Olympic Opening Ceremony Party on the Thames

Happy London Olympics everyone.

To celebrate the Opening Ceremony we went to our Aussie friends' fabulous apartment at London Bridge to watch the fireworks and dress as our favourite olympians.

The view

Last minute tennis costume 

Ian Thorpe

The view

Tennis?

It only gets worse when not blurry.

The Shard.

Roman Holiday

Roma, I miss you already.


My work friend, L. and I decided that I had not been on enough obscenely decadent holidays recently, and so we decided to book in a girl's weekend to Rome. We met at 3pm out the front of our office and giggled the whole way there.

We arrived around 9pm and immediately headed to the Trevi Fountain to gawk like tourists, and then headed out for the first of many pasta dinners. Built in the 16th century it is quite a spectacular sight - it is said that if you throw 1 coin into it you will return to Rome, if you throw 2 coins you will fall in love with an Italian, and if you throw 3 you will marry him. I finally found a use for the pennies I've been carrying around for 5 months.

L and I were up at crack of dawn on the Saturday, Italian time, keen to explore. We left the hotel at 10am after a lovely rooftop breakfast having planned to go directly to the Vatican - but of course we got sidetracked on our walk there, as every turn and every corner contained a breathtaking Roman monument.

The Vatican was great, even if you are anti-crazy-catholics. It is of course its own country, size 110 acres, with a population of 800. And half of that area is covered by gardens only accessible to the Catholic Church. It was segregated from the rest of Italy by Mussolini in the 1920s. In my never ending cynicism, I assumed it was for tax avoidance purposes but was actually because the Catholic Church refused to acknowledge the Italian Government, choosing to side with Napoleon, who had control of Rome at the time.

St Peter's Basilica is the main church in the Vatican, and one of the Catholic Church's most holy sites, being the burial place of St Peter. It can hold 60,000 people (not including the piazza outside) and on an average day there are 20,000 visitors.

Inside St Peter's Basilica

The Vatican Museum (home to the Sistine Chapel)

We then went to the other major site at the Vatican, which is the Vatican Museums, home to the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel is housed inside the Vatican Museum, which is approximately 7km in length, with another 20,000 people also trying to shuffle through on an average day. At first, the museum itself was breathtaking, but after over an hour of walking, one magnificent artwork ran into another. You think by the time you shuffle to the Sistine Chapel you will be over it, but it is more magnificent that you would expect.


It is the site of the Papal Conclave, where new popes are elected. The ceiling was of course painted by Michelangelo, taking 4 years to complete.


It depicts all the major events of the bible (Moses in Egypt, crossing of the red sea, descent from mount sinai, the baptism of christ, the temptation of christ, the last supper and the day of judgement).

Our favourite bit was the scene depicting the judgement of men - where God decides who gets to go to heaven and who goes to hell. In the hell scene he painted a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to one of his largest critics, with a snake curled around him, biting him in the groin. The critic had complained that Michelangelo's nude men in the hell scene were immoral and proposed covering them all with fig leaves (known as the famous "fig leaf campaign"). Hilariously the Pope declared he had no jurisdiction over hell, only heaven, and so the nudes remained.

Post Vatican Pizza (one each) 

 The Spanish Steps

Our favourite Piazza -Piazza Nervona

We then spent the rest of the evening exploring the piazzas of Rome eating amazing pizza and gelato and people watching. Or, rather, watching the Italian men adore Italian women. I found the Italian men to be delightful (who doesn't like being called Princepesa in the street?) and the perfect antidote to Moroccan men. They are impeccably dressed and truly adore all women - they seem to really appreciate the variety of beauty that is women in all forms and truly just want to tell you how lovely you are. L and I couldn't get enough. My favourite was the Gladiator who wanted me to be his wife, and L.'s very obvious discussion about the pros and cons of pistachio gelato with the gelato shop owner.

 

 Day 2 was the Colosseum - which we both immediately loved. It was built in 80 AD and was used a gigantic arena where people could watch Christian's being thrown to the lions, gladiators fighting it out and public executions. Again, 20,000 people a day.

We then did a walking tour of the other various Roman Ruins in the area and got lost in delightful back streets.

And then we decided to hit the shops, which, it turns out, only works if you like either D&G and Chanel or eurotrash.

The Pantheon

We had a drink and then hit the Pantheon and had yet another pasta and pizza dinner nearby before nearly missing our plane due to too much time in duty free.

We got home at 2am on the Monday morning and both had to be at work early, but it was worth every second.

Grimas in London

It was so lovely having my gorgeous cousins come and visit us for a long weekend.

We decided to cure their jetlag with our London pub crawl/ walk around the major sites.

Tower Bridge

London Borough Market Paella

Michael with the City of London Lion

The Flower Market

James Bond

Tower Bridge

It was so awesome to have them come visit us and we are already missing them.

Being Trendy in London: Meat Liquor

To celebrate Carbs Friday we decided to go to London's hottest burger bar, Meat Liquor, with our favourite Mankys (Manchesters), L and Poo Poos.

Like everywhere good in London they work on a no reservations policy and wont put you in the line until everyone to be seated is present. So of course, Michael was running late. We arrived at 6.30pm and got seated at 8pm - fortunately the company was so fabulous we barely noticed. M did however, as he had to line up outside in the rain while we swilled wine at the bar inside

L and I getting excited about carbs...

When our time finally came to be seated, we sat down only to be told that we had taken the DJ's table and had to move. To atone for this, Meat Liquor decided to give us free cocktails, all night. Our quiet burger night was immediately abandoned in favour of.... pickle shots.



The dark shots are 4 different types of bourbon and the green - pickle shots (tasting exactly like Mcdonald's pickles).

L enjoying the bourbon..

When we finally got seated and got to order, it was all worth it. And more.

Michael's burger was the "Dead Hippie" with 2 patties.
Chili chips

Deep fried... pickles (the theme of the night)

Anticipation...

And the recovery...

All in all a fantastic night. The DJ turned out to be great and we bopped away at our table post burgers.

And the night didn't end with me getting lost at Bank tube station, drunk, so all in all, a success.

Marrakech

Just got back to London from our 5 days in Marrakech - it was totally and utterly not what I was expecting. Partially because I left all planning until the 3 hour flight there at 5am in the morning and partially because the Moroccans have the best publicists in the world.

I was expecting a country covered in Moroccan tiles, gorgeous palaces and French/Moroccan food galore. Key points that managed to escape me prior to arriving:

• It is in Africa
• It w the middle of summer
• It is a third world country
• It is a Muslim country

 So I of course arrived totally prepared (not).

The entrance to our Riad (a Moroccan B&B). Smell of open sewerage and lots of mangey cats. I didn't take a photo of the gang of youths hanging outside the door (for obvious reasons). Note the look on Booba's face.

 But once inside, the Riad was gorgeous.

Rooftop terrace (for my sunbathing in 45degree heat)

Ive been told that there are places like this all over Morocco, and that everything happens behinds closed doors.

The streets of Morocco however were a completely different matter. Apparently only servant women go out onto the streets in Marrakech, except for special festivals etc, because it is so dirty and very .. ahem, full on. All the women wear head scarfs and most wear full burqas.  

Donkeys are used a lot as transportation, and not looked after well, much to Booba's distress.  

 The tourism industry is the second largest in the country and it employes a mere 400,000 people out of 34 million. The unemployment rate is really high and young kids will ask for anything you can give - Booba gave away cans of coke with 2 sips left in and half drunk bottels of water on numerous occaisions.

 

Taxis

The "big square" is the central point of Marrakech - where food stalls, snake charmers, chained monkeys and boxing 12 year olds get together to hawk their wares. If you look n the middle you can see the charred remains of the suicide bombing that occured last year killing 17 tourists.

Lonely Planet guide tell me it is the busiest market in the world. It was too full on for us - we preferred the quieter souks.

  

My favourite part was the orange juice sellers (1 glass was 4 dirham or 30 pence). After the second day and the "food issues" set in, Michael and I lived off this orange juice.

On our second day we went in search of the Ben Youssef Mosque and the Koutubia Mosque (built in the 12th century). We got waylaid by a man out to fleece us and general confusion as to the difference between a leather handbag market and a tannery. We ended up a few kilometres out of the city here, where animals are skinned in vats of water and then the skins treated.

It would have been more fun if a) we didnt have to pay a large sum of money to the guy to show us there and back b) we actually wanted to go there and c) a group of 12 year olds hadn't of told me in english that i had nice tits (wearing jeans and a loose shirt buttoned right up).

We finally found the mosques and discovered that in Morocco non-muslims aren't allowed in. They were still gorgeous on the outside.

We loved hearing the 5 times daily call to prayer ("allah ah akbar" - "god is great"). There are 5 requirements to be a Muslim:

1) pray 5 times a day

2) make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in your life

3) believe in the existence of the prophet Mohammad and there being only one god

4) devote yourself to charity

5) Ramadan the month of fasting (no food or drink for a month during the 16 hours of daylight) each year

The mosques were so full people prayed on the streets outside the mosques. Lots of people couldn't afford the bath mat sized mats to pray on so people used either a spare pair of pants or cardboard boxes.

Inside a converted mosque (now a school). One must wash one's feet and hands before prayer.

Beautiful tiles 

I found that there were two types of tourists - the type who stayed in large hotels and caught taxis to and from the tourist sites and who dressed completely inappropriately in short shorts and singlets. Generally they didnt get harassed as they stayed only in the tourist areas.

Then there was us + a few other crazies. We walked everywhere and got harassed a lot more. The moment we were out of the tourist areas it was quite unpleasant being female. I was called a slut in english, spanish, and I'm pretty sure French (my french is terrible). It was very intimidating even though I dressed in jeans every day and long sleeved loose fitting shirts the whole time AND I had Booba glued to my side glaring at people.

The spice market where Booba bought me a lot of very expensive saffron not realising exactly how expensive it would turn out to be.

The scarf souk

The ceramic souk

Mint tea on the roof at the Kasbah.  

 

The highlight was definitely the hamman and massages we had on the third day. a 1 hour sauna followed by being loafed to death and then a 1 hour massage followed by swims and mint tea. Bliss.