August - Parties and Opera

After farewelling Jess' parents in Athens when we returned to London we were up for a few parties. Paul Zubkov who has been living in Germany for the past few years was visiting London and invited us out for a few drinks at Tiger Tiger bar.  Although we weren't impressed with the bar (think central London pretentious) it was great catching up with him and also with Forrest who we didn't know who had moved to London and couldn't believe it when we told him we had been living there for 18 months already. The night moved on to Wahaca for some yummy mexican food and then as it was a Monday we headed home to sleep.

Another regualar event in London is the Notting Hill carnival. It is where all the West Indian communities get together and have a massive street party. The day didn't turn out quite as planned but we still got to have some rum punch and goat curry before the rain poured down. We were rather unprepared so after sheltering under some trees we spotted a stand selling umbrella's and bought an appropriately theme Jamican umbrella. We then headed to have a look at the parade the costumes were amazing and the young girls had a much better spirit than us braving it in the rain. The carnival has a bad repuation for being hijacked by young gangs and the shops and houses were all heavily boarded up but we didn't see anyone causing any problems. Just hordes of people having some fund and enjoying the reggae. After having a wander around and a bit of a dance we headed back to the local bar (Zilouf's) for some more rum.

It had been a while since our last flat party this time from Jeremy's suggestion the theme was Spartacus. With leaf directions painted gold and finally getting the hang of tying togas, so we weren't being inappropriate, we were ready to party! It was typical of our Upper Street parties and Jess enjoyed catching up with Abbie and Andrew from work - even though it took a lot of convinicing to get them into costume!



It was also Emma's Birthday in August and this year she decided to have a girls night at the school disco - dress up compulsory! Jess headed over in school uniform to Emma's flat and was getting a few weird looks on the tube but she wasn't concerned.  After a few drinks there they headed to the disco which is held in an actual school hall in Great Portland Street. It brought back a lot of memories but luckily this school disco had a bar. We were surprised about how young the other people there looked as who would want to go to a school disco party if you had just finished school? We had a great night busting some moves.

On a quieter note we also thought it would be good to go to see something from the BBC Proms. They Proms are a series of classical music concerts sponsored by the BBC.  We decided to head off to the Hansel and Gretel Opera with Robin and Mary at the Royal Albert Hall.  It was a good night out and the Opera was much easier to follow since we knew the story line. Who would have thought we were so cultured?

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