Sliding Birthday

My 26th Bday party was celebrated with all our friends in a quite uncommon way. Throughout the city, there was a multiplicity of winter programs and activities like, for example, in Waterloo, the Christmas German Market, full of food and drink stalls; and the London Eye experience, where you could opt for a ride in the giant wheel or just be adventurous and wear some ice skates. Well, that's exactly what I thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate my Bday.

The result was a funny end of a Sunday afternoon, with lots of laugh and adrenaline (happily, no one fell in the ice ring, but almost...), finalized by a well-deserved mulled wine and traditional german food to warm up our bodies and spirits. Thanks to all who could come!

(Left to right) Paola (Mimmo was too scared to even try...), Ibrahim, Joao and Maria. It was common to ski in group, it was saffer...:)

The rest of the "warriors"!

Charging batteries at the German Market (Waterloo).

DHL Xmas

As a strong tradition in UK, company's Xmas party have to exist no matter what. A place is booked, some food included and if lucky some drinks.
No difference from DHL's and we even managed to have a lots of free drinks, using the account of the General Manager who was quite drunk.
It is also tradition to get drunk, even if you are 50 years old and the most senior person in the room. You dance, shout and do all crazy stuff like weddings, and next day we are all around a table acting serious has nothing had happened.
Very strange this people from the North... :D
These are some of the pictures. The place was crap, but we had some fun!!!!

Me, the big boss and the great Aravinda!!!!

Celso and our boss Tona!!!!

Tina Turner and Freddy Mercury

The Imperial Trust Team

Sarah's Birthday

30th of November was the special day. Sarah's day!!!! :D
I took the day off and we spent the day in the center of the World, Greenwich!!!! Where everything begins!! Beside all the special characteristics of the place there is also a great museum of Clock evolution. How did time keeping started in the world? How did everyone in the world had the same time when the only mean of communication was the telegraph? Very interesting indeed. We then had a special event on the Planetarium where we learned about constellations with a very funny French astrologist.
To finish the night we went to a Lebanese restaurant!!! but without the belly dance!! :D Delicious!!!
It was a wonderful day, finished with a colorful cake!!!
Happy Birthday Sarah!!! :D

Greenwich Hill!!! Beautiful area

The center of the Universe

There is a laser above London with Longitude 0o

Special Garnish

Dream Theater @ Old Trafford

For every football lover to be able to watch a match at this stadium is part of a life goal!!! And indeed you want be disappointed. The atmosphere is amazing and you can breath football even before going to the stadium.

I was lucky enough to go with Tim a mate whom I met playing football and who supports intensively Man Utd. I took me to one of the oldest pubs in the city which is full of football history with pictures from the last 60 years of fantastic teams and games.

Yes indeed it was a great European Football night, and for the first time in history Benfica finish the game celebrating!!!

Sorry Tim, European second division for you this year!! :D

Me, Tim and his local mate

George Best at his Best

Go go Benfica

Our View

Sorry Tim!!! :D

We are back on business guys!!!!

And the cloud of doubts and delays is over. We are sorry for so many weeks without news but we must confess that our moral was at the lowest level since we started this adventure.

We only started to save money in the second half of the year, and for that we had to sacrifice even more our life here, just as an example, in the last 6 months I believe we ate out of home 2/3 times!!! And in 14 months I went out for drinks twice!!!!! We don't do anything that costs money besides sport to keep our sanity. We have the gym and my football, which is now only twice a week. We also have the cinema pass, for 15 pounds a month unlimited movies. This means I watch an average of 8 movies per month, nothing good escapes from me!!! And I say I go because our schedules are very frustrating. I wake up at 7am to work, Sara starts to work at 16.30, I finish work at 17, Sara comes home from work at 2am!!! So our coincident time is from 2am to 7am!!! It's like 2 ppl living alone in the same house. We also have been working weekends all this time, I for example come home every friday and saturday at 5am!!!  And for a long time we did not know when we were going to leave.

But, after we decided and reaching the end of the year we started to really the end of the tunnel we are back to high voltage. It has been a great waste to live in this magnificent city without really living it to its most, but it may be a strong reason to come back properly. Future will tell.

Yes, the year started we a shopping frenzy to take advantage of the Christmas sale. Our shopping list is extensive, you guys can see it here. Our objective is to buy everything we need, including the travel insurance and flights (around 3500£) and have 6000£ to start our journey. That will be possible at the end of March. So the departure is confirmed for April!!!! Uhhhh Uhhhhh

The next posts we will try to recover everything that happened in this gap. But the countdown is on... 75 days to ignition..... :D