Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
6 September 2005
London Mood Shots
Photos of the London Eye taken (at speed) from the tube on the way home. Nice to see London in a moment of grace. We left Vancouver at 10 pm Sunday night and arrived in London Gatwick at 5 pm Monday evening. Then a two and half hour train trip back to Cambridge. Now for a good nights sleep - to be fresh for work tomorrow.
25 April 2005
Mamma Mia!
This musical has been on our life lists for over a year. And it didn't disappoint. The star of the show, apart from the fabulous music of course, must surely be the script writer. Very clever how she wove such a fun and entertaining story line around the songs. By the end of the show, we were on our feet, joining in the encores with unabashedly loud voices. That's Abba for you - absolutely irresistable. In my experience, only the coolest movies and shows get to use Abba as a sound track. Priscilla and the Desert. Muriel's Wedding. Now Mamma Mia. Colleen and Steve enjoyed the show as much as we did.
Picadilly Circus at dusk
It was great to meet up with Colleen and Steve again in London. They're both doing well - just returned from two weeks in Egypt which they loved.
Picadilly Circus at dusk
It was great to meet up with Colleen and Steve again in London. They're both doing well - just returned from two weeks in Egypt which they loved.
12 September 2004
Visit to Buckingham Palace
We went to visit the inside of Buckingham Palace with Rosemary, Nick and Sally. Wow, what opulent banquet halls - quite exquisite. The palace has 500 rooms and 78 bathrooms, so I doubt the queen and her hubby ever have rows about who takes a shower first or who is taking up the most cupboard space.
2 August 2004
A great day out in London
London Bridge
We decided to spend Saturday doing touristy things in London. One of Ally´s life goals was to walk across London Bridge so that was the first thing we did. Caught the tube to Tower Bridge and it was a short stroll from there. It was a gorgeous day; close to 30 degrees.
Another View
Another view of London bridge. I borrowed our camera from work (a £900 gadget with all the trimmings) so it was nice to have some optical power. The zoom on my little camera is a little limited - but then it is a tenth of the size!
Big Ben
No tourist trip through London would be complete without a photo of Big Ben so here it is - snapped from the top of our double decker bus as we whirled past (we used one of those hop on - hop off tourist buses to get around.)
Hamleys
Ah, aint the little one adorable! The little doggie is also quite cute... As you can see, next stop was Hamley's in Regent's Street. 6 floors of wonderful toys, enough to bring out the child in anybody.
The Royal Coach
We visited the Royal Mews where they keep all the horses and coaches for use in the Royal processions. The highlight was this Golden Coach immortalised in such grand processions as the Queen's inauguration and the 50th Jubilee. It was very impressive.
The coach is so heavy it can only be pulled at a walk by eight horses. The 24-foot long, four-ton coach, was built in 1760 for the then-astronomical sum of £7,562. Despite the expense, it's apparently not very comfortable if this BBC article is anything to go by.
Dinner with Sally at Belgo´s
After our sight-seeing, we met up for dinner with Sally in Covent Gardens. I haven't seen dear Sally in a while so it was great to catch up. She's working at the moment at Kew Grill as their "dessert specialist" (chocolate and almond spring roll is her most recent creation - mmmmm!) having completed a cooking course in Ireland.
Lobster!
Belgo's specialises in lobster, along with it's other Belgian delicacies like muscles and waffles. I haven't had lobster in years so succumbed to te temptation. Delicious and fun digging all the flesh out of the legs and claws with the special tool they give you.
Go, go Joseph!
After dinner, Ally and I went to watch "Joseph and his Technicoloured Dream Coat" at the New London Theatre in Covent Garden. Watching Joseph has been a life goal of Ally ever since she listened to the record as a little girl. I'd already seen the musical a couple of times but was delighted to see it again as it is one of my favourites; especially since I got to play the part of Pharoah in a school play. The show was fantastic and we both loved it. Joseph was played by H from the band, "Steps" who Ally thought was deliciously cute...
Visiting Sanjay
After Joseph, we went to visit Sanjay - a good friend who I met hiking in the Himalayas in Nepal back in 2001. He's a wonderful guy who always makes me laugh. Sanjay is a doctor specialising in Pediatrics at a local hospital. It was great to see him as always.
We decided to spend Saturday doing touristy things in London. One of Ally´s life goals was to walk across London Bridge so that was the first thing we did. Caught the tube to Tower Bridge and it was a short stroll from there. It was a gorgeous day; close to 30 degrees.
Another View
Another view of London bridge. I borrowed our camera from work (a £900 gadget with all the trimmings) so it was nice to have some optical power. The zoom on my little camera is a little limited - but then it is a tenth of the size!
Big Ben
No tourist trip through London would be complete without a photo of Big Ben so here it is - snapped from the top of our double decker bus as we whirled past (we used one of those hop on - hop off tourist buses to get around.)
Hamleys
Ah, aint the little one adorable! The little doggie is also quite cute... As you can see, next stop was Hamley's in Regent's Street. 6 floors of wonderful toys, enough to bring out the child in anybody.
We visited the Royal Mews where they keep all the horses and coaches for use in the Royal processions. The highlight was this Golden Coach immortalised in such grand processions as the Queen's inauguration and the 50th Jubilee. It was very impressive.
The coach is so heavy it can only be pulled at a walk by eight horses. The 24-foot long, four-ton coach, was built in 1760 for the then-astronomical sum of £7,562. Despite the expense, it's apparently not very comfortable if this BBC article is anything to go by.
Dinner with Sally at Belgo´s
After our sight-seeing, we met up for dinner with Sally in Covent Gardens. I haven't seen dear Sally in a while so it was great to catch up. She's working at the moment at Kew Grill as their "dessert specialist" (chocolate and almond spring roll is her most recent creation - mmmmm!) having completed a cooking course in Ireland.
Lobster!
Belgo's specialises in lobster, along with it's other Belgian delicacies like muscles and waffles. I haven't had lobster in years so succumbed to te temptation. Delicious and fun digging all the flesh out of the legs and claws with the special tool they give you.
Go, go Joseph!
After dinner, Ally and I went to watch "Joseph and his Technicoloured Dream Coat" at the New London Theatre in Covent Garden. Watching Joseph has been a life goal of Ally ever since she listened to the record as a little girl. I'd already seen the musical a couple of times but was delighted to see it again as it is one of my favourites; especially since I got to play the part of Pharoah in a school play. The show was fantastic and we both loved it. Joseph was played by H from the band, "Steps" who Ally thought was deliciously cute...
After Joseph, we went to visit Sanjay - a good friend who I met hiking in the Himalayas in Nepal back in 2001. He's a wonderful guy who always makes me laugh. Sanjay is a doctor specialising in Pediatrics at a local hospital. It was great to see him as always.
1 January 2000
London years (2000 - 2003)
"I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle." James Weldon Johnson
In April 2000, Ally and I moved to London. We found a cosy one bedroom apartment in Hammersmith above a restaurant called "The Grove" that specialised in delicious rib eye steaks.
Working for Siegelgale
The Internet boom was in full swing and I found a job quickly and easily, working as a consultant for a branding company called Siegelgale. It was a young, vibrant company that was growing fast. I was new to branding so it was a fast learning curve as I learned the art of creating "brand souls" for companies and helping them to reflect it in everything they did. It was a client facing and fast paced job after the snail pace of Old Mutual so I found it quite difficult and had to put in long hours. The people were great though including Peter Gibson, the CEO, who was extremely fun, creative and zany.
Some of my highlights at Siegelgale were personally coming up with the name of a Polish Bank (Intelligo), creating a brand strategy for Safe Host (an Internet hosting company based in Switzerland), and working with Peter Gibson and Anita on a huge project to rebrand a leading Israeli bank called Bank Hapoalim. The last project necessitated weekly trips to Tel Aviv which I loved. The project took well over 6 months and and our project team and clients became a very close knit group.
Life in London
In our spare time, Ally and I made the most of living in London. I bought rollerblades and every Sunday, rollerbladed from Hammersmith to Hyde Park to play touch rugby with a group of friends that included Mike, a good friend from South Africa days. Both Ally and I also had bikes and that is how we mostly got around. We lived very close to the Thames and on weekends, we would cycle along the river to Putney and watch the rowing competitions on the river.
We had several friends living in London including Colleen and Jo and Steve and we often visited them and went on outings. Later on, Ally's sister Kerri started working for a company that did marketing for theatres and she had access to lots of free tickets so I got to watch many free shows such as Vagina Monologues, All Off, Lady Windermere's Fan and Shock Headed Peter.
Other highlights were Jo and Anthony, mum and Mike and Rosemarie and Nick coming to stay with us. We also got to visit Cape Town on a couple of occasions where I was reunited with my best friend, Russel and we attended the weddings of Dirk and Bronwyn, Fraser and Jo and Steve . Mum's and Mike also got married and their wedding was very special indeed, especially as Gran and Gramps were able to be there and see mum so happy. Another major highlight was when Sammy was born in 2000 (we were in Cape Town at the time) and when Matthew was born in 2003.
Travel and tour leading
In September 2001, as the Internet bubble burst, Siegelgale started laying off its staff and it closed its London office not long after. I found myself unemployed and with so many Internet specialists retrenched, it was impossible to find a job.
I used the opportunity to do some travel. I spent 6 weeks in Africa doing a trip from Cape Town to Nairobi (in Kenya) with an overland company. Right after that, I spent an unforgettable month in Nepal hiking the Annapurna Circuit (a three week hike through the Himalayas) and visiting the Chitwan National Park. I fell totally in love with Nepal - both the scenery and the people. I experienced true peace while hiking in the mountains and it was a spiritual renaissance for me. I met a wonderful guy called Sanjay who I'm still in touch with to this day.
I returned to London but the job situation was still very bad. My trip through Africa had made me really keen to try out tourleading, so with Ally's blessing (she was so supportive), I phoned up all the tourleading companies in the UK. I did not have experience as a tourleader so mostly hit brickwalls at first but then I lucked out when I phoned Oasis Overland who urgently needed a tourleader in the Middle East (an area I knew thanks to my trip in 2007).
I spent the next 5 months leading overland trips from Istanbul in Turkey to Cairo in Egypt with stops in Syria and Jordan. I was responsible for 30 young people (mostly Aussies and Kiwis) in the back of a big yellow truck. It was quite stressful at first but I soon relaxed into it and I experienced the 5 most exciting and fulfilling months of my life. I learned to cook Spaghetti Bolonaise for 30 people, learned how to bribe Syrian border officials. I organised the travel itinerary and booked accomodation and local guides. I coped with all sorts of crises and problems. And loved every minute of it. My confidence flourished.
After 5 months, I returned to London to be reunited with Ally. Adam, Ally's 18 year old cousin, came to stay with us for a while and we all had lots of fun times together. Ally and I also spent an idyllic week in Barbados. Later on, we also had a holiday in Croatia
Working for Volvo
Then I received a call from Volvo from a guy called Mats who said they had seen my CV and had a challenging role for me. The role was based in Cambridge at the European headquarters and involved taking all of Volvo's fragmented hotchpotch of Internet sites and consolidating it into a seamless experience on one system. See more about the project.
It was a wonderful job. The people were great and I got to do lots of travelling, especially to Sweden, but also to the US and Brazil where I got to see the Iguazu Falls. My favourite part of the job was training staff on the new system which allowed me to meet people from all over the world. Our project team consisted of just 3 people (Mats, a dynamic and friendly guy, Caroline who I became very good friends with and myself.) But together we were a great team and we made a very substantial difference to Volvo's global Internet presence.
The only drawback to the job was the fact I needed to commute from London to Cambridge. I solved this by staying in a Bed and Breakfast for several nights of the week. But it was expensive and not ideal. So after a year at Volvo, Ally and I decided to relocate to Cambridge. And a new chapter in our lives began.
List of memories of our time in London
Cape Town visits
The Internet boom was in full swing and I found a job quickly and easily, working as a consultant for a branding company called Siegelgale. It was a young, vibrant company that was growing fast. I was new to branding so it was a fast learning curve as I learned the art of creating "brand souls" for companies and helping them to reflect it in everything they did. It was a client facing and fast paced job after the snail pace of Old Mutual so I found it quite difficult and had to put in long hours. The people were great though including Peter Gibson, the CEO, who was extremely fun, creative and zany.
Some of my highlights at Siegelgale were personally coming up with the name of a Polish Bank (Intelligo), creating a brand strategy for Safe Host (an Internet hosting company based in Switzerland), and working with Peter Gibson and Anita on a huge project to rebrand a leading Israeli bank called Bank Hapoalim. The last project necessitated weekly trips to Tel Aviv which I loved. The project took well over 6 months and and our project team and clients became a very close knit group.
Life in London
In our spare time, Ally and I made the most of living in London. I bought rollerblades and every Sunday, rollerbladed from Hammersmith to Hyde Park to play touch rugby with a group of friends that included Mike, a good friend from South Africa days. Both Ally and I also had bikes and that is how we mostly got around. We lived very close to the Thames and on weekends, we would cycle along the river to Putney and watch the rowing competitions on the river.
We had several friends living in London including Colleen and Jo and Steve and we often visited them and went on outings. Later on, Ally's sister Kerri started working for a company that did marketing for theatres and she had access to lots of free tickets so I got to watch many free shows such as Vagina Monologues, All Off, Lady Windermere's Fan and Shock Headed Peter.
Other highlights were Jo and Anthony, mum and Mike and Rosemarie and Nick coming to stay with us. We also got to visit Cape Town on a couple of occasions where I was reunited with my best friend, Russel and we attended the weddings of Dirk and Bronwyn, Fraser and Jo and Steve . Mum's and Mike also got married and their wedding was very special indeed, especially as Gran and Gramps were able to be there and see mum so happy. Another major highlight was when Sammy was born in 2000 (we were in Cape Town at the time) and when Matthew was born in 2003.
Travel and tour leading
In September 2001, as the Internet bubble burst, Siegelgale started laying off its staff and it closed its London office not long after. I found myself unemployed and with so many Internet specialists retrenched, it was impossible to find a job.
I used the opportunity to do some travel. I spent 6 weeks in Africa doing a trip from Cape Town to Nairobi (in Kenya) with an overland company. Right after that, I spent an unforgettable month in Nepal hiking the Annapurna Circuit (a three week hike through the Himalayas) and visiting the Chitwan National Park. I fell totally in love with Nepal - both the scenery and the people. I experienced true peace while hiking in the mountains and it was a spiritual renaissance for me. I met a wonderful guy called Sanjay who I'm still in touch with to this day.
I returned to London but the job situation was still very bad. My trip through Africa had made me really keen to try out tourleading, so with Ally's blessing (she was so supportive), I phoned up all the tourleading companies in the UK. I did not have experience as a tourleader so mostly hit brickwalls at first but then I lucked out when I phoned Oasis Overland who urgently needed a tourleader in the Middle East (an area I knew thanks to my trip in 2007).
I spent the next 5 months leading overland trips from Istanbul in Turkey to Cairo in Egypt with stops in Syria and Jordan. I was responsible for 30 young people (mostly Aussies and Kiwis) in the back of a big yellow truck. It was quite stressful at first but I soon relaxed into it and I experienced the 5 most exciting and fulfilling months of my life. I learned to cook Spaghetti Bolonaise for 30 people, learned how to bribe Syrian border officials. I organised the travel itinerary and booked accomodation and local guides. I coped with all sorts of crises and problems. And loved every minute of it. My confidence flourished.
After 5 months, I returned to London to be reunited with Ally. Adam, Ally's 18 year old cousin, came to stay with us for a while and we all had lots of fun times together. Ally and I also spent an idyllic week in Barbados. Later on, we also had a holiday in Croatia
Working for Volvo
Then I received a call from Volvo from a guy called Mats who said they had seen my CV and had a challenging role for me. The role was based in Cambridge at the European headquarters and involved taking all of Volvo's fragmented hotchpotch of Internet sites and consolidating it into a seamless experience on one system. See more about the project.
It was a wonderful job. The people were great and I got to do lots of travelling, especially to Sweden, but also to the US and Brazil where I got to see the Iguazu Falls. My favourite part of the job was training staff on the new system which allowed me to meet people from all over the world. Our project team consisted of just 3 people (Mats, a dynamic and friendly guy, Caroline who I became very good friends with and myself.) But together we were a great team and we made a very substantial difference to Volvo's global Internet presence.
The only drawback to the job was the fact I needed to commute from London to Cambridge. I solved this by staying in a Bed and Breakfast for several nights of the week. But it was expensive and not ideal. So after a year at Volvo, Ally and I decided to relocate to Cambridge. And a new chapter in our lives began.
List of memories of our time in London
Arriving
- Staying with Ally´s friend, Vicky
- Easy Internet on Tottenham Court road
Leisure activities
- Touch rugby at Hyde Park & the pub afterwards for shandy and roast beef
- Gareth, Wheels, Tanya, Mike (touch rugby)
- Rollerblading to Hyde Park every Sunday to play touch rugby
- Plays courtesy of Kerry (Vagina Monologues, All Off, Lady Windermere's Fan, Shock Headed Peter)
- Biking round London
- Cycling along the Thames
- Cycling round London (Queens Way, Leicester Square)
- Tennis with Mike
Family and friends
- Visit to Wilga & Normon
- Xmas sleep over
- My 30th birthday
- Ally's 30th
- Adam coming to stay
- Visits with Joana and Steve and Col
- Jo and Anthony coming to stay
- Mum and Mike coming to stay
- Visits to the Davidsons
- Bronwyn's 21st - death by chocolate
- Visits from Rosemarie and Nick
- Visiting Amanda and Johnathon in Cambridge
- New Years eve with Rory and Jo
- Dirk's visits
- Evenings with Javed
Movies, TV, music
- The Office (TV comedy series)
- Lord of the Rings movies
- Classical music on minidisk
- Big Brother
- Pop Idol (Simon Cowell, rooting for Will Young)
- Listening to David Gray (especially Sail Away) on train
- Norah Jones in Cambridge, especially "Come Away with Me."
Books
- Discovering and reading the Harry Potter books
- "Conversations with God" Neale Donald Walsch
- Web books on design when got Volvo job
Gadgets, computer
- Minidisk player (Xmas 2001)
- Classical music on minidisk player
- Playing with new lap top
- Web surfing and seeing blogs - the seed of getting this one
Personal development and spirituality
- Landmark Forum
- Career counselling
- Eve Dolphin
- Chi Gong
- Thai chi
Between jobs
- Paintball martial
- Barclays flow interview
- Prudential presentation
- Oasis interview
- Trafalgar interview
Plays, exhibitions, concerts
- Body World's Exhibitions
- Les Miserables
- Pavarotti in Hyde Park
- Royal Geographic Society (Blue Planet + Ultimate Killers)
Food
- Tescos Crème Caramel
- The Grove rib-eye steak
- Roast beef & Yorkshire pudding (touch rugby)
- Eating at the Oxo Towers
Travel
- Cape Town to Nairobi trip (2001)
- Trip to Nepal (2001)
- Middle East Tour leading (2002)
- Holiday in Barbados (by the pool, snorkeling with turtles) (2002)
- Holiday in Croatia (2003)
- Business trip to Brazil (2003)
- Business trip to Asheville in US (2003)
- Amsterdam weekend (2003)
Siegelgale (Apr 2000 - Jun 2001)
- "Team building" fun day out with Siegelgale
- The great view from Siegelgale Offices
- Sushi lunches from Tescos
- Safe Host project
- Infuzer
- Coming up with the name for Intelligo
- Bank Hapoalim. project - all the visits to Tel Aviv
- Gerry, Kate, Peter, Javed, Brad, Anita, Ken, Becky, John, Aaron and co
Volvo (2003)
- Start working for Volvo
- Staying with Johnathon and Amanda in Cambridge
- Meeting Andrew, Mats, Caroline, Richard and Andreas
- CMS Training
- Multiple trips to Gothenberg
- Trip to Asheville
- Staying over in Duxford B&B with "Aunt Linda"
- Duxford Pub
- Train trips from London to Duxford
- Trip to Brazil, Asheville (rafting), Gothenburg
Cape Town visits
Russell
- Climbing through Steenbras cracks with Rusty
- Air hockey and bowling with Russel
- Mental tricks with coins and cards with Rusty
2000 (as leaving)
Aug 2001
- Cape Town to Nairobi trip
- Dirk's wedding
- Rotanga Junction
- Newlands pool swims
Feb 2002
2003
Related
13 April 1997
London
- Ally and I are reaquainted. I stay with her in North Acton with Eilean, Teresa and Helen.
- Lunch with Pippa to meet Rob, then walk in Hyde Park and visit Harrods.
- Go drinking at an Irish Pub with Colleen and co. Guiness!
- Visit Kew Gardens with Colleen (Victorian greenhouses), followed by a braai and X Files at her place. Oldest pot plant in world (1700s) is SA.
- My first solo journey on the "tube" to visit the British National Museum to see ancient statues and relics - including Egyptian mummies.
- Walk through Soho.
- Imperial War museum (trench and blitz experience for World Wars)
- Museum of the Moving Image - a fascinating history of cinema and television, even video games.
- Open air bus tour (views of Big Ben, Parliament Building, London Tower and Bridge, Westminster Abby, Fleet Street, HMR Belfast, The Bank of England, Trafalgar Square)
Visit to St Pauls and Buckingham Palace - Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre
- Pepsi Trocadero - entertainment complex of the future
- London Dungeon - torture, punishment, and Jack the Ripper - sit in car, plunged into darkness, lifted up , face firing squad, then whoosh down water slide.
- The Hilton for a night of dinner and dancing with Ally
- Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park - some so serious, others taking piss. Black brothers talking racism, other topics were battle of sexes etc.
- Monument - tower monument to the Great Fire of london - 311 stairs to a wonderful view
"Shakespear's Globe Theatre" - attempt - Porchester Turkish Baths (steam rooms, jacuzzi, sauna and cold plunge pool)
- Science Museum
- Museum of Natural History
- Dock Road train to Greenwich - no driver - to see the gardens and the Observatory - sunburnt! Jump from east to west instantly.
- Jesus Christ Superstar
- Theatre museum
- Visit Ally's aunt, Carol. Day trip to Stratford Upon Avon to see Shakespeare's birth place.
- Walk in Regent park
- Nearly arrested for making a bomb threat while making a phone call.
- The Importance of being Oscar (Savoy Theatre) One man show with big bits out of all his book, poems and plays. Played multiple parts. How did he remember the words?
- Waggamamas (Japanese noodle bar with computerised ordering and green tea to finish off)
- Sat in the Royal Courts listening to an undue leniency case for professional bank robbers - bewigged!
- Miss Saigon
- Starting to really think about my trips - visit travel agent
- Delicious farewell dinner and romantic goodbye with Ally.
