September it seems

During September we settled into our new flat, Kev spent most nights on hold to call centers trying to set up and move accounts and I sorted out the parking permit. Did I mention previously that nothing is easy in this country...? Yeah, you don't want to hear about that though, moving is a nightmare in any country, hopefully we manage to stay for the one year lease.

Months previous to the diet I lined up tickets for Debra and I to see Madonna live at Wembley. My walkman and first tape The Immaculate Collection were solace on our yearly holiday drive up to Pauanui for camping holidays in my junior years. Lets just say despite my father’s fantastic music back catalogue, I can thank my mother for allowing me to learn all the words to Cliff Richards "Greatest Hits". So finally a chance to see Madge, if not for anything but a slice of the Immaculate memories. My sister remembered a drunken suggestion I had the previous week to dress up all 80's tragic. If it wasn't for Primarni I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have gotten off the ground. It was pix shopping back and forth and eventually we found our selves on the tube heading for the stadium with pink leggings, leg warmers, custom off-the-shoulder t-shirts and... blue hot pants. Yeah, it was terrible and missed placed lost fashion but we got a few good laughs out of it and hell, we don't know enough people in this city to care! The concert was great, no warm up act but no one else could get us into the groove right?

And Kev and I finally started to book off-this-small-island holidays, with our first trip booked for Sicily in October. Within a few weeks of this exciting, non-refundable booking I had a request from a team leader at work to help on an upcoming 'black launch' in the States. Before I got too excited I was reminded of previous work trips and the 12+ hour days they included. But still, the chance to charge for hours sitting in transit on a business class flight - with the hot towel (which by the way, what are they supposed to do exactly, has everyone else just eaten KFC or something?). So after some launch date move around (not specifically for me, even if I like to think so), it all timed perfectly for me to come back and then hope on a nasty cheap airline to fly onto our Italian holiday. So unfortunately I had to miss out on round two of The Church and the long awaited night at Shakespeare's Globe. Toni had organised the tickets to see A Midsummer's Nights Dream back in June and seeing something at The Globe is on my must do list. Hopefully Kev enjoyed it enough to go again next season...

September 20

So for my last weekend in the UK for a while, Kev and I headed to Oxford for the day. Oxford is a really nice little city that calls itself The City of Dreaming Spires (you wanna have a crack at that one Hamilton?), it has tons of beautiful old stone buildings, most of which are decorated with gargoyles. We visited the Oxford Castle that went on to being a prison and then a movie location for films. Part of it is a really plush hotel now, and the grounds around it were hosting part of the Earth from the Air exhibition.

September 29

So my work trip was to launch some new laptops, not that I knew that until I got there, as it was super secret squirrel. The company has fired people for blogging and leaking information so I was Agent 99 on the whole thing (without the bangs). Though we really are the end of the line, if it hasn't leaked by the time we're working on it, it would be a first. So our flights over there were with Virgin's Premium Economy, I believe they use the word Economy to make it sound affordable for Jo the Plumber. We flew out on a Monday and it didn't take too long to adjust to the time difference, though my accent was a bigger challenge. After confusing a barman got a round of laughs from my colleagues, I requested everyone translate/order for me from then on.

The 17 day trip was almost entirely spent in a Cupertino office but a few of us did manage to get out to San Francisco for a day of touristing and a night out in the Mission District. Most days were long hours followed by work-expensed dinners out. Which sounds great at first but it wasn't long until my sparrow like eating habits and fussiness was a new point of interest for my colleagues, when they'd run out of accent related jokes of course. It was a great experience just to be in America for a while, don't think I could ever manage driving on the other side of the road but it was good preparation to help Kev driving in Sicily when I got back. The only downside of having a holiday planned for my return was that I couldn't take advantage of the free flights out and extend my trip for a few days in San Fran for more touristing and shopping on the exchange rate. As I work on the shopping street of London you would think I shop a lot, and I did use to be a clotheshorse when I first arrived in Sydney. But as its always too expensive I don't really shop much, as a result, a combination of the exchange rate and US labels being much cheaper in the US, I went a little bit nutso on the shopping. But it was fun and did I mention cheap?

I was there during election fever, in fact I learnt more about the election in the US than the one in my home country. I'm not sure how long it will be before I work and live in NZ again, and though it's a short-sited view, I don't really feel I have the right to vote there based on this. Also I'm poorly informed, in fact truth be told I'm still not sure what the new Prime Minister is called or looks like. And because I'm out of touch I kinda miss Aunty Helen and don't know what she's done to be booted out.

The flight back to London was on the go live day and before everyone else. Adjusting to the time difference going back is supposedly worse, so I slept as much as I could going back and expensed a London Cab through traffic to get home on Thursday morning. At £90 it's not an exercise I'm likely to repeat on my own coin. Trying to keep awake I repack a bit for our 6am flight the following morning before heading into the city to see Rain Man, an adaptation of the movie. I believe the only reason this was booked a month or two earlier was due to Josh Hartnett headlining in Tom Cruises role. The character originally played by Dustin Hoffman was played by Adam Godley, who saved the show, fortunately it wasn't Josh's acting abilities we went to see. Home for a few hours of sleep before we drove up to Standsted Airport and RyanAir's lego upright chairs.