30th September

Tonight is Ladies’ Night! EEEE so excited. I am feeling that mojitoes are a sure fire cure for lack of sleep.

I got no sleep last night again. It was another 1-3, 6.30-8.30 job. I was so pissed off when I got woken up by the bloody stalker with a “GOOD MORNING!!!! REPLY PLZ!!!!” text. Absolute twat. I could have done with an extra hour to focus my mind with. Now I can hardly concentrate because I feel like I will go to sleep. But when I lie down I just start to drip with sweat and then I can’t sleep, as the sheets are wet within minutes. It’s awful.

One good thing about this insomnia malarkey is that I have been going through books at a vast rate of knots. I have finished Raymond Chandler’s Big Sleep today. I love a good detective thriller. It is a great book: full of classy one-liners and women in hemmed stockings and fur-collared coats and men in sharp suits and cigarette cases. So stylish and so well written. Some of the metaphors he uses are just such brilliant images. So sharp and so witty. We want to know if there is a film of it. Anyone know?

Amanda and I went to AIM again for a while. We can’t stick the hostel right now. We have managed to convince Lauren and Marie to come out to Urban Pind with Egle and us. Marie is not feeling so great: her sleeping is worse than mine, she has been ill for a while, she has lost her wallet and spilt water all over her brand new mac book. Not a good week. But tonight we can just go out and ignore everything.

It was quite nice: the old Korean woman in AIM came up to me and told me the house on my screen saver was very beautiful. It was a picture of home, and it made me feel very proud and want to go home a bit. Ah well. I will get the December version…cold and grey rather than covered in flowers. Ah well…summer time will be good.

Came home to the hostel to get ready to go out and Marie has gotten sick from something she ate. It is such a shame: she was really looking forward to coming out and forgetting everything for a while. And now this: so unlucky. I feel for the poor girl. I gave her some piritin to try and knock her out. If she can sleep a bit it might be better.

I have decided to wear a dress and get my legs out. Insanity. Got a lot of stares on the metro, but they are still more concerned with Egle and Lauren being tall blondes and all.

We skipped dinner in the hostel and got a Lebanese platter at Urban Pind instead. It was amazing. We are doing this again for sure. We kept being given free mojitoes we hadn’t asked for by an overly attentive waiter. In the end I couldn’t even finish my third one. Poor show. It was enough to get on the dance floor, however. We met a few guys from the Congo who were great fun and we danced with them all night. There was a girl as well who could do proper Bollywood style dancing, not our pissy attempt. She was great – so stylish and fun. One of the reasons I love coming here is that everyone is so friendly and talkative. You meet so many interesting people. Felix and Julien from the Congo, for example. We met a guy from Chicago as well who flirted a lot with Amanda, but who unfortunately did not press home the advantage and come dance with us. It is great to meet so many people from all over. It is one of the reasons I like the hostel as well. I know girls from all over the world: Mauritius, Afghanistan, Iran, Trinidad…people I would never have known probably at home. Lauren decided to go home early as she is getting an early train to Darjeeling tomorrow. So we put her in an auto with some pepper spray. It is good that you can generally trust the autos. She texted us as soon as she got in too so we knew she was alright. We stayed out till 1 or so. No club stays open after that time anyways. In the rickshaw on the way home there were loads of lorries surrounding us and the pollution must have been awful as my silver bracelet is now a horrible brown colour. Not nice.

My stalker still hasn’t given up. Apparently I should not judge a book by its cover, but I reckon I have judged pretty fairly on this one. Stupid, annoying man.