'Welcome to Isla Vista... This is how it's done in The I.V'
So it's another week, yes work is back, and we're in the middle of a heat wave, ye it's unbelievably hot and working in a uniform designed by satan himslef to get us aquainted to hells heat, just doesn't quite help! So it's been an eventful week, i bought dominos (i'm not joking, dad i'll get them sent off soon!) but that wasn't the highlight, the highlight was going to a fully fledged American house party, well the others described it as a get together, but it was actually a party, and as u all guessed it, it was just like in the movies, totally funny, we got there and it's just a total mix of people, was kinda freaked out by the fact that i hadn't been invited, but according to IV (Isla Vista is the student part of Santa Barbara) law, you just arrive and join in, even if you have no clue who's party it is. So there were some people from work which helped a load, and the scene was just like out the movies, there was the game of beer pong going on, the passed out guy getting permanent marker drawings everywhere on his face, and later body when space ran out, there was the keg, were all the cool people hung out (so yes i was there) the girls inside danceing away, and then the police, yup the police, so seeing as this country is the most free democtatic country in the world they decided what the heck lets make drinking something only to be done at 21, which is the only thing in this counry you can't do by 18 (technically you can gamble at the indian reserves ok) so the police came i made myself as invisible as possible, being under 21 and a foreigner is just not the perfect situation, so had to skimp off into the night, and the scary thing is they did catch people, so lucky Joe, i'm going to have to watch what i do in future. But there was freebirds, which is the food every drunk person in this town has, it's amazing and world famous to these university students. So this party was after a night shift and had to be at work for breakfast shift, so that was killer, never had a longer, hotter day in my life, i mean working in a State where 4 people have died in the heatwave, it's not awesome, and add a boiling kitchen standing near heaters, ye the devil was right at home in the Bistro kitchen. So otherwise all's been pretty normal, nearly moving out into our new place which i'm really excited about, they seem like really family type people. Went walking around town by myself the other night after work, needed some breakaway time, so i just walked around, sat in borders for over an hour reading everything, could live in that place, and figured it would be wrong of me to just leave without buying anything so got that 'A Year in the Merde' it's so funny, so if there's anyone who hasn't read it (which is highly unlikely seeing as i'm usually the last one to do something) So i walked back after midnight by myself, just listening to music, and was really cool, gonna do it more often! So on that random note i better be off to bed, always seem to write these things at the most insane times of day, well night, no morning, well whatever! So hope you're all well, and if you are then leave a comment, the only excuse for not would be if you were dead, so if you're reading this then you're alive, so ha, comment. So till our next entry...zzzzzzzz

So lets change this post to 'A Bad Hair Day' yup, it;s going to change, for two, no wait scratch that, 3 reason, firstly i've just kinda realized i look like a total loser with shaved hair, but for work you have to do it, so here's a photo thanks to the popular demand of Alice who's been dying to have a good laugh at it, yes scroll to it Alice, i know you laughing now, and everyone who reads this is witness to it. Hokay, so moving on, second thing was this was mean't to be our day off but got a call from work wanting us to go in, horror of horrors, can u handle the shock of having a day off taken away from you, i think not, so we had to cancel our abundance of plans (It really only consisted of watching a really bad movie, and start looking for birthday presents) but nonetheless it was still a day to have to ourselves, but the good thing about it is work rocks! Quite literally it's an amazing place, i got to help out the server alot today and got tipped out, ooh and wait for this i got the coverted bottle opener so now i'm oficially a member of the team and the server told the mangaer how good i am, how cool? Have a really big head now, that is until someone makes a comment and brings me flying back down to earth (Alice just go ahead and comment i know you want to!) So i suppose all in all work ends off on a par. But then we get home and we're greated with yet another email from out land-lady, and to remind you all this is now six days we've gone with saying nothing to each other! It's starting to get insanely bad, and i feel like i'm part of some reality tv show experiment to see how long we take till we crack, and believe me that isn't far off. But it's everyday now that we get a letter blaming us for breaking something or doing something wrong! It was quite amusing today though, the washer starter overflowing because the pipes got blocked, so the garage floor was covered in water, it's one of those washers that you have to bump really hard just to get it to work, good times we have here! So ye, other than Craig and I waking people up (Which is a load because the daughter was up long before us this morning seeing as it was a 12PM start to the world for me), and using the wrong bathrooom (There is only one with a shower!), to making to much noise (Because i have to blow up the air mattress in the night so i don't end up developing into a modern cave dwelling man) all's pretty much becoming a living nightmare, but hey, now we can say it's less than a month till we move in with the paradise people, they rock and the people at work who got us the room are life savers, because you never know what could happen in this house. Craig has a theory that there won't be any walls in the place by the time we leave, which makes sense seeing as slowly everything here is falling apart. So i better be off, i have work again tomorrow and it's nearly 3AM, so the birds are about to start chirping. So i miss you all loads, and hope you're checking this out regularly, and don't forget to comment, it'll give me some reading to do! Stay well, and if i go missing, then you know who to look for!

The Good Hair Day
So another day off, it's what we live for here, because it gives us the chance to actually sleep in, and yup thats what i did, opened my eyes to the world at around midday, so i'd say i completed the mission for today, and the second one was to have pancakes for breakfast, so we only half completed that, we made pancakes but it was lunch time! Had a crazy weekend at work though, real busy with over 500 guests, and temperatures that made mexicans say 'aai carumba'. So at work now we've been changed to nights, so the's the good and the bad to it, so the good part is we get to sleep in, yup, noon here i come, but the bad is we finish late, and there's no bus back into town, so we could be stranded, so i'm hoping it all works out. So back to today, it ended up being an amazing day, yup, i got a haircut, well i'd class it more of a shave because there's close to none left, because of the comments i was getting from both Miss Alice, and Beulah, so hope you're both happy with yourselves. Then went scouting around town for prestik, which just wait for this, there is none in this country, none, they dont use it but rather this velcro wierd poster stuff, trust the americans to to invent something so confusing just to put up a poster (but a cool one at that it's one of an atomic bomb going off, i can hear you all saying aaahh from here) so ye Craig was happy to be able to put up his poster in our bare room! So that brings me to the next thing we did today...dum dum dum...drum roll, we found a new place, well room! It's in an amazing house not too far from where we are now! But it's amazing, the people are really friendly, and the husband was born in Durban so it's great to be staying with a South African, so we're going to be having a welcoming braai with them to celebrate our arrival. It's a very family place, and in just the short time we were there it felt like home already. So it looks like things are up and we'll be moving out of this place, but i'll leave my blog entry about this place for when we leave just incase the land lady stumbles upon this blog, don't think things would be too good then! It'll be the same rent as we paying now, but we both get a bed, hallelujah, so no more blow up mattress for me, and our own bathroom. But wait there's more, yes it's true there's more, we have a hot tub, ye a fully functional hot tob, grill, garden, tv (wow now that'll be the new mission for my day off, so get through as many lifetime movies as possible) and internet, so no more stealing internet off our neighbours and having to deal with bad connections. They have two daughters who are out the house, and they usually take international students who come to learn english into their home, so they are pro's at it! So everyone who was worried about Craig and i no worries, in a month we'll be chillin out in our hot tub and laughing about our mannequin house (yup this place is filled with them) I've also begun planning my 'Great American Busride' always wanted a roadtrip but seeing as there's no car, i'm going to be using the silver hound, yup the greyhound, it's a month long tour of the States, starting and ending in Santa Barbara for the month before i fly off home. It's in the planning stages, but i've got a brief outline, so far it includes about 25 States, so half in the country and the most awesome cities like Vegas, Denver (to see and stay with Noku), Nashville, Williamsburg Virginia (to party with Beulah and Marina, i'm coming you guys so get ready), Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Spokane (Colleen and Stu along the way, wouldn'f forget you guys!), Portland, LA, and getting back to good ol' Santa Barbara California before i catch my flight! It's going to be long, thats why it's the Great, and cost a ton of my hard earned dollars, but it'll be the one time in my life i'll be able to do it so i'm going to jump on that bus and have the time of my life! So on that note i better be off to bed so i can atleast get enough sleep to earn those tips i'll need so bad! May need to do some begging or learn how to juggle to actually do this! So in the words of Napoleon Dynamite, you have to have 'skills', those of you who have watched the movie will be laughing like me now, and if you now then watch the movie and you can laugh then! There a couple of photos of Santa Barbara, and even though some photos might make it look like paradise it's honestly just a normal ol' place!
So off i go to sleep, it;s 1:30 in the morning now so stay well all, and well done for reading this, i'm sure there;s a bunch of jumbled language going on due to sleep deprivision! wait wait, ok, i've made the comments thing work, so now you can comment (but only with nice things) about stuff, and also if your birthday is coming up then give me a shout to remind me, because i have the worlds worst birthday reminer brain! Stay well all, and if you really want to you can join me on my 'Great American Busride' (I should copyright that saying, it's pretty catchy)

We Are Bacara.
Figured i'd write a bit about what, who, how and all that stuff bout' the resort seeing as now i have time, and yes, it's my first day off, and it came at just the right time, work is crazy hard and long hard hours! Can get ratty after being in that kitchen for 9 hours, and having to wake up at a crazy hour! But we've been making friends, can you believe it? yes we've been getting in there with all the mexicans, we're both called guapo! Will let ya'll figure out what that means...ha! The place has been really good to us, even more so than i expected which is great! Been given all our uniforms, and it all gets washed/ironed/and taken care of by these really friendly mexican girls! The people here are woerdly friendly, seems like something out of a horror phsyco movie and we're going to get our legs hacked off or something, but hey, will take their niceness while it's coming! Could also be because it's California and the laws here are really strict, a guy got fired about a week back for playing with the fire hydrant, yup they take no prisoners, or crap... We have this opening course called Basics which is practically what it says, it teaches us the basics of the resort, from etiquette to the way in which we must answer questions about the owner of the resort. Got a hand-out with everything, so going to use it when i open up my resort, telling you all it'll happen one day and you can all come stay! Have a really good HR department, but here we call them Team Member Services, they like to change things up, thats why wait for it we called Team Members. Henry, or Mr. Ventura at work, the manager who interviewed us has been really awesome, taking us around, even went to LA for dinner with him (sounds glamorous i know but it was actually a little shack on the side of the road with dodgy and probally healthy saftey failed) but it's always the thought, got to drive past famous peoples houses anyway! So he's got us a number to phone for a new room closer to work, so i don't have to be like a all the other 60 year olds waking up at 5am! Still can't handle it, i'm out like a 2 year old baby at 8 (which is i suppose the same time the 60yr olds go off to slumber land) Our floor manager at the restaurant where i work which is called The Bistro is really cool too, she's done all our schedules around the bus timetable which help a load! But sneakily we've been getting lifts with people from work, pay them some gas money and it's all good! They;ve also changed us to cross-training, which is really good because their goal is now for us to leave with having experience in different departments. At the moment i'm doing Bussing, and Running, which is taking the food to the tables, so massive trays with the stand, sure you've seen it, they do it everywhere here in the states, and bussing is clearing it all up! So just basics, but also going to move into Hosting, which should be good! Our pay also got increased, rock-on, so thats good! So it's all going well overall! Even got my social security number so i can now get payed and i'm officially known to the government!
But ye, we're heading out ya'll (telling you the american accent is creepin in) to a movie, been going to a few seeing as it's the only thing to really do here! No clubs will let us in or anything! But McCraig and i'll figure out something to make the time pass by! Well all my loyal followers, i've attached some photos of the resort i got off internet, seeing as having a camera around work is illegal! So you can all see the place where i work! Will update you on my outside of work life sometime! Not that there's much, seeing as 60 is creeping up on me! So i want to leave you with our mission statement which we were mean't to learn, ye i said mean't!

We are Bacara

The World Class Resort and Spa
graciously welcoming and expertly
serving our guests while evoking
the glamour of Old Hollywood.

We will rejuvinate the spirit through an
unparalled collection
of personalized experiences and
relationships, where valued
Team Members excel, dreams are
realized, and a tradition of lifelong
memories is created.

We are Bacara
I value myself,
my team,
my guest,
my resort.

America – California – Santa Barbara – to the little house at 2900 Puesta Del Sol…
So here’s a lil update on whats going on in this crazy life far away from anything normal! Craig and I are living in this little ‘shack’ in uptown Santa Barbara, a short stroll (in theory it’s a trek) to downtown. But it’s good for now, my back is kind of in need of a chiropractor because of the air mattress I’m on which has a hole, so by the end of the night it’s totally flat! But the lady helped us get to work for our first day so she’s great.
Well the first day was good; feel like my legs have been maimed by a pack of carnivorous knives but otherwise it was a great! The place as I’ve said 1000 times is insanely cool; it’s massive, expensive and full of rich guests (and celebrities, but can’t say who cos’ we have to sign this form saying we’ll keep our traps closed) ready to part with their cash so hey my pocket will get big. Got some pictures of the place off Internet, so now you can picture the place! Working at a place called the Bistro, it’s the resorts main restaurant, and insanely busy, did about 200 guests today and there were only 4 waiters, so the place was crazy, and working there 5 or 6 days a week depending on obviously hours, and wait for it there’s a cafeteria, ha fun times, get stared at seeing as the few of us are the new ones, it’s scary because we have a staff of about 810 peeps. Have to take a bus into work with is always an early start, it’s about 1:30 hours commute, so getting into the minimum wage commuting type peoples circle.
So lets see what’s been up otherwise??? 4th July was cool, we spent it with our manager, and he’s been doing a lot with us, going to dinner and movies, which is great! And forced Craig to go see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 with me, was an experience, the Americans have some weird ways, sorry guys! Butter on popcorn, and not just like your micro waved butter popcorn like they put a cup full of melted butter on the popcorn making you feel like your blood has just become a fat farm! But there is Cherry everything, Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew even got me cherry nerds here with me, it’s cool, and been going to every fast food there is, just have Wendy’s and IHOP left then the fast food tour of North America is done! Also went to the Californian beach, and gotta say it’s totally overrated! The movies make it out to be way much cooler, and it’s as cold as anything! But there were interesting characters, Santa Barbara has it’s own commercial loon-house walking the streets, think Craig and my count is up to 12 really ‘special’ needs people, one woman just walks the main street (called State) and screams “Oh my god” really loud, it’s funny, I sniggered!
Well that’s my life over here, in this crazy country, so I’ll try updating this as much as possible so the outside world knows what I’m getting up to, miss most of you (jokes all), and keep safe,
Over and out, I’m off to Wendy’s (another down, 1 to go...)