Tuesday, May 31, 2005
balcony view
View from my bedroom of St Paul's school oval and the Thames (the blue bit behind the trees)
hammersmith bridge
This view is taken right across from my house. I walk across this bridge every morning and it is so beautiful- the Thames is different every day,the pubs on the left are hundreds of years old and buzzing with patrons, and the bridge is stunning.
much overdue update
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to my new abode!
It's been ages since I wrote a decent email or blog entry, I figure I'm about due.
These last few weeks have been the happiest weeks I've had in ages. I'm well and truly settled into my new home in Barnes across the Thames from Hammersmith, and am very happy to be living in such a beautiful place. I have been getting on really well with my flatmates even though they are all very different to me. I live in a 3 bedroom flat with 5 aussie and kiwi girls so it's really comfortable, probably too comfortable and luxurious to stay there a long time. It's funny, since I've been spending all this time with people with whom I don't have a huge amount in common I have become so much more confident with myself. I feel at peace with myself for the first time in a very long while. I have been lonely at times but I've learnt that keeping busy quickly keeps your mind off loneliness.
I have been on a couple of short trips in the last month, I went to Windsor Castle with my flatmate Paula on a day trip, that was excellent. I had never seen a castle before so it was pretty darn exciting to step out of Windsor train station and find the biggest occupied castle in europe casting a shadow down on me from across the street. Windsor is quite bizarre because the castle walls are very very high and they overpower the whole of the main street. The queen was in when we were there but we didn't get to see her :( We did see inside part of the castle though, got to walk through some of the main function rooms and see some pretty cool art including a sculpture of the queen given by Australia hidden in a dark hallway, and King Henry VIII's body armour. I hope the blacksmith that made Henry's armour got paid cos it used up a huge amount of metal! The 'chapel' in Windsor where Charles and Camilla had their ceremony was amazing, so many important people buried in there and the architecture was so much more interesting than inside the castle rooms.
This last weekend I went up to York with my flatmate Jess and her Aussie friend Danny in his car (gotta love it!). We had a really excellent time, York is so mind-bogglingly full of history and it's very beautiful. We took seven hours to do a four hour journey up to York cos we had to avoid the crowds on the M1 and then we stopped at a few little towns on the way up. We stopped in a gorgeous little village called Elton in the Midlands. It consisted of around 5 houses, a Pub and a HUGE mansion called Elton Hall. I swear the inside of the pub was where 'Heartbeat' was filmed, it was gorgeous.
I recommend you all go to York when you get to the UK, it is such a small city jammed full of sooooo much history. The old town is surrounded by a huge stone wall, most of it from Roman times but built on top of later by some Englishy type people. There is an amazing Tower just sitting on a hill in the middle of town and lots of old stonework all over the city. I loved the York Mister most, it is an amazingly ginormous church, over a thousand years old. Jess reckons it is bigger and better than Notre dam and I would not be surprised. The church has the remains of seven old churches inside it, including parts of a roman temple. I can't describe the goosebumps when I walked into the centre of this building, it is definitely the most spiritual place I have ever been, I got goosebumps and we were quiet for hours after. I had a great time with Jess and Danny, we were a good combination cos we all have a very similar sense of humour and were very laid back with what we did. The most bizarre thing in York was what the other guys loved, it was the Viking museum that they have constructed under a building where they found a huge site full of viking relics and bodies. The museum recreates the old viking town Jorvik as it was over a thousand years ago with smells and all. You go through the 'village' in a hanging 'time capsule' carriage that speaks to you in whatever language you like. I was certainly a very original idea to combine modern technology and time travel with the vikings. There were amazing holograms in the displays, you would swear they were real people.
Anyway that's enough boring stuff about York. We went through a town called Litchfield on the way back determined to find a cream tea and found that and the town parade! So that topped off our weekend, it was excellent to see a village bubbling with life and great to laugh at the rather large lady in the skin-tight rain deer suit.
I can't really think of much to say about life in London at the moment after all of that. I'm going to see Beck tomorrow night, I'm so excited! and it's less than 10 minutes from my house so I can just stumble across the bridge after that. I have had a job in events that's run pretty smoothly for over a month now, and I can expect at least another month with them. The work can be pretty boring sometimes, but it makes up for it when it's almost event time and everyone gets really busy and a little bit loopy. I went out for dinner last week with all my english workmates at 'In the Park' in St James Park. I knew my boss was paying so I ordered a much craved steak, red wine and apple crumble. Glad my boss paid actually cos it turns out the steak was the equivalent of Australian $45 just by itself, and the beans that went with them were $9!!! Not to mention the $70 bottle of wine!!! It was the most expensive dinner I've ever had! I had a great time with my workmates, I have a few drunken photos that I'll get on the net soon hopefully. I went to the Australia shop and got some cadbury just to show them the difference between their cadbury and ours, the couldn't believe how much nicer it was or that there was a picture of a Koala on the front.
The stereotype of English people being conservative and almost dull is funny but true. I struggled with my workmates at first because they are so so serious about their work and never talk in more than a whisper. It's very easy to tell what nationality people are in our office, aussies (around 40%) are loud and laughing all the time, and poms (the other 60%) are the ones staring at them in shock for laughing. We'll just have to keep on bringing more aussies over hear so they can slowly loosen up a bit more. Don't get me wrong though, I really like my workmates as they are and they're not so quiet when they're drunk.
Kate and Joakim are coming to England in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to showing them around. I'm going to start planning some potential itineraries for the weekend I have off. It'll be great to have them at my house too, I was saying to Sarah an old flatmate last night, when you have such a nice home you really want to show it off to people. The whole time I've been in the flat there have never been just the five of us, there is permanently at least one person sleeping in the lounge room. So if anyone wants to pop over you'll be very welcome on our comfy lounges or on the floor if they're already taken! Peter and Trudy arrive not long after Kate and Joakim leave, so it'll be great timing and really cool to see them, I've missed them heaps.
Better finish this blog, gonna try and post some more photos before I go home.
My love to all of you, please leave comments or email me, I do love your emails, if I haven't replied straight away keep bugging me and I promise I'll send a decent email back. I didn't realise it till I got here, but when you're away it's so special to get mail from your friends and family.
I hope everyone is well, I'll speak to really soon!
Beckstar
Welcome to my new abode!
It's been ages since I wrote a decent email or blog entry, I figure I'm about due.
These last few weeks have been the happiest weeks I've had in ages. I'm well and truly settled into my new home in Barnes across the Thames from Hammersmith, and am very happy to be living in such a beautiful place. I have been getting on really well with my flatmates even though they are all very different to me. I live in a 3 bedroom flat with 5 aussie and kiwi girls so it's really comfortable, probably too comfortable and luxurious to stay there a long time. It's funny, since I've been spending all this time with people with whom I don't have a huge amount in common I have become so much more confident with myself. I feel at peace with myself for the first time in a very long while. I have been lonely at times but I've learnt that keeping busy quickly keeps your mind off loneliness.
I have been on a couple of short trips in the last month, I went to Windsor Castle with my flatmate Paula on a day trip, that was excellent. I had never seen a castle before so it was pretty darn exciting to step out of Windsor train station and find the biggest occupied castle in europe casting a shadow down on me from across the street. Windsor is quite bizarre because the castle walls are very very high and they overpower the whole of the main street. The queen was in when we were there but we didn't get to see her :( We did see inside part of the castle though, got to walk through some of the main function rooms and see some pretty cool art including a sculpture of the queen given by Australia hidden in a dark hallway, and King Henry VIII's body armour. I hope the blacksmith that made Henry's armour got paid cos it used up a huge amount of metal! The 'chapel' in Windsor where Charles and Camilla had their ceremony was amazing, so many important people buried in there and the architecture was so much more interesting than inside the castle rooms.
This last weekend I went up to York with my flatmate Jess and her Aussie friend Danny in his car (gotta love it!). We had a really excellent time, York is so mind-bogglingly full of history and it's very beautiful. We took seven hours to do a four hour journey up to York cos we had to avoid the crowds on the M1 and then we stopped at a few little towns on the way up. We stopped in a gorgeous little village called Elton in the Midlands. It consisted of around 5 houses, a Pub and a HUGE mansion called Elton Hall. I swear the inside of the pub was where 'Heartbeat' was filmed, it was gorgeous.
I recommend you all go to York when you get to the UK, it is such a small city jammed full of sooooo much history. The old town is surrounded by a huge stone wall, most of it from Roman times but built on top of later by some Englishy type people. There is an amazing Tower just sitting on a hill in the middle of town and lots of old stonework all over the city. I loved the York Mister most, it is an amazingly ginormous church, over a thousand years old. Jess reckons it is bigger and better than Notre dam and I would not be surprised. The church has the remains of seven old churches inside it, including parts of a roman temple. I can't describe the goosebumps when I walked into the centre of this building, it is definitely the most spiritual place I have ever been, I got goosebumps and we were quiet for hours after. I had a great time with Jess and Danny, we were a good combination cos we all have a very similar sense of humour and were very laid back with what we did. The most bizarre thing in York was what the other guys loved, it was the Viking museum that they have constructed under a building where they found a huge site full of viking relics and bodies. The museum recreates the old viking town Jorvik as it was over a thousand years ago with smells and all. You go through the 'village' in a hanging 'time capsule' carriage that speaks to you in whatever language you like. I was certainly a very original idea to combine modern technology and time travel with the vikings. There were amazing holograms in the displays, you would swear they were real people.
Anyway that's enough boring stuff about York. We went through a town called Litchfield on the way back determined to find a cream tea and found that and the town parade! So that topped off our weekend, it was excellent to see a village bubbling with life and great to laugh at the rather large lady in the skin-tight rain deer suit.
I can't really think of much to say about life in London at the moment after all of that. I'm going to see Beck tomorrow night, I'm so excited! and it's less than 10 minutes from my house so I can just stumble across the bridge after that. I have had a job in events that's run pretty smoothly for over a month now, and I can expect at least another month with them. The work can be pretty boring sometimes, but it makes up for it when it's almost event time and everyone gets really busy and a little bit loopy. I went out for dinner last week with all my english workmates at 'In the Park' in St James Park. I knew my boss was paying so I ordered a much craved steak, red wine and apple crumble. Glad my boss paid actually cos it turns out the steak was the equivalent of Australian $45 just by itself, and the beans that went with them were $9!!! Not to mention the $70 bottle of wine!!! It was the most expensive dinner I've ever had! I had a great time with my workmates, I have a few drunken photos that I'll get on the net soon hopefully. I went to the Australia shop and got some cadbury just to show them the difference between their cadbury and ours, the couldn't believe how much nicer it was or that there was a picture of a Koala on the front.
The stereotype of English people being conservative and almost dull is funny but true. I struggled with my workmates at first because they are so so serious about their work and never talk in more than a whisper. It's very easy to tell what nationality people are in our office, aussies (around 40%) are loud and laughing all the time, and poms (the other 60%) are the ones staring at them in shock for laughing. We'll just have to keep on bringing more aussies over hear so they can slowly loosen up a bit more. Don't get me wrong though, I really like my workmates as they are and they're not so quiet when they're drunk.
Kate and Joakim are coming to England in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to showing them around. I'm going to start planning some potential itineraries for the weekend I have off. It'll be great to have them at my house too, I was saying to Sarah an old flatmate last night, when you have such a nice home you really want to show it off to people. The whole time I've been in the flat there have never been just the five of us, there is permanently at least one person sleeping in the lounge room. So if anyone wants to pop over you'll be very welcome on our comfy lounges or on the floor if they're already taken! Peter and Trudy arrive not long after Kate and Joakim leave, so it'll be great timing and really cool to see them, I've missed them heaps.
Better finish this blog, gonna try and post some more photos before I go home.
My love to all of you, please leave comments or email me, I do love your emails, if I haven't replied straight away keep bugging me and I promise I'll send a decent email back. I didn't realise it till I got here, but when you're away it's so special to get mail from your friends and family.
I hope everyone is well, I'll speak to really soon!
Beckstar
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
and tomorrow - a tour of my home!
I bet you're all on the edge of your seat.
If you'd like to see the pictures at a bit more of a decent size just click on them, but don't take a sneak preview of the others! I'm trying to hold you in suspense...
Beckstar
Thanks everyone for being so cool lately and all the emails, keep them coming!
If you'd like to see the pictures at a bit more of a decent size just click on them, but don't take a sneak preview of the others! I'm trying to hold you in suspense...
Beckstar
Thanks everyone for being so cool lately and all the emails, keep them coming!
greenwich view
This is from next to the observatory, looking right down into Greenwich and 'the city' in the background. The Gerkin can be seen on the horizon somewhere.
windsor castle
This was great but none of my photos turned out. People used to pour boiling hot oil from the orange bit above the arched entry.
picadilly circus
This is great, always packed, except I saw it deserted at 5am last sunday morning. It's almost more magical when it's empty. My first job was around 500m directly behind where I'm standing.
trafalgar square
Stumbled upon this huge protest/party in trafalgar aquare a few weeks ago, it was all those 'usual socialist uni pollie types' and it was pretty cool.
tate modern art gallery
Gorgeous building, it is an old power station and this was all the big machinery stuff was.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
photos on their way
Everyone please stay tuned as I have plenty of new photos uploaded, I'm just having trouble transferring them to this blog.
In the meantime feel free to say hi, pick your nose, or leave an abusive comment : )
In the meantime feel free to say hi, pick your nose, or leave an abusive comment : )
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Me
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