Despite having lived and worked in and around Reading for the past 8 years, the last time I went to the Reading festival was about 10 years ago…when I did not have the luxury of being able to get a train/taxi home, sleep in my own bed and shower. 

Whilst I wasn’t sure about going to a festival where I only knew 10% of the bands, I thought I would give it a try.  The festival got off to a great start when some random girls started conversation with me in the queue to get wristbands.  I am pleased to say that the friendly, unthreatening and inhibition free conversations flowed throughout the entire weekend.  For me, the people made the festival and a lot of the unfamiliar music pleasantly surprised me.  My list of favourite bands tagged on Spotify has increased significantly as a result of three happy, tiring and memorable days spent in the rain and sun.

Rather than a lengthy writeup, here are my 10 favourite quotes (in no particular order) from the festival…

It was not your fault this time

…which is of course referring to one of the main lyrics to ‘Little Lion Man’ by Momford and Sons.  I include this because they were one of the highlight bands of the whole festival for me due a number of reasons…

• the great album (‘Sigh no more’) I have been listening to for the past few weeks
• the great company I had from Gemma and Liz whilst watching the band…
  
• The awesome performance which included some songs which were emotional and audience arm sway educing, and others which had thousands synchronized in an energetic, drink spilling bounce. 

Here is the emotional opening performance of ‘Sigh no more’…

Would you mind if I sit on your shoulders to get a photo of the band?

…from the random girl (‘LOL’ painted forehead girl) who asked my friend Dan to assist her…

I love how everyone at festivals will say anything, ask anything and in most cases DO anything without inhibitions (see the next quote…).

 

Mate, can I borrow on of your spare cups? I need a pee

…from the random guy in the middle of the crowd who couldn’t make it to the gents toilets on the outer edge of the arena.  He quickly filled up one of the spare paper pint glasses I had, whilst the girls that were with him paid little attention…guess it’s wasn’t THAT unusual for them!

Mate, can I have another cup?

…yep, the same guy grabs another top quote spot 5 mins later when he asks me for ANOTHER cup! He actually managed to fill up 4 before we wondered off to another section of the audience!  Still, at least he didn’t throw the cups over the crowd…

At least it’s cold

If you watch a music festival audience for just a few minutes, you are likely to see music lovers throwing cups of liquid over the audience in front of them at least 5 times.  Now, bearing in mind the story of the guy from the previous quotes, and considering that the majority of people at the event cannot afford to waste drinks bought at festival prices…do you think all of the thrown cups contain alcohol?!

Most of the weekend was about rock music, but there was a refreshing dance music salvation in the NME tent on the Saturday night in the form of the computer game sound inspired Crystal Castles, Enter Shikari and crazily energetic Pendulum.

For some reason, we were in a spot which was repeatable targeted by cup throwers.  Every time we got hit, there was a lot of cringing, followed by “at least it’s cold”, which was the best method we had of determining that the liquid was at worst someone’s unwanted beer.

Here is a small clip of Crystal Castles with was accompanied by an amazing light show in the NME tent…

We’re staying over in Reading, but we haven’t got camping tickets or a hotel

…which sums up the care/consequence free attitude at the festival.  This lot didn’t seem to worried about the fact they were probably going to be sleeping on street (or not at all)…

No we didn’t offer them a place to stay! Well…at least I didn’t! I did leave Dan with them when I went home, so who knows?!….

 

You just lost the game

…which after a few glasses of wine I was very excited to see written on this guys t-shirt…

…even though none of my group knew what it meant, so looked at me strangely as I tried to explain.  For those who don’t know, here are the details…

Lose The Game – The World’s Most Infamous Mind Virus

 

Would you like a poncho?

…from the kind girl who gave me a free poncho as I walked through the Sunday afternoon rain in just a t-shirt, jeans, a flowery hat and a scarf.  Thank you strange girl – I was already soaked, but you did save me getting any wetter.

A British festival would not be the same without a bit of rain and mud…

I’m just a Teenage Dirtbag Baby

…for the awesome, audience pleasing, surprising and very memorable performance from Weezer! 

They sang a few of their hits which I didn’t know (but still enjoyed), as well as covers of ‘Kids’ by MGMT and ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus…

During the hour long performance the lead singer put on a blonde wig, danced on top of the speaker, high fived the entire front row of the the audience, rolled around in the mud and entertained the main stage audience will all of kinds of other stunts!  Weezer went from being a band I only knew from their ‘Buddy Holly’ song which was included as a sample ‘avi’ video file with Windows 95, to one of my favourite live performers this year!

We will meet you by the ice cream van

…which were the instructions my friend gave Mark to another friend Sam so that we could find her when entering the site.  Upon entering the arena, we discovered a little flaw in the plan – there were at LEAST 10 ice cream vans spread around the main arena.

Despite the challenges with finding people in the middle of huge crowds, with strong competition for limited space on the cell network and with numerous different acts playing on different stages at the same time, we did all manage to get together and share the experience of seeing some awesome bands playing live.  Top weekend, with top music and top friends!…

Last night we went to the Pacha restaurant in Ibiza.  The restaurant is part of the club and consists of an outdoor terrace section, along with an indoor air conditioned bar section which also has dining tables.

We had booked for 12:30am (which was practically the only slot available), however when we arrived the (seemingly typical) unwelcoming Spanish reservations manager told us that we had to wait 5 or 10 minutes – that turned out to be more like 35 minutes.  Whilst we were waiting at the entrance to the restaurant, along side an increasingly large number of others who had booked for the same time (all English) a Spanish couple arrived, hugged and kissed the door staff and were immediately escorted to their table. 

Whilst it may well be to the lack of understanding on our part as to how to greet and treat Spanish bar and restaurant staff, there has been an obvious difference in attitude from the waiters and waitresses when they serve Spanish customers, as opposed to us (2 English men and 1 Czech girl).  Establishing and maintaining a network of relationships on the island is essential for getting on to guest lists and receiving the special treatment, but I get the feeling that it would be much easier for us next time if we bring a Spaniard along.

When we were eventually shown to our table, we were pleasantly surprised by the cool decor of the terrace section where we were seated.  Individually lit tables, palm tree surroundings, softly lit fabrics above our heads, rustic beach style chairs and stylishly decorated table tops with a hint of Asian influence created a very relaxing and trendy place to eat dinner.

The menu consists of mostly Spanish fish dishes or a Spanish/Japanese sushi fusion selection, however there were also some impressive meat dishes including chicken, beef and duck.  The sushi was prepared in an open kitchen, by Japanese chefs who went to the excruciating effort of creating rice rolls, wrapped in seaweed with the Pacha cherry shape in the middle using various different coloured raw fish.

I chose the duck leg with sweet potatoes, which was cooked perfectly so that it simply fell off the bone as my knife slid over it…

Ilona opted for sushi rolls (and avoided the wasabi)…

I can’t remember what Mark had, but it didn’t look that interesting on the plate, so I never took a photo of it.

Providing you spend 70 Euros per head or more, entrance to the Pacha nightclub is free after eating in the restaurant.  We didn’t know about the minimum spend, and only ordered one course (we were keen to get in the club ASAP), so we had to top up our bar bill with a few more Vodka Redbulls (which also helped keep us awake since we didn’t leave the restaurant until after 2am!).

Unfortunately, the club itself was PACKED! And apparently Swedish House Mafia who we had gone to see were ill .  We forced our way through the crowds for a while, made it up to the top chill out bar for some fresh air and ended up only staying for a few hours before calling it a night.  On this occasion, the pre-club meal was more to speak of than the club.

British Airways (BA) were kind enough to upgrade my inbound flight last week, so I got to fly Club Class.  BA have 4 classes of travel on long hall flights – world traveller (economy), world traveller plus (premium economy), club class (business) and first class.  The club class seats feature a personal foot stall, a large TV screen, an electric divider for complete privacy and a seat which reclines in to a completely flat position.

As I sat in my seat and watched the plane being boarded, there were a bunch of business people, along with some American families sitting with me in the Club section.  All of the lower classes are towards the rear of the plane , so everyone has to walk past the classes above them in order to reach their seat.  The business people in Club tended to sit with a smug look on their face, as the lower classes held their heads in shame and walked to the back of the plane.  One American couple in particular took pleasure in standing up in their individual seating areas, smiling at passes by in an apparent attempt to hide their feeling of superiority.  Me…well, to be perfectly honest, I just felt a little awkward…

Whilst it felt nice to be sitting in the spacious seats, and exciting to think about the two sets of 3 course meals I would be served, I couldn’t help but think about my previous travel experience of walking past Club class to economy (or sometimes premium economy).  How many times do you think I walked past the business travellers and thought “they look so cool”?  And how many times do you think I walked past and thought “look at those smug gits, with smiles on their faces watching the lower classes walk past them”? 

To avoid looking like one of the ‘smug gits’, I decided to concentrate on reading blog posts on my iPhone with an obvious frown on my face – to make sure everyone knew (or thought at least?!) I wasn’t enjoying watching them walk past.  But then I realised that people may think I was completely blasé about sitting in the business class section of the plane, and I should in fact be happier that I get to spend the next 9 hours in relative luxury.

I decided that there was no way I was going to sit their comfortably…maybe that makes me a better person?  Maybe feeling superior for feeling a better person makes me even more of a smug git than those who enjoy the status of being in Club Class?  Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it, so I tried to ignore the perceptions from people in the other classes and simply enjoy my upgraded seat.

In addition to the spacious private seating area, Club Class also comes with an enhanced plane dining experience.  Before take off the stewardess  handed me a menu with a number of dining choices for the two meals which would be served during the flight (dinner and breakfast).  Whilst the choices were limited, as you can see it’s not too bad considering all of the food was being stored and cooked on the plane…

There was also a good selection of wine and champagne…

Unfortunately, the tasty sounding peppers had run out by the time they came to ask me my selections So I opted for a salad to start, followed by the ravioli.  The food was relatively simple by restaurant standards, but definitely an improvement over the normal packaged chicken or beef combinations served up in economy.  I must admit that I was not actually that hungry, however it didn’t feel right leaving some of the best plane food I had been served, so I slowly worked myself through the starter and main courses, but then opted out of the dessert.

My starter (salad)…

My main course (ravioli)…

Breakfast (fresh fruit, which was followed by a bacon roll)…

The seating layout in Club Class is designed to provide private ‘compartments’, which can be very secluded when the electrically powered divider section is raised.  I was in a compartment next to a mother and her two young children.  Based on the fact that Club Class seats cost at least £2000+ ONE way, I couldn’t help but wonder what she did for a job in order to be able to afford 3 of them!  I did get a little excited when I overheard someone call her ‘Mrs Cameron’, however when I heard her reply in an American accent I realised that she was not our Prime Ministers wife  

After take off I was keen to get the electric divider between our compartments up so that I could enjoy my privacy, however I felt a little awkward and anti social asking to do so (even though we not actually exchanged a single word), so decided to wait for Mrs Cameron to raise the divider herself.  For the first couple of hours it stayed up, however as I tried to get some sleep I guess that the sight of my backside, or the sound of my snoring must have been enough motivation for her to raise the divider and establish our private sleeping areas.

Sleeping in Club Class was a dream! (Couldn’t resist the pun! )  The electrically powered seats recline to a completely flat position, which along with the drop down foot stall creates a very comfortable flat bed.  I managed to fall asleep for several hours, on my stomach and hugging my pillow in the same way I do when sleeping at home.  I actually woke up at one point, went to the toilet and was then keen to get back to my comfy ‘bed’ for another hour or so.  It was by FAR the best nights sleep on a plane I have had.  The only down side was the fact that my flight was only 8:45 long, so after taking off time for dinner, breakfast, take off and landing, the actual amount of time I had to enjoy my sleeper seat was limited.

The Club Class flying experience is truly awesome, and I would love to do it again.  Saying that, the flights cost AT LEAST 5x as much as an economy flight, so I am not sure that I will ever be earning enough money to justify spending that amount of money on a flight, rather than on activities at my holiday destination.  I guess I’ll just have to be REALLY nice every time I go to the airport and hope that BA upgrade me again

I’m on another trip to Redmond, and since I had to stay over the weekend again decided to switch hotels to for a couple of days so that I was in downtown Seattle.  Whilst Bellevue (on the east side of the river) has a great shopping mall and is very close to the Redmond and Sammamish Microsoft campuses, Seattle downtown (on the west side) has much more diverse and arguably lively population and events. 

I decided to stay at the Courtyard Marriot on Lake Union for a few reasons… 1) I’m starting to get a good number of Marriot rewards points, 2) I like their hand lotion, 3) it’s reasonably priced, 4) It was close the annual Fremont Fair site, which a friend (Katy) had promised to introduce me to!

I have recently learned that street festivals are pretty much a weekly occurrence during the Seattle summer, however in all the times I have been here I have never before attended one.  The Fremont Fair is an extra special festival since it celebrates the summer solstice (the first day of summer).  The Fremont event is also very famous (and popular) due to the fact that plays host to the annual Fremont NAKED bike ride! Hundreds of people turn up early in the morning, strip off, get painted head to toe in all kinds of crazy patterns and colours and then parade through the streets for everyone to see.  Unfortunately it was raining in the morning, so decided to skip the parade in favour of Apple store shopping, much to Bjorn’s disapproval…

After a failed Apple store visit (the whole of the Washington state is out of stock of 16gb iPads ), I got showered, got changed and walked from my hotel over to Fremont.  The walk itself was really nice – partly due to the face that walking anywhere in the U.S. is rare, but equally because the whole 2 or so mile stretch was right next to the west side of lake union.  That spot seemed to be dock central! There were hundreds of yachts and power boats, ranging from 1 person 1 sail petite boats, through to who knows million dollar floating places of luxury…

I also walked past a beautiful set of floating homes which were surrounded by lovely trees, colourful plants and a sidewalk made from an old stretch of railway tracks! What an amazing place to live…

After a brisk 40 minute stroll, I crossed the bridge which lead directly in to Fremont.  Despite the fact that I had missed the naked bike ride, I did spot of a group of friends who were in hysterical laughter at two of their group (a man and women) streaking nude down the side of the river! I guess they really got in to the flow of the festival (or of the beer).  As I arrived 4 hours after the naked ride, that was the only signs of nudity I witnessed.

As soon as I arrived at the east side of the bridge, it became quickly apparent that the street festival was still in full flow.  Thousands of people were flowing in and out of the streets which were blocked off to cars and hosting the hundreds of stalls selling food, drink, art and general knick knacks which would normally only be found in specialist stores (or perhaps in some cases at the bottom of the shelf in a far corner of a large department store).

The festival had a deliberate hippy vibe to it, with many people wearing and selling tie died clothes, straw hats and all kinds of beads to wrap around various parts of the body.  Despite the laid back dress sense, the lack of ‘Can I help you’ sales people and the fascination with a long bearded man swinging colourful ribbons around his head, there were stark reminders of Americanism from the numerous (and increasingly annoying) people asking for signatures on petitions for various new laws ranging from the ability for grocery stores to sell alcohol, through to legalising cannabis!

Perhaps also typical of America, the number of food stalls seemed to top any others.  There was a huge selection, everything from friend corn to noodles, and from Chinese to Lebanese!  Katy I and I ended up going for a satisfying cheese burger and fries (well, when in Rome…). 

Last weekend I was at the Isle of White festival in the UK, which was a 3 day event filled with music and involved most people wandering around with some kind of alcoholic drink in their hands at most times.  One thing which was noticeably different in the U.S. was the ring fencing of the alcohol zones.  The beer garden areas were tightly controlled by ‘door’ staff checking everyone’s IDs and ensuring that no drinks were taking outside of the fenced in (literally) area.  We stayed for 1 beer each (well actually, Katy had 1.3 beers and I had 0.7, since I shared some of mine when I noticed she was drinking it WAY faster than me), and then went for a stroll around the rest of the festival.

There were at least 3 stage areas where local bands provided an eclectic selection of music.  Other than whilst drinking beer, we didn’t stay around to watch the bands perform properly – but it was nice to have the music in the background whilst browsing the market stalls.

I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that such thing as a ‘Professional stone balancer’ exists …

I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was some trickery involved (perhaps filed down stone to create a flat surface, or hidden wire), but it was still fun to watch.  It seems that stone balancing is a regular event at the festival as there are other photos (with different stones) on flickr.

One of the first things I noticed when I arrived at the main festival street was the number of people who had painted faces!  I was keen to get mine done, although Katy was not so enthusiastic.  A beer or 2 later, and after a little bit of arm twisting, she changed her mind   Here is what we ended up with…

The festival alcohol zones were only serving beer and I was in the mood for something else, so we decided to go find a bar.  We ended up in the Ballroom bar, mainly due to the face that it had a big ‘Cocktails’ sign outside.  Luckily as we arrived, a couple of were leaving and we managed to grab a curb side high table out the front of the bar.  I love people watching, so this was a great social spot to watch the world go by and talk to randoms.  It turned out that our table was a prime spot for people to place their drinks whilst they went out for a smoke – the bizarre thing was that no one seemed to remember that they had put them their, so NONE of them were collected again!  We ended up with at least 3 full pints and numerous other nearly full bottles and cans on our table.  Great place to sit if you are on a budget!

Since we had some spare seats, we were joined by an American couple who turned out to be really great to chat to.  The guy (Bob) works at Microsoft, so we talked about work for a little, but I then discovered that he is a big dance music fan!  He also knows all of the ‘right’ clubs to go to for proper clubbing!  We ended up exchanging contact details, so I’m looking forwarding to some clubbing nights with Bob next time I am in town   Here is Bob and Katy with her ENOURMOUS ‘slice’ of pizza (or ‘pie’ as Americans call it)…

After Bob and his girlfriend (we think) left, we were joined by 2 girls who also turned out to be really nice and sociable.  We went through the normal conversations of ‘Are you from Australia?’ and ‘You don’t look that old’ (that’s becoming harder and harder to take seriously), and then shared some info about our plans for the night.  One of the girls was quite cute and from Starbucks.  The other one looked a little like Kirsty Alley and was very skilled at ensuring there were no awkward quiet gaps, by quickly asking questions to switch topics when the conversation showed a hint of dropping.  I’m not sure if everyone is always that easy to talk to in Seattle bars, or whether everyone was just in the flow of the festival spirit, but either way it was great to meet random fun people. 

By the time we left the bar we had got through who knows cocktails, had some interesting conversations and were ready to head to the Skylark bar where another friend Chris Niccoli and his band were playing.

There wasn’t much sunshine, however the rain held off (which I was slightly disappointed about due to the fact I had spent $17 on a new umbrella) and the day turned out to be loads of fun.  There is a lot to be said for the lack of pretentious attitude and low inhibitions which the Fremont festival encourages.  If all Seattle street festivals are like Fremont, I would definitely be a regular attendee if I lived here.

Since Dan was the only one in the group who actually knew how to sail, starting out with a small amount of wind actually turned out to be a pretty good idea.  We booked in for 11am on Saturday morning, although we had to wait a little longer to start due to a sailing race which was happening on the same day.  After arriving at 10:30am, watching the professionals rig up their boats, playing a little Frisbee and enjoying the sun of what turned out to the be hottest day of the year so far, we we eventually wheeled out boat…

Once we (well, Dan) had got the sail set up, Mark and I boarded the boat for the first sail with ‘Captain Dan’.  Mark and I had literally ZERO experience sailing, so had to be taught which ropes to hold, when to pull and when to let go.  Dan got a little frustrated with us – although mainly when we were not taking it seriously and arguing over who was a better sailor.  Eventually we go the hang of it, and managed to have a lot of fun whilst also taking our job of ‘owning the front’ sail seriously…

Lessons learnt from captain Dan…

• A flappy sail is an unhappy sail
• ‘Li ho’ – actually, all I learnt was the phrase, no idea what it means
• Starboard=right, Port=left (although I did not learnt why they don’t just say right and left
• When the captain shouts “Ready about”, everyone is supposed to shout “Ready” to let him know they are ready to duck the mast as the boat turns

In addition, I learned that the wind can actually pull that boat, rather than push it!  I really had no idea about this before Dan explained how it worked.  The sail acts in a very similar fashion to a wing (or I suppose more accurately, a wing works in a similar fashion to a sail, since a sail has been around much longer).  So the boat actually sails IN to the wind when it’s curved surface produces a different in wind speeds on each side and results in a pulling effect.  Fascinating! Looking forward to getting some more experience sailing.

Despite not having much wind, we did manage to pick up speed on several occasions.  It was quite exciting each time we had to lean off the edge of the boat in an attempt to balance it each time we picked up speed.  Whilst I have not yet experienced sailing in strong winds, I can see that it requires team work, quick reactions and provides a great adrenaline rush.  Really looking forward to sailing properly in the sea

There were too many of us to all go on the boat at once, so we also had a picnic, Frisbees (which I somehow lost ) and kayaks…

Mark and I went for a circuit of the lake and thanks to the light winds actually managed to beat the boat around.  It was only when we go back to land that we realised we had been using the kids paddles!  Still lots of fun though   Whilst not quite the same, it reminded me of when Ali and I did sea kayaking in Thailand.  Definitely going to do more kayaking this year – maybe down the river in Reading next time.

The rest of the time at the lake was spent enjoying the sun, messing around and getting some awesome shots of (my now lost) Frisbees…

I came here years ago with my parents during a caravanning holiday, at which time I had never been on a plane, so this seemed like the other side of the world!  Now days a 10 hour flight to Seattle seems as easy and common as a train ride in to London (more common at times in fact!), so the west coast of the UK feels just around the corner.

I must admit that it’s made me think about holidays and travelling, and made me realise that some of the sense of adventure has been lost lately.  I used to get excited to arrive at an airport, now days it’s become routine.  I used to feel uncomfortable, anxious, but excited when arriving in a new city or country, now days the places I visit do not provide enough unfamiliarity to provide a significant challenge.  Travelling in itself used to provide enough unique experiences to make feel like I was growing with every trip, that has not been the case recently.

Whilst I still love to travel and visit new places, I do recently feel a need to seek out ways to get outside my comfort zone.  Perhaps it’s physical challenges, perhaps it’s meeting new groups of people, perhaps it’s avoiding the comforts of hotels, perhaps it’s simply new locations/cultures I need…not sure yet, but definitely need to shake things up a bit! The question I can’t help but think about is ‘what then?’.  Is the pursuit of new experiences and challenges become a driving force in life and a source of constant personal growth?  Or simple a source of frustration and disappointment?  I think that former – as long as you spend more time ‘doing’ than you do ‘dreaming’.  Of perhaps the secret it to maintain a desire of change and challenges, whilst also being content from familiar and comfortable things.

In the mean time, here are a few pics of the lovely town of Looe, a beautiful spot for to enjoy one of the rare British days of sun, with fish and chips, Mr Whippy ice creams and crab fishing

Sailing boats by the harbour (no one was sailing today)…

A great spot for crab fishing…

Ye Old Lifeboat Station…

Tonight was a sausage fest at Windsor race course!  Yes that’s right, it was the ‘Best of British Sausage Festival’ horse racing night. 

Despite living just down the road, I have never been Windsor race course before tonight, so wasn’t sure what to expect.  We got Club Enclosure tickets, which got us entry to a nice section of the course with champagne/Pimms bars, plenty of space to watch the finish line close up and of course – the sausage festival…

10 or so English sausage producers proudly cooked their speciality sausages and handed out free samples to the visiting crowds.  All guests were supposed to vote for their favourite sausage, and the winning company supposedly was rewarded with an annual contract to sell their sausages at Windsor race events.  My personal favourites were from ‘Lewis of Sunningdale’, who cooked some lovely soft pork sausages which exploded and melted in my mouth with every bite…mmm…it’s nearly 11pm but I could still some now if I had any.  I think I will have to pay their farm shop a visit some soon!  

I also tried the Mexican food, which was OK, although I was slightly disappointed with the American style liquid cheese rather than good old grated Monterey Jack!

We were told that Lewis won the competition – no doubt partly down the very entertaining pair running the stall, who kept asking if there were any vegetarians and then offered anyone who put their hand up a bread roll

The Racing…

The event lasted for two and a half hours, featuring about 15 or so different horses over 6 races, with 30 minutes gaps in between to place bets, eat and drink champagne…

None of us had any idea what we were doing, so most of our selections were based on either how ‘pretty’ the jockey’s jersey looked, random numbers which popped in to our head or those horses with the most amusing names.  Keith and I did try to pick those with average odds, but quickly learned that it’s VERY difficult to successfully bet tactically.  We missed the first race because we arrived to late, and I mistakenly bet on the wrong race for my first bet, so I also technically missed the second race.  By the fifth race, none of us had one a single penny, but we decided to give it one last try for the sixth and final race…

I placed 3 bets, which totalled up to £7 (we had some vouchers to get free and discounted bets).  For one of my voucher discounted bets I was asked to choose three horses, so I selected three with varied odds – not actually having a clue what the bet meant and what I needed to win! 

The race finished, and 2 of the 3 I had selected came within the top three.  Zoe and I had similar, but slightly different bets, but neither of us thought we had actually won anything.  We went to check anyway, and I was VERY surprised to hear that I had won ‘52’, but then even MORE surprised to hear that it was 52 pounds, rather than 52 pence as I had initially thought!

It’s nice to actually get back from a night out in profit

It is the warmest day of the year in the UK so far (28 degrees or so), so it was a great evening to be outside, drinking champagne and watching the sun go down to the sound of horses galloping and people cheering.  Windsor is a lovely place, and the racecourse is a great place to spend any evening in the sun.

There is a large selection of Asian food to choose from, and an image of each menu choice is projected on to the plate in front of you as you navigate the options.

Despite appearing to be very similar to Microsoft Surface, the tables are way less sophisticated and in fact are merely a projector above each table, which displays a clever menu system to be navigated using a cursor controlled by a touch pad in the corner of the table.  It’s still VERY cool though!

As well as selecting food and drink, you can also use the menus to change the background, find out about local attractions and play games!  We started to play 2 player battle ships, however it’s a little silly because each player is shown a small display with their configuration on it – which is very easy for the person opposite to see and cheat.  Again – still very cool though

The food was amazing! There were four of us, so we ended up ordering a combination of things including fish, beef salad, cinnamon chicken (one of my favourites), duck pancakes and more.  We also all ordered dessert, and ended up coincidentally ordering exactly the same thing – Macaroon and white chocolate moose – mmmm

We also managed to get through 2 bottles of champagne, although I must admit that 2 glasses were knocked over – one by Ilona, and I forget who did it the second time The staff were very insistent on cleaning up the spill thoroughly – but were not too worried that we smashed a glass.

Our ‘lunch’ ended up lasting over 2 hours, and we were all STUFFED after the three courses of food which arrived in a random order (whenever it was ordered/cooked), but at a steady pace.

Will definitely be going back there again! Great experience and lovely food – would like to try it at night next time.

After our great ski trip to Courchevel last month, I am totally hooked on skiing (for now at least ).  I have been on 4 weeks of business trips to Seattle over the past 5 weeks (was home for 1 week in between), so decided to take advantage of this second one to get in a ski trip in to Crystal mountain, which is about 1 hours drive from Redmond.

We started the day early, I met Karen and Gavin in a park and ride car park at 7am.  The day didn’t quite start as planned, since when I stepped out of the car and felt how cold it was, I realised that I had left my ski jacket in the hotel! Luckily we were only 10 mins from the hotel at this point, so there was plenty of time to turn back. 

Once we had picked up my jacket, the picturesque journey to Crystal began.  Karen had a big 4×4 Infiniti car which was spec’d out with every gadget and comfort item I can imagine – it even beeped at her if she got too close to the edge of the freeway lane!  Here is a little clip of the comfortable journey…

Since we were running a little late, Karen was in a hurry, so decided to overtake some slow (ish) moving vehicles, which attracted the attention of a local law enforcement officer who decided to pull us over with a blast of his siren and some pretty red and blue flashing lights.  Karen spectacularly talked her way out of a traffic ticket, although I did have to drive the car for the rest of the day (being the only one who had a driving license).  Quite the journey…

We did eventually arrive, with all of our stuff, and with no traffic fines.  The lifts opened at 8:45 and we turned up at 9am, so not too bad considering

The snow at the bottom of the mountain was a little icy and slushy, however further up and on faces exposed to the sun, the conditions were great!  I had both layers of my jacket on, so I was actually too hot at some points.  I cooled down by waiting for some of the ski lifts in my t-shirt.  There were actually a bunch of guys skiing and snowboarding in just t-shirts or vest tops!  I’m not quite confident enough to do that – it would be very painful if they fell over!

We started off with a few easy runs, but progressively took on more challenging slopes, until we eventually headed for the double black diamonds!…

Double Black Diamonds

These are sections of the mountain which are off piste, and considered to be fairly advanced (as you can tell from the warning sign).  We successfully managed to get down the slope.  I started off a little cautious, but after I made a few turns and built up my confidence I managed to get down the slope at a reasonable speed (relative to the speed I started at least).  Gavin had a little tumble on the way down, and then struggled for 5 minutes to retrieve his skis on the very steep slope.  The rest of us were too far down to go up and help him, so we had planted out ‘butts’ on the snow and waited patiently.

So besides Gavin’s little adventure, the run in the photo above did not actually turn out to be too bad, however it got worse!  We took a lift up to the top of the mountain and were faced with a choice of icy moguls or a VERY steep drop (check it out in the first pic below!!!)…

Here is Karen waving from above as we attempted to ski down…

Gavin and I attempted to get down the slope gracefully in our skis, but failed miserably.  We ended up cutting through some trees on to a more powdery (although just as steep) slope.  Eventually we managed to get ourselves down to the piste and picked up the pace.  Here is a little video clip of Gavin and Tom emerging from the trees…

It is an amazing feeling to be on the side of the mountain in snow that no one yet skied! I want to do it again!! Here is Karen sitting on some of the fresh powder…

Lunch and Apres Ski…

Whilst the variety of bars and restaurants did not match larger ski resorts, the atmosphere of eating and drinking outside was not lost. 

We had lunch and after ski wine/beer at the Bullwheel, which is right at the bottom of mountain in the same place where cars are parked to get on the first ski lift.  We happened to be there on the same day as ‘Brew Fest’, which was essentially a beer festival and bar-b-q on the decking area.

There was a good selection of food, although typically American (I had a chicken burger and fries).  The only downside was that the place was PACKED, so it was a little tricky to find a good place to sit outside (plenty of room inside).

At the end of the day, Gavin and I finished the day off with a glass of beer/wine whilst we waited for Karen and Tom to do one more suicide run of the double black diamond! (they survived).

The drive home seemed to take longer than the journey there – most likely because Karen was driving at a ‘little’ above the speed limit on the way there, and I was driving with a accurately configured cruise control speed on the way back. 

The season will be way over by the time I am next in the U.S., so all there is to say is…”Crystal Mountain, thanks for the ride, see you next season!”…

Huge thanks to Karen and Tom for guiding me and Gavin on the mountain, and an extra thanks to everyone for great company and an awesome day out! Can’t wait for next year’s ski season – roll on November!