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 ...

New Blog - Blast from the Past Photos

Hey All

Since I have had a lot of time on my hands lately - due to unemployment in London - I have been looking through my old photos and sorting them out.

There are some interesting photos/movies that I thought I would share with everyone.

I have started a side blog that I will update with my photos and movies as I come across them.

Hope you enjoy them. The link is http://blastfromthepastphotos.blogspot.com/

Toni

xoxo

Can you name the events they relate to?

Shows seen in London Recently

WIG OUT

For Pam's birthday her sister, Debra, has organised for us all to go out for dinner and then Wig Out. Wig Out isn't your normal London Broadway show, its anything but!

Wig Out is a ... drag queen show!

It was about a drag house "The House of Light" which rivals agaisnt another house in a ball. Its actually kind of hard to explain (found a little exert below). Anyway, it was actually quite good. It was really funny, the singing and dancing was really good and only a little uncomfortable.

Debra and I all ready to see the queens ------>

Enter the legendary House of Light, a hyper-glamorous, uber-competitive drag queen refuge where a daughter who was once a son, can find a family. While the House are primping and preening for a catwalk showdown with the other houses, drag queen Nina is wooing the delectable Eric as Wilson, a de-camped, make-up free 'straight' gay man. How can Nina/Wilson strut the thorny divide between opposite genders and differing worlds? With sassy music, killer costumes and performed in a club cabaret setting, Wig Out! brings to glorious, vivid life, a riotous, defiant drag queen sub-culture.

GREASE

Donna had stopped by on her way to Switzerland for a couple of days so Louisa had organised for us all to go to Grease the Broadway show.

We had seats right up the front which was a privilege as we are always usually way back at the theatre. This Broadway show is based around the movie Grease and goes along with the storyline but has some very different scenes, my favourite being the shower scene. It was a really good show and I would recommend it. A show you can get into and who doesn't love a good Grease song.

Pam, Louisa, Donna, Nicola and Toni -->

New Years skiing in the French Alps

The time had finally come for our French skiing holiday - yah!

Debra came over from Ireland and we trouped down to the meeting point to pile on the bus for our (very long) overnight journey to Les Deux Alpes.

Me in my ski outfit ---->

Sunday 28 December 2008

We made it to the Alps at about 12pm on Sunday (we left at 5pm on Saturday night) and after lunch, I got my ski gear and then we walked around the village before meeting our cool roomies and heading to the pub for welcome drinks (one of many nights at the pub).
<--- Us at welcome drinks

Monday 29 December 2008
The next day was my first ever time on skis and my ski lesson with my uber cute (well I thought so) ski instructor. I can tell you one thing, rental ski boots are a nightmare. They are some of the most painful shoes I have ever worn in my entire life but once the pain subsided a bit I managed to actually get quite good at skiing. That of course was once I learnt that you don't just go straight down the hill...

On the first day my ski instructor said "go down the hill ". So I was like, um, ok, so that's exactly what I did. I pointed my skis straight forwarded and headed down the hill - ahhhhhhhh, I went soooooooooo fast, I couldn't stop, I thought I was going to die (ok, not die, but definitely plow into the parked cars that were coming closer and closer), people heard me screaming from the next ski field away, so to stop I had to do a dive roll, ski's went flying and I just lay there a while and caught my breath! Phew, I stopped and didn't crash into the cars, cabin or anyone else and was still in one piece! (now who was worried about me breaking anything!)

Resting my pour aching feet - me after I stacked it - me upright and skiing

That night we joined the rest of the troops (I think there were about 150 people in the Top Deck group) for a pub crawl where we all got extremely intoxicated, met real French men (some cute, some not so much) and suffered much memory loss. We also thought that it was a good idea to go outside at around 4am in the morning and see the snow!

Katie, Cherie (our roomies who now live in London, yah!) myself and Debra
Debra in the snow around 4am ----->

Tuesday 30 December 2008

The next day I dragged myself out of bed (unlike some others) and had my second ski lesson (with bigger boots). I can tell you that the group halved itself by the second day - the pub crawl taking its toll. Debra managed to crawl out of bed at noon and attempted to go snowboarding but once getting in the gondola and at the top of the mountain the nausea set in and she thought it better to come back down again - via the gondola.

That afternoon was spent catching up on lost sleep and relaxing before New Years Eve.

It was snowing most of the day and night. This is the snow falling outside our room - we were fortunate to have a balcony which came in super handy to cool our drinks!

31 December 2008 - New Years Eve

I didn't have a ski lesson today so I spent the day skiing by myself and then in the afternoon was joined by my roomie who made me try and go down a super steep hill. I stacked it many times going down but made it eventually! It snowed pretty much all day today which was really nice.

Before the drinking and debauchery started we headed down the road and watched some of the entertainment. They had skiers and snowboarders coming down the hill in formations, jumps, fireworks and a torch light procession. During the procession there were about 100 skiers coming down the mountain with flaming torches it was really amazing.

That night Top Deck had organised for us to party downstairs in the bar as most of the clubs in town were charging a 30 euro plus cover charge. They had also organised a band which was really good. I spent most of the night downstairs dancing and singing while Debra kept bringing me drinks (I was told that if I got them myself they would be half spilt by the time I got downstairs). I had a really great night and wasn't hungover the next day despite (allegedly) drinking 3/4 bottle of vodka.

Group New years photo

1 January 2009 - New Years Day

I didn't have my ski lesson until the afternoon today so spent the morning having a nice sleep in.

Today in my ski lesson we got given poles, yah (new skiers don't get given poles straight away - I must be really good to get them so soon ;)). We also got to take the gondola up the mountain to ski on the big people fields (we had previously just been on the learner slopes) going up the mountain also meant that we had to master the chair lift which also leads to another funny story ...

Most people had dropped out of the ski lesson by now so it was only super duper cute ski instructor, me and another girl. So we headed up the mountain and were in the line for the chair lift. Now keep in mind I had never used the chair lift before (which the ski instructor didn't know - he spoke very little English). So ski instructor and the other girl were first up and they hopped on the chair lift just fine, me however was about two lines behind them . I was watching everyone do it and thought ok i can do that - oh how very wrong was I - I got there fine and then suddenly the seat came, I fell into it but not before tripping up another skier who stacked it off the chair lift also taking one of my newly acquired poles with him. Oh the shame (it was totally my fault) so the chair lift goes up a bit and then the whole chair lift shuts down while the unfortunate skier is picked up and my pole is located (I later find out that my ski instructor thought it might of been me, but because I was safely seated in the chair lift pushed that thought out of his mind, oh how very wrong was he) after about 5 mins the chair lift started up again and we carried on our merry way up to the top until we have to get off. So I am all ready to get off, I try to balance and then stack it right under the chair lift. I try and move out of the way (very difficult when you have giant skis on) and then the skier I tripped up throws my pole to me whilst I am lying in a heap on the ground. The chair lift is an acquired skill. I felt better to see many other people stack it as well and can say that after my first mortifying incident there were no more (chair lift incidents) to report after that.

View of village from top of mountain

That night we decided to take it easy and went tenpin bowling. After a few inital gutter balls I seemed to pick up my game by getting three strikes in a row and my score being in the triple digits.

2 January 2009

Today was our last full day skiing (sob sob). Debra decided to hang with us today which was really nice and take us down some easy slopes and guide us around the mountain. We started by going on some nice green (the easiest) slopes just cruising before trying out a blue slope - which I am proud to say I conquered slowly but surely and didn't even stack it! Next we headed up to the Glacier to try out some more slopes up there but by the time we got up there (a gondola and tbar away) and headed down one large green slope we were exhausted and decided to take the gondola home leaving Debra to snowboard down the mountain home.

Debra snowboarding

Me and Debra at the top of the Glacier

That night we headed our for leaving drinks (the last lot of drinks - my liver was dancing with delight that the drinking was almost over) unfortunately I had a cold (still/again) and cold and flu and alcohol don't mix well, but I still had a good night and wasn't too hung over in the morning.

Debra and I at leaving drinks ----->

3 January 2009

This morning was our last morning in the village so we spent it walking around and going sledding. Unfortunately the snow wasn't fresh enough to make snow mans and snow angels :(

We then piled back into the bus for our 14 hour bus trip back to London.

I had a fantabulous time skiing and would totally recommend a skiing holiday. I don't think I will take up skiing as a sport but would love to live in the snow and Canada is getting serious consideration as my next place of abode. I would also love to try snowboarding next time.

Hope you all had great New Years as well.

There are heaps more photos and movies in my photo gallery. My google photo gallery doesn't have captions so if you want captions head to my facebook photo gallery.

Toni xoxox

ps - sorry my blog is so long. Its probably boring to some (most) people but its sort of my travel diary so I like to write everything (ok well not everything ;)) but a lot of my adventure stories.

Me after stacking it trying to get up
Me skiing
Debra stacking it

Christmas 2008

My first real Christmas tree.

This Christmas I decided to stay at home (also because there is no public transport operating on Christmas day which makes it almost impossible to go anywhere) and have it with some of my flatties.

Pre Christmas dinner treats ---->

We prepared a fantastic Christmas feast with roast pork and roast turkey (something I have never had before but quite enjoyed) and washed it down with apple pie, cheese cake and ice cream yum!

After our feast we lounged around on the coach laxing out and watching tv. Was a nice relaxing day before the adventures of New Years in the French Alps.

<------Someone who had too much Christmas dinner!


Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas!

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland was on in Hyde Park and they have an outside ice skating rink that I was dying to try out so I invited Tim, Louisa and Amanda along to help me test it out.

We got there bright and early on Sunday morning to avoid the crowds. Once geared up we hit the ice – ohhh, the disappointment! I could hardly move on the damm ice (and I am a pro – ok well not a pro, but I was in a show!). Nasty rent-a-skates and slippery early morning ice were not a winning combination. After a while though, once the ice was a little munched up, I was able to skate around freely (and carefully – I wasn’t wanting to break a bone again!) and have a good time.

After the ice skating we had a walk around the stalls looking at the crafts and sampling some mulled wine, eggnog and winter pims.

There was a pile of ice on the ground and we couldn’t resist making a snow man. His name was Harry and he was ever so cute!

We then spent the afternoon having a nice walk around the Hyde Park. It was really funny, the water had a thin layer of ice over it and birds were standing and walking on it. It looked like they were ice skating and it was really funny when they plunged over the side.