A leap year in London :)

Well well well, what a day to gain while travelling! Wednesday, February 29th 2012!

Today was my first trip in to London town with Emma. We caught the train from Maidenhead to Paddington Station (with my All Day Travel Card). We got a coffee at Paddington to tide us over for the tube ride, which seemed to take forever and was quite hot...

We got off the tube at Canary Wharf, to meet David for lunch in the Business Park. That place is crazy! Em and I both had chicken and creamed spinach for lunch. David had fish & chips; how British! Afterwards, we went to the underground mall where all the business people walk through looking particularly stylish and suave in their business attire... Em and I browsed shops for a while, had some pie from a French place called Paul (mine was berry fruits) and then experienced Tiffany & Co (exciting!!!)

Finally leaving the mall, we tubed to Waterloo and went to be the ultimate London tourist - and ride the Eye! There was a beautiful sunset (at 5pm) so we got to experience that coming through the smog on our little round of the city... Saw The Gherkin, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, St Pauls, and some people playing basketball while we were up there. Very cool, took many a photo.

When we departed the eye, we got an icecream and made our way across the brown Thames to find the Duke of York Theatre in Leicester Square. Em got us tickets to a play written by Zach Braff (of Scrubs fame). Was quite exciting, as the foyer looked a bit fancy... We were a bit early so went for a walk around, took more photos, saw the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus and huge billboards, and China Town. We grabbed a sandwich from Pret (EXCITING!!! This was a fond food memory of mine from 2009 - so I was very much looking forward to my return...) and then went to the play.

WHICH WAS AWESOME!!!!!!! It was very funny and also intense, which was good and really made you think but enjoy it at the same time. Clever... Zach was also in it, so we got to see a famous person! WOO!!!! PS ate my Pret brownie in the theatre = super delicious... Am so happy to be reunited with Pret. Ha ha...

Following the intense and amazing play, and getting a nice shock of British localism (they were all at the theatre on a Wednesday night! How cultured!!) we caught the tube from Charring Cross back to Paddington, then onwards to Maidenhead on the overground.

Had a quick call to Dad while on the train, and recounted yesterdays events from Brighton; the lady sitting across from us started laughing at me on numerous occasions.... Just grand :)

BRIGHTON!!!!

There was a seagull....

Today Emma and I hired a car to take a leisurely drive down country, to Brighton. We purchased it online on Monday from a rental place in Reading, which in itself was quite simple. Unfortunately the actual planning-to-execution of this adventure is quite a tale.

We decided to Google Map our path to Brighton, which showed us taking the M25. This is London's ring-route motorway which apparently can be mayhem, which on a leisurely drive one tries to avoid. So I, being cunning, dragged the little blue path 'south' so that it would redirect us, away from any ridiculous congestion. This then gave us a fantastic path, almost directly south from Reading down to Brighton. Unfortunately we didnt get a local to 'verify' our Google path, but promptly printed out our directions, trained to Reading, taxied to 6/8 Commercial Road in Reading, and picked up Rocky - our (apparently four door) little silver Peugot 107.

First encounter of driving a manual for the first time in yonks - stalled on the road leaving the hire-car place :(

Second encounter - roundabouts in a manual. DIFFICULT!!! Especially as there are so damn many of them, and the lane lines disappear, and people go SO FAST through them, and there are SO DAMN MANY OF THEM!!! However, for all their faults, are particularly handy when lost, as you just can keep going around them, until you find the correct exit (or incorrect, as the story will unfold...)

Third encounter - realising our Google Map path was not particularly straightforward... By the time we got to the outskirts of Woking, we had to pull over at a petrol station to ask someone for 'clearer' directions, as ours seemed to be taking us on many a strange road... The lovely witch lady who helped Emma almost scoffed at our path, and told us really, we just needed to aim for Dorking (haha, still funny name...)

So, redirecting ourselves, and yet still finding our way back onto the road Google suggested, we stumbled our way through Woking, Dorking, Guildford, Horsham and a number of other funny-named places along London's A-roads...

Thus, 2-and-a-bit hours later, we duly arrive very excitedly in BRIGHTON!!!!! Although it's not much to see, we knew what was coming up - Brighton Pier, carnival rides, carnival food and the sea!!

Fourth encounter - how do you get to the sea?? (turns out you just follow the road... but still, small panic to begin proceedings)

After parking Rocky, we took a jubilant walk along the waterfront, down onto the stoney foreshore and along to the Pier. Many photos were snapped, much pointing and exclaiming was occuring, it was all very fun (especially because we had ACTUALLY made it to Brighton - without incident!!) Up and along the Pier we went, stopping in the Rock Shop for some Brighton Rock (which is how our car Rocky got its name). We each got a marshmallow lollypop which was sickly sweet and delicious, and we wandered down the Pier eating straight sugar... As it turned out, this marshpop ended up getting us photographed by some lady, as we stood in front of the merry-go-round horses. This picture will no doubt go up on Facebook with the caption 'still kids at heart' or something...

After the Pier (part one) we dawdled back up the main road, to a very odd looking building we had seen driving in... It looked Turkish, and there were no signposts for it, so we were curious. Turns out it was the Royal Pavilion - the Royal Family holiday home from way back... At £10 to get in, we decided that was about as much as we would be learning about said weird-looking building. We found our way up to some beautiful old streets, which is apparently The Lanes - famous for their narrow streets and cute nature. Indeed, twas very cute.

A delicious encounter five - Of course, being in Brighton, we needed to have something fishy for lunch. We found a very quaint restaurant called Darcy's, which was apparently 40 years old, very small and very delicious. I had cod & chips, Em had seafood risotto, it was all very lovely.

After lunch, we wandered back down to the seaside, enjoyed the mild temperature and walked along the promenade. Emma found her camera has some amazing settings, and took some very cool photos (one of which she sketched...........!). We really were waiting for the Pier to turn it's lights on - come on!! So we went back to the entrance (Pier part 2) and bought some doughnuts, which is where the aforementioned Seagull comes in...

Horrible encounter, #6 - As we sat, enjoying our doughnuts and the lapping of the ocean, a humongous Seagull eyed us while eating said delicious treats. It began caw-ing, but we didnt pay much attention to it... Then it flew down to the table across from us and basically eye-balled Emma, still holding her doughnut... Deciding this was getting a little intense, as more of this Seagulls friends were flying in around us, we made a move for the Pier exit, and we both attempted to scare said Seagull away.... BAD IDEA!!! Said Seagull decided he wanted delicious doughnut, and SWOOPED in on Emma, narrowly missing her head! She THREW delicious doughnut to the ground, yelling "JUST TAKE IT!!" and said Seagull promptly landed on the Pier, gobbled up the doughnut, squarked at us once more, as we literally RAN off the Pier.... Horrid things.

Terrified, we decided, seeing the lights lit on Brighton Pier wasn't such a huge deal while mutant seagulls were watching. Bastards. So we went back to Rocky, jumped in, drove the A-24 out of Brighton and back to civilised pigeon-dwelling London.

Encounter seven - handling, and dominating, the M25! Pfffft, this has NOTHING on Auckland traffic; they warned us on huge overhead signs about delays on the M3 (our chosen route) and yet when we got on there, it was flowing at a smooth 50km/hr!! Practically speeding by Auckland rush-hour terms... This was also a great time to start bragging about how fantastic we were at navigating the roundabouts and roads of the UK. High-fiving, too cocky for our own good (aside from the small detour back to Brighton for 2 miles when we went the wrong way around yet another roundabout... ridiculous roundabouts).... We were enroute to Reading to deliver the car, then were waiting to get off at the right roundabout (!!) when it never showed up, and all of a sudden we were on the M4 to SOUTH WALES!!!! 114 miles away..... SHIT!!!!!!!!

Encounter eight - Michael Bublé saved the day. And our anxiety levels. Six miles down the M4, we finally saw a sign to Central Reading.... Just as Michael came on the radio! We were perhaps a little tense on the fact we may have ended up in Cardiff....... As it turned out, this Reading exit took us to the right end of town! Considering our 'fantastic' Google Map instructions didnt tell us how to get BACK to the hirecar place, we ended up driving around looking for the road 'next to the Volvo dealer'.... Thankfully my co-driver is amazing and saw it; so we only had one last encounter to overcome...

Encounter nine - after finally finding a petrol station, the bloody cap on Rocky's petrol tank was more difficult to unlock than Mother Teresa's chastity belt! It was ridiculous!!! I gave up, Emma tried and the Shell guy failed; we were fussing over it for 10 minutes before, by some blessed fate, a guy who WORKS at a rental place drove up, saw our plight and promptly opened it upon a simple key, push and twist system!

We delivered the car with 4 minutes to spare (we said we were going to have it back at 8pm; this was partially the reason for cocky high-fives when we got to 'Reading' at 7.12pm... Only to drive through and out of Reading by 7.20pm....)

Our taxi was duly waiting, as was the train, and we were home by 9pm, when I promptly fell asleep.

Such fun!

Windsor + Reading

What an exciting day!!

Not only did I get to experience Emma/Maidenhead's famous £4 curry, we got to sit at the White Horse pub to eat it without even buying a drink!! We met Emma's cousin Chris for lunch (yeah we had a lazy morning, whatevaaa!) and went to the curry place - which is really just a table set up inside a store with curry in crock-pots.... Not that i'm complaining, they had both green and red curry, which was delicious and kinda spicy, and Chris laughed at me for being a little bit pathetic on the spicy food front... Again, whatevaaaa!

(I seem to have adopted that from chavvy Brits...?)

Following lunch and Emma's 'creme egg milkshake' aka deliciousness-in-a-cup, we caught the train to Windsor. Originally we were going to walk but the weather was shitty and grey...

Arriving in Windsor was pretty amazing; the castle is HUUUUUGE and so impressive, it made me a teeny bit jealous of the Royals! We went through the State Apartments and took some sneaky photos. The presentation of the armor and armory (guns, swords etc) was very well done, and we saw the old amor worn by kings, which was very very small! Turns out everyone of that period, BAR Henry VIII, was teeny tiny! Unfortunately we didnt buy the audio-guides, and it didnt really explain what the rooms were for or what any artwork was about, so we interpreted...

In the Waterloo chamber of the castle, there were giant oil paintings covering the walls, of all the people involved in the Battle of Waterloo. It looked like all their names were all Lawrence, as they all said 'Lawrence - Duke of Wellington' for example. We stood in awe at this room for a fair few minutes, disscussing how Lawrence must have been a popular name in the 1800s, until the Castle staff member in the room had enough of our ignorance and interjected, explaining how Lawrence was the name of the artist, Thomas Lawrence... Which thus made sense! According to this man, it took Lawrence a year to travel to, and stay in Rome to paint Pius VII. Very cool...

Following our departure from the castle, we had a nosy around the town of Windsor (a sneaky look into Zara where I found some gorgeous shoes) then we made our way back to Maidenhead, to get ready for dinner in Reading.

Very excited to go here - this is where Georgie lives (almost, she's in Sandhurst) and so Em and I went to Jamie's Italian (as in, Jamie The Naked Chef Oliver!!) and it was amazing, delicious, scrumptious, exciting, tasty, and FILLING!! We had a meat anti-pasti to share, then pasta as mains - mine was prosciutto spaghetti with lemon and parsley, and Em had spaghetti bolognese with pork and beef mince and homemade breadcrumbs. For dessert, Georgie had the most decadent brownie and vanilla icecream, Em had the citrus pudding and I had tiramisu (with orange liquer - v. nice!)

Catching up with Georgie was great, she's working at her old school on a Gap year, so it was awesome to see her... I'm hoping to see her again before she goes!

We waddled our way back to the train station about 11pm, caught the last train home in each direction and passed out from gluttony.

A great day!

My first day!

YIPPEE! IM IN ENGLAND!!!

Today Em and I went adventuring around the local neighbourhood. Understanding where she lives is part of understanding her new life here...

So we had brekky in the conservatory with David, he made 'full English' as tradition :)

Went walkabouts in Maidenhead, through the High St, saw all the 99p stores and all the 'Shop for Lease' signs - big attractions in this little town! We saw the river, went to Waitrose and got some fresh berries and kiwifruit - living up to the claims that the UK can have any fruit all year round because of the population...

Spot of shopping at Topshop, Monsoon and New Look.

Had a sandwich and berries by the river

David made a roast for dinner, was delicious.

Met Em's friends and boyfriend figure at The Bear pub after dinner, they are lovely and I tried pork scratchings, not so lovely...

En route - Auckland to London

So the day has FINALLY arrived! I have been counting down to my trip to London for 286 days (not kidding!) and everyone at work knew how excited I was. I thought I was really organised, but as it turns out - I ended up feeling a little flustered on the way to the airport!

We got there a little early because Kylea was flying up from Nelson, so we were meeting at 10pm. It was really awesome to see her and her sister, and because we were at the front of the check in line, we got seats next to each other on the KL - London leg, the last on the plane! It was ridiculous how full the flight was, no spare seats at all!

We had a few drinks with our friends and family who had come to say goodbye... Saying goodbye to Mum and Dad was fine, because I've gone away before. Hugs and kisses and a farewell wish, and off they went... Saying bye to Milan was a LOT harder, I didnt really want to let go... But eventually I went through with Kylea, and once I saw him upstairs with Eldon, practicing his golf swing, I saw he'd be ok for a month :)

At the gate our plane was delayed, but we did meet this awesome guy called Josh - turns out he's a singer and currently has a song in the NZ Top 40! Nice dude...

On the plane, Ky and I couldnt shut up. We were so excited, it was like our first time on the plane! We ate and were trying not to sleep the first leg, so we'd be on London time... But we passed out pretty quickly! I woke up with about 3 hours to go, watched a few episodes of The New Girl - hilarious!

We landed in KL, wandered around their very confusing airport (no transit or anything, just... walk) and had a laksa :) we also got to use free Starbucks wireless, where I messaged Emma letting her know i'd see her in 12 hours!! (I was very very excited) The wait in the airport was fine, not too long and when we finally boarded the final leg, we knew it was officially the halfway point of the journey!

Unfortunately, this flight took for everrrrr! As i'd slept the first leg, I wasnt tired, so I watched four movies, ate (a lot!! even though I was still full from the laksa...) and walked around the plane a lot. Kylea and I got quite excited looking out the window as we flew over Afghanistan, it was the craziest terrain and very interesting - there was snow on the sand dunes!!

Eventually, after a very awkward few hours sleep towards the end of the flight, we made it into British airspace. EXCITING!!!!! ... Until we realised we had to circle for about half an hour before we could actually land.... After 24 hours flying time? A bit annoying...

When we finally touched down, I turned my phone on and text Em "Landed!!! Weeeeee!!!!! Xxx" .. To which I got the suprising reply - "Where??" Umm, WHAT?!! Replied "In london??? U know I'm coming today, right?" which apparently caused Em to run around her house like a headless chicken as she (for some reason for which I am partly to blame) thought I was arriving on Sunday...

NEVER MIND!!! Eventually we found each other, and all was well with the world.

Em's place was really cool, I had some toast and fell asleep for a solid 11hr sleep (HORIZONTAL! So excited...) and now i'm ready to face this adventure head on!!