The Holidays

It's my first Holiday away from Brazil. In the cold - but nope, looks like we won't have White Xmas - different place. One more year's gone. It seems like it's going faster every year. Well, everybody's getting old so I guess that's why.

I worked a lot today. A lot. Physical. Kitchen. Dishes. Bathroom. Mopping. Garbage cans. Tomorrow is a ten-hour shift. We all left the cafe at 8:20pm. I topped up my mobile (5 pounds only). Listened to my messages, nothing important. I took the Jubilee line to Green Park, as usual, and once there there was no Victoria line service from Warren St to Brixton. Goddamn it...
As I was waiting for the bus 159 at Piccadilly Circus, I looked around and watched people coming and going. People at the bus stop. You could tell the ones who'd been working from the ones who'd been shopping. The hard workers looked miserable, tired, carrying bagpacks with their uniforms. The others were carrying countless shop bags, smiling and talking on their mobiles. There was this club in front of the bus stop, it was on the first floor and there were lots of people drinking and looking through the window at the miserable and tired ones. The difference is incredible.
It's all about shopping here. People going crazy and running on the street to get to the next store. I can't imagine Boxing Day. I don't wanna think about it until Sunday. It's gonna be mad...

Of course my bus wouldn't come so I got bus 3 until Brixton Stn. I was thinking that this was also my first Xmas and New Year's that I'm working. Everywhere I've previously worked closed for the Holidays, but not now. People need their food and coffee.
I started thinking about the places I used to go in Porto Alegre in Xmas Day, not carrying about the waiters who were working. I mean, of course I was sorry for them, but the thought would disappear with the first sip of the cold beer. Now I can really understand how they were feeling, not being able to spend some time with their families and friends. But I guess that's the way things are, right? The less fortunate have to work for the ones who can afford their food and drinks.

No New Year's booze for me this year. I have to work on the first day of 2006, at 7:30am. Until 6pm.