Bonjour. J’ai eu un bon jour :D

So, today has been epic.

I awoke relatively and mooched around the house until about 10am. Then I dressed and walked into town and caught the first bus I could to Lincoln. It turned out that I got on the OAP service, being as I was the only passenger under the age of 50. Until half way through the journey. Then an old friend from secondary school got on. We spent the rest of the journey comparing our experiences of our different colleges. His sounds so much better than mine. Namely as he has a social life, lol.

I got off the bus and decided to take a walk along the river for a bit. So I followed the river out of the city centre for about 10 minutes and came to a quiet spot. Then I sat for a while and listened to my ipod and watched random pieces of litter flowing downstream, I even decided to video one piece. Becaus, well, I had nothing better to do. It’s only a short (and, I expect, mind-numbingly boring) clip because my camera seems to increase battery-usage ten-fold when videoing so I made it short for fear of wasting my batteries before I’d started the day properly. I had brought spares of course.

And then I walked up the hill, and back down. On the way down I found a little alleyway which was quite quaint. And then I made my way back to the bus station. Then I made my way to Waterstone’s. Firstly the big one, I had my usual flick through the latest satirical political commentaries – as recommended by the Waterstone’s e-mail I get weekly (ok, maybe a tiny bit sad, but I don’t care.) I then considered buying a book about Berlin because I’m going there for four days tomorrow. I then thought against it and instead decided to make my way to Starbucks. But on the way to Starbucks I remembered a letter I got recently asking me whether I’d read anything interesting or not recently. The answer is no, so I diverted myself to the second Waterstone’s in Lincoln and set about finding a book. I wanted something fictional for once, because recently a lot of my reading has been very factual, and often technical. But I wanted something that would be interesting and make me think. Thankfully I stumbled upon an absolute gem. (Note; I’ve only read a quarter of the book so far so it may not be a gem, just a quarter gem.) The book is called “Jack” and it’s by A. M. Homes. The author wrote Jack when she was 19, and you can perhaps tell from the writing style. It’s also written in the first person, so it reads almost like a blog. The plot is sufficiently complex enough to adequately mirror the life of the average 19 year-old and the use of humour and suchlike makes it really easy to empathise with the writer. Yes, the events of the story are slightly more extreme than some of us are used to, but so far so good. I’ll endeavour to tell you my opinion of it when I’m finished.

So, having bought the book (£7.99 – £5 of which I paid with a book token, yet still got Waterstone’s card points for the entire price! ) I made my way to Starbucks where I had planned to meet a friend. I got myself a Caramel Latte and a Belgian Chocolate Fudge Brownie (as pictured above) and sat down to read. Unfortunately the aforementioned friend had neglected to wake up that morning Eventually, an hour and fifty minutes later, I reached for the brownie and there was none left. (Let me please highlight the momentousness of that statement – I made a brownie last 1h50mins! Which proves that the novel is extremely engrossing!) So I closed the book, drank the cold drags of the caramel latte and started the hike up to the cathedral.

Any of you who’ve ever attempted to scale steep hill in Lincoln will know that it’s more than capable of giving the late Edmund Hillary an exhausting run for his money (well, especially now being as he’s dead and all.) But it wasn’t too bad actually. The air was cold so it was quite thin and I managed it with much more ease than normal. Then I walked around the Bail briefly and then the Cathedral. Adequately awed, and with a now adequately filled camera memory card, I made my way down the curvy hill past the Usher Gallery and back to High street. I had a walk down to the football stadium and then back up and then decided to call it a day.

(I quite liked this picture: http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lin082ba5.jpg just because of the lack of clouds )

It seems that during the day, the amount of old people that it is possible to fit in a bus increased massively! So after an hour long spell in God’s portable waiting room I found myself back in Gainsborough. I walked home, via a takeaway where I purchased egg-fried rice with House Special Curry (the special bit is that it costs £1 more and has what vaguely resemble mushrooms in it.) I then scaled another hill to get home and heated my cuisine and ate it.

Then I had a bath, then I took all of my neatly ironed vetements and threw them onto my bed. Then chose a random selection of trousers (read: jeans,) T-shirts and jumpers. I then folded them so they were even smaller and shoved them into my hold-all for tomorrow. Shortly afterwards, they were joined by underwear and two towels. I’m yet to sort out what toiletries to take, and then of course come chargers, electrical devices, weapons of mass destruction etc.

Having almost packed my bags I decided to write about what had actually been quite a nice day. And so, a considerable number of minutes later here I (that “I” was the 1000th word in this post by the way!) am. So in conclusion, today has been pretty good. I risk sounding socially retarded here, but I actually enjoyed being alone but being surrounded by people. It was quite refreshing.

I’m quite excited about Berlin now. I set off at 9am tomorrow morning, we get to our Hotel (the Hotel Domicili – http://www.hotel-domicil-berlin.de/ ) at around midnight CET (GMT+1.) I’m really really excited because it’s a small group of us, and I’m really good friends with everyone that’s going. So yeh, if things were looking up anymore they’d be looking behind me That made sense in my head too!

Now I shall love and leave you all, for now.

Bis Bald! x