Monday, June 12, 2006

Monday evening, 12Jun06.

It's been more than a week since my last entry and, I must say, it's been a fairly eventful number of days.

In my batch of trainees, there are those we call the 4-Weekers. These guys are in parts of the company where the next couple of weeks will not be relevant to them. Thus, they leave after the first 4 weeks. In our batch, there were less than a dozen of them. Nevertheless, in the spirit of camaraderie and fair play, we threw a dinner party for them on thursday. We went to St Albans and had dinner at this italian restaurant where the whole group got together and had loads of fun. After dinner, we proceeded to Batchwood Hall for some more clubbing fun.

Batchwood Hall is basically a mansion converted into a club in the St Albans area. We'd been there before when the previous batch of trainees had their going-away party there. It was loads of fun. In honor of the 4-Weekers, we went there and had a blast with amazing music that lasted till the wee hours of the morning, regardless of the classes we had the next day.

One of our number had a bit too much to drink and almost caused a scene at the club although we were fortunate enough to get to him before he could do too much damage. With too much to drink and with no self-control, the man was in dire straits. Our group managed to get him out of the club and into a cab just in time. Suffice it to say he had a monster hangover the next day and was of little use in any group activities.

Friday evening saw us getting ready to go to Scotland. It was a short train ride into London followed by a 9-hour bus ride from Victoria coach station. The ride was fairly straightforward although it was exhausting since there were quite a few who couldn't sleep on the bus. We arrived in Edinburgh Scotland on saturday morning. First stop: Edinburgh Castle. We were fortunate enough to witness a 21-gun salute in honor of his majesty, the Duke of Edinburgh. Why he was being honored remains a mystery to me. Oh well.

We then proceeded to see the sights of the city. Note that the World Cup had begun and the fever was felt all throughout the city. We had lunch at a Scottish Pub where we watched England beat Paraguay in a match that was (in all honesty) quite boring. Then, our little splinter group, consisting of Jeanine (from Manila) and Aisha (from Dubai) went to Mary King's Close which was a slightly scary historical tour of the city's underground from the 1700's. Quite interesting although it became a bit boring towards the end. We then had dinner at another Scottish pub where we watched Argentina defeat Ivory Coast. At this point, we were all fairly tired and went back to our B&B for some rest and sleep.

Sunday morning saw us heading off in different directions. Some wanted to see some sights then go shopping while others just wanted the shopping. I was in the group that just wanted sightseeing, no shopping. We then took a sightseeing tour of the city on a bus then got off at the Royal Yacht Britannia where we took a tour of the facilities. After which, Joe (from HK) and myself promptly got ourselves lost trying to get back to the city.

After some degree of searching, we managed to find the correct bus although time was geting tight. Our train back to London was scheduled to leave at 4.30pm and it was getting on to 4pm already. At the North Bridge stop, Joe and I ran into Asil and Sinem (both from Turkey) who we had split from earlier. Happy to see familiar faces, we quickly got into a better mood and proceeded to travel back to our B&B to collect our belongings. Once there, time was very tight and we had to literally RUN to the train which was closing its doors in preparation for departure. We made it with only 5 seconds (exactly!) to spare.

The trip back was fairly uneventful except for 2 things. First, our train ride was interrupted by engineering works which necessitated an extended bus ride. Quite boring, really. Second, on the train ride into King's Cross station, we ran into a girl from China who studied in Canada and was vacationing in the UK. She had a year and a half more to go in university in Canada before heading off into the working world so our insight was quite valuable to her. She was fairly interesting and we talked with her on the train ride coming back. We hope to see more of her in future, hopefully.

Which brings us back to monday where class was fairly uneventful. Hopefully, I'll have more stuff for you all soon.

Cheers!

2 Comments:

At 3:19 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude you keep on saying you're bored! How could you be bored in Edinburgh with all those gorgeous accents?!? =)

 
At 3:06 AM, Blogger Manila Office Worker said...

I never said I was bored in Edinburgh! It's just that that particular tour got a little boring towards the end since it was so long.

Cheers!

 

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