thames sunset

westminster
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

Westminster bridge is straight in front, the london eye and big ben on the right. This was such a beautiful, hot night.

london sunset

london skyline
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

St paul's is the classic building on the left, and 'the cucumber' is the building on the right. This is the view from southbank.

new orleans

'I remember reading that civilisation is only ever three missed meals away from anarchy'
James MacMillan, Glasgow, UK

I just came across this quote that I thought was interesting and kept from a news website a few days after the hurricane. It’s nothing revolutionary but it is a little scary. I was very happy to hear that my Mississippi friends and their families didn’t loose any family members or houses or anything! It’s just so horrible…

notting hill bobby

notting hill 8
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

notting hill yellow

notting hill 1
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

notting hill stripes

notting hill 5
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

notting hill blue

notting hill 4
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

notting hill red 2

notting hill 6
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

notting hill red

notting hill 7
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

lots of bright colours and bootie shakin'

update

Hmm my plan was to keep on putting small posts on here every day but it's been over a week now... oh well, the plan did work for two days.

Since my last post I've been to Notting Hill Carnival and Oxford, and spent quite a lot of time discovering delightful beer gardens and basking in the sun reading the paper and drinking Pimms.

Pimms is the ultimate British summer drink, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here before but it's apparently what the 'ladies' drink at the horse races and polo etc. It's a spirit served with lemonade and fruit, it's very very refreshing, a bit like lemon lime & bitters I guess?

The Notting Hill Carnival was excellent, very hot though and SO huge, we left after a few hours because it was just too exhausting. The Caribbean girls were great, dressed in the most amazingly elaborate costumes and shaking their booties in a way only they can. The carnival takes up pretty much all of two suburbs, and every street has stalls selling yummy food like jerk chicken, and small stages playing different reggae, hip hop and dance beats.

Oxford was really cool too, it was excellent to finally see all the colleges that I've learnt about in stories and movies. The University of Oxford doesn't have a 'campus', instead it's made up of several grass quads in various places in the city that are completely surrounded by very high and very old buildings where the students live and study, making losts of small individual colleges. Most of the colleges were closed but we could peak into some of them through the main gates. We saw Jesus College where the protagonist in my favourite book of last year went to uni, and I got to go into Christ Church College which is probably the most important or largest college in Oxford, it's where Alice in Wonderland was written (which I still need to read) and probably more famously, where the dining hall scene of Harry Potter was filmed. King Henry VIII founded the Christ Church so of course there's a huge painting of him looking down on the hall. The weather was beautiful and the river was lovely, we went into the 'grade 1' listed botanic garden which is small but the oldest in the British Isles. We had cake and tea sitting on top of gravestones at an organic cafe in the beautiful old graveyard of St Mary the Virgin church, and did a little shopping as well.

I can't think of what else I've done recently but I'll let you know if I remember.

Oh yeah we got two new house mates on the weekend, KC and Claire. Paula's off home on wednesday and Jess is finding a new place in northern london.

Photos to come!

Peace out.