wimbledon.

for those of you who havnt been monitoring the english weather, we've had a heat wave over here for the last 2 weeks pretty much, been really nice sunny weather getting up to around 30 on the hottest days, and i had friday off last week, so i thought, great weather, day off, grand slam tennis tournament on just down the road. woohoo. so i headed off to wimbledon, i didnt have a ticket so i had to wait in a the queue. it was 1.2km long. i ended up standing there for 3 hours 45 mins, but it was actually pretty fun cause i was standing next to a guy from london, and another guy from denmark, they were both heaps funny- so we were there laughing the whole time. the sun was blazing down the whole time we were standing in the line- the moment, i pay for my ticket and step thru the gates, the clouds start rolling over. i raced over to Henman hill,( a hill with a giant screen where all the people who can't get into centre court sit to watch the big matches) and managed to watch the last 3 points of lleytons win over some dude (whoever he beat in the 2nd round). there was heaps of aussies on the hill so it was a great atmosphere for the 50 seconds i was there. i then raced to one of the outside courts, and there was mixed doubles playing, i hadnt heard of any of them, but the standard was really good, some top points- its great on the outer courts because you can literally sit about 1m away from the players, so your really close to the action. they make impossible shots look so easy. it was 4-3- on serve- in the first set when it started raining. and that was the last tennis i saw. i would have loved to have been able to watch tennis all day, even the people youve never heard of are so good, its cool watching anyone. if you go to wimbledon you have to be prepared to queue. you have to wait for everything-to get in, for food, for autographs, theres even a 20min line to get into the gift shop- its crazy busy, but an awesome experience, hopefully one day ill get to go back for a full days play.

after coming home from the tennis, there was a few of us looking for soemthing to do, and as there is an ice rink about 50m from our hotel, we decided to give it a shot- turns out we went on the wrong night, as there was about 300, 12-17 year olds there, and i was like a disco on ice thing. you can probably imagine. i hadnt skated for a couple of years, so i was a bit dodgey. i was doing pretty well until about 5 mins from the end of the session. when i got my skates i asked for the speed skates(because im speedy)...but i got those dodgey bluse ones with the jagged pointy bit on the tip of the blade(same as the ones at boondall.) so i was going along, really fast(because im speedy) and the tip dug into the ice and i hit the deck, and kinda landed on my knee and hip, kinda hard, but i was ok. because it was the end of the session all the ice was churned up and slushy, so i was like sliding across a lake, if thats possible. but all in all it was a great day. it probably doesnt sound to good as your reading it- with wimbledon getting rained out and me stacking it on ice. but it was. smile. andyb

queens of the stoneage.

a bit of a tricky title today, but it will make sense after you have finished reading the rest of this post. if you want to see a replica of my room, go to the comments from the previous post and check the picture that adam put on, its exactly the same, except its sky blue with a white roof, thanx mate. i have done a bit of touring over the last few days during my time off. On friday i was going to go into london with a mate from south africa, we had it all planned- but didnt end up making the 7am train we were hoping for so, just chilled for the day, but decided we had to go somewhere we couldnt just sit around, so we looked where the buses could take us. saw windsor on the list and jumped on. took about 45 mins (via legoland) on the dodgyist old bus you can imagine, every time it was idiling i thought it was going to blow up. the first thing you notice when you arive in windsor is the castle, obviously what its famous for, but i had pictured like, a mansion sized castle, just something the old queen could live in. but its huge the outer wall is like a 500m long, you can go inside and check out everything, but it was shut by the time we got there, and it also cost £12- would have been a tough decision, but it was cool to actually be there. i guess i actually didnt see much of the castle, but i saw the outer wall. yay. the town of windsor is really nice, like a step back in history, all the buildings are old, a heap of little cobblestone alleys and sidestreets- we were there in the evening so it was nice and peaceful, we stopped and chilled on a small little bridge, when crossed the river thames, and a busker dude came up and started playing classical guitar-was cool as just chillin. we also visited eton college which is where i believe will and harry went to school. So that was windsor really nice little place to chill.

A few days ago i heard about stonehenge, im not sure how many of you guys back at aus have heard of it, but if you saw a picture you'll know what im talking about. look it up on google pictures. So pretty much its a few circles of big rectangular rocks built into what looks like a sacred site or place of worship or something. apparently they were built about 5000 years ago by sun worshippers. Supposedly when the sun rises it shines thru one of the arches and something special happens. as you can tell, my knowledge of its history is slightly sketchy. So a mate said she'd heard of a festival which going on monday night. Its called summer soltice and its the longest day of sunshine for the year, so because stonehenge was built by sun worshippers; hippies and the like have made the habit of going out there to celebrate the longest day of sunshine. so i thought, cool, sounds interesting- so we headed out, i expected to see a few hippies and that gathering round, we got there about 9pm at night, was probably about 300 others there as well, like i expected. the day of the soltice is the only day you can actually touch the stones, so we wandered over and were looking around- and one guy started playing a djemba(big drum) so we're just sittign the chillin and talking to people etc. gradually more and more musicians came along and joined in. at its peak there were about 30 people playing drums, othere playing piccolos, recorders, harmonica, maraccas, tambourines, digeredoos, one guy was playing an indian guitar( a mandolin i think) and and another dude had a muslim prayer horn that was about 2m long..and they were all playing in harmony, one guy on a drum would give the beat, then the rest would just join in...sounded so cool, and everyone was so friendly and just chillin dancing, bobbing their head etc...was like an outside, natural night club, the tribal beats were cool, we were right in the centre of it all as we got to the middle of the rock circle pretty early...we left at about 12, so had been there for about 3 and a half hours...we left the circle and i couldnt believe it- while we were in there another 15,000 people had arrived. just everywhere. crazy stuff. one official guy said at the peak, which was sunrise, there was more than 20,000 people there, it was packed. was such a great atmosphere it didnt matter what colour your skin was, what part of the world you were from, how long your dreadlocks were, how much weed you had smoked- everyone just got along so well and chilled together, was truely awesome. No one goes to sleep, everyone is awake all night chillin/partying so they can watch the sun come up. was great. was also freezing as they day before was hot (30+) so i was wearing shorts, thongs and a jumper. so i was freezing for like 5 hours, thats why i was excited to see the sun come up- not to watch it through an arch, but to warm up.

So over all ive had a great few days, had some really cool experiences which is what i came here to do, so far so good, i hope to get some pictures up here soon, hope life is going great for you, keep smilin :) andyb

broomball.

hey team, it feels as though i havent written for ages, because i have dont so much stuff the last week, been mega busy, but im finally on the computer so ill try and update you with as much accuracy as possible. here we go. so i caught the overlander train from waterloo, london to bracknell, which is a small little town about 1 hours west of london which offers very little other than headquarters for multinational companies and other industrial buildings etc. not much doing there (but it is pretty close to windsor castle and legoland. can't lose.), so got to the train station and was stoked that is was closed, as i happened to not have ticket and therefore could just walk round the station rather than going thru the turnstiles-which you need a valid travel pass for. sweet. so there was 4 random people who got off the train and we were all standing there waiting for a taxi- i was first in line- a taxi pulled up and i asked the others where they were going- it turned out one of the girls lived around the corner from the hotel-so we split the cab- she was pretty cool, ended up getting along quite well. sweet. so i got to the hotel and was shown to my room, which is pretty decent, but its kind of a loft with a slanted roof on one side, so i cant really stand up straight on one side of my bed, theres 50 staff rooms, and i live in the main section, like the bit that joins all the corridors together, and i also live right under the bell tower- the bell rings every 15mins - which has its pros and cons- good because you dont need a watch and get quarterly time updates...bad because you can only sleep in 15 minute intervals. ha. yeah so monday was my first day at work, i met the crew, all pretty cool workmates- so should have a bit of fun there, and also the waves department(the leisure dept-where i work), is the most laidback in the whole hotel- everyone else has to wear suits and look professional 24/7 - we just chill, and its cool cause you can just sit around and talk to customers and have a joke and that so its cool as...but at the same time its not very stimulating...it can get a bit boring during the day. see how we go..think ill give it 3 months, then might look to move to a different part of england. ive met some really cool people here as well, heaps of internationals, and most of them live up in the staff area as well, so its cool just chilling up there, listening to music and that-and listening to the bell. the guy who owns the hotel, also owns about another 15 companies...apparently he's the 36th richest guy in britain. right behind the hotel is the ice-skating rink and a dry ski slope*, which is cool because you can walk to them, and you get a tidy staff discount. woohoo. * the ski slope is probably about 100m high, and its like this plastic grass like stuff...like astro turf...and you can ski and snowboard on it..like theres chairlifts, ramps and stuff...its actually really cool, id never seen anything like it...so ill have a go on that as much as i can, cause its good to get the basics on a snowboard, so i cant get that sorted so i dont waste 3 days learning when i arrive in austria or switzerland (take your pick, ha)...cool cool.

was at work on wednesday and the girl from the taxi dropped in, had a chat and she goes, ' so do you wanna hook up?' and i must have given her a weird/startled expression, after explaining that she meant hang out, i was like yeah cool, so we ended up chillin out that night(nothing in it-just mates) and just played a bit of pool and that. i suck at pool, i already knew that, but i just reinforced the fact by sinking the 8 ball on my very first shot. unlucky. so that was cool just chilling and seeing a bit of bracknell and reading, its cool knowing someone who owns a car- so fun times. thursday night i saw a poster that advertised a game of broomball at the ice rink- didnt have a clue what it was so went down to the rink with a mate from south africa and had a social game of broomball...it was great fun. pretty much its ice hockey, but without skates on, and the ball is like a size 1 soccerball but rubber and really light. so it was awesome just running around on the ice and sliding around. you can actually run pretty quick, you just cant stop for about 5 metres. so i loved it-as most of you will know i like any kind of sport and i also like random stuff, so if you add them both together broomball fits in perfectly. got asked to permantly join one of the teams, so if i can get the time off, ill be running around on the ice every thursday night. woohoo.

this is a giant post, im even using paragraphs. hardcore. on saturday i went to church at newbold college, which is a college run by the seventh day adventist church, so that was really cool, met some more really top people, and college is out at the moment, so most of them arnt there, so im really looking forward to going there and getting to know a few more people. on sunday we had what is called communications day, when all the companies that old mate owns get together pretty much for team building activities such as: jumping castle volleyball, archery, learning the haka, playing tribal hippie drums and heaps of stuff...was a good laugh, then everyone came back to our hotel and had a bbq and went to the nightclub and chilled and that- pretty fun, heaps of people, i had an early one cause i had to work at 6 this morning, still had fun, anyways i think thats about it for now, my fingers are starting to cramp and you are probably bored to the max so ill wind it up...hope your enjoying life...keep smilin :) andyb

peak hour london

Ive had a great couple of days over here, it think my last post went up too saturday, so ill continue on from there, sunday i just chilled and went down to hyde park, where they have this place called speakers corner. its pretty much just an open space where people bring a little step ladder, stand on it and they can talk about whatever they want, although the vast majority usually concern politics and religion. some of it is quite interesting, some is just plain rediculous. so people just gather around the speakers to listen, debate, haggle, yell and in extreme heated cases even a few punches can fly around, was pretty fun. then i cruised over to the 'football fields' section of hyde park, which is pretty much the whole thing as they are crazy bout it. i ended up playing with a mixed bunch of arabs, albanians, turks and 1 aussie ( me), was great fun and met a few cool people at the same time. London is such a multicultural city, its amazing- you think you can pick some people- like hes defintitely a pom, then he starts speaking perfect french (because i know how french sounds, and know when its spoken perfectly.ha.) but you know what i mean. so many people here dont speak english as their 1st language, there people from all corners of the world here. on monday,( bank holiday(public holiday), gav(a guy i met in america) came over from ireland with his drama/arts college class, and they had a bit of spare time, so me and andy hung out with him for a couple of hours, and just chilled. good fun. Tuesday i didnt do a lot, as i had to wait for a few phone calls reguarding job opps. lined up an interview for 11am on wednesday morning. was stoked with that. tuesday night we went out again with gav and his class, had a great night just chillin and kicking back, and as there was 30 drama students there, it was really funny- met some more cool people to visit when i get to ireland as well, but the night kind of got away on me(the sun goes down at 9:30pm, which puts you out a bit) as i was having a ripper time, looked at my watch and it was 3am, thought id better get home and get some rest for my interview, as i got to the bus stop i saw the bus i needed pulling out. i waited 40 mins for the next one. got to sleep at about 4am. woke up at 6:30am and ironed my shirt and pants and that, dressed up a bit for the interview. at 8am was standing on the tube platform, waiting for delayed train. it ended up never coming, with a severe delay warning blaring over loudspeaker. so i headed for the busses, which were now crammed full of people fighting to get to work on time. it ended up taking me just under 2 hours to go 13kms. which is close to the average human walking speed of 6km/hour. how fun is PEAK HOUR LONDON. we were lucky if we could go 100m on the bus without stopping for something, was crazy. ended up working alright i got to the train station near my interview at 10:52am, after a 5 min taxi ride, i was standing in the lobby with 3 mins to spare. easy. had a ripper interview. i start on monday, working in a 4 star hotel as a gym and spa attendant. its a live-in job with free food, so that should be great for saving money. and itll be nice to eat something other than baked beans on white toast. (kidding mum). and its 2 mins away from a church i think ill like, so its all working out pretty well, thank God. so thats about all that happening at the moment, hope all is well where you are. think i might go play football with some randoms. keep smilin:) andyb

ps. happy birthday dad.