Should I start listening to my body?

I was cleaning the kitchen cupboards one evening, threw out some stuff that I don't need anymore and put the rest back. Admired the result, how nicely everything fits there now, so much space, really convenient to grab things. Patted myself on shoulder and went to the armchair for a little break after all that effort. And from the chair I had prime view to the window, where I had set all the spring forms that needed to go back to the cupboard as well...

One of the recent blog posts here ended with a total cliffhanger - the topic of local online shop ON24 in cooperation with couriers delivering me the window blinds on a workday between 9am and 5pm within a two weeks time frame. So, to make all the minds on ease of you, who have spent sleepless nights and making schedules on how to cover those two weeks here in Tehnika Residency so that I wouldn't need to take vacation to be ready for the courier to arrive, I can let you know that the problem is solved. My shopping in our local online shop ended 3,5 weeks after placing the order with the email from ON24 letting me know that regretfully the window blinds won't arrive in their storage on time and they believe that the new delivery time would be another 3,5 weeks later. They also confirmed me that they can actually confirm it no earlier than having the goods in their storage, so I cancelled my order. Still no window blinds.

Dear reader, are you listening to your body? Lately I've seen several articles (despite of not reading newspapers for over 2 years now, Facebook still tries to keep me up to date with globally important news), on how someone started to listen to their body and so losing weight. I'm mostly not listening to mine and I just realized that this might be the reason, why I'm no Victoria's Secret model yet. Like, for example right now my body (because brain is part of body too) demands some chocolate croissants and Karums dessert. Could be that if I'd buy myself tickets to Paris now to be there by the morning, eating all those fluffy croissants in the cute little street cafes, I would start losing weight. Or if I'd at least, instead of sitting here looking at the setting sun and blooming chestnuts would go to Prisma to get some Karums. But instead of all that I keep sitting here in the chair, don't listen to my body and watch becoming Peppa the Pig while eating apples.

Here in London Town. Plan B.

Plan A was to take tube to Paddington and from there Heathrow Express to the airport. London underground  Didn't play along and let us know that neither of the direct lines to Paddington are working on this beautiful Saturday. Helpful staff in the station suggested us to take two lines to a nearby station and from there walk to Paddington. However, we needed to be in airport on time, not start an underground-seeing tour, so we just grabbed an Uber to Paddington.

I went through security with no issues. They patted me down, did an explosive test, my luggage came through with no additional check, but that's where the smooth security ended. Because Polina was coming through the next security line, her luggage went into secondary check and just when her bag was the next to screen, the security guards had the change of shift. For that the new guard arrived, took the morning one with her and both disappeared for 10 minutes. They returned, made a royal change like the guards bu Westminster Abbey and after mere 15 minutes of waiting, the new girl turned her attention to Polina's bag. Although the reason for additional check was a jar of peanut butter, she started with opening all the pockets and zips, took out all kinds of cosmetics, medicine, edible and through the toothbrush on the floor. After a short discussion, they kept the peanut butter (turned out that unlike in Stansted, where it's no issue, you can't take it with you when you fly through Heathrow), Polina was able to repack her bag and walk to the feedback station, where you can hit four different buttons to rate your experience in the security. Polina rated them 15 times.

We had breakfast in Leon again, flew to Frankfurt, where we had to go through another security (unlike in London, the Germans double-checked my bag because of the cheddar I brought with me), ran faster than Usain Bolt to the gate, where the boarding had supposed to be started a while ago just to find out that the flight will be delayed.

Leaving the hotel at 7am on London and arriving after 6pm in Tallinn Ariport.

Here in London Town. The Tourist is learning

Tourist knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and doesn't count on random eatery on the way anymore. Today we didn't have any swag to carry and the weather was nice, so leaving the hotel, we turned to the opposite direction to make a quick porridge and coffee stop in Leon. We had oatmeal with banana and dates and walked to the conference.

For lunch today the sandwich choice was way better than yesterday - less bread and more filling. And instead of those weird sausage rolls they had chicken satay and little leek quiches. Still no dessert, which was a huge disappointment.

Since I had scheduled a quick coffee with an agency for 3pm, we discussed few things over the coffee and I went back to the office from there. We had dinner in the Lebanese place nearby, watched, how the square in the business district was packed with suits drinking beer, stocked up some necessities in M&S (like their cookies are something you can't not buy) and returned to the hotel to pack the bags.

Here in London Town. Oats with warm milk

Today the Devoxx started and we were supposed to arrive at 8:30am. The weather was nice, so we decided to take the 30-minute walk there and have breakfast on the way. Right before the business center we noticed Wetherspoon, waited few minutes until 8am and when the doors opened, stepped in. Exactly at 8:01 we placed out oatmeal and coffee order and took a seat. Or two seats, that is. Right after us a crowd followed and started to point the beer tabs for their order. At 8:18am we were still sitting there with our coffees (because that we had to take ourselves, not wait to be served) and already 21 minutes after ordering four bowls arrived to our table. Two smaller ones had 8 blueberries each and two bigger ones had raw oat flakes soaked in warm milk. We ate the blueberries, didn't chew our way through the raw oats, refilled the coffee and walked to the conference.

For lunch they had five'o'clock tea, except it was 1 o'clock and there was no tea. But they had five'o'clock tea cucumber sandwiches. And some eight more types of sandwiches. And veggie pakoras and some weird sausages in dough. Sort of like hot dog made with Italian sausage and then cut into slices.

Since the conference was over early enough, in some unexplainable state of mind I thought it would be a great idea to go to Notting Hill. Being a smart traveller I had of course consulted Google Maps and it had confirmed that one tube and appr. 30 minutes should take me there. Already in the underground I understood that Google Maps is not always right and knows everything. I did have to change. And already a mere hour after starting the trip I found myself in Notting Hill. I decided that it's already late, so I won't waste time on salmon pasta and rushed to measure the streets. And kept an eye on the time, to make it back to M&S before 8pm.

Here in London Town. Alarm.

 

The light migraine from last night had turned into a heavy one by this morning. I took a pill, stopped by in Leon, got a porridge with fresh blueberries (or so I thought) and a cup of coffee and walked to the office with enthusiastic assumption that the pill works its magic and soon I'll be migraineless again and feeling much better. A barely survived the first meeting, cancelled everything else for the first half of the day and returned to the hotel to sleep. Few hours into that I started to feel better, when suddenly all the fire alarms went off. At first I hoped, it's some testing or technical error, but it didn't seem to stop. With the more pounding head ache I got dressed and walked out of my room. The first cleaning lady I saw and asked, what is going on, could only shake her head and tell me "Sorry, no English!". I tried again using more simple words, but she only managed to add two more phrases: "Reception. No lift!" So I walked down from the 7th floor, made it to the reception and saw a notification which stated that every Wednesday between 9am and 12pm they have fire alarm testing for our safety. In my humble opinion they failed miserably because I didn't see any customers evacuating. Or what use are those tests, if nobody gets out of the building in case of fire? Anyway, by that moment I was so pissed with my migraine there that I fairly impolitely asked why they don't have this information in the room? Or in the lifts? Or in the booking email? Or why wasn't it mentioned two days earlier while we checked in? "Sorry, but we have this information here on the counter" Like ... seriously? Do all the other Travelodge customers just in case stop by reception every day in today's information and digital era to see, if they might have some printed out information on the counter? By the way, they also don't have any phones in rooms, so you also can't call them to ask what's going on. Even writing this my blood pressure goes up again.

Within next hour I got my migraine under control and returned to the office. Today I was smarter and visited M&S before 8pm, got a bunch of fresh raspberries, tomato and mozzarella salad, parmesan chips, fresh orange juice and few more things and made my way back to the hotel.

And here's a lovely picture of Leon's porridge. Left one is the picture form their menu and right one the porridge I got.

Here in London Town. Towers.

Since the coffee machine in the office is broken, I had planned to stop by the Starbucks, right below our office and like a proper metropolitan, casually walk in the office, phone in one hand and take-away coffee in the other hand. The plan was flushed down the sewage by Starbucks, that like the coffee machine in the office had just closed down. Had to walk across the street and get the coffee from Pret A Manger.

Our London office is now puppy friendly and there were 3-4-months old Yoko and Nia getting to know each other today. Especially well did they get to know the carpet, btw.

As the TK Maxx on Oxford street didn't play along yesterday, I decided to visit another one today. The one, that's conveniently on the way, when you go to the Tower Bridge. I bought two tops, one silky light blue and one with flamingos. From there I made my way first to London Towers and then to Tower Bridge. Tower wifi was so good on both sides of the river that the nonexistent, but expensive hotel wifi didn't grew just pale, but totally invisible in compare to the free tower wifi.

On the way home it became obvious that my plan to grab some raspberries and something more for dinner from Marks & Spencer isn't going to work out, because the Business Area's M&S is closed by 8pm. What time do all those business men their overhours when they are not in the office at 8pm anymore? By the way, there are mainly two types of people in this area - the ones, who pack their suit and dress shirt into backpack every morning, dress into joggers and run to the office and the ones, who rush to the office, smartphone in hand and scrolling the screen. The tourist better watches out that isn't on anyone's way.

Here in London Town. Bank Holiday

We had done great job booking our London trip, so that when we arrived in the office at 11am on Monday, it was just four of us there, because unexpectedly we had found out few days earlier that it's Early May Bank Holiday on May 6th in UK. An Estonian would call it a day off and Germans refer it to is as Feiertag (festive day). We replied seome emails that hadn't arrived, because every Brit was out celebrating Early May Bank Holiday and went to do some sightseeing after that. We had planned to go to St. Pauls Cathedral tower, but once we found out that by no means is Paul a cheap dude and is cashing in 20 pounds for each climber, who wants to see those breathtaking views, we quickly re-planned and went up to the roof terrace of the neighbouring shopping center. From there we had a great view over the same Saint Paul. We were satisfied. From there we walked over the Millennium bridge to Tate Modern, which also had a roof terrace and also completely free. We looked into the rooms of neighbouring buildings, didn't see any inhabitants and went down to have some quick lunch.

Sightseeing was followed by quick shopping (extremely quick, because it turned out that the TK Maxx on Oxford Street will be opened on June 13th and I didn't plan to wait that long) and then hitting the bed in the hotel. Because the previous night was merely 3 hours long. Or short.

And the curtain is rising

Dear loyal reader, who you're impatiently waiting for the haircut booking story - the curtains will open now.

To start in the beginning, I have to mention that for years I went to Ginger and Fred, where Mari was cutting and coloring my hair. Everything was fine until the moment she told me that she's going to take some time off and not dress any more hair any time soon. I tried few other hairdressers, but at some point their prices and my salary wasn't really well in balance and I started to color my hair myself and only went in to cut the ends few times a year. Mostly just here, in Kamibi, until once I had to listen to the hairdresser whining throughout the whole session that my, less than 12 hours ago washed hair is going to ruin her fancy scissors. Well, anyway, now I decided that all the thin ends need to be cut and booked online a time in one of the hair salons in town. Protein care and haircut by the assistant. 40 euros. An hour later the salon called me and apologised that the assistant is very capable of cutting the hair, but the protein care is still next level for her. So, should I still want the protein care, they can gladly book me a time by one of the more experienced hair dressers. By one that does the same job for 60-65 euros. My experience so far is that cares like that are spreading a hair mask on my hair and wash it out later. What exactly there is too much for the assistant, who can cut the hair, remained a mystery. So, I skipped the protein and booked a new time for just haircut. By an assistant. An hour including washing the hair. And again - they called. Maybe I could go an hour earlier. Since an hour earlier would have been in the middle of the workday, I really could not. So, they promised to see that maybe the next customer after me can change her appointment. Because the assistant is still learning and no way can do the task within an hour. I should definitely consider two hours. Two hours! What's there to cut for two hours? Each hair separately or what? Now, after having the hair cut (very happy with the result btw) I can tell that it took her alltogether 1h15m and out of that at least 30 minutes was blow-drying. So, she didn't cut each hair separately, but did dry.

Few months ago I paid 20 euros Erik Orgu to get access to a recipe database and food plan that was supposed to make me a Victoria's Secret model by the end of May. Since the whole menu was only consisting of two courses - appetizers and mains, I had to add the desserts myself to the plan. By now, he has realised that this whale won't turn into the secret model and yesterday, instead of the usual 2-bite fine dine portion I had a full 750-gram soup on the menu.

Some time ago I noticed that the blinds in living room and kitchen are starting to fall apart and went online to order new ones. I wanted the most regular ones, those that keep the heat outside of our flat in the summer. So, the ones from on24 or random hardware store ones were perfect. I placed the order by on24 adn learned that the delivery time is 2-4 weeks and the courier will arrive on workday between 9am and 5pm. He was supposed to call to give heads up. So, here I am now, all excited to find out, wheather it's going to be Omniva, who is letting me know a time slot in the same morning or Itella, who is calling 5 minutes ahead and expects me to sit home all those two weeks and never leave the apartment before 5pm.