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Friday, 8 December 2006 (London) - London, limos, and tornadoes!

I've spent the last week in London on a training course for work (love the free travel! :) The UK had persistent gale-force winds last weekend and Monday (when I flew out) wasn't much better, so I was expecting a nice turbulent flight! As it turned out it was all smooth sailing out of Edinburgh (shot on the left) which thoroughly disappointed me, but the approach into London (shot on the right) more than made up for it hahaha - awesome!
After dumping my crap at the hotel I went for a wander to find where my course was. A detour back to the hotel got me pretty lost and disoriented, though I didn't realise it until I randomly found St. Pauls Cathedral hahaha shit, where's a map?		I eventually found my way back to the hotel, and was barely in my room for 60 seconds when a whole lot of sirens come screaming along and stopped right outside my window. I grabbed the camera and bolted back downstairs, but unfortunately it was something I'd rather not have known about - hit and run on a dog. A nine-month old laborador pup got off its lead and ran straight out on to the (busy) road - BANG - right in front of its owner. The car apparently stopped briefly, then took off again. I assume the cops heard "hit and run" on the radio and missed "dog" - I don't know why else four cars worth of them would turn up, or two ambulances for that matter.
I saw the fuzz 'pull' this chick over one morning while I was walking to my course. I don't know what she did but it looked bloody funny seeing this cop riding next to her with his lights flashing demanding she pull over hehe.		On Wednesday night I went for a big four-hour wander around the city to get night shots of some of the things I'd taken day shots of last time I was here. There were a few of these babies going around town.
The London Eye in front of a full moon - pretty!
Big Ben, Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.
Tower Bridge.		The Tower of London.
I was pretty bloody hungry by this stage and was looking around for somewhere to blow my £20 dinner limit (the maximum that work will reimburse for dinner per night). I thought about getting some pub grub at The Horniman (hahaha) next to the HMS Belfast, but didn't feel like being surrounded by drunk horny men ;)
Instead I found this fantastic Greek bar and restaurant further along the river and got £20 worth of souvlakis, Greek salad, baklava, and lots of Greek beer - hell yeah!		And on the way back to the hotel, while tanked up on Greek beer, I got arrested ;) Well no, but somebody did. I walked round the corner and cops were on top of some bloke trying to get the cuffs on while the chick on the right yelled obscenities at him hahaha. Central London - I love it! :)
At 11am on Thursday there was an almighty thunder storm over central London with hail and everything. At about that same time, the suburb of Kensal Rise in the northwest of the city was getting hammered by a tornado of all things (full story here)! It lasted around 40 seconds and put out wind gusts of over 160km/h that left a bloody good mess behind! Straight after my course today I headed out there hehe. When I arrived it was pretty chaotic; I certainly wasn't the only one who turned up for a nosey! Several roads were closed and cordoned off, news vans and onlookers were everywhere...
There was debris and crap for miles around including roofing tiles, bricks, glass, trees, wheelie bins - you name it, and heavy machinery of all descriptions trying to clean up and repair the dozens of damaged (and evacuated) houses. This road was the worst hit with virtually every house now missing part of its roof.
There were several of these vans and others like them in the area (they would've made a bit of money tonight)...		And more limos hehe ;)
This was certainly the place to be, as while most houses lost their roofs, this one lost its whole side which buried a parked car below. Bloody unreal!
While I was there they were cleaning up the rubble from the house above. I saw the owner of the house interviewed on the news when I got back to the hotel afterwards. She was a little pissed off.		Apparently the UK has an average of around 40 tornadoes a year, but the majority hit open fields out in the country and go unnoticed.
I keep forgetting how massive London is until I see again from the air! Anyway that was a fairly exciting week, and now I've got to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to head to Prague for the next four days. Bring on the £0.50 beers! :)

Friday, 15 December 2006 - Prague!
I made it back late Tuesday night from my short trip to Prague, and it was great! Click here for all the details :)

Monday, 18 December 2006 - Glasgow and 'Wegies' (Glaswegians apparently)

Hehehe Scottish Santas.

For the next three days I'm in Glasgow for work, and at this stage I'm going to be working here for at least the first six months of next year so I should be able to do my lunchtime wandering thing and have a good look around. Anyway, just like everywhere else, the city is all eye-candy at the moment with Christmas lights all over the show. The building in the middle and right shots is the Gallery of Modern Art - the front of it reminds me of the Pantheon in Rome. The shot on the right came from Wikipedia - hahaha!

And, like Edinburgh, there's a bit of a Winter/Christmas thing going in George Square in the middle of town, complete with ice rink too (except this one is bigger and looks like it's actually been properly put together, whereas Edinburgh's has big puddles of water all over it).

Monday, 18 December 2006 - I miss home!

View of Cook Strait, New Zealand (between North Island and South Island) from 400kms in space.

Tuesday, 19 December 2006

I went for a small wander during lunch today just to see what was close by (it's not getting any bloody warmer outside!).		Hey it's those Indians again!
I found a small Christmas market around the corner from where I'm working - nothing to shout about...		...except maybe for this! One of the markets in Prague had a massive stall of lollies and so forth like this. Too bad I didn't have my wallet with me - nothing like a bit of tooth-rot to get you through the day!

Wednesday, 20 December 2006 - Santa's Visit Application
Something to help Santa out this year - click here.

Thursday, 21 December 2006 - Irn-Bru!
Irn-Bru (pronounced "Iron Brew") is a popular caffeinated soft drink in Scotland, most famous for its eccentric bright orange colour. It's also available throughout the UK, Russia, Canada, South Africa, much of Europe, and some parts of Australia (although I don't recall seeing it). There's also Irn-Bru 32, which is another energy drink like Red Bull and V. Anyway, Irn-Bru have some brilliant TV ads (just search for "Irn-Bru" on YouTube), and I managed to hack the latest one from their website. This particular ad (aside from the bloody funny lyrics) includes animated images of some famous Scottish landmarks; if you've been following this website you should recognise some of them such as the Falkirk Wheel and Loch Ness, and I'm pretty sure the end of the ad is Glasgow's George Square (I think Edinburgh Castle and the Winter Wonderland Ferris Wheel is in there too). Anyway, here's the ad. Enjoy :)

Friday, 22 December 2006 - Holy Jap-Crap!

With the exception of Subaru WRX's and the occasional Toyota Supra, there are just no Japanese cars in the UK. Unless, of course, you know where to look, and today Dominic (my flatmate) took me to a Japanese importer not far round the corner with a warehouse full of nothing but Japs hehe. I had a good talk with the owner about his business, vehicle prices, availability, quality, warranties, blah blah blah, and left feeling pretty confident that I'd be back again within a year once the bank account has bulked out. It's been exactly two years since I sold my Skyline before I moved to Brisbane, and I'm badky itching for another!

No doubt there'll be a lot of drunken parties this weekend with it being Christmas and all, so I thought this was appropriate :)

Saturday, 23 December 2006 - Still addicted to bass!

Over the last couple of weeks I've been buying and moving crap into my new room, and just like in Brisbane, it wouldn't be complete without a banging hi-fi! 145 watts out of each speaker, 170 watts out of the subwoofer (if those numbers mean anything to you) - brilliant! After setting it up I took it for a 'test drive', but made the mistake of putting the sub on the floor. After being blown away by the volume, sound quality, and above all the bass, I turned it down and realised someone was knocking on the front door hahaha - probably the neighbour directly below us. I ignored it and they went away, but decided it best to keep the sub off the floor in future ;)
This, incidentally, is my new room. I have no idea where the door on the left leads, if anywhere. It won't open hehe, weird. Might be a couple of bodies in there.
Earlier in the week Mo put on a big Christmas feast for us - big-ass turkey and everything! Bit of European booze to go with it, even some Christmas crackers - damn it was good! :)
Some Christmas pud and Mo's brandy sauce for dessert - mmmm! This bird was enough to serve 8-10 people, and now Mo's gone home to New Zealand for Christmas and New Year's so I'll be eating turkey for a week hehe!

Sunday, 24 December 2006 - 'White' Christmas!

We haven't seen rain in a week now (which has been great!), but a few days have been really misty and today was one of them. This was the view from my bedroom window at 3pm today.		Looking east up Princes Street towards the Winter Wonderland.
And somewhere up there is Edinburgh Castle hehe. London has had thick fog all week which is causing havoc with flights. Mo had to abandon her flight from Edinburgh to London en route back to New Zealand and take the train down there instead which left her £100 out of pocket. Countless others are in the same situation. And actually I've just this minute seen on the news that some of the train drivers/conductors have gone on strike leaving thousands stranded hahaha - the bastards! Anyway, it may not be a white Christmas in the usual sense, but it's white nonetheless!		I don't like this. There are often buckers down Princes Street, as well as homeless people all rugged up asking for spare change. Some of the homeless have a dog with them (probably to gain some extra sympathy but I think it's cruel), and as if that isn't bad enough this prick (who I see here often) has his poor dog stand there all day holding a hat for people to throw money into. I'm an animal lover and I don't like this at all - that dog doesn't look happy to me.

Here are few Christmasy things if you're in need of a little entertainment. First up, the perfect couple on Christmas Eve. Second, kissing under the mistletoe (or is it? Make sure you have sound on to appreciate this ;) And finally, attack of the sprouts! Dirty ol' Brussels sprouts (every kid's worst nightmare - mine included) seem to be pretty popular over here, particularly at Christmas (so kids are tied between the joy of Christmas, and the horror of sprouts hahaha!).

Monday, 25 December 2006 - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas all! :)		I spent most of the day at an all-you-can-eat-and-drink lunch at a hostel in town - the free booze was great but the food was in pretty short supply (and I like my food!) Few more drinkies later on and I called it a night, or a Christmas - a very different one from what I've been used to for the last 23 years.

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