Short Haircut and Family Visitors

The shortest haircut I've had in a loooong time. It brings me back to the Howie Gabe haircut I had in Austin. what's funny is I'm using the same hair cream I bought when I got that haircut many years ago. It's crazy how long ago that feels...



Also, had a few visitors last week with Aunt Sallie and Uncle Dick coming stopping into London on their way to Budapest! Here's a picture of all of us at a pub enjoying a pint with their friends Teresa and Phillip.

Daniella in the UK

For the first time since I arrived in the UK, Daniella was brought out and played. It's an absolutely brilliant guitar to play!

Memories from awhile back...captured strumming away (my hair is A LOT shorter now)

Cat in the morning

I had quite an interesting night/morning with a massive fright in early morning. I was half asleep most of the night but heard a noise near my window around 5am. I partially opened my eyes and didn't really see anything and started to close them but then heard more noise over by my window and opened them wider. My heart started racing and I hadn't heard these noises before which sounded like tapping on my window! My heart started racing as I thought someone was trying to reach in through my open window. I was fully awake at this point and there was just enough light coming through the window to see a pesky cat sitting on my computer desk and rustling around. Jesus it scared the living daylights out of me! I started moving out of bed and it got frightened and tried to go back outside the window but couldn't fit through this time. I went up and it tried to get out by jumping but then fell behind my computer dragging the mouse and wireless card with it. It got up and hid under my desk. As I reached down it hissed and swatted at me. I was hoping I could grab it by the collar of its neck so it wouldn't bit me or scratch me (at this point I was thinking "stray cat? Bite? Rabies? I hope not!" anyways, I had to get it out of my flat and I pinned it to the floor and tried to grab it a few times successfully nabbing it the fourth or fifth time. I opened the window as wide as I could and pushed it out and slammed it shut. Blimey, that was not a fun morning! Poor thing must've been scared to death being trapped in my flat but it scared me too!!!

Berlin by Photos

Last weekend was well spent in sunny Berlin. What a great place to walk around and soak in the city while the sun was out. I had a fantastic time!

Amplemann




Reichstag


Performers near the Reichstag


Ivy Covered Library



Nikolaviertel


Meter of Beer


Pints of Georg Brau


Gendarmarkt


My idea of a heavenly shop




Interesting place to work


Checkpoint Charlie


Sony Center


Berliner Dom at night


Tiergarten Statue


Schloss Charlottenburg Palace




Tiergarten




Amplemann at the gate


Modern Architecture


Pint of Berliner Kindl


German Car


All Berlin pictures on Flickr

Saturday in Brighton

The weekend before last was an absolutely gorgeous weekend in London, this weekend was half sunny half rainy but that's what I've been told to expect. Anyways, last weekend I made the most of the nice weather and headed down to the coast and arrived in Brighton 40 minutes later by train.

May 10th, 2008
It was a really cool town to explore which was fairly heavily impacted by visitors from around the country but it was still a nice city. It was quite diverse in what was available to explore. I walked through the small streets of really cool, unique shops which lead down to the small, old english like narrow streets called The Lanes. Little shops popped up around the corners of the lanes as I kept walking around each narrow turn. The lanes then opened up to a wider, main street which was home to the more upscale shops found in most cities.








That street lead down to the ocean where the Brighton Pier could be see off to the left and a massive beach covered completely in pebbles could be seen. The street wrapped closely around the edges of the beach and ocean and two to three story buildings lined the coast as it continued in each direction. Pubs lined the stone-filled beach and the stones certainly didn't stop anyone from lying out and soaking in the sun.






The pier was an odd bit of work but fun to explore and see. It's like a mini-carnival on a pier with lots of junk food, yummy doughnuts, amusement rides, games and a full arcade in the middle and of course fish and chips. It was a fun place to explore and just walk around looking at the different people and shops.







I think I'll definitely go back and explore the beach area a bit more, explore the shops as there were lots of neat ones I didn't get to go into. One place I did go was a little shop off to the side that sold mini guitars made of wood and painted in different colors. I had to get one, they were too cool to pass up even though they were £8. I bought a red Fender strat with the words "Sex Pistols - Never mind the bollocks." It makes me chuckle when I look at it which is exactly why I bought it, not because I'm a massive Sex Pistols fan because I'm not, haha.

After consuming a double chocolate cupcake from the butterfly bakery, an ice cream cone, a few doughnuts and a nice italian meal I was ready to head back. Definitely need to check out a milkshake place that advertised 150 different milkshakes!!

Perfect Weather!!

This past week has been absolutely GORGEOUS in London. We've had temperatures in the mid 70's, bright, sunny blue skies and just lovely weather all around. Last weekend I went to a county fair in Morden that was close by and also explored Battersea Park which was really nice as well.

Morris Dancers at the fair


Morris Dancers at the fair


Scary Maypole lady


Iconic Battersea Power Station


Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park


Battersea park fountain


Battersea park

British Puddings are AMAZING

First of all, my list of Britishisms has grown a bit so check out the new additions. One of them is one I've know of for awhile and that's "pudding" or "pudd" meaning dessert and in no way meaning the american pudding which is like a custard. Right, so one thing the brits do particularly well is their puddings, my god. I'm in chocolate heaven over here and only have to go as far as the market to get some impressively sweet and chocolately puddings. There's this brand called Gu (with the two dots over the u, whatever that's called) and they do fantastic puddings. There's one called a cheeky+saucy chocolate pot that's just pure dark chocolate mousse meant to be heated up and spread over something but yours truly is too much of a chocoholic to deal with warming it up. I plunge straight into it and look for more when the tiny pot is all gone.

Another recent discovery is this dark chocolate molten cake that takes 30 seconds in the microwave for it to be gooey, chocolately, sinful and absolutely delicious. Another pudding I'd never heard of was banoffee pie which is a mixture of banana and toffee and it's quite a delicious treat! I made one last night, take a look :-)



I LOVE the puddings here, definitely making me one happy (and unhealthy) chap. I've also started a Chocolate quest and mapped places out on google maps. Yes, I'm a chocolately geek!