Lingering at LAX.

So, I'm sitting here in a rather depressing Starbucks in the international arrivals area of LAX, waiting for David. Unfortunately, his flight is delayed, so I'm going to be here for some time. I stopped here on my way in, two days ago, and managed to part with $8.34 for a yogurt and a coffee. Ouch. This time, I was a bit more clever and purchased my Starbucks meal in Pasadena, which I am now eating here. I'm so tired I just want to keel over and die. The first night I slept thanks to the wonder of sleeping pills. Last night was au natural, which meant dipshit sleep and waking up at 3am. Really looking forward to a 100 mile drive to San Diego. Anyway, sleep or no, I had a really great time seeing Maggie, Kurt and Tee. I really enjoy just sitting around and shooting the shit. I think it gets more and more enjoyable as I get older and as I appreciate family more. Much as I am finally actually beginning to accept that I made the right choice in picking London after 10 years, it doesn't make it any easier to leave people after a flying visit. It is, indeed, very far away. It's always funny coming back to Southern California as well. As well. As time passes, I notice more and more things as just seeming odd. The fake friendliness. It's a bit much in Northern California, but omg in Southern, as Robin put it, "hi, my name is Cynthia and everything is fucking terrific!" I think that with 16 years of New York and London, I just end up thinking, "gaack, go away, you're scaring me!" The other thing, CA is having the worst drought in like 500 years. So, I go running around Riverside. The natural landscape is the colour of dust. Even the eucalyptus look sad. But I was heartened to see everyone bravely confronting the drought by continuing to water the grass in the middle of the day, by flooding the road, by having a broken sprinkler shooting 20 feet in the air. Water conservation? Water rationing? Hell no, we are going to drain the Colorado River dry! Oh, other random thing, I was oh so very pleased to have to pay an extra $200 to get a non shit car with an mp3  jack, which also, as it turns out, comes with a GPS. Good thing I paid £35 to update the TomTom! Anyway, I've now slightly shortened the amount of time I need to wait. I wonder if they would notice if I crawled under the table and went to sleep? Hmm

Bleh - migraine

So I managed to cobble up a pretty decent migraine yesterday and today. No barfing or fainting or even that really cool feeling of having a red hot poker shoved through one's head, but rather the full bells and whistles aura on the train followed by a day of general headache, brain fartedness and general pissoffgoawayness. I was coming home on the train from a bike ride out to Ashford (generally a nice ride, though somewhat marred by a large piece of glass that decided to go through my front tyre, just as the sun was setting). Lots of hills, scenery and one very flooded road.  Anyway, I was on the train back with a friend and noticed - great - everything is getting all wavy/shiny and I'm having a very difficult time looking directly ahead.  Nothing says "I'm not suspicious" like trying to navigate one's way through a busy train station and pay for something at the supermarket while having to look at everything askance to actually see it. Anyway, I got most of the way home on my bike (the darkness and physical activity actually help - I frequently get migraine auras while running and just run through them).  I got as far as Waterloo, about 3 miles from home, and was getting increasingly concerned by this sort of thump thump thump feeling coming from one of my tyres. I pulled over to discover that about 6 inches of the tyre had come unseated from the rim. Wow - that could have been a blowout - on the front tyre! I walked and took the train the rest of the way home, not really wanting to have my bike upside down in heavy pedestrian traffic.  Then, this morning, after waking up from what felt very much like having my brain left to run in idle all night (ooh, parsley, shiny, toads!, avocado, perforated toothpaste!), I set off to work to discover that the rear gears weren't shifting properly.  All I did what I got home was to wash off a small mountainful of grit from my bike - apparently that was what was allowing it to shift properly.  So - off to the bike store today before work - how embarrassing, to go to the bike store because your gears don't shift properly. Today was mostly a big waste at work.  Headachey, crabby, feeling like my brain had been left out in the sun a bit too long.  I wanted preferably to hide under some couch cushions or in a meadow of tall and very soft (and very quiet) grass, or at least underneath one of those beekeeper helmets.  What do you mean I can't put a big sign on my desk saying "fuck off and die"?  So, not the best day of all.  Anyway, I survived and did various worklike things, though I don't remember what most of them were (ooh, short term memory loss, fun migraine symptom!).  Got the bike, hung my head in shame for having to pay for such a silly thing and came home and ran.  It's amazing how running actually helps these things.  It sucks great big donkey dong (and not in a nice way) during, but it actually helps push the headache away.  Maybe it's just because it sucks so much during that I am grateful that my head isn't bobbling around like a water balloon full of rocks (sharp rocks).  So, good day...

Backwards through Belgium...

Wow, it's been ages since I've done this. Seems like the last time was also heading backwards on a train, though that would have been with my bike. No bike this time. Just wrapping up an extended weekend in Bonn with a friend, which made a nice change from London. It's funny, I don't really think about how high my stress level is on a normal basis, but then I go away and realise that even though I get very little quality sleep, I still feel vaguely awake, don't have trouble remembering things, don't feel depressed, etc. I guess it's comforting that I'm not actually turning into a cabbage. Still though, it does speak a lot to how stressful things have been and how poorly I've been dealing with it. Most of he stress has been work and most of it has been stupid. Eight months of probation in an Alice in Wonderlandesque environment of petty jealousies, backstabbing and special meetings called to discuss the fact that I eat more than some of the more Rubenesque senior managers. Don't gay it up too much. Well, I made it through the probation, my team got moved to another area and oopsie, they have a very gay manager with a large appetite, a sharp tongue and little of the southern English tendency to not say what he thinks. My intention is to successfully turn around what is really a pretty mediocre team of people who do things just because that's how they've always done it and that's what it says in their JD. Much of this will be done in spite of the organisation, which is generally adept at blocking anything looking suspiciously like independent thinking or change. I intend not to fail, in part because it became clear that there was a strong desire amongst some for me to fail.  Won't give them the pleasure. Hmm, I think I may see the source of some of my stress. Still though, it was a lovely weekend away. Five trains to Germany and five trains home. Much lower stress than flying. Anyway, once again I am going to try to do this on a regular basis. Life zips by at an increasingly alarming pace. My six monthly dentist appointments seem to be occurring on a nearly monthly basis. I have an interesting thought and poof, it's gone. Well, that took the distance from Cologne to Aachen, though admittedly some of that was farting around with the WiFi. Ah, technology...

Southwards, backwards

So, it was the first kind of cold weekend of the autumn. Poor David had to work, so, in sort of quasi honour of that, but more really because I'm silly, I dragged my carcass out of bed at 6 to take the train north to cycle all day. North because it was supposed to rain all day in the south and because I can't bike on sunny Sunday as it's Robin's birthday and we are going for tea. Fah fah fah fah fah! Anyway, lacking a car, I use the train to take me to didgereedoo and back. It's great, except I have to make a reservation for my bike, which must be done either in person or over the phone. Given that most British rail companies have outsourced their call centres to India and use voice recognition software for the initial sorting, I have discovered that an American accent proves difficult for their computers, though they do still seem to understand I want to speak to someone right fucking now. Anyway, even in person, getting a cycle reservation tends to become a bit of a voyage of discovery for ticket people at the smaller stations. Anyway, so, I took an early morning train to Derby, which is a bit of a meh kind of place. Spent the day then cycling up through the Peak District, which is gorgeous. All amazing and wonderful until the last 8 miles into Sheffield, which was pouring rain and very cold. Still haven't properly warmed up. Hope I don't get sick. Even with that though, I am definitely at my happiest out in the middle of nowhere on my bike. It reminds me that I actually still love this silly little country, even if I don't always love London. Spent lots of time admiring views, only one of them ruined slightly by stepping in fresh dogshit. Also did my absolute favourite thing of finding a random cafe in a tiny town and having lunch and cake. Lunch was a hot pork and apple sandwich. Cake was an iced Madeira cake. It was bliss. I have decided that this is definitely the way to do the majority of my weekend rides. It's easy, I get to see the country and I don't have to spend half of the ride fighting London traffic. Just have to try to get a little more sleep before!

Back to work on Monday. It's taken me many months but I feel like I am finally becoming managerial. Never thought that would ever happen! It's taken me this long to figure out how to play the hierarchy, which I suppose is useful, but still makes me feel unclean. Sigh.

And now, the rest of the story

Sitting on the high speed train in Dover, waiting to go. After a late arrival into Brussels, in the middle of some kind of great big street fair, I found my way to my very nice, uber modern and slightly peculiar hotel. Bed was comfortable, room was quiet and, unusually, air conditioned. I slept well, though not enough. Had a hurried breakfast in the empty hotel restaurant. Very yummy pain au chocolate. Everyone seems to do better pastries than the British! In a half awake haze then, I managed to purchase a ticket for me and my bike on the train to the coast. I shoved my bike into a doorway, not seeing anywhere else to put it, and was very glad when the conductor didn't yell at me. Anyway, an hour 45 to the coast, then a 23 mile, very flat, very windy ride across the French border, through Dunkirk, then out through another 10 miles of wasteland and gas plants to the ferry terminal. Amusingly, I had to go through the car lanes with my bike. First security, then French passport control, then British passport control. Then I and a few other cyclists got to stand out in the sun for an hour while they dicked  around and eventually loaded all the other vehicles. Ironically, as I wasn't planning on being in the sun all day and as it was raining this morning, I managed to fry the worst today. Go figure. However, once I decide I was just going to make a day of today, my stress level dropped precipitously from yesterday. Ferry ride was generally relaxing, if 45 minutes late. Badly behaved British children, slightly smelly French people, bespectacled Germans in their VW camper vans, inscrutable eastern European truck drivers. I do like the ferry. It's an interesting  mix of humanity.

So, yeah. Feels like about a million years and three seconds since I left home. I kind of feel a bit like, did I just do all that? I am actually kind of shocked by what a cycling paradise is Germany. And it seems to involve not that much fuss. Fantastic cycle paths built in the middle of nowhere, with very few people using them. No glass strewn on the pavement. Drivers that actually wait for you and make a point of getting out of the way. Whereas British drivers will whiz right by, sometimes, it seems, without even looking, Germans sometimes seems to require almost a written invitation to go around, which can also be a bit annoying as well. Anyway, tomorrow it is back to reality and back to work. Back to probably over 1000 emails I didn't check even once. Suppose that is just how I pay for my adventures. :-)

Shitty poop popsicle mood

So, big surprise, my big, exciting and generally pretty damn cool trip has come unravelled today because Deutsche Bahn decided to suck. After two really relaxing days in Berlin, just hanging out with people,e and eating too much, I started my meticulously planned trip home today, getting to the train station a full half hour before the scheduled departure. Hmm, there is no train on the screen. Oh no, that train isn't running anymore. It was on the old time schedule. Well, it's great then that they sold it to me, isn't it? So, today, so far, I have been on three trains to get most of the way across Germany. In Cologne, I had the pleasure of disassembling my bike and putting it into a bag. In Brussels I get to reassemble it. The train to Brussels then is 45 minutes late because some idiot threw themselves under the train in France. Honestly, people, be considerate of others when you off yourself! I had to fend off a very persistently, multilingual beggar. Finally, after trying to be nice... I'm having a shitty day. I don't care. Go away. In Brussels I had to reserve a room for the night because I missed the last train to London and for tomorrow I have the option of paying £180 for a new, last minute Eurostar ticket or saving about £100, getting a really early train to the Belgian coast, cycling to France, taking the ferry to Dover and then the train to London. I might actually opt for that. At least it would be relaxing! Monday it's back to work. I think I need a holiday.

Dribbling tired

Well, I suppose there has to be one day in a long bike trip that is just work. That was today. It got off to a bad start last night because the stupid neighbours had their TV going until late. So, I started off the day exhausted. The ride itself, 94 miles, was actually, generally, a gorgeous ride. Rolling farmland, forest, towns full of slightly mouldering old houses. Reminded me of England. I was so tired though it all kind of blurred together, plus their was a headwind the whole day, plus there were several very heavy rainstorms, several suggested bike routes that turned to dirt and, to cap it off, I had to wait 40 minutes for a train to take me the last 3 miles because bikes weren't allowed over the only bridge for miles on the Elbe. So, I got to this weird little hotel on a tiny backstreet in this exceptionally quiet town, had a very quick shower then absolutely stuffed myself with a set menu dinner that turned out to include a large pile of mushrooms and tomatoes. I ate them and didn't even cry much. Anyway, tomorrow is Berlin... Good god I'm full. Always great to go to bed right after a 4 course dinner!