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

Bonjour

Bonjour!

As promised, here is the blog about our trip to Paris - city of lights (our first trip to Europe - very exciting)

We had the most magical trip to Paris, it is the most amazing place - we totally loved it!

On Thursday (last week) we both left work after lunch, and made our way to King's Cross -St Pancras Station (the Eurostar moved there in November from Waterloo Station). We meet up with our tour group and left at 5.30pm. The trip was fast, (annoyingly so for your ear pressure), and it was dark outside so unfortuantely we couldn't see anything. Paris is an hour ahead in time, so we didn't arrive until 8.45pm French time.

We had a bus pick us up from the Gare du Nord station, (it was freezing and trying to rain), we had a little bit of a tour of the city at night on our way to our hotel. We then checked into our hotel. Since we hadn't had any dinner, Bev and I went looking for some dinner, however we were staying in the middle of the business district, so there wasn't any food places open, so we just went back to our hotel and had microwaved lasagne from the bar. However, on our way back to the Hotel, it clocked on the hour, and we were able to see the famous light show on the Eiffel tower - so pretty! Our first experience of a Frenchman was also at this time.

We had heard heaps of stories of the french not paying you any attention unless you can speak french (which we couldn't) so we were prepared for rudeness, however, this french guy saw us standing out in the rain, on a cold night watching the light show and had a big goofy grin on his face and said something to us in french that went "blah blah blah vista", followed by another big grin - I worked out after he had walked away (and we had only given him a blank but friendly smile) that he must have said what a lovely view (hence the vista bit) - ie very friendly conversation for a stranger, let alone a frenchman :o)

On Friday morning we set out from our hotel at 9.30am (after a delicious french breakfast involving cheese, fresh bread, crepes and cereal - a nice change from the usual bacon and eggs served at hotels) on the tour bus, and did a tour of the city, learning some history about the city and the fabulous monuments within it. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain, but this did little to dampen our high spirits at being in Paris! We got some wet pictures of the Eiffel tower,

Jam at the Eiffel Tower - rainy day

went round the giant roundabout at the base of the Arc de Triomphe (and just as our tour guide was telling us no one has insurance going round the roundabout, we nearly crashed twice!) and then went on a quick tour of a perfume factory - I think our guide gets commission for taking us there! Didn't buy anything though, as it was all quite expensive. We then went with another Kiwi couple (from Napier of all places, and they know a few of the same people that Bev knows - crazy small world!) and our guide - yep we had our guide all to ourselves to a big deparment store called Lafayettes - it has the most gorgeous dome ceiling (see pictures) and is about 9 stories high! We had the most fantastic lunch at the department store -the french really know how to do food - a big difference to what we have found in London - where you pay heaps for something that tastes extremely average!

The dome ceiling at Lafayettes (the department store)

We bought some souvenirs, then us and the kiwi couple headed to the Louvre, buying yummy french chocolate and macroons on the way there. The Louvre was pretty cool, saw the Mona Lisa - which was I must say was pretty disappointing - very small, and behind a pane of glass, and cordoned off! Grr but the funny thing was it said no photography, but everyone was taking photos, however it wasn't until Bev decided to take a photo of the people taking photos that he got in trouble for photography! :o)

Bev with the Mona Lisa at the Louvre

Us outside the Louvre

After the Louvre, we walked down the Seine river (it had stopped raining by this stage thank goodness),

The Seine River

and headed towards the Latin Quarter to meet up with our tour guide again for a traditional french dinner. It was another fantastic meal (minus the snails which were all wrong - however I did eat one, and Bev ate 5 so a good effort).

Snails for dinner anyone??

We then went to a french supermarket which was fun, then meandered to the Cabaret to meet back up with our guide and some of the others from our tour group. The cabaret was good, a little too risque for my liking, but an experience nonetheless. On the way home we mastered use of the Metro, so we were very proud of ourselves.

Some of our tour group after the Cabaret

On Saturday we got up lateish (since the Cabaret hadn't started until 9.30pm - we were pretty knackered) to an absolutely beautiful clear blue sky day. We headed straight to the Eiffel tour on the Metro to try and beat the crowds. We decided to walk up the Eiffel tour, all 668 steps of it, as it was cheaper, further enhanced the experience and most of all had a far shorter queue.

With the day being so clear, the views were magnificent, totally worth our money spent. However the experience was slightly dampened by the annoying Gypsy women who scout around tourist trying to get money from you! Grrrrr - they all ask if you speak English, so Bev took to replying to them in Chinese - that got rid of the :o) They also had scary army officers carrying semi automatic guns protecting the Eiffel tower! Wouldn't wana piss these guys off!

A far nicer day to have your photo taken with the Eiffel tower

Us at the very top of the Eiffel tower, and the fantastic view below

We then headed to the Notre Dame Cathedral, having lunch at a little cafe opposite it first (I had a very delicious french toasted sammy), then heading inside for a looksy.

Bev made a new friend at the Cafe (a quirky waiter)

The Notre Dame Cathedral (on the left) and the Seine River

We then met up with a friend of Bevs from Uni, Pete, and headed with him to Sacre Coeur (a gorgeous Roman Catholic Church). The area surrounding the Sacre Coeur is gorgeous too as the streets are cobbled, and the shops are quaint boutiques - very artsy fartsy but cool. Some famous names have lived in this area including Monet and Picasso - so that is pretty cool too.

A collage of the words "I love you" written in all different languages

Sacre Coeur (Roman Catholic Church)

We then went to a cafe and had a coffee,

Cheesy photo of us at the cafe

and then headed to a Fondue restaurant (actually a swiss invention but obviously adopted by the French at some point- which was heaps of fun - they give you baby bottles to drink your wine out of, and the restaurant was so small that all the tables were in one long line on each wall with no gaps for people to get to the seats between the table and the wall, so patrons have to stand on the chairs and jump over the table to get to these seats! The owners were very quirky and it was extremely fun.

Bev drinking out of his baby bottle of wine

Bevs friend Pete then took us to the Arc de Triomphe to get some quick photos,

Us at the Arc de Triomphe(the giant roundabout goes around its base - cars on the roundabout have to give way to cars entering the roundabout - hence the high crash rate!)

We then headed down the Champs Elysees to check out how the others live - where large labels such as Gucci etc have stores. We then said goodbye to Pete and headed back to our hotel.

On Sunday morning, we got up and headed to the Gare du Nord station, to head back to stinky ol' London! It was so hard coming home to London, because once we pulled in, it wasn't the usual Auckland airport affair of putting your suitcases in the boot of the car and then driving past the city, farmland home.

Instead, it was grab your suitcase, walk up and down stairs to the tube, find an alternative path to get home because the normal one is closed for repairs, fend off millions of people, get to your stop, catch a bus (we waited 20mins because there was some delay - the longest we have waited yet!) then by the time we got home, all the supermarkets were closed so we couldn't get our weekly groceries............all we wanted to do was hop back on the eurostar to Paris- it is such a cool place. And the fact that they speak another language made it all the more endearing - I found it really funny trying to order a pastry, as I only know a few words in french (and have a bad kiwi accent too) and I had the same thing happen to me as I had in Scotland where you say something, and the other people in line whip their heads round to have a gawk at this strange alien creature who talks with a funny accent :o)

A funny french poster - advertising the eurostar to London (Londres)
Perhaps a symbol of the how the French view the English? :o)

All in all an excellent trip which has made us very eager for the next one!

Lots of Love

Jam and Bev

Jejune January

Hey Everyone ,

Wow I can't believe 20 days have gone by since we last posted a blog!
Normally in NZ, being summer, and a month filled with holidays, January goes extremely fast and before you know it you are into Feb! However, when it is winter, January is quite a long, depressing month!
So...........to counteract this depression, we have been spending money by booking trips - yay! At long last we will actually be travelling somewhere, notching up a few more stamps in our passports - next Thursday afternoon we head to Paris on the Eurostar(Chunnel) for a longer weekend, so we are really looking forward to that.

We have also just booked a 10-day trip to Egypt with Bevan's cousin and her fiancee (Dee and Mark) for Easter, so that is also very exciting -can't wait.
In the mean time, we have been quite boring lately, saving money for these trips :o) - hence the lack of blog updates!

Last weekend we went to the Borough Markets which were pretty cool - they sell mainly food, from all over the place - and they have lots of yummy cakes and cheese's and more types of mushrooms than I have ever seen in one place. We then went to Canary Wharf (where Bev works - very similar looking to the Viaduct in Auckland) to Yum Cha (Chinese Brunch) with Dee and Mark, and then a free showing of the 80's film The Goonies on a big screen at this cool dome like venue that they are trying to market as a venue to hire for conferences etc (hence the reason why it was free).

This weekend we are going to the theatre to see a show called Avenue Q (with our Kiwi friends) - which is a muppet like show so that should be entertaining, and then on Saturday night, Bev's Polish workmate and his girlfriend are coming around for dinner, and to drink Wodka (polish vodka) because Bev did this guy a favour, and in Poland you pay somebody for a good deed in Wodka - haha should be interesting.......

Otherwise we have just been watching DVD's, Bev's been playing hockey, and we have been fighting with our internet provider to have access to the internet - honestly how hard can it be!

Today I got to travel to Bristol for a meeting for work, so that was quite exciting, and a good chance to get out of the office - however, a little bit disillusioning when all you do is hop on a train, travel for 1hr 40, hop off, go to a meeting, then hop back on the train for 1hr 40 to go home!

Anyway that really is about the extent of the last 20 days of our lives! We are still holding out hope for snow, however, it appears that this is one of the warmest January's London has had on record - although I'm not complaining! We will try and stick some pics up next time of our trip to Paris!

Looking forward to hearing from you
Jam and Bev

Festive goodness

Happy New Year to all!

Christmas was awesome in the Lake District. When we arrived it looked as if it had been snowing, but it was just that everything had iced over from a couple of heavy frosts - we were surprised at how slippery walking on gravel was! We absolutely loved the farming community atmosphere (just like home for both of us) and the large amount of personal space - ie not like London!!! And we loved being able to drive round in a car, and not having to rely on public transport and walking everywhere.

Looks like snow? Just heavy frost

Our flatmates parents place was built in the 1700's and has been modified a few times over the years, so it has a lot of character to it. We were treated to some fantastic 5 star accommodation and food! The Lake District reminded us of Wanaka without the snow on massive mountains. Like Wanaka they make use of slate stones for dividing farms and walls along the road, and every house built has to have slate roofing to comply to regulations, to keep everything looking the same. Christmas day saw us gorging ourselves on a lunch consisting of a starter of salmon and salad, followed by a 5.5Kg Turkey complimented with real homemade cranberry sauce, and roast veges followed by our pavlova for dessert (it turned out well - whew!).

Jam and Mel standing on a thawing frozen lake

Typical Lake District road with slate stone walls either side

5.5 kg Turkey

Christmas feed
Quaint buildings in the small village of Hawkshead

Wray Castle

Different looking British sheep...Baa!

I had to go back to work for a day before the weekend (Friday). This proved rather interesting returning by train (as was also the case travelling up to the lake district) as Virgin trains had engineering works on at the most inconvienient time of year, so there was a mad rush of all those that didn't have a seat allocated to them (us included - damn new players!) However we were extremely lucky to find two seats beside each other the whole way there and back (including a change of train on the way back), but there were heaps of people that had to stand for the whole trip (3 hours on the way there but four on the way back due to railway works), and there was heaps of luggage in the aisles of the train with everyone travelling somewhere for Christmas -crazy stuff! The joys of public transport!

For the weekend we finally went to the Natural History Museum, the coolest museum in the world! We checked out some inspirational wildlife photos - an exhibition called the Shell wildlife photographer of the year and only managed to get through half the museum before running out of stamina...so we left the rest for another day.

For New Years Eve we spent with some Kiwis mates, Monique, Christine and Chris. Our plan was to head in to see the fire works around the London eye, but when we got into London we couldn't go any further than Trafelgar square because of the massive crowd numbers. So we were forced to stay in the square for midnight. We managed to see Big Ben tick over, but the apparently spectacular fireworks were behind some buildings, so we had to watch them from a giant screen. The most excited the crowd at Trafelgar Square was when someone let off their own piddly small sky rocket that people could actually see! We were quite disappointed not to get a chorus of auld langs aye or even a count down from ten seconds to go.

Massive crowd numbers just in Trafelgar Square

Big Ben in the distant background

Our new years day ended up being a sleep in day then it was back to the grind today. Apparently the forecast is for snow tomorrow in London with max temperatures to soar to a super cooking 3 degrees. So should be nice to see some snow finally!....might only be exciting for a minute before freezing my arse off!

Laters,Bev and Jam

Wishing you all a very

Merry Christmas

and a

Happy New Year

Lots of Love

Jam and Bev

Rose Tinted Glasses

Hey peopley people

It is funny how the world takes on a whole new character when one has a steady flow of income!

At long last I have a more permanent flow of income! I went for an interview two thursday's ago for a project management job, and whala, managed to somehow convince them that I was the right person for the job. I am on a fixed term contract until March at this stage, but it is highly likely my contract will be renewed if I behave myself :o)

Because of Christmas being on our doorstop, and with me having been unemployed since I left the WI (why is it that work just seems to evaporate when you need it?), I asked if it would be possible to start ASAP, and they agreed, and so I started last Tuesday! Talk about madness - my work has just moved building as well(last Friday), so things have been a bit chaotic, and then this week is the week before Christmas so I don't think much work has been done! However the beauty of starting so soon, is that they are paying me to take the Christmas period off, right up until the 2 Jan - and.....this doesn't come out of my 25 days holiday they give me a year -NICE! The Brits win that one hands down! In NZ if I started before xmas, it would prob be unpaid(excluding the Stat days of course), and I wouldn't get holidays until I had completed my first 6 months of service!

So.....now all we have to do is start planning our holidays...I have 8 days leave that I must take before March 31st - damn :o)

The weekend before last, we didn't get up to much, just went to my kiwi friends' house for a festive party(see our Christmas greeting picture above), which was quite amusing, since she lives with an aussie guy and an Indian girl (sounds a bit like one of those jokes...an english man and irish man and a ......man :o)

But what was funny was that all of the friends that came, were more-or-less the same nationality as their inviter, making it extremely easy to tell which guest knew which host. The party was heaps of fun, and I got to try some Pimms winter - a classic British Alcoholic beverage.

Sunsetting at 230pm as we travel into Waterloo

This last weekend we just laid low, (although we went on our own walking tour of central London and then went out for dinner with some kiwi's from Bevs uni hockey team in NZ on Saturday night...and don't even get me started on the stupid "service charge" the restaurant wanted to charge us, on top of our payment for the meal -grrrr!) and tried to save some money for our trip up to the Lake District for Christmas - we've booked our tickets for this coming Saturday, and all things going well, I might attempt making a Pavlova for our British hosts - however I have never made one before, and we have a gas oven, so it could be quite interesting.....! Might have to do a practice one this weekend. However, it seems that the British have tried them before -what is it with everyone trying to steal a kiwi icon! But it wouldn't be Christmas without a pav (will have to see if I can get a kiwifruit for the top of it as well).

Hundreds of Santas at Trafalgar square protesting about the environment....

...or just an excuse to dress up and have fun!

Trafalgar square with carol singers

Buckingham palace

We randomly stummble upon hundreds of Santas skating pass Big Ben


We went ice skating in Hyde Park with our flatmates a couple of Wednesday nights ago, it was just magical! Winter Christmas's seem to have a far greater atmosphere associated with them, I guess because its cold and you have to wrap up warm and you cherish hot drinks, and everyone has really awesome big decorations and christmas lights, it is a very pretty time. Whereas in NZ it is always hot and we can't really be bothered doing anything other than lazying on a beach somewhere (damn I'm starting to feel homesick writing this :o)

It's not the London Eye in the background, just a theme park ride


Hyde park winter wonderland iceskating and Christmas markets

I have been thinking about some funny contradictions here lately -one of the most interesting is the fact that London is often seen as the hub of the world, or at least one of the hubs. One of the images you always see in the news in NZ is all the movie stars and their parties, and the rich upper class in their expensive clothes and cars, and all the things you can do in London including theatres, concerts etc. I guess to the most extent, these are all true, I love that so many singers come here as part of their tours, whereas in NZ it is a bit hit or miss as to whether anyone can be bothered to venture to NZ for a tour at all, let alone more than one in Auckland. Whilst I haven't seen any famous movie stars, it seems that the newspapers here are always reporting American actors walking the red carpet at premiers to their latest movies - sort of a "they just popped in", no big deal thing - whereas when stars come to NZ they are usually there for a holiday or longterm filming projects and it is rare to hear about it, and if you do, it is a big deal.

What I find interesting about this is the prestigous image London has - famous people, rich, fancy clothing labels, hub of the world etc, but simple things like setting up a bank account can be large obstacles taking far longer than in a little back-water like NZ, and NZ has far cleaner streets, and more organised systems and procedures. So in many senses I don't think it quite fulfils that metro, moving with the times rep it has, and I'm not so fussed by the glam and movie stars - give me a coromandel beach anyday :o)

Another funny contradiction is that NZ is known for it's clean greenness, however Bev and I are both at least 5kg lighter since being here because of all the walking you do on a daily basis as part of going to work (so you don't notice you are doing it) - it is really great!

A little while ago I tried to find breadcrumbs at the supermarket here - do you think I could find any! Nope, seems that in this crazy world of convenience food, when your veges are already chopped for you in a bag, and all foods are to go, you have to make your own breadcrumbs!

Anyway thats about all from us
Lots of Love

Suzanne and Bevan

"Please, sir, I want some more."

Hey Bev here again, at the end of last week both Jam and I were counting down to unemployment again. Jam finished her job at thte WI two Fridays ago and I had been given my marching orders for the 7th of December (not in a bad way, just my contract was coming to an end). However, at the start of the week just gone I was offered a fulltime, ongoing position at my work.....the Brits love kiwis over here! (and Jam although currently unemployed, has a job interview this coming Thursday - so our fingers and toes are crossed).

This weekend we went to Rochester for the Dickens Christmas festival. Rochester is about 45 minutes away by train, south east of London. We started out wandering the small town and sampling the carnival atmosphere before checking out the 1066AD built Rochester castle (older than your nana, and your nanas nana). Of course we had to wait in line as health and safety came first limiting the number of people who could go inside. It was awesome wandering around inside a structure that was almost 1000 years old.

Rochester Castle

Inside Rochester Castle

At the top of Rochester Castle

We also checked out the Cathedral next door that was really busy as it was holding Christmas services with the influx of vistors for the festival.

Looking down on to Rochester Cathedral from Rochester Castle

We wandered the streets enjoying the festive atmosphere of brass bands, bagpipes, massive crowds, freezing temperatures, hot drinks, christmas carnival rides, roasted chestnuts (yay,finally tried some - yum), Christmas lights, cool old costumes, old story characters, and fake snow....before being entertained by a Christmas parade....very well done.

Bev covered in fake snow

Jam covered in fake snow

In a shop full of shiny battle items

Characters from Dickens' Books

Wana Kiss?

Over here you see some of the most funniest things. Last week at work I saw the finest example of a limited/vertcal job description they have over here. We took the lift to the loading bay where in the lift was a guy wearing a hardhat and hi-visibility vest sitting on an office chair pushing the lift buttons for you. And there was a sign next to him that said, only the lift operator is permitted to operate this lift. There was nothing special about the lift. He just pushed the buttons, and thats all!

I love how there is so much entertainment over here, even though it's just the simple things. At Harrods in the pizza parlor, there was Italian music playing in the background, then out of no where one of the chefs just belted out a song to the music for the crowd...very cool. We also tipped the icecream parlor guy, and as we left he started singing too...must have been happy to get tipped! Another story, we came out of a shopping centre one day, as we went in, a guy past us and when he got outside he belted out a note like a tenor! Where did that come from?!?!

This multi-nation city never stops to amuse us. Our cousin told us he saw 2 guys working as sign holders (they hold signs on a pole advertising in the streets because it's illegal to have a sandwich board sign out on the footpath in central London) and one was Asian and the other Eastern European. The Asian guy had limited english and he was trying to teach the European guy how to speak english!

The price of some fast food is something that doesn't really convert here. Dominos pizzas sell for a pricey £8 on special, thats about $20NZD converted. I tell my workmates that we get them for the equivalent of £2 onspecial and £3 normal price and they almost fall off their chairs! How do our pizza places in NZ make any money?

Anyway thats about it for this week
Lots of Love Bev and Jam