♥ the yellow brick road

our new place in melbourne!

2012-01-27T15:43:00.001-08:00

The visa to Oz!!!!!!

2011-10-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

❉ i was able to have a little sleep in this morning since my morning swedish class had been cancelled. when i woke up, jerry was still sound asleep, so i lay in bed and quietly checked my emails.

sitting there in my inbox was a message from our immigration lawyer. my heart skipped a beat. in an anxious panic i clicked the wrong button and sent it to the trash. i fumbled around to open it and quickly scanned over the first sentence..
'.....australian high commission..... jerry's visa....granted'..... i bolted upright, tears exploded from my eyes and i jumped on the sleeping jerry, pounding him and screaming directly into his ear 'WE GOT THE VISA, WE GOT THE VISA!!!' ... the poor thing was so worried and confused at being woken in such a way that he didn't know what was going on. i had to calm myself to get it through to him. 'we......got......the......visa.....!!!!!!!!!'

finally i can go home!

nobody can understand how big this is to me.... i've been traveling for many many years now, and it has been amazing and wonderful, i've met many very special people and had life experiences that i would never cash in...... but when i met jerry three years ago, i was feeling nearly ready to go home.... i was missing it.

we first applied for his visa over two years ago, so we've been waiting for it for two thirds of our entire relationship together! of course we've had loads of fun along the way, but for me there's always been that small sense of waiting... and now after all this time, we've finally got it! jerry cant quite believe it. he was expecting a rejection so this is a huge shock to him.

for breakfast i cracked open a bottle of champagne and we sat in bed and toasted the new australian. we skyped my mum and dad and they were so excited that they cracked open a bottle of bubbly too and drank with us!

i started this blog two years ago after we first applied for the visa. i called it 'the yellow brick road' because it would be about all my adventures on the journey home to Oz.... and now it seems that Oz is finally in sight... but don't worry, its not the end.... just the start of a new adventure! :o)

:o)

'It's showtime'!!

2011-10-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

❊ i rushed straight from swedish class to mariatorget, where my google map lead me into a residential area thick with high-rise apartments. as i wobbled in my wedge-heels down side streets and alleys, through gardens and up stairwells, i finally found a warehouse garage door painted black, with 'IT'S SHOWTIME' stenciled on. for a brief moment i hesitated, before opening the door.

fifteen minutes later i found myself stripper-dancing in my jeans and bra, to an imaginary 'sausage man' sitting on a chair, with sleazy strip-club music playing... in the middle of a film set..... on film.

how the hell did that happen?! as far as i knew i was going to a casting for a TV commercial in which i would be an extra, dancing in the background at an after party!

when i walked into the warehouse, I was greeted by a small group of funky young girls and guys who were super cool and who worked in this awesome production studio. they showed me the story board for the tv commercial which was based on a giant sausage. the ad starts off with this sausage man fist-fighting a famous politician as paparazzi snap away, then ends up at a seedy strip joint where lap-dancers in bikinis bump and grind him as he boozes it up. he then passes out and wakes up in the chair of a tattoo parlour, getting a horrible biker tattoo done and finally crawls back home to the fridge, where he slips back into a packet of sausages. i think the message is something to do with local insourcing...

it was the story board that sold me. it was brilliantly done and seemed like a very quirky concept, somewhat reminiscent of the 'hangover' movies. i told them i hadn't realised that it would be that type of dancing (that must be why the money is so good!) but that what the hell, i would have a crack at it anyway.

there was no actual sausage man there for the casting, so i had to imagine him sitting on the chair as i danced. afterwards they told me i was very natural and that i'd obviously done it before (no i havent!!)... i guess maybe my burlesque and belly dance classes came in handy! ... as i walked back to the tube station i called jerry who's response was 'oh thats so exciting! i hope you get it!'

:o)

mission: wipe-out

2011-09-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

*what i loved about london was the opportunity for excitement.... it seemed that anything you dreamt of doing you could do in london... the book 'the secret' which i'm reading at the moment, tells you that your life is exactly how you've wished and expected it to be, and that if you want something more, you must wish it into existence (that's a shitty summary of the book. there's so much more to it than that but read it for yourself if you haven't already :o)... i decided to put it out into the universe that i want some excitement in my life.... and sure enough the universe delivered.

i'd registered my profile with an extra agency online when i first arrived in stockholm and hadn't heard a peep from them til yesterday, when all of a sudden i got a phonecall from a man named kid.
kid: 'would you be interested in being a contestant on the tv show 'wipe-out'?'
me: 'isn't that filmed in argentina?'
kid: 'yes it is. of course all expenses would be paid by us'.
me: 'yes i'm interested'
kid: 'great. can you come to a casting tomorrow?'
me: 'yes i can'

oh.... my..... god!!! i hung up the phone, stunned like a mullet, then broke into a wild screaming jumping dancing fit. jerry was both insanely excited for me and insanely jealous... he loves that show and has always wanted to be in it...then he read the information email which included the magic words 'bring along your partner to the casting to enter the couples competition'!!! ... and for me: 'wear the costume that you plan to wear on the show if you go through'..... !!!!
we began to plan 'mission: win wipe-out' i had to think about my costume for about two seconds.... of course i have to go as a bunny.

jerry informed me that he has all it takes to win and that i better start going to the gym to strengthen up because if we lose because of me he may kill me. i had to remind him that it's thanks to me that he's even got a chance to be in the show!

we arrived at the casting today, me in a bunny costume and jerry in a smart bow-tie and short-pants suit. no-one else was dressed up. initially embarrassing till we realised it gave us the advantage.

we killed it in the interview. jerry told me i ate the camera. which must be a swedish expression for coming across well on film. it's all a bit of a blur now, because of the adrenalin, but i remember jumping at the chance to go first, shaking my bunny tail, singing 'hey big spender', saying a stupid thing in swedish which i thought rhymed but actually doesn't and demonstrating the scream i would do if i won.

the prize is 50,000 crowns. 9 days in buenos aires, all expenses paid.
though i don't know if i'm through yet... i just want to say thank you to the secret and to the universe.

:o)

välkommen!!

2011-09-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

❄ today i had my swedish introduction class at the folk university.. the lovely teacher monika asked us questions in swedish to determine which level we were at before handing out the level test. after my turn she said 'anna, i dont think we'll bother giving you the test.. we'll just pop you straight in the beginners class' .... and there i was thinking i was pretty good for understanding all the questions! everyone else could answer them in swedish too!

in the group there were students from egypt, brazil, palestine, eritrea, cuba, gambia and thailand... jerry's comment on that was 'i knew you'd be the only normal one'..(!)
i actually found it fascinating being amongst people from such exotic places, imagining the lives they'd come from and how they'd ended up in sweden of all places...

the teacher told us that the most important thing was to practise our swedish outside of the classroom as well. she asked all the students if we had swedish friends we could speak with and most of them said no! one woman said the only people she could practise on were her small children! i seemed to be the only one who has swedish friends here! in fact i dont know anyone here who isn't swedish! and for that i'm very lucky because they all can't wait for me to be able to speak swedish with them. jerry in particular is very excited about having a good laugh at me. he said he'd love to send a dictaphone along with me to class each day so he could listen back and take the piss.

in fact i know he's very happy that im learning his language (and living in his country) and that's why he's paying for everything and even spoiling me, working double shifts while i stay at home watching 'Idol'!.... though to be fair, i'm also being a very thorough housewife!

while everyone else in the class took the test, monika walked me down the corridor and told me i'll resume full time studies (7 hours a day) tomorrow morning. she showed me where my classroom would be and as we peeped our heads through the doorway, five happy, arabic-looking male faces turned around to greet me... 'välkommen!!!!'

:o)

the tournament

2011-09-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

❉ jerry found a proper old-school black jack table in the classifieds, selling for an absolute bargain and we decided we just had to get it. it needs a bit of work; some sanding, a paint job etc, but i'tll be just perfect for the business idea we're conjuring up (which i'll tell you about as soon as we get the go-ahead from the 'lottery inspection' authorities)... :o)

while it's sitting in our apartment we figured we might as well give it some action. so last night we hosted a fabulous black jack tournament slash dinner party. jerry and i put together a sushi and pad thai feast and our friends jesper & rebecca and karin & matthias came over to eat and play.

the tournament was so much fun!! everyone put in 100 crowns each towards the pot so that the game would be more thrilling and i played the part of the bunny croupier, even pulling some bunny ears and a bow tie out of the closet. the more we drank, the more rowdy the game became and the more aggressively competitive everyone became until it was downright cut-throat..

rebecca got so edgy she had to turn away each time she drew a card, matthias refused to share his tricks, even telling karin she was on her own, jesper, who was sitting at the end of the table and drawing the last card, was angrily demanding the credit for everyone winning each time i busted. though being the dealer i couldnt win, even i became a little ruthless, whooping and jeering when i hit black jack and raked in their losing chips, offering shoddy advice on doubling and splitting and scolding them to stop touching their bets. but jerry was the worst, furiously screaming and cursing, chucking tantrums and punching the air, going off to sulk in the corner, calling people idiots, even threatening rebecca with a cattle prod every time she was a bit slow to place her bet. i had to remind him that it was just a game and just 100 crowns!...

matthias took the pot at the end, with rebecca coming in a close second. despite nearly murdering each other, everyone admitted it was a cracking night and that we absolutely must do it again soon...
:o)

the phallus

2011-09-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

❊ today i trekked through the rain to the grungy south of stockholm city to meet my job coach, 'greta', a quirky and spirited lady with a fabulously wicked laugh. she's intent on helping me find my dream job and always has suggestions for events i might be interested in; joining a barbershop choir, meeting the famous artists and actors of stockholm at a media culture event, attending a start-your-own business fair...
she told me i was much calmer in today's session and that last time we'd met i'd seemed so hyperactive and bubbling with energy that she wondered if i needed to do some painting to calm down!

this diagnosis and remedy fascinated me... i realised i'd actually quite like to do some painting! i'd already searched online and found an amazing sounding life-drawing workshop called 'atelier stockholm' where you learn to draw the figure renaissance style.. i bought pencils and a drawing pad especially for it but every thursday night something else has come up and i've missed the class...

i'd also been meaning to go to the robert maplethorpe photography exhibition at the grand 'fotografiska' museum for ages, and today i finally went with my friend rebecca. what a fabulously shocking exhibition! there were so many huge black penises in that gallery that we couldn't stop gasping! the man was truly obsessed with the phallus! even his photos of flowers looked like penises! and mixed in with his self-portraits was one of him bending over with a leather whip dangling out of his anus! imagine how much more shocking his pictures would have been back in the 80's, especially during the aids epidemic... we discussed penises for quite a while and as we left, suspected that tonight our dreams will be swarming with penises!

:o)

stockholm, im back!

2011-09-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

❉ so here i am, sitting at a candlelit window table in the cosy local restaurant/bar 'aubergine', nibbling at a chevre cheese salad with my laptop open and the bangles playing in the background... outside it's getting dark and cold, as autumn sets in over stockholm city.

how is it that i seem to have switched lives so quickly and so completely?! it was only the other day that i was living in london, working as a playboy bunny, dealing roulette in mayfair.... and last you heard from me, i hated it.
it was during this period that i took a holiday to visit jerry who was working for a few weeks at a festival in a quaint and lovely swedish island village called Visby. after a magical few days strolling the cobbled streets and drinking way too many cocktails, we flew across to stockholm for a friend's wedding.

as we were walking down busy Sveavägen, the sun shining down on us, Jerry stopped in the middle of the street and with a big cocky smile on his face, he took a big dramatized breath in. 'can you smell that?' he asked me.... 'what?' i asked with scorn, waiting for something ridiculous. 'the superiosity!!!'... he gloated.
'pfff, there's no such word!' i scoffed back at him. lately he'd become increasingly miserable in london and at every opportunity he'd rant on about how much better sweden was.
but i think the happiness i saw in him at that moment was what made me agree to move back to stockholm, that and the fact i wasn't really enjoying the bunny job.

and then, as it always is, after i made the decision, i instantly began to love the job, realised how much i loved london with its action, its opportunities, how its grey skies and dirty seedy streets had crept under my skin and into my heart.
my last day at playboy i was a mess. standing at the roulette table, wearing my bunny costume for the last time, i looked around at my bunnies who i'd been through such an amazing rollercoaster ride with, and who i realised i loved so dearly, and i couldn't stop the tears from streaming down my face... all day i was crying at the drop of a hat....

i cried when my best bunny friend yasmin finished her shift, i cried as i hugged 'the colonel' (one of our moody regular customers) goodbye, i cried to security as i handed in my bunny costume which i loved even though it was so tight it prevented me from breathing in and digesting food properly. i cried to my boss when he told me i'd always be welcome back and i sobbed on the shoulder of each and every inspector and bunny that i hugged goodbye.... if only i'd realised sooner how much i loved that place...

anyway, a change is as good as a holiday and though the goodbyes are hard, i'm always very fond of starting a fresh.....

i flew into stockholm with 80 kilograms of luggage that i somehow didn't have to pay any excess for, and that in actuality was my whole life.... though i do complain about being a gypsy nomad, i also do feel a little bit thankful that i have so few strings attached that i'm able to just pack up and move countries so easily.

i had a special feeling arriving in sweden again, knowing it would be my new home. i love sweden for its utopian social system, its clean and safe streets, its beautiful people, its free education, its amazing night-life.... and for the lovely friends we have here...
we were lucky enough to land a gorgeous cosy little apartment right downtown so that we can walk everywhere and rarely have to catch the tube...
and because i'm classified as a 'new swede', the government here is paying for me to study swedish full time and giving me an allowance while i study. they're paying a lady to be my own personal job coach and they'll pay any employer who hires me 80% of my salary... what a country!! if only australia was as welcoming to jerry :o/

we're still waiting on the australian visa decision so who knows how long we'll be here...but at least we're happy in the meantime....
:o)

piss

2011-07-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

❉ standing at roulette table 2 with no customers, goose-bumps from the loathed air-conditioner that mistakenly thinks it's summer outside in london, busting to pee and wishing away the long hours of my last day of work before my weekend.

shift work has completely knackered me. according to a tv show my brother watched, shift-workers are 3 times more likely to get cancer. apparently your body clock is set from birth and you can't adjust it. your body will only heal itself during certain hours of the night, if you're sleeping....

my body clock has no idea what time it is, what day it is, who's body its in, when it will sleep next... and when i do sleep it's a shallow, tortured slumber, racked with harrowing nightmares. i turn around to roulette table 1 to ask Bunny M if she's been sleeping well... she tells me she's been sleep-walking, dreaming of gypsy thieves, and woken to find herself sitting at the end of the bed in the dark, flicking her cigarette lighter on and off in front of her face! though it sounds quite scary, i cant help but laugh, which makes me need to pee even more.

a customer joins my table and my laughter fades. there's nothing to laugh about around these gamblers. the other night when one particularly rude customer lost all his money in one spin, i couldn't help but sneak a quick smirk and he almost pounced at me 'Its not funny!!' ....'of course it's not sir. i was thinking about something else.' i responded, pondering whether karma is wild and rampant in casinos.

when my table is empty again, i turn around to ask Bunny M how she responds to rude customers. 'i do the devil symbol with my hand at them under the table'.
i look at her demonstrating under the table and she's doing that rock-n-roll hand gesture!! now i'm cackling uncontrollably.

the thing is i'm not really enjoying being a croupier. and i'm missing jerry desperately. everything reminds me of him; the number 24 on my roulette wheel reminds me of him, katy perry singing on the radio reminds me of him.... even my burning bloody UTI reminds me of jerry.

it was in sweden the last time i had a UTI this bad, just after i'd had my boobs done and couldn't get out of bed without help. i was in agony from surgery and the UTI had attacked me while i was down. knowing that i'd be busting all night, and wouldn't be able to get up to go to the toilet, i asked jerry whether he minded if i just lay a towel down and piss the bed if i needed to. he agreed. that to me is the definition of true love.

'i'm on the edge' i say to Bunny M. i dont mean just the pee, i mean everything. the job, london, everything... maybe i'm just missing jerry..

:o)

graveyarding, chick-fixing, slide-showing, miss-mia-meowing, jerry missing, me-time :o)

2011-07-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

spot me in the picture?

✥ i've just finished a week of the 'graveyard shift' at work. 6am -2pm, which means waking up at 4am and going to bed at 8pm....very wierd at first. normally i'm coming home from work at 4am so it took a night of tossing and turning in bed, sculling a bottle of rescue remedy, counting sheep and listening to meditation podcasts to get me into the sleeping pattern. but after a while i enjoyed the graveyard... walking to the bus stop in the fresh dawn, the streets deserted and quiet, knowing i was up before everyone else and making the most of the morning, the big english breakfast served at work, loads of breaks because there were no customers.... it was alright for a week.

jerry's in sweden for the whole of july, working at a club on a swedish island that hosts a big party festival every summer. he's done it for years and loves it, so i'm happy for him but i also miss him! so i've decided to use all this 'me time' that i have on my hands as productively as possible. i've absorbed myself into a couple of great books, i've been playing around recording some songs on my laptop with 'garageband' which is really fun to use, i've been getting back into my tarot cards, been shopping for sushi-making ingredients, writing letters to my grandparents and watching period dramas which jerry refuses to watch with me.

and lots is going on right now to keep me from despairing at jerry's absence...
the reality tv show that i was involved in earlier this year, 'house of grazia', has since been renamed 'chick fix' (i think i preferred the former :o/) and is now airing on sky living! it's quite exciting, though i'm sure ill be embarrassed at how i come across on film, as usual... it should be a good watch, so if you have sky, here's the link:
http://skyliving.sky.com/top-shows/chick-fix#girls

the student film 'miss mia meows' that i worked on set for late last year had its premiere while i was away in thailand. i was so disappointed to miss it, since i had loved so much working on set for it. though i originally got the job as assistant art director, i was also asked to fill in for an extra that didn't show and that was loads of fun! i watched a sneak preview on the London college of communication webiste and spotted myself in one of the first scenes, walking into the bar in a blue velvet dress with a fox hanging over my shoulder... see if you can spot me:
http://www.lcc.arts.ac.uk/showcase/video-showcase/ba-film-and-television%20graduation-trailers-2011/

our wedding photographer pam has just sent us a slideshow of photos from the wedding. i've been eagerly awaiting these photos and was overjoyed at how they turned out. in the background of the slideshow is the song i sang to jerry at the wedding and the song my brother sang as i came down the aisle (walked across the beach)...the whole slideshow is so beautiful that i cried for 10 minutes straight while watching it, then had to watch it again and cry again. i just cant believe what a wonderful job she's done of it... i feel like the whole mood of the day and night has been captured. if you'd like to see it, here's the link:
http://www.pamfolio.com/galleries/annajerry/

tomorrow night jerry comes back to london for the weekend to work at the club. im missing him so much ive decided to follow him to work! it'll also be nice to see all my old colleagues who i havent seen since i quit to work for playboy...

tonight im curling up in bed to watch my new period drama 'mildred pierce', with some chai tea and some cadbury's chocolate....

peace to you all

:o)

the game of chance

2011-06-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

'he must love you a lot'.... i'm caught off guard by the punter standing to the side of my table, admiring my wedding ring which twinkles in the casino lighting. 'what's your name sweetheart?'... 'im bunny anna'.

after two months of intense bunny training, im now a qualified croupier and playboy bunny! me and 50 other lovely london bunnies can be found on the roulette and black jack tables of the world famous playboy club, just re-opended in mayfair, london.

i kept very hush-hush throughout the training, partially due to a clause on social-networking about playboy, but mainly because i was too busy to blog. i squeezed the full time bunny training around my nanny job and my weekend job at the club and was working 70 hour weeks with double shifts back to back on fridays and saturdays, all while planning a wedding! it was a marvelous feat if i do say so myself!

the 10 week training was fabulous. the main point was to learn roulette, which seems like a very easy game of chance where the croupier just spins the ball and hands out chips, but in actual fact it's extremely complex, with strict rules on procedures and it requires mathematical skills verging on genius. as bunny croupiers, we were to learn to do it all with 'style, flair and grace'. eyes up, shoulders back, playboy pinky fingers extended, smile!, voissin by fifty, 5, 8, 10 and 11 and the neighbours by 5, 'no more bets thank you!!'

while we learnt we laughed, we cried, and we forged amazing friendships. after all, we were 50 girls, london's finest and loveliest, all in the same position, all searching for some excitement, some glitz and glamour, to be a part of the history making as london playboy club re-opens after 50 years...

each week, different managers and high profiles would come to watch us practise, so we were to be perfectly groomed every day. high heels, glossy hair, manicured nails, dressed in our best. it sounds exhausting but we loved it! an excuse to dress up and look fabulous each day! the PR team would also come in to choose different girls for various publicity jobs; playboy perfume tv ad bunnies, Union Jack bunnies who would meet and greet with Heff at the grand opening, Grand Prix bunnies, Monaco private yacht bunnies, bunnies sent to Marbella, Catwalk bunnies and Media bunnies.

i was overjoyed to be chosen as a media bunny, who are to do all tv, magazine and newspaper interviews.. we were sent to a professional studio to do journalism training with big name journalists, who prepared us for tricky questions, how to avoid having our words twisted, and how to get our message across while remaining positive and upbeat. they did mock interviews of each of us, on film and made us watch them back as they picked good and bad points. i was put on the spot a few times and felt like i handled it quite well.. i must have because i was asked to do a BBC interview but unfortunately it collided with my thailand trip.

on the 'friends and family night', before the grand opening, we were each allowed to bring two guests to a cocktail party at the playboy club, to which all the bunnies from the 1960's were also invited. i brought jerry and my girlfriend igne and we had a fabulous night, sipping champagne and talking to the old bunnies who told us they had the time of their lives as bunnies in the 60's. they were making more money than their fathers and they hung out with the rolling stones, the beatles, clint eastwood, frank sinatra and all the other celebs who were regular patrons back then. we did a little photo shoot in our bunny costumes and then had dinner in the playboy restaurant.

how the club and clientele would be was a huge mystery to us and extremely exciting, as was the prospect of big tips... rumours circulated about how much other croupiers in mayfair casinos were making and we began making plans for how we'd spend our fortunes...

after a fabulous wedding holiday, i'm struggling to get back into the grind. i guess every new job takes a bit to get used to..... the clientele are not exactly what we expected and neither are the tips but its still early days.. the best thing about the job is seeing all the bunnies each day... we get ready together in our 'bunny hutch', squeezing into our tailor made bunny suits, complaining about stolen ears and missing tails, bitching about annoying customers and graveyard shifts while curling our hair and donning our makeup. though we're desensitized to it now, it would be quite a surreal scene to an outsider...

up on the gaming floor, its all about luck. superstition is thick in the air, dollar signs flash in everyones eyes as they test their luck, wait for their numbers to come up, curse and order 'change dealer' when the bunny deals them nothing, tips and 'darling' when the bunny spins their number. luck is everything.

'which number do you think i should i bet on?' the guy at my table asks me. 'i think you should listen to your heart'. i reply with a wink. he sizes up my bunny costume. 'your husband must be a very lucky man'.

;o)

newlyweds

2011-06-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage". ~Martin Luther

i found that written in our wedding guest book, by my godmother, neatly written amongst all the other warm wishes and declarations of love, scrawled by our half-pissed friends and family on the magical night of our wedding.....

yes, i am now a married woman. i know i abandoned you for a while there readers, but now i am back, and i am back a Missus.
'do you feel different?' all the bunnies ask me... i think about it... 'not really', except for when i have to refer to jerry as my husband. that makes me feel married..., old..., out of the game.....all of which i am.
and life feels different now. not because i'm a wife, but because for over a year we'd been planning our wedding. it was a creative outlet for me, in styling and designing the outfits and accessories, the decorations and table decor, the special activities that would make the night so unique and magical. it swallowed all my spare time but it was something to look forward to...

now i don't quite know what to do with myself, other than wallow in my bed, scrolling through the hundreds of wedding photos again and again, trying to relive that wonderful day, moment by moment, milk ever last bit of energy from it, that perfect day that i never wanted to end.

i know most brides will say that their wedding day was the best days of their lives, but let me tell you that mine in particular was a cracking bloody wedding. everyone there said so and i know they weren't just saying it. i could see it in their faces, their sweaty smiling faces as they danced around in bare feet, drunk and happy and having the time of their lives.

it was what dreams are made of; set on a beach in tropical paradise (koh samui, thailand) with the warm sea breeze, the canopy of coconut trees strung with pink fairy lights, white linen tables on the sand, a delicious thai buffet, live music by the fabulous sam & sam, and 80 of the people we love most in the world, all together for the first time, celebrating love in general, and mine and jerry's love in particular.

my bridesmaids looked heavenly in their pastel silk skirts, their vintage hair and pearls, their beautiful faces done up so they looked like 1940's hollywood starlets. we crowded into the thai fishing boat, our skirts filling it with a pool of colour, the sea around us a calm bliss in contrast to our nervous excitement, as we glimpsed the guests on the beach in the distance, all waiting for us to arrive. dad helped me out of the boat and onto shore, looking dapper in his suspenders and fedora. with one arm in his and the other holding my lace parasol, i walked along the beach knowing that this was the moment, the feeling that i would remember forever.

jerry and his handsome groomsmen were lined up at the tent in their tailored ivory suits and waistcoats and my heart just melted when i looked at jerry, so clean-cut and gorgeous and just as overwhelmed with happiness as i was. i heard mass weeping as i neared the tent and seeing my mum's tear-streaked face made me choke up for a second, but then i held it together...

we were married by my godmother in a beautiful ceremony on the sand, which was followed by a buddhist monk blessing and a love-tree plantation, both organised by the resort and which turned out to be very quirky and novel. the dinner was lovely, scattered with heartfelt and humorous speeches. mine and jerry's was last and we had to wing it. we'd had too much to organise to think about a speech. but we thanked everyone and at the end i announced my surprise for jerry. i'd learnt a beautiful song by angus and julia stone called 'the wedding song' and my brother came up on stage to accompany me singing it. it was about building a life together and making babies on the beach under the stardust. it was so perfect for the occasion that it seemed to have been written for us and i sang it to jerry as he cried, along with everyone else.

the night was perfect. the people from the resort had been at the temple praying for no rain and buddha must have heard them because it rained every day that week except for our wedding day. we had a beautiful overcast sky, perfect for photography and as the sun set over the water behind us, the sky turned purple. we had a polynesian dance show, fire twirlers and then we all lit 80 paper sky lanterns and sent them off in the sky together. later on kevin and steve put on a fireworks display on the beach, which was a surprise present to us. we had the bouquet toss and the garter throw and then on the stage sam and sam started an open-mic show where all the singers from the party (and there were loads!) got up to perform while everyone danced along. mum did her famous tina turner impression while we aussies taught the swedes to dance the nutbush. we twirled our skirts on that grass dance floor til 3am. then i dragged jerry from the beach to bed.

we couldn't have imagined a better wedding. it really was magical.
after an amazing two weeks in thailand, we said sad goodbyes to our families and friends and returned to london to begin a new chapter of life.... as newlyweds.
love to you all... its nice to be blogging again!
♡

I'm back!! Did you miss me?

2011-03-07T16:22:00.001-08:00

I'm lounging in a hotel room in Reading, waiting for my room service to arrive (a grilled vegetable salad with roquette and toasted pumpkin seeds and a glass of merlot) compliments of House of Grazia, where I'm headed back to tomorrow for day 3 of filming.. Im so excited!! I'm sure they have lots of surprises in store for me, which I have to keep hush hush about (oh the mystery and the intrigue!)

Sorry for being such a slackarse blogger.. It's been a monkey on my shoulder this whole time since my last blog.. My excuse is that Apple have robbed me of my darling beloved MacBook (as well as an arm and a leg to pay to fix it) and I'm quite lost without it. In fact I feel like my whole life has spun completely out of control without it!! Though jerry has kindly offered me the use of his ipad, I haven't warmed to the thing (have nearly thrown it across the room on several occasions).. It just doesn't love me the way my little laptop does, with it's friendly and familiar screensaver, all my folders of fun and folly, my years worth of photos, my music collection, my gathered bits and pieces, my shortcuts, my lists, my spreadsheets, my wedding planning stuff (!!), my blog inspiration...
Hopefully she'll be returned to me soon with all data intact..

Anyways, what's happened since my last blog...? Lots!!

SWEDISH RESIDENCY
I was granted my permanent Swedish residency!!! Only two weeks after applying!! As they slipped the sticker into my passport at the Swedish embassy, I turned to Jerry with a big grin on my face. His grin was even bigger. 'so my little swedie, are you going to be a good resident and learn the language now?' ..... 'hmmmph... I guess so :o('

WEDDING PLANNING
Jerry and I are paying for the wedding ourselves. We didn't want money from our parents, who firstly, don't have any, and secondly don't expect us to get married (mine aren't even married.. Actually I'm pretty sure jerry's aren't either!)... This means we've had to make a budget, based on how much we can save from our salaries, and try to stick to it... Jerry tries harder than I do. I have the tendency to see something I love and completely disregard the budget. This happened, for instance, with the wedding ring.... I found the most stunning ring, a wreath of glistening diamonds, wrapping all the way around the finger so that any which way you wave your hand around, it leaves a trail of flashes and sparkles... As I slid it onto my finger I had a fairytale moment, like I'd magically transformed into a princess. Just to set the record straight, I've never been a diamond-sort-of-girl; I originally didn't even want one on my engagement ring, it was Jerry who insisted.. But this ring...!
Anyway, it was over twice what our budget allowed, but that didn't stop me begging and pleading, then yelling and screaming. The hugest argument ensued in which we both threatened to return to our own countries, called the wedding off, then retracted only because our guests had already booked tickets and decided to go ahead with it but get divorced straight afterwards, we hissed and cursed at each other, spat the most disgusting insults that we could muster up.. I'm sure if we owned swords we would have duelled til the death!
Jerry called me superficial, materialistic, a fraud, a different girl than the one he'd fallen in live with.. I called him a tight-fisted, penny-pincher. He reminded me that he'd paid for my boobs and our holiday to Thailand among other things. I took it back sheepishly and instead called him a miserable grumpy old man.
It ended like all our arguments, with Jerry taking most of the blame and me admitting to a very small amount. :o)
Then hugs and kisses and 'i love you's as usual..
I agreed to consider other rings though I'm still secretly hoping I can hack him down with guilt and my feminine persuasion...

THE 80's PARTY
One of the things I love most about working for 'the club' is the steady stream of staff parties!! The 80's party weekend before last was an absolute rip-snorter!! Of course anything to do with dressing up in costumes makes me jump for joy, and most interestingly, (and something I consider a personal victory) is that Jerry who once detested and downright refused to dress up in fancy dress, now loves it like me!! He even suggested a shopping trip to primark for the occasion!!
The 1980's is a particularly fun theme since it's so colourful and eccentric. Walking to the tube station in our fluro colours, glittery spikes and Mohawk, fingerless gloves, Michael Jackson badges, Jerry in MY slashed jeans, we looked around and realized how boring, fashionwise, the twenty teens (or whatever the hell you call this decade) are... Everyone was in black and grey!!
We proceeded to the party where we got very pissed on free booze and the flashes I have of the night are of stealing drink tickets from the non-drinkers, having a lap-dance-off on stage with Abas and Fannie, crying because I didn't say goodbye to Luis before he left, rolling around on the carpet with my boss, popping the tyres in the taxi, roaming the streets with top-gun sandy and a group of others, getting into an argument with a club promoter and calling the cops, waking up (with Jerry) in phil's bed while he had to sleep on the couch, and doing the walk of shame home with tattered torquoise tights, a matted Mohawk and purple eyeshadow smeared across a very hungover face. Oh dear...
I was, and still am a child of the 80's...

Gotta go to bed. Must be fresh for house of Grazia.

Love, and other catstrophes
Anna xxxx

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Much ado about nothing

2011-02-25T12:20:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh!! My laptop is dead!!! It died in it's sleep the other night, just packed it in and died... I'm so lost without it! Im waiting for an appointment with apple to (hopefully) recucitate it and I'm praying that my data isn't lost since I have my whole life inside that thing, and no back-up on hard drive...I Learnt that lesson the hard way huh...

Anyways, the exciting news since my last blog is that 'house of grazia' called me to tell me that one of the girls pulled out at the last minute and was i still interested in being in the show, and if so, could I catch the train out to their mystery country estate the following evening..!! I was over the moon! I just knew i was supposed to be in it!! I organised a replacement nanny for miss a and packed a bag with my prettiest things...

On the train i signed a legally binding contract to not disclose any details of the goings on of the following few days until after the show has screened...!! How frustrating!! I wish I could but I can't.. I think I'm allowed to say that it was a great experience and I'm really looking forward to going back to the house next month! For anyone who has access to 'sky lifestyle' on tv, the show will be on in June.. I'll let you know which date..

So, well, I guess it's much ado about nothing then...
Sorry for the boring blog!

Xx

to love and marriage, (and black jack and bunnies)

2011-02-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

❉ since its been so long since my last blog, ive decided to write an extra long one to make up for it.. drop off as soon as you get bored... :o)

today my 'playboy bunny pack' arrived in the mail. what excitement!! the bunnies will be filling various roles such as receptionist, cashier, cocktail waitress, hostess and croupier. when i received the million dollar phone-call from playboy, their offer to me was for a job as a croupier, for which they would give me two months of paid training. i was thrilled!!! i imagined myself becoming a professional card shark, playing black jack and poker all night, spinning that roulette wheel and dishing out all the winning chips, of course receiving the £1000 chip tips here and there from the high-rollers who'd be regulars at my table... after all, it is an exclusive members club with high membership fees so there's no piss-farting around here.

oh, i've always loved the vibe at casinos and this is gonna be a really fun one! i'm also very excited to wear the iconic bunny costume, which will be tailor-made to fit my curves... is it strange that i'm happy to wear such a skimpy little costume to work everyday? i guess there are a lot of women out there who would never dream of it (wouldn't or couldn't do it) and some who would even disapprove and criticize, and to such people i say 'go and have some fun!'

i suppose it's quite a contentious issue; whether such roles objectify women. we don't and won't ever all agree on it, but it's still interesting to debate. i've never been prudish about my body (perhaps from growing up with hippy parents), in fact i've done life-modelling for art since i was 15. i don't have any medieval notions of the body being sinful. i don't mind flashing a bit of skin and i love wearing costumes... i've been called an exhibitionist more than once, and maybe i am... feeling sexy to me is empowering rather than degrading. i don't feel like a sex object, i feel like a sexual human being, and there's nothing unusual or wrong with that. if women want to wear burkhas to avoid tempting men with their flesh, then they can go ahead, but i'll take the bunny costume over the burkha any day of the week...

one of the great things about jerry is that he encourages me to do whatever makes me happy. there would be some boys who wouldn't like their wife-to-be to get a job as a playboy bunny. jerry's totally supportive and even excited for me! the count-down to the wedding is at the four-month point now and though we've managed to organise a lot of things (the resort, the flights, the invitations, the celebrant, my bridesmaids outfits, the catering and the cake) there's still a whole lot left to organise; the band, the songs, the rings, the vows, the speeches, the table settings... it goes on and on really... who would've ever thought planning a wedding was such a massive job!!

for once, something was very easy and that was me applying for swedish residency. we figured that it'll be handy for me to have, since we'll move to sweden if jerry's visa application doesn't get through fort knox, otherwise known as australian immigration. at the swedish embassy i was ushered into a small cubicle, and asked questions about my relationship with jerry. at the end of the interview the lady told me i should be granted permanent swedish residency in 8 weeks time!!! ... it seemed too easy to be true!!! we did some googling on 'permanent residency' and apparently it means i can live there, work there, study there for free, and even be entitled to government financial support while i'm studying! what a country!!

of course australia is our plan A. we've just sent off the huge package of documents (which took 6 months just to gather) to our immigration lawyer and in 6-8 months time we might get a response... my brother went through the same ball-breaking process with his costa rican wife, and today is their australian wedding, which i'm very sad to be missing... i spent my evening last night writing a speech, to be read on my behalf by my little brother. i was pretty happy with it in the end.

i take some credit for their relationship, since i was the one who invited caro to a big party we were hosting at our hillside costa rican villa, where my brother met her for the first time. i remember seeing her coming up the driveway, squashed between our two friends english-joe and cyril, in english-joe's army jeep.. i did a double take, having to look twice at her because she was so beautiful. i wondered who this gorgeous girl was, it couldn't possibly be either of their girlfriends since she was far too pretty for them... (my brother has definitely succeeded in batting over his average!)

when my brother and caro started dating i transformed into the psycho jealous evil sister from hell and tried everything to sabotage their romance. i think i even tried to have her kicked out of our cocktail bar one night when they were caught kissing in the VIP room. i definitely handed her her bill before she asked for it... i was just jealous, probably because he'd found love and i hadn't, but also because my brother and best friend in costa rica was being stolen away from me...

when i got to know caro, i realised why my brother had fallen in love with her. she's a rare species like him; lovely, kind, warm-hearted, generous, golden, eternally good.... she welcomed us into her home when we'd lost everything and had no money and nowhere to live. though the cocktail bar had been the best experience of our lives, it also caused us a years worth of hair-pulling, gut-wrenching anxiety and stress. when we moved in with caro, we enjoyed the simple things in life again..cooking, watching movies, laughing. i discovered caro is also hilarious! and she made my brother happy...

i directed my little brother to make a toast at the end of my speech, with a favourite little quote of mine, by michael luenig... 'love each other and you will be happy, it's as simple and as difficult as that'.....

cheers to love and marriage, to my own and to everyone else's. may you all find someone to love who loves you in return, but most of all, who makes you happy...

:o)

vomiting bunny (cuniculus vomitus)

2011-02-10T18:01:00.000-08:00

✽ i arrived yesterday morning at miss a's house, feeling a bit funny in the stomach. i tried to toughen up like a good princess, and since it was sunny outside (for once) i dressed miss a up (i love putting together cute outfits from her wardrobe) and took her down kings road for ice-cream. she's so adorable that strangers are constantly complimenting me on her and i have to say that i don't always admit to them that i'm just her nanny.

when we arrived home i had to rush to the bathroom because something evil and sinister, vile, diabolically foul was brewing inside me and had to spontaneously explode its way out, by any means necessary. i've never vomited through my nose before. it was quite an experience...

in my intervals between bathroom runs, i lay curled up on the couch, groaning in pain, my stomach a tight fist, with miss a running around me chirping 'anna, come chase me! anna come dance with me! '... she followed me into the toilet 'anna's doing wee-wees again'.... 'no sweetie, this isn't wee-wees, i don't think you wanna see this''...

whilst staggering back to the couch, the vague stench of sour vomit hovering around me, my eyes two black holes in my yellow face, my phone began to ring. it was tina from playboy. 'congratulations on becoming a playboy bunny! you made it through the final casting!!'
with all my will i mustered up the strength to sound excited and happy... (of course today i was!!!)

miss a's mum came home early, sent me in a cab straight home to bed, where jerry took care of me, fed me yoghurt, patted my head and told me i'd be much better in the morning... which i was.

:o)

❤ emma charlotte

2011-02-06T17:38:00.000-08:00

✩ thursday was the day of the final bunny casting! my aussie girlfriend leah arrived on the same day for an overnight visit on her way to paris, and it was lovely to see her again! she needed a gown for a ball and the dress i'd ordered last minute online for my bunny-casting had arrived big, baggy and saggy so i was very keen to accompany leah on a shopping spree down oxford street.

almost directly after leaving the house, the high heel snapped off one of my boots (previously believed to be chloe, but obviously not!) and as i hopped along through the crowds on oxford circus with one flat and one high-heeled boot, i wondered that my morning of small mishaps might be some sort of omen and that perhaps if i'd been superstitious and checked one of those chinese daily fortune almanacs it would have told me that the stars were not in alignment for my good fortune that day.... ahh, would i have similar bad luck with the bunny casting??! ...with the clock ticking til bunny time, my nerves began fraying at the edges and it took all my energy to not break down in a panic attack!

after rampaging all the dress shops along oxford and regent streets, leah finally found a stunning black gown and i a gorgeous little black mini frock, perfect for winning friends and influencing people...(fingers crossed)

back at home i got ready in record time, with the help of a hot iron and a straight shot of gin and i was off to the party in leicester square feeling ready to knock em dead. 50 pretty little potential bunnies and i gathered in the casino bar and tammy the mother bunny gave us a little speech of encouragement before we hit that cocktail bar to charm the socks of those 10 bosses. there was such high energy in the room that the entire 2 hours seem like one big blur now...

all i remember is feeling like a shark, in a sea of sharks, attacking those bosses, ripping them to shreds, cutting in on each other to savage the remains of their bloody corpses, grinning faces smeared with flesh, eyes wild with the thrill of the massacre. i dont know if i got through... there was some stiff competition... lovely bubbly creatures, cutesy blonde bombshells, amazonian models, latin beauties, some killer personalities, lots of very good sharks....

this time i'm not going to count my chickens. i was emailed by house of grazia on friday, who apologised that i hadn't made it through the final cut for the tv show, and though they'd loved me in the office, the TV channel decided in the end that my story didn't tie in with the other girls stories. obviously since i'd been led to believe i was through, that email felt like a fist grabbing my heart out of my chest. i was on the brink of tears all night at work, and only brought out of my misery by the exciting news that my most adored cousin donna had given birth to a baby girl!! from a gloomy depression i was lifted up to an ecstatic high, and all of a sudden i didn't care at all about tv shows, chloe boots or even bunnies...
welcome to the world emma charlotte!
xxx

♥ burlesque baby!

2011-02-03T02:45:00.000-08:00

♥ lost in the cobbled back alleys of shoreditch, i wandered around in search of the venue for my burlesque class and found it just before my iphone's battery gave way and google maps disappeared. i'd forgotten my high heels and leggings at miss A's house and was forced to present myself to the first class in jeans and bare feet. some of the other girls had enthusiastically dolled themselves up in corsets, mini skirts and stay-up stockings and i felt like a real piker...

the teacher, milicent, was a lovely young thing; alabaster skin, red lips and dark hair swept up, wearing the most gorgeous velvet dress and vintage heels. she'd just gotten back from doing a show with deeta von teese and told us that burlesque has given her great traveling opportunities.

we spent the class prancing around in circles, kicking, spinning and dipping, while admiring ourselves in the wall to wall mirrors. she taught us the bump and grind, the kitten walk, the marylin monroe, the starlet pose, a feather boa dance, boob and bum shimmies and 5 ways to seductively remove your gloves with your teeth, your toes and your knees! she assured us that we would eventually learn hundreds of ways to remove gloves, and that we should all choose a favourite for our personal routines!

apparently by the second level, we should have an idea of what type of burlesque dancer we are, we will have created our own stage names and started putting together our own costume! but to begin with, lets master this bump and grind! i kept catching myself with a big silly grin on my face and then scanned the room to find that all the girls had them!

oh... what fun!! i can tell i'm gonna love it!

:o)

the invitation

2011-02-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

❉ today in the mail arrived the official invitation for the playboy cocktail party and final casting. i was just as excited to receive that invitation as if it was a golden ticket in a Wonka bar. the chocolate factory would be cool, but more than anything else right now, more than the world, the whole world, wrapped up in my pocket (it's my bar of chocolate..give it to me now)... i just want to be a bunny!

meanwhile, jerry, who's aspiring to be a hotel manager, is studying his bum off to get through his uni degree and is working his way towards VIP area manager at the club. saturday night was his first night as 'VIP host' and he loved it! he was so cute at home, dressing up in the outfit he'd carefully planned; suit jacket and jeans with matching purple suspenders, handkerchief, socks and shoelaces, and he was so bubbly with excitement that it just warmed my heart!

he went back to sweden on sunday for 5 days and i miss him desperately already!! he's taking his groomsmen to get all their wedding suits made and is under strict instructions to consult me before making any decisions. though i desperately wanted them all in white, he's insisting on them wearing some colour and i suppose i should settle down with the bridezilla thing and let him have some say in the design of our wedding...

i didn't know what to do with myself on sunday with him gone, which is an indication of our ridiculous co-dependency...and i know it's not jut me, because jerry refuses to even go to the supermarket downstairs without me and often asks me to hang out in the bathroom while he's taking a shower to keep him company... oh, its sweet really isn't it?!
so in his absence i've kept myself distracted with online shopping (i love you ASOS), long skype conversations to my peeps back home, and the gym.... my god, spinning is hard core! i nearly sweated to death on that bike, but i came out feeling like i'd had brand new batteries put in me...

tomorrow is my first burlesque dance class! i have no idea what to expect but i'm very excited. according to the website we must bring along long opera gloves, high heels that can be comfortably danced in, but no nipple tassels until the second level!! i shall keep you informed my dearies...

:o)

babies and bunnies

2011-01-27T05:40:00.000-08:00

❉ yesterday i took miss A to putney to meet jerry. she sat happily on his lap in the thai restaurant while he taught her to play 'angry birds' on his iphone. he fed her some chocolate buttons, asked her how old she was, (to which she proudly exclaimed 'two and a half!'), and that's all it took to totally win her over. as she slept in the pusher, he told me she must be the cutest kid in the whole world.... i swear he's clucky!

she is an absolutely adorable kid and because of this i've found that i don't mind so much being a nanny any more! ive been teaching her yoga, painting her face as a different animal each day and dragging her around wherever i want to go; on shopping trips down kings road, to museums, to meet my friends for lunch, out for coffee (she loves her babyccinos!)... listen to me, going on about the kid like a boring mum! ... though i really love her, i'm far from ready to have my own kids and i cant actually imagine a time when i will feel ready! if it's gonna happen, it'll have to be by accident!

jerry and i finally found an apartment in putney, which we accepted yesterday. its a little one bedroom flat, very rough around the edges but also cheap and we're thinking that it's gonna be a fun project to do it up ourselves! it needs a new sofa, table, chairs, basically everything!... but it'll be a fun mission, finding bargains in ikea, on gumtree and in local charity shops, doing some painting, being creative... i'm looking forward to it!

EXCITING NEWS!!!! i just got a call from playboy congratulating me for getting through to the next stage of the bunny casting!!!!!! aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!
the next event is a cocktail party at the casino which i'll be hostessing at. the guests will be all the senior bosses of playboy and london clubs and the dress code is 'cocktail chic'.... oh my god!! how exciting!... and definitely a new-dress occasion!

yippeeeee!!!
:o)

inbetween

2011-01-23T16:23:00.000-08:00

❉ lately i haven't been at all inspired to write my blog and even considered quitting it altogether.. but i know it's just a phase and it will pass...
i must remember the times when sitting down and doing some creative blog-writing has been my most favourite thing...

i guess its because i'm in an 'inbetween' phase right now. the wedding is creeping closer and there's so much to organise; i'm still waiting to hear back from the house of G regarding the reality TV show; i'm anxiously awaiting to see whether i got through the playboy bunny casting and now we've decided to move house to the other side of the city, where we can be closer to work, and live by ourselves....
my whole life feels in limbo!

i think a new flat will cheer me up.. i love moving house; unpacking, decorating, settling in, starting a fresh... as a kid i lived in 8 different houses in 3 different states, as well as a campervan for a good while. mum and dad seemed to be always chasing some sort of dream, which meant we travelled around the country til we finally ended up back in their home town. i used to love boxing my things up, riding on the sofas that were loaded onto the truck trailer as my dad drove to the new house (that mustn't have been illegal in the '80s!); racing my brother in to each new house to shotgun the best bedroom; setting out my dolls, my jewellery boxes, my books, my rubber collection; exploring the back yard and then jumping on our bikes to explore the neighbourhood.

even since i moved out from mum and dad's, i've lived in 15 houses (in 8 countries) plus 2 ship cabins!! i think it's fair to say that moving house is a bit of a hobby!

at the moment i have my heart set on putney, where my friend igne is moving, and which seems like such a gorgeous little english village on the river, with its hilly main street lined with cafes and florists... apartments get snapped up so fast though that we have to be quick to even get a look..

hopefully we'll find the perfect flat soon and i can jump out of limbo and into the start of a new phase...

:o)

birthday week

2011-01-20T18:54:00.000-08:00

❀ just like last year, i managed to stretch my birthday into a long birth week celebration..
thirty deserves at least a week to process doesnt it....?
at midnight of the 15th i began fishing for birthday wishes at work, determined to milk every last minute of birthday attention possible. i told all my VIP guests, of course, who were offering me dom perignon along with their congratulations.

one of the promo girls asked me how old i was and when i told her she choked 'oh god!! ...at least you're engaged!'.... i pondered her meaning for a little while. is that really all ive got? safety from the dreaded bridgett jones spinster status....? i guess i possibly would be freaking out even more if i were single and thirty.

i hadnt planned on having a party, but at the last minute jerry and my colleagues from the club talked me into drinks at gem bar in soho, which of course turned into a few more and a few more... apparently when jerry finally dragged me into a taxi i insisted on sitting on the floor of the vehicle instead of in the seat and refused to let jerry stop for mcdonalds. then at home the only thing we had to eat was muesli and jerry found me bawling my eyes out, milk and muesli running down my face, sobbing that i'd wished we'd stopped at mcdonalds...

on wednesday jerry and i enjoyed my complimentary birthday dinner for two at babylon (a virgin perk) along with wine and scrumptious cocktails...
then tonight, as part of my birthday present, jerry took me out for a delicious italian meal in covent garden and then to see Priscilla at the palace theatre in the west end! it was wonderful wonderful wonderful!!!...the costumes, the sets, the choreography, the singers....!! for the finale when all the dancers came out dressed as australian flowers and animals i got a huge lump in my throat and my eyes welled up with tears. i realised that australia will always be wrapped around my heart, ready to pull the strings at any time to make me miss it.

thank you to everyone who made my birthday such a happy one. i wish you all happiness in return! most especially to my darling jerry who gave me his first card, (a picture of a man with a big rooster with 'this man has a big cock' written underneath), and who i love so much for spoiling me rotten, never saying no to me, letting me do whatever i want and loving me for exactly who i am.

:o)

to a new decade...

2011-01-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

❀ today's the last day of my 20's...
i can't quite accept it...
dirty thirty seems such a huge transition, though everyone tells me you don't feel any different...
i imagine there'll be some sort of click within and all of a sudden my brain will tell me its time to grow up now, which is something i've been fighting wildly for a while...

over my morning porridge and coffee, two huge bunches of flowers arrived at my door, one from my family, the other from my old friend (and bridesmaid to be), sarah. i was so surprised and happy and touched at such loveliness that i was jumping around the kitchen in joy and even managed to motivate myself to go to my belly dance class which ive missed the last 3 weeks! we're doing a great routine in class right now, which i want to buy the music for to practise at home... my friend abas told me that if i want i can perform at his turkish restaurant, but i need much more practise before i can take something like that on!

i'm still not sure if i want to celebrate my birthday... jerry's promised to take me to the theatre, which im very excited about but he also thinks i should have a small party at a cocktail bar... we'll see...

i have a stash of unopened presents in my wardrobe, which have arrived in the mail and i cant wait to tear them open tomorrow! (thank you to my mum & dad, nanna & poppa, donna and yvonne!)...

cheers to another decade!
xoxoxo

bunny casting

2011-01-12T18:12:00.000-08:00

✰ the bunny casting was held at a big casino in leicester square... i was running late from spending way too long on my hair and was stressing to death on the tube... i ran pushing through the crowd to the casino entrance, threw off my flats and threw on my highest heels and slipped into the place at 2 o'clock on the dot.

i was super nervous and totally high on adrenalin and excitement. it was a very professional event: life-size bunny cut-outs were positioned throughout the casino, leading the way to the function room where all the big bosses from playboy and london clubs were there to meet and select 80 bunnies out of 2000 applicants!!

there were 20 girls at this casting and the ones i talked to were so friendly and lovely! we started off by watching a powerpoint presentation about the history of the playboy club which was really interesting. i did some further youtubing back home and found out that the london playboy club was the height of decadence back in the swinging 60's and it was a huge status symbol to have membership. i watched youtube clips of 1960's bunnies with their tiny waists, hot-rollered hair and black-and-white-movie accents, dancing the twist, greeting guests at the door and serving cocktails doing the classic 'bunny dip' .... in their dressing rooms they smoked vogue cigarettes and talked about their weekly wage of £35 (without tips) which back then was twice the average weekly wage(!)..
many of them were swept off their feet by millionaires and celebrities, though they officially weren't allowed to date their customers. one bunny is asked in an interview does she not think its degrading to women to dress in those outfits, to which she responds 'we wear far less at the beach'.

my good old mum is really excited about the job and has done her own research on the role of the bunnies, assuring me its a very classy role, somewhat similar to a geisha.. i like that comparison... (both are non-sexual jobs just in case anyone's been misinformed..)

the casting event was one big fun day full of activities designed to let the bosses see our personalities shining.. in small groups we wrote and performed singing telegrams on different topics, did maths tests and colour tests with casino chips (bunnies are also trained to be croupiers)... we each tried on a mock bunny outfit and did a photoshoot with the photographer and finally we did one-on-one interviews with one of the bosses. mine went really well since he and i shared many similar interests and the interview was more like a casual but interesting conversation between friends. i came out feeling like he'd really liked me. nevertheless, im not getting too excited since there are 200 more potential bunnies going through the casting process.

i left feeling way too buzzed to go home, so instead i met jerry and sandy at our friend abas's restaurant for a turkish mezze dinner followed by cocktails at my girlfriend igne's bar. she even invented a 'bunny' cocktail especially for me, which was delicious and she refused to divulge the ingredients.

keep your fingers crossed for me!!

♥

movie week

2011-01-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

❅ this week's been movie week.. i forced jerry to watch the amazing (and disturbing) 'black swan'....
i absolutely love natalie portman, more for each movie she makes! i decided that in my hypothetical world, if there was ever a movie made about me i'd like natalie portman to play me.

then my girlfriend igne and i went to see 'burlesque' in leicester square on thursday, with cocktails before and afterwards of course. we knew it would be corny and were mainly interested in the dances and burlesque costumes, since a while ago we'd both decided to start burlesque classes. i'm starting the course at 'burlesque baby' next month bot unfortunately igne cant join me because of work :o( ....

i'd originally become interested in burlesque because of the movie set i was working on (miss mia meows) where i met annette , who's a big name in the london burlesque scene and who teaches at burlesque baby. she was so amazing looking in her feathery corsetted costume and coifed red hair, she looked like she'd stepped straight out of the 1950's. even in her regular clothes she was a picture of vintage elegance. she was also a lovely girl and entertained us with hilarious stories including one about a one-night-stand she'd had with a cute photographer guy and the next morning when she woke up, she saw his bedroom in daylight and his walls were covered in framed photographs of her, taken from the internet!!! he'd been obsessed with her and had finally managed to track her down and seduce her! she got out of there really quick!

i told her a story from when i was in high school, and we had an older friend who had his own flat where we used to all hang out and party. one day i found a match box on his coffee table, opened it up and inside was a ball of rolled up blonde hair. i asked the friend 'what the hell is this?' and he admitted to me that it was my hair... that every time id borrowed his hairbrush he'd scraped my hair out of it and kept it in that box! being all of 17 years old i was flattered rather than freaked out and thought it was pretty cool to have someone obsessed with me.

last night i met up with my good old friend dan, who's normally too busy for me, but made time to meet me to celebrate his birthday. (only joking dan!! i know you've been busy and i have been too)... we saw '127 hours' and then spent the rest of the night in a cosy pub with open fire, drinking pints while catching up on months of gossip and reminiscing good times in japan.. we promised each other that this year we'll make more effort at catching up.

have a nice weekend everyone!
love, love
xx

searching for bunnies

2011-01-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

❅ jerry's killing for a holiday. i suggested a nice mini-break to a lovely historic mansion/hotel in the english countryside... he laughed in my face. though i'd love to explore the land of my heritage and see those grand buildings that make up the settings for all the period dramas i love watching, jerry has absolutely zero interest in anything to do with the UK.

he's craving sunshine and has been browsing holiday packages to tenerife and grand canary.. also very tempting i have to say... if only we weren't so impoverished because of the damned wedding budget! ....ok, we're not impoverished- that's not fair to all those who truly are slumming it. we lead a good life, we just both need some excitement right now...

in search of something to stimulate me, i jumped on my old fave website gumtree... i'd been considering italian classes since i've always enjoyed studying italian and am losing it from never practising... and through the gumtree classifieds i managed to organise a language exchange with an italian girl named claudia who'll ill meet once a week for coffee and language! yay!

in my browsing, i also stumbled across an advertisement for the new high-profile Playboy club/casino, opening soon in mayfair, for which they're seeking bunnies.....
hmmm... playboy bunnies hey?.....
did the ad spark my interest? ...of course it did! ...not only for the classic iconic uniforms which are timelessly sexy, the history and reputation of the company and the vision of tips tips tips... but i figured.. i've got a bit of free time in which i could be working... what the hell? i can be a bunny!
i sent off my CV and today received a response: mine was among those chosen from the thousands of applicants and would i like to come to a casting event on monday?
how much fun!
:o)

resolutions shmesolutions

2011-01-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

❅ i was determined to turn over a new leaf in 2011, since the wedding countdown has reached the five month point, and i'd already composed a mental list of new years resolutions, the three main ones being:
1) quit junk food (in particular chocolate)
2) minimum of four gym workouts a week (including spinning classes, which everyone warns me is vomitously hard, but very effective)
3) less binge drinking...

i had high hopes for the feeling this fresh new life would bring me... i imagined the new me: glowing with good health and happiness, sporting a trim gym-body, feeling fit and agile like a wild animal and free from post-alcohol depression and anxiety...
however, due to my pathetic lack of will power, in just the fifth hour of the new year i was already pissed on champagne and gorging columbian chocolates at our after-work party.

new years eve at the club was so much fun, even though we were working... i had some really friendly VIP guests, i danced around on the VIP sofa on the countdown, popping streamers, and received a million happy-new-year hugs and kisses from all my lovely colleagues.... and of course, i was with jerry, which is always nice.
after the club closed we all stayed back to drink champagne and dance until 7am.

jerry's swedish friend My and her girlfriend were visiting from barcelona and came to stay with us yesterday. we went out with them and sandy, one of our bosses, for a thai dinner, drinks at a cocktail bar and then partying at a club called 'egg' near our house. my is the most hilarious person and had me in tears of laughter all night, doing her party-trick boob-dance, making hilarious swenglish comments, trying to do fanny farts in the elevator, pretending to be a famous russian singer (and making me pretend to be russian as well) to a group of guys at egg who's private table we wanted to steal, and telling us hilarious stories about her wacky friend who threw a pooh in a hot-dog roll on a roof to watch it melt, and carried a raw steak to a club in her handbag to pull out and slap a guys face with.

we got home at 7am again, totally smashed, and slept 3-in-the bed with sandy who i woke in the morning by accidentally spilling a glass of water all over. we wallowed all day at home in our filthy hangovers while sandy had to go to work, the poor thing.

so anyway i've decided i'm going to start the new years resolutions as of tomorrow :o)....

another one bites the dust... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010-12-31T06:54:00.000-08:00

* today's the last day of 2010... how the years seem to fly by, each year quicker than the last! 2010 seems to have passed like the batter of an eyelash, though when i think about it, so much has happened...

i saw in 2010 in the snowy ski resort of Åre in sweden, working at nova cocktail bar with jerry. at midnight we skipped out from behind the bar to see the fireworks over the pretty white town square while the snow fell on our faces....

i did the winter season in that ski town, lived with four swedish boys, served sushi and steak by day and cocktails by night, became a coyote ugly, tried to ski (and gave up)....
mid-season we had our australian visa application denied by the heartless robots at immigration, and i suffered the devastation of the possibility that i'd never be allowed to move back home... nevertheless, i picked myself up and got over that bridge and even managed a quick visit back to oz to be the maid of honour at my beloved cousin donna's wedding and enjoyed two weeks of the hot australian summer. when i returned to snowy sweden, my sweetheart asked me to marry him (and he'd planned to even before id caught the bouquet!)...and i said yes of course.

at the end of the season jerry took me on a romantic holiday to the islands of thailand where we thawed our bones and chose our wedding venue.

we then packed up our lives into four suitcases and moved to london, the land of opportunities and the centre of the world, along with the world's tallest man (and one of jerry's best friends). i fell in love with the city instantly...not only because they speak my language instead of the hurdy gurdy, but because i knew straight away that this is where you can find anything and do anything, including (and most especially) following your dreams.

we found a lovely apartment in islington, i got a job in a pub which i quit after a month and we then discovered the club, where we all got jobs we love with people we love.
i became a nanny on the side, started taking classes in the hurdy gurdy (swedish for those of you who didn't watch sesame street); i organised a suprise birthday party in stockholm for jerry's 30th; visited brighton, celebrated the first anniversary of this, my blog; bought a new scooter, won a best actors award; started belly dancing again; life-modelling again; snuck into an exclusive fashion week party with a stolen invitation; got hit on by prince harry; worked on two movie sets as an extra and an assistant production designer, met some extraordinary people and got accepted into a british reality show called the house of grazia, all the meanwhile planning (and saving for) a big destination wedding.

it's been an eventful year.....
but somehow i think that 2011 will be even bigger.....

to you, my loyal readers, thank you for sharing my highs and lows. the yellow brick road has been fun to keep and i hope you'll continue the ride through 2011 and beyond.
lots of love to you all........ and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
xx me
:o)

christmas coccyx jollyness

2010-12-27T10:20:00.000-08:00

❅ christmas never feels quite like christmas unless i'm home with my family, though we had a lovely double christmas here in london.... we celebrated christmas eve at our friends angela & nelson's bed and breakfast, where angela and her mum had been to a huge effort cooking all day for the feast! some other friends including sophie from work and her boyfriend came too and we spent the evening eating, drinking, playing trivial pursuit and being jolly.

jerry got shit-faced drunk and entertained us all with his vulgar humour and idiotic jokes, sophie cheated her way through the board game while we laughed our arses off at nelson, who was dressed up like a 1950's immigrant and made sure everyone knew he was 'pure blood portuguese' while everyone else at the table was a mix of this and that.... one of the trivia questions was 'where's the coccyx?' and nelson answered 'on the hip bone, at the end of the arse!' which was a funny answer already, but made even funnier because jerry thought the question was 'where's the cock sit?' and was astonished that nelson had been given the green chip for his answer! we were all in pain from laughing so hard on stomachs full of christmas food and liquor.

because of our hangovers, we were late for christmas lunch the next day at my cousin dale's house, but in time for desserts, drinking games and secret santa...:o) my uncle, aunty and cousins were there as well as all their housemates and friends and for most of the day jerry was the only non-australian there. we stayed all day and night, eating, drinking and playing games and it was lovely!

i remember as a kid i would lay out all my new christmas presents on my bed, and leave them there for several days, just to admire them all. i decided to do the same this year with the lovely pressies i received: a faux-fur jacket from mum & dad, a sequined dress that jerry chose himself, some lacey pijamas from my cousin hannah, a perfumed candle from the family of miss A, rose room perfume and hand cream from sophie, an eyeshadow kit from angela and a fruity bath set from secret santa....

merry christmas to everyone! i hope you all ate too much, drank too much, laughed too much and received lots of lovely presents...
xxx

snow, snow, snow!

2010-12-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

❅ london's totally snowed under and its so pretty! much better than the usual gray gloomy wretchedness... i'm so hoping for a white christmas!

while trekking through the snow on my way to belly dance class, 3 young boys in the park attacked me with snowballs. one hit me in the head and i was so outraged and furious that i cursed at them, then had to calm myself down, remembering what an evil brat i'd been at their age...

jerry and i ventured to ikea today, way out in the suburbs, to stock up on swedish goodies for christmas lunch; the salmon and the dill sauces, lingonberry, swedish meatballs, marabou chocolate and my favourite; pepparkakor (gingerbread snapps)... for some reason they didnt have any glög (the warm spiced wine) so tomorrow we have to make a trip to the swedish shop for that.

we're spending christmas day with my uncle, aunt and cousins, (who happen to be stuck at a swedish airport because of the snow!) but since christmas for jerry is the 24th, he insisted we celebrate that as well, so we're heading to our our friends angela and nelson's house for a christmas eve feast with board games... some people are too cool for board games and i'm so glad angela and nelson are not because i adore playing board games! i've counted down more than one new year in the middle of a heated game of monopoly, trivial pursuit or balderdash... seriously! ....i'm actually quite fiercely competetive when it comes to such games, but i'll try to control my demons this time since its christmas, just to keep the spirit ;o)

dear heart

2010-12-17T11:05:00.000-08:00

Fannie Schiavoni

❅ last night we had dinner at the charming turkish restaurant 'galipoli', with our friend gio from work and his lovely wife fannie (who we were meeting for the first time) and our good old friend abas (who also works there) joined us later on.
we had such a nice time! the food was scrumptious as usual, and we completely stuffed ourselves with it.

abas is love-struck with a girl he's forbidden to date, who happens to be a psychologist of the crazy paranoid kind, who keeps psycho-analysing him and accusing him of recording their conversations to blackmail her with! its all quite amusing. even more amusing was gio with his razor sharp-wit, especially when his jokes were at abas's expense! i was roaring with laughter all evening!
and fannie is the sweetest loveliest thing, a gorgeous swedish blonde who happens to be the most talented jewellery designer! her jewellery is sold by dolce & gabbana (among others) and worn by celebrities like rhianna and lady gaga, who she follows around the world on tour to do their costume design. for all her success, she's the most humble and sweet girl! how much i admire and envy people like her who manage to make such a successful career out of their hobbies and passions.

i received a message last night that my mum's unwell. her heart problems have come back again, despite the stents and the medication and the healthy lifestyle and diet and loads of natural medicine that she doses up on daily. the doctors put it down to genetic weakness. how unfair that seems, to be so powerless in it.
i just can't bare my mum being ill, and even worse being so far away from her when she's ill. i dreamt all night of being home again, and couldn't help crying to jerry, who sweetly offered to send me home to visit her, although she protests it's not necessary to spend the money.

ive been told i should start getting my heart checked as soon as i turn 30 because there's a high likelihood mine will be similarly weak.... i never really believed it to be honest.
What a strange concept- the human heart...we refer to it constantly and link all our most amazing feelings and experiences to it; but how bizarre to actually imagine your own!

♥

christmas cards

2010-12-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

❅ i had the idea to send out christmas cards this year, something i never do... after the fifth one, i gave up, exhausted.. surely it's not worth it, since they'll end up in the rubbish directly after christmas anyway...
yesterday i did my christmas shopping in one sitting on ebay- so much easier, but much less in the spirit of things, isnt it?! jerry and i will do a westfields shopping day to buy for each other. im forcing jerry to choose something for me himself so that its a surprise. if he's chosen it it'll be so much more special, and ill wear it anyway, even if i dont like it, just because of that. of course the only useful thing we can get each other is clothes, since we're such bloody nomad gypsies. i look through the magazines with the 'gift suggestion' pages- kooky tea-towells and wall hangings, beautiful throw rugs, interesting coffee table books, retro vases....wow, thats such a different world to me... how nice it would be to own a house to decorate and pour your love and creative flair into.... is it too much to wish for a house for christmas?

london looks so pretty with all the christmas lights and decorations, especially in the rich neighbourhoods where i work, where people can be bothered spending money on lights and hanging them up... chelsea is quite spectacular! ...down our end in kings cross, people are not as festive. we dont even have a tree. jerry asked me if we should do a christmas eve dinner in our apartment for some friends. 'everyone's going home for christmas except us!' i replied. he then listed off a bunch of names of people who are not going home, which was all our muslim friends from work. 'yeah, we can do a muslim christmas, why not?!' ...that'd be pretty quirky actually!

i so miss christmases back home in oz, and i promised myself that next year i'm going home for christmas no matter what...
my brother, who's been living in costa rica the last four years (ever since we moved there to open the cocktail bar) has just received the wonderful news that his wife's visa is finally approved and they're moving back home on the 1st of january! i'm SO overjoyed for them! i think this new year holds some surprises and adventures for all of us....

:o)

the slap

2010-12-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

photo by Jan Saudek

❅ the weekend was so busy at work! we were running around like mad hatters but it was a fun crowd and it was nice to have some excitement and madness.

i had a table of mexican boys who were very charming slash sleazy, trying to salsa with me each time i walked past, begging me to have a drink with them and showering me with spanish flattery. then they got drunk and a little less charming. one said to me out of the blue 'youre beautiful, but you're not the most beautiful woman i've ever seen.' ....okay, thanks for that ..? back-handed compliment of the week!

in the middle of the rush of pumping out cocktails, jerry got his face slapped across the bar by an angry customer. all i saw was the scuffle as sandy, our boss held jerry back, and in the next second nelson, one of our hosts, grabbed the guy by the scruff and dragged him kicking and screaming through the crowd. he even came back to kick out the guy's brother as well! after jerry got over the outrage and shock, he seemed quite amused. i so wish id seen the slap!

back on the home-front i had a questionnaire from the house of grazia to fill out... questions like: describe your ultimate night in/ describe your ultimate night out, what's your idea of being pampered? who's your favourite designer? where do you buy your clothes from? is there anything beauty-wise that you've always wanted to do? if you could have one fashion item what would it be?.... i started to get excited! ....not only by the thrilling suggestion of freebies (!!!) but that it sounds like i'm going to get pampered, made over, and let loose out on the town on an all inclusive with a new outfit!!! how much fun!!!

describing my ultimate night out was quite hard.. what would you say?!... i mean how far should i go? shall i bring private yachts into it?... the caribbean? ...a trip to vegas? no, surely i can do better than that!... of course no matter what, it has to end with me in a casino winning on roulette...
what would i do beauty-wise? well firstly, i'd have that 'heroin-chic' bleached-tipped hair look that ive always liked but that jerry hates, and then..... here's the chance (maybe, finally) ........... for botox!!!! ;o)

wish me luck!

:o)

winter wonderland

2010-12-09T16:28:00.000-08:00

❅ we finally made it to winter wonderland in hyde park.
i love the vibe at carnivals like that... all the coloured lights, the smell of fairy floss, sugary donuts and sausages all mixed in together, peoples happy faces as they stroll around snacking and spending money on rigged games that they never win, the intermittent sounds of gleeful screaming as the roller coaster carriages whizz past, the young couples holding hands as they skate the ice together, the carnies (that always have that same look) calling out to you, tempting you to gamble your money away, the old fashioned saloon style stalls wafting smoke from roasted chestnuts..... jerry and i bought a paper cone full of chestnuts and some hot mulled wine and wandered around enjoying the sights until we couldn't bare the cold anymore...
if it was summer i would've begged jerry to go on all the scary rides with me.

i used to love doing photo-shoots at amusement parks. i dressed my cousin up in vintage once and did a fashion shoot at the 'melbourne show' and we had a ball.
in fact, my whole childhood is filled with wonderful memories of 'the show'. in the beginning it was all about the show-bags full of junk food, the toy prizes; enormous blow-up baseball bats, headbands with the glittery stars on springs, kaleidoscope glasses, how many rides you could squeeze out of your saved-up pocket money, 'tasting' all the free samples in the dairy pavilion, begging mum and dad for a coloured baby chicken from the animal tent and crying when they refused.

then in high school it was about dressing up in your best outfit, sneaking in without paying, kissing boys in the dark part of the ghost train, stealing show-bags, smoking cigarettes for everyone to see how cool you were, getting into fights with the town bullies and spending the rest of the day running away from them, trying to steal one of those coloured baby chickens...

i had friends who weren't allowed to go to the show... i pitied them enormously, and i still pity them, that they don't have all the memories that i do.

and i still want one of those coloured baby chickens.

:o)

one small cloud can't conceal a sky full of stars

2010-12-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

❆ winter wonderland in hyde park sounds so lovely. jerry and i keep planning to go, but its so icy cold outside that we just cant bring ourselves to leave the house unless we absolutely have to.
with this miserable weather and nothing fun going on in our lives right now, we had begun feeling glum and boring.
what i really need, apart from some sunshine (which is unlikely), is a new project... something to aim towards and look forward to...

i sat on the sofa today at my nanny job, put postman pat on TV for miss A, and opened a fashion magazine to the horoscope section.... 'this month's motto for capricorn: one small cloud can't conceal a sky full of stars'.... that small sentence was like a slap in the face. here i am letting london weather get me down when i should be putting my energy into counting my blessings... at the mention of stars, i havent seen any in months! that's so sad! either i'm not looking up or there's too much smog in london skies for stars to shine through. either is quite possible.

as miss A and i arrived at peggy porschen's parlour for our regular soy latte/babyccino, my phone rang. it was the phone-call i'd been hoping for, praying for, meditating on, dreaming about.... yes.....
the house of grazia!!!!! they were informing me that i'd made the casting, that the producers loved my interview, and that i was invited to stage 2: the psychological examination and police check.
i was so happy i wished i'd had a bottle of champagne to pop. instead i ordered a lemon chiffon cupcake and scoffed it with glee.

i'd done the interview at the house of grazia headquarters 12 days earlier and felt like it had gone well. it was a long interview and the whole thing was filmed, which i was fine with, but they put me on the spot with some very personal questions. they really grilled me on past relationship infidelities and messy breakups. i'd tried to brush off the first question with 'we broke up because he was untrustworthy', but the interviewer wouldn't stop 'til she'd squeezed out the juicy details; that he'd cheated (though i excluded the story of the twenty taiwanese girls), that he'd been a compulsive liar and a drug addict. the real story could fill a short novel, or more like a whole season of some trashy soap opera like 'days of our lives'... i didn't think house of grazia were quite ready for it...
i was honest and open with the rest of the questions they asked me and left with the impression that they'd liked me...

im still not exaclty sure on all the details. all i know is ill be spending five days, with four other women, in a retreat in the country called 'the house of grazia' where a team of people will help me get my career on track and film the whole thing to make into a reality TV show.
...just the type of project i need!
:o)

the kissing series

2010-12-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

photo by holger pooten

❆ london is totally snowed under. it's as bad as sweden out there! apparently its the earliest that snow has hit london in 50 years... back home in melbourne, the summer is wet, steamy-hot and tropical. it seems the weather's screwed up everywhere, thanks to global warming!

i was so glad i had the day off so i could admire the pretty white streets from the warmth of my centrally heated lounge-room, while browsing gumtree for something fun to do... there was nothing very interesting going on though, except a fine-arts photographer working on a 'kissing' series and looking for couples to pose for him in public london locations. he was specifically searching for 'passionate kissers with a certain aura'.... i liked that idea. and i loved the photo he posted with the ad, so i convinced a very unwilling jerry to let me volunteer us... the photographer offers £40 and a print of your kissing photo! ...what a beautiful art-piece and keepsake!

this weather has turned me soft-hearted and soppy! after finishing the wonderful 'downton abbey' TV series, today i tracked down and began downloading all the english period dramas that i haven't seen... i just love period flicks: the piano, pride & prejudice, dangerous liaisons, atonement, brideshead revisited.... its not just the history that fascinates me, its the rolling hills, the forbidden romance, the wonderful dresses, the strapping young men galloping around on horses...

since i was in such a romantic mood, i nagged jerry into helping me with our wedding invitation wording. we want it to be casual and quirky and to somehow make reference to the sea and the beach, since that's where we met and that's where we're marrying... it proved very tricky and of course ended in an argument and me announcing that i would create the wording with the help of my mum and that it would reflect my personality, and probably not his.

the wedding countdown has hit the six-month point and i'm realising i haven't organised anything! i'm sort of hoping it all just falls into place of its own accord really....
that would be nice anyway.

:o)

jerry's surprise birthday party

2010-11-30T16:24:00.000-08:00

❄ i woke jerry up at 10 oclock on friday morning telling him to get ready because i had a surprise for him. 'ahh, why are you waking me up so early?! i have to work tonight!' ...'no you dont baby. we're going to the airport....'
over the last few weeks i'd organised a surprise birthday party for him in stockholm with all his friends and family. id booked flights, a room in a swishy hotel in the centre of town and sent out facebook invitations telling everyone to be at the restaurant 'undici', waiting for us to arrive on friday night....
i'd been so careful at keeping the whole thing a secret and shit it was hard!

on friday morning i'd packed his bags while he slept and laid out a warm outfit for him in preparation for the swedish winter. on the way to the airport i told him that my birthday present to him was a trip to stockholm for the weekend. he was totally ecstatic! i lead him to believe we were staying with friends as we usually do when we visit stockholm, and that him and i were having a romantic dinner at a restaurant where two of his best friends work, where they'd be looking after us.

he was one big smile the whole journey. he misses his friends so much and never gets to go back home because of school and work, so i was happy to hear that it was the best present he's ever received. it was so nice surprising him for the second time with the luxurious room at the lovely 'hotel stureplan'. we quickly got ready and walked around the corner to the restaurant. as we walked in the front door, 25 people were blowing party poppers and screaming 'surprise!!'.

it was a fantastic night! so nice to see all our old friends who i haven't seen since we left sweden. and lovely to see jerry's family who we don't get to see enough of...everybody was so happy and drunk and excited to see us...the night for me is a blur of dancing, doing rounds of shots, hugging and kissing everyone, telling them how much i loved them and missed them. jerry's stepdad (who spent the night spinning all the girls around on the dance floor) was the first to get kicked out of the club later for being too drunk, jerry's brother was the second and i was the third. to be fair, they're SO strict about that stuff in sweden! ...and i lasted until 4.30am anyway so it was a pretty good effort....

the main thing was that jerry had an absolute ball, was touched to his heart by the ones he loves and had a birthday that he'll never forget...
he told me he didnt know how he could possibly compete with that for my 30th birthday coming up in january... i told him its not a competition and that i got as much pleasure out of his present as he did...which is true.

:o)

babyccinos & love letters

2010-11-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

❉ this week i started my new nanny job looking after the adorable 'miss A'. she's two and a half and the only child of a super laid-back family, living in kensington. the best thing about the job is that its just me and the kid and we can do as we please... on tuesday i took her to the delightful and very posh 'peggy porschen parlour' for a vanilla chiffon cupcake and a babyccino.

we sat down at the little white table in the corner of the parlour, surrounded by huge tiered rose-petalled cakes, pastel lollies and treats too pretty to even consider eating, and miss A announced 'im waiting for my babyccino'. the waitress hurried over with it, miss A lifted the little cup with her tiny hand and with pinky finger extended, she sipped that babyccino like a proper lady, while i laughed in amazement. a lady at the counter watched in admiration and told me her baby was only 6 months so she'd have to wait a while before she could bring her out for babyccinos. within the space of that short sentence, miss A had managed to shove a fork into her mouth so hard that it pierced her tongue and blood was running down her face! her horrified wailing brought the attention of everyone in the shop and i felt like the most neglectful nanny!

yesterday was jerry's birthday. he was so disappointed at turning 30 that i was banned from saying happy birthday after the first couple of times... we went out for his complimentary birthday dinner at babylon, (virgin really look after their staff!).. we sipped cocktails at the bar while chatting to our old colleague rich, then sat in a cosy padded booth and enjoyed the most delicious meal: chevvre cheese, wild mushroom tart, roasted pheasant (for jerry) with a scrumptous red wine and a 'happy birthday' dessert platter... jerry's family had given him a helicopter flying lesson which he was totally stoked about. my gift is still to come but i'd written him a soppy card (as usual) quoting don juan de marco. i know its a bit corny but i still think its beautiful:

'There are only four questions of value in life;
What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for?
What is worth dying for?
...The answer to each is the same - only love.'

i asked jerry if he's kept all the love letters, romantic valentines and sweet birthday cards that i've poured my heart into, spent hours composing, that are the embodiment of my immense love for him... 'aaah, i think some of them are in that tequila box in rasmus's basement...'
hmmm....

:o)

a week on set: miss mia meows

2010-11-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

❉ oh how much fun it is to make films! i had the most amazing week! (although i worked so much i had no time for a life outside of)... since we were working underground from 8am to 8pm each day, i didnt see daylight all week and began feeling like such a vampire!...
we had our own little world down there in 'ginglik', a grungy basement bar that apparently used to be a public toilet back in the day... i'm sure those walls have seen some bizarre things over the years.. maybe nearly as bizarre as the miss mia meows film set!

tuesday: miss mia, after killing a man, flees to madame big mo's to plead for help from her transvestite friend poison, who's the in-house singer. the bar is full with the usual crowd.
we set up the bar (which looked very ratty to begin with) and transformed it into a colourful wonderland, with velvet and satin drapery, fairy lights, posters, golden frames, mismatched antique chairs and tables covered in silks and sarongs, fringed lamps and candelabras... it really did look amazing!
then we set up the rest of the dressing room, which was decorated like a retro boudoir. i got the job of creating the wall collage, which was to be an explosion of vogue fashion magazine pictures and gay porn...

then the extras arrived! i was placed in the boudoir to take care of their costumes and there were some spectacular ensembles! margherita (the production designer) had her own fabulous collection (including her mum's handmade hat collection from the 1960's) and then they'd borrowed and hired a whole load of stuff as well. the extras were already a quirky bunch of people but we transformed them into transvestites, dominatrices, gypsies, goths, belly dancers, burlesque beauties, fortune tellers, pretty spanish gay boys, toy boys, fag hags..... every weird and wonderful creature you can imagine! one of the extras didn't show up so the director asked me if i'd fill the role....
'...of course i'd love to!! '

wednesday: i was dressed in a royal blue velvet dress with a real blue fox hanging over one shoulder, draped in pearls and passed on to the hair and makeup ladies who did an audrey hepburn slash amy winehouse beehive hairdo and vintage-glam makeup. my first scene was to waltz dramatically into the bar, stop with hand on hip, scan the room until i glimpse my two young toy boys, walk over to them and drape myself between them on the sofa, after which they'd feed me grapes and kiss my velvet arms.... i stood behind scenes, waiting for my queue to walk in. maurizio, the director winked at me 'shake that arse like you're brazilian, girl!'...

thursday: a russian fortune teller sits in one corner of the bar and miss mia goes to her for a tarot reading.

i asked them if they wanted me to arrange the cards so they actually meant what the fortune teller was saying in the script, just for credibility. all of a sudden, 20 people were asking me to read their cards. the director dragged me backstage... 'please can you read mine?!' 'ok, you and no-one else, so keep it a secret'. i laid out the cards on an old suitcase in the dark and whispered his fortune to him.

next was the party scene, set later on in the night when everyone was wasted. i had slept with the beehive in so as not to have to redo it the next day. all the extra's, including me, were taken into hair and makeup and roughed up, their lipstick smeared, their eyes made panda, my stay up stockings were loose and dangling, my dress hanging off one shoulder and the pearls a tangled mess... probably close to how i look in real life when i'm out partying :o)
we were dancing most of the scene, with fake cocktails in our hands, looking as drunk and disorderly as possible. i've probably had too much practise at that and found it very easy.

friday: so that the actress playing miss mia could go home and get some sleep (it seems everyone was running on a couple of hours per night), i was asked to be her hand double for the final scene. though i told then i had man-hands, she assured me hers were even worse since she was a seamstress. my nails were painted vixen, and thrown into the camera.

the rest of the day was spent packing up the whole set. all those hours of decorating were torn down within seconds. my masterpiece glam-porn collage was eradicated, and everything was loaded upstairs into a van. as we climbed those stairs and saw daylight after a whole week without, it felt like a true possibility that we could melt or vanish... i was so sad to say goodbye to everyone. after a week working on the project together we'd become so close. we'd all been wrapped up in our own little world together, all sleep deprived and stressed and exhausted, but also happy and inspired and buzzed. there'd been such a nice feeling on set the whole week because of the people. i was so glad i'd stumbled across the job... we exchanged contact details and promised to see each other at the film screening in march...

back to the real world! i finally have some time to spend with jerry, to do some washing, to gather my thoughts and get back on the yellow brick road....

:o)

miss mia meows day 1

2010-11-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

❅ sleep deprived and confused, i found myself in the middle of shepherds bush common at 7.30am... according to my iphone's googlemap, the bar (and film set) was supposed to be located in the middle of the park (?).... low and behold, there was the entrance; a mysterious staircase leading underground, with my to-be film-crew colleagues waiting outside in the freezing cold.
'miss mia meows' is a short film made by third year LCC university film students for their graduation piece. what have i got to do with it? i'm a production design assistant...!

i was so excited to get cracking at film making, with some hands on experience... and to meet the characters behind this wacky film. the directors and producers are lovely and fun and very creatively inspired, from every corner of the globe... and the bar was a perfect setting..
we spent the morning loading in furniture and props, hanging curtains and picture frames, and moving round chairs.. then i volunteered myself for a calligraphic project which they were so impressed with that i was promised a wall collage project tomorrow... !

while painting away at my sign, i watched margarita, the gorgeous italian production designer, arranging the boudoir, where the first scene takes place. if only i could have a dressing room like that in my house! it was the coolest room ever; light framed vanity mirror scattered with venetian perfume atomisers, button up lace gloves and antique picture frames, hat stands covered in vintage ladies hats, old singer sewing machines, mannequins in 1950's brassieres, clothes racks full of beautiful dresses and tailored coats, a blue chesterfield couch and an altar wall covered in kitsch mother marys' and sparkly jesus statues surrounded by flowered fairy lights... ok, so i probably would give the alter a miss but the rest would be grand!

and more than a lovely boudoir, i want to be a production designer, ive now decided. what a fabulously fun and creative job!
tomorrow we start filming!

:o)

breakfast at tiffany's

2010-11-12T08:10:00.000-08:00

✬ i woke up even before the crack of dawn to get ready for my tiffany's job, in particular, to curl my hair. at 5.30 am, they were supposed to send a taxi to pick me up. i waited outside in the rain and gale-force wind and the hair turned instant medusa.
the taxi driver was the most incompetent taxi driver in the world. he either didnt understand the GPS's instructions, or just chose to ignore them. it took 15 minutes for him to do an entire block of kings cross to end up right back at my apartment. i realised i was going to be late for breakfast at tiffany's because of this wanker. i ripped out my iphone, connected to google map and began telling him which way to drive.
i was half an hour late.
we were working at a coffee stand, giving away free coffee, cupcakes and newspapers to celebrate the grand opening of the new tiffany's store in canary wharf. my supervisor was manic 'quickly, put on that white shirt, tie and tiffany's apron....and tie your hair back'. ah, why had i bothered at all with the hair?!

the queue for that free coffee stretched right down the length of the shopping mall, and stayed that way all day. some people queued for half an hour just for a free coffee. i mean i know everyone loves something for free, but it's not like we were giving away free diamonds.... and it's amazing that even when you're giving away free things, people will find something to complain about. one lady got pissed off because we didn't have fat free milk, then a man chucked a tantrum because we ran out of hot chocolate.
i was exhausted by one o'clock and happy to go home with my souvenir tiffany's apron and cupcake.

:o)

elephant and castle

2010-11-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

♖ excited about my interview for the 'runner' position on the film set, I decided to wear something other than my standard uniform of black jeans, boots and leather jacket and instead put some effort into my outfit so as to look like someone creative and cool. i put on my white russian gypsy dress over pattern-ribbed tights, my turban beanie and topped it off with riding gloves and aviators. then i realised that it was freezing cold outside (despite it looking sunny from the window) so threw on the good old boots and leather jacket anyway...

on the way to the tube station the most embarrassing thing happened to me. i stopped at starbucks to use their toilet and apparently didn't lock the door properly because half way through my piss, a woman hauled the door wide open so that the whole cafe could see me with my gypsy dress lifted up, doing my germaphobe squat above the toilet seat! all i could say was a slow motion 'oh...my...god!' ...the woman was more embarrassed than me which made me feel better..

i was meeting the girl at London College of Communication near elephant and castle tube station. what a quirky name for a london suburb! before moving to london i saw it on a map and instantly said to jerry 'oh we have to live in 'elephant and castle'!'.. i was then told it was one of the dodgiest and dangerous places in london, so never set foot there until today. i got out of the tube, clutching my bag tightly, curious as to what inspired the city planners to give it such an offbeat name. outside the tube station, past the crumby hot food stands, sat a weathered old hotel with a small coloured statue of a circus elephant with a miniature castle on its back.... that's it!?! ...can't be...how lame.

the interview went really well and i got the job on the spot. the film sounds very wacky and interesting, as do the characters making it.. my job will be as assistant to the production designer, who's in charge of set design, costumes, props, etc...! i can't wait! it's gonna be one week of shooting, with very early starts, and no money... but a great experience and a big star on the CV..

:o)

the great indoors

2010-11-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

❉ how to enjoy a freezing cold, grey, windy, drizzley day in london..?
1. be unemployed (or partially so) so that you don't have to go out in the elements...(don't listen to all that brainwashing...unemployment rocks)
2. position yourself in a nice and cosy place in your house where you have a view out your window of the dark and moody city scenery...(im lucky enough to have a semi-panoramic view from our 5th floor balcony window)
3. drink cups of hot peppermint tea with honey, continuously...(i wouldnt recommend doing it with coffee)
4. enjoy the wonderful world wide web, where you can be amused, entertained, shocked, enlightened, inspired.... i spent the day photo-blog browsing, downloading the period drama 'downton abbey', applying for fun-sounding jobs and replying to long lost emails from old friends...

luckily for me i have jerry to force me out of my pijamas and to the gym once in a while.. otherwise i'd be morbidly obese.
and on the job front i have lots of exciting possibilities... an interview for an assistant position on a film set for a very quirky looking film called 'miss mia meows', a hostessing job at a tiffany's event and a positive response from the house of grazia, saying they'll call me in for a casting/interview in january...!

last night we had a dinner party at our house with our friends nick and lucy.. i forgot how nice it is to do dinner parties!....a bottle or two of wine, good company and great conversation.. nick and lucy are house-hunting and we totally sold islington to them in the hope they'd become our neighbours and then we can do regular dinner parties....

:o)

autumn

2010-11-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

❉ autumn is quite beautiful in london with all its parks full of trees losing their coloured leaves... sometimes its hard to notice the beauty though, when the drizzle is accompanied by wind so strong that you have to hold on to your umbrella with two hands and all your force just to stop the wind smashing it into your face.
i must make myself love and appreciate each season like the japanese do... they have festivals and rituals and wonderful haiku poetry dedicated to the unique beauty of summer, autumn, winter and spring. it was one of the things i marvelled at most when i lived in japan, how much they embraced each of the seasons.

in spring we had drunken picnics under cherry blossoms, ate cherry blossom rice cakes and admired the girls wearing cherry blossom kimonos. in the autumn i went to kyoto which is most beautiful then because of all the deciduous trees. my girlfriend and i went to the onsen, (the japanese bathhouse) where all the yakuza wives happened to be, naked in the hot pools with their tattoos and diamonds.
we saw real geisha down the cobbled back alleyways in the evening, walking in their clogs between tea-houses. at the sunday market we bought beautiful antique kimonos for $10 each.
no one whinges about the seasons in japan and i found myself enjoying them too! as much as i love summer, it probably would be boring having it all year round...

apparently this winter in london is going to be the coldest in a hundred years. they always say things like that though don't they...anyway it's time for a winter coat.
i went shopping on thursday with igne, a girlfriend from work and though both of us were dead-set on finding coats, we came back with shoes and dresses and everything but coats. we decided to stop by her boyfriend's work, 'number 5' in mayfair, for one drink before heading home. we ended up drinking a whole bottle of champagne each as well as a million shots and i was sent home in a taxi. jerry found me downstairs hanging out the taxi door vomiting into the street. my last memory of the evening was playing (and singing) 'heart & soul' on the pianoforte in the restaurant (i cant play the piano).... apparently the maitre de and staff were very amused with us.

here's some autumn haiku poetry by basho.... isn't it beautiful?

shaking the grave
my weeping voice
autumn wind

turn this way!
I too feel lonely
late in autumn

taken in my hand
it will vanish in hot tears
autumn frost

:o)

the house of grazia

2010-11-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

photo for grazia magazine, miranda kerr 2009

❉ for some reason my iphone message-bank hasn't been working and all of a sudden yesterday it decided to tell me i had 6 messages waiting to be listened to, stretching from two weeks back! WTF!!! as i listened to each message my anxiety grew and grew..

message #1: a guy calling about a hostessing job i'd applied for on gumtree. luckily this was a fairly recent message and i could ring back directly without seeming like too much of a lazyarse.

message #2: an insurance company calling on behalf of that car i crashed into with my bike ages ago....DAMN IT!!! i'd been honest enough to leave my name and number on the windscreen after the crash, then when they called they were arseholes to me and i regretted having been so honest. i thought they'd forgotten about it but obviously not!

message #2: 'the house of grazia' (as in the fashion magazine)- calling regarding a lifestyle TV show that i'd applied to be in, where they choose four women who need a change in their lives, (eg. career/ relationship/ style makeover etc), they take them out to their country estate spa/retreat and with a team of stylists, career advisors etc, they help the women to make over their lives! and they film the whole thing to make into a lifestyle TV show. they'd been interested in my application TWO WEEKS AGO!!!! ahhhhh!!! id put so much effort into that application because i wanted it so badly.....

couldn't help but feel like i'd been dealt a really shitty hand. i decided to get rid of my phone's message-bank, to not call the insurance company back and to just wait to see if they called me again (does that deserve bad karma?) ...and then to call the house of grazia three times to beg to be reconsidered for the show. apparently they haven't finished casting.... fingers crossed!!!

x

murder mystery

2010-11-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

✥ last night was our staff 'murder mystery' party, hosted at the royal garden hotel. it was a 1930's theme and i'd already volunteered myself and jerry (against his will) to take part in the show as characters.

when i first met jerry he hated (and refused) to dress up in costumes but i think because of my good influence, he secretly now enjoys it. he even instigated a day of shopping at H&M for a hat, bow tie and sleeve garters for his costume...
he looked so handsome all dressed up! he must have fancied himself in that garb as well because on the tube on the way to the party he announced that he might start wearing this sort of thing on normal occasions!..

we studied our lines along the way... i was molly hatchet, an american gangster mole and jerry was albert fortescue, a spaniard, raised in the finest english schools to become a gentleman... we were both really nervous about it and decided to do a couple of stiff shots at the pub across the road before hitting the royal garden.

it was so much fun to see all our colleagues dressed up and in a social atmosphere! the dinner was a proper 3 course deal in the grand function room and the actors who hosted the show were brilliant! i was one of the last characters to do my performance and by that stage i'd had a few champagnes and was feeling loose enough to put on a texan drawl. i'd lost my voice but the huskiness sounded good into the microphone and ended being quite fitting to my character... the judges obviously liked it anyway because at the end of the night i was given the oscar and the best actors award! jerry ended up being the murderer, which he didnt even know himself...

after the dinner show we all got drunk at the bar and my memory gets a bit shotty after that. i do remember covering everybody in red lipstick kisses and collaborating with the gardener on a new idea for the roof garden: a venus-like shrub-carved statue (for which i would be the muse of course ;o) surrounded by fountains and flowering creepers...

jerry and i were both so monstrously hungover today that jerry had to wag school and we stayed in bed all day eating home delivery pizzas and watching movies...

:o)

calmerkarma & halloween

2010-10-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

✥on thursday jerry gave me his shift at work, so that he could study and so that i could do a little bit of work in my week of unemployment..

the club was hosting a chinese themed event, and the place looked amazing! pillars wrapped in red chinese silk, vases of peonies and strings of chinese lanterns creating a soft pink glow.. they'd really transformed it. while us bartenders were stuck in peasant rice-farmer hats, slaving away on the lychee cocktails behind the bar, the event hostesses were standing around getting paid to look beautiful in coloured satin cheong-sam dresses, hair in chop-sticked buns, giving away fortune cookies... throughout the night they mingled with the corporate guests and drank as many of those cocktails that they so desired.... i snuck a fortune cookie from one of the girls, praying it would promise me great wealth and prosperity or perhaps a great new career opportunity...
'you will soon go on a foreign trip'.. hmmm, still cool but not what i was really after...
i turned to the pretty blonde chinese girl, 'which agency are you with?' ...sometimes we have to make our own destiny, dont we!...

i looked up the calmerkarma agency website the next day and felt like i'd hit the jackpot. bedazzling theatrical entertainment for themed events including circus & cabaret, bollywood, burlesque, fortune tellers, stilt walkers, jugglers....everything fun and weird and wonderful....
i called the number directly.
me: 'i'd like to work for you doing the events, you know like the chinese girls i met last night...'
lady: 'ok, what are your skills?'
me: ...'oh, um, well... i can juggle'.
lady: 'what can you juggle?'....
me: '....balls..?'.
lady: 'we have people who can juggle eight crystal balls, swords and fire, while on stilts'.
me: 'ok...... well i can read tarot cards'...... that seemed to spark her interest.
lady: 'send me a picture of yourself.'

last night at work we hosted a huge halloween party and the costumes were amazing! everyone had gone to so much effort! a makeup artist was hired to do up us staff as zombies and all the bartenders wore blood spattered aprons. there was such a buzz in the air that it would've been a really fun night if i hadn't lost my voice, if all the card machines hadn't stopped working and if my guests hadn't pounded me over the edge without tipping me..
ah.. you win some, you lose some...
:o)

juliet

2010-10-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

❀ ive decided to sell juliet, my vintage ladies bicycle from verona. romeo went missing a few weeks ago after jerry left him outside to make space to park the new scooter... some desperado must have picked him up and carried him away since there was a lock through the back wheel. though jerry didn't feel the loss, I was devastated.
now i can't help but feel sorry for poor juliet, abandoned by her lover and neglected by her owner (after my crash, i've been too scared to ride a bike with no brakes in the rain...)

so tomorrow she'll go to a good new home... 'parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.'*

'it's only a bike', says jerry.... to me she was a friend.

* shakespeare of course

the bliss...

2010-10-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

✬ aah its bliss, this short space of time when unemployment is fun, when the idea that i can do anything i so choose with my day makes me just bubble with happiness. sleeping in, eating breakfast in bed, painting my toe-nails in bed, web-surfing while in bed, staying in my pijamas all day... why go outside in that gray, rainy miserableness when instead i can have a rip-snorting time in my room, listening to music, sipping coffee, editing photos, ebay shopping and blog browsing....

that probably sounds boring to lots of people but to me its the perfect day! in my web searching i came across some amazing photography, i applied for some more film-extra roles and i became a member of a mysterious 'secret cinema' which i wasn't supposed to breathe a word about (oops!).... on ebay i bought a belly dancing coin belt to wear to my class and a polaroid camera (some scoundrel outbid me on the last one!) and i snacked all day (in bed) on my homemade hummus and baba ganoush.... i've said it before and i'll say it again, i'd be more than happy to be a houswewife...

i was forced to leave my bedroom sanctuary for my evening swedish class but that was also fun since i'm the top of the class. i'm that annoying sucky student who always has their hand up to answer the question. it's the exact opposite of when i'm actually talking to a swedish person, in which case i do anything to avoid speaking swedish. when i come home from class and bashfully practise what i've learnt on jerry, his grin stretches from ear to ear, partially at how stupid i sound, but also because he's so happy that i'm learning his language.

lately we've been getting along so well and the smallest things make my heart just melt to butter and coo over him like he's the cutest little fluffy chicken. for example the other day i was watching him standing at the fridge in his underwear, munching on grapes, with his hair sticking up in all different directions, singing out-of-tune to himself and for some reason my love for him just instantly doubled...

:o)

angel

2010-10-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

✻ although it would be handier living closer to work, jerry and i are happy living in angel. it has a down-to-earth and slightly bohemian vibe but is still clean and classy... there are some annoying junky street poets and some foul-mouthed teenage mothers pushing prams at the church st. market but then as soon as you reach upper street, with its huge array of funky cafes, gift shops and eateries, you feel that certain buzz of being somewhere cool and happening.

our little neighbourhood is a mish-mash of characters of all colours and classes. the kids from the high-rises ride their bikes in circles and play football on the road, making me constantly feel lucky for having grown up in the country in houses with backyards, gardens, trampolines, cubby houses....

on the corner of our street are all the ethiopian restaurants, internet cafe and afro hairdressers... the smell from those restaurants is so mysteriously seductive, yet we can't quite build up the courage to eat there... when i first heard of an ethiopian restaurant i couldn't help but laugh. how is it that they have a cuisine when all we hear about them is how starved they are. i guess that's pretty ignorant... of course they must have cooking traditions...

angel is full of old corner pubs and quirky wall murals which remind you of the long history of london... today was beautiful and sunny, and feeling a little bit freed from my nanny shackles, i took my camera out and went snapping... oh how nice it is to be semi-unemployed!... until the rent's due anyway...

f#ck it, let's go bowling...

2010-10-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

❉ things to do tomorrow:
- quit my nanny job. why...?....its a long story, beginning like this: i was sneakily reading a fashion magazine while supposedly playing with the child. in the mag was an interview with alexa chung. she was asked what her most dreaded thing was, to which she replied: 'to have to do something i hate and pretend to like it.'.... that answer was like a punch in the guts. it made me realise how much i hate that job. firstly, because instead of just supervising the child (while reading magazines), i'm expected to actually get into her play house and make pretend meals on her plastic kitchen set, enjoy tea-parties with her dolls and do the voices for building block robots....all day, with a happy face and a chirpy voice because somewhere, around the corner, the mother is always lurking....
secondly, because the mother seriously asked me if i would please call poo 'duties', piss 'wissy woo' and farts 'windy woos'.... i'm not willing in all three cases. dealing with them in nappies is bad enough.
lastly, because i just cant fake it anymore. i can't pretend to have fun playing doctors and nurses with a misbehaving two year old and a stay-at-home mum watching anymore.

so ive decided that tomorrow ill quit. life is far too short for that shit.
instead i will spend the day taking photos at the market in angel, making home-made hummus and tzatziki, skyping my mum, reading books and drinking peppermint tea.... oh doesnt that sound like such a better way to pass the day!??
i may also have to spend some time looking for a new job i guess...
;o)

winter cocktails and flannel pijamas

2010-10-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

❆the winter cocktail menus have come out at the nightclub and i was totally chuffed that my cocktail invention 'lady marmalade' made it onto the list. it's citrus vodka, cinnamon syrup, orange juice and orange bitters shaken with a spoonful of tawny orange marmalade and dark chocolate liqueur, served martini style with a chocolate shaving garnish. i'm quite proud of it, if you can't tell ;o) ... and i'm gonna get so much satisfaction every time i hear guests ordering it....i'll probably interrupt their order just to gloat that it's mine.

jerry and i have had a busy week. his course is getting pretty hard-core and my nanny job has worn me into the ground... but we still managed to fit in some fun stuff. i had my swedish class which was easy-peasy and made me realise that i know a lot more swedish than just the swear-words, then we went to a live blues/fashion charity event that one of our colleagues was modeling for; we went out for dinner with an english friend of jerry's from sweden and his aussie girlfriend to the lovely cuban restaurant 'cuba libre', and then of course, with the weekend comes work at the club, which i classify as fun...

we also squeezed in some shopping in oxford street where i bought jerry his first pair of pijamas. can you imagine never having worn pijamas?! there's nothing better than lounging around the house on a cold winters day in a pair of cosy flannel PJ's. i bought myself a new pair too, despite jerry's protests that i look like a clown in them and couldn't i buy some sexy nightware instead?... no way! that stuff isn't comfortable! i'm all in for no makeup around the house, pissing with the door open and morning breath kisses. for me that's real love.
:o)

polaroids

2010-10-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

❅the rain is pouring over london town.
jerry and i drove the scooter wearing our matching head to toe navy rain jacket and pants, over the rest of our winter woolies so we looked like two balls on a bike. then the rain stopped and the sun came out and we felt pretty ridiculous.

jerry went to school and i went down chiltern street to browse the bridal boutiques. it really is mission impossible to find a wedding dress that i like that doesn't cost more than the whole wedding. i decided screw it, i'm gonna stop worrying about it now. the right dress will find me ;o)

i've been inspired by some other pretty blogs to redesign my own...do you like it? in my blog-browsing i also stumbled across some amazing photography, in particular a polaroid photo collection. polaroids are so cool aren't they? they have such atmosphere to them. so i jumped straight on ebay and put down a bid for one. i'm hoping it will get my creative juices flowing... in the meantime i'm using the iphone ap 'hipstamatic' which gives a polaroidish sort of effect..

:o)

2nd anniversary ♥

2010-10-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

♥ saturday was jerry and my second year anniversary and both of us completely forgot about it on the day! ...pretty amazing that two years have passed. it feels both like a moment ago that we first met and like a lifetime that we've known each other....
i know i've already told the story about us first meeting on the cruise ship in my 'anniversary' blog last year, but i thought i might tell some more stories about our first encounters....

the first crew-party we both went to was a masquerade party where i ran into him at the bar and welcomed him on board. the second crew party (the following night) was a toga party (we were cruising around greece). i of course dressed up in a makeshift toga costume (my cabin towell), got pissed and danced around making a scene, as usual at those crazy crew parties. jerry wasn't dressed up and was hanging back on the sidelines, behaving himself, with erika, his swedish friend. i remember asking him where his toga was and he said he didn't have enough friends on the ship yet to get away with wearing a fancy dress costume....

at that point we'd only had a couple of short conversations and i had no idea that he had a huge crush on me. at the end of the night when the DJ announced the last song (a slow romantic one), everybody grabbed a dancing partner. jerry happened to be the guy nearest to me so i grabbed him. he told me that in sweden they don't do 'the last dance' and that he'd only seen it on american movies. he asked me if this was 'first base'... 'no, this is first base', i told him, holding his hand, 'this is second base', giving him a peck on the cheek, 'this is third base', squeezing his breasts, 'and fourth base is 'slicka min snippa'...(a dirty expression i'd learnt from a swedish colleague and one of the first things i'd said to jerry at the masquerade party the night before after learning he was swedish.) .....what a flirt i was, considering i wasn't even interested in him then!

we docked in istanbul a few days later and a group of us went out partying together. in the early morning we ended up at a shisha lounge where we lay on cushions drinking mint tea and smoking apple shisha. jerry made sure he sat next to me and gradually slid further across his pillow until he was on mine, leaning his head against my arm, with my room-mate nudging and winking away at me...

it's a funny thing when you think about it, that some creatures, including humans, choose a partner to stay with the rest of their lives. swans do it too, so do wolves, sea-horses, eagles, gibbons and lovebirds. it's a really special thing to find that one creature who will stay by your side, keep you company, be your closest friend, your rock, your touch stone, your treasure, your soul-mate, forever...
i feel pretty lucky to have found mine.

rock-n-roll

2010-10-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

❈ on wednesday the club hosted a music event with sam bransons band, delilah, and two other up-and-coming british bands; tinash and new young pony club. i was the personal cocktail waitress for their backstage band/ VIP room, there to basically keep their table of booze tidy and the glasses and ice stocked up... they were so tame that i ended up getting to just stand and watch the bands play from backstage almost the whole night. there was no movie-scene backstage mess with diva rockstars snorting cocaine off table tops with half naked blonde groupies straddling them and band managers pleading with them to get on stage... these kids were sitting on sofas eating chicken burgers and doing vocal exercises. i guess it was a wednesday night and they're not big time yet.... there were a few B-list celebrities and some B-list royalty (is that mean calling princess beatrice B-list?) ... i had hoped richard branson would be there so i could ask him if i could maybe come work for him on necker island for a little while ;o)... and maybe get him interested in dreamwalk, my brothers new iphone ap, for him to invest in. but he wasn't there...

i really enjoyed the music and realised that i never listen to new music anymore... jerry and i have both had the same itunes list for ages and we just listen to the same stuff over and over. lately we've been so sick of our playlists that we choose silence over our music! the thing is i cant be bothered going out searching for new bands that i like!... it'd be so good if someone who knew my taste would just present me with new music and install it in my itunes for me each week...

tonight my cousins and a big group of their friends are coming in to work. i got them a VIP table and they're so pumped! its gonna be fun having people i know in there! last night i only had two tables and they were so boring that i stood at the waitress station eating chocolates all night...
:o)

swedish class

2010-10-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

❈ today i had my first swedish class and the teacher didnt show up!! the good thing about that was that the students all began chatting while we were waiting and got to know each other a bit. we exchanged swedish stories, whinged about how hard the language is to learn and admitted our individual shame at not knowing any swedish already. i thought i was bad because i've lived in sweden for a year and don't speak it. some of the others are half and even fully swedish and dont speak it!!
it's a really fun group of people and i'm looking forward to next week when hopefully there will also be a teacher...

jerry's started his hotel management course this week and he's never been cuter than he is sitting at the kitchen table with a notepad and pencil, doing his homework.... he looks so out of character and like such an adorable little boy that i cant help but smother him in kisses. i ask him what we're going to do to celebrate our 2nd year anniversary which is on saturday. he makes mock snoring sounds. 'are you making snoring sounds in referral to our anniversary!?!.. for that you have to come with me to 'ain't nothin' but the blues bar'.... i dont care if you hate blues, im not a big fan of swedish either...'
:o)

shared scooter and separate bank accounts :o)

2010-10-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

❉ i've finally started to chill out and trust jerry driving the scooter in london traffic and we've been zipping around all over town on it. its amazing how much attention you draw arriving somewhere on a bike. sometimes after taking off my helmet, i feel like doing the loreal shampoo-ad head swirl just to satisfy the audience ;o)... it is a super cool bike and getting places is all of a sudden a lot less of a tube mission.

i'm feeling much better this week, having formulated a list of things to keep me busy and that's supposed to be the key to staying happy isnt it? ....hold on, why do they tell you that- isn't that just repressing your emotions?!... oh well, i'm feeling a lot more cheery anyway. i'm getting back into wedding planning, booking in bridal shop appointments and searching for interesting wedding rings. i even found a jewellery shop that offers a sunday workshop where you and your partner make your own wedding rings! wouldn't that be fun?! surprisingly, jerry was into the idea, although he may just be keeping me happy. he's gotten quite good at the 'yes dear' thing... and we're not even married yet!

jerry was talking to his mum about the wedding, telling her how much each of us have to save and she asked in surprise 'dont you and anna share your money?'... before that we'd never really thought about it... after organising your own finances for so many years, the concept of a joint account seems a bit scary. i told jerry that if we shared money there'd be no holding back on my shopping sprees ;o). he reminded me that right now i'm earning more than him. hmmm....i think it's better if we keep our cash separate for a while ;o)

ella fitzgerald

2010-10-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

* with my knee pretty much recovered from my bike smash, i hit the gym today and sweated it out on the treadmill, while reading elle magazine. normally exercise and fashion inspiration are both really effective in lifting my moods, but lately i've been so glum and melancholy that neither one worked!
i met jerry afterwards at 'euphorium' bakery, a gorgeous little cafe positioned on the corner of our local street market, so you can watch the people browsing all the street stalls at the same time as drinking your latte and enjoying the jazzy blues they always play in the cafe. ella fitzgerald's voice always makes me dreamy and nostalgic. i would have loved to have lived back in her day. maybe i did in my last life and that's why i love her so much :o)
when i was 17 i had a photography exhibition in a private little art gallery and for the opening party i put ella on repeat. there was such a wonderful mood at that party, everyone there got pissed and i sold loads of photos..
remembering how happy that exhibition made me, i decided that the key to getting over these sads is to do something creative. my mum always told me that and its true. making something; art, cooking, sewing, whatever, always makes you feel good. i need a new project...

the new scooter

2010-10-06T14:58:00.001-07:00

❉ jerry and i bought a scooter today. it's a gorgeous beast of a thing; a black tamoretti which is basically a copy of jerry's havana mojito vespa that he had in stockholm... i realised today that i will never ride the thing, except on the back. it's probably ten times my body weight and nearly as wide as a car. it does have a lovely padded passenger seat with back-rest though!
we drove it to work today for a tanqueray gin presentation and although we thought we'd fly there in no time, it actually took longer than the tube because of all the traffic and we were half an hour late! it probably didn't help that i was clutching onto jerry like a rabid monkey the whole way, squealing at him to go slow and take it easy. i think it'll take me a little while to get used to it. the streets of london are not as calm as those of stockholm and the double decker bus and black cab drivers smash around like they couldn't care less if they knock someone off.

we had our 'half time' staff party on monday which was a proper formal dinner event in the function room with four courses and free wine. all the managers dressed up in disney costumes and did fabulous speeches, sang songs and put on a great show. afterwards we all went out in covent garden to 'the roadhouse' and it was so much fun partying with such a huge group of people. everyone was in a really playful mood, probably spurred on by the costumes (and the free wine). one of the restaurant managers lifted me up on his shoulders and got yelled at by security. then my bar manager spun me upside down and nearly got kicked out. the guards were onto me after that and all i had to do was lift up one foot higher than the other and they'd be pouncing on me, telling me to get down.

to my absolute delight, they were doing live music karaoke, (with a really good band too!) and i immediately hunted down the karaoke girl, who put me on as the final act. i had wanted to do tina turner's 'simply the best' but someone had already taken it so i did 'sex on fire' instead. i barely knew the song but was juiced enough to wing it and had so much fun up there singing with the live band on stage and all my colleagues singing along on the dance floor below...

jerry and i skipped out at midnight, since i had to nanny early the next morning. we stumbled back into the house, running into our housemates, who took one look at me and laughed at how obviously tanked i was. our new housemates, darren and mona are a super cool couple, really friendly and interesting and laid back. we have opposite working schedules to them so we're rarely all home at the same time, but the other night the four of us had a mini dinner party and cinema outing together which was really nice. i hope they're as happy with us as housemates as we are with them... :o)

one year of blogging

2010-10-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

❉ wow, i really copped some shitfull comments on that last blog! ...did i really sound so shallow and vain?? i thought i was sulking about the fact that i don't have a successful career.... which is the opposite of being 'up myself'!

in response: no, i don't just want to be famous. i want to do something meaningful. i would like to have a career i'm passionate about and proud of, which challenges me and inspires me and makes me feel happy...and hopefully somehow makes a difference to the world.... probably the same thing everyone wants...

it's quite amusing to me that people who have such critical opinions of me even read my blog. piss off!! this blog was intended for my family and friends who i've lived away from for many years, so they can follow what i'm doing. i'm surprised and flattered every time someone tells me they've even read it. if you're not interested in me or my life then why read my blog!??

it so happens that today it's been exactly one year since i first started writing the yellow brick road. jerry and i were living in marbella and since i couldn't get a working visa (or a job under the table either it turned out), i was spending my days as a bored housewife; cooking, cleaning and lounging by the pool. jerry encouraged me to start a blog to keep myself occupied and i got so into it that i remember spending most of each day composing blog entries! i looked back and read my first entry and remembered how i was so embarrassed about the whole thing that i wrote it in secret for a few weeks before i finally told just my mum about it.

i would continue this blog even if no-one else read it. it's somehow therapeutic and i know one day, as a senile old woman, i'll be glad i kept such a thorough journal to reminisce these good old days...

the blues

2010-10-02T08:21:00.001-07:00

❉ i've been working so much this week, doing double shifts, extra babysitting hours and life drawing classes, while also squeezing in doctor appointments etc that i completely wore myself out... and was then hit with the blues.... 'what am i doing with my life, changing the pooey nappies of other peoples children and serving snobby rich people who look down their noses at you and brush you off when you're just offering to refill their wine glasses.' i'm the under-achieving serving class.... and i always thought i would amount to so much more than this.

as an ambitious and vivacious teenager and uni student, the world felt totally like my oyster and i dreamt of being an artist, an esteemed photographer, a singer, an actress, an environmental activist, an anthropologist. i wanted to be cultured, well-travelled, knowledgeable, to make a difference in the world, as well as being glamourous and elegant and of course, rich.

every time i get the blues, i despair at my non-exixtant career. i wonder what i could have been, had i only made different choices, taken different jobs, studied different things... and then jerry hugs me and tells me he loves me and reminds me that i even if i don't have all the rest, i have the most important thing in the world and that's someone to love who loves me in return.
all of a sudden i feel better and promise myself to take it a bit easier next week...

last night at the nightclub we had a huge event with the VIP area completely full. us cocktail waitresses were given a new uniform: satin corset, tutu skirt, fishnets and fascinator head piece. the other girls hated it while i absolutely loved it! normally we blend into the crowd but in those uniforms we're a spectacle.

i was serving richard branson's kids and at one point sam branson asked me if he could move two tables together. i said to him 'since you own the place, im pretty sure you can do whatever you want here'. he replied 'don't tell me that while you're wearing that sexy little thing!'

i guess ive found a different form of glamour, a different way to travel the world, to study different cultures, to be involved in art and photography.. and as for being rich, there's plenty of time for that isn't there...

photo shoot

2010-09-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

❉ today was a super fun day! for the roof garden's 30th birthday party, which is coming soon, the promotions manager asked some of us to model for the flyers, which involved a big photo shoot with professional make-up artists, hairdressers, stylists and photographers.

the theme was new romantic/ moulin rouge/ marie antoinette, with a slutty edge. after we'd been made up by the stylists, had our hair teased to the shithouse, face powdered and painted in colours and fake eyelashes applied, we chose our costumes from a pile of extravagant jewellery, feathery hats, frilly skirts and corsets.

putting together and dressing up in costumes like that is probably my number one favourite thing to do in the world, second being posing for photographs, which is what we did next... i was first for the individual poses and was having so much fun in front of the camera that after about 100 photos, the photographer basically had to kick me off the set so the next model could have a turn.

jerry arrived at the studio after work to say hi and i roped him into joining the crew. next thing he was in the makeup chair getting his hair teased and a black mask painted on his face. he even let me re-pierce his ear for the costume. afterwards he admitted that it was a lot of fun.... i can't wait to see the professional photos!

purple dragon

2010-09-24T08:03:00.001-07:00

❉ the last few days ive been busy nannying for my little girl cosi.. she's a gorgeous two year-old, blonde-haired, blued-eyed thing and an absolute darling. the playground today was full of kids with their filipino nannies who must pre-arrange their meetings there so they can catch up and gossip with each other while they push their little english kids on swings. one little girl was being so rude to her poor filipino nanny, sitting inside the wooden fort, telling the nanny nastily 'youre not allowed in my house!'.. it broke my heart... cosi can't speak yet anyway, but if she told me i wasn't allowed in her house i'd probably cry. luckily she loves me as much as i love her (probably more).
yesterday i took her to 'purple dragon', a fun kids play centre, where we painted pictures of elves and cooked bruschetta. the cooking instructor, tom, was a friendly young guy who was also quite handsome and cosi was totally love-shy around him. she'd stare at him in awe and then every time he'd come anywhere near her she'd grab my hand and hide behind me.

jerry and i have been working so much lately that it feels like we've barely seen each other. because he's been working nights and i've been working days, every time we collide, one of us is too tired to be bothered with the other. last night we finally worked a shift together at the club and i'd missed him so much i felt like tying myself to him so i could stay by his side all night. we decided we need to plan a romantic mini holiday together... i suggested cornwall, he suggested budapest.

'the wednesday nighters'

2010-09-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

❉ a present was sent to my parents house today from my old life drawing class; a wedding garter, a heart shaped good luck charm and a card with messages from everyone in the class! i was warmed to my heart with the kindness of it.

'the wednesday nighters' were an eclectic group of people of all ages and backgrounds, who used to meet on wednesday nights for life drawing in one of the ladies garages, which had been converted into a makeshift art studio. i've never met such a wonderful group of people, such a complimentary set of characters, all so lovely and special in their own way...

i joined the group as a life model and instantly felt like i belonged. i flirted briefly on the other side of the easel doing charcoal drawings but then went back to being the weekly model, realising i was better at that. we had so much fun in those classes... listening to music (mainly folk or blues), feasting on fresh vanilla slice and creamy pastries, supplied by richard who was a baker in his day job, group matchmaking for the sweet-hearted and single wayne, pissing ourselves at everything the hilarious hairdresser jazminka ever said, being envious of tim the instructor's continuous flow of masterpieces, and laughing at donna, the owner of the garage, who weekly relayed comments made by her husband and four sons who all disagreed with her using their garage for her 'perverts class'.

we all got to know each other really well and i looked forward to the class every week. when i moved to costa rica three years ago, they all came to my farewell party and i then i never saw them again ... so it brought a tear to my eye to receive their lovely gift.

and it was quite coincidental since tonight was my first life drawing class in london. i modelled with a red-haired beauty called isley for a class in islington. save for mine and isleys gossiping, there was complete silence in the studio- a far cry from the 'wednesday nighters' classes and much less fun! i didn't even get to walk around and look at peoples drawings, which was always my favourite part of the class. i think its a mixture between my vanity and my thrill of being involved in artistic things, but i would so loved to have been an artist's muse back in the renaissance days- like boticelli's simonetta. jerry ridicules it as exhibitionism and perversion and almost forbade me to model, but he's eventually come around and now just mocks it.

pirate limp

2010-09-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

✥ despite having a smashed up knee and a pirate's limp, i was determined to make it to work for my cocktail waitressing shift, mainly for the money but also because i'd been looking forward to wearing my new skeleton top. i hid the bandaged knee under knee high boots, arrived at work full of beans and feeling like a pretty tough cookie. jerry was extremely proud of me for not sooking about my accident. he has a very 'get-over-it' sort of attitude when it comes to injuries and illnesses.... i was glad i went in the end because i had a really fun night.

yesterday we went back to our friend abas's turkish restaurant 'gallipoli' for dinner along with my cousins and family friends from back home. the food there is just too good to keep secret. we gave abas free reign to pack our table with as many dishes as possible and everyone loved it. abas of course got out his 6-pack, as he always does. the first day i worked with him behind the bar, he unbuttoned his shirt to show me (not by request) and made me feel his biceps again and again. he's one of those obsessive gym junkies who's got not a single ounce of fat on his body and loves nothing more than showing it off, even at the restaurant where he works, in front of other customers! he's probably one of the most hilarious guys i've ever met. at our staff party he wore a scottish kilt, even though he's turkish, and when he speaks to you, he tells you he loves you in one sentence and then in the next sentence he'll tell you to fuck off, along with some insult to do with your nationality. he's probably my favourite person at work, although i love them all...

today i rested all day at home, trying to give the knee some healing time. although the pirate limp's been fun, i'd prefer to go back to my old walk..

seven stitches

2010-09-18T10:31:00.001-07:00

❊ riding my bike to belly dance class this morning, i somehow lost control of the thing and smashed directly into a parked car, 50 metres from my house. my knee was a bleeding mess, my bike's basket shattered into a million cane pieces and was scattered over the road, along with the car's rear light.
a group of darling old ladies who happened to be walking past came over to comfort me and as soon as jerry arrived they insisted he take me directly to hospital.
at the london university hospital emergency ward, the nurse informed me that i'd need stitches and that by a stroke of luck, there was a plastic surgeon helping out in the hospital today, who could stitch it up for me. 'great, maybe he can fix a few other things while he's at it!'...
rishie was a fabulous surgeon and a lovely guy. although he refused to throw in some botox , he did a great job of the seven stitches and i left feeling as good as new! i will have a limp for a while, and a whopping scar but hey, it could've been worse..

westfields

2010-09-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

✺ 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....

'lose the attitude, youre only a shop assistant!'

2010-09-15T05:30:00.001-07:00

❊ after two days of wedding dress shopping i've come to appreciate how much easier online shopping is! for starters you don't have to deal with pretentious snobby shop assistants who think they've designed the clothes themselves, openly look you up and down as soon as you walk in and are masters at the fake smile.

i dragged my cousin kayla to selfridges to check out vera wang's wedding dresses.. and discovered there were no minis in the collection....nor at any other bridal shop! the 'personal shopping' ladies weren't much help either....i realised that what i'm looking for is not really a traditional wedding dress.. so we headed down new bond street to search for white party dresses in all the designer shops. i very rarely go into shops like dolce & gabbana, armani or chanel, and i realised why... as soon as you walk in, you know that they know that you cant afford to be in there and you spend the whole time pretending to be seriously considering the average looking things with ridiculous price tags....

the people who work in all these shops are such miserable haughty-taughties that i wonder if that's a pre-requisite for getting the job- 'can you look down on customers and make them feel uncomfortable, inferior and poor?'..'hows your fake smile?'
in collette dinighan i could see the mockery in the girls eyes and i so felt like doing a 'patsy' from absolutely fabulous. 'hey, lose the attitude, you're only a shop-assistant!'

needless to say, i didnt find my wedding dress. winter has totally invaded all the shops (already!!) which now only stock thick tweed coats and wooly jumpers.
...back to the web then.

:o)

prince harry

2010-09-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

❆ the crappy thing about working weekends is that you always miss normal peoples parties and events. or you go but always have to leave early. last night was my cousin's girlfriend's birthday party in covent garden. we met them at b@1 and moved on to dirty martini, which id heard so much about from all my colleagues who used to work there.. it was really plush in there and the chocolate martini was to-die-for!

i of course had to leave early for work, but i was happy to be cocktail waitressing! i love serving the VIPs because its different every night- you never know which guests you'll get, how much you'll manage to sell for, how much you'll make in tips....;o)

the VIP area was extra interesting last night since prince harry and his friends were at one of the tables. my colleague angela was serving him but since they were sitting at the entrance to the VIP area, i had to walk past them all night. at one point his friend stopped me to kiss my hand, then i accidentally knocked into harry and he did a mock cry of pain with a little twinkle in his eye. from then, the flirting began and each time i walked past he'd try to catch my eye. then he asked angela 'who's your mate with the long black hair?'... 'thats anna. she's getting married next year so bad luck there'.

i was later at the waitress station getting champagne from jerry and someone squeezed up beside me at the bar. 'so where are you getting married?'.....i turned to face him.. 'in thailand!'... 'and where are you from, australia or new zealand?' ....he was very smooth and witty and not pompous at all which impressed me. we chatted for a few minutes and then after he flew off outside, jerry sauntered back over.. 'who was that?'...'that was prince harry baby, you're competing for my affections with royalty tonight..' :o)

later, harry told angela that he'd made a cock of himself with me. angela asked him didnt he have a girlfriend anyway and he replied that they'd broken up three weeks ago... i felt quite flattered to be considered as the prince's rebound.. and now jerry calls me princess harry :o)

belly dancing

2010-09-11T09:16:00.000-07:00

❊ i joined a belly dance class at the gym three weeks ago and i'm absolutely loving it. jerry jeers at it, calling belly dancing wanky and 1990's, and so it may be, but i think its one of the most sensual dance styles. every move; every sway of the hip, shake of the buttox, every thrust of the breasts, every shoulder shimmy breathes sex and sensuality...

i did a belly dance course years ago in melbourne and became so obsessed with it that i bought the whole costume: coin scarf belt, silk cape, belly chain etc... i used to come home and do amateur demonstrations to my housemates to the 'kiss kiss' song, at that time just covered by holly valance.

my belly dance teacher was a gorgeous woman (although a bit of a plastic fantastic, mutton dressed as lamb, but to be fair, ill probably be the same when i'm her age!) .... :o) anyway, she used to invite me to her shows, competitions and turkish belly dancing dinner events. they were spectacular displays with proper stage lighting, music and choreography and breath-taking costumes. i used to drag my ex boyfriend along to all the shows and one night after my teacher's performance, while i was away powdering my nose, she cornered him in that dark turkish restaurant and propositioned him! i guess the dance works as an aphrodisiac for both audience and performer!

my teacher at the gym, johara, is a lovely woman, and very intent on us learning the moves properly and perfectly. today we mastered the chest lift.. jerry's somewhat more interested in belly dancing when i'm practising that one.
:o)

hawaiian night

2010-09-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

❀ jerry's back in london :o)... i hate it when he ditches me for sweden, but no amount of sooking and moaning will keep him from going. his defence is always the same. 'you can come with me'.... maybe next time..
last night we worked together in the flamingo bar for a hawaiian themed private party. the event organisers went to so much effort decorating the place. there were flowers and ferns and fairy lights everywhere, the old elvis movie 'blue hawaii' playing on big screens and 1950's tropical music pumping.. outside in the garden around the barbecue, there was a fantastic atmosphere with three authentic hawaiian dancers whirling around in straw skirts and half coconuts entertaining everybody...and my old friend ollie from thailand was working the fun photo booth again so i dragged jerry in to take a hawaiian snap.

i was nursing a slight hangover from vogue fashion night so was happy to be in the quiet bar, only serving beer and wine... as we watched elvis lounging on the beach in hawaii, jerry dreamed about having a time machine... 'if you went back in time to become rich, you'd never have gone to work on the crusie ship and so you'd never have met me'... i said. ..'no i don't want a time machine for that.. i want one just to go back to hawaii in the 60's for a holiday.'

we got home at 3am and tore into my latest favourite thing... linda mccartney vegetarian sausages, which are £1 for a box of six at the cheap supermarket around the corner and taste really gourmet! even jerry, who's expressively anti-vegetarian, admitted they were good...

vogue fashion night ♥

2010-09-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

❉ we regularly receive mail for the guy who lived in our apartment before us, who has a completely unpronounceable greek name. a pile of letters has built up over the months, which i will give him if he ever drops by. but last week one of his letters drew my attention. the expensive pinstripe envelope promised magical contents. it was just begging to be opened.... i discovered inside a very classy invitation to a 'vogue fashion night' at the designer shoe shop 'salvatore feragamo'.

me and salvatore go way back to when i bought a pair of his $450 sunglasses, wore them into the sea in byron bay and had them smashed off my face and dragged away by the waves.... i felt we somehow had a score to settle.
i RSVPed to the number on the invitation, and asked my cousin kayla, who's just arrived in london, if she would care for some free cocktails and canapes..

we arrived in old bond street, the place to be during fashion week apparently... all the designer shops had red carpet, queues to get in and paparazzi snapping away at all the celebrities getting out of expensive cars.. thandie newton walked right past me into the armani party.
we were greeted at salvatore feragamo with champagne, but after having 3 glasses, and trying on a couple of pairs of shoes, we realised this was one of the tamer parties in the street. the big event of the evening was the prize draw for a pair of shoes which i was sure i was going to win and then didn't...

by chance we started talking to two girls, emily & gina, who were from 'fashion TV'. emily admired my outfit, asking who my jacket was by, my shoes, my watch... and was surprised when i told her i didn't work in fashion. i felt pink with delight at receiving compliments from a fashionista.. her and gina were super lovely. emily promised to link her blog to mine and invited us to fashion TV's big event on friday night, and gina who's also a film producer, told me she'd get me into an assistant job on set if i wanted... i was totally high with excitement! the girls asked us if we wanted to ditch salvatore for a better party.. hell yeah!

DKNY down the street was much more pumping and we jumped the line straight in, being from fashion TV... ;o)
inside was a rocking party; funky live band, luscious lychee cocktails and models models models. i ran into hugo, the haughty PR guy from my old job at the pub who was always slightly flirtatious in an arrogant condescending way. i went up to say hi and his response was 'wow, you look so... different.' ..what, from the pub uniform of mens baggy polo shirt and jeans which made us all look like rugby-playing bull-dikes...? i would hope so!
the girls mingled and networked while kayla and i partied. holly, a friend from oz who we'd also invited, arrived and we had a fun catch up.

although i felt like a bit of a fraud, partying in that place full of VIP fashionistas, i had an absolute ball and later stumbled merrily back to the tube, so glad that i'd 'happened upon' that vogue fashion night invitation... ;o)

heels

2010-09-05T15:34:00.001-07:00

☆ i started as VIP cocktail waitress on saturday night, and was both excited and a little nervous about it... in my vanity, i decided to wear high heels. i have such a short memory when it comes to heel torture. half way through the night, with battered swolen feet, weeping blisters and aching toes, i stormed into the change room, ripped them off (was close to throwing them in the rubbish bin) and pulled on my army boots... perhaps not quite so elegant with the little black dress, but by that point i was past caring.

working on the other side of the bar, it seemed like people were so much more rip-roaringly drunk than usual.... maybe they just behave themselves when they make their drink orders so as not to get cut off, then go back to swinging themselves all over the place... although i know i'm among the worst when i'm out drinking, i still found myself disgusted and embarrassed at these peoples inebriation.

on friday, a group of 17 year-olds at a private party tested their luck inside at the bar, red-faced, nervously placing their clueless orders, hoping to not be suspected. i was the ID nazi, pissed off even that they'd try to fool me... oh how long ago it seems that i was 15, sneaking into nightclubs, convincing the security guards that i was 25 with two kids back home, incredulous that they should even ask me for ID...

jerry left for sweden in the early morning and will be gone for 4 long days...he desperately misses his friends... i wish it were that easy for me to go home and visit...
i spent the afternoon at a hotel around the corner where my grandparents were staying after their trip around the UK. good old nanna and poppa! i hope that when i'm 80 i still have as much adventure left in me! we relaxed in the hotel lounge all afternoon, sipping tea and exchanging stories. they had said this would be their last overseas trip but now i'm dragging them to thailand next year for the wedding!

the lotus eaters

2010-09-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

lotus eater: 1. From Greek Mythology; One of a people described in the Odyssey who lived in a drugged, indolent state from feeding on the lotus. 2. A lazy person devoted to pleasure and luxury.

what fun it was, being a lotus eater today. i arrived at the grand and impressive debenham house, a huge mansion with marble mosaic domed ceilings, manicured maze gardens, full of ornate antique furniture, gramophones, telescopes and marble statues, indoor ferns and impressive paintings.. i dodged past the film crew, the assistants and directors and assistants of directors and people i supposed were cast and searched around for kaye, who recruited me through gumtree for the 'film extra' job... kaye, (the 3rd assistant director) was a gorgeous young creature with beautiful long hair, high cheek bones, the funkiest outfit ever and a charming husky voice who made me instantly sick with envy: the coolest job and gorgeous... :o(
later she told me she was studying politics and philosophy at university and couldnt wait to finish this wretched filming so she could go back to uni... i told her i would kill for her job.

all the extras were told to jump straight into their bikinis and head to the lavish indoor pool... i'd brought my favourite victoria's secret bikini, along with matching accessories of course... the other girls were directed into the pool and i was directed on to the floating lilo... a special role because three lines of the script were about me!! ... the main character, a cocky womanizing party-boy crosses the pool to greet a newly arrived friend, spins my lilo around while perving at me, says 'she's hot' to his friend who responds 'i kissed her last week, she's crazy!'.... meanwhile i just lay there floating, sipping a pool-water martini and looking as cool and indifferent as possible.

the scene had to be re-shot about 20 times and each time the guy got a bit more cocky with me, until in one of the final takes he even kissed me on the mouth!!!
he apologised for shocking me afterwards with the excuse that he thought it was 'quite fitting to the scene'... hmmm...

over the delicious cooked lunch i chatted with the other extras and got some contacts... i also decided that somehow, someway, i will find a way into a job like kaye's...

carnevale, cosi and cycle missions..

2010-09-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

* on monday jerry and i met my cousin and his girlfriend at the notting hill carneval, a huge carribean street festival which was so packed with people, we could barely move. i loved the extravagant floats in the parade, the feathery sequined costumes, the fact that everybody wore the skimpy gold short shorts, regardless of fat bums, stomach rolls and cellulite, and they shook it anyway! we followed the parade for a couple of hours until the music, horns and whistles got too much and then we headed for the sanctuary of westgate shopping mall... which we didnt know existed and has become our favourite place.

i had my first day of nannying yesterday, with cosi, a gorgeous little 2 year old girl who calls me nanna. the day involved running after her at the playground so she wouldn't get hit by swings, flying foxes, see-saws and other crazy little kids running in all directions, then making sandcastles, collecting leaves, blowing bubbles, drawing pictures and playing tea-parties...

playing kids games made me reminisce about the things i loved doing as a child. dressing up in our massive bags of fancy dress costumes stands out in my memory as number one. apparently i insisted on wearing 'dress-ups' to school nearly every day of my first year at primary school... it was an alternative hippy school in fitzroy so i probably blended in quite well...
hobby number two would be the trampoline. we thought of a thousand different uses for that thing: to climb up on the roof and jump down on (mum and dad had no qualms with that for some reason, even when i was 4 years old!), as a communal bed for sleeping-bag slumber-parties under the stars, to wack a sprinkler under in the summer and jump around on in our bathers, to drape blankets over as an awesome cubby house, as the centre of painful dodge-ball games, the list goes on..
third, i guess would be the bikes and the adventures on them. i still remember all my bikes from the very first one with the basket and the 70's harley handlebars with ribbons dangling off..

jerry and i rode our new grandma bikes around town today, running errands, cutting keys for our new housemates, going to the bank and searching for a pair of military boots that i had my heart set on... having a bike to get around makes everything seem like such a fun mission!

tomorrow i'll be on set all day for 'the lotus eaters' movie. they asked me to bring my most glamourous thing, and a bikini and to arrive at 10.30 am to debenham house. i checked the website and its amazing! i'm so excited!!!

gumtree

2010-08-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

❊ i've spent most of the week lost in my favourite website, 'gumtree'... a little world of its own... through the wondrous gumtree we found our nightclub job, which we absolutely adore, then we found our lovely new housemates, darren & mona, yet to move in...
our latest toys, also from gumtree, are a pair of vintage grandma bicycles from verona, (called romeo & juliet, naturally)... we've been riding them everywhere. jerry looks so gorgeous on his red romeo, covered in rust, plastic bag holding the seat together. juliet is slightly classier with woven cane basket and matching mudguards.

this week through gumtree i managed to find a local theatre group which have asked me to audition for one of the parts; 'Honesty/Naïve/Staid/Cunning' in the first of a series of fringe musicals which the producer is hoping will reach west end by the london olympics... i admire his ambition and though id love a lead role, i'd be happy doing costumes and makeup, just to be involved...

i also found an extra job for a movie being filmed in london called 'the lotus eaters', i'll be in the background of a pool-side scene, in a bikini.... probably freezing to death knowing london summer weather, but at least its something fun to do....
what i'd really love to do is be making movies... on gumtree there were intern positions for small film production companies and that'd be the best way into the industry but of course they're unpaid jobs, which i cant do when trying to save for a big thailand wedding..

tomorrow i start a nanny job, looking after a gorgeous little girl called cosma. ive had so many responses to my 'australian nanny' ad posted on gumtree, including the following:

'I am a male nanny (Manny) and looking for a lady to be the one I look after for a few hours. But you must understand I am very strict, so when you are rude or impolite to me I will put you over my knee, lift up your short skirt, pull down your knickers a little way and reveal your bum, then I will lightly spank your bum with my hand. I will pay you £60 per hour neg. If you do not want this but have alternative fun job to do then I will be only too glad to consider it.'

I wonder if he's had as much luck with gumtree as I have...

farewell worlds

2010-08-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

✥ saying goodbye is always hard, no matter how much practice you get at it....
worlds left london today, to move back home to sweden where the grass is greener. i got all choked up in my throat watching him leave the apartment, ducking his head under the doorway, his big rucksack on his back, his room empty behind him...
jerry took him to the station and with them both gone, i began to reflect on all the good times we've had these last few months, and couldn't help but start crying!.... london can be a lonely place when you don't know anyone, but the whole time, jerry and i have had more than each other- we've had worlds as well...
a loyal friend, a great housemate... always up for a party, for a movie night, for a home-dinner night, to be on my side in arguments with jerry, to carry the shopping bags, to give me shoulder rides home after partying when i can't walk in my high heels anymore... he's been such a big part of my life here and now i feel like i took him for granted....

we finally decided on new housemates, who seem lovely and are moving in in a few weeks, but i can't imagine being as comfortable with anyone else as i was with worlds...

farewell and good luck to the worlds tallest guy and best friend... you're already missed :o)

rasmus comes to london

2010-08-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

* rasmus, our dear friend from stockholm, arrived in london like a tornado, sweeping us up and taking us on a crazy whirlwind ride... all of a sudden london became fun and fabulous, even for jerry and worlds who have recently become so bitter about the place...

luckily we all had the week off work so we could pack each day with fun and adventure. we went to see live bands, partied at exclusive clubs, ate in china town, drank in soho, shopped in oxford st... we went to fun parlours, pool halls, cocktail competitions, visited our friend abas's turkish restaurant and stuffed ourselves on delicious mezze platters. then on the last day we decided to catch the train to brighton to see the sea. it was such a lovely sunny day and we spent it lazing at cafes on the beach, walking along the promenade, wandering through the amusement park on the pier, and drinking beers in the charming cobbled alleys..

we got totally hooked on an iphone quiz game called MIG and got so competitive with it that we designed prizes for the winner and punishments for the loser. i lost both games and had to swim in the sea (freezing cold), buy a round of beers and drink 5 shots of straight vodka without wincing.

yesterday rasmus went back to sweden, the whirlwind swept itself away and left us all stranded, confused and a little melancholy. the house was totally ravaged, all the washing needing washing and all the dishes needed dish-washing. after eating out at restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner (plus all the drinking), we've forced ourselves back on to a strict exercise routine and a tight budget! ..ah back to reality...

but what a fun week its been!

little black dresses & alpha males

2010-08-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

❋ although i love bartending at work, what i really wanted to do was VIP cocktail waitressing. those girls rake in the cash and it's a much more social and glamorous job. for starters they don't have to wear the unflattering boys uniform that i'm stuck in behind the bar..
so, on friday night my boss asked me if i wanted to do VIP waitressing. i, of course jumped at the chance, pulled out my littlest black dress and planned to hit that VIP room like a hurricane, up-sell to the shithouse and make such a good impression that i'd get the job permanently....... hmmm... the black dress turned lots of heads but i got stuck with the staff party who of course didn't want to drink anything if it wasn't free and definitely didn't want to tip. plus the girls treated me like i was crashing their party, even though i was giving them (free) VIP service.. i was so disappointed at my chance to make a 'good impression' ...

i'd also pinned my hopes on the family around the corner who i had my first nanny interview with. but they didn't call back... i started to get really insecure. what didn't they like about me? normally i'm really good in interviews. oh what's going on this week?! how i'd love to see myself through someone else's eyes... wouldn't it be interesting to know what other people really thought of you? people like jerry don't care at all and that's what makes him such a cool person. he's really take-it-or-leave-it with his personality...whereas i'm always battling with self-improvement.

i had an interview with a nanny agency today and they lined up a list of families who suit me... on the list was a Mrs La Fage De Fontenay. 'i would like that one please'. with a name like that, they're either eccentrics or aristocracy and bound to be fun either way... by some ridiculous coincidence, holly, a family friend of mine also living in london, had the next appointment after me at the agency (neither of us knew the other was becoming a nanny), called me later and told me that the bosses were saying nice things about me... 'oh yeah, like what?' ;o)

worlds has decided to leave in 10 days so we're crunching through the housemate interviews. there's been some ridiculous ones and some really nice ones but we're being super picky and hanging out that little bit longer just in case 'the perfect housemates come along... 'basically we want people exactly like you and me, don't we?!' i said to jerry. 'no!... i have to be the alpha male in the house so i definitely don't want someone like me', was his reply. oh my god....

:o)

small world

2010-08-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

* i was in the elevator on my way up to work and the guy standing across from me looked strangely familiar. he was a photographer at the event we were hosting: 'britain's next top-model' and after watching him for a while, wondering where the hell i knew him from, it hit me...

the first time i ever went to thailand, eight years ago with my girlfriend sarah, we met these two english guys, ollie and joe, and spent the next two weeks with them on koh samui and koh phangan, partying on the beach, doing magic mushroom pulp fiction karaoke shows, mountain trecks and snorkelling trips, truth and dare by beach bonfire... we had so much fun that sarah cried when we left them to go home. she actually had a huge crush on ollie but was too shy to act on it (i later had to assure a jealous jerry that there was nothing romantic in my friendship with them). we lost contact after thailand and never heard from them again..
as i was setting up the bar it dawned on me who the photographer was... 'excuse me, is your name ollie?" ...'yes! i recognised you in the lift! what are you doing in london? i thought i'd never see you girls again!"
....shit, its been 8 years! i was so happy to see him! what a small world! i told him about sarah's crush and he slapped himself in the face and told me he knew and that not doing anything about it has been the biggest regret of his life... he liked her too!! i couldn't wait to tell sarah! although of course theres no point now, it was a long time ago and she's now happily in love with a handsome prince charming... but good for some closure all the same.

i got another nice surprise today when my friend pia posted a blog about our wedding save-the-date fridge magnets, which are being sent out sporadically, as we collect addresses.. they look so good, if i do say so myself. so annoying that i got the website wrong on it!! for anyone who's interested, its annaandjerry.webstarts.com

:o)

life is good

2010-08-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

✳ despite the weather, we've dragged ourselves out of the sad slump we were in. we found a gorgeous pub around the corner on the canal which we've decided will be our local from now on. they do delicious food and free barbecues on thursdays and the terrace overlooking the canal is really nice!

we also joined virgin active gym, where we got nice discounts for working for virgin! they've got some great classes that i'm looking forward to: zumba, bellydance and hip-hop, as well as yoga and pilates and all the rest! and jerry's so much happier when he's working out.

we've also started interviewing for housemates to fill worlds's room when he leaves. to lower our rent, we decided to advertise for a couple and charge double rent. our ad on gumtree got a flood of responses, so we're screening the candidates, judging them on how they describe themselves. jerry's discriminating purely on nationality. in the beginning he demanded that we only accept swedes or aussies, but he's mellowed out a bit now and will consider english and some europeans... one couple wrote 'we are fenomenal but humble people', which we loved and replied to straight away...

work's been fun as well. yesterday i worked in the spanish garden bar. it was glorious weather and i spent the day serving pimms cocktails, surrounded by a sea of flowers, the fountain trickling behind me and the jazz band playing directly in front of me. at one point one of the resident ducks walked past followed by her baby ducklings and i instantly had a new appreciation for my job....

life is good :o)

mary poppins

2010-08-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

'... fish, chips, cup o' tea, bad food, worse weather, mary fucking poppins, you know... london!?' (snatch)

jerry came back from his two weeks in sweden and sank into a miserable grumpiness, deciding he hates london. coming from utopian sweden, he sees it as a big downgrade.
worlds is so fed up with the crappy salary that he's decided to go home.. i'd actually been enjoying myself here so it was a bit of a downer jerry being so bitter about the place, but i reminded him that we're stuck here now anyway, with a lease agreement signed, course fees paid and nowhere else to go! so we have to make the most of it...he's agreed to give it a chance. i wish i could make him love london like i do......
why do i love it so much, he wonders? well firstly, they speak my language here, and that's a huge bonus after living so many years in countries where i'm the foreigner in the bubble; secondly, even if our wages are low, it still feels like the land of opportunities, waiting for us to discover; thirdly, theres so much action, so much going on around you here that you feel like youre in the centre of the world.... i dont really know what it is to be honest...just the vibe.

i decided to apply for some jobs as a nanny. apparently there's more money in it than working in restaurants.. and i make a good mary poppins. kids always love me for some reason... so i signed up with an agency and posted an ad on gumtree and my first interview is today, with a family who live right around the corner from my house!

:o)

love, and other indoor sports

2010-08-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

❉ jerry was supposed to come home this morning and i was so looking forward to meeting him at the airport to do one of those romantic movie scene run-up-and-jump kisses.... then his flight was delayed and he's coming tonight instead :o( ... i'll be at a party we were invited to, so we won't get to do the airport PDA...
these last two weeks he's been gone have dragged on like two years! i hate doing relationships long distance. i have to do it with all my family and nearly all my friends as it is!

while jerry's been away ive been getting back into wedding planning. mum and i decided on wedding invitations which are gonna be really unique and special and she's gonna hand-make them all individually. i told her she doesn't have to go to so much trouble and she answered 'i only have one daughter'. aaaaawww!!! i love my mumsy.
i've also been brainstorming wedding dress ideas with my cousin giorgia and my BF lucy, and pleading the wedding photo-journalist to book us in, even though we don't have the deposit...her wedding folio is so amazing that you cry as you watch the slideshow...

i still can't believe i'm getting married! as a kid i always said i wouldn't bother. my parents never got married, which my primary school friends all thought was quite shocking, but out of all our parents, mine were the only ones still together!

i considered marriage a few times... once during uni with my swedish friend and housemate jeanette, so that she could get an australian passport and i could get a european one. then again with my ex boyfriend for similar visa-related reasons.. (thank god we didnt!)
now i think weddings are probably the most meaningful and special of all celebrations... what's better than love? and what a fabulous excuse for a big party that everyone has to come to!

laziness

2010-07-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

❆ since jerry's been away, a disgusting and morbid laziness has totally possessed me and i feel utterly powerless to it.... i've eaten mcdonalds before going to bed and chocolate for breakfast on at least 6 occasions, my yoga class has been totally abandoned, and on my days off work, instead of exploring london and catching up with friends i haven't seen in ages, i can't seem to tear myself from my pijamas or my bed. not sure if its the way missing jerry has manifested itself, but i feel like the most slothful pig.

i did manage the staff party on monday of course ;o)... cocktails and bowling in our own private room at all-stars bowling alley was fabulous! the cocktails turned to shots and the bowling turned to piggy-backing and shoulder-riding to 'heaven' nightclub where i danced barefoot all night and swore to never wear heels again.

the hangover stretched into two full days so that yesterday at work i was a complete space-cadet. luckily it was quiet in the restaurant and the manager, the head bartender and i kept ourselves entertained with hypothetical questions. they started off quite tame and innocent; if you had to delete either red, blue, green or yellow from the whole world forever, which would it be..? and then the questions slowly degenerated until they were dirty, sexually obscene and downright scandalous. grant was asked who he'd choose to have intercourse with between his mother and a gorilla and he answered that it was the same thing. later on he was opening an £80 bottle of champagne for a a table of guests and the cork popped so hard it pushed him backwards and he fell over in slow motion, landing on the floor with the bottle slipping out of his hands and spin-spraying all around him. with all his guests watching the whole spectacle, he was mortified, but it provided amusement for the rest of us the entire night.

today i promised myself to get out of bed and do something with the day, before work tonight.... go to the solarium even.. anything! ...it's not looking good so far...

daniel-san

2010-07-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

✥ i hadn't seen my good old friend dan in ages, mainly due to clashing work schedules, but also because dan actually has a life in london and i dont!
after him slinking out of several of my attempts to corner him into hanging out, i even busted him at MY corner pub with someone else!! ...i then managed to make him promise me thursday....

looking forward to his visit, i spent the day cleaning the house and buying food for a middle-eastern banquet that i planned to prepare for dinner. he called me at one o'clock trying to postpone. his initial excuse was a severe thunderstorm warning... when i broke him down with a guilt trip, he finally admitted the real reason: he had to wash his hair... a big mission for waist length dreadlocks apparently. 'one day ill cut the damn things off', he grumbled. 'yay, lets do that tonight instead!" i suggested.. he settled for washing them at my house..

ive been trying to get him to ditch the dreads for years. in japan i even gave him head-lice in the hope he'd be forced to shave them off! ...no, that's not true... i did give him head-lice but not intentionally.....

over my fabulous dinner we reminisced about the video shop that was directly beneath my apartment in japan. i loved that video shop, even though all the movie titles were in japanese and the staff didn't speak a word of english. i became such a hermit movie junkie in that cold winter- i actually remember watching seven movies in a row one sunday!
one night dan and i rented 'run lola run' and later realised it didn't have english subtitles... dan trecked back downstairs to try to return it and in his broken japanese he mixed up the word for 'english' (eigo) with the word for 'movie' (eiga) so that he was holding up the video and saying to the guy 'this is not movie'!! ... 'yes it is..', responded the video guy, thinking he was a complete retard.

while dan washed his hair, i dashed around the corner, hoping to find a DVD shop to hire 'fantastic mr fox', (directed by our favourite director, wes anderson) which we were really hanging to watch. although i didn't find any DVD shops, i discovered a gorgeous little pub/restauarant with a terrace overlooking the canal which i'm gonna take jerry to as soon as he's back.... in 9 days (yes, i'm counting)...:o)

fan också!

2010-07-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

✻ today i was super excited about going to my first swedish class. id booked in a ten week course at a language school near my house and was so looking forward to finally getting cracking at it!
i arrived to class enthusiastic and optimistic, pen and notebook ready, space having been cleared in my scattered brain to store some new swenglish that i could hopefully use to impress jerry later on....

i like to judge people quickly. sometimes i try not to, but cant help it. today i summed up the teacher in ten minutes and knew he wasn't good enough to be my teacher.
being a qualified and experienced language teacher myself, i admit i may be over-critical and demanding, but from my many years teaching (and studying) in classrooms, i know how things should be done...

firstly a class has to be fun, which means high energy, movement, games, races, activities that make the students laugh. and secondly, any good beginners class should have the students talking 80 per cent of the time and the teacher only 20..

the swedish teacher talked 100 per cent of the class. the first hour was spent listening to the alphabet, then the next hour watching the teacher flip through books and fiddle around with the bullshit hi-tech media and waste our time. we were all falling asleep. one guy got up and left..... in the entire two hour class i produced three sentences... 'my name is anna', 'i'm from australia' and 'my boyfriend is swedish'...
im not paying £200 for that. i can learn all that AND 'your mothers a whore' for free AND with a pirate skånska accent to boot.

so i called the language school and told them i want to be transferred to the next course in october, only if it's a different teacher....and it better be a good one.

i miss you!

2010-07-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

✷ jerry's gone back to sweden to work at 'visby' for the famous summer party week where everyone crowds the island to party half naked at the exclusive outdoor clubs with big name DJ's pumping house music, while the people squirt expensive champagne over each other and generally flash their money around... it's not really my thing (not only because i don't have any money to flash :o)....

he's been gone one day and i miss him desperately already! i miss his gorgeous hamster face on the pillow next to me in the morning, his wet forehead kisses which i always have to wipe off, and the thousand ridiculous pet names that he sings out to me each day...

i dont know if its true that 'distance makes the heart grow fonder'... i think it just reminds you of the fondness you already feel for someone, but maybe take for granted...

china town

2010-07-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

✻ china town is such a cool place to hang out, in every city of the world.

on our day off yesterday jerry and i went out for dinner at a korean restaurant in china town with a window menu advertising delicious looking hot-pots and fried dumplings.
the waiter was fresh off the boat and i think it was his first job in a restaurant because the poor thing was terrified. although i ordered a 'vegetarian babimbop' directly from the menu, which the waiter double checked, of course it arrived (after jerry had already been served and finished his meal), with minced meat in it....

after our meals we went for a wander through china town, and feeling piggish, we decided to sample some pork buns (jerry) and red bean buns (me) from a popular little street stall. biting into the thick soft dough reminded me off my childhood - on the way home from every trip to melbourne, dad would detour past china town just to stock up on the bean buns...
mum would also drag me along on 'business trips' to china town to buy her 'secret black ink' that was apparently the best for her calligraphy and only available in one particular little junk shop in china town. i felt very special being the only one who knew where she sourced it from and sworn to secrecy regarding it.

after i'd moved to melbourne for uni, mum and dad went through their feng shui phase, and i was sent with an extensive list and a hundred dollars to china town where i was instructed to buy various things including a jade frog with a coin in its mouth, a hexagonal chinese mirror, a brass bell and a picture of two geese, which they desperately needed to fix the flow of energy through their house.

next time i visited home their tv was in a new corner, the toilet was lit with a red light (which was so dark you could barely find your way to the toilet seat) and there was an empty ceramic vase on the floor which i was later reprimanded for putting a used toilet roll in, since its purpose was for draining negative energy from the whole house.
(im not pissing on mum and dad, i actually do believe in feng shui...)

jerry and i stood in china town eating sesame icecream and people-watching for ages; the little old chinese migrants picking up their chinese newspapers and playing mahjong under the chinese gazebo. china town really is a wonderful cultural experience.

virgin galactic

2010-07-14T19:09:00.001-07:00

london is a city of surprises. every day i'm amazed and shocked and inspired. last night a fox ran past us in our street....in the middle of the city! ...today i saw two fat albino twins at the cinema, a group of beautiful moslem women in christian dior burkahs, accompanied by a huge black bodyguard and then a swimwear shop display window with live models, who i only noticed were real people when the girl smiled at me!! .......what a fabulous city!

we had a work meeting at the gardens where everybody brainstormed ideas for the staff party (my vote is for the amusements park followed by karaoke) and then we tried to come up with ideas for a new shared cocktail that encompasses the whole concept of the gardens. at the moment we just serve a huge cocktail in an enormous cocktail glass to share between 6. i think something involving ice, fire or smoke is always fun and novel... so i'm working on an idea to present...

we talked about sales and incentives, cocktail competitions and the most exciting thing was an idea for a new cocktail costing £1000,000 with the garnish being a trip for two into space on the virgin galactic, along with a bartender to serve you on board!!! what an incentive to sell that drink!!! i have to win it!!

quitting day

2010-07-12T04:52:00.000-07:00

❉ yesterday before work, i dropped in to see jerry at his work in the bar at the French restaurant. the place was super plush! the japanese receptionist was expecting me and escorted me to the elevator which I caught up to the third level. jerry was all alone in an empty bar, wearing a hilarious mandarin style uniform that I'd never seen before. he'd had the chef make me a spring platter of gourmet delicacies and i sat at the bar and enjoyed them over coffee.

next thing his french boss came up to the bar and asked to see him in private. two minutes later jerry returned to the bar with a face of stone and pupils so dilated that there was no blue left... i knew shit was about to hit the fan..... apparently he was told he's not allowed guests, and that if all the waiters had their girlfriend visit it would be a big mess! ten minutes later the boss returned and jerry asked to see him in private. he accused the boss of treating him like a mcdonalds worker, and reminded him that everybody else has their wives and girlfriends visit all the time, including yesterday when his own wife was there with her friends, all drinking free champagne. he reminded the boss that he'd already given his notice and was just covering shifts to be nice. he then paid for my coffee from his tips and said he wouldn't be coming back to work.

at the pub we were screening the world cup final and all the local spaniards had filled the place, which worked out well for tips in the end with spain's glorious last minute victory.

i had gone to work with the intention of resigning as well, after trying to all weekend unsuccessfully. my boss knew i wanted to quit and was avoiding me. he'd ignored my calls and text messages, brushed me off every time i came to his office asking to talk to him, and then snuck off home during the evening without a word... so i was forced to resign via email...

the nightclub

2010-07-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

✷ last night was my first real shift at my new job at the nightclub... and it was awesome! the place is so nice and has such a good reputation that i'm proud to work there and the staff are like one big happy family. i couldnt even believe how friendly everyone was to me!

of course i felt like a retard in the bar, not knowing where anything was, how to use the register, what goes into the house cocktails etc.. but i had so much fun anyway! i was jumping around all night from the excitement of finally having a job i like. my colleague hassan, who i worked with in the bar even commented on the amazing amount of energy i had!

richard branson's daughter was drinking at my bar, and i was serving her without even knowing who she was until she actually told me! ..at 4am we closed up. i'd done a full day shift at the pub as well as the nightclub shift, so i could barely keep my eyes open but somehow it was a good feeling; i felt like a real machine, working 18 hours straight and pushing myself to the limit.

jerry had his trial as well and they liked him so much that they gave him the job on the spot and he worked the whole night! we came home on a buzz, both so happy that we're working together, with such lovely people, in such a cool place! and since we won't have to work as much to make the same money, we can do fun stuff like go to the beach next week in our time off! .... it feels like now the real london experience starts... :o)

bikram

2010-07-07T06:33:00.001-07:00

❉ traveling through london on the night bus late one night after work, i glimpsed a dress in a window at selfridges, and though it flashed past me within the space of a second, i was sure that it was my dream wedding dress.
after several days of obsessing over it, i dragged jerry across town yesterday to check it out... to my dismay, it wasn't white or even ivory, (the night window illumination must have deceived me) or even for sale!! the shop assistant informed me that it was a julien macdonald haute couture piece, and only a sample for the window display! :o( ...a sign in another window advertised a vera wang bridal preview collection on this weekend!!....:o) chances of dragging jerry to that..? zero.

ive been inspired lately to get back onto bikram yoga, (the type you do in a 40 degree heated room). i used to do it in melbourne many years ago with two of my girlfriends and we loved it! you stretch every muscle in your body, while pouring with sweat (which is like a detox) and you come out feeling so invigorated! after a few months of doing it, i became so flexible i could do the splits and so agile i felt like a wild animal. it's also really good for concentration, and emotional balance and pretty much everything else...

so i checked out the internet and discovered there's a bikram studio quite close to where we live... and that they do teacher training courses.... according to the website, there's a lot of money in it, and great travelling opportunities, since bikram teachers are sought after everywhere in the world. i would love to be good enough to teach yoga!! ...so that's my new aim.
i went to the studio and joined a class. and it was marvelous!

firemen

2010-07-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

✠ there was a hyper vibe at 'the pub' on friday night that infected all of us. for some reason we just couldn't stop laughing all day, even amidst the stress and anarchy of the pub's disorganisation...
i think it started in the afternoon when someone pressed the fire alarm and within one minute, two firetrucks roared around the corner, pulled up outside and 15 ripped, young firemen piled in, to be greeted by 10 hyper female waitresses with nothing to do at that particular time, except stand around and perve. one of the firemen was particularly hot, even the gay deli guy was eyeing him off...
ombretta, in proper italian style called out 'if i ring my alarm at home will you all come this quickly?' the guys enjoyed the attention so much that they hung around even after it was established that the alarm was accidental.

at midnight, after we closed up, we decided to all go to the park nearby and get pissed. we stocked up on alcohol from the bottle shop and sat talking shit and laughing until the rain came, when we relocated to the front of the fire station. a local bum came to join the action and in my drunkenness i decided to give him some therapy which turned into a long lecture. in the end i had him promising that tomorrow he would wake up a new man, quit the grog and call his family. before he left us, he told me he was sure i was some sort of psychic angel!

last night i had my trial as bartender in the nightclub at 'the garden'. it went super well, even though i had to consult the book every time someone ordered a house cocktail... the whole place is amazing! a really nice place to work! after my trial i was told i had the job, starting next weekend! ...yay!!!! i recommended jerry and worlds and the manager said he'd call them for interviews, so we may all end up working together, which would be super fun!

in our little spare time, jerry and i have been designing our own wedding website, save-the-date fridge magnets, gathering addresses and making arrangements with the resort for our special day. after a long while with other things on our minds, the wedding was put on the back burner, but now we're super excited about it again!

the balancing act

2010-06-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

at the pub

✥ how does anyone find time to pick their nose in this rat race, dog-eat dog world called london??? i'm not bagging it out as a city - i love it! ...its just the hospitality industry here is more like the slave trade.
the last 3 weeks i've worked harder, longer hours than ever before and for wages that seem too low to even be legal. how can people afford the rent, let alone hold their heads high when they're making £6.50 ($11 AUS) per hour, before tax, working weekends and late nights with no tips!???

At 'The Pub'* (real names have been changed since one of the guests yesterday told me he read my blog!!) situated in the richest neighbourhood of London, the guests expect a silver-service fine-dining experience, even though its just a pub, and no matter how friendly and accommodating we are, they very rarely tip.
and we're so busy sprinting around the place for them all night that we don't have time for breaks or meals (although on the up side i have managed to shed a few unwanted kilos because of this...)
listen to me, whingeing and moaning like a pom! i am actually enjoying myself! my colleagues are great! having survived the stress and trauma of an opening together, we've become a really close-knit team. and the place is gorgeous. once everything's running smoothly, it'll be a really nice place to work.

i just need a weekend job to pay the rent... and today i think i found one. the bar manager of 'The Gardens'* a members club owned by richard branson, asked me for an interview today and i totally aced it. interviews are one of my fortes, i have to say. the trick is to go into 'stage mode', treat the interviewer as a friend, look them straight in the eye and relax, have a laugh, tell some stories... i honestly get every job i'm interviewed for!

jerry and worlds have been dragged down by the slave trade lately too... even though they work in a super-snazzy michelin 2-star french restaurant, they're so insulted by lack of tips, tired from the long hours and bored by the job in general, that they're both missing stockholm, where bartenders make as much money as doctors and live lives of luxury...

i read my own tarot cards, as i always do when i need a little comfort, and they revealed that this juggling and balancing act will only last a while and then ill find happiness, inspiration and spiritual enlightenment ;o)

i actually do get the feeling that an exciting whirlwind is around the corner. coca cola is considering buying my brothers iphone application 'dreamwalk', which could turn them into instant millionaires. luckily i'd conned jerry into buying some shares from them so we'll be able to cash in on it too.
and anyway, samuel promised me that as soon as he's rich he'll finance any project i wish to pursue... i'm dreaming of a little cafe on the coast, with good coffee, a garden, a room for art and photography exhibitions, maybe a little boutique, a yoga studio upstairs... a collective type thing. although the idea sounds suspiciously hippyish to jerry, he's still totally into it.

lately we've been working so much that we barely see each other. we're so excited when we do have a rare day off together that we walk around holding hands and pashing on street corners like new lovers :o) .... and we do love london, even if she has enslaved us.

the ten botanicals

2010-06-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

the pub (still under construction)

✥ oh i know its been ages, but we havent had internet so its not my fault!!! ...so much has happened!!!! most importantly, we finally moved into our own apartment!!!
after a week mashed between the wall and the edge of a single blow-up bed in jerry's friend's lounge room with worlds on the couch next to us snoring every night, i was about to kill someone... jerry or worlds, most likely.

hallelujah and praise the lord, amen to jo, our fabulous real estate agent! the flat she found us is a gorgeous, cosy, modern, fully furnished apartment with wonderful views of london city, and all the special bits and pieces like dishwasher, washing machine and balcony!!! we're super super happy with it! i spent my first night unpacking my suitcases and nesting into my lovely new room...

probably because of the stress of couchsurfing and lack of sleep, jerry and i had a huge argument over the left side of the bed (closest to the windows) which ended in me forcefully removing and relocating his things to the other side...we've become like kids in primary school who share a desk and draw a pencil line down the exact middle, and measure chocolate bars with a ruler before cutting and sharing them. :o)

to add some finishing touches to the place, we made a sunday visit to IKEA and left with an overflowing trolley full of goodies, including wooden deck chairs, table and plant for our balcony, which would be so nice on a summers day if it wasn't london....

as for my job, i love it! ive been doing full time training, 10-5 each day and its been so much fun! my colleagues are really cool and my bosses are genuine, caring, friendly guys who really give a shit about their staff. the weeks activities included a three hour wine tasting with a french sommelier and a treasure hunt in the local neighbourhood around the pub! we've also studies all about alcohol, the different spirits, their histories and how and where they're made...which was really interesting! i even learnt to recite by heart the ten botanicals used in bombay sapphire gin... pretty random and some may say useless knowledge, but in my mind thats what sticks.

the pub opens next monday and it's gonna be huge! the owner (i think her daddy owns the business) has three PR companies advertising it and has invited 4000 guests to the opening launch... they're all from that snobby area so it'll be interesting to see how they are as customers. according to the toffy, model, PR guy called hugo, 'this season its not cool to party on saturday nights anymore... now its all about sunday brunch.... and dom perignon'.

jerry has been offered loads of jobs, so has worlds.. all three of us have been able to pick and choose. and all three of us have been offered bar-manager jobs! but none of us want them! too much stress. jerry's decided to take the job at a michelin 2-star french restaurant in the west end. when he was interviewed the italian boss said to him 'this is not the kind of place where the bartender is cooler than the customer'. not like in stockholm where the startenders think theyre all king of the castle. in fact he loved jerry and said 'if your friend (worlds) is a third as good as you are, we'll hire him too'.

PS. just in case you want to know, the ten botanicals are: juniper, coriander, lemon peel, almond, angelica, licorice, oris root, cassia bark, cubeb root and grain of paradise.

:o)

training day

2010-06-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

❉ so i had my first day of training today for the new job at 'the pub*'. we sat at a table in a snazzy restaurant in waterloo, which is under the same ownerhip (they own theatres, restaurants and pubs all over london and even a roller skating rink!) and we basically talked all day.
the owner came in to discuss the pub's concept, then the chef came in to go through the menu with us in minute detail (everything is organic, free range and very gourmet and we have to know exactly what's in the ketchup and where the eggs come from etc etc). the owners are so into the project that they're willing to pay the whole team full time wages for 2 weeks before it even opens, just so we know the business inside out! we'll be doing coffee courses, cocktail courses, role-plays and pre-opening test runs... its actually pretty fun, especially since my other colleaugues are all really nice and friendly.
after work, jerry, worlds and i went for a three hour walk around london, along the thames, through the beautiful gardens past buckingham palace, as the rain drizzled down... finally real london weather...

...

2010-06-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

✽ aussies take nice weather for granted. a beautiful sunny day in london feels the same as it does in sweden. people go crazy, rushing out to fill the parks and outdoor cafes, desperate to soak in any speck of sunshine they're lucky enough to get, before it disappears...

yesterday we chilled out in hyde park in the beautiful sun and then ate a delicious lebanese lunch at an outdoor restaurant, watching the thousands of demonstrators marching towards the israeli embassy, in protest at the gaza situation.
i recalled my uni days when i would join any and every march and demonstration going on in melbourne, being so young, passionate, full of opinions, and set on making the world a better place... i'm so much more blazé now.

london is such an exciting city!
last night we met up with one of jerry and world's friends drufu and his girlfriend for beers at the corner pub, which turned into cocktails at 6 different bars in mayfair. (its so strange finding yourself on monopoly squares!) we had so much fun on our bar crawl, even though i had to swap a million times between flip flops (for the walk there) and then my new 6 inch heels (to go in)..
at the end of the night, feeling quite pissy, we decided to visit one of the strip clubs down soho, but were rejected because girls are not allowed inside!! that can't be legal!

hello London!

2010-06-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

✯ WOW- too much has happened to even write about in a blog!! I wish i'd had time to write daily updates but we've been crazy busy!
...London rocks!!
ever since we arrived, its been glorious, sunny and hot, like a proper summer should be and like i didn't expect of london!

i've had so many requests for job interviews that i cant even keep up with them all!
i had my first interview and trial at 'the lanesbourough', a super snobby 5 star hotel in the city, a sea of marble floors, butlers in white gloves and bowler hats who open the door for you and where only millionaire hoighty toighties go.
my trial was as cocktail waitress in the garden bar, where guests come to sip expensive cognac and smoke cuban cigars. one bottle of cognac in the cabinet was from the 1700s and sells for £4000 per shot!!!! regular guests include CEO's, big bankers, hollywood celebrities and royalty.

the designer uniform fit me as if the tailor had sewn it onto me and although i was only a lowly cocktail waitress, i felt like a million dollars in that dress!
all the staff were italian guys except one chatterbox scottish girl who took me aside immediately and warned me that if i have other interviews i should go for them. although the italian guys were all friendly and fun to work with, she warned me 'you expect to get a lot of tips here but you don't because they pocket it all themselves.' the only reason i would act like a servant and suck up to all those rich people, stifling my entire personality like that would be for good tips. the boss loved me and asked me to start the next day... and i decided not to...

we'd spent the first 3 days in london searching for apartments, in the meanwhile staying at jerry's friend balloon's house. balloon, who's away in miami, has a luxurious pad overlooking hyde park, interior decorated with plasma TV's in every room, including over the bath!
the flats we were inspecting were not quite as snazzy ;o)... after a few apartment viewings, we decided on a cosy 2 bedroom apartment in islington, very close to the city, renovated with modern furniture and nice city views. we signed the deal and had to cough up £9000 deposit since we have no credit history or references in london... but the place is nice and we're moving in on wednesday! yay, finally our own home!!!

i had my second interview for 'The Phene' a classy place in chelsea thats been taken over by new owners, renovated and turned into a gastro pub. the manager interviewed me in the pub with construction men working all around us. although it's 2 weeks away from opening, i could see that the place will be beautiful, the concept is really cool and the manager is a good one. I agreed to join the new team and start training on monday!

we met up with my old friend dan, who was one of my best friends and colleagues when i lived in japan. i hadn't seen him since japan, 5 years ago, but he was exactly the same and as with all good friendships, we just clicked back into place like no time had passed. he took us on a pub crawl through islington and over a few pints we caught up on 5 years of news.

i knew i would love london but its even exceeded my expectations! jerry, who'd had a bad experience last time he lived here ten years ago, loves it now as much as i do. he's gotten every job he's applied for including as bartender in a gordon ramsay michelin star restaurant. jerry's friend world's, who's moving in with us, did a trial as a bartender and was offered a bar manager position on the spot!...
welcome to london, the city of opportunities! i'm gonna run to meet the boys in the park before the sun goes down!

love you all! xxxxx

visit to the archipelago

2010-05-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

❉ wow, i really abandoned the blog for a while there didnt i!! .....well, im back on the yellow brick road!
thailand was amazing! we went snorkeling in koh tao, ate delicious food, watched amazing sunsets and just chilled out, which was the plan....then we did 2 days of hardcore shopping in bangkok, which seems to be back to normal after the recent red shirt rebellion, although the streets are full of burnt out buildings and barbed wire...
...and the best thing about the holiday was that we found a spot for the wedding next year! after full days of driving motorbikes around koh samui, checking out various villas and resorts, we found a lovely health resort on the beach which is perfect! they're also really happy to host the wedding (surprisingly a lot of resorts didnt seem interested at all!!) and they offered us a great package deal so we're in the process of setting the date!!!

as soon as i got back to stockholm, i headed off to the archipelago island 'grinda' where my friend elin works, to catch up with her on her two days off. we had a picnic dinner on the rocks by the water, watched the sun set and drank a whole cask of rose wine between us. elin lives in a shared log cabin in the middle of the woods behind the big hotel where she works, and i had to sneakily crash one of the bunk beds, and eat the staff breakfast the next day without her boss finding out. it seems like such a cool place to work, although i don't know if i could handle living in a one room log cabin with 6 people and no bathroom (we had to piss in the woods!) ...
but it was so beautiful and peaceful out there and so nice to see elin, who always puts me in a cheery mood.

so now we're back in stockholm, staying with friends until we leave for london on tuesday and a whole new adventure begins.. we're staying on the couch at our friends måsen and sandra's one-room apartment and on the first night i was woken by jerry at 4am, all shaky and wild eyed, saying 'im gonna kill him, i cant stay here, ive gotta get out of here!'... måsen was snoring so loudly that he sounded like a pig at the slaughterhouse! i eventually calmed jerry down, assuring him that måsen wasn't intentionally keeping him awake!

tonight im meeting my friend karin for dinner at a japanese restaurant. it's cold and raining outside (come on!- its supposed to be summer!!)... i guess i should get used to the rain since we're moving to london...

:o)

Koh Phangan

2010-05-17T22:19:00.001-07:00

* I'm sitting on the porch of our beach bungalow in Koh Phangan with the tropical garden surrounding us and the rain pouring down. Jerry's reading his book but i just love sitting here watching the rain.

Koh Samui was wonderful as always. Our room in Chaweng Garden Beach Resort was basic but close to the beach and the resort had a lovely deck with a delicious buffet breakfast. We spent five days lying on the beach, swimming in the sea, getting massages and exploring the island on a search for the perfect wedding location. We rented a motorbike one day and drove around the coast of the whole island, stopping in at any little resorts that looked pretty. We found a couple that would be great and now we're waiting for quotes from them. It's such a great feeling of freedom, jumping on the back of a scooter, wearing a beach dress and flip flops and just taking off with the wind in your hair, cruising through little villages, past beaches and forests and over hilltops with the thousand smells of Thailand mixed in to the thick heat.
We visited the big golden Buddha on the island hilltop and found our way on beaten tracks to the waterfalls, stopping along the way for mango shakes and spicy papaya salads.

One night we got dragged in to the katoy cabaret show and it ended up being our favourite event of the whole trip! We hadn't been expecting the fabulous costumes and makeup, the professional dance choreography, the emotion that they put into the performances! We were so impressed that Jerry went on stage and gave them 1000 baht as a tip and they were so ridiculously grateful that each and every performer bowed and did the thankyou prayer gesture to us on their way off stage. Then after the show they all wanted to be in a photo with us and while posing, had their hands all over Jerry!

For dinner each night we sat at outdoor tables on the beach with lamplight and the waves lapping at our feet as we ate. After 7 days of our holiday we still aren't sick of Thai food yet and I've had some awesome curries and spicy salads while Jerry mostly orders the same thing every time: chicken pad Thai or some shrimp dish. From the romantic beach restaurants we got some really nice decorating ideas for the wedding too!

Yesterday we caught the ferry across to Koh Phangan and found a nice resort on the beach in Haad Rin with a fresh and modern bungalow in the garden with white linen, an LCD TV and a clean bathroom so we're enjoying a bit of luxury. When the rain stops were gonna rent motorbikes and tour the island...