You'll have to forgive him. He's from Barcelona.

Hello All,

Greetings from not so sunny Barcelona. Thanks to my travel agent who suggested that I bring bathers. They would be so useful at the moment, given they are the only thing that I wuld have that was appropriate to get wet.

Anyway, enought about the all too expected European weather.

So far I have seen the following museums:
1. The Picasso Museum - cool and very well set out to show his development as an artist.
2. Gaudi Museum - he made quite awesome houses and I can´t believe that anyone let him build what he wanted to build 100 years ago.
3. The Monserrat Museum
4. The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art

The MACBA was AMAZING. There was a sound installation called The Killing Machine by 2 American artists. The Killing Machine itself was based on a Kafka story about capital punishment and it was really intense. The other displays were also really interesting. Essentially, through sound, they displaced the emotion that was evoked by the vidual images that were built or projected. It was really clever and well constructed. What was also cool was, because the gallery was close to a uni, the students used the steps as a communal meeting place. It was pretty cool to see them all congregate there. I don´t know if I would trade it for the Oak Lawn, but imagine learning among all that culture!

Yesterday I made a rookie mistake. I went on a bus trip to see some caves and Monserrat, a cathedral in the mountains about an hour from Barcelona. Imagine my surprise when we didn´t get to see any caves because ´caves´ in Spanish is actually the equivalent of sparkling wine and I ended up on a tour of a wine cellar with a tour guide conducting proceedings in Spanish because our tour person assumed I spoke Spanish and went to the international language school. Anyway, you got to see huge amounts of caves (see, it looks like you´re going to a cave, but you aren´t) and got a free glass at the end. It was 11am and we were on out way to a monestary. Yay Spain!

Monserrat was beautiful and would have been more so if it wasn´t raining and I could actually have got down to the Sacred Cave. Ah well. The view was stunning, if a little cloudy, and the church was divine. I dutifully joined the queue for the black Madonna and then wandered around the free parts of the museum before climbing come of the hill. Then it started raining again and we went home.

Last night I went bar hopping with some Canadian girls I met in my room. It helps getting free drinks if you are a group of girls, led by a California blonde, in a male dominated area. I have never got so many free shots in my life. Unfortunately, I couldn´t tell if I was being mugged or groped half the evening which was a bit disconcerting. Given I arrived home with all my stuff, I am going to assume the latter which is just plain gross.

I am meeting a lot of people - not lonely at all! Had dinner with an English boy the other night and always seem to be able to find people to chat to. Yay!

Anyway, I still have a lot to see and waiting for a fine day no longer apepars to be an option. I´m going to brave the rain!

Abbey Road

After living within 10 minutes walk of Abbey Road for the last 3 weeks, I finally made it there a few days ago. It was a bit strange. Once I was there, I was kind've unsure what to do. There were cars on the road so walking on the cross walk was out of the question. The studios were emptying because it was 1pm and it appears that musicians also like to eat lunch on schedule.

It was cool, but underwhelming. I think I took pictures of the wrong crosswalk. I think the best bit of the entire thing was the wall that people put their Beatles comments on. Apparently it gets painted over every week. I couldn't write a comment because all I had was a ball point pen and that was never going to work.

I wandered around for a little bit and tried to pick the angle of the photo by comparing the landscape to the album cover on my iPod. A lot of things have changed since the Beatles were there. Then I walked home. I think that sometimes it's better to just imagine things in your mind. It just seemed so suburban and middle class. Weird.

Also, I can't rotate photos because I am hopeless. There are better photos on flickr.

West End Girl

Alright. I haven't beaten Steph's record of 5 West End shows in 2 weeks. Instead, I have done 4 shows in 4 days. I reckon for sheer committment to the cause I am winning!

So - I saw 'Wicked' on Monday night and it was AWESOME!!! People, it was excellent. The scenery, the songs, the costumes, the set, Adam Garcia in white pants (West Wing fans - Kristen Chenoweth originated the good witch role on Broadway). It was fabulous. In a really girly way. It probably was for girls, but then I am a girl so I don't need to justify my enjoyment of it. It was so pretty! It was also nice to see a musical where I didn't know all the songs and wasn't tempted to burst out into a duet with the leading actress.

Tuesday I saw '39 Steps' which was a 1935 Hitchock film. It doesn't miss any of the film's scenes. It has 139 characters in it. The play had a cast of 4. One guy was the same character the whole way through. The girl played only 3 characters. The other two guys were very busy. And hilarious. It was a really funny play. It was made more amusing by the fact that it was a matinee and we were surrounded by children and grandparents. It only cost 12 pounds. Loving the student discount. We also went to an American theme pub for lunch (Cheers anyone?) which was funny in and of itself.

Wednesday I went and saw 'Little Shop of Horrors' which was FANTASTIC and one of the girls in the 'Greek Chorus' looked EXACTLY like Suza. They even had the same mannerisms which freaked me out slightly. It was really funny though - and the songs do what musical songs do - make you want to sing along and stay with you afterwards. The puppet plant was pretty intense as well. It was also made more amusing by the fact that I went to it with Fleur and Wayne. Fleur is a dentist. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the plot of 'Little Shop' but while the concept of sadistic dentists is funny, watching a dentist watch a sadistic dentist is even funnier!

Billy Elliott today. The little kid was amazing. As was the giant puppet of Margaret Thatcher. Didn't like the songs much (apologies to Elton John who wrote the score). I didn't like it as much as the movie and the theatre seats were built for people under 5 foot tall. I don't know - people seemed to love it. maybe I am OD'ing on theatre (unlikley) or it just didn't resonate with me. Except the Maggie T puppet.

In addition, today I did the Lords tour - and you could see how much the ground sloped!! It was nuts. It's like 2m different from one end to the other. We also stood in the away team dressing room. It was teeny tiny, with no showers and only one small TV. The balcony was lovely. Apparently, if players want to have a shower they have to run the gauntlet of spectators etc. It's even worse for the English players. In general though, the ground is very sweet and quite English. Except the new media tower, which I liked but many don't. I also saw the Urn which was smaller than I thought it would be. I now know heaps about cricket and resisted the urge to buy a paperweight with part of the Lords outfield inside it.

On Tuesday night I went with Fleur, Maree, Gemme, Jaye and Fiona to Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant. It was excellent food, we drank some nice wine and some good bubbly. I paid for it with my V-train rebate. All in all, a very nice, casual night with good food and good company. The cheesecake was divine. So was the Cod.

Tonight I went and looked at another flat. I think the search is going okay. The flat tonight was really cute. Small bedroom - but I am beginning to expect this of London.

Anyway, next week I want to see 'Sound of Music', 'Les Mis', 'Mary Poppins', 'The Lion King' and 'Spamalot'. Or maybe I will space them out a little more. I'm here for a while yet.

Wayne and Ben rock!

Step Into My Office Baby

Well, the job hunt has commenced and continues.

I have decided that I want to be a legal seretary. It's what every girl dreams of growing up. In order to be a legal secretary, I have registered with an agency. They in turn have to be able to show that I can spell and type, so on Thursday I sat through 5 hours of computer testing, spelling tests and proof reading tests. Not that I minded, as there's no other way they could tell that I was capable of spelling basic words. EXCEPT perhaps by noticing that I have TWO DEGREES and and A for English Literature in TEE (yes, they asked).

Had a very busy weekend. Drank a lot on Friday (enough to go to a cheesy 80's club where I had quite a lot of fun) and woke up hangover free on Saturday. Wayne muttered something about me being too young to understand and left to go to the Borough Markets tp find brownies. I went to Portabello Road with Katie to look at loud American Tourists and eat yummy cupcakes whie dodging traffic. Also went to the travel book shop from Notting Hill which was really cute. And unbelievably small. I don't know where they put the camera.

THEN went out to Clapham and sat on the ginormous common that they have out there. Temperature was over 20 degrees, so obviously there were a lot of half naked English people showing off their white skin. I wasn't, but it was a gorgeous day.

Saturday night we went to Peter's birthday party at a cool pub in Angel. Very cool music. Evening ended standing in the street whil Me, Raj, Ben and Felur ate kebabs and Wayne very nicely held onto the chips so we had free hands to make use of our 'wrapped' kebabs.

Had a BBQ had Wayne and Ben's house yesterday. They have access to their roof (very cool, awesome view) and I managed to burn the sausages. I don't know I could possibly have been left in charge, even for a moment.

Then last night we went for a walk along Waterloo Bridge at sunset and for a stroll down the South Bank. The weather here is great at the moment. So everything seems really happy and people are in good spririts.

Today, the job and house hunt continues...

London Still

Imperial War Museum today.
In retrospect, it was foolish to do the 'Crimes Against Humanity' exhibition and the Holocaust exhibition back to back. Emotionally draining, to say the least. I may have sobbed through some of it. Actually, the whole 5 hours I was there I felt guilty if I made any noise.

Yesterday - went to a Walkabout to watch the cricket. Didn't take me long to walk into an 'aussie' hangout. Australia's batting innings was a little boring (sorry folks) but the result was pleasing and expected. Wayne and I left straight after we won, and I think people thought we were British and sulking. Actually, we were catching a bus.

Had spent the day looking in the park and walking through town. Just lovely! I can't believe it is so warm here! When I say warm, I am still wearing thermals. The English are quite excited.

Not much else to report. Still having a good time. Catching up with V-train people tonight. Almost getting the Tube under control. You know, the usual.

Hope everyone had a good Easter with lots of chocolate. I am trying to resist all the cheap chocolate bars over here!

London Calling

I don't know when I last went a day without drinking anything. It's a blur.
Been meeting some lovely people and staying with some great guys - Ben and Wayne - who are friends of Jane's. Wayne is introducing me to lots of people and generally being a tops bloke.

In London.
Changing of the guard overrated.
Buckingham Palace entirely too brown.
Hyde Park Lovely.
Went and saw The Boat Race today. Massive crowds. I was at the starting line, so watched most of the race on the Big Screen. Cambridge won. I love rowing. As long as I never have to do it.

Peace and Love.

Rumour In st Petersburg

Russia. It's awesome. And beautiful.
St petersburg was just lovely - even their Palace Square beat Tianamen in straight up attractiveness.

Arrived in St Petersburg early Sunday morning. Another small hostel snafou, although it was dealt with. Went to the Hermitage almost immediately where students can get in for FREE. Yes, free. And you get to see the most fabulous art and the most fabulous building.

Although the coat check lady and our guide got into an argument and we had to stand in line for ages to check our coats - you have to wait for people to leave in order to use their hook. More annoying because there were HEAPS of hooks that they hadn't put numbers on. After all this, our guide just looked at me and said "In Russia, we have a saying. Never argue with Babooshkas". Sounds about right to me.

In some ways, the Hermitage was overwhelming. You walk into each room and the room itself is gorgeous and ornate. If you forget to look up you miss half of what makes it so spectacular. It's also a bit strange because every time I think that someone built the Winter Palace/Hermitage etc to live in, it makes me really angry. It's too much.

The art was amazing. Once I found a map (even though it was in Cyrillic) I managed to negotiate my way around some of the art, rather than just going in circles. I loved the Matisse, the Van Gough, the Cezanne etc. I didn't really like the exhibition on Alexander the Great and after a while I was going to pull my hair out from frustration at the paintings of rural life by Dutch painters. I got stuck going around in that circle for a while.

That night, we headed to a fairly cool restaurant, where the funniest night of my eating in a restaurant ensued. We order 2 beef stroganoffs, 2 pork things and 5 chicken things for our table. The woman comes back about 20 minutes later. They have no pork things left. So everyone who had pork changes to the alternative they offered - chicken kiev. Great. Sorted. Not so much. She comes back out. They have no beef stroganoff left. eyebrows raised. People change to chicken kiev. THEN she comes back out and says that they only have 2 serves of beef strog left and 3 chicken kievs. And nothing else. So only half of us ate. I've never been to a restaurant before where they ran out of food before. Headed to a student cafe for a very cheap meal afterwards.

Then went out to a RUSSIAN ROCKABILLY CLUB. I kid you not people, there were Russian men with mullets, surrounded my confederate flags rocking their little suede shoes off. It was hilarious and appalling. The club was called 'Money Honey' and it was here that we made strange Ukrainian friends.

Shout out to the girls I danced to 'I Will Survive' in st Petersburg. And I did the damned Macarena which the Russian women appeared to be scarily good at. Skye and I left at about 3am, after which Dave almost managed to get himself into trouble - he broke a glass and security wanted to charge him 200 roubles for it. He said no, the Ukrainians stepped in (we had previously ascertained they were fans of street fighting) and a situation was only just narrowly avoided.

Monday - checked out the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. Until they hd finished this fort, the slaves building St Petersburg were under constant threat of wolf attack, even during the day and even in groups. Saw the tomb of Peter the Great.

Church of the Spilt Blood very cool - modelled on St Basils. It was erected when, after an assassination attempt, Alexander II (I believe) was mortally wounded here - he lost his legs in an assassination attempt, but continued to make a moving speech once he was wounded. Russian history rocks. Wolves and legless speeches.

Headed to dinner at 5pm (don't ask) which was on Vodkatrain because of the Moscow accommodation debacle. Went to a cool place called Zoom where the food was delicious and our table scored a fee $40 bottle of wine because we had to wait a little longer than usual. Not that we minded. It was still early.

Walked around the city for a while looking at statues and parks - just beautiful. Then headed to a student bar where we drank Vodka Shots in celebration of our trip and made friends with Russian students. Got in a cab, went to a nightclub, stayed out til the early hours until Will and Charlie decided that the girls were so young looking it was weird.

Got a kebab on the way home.

Got up early next morning to catch a plane. Fell asleep at the airport, on the plane and dozed on the Tube to Paddington.

I am in London, people. And Flickr has photos.