The Lost Weekend
Dear Readers,
A couple of weekends ago I was out apartment hunting. I met with another English teacher who was interested in me taking over the lease to her flat which she was moving out of, and then afterwards I went to another part of town to see another available flat for rent.
When this was accomplished, I set out to meet a friend for drinks. Since I have the spatial intelligence of a dead tree I got myself promptly lost, but eventually found where I needed to be. My friend and I had a few beers and chatted and then I had to head home since it was getting late and I wanted to arrive before the more frequent “day” busses stopped.
Quite tired, I looked forward to sleeping in and then watching some episodes of “Six Feet Under” and doing some chores the next day. However, when I arrived at my flat, I realized that I had left my keys inside, which is a rarity for me since I have long-since gotten into the habit of double checking myself for my keys. This day, though, was an exception, and I found myself quite keyless at midnight. To make things even more interesting, my flatmate had just moved out that day, and my landlord was in another part of the country. I checked with the building super to get the spare set, but after checking the box of spare keys he told me the room had no spare set.
I briefly considered going some place to look up lock picking on the internet and learn enough to crack my way into my room. I quickly decided though that the most likely result would be that I’d break something off in the lock and thus be cast into yet another realm of screwed. So, frustrated and feeling rather foolish, I started calling friends who might still be up. Not surprisingly almost no one was. But luck was with me. I managed to get a hold of a friend who was asleep but had left her phone on. I briefly told her the situation and asked if I could sleep on her couch to which she agreed.
I made it to her place in a taxi since by now the metros had stopped, and she let me in. She then told me the same thing had once happened to her, and since she had no place to go, she resigned herself to just spending the night riding the night trams around town.
Saturday, late the next morning, I met some friends from my TEFL course and we got some lunch and several beers in a pub. I had to duck out early to go look at another flat I was interested in renting, but afterwards reunited with my friends back at the pub and finished most of day with them, where we explained why “Alien” was a good movie to the impoverished naysayer with us.
Later that night I met with another group of friends, one Czech and two American, at a bar called The Oak to listen to a band that a friend of theirs played in. One of the Americans was the woman who wanted me to take up the lease which I decided I couldn’t afford, but she said that I could spend the night in her room since she had moved out and my landlord wouldn’t be back till Sunday. She gave me the keys and we spend the rest of time talking till the wee hours of the morning. It ended up being a rather confusing night for me, because one of my American friends consistently gave me clothing and woman advice, but then she would go on to say that I shouldn’t listen to her because mostly she wouldn’t know what she was talking about. But that didn’t stop her from giving advice.
Sunday at noon I met up with her at an expat pancake house. I worked on a fairly big meal while she half-heartedly nursed a glass of hot water with a mint leaf in it while acting like she was made out of thin pieces of glass. She repeated several times that most of the advice she had given me was probably nonsense. I didn’t really have anything I could respond with, but despite her post-intoxication from the night before, she still had enough reserves to giggle and try to school me in the arts of sarcasm, mostly by ceaselessly being sarcastic at me.
At five that evening my landlord finally came to town and I was able to come home. Lesson planning was shot, but at least I was able to put one some desperately wanted fresh clothes after soaking in the bathtub and drinking some tea to warm me up.
And as quietly as it began, thus ends the tale of Tristan’s Topsy-Turvy Weekend.
Tristan
A couple of weekends ago I was out apartment hunting. I met with another English teacher who was interested in me taking over the lease to her flat which she was moving out of, and then afterwards I went to another part of town to see another available flat for rent.
When this was accomplished, I set out to meet a friend for drinks. Since I have the spatial intelligence of a dead tree I got myself promptly lost, but eventually found where I needed to be. My friend and I had a few beers and chatted and then I had to head home since it was getting late and I wanted to arrive before the more frequent “day” busses stopped.
Quite tired, I looked forward to sleeping in and then watching some episodes of “Six Feet Under” and doing some chores the next day. However, when I arrived at my flat, I realized that I had left my keys inside, which is a rarity for me since I have long-since gotten into the habit of double checking myself for my keys. This day, though, was an exception, and I found myself quite keyless at midnight. To make things even more interesting, my flatmate had just moved out that day, and my landlord was in another part of the country. I checked with the building super to get the spare set, but after checking the box of spare keys he told me the room had no spare set.
I briefly considered going some place to look up lock picking on the internet and learn enough to crack my way into my room. I quickly decided though that the most likely result would be that I’d break something off in the lock and thus be cast into yet another realm of screwed. So, frustrated and feeling rather foolish, I started calling friends who might still be up. Not surprisingly almost no one was. But luck was with me. I managed to get a hold of a friend who was asleep but had left her phone on. I briefly told her the situation and asked if I could sleep on her couch to which she agreed.
I made it to her place in a taxi since by now the metros had stopped, and she let me in. She then told me the same thing had once happened to her, and since she had no place to go, she resigned herself to just spending the night riding the night trams around town.
Saturday, late the next morning, I met some friends from my TEFL course and we got some lunch and several beers in a pub. I had to duck out early to go look at another flat I was interested in renting, but afterwards reunited with my friends back at the pub and finished most of day with them, where we explained why “Alien” was a good movie to the impoverished naysayer with us.
Later that night I met with another group of friends, one Czech and two American, at a bar called The Oak to listen to a band that a friend of theirs played in. One of the Americans was the woman who wanted me to take up the lease which I decided I couldn’t afford, but she said that I could spend the night in her room since she had moved out and my landlord wouldn’t be back till Sunday. She gave me the keys and we spend the rest of time talking till the wee hours of the morning. It ended up being a rather confusing night for me, because one of my American friends consistently gave me clothing and woman advice, but then she would go on to say that I shouldn’t listen to her because mostly she wouldn’t know what she was talking about. But that didn’t stop her from giving advice.
Sunday at noon I met up with her at an expat pancake house. I worked on a fairly big meal while she half-heartedly nursed a glass of hot water with a mint leaf in it while acting like she was made out of thin pieces of glass. She repeated several times that most of the advice she had given me was probably nonsense. I didn’t really have anything I could respond with, but despite her post-intoxication from the night before, she still had enough reserves to giggle and try to school me in the arts of sarcasm, mostly by ceaselessly being sarcastic at me.
At five that evening my landlord finally came to town and I was able to come home. Lesson planning was shot, but at least I was able to put one some desperately wanted fresh clothes after soaking in the bathtub and drinking some tea to warm me up.
And as quietly as it began, thus ends the tale of Tristan’s Topsy-Turvy Weekend.
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 8:28 AM
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