Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.

Last weekend Liv and Rod came to town from Copenhagen to spend some time with everyone. Friday night Rod met a bunch of us down at the Duke to hang out for a while. We were, no surprise, back there again Saturday night with Liv and some of their other friends for more wild and craziness. Nothing to over top but always a fun time with them around. I've been having later nights out with them since Andrew hasn't been around. The flat has been completely empty because our other flatmate moved out so it's been a little lonely here.

Sunday I met up with them yet again to go to a park in Fulham for this aussie girls birthday to play some softball. Not everyone knew the rules which made me feel more comfortable about the fact that I'm horrible. We spent 4 or 5 hours playing and just hanging out in the sun, a great way to spend the day. I stopped by WalkAbout with them briefly with them before heading home to met Andrew when he got back from Egypt.

I've been spending a lot of time the past week on campus scanning negatives I have. It's been really neat to see all these images that I had forgotten I even had, I'm having a blast going through them and fiddling around with working them.

Tuesday night my friend Paul and his brother Andy met me at The Duke after work, we went to a little hole in the wall bar they know of that has a vinyal jukebox for us to mess with. From there we went to another bar just around the corner to listen to this band that Paul is friends with called Me and the Beast. They sounded really good, the lead singer was a mix between Regina Spektor, Katy Perry with some Blondie thrown in.

Yesterday I got a bit of a girlie day, met my friend India for some pampering and then we grabbed a drink on Carnaby Street so we could peoplewatch with all the tourists running around. Relaxing way to spend the afternoon.

Last night Uncle Scott was in town and he took Andrew and I out to this great restaurant not too far from The Duke called The Seaport on Bev's (my boss') recommendation. We ate lots of seafood, drank a good amount of wine and were very very full by the time we left the place.

My major project has changed a bit so I'll be spending the next few days re-shooting and making sure I'm really happy with how everything looks. It's been a bit frustrating because I keep trying to please other people and now I'm not happy with how it looks. Results should be up soon.

Good week last week, hopefully this next one can keep up.

True, true, true. Except for the lies.

Last week I did another one of my photoshoots for my major project. Her name is Marie Berry and she is the editor of a magazine that is against typical woman's magazines called Knockback. She was a lot of fun, we ended up spending most of our time on the roof of her building with bubbles blowing around us, it was a beautiful sunny day.

Last Tuesday night began two days of complete chaos in London. The tube drivers went on strike from 7pm Tuesday night until 7pm Thursday morning, nothing was good until Friday morning. It was a ridiculous strike that made the city beyond overcrowded and incredibly hard to get around. It took Andrew over 2 hours to get to work, I tried to do what should have been less then a half-hour journey and it took well over 2 hours. They were striking because in this time of recession when people are losing their jobs and taking pay-cuts they were demanding a 5% pay increase even though they had cut back their hours. Their other great demand was that two tube drives who were terminated with valid reasons be reinstated to their jobs, one of them failed to do safety checks and he opened up the doors on the wrong side of the tube at the platform which means the doors opened to a drop down to the tracks below. It is all so ridiculous and just made so many of us incredibly mad.

I have had a startling revelation that will shock all of you...I like cricket.

It started on Thursday night when I decided to stay for a drink with the kids at work once I finished up. Since everyone was completely enthralled in the game I was bored so I decided to ask some questions, finally see if I could figure it out. Once I began learning some of the rules it started to get more interesting. It's actually very similar to baseball (although never say that to someone from a country where they regularly play, none of them see the similarity). I worked in the pub all weekend and spent the whole time watching cricket so I've gotten fairly good at understanding it.

Saturday Andrew and I both woke up very early (7:30am, see, I said it was early). We decided to be touristy before I had to go to work so we started with the Natural History Museum where we got to run around with little kids and look at dinosaurs (the best part by far). Once we got sick of tripping over kids and felt a bit hungry we walked back by our place to the Saturday market to get some of the fresh cooked sausages, one of them was boar but they were both delicious. From there we headed to Piccadilly circus for a bit of shopping. One the way home we stopped at this cheese stop next to our tube station, it's my new favorite store. We were greeted by the owner as soon as we got in and he had us taste some cheese while helping us select one. He was so friendly that we'll definitely be going back, they even have tables set up so you can sit down have some wine and a selection of cheeses.

On Sunday Andrew decided to run away to Egypt leaving me to fend for myself. It's the one thing he really wanted to do while in Europe so off he went, I couldn't make it because of the money and I have my final crit for my major project on Wednesday. But from what he's told me he's having a blast so far getting burnt in the very hot African sun.

I had my last crit ever yesterday and now I say, "forget that, I do what I want", which last night consisted of eating chinese food and drinking some wine on the couch and today going to the opening of James' show and grabbing some BK on the way home, lets see where it takes me tomorrow, adventures to come.

www.beautifullyunexpected.net

and go

Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste.

Quick catch-up that won't be as quick as it should be.

Andrew and I are all moved into our new flat and it is even more amazing than we imagined. I've got some pictures for you to check it out. The place itself isn't huge but our room is so that makes up for it. And it's very comfortable for us.

View of our street
Our front door
Our bedroom, though this only shows about 1/4 of the room, and we're cleaner then that,
this was us trying to unpack
Our tiny little kitchen

The lounge and dining area, the doorway on the other side goes to the single bedroom

I've finally turned in my last minor project for school so now it's down to just my major project. I have 4 images finished, three schedule to photograph next week and then it will just be two more left, so close and yet so far.

Last week, two days after we moved in, I flew off to Texas to go to Midland and then Houston for Ashley Mullings wedding. It was so beautiful and warm and sunny. I got to spend the first day lying by the pool, getting my hair done and doing some quick shopping. Ashley, Joey and I made a great dinner together, mexican themed with margaritas and all. Wednesday started off the same way, lying by the pool, relaxing but then, as is my luck, I got very sick and stayed the way. I was confined to my bed for the rest of Wednesday and wasn't well enough to do anything for the next few days. Midland was very cool, it is so flat that the sky just seems to take over everything. I have never been anywhere so flat before.
Ashley took me to see Stonehenge at the UT campus outside of Midland it was...strange:

I accidentally laid with my hair in a puddle getting water all over myself when I sat up,
I was very mad at the puddle.

Friday the three of us headed off to Houston for Ashley's bachelorette party and Joey's bachelor party. For Ashley's party we went to this nice mexican restaurant where we had our own cabana outside. The service was bad, one of the girls quesadilla came out with one of the slices partly eaten, the food we did eat was really really tasty though.

Saturday we got our nails done before heading out the rehearsal where most of us got to see where they were getting married for the first time. It's a little wedding centre out in Magnolia in the country a bit called Ashelynn Manor. Absolutely beautiful, and they take care of anything you could think of for the wedding because that's all they do.

The chapel where the ceremony took place, yes it really is that quaint

The Main house where the girls got ready

The carriage house where the reception was held

I got to be the first bridesmaid down the aisle with Ashley's little brother Graham who is just like a little brother to me. It really meant a lot to me because I grew up with the kids and really feel close to them so there isn't anyone I'd rather have leading me down the aisle for this, plus he was a smart ass about the whole thing which made me smile and helped me from getting too emotional. After the rehearsal we had the dinner at an italian place down the street from Ashley's parents house, very tasty of course.

Sunday Mom and Dad picked me up Sunday morning so we could spend a bit of time together before the wedding since we knew I'd be really busy after the wedding. Mom and Dad were staying with their friends the Benham's in The Woodlands so we went over there and Mrs. Benham made me some breakfast before we took a drive around The Woodlands to look at some of the changes, I get so lost there now.

The girliness began around 4 on Sunday, all of us bridesmaids in the suites at Ashelynn Manor doing our hair and make-up and prancing around in our dresses. Before the actual wedding we were herded into a small room at the back of the chapel that has a big one way mirror so that Ashley can see out to everyone before the wedding starts.

It wasn't a very long ceremony and us bridesmaids were released fairly quickly from pictures so we could go enjoy the reception. Again good food, we had lots of dancing, and I managed to sneak away from the bouquet toss. My parents ended up sitting at the same table as a cousin of Ashley's who happens to work for British Airways. Well, the next thing I know I've been upgraded for my flight on Monday, yay.

After we finally left the reception most of us headed off to Ashley's parents house to keep the party going. Graham and I were the last ones to finally head to be around 5am. And of course things didn't really slow down the next day either. Monday Ashley and Joey came back to the house to open wedding presents and then we all headed to lunch at a mexican restaurant in The Woodlands before they jetted off to the airport. I ran some errands with my free time before it was my turn to head out.

So, the return trip. Most amazing plane ride of my life, probably never to be topped again. British Airways has 4 classes. I was bumped from the 4th to 2nd called Club World. This meant that before the flight I got to go hang out in the super nice lounge where they had free drinks ranging from top shelf alcohols to juices and teas, free snacks of all kinds, free wireless internet, our own bathrooms and a nice front desk lady who rounded us all up to go to the gate when it actually started boarding, you know, so we didn't have to mingle with the peons and all. We were the first to board with the families with children, though we got our own line. And once we got to our seat we were handed a glass of champagne to enjoy while we waiting for everyone else to file onboard.

Images of the seats so you get a better idea

These are the seats that actually fold all the way out into beds, all the way down flat, incredible!
We had a three course meal for dinner, starting with duck as an appetizer, I couldn't even eat everything, it was too much. I managed to sleep a bit, much more comfortable then trying to sleep in the normal class. Oh, and because it was Club World we got our own special speedy line to get through customs too so I got out even faster.

This week has been much compared to last in Texas, back to work and working on my major project some more. I feel like I'm going to have a good amount of free time on my hands coming up soon. Somehow I'll manage to fill it though, I'm sure.

There will be more pictures coming later I just didn't take too many because I wanted to enjoy just being there in the moment, look for some soon though.

Swank

So this past week I have been working my butt off for a paper that was due on Thursday. I woke up at 7 every morning, spent so much time in the library and as of Wednesday night I had a bit over the 5000 words due. I woke up Thursday morning to put the finishing touches on it and print out mine and my friend Radi's papers. Looking at his got me thinking that it seemed a bit strange and got me thinking. Digging back into my emails I found the one from our tutor with all the info about our paper on it. Turns out we weren't supposed to write a 5000 word paper, but a 3000 word one. I had to spend the next 45 minutes trying to cut out almost 2000 words out, which is hard to do when it all flows so cohesively. No good at all.

Last weekend we had some people over on Saturday for Cinco De Mayo. I made empanadas and Mom's sangria, which is delicious and potent. It was nice way to spend the day, a good break from my paper.

Sunday Andrew and I decided to wander around a bit because I got the day off from work and it was such a beautiful and warm day. Our main goal of the day was to look at some flats, and we found the perfect one. It is in South Kensington, which is a very posh area.

We are just a five minute walk from a whole section of museums and Hyde Park, about ten minutes away is Kensington high street with all its fancy shopping and cafes. Our flat is small but really nice. We have the master suite with our own bathroom and a walk-in closet, the room itself is huge too. There is a single bedroom in the flat as well but the girl who lives there now is moving out June 1st and the new person doesn't move in until the 15th. Besides that the new person to move in is the girl who owns the place's boyfriend. And since she lives elsewhere in London he'll probably be spending a lot of time at her place. But I think we will get on with him anyhow because he is really into photography apparently and likes to shoot in film so we'll have lots to talk about.

We make the move this coming Saturday, so excited. It's a complete 180 from Harrow with nice tree-lined streets and a thriving, trendy neighborhood. There will be many pictures once we have relocated.

This past weekend was a bit more relaxed. I worked the entire weekend. Friday Andrew, Jemma, Aaron and Chloe came into the Duke to have some drinks and hang out once I was done work. We had a late night of it getting home around 4, which made for a tiring day on Saturday. One of Andrew's good friends, Russell, from Australia landed in London early Saturday morning from Thailand. The three of us went for a quick run around of the city showing Russell some of the highlights before going to Fridays for a late lunch. Then we headed to South Kensington to show Russell the area we're going to live in. I headed off to work while the boys headed home to rest up a bit. I decided to see how long it would take for me to walk from our new place to work. I got very distracted while I was in Hyde Park, sat on a bench, watched some puppies playing. Quiet a nice walk to say the least. The night at work was dead so I got to head home early.

More work on Sunday, mostly slow day but Andrew and Russell came in to hang out a bit and Andrew and I had some dinner once I was done my shift before heading home to watch a bit of tv.

A busy two weeks and things will only get more busy the next two. Fun fun times.

'ello, Sue. I've got legs. Do you like bread? I've got a French loaf. Bye! I love you

The past two weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur and it doesn't look like things will slow down for a while. I've been working like crazy, going to town on my major project (which I am kicking butt at), and trying to have a social life. Last weekend Andrew and I escaped the madness to run away to the mountains of Austria.

To get there we took a shuttle, a plane, two trains and another shuttle to get out to our hostel but it was worth it. The place was so nice it looked like a country hotel, we even got feather comforters and our own bathroom. The owner was so nice, he used to be a chef in Salzburg and made our dinners both nights, beyond worth the 8 euros we paid per meal.

Andrew waiting for our very last train after 6 hours of traveling

And no, those are not paintings, that was the view from our train as we were coming into town.

Our first day in Austria, Saturday, we took the bikes out for a ride into town and to find some late lunch. We had some kind of sausage, frankfurter type thing, I'm not entirely sure, and giant mugs of beer before we kept riding a bit further. We got back to the hostel and since it was so nice and sunny outside we sat out of the deck with another tall beer and played cards until dinner. By the time we finished desert, inside now because the temperature dropped quickly once the sun went down, our heads were almost on the table. Gerhard, the owner, showed us the small lounge and we perked up long enough to watch the first 15 minutes of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, but once we realized that the other one was asleep we decided to call it a night.

Sunday Andrew indulged me and went for a horse back ride with me even though he'd only gone once before. It was an hour long ride that took us down along a river through the forest. The day was again bright and sunny and it was nice to be out riding. We even tried cantering a bit but Andrew kept slipping off his horse so we decided not to pursue that. My horse kept thinking he should be the lead and tried many times to overtake the actual lead horse, especially when we had to stop because Andrews horse was making a snack of tree branches.

I was trying to do what Andrew does whenever we bike ride and take pictures of him from in front to show off

Through my eyes, doesn't it seem so peaceful and calming

Amazingly after that we still had stamina and decided we would take the bikes out for a ride to the lake which was just on the other side of town, a bit less then an hour and a half away. We seemed to just keep going and I started to feel a little faint from not eating so when we saw a sign for food down a road we decided to follow it. Now my excuse is that I don't know the distance of a kilometer...Andrew doesn't have I don't think. The place we were going to eat was 7km away, well not only was this really far it was up a mountain, seriously. I was feeling even more faint, hot and tired, I couldn't even ride the rest of the way up, it was quiet tragic. At least after dinner we went mostly downhill. However, by the time we got back to the hostel we had ride 44km, epic. There was another delicious dinner and some drinks with Gerhard before crashing early again.

Images from our last bike ride, ever.

Those are the Alps and that is snow on top of them (and there were people skiing up there), the river looks brown but as you can tell from the image below it is anything but, the camera just had a hard time getting everything to light evenly.

One of the rivers down by the bottom, all of them are this clear and it's cleaner to drink from here then any other water because it's fresh from the mountain. As Gerhard told us, water is clean again once it runs over 7 stones. We tried it and it was pretty good.

Monday morning we had a nice breakfast and relaxed in the lounge watching a movie before we caught our shuttle, two trains, a plane and another train home again.

Since getting back I've buried myself in working on my paper that's due in a week, it's not a lot of fun at all. And back to it I go in fact.

“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Our first impression of Newquay was gloomy, it didn't perk up very much the next day as the rain came down. We were both nervous about our first lesson but also very excited. Getting into wetsuits is quiet an adventure, not one we were excited to repeat over and over again, but thank God for those suits and the little booties on our feet. Once we made it into the water we barely felt the cold at all and it was actually quiet pleasant. To be honest the water didn't feel much different from the ocean off the coast of Maine in the beginning of the summer. The weather was what you would expect in England, gloomy and rainy. We actually didn't even notice the rain while we were surfing because you're so wet anyhow.

Ellie managed to make it up on our first day three times with the instructor steadying the board behind her as she went, I didn't quiet manage that far so it's good we had a few more days ahead of us. I could get to my knees on the board but would lose my balance when I tried to shift to my feet. Thankfully I'm stubborn and very determined to get up. By the end of the first day my arms can barely lift me on to the board and when they do they refuse to go any further to actually get me moving on the board, two hours is definitely enough to begin with in the ocean.

Our group on the first day was two loud Canadians, very nice girls, and three British boys, the youngest being probably 12 or 13, he, of course, picked it up right away and was off in no time.

The whole thing is nice and relaxing, there isn't tons to do in Newquay since it's the very beginning of the season, most shops are closing by 6pm. So we have a relaxing breakfast down in the bar of the hostel watching the ocean, and relaxing dinners moving slowly as we are tired from our lessons. The rest of the time we read, watch some movies and wander around town a bit. A very nice way to spend a few days.

The second day was a much smaller group, just Ellie and I and this guy Kit from our first day. We had a different instructor, Mike, who apparently was once the 9 year running undefeated surf champion in South Africa. I really liked his way of teaching, he was very encouraging and I managed to ride 5 or 6 waves that day, 2 of them on my own. It didn't rain at all but the wind made it much colder then the first day and by the time we were done we could barely get out of our suits because our hands were so stiff.

We grabbed hot showers and then met Mike, Kit and some of the other people who work for the surf school at the bar in our hostel for a drink. Than Ellie, Kit and I headed to a local pub for some dinner, it was a place Ellie and I went our first night too, good food and fairly inexpensive which is good because the hostel has no kitchen for us to make our own meals in. Dinner was good and it was nice to have some extra company along, Kit was on holiday by himself so I think he was glad to be hanging around too. After dinner Ellie and I settled into our familiar routine of relaxing with a bit of tv and reading.

Friday we decided to take a walk around to the other beach in Newquay. We walked along the coast for it, it was a good stroll along the cliffs with the blue sky and ocean crashing down below us, pictures just can't seem to capture how lovely it really is. Third day out surfing was a very large group with 16 students and 3 instructors. Luckily since Ellie, Kit and I had been at it for a few days we got an instructor to ourselves since we were working on different things than the other group. We began learning paddling. You have to get it just right where you paddle until after the wave has caught you and you give yourself enough momentum to carry on with the wave so you can stand. I managed it a few times, just once or twice by myself, but the big problem today was that there were so many people in such a small space of water and none of the other students seemed to realize that you needed to get out of the way of people who were surfing so I had to bail out a few times so I wouldn't hit anyone. All in all it was a good day, fun as they have all been. Since it's a Friday the town has gotten more crowded with people coming in for the weekend and a start of the season party on Saturday night. It's noticeably louder and more crowded as we walked around for dinner and the bars are more crowded for sure.

Our coastal walk:

Rows and rows of crazy little beach huts that people rent out during the summer

Our fourth surf day, Saturday, was insanely busy. It was a group of about 30 students and 5 instructors. The waves weren't that great but it was nice to just sit out in the water talking to Mike about tides and swells and such. He's a very fascinating guy. He comes from South Africa and was at one point the 9 times undefeated surf champion from there. He's been surfing for 30 years, painting for 20, sponsored by Santa Cruz surf company, very intelligent and helpful and on top of all of that a genuinely nice guy. Saturday night he had the opening of his first exhibition of some of his paintings and he invited us along to that. The work is really amazing, it's just fascinating how much all around talent he has. After they shut the gallery down we all moved upstairs to the bar below our hostel to grab a few more drinks and test out our dance moves. It was almost like a weird time warp as hair styles, clothes and music all came out of the 90s. It was really great to be included so quickly in the surf community here, being with Mike and the other instructors did a lot for us social wise to get included.

Sunday morning, day five of lessons, we had a morning lesson. It was another group of 30 students but nicely we've been grouped with the advanced students who stick with Mike, he has really done a lot to take us under his wing that he didn't need to do. It was a bad day for me, I was frustrated, only managed to get up once and on my first wave of the day I wiped out and jammed my leg into the floor of the ocean hurting my knee, not very smooth of me. The lesson flew by quickly though and before we knew it they were telling us time to catch the last wave and head in. Once we were done we had the whole day ahead of us so we grabbed some lunch and settled on the beach to soak up some of the sun and enjoy the nice day. Another relaxing day.





Yesterday was our last day, it was so sad to end it but at least we ended on a good note. We had a morning lesson, just us and Mike. It was amazing. Ellie and I both hit 95% of the waves, I even ended up paddling onto two by myself which is hard to do with the fat waves. It was the perfect day to end on and we both had to suppress a groan when they said it was time to come to catch our last wave in. We grabbed lunch at the bar in the hostel with Mike and then walked into town with him to say our goodbyes before he headed home. Ellie and I bummed around town before catching our train home.

Ellie, Mike and I

It was an incredibly long train ride home and we didn't want to see it all end. We're already planning our trips back to surf with Mike some more, he has told us about a good competition coming up that he thinks we should come back and watch, it's a night competition so we could get our surfing in during the day and watch everyone surf that night. All in all one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Pictures of us surfing:











Surfing is such an amazing concept. You're taking on Nature with a little stick and saying, 'I'm gonna ride you!' And a lot of times Nature says, 'No you're not!' and crashes you to the bottom.
Jolene Blalock