Thursday 12 March 2015

Turning 30

 So it happened. I couldn't halt the passage of time, and now I am no longer in my twenties. It mostly feels exactly the same. Although I had wanted to acheive a couple more things from my 30 before 30 list, I only managed one - which was to eat at Circus restaurant. This I did in celebration of becoming old! As luck would have it, the restaurant bumped up our party to the main table, which meant that we were right in front of all the circus acts for the evening. The restaurant was fantastic, the food amazing (which I wasn't particularly expecting) and the entertainment was interesting... It's definitely a novel concept and the performers are very good, especially to do their act in such a small space, with drinks and people so close by! I have to say that the music choices that accompanied the performers were a bit weird, and the toilets had quite ill-designed modernist shower like set up for washing your hands. But apart from those small things, the evening was fantastic! My friends arranged for a surprise birthday cake as dessert - which the restaurant kind messed up as they rang me the day before to ask what kind of cake I wanted! D'oh!! I would definitely recommend the restaurant, although it's very pricey so perhaps only for special occasions!


Netball Crew fun!


We celebrated Jasmin's birthday the weekend before as well!

Act 1 - Performed to Everybody Hurts by REM



She went from this... 
...to this!

CAKE!



 The following day, I had a smaller, more chilled out gathering at my parent's in Essex, with presents, sparkling wine and lots of nibbles!





Sunday 1 March 2015

Rotterdam... or anywhere

When I visited Chelsea in November last year, I managed to squeeze in trips to two new cities along with enjoying Den Haag again. I already wrote about my day in Amsterdam when Chels was at work. The following day we headed together on the train to Rotterdam. I've always wondered about this city, since the Beautiful South sung about it. The weather was less than perfect, as it was rainy for most of the day and drab even when it stopped raining. To be honest, I think the song is quite right, Rotterdam could be anywhere... it didn't seem to have anything particularly spectacular going for it. After asking for some suggestions at tourist information, the lady sent us towards a famous bridge (Erasmusbrug). 

Despite the lack of tourist-y things to do, we still had a nice day. Encountered a very flamboyant make-up counter assistant in one of the shops, ate at the world's cutest cafe and stopped for tea by the harbour.


I would probably go back, to see if a sunny day made much difference to Rotterdam's charms, and also to see the weird box houses!






Apparently the station is one of the attractions...


























obligatory feet pic



Decorations left over from some kind of celebration by the river




Chelsea's calorie laden brownie and my weight watchers fruit bar :-(