Bank Holiday Weekend 24-26 May 08

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

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

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

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

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 =)