Hey Guys,
As some of you know the 'le tour de france' came to london on the weekend. It had been something id been looking forward to for a while, in fact ever since i knew i was coming over here. On friday evening after work i headed to trafalgar square for the riders presentation. As i headed down i immediately regretted not bringing my camera with me as i knew there would be a huge crowd. I made my down just as they were about to start. After a short video promoting the race and a few facts about its size etc they presented each of the teams. It was good to see the riders up close that i've been watching on T.V for the last few years. I waited around till that had finished and then a pop band came onto play. They were pretty average however i stuck around and read the paper for abit before heading home. The next day the racing would begin with a 8km time trial through hyde park.
On saturday morning i helped Dan clean the house up abit before i got some keys cut from a place down the road. Matt went to the pub down the road while i took a train to the closest station. I walked into the park and already there was huge crowds three hours before the start. I bought myself a souvenir t-shirt and then found a nice spot along the road to watch the riders warming up. Even as they were warming up the speed they were traveling at was quite impressive. I took a few pics and then found a nice spot on the grass where a big screen was located. For about an hour they had a long caravan of cars which were mostly advertising, people speaking into megaphones, throwing away freebies, girls waving etc etc. They had a few kangaroo cars promoting south australia i think as well. Anyway when that was done and dusted i got to watch some more riders warming up around the course. Then finally the race was on with the riders going by at a furious pace in approximately one minute intervals. After about an hour of hugging the railings with other people in close proximity i headed for the grass and relaxed there to watch the big name riders do their thing. Attempts to meet up with Matt and co proved futile due to the HUGE crowds (least a million came out to watch it) and my phone battery dieing. Still it was a good day out and i enjoyed myself.

On monday i had the day off work so i decided to head off to, yes you guessed it, another museum. This time it was to be the Imperial war museum as Dan had reccomended it and plus im abit of a fan of modern world history. Arrived their around 12ish and was immediately mpressed by the huge guns outside the entrance to the building. In the main hall there was a huge array of different vehicles from world war 1 and world war 2, most of those being tanks. I headed downstairs to the ww1 exhibition. They had recreated a trench that you could walk through which was quite realistic and the conversations from the dummies added to the immersion. The actual info was laid out really well, with plenty of interesting things to look at to go with the boards on topics. They had a 5 min show that ran every ten minutes which recreated what it would be like in a bombing raid in London. After 3-4 hours in there i headed home slightly exhausted however its another place ill have to check out again in the near future. Bye!

Update: For those who are interested, here's a couple of pic's of the two main counter's i've been working on. Note the charcuterie stuff is all wrapped and covered because i took the photo after we had closed, but u get the idea.

Working in a big city....

Last week while i was in the hostel where we were staying i got a call from a temp agency asking me if i could make an interview for that afternoon. I quickly got into gear to get ready and headed for the tube following the directions that i had been given in the txt message. In some back alley in london i found the place and headed up not really knowing what to expect. After filling out some forms i had an interview/discussion with a nice lady regarding a job at a place called Fortnum and Masons. She described it as a really posh upmarket place where all the 'richies' went shopping, wearing suits, top hats etc. She told me she was waiting for a phone call to get more details about the position but it seemed they needed staff immediately so i was told that id be contacted soon. All was going well so far.

The next day i was at a bit of a lossreally know what to do as Matt had gone to work and i had checked out most of the stuff in the area i.e parks, museums etc. After meandering in the park for a while i got the call i had been semi expecting with the information i was to start tommorow! After pondering on it for a while i headed off to buy some clothes in Oxford street. I thought i had better look the part if what i had been told was true. I ended up buying a cheap pair of shoes, socks and a shirt.

Friday was abit crazy for me to say the least. I got up early in Euston (north London) and headed towards picadilly only to find when i got there that the station was closed. I promptly got out of the station and tried get my bearings. There was police tape all along Leicester square which i thought was abit odd, by this time i was wishing i had allowed more time. After consulting my trusty A to Z i eventually found the street i was after and made my way up the six floors to the HR department. It turned out i wasnt the only one late as i waited for nearly twenty minutes before being told what i would be doing for the day. Due to the lack of staff i was placed in the food hall in the hands of an Italian, the man responsible for the cheese. His name was Marco and he was very friendly. The following few days i worked with the ham's and salami's with a man called pieter who is from Poland. He has a very thick accent but again hes quite friendly and happy to help me out when im unsure about something. Working with such nice food has been the best part of the job, having tried some joselito off the bone. Its a spanish ham that comes from a semi wild pig that feeds mostly on acorns. Very tasty but also extremely $$$ at 15 pounds per 100g or you can buy the whole leg for a cool $3000 AUD. The worst part about the job is the often boring intervals of time when there are no customers and seemingly nothing to do other then wait...and also the slight inconvenience of having to walk up 8 flights of stairs to get to my break, sign in for the day etc. The job was meant to only be for two weeks but hopefully that gets extended abit longer so i don't have to find another job in a hurry as this one pays pretty well and is quite good on the whole:) Ive got tomorrow off work, yay! Ill have to write next time about the tour de france prologue that went through the streets of London last Saturday. Till then, Bye!