I'm annoyed

That's basically it... I'm fuming at how utterly and completely self centered people over here can be.

eets snowing eets snowing

This is what it looked like outside my house this morning.... they're not the best pics but with my digital camera wandering around with someone else all I've got is my camera on my phone.

The luck of the Irish

Well a couple of things have been going on since my last post, but nothing of great importance.
Thursday 9th November was the return of the great Springbok Nude Girls(SNG) at the Shepard's Bush Empire, they were supported by The Parlatones and then Prime Circle. All in all it was a great concert. Bubblegum on my boots started and a fair section of the crowd started expending their energy in the form of a mosh pit, which caused something in Mr Burden's head to snap, attempt to grab me... missed... and dragged an unsuspecting Mr Shuttleworth into the belly of this monster. Seeing Brad disappear reminded me of the movies when some creature drags their unsuspecting victim into the river/lake/ocean etc, the same wide eyed look of surprise and arms grabbing at fresh air to stop this... and with that the dissolved into the mass of bouncing people. Rearranging my bag so things couldn't fall out I followed suit. Perhaps not a great idea for someone my size. But it was fun nonetheless. Getting home at about 1am it was packing the last of the bags and getting some shut eye before the cab came to fetch us for the start of our Dublin trip.

Timeline

3:00 - wake up, get dressed, wake Kev, get back into bed
3:25 - cab calls, he's outside, wake Kev again.... stumble outside
3:50 - arrive at Liverpool street station in the freezing cold
4:00 - station opens
4:15 - can smell bacon and eggs, just can't find them
4:30 - catch Stanstead Express to airport
4:40 - sleep
5:15 - arrive at airport and try to check in (Ryanair is less than helpful)
5:30 - finally get checked in and move to a) find food b) find boarding gate
6:00 - board plane, sleep
6:20 - plane takes off
8:30 - land in Dublin

On arriving in Dublin we caught a bus into the city center and tried to find out hostel. We got there and booked in, and were told that we could only get into the room at 3ish... now being 10:30 and both of us desperately needing sleep you may as well have told us we could check in next week. So it was off to find McD's breakfast and something to occupy our time. We took a bit of a walk around and Kev showed me Trinity College which is really beautiful, then we headed out and caught a bus tour of Dublin, stopping at Dublin Castle which we got off to have a look at, the Guinness Brewery, which is huge and very interesting. Then back to temple bar and home for a nap.

A while later it was off to meet Mr O'Connor for a couple of drinks... unsurprisingly this led to us getting back to said hostel at about 4am. I'll have to ask Tim what the second place was that we went to but it looked like something out of a fairytale. It really was an amazing place... with the prices to match.

Saturday morning was spent wandering around temple bar before heading off to Lansdowne Road to watch the Boks take on the Irish. Being that it was only apparently about 15-20 minute walk away we decided to walk. It turns out that the distance between our hostel and Lansdowne Road as the crow flies is only about 3-4 miles. However when you have to take into account the round about route you have to take to get there you end up doing closer to 7miles, which takes just over an hour. We made our way into an Irish pub called Paddy Cullens for a couple of drinks and to watch the English lose to Argentina... :-)
Anyway, the match was okay. Seeing our guys get flattened by the Irish wasn't great, but the atmosphere was good.
A quiet night followed the rugby with trying to find somewhere to eat in Temple bar, but with half of dublin there it proved to be tricky. We found a little quiet Italian place which was nice enough but when things went wrong there they went wrong...(but that's another post altogether)
Sunday rolled around and we did some more walking, going to see the Book of Kells, at Trinity College, but the queue was mad so we left if for another time. Then searching for hot chocolate for Kev proved unsuccessful we headed back to the hostel to warm up before heading out to the Jameson Distillery which was very interesting to see (I'll load some pics at some point)

Then Monday and we eventually went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College which was quite interesting. And then it was time to head back to London after a very good weekend.
Hopefully the Boks will remember how to play rugby sometime before 2007.

Thanks Hawk

You Are a Lime Margarita

Realistic and grounded, you have the energy to tackle any obstacle that stands in your way. Hyper and driven, you despise lazy behavior of all kinds... especially lazy drunks too tired to dance!

What Flavor Margarita Are You?

Soundtrack to life

It's something that's been floating around in my head for a while now and I know it's something that will constantly pass throught my mind. But what is the song that defines now... I don't think I can ever really say what my favourite song is, because it'll keep changing, much like life. Nothing is constant or dependable, except for dead and taxes as the old saying goes. So my song for the moment is AAR - Move along.

Even though it's Sunday night and another week starts at sunrise I don't think I'm actually not looking forward to it. It's a monotony that repeats itself week by week. But it's a distraction from being in my head.

The cobbled paving on memory lane

Ever had that feeling where you have one of those fantastic day dreams that takes you back over the good times of the past?
I've finished my last book that I was reading so I haven't had anything to read on the morning commute into the office which takes about half an hour so my mind has been drifting back in time to old times. Please note that this is just my mind rambling and is not intended to be informative or interesting to anyone else.... but hey, it's my blog and I'll blog what i want to :-)


Here are a few of the memories that have been swirling around in my head lately.

1. Arriving in Stellies for the first time, not knowing anyone and taking a drive around campus at night and getting horribly lost... for those of you who know stellies knows that getting lost there isn't easy. Seeing my res for the first time and looking around and being surrounded by mountains which were covered with bright green trees and the smell of rain in the air. Moving into res and the first morning trying to find my way to classes with only the building abbreviations, if you don't know where the BJ is it's pretty hard to find... since it doesn't actually say BJ anywhere on the building. Sitting through my first philosophy lecture in afrikaans and trying hard to follow. Then going to Inligtingsvardighede (insert 3 numbers here) and even being a month late for the start of term having my first lesson be how to change the font size of a document and then saving it...... needless to say... apart from tests that's the last I saw of that class.

2. Meeting some interesting people in my first couple of weeks and enjoying the vibe around karnaval.... somehow I don't remember vensters much, there may have been mitigating factors with that...

3. Meeting Retha and Sam and going to Cape Town for the first time in nearly 10 years... perfect autumn days and sitting on Clifton 4 with a bottle of wine and candles watching the sunset and the ocean lazily wash onto the beach... everything seemed so chilled and laid back there. And after that discovering La Med for the first time and their amazing pizzas and cocktails.

4 The breakfast run.... unbeknownst to me at that stage if you're walking back to res and the sun is already up it's customary to run from tree to tree and avoid being seen.... and then getting told off by my HK, who has actually only walked into res about 5 minutes before me.

5. Huis dans was always a great time, finding a date, the hair, the dress, ah the joys of being female. But for the life of me I can't remember the venue of my first one.. probably still have the invite at home somewhere.

6. Going to my first debate... :-)
I thought most of the people there were weird... not that I'm far wrong on that actually, but I found them incredibly interesting so I ended up staying. Admittedly for the first while I did my utmost to avoid the more outspoken members of the society... hey, some of you were pretty scary to a at that stage (don't laugh now) shy free state girl.

So a year went past and getting settled was easier than I thought it would be... meeting some of the amazing people I know now and discovering a whole new world that I never knew existed.

I guess I've got a lot more things going through my head than I thought I did... so let's call this a work in process

The spaces between

I realise that I've sort of let this fall between the cracks, but that's unavoidable at the moment. So this is a sort of apology/ don't really know. I'm probably going to be neglecting my blog for the next bit due to a whole heap of things... but promise when I come back i'll bring pictures with me.... and if things go right perhaps of a nice weekend in Amsterdam.... Till then... ciao

What if?

Not mine, belongs to Mr Kipling, but I really like it and thought I would share

The first paragraph .... well, i feel a bit like that today... okay, and the second

If
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Anthony Kiedis and Flea.... ring any bells?

Tuesday night saw about 10 000 people heading out to Earls Court Areana to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Usually you're expecting someone like the peppers to have a fairly well known support act. For our night it was !!! Google's archnemisis...
Standing around having a beer and waiting for the show to start.... and then the lights went out and the cheering started. Heading back inside we saw the support act had taken to the stage... 9 of them... 2 lead singers, 4 people on the drums, 2 guitarists and one random rolling around on the floor... Honestly if you ever get the chance to see !!! otherwise known as pitchfork... RUN... it's probably the worst act i've seen in years... nothing but pure noise.... voted chav band of the year.

And then came the peppers. The stage didn't look like much and we were trying to find monitors but then they started and the stage lit up

















Unfortunately my little camera on my phone isn't brilliant, but you get the basic idea.
It was an amazing concert, the played just about everything that I was hoping for... except for Soul to Squeeze. I would definately recommend going to see them if you ever get the chance.

On leaving it was clear that there was going to be a shortage of train space for all of the people.... we walked out the front doors and the tube station is directly over the road... you just saw people running at full tilt trying to get to the tubes and the police standing by not really being able to do anything... luckily for us we could head to West Brom station and catch the overland from there... not quite as crowded

All that's left for this year are the Rolling Stones... i don't think we've done too badly... would have liked to see Dave Matthews band... but that'll have to wait till next time he's here.

Doggie biscuits

A fond farewell to a long time friend....

I figure this is as good a place as any... instead of breaking down at the office I think I'll just say my little bit here.

A faithful friend of many years has gone to doggie heaven this morning. Tequila, I hope you are chasing waves in the sky boy.

Almal wil 'n huisie by die see he

But most of us will just settle for a house.

After about 2 months of looking for a place to live... we struck gold. Finding a nice place to live around here is sort of like squeezing blood from a stone. First you have to decide where you would like to hang your hat... then comes the ex-council, or ex-local authority... which no matter how hard you try to avoid them... some of these delightful agents still insist on showing you... then comes the matter of council tax... i guess it's like rates and taxes and then some... So on top of the cost of the house you have that, which on average is about "£1200 - £1800 per year, depending on where you live.

So we're now going to be living near clapham south tube station. Which is a nice area, cool shops, little common (park) over the road, 4 bedroom house, 3 bathrooms, huge kitchen, study, 2 lounges and lo and behold... a little piece of grass outside that we can put a weber on...

Now that we're signed up we're moving all our bills (internet and sky tv) over to the new address... something that you think they would make fairly easy for you... not quite so easy.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the london bombings, so as you can imagine the city is on high alert, the company is making us wear security tags that are visible at all times etc etc... At least the tubes will be quiet tomorrow morning.. I wonder how many people are actually going to walk to work. We'll see.

So that's just a little bit of info from this side of the world. I have somewhere nice to live with Kev, Grant, Lauren and Brad... which we've all decided is going a horrible idea, but it'll work for now.

Pics coming shortly, promise :-)

Homeland

Within my soul, within my mind,
There lies a place I cannot find.
Home of my heart. Land of my birth.
Smoke-coloured stone and flame-coloured earth.
Electric skies. Shivering heat.
Blood-red clay beneath my feet.

At night when finally alone,
I close my eyes - and I am home.
I kneel and thought the blood-warm sand
And feel the pulse beneath my hand
Of ancient life too old to name,
In ancient land too wild to tame.

How can I show you what I feel?
How can I make this essence real?
I search for words in dumb frustration
to try and form some explanation,
but how can heart and soul be caught
in one-dimensional written thought?

If love and longing are a "fire"
and man "consumed" by his desire,
then this love is no simple flame
that mortal thought can hold or tame.
As deep within the earth's own core
the love of home burns evermore.

But what is home? I hear them say,
this never was yours anyway.
You have no birthright to this place,
descendant from another race.
An immigrant? A pioneer?
You are no longer welcome here.

Whoever said that love made sense?
"I love" is an "imperfect" tense.
To love in vain has been man's fate
From history to present date.
I have no grounds for dispensation,
I know I have no home or nation.

For just one moment in the night
I am complete, my soul takes flight.
For just one moment.... then it's gone
and I am once again undone.
Never completes. Never whole
White skin and an African soul

For the Birds

One of my favourite bits ever

Friday night and Foo Fighters

Once again KEV GOT HIS VISA... which makes all of us over here most happy.... what would london be like without his morning hangover grumble :-)

So conspiring ran riot between myself, Brad, Grant, Lauren, Eric..... and the list keeps going. Tonight we were going to get him sozzeled....

Jacques and Maresa joined us at the Village for a couple of celebratory drinks..... Eric and Grant concoted a special "straf dop" which after a while seemed to be doing it's job.... you always know it's working when the drinker decides that it actually tastes nice.... even though there are some 6 different shots in it.

So things went pear shaped, sideways and all to thistle....

Saturday morning rolls in along with one exceptionally hungover Mr Burden and followed closely by the rest of us. Who were mostly woken rudely by the sounds of a vacuum cleaner. We subsequently had a munch and meandered down to the bar where Grant and Lauren were having breakfast... okay, it was 12ish, make that brunch. We made our way in the sharp sun to the bus stop and attempted to wait out the heat... in the end Grant hailed a cab and we were all grateful for the aircon.... (seperate note... I must be acclimatising to this place... 24 degrees now seems pretty hot) We arrived at Victoria to visit the whole in the wall and found out that most of london was in the station. On coming out there were a couple of planes doing a fly by... some "THundercats"?????? guys help me out here.... or tomcats, or something sounding similar. We made our way to Hyde Park to enjoy a day in the sun with too much beer and good music.
The cordoned off area for the concert was huge. It must have easily taken up half the park. We stood in line and were luckily right at the front of the queue. We went in, got our cold beers and waters respectively and found a spot to sit. Right in front with a huge screen just off to our right. As Grant put it most aptly... everyone was sitting there getting merrily plastered. But since warm beer tastes terrible we were intermixing it with good old H2O.

The first band out was at about 4ish, (we'd been there since 1ish) and it was Juliette lewis and the licks.... I actually think I prefer seeing her on TV.. she's just annoying live and her newest songs are just a bit too strange. Next up was a new band called Angels and Airwaves... who's lead singer was the lead for Blink 182, who were followed by Queens of the Stone Age, who were AMAZING and then Motorhead.... after a bit of a break and waking around to stretch legs I managed to get myself caught at the edge of a mosh pit heading my way at speed... HELP!!!
I was also thinking... looking at all the different types of people you get at these concerts it must be really hot being a goth... and I mean temperature wise... You're standing in the sun for about 6 hours, wearing black jeans and about 3 layers of tops with your hair draped across your face... I wouldn't be able to do it... we were dying of the heat in bikini tops and shorts.

Tasteless joke for the day... The Institute for Science is trying to splice the genes of a goth with Grass. They want to find a culutivar of grass that will cut itself.... ba doom doom che.. I'll be here all day

OH.... THERE ARE HOW MANY PEOPLE HERE TODAY???????? 85 000!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a lot of people, it somehow seemed like more. Maybe that's how many were in the cheap seats

Anyway, back to the concert... The Foo Fighters came on stage and the crowd went absolutely wild which meant that any space you had around you was now filled with drunken pimply brits (no I don't like most of them much) But apart from getting bounced and pushed around the music was great. For their encore they brought out Roger Taylor and Brian May to play with them as they did a Freddy Mercury tribute.... for the uninitiated... the above mentioned were in Queen ( the band).

So a great end to a fantastic day. Perhaps next time I go to see a concert I'll wait till they play in a venue ... a small venue.

Sunday comprised of doing nothing and watching old episodes of Star Trek... somehow I don't remember it being so bad... the acting is terrible and the special effects are non existent... I've heard there is a digitally remastered one... maybe that'll be better.
Monday morning it's off to a 6am gym session with Kev and Brad, so we'll see how that goes... i'm not a morning person.

At risk of stealing Kate's blog title

Kev got his visa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that was all she wrote

Oh that was a bad idea

Yip, that pretty much sums up most of my weekend.... The skating with the work guys was fun... I did a full 5km and at quite a pace. Then it was the start of the World Cup and things at the office sort of came to a grinding halt. Our office has live streaming of all the games on the intranet... quite clever i thought... except you'll get people staring at their computer screens for 2 hours but not getting any work done. I suppose it beats them coming back from watching it in a pub and having a couple of pints.

After work it was a mad rush to get home to change for the Friday Night Skate... we thought we were late so resigned ourselves to skating idly around hyde park for a while....yes, well.... at that moment some 200 or so people on skates came tearing past us... so we joined it... NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. The pace was really quick and you've got hundreds of people on skates taking up one lane and trying not to kill each other... I was used as brakes a number of times. And returned the favour a few times down the line. May need to take some stopping lessons before I try that again... stopping in itself is easy enough, but when you are heading down hill at full kilter and have about 3meters to stop in, it's another story.... So we'll wait a while before doing that again.
After that it was off home on the tube and relaxing on the couch to watch "The Big Yin" (Billy Connelly for those who don't know the name)

Saturday rolls around and the guys are up early to watch the rugby, I take the extra cat nap and sleep in a bit. It's nearly time for qualifying and we're off to Zulu's in Fulham... they've decided to show both the rugby and the football... being muppets they've allocated a huge area for the soccer, and the smaller one for the rugby... needless to say (in an SA pub) the rugby area had people hanging from the rafters, and the soccer side had about 20 people in it. Perhaps they'll learn for next time. So the hunters and the Windhoek were flowing and we organised ourselves some boerie rolls (yum) Sitting outside in the warm sun, laughing and drinking beer was a great idea.

Needless to say.... beer in the sun things went sideways pretty quickly....

We were chased inside where we started dancing to some particularly strange music.








Brad and Kev at the top of their game decided to do some pole dancing...












So I guess sideways, pear shaped.. give it whatever name you will... I'm not saying anymore I'll never drink that much again.... more like I'm sure I can't drink as much as I used to.

I'm sorry that's already gone!!!

5 words that I've heard at least 10 times a day while trying to be pleasant to the estate agents in this place. The landlords here try to squeeze you for every last penny and every last pound... nevermind that I'm paying the equivalent of 2 months rent for a whole flat back home and getting a Harry Potter like cupboard cupboard over here. But I suppose that's the way it works over here. For those who aren't following i'm looking for a new 4/5 bedroom flat for Kev, me, Bradley, Grant and Lauren. If you're ever interested in having a look, go to www.ononemap.com specify london for location and then 4/5 bedroom for £2500 a month and see what you get... not much. Well, not much that's worth looking at anyway. There are some very nice places in Chelsea for about £1500 a week... but that's a bit out of budget.

Summer is here... finally and with it the unbearably hot tube trips to work and back. But also lazy weekends lying in the parks and catching up on some much needed exercise, which for me comes in the way of roller blading. Or trying to kick a ruby ball around in the park with the guys... which i'm not very good at although the guys are very nice.. and they don't give me too much stick. Tonight being a friday means that all the mad people who own blades or skates all get together to take over some london road. The Friday Night Skate is a weekly event where they pick a route, get a sound system and you just blade through london. Tonight looks like we're going to do it.. the route for tonight http://www.thefns.com/next_route.htm
We'll probably only do the first half of the skate, don't think i'm fit enough to do a full 13 miles yet.

Tomorrow is the SA vs Scotland game and since it's also world cup fever over here we're having to resort to going to Zulu's to watch the rugby... I suppose I could do with a hunters dry and a boerie roll just about now. Even though I've now been here over a year and a half there's still so much I miss from back home. Yeah, okay, I'll admit it openly.. I'm really homesick... so to solve that, everyone I know must move to London... pipe dreams granted, but what is life without dreams.

I'm off blading now with the guys I work with... they do 5km in 17 minutes... I think I might take a short cut.

Would love to hear from friends back home, you've all got my email address.

It's just a jump to the left.....

They were how do you say.... "executive transvestites"

Kev and Brad get close

It was all in all a fantastic show.... audience partici......... pation.. was on top form.

Do you really want to know?

What are the boys up to?????

Dress rehersal for the Rocky Horror picture show...

More pics to follow after the show

Stuck somewhere inbetween twentysomething

Have you ever realised that the the age between 21 and 25 is probably one of the most awkward and frustrating times of your life.
I've been finding that a lot lately. People regularly say don't wish your youth away... fine, point taken, but I wish 2 years away.
Take where I am at the moment. Old enough to be responsible and have a job and pay bills... but no matter how competent you are there are always people who will look at you like you are still too young to know what is going on.
1 example... i've had a drivers licence now for over 6 years, but they still want to charge me an excess to rent a car... and at between £7 and £11 a day... it sort of makes it out of budget.
At work a good idea will be passed over because you don't have enough experience in the industry and you obviously don't have enough insight into what is needed..... that's great but the proposed change has nothing to do with industry experience....IT'S JUST COMMON SENSE.

I've never before had a problem with people trying to walk over me... maybe i've just gone soft.

Sometimes age is just a number and you don't even notice it... but then sometimes some people just rub it in your face... no matter what you do you'll always be one step behind everyone else. I may not know all about the in's and out's of the world but i'm learning.... Linkin Park - Faint puts the way i feel perfectly....

I can't feel the way i did before
Don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored

Small fish in a big pond... but i'm not going to let my peers make me doubt my ability....

So even if I still want to put on my ruby slippers and click my heels together and make 2 years disappear so that perhaps someone will take me seriously. I will be the strongest in the race.

That is my dilemma for the month. Stuck in the abyss that is the twenty somethings