something strange

I did something strange to my blog, was trying to add it to some sort of blog analytics website (work related) and then all of my posts disappeared!!!

Meh, sorry I haven't posted in weeks, I'll try and update tonight, but right now I"m off to go enjoy the beautiful weather!

xoxo Irene

A Sunny Weekend in London

Amazing weekend. Friday night was spent with my housemates and some new friends I just met. Saturday I managed to get out of bed and venture to Portobello Market. It was a little like Niagara Falls. You go just because it's a major tourist destination, and when you get there, you're too busy trying to walk through hordes of tourist who inevitably always walk too slow that you forget to admire the surroundings. The only difference is that instead of thundering waterfalls, you're surrounded by antique spoons and old postcards. Honestly, I wasn't a fan and won't be going back.

Afterwards I hopped onto the tube and met up with some friends for a picnic in Regents Park. Like all the other Londoners, I was basking in the sun trying to soak up as much of it while I could.

Today I went to Columbia Rd Flower Market. Like a total idiot, I left my A-Z London Street Map at my flat, so I ended up getting myself and my flatmate Rob completely lost before showing up an hour late to meet my friends. Good news is that we brought home a massive arrangement of lilies!

Tonight my friend Helen had tickets to go see an outdoor screening of "The Soloist" at the Somerset House. Amazing. We went to our friend, Tobi's place for dinner and did our traditional sunday night family dinner (I cooked this time) and then myself, Helen and Tobi headed down to the Somerset for a movie under the stars. The event was put on by a company called First Direct, all proceeds went towards a charity. As someone who's dong a little event planning, I have to say that this one was pretty amazing. The goodie bags were full of treats, and the best part was that everyone was given a blanket to sit on.

I wish I could say that I really enjoyed the film, but Jamie Fox pretending the play the cello was more than a little cringe-worthy. I won't even get into the opening scene of him playing the violin...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to use flash to capture what it was like at the Somerset House, but trust me, it was beyond cool. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.

here comes the sun...

I'm sitting at the sports field of regents park right now, and shockingly the sun is out and the sky is blue. Amazing. I might still have slight goosebumps because of the breeze (ie strong wind) but myself and what seems like half of london are taking advantage of it!

Right, I'm going to go throw my sweater back on.

Hope everyone had an amazing long weekend in canada!

good news!

I came home last night after an Ultimate Frisbee game where I let in only 3 points (a vast improvement), to find that my internet was working again! yay!!!

Funny thing was, I sat down on my couch with my laptop open and had absolutely no idea what to look at. I had no desire to surf the net, stalk ex boyfriends on facebook, watch random youtube videos...

...thank god that didn't last for very long!

Am very much looking forward to the weekend... drinks tonight with a friend, tomorrow I'm off to some farm party, back sunday morning and then dinner at another friend's house. Will also have obligatory skype date with my mom and one catch-up session with Ashley. can't wait!

temper tantrum

I full out just threw a temper tantrum over the phone with O2, the idiotic internet providers who, after a week, still hasn't managed to re-connect my internet. They've actually just informed me that it will be yet another 2 weeks until my internet is re-connected.

Classic case of how the stupid british system of utilities, phone lines, internet has managed to cause deep frustration and anger.

Thank god I have my blackberry and internet access at work....

No you're eyes aren't deceiving you, it really is a guy playing violin on top of a massive column. I went to Trafalgar Square with my flatmate because one of his friends was performing on the plinth in the square. Mind you, when I had agreed to go, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about thanks to his thick midlands accent, but assumed that it was some sort of street performance.

Actually I was totally wrong. Think of any kind of performer, random bloke, protester, musician, you get the picture... getting one hour on top of this massive column to do whatever he or she likes. That's the idea behind this project titled 'One and Another' where for 100 days straight, for 24 hours, one person will be on top of this plinth, doing whatever they want.

When I got there, it was the violinist playing something, however he was being drowned out by the saturday afternoon crowd of tourists, screaming children and a random evangelical christian church service going on outdoors...(during a painful rendition of some woman warbling 'amazing grace' I put my headphones back on and turned up my ipod until it ended).

My flatmate's friend was this guy named Elliot who decided to organize the crowd of spectators into a series of "E-lympic" games, such as paper airplane javelin and egg toss. Probably the most memorable was trying to bounce a volleyball around the crowd without letting it touch the ground, although the sight of 50+ strangers doing a slow motion run across Trafalgar Square is a close second...

...really, it was just another day in the London-town.

I've been lazy

Alright people, I'm really sorry for not updating for a really really long time! I wish I could say that I've been out exploring London and working hard, but really I've just been lazy. Plus my internet in my flat isn't working right now (long story, not getting into it because it'll just make me angry for the rest of the day), so right now I'm writing this whilst at work. (and of course multi-tasking with all the other things I have going on... I'm just THAT efficient...)

So, the other day, one of my managers was talking about an event she had attended the evening before where the Mayor of London, Boris something or another had made a speech regarding how great London was, and he said that while our North American counterparts do speak English, it is only in London that proper English can be heard.

Which got me thinking about all of the terms and accents I've heard over the past 5 weeks. I'm not struggling as much to understand my co-workers, although I wish I could say that they've ceased to poke fun at my 'accent'. I've now learned that a 'quid' is essentially a 'buck', and that I am a size 4 in shoes (learned when I tried on a pair of size 7 shoes ). Southwark isn't pronounced south-WARK, but actually South-ARK. Same with Vauxhall being Vox-HALL...and not Vo-all (damn the french in me).

To make things more complicated, I've started to play ultimate frisbee... now those of you who know my athletic skills, you know that I have none. With brothers who spent more time playing dungeons and dragons growing up, I sadly never quite learned how to throw a ball, or more importantly, how to throw a frisbee. So you can imagine my terror when on the pitch, I hear the instructions called out - Ok alex, you're handling, rosie is first cut, you're second cut and Irene you stack.

Although I confidently nod as if I know what he's talking about, my mind is screaming at me "wtf is stack!?!? these stupid brits and their stupid terms and stupid ultimate frisbee, I don't even LIKE frisbee"

The game went downhill from there.

I won't get into how I pathetically struggled along the pitch and let in not one, but two goals... however, because I am such a masochist, I continued to play more games... and such as my knowledge of regular british terminology, my understanding of ultimate has also grown.

I can also kind of, sort of, throw a frisbee now too.