maze grill

splurged on a staycation and went back to where i've spent many happy childhood hours. this stunning view never grows old and the weather was perfect but somehow the running shoes i packed never left the bag ;) what i hadn't realised was the fantastic in-room breakfast options ;) bak ku teh and fish porridge???? are you kidding meeee????! sold! folks were up to pre-celebrate cny (brother and i are in london, sister in sg) then left to spend cny itself with sister and sg fam. folks in town = feasting, and my father, bless him, made a classic comic comment. he said, "wah! london has no bad restaurants huh!" to which my brother and i just looked at him incredulously because, duh, there are tons of bad restaurants, overpriced, oversold with crummy service etc but we sort of pride ourselves on being discerning and not taking them to substandard places when they're in town! why subject anyone to mediocrity! hilarious. 

so an example of a good place i love because it's a stone's throw and literaly in the 'hood is maze grill at park walk. it's opened about a year now and the sunday roast is amazing value with free flow sides. oh the sides, i could keep going and going... the sort of el cheapo trick is for one person to order the sunday roast and the rest to a la carte but feast off the (now) communal sides. you didn't hear that from me ;) and the service is efficient and professional, good wine recommendations that aren't just pushing the priciest bottle, you know? and the lovely thing about maze grill is that i'm a carnivore to the bone and love a bloody, juicy steak but they've such tempting starters it's hard not to get full on them before the mains arrive!

maltby street

so i've not been in awhile and suddenly there's a hip new market that's not maltby street?? it's nearby though and i can't remember what it's called now but it seemed like a hipster offshoot with a cluster of stalls including this amazing one that sold oysters. but one can't go to maltby without having monty's pastrami and st john's custard donuts. and i may or may not have fallen in love with a vintage chesterfield in original condition (!!!) which may or may not have been purchased on a whim to remind me to age in a similarly graceful fashion. patina and the like, you know ;)

the plan is to redecorate one i'm done with medsch (and finally earning again haha) so the dear chesterfield is going to be the star my other little tweaks revolve around... exciting!

daddy i want a pony

the weather hadn't been great and when there was a sudden stretch of sun, i was eager to banish the cabin fever. far from outdoorsy / athletic (don't let the pictures fool you!) but thoroughly enjoyed this venture to the country that had a walk involving wild (!) ponies (!!!) who were so tame they sidled up for nuzzles and cuddles, and a leisurely lunch at berwick before heading home. there was a freak snow storm on the way back (scary!) but that's february i suppose!

steamboat

(photo credits to the artistic H, who makes even pop up dosa kitchen meal look cinematographic in her snapchats)

this is most belated but around CNY time i had my clinical group girlies and R round for steamboat. R and i have the sweetest meet-cute, if i may say so myself. was at heathrow last summer waiting to clear security to head stateside when there was a queue diversion and i was shuffled to a different queue. this new queue was moving even slower than the one i was previously in, and there was this girl who sort of let me go first. or maybe i let her go first. i can't remember! we were both very polite! so we both shrugged good-naturedly at our slow queue and later got talking. because her mama's trained her well, she didn't give too much away at the beginning, just said she was going to singers. and this, of course, got me very excited. so then she said she was doing her elective there, so of course i too had to chime in and talk about my singers elective in a few weeks. we delicately picked our way towards talking about our medsch to find out IT WAS THE SAME SCHOOL. but it's so big our paths hadn't crossed before that!!!! swapped numbers and planned to meet up in singers and so we did! she asked if she could bring N (her housemate) along for the boat ride (they were going to link up in dubai and continue to singers together) and N ended up being my clinical groupmate. she's the absolute sweetest and i'm so glad i met her through R in singers (of all places!). so when i had N and H (clinical group girlies) round, of course we'd to include R and conveniently exclude the smelly boys. some things don't change, no matter how old we get ;)

steamboat with the rice cooker is a life hack, many thanks A! and hm it was the girlie's first time and i was enjoying watching them all excited about this 'chinese fondue'. it's great to be able to share a part of home / heritage with friends so far away. did have a semi-early celebration with my folks who were around just before CNY but it was nice to have friends so eat with during actual new year :)

oh hello

it's been some time! 2016 off to a flying start and um, how is it already march??? time's been whizzing past and the busier real life gets, the quieter things are on the blog front. final year is progressing at break-neck pace and i keep pinching myself wondering how exactly i'm going to sit and be done with finals in three (!!!) months! but the more i think about it, the more accessible / achievable this insurmountable goal is. left with eight weeks of surgery and in the middle of that we've a two week easter break. yay! sound like a broken recorder but i really like what i do and am ever joyous to have cut losses and made the switch when i did. it's surreal to think about how in a matter of months i'm the doctor, i'm the one where the buck stops and i've to take responsibility for my decisions. feeling increasingly prepared for the mantle and am just excited, really, to move on with life! speaking of which, got some fab news yesterday and my first job is going to be in central london, hopefully at a hospital two streets from the flat. that's unheard of and i'm so very grateful, so humbled, by how things have worked out. to get my first choice deanery when the odds were daunting, to say the least, is beyond belief. but God!

as a doctor, visibility is something in woefully short supply and i'm just glad to know where i'm going to be for the next two years. one day at a time? yet it feels a little premature to be celebrating my first job before clearing the little hurdle that is finals!

i'm sorry, this must be very boring talk! logistics and future and other adult-y things i've been putting off as long as possible because my castle is the clouds is where i'd rather be. have some posts coming up with photos and brief commentary of life of late. do check back, if you'd like to see :)

villeneuve and aosta

spent christmas with this little monkey climbing all over my face, and wouldn't have had it any other way. it's strange - not the biggest fan of children nor they me. offspring of friends one sort of has to grin and bear. although i'd be the last person to offer cuddles on tap. yet when i met this little bundle, something in me melted into a pile of goop. can't explain emotional attraction / attachment but little L i love to bits like no other. maybe it's his magnetic smile, or how we seem to have the best conversations. he also can't seem to stop rubbing his cute face into mine, and i get plenty of kisses back. love at first sight, if i ever knew it. doesn't hurt that i adore his mama (and papa) so mega love fest all round.

it was also such a treat to visit C (his gorgeous mama) in her hometown, with lunch at her childhood home. unabashedly a product of our parents, past and providence. i feel someone would only really know me if they've been to singers, met my family and seen where i grew up. and while i know C from london, spending time in the town where she grew up, breathing in the alpine air, exploring the streets she walked as a school girl was such a privilege. doesn't hurt that aosta (the nearest city) is pretty darn gorgeous and after lunch we went walking till late :)

room with a view!

malcesine

skied for two glorious days then happily hung up my skis. figured best to quit while i was ahead, and before i broke anything. in retrospect, do think i might've chipped a tooth during a particularly nasty tumble but hm, no harm no foul? thrilled to have ended confidently on a hard red slope that i couldn't have managed the day before. so easily please, i am. such low expectations! the blacks weren't open, but even if they'd been, it'd have taken more than liquid bombardino courage to get me up (and down!) one of those. am resolutely the world's biggest chicken when it comes to risk and risk-taking. yay can't wait to be a junior doctor having to manage risk on a daily basis.... :/

C, as usual, had the best tips and suggested we go to malcesine. had been tipped off about riva del garda which she then sort of wrinkled her nose at (haha). so malcesine it was, with the shortest of stops at riva before deciding it was indeed not quite what we wanted. it felt like florida? sort of low rent and motel and palm tree-y. malcesine, however, was just stunning. driving there was surreal because it felt like a ghost town. miles and miles of beach front property but empty! weather was mild and we were later told it was a summer place, as one would've imagined. the sole open cafe was right on the water and made for a pretty lunch spot. was surprised by how affordable things were. expected the worse but mains were EUR8? more than decent! 

fieroo

a green (beginner) run that was literally green. thank you, el nino for the lack of snow! was a little disappointed (and relieved!) that there was no snow because i've a well-documented love/hate relationship with skiing. basically, hate the skiing, love the apres-ski? been skiing since i was a child and never really warmed to it. sounds so bratty, i know :/ it's just this irrational fear i have of heights and speed and not being in control, and if i were a better skier, i'd feel more in control. chicken and egg. thought to enjoy madonna di campiglio instead and used it as a base for day trips (to trento one day) and then spent another day just wandering around the town. fieroooo is a bit of an inside joke (after fiero in the musical wicked. couldn't help but have lunch at al fiero (excellent, btw!) and send a piccie to the inner circle whatsapp group for a laugh at fiero's expense.

it was one of those places where the waiter was wonderfully generous and kept comp-ing drinks. bubbles once we sat down, sweet wine at the end then grappa too??? i was doing a mental tally the whole time and must say we'd about EUR20 free booze each at the rate he was going. yayy! inner el cheapo well pleased. the lamb chops were great (i don't usually like lamb!) and the pasta special done to perfection. 

food files

little known fact but the dolomites have stars aplenty! i'm a little wary about chasing stars and find it doesn't always live up to expectation, plus inner scrooge doesn't want to be oversold nor spend too much on food. i'm easy enough to please, eat everything and don't have so fine-tuned a palate as to differentiate between haute cuisine and regular. in fact, haute cuisine portions are often too small to satisfy my ravenous appetite. so there. the in-house restaurant had a star but what the chef did to his own disservice (?) was to make the bistro food (included in full board) so darn good that we never felt the need to top up for dins at his m*star resto in the same floor space! he said himself that his trick was to do simple food well and oh my did he more than live up to that. the pasta each night was out of this world, it just kept getting better, and the starter and mains and dessert were as good. really lucked out and i figure it's more the chef's skill than the setting that makes for incredible dining.

skiing

after a couple of days of delaying tactics (day trips, exploring the town) i ran out of options. didn't hurt that the temperature had dipped some and the was 60+km of ski runs good to go. to be fair, they were good to go from the get go but i had defiantly held off attempting to ski. but it did seem a blooming waste to be in the middle of reputable ski country and not ski. also, the world ski championships were being held on the very same slopes that very same day and i was FOMO. 

used to be a ski snob, only powdah puhleeze but unfortunately life is never that smooth sailing. and turns out i'd to eat my words (but thankfully not yellow snow) about the fake stuff. it's actually easier to ski on! and i had a lesson with a child (ok he's probably early 20s) who, bless him, after a 2h lesson magically took away my fear of heights and falling and uh it was the best skiing ever and i want to go again??? uhh where did that (and my inner cougar) come from ???? pretty crazy how quickly i go from one extreme to another, from being totes skiing averse to realising i can do this, i don't suck at it and oh hey it's fun!!! such was my stream of consciousness.

didn't even stop for lunch! tell a lie, had beers and bombardinos for lunch then kept going. liquid diet! also prob not the wisest of moves to hurl self downhill at breakneck speed after alcohol. liquid courage? but it seemed to take the edge off and make me a better skier. hm. 

the best part about the lack of real snow was that the slopes were almost empty! and my biggest fear is people coming too close / getting hit from behind so empty slopes were a joy. sacrilege but i'd pick empty slopes and artificial snow over crowded powdah any day.

and the world championships were fun! everyone gathered in the town square to watch the big screens and after the race it turned into an outdoor party with DJs on the stage. great atmosphere and i felt cool by proxy.

trento

had the privilege of meeting C on PICU while i was at great*ormond earlier this year. split my time between NICU and PICU and because we're both terribly shy, we only started talking towards the end of my placement, despite us having been on the same ward round for four weeks prior :/ turned out we really got along (at least i think so!) and kept in touch as i moved on to st*mary's as she was doing a six month stint herself. she's lovely and kind and someone i'm so glad to have gotten to know in 2015. both abandoned wives (her husband E was in trieste and the mister was traveling a fair bit!) we explored london together and i like to think i caught her good habits of walking everywhere and eating home-cooked. my takeaway habit was partially kicked, to her credit! we'd been trying to think of how to meet up in person once she went back to trieste to resume her last year of paeds training before becoming a consultant this year (!!!) and when she heard i was going to be in madonna di campiglio in december, twisted her dear husband's arm into driving all that way to rendezvous in trento. 

this photo made me think of camus' quote about how in deep winter one finds an invincible summer within. probably not what he meant and most defo wasn't referring to global warming nor el nino but had a little chuckle all the same.

appreciate everyone's busy and E had had a long few weeks (who hasn't!) but they spent the night in trento and it was wonderful to see them again. they'd been before and sussed out the good restaurants so lunch was amazing, naturally, then as we walked around the markets he plied us with mystical alcohols like flaming parampampoli. it's officially my new favourite word and i say it at random now. had met E in london when he was visiting and he's +1 i've grown fond of. it's lovely when friends are with worthy partners and they're so good to and for each other, you know? makes my heart swell :)

2016, let's gooO!

it's no secret that primrose hill is my happy place. am a one trick pony and it's my default 'things to do' suggestion when friends are in town. instead of squeezing into a stinky hipster coffee place, i suggest we take a walk to and up primrose hill if the weather is good. best views of london and have spent many happy hours there this year. so it was only fitting to spend NYE there too with the hordes of other revelers. just like 2012/13 (see, one trick pony!) was sandwiched between schoolgirls and rastafarians, second-hand smoke of the green sort aplenty. was also late (typical!) and ended up sprinting up the hill in wellies as the crowd counted down and fireworks went off. thank goodness that went on for awhile so i caught most of it when sufficiently elevated. at my height, every little counts and wouldn't have been able to see any of it otherwise! 

did a little 2015 review in the previous post so will spare you the self-indulgent reflection. in a way, 2015 was really hard and i'm so glad it's over. not quite good riddance but you get the picture. was recounting the year and it had more lows than highs, and the uncertainty about the future really got to be. there are definitely moments i'm not proud of, and moments i wish to never repeat. but that's life, isn't it. i'm hopeful for 2016, cautiously optimistic about a year that will see five years of hard graft come to fruition, to close one chapter and begin the next. since we got married in 2012 (yay, acquired a spouse and a house!), the years that followed have been a relatively happy continuum but i'm itchy for some action. growth is painful, and being stretched then stretched some more - even more so! but through it all i know Who holds my future, and who holds my hand.

onwards and upwards! here's wishing you a bigger, better and brighter 2016.

2015 in review

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Zora Neale Hurston

and i dare say this year was a bit of both. was recently accused by my nearest and dearest of hiding behind an illusion of a perfect life. uh, my life is far from perfect but the gory bits don't make for very good reading. also, there's enough sadness in the world, why add to the maelstrom? but i do see where they're coming from and value their take on things. so in the interest of honesty, this year was not without its challenges but so glad to be on the other side of things now.

thematically - before this degenerates into a poorly-disguised list of the holidays we've taken (guilty!), it's been a year of getting comfortable with uncertainty. i'm the sort of person who needs advance warning because i take more time to get used to changes. being with the mister has certainly changed that and i can be spontaneous if he gives me enough notice. not having visibility nor knowing where he / i / we will be in 6, 12, 18 etc months never fails to send me into a tizzy. but this year has been fraught with uncertainty and i've slowly grown to let go and let God. it's a deepening trust and strengthening faith, one i sort of let slide the previous years. it's been a time of investing in relationships and i've enjoyed every moment with family and friends. as life gets more busy, it's about making time and not excuses, about prioritising those important and not letting that get lost in the daily blur. i'm constantly grateful for a coterie of girlfriends who are only an anguished text away with tea and sympathy (usually virtual!) at the ready. hope that i, too, have been that to them and given as good as i've gotten. also appreciative that family is in good health, being in healthcare and seeing illness on a daily basis, i'm reminded at every turn that it's not something to take for granted because it's never a given. am cautiously optimistic about the year ahead, it's a phrase we've used much more in recent weeks, and can finally say with certainty that something great is about to happen.

we ended 2014 in the atacama desert overlooking geyser del tatio, the world's highest geyser, then saw new year's in in santiago. through much scheming and many a cunning plan, i managed to line up my fourth year placements in central london. was pleased as punch to be in zone one for the entire year because i don't like commuting. i mean, who does?! also, it's not often the stars align for convenience of medsch travel so i was gonna enjoy it while it lasted. being able to walk to work was a godsend and one i did not take for granted. speaking of God, the mister and i attended a marriage course (okok, we half attended it because we're so bad at consistency haha) but it was good and i'd recommend it to anyone. couples need to be married for more than two years before being able to sign up but they seemed pretty chilled out about it, marriage wasn't a pre-requisite either which struck me as unusual for a 'marriage course' but hey, props for being inclusive. we didn't attend a marriage prep course before tying the knot because he was finishing up in singers and i was a freshie. also the nice icelandic reverend who married us met us the day before the wedding and wasn't about to insist we'd attended a course then. better late than never? we were a bit mean though, sitting at the back and making bets on which couples would cry / storm out during the session. bad teos! but the mister's mean streak is one of the things i find most attractive about him, because being nice is never enough, and i don't want to be saddled with some pushover for life. it was also a bit scary that we signed up to improve our marriage because hey, it's a work in progress. we're far from perfect and strong marriages are intentional. but uhoh it was actually also for couples in trouble??? oops. cue occasional awkward silence. on the plus side, we played the student card and got a highly subsidised rate! be still, my parsimonious heart. the mister called me out for robbing the church. i see it as redistribution. attitude to money - also on the course agenda...

the mister spent a bit of time in NYC for class this year and when he was away i jumped at the chance for some solo travel, hopping over to barcelona for sunshine and tapas, although not in that order. we also went back to singers in march for my cousin's wedding, and he stayed on to represent at our good friends' too. lost a dear family member about the same time and the mister represented at that while i had to go back to school. went walking by the cliffs during the funeral and saw a rainbow, which was a nice touch, then had some sake in remembrance. 

we were meant to go to cinque terre over easter but work drama threw a spanner in our plans. thank goodness for insurance, got back every penny, and ended up across the channel instead. yay for a car and cheap eurotunnel. while i'm partial to the south of france having spent many happy summers with J and her fam in aix, the north has its charm and is growing on me. spent the spring bank holiday long weekend back singers with the mister's classmates who were en route to shanghai for an elective. any excuse to be home, really, and thoroughly enjoyed playing tour guide. also spent a weekend in stockholm in may, my home away from home and where i lived as an undergrad.

on the family front, our dear friends asked us to be godparents to their precious little bundle. this sent me into another tizzy because if i didn't want children of my own (for now) why would i shoulder extra responsibility??? but the mister was mature and sensible, suggesting a skype four-way (he was in NYC, i was in london, father-to-be in JKT and mother-to-be in sg!) for us to talk things over. our primary concern was/is our friendship so i didn't want to be an abysmal godparent, drop the ball and buang that relationship... hey, one never knows how these things can go! having drafted terms&conditions and sussed out expectations (they'd none, we'd plenty) we decided it was something we wanted to commit to because it's a lifelong responsibility. there was also a hairy moment when D&N and the mister were on holiday in croatia together and i tried to shove morbid thoughts outta my mind because if anything happened to the trio, i'd literally be left carrying the baby. paranoia, be gone!

summer was a whirlwind! desperately wanted to go somewhere exotic for elective but felt best to be grown up and do it half in london and half in singers. to make up for the lack of excitement (actually, protein crystallography was plenty exciting and i loved my time at the lab!), did a speedy west coast tour in between elective periods for london and singers. flew to frisco then meandered down the coast (big sur, monterey, yosemite) to beverly hills for a wedding at greystone mansion before returning to singers via tokyo. did my elective in singers but skipped town on weekends, to KL for P's wedding and to visit J&A, then phuket over the national day long weekend then hosted J&A in singers. completed the last leg of globe circumvention (SIN-LHR) had some down time in london with a quick trip to paris (yay eurostar!) before hunkering down for final year, which has been fast and furious. if all goes well, final years in may and will be a doctor by june. here's hoping!

tell a lie, one week into final year and i was climbing the walls so the mister assuaged with a spontaneous trip to copenhagen with friends. in the midst of the three week mini nightmares that are our senior rotations (obgyn, general practice, paeds, psych), we also escaped to majorca for the weekend just because. before that, he ran his first marathon (NYC!) then spent some time in boston to see the fall colours before coming back to london. the junior doctors threatened to go on strike, which meant i'd the day off even though they didn't, and we snuck away to the lakes. when the mister was in NYC for his final eMBA class, my folks were in munich and i managed to wrangle a stolen weekend with them. bummed we spent christmas apart (them in singers, us in the dolomites) but a bonus 48h together was just what i needed.

so the hard stuff i was talking about earlier? the mister's got a new job! it's been some time coming and hm being the big nerds we are, we talked about life after lawsch on our first date. he wanted to be a consultant with X, and i wanted to be a doctor. then we both laughed at how ridiculous we were. more than eight years later and in an extraordinary turn of events, he's been offered a position at X. wish i could take credit and say that it was all planned and everything he's done since lawsch has led him there, but it wasn't. in fact, he'd forgotten all about it until the recruitment opportunity arose when X started visiting bschool. so in a way, he had to go there to get here, and through it all we see God's goodness and grace. if someone had told me at the beginning of the year that the mister would be an X consultant by october, i'd have thought they were out of their mind. because X is literally the hardest company to get into in the world. well, X and goldman. thank you, God.

2016 is going to be exciting! the mister's done really well and will graduate twice (once in NYC, one in london) while i hopefully pass finals and also graduate. the mister, overperforming and overshadowing me since 2007.

thank you for coming by, and for making your way through this self-indulgent post. i do love recounting the year and counting blessings big and small. wishing you good endings and better beginnings, merry christmas and a happy new year X

(reviews from 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 if you'd like to see)

coastal afternoons

hadn't been to the coast in some time and was keen to visit a corner cafe. had breakfast at a beach shack a few weeks ago and enjoyed it so much i'd made a mental note to never turn down an invite to the sea. didn't take much persuasion and despite morning clinic ending late, still made it out before sunset. it was a little grey and very windy at points. skiving friend was insistent on climbing a hill to the monument and there was a point when i was almost blown off (and putting up with horizontal rain) which made me question my better judgment. but all good and made it back to town in one piece.

makfaulls in munich

always up for visiting a new city. love wandering aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds and the general feel of the place. munich struck me as, dare i say, shabby? not as youthful and buzzing as berlin, nor as 'official' looking as frankfurt. it had a certain faded charm but not what i'd in mind for a large german city? then again i'm not articulating this very well. maybe i expected something new and shiny, swankier even. also felt i didn't really give it a chance as landed on friday night, spent saturday largely in the country and left on sunday evening. walked around on sunday and again maybe went to the wrong places but wasn't impressed? felt a wee underwhelmed and was even relieved that we'd spent saturday out of the city because i got a little bored on sunday and wondered if i was missing the plot. 

the food, however, was excellent. and one of the highlights (apart from all that deep fried goodness and white beer) was catching up with J&A. serendipity had it that this was my third makfaull sighting of 2015, and maybe fourth in 12 months! caught up with A when he was in london at the end of last year, meant to stay with them in KL over summer when i went for P's wedding but, naughty, they surprised me with a room at a lovely hotel i've since fallen for and gone on to stay at (incidentally in munich too!) because it's such a great brand. they were in singers soon after with J's parents who've kindly hosted me in aix a few summers now, and when A was seconded to munich, the far east's loss was the continent's gain! chuffed to have squeezed out extra time with them.

for people who move around as much as we all do, it's a homecoming to see a familiar face, to be spared what we've come to term 'friendship foreplay' with the usual FAQ and pre-amble about where we've come from. for them, they've to explain he's aussie she's french and they met on exchange in stockholm. after which she moved to australia (perth then sydney) before they relocated to KL for work and now munich. who knows what the future holds?! and for me it's the whole barrister-turned medical student spiel which i don't mind on a good day but am admittedly self-conscious of on a bad day because people then expect me to be cerebral when i'm far from, or start asking tricky medico-legal questions i can't always answer, or try to get free medical and/or legal advice which i feel doubly irresponsible dispensing. A put it so nicely when he described 'wafer thin' experiences and friendships in a new place. because one has to start all over again, establishing connections is such a painful necessity and there's the odd person where it all clicks but more often than not it's tedious and don't really achieve anything at the end of cursory pleasantries. hence it's a bonus to meet up and go straight into deep meaning conversation mode because there is quality time without quantity. 

had dins with my folks then escaped to J&A's beautiful apartment. they've impeccable taste and by chance had two of J's aix girlfriends and their respective +1s over too! funny story - i'd met the lovely girls summer 2010 in aix. one of them had a new bachelorette pad and we'd all gone round for the provencale cliche of rose on the terrace (with tapenade!). little did i know then that five years later our paths would cross once again in munich. the world is small and it shows just how J draws people to her from all over. was secretly relieved to be having a cosy night in with wine and chocolate because after a crazy week and marathon day out with folks the last thing i wanted was to be head banging in a grungy club. too old? or more like too lazy :P and with J&A i know they pick their nights and a grown up night in with riveting conversation (hitting one pressure point after another in a safe environment...) was just what i'd wanted. without going into two much detail, there was a german, three french misses, a frenchman, aussie and me and oh boy did we play to our national stereotypes ;)