It's good to be a Kiwi Mate

Hey guys,

Been a while since our last blog, but we have been busy recovering from our event overload! After Paris it was Waitangi week. On the Wednesday night we went out to the Kiwi kitchen for a good kiwi night out. Great food and sing alongs to some kiwi classic songs. For food: starters of green lipped mussels, mains of NZ Lamb shank on Kumera chips, and finally hokey pokey icecream. It was sooooo good having a kiwi tucker again...mmm kumera chips. The Music was a one man band but he played some fantasic classics; From Dave Dobyn, Herbs, Crowded house, to tetormai nga iwi and every now and then pulling out some "cheer bro's", and "too meckie's" for fun.

Waitangi weekend came, and the weather was fantastic and oddly warm - at the same time last year they apparently had snow storms (we still haven't seen snow here!). I had hockey in the morning, but that was a waste of time. The other team and half our team were too scared to play on a sand turf with a little frost on it (naturally gritted with sand!). I was so pissed off....maybe it's my kiwi "she'll be right mate" attitude.

Anyway, Jam and I decided we would go for a a visit to China town to check out the lantern decorations for Chinese New Years' celebrations, and celebrate with a yum feed of yumcha(chinese brunch) and then we were off to Westminster Parliament Square to check out the tail end of the Waitangi day pub crawl. Thousands of kiwis celebrated Waitangi day, a tradition started by 2 Hamiltonions 30 years ago, consisting of a pub crawl via the Circle tube line. I kept tabs through out the day on the central London transport system, watching thousands of kiwis cause major delays and shutdown stations for the crawl - whoa ho.

Parliament Square was where thousands of kiwis did the haka, although we missed it, we kept on bumping into other kiwis we knew from uni and school etc. It was fantasic seeing kiwis dressed for the occasion; beige, stubbies, as cows, anything with a kiwi icon was there. The best dressed in my opinion was a couple of guys dressed in NZ police uniforms. Made us do a double take! There were kiwis pulling out some old school games like bull rush and handball.

Some Friesian's

A very pissed Lou :o)

Um, the black cocks......

My boss came back from NZ from a 3 week holiday and she pointed out somethings that we definitely notice about food and coffee in NZ vs here. Everywhere she went in NZ she got perfect food and coffee, but compared to here it is a massive hit and miss exercise...very hard to find good coffee here, and good food (at a price you are willing to pay!).

Last weekend I decided to surprise Jam with a trip to Brighton, 45min by train from London. It was a beautiful clear blue day, but quite cold - quite like the days we get in August/Sept in NZ. We enjoyed a relaxing day, looking at the Royal Pavillion (a lavish, over-the-top Chinese/Indian styled castle built by King George), and then heading down to the pebble beach, and looking around the Pier that Brighton is famous for.

It is funny how beaches are so a part of us as Kiwis that you don't realise that after 5 months of not having been to a beach, how much you've missed it! Just the sounds of the seagulls made us feel homesick! We were surprised by the size of the pier, and the amusement park that they have on it! The beach was quite European in feel because there was the beach, then the road, then old apartment buildings on the other side of the road - quite like you see in the pictures of spain etc

Outside the Royal Pavillion at Brighton

The pebble beach at Brighton - looking down from the Pier

Brighton Pier

The Pier from the beach

This weekend, I worked on Saturday, then Jam and I went into Putney to do some shopping. We went and saw Jumper at the movies, and then came home and watched the France vs England 6 Nations match - we were voting for France - esp since the AB's couldn't beat the French in a quarter final -we didnt want the English to beat them, however we are now even more shame faced..........!

We'd never thought we'd crack and spend almost $50 on a meal of Dominos pizza (Takeaway Pizza is really expensive here!). Considering back at home the equvalent meal would have been about $22. Our British flatmates can't belive that a pizza at Dominos at best is £2 at home. However, it was better quality pizza -ie more toppings - but still we could have gone to the supermarket and bought more toppings for it, and still got it cheaper in NZ!

Anyway Laters

Bev and Jam