pounds for pounds

“It’s a giant sausage party in here”, said one security guard to another.

Touched down in Norwich on Thursday afternoon. Everything looked sunny and I wore just a sweatshirt comfortably. Found Brian and Jimmy in a Public House (Pub to you blokes), saddled up to a pint or three of beer and I joined them. We wandered back to the Maid’s Head hotel in the early afternoon to catch a few winks of sleep before dinner with the rest of the wild bunch. The Maid’s Head was a hotel put together of several buildings dated pre 1850 and it was as if the architect of the place had completely disregarded the fact that none of these structures had been built on the same levels, heights, and dimensions. At points you’d cross through a crouched doorway and stumble upon another hall of rooms, with a floor that was either a few steps up or a few steps down.

“Here! Knock a hole through this wall chap, we’ll put more rooms here. The floors don’t match up. Don’t worry about it mate. Pint?”

We tasted sweet Indian food that evening. Curry was originally introduced to the British as a way to disguise the nasty rotted meat that the colonials were eating; disguising the maggots and other various animals living in a block of salt pork. I ate red curry with vigor.

Woke up in the morning to the arrival of the rest of my friends who needed a shower and thus our day had begun. Taxi rides on the other side of the road and hello Norwich University.

Fioana knows how to cook. Just follow your nose to Taste Buds Catering from Glasgow whenever you are in this neck of the international woods. They travel with the headlining band and prepare up fresh, new meals daily. Every day a new run to the grocery store or market to conjure up a menu that you wouldn’t even cook at your own home (unless you have a cook who cooks at your own home). I enjoyed cups of tea and assorted nibbles from the dining room all day while we set about getting the show in order. There were t-shirts to count, e-mails to write, cups of tea to brew, gear to unpack, camera batteries to charge, cups of tea to drink (that’s been about a five minute seep right?).
The evening was less inspired than I might have imagined given all of the professional circumstances and experience collected over the past year but folks were generally tired and overwhelmed from a day spent figuring out this new country to be home for the next three weeks. Afterwards I shared a drink with Dave, Jimmy, and Steve. We drank to something witty, which I can’t recall, and then Jimmy chimed in “To being single, seeing double, and sleeping triple.”

It was then fitting that we walked back to the bus alone, a double decker bus with fourteen beds, two lounges, one up, one down, three flat screen TVs, a full kitchen, and no heating system that my slumbering body could remember how to turn on.

I awoke but fifteen minutes ago and the tile of the kitchen floor gave me an ice cream headache. We’re in Wolverhampton. Wherever that might be. It is rainy outside, foggy, and I’m drinking proper tea.