Meeting Belgians and Luxembourgians, in a van

Before I get into our latest road trip, a little catchup on things since the last post.

I had waited a long year for it, but it came around quickly enough......
What is this that I am referring to, you ask?
Roger Waters "The Wall" LIVE, thats what!
It was epicly epic in all epic ways possible.
Epic. The show was a sellout and 'remastered' as a copy of the original live show Pink Floyd performed some thirty years ago. They built a giant wall on stage, each brick with its own high definition projector beaming propaganda onto it. The things they can do with technology nowadays is mindblowing! Seriously. There were moments when it looked like the wall was collapsing in on itself in some kind of vortex type blackhole, only for us to realize that the wall was still there and it was the use of the projectors and some seriously powerful computers combining to do the job visually. An amazing concert, and well worth the wait. Roger can still rock out like the best of them. Voice was pitch perfect.

Checked out Brick Lane for a curry a few Fridays ago. Brick lane is the hagglers choice for Indian cuisine. We sorted out a curry, starters, naan bread, poppadoms, and 2 beers each for a tenner, all of which went down a treat. Mental note however: I am not ordering Vindaloo again. My toilet will thank me.

Renee and I celebrated our two year anniversary at a nice little Greek restaurant, famous for offering more food than any one man can eat. I was close to 'death by stomach failure', when my hosts informed me I had yet another main course to follow. I tried to groan a refusal, but I think they mistook my worried eyes and trembling lips as some sort of kiwi laughter and made the chef work quicker to get the food out.
We rolled home after. Lucky our house was downhill from the restaurant.

.................

When we realized we had yet another long weekend fast approaching, Renee and I took proactive steps to try and plan a quick getaway. You have to take advantage of these situations when they present themselves. The unfortunate thing was that everyone else had the same idea and trips abroad were becoming a scarce, or very expensive, experience. We were two seconds away from booking a pricey trip to Krakow, when fortune called, in the form of Corey. You see, Corey had just brought this new red campervan (akin to Postman Pats wheels) and he wanted to test the waters. A cheeky trip to Belgium would clear the pipes, and it was snap decision to change plans instantly.

With minimal planning, we drove an hour to Dover, jumped on a ferry for an hour, drove another hour into Belgium and decided to sleep in the van for the night. The team consisted of Corey, Bec, Ironmonger (also known as James), Renee and yours truly; a formidable unit.
The first nights sleep in the van was relatively tolerable, apart from the fact I had James' feet in my nostrils all night. We awoke early, fearful that some coppers will come tapping on our window and, after taking a quick leak, we rejoined the motorway and headed some 30 mins to our first stop, Ghent.



It was good.

Ordered pancakes there and I was foolish enough to ask for Bacon and Banana on mine..... I dont think they have bacon in Belgium. We strolled the streets, took some snaps and finished things up with a canal boat tour. Lovely.







We were locked in to stay a night in Bruges, so we headed that way and checked the place out. It was crammed with tourists which kind of made it lose that quaint vibe that was evident between all the flying bullets in the movie "In Bruges". We just holed up at a bar and slammed down pint after pint of Hoegarden and Leffe. Good stuff.

The next morning we traveled to Antwerp trying to buy diamonds. Its famous for them, you know. It was a really nice town also. Belgium has a lot of nice towns, we concluded. Spent a morning there accompanied by some Belgian waffles before heading to Luxembourg via a stop in Brussels. We spent all of half an hour in Brussels - traffic jam packed.








Luxembourg is a seperate country, and although it is right next to Belgium, the change of scenery was entirely evident. We stayed at a small place called Lultzhausen; small in the sense that it was literally only a hostel, a few houses and a church out there. It was amazing, situated right on a mirror lake, with large pine forests adorning the surrounding countryside. We had opportunity to go kayakking, mountain biking and basketball. I went up against James on the bball and got dealt. Like trying to face LeBron.











Our return back to the ferry in France was always going to be tight, but it wasnt until we had 40km to go and 45 mins to get on the boat that we realized we were going to struggle. Thinking ahead, we called and changed our reservation to the hour later. Thinking we had significant time on our hands, we stopped off in the shithole that is Calais and had a feed. Little did we realize that we were required to go through a hefty customs line to get permission back into the UK.
Our boat was leaving at 7:50pm
We were still standing in line at 7:46pm, having not even got our boarding tickets.

Shit.

The customs officer was trying to be difficult with us but realized the magnitude of the situation and stamped through our passports. We hauled ass into the big red van and accelerated like a formula one car to the ticket booth.
"Hurry, hurry, we only have a couple of minutes to get on the boat!!!!" we pleaded.
"Hmmm hmmmm hmmm, there are 5 of you?" the ticket dude said in an almost bored voice.

7:49pm - Got tickets.
7:49:20pm - Passed some old ditty trying to find car gate. We were traveling close to the speed of light at this stage
7:49:45pm - Find our gate.
7:50pm - Fly onto the boat Dukes of Hazzard style.

It was tight. Incredibly tight.
We all needed a beer to calm our nerves.

So thats that. A busy summer coming up. We have the Royal Ascot races in a few weeks, the Glee live stage show, Wimbledon (camping out for tickets), and then 5 days at an international festival in Spain, all within the next month.
Going to be poor and busy............

Getting Corny in Cornwall

Been crazy times these last few weeks since my birthday. Went out to the countryside and shot up some of my mates with paintballs a few weekends ago. Great fun, but not when you have to start shelling out for extra paintballs. That's the hidden costs right there!!!

For the Easter weekend, Renee and I had a lazy one, pretty much having our flat all to ourselves. Went into the city on the Sunday to do some tourist stuff - Renee has a bucket list she wants to get through before we eventually depart. Got to the London dungeons, and saw the line was down the street, around the corner, through the Thames and up Spook Hill, so we decided to forego that idea. Everyone was here for some big wedding apparently.

Instead, we checked out a few lesser known places. Buckingham Palace. You heard of it? I certainly hadn't been there before, but I ticked that box. Got off at monument tube stop and discovered there was actually a monument outside it. It wasn't just a clever name. We hauled ourselves up the 311 stepped spiral staircase and took in the views of greater London. A recommended tourist attraction to do if you happen to be into climbing stairs.



Went to Thorpe Park on the Monday. It is a theme park overrun with Chavs. Has some great rides though, like the Saw rollercoaster (yes - based on the movies) and the Stealth. We dominated them all. It was funny seeing Renee as she got into the stealth. Here is a ride that flings for 210 ft in the air as you accelerate from 0 -85 mph (around 140kph) in 2.3 seconds. She was before me in the line and it was all smiles until that initial burst of speed has her eyes widen instantly and her head pinned to the back of the chair. Fantastic. They had a basketball shooting comp there and all these gumbi's were paying 4 quid to get in and shoot as many 3 pointers as they could in 45 seconds. These guys were all show; bouncing balls through the legs, practicing fadeaways, but when it actually came to shooting - God help them. I expressed my interest and paid 2 pound after talking the guy down in price and hit four 3 pointers, bagging a large NY Knicks teddy bear for Renee. He is called 'Mello.

I strutted out of the bball area and said 'and what?' to the stunned chavs. Ha ha

Check out the website for the themepark. The Saw coaster was prbably the best based on its 100 inverted degree drop. Oh yeah

Last weekend was another long weekend, thanks to the Royal wedding. We had already decided to head to Cornwall for that weekend, so I had to let the Royals know that I wasn't going to attend. Will took it like a man, but Kate was fairly cut up. Poor girl. I mean the world to her apparently.

So Cornwall was good. Hired a car and drove down with Pom and Bridget. Due to the wedding we were pretty much forced to stay in the rather touristy town of Newquay, which wasn't bad at all. They had sandy beaches, and lucky for us, I brought my frisbee. We had fish and chips on the beach and flung that plastic disc around for a few hours upon arrival. It was a 7 hour journey down there so pretty much took up our whole Friday.





On the Saturday, we drove out to the Eden Project - a huge series of biomes which house rainforest's and Mediterranean vegetation. Crazy scale and really well presented. The rainforest biome was incredibly humid and I last a gallon of sweat getting to the very top of the thing.
We drove around a few small villages after that. Alot of the villages are these quaint fishing types, so it was a great change.







The Sunday was crap weather but we still managed to get down to St Ives, and check that small village out. Afterwards we drove to the Southernmost tip of the UK - fittingly called Lands End. It was a tourist trap to say the least. The only way there is by car, and when you got there they had set up a one way route so you almost had no other choice but to pay 4 pound and drive on through to the carpark. Sneaky.





We stopped for lunch in Penzance before deciding the weather was too horrid and we headed back to Newquay for snakebites at the local Walkabout. A great weekend away and hard to get back to the office.

Happy Birthday to me

Ahhhh, tis my birthday today, and like on all good birthdays, I can actually have a brief minute to myself.

Shit been busy.

Hmm, what has happened since the last post. Well, I paid off my student loan! Thats a start. So glad to get that rabid monkey off my back. What a mission it is to get rid of them too. Made me wonder what the purpose of it all was. Of course, without my university degree, I potentially would not have the same outlook on life as I do now, which may or may not be a good thing.

To celebrate this farewell to thy loan, Renee took me out to a Gordon Ramsey restaurant for a spot of dinner and cocktails. It took us 2 hours to get out there and 2 hours to get back but was really worth it. We both had crayfish for entrees, followed by traditional dishes made to perfected recipes. I had a macaroni cheese, of all things, and it was so good, I felt randy afterwards.
Randy was the waiter.

Its not easy, you know; literal humour.

A few weekends back we attended a VIP night at a new restaurant / pub opening hosted by my now good friend Kev. Kev was the trusty steed that put us up for a month on our first arrival to London, and since then our relationship has blossomed. I wink at him every now and then and he blushes.
It was a superb steak dinner, way better than the typical crap you get in the supermarket; that stuff they try to pass off as sirloin.

I attended the annual Oxford vs Cambridge boat race last weekend. It was 6 hours or pre drinking before 10 seconds of cheering as the boats went past. Than back to drinking. Oxford won. Good work boys. Tally ho.

Not really much planned coming up. May hire a car on the Royal wedding long weekend and trip down to Cornwall. Because, really, who wants to be around London when thats on........

Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

"Wow. look at all the lights" we said in unison as the cab dropped us off at our hotel.
"This is nothing, you should see around the corner" the cabbie quipped, and then asked for a tip.

It was midnight in New York as we arrived, after extended delays at JFK, and it was essentially 6 o'clock in the morning to us as we were experiencing the time delay between UK and the US.
"I think I've got a second wind coming on" I stated, not referring to a gastric movement but more an energy terminology. Pom agreed. We all hauled ass down to the corner where this hint of something more was waiting patiently just around it.

It was a surreal moment as we stepped foot into Times Square and looked around. The lights, the people, the excitement all added together into this concentrated dosage of awesomeness. I instantly regretted leaving my camera in the hotel room.



We found a convenient bar nearby and bought drinks, balking at the $3 change we got back from a crisp $20 (per 2 drinks that is!). Thats what you pay for convenience. The NBA All Star weekend was on so we perched on the bar and watched that till our eyelids drooped.
The team was myself and Renee along with Pom and Bridget



For our first morning, we took a stroll through a huge park, located in the center of the city; right in the middle. I called it - 'The Park in the Center of the City' - an apt name.
I dont know what the locals call it.
The wind was freezing. I had to put a hood on over my beanie, with sunglasses on and my scarf over my mouth. People seemed threatened by my guise.
The park had a museum in it, an ice skating rink, a zoo, and a lake bigger than New Zealand.
Squirrels jumped out at you.
Apparently the racoons have rabies there.







We strolled, ran and played. I did a jump kick for a Renee photo shoot and split my jeans, in two separate locations at the same time, thus is my power. Renee would say that the crotch area was already worn through due to my constant bottom coughs, but I beg to differ. After the 'Park in the Center of the City' we attacked the Apple Store so Pom and I could make changes to our fantasy Cricket team (this became a regular occurrence) and we munched some lunch at a Macca's - which was a huge meal and .......... OK. Not great, just OK.
That arvo we went up the Rockefeller Centre to catch the Birdseye views of the city. Sweet view too. B-b-b-b-b-baller!




Sunday night it snowed and Renee was amazed. Everyone else seemed miserable.
On the Monday, amidst snow, we decided to head South through Manhattan. We hiked past the Flatiron building, past numerous shops all offering amazing sales, and down to Crif Dogs - a hotdog joint which served incredible hot dogs. We got a bacon wrapped hotdog with sour cream and avocado, and Tatter Tots. Pom put some in his pocket, and I said,
"Pom give me some tatter tots"
"No, get your own"
.... and I mashed his jeans pocket.

Haha. Just kidding.











We took the DODGY subway to Wall Street. I simply cannot emphasize that 'Dodgy' word enough - it was 'stare at your feet' stuff for the whole journey. Wall Street was aight and the nearby Ground Zero (location of those big towers that fell) was cool too. Nice to see what is going on for the memorial.

Tuesday was Guggenheim museum day. It is an incredible building. The artwork in it was great too - alot of Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall etc. We had been recommended a burger bar to check out around that area, and we found it, hidden behind curtains in a Mariott Hotel. Random spot - it seemed to be one of those 'word of mouth' kind of places, and it seemed like a lot of people had been secretly blabbing
"The first rule of hidden burger bar is: you dont talk about hidden burger bar"
The burger was great.









Alot of shopping later and we retired to the hotel, sinking some beers in the process.

Wednesday, we were meant to get to the Statue of Liberty but the line just to get on the boat was 2 hours long. There was also the line to get tickets. We got tickets for early on the Thursday and skipped off to the Chelsea Highline.
The Chelsea highline is an old above ground and above road railway track that has been redeveloped into the pedestrian walkway, equipped with flowers, seating and artwork, all located about 10m in the air. It was a sweet little journey, even if it was a short one.







This dude in the streets of Times Square tried hawking comedy tickets to us, giving us this spiel about how awesome the night is.
So, we brought them.

Thursday morning - our tickets to the statue finally gained us access to the island and we piled onto an overcrowded boat along with the rest of Harlem, and checked the big lady out. Quite an impressive effort, I must say. We walked through the pedestal of it and jumped off around lunchtime so we could run over the Brooklyn bridge and into the heart of Brooklyn itself.
We didnt stay there too long.






The comedy night, that we had already brought tickets for came around, and we headed to the Upper East side to watch it. The comedy club was well known and had previously spawned the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler among a lot more others. It was a crack up. We had a special guest drop by - Judah Friedlander, who stars in hit TV series: 30 Rock. He was awesome
"Its raining outside guys" he said. Everyone moaned "Im sorry, its because I just karate kicked a cloud" he followed up
Brilliant.

On the Friday, it was pouring down and we were all dead on our feet. We got to MOMA and saw some Warhols, Van Goghs, Pollocks and more Picasso's and Monets. Shopping ensued not long after. Clothes were so cheap. I brought myself a few pairs of jeans, some dress pants, a jersey and a Calvin Klein overcoat (not to name drop).

We hit the town on the last night (for the fifth and final time) and got relatively tipsy. John Leguizamo was signing autographs and we pushed Renee towards him to get a photo
"Get a photo of the chick in red. THE CHICK IN RED!" Pom yelled.
"Damn, thats a big Australian" John said and went back to take the photo.

It was an incredible trip and definitely a place I would like to go back to. Not too much on the adventure horizon now, and this is mainly due to the impending summer and future plans for more adventures. Remember to check out all my photos by clicking on the United States tab to the right of the screen here. Some good shots in there, hidden away.
Stay tuned.

Waitangi Day

Yes, I do feel the pain for not being in Wellington to celebrate the sevens, which has become a mainstay of Waitangi Day in New Zealand.
But I had the next best thing...

London rocked the casbah for Waitangi day. My little sis was over for the celebrations, having just finished a small trip through Europe, and we set about throwing together costumes in haste. Ideas were flung around the lounge room in a blur, focusing on what would create a great NZ day costume. Finally, after hours of turmoil, we settled on a quote from one of the finest NZ films ever made.

"Just cook the man some eggs" was scribbled on the back of a cheap white T-shirt with 2 fried eggs painted over the nipples at the front. Little sis had the reply to the quote on the back of hers, for good measure.
It was a rushed job but it came through in the end.

To nurse all the homesick kiwis on their national day, an informal pub crawl is organised that runs along the same path as the circle line of the London underground. Things kicked off in Notting Hill at 11am and we were met by a sea of kiwis doing beer funnels in the street.
"Great eggs" they yelled out.
The day just got messier. Some bloke was walking around with a 2m length of downpipe still attached to a rainwater head, using that as his own beer funnel. Toilets were of a scarcity. I really felt for the girls when I saw the lines they were in at the various McDonalds and KFC's scattered through the city. Guys could just skip into the toilets with ease.
Ahhhhhh, the life of a guy.

The pub crawl didn't exactly involve pubs. everyone just drank on the streets and stopped at various places. The main goal was to get to the Houses of Parliament by 4pm for a massive Haka. We made it just in time and witnessed masses of kiwis, getting rowdy and drinking beers. This dude I work with led the bloody thing, though he didn't know what he was doing.
He woke up a few hours later in a paddock in Surrey.
Haha. I am not kidding.

A huge rugby game ensued outside one of the Westminster Cathedral. Like the pub crawl, it wasn't really a rugby game - more a game of smashing people. Rugby balls and body parts were flying everywhere. Escaping the carnage, we stumbled on over to a local Antipodean bar and saw the line out of it was massive so decided the next best thing to do would be to jump on the tube and head out of the city, into the sticks, and attempt another bar.

It was here that I got absolutely smashed.
But, it was OK. everyone else was too.
We danced away to poor renditions of "Weather with you"

After having a close call with the bouncers, we all decided to head off home. a cab was hailed and all the girls I was with piled in. There was no room left for little ol' me, so, like a pure hero, I said to the driver "get them home safely", tapped the back of the car and I proudly strode off into the night.

"Where the hell am I" I instantly thought. I got worried.
Really worried.
"I bet people get stabbed out here"

"Blair, Blair" my sister came running up, obviously ditching the cab. "No, you cant leave. You're my brother, and we cant leave". It was very 1940's movie themed.

"Im not getting into a cab until I get a pie then"

So I got a pie and we headed home.

Sunday, I spewed in the shower, wishing life would just end as I pushed the mushed peas through the little plughole, and finally, after serious grunting, I plucked up a little energy to do some research for New York.
A week and a half away.......

Driftin' thru the Iberian Peninsula

After watching "Into the Wild" for the first time (good movie) I sat back and contemplated the plot. Here was a true story of a young man, throwing caution into the wind and setting out to travel with no agenda. Although the film did glorify this ideal, I did fall victim to the enticing concept of 'driftin'.

Spoiler Alert...............

Yes, I know he died because of it.

Driftin', to me is about going traveling whilst being dangerously unprepared and with no formal agenda. Due to serious time constraints and money, I decided one of the best ways to experience a small taste of this type of traveling would be to trip around the Iberian Peninsula; Spain and Portugal.

So there I was, backpack in hand, a bit of cash in the bank and a plane ticket into Lisbon and one out of Madrid. Purists would say that it should have been left open ended, but gimme a break, I have work to get back to. This was just a trial run anyway.
My backpack, restricted by plane cabin requirements, consisted of 4 t-shirts, 4 pairs of undies, 4 pairs of socks, 1 hat, 1 pair of shorts, a bloody large camera, a toothbrush, and a stick of deodorant. For a 10 day trip, I would like to think that was on the verge of roughing it. I was wearing a pair of jeans, a jersey and an over-jacket as well.

Those jeans lasted the entire 10 days.

There was a slight green air around them by the end of it. It was so thick I actually had to kick through it to get my legs into the pants.

So, we flew into Lisbon, got on the first bus and made our way to a hostel. The hostel was conveniently located in Rapesville (editor note: not actual place) and had me strolling nervously through the streets with one hand over my jacksy. We got to a corner and Renee was making one hell of a racket, wheeling her suitcase over the endlessly cobbled streets. I looked ahead and saw a seedy looking fella with a singlet on and (no doubt) naughty thoughts on his mind. I stopped for a second and noticed a second head pair slowly from around a hidden street corner. The whites of his eyes stared straight into mine. I could read his thoughts... 'Your money, and your ass'

"OK......... our hostel is this way" I said out loud to Renee, knowing full well that our hostel was not in that direction at all.
We scurried off down another path.
"Can you pick your bloody suitcase up Renee?" I pleaded "The rapists know we are coming 10 minutes before we get there"
Suffice to say, with a keen eye and an internal compass you could set the sun to, we arrived at our hostel and locked ourselves in the room, fearing for our safety.







The next day had a brighter disposition; we checked out a few buildings, and made our way by train to a place called Sintra. Despite getting off the train quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks (as per previous paragraphs - just in different neighborhood) we found our second hostel and went out to explore the small town. Sintra became the glimmer of hope that rescued us from an initial worrying time. It is a great little town, centered around a really old palace, with narrow streets breaking off, each harboring small restaurants and eateries. We found a really nice small bar (it fit 8 people) and had a Chorizo sausage cooked from burning oil set alight directly on our table.









The next day was spent traveling to the coast to see a proper sandy beach before returning once again to walk the narrow streets. That afternoon we headed up into the mountains and explored a secondary palace, reminiscent of lollipop-land and ancient Moorish castle ruins that overlooked the town like a vigilant protector.





Heading back to Lisbon, we decided against staying in the place we crashed on the first night and instead we found another hostel and were warmly surprised. By far the best hostel I have ever stayed in. Awesome location, great beds, clean facilities and a really homely feel about it all.
We trekked the quaint streets of Lisbon for the next few days, and I was stoked to find a guy who spent his days carving up foreign currency. I bought a NZ 20 cent piece off him that had been meticulously sliced up to remove the negative space from the background.









New Years Eve was somewhat lonely, but the beers helped sort that out. There were no other tourists our age at the hostel and no one on the streets to hang out with, apart from all the dudes offering me "hashish and cocaine, whatever I want". I must have been approached about 10 times on a 1 km stretch of pedestrian path. I think the unkept stubble I had going on made me look dodge..... Or maybe it was my shifty eyes.
Anyway, after hanging about in the town square for bloody ages listening to some lame Portuguese band sing local translations of Go West's "In the Navy", the countdown to a new year come around.....

And what a welcome they gave it!

It was all done to some outstanding light choreography; arranged in time to the tunes of Michael Jackson and The Smashing Pumpkins (among others), blasting through loudspeakers at ear bleedingly loud decibels.

We celebrated the New Year with some 40,000 others



...............

New Years Day beckoned us to a small fishing village by way of train once again. It was called Cascais and it was a ahhh-some. We hired Segways and zoomed past awestruck oldies who could never figure out how we were getting them to move.



That night, we jumped aboard an international train and stayed there for 10 hours whilst it whisked us across the Spanish borders and onto Madrid.
Madrid was so much different to other Spanish cities I have visited. It had an almost American appeal to it; large buildings and pedestrian links everywhere. The shoppers were crazy. It was still technically Christmas for the Spanish at the time we got there (they celebrate up until the 6th of January when the arrival of the 3 kings signifies the end of the holiday season and the start of proper present giving).



The next few days were spent visiting a few sights, strolling the markets and washing my undies in the shower with me. On the final day we went out to the Madrid Zoo which was by far the best zoo I have ever been to, even though all the animals spoke Spanish.

A delayed plane flight back and a run in with a CHAV (council housed and violent) on the bus from the airport left us both exhausted and anxious to use a washing machine.

I think I will go into another driftin' trip a little more prepared next time

New York in 7 weeks...............................

Bring on Christmas

Snow, snow, everywhere.
But not a drop to drink

Just don't eat the yellow snow.

As the title suggests 'Bring on Christmas' I say. Work has been crazy busy. I have been running around like a mad man trying to finalise drawings and specs for a building conversion I have been working on. Like I have literally been mad; talking to myself, winking uncontrollably with head jerks to coincide.
I worked 12 days in a row just last week and the week before that.
Epic.
Enough about work anyway.

You would have thought that the cold miserable weather would put a dampen on the Christmas attitude. It has done, in fact, quite the opposite. I have never seen such cheer. Everywhere is decked out with real Christmas trees, selling food and drink to hail the festive season. A few weekends ago we went out to Winter Wonderland, an area in Hyde Park that has been converted into a Christmas playground. It has been bloody well done. I didn't expect it.
Temporary stalls sell one off craftwares like jewellery and so forth. There are food stands everywhere, fun park rides, fair games, and of course a whole lot of bars selling mulled wine and hot ciders. We headed into the Jamie Oliver stall and made our own gingerbread men which we then decorated with as much chocolate buttons and icing as was structurally possible. Lucky I realised the bending moment of biscuit was invertly proportional to the quality of flour used in its production.
We ate them and felt crook so decided the best thing to do would be to go on a rollercoaster and a giant drop.
Renee nearly spewed.
I said "If you're gonna spew, spew in this" and offered her a small white lolly bag.

We finished off the night with dancing where I pimped my shirt and Cossack danced.

I've been to a few Christmas parties with work recently. Our clients for the project I was talking about earlier took us out and shouted us beers. They are all Irish so they said "As long as there is Guiness on tap, I don't care. Howty towty" That night was good.
I got smashed.
On Friday we had our own office Christmas party which got pretty loose. We were taken out to a French restaurant where I had a steak that I'm sure must have been cuddled and read books before it was sliced and diced. It was amazingly tender and literally melted in my mouth. That came with Foie Gras, which is a portion of liver from ducks that have been force fed corn until they bloat and die.
A fitting end.
Things then got messy, with someone mentioning that Sambuca would be great to have right now. Idiots. I tried to sing Karaoke and everyone stopped dancing and just stared at me.
That is the last time I try and sing George Michael

Once things wound down, I tried to walk to Trafalgar Sqaure to catch a night bus. It was during this walk that I found myself in a spot of bother. You see, there are few public toilets in London at the best of times.
Let alone at 4:30 in the morning.
I did what every self respecting man would do and wee'd against the side of a building.
I was close to my station and thought I could just walk there from my wee spot of relief. Until I saw that I was down a one way street and the only way to get back on track was to turn around and walk a km back. I could literally see the station through the gates of a park that had been locked up and posed the only obstacle in my path to victory.
I jumped the fence and swore as I noticed my phone had fallen out of my pocket and smashed everywhere. You have no idea how hard it is to find pieces of phone, in the dark, in the snow, amidst a foot thick of dead leaves. And I was pissed.
I managed.
Then I realised that the park I had jumped into was being patrolled, so I Mission Impossible styled it between trees to the fence on the other side. Upon getting there, unavoided, I noticed that this street that the fence bordered had much more foot traffic than the street I entered the park from.
Actually, that street had none which led me into doing all this in the first place.
After assessing my options, I jumped a fence adjacent and then found myself in the backyard of some inner city apartments.
'This is going from bad to worse' I thought.
I'll let you know, these weren't no ordinary fences either. They were the fences with spikes on top of the railings. Spikes that could easily have made me a eunuch.
I decided to call it a day and made for the fence near the station with the heavy foot traffic. I jumped it, springing like a pansy when pins and needles shot through my feet due to the impact, and finally sorted out my manbag and dusted off my jeans. Then I looked up.
Officer Billy was staring straight at me.
I put the horse blinkers on and hurriedly made my way to a street corner, just expecting a loud yell and a hand on my shoulder.
It didn't happen.
I started sprinting, got to my station, jumped into the bus, scaled the stairs and slid down into a seat on the upper level, counting myself lucky.

I then fell asleep and nearly missed my stop, waking up just at the right moment to get off the bus, startling the pissed teenager that had ended up sitting next to me.

.....................

Just recently, it has started cranking the snow. Saturday was spent staring out the window as mini snow storms wrecked havoc on the backyard. It was sensational. Our water pipes froze which stopped us from having hot water, but still, it was awesome.
We went down to Wimbledon Park and attempted to make a snowman. After half an hour of freezing snow packing I gave up and then noticed other people round the park had huge snowmen. I'm talking 2m in diameter. these things were about 10 ft tall. The English are pro's at this sort of thing.
I laughed, rolled a snowball and smashed my flatmate in the face with it.

Tou-che.

Finish up work on the 23rd, celebrate Christmas at our flat with a few other orphans and then head off to Portugal and Spain for 10 days on the 27th.
Lets hope I can get to the airport.

The Land of Fire & Ice

The weather really hasn't been all that bad. Since my last post, it seems like that week with all the cold temperatures was a bit of a freak occurrence and things have certainly got more mild. We are in for the worst to come, so I'm told.

I caught up with Pom and Bridget to watch the AB's take on Aussie a few Saturdays ago, the game being played in Hong Kong
"Look out for Ryan and Jo" I shouted.
People stared.
"Just look out for that stupid southern comfort beanie of his" Pom suggested.
We didn't see them.
That game was on at 9am on a Saturday morning, which did mean an early wake up to get out to the pub. (I tell ya - big cities ain't all that great when a game is on). Over the ensuing hour and a half, we each managed to polish off around 5 beers and a shot, hitting up some Steinlager Pures in the process. They tasted like awesomeness.
"Lets have lunch at Westfield and do some shopping!!!!!!:)", Renee suggested.
The pizza lunch was a blur and we found ourselves hungover at around 2:30 in the afternoon before deciding to forego the shopping and hit the hay.

The next Saturday, we met Pom and Bridget at a different bar, this one located on the Thames River. We discussed travel destinations that would be awesome to hit up and instantly decided on a group trip to New York............. More on this breaking news story later.
The England vs AB's game was much better than the one previous. We won it, which helped. It was the biggest mission ever trying to break through the crowds at the bar to get a beer. Renee left at half time to get some drinks and came back with around 15 mins of game time remaining.
We headed on down to another bar after the game; a bar where Pom had spent a good portion of the year working. We maintained our drinking pace. An hour or so later, we stumbled out into the city. The lights on Fleet Street glowed warmly as we bade our farewells and headed off in our own directions into the London night.
Renee had jacked up drinks with a couple of her mates, so we met them in Putney for a pub dinner before heading to a cocktail bar. The night ended heavily at four o'clock and we made our way home using our legs, as Southfields was relatively close by. It was on this walk home where I broke my existing 'fox sighting' record by witnessing 5 of the furry creatures crossing our path. Some came close, about a couple of metres away. If I wanted, I could have jumped on the back of one and rode away into the night.
But I would probably break its spine.

All these nights out in London are fine, but the real reason I am here is for the adventure; to check out new and exciting places. Well, Iceland did not disappoint.



Lets just say- it certainly lives up to its name.
You hear those people saying that common phrase that 'Greenland is all Ice, whereas Iceland is all Green'. Well, I can tell you, they lie.

We arrived in the late hours of dusk (around 4:30pm) and as I peered out of the little plane window with rounded corners, a feeling of unprepared dread swept across me. I felt like Rocky arriving in Russia to fight Ivan Drago, as was depicted in Rocky IV. Only I wasn't in Russia.
And I'm not a boxer.
Perhaps not good use of analogy there. Hey, I failed 7th form English. Give me a break.
The sheen of fresh, and very slippery ice, coated the tarmac and the surrounding landscape resembled some kind of alien planet.
Ain't no 'green' in Iceland, I'll give you the tip.
Apart from the green of frozen lava, but we'll get to that.



The hotel was nice enough, located near the centre of Reykjavik, and providing an easy launchpad to check out the surrounding area. Through some clever deduction and extreme use of time management skills I had asked a local tour operator to take us out to see the Northern Lights a day earlier than expected.



The Northern Lights are never a guaranteed activity. In fact, you 'don't see them' a whole lot more than you 'do see them', if that makes sense. I was worried about the forecast for weather over the remaining nights so urged for a first night tour.
We got lucky.
Some of the strongest Northern Lights around were witnessed by yours truly. Even the tour guide was amazed at them. It was a truly amazing sight. A green wisp appeared over the horizon and drifted its way across the frozen sky of rural Iceland, taking around half an hour to fully encircle us. The arc of the circle (that surrounds the North pole) was clearly visible.
You need specific conditions to see these lights and we hit them all; clear skies, lack of artificial light, and the perfect time of year.

Through all the amazement of actually witnessing the lights, I felt urged to record this on film (SD card nowadays, but the phrase still works).
First photo - blackness.
Second photo - blackness

'Hmmm. I better change some settings' I thought to myself.
I fiddled with a few nobs and stated out loud what I was doing so some rookies nearby knew who they were dealing with. They looked at me with idolescent eyes. At least thats what I thought. I couldnt really seem them all too well, it was so dark.
"So, Im just going to turn this nob here" I exclaimed, "adjust the pitch of this setting, take this battery out and turn it this way and then divide this number shown here by the average amount of spanners found in a standard Sikram toolset. and, walah, we should have the perfect setup"

Third photo - slight hint of green wisp.......

I peered over to a group of Asian girls. "Oh my god", "Wow!", "Oh, that's so going to be my profile pic!!!!!!"
'What the hell' I thought, and then I saw what they were raving about. Their little camera was taking some of the most amazing photos I had ever seen. And they were taking it with a flash on and everything. I lost the plot, internally that is. How. The. Hell. Could. Their. Photos. Be. So. Good????

Fiftieth photo - finally some payoff. Through all this stress with trying to capture the miracle on film, I had failed to realise my purpose of being there. I took a step back.
Booya. What a sight they really are. My camera was left dangling at my neck as I spent a good 10 mins staring at them in awe.
My fingers started to tingle. I then felt the cold hit me all at once. My toes were numb, my cheeks ached and my lips were physically trembling. 'How cold was it?' I hear you ask with intrigue.

-7

Me no lie.

It was freezing. I had to jump into the bus, kick my shoes off and massage my feet for a good quarter of an hour before I started to feel anything in them.

I did manage to get a few photos of the lights, however the shots are too grainy for my liking, but you get the idea. I was just happy to see them.





I was also joyous about the fact that I witnessed the Northern Lights on the first night of our trip. It meant we didn't have to keep trekking out there every night. It resulted in the next day being a day of relaxation. We wandered around the city before making our way out to the Blue Lagoon, a natural thermal spa drawing water and minerals from deep in the earths crust. There was hardly anyone there and it was amazing. Total solitude. there were buckets everywhere stacked with white mud for you to rub on your face; mud that miraculously makes you appear younger and all that bullshit. I layered it on. As for the pools themselves, what a setup. Being Icelandic, preperation for the pools was very Scandinavian. I witnessed a lot of old mens willies as I myself had to get starkers and shower publicly (in the mens change rooms, but still...) before taking the plunge.
If you have seen Hostel 2- it is the spa that they relax in, just before getting dismembered.

Anyway, we stayed there for a good 6 hours and had some beers from the poolside bar. It started to rain and blow some serious gales so it was quite strange being warm as toast in my body but absolutely freezing from the neck up. Teeth chattered.



We had booked in a tour through the Icelandic countryside for the next day. It was a great tour and took us through the waterfalls, geysers, and geological extremities of the surrounding area around Reykjavik.









Being from NZ, this wasnt too far of a stretch from our geological sites, but the snow and surrounding landscape definately set things at a different pace. You will notice in some of the photos that the rocks are covered with a green tinge. That is frozen lava. Basically, the whole country is a rock of lava. There are few trees and next to nil wildlife.



That night was our final night in the land of fire and ice, so we decided to make it special. Heading to a Tapa's bar, we proceeded to order whale (minke to be precise), puffin (that black and white bird with the coloured beak), snail, and, to bring things back to earth for a bit we topped it off with meatballs and chorizo potato salad.
I can literally hear Greenpeace knocking at the door now.
No.
Wait.
That's just a courier.

Phew.

So, I know what the question on everybody's lips is...... The whale was surprisingly delicious; akin to an eye fillet steak, tender and cooked rare, with a hint of an earthy aftertaste. The puffin was cooked, yet was served cold and was probably the least favourite dish of mine. It was a chewy, slimy meat with not an appetising taste. The whole meal was great though and definitely filled the void. However it didn't fill the void of my guilt. Only made it larger.



After the meal, we headed out to an Ice bar, one of those bars made entirely of ice, for a quick beer. It was pretty disappointing. For one, we were the only ones there. Apparently Icelanders don't party too hard on a Tuesday night. The bar itself was basically a big chiller with blocks of ice strapped to the wall. And it leaked. It was enjoyable for the novelty factor but that was about it. The trip to iceland wound up on the wednesday with a flight back to Heathrow where I stood next to Heston Blumenthal, celeb chef, whilst trying to retrieve my bags. The highest temperature we experienced in Icleand was 2 degrees, with that -7 being the lowest.
I didnt take my beanie and scarf off the whole time I was there.



And now, here I am back at the office. The trip to Iceland was great and I am looking forward to Christmas / New Year when we are off to Portugal and Spain. Little sis is coming over in January and then, wait for it, we head off to the bright lights of New York. Flights are paid for and locked in, so that is all happening at the end of Feb. I won a lonely planet guide from a local travel mag here so I will be thumbing that with delight in anticipation for this trip.
It should be epic.