Sony Preview Screening: “Eat Pray Love”

Last night I went along to Sony Pictures in the West End to watch a preview screening of Julia Roberts’ new film Eat, Pray, Love.  The film is being released on 24 September 2010 and it was fun to see it so nice and early!  We were fed pizza on arrival and then lead into one of Sony’s special viewing theatres and it was all quite posh.  The film was followed by a discussion panel consisting of a travel blogger, yoga teacher, food blogger and dating blogger.

I’ll be sure to upload my review over at Addicted to Media but the film certainly got me thinking.  It is hard to judge a film like Eat, Pray, Love because it is akin to judging another woman’s very personal travel experience.  Eat, Pray, Love is a true story based on the journey of journalist and writer Liz Gilbert.  Liz was paid a handsome advance by her publisher that enabled her to make her year-long journey but there is no doubt that she was spiritually bankrupt and suffering the effects of her divorce when she embarked on her trip.  In short – she needed to go and find herself.

I follow a lot of travel writers and bloggers on Twitter and there are certainly many serial travellers out there.  There are couples who are taking an adult gap year or career break, young adventurers just out of school or university who are touring the world for a year or two and, of course, there are professional travel writers or perpetual travellers who have managed to monetise their blogs.

It all seems so glamorous and exciting but I’m also relieved that it is not me.  Quite simply, I love my life.  It can be frustrating and hard and disappointing even but I travel not to escape or to find myself but to experience more of the world and to drink in other cultures and countries.  As I mentioned earlier, it is not a judgement at all but just a realisation that I wouldn’t want to perpetually travel the world.  I like having a job and my husband and my life and that is what makes my travel experiences so important to me. 

Having said all of that though, I think in some ways I have done exactly what Liz Gilbert did.  Being an expat can be monumentally alienating, bewildering and lonely at times.  I came from a country with nine month summers to one with five months of bitter winter and I’m generally fluey for four of them.  Perhaps importantly, I battled the winter blues and the residual effects of traumatic experiences that I had in my home country.  Running this blog has been my own little journey of self-discovery.  Friends often remark to me that I seem to ‘do so much’ but that has always been the purpose of this blog.  Being an eternal tourist, seeing the quirky things in every day life and showing my readers the world through my eyes is my way of reminding myself that I am alive and it has been the most life-affirming, inspiring and, yes, therapeutic processes I have ever undertaken,  Thank you all for being part of that journey!

Um, *cough*, I’d be interested in knowing if Eat, Pray, Love has generated similar epiphanies in other bloggers / travellers / expats.  It is certainly not the best film I’ve ever seen, based as it was on a priv-lit book but it sure got me thinking!  Here is the trailer for the film:

 

 

(Oh and in order to avoid constantly repeating myself, I’m not going to apologise again for being behind on comments and commenting.  I mean, I am sorry but I just don’t see life slowing down in the next seven days so I’ll try get back on the wagon again next week)

Pizza Express Spring Social

Last Tuesday my colleague Marilyn and I went along to a Pizza Express Spring Social to launch their new Spring menu.  They apparently often do events like this with all of the foodie bloggers but on this occasion, they decided to invite a whole bunch of London bloggers.

The evening was hosted at the Pizza Express just off Old Street in EC2A.  On arrival, we were each given a goodie bag which included a bottle of their very own red wine, Sangiovese, a Pizza Express light salad dressing and a Pizza Express apron.  It seems that they had a good idea of just how much mess a bunch of bloggers would make when we got hold of some flour and dough!

It was the first event of its kind that I have been invited to and I must say, I felt right at home!

    

The sparkling wine flowed freely while we helped ourselves to some hors d’oeuvres and chatted to other bloggers.  We ate some of the Election Pizza where different ingredients represented some of the biggest issues of the day including money, education and healthcare (see their YouTube channel for an explanation).  It was great to meet some of the people I have known for ages in the blogosphere too!  Above from left to right is William Wallace from London Is Cool, Pete from The Londoneer and me.

 

Pizza Express executive development chef Antonio Romani was there to teach us how to make the Leggera Pizzas.  Now, for the longest time, Stephen and I have visited Pizza Express whenever we go to the theatre because I simply love the Leggera Pizzas.  The word “leggera” derives from the Italian word for light and the idea is that they take the doughy middle out of the pizzas and replace it with a salad.  I think the nice PR ladies at the event were quite surprised to hear me gushing about the pizzas before they even began their presentation!

 

Soon, it was our time to make some pizzas and after rushing off to the the ladies’ for some hand washing and silly-photo-taking, we settled down to work.  We were given a ball of dough and then we pulled and kneaded and rolled it until it was time to stretch it into our pans.  Then we took out the doughy middles and had to choose between the Mare E Monti or the Verdure toppings.  The former has prawns in and I think I might be developing an intolerance for prawns so I chose the latter instead which is a vegetarian option.  First I spread a tomato base, then I put rosemary, courgettes, mushrooms, red and yellow peppers, sweet baby onions and some mozzarella cheese before finishing with a light drizzle of garlic oil.  Oh, and I, um, accidentally put some chilli powder on too but thankfully did not ruin it!

This was the end product and it was absolutely yummy!  I could not taste the chilli powder, thankfully, but I could taste the rosemary and it made such a lovely difference! I would definitely recommend using rosemary in vegetarian recipes!

It was a lovely evening and I was glad to meet so many interesting bloggers.  I am sad that I did not take her photo but I also met the lovely Mo from Fresh Eyes on London.  I remember finding Mo’s blog a couple of years ago when I was just starting out my blog and she had just got Blog of Note.  The people from the PR company and from Pizza Express were all really lovely and welcoming too, which was great.

It would be nice to go to an event like this again but that would entail me being less of a hermit and actually going out in the evenings!  Don’t say you didn’t notice that most of my photos are taken during the day!!  I really do need my beauty sleep and am not too good at going out on school nights.  [Oh, just let me feel old on this one day of the year…]

A Saturday in London

One of the aspects of being an expat is that your circle shrinks dramatically.  In South Africa my life was drastically different to life in London and I was a very social person.  There were the frequent dinner parties at my house, nights out with school and university friends, picnics in the sun, lunches with family and of course, the frequent braais.  Now it is just Stephen and I, occasionally my mum or brother and every once in a while I see some of my old South African friends.  The purpose of this little insight into how sad my social life has become is to explain how it was that Stephen and I found ourselves fighting on Friday night.  It is usually just the two of us and our four animals and we do get cabin fever sometimes.

As we are both stubborn Taureans, we were naturally still fighting on Saturday morning.  Eager to avoid another night on the sofa, Stephen eventually conceded defeat and decided to take me to the centre of London to see New Moon. 

We arrived in London an hour before the show and decided to take a walk around Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street.

'The Three Graces' by Rudy Weller atop the Criterion Building

  

Naturally, we had to take a look at the famous lights at Piccadilly Circus.  It was at this point that Stephen looked at me and said, “you know, you’re just like a bloody tourist!” which was met by me blinking rapidly at him.  (He certainly got The Look).  “What?” he said.  “You do know that the tagline on my blog is ‘The Adventures of an Eternal Tourist Living and Working in London’?”, I retorted.  Rather than admit that he never actually reads my blog, he uttered a small “oh” and didn’t complain about my photo taking for the rest of the day. 

I was quite excited to see some Christmas lights even if they were sponsored by the Disney film A Christmas Carol.  

I love the grand old buildings of regent Street and I quite liked the huge snowflakes.  (You can just see it there stretched between the buildings).  They must look great all lit up at night!  I did have one concern about the snowflake lights though – where would the Doctor land his Tardis?  I mean, realistically, he could need to land it anywhere, right?  (Oh, ignore me, I’ve gone Doctor Who crazy lately).

As mentioned, Stephen was paying some serious penance for fighting with me earlier in the day so he had to take me to see New Moon (which I reviewed over at Emm Media) and the Cranes concert later that evening.  Thankfully, there was a shining beacon of hope and non-torture during the middle of the day for him as we happened upon the Ferrari store on Regent Street. 

In case you’re trying to find it, it is across the road from the world’s most amazing toy store, Hamleys.

Stephen bought a nice red Ferrari windbreaker but they wouldn’t let me take a photograph of it.  Our sweet-as-pie sales assistant turned into a demon when I did try to take a photo and I thought we were going to get kicked out of the store!!!  They did let me take a photo of the Ferrari F1 car in the entrance though and I was somewhat mollified.

And I sneaked a photo of a very happy Stephen before we hurried back to the London Trocadero to watch the film.  You can tell he was trying to please me that day – he even wore the FDNY shirt I bought him in New York.  I have a bit of a thing for men in uniform, especially firemen and policemen!

So that is all for my Saturday afternoon in London.  What did you get up to?

London: The City, the Monument & the Bridge

Last year I took a rather hectic course in Health and Safety and I promised myself that I would reward myself with a photography course when it was all over.  Of course, that was followed by a rather hectic nine months (some of which you can read about here) and suddenly it was August and I hadn’t done anything about it!  Well, luckily I found out about The Photo School through meetup.com.  The Photo School offers an introductory composition workshop which is currently only £20 for three hours. 

I attended the workshop on Saturday and I found it to be massively informative and helpful.  The class was a nice mix of people who ranged from absolute beginners to a portrait photographer.  There were only two of us with “point and click” cameras and everyone else had SLRs. 

We met at The Crosse Keys Pub in Bank which is across the road from the old Victorian Leadenhall Market.  What an amazing place!

Click on any of the photos below for an enlargement.

 
Interior of the Crosse Keys Pub

The Crosse Keys Pub is exquisite.  I am starting to think that I need to go on an introductory architecture course or something as I would love to place the styles inside the pub.

 
Leadenhall Market, London

One of the things they told us about on the workshop were lines and perspectives.  The Leadenhall Market was great for that.

  

As I left the market, I came upon the ugliest building I have ever seen in my life.

This is the Lloyds Building, also known as the “Inside Out Building”.  I’m not entirely sure the building has any redeeming qualities to be honest and I am a huge lover of architecture of all types and styles.  I was trying to play with perspective again in this photo and using my corners.

I thought it looked quite nice reflected off the Willis Building though.

I found a British flag!!  I might have to ask Lloyd’s of London why it was flying at half mast though.  (In case you’re confused, we were talking about flags in this post).

 
St Andrew Undershaft Church contrasted against "The Gherkin"

We learnt about contrasting old and new in the course and I just love this photo.  The proper name for “The Gherkin” is 30 St Mary Axe. 

We also learned about the rule of thirds.  This couple was having their wedding photos taken at the foot of “The Gherkin”.

I thought this was the archetypal London photo!  I liked the flags too.

 
The Crosse Keys Pub from the outside

More flags!  We all agreed this photo would have been better if the car were further on into the photo. 

Our teacher liked this photo.  It made me want a better camera so that I could get the depth of field right.  I promised myself that I would learn to use my camera first before I got a new SLR camera though.

After the workshop, I decided to walk to London Bridge station.  It is approximately a fifteen minute walk.  I got to see The Monument with my own eyes for the very first time!

The Monument was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built to commemorate the lives that were lost in the Great Fire of London in 1666.  It was built between 1671 and 1677 and was a celebration of the rebuilding of the City.

It is lovely and I would certainly like to go back one day when it is open.  They have an observation deck at the top which only costs £3 for adults and £2 for children.  Can you imagine how beautiful the view must be of the grand old City of London?  Oh look!  You can see a webcam of the view!

How beautiful is that detail?

It was just a short walk further until I arrived at the Thames.

That is the Southwark Cathedral you can see there in the distance.  I have a real soft spot for the cathedral as I photographed it on the day I first interviewed for my job in 2007.  I got the job and in fact, started there two years ago today.  The cathedral is therefore a sort of good luck charm for me.

I walked under London Bridge and took one last photo of Southwark Cathedral before taking a little corridor back up to the top of London Bridge.

Creepy ancient corridor and Southwark Cathedral

London has such beautiful structures and buildings and I was glad to have a chance to appreciate it.  Despite my insistence that I work in central London, I still find myself taking a lot for granted.  This little excursion on the weekend really opened my eyes again and I can’t wait to go on my next adventure.

Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast (peeking out behind the cruise liner) and the Mayor's Office

I wonder if the day will ever come when I tire of taking photos of Tower Bridge?  I doubt it and I certainly hope not!

Day Out: Burpham Court Farm Park

On perhaps the coldest day of the year so far, Sara decided that it would be a fabulous idea to walk about in the mud and sludge at the Burpham Court Farm Park in Surrey. I interpreted this to mean that my beloved almost-three-year-old godchild Keira was tired of being cooped up indoors and so we readily agreed.

It was so cold today that we noticed that even the ducks were cold! Before we disturbed these two their heads were completely tucked under their wings.

Still, they do look healthy and that is what impressed me the most about Burpham Court - all of the animals looked really healthy and well looked after.

Some of the ducks seemed to be involved in a biathlon type of event which involved swimming across the pond, running around it and swimming back across it again. They seemed to be very intent upon their purpose and it was interesting to watch their ritual!

We were quite taken by the geese as they were so majestic and they had such beautiful blue eyes. I think these might be West of England geese with the grey-headed female and the all-white males.

We wandered into a barn with many sheep and their little lambs. The sheep seemed to like Keira but they did not like me and my camera! Still, I got one picture of a little lamb. Keira's nickname is Lambchops and she was very intrigued to meet the real Lambchops.

They have llamas at Burpham Court and these animals are not shy! There was one scary moment when we were certain that one of the llamas was going to eat Keira's Teddy but it all seemed to end alright.

Did I mention it was cold? After visiting the llamas (and teaching Keira to say "llama" and not "banana") we visited the goats. Sara and I had great fun at this stage trying not to get into mud up to our ankles.

At 3pm we were lucky enough to catch up with Farmer Bob as it was time to bring the goats and the llamas in and feed them. First he involved all of the little children in collecting the animal's buckets and putting them in the right pens. Then he took them on a tour of the chicken coops while they looked for any eggs.

Then all the little children helped herd in the goats and the llamas so that they could eat.

Burpham Court is a rare breeds conservation park and I was really interested to see some rare breeds of pig and goat there. Despite the cold, it was a really nice opportunity to introduce Keira to life on a farm and for her to interact with animals on a deeper level than just a petting farm at a funfair. The animals are in excellent condition and the whole experience is just long enough to keep a small child's attention before they spot the playground at the end. I'd definitely consider going again in the summer as I imagine it might be nice to stop off in the tea garden for some refreshments.

I'd also like to keep an eye on developments at the place because the farmer has been given quite the legal runaround by the National Trust and Guildford City Council. They certainly need support!