Oh Man

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Sometimes my life is one long whirlwind of social engagements.

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Afternoon.

A walk along the gently lapping seashore, speaking of love lost and love regained, and sitting on the pebbles watching the sun set, red and big and romantic behind rolling clouds...with, er, Paul T.

He's an experienced TEFLer who wants to emigrate to Hungary, to teach, be with his girlfriend, and get out of this godforsaken country. I'm a newly minted TEFLer who's looking to emigrate to Eastern Europe. It would be...somehow ironic...if we both ended up at the Budapest school of languages.

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Evening.

This town has a skatepark. When my age was barely in double figures, I went along and tried to rollerskate with my brother and parents. None of us were any good, and after a few months we quietly gave up trying.

Next to the rollerskating rink for families, there was the skateboard area for cool teenagers. I was envious of them - their skill with the boards, their clothes and gear, their confidence and lack of visible parents.

Now the cool teens are boring parents with cool teens of their own. The park is threatened with closure and the second generation of skaters are mounting a credible campaign to keep it. One part of this campaign was a fundraising party at the re-cently re-named and re-novated "Havana Bar".

There's not many parties with four simultaneous DJs in different rooms, but that's what the Durty Sound System provides, allowing the punter to coast between 70s rock, ambient, synthpop and chilled reggae , all with short films and shifting sculptures of light projected onto the walls.

If you sat in exactly the right spot, you could listen to sound leakage from three at once. The spot was, inevitably, the room with chairs and tables for drinking and chatting.

I was somewhat relieved to be not the only punter over 25 with pattern balding. And no I did not hit on any of the grungy skatepunks, so there.

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Night and morning.

After leaving the party, and a pleasant couple of hours for roast dinner and jeering-at-crap-TV-shows with a comrade...a night of getting a little too drunk with other comrades. And being used as a bouncy castle by their infant daughters.

I'm told I became rather animated and thumped the table, of which I have no recollection. I slept on a couch, and woke to a pounding hangover, an extremely welcome mug of sweet tea, and a three year old girl painting my fingernails blue.

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One language school in Moscow needs twelve teachers of English to start as soon as possible. Either they're an extremely large school, or the place was so unbearable all the teachers left at once. Considering that the school of Zheleznodorozhny (I know I could pronounce it, but haven't got the strength) wants five teachers and the one in Zelenograd wants three...I'm guessing teacher retention in Russia isn't high.

Ho Chi Min city need ten too, and Mexico want even more. I decided, on balance, not to apply for Oman.

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