Seal Hunting

The seal hunt is back and personally, I think it's one of the most disgusting events that has ever taken place. For those of you who don't know much about the seal hunt, check out these two links.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/205683

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/sealhunt/

Picnic at Hampstead Heath

This weekend we had amazing summer-like weather with temperatures getting up to 26 degrees. So me and 4 of my girlfriends went to this massive park called Hampstead Heath and had a picnic.

Everybody brought something to eat and drink and we put it all in the middle and shared. We ended up with bread, cheese, smoked salmon, seaweed salad, regular salad, vegas bahji, crackers, fruit, chocolate, and of course lots of wine!

So we all brought blankets, crashed out, ate, drank and caught up on everything that's been going on with everybody lately. We met at 1pm and were done about 8pm when it started getting a bit chilly.

It's really cool that you can drink in public over here. Back home if the Police walked down Kits beach and saw people drinking - they would tell you to dump it and you'd probably get a ticket for drinking in public. Over here it's totally the opposite! However, the downside is that you do get some complete weirdos who drink copious amounts of booze and turn into complete idiots!

Speaking of complete idiots - there was a group about 20 or 30 feet away from us who were boozing it up and one of them borrowed a boomerang from some Aussies nearby. This is where it gets interesting because I think the guy was on acid as well as having drunk a flat or beer. So he starts throwing this boomerang around randomly but it ends up hitting people in the head or knocking over drinks etc etc. It was about that time that we decided to pick up our stuff and move elsewhere.

All in all - fabulous day! Great to catch up with the girls and a bonus to get a tan!

British news - what the ?!*^$

Just finished watching a movie (some true crime flick which was pretty crappy) and turned on the news on to see the latest from around the world.

So...on it comes and they spend a minute on some story about a girl who was murdered locally, another minute on a British soldier who was injured (just injured, not killed) in Iran, a good 45 seconds on the fashion of a footballers girlfriend and then about 10 seconds on the story of 6 Canadian soldiers who were killed....yes killed in Afghanistan!

Does this make sense to you? 10 seconds? The news anchor said "6 Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan" and that was it - no details, nothing. Just a 10 second long sentence - if that.

It really pissed me off! How can they spend 45 seconds talking about the latest fashion being worn by a 21 year-old girl who doesn't even have a job because she is dating a famous footballer and then say "6 Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan"? Because clearly the lives of 6 Canadians aren't nearly as important as what some random chick is wearing which in turn is what every other female in this country will be wearing within the next 2 weeks. And this is what I have decided to live with......what was I thinking!?!

Blade of Glory

The Brits are lucky - there's a 4-day weekend for Easter instead of 3 like in Canada. So on Saturday afternoon James and I met up to watch the football (Spurs of course) at a bar in Covent Garden. Then we went to see the new Will Ferrell movie - Blades of Glory.

Gotta say that it's not as good as a lot of his other movies but it still had it's moments. I did find myself laughing hysterically in some parts but then there were others where I did get a little bored.

Jon Heder was pretty good and I must say his hair was fab! I thought the characters were cast quite well but Amy Poehler could have been funnier.

All in all I'd recommend it but would caution that it's not as funny as a lot of Ferrell/Heder/Poehler movies but a good show to catch if you need a little laugh.

Paris in the Springtime

I couldn't think of a better way to finish one job and start another than to spend the weekend in Paris.

James told me a couple of weeks back that he had booked us a weekend in Paris to celebrate finishing one job and starting another. Then he told me that I shouldn't drink too much at my leaving drinks on Thursday night as we had a 2.5 hour train ride on the Eurostar on Friday afternoon. That and apparently one of the most romantic parts of the journey was the bottle of wine we would have with lunch on the train.

Nothing better than hair of the dog!

So after a late night on Thursday and an early morning on Friday getting ready and packing, I met James at Waterloo at noon where we got "provisions" and then boarded the train.

It turns out that James was feeling as rough as I was as he was in Amsterdam on business for 2 days before we went away and spent most of the time drinking. Unfortunately he was out until 2:30am on Thursday night and was woken at 5:00am on Friday to get his flight! Poor boy.

Regardless, we still had a drink at the station and then a bottle of wine on the train with our sandwiches and snacks. The journey went fast enough and we found ourselves in Paris at about 5:30 at night on Friday.

Our hotel was very easy to get to and super central! We got the metro from the Gare du Nord to Saint-Germaine which only took a couple of minutes and we walked from there to our hotel which was in the latin quarter.

After settling in and changing into something slightly nicer and fresher...we went for a wander, found some lovely cafes and bars where we sat and chatted until a more "decent" hour for food which in Paris is definitely not before 9pm!

We found a great little restaurant which James had been to before where we had amazing french onion soup and cheese fondue - SO good! And of course with dinner we had a couple of cocktails followed by wine. When in France......

As we'd had a long day we just went back to the hotel and crashed. The next day we woke up, got ready and walked down the road to a Boulangerie to get coffees and pastries - clearly my diet would have to wait until Monday... We then headed off on a walk to Notre Dame and then onto the Louvre (I had to see the Mona Lisa!). I had bought a new camera before leaving with the intention of taking loads of pics but in the end the only one I took was this one of James in front of Notre Dame! Next time.....

Enough touristy stuff for a little while - so off to the Champs Elysées. When we got off the metro, we found it was starting to rain a little so the only rational thing to do was to go for lunch and drink some more wine (or in James' case - beer!). Once the rain had stopped and we were quite merry after our drinks, we walked down to a road I can't remember the name of (remember - we'd been drinking all afternoon) and went into all of the fancy shmancy shops. Prada, Gucci, Chloe, Bvlgari, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and the list goes on.

Of course I didn't buy anything which depressed me so we walked a little further to another lovely little cafe where I drowned my sorrows when James bought me a bottle of Pinot Noir. When we had polished that off, we walked down to another area of Paris to the Hotel Le Costes for more wine and some great tunes!

Then back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We decided that we would go back to the same restaurant as the night before because it was close by and one of the most amazing meals I had ever had. After dinner we wandered over to a little bar where we sat drinking wine and beer until 4:30am!!

Sunday morning, James woke up and went to get breakfast which was of course lovely pastries! Then we got packed up, left the hotel and wandered in a completely different area for a little lunch before heading back to Gare du Nord for our train back to London.

Paris was absolutely gorgeous but 2 days wasn't nearly enough to do and see everything that James and I had planned so we'll have to plan a trip back. Any excuse eh...

Leaving work drinks

I've had to learn the different ways that the Brits do things to us. One of them is that when you leave a job, you have leaving drinks. But along with leaving drinks, your workmates get you leaving pressies. My coworkers bought me some lovely pressies - a silver Tiffany pen as well as a lovely work shirt.

For me, the leaving drinks involved inviting out all of the people at my office as well as people that I have worked with over the past 15 months. I was a bit worried at first that this would end up costing me a fortune (as the leaver pays the tab) but luckily people pitched in and bought rounds here and there. While it was still quite pricey, it didn't break the bank.

We started off at 5:30 at a little pub/bar called The Old Tea Warehouse which wasn't the most exciting as they didn't play any music and it was quieter for a Thursday than I am used to. There was about 20 people on and off as people come and go....and it was really great for everybody that made it to show up.

At about 10ish those of us that were left (about 6 or 7....remember it takes hours for some people to get home) went to a nightclub called Agenda. We had a blast! We danced, drank and took some awful photos!! At about 1:30 my friend Laura and I left Agenda for home. We were all relatively pissed but I had to get home and pack as I had to leave for Paris the next day.

Wicked time was had by yours truly....will miss the old gang but am really excited to start my new job!