Dublin Photos

Sorry for the delay, but the photos from Dublin are finally on the net.

The photo on the left is of the pedestrian crossing lights. They have a orange man, not just a red and green man. I found that really strange, but no one else seemed to think so...

Anyway, click on the photo to go to the web album where the rest of them are.

Also, below are some photos of a rainbow that we got the other day. It was amazing. Probably one of the brightest rainbows I've seen in a long long time.

Enjoy!

It's about time...

You should see today's weather forecast... Hottest day so far this year! Click on the image to get a bigger one if need be.

The rest of the week is seriously crap though. Rain, more rain, and cold again. Great... To be honest, I'm over the cold. I'm sick of it. Why can't the weather be nice like it is in Australia?

Thea and I are going to go into London today and wander around and make the most of the sun. Should be fun. Normally I'd probably go to the beach on a day like this, but that isn't an option here. Or maybe go and have brunch somewhere with outdoor seating and fantastic coffee, which given the coffee situation over here isn't an option either.

What is your favourite thing to do on a warm sunny Saturday?

No internet, but plenty of Guinness

The internet is down again, hence the lack of posts and photos from Dublin. Our TV/Internet was 'upgraded' the other day, and our old box was meant to be compatible, but alas it is having issues. The tech guy was meant to come last friday but didn't. He was then meant to come yesterday but didn't. Hopefully he'll come tomorrow...

Anyway, a quick update of our weekend. To be honest, Dublin was a little disappointing. It wasn't all that pretty, and there also wasn't a lot to do. We saw a few old churches, went to the Guniness factory, and did a literary pub tour where some actors gave little skits about famous writers that lived in Dublin. Christ Church in Dublin was really pretty, and so were sections of the city too. I'll post some photos when we're back up and running.

The night life in Dublin was really cool though. Both nights the pubs were packed, there was live music, and generally a really nice vibe. Good fun. Oh, and Guinness tastes no different over there than it does here - that myth is busted as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately Dublin was realy expensive, and so lunch or dinner would generally cost about 15 euro per person. Ouch. Beers were about 4.5 euros - double ouch - but on the plus side it stops you having too many :)

So, sorry we haven't been very active on blog/email/facebook, but we'll get back on as soon as we can.

Hope you are all well and not taking for granted the beautiful, warm and affordable country you live in :)

We're back on the air!

Our Internet at home had been playing up and after being on the phone to the phone/internet/tv company we thought we would need yet another box (we've had some issues with them) but all is fixed now so hopefully things will remain this way...

So, now I guess its back to emails, Facebook and researching my genealogy. My second cousin has gotten me interested in researching my family history after I began getting caught up in her Facebook status comments about her research. She has researched quite a bit of my mother's maternal line which we have in common. I hate to admit it, but it appears I am part Westy Bogan, part English and part good old Aussie. My mother's line all lived out near Windsor, the very area where I worked last year and always made fun of to the locals. For shame!

I won't tell my roomates though. Of the few Aussie things we have taught them, one is the phrases is 'Westy Bogan' to which one of them uses every now and then. I have started to pick up some of the South African sayings too. One started as a mocking sort of exercise but is now becoming more common place. In Australia, if we were going to see someone in a little while, typically we would say, "See you later" (well I would). They say "See you just now" which makes no sense at all because you aren't going to see them for a while. If you are going to see someone right away they say, "See you now now". Weird hey? But I must admit, I am starting to like South Africans. They are the most like us without being Australian - although most either move to here or Sydney or Perth to flee from South Africa.

Anyway, Matt is also getting hooked on researching his family history after looking up a few things on the NSW Birth Deaths and Marriages site. Its funny, his family have an obsession with passing family names through the generations so much so that his grandfather had the exact first and middle name as his great grandfather. In my family that is kind of a foreign concept and one that hasn't really happened most likely because the names aren't very nice! If my family did pass down names, I probably could have been named Thea Constance or Thea Euphemia. EW! What kind of a name is Euphemia?!

Matt is set on the idea that middle names should be "of family significance". He thinks your middle name should be significant or you shouldn't have one. I think that they are just an alternate name to have, which can be a relatives name but doesn't have to be. What do you think? What is the point of a middle name? Is it to discern between the 3 John Smiths on a university tutorial list or does it have to have family significance?

Fuzzy's Grub

It's not often I get excited about a sandwich. I mean, it's just bread with some filling, right?

Well, the past week I have been working in central London, and I was recommended by one of my colleagues to try a sandwich from a place down the road called Fuzzy's Grub. Apparently it was like a roast dinner in a sandwich. In my head I'm thinking something along the lines of what we get back home - a regular sandwich place with a selection of roast meats in addition to the usual cold meats. How wrong I was...

This place serves a proper roast meal, with the option of presenting it in a tub, on a sandwich, or in a salad. There isn't a tomato or lettuce leaf to be seen. To best illustrate, I'll tell you what I had on my sandwich. My sandwich consisted of roast lamb with mint sauce and gravy, plus roast potatoes, roast carrots and peas. I was genuinely excited at the thought of eating it while walking back to the office. For anyone from work reading this, if this were available in Sydney we'd definitely be having less bricks and more Fuzzys.

It was delicious - the mint sauce was particularly delightful.

At £5 per sandwich I consider it fairly good value, however it is still a lot of money to spend on a regular basis...

Also, Thea and I are off to Dublin this weekend. We'll fill you in when we return.

PS - sorry for the lack of posts lately, but our internet is down at home again, and so I'm posting this from work while the taste of lamb is still in my mouth.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is pretty cool. It gives you all sorts of statistics on the types of people who have been visiting your website. Things like IP address, from which you can determine ISP and hence the city from where the person is viewing. It also conveniently puts these hits on a world map, so you can visually see where the people are from. No surprises that the vast majority of our readers are from Sydney. There are also a fair few hits from Perth - hi Matt and Libby! Also a few others from random places around the globe - if this is you, say hi and introduce yourself.

One of the more interesting things to come out of Google Analytics is the keyword analysis. This shows you which keywords people have searched for on Google to come to your site. The vast majority of our hits are direct traffic, and a few are referrals from other sites (particular thanks to the toosehooseonline and le blog de guthers). However, a few people have arrived from Google.

In summay:
The person who is searching for "matt and thea blogg" - there is only one 'g' in blog.

Sam - did you realise that if you search for 'the fountainside sam', and restrict it to .au results only, you get our blog as number 1 result?!? Apologies for the bad press...

There are some people who have been genuinely searching for decent websites, but instead found our blog. Keywords include "wimbledon tennis", "london mens convenion", and "what was the impact of world war ii on bristish children". Again, apologies for the disappointment, however I'm not sure what 'bristish children' are - are they children from Bristle?

Why would anyone search for "tambourine bruises"?

There are a few others, but they aren't particularly interesting...

So, I hope that was entertaining. :) If you have a website, what are some strange Google searches that people have used to get to your site?

No bells or whistles, and especially no frills.

The other day I bought some Sainsbury's (like Woolies, a supermarket chain) Honey Nut Corn Flakes. They are really tasty. Generally I can't have cornflakes without sugar, so they pre-add the sugar via the honey, and then throw in the added tastiness of nuts as a bonus. Pure genius.

Now some of you are probably thinking "these sound an awful lot like Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Corn Fakes". Well, if that's you, then you'd be spot on. They are basically identical - they have the same orange coloured packaging, the flakes themselves look very similar, and the taste is pretty much indistinguishable. They are almost the same in every way, except for one important difference - they cost about 1/3 the price of the Kellogg's variety.

The problem with no-named supermarket items is that some are just as good as the named varieties, occasionally some are better, but often they are much worse. The hard part is knowing which ones are which. Growing up, Mum used to buy No-Frills poppers for school, and they were awesome. I've also had a fair amount of no-named crisps that have also been fine. I am yet, however, to find decent no-named lollies to rival Allen's, particularly Strawberries & Creams. Mr Kenman still has a lot to learn from Mr Allen...

So, for the good of all those prudent shoppers out there, which no-named items do you think are as good, if not better, than their named counterparts, and which ones should be avoided at all costs? If anyone from the UK is reading this, pretty please fill me in on what's hot and what's not in food fashion.

The Olympic Torch

Matt and I battled the snow and crowds on Sunday to go into city to see the Olympic Torch make its journey through London. We managed to secure prime position right next to the entrance to Downing Street which had a great view and was relatively uncrowded. Across the road from us was a huge crowd of protesters equipped with banners and chants. Security was very tight. We witnessed a few protesters get slammed by the coppers for stepping out of line. There were so many police, particularly when the torch got closer and closer. Van after van of police turned up ahead of the flame. There were police on horseback too to redirect the protesters walking behind the torch relay procession. The torch bearer was surrounded by a ring of Olympic officials dressed in blue, who were surrounded by a ring of police - it was crazy but I guess necessary considering earlier in the day the torch bearer nearly got mowed down by a protester who managed to get through. The whole procession was booed by the protesters which seemed to drown out any cheering that may have happened.

We stood about 5 metres away from the Downing Street entrance when the torch entered through the heavily armed gates. As the change over of runners happened inside the gates we couldn't see it actually happen but apparently Gordon Brown, the British PM, acknowledged the torch but didn't touch it, possibly a symbol of the growing pressure he has come under in supporting this year's Olympics.

Here is a video of the torch leaving Downing Street. There are also some photos from the day on our photo website.

What happened to spring?

The weather was warming. We'd packed away the scarves, and dusted off the flip flops (you're not allowed to say 'thongs' in this country) ready for some sunshine. Even the flowers had all started to bloom, and the deciduous trees had started growing leaves.

Then we woke up today to this. Snow as far as the eye can see. To be honest I'm not complaining. It's kinda cool to wake up and everything is white. Click on the photo for a couple more.

The Olympic torch is coming through London today. We're still keen to go in and have a look. I'm a little hesitant because I don't really have appropriate footwear for the snow, but I'll make do I suppose.

To be sure, to be sure

Thea and I have booked some flights to go to Dublin in two weeks. We leave on Friday 18 April and get back the following Sunday evening. We are going with our flatmates Sasha and Jean, and a couple of their friends.

I haven't started looking into what's in Dublin, so I'm not sure what we'll be doing. Maybe just looking around. The Guinness factor is there, so I'm sure we'll take a tour (hopefully with some samples...).

For those that have been before, or know anything about it, what's the go? There are leprechauns in Dublin, yeah? With pots of gold at the bottom of rainbows?

Meet my new friend!

I bought an iTouch in New York and I'm hooked! I can listen to music, receive emails and go on the Internet (permitted there is wireless Internet), plan my life with its calendar, check the weather, write lists, store photos, and watch videos! Its great! Having wireless internet in our flat makes it even better, because I can be on the Internet while Matt is on the laptop :) Coolest invention ever. Or is it? What do you think the best invention ever made is?