It's MEGA!

Yesterday was the most stressful day of my life so far. It was pretty horrible really, but I'm jumping ahead of myself...

So my last full day was supposed to be spent sorting my stuff and the flat out ready for the move... annoyingly i spent a lot of it in queues and talking to people with confused looks on their faces. I'll skip much of it or I'll be here all day, but blah blah blah and I then went to get some euros from the post office, the queue was insane for both packages (which i also had to deliver) and handily the currency bit, I opted for the currency. After trying to kill the old man asking stupid questions to the cashier with my 'death stare' for a while I was finally told that the bank will screw you for money transfers so it's better to get cash, so off I go to the bank, another crazy queue. When I finally get there I'm clock watching my ass off whilst my request for 400 quid seems to cause some sort of commotion behind the bullet proof glass. At one point there were five peacock-like women working on my request because none of them could figure out what was wrong, the fraud office had to be contacted and I got taken off into a little room... after much waiting I was finally handed my money and had somehow signed up to a credit card in the process... I hate credit cards with a passion. Got my euros though...

I don't really remember what happened after that, but I was doing a LOT of work. You forget how much crap there is in your life until you have to get rid of it. I've promised to not own anything that I don't like or don't intend to use... although I've already broken that oath, not going too well.

Anyway, I didn't get it all done despite working for a good eight hours. Got up at about five or six on the day of my flight with much to do... and I had to leave at half twelve. The more I did the more I realised I wasn't going to make it at all... time kicked on and I double checked my transport details and realised I'd gotten the whole thing screwed up and had misread a 24 hour clock, something I'd repeatedly mocked my girlfriend for. Luckily this gave me an extra couple of hours, so off I plod again... the time ticked down and I realise I'm STILL not going to make it... thankfully Al offered give me a lift to the airport thereby saving me about an hour... I'll be eternally grateful for that because it's the only way I managed to get all my stuff done, in fact I didn't actually get it all done but it turns out it didn't matter anyway for various reasons.

So we jump in the car and now it's the cannonball run journey to the estate agents to drop off the keys, man-voice started quoting bits of paper at me so I shouted "DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" at her and skipped off... then a leisurely trip to the airport where everything went as hoped... again, all thanks to Amy and Al. I realised afterwards how horrible the whole process would have been if I'd had to lug all my stuff from replacement bus service to replacement bus service due to Network Rail's so called engineering works. My stuff was way over the weight limit but the girl at the check in couldn't find the form so couldn't be bothered to charge me... thank god for laziness.

Sat down and also ate for the first time all day at about 5. Flight was delayed. Had to listen to the stereotypical English holiday maker tell the same loud non-joke about the smoking ban over and over with his Argos gold plated aluminium jewelry flapping around every time he belly laughed at himself. I knew I was going to start hating the sight of these people soon, they'll be my only physical link to England soon... and I want them to die, so not great then.

Landed late, rang up the guy I'm staying with to tell him I'll be late. He didn't sound too excited to hear from me... but then it's not like this is a big deal to anyone else. Wrote down on the back of my hand what I was to say to the taxi driver. Now, I've been learning Spanish for about four weeks now so you'd think I wouldn't need to, but after my shocking experience in Hong Kong where one (of many) attempt at speaking Cantonese backfired so badly I was stared at by a large bunch of passers-by, I wasn't going to risk getting it wrong. Funnily enough, my first attempt went so well he actually thought I was Spanish! I couldn't believe it. We're driving around, he gets a bit confused due to the road being huge. Finally get to my number, get out and have to lug my aforementioned monolithic luggage across an open railway line, very odd. Get into the flat and meet my (very nice) temporary flatmate. Ended up chatting for about an hour on all sorts of topics, from bullfighting to politics.

Apparently they've turned the basement of my new work into some form of social floor with sofas, TVs, pool and table tennis... something I haven't properly played since I was a kid and played around Europe, despite being pretty rubbish and refusing to wear shorts (something I'm going to have to conquer now). Apparently there's a great social scene with parties all the time, there was a beach party the night before I arrived. There was various other really great things I'd heard about the social and business side that gave me a really good feeling about things and I went to bed exhausted but happy. Oh... and VERY hot. The sort of hot you can't escape from. It was as hot outside (at midnight) as inside.

Woke up today at 7 due to a torch being shone in my face. It felt like a torch, it was actually just poor quality curtains with... on looking at them now appear to be blue teddy bears with nappies (diapers) on.

On going into the bathroom I was confronted by two rather large cockroaches. I've never actually seen a cockroach before and always wondered how I'd react. I was a little disappointed by my reaction to be honest, I thought I'd freak out, they're not bad at all, maybe it's because they're closer to being the size of pets than insects.

Hadn't eaten anything since arrival and no-one seemed to be around in the morning (oh, there's two guys that live here) so I went for a wander to find a shop. On walking around I was struck by the distant dramatic landscape, the quietness and the fact that EVERYTHING was closed. As I learnt later, Spaniards and Sundays do not get on. Walked in large circles for a while and finally stumbled upon a shop, bought some water, orange juice, MEGA (some sort of energy cereal) and some UHT milk... hey, it's the closest thing I could find. Came back, ate, and toddled off for a 'big' walk. Speaking of Todd, in the unlikely event you're reading this, I downloaded and watched (today) a couple of Cooking in the Dangerzone episodes, really enjoyed it a lot, gotta get more.

So I set off on my walk, randomly heading for the sea and any action. Ended up following the railway line heading towards the town center. I'm living really close to the bull fighting ring so it's acting as a great landmark, I've already asked one typical Spanish old guy "donde esta la placa del torres por favor".. which is probably wrong but he gave me the right directions.

Went into a Subway with a pocket full of those bloody vouchers that i never spent in the UK. There was no way I was going to risk throwing the voucher factor into communication this early. After a quick rambling of Spanish the guy spotted I was English and it turns out he's from Wolverhampton. Nice guy actually and we got chatting for a while.

Headed off again and soon stumbled on a little pedestrianised avenue I'd walked down whilst on my interview, a great feeling to recognise something. I knew this area pretty well but hadn't seen it in daylight so had another look round. I really love this city. I actually sad it out loud with no cynicism on about four occasions. It just feels right to me when I'm walking around here with this massive grin on my face. I've been to a lot of cities abroad that I've really liked, but I've never felt it this much before. I feel very lucky to be saying this in a city I'm now living in.

Anyway, various other things happened, such as an old woman in a bar shoo'ing me off because I wanted to pay at the till (I hate table service), seeing massive amounts of water in various parks (despite constantly hearing how short of water Mallorca is), getting annoyed at all the cool shops being shut, sitting on my first (and very over-crowed) beach and wearing sunglasses for the first time in public... in my life.

Was going to go out for a meal but was too late so ate some more MEGA, it really tastes like crap... and the UHT effect isn't helping. Think flakes of floppy card board mixed with flakes of floppy sugar. Got internet connection! YES! Did some work in anticipation for my first day... tomorrow.

I don't really know what to expect tomorrow. It's like the first day at a new school... but there's a lot of pressure on you, especially as I'll be doing most of the companies sound design I imagine, plus the language barrier will no doubt be an issue. There's also a tight schedule on their first game so I really need to come up with 'the goods' quickly... I think I have a month to redo all the existing sounds.

I'm tired, need to sleep.

Here's some photos... actually, it appears I can't add photos, donno why. Just use your imagination.

R