Goth nights and wet hair

I'm back from a fabulous weekend away in England. The purpose of the trip was to see one of my favourite bands in concert. H.I.M - a gothic love metal band from Finland. Unfortunately they didn't include any part of Ireland on their tour, so I arranged to visit an old school friend in England and we went to the show together. (HIM are the band that I danced to in the gothic bellydance show).


The concert was held in the Guildhall, Portsmouth, which was a grand old building that looked like a cathedral. Caroline picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to Portsmouth. Had some dinner then headed to the show, only to discover the biggest queue I'd ever seen to get into the building.


Killing Hannah were the support act (although I didn't know who they were at the time and didn't see much of them). H.I.M were pretty much as I expected - awesome. I got pretty close to the front. Close enough to see Ville Valo as he sang. He has just the most amazing voice. I took a few pictures and videos on my camera phone but its hard to get a good pic in that sort of dark environment.










There are a few pics of the show, and of myself and Caroline in the concert and outside of the Guildhall.





We drove back to Kent late that night and crashed into bed totally exhausted. That was on the Friday. Then on Saturday I had arranged to meet a dear friend of ours, Neil, in London. He travelled down from Birmingham, and I got the train up from Maidstone. It was only an hours travel for me, much longer for him I think.


The weather in London was miserable. However, I'm from Northern Ireland so the weather just doesn't really bother me, I'm used to it. It rained all day and we got thoroughly soaked. We went to several musuems (including the Tate modern, as Neil wanted to show me the huge crack in the floor!), looked at lots of artwork and photography (I discovered some of the paintings I'd written essays about on my Open University course a few years back), walked for miles around various places (Picadilly, Leicester Square, Carnaby Street etc). We saw the biggest environmental protest march go past, and queued to get into Hamleys toy store. Oxford Street was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers. It reminded me of New York. I've never seen so many people crammed into shops like that. The queue into Hamleys was phenomenal and caused a human traffic jam. Inside the shop was just as packed. People just go mad at Christmas! I'm now trying to do all my Christmas shopping online.



















At the end of the day Neil took me back to Victoria station to catch my train (because I was totally lost in London, lol). That evening my good friend Tabi (from grammar school days) came round to Carolines and we all pigged out on Chinese food, told funny stories (I wont embarass Tabi by telling her embarassing waxing story on here, lmao) and talked about bras a lot. LOL. Typical girlie evening. It was great to see Tabi and Caroline again, although it was such a flying visit. But I had a wonderful weekend.

This weekend Dan and I are off to Dublin for 2 nights to see Apocalyptica. I tell you what, nothing happens for years and then it all happens at once.