Curtains down on 'Day 4'

Its 6 o'clock in the evening now and its already pitch dark outside. After a brief chat with my friend and a double-entendre comment on buzz, i am here to blog. Come to think of it, blogspot has become my personal diary now. Wonder if mine will become the new-age Anne Frank diary, i mean only the fame bit of it.

Friday I went to work, my first day in the Ladbrokes office - all suited up and smart(have a slightly high opinion of myself after wearing the suit).


It was a tough first day, a real tough first day.

• First of, i was introduced the team, and what a team it was. 2 Greeks, 1 Italian, 1 Chinese and 1 Brit. Well, the introduction did not go as expected, my managers back in India would have been a tad bit disaapointed with my performance. I was clearly told, again and again, to get introduced and hand-over my business card to the client. I had mentally rehersed meeting each stake holder individually and handing my card to them, but with the whole team around me and with their Friday dressing and their cool, jovial attitude and with the introductions happening on a first name basis I just could not slip my hand into my pocket to pull out my business card.
• After the introductions I had nothing much to do except stay put in my place. I just acted busy, all serious in the face and all suited up below the face.
• The lunch I picked seemed to have tiny pieces of something stuck all around the pasta. Sensed something fishy, or rather chickeny, and left all of it.
• It was soon 6 PM and it was a Friday. Friday nights in Ladbrokes are the 'Village Inn' nights, a pub just 200 mts away. So, off I went with the team and downed a couple of glasses of beer. A Carlsberg and a Guiness. The greeks in the team were totally amused by me being vegetarian and all conversation with me revolved around it.A couple of hoours in the pub and then we called it a day.

Clearly, a very difficult first day.

The plan was to go and check out houses on Saturday. An eager beaver that I was, woke up early and started looking at the ad's in GumTree.com. A bit of Monica creeped into me, I created an excel with color coding to make of list of houses that I would check out and the I would not and so on. The excitement did not last very long - most house-owners did not in recieve my calls, and the ones that did wanted me to check out the house on a weekday. Such a waste of a weekend I thought. Finally, one guy invited me for a viewing. A sri-lankan with 2 persian cats in the house and a strong smell of something not very nice in the house. I walked back dejected. A lil while later Ageesh decided to drop by to my room for drinks. We went to the nearest Tesco(huuuuuuuuge) and grabbed some beers and chips and drank away to glory and then the day just ended. I survived yet another day in the alien land, but had still not seen snow.

Today was great. Quite simply, I found a house in a street right behind where my office is. The rent just what I was looking for. The house very clean. The owner, a very sweet sri-lankan lady. So what if the room is tiny, every room here is tiny (reminds me of the Munnbhai dialogue about the hostel room - 'Bhai yeh room to shuru hote hi khatam ho gaya'). Grabbed some rice and chole and had a good lunch. Saw some stupid shows on TV. Had a nice relaxed bath in the tub(hope I don't used to the tub, definitely wont find one in India). Will now read a book and go to bed. A nice day of solitude.

Wonder why I keep playing the 'Careless whisper' in my mind...