Oh Happy Day

This week I've been a busy little bee, trying to get organised and get rid of a whole lot of things that have been hanging out on my 'To Do' list for some time. Aside from those things, I had a good game of netball on Wednesday night with my new team, and although we lost it was only by three - not bad for a team who have only just met and have started half way through the season! I'm also attempting to write two assignments this weekend, which should be interesting given how quickly and easily my social calendar fills up ... and how very good I am at procrastinating whenever uni work needs to be done.:)

I managed to fill yesterday by going to my first ever football game! My friend Jody works for Coca Cola Europe and the company sponsors one of the football leagues over here. They have their own corporate box in the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, and were giving away tickets to their employees for the games this weekend. So Jody managed to get three - one for herself, me and Kristine - and off to beautiful Wales we went! Free alcohol, food and a ticket in a corporate box was more than enough to entice us to spend the 50 quid required for a return train ticket. The game was the grand final of the second division, so it wasn't technically the best game to see, but with 20,000 people there the atmosphere was fantastic and it was very easy to get caught up in it. The game was between Lincoln City and Southend United, and we were on the side of the stadium that held the Southend supporters, so that's who we ended up going for - or we may have been killed. Just as well we did go for them because they won 2-0, scoring both goals in extra time. After that we stayed around for a couple more drinks, then went to a local pub for a few more and to soak up the atmosphere, and we got back to London about 11pm last night.

Here are some photos from yesterday:


Cardiff Castle ... we didn't get much of a chance to see Cardiff, but I'd love to go back and see the castle. It's a really pretty city!


A busy Cardiff street on game day...


Crazy Welsh!!! Everything is written in both English and Welsh, although hardly any Welsh people speak/understand it. They're trying to regain their lost language, part of the whole 'assert ourselves from England' thing. Meh. It's a crazy language, dominated by a complete lack of vowels! I have no idea how they pronounce it...


Me, at the Millenium Stadium


Let the game begin!


The Lincoln City fans....


Some of the Southend U fans.

This weekend is a long weekend because of a bank holiday on Monday. The reason? The beginning of Summer apparently.:D Friday spoke to that - 32 degrees in London!!! It was fantastic! Hot and gross, but FANTASTIC! It's so nice to be able to wear a skirt to work! Hopefully the hot weather will keep up for a bit, although today isn't looking particularly promising. Meh. A long weekend is a long weekend! Can't argue with that.:)

Windsor & Eton

Yesterday Jaimee and I wandered on down to Windsor Castle and, despite the weather being pretty awful for most of the day, it was well worth going to see. The castle is just amazing, really the height of Royalty and decadence. And at over 900 years old, it's doing pretty well! Unfortunately you aren't able to take photos of the interior, which is a real shame because it's absolutely beautiful. We're talking oriental carpets that were gifts from visiting Heads of States, gold candelabras and utensils, chandeliers the size of my room, ornate ceilings decked out with the most incredible paintings and detail... *sigh!* I WANT A CASTLE! We were lucky we got there early too, we hardly had to queue at all, but by the time we left there was a queue going all the way down the street.

Anyway, the rest of Windsor is aslo very pretty. Here are photos from outside the castle and around Windsor:


Windsor Castle...


Windsor Castle again...


The Round Tower of Windsor Castle, unfortunately the interior is off-limits


Crazy leaning Tea House in Windsor


Windsor castle once again... it's kinda big!


A view of Windsor Castle with St George's chapel on the left


Changing of the Guards...again, this area is restricted.


Outside St George's Chapel. No photos are allowed inside, but the detail on the outside is somewhat indicative of what the inside is like ... multiplied by about 100! If you watched the Charles and Camilla prayer service, this is where it was held, and you would be able to see the inside from that footage. It's REALLY impressive, what with all the dead King's and Queens (including Henry VIII, Jane Seymour - one of Henry's wives - Edward III, the Queen Mum, King George V, Princess Margaret..... lots of dead people!).


Another pic outside the chapel...


More pics of the Castle...


Hey look it's another pic of the castle!

After the castle we got some lunch at one of the local pubs - a really lovely atmosphere, dark wood interior, and we sat by an open fire to keep warm while the rain pelted down outside and we dined on steak and ale pie with mash and vegies - all very stereotypically English! Then we wandered off down to Eton.

Eton is also very pretty. TO get there you walk over a pedestrian bridge over the Thames, which is just beautiful. Lots of green weeping willows and swans and ducks and whatnot:


View from the Eton side of the river across to Windsor Castle.


River Thames, with lots of Swans and all that jazz


View across to Eton from the Windsor side of the Thames

Eton, as I said, was really pretty. As it was the weekend, a lot of the boys were out and about, mostly in plain clothes but we did see a few in their very poncey uniforms - pin-striped trousers, white shirts and black suit coat with tails... There's a lot of money around there! Jaimee and I had a guided tour of the old school which, apart from the Chapel, is hardly used any more. It was built by Henry VI and the original buildings still stand. The Chapel is beautiful too, with wall murals and an amazing organ. The old school rooms are quite cool to look at as well - hundreds of years of boys scratching their names into the wooden desks and pillars and things! And above those, the original King's Scholars rooms are still used. 60 boys are granted scholarships every year and are known as Kings Scholars, and get their own rooms and dining room. It's all very prestigious. Anywho, these are pics of the school:


Part of the original Eton College. The statue of the Virgin Mary somehow surived the Reformation in England. It is thought it may have been hidden or covered up at the time.


One of the courtyards at the old School. These buildings today are mostly used for administration purposes, although the original King's Scholars dining room is still used (on one side of this courtyard).


The original buildings, built in the time of Henry VI, and where the King's Scholars still live.


The Chapel of Eton College...


And again!


Last night I went over to Jaimee's place and there were a bunch of antipodeans there, all drinking and watching the EuroVision Song contest. It's quite a big thing, for all it's tack and trashiness. Every country in Europe (and 'Europe' is fairly loosely defined...) submits an act, either an individual artist or group who has not been signed with a major record label, and then there are 20 finalists. Then after all the finalists have done their thing on stage, everyone in Europe can vote, but you can't vote for your own country. So a lot of the voting comes down to neighbourly love and political issues. For instance, Cyprus gave no votes to Turkey, but gave all their points to the UK. Greece won, after Switzerland and Latvia were leading the game for a while. Anywho, a good night with good company!

Today I have to start on assignments. I'm so scattered at the moment...there's a million things I have to do, some of which pertain to things on the other side of the world, and I just don't know how to deal with all of them at once...

I'm sure everything will work out just fine.:)

Teeheeheeheehee!

A Weekend of FUN:)

This weekend I kept myself very busy, with the exception of Friday night when I crashed (uber exhausted Melanie). Saturday, after talking to Annie Park for the first time in years, I decided to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Annie, who lived here for a wee while, used to work there. And it was really awesome! Lonely Planet described it as "the nation's attic" and I'd have to say I totally agree with that analogy. It's a massive - and beautiful - building filled with just random ... stuff! Expensive stuff, no doubt. But it's really incredible the collection they have in there - artworks, silverware, materials, clothing, antiques, cabinets, jewellery, tableware, statues, copies of statues ... it just goes on and on. But it really is hard to explain, so I took a few pictures:




The exterior of the building...




Some of the clothes from the fashion area...needless to say I spent a bit of time looking through there:)




The museum has a collection of Queen Maud's wardrobe. Maud was a British Princess who eventually became Queen of Norway. They had everything from her Going Away dress, ball dresses, and ski outfits, to her Coronation Dress (above).


One very cool art installation - they're pillars wrapped in photos of bark, with a white ceiling and a mist floating through it. Very cool forest effect.










The above are items from the Japanese and Chinese collections.




This was one of the rooms that held a cafe. How cool is that?! The detail is just incredible.


This inkstand is made from the gold of 20 snuff boxes given to some English guy from some French dude...I dunno, I wasn't really paying much attention, it was just really shiny!






This has to be the biggest wine cooler in the world...I need one of these!






The above is the collection of copies of great artworks, a lot of them presented to Queen Victoria from their country of origin. They have full-size copy (plaster cast) of David - He's really tall!


Saturday night I headed out to Hainault, near Essex (read: The Ipswich of London) to visit friends. Took an hour-and-a-half to get there from Wimbledon via the tube, but it was worth it. By the time I got there Angela and Jason had had a few and were in the mood to party. We went to a pub nearby which was pretty dodgy, but they had a great band playing so there was much drinking and boogying. I stayed the night at Angela and Jason's place - they have two housemates, another kiwi and an Aussie girl who just happens to come from Brisbane too! She has an awesome bag she got from the Valley Markets that says 'Viva Bris Vegas'...I so gotta get me one of those! Here are some pics from Saturday night:


This is Angela!


Me, Jason, Sharon and this old Tibetan guy who said he was going to buy us all a one-way ticket to Tibet because it's so great.... Righto.


Me, Jason and Sharon


Tibetan guy, Ange and Jase


Jase and Ange

Yesterday the weather was lovely so we had a picnic and kicked the soccer ball around a bit, before relaxing in front of a couple of DVDs in the afternoon. I ended up staying over again last night and went straight to work this morning from Hainault. All-in-all, a fun weekend!