The next day we were off to the O2 Arena in Greenwich, which is a big events centre, with Jen and Katie. It is massive and has lots of restaurants, a circus and a movie theatre as well as the places to watch shows etc. It was the closest thing we had seen to Las Vegas, although not nearly as flashy. The trip to the O2 was for a few laughs from Eddie Izard on his latest tour called Stripped. We have been fans of him for a while and he sure didn't disappoint. We won't bore you with the jokes (cause we couldn't do them justice) but if you get a chance to watch the DVD then we would recommend it (although not if you are easily offended...)
The day after that and it was yet another show, this time we were off to the Royal Albert Hall for a show by Yusuf Islam, better known as Cat Stevens. This was the first time he had toured in 30 years so it was definitely an exciting experience. The Royal Albert Hall is just an amazing venue. It is everything you would expect from an old Victorian Theatre, and the sound quality is great. Yusuf himself was really good. He played all the old classics and the crowd loved it. He interacted well with the crowd too, even stopping to have a cup of tea in the middle. He really seemed to be enjoying it and we were lucky as this was a once in a lifetime. We managed to catch up with Tom and Gini yet again later that week. Their new flatmate coordinates marketing for the London Symphony Orchestra so we had ourselves a night of culture at the Barbican. We didn't know most of the songs but it was still amazing classical music.
Marcus went back to winter wonde
rland with his workmates, only this time at night. It was much the same as last time only with more mulled wine and lots of lights. We also managed to catch up with Tim and Emma for one of our last catchups in South London. The took us to a cool local pub for tasty afternoon roast and a few beers. A shame we hadn't done it more often but was still good to catch up before Christmas. This brought us in to our last week at Vauxhall so we had a few friends around to help us say goodbye to the flat. We whipped up another round of egg nog and cooked them a vegetarian spectacular.And then all of a sudden the temperature really dropped away. Jess was out ice skating with Mary at the Tower of London and it started to snow and before we knew it there was snow everywhere. All very exciting for us who never see snow where we live and it just kept snowing. Coldest winter in 50 years they reckon....And it caused chaos. People couldn't get in to work because the snow, the country was running out of salt, and here we were loving every minute of it.
Then it was time for one of the biggest changes since we arrived in London, it was goodbye to Goldsboro Road, Jen and Naomi and off to our new flat on Upper Street in Islington. Living with three other couples right in the heart of one of the busiest party streets in London. Sure was a change of pace. Good to be doing something different though. Also good to be meeting new people. Having not really lived with anyone else for five years it certainly will be a shock to the system. We are sure it will all work out though.
Marcus had a couple of work parties for Christmas (which was lucky cause Jess didn't get any). One of them was black tie which is a bit of a change of pace from New Zealand but overall nothing really that exciting. In these tough economic times we should be thankful to get anything however...
And before we knew it, it was Christmas Day! We caught up with Jess' family on Christmas Eve our time, Christmas morning NZ time so it was almost the same as being there, op
ening presents together, although it looked much warmer in NZ. Christmas morning our time we caught up with Marcus' family. Then we were off to see our new local friends Tom and Gini for brunch. They had put together some tasty croissants and bucks fizz to get Christmas Day started. Then it was off to our next engagement. Little did we know that in one of the largest metropolitan cities on the planet there is NO public transport on Christmas day so it was in a taxi and off to the other side of the city to Amy and Ian's place in Hammersmith. They were having about 15 people around for shared Christmas Dinner. It was great being around our friends, having a few drinks and too much food then finishing the evening with some games. Secret Santa went down well and more egg nog topped off a really great day. Then it was home to pack before our next adventure the following day...http://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/December#
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