Tonbridge and Tudeley,
United Kingdom
Friday, November 23, 2001
On Thanksgiving Day we found a job in TNT magazine. It was a live-in pub job south of London. The ad was looking for a chef and a waitress. I called the pub and told them that I had worked in a kitchen in the States (I had
been in a kitchen) and Michelle had waited tables for years (true). So we chatted a little, they said we could make 300 pounds a week and have a free place to stay with free food. This was Thursday evening at around 4:00 p.m. The woman who owned the pub asked if we could start the following morning. Sure! So we went back to the hostel, packed, got a refund for the extra days we had already paid for, and got ready to head to the train station. Then the manager found out and decided that I didn't deserve a refund. I refused to give him the money back. He threatened to call the police, so I challenged him to do so. He did. The police weren't very frightening and told him that this was not a police issue.
So we left and caught the overnight train to London. We were in Tonbridge by 9:30 the next morning. We took a cab to Tudeley, which is a tiny village (maybe 10 houses) outside of town. We were working by 11:00. It was nice to have a place to call our own. Granted, it was a converted attic. But it was still cool as hell. We were
living and
working in England! How cool is that?
