Well I always thought things would be different being overseas for my birthday and I was right… I just don’t have a good, close group of real friends over here that I can call at any hour, go visit without annoucement etc, etc. Lucky for the weekend away, otherwise I wouldn’t even remember this year’s birthday.

Well Tuesday I worked, and after work went out with just a few people for some drinks and to listen to some music (which turned out to be jazz) at a bar in Canary Wharf. It was a pretty good night, but far from what I’m used to for birthdays and all that.

This Friday night I’m probably going out for dinner with Sarah who I met in New Zealand, and hopefully Mara can come along too. Kate (also met in NZ) was planning on coming but had a car accident on Tuesday night so understandably cannot come up to London. She’s okay, just a little shaken but better to be safe.

Well, January has gone by so fast already! Mara and I just returned from Italy, skiing for the weekend, and I realised how behind I am in keeping things online up to date! So, summary of the month that has passed by so far…

About 5 January I went up to Leicester to visit Megan (Crowe, from Alice Springs) who was visiting her UK rellies along with her mom and dad. They picked me up from the train station, and it was such a lovely day! We walked around Leicester a bit, and saw the museum, city shops, had nice lunch at ‘spudulike’ (potato shop!) and met up for coffee with two of her friends who are from Leicester, but she met at Uni in Adelaide… small world! We were going to the cinema in the evening, and went to see the Jain Centre (indian temple thing) however it was closed when we got there… well actually it was open, and we were standing outside wondering if it was the right place, and a guy walked up and locked the door! Even though the sign on the door clearly stated ‘close: 1900’ and it was only 1600! Cheeky Bugger!!! So, we headed off walking towards the cinema, and it didn’t look far on the map, and it would have been all good except it started to absolutely bucket down raining!!! We got to the cinema nicely soaked, checked the movie times and then went to the pub next door for a drink prior to watching P.S. I Love You. The movie was pretty good, and we didn’t end up too sick after getting stuck in the rain as we dried off using the pub’s toilet hand-dryers! haha resourceful.

The rest of the weekend in Leicester was nice. We stayed overnight at Megan’s gran’s bungalow and went out walking around the village (outside of Leicester) Sunday morning, before we all headed over to Megan’s Aunts house for a really lovely sunday dinner. Following that, Megan and I and her parents went to the National Space Center! What a great place with so many exhibitions! We didn’t even get time to see them all, but the information was excellent – could have spent longer there doing the interactive things haha! So then the weekend was at an end and I was dropped back at the train station, back to London. It was just so nice to catch up with someone from home, and someone i’ve now known for 15 years!

So, during the weeks it’s been work as usual, and then the next weekend in January, so the 12th, Uncle Andy came over to London (from Jersey) and we went off to see a Chelsea v Tottenham game at Stamford Bridge! What a great atmosphere! We were sitting pretty much ‘up with the gods’ but could still see everything and feel totally part of the atmosphere. Chelsea won, thank god! Kristy came along with us too which was great as she’s been in UK over two years and never seen a real football match! Mara and I were laughing how TAME everyone was especially in comparrison to the game we saw in Croatia last year! On Sunday we went to Camden Markets with Uncle Andy to show him the punks etc, and the market wares – some very interesting things floating around there!

Oh did I mention Mara and I have been on DETOX? From 6 Jan until 25 Jan – so lasted almost 20 days! We were supposed to stick to it for 28 days, but hey it’s my birthday tomorrow so we gave up on that idea!

The detox consisted of dropping dairy, wheat, meat, chocolate, caffeine and alcohol!!! Yep, we were left with nuts, legumes, fruit and vegetables. All very good for you of course! Duringt he first week my head was a little fuzzy, but after downing stacks of water and herbal detox teas it soon balanced out and I had more energy than before! So it was great thing to do… next year however I am waiting until February haha, as there are too many good things left over from Christmas in January! Didn’t loose any weight on the detox… but uh well! I got myself a new gym membership and have been 2-3 time each week so far which is great! I even walk there and back to get extra exercise and to save on bus fares.

Well… the other thing that happened in January was me applying for a new job. Yep that’s right.. considering leaving the Olympics? I found what I think could be ‘the perfect’ job for me, to keep me busy, in a new group called Healthcare for London, which sits under the NHS which is the Strategic Health Authority for London… yes I did my research… applied for the job, got an interview, and got the job!!!!

Now I’ve thought about it all weekend… just need to tell my boss here at the Olympics and go from there. I had my Olympic Appraisal last week on Thursday (and then I was ‘off sick’ on Friday) and so that’s why I haven’t told anyone here yet about me leaving! The Olympics wants to develop my job more, as Dave said, you are so much more capable and I applaud you for actually speaking out and saying you are bored and want to do more etc, etc… but in the short term, I love being in Health, it feels like ‘home ground’ to me, and it pays £4000/yr better which is great for my travelling plans in 2008.

So that’s up to date to now.. except for the weekend just passed but that deserves it’s own entry!

Well as my post about Budapest on 31 December stated, I had to run and get ready for the party. Kristy, Mara and I, along with Kristy’s cousin Heather and flatmate Bria had tickets for a Masquerade party over near Fulham on the west side of London. We arranged pre-drinks and nibbles at Kristys and so all had a good time over there listening to music and getting dressed up etc, before catching the bus (and then tube 1 stop) to the venue.

Well my New Years are usually pretty average, and this one wasn’t really any different! The venue wasn’t too bad, but had to wait for a while to get drinks… and I wasn’t drinking that much either (had enough to drink in December!), and it was very hot inside! Everyone was sweating under their masks – which looked great by the way – and so ended up taking them off or wearing them on their head! It was run by TNT, so all Aussies, Kiwis and Saffas were there… and I think the unsocial ones that are in London because hardly anyone ‘mixed’! Uhh well, the music was antipodean oriented which was good! Just like being at home for the party! We didn’t actually stay out very late and got a taxi home because even though public transport was free we couldn’t be bothered walking in our heels and sore feet!!!

It was still a good night, but I think we would have had more fun either squished on the Thames watching the fireworks, or continuing our house party at Kristys!

The better night around New Years was on the Saturday (2 nights) before, when Kristy, Jacinta, Mara and I met up in Bar Soho to drink some wine, and then proceeded onto a nightclub Sirocco. Usually it’s pretty popular and packed with door lists etc, but it was quiet when we got there and so us 4 girls got in for free! There weren’t many girls inside haha (probably why we got let in so easily) but the security guards were really good to us and kept an eye on us most of the night, and kicked out some feral-ish guys who were getting a little too close! We ended that night at about 5am! If I was at home obviously the sun would have been coming up about that time, but not over here so it still seemed like it was night time!

On Christmas night, after our dinner Kristy and I were looking for some sort of club to go and have a drink/dance at… seems that all/most decent clubs in Budapest are Underground ones, and you need to know someone local who can tell you where they are! We were going to grab a taxi and get them to show us, however us being poor backpackers (?) ended up giving it a miss. The clubs above ground are all strip clubs.. bit sad as some aspectrs of Hungary seem like Russia and Czech Republic with loads of escort girls, strip clubs etc etc. We almost, almost went into one but then these two sleazy looking fellas came out so we turned and walked away… and they followed us chatting away in german or swiss/french until they realised we weren’t going anywhere with them, so they left!

Earlier in the night in our wanderings, we’d come across an area with perfect snow in it… it was a carpark.. with a fence.. but what they hey? I went thru the gate for Kristy to take a pic of me on the snow and we hear “hallo, hallo” and we thought the guy was from a pub nearby, but no, it was security from an Embassy! So I didn’t even turn around, just walked directly back to Kristy as if we didn’t hear him — and then, we went just to the front of the carpark (about 3metres) and it was the bloody British Embassy! I had every right to be standing in their carpark! I felt like walking back up the the guard waving my maroon passport and saying bugger off, I’ve got more rights on this carpark than you do! Ahrmm, however common sense prevailing (and he had a gun), we continued on our way.

The last day in Budapest we had to drink some of our duty free purchases, so Kristy and I emptied our 1L water bottles and filled them with Baileys and milk! Yum! We were warm from the alcohol by mid-afternoon which was good as we walked a long way to the castle and Heroes Square to take pictures. We also got pictures of us being statues on tree stumps in the castle grounds.. as you do (actually we copied some people we saw doing it). We also got to see Anonymous… a big statue of well, I can’t tell you who it was because his name is Anonymous! Oh and I used the toilets at the Anonymous Restaurant (too expensive to eat there!) because the nearest public toilets were probably a good hike away! AFter the Castle we headed to West End Shopping complex and to a “posh toilet” (formerly McDonalds) to grab some french fries as Maccas is always open! Kristy named it “posh toilet” as she was actually referring to the very posh historic building that Maccas was in and needed to use the bathroom at the same time haha. After that we went into the Shopping Centre to the rooftop carpark to view the Ice Skating Rink.

For dinner we went to a really nice Rustica Restaurant which had great food and wine and a really nice cozy atmosphere too. And then, we heard music and followed our ears down to a little underground pub. It was like walking into a smoke-cloud, pretty nasty, but we stayed there as nowhere else close by was open! Over the music we heard some loud comments in Aussie-tone, so we met those guys and as the pub was closing we all headed back to their Hostel, along with the Sax player from the band who’s British and owns the Hostel. Kristy and I slept on the couch after watching card games and watching ‘Knocked Up’ (very funny movie) and then I’d set my alarm for 5.15am so we walked back to our Hotel, packed our bags and jumped into our pre-ordered taxi to the airport!

Just minor dilemmas on the way home thru Zurich, like not being able to get money anywhere so no food or drink in the 1hr airport layover! But apart from that, home at last in London and the weather felt strangely warm compared to Budapest!!!

Well, Budapessht was a really nice place to visit, even though as I said earlier, most things were closed the entire time we were there. Kristy and I still had some fun! Especially because our supplies in-room consisted of 2 boxes of chocolates (lindt and toblerone) and 2 bottles of alcohol (bailey’s and vodka) that we picked up duty free, as well as some necessary things from the local Match (?) Store such as bread sticks, nutella, packet soup, hot chocolate (we then realised we had no kettle in the room later!), 2 litres of milk to have with the Baileys and 2 litres of lemonade to have with the Vodka. Oh and some cheese and yoghurt (we ‘borrowed’ spoons and a knife from the hotel’s restaurant).

On Christmas Eve we ventured out into town to find a restaurant with room, one was fully booked, and the other only had space for the 9pm and 10pm sittings, and we were hungry! So we headed to one of the main mall-streets and went to Casablanca, where we had ‘hot rock’ food from a set menu. My soup was a Hungarian dish, with bits of meat, lots of onion and garlic flavouring and Kristy has a goulash soup. My main was a big slab of Hungarian Beef and Kristy had Chicken. They came out Raw. Yep – you heard me, raw! At first I thought I was supposed to eat my steak blue (shudders) and was contemplating sending it back to the kitchen, however when we saw the chicken was also raw, it clicked that we had to ‘cook it ourselves’ on the ‘hot rocks’!!! Ahh, such a nice and tender piece of steak. I don’t even eat much red meat at home, but since we’ve been in the UK all we get occasionally is mince (apart from steak we had in Birmingham) and so I definitely enjoyed my piece of cow. I got to cook it exactly how I like it too on the hot rocks – dead and not mooing. There were no vegetales or salad or anything – just meat! Desert was nice too – we both chose pancakes with berries yum! And of course it was washed down with a bottle of Hungarian white wine.

We left the restaurant, and it was snowing!!! I have plenty of pictures, and they are on Facebook, otherwise I’ll soon post them on flickr for everyone else (this blog doesn’t allow many uploads). The next morning, Christmas day, we woke up to more snow underfoot. Now I’m not talking about big amounts of snow here, but we still got our White Christmas! Kristy and I both slept in and then lazed around watching Hungarian television. The Muppets Christmas Carol was on, in Hungarian, but the songs were still in English so we could partly understand it. That made it the 4th version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ I’ve seen this year. Poor souls in the UK, I don’t think they know there are other brilliant Christmas movies out there!!!

We eventually wantered out into the freezing cold (-5) all rugged up, and headed to the Buda side of town to see all the Historial and touristy things including the National Library and Gallery, St Michael’s Church and we continued to look for the ‘Buddha’, which I told Kristy didn’t exist in Budapest – but it was actually a little copper ‘nymph’ thing sitting on a bridge somewhere. We walked and walked and Budapest is a lot smaller than the map makes out, and eventually crossed back over the Danube and found an open cafe, where there were cakes galore! We both got a proper hot chocolate (made with cream, no skim milk haha) and I thought I ordered black-forrest cake, but it was just triple-choc-sponge! After warming up we then headed back towards our Hotel, passing the huge St Stephen’s Basilica and taking loads more photos.

For Christmas night, we went to a ‘submarine’ like Restaurant. Which is underground, like most in Budapest, however this one had all blue lighting and was kitted out just like a submarine inside. The food was great here too – I had Hungarian Paprika Chicken with gnocci dumplings (little twists of pasta/potato). All the food in Hungary was great – was never disappointed with a meal we had.

So following the last day of work, I relaxed at home for the weekend until Sunday, when Kristy and I headed off towards Budapest! We were worried about getting to the airport late, but never mind, the London fog had other ideas! On arriving we noticed the Lufthansa area was PACKED with people, and so many flights had been cancelled! There were some flights back to 12:30pm still waiting to leave, but most between 2pm and 5pm had been canceled – ours was due to take off at 5:05pm. SEVEN hours later we were still in Heathrow Airport, and finally got to board the plane!!! Instead of arriving in Budapest about 10pm, we arrived into Frankfurt at 1am, had obviously missed our connection to Hungary – and so we were all put up in the Sheraton Frankfurt for a few hours sleep, before boarding the 7am flight to Budapest on 24 December. We finally arrived in Budapest after more waiting around in Frankfurt Airport – but luckily it was worth the wait! Even as the plane landed we could see SNOW! Yep, snowing in Hungary and our hopes of a White Christmas were definitely confirmed!!!

We got to the Hotel (City Matyas) and went out to see some shops, because it was Christmas Eve (day), everything was closing about 1pm and nothing would be open on 25 and 26 December (our whole stay!). Uhh well! We went to the supermarket to get supplies for the few days, and some mixers to have with out duty-free alcohol purchases and we had a look at some shoe shops too (of course!). The shoes were really nice, but shame the shops were closed by the time we got around to most of them — will have to go back to Budapest some day again.

I will write more later – no internet time left and I have to get dressed up for the party!

Well, last week of work for the year so I was hoping for a quiet one! Not to be… starting Sunday I came down sick was a baad case of Gastro and so got well acquainted with the bathroom at the new place. I messaged Dion from work and said it was unlikely I would be in on Monday given my state! Monday came and I didn’t even set my alarm to wake up, as I’d been resting for about 16 hours but was still tired as anything. Tuesday I headed off to work at normal time, dressed nice and festively in red&green in lieu of our Logistics Christmas party that night! We finally secured some funding for it too, which was fantastic and everyone was happy as it meant some free drinks! So in the afternoon, most people set off early and met me at the pub at about 530pm, even though our party wasn’t supposed to start until 6pm…. blaggers! We had a great night, and I kept my drink intake well limited as I was off work sick on the Monday so couldn’t really go out hard now could I!? It was a good night, and everyone enjoyed themselves. I got some photos, but they were taken later in the night so most of the team had already gone home again! Only the stayers, who are always the same group (ahah) feature in them! My old boss Brooksy turned up about 11pm, after another function and so that was nice to catch up before Christmas. He was the one who got me my original temping job, and also the one who made the big move to get me permanent! He now works for Tesco, closer to home and on more money, and offered me a job there if the Olympics gets too boring for me!!! We’ll see how things progress in 2008.

Wednesday and Thursday were quite lax days at work, due to the bosses being away (yep, all 3 of them already on holidays). So the office was relaxing and just eating lots of chocolate and mince pies. We also had a ‘site Christmas lunch’ put on by the canteen which was nice. Thursday evening Procurement had their division Christmas party and I went out with some of the other administration girls and guys. There were about 8 in my group, and it was good to get to put faces to names and voices from the phone! After a few drinks and food, we went and ‘crashed’ the procurement division’s party, and stayed around there until close at about midnight! Some of the guys from my Logistics Team (procurement guys) headed into Soho to stay out even later – crazies!

Friday everyone was leaving about midday from work, and I got into work late, and then (how dare they!!) I had a bit of work dumped on my desk, so while most other people left I had to stay until 230pm! Wasn’t as bad as some though, I think Dion and a few others were going to be stuck there until 5pm to finish their end of year things.

Well just to quickly bring you up to speed – I’m writing this before heading to Heathrow to jet off to Budapest!

Last Tuesday night Mara and I headed off to see Mary Poppins, and I thought it was absolutely fantastic! My favourite musical so far is still Footloose, however Mary Poppins was great! Ahh to have been a little kid and not done theatre studies would have made it so much more real, but hey it was still great! We got to see excellent set changes and Mary even ‘flew’ a few times with her umbrella, and Bert (played by a hot guy with a great voice too) even ‘tap danced’ his way up the stage walls and upside-down across the stage roof. Yep – fantastic! The children were great little actors, and the lady who played Mary was really quite true to the character in the movie, however just a bit veiner than what Mara and I can remember. So I really enjoyed the performance. The songs were great, and I remembered all of the ones I could. Being such a memorable movie for kids, there were kids and adults singing along in the audience which was cool. At first I felt like telling the ones behind us to ‘shoosh’ but then I remembered back in Melbourne when we used to get taken to ‘live musicals’ we probably behaved in the same way!

Well, last week was fun – Friday night Mara and I headed into Covent Garden, and after figuring out the girls were at the ‘Roadhouse’ not the ‘Roundhouse’ we lined up and waited and waited, Bryce came and left (the line) and we waited some more, and by the time we got inside the club half the people who we knew that we there had already left for various reasons! However there was live music so Mara and I stayed on a bit with Mel and Ange to listen before heading for a walk to Trafalgar Square to see the huge Christmas Tree donated from Norway and then heading home.

Saturday night I headed into the city, and for dinner in China Town with Ali which was really nice. I still haven’t found a restaurant that does salt & pepper pork like at Oriental Gourmet, however I will keep trying different shops til I get it!

Sunday afternoon I headed to The Walkabout (argh first experience) which is an Aussie/Saffa/Kiwi pub (but mostly Aussie) and they had some good live music, though it was apparently very quiet for a Sunday there. I didn’t stay too late, but did have a few drinks with the girls who are/were leaving London.

Monday night saw me out (again) to farewell some (the same) mates who are either going back home to Australia or to the SNOW (France) for the next 4-5 months, before returning to London. It was a bit sad, as we had a really good group together here in London to hang out with. The ones left are myself, Mara, Kristy, Bryce, Rachel & Alby, Jane and Jacinta. We said farewell to Mel, Ange, Vauny and Jade over the weekend.

Tuesday during the day, Mara went to halftix after we decided we definitely wanted to see Mary Poppins before it finishes (in 2008), and she managed to get us GREAT tickets, 2nd row from the front, for just £30 each! So I just went straight from work, met Mara in town and we headed to Chinatown (yep again) for some dinner before the show started.

Must head off – final work party to go to, but I will write more tomorrow including summary of the show!

Of course it happened – some people are so unassuming of what pets are capable of.