The Land of Cheesy Whotsits: Top Highlights of 2009...so far

Angel Foodies

Never spending Sunday evening alone again! After the new year we instituted something of a Sunday evening dinner club for the angel crew. We've taken turns hosting and we all bring dishes or vino. We've had Italian, Asian, seafood.. One of the most amazing Sunday nights with Kia, Trine, Tim, Cecilia, Anna and Tommy we managed to all book flights to Munich for Oktoberfest and book double adjoining rooms at the Munich Marriott on points-so productive! Its amazing how giddy u can get thinking about leederhosen and beer!

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

We all gave it our best shot at the private karaoke bar in angel called lucky voice. Although we were slightly inconvenienced by the six person max rule in our private karaoke room, we adorned boas, hats, tambourines and sang til we were hoarse. We had a couple who were our star rappers and heard a great rendition of summer nights. The highlight - our room came with its very own "THIRSTY" button - gotta keep the drinks comin! Hmm...may have to be a future business idea for dc! http://www.luckyvoice.com/venues/islington

Crotchets and Quavers

Thanks to one of my fellow colleagues I decided to join the angel orchestra. There's about 50 ppl when everyone's there and its got strings, brass and winds. Joining the orchestra has definitely flooded me with memories from my youth, although I wish my violin playing ability would come back with the same ease. We rehearse at St. Silias church and it takes me 10 min to walk there from my flat!

Interesting facts:

- there's an elderly man that plays the cello wearing a skirt (not a kilt), thank goodness he wears tights as well - very cute last week, they were polka dot

-crotches are what we know to quarter notes and quavers are eighth notes (this is important when the conductor asks you to play the first set of semi-quavers after the second crotchet). Who knew there is such thing as a hemi-demi-semi-quaver! WTF!

-small town - there's another new violinist who grew up in northern va and went to William and Mary-its customary to have tea, coffee, and biscuits served during our break

-like joining kickball, the orchestra is as much of a drinking and social club as it is about music, we go to the castle after our rehearsals!

http://the-angel-orchestra.co.uk/tao/Welcome.html

Supersnow

Really? Did u think I was going to miss the superbowl just cause of a five hour time difference - are u kidding me? We headed to the sports cafe near Piccadilly circus at 8pm. I don't even think I can give this story justice. It was starting to flurry really hard by then. Kia made reservations for dinner a while back under the conditions that some of us had tickets to the superbowl party and others didn't. The hostest had confirmed that would be ok and when the party started at 10 those without tickets would just have to leave. We should have known it was too good to be true.
So at 8pm, Kia, Trina, Cecilia, Tim, Simon (Tommy and Anna had flight delays) show up at the sports cafe and see this really long line, which is for ticket holders. management was holding the crowd outside until they could hang up a curtain at the entrance. Immediately we try to tell someone that we have a dinner reservation since we didn't think that would mean we'd have to stay in line.

After it seemed without a ticket they wouldn't be able to get in Cecilia and Tim left and Simon, Trine, and I decided that maybe we should join the line before it gets any longer. Kia- who has proved her negotiation skills before decided to give it one more shot with the general manager. After a while the gm asked what he wanted us to do about it, and Kia said - let us in without having to stand in line - and he did! Not only that, one we got it he gave us all vip bracelets for the executive lounge!! Thanks to Kia's charm, not only did we have a fabulous spot to sit and watch the game, we were in the company of a group of men from the cayman islands who bought almost all of the remaining superbowl squares that I had failed to sell over the week. Even the gm bought some squares from me. Fruits of her labor - Kia ended up with the winning square on the final score and won the big pot.

http://www.thesportscafe.net/

Now for the snow! By the time the game was over I think it was around 3am. The entire city's transport system had shut down earlier in the evening. What else could we do but start walking! It was soo crazy, so surreal! After making stops at a sandwich joint and one of our group stopping to pop a squat (at some building for hygiene study ironically) it was nearing 4am and we still weren't home. Magically a cab comes to our rescue and we get home. The next morning we found out that the snow was the worst the city has seen in 18 years!!

Sketchy

So thanks to the maestro of all places cool (odd job what up), tony, Anna, Cecilia, Joanne, Kia, and myself found ourselves at a bar called sketch in central london. A bit of ny, miami, and the 70s-very hot! If I ever open a bar - going to have to copy the deep set round bar set-up. After we got over the dolly dresses, moment of raging urges of clepto-mania, toilets that look like you are walking into eggs and that either clap when u sit, call out gate numbers as if you are at the airport or tell u how fabulous you are, the trippy light that says love, hop scotch chalked at the entrance, sketches of R rated scenes on the ceiling, members only sections that only lead to further intrigue...we were ready to go home.

http://www.sketch.uk.com/tourne.html

By then we were left with me, Kia, and Joanne taking the 73 home. Picture this - us on a crowded top half of a double decker bus sitting in the very back row. There's a couple sitting in front of us-we realise they are taking turns picking songs to quietly sing to pass the time. Soon enough the three of us become their trusty backup singers and then take our turns at picking the songs. After buttercup and some bon jovi - I kid u not the entire upper deck of the double decker breaks into a full out sing-a-long - I felt like we were in one of the scenes from my best friend's wedding. Oh - the fun times we've had on the late bus...

Getting Hammered Takes on a New Meaning

Thinking I knew every drinking game out there - clearly there is much our European friends have to teach us (even the Finnish have some cards up their sleeves-but that's for another blog entry). So we went out one night in davos switerland and found ourselves at the Tijuana bar. It was a boarder- snow bunny type of hangout. I found four guys circled around a couple of stacked tree trunks with hammers and nails in hand - I had to find out what they were doing. After realising there would be a language barrier one of the guys demonstrated the first turn and let me play the rest of his turns. So here's the gist - last player to hammer all three of their nails completely flat into the tree has to buy a round of drinks.

Materials required - massive tree trunk that comes to waist height. Hammer with a flat end and pointed end (this is the end u have to try to hit the nails with) three long nails per player. Before the game starts all players get their three nails lined up and started in the trunk - when its your turn to go, u have one attempt per nail to try to drive it into the trunk. Believe me - a number of turns - I got all trunk and no nail. Result- I wasn't the loser, must have been a bit of beginners luck!