework for him right now, but i hope he's having fun!

When I'd just hung up the phone, it rang again, this time it was my parents who were eager to talk to me. Poor Amy had to sit next to me for 1 ½ hour listening to my phone conversations! (Not saying I ejoyed talking to my family, I did!) That  night, we were both exhausted and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows..

Me and Amy had decided to go with the tourist buses this day, but the weaher was quite bad, and we didn't want to sit there and get wet, so we decided to just walk around Westminster instead. We had lunch at a nice multi cultural restaurant called Giraff. I had some kind of Asian veggie soup with coconut and lime, she had a Mexican lasagne, yummie! Defo* going back there!

We saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Impressive buildings! Me and Amy parted at Victoria station, she went home,and I went to Tower Hill to meet up with Chrysoula and Kristin. We had a stroll down to St Catherine's Dock (which looks beautiful at night!), and after having a pint of Guinne's at a Pub we continued over Tower Bridge and walked along the river bank to enjoy London by the Thames by night (did I mention it looks amazing?!).

defo* - short for definetley, a form that only Nick, a friend of Ciryl's uses.

Oh. Forgott to tell you about Wednesday morning! I went out for a walk with Jocelyn and Amy (another new project worker at Elgood House) to "descover the area". Among the practical things as visiting the health care center, we went to see the Silvia Young Theatre School (1 km from where I live) where i.e. Billy Piper, Amy Whinehouse, Denise van Outen, Emma Bounton and Leona Lewis went, and also Abbey Road and Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded their music. And of course, we had to take a picture at the famous pedestrial crossing outside the studios! 

...which the carnival also went through... 

Ciryl and Kristin at the Carnival  

 Posing at Notting Hill Carnival

Ok, time to update. As you might have realized the last few days have been quite eventful. I've been so busy I haven't have the time to write a single word!

Well, let's see if I can remember, haha!

Tuesday the 2nd. After topping up my cell, I went to visit my friend Habib, another volunteer from Sweden that I'd got to know at the departure conference in Stockholm, a couple of days before I left. It was really nice to see eachother again, cause all of us EVS volunteers became really close over the few couple of days we spent together, perparing us for our year abroad. And this night I suddenly found myself invited to dinner at Habib's covolunteers place. Here I meet Franzi, Fransesca and Alinka for the first time (you'll read more about them later). There was also Charlotte and her boyfriend, Habibs german flatmate and her friend from Spain (as you probably notice I really can't remeber their names...). We ended up having a really nice evening and  also went to a pub/club/bar/something - quite nice, strange music - and had a beer. All in all, we had a good time.

Wednesday the 3rd. I recieved a call from Tina, or was it an email? Anyway, she contacted me and asked if we should meet up that evening. Tina is another of the swedish volunteers and she was staying in London for her EVS conference. I was soo glad to see her again, and together with Julien (from Swizerland) we went to see Habib, and the four of us plus Franzi had a stroll down the road and ended up at the same place as the night before. We had a couple of beers and a nice long chat, and that was it for Wednesday.

There's not really much to say about Thursday. Boring weather, it was raining, I ended up going early to bed.

Friday 5th. Don't remember exactly what I did at work, shadowing Kaila as always, but we usually have quite a nice time, especially with Kaila's funny comments and "WHA' EVAH!". You gotta love that girl! That night I didn't wan't to do anything in particular, so I sat down in the staff room and watched teli with the night staff. Ugly Betty, Big Brother finals, and a docu about the 60's, quite interesting!

Hm... I'm on my way out with Chrysoula, I'll continue later.... so just be patient, and I'll get you updated!

When you have nothing to do, you give yourself something to do!
It turned out to be quite a eventfull day anyway. I started to sort out some papers, writing messages and notes for the residents, arranging for a new day file and sorted all the papers from the old one. I wen't to the day centre and had a chat with the workers there (and even the visitors too, actually, I had a chance to practice my spanish aswell). Then there was a meeting with Joyce from the main office, that I didn't know about, but ended up there anyway. So, now after work, I'm just sitting here by my work computer, writing and chatting with my dear boyfriend over in the states... maybe I'll go out and top up my cellphone later, and I might rush off and meet a friend as well. I've got a couple of people arriving this week, so that'll be nice! Should get going, I'll add more later.. Cheers!

Tuesday, and, honestly, nothing to do. Since there's no conference this week, I'll just be hanging after Kaila, and since she has very little to do, there's even less to do for two persons. I spent the first work hour today with fixing my cell together with Jocelyn, quite confusing actually. But well, I do have a phone that works now...