Crayfishing

As part of being a seaside dwelling “Antipodean”, almost all kids and adults, families and individuals partake in crayfishing. England has a slightly different method of obtaining these fresh(not salt) water critters, which are not the shy humble creatures that dwell in cracks and smell of salt water, but small vicious beasties with oversized claws and tempers to match. We were fortunate enough recently to start up the ‘sport’ of crayfishing in the local river (Isis, which becomes the Thames) using an array of methods- active and passive. The most successful involved dangling stockings with a stone and a hunk of ‘quality’ fish (6 fillets a pound, care of Saisbury’s) and a scoop net made of another stocking and a wire hoop- 53 over two days (only 1.5 hrs active fishing time), of which there were two monsters worth noting: Prince Albert, a tough character weighing 110 g on day one and Brutus, a one-armed behemoth which would have topped 140g had he not been missing his claw. Attached are a few pics of the catch, and one of James (along with Marnie and Tara) a keen crayfisherman. Truly part of the Oxford experience and the eating afterwards is fantastic! Heading out again today, so watch this space for tales of the next colossus of note…

My First Day At Work!

Hurrah I have finally started work! My first day was good, I left home at 7ish with the hopes and dreams of missing peak hour traffic (which I did!) and arrived at work at 845 after getting lost three times! My office is in the most random of back streets and if one did not know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was! My first day was quite interesting as I am convinced that they forgot we (myself and another girl called Sarah) were coming. My manager turned up 30mins late and due to the servers being “rained” on we had no access to emails etc. As each day has gone on though we have done more and more stuff and I have stopped getting lost on my way to work. I am really enjoying it though as there is no monotony as every day we have something different to do depending on whats happened the day before and depending on the weather! I can’t really say much more at the moment, due to a mistake with ordering codes and a lack of computer, I have not had a lot of work given to me, but I really like it, the people are really nice and am glad I stayed with this choice as I there are just so many opportunities! Michael took a million photos of me heading off on my first day so please enjoy them!

Berlin

These were these awesome huge see saws that we played on for ages!

This was the holocaust memorial, pretty amazing. It was like a huge concrete block maze!

This was the cool beach bar in the centre of Berlin. So surreal!

These were these cool footie boots that were part of a sculpture trail across the city. I loved them!

Der Brandenburger Tor!

At 11.50pm on Friday night we woke up…
No, this is not the start of a story involving the Tooth fairy, Santa Claus and intelligent Blondes but in fact of a very busy daytrip from Oxford to Berlin.
After a couple of hours sleep on Friday, a freshen up and jumping on the Megabus to Victoria St, London followed by the Stanstead express, a short wait and we were in the departure lounge on our way to Berlin. A 1.5 hrs later, an efficient 25 min trip on the autobahn and we were at the massive concrete and glass train station of Hauptbahnhoff (not Hasselhoff) near such landmarks as The Reichstag (go early if you want to avoid the massive queues), Potzdamerplatz, The Brandenburg Gate, a gigantic holocaust memorial, plenty of shopping centres, Checkpoint Charlie and a hotair balloon that goes up and down every hour or so for breathtaking views of the city. Very much a new-feeling place- lots of glamour, glitz, exceptionally clean(!) and the people were happy and helpful.
After exploring this multitude of places we decided to have a look around the huge Alexanderplatz TV tower area, with the River flowing through the centre and plenty of markets all down the left hand bank. Pretzels were the go here, along with currywurst mit brötchen (curried sausage and bread), followed by one of the most surreal bars I have ever laid eyes on, a fake sandy beach, with one long bar, deckchairs everywhere, views out over the river playing English lounge music. Truly part of the experience. Apparently a similar one exists in Paris? One thing we found about Berlin, was that money went considerably further than in the UK, chocolate, lollies and drinks were almost laughably priced- decent bottles of wine often fetched less than 2 euros (sometimes as low as 1), and spirits at the airport were enough to turn a complete teetotaller into a hardened drinker or drunkard. Awesome day, awesome place. Massive kudos to Tara, who spoke German like a local (some lessons, learning recommended before going there), and made the day run very smoothly!