Winners eat Frosties

I've been applying for jobs, and had a couple of interviews. However, everytime the interviewer says "rooting protocol" or "rooter", it just totally distracts the hell out of me. I wonder if they'll expect me to start saying "rooter and rooting", instead of router and routing protocol. Maybe I'll just feel obliged to start saying it their way. But I think in the meantime I'm going to say it my way until it just gets practically inconvenient...

Played squash last night with some of Ken's friends. I hadn' t played in years and years.. I wasn't going to go, my excuse was that it would 'stuff up my tennis'.. to which Ken replied, "But you don't even play tennis!!" - and well, he had a point, so I went. It turned out to be quite fun.. all the players there were way better than me, but they were very nice and took it easy on me. There was one guy there who I named Bruce Lee... he'd hit the ball so fast you wouldn't even see it happening. He had this cool shirt that said "Winners eat Frosties" - no wonder he was so good. Afterwards I found out his name IS Lee!

My legs and butt are SO sore today.. but sore is good...

The Sultan's Elephant

Over 4 days, free street theatre played out in London in the form of a 42-tonne mechanical elephant and other 3-storey high characters. This was a French production called The Sultan's Elephant, and we went to see it on the last day for the finale at St James Park.

There were thousands of people out, some main streets of London were closed for the play. The crowd was in awe when we saw the elephant. It is so cool it's kind of moving as it ambles down the street, and there are people in red frocks controlling it, lifting its feet, trunk, spraying the crowd and blinking its eyelids! What an amazing experience, I am so lucky to have been here to see it!

First paddle on the thames

Well well.. it's only been 6 days and I went for my first paddle yesterday.

I emailed OCUK who Romy trains with, and asked them if I could come to their Saturday morning session. They said they were doing time trials and if I'd like to have a go, I thought, what the hell, ok!

PD's trial at Narrabeen, 4km. This was 3km on the Thames - should be a breeze! Well well.. I ended pulling a time slower than my normal trial on Narrabeen Lake.. turns out the course is around 3.8km, I suspect the oc1's weigh more than my surfski, and I squeaked all the way along the 3.8km on the foam seat which wasn't attached to the canoe at all. I also wish I had a GPS to record the zigzag of extra distance I paddled due to not being able to get the rudder straight. However! Despite the challenging craft, I had a fantastic time.. managed to do some sightseeing along the course too. It felt just like a PD trial when everyone was cheering you on at the finish. Met some great people and it was great to see Romy again. She hasn't changed much except her accent has gone British!

A week in..

This is an email I wrote everyone, so this is a cheat blog entry, but it sums up the past few weeks...

I was just about to write, "Here I am, sitting in the shade of a lovely tree in Hyde Park, the temperature has been 20+ today and yesterday and I'm thoroughly enjoying the sunshine while writing you this email..".. when in an instant, I got poo'd on – my head, sunnies, laptop, pants and jacket. OKAY!! So now I'm back in the shelter of my friend's apartment in Bayswater where I've been staying since arriving on Sunday. The poo better give me good luck.

The last few weeks had been hectic, and very emotional. Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things for me, and I'd never expected to go through so many emotions since I made the decision to move. I had a wonderful time catching up with friends, and thank everyone for the amazing cards and gifts.. they mean so much to me. I felt so warm and fuzzy on my first cold day here when I slipped on my puffy jacket and walked outside ready for anything! (hit me! Hit me!) I also took photos of all the cards so I could read them on my laptop.

I spent a few days in HK visiting my brother and relos before coming to the UK. Some pics are up here. HK was really warm and humid already at this time of the year. I just wanted to stay and go paddling.

After a few days of shopping and eating 5 meals a day, I had to make my journey to the UK. In a way I wanted to stay in HK, where it was warm and familiar. The 12.5hr plane journey was made worse by my non-reclining seat. In the hope of being upgraded to Business or First class, I asked the stewardess to look into fixing it for me. They came and fiddled with it.. 3 times.. and couldn't fix it (yeh!!). There were clearly no seats in economy free… but there must be in 1st or business class right?!! Well.. apparently NOT.. they offered me a crew seat, with no tv. I declined and just put up with my broken one. At least they kept apologizing, and later gave me a $50 duty free gift voucher – but which I think is still not worth someone having to sit 12.5hrs in a straight-backed chair. Well lucky for them it was me who didn't complain further, and can sleep anywhere (literally).. plus I had my mind on other things, namely landing in a new place and having to go to job interviews which I hadn't done in 6 yrs.

So I've been here in London for about 5 days now. I'm staying in a flat with a friend, and there are 3 other flatmates here. They're taking wonderful care of me, and I've already made friends from their friends, and caught up with other friends I knew were here. There is so much to see and so much to do, however for me it doesn't feel right until I get a job and start earning pounds. The weather has been incredible. It's totally unlike what people have told me. It's been sunny a lot of the time, yesterday and today it was 20+ degrees… it hasn't rained… the people are friendly… I feel like I'm in Aus a little, because things are so easy (mainly coz I speak English too). On the other hand, the city is so much bigger, and everywhere I go there are interesting things to see, whether it's a perfect row of white terraces, or beautiful leafy shaded streets, and the amazing amazing parks…(if u minus the pooing birds).

I'm going for a paddle in an oc1 tomorrow with a friend (Romy)'s club OCUK! It'll be on the Thames and there is rain forecasted but I'm still looking forward to it.