Halloween

zane and I at Halloween

Me and Rach
Crazy Kayleigh
Zane the emo

Here are some pictures from our first Halloween in London with some friends of ours in North London. It was a wicked night, people get real into it over here but luckily we didnt have too many bratty kids showing up on our doorstep asking for candy we didnt have!

October madness

On Thursday I handed in my resignation. It was a long time coming and I was so nervous about doing it but wow it was worth it. Its the first step in moving up to scotland and i am so excited about leaving London and living somewhere with fresh air and room on public transport!!!I have been applying for jobs in Glasgow and Edinburgh and have a few interviews set up for the end of November, so fingers crossed I will have something worked out before my last day of work in London on the 26th.


The last month has been really busy. My mum and her partner chris arrived in London at the end of September and after we showed them around for a couple of days they headed to france to soak up the energy of the rugby world cup. We joined them a couple of weeks later in the south of France where the sun was much appreciated! We flew in to Nice and mum and chris came and picked us up in their flash hired sports car to head to the hotel. It was so good to see mum after 10 months over speaking to her on the phone, and the week with them both went far too quickly. They spoiled us rotten with lovely meals and wine and we had a much deserved break.

Outside our hotel in Nice

For the first couple of days we spent some time wandering around Nice and eating a tonne of really nice food. After some time in Nice, we jumped on the train to Menton and Monaco to have a look at how the rich and powerful people of the world live. Menton was stunning, Monaco was a bit odd with all the white suits and gold chains on the people walking around but well worth visiting and while we walked near the water I am sure all of us were dreaming about winning lotto and buying one of the massive yachts in the harbour to spend our summers in.

One of the yachts in Nice

Zane and I headed to Cannes for a few hours on our 3rd day in France to see where the film festival was held. Again it was a queit sea-side french village where everyone seemed completely chilled out.

Mum and me

After one more night in Nice, with another amazing meal - Mum, Chris, Zane and I jumped in the car for a long drive up the country to Paris in time for them to make the semi-final game on the saturday. On the way we stopped in a gorgeous town called Aix-en-Provence and spent the night in Lyon followed by another day of driving the toll roads up to Paris. Chris did a fab job in not getting us killed by the crazy parisian drivers and we managed to get to our hotel safe in sound with out getting lost on the metro. We had just a day and a night in Paris, so to make the most of it we decided to go up the effiel tower again, but this time at night to see the lights of the city.

Lyon at sunset



We met with Mum and Chris the next morning and walked towards the Arc de Triomphe while Mum kept an eye out for scalpers to buy the gold semi final tickets from her - they managed to get a pretty healthy profit for them and to celebrate we had some coffee at a cafe near the Arc. 3 coffees, 2 Oj's - 47 euros!!!!! Whatta rip!


We then jumped on a bus tour and after a couple of hours got off near the Sacre Coeur where we climed the 40 steps to take some pictures of the paris views. I said a rushed good bye to mum at the metro before leaving to grab our bags and jump on the train back to London.


It was probably best to do it there as I know if I said good bye to her at the airport I would have been a crying mess otherwise, knowing that I am not going to see her for another year and a half :(.

We arrived in the door minutes after the English had defeated the French and spent the next week being mocked by work mates about the loss of the kiwis. Thank god the saffa's showed those poms where to stick there confidence, I dont think I could have coped with anymore taunting!!

Newquay!!

A couple of weeks after getting back from Wales we decided that it was time to start tripping around the UK a little bit more. Abs and Pete recentley bought a sweet campervan and invited us to head sown to Cornwall with them to go to the rip curl surfing champs in Newquay.

The camper is cool - but it does only go 45 miles an hour so we were in for a very very looooong trip. Me and Abs got comfy in the back and fell asleep, leaving the guys to navigate the way down the english roads on Friday night. We finally arrived in Newquay around 3am on Saturday morning and the 4 of us squeezed up in the back of the camper bed which was about the size of a double bed.

We woke before my body clock on the saturday morning and headed into the centre of Newquay to grab a cornish pastry and head down to the beach. After a frollick in the rock pools we headed down to the surfing champs for a day of sunbathing (in my case frying) and beer on the beach. Me and Zane managed to brave the cold and have a dip in the sea, but were promptly told by the lifesavers to get out of the competition area and swim in between the flags. Whoops!

After having a bit too much sun, we got prettied up for a night on the town in Newquay with the locals. we came across a Walkabout pub and got entertained by a very good covers band.
On Sunday morning we had a bit of brekkie and got back in the camper for a long trip back to London so we could get back to work on Monday. We came across Stonehenge on our way which was very cool but also very busy with tourists.

its about that time.....

it has been 2 months since i posted a blog so be prepared for a summed up version of events with lots of pictures!!!

We came back from Munich at the beginning of June and for the next 3 weeks we didnt really do a lot. Had a couple of parties, went to work, came home and slept, went to work again. I was also struggling a bit with £££ due to being charged massive overdraft fees and needed some time to get back on track with finances so we could start travelling again.

We had a few weekends just wondering around london and going to the camden markets. One day we even stumbled across this massive bike race. I couldnt quite work out what was going on with the thousands of people just staring at an empty road.... that is until we saw the flashes of colour go past and realised it was the tour de france!

In the last month we have been up to quite a bit - we have decided that some time in the near future we are going to move up north to scotland and have been making trips out of london to some touristy english attractions while we are still here.

Zane has some good friends from back home called Keith and Abbey who recently got married back in NZ and moved over here and they kindly decided to show us around North Wales for a few days and let us stay with them. So about 3 weeks ago we took a day off work and headed up in a super fast Virgin train to Abergele in North Wales. It was a wicked trip - the train was going so quick it even was on a lean! AND we saw a nuclear power plant on the way up - highlight of the day for sure.

Nuclear power goodness!!!

The train we took was unable to cross the border into Wales - as they are all a bit odd there and it scares the drivers, so instead they dropped us off in a lovely quaint town called Chester. Chester is most famous for having the most pubs per person in a town. In the 1500's there was something like 396 pubs for the 1000 people that lived there. In fact pubs were so popular they tried to cut down the drinking by introducing 'hot chocolate' houses. It didnt work. They just shut down the cafes and turned them into more pubs. Yah for beer!

In all seriousness, Chester was awesome. The city is surrounded by a MASSIVE roman wall and in the centre of the town is the biggest gothic looking catherdral I have ever seen. We were in Chester for about 4 hours waiting for Keith to finish work in Wales and cross the border to come and get us. We spent the afternoon wandering around the shops and went on a bus tour of the city.

Chester town shopping

A squirrel!!!! There is nothing cooler than a squirrel.

Keith picked us up in his escort at about 5ish and we made the long slow journey into Wales. We stayed with Keith and Abbey in Aberegel which is just off the coast in North Wales. Abbey is working at the hospital and they are staying in the staff hostel near Abergele hospital. We had big plans for our first day in Wales to climb Snowdonia - but unfortunatley the heavens opened and it was miserable and wet, so instead we decided to conquer a high ropes course which was about an hour away from where we were staying. It was really challenging, we were in the trees for about 2 hours doing about 20 small courses. One of the courses was to walk across a log with no handrail 15 metres up. By the time we got to that one, none of us were having fun anymore and I was relieved at the end to have my feet on the ground.

zane and keith - the tree hugging hippies

After a couple of hours in the trees, Abbey was still full of energy and wanted to go for a hike. We then drove to the coast and went to a little town called Llandudno and walked up the pennisula called the Great Orme. It was well worth the walk up the hill and we were lucky to get a break in the rain to see some great views from the top of the hill.

Keith and Abbey - happy to be at the top of the Orme!

The day after our hike we had a quieter day on the Sunday and went for a walk arond Abergele. We came across a abandoned castle which had been fenced off from the public. Zane used his lock picking skills and we managed to break through the gates to explore the remains of a beautiful castle that we think had just been used as a residence rather than for battle. After a bit of exploring we headed back to Chester to catch the train back into London. Overall it was an awesome weekend and just what we needed after being in London for so long.

I made it to the castle!!

It has been a while since I did a blog entry, I am sorry but slackness is a forte of mine as you all know. After a strong worded email from my friend alana – I promise I will put more of an effort into this over the next few months and make them as detailed as I possibly can without boring you all to tears!

So we’ve had a couple of full on weeks. Today is my first day at work after a 5-day trip to Munich in Germany but its been a quiet day so nothing to complain about! I finally got to see my castle – and was totally blown away by how beautiful it is around Munich and further south near the Austrian/German boarder. Almost like being in the south island back home.

We arrived in Munich on Wednesday afternoon (the airport rocks too!) and spent the day wondering around the city and wishing we had learnt at least a few words of German before we arrived! Even now I still don’t know how to say hello, thank-you or good-bye! That’s when boyfriends come in handy…..Although like Paris, everyone in the city spoke english which made it a lot easier. We attempted most times to order in German with our trusty lonely planet phrasebook – which resulted in smirks&giggles more than anything! We had our first stein – 1L of beer. I swear the glass was bigger than my head. I chickened out and opted for the radler – which is 50% lemonade, but we all know my tolerance to alcohol – so it was more than enough!!

On our 2^nd day in Munich we went along to a place called ‘Mikes Bikes’. They do bike tours around Munich city and we also got conned into signing up to a bike tour down to Neuchwanstein the following day. Wow who thought that getting on a bike for the first time in 10 years would be difficult?! I was like a drunk on speed. But within 5 mins of avoiding pedestrians we were on our way. We were taken on a 4 mile trip around the city, stopping at all the main historical sites. We rode through the English Gardens, which was stunning – they are supposed to be about 4 times the size of central park in New York!.

In the gardens they have the 2^nd largest beer garden in the world which can hold up to 8000 people. We stopped here for a ‘beer break’ consuming yet another litre of beer with chicken wings before cycling past the gardens nudist area and an artificial river surf break. There are about 20 people on our tour, all good sorts but also all American. I could go on and on about how irritating that is, but I will spare you the boring details.

Friday morning we were up early with very sore bums looking forward to another full on day of cycling near Neuschwanstein. We caught a coach down there with another tour group full of Americans. The castles are about 2 hours out of Munich so we got the chance to check out a little bit more of Germany. The villages we passed were gorgeous, and full of little cottages with white picket fences and smoke coming out the chimney. Once we arrived we were given a bike and another guide who was a South African magician call Brad. He was an interesting guy – would you believe that the way he got home everyday way by paragliding off a mountain to his village? Bizarre but true!

Brad lead the group through farm fields to Swan Lake which we could see some amazing picturesque views of the castles. Out came our cameras and out came the shrill noise of Americans being amazed. (Last complaint of our American companions I promise).

After a gruelling hour of tramping up a hill we reached a bridge which had breath-taking views of both the castle and the german villages beneath it. Yet again out came our cameras. To be fair though it really was beautiful, we were a little bit unlucky in it raining for the majority of the day, but in some ways it made it more magical. That might sound ridiculous but with the low cloud on the cliffs it made the pain of a tramp, all worth it. The tour inside the castle was not that impressive but I have no complaints because it was still spectacular to see it all from the outside.

The day before we left in Munich we decided to visit the Dachau concentration camp just outside of Munich. It was the Nazi’s first concentration camp and although there are claims that no gas chamber killings occurred there, there were still thousands of prisoners that died within its walls, it had a very eerie feeling about it.

It is hard to explain what it feels like to be walking around the prisoners chambers, and the cremation area….(to use zanes description) – an extremely sobering experience. The size of the place was mind-blowing as well. The concentration camp has been turned in a memorial site with a museum in one of the main buildings.

Before we left Munich I had the chance to go for a swim in a swimming pool for the first time in 5 months. It was awesome – 2^nd largest highlight of the trip!

SCOTLAND

Our new flat - no not the whole house just the bottom flat
our street!

Edinburgh!

Last weekend we went to Glasgow to visit my Granny Cranney who was visiting from NZ. It was an extremelly early start on Friday morning with us having to get the first tube at 5.30am in the morning for a flight that left at 8.30am. It takes 2 hours from our house to get to Standsted airport. Again it was me who booked the tickets, and again it was me who didnt consider that we only live 20 mins away from Heathrow!!! Granny and my great auntys and uncle alec spoiled us with tea, cookies and a really nice lunch at the restaurant (oh by the way dad you paid for it ;) ). Then we met up with my cousin Mark who let us stay on his floor for the few nights we were up there.
On saturday we caught the train to Edinburgh which was only 45 mins and my god was I blown away. I was seriously jumping up and down with excitement when we arrived and then walking up and seeing th castle and hearing the bagpipes playing - WOW! Scotland was absolutley amazing. I want to move there tomorrow! And the air was breathable - and I had normal snot!

Mark and his girlfriend Christine (from Belfast - I couldnt understand a word that either of them said!) showed us the sights and then took us our for a night in Glasgow. On Sunday I met up with another cousin of mine Marcella before having to jet off back to London again.

The last few weeks at work have been going really well. My 'training' period of becoming a consultant is coming very quickly to an end and i am starting to interview people so will be hopefully starting to make a few ££'s soon for travel later in the year. Zane booked tickets for us to go to Munich in 3 weeks time - it was £220 for 4 nights 5 days at a 4 star hotel sooooooooooo cheap!! And I get to see Neuschwanstein!!!!! (the castle that the disney castle was designed from)

And i am (sad as it sounds) counting down the weeks until Mum gets over here on her holiday for the rugby world cup). She is coming over in September so we will be heading to France to see her and her partner when they are not at the rugby (lucky buggers!).

A view of the castle. Me and Christine (Marks Girlfriend)
Me and Zane
The Royal Mile on the walk down from Edinburgh Castle
Boys in skirts ooooo how hot

New Flat, new job.....thats about it

Harry Potter - the platform 9 3/4. Its actually real!!!!

HYDE PARK!!!! oh so gorgeous. it is MASSIVE!!!

Yep this is Buckingham Palace! Way bigger than i thought and totally dull. Except for the guards with the big hats they rock.

A couple of weeks since my last update and a fair bit has happened.
I landed a job as a recruitment consultant for a company dealing mostly with pharmacies. its been two weeks and i am loving it. its a headhunting company so mostly it involves cold calling and asking people if they 'feel like a career move'. Just learning the ropes for the next 2 months and then i will be given the midlands area of the uk. exciting stuff. low £££ at the moment until the commission starts but ah well at least im not bored. good exp and all that jazz. Im working with a bunch of under 20's most from London who enjoy their bi-weekly pub visit. - which is sometimes mid-afternoon when its sunny so I hear!

in my last post i said we had been told to move out of our flat. We did find a new place quite quickly just around the corner but on Tuesday night the girl called us to say she had changed her mind and would not be giving us the room anymore cause she is going to stay there. Bit of a bugger but we managed to find another flat a day later in a nice area with a couple of guys from Welly - a nurse and a pathologist. Its cool and really pretty- ill post pics soon!

Easter weekend was a stunner too. 4 days of sunshine and hot(ish) weather. Went to see the annual cambridge/oxford rowing race down the Thames. it was retty cool - loads of drunken kiwis and aussies - doesnt matter where you go in London a whining aussie accent is within hearing distance - there is just sooooo many of us!
Sat night we went to a friends for bbq to celebrate being able to wear skirts and shorts - yah for summer!!! We are off to Glasgow next week to meet some whanau and then maybe a music festival here in London the week after that.

We missed out on Glastonbury, V-Festival and Reading tickets GRRRRRR. Hard to get and so damn expensive (i dont get paid for a month so have nooooo money). But fingers crossed for the Leeds Festival cause it has an awesome line-up too.

On the hunt again

I picture I stole from Zane's camera cause its pretty cool.

A proper coffee! From Flatwhite in Soho - a kiwi cafe!

Bad news and good news for me.

The bad news......On Friday I got a call from my temping agency to say unfortunately my contract with Forrester (the market research company) would not continue. - I was temping there for 3 months before I was told I would go permanent.
Bit of a bugger cause there was a bit of travelling with that job but oh well :(. Turns they didn't have the budget for me and hired someone internally instead. That's what I have been told but who knows what is the truth. It was all a bit dodgy so I am glad (in some ways) that I am out.

And the good news.... A flat came up just round the corner from where we are living which we are supposed to be moving into next week. Its a lot cheaper but still a really nice flat living with kiwis and aussies.

I started applying for jobs again yesterday and unlike last time - where I got no calls for about a week- I had 5 missed calls by 3pm with some pretty cool jobs. One of the roles was working for a call centre as a analyst using ewfm! - you IRD folk know what im talking about ;) but it was way up in the north of england so miles and miles away!
I have an interview on thursday for a role as a recruitment consultant, not sure how that will go though since I have NEVER recruited! But I guess I cant under-estimate the power of 'talking-it-up'. In the meantime I will be doing some temping work for a wedding company on Oxford street in their sales area, doing - (believe it or not!) - geeky website stuff.

We went to the London Dungeons with Abby and Pete on Sunday. It was really cool. We got two for one entry which made it twice as awesome cause touristy attractions over here are so expensive! It snowed a little tiny bit and I am crossing my fingers it is going to snow tonight, cause it is soooo pretty when it snows..... for about an hour anyway and then its just sludge.
Its Zanes bday today so on Sunday we are planning on going to Thorpe Park which has massive as pant-wetting roller-coasters. Very very exciting!

Trip to Brighton

Brighton on the beach. Lovely stones and shells in place of sand.

After just moving into a new flat two weeks ago we have been told we have to move again. Some little weasel who was in the room before us took our bond money – ($1500!!!!!!)- when he hadn’t contacted the landlord and told us there was another 8 months on the lease which we would be signing on to.
After two weeks we met the landlord who said that the lease actually runs out on the 6th of April – (the weasel lied out his bottom!) and he would like the whole house to move out because he is selling the house. It’s a bit of a bugger and a real shame, especially since the room in this place is awesome and big and we have lovely flatmates & it has SKY!! But there are lots of flats going all the time so we should have no problem finding another flat.

On the bright side I got the job at the market research place. Its cool. Half the office are from another country which is bizarre but nice in a way too. Zane got a job as a technical co-ordinator at a place called Delice de France so he gets to occasionally bring home piles of cookies and freshly baked bread.

posing in front of a pub in Brighton

Zane in front of the pier

We went to Brighton on Sunday which was beautiful. It is only a short train ride away from the centre of London, but me being me booked a bus ride instead whoops. We were so lucky with weather and it was almost hot! The peir had a heap of rides (rollercoasters, etc.) and market stalls but we were both a little hung-over to go on them so will need to go back another time to try them out! I have posted some pics they have all come from zanes camera so I won’t take any credit for the arty ones!

My snot is black!

After a month in London when blowing my nose (no this time I wasn’t picking it) I discovered with much fascination that my tissue was black! So all you lovely kiwis still back home please take a deep big breath of that lovely NZ fresh air and think of me :)

Job Hunting and Waitangi Day

IT SNOWED!!!!

From my rooms window
and another...

Outside the front door
Walking to the tube station at 8am.

JOB HUNTING.....
Looking for jobs sux. I dont know what I was expecting. I think I thought I would walk down Oxford Street and just be given a job paying £30000.00.

I started solid job hunting last tuesday and went to a couple of recruitment agencies. I managed to get some work for thursday which was just answering phone calls but I have run out of money extremelly quickly. It is just unreal how expensive everything is here!!! I had an interview yesterday that went really well and went back today to meet the managers so they could make sure I wasn't going to run back to my mum in NZ in a week becuase i was homesick before they hired me. So yah I now (almost - cause still wating for the offer) have a job paying pretty good money (I think!). AND they are flying me to Amsterdam if I am still there in 2 months to meet the rest of the company!!!

I am living in a place called Manor House which is 20 mins north of London and am paying £379 a month in rent - which is about $280 a week in NZ dollars for a tiny room! We have some awesome flatmates though - 1 kiwi and a pom who are hilarious and a turkish girl who seems nice but we dont see her very often.

WAITANGI DAY!!!

Every year the weekend before Waitangi Day all kiwis living in London come out in the thousands to celebrate. When I get my hand on some pics I will post them on the blog cause it was totally unreal.
Its a pub crawl around the central tube line in the centre of London and there were about 10,000 kiwis ready to drink hard. It started at 10am but we didn't join it until about 2pm so we just caught the haka in parliament square. Zane and Pete (abbys boyfriend) got their tops off and me and abs were told to 'leave our men' and move to the female part of the park so the haka could begin! 2000 drunk kiwi bellies out in the freezing cold screaming out the haka....... yeah so not hot.

After that we went out to Brixton to see +44 (new band with mark and travis from blink 182) which was pretty good except the average age was 16 and we were sooo out of place with no emo haircuts or facial peircings!

Paris - city of lights, love......and DISNEYLAND!!!

We went to Paris last week for 4 days. It was awesome. Cold. So cold my bum was numb but still amazing. We arrived on Monday at about 11am and as soon as we walked off the platform we realised that maybe... just maybe we should have scrubbed up a little more on our french. Unfortunately all I knew how to say was merci.


Zane and I on the top of Notre Dame.

After about 30 mins of navigating our way around the metro system in a strange language we found our hotel room. It was about 1 km away from the Eiffel tower - just over the bridge, and it was a reasonably nice day so we made the trip up to the top to take some pictures and work out where everything was.
The Eiffel tower
a pretty view from the top at Napoleon's Arc

Yah Disneyland!!!!
On Tuesday we made the trip out to EuroDisney which was about 40 mins on the metro just outside of Paris. Zane mentioned that we may have needed a different train ticket since it was quite a long way out but I assured him that we would be sweet.
We got off at Disney train station walked up to the gates and were denied entry. Only to find out that we did in fact have the wrong tickets and had to go all the way back into Paris to purchase the correct fare. Oops miss know-it-all michelle was wrong again :P. After a couple of hours we made it through the gates. It was FANTASTIC!!!! We were planning to go for only the one day but because it rocked so much -(even if it was 1 degrees!) we went back for a second day. Went on Space Mountain about 5 times - very cool. Waiting times were incredible. Most were about 5 mins and there were no crowds at all.
Notre Dame
Our last day in paris we went to the Louvre, Notre Dame and the arc de triomphe- all amazing and definitely not over-rated.... except the Mona Lisa.

London!!!

Instead of writing emails I have increased my computer knowledge with the help of my geeky but lovely boyfriend to make up a blog. However this may be the one and only time I update this (because you all know how slack I am!) but ill try my best i promise.

I arrived in London last friday at about 8am - 2 hours late. Worse experience of my entire life. Wow i never thought a 24 hour flight could be that dull! Went with Qantas which was sweet because i got my own entertainment system... but after 2 movies and 5 simpsons episodes i was bored. So bored that i was almost pleased when i got a bleeding nose because it meant i had something to do!

Houses of Parliament Me and zane at the London eye

Zane picked me up at the airport and instead of going to bed and sleeping for the rest of the day like i expected I got taken on a mini site seeing tour of London. Totally mind blowing. It was cold but nothing like I expected - (its been about 10C every day - wicked eh?).
We went on the the London eye, houses of Parliament, oxford street shopping, tower of london - and by that time my legs were falling off so went home and crashed for about 15 hours.

View of the London Eye

Had just a couple of days in London, went shopping for a jacket - yes i came a little un-prepared for the frosty mornings. And that really is nothing i will ever do again in the near future. Walked out of the tube on to Oxford Street and seriously almost got taken out by the river of people walking past.
Top Shop - my worse nightmare , probably heaven for you Ju! Its pretty much a Glassons shop x 10000. every where i looked there were screaming girls, mothers, boyfriends being dragged along by their elbows and clothes for as far as i could see in ALL directions.

Apart from the busy shopping experience -London has been fantastic. I have been so lucky (so far) with the weather and everything that I have seen has totally exceeded my expectations. Especially seeing all the streets from the Monopoly game - very very cool.

Westminster Abbey
Tower of London