Sunday 3rd: So I arrived at a colleague's flat (his name is Andrew and he's rather pleasant) in Teddington/Richmond in the hope that it would be easier to get a taxi as he lives fairly close to Heathrow. The night was spent with two other colleagues (Nick 'the Shadow' Everritt and James Fielding) eating pizza and playing all manner of bizarre racing simulation games (definitely not arcade games). It was very nice reminding myself which one the accelerator pedal was. Anyway, it gets to midnight and we still haven't booked a taxi...for our 7:05am flight...which requires us to get there for 5:30am. We try some numbers and it becomes painfully clear that we're not going to get a taxi. On the plus side, it sounded like a couple of these taxi businesses were home run, so I was personally responsible for ruining a couple of people's Sunday night. We decide to forgo sleep in order to successfully get a night bus to Heathrow and therefore we played poker to stay awake. I now owe Andrew £5. Actually, I owe him a bit more for pizza as well.
Monday 4th: Turns out Heathrow Terminal 5 is rather nice. Very clean looking. The flight was as comfy as a flight could be. I was expecting a pleasant breakfast, but was severely disappointed. A ham and mayonnaise roll does not a good breakfast make. I was also expecting no one to leave chewing gum on the way were I was resting my leg by way of my rolled up jacket. My black suit jacket is now a write off. Huzzah. Time for a new three piece? The coffee was awful too, in fact the coffee was awful on the whole trip which caused me great pain given the amount I had to ingest to stay awake. Anyway, a 2 hour chat to one of my managers and a half hour snooze later, we were there and the conference began. Logistically, it was an absolute nightmare. Trying to move 400 actuaries around several hotels and conference rooms is not easy, especially given the early flight and some speakers inconsiderately going over their allotted time, causing us to miss some shuttle buses (this was a frequent occurrence). Grr. Basically, the majority of the trip was spent listening to people talk in dark rooms. On note of room, my room at the hotel was incredible (as evidenced by the following pictures - ooh, multimedia). I wish I had spent more than twenty minutes conscious in it.
Compare this to my room currently:
The evening was spent at the Marriott (I drafted this on their stationary). Terrible food but plenty of free drink. Bed time at 3:30am.
Tuesday 5th: Wake up time 7:00am, 3 hours and a half sleep. More talks. Lunch was the previous night's dinner reheated. Watered down coffee was hurriedly consumed between sessions and before you could blink, the evening's festivities were upon us. We had been promised a two hour gap, but due to the previously mentioned speakers, this turned into half an hour, thus ruining my chances of using the gym and the swimming pool. The dinner was much better than the night before, but the "networking" event planned was ruined by an incredibly loud band playing in the rather cramped social hall, so the majority of people stood outside in the heat than face that awful racket (gosh, I sound so old!). The night then descended into the same sort of mess as the prior night, except I didn't drink as much. That didn't stop me from being the last person standing. 5:30am, everyone else went to bed. I decided that this was the perfect time to hit the gym (well, small exercise room - nice equipment though, even though I couldn't work out the treadmill) and then after that, the swimming pool. Nothing like an early morning dip. I went back to my room, packed and looked at my watch. The time was 6:45. I was elated. An all nighter and I'll make the morning's first session. That'll show my far drunker colleagues. 15 minutes until breakfast. "I'll just sit down for a second" I remember thinking and probably saying to myself (my brain had more than likely turned to drool at this point). Bam. It's 10:30am.
Wednesday 6th: Taxi across (no shuttle buses after 8am). Nothing else worth commenting on except I wasn't the only late comer and I was far better dressed than some people (most of my shirts were wrecked from leaky mouth wash in transit - thankfully I'd saved my awesome fitted CK shirt, non iron and it makes me look like I work out far more than I do). After seminars there was plenty of time for pool action (my flight departed Roma at 9:15pm, the seminars finished at 4pm). I had a gelato at the airport. Highlight of the trip. One incredibly sleepy flight and one scary taxi later, I arrived home at 1am Thursday morning.
It's not like I got a good night's sleep on Thursday night either, I had tickets to Death Cab For Cutie! Which I went to! With my good friends Mike Hewitt and Iain McGibbon (both med students)! And also Paul! A colleague on secondment from Chicago! I was a big Death Cab fan back in my High School/Sixth Form days, but after/during Plans, I kind of lost track with them. The set list was a nice mix of stuff I knew and new stuff. I'm tempted to pick up the albums I've missed after that show. No Brothers On A Hotel Bed, but apart from that, there wasn't anything else missing that I was dying to hear. So the show was good, only great because I knew all the words and was standing in the second row, centre stage. It got me thinking about a conversation I had with a housemate about the band Feeder. He said they were amazing live and I was skeptical. I couldn't see them doing anything incredible that would make a great live show except be generally amiable and play a fan friendly set list, which is exactly what Death Cab did. Not going to bring over any new converts, but not going to lose them fans.
The big surprise from the gig was actually the support band, the Head and the Heart. I've usually had good experience with support bands. Even if they're fantastic, there's a less than favourable chance of support bands making it big, so I like to jump in quick, grab some EPs and then these songs become staples of my mix tapes (well, back in the day, I don't go to so many shows these days). I can honestly say, the Head and the Heart were one of the top two support bands I've seen (it's tight between them and Owen Pallet - he might edge it given he sold me a t-shirt personally in a flirty manner). They reminded me why I enjoyed playing music so much. I wish I could have joined them onstage so much! Looked like they were having a whale of a time. I'm a big fan of fuzzy lo-fi music, so seeing them battle against their road weary equipment added to the quality of the performance. I shall be buying their records and t-shirts shortly, but in the mean time, enjoy this youtube video!
So what does the next week bring? Hopefully nothing as hectic. My immune system couldn't cope.
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Other Musings
My jogging mixtape is finished!!! Get in touch if you want a link to it. I'm a huge geek so it's not like 30 tracks, it's two tracks 45 mins (roughly) each. I usually add a load of film quotes and the like, but I struggled to find anything good on the concept of jogging. Maybe when I get a new laptop, I'll get back into this mixtape malarky.
Look! It's a letter! It says that most of my road is being closed off for filming a film with an internationally known cast. Quick research on t'interweb tells me that the cast includes Dakota Fanning and Paddy Considine. In your face Hollywood. Personalised letters! I think I'll move one of my study days to that day and have a good perve on camera equipment. Expect a report back.
British GP has just passed. Was rather good. Still don't understand the new track though.
Less than four weeks to Tokyo, less than eight weeks until moving to a new flat, less than nine weeks until exams.
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