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Thursday 23 October 2014

Happy Four Months to London and I!

Yes, I’ve been in [sunny] London for four months today. I arrived 23 June exhausted, emotional, relieved, scared, excited. Four months on, I’m still exhausted, emotional, relieved, less scared but no less excited!

I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a snapshot of things I’ve done and experienced to date. I am already a changed person from that terrified girl who stood staring at her two suitcases, backpack and a banana - positive she’d fail this expedition. You’re probably all sick to death of hearing about me over here, but I go on at length for two reasons:
  1. I really enjoy being smug.
  2. I truly did not think I was capable of this.

My life in three bags and a banana
 
#letsgo #letsgettolondon #whatthefuckamidoing #weeeeee#adventure
I have proved my toughest critic wrong. I am stronger, smarter and more resilient than I could have ever imagined. I know thousands of people have done this adventure before me and thousands will after - and they don’t boast and brag quite like I do - but my faith in myself was so low that each time something incredible happens - I feel it double-fold. Once, because it was amazing. And twice, because I didn’t believe I would be experiencing it. 

I’ve learnt that I don’t need to rely on others; that I can muddle through on my own. Great and wonderful lessons are being learned every day on this adventure (my current life lesson is to HTFU and not sweat the little things) and I hope you have been enjoying following it with me.

Ok, enough of the corny stuff.  Time to be smug.

I like lists. So here’s a list of things that I have done, seen or experienced since arriving in London 4 months ago (that’s a whole quarter third of a year - yay! Maths):
  • Seen many of London’s famous and historic landmarks and sites, such as Big Ben, the iconic red telephone boxes, Buckingham Palace, the various museums, Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus, Tower Bridge, The Shard, floated up and down the River Thames, and more
  • Eaten a lot of potato
  • Landed myself a job at the number two university in the world. While it has it’s tough days, I’m still pinching myself that I got a job so easily, and a good paying job, with a good reputation
  • Found myself a place to live. The added bonus is that my housemates are amazeballs
  • Made a metric fuck-tonne of new friends
  • Drunk a lot of cider
  • Casually popped over to France for a weekend
  • Devoured waffles and frites and chocolate and beer and mussels in Belgium
  • Ran with the bulls in Spain
  • Gotten on the wrong tube (this happened again more recently than I care to admit)
  • Seen a variety of wildlife that has made me squee, including frightful foxes, sassy squirrels and bumbling bumblebees
  • Turned into a theatre whore. I have seen: Phantom of the Opera, Warhorse, The Comedy of Errors, The Lion King, Wicked the Musical, The Book of Mormon, Evita and, not technically theatre but still shows: Kate Miller-Heidke and Dan Sultan. Coming up I have already booked in to see Matilda, Forbidden Broadway, Urinetown and The Nutcracker ballet.
  • Drunk a lot of cocktails
  • Selfied in front of Stonehenge
  • Selfied in front of the Eiffel Tower
  • Selfied in front of Big Ben
  • Selfied in the square in Brugge
  • Selfied..just..selfied.
  • Crossed Abbey Road
  • Started drinking my first Fosters and then stopped drinking it
  • Spent an inordinate amount of time and money in Primark
  • Busted both pairs of work pants, largely in thanks to all the potato
  • Cycled through vineyards with friends in France
  • Sat on the tube more than once in a ridiculous costume
  • Drunk some of the worst coffee I have ever experienced in my life (I’m not even mad, I’m impressed!)
  • Started to be come a Londoner. Excuse me, stand to the right!


Thank you to everyone who believed in me and who continues to do so!
Much love,
xx



Friday 17 October 2014

Attack of the Bogan

bogan:
ˈbəʊɡ(ə)n/
noun AUSTRALIAN informalderogatory
an uncouth or unsophisticated person, regarded as being of low social status. 
"some bogans yelled at us from their cars"

We all possess a degree of boganity. To some, I may appear classy; I love the theatre, I play classical piano, I have a large vocabulary and am a wealth of interesting (and largely unnecessary) facts (and ok, I’m probably the only one that finds them interesting).

On the other hand, I pre-drink harder than you party, I swear like a sailor, and more often than I care to admit, I wear tights as pants. Heinous, I know.

So when I heard about Bogan Bingo, I was intrigued. Straight to the poolroom list of things to do before I leave London.

Last week, my opportunity arrived. My housemate Alice had not yet celebrated her birthday in [sunny] England, and Bogan Bingo was the obvious choice as she wanted to introduce her workmates to the “Australian culture”. Dress code: Bogan. Cue: flannie (as an aside, I love how iProducts autocorrect flannie to flange..lol), wifebeater, jeans (or in my case - jeggings worn as pants…) and our bingo dabbers at the ready.

Any Aussies who live in the UK and have not been to Bogan Bingo yet - do so immediately. It was one of the most hysterically funny evenings and made me so happy to be Australian - even though most of it was terribly bad taste. I had never played bingo before - I am now a convert - and thankfully the pace of Bogan Bingo was reasonably slow. When I had only one number to go, I had my hand at my crotch ready to spring to my feet to scream out, Bloody Bingo. Sadly, there was no winning from me but that did not detract from the experience at all.

The major prize each week is a holiday and remaining prizes range from the decent to the absurd (cue: coke and grass aka basil and talc powder).

At the conclusion of the bingo, big security guards swooped upon us all and swiftly packed up all the chairs and tables - and The Slug instantly transforms into a dance floor. My favourite part of the evening was looking at the few Londoners in the room who all had the same expression on their face: “what the fuck is going on?”

The only problem with Bogan Bingo? It’s on a school night. Either be prepared for a sore head and a sick tummy on the Friday (this may or may not have happened) or plan ahead for a day off.

Get on it, fuckers!

xx

Owyagoinmateorrite?

Sunday 12 October 2014

Sasha the Show Slut

Hello Blog Land. It's been a while. Oops. I have been incredibly busy and tired and then busy and tired...rinse and repeat. I have seen an awful lot of liver [edit: hilarious typo that I am leaving here because I think it represents what I've done a lot of in the last week...] performance in the last couple of weeks. I haven't quite hit saturation point yet; hopefully that never happens!

Tuesday, 30 September: Dan Sultan
At the Kate Miller-Heidke concert, Charlotte and I were thrust leaflets promoting a concert for Dan Sultan at Bush Hall. Charlotte, realising that she could get cheap tickets for working there, set about organising the night. We started off with dinner at the Bush Hall Dining Room (not much to look at from the outside, but oh my golly gosh, the food was amazing and the cocktails made with love). Here we met a crazy French lady (and I think "crazy" might be a polite way of putting it) who has travelled all around the world following Dan Sultan, including all the way to the sunny Land Downunder.

Now, I had never heard of Dan Sultan before ("He's Aussie," said Charlotte, "and a very good looking man") so in the weeks preceding I did a little bit of YouTube research and decided that I enjoyed his music (and yes, he was a very good looking man to boot). Tummies filled, cocktail buzz setting in, we wandered next door into the gorgeous Bush Hall and positioned ourselves close to the front.

The support act was a gorgeous girl and guy duo, I believe her name was Lucy Mason. Utterly mesmerising voice and another great Aussie talent. Soon, however, the main act took to the stage (with crazy French lady positioned front, centre) and Dan Sultan began to rock.

I only peripherally knew a couple of songs but I didn't even need to know that much. The vibe, the beat, the rhythm - there was no other choice but to get up and dance, mesmerised by his focused facial expressions and great guitar playing. The room wasn't packed but what he did have was a very loyal, very interactive fan base that I may just about become one of. It was a great night of country-Aussue-rock blend in the pinkly-lit Bush Hall, with great food, cocktails and company.

Good looking people all around!
Lady in red is the crazy Frenchie

Wednesday, 1 October: The Lion King
Holy moly, when did it become October? No I mean, like, seriously. When? About 12 days ago but..how? In my true style of not doing things by halves, the night following Dan Sultan I was out and about again at The Lion King.

I met the BritBound crew at the pub next door and ran into Kandis and we made our way into the theatre together. Fantastic seats, reasonably close to the front. I made my way to my seat, a row infront of Kandis and introduced myself to the other BritBounders sitting around us. The show started and winning - I had two empty seats directly infront of me so I had the perfect view.

Opening number...The Circle of Life. The smile spread across my face - here was childhood personified. The sets, the costumes, the songs all brought to life. While clapping and cheering the conclusion of the opening sequence, I spotted the little torch of the ushers and two people with enormous heads sat infront of me. This put a sour note on the rest of the show for me because I simply could not sit still for not being able to see. I'm sorry to those behind me.

I'm going to be honest and it is going to be an unpopular opinion, but The Lion King didn't wow me. I'm glad I've seen it, but I found it...messy. Too much going on, lots of running around, backwards and forwards and sometimes I couldn't quite understand the costumes. It was a great show, but I've seen better.

At the end of the night, the boy I was sitting next to (with whom trying to extract a conversation was like pulling teeth) asked which way to the Piccadilly train station and so I was stuck walking him back there as I was going in the same direction.

Ahh childhood :)

Monday, 6 October: Evita
All of the shows I have seen since arriving in London have been courtesy of BritBound. I've discovered that many of my workmates are theatre-goers and organise monthly-ish excursions to the theatre. Evita wasn't one of my favourites; I think I've only seen the movie (starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas) once and I only knew Don't Cry for me Argentina and On this night of a thousand stars from the score, despite it being an Andrew Lloyd Webber (he is so ugly).

But when the opportunity to get to know my workmates came up, I joined the crew and we were a party of 7 on a night out. We went for dinner first (wow - Busaba Thai is pretty damn incredible) and I enjoyed chatting and getting to know my workmates - in particular two newbies who are even newer than myself.

At the theatre, we made our way to our seats in row VV - having to chuck out two separate lots of people who were actually row V and one that was Row VV (obviously there was some confusion over two V's versus a W) and marvelled at how far from the stage we were. We had about 3 completely empty rows infront of us, and a perfect view of the stage as a result.

Which was probably not such a good thing. In a word: awful. Ok, two words: hilariously awful. I'm not even mad, I'm impressed. The others could pick out things they hated least, but for me the singing was woeful (piercing and largely unpleasant to listen to), there was a grand total of zero chemistry between the actors and the audience too was lacklustre. Also, I didn't really like the music (Andrew LW, how dare you make a piece of theatre I don't like?).

The best bit of the show was the end. And I don't mean because it ended. At the conclusion, half the audience got to their feet and proceeded to give this terrible show a standing ovation. Our group looked at each other in surprise.

"Did we miss something?"
"Did we just watch the same thing?"

We left the theatre and Abby turned to me, asking "What did you think?" I looked at her and gaped, opened and closed my mouth, unable to find politically correct words. The pause extended so long that we both burst into an uncontrollable fit of giggles. It was still a great night, just for different reasons.

Leaving the theatre was freezing and for the first time of the season, I donned my gloves (touch screen usable!) and was clearly the only Aussie on the bus, surrounded by locals still in t-shirts.

The theatre looked pretty cool from the outside...

Wednesday, 8 October: Wicked The Musical
I hadn't felt very well that day, and wasn't sure how I would go for the show. I stayed at work and made my way to the pub before hand to meet Nicole and the other BritBounders. I had asked my boss if I should research Wicked first so I knew the story line and the music, or if I should go in blind. "Definitely go in blind," was his response.

So not knowing the story, other than it being the story of Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, I didn't know what to expect. Nicole and I took our seats - fucking amazing seats, might I add - and gaped at the amazing stage set. Perhaps Evita lowered my expectations, but already I was terribly excited about what was to come.

The easiest way to say it is: I have added to my favourite musicals. Wicked was, in a word, incredible. We had the understudy for Elphaba, but if she was the understudy you would not have been able to tell. The sets. The costumes. The atmosphere. The chemistry. The music! The laughter. The ninjas cutting onions near me and the rest of the audience (a quick glance around saw girls and boys alike dabbing quickly at their eyes). I was, and still am, in awe. I don't even know what else to write about it.

Speechless. Amazing.

Friday 3 October 2014

Please don't ask me...

Open Day, Saturday 20 September 2014.

I volunteered my time and my limited knowledge because I was interested to see how Imperial ran and organised their Open Day. I arrived at work on Saturday morning, bleary eyed, and donned my lurid yellow t-shirt splashed with Ask Me. Oh god, please don’t ask me. I know less than you do.

It seems that Open Day’s are a bit of a farce, globally. Spotty, socially awkward teenagers dragged along by pushy, overbearing parents who thrust their child upon you with some kind of pre-scripted question which the afore mentioned pimply teen mumbles at you incoherently, all while maintaining perfectly zero eye contact. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the zealous, overachiever asking hundreds of questions requiring tiny minute details that a pleb like me simply cannot answer.

In many ways, the Open Days are the same – booths (largely with grumbly staff members who had to come in on a Saturday), waves where the people are overwhelming, and then times when there is absolutely nothing happening, the hour-before-closing-time-witching-hour-for-weird-people and those-who-are-only-there-for-the-freebies. 

I found the day utterly exhausting, it was a 9am - 4pm effort, directing students every which way and pretending to know what I was talking about. I told hundreds of students to go "up two flights of stairs", [makes the number 2 with fingers] "and turn left" only to realise at the end of the day it was only one flight of stairs even though it takes you to level 2. Oh well, I'm sure they made it in the end.
It was finally over, and I dashed off - that night we were celebrating our 3 month anniversary of being in London.

On the way home, I got myself an enormous energy drink and I believe it worked somewhat. I had so much caffeine coursing through my veins I was jittery. Good, that'll do. I threw on a pretty dress (purchased in Paris), my bolero (from the London markets) and set off for Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

I love this pub. Visited it on the pub tour and fell in love. Little alcoves cut out of the stone walls, really yummy food, cheap drinks. Here we had a group 11 strong, drinking and eating, getting to know each other. It was time to move on and move on we did..embarrassingly, we ended up at the Walkie. Many, many drinks and much dancing later, to was time for the 2am Maccas run before catching the Night Bus home (oh, Night Bus, you reek of shame).

I had a great time and it was just the pick me up I needed. The Sunday was spent pretty lazily (just an eye appointment for new contact lenses, he waived the appointment fee, #winning) and generally just pottering around.

It's fun to let your hair down (or in my case, put it up in a ponytail when the times-they-are-a-sweaty) and celebrate being on this adventure - we're all in the same boat and we all know what it feels like with the roller coaster of emotions.

Much love 

xx

SO VERY YELLOW 
I think we all come in at less than 6 months in London town.

Dancing and the lights!