Welcome to 2007 - Jan in London

31 Jan 2007

The fact that we arrived back in London in the wee hours on the 7th and we were out drinking and dancing by 12noon should have been a hint as to what my first month back in London was going to be like. The last day for a mate Steven was spent enjoying a few hours at The Church (my first time) and then continuing on for some live music at Redback getting home at 2am - a pretty Australian influenced day all up! but still a good time : ) Getting back into the swing of work after over 3 weeks off was a bit tough but I had a lot to catch up on and keep me out of trouble and Gosia to drag me out most evenings and keep me in trouble.




















The Centaur Awards (my works version of a Christmas Party with Awards) was held on the 10th at the Royal Lancaster Hotel. Despite most of my HR team not being able to make it I was surprised how many people I knew across the company and had a great time dancing and drinking and ended up sleeping on one of the hotel room floors that a friend had hired with some other mates rather than catching the night bus home. Getting up at 6am was a bit of a mission and got quite a few stares on the tube going home in the morning in a cocktail dress!! but had to get home, shower, change and be back into work by 8:30, being a Thursday the day just kept going with Scouts and then Ceroc after work so definitely glad I don't work Fridays. Although because I had the day off Gosis wanted to make the most of it so we decided to take a free walking tour of the city which was really informative but the best part was the people giving away free hugs - never one to pass up an opportunity I was totally in there!

We had a new flatmate Cam move into Jarrod's room in the middle of the month, another Aussie guy whose nice and chilled so has fitted into our house really easily. Friday the 19th was time for another house party - this was one a little bigger than last time I think, slightly different crowd because a few of the flatmates have changed since the last party but still very multicultural (we even had some British neighbours from over the back fence come and join in!) It was really pumping until about 4:30am with the last person leaving at 9am when we went out for breakfast : )



















In amoungst all the partying and dancing I even managed to get a bit of culture in this month heading out to see Blue Man Group (the same show I saw in Chicago) with Jayne and a bunch of her Kiwi mates on the 21st and Stomp with some flatties and friends from dancing on the 23rd. Had a great time at both of them and you can get some really good prices if you have time to hunt around, we got into Stomp for £20 including a wood-fired pizza dinner beforehand! It was an amazing show with them able to make some awesome percussion out of anything - matchboxes, paper bags, newspapers, water bottles, brooms, plungers and even the kitchen sink!










It snowed on the 23rd which was beautiful, really hard to believe that less than a week ago everyone had been out in our backyard for the party! It was the perfect send-off for Gosia who left London on the 24th to head to Spain for a month before Argentina - Its really weird with her leaving as she's been here my whole time in London but it gives me an excuse to get down to Spain and visit her sometime in February. The last week of Jan has been pretty relaxed, went on a hospitality course to learn how to do silver service (why not?!), danced away at another Ceroc function aboard the HMS President, caught up with friends for dinner and just had a great time. It's been an awesome month and can't believe its only 10 months till I will be back in NZ - time goes so quickly, February here I come!