a colourful arty London for the win!

Greetings again beautiful people!

Well, here we are again, ready for updates on the adventures that I am having in England at the moment.

Last time I left you it was just after Ally’s birthday, and it has definitely been an eventful August since then.

For the next few days following Ally’s birthday, things were pretty chilled out, which was nice (have to recover from the epic pub crawling!). I spent the week at work, and when Thursday rolled around I had the day off and went thrift shopping (what what – popping tags!) and found myself in a op shop “Frozen” sing along session, with the workers belting out Disney tunes. AMAZING. I searched through mountains of awesome clothes (that even at cheap prices, I can’t afford them thanks to London eating my money). I did find a floral skirt which I bought and headed back home for a little R&R.

Later in the evening Ally and I headed into the city centre for another pub night. Not quite a pub crawl, but just a few casual drinks with the working holiday club. The bar was actually really cool and reminded me a lot of Brunswick street rooftop bars back in Melbourne. So under twinkling fairylights and colourful flags we watched the sunset over London, whilst sipping on our Pimms… perfect night out. To make it even better, there was a competition of playing heads or tails to win several tours of Ireland and Scotland. After thinning the crowd by consistently picking heads, I was crowned winner of the world (or just one of two winners of heads or tails) and won myself a Haggis tour of Scotland. I should point out that the tour company is called Haggis, and it isn’t a tour where you go around eating Haggis (nope, I refuse to eat Haggis). So excitedly I headed home, skipping through the streets with my winnings (3 days through Isle of Skye and Loch Ness…HELLS YEAH!) and slept the sleep of champions :) BOO YA!

The weekend was pretty quiet for me, as all but one of my housemates was out travelling the globe, so I took the opportunity to be particularly lazy. I took the opportunity of having the house to myself at times to sing at the top of my lungs, and to have 5 hour long skype calls.

As Sunday rolled around, I breathed in deep and was greeted by the beautiful smell of rain :) I took the opportunity to relish in my love of rain and had a frolic before heading out to meet up with some of my South American travel companions, having coffee and scones in a 5 level book shop (hello happy days!). I always love catching up with Aoife, Corry and Tim as there are always many laughs. We strolled around London looking for decent coffee following the coffee tube map, and found ourselves in little alleyways making travel plans and reminiscing on amazing times in South America.

We made one last stop for the day and that was at a pub for a pint before heading our separate ways for the evening.

Over the next few days I took myself on several dates with London. Having the days off gave me a fantastic opportunity to explore some more of this wonderful city. I headed back to the book store looking through travel books, found second hand book stores in Notting Hill, tried food from Jamie Olivers café and meandered some more through the streets of London.

I took myself on the Wednesday on the most epic date of London, one that no guy could have replicated. It started on a rainy day where I had a picnic in Trafalgar square, and headed into the National Gallery. I perused through some amazing paintings, it is honestly incredible how well preserved and how detailed some old paintings are. I spent a couple of hours meandering through the grand halls, seeing original Van Gogh’s and renaissance art work. I definitely urge you all to go check out the gallery, it is quite beautiful and to make it even more appealing, it is free! So there is absolutely no excuse not to see original works by amazing artists.

Once leaving the gallery I continued to meander through the streets of London in cute little trinket stores, buying decent coffee from quaint coffee shops, and stumbling upon a 3 level book store dedicated solely to travel and adventures. I am pretty sure this is what heaven is. It was one of those amazing days where nothing could spoil the happy mood I was in, in love with the world and the city of London. I even managed to find a magazine with articles on Daniel Radcliffe, and sat in the park reading and watching people do lunch time yoga routines. It was really an awesome day, not even having to go to work that evening could put me in a bad mood.
I stopped in a second hand book store near Notting Hill, found some beautiful old books, perfect for presents and made my way to work. Huzzah!

The following day I caught up with one of my favourite Kiwi’s for lunch in Shoreditch. We caught up on travel and plans before we got rained out and had to move from our little outdoor table. We wandered to a nearby art gallery and made our way through the exhibits. I was having a serious art out week here in London in hipster-ville and it was awesome :) 

We stopped for coffee, before strolling back through the rain (Corry hadn’t brought his tap shoes sadly, so no tap dancing in the rain for us!) before I had to head back to work for that evening.

That weekend, on Saturday morning, Emma and I had a massive clean fest, scrubbing the kitchen and the bathroom to pristine conditions, and then my house mates and I had a serious lazy fest and stayed in on Saturday night with Buffy and popcorn and wine. There may have also been a PJ dance party happening… I can neither confirm nor deny this, except to say it was awesome. Sometimes you just need a good night in, with a good bottle of wine, and copious amounts of popcorn…and chocolate…
Either way we were buzzed enough before falling asleep to escort another house mate to the local ‘off license’ to buy some food before finally crashing.

Sunday started as a lazy day before heading out to meet a friend in the evening. It is always nice having people come visit from Australia, and one of my work colleagues was passing through town, which was awesome. We took her out for our traditional Sunday pub dinner, catching up on clients and travel plans over a pint.

Wednesday at work, I met a guy who asked for my phone number and usually I don’t give this out and make up some excuse, but this time I thought I would do something different, he seemed nice enough and I would give it a go.. unfortunately within the next 3 hours I had 5 missed calls and text messages, 2 missed calls and 3 texts in a 5 minute period on my walk home from work. Needless to say I realised what a creeper he was turning out to be. So ignoring his calls, hoping he would get the hint, I decided to go out to catch up with some old friends from Jay Jays in Aus. I met Dani and Ben out by London Bridge and headed to German Beer Halls.

Ofcourse when you decide that you are going out for just one drink, you get a stein! It is still then technically only one drink ;) As I have said before in this blog, I absolutely love catching up with old friends and especially whilst training for Oktoberfest – get those steins into ya!

I did notice that I had another 4 missed calls that night, and by the next day I had a total of 20 missed calls with voice messages and text messages. By this stage I was getting really frustrated that he kept calling so I told him to stop calling, I wasn’t interested and it was too much…So he called to apologise to my voice mail.

The next day I got a text saying “sorry for yesterday, call me next week? ;)”… it was clear all my telling him to bugger off was not getting through, so instead I opted for telling him that I was leaving London…turns out this worked! Huzzah! But seriously, not sure why people think that this is the correct way to get a girls attention… instead we just think “stalker!”

So after shaking off my stalker on Thursday night we headed to another random pub Thursday (where I won my tour last time!)…which happened to be in someones back yard instead this time…It was actually a really good night out at a house party, and a good way to unwind. I even met someone who went to the same high school as me years before hand.

It is definitely crazy to meet someone who knows the area you grew up, and even shared some of the same teachers as you, but years before hand! We drank amazing espresso martini’s and chatted away with all the guests and had an awesome time, before eventually going to bed around 2am (all ready for work the next day..thankfully I didn’t start until 5pm, so had a nice sleep in!)

This past weekend was definitely an eventful and fun one! Having celebrated our 3 months in London anniversary, Emma and I met up with our ex housemate Ally at the movies to see the most amazing Daniel Radcliffe Rom Com “What if”. Seriously a great movie, and I definitely recommend that you go and see it! It had been ages since I had been to the movies, so even that was awesome to get out of the house and do. We then did our weekly shop at Tesco’s and I headed back into the city to see the incredible Noel Fielding live in his comedy show. Those of you who are Mighty Boosh fans will know how hilariously random Noel Fielding is, and with his jokes and songs about being made of milk, being a chicken man, and finding his wife in bed with a triangle will know just how he did not disappoint with his randomness…. HILARIOUS! His brother Mike Fielding was also involved, as was cameo’s by the delightful moon from the Boosh. Needless to say the night was full of much laughter…and then beer back at the german beer halls! Gotta keep that training going ;)

Emily and I met with Emma for some more drinks at the German beer halls, and watched a German brass band play teenage dirtbag, karma chameleon and other awesome songs, not traditional herd by a traditional German band.

The next day was the beginning of the Notting Hill Carnival, supposedly the ‘family day’. We headed in with our housemates to Notting Hill where all of the roads were closed off in the surrounding areas. Already by midday there were thousands of people around, stopping to dance, and the carnival parade had started through the streets, with bright colours. For those who don’t know, the carnival is celebrating the Caribbean culture here in London, and is absolutely massive. Along with the parade you can get Caribbean food everywhere you look, music is booming out of massive speakers and stages, and everywhere you look people are dancing. 

We drank from pineapples, exhibited our beautiful reggae dance moves and accidentally breathed in second hand wacky tobaccy smoke. Let’s be honest, you can’t go anywhere in Carnival without smelling and seeing people light up beside you, and therefore have your oxygen tainted with weed. Thankfully it is nowhere near enough to affect you as you walk through the crowds. Bright confetti was thrown with each piece of confetti having writing on it saying things like “I appreciate you” and “you are beautiful to me”. I think it is a great idea for confetti!

The following day I headed in to work, knowing that Carnival would still be booming on the public holiday, however did not think it would be so hectic due to the rain….boy was I wrong!! They had closed off my normal route to work, so I had to mosey my way through the entire carnival, and follow the parade just to find my way to work. The streets were packed much more than the day before, of people moshing in the rain, and there were no kids in sight. I had to squeeze my way through people, and when I arrived in front of my work building, there were hundreds of people moshing to the sound stage that was set up directly in front. I had to squish my way through them into the building where music was booming outside. It was actually awesome to be able to partake in the party, whilst being dry and getting paid for it. It also meant that because there was a gate up around the building, there was room to stand and enjoy the festivities without being crushed by all the party-goers… SCORE!!

So this brings us to today…where I had a lovely London date day catching up with more work friends from Melbourne. I got to catch up with Czenia for lunch in Covent Gardens, mosey through second hand book shops (I have an addiction… but I got an old Shakespeare complete works for 50p! woo!) and coffee/brownies and Jamie Olivers restaurant. Om nom nom nom…..

DELIGHT!!!!

Until next time my dears,
B xoxo