Finally!!!!! We've got broadband at home, and our BT line. As if it hasn't taken long enough - we applied for our BT line on the 1st of November - it was finally working correctly on the 23rd December - good going BT - love ya work!
So at least now we should be updating the blog a lot more regularly. (Once I get on top of all the stuff that I've got to update - it's all a bit daunting at the moment.....)
We've been up to all sorts of things since our last entry here.
First, Tory decided to abandon us and go back to Australia. We think she may be coming back here sometime in the not too distant future, but we had a pretty big send off for her.... We went out for some Yum Cha in Soho at a place called Ping Pong and then went to a club somewhere near there.
Damo, Nikki and Tory out at the Club....
The weather has finally turned into what we've been expecting it to be - very cold, with very little sunlight - we can see how you could get a bit down with 6 months of this.... At least we're going to be heading off every now and again to check out some slightly sunnier destinations... It's still not as cold as we've been expectging - still no snow yet!!! We did have icy-fog the other day though which was interesting - it was sort of like walking through a thick cloud.
We went to Windsor Castle for the day a few weeks ago - it was great. It was quite easy to get to - we thought it would be further out of London, but it was only 1 train stop further than what Damo has to go to for work. It's a very stunning place - a little fact that we were unaware of was that it is the oldest inhabited castle in the world - something like one thousand years of occupation. Pretty cool really.
There were a couple of rooms in the palace that are so stunning that it is unbelievable - unfortunately no pictures are allowed within the palace, but here are some from the outside....
Windsor Castle
Us outside Windsor Castle
We've had Stevie Lee leave to head off back to Australia a couple of weeks ago too - it's like there's a mass exodus from the UK for all the aussies we know - hope Travis and Nicole don't bail soon or we'll be in trouble. Anyway, we headed out for a night out to the Shepherd's Bush "Walkabout" pub. WOW! What an experience that was! Shepherd's Bush is like Aussie Central over here in London, and the "Walkabout" is 'supposedly' an Aussie style pub - it was more like a zoo..... ;-)
Stevie, Nik and Damo at the Walkie
After they closed (as all the pubs over here seem to close at about midnight - it's crazy), one of the other people that was out at the pub (Olivia) knew of a house party happening at Chiswick Park - we all walked there, and we partied on and we ended up getting home at about 4.30am - it was huge. It must have been about a 4 bedroom flat, and it was packed from top to bottom. There were people flowing out into the backyard, and because we ended up turning up with no grog, we thankfully helped ourselves to some that had been donated by some kind person.... ooooopsss.....
Nik in the hallway of the houseparty
Damo went out to Soho for his work Christmas Party to a Spanish place called Mesa, and it was quite a big day/night, but Damo had been sick for a couple of days leading up to it, so probably wasn't quite as big as it would've been otherwise, which was probably a good thing. It was on a Thursday, and started at 12:00pm, and he ended up getting home at about 11:30pm, so it was quite a long time of boozing up - he ended up going out with one of the blokes he works with (Elliott) afterwards for dinner to a place called Wong Kei, which was a Chinese restaurant in Soho - they had dinner on a shared table with a couple of gay girls - Elliott was hilarious. Damo was the only one who ended up turning up for work on the Friday, albeit at the leisurely hour of about 11am.... No one else even bothered to make the trip and everybody ended up 'working' from home.
Just a couple of weeks ago we headed off to Germany for the Xmas markets - we went to Frankfurt (mostly due to the fact that there were cheap flights, and Damo is crap at research....), but regardless, we ended up having a pretty great time. There was all sorts of sensational food, and plenty of glüewein (which is basically the german name for Mulled Wine - it's a drink that they have over here in the colder regions - pretty much warm, spiced wine).
Us with glüewein
We both had a great time, and waaaaay too much excellent food. We ate Bratwurst and some other sausage that was called something like rhinesrindswurst or something. The grill that they had for cooking these on was great - it was suspended over a big flame, and swung over the top so that the flames weren't in one spot and burning things - here's a pic to illustrate a little better. They tasted fantastic!!!
Grill Pic
Damo eating Bratwurst
We also ate a giant chocolate covered pretzel, and when by giant, we mean giant - it took both of us an entire day to eat it, and it tasted absolutely exquisite.
Nikki with "The Pretzel" and mulled wine
We did a tour of Frankfurt on a bus - the tour guide was an Italian fella, and we were chatting to a South African bloke, and also another young Italian guy who was a designer. It was a pretty quiet tour - and there's not a lot to Frankfurt - thank god there was a Christmas market on - it would've probably been as boring as sin otherwise - it's a pretty picturesque place though - it's on the banks of the Rhine river, and has quite a nice foreshore, and a few really cool old churches, but little did we realise before we headed over there, it was 80% destroyed in the war, so it's a lot newer than we were expecting. It's also the investment banking capital of Europe and also has the 2nd largest airport, but unfortunately thanks to our fantastically cheap airfares, we actually flew into Frankfurt-Hahn airport, and not Frankfurt airport. Frankfurt Airport is about 10 minutes outside Frankfurt - Frankfurt-Hahn is about 2 hours outside of Frankfurt..... If we were going for a week, it probably would've been worth it, but for a weekend, it definitely wasn't. To make matters worse, we're pretty sure that Frankfurt-Hahn is closer to Köln, which would have been an infinitely cooler place to go to than Frankfurt - but with all of this said, we still had a great time anyway!
The main square
From an angle showing the Christmas tree.....
On our way out on one of the nights, just around the corner from where we were staying we noticed an Aussie pub! In Frankfurt!?!?! Surely we had to check this out..... There was bugger all Aussie about it apart from an Aussie flag hanging precariously from one corner of the room, a couple of pieces of currency sticky taped to the wall, and a poster of Ayers rock - oh well, if it drums up business.......
Damo having a VB in Frankfurt!!!!! (Apparently it's export quality now..... In your face, Hendry boys and Daz....) heh heh
Nikki found the weather in Frankfurt to be a little chilly..... here's how much clothing was worn, and there was still the odd whisper here and there about how cool it was....
Since we got back from there, we went to a Christmas party at Claudine and Anna's place in Tooley St (where we were dossing when we first got here), and it was lovely - quite a bit more sedate than we were expecting, but it was good. And even better was that Damo got to 'work from home' the next day..... ;-)
We've just spent the last week or so getting ready for Christmas, and we ended up spending Christmas Day at Travis's and Nic's place - it was great - we got over there at about 11:30, and we didn't end up leaving until about 9:30pm. We watched a few movies on Sky, and sat around chatting and just generally having a good time!
Damo's beers on the windowsill in preparation for the big day....
Our great Chrissie tree with all the prezzies under it.....
Trav and Damo just before Chrissie lunch
Our huge Chrissie spread.....
We also spent a fair bit of time catching up with Family and friends on Skype on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day/Christmas Night and Boxing Day - it was great to see and chat to everyone, and we only wish we could've chatted for longer.
We leave to go to Hogmanay (Edinburgh, Scotland) tomorrow (Saturday) for New Years (Hogmanay is the largest NYE party in Europe), and we're travelling by high-speed train. We've got a few last minute things to do before we leave today.
Anyway, we really hope everyone has had a sensational christmas and we want everyone to know we were thinking of them.
