Sista Blog

Its not often that I’ll see a show twice but when Mirela asked me if I wanted to go see Into The Hoods again I didn’t really hesitate in saying yes. It has been just over a month since we last saw it but I didn’t really mind seeing it again as I enjoyed it so much last time. Mirela wasn’t sure what her Mum and Aunt would think about it but new her sister would get right into it. She really shouldn’t have worried – all three were very impressed.

To my pleasure the show left an impression on me as good as the first time I saw it. We had several cast changes (they obviously swap the kids around probably every evening) and one of the main cast must have been ill as she was replaced by another, plus we had several different dancers from the last troupe but this didn’t take away from the show at all. I know shows must have understudies etc. all the time but with this style of dancing its sometimes difficult to get timing absolutely spot on so I was impressed absolutely with their delivery tonight. All I can say is that it must take a whole lot of practise to get it all right!

Courtesy of Mirela’s family we have some video footage from tonight’s visit to The Gate for salsa:

It was quite a busy night and for once at The Gate the female dancers outnumbered the males (well, in our beginner’s class anyway …) so Mirela had to take a spin at being a guy. She said it was well difficult!

I’d quite forgotten how cool the Natural History Museum is. Today, whilst Mirela was studying, I went with her Mum, Aunt and sister to go check the Museum out. Its been just over 5 years since I last properly visited this museum (the last visit being when I came to London for the first time in 2003 on a short holiday) so I guess I was overdue a visit.

Housed in a beautiful building the Natural History Museum is an impressive sight, particularly on a beautiful day like today were the blue sky brings out the gorgeous green lawns and inspring sight of the building.

The nicest thing about the Natural History Museum is the fact that a lot of thought has been given to the presentation of the various exhibitions – most of the times there will be interactive components but what was most striking was the interesting and varied way information was presented between each of the galleries. Every gallery we went into was quite visually appealing. The only confusing aspect was the paper map – which, written in its three-D style, had me all turned around! But that was probably me. The Museum itself is well sign-posted to direct you to the relevant areas without a map as long as you know which zone you need to get to.

Zones are broken up in the Red, Green, Blue and Orange Zones. The Red zone being dedicated to all things earthly, the Green for all things planet-wise, environment-wise and evolution-wise, the Blue for all things alive on our planet (strangely including the dinosaurs!) and the Orange for all things wildlife. There is a lot in this museum that’s for sure! I was impressed that they even had a display on the volcano (Mount Pinatubo) that erupted in 1991 in the Philippines. Admittedly this was one big-arse disaster!

A highlight of our visit included one of the more dramatic entrances to a zone being the Giant Earth Sculpture up into which you ride the escalator. Its stunning and you can understand why everyone stopped there in particular to take their pics. I also liked the overhead walkway they had on the Dinosaur zone and the “simulation” earthquake (of the Kobe disaster) they had in the Red Zone.

We were only at the Museum for a few hours so didn’t get around to all the exhibits so I guess something to do on a rainy weekend perhaps. Next time I’ll be making sure to visit the Butterfly temporary exhibition too!

To be honest I can never tired of walking through Hyde Park. Mirela’s Mum, sister Andriani and Aunt got in to London on Thursday and this is the first time I think that they’ve been to the park to witness all the craziness that goes on with Londoners when the sun first comes out. It was a little overcast to be sure and we did get there towards the later part of the afternoon so although there weren’t too many people still in their bikinis there were still a heck of a lot of people lounging around.

Pauline celebrated her birthday today by having drinks at The Goat followed by a few hours of dancing at Clapham Grand. The usual suspects from worked turned up for drinks at The Goat. Pauline had also invited a whole heap of other friends but for some strange reason they didn’t turn up until late and then they left after what seemed like about only 15 minutes later.

The Goat seemed like quite a nice bar – it seemed quite massive actually and, I’m not sure if its because Pauline and the others got there early and managed to snag a good seating area, but seating seemed plentiful from the time Lofty and I arrived (at about 8 I think it was) for at least another couple of hours. It did get quite crowded however and getting served at the bar could get difficult.

At about 11 the brave few (Pauline, Sandra, Boo Boo, Amelia, Andy and I) ventured on to the Clapham Grand. The Clapham Grand has a bit of a dire reputation for cheese. If there is one thing I can recommend to get in and save a few pounds it is to look out for the girls/boys handing out pamphlets for free entry. No point paying for club entry when you don’t have to! When we got inside it reminded me a bit of The Church. And no wonder really as both are clubs/bars situated in former theatres.

The Clapham Grand is supposed to be spread out across a few floors but I only saw one, or one and a half. The DJ is a big feature and he/she is centrally located right up on the main stage. The dancefloor had tiles which were illuminated and changed colour constantly. It took a while but finally the dancefloor did get full (though not crammed by any stretch of the imagination.) It also took a while to convince Boo Boo, Sandra and Andy to come down (and by the end of the night Boo Boo and Sandra were the first to sit down!)

The music tonight wasn’t too bad featuring classics from the ’90’s apparently. I was glad that most of the songs that came on you could actually dance to and was not rubbish house music.

Overall I was expecting something much worse for The Clapham Grand but actually its a fun night out .. even if it felt a little cheesy!

Mirela and I have been looking forward to going to see Dirty Dancing for so long that I can’t even remember when we actually bought the tickets. Getting tickets to this show is ridiculously difficult and even with the nosebleed section seats we went for we still had to book it months and months in advance.

Here are some photos pre-viewing at the shoebox and on the tube on the way because Mirela was just so excited to be going! And actually she was so excited that we even made it to the theatre early for once! heh heh.

Dirty Dancing The Musical was also penned by the author of the original feature film that we all watched as young girls (or young boys maybe?) at our girlie slumber parties (ah to be 10 years old again and staring dreamingly at Patrick Swayze!) so the adaptation, you would have thought, could be in no better hands. In truth the movie has substantially been brought across to the stage with Baby, favoured daughter, and her family visiting a summer holiday camp. Baby is the perennial good daughter so when she falls for the so-called bad boy Johnny, camp lead dance instructor, father is not happy. Its just a shame that the chemistry, romance and sexiness wasn’t brought to the stage tonight.

What I remember most from the movie was the chemistry between the two leads played by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey and the pure hotness of the dancing. In tonight’s performance this didn’t come across at all. For some reason I just couldn’t stand the two performers tonight who played the Johnny and Baby roles respectively and admittedly though the guy who played Johnny could dance I just felt annoyed. There was one stand out performer for me and that was Nadia Coote who plays Penny. She was simply gorgeous and totally sizzled in her role as Johnny’s dance partner.

As the musical was pretty much exactly the same as the movie you also have all the great songs in there. The soundtrack to Dirty Dancing has definitely got to be one of the best ever and all the great songs were there. The singers were actually all very good but volumes on their mics were way too loud and so when they were really belting out the numbers I had to literally cover my ears. Such a shame because they had amazing voices!

There are some positives for the musical. The dances were well choreographed and the set design is imaginative, making the best use of the stage considering how many scene changes were required.

Overall, at tonight’s performance we did not have the time of our lives but we did see some spectacular dancing from Penny and the nostalgia it evoked can’t be overlooked either. Was it worth seeing on stage? Well, I guess there is nothing like seeing something live and I guess in that sense it was worth it. If only they could improve on the chemistry between the two leads (which is I think where most of my negative feelings come from) I would enjoy it more.

All weekend the sun has been desperately trying to break through the clouds that is London’s spring. It was successful to some extent this afternoon so we thought it would be a waste not to take advantage of it and head to the park to do our work instead of being cooped up inside. There was a bit of nip to the air so I think we were slightly overdressed however sitting near the lake in Kensington Gardens the air was extremely sharp coming off it so it was good we were in our work out gear.

Mirela was joking that she hadn’t really dressed up or made an effort at all and that it would be funny if we saw this guy that she used to like and date, who happens to live near us, in Hyde Park. Not two minutes later he sent a text message saying he was in Hyde Park! Very strange timing. He later joined us for a bit of a chat. It was a lovely afternoon.

Today Nate and Caro held the first BBQ for 2008. The rain managed to hold off long enough for us to have a late lunch outside in their lovely little garden. Nate and Caro are great hosts and Caro, particularly, always makes sure to have the right supplies on hand to ensure everyone has a nice time.

Nothing can beat a sausage or steak cooked on the barbie. I guess there is just something to that smoke-fed cooking that just can’t be replicated on a grill inside the house.

I ended up staying at their house until nearly late evening. One of the other guests had kindly brough a giant box of Roses chocolates. Hilariously when everyone had left except for Nate, Caro and Nate’s sister Jules and I we dug into the chocolates like there was no tomorrow. To say that I was feeling slightly ill from pigging out on them would be an understatement!

The day started off promising enough when we hit the Portobello Markets – it was warm, it was relatively sunny and you could smell that summer was just around the corner. Unfortunately after lunch the weather started to go downhill and by the time we hit Hyde Park later that afternoon at about 5pm it was quite chilly!

I only ever seem to go to Portobello Markets when I’m going with other tourists and in fact today was the first time I’d made it all the way to the end! We had lunch at Thai Rice (I think it was called that) which Mirela’s Aunt insisted on shouting for which was quite nice of her. Thai Rice, and to be fair the surrounding restaurants were fairly buzzing at that time of day (around 2pm) so it was quite a good atmosphere. The food was also pretty nice though nothing outstanding (either in taste or portion size) in the selections we went for. Reasonbly priced however and their Thai Iced Tea was nice.

After lunch we headed back to shoeboxes to drop off the shopping before heading out to Hyde Park meeting up with Petros’ Mum and her friend for a walk through Kensington Gardens and to Albert Hall. It felt like we walked for hours and in face it was about 9pm when we got back!

A good friend at work Jon, or Yogi as he is apparently known!, got married today and held his reception at the beautiful The Royal Society of Arts on The Strand. Its actually a nice venue for somewhere that is in central London. It is also where the controversial picture of Queen Elizabeth II (with her head floating above a distorted body against a yellow background) is hung.

This wedding has been quite a few months in the making. I’ve been quite impressed at how involved Jon has been. Grooms have a traditional reputation of being as hands off as possible so to know how involved Jon has been in all the planning and decision-making I thought actually sounded quite romantic!

I’ve not been to an English wedding yet – my experiences at weddings are that you have a wedding to which everyone is invited to and then you go ahead and have a meal (whether it be sit down, or buffet style but still at tables etc.) But everyone kept telling me in England you have a wedding that not everyone goes to, then have a weddng meal and finally you have a reception which is normally canape style for everyone else. Strange.

Jon and Sara held their reception in the the sub-terranean vaults which, true to the website description, provided a well romantic candle-lit setting. We had loads of space to spread out and roam around and of course there was a fairly good sized dance floor to groove on.

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

Jenny and I arrived in time to drag the others away from the pub to the reception venue and to get there for the speeches. Jon gave a very moving speech as did Sara. I find it quite unusual for a bride to give a speech. The most touching aspect was that Jon was actually quite teary during her speech. So sweet! The best man gave a very funny speech too which I thought was also quite original in incorporating a Bulls Eye game.

After this it was time to move on to the food! The food was buffet style (not limitless) in that you walked up to a buffet style service area and you were served portions of the food. It was very delicious – the roast pork was perfectly cooked and the crackling on it – exactly right. The only difficulty with dinner was that there was limited seating (though I think that was part of the package to make it slightly cheaper.) Thoroughly enjoyed dinner. However what I think was most appreciated by all was a pretty much open bar. Wine and beer was free for most of the night. I fully expected it to run out quite early as everyone was hammering the bar but surprisingly it lasted most of the night.

Finally the dancing! Jon and Sara had the innovative idea of asking everyone for three songs to form part of a list from which they would select a final shortlist to play at the wedding. A good idea to get everyone up and dancing when their song choice came on. But Jon needn’t have worried – the dancefloor was surprisingly busy for most of the night (mainly by us! ha ha!)

A very good night was had by all (I think once again helped by the generous bar!) Festivities drew to a close at midnight with, surprisingly, most people hanging around until then. D, James B and I then attempted to go to the Casino in Leicester Square. Apart from the fact that my feet were killing me at this point (to the extent that for most of the night I didn’t even have my shoes on and when on I could walk about 5 steps in a minute) D was in no shape to be at the Casino and we were turned away! Quite an end to the night.

Even more photos here.