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!