Hitting Town Like a Manager Over Other Employees

Finally! We finally fucking did it! We went out! And we didn't just go out to look at all the things we cannot afford and go back home - we went out to have lunch. And dinner, too!

As I've mentioned before, I just had my busiest two months of all times and now that the money is finally there, we decided to treat ourselves to a little something. Now, before I go into the details, allow me to pacify those among you, who were (rightfully) sick and tired of my whining about how we couldn't pay our bills: It's fine. We could afford it this once, we've calculated it ten times over, all the bills are paid and we've put the rest in the bank, allowing us to pay the rent for another three months to come. I'm not even kidding, these last jobs paid so well, we're financially secure for months to come and we could afford to go out. It's all good. Plenty more work coming my way, as well. Life is good.

We didn't really have anything planned when we got up this morning at 2pm (no work today, wheeee!). There were some Tesco Daily Value chicken tits defrosting in the sink (the watery, bony ones that taste of nothing, mmm-mmm!) and we still had some Tesco Daily Value 3rd grade canned mushrooms and some Tesco Daily Value 29p penne to go with all that stuff. Yup, we live like kings around here! But for some reason we just didn't feel like eating any of that, let alone cooking it first. And it was such a nice cold, grey, rainy day outside, that we ended up hopping on the next bus instead. Originally, we were going to hop in front of the bus, but then we checked my bank account and didn't have to.

It was around 4pm when we arrived in town and we decided to start our trip with a fight. I wanted to go to Pizza Hut, because they're offering this right now:

So disgusting, yet so tempting.

Claire wanted to go to Burger King. Nevermind the fact that the above picture fucking contains burgers, nooo, it had to be the real thing. But on our way there we came across the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. You know, posh burgers. With buffalo, lamb, wild fucking boar! Claire didn't wanna go. Too fancy. Too expensive. Not our world. That kinda thing.

So we stood outside Burger King. Place was exploding with people and the only empty table was in front of the restrooms. We've made that mistake once, many moons ago. Turns out it's incredibly difficult to enjoy your Whopper when you're completely surrounded by a strong smell of piss. Okay, maybe there were more empty tables upstairs or we could have taken our food outside to market square or something, but there were at least 50,000 people waiting in line to order their food. So I tucked Claire under my arm and ran off, back to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

It was a bit scary at first. You see, we've never actually been to a restaurant over here. If you're somewhat familiar with the circumstances that brought us here, you'll know that we came with pretty much nothing (to the UK, not Burger King) and have been trying to make ends meet ever since. In four years time, we've been to McDonald's about six times, Burger King twice and KFC once. I'm not counting crap like a takeout tray of chips or anything, but only places where we actually sat down to eat. Just the two of us. So yeah, that's it. The most exciting place we've been to so far was KFC.

"Why scary?" you might ask. Well, imaginary reader, who doesn't understand where I'm going with this. We don't know how English restaurants work. We've been out a few times back in Germany. You pick a table, sit down and somebody throws delicious things at you, more or less. Then people pretend they can't see you, so you can't order any more drinks and you have to stay for two weeks before you're allowed to pay. And it's common courtesy to tip 10-15 per cent while you're at it. Things are a bit different in the UK, though.

We sat down, they gave us menus, then I had to memorize everything and order our food at the counter. And pay up front. Weird. Makes sense, though. I mean, in Germany you can eat before they even know whether or not you can pay for your meal. Over here they want to see your money before you get anything. So I went there, paid up like a good boy and in return I was brought this:

And she wanted to go to fucking Burger King!

Best burger I had all my life. Which isn't very difficult, given the fact I usually eat at McDonald's, but damn, was that worth it! We also got free peanuts for the wait. Fresh ones, not those canned, salty ones that contain the urine of a dozen different people, who touch them before washing their hands. You know, like that:

Cracking them open helps pass the time till lunch is ready!

And a chocolate milk shake that had little bits of chocolate in it. Mmmmm! Also had some amazing coleslaw and skinny fries, which were really long and about as thick as an ant turd. Never seen anything like it. We tried taking a picture, but... well, let's just say we don't have a smartphone or a good camera and Claire's mobile is about ten years old, so... brace yourselves.

It looked so much better IRL!

That image really doesn't do the food justice. The fries also look a lot bigger on that shot than they really were. They were more like fried spaghetti made of potatoes. o_O

The place was really nice. Cozy, nice view at all the shops outside and strange music, which I can really just describe as "background music". Ever been to a pub or some restaurant that played music you really can't stand? Or stuff that simply doesn't feel like dinner music? I remember a birthday dinner at a pub where I tried eating some chicken whilst Freddie Mercury was looking for somebody to love. Don't get me wrong, I love his music and everything, but it was too loud, it wasn't good eating music and it only went downhill from there when they whipped out their best of 70s-80s collection.

The music at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen was more like ambient music. No singing, no particular style, just soft, soothing, barely audible electronic tunes. Mass Effect citadel music. It was just there, it wasn't annoying, nothing intense or memorable, but created a nice chillout atmosphere. We just wanted to stay and eat all the burgers they could cook for us. And looking at how dark and stormy it was outside, the great outdoors really didn't seem that attractive.
Oh, we also noticed some tip jars at the counter, so when we finally decided to leave after all, we just left a few coins in there. Tip jars are awesome! You can be as generous or as cheap as you want and nobody will know. And seeing how absolutely nobody tipped while we were there, I think we were pretty damn generous.

We went for a nice, long walk around the city and sat down at the market square, where everything began almost exactly six years ago. It's where we held hands for the first time and also held a few other things I shall not mention in great detail, because certain parents might end up reading this.

And because of all the fountains, we've also developed a serious watersports fetish.

We stayed there until it got dark, then went to the Wetherspoon Pub. I wanted to go there, because they have a few nice tables upstairs, from where you can look all over market square. Claire ordered a sirloin steak, which was absolutely amazing and a lot better than this shitty picture suggests:

The steak was very blurry, but it was late and I had a lot to drink.

I was an idiot and ordered the Aberdeen Angus steak, mostly because it's the size of my face. Problem is, my "medium rare" steak was well done and as tough as old boots. Also, all the lights went out for a minute and we fully expected to be presented with a dead body when they came back on, along with a goofy inspector, telling people to stay until the murderer was identified. But instead of the Scotland Yard we just had annoying, flickering lights for the rest of the night, the place was drafty and there was a bunch of drunk, noisy kids on the table next to ours, so... well.

I'd say it was shit. It was cold, loud, the food was overpriced and not very good and the flickering light was insanely irritating. But guess what? I don't even care. I had fun. We had a fantastic night out, we finally had some time to ourselves and we could afford to eat something that didn't come out of a can or the freezer and had been cooked by somebody else. We wanted to do something fun, we wanted steak and we got all that. Sure - perhaps we'll never go to that particular place again, but that's beside the point. We've been wanting to do this kind of thing for years and we finally could. I couldn't be happier.

There was also a bit of exra money for two Hardened Editions of Call of Duty Ghosts. We're planning to set up our own dedicated server with friends and can't wait to get started! It should be a fun, smooth experience, thanks to the Radeon 7950 HD in Claire's AMD machine, kindly donated by the publisher of one of the games we've reviewed, and the new GeForce GTX 770 4GB edition I've ordered for my Intel/Nvidia setup. They're replacing hardware, which is currently being wrapped up and prepared for a trip to friends in Germany. All of our friends have been incredibly helpful and supportive when our situation was so awful, it's only fair that we return the love.

The rest of the money is in the bank and that's where it stays. Though we're gonna review our habits when it comes to weekly grocery shopping. Maybe we should have two or three cheap sandwich days a week, so we can save up a little something and make regular trips to town. It was nice to go out and I don't mind saving our money to repeat this a little more regularly.

-Cat