Christmas eve eve greetings from Canada

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,

And since we've no place to go,

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Hello from London, Ontario! Hope you are all having a good lead up to Christmas - all your shopping is done, and time to relax and spend time with family.

Gideon and I are here staying with his Aunt Liz, cousins Lawrence and Stephen and his grandparents, Ruth and Doug. Although the snow has been melting over the last couple of days, it really feels like winter and Christmas with all this snow around. Hopefully it will snow tomorrow and we will have a right proper white Christmas!

Liz's gorgeous house

It took a long time to get here, we spent almost 2 full days driving, flying and waiting around in airports. Tuesday's travel was pretty straight forward... we left home at 6.30am in the morning, drove to the airport, caught a flight from Heathrow to Washington, then Washington to New York. About 19 hours later, we arrived in New York at 8pm local time. A long day, but we were less than half an hour late. Pretty good. We stayed in a hotel near La Guardia that night and left at 10am the next morning for another long day of travel. We were due to fly to Toronto at 12.30pm and then from Toronto to London, Ontario at 5.30pm. As we were at the airport early, the offered us the 11.30am flight to Toronto, although our connecting flight would be the same. I refused citing the chance to do some duty free shopping at La Guardia. As it turns out, you should always take an earlier flight if offered. There was next to no duty free shopping at the terminal where we were, and the 12.30pm flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems. They were unable to get us on the 1.30pm flight, and so after much hanging around, we finally left New York at 2.30pm. We got to Toronto with still some time to spare and waited around patiently for our next flight to London. That flight ended up being delayed due to mechanical problems, and they had to switch planes which delayed us by about an hour. It begs the question, do Air Canada have planes without mechanical problems? Still, we arrived safely, and none the worse for wear.

The back yard

Since then, we've had a lovely time relaxing, shopping (my first Walmart experience), eating and playing in the snow! :D Behind Liz's house there is a golf course which when covered in a reasonable layer of snow, we are allowed to play on (no damage to the grass). Yesterday, I even got my snowboard out and had a bit of fun on the small slopes of the golf course! Yay!

Gideon, armed and dangerous.

What's going on then... Gideon and his aunt Liz

Liz and Gideon's granddad, Doug

Out on the golf course

The boys roll the biggest snowball ever... or at least, that was the intention.

Gideon and his cousins, Lawrence & Stephen

More beautiful winter wonderland

Meanwhile... me and my beloved board...

I even managed to build up enough speed to get some wind in the hair!

Boarding on a golf course... coooool.

Merry Merry Christmas everyone!

Driving along the A420

I've been driving into Oxford every day for the last week and a half to do some temping. It's a pretty slack job, I spend about 85% of my time on Facebook or surfing the net. I'm doing reception at the company that registers all .co.uk domain names for the UK.

Anyway, a couple of times last week, on the 50 minute drive to work the DJ played "I'll be home for Chrismtas", by Josh Groban. It made me cry both times. Needless to say that driving with tears in your eyes is not the safest thing to do. Not only is it a beautiful song, sung by a beautiful voice, but edited into the song are phone messages from various servicemen/women who will not be home with their families this Christmas. You should be able to have a bit of a listen by going here and scrolling down to the listen to samples section. I'm not usually one to buy Christmas Albums because they are a bit useless for the rest of the year, but I might just make an exception in this case.


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MOVIE REVIEW
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Beowulf: 2.5/5

Cast: Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), John Malkovich (Dangerous Liaisons), Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

In a nutshell: Some pretty impressive animation, but would have preferred real actors.

Brief Synopsis: Based on an old Danish Poem, a warrior in 507 AD comes to a kingdom to rid them of the monster Grendel.

The first 20 minutes of this movie were strange for me. I did not know that this was a CGI movie, and so I spent the first 20 minutes waiting for the CGI to turn to real life people. When they didn't, I finally settled into the movie and did enjoy it. The story has been told many a time, and lends it self to an animated treatment. Sometimes a little too violent, the action is exciting. The characters are life like - the characters looks almost exactly like the actors who are lending their voices to them - and the scenery is quite rich. However, everything is so close to being real, but not quite, that it is somewhat distracting and I wondered through most of it, why didn't they just make a proper movie the way they used to.

Australian Idol vs X-Factor

I know most of you don't really care... but sadly I am a bit of a slave to reality tv talent shows. Without doubt I would say that So You Think You Can Dance? is my favourite. It feels a little less manipulated than the likes of say, X-Factor, and the talent that they attract is a sight to behold.

At the moment I am following the current UK series of X-Factor which into it's semi-final round. If you recall, they attempted to bring X-Factor to Australia a couple of years ago, and failed dismally. Australian Idol also just finished a couple of weeks ago. Comparing the two shows, I have to say that Australian Idol comes up trumps. The talent seems to be much brighter and the show itself is an easier watch. One journalist described X-Factor as a 'pantomime', they are not too far wrong. There is something very artificial and staged about the show, maybe I have been affected after reading Chart Throb by Ben Elton which is a satire on the whole Idol/X-Factor phenomenon. Having said that, the last winner of X-Factor here in the UK has just released her first single, and it is actually brilliant, if not a bit Celine Dionish in a more modern sort of way. Possibly the viewers of X-Factor might be a bit older, and the format for the show allows for a wider variety of singing style than Australian Idol.

Anyway, the reason I started this blog entry was because today I read an article which talked about how one of the songs that one of the contestants on X-Factor, Rhydian (Operatic style voice), wanted to sing in the semi final was vetoed by makers of the show for not being mainstream enough. I beg to differ, especially seeing as he sung I Vow to Thee My Country/World in Union on last week's show. The song he had chosen was The Prayer by Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. For those who are Australian Idol followers, 3 years ago, this was the song that propelled Athony Callea to become one of Australia's highest every selling singles. Given Rhydian's background in opera and musical theatre, I am sure the song would have suited him to a tee.

Iceland Holiday 3

You can tell it is December here and that Christmas is approaching. Over the last few days Christmas lights, trees and decorations have been popping up everywhere. On monday a road train with Santa in the back, blaring loud carols came around our neighbourhood with door knockers collecting money. The place I'm working at this week has been in a frenzy putting up trees. It is quite different from Australia, it feels more festive. I guess that is the difference the cold weather and tradition makes.

Most of you know, Gideon and I will be in Canada for Christmas. I'm crossing my fingers for a white Christmas - I've always wanted one of those. And looking at the weather forecast for this next week, I'd say there is a good chance. Today it's a max of -4dC and a minimum of -11dC! I can smell the snow already! : )

Anyway, back to our Iceland Holiday. Not really much left to tell. As most of the tours leave first thing in the morning, and we only found out about the cancellation of the glacier tour at 10pm at night, we were unable to book something else, and so we were left with a spare day. With the weather looking a little grim, and our enthusiam somewhat waning, we spent most of the day sulking in our hotel room doing nothing...or should I say relaxing in our hotel room watching crappy day time British TV. We did, however, go out for a little big of a pleasant walk around Reykjavik.

Hallgrimskirkja church
The largest church in Iceland, it's tower can be seen from almost everywhere in the city.

Gideon enjoys getting outside and a little ray of sunshine.

Despite looking a little foreboding from the outside, the church is well lit, warm and cosy on the inside.


A local milkbar

Sculpture Sun Voyager by Jon Gunnar Arnason


Freezing down on the waterfront

That evening we went out to a lovely little restaurant, VidTjornina. Strangely it was decorated with old American memorabilia such as newspaper cuttings and pictures of the likes of Shirley Temple and Lana Turner. Gideon ordered Codchins (still trying to work out exactly what they are, but bizarrely, I think they literally are the chins of cods) which were delicious, and I had a some fish (a type of which I'd never heard of) with a langoustine tail - very yummy. I think having a really good meal ended up turning the mood, it left me with a good feeling about our trip despite the disappointments of not seeing everything that we had hoped. Funny how good food can do that.

In the end, I recommend Iceland, especially if you like the outdoors. There is a lot to do (provided you have better luck with tours, and perhaps if you go in the summer) and it really is a beautiful country.

Iceland Holiday Day 2

We woke to a wonderfully crisp morning. The Golden Circle tour we were booked on began at lunchtime so we had some time to have a look around the capital city and also book our planned glacial walk tour for the following day, something we were both very excited about doing.

The town lake. Frozen over after a cold night.
You can actually see some birds standing on the ice if you look carefully.

At midday we waited on the side of the main road, 5-10 metres from the front of the hotel, to be picked up for our tour of the Golden Circle.

Gideon waiting outside the Castle apartments where we were staying.

We waited for half an hour in the cold, and then received a phone call from the tour company. Apparently they had sent a shuttle bus to pick us up, but after 8 minutes of waiting/looking for us, they left. The best they could do was to offer to reschedule us for the next day. This was not an option as we had the glacier walk the next day, and so we were left with nothing to do for the afternoon. Dammit.

After much discussion, Gideon decided to give driving a go. We hired a car and attempted to do our own Golden Circle tour. I was most impressed with Gideon's driving. Driving on the wrong side of the car (with a right handed gear stick) on the wrong side of the road (I mean, the right side of the road) was a scary thought, but he didn't drive on the left side of the road even once!

Beautiful landscapes of snow covered mountains.
As we left the city the sky clouded up, the wind picked up and it began to rain.

Lake Thingvallavatn

Thingvellir is the original site of the oldest existing parliament in the world.

It is also where Silfra is located, a fissure in the crust of the earth where the European and American tectonic plates meet. If you ever go to Iceland it is possible to do a tour and snorkle or scuba dive in Silfra.

Some of the local landscape

Rugged up in my new hat at the Geysir area

The star attraction: Strokkur, it goes as high as 60-100 feet

Strokkur goes off!

The carpark at Gullfoss Waterfall

By the time we reached the Gulfoss waterfall it was almost dark. Still, I was determined to see it. With the setting of the sun the wind had picked up and we could feel it buffetting against the side of the car. Still, we could see the wooden path down to the falls and there wouldn't be another chance. So we braved the cold, wind and rain. However, the path was covered in patches of ice and the wind was so strong I could barely walk and was just a little worried about being blown off the side of the rail-less path. So we aborted. Dammit.

We finished off a long day with dinner at the Viking Village restaurant, where we tried whale steak and putrified steak amongst other traditional Icelandic foods. It was a very quiet night and we missed out on the Viking singing. Still it was good to try something of the local food.

It was about 10pm by the time we got back to the apartment. About a minute after we arrived, the phone rang. It was the tour company for our glacier tour - our walk on a glacier was cancelled due to anticipated bad weather for the next day. Double Dammit.

Radio musings

What the deal with radio announcers not actually doing any announcing in this day and age? Let me clarify. Both in Australia and England, DJ's no longer tell you the name or the artist of the song they just played... or is it just me. It seems that it only happens on classical music stations and some easy listening stations now. So, why do we have radio DJ's at all?

Having said that... my snazzy MP3 phone actually has the facility to identify songs while they are on the radio... if only I could figure out how to use it...

Some Examples

Good suggestion Matt! Here are a sample of vaguely ok quality examples that I found on You Tube.

Late night TV

Watching music videos with sign language interpreters is a whole new and wonderful experience. They dance while signing! :)

Iceland Holiday Day 1

Hellooo everyone!

It has been raining here all day. Definitely autumn in England. The other night we were sleeping with the window open, and it got down to a balmy minus 3 degrees celcius. Crunchy grass the next morning. :D

Shout out to Michael, Cindi, Steph and Chris who I caught up with yesterday. Was great to get into London and catch up with all of you. Driving around London was an experience in itself... I imagine a bit like Sydney, lots of one way streets all over the place, and it is not that well sign posted. But after living out here in the country for a few months, it was quite and adventure to be in the big city! The number of shops, restaurants and bars around made my heart flutter with excitement!

Now, back to the Iceland trip.

31/10/2007 cont...

This is what happens at Heathrow after a 5am start to the day

Finally at the boarding gate - Iceland Yay!

Despite feeling seedy on the plane due to the self inflicted lack of sleep because of the last minute tax return saga, the flight was relatively quick (3 hours) and easy (no problems and food was served!). On arrival at the airport we caught the "Flybus" to Reykjavik (40-50mins) with a stop off at the Blue Lagoon.

It's cold out here - someone get me inside....please!

The Blue Lagoon is an entrepreneurial exercise taking advantage of the natural geothermal pools in the area and turning them into a day spa... and it was the perfect thing to do after the stresses of the last few days.

Gideon - handling the cold weather a little better than me - outside the Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is basicaly one huge pool filled with milky azure coloured water which contains minerals that are supposed to be good for the skin. On contemplation of visiting the lagoon we had decided against having any treatments due to the cost. However, friends who had visited Iceland only the week before recommended a massage. Although it cost about 30 pounds each, the 10 minutes massage was heavenly.

There was something magical about being there in the bath-like water as the steam rose into the crisp air and the sun set leaving a dusky sky.

We went straight from the Blue Lagoon to check in at our apartment, then headed out on a tour to find the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). Both of us were really looking forward to it, photos would indicate that the Lights light up the sky with an amazing bright green veil.


Having assumed that we would spend most of the tour on the bus, we weren't quite dressed for it. After about an hour of driving and stopping intermittantly, we finally stopped at a carpark far away from the city lights of Reykjavik. There, we stood in icy cold temperatures for an hour waiting for the lights to start and our appendages to drop off. To begin with it just looked like really pale white cloud on the horizon. With clear skies it was perfect weather to see the Northern lights, but the half moon was extremely bright and made it difficult to see the subtleties.

Can you see it? Can you?

After an hour of freezing our fingers off, so to speak, we had seen some hazy cloud-like wisps moving around slowly and it was time to go home somewhat disappointed.

On the way back to the city, we made one last stop on the side of the side of the road, and lo, there was some sort of green wisp growing and moving as if someone was painting a squiggle in the sky. Pretty cool - but anywhere near as spectacular as the pictures. Still, it had been quite a successful start to the trip.

Hanging out in Watchfield

30/10/2007

Hola! Como estais? Estoy estupenda!

There's someting about airports and aeroplanes that are condusive to blog writing. Perhaps it is the waiting-around-with-nothing-else-to-do-factor or perhaps it is the being in confined spaces factor. Maybe if I learnt how to signficantly disable an elevator I could become a novellist of fine literature...or myabe of Mills & Boon.

Finally getting excited now! Gideon and I are off on our first proper European holiday! (Wales doesn't really count - very belated blog entry still to come). One of the few places that we were both very keen to visit was Iceland. Very much looking forward to experiencing the stunning waterfalls, lava encrusted landscapes, lakes and glaciers. I think my interest in Iceland has been nurtured somewhat by watching those unaffordable machines of beauty roaring around the island on Top Gear - that show is good for all sorts of things. who doesn't want to know whether it is possible to sail a car across the English Channel?! Best of all, I now know how to spell "Reykjavik" without cheapting.

Well, it has now been a week since I went cold turkey and got off the drugs. Finally the headachesare gone, I thought they would never end. I have a newly earned respect for those people who get migraines.. it would almost be worth decapitating oneself. So it will be back to some serious job hunting once this weekend is over... I need to work. Being at home every day (all day - wasiting time - unbelievably I seem to run out of time to do things (damn Facebook!)), is making me cranky and has exposed just how paitient and supportive Gideon is.

The last 24 hours have also been a bit of a frazzle. In addition to packing and researching excursions for Iceland, I had left my tax return ot the very last possible day, typical. Why do we have to fill in tax eturns? In this day and age, why can't all the transactions just be traced back to a central office via our TFN's? I guess that path starts to cross the line of barcoding or big brother. Anyway, the night before last I went through my pile of paperwork looking for the plastic evenelope of tax statements and documentation that I had carried in my hand luggage all the wayfrom Darwin to Melbourne to London to Swindon, only to find that it was missing. Holy flying drumsticks Batman! Luckily, with anticipation that I would be so stupid, I had recorded some of the required figures back in July and with a last minute call back to Melbourne, the dreaded tax return was completed in the the nick of time. Phew.

Don't get me wrong though, despite my complaining, life is pretty sweet. Even though England is so similar to Australia in many respects, things like that continual grey skies and the 5pm sunsets, now that the clocks have been turned back, are something of a novelty for the moment. I'm still on an extended "holiday", there is a great opportunity to travel, and we have made some new friends.

Here are some snap shots of us hanging out:

Surprise!

Pizza and board games at my surprise birthday party.

Clare, Claire, Jon, Shaun & Gideon.

Gideon & Shaun get ready to bat for the Australian's at the Foster's Cup.

Unfortunately the Australian's got whooped by the Internationals.

Owen & Jane enjoy the beautiful sunshine and the game in their matching tops.

Everyone with the compulsory beer after the match.

Japanese Night

Clare and Claire -

Master sushi chefs

Recreation of the infamous Ogg incident -
Shaun managed to break one of the two wine glasses we brought with us with an Ogg.
Shaaaauuuuwwwnn!!

All dressed up for Trafalgar Night - my first Mess Dinner
Owen, Clare, Jon, g, Gideon

Trafalgar night is a celebration of the Battle of Trafalgar.
There were all sorts of Naval traditions such as the passing of the port decanter down the table for toasting, the roast beef being paraded around the room and the ships made out of chocolate.

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Movie Review
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Ratatouille: 4/5

In a nutshell: A case of the extreme warm and fuzzies.

Brief Synopsis: French rat with an unusual palate for good food and a talent for cooking seeks his fortune in Paris.

It is definitely of Pixar quality, and many will just love it. For me, it was excellent, but missing the more adult wit and spark of some of its predecessors such as Monster's Inc, Finding Nemo and especially the Incredibles. It does leave you wanting to go hug lots of people. Definitely entertaining and definitely one for the kids.

*Bonus Interesting fact: In the version of the movie to hit British screens, the food inspector is voiced by Jamie Oliver. Not so for the US version, and therefore probably not for our Australian compatriots either.

The coolest of phones!

Well, it has been two weeks now, and I am still getting headaches that make me want to sleep all day. This last week has been tough, the headaches have made sleeping difficult, which has made me stay awake half the night and want to sleep all day, which has thrown my sleeping pattern out completely and made me feel more sick. But after endeavouring to stay awake all day, things seem to be getting back on track. The doctors have said that it is likely that the headaches will continue for 3-4 weeks... so all I can say is, "bring on the ibeprofen"! Makes up for all those years of not getting headaches. Good thing I'm still out of work at the moment!

So what else is going on at the moment?

Well - not much really. Afterall, I'm spending most of my time sleeping or trying to sleep. Am enjoying some of the peculiarities that are unique to England. Last night we had scotched eggs for dinner - yummy! Yesterday on TV they showed the top 50 video clips featuring Take That or Take That members! Now, you'd never get that in Australia. I didn't even think they would be able to find 50! But I should have known that about half of them were Robbie Williams videos.

Lots of catching up to do... here's something I meant to post ages ago...

I have the coolest new mobile phone (well, I've had it for over a month now, so it's not that new)... It's the Sony Ericsson W580i. Take a look at this beauty:

I went into the phone shop thinking that I'd like a Samsung flip phone - that's what I've had before and generally, they are small and pretty phones! Basically I had three requirements - MP3 player, compact and pretty. Very girly requirements, but that is what I wanted. The salesman was a cool dude and he picked one phone from their stock to recommend to me. And what do you know, he was right on the money! Once I saw it, there was no other phone that I wanted! What clinched it for me was that the salesman said that it was the phone that he wanted to get for himself. As it is a Sony Ericsson, it has a Walkman quality MP3 player, and a pretty good quality camera. The interface is pretty and simple to use, although learning to text on a new brand of phone always takes a while.

There are two other things that make it really cool.
1. One of the imbuilt games is Sims2! A somewhat watered down version, but it kept me occupied for a few days!
2. This is the coolest GIMIC ever!.... When you are listening to the Walkman MP3 and you don't like the song you are listening to, you can press the walkman button and shake the phone, and it will change the song for a randomly chosen song from your library!! How COOL is that!!!??

Now for some movie reviews:

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MOVIE REVIEWS

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Atonement: 3/5

Cast: Kiera Knightly (Bend it like Beckham, Pride & Prejudice), the very handsome James McAvoy (Becoming Jane, Last King of Scotland)

In a nutshell: Touch on the slow side for me... and... Is it possible for Kiera Knightly to look bad?

Brief Synopsis: After misinterpreting events, a young girl wrongfully accuses an innocent young man of crimes and sends him to prison and war, separating him from the love of his life, her sister. Follows these characters over time and the consequences of that accusation.


Similar to other lost love stories during wars such as A Very Long Engagement or Cold Mountain (a personal favourite), it takes two very likeable characters and pitches them against all odds and prevents them from being together. Kiera Knightly looks devine in the period costumes, but does not really have much acting to do. James McAvoy, is servicable - he still doesn't convince me as a good leading man - but there is something about him that is still adorable - must be those baby blues. Despite all these ingredients, and some very tight direction and storytelling, I still found this one a little slow.




Shoot 'em Up: 3.75/5

Cast: Clive Owen (Children of Men, Closer), Monica Bellucci (Matrix Reloaded, L'Appartement), Paul Giamatti (The Illusionist, Sideways)

In a nutshell: More awesome action that you can poke a stick at

Brief Synopsis: Man finds himself protecting a baby against some full on gangster dudes and some serious gunfire.

This is one movie that is destined to be a cult classic. This movie just doesn't stop. When you think they have exhausted all avenues for more super cool gun fighting scenes, they come up with something else! In attitude, it reminds me of a Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, just without the intricate story telling and twists and turns. Totally fun, humourous, entertaining and seat rivetting. Loved it!