Hayley and Niki's Adventures

EMPLOYED

2009-03-05T17:03:00.004+13:00

Just a quick blog to let you know I have a job!!!! and yes, it's actually an admin role and one I am really excited about =) It's at the head office of Jennian Homes so we deal with all the franchises nationwide, sounds like it will be varied and challenging. I start on 16 March so am looking forward to the fortnight ahead, guilt-free relaxing, and finally can look at flat hunting and wedding stuff!

Jan & Feb at a glance

2009-03-01T11:10:00.006+13:00

Niki started his flying course on 9 Jan and has been loving it. His medical certificate took its time issuing so it was a bit frustrating but since coming through 2 weeks ago he has done lots of solo flying including a couple of 3 hour cross country flights. He has done 4 exams since getting back and has passed all of them well. The workload is different every week and often he can just go in whenever he has a flight booked, and other times he is studying morning, noon and night.

I have been spending alot of time at home just hanging out, basically trying not to spend money! The first few weeks back were awesome but as friends started to go back to work and I started looking for a job things weren't quite so much fun! I registered with recruitment agents and have spent a lot of time up the road at the Riddingtons using their computer and browsing their Bay of Plenty Times job sections! I have been receiving the unemployment benefit too, I'm entitled to a half share of a married couple allowance, which equals $150 a week, so not enough to live on at all but I totally am just stoked that we can at least buy groceries and petrol and not have to waste all our savings. As you can guess we are still staying with Niki's Mum in Ohauiti, but that is all working out well although we are looking forward to unpacking all our stuff finally when we get a place of our own.

Social Life
Early Jan we farewelled Donna for her move to Switzerland. In Jan I spent a night in Pukekohe, Auckland with my sister and cute nephew. My first ever Blues Brews and BBQs was a crack-up. Anniversary weekend we went up to Niki's Dad's place in Rawene (Hokianga) and had a fab time there just chilling in the house bus and doing some exploring, on one of our walks we were fortunate enough to see a pod of orcas which was absolutely stunning. Waitangi weekend we went camping at Athenree (Waihi) for two nights with a bunch of pals - Fantastic weather and good times had by all. Lovely Briar's Baby shower. Stefanie (Amercian friend we met in Edinburgh) was over with her boyfriend recently so was wicked to see them. We've been to countless BBQ's and drinking sessions, even trying town 3x (and disappointed all times!), walked around the Mount, copenhagen cones, hotpools...you know the drill, I love this city!

Personal achievements, or lack there of:
Trying to exercise a couple of times a week and failing miserably even though I am unemployed! Getting my confidence up and learning to drive - I am actually getting quite good, even did a solo drive over the kaimais to Cambridge! So am absolutely stoked, just need to work on tricky parking and reversing lol. Got a temp job for a few days last week at Pinto factory, awful mind numbing work but it was amazing what it did for my morale just getting out of the house and knowing I was earning some money.

Homecoming King & Queen

2009-03-01T10:45:00.006+13:00

Arriving into Auckland airport was obviously very exciting, we were buzzing about every kiwi we thing we heard or saw. Niki's Mum and Brother were there to meet us and drove us back to Tauranga where we saw Kayley, Niki's gorgeous wee niece who was born in July. We spent the next few days catching up on sleep and seeing all of our grandparents and friends and doing some christmas shopping, Niki even glazed a ham. We had a lovely, relaxed Christmas day at Jared and Shelley's.

For New Years I went down to Wellington with Debra and Justine for a 5 day stay. Needless to say we had lots of fun, so so great to see those gals. New Years Eve we had a party in the penthouse suite of a flash hotel. It was absolutely brilliant. The other days were filled with sangria, watching dvds, shopping, visiting Te Papa, eating, drinking and being merry!

Niki went camping with a group of his friends and enjoyed some water sports and copius amounts of beer drinking.

Last Chance BKK

2009-02-20T12:20:00.000+13:00

From Krabi we caught the “VIP” overnight bus to Bangkok. Now this bus wasn’t so much VIP but the seats did recline a little and they provided a wee blanket and luckily we were able to sit together and because it was really cheap it was all worth it. After a long night of little or no sleep we arrived into Bangkok at 6am and were in a familiar area a 5 min walk from Koh San Road. Some of the restaurants were already open so we sat in them buying a drink, using the lavs, and reading for a bit and moving on to the next for something to eat and hanging for another hour there. Once the shops started opening around 10am Niki went for a thai massage while I got a manicure done with amazing hand-painted wee flowers on each nail. You can’t leave Thialand without buying a bunch of dvds and t-shirts so we did that and then grabbed a taxi to HBK so I could do some last minute shopping. I got a few cool things but totally wish I’d gotten more handbags, damn luggage allowance. There were shops laden with handbags for 199B each (£4, NZ$10) Hayley’s paradise! By this stage we hadn’t slept for 30 hours so we were soon over shopping and lugging our gear around (Niki ended up just babysitting gear whilst I shopped!). We spent a bit of time trying to find the airport bus but in the end just grabbed a taxi and got out to the airport by 5pm, well in time for our 8pm flight. Pleased to report our luggage left in storage was all there and we didn’t even go over our luggage limits.

Phuket – Ko Phi Phi

2009-02-20T11:51:00.009+13:00

Thursday we flew from Chiang Mai to Phuket, arriving at 2pm. We had pre-booked a hotel in Patong Beach but stupidly took the mini bus which ended up taking hours. We were rather frustrated and eager to get on the beach by the time we had checked in. Patong beach is extremely touristy and it wasn’t very nice at all. You could definitely tell that the tourist season had been affected by the airport closure though as the majority of the deck chairs were empty. That night we went out to explore the nightlife which was very tacky and seedy, think neon lights and drunken people everywhere. You’ll be disappointed to know that we didn’t go to ping pong show…the people on the street try and get you into their bars saying free entry, but your first drink cost you mega bucks. Although that's not what put me off, it’s the list that they show you with all the things you will see in a ping pong show… and I can tell you “ping pong” is very tame compared to what was on that list!

Friday morning we took a 1.5 hour ferry ride over to Ko Phi Phi which we’d heard was gorgeous and we weren’t disappointed. There are no cars on the island and to get to the lovely outlying beaches with all your gear you need to pay for a boat ride. We’d been recommended to stay at Viking Resort by some people we’d met on the overnight train so headed there straight away and were lucky to secure accommodation. We stayed in an awesome bamboo hut with ensuite (cold shower) for the first two nights, and then moved to another hut without ensuite and closer to the beach for three nights. The people were really good and gave us a great discount plus let us use snorkelling gear etc for free.

We spent the next few days laxing on the small secluded beach right in front of our resort. We ate out for every meal (all resorts have own restaurants), explored the shops on the island, Niki had another massage or two and I got a pedicure. From our beach to the main island bit was about 20 min walk over a steep-ish track but it was generally ok until one of the last nights we came back late

in the dark over the rocks and I somehow fell into the water, with our camera in my bag! It’s buggered, we are so gutted, but luckily our memory card is ok.

Sunday we had a 7am start (ouch!) to go out on a dive boat for Niki to do two fun dives and I did some snorkeling while the divers were down. Niki found the dives pretty good, much more to see than in Egypt, but he did have some trouble equalizing on the second dive and unfortunately his particular group of four missed out on seeing a tortoise and shark which would’ve been brilliant. The snorkelling was fantastic though, there were so many amazing colours of fish and coral and I really started to relax more even over the very deep water. I didn’t enjoy the sea lice though, you keep feeling pin pricks all over your body, but nothing comes of it.

On the Monday we spent most the day just laxing on our wee beach again and did some snorkelling in our bay which was really cool although I did have a jellyfish brush past my face eww! At 5pm, once it was getting slightly cooler, we headed up to Ko Phi Phi viewpoint which is a definite puff factor walk up many many stairs. Once at the top though you are rewarded with the most stunning views. That night we had some western food for dinner (which wasn’t half as good as the thai food) and then headed to Hippies Bar for a “vodka bucket” and some cool live entertainment including a crazy fire show.

Tuesday we had breakfast on the main island and arrange to go on an afternoon snorkel tour. This departed at 2:30pm and was on quite a large boat but luckily it wasn’t full so there were about 25 of us. We anchored and we swam (or kayaked) to shore at monkey island, which really was monkey island with the little critters running around and grabbing their treats from us tourists…so cute! We sailed past Viking Bay and did some more snorkelling and kayaking but unfortunately the water was quite rough, plus I had a leaky snorkel so it wasn’t the funnest. We moved on from that spot pretty quickly and tried some more snorkelling elsewhere, the staff threw handfuls of rice in the water and next thing we were absolutely surrounded and covered in amazing colourful hungry fish. It was freaky! Next stop was Maya Bay which is the island where the movie “The Beach” was filmed. Needless to say there were tourist boats aplenty here. It was amazing though, so so beautiful. The sand was so fine and pure, kind of felt like flour! We then headed back to the big boat and watched the lovely sunset while eating dinner. Was a neat afternoon with great staff. We had brought a disposable camera so have thankfully got a few hard-copy pics of our day.

Wednesday was our last day on the island so we sunbathed and swam for a couple of hours before sadly heading to the pier to catch our ferry to Krabi at 1:30pm.

We have since heard of much lovelier, more authentic, quieter (and way way cheaper) islands to go to but I think for first timers having a bit of civilisation and party atmosphere was all good.

Golden Triangle and Long Neck Tour

2009-02-10T12:39:00.003+13:00

On Wednesday we were picked up at 7:15am to go on our Golden Triangle and Long-neck Tour. There were only three of us on the tour so we were just in a ute. It was lots of driving but ok for me cos I just napped in between stops! We saw a thermal spring (not as impressive as Rotorua!) and people selling eggs boiled in the water…rather novel! Next stop was a stunning temple which was completely white (the only one of it’s kind in Thailand), this was just breathtaking and made the trip worthwhile. We then drove some more and took a boat across to Laos where we got our passport stamped (wahoo) and looked around the markets on the riverbank. This is where the Golden Triangle is, an area known for it’s illicit drug trade (Thailand, Laos and Myanmar).

After stopping for a disgusting buffet lunch, we drove further out to some more tribes to look at their wares. It was cool seeing them in traditional costume and seeing families interact. The most “exciting” part of this was seeing the long neck people (originally from Burma). The females have rings around their necks which stretches their necks, kinda freaky looking! It originally started hundreds of years ago for girls born on Tuesdays to be protected from the tiger attacking them but over the years it was used on all girls and now it’s a sign of beauty. We were wasted when we arrived back to Chiang Mai around 8:30pm that night, but as it was our last night we went out and had a lovely meal and also visited the night markets again (where I got a fantastic $5 haircut … cheap cheap Hayley fun).

In the Jungle the Mighty Jungle

2009-01-30T13:26:00.012+13:00

Sunday was Day 1 of our trek. We left the guesthouse at 9am and drove for about 40 mins to a village market where we were instructed to stock up on necessities (torch, junk food, liquor). We then drove a bit further unloaded the ute and got moving, starting with a three hour trek, nothing too strenuous really, but gee was it hot! That night we spent in a Karen village. The sleeping arrangements were ten of us in one large bamboo hut on thin mats and pillow things with mosquito nets around us. The shower consisted of a hose with cold water and one bit of sheet metal so you got privacy from one side! The toilet was in a wee tin shed and was a porcelain bowl that you squatted over and then scooped water into it to flush. Princess Hayley coped surprisingly well =) The people of the village cooked us dinner which was lovely and then we sat around the camp fire talking and trying to play the guitar. The village people sell the tour groups beer and soft drinks and they also must get a certain amount for letting us stay and feeding us. We only dealt with maybe four people from the village but they were all lovely, although “Handsome Harry” was constantly drunk I’m sure!

Day 2 we left the village at 10ish and hiked for two hours or so to another Karen village where we stopped for lunch, this place had tiny kittens and puppies running around. So cute! Probably caught something off them but oh well, just had to cuddle them! After that we walked another hour or so to a village of small huts near a waterfall. The huts were so cute and fit two people per hut. Our “shower” that afternoon was in the freezing cold water under the waterfalls. The villagers brought out some of their handmade souvenirs as well, unfortunately for them we were a male dominated group but I was the sacrificial lamb and “supported” the tribe by buying purses, bracelets and scarves. Haha shopping in the jungle. That night after dinner we played drinking games, including a lethal game of spoons! Surprisingly the temps dropped pretty low at night so I pretty much wore everything I had packed to keep warm.

Tuesday was the final day and we only needed to hike one and a half hours before getting picked up by a truck and taken to a larger village, where we had lunch at a “proper” restaurant. After lunch we drove a little further and came to an elephant camp where we got to ride an elephant! It was the coolest, craziest thing. Although some of the staff were dodgy and the way the animals were treated was a bit dubious. I had brought a bunch of bananas and the elephant’s trunks were all over me before we were even seated = Hayley covered in slobber! As we rode, our elephant kept lifting up his trunk and blowing air at us until I gave him a banana…so so cute! Unfortunately we didn’t swap our camera with the others so have little pics of us on the elephant.

Next activity was bamboo rafting which really was lots of fun. We had three rafts for our group and each raft was trying to crash into another and splash or push each other off. There were no rapids or anything so it was completely safe and just nice fun. It took about an hour to get back to the guesthouse and once there most of us decided to go out to dinner and have a decent steak as we’d had no meat for three days…no we wouldn’t make good vegetarians!

Chiang Mai

2009-01-30T13:17:00.009+13:00

The sleeper train was another one of life’s lil experiences. As we had only booked one day in advance and it was Kings Birthday (public holidays) there was very little availability and we got rather lucky to get the last two top bunks. The seats get changed into beds by the staff as you want them to, it’s all very nifty! In our carriage there were numerous tourists so we felt pretty safe, but I can’t say we slept too well as the light was on, the tracks were rickety and it was just plain uncomfortable - but it was a cheap way of getting to Chiang Mai so we can’t complain. We arrived at 10am the next day and had a guy from our guesthouse meet us which was handy as we were half sleepwalking I’m sure!

The staff told us about the nearby tiger kingdom, which was such a bonus as we thought we had missed the boat on the tigers near Bangkok as our itinerary was so full already. Anyway so that afternoon we took a 40min tuktuk ride out to the tigers where we got to see and interact with both 4 month old tigers and 13 month old tigers. This was absolutely amazing to say the least. It cost 300B (£6 or NZ$15) per person for each age group of tiger and you get to stay in each enclosure for about 20 mins. The workers are great and happy to snap your photo and answer questions etc. The 13 month old tigers were fully grown so it was quite scarey being so close to them…but you soon loosened up and next thing we were lying on them pretending to sleep! The only rule was not to touch them near or on their faces and never touch them from the front. We’d heard about tigers in Bangkok being drugged but I really don’t think these guys were, they mostly lazed about in the sun but we also saw one swimming and playing with a ball. As you can imagine we got a CD with 200 odd pics on it – check facebook for some of these!

We were dropped back into town and decided to check out some of the temples where we saw plenty of Buddhist monks. A lovely local lady that we met at one of the temples suggested other places to visit and told us we shouldn’t pay more than 150B for an hour for a tuktuk (and proceeded to arrange one for us, yay). Considering we’d often been paying this amount for a single trip it was a good lesson to learn! The tuktuk took us to a few more amazing old and new temples and wats and then out to some souvenir factories before taking us home.

At 6pm we had our pre-brief for our three day jungle trek which was to start the next day. We met our guides (JJ & Al) and the rest of our group, four British guys, two Danish girls and two Dutch guys. Later we went out to have some dinner and then explored the famous Chiang Mai Night Market. I got a couple of bargain dresses and fabric handbags and wished I had way more room in my luggage for more!

Same Same But Different

2009-01-30T13:09:00.005+13:00

Arriving at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport at 6am on Thursday 4 December, we were one of the first flights to land since it was re-opened after the all days of protesting. The airport was eerily quiet but we had no trouble and actually felt perfectly safe during our entire stay in Thailand. At the airport we found the luggage storage department and proceeded to repack various bags so that we weren’t carrying a bunch of unnecessary stuff (ie winter clothes) around with us for the duration of our holiday.

We took a bus to Koh San Road which is a well-known street where all of the businesses (cafes, bars, clothing stores, beauty parlours) cater to the English speaking backpacker crowd. We quickly found a well-priced hotel and (even though you get told not to) slept from 10am to 2pm before dragging our butts out to explore. We had some lovely Thai food for lunch and then had our first tuk tuk experience, I think they’re kinda fun! The driver took us to a tourist booking shop, we were a bit weary of getting ripped off but the guy who served us was a kiwi and all the licenses and shop certificates seemed to be in order so we went with it. Thankfully it paid off and he was very helpful in giving us ideas and information so we could really nut out what we wanted to do and we left there an hour later with a significantly lighter wallet but with a jam-packed itinerary.

A lot of friends had told us to get out of Bangkok as soon as we could but we actually didn’t mind the place. There was just so much to see and as it was our first Asian country we were in awe of everything. Things like riding down a busy street in a tuk tuk and seeing an elephant on the side of the road are just mind blowing. It was the King’s birthday on 5 December so all the streets were decorated with banners, streamers and photos of the king. There was a real party feel about the place and we wandered through a concert ground watching lovely dressed up dance groups, kick-boxing demo’s, and saw lots of food stalls… including deep-fried insects and dodgy looking meat.

On Friday we went to a snake farm, which was free entry because of King’s birthday! They put on a bit of a demonstration and at the end we were able to hold the snake around our necks!!! It was so freaky but I’m really glad I did it. That afternoon we made our way to Siam Square and HBK which are shopping centres in the new part of Bangkok. On our way to the train station Niki stopped in for his first Thai massage…he loved them! We misjudged our time a bit so I was majorly stressing that we would miss our 7.30pm sleeper train to Chiang Mai but luckily we got there with 10 mins to spare, whew!

Unfortunately I haven't got the pics relating to this post off our memory card (due to the drowning of our camera), but wanted to get going so here it is without the snake pic sorry

Last week in L-Town

2008-12-02T00:36:00.009+13:00

I was lucky to get work back at PwC for our last week in London (24-28 Nov), such a nice surprise after having been off work for three weeks. Was good to get some more money in our bank but also gave me a chance to spend some more time with the friends I’d made at work. The time just flew by so quick with us both working hard, packing our stuff up and attending various farewell events. Wednesday we had drinks at Bar Kick (lots of laughs trying my hand at foosball) followed by a curry on Brick Lane. Thursday night was drinks with all the lovely PA’s from PwC and even a few of the Partners took time out of their busy schedules to wish me well (and open up their wallets and buy us some wine!). Sunday night we cooked a roast dinner at Pam and Kev’s and had Louisa and Tim over. It was so hard saying goodbye to everyone, but at least we know we’ll be seeing the kiwi contingent in the next year or two.

Sunday 30 Nov was supposed to be our departure date but because of the protestors in Bangkok’s airports our flight was cancelled and we weren’t able to fly until Wednesday 3 Dec. Pam & Kev were darlings and let us stay in their lounge which was such a big help (thanks again guys!). We were pretty down about the delay as we were totally ready to leave and were gutted at having to spend our hard-earned pounds on stupid things in London + needless to say the weather was crap! Our Thailand holiday was therefore reduced by a few days but as you will read in the coming (uber long) posts it didn’t really matter and we had a blast. So so glad that we didn’t get caught up in the hype and change our flights to avoid Thailand that’s for sure!

Winter Wonderland

2008-11-27T01:16:00.006+13:00

On our last Tuesday in London (ahhhhh), Niki met me after work at Hyde Park for us to go check out the Winter Wonderland set up there. It was absolutely gorgeous, the main attraction is an ice skating rink and an observation wheel, which just looks stunning at night. There are lovely Christmas lights and lifesize Santa figurines everywhere, christmas-fied carnival type rides, also cute traditional German market stalls selling wonderful arts and crafts, and then there is of course the stalls of food including of course German sausage, Dutch poffertjes, crepes, mulled wine etc etc.

I know it's shocking but we didn't spend a penny! I'm not a fan of ice skating and the food was super expensive and since it wasn't really a meal time we were happy to just look, although I must say I would've loved to have brought some of the crafts, they were amazing (damn luggage allowance)!

I was wearing stockings and work shoes and as it was super chilly out after 40 mins or so my toes started to become rather numb and I had shooting pains up my foot - so I figured it was time to leave. For those in London you must go check this out... there is a similar winter wonderland in Edinburgh which I recommend as well =) Enjoy, have a poffertje or two for me. xx

Wales

2008-11-27T01:15:00.014+13:00

On Friday we were up at 6am and I went “to work” with Niki. His boss had arranged it so that Niki had a few deliveries to make all in the direction of Wales, meaning I got to briefly see beautiful Oxford and a handful of other small English towns including a fandangle property belonging to some Duke or another. We are really lucky with Niki’s work as we are able to use the work van and petrol, free of charge!! We arrived in Wales by 2.30pm which gave us extra time to see a bit more of Wales than we had originally anticipated. We made a stop in Chepstow to see the Chepstow castle and a bit further up, the ruins of the 13th century Tintern Abbey. The abbey remains remarkably complete for it’s age, and is now basically a large brick “shell” of a church and is rather eerie yet lovely.

From there we continued on to our accommodation at Newport where Gina & Ben arrived around the same time. That evening we took a train (15 mins) into Cardiff and had a good catch-up over a pub meal. Saturday morning we made our way back into Cardiff for a cooked breky before heading to Cardiff Castle for a couple of hours. I’m not really into castles or history, or anything intelligent really and hardly ever bother paying an entry price but I’m glad I did for this one. We got an audio guide and also a guided tour of some of the rooms of the castle (unfortunately no photos allowed) but they were spectacular, all the artwork, wood carving and detail is amazing.

Early afternoon we decided it was time to head to a pub, the streets were all filling up by then with lots of rugby colours and flags on display. We found a random pub and managed to squish inside, I had a strawberry cider (never seen that before) which was delish. A group of men started singing welsh songs which was really neat…we were to hear a lot more of that later during the course of the game. We decided to keep moving and try a few different pubs, stopping for a hot Cornish pastie in between as it was freezing outside.

We made our way to the Millenium stadium at 4pm as the boys didn’t want to miss a thing (kick-off wasn’t til 5:15pm!). The stadium is right in the centre of town which is very handy. It was cool seeing it so empty and then 10 mins before kick-off it was chocker. It was a pretty poor first half with no tries being scored and Wales managed to be beating us by 3 points at half-time (9-6)! To be honest, I don’t mind watching sport as long as we’re winning - not because I really care who wins, I just don’t like dealing with the sport-result-induced mood-swings of a kiwi bloke!!! But Niki didn’t seem phased at all at this point, and in fact was still on a major high after hearing the league result that morning!

The second half was more exciting and I found myself screaming at the players…no particular words, just screaming (and squealing too apparently)! The final score was 9-29 to us.

The streets were blocked off to cars and there were people everywhere, including many young ladies wearing far far too little for the temperature. I'm all for a skimpy outfit but I was seriously shivering and I was wearing long pants, big jacket and all the trimmings. hehe obviously I hadn't had enough vodka.

We were lucky to find a table (albeit outside) at an Italian restaurant where we had a lovely drawn out dinner - which Gina & Ben sneakily paid for (grrrr). Later we headed to a pub for a drink where the boys watched the replay of the league but by 11ish we were all shattered so home time it was!

Sunday morning we had breakfast together at the hotel and then went our separate ways, and sadly we won’t see each other for another year at least! Niki and I headed to Barri Island which I’m sure was once a cute seaside village but is now unfortunately overtaken by the british staple of awful tacky theme park rides, casinos and gaming arcades. It was extremely windy and cold so we only explored for 15 mins before hurrying back to the van! We arrived home at around 6pm, with my time as a passenger being occupied by speaking to drunken Toni & Louisa lining up for the walkie post churching.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

2008-11-27T01:11:00.003+13:00

So I’d been unemployed for 2.5 weeks and had made good use of the time, cleaning the flat, travelling to NY (getting engaged!!!!), and just generally tying up loose ends, trawling the internet, relaxing etc etc. By Wednesday 19th I’d hardly left the house for three days and was constantly dressed in trackies and a hoody (with frizzy hair!), so I decided it was high time I got spruced up and out of the house.

Dirty Dancing (the stage show) was on my list of must-sees before I left London but as I had (typically) left it so late to arrange, there were no decent seats available on the dates Toni and I could go. On a wim I decided I would go alone (bit of character building) and just get the cheapest seat possible. So I went into the box office and asked for the cheapest seat (it wasn’t actually as awkward as I thought it would be asking for just the one ticket!). Anyway the girl suggested I pay £22.50 rather than £15 to get a much better seat which I was happy to pay, and that price wasn’t even available online.

I arranged to meet some work friends for lunch and they had 50% off vouchers for Zizzi – so it meant we could dine in style rather than the usual manky £5 lunch meal deal - I had a scrumptious mushroom and chicken risotto….mmmmmm. After an extended lunch hour, I followed them back to work and visited other friends on a different floor, used the facilities (photocopier, water cooler and loo!) and then hightailed it back outside to enjoy the last hour of daylight. I basically had three hours to waste before the show, so I wandered in and out of shops, walked around Trafalgar Square and up to Covent Garden, which is all so beautiful and I’m sure once I get home I’m going to wish I spent more time there!

Dirty Dancing was really good. The girl who played Baby really looked the part although I thought they could’ve cast some of the others a bit better, or at least put wigs on ‘em! But I guess that’s only because I know the movie so well and it’s hard not to compare them. The girl playing Penny (ex-rockette dance instructor) was awesome and super duper hot.

They had added a few extra scenes especially for the stage show and they generally pulled it off really well. Because it was a “musical” some of the cast sang but other big songs from the movie, for example “Hungry Eyes”, were just on a backing tape. The set was really well done with a revolving o-shape panel in the middle of the stage, and I loved how they did the water scene! The dancing really was magnificent and the audience squealed when Johnny got Baby out of that damn corner. It was lovely, I was grinning like an idiot and cheering and clapping too. I’m so so glad that I saw it.

It was acceptable in the 90’s

2008-11-26T02:32:00.011+13:00

Saturday 15 November was my “last” weekend in London so to make the most of it us girls decided we should head out and sample some of London’s city night life. We had seen a weekly 90’s party at WaxBar advertised on the handy “London Loop” e-mail and thought that sounded like a bit of us.

Minus the 90’s fashion, Pam, Toni and I met up early at Louisa’s house for dinner nibbleys (including maggi onion dip…now there’s a reason to head home in itself, YUM), vodka fun and girly chat, with saint Nicola arriving at 9ish with a fresh bottle of voddie in tow.

The girls were all rather tipsy by the time we dragged our butts to the tube station at 10:30pm, and this state of mind combined with the all important full “water” bottles and an empty carriage, lead to some rather amusing antics including dancing and photo posing, earning us a special mention over the intercom by the train driver… lucky for us that he had a sense of humour as drinking on the tube is now forbidden (we so bad ass!)

We met up with Maz & Robert (our new Aussie pals) who had secured a good seating pozzie near the d-floor where we proceeded to cut some serious shapes to the loveable tunes of the 90’s. The DJ was “rocking” and was kind enough (after much harassment and pinkie promises from Toni) to play Dave Dobbyn’s “Slice of Heaven” so we had a big nostalgic group dance, a scene somewhat reminiscent of the Grumpy Mole. Later our thirst was quenched by “ice ice baby” cocktails…I totally love the cheese-factor of the 90’s.

We had to put our names on the guest list and pay a cover charge to get in to this club, and disappointingly it was all a big hoo-hah over nothing special… Luckily we all have personality-plus and had a fandangle night anyway, but I ain’t recommending it to anyone…

Bomb-diggity

2008-11-26T02:25:00.003+13:00

Wednesday 12 Nov I went to the O2 Arena to see Kanye West in concert with Pam. This was my first ever “very famous person” concert so I was rather excited. I had really wanted to see Madonna or Coldplay but unfortunately their concerts didn’t work with my dates, so I jumped at the chance to help Pam blow her concert diet by accompanying her to Kanye. I hadn’t seen Pam for a whole week and a half and since we’d both been travelling (her & Kev to Dublin, us to New York) we had lots to catch up on. It was lovely to share my engagement news with a girlfriend face-to-face, appropriate squealing and hugging followed.

Kanye came on at 9pm and did a 2 hour gig on stage, all by himself, no costume changes or nothing. The stage was pretty basic and the theme was them in a spaceship and getting lost, (complete with fancy smoke and lighting and girl machine space voice) which was all a tad tacky but I commend his hard work nonetheless. I only knew about four of his songs, but it was still entertaining, especially watching all the “skinny white boys” shaking their thing and raising their “diamonds in the sky”. Toward the end Estelle showed up as a wee surprise guest so we were treated to “American Boy”. Kanye went on a bit of a tyrant against the critics and also mentioned Britney winning some award over Rihanna… I think there’s a bit of anger there, or maybe it’s for show…tough rapper and all.

I am looking forward to going to a big name pop concert next – hope my gal pals in NZ are keen!

New York New York

2008-11-19T11:01:00.011+13:00

We arrived in NY 11pm local time on Thursday 6 November...We flew American Airlines from London Heathrow (approx 7 hours) and it was exciting having the added extras like reclining chairs, food, drinks, movie screens - you know everything you don't get on budget carriers! I was however a tad disappointed with the very limited movie selection (and it was exactly the same on the way home!)...but on a positive note I now know "Mamma Mia" off by heart (and yes, I do requests).

We struggled a bit with the subway into Manhatten, mission to say the least, very very confusing compared to London's tube that's for sure. We had bumped into a solo travelling kiwi guy (as you do) and later decided to share a cab to our respective hostels. We walked up and down West 95th Street trying to find Candy Hostel (how cute is that name) to no avail. By this time it was the equivalent to 6am London time...and we had obviously not slept for nearly 24 hours = slight freak out! We noticed another hostel across the street and a cop (a massive tall black man...very NYPD action movie type) that does security for all the surrounding hostels kindly showed us the way... through some back door... turns out our hostel is actually on West 94th street...handy that!!! ahhhhhhh, thank goodness we were in an english speaking country!!

The jet lag kinda got to us on this trip, just feeling a bit dizzy and hungry at weird times, but we managed alright and we were out of the hostel by 9am every morning and were just super tired when we got back around 10pm each night. On our first day we purchased a 48 hour hop-on-hop-off bus ticket which came in pretty handy as it included a night tour over Manhatten bridge and tours of uptown, downtown and obviously all the tourist spots. The only crap thing about them was the awful tour guides...who really were crap yet tried to drum into you that as they were part of the service industry you should tip 'em.

We went in to the Trump tower (which has cafe, restaurants open to public), Disney store, Tiffany's, M & M's store, Macy's, Century 21 (designer bargains) and Toys'R Us - which has a full size working ferris wheel, amazing large lego figurines, a giant barbie house and a "life-size" dinosaur...very cool! Times Square was fantastic, walking around that area is just like being in the movies, seriously so cool. It is manic, the billboards are unbelievably impressive and massive, the lights are blinking and yes there is a "naked" cowboy!

We wandered through "Chinatown" and "Little Italy" and ate evey takeaway you can think of including of course a street vendor hotdog, some new york cheesecake and doughnuts! We also saw the Ground Zero site of the 9-11 attacks - which is currently just a big building site, I think they have completed the basement levels but there is alot of work to be done as. There are quite a few tributes around still - we didn't go into the churches but apparently they have lots. Especially touching was a nearby fire station which is right on the footpath and it had a memorial thing set up with photos of about 8 men... which were obviously from that outfit, so very sad.

We spent some time in central park and again that was just like being in the movies!! There are a gazillion people jogging and there's those lanterns that we all love. The autumn colours are really stunning, I've never appreciated them before.

We took the Staten Island ferry, which is free, to see the statue of liberty, it was pretty exciting seeing her although it was a pretty crappy day and she was rather far away. Luckily on our last day, when the weather was beautiful, we had a free 1 hour boat trip (which we got with our bus pass) and we got so close to her, it was awesome. Plus obviously was great to see the buildings and bridges from a different angle and the guide/narrator was really knowledgable.

We took a train over to New Jersey to do a spot of shopping, we didn't buy much and it wasted alot of time, but anywho it was a bit of a thrill to have been in a different state! The view across the water over to Manhatten is pretty spectacular also.

That afternoon we lined up for the Empire State Building at 4pm but by the time we got through security and ticket purchase, and up the lifts to the 85th floor (90 mins) it was dark out, but still absolutely gorgeous. The view is terrific, would be awesome to see it on a clear day. The only thing that took away from it was the cold - luckily Niki had just purchased two big hoodies...although he was still in jandals! brrrr

On our last day we went to a different part of central park by Harlem Meer (lake) and the more manicured gardens which were very pretty. And you all know what happened next! We are engaged =)

Our flight was at 18:50 so we had time to have a quick lunch do our 1 hour boat cruise from 1-2pm, rush back to the hostel and then off to the airport - takes about 1.5 hours on the subway and airtrain. We were absolutely buzzing all day and grinning like idiots (and forever glancing at my bling). We have been together so long so I didn't think it would really change much but it is such an awesome feeling!! Anyway pics are in facebook and on the top link to the right... it's a nightmare putting them in here.

You mad cow

2008-11-17T02:43:00.008+13:00

Nicola's flat hosted a halloween party and they were kind enough to invite a bunch of us. We had Gina and Ben staying the night prior to their early morning flight to Italy, and Toni, Louisa & Tim made the trip down from up north to attend. Their flat is just a 5 min walk for us so no battling with London public transport - yay. They had a great turn out with most people making a good effort with costumes which resulted in lots of prop swapping and of course plenty of fantastic photo opps!

At 22:45 Toni, Louisa and I thought it would be a good idea to head to the local supo and purchase another bottle of vodka... it was an entertaining journey to say the least. Unfortunately for me it was my undoing and I spent the next entire day hungover... Hayley styles... bucket required!

I must give Toni a special mention who was found asleep in our bath tub at 6am! Gina and Maz (flatmate) had both needed to pee around 5am but had both seen the light was on so figured someone was in there. Gina and Ben left to the airport - still busting. 40 mins later Maz just bit the bullet and went in...to find Toni comatose in the bath...she wouldn't stir so what was a girl to do... she was busting! Anywho an hour later when Niki and I were transferring from the lounge to our own bed (as Gina & Ben had stayed in there) Niki noticed, and was like "Hayley, Toni is in the bath" and then he went to bed. Like it's an every day occurrence. Sort it out Hayley! Anyway it was hilarious, how that girl managed to sleep in there is beyond me. When I woke her she said "oh I was just taking out my contact lenses"... mmmm right!

Work it a little bit

2008-11-01T01:56:00.006+13:00

So it's Halloween... a month til we leave these fair shores yet it seems that my time being an "employee" in London has come to an end... I'm still hoping to get a call offering me some sort of temp work until we leave, but really not holding my breath and also with news of the economy at home I'm feeling a little bit worried that I might end up back at Tauranga Pak'n Save. ah c'est la vie

Anyways thought I'd just post a couple of pics in relation to my uber cool workmates at PwC in London since April this year...

My darling friends from the 5th floor at work got me a Topshop voucher when I finished working for them in August. With it I brought the most beautiful wee dress by Lipsy. I’ve worn it once so far and feel so pretty in it. It will be getting recycled many a time!

And this pic below is my last day at work - 31 Oct...the super fun girls on the 3rd floor decorated my desk and got me gorgeous flowers and a wee eyore cake!! I'm also going back to see everyone on the 27th of Nov for my leaving drinks which is very cool of them all =)

Rain Man @ Apollo Theatre

2008-11-01T01:50:00.005+13:00

So like we totally saw Josh Hartnett live on stage! It was so exciting, just a shame we had bad seats and no binoculars! I really enjoyed the play and thought the acting was pretty good and it was as much like the movie as it could be on stage with really great sets. Adam Goodley was amazing and did a convincing performance as Raymond. You could tell Josh was a bit more of a novice and sometimes we weren’t sure if he was pausing for theatrical effect or because he’d forgotten his lines! haha - he could just stand there all night and look pretty for all I care. There was a scene where his shirt came off… Toni nearly fainted.

Beforehand we met at a bar in Leicester Square and could see the paparazzi going mad for some celebrities. We don’t know who it was, assume it was some sort of premiere as there was red carpet. But just to stop and think about it we are right where all this action happens that you read about in gossip magazines. I truly haven’t taken advantage of it. Wish my stalker pals were here =)

3 day Paddy Wagon Tour of Southern Ireland

2008-10-30T06:35:00.017+13:00

Friday morning was another early one with our meeting time being 8am at the Paddy Wagon Office. We hit the road at about 8:30am and drove out of Dublin with a quick stop at Phoenix Park (largest city park in Europe at 712 hectares - since I have no clue how big that is our guide told us it was bigger than all of London parks combined or 9x as big as Central Park!) It is so beautiful, just peaceful and acres of rolling green fields, lovely big trees and deer roaming free.

Friday was a rainy day (which I guess you’d expect of Ireland) the windows fogged up and it was generally miserable. Our first stop was at Clonmacnoise which is the ruins of an old monastry and is littered with golden age celtic crosses marking graves. It was really beautiful and a bit spooky actually! We arrived into Galway at 3pm and had free time exploring the town. It was a cute town but we ended up in a coffee shop to keep warm and dry! That night the group went out to a pub for dinner – 3 other paddywagon tours were there at the same time so it was a massive group. We stayed for the live band and a few drinks, making our way back to the hostel before we were to turn into pumpkins.

Saturday our group of 14 (3 boys total!) took off at 9:30am – and you’ll be pleased to hear we had wonderful weather! We travelled to the Bog of Allen and passed by various castles stopping for many photo opportunities. The bog is made up of peat which if I understand correctly is formed by sediment on the swamp land that hardens into a black substance as it has nowhere to drain, and it is used as a fuel for fire etc. We saw small piles stacked by a farmer to dry and also larger areas which are “bog-farmed” by a factory. We then came across a flooded road and watched with amusement as a few brave cars made their way through but we heard that the local car place has towed 13 cars out in the last day! Our driver didn’t want to risk it as he had spent a few hours the previous day picking up a tour who’s bus’ engine had blown up by driving through a flood!

Later we passed through Burren which is home to an eerily haunting limestone landscape. It is so strange seeing miles of stone, some with massive cracks in it and even hills of stone in the distance as well. We stopped at Doolin for lunch and then continued on to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs stretch for 8km and rise 214 metres above the Atlantic ocean, they were breathtaking and we were so lucky to have good weather and really enjoyed a good 90 mins exploring. Niki was brave (or stupid) and went over the tourist site boundary (along with many many others) and got a snap of a crazy woman sitting with her feet over the edge. There were “Good Samaritan” signs everywhere… thankfully no one decided to throw themselves off while we were there! That afternoon we took a car ferry and then made our way to Killarney for the night where we were treated to some stunning views. Killarney is the start and end for people doing the Ring of Kerry and is just so gorgeous. We went out for a pub dinner and then on to a bar for bargain drink specials before heading to hear some live music by a 3 piece band. It wasn’t river dance or anything but super fun hearing some traditional stuff and watching the local drunken crowds doing their irish dancing (or trying to!). Our hostel was pretty crap this night – with 12 of us in the same room (Niki being the only boy again)! Next morning (Sunday, last day of tour) we were away at 9am and again lucky to have great weather. Very clear and crisp and a perfect morning to see the massive Killarney park by horsedrawn carriage! The park was so beautiful and peaceful and just how you imagine Irish landscape. We saw wild deer including a very large stag which was very special.

We did a drive through tour of Cork and then continued on to the Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney stone. I had never heard of this before but kissing the stone is mean to give you the gift of the gab - Just what I need! The grounds and castle were really lovely and kissing the tone was an experience in itself as you have to lie upside down with your head hanging back and your get held there by an employee so you don’t fall – and it’s quite high off the ground!

After that we had a couple hours of solid driving (and passenger sleeping) before arriving at the ruins of Cahir Castle. Again a gorgeous setting and we had lots of fun exploring and taking photos. We arrived back into Dublin around 6pm and headed straight home to Debra’s for dinner, dvd and hairwashing!

Monday after our tour we had a much needed sleep-in before heading to town, my plan was to hit the shops! Niki spent the afternoon at the Guinness Factory (surprise surprise) while Debra and I shopped til we dropped. We each came away with a pair of boots and matching grey skinny jeans – my first pair ever! I feel so fashionable it’s hilarious. At 4ish we met back up with Niki in a café called “The Queen of Tarts”, this place wins many awards and I can see why. We each had a scrummy treat, mine being a slice of baileys and chocolate chip cheesecake = divine! What a perfect way to end such a great long weekend.
After many hugs and a nearly-tearful goodbye (who knows when we will see Debra again!) it was time to catch a bus and head to the airport for our 8pm flight back to London.

Dublin - Ireland Oct 08

2008-10-29T02:10:00.011+13:00

Back in June I was perusing the Ryanair website (a very popular pass-time of mine) when I stumbled across the biggest bargain of my year: £4 incl taxes return flights to Dublin for both of us! Obviously I booked it then and there, figuring if we didn’t end up using the flight it didn’t matter.

Fast-forward 5 months…Thursday 9 Oct we got up at 05:45 to catch the tube at 06:30 and then the train to Stansted airport – our train tickets costing 12x our flight price! The train only takes 45 mins, rather than the 1 hour 40min cheap coach we usually take, what a treat! We arrived at Dublin at 11 and spent a good 30 mins lining up for the non-EU passport line (yawn). Ireland’s arrival stamp nearly takes up a whole page and is bright green… too much detail for you all I guess, but I was excited!

We met Debra in town and deposited our bags at a left luggage facility for the day. After a scrummy Italian meal for lunch we spent the next couple of hours exploring Dublin City. It was fab having a personal guide, and it was nice being in a “small” city again where everything is within walking distance and is easy to navigate. We saw a statue of Molly Malone (the cockles and mussels song), Trinity College, Millennium spire, Christ Church Cathedral, endless Guinness signage and pubs, the pedestrian shopping streets and a city park. After 2 hours of dawdling we were getting tired and weary so Debra took us to a bar/restaurant that was converted from a very old church. The interior was absolutely gorgeous, even the pipe organ remained in place.
Later we headed back to Debra’s flat for a home cooked meal. En-route we had to stop for a railway crossing - and get this, the gates are manually operated - as in a man runs out and opens/closes gate...what year are we in again?!! Later we headed back into town to meet up with some of Debra's friends for drinks. Niki tried all different types of local brewed beer and yummy cocktails were the go for us girls, although I wouldn’t recommend the “jelly bean” – it does taste like a jelly bean, but a black one (ewww) they really should specify!

Keep posted for details of our 3 day tour of Southern Ireland

The church AGAIN

2008-10-21T05:07:00.008+13:00

On Sunday – after our cultural experience of Shakespeare the night before – we went to “the church” for an afternoon of boozing and crazy ruckus, talk about one extreme to the other!

We had planned to go back when we booked the Shakespeare tickets as Tim, Louisa, Toni and Debra hadn’t been before. Nicki Brown (a pal from school) had also arrived in London since then so was a good chance to catch up with her too. We started the day by meeting for a yummy cooked breakfast and champers at Tim & Louisa’s flat. At 12pm we made the move to Kentish Town and paid the stupid door-charge of £7 to enter the icky madness that is the church. Now you might recall we went to the church when Hollie was over on holiday way back in April, and although I had a great day I didn’t handle the daytime drinking too well and didn’t think I’d ever do it again…fast-forward six months and we are at it again! This time our "theme" was to each dress in a sngle colour...dressing up makes for more silliness so it's a must

We had the funniest time and again took a zillion pics (I must stop posing with drinks...)! Around 4:30pm at closing we made a very entertaining tube trip to the Shepherds Bush Walkabout, well when I say “we” I mean everyone apart from Niki…who headed straight home to deal with a premature hangover! Moderation isn’t a word in his vocabulary obviously.

We indulged in mince pies and a variety of drinks, danced our hearts out and met some nice and not so nice people. Later Toni, Nicki and I caught up with Nicki’s friends (accompanied by one of the nice people, joined to Nicki’s lips! Hehe) at a nearby bar where we were entertained by a brilliant kiwi singer/guitarist. A very fun day/night had by all… although I tell ya Monday was a hard day to get though!!

A Late-Summer's Night Dream

2008-10-21T01:22:00.007+13:00

On the 4th of October we went to the Shakespeare’s Globe to see the closing night of "A Mid-Summer's Night Dream". Toni had organised us all and had purchased tickets way back in July for this popular theatre event. The Globe is situated on the Thames (next to the Tate Modern Museum) which is believed to be the original site of Shakespeare’s theatre and has been re-built to look quite authentic. It is a circular building with seats most the way round the stage with 3 levels of seating (wooden benches) above each other. The most astounding thing is that the theatre does not have a roof! It is gorgeous being able to look up at the moon, but it does mean that it’s a bit chilly inside! Because of this the theatre only operates during the "summer" months performing 4-5 different plays over the season, but is open for tours and the like for the rest of the year.

The plays are performed like they were in the “olden days” no microphones or gadgets, simple costuming and a very basic set. Our seats were to the side of the stage, so not brilliant, but we still got to see most of what was going on and somehow understand the story (with a bit of help from reading the programme). You can also attend the theatre for the bargain price of £5 - as long as you don't mind standing up the whole time... keeping in mind that the globe has no roof so you’d need to wear a poncho. (As you can tell the night setting on our camera is pretty crap!)

Kiwi Toast Festival - London 27 Sept 08

2008-10-18T01:33:00.013+13:00

Louisa and Tim scored us free tickets (usually £30 each!) to go to the New Zealand day of the 3 day toast festival which is held annually in London - celebrating Australia, New Zealand and South Africa over a 3 day weekend. Wasn't our usual "full" crew, with Toni still trecking around Europe and Pam in the States (oh the glamorous lives we lead!) but Gina made the treck up from Isle of Wight to join us (YaY!) and we had a great day.

Basically it's held in a massive hall with many stalls selling kiwi food and products like t-shirts, greenstone, buzzy bee etc and of course beer & wine; also recruitment agencies, shipping companies - anything that your average antipodean would be interested in! We were lucky to arrive early enough to snag a table and guarded it for the rest of the day, taking turns to grab beer/wine and munching out on everything we miss from home - rashuns, mince pie, L&P, chocolate and taking some home too (just don't convert into kiwi $$'s!).

The day was opened by a maori culture group which was wicked - you don't realise how much you miss that stuff! Daniel Carter and Zin Zan Brooke were in the sports section and took time to sign a few autographs etc. OpShop and Supergroove played later in the afternoon/evening and got the crowd pumping. It was a pretty good day but really not worth the ticket price so super glad it was FREE hehe, lovely to get a wee New Zealand fix, even though I know we're home soon.

Nice

2008-10-15T04:39:00.007+13:00

We had three nights in Nice which I would totally recommend to anyone, not only is it a great place with plenty to keep you entertained it is fantastic as a base to explore the surrounding gorgeous beaches and other hot spots.

We followed a path up and around a hill which gives spectacular views across the city and houses various monuments, roman ruins and a waterfall. We wandered through a traditional food market, and stopped in at small patisseries. I formed a meaningful relationship with luscious lemon meringue tarts, and Niki kept finding more wine and cheeses to sample. On our first night in Nice we followed our Lonely Planet’s advice and dined at “Basta Pasta” which was so yummy, we ended up there again on our last night!

There is a fantastic promenade all along the beach which was lovely to wander down at night. Nice has a pebble beach which is extremely uncomfortable but the water is so so gorgeous blue, but when we were there it was a bit rough for my liking. Also the main square was a good place to be, “buskers” for entertainment including an opera singer and further up a pianist. There are pillars along the road with statues of people sitting on them that light up and change colour at night.

Our last day of the holiday was lovely, I spent the morning souvenir shopping whilst Niki watched the AB’s beat the Aussies to take the tri-nations & Bledisloe cup (needless to say someone was in an excellent mood all afternoon!). We later met up on the beach for our last baguette, ham and cheese lunch and soaked up a few rays before heading to the airport at about 7pm. Surprise surprise our flight was delayed 45 minutes…but ultimately it all went well and we arrived home at 3am… back in London… back to the grind…

Monaco

2008-10-09T06:38:00.013+13:00

On the 12th of September we took a day trip to nearby Monaco which is the second smallest country in the world (behind the Vatican). I know you’ve all heard about it and I can confirm they weren’t exaggerating… super yachts, fancy cars, luxury hotels, designer stores as far as the eye can see. Also a lot of tourists around so you didn’t really see the rich people themselves.

Monaco has still got a royal family which is rather famous (the one that Grace Kelly married into) so we went up to see the palace. The changing of the guards was a bit of a non-event but I guess quite refreshing to see something non-pompous and showy. (Not that you could see much past the swarms of tourists!). We wandered through lovely manicured parks and had some great views. The public transport to get there was very cheap and we found a supermarket to get our lunch so it totally didn’t end up being an expensive day at all even though you are surrounded by the rich. We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at the beach – small pebbles this time, so still not ultra comfy but probably the loveliest clearest water we’d seen yet. Niki even had small fish swimming and nibbling at his feet.

We peeked at some real estate listings and were horrified at the prices…nothing was less than €1 million and there was even a listing for an apartment for €10 million!!! Disgustingly, filthy rich. Niki went into the famous casino (you should’ve seen the cars parked out front!) and he tells me it’s pretty impressive, but you don’t get further then a pokies room without paying a €10 fee.

Cannes

2008-10-09T06:37:00.008+13:00

The next morning we were up rather early to catch two buses and then a train to Cannes. We left our luggage at the station and spent the day exploring the famous film town. The town really thrives on the tourist industry from the Cannes Film Festival and there was lots of reference to it. The photos speak for themselves.

La Croix Valmer

2008-10-09T06:28:00.004+13:00

Later that morning we took a bus to La Croix Valmer which is 20 or so kms from St Tropez. It’s a really small town, got a few shops and restaurants and lots of hotels. Our accommodation was in a sort of holiday resort – old people everywhere! I don’t think they were used to people just staying for one night, but it’s the only place we could find on the internet – turns out there were cheaper and better hotels there but oh well. We took a shuttle bus down to the beach which was really lovely and stayed from 3pm til about 7:30pm. We got some wine and laxed back at the hotel before going out to dinner later that night. A rather lovely memorable birthday!

Toulon

2008-10-09T06:25:00.005+13:00

We were in Toulon for 2 nights, after returning the car and settling into our hotel we ventured out for dinner and some exploring. Toulon is a naval base and has a marina so there were plenty of boats to see. Later that night I’d discovered I lost my glasses…don’t ask me how, it’s a mystery. The hire car company didn’t find any so I’m at a loss.
The next day we decided we were in need of some beaching and were lucky to have fab weather. The water is beautiful so clear and blue. We had a really great time the only downer was I was still covered in itchy bites! The next morning was my birthday (26!!!) and Niki popped out in the morning to get breakfast and surprised me with red roses =) awww

4 day tripping in hire car - South of France

2008-10-09T06:17:00.013+13:00

Day 1 we took off from Bordeaux at about 11am in our fandangle Nissan Micra. Niki found it rather strange not just driving on the wrong side of the road but having the gear stick etc on the wrong side too! Our friends Sheree & Marty had leant us their TomTom (Satellite Navigation) which was an absolute star and made our self-drive part of the trip a lot easier.

Our first planned stop was a small pretty village named Sarlet la Caneda. It was really quaint and pretty but also very touristy and busy. Niki had seen the same thing advertised at lots of restaurants and was stuck on ordering what he thought was casserole – it turned out to be steak with onions, very chewy steak in fact. Still I trust his French more than mine. We passed through many small towns and fields and fields (or is it yards and yards…vineyards?!) of grape vines – and also fields of sunflowers (which I guess is something to do with getting the soil ready for the grapes as all the sunflowers were left to die off).

That night we found a lovely B&B in the middle of nowhere with a host who spoke very little English (Niki’s French was better than this guys English!). We had a lovely breakfast the next morning consisting of all homemade items including bread, jam, honey and cake.

Day 2: We started the day with a plan to make our way to Toulouse and stop at various places that caught our eye on the way. Niki had been fiddling with the TomTom and found a feature where it tells you tourist points of interest in the area and that’s how we found the stunning look out in the Pyrynnees (mountain range). It was absolutely stunning landscape and we had excellent views. We also came across a lot of spray-painted text on the road (one supporting kiwi Julian Dean) and we think we may have been on part of the route of the Tour de France!

We drove through Toulouse and that night ended up at Foix where we stayed in a hotel. That night the town was having a festival so there was a carnival and live music – many well known english songs including theme songs eg the Simpsons and the Muppets – very funny! We went back to the hotel and a little while later a large fireworks display started right over the gorgeous castle which we could see from the bathroom window. It was brilliant – very fairytale like!

Day 3: We travelled to Carcassonne which is a gorgeous walled city including a castle, where we stopped for two hours to explore...not much to tell so just look at the pretty pics! We did quite a bit of driving today (well, I was sleeping no doubt) and I got more itchy bites!! This time on my face, one on an eyelid which made me look like I’d been punched…oh so pretty is me!

Day 4: We drove to the Pont Du Gard which is a massive roman aquaduct. I wasn’t really sure what an aquaduct was so in case you don’t either, I’ll explain here… back in the day when there were no pipes to transport water the clever romans came up with an idea of building a large bridge at the opening of a water source and having is on a slight angle so that the water flowed down it…I’m talking massive bridge through mountains and over ditches and waterways etc. It was really impressive and interesting.

Later we drove to Avignon which is another walled city which houses the palace of popes. It’s a really gorgeous town, all very medieval and old! Next stop was Aix du Provence where we explored for an hour or so, lovely winding streets, saw people dressed in traditional costume outside a church and sampled some yummy patisserie stuff. We arrived at our drop-off location at 6pm… Toulon.

Bordeaux

2008-10-08T01:59:00.006+13:00

Bordeaux was our first stop in France. We had heard that it was a pretty town so decided to spend a day and a half there and then pick up our rental car.

There were some lovely buildings and of course a church., but one thing out of the ordinary was a water misting feature over a large square which you can walk through surrounded by gorgeous colourful lanterns which makes the water look spectacular at night.

Unfortunately it rained which made our second day a bit disappointing. To get out of the rain we decided to go to the movies and we saw The Dark Knight, it was pretty good for a batman movie, totally not my cup of tea but I managed to keep my eyes open. Pretty freaky watching it knowing that Heath’s no longer though…

San Sebastian

2008-10-07T06:35:00.005+13:00

It was another long train trip from Barcelona to San Sebastian so we didn’t get in and settled at our hostel til around 9pm. We went for a wee wander along the promenade and had some lovely views of the ocean and city lights. Our hostel was in perfect location and had really great facilities.

The next morning was a little drizzly and overcast which really put a damper on things. Niki decided to brave the elements and go explore whilst I was in need of some gelato and retail therapy! We met up for lunch, the sun came out and then we spent the afternoon at the lovely beach…the only problem was that when the tide came in most of the beach disappeared so you were sitting very close to everyone to all fit in!

Later that evening we went out to a bar and relaxed over some mojitos before going out for dinner and deciding to give paella another go. It was pretty tasty but still we aren’t major fans. I even ate a whole mini octupus (the size of a grape) which tasted fine, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat any more of them, all the lil legs etc ewwwww. I think I’d prefer the chicken version of paella! (Check out the tan lines...how pastey was I?!)

Barcelona

2008-10-07T02:15:00.016+13:00

We had a “Gaudi” day on which we visited an apartment (Casa Batllo), a cathedral (Sagrada Familia) and a park (Park Guell) which were all designed by Antoni Gaudi. I’m not into architecture or anything but this guy was seriously talented – he took inspiration from nature and his modernism was way before his time.

The apartment was amazing: lots of natural light, gorgeous wooden detail and no straight corners anywhere, with lots of reference to the ocean. The cathedral was spectacular, decorated with so much detail. Gaudi started building the church in 1883 (he died in 1926) and still today it’s not yet completed – 2030 is the target!

The park was really awesome as well… apart from us getting lost for a good hour and wandering what the big deal was about in the seemingly dry barren park! We finally came across the main event (with hundreds of other tourists). There’s a large concrete area surrounded by stone seating all with lovely ceramic detail. There’s also water features, statues etc all covered in ceramics. The pictures say it all. Absolutely breathtaking!

At night we wandered down Las Ramblas where we saw some fantastic artists and street performers. There is also a lovely marina area which is very pretty with lights at night.

We got a ticket for a sort of hop-on-hop-off bus which just did a mini tour of the area near where we were staying, including the 1992 Olympic site (surprisingly a bit of a buzz to see!), a castle, gardens, fountains etc.

On our last afternoon, when we were knackered from sightseeing, we headed to the beach. It was the busiest beach we’d come across so far, constant hassle from people offering massage, cold drinks, even clothing and fresh coconut – which I did try some of, negotiating him down to a quarter of the initial price of €2 for a piece, what a rip-off. We hadn’t planned to go to the beach which is no problem for Niki in his boardies… luckily I was already wearing my bikini top and Niki thought it hilarious to snap a pic of me swimming in my pink knickers!

That night we went to a restaurant by the beach where I tried gazpacho - cold tomato soup… it was strange, tasty I guess, but too weird for me. Niki ordered paella which is a dish Spain is also very famous for. It’s a rice dish cooked in a special flat pan that they bring out to the table, usually with seafood. They often leave the “shells” on the shrimps so it can get a bit messy and you often take a mouthful of rice and get a crunchy orange antenna in your mouth! Mmm tasty!

La Tomatina

2008-09-26T00:10:00.007+12:00

La Tomatina is held in a small village called Bunol which is about an hour away from Valencia. The festival has been held annually since 1944 and until 1975 it was a BYO tomatoes event, but since then the council of Bunol supplies the 125,000 kilos of tomatoes for the 40,000 people that come from all over the world every year! (Absolute madness I tell you!)

The fight begins at 11am and a convoy of about 5 trucks loaded with tomatoes enter the main town square and stop at various strategic points along the street to dump the tomatoes, however when they drive through the middle of the main street the people have no where to go so it becomes a big crushing war down the side streets. We experienced this first hand and had a horrible time getting squished up against the wall, there were girls near us who were crying and another who fainted, we’d had enough by the time the second truck came passed (and we still hadn’t seen a single tomato!) so our group decided to make our way out of the crowd before we got hurt any worse.

Niki and I lost the others we were with and then randomly spotted Toni and Debra on a quiet side street. Those girls had just been pummelled, had their t-shirts ripped and were covered in tomato from head to toe. So hilarious, they had been hardcore right in the main square and gave us the low-down of what happened and pointed us to a near street where all the action was happening. 10 minutes later Niki and I were both saturated and covered with tomatoes. The juice was gushing down the roads it was incredible. The craziest silliest thing ever and what a weird feeling to be drenched in tomatoes. Thankfully I was wearing goggles as a couple of guys thought it hilarious to throw a BUCKET full of tomatoes at me. Needless to say most of our clothes were left in Bunol…although the residents are lovely and all come out on the streets ready to hose you down!

We got back to the hostel at 3:30pm had a shower (obviously!) and then slept for a couple of hours. That night we went out for drinks and tapas before making our way to an open air night club by the beach which opened at midnight. The club was fabulous, all very swish and modern, and we were treated to some entertainment by stunning Brazilian dancers. I only wish I was as hardcore as some of the others we met – not returning home until we were getting up for breakfast the next day!

La Fiesta de la Vendimia

2008-09-26T00:09:00.010+12:00

On our second night in Valencia we travelled one hour to Requena for their annual water and wine festival, which is the oldest wine harvest festival in Spain. The night we went was their “Noche de la Zurra” (night of music) and it’s a night where the local folk parade through the town following the small orchestras and carrying wineskins. People basically take to the streets to beseech the powers-that-be for the water needed for the next harvest.

There were 500 of us on our tour that went and we were practically the only foreigners in the town. We had been told to take our own alcohol with us and that we just needed to go with the flow as every year it’s different so they never know what to expect but that it was always awesome. It was a lovely small town and we spent a couple of hours just wandering around and having fun with the others from our hostel. We were lucky enough to have an Australian guy with us that could speak Spanish so he asked some locals if they knew what was going to happen that night as the streets seemed fairly quiet, we were told that this year the festival was centered in the bull ring – somewhere we couldn’t get without a ticket! Boo! We were a bit disappointed as it didn’t seem like anything was going to happen but then luckily at midnight the crowds started pouring out of the arena and the bands started assembling themselves and before you know it we’re all dancing down the streets with the crowds.

As the procession make its way through the streets, the tenants hurl buckets of water or use a hose out their windows and the people go wild chanting “agua, agua” (water, water) until they get soaked and then they walk/dance a little further up the street and do it again. About an hour into it we came across the first tanker of wine (from the first pressing) which is free and you just pass up your drink bottle and they fill it up for you. It tasted pretty awful as it was so new, but a lot was drunken and also thrown over each other. It was such a joyous, crazy atmosphere and we had a great time. It was certainly a night to remember and we rate it as one of the best cultural experiences we had on our OE. It's also worth mentioning that we didn't take our camera to this event or La Tomatina so any pics are of pals from the tour...(Thanks Jazz!)

Our coaches left the town at 3:30am but I tell you we could’ve all kept on going we were on such a buzz. We got back to the hostel at 4:30am and were up again at 7:30am to get on the road for the reason we’d all come to Valencia…La Tomatina!!!

Valencia, Spain

2008-09-26T00:09:00.009+12:00

We were booked on a tour with First Festival Travel to attend La Tomatina, the giant tomato fight. We stayed in a dorm at an excellent hostel sharing with 2 other girls, 1 Brit and 1 Kiwi who were really lovely. It crossed our mind that they had requested an all girls dorm and that the organisers had thought Niki was a “girl”. hehe

Valencia was really fabulous, we had perfect weather and it is such a nice city with lovely sights to see and fantastic markets so close to our hostel. Being on the tour was awesome too as they planned stuff every night and we had a really good group at our hostel. Our particular tour had 600 people on it but that was spread over 4 or 5 hostels...but there were at least six other “La Tomatina” tours operating in Valencia at the time, meaning the streets were crowded with kiwis and aussies!

That first afternoon we explored the town a bit, found me a pair of pretty sunglasses and Niki a man singlet at the markets and then caught the bus to the beach which was sooo gorgeous. It is such a wide wide beach, yellow sand and the water was so lovely and clear and a perfect temperature. The next afternoon we met up with Toni and Debra at the beach for a couple of hours, it was great to see them and we got some good tips about Barcelona, where they’d just been and we were next heading to! On our last morning (as our train didn’t leave until 3pm) we made ourselves get up and we took a bus out to the science museum to check out all the crazy architecture and spent a couple of informative hours in the museum itself.

Madrid, Spain

2008-09-24T00:46:00.006+12:00

It was an 8 hour train trip to reach Madrid and our allocated seats were facing backwards! I couldn’t believe our luck, I can get a bit motion sickness at the best of times let alone going backwards. Anyway it ended up fine I just couldn’t read, so tried to sleep most of the way.

We arrived at our hotel in Madrid at about 8pm and went out for a wee explore as we knew we only had one full day there. We walked for about 2.5 hours all the way up to an amazing park. Madrid was far nicer than I had imagined it would be, I guess my last impression of a European city was Athens which was rather grimey.

The next morning we went on the neweurope free walking tour and again we weren’t disappointed. We had a British girl as our guide and it was a fantastic way to see the city and learn a bit. We stopped for lunch at a tapas bar which had 100 different types of tiny bread rolls, and you ticked what you wanted on an order sheet, and they make it all there and bring it out on a wooden plate with chips in the middle – actually everywhere you go in Spain they give you chips, years ago a law was passed that you can’t serve alcohol without food accompanying it. In windows of shops you’ll see chips piled high – not in packets!…kind of like how we’d see popcorn at home I guess. Anyway the lil sandwiches were lovely and I tried this other sangria type thing that was like pink lemonade…delicious. On the tour we got chatting to a few Australians and we all decided to meet up go to a bull fight that night. Now what can I say… except of course that it was totally awful and I stopped watching after the second bull got killed (6 in total!). I guess I can’t say I regret going as it is a big part of their culture and I’m “glad” I’ve seen it but boy oh boy it was really sad, and there’s no way I’d ever go again!

Next morning we had to get up at 5.45am (which was really hard!) to catch the metro and then our train to Valencia, and would you believe it another lot of seats facing backwards!

Santiago de Compostella, Spain

2008-09-24T00:25:00.006+12:00

Santiago was really pretty but extremely busy with tourists. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site (although EVERY European place seems to be one of those!). The tourists all come to see the cathedral which is a stop on 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James, which we heard was a 14 day walk (no thank you!). Every second person you saw was decked out in hiking boots, a pack and walking stick.

We stayed for only two nights but that was definitely more than enough. The place is just so tiny and there is no beach nearby! We had really seen it all on our first afternoon, lovely winding cobbled streets with hundreds of seafood restaurants and tourist shops. On the second day we spent a few hours just walking along a route marked on the map through parklands etc, it wasn’t however vey interesting but kept us busy and later that evening we came across a bunch of street performers. One act we had never come across before was two guys using a balloon each as the legs and the upper body of a person and making it dance to a song, kind of like a puppet, anyway hard to describe but it was really well done and rather hilarious.

Porto, Portugal

2008-09-24T00:12:00.007+12:00

The alarm went off at 2am on Sunday 17 August, we’d purchased another cheap deal through Ryanair departing at 6:35am and because the “tube” doesn’t start running until approx 5:30am we needed to catch a 30 minute night bus and then a 90 minute coach to the airport. Fun times! We arrived into Porto, Portugal at 9am local time and were easily able to find our hotel. We stayed in Porto for 4 nights - it was really relaxing and we spent time exploring the picturesque town which is built around a section of the lovely Duoro river.

We spent a day on a boat doing a Duoro Valley cruise which was really beautiful. There were no other English speaking people on board which was interesting! We got to pass through two dams which was pretty exciting. You go into it then wait, the “door” gets closed slowly and then the water level rises lifting up the boat, approx 15 metres, it’s really strange and then you go out the other side - pretty exciting for two people that haven’t spent much time on the water anyway.

We spent two of our afternoons at the beach, it was a 30 minute bus ride from where we were staying in the old town but it was totally worth it, although our pasty white bodies stuck out like a sore thumb! We discovered ready-made sangria (in a carton!) and cheap wine at supermarkets for silly cheap prices like €1-€3! We did a port tour and tasting at Grahams Port. Porto has many port producers and the Duoro valley is the only place in the world that can produce the correct grapes for the port. We ate out every night, nothing flashy but Portugal is pretty cheap so we got to enjoy lovely views on the waterfront. On our last morning we had to get up at 6:30am and take two trains to reach Santiago de Compostella, our first stop in sunny Spain.

Warm Fuzzies

2008-08-13T01:29:00.001+12:00

Saturday night we didn’t have any plans, and during the afternoon Pam had texted Toni to arrange to come over with Kev and just relax with a few drinks and pizza at our house. It was neat to see them and we always have a laugh – although Niki and Kev get a bit silly and the conversation always ends up rude, in hindsight I think Pamela is usually to blame for that! (tehe) Anyways by the time we’d encouraged the boys to go to the supermarket and we’d cooked and eaten it was around 10pm. Next thing I know the light is switched off and Pam walks in with one of her scrumptious homemade cheesecakes covered in candles and everyone’s singing happy birthday to me!! (No don’t worry you haven’t missed by birthday). Since we are going to be away on my birthday (South of France baby) Pam had decided we could celebrate together exactly 1 month early! I was so surprised and nearly cried, I mean seriously how nice is that!!! Aww I totally love Pam, what an absolute sweetheart and such a brilliant friend! (and yes she reads this so I’m sucking up!) haha I totally mean it though, I just felt so super special…and the cheesecake made the prospect of turning 26 slightly sweeter!!! Thanks so much xx

Kings & Queens

2008-08-13T00:55:00.006+12:00

Saturday after a late start Niki, Toni & I headed into town to go and see Buckingham Palace! Niki and I hadn’t really ever thought about it but Toni mentioned that the state rooms were only open for two months of the year so we thought why not. When we arrived however we were informed that all the tickets for that day had sold out already (poos!) so we had the option to pre-purchase tickets for the following day…which we did. Armed with our tickets for Sunday we decided to have a look around the gift shops since we’d come all the way in...there was a range of stuff from lovely (pricey) china, to chocolates, pens and knick knacks to embroidered slippers and a shower cap!

Unfortunately the weather was pretty crap, so since we were all cold and hungry we went back towards our place and stopped for lunch in the Kings Head Pub just up the road. It’s such a fantastic building which I’d always wanted to go in to.

Sunday we made our way back into town and really enjoyed our visit with the “Queen”. Annually during August and September the Queen goes up to Scotland and the Palace’s 19 state rooms are open to tourists. You get an audio guide which is fantastic and even has royal music which really makes you feel like you’re part of it. The Palace is just incredible, lavishly decorated and very spacious… 200+ bedrooms!! Buckingham Palace is one of the few working palaces in the world so it was really interesting hearing information about the residence and the people who work there. This year for the first time ever they had the ballroom setup for a state banquet. This was by far the most impressive room and every detail was perfect. They measure the exact space between napkins and the utensils etc! We weren’t allowed to take photos inside so I’ve copied some from the website. One thing I was surprised about was how small the "throne" was...I must've watched too many movies depicting massive thrones!

Snakie

2008-08-13T00:32:00.005+12:00

Friday night Toni & I headed to the Redback Tavern in Acton to meet up with Michelle and a couple of her friends. We had never been to the Reddie before, it's reputation is rather large amongst the antipodeans in London as a shocker of a place that can get very messy with the comsumption of snakebites a must. A snakebite is a pint glass half filled with cider, half with lager and a couple of dashes of raspberry cordial. Lets just say it's an acquired taste! Many "fresh of the boat" travellers spending a lot of their time and money at such establishments! The Redback is exactly like a student pub you'd go to when you're aged 18 back home, like the Outback or the Grumpy Mole. (Although I know I partied in these places long after I turned 18!)

The place was pretty packed and there was live music and also a DJ in between sets. The first couple of hours were fun and we had a good dance but then we found the music started to go "down hill" so we decided to head off around 1:15am... we had researched (yes we're secretaries!) how to get home to avoid having to pay for a taxi and discovered we needed to take three (!!) different night buses, which, including stopping to pick up KFC and just missing two buses, ended up taking us two hours to get home. We were cold, tired and Toni's oh so beautiful shoes weren't doing anything good for her tootsies. A bonus of that time of the morning was seeing some foxes, a couple right on our street!

There were photos taken, as you would expect, but not on my camera, so I may update some at a later date. I probably wouldn't go again. but mostly just because it's too far away from our house... there's always the Walkabout or the Church if I'm in need of a dose of drunk Aussies & kiwis! And I really really want a night out at my vodka bar girlies... hmmm maybe October at the rate we're going!

Wicked

2008-08-13T00:30:00.002+12:00

Thursday Toni & I went to see the musical “Wicked”…. and mate it was impressive! I totally loved it =) Seriously I’m just grinning thinking about it. The sets, special effects, costumes and vocals were just mind blowing and the story was really good too, lots of humour. Our seats were way at the top balcony right at the back but it was still fine (yes I wished I was at the front…) but there are wee binoculars on the back of the seats which came in very handy.

Basically it’s a sort of prequel to the Wizard of Oz. The story about the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good and how they became to be… it’s just fantastic. You can’t beat a night out with that kind of entertainment for £15. Oh man I totally love London!

Posh posh

2008-08-13T00:16:00.006+12:00

Wednesday night (06/08) I ventured out amongst the filthy rich…well actually I wasn’t amongst them per see, just on their streets, checking out their fandangle chauffeured cars and passing stores such as Chanel, Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna, Gianni Versace, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Giorgio Armani, Oililly, Cartier, Tiffany & Co…I think you get the picture – and these are just the bunch that I recognised (as in name, not goods…having never owned anything remotely designer in my life). It goes without saying that my jandals did not step foot in any of the above shops but it was neat to have a cheeky sneak peak on my way passed, minimal window displays not giving much away, but ladies I can say it looks like a navyish blue seems to be “in” this season.

My main purpose to be on “that side of the tracks” was to visit Harrods – another “must do” on the list in London and as I am getting increasingly worried about the lack of time we have left over here, week nights are now classed as critical time to be made the most of! Harrods was incredible, so big they hand out maps! There are multiple levels and escalators everywhere, "themed" areas eg. Egyptian, a beautiful Christmas shop, a scrumptious food court and even a memorial to Princess Diana & Dodi (the owner being the father of Dodi). There's a large marble like statue of the pair - which I thought I'd take a picture of "later", but never found again! There was of course lots of expensive stuff but also a Harrods giftshop directed at us tourists where I brought a few goodies including my very own Harrods branded Teddy Bear!

We Will Rock You

2008-08-06T03:51:00.003+12:00

On Monday we went to see “We Will Rock You” which is a West End musical based on the tunes of the music legends, Queen. We had purchased the tickets ages ago on a 2-for-1 deal and had gotten front row seats!!

It was a fantastic show with impressive vocals and fabulous costumes. The crowd was filled with Queen fans so they really “got going” with the big hits (glow sticks and more clappage, but it worked this time!). It was super special being up the front as we usually buy the cheapest possible tickets which get us seats somewhere in the vicinity of the back row on the top balcony…At this show we were only about two metres away from the actors and could see all the detail in their facials, the sweat, the toned bods etc. (By the way from which I’ve decided I’m quite happy not having “a six pack” as I didn’t think that defined abs looked the best on the actresses… a flat tummy is still on the wish list of course)

I’ve been warned that once you go front row you’ll never be the same, but as much as I may whinge when watching future shows, there’s no way I’ll fork out for full price front row seats ever…well, unless I become rich of course =) never say never

On Thursday I’m going to see “Wicked” with Toni - I know, two shows in one week…what a life one leads!

B-Man

2008-07-30T23:53:00.003+12:00

A couple pics of my gorgeous cheeky nephew Brandon looking VERY grown-up compared to the last time we saw him before leaving NZ!

Monopoly Pub Crawl 26 July 2008

2008-07-30T22:32:00.005+12:00

Louisa organised a girl version of the pub crawl some of the guys had done a month ago. Louisa, Pam, Toni & I were the keen crew, looking fab in our matching pink custom-printed t-shirts. Debra, Pam’s sister, joined us early afternoon. We had decided that there weren’t any rules when it came to drinking and we were just going to go with the flow and see where the day took us, while trying to stay on track as much as we could and setting foot in many monopoly destinations.

We met at 10:45am for an 11am start, it was weird stepping into a grotty pub at that time of the morning, and I was wondering what we had got ourselves in to… But we soon loosened up and got the hang of this “daytime” drinking, while manoeuvring our way through the hot stinky streets and public transport of London.

We took plenty of photos with all the desired street names and stepped foot in many bars. Tacky apple shots (bargain pre-purchase), bacardi breezers, goldschlager, pear cider, apple cider, cocktails, baileys, vodka & tonic and tequila were all sampled.

It was the first time we’d tried Goldschlager - It is a clear cinnamon liqueur, swirling with hundreds of tiny flakes of real gold. Yes! Real gold!! We all felt an immediate “warmth” after that shot.

We met a couple of other groups doing the Monopoly Pub Crawl which really added to the day. We kept bumping into each other at various pubs and had some fantastic running jokes and photos with them as well. Hilarity all around!

We bumped into Niki and the boys later that evening in one of the bars, it was cool to see them, but disappointingly they weren’t in pink, so after a baileys shot and a brief chat we headed onwards and upwards. The night kind of petered out not long after that … tiredness and things taking their toll, was a shame the day was over, but the flip-side of which meant the spending stopped and we were all l home safely in bed by midnight. I’m also pleased to report no hangovers on Sunday…does the phrase “drink yourself sober ring a bell”!!

Sunday we had gorgeous weather and laxed in the local park. Bring on London Summer!!!

Summer Festivals 19-20 July

2008-07-24T22:12:00.004+12:00

The UK has a tonne of music festivals on during the summer, massive 3-dayers like “T in the Park” and “Glastonbury” but also random afternoons in local parks. On Saturday afternoon we headed to the Ealing Blues Festival with Tim, Louisa and Toni. It was only £1 entry plus you could bring in your own food and drinks, and then they also have food stalls and beer tents for purchases, so it doesn’t end up having to cost a bomb – wish it was like that back home for Blues Brews! We sat in the sun and the bands were playing in a large tent so we didn’t have good visual, but it was nice listening to them while laxing back and all getting a little tiddly. London put on a good afternoon/evening of weather for us and we stayed until 9ish.

Sunday afternoon Niki and I went to Brixton to meet up with Spence at another summer festival. This one was a lot larger than Ealing, including lots of festival rides. We had been to this same festival last year with Spence & Lee-Ann, it still shocks me that we’ve been here over a year already! Brixton has a large population of Carribean people so the music was very Bob Marley-ish and soul. We just sat around by the main stage which is really good for people watching, there are some “incredible” heads of dreadlocks around. It was neat to catch up with Spencer and by the sounds of things the next time we see him may be in NZ!

A new arrival in the Laban family

2008-07-23T23:52:00.004+12:00

Niki’s brother and sister-in-law had their first baby a week ago. I'm totally out of the loop and don't even know the exact date/time yet. Her name is Kayley Marie Laban and she weighed a tiny 5lb 4oz. Niki is buzzing out at being an Uncle and obviously wishes he was back home. We can't wait to get home to see and spoil her at Christmas. Here are a couple of pics of the beautiful wee girl.

bits and bobs

2008-07-17T22:52:00.002+12:00

You may have noticed an extra link on our blog “Our photos from April 2008” – we’ve had to open a new web album as the other is full up (“full up “as in no more free space available, I ain’t paying). I’m trying hard to keep it up-to-date =) feel free to browse.

Meanwhile we have only 3.5 weeks until we leave for the sunshine in Portugal, Spain and South of France (we're away for 4 weeks - bliss). Mum and Nana McG - I'll be celebrating your birthdays with a jug of sangria no doubt!

We're travelling by ourselves again, but are trying to get a bit of a plan sussed and accommodation and transport booked before we leave to make it easier and to ensure we get to everywhere we want to. We are booked on one short tour though - 3 days in Valencia (Spain) to attend the La Tomatina festival (basically a giant tomato fight), should be a crack-up!

I’m so ready for a break, we’ve been back working for over three months now. It’s a hard life! =)

KiWi KAI - 12th July

2008-07-17T22:46:00.004+12:00

On Saturday we had a KIWI dinner round at our flat. Tim and Louisa were in charge of the main course whilst Pam whipped up a Pav (and Kev carried the heavy bags?), Niki got free NZ wine from work and Toni and I went shopping for goodies at the kiwi shop. (oink oink)

Tim and Louisa had power issues at their flat so the cooking ended up being done in our kitchen by Tim, with Kev and Niki for moral support, whilst us girls chattered in the lounge. Our “entrée” was grainwaves, cheezels and chips with maggi onion dip. Mmmmm they tasted sooo good, especially since they cost the equivalent of $7 per bag over here! We all had a good laugh and everyone (especially the blokes) was somewhat tiddly by the time we sat down to eat our delicious feast at 9pm. Pam’s pavlova was incredible also, I still dream about it now. We were all full up so didn’t even open the goodies Toni had brought – luckily she is crashing on our couch for a few days so on Sunday we had pineapple lumps, macaroons and mallowpuffs… you can’t beat junk food from home!

Surprisingly we only took one photo of the group – and unfortunately I was the photographer. I am a very bad photographer…I do a much better job on the other side of the camera. Here it is anyway.

Isle of Wight 5-6 July 08

2008-07-17T00:51:00.009+12:00

We’d been talking about visiting Gina and Ben on the Isle of Wight for a couple of months and finally found a perfect weekend. Sat 5 July we were up at 6.45am to make sure we were on the road by 8am, I’m not a fan of early mornings, let alone early weekend mornings but we had to maximise our Island time! We drove in Niki’s work-van and had arrived at Portsmouth by 9:30am. We parked up and took a passenger ferry over to the “island”. It is the most expensive stretch of water to cross within Europe, our ten minute ferry crossing costing £8.80 each!

Gina and Ben have a car so met us at the ferry at Ryde and took us tiki-touring around the island for the day. The population is about the same as Tauranga (where we’re from in NZ) and it has approx 40 primary school and six high schools (Gina works at the local council so was telling us all the stats!) so it’s not as small as I had imagined it would be, and is divided into smaller townships with all the shops and everything you need readily accessible. Isle of Wight is famous for the large music festival that is held every year - the biggest one being back in the 70's, and it's also quite popular for the Brits summer holidays. The island of course comes complete with a british beach essential - tacky carnival rides!

We were lucky to have fairly nice weather – apart from the wind, as it’s coastal. One of our stops was the Needles: “The Needles are the western most point of the Isle of Wight and are a series of chalk stacks which protrude into the see at the end of which is a lighthouse”. The views were pretty spectacular. We had a scrummy lunch and sampled the Goddards Fuggle Dee Dum! - a local beer and of course some Minghella local ice cream.

Later in the afternoon we headed down to a local park (via off-license of course!) with a plastic cricket set (made for six year olds) and had some laughs trying to play – had a local ten year old boy join in with lots of energy so he did most the running, whew! That night we went to a local pub for dinner and drinks where we were amused by some interesting outfits donned for a birthday celebration. The guys for example were dressed as grandma, dominatrix and spider man whereas the girls were dirty cop, slutty nurse, sexy maid, skimpy Lara Croft, wonder woman - you get the picture! In their defence they were hot girls… must’ve been an 18th cos I know my backside doesn’t look that good anymore! =)

Sunday we didn’t get going til about 10am. We had a lovely brunch at a nice café – bargain prices compared to London. We visited Osborne house which was Queen Victoria’s Palace by the sea, it was impressive. We were able to see the Queen’s bedroom, the nursery rooms and even royal bathrooms. The grounds were massive and immaculate but we didn’t spend much time exploring as it was pouring with rain! Gina and Ben have Heritage passes so we sneakily used those to save the entry price.

Ben had to pop into work for a couple of hours so Gina drove us out to Carisbrooke Castle. Niki went in to explore whilst us girls had a good catch-up and wander around the outside. Later we did a supermarket mission and met Ben for a late lunch overlooking the water…. And then it was time to head back =( Gina and Ben were such fantastic hosts, thanks guys!!!!!

We took the hovercraft back to Portsmouth which was pretty cool, it comes right up on the concrete! We got back to London around 8:30pm - in time to see part of the exciting Wimbledon men’s final.

Social Butterfly 30/06-04/07

2008-07-12T00:27:00.004+12:00

The other week was rather busy, fun of course, but also surprisingly made me treasure the quiet "school" nights I usually have. A self-confessed Nana!

Monday we went out to dinner as my work had told me they'd pay for Niki & I to go out for dinner as a thank you for working quite late one night - they already paid me overtime as well but hey I'm not complaining. It was nice going out and not worrying about the cost. It wasn't an expensive place so even with 3 courses each and a few drinks we came in well under 'budget'.

Tuesday I went to Sheree & Marty's for their "farewell" BBQ as they were off travelling the next day for a month then off home back to NZ in August. I ended up kitchen-bitching it with Sheree for an hour before heading 5 houses down the road to their friends for the BBQ. It was really entertaining, they have a good bunch of kiwi flatmates and friends who are all living it up in London. Later Sheree loaded me up with a massive bag of her clothes she no longer wanted and other bits including 3 bottles of booze, and I managed to get home by midnight - after major missions carrying everything!! Niki didn't come as he had to start at 3am the next day ... yes I said 3am!

Wednesday I had nothing on, but Niki was away - which is typical.

Thursday I had wrangled an invite to a work party involving a bunch of my old workmates from Edinburgh! It was so fantastic to see everyone again, I didn't realise how much I missed them all. Unfortunately the party was a little bit lame, them not serving spirits was a contributing factor! By the time the music started some time after 10pm I had already decided to head home - taking into account the tube ride home etc = another late night... concealer required!

Friday we had Mandy & Aaron's farewell at the Temple Walkabout. I had had a manic day at work and had stayed late so was ready for a vodka! It was great to catch-up and we had a laxed time including sampling some "gourmet" pub grub - Niki opted for the kangaroo burger of all things, tastes like any ol' burger according to him. The DJ was playing cheese music so we had a wee boogy, brought the kids a "see ya later" jager shot and had some tearful (the girls) hugs good bye. We made a beeline for the door just after 10 as we had an early start the next morning - but that's another post altogether.

Wimbledon 2008

2008-07-12T00:25:00.003+12:00

Saturday 28 June we went to Wimbledon with Sheree and Toni. We were blessed with beautiful weather which made the early start and major line-up bearable. The process for those without tickets is to line-up at a designated field and be issued with a “queue card”, so that no-one can jumped the queue or anything. They were running behind so we sat in our line for quite a while before they got to us and we were feeling a bit blue as we thought there were only 6000 tickets and knew they had already well reached that limit. Luckily on this day they had approx 9000 tickets to sell for general admission and that would get you in by 1pm, for the rest of the crowds they would have to wait patiently until people started leaving the grounds later in the day.

It only cost £20 for a ticket and you’re allowed to take in your own food and 1 bottle of wine per person, so it’s really great and you can totally do Wimbledon on a budget.

We had a couple of "hiccups" which made me mad but by the time we got through the gates and I was seated with a Pimms in hand all was good.

In the “queue” there was a lot of free stuff given out from various companies – umbrellas, muesli bars, bottles of water etc and we had purchased newspapers solely for the “free” gifts that came with them (one of which was a small radio which Niki thought would be good to listen to the cricket on – multi-tasking!) anyway when we got to security we were told that we couldn’t bring in any of this stuff because they weren’t sponsors of Wimbledon and were trying to get the brand on camera. You had the option of leaving it in left luggage for £1 but who wants that hassle! It was a bit OTT because you could bring in any other muesli bars/food. Anyway Niki’s radio had to be chucked, and Toni & Sheree had to give up their giant umbrellas and they turned the bags the newspapers came in, inside out, however we made them let us keep our muesli bars etc just took off the wrappers! They weren’t very thorough or consistent with their searches though as Toni got in with her free muesli bar – wrapper and all, and I also had a plastic bottle of Pimms in my bag which I got through with. I was pretty mad at the newspapers though for conning us. grrrrrr

And if that wasn’t enough we got a whole lot further down the line – so close to the entrance when Niki realised he didn’t have his wallet, so went all the way back to security as he had had to empty his pockets there, was told it wasn’t there, came back to me, I was nearly in tears…and then he bloody well found it in the bag with the wine. BOYS!!! I’m seriously going to go grey before my time!

First up we watched the NZ girl play and man it was soo close, but unfortunately she lost. It was a really cool atmosphere and even though we didn’t see anyone famous in the flesh it was really fun. We flitted between courts for the day so saw a range of men, woman, juniors and mixed. We also sat on the “hill” to watch the action from centre court on the big screen. We got a great cheap “souvenir” – a used tennis ball with Wimbledon 2008 stamped on it! The facilities and staff were fantastic, was really impressed with customer service for probably the first time in UK.

A mammoth 12 hours after arriving we decided to call it a day… Seriously it was excellent – and I’m not even a tennis fan!

Lion King

2008-06-28T00:37:00.006+12:00

On Tuesday night we went to the Lion King stage show with a bunch of pals. It's showing in a really cool theatre, have put a few shots of the outside here. The opening scene was Amazing, truly it was so impressive I got goose-bumps! The costumes are incredible and it was really well done. I would recommend this show to anyone who liked the movie, but would suggest you pay for a better ticket as I think it would be even better sitting in the main part of the theatre in line with the stage, rather than looking down on it like us. Zazu (the bird) was especially fantastic as were Timone & Pumbaa.

The only negatives I could say is that parts of the show were a little different to the movie, it still worked, it’s just that because I’ve seen the movie so many times, I was annoyed and thinking, “that didn’t happen”, or “that’s not the line”.

Some crazies in the audience started clapping along to Hakuna Matata and other songs which kind of ruined it, as the actors stop mid-way songs for one-liners, which were kind of swallowed up into the clappage. But apart from that it was wow and I loved it!

Date Night

2008-06-28T00:34:00.000+12:00

I’d decided to arrange a bit of a date night out for Niki and I – partly to celebrate his Birthday and just cos we don’t do it often enough. We went to a cheap and cheerful Vietnamese restaurant which was BYO. Niki gets free wine from work, bummer is I don’t like wine, but the sweetheart brought me the sweetest wine they stocked - a delicious Asti (mmm tastes like sparkling grape juice), the only downside it being a mere 5% alcohol.

After that I’d arranged to go to Vertigo 42 – A posh bar in Tower 42, and, would you believe it, on the 42nd floor! The lift ride took ‘forever’ and my ears were doing strange things with the altitude! We got there at 8:30pm which was fantastic as we were able to enjoy the amazing view in the daylight and then see the sunset and the city by night. Our allocated seats were perfect, overlooking the Tower Bridge and the Thames etc. The drinks were a tad pricey but we knew that going in, we both opted for a cocktail. There was a bottle of Champagne on the menu for £795!!!!! Yes daaaarling I’ll have one of those! The staff were really nice and as there was space we were allowed to move seats to see the view from the other side. On the way to the loos you glance out and see the top of the “gherkin” (a large bullet shaped building) just a few metres away.

Canterbury

2008-06-28T00:30:00.001+12:00

Sunday 22 June we decided to get a wriggle-on (shaking it like a polaroid picture) and make the most of the free use of Niki’s work van + petrol! We decided to go to Canterbury which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was absolutely gorgeous weather and we had a lovely afternoon exploring the pretty town, seeing one of the Castles (well, what remains of it!), and the impressive cathedral – which is the Mother church of the Anglican faith and seat of the Archbishop.

Yellow Fever

2008-06-27T01:56:00.005+12:00

Saturday night I travelled right across London to a workmate’s house for a housewarming party, “A Touch of Yellow” being the theme, luckily I own a yellow skirt! I met Anne when I worked in Edinburgh and she now lives here, although works away so I never see her. Most of the guests turned out to be PwC people, and it was good to meet some new faces, although most are unfortunately based in a different building to me.

Even if you “try” to socialise with Brits in London you inevitably end up with a small handful of locals and a bunch of “foreigners”. This party was no exception, Australians, Canadians, Germans, Scottish, Irish and of course your token kiwis were present.

I left the party just after 10pm as I had arranged to meet some Aussie friends in the Walkabout, a trashy yet fun chain of Aussie pubs. They were at the Temple branch, one I hadn’t been to before, can’t say it was my favourite specimen but I still had a good time, after the initial shock of paying £7 door entry!!!! That’ll teach me for showing up late.

At the end of the night we had a lovely wee walk over the bridge with beautiful view s of the London Eye and other landmarks. We also came across two cars with romantic going-on’s going on in the back seat! Of course Azz had to bang on the window and say hello =) We trawled the streets for 20mins looking for appropriate night buses and in the end gave in and got a taxi, and from their house Niki & I caught a night bus home (via McDonalds). The joys of London travel!

2008-06-18T22:34:00.004+12:00

We didn't do much at all last weekend - I thoroughly enjoyed my sleep-in on Saturday! whilst Niki got up at some stupid hour (8am) to go watch the AB's at Pam & Kev's.

Sunday afternoon we chilled in Batterseas Park with a few of our fellow kiwis, thought I'd post this pic to show that sometimes, even in London, it's short shorts wearing weather...although you might be blinded by the pastey legs!

Battersea Park is gorgeous and we will definitely go there again, a shame that it's taken us so long to get there as we usually go to Hyde Park, which isn't half as wonderful as Battersea.

Blast from the Past

2008-06-18T22:30:00.003+12:00

Friday night I saw a friend I hadn’t seen since I was 13. Now I know that would sound more dramatic if I was 80, but still, that’s half my lifetime ago.

I remember blogging about this awhile ago (I’m sure you all remember) but to re-cap for those that don’t hang off my every word: I had been looking to get in contact with some school friends that I made when we lived in The Netherlands. I had tried before we left NZ but hadn’t had much luck until I found Jasmijn on Facebook a couple of months ago, she directed me to a Dutch networking site “Hyves” where I contacted Anke and Marjon and some other people I once knew. We e-mailed back and forth a few times catching up on each others lives… all in English of course.

Jasmijn e-mailed me to say she would be in London in June 08 for a weekend with her family and would love to catch up. We met at Embankment tube on Friday night and recognised each other straight away – surprisingly we still look the same, only somewhat taller. It was fantastic to se her and we spent nearly 2 hours chatting to each other in a bar (yelling over the music would perhaps be more apt). Jasmijn can speak English fluently (lucky, or else we would’ve just sat there smiling at each other) and she has an amazing memory so had lots of stories to tell from our early teens.

Jasmijn loaned me a pile of letters and postcards I had sent to her from NZ after we left in 1996. The darling had kept them all, and it was so lovely to look through them the next day. They’re mostly in Dutch, it’s unfathomable to me that I used to be able to speak and write that language fluently… I could understand most of the letters but got stuck on a few words. I’m going to photocopy some of them as it’s like a diary of things I did when I was 13-16. Lots of funny stories, a few photos and other bit and pieces. It reminded me who I was spending most of my time with in those years, Kim and Kirsty had a few mentions as well as Sarah and Ricky.

I was telling Toni and Louisa the other day how (for some unknown reason) I thought I was so mature when I was a teenager (they proceeded to burst out laughing) anyway I’m serious…. I totally thought I was, but reading those letters is absolutely hilarious and proves me a wee bit wrong… just a normal teenage girl =)

Jasmijn has convinced me to try and get to The Netherlands for a weekend before we go home so I can see some of the others. It is a wonderful idea and I truly hope I can fit it in. I’ll keep you posted.

Over the Hill and Into the Hoods

2008-06-18T03:36:00.008+12:00

Niki’s been doing quite a few overnight trips for his job recently. He generally enjoys it and as most of the other staff have families and would rather not go away he can usually pick an overnight trip most weeks, and they pay him overtime which is perfect. Last week he went all the way up to Scotland doing deliveries in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. He left 5am Tuesday morning and got back 5pm Thursday – his 28th birthday! He was pretty tired after three 12 hour days of driving so that night we just stayed in and had a nice home cooked dinner, including a yummy carrot birthday cake (from the shop!).

As Niki was away for two nights it gave me a brilliant reason to go to a show with Toni and I found £10 tickets for “Into the Hoods”. This is a hip hop show, so quite different to anything else on the West End. It was a story about 2 children and them getting lost in the “hood”, and then meeting all the people who lived in the “ruff” estate. The dancing was mind-blowing and there were lots of laugh out loud moments so I really enjoyed it. My only negative was that there was no singing or talking by the dancers – everything was pre-recorded. Thinking about it now, it didn’t really take away from the performance as the dancing was so incredible – I guess I just assumed it would be a musical like the other shows. My gasp aloud move was when they'd run up the wall and flip, like in the movies! Also there was an adorable blonde girl who must've been 6 or 7 who was only on the stage for a couple of mins twice, but I'm sure she was the audience favourite. She wore a gold jumpsuit, and was the fairy godmother with some crazy breakdancing moves.

We are going to “The Lion King” with some friends next week - 24 June, and I have booked two tickets for “We Will Rock You” (based on Queen’s music) for 4 August. There’s a buy 1 get 1 free deal on at the moment so we have front row seats (!!!), will be a nice change from the cheap seats way at the back that I usually buy. I’ve heard rave reviews from those residing at 69 in H-town and it’s the only show Niki has been at all interested in seeing… I’m super duper excited! Cultured daaarlings aren’t we!

Monopoly Pub Crawl

2008-06-10T23:09:00.010+12:00

Whilst I was hanging at Hyde Park and later gossiping with the girls - Niki was occupied elsewhere. Kev (Pam’s boyfriend) had arranged a boy’s only pub crawl around the “monopoly board”. I hear some photos were taken at the start so will try to get ahold of some and post them here as you must be getting sick of always seeing pics of me! (ha like that would ever happen!).

As I wasn’t there I can’t go into detail but from reports from Niki it was a fun day, and even though they didn’t manage to get around the whole board (as it’s quite time consuming with all the travelling in between) it was a success. Niki was still standing at the end, a massive 12 hours later, unfortunately his wallet was somewhat empty… He came home to a house full of excitable, gossip frenzied, flirtini and pimms infused girls, stayed up for a while longer and surprisingly wasn’t even hungover the next day. Can’t say the same for all the other boys, or us girls for that matter.

Girls' Night In

2008-06-10T23:09:00.007+12:00

Saturday night I’d arranged for a girls’ night at our place as Debra Fish was in town on a visit from Dublin. The plan was to meet for drinks at mine and then make our way into a nearby vodka bar by 11pm… needless to say things don’t always go to plan and we were still at my house, and all a tad sloshed, come 4am…. It was soo great to see everyone together and we did lots of catching up…and of course posed for lots of photos!

Redbull gives you wings

2008-06-10T23:08:00.004+12:00

Saturday I went to the Redbull Flugtag, which was held at Hyde Park, with Louisa and Toni. It was a free event but tickets had to be drawn from the ballot to limit the numbers to 80,000 (craziness), and I was lucky enough to get drawn (granting me 4 tickets)!

The gates opened at 10:30am, and we met at 11am and already the crowds had taken most of the best spots! We got a pretty close pozzie but unfortunately had some tree issues impairing our view… We couldn’t see the performances of each team but had a good view of their homemade “flying machines” scooting off the ramp – and falling down 6 metres into the cold water below. There were 40 teams on the day (whittled down from 2000 entries) some really great and funny ideas and a lot of effort must’ve gone into creating them, all for their 60 seconds of fame…and the chance to win £5000. All of the flying contraptions were super size and homemade from chicken wire, plastic, cardboard, wood etc and some of the most memorable ones include a toilet, pink handbag, dinosaur, chicken, spaceship and my fave, a giant disco ball.

Later we realised we probably would’ve been better watching it from afar on the big screen, but I guess since we were at a live event the point was to see it live!

Bank Holiday Weekend 24-26 May 08

2008-05-30T01:43:00.012+12:00

With May in the UK comes two bank holiday weekends (in kiwi terms: Monday’s a day off!) the first one (5 May) we spent moving into our new flat – seems like a lifetime ago! So this second one we really wanted to make sure we got something planned...yet we still typically left it ‘til the last minute! We wanted to go to Wales for the weekend but after looking into transport etc we decided it would be too expensive.

Luckily Sheree contacted us on Thursday to see if we wanted to go to the cheese rolling in Gloucester and she also mentioned that the rugby sevens finals were on at Twickenham on Sunday...Yay 4 Sheree!
And there you have it - a full bank holiday weekend!

Tickets for the sevens online were either £25 or £15 and the boys were keen for good seats so were prepared to pay top dollar, or should I say - pound. Then we found out about £7 tickets on sale at the local Aussie/Kiwi pub – so I told the boys they could suck it up cos that’s one great bargain!!

So Sunday morning we headed off arms laden with bags of munchies (incl kiwi onion dip!) and alcohol decanted into plastic bottles..what can I say -we're all class! The weather forecast wasn’t the best but luckily we didn’t get too soaked and managed to get there with not too much hassle – well compared to the other guys anyway! Niki was pretty excited as it was his first time to a rugby sevens and also was stoked to see the Twickenham stadium – the home of rugby!

Our £7 seats were fantastic and we had a fabulous day with the sun even poking its head out on occasion. We sat behind a fun group of guys, a Pom, a Scot, and 2 Aussies which made for a good day of bantering… wasn’t a good start when the kiwis lost their first game to the English! It didn’t seem fair that all the other “good” teams were playing unknown teams for their first games, but I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles!

During the course of the day a few "daring" people "streaked" across the field - all male and all fully clothed (much to my disgust!). It was rather entertaining to watch them try to dodge all the security men in fluoro orange jackets...The fluoros always won! It happened about 5 separate times (and was getting a 'lil boring), until the final one, which was a group of half a dozen fellas dressed as monks...absolutely hilarious!

There were some fantastic costumes on display, my favourites included a skinny guy as Hulk Hogan (down to the red wrestling underpants) and a guy dressed as a woopy cushion…ingenious! We watched New Zealand play against Portugal and later South Africa whom they managed to beat to win the plate. The big winner of the day was Samoa, who won against Fiji to take the cup. Apparently NZ is still leading overall however and has a good chance to take the whole competition out… go black =)

Monday morning we were up at 6am as we had to catch the tube to Marty & Sheree’s – nearly an hour away (Don’t ya love London!). Cheese rolling is an old tradition in Gloucester, a small town. Basically people go to the top of a very steep hill and someone rolls a giant cheese down and the crazy people run, roll, slide after it, and the first to reach the bottom wins the cheese. It was an extremely wet, horrible day, yet hundreds of people turned out to watch. I don’t own any appropriate footwear for mud events so my trusty jandals were the choice for the day and I must say they did me well, even though I got some strange looks! There were about 6 races, 3 downhill and 3 uphill. The uphill races don’t involve cheese…we watched the young boys and young girls races, and these kids are impressive, some tiny ones gave it a go and needed a hand towards the end but it was gorgeous ‘cos the crowd went wild for them. In the first race ambulance staff had to take one guy off on a stretcher in a neck brace, but I reckon he was just being a bit Hollywood!

The woman’s downhill race was the most impressive, with the winner basically taking a huge tumble and rolling so fast, the crowd ooh’d and aah’d as it looked like she must be hurt but then she jumped up with a big grin on her face and sprinted a bit further before sliding over again and rolling over the finish line. Crazy biarch!

On the way home we stopped just outside of Swindon for a lovely pub lunch to warm us up… unfortunately the fire wasn’t going and we had a few shitty mix-ups with our food including Sheree basically being accused of stealing a glass of Pepsi and Toni receiving a hot chocolate that was more like a hot milk… Whereas my dilemma was having to eat a whole extra bowl of fries we had mistakenly ordered (and paid for) so as not to waste them… oh the pain! We arrived home at about 6pm, completely soggy and exhausted… what a brilliant weekend!

A few pics from Eastern Europe ...FINALLY

2008-05-29T23:35:00.011+12:00

Hi everyone, I've finally got some of our Eastern Europe trip pics off the camera and will be loading a bunch of them onto our web albums in the coming days - it takes ages as I don't have Picasa on my work computer! Anyway here's a couple to keep you interested...

Gorgeous sunshine in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Stunning Lake Ohrid, Macedonia

Scooting around Aegina - 1 of the Greek Islands

Da-da: Athens!!!

View from the castle, Budapest, Hungary

Astronomical clock, Olomouc, Czech Republic

High Tatra Mountains, Slovakia

So excited to see snow!! out near the salt mines, Krakow

Auschwitz - Birkenhau

the awful rail track that brought the prisoners

giddy-up! Mostar, Bosnia

Mostar, Bosnia

These aren't even in the right order...slack I know!!

Working & Living in the Big Smoke

2008-05-17T03:37:00.001+12:00

After we arrived back in London on 15 April we were able to stay at Mandy & Aaron’s (whom we met last year on Busabout) house for 10 days while them and their super nice flatmates, George & Bridgitt, were away travelling.

It was so great having our own space and they left us their laptop so we were to set to look for a flat and a job for Niki. I had luckily already secured work and was to start on Friday the 19th (and I’m still working at the same place now a month later!). Niki had a bit of a hard time finding a job paying a decent rate, or one that didn’t mind him taking August off or leaving at Christmas, so by the time we had to move out of their house we were still half jobless and flatless! This was very frustrating for Niki as he just had to spend hours a day stuck inside, no money to spend, trawling the internet and not seeming to get anywhere. We went to stay with Spence (Lee-Ann’s british boyfriend, whom she had to temporarily leave behind!) who is an absolute star, letting us have his bed whilst he slept on the couch and putting up with us for a week in his tiny flat. (THANKS!) Luckily on the Tuesday Niki got offered a driving job starting Thursday, and we also found a flat to move into the following Monday…what a relief!

Niki works for a wine company and does warehouse and delivery work. Usually working 7am-2.30ish but a few days ago, started work at 1:30am (craziness!) to beat the traffic out of London, drove all the way out passed Plymouth & Exeter, stayed away overnight and got home at 5pm the next day! Adds a bit of variety to the job I guess =) he’s also been told he gets a wine allowance every month and the team seem really good so he is happy. They know he wants August off and will be leaving before Christmas so that is thankfully the last job hunt he will need to do over here!

We have signed up until 6 Nov in our flat. It’s a nice flat above a shop on the main street with plenty of shops only 2 mins away. Our room is pretty small but we have a decent size living room which is great, and it’s only a 5min walk to the tube, which goes straight to my work! (Takes about 30mins) We’re living with an aussie couple who are pretty cool, yet a few days ago dropped the bombshell that they are breaking up so will need to get out of the lease… We’ve only been there 10 days! So they are looking to fill their room and really it shouldn’t make much difference to us, hopefully they get another kiwi/aussie couple in… will keep you posted!

Messiness at the church

2008-05-16T01:01:00.002+12:00

My fab friend Hollie came over on holiday from NZ whilst we were travelling but luckily we got back from our travels in time to spend a few days with her before she left again.

We caught up on Saturday 19th April, and it was soooo fantastic to see her! We had a pub lunch and hit the shops (two of our fave things, eating & shopping!) and ended up at Primark (a very cheap clothes store). Whilst we were there we were laughing at some of the hideous stuff for sale and had a brainwave to buy some awful 80’s gear to wear the next day to the church. Hollie was to meet up with people from her travels and I recruited a couple more keen beans – including another besty, Pam, who I had not seen for at least 18months.

We had a decent breakfast washed down with a few vodkas (!!) and then made our way out. The church is a pub open only on Sundays from 12-4pm. A lot of people dress up crazy and are usually rotten drunk on arrival, still partying from the night before. It’s mostly frequented by a young crowd of antipodeans, it’s loud and crazy and gross (strippers, beer skulling races…etc etc) and has a door charge….. but despite all this, we had a blast! The photos speak for themselves…

Don’t get me wrong though, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to go back again, been there done that… and I didn’t handle the drinking during the day time too well either…didn’t come right til the Tuesday! (Can anyone say wuss?)

Athens & Aegina (Greek Islands), Greece

2008-05-16T00:04:00.003+12:00

It was exciting to be in Athens as it was a city I had obviously heard of growing up, compared to all the random places we’d just been! Unfortunately the streets and beaches are surprisingly grubby and filled with rubbish etc. We had warm weather but it was very hazy which we were later told was sand blowing in from Africa!! On our first day we explored the city a bit, it’s cool how you just walk along and then see impressive ruins and pillars amongst it all. We had dinner out sampling the Greek cuisine including moussaka, stuffed vine leaves, greek salad and local wine. On our second day we went over to Aegina on a ferry (1.5 hours) and spent the day exploring the island on a scooter, it was lots of fun! On our last day we headed to the Acropolis which was pretty amazing, I’m not into history and stuff but it still kept me entertained for 3 hours. We spent the afternoon doing a bit of shopping and I got a great pair of leather jandals. Our flight departed at 9pm (but was delayed) so we finally walked through the door in London at 2:30am… exhausted but so thrilled with our travels and happy to finally put our feet up…until the next morning when the flat and job hunt was to begin!

And as you can see this “Eastern Europe Blog” ended up being a novel… I don’t expect you to read it all! I’ve had a lot of spare time at my current temp job and I figure it will be nice for me to look back on in a few years =)

Black Friday

2008-05-16T00:01:00.002+12:00

On the Friday we got up at 5am to catch a bus to the border town near Greece and then got a taxi over the border and to the next town. We got there at 8:25am just in time for the bus to Athens…or so we thought…this was the start of black Friday (hahaha yes ladies and gentleman it’s all drama!). We soon found out that there is an hour time difference between the two countries so we had therefore missed our bus by an hour…grrrrr. The next bus to Athens wasn’t until 12 hours later. We decided to get a bus to Thessaloniki at 11:30 and arrived there at 2:30pm. Thessaloniki is a large city and has a train and bus station with numerous connections to Athens per day. There was a bus scheduled to depart to Athens at 3.15pm but we had read in our guidebook that trains were slightly cheaper and also faster (not to mention more comfortable) than buses so obviously we decided to head to the train station instead. Unfortunately after standing in line for 30minutes (I’m not exaggerating!) I was told that all the trains to Athens were fully booked! Can you believe it!!! By this time it was 3pm so no way we were going to catch the 3:15pm bus …which is the only thing that keeps me sane about what happened next! We got back on the no.8 bus to go back to the bus station…turns out the bus wasn’t doing a loop like we thought and we got on the one going the wrong way and sat on it for 40mins and ending up on the outskirts of the city by IKEA and another bus interchange. Arhhhhhhhhh We eventually got back to where we were meant to be and caught the 6:18pm bus to Athens… The cherry on the top of our crap day was that seats were allocated and we had to sit on the back seat between others (Niki got the superman seat…you know the 1 in the middle and if the bus stops suddenly u go flying), which along with the heaters blasting on full made for an uncomfortable ride. We arrived in Athens at 2am and luckily I have Niki cos we seriously were just dropped off on a random street and had a crappy map, I would’ve been stuck paying for an expensive taxi…but he is really my superman =)

Tirane, Albania AND Ohrid, Macedonia

2008-05-13T02:44:00.002+12:00

From Dubrovnik we caught a bus to Bar in Montenegro and then took a taxi to the border town and then another taxi over the border to Albania. Everyone has to pay €10 ea when coming in and our of Albania – like a visa charge I guess, bit of a pain as we weren’t going to stay it just happened to be the way to get to Macedonia!! Once we were in Albania our taxi driver found us a mini bus that was driving to Tirane, where we finally arrived at 8pm…luckily the hostel we had looked up had exactly 2 beds spare as we hadn’t booked! We passed a lot of poverty in Albania, and most shacks had a skinny cow out the front of their house. We briefly explored Tirane but didn’t really like it and were on another mini bus by lunchtime the next day on our way to another border town – this time to Macedonia. We then walked across the Albanian border (and weren’t charged the €10 departure! Bonus) and then walked through Macedonian border (NZ is quite lucky they don’t need a €35 visa – Aus and Canadians do!) we followed directions we’d been given from the hostel in Tirane and ended up in an abandoned camping ground with a whole lot of tourist shops that were closed. Luckily there was one old guy there who understood us enough to confirm that there was a bus coming to that afternoon that would take us to Ohrid. I’m starting to feel like a “real” traveller…

Ohrid was really beautiful, it’s a town on the edge of a big lake, with snowtopped mountains in the background. We just did a lot of exploring and relaxing and took some amazing photos.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

2008-05-13T02:40:00.001+12:00

Later that morning we took a bus to Dubrovnik, Croatia. All the borders in Eastern Europe are in tact so we always had to go through departing and arrival borders – we were usually some of the only foreigners on board without local ID cards so our passports always had to be taken away for inspection…a little freaky! We now have many stamps though, which I think is neat…a bit geeky I know.

Dubrovnik was really nice, we had great weather and really made the most of the time spending a lot of our days outdoors. We explored the lovely old town, had a drink in a bar on the side of a cliff, walked the city walls (splendid views!), ate gelato, took a 15min ferry to an island for the afternoon where we sunbathed and saw wild peacocks and a monastery. We stayed for 3 nights in a hostel which was again in someone’s house, a lot larger this time and the hosts were approx 60 year olds who had 6 grown-up children. They were really lovely and even though their English wasn’t perfect the Mum was so great at remembering every person’s name (there were approx 15 backpackers staying!) and was always cooking us things and sharing what they had.

I’d be really keen to go back and see other parts of Croatia in summer, perhaps a sailing holiday with Busabout…but I think I’m dreaming, can’t see us having enough time/money to do that as well!

Belgrade, Serbia AND Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina

2008-05-13T02:37:00.003+12:00

From Budapest we took a train to Belgrade, Serbia – this was not part of the original plan but it would’ve been too far to travel to Bosnia in 1 day. It ended up working out superb though as we really enjoyed Belgrade. It’s a really nice city, quite modern and plenty of parks. On the other hand we also saw bomb sites from the last fighting in 1996, this was really scary to see, it’s just completely munted buildings in the middle of busy streets and bullet holes everywhere, we had never seen any evidence of war before so it was pretty major for us. We also saw slums on the outskirts.

We took a bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo, Bosnia and then a train to Mostar. This was probably my favourite stop of the trip. We stayed in a fantastic hostel (Majda’s Rooms) which is actually based in a family’s apartment, run by a brother and sister (in their mid-30’s) and their mum lives there too. The brother, Bata, took us and 3 others out on a van tour of surrounding areas, we left at 10:30 and didn’t get back ‘til 9pm, seriously it was amazing all the things we saw and did in a day, and he only charged €15 ea – this is VERY cheap. We had the opportunity to climb up inside a massive tall cross on top of a hill and see amazing views (I don’t do heights so stayed at the bottom!), we saw beautiful waterfalls, old ruins, bomb sites, fortress, landmine signage (scary), a monastery, and had an awesome Bosnian mixed grill for lunch in the most picturesque setting. I also did a 10min horse ride (ie a man lead me around the farm, haha) it went a lot better than the previous time I tried so I don’t hate horses as much now =)

The next day we had a couple of hours exploring the old town which is lovely. It’s quite touristy so a lot of small souvenir stores and restaurants, all in narrow cobblestoned streets. There’s also a graveyard in the middle of the old town which is very sad as all the gravestones are dated 1993 – which is when the war was on. Bata told us a few war stories - he had to hide in the basement and later managed to escape hidden in an ambulance and went to Switzerland (who happened to be taking refugees at the time) – where he lived for 10 years and had a really good life. The high school he attended is still a bombed out building today and you just walk down the street and always see bullet holes everywhere. You just can’t imagine having to go through something like that, 1996 was my first year of high school…not that long ago really…haha well sort of!

Štrbské Pleso (High Tatra Mountains), Slovakia AND Budapest, Hungary

2008-05-13T02:36:00.000+12:00

From Krakow we travelled to Slovakia, getting a bus to Zakopane and then another small bus for a few km’s round quiet roads before crossing the border on foot. There was nothing much there, apart from 1 shop and a couple of houses so we thought we were screwed. But luckily we found out there were a few buses a day to Poprad and managed to catch one an hour later. We got off at Stary Smokovec and took the electric train up the hills to Štrbské Pleso. It was so beautiful in the Tatras, it looked like a large cake that had been iced perfectly – I’ve never seen so much snow in my life. It was really light and fluffy to touch as well. Niki spent 3 days snowboarding and had a great time. I visited him for lunch one day, was cool to see him in action! The next day I went down again and got to see some ski jumpers who were all aged approx 12-16 – absolutely terrifying and impressive. I just kept myself occupied by relaxing, visiting Niki and also explored Poprad for half a day as well

From the Tatras we took a train to Budapest, taking us approx 10 hours. The first day we went to do the walking tour but didn’t find it, a few hours later we realised it was because day light savings had started that morning so we had missed it! Luckily it was a beautiful day so we kept ourselves entertained by exploring the gardens and had a dip in the bathhouse – all natural mineral water from a hot spring. Kind of Rotorua-ish! That night we went for dinner and had the customary goulash for dinner, delicious! We found the walking tour the next day, however there were only 3 of us on it. Was a good informative few hours which ended up in the castle with fantastic views of the city. We were all “sightseed” out after that so decided to head to a pub and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the sun.

While in Budapest we looked into our travel plans a bit more and discovered that things weren’t going to work out the way we planned….long story cut short we ended up booking new flights out of Athens on 14 April for £220 and in essence lost our Ryanair flights from Croatia (thankfully these had only cost £30). Not a happy chappy!

No snapshots yet

2008-05-13T02:32:00.002+12:00

So I know you all would rather check out our photos than read about our travels but unfortunately the pics are stuck on our camera at the mo as we don't have a laptop and I don't think my work computer lets me upload pics. I've already written blogs for the other places we visited on our Eastern Eu trip (and they are VERY long!) so I figure it's best to get these posts on here now, as we have since had more fun times which I would like to blog about... You can't wait I know!

Krakow, Poland

2008-04-29T22:23:00.002+12:00

From Olomouc we decided to be brave (and cheap) and get a bus to the Czech/Polish border town and then walk across before catching a bus to Krakow. It was slightly stressful as we had incorrect info but some lovely local girls, who couldn’t speak English, went out of their way and walked us to the bus station.

Krakow was gorgeous – it had all the facilities you needed from a city but the main town was all lovely, cobbled and old fashioned. We were there at Easter and therefore most shops closed from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday morning – bit of a shame as we missed out on the highly recommended Grandma’s restaurant. There was a lovely Easter market on where we tried some traditional food, sausage etc and got me my easter treats.

We went to Auschwitz & Birkenhau on Saturday which was obviously awful but such an important thing to see. Initially we both weren’t as affected as we had been when visiting Dachau Camp in Munich last year but once you see the size of Birkenhau and hear the stats and at Auschwitz see the glass paned rooms filled high with human hair, thousands of pairs of glasses, suitcases, hairbrushes and even prosthetic limbs you really start to feel the magnitude of how many people went through the camps and the awful truth of it all.

We did a half day trip to the Salt Mines, you go 135 metres underground and it’s really big – you actually only see 1% of the entire mine which is mindblowing how huge it must me! There’s a whole lot of sculptures and even a chapel all carved/sculpted out of the salts, most of which were created by miners themselves. I wouldn’t recommend going though – I’ve heard better reviews from salt mines in different countries, plus it was pricey!

We met some fun Aussies and Brits at the hostel and went out with them to dinner one night and indulged in some polish vodka over card games the next…PHOTOS TO COME!

Prague & Olomouc, Czech Republic

2008-04-29T22:23:00.001+12:00

After a short but sweet overnight stop in London, after our Egypt trip, we flew out to Prague. We arrived at 21:25 and as soon as we’d gotten through passport control I realised I’d left my jacket on the plane…oops! I hadn’t needed it in Egypt at all so I was out of the habit. Anyway we got it back no worries it was just a bit of waiting around. We finally arrived at our hostel at midnight and were checked out again by 9am. As we had already visited Prague in November last year, we moved straight on to Olomouc, which is a lot smaller than Prague and we’d heard it was gorgeous. We had our first stroke of luck when we were allowed on to the bus even though it was fully booked – the driver moved his stuff off a seat and was very helpful, even with the language barrier. At every stop they were turning people without tickets away, and at one stop they had to go through the bus checking tickets as there were no seats left, yet 2 people with tickets needed to get on - I seriously thought we were going to get kicked off as they had overbooked or something, but they found the culprits…Soo lucky! Phew!

We stayed for 2 nights in a nice small hostel called Poets Corner. We went to a museum which happened to be free on Wednesdays (woop woop - otherwise we wouldn’t have gone) so that was cool as we ended up seeing some pretty neat stuff….a massive chariot for one, very bling bling. While we were there it snowed a bit – very strange for us as we were still sunburnt from Egypt! Olomouc is very small so 1.5 days was plenty of time and we could just walk around at our leisure and fit in most the stuff the hostel recommended including indulging in fantastic local food, beer and a scrumptious chocolate tart.

Eastern Europe Trip mid-Mar to mid-Apr 2008

2008-04-25T02:21:00.001+12:00

Already the memories of our month around Eastern Europe are fading fast, and as I really don’t have the energy to write a detailed blog I’ll just go ahead with the things that stood out the most and knowing me it’ll end up being super long anyway.

If I could offer one piece of advice for would be “go with the flow” travellers, it would be to look into distances and travel options between countries that you plan to visit – this is what caught us out many times and even though we still had a fantastic time (and perhaps things happen for a reason)…we could’ve saved a chunk of money if we had looked into it more.

We passed through 11 countries in 28 days, which is about as crazy as doing a Contiki trip but without the bus driver, tour guide and pre-planned accommodation and meals!

CZECH REPUBLIC - Prague & Olomouc
POLAND - Krakow
SLOVAKIA - Štrbské Pleso (High Tatra Mountains)
HUNGARY - Budapest
SERBIA - Belgrade
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA - Mostar
CROATIA - Dubrovnik
MONTENEGRO (bussed through)
ALBANIA - Tirane
MACEDONIA - Ohrid
GREECE - Athens & Aegina (Greek Island)

With the invention of websites like hostelworld.com and hostelbookers.com the whole accommodation search has become pretty easy and I’m pleased to say that all the hostels we stayed in were fantastic – in particular, Greg & Tom’s in Krakow, Poland stands out. Small, modern, clean and friendly staff. Playstation2, wide screen tv, dvds, free internet, laundry and breakfast & supper! Crème de la crème of hostels

I’ve started writing paragraphs for every country so will post these along with some photos very soon…and I warn you it’s already getting rather long!

15 day Egypt Tour "Pyramids & Beaches"

2008-03-24T11:19:00.037+13:00

We flew with Alitalia and had a stopover in Milan for 8 hours - our flight to Egypt would've only been 5 hours total! Ah well the things we do to save a few pounds. We arrived to Cairo airport at 02:25 and thankfully had an airport transfer waiting for us. The traffic is madness, no lanes, cars paying no attention to speed limits, donkeys lugging carts, overcrowded buses etc all constantly sitting on their horns. We checked into the hotel and slept til 1pm, and then decided to venture out, we didn't get too far but just sitting watching the traffic and people is entertainment and eye opening enough. Crossing the road was an experience, I was a bit scared and ended up just clinging to Niki, you just weave in between the cars, they kind of slow down for you. Surprisingly in all this madness we didn't see one accident or road rage.

Day 1 was just an arrival day so no formal plans but later that afternoon a few others had arrived so we went out to dinner on a cruise on the Nile. It was pretty tacky but also fun, and obviously just unreal to be on the Nile! We had entertainment from a freaky belly dancer who kept eyeing Niki up and shaking her fake boobs at him, freaking him out, also there was a sufi dancer (male) they basically spin around and around with these big skirts, so they look like spinning tops, and do other stuff while continually spinning for ages and ages!! It's pretty cool.

Day 2 we met at 08:30 for a "meet & greet" and then hopped on the coach for the first big whammy - visiting the pyramids! What can I say - they were every bit as amazing and impressive as you imagine. We also did a camel ride which was sooo cool. Later we went to the Egyptian museum, the main attraction there for me was seing King Tutankhamen's mask and stuff found in his grave (his actual mummy lies at the Valley of the Kings).

That night we boarded a train to travel to Aswan (13 hours!). The train was "first class" - and surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be, but still I refused to use the loo. What can I say - super woman bladder!

Day 3 we had a wake up call at 03:00 as we had to join a police convoy to travel out to Abu Simbel. This is an incredible sight - by far the most impressive temple mostly because of it's location, carved right into the rocks and it's very well preserved.

We spent 1.5 days on a felucca which is a sort of sailing boat, large flat deck with storage underneath. We just lazed around in the sun and docked at night. Niki also braved the cold water and had a dip in the Nile. It was sooo relaxing and fun on the felucca. We had a tape player belting out Marley songs and a 2 man crew who sailed (obviously!) and also cooked for us. Was such an awesome experience, the only downer was the lack of toilets and by that stage everyone had funny tummys! (just to clarify - not funny haha).

We left the felucca at 7.30 on Day 6 and hopped on a coach which drove for an hour where we visited Kom Ombo Temple and Edfu Temple en route to Luxor, where we arrived at 1pm. We checked into the hotel and were stoked to learn that there was a swimming pool on the roof! Had a fantastic afternoon lounging by the pool and ordering western type food, washing down those imodium tablets.

On day 7 we had an early morning and had an hour donkey ride to the Valley of the Kings. It was really fun and amazing to see all the dessert.

Out of the 18 on our tour, only 5 of us had booked the 15 day rather than 9 day. We left Cairo on day 9 at 06:00 on a mini bus arriving at Dahab at around 14:00. Dahab was fantastic, there was no formal programme as such, we just were told what was on offer and had a GoBus rep available for any queries and he hung out with us for dinner etc. The first night Niki, Scott and I decided to climb Mt Sinai (Moses Mountain) and tagged along with another tour group. We left the hotel at 23:00, drove for an hour and then walked up the mountain which took approx 3 hours, when we got to the top we hired skody mattresses and blankets and had a kip until 06:00 when we were awoken for the sunrise... It was pretty special.

We got back to the hotel at 10:30 and had arranged to go snorkelling with Marina and Bridgit that day so even though we were tired we trooped on. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best so it wasn't very enjoyable but still cool to be in the Red Sea!

Niki and the other 3 in our group had all decided to do their PADI open water dive course over the next 3 days so I was left alone to sunbathe etc...Bliss! Marina didn't like the feeling of being constricted (can't blame her!) so I had a friend after day 1 (yay). Niki really enjoyed the challenge and saw some awesome fish - on the last day they dove to 18 metres and he passed his test so is now an open water qualified diver - woohoo!! Another expensive hobby to add to the list...flying, snowboarding and now this =)

We lounged by the pool, had a few drinks, ate out for every meal (heaven!) - awesome food and service - and got a few souvenirs. Going to Dahab was so different to the rest of what we'd seen in Egypt and a fantastic way to end our Egypt trip.

Day 14 we departed Dahab at 13:00 and were on our way back to Cairo...and Day 15 was the departure day so nothing too exciting going on. We were the last to leave with our airport transfer not leaving until 01:00 on Monday - arriving back into London finally at 12pm. A trip to the laundromat and then over to Mandy & Azz's for a well deserved night's rest.

Mad Hatter Tea(quila) Party

2008-02-28T00:28:00.006+13:00

As our time in Edinburgh was drawing near to an end I thought it fitting to plan yet another farewell party. Mad Hatter Tea(quila) Party was the theme…although in the end there was probably more tequila than mad hats!

Had a really good turn out from all the great people I’ve met through couchsurfing which made for a fabulous fun night! The pics speak for themselves so I will leave it at that…

and yes Pam, you were right, Tequila = hangover…why couldn’t I stop after just 1 or 2!!!!

Visit from Busabout Pals

2008-02-27T23:34:00.008+13:00

Mandy & Az, whom we met on our BusaBout trip last year, came up from London on 16-17 Feb for a wee visit before they went on the Highland tour we had just done.

Was so great to see them again, we get on so well, they are such a laugh! We forgive them for being Australian =)

The bussed it up from London and told us all the horrendous tales - we just can't wait until 29 Feb when it's our turn to bus it down to London (9.5 hours!). They arrived at 7.30ish and we went out for a yummy italian meal on Saturday night - probably the first time we have eaten at a restaurant in 6 months so it tasted extra good! The next morning we sent them on the free walking tour (I'm the biggest ambassador for the "neweurope" free tours - they rock!). We met up after lunch and found a random old graveyard which we had walked by many times but never been in, we then went up Carlton Hill which is unmistakable with its Athenian acropolis poking above the skyline - it gives you gorgeous panoramic views of Edinburgh and is surprisingly a peaceful place to be. We'd only been up at night so it was a good touristy afternoon for us as well.

We decided to have dinner and drinks at home that night and later Mandy, Aaron and Niki went out on a ghost tour. Edinburgh is well known for these and I have heard freaky stories - there was no way I was going on it! Niki and Aaron said it was really stink though apart from going down into some cellars. Luckily dear Mandy got really scared and upset so it made it a bit more real and entertianing for the boys! meanies!

Monday morning we farewelled them but will see them again very soon as they have kindly offered to store our excess luggage and given us a place to stay overnight before flying to Egypt! YAY

3 day Isle of Skye Tour

2008-02-19T02:39:00.007+13:00

On Fri the 8th of Feb we departed on our Highland trip with Haggis Tours. It was a full bus – 1 guide/driver and 29 passengers (20 of which were American students!) Haha but they were actually pretty nice kids – only one stereotypical loud annoying 1! There was a couple from China and 4 ppl from Aus as well. The Guide, Tony, was fantastic! He absolutely made the tour with his fabulous story telling ability, good natured, relaxed and had time to talk to everyone, always making jokes and so passionate about his “sexy” country (that’s Haggis’ tours drop phrase!)

The first day we drove up via Pitlochry, Dunkeld, Perth and Inverness, arriving at Fort Augustus, near Loch Ness just after 6pm. We stopped off for lunch and other photo ops during the day (and already I struggle to remember all the places we went!), there was a bit of snow around on the hills but nothing more – apparently the week before the road had been closed! For dinner we had haggis & chilli baked potato! Very interesting!!! We headed to a local man’s show and heard about the bloody history of the clans and got to see their weapons and he explained how they were used (horrific stuff), and Hayley volunteered to try on traditional Highland dress (ugly!!) After that we headed across the road to a pub where 6 locals sat jamming together playing Scottish music. Was fantastic!

Next morning we were on the bus by 08:30am and headed down to Loch Ness to see it in the daylight – Tony was well prepared with plenty of props so we could take our token cheesy pics - Love the ginger look =) Love it! We then drove by some heilan coo’oos (one lot of oo’s are silent!) which are so cute – I know they’re just hairy cows! But they are cool =) We headed up to Isle of Skye, where we saw ruined castles, fortresses and awesome scenery. We hopped off the bus to look over the edge of cliffs and also went to a beach but unfortunately there was a misty rain so we all got pretty wet – was worth it though! It was too foggy to see Ben Nevis (tallest Mountain in UK) which was a shame. Tony pointed towards the Hebridian Islands where the Morrison clan came from, which is my Mum’s family, so that was cool. But he said he thinks McGechie is originally Irish so I’m all over the place!

That night we stayed in a different Hostel (Saucy Marys) and they had a local musician doing covers so that was fun. All the Americans partied all night long but us oldies went to bed at midnight =) Needless to say there was a lot of sleeping going on, on the bus the next day!

On Sunday we headed towards Glencoe which was magnificent. The story behind it is so sad! And if you’re last name is Campbell I’d stay away from the Highlands – they hold a grudge! We stopped for lunch and had Cullen Skink which is smoked fish soup – delicious! We headed to Stirling which is home to the William Wallace Monument before arriving back in Edinburgh at 17:30. There are about 100 pics in a web albums for this trip if u want to see more scenery etc.

11 more sleeps until we leave Edinburgh!!!!!!!!!

Waitangi - Wai Not?

2008-02-12T02:36:00.000+13:00

I helped to organise a Edinburgh Couchsurfing meet for Waitangi. Tuesday night Kim & I missioned out to Asda (cheap supo open 24 hours) to get the mega bargains. 10 shopping bags full and an hour later we stumbled out of the shop and on to a bus back into town. Poor Kim had to struggle with bags and bags of groceries - including a tray of 30 eggs - as we live in different parts of the city. We arranged the meet for Wednesday 6 Feb and that we were having kiwi burgers at Kim's house and had a huge response - 25 ppl showed up! bit of a squeeze but good fun had by all. Tarns came along too and ended up being the bestest kitchen bitch the world has even seen (THANKS!!). The night was filled with a little poi action, sticks, bit of singing and 'haka' posing and watched some Flight of the Conchords (legendary NZ comedy!!). We had 6 true blue kiwis there which was wicked. I wasn't drinking and instead spent lots of time cooking & cleaning etc and had everyone commenting on me being sober and that they weren't used to it (and didn't like it!)... obviously have a bad rep to work on!

Work it...

2008-02-05T03:16:00.000+13:00

and just in case you're wondering whether Niki has disappeared off the planet - here's a pic with him and a couple of his workmates...

Triple tequilas and all things nasty

2008-02-04T09:24:00.000+13:00

Saturday night, after my productive day of saving the world, Tarns came over for a couple of hours so we had a good catch-up and watched a girly movie - while I got ready and had a few drinks at home. I'm all about saving the ££'s. Sounds like we've got similar travel plans and are getting excited!

I got into the pub at about 10 just in time to head on to the next bar. Was great to see everyone again, there were about 20 ppl there, the Edinburgh Couchsurfing group really gets into stuff which is wicked! Things got a bit silly very quickly with me shouting Kim a birthday tequila (as you do) then of course getting myself one and one for Philip too as I owed him drinks from last time but since he's a rich doctor he never accepts! Anyway that was fun ...although sometime later it turned nasty with Philip betting that I couldn't shot a triple vodka shot (in a cup)...so what was a girl to do? it was actually fine, no salt or lemon in this bar but like the hard core kiwi girl i am I wowed and impressed everyone with my awesome drinking ability ... why I feel the need to crank out tequila every time I go to a pub is beyond me! And then I always start drunk texting, Lisa was the lucky recipient this time (and then I wander why my credit runs out so quickly - texting NZ will do that!) At about 2 I headed to see Niki as he had just finished work and walked home with him (sensing a Saturday night pattern forming) - apparently filling him in on all the happenings over and over again. I had my first Edinburgh hangover and it wasn't nice...I forget how awful it is. Luckily i was fine by 2ish and managed to drag my butt down to the hairdresser for a much needed trim!

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY CALEB!! xo The present is on it's way!

Beach Clean

2008-02-04T08:57:00.000+13:00

On Saturday 2 Feb I headed to work to join a group of fellow environmentalists (ahem) to clean up Yellowcraigs Beach (about 50mins drive from Edinburgh city). About 20 of us turned up, including a few keen kids. It was a really good day for it, especially considering we'd had high winds and snow the previous 2 days. I did have 5 layers on, including thermal leggings though! We were provided with rubbish pickers and gloves and for the first bit had to also survey what rubbish we were picking up on a form so that they can see what types of stuff is being left. The beach didn't look that messy but on closer inspection we actually filled quite a lot of rubbish bags ...mostly plastic pieces, junk food wrappers and surprisingly plastic doggy doo bags - used! You think if u go through the effort to clean up after your dog - why you'd then just leave it there in a plastic bag (of all things)! It was really satisfying picking up rubbish and filling up the rubbish bags - like the feeling you get when you've vacuumed a room! (or maybe that's just me!) After two hours of cleaning we took off to a local pub for a well deserved pint and lunch. Was a nice day, bit of warm fuzzies doing my bit for the enviro, as well as the opportunity to hae seen more of this beautiful country...for free!

Stuff

2008-02-04T08:45:00.000+13:00

Sorry for being slack - time is flying by and I haven't updated for a few weeks! By tomorrow you will have a million and one new updates to read in one go =) We are having lots of fun and really enjoying Edinburgh but are also ready to move on - which we are doing in less than 4 weeks on 29 February! we have paid for our flights to Egypt and our 2 week tour and sent off our passports to get Egypt visas yesterday - Our new pasport pics are awful!!!!! like I know people say that all the time but seriously we both got the worst photos ever...

My current temp job is continuing right up until we leave so that's such a relief and I'm quite enjoying working there so double bonus!

We have booked our Haggis tour which departs on Friday 8 Feb, so that should be a great weekend - only 5 sleeps YAY!

Happy Waitangi Day to all the New Zealanders - I've got something on with couchsufers on Wednesday. Think the plan is to have kiwi burgers and other NZ treats incl maggi onion dip (YuM) and just lax out to kiwi music and entertain/teach all the non-kiwis with a bit of poi action =) Unfortunately Niki is working... someone's gotta fund all this partying and travel plans I guess!

Burns Night / Australia Day

2008-02-04T07:32:00.000+13:00

January 25th is Burns Night - A celebration of the life of Scotland's famous poet Robert Burns. The tradition is to have a burns supper - haggis, neeps (turnip) and tatties (potatoe), and recite some of his poems. Niki's workmate Emma hosted a burns supper - my first time ever trying haggis and it was really surprisingly YUM! Just like a favoursome mince thing. I imagined it coming out in a stomach (I don't know why as if you think about it a sheep's stomach would be massive so u wouldn't get one each...anyways blonde moment) you just scoop the haggis out of the "stomach" - these days usually plastic -and the haggis is crumbly and mince-like. Emma did an awesome reading in her cool Scottish accent.

The next day was Australia Day and I caught up with couchsurfers who had arranged a meet to celebrate both Burns and Aussie day. There were 23 of us at Florian's flat, ppl from all over the world and ironically enough, only 2 Scottish people and no australians! We still had a great time celebrating anyway with me wearing my bright yellow skirt to support the golden cause for Aus. We had haggis, neeps & tatties again - really delicious and I also tried the vegetarian version. Wouldn't eat it often but glad i tried it! Jamie purchased a bottle of whisky to share - YUCK! I had the tiniest sip and was so grossed out so added the rest (tiny amount) to my vodka and it still managed to taint the whole drink! I also learnt that Scottish whisky isn't spelt with an 'e'! and they're very particular about this =)

Tabi had organised a pass-the-parcel game with Kylie's Locomotion and other random aussie music setting the theme with people having to recite scottish/aus national anthems, poems, etc when they had the parcel when the music stopped. Was gorgeous coming from all these people who's first language isn't even english!

Later we went out to a pub and partied the night away - many photos and drunken text messages to Pam&Kev later i stmbled across Niki's pub and he had the pleasure of walking me home =)

my pastey arm next to Stefanie's who has just been holidaying in NZ! grrrrr

Weekend Shinanigans

2008-01-14T07:05:00.001+13:00

It’s been a weekend of socialising and catching up with mates. I finished my first full week at my temp job on Friday 11 Jan and joined a few workmates for some after-work drinks…sounds like they’re a social bunch and this Friday I’ve been invited to Shona’s (the girl who I’ve replaced) leaving do! Should be fun.

Tarns (Riddington cousin) and Dee moved up to Edinburgh on Monday, they’re looking for work and will stay for the next 2-3 months before going off travelling, which is wicked for us to have a couple more people we know around! Hilary (London flatmate) and Nippy came up for a wee visit Saturday. Hilary is going home to NZ within the next fortnight so it was so cool to see her, huge effort coming all this way, 9 hour bus rides and all! Saturday afternoon we wandered around Edinburgh and took a few token pics of the castle etc as Nippy hadn’t been before. We had an encounter with Braveheart, a yummy cheap pub lunch and lotsa giggles while purchasing matching Scotland undies (weird? I think not!). Was a lovely clear crisp day but all these girls from Dunedin couldn’t handle the cold!

Saturday night Hilary and I had a few drinks at home, whilst Nippy went on a ghost tour with old friends. Hilary had been before and said it was soooo scarey – so there was NO way I was going to give it a try! Later on in the night we all met up, also with Tarns & Dee and their friends. Was good to meet some other ‘locals’ as they directed us to some new nearby bars that I didn’t know existed. Tarns’ mate Daniel was in a shots-mood so the tequila came out! I had the camera with me so of course I proceeded to take a million photos, a few of which are displayed here and have posted the rest on facebook. Apart from poor Nippy losing an earring and a glove (which is something I often do) we all lived to tell the tale, even finding a bakery on the way home and purchasing a pie each – which we all miss from home… but alas it was yuck!!!

On a separate note I’ve managed to track down some old school friends from when I lived in The Netherlands! (Good ol’ facebook!) We last wrote to each other over 10 years ago, so that is very exciting, and yes they all remember me too! I’m definitely going to arrange a visit to see them =) How cool is that! Just as well they can speak English, my Dutch is pretty bad!

Weekend culture

2008-01-10T01:10:00.001+13:00

On Saturday 5 Jan we hopped on the train and headed to Glasgow (50mins away). We were met by heavy rain and winds which resulted in Hayley being a grumpy cow for a lil while! (oops!) We weren’t expecting much as a couple of friends had recently been and both said it was boring! Anyway Niki had been told to go to the Kelvingrove Museum (I’m soo over museums!) but it was surprisingly fun and a really good museum.

The Kylie Minogue exhibition was on (for free) so that was cool seeing heaps of her awards and costumes (mate, she is tiny!). We then headed to the nature section where there are lots of “stuffed” real animals, and they’re not behind glass so u get a good look. The highlight was the elephant! Yes you read right…an elephant! It was very impressive, had been in the museum for 100 years. There was also a giraffe, a massive crab, a reindeer and even a kiwi and many more. A large pipe organ was also on display and a guy played a few songs. We overheard a young girl of about 4 years saying to her Mum “This music is doing my head in!” Imagine in a wee Scottish accent, So cute!

It conveniently started raining again as soon as we stepped outside the museum. GRRR But we found a tavern close by and had a yummy lunch and a few pints, noticing the difference in price from Edinburgh! (cheaper!) After that we hopped on the subway back into town and looked around a few shops and malls. It’s a really good place to shop with a huge pedestrian street lined with lots of shops and about 3 malls as well. We didn’t stay too long cos it was just depressing seeing all the sales and knowing nothing can fit in my pack!

My new jop is going really well, everyone’s super nice and it seems to be a great place to work. Niki has been rostered on for quite a few hours so we are all on track for saving! Hope to register with a Doctor this week so we can look into getting our jabs for Egypt (ouch! The pain and the cost!)

Hogmanay Celebrations

2008-01-03T07:04:00.001+13:00

Edinburgh is awesome for New Years, we have had an fantastic time. Helped along by a few visiting friends, which meant our bedroom resembled that of a 6 bed hostel dorm for a few days =)

On Saturday night we attended the Torch Light Procession which involved 1000's of people walking up the main city street and to the top of a nearby hill all holding flaming torches. At the top of the hill they burn a viking ship and other stuff, bagpipers and drum groups perform, followed by AMAZING fireworks! It was such a crazy thing to see, especially looking back at the flame filled streets coming your way. I'm not really sure why they do it, something to do with old viking traditions I guess.

Sunday night was the 'Night Afore' monster ceilidh which we didn't really make it to as we were slack, losing track of time whilst having drinks at home! Debra and I got there in time for the last half hour while the others went straight to the pub. Again there were lots of people there all in a festive mood with a big stage and a band set up. And most impressive (yet strange) there were giant 'monsters' everywhere! Alot of amazing costumes of insects walking on stilts and a really tall inflatable monster that was as tall as the buildings, like something out of King Kong! Also a stage where there was beat boxing and break dancing going on in conjunction with bagpipes! Weird!

Monday - new years eve we had tickets for the street party. Niki had to work from 5pm and the rest of us had drinks at our flat til about 10 when we headed into town. It had been raining all night but was just misting by then and it was warm out (well warm for Edinburgh, didn't need my coat - maybe the vodka helped with that)! Immediately we lost each other but luckily I was with Debra so we spent the next couple of hours talking to random people from all over the world, waited in line for the porta-loo and purchased overpriced vino and hot food. Then my phone rang, and I got to talk to some of my fave peeps back home which was super neat, thx slapper! The fireworks were surprisingly crap, we had heard they had spent £10million (ridiculous I know) on them! The torchlight fireworks were much better and longer. Perhaps the rain ruined these and they decided not to finish the show?? Anyway was a fun countdown and then we managed to find the others up by niki's work which we got smuggled into and were allowed to sit in the corner drinking whilst they cleaned up. We got home at 4am (I'm too old for this) and all escaped hangovers! YIPPEE

Most of my pics are blurry - surprise surprise! and I didn't take our camera to the actual street party so hope to get some pics off Debra and will add to our album. Although from memory most the pics are of us posing with complete strangers!

All the Very Best for 2008 everyone xo

Work it a little bit

2008-01-03T06:43:00.000+13:00

Great news! I have a new temp job working at PricewaterHouse as a team secretary which should take me through to the end of January at least! =) Such a relief to know I've got work as we really need to save save save for our travels in March/April!

Seasons Greetings

2007-12-28T04:49:00.000+13:00

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! We are definitely missing friends and family (and sunshine) at this time of year! We had Christmas dinner with a few of Niki's workmates which was fun. One of the girls cooked a massive roast turkey and all the trimmings all by herself, legendary! We look forward to pavalova and all the other kiwi treat next Christmas!

I'm in the middle of uploading lots of photos to our web albums and am trying to sift through the mounds of pics and put the 'interesting' ones into an album 'highlights of bus-about trip' in case anyone is bored and feels like seeing what we have been up to!

Apart from that here's a pic of me on St Andrews Day and one of Niki taken last weekend when we did a spot of "mountain" climbing with Debra Fish... Niki slipped on his butt 3 times! haha! (Not so funny when I fall over of course)

Had a temp assignment as a receptionist for mortgage brokers for Thurs 27th and Fri 28th Dec which I was stoked about as I didn't think I'd get any work over Christmas. So I got up at 7.30am this morning and went to work, only to discover that the guy had been given the wrong key and anyone with the correct key was on holiday! So I got sent home and he was going to work from another branch! Bit poos, but my agency said I'll get paid for today at least as it wasn't my fault, so I guess that's pretty cool! And I guess I'll get a phone call if they need me tomorrow after all.

Wishing everyone a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! Party Hard =) We will be at the Hogmanay Street Party! (well, I will be, Niki has to work! Typical! but it sounds like he'll have fun there anyway) xo

BASTARDS

2007-12-19T04:50:00.001+13:00

Some not very nice people have used our debit card details to purchase items online!! www .kiddicare.com (wtf?) and some bus travel by the looks…£170 in total. GRRRR! We have had to cancel our cards and report it to the fraud department. The money should be refunded within the week and new cards issued, so it's more just a big inconvenience and rather upsetting (In true Hayley style I burst into tears when I found out!).

Scottish Happenings

2007-12-19T04:49:00.001+13:00

Finally getting around to blog about what we have been up to for the past 6 weeks! As you know we are now based in Edinburgh and plan to stay here until mid-to-late February at this stage. Niki is working in a bar and I am doing temp secretarial work. It took a few weeks for me to get a job but I've now had work for the last 3.5 weeks. The next 2 weeks I'll probably be off again though because of Christmas and New Years holidays.

Meanwhile we have a great flat which is within walking distance of town (35mins) so we save £2 each a day on bus fares! Scrimping and saving as we do not earn nearly as much as we did in London. We are still glad we came here though, everyone is a lot friendlier, the city centre is lovely and at the moment they have the Winter Wonderland up and running which is gorgeous! Ferry lights, Christmas markets, ferris wheel, outdoor ice skating rink etc etc. It's neat to see bagpipers busking and the Scottish accent is great!

I can't remember everything we've done so far but in brief: Julie (from my old work) came to visit which was great, we went on a walking tour, attended a ceilidh (pronounced "kay lee") a Scottish dance night - loads of fun, but very tiring! and met her couch host and couchsurfing contacts, which was invaluable as I've since joined up and been along to a few things the Edinburgh Group has organised, including the St Andrews Day Celebrations, movie night at the Brass Monkey (pub), fortnightly pub catch-up and a night out partying for a leaving party! Excellent way to meet people.

Today, Debra Fish (a friend from school) arrives from NZ for a week or so before moving to Dublin! I'm sooo excited =)

Hope everyone's organised with Christmas shopping etc etc!

Paris Pics

2007-12-07T10:25:00.000+13:00

Arc de Triomphe

Basilique du Sacre Coeur

Eiffel Tower

Disneyland

Eating snails!!!

Notre Dame

Musee du Louvre

Busabout Trip - Paris: the City of Love

2007-11-23T06:14:00.000+13:00

Paris was amazing... it definitely lives up to the hype.

The last bus of the Busabout season took us from Stuttgart to Paris, an 8 hour trip...which ended up being 10 hours because of course Murphys Law came out to play and we had troubles all day, including a minor collision!

Niki had found us double room in hotel for €40 per night, which is amazingly cheap for Paris. When I heard that I was expecting crappy 1 star, cockroach infested room. We later discovered the reason it was soo cheap was that it was way out of the city (Epinay Sur Seine), he had read the ad wrong...boys!! But it actually worked out very well, it was a lovely 3 star basic hotel and we simply had to catch a train into the city which took 30mins and didn't cost much.

We had heard stories of the Parisians being unfriendly and not willing to speak english. We didn't encounter that at all so don't let that worry u. Niki knows a bit of french and as long as you're polite and try to use a bit of french: bonjour, sil vous plait, merci etc, people are generally happy to help.

We have 5 days in Paris and did all the touristy things and none of them were a disappointment.

Sacre Coeur - big amazing white church on top of a hill with briliant views of the city. In front of it is a large staired area which is a very popular place for people to hang out at night, bottle of wine in hand with random musicians and street performers keeping you entertained.

Arc de Triomphe -crazy round-a-bout, didn't see any accidents though. The actual structure in the middle of the roundabout is impressive. So massive! We didn't go up it (you had to pay!) but had a good wander around it while watching traffic.

Notre Dame - beautiful gothic church, didn't necessarily stand out over other churches we've seen in Europe though. free entry was a bonus! We were there on the national Saints day so got to see a bit of a service, incl choir and all that which made the whole exprience a bit more authentic. No sightings of the hunchback.

Louvre - This museum is HUGE. We only stayed for 2.5 hours, but seriously you could stay all day and still not have seen everything. I'm not hugely into art so got bored quickly, did see the infamous Mona Lisa - she's tiny! and surrounded by tourists flashing cameras, it's cordened off at least so u get a peek. The thing that stood out to me was the Egyptian section where there were animal mummies and even a human mummie on display. The weirdest, grossest thing really, but so interesting! As far as museums go, this one is a must see.

Eiffel Tower - WOW... this is incredible, and very reasonably priced. Queues can be massive even though there are 4 queues (one by each 'leg'). We took the walking option which you do for 2 levels with the option to then pay a bit more to get an elevator to the top. It was soooooooo unbelievably high & extremely windy = very scarey! Niki loved it of course but I didn't stay out on the top viewing patform too long! We went up at 4.45pm so got to see the city by day and night. Absolutely stunning views! The tower also sparkles at night for 10mins once every hour which looks beautiful in the distance. During the day however I think it's a bit ugly looking.

Fat Tyres Bike Tour - Decided to get back on a bike once again, this time for a night tour which we'd heard rave reviews of. Was dreading crazy traffic but it was actually ok and there is a bus/bike lane. We saw some cool stuff and everything looks different by night, but unfortunately our camera doesn't take very good night pics. Went on an hour boat cruise (included in tour) where they cranked out a few bottles of wine as well. Was nice, but very cold!

Disneyland - the best day of my life! haha well not quite but thats how a child described it to us, and mate it comes close. It's such a great place, we had so much fun. We got a 2 park pass - Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios (€56ea). We started at Studios and were there from 11-4.30 and then went over to Disneyland, which was def the better of the 2. We were worried we'd made the wrong decision as the park was packed and we had only been on 2 rides in the first few hours but luckily after our overpriced dinner (8.30pm) we managed to go on 3 popular rides before closing time (10pm)...these rides had earlier had 120min waiting times! The rides are indescribeable, high thrills, amazing detail and themes...

The only reget from the day is that we missed the parade, I was so gutted...and if I went again I would skip some of the 'show' type things we saw, the stunt show wasn't as good as Dreamworld.

A pricey day but all in all a superb experience, we were falling asleep on the train ride home...worn out wee angels =)

Au Revoir xo

Busabout Czech Republic

2007-11-23T05:49:00.001+13:00

Here's a few more pics, having trouble uploading more so I'll move on to the next post instead...I bet you're all very excited!

Busabout Trip - Part 3 (Munich)

2007-11-23T05:47:00.000+13:00

Munich was our next stop and the only other place we were to stay for 5 nights. Which again was a good decision as we had a great time, there was so much different stuff to see. Oktoberfest was all over by this time but we went up to see the grounds and there were alot of tents still standing...apparently it takes like 6 months to get everything ready and then 2 or 3 to pull it all down. Alot of people on busabout had started their trip at Oktoberfest so we heard a lot of stories and are keen to go next year (well, Niki is =). We stayed in quite a nice hostel, actually all the hostels were great especially compared to the ones we encountered on our June Italy trip. Usually 6 bed mixed dorms with ensuite toilet/shower, lockers, bedlight etc bars, internet, tours, laundry etc etc all the good stuff!

We went to Dachau concentration camp which was heartbreaking, awful, freezing, eye-opening and educational. I'm really glad we went but what an awful thing to see, especially the gas cahmbers (even though these particular ones were never used) and the big incinerator. There was a lot of information and pictures of prisoners and piles of skinny bodies, we heared about the experiences of survivors on the audiguide. We went with quite a big group so the mood remained light on the way home otherwise it's quite a lot to take in emotionally for 1 day!

The next day we took the hostels free (for tips!) walking tour which was pretty good, you learn/see so much that you wouldn't see if you just wandered around yourself. That night 6 of us went to the famous Hofbrau Haus for dinner. Niki had a pork knuckle and I had meat loaf and an appel strudel, and again had a radler which was extremely drinkable...they're just sooo huge you can only handle one. They had an Oompha band playing which really added to the atmosphere. These beer halls are massive and busy. You also notice heaps of men wearing the traditional lederhausen (leather pants thingee) for real and they're there for club meetings!

The next day we headed out to the 'Disney' castle in the Bavarian alps, approx 30mins on the train. Neuschwanstein is the castle that the original Disney castle was based on. There's also another castle on the hill next to it called Hohenschwangau caslte. These were used by King Ludwig II who died over 100 years ago and since then it's been a major tourist attraction. We didn't pay to go into them but you can get inside the castle walls and take some cool pictures, also the surrounding mountains are awesome. Felt like I was in a fairytale! tehe

On our last day in Munich we just laxed about and did important stuff like buying Niki an authentic stein to send home, writing a few postcards, and purhasing a warm jacket for me. Niki went to the Deutsch museum for a couple of hours too...meant to be pretty impressive.

Next we went to Stuttgart (also in Germany) basically famous as it's the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche so we looked around both those museums (thrills!) and just explored the city a bit. Only had 2 nights there which was all we needed...a bit of relaxing before PARIS!!

Busabout - Part 2

2007-11-20T07:08:00.000+13:00

on 13 Oct we travelled to Prague in the Czech Republic where we stayed for 3 nights. It's amazing there... You all have to go! we stayed at a great brand new hostel who happened to be putting on a party that night with drink specials and free nibbley food for dinner. We did a bike tour the next day, turned out we were with 7 other busabouters so it was a really good time and after that we went out for dinner together. The food is soo much cheaper in Czech then other European countries. So we could all afford to have a steak! Although in saying that sushi was super expensive! strange...

We went to the Prague castle and decided to get the whole shi-bang (audio guide etc) which was a mistake as we were bored in an hour and it had cost us alot! Even though it was massive and lovely I think we were both just a little 'over' doing the church/museum sightseeing thing.

After Prague we went to Cesky Krumlov for 2 nights which is a tiny wee town also in the Czech Republic. It was soo neat there, we had gorgeous weather...were wearing singlets and board shorts for the first time in ages! A few days after we left Cesky we bumped into people in Austria that had been in Cesky a day after us and they had photos of the town covered in snow! crazy. We basically just did a lot of relaxing, a little bit of exploring and lots of eating out at the restaurant near the hostel...salmon, lamb, steak - amazing meals ... soo cheap! We went to a cocktail bar with the plan to have absinthe but they didn't serve it! The next night some of the girls braved a couple of shots but I decided against it! Apparently the hallucinagate (how do u spell that!) is illegal now so it's just the same stuff u can get at home...no green fairies!

Next stop was Vienna in Austria for 3 nights. On our first night there we went out to a local restaurant who happened to have a traditional band playing which was a bonus and of course I had a weiner schnitzel! (All I seem to write about is food!) In Austria they speak German which is handy as I had learnt some basic phrases in Berlin. danke (thank you), bitte (please), aufwedersein (goodbye) you should know that one from the Sound of Music! It was sooo cold in Vienna, took the enjoyment out of seeing the sights really. We sat on a tram that did the city loop and saw some stuff that way. Went to a butterfly house which was gorgeous...and as a bonus had tropical temperatures! Saw a few churches and a palace, had dodgy chinese and hung around at the hostel pub... and that was it really. Nothing to rave about in my opinion.

Next we went to Salzburg and on the way there it was snowing!!!! So gorgeous and what made it extra special was that there were a bunch of people with us on the bus that had never seen snow before. Unfortunately it stopped soon after we arrived and after that was just yuck sludgey stuff. Still looked pretty on rooftops though. We had planned to go on an ice caves tour but due to snow they had closed earlier this year...gutted! A few keen beans went on the Sound of Music tour and had a lot of laughs apparently the guides really get into it and you all sing along...not really Niki's scene perhaps! it was quite expensive anyway so gave it a miss.

One the second day we met up with Brad & Christy and Mandy & Az (two other couples on busabout that we got to know) and headed up to the fort/museum... after a couple of hours of exploring, a few random snow fights and the creation of a mini snowman the consensus was to head down to the beer hall. We were there from 3.30-8.30pm ... Niki was in his element downing a stein every hour. I tried a radler (half beer, half lemonade) which was ok...but I think I'll stick to vodka. We had some traditional food too giant pretzels, wurst etc.