Where's Maggi?

The house or flatshare i'm crashing at in the 'interim' is as European as it gets. German, French, Italian, Austrian and Spanish. Even the cat's Polish. We could probably bypass Brussels. One thing I noticed is that they (all students) study. They wake up at 8, start Uni at 9 and work all day until 8 or 9pm. They come home and study more. When they asked me what I studied I made up some bullshit about the hard slog I endured for the love of New Media - it translates well. I thought British education was the best in the world? Or is this just the legacy from empirical times. I think so.

So, there has already been a couple of awkward and embarrassing moments in the house - just 24hrs in. I have kept two housemates awake from my snoring. Fuck, what can I do? I told her to wake me up next time but she nervously claimed she didn't know me. She doesn't to be fair. Good point.

At dinner they fall into a pretty undecipherable dialogue aka German. This evening I tried my bestest to understand what the hell they were talking about and I gathered they were talking about making that night's dinner - Esther (the host) referenced chilli concarne which is what we were eating. It sounded like their friend Maggie had made the dish and they were laughing about it, presumably at Maggie's expense. So I interrupted and asked where Maggie was and why if she had made dinner wasn't eating with us. This, I found out, is why....

Click here: Maggie

Where's Maggi? On my plate.

no phone. no upgrade. no cheese.

After a seamless trip through T5 - actually that's bullshit. I get served a ham and cheese croissant without cheese. So, with my power wife Stringer who happened to be flying out the same day I brought it to the waiter's attention who then told his senior, which was a joke because she sulked like a 4yr old who didn't get the pony she asked for. So I opened the croissant and showed her the absence of cheese. The senior (child) then groaned that she had made the croissant herself and that there was cheese in there. In which case it was invisible. Bitch.

I also bumped into an old friend at checkin who turned out was now working for BA, which did surprise me. She checked me in and muttered something about not upgrading me because there were still plenty of seats in Euro Traveller. Whatever, if you can do it when it's busy you can do it when it's quiet.

So I then go straight through security and head to the Sony shop to pick up some much needed headphones (Voak poured whisky on them at the final house party). Nothing in there takes my fancy so I plod on to Dixons. Semi-helpful staff but since I can't try them on I pass. The assistant assures me there's nowhere else to purchase headphones in the terminal so its these or nothing. I sniff a commission based pay and take my chances. Just as well: HMV, Soundsystem and Electronics Centre. Terminal 5 is NOT working.

Everything between talking off and landing was seamless. It was. Until I get on the wrong bus and get off at the wrong stop and then realise I have lost my iPhone - it's on the wrong bus. Would be painful in London, unbearable when you arrive in a new city. And then like another stab in the face I realise I can't ring my host or indeed confirm the exact location. I am definitely being shat on.

So with literally no other option I try and navigate my way to the U-bahn she wrote in her text: Karl Marx Strasse. I rack my head and recall the reference to a green tattoo shop. 125 or 152, it was one or the other. I work my way out of the station against the face ripping wind - its minus 21 -and like a green beacon I see All Star Tattoo. Its stopped shitting on me.

All this unfortunately means I can't inter splice heavy text with images. I will go back and litter as soon as I can but first I need to get my hands on a phone, a shit one so I can lose it.