Crazy people, famous people, started work, more site seeing around London, shopping in Oxford Street

General observations - crazy and famous people.

There are lots of crazy people here. The sheer/huge population living here means everything is multiplied. You know when you see someone talking to themselves, but think – oh they might be talking into their hands free. But they’re not. Or then there’s the people having an argument with someone, but clearly, there is no one there – I call it their invisible enemy. Then there’s the crazy yelling religious people. Apparently we’re all sinners and going straight to hell and we all need saving. Needless to say it’s best to stay well clear of these crazy people and let them settle their argument with whoever it is they’re arguing / yelling at (ie themselves, their invisible enemy or God). It’s entertaining to say the least. Best advice is to keep your sunnies on and escape into your world of Ipod. And no one wears sunnies here - which I find really odd too - coz I love my sunnies..

Oh and the crazy NSW weather finally made the real news (on tv) here. Can't believe ships are beaching, flooding, storms etc. Sounds nuts.. Makes the schitzo weather here seem almost normal. Although it's been quite warm here lately! My shorts and miniskirts have *finally* been worn (was very skeptical when I packed them). I still take my umbrella with me everywhere - just in case.

News and celebrities. What an intertwined thing. When you get the tube, there are a number of different newspapers being given away at the entry/exit for free. So I've found myself reading the newspaper quite alot (which I never really used to do unless it was a weekend paper). Needless to say, what makes "news" here is quite questionable. And who is "famous" here is also quite questionable because I don't even understand why half these people are famous or in the news. Eg: Posh Spice aka Victoria Beckham. She recently won the "Woman of the Year" award. For what? As far as I can see, she is a washed up, has been ex Spice Girl, musically talentless, anorexic, boob jobbed, overtanned, married to a famous football player, media whore. And then there's Kate Moss - who I respect as a model who doesn't look like an underfed starving model, who has retained her look and cuteness over the years, but again, anything she does or touches works for her - eg being busted for drugs works for her and others. Same goes for George Michael. It seems the worse these celebrities do, the more attention they get and the more famous and successful they are. It's almost like celebrities are making it "cool" or the "in thing" to drink drive, do drugs etc. Oh and I do think it's quite hilarious that Paris Hilton has been sent back to jail.

Tuesday: back to work

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go *whistle*.. Ok, so Tuesday I started work at BP. The BP shuttle bus picked me up from the train station and dropped me to the site. They run constantly during peak time in the morning, then every 15 minutes. I had a freshly imaged laptop on my desk. My login had already been created. I logged in straight away. I opened up Outlook. There was no stupid start up wizard to go through - it just WORKED. Anyway, I spent most of my first day in meetings and meeting people and being shown around and how things work. Everybody uses MSN messenger - both internally and externally which is pretty forward thinking for a big organisation. In the many kitchens there's a free coffee machine, tea, hot chocolate, free milk, sugar, juices and fruit.

The "Link Restaurant" ie, the cafeteria is like a food court or sizzler. They cook breakfast and lunch every day. You have a swipe card which gives you a free allowance of 5 pounds per day to spend on food in the cafeteria (or you can top it up with your own money if you spend more). You can choose from the soup stall, traditional foods stall, vegetarian, pasta, pizza, world of flavours, jacket potato stall, sandwich bar, dessert bar, fresh juice and drinks stall - it's nuts! And you get real knives and forks.

After you finish your lunch, you take your lunch tray, plate etc, and there's a conveyor belt which you just dump your tray onto (ie, you don't clean off anything) and then it disappears to be cleaned (I imagine there's cleaning fairies or oompa lumpas on the other side cleaning them). Also, there's an express shop with premade sandwiches etc and also an online service where you can order a custom made sandwich or baguette which gets stored in a special fridge for you to collect at your time of choice. And then there’s the grab and go shop as well. There is a country club, beauty salon, dentist, doctor, physio, osteopath, childcare centre, monthly market stalls and much more.

Anyway, I think I’m settling into the job well. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be embedded in each of the teams, reviewing and improving their Sharepoint sites and giving them further training. It’s also been 2 months since I finished work – so I’ve had the luxury of sleeping in for the last two months. Anyone who knows me well knows I am not a morning person, and I’d even forgotten this myself - so getting up early and back into a routine was challenging – but I’ll get used to it again. Oh and my induction I found out nearly 5000 people work at our site. I haven’t taken any photos of the site, but I did find a few on the internet (above)..

More site seeing around London – my 7km walk

The last 2 Saturdays, I’ve done some huge walks by myself around London. On Saturday, I was supposed to go on a guided walking tour around London. However, some tube lines were cancelled on the weekend, and basically missed the meeting time for the tour. So I did my own walk (click link to see a map) and walked from the Tower of London, along the River Thames, chucked a right at Big Ben, cut across to St James Park, then over to Buckingham Palace and over to Victoria tube station. Took me all afternoon and feet were killing me after that! But yes, there were many other sites along the way on the Thames which I took photos of. I’ve also included photos from last Saturday as well (I walked along the other side of the Thames, along South Bank). So click here to see all the photos…

This weekend has actually been quite warm (and no rain either!), so decided to take advantage of the nice weather and the weekend, and well of London – cos there is SO much to see here.. So on Sunday, I thought I’d check out Oxford Street – ie Shopping Central. So many shops, most of them multi-level. If ever I am in need of clothes, shoes – I now know where to go.

Amazingly I restrained myself (waiting to get paid coz I’ve only just started work and haven't been paid yet) and found a couple of super bargains including my new 13 pound work outfit – plus I think I can wear the jacket for going out clothes as well. The jacket actually has a wide pinstripe and two cute ruffled pockets at the front and the skirt has that “David Jones” style black and white check pattern. Bought some chai chocolate tea, jasmine green tea from this really cool tea shop – so didn’t spend that much at all.

So it’s back to work for me and plan to do more walking around London every Saturday – so stay tuned and don’t forget to check out all the photos: www.amanda.com.au/uk/london/ - Manda :)

Camden Town, British Museum, Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath

Ok, first things first: I have taken SO many photos this week - I've had to upload them to my other website. So if you want to see all my photos, go here: www.amanda.com.au/uk . Otherwise read on to see what's been happening...

Sunday 27th May
The weather had been "demotivating" me, so today I decided, I don’t care how crap the weather is – I’m going out and doing something. So I headed off to the Camden Town markets. Of course the Camden Town tube station was shut, so had to get a bus from Euston tube station. Again, had no idea where I was going, but a lot of people were going the same place as me, so jumped off with them. I’d forgotten how HUGE these markets were. They’re like a living breathing museum with all sorts of knickknacks, clothes galore, jewelry, tv stalls, food stalls – it really just goes on and on.. The whole place is practically markets – I could have spent all day there – there’s just so many alleyways and nooks and crannies crammed with more and more market stalls. I bought a couple of tops, a really cheap black corduroy jacket, postcards etc. Love it there, definitely going back again.

Garden party
Oh the previous Thursday, we had a few people around for dinner and drinks in our back garden. We put some picnic rugs and cushions on the grass, laid out some nibblies and drinks and everyone came over. We played this awesome board game called Articulate – it's like the reverse of Baulderdash - go buy it if you’ve never played it – it’s loads of fun and quick and easy to play. Anyway, cooked up a tonne of spaghetti and potato salad etc.. we all had more drinks. And then Steph and co all decided to go and dress up as Katy – so came back down wearing bright red lip stick and some very interesting outfits. The night ended when our flimsy outdoor table was knocked over and came crashing to the ground along with several glasses and empty bottles (we are never using this table ever again). Fun night though!

Monday 28th May
Today I went to the British museum. I saw the Egyptian, American and Mexican exhibitions. The weather was absolutely horrid. I stepped outside into a cyclonic freezer. My hands were like icebergs, I thought I was going to fly away with my umbrella – it was something like 5 degrees and the weather lady said this is the kind of weather they have in January (ie real British winter). Yikes. Anyway, the museum was packed as it was a public holiday. The place is massive. I think I need to go back and explore more of it by myself.

Tuesday 29th May
Today I got up super early and did a bus tour out to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. After the dreadful weather yesterday, today the sun was out - there wasn't a cloud in the Simpson sky - was perfect weather. Anyway, Windsor Castle is huge – there is so much stuff inside there. It’s full of history and beautiful. I bought myself a pair of what I call “Royal Slippers” from a shop inside Windsor Castle – they’re white bath slippers with a gold crest embroidered on them – and they’re comfy and warm but I've already managed to spill red wine on them (but got the stain out right away).

Next we went onto Stonehenge. We spent an hour there. You really only need about half an hour max. For some reason I thought the stones would be bigger (but obviously they weren’t). It’s right next to a main road as well and there sheep in a field next to it – which kind of takes away from any mysteriousness that you might associate with it. So onto Bath.

Bath is where Jane Austin lived and where Pride and Prejudice and all those old timey movies were filmed. I was inlove with this town. Limestone everywhere. Cute little shops. Ahh. I would like to go back there for a weekend. We visited the famous Roman Baths there as well - which were really cool..

Other than that, I have been pottering around organizing myself for starting work next week and taking advantage of the fact that I can sleep in for a few more days yet. We needed some outdoor furniture, and the people down the road had moved out and all their stuff was out front – and low and behold – 3 plastic chairs and a deck chair later, we now have garden furniture. Found some real bargains in the Brixton Markets – bought 4 Espirit dinner plates and some knives and forks. And Katy showed me a few other shops I hadn’t been into yet, including some second hand and charity shops and I picked up THE best pair of jeans ever for 6 pounds 50 pence – total bargain. You can’t have enough jeans here.

For the rest of the week, I’m going to do some walking around in London itself and visit some more museums, galleries, cathedrals etc. I’m evening thinking of doing the London duck tour – which I thought might be a bit different to the normal touristy double decker bus thing. And I think I’m going back to Battersea Park again to see some live bands on Sunday. Anyway, I start work on Tuesday (hoorah!) – which is exactly 2 months to the day of my last day working at Emergency Services. Speak to you all soon! And make sure you check out all the photos at www.amanda.com.au/uk - Manda :)