Nov 2008

Our dear friend Reina came to visit us in England for a week and it was really good to have a friend from T.O. come and experience life in England. We managed to get ALOT done while she was here and here's a quick list of what we/she did:

• Went to Windsor Castle..unfortunately St George cathedral was closed for services

• Mon/Tues she did the hop-on/hop-off bus tour for the day and by the time we met up after work, she was absolutely spent! lol! One night we took her to Ancient Raj in Frimley for Indian food and after eating the lamb madras, she's on a mission to find similar food back home!

• Went to this wicked restaurant in Soho called Inamo which has tables that allow you to order food off, play games, etc.. all with a touchpad and a projector above-head displaying all the images..so cool.

• Went to see the musical Wicked with Claire and Alan as well..and it was Wicked! Seriously, i'm not a fan of
  musicals but the evil witch, Elphaba, played by Alex Khadime was simply brilliant! I could even watch it again just for
  her.

• Went to Stonehenges..yes, that's what she calls it lol! Damn it was cold and windy that day but she got to see onw of the seven wonders of the world so that's cool! Afterwards, we picked up Michelle and headed to Westfield mall where we all made some pretty big purchases (2 Jaeger bags and 1 Reiss jacket were bought..among other items)

• Checked out the Ministry of Sound! Yeah baby, the legendary club for house/trance music and Erick Morillo was
  playing that night. Amazing sound and music in all rooms, one of the things that made it that good was the fact that
  even though it was sold out, it wasn't packed and not the slightest bit humid or hot like Guvernment/Warehouse. We are definitely going back again..New Years Eve maybe?

I'm soo tired right now, after flying in from Dublin this morning (flight left Dublin at 6:50 so you can guess how early we had to wake up to get there.) but again, I must say that i've been nicely surprised at the variety of things to do and seein Dublin. Honestly, i thought after the Guinness storehouse tour, it would be just another city..but nope..im wrong again.

• We stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel by Shepherd's Green, about a 2 minute walk to Grafton Street and this hotel was definitely one of the best we've stayed at. Has a rich history (JFK stayed here) and very nice bar (No. 27) but we paid way too much for drinks there (£18 for Jameson's and a mojito..wtf?).

• Lots of shopping to do in Dublin, stores everywhere but prices were actually a bit more than in London..seriously, makes London look like somewhat of a bargain!

• Did the Guiness tour (of course) and didn't join the tour group but did our own tour and stuff. Nothing too extremely fascinating; one thing i learned was that the top-selling brew is Guiness Foreign Extra Stout (not sold in NA)...but I like Guiness Draught better actually. The Gravity Bar at the top of the storehouse was the liveliest..and you can guess why!

• Temple bar was a cool area of bars, restaurants and such, hung out there for a bit and also at our hotel bar.

• Did a tour of Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced 'jail') which was not too bad. Infamous jail for holding thousands of convicts in a place buitl for only a couple hundred (irish Potato Famine was the time with the most 'visitors' because they would actually be fed in prison!).

• Sunday was very cold and rainy..good thing we experienced real irish weather! But it was also the official Christmas Tree lighting ceremony that day so we went afterwards to go take a picture like tourists.
  

so just a quick recap on the last couple weeks here:

• Went to check out an adult-themed puppet show that is loosely based on the Sesame characters. Called Avenue Q, it dealt with controversial and offensive themes in a humourous, keep-an-open-mind type style and was actually quite hilarious....as long as you understood it was all for show.

• Songs such as 'Internet is for Porn', 'Everyone's a little bit racist' and 'Schaudenfreude' (German word for happiness at the misery of others - "you know, like the Germans"..ouch.

• Went to see it with Claire and Alan so it was definitely good to meet up with some friends in London

• Also, we celebrated CDN/US Thanksgiving with Michelle's co-workers, a group that contained US, CDN and UK people. We cooked a 7kg turkey complete with stuffing, cranberry sauce and everyone pitched in and brought some food, desserts..and lots of drink...that was finished by the end of the night..lol. Good times!