been there done that?

the only photo in liquid..
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The first lesson learnt was always going to be car-related as lets face it, you are going to see a few during a 2hr car journey on the M25 and the M4:

"Dont buy a yellow Ferrari" M. Garbers

"Dont buy a yellow Ferrari" M. Garbers

This was the long and short of it and actually came quite high in importance and after learning where the name Audi came from and various other germanisms such as Vorsprungdurchtechnik we came to agree that German cars were the best and top gear was the best programme.  BUT, to our amazement, an even more important revelation from our germanic visitor was:

Capsule about to be launched...
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"Dont sleep with your sister's boyfriend" M. Garbers

Now, i can hardly remember the context in which this was uttered but it was said in the uppermost calm and authority as one would come to expect after knowing marco for a while...anyway, it had us in stiches for the rest of journey if not the months following.

(Can anyone remember the third unrelenting truth?)

Anyhow, we arrived in Windsor with Nia really busting to wee, so we got out niftily and follow the path of destruction that Nia's trot left all the way up to her flat toilet.. In the meantime, we commented on the nice home feel and i found where i was not sleeping on Marco's insistence that i was not good enough for the futon. fine.

feeling the heat
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Quick turnaround and we were in Windsor town proper to have a nice dinner at the Ha! Ha! bar though the twats - i mean bouncers - had the last laugh as Garbers wasnt allowed in with his loud white trainers... they said they were not shoes and it was friday night, and we promptly left the establishment with Marco protesting that "they are not trainers, they are pumas" - yes, quite.

we went to cafe rouge just up the road from there and it turned out to be a tad more expensive but we really did get what we paid for and we had a delightful meal with great food, wine, salad and the pleasure of Nia's other half's company. a very pleasant chap that we were warned not to question too hard but i think he past the test of our opinion, which made Nia happy!! more brownie points when he drove us back to Nia's house just for marco to change the troublesome shoes.

Richmond
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The place of dance was called Liquid and the concept was one room for the kids who like the cool alternative house trance blah blah blah and a room of eighties music with music videos on the wall...i felt slightly out of place in either room, though Marco seem to like the kids room more frequently running off when some random song that i barely knew came on... anyway, i didnt mind and after a few drinks we were all happy to dance to music that i was barely alive to hear. haha. even a michael jackson-esque dancer tried to break dance with me praising my efforts at popping my joints - windsor has some interesting people and they were all there that evening!  Nia and Elaine just couldnt get enough greeting each song with higher screams of delight than the one before, but that could be because of the fact the music was getting louder and louder and i left the club with my ears ringing, which i couldnt shake for days!! we all staggered home in some shape or another and most of us didnt remember that it was pretty chilly. after the habitual forcing down of H20 to elaine, we were quickly off to bed.

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We were awake frightfully early the next day at around 9.30 am and sat down to a perfect breakfast of Welsh rarebit (did i spell this right) consisting of toast beans and cheese... Marco even sample the delights of Marmite/Vegemite and to say that he loved it, would be the biggest overstatement of this millennium. in fact, the contents were quickly emptied into a tissue and thrown in the bin.

We strolled into Windsor to just miss a train into london after getting a bargain on a group train ticket, so went opposite to the station pub and had a quick beverage before boarding the next... The train journey itself was inoffensive with decent looking trains though passengers close by were staring at Marco and laughing at his comments as much as i was. he even rocked away on his iPod after first sitting away from us until the train got crowded. He did however introduce me to the world of Polarkreis 18 - which is a really cool band...

Richmond
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To kill some time after arriving in waterloo before going on the pre-booked london eye, i took everyone to one of my favourite markets and indeed favourite places in London - the Borough food market. and being the weekend, it was lively and energetic and well worth a stroll in the beautiful sunshine... whilst the girls wandered off in search of veggie stuff, me and marco tucked into a nice Boar sausage in Ciabatta combination. yum. and when we found the girls again after trying various cheeses and sun dried tomatoes, they still hadnt bought anything so as Nia bought a veggie burger, Marco's voracious diet led him to get some dessert already?!  after eating on the walk along the london bridge area, we found we didnt have enough time to actually walk all the way back to waterloo so it was back on the tube, and after toilet breaks and acquiring our "flight" tickets in the "terminal" we were ready for approach to the "departure gate", and the flying metaphors dont end there. 13 pounds it cost, and luckily i hadnt done it before, as i cant see myself paying that again. lucky it was also a glorious afternoon, and the long queue was moving quite quickly...after around 45min we were in our "capsule" ready to "take off" - we fastened our seatbelts and braced for elevation (ok i made that up) anyhow, it was quite a nice experience i guess though short and the sun made the capsule quite warm as we were spinning slowly on this ferris wheel.

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one of the curiosities of being a londoner is that foreign visitors seem to always know something random or been somewhere in london that you havent. and this tour provided the perfect opportunity to expose this, i wasnt able to answer many of the questions about london or provide fruitful insights beyond pointing out where Big Ben was in the direct foreground...

Afterwards we got a warm and lethargic tube train to Richmond for some well-deserved river side drinking. jolly town this was and it was hilarious to see a stag do in full flow with costumes doing an army drill - more on this later...we got our drinks from a riverside Henry's bar where the service was shite to say the least but i did get a cocktail whilst the others got cider or beer. everyone was out sitting on the grass by the Thames which was nice and we got ourselves a jolly nice spot and just chilled and passed the time sipping or eating crisps... for further entertainment, the stag do guys started bridge jumping from quite high altitudes, nothing like the cause to make you do something stupid...luckily they didnt die.

And that is big ben, and thats all i know, ah yes, in front is indeed the thames...
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in the early evening, we went to one of a London chain of cool restaurants called Giraffe who's concept was fusion cuisine and Australian themed atmosphere which i sensed as i sipped on my special smoothie... had a delicious noodle meal and the dessert was great and we had some intense relationship discussions and advice which is always fun - the sort of wisdom that i actually savour...

Missed the train again, so again we went searching for alcohol and we found in the answer in a nearby bar, but it probably wasnt worth the trouble of getting searched by some cocky pricks of bouncers (no trouble in rest of Europe) and having to leave water at the door etc... finished our beers quickly and glad to leave to be honest. train rocked slowly to Windsor and got a taxi back to Windsor. Deciding it was too tired to go out for our last night, we stayed in to watch Borat...and it would seem we were too tired for that too and barely stayed awake to watch the drivvle that was this film. Straight to bed.