Working for the (wo)man every night and day

Saturday morning here is Weymouth! Apologies to the loyal blog readers out there. I have been working very long hours and have not had a chance to post in a while. I started work last thursday and in 9 days I worked 95 hours. I closed every single night. Needless to say I am a bit tired. But to be honest, this is the best job I have ever had. I like it so much better than retail. Rather than people coming in top the store and having to sell them things, they come up to the bar and demand to be sold something! It makes my life a whole lot easier.

The first day I was thrown on the bar and it was sink or swim. Despite what my resume said, I had never worked in a bar before. It was a busy thursday and I just went back there knowing nothing. Ever heard of a bitter shandy? It's a half-lemonade (carbonated like sprite, not the pink stuff at picnics) and half ale. Crazy English. So I had to learn all new drinks and how to use the computer system. Meanwhile the lineup for drinks went out the door of the pub. It was pretty intimidating. I think that the only reason I did as well as I did was because I had worked at the Grand Prixs for so long and I was used to big crowds and a quick-paced environment. Anyways, by the end of my first shift I had the hang of things. Lucky, because the next day I had a 12 hour shift on a busy friday night. This is a very busy pub. The wait for food at dinner time is always over an hour and usually closer to 2 hours and people still wait.

After a couple of nights I got the hang of things and 2 new girls started on the floor (waitress basically) called Courtney and Nicole. They were basically hired with Dzido and I and are really nice. At the end of the night we were cleaning up and I was basically supervising them and another guy doing clean up. So 4 shifts in the manager pulled me into her office and told me she thought I was amazing and wanted to give me a raise or promote me to supervisor, but that there was a freeze on promotions and raises in the company. Took me 4 shifts to get offered a raise. Not bad. So the idea of me working anywhere but the bar is basically banished from Sonia's (my manger) mind. Which is good because I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

You may be wondering about tips. Unlike Montreal where you tip every drink, here you almost never tip. I am very friendly and (I think) a good bartender and I get only a few tips per night (which is split amongst the staff). But I do have some people who come in each night and buy me a beer for when I get off work, which is really nice. The pub is also a bed and breakfast and last night one of our guests was so impressed by the service that he bought the entire staff a round.

I won't say that it is all good. Some of the people I work with are really incompetant, but most are ok and all are very nice. Which kinda makes it harder for me to call them morons to their face. The customers are generally nice at the bar and only complain about the wait for food, but I don't have to deal with that as much. Also, most people love to hear my accent. At the end of the night we have a bell that gets rung to annouce that the bar is closed. The line is 'That's time at the bar' but since I took over that job I have added a line or two each night to spice it up. Last night I threw in a 'Thanks for coming eh!' I got a round of applause from some of the guests and one guy came and bought me a beer. Being a foreigner can be a lot of fun.

Hopefully my hours will slow down a bit next week, though not too much since I do need the money. It looks like I will get mornings off and work the afternoons, but that is only if I don't get called in, which seems to happen whenever I have time off.

Oh, one homesick moment- I met a guy who gives tours of Canada for a company and we talked about our favourite Montreal bars. He mentioned Brutopia and the raspberry beer and I really craved it. Sigh....

Best wishes to all, I promise it wont be so long until my next post and there WILL be picture of the bar and some funny ones from the European leg of the trip that I didn't get to upload yet.

It's not a divorce...just a separation

After 2 Europe trips and 3 years of living together, Dzido and I are no longer going to be living together. He has arrived in Weymouth and is in a different staff house than I am. Yeah it's a minute walk away, but it just isn't going to be the same. Told myself I wouldn't cry.

Actually the accomodation is pretty sweet. I am sharing a bedroom flat with an Aussie couple, Emma and Shannon and they are really nice. Plus I have my own room and bathroom. The apartment has a small fridge, gas stove and a TV. I really couldn't ask for more. Well...actually someone else is living in my room right now and I am sleeping on the couch, but that will change in the next couple of days.

The people at the bar all seem really nice. Everyone is easy going and has welcomed me with open arms. Weymouth is an interesting city...ok well not really. It is just a tourist destination for Britons looking for some sun, but it is fine for the summer. I will try and take some pictures soon. As for now I am off to my first shift

The rumours are true

Yes, I have found a job! And I must bid goodbye to fair London. The job is out in Dorset near a town called Weymouth at a place called the Smugglers Inn (check it out: http://www.innforanight.co.uk/Smugglers_Think.asp)

I leave for Dorset today (the 18th) and I am really excited to start. My boss (Sonya or Sonia) seems really nice. In fact, she is picking me up at the train station today and driving me to my accomodation. There also seem to be a lot of travellers that work at the bar. She mentioned some Aussies and Kiwis that also work there and we all live together in a big house in Weymouth. I am not sure how long I will stay at this job, but certainly until the end of the summer. It sounds like I can make some good money and then maybe come back to London. But the fact is that I am broke right now and I need to start a job ASAP. Plus living expenses out there are much much less than in London.

So that is the big news of the day. Other than that I have just been enjoying London. Went to the National Gallery yesterday, which I loved. It is a great place beacuse it is so much smaller and more managable compared to the Louve or other large museums. You really feel like you get to see everything really well. Also went to the Tate Modern, which was ok. I am not sure I really "get" a lot of modern art. For example, there was one piece in which the artist dressed up in a clown suit and jumped up and down screaming "NO NO NO NO NO" like a child and made a video of it. The video plays on a screen in the gallery....like I said, I just don't get it. But some of the stuff was cool and it was a free museum, so no complaints there.

So today I leave the hostel life and finally stop living out of a backpack. I mean I love travelling, but having my own space will be great and not wearing wrinkly or smelly clothes will be great too! Next blog will come from Dorset!

So this is what being unemployed and homeless feels like

Well, the job hunt contiues, but still no luck. The agencies that we are in contact with are having trouble placing people these days because of the downturn in barwork after the World Cup ending. WI am hearing the same thing whenever I drop off resumes at bars on my own. But hope is not lost, there is plenty to do in London. I have been sending resumes to as many different jobs as I can and I am not discouraged. Although it is funny to no longer be either traveling or a student and to be officially 'unemployed'.

However, the fact that I am in London certainly raises my spirits. Yesterday Dzido and I went to the War Cabnits and Winston Churchill museum which was a lot of fun. They really do their museums right here. This one had recordings of Churchill's most famous speeches and they still give me chills to hear some of them. Today, after some job hunting, I am going to head downtown to the Tate Modern. I missed it on my last trip and even if I don't like it, it is a free museum! I think I am starting to get into the midset of living here since I switched from my travel wallet that goes around my waist to my real wallet. A sure sign of settling down...especially if I get robbed.

The hostel we are in is a bit crazy. Half of it is the British International School, so there are a lot of younger kids running around. Also, we have moved room every single night we have been there and it is getting old. To be honest I just want out of the hostel life. Getting a real apartment sounds really good right now. I mean this place doesn't even have an egg carton tower!

So things are good here. The weather hasn't been too bad and the novelty of living in London still has not worn off. I also have a phone number if you ever want to call me (or Dziod, since we still can't afford our own phones): 011 44 079.4446.0045

I have not had time to continue one of my favourite things on this blog and that is the weird sign thing. I picked up a few more:





This one is from Spain. I know, a lot of them have to do with dogs pooing, but this one only bans poodles. I also think the detail is a little over the top.







This one is a little hazy, but you get the idea. Don't angle the ketchup bottle at all. NOT ONE BIT! If you do, it self-destructs.








That is all I have right now. Hope you are all well!

London Calling

I have made it to London. Left Spain where it was sunny and 30 degrees to land in Lutton....where it was 18 and raining. Why am I here again?

Actually I am really excited to be in London. Get to see all my history stuff firsthand! Also, I no longer have to use Dzido as a translator for Polish and Spanish. Today the job hunt begins!

I ran with the bulls (note the past tense)

When I arrived in Tarragona this morning, I had not slept in a real bed in 3 days. I had not showered or removed my socks in 4 days, I had a week long beard going, I had barely eaten...and yet somehow, I think I still had a smile on my face. But I must backtrack first.

I don´t think that if I were to write 10 000 words that I could come even close to describing what the last 3 days have been like. So what follows is only a brief account of what happened. I think that this story is best told over a good bottle of wine or a round a frosty pints that I hope to share with all of you soon. But here it goes:

The trip up to Pamplona in the car was with 4 other people, Dzido (of course), Steph and Krista (our two new friends from California) and Louis (a guy from Quebec City we met at the hostel in Madrid). So the 5 of us piled into our rented Peugeot and set off. The drive to Pamplona is beautiful, through the rolling hills and moutains of rural Spain. After a short stop, and getting slightly lost, which was saved only by Dzido and Louis doing some creative navigating, we made it Pamplona....at about 1:30am. The festival had already began and the first running was to be at 8am, so we had only a few hours to sleep. The car became our hostel (which was also it´s nickname) while Dzido and I slept on the ground in our sleeping bags.

We awoke the next morning and headed down to the run site. We had certain expectations about what we were facing. As I told many of you, the plan was to run for a little while and then jump over the barriers. Such primative notions were put to rest when we saw the course. There was pretty much no escape. There are some areas with fences, but they offer little protection. Basically, the run is down a very narrow street with no escape. We scouted the route, even went and saw the bulls in their pen as they waited for the chance to run us down. The excitement was building. Unfortunately for us, we chose a bad spot on the track to stand and at around 7:30 the police came in and started to remove everyone. We are not sure why, perhaps to get rid of tourists, or to lessen the crowds. But in any case we were removed from the track and forced to watch the first run. The girls were able to sneak back in and do that mornings run, bu the guys would have to wait until the next day.

Luckily, there is a lot to do besides just running with the bulls at this huge festival known as San Fermin. After a little nap, we began a day long party in the streets. The atmosphere is almost impossible to describe. Every single person is dressed head to tow in white and wearing either a red scarf around their neck or a sash. We had both, and I must say, I really wish I had more chances to wear a stylish sash! The streets are absolutely packed with people partying, drinking everywhere. They sell cheap champagne (3 euro per bottle) just so people can spray it everywhere. Throughout the evening random parades snake through the widy cobblestone streets. Some carry banners, usually messages supporting the Basques, but there were some that were just parades of intruments that people followed at random and danced along to.

We got really lucky because at one of the first places we stopped we made friends with a local guy called Xavier and his girlfriend. They are two Basques who live in Pamplona and who became determined to show us the REAL party, not just the tourist spots. For the rest of the day they were our guides to the chaos. We went to Basque bars, listened to their music, drank their drinks and partied all day long. It was amazing.

But the bulls run the next morning was still the priority, so we went to bed relatively early and got up the next morning at 6am to go down to the track and get a good spot. Nothing was going to stop us from running that day. The three boys looked quite the part. All decked out in white and red, exited and nervous as we waited until 8am for the first firework that tells you the bulls have been let out. The feeling on the streets beforehand is something I will always remember. Time seems to slow down as you check your watch constantly, hoping that 8am will soon arrive. Meanwhile, crews clean the streets of the debris from the previous night´s party. At 7:30 the track is closed off and no one else is allowed on. By this point the crowds on the streets have started to thin out a bit, as onlookers look for a good place to watch, which is hard to come by unles you stake it out early. The balconies that line the streets begin to fill up with people, who pay up to 2000 euros for the apartments for the week of the festival.

With 10 minutes to go before the run the crowd has thinned considerably. Those who don´t want to run have left and it is only those who will actually put themselves in front of bulls that remain. Dzido and I left Louis, who began the run in one of the corners, and headed for the straight away where we wanted to begin out run. At this point I my stomach was doing somersaults (also I was sick that morning, but that was from a long day of partying) and the anticpiation was reaching a fever pitch. At one point I looked down at my watch and it read 8am. My heart nearly beat out of chest. The next thing I heard was the first firework. The first bull was out of the pen. Some people around us began to run fast down the street, but those guys can´t say they ran with the bulls, they ran FROM them. We stood for a few seconds and heard the second firework that meant that all of the bulls were out of the pen. It seemed like hours, then the crowd started to push and we began to jog with it. Still, we wanted to make sure we didn´t just run to the end without having seen a bull. At some point the panic of the crowd reached a fever pitch and Dzido and I got seperated and it was every man for himself. I ran as fast as I could, not knowing where the bull was. You cant run with your head turned because of the massive crunch of people. The real fear is that if you stumble or the person in front of you stumbles, then you will fall and get trampled. The advice we were given is that if you go down, STAY DOWN. The bulls will try and avoid you, my problem was that the crowds wouldn´t.

So I pushed as hard as I could against the people in front of my and I noticed that no one was standing around looking anymore. I remember looking forward to avoid tripping, when I caught something in the corner of my eye. I was running down the right side of the track, towards the middle and I looked just in time to see the pack of bulls rush by me. I was maybe 2 or 3 feet from them, I thought I could easily have reached out and touched them as they went by me. Literally, there was no one between me and the bulls, I was on the very outside of the mob of people. The rush that I felt at that moment is something I will never forget.

I didnt have long to enjoy what I had seen. I kept running so as to get into the stadium but someone had fallen in the crowd and a pile formed in front of my. It took all the effort I had not to go down too as I jumped over it while being pushed from behind by the mob. I almost tripped, but managed to stay on my feet and continue towards the stadium. This sounds like it took place over a long period of time, but all of this happened in a few seconds, over a strech of few hundred meters (the entire course is only 800m) .

As I hit the crunch before the stadium I pushed my way through and entered the huge arena. The feeling of entering to a massive crowd of people cheering you on is another feeling that I will never forget. The adrenaline is at its peak, and suddenly I became aware of the fact that I was completely out of breath. I ran to the right as soon as I got into the stadium. Some people were climbing over the barriers, but I wanted to stay in the ring for a while. Then I heard the final firework that said they were all in their pens in the stadium. Some straggler of a bull was still behind me while I did the final strech. With the last firework comes a massive cheer from the crowd, while everyone on the ground in the stadium starts to congratulate one another. It is an insane feeling. You have just run with the bulls.

After a few minutes of looking around, Dzido was able to find me. After some celebrating he looks at me and asks ¨Is that blood on your shirt?¨ I hadn´t noticed it, and it wasn´t mine, but somewhere along the run my white shirt was stained with blood. I still have no idea where it might have some from.

What happened next is hard to describe. They actually re-release the bulls one at a time (and sometimes two at a time) into the ring full of people to...well...play with. The bulls run around through the crowd while we try our best to avoid them. The crowd cheers as the bulls hit some people and narrowly miss others. More people are bowing out by this time, jumping over the walls to get out. But we (Louis included, who narrowly missed the bulls in the corner and has just found us) decided to stick it out a bit longer. We ran with the crowd and saw people getting hit, trying to stay as far away as possible. At one point I saw a bull headed towards me as the crowd packed against the wall. I didn´t want to be on the outside so I decided to make a break for it and cut right in from of the bull. I was maybe 10 feet in front of it, staring at its face while it looked right at me, I was in the wide open, facing down a bull. It turned slightly, by the movement just caught its eye and it decided to go for Louis instead, who had to run away from it along the side. That was easily the scariest moment of my life. (A note on that picture, it was taken as a bull was being released into the ring, hence the fear in our eyes, Dzido was saying ¨Hurry Hurry, there is a bull in the ring!¨)

After playing with the bulls for a little while, we made our exit. I had done it. I had run with the bulls and escaped to tell about it. For those who think it is easy, I point out that getting to the stadium is considered a huge accomplishment, and that a 31 year old American was paralyzed the day before. It is not for the faint of heart. But after 3 years of wanting to do it, I have finally run with the bulls.

So that is my story. As I said, a lot has been left out and I hope to give a full account of it to all of you one day. But I am safe and have made it to Tarragona. I have one more night here in Spain and then it is off to London to find a job. The blog will continue of course, but this ends the travelling leg of the trip...at least for now :)

Still in Sevilla

The randomness of the trip continues. We were unable to get a hostel in Toledo, so instead we are staying in Sevilla for another day, then going to Salamanca and then Madrid...at least that is the plan for now. This is a common occurance: us at a pay phone changing plans at the last minute.

Our World Cup curse has been solved! It is in fact Dzido who is cursed. I cheered for France, he cheered for Brazil and we all know the result. So at least that mystery is solved. We watched the two games yesterday at an American bar here in Sevilla. nice atmosphere. Both times there were lots of supporters for both teams, which always makes it fun. After a few cervezas over the course of two games, we decided that it was time to celebrate the birth of our nation with another appearance of Captain Canada. I put on the flag as a cape again and we roamed the streets of Sevilla.

We started off at an outdoor bar. People just buy drinks and basically sit and stand in the streets. It was really cool. When we walked up two guys spotted the flag and called us over. One was an English guy named Paul and the other was an Italian Santos (I think). They were in Sevilla as contractors for a telecom company and were having a night out. So we started talking to them and they turned out to be really interesting. The English guy was in the army, now does telecom work. Did a tour in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Both talked a lot about how funny life is and how you never end up where you think you will. They were also nice about buying drinks for poor travellers, especially since it was Canada day, so once the bar closed down we went and found another place. The atmosphere in these little streets when the bars spill out is really amazing.

So after a few more rounds (for those of you keeping track at home we have been to a few soccer games and a few bars at this point) some American girls recognized our flag and came to talk to us. They said they were desperate for some English speakers to talk to. So we chatted with them for a while and our two friends decided to call it a night. After another round I decided that I needed to go to bed. It had been a long day. So I head home....or at least where I thought was home. At this point it is necessary to give you some idea of how hard it is to navigate in Sevilla. The streets are very narrow and the buildings go up a few stories, so you can't really see too far in any direction. This removes all reference points and leaves you pretty disoriented when you come out of a bar...say at 2am....hypothetically.....yes. So I left the bar thinking I was heading home when really I was going nowhere near home. This morning Dzido and I had the following exchange:
Dzido: So when you came out of the bar and went left...
Paul: Oh no, I went right.
Dzido: Ohhh boy. That's where you went wrong.

Basically I walked the exact opposite direction. So there I was. Wandering the streets of Sevilla with my Canada cape on, not able to find my way home. Once I realized that I was lost (and admitadly that took some time) I thought it was a fun little adventure, sure that I would soon find something familar...45 minutes later I didn't think it was so fun. I was really lost. Not cute lost, where you find new things and sorta laugh about it, I was worried. I had a map, but the streets were too small and I couldn't locate where I was. Thankfully, I found some Americans who were able to aim me towards the Cathedral (the 3rd largest in the world, but which I could not locate) and I made it home after wandering for an hour. Really my only worry was that my legs would give out and I would have to sleep on the street. Oh what fun traveling is. (The picture is of my lost in the hedge maze at the Real Alazar in Sevilla...I imagine I had a similar expression on my face while I was lost).

Oh and to make all of this travel stuff even better: I am without a debit card. It has somehow become demagnatized and I can't get any money out. Oh boy. That is a problem that will require some solving. Traveling is so fun. Oh, and here is a picture of me with a duck.