clockwatching

I just realised that in the last few weeks I have become a real office worker...I'm a zombie in the morning until I get my morning coffee and after that I am more awake but I become a real clockwatcher - waiting for 'elevensies' and then lunch, and then afternoon coffee and then sunset and then home time. That sounds so depressing but it's not really... I know that this is temporary and once I leave I won't drink any more coffee or have to clock watch as much. I blame stupid Italy getting for getting me addicted to caffeine...hmmm the buzzzz...

edinburgh

I forgot to say but I'm pretty sure I've told most people individually by now, but i'll say it anyway - I was bored at work the other day so I went to the loo and when I was there decided to move to Edinburgh, so I went back to my bosses and told them I'm moving to Edinburgh! I won't be able to get there until the end of January as I am a big povvo but January will come up very fast I know. It's scary to loose my nice dependable job that I have had the entire time I've been here, but really there's not much keeping me here at the moment and I could possibly weasle myself into the company's Edinburgh office (hi guys if you're reading this!). I've been doing a little bit of research on the city and am starting to get very very excited! So if anyone has any tips besides 'It's going to be bloody freezing' then let me know.

Kate I really really wish I could have been there to see Wayne in a tiny pink top playing Netball! Funny stuff.

jack

jack
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

florence uffizi

florence uffizi
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

lovers

lovers
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

david's bottom 2

david's bottom 2
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

busker

busker
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

florence fascades

florence fascades
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

david's bottom

david's bottom
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

art

art
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

street trader

street trader
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

old couple

old couple
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

florence street

florence street
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

And just a few more...This was such a great afternoon. I was feeling really loopy from the train ride and sleeping in a tent all morning...and then the sun came out! 2 hours of photographic bliss!!!

roman forum

roman forum
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

colosseum2

colosseum2
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

colosseum1

colosseum1
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

colosseum cat

colosseum cat
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

colosseum3

colosseum3
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

More photos of Rome!

update

Hi all, I haven't said much about what's been going on lately.

My old school buddy Andre was in town a few weeks ago and I caught up with him in Soho. That was really cool, excellent to see him, reminisce and catch up on what everyone is doing.

Jaan has been here for a few weeks now and stayed at my house this week which has also been really cool. He's doing pretty good, we've been really busy checking out markets and nightspots etc. I am probably the only one that doesn't think his beard is absolutely hideous, even he does! It is rather 'large' but I've become used to it surprisingly fast! It's excellent to have access to an ipod as well...hmmm I'm getting so tempted and am very much considering getting one! I was doing fine with a push button TV and VCR as my technology until he came along.

Almost all of Claire's family is here at the moment- Damian is living in their house and her Mum and sister Catherine are up north this week. I caught up with them all for Claire's bday at the pub Damian is working at in Paddington (the home of Paddington Bear) I think we're going to try and make it a regular thing to go there and catch up, it's a very very nice pub.

I have a new room-mate as of yesterday (yes that's right - my third!) her name is Stacey and she's from Auckland, along with half of the rest of the house at the moment! Naomi is heading back to Auckland after 4 years next weekend.

My really good buddy Sarah is also heading home at the end of this week, I'm really going to miss her. People from flat 38 past and present as well as peter, trudy and jaan all came out for a very nice night of some drinks and dancing last night for her going away/bday party. Peter and Jaan were dancing like crazy which was really cool.

As far as touristy things go, I'm going to Prague (finally!) for the christmas markets in early December with Susie. I'm trying not to set my expectations to high but can't help being really excited about that. In mid December I'm going ice skating at night with some workmates at Somerset House in London. Also have high expectations for that as it's the place I saw Sigur Ros at and which was one of the most beautiful nights of my life! And then in January I'm going with all my housemates to Berlin for a weekend for Cassie's going away. I got tickets for 1 penny each way!!! (Still had to pay tax but it wasn't that much) Gotta love European flight prices. And of course I have high expectations for Berlin, it's got such amazing history and is now supposed to be 'the coolest city in Europe' as most of my fellow travellers have said to me.

So that's my update for now, will try harder next time! Don't forget to check out my buddies' blogs; Adelle is going to Japan and then Indonesia soon, and Kyra is back in Adelaide after quite a stint in Japan. I miss you guys a lot and wish I could go back and have some chai lattes at the t bar... starbucks chai is shite!!!

Gotta go, keep me up to date too.

Becky

tablet

tablet
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

The Roman Forum is just so amazing, it's such a huge area completely full of ancient ruins. I still can't beleive how casually they are about ruins in Rome. There are feral cats that live here and in the Colosseum and no one cares if they crap everywhere, and in the forum everyone walks around freely and can steps on pretty much everything and there are loose artifacts that you could probably pick up and take away with you if you like! I thought it was bad but cool at the same time, still undecided.

me at colosseum2

me at colosseum2
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

The floor of the Colosseum is open so you can see right down into all the little rooms and hallways that held the animals and slaves and gladiators.

colosseum arches

colosseum arches
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I was surprised how beautiful the colour of the stone is when it's not in bright sunshine.

me at colosseum

me at colosseum
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

Yes, just to prove I did really take that last shot.

colosseum

colosseum
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I don't really need to say much about this! It was very very cool, but most of Rome is, the Colosseum is surrounded by so many ruins it's hard to take it all in.

jill & grant

jill & grant
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

This is the really cool couple I spent time with in Rome. They're on their honeymoon! Pretty cool honeymoon I say!

desk view

desk view
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I'm sorry but I just HAD to interrupt my Roman photos with this picture of tonight's sunset from my window! The sun sets at 4:30 every afternoon and sometimes it's REALLY hard to concentrate! My view is looking straight towards my house and the sunset. The red streak in the foreground is London Bridge, and you can see a tiny peak of the London Eye on the right of the horizon, as well as a little bit of Big Ben and Battersea Power Station (of Pink Floyd fame and my 2nd favourite London building) on the left of the horizon. That probably doesn't show up so well in this pic though! I think today was the first day of winterish weather, there was fog everywhere and ice on the cars. Getting very excited!

pantheon

pantheon
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

Now this was one of the most exciting things for me because I can remember having it drilled into me just how significant the Pantheon is by a lecturer in first year. The Pantheon sits in the middle of one of several Roman squares; the modern city has been built around it over 2000 years. It’s definitely the most ancient and significant piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. The building is one big open room, a giant cylinder with a dome on top. The sun shines through a whole in the middle of the dome, lighting up different parts of the interior over the day. It would have been so cool to be in there when it rained, apparently the water disappears into ‘invisible’ ancient holes in the paving and it looks quite amazing.

trevi fountain

trevi fountain
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

Another Roman landmark I really don't know much about so I don't have a whole lot to say! This pic was taken just after I very dorkily threw a coin over my shoulder while trying not to fall in. The Trevi is SO huge, much bigger than I ever imagined, and the sculptures are gorgeous. The horses are larger than life and they really look like they’re about to drown in the water. It’s stunning, even though it’s completely smothered by tourists all of the time.

tiber

tiber
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I never found out what that castle on the left was all about but this is the bridge I crossed each day, several times a day between our hostel, the vatican and the rest of town. Wear good walking shoes when you go to rome!

naughty photo

naughty photo
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I'm probably going to get arrested for putting this photo up, they were so aggressive trying to stop me from taking it! If you can't recognise the image despite all its blurriness and the tip of my head blocking the view then you need art history lessons! I have to say I was disappointed the second I walked into the Sistine Chapel. There is just so much expectation it’s bound to happen. It was smaller, darker and more cramped than I expected. But Mark and Alvie (my Texan tour buddies) and I ended up spending at least an hour staring up at the ceilings and walls in complete awe. It is just so beautiful and emotive. I didn’t want to leave until I’d looked at every section and understood every story. I'm so glad I went.

vatican fresco

vatican fresco
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

After St Peters I joined the next line to pay my small fortune to get into the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. You go through dozens of rooms full of the most amazing art before the Sistine Chapel but there is only so much you can look at before getting impatient and whinging ‘are we there yet??’ This fresco did catch my eye though, it was so 3D and just so beautiful.

st peters column

st peters column
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

This photo does not begin to show the scale of the building... it was just so mind-bogglingly huge, I instantly got goose bumps! There are several dead popes in glass tombs in here, we found it more than a little bizarre. It was really strange because in this most amazing church we lost count of pope effigies…hundreds of paintings and sculptures and dead bodies…and you know how many images we saw of Jesus? Three!

st peters basilica

st peters basilica
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I don't know if the facade of this building is actually considered to be St Peters Basilica but that’s the dome behind it. It was really hot that day which was a complete shock after the freezing weather in Vienna, and we got to line up for 45 minutes to get into St Peters. There were Cardinals and monks and nuns everywhere you looked, which I was quite surprised about, they were mingling and talking with the tourists. The middle window is where the pope comes out on special occasions. He’d come out the day before and he sang, and apparently he was quite good!

vatican fountain

vatican fountain
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

The next day Jill, Grant and I went down to the Vatican to do the usual touristy stuff. You should have seen the line! I swear it went for a kilometre at least. I was a pretty bad tourist and didn’t read up on the Vatican very much at all, I expected to be able to just wonder around freely between all the building but it turns out there are clearly defined places you can go. This fountain was giant and really quite slimy; it was in the square out the front of St Peters.

two-steppin

two-steppin
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

And on to Rome...

Rome is a city like no other; it is so unique (oops my 1st year uni lecturer would kill me if she saw me using the word 'unique'). It's one of a kind though that's for sure. Before I'd even left the train station I had seen eight nuns, and I could hear the traffic well and truly before I saw it. I got on the bus with my backpack on to try to find my hostel and very rapidly became surrounded by pushy, loud Romans. It really sucks trying to find a place to stand on a busy bus when you have something the size of a bar fridge on your back, so I made the decision to sit down early on. London transport may get really busy but I’ve never experienced anything like this. A little fat middleaged Italian lady decided to sit next to me even though I was hanging out onto her side (not by choice I had no where else to go). So what did she do?? She sat ON me!!!! And then she wiggled her bum until I was so squashed I was really struggling to get a breath!! No kidding she sat on me, she was grinding me into the window. Couldn’t believe it. From this I learnt that Romans may be incredibly nice and hospitable, but if they want something and you’re in the way – watch out! Anyway so by the time I got to my hostel I was rather grumpy and still feeling quite loopy from my trip from Vienna, so I slept the rest of that afternoon. When I got up it was dark but I wanted to look around, so I hooked up with this spunky young Canadian couple and we tried to get into a Rome v Someone Else soccer match. Of course that was sold out. But the night did not end there, it rarely does when it’s a Monday night and you are staying with a whole bunch of people who don’t have to work in the morning. Anyway this is a very annoyingly long winded way of explaining this photo which I said I would put on my blog, it’s of Jill (Saskatewan) and Mark (Texas) giving us a very out of time demonstration of something called two-steppin, both a little tipsy on €6.20-for-3-bottles Italian wine. Classy night.

florence night

florence night
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

And the view from the same spot a few hours later. I'm really glad I came back to Florence at a different time of year. At first I thought it was more pleasant because there were less people, but then I realised that there actually seemed to be more. It was just so much nicer because the majority of the people were actually Florentines; I hadn't seen them back in July because they'd all left town during the crazy, boiling hot tourist season. I definitely recommend Italy in October.

florence day

florence day
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

The view from Piazzale Michelangelo where I camped. The chunky bridge on the left is the Ponte Vecchio, the tower in the middle is part of the Palazzo della Signoria, and the huge building on the right is the Duomo again. Florence is so beautiful, even on a crappy day!

florence rooftops

florence rooftops
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

This is the view just down the hill from where I camped in Florence. The big building is the Duomo, the one I climbed in July to get amazing views of Florence.

cow - polpafiction2

cow - polpafiction2
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

cow - polpafiction

cow - polpafiction
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

cow - water

cow - water
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

cow - landscape

cow - landscape
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

cow - beef

cow - beef
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I probably shouldn't post all of the cows on here as there are more important things to show, but I thought they were pretty cool, some of them really made me think.

cow - cross

cow - cross
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

I spent only 24 hours in Florence but since I had already been there and it is such a photographic city I took lot of photos. There was some sort of sculpture competition while I was there, there were painted cows all over the city. This one was outside the Uffizi Gallery, where I took most of my photos.

hundertwasser haus

hundertwasser haus
Originally uploaded by BeckyKiil.

OK so I forgot to post this with the Vienna photos. I have been looking forward to seeing this house for years; I'd done a bit of research and done a talk about it at Uni. But by the time I got there I was really put off because of some nasty comments a critic had made on the integrity of its design (he likened the designer's promotion of the house to homeless men selling bottles of horse piss as beer)and so I to was very critical of it. Hundertwasser House is named after the architect; it is a block of community flats in the outskirts of Vienna. Every little apartment is apparently different and every window has a different shape and frame, some appartments have balconies and some don't, some with a tree growing out of a window, some with a tree growing on the roof. It all looks very pretty, and I love the idea of plants growing out of a building, but I agree with the critic; the actual structure of Hunterwasser House is really nothing special.

parkie!!!

I got a ticket to see Parkinson being filmed tomorrow night! I am so so excited! Don't know everyone that's on it, but I do know the Eurythmics are playing! Charlotte Church will be one of the interviewees. VERY EXCITED!