Rockin' in London Town

This past weekend we had a rockin' time in London for one of our last weekends here. I learned about a cool karaoke event where you get to sing with a rock band, and so I thought, what better event to plan a 'farewell to the Milletts' party for us and 20 of our closest London friends than at Rockaoke? ;o)
The band started at 8 after we liquored ourselves up on 2for1 drinks. We all put in song requests before they started but there were so many! There must have been at least 150 people there! Syd's colleagues Carmen & Craig were the first to go up, they sang a good ole' Canadian song - Summer of 69! It was a good song to get the crowd started. That was soon followed by Simon doing 'Under the Bridge'...he wasn't that great a singer but he was super funny that the crowd were totally eating it up!

Of course I HAD to get up and sing. And so me and 2 girlfriends got up to sing Amy Winehouse's "Valerie". We didn't sing well either, but it was good fun...and I think people were dancing!

The next hour or so was much of the same, with other non-friends taking the stage and providing good songs to dance to (and drink more). The band sadly ended at 10, with Syd and Bryan (and 3 random girls) singing/shouting Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a riot! Syd's colleagues loved that their directors ad gotten up to sing. They are totally going to miss Syd when he leaves London.-------------------------------

On Monday of this week I did some more rockin' in London at my company's Christmas do (aka party). Brits (and especially those at my company) really know how to party. It was held at an arts studio near our office and was all dulled up in glitter and silver. There were blackjack tables and roulette in the corner of one large room, and in another room was a large dancefloor and rotating company djs. We enjoyed the chance to get dulled up too!
People (okay, me too) were dancing machines. Everywhere I looked there were smiling faces and twirling dresses. It was so great to know people all over the place. A company of only 500 is a welcome change to a large government office that I am used to!

There was lots of debauchery throughout the night including people 'dirty dancing', 'snogging', and even one guy splitting the back seam of his trousers! That's him (Will) below with my colleague Gemma. I only wish I had a small camera to catch it all, but alas, I had to settle on those that others took (which were limited).

On the last song I felt a little out of place because they were playing Last Christmas by WHAM and people were all slow dancing, and Syd wasn't there (as spouses weren't invited). I was about to leave the dancefloor when Astrid rescued me and we twirled around for the last two songs. She always comes through for me. I'm going to miss that girl!