Where better to go on a Sunday?!

So Sunday 12th March comes. In honour of how hard I've worked for the past few weeks and in honour of it being a day of rest, I decide to rest on various trains, busses, taxis and planes...and then another bus before finally taking a wee rest in a wee hostel in Barcelona. Well the bed there looked more comfortable than mine! Or maybe it was the name that attracted me - Hostel Colon! Smelt surprisingly good.

Lets be honest though - the resting lasted all of about 5 minutes before Katie, Rob, Sam and I went out looking for mischief in the streets of Barcelona! And had I picked a great location for it?! Too right! Just off Plaza Reial with its hoards of cafe/pub/clubs and Las Ramblas with all the touristy things. It was night though - and 10.30pm on a Sunday evening at that so dinner by now was practically an emergency! Not helped by the fact that most places had finished serving. We found a nice place of on Calle de Ferran, just off Placa de Sant Jaume for some tapas-sized food (much to our dismay!) but plenty of cheap wine and Rioja at that! Happy tourists. Oh and the man serving us there told me to stop talking in Spanish and use English! I mean really has my accent degraded that much since Mexico?!

So off to find a bar for the evening. Bar hunting in Barelona is kinda a funny business cos they pretty much all look the same - they're always long and thin with a row of bar stools infront of the bar at the entrance and a small amount of seated accomodation towards the back. The only thing we were really able to grade the bars on as we went by was the clientelle! Whilst we wanted somewhere "safe" I wasn't liking the look of any of the touristy bars which were being picked out so we settled on something which I thought looked nice and seedy!

In fact it was perfectly lovely with olives and other tit-bits going for free on the bar. And then there were these Scottish pair in there who weren't just getting bits of tits, but the whole lot from some slighly scary Catalan lady they called Grandma. As much as they protested their innocence, Christian let the cat out of the bag as the night continued with stories of how they had actually met her earlier and invited her along with them...as opposed to the story we initially got that they turned up and got flashed! €2.50 for a beer and a good giggle with some randoms in Barcelona. Life could be worse!

Done with that bar (this time they left Grandma) the six of us headed on to a nice bar in a corner of Placa Réal where we tried in every language to try and get Katie a drink with Schnapps in...alas we could not even though the very thing was spotted in a shop two days later.

And so pretty much we spent the night there chatting about the Wembley Stadium on which Pappa Bear (can't remember his name) worked and life in general as ever we do. Then back to home sweet colon.

The Week

Sun - Went back to bed until 4pm to get rid of a splitting headache!
Mon - ??
Tue - Mike Luck (personal tutor) bet me a Mars bar that I cannot get under 3 mistakes in my references...show a lot of faith eh??!
Wed - Killer sports day - squash, cycling and Kung Fu fitness session.
Thu - felt very stiff from Wednesday and skipped Kung Fu as a result!
Fri - another killer lab session but we now have a wicked battleships game! Fight Club @ 57. Packed for Barcelona a day early - unbelievable!

For juvenile humour check this out!

Martial Arts Go 70s!

And so what better way to spend our Saturday than running around town trying to find that perfect costume and once again constructing it entirely out of staples??! Once again Martin and I have proved the point that you actually can make durable clothing out of staples - who would ever have doubted us? The proof of our pudding was clearly in the colours and wow we were proud of it!

After the odd reenactment of Gladiators' Hang Tough on the bus and subsequential early damage to not the staples of my costume (they are very durable) but the cufflinks we hit the bar at the Stag's hard! Well we had been made late by our costumes and the general Mexican time which always kicks in around social deadlines!

Alice got us some food which was, let's be honest, a bit of a steal - and very needed as none of us had made it as far as dinner such was our dedication! Generally I think the night was pretty much spent looking great and enjoying the quality music and lower quality dancing that makes us love a Fat Poppadaddy's Night! Well since last week anyway!

And what sweet hats I mean wow! Its cool and that is serious! Great turnout once again - well from the four hardcore clubs anyway - Shaolin, Kickboxing, Taekwondo and of course Hung Leng! And then there was Rob's girlfriend and housemates, and Budgie from Skydiving...so a great mix! Oh and Buckle told me that he spoke to me and Martin so he was there - allegedly - we have no photographic evidence, just the word of a corruptable young man.

In all probability unecessary drinking games were the cause of the general lack of knowledge as to what came to pass that night. All we know is a lot of people woke up with splitting headaches, but even so they had a big smile on their face! Clearly a successful night!

Yes Another Fire

Wednesday, just before midnight, and another fire starts up in Southampton - this time at a little factory behind a house just around the corner from us. We had a great view from our back window, but that wasn't good enough - so out we went in the freezing weather to try and warm ourselves and maybe toast a marshmallow or two!

After having to walk the long way around we bumped into Jim who had also thought it would be a great idea to go be nosy and see what's going on! It was quite an impressive fire and didn't really seem to be dying down. The firefighters seemed to be concentrating their robotic firefighting arm on keep the house next to the fire wet and just sitting it out. We had less patience but it was great to watch for a bit!

Pancake Day

Eggs flour and milk have never tasted so great! Its true - you can actually make and entire meal entirely from pancakes...well and a few extras! Si and me set about making a true feast - chicken curry for the savories with heaps of salad and good old lemon and sugar for the pudding! Brilliant. And then that was completly topped by Emma's truly divine creation with camarelized bananas, chocolate spread and ice cream! What more could you want. It was a close call on Kung Fu or sit and eat wonderful pancakes all evening. I think my final choice was better for my health though!

So yeh the whole thing went very well, barr a few initial teething problems with pans and flipping and the likes. But hey mistakes meant wasted pancakes keeping the chefs full and happy!

(((Soon to come - pancake flipping clips! )))

Mouse/Rat Hunt!

In the wee hours of that Sunday morning whilst some of us were trying to sleep off the night at the cube, two hunters did stalk their prey in the bowels of our house. G and Joe - our huntsmen went to work catching mice or maybe rats with big sticks...and succeeded! One in the lengthy battle that night and another the next day...and the count still continues!

An account of the night's events is far better explained through Simon's investigative reporting on the two videos below!

Video 1:
(still to come)

Video 2:


And so now it is very apparent that not only is there an infestation upstairs of bedbugs (as yet two strike my room :-) ) but the Rats are back with a vengance!

Cube Rekkie and Arm Wrestling

A week ago Saturday we thought we should do a quick rekkie ahead of the MA Social just to see what the whole poppadaddy's night is all about...and it was awesome! It made for a truly legendary impromptu Kung Fu social, which was necessary considering England's poor performance losing to Scotland in the rugby earlier and all the issues surrounding seminars on Saturdays!

It was a grand night full of plenty of drinking as usual and lots of silly noisy fun! Including the whole shebang winner-stays-on arm wrestling competition which resulted in a tie between Nick and Sheldon!

Walking home was a truly legendary event too - stealing at first a barbie and then later just its head as Hazel yanked it clean off as she made a grab for the doll. Why someone would take a barbie to the cube I don't know, but whatever reason it was for the owner threw a good tantrum about it. Mind you that was after we'd thrown the head about and then sprinted off down the road and I had hopped over a fence and hidden with the head! Genius. And everyone else started making up stories about me having ran across fences and hedges to get away!!

But then how would we feel if she came into our house and stole our bike??! Lol. We are bad. Whilst the whole dialog was going on I shuffles about trying to get my camera out and even set the flash off accidentally and they didn't notice...complete fluke we got away with that one! Randsom notices to be put up next week I think!

And then on the the kebab shop and getting told by some asian guy who was a mate of Alice's George II to get out of my own country cos I was white! You wouldn't have thought someone could rant for 20 minutes about that, especially when I made virtually no response. So I guess its not the white people who are racist??!

2nd Night in a Row...

In a vague attempt to recover from Slinkys Si and I managed to invest the majority of the next day in watching large quantities of the OC! What a show! And then i was suggested to us by Joe that we might like to accompany him and his sister for a "Sobar and see how it goes" night! Having done my useful task for the day (walking to Uni to print out posters only to find it was locked) it seemed sensible for Katie and I to go and join the boys in Sobar - to see how it goes. It went!! We went...to Jesters! I could pretend I was surprised but let's at least be honest about it.

Here's Joe with his sister Becky (from Brum where they do it better!), but check out the background in the second pic - someone was under the misconception I was trying to get a cheeky photo of them methinks! Cameras can be so harsh...

And so then after a great night with Gavin being a bit a of dick, probably brought on somewhat by Si and me winding him up about every little thing he said - but then that's what you get if you talk constant bulls**t!

Following Jesters came the mandatory time with the Shisha in order to get the full 57 experience! Quite what ensued in that time we're not entirely sure but there it started with some Zero 7 chillout and great taste of Apple and went happily on from there! G became quite the master of cool - drawing his fill whilst targeting some great shots of the gang. And then there was the video camera - we need to see those videos!

All in all a great chillout night with momentary points of true excitement thrown in, and for the lucky ones there was even a massage or two from a trained master...