Waitangi Day

On Saturday (3rd feb) we went to watch the haka for Waitangi day which is on Tuesday 6th Feb. This day is a national holiday in NZ it was when the Waitangi treaty was singed between the crown and the Maori people. What they do over here is have a pub crawl for it called the circle line pub crawl. There are 27 tube stops on the circle line most people never finish all of them. Most only ever stopping at temple. It starts at Paddington at 10 am. There are a few rules if you want to partake in the tube ride you are not allowed to sit down or hold on. Pretty much you have to train surf the whole way. Last year we heard there were over 8000 kiwis taking park.

We decided not to do the circle line crawl instead we went to Westminster square to watch the haka at 4pm. We got there around 3pm it started at 4. Cracked open a few beers just to fit in of course and then enjoyed watching all the drunken crazy people. There was a massive crowed, all of a sudden the crowed just started moving. We had no idea what they were doing as we thought the haka would be taking place on the grass. It turns out they were doing it on the road that had been blocked off. I went down with the crowed to try and get some video footage of the haka . As there were so many people and even with my height I could hardly see anything.

We were all a bit disappointed. Left the square headed out for some macacs starving by that time. Then headed off to a pub where there ended up being heaps of kiwis. The normal punters had no idea what was going on. It was towards the end of our night when we met up with some other friends of Mels. We met this kiwi guy Lindsay who was drunk and the girls ended up getting him to do the haka for us as we didn’t get to see earlier that day.

That was on Saturday on Tuesday (6/2/07) we went to the kiwi kitchen with Jen (housemate) and her kiwi friends for a meal out. It was an expensive meal but I had a delicious steak for main cooked perfectly, with soft shelled battered crab from entrée and a pudding for dinner it was delish. Kieran had soup for entrée, lamb shanks for main and of course ice cream for dessert it was hokey pokey. The whole night dinner cost us 65 pounds together. Expensive meal but was good food.

Here is the Waitangi Day on video as best I could record it (file size: 15mb).

Life in 2007

Well we have had big end to the year 2006. Traveling around Europe and moving into a new house. We have settled in well and party every weekend with our housemates. We live with:
A French couple – Coraline and Alex. Alex can speak pretty good English but Coraline is still learning so we have to pronounce our words more clearly and try not talk to her with our quick Aussie speak.
A Swedish girl – Katarina
A Kiwi girl – Jen
A South African couple – Elodie and Richard
An Aussie girl – Mel
An English guy – Toby who comes in handy and we can ask him all our English questions. We have called him the cultural Oracle. But it gets annoying when he continues to call us convicts…… we just mention the cricket!
They are all fairly cool and we have all been out together and had lots of fun, whish is great.

What has happened so far?
We have settled into going and buying food and a routine where I cook all the meals heheh, its fun and I like it and I’m sure Kieran does too. We have 3 big supermarkets within walking distance from our house so we take 2 backpacks to carry all our food home in (they are day packs not the ones we brought our clothes in). Food is costing around the same as it does at home. As we thought meat is more expensive but some other items are cheaper so we can even it out and eat like normal people. I think we eat the most meat out of everyone in the house. ( But the good meat like steak costs a fortune and the cheap meat here is Pork so that Ok but id die for a lamb roast mmmmm, Kieran.)

We have booked a holiday to Turkey for Anzac day and then after that we are onto Egypt for another 9 days we have around 2 weeks off and our Kiwi flat mate Jen is also coming. I have to find out if my new job is cool with me taking the time off. I hope so. We both have to get visas for Turkey and Egypt but they cost around 15 pounds so not that much. I have also found out I need to get a video camera permit to use my camera in Egypt I will have to get one of those if any of you know how or where please let me know. I want to get some video so I can show you all.

It has snowed in London, the first time we had seen it here. I cam down to have breakfast and then lookout the door to the back yard and saw all the snow. I raced up the stair woke Kieran with a startled she said “whats going on” we both looked out our window and saw all the snow. It was excellent. There wasn’t much of it but it is more than we normally see. Check out the video (filesize: 8MB)

Australia day has come and gone. We tried to get into the Walkabout at temple but the line was massive, we ended up going to another bar around the corner which was empty but sold beer and had an offer going, if you buy 4 Tooheys New you get an Aussie flag cape. Of course I had to drink four of them. A good thing was the American guy serving us, asked the questions on the bottle cap and if you got it right then you didn’t have to pay for the beer. Out of 4 beers I think I only got 1 correct. Who knew that Mt Kosciusko wasn’t the highest peak in Aus? (that’s what Tooheys says neways)

That night we had an Australia day party which was a good time. Didn’t have any of our friends come around well the ones in London neways. The party was filled up with all of Mels friends and some of the other housemates friends. You didn’t have to be Australian to get in though so we had around 20-30 people here. Ended up having a BBQ and a lot of beer. Kieran and I had steaks on the BBQ yummo they were worth every penny (6 pound for 2) they were big thick and juicy Irish steaks cooked to perfection I must say. I did all the cooking, wasn’t going to let neone else do it on Australia day dammit. It was pretty cool having 20-30 people belting out the Australian anthem at about 1am in the morning…. Doubt it would happen at home. But everyone was in fine form and more than happy to sing their hearts out. Here is a video of the night. Most talking has been removed to hard to edit swearing (6.7MB).

The night ended into the late hours, I went to bed pretty early I was wasted.

I have started work, yes that’s right people after almost 3 months of not working I now have a job, only have to hold out till the end of next month before I get paid dammit. It’s good to have a job again and feel like I am doing something. From now on the routine settles in and we start to settle down, or are we just starting we will have money now and time to party. BRING IT ON! I am working in a place called Bracknell its about and hour out of London and takes me about 2hrs to get there from door to door. I wont be working out of the office the whole time. Most times I can work from home or other worksites.

Kieran is still waiting for her registration to come through so she can do nursing but they keep making her jump through more and more hoops, which is really annoying.

Stay cool I know we will, it is England after all.

New Years Eve 2006/2007

Well another year has passed and hope you have all had a great year and 07 will be even better for you. This NYE we partied the night away at a club/bar called ‘Defectors Weld’ It was a fancy dress night where you had to come as either a superstar or a one hit wonder. If you didn’t dress up you had to pay a donation to a charity. We decided to dress up for the fun. The tickets were 15 pound each and we got a drink. Kieran and I went with the others from the house Mel, Toby and Jen. We also took our friend Sam from the tour and Mel took her friend Deb. Kieran, Sam and Jen went as Charlie’s angels. This consisted of them wearing normal clothes with a halo on (to make them angels) and plastic guns. Toby went as Santa as Jen had the suit which fitted him. And Deb went as a pussycat doll (singers). I went as Angus Young (AC/DC) I bought a school boy hat and tie and a blow up guitar and we were all set. Mel went as a Rock Star with a glitter wig and a blow up guitar.

The night was a lot of fun we made punch before leaving so everyone could drink before going to the bar (trying to save money). We all got very happy and were doing some shots, Toby bought some Dramboui. So we were happy little drinkers. Making sure we were in the festive season spirit. Once we had all gotten ready took some photos, it was time to leave. The club/bar was only a 10min down the road so we didn’t have far to go which would help us on our way home. On our way there we ran into Lloydy (from the tour) out the front of the walk about. We chatted for a little bit but had to go as the others were waiting in the cold to go to the club. The thing is Lloydy doesn’t live in London so it was a surprise to see him.

We got to the club and went to go in Kieran and Jen both had dodgy tickets as we needed 7 tickets and they only had 5 left when we went to buy them. The girls sweet talked their way into 2 more tickets which were just printed on the back of a VIP card. We past the first guy alright. It wasn’t until the second bouncer guy where it kinda went wrong. He asked Kieran and Jen to step out side. The girls then explained about the tickets and battered their eyelids and eventually they both made it in and got their free drink.

We decided to check our jackets in to make life easier only cost 1 pound which was alright. And we got our tickets. The place was already pumping by the time we got there (9:30) found ourselves a corner to stand and dance with a table to put our drinks on. It was a good spot, right next to the D.J. We stayed here the whole night dancing it away.

When it came to midnight, there was no count down the club/bar just left it up to us to realize so as you can imagine we were all late in wishing a happy new year to everyone. That really sucked not having a count down. We danced and drank some more. Sam went home early just after midnight, Mel went just after midnight to as she wasn’t feeling well (not due to alcohol but had been feeling off for the whole day) and then Kieran and I left around 2ish cos Kieran wasn’t the best.

I had the fun job of carrying her home even though she said she was fine and I could stay dancing. I was not going to let her go off by herself as a drunk. I ran up and got our coats after I found Kieran’s ticket in her purse that she couldn’t see. Came down and took Kieran out of the club and proceeded to carry her home the whole way while she was yelling at me and being all emotional about how her feet hurt. It was a tough job dealing with her and cabbies asking if we want a lift and beggar women who Kieran abused. Was a good end to the night!

Happy New Year Everyone.

Christmas 2006

Christmas overseas was different than back home, we had no family to party with and no nice sunshine to bask in while eating our food outside and swimming in a pool. Besides these issues we still had a great time. This year we spent it with our friend Sam who we met on tour and her friend’s family as there was only the 3 of them, they were having an orphan lunch and we were invited.

There were no English people at our Christmas in England. We spent it with 3 Americans and 3 other Australians so it felt like home with the Aussie accents.

As we have do at home we went out for Christmas Eve drinks in Kew Gardens to meet up with Sam. The pub wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be, well not packed like at home (if anyone went to the Local pub at home on Christmas Eve how was it?)

Christmas day started out early and late in a way. We didn’t get to bed till around 5 am to busy talking to everyone back home on the phone and internet for a few hours. That was alright cos we like talking to people back home and hearing how much they had a warm Christmas day. When we finally woke up at 11am we opened out presents, yes we had present from home it was wonderful to have a surprise. Thanks for the presents and cards they were wonderful.

As it was Christmas none of the buses or tubes were running, well only a few and none going where we wanted. So we decided to walk there it was a good 45 mins walk was around 4414 steps and something like 2km (thanks for the pedometer mum) We had a backpack full of our wine to drink, only took 4 bottles. Ended up arriving at 4pm, as usual we were late. Meant to be there at 3 but it was fine that we were late and I think it was better that we were.

When we arrived at the house we were greeted with lots of food to nibble on and then the feast for all time. There were prawns to eat (more like home) I tucked into them and Kieran just had the dip. We sat around drinking and talking while the turkey cooked. The people didn’t have a dinning table to eat on so we had to eat off our laps on our chosen seat. After we had finished lunch we sat around talking some more and then we played some games to play the night away.

We played 2 games. I am a fan of games and have never played these before (think they were American). The first game we played was the cereal box game. The rules of this game were you had to pick up the empty cereal box with your teeth and no body part except for your feet can touch the ground. As each person picked up the box it was torn up and got smaller and smaller until only 1 person was left. Here is a video (2.5mb) of me trying to do it, unfortunately we have no footage of Kieran as she was filming dammit. The video is kinda boring but I felt like showing you.

Let’s just say neither Kieran nor 1 won but it was still an Aussie (what were the odds, 5 to 3)



After the bendy game we played another game where someone had to sit on a chair close their eyes and had to stop people from getting the keys from underneath the chair, all they had to do was touch them. It was a good fun game and I think you should all try it one day.

After we finished our game we continued drinking. Then it was time to go home said our thank yous and good byes. We ended up getting a taxi home at a higher rate than normal but we weren’t going to walk home.

That was the end of our first Christmas in England (how many more will there be!).


This is the Crouching Chicken Technique

Scotland 12-15 December

Our trip up to Scotland started out with us going to catch our bus from Victoria station. When we got off the tube at Victoria and then had to find the coach station, which if you look at the signs feels like as if it very close to the station. 10 mins later and lugging our backpack (only took mine as it was 4 days, so I carried it) around the station and up the street we finally made it to the coach station. We were met buy the Melbourne girls who were all laden with their bags as they have no one to leave their stuff with.

As we are waiting for our bus to arrive we notice we are still without Ashoor. As the bus approaches we walk up to it with our ticket and bag….. then running in comes Ashoor he had slept in and had just made the bus.

The ride up was interesting. Kieran and I sat together. I was lucky, I got a book (Cosmopolitan about a bar tender in NYC, cost me 1 pound) just before leaving London, so I had something to read where as Kieran tried to sleep most of the way. It was to be a 10 hr bus ride. We ended up having only one stop where we could get off and stretch (The bus had a toilet), the one stop was for a whole 45 mins. What the bus company did as the drivers are not allowed to drive the whole way like back home they can only do some many hours without a stop, so when they needed to stop they would meet another driver and just change drivers. We ended up with something like 4 drivers. Was an interesting way to do it.

Like always there are freaks on public transport, we ended up with a few of them on this trip up. One was a guy who looked like John Malkovic, he would wash his face with a washer and then rubbed toothpaste on his teeth with his finger and put on some aftershave but the weird part is he had B.O and did nothing about that. He was constantly trying to talk to me. And he was drinking beer on the way up which I though was strange. The next weirdo was this guy who had a clicker (like in the click adds with Ben Affleck) He kept clicking this clicker thing, we didn’t know what he was counting. Maybe an OCD thing?

After passing through places such as Milton Keynes and Newcastle, we finally made it to Edinburgh at 7:30pm. Got our bags and then had to find our way to the pick up point for the courtesy bus to the hostel. We are lucky we had the Melbourne girls with us as neither Kieran and I or Ashoor had details on where to find the bus. We ended up walking to where we thought it was. Couldn’t find it and were just walking around trying to find the restaurant on the map. As we were walking we saw the globetrotter van pull up, by chance the driver of the courtesy bus found us. We all piled in and headed to the hostel.

In the hostel they didn’t use cash, we got these card things that we had to put money on and then swipe them when we wanted to buy things. It was a good idea. The cards also got you into your rooms. Kieran and I were staying with Ashoor and 2 other people that we never saw or met, only heard occasionally. The Melbourne girls were together.

After we had settled into our room we headed to the bar and met up with this guy who could book tours for us. We ended up booking some tours through him and then having dinner and finishing the night with some drinks.

The next day we had the whole day to explore the city on our own. We all went in together on the 11:30am shuttle and headed to go up to the castle. It was pissing down rain and neither Kieran nor I brought an umbrella with us. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway the people who did have them up lost them from the wind or they turned inside out. I was lucky to have a rain coat on so I just put up the hood and walked into the rain. The girls did not have anything and were pretty wet by the time we made it up the hill and to the castle.

Walking around Edinburgh castle was great. It was amazing to see all the history. I could have spent ages there. Unfortunately they had to close the castle due to the terrible wind conditions. We were being blown sideways (check out the video). As we left we got our money back for it being closed on us, we were lucky as we had almost finished but I was disappointed as I wanted to see more.

On our way down battling the wind and rain we walked through a lot of shops and then had some lunch in a nice little café where we both had soup and a hot drink and scones with jam mmmm scones. It was perfect weather for it. That night we were going on our ghost tour and had another 5 hours to kill. As all the tourist places were closed Kieran and I decided to go and catch a movie. Even though we were in Edinburgh and could have walked around town looking at the sites, the weather was still bad and you don’t want to walk in that for 5 hrs. After Happy Feet had finished we went to pub near where the ghost tour runs from. Always end up at a pub somewhere, had a nice dinner and a few drinks. We then met up with the tour group and headed off to be scared.

On the Gohst tour our leader Red Phoenix told us about a bit of history and few ghost stories. I didn’t find it that scary or that good of a tour to be honest. I was disappointed. We were walked around in a circle and then went into the secret underground vaults that were meant to have a poltergeist, ghost and witches. But there was nothing and when a guy jumped out to scare us it felt like it cheep end to the experience. Kieran still had a jump in the chamber where they split us up. After the tour we ended up at supposedly the most haunted pub in Scotland (they never told us why). Then we had to get a taxi home as the shuttle bus had finished.

We woke up the next day nice and early at 6 am to get our tour bus for the highlands. We were picked up from the hostel and then traveled into town to pick up a few more people. The seats were crazy small so I had to move to the front near the door where there was more leg room. Our guide/driver is a Scotsman who I can’t remember his name but he loved saying the word free, and I think he liked the sound of his own voice. We started our travel driving up to the highlands. It was bad because the weather was so crap that we were forced to use one road in and out. That limited our sight seeing ability. All the other roads were closed. We later found out that if they closed the road we were on we were stuck up there.

On our way up it was raining the whole way. We got to make a few stops, hope out to go to the toilet and get a snack. On our drive into a little town we saw that the river was flooded and was moving into the town. The river had grown heaps and was over the train tracks and everything. Was interesting to see as I have never seen a flood like that before.

We ended up having lunch near loch ness but the weather was so crap we had to run around in the wind and rain, it was crazy. I ended up having a nice pie and beer for lunch. We hoped back on the bus after our hour break and headed back home listening to our guide talk about the history of Scotland and a few stories to whole way back ( some of the stories where how William Wallace is also robin hood, and that Robert the Bruce is the real Braveheart) . We were meant to stop off at Sterling castle but never made it there. As the weather was so bad we didn’t get to see anything really so it was disappointing. We just drove around in the bus looking out the window and listening to stories about Scottish history for 12 hrs.

After our tip ended we were dropped back in town and had to catch the courtesy bus back to the hostel which we didn’t have a ticket for. We still had to pay for the hostel bus which was 1.50 pounds each way. We got the driver to let us all on and made our way back. Had dinner again at the hostel they cook good food there.

Back up at 6am had to be on the hostel bus to town at 7 for the 9am Coach back to London. We had some time to wait around for the bus. We got a nice bus home with leather seats and a lot more leg room which was good. I read most of the way Kieran slept. On the way back there went as many freaks, but still freaks all the same. We were back to Marisa and Richs place at 10pm at night.

Europe Vids

After finishing our tour I have edited some of the video I took. Below are the videos, enjoy!
note. if you want to save them to your computer right click on the image and click 'Save Target As..'






Arc De Triomphe - 4.3 mb














Eiffle Tower Climb - 15mb

Ride To Orvieto - 3.3mb














Eiffle Tower Bling Bling - 2.1 mb

Life after the tour

The next day after the tour was weird I could sleep in till what ever time I wanted….there was no one to tell me what to do…… I was kind of lost, there was no direction. I had been told for the past 20 days where to go and what time to do everything. Some how some way we got through it and managed alright.

We bummed around for a few days looking for some places to live, just spent a bit of time settling back into the swing of being back and also resting our livers! On tour we had organized to have dinner with friends of Helen’s (the Korean gir)l on the Thursday after we arrived back. We met up with her and had dinner with the friends, a couple Heidi and John were their names. John is a doctor and Heidi is a nurse so there was a lot of medical talk. Helen was leaving in 2 days time and thought we would like Heidi and John so that is why we went around there as we did come over here to make new friends and meet people. It was a nice meal with nice people. It was funny how Helen met John she had been in London for a few months and had no friends and met John on the train. It’s funny cos she met us on a bus. We joked around I wonder who she will meet on the plane home. It was a good night, before we left John and Heidi invited us to carols at their local church the following weekend.

We met up with other people from the Tour on the Saturday we got back. It was Yo’s birthday and we had all organized to go out. It was only 4 days after the tour had ended but everyone was so excited to see each other. It was a really strange situation as we had been together for the last 20 days with these people. Being without them was a little depressing as we didn’t have friends at hand to talk to. So now that we had the old crew back it almost normal again and everyone was ready for a good time.

We ended up going out and getting drunk and happy. I was surprised at how many people from the tour there was, there was the 4 Melb girls, Tiff, Aaron, Daniel, Mav (bus driver) Tarshi, Tegan, Megan, and Sam. It was a good night out with the old group just like partying on tour hehehe. Before the night started Kieran, Sam and I met Tegan and Tarshi at their hotel room for some drinks and a bit of food before heading out to Yo’s do. It was glen and the girls partying again….. just like old times.

The night ended with the group splitting up and going home, some of the group went to a club where the entry was 10 pounds. To steep for us, so we caught a bus home, and said goodbye to Tarshi who was flying back home to Australia the following day and the rest of the gang..

The next few days we looked at houses to move into before going to Scotland for our tour. We looked at some total crap holes but we did like one of the places that we looked at and so we told them we liked it and would take it. They said they would talk to the rest of the house and get back to us while we were in Scotland.
They called us while we were in Scotland and said we have the room YAY!