Create your own visited country map.

I’ve had so many end-of-year updates from friends recently, that it has made me feel like I should write on too. 2006 was certainly a long year that encompassed a lot of change. Still, I suppose I captured a lot of it on here as a went… until I got to the US. I haven’t written a lot since I arrived here. So, I’ll summarise events since October…

October: I arrived here on the 1st knowing I’d be starting work on the 9th. So, I focussed on getting around as many possible places to stay as I could. Every decent place was getting 20-30 people, so I was lucky to get a call from Brian on the 9th saying I had the place. Since I couldn’t move in until the end of the month, I stayed at the same backpackers I’d started at for most weekends, and also stayed in LA one weekend to visit Ksusha and Ryan. Staying in a backpackers at the start wasn’t just a way of saving on my relocation lump sum, it was also so I’d have some people to hang out with. I met some cool guys from Switzerland, Canada, and Denmark and we did quite a few tourist things together. On the work side, my first week was supposed to be training but it was cancelled just days beforehand since someone was urgently needed on a project at an insurance company in LA. I’ve been on that ever since. It was supposed to end at Christmas but has been extended for January. In some respects, it would’ve been nice to get some induction training and to have bonded with some other new starters… but I’m glad to have been on something and to have been busy. My utilization ended up over 100% and it’s a shame it doesn’t carry over to 2007, but working still beats hanging around.

November: At home, November was mostly about moving in and getting set up. At work, the project rolled on. The month started with Halloween and ended with Thanksgiving, the first two links in an unbroken chain of store promotions through to Christmas. The weather was stunningly warm… LA had a November record. In terms of exciting blog content, the month was lacking but it felt good to consolidate a little. A highlght was Thanksgiving with Ksusha and Ryan… an authentic American holiday, but with almost every adult actually born elsewhere.

December: I had a few plans to do things like Vegas, snowboarding, etc… but I ran out of time (there was no snow yet anyway). Khy and I worked through one weekend, which gave me some credit to save vacation days over Christmas and also gave us a chance to do some LA stuff… a couple of nights out that were a lot of fun. For Christmas, I did a three part trip… Christmas with the whole English side of the family in Todmorden, a visit to Mum and Bill’s place in Cheshire, and a visit to Berlin at NYE to say “Hallo” to Lina. Todmorden was the same as always, really, but with the addition of Bo (Roena and Nick’s baby) who seems healthy and generally happy except in crowded rooms Mum and Bill have a nice place in Cheshire… “cozy” though. We tried to visit a former nuclear bunker, but it was closed to we went to see the ruins of a castle instead. The most impressive thing was the location… a crag sticking up out of a generally flat plain. There are some good photos in the gallery. It was nice to see Berlin again, and to see Lina again for the first time since we broke up. It helps to talk… that’s enough about that. NYE itself was amazing. I had no idea that Germans could be so nuts for fireworks. Everyone seems to buy a sackful and then they gather in a crowd downtown to drunkenly fire them into the sky. Along with all the flashing lights from the Politzei and Krankenwagen (ambulances) it made quite a sight.

I’m back in the US now. I’ve already worked three days, but since it was from home it was quite a smooth start. Tomorrow, I’m back in LA.

Photos: See old gallery or retro-loaded onto flickr (SF, LA, UK, DE)