HAPPY LEAP DAY!

I think the Leap Day that occurs once every four years should be a holiday, don't you? It's a unique day: a "catch-up" day because the mathematics of a 365-day year doesn't quite match the physics of the earth's orbit around the sun. I think that deserves a public holiday; that way I could catch up on the sleep I've missed because the mathematics of working all day and socialising in the evening doesn't quite match the physics of requiring 8 hours of rest every night.

I've been very slack in writing since I moved back to London. Partly it's because life has been so hectic. I've been looking for a job and a flat, catching up with friends, trying to enjoy all that London life has to offer (to those on a modest budget at least) and doing all this while flitting around between friends' sofas while I wait for my new room to become vacant. The other reason I've been so slow at writing is because now that I'm settling back into normal life I assume that I don't have anything interesting to say. Being on holidays is one thing, I can convince myself that someone might like to read about my adventures in Slovakia or Abu Dhabi, but who really cares if I found a great new place for a massage today, or that I helped a guy who fell down the Underground stairs during peak hour, or that I learned the Polish work for "f*ck off"?

I think in order to blog you need to have a pretty big ego; to assume that people care about your thoughts and opinions. I don't have a big ego, but I guess I can just pretend that I'm writing to my sister and that will make it seem a little less self-indulgent. I'll see how that works out:

So, dear sister, what have I been up to these last few weeks I hear you ask? Well apart from watching Camden burn to the ground, I've been going to the theatre, doing walks both in London and out in the countryside, hanging out with friends, drinking in pubs, proofing and editing my mate's first novel, joining in as a member of the studio audience for a BBC4 quiz show, catching up on series two of Doctor Who and checking out the hot Polish labourers who come into the office where I'm temping. And no it wasn't one of them who told me to f*ck off.

Being back in London is O for Awesome (Kiwi in-joke there) and I'm trying my damnedest to arrange my work and financial situation in such a way that will allow me to switch to a longer-term visa before my current one expires next February. A pox upon all of you with British Ancestry visas or EU passsports!! I hope to have some good job news in the next week or so - will keep you posted.

CAMDEN TOWN IS BURNING DOWN

I definitely coined that phrase before Amy Winehouse blabbed it during her Grammy acceptance speech. It was while I was standing in the street, mouth open, staring at the flames leaping 30 metres in the air as the Camden markets burned. Some friends and I had arranged to meet up for drinks there last night. I was in the West End eating dinner with one of them when we got a text from another saying that there was a big fire in Camden. Fearing that they'd close down the tube and I'd miss out on drinking the night away at my favourite pub, we high-tailed it over there asap. Stepping outside the tube station I saw just how big the fire was, and these photos don't come close to doing it justice. It was awesome. My inner pyromaniac was enjoying every second of it; while one mate was cautioning me to stay back because it was "dangerous", I was itching to race closer and snap some photos before the cops and firemen pushed back the crowds. It was sooo not dangerous, we were at least two blocks away. Eventually the cops did close down the street so we went to the pub as planned. A nice little distraction, and just like the time I revelled in the building across the road from my office collapsing into the street last year I feel a guilt-free pleasure in enjoying this spectacle of destruction because nobody was injured. Damn London is fun.

PISTOL SHRIMP

I had a pretty tame Australia Day, which was just what I was after. Some friends and I did a cultural pub walk around Chelsea, but being broke and unemployed I was very restrained and sensible. Someone sent me this YouTube clip of a Pistol Shrimp, which I think is kinda cool, so I'll share that with you and delay writing anything interesting until one day when I'm feeling more inspired.

ABU DHABI

I liked Abu Dhabi. It's a strange place, a bit bland to look at and it seems to lack a strong cultural identity. I guess this is not surprising given that the city as we know it sprang into existence only recently when the progress-loving Sheikh Zayed gained power in 1966. Prior to that, the emirate consisted of a few camel herders living in mud huts in a vast expanse of desert. When oil was discovered in 1958 there were only 15,000 people living in Abu Dhabi, and now barely fifty years later it's the capital of the United Arab Emirates with a population of around 1.5 million. It doesn't have the buzz or eccentricities of its neighbour Dubai, and if truth be told doesn't seem to have much personality at all. I was only there three and a half days yet managed to see all the major sites except for one massive mosque.

So why did I like it? Basically because I was there with good friends who had an insider's view of which sites are worth visiting and also a car to get us there in comfort. Travelling by taxi is a bit of a nightmare because of the bizarre system of street addresses. Basically there isn't one. Despite the fact that the streets are all signposted using a grid system, nobody follows or understands it so you have to describe your destination by using landmarks. Obviously a bit of a challenge for a clueless tourist such as myself. This is where my fabulous friends' local knowledge and car ownership came in handy. I was visiting a mate who I haven't seen since he left Vietnam for the UK five years ago. We kept in contact once he moved to Cambridge but despite the best intentions to catch up we could never manage to be in the same country at the same time. He was one of only three people who I knew were living in Britain when I decided to move over here (the others being in York and London) but in a display of spectacularly bad timing, he moved to Abu Dhabi just one week before I landed at Heathrow. So it was great to finally catch up and spend some time hanging out with him and his wife.

I arrived at the start of the weekend (Friday-Saturday) and on the first day we checked out the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village and were treated to a strange performance. It consisted of two rows of Arabian chaps clad in the traditional long white robes (called dishdashes) and headscarves singing across at each other while swinging canes in unison. The tune was quite catchy, but unfortunately distorted through crap speakers. It was a world apart from our destination the next day, which was the gold-encrusted Emirates Palace Hotel. It can be described by only one word: opulence. It's a massive complex with its own private beach and the day we were there they were setting up a stage for the upcoming Elton John concert. Riiiight.

All in all it was a fantastic trip and my mid-journey recovery from jetlag made me even more excited about heading back to London and getting stuck back into life. I've been on holiday for the last six months and as fabulous as that has been, I'm really a bit over it and looking forward to working again. Well, more looking forward to earning money than the actual working part. I haven't gone completely mad.