Do you want to go to the seaside?

Team Onepiece goes B-town

Last weekend Jaleh and I took off early in the morning by bus to Brighton.

I had promised her we'd go before she leaves London before me.

And thank lord I keep my promises.

Brighton is lovely. To me Britain had always meant London. I practically didn't see England, or the UK, having anything else than London. The country and Kingdom being just one big city.

Going to Brighton proved me wrong.

As we got to Brighton at 10am we headed off to check out the beach first.

Thoughts:

A city with the combination of a Nice beach, the London Eye, Holland's The Hague vibe with archades and rides, craziness of London's Camden as well as calmness of the seaside of Helsinki, all spiced up by placing Taj Mahal right in the middle of the center.

If you ever visit, you'll get what I mean.

We took our longboards with us, as Brighton is known for the board scene.

In London you are lucky to see a longboarder on the streets. Over half of the city's citizens probably haven't even seen one in their lives, neither a board for that matter. You daily get amazed looks from people who witness this oh-so-new freaky invention: a longboard - board longer than a skateboard. Woooow.

In Brighton...you are just like any other person. Nobody gives a damn as: Everyone has a longboard/skateboard anyway!

Thumbs up for all those young fathers we saw in the center riding their longboards as their little kids rode beside on their scooters. Now that's what I call a cool daddy!!

Be wise, skate safe!

(the difference between London and Brighton skaters BTW.)

hint hint

One of my aims for the trip was to find a new little friend. A Penny.

The one and only glow in the dark Penny.

Longboard shop Oddballs had run out of the little plastic piece I wanted but thankfully for the same price I could get one from an other local skate shop called Route One.

Now I have a baby that I can take anywhere, anytime. Ace.

In November (pictures from the skate session here) I had my first push on a Penny. On one just like I now have.

I couldn't believe how good such a small board could feel under your feet. So stable, so fast, and could pump for ever. I looked at Ant trick around with his Penny -board, was amazed and couldn't get the board out of my head since.

That was £8 well spent on a round trip to Brighton. Yes, National Express was damn cheap!

I'm not at all surprised Brighton band, The Kooks, fell in love with the seaside...

<3

L

ps. if you are interested, there are more pictures on tumblr. livetolinda.tumblr.com

Wicked!

3.1.2012

The last day before it was time for me to go back to work and for my visitors to head back home.

Yet an other chill morning.
Ansku and I met up with Tina, and went for some (more) sushi at my favorite: cheap and tasty Itsu.
We all felt like we could eat everything the restaurant had to offer.
The Itsu on Regent Street is really cosy by the way and has the most loveliest staff!
We spent a good few hours eating, crying and laughing at the previous night out and eating a bit more.

...then the guys and Karen & Vendela joined us.
Itsu serves a very interesting energy drink. See picture above.
I bought one for Ingar, and the whole table had a good laugh as we all sipped to taste the power of 'Pussy - natural energy'.

WICKED!
Our plan for the last evening was of course to go and see a musical. Now I can tick the much hyped witch story off my list, too.

I think the musical was good.
For the first time in like...ever...I was just far too tired to concentrate on anything.
And most of that little energy I had was used to wake up a Mr. Blond guy sitting next to me.

At least the lead actress had a terrific musical voice. The closing song of the first half of the musical gave the wildest shivers.
I should have slept longer that morning! Then maybe I wouldn't have slept through the other wicked scenes the musical surely had.

One hectic 'catching up' week back home in Finland and a party week with friends in London equalled an extremely tired Linda by the end of Tuesday 3rd January. After half a year of mostly work and chilling by myself at home (yes, my life during weekdays hasn't been that much more exciting lately) - these two 'holiday' weeks were a tough bit for me haha!

Via 'the last supper' at an Italian restaurant by Victoria station we separated our ways.
...I must say I got a little lonely and sad on the evening of the 4th as I came home to find an empty house.


Does everything good and great always have to end? (No! So when's the next meet-up?)


<3
Linda

10p machines, comedy, sushi and fun

1.1.2012

The morning after the birthday of the universe was laaazy. We took it easy, chilling and chatting in bed. Being split in to various small groups we met up later on at a pub where Jonas, J-Lo and Espen were eating at.

With no plans for the evening us girls decided to head out to check out if there were any cheap musical tickets. January 1st is probably the only day of the year when exactly 0 musicals are on.

We ended up going to Karen and my favorite arcade at Leicester square. X-Quaker. 10p game.

As you can see from everyone's faces this is serious business! Tina, Vendela and Ansku understood immediately how it was to love 10p machines. For us girls arcades pretty much became the thing of the whole London stay. Whenever we saw an arcade with 10p machines...yep. We were in. And let me tell you, it is not impossible to stand still playing X-Quacker for an hour and walking out of the arcade with £15 less than when entering. You can ask Karen for more details on how to become a 10p machine pro.  And to continue on that...yes, we know it is impossible to ever win in those machines. Even if you do win that 50 or what ever p, it's not like you're going to walk out of the arcade with your pocket full of 10p's now is it?

We had to come up with something to do for the evening as Karen had already lost all of her money at the arcade. This guy approached us advertising a comedy show. PERFECT!

The guy took us to the hotel the show was at and gave us a 50% discount on the tickets. We called the guys to tell we'd decided the event for the evening.

It was such a tactical move to seat our 9 headed gang on the second row of the theatre. With the 1st row being empty you can guess what that made us then?

Practically it meant me being the blond Scandinavian girl who 'probably performs in those Swedish +18 films' and 'wants to become an instrument as her profession'.

The lead comedian was amazing, and the final two (who thankfully only performed half an hour in total) were amazingly terrible.

The American audience was made fun of quite harshly. I did laugh.

The girls sitting next to me got picked on quite bad, too. Had just broken up with their boyfriends, and probably weren't prepared to be picked on about it. I did laugh.

You have to be prepared for anything when you come to a comedy show.

The best part, though, was when a guy behind us got picked on and he just did not understand anything. His brain was seriously having a thin time as he tried to comeback the comedian with little luck. I did laugh a lot.

Food and time to go home. Via the lost child point.

2.1.2012

Lovely weather and walking to Oxford Street from my house.

Karen and I had had a plan of just spending one day sitting around in different cafes of London.

Well, it nearly happened. We sat at Starbucks for a few hours.

Starbucks is also a home  for some.

Later Ingar joined our girls moment. But I guessed he fit in well in the end after lending my hair band?

Hunger attack.

Some having been craving for sushi for ages, when at the same time half the gang wanted anything else than the Japanese treat.

We were walking around Piccadilly Circus trying to think of a good place to eat. None of us being London restaurant specialists. We spotted an Italian, Bella Italia or so, and as we walked that way a fish restaurant serving sushi suddenly appeared on our right. Perfection.

Something for everyone (Tina and Vendela on their own journey).

Amazing sushi. Ellu, I'm taking you there next weekend!

Back home to quickly change clothes, and back to meet up with Vendela and Tina in town. Girls on their own pub crawl and guys on theirs.

Ours was actually an arcade+pub crawl.

Crazy night. A lot happened. A lot could have had not happened (goodbye Karen's phone).

But I would say an amazing night. I had so much fun.

We ended up at an American diner styled bar on Covent Garden. Not the best, not the most people, but at least I had fun!

Again a night that made me miss our Haarlem exchange family.

How to end a great night? Take the wrong bus home on purpose and talk about your own business very loud including the strangers on the bus. Laugh and enjoy the bus ride. Get off the bus just on time and wait for the right bus to take you home. Love life and thank + be lucky that the people on the bus happened to have a great sense of humor.

<3

L

New Years celebration twentytwelve

18 days ago we were celebrating 2011 turn 2012.

It seems like yesterday! And now you probably think I feel hung over today? You're wrong. Are you thinking I wasn't hungover on 1.1.2012. You're right.

Anyway.

Crazycrazycrazy.

2011-2012 London

2010-2011 Amsterdam

2009-2010 New York

2008-2009 Helsinki

...any suggestions for 2012-2013? I'm thinking Australia, Hawaii or so? Whose in with me? ;)

But lets get back to 2011-2012.

After the famous Millwall - Crystal Palace match we went to buy some drinks and snacks for the evening. Just some. Some, that we couldn't manage to carry by hand but had to take use of the tactic Spanish exchange students used in Holland. The con-trolly method.

After (and during) getting ready we welcomed the rest of the bunch to join us for a drink before heading off to dine at an Indian restaurant by South Bank.

We had dinner at an Indian called Bangalore Express. Really really lovely place! Had cute 'upstairs' tables which you had to climb a ladder to. The food wasn't a success, though. Me being a huge chicken korma fan had to leave half of my meal uneaten because of the super dry chicken, super mild korma sauce and super dry feel of the whole meal. Some of us had the three course New Years special which I heard was OK - but...London is full of much more pleasing Indian restaurants. Like my local takeaway: Bermondsey Tandoori. I already feel like ordering as I write the name!

From dinner we headed off to see the London fireworks.

The main viewing points were closed as it was 11.30pm already.

So we walked in the mass of people heading a bit further from Waterloo to London Bridge. After walking with my heels for 5min I gave up and changed into my flats again. Having not walked with heels for  a year (?) or so and turned into a total sneaker freak...it just wasn't for me. So, so long my days of being even somewhat a missy.

I should probably sell my heel collection now that Linda+Heels no longer function.

The whole 2011 goes 2012 was kind of a mess in my eyes. People everywhere. Our own gang getting lost and found. No proper sign of what time it was - no idea of any sort of countdown that was possibly going on. AND PADAM. Suddenly I see a few red lights shine in the sky and hear explosions. Well, that's pretty much it. So much for London fireworks! I literally didn't see a thing. But hey, thankfully we have Youtube, right?

If you happened to be as unlucky as me and missed the whole 12minute (money wasting) show - watch below:

I have to say it looked quite crazily cool! But I was having an amazing time with amazing people, so the fireworks were actually the last thing on my mind as we popped our champagne and hugged eachother. In the last picture above I was actually going up to those guys and asking if they could spare me a sparkler as we had totally forgotten (again) to buy our own. Unfortunately they had none left. I was jealous.

As the fireworks ended everyone started to leave their 'viewing spots'. We decided to head back to my place as we didn't have any club tickets or so, and weren't really excited about waiting outside in cues and paying triple the price to get into a club on Leicester Square that I wouldn't even want to dip my foot in anyway.

On the way to the tube we found a pub right by the Thames that was not full at all! Happily stayed there until closing time having a super time getting up to nothing and everything, after which we somehow got separated on our ways home.

End well. All home safe and sound, in the end going to bed with an extremely happy mind set on making 2012 something more ah-mazing than I would have ever imagined life could be.

Speaking of that...I just booked a new flight ticket. 

This being to the country I will find an address from next.

Who can guess what that may be?

Well, all I know is that I've got enough flight tickets booked for the following 2.5months (6tickets that is) and the latest ticket purchase will hopefully make me stay still for a bit.

All the best into everyone's new year! Lets make 2012 even better than we ever imagined it could be!

XOXO

Linda

First four pictures by me. Next two from Karen's camera and last three from Jaleh's camera.