Reason #39 it's good to be home: I'm finally allowed to watch Taken..

Registering as a zombie extra in the next Brad Pitt film complete, I decided to find some income to see me through until my big break. So I moved on from my role as Official Spoon Licker at Bonbons and Buttercream and went out into the world of real employment for the first time in seven months. A mass CV hand-out and several disastrous attempts to describe myself in three words later and I walk into a job where the popcorn arrives by the sack load and I can hear Voldemort's voice ringing through the corridors four times a day. And what's more, the potential of some actual friends in this city.
So as you can imagine the PED (Post-Erasmus Depression remember?) is starting to lift. And although my heart still aches for my girls around the world, I did ease the pain for a weekend with my own English ladies and copious amounts of alcohol. Naturally.

The kind of ladies I can accidentally go weeks without catching up with or spend months living in a separate country from yet still start every conversation as if we've just left off. Not to mention the kind that know not to make direct eye contact with me first thing in the morning, that I absolutely do not cope well with a hangover and the kind that will no doubt be laughing right now as I share with them my new low point of vomming in Carlisle station as I waited for my train home. Classy as ever.
Things are looking up and the UK is proving not to be so bad after all, at least until I elope with my Bachelor degree to Holland, but that's a whole new blog. My friends are freakin' class and although I'm now officially and surreally living in a different country to my parents, the sympathy my sister and I get for the sob story of them 'abandoning us' is totally worth it. So Scotland, you may not make my heart race the way Paris did and the language barrier I assumed would dissolve as soon as I set foot on your soil may rear its head from time to time, but keep selling me Irn-Bru and I'm sure we'll get along just fine..

Reason #17 it's good to be home: A whole Tesco value vanilla cheesecake for £1..

"A new city, a new life, a new adventure", I believe I said. But two weeks living in Glasgow, back in the rain, back in reality, and that precious care-free bubble I found myself living in over the last 6 months is close to breaking point. So time to get writing once again and what better way to gain some perspective and shake off this feeling than titling each post with a reason the UK isn't the worst place to be and that there are more important things in the world, like finding me a job and getting me a social life.

Last week I decided to go out and make some friends, to hopefully take the edge off the English loser in Glasgow I could see myself becoming. So I joined the gym. And when the 15 year old we-wear-a-full-face-of-make-up-and-matching-pink-velour-tracksuits-to-the-gym girls accompanying me in the induction didn't take to kindly to my no brand, SportsWorld gear and the utterly disgusting fact that I was there to sweat, I didn't panic but instead looked forward to the bright eyes and friendly faces of the ladies I would meet in my first Zumba class. However, thirty seconds into the class and the realisation dawns on me that I despise Zumba. It's a bold statement, and I know there are some of you tutting in protest and shaking your heads as you read this but it's true, I hate Zumba. The only way I could have been more uncomfortable is if I was naked.
But even if I'd been having a blast and fancied a bit of banter with the ladies next to me with the secret hope of potential friendship, they wouldn't have heard a word I'd said as the instructor was a yeller. A keen-o. The worst kind of gym instructor there is. The kind that sings along to every song, into her microphone nonetheless, regardless of pitch and key and the kind that demands each member of the class enthusiastically yells and screams to prove we are having a good time. Which I was not.
So the gym is proving a no go for friends, but on the bright side I'm finally shaking off all those months of pastries, macaroons and every hour being bread o'clock.

However, next stop an open casting for Zombie extras in the next Brad Pitt film, surely someone will like the look of me there..