Portobello and the Phantom

It's early in the morning (or at least for me), but I just have to write about yesterday. Because it was absolutely amazing! The best day ever in all the six moths I've been in Oxford. We left yesterday around noon to pick up a parcel of mine from the post office (another ebay find: Next yellow jacket) and drove to London. With little delay we arrived at Westfield shopping center to park the car and went to the tube station. We got out on Notting Hill Gate Station, got a little lost, but when we started following the crowd we found it in no time: Portobello Market. Heaven! Back home I would visit antique and flea markets regularly, but this is nothing like home! There are goodies everywhere! And we were so lucky with the weather too, just blue skies and hot sunshine.

Instead of lunch we had a huge crepe with Nutella, which was absolutely delicious. Perfect! Needles to say I went a little crazy with the shopping and bought a hat, converse shoes, a bag and a lace cardigan. After Portobello we realized it was getting quite late and we still had to catch dinner before going to the theatre. So we traveled to Haymarket street to get some dinner at the Italian restaurant Spaghetti House. The food was perfect, as the location, since it was only a few meters from the main attraction of the day: The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre! 

I've never been to the theathre in London, so for me this was an a-ma-zing experience! The inside is so beautifully decorated. We had seats on the second balcony, which gave as a good few of the stage and everything going on the in air (because there's quite a lot going on off stage as well!).

Here are some pictures of the performance (thanks to Google, because they were very strict on not taking photo's).

I loved it! The performance was brilliant, the music dramatic and the constantly moving stage and decor amazing! If you have the chance you have to go and see it! It's an experience of a life time. Want to learn more about the show? Go here!

Picnic

As I will be leaving the lab in less than two weeks, my lab organised a picnic as a sort of farewell-lab-day-out. So yesterday we packed up some food and went for a picnic in the English country side (a midst the sheep shit might I add). A journey I will never forget: we started by driving to a desolate rural area, parked the car and walked through the woods for a short 20 minutes. We arrived at a sloping open field, covered with sheep shit. We were able to find a not so brown covered spot where we lay down our white (baby?!) blanket. The food was actually really good, a variety of French cheeses (since our lab technician is French), baguettes, salad and fruits. We sat there for over an hour enjoying the sun and local wild life. But then my supervisor had the brilliant idea to go for "a walk". I walk from hell. Did I mention the area was hilly? And that we were all carrying backpacks? Seriously, the sweat was pouring down my back. To make matters worse, the British girl in my lab was dying from hay fever (made worse by the physical exercise in a knee-high grass field) and the German girl got stung by a horse fly. After what felt like an eternity we made it back to the car, and drove back home to Oxford (with the top down in the Mini Cooper, which was nice). Only downside was that when we got back to the lab was that we were expected to go back to work again... So all in all a great start, but not so nice ending to the day. But! Exciting news! This weekend the girls planned some nice events as a this is my last weekend in Oxford. So on Saturday we're going to see The Phantom of the Opera in London and on Sunday we're going punting in Oxford! Looking forward to the weekend! :)

2 weeks left!

Oh my god, can you believe it? Only two more weeks and then my internship in Oxford will be over! I never thought I would say this, but I think I'm going to miss some of the girls. Over the past weeks I've been hanging out a lot with a girl from Spain and a girl from Singapore, and I dare say we've become quite good friends. We've gone to the movies a lot, watching The Monuments Men, X-men Days of Future Past, Wolf of Wall Street, the Amazing Spider-man 2 and Maleficent. Which usually included dinner and a lot of bitching about the lab. As it turns out, they're very unhappy with the current situation as well. Not only do they have to work very long hours, but recently it has also become clear that my supervisor has some very peculiar ideas about the publications order of contributing parties (either alphabetical order or "flip a coin"). As you can imagine this set some bad blood. And as science has proven: bitching together about your boss creates close friendships! So yesterday we went to see Maleficent and went to Aziz for Indian food on Cowley road. The Singaporean girl likes spicy food, so she ordered the hottest dish on the menu. She let me taste a bit (a drop on the tip of my fork) and my god my tongue was burning! She confessed that if it was really hot she was likely to "visit Japan". As it turns out, this is a toiletry reference to the flag of Japan with its white background and red dot in the middle (*hint hint* get it?). So this morning when she came in the girl from Spain asked if she had "visited Japan" last night, and the Singaporean girl replied "twice!". As you can imagine we were rolling on the floor with laughter. You see why I like these girls?!

With love, Willemijn

p.s. Did I mention my room mate went to London and left me with another stranger from a website?! Thank god she seems like a normal, if not French person...

Girl friends time!

My girl friends from Holland came over this weekend! Sadly, I just dropped them off at the bus station, and they're probably back home by now, but we had the most wonderful time together! I've known them since high school and we've been through so much stuff together... It really felt good to have them over, even for such a short period of time. And we were so lucky with the weather, it was sunny and hot all weekend! Perfect weather for some serious shopping and food indulgence. We were so lazy that we went to the Mitre for lunch, tea and dinner, twice! God, I miss them so much already. But now its only three more weeks left, I'm almost there!

I hope you enjoyed the weekend as much as I have ;)

p.s. And not a single ant was spotted in the past days since my room mate left!

House mate (almost) gone!

Woohoo! I just heard that my house mate is leaving tomorrow, and will be gone for two whole weeks! Party! Him leaving is great timing, because yesterday I (finally) got the confirmation that my old high school friends are coming over the 6th of June! So that's something nice to look forward to. Now all I have to do is survive tomorrow. Because unfortunately, my supervisor had the "great" idea last Tuesday to come up with an assignment. A very shitty assignment, which was given a week in advance (too late), involves a lot of research on subject I know nothing about (biochemistry), involves making up new experiments (uhh, fuck?) and basically messed up my Bank Holiday weekend. However, yesterday some of my lab mates and I had a little day out, and went to Bourton On The Water, just because we were fed up with reading articles. A big f*ck you to the assignment. Seriously, who gives this kinda shit a week in advance and over a Bank Holiday weekend?! Its just cruel!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed your Bank Holiday weekend (more than I did), and good luck to the poor suckers who have to start working again tomorrow!

6 weeks left

Well, there's not much to say in this post, everything is still much the same: I still feel like shit, I'm still terribly homesick and still compensate by shopping like crazy. And yes, I know I'm a spoiled, whining and complaining little brat. But right now I just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. And to make matters worse, my room mate pulled a lovely move on me. He said he was going to have a friend over for a week, so naturally I assumed he and his friend we going to be here (I even asked him if he was going to show him around oxford, and he said yes). Turns out, this "friend" is a complete stranger he found through a website who is renting his bed room! So Mister Shit is off to London, and I'm stuck with a stranger! Thank God he's leaving this Monday, and he's not all that bad (a little shy to be honest, especially for a 40-something year old guy). However, there is one down side: he snores! My bedroom is below his, and I can hear it like I'm standing right next to him. I really hope my room mate isn't going to rent the place out to more people, but he probably will, since he won't be receiving any more money from me. When I think I've had everything, he pulls a dick move like this. And with all the Miss Marple and Poirot I've been watching, it's only giving me ideas...

Anyway, hope you are enjoying your weekend, out here in merry old England the sun is shining for a change!

p.s. Just a funny pic to lighten the mood ;)

8 weeks left

Yes, I know: I'm a terrible, terrible blogger. Of course I should have made a post about my girls weekend as soon as they left, but I was too swamped with work/lazy... But I think it goes without saying that we had an awful lot of fun ;) I went to Victoria Station to pick them up, after which we went to see Westminster Abbey, the Big Ben and of course Oxford street. My girls love to shop! After a good English pub meal we took the bus back to Oxford (almost missing our stop because we fell a sleep) and went to bed. Or in their case a double size air mattress. The next morning we got up quite late (London does kinda drain all your energy), had a hearty breakfast and went into Oxford city center to look at the Colleges. We visited Magdalen College, had a walk around the city center and sat down for the most delicious scones with clotted cream at the Mitre on the High Street. For dinner we went to my favorite place, the Wig and Pen (check out their facebook!), and even encountered the very old and sophisticated English tradition of the Stag night. The groom wanted us to write our name, bra size and preferred underwear on his chest, however we decided that a "nice" Dutch line would be much more fun. If you catch my drift ;) Unfortunately, due to internships and residency my friends had to leave quite early the next day, but I'm thankful I got to spend even the shortest amount of time with them.
And that's now already two weeks ago, and I miss them like crazy! When I said goodbye to them at the bus stop I almost wanted they hadn't come, because to goodbye felt like homesick overload... But I mustn't complain, because my calender says it only 8 more weeks left. And there might be another girls trip coming, only this time not with University girl friends, but from my old high school! I'll let you know how that goes ;) In the mean time, enjoy your Early May Bank Holiday (I had no idea, thank god someone told me!)!

With love, Willemijn