September 07
I think i might have come across my first bottle neck in my driving lessons.
In last week's lesson everything was going very well. The instructor took me to some very busy roads with a speed limit of 30 mph. So i was driving in the third gear most of the time, and the fourth occasionally. Finally i started to feel that driving at 30mph wasn't scary at all. The instructor warned me that no matter how scared i might have been when i started driving, eventually i would love speed more and more.Speed is more addictive then any drug, so he said. Altho I didn't quite agree with him.
Yesterday's lesson however, wasn't going as smoothly. Especially at some point for about 15 minutes also, i completely lost my concentration. That was quite dangerous when you were driving. The instructor was practically shouting at me with instructions but i just failed to react to them.While waiting for the lights at a traffic junction , i was the first behind the stop line. When the amber light was on, i released the clutch and the handbrake but didn't squeeze the gas enough. You probably know what happened next, the engine stalled and the car was still behind the line. Then the lights turned red again so we had to wait for another round.I could see from the centre mirror that there were at least three cars queuing behind me and the drivers were definitely swearing at me. Well i wasn't bothered by that at all cause i knew i was allowed to make mistakes. They were just not lucky enough that morning.
It's a painful journey but i will keep on going!
September 01
My mate Nathan has been trying to drag me to the Notinghill Carnival since last year. It was really bad weather and he was away on holiday at the time so we didn't make it. Actually i am not really into these kinda noisy,loud and crowded festival stuff. But the carnival is so famous and i have never been to anything like that before, it should be worth a try.Plus it's a good chance to practise with my new camera.
I met up with Nate and his two other mates at the train station. The drinks in the town are too bloody expensive so we bought a bottle of Havana Club and a big coke with some plastic cups before getting on the train.These should be enough for the whole afternoon. Drinking has been banned on London trains and tubes so we didn't start drinking untill we got to the Carnival.
As expected the streets were piled with people. We waited just outside Bayswater station for another mate Asher and started drinking mixed rum and coke. The rum was so strong that i immediately felt a little bit dazzling.Normally i wouldn't drink too much but it was a carnival so i thought what the hell.Also i started taking pictures with my canon. It really was a great place to take interesting pictures because there were all kinds of strangely dressed people.
When Ash finally came we started walking towards the carnival. There were cops everwhere and i took some pictures of them as well. Asher pulled me away and told me to stay away from them as i might get into trouble.
I dont really remember too much about what happened next as i was really drunk. We were dancing in the street together with all the other people.At some point in a sudden all the people started running away from the street. I didn't know what had happened and just stood there. A mate said there had been a stabbing so we started running as well. No one wanted to be on the frontpage news the next morning.
I reached out to my pocket for some money to get some food and found out that my wallet was gone!!Bloody hell! Ticket, credit cards, license, everything was gone! I went to a police officer but he said it was very common at the carnival and there was not much they could do. They were just useless!!I was so upset.
My mates bought some food and we shared it.
We left early in case there were too many people in the tube or the train.
Then i spent almost an hour on the phone with my bank just to cancel my cards.
Apart from the part my wallet got stolen, the day out was a great experience. I probabely wont go back again but from now on when talking about carnivals i can finally say 'been there done that'!
