Monday 28 January 2008

A Pub, a Museum and an Ice-Skating Rink

It was Australia Day on Saturday, and although I didn’t celebrate wildly, I did wear the Aussie flag socks that Pat gave me for x-mas (thanks Pat!), so I felt appropriately patriotic. It was also Andrew’s birthday – the lucky devil – imagine getting a public holiday on your birthday every year!! And this one was quite a mile-stone for him, his 30th, so in true Australian fashion, he celebrated by getting dressed up and inviting the hoards of his friends to join him at a bar. Brondes-Age is in Kilburn and I had actually been there before during my two weeks of purgatory in the Kilburn Hostel. It is a pub, like any other, so nothing special. What was special was the gear that Andrew, Nathan and Ash were wearing. Nice one dudes and dudette!

On Sunday, I finally got my wish of escaping the house, and so visited the Transport Museum (Andrew’s idea, not mine!). Actually, it was a little smaller than I was expecting, although the beginning of the Tube system in London was interesting. My new piece of knowledge for the day was that ‘Omnibus’ actually means ‘for the people’ which is where the word ‘Bus’ is derived from. Neat.

Sunday evening I went Ice-Skating at Somerset House with Mark. It was a lot of fun actually. It was an outdoor rink in the courtyard of the house and so very atmospheric. I haven’t been ice-skating since I lived in Adelaide, and Mt. Thebarton was all the rage, so I was a tad (read extremely) unsteady to begin with, but it eventually came back to me (sort of) and I managed not to fall over. I was very chuffed over that actually. There were many participants who were not so lucky and ended up with coatings of ice all over their rear ends but I managed to keep my feet under me the entire time. Very proud. Ice-skating is the sort to thing you are supposed to do in this climate too, so it was nice to do something really European.

All in all, a busy and enjoyable weekend. Happy Australia Day, Australia!

No comments: