My Birthday Weekend

Well, yet another year on earth however this time I could not spend it with my family and relatives, so this year the all important job was filled by my fabulous housemates, who went well above all expectations on Friday.

Day started off with a full cooked breakfast, then we met up after work for dinner at an italian resturant for dinner, where I was thoroughly embarassed by the staff singing happy birthday to me. From dinner, we headed off to Waterloo to catch a train to Poole (Chris's home town).


So we grabbed a few drinks, jumped on the train and headed off f0r a birthday weekend of fun. We stayed with one of Chris's very good friends (Kate) and she was nice enough to give us somewhere to stay for the weekend.




On Saturday we headed around to a friend of Chris's place and watched the soccer, played cards, had a few drinks and caught a little too much sun. In typical fashion, Chris was a little bit drunk, as can be seen from the photos.



Then later on that night we headed out in Bournemouth to a few clubs. We ended up getting home about four o'clock.



Sunday was an easy day for all after our late night out. We headed to nice pub for breakfast/lunch and then made our way through the Winborne music festival and caught some live music before heading home.





On the way home, Chris saw no to stop drinking, considering that Sunday night is technically part of the weekend.

Sams Legendary Massages

Our gracious land lord demonstrated his massaging prowess on Laura the other night, which was a must see by all of us. By the look on her face she was really having a good time.

Frieburg/Bern/Paris

Because Karen was competing in the 2006 German Cup in Frieburg, I went down to southern Germany for a few days last week. Left London wednesday arvo and got to the hotel at around 1am...a little later than I had planned, but anyway. Frieburg is a lovely little town. We stayed at Hotel Stadt (http://www.hotel-stadt-freiburg.de/fla_version/index.html).

And then at the rink:

The three aussie girls waiting for their turn.

Karen during training for loops

Karen during competition warm up, ended up coming 10th in her event.

On Saturday, I went Bern in Switzerland for a few hours during the day. I went there a few years ago with Lisa, it is a very pretty town. Albert Einstien once lived there and there is a bear pit where you can go and watch the bears for free.

While I was there I bought some awesome Baileys handmade chocolates and some extra creamy lindt chocolate....all of which was very nice. On the Sunday, even though there was poor weather we headed up to Titisie (pics below) which is a "resort" town not too far from Frieburg.

Then on Sunday night, Karen and I headed to Paris by sleeper train and arrived about 7am on the Monday morning. We were lucky enough to be able to check into the hotel early, so we dropped our bags off then started to go sight seeing. We went to the Eiffel Tower which was only a couple blocks from our hotel, then we went walked the ave des Champs Elysees up to the Arc de Triomphe.

On the monday night, we decided to go out for dinner at an italian resteraunt. Even though we were not that hungary....1st thing we were told we could not share a pizza, so we ordered two...2nd thing, i asked for a vodka and coke (which I received 1 shot glass of vodka and 1 bottle of coke, which was more expensive than my whole pizza) which would have been alright, except my pizza was one without cheese...not a good night! Except I managed to get some awesome photos.

Then on the tuesday, we decided to goto the louve. We got there early to beat the crowds and it looked like it had worked...only to find out that the Louve is closed on Tuesdays...bloody French.

We did some shopping at a massive shopping centre "Galeries Lafayette" (http://www.galerieslafayette.com/index.do ) where I bought some new clothes and we had lunch. Then we headed to the airport to go home to London.

Dinner time antics

Well, being the sociable house that we are, we have started sharing the cooking, meaning that everynight, we all end up in the kitchen chatting and laughing... quite often there may be a drink or two.... but thats another story. We managed to uncover a photo of Sam when he was about 20 (a long time ago now)...


Then two weekends ago now, we decided to have a little outing on Sunday as Chris supports a soccer (or football over here) team called Watford. On Saturday night, Chris suggested that we go to what we thought was the south of London where he is originally from, however turns out we went to Cardiff in Wales. Chris had tickets to the grand final of one of the soccer leagues in which Watford were playing. We were a bit disappointed since the trains were full of soccer fans, they would not serve booze, however they just decided to give away everything they had in the shop on the train instead, so everyone was happy.

So we all went on the train and had a few drinks (Laura's typical collection of empty glasses in the photo above), then when they went to the game, Laura Daniel and myself went shopping and had some dinner, then met up with Chris and his mates again. We finally decided to go and see the castle in Cardiff, however they were closing just as we got there, so we took a couple of photos and that was it. We caught the 7pm or something like that train back, however Chris and his drunk mates wanted to party on, so they rocked on home at some late hour, 11 I think.