vauxhall & I: May 2007

bike. and then some.

so I've got this bike now. it's new to me, but it's old in general. it's an old-fashioned looking, green, rusty, rickety bike with a big, springy seat, a wiry basket on front and a bell. no gears, but it does the job. sometimes the bell rings without me winding it up...I think it's like the Herbie of bikes if you know what I mean. I bought it for 8 pounds off of some kid in east london. God knows where he got it. he might have pulled it out of a lake? hopefully? either way, it's my new ride. I think if it was going to have a name, it would be Emerald (it's green but certainly not Emerald. Still, the Emerald shines through the dirt and rust). I'll post a picture soon (I'm having camera issues lately urgh, but I'll get them sorted).

In other news, I have further photos of Vienna and Bratislava to post this week. AND, am soon preparing for a little weekend jaunt in the Netherlands for my B-day!!Yes, none other than the city of bikes, sex shows, the Van Gogh museum, and legal cannabis: Amsterdam! yay! yay! yay!

Happy Memorial Day for those of you in the U.S. hopefully enjoying your day off today. I've heard (though hot maybe) your weather's much nicer than ours! Stay well and stay tuned, mes amis!

brighton!

Kati, Lucy, Shannon, and I took a weekend trip down to Brighton for Lucy's birthday in April. Was still a bit chilly, but we did get lucky with the sun. It was tons of fun and made me long for lazy days on the beach (even though lots of beaches here are pebbles and not sand). Oh, the beach. Sigh.

Royal Albert Hall

This was pretty cool. Got to see my workmate and friend, Susie, sing with a choir of hundreds at the Royal Albert Concert Hall last month. An orchestra, including a gigantic organ (was hard to get a good photo, but see below), played as well. And we had a wonderful Italian meal afterward. Yum. And fancy.

Kew Gardens

(A very peaceful-and enormous-cluster of botanical gardens and such in SW London-actually very close to Richmond...Richmond, England that is. Ratna, I think I mentioned this place to you right after I went. I reiterate, I think you might loose your cool when you go knowing how much you dig plants and stuff (as long as there are no large insects-I know-and I didn't see any). It's quite nice. Notice 2nd picture down...the kind of flower photo one sees on calenders. :) Oh, and did I mentioned these gardens are Royal?

Tam and Jayson looking cute with the plants

Night Out!

These are from a night out at G-A-Y over Easter weekend...I think we can all agree Catherine is probably the only one who resembles normal (don't let her fool you!hehe). Please excuse me for looking windblown/sweaty/stoned in at least a few of these. I think I was just really getting my groove on (see 3rd down). Oh, and thanks Maria for your faces. Though sometimes, I fear you and your eyeballs and teeth, the night wouldn't have been the same without you :)

Cath, you're such a beauty.

jay and me (looking unimpressed)

the lambing

I know, sounds creepy. But "lambings" are actually traditional events around Easter when the general public is invited to come see the local farm animals, particularly the lambs (well, that's my working knowledge understanding of them anyway). As strange and foreign as the idea of going to something called a lambing was to me, the weekend of Easter I so bravely and curiously accompanied one of my trusted English compadres to one in Greenwich. It was a sort of low key family event and I was bored after ten minutes (just kidding-not really), but the lambs were SOOO CUTE (see below). As someone who's mostly vegetarian (ok, I do eat seafood now and again), I was a little frightened and turned off by the spray painted numbers on the lambs stomachs thinking they represent in which order the little lambies are to be slaughtered for meals at fancy restaurants in W London where posh ASSHOLES will so ignorantly devour... (I'm calm, everything's fine). Anyway, I never found out for sure what the spray paint is actually about. Maybe just to keep track of them if any run off or something.-Let's hope. Either way, I present...the lambing:

PS: Another English friend of mine, Ollie, travels often to NYC for business and was telling me a few weeks ago that it is very American to call things "CUTE".-He apparently runs into it a lot at work while in NY...I've realised since he mentioned it I say "Cute" ALL THE TIME (and said it above about the lambs)...which I guess makes me still American yay!-even though I've started saying "scenario" the British way ahh! Anyway, have a I told you you're cute today?