Tuesday 25 March 2004

Walking to the bus station with a light wind blowing cherry blossom petals everywhere - must mean that spring is springing upon us in Vancouver! At last, hurrah! Anyhoo, this is what i have been up to over the past few whiles....

Road trippin USA….

Adam & I decided it was time for our annual road trip down to the USA, Wed - Sun, it was time for some fun…

Trip started with a drive to Bellingham, to pick up a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and of course, the old skool styled free hats, we which wore for a few hours down the highway…

Next point of reference was a town called Olympia, which is where the infamous Courtenay Love was born. No stopping for pictures, it was on to Seattle…Seattle is all freeways, skyrises and twinkling lights, makes for a very pretty city to cruise on by…a few more hours, a few more cds, a few more doughnuts and it was time for our first night camping.

Ok, camping with no tents, just the back of the car. Adam's mode of transport is a lil Honda Wagovan, like a wagon and a van, compacted into one! It holds loads of gear, we had in the back: 3 small backpacks, one big bag, one snowboard, 2 windsurf sails, a box of windsurfing bits, a wetsuit, a football, 2 sleeping bags, a few jackets, our snowboarding gear. On the roof racks were a sail board, mast & a snowboard. So the car was reshuffled about, and voila, we had sleeping space….lesson learnt: next time we're sleeping in the front seats….turns out the back was just a bit to short to contain us both…anyhoo, it was all hotels after that...

So we crossed the mighty Columbia River, where i saw many trees that had been skinned and were waiting to be made into all sorts of things...

Now, I've loved the film 'The Goonies' since I was a youngun…and when Adam suggested we could go and check out the coastline where it was filmed I was all systems go! Goonies was based & filmed around the town of Astoria, Oregon. It was blowing a gale, but the clouds parted and the sun came out when we arrived at Cannon Beach, home of Haystack Rock - which features in the films (think the beach scene when the kids are reunited with their families after finding Pirate Pete's gold & treasures!). We couldn’t find the shack where the kids meet the Fratellis, but we think we know where about's it was located. Just got to watch the film again. If you want to see some scenery shots, email me and I will send you a link. We had lunch in a great café in Wheeler (the only place we could get food), and afterwards Adam got to go windsurfing. Windsurfing isn't a great spectator sport, well visually it's great, though hanging out in 25 knott winds isn't the most fun. So I was a big girl and sat in the car and painted my nails.

Next day we drove inland towards Hood River. Checked out some long long waterfalls at Multnomah, before heading further into The Gorge...the Gorge area is well known for fab windsurfing and kiteboarding. Adam was disappointed the winds had disappeared. Motel we stayed at was wicked. Its all 50s themed, our room had tasteful pics of Elvis (think the Andy Wahol pics) and retro furniture (that didnt smell like second hand stores) and the view of the river is spectacular, the motel is perched up high on the clifftop that overlook the river, about 10ft from motel to death plunge. It's all fenced off though. Ive mentioned lots of wind & windsurfing, of which I'm not that interested in, of course id like to give it a go, but not when the water temps are below Sydneys average winter air temps...

Luckily, just 40 minutes from Hood River is the sensational Mt. Hood (www.skihood.com) for all your snowboarding desires! I've not had that much mountain experience, but in the words of the crocidile hunter Steve Irwin - this one's a beauty! You're sunbaking at 7,300ft at the top of the highest chair lift, the ski cat takes you up to 9,000ft, but the runs are all black, and well, im just not quite confident on the blacks yet. Adam thinks i can handle them, second run of the day he says 'Let's try this one' not a problem, course i didnt think he was going to make me start on blacks that early in the day (esp in non powder conditions!) and i made an ass of my self. Sitting there scared, steep and bumpy- 2 things i dont like. I made it down the run, possibley in the most awkward way possible (yes, i slipped down a third of the way, then edged and sideslipped my way down...). I only got sucked in to doing one other black run that day. After that i misjudged the snow a few times and got my ass whipped for it. Second crash was not fun, but thankfully my 4 pound sun glasses from H & M bounced off my head, in the snow and then rolled their way down to meet me in the crumpled pile that i had landed...ego bruised and battered i was in a bit of a stroppy mood after that. Food helped me a lil, and then we found another run which totally cheered me up...this mountain has about 10 chairs going, and every run we'd end up at a new chair, but this was the best yet! It was the very top run called Cascade, up in the apine area....WOWOWOWOOW! Of course i didnt have my camera with me by that point in the day so i have no shots, but it was soooooooo pretty...it was a really long run, not that hard, totally enjoyable, so much so that we did Cascade again...then we called it a day after about 6 hours out (our bright pink sunburnt noses had enough by that point too!).

Nightimes were movie sessions - Dawn of the Dead had just been releaased that day and was a film we were hanging to see - its a zombie flick, where there are about 15 people left who arent infected and how they try to survive...anyhoo, i think you should all check it out. Had some very on the edge of your seat bits in it. You must stay and watch all the credits though! The other flick we saw was 50 First Dates (Adam Sandler & Drew Barrymore) this was a fall back as Starsky & Hutch had sold out. It was entertaining enough - very Adam Sandler. Saw it in the smallest cinema ever - 8 seats across and 6 rows back...tiny! Rest of the evening was spent watching cable tv - dubbed over Japanese obstacle course type shows - totally hilarious!

So that covers my holiday weekend away. Other than that, life has consisted of snowboarding at Grouse Mtn. Ummm, Jess has been doing a cake decorating course, and i have been eating a stupid amount of cake & icing.....mmmmm....Sunday was Adams bday and it coincided with the wedding cake class...very nice cake....

Few weeks ago i had 2 wisdom teeth pulled. Ouch, both physically & financially. $550 later, i was down two wisdom teeth. And yes, i asked if i could take them home. The reality of me not being able to eat solids for more than 3 hours is not something that i want to face again soon. I had minimal swelling which is good. That night as i slept in a hazy Tylenol 3 type daze, i heard a sound near my bed, i lifted my head and then tried to scream, there was a person climbing the ladder to my loft bed! Screaming with a tiny swollen mouth is a challenge. Turns out the scary man was Adam - trying his hand at being the Tooth Fairy. After he had calmed me down and left for work, i was out like a light once more! My alarmed woke me up for work. Yup, i had been working for a small non profit org and they needed me back in the office and said if i felt ok to come in. Well i felt fine, so i got up, slurped down my milkshake and was back in the office at noon. I needed the money. Of course that day they had a big lunch on, and there were all these amazing sandwiches that were fair game.....doh! It is against my beliefs to turn down fab sandwichs, so i slogged away at this tasty foccacia. Three hours it took, but damn it, worth every minute of my time! Next day they had pizza - managed better times there - 4 small slices in an hour! I was on the road to recovery, and boy, was my stomach happy.

So i have been working for the government this week. Such a dull job. 90% filing. 10% talking to the girl who i sit next too.

Gym going has ceased. Will start again soon. My 16 portuguese classes are over. So i can say a few things, besides expletives, and this should all enhance my experiences in Brasil. That is if i pick my books up and revise again...

Speaking of travel plans, my round the world itinerary has totally changed. Anyone out there surprised? No, i didn't think so...grab a pen kids and take note:

I leave Canada May 7th or 9th...i think i wrote the date down wrong...

In between I head to Hawaii & Fiji for a week each....you know, time to defrost before I hit winter in Oz.

I get to Australia May 23.

Please friends in Oz, I want to head down the snow for a couple of days (this is after i rob a bank to pay for it - so can everyone start saving if they are keen to go.)

I leave Australia on July 21 (yes, lot's of time to see everyone this time!)

Spending a few days in Chile before...(drum rolllll please..)

I arrive in Brazil on July 29

I leave Brazil and arrive in sunny old London on Saturday 18th September - so my traditional week of birthday partying will be delayed a few days....

And then, well who knows.

My thoughts at the moment are that i hate secretarial work the more i do it, whilst it has been nice to work in non profit/govt jobs as opposed to corporate jobs.

My brain needs a work out (actually all of me needs a work out!).

I'm considering staying in London until early December, then heading back to Oz for a proper summer. And possibley to study.....i will be looking into university type places when i get back to Oz in May. Yes, i know ive said this 'study' before, but i think it's time to stop throwing about my 100% disposable income and use my brain for once. Presuming it is still exists of course (the brain, the disposable income will totally be disposed of by then!!!).

Of course I hope someone wins the lottery out there and can support me financially as I'm scared about this new venture into poor student land!

To those with newly borns, those currently incubating babies, newly weds, newly dumped, dumpers, desperate, in love, orgainising weddings, parties anything, i hope everyone is making the most of life. I will get around to sending personal emails as and when i can...be bothered.

Anyhoo, to the whole 2 of you left reading this, you have reached the end of my saga, I love hearing from you all. So don't be shy writing back. Here is the lovely Cannon Beach and Mt Hood...all the other pics are too big to send on this email - you want em, you gotta write to me!!

Til my next rant,

Tuesday 24 February, 2004

Anyhoo, bring on this weekends party!! We've spent a good deal of cash to get the place in order for the party, tropical drinks, tiki pictures, aloha banner. All we need is for Saturday to arrive and for the cocktails to be mixed!!! My skin is being an absolute b*tch at the moment, so I have to ban my self from the hot tub, which given my love of water is incredibly hard....sob sob! But I figure that hey, if I'm out of the tub I can drink more cocktails....

Groan groan groan! I've been a snot monster - stupid colds - great when your snowboarding, blowing the snozza with mits is not easy, so I just snort it out....classy bird that I am!

Anyhoo, Adam came up the mountain last night to do a progress check on me - and boy was he impressed....I'd kinda played down my improvements, in case he thought I still sucked.....thankfully that was not the case. It was a really fun night, great snow, great company, great boarding and a car ride home instead of a bus, a ferry, a train and then a 15 minutes walk (wet and carrying all my gear....)....so the blue runs are still providing me challenges, but not as much as before....I've bought a season pass for $250 for the rest of this season and for next season, which I wont be around for, but I only need another 4 days up Grouse Mountain and I will have made my moneys worth...

Bad thing is I need new lenses, both glasses and contacts....my eyes have declined a good deal...so there is more cash I have to put out...and my wisdom teeth need to come out too, lil bastards......teeth are priced at $170 +m each for a normal dentist chair jobby, I gotta make a few calls about going to sleep to get them pulled.....

Flat mate Jess has started a cake decorating course, which means there is a stupid amount of cake lying around the house, Sunday night once we came back from boarding we came home and the cake was out and well I got stuck into it big time...i had to move my self away from it....it was sooo good......and so was the simpsons, that show just keeps on getting better......there was 8 of us watching it in our lounge room, good times my friend good times....

I talked to my mate Pablo Lang, who was in London but has been back in Sydney now for 5 months, who seems to be doing great guns....I think that he's having fun back in oz.....he cant wait for me to get back, me & Liam are all he's really missing....after talking to him, I think I can try to focus on going to school in 2005, yeah, slight change of plan, but I'm soo farking over this secretarial crapola, I just gotta study to get me into something I half give a shit about.....So my schedule to return to London will change a bit......I'm going to stay a bit longer in Canada (only a week or two as Powderfinger, Jet, Living end are playing here - how can I pass that up! And the night I would have had my farewell party here, is actually one of the other gals birthday party....a bad art party, we get to make shitty artworks with macaroni and glitter and all sorts - how can I pass this up - it's my calling!! So this will maximise party potential!!!)

I met up with Kye, an friends Australian friend the other night, just for a few hours because I had a work do on.....( I can't pass up free meal at super fab restaurant!), she seems cool. Hope she manages to get some work soon. Have invited her and her mate Sinead over to the tropical party, hopefully there will be some nice single young men for the gals to mingle with (there are always way way more guys than gals at out parties, so fingers crossed…..Let's see if I can hook up some more people!!!). Talked about being back home, and being abroad and not sure about friends and family etc.....the joys of the traveler....and she was lovely and bought me some tim tams....think homer simpson drooling - that is me right now.....ahhhh....and also the newish kaluha creams....holy smokes, you get drunk just smelling them!!!

Basically, I like it here...enough to live forever? I'm not sure, that would mainly guess on the love interest in my life.....I'm not looking forward to when I do go that is for sure....but I think I can convince myself of leaving London now....I've had soo much fun doing outdoorsy stuff, and I'm hanging for an Aussie summer, like nothing else....

But hey, you know the fickle mind of Sarah....

Monday 23 February, 2004

Yesterday the weather was sooooooooo fine! I was sunbaking in bikini top & shorts on the back deck, there was no wind and pure sunlight...it felt sooooo nice......ok, so the weather was about 13 degrees....my heat requisites have dropped over the past few years...Then about 4pm, we grabbed out snowboarding gear and went up to www.grousemountain.com where we have just bought the cheapest passes, $250 will get us all the snowboarding we want up there for the rest of this season and next...such a bargain, considering a day up there is normally $42....so I have been up twice....so 4 more times and i will have made even!
It was a bit of a spending type day....eyes tested, now more blind, -3 & -2.5 (previously was -2.00 & -1.75, groan), so there is more cash I need to put out....
And I went to the dentist as my wisdom teeth have finally driven me to insanity...slight infection near the bone, so they gave me a weeks worth of amoxicilian, taking some anti-inflammatory tablets....they can take them out....bout $170 a tooth normal(i.e. dentist giving me a needle and yanking away), or if I want to go into a nice deep sleep, well, I gotta call up to find out how much that will cost...Lucky I have worked 2.5 weeks, i only have 3 days work this week, which is great, enough to get me by...I crashed into bed last night about 10pm, which is pretty rare by my standards....and slept til 11am...and my heads fuzzy, so I guess that its migraine time...
Besides snowboarding, I haven't been up to too much really. Started part two of my Portuguese lessons, bit harder now, I get confused by grammar etc, but vocab I'm fine...we had an exercise on verbs etc and i totally sucked at it...but then we had some text & a family tree and we had to figure out who was related to who and what they were in the family (niece, aunt, son-in-law etc..) and I whipped through it faster than my class mates....so I just gotta find a happy medium.....bought myself some more text books to practice more.
This weekend is our Hawaiian theme party, me & flatmate Jess went shopping today, bought masses of fruit juices, lei's, cocktail umbrellas, straws...chips, doormats, as we seem to bring in half the yard once we traipse back in from the hot tub....I love the hot tub, unfortunately my bitchy skin doesn't.....the tub is a really good one, the jets on one seat are sooo powerful that you have to use your feet against the wall to keep you in the seat! Just like a massage, except in water, and that I don't have to pay for.....yippeee

Monday 19 January 2004

So today is Monday 19th January 2004. Once again I am trying to avoid getting gainfully employed. Even though I have no cash left....I have fixed up my resume, now I just need to get presentable and head down the Drive (Commercial Drive, the hub of East Vancouver) and pop into the local gelato store. Please, please, please don't make me go back to work in an office! Not yet...please?!?!?

Thursday 8 January 2003

So I have celebrated my one month anniversary of Life in Vancouver. One month already gone, I can hear you say…noise levels in London must be suitable down with out me there.

So what have I been up to? LOADS OF COOL STUFF!

Right, so I briefed you on my lovely, slightly zany and very bright housemates? Adam (aka the Canadian guy), Pete, (crazy Zimbabwean), and Sandy (aeronautical engineer by trade & Jess - skipped 3 years of highschool she was so bright). House dynamics are great at the moment. Houses are great. I forgot how cool it is to live in a house with loads of communal space. We have two kick ass 3 – seater-sofas great for days when we load up the DVD player and watch away. My record number of films in one day is 5…. The kitchen is great, so many pots & pans and baking tins, I just can’t keep my hands off them. Yes, Sarah is trying to rival Nigella Lawson as domestic goddess (just don’t have a loaded family as back up…). So cookies, muffins, banana cake, even a playboy bunny shaped cake have all been concocted and devoured. But my favourite room in the house is the BAR! Yes, so whilst it might not be London and I’m not spending several nites a week consuming booze on licensed premises, we do it downstairs instead…Friday 16th Jan, it’s the first party of the year at Personas…(that’s the name of the bar, I can’t remember why though….), it’s painted dark red and blue, kitsch mirrors, mirror ball and coloured lights, 2 nice amps for music…tis fab. Now the party has been and gone, and correct, it was a good night…and this morning as seven of us stumbled the 4 blocks to the café we felt it.

So what else have I been up to:

Snowboarding: right, I’m slowly but surely getting my head around these damn turns. Had a proper lesson the other day, and I haven’t been chucked in the basket case just yet. And I scored the bestest bruise I’ve had in the last 3 years (since I finished playing football)….

Indoor Rock Climbing: Yes, active Sarah is back. Man, I forgot how much you hurt after climbing. But it was good fun none the less. And one day soon I hope to venture back up the wall…

Concerts: Only one at this stage, The Toasters and Los Furios. It was in this cool lil’ venue WISE Hall (Wales, Irish, Scots and English) club. Like a working mens club. Way cool, think dim lighting, lil candles on all the tables…and a whole bunch of people dancing about with the band up on stage.

Theatre: yes, I went and saw one of the shows that Marussia (household friend) is stage manager for. It was excellent. It was called Dissolve, and is about the use of Rohypnol & GBH, for the uninitiated, the infamous date rape drugs. It was a one person show, and whilst it has a certain this is the moral/what are we going to do about it tone, the 8 or so different characters she portrays are executed superbly! The other showed called Pornstar was fantastic! A straight laced librarian receives an invitation to an amateur porn star awards night, turns out she’s been nominated for an award. But how? It goes through a bunch of characters, and links up absolutely perfectly in the end.

Snowmen: just after Christmas Vancouver got very, very cold. And we got some snow. Then just after NYE, it got ultra chilly and dumped bucket loads down. So late one night when the snow was at its peak we built a great upside down snowman, we misjudged the size of our snowballs, putting the smallest one first. SO we built him upside down, and gave him the cutest lil legs, to compliment his lovely olive, carrot and caper face!

Cold: I have broken a few personal best records for being the coldest I have ever been! Early in the new year I went up to Grouse Mountain (for what turned out to be a day of very unsuccessful boarding) and it was –10 out…..brrrrrrrrrrrrr! First time up Cypress it wasn’t much better, cold wise, though it was dumping down with perfect powdery snow…aghghhg (think Homer Simpson drooling at this point….) lot’s of wind, and I was soo glad to have my goggles with me!

Gym: I’m not very motivated to go, but I try and drag myself down there 3 times a week. My gym is called Spartacus!

Classes: Yup, thought I better keep my mind a bit active whilst I’m here so I’m doing Portuguese classes, they start tonight…why Portuguese you ask? To help me get by in Brasil in June….

Job: Blah, seriously, my last job jaded me soo much I’m having trouble trying to motivate myself to get another…but the money has been squandered and should I want to keep doing fun stuff, alas, it is a necessary evil…

So that is about as riveting as my life gets…

How are you folks getting by?

December 16, 2003 -

At the moment my sad and pathetic life is exactly that. I forgot how hard it is to move to a new country where your only friend is the guy you used to lust over, and this sucks as now that he is seeing another girl, who is way fucking intense (think Nat Lang when drunk, that's how bubbly this girl is!), but she's cool, so I'm on a look but no touch basis with him! Oh yeah, and somehow, he's not actually told her that we used to be a lil more than mates, which means it's easy for me & her to get along....
IT'S FUCKING HARD MAN! Making it worse is that I'm staying in various different bedrooms/couches in his place. The bad thing is that Adam & Pete his Zim/South African/Canadian flat mate (he's cool) want me to take things slowly and hang around here, whilst they try to convince the couple here, Jess and Sandy, to let me have their spare room, bringing everyones rent down to about nothing. And on Sunday we spent the whole day curled up on the couch together, just head to toe on the couch, watching Igby goes down & Spun ( i liked both). Bit of foot tickling later on (Adam can't believe my feet are not ticklish at all, he's hyper ticklish), that's it. But it feels so nice and natural.....god, we must have spent about 6hours on that couch, really excellent couch though, just wide enough for 2 people. Which makes me think, he doesn't quite know what he wants either. Either that or it's just a close proximity thang. Grrrr. I don't know what I want either, but you always want what u can't have, so if I just keep reminding myself it will get easier. Or go in for the kill. I'm sure it will sort itself out one day when we're both trashed.
Speaking of hard men, i was downtown and saw a flyer for a Brit Pop/Mods club night - its got Vinnie Jones grabbing (i think its) Teddy Sheringhams nuts. Where ever, it will be the first artwork that goes up on my wall. Nice.
So you got my first snowboarding report. FUCK! The pain captain the pain! It was all fun and games until my knees started going in wrong angles during my crashes, but surprisingly they were fine the next day. I get so scared once I build up speed, cause I can't fucking figure out how to stop the stupid board. Bastard board never does what I want it too! Bar going fast!
It seems tickets for the Distillers have sold out, the shows tonight, I should be going cause they are cool, and I shouldn't be going as my permanent ring in my ears is exactly that, permanent. And its way more noticeable now....but I have a shitty cold and that prob isn't helping anyone.
My last week in London was WELL WICKED MUN!
Monday went for cocktails that were superb in Covent Garden, cheap and potent. Tuesday went and saw Snuff, who I think are slowing down with age, but it was sad you weren't there! Chris came with me and we bopped about a bit. Wed, Lam had booked me for a secret gig....go to the pub and we head down to Brixton, and the scalpers announced 'Tickets for Blur' WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY COOOOOOOOOOOOOL! I'm not a major Blur fan, but the set they played was like a greatest hits collection, I knew far more songs than not. It was way way way cool!
Thursday was pretty sedate, great food for the girls I used to work with , our lil get together in South Ken. Glouster Road tube has some awesome rails for sliding down...whoooooshka! Almost took out my friends hand, but it was worth it with the sliding action available!
Friday night, me & Sarah May were off to the Strokes! Wicked! The Strokes were sooooo cool! Unfortunately, the lead singer is too cool to rock out. I think that is what's stopping them from being a proper rock act. The venue was Alexander Palace, a fab palace, up in Wood Green. Then we went dancing at the Underworld, which is always fun when your with friends. It was as to be expected the usual meat market....
Saturday night was just a casual dinner at my fave, Anglo Thai in hackney, followed by Pub in the Park, and then Maree (Flat 3) took us to a party up the top of Hackney, now usually the parties Flat 3 have are for me, not soo cool, too many stoners etc. But this one was full of some of the younger guys from Matthias uni course. Nice. Lots of perving to be done. Me & Jenny were pretty shitfaced by this time, I'd had about 2 cocktails, 6 girly drinks in bottles and then half a bottle of wine. So it was clear that it was time to start dancing. And then I noticed a nice enough looking guy dancing with me. Hmmm. I asked his age (didn't bother with a name of course..) and he said 21....I feel old now. Next day was off to the Church!, my god, I was soooo rank from the night before, no shower, hair not done, couldn't figure out how to do makeup so I just went au natural....jumped a bus and made my train with a minute to spare. Had fun, took my mate Nat, (she's the sweetest Essex girl, always up for a good time,) and OH MY GAWD! Paul, on that Sunday,i figured out where all the fit guys have been hiding. They were all at the Church. Me and Nats were constantly drooling! Aghhhhh....Liam & Sarah & Kristen were all there making the most of boozey drinks for breakfast!
After the Church, Liam & Sarah-May skipped home to pack up S-Ms flat, and the rest of the gals plus Andrea, we went to Waggas for dinner, hw could I leave London without one last Yaki Udon at Waggas!! Then Worlds End for boozey drinks...
And then it was home to sober up and run around like a headless chicken trying to sort out my luggage. Man, packing sucks and so does leaving.
But thats over now. Here I am starting all over again and I soo hope that I make some friends once I start working...I'm lonely at the moment....
Oh, I bought new cds the other day, couldn't resist - soooo cheap $14 for new Distillers (think Hole, but smoother) Jet $14 and The Thrills for $14 -loving it! 4 cds, and I did the conversion to pounds - 16.80 wicked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alrighty then, enough of my being pathetic, I better go and do something slightly interseting. I think lunch can fill that void.
I really should put on Adams copy of Blink 182 - enema of the state. Ahhh, so many classic songs of our late teens, early 20s. I heard the new song a few weeks ago and thought sounds like a Good Charlotte rip-off, and then the other guys voice came in and I realised it was Blink.
Make sure you get your ears around the latest Rancid, it is superb. Maybe try the Weakerthans too, I had a quick listen yesterday and sounds ok. New Saves the Day is out too. But I haven't heard it yet.

December 2003 - Leaving London Party Week Invite:

Dear folks,

Boo hoo, sob sob, I am scooting. It's time for me to learn to spell slightly differently and to snowboard. I'm off to Canada til April, then Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Brasil before landing back skint in London in August 2003.

Anyhoo, this is how my last week of adventures has panned out:

Mon 1st Dec: all free, bar packing and cleaning...a venture to Waggas would be nice if anyone wants to join me. Gotta have my last Yaki Udon...mmmmm...takers?

Tue 2nd Dec: night time booked out (Chris, seeing Snuff, i have the tix, pls call to organise!)

Wed 3rd Dec: possible secret adventure in the evening. but day time is free! hint hint..

Thur 4th Dec: evening - girls xmas do (work thing, ex work i should say, in my 'proud to be unemployed' voice)

Fri 5th Dec: early eve off to see the Strokes. YAY! Clubbing as yet to be decided, let me know if your keen to come out...

Sat 6th Dec: day time no doubt will be a quiet period of reflection. Also known in some circles as a hangover.

EVERYONE IS INVITED TO THIS ONE!!!

After said reflective time, it is a Hackney evening farewell. I'm thinking dinner at the local Anglo Thai on Mare Street (formerly Cafe Alba), 2 courses for £5.50. Then it will be time for Pub on the Park, and I truly hope the Hackney dwellers of you will be able to join me for a quick late night bevvy at the Lord Cecil. Please? It's been like forever since I went there. Probably with good reason, but I feel this a necessary journey. There is usually a spare bed in our flat for out of borough sorts to crash upon...


Then people disperse to various backpacker establishments to continue. Or you go home to watch crappy Sunday night tv, have your hangover before bedtime and then get up and go to work the next day all refreshed, like no day time drink binge ever occurred....(Certain young ladies from Essex promised me an appearance and so did a mad Irishman I know....I doubt those from Croydon, Lewisham & Balham would be game...but I dare you to come along, you know who you are....)

Mon 8th Dec: I go to the airport, i think my flight is @ 16:35 from Heathrow, so if anyone doesn't fancy going to work, i'd really like some company out to the airport. (I will be sad, and my bags will be very heavy, 60kg allowance when flying to the Americas...I'm not that strong.)

And then it will be scarycanarynewcountryohmygawdineedmoneyworkfriends aghgahgahghag!

Day times this week are so far free, I gotta pack. But should schedules clash, I may be able to swing by various central London locations for lunches, shopping excursions etc.

Let me know your thoughts kiddies.....and more specifically, which events you can & will attend!!!! My digits: Mob 07786016363 (mob number good to Dec 9th, so please call me esp about 2pm-3:30pm on Dec 8th...). As always, forward this email to friends whom may be interested/I've forgotten. Same Same. But different.

Ciao,
Sararararararah

November 2003 - Australia Girl sets New Personal Best Ice-cream Eating Record

Yes kids, that would be me.

My sweet tooth has come through loud and clear in the last week. Thankfully, I can just about still squeeze into an economy class seat.

Ok, so last update was from Spain. Spain is the coolest.

Barcelona was cool, highlight was Gaudis amazing architecture, and Barcelona Football Club Camp Nou stadium.....Yep, poor Mumsy was dragged off to see the stadium and the museum. Her only words were, we're not staying here all day.... So we get there and a few of the players are training out front. And as I've been quite delinquent on the footballing front I couldn't recognise any. But there were a few cameras and I couldn't see any tusks, I mean teeth, so my guess is that Ronaldihno was resting up after his injury...

So then we head in to do the tour. Way cooooool. Walking down the tunnel, the smelly away players change rooms (as the players were in there. Boo), then out to the pitch. What a stadium. Even Mum was well impressed! Got to sit on the bench, and then it was up to sit in the presidents seats - regular attendees of football matches will be pleased to know that he has to sit on a seat that folds up to. Only this section is done in padded leather....Nice. Museum was cool, loads and loads of stuff...

Anyhoo, so we did the crazy Sagrada Familia, respect to Gaudi. The Guell Park almost made me feel inspired enough to go and finish my mosaic.....well fleetingly anyhoo. Um, we did lots of eating. mmm baby octopuses...garlic chicken...kebabs....(hey we're on a budget. even they were good....) and ice cream....(insert Homer Simpson-esque drool sound).

So then it was over to Paris....lovely Paris...It was cold. But....hey its Paris. Those bakeries were calling me....Day one, we were on a mission, esp as the weather was stunning....Montmatre is way cool, the church that I cant spell was lovely....and the views over the city were amazing...then it was down to the Arc de Triumphe, up those stairs to admire the Parisian traffic at its best.....crazy ass roundabout below always provides me with a laugh, such fun watching the ten lanes of traffic trying to merge into one.....Anyhoo, after a quick stroll down the Champs Elysee, we eventually get to the good old Louvre....so we visited Mona & Venus (Simpsons fans recall Gummy Venus Di Milo....aghhhghghhh....the statue didn't taste so good....). Cool. Fab building, sore legs after....

Next stop, the Eiffel Tour. Thanks to Mum deciding that walking is waaaaaay overrated, we coughed up the cashed and hauled lift to the top. I think this was about 8pm, however, whilst we were queuing, well the sneaky fog was cruising in. Lift went up, a synchronised group of sighs did as we ascended - pretty fairy lights glistening and sparkling. And then they didnt anymore. Booo. We jumped out of the lift and a collective groan, then a laugh escaped from our lips. The fog hit us. Badly. By the time we were up the top, we could see NADA. Fab. So down to level two to check out the views.....much better.

Next day was a cruisey one. We headed out to Pere Laichaise (francophiles pls excuse my French...), a fab cemetary where quite a few famous types are burried. Edith Piaf, Chopin and good old Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors. Um, I think this was about all we did that day. Nope, I'm lying, I just cant remember what else we did. It involved vast amounts of walking. And boulangerie brousing. I'm so glad I don't live in France, seriously, Id be as fat as fat can be. Choosing pastries became and issue so we made it easier by sometimes choosing 3 pastries and splitting them in two. Yum.

Next stop, Milano. As it is meant to be the fashion capital of Italia, we decided to skip it, why, well my scruffy jeans don't pass for rock star chic at the moment.

Jumped on the lovely Italian Eurostar trains, for a cheap and easy escape to Venice. Nice stroll about in the evening, showed mum the sights, had sloppy pizza and some fab gelato for desert. Honestly, sometimes I just don't know why I even bother with first courses.

Next day we cruised a bit more, took in the sites in a dismal rainy daylight....and then off to Florence. Go the Italian Eurostar trains. Cheap & effective, two words that seldom go together. I've introduced mum to hostels. Why, cause we had hotel issues in France and over budgeted. So dorms it is. Plus it is so fantabulous to have a bunch of other people to chat to and get ideas......

So we cruised Florence. Lovely church. I'm a bit churched out at the moment...but luckily for us, we continued strolling about and stumbled across a gorgeous looking gelato place. Corona Cafe. I wont be forgetting it in a hurry. I pointed at a cone and chose my two flavours, my god, talk about a serve. I swear the cone weighed about 700gram, Mum did the same, but hers was a more I-can-eat-this-in-public size... At the check out it was heart attack time. Budget completely up that brown river (no, not the Thames) and 22.20 Euros was the bill. Please, lets not convert this to any other currency. Thank god Italy is Euros now and not Lira.....So I ate, and ate, and ate, Repeat this motion about 1 billion times and I was bored. And only half way through the ice cream.

If something seems too good to be true....most likely it is. Ask prices in the beginning is the moral of this tale of woe.

So tomorrow we are trying the intercity train, trying to save a few euros. Roma -if you want too, roam around the world (song for every occasion. Letters are interchangeable).

Word of warning for all you faint hearted kids out there. Beware the statues. Some of those statues are a bit tooo real life (yeah, as much as stone can get to resembling flesh) animal statues, well a bit too much detail for moi.

Behave, as me and mum are and I want some replies from you all.

Ciao kiddies.
S

End of European Summer 2003:

OK, I was going to make this a dodgy copy & paste effort, but thought, nah, a group email will do just fine.

I just came back from a 3 hour bike ride. I'm kinda new (well, shall we say born again) to this riding thing. City riding anyway. Cycled all along the canals from East London to Notting Hill, watched the skaters do their stuff there and then back to Camden for an icy drink. Then as I didn't want to ride up Pentonville Road (think long constant incline, busy smelly fumey type road. Long story short, I found a nice residential alternative hill, ended up at Arsenal Stadium, and eventually found my way back to the flat. Man, so tired. But it was good.

Oh yeah and I almost got mugged in my own entry way last night. Little brat (insert as coarse words as you wish instead of brat). My areas dodgy as, and I constantly check over my shoulder and no one was about, key was in the lock, I went in, Sarah-May went in, and then she screamed! The 'youth' had sprinted from the road and was trying to get in/or at her bag! Thank god for that extra 5 kilos I have put on since I got to London, as our door is one of those slow release heavy things so it doesn't bang. Which means I had to use every bit of strength (and extra kilos) I had to shut the door. Lucky, my father always wanted a son first, and taught me the basics behind rugby tackling and scrums, I dug in my heels, dropped my left shoulder into the door and punched with my right…

Insert more harsh words now. It sucks. I mean I had £6 in my wallet, which is hidden in a secret pocket in my jacket. But my friend had a hand-bag - moral of the story never have a hand bag and don't look like a girl. Back to trousers and trainers for me. Skirts on in daylight hours. I reckon I've put a big dent in his ego though. Beaten off my a girl in kitten heels....glad the adrenaline worked and went into fight mode.

Needless to say, I am with holding this info from my family....
How was everyone else's weekends?