The bear's birthday picnic

Time flies and the little bear already turned 4 this year. Much to his delight, we organised a little after work picnic in beautiful St. James' Parc (with outlook on Buckingham Palace). The bear was quite excited to spend a night in town, with all attention on him and -best of all- a fabulous birthday cake to share with friends.
Happy Birthday Bodo!!

Ein fröhlicher Verkehrspfosten

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

The Queen is turning 82 today.
I do wish her a very very happy birthday, a great party and hopefully a massive birthday cake :)

Cheesy namesake

Looks like I found a long lost sister. She seems to have a successful career in the cheese business.

A weekend with Anke

My ex-flatmate Anke spent last weekend in London. After we hadn't seen each other for almost 2 years, we had a LOT to chat about.

On Saturday we started our day with a great breakfast at the Breakfast Club (31 Camden Passage, N1 8EA). It's a really cute place that serves lovely hot and cold breakfast and wonderful smoothies (I had a "Green is Good" Smoothie with melon, spinach, mint, yoghurt and apple... very fresh and yummy!).
Besides the lovely location, the friendly service and the nice time we had, the breakfast was also a notable event, because Anke had her very first encounter with HP Sauce :))

After a little detour to Sainsbury's with their endless range of crisps and a stopover to drop the bags at home, we made our way into town for a stroll through Covent Garden with lots of shopping.



Later, Nat came over from Chelmsford and we went out in Shoreditch, starting with a tasty meal at Shish (313 – 319 Old Street, EC1V 9LE), a mini-chain (of 2 restaurants in London) specialised in oriental food like shish and hot and cold mezze.



Afterwards, we went for a drink in several bars in the area... at the Foundry (84-86 Great Eastern Street,EC2A 3HY), Bar Kick, and finally at the Favela Chic Club (91- 93 Great eastern Street EC2) a London dependance of a club in Paris with the same name. The club was quite fun... I absolutely loved the whimsical decoration: Big palmtrees, a pair of spare legs upside down, a patchworky wooden wall and circus like stripy pink hoola hoops hanging from the ceiling. The music was very mixed, sometimes a bit weird but one could feel that the DJ just had fun and that was pretty infectious...
Unfortunately the club closed at 2 o'clock and we hopped on a bus home... but after all we were a little bit tired from all the marching during the day :)



Sunday started a bit grey, but in the afternoon, the sun came out. After a bit of a success-less hunt for "the best fish'n'chips in town" we changed plans, got some nibbles in the supermarket and went for a picnic in Hyde Park.






Note: London squirrels are not afraid at all. This one seemed to be a real poser, patiently waiting for me to take my picture... and as soon as I put my camera away, it hopped off.

Sunset in Islington

Coming home after work...catching this beautiful end of the day light just before getting home. Oooooooooooooooooooh. :)

Die besten Menschen der Welt...

Gerade beim Radiohoeren nen Werbespot fuer DMAX gehoert. Scheint ein spezieller Fernsehsender fuer Maenner zu sein. Was mich aufhorchen liess, war deren absolut bekloppter Claim:

Fernsehen fuer die besten Menschen der Welt: Maenner

Das ist so ziemlich das Duemmste, was ich seit langem in Sachen Werbung / Branding gehoert habe. Sagt wohl einiges ueber die Zielgruppe aus.

Good Morning Mr. Coffeeshop

This is a little story about small everyday rituals. On my every-morning way to the bus station, there is a little coffee shop. It is very small and looks quite nice and cosy. Every Morning I walk by, I look through the window. Sometime the guy working in there looks back and as it's stupid to just stare at each other, I started smiling (well, I'm a friendly person after all). Over the last weeks, A kind of "smiling relationship" developed. I walk by. look inside, guy (if he isn't busy serving customers) looks and smiles back.
As banal as it may sound: I love it. I am looking forward to walking by his shop every morning and getting my good morning smile. Today he waived with the big milk container that he had in is hand when I walked by. Hach, everyday life is great :)

This whole thing reminds me a bit of how proud I felt the first time during my internship in Paris, when the girl in "my bakery" said when I came in after work: "Une demi-baguette comme d'habitude?"
For me, feeling good is so much about relationships. Big and small. Important and banal. And feeling to be part of a community (even if it's only the community of regular customers of a bakery) and being recognised just makes you feel home and a little bit rooted.

And some day, I should not just walk by but have a coffee - and maybe a chat :)

In the studio with the Lunar Pilots

Some pictures from the evening at the Dairy Studios in Brixton where some friends of Nat's were recording some songs last week. My first time at a recording studio (how very exciting) and the fact that people like Moby, Muse, Faithless and Athlete have recorded here make it even cooler :). It was a great evening... lots of fun, some beer and just very interesting and impressive things to see (like the monster mixing board and Paul playing the Glockenspiel :).
The Lunar Pilots have done very good work. The songs they recorded already sound really good - even if they are only rough versions at this point.

It was also the first time after quite a while, that I had the occasion to play table football. The guys didn't expect me to be good, I think... hehe.... how little did they know :) It was good fun winning a couple of times.

It just makes me smile every time...

Welcome to Barnsbury Animal Park

Walking out of the house today, a little squirrel crossed my way. And it was not shy in any shape or form...taking its time, stopping here and there, hopping happily around with its bouncing bushy tail.
After I my fox encounter only a couple of days ago, I'm curious which other animals are living in the neighborhood... rabbits, bears, lions, tigers...I'm waiting for you!

The crowds are shouting again

It is already the second time since I've worked here, that there is crowd noise coming up from the streets... people shouting, voices, just a crowd making a noise.
The first time, I was wondering what was going on... a demonstration in the streets maybe...or an accident? I couldn't really think of anything else.
When I asked one of my colleagues, she said: "Well that's kind of normal here. You hear that quite often. There must be a celebrity down there somewhere."

To be honest, that was one of the least things I would have thought of.

I saw a fox today!

When I was leaving the house at around 8:15 this morning to walk to the bus station, a fox crossed my way - running through the courtyard of the estate.
I wouldn't have expected that... but it makes a change from looking at Firefox all day.

The Grand National Clippediclopp

After a making-our-own-pizza-(and-even-the-dow)-playing-cards-and-stay-up-late thing with Nat's lovely niece and nephew (Molly and Adam) on Friday night (the two are spending their school holidays in Chelmsford at the moment), the day of the Grand National started with lovely sunshine and simpsonesque skies.



Hold on, the day of the Grand National WHAT?
"Oh, you don't know...? How can you not know what the Grand National is?"
Hmmm, well, maybe because I'm not British...?

Anyway, I got taught all about it: The Grand National is a horse race. The course is 7 miles long, 30 obstacles need to be jumped over. It is a big event in Britain, not least because it is THE biggest betting race in the world. Many people who don't bet on horses normally, put a bet on one or more horses in the Grand National.
Just for the fun, I put down a pound on three horses (mainly because I liked their names) as well: L'ami, Mon Mome and Snowy Morning (hmmmm, I admit, there is a little affinity for French names going on here).

And hooray, Snowy Morning came in 3rd... I won 5.50 pounds with this bet, making a total earning of 3.50 pounds. A big success, I would say :)
By the way, the winner's name is "Comply or Die". What a stupid name for a horse. So stupid that I had almost put money on him, just because of the name... I finally didn't :( I would have been 5 or 6 pounds richer now. There is always next year.

We spent most of the afternoon in the pub, watching football, the Grand National (obviously) and chatting with friends of Nat's. I met Simon for the first time, the singer of The Lunar Pilots. The Lunar Pilots are a band I am designing a logo and a website for at the moment. We've been in contact only by mail and it was nice to meet him in person and have chat.
They are going to be in a recording studio in Brixton all of next week and Paul (the keyboarder and a good friend of Nat's) invited me to come over and visit them one evening after work. I am really looking forward to that. 1st, because it's always cool to hang out with rock stars (tongue in cheek :) and 2nd because I never saw a real recording studio from the inside. Yeah. Seeing new things is priceless!

Now it's snowing outside (hmmm, weird.... we really had a "Snowy Morning" today)... and I have to go back to London soon to do a little bit more work on the Lunars' website. I hope the trains won't be a shambles due to the weather... in England, you never know.

Invader N°3

The third I found, just round the corner from work on my daily way to the office...

The first visitor

What a pity! You just missed the race for the title of "Eva-Lotta's first foreign visitor in London". My Ex-flatmate Anke is going to come over in 2 weeks time! Hooray!

By the way: the title of "Eva-Lotta's first visitor in London ever" went out to my lovely boyfriend... Well, Nat helped me move and therefore also visited me first :)

But don't be sad, there are still some pretty attractive titles left to earn...
How about being

• Eva-Lotta's first French visitor (oh, ça sent la compétition...)
• Eva-Lotta's first short haired visitor
• Eva-Lotta's first left-handed visitor
  
• Eva-Lotta's first green-eyed visitor
• Eva-Lotta's first visitor who brings flowers ;-)

All these titles are up for grabs, so come and visit me and enter the visitor's Hall Of Fame!