My first UK movie premiere

So yesterday I was working away and was presented with a pass to the Just My Luck premiere and an after party ticket! I'd almost forgotten about these lovely random perks that come with the movie business. Given it was around 4pm when they gave me the ticket and we had to be there at 6pm I didn't have time to do a mad dash home to put on party clothes.

So there's me, in a summery vintage dress (which I love, and picked up for a bargain at Camden, but clearly not for after 5 wear) boots and ultra-classy backpack, strolling alongside my colleagues - who were all prepared for the event and dressed to the 9's - down the red carpet in Leicester Square. There were literally hundreds of screaming fans cheering us on (I think it was for us, and not the band McFly - the latest objects of the British tweens affection - who star in the movie and were walking next to me) and photographers and film crews were going crazy, by the time we actually reached the cinema I was ready for a very stiff drink. I settled on the free bottle of water and Guylian chocolate provided for each attendee.

The movie itself was a bit lame but I was surrounded by recent UK Big Brother evictees and crap UK boy bands and someone behind me chanting 'Grace you're a disGrace' (catch phrase of Grace's recent eviction) so it was quite entertaining anyway.

After the movie we made our way to the 'Masquerade Ball' themed after party which was close by at some funky old theatre style venue. The place was filled with helium balloons and everyone was given a tacky glitter mask to wear. Free tequila sunrises, wine, beer and champagne flowed freely but I only stayed for a short while as I was well and truly knackered and didn't want to make a disgrace of myself in front on new work colleagues.

So that's all the interesting news I have for now.

Until next time, bye for now xx

London Living

Well this is one of the few weeks where I am literally getting paid to do nothing - so rather than boring myself to tears I thought I'd try and set up my own blog. So far so good. Below I have posted the group emails sent to date (yes I know they have been way too few and even further between!).

So I guess now all that is left to do is try and remember all of the weird and wonderful things I have been up to since I last updated you all. I think it will make it much easier if I group them into chapters.

Ren sees the sights:

One of the first things you need to do in London is to get your bearings and not to take the tube map literally! How lucky I was to have Carmel to give me the heads up on the tube, where to wave to Big Ben, dodgy areas to avoid, and most importantly – where the best shopping can be done.

Whilst I’m yet to see Buckingham Palace or the London Eye I have ticked the following areas off the list; Archway (lived there with Carmel for 8 weeks), Tufnell Park, Kentish Town, Camden, Arsenal, Holloway Road, Highbury, Kings Cross, Swiss Cottage, St John’s Wood (where to took photos of us walking over the famous Abbey Rd crossing - during our Beatle’s Magical Mystery Tour!), Angel, Old Street, Liverpool St, Hoxton Square, Aldgate East, Brick Lane, Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Stepney Green, Bethnal Green, Canning Town, Oxford Circus, Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road, Goodge Street, London Bridge, Kensington, Knightsbridge (home of the ridiculously overpriced Harrods), Piccadilly Circus, ‘She Bu’ (Shepherd’s Bush), East Acton, Hammersmith and Wimbledon!

Ren discovers London nightlife:

After surviving my first week in London, Carmel and I thought it would be worthwhile going out to celebrate – so we headed off to Angel, an area that is almost more like Melbourne than Melbourne. First stop The Living Room, on Essex Road, where we met up with some of Carmel’s work mates who were incredibly drunk so I ended up just mostly listening to the music duo playing really fantastic indie covers. Somehow ended up with the guitarist’s business card – he had titled himself as a ‘Sonic Creator’ so needless to say I probably won’t be phoning him! After we couldn’t handle the work friends any longer we headed to another bar The Warwick, also on Essex Road, and sat back and enjoyed some lovely beats and a much more relaxed environment – I really like that place!

The following week the girls stepped it up a notch and headed to The End, a fantastic club in Central London. Cheyne from the Archway house works as a barman there and he put our names on the door so we didn’t have to line up for an hour to get in. Layo & Bushwacka were playing their monthly 8 hour set but I’d have to say only about 1.5 hours of it was really and truly pumping – but we managed to dance away the night anyway! My feet were incredibly sore the next day.

House parties are highly underrated and should occur much more frequently I’ve decided. We had a shindig at the Archway house for one of the occupants – Jaden’s 30th birthday. Woot – it was great! And the best part was I didn’t have to catch a bus or tube to get home afterwards. Some funny photos of this night will be available as soon as I can upload them somewhere.

I finally got the opportunity to check out East London nightlife and take Lauren out for her first London drinks when a school/ family friend from home, Matt, had birthday drinks in Shoreditch at The Redchurch. Really nice little bar with Coopers for sale to keep the Aussie’s happy. Was great to catch up with Matt who I hadn’t caught up with for a few years and another school friend Dave who I hadn’t seen for about 10 years!

One of the more memorable nights out took place in a rather lush hotel in Covent Garden - which hosted an interesting psy trance party. Dan and myself met up with Linda who we met in our Turkey travels and danced the night away there - and at the after party in Brixton (yes it was scary there!).

Another outing with Matt and Dave – Vibe Bar off Brick Lane for the Australia/ Brazil game last Sunday afternoon, wow what an experience! A packed house of predominantly Aussie’s continued to aussie-aussie-aussie-oi-oi-oi and drown out the Brazil camp even though we lost to them a miserable 2-0. What choice did we have but to drown our sorrows in beer and carry on for way too long on a school night – but we survived and lived to tell the tale.

The Friday night just passed Lauren and I checked out our new digs in Angel/ Islington (we both just moved to new flats in Islington) and wandered up and down Essex Road and Upper Street before settling on my favourite – The Warwick.

Saturday afternoon/ night was spent in my new local (it is literally a 30 second walk from my front door), The Baring, drinking Magners on ice with Lauren, Chris (a friend from Village just arrived in London), and later joined by our Archway house friends – Carmel, Jaden, Dean, Corinne & Jen. I became quick friends with management and managed to get Phil Collins off and my music on the CD player toot sweet! As the bar shut at 11.30pm we made a mad dash to the off-license to grab takeaways to carry on further and the lovely manager from The Baring gave me my very own Magners glass and a champagne bucket full of ice to take home! We spent the next few hours breaking into the leafy square outside my flat and drinking our beloved Magners.

Now that I'm working I am planning to make it to as many gigs as my budget can afford!

Ren gets a job:

After 5 weeks in Turkey and another 5 in London it was well and truly time for me to start work again – my bank account was wearing thin. So off I went to register myself with Hudson Recruitment. Wow what a professional and friendly outfit they are! I have been so well looked after and really pleased with them. My first real assignment was to fill in for the PA to the Senior Vice President at 20th Century Fox – I can’t escape the wonderful world of movies. That assignment lasted for 6 days, and straight on from that I helped the Fox HR team for another 6 days and was then asked to stay another week filling in at the Senior Vice President’s office again while they are all in Amsterdam at CineExpo (I’m really just here to make sure the place doesn’t burn down but I’m not complaining as it is good money and I have free computer time to do things like create a blog!).

As soon as this assignment is finished I will be going to work full time, still at Fox, EA to the Managing Director of UK Theatrical. My boss is a lovely guy from Liverpool with a great sense of humour. I get my own office overlooking Soho Square – I’m really quite chuffed with how this turned out!

Visitors from home:

So far we have had Robbie Red Fin and Simon visit us on the way through to their new digs in the South of France, if you don't mind. Dan stayed a while before heading home after his mammoth journey around the world! All three of them joined Carmel, Lauren and I for a good old Aussie reunion in the Archway backyard which somehow grew into a thriving house party with costumes, wigs and all. It was hilarious seeing everyone at the same time (and in wigs)!

I caught up with my Auntie Jeanne a few weeks ago - she was in London briefly before heading to New York to continue her globe trotting. It was so great to see her and we had a lovely lunch in a tea room opposite Harrods in Knightsbridge and then had a look at the most ridiculously overpriced store I've ever been to - I give Harrods the big elitest THUMBS DOWN.

Chris, a friend from Village days, also landed in the UK a few weeks ago and we have caught up a few times - always good to see friendly faces from home.

Other bits:

There is no TV in my house (not that there is really anything worth watching on British TV) so I’ve rediscovered my love of reading and have also discovered many great 2nd hand book shops. When looking over my ‘new’ book collection I realised that they are pretty much all about London, bands, debauchery and heartbreak – very rock and roll.

World Cup mania!!!! It has been so great being in London during the World Cup - the city basically shuts down when England are playing. I have seen pretty much all of the Australia games at pubs on the big screen at normal times - none of this getting up at 2am or 4am! It's been nail-bitingly good!!!

Well that's it for now, I will be sure to make much more regular updates and also find a site to host all my photos for you to peruse.

Take care - bye for now xxx

2/5/06: London Calling (back posting)

Hey everyone

Sorry it's been a few weeks since I've made any real contact with anyone - been on the move! I arrived in London on Saturday night and am staying with Carmel in Archway until I get on my feet and work out what this city is all about!

Last time I wrote I was still in Turkey in Selcuk with Claire, Poinus and Alice, so much has happened since then I'll do my best to back track and update you. Dave, who we met on our boat cruise, came to Selcuk and we left the girls and went off for an adventure to Cannakule which is really close to Troy and Gallipoli. Stayed there a few nights and we did a tour of Troy which was quite boring to tell you the truth but I was extremely touristy and had my photo taken in the replica of the Trojan horse. Cannakule is one of the most modern towns I came across in Turkey and there were more young people in this town than I think I saw in the whole of the country - due to there being a university there. There is another Trojan horse replica by the marina in Cannakule - this one was used in the movie Troy, starring that handsome Brad Pitt.

I headed to Istanbul on 22 April to meet back up with Claire and Poinus. That night Claire and I hit a psy party in this huge old building, it may have been a cistern but we are a little unsure, and partied on to SUN Project and some random Turkish djs. The breakdown of attendees of this party went something like 95% Turkish men, 4% Australian guys and 1% Australian women... It was actually a little scary and as females we couldn't even really go to the bathroom alone without being harrassed. The security guards were awesome and let Claire, myself and a few other girls dance right up in front of the djs and protected us from all the guys! Had an absolute ball and ended up having after drinks at a hostel with some of the SUN Project guys.

On 23 April Dan arrived back from Israel and Drew, Narelle and Mike arrived back from Egypt so we had a pretty big night catching up and carrying on! Unfortunately a few of us (well, Dan and I!) didn't get any sleep that night and we had to leave on the Anzac tour at 5pm the next day - ah well it was worth it for the laughs. The tour bus dropped us at Anzac Cove at around 11pm on Anzac Eve and we camped out in our sleeping bags under the stars. I ended up next to some funny Kiwi guys so I only managed a few hours sleep before being woken up for the start of the dawn service. I was really surprised when I opened my eyes to see Andrew Denton only a few metres away on the stage starting the broadcast back home! The service was really moving and I'm so glad we had planned to attend. After the dawn service we made our way up Lone Pine for the Australian ceremony. Because we were all so tired we just found a patch of grass and flaked there for most of the day and let the ceremony take place around us. Most of the day I was feeling pretty reflective about all of the people that had lost their lives on the very patch of ground I was laying on and in the surrounding areas. I will never forget the experience. The next day we got to go back to the site and do a battlefield tour and were able to spend time at Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, The Neck and the other areas of Gallipoli without the huge crowds that had been there the day before.

After the Anzac tour we headed back to Istanbul for our last 2 days together as a travelling group. Unfortunately due to lack of sleep from the few days before the tour and probably the overnight campout at Anzac Cove - I came down with tonsillitis which in turn became a nasty cold. Not the nicest way to feel when you are trying to make the most of the last days with your mates overseas, and also get a grip that you are about to venture out on your own... I hadn't yet booked a ticket out of Turkey because they were all so expensive due to Anzac Day. So on the afternoon of the 27th (Thurs), everyone was getting their bags ready to go and we were hanging out in the common area of our hostel and got talking to some guys that were also staying there. Somehow they convinced me to come with them to Amsterdam for Queens Day weekend the next morning - rather than sitting around in Turkey any longer feeling sorry for myself! Managed to book a very cheap flight and rang Slade to tell him I was on my way! We got a mini bus to the airport at 4am that morning and made it to Amsterdam around 11am. The guys went to meet their friends and I hung around Centraal Station and Slade came to meet me - it was so good to see him! It was a shame I was feeling so terrible but Slade did a great job of showing me the sights of Amsterdam, wow what a beautiful city.

Despite Amsterdam being so lovely I was pretty keen to continue on my way to London so the next day (Saturday) I got a train from Amsterdam to Hoen Van Holland and then got the worlds largest and fastest ferry over the English Channel - this meets up with another train that drops you right at Liverpool St Station! I met a guy from Sydney before the ferry ride who had been playing Rugby Union for Rotterdam that weekend and he gave me the heads up on the ferry - I had no idea when booking the ticket but it was more like a luxury cruise liner with bars, restaurants, a casino area, duty free shopping, 4 cinemas - the works!!!! Had a great time and the four hour trip flew. I arrived at Liverpool St around 9pm on Saturday night and the beautiful Carms came to meet me so I didn't have to stress about getting on the wrong Tube line or anything!

I have to admit I'm pretty chuffed to finally be here - and Carms has been great at showing me around town and we spent a great day at Camden Market yesterday. The clothes are just too good! The next missions I have are to find my own place and some work - both seem a little daunting at the moment but I'll just have to bite the bullet and sort them out as soon as possible.

I'm sure I've forgotten to tell you about a billion other things that have happened over the past few weeks but if you really want to know anything else just ring me. I picked up new SIM card about an hour ago - the number is +44 7842 653 124 - I'll put it in my phone as soon as I make it home.

Hope you are all doing really well and look forward to hearing what is going on wherever you all are! If you want to take a look at some other people's photos of our Turkey trip - look here:
http://www.antgod.net/turkey.nsf mine will be up on there too as soon as I post a CD of them home.

London ppl - if anyone hears of someone with a spare room in a not too scary area let me know! Also there there is a Hospital Records party on Friday 12 May at Heaven (yes I'm aware it's meant to be a gay club but High Contrast is playing so I'm willing to give it a go!) so if you want to come let me know.

Turkey 9 - I'm missing you all so much, it was so great to have shared those 5 weeks with you and I wish you all didn't have to go home! I hope you are all settling back into home life easily and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Ant - I'm going to post a CD to Claire tomorrow with all of my turkey photos on it.

Lots of love to all
Renee xxx

17/4/06: Turkey Part 2 (back posting)


Hi All

Happy Easter! To all my friends from Calvary I hope you had an amazing weekend - I was thinking of you all heaps. So I've finally figured this gmail business out, to those that didn't receive Turkey Part 1 and would like to read up on the first leg of our trip just email me and I will forward it to you.

The last time I wrote I was still swaying after we got rescued from our yacht cruise gone wrong, it feels like months instead of just a week and a bit has passed since then. Apparently I'm getting 'travellers fog' and my brain has turned a little mushy so apologies if what follows doesn't read as it should!

On the Sunday night after the boat cruise we took a bus to Goreme, Cappadocia, woah this place was out of this world and by far the highlight of my trip so far. I seriously felt like I'd landed in the middle of Star Wars Episode 1 (which was partly filmed there when Anikin was young) or the set of the Flinstones! The bus pulled in there at 5am and instead of going to bed we climbed a hill behind our hostel and watched the sunrise and all the hot air balloons take off over the fairy chimneys. I will email you some photos shortly but it is basically all caves and 'fairy chimneys' that people still live in today. We stayed at Travellers Cave in a little cave room that was so cute. Spent four days there and the crew got up to all sorts of shenanigans - hot air ballooning, scooters, tour of an underground city (this was awesome but a little claustrophobic being so far underground in some pretty confined areas) and the Star Wars site, a few late boozy nights and some general site seeing!

We really didn't want to leave this area as it was so beautiful but on the Thursday morning the crew split up for the first time since we left Melbourne - Dan headed to Israel, Ant headed to Istanbul on his way back to Australia and Drew, Narelle and Mike headed to Egypt. It was really sad to say goodbye to them but we will be meeting up again (all except Ant) on 23 April in Istanbul for the Anzac tour. Claire, Lauren and I had been told about a place called Lake Egidir that was meant to be beautiful and we could go fishing etc. there so we caught a night bus out and got there around 2am Friday morning. After some sleep at this highly recommended pension, Lale, (which turned out to be the worst so far!) - we got up to find it was raining and howling wind and it wasn't going to let up for a few days and there was absolutely nothing to do in those conditions! After hearing this we pretty much ran into town and booked bus tickets out of there at 4.30pm that afternoon - back to coast we went.

Caught the bus to Antalya and missed our connecting bus to Kas by 5 minutes, devasted at the thought of having to stay in boring Antalya for the night we decided to get a different bus to Fethiye to the hostel we'd stayed in after the yacht cruise - endured the most uncomfortable and smelly (Turkish men don't have the best personal hygiene..) mini bus ride there and arrived around 2am. We were getting pretty sick of buses by this time. The 3 person room promised to us had been given away so we ended up having to share a dorm with the hostel staff! This was fine but one of the guys snored really bad. Spent the Saturday there shopping and cruising around, Lauren braved a Turkish hairdresser to get her hair dyed, they had about 6 people working on her at the same time, and spent the afternoon drinking in a pub near the marina. Headed back to the hostel and one of the guys working there took us and another guy Mark, also from oz, to a bar called Deep Blue - it was full of loud gross Turkish guys so we only stayed for a few hours. As it turns out Mark's uncle manages The End in the UK (my drum and bass friends will know how good this news is) and he can probably arrange some work for me there - nice!

Whilst it was good to be back by the coast and in a marina town, we'd already seen most of Fethiye so the next day (yesterday) we took a bus to Selcuk where our friend Alice has been working in a hostel (more like a budget hotel though it's really nice) and we are stayed here for a few days. Today we pretty much just cruised around Selcuk which is a really cute little town with heaps of cafes and shops and a few quiet places just to sit and enjoy coffee or whatever. Actually we found the BEST coffee I've had since leaving Melbourne today - I will definitely be visiting them again before leaving! I'm so sick of Nescafe with powdered milk... I was spoiled for too many years working on Chapel St surrounded by the best coffee.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Pamukkale to see the calcium pools - the pictures look amazing so I'm really looking forward to it. The rest of the week is open, not sure what I'm going to do yet. The only plan I have is to be back in Istanbul by 22nd April and we head off on the Anzac tour on the 24th for 3 days. Really looking forward to the Anzac Day ceremony - Nan I will be thinking of you heaps while I am there. I am hoping to book a flight to the UK for the 27 April.

We have all been very healthy and happy - me and the girls are getting really sick of the Turkish men though, they really don't respect women at all. I have built up a very thick skin to them and also anyone trying to sell us anything!

Righty-o I'd better sign off now but look forward to hearing how everyone went over the Easter weekend. If I'm missing people, especially from Village, on these emails just let me know so I can update my address book - it was all pretty crazy when I left Melbourne that I'm sure I forgot to punch in a few addresses.

Miss you all a lot but travelling is definitely agreeing with me and I just really wish some of you could be here to share these amazing experiences. Will write again soon!!!!

Much love
Ren xox

Link to Turkey photos


http://www.antgod.net/turkey.nsf

9/4/06: Turkey Part 1 (back posting)

Hi everyone

İm sorry it has taken me weeks to make contact with anyone - it has been an amazing few weeks and internet access has been few and far between. İ will do my best to fill you all in using a ridiculous Turkish keyboard whilst still swayıng after a 3 night yacht cruise on the Med!

The flight over was interestıng to say the least - Emirates are far from the best airlıne anymore. During our 8 hour stop over in Dubai we caught a taxi to the only 7 star hotel in the world for a lavısh breakfast and were treated like kıngs and queens for a few hours - it was brilliant, highly recommend. Arrived in İstanbul at night were we met up wıth our favourite Aunty Carms and all made our way to the Bahaus Guest House. Spent 2 nights there and went exploring the city which is incredible. Highlights were the Blue Mosque and the Aqueduct.

Next we caught a flight down to Antalya and picked up a hire van which Ant very skillfully negotiated around on the wrong side of the road! We stopped at a shopping mall where we had to get security scanned to enter and stocked up on camping supplies. We then made our way to the Soulclıpse Festival where we spent 7 days with about 7000 hippies in the mud, on the dancefloor, watching a solar eclıpse at 2pm in the afternoon which will be etched into my mind forever - truly amazing, swimmıng in a river that flowed directly from the snowy mountains - invigorating!, and speaking to many people from many different nations. One night around our camp fire we had friends from Australia, İtaly, Czech Republic, İndia, İsrael and Japan - you dont get to experience that everyday.

After the festival we drove the bus to Olympos and stayed in the Turkmen Treehouses for 3 nights where we enjoyed hot showers, buffet dinners and once again meeting lots of people from around the world. Mind you there are so many people from Melbourne here it is not funny!!! We basically relaxed apart from the Soulclipse after party the tree houses hosted one night - just what we wanted, more trance music - not... İt was also a short walk to the beach where İ had a quick dip in the Med Sea. Very strange to have rocks and no sand on the beach, but it was so beautiful.

Next up we were picked up from the treehouses and taken to our yacht where we set sail from Olympos towards Fethıye. On our yacht we had the origınal crew of myself, Claire, Dan, Drew, Mike, Narelle, Ant, Carmel and Lauren plus we ended up wıth another 8 people which was great however one of us ended up wıth no bed! It didnt matter too much as İ slept up on the deck every night wıth a few others which was really peaceful. The first day we only made it about 15 minutes into the sea and the anchored for the night. The next day we visited some ancient ruins and made it a little further along the coast. That night we ended up having to start sailing at 1am to beat a storm that was due the next mornıng.

Because of this we missed out on having breakfast ın Butterfly Valley and seeing a lot of other sites. We were sailing along side a buddy yacht and the next day we all had to jump on that one and we attempted to back track to Butterfly Valley however the yacht broke down! Our yacht had to come and tow us back to the bay. Due to this and also bad weather we ended up having to stay in the same spot all day and night which was annoyıng but we ended up gettıng the dınghy to some more ruins - St Nicholas - and climbing to the top of this. The view was breathtaking.

The next day (yesterday) our captain decided to try and brave the conditions and take us to Fethıye. Wow İ wısh he had never trıed! We only made it a short dıstance in horrific waves when the motor died! They had to put the sails up to try and steer us back to the bay - this took a long time - meanwhile we are all glued to our seats to avoid being thrown overboard and to keep our breakfast down. We had 2 small dınghys roped onto the front of the yacht to steer us ın the rıght direction and after a few hours we were close enough for another dınghy to come out and take us and our luggage to shore. We are all literally still swaying! But very glad to be on dry land. The yacht company put us all up in a hostel last night for free and included a few meals to make up for the trip being such a write off. Whilst we didnt see all of the sights we were meant to, the cruise was amazing and relaxing and we did feel very spoiled to take part in something like that.

Well that brings us up to today and my hands are sore from trying to use this dinosaur keyboard and figure out which keys to use! Tonight we are getting a night bus to Goreme - İ wıll update further after that.

Having an amazing time, this country is beautiful. Miss you all lıke crazy and please forward thıs on to anyone İ have mıssed.

Love to all,

Ren xoxox