Thursday, February 02, 2017

through the storm we reach the shore

Today was rather delightful, although it started with a hangover and ended with a rainstorm. I woke up later than intended, after spending an ill-advised hour at four a.m. reading twitter (please take my phone away from me), and then I showered and tidied up before venturing out of my room. My first task was to make tea, and while I was making tea I met some new Aussie guy who just showed up - he's something of a tech bro and seems to be investing in startups, but also makes money via airbnb, and he wants to write an ebook. This all sounds vomit-worthy, but he was more interesting than that bio made it sound, and he's here for a month, so I'm sure our paths will cross again.

Then I went upstairs and ate some nasi goreng (breakfast/lunch/dinner of Roam champions) and messed around online. I also had a long, delightful conversation with Tamara, who's also a writer...but I cut it short to have a video call with Adit (no one calls him the cat). We were talking about this book idea, and so we came up with some actions and next steps, which I'm pretty excited about.

But I couldn't work on it this afternoon - I needed to work, rather desperately, on my historical instead. So I packed up my stuff and went to Lazy Cats, taking a risk since it had been very rainy/windy earlier and looked like it might be rainy/windy again. In fact, it was so relatively cool/windy that I wore jeans today for the first time since arriving in Bali, which was a fun departure from my strange tropical wardrobe.

Lazy Cats was great for my productivity, and I would have happily stayed there even longer, but there were drinks planned tonight for Mandy, whom I haven't mentioned here before and will likely never mention here again since she's leaving tomorrow morning. I'd be totally happy if our paths crossed again, but one never knows. So I walked to No Mas, which is a second-floor bar with a cool vibe (and the dreaded live music, which is always too loud, although these guys were pretty good despite the volume). A whole bunch of people showed up, and it was all v. relaxed and desultory....

But the music was loud, as I said, and I was on the verge of going home (in fact, I had just settled my bill), when Clayton and this British guy he'd met on a volcano this morning at three a.m. and I decided to go get another drink (and food for me, since I hadn't eaten dinner). This slowly morphed into almost everyone from the original gathering ending up across the street at Art Cafe, which was much, much quieter. I had a glass of red wine and a tasty chicken sandwich, and I got into a super deep conversation about US and British politics with Alex, Sanj, Tamara, and volcano guy (whose name is Tom).

Alex and Sanj left abruptly to take Sanj to a late-night clinic before she died of diarrhea issues, but the rest of us stayed until eleven and continued to enjoy ourselves. I also got Tom's info, since he grew up in Devon (which is where my latest series is set) and said he'd send me some recs of places to go/things to explore while I'm in London, which would be lovely. And then we all parted ways - Tom (volcano guy) went off to wherever he's staying, and six of us grabbed a taxi. Just as we were piling into the taxi, it started to drizzle - and just as we got back to the hotel, the downpour started and we all risked getting soaked running from the car to the door. Rather fitting way to end the day, since I'd avoided getting wet all day and was feeling too smug about it.

And now I need to sleep - I need to be productive in the morning, since Clayton's birthday + going-away drinks are tomorrow (there are going-away drinks alllll the time in a situation like this) and I've convinced him to do them at the Four Seasons since I'm a fancy bitch and want to check that place out. Goodnight!

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