Toasters and Toast

Okay, so here's a thought. English toasters only toast on one side. Yes, I think its funny, too. One side is all nice and toasty and the other side becomes soggy and sticks to the plate. Not cool. However, I put up with it, and even tried stopping the toast halfway and and rotating it.

Then our toaster semi-broke. Well, it still toasts, but the handle thing doesn't stick down, so you have to hold it down for the duration of the toast, which is annoying. However, you always get the perfect toast, so its got its up-side. (On a side note, I haven't yet e-mailed the landlady to determine if this is our responsability to fix or hers).

However, i've just given up. So I'm now doing my toast in my frying pan. I did burn the toast yesterday when I tired (there seems to be a 3 minute window of 'white-toast' and then about a 10 second window of 'well done' before it gets to 'burnt', so it can be a touchy science), but today it was much more satisfying.

Just a thought.

As well, my roommate, Rhi, is going grocery shopping this morning with the car, so she's going to drive me to work. 90p saved - Yay!

Days Off

Today and tomorrow are my scheduled days off, and HMV called this morning to ask if I wanted to come in and take a shift today and tomorrow. Yikes! I guess that's what I get for hoping for overtime! After some major thinking about, I decided to take a shift today, but not tomorrow. I will work 12-7 today, and will head into London tomorrow for some touristing.

I will do some laundry and shower before I go, and will clean a bit when I get home today. It would be nice to have both days off, and I could've said no to both, it wouldn't of been a big deal, but again, I have to remember that the point of this 6-week spell is to work, not to have days off.

I need to keep one day off a week though, just for my sanity. Hah.

So I'll be at work today, and hopefully will be in London taking photos tomorrow!

Family Guy

I sold a copy of Family Guy: Season 7 to a priest (father?.... I don't know what I should call him - but he wore a collar thingy) today. I found it midly amusing. Yes, I know that there is nothing wrong with it, but I still find the image of a priest going home on a Sunday night and laughing at the silly antics of Family Guy.

Autumn

I am watching with some amusement a team of Wandsworth City Workers drive a street cleaner up and down the streets of my neighborhood. This particular street cleaner seems to have the duty of cleaning the leaves off the sidewalks and roads, as there is a team of men with leaf blowers blowing leaves onto the vehicle's path.

Odd thing though... is that its rainy and windy outside, and so, almost like a cartoon, the trees are dumping their leaves back onto the road, pretty much directly behind the driver, rending him... well... useless.

So this is why I pay council tax...

Employment

So... this afternoon I had a job interview... and this evening, I have a job!

I am now a full-time employee of HMV Britain. Yay?

I am pleased that I am employed now, and I think it will be fun working at HMV, although I think giving up my unemployed, slacker lifestyle will be hard.

It will be nice to see some deposits into my bank account rather than withdrawls. My first day of work is tomorrow - I start 10:30 a.m. - I'm not sure how long I'll be there, so I'll keep you posted on my first day of work.

I'd best get to sleep, now, mustn't be tired!

Winter

I think someone forgot to tell London that it is supposed to be winter.

(Shhh. Don't tell them!)

Christmas Window Displays

Here's a quick little update for everyone - as I was walking down Oxford Street doing some shopping I saw some of the famous window displays. As they were moving and animated I figure I'd take a video for you! So, enjoy!

I am the Cooking Master!

Okay well, not really. But I did make this last night:

And I think it looks pretty spiffy. Lemon chicken, asparagus and lemon/rosemary rice. Albeit, the rice came from a bag, but still. Hah.

I visited the library yesterday and took out a couple cooking books so that hopefully I can improve my skills.

I e-mailed my resume out and applied for several jobs this morning, so I'm hoping that I'll hear back soon enough. I also am going to call my local Job Centre Plus and apply for an NI (National Insurance) number on Monday.

Today is midly miserable - it's raining and looks windy. I don't know yet if I'll bother to go out today. I might stay in and clean and do laundry. Hopefully tomorrow will be nicer and I will do some shopping (grocery, mainly) and see if anyone else is hiring.

Rainbows!

Today was a lazy day. After spending the last three days in an out of the apartment shopping and wandering and such (to get good use of my travelcard), it's nice to spend a day relaxing. I did a couple loads on laundry this morning, then I went down to the library and took out a couple of cooking books as well as a couple reading books. The library isn't huge, but from their website I can look through all of the collections from each library. (As well, if they don't have a book, they will buy it and just charge me 2 quid to borrow it.) Pretty cool.

After that I picked up a couple groceries (a lemon, some asparagus and some onions. Mmm) and came back here. I was just lazing around catching up on my America's Next Top Model when I saw a rainbow out the back window! So I leaped (almost) out of bed, grabbed my newly-aquired tripod and snapped some quick photos. Yay!

Guy Fawkes Day

So, last night was the famed Guy Fawkes Day here in London. The basic background on this story is:

"After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had been persecuted under her rule had hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. James I had, after all, had a Catholic mother. Unfortunately, James did not turn out to be more tolerant than Elizabeth and a number of young men, 13 to be exact, decided that violent action was the answer.

A small group took shape, under the leadership of Robert Catesby. Catesby felt that violent action was warranted. Indeed, the thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics. Today these conspirators would be known as extremists, or terrorists.

To carry out their plan, the conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder - and stored them in a cellar, just under the House of Lords.

But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack, including some people who even fought for more rights for Catholics. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts.

One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators.

Guy Fawkes, who was in the cellar of the parliament with the 36 barrels of gunpowder when the authorities stormed it in the early hours of November 5th, was caught, tortured and executed.

The tradition of Guy Fawkes-related bonfires actually began the very same year as the failed coup. The Plot was foiled in the night between the 4th and 5th of November 1605. Already on the 5th, agitated Londoners who knew little more than that their King had been saved, joyfully lit bonfires in thanksgiving.

As years progressed, however, the ritual became more elaborate.

Soon, people began placing effigies onto bonfires, and fireworks were added to the celebrations. Effigies of Guy Fawkes, and sometimes those of the Pope, graced the pyres. Still today, some communities throw dummies of both Guy Fawkes and the Pope on the bonfire (and even those of a contemporary politician or two), although the gesture is seen by most as a quirky tradition, rather than an expression of hostility towards the Pope."

That's the long version. Generally the version I go by is "Guy tried to blow up parliament, guy gets caught, people light bonfires to celebrate king, people today use anything as an excuse to light big fires and explode fireworks."

But either way, it works.

And yes, I rushed out to the balcony with my camera and snapped photos. Here are some of my favorite:

Not too shabby, hey? I think we had a pretty good view from our balcony, and we got to come inside when it started raining. Muuuch better.

I also took a video of the finale fireworks, which you can see here:

Obama

Glad to see that the London Underground Staff are pleased about his win.

More photos and stories to come later. For now I am going out! :)

My Last day in Paris

On Thursday the only pictures I took were in the evening at the Eiffel Tower. We finally realized why it was blue! It is because France is taking over the 6 month rotating presidency of the European Union. You can see the stars of the European Union on the front - we were always looking of it from behind.
It will be blue until January 2009, just for your information.
A couple water-splashed shots of the sparkles and an accidental bump of the camera and I was off hiding somewhere it wasn't raining.

Our apartment in Paris

For those of you wanting to know what the apartment looked like, here are some ideas for you:

This was the living room. You can (maybe?) see the kitchen table and my bed. Through the door is the bedroom where Matt and Mandy stayed and to my left is the front door and the kitchen. Mind the mess.
Here is our little kitchen. We didn't have an oven, just a stovetop and a microwave.

Here's another shot from the same angle. The walls were covered with padded fabric - not sure if it was for muting or what, but it was nice.

Friday was spent just packing and socializing until I had to catch my bus to come back to London. The bus ride home was nice, although it was dark and I didn't get the chance to take any pictures.

All in all I had an awesome time both hosting people here in London as well as in Paris. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

October 29: Eiffel Tower

On Wednesday, October 29, all of us together headed over to Notre Dame to go inside. It was lovely inside, and what's better is that its free to go in!
I really need to buy a tripod. My photo options were somewhat restricted when I had to find a surface to put my camera on.
The stained glass is just lovely.

I always loved how huge the place was on the inside. I can never quite get a picture that covers both the floor and ceiling of this place to illustrate just how big it is, but I'm sure you got the idea.

After that we got the chance to feed the birds! We brought our own stuff (just dried baguette), since I didn't want to take any from the guy in case he wanted money (you never know...)

This was seriously one of the highlights of this trip. And it's true, a bunch of sparrows on your hand is a lot less stressful (and less heavy!) than a bunch of pigeons.

Seriously. Loved it. I will definitely do this again next time.

After that I visited the deporation memorial on the tip of the island. It was a memorial to all the french people who were sent to the concentration camps during the second world war. You couldn't take any pictures inside, but it was a very good memorial.
A couple more photos of Notre Dame (yes, I know, enough already!) and I was on my way.
We were on our way to meet up with Matt and Mandy (I think...) when we stumbled onto the Place de la Concorde right at sunset. The luck!
Perfect timing.

After we all met up we were walking through some of the gardens just west of the Louvre when we saw the Eiffel tower all lit up and blue!
And, of course, while I was trying to balance my camera on a bar table to get a good shot, the guys were spinning circles in front my camera! Silly buggers.
Pretty silly.
Finally, a person-free shot!

And here's the token night-shot of the Champs Elysees and l'Arc de Triomphe.
And a night-shot of a foundtain in the Place de la Concorde.

Yay! More blue Eiffel Tower!
Everyone was having a lovely time.

And then the Eiffel Tower began to sparkle! That's the best part.

Tuesday, October 28

On Tuesday, October 28, I went to the train station to meet Nicole and Matt at the train station. I got there a bit early, and since Nicole and Matt's train was delayed, I wandered around taking some pictures.
Matt and Mandy were still at Versailles that day, so after Nicole and Matt checked into their 5th floor hotel room, we wandered down the Seine.
Everyone was very happy about the view.

We actually ended up at Notre Dame where we wandered around and took some pictures. Well, okay, I took some pictures and Nicole and Matt visited the crypt under Notre Dame.

This is Paris' point zero. This is the centre of Paris, and the point which all distances are measured from.

Fortunately this was one of Paris' nice and sunny days. Best enjoy it for now, it doesn't last!
If you look closely at the bush, you can see that it is full of sparrows. You think that there are tons of pigeons in the square, but there are also tons of sparrows. It's because they are being fed.
There was a man there handing out bits of what looked to be sweet cake or something for the birds to eat. The moment someone would hold it up they would get swarmed by sparrows. Much less threatening than being swarmed by pigeons.
This is one of my favorite pictures. I could always tell when the pigeons lifted and were swarming over the square because a bunch of school girls started screaming like they were in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
I couldn't help but humm the tune of "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins when I saw the woman. The man just looks badass.
And how many birds can you see??

After leaving Notre Dame, we wandered around the St. Germain area, and stumbled through several gardens and some churches, none of which I remember the names of, but did snap these photos.
This appears to be a Roman wall, as it looks similar to other walls in England (rocks and layer of thin red stone), but I can't be sure. I'm not sure of the Roman history of France, if there is one.

After that we ended up walking along the shore again, across from the Louvre, I snapped a couple photos before the dark skies convinced us to head home.
One last picture of the Louvre!