Month: June 2009

Cool down

thegirlinthecafe 7 Comments

Swim - anyone?

A heatwave has arrived in London.

I wonder if this is typically British, a heatwave warning with different levels and all.

Sounds like the perfect weather for a move to me. Good thing I hired removal men for it.

I used my weekend to pack everything and I am ready to go. Tonight I will meet up with Angus and the first time with Paolo, my other flatmate and we will get the keys. I hope it is going to be a smooth move, and that I will be happy there.

How is the weather where you are?

The it’s summer, let’s do a meme – meme

thegirlinthecafe 5 Comments

Yes, these are my Kermit sneakers

I got tagged by Vanillasky for this questionaire, so here we go.

What is your current obsession?
Uhm. Going to the cinema and watching Last Chance Harvey. Have seen it 4 times now. Last Chance Harvey is the new Dan in Real Life for me. I love it.

What is your weirdest obsession?
Notebooks. Pens. Visiting light houses. And Bill Nighy. Or, wait a minute – is he a weird obsession?

What are you wearing today?
Jeans, very green Converse sneakers, a blue checkered shirt.

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Download free Coldplay album and sing

thegirlinthecafe 5 Comments

Now I am not a major fan of Coldplay, but I do love some of their songs.

The friendly chaps of Coldplay have just released a FREE live album. Yes you read that right, FREE and LEGAL.

You can download it here (for as long as it lasts).

And even though you might not be their greatest fan, it is worth downloading for the live version of Viva La Vida. If that huge crowd singing along on this song doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what does.

The album is in MP3 format.

Some Friday afternoon entertainment

thegirlinthecafe 5 Comments

All these stop motion short films make me:

1. Smile big time
2. Want to make one myself

Now there are quite a lot of them there, but I will point you to the ones I like best:

1. Her morning elegance
I love love love this film. And I also really love the song, it is called Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie, who also made the film. (More info about how they made the video here).

2. Firekites – I love how the birds fly from blackboard to blackboard.

3. Deadline which is made entirely with post-it notes!

In case you are wondering what stop-motion means: Stop motion (or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. (from wikipedia) Basically it is a film made of photographs.

I have actually taken the photographs for a short first stop motion video, but I have been majorly struggling with all kinds of crappy editing programs to turn it into a film. I didn’t succeed and gave up. Maybe my editing course ext week will push me in the right direction to finish it.

I have also bought a timer for my camera, as I also really want to try to make a timelapse video.

There are some unbelievably cool examples of those here and a more basic one here. It must be possible to find some interesting London-by-night spots for my camera. It is basically just setting up a tripod and have the camera take a picture every 2-3 seconds.

Enjoy your weekend!

Mooooving

thegirlinthecafe 6 Comments

Moving house ...
I told you I was going to move right? And that one of my flatmates was going to be Angus, the 39 y.o. friendly Kiwi.

Well that still is the case. I have packed more than half of my things in boxes, booked a removal company and sent out the first change-of-address notifications.

However I have now found out that my second flatmate is going to be of the male type too. That was not really something I considered could happen when I said yes to Angus, but somehow I will be sharing a very nice three bedroom flat with two men!

Does this worry me? Not really. The new guy (I am calling him Paolo, which isn’t his real name) is Italian, 34, working in an Art Gallery in the West End and very quiet, according to Angus. So I think we will all be fine. And to be honest, generally, I do get along better with men than with women. There just need to be some rules, you know, things like the toilet seat down and things like that. But it is going to be new and exiting, the flat and the area are great, and who knows Paolo might be a brilliant cook of Italian food!

So yes, two weeks from now we’ll have a coffee the three of us and me and Paolo will get the keys. And the next day I move in. I will keep you updated.

Besides moving, I am also going to be social, I will visit the following events:

For all those three things – I have no idea what it is going to be like, but I will give them all a try. I am not looking forward to the Ghost Bus Tour though – as I am not a fan of anything spooky, but I got invited so I will give it a go.

Tonight I will watch two delightfully talented actors in Waiting for Godot. Next week I will go on a two week video editing (Adobe Premiere) course in Leamington Spa where I hope to learn some new tricks regarding video editing. And when all that is done I will soon be closing the door behind me in my current flat, moving on to a new chapter in my life.

Did I tell you already that you really should go and see Last Chance Harvey? Utterly utterly charming film. Actually.

And what are you all up to?

Notebook addict

thegirlinthecafe 6 Comments

Notebooks

It is quite amazing how much stuff I have collected during my 3 years in London. I arrived with two bags, but my possesions will now fill quite some boxes. One of those boxes will contain some notebooks …

I like notebooks. I buy them as souvenirs in places I visit: the two ones with hearts on it are both bought in New York for example. Or if they have really funky colours I will be tempted. Or when the paper has nice patterns on it.

My problem is that I have turned into a serious notebook addict and during packing I found …

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What to do in London

thegirlinthecafe 5 Comments

Bill, Bill and Priscill
First an update from the moving front:

I had planned to meet quite a lot of people tonight who wanted to have a look at the two rooms available in my current flat, but I fear that the planned tube strike from 7pm tonight might mess things up a bit. Just when I started to worry about that, my Italian landlord called, he is currently in the UK and said he was in no hurry at all to get the rooms filled. So I guess that means I will stop looking and he can sort it out himself. Which is good news – no more effort required from me then, me thinks.

My IKEA sofa bed has been sold and will be picked up on the 28th of June.

I sent 2 letters of recommendation to my new landlord for my approval (should not be a problem at all according to Angus)
I have ordered moving boxes and will start packing soon.
I need:
to find a reliable man with a van who can move the boxes to the new place on the 1st of July.
to sort out a Royal Mail auto mail redirection for my post
to quit all bills and send a change of address to a long list of companies

Moving date still set for the 1st of July which is 22 days from now. It can’t go fast enough for me.

This weekend I had my good friend over and we have been enjoying London. Here are some things that we can highly recommend:

  • Last Chance Harvey with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Decent chick flick rom (and a bit of com) and recommended. Out now.
  • Yeah it is still on, so we couldn’t help ourselves.
  • We visited the Camden Stables (market). I had been to Camden before but I never made it to the stables section and we liked it. They also have a very nice area where you can sit down with your coffee and get something to eat from one of the many food stalls around. We opted for a pancake with nutella/banana. Not bad we can tell you!
  • We saw Priscilla Queen of the Desert – the musical And can be short about this: go see it! It was fantastic, great music, fantastic cast and an evening full of fun. An absolute joy to watch.
  • On Sunday we went to see immensely mad, crazy, hilariously funny Bill Bailey in the Riverside Studios. He did two tryouts in London before going on tour in the rest of the UK and I laughed my socks off. He is so funny. Catch him if he comes to a place near you.
  • We also enjoyed the view from Parliament Hill (Hampstead Heath), had a coffee in the cafe with the most incapable staff on Leicester Square (All Bar One – please don’t go there they are totally rubbish), had lunch while having a nice view over the Thames in Greenwich, and checked where Lord Sandwich hung out in the National Maritime Museum (free entry).

We had a great weekend! And you?

Ear and flathunting and Daniel Craig ice lollies

thegirlinthecafe 11 Comments
  • Firstly – and this will be the last time I write about it – my dizzyness is gone. I am not quite sure how well my ear is hearing, but I do hear with it. I just tried to listen to my iPod for the first time in weeks, and it seems that the music is more evenly balanced and true stereo now. (Don’t worry I am playing it on low volume!)

    They removed the packing from my ear yesterday (so nice because it itched like mad) and I need to return for a full hearing test six weeks from now.

    Even if my ear seems to hear better than it did before – I am not sure if I will ever do an operation like this again. My other ear has the same issue (but it is not bad enough to operate yet) and I have to be pretty deaf before I even consider going through this again. But all is good now, and I hope it will stay that way. Thank you for all the concern and thoughts and comments regarding this!

  • When I came back from Holland, I heard that my current landlord is contemplating about what to do with his appartment (the one I currently live in that is). I have decided that I no longer want to live like this – not knowing when he feels like raising the rent or quickly having to move because he suddenly wants to sell it (we don’t have a contract) . So I am now a full time flatshare searcher and am looking for another place to live. I have some potential rooms on the radar and will check them out – but if you happen to know someone who knows someone who has the nicest room ever – then please do get in touch. I won’t stop searching until I have found a nice place.

And here for some good news:

  • Summer has arrived, not only in London, but all over England. I found myself having a lovely freshly made milkshake at the Rinky Tink beach cafe in Lyme Regis last Saturday and it was marvelous just to be able to sit outside without having to wear a coat. Long may this weather continue – wherever you are.
  • The Boat That Rocked is still on in London! Rock on! I think I will catch it tomorrow, just to see what it sounds like with two normally functioning ears.
  • And oh dear – they have made Daniel Craig popsicle ice lollies … Enough said.

And you – how have you been?