Chelsea 2 - 0 Portsmouth

Hullo,
Well, we've finally seen snow here in London. We got a few fluttery flakes last week for about 30 minutes, and saw fluffier ones for about ten minutes today on the way home from work. It's very cold here. Skies are sunny and blue, but it's so windy and freezing.

Last Saturday we went to our first Premiership Game (that's football, aka soccer) when we attended the Chelsea vs Portsmouth game at Stamford Bridge Stadium.


Chelsea are cruising at the top of the table whilst Portsmouth are coming a steady second-last. It's so hard to get tickets to watch decent matches here. They're all footy-mad here. We can get into almost all London museums for free, but on the other hand, we paid £48 each for these tickets. And if you want to watch the big name teams play you have to be a premium member in order to buy tickets, and depending on the teams may only entitles you to buy one ticket. So, we were fairly lucky to get these tickets. We bought them through Portsmouth FC as it was their away game and they hadn't sold all of their allocation, but this also meant we had to sit with the loser Portsmouth supporters. They were a funny sort of crowd - very rowdy and seemed to be more interested in giving it to the Chelsea supporters than watching the game. But it was all good. We had a fun time, even though it took them over an hour or someone to score.

This is them warming up... Even the referees have a warm up drill!


This is the teams coming out onto the pitch.


Group hug anyone?


Get Up! (1) - My foot hurts and my head hurts. I have two ow-wees.
One of the worst things about this sport. In other football codes, if you get knocked over, you'd get right back up and give it to the other guy. In soccer, if someone makes contact with an opposing player, even slightly, the opposing player will fall to the ground (sometimes rolling) and clutch their sore head.


Get Up (2) - Although it didn't happen in this game, it's also cool fun to watch two team mates going for it, like when Newcastle team-mates Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer were sent off for fighting each other.


Joe Cole making a cross


Penalty... No goal though.


Me at the game. Start of the second-half.


Chelsea supporters. This was a sold-out match.


Gooooooaaall!! Super-Frank Lampard scores. About freakin' time too. Pointless fact #273 Lampard's uncle is the manager of the other team.


Gooaaall number 2! Arjen Robben, serial diver, scores.


Get Up! (3)


Another crazy thing about the Brits is that (in addition to not being able to spell properly) they don't seem to be sure where things are. Chelsea's home ground is in Fulham. Fulham's home ground is in Hammersmith. Queens Park Rangers home ground is in Shepherds Bush. It's crazy man. This isn't restricted to the soccer either. Tam's currently working at Hammersmith Hospital, which is in Shepherds Bush. And Charing Cross Hospital is in Hammersmith. Bizarre.

Hope you guys are all doing alright. Drop us a line if you have time.
To the ladies, sorry about the boring sport things. Not much else to report. We've just been having some lazy weekends in London trying to save money for our visit home and for future trips. We did visit the Natural History Museum in South Kensington to check out the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which was very inspiring. We didn't check out the main displays as there were just too many damned children everywhere. We may have to go on a Friday evening after work when they open late.
Anyway, take it easy.

Paris (again), Foo Fighters, and Ghosts in the Catacombs

Ah, Parree. We decided to give Paris another chance, after not having enjoyed ourselves last time we visited). Sure, we did some cool stuff (like the Musee D'Orsay, Eiffel Tower and Arc De Triomphe), but compared to some of the other places we've been to, eh *shrug*. Rome, Brussels and Berlin are our top three so far.

Contrary to common belief, Paris is not the most romantic or fun city in the world (note, this is our opinion only and this is our blog and we can say whatever we want to). Or maybe just don't go on Sundays. Nothing is open and there ain't much to do. So, we had as good a time as we did last time. However, we were lucky (and smart enough) to get tickets to see the Foo Fighters there on Saturday night at Le Zenith. We missed out on good tickets at Earls Court in London, but they are the best band in the world and we just had to see them again. I think that's only four times now.
[Matt, I forgive you for saying otherwise, but this is only because we've been friends for a while now]

Unfortunately, our concert photos didn't turn out that well. This is the only one that did. This is before the whole shebang started. I do like the French people sometimes. The concertgoers were awesome and had the right enthusiasm and rocking energy. They were fully going off. And they even have vendors selling baguette sandwiches and beer inside the venue. How cool is that?!


This is their set list:
In Your Honor
One By One
My Hero
Up In Arms
Learn To Fly
Times Like These
The One
Stacked Actors
Big Me
No Way Back
Breakout
End Over End
Everlong

Encore:
DOA
Cold Day In The Sun
Monkey Wrench

Here are some photos from the Foo Fighters website of the concert. I couldn't resist putting them up on our blog cos I love the Foos so much and Dave Grohl is my hero.





We didn't really like Montmartre last time we went, but that was because we associated it with the seedy Red Light District area where the Moulin Rouge and sex shops were. But we went to see the Sacre Coeur (which we didn't have time to see last time) and found a fantastic place. No wonder they did Amelie here. If we were more cluey we would have tried to spot more Amelie things. *sigh* This is a cool little artists square.


The Sacre Coeur


Go the Swannies. One Aussie guy who was living in Paris came up and talked to us and asked if we were lost and needed any help. We were staring at the metro map at the time. Aussies are just the best hey?


One of the two surviving great windmills in Paris. Actually, there are three windmills in Paris, but that one has cancan girls.


This is outside Gare Montparnasse. Nothing special, I just thought it highly amusing that there's a kids trike chained up to the fence.


And this is where all things go freaky. None of these two images have been altered in any way (except for resizing). We decided to do the Catacombs of Paris, a famous burial place in a subterranean cavern underneath the city. At first we couldn't find the place. Then a friendly little old French man gave us some directions. So we crossed the street and made our way to this small green shed-like building. We paid our entrance fee and then we climbed the spiral staircase to enter the Empire of the Dead. This is a photo of Tam in the tunnel leading to the entrance of the tombs. Note the scary horror eyes.


After I took her photo, Tam said she wanted to take one of me. So I struck a pose, looking shitscared half-hugging the wall. Tam took the photo, and then looked at the preview. "What's happened to your head?" Since there was no other light in the tunnel besides the flash and nothing reflective on the wall, we have no idea what that is. Are there such things as circular ghosts? Are there such things as ghosts? I don't know. But, it's a bit too coincidental that the sphere appears just over my face and apparently where my head is making contact with the wall. My guess is something paranormal. This freaked us both out, of course.


Inside the Catacombs.


The walls are made of bones and skulls. Its such a huge maze down there. Filled with bones, information plaques, and quotes reminding you to take each day as if it is your last.



A lovely little creperie which we found and liked on our first trip.


Montparnasse


The Pasteur Museum, which we were going to visit (and which our Lonely Planet said would be open) because Tam wanted to check out his lab which they've kept in its original condition. We trekked there and as it was Sunday, of course, it wasn't open.


Tam had read about this to-die-for hot chocolate, so we headed over to this posh little place near the Louvre called Angelina. There was a queue out the door when we got there, but we didn't have to wait long. And it wasn't little inside. It was narrow, but it went in quite deep and even had seating upstairs. We ordered a hot chocolate each and a Mont Blanc (a dessert made of meringue, whipped cream and sweet chestnut cream) to share, as these are their two most famous and popular delicacies.


I couldn't finish my hot chocolate. It was so rich and so much. It comes in a jug (enough to share between two) and a side dish of chantilly cream and is just so thick and chocolatey that you get a headache. Tam was a champ and managed to down all of hers and polish off the rest of the Mont Blanc. But then, she (like most girls) has a separate dessert stomach.


Bye bye Paris

Well, we had an okay time. Next time we'll have to explore outside of Paris and maybe check out some of the wine country down South. Think we've had enough of Paris now. It's sort of like London ;p

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