Happy Birthday To Mare!

Yesterday was here 100th birthday - she is soooo old, but looks fabulous. We celebrated with dinner and a drink with Mare's brother and a couple of friends, followed by an emergancy hip replacement. A quiet one because we are off to the Netherlands this afternoon for the weekend for Mare's birthday. Ooohhooo!


Its time for us to see some more of Europe - which is great. We've been centralised in London for a while now and its going to feel good to get out for a bit.

So we are off to the land off windmills, bicycles and liberal spirits.

There will be photos and stories upon our return. Til then umm... well it wont be very long, its just the weekend.

The last few weeks in photos

Right after Nate arrived from Africa in his traditional clothes.
































Mare on the left and Nate on the far right
































Cool little 'fresh' vegetable stands outside most corner stores in London

Fantasy Football!!

Its rough, its dirty, its big and slightly nerdy - its Yahoo Fantasy American Football !!!

If you guys wanna join my league this season, let me know asap! The draft is in the second week of August so you gotta be in by then.

so how about this facebook thing ay?

Its spreading pretty damn fast not to mention far and wide. When I was in the California in 2005 it was used within the colleges as a ... well I dont know what it was used for but it was a must have, along with AOL instant messenger. So being a keen international student wanting to getting into local stuff I signed up to facebook.

When I got back home to OZ I didnt do much with it cause it wasnt popular. Now I come to London and there are people at work - it a big European bank like Barclays - spending hours on it. Thats the last place I would expect it to be. And its growing in Australia too. Apparently there is one new user every minute....

Some people love it, others put up with it, some a scared and others just object to the idea. You can get the dirt on the site and its creator here. Most of the negativity is based around the privacy/ personal information and strange people having access to your friends side of things.

The fact that people can only see what you put up there pretty much erases any privacy issue for me. Cause if something is private to you - then dont put it up on the internet doofus! Easy as that. Then no on has access to it.

The only other issue that Ive heard is that strangers can see who your friends are without actaully being listed as one of your friends. See, in facebook you have to be accepted by the person as a friend to see their person information (by personal I mean whatever content you put up there). And if you dont know the person or you think they are a freak, you reject their request to be a friend. Then they cant see squat - except for who your friends are. Then they can be friends with you friends and so on. This is what a mate of ours said was his objection to facebook - mainly because he had some crazy ass stalker ex-girlfriends who he wanted to keep far far away. And using this 'friends of friends' trick, the crazy biatches could get to him. And to people in that situation I say hahahahahaahahaha
hahahhaa
ha
ha
aaaah
There is so much cool shiz on there and you can have a laugh and keep up with friends from all over the world. Some people are even making money there, raising funds for charity and discovering the satisfying pleasuring of the world of facebook stalking:

El Nata and Shappy

So Nate just got back from 3 weeks in Africa. We got us some theatre tickets to celebrate (yes we are partay animals indeed). Nate arrived during the day so he went to Mare's work to get the house keys and this is how the conversation went:

Mare: Hey Nate how are you?!
Nate: good good...(continued small talk)
Mare: We got some theatre tickets for tonight so go home, shower, get changed into your best clothes and meet me here at 5.30
Nate: huh?
Mare: home, shower, best clothes, here at 5.30
Nate: umm... I dont have any clothes...
Mare: huh?
Nate: I gave them all away...

Yet his bag still weighted 17kgs!
So we went to see 'Blood Brothers' anyways and heard some of nates awesome stories from Ugand, Rwanda, Berundi and Kenya. He had a hellofan adventure over there and it shook him up a bit. It sounds like an amazing place to go. Especially the way he did it. He went through an organisation called Come And See Africa (CASA), which house missionaries and organises trips for non-missionaries too. Nate did that latter. Apparently there is a Christian revival going on in Africa at the moment. Missionaries and preachers dont have the best rep with many people but it sounds like they are giving the people a lot to live for - hope. It sounds pretty mushie but they dont have much over there so hope is enough.

This was the longest time Mare and I have had to catch up with El Nata for 2 years. We all went traveling through south america together and got to relive some great stories - like Mare's upset stomach, Nates Bolivian girlfriends and my toilet incidents which we wont get into.

Another friend form the US came to visit on monday night. Shappy we call him, or if you are a Shakira fan - "Shapiro Shapiro...oh baby when you move like that.." Ok Im finished.

Shappy travelled around Europe doing what we have all done - gotten drunk in hostels. And just experiencing europe and travel and getting food poisoning...at Heathrow airport - on the way home! How? I dunno. Hopefully it wasnt the dinner we made him the previous night.

...Shapiro Shapiro...