What did you do to day? I got stuck in an tiny elevator wiith 8 other people.

But i'll get back to that.

First, let me apologise for being horrible at blogging. As i go through whats been new in my life you will understand.

Starting way back in August (August 12th to be exact) i got the internet in my new flat. However we didn't get it up and running 'til the 15th. On the 17th Thom and Sara came out to see me here. Sara was my roomate this past year at IU and Thom was a good friend. Sadly i was still working constantly so i didn't get to spend nearly the time i wanted to with them. We did some fun stuff and went to the aquarium, the national gallery and Camden markets (nothing really new to me, but still a lot of fun). And of course we had our beer pong tournament rematch with Chris. "Team better than you, aka the Mercy Killing Squad" faced a horrible defeat at the hands of "Ashes United". Ashes united was Chris and Matt teamed up for pong victory, putting aside their differnces in the Cricket (which is still going on here--could be an interesting week if England actually pulls it out and wins).

They stayed for 10 days and the same morning they left, Matt and i later headed to Stansted airport to catch an improtu flight of our own. We slept in the airport due to a very early flight and by 9am on Saturday morning were in super sunny PORTUGAL! We hadn't planned much of it so we kinda winged it and wound up about 4.5 hours south of Porto (or an hour north of Lisbon) in a town called Nazare. Now we (or i) knew that there'd been forest fires in Portugal and go figure the luck that one place we pick is near them. See the smoke in one of pictures and the airplanes bringing water to the fires. We rented a little room in a house from this Portugese woman and initially had this German couple staying next to us as we had taken a taxi to town together and as a result had wound up staying with us as they kinda nomiated me speaker. This may sound daft, but Portugese is NOTHING like Spanish. But we managed. Nazare reminded me of Santorini, Greece with its big hill overlooking the beach. What a sunset though! Matt and i laid on the beach and read books, played scrabble, played frisbee and even built a sandcastle. I got horribly sunburned on my legs the first few days there. Ouch. We stayed in Nazare for 5 nights and then spent the last night back up in Porto to catch an early flight. I'll give you two guesses as to what comes from Portugal. Give up? Port. Needless to say our last night was quite a drunken one with the best port i've ever had--a bottle of Sandeman (and i'm not really a huge fan on it--tho i'd be lying if i didn't say i half said yes to the bottle thanks to the name and the dark looking figure on the front). Overall it was an amazing trip and yes incredibly romantic (for some reason when everyone hears we we went to Portugal together the response is "How romantic").

Got back to London on the following Thursday and then being an idiot i went into work. Work has been going well although my paycheque was not really as high as expected due to being accidently taxed "emergency tax". Jerks. Saturday was the Grand Final for Matt's Australian rules football club. Not sure if i mentioned it before but Aussie rules footy is kinda of like Rugby mixed with Soccer and the violence of American football. And i've kinda grown fond of it. We had AMAZING weather and watched both games (2 out of the 4 teams playing were in the club Matt belongs to (the 2nd and 1sts...thing like JV and Varsity). Anywho both won their games in an awesome show. We went off to the bar to celebrate which didn't last as long as expected due to me being in the sun all day and drinking straight from 1pm-10pm and only eating a sandwich. Live and learn.

That brings us up to this past week. Oh! Right also, when i got back from Portugal Amy (whose now started working with me at Euroffice (she's in the customer service dept)) informed me we'd be getting flatmates finally after having had our flat to ourselves for 2 whole months. The new guys (well actually its a guy and a girl) are nice tho i haven't really had much of a chance to talk to them.

Tuesday was Dulcy's birthday and we all went out to a bar in Covent Garden called Retox which was kinda fun. Saw a few old friends and am looking forward to her proper club night birthday party on the 23rd.

Now it's Thursday. It's been kinda a long week back having been gone all last week but its cool. There's another new temp at the office named Sam from Denver whose pretty cool. Anywho a bunch of us went out for lunch today and ate in the park tossed a frisbee and had a good time and then came back.

Remember where this post all started? Well we're finally there. Anywho 8 of us get into the tiny crappy elevator in our building. I work in an area of London called Vauxhall. Some of it is really nice. MI5 is housed there. I work in the not so nice part across from the homeless shelter. Anywho we get into our elevator which has quite a reputation for breaking and right as someone says a comment about it breaking, it does. 8 people, one of whom is 6'9 in an elevator about 6x8ft. We were stuck in there, no aircon, etc...for 45 minutes! We had sorta a laugh and listened while the London fire brigade tried to get us out initially with very little success. We listened to music off my ipod and sweated our tails off. However we made light by after 30 minutes of not being able to sit and feeling quite clastrophobic it got old. So we lightened it up by calling customer service with a prank phone call which Amy wound up answering. I've decided that it's a really good idea for a play and plan to write one. It's rather cliche. I never thought i'd wind up stuck in an elevator but i did.

So that's my life lately. I'm currently addicted to this TV show "Lost" which started here a few weeks ago. Oh and too this online java game called "Runescape". Chonos is coming out from Indiana next week which is exciting and soon it will be October and Stina will be here which is even more exciting. I'm not sure i'm really suited to working 9-6 (i worked late last night) but it pays the bills really.

Well i'm off for dinner with Matt and his cousin.

See photos from my trip to Portugal at: http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/lindsaybeaninlondon (in the "Portugal" folder). If you don't know how to get there don't worry i'll cross post some here soon.

Lots of love,
Lindsay