My European Experience

A few random photos form the last 6 months....

2008-02-05T21:32:00.000Z

Wimbledon....... although we got rained out!

A long awaited update.....

2007-12-13T09:30:00.000Z

Well, over the last few months, while I have been busy studying and travelling for work... I have managed to fit in a few fun things....so here is a taste of them.

Visiting Greg'n'Bec

2007-08-07T21:06:00.001+01:00

After Greg's party, we went for a walk around one of the national parks at Buderim. Through the rain forrest where some of their wedding photos were taken and they also got stranded during a heavy downpour several weeks earlier.

Greg's 30th Birthday Party

2007-08-07T21:03:00.000+01:00

The following weekend to my 30th, was of course, Greg's 30th Birthday bash. We all met up at his place for the traditional consuming of beverages and a BBQ.

30...... for the second time around

2007-07-07T10:58:00.000+01:00

Well, I landed into Brisbane airport at 7am..... my flight was early so i ended up waiting on the footpath for mum,dad,Lisa and Nana to come and pick me up. I managed to get some sleep then during the day after my 24hour flight to get ready for my birthday party that night, starting at 7pm at the Glen Hotel.

Kylie, Fless, Lisa and I

The uni boys

The Collins gang

The family back together

Ben, Mel, Lauren, Kris and Amanda

Me, under the influence...trying to blow out the sparklers

The family

Tequila shots all round

Dad and I

The boys (Greg, me, Matt, Sam, Brad and Adam)

Then I got to turn 30 for the first time.....

2007-07-07T10:18:00.000+01:00

Well, since I was going to be in Australia for my 30th, I decided to have a party in London (2nd June) also with all of my friends over here. We headed out to a nice pizza restraunt in Covent Garden for dinner'n'drinks before going to a club to drink and dance the night away....well at least until 2am.

Tom, Sarah, James and Bec

Britt and Daryl

Al and Juss

Laura and I

Brad, Al, Laura and Bern

Justine tucking in!!!

Me, Jen and Craig

Sarah, Tom and Daryl

My Bulgarian/Athens trip

2007-07-03T21:38:00.000+01:00

Well, I was lucky enough to go to Bulgaria for work. While I did not take any photos here, it was kinda wierd. Its sort of like how I imagined southern russia during the communist era to look. Poorly maintained roads, large apartment blocks... its kinda hard to describe but it definateliy felt like a far eastern european city. ALso "tea bag" from Prison Break was on my flight, sitting two rows in front of me.

Once I finished my work in Bulgaria on the Friday, instead of heading back to London (being a long weekend) I decided to go to Athens and fly home on the Monday morning. I found a cheap and what turned out to be a nice hostel in Athens.

The engineer from work who lives in Athens gave me a lift to the metro and I ended up getting to the hostel quite late in the evening, so I had a quick shower and went for an hour or so walk just to check the place out.

So I was not alone all weekend, I signed up for a walking tour which left the hostel on Saturday morning. The tour guide was more of a walking companion..... they did not come into any of the tourist areas, but at least they took us to all the right places. Anyway, on the tour, I met two really nice people... Marie (from Quebec)and Don from Jakarta. So we all went out to dinner with some other people on Saturday night after the tour. Don left on the Sunday morning so Marie and I walked some more and then made our way down to a beach that Visilius (the Greek engineer from work) recommended. We did not get there until quite late in the afternoon, so it was cool, however still good to see....... no where near as nice as home!!!! Take a look at the pics.

Spanish F1 trip to Barcelona

2007-05-16T22:08:00.000+01:00

Well, Chris (ex-housemate) and I travelled after work on Thursday to Barcelona to check out the city and go to the F1 on the weekend. While London had showed some promising weather for 2 weeks, the few days before we left was back in the low teens and rainy.

We got off the plane at 10:30 to 25 degrees.......mmmmm bring on the warm weather. So we found a place to stay on La Rumbla, which is the main street in the middle of the old section of the city which has lots of markets, clubs, cafes etc. Once we got somewhere to stay, we went out for a couple of drinks and a snack before heading to bed.

View from our room

Someone took my boat without asking!!!!
On the Friday, we did a bike tour of Barcelona which was a really good way to see the city. Also it was a lovely day, so it was a lot of fun. It consisted of a 4 hour guided ride throught the city, dodging some busses and cars on the road and seeing some really cool stuff. Met some fun people, had a few drinks on the beach which of course led to the other Chris wandering off in a crowd (while I had his wallet, passport and phone) so there was a few worrying hours, but it all worked out.

The next day, we headed to the track which was about 1/2 hour out of Barcelona. We sat in the sun for around 4-5 hours, got a good tan and watched a bit of the GP2, Porsche cup and then the F1 qualitying. Massa 1, Alonso 2, Raikkonen 3, Hamilton 4.

Saturday night we took it fairly easy, since we were sunburnt and worn out, so we went out for a nice BBQ Seafood dinner and a drink on the La Rumbla again.

Sunday morning, we thought we would try and beat the crowd to the track, which opened at 7:30. We got there at 8:30 and I think there must have already been about 80,000 there. Found a few square feet of dirt/grass and sat there from 9am - 3:30....a long day. Headed back into the city after the race, had some dinner and flew home.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 3

2007-05-03T21:28:00.000+01:00

Well, after the much needed sleep, we spent most of the day walking around Istanbul prior to going to the airport late afternoon. Firstly, here is a picture of the Istanbul skyline from our hotel....

Hows the serenity?????

Then, after breakfast, a quick walk around what I can only assume is the tourist district. It was very clean and had the museums, the Blue Mosque and really nice resteraunts.

Off to the Grand Bazar, which is a massive covered market place. Lots of leather and hand mades goods, along with fake Prada/Shoes/perfume.

We then ran out of time and had to head to the airport, but there were also some cool ruins of walls which used to run all around the city.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 2

2007-05-03T20:58:00.000+01:00

Well, after a freezing night with very little sleep, it was time for the dawn service to start at 5:30am. The service took about 1 hour which took place as the sun rose and illuminated the sea and surrounding area.

After the service, Laura and Justine caught the bus with their tour to Lone Pine, while Bern and I had to walk.....about 1 - 1.5km of up hill dirt track......we got there finally. We were very tired by this stage and had about an hour to wait for the next service to start....so I fell asleep and I was woken when they were starting.

After there service at Lone Pine, we managed to find our bus amongst the other 8000 people trying to do the same thing and wound up back in Istanbul around 8pm.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 1

2007-05-01T22:04:00.000+01:00

Well, after leaving work and heading straight to the airport on Monday night, we (Bern and myself) finally arrived in Istanbul at our hotel at 4am. After 2 hours sleep we got on the bus bound for Gallipoli. The countryside as we neared Gallipoli was very nice, large plains of fields with cute little villlages leading down to the blue sea. There were also still WW1 bunkers scattered through the crop fields.

When we got there, we did a quick bus ride around the national park, with our fluent German/broken english tour guide...very funny!

Statue in memory of a Turkish soldier carrying an injured Australian soldier back to his lines. Then we headed to Lone Pine, which is the site of the Australian War Cemertery and also was the sight of the bloodiest battle of the campaign for the aussies.

Then we headed on the bus past up the windy steap road to the New Zealand memorial, passing an old bunker on the way. There are also still original trenches near the New Zealand memorial.

We then made our way through to ANZAC cove for the night. The sunset was nice, then it was very cold over night. There was entertainment in the form of documentaries and the like. While there was almost no sleep, it was an unforgettable night.

Australian Womens Ice Hockey - Sheffield 2007

2007-04-08T22:52:00.000+01:00

And some other pics I forgot to post....I went to sunny Sheffield to watch the Aussie girls kick some butt in the Div 3 competition. Unfortunately Lisa was not there, but I still took a few 100 pics, so will give them to Lisa when I come home in June.

GOLD!!! GOLD!!! GOLD!!! GOLD!!! GOLD!!! GOLD!!!

Here are some random pics from the collection I have!!!!

Another forgotten photo ... the FULL lunar eclipse

2007-04-08T22:50:00.000+01:00

Well, I got home and almost forgot... but remember just before the complete eclipse had taken place so after much much much mucking around, finally got a half decent photo! Was not going to stay awake for another couple of hours to get more pics on the ending eclipse as it was already 1am.

Feb snow fall.....yes I know.... I forgot to put up the pics!

2007-04-08T22:48:00.000+01:00

It snowed for 2 days in the mornings...I caught this photo out of my room in the morning (7am) before it all turned to slush with the cars....

What was supposed to be a night at the theatre....

2007-04-03T22:53:00.000+01:00

Well, we all thought we would be very civilised and go out to the theatre last sunday afternoon, however much to our shock, the west end theaters are closed on sundays..... :( so Niree, Laura and Al went drinking, Bern and I joined in later on in the evening and Tom was not far behind us. We went to Covent Garden.

Then after we a bite to eat at Waggamamas, we headed to the Walkabout (Australian pub) for a drink or 3 before they closed at 10:30....

The red drink is a snakebite (1/2 beer, 1/2 cider and some flavour i can't remember....lethal!)

While we were taking this photo, what did we spot across the street, but a uni-cycle chained up to a lampost, so what else are you meant to do....but try it out!

Then, we tried out how well 5 people fit in a "red phone box" ... typical London sight!

Then of course, an amusing tube ride home....

St Patricks Day 2007 - Day 2

2007-04-01T22:10:00.000+01:00

Well, saturday morning started off with the normal shower and spray painting of my hair bright green. As you can guess, I got a few odd looks in the resteraunt of our nice hotel at breakfast.

We then caught the bus into central Dublin. After going to the Guinness factory (http://www.guinness-storehouse.com), we caught a horse ride back to the bar district of Dublin (cause it was raining and we got ripped off the previous night in a cab). "Gluestick" provided us with an entertaining ride.

(The reason I am wearing different clothes in this pic is because we actually visited the Guiness factory on Friday, however due to the incredibly long line, we went back on Saturday!)

Drinking in the bar on the top of the Guiness factory. It was quite a nice view over Dublin, the sun was getting ready to set and they had some good irish music playing.

The partying then continued at a bar in Dublin (somewhere called Turks Head)

Then, just a quick photo out of the plane window on Sunday as we flew out of Dublin.....

St Patricks Day 2007 - Day 1

2007-04-01T21:58:00.000+01:00

Well, until now, not much mayhem has hit....but now it was time for our little outing to St Patricks day (Venue: Dublin)!!!

Well we were up at 3am. airport at 6 and in dublin by mid morning on the Friday. Since we were all very worn out, we decided to do a little sightseeing and take it easy. One of the places we went was Dublin Castle.

Australia Day in the Capital

2007-01-29T23:13:00.000Z

After all of the hard work at the show, we got Friday off..... so we celebrated Australia Day at the Covent Garden Walkabout with Chris, Bob, Neil, James, Sarah, Bec and a few of my work friends from Sweeden.

A good time was had by all, along with my first full pint of beer......Chris however once again was "missing in action" from about 8pm til 4am and once again has lost his debit card while drinking, oh well!

My first pint

The early starters (with our snake bite drinks)

Myself, Carl and Wictor

Carl, Laura and Chris (well on his way to drunkeness)

Chris after the Jager bomb

Emma, Laura and Chris

Last time we saw Chris that night

Carl and I, slightly intoxicated

James and Sarah

No Chris!

Then Bern and Chris showed up (a different Chris)

Bit of a dance time....

Then Chris' mates showed up....no Chris thou

ICE 2007

2007-01-29T23:04:00.000Z

We had our gaming exhibition and it was a lot of hard work setting up the stand but it looked good towards the end of it..... We had all of our technology partners there too. Very tiring....

During construction

The finished product

Another angle

Upstairs in the bar

Worn out on the last day prior to opening

Sking in Austria - Saalbach

2007-01-29T22:47:00.000Z

Well, I had to goto Austria for work, so I decided to take a long weekend and hit the slopes for a little sking. Let me just say I knew that there was high risk of there actually being no snow as instead of -10 degrees for this time of year, it was +10 degrees.

Oh well, here goes......

Stonehenge

2006-12-30T23:46:00.000Z

Well, we decided to have a little road trip on the 27/12 to Stonehenge, via Poole (a bloody long way) to pick up Chris.

Here are some pics....

Boxing Day 2006

2006-12-30T23:27:00.000Z

After battling the boxing days crowds for the sales, we progressed to TGI Fridays for lunch, which turned into a liquid lunch!

Sam and I enjoying our lunch

Discussing the meaning of the universe!

Trying to get home on the reduced timetable tube! Not a good sight, an track with no train on it!

XMAS 2006

2006-12-30T23:07:00.000Z

We had a little sleep in xmas morning and then went out to our fully stocked tree.... Laura, Sam and I all were well impressed.

It all started fairly civilised....

Then it all started to turn into a big mess!!!!

Then it was time for some morning tea, we had cheese, prawn dip, nuts and some Jagermiester (I think that is how it is spelt).....

Now after having to drink several rounds of Jager shots to get this photo....it was time to cook the roast..... now where did we hide that turkey???

Then after some careful preperation by all (action shot of my handy work below)

We got:

A good xmas had by all.

Just some fog!!!

2006-12-30T23:05:00.000Z

Another clear night in London..... turns out the fog stayed for about a week, at the worst of it it cancelled over 300 flights / day for a few days leading up to xmas.....chaos.

London Touristy sort of stuff

2006-12-19T22:28:00.000Z

Laura's brother (Sam) arrived from oz on Saturday. On Sunday night, we did the typical touristy walk around the freezing cold streets of London.

We start with the London Eye...near Waterloo

Then on to the houses of parliment and Big Ben (These photos are taken at 5pm)

And around to Westminster Abbey

Then past Downing St to the Cavilry

Then we hit Trafalgur Square

Then we walded through Piccadilly Circus up Regent St to look at the lights below

And then down Oxford St to the tube to go home

Ski Trip to Canada

2006-12-19T21:56:00.000Z

Well, I had a few days owing to me at work and a few days of annual leave which had to be used, so what better way than to head off to Canada, or more accurately Whistler for some sking.

The view from my hotel near the Vancouver airport...

And then my room in Whistler...it is the first floor, on the closest corner to the photo...

And the view out into the village by night from the lounge room

And a few happy snaps from on the slopes

Then Channel 9's TODAY show was broadcasting the weather, so I got my face on that. From my room, you could see the transmitting van.

You can see the weather started to get a little cold on the last few days...snow in the village (about -10 I would say at the top of the hill - the wind chill)

Then the final day and the trip down to the airport...

Then as we drive around the bay into Vancouver

Last trip to the Isle of Man

2006-12-19T21:49:00.000Z

Well, I had to goto the Isle of Man for the last time on business for a while most likely. Very very windy this time. We were in a small plane and the whole plane was shaking on the runway without the engines even being turned on. No joke, I almost got blown off the stairs! Apparently they had already closed Dublin due to the high winds!

These pics are from my room in Douglus.

Yet another booze up!

2006-12-19T21:33:00.000Z

Chris and Bob decided to come and check out our new place, so they came up for a weekend of drinking!

We then went out to our normal TGI Fridays on Sunday for lunch....very festive!

Chris and Bob were mildly intoxicated and thought they would dance along to a busker in the tube!

Simons' Leaving Party

2006-12-19T21:31:00.000Z

Simons' leaving party was held at a really funky pub in the city... here are a few pics

The New House Warming!

2006-12-19T20:32:00.000Z

Well, after moving back to the UK after my trip back home, Laura and I moved to North West London and moved into a nice 4 bed flat with Bernadette (a nurse Laura had met at work) and Tom (a kiwi guy who answered an ad on the web)......

A few weeks later we had a house warming and here are some pics.....

Skippy in his rightful place.... keeping an eye on the Kiwi

Tom, the kiwi after a couple of drinks.....but then again the kiwi's always look a little funny (sorry Tom and Craig)

Craig, Jen and some of Toms mates

Craig, Jen and I

Simon, Bern, Sarah and James

James and I

The girls

Since we had only had a few drinks and probably kept the neighbourhood awake for long enough, we headed out into the city....

The boys

The girls

Laura and I

Tom and Laura

Simon and Bern

Simon, Laura and I

Macau

2006-11-13T23:14:00.000Z

Macau was a very interesting place to visit... I caught the high speed ferry from Hong Kong and staying in the company apartment there. The most noticable thing in Macau and Hong Kong is the smog. But here are some photos, they were taken from the 338m up where we had lunch one day.

That is mainland China on the left side of the picture over the river.

Hong Kong

2006-11-13T23:04:00.000Z

On the way home from Australia, I stopped over in Hong Kong before going to Macau for work. Here are a few photos from my day walking around...

This is the tram which takes you upto the lookout...

Greg'n'Bec getting hitched!!!

2006-11-13T22:12:00.000Z

Greg and Bec tied the knot and got married up at Maloolaba on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

The crowd!

The ceremony

The kiss!

After the signing...

Mum and dad

The boys (remember Adam "the tank" was not going to drink today..... that lasted about 1/2 hour)

Mum & Dad's Birthday

2006-11-13T22:10:00.000Z

Well, while I was home, we went out to dinner for mum and dad's birthday. We went for seafood down at Sanctuary Cove....yum!

Greg's Torana is almost here.....

2006-11-13T22:07:00.000Z

Powercruise 2006 - Willowbank

2006-11-13T22:02:00.000Z

Well, it would not be home without the smell of burning rubber and petrol!!! You don't see this in the UK!

My trip back to OZ (The motherland)

2006-11-13T21:52:00.000Z

Well, I was lucky enough to be able to come home for work, so I headed down to Sydney for a week to work at a trade show, then headed home after that to work and catch up with everyone....

British International Motor Show 2006

2006-08-03T23:07:00.000+01:00

May have been a long time coming....here are a few photos from the British International Motor Show.... Lots of nice toys! (There is even a Porsche there for you Andy)

Chris's 25th Birthday celebrations

2006-08-03T23:06:00.001+01:00

Mr Pringles 25th photos.....

Partying stated at TGI Fridays.... (On a thursday night)

Then the weekend of celebrations continued.....

Chris's 25th Birthday celebrations

2006-08-03T23:06:00.000+01:00

Coming in the next few days.......

A quiet dinner for two....

2006-08-03T22:53:00.000+01:00

Chris and I found ourselves home for dinner, how romantic...

So of course out came some PIMS (see the photo), a very relaxing summer drink and Chris whipped up a lasagna and some vegetables for a dinner in the back yard. I must say looking back now, that this was almost the end of the hot spell we have just had (it feels like summer is already over)!

BBQ with mates #1

2006-07-18T22:39:00.000+01:00

We had a BBQ on Sunday with James & Sarah, Craig & Jen and all of us. We had an awesome time now that we finally worked out how to run these silly British BBQ's. So much food and good company. A good time had by all.

Part 2 of my London Tour

2006-07-18T20:09:00.000+01:00

On Sunday, I used the second half of my 24 hours ticket from Saturday which got me a cruise on the Thames. Here are a few photos....

Big Ben (Again)

Charing Cross Train Station (Aparently it is meant to look like a steam train coming out of a tunnel)

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Tower of London with the "Girken" in the background

Sightseeing in London - Monopoly Pub Crawl

2006-07-18T19:29:00.000+01:00

After having a nice long sleep in after another late night and long week...decided to go into the city and jump on one of the open top double decker bus tours that runs around the city. Saw all of the usual sights as evident by the photos below:

The London Eye

Big Ben

St Pauls

An interesting way to remove illegally parked cars!!!

Then we met some friends Laura made when she was staying in the hostel before she came to live with us all. They were on a monopoly pub crawl and we joined in about half way through.

This is in Kings Cross station

Isle of Man

2006-07-18T19:05:00.000+01:00

Well, for my first work trip, I had to goto the Isle Of Man, yes the home of the famous car race....there are no speed limits on the island once you are out of the villages.....if only i had a car while i was there! Very bumpy landing as we were in a little plane and it was so stormy that all of the ferries had been canceled. The days changed from sun to rain and back again really quickly.

Here is a little map of where the Isle of Man is for those of you (like me) who did not know. It is between Britan and Ireland.

Its quite a peaceful island (except for during the races I imagine), and quite pretty when its not stormy.

My new TV

2006-07-18T18:38:00.000+01:00

Well, after putting up with the 51cm tv in our room, we finally had enough... so i bought myself a new TV...50" plasma... got it on special. Was quite funny though, 3 of us carrying a damn big 60kg box back from the shop down the high street here and then two blocks to our house..... so damn heavy! I also got the desktop mounting base for an awesome price £10 for a 20kg glass stand....just because it was a discontinued model....yeah!

And we just got our SKY+ box in, which for those back home its like Foxtel Digital records 2 channels of pay TV at once....yeah we are all in heaven!

My Birthday Weekend

2006-06-14T22:23:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-14T22:07:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-03T16:59:00.000+01:00

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

2006-06-03T15:48:00.000+01:00

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.

First Post

2006-05-22T21:22:00.000+01:00

Well, here goes.....

The first four weeks in London was made up of a hectic schedule of interviews, job hunting and generally looking around and settling in. I stayed with Darren, a good friend of mine for the first two weeks while I got my feet on the ground.... very nice of him. Darren lives near West Ham tube (see the tube map here... http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/colourmap.pdf)

I have ended up moving into a house with some very nice people at East Ham which is not too far away, still on the east side, on the boundary of zone 3& 4. When I moved in there was a 24 year old British guy, (Chris) living here with Sam the guy that owns the house. I ended up chosing a job as a Technical Product Manager. In the following week, another aussie guy (Daniel, 24) moved in and then Laura, 22 from Melbourne has also moved in. And we have been getting along like a house on fire! Litterally.

We were all fairly quiet until Laura and Daniel moved in, but we all went out one Friday night and since then, we have not stopped having a great time. A couple of weekends ago, there was a really nice Sunday and we had a "few" drinks should I say on the Saturday night. So we decided we would have bacon and eggs for breakfast outside in the sun, then we dragged the TV outside for the F1 Grand Prix, then we thought, why not stay out all day....so we lit a fire to keep us warm through the afternoon/evening...see below:

Chris is on the left, Laura in the middle and Daniel on the right. And the awesome fire we made... I think we burnt everything that was not nailed down in the backyard that day. We ended up staying outside til 9pm. So a good day had by all.