jas:phlog

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Too loose

Flew to Toulouse in south-west France today to visit Guro(Norwegian friend) and Fred(her boyfriend).

Quite a nice little old town with lots of interesting streets and lots of students. There are several Universities which bring lots of students from all over the world there.

Some houses overlooking a park overlooking the river

One of the canals that went through Toulouse

The canal over the road from Guro's house

Capitole - Like the town hall right in the middle of town

On the Friday it was Guro's birthday so we went out for a drink then had Fondue for dinner.

The Belgian Beer Bar for birthday drinks

An Australian in a Japanese garden in France

Again on top of the car park, one of the highest places in the town

Sitting in a cafe overlooking the square

I decided that I'd seen enough of Toulouse so on Sunday took a bus to a town down toward the Pyrenees called Foix. Quite an amazing town surrounded by several large mountains and plonked right in the middle is a castle. It was built around the year 1000 to control access to the Ariege valley. Very impressive building.

You can see the castle from almost all around Foix

The view of Foix through the castle support

A sign about Gabriel Faure(genius composer) it was his school, or named after him or something

Beer that will feature in my France movie

Then I flew back to London that night.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

The Stowe is not enough..

Went for a day trip out to Stowe today which is a big school set in rather immaculate grounds. Scattered all over the grounds are little monuments and buildings that have some significance to someone.

Apparently quite a few famous people have gone there(Richard Branson being one) and Michael Jackson's son is enrolled to go there. But at A$60,000 a year I think I'll only be able to afford to send a couple of my kids there.

They also filmed part of 'The World is Not Enough'(a Bond, James Bond movie for those who don't know) at the Gothic Tower(see below). I also just found out that through the National Landmark Trust you can rent this place to stay in!

A building in the middle of nowhere - Mark and Sarah in the distance

Closue up of: A building in the middle of nowhere

Water and sky and some poles that were holding up a roof

The Gothic Tower - where they filmed James

Some random ducks from Milton Keynes

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Flog...

Played my first game of golf in the UK today with Sam and Mike from work. Well it wasn't a whole game because the sunlight beat us but we got 7 holes done. The problem with moving into winter is that it's getting dark quite early now.