just a little note you guys might find interesting....

that photo below was taken in our spirits room in the cellar- which is actully underneath the road out the front of the bar.

aparently, like hundreads of years ago, the bar used to actully be a bank and our cellar and spirit room is where they used to keep the vault with all the money.

every single building in europe has history to it.

when you look down there you can see how it would have worked.


xO

WHAT'S OWEN BEEN DOING IN LONDON........................

"hi guys. living it large in london town! i'll get through this grog one glass at a time if it's the last thing i do"

dont worry guys i'm not an alocoholic.

they go to meetings.

i just go to the pub.

this photo was taken on christmas eve when my boss bought us all a little bottle of champagne. i thought i'd drink mine straight away, while i did the stock count with some of the bus boys and jacques the cheeky bugger took this photo of me.

he winded me up saying he wasn't going to do anymore work and he was going to show the photo to jeremy (the boss)


he was obvoiusly joking but i do think its a funny photo.

xO

just a quick post-

have just arrived in scotland and spent two hours wondering aroubd BEAUTIFUL edingbugh cursing myself for leaving my camera on charger at work.

dropped my bag off at adams work and he finshes in 1/2 hour. then we are having a pint and maybe some haggis (yeah right!)

the city is like walking through a mueseum.

i am off to buy a disposable camera.

xO

well wishes.....



well to cure my self of the home sick blues i have decided to take a four day week end and i am hoping on the train up to scotland.


i have rang adam and we have it all worked out.

the train ride from Kings X station in london will take just under 5 hours and i will be in edinbrough.

i will be staying in thier house as they have a spare room which is cool because i will fin aly be able to sleep on a double bed!!!!

yay!!!!!



i will charge my camera up and make sure i take heaps of photos.

i am slightly worried that Zoe the other superviser at work will forget she has to cover my shift like she did the last time i asked her too ( and the rule is if YOUR responsible for your shift- not anyone else so if they dont turn up- YOUR in trouble NOT them)

i will be ringing her in the morning and if she backs out on the shift then i will just catch the train up the netx day.



BIG thank you to everyone who has sent me encouragement to persevere - that makes it sound like i am not enjoying myslef- which isnt true. it just does get hard sometimes and i think that when i write on the blog it makes me think about all the people i am writing too.


i AM enjoying myself. i am having a ball.

i think my fears are split into two-

one half of me worries that if i go home early i will regret it,

and the other half worries that when i get home it will feel like i have stepped out of the ocean and in to a fishbowl.


xO

MICHAEL BLOODY BUBLE


well i have been having trouble adding pictures on the site with the computer at the hostel so i will have to go into the city to add them on tommorow.

i have a ripper of a story but i want to add thephotos before i post about it.


anyway-

i have had about enough of hearing bad news from home.

after aunty jayne rang me and told me that my cousin luke has just been daignosed with cancer, it was like a punch in the guts.

i tried to get back to work but just couldn't- and i was just felt so far away. i said to my boss "i want to go home, i'm not strong enough to do this."

it is the first time i felt like that.

i left work early, watched celebrity big brother( iwill tell you guys more about that later on. suffice to say the english media is every bit as horrible as you've heard them to be, and big brother is really MEAN!!! its great television)

ANYWAY, i hopped into bed, smacked on my ipod programmed it to just shuffle and the first song it spat out was micheal buble "home"

for those who dont know about my fondness for frank sinatra ( micheal buble is the only modern guy who has that style of song now) and have never heard the song- here are the lyrics....


Another summer day

Has come and gone away

In Paris and Rome

But I wanna go home

Maybe surrounded by

A million people I

Still feel all alone

I just wanna go home

Oh I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you

Each one a line or two

“I’m fine baby, how are you?”

Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough

My words were cold and flat

And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane

Another sunny place

I’m lucky I know

But I wanna go home

Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home

I’m just too far from where you are

I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life

It’s like I just stepped outside

When everything was going right

And I know just why you could not Come along with me

But this was not your dream

But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come And gone away

And even Paris and Rome

And I wanna go home

Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by

A million people I

Still feel alone

Oh, let me go home

Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home

I’ve had my run

Baby, I’m done

I gotta go home

Let me go home

It will all be allright

I’ll be home tonight

I’m coming back home

then, as had happend to me everytime i have hit a really low point of homesickness- things just seem to fall into place.

Adam finally called me- he's been gallavanting over the world to miami and then went on a cruise down to mexico with his other half.

i had a chat with mum on the phone.

earlier on in the night at work i gave my number out to someone who i have fancied for quite a while. i NEVER do that becasue i am realy shy about doing that kind of stuff.

anyway, while i hopped into bed i got a text saying "thanks for giving me your number/had a great night/ when can we catch up?"

then i put my ipod back in my ears and this micheal buble song came on...

I was a stranger in the city

Out of town were the people I knew

I had that feeling of self-pity

What to do? What to do? What to do?

The outlook was decidedly blue

But as I walked through the foggy streets alone

It turned out to be the luckiest day I've known

A foggy day in London Town

Had me low and had me down

I viewed the morning with alarm

The British Museum had lost its charm

How long, I wondered, could this thing last?

But the age of miracles hadn't passed,

For, suddenly, I saw you there

And through foggy London Town

The sun was shining everywhere.

so that made me again think about h ow that 'something' always picks me up off the floor and pushes me along.

it is almost like someone is looking out for me- and i have to be sure that who ever it is, they will be looking out for luke too.

:-)

so chin up mate, i will be seeing you in a couple of months.

xO

A HOUSe A HOUSE- MY KINGDOM FOR A BLOODY HOUSE!!!!





well, the house fiasco....

the perfect house was advertised as available on 22nd of december- we didnt find it untill the 23rd and the owner had said he now had to wait untill after christmas and new year to move- no problem with us there.

then we get in contact after christmas and new year and he says " my flat now wont be reay untill the 1st of febuary."

so we made a deal that we would move in two weeks early and me and laura would just share a room for two weeks untill he moved to spain.

no worries.

then TWO days before we move in- he TEXTs me to say - he is having too much trouble organising his house in spain that he has decided to put the move off until the end of the year.

yeah thanks alot mate.

so we are now back at square one and i am at a really low point of just being sick to death of sleeping in a single bed with eight strangers sleeping in other bunk beds around me.

i have been homeless for alomst three months now.

i bumped into raya again tonight and she offered for me to stay at her place again but i dont want to put them out- i didnt mind staying for a few weeks but i wouldn't want to push the friendship.

it is making me all the more "I WANNA GO HOME!!!"


but i cant do that because i havent even seen paris yet.

instead i have spoken to my boss, and my roster ( they call it a 'rota' here) gives me sunday and monday off, but the week starts on monday - so.........

according to the rota i hve the first and last day of the week off. so i am going to have saturday off one week, then tuesday off the following week so really i get SAturday/sunday/monday/tuesday off, and go to either edingbrough to see adam, or to dublin to see my irsh girls from thailand.

that'll make me feel better!

:-)

one more quick thing i suppose...


its coming up to the oscars soon so i have been being somewhat i bit of a cinema head as it is my favourite time of the year to go- all the good flicks are out!

i have seen "king Kong", "brokeback mountain", "Mrs. Henderson Presents", and "JArhead"

and i am going to see "Memoirs of a Geisha" next week too.

also in some other totaly unrelated gossip for you- i am going to one of the biggist clubs in london called "heaven" on saturday night.

isnt that the coolest name for a night club?

"heaven"

"yeah i am going to heaven tonight."

lol


xO

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA.................

so the usb cord thing turned out to be a real bitch. because my camera is a Olypus MINI it needs a special cord that no-one stocks so i had to buy a card reader instead. what a pain in the arse.

anyway- i quickly took some photos for you all.

some of th e guys at work, and i took some at harrods today ( tell you about that in a minute)

so this is harrods. the big huge department store owned by Dodi Al Fayeed.

man i tell you what- it is POSH.

it is all set out in squares all coneccted to one another like boxes and they all have differnt brands.

in one room- they had Gucci, D&G, Versace, Fendi.

i thought- wow- hailea would love this, i'll take some photos for her, and i went to go around and take one photo of the stores and started with the fendi bags, and in about 3 seconds after my flash went off, security were on me in no time telling me cameras were not aloud.

sheesh!

so this is the only one i got.

they are a bit funny about cameras over here. i was on the bus on my way to work the other day, ( on the top floor of the double decker bus of course!) and there was a tourist taking photots of all the people on oxford circus and suddenly the lights flickerd on the bus and the bus driver anounced with his microphone ...

"NO PHOTOGRAPHY ON LONDON TRANSPORT! PUT YOUR CAMERA AWAY NOW!"

JEEZ! I was thinking 'dude- chill the f--k out!

call me crazy but i dont know how someone taking photos of tourist monuements will blow up a bus

??????

ANy way- i thought i would show you guys some photos of the guys at work....since these are the guys i see everyday.

this is Jacques. he is polish. he is into cool music- i lent him my "Teaches of peaches" C.D the other day. Me, him and Anthony are going to a indie/electro club next wednesday night. he is quite cheeky though. when i ask him to do stuff at work he will say "why?" "cant someone else?" adn stuff to that effect. i did snap at him th other day and said "Dont question my decisoins- JUST DO IT."

and he said "im not questioning your decisions, i just say 'how come?"

and i am like "that is a question!"

it is hard working with people who have english as there second language.

he also sometimes pretends that he hasnt understood me when i have to get him to do a shit job like clean the toilets or something. (it did work for a while but i am ontop of that trick now!)

THis is Sebastion, and he is polish as well ( we have a few polish guys there) he is the one i will be going to warsaw with in febuary. i keep hassling him to quit smoking- in this photo he is telling me to shut up!

this Sylvestor. he is probably my favourite at work. he is really funny and a top guy. he is the one that should have been supervisor but he didnt want it because he makes so much money in tips it unbeliveable. he would make about as much in wages as he does in tips. he is the one that has been teaching me all the polish rude words, but also hhow to say "do some work!" which is what i shout at sebastion and jacques whn they are bludging.

"veshna de prartzay!"

this is Lucy. she is abit crazy. she works as a make up artist as well, and at the moment does the make up for theatre show "oliver" ( the theatre is HUGE here) she is actully moving down to austraila in a few months. she wants to wrok on home and away (i told her i would ask tash if she knows anyone)

And finally this is Laura the girl i am moving in with on the weekend

its a crap photo of her. she is really pretty. i will post a better one later on.

i will be taking lots of photos again so watch this space guys!

xO

Just thought i would add two more highlights of 2oo5 for me...


living in london during a huge time of really good change.

The leftie in my likes living in a country run by the labour goverment (even if it did go to war as well)

24 hour drinking laws were now passed.


you can now drink in london for 24 hours a day.

this will hopefully have a trickle down effect and stop the brits from acting like complete fools when they hit austraila and get the oppurtunity to drink all night. it also means that there wont be a sludge of people all leaving the pub at 12 o'clock and fighting over taxis and stuff. and it also means i can get abeer when i knock off work.

the other big political change came when the legalised gay marriage.

elton john had his "hens night" in a club on the next block to my bar.

the front page of the paper had a picture of elton leaving the club at 3am and liz hurley staggering out at 3am. the headline said "its 3am, and i'm still standing. so is liz.....barely"

the next day the paper said "the real royal wedding" because they got marrried wher charlse and camilla did.

and surprise suprise, now that all of the gays can marry each other it hasnt meant the end of the world. it hasnt brought about the eradication of family values.
everybody elses marriages are still just a s sacred.

the only thing that has changed really is that everyone now has the same rights i guess.

i thought they would have a bit of controvesy, but that is an american thing. here everyone just says "yeah, its about time". there were only about 20 protesters.

Europe is a very liberal place.

tony blair should invite goerge bush and johnny howard around for a cup of tea and show them its all o.k


xO

just finished browsing through other peoples blogs when i stumbled across another backpackers travel blog and he mentioned this website!

how cool is it.

i only wish that i had found out about it earlier- would have saved me heaps of cash!


http://www.couchsurfing.com/


xO

well as its time for new years resloutions and such- i am not making any resolutions this year, instead i have decided that it would be better to put in a "BEST OF...." list instead...

be prepared for a lot of introspective ramblings....


BEST SONG OF 2oo5..

Hung UP- MAdonna
DAkota- Stereophonics
Crazy Chick- Charlotte Church
"bleed like me"- Garbage

BEST MOVIE of 2oo5..........

"Batman Begins"

"Sin City"

"Chralie and the Chocalate Factory"

BEST CITY BEEN TO SO FAR.........

Amsterdamn. its how the world should be.

(although i do still love melbourne as a city)


HIGH LIGHT OF THE YEAR..............

there have been a few.....


Playing with billy the orangatang i will NEVER forget...

speeding through the busy interconnectring traffic of bangkok on the back of a mototr bike being driven by a 17 year old whilst wearing no helmet

Arriving at heathrow airport with NO IDEA what to do or where to go because my plans of goingt to edingbrough fell through at the last minute, and making it alright anyway.

HAving a nice day at the beach and having all my family together ( espeacially you kara! )

Realising that the gym is not as scary as i thought it would be

Buying the last ever garbage album.

meeting my pop teen idol Melissa Tkautz and not making a fool of myself.

Having my name on the VIP list to a intimate venue for a madonna gig, and watching her from the center of the balcany, drinkling free champagne.

Smoking in a cafe in amsterdam

and i think the one that tops it off them most is not one specific event- but the fact the i learnt a few impoartant lessons in life-

-that i am strong enough to do what i want and get what i want by myself and i dont need to be with anyone.

its better to be single and happy than in a relationship that is not working out benificailly.
:-)

I am capbable.

You only get treated the way you allow people to treat you.

emancipation from everything that was previously holding me back

i think about how i was feeling when i was in melbourne before i left and how i feel now and it is a complete 180 degree change.

yay for me!

what a year 2oo5 has been.

Bring on 2oo6

xO



p.s

bought the worng usb cord....

am fixing that problem tommorow. am going to buy another cord or a memeory card reader from harrods.


love

xO