Salubrious Celebrations

As I mentioned the other day, had a bit of a celebration tonight with some of the guys from work. Went out to a bar and had a couple of drinks, before heading to an Italian Restaurant called Zizzi for the main meal. There was about 10 of us so it was a good size.



We hung around there for a few hours before deciding to head to a nightclub/bar kinda place. Then we just really sat around for a bit then toward the end a few of us got up for a bit of a dance. Then we went home.

Me burfday

Well today was my birthday, I say was because I'm not writing this today. Well, I am writing this today but today isn't my birthday but it would have been had I have written it then rather than now, if you know what I mean.

Didn't get up to much, went to work, when I got there my desk and roof and things had been decorated. Went out for lunch aswell which was nice, although it wasn't actually for my birthday it was more of a team get together. Had lots of SMS's and an email or two. I even got a present from Australia! How's that. Thanks Prue.

Got something planned for Friday night though.

En Norske dag i London

Today I met went into London to meet up with Olav. The plan was to meet at 2pm right in the middle of Trafalgar Square. I got there a little bit early and discovered there was a concert of some sort going on with a huge big screen at one end of the square. Every now and then they would do a soundcheck with some keyboards and orchestral instruments. Not knowing what was going on I thought it could be interesting if this thing started at 2pm! Anyway not long after that I met up with Olav and the concert hadn't started. When I met him I also found out that Rita and Kari were also in town and they were on their way. They were over for Kari's graduation, she studied Lighting Design or something similar in London for a few years and has only just moved back, in June, to Norway. She now works in a theatre in the south of Norway doing lighting.

We decided to go and grab some food and a drink and I got to practice my Norwegian. It was a bit hard at first but after a little while pronunciation and vocabulary started coming back again(to some degree). For the rest of the afternoon we just wandered around in town. There's a fair bit of life on London on a Sunday, you've always got a street performer of some sort a musician, people, cars, buses etc. etc. After wandering for a bit we found a little cafe to sit at and were entertained by a musical construction witches hat, yes the orange rubbery ones that they put on roads. It was played by a guy called Ivan I think. I'm not sure whether it was the guy or the witches hat that dictated what came out but the repetoire consisted of only three songs, without words. Very entertaining though, listening to "What shall we do with the drunken sailor" mumbled through a witches hat for an hour.

After a bit more wandering and talking in Norwegian vi bestemte oss å spise litt mat. Så funnet vi en liten.... oops sorry. ...we decided to have some dinner. So we found another restaurant and had some food. It was fun catching up with the Sivertsens. It's always a worry when you havn't really spoken the language for quite a few years not knowing how much you'll understand, but I survived. I caught up on everything that had happened back in Røros. The aim is to go there for Christmas, so I'll see it all first-hand then.



At about 7pm we decided it was time to make a move so they headed back to hotel and I thought I'd go back and find out what was going on at Trafalgar Square. 1.5hrs later in the rain and darkness a concert started that was a showing of a 1920's movie called Battleship Potemkin about a revolution on a ship directed by Eisenstein a famous Russian film director. It had been re-scored by the Pet Shop Boys, so they were there performing it with a small orchestra. It was very Pet Shop Boys, with lots of electronica combined with strings and horns and that distinctive voice. I only lasted about 45mins before I decided to head home before freezing. The problem was that as I was there early I was in the middle of the crowd and it took about 10minutes of pushing through people to get out. There were apparently about 25,000 people there.



Then I caught the train back to the station and drove home.

Elizabeth's wedding

Went to Iain and Elizabeth's(my cousin) wedding in London today. The weather was a balmy 28 degrees give or take, so wandering around Barnes I encountered many topless people. I was warned that at the first sign of a warm sun the English like to make sure their skin sees it. Unfortunately though it only seems to be a male thing.

The wedding was quite nice in a church which had been partly restored from its Gothic/Ancient shell. The actual ceremony was in a small elcove which was mostly original old stone. I also saw my other cousin, Samantha, who I hadn't seen since I was 14, we think! Luckily we both recognised each other straight away.











After the wedding I drove into Hyde park and wandered around there before heading to the river Thames, past Big Ben and the London eye(big wheel thing that's like a ferris wheel only bigger). I still think London has a sort of air about it that no other city has. Especially on a totally cloudless warm night.

The buildings are big, the cars are big, wide roads, it does have a lot of charm. I was wandering along looking at some of the apartments on either side of the road wondering what sort of people lived there. After seeing the prices for places in Barnes(up to A$300,000 a year) I shudder to think what rent would be like in some of these.





Movie of the London skyline(1mb)