So I’ve finally gone through the hassle of sorting through and resizing all the photos we took in Rome. Be advised though – our camera is still crap and a lot of pictures came out really bad, especially the ones made inside. That’s why you’ll see a lot of photos of the Colosseum and the ruins of the Roman Forum. They were made outside, in the open air. In the St. Peter’s Basilica it was too dark and too busy to make any proper photos and most of the pictures made in other churches and basilica’s are a bit blurry too.
Also, on some photos it may seem like the weather wasn’t all that great. But it actually was. There were gales and rain in London when we left, but the weather in Rome was magnificent. Temperatures were somewhere between 18C-20C and it was really sunny. We both returned to London with a nice colour on our face.
One last thing. I forgot to make any pictures of our hotel. The room was really nice though: clean and spacious. Our host, Giovanna, was very friendly and sat down with us for over half an hour after our arrival to show us all the good spots in Rome on a map. I can really recommend this place.
Now without further ado: the photos. Click on the thumbnails to see a bigger version of the pictures but careful: it will open in the same window.
I know I promised to some of you I’d post online this weekend the photos we made in Rome. We’ve had some problems with the laptop though. The built-in wireless network card died so we had to buy a new one. The first one we bought didn’t work properly and we’re having some problems with it’s replacement too. We are able to get on the internet, but we never know when it will crap out. I’m still working on a solution. I tried to format the laptop – that usually solves a lot of problems – but to no avail. Having performed a format also means that I have to look for a new copy of Photoshop. I need that program to resize the Rome photos.
All in all, I’m really but you’ll have to wait for those photos a little bit longer.
Just a short message from us to let you all know we’ve booked two trips.
On Wednesday the 12th of March we’re flying to Rome for a long weekend. We both really wanted to go to Rome and we figured that once we’re in Holland and I’m studying, it’s gonna be more difficult to go on holidays. With Michelle’s bonus coming up and my recent pay raise this seemed like the ideal moment to book a short city trip.
We also booked plane tickets to The Netherlands. We’ll be leaving London on the 31st of May and we’ll be in Holland for a week, returning on Saturday the 7th of June. We’ll mostly be looking for an affordable apartment or at least register with some real estate agencies. At the moment, we’re thinking about moving to Holland somewhere at the end of July.
I’ll post some more information on this weblog in the next few days. I’ve also got some pictures we made on the weekend when we went to “De Hems”, the only Dutch pub in London. So I’ll be back soon!
So it’s been two months since I last posted something on this weblog. We’ve had Christmas, New Year’s and a two week holiday to the Netherlands. We’re back in London now, getting back into our daily routine.
There’s not much going on at the moment, which means that there’s not much to write about either. Besides, we’ve been kinda busy as of late, mostly watching films and Weeds, a tv series. I did start writing on some stuff I want to post on this blog, so keep tuned and hopefully it will be up here in the next few days.
I’m getting really slack in updating this weblog, sorry for that. There’s just not much to write about at the moment.
Two weeks ago I wrote about how both the English rugby team and Formula-1 driver Lewis Hamilton could become world champions. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that they both failed miserably. The England team lost to South-Africa in the World Cup final (but of course it was all the Australian referee’s fault who denied the English a crucial try). Lewis Hamilton only finished seventh in the Brazilian Grand Prix and thus failed to win the 2007 driver’s championship (but of course, the other teams cheated). Poor English. It was a great weekend.
This week the Londoners have been celebrating Hallowe’en and Guy Fawkes Night, two festivities a lot of Dutch people have never heard of. The term Hallowe’en is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of All Hallows’ Day, which is now also known as All Saints’ Day. It basically means that on the night of October 31st there are a lot of drunk and dressed-up people roaming the streets. Guy Fawkes Night falls on the 5th of November. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 in which a number of Roman Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. All weekend long there have been huge firework displays and bonfires around London in remembrance of that day.
This weekend was a special one for another reason. It has been exactly a year since I came to London to live with Michelle. Nobody is setting off any fireworks for me, though.
With only fifty more days to go until Christmas, the days are getting darker and colder. By the time I finish work at 4:30 in the afternoon, it’s dark outside. The cold doesn’t bother me all that much, but Michelle can’t stand it. A few weeks ago we went shopping for winter clothing. For the first time in two or three years I bought myself a new wintercoat and a pair of shoes. I haven’t worn the shoes yet, but the coat is nice and warm.
Michelle also bought me a back-to-school kit with pens, paper and stuff like that to show me that she supports my decision to go back to University and finish my studies. I thought that was sweet.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got to tell you at the moment. As soon as I’ve got something more to write about, you’ll be the first to read it.
Oh, I found this video on YouTube. I’m probably the only person who finds this interesting, but I thought I’d share it anyway. It’s a video made by Turner Classic Movies to celebrate 100 years of film.
This weekend might very well become one of the most successful weekends in England sport history. Saturday night the England rugby team will play against South Africa in the Rugby World Cup final. On Sunday rookie racer Lewis Hamilton might become the first English Formula 1 champion in more than ten years.
Big deal, most Dutch people reading this will think. Formula 1 isn’t all that big in Holland and rugby is virtually non-existent. But the English do care and they are going nuts about it.
It’s comparable to the situation in Holland when the Dutch football team is playing in a World or European Cup (although English fans do not dress up as orange lions and milk maids). For the past week or so all you read about in the newspapers is rugby. Rugby madness has also taken over the television broadcasts; even the BBC has nonsense items about rugby players’ wives yapping about nothing and showing childhood pictures of their husbands.
This morning I was shocked when I found out that they put a statue of Jonny Wilkinson (think of him as the Dennis Bergkamp of the English rugby team) on one of the plinths at Trafalgar Square (!!!). This is so typical of the smug and prideful English. When they win or are about to win something, they want the whole world to know how absolutely marvelous they are. But when they loose, like the English football team did against Russia this Wednesday thus jeopardizing their qualification for next years European Championship, you’ll barely hear anyone about it.
Bah.
Anyway.
60,000 English fans have invaded Paris, the city where the final is being played. Mind you, in 1415 it took King Henry V only 10,000 men to conquer most of France. An estimated 16 million people across England are expected to watch the game on television. About 12 million people – 2 million of them in London – will see the match in a pub or restaurant, drinking an estimated 65 million pints over the weekend. Even if the England team loses, it will be a golden weekend for pubs all across the nation.
Meanwhile the 150,000-strong South African community in London will be taking over most of the pubs and bars in the south-west of the city. The odds are in their favor: during the group game at the start of the tournament the South African team thrashed the English with 36-0. South Africa are the better team, but you never know; four years ago the English won the world title against all odds too…
Anyway, I’m glad this whole rugby madness will be over soon. It’s like the whole of England has been having sex for a week now, slowly working towards this enormous climax. Let’s hope the final orgasm this weekend won’t be a disappointment.
So here’s the update I’ve been promising to you. Sorry it took a while, I’ve been kinda busy (and tired of being so busy) the last few weeks. But anyway, let’s get started.
October turned out to be a busy month at work – the busiest month of the year apparently. A lot of new books are being published around Christmas time (mostly november and december) which means that there are a lot of press mailings to be send out this month.
And then there are the postal strikes. Royal Mail employees are not happy with their salaries and the hours they’re working and so they have been striking vigorously. The most recent strike lasted from Thursday 4th to Tuesday the 9th of October. Normally we have three mail-collections each day; because of the strike we didn’t have any for six days in a row. Imagine the enormous amount of mail bags we had lying around at work. The day after the strike Royal Mail needed two or three vans to clear everything out. When one of the guys started complaining about all the sacks he had to carry to his van, Helen (my boss) gave him a good ol’ blasting. Which was pretty funny.
According to Royal Mail, the next strike organised by the Communication Worker’s Union (CWU) is going to start this monday and will last for a whole week…
Apart from the amount of jobs to do and the postal strikes, most conversations at work this week were about the Rugby World Cup. Most Dutch people probably don’t even know that World Cup is being played at the moment. But when you’re working in England with two Australian people and one Kiwi, rugby is impossible to escape from. It wasn’t a fun rugby week for my antipodean friends though. Last weekend, the Australian team lost to England. The New Zealand team – called the All Blacks because of their black outfits – lost to France, which was an enormous shock and surprise, because New Zealand was the big favorite to win the title. They usually have the best team (from what I heard), but something always goes wrong. Poor Jack – the Kiwi guy from work – was devastated.
This weekend the quarter finals are being played. Yesterday England beat France. Today South Africa is playing against Argentina for a place in the final. South Africa are a rugby-superpower too, but seem to be hated by Kiwi’s and Australians alike. England won the World Cup four years ago, but apparently they did so without playing very well. The people at work will be rooting for Argentina, I guess. I still don’t really give a shit.
Oh, one more thing about the rugby. You might know the haka, the ceremonial Maori war dance that involves chanting? Before every game, the New Zealand team performs the haka, like they do here:
I came across this funny New Zealand tv commercial with a bunch of little gingerbread men doing the haka:
I thought that was funny.
You might have heard that we’ve been looking for a new place to live. After some arguments with out flatmates and problems with the flat (the dampness in our room, the thin wall between the bathroom and our room) Michelle really wanted to look for someplace better to live. We saw a really nice apartment in Colliers Wood, south-west London. It was a room with its own en-suite bathroom. They offered the room to us, but we had to sign a twelve month contract, which we didn’t want to do. Yesterday we looked at a place in east London, a room in a converted church. The two girls living there were really nice, but I thought the room was a little bit small. Also, I don’t really like the east of London.
So at the moment we’re thinking about staying here in Willesden Green after all. The rent is cheap, we’re close to the city (Zone 2) and apparently our flatmates are gonna move out. Michelle wants to move the bed to the other side of the room so that the thin bathroom wall doesn’t bother us so much anymore. Also, we’re going to ask the landlord for a bigger wardrobe and a dehumidifier to battle the dampness. He did get us an awesome fridge and a huge freezer the other week, so who knows.
So that’s pretty much it for now. As soon as we have more news, I’ll post it here.
A selection of the photos we made in Venice. Some are a bit blurry due to the quality of our camera. Click the thumbnails to see a bigger version of the picture.
Arrival in Venice
Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square)
Basilica di San Marco a Venezia (St Mark’s Basilica)
Palazzo Ducale di Venezia (Doge’s Palace)
Isola di San Michele (The Island of the Dead, the cemetery island of Venice)
Torcello (a quiet and beautiful island at the northern end of the Venetian Lagoon)
The old Venetian Ghetto
Murano (an island in the Venetian Lagoon, famous for its glass making)
Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (one of the greatest churches of Venice)
View on the Canal Grande (Grand Canal) from the Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge)
View on Venice (from our hotel room on the island of Lido)
Venice (random pictures)
Canal Grande at sunrise (our last moments in Venice)
Heh, I’m getting really slack at keeping this weblog up to date. The problem is that I’m quite tired at night when I get back from work. During the weekends I rather spend my time doing other stuff than writing on my weblog. Plus I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to continue my studies. Also, I started working on a story. Yes, this will be the novel that will make me so rich I won’t have to study or work at all anymore! Yes!
Anyway.
Today Michelle and I and Anika and her boyfriend Hennie visited the Tower of London. I’d already been there eleven years ago, but Michelle had never seen it before. She got passes through her work that allowed us to enter the Tower for free. Hurrah! We got there at about 12:30 and joined one of the tours led by a Yeomen Warder (or Beefeater, but they don’t like that name). I found the stories he told interesting, but the others preferred to wander around by ourselves. And so we did. We saw the Crown Jewels, the armoury (or amouries, really), the famous ravens and old rooms where people like Thomas More and several Gunpowder Plot accomplices were imprisoned. Some of them engraved their names and other writings on the walls, which was pretty cool to see. We spend a good few hours there before we left the Tower.
We crossed Tower Bridge to get to the other bank of the Thames. This weekend, The Mayor’s Thames Festival took place, “London’s biggest end-of-summer party.” It was actually pretty boring though, but we sat down to listen to some live music. A bunch of people were playing bagpipes, which both Michelle and I like. After that, we saw a Japanese group playing huge drums, which was pretty impressive. After about an hour we left and walked to London Bridge tube station. We said goodbye to Anika and Hennie and headed home. We got home at about 19:30.
Ugh, work again tomorrow. I’d better finish that novel asap.
And oh, I promise I’ll post the Venice photos as soon as possible. I’m just so lazy…
Some photos Michelle and I made. I couldn’t use all my photos, because some turned out to be really bad (our camera is shit) and some I wasn’t allowed to use because Michelle didn’t like them. As usual, click on the pictures to see a larger version.
I’ve got the feeling this city is not good for my health. I’m feeling ill here way more often than I ever did in The Netherlands. I’m sure it has got something to do with the foul air. Life in London is exhausting, too. It’s just too hectic. I studied in Amsterdam so I thought I’d seen some pretty bad crowds and rush hours, but it’s absolutely nothing compared to London. Nothing makes me more depressed than traveling to work in the mornings. When I go up the escalators at Westminster station and I look around, I can’t help but feeling that I’m an extra in Dawn of the Dead London-style. People in suits, acting like zombies, all moving in the same direction, making their way to the only place that seems to matter to them: their work.
And now, to add to my travel woes, the maintenance workers on the London Underground decided to go on strike. Not just ‘a’ strike, but a bloody 72-hour shutdown of all but three (out of twelve) lines. With millions of people affected, you can imagine the chaos I witnessed this morning. I saw people fight to get on already overcrowded buses. With still two more days of this madness to go, the RMT Union already planned their next 72-hour stike for next monday…
Michelle already hated London, but I’m starting to long for Holland (or New Zealand, for that matter) too, now.
Posted by Joppe 
Posted by Joppe 
Posted by Joppe 
