Girls night out

Last night I went out with my friend Laura from work and a bunch of her girlfriends, 12 of us in total. Laura is on the left and her friend Rachel is on the right.

Met Laura at her place to get ready and I knew I was in trouble when we were leaving and I was going to put my coat on. "Oh no, you don't wear coats when you go out here". "Excuse me? It's freezing cold, why don't we wear coats?" I asked and she just laughed and made fun of me being foreign (which happens all the time). So, out we went in the freezing cold without coats.

The night started at 7:30 at this little place called Nu Bar which is in Essex (kind of like Vancouvers version of Surrey...yes that's right, Surrey!!). Nu Bar is about 1/4 of the size of the Roxy for those of you who know it - or maybe 500 sq ft. Tiny!! When we got there it was pretty empty so I got started on the vodka while Laura was on rose wine. 5 of the girls met us there and that's when we got onto the Dr Peppers. A Dr Pepper shot is about 1.5 ounces of beer/lager, 1.5 ounces of coke and a shot of amaretto dropped in....then you shoot it all in one go. Dangerous!

So after consuming a ridiculous amount of alcohol in 2 hours we went off to Laura's friend Jenny's where the rest of the girls were. Cabs were arriving in 30 minutes so we downed another 2 drinks and then went to this club called 195. Again, tiny!! Maybe 1/2 the size of the Roxy and ridiculously packed. This was clearly the wrong night to be breaking in my new Karen Millen satin stilleto boots because there were nowhere to sit so I was on my feet for 6 hours.

Essex is.....ummm.....interesting. There were points during the night when I wondered if I was in a strip bar because of the way some of the girls were dancing and their very skimpy outfits. Most of the girls (despite looking like hookers and dancing like strippers) were quite attractive but I couldn't figure out why ALL of the men were so damn ugly! Strange.

At 195 we were back on the vodkas and Dr Pepper shots. Everybody laughed at the "crazy Canadian" who was dancing so strange (what I call normal dancing) but I had a blast...partially because I spent most of the night laughing at everybody but also just enjoyed letting loose.

We stayed at 195 until about 1:30 when we were going to go to another club called Warehouse but then changed our minds and headed for the cab company so we could go home. Neither of us could stand anymore and couldn't stomach any more alcohol.

Now remember...I was told that you don't wear coats when you go out in England, so we're standing around in little tops and pants, freezing out butts off and trying to get a cab. Essex isn't like London or Vancouver where cabs just drive down the road and you can flag them. You have to go and line up at these cab companies and wait your turn until a car is available and then they charge you by milage - 1 pound per mile.

So there we are, standing at the cab company only to be told that the wait was 45 minutes for a car! You've got to be kidding me - I don't have a coat!! So we walked down this major road and then down this silly dark, dingy alley to another car company where the wait was slightly better at 25-30 minutes. After narrowly escaping frostbite, our cab finally arrived and we were on our way back to Laura's where I spent the night.

We finished the night off by me introducing Laura to grilled cheese sandwiches. Over here they do toasted cheese sandwiches where they put the bread with cheese under the grill....way too complicated. So, proper grilled cheese sandwiches at 2:30am.

Not sure about going back to Essex, it'll take me a while to recover from last night. Think I'll stick with London for a while.

Sports Day!!

Today James introduced me to my first proper Sunday afternoon of sports and beer. I was in for a football game and then rugby....all washed down by many bottles of beer.

We started out with brunch to line our stomachs before going to the Walkabout (which is an Aussie chain pub) in Covent Garden. We got to the pub at 12:30, 15 minutes before Tottenham Hotspurs kicked off against Chelsea in the quarter finals of the FA Cup.

Chelsea is one of the best teams in the premiership and is owned by Roman Abramovich (the guy who was thinking of buying the Canucks before the salary cap came into play) and Tottenham is James' team which is now my team by default.

The game started off great with Tottenham coming out swinging and at the end of the first half (45 minutes) they were up 3-1. Chelsea must have had a serious talking to during the 15 minute break because they were amazing when they came back and ended up tying up the game 3-3. Football isn't like hockey where somebody wins and the other loses....in football, if you draw, you have a replay. Unfortunately Spurs couldn't pull it off and will have to play Chelsea again a week Monday to see who goes through to the semi finals.

So....game one and 3 beers later (4 or 5 for James) we are onto rugby. England vs France, Six Nations. Rugby I can deal with because it's faster and a contact sport. We were without one of our best players, Jonny Wilkinson, due to an injury but we had the advantage with it being a home game.

England was behind for the majority of the first half, although not badly. Each half is just 40 minutes long with a 10 or 15 minute break....I can't actually remember because by this point I'd had another 2 or 3 beers. England kicked ass in the second half of the game and made some amazing plays and we ended up winning 26-18! Bye bye France!

So....in the end, I think I had 6 or 7 beers and watched a good 3 straight hours of sport. Pretty good for a first timer and on a Sunday afternoon too. But now it's 10:30pm and I'm exhausted.....can't wait to do it all again next week!!!

Hot Fuzz

Went to see Hot Fuzz this afternoon. It was my boyfriend James' 31st birthday so he got to choose the movie. I'd heard of it but not seen any previews so didn't know what I was in for other than the fact that it's got Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in it - the guys who were in Shaun of the Dead.

If you liked Shaun of the Dead, you'd love Hot Fuzz. While it was a little slow moving at the beginning and very fast paced at the end, it was absolutely hilarious!

Simon and Nick are coming out with another movie soon called Run, Fatboy, Run so I'm sure I'll be going to see that one too.

Sharm El Sheikh

My friend Katherine and I went to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt for a week to do some relaxing, sunbathing and snorkelling.

After a 5.5 hour flight, we got to the Sharm airport which was a complete disaster! We were told that if we wanted to go on any excursions that we would need a "visa". So we wander over to a little booth and each paid approx 8 pounds for this visa which looked like two postage stamps. Then we waited in a line to get through passport control....this took ages!!

After finally getting through and getting our luggage, we hop on the shuttle to the hotel and check in. The hotel didn't get the request for 2 single beds so for the first night we had to share a double before moving rooms. Not a big deal as the bed was big enough to fit 4.

The hotel itself was fab. There was a restaurant which did buffet only. It wasn't bad as there was quite a bit of variety and each night dinner had a different theme....Italian, seafood, Egyptian etc. So good thing was that we didn't get sick of the food being the same every day/night.

The entertainment was something else altogether! We were probably two out of only 10 Brits which was quite refreshing. Most of the rest of the guests were Russians or Italians and they were very into their karaoke and activities like water aerobics, stretching and dance lessons. It was a bit insane.

The holiday was exactly what we wanted it to be, relaxing. We would wake up, spend a couple of hours on the patio eating breakfast and reading books or magazines. Then it was off to the beach to lay in the sun. We rarely ate lunch and went snorkelling instead. Then it was dinner buffet, some drinking, playing cards, more reading and sleep.

We did go on a snorkelling day trip which was alright. Unfortunately we picked the one day when the weather didn't cooperate. It was quite cloudy and a bit windy which didn't make for great snorkelling. All in all it was alright but not worth the 32 pounds we paid for it. Along with that, it was a trip that we needed our visa for but nobody ever checked that we had them so we think that it is just a way of scamming 8 pounds off of each tourist. Who knows...

Unfortunately I got a cold on the Saturday, two days after arriving in Sharm and then got a stomach bug on the Monday. But....seeing as we weren't doing much of anything it didn't make that big of a difference.

Naama Bay is the town/city that is in Sharm but is an awful awful tourist area where people are always trying to grab you and drag you into their shop, sell you something or get you into their restaurant. Too much hassle and not worth going more than the once.

After a week, we were off to the airport to head home and this time it was worse than when we arrived (hard to believe). We went from one line-up to the next which lasted for about an hour and was unbelieveably painful! We finally got on the plane but ended up leaving 1.5 hours late as they had to refuel twice (the first truck didn't have enough fuel in it?!) and then they realized that nobody had cleaned the bathrooms. Quality.

It was great to have a week off and Kat and I both really enjoyed it but having said that, I would never go back to Sharm El Sheikh. It was beautiful with great weather but the airport was unbearable and there really wasn't anything to do there.