more spring in the city

Thanks daffodils for coming out and painting this whole place in all shades yellow xx

Easter week

and this is how fast a whole week has gone by without me even noticing...

I'm camped out, once again, in the great SW of London this week. Lots of family time and fun with the Zekestar who is really into wrestling at the moment, Alarm!!!

On Sunday I took him to the most fun playground at Hyde Park - pirate ship, treasure chest, etc it's awesome. We climbed the look out and got to the treasure, while Zeke circled the chest I jumped onto it.

Zeke: Good boy Yaya.

Yaya: I'm not a boy Zeke, I'm a girl...

Zeke: Good man Yaya!

Love him to pieces!!!
Life has been great and I'm loving the warmer weather, the new flat, all the lovely people I get to work with, church and God has been opening up doors I never knew existed. Feel spoilt and immensely blessed.

it will be quiet for a bit

I moved over the weekend and as the new place does not have internet right now, blogging will be a bit more sporadic.
It's annoying how dependent we're all on the internet nowadays. People lived for millennia without any of that crap and our generation seems unable to do so. There's something wrong here!

Anyway before I head home now, Johanna and Reini welcomed their first baby this morning.

Welcome to this world Liah Madeleine, love you already xxx

beautiful London town

I think I've said this before, but this job comes with this amazing chance to get to know London on another level.

This week I've been running around Kensington. A lot. If I could I'd bring my camera and capture as much as possible. The mews, street lamps, doors, cobble stones, alleys, boot cleaner at every house, etc... These details are gorgeous and make me loathe modern architecture. Everything is built as cheap as possible, and has no charm at all. 

Bring back aesthetic!!

This is Spittalfield markets when they were closing down. Equally beautiful although the modern version haha

random things happening to your friends

One of my favourite Brazilians ever ended up on Jimmy Fallon last night :) Go and check it out here.
It is actually a hilarious story and something I think could only happen to Alex. The team went round the audience and picked out musicians before the show, they had to form two bands and in 20 min come up with a band name and song. You have to watch it to believe it.
As a youth pastor I reckon he just scored a couple of cool points with his youngsters haha.
Thanks Lidia and Jess for letting me know!!

birthdays and other treats

Lots of birthdays this week.
This lovely little lady had her first party this morning, which I missed of course as I was flyering my way through Kensington.

Happy birthday Evangeline. (Zeke was actually going to hug her, but my old old camera is too slow to capture moments like these haha)
Lee is turning 30 and will probably dance the night away :)  Love her to pieces and wish we could hang out more!!! Happy birthday lovely xx

Third person in the birthday ranks is the fun Dr Schmidt aka Sebastian. He's probably got other things on his hand as his wife should have their first baby any second now :) Happy birthday friend

lately

Not to much happening this side of the planet apart from lots of work.
HIWTHB will be released in early April in the States, so I've been trying to start a buzz about it across the ocean. Get excited America, the boys will come and get you :)
Zipcar is going nuts over the next two weeks, we're spread all over London and might make an appearance at Whole Foods over the weekend. As this is still my happy place - yippie yeah.
Life has been great, got to see my bestie and the other girls (Judith, Isa, Lydia and Dagmar - who came over for 2 days from Amsterdam!!) over the weekend. Heard lots of stories from Worship Central, it must have been amazing, and after church Sunday night we all went out. what followed was girl madness - wont get more fun than that!!
Now lots of things ahead for me. It will all start with packing my bags yet again and moving house, more work, Easter - we'll have our first Film & Arts Festival this year, and what I can't hardly wait for...

Colour 2010 

It'll be here in almost 6 weeks. Joy and excitement abound and God's girls will take over the Royal Albert Hall. Orphans to rescue, sisters to come alongside, nations to believe in! It will be phenomenal and if you're missing out, your loss!
Can't wait what God's got in store this year. For highlights from Sydney click here.

flowers galore

I feel like I've been working constantly for the last couple weeks. Can't remember my last day off, but I've been a good girl going for a run every other morning. That made up for it all and look how gorgeous spring is starting out. Mondays are dedicated to My Glorious, so in the morning I snuck out and took my camera to the park.

I think my favourite ones are the white ones with purple stripes, but don't you just love the colours after a bleak winter. Thank you God.

more fashion week

This time a bit from Paris...
Just saw a little clip of the Louis Vuitton show taken by the wonderful and talented Garance. I am in love and could wear every single piece. So beautiful. Mr Jacobs, you've done it again.
Watch it here.

random glimpses of home

Deep down underground, I think about 50% of ads at tube stations are holiday related - white sandy beaches, sun etc. That should tell you how clever those advertising people are! On your way to work, during a horrible winter,  on overcrowded trains(they sometimes don't even stop because they can't take more people on!!!) who wouldn't want to go overseas.
Imagine my surprise when I changed at Tottenham Court Road and they advertised Austria :)

excitement is in the air

Even though I've been freezing my butt off out on the street all week, I feel like a spoilt little girl.
First of all my favourite Lisl had her birthday the other day and we had a massive catch up on the phone, which ended in a skype date with the entire EheG and Drew giving me a fashion show of glasses/frames he got to pick out at the optician - good times. Nothing beats talking to your bestie! Fills up all the tanks and leaves you full of joy, encouraged and uplifted.

For the last week we had two German girls staying with us and yesterday we all went to watch Wicked - the musical. The lead actress/green girl was unbelievable and what fascinated me even more was one of the cast being a monkey. Seriously I have never seen a human move the way he did and could not take my eyes off him. At that moment I really couldn't have cared less what the wizard and green girl were up to haha.

With all this said, two more sleeps and my other bestie, Ruth, and three girls will invade London. It will be so exciting to have them here. They will hang out at Worship Central and get heaps of input to take back to their church in Vienna. Absolutely love what Tim Hughes and Al Gorden are doing, check it out here.

I heart revolution @ church

At least a tiny bit of the I heart revolution was shown yesterday at church when our our youth team presented the I care revolution in our service.
They take this presentation into schools all across London. Amazing job guys!!
Here's the clip from I heart, could watch it and weep every single time.

a year ago

I was looking through photos from last year and noticed how many people came to visit a year ago. My best friend and three others are coming next week so I can't complain, but last year was crazy and so good.

My friend Lidia (one of the housemates for life) went to London on a whim, took a week off and was on the next plane to England, kind of haha. As I was not working that week, we had the funnest time ever - afternoon tea at the Atheneum, Blenheim Palace and Oxford, a trip to the Tibble house, Chicago in the West End, Hummingbird bakery cup cakes, visiting the markets, Tate Modern, the first picnic of the year,... 

Go and check out her blog. She is one of those incredibly creative people and I'm sure we all will hear a lot from her!!!

girls night at the pub

For some reason we ended up at the pub on quiz night. We didn't play but tried our best to answer the questions when they were called out anyway. Turns out our knowledge consisted mainly of Academy award nominees  and children's books haha. Was good to hang out with all the lovely girls. Thanks chicas xxx

the real world London

My first week at Zipcar is almost over and I'm loving every bit of it. Fun people to work with, lots of fresh air and getting to know London on a whole other level. It's great.
Being on the street and presenting whatever is like extreme people watching for me. I absolutely love it. You get all the random reactions of people, when you say hello to them. There is everything from "trying so hard to ignore you" over "I'm embarrassed where should I look" to really rude people waving their hand at you. Some actually are lovely and say hello and smile back at you. I think my absolute favourite is still "Okay", what the heck does that even mean?????
Never mind, looking at all these Londoners and masses of tourists of course, there is one thing they could all do with. A huge amount of joy. It makes me sad how angry, troubled and even downcast people look when they're rushing around. Maybe all they need is someone who smiles at them and I'm happy to do that. Even if I look like a loony and people think I'm weird, I've got too much joy in my life that I could look any different.
Sorry world, even when I'm shivering and my lips turn blue, I will still be smiling and you just gotta have to live with that!

bye winter olympics

I've always preferred watching winter olympics to the summer ones. Maybe it's because I'm a winter baby and this will forever be my season, maybe because Austrians are actually good at winter stuff or maybe because nothing beats ski jumping and all sports involving a slope.
I watched parts of the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics and got really emotional. We're talking tears and heavy chest, etc. What the heck is wrong with me???