My 3 bedroom flat is alright

So I moved into the flat july 19^th and the following day was a bright and shinny Sunday at church. Peter and I went down around 12:30pm to begin setting up for the service. It’s interesting to write about everyone now that I know them, but I will recall my impressions. The first to show up were the worship team, Matsy and Alex,….. you know what I don’t feel like giving a bio on everyone so I’ll just write of the day and we’ll see what happens. Next I met Michael who is a soft spoken with a proper British accent, though his origin is France. That was one thing I enjoyed about the move at first was listening to all the accents, because you get a lot of them. Like when you hear a Pakistani woman at the local greasy spoon talk to you with a British accent accompanied by Pakistani overtones, it’s quite the bit to digest. When Alex prayed it just sounded so civil, ‘’Fow-thur Gowd’’ she says.

So church is a little bit different than the churches I’ve gone to back home, but I don’t think it had too much to do with where I was, more so just another church with its own taste. Now there were some distinguishing features. There were 8 of us and I was the only obviously white person, though Matsy is half white and Leonie is Africanas mix. We are a bit of a mix in our church. Mrs. Henderson is from Zimbabwe, so is Matsy, but Mr. Henderson is from England. Michael from France, Pastor Peter from Guyana where he was raised Moslem, Alex from Marisa and I from Canadia. There is also Joel who was not there that day, he’s British, and Sam comes to our bible study, he’s from somewhere in Africa. Oh yeah, the pastors woman, Caran is British as far as I know, but I think she has American roots. This is dragging on. So church was a good time. I’ve never been one for shouting pastors, and I’ve probably written off or lost appreciation for a few messages because they came from the mouth of a shouting preacher man; but I got to know Peter before I ever heard him preach so this exposure of true character gave him an advantage against the evil forces of my critical mind. Sometimes you wonder if God is trying to teach you a lesson or two when you wake up and things are not the way they’ve been for the last 26 years. Sometimes God will drop you in a house with a shouting preacher to teach you how to love diversity and see sincere. If things keep up in this manner I am sure to find myself keeping company with flag wavers and Peter Popoff. So church was a good time, and after church we always play games like pingpong and pool, but I had to leave early because I was going to the 5pm service at Hill Song church in central London. This church takes place in one of the theatres where We Will Rock You is currently playing, the Musical compiled of songs written by Queen. So there are a lot of people there, and I’m not 100% on this but I think they have a congregation of 10,000. It too was a great service, despite the smoke machine. Their Pastor is George, and he had some good things to say. Such as when he was going through prayer requests and he was open about how they enjoy praying for peoples needs. This was accentuated by such a comment as this, “If you suffer from an illness you can be healed. If you are broke then chances are you are an ideate.” At which point I swallowed my Amen. After the service I chatted a bit with some of the people I met at the BBQ the night before, and I also got introduced to some new people. Then I went out to eat with Grace, her cousin and her granddad. We went to an area that used to be on the outskirts of London, designated for outcasts. There were Asian restaurants, art types and homosexuals. There were these two guys dressed in booty shorts and covered in gold glitter whom people were getting their picture taken with. As the picture was being taken I watched as granddad rushed to get in the shot. In reality he was just trying to get a look at a street sign, but I would love to have a copy. On our way out of the restaurant granddad caught sight of the lovely restaurant he had come to with his wife some years before. As he made his was over among a slew of pretty young men Grace tried to coax him out of going in while I tried to coax Grace into letting Granddad have his way. I was even willing to sacrifice having my bottom grabbed once or twice for the sake of the story, but alas, the venture did not transpire and I am left with a stale What-If. On the way to the train station we walked through Trafalgar Square and had a look at some touristy things. Another day, done.

The next few days were a bit up and down as my mind was adapting to my new environment. It reminded me of the first month of tree planting when I would get back out into the woods and feel like I wanted to go home. Like I didn’t want to spend 3 months in a tent. When I get in a new environment my mind has to adapt to a lot of change. New stimuli. A different set of neurons firing off up there, and a whole set of the routine neurons that are left dormant and confused. I would dream as if I were home and open my eyes in a strange bed. Anxiety would grip me without needing anything to blame it on, and I couldn’t just go to my room and take a nap or walk around the neighbourhood I grew up in. I would wake up without a routine, and shower in a strange bathroom praying for the anxiety to leave me. I found I would feel better once I got through the afternoon and got a few things done, but waking up was so hard. I had terrible dreams. I found my heart and mind being thrown back into where I was in April, right after Laura and I broke up. I would dream about seeing her at a friends house and finding out she was with some dirt bag like Mr. Flaky. (There might be 3 people who know who this is.) Or I would run into her and she would be all healed up inside and different while I was fresh and aching. I’ve never experienced this before. I’ve been through a few break-ups and I can usually gage how I should feel by a certain time past the initial break-up, but this threw my theory out the window. I was waking up with the sort of feelings you get when you are doing psychotic things you shouldn’t be into, such as looking at pictures of your ex online with other people, or calling their number to hear them say hello before hanging up (I’ve never done that by the way, that’s a bit much for me, but you get the idea). I felt like I was being cheated. I was doing my best to keep on track and maintain a clear head space and I had these emotional dreams coming out of malignant synapses. Anyways, that was rough. Job hunting was not too much fun either, and every time I went somewhere I got lost. Sometimes it was to my advantage because I would end up fining something else or finding a new route on the buses.

Some other things I’ve done: I met Ceara’s friend Erin and we’ve hung out a few times. I went to the Camden Market with she and Paul, this other guy who was shopping for an Old Greg costume for the Under The Sea Festival or something like that. Camden is north of London and it’s where Amy Winehouse is said to be when the tabloids get all those glamour shots of Amy smoking rollies through an inebriated face. I went to the 99p shop where you can get 4 snickers bars for £1 or two 250g bags of Doritos for £1 and other such deals. Too bad it’s so far from where I live, though there is a Pound Land which has some great deals as well.

After Camden we went to see the new Batman flick. I thought it was dope but it was dark, though it is called The Dark Knight. I also found the twists and whatnot to be a bit sporadic and not very impressive. The big question is, what was Scarecrow doing in the second scene for about two lines and a head shot before he was shipped off to jail with no further mention. Was that somehow closure for Batman Beginnings, or did his contract fall through and they had to make due with the footage they had. I don’t even remember how that movie ended, but I would think that Scarecrow was locked away. Enough about that.

One Thursday Michael took me to ice skating which is only about 20 minutes away on the bus. I couldn’t believe it, and I was so happy I had chosen to bring my skates. It felt good to be in the rink and skating around. Most of the people were wearing the blue plastic rental skates that look like ski boots. I can’t imagine having to wear them, it’s no wonder so many people were hugging the boards. When I first began my life I never would have though that one day I would be ice skating in the UK in July, but there I was. I would say 98% of the people there were renting skates and it is easily comparable to the phenomenon of bowling back home. We go bowling for fun, but no body owns their own shoes or balls, and nobody is ever very good. I’ve also noticed that I am a minority in my neighbourhood and the surrounding area. Enough so that I notice when I see a white person. One thing that catches me off guard is when some thug in the back of the bus is talking on his mobile really loud like with a proper British accent. It’s just not gangster, but the way he’s talk about making deals is.

After skating Michael took me to a Jamaican joint for some Jerk Chicken; it’s dope. None of this is a shock or bazaar to me, but for those who may be reading and have not been to Newfoundland you should know everything is very Anglo Saxon there. You go to Sal’s Pizza for a taste of Italian, even though Sal is from Mexico, because nobody knows the difference. All our cab drivers are what because anyone who is coming to Newfoundland from outside of North America is a Doctor, and if you are second generation then your parents are Doctors and you are too. In my graduation class of almost 274 students there were less than 20 who were not White. The only time I would ever get to experience being a minority would be at Eric and Mator’s parties. I’m starting to get sleepy and tired of writing but I did want to mention a few other nick nacks. Crazy cars over here, Roles Royce, Austin Martin, Ferraris, Lotus, all kinds of sick BMW’s and Mercedes and these little souped-up cars like Ali G’s that have all brand names taken off. Lots of good places to eat around here, and you can get cheap chicken and chips everywhere. Down at Dollar chicken a # 10 is £2 for a breast, 4 spicy wings and chips. The only skate shop I found is closing down in a month, dull. They had some crazy shoes there though, especially in the last pair section which is full of size 8’s. They have 4 different pairs of saviours, which haven’t been in production in about 5 years.

Yeah just sort of hit a writing wall and I also find this game of catch up to my present day events is causing my writing to be dragged out. bare with me, I hope to liven up a bit once I'm writing about the present. That's it for now, get er done.