Weekend sampling

I had just the weekend I needed, it was relaxing, fun, crazy, and homey all in one! Friday after work, I went out to a cool pub in Hammersmith with a couple co-workers. We were just stopping in for one drink before two of us headed down to SoHo, but that turned into three, and then a hunt for food as none of us had eaten, which resulted in a some bread and wine back at my friend's house watching old movies. It was fun, first time crashing on a couch not because I didn't want to drive home, but because I didn't want to take a night bus home :)

Saturday was prep for the big night out! Sal has a friend who works at this member's club near here that has these Rock-a-burlesque nights, so we were going to this weekend's "Scary Monster Night." After wandering around the market for awhile, Alessandra and I stumbled across these awesome red and black catsuit type things. Weren't sure where we going with them yet, but for 5quid each, we had to take them. :) So these evolved into a mad-dr.death with a gun and some sort of Michael Jackson Thriller video zombie - it was awesome. Especially with the amazing talents of Alessandra styling and doing the makeup!

The party itself was a bit of letdown with the music, but there was a cool performance and we still had fun - ended up at a friend's flat for some after-party music and photo shopping ourselves on the Mac. :)

Sunday was a chillout recover day. it was beautiful outside again - cold, but sunny - so I went for a walk around the new neighborhood - liked it! Then we had a Sunday roast for dinner - so cute! Everyone was home, we sat around the huge coffee table and passed the potatoes and wine. It was fun!

Short-lived rejuvenation

So maybe I should seriously reconsider how long I want to stay in London, because the city can sure beat you down fast :( My skin has already returned to the horrible condition it was before the weekend (another benefit of clean mountain air) and everything at work is craziness. But I can't complain about my life, it's no one's fault but my own that I worked so much the past three days! And there was a really cool sunset tonight, so that made a long night at the office a little easier to take :)
My goal now is to find other ways besides flying to the mountains to 'restore myself'. I need to play the keyboard more, so as soon as I get up from writing I'm going to do that. I've decided to buy (or rent) a piano, too, so I've been looking on gumtree (like craigslist) and researching online about the best thing to do. The front hallway in the house was just made for a piano, in my opinion! Another thing that does wonders for my soul is exercise, so I am determined to get to the gym more and run outside. There's this really cool fitness center near my house now, so I'm going to have to chck it out this weekend. And, I know I'm weird, but studying helps my mental state soo much, so I'm carrying my Spanish books with me to take advantage of the longer commute. :)

And now I think I could go to sleep - it's barely 9:00 and I'm ready to call it a night, how sad! My flatmate Sal is out with friends that are visiting, so I was going to go meet up with them, but it's not promising at this point...

Looking Good, Feeling Good

So I get to work yesterday - straight from the airport after a fantastic weekend in Geneva, and my co-worker says to me, "You look good!!" she later repeated and said, and I mean, like things are good, you know, not just the outside. And I thought, I do feel good! The mountains have always had this crazy effect on me. I get a long-lasting, natural high off being outside, around nature, and way up above sea-level. This is why I would drive 3 hours at the drop of a hat to go to the mountain house, just to be there for a few hours, a day, one night, whatever - something in my soul feeds off the mountain air


The picture is from Chamonix - Geneva is almost completely surrounded by France, so I spent two of the three days mostly in France - Europe is so crazy, you just weave in and out of countries and smile at the border guards! :) We took a lift up to 3600m (12,000 ft) - that, my friends, is breathtaking. I loved it. It was almost like cheating - where else in the world can you be that high and not have to work really really hard to get there? We came back down to about 2000m I think and hiked around, which was really cool, and then decided to hike all the way down, which was a little more than I bargained for, but still enjoyed going through the trees. I definitely paid for it the next couple days...getting old!!

Okay now blogger is not letting me post more photos. Annoyed. so you'll just have to go on flickr to see the rest!

To try and describe the weekend, I will cheat and let my friend's wife Marcy describe Saturday and the fondue Monday night, 1) because she's a great writer, and 2) because I'm way behind in blogging and too lazy to write all that plus what I want to say about the rest of life.

All i want to add is that I had so much fun exploring Geneva on my own Monday, it's such a cute, pretty, small city it is very manageable, even only speaking 5 words in french! next time, I will do a bit more homework though - I hate not understanding anything or being able to say basic stuff!

The major event before Geneva was of course, MOVING! I absolutely love the new flat - it's huge, beautiful, quiet, sigh...so lucky to have gotten in here. And of course, the awesome flatmates came with :)

Before that, I was in Spain for the book fair in Barcelona - the first time I've ever understood why people don't like business travel. I'm in this cool city for two days, and I spend them inside a conference center. :( At least I got to go out one night for tapas and see my friend there, but I will definitely be going back on my own time.

Okay, so I think I've hit the highlights for now. I'm in such a good mood! Hope it lasts through the week :)