My house

Since this is like my online diary I thought that I might add some pictures of my house and my room.

I live in London on a residential street just down the road from Dollis Hill tube station on the Jubilee line. I live in a two storied town house with, at the moment, four other people - three boys and one other girl. We have four bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a lounge, a back yard and a tiny kitchen!

View of my room from the doorway

My to do wall and wall planner with pictures of my friends from home

Some holiday pictures and souvenirs

I live at number 48 (the one with the white sign at the top)

My wall with my favourite scenic pictures and my mask from Venice

From top left

Tuscan Sunset

German Sunrise

Rome - Colosseum night

Prague bridge at night

Rome - Colosseum day

Tower of London

Florence

Patches on my small back pack are from places or events I have been to

Patches on my big back pack are countries I have been

(so far I have been to 21 different countries!)

Weekend 13 February - 15 February 2009

This weekend was pretty full on

13 February
On Friday night Michael, one of my flatmates, was having some leaving drinks. He is going to Egypt and Jordan for three weeks and then coming back to London for a couple of days before heading back to Melbourne to be a grown up.

Me and some of my other flatmates headed into town to meet up with him. Unfortunately, his tube got delayed so we went to check out the Covent Garden walkie instead and had a few drinks there without him but, managed to catch up with him on the tube ride home.

14 February

On Saturday Nicola was hosting an anti-valentines day cocktail party and that so sounded like me! Even though our tube was down (again!!) Richard and myself made the 1.5 hour trek down there to celebrate. It was also a good excuse to put on a pretty dress. Needless to say after many cocktails of varying colours and three sambucca shots later I was in a very good mood! We headed into Clapham to a nightclub called Inferno to party the night away. Inferno is huge!! As the girls had kicked the boys out an hour or so earlier than we left, I didn't see Richard for the rest of the night and there was no chance I would find him in there. I have various mind blanks of the night, which Nicola has been (cringingly) filling me in on, but all and all had a really good night (so I have been told) and would totally recommend Infernos.

15 February

On Sunday I had a pre-arranged (by many weeks) catch up with two girls I haven't seen since high school but have been friends with since primary school. So after a rail replacement ride from hell, I made it into the city and spent about 6 hours (including lunch and dinner) catching up on all the news, finding out what everyone else is doing and general chit chat from the past 8 or so years! Was really nice to see them and hope to see them again before I/they leave London.

Windsor

Today I decided to get my unemployed arse off the couch and spend some money I didn't really have on a day trip to Windsor. I figure that if I have to go home I might as well fill in my days of unemployment with enjoying the sites and places England has to offer, so I headed down to Waterloo and brought my ticket - at £9 return I was pleasantly surprised and I brought my ticket to the castle from there as well so saved another few pounds yah.

So I jumped on the train and made my way to Windsor. Round Tower ----->

Windsor is a small town not far from London. It is immediately south of the River Thames, which forms its boundary with Eton. Windsor and the surrounding areas contain some of the most expensive and desirable housing in the UK.

After catching up with an old work friend for a coffee and meeting her ultra cute baby, I headed to look around Windsor and the most popular tourist attraction, Windsor Castle.

Windsor Castle - is

in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, is the largest inhabited castle in the world and, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, is the oldest in continuous occupation. Together with Buckingham Palace in London and Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, it is one of the principal official residences of the British monarch. Queen Elizabeth II spends many weekends of the year at the castle, using it for both state and private entertaining.

I had a nice time looking around the castle, the state apartments and church. After looking around I walked over the bridge and through the town of Eton and down to Eton college. Unfortunately, the college was closed to visitors so just had a peak through the driveway.

Waitangi Day Pub Crawl

In London on the nearest Saturday to Waitangi Day the kiwi's come out in force and do the Circle Line pub crawl. But two things this year hindered this plan:
1 - Transport for London has banned drinking on any public transport; and

2 - Transport for London conveniently closed the circle line for "planned engineering works".

Dumb, but it still didn't deter the hundreds of kiwis coming out and having a good time.

At 10am Tim, Louisa, Richard and myself headed to Paddington Station to start the day off by having some drinks. We were going to dress up but decided that it was too cold, we totally regretted our decision though as heaps of other people did.

Movie at Paddington Station

Stop 1 - Paddington Station

So as the tube was closed we decided to walk to the next station - Bayswater. What we didn't know is that we had an entourage following us because we had a map.

Me leading the pack - doing my mower ->

Stop 2- Bayswater Station

At Bayswater I ran into an old friend and had a quick catch up before taking the tube to the next station.

Stop 3 - Notting Hill Gate

Upon walking out of Notting Hill Gate station we were swarmed in kiwis. They were just everywhere and so were television cameras and coppers trying to keep the flow going. One cop in particular was quite funny telling us that we were behind, we should be at the next pub already and to hurry on up!

Stops 4 & 5 - High Street Kensington and Gloucester Road

We decided to walk to High Street Kensington but in all the commotion, toilet breaks, drink stops and photo op's seemed to have missed it and ended up at Gloucester Road.

<----- Richard, Tim and Louisa doing "the mower" the signal if you get lost, I think it only works for tall people though, don't think you would see my mower over the crowds!

Stop 6 - South Kensington

We decided to take the tube from Gloucester Road to South Kensington. Because the Circle Line was closed we had to take the District Line but the same rules applied - no holding on.

--- > Richard showing us how he does it

Stop 7 - Sloane Square

After our photo-op with the South Kensington sign we jumped back onto the tube to head to Sloane Square. At Sloane Square we met up with some of the girls I met on my ski tour - who wanted to be token kiwis for the day!

Stop 8 - Victoria

The next stop on the map is Victoria. At Victoria we stopped for a quick bite to eat and to say goodbye to Tim (he was a little itsy bit too drunk to continue and went home for a nap! :)

Stop 9 and 10 - St James Park and Westminster

After saying goodbye we headed towards Westminster because at 4pm everyone meets there to see the Haka. Along the way we: - had photos, lost people, got lost, went to toilet in random pubs, left things behind and had to go back, etc, etc so therefore we missed St James Park but made it to Westminster, and the oh so muddy common, to see, well for me, absolutely nothing as the Haka didn't go on for long and I was too short anyway.

After Westminster we headed to the Walkie in She Bu for more drinking and dancing (and getting mud everywhere) and having a good time.

Had such a good day, can't say we actually went into any pubs on the way though!

Louisa and me in our new t-shirts we purchased on the way




Loyal

Sex is on fire

As per usual guys - heaps more pictures in the photo gallery!

Sorry about the formatting, its being spaz and soooo annoying.

Toni xoxo

Credit Crunch in London

I hate those stupid words "credit crunch".

London, as well as lots of other countries is suffering the effects of going into recession. People are losing their jobs, hundreds by the day and because of that the people that do have them are not letting go. Its quite a depressing time for lots of people and it means that work is scarce.

You would think that people will be hiring temps to get them through if they were busy and so that they aren't committed to keeping them on but unfortunately for me, even with 12 employment agencies, work is in short supply. I think that I have worked probably about 2 weeks this whole year which totally sucks!

Fortunately, though for the next three weeks I have work (ironically I worked at an employment law firm which is booming with business) and after I finish the placement I have now in March I will make the decision as to whether I stay or go. Fingers crossed that the market gets a little bit busier and that I can stay cause am so not ready to come home (well back to my adopted home of the Gold Coast). Australia dosen't seem to be hit as hard and there still seems to be quite a few jobs here unlike in New Zealand, where I tried "seek" and their are no Legal Secretary Jobs in Hamilton at all.

Snow in London

Due to the fact that snow was heavily falling in London last night today all the buses, tubes, trails, planes, etc are all suspended which means that no one could go to work or snow therefore SNOW DAY!!

Today I actually had work (the only day this week) so am a little annoyed but decided to make the most of it ...