a cracking weekend

'the bar'
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What a weekend has just past - pure dynamite!

Firstly, Friday night was a classic. After eating a spectacular dinner at the excellent asian restaurant 'Wagamama', Karen and I made our way home for David's birthday party. We had been told it would be a small gathering, and I'm sure by their standards it was, but when you're used to living in a tiny flat in Japan, where you pack the place out with 10 people, anything over that number seems like a big deal! So I put on my party pants and we tucked in for a very fun night of drinking and dancing with Sarah and David's wonderful collection of close friends.

me and my uncle David
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The next day was a bit of a right off, mainly spent lounging around watching TV, luckily England was playing football, so at least there was something decent on. Then Karen and I put on a fresh set of clothes, affixed our game face and headed out into the real world to meet up with Dave and Jacqui (the Australian couple soon to be our flatmates).

We ended up eating some great food in Covent Garden and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine, before we moved things down the road to a pub for the first world cup semi final between England and France. The pub was heaving, as I'm sure EVERY pub in England was doing at that exact moment, but we soon found ourselves in a nice spot to see the screen, with drink in hand. And, there we stayed until the 80 minute whistle was blown and England had booked themselves a place in the the final, what a result!

Sarah and Karen
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Sunday was used a bit more effectively than Saturday had been as we made our way to London Bridge to check out Tower Bridge, and the surrounding sights. It was another great walk along the Thames and Tower Bridge itself was very cool to see and walk across. Across the water we caught sight of London Tower, and had to make our way over for a wander past (we're saving going in until we get there nice and early to see the crown jewels).

Soon we had made our way back down the river to London Bridge but instead of stopping we decided to carry on on the South Bank side, in the direction of the Tate Modern and the Globe Theater.

happy times
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We ended up doing a 40 minute tour of the Globe Theater, which proved to be very interesting and not too expensive (just 6 pounds). The building itself has been rebuilt exceptionally well, and at a great expense in order to get it as close to the original as safety and sense will allow it. Unfortunately we had just missed the season and will now have to wait until next April to actually catch one of the famed outdoor performances.