Proms and Shakespeare

It has been a great weekend. The best weekend I have had for a while. It makes up for an awful week at work.

Friday it was my friends birthday's , plural because they are twins. We went to the reconstruction of Shakespeare' globe threate on south bank. The Royal Shakespeare company was performing Anthony and Cleopatra. The play I studied in my final year of school. We were cheapos and brought the £5 standing tickets for the yard.

The play of course is an excellent tragery written by the master himself. But the actors were amazing too. On the sides of the stage were 2 claudlens burning incense and later held fire so turning them into torches. The actor who played Cleopatra was great bringing to life a wilfull, strong, emotional women. Who at the desperate to have Anthony to herself. But circumstances rule that they are not to live happily ever after.

So the play was 3 hours long and we stood for 3 hours. The last half an hour was such a struggle but it was worth it.

Then on saturday after a sleep in. My friend and I went to Hyde park together with about 40,000 other people for proms in park. The last night of the proms festival. We got there with our picnic from lovely M&S. Sat down with a good view of the stage and 2 huge screens. Terry Wogan was MCing the event. And I must admit he did a good job, even if some of his jokes were a bit flat. They had a ladyAlison who played the trumpet slim girl but boy so could play that thing. Lionel Richey was there as unfortunely Chico umm say no more he has an ego big enough for 5 people!
Also a romanian couple who sang. Then finally at 9.30pm we linked up with The Royal Albert Hall. To start the fisherman's horn pipe they had a playoff with The Albert hall, hyde park, swansea, glasgow, belfast, and mancester. Of course hyde park was the best.

Then we got in the pomp and circumstance, rule britania, Land of Hope and Glory, Jersulem. God save the Queen, and Auld Lang sang to finsh off.
It was great signing the patriotic songs the loudest you could with full heart behind it. Maybe more so since it wasn't that long ago Britain was threaten. And the values of Britain the freedom to travel ect were under fire.

Dahab

During my trip to Egypt we spent 4 days of bliss in Dahab on the red sea. We ate great food, loads of seafood. Calamari , Snapper, Shrimp. I am a seafood fan so I was in heaven. Added to that we had freshly squezzed mango juice. Yummy.

Apart from the climb up Mt Sinai we had a very relaxing time. Cut off from the rush of life we chilled out. Twice we went snorkelling at the blue hole, which is a big 100m hole. Some crazy people were holding a free diving competition, thats no breathing equpiment and one girl went down to 40m! There is coral reef running along the coast. We hired the equipment and went for a stunning swim. The water was so clear and the fish blue, green, multicoloured, and more. Were just amazing. The just ignored us and swam around. We had pizza at a restruent over looking the beach sitting on cushions around a low table with more food then we could eat. Then back in the water for another swim. Ahh

I also had a go at scrub diving. My friend and I went on an intro dive were the instructor controls the buoyancy, air pressure ect and you just get to swim around looking at the fish. Learnt the three basic skills, clearing mask, equalizing ear pressure, what to do if mouth piece falls out. And some hand signals like ok, I've got a problem, look at that. and then we were off. And it was amazing. I loved it when I have some spare money I will go back to Dahab and get qualified as a diver. ie get my PADI certificate. Yeah baby.

Sherlock Holmes

Been reading Sir Arther Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books recently and getting quite hooked. It is amazing how Sherlock puts together lots of little details and observations to solve the crime. Or little observations about the wear on a watch or the footprints of someone to gain a picture of them. For example with the footprints it may be a deep clear one indicating a good quality boot so someone with money and the length between the footprints can in be used to work out the height of someone.

It is fascinating how all sorts of little seemingly insufficient things can be used to build up a complete picture of someone. So this has just got me thinking what can other people pick up about me? What are the little things that I do or how I act that either creates a good or bad image of me.

And what can people read into my character and personality? For example when I am feeling nervous and wanting to hide/blend in the background I’ll wear black and not say much. But when I am comfortable and confident I’m more likely to wear colourful things. The other day I took a risk, well for me, and brought a brightly coloured peach top. Normally I go for blues(my favourite colour), black, brown or army green colours when buying clothes.

London

It's a tough city to live in. It's a hard city to leave. London is the number one city in the world. It has somebody from every corner of the world. You hear a number of different languages on the bus or tube. It is a very densily crowded city, apparently the 4th most densily populated city in the world. But you can wandered down oxford street in a sea of people and be lonely. I have bumped into friends on the last two occasions against the odds!

All around there is history, reminders of times gone past. It is from ancient times, you can see a roman wall outside the london museum. And some of the buildings around are centaries old eg from Elizabethian period. But London is not behind the times it is modern and has everything for a modern life.I'm just thinking out loud because one of my good friends is leaving soon.

The other thing about London is you can feel like your life is on hold. Friends, and siblings back home are having children. Getting a house ect. And you are still sharing a house with 6 others, paying rent and not even owning a car. But on the plus side you get to party hard and not worry about responsibilities ie kids.

Egypt

Well in May of this I went to Egypt with some friends. Had amazing time with On-the-Go tours. The tour company looked after us so well. And Egypt was fantastic. It is awesome finally seeing the pyramids and temples which you learnt about in primary school. And yes that is me in the baking hot egyptian sun. Temperatures never below 35 C.

• And yes I did go for a camel ride. And no I didn't enjoy it. They are awful animals!!!!!! You are sitting about 3m or more from the ground, much higher then a horse. But you don't feel safe like on a horse. The camel sways from side to side as it walks. You feel like you are going to fall off. And when the camel gets up, first it is the back legs that go up. So you are sliding forwards then the front so you are sliding backwards. And getting down is the same except your camel might not want to go down!!! Mine didn't it was hissing and spitting I thought it was going to blot into the dessert.

When in Dahab we had a day well night trip to Mt Sinai. At 11pm we left the hotel to travel 2 hours to the base of Mt Sinai. After police checks we starting climbing the mountain. Some people took camels up but we stayed safe and just walked up. There were lots of people walking up. All along the way were coffee shops selling coke, snack food and coffee. Then we got to the bottom of the 750 stairs . And what a mission to climb them. Finally got there hired a blanket for 10 egyptian pounds and found our spot on the side of the mountain. In all it took 2 1/2 hours to climb. We saw the sunrise at 5.40am. But any great spiritual encounter never happen. Maybe because everyone was going "wow! what a sunrise." "I'm straving pass the crisps." But still it was amazing being on the mountain that Moses received the 10 commandments. Then we had the walk down the mountain side to the church at the bottom to see the burning bush of Moses! I kid you not. Looked like any old bush to me. But the monks who live there very strongly believe it is the actual burning bush.

Here is the bush. You can make your own mind up!

Comics

I love comics. Last night I couldn't sleep so pulled out my Calvin & Hobbes book. Which by the way didn't help I just kept my room mate awake with my laughing!

I like Calvin's witty take on life. The way he is always up to something, creating dinosaur footprints in the snow of the front yard, making a snowman army. or destroying the evil leaf pile monster. Also the way he interacts with his tiger Hobbes how they play tricks on each other and compete with clavinball or scrabble.

But also the comments:
"I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification. "
"Every time I've built character, I've regretted it"
"As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway. "
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. "

Anyway there's a few go and google to find the actual comic strips, if you have never read them you are in for a nice surprise.


I also like Garfield, Nemi(a Norweyian comic translated into English about a sacrastic gothic chick), Footrot flats( a kiwi comic about a rural farm). Oh and the simpsons they are fantastic!

PS you now know what to get me for christmas!

It's summer in London

I know everyone is talking about the heatwave. So he is my 2 pence worth it glorious. I love it. My tan is coming back at last(very important to a little kiwi girl).

The temp's are 32 C and today was 34 C. Fantastic. Sitting in the park during lunch time is so lovely. But some people ain't happy and are wishing the cold weather would come again. But for me the winter was too long and summer can go on and on for all care.

Just wish there was a nice beach nearby.

Einstein

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein

God doesn't play dice.-- Albert Einstein

I love the quotes of Einstein when I was about 13 a book of his quotes fell into my lap. Well, I somehow came across it at the library. (I always had 5 or more books out from the library and weekly changed them)

What I like about Einstein is he was one very smart scientist, but still fully human. He wasn't some workaholic who couldn't have friends or a good time. He had a sense humour, played the violin and enjoyed life. He also was involved in charity organizations and also politically eg nuclear weapons and restrictions on their use. Also he had a belief in God.

I just read the first quote and it describes me a little at the moment. I want to get all the facts see everything nicely presented. If there isn't evidence to back something up then it isn't real/true. But you can lose the overall picture of what you looking at.

For example at the moment I'm trying to get a better understanding of the Bible. But I've already hit the first big stumbling stone. Creation/evolution but the important thing I think is to keep the overall picture in mind. Which is somehow by some means God created the world.