2012.06.10 - Jubilee and pour-out

Queen's 60th Jubilee and the Dyson Pour-out

Last weekend our national identity was challenged. Queen Lizzie celebrated her 60th jubilee and Paula followed the celebrations in detail on BBC. There are times when I wonder if she really is Chilean !

The clubhouse became the host of a street party in her majesty's honour. We put on our finest England jerseys and headed down for some superior British desserts. It was fun to see all the international community come together as ... British !

Weather wasn't very British - summer is finally visiting us. But with heat comes cold draft from the office A/C, and for the second time in 5 months I went down with a cold. This time I was bed-ridden for two days .... I once again blame Pietro as he was ill a few days before me but still turned up in the office !! Actually - quite a few of my colleagues have had a bout of bad health recently.

Thursday we went to see a movie with Michael and Jamie. We were planning to see Snowwhite and and the Huntsman, but for some reason or the other we had missed the show. So instead we watched the only other English movie on - Prometheus - without really knowing what it was about. As it turned out, it wasn't really our kind of movie. Alien monster weirdo movies are not on our list of favourite things to spend time on, but at least Michael and Jamie liked it. After the movie we crashed Pietro's place, as he had just returned from Italy.

Agnieszka has left for a 1-month vacation in Poland, so we have Michael for ourselves for a couple of weeks before he joins her in Poland. Friday he came over for lasagne together with Pietro. Paula was a little nervous as Pietro is not the easiest person to please when it comes to Italian food, but needed not worry - Pietro told her that it was one of the best non-Italian made lasagne he had tasted !

Saturday I went for a bike ride with Håvard in the morning. A little hard going due to the drinks the previous night, but still enjoyable. After that we went back to the movies and this time we were able to watch Snowwhite ... Miles better than Prometheus!

In the evening Trygve fired up the BBQ and gave us a few samples of Norwegian cooking. The meat was awesome - reindeer I think it was. From there we went down for Hugh and Lanor's pour-out. They are leaving Korea after 16 years here in the compound !!! Quite an achievement, but they have been deeply involved in the daily life of many Ulsan expats as teacher and headmaster at the international school. We were surprised to see several known faces - people had flown in from Singapore and Australia to join the party! And they had not come here for nothing - it was a great night and the band was back in action.

I finished off a busy Saturday with the late night soccer show. Denmark stole the victory from Holland in our first game in the Euro 2012. It was nerve-wrecking ... and not a very well-deserved victory but they all count.

Today we drove out to the mountain restaurant - the King's meal restaurant - with some of my colleagues. A lovely day with great views and excellent food. After the lunch we continued to the amethyst cave. Last time we were there it was very strange and this time was no different. It really is a quite bizarre place!