westfields

✺ jerry and i spent the day yesterday at our new favourite place: westfields shopping mall... we bought a few bits and pieces, feasted in the food court (was slightly disappointed with the salad, which doesn't compare at all to the spicy vietnamese soup) and watched an 'australian promotional expo show' going on in the stage area. there were 'priscilla queen of the desert' drag queens in huge garish costumes, singing all the typical gay songs, competitions to win tickets to big australian sporting events and an exhibition of enormous photos depicting scenes of australian nature; magnificent forests, sunsets over beaches, red deserts, the 12 apostles, people feeding kangaroos, swimming with whales.... it made me so nostalgic! jerry can't believe why anyone who's from australia would want to move to miserable london. i reminded him that if only he could get a visa, we could go...

jerry's friend 'balloon' who he met on survivor, called us asking us out for dinner. him and his fiance were passing through london on the way to miami. we met them at his 'london pad' in knightsbridge for some pre-dinner drinks and then went out to 'ciro's pomodoro', a quirky italian basement restaurant which was jammed full even at ten o'clock on a wednesday night. the place was covered, wall to wall, with snapshots of ciro along with every celebrity who's ever dined there. even the menu was covered in his celebrity pictures... i ate the quattro formaggi pizza which is, according to the menu, 'patrick swayze's favourite'.. it was really good.

balloon's fiance anna was lovely (it goes with the name ;o) and balloon is always a good laugh. jerry and him met during survivor. the first survivor photo i ever saw of jerry was with balloon, the two of them standing on the malaysian beach, hairy, emaciated and with what i thought were ripping tans. 'no thats not a tan, that's dirt embedded into the skin from two months of not washing'.... lovely.
i'm so envious of jerry's survivor experience. the stories he has could fill a gripping novel. in fact i may suggest being his ghost writer and doing just that....