I decided some of my ramblings wern't entirely appropriate for a group blog - as my film choices arn't really top priority for people to know whilst in the amazing country of Sri Lanka - so i'm going to continue to update (sporadically - as theres not that many internet connections available!) on here as well (lucky you!)...so now you can all see my bad film choices!

We're just sat in a nice air conditioned office in the British Council complex after doing our first presentation- but its a little too slow for uploading photos so i'll try again when we head to Mount Lavinia Hotel for Beths 28th birthday celebrations...

Sunday 31^st –

After a 5am wake-up call I was off and on the bus with my ridiculously heavy suitcase in tow, after a slightly wobbly decent down Bethnal Green Stations steps I was away and on the tube all the way to Heathrow Terminal 4! After a quick check-in queue and security scan we we’re standing in the terminal suddenly very aware of how far we were about to be from home! Heathrow has no decent eating places so after a quick Starbucks breakfast we were ready to board the plane! Sri Lanka airways was really nice (if a little worn in places!) and with a blanket wrapped around me and a tv diagonal to my seat I was all set for the 11 hour flight!

I had forgotten how nice it was on long haul flights to have drinks every half an hour and a slightly nicer meal than on short journeys! The salty fruit salad took a little while to get used to – and my ‘marinated vegetable salad’ was left unopened – but the bread and butter was lovely!

Rubbish films I watched on the plane –

1 – The Bounty Hunter – words do not describe how bad his film was!

2 – Date Night - I managed to watch it to the end but even then it didn’t enthral me!

3 – Odine – About an Irish Selkie/drug smuggler – good!

4 – A Mel Gibson one – that I never got to finish!

Landing was a little bumpy but by that time we just wanted to go to bed. The heat and humidity hit us as soon as we stepped off the plane, and after a queue at Immigration (possibly caused by the very jolly guard insisting on telling us the best places to visit outside of Columbo!) and a slight wait for our bags we headed out to changes some money and hopefully find or driver who was going to take us to the flat an hour away!

It was suddenly starting to feel very real!

The drive to the flat was remarkably quiet (although there were a lot of scary drivers – and our driver loved flashing his lights at everyone!), and it was really interesting to see everything lit up at night without quite so much bustle and loud noise! We drove through a heavily Roman Catholic sector which was brightly lit up and had hundreds of roadside shrines to many different saints. We then spotted a beautiful 20 foot tall gold Buddha in the middle of a roundabout – it was magnificent!

We arrived, met with a very sleepy Kate, who presented us with a beautiful recycled Sari each, and fell straight to sleep in record time!