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Around the World Vol 5 - York and Oxford

Around the World Vol 6 - Paris

Matt and Corina's Wedding... and Portugal.

Thursday
Went shopping in the morning for Boden and Corina's wedding present, and also bought Jen's dress she was going to wear to the wedding.

Then I went to Boden's bucks' party while Jen attended the much more civilised hen's night.

Friday
Jen bought her shoes. Then we met up with Bob and went wandering through town; randomly got free kit kats from a funny tent thing in the middle of town. Then we hired bikes and cruised through town (oh what fun that was). Jen left us and went for a walk around whilst Bob and I missioned it to Matt's place by bike. Fun for all.

Spent the evening at the pub with Boden (who only stayed for a short time, as it was the night before his BIG DAY) and Jen and Bob and Kate.

Saturday

Matt looks slightly nervous... I'm not sure why.

Boden and Corina's wedding! Started off with the ceremony in the morning, which was meant to be at 10:45am but ended up being about an hour late, because of French beurocracy. What happens is that they book about a hundred weddings all about 15 minutes apart and you get this huge lineup of all these different wedding parties out the front. Quite amusing actually. The ceremony itself was all in French and I was happy about that as I didn't end up bawling my eyes out.

All good now :)

The reception was amazing; lots of top qual champagne and wine and good music provided by a mate of Boden's called Tim. Good food, good company, and Bob made a great speech.

Sunday
Spent the day recovering. Matt and Corina had some friends around the their place for brunch/lunch/afternoon tea. It was nice and mellow, with John providing some very mellow tunes on the guitar. I sat on the couch and didn't move for a few hours.

Had dinner with Bob at the best pub in Paris (I think we'd hung out there 3 times in the last 5 days), around the corner from Boden's place.

Got home and packed!

Monday
Plane to Lisbon.

Arrived Lisbon around 5pm, and managed to get a taxi unscathed to town. Went for a wander around this absolutely fantastic city. Lots of colour, great views, lots of character. Had dinner on a hill overlooking the cool castle.

Collapsed into bed absolutely exhausted.

Tuesday
Slept in till 10am, then went down the road for breakfast. Then went home and slept for another 2 hours! Ha. Put our bikes together, and realised we need to visit a bike shop ASAP. So we've wandered into an internet cafe to find a map to one as we hadn't seen one yet. And we've ended up facebooking and blogging.

Paris!

Again, I am a lazy bastard, and despite having internet access in our apartment, have been too slack to upload any photos. Here's another draft post to remind me what's been going on since we got to Paris.

Saturday
Got up early and caught a taxi to the train station. Managed to get both our bikes onto the Eurostar without any extra cost (hoorah!). The Tunnel was spectacularly unspectacular and we kinda missed it. Slept a bit. Got out and caught another taxi to our hotel for the night. And a dingey place it was.

Sunday
Packed up and moved to our apartment! Horror taxi driver refused to take our bikes, then argued with the hotel receptionist saying that he should be paid for coming out here. Ended up forking out 5 euro so there wouldn't be fisticuffs.

That arvo we caught up with Matt and Corina at their place, in Montparnasse. Nice pad you have there Matt. Great lunch, fat and happy, then went out for beers in the arvo. Tried to find some food but no supermarkets open in town on a Sunday.

Monday
Louvre day. Slept in that morning, then moseyed on down to the Louvre (about a 10min walk from our apartment!). Queued and then paid 9 euro each to get in, lots and lots of people, very tiring, saw the Mona Lisa etc. Hoorah. Exhaustedly bought groceries and cooked dinner at home.

Tuesday
Laundry. Bought slick tyres (Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700 x 35c) for my Surly. Attempted dress shopping in Montmarte, Jen found a beautiful dress (well I reckon so) but it was 115 euro... still I want her to buy it cos it's so cool. Then walked down to the Champs Elyses and checked out the shops there ($$$) and also the Arc de Triumph. Very very large thing it is. Walked home. Walked past a shop called "Anna Lowe". On the way tried on about a million pairs of shoes for meself, as my Keens are falling apart and are VERY stinky after not letting them dry properly after mountain biking with them last week. Lots of walking that day!

Wednesday
Met up with Matt and his mum Di outside the Notre Dame. Had lunch with them nearby. Then left them and Jen and I tried to go north west of the city centre to try and find some cheaper dresses. Got sidetracked as I tried on more shoes for an hour (much to mine and Jen's frustration, none of them fit properly and it was giving me the shits) then it started raining and Jen was feeling shite, so we went home. I finally found some shoes that I liked and were comfortable whilst Jen was having an afternoon nap.

Then met up with Di at around 6pm and we headed to the Eiffel Tower. Queued for about an hour, got to the top around 8pm and watched the sunset over Paris. Amazing views, and then the lights turned on. Very beautiful. Didn't get down from there till it was 10:15pm! Had a huge dinner of an open Doner Kebab and felt fat and happy. Home by midnight.

To Paris Tomorrow.

This is a draft post; I'll come back in a few days and add photos and write heaps better like.


Tuesday
Slept in, spent the afternoon in Soho and checked out a cool toy store (6 stories of cool toys!) and the Mac Shop (perving on the new MacBook Air).

Fel made us a lovely dinner of Tom Yum noodles.

Wednesday
Spent the day waiting for my friggin' bike. It came at 5:15pm. Afterwards we went to dinner with Em Ashbolt; we ended up in a pizza/pasta place on Upper St (which is a street famous for having lots of restaurants; a few kms of them apparently).

Thursday
Went to Oxford! Caught up with Simon Baptist and Justin. Had a great tour of the uni; Simon was a great tour guide and took us to places that you're not usually allowed into, and for free too.

Taught us that the expression: "to change at Baker St" is actually when you "change from pink to brown". And that if you type in "do you want to get food in the Crown" (a local Oxford pub) and don't check your predictive text, your first date could go quite wrong because it would read "do you want to get done in the brown".

Friday
Packed our stuff. I managed to fit my bike in a standard sized bike box (it was in an extra-long totally unwieldy box without handles previously). Went out for dinner with Fel at an awesome place called Bupusa Eathai or something (great Thai food; big queue out the front as you can't book, and cheap too!), then had crepes for dessert at a local crepe bar where we met Vince who had been working like a dog.

Went to a pub in Covent Gardens where Vince got dinner and we got some drinks; met up with Nathan Harris and his partner Em and also Jeff Brett and his partner Kim. Lots of reminiscing about old times at Hutchins.

Off to Paris tomorrow! Very exciting.

Finally

Ha! It's 5:15pm and it's arrived.

Hoorah!

Now I can get off my arse and do something with what remains of the day.

A Wasted Day

What a pain. I looked up the online tracking service and it said that my bike (which is being delivered by courier) is due to be delivered today. It left the London warehouse at 7:07am, so I thought it wouldn't take too long to arrive here. And I thought it'd be a good idea to stay at home and wait for it to avoid the hassle of having to pick it up somewhere else and having to lug it home.

So since I got out of bed at 8:30am, it still hasn't arrived. It's now 4:50pm. It's meant to be delivered by close of business today. Let's hope it arrives in the next 10 minutes.

What a waste of a day.

The Lake District

We're now back in London, staying at Vince and Fel's place. Not long now till we head to Paris.


Click here to see our new photos on FB.



Saturday
Rosie, Jen and I hired a car (a sweet little Renault Clio) as it was cheaper than train tickets. We drove the 3 hours to the Lake District, and met up with Ali and her mum Anne. The weather was pretty grim; we headed into Keswick (pronounced "Kezzik", obviously) and had yummy but thin pizzas for lunch.

Then we headed off for a walk in the rain. The Lake district is beautiful. Everything looks so English. Stone walls, green fields, sheep, farmhouses, hikers walking down the street wearing FULL gore-tex kit complete with gaiters, pack covers and trekking poles... Cool mountains and lakes. I like.

The start of an easy Saturday stroll.

After our pleasant little stroll we headed back to Anne's house where Anne had been baking up a storm! There was a fruit crumble, lemon meringue pie, flapjacks, and fruit bread, all freshly baked and waiting to be shoved into our hungry mouths. We helped Anne whip up a quick vegie curry which was delicious, and then we tucked into dessert. I think we found heaven. Afterwards we walked the half-hour to the pub and enjoyed a pint of the local brew (a half-pint for me), and were home by 1am.

Local brew at the local pub.

Sunday
After a long sleep in and several rounds of crumpets for breakfast, we headed into Langdale where we met up with Rosie's friend Alex, who she'd met during her time in Namibia. He and Ali took us up Jake's Rake (or Jack's Rake; apparently it's known as either). This involved a solid slog up the side of a steep creek, up to a beautiful tarn at the foot of a nice looking cliff. There was a line of weakness diagonally up the cliff which we scrambled up; it was good clean fun.

Halfway up Jake's Rake

At the top of the plateau, we took photos of sheep and then walked to the top of Harrison's Stickle. I'm not exactly sure what a stickle is, but there were apparently lots of stickles around. There were great views from the top. It was sunny and almost warm, despite the temperature being in single figures. It was the best bit of weather we'd had our whole trip so far I reckon.

Sunning ourselves at the top of Harrison's Stickle

Nice photo Jen. Harrison's Stickle

On the way down

Apparently having a pub at the bottom of a hike is a common occurence, and yes, there was one at the bottom of this hike... and just in time too, as it started pissing with rain when we were about 50m away. Hot chips and cold beer were the order of the day. Awesome.

We bade farewell to Ali and Alex and the three of us drove back to York, stopping at a small town (can't remember what it was called. Oops) for dinner at a pub called the Snooty Fox. It was delicious.


Monday
We spent Monday buying presents for Simon and Rosie, and also made it to Evensong at York Minster which was cool. The organ was a lot less overpowering and there was also a string quartet accompanying which added to the feel. Cooked some dinner for Simon and Rosie, and then bade them farewell as we caught the late train back to London.

An Action Packed Day

Friday
We had an awesome day today!

Rosie took a sickie (good work!) and we drove to Scarborough leaving at 7:30am (and golly gosh it did hurt a lot). Simon works in Scarborough so we took the opportunity to explore this beautiful seaside town.

After dropping Simon off at work, Jen, Rosie and I went for a long walk along the waterfront of Scarborough. I couldn't stop snapping photos, the place was so picturesque.

At the start of our walk... What a view!

Waves hitting the wall.

We sat and had breakfast at a cafe about a quarter of the way along... a good solid English breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, and toast, with HP sause. Yeah yeah. Well that's what I had. Jen had a cookie and a coffee, and Rosie had a coffee and breathed in the fumes of my feast, which was apparently enough for her.

The waterfront was awesome. It was fronted by a line of colourful entertainment arcades/amusement halls which were full of knick-knacks, games, and kitch. There was a small park with rides and a ferris wheel at the end of the southern bay. All this gave it a theme-park atmosphere, though it was quiet when we walked by as it was early, cold, and not quite summer. Cafes were beginning to nudge their way inbetween the games parlours, and I'm sure they will grow in number.

I like this photo. Jen and Rosie walk ahead while I snap away.

A cool building. It's the big one you can see in the first 2 photos.

We kept walking past the awesome ruined castle on the bluff, and got to the northern bay, which was lined with new colourful boat sheds. There were heaps of people walking their dogs on the beach, almost all of them playing fetch using these throwing sticks that I saw for sale for 1 pound in one of the shops we walked past.

After walking up onto the second small bluff, Simon called and said he'd be finished in half an hour... but it took us a whole hour of brisk walking to make our way back to the car! We reckon we walked about 5km in each direction. We popped into Tesco and bought salad roll ingredients and after picking up Simon we drove to a small fishing lake and ate lunch in the car. It was freezing outside!

After lunch we headed to Dalby Forest which is where a purpose-built mountain bike park is situated. There's even a bike shop in the middle of it, and we popped in to ask about bike hire. Unfortunately it was absolutely bucketing down with rain and sleet, and it was freezing cold. We had about 2 hours before the shop closed, so we weren't all that keen on riding. Or rather, I wasn't keen at all; everyone else was keen as mustard. The guy at the shop obviously saw our dilemma, and offered us bike hire at half price. That was the turning point, and I moaned and crumbled to the will of the other three. But it was worth it!

At the start of the ride... not muddy, yet.

A rare piece of double track. Most of the park was well maintained singletrack.

Fortunately for us, as we started riding, the rain stopped, and only started again once we got back. It was fun getting changed in hail... I needed my bike helmet (which I'd unfortunately returned) as the chunks of ice were kinda painful on my noggin.

I was expecting the track to be really muddy and unpleasant, however, it had a good rock base which meant good drainage, so there were puddles, but very little goopy mud. Lots of easy singletrack was to be found, well sign-posted with a map to boot; all in all a good couple of hours of fun!

Rosie carves it up.

Jen near the finish.

Unfortunately we couldn't do all the tracks, or even complete a circuit, due to lack of time. But the bit we did was pretty fun. We had to escape onto the road 15 minutes before the shop closed so we could return the bikes. There's apparently more than 50km of trails in the area, from easy family trails to North Shore and downhill tracks. We'll have to come back someday and check it out.

Rosie cooked up a mean chilli con carne for dinner, and I think I smashed about 3 platefuls. Awesome.



More photos can be found in our Third Facebook Album!


Here's another set of links to our First and Second Facebook Albums.




:)

Sheffield and York

York is a beautiful town. We arrived yesterday morning on the train and met up with Skywalker (a.k.a Simon Williams), one of the famed pilots of the Death Star (a.k.a the old Nissan Patrol) on the infamous Trip to the Tip (Cape York) last year. See this link for details of that cool trip.

I think my last entry was on Monday night; pizza at Sam and Aarti's.

Tuesday
Sam had the day off. First of all Sam, Jen and I attempted to tackle the walk we were trying to do on Monday evening in the Peak District. It was snowing again this time also, but it was much brighter at that time of morning, so we headed out anyway and trudged through the snow. It was very beautiful, but unfortunately there wasn't much of a view. We had fun looking at the cold highland sheep and throwing snowballs at each other. We got back by 10:30am so Aarti could use the car; she had to give a tutorial to a group of medical students, the poor thing.

Cool trees

Two idiots frolicking in the snow.

Tree in the snow

We spent the next few hours playing with Arjun. He was feeling better after his bout of fever last night, and was thoroughly entertaining. I like playing with babies, so much so that it's beginning to worry Jen. :)

I think Jen liked playing with Arjun too.

That afternoon we went with Sam and Aarti to look at a bridesmaid dress for Aarti. Jen and I thought it looked good, and so did Sam I think. Arjun didn't mind it either. While Sam and Aarti went to the dentist, Jen and I explored Sheffield. We saw the Winter Gardens and the Millenium Gallery, and then just soaked in the atmosphere of the place.

We cooked a yummy stir-fry for dinner and spent a nice evening together, probably our last for a while. We bade them farewell the next morning as we were catching a train to York.

Thanks Sam, Aarti and Arjun for letting us stay! You guys are awesome!

Wednesday
The train ride was surprisingly comfortable, and we arrived in York in good time. Here's a direct transcript of our SMS conversation:

Marcus: "Skywalker, Ewok and Yoda have reached rendezvous point outside York train station. Awaiting further orders."

Simon: "Hold fast, sending a TIE fighter immediately! Use the Force."

Now for those Star Wars fans, please spot the error here.

After dumping our gear at Simon and Rosie's place, we went for a stroll about town with our tour guide Simon. York is cool. Lots of cool old buildings, and cool narrow streets with lots of little alleys and lanes. We visited the National Railway Museum which had lots of cool trains in it (it's apparently the biggest train museum in the UK). And York Minster is just awesome. I remember being in awe of it 10 years ago and it still has the same effect on me now. We went into York Minster to have a look inside (after 5pm when it's free) and yup, it was cool.

Shambles Lane, York

Jen amongst the trains in the National Railway Museum

Rosie came home from work, and after a quick snack, the four of us went to the local climbing gym to get spanked. It was fun, and we finished about 10pm. We were craving fish and chips, but the only restaurant open was a lavish Indian restaurant which ended up being quite cheap with great service and lush food. So I ate a ridiculous amount as per usual and got a stitch whilst waddling home.

Thursday
Simon was supposed to have the day off today. But the buggers at his work had changed his roster without letting him know (as per usual) so they called him asking where he was. They begged and pleaded, and Simon being the nice guy he is, said he'd go after lunch. They asked him to stay till 9pm. He's still at work now. Anyway, we were supposed to go mountain biking in Dalby Forest today, but due to those bastards at Simon's work it didn't happen.

Clifford Tower

Instead we went for a walk around York again, and checked out Clifford Tower and then went for a free tour of the city which was very informative, though a little long-winded and freakin' cold. Fish and chips for afternoon tea and then we cooked dinner for Rosie.

York Minster. Big.

I wonder when Simon will get home?

yongers out.





Click here to see more photos in our second Facebook Album.





What did you think? Comments appreciated!

:)

Sheffield

I've just realised that most of my motivation behind writing this blog is selfish; really it's a good way to keep a diary of what's been happening on our trip, as opposed to a polished piece of travel journalism. So there's going to be a bit of crapping on... read on at your own peril.

After a fairly pleasant 4 hour bus ride, we've made it to Sam, Aarti, and Arjun's house in Sheffield.

So yesterday we played in the snow and had a great time. As we mentioned, we awoke to an amazing view outside the windows of a world covered in snow.

The policemen at Hyde Park built this big fella earlier that morning.

We headed into Hyde Park to play in the snow and make snowmen, and after we'd had enough of that, we headed into Leicester Square where we had a quick bite of lunch. We wandered around a bit until we ended up at St Paul's Cathedral. There was a massive crowd outside; evidently the Olympic Torch for Beijing '08 had just passed through, and there were still some protesters and other spectators milling around.

A cheeky squirrel in Hyde Park

We attended the Sunday evensong at 3:30pm at St Paul's. It got off to a bad start, as there were lots of people milling around to go in and mostly not for the service... As I was walking through for the service, the man on the door put his hand up and asked me whether I was going to the service or not (after he'd said to the guys in front of me that he could only come in if he was attending the service); I said "yes, I'm going to the service," and his sidekick next to me said "well take off your hat then!" as she gazed at me with disbelieving eyes, which I took to mean "as if you, you bloody freaky looking unshaven Asian chav, are coming for the service, how dare you, I bet you're just some cheapskate Jappo student trying to get in to our Cathedral for free, and I'm really frustrated because I can't not let you in, so instead I'm going to be a bitch to you, so up yours." Then I took two steps in and had my bag searched extremely thoroughly because obviously I look like a terrorist. Not happy Jan.

As for the service, the choir was pretty good though the organ was a bit overpowering, especially in the Magnificat I didn't like. The Nunc Dimittis was good, as were the responses. The inside St Paul's itself was amazing; I spent most of the sermon just gawking at the intricacies of the roof and walls. Despite the sour note at the beginning I'm glad we went.

After that we went home and cooked Vince and Fel a pumpkin risotto for dinner. Fel made an awesome salad which had strips of mango in it. Yum. I think then we watched about 4 episodes of the second season of Heroes. Vince and Fel filled me in on the last series and I think I'm hooked.

This morning we caught the bus to Sheffield, and then headed to Sam and Aarti's place. Sam had just finished nights, and was fortunately awake when we came knocking on his door. After a scrumptious lunch of vegie burgers and salad, we went for a walk to pick up Arjun, my Twin of Destiny (we share the same birthday) from daycare. Poor fella had a fever of 38.8 and was a bit miserable, but he tried his best to be good and smiled a bit for us. He particularly enjoyed putting a pen in my mouth again and again and again.

Aarti came home after a hard day's work later in the evening, and looked knackered. She had some quiet time with Arjun whilst Sam, Jen and I took the car and went for a drive to the Peak District, about a 10min drive from Sheffield. As we drove up there, it started snowing, heavier and heavier, until it was almost a full-on blizzard. We were intending on going for a bit of an evening stroll but it was too shite for that. We turner around and drove back and the snow had settled quite thickly in the 5 minutes between drive-bys.

We settled for a pleasant evening stroll through a park nearby Sam and Aarti's house, and got home just on dark to find hot pizza awaiting.

Life couldn't be better really.

Here another link to our Facebook album, in case you missed the last one.

Fun in the Snow

So these are some photos of our day in the London snow...

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

Our first snow man we'd made in God knows how long...



For more photos, see our Facebook album

Snow

Would you believe it's snowing in London? Holy crap.

The last couple of days have been great.

Firstly, I've decided to order my bike from the US. It was another day and a half of ringing around customs officials and filling out paper work, but I think it'll be worth it. It's a long story and I won't bore you with the details. Thanks Rymill for your help in my decision.

So since I last wrote we've finally got around to looking around London.

On Friday Jen went for a run from Brixton into the middle of London and she saw lots of cool stuff. I was still at home sorting out the friggin' bike. But that afternoon I finally got myself out the door and we tubed it into London and checked out Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, Big Ben and the houses of parliament, and we also went to a service at Westminster Abbey.

The National Gallery was amazing; we're not big art buffs, but the works of da Vinci, Raphael, Van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir as well as heaps of others we hadn't heard, of blew us away. And yes, we bought some cool souvenirs.

I was hoping to hear some great traditional choral music at Westminster Abbey. We were pleasantly surprised however to find that it was a 40 year memorial service to the death of Martin Luther King Jr. So there were some awesome black gospel choirs, as well as representatives from many religions including buddhists, sikhs, and jews. I'm sure there were others but we're just ignorant plebs. Anyway the service was actually really uplifting and we felt all warm and fuzzy afterwards.





On Saturday we slept in and had a slow start to the morning. Then we headed into town. On the way, there was a building on fire. It was opposite the Brixton Underground station so we couldn't get in. So we sat and gawked at the fire for a little while. It was pretty huge; biggest fire we'd seen in real life (we didn't get to see the Mire Fyer).

































We went for a walk along South Bank and there were heaps of buskers and those funny statue-people (you know the ones who paint themselves all silver/bronze/gold and stand really still... good fun.

Checked out the Tate Modern. Modern art is still a mystery to me. I loved Picasso and Bacon's work, but there was some really random shit there with blurbs that were full of quite long words that didn't really make much sense. We had fun laughing at them though.

Headed over the Millenium bridge which was cool cos it was raining so you could run and then slide along the slippery surface... then headed to Covent Gardens to check out the shops and pubs.

We met up with Lou McGruther who was a friend of ours in Cairns; she's a pharmacist who's on a working holiday and had just moved to London. Good times. It was bloody cold standing outside and waiting to meet her outside the tube station, and the warmth of the pubs and restaurants we visited was welcomed.

We didn't know whether we were being soft or not with the cold, but our feelings were certainly justified when we awoke this morning, a blanket of snow covering the ground and trees; we could hear kids throwing snow-balls at each other and when we looked out the window they were doing the rolling a giant snowball thing along the ground. It was tres cool.

Dilemmas

I can't decide what to do.

Here's the thing. I was originally going to buy my nice new Surly Karate Monkey (a 29" do-it-all steel frame mtb/touring/commuting bike) in London from this place called Brixton Cycles. They've got it, but due to the Pound being so strong and their shop being incredibly busy, it turns out that the bike will be heaps more expensive with crapper spec, and that they won't be able to build it up till April 24!

So I'm looking at getting it from JensonUSA again, which is a US-based website that is offering better components at a much cheaper price. Thing is that to import things into the UK means paying a VAT tax of 17.5% and also bicycles attract a 14% Import tax on top of that. So I was going to scrap that, but then I found out that I could be eligible for a Temporary Import tax relief. Now I'm applying for that.

You wouldn't believe how bloody painful it is to fill this form out. It's mindblowingly ridiculous.

So we haven't seen a much of London today, just the 2.8km walk to the bike shop and back. We're both still a bit jet-lagged too so a siesta this afternoon killed the rest of the day. But that's ok.

I'll shut up now. When I get inspired I'll upload some photos.

Made it.

Here we are in Vince and Felicia's flat in London. It was a long day; a 12 hour flight and a little more waiting (an hour on the ground) for the shuttle bus between the plane and the terminal (they had ordered 15 buses and only 2 came), then trying to navigate a peak-hour filled Underground with a hiking pack and bike bag plus extras. Good fun.

So Vince and Fel live in Brixton. I'm stoked, because down the road is the only bicycle shop in London that sells Surly bikes. So tomorrow I'm going to go shopping!

For now it's sleep sleep sleep.

Night y'all.

Free WiFi is So Good

So we've managed to make it to Hong Kong Airport without dying, unfortunately no-one required medical attention so we didn't get the upgrade we had hoped for. I was pumped for something cool like a cardiac arrest or something... at least it'd pass the time (Ok, I'm kidding, geez. Maybe something a little less serious, like indigestion. Just something to get us an upgrade).

We watched an awesome movie called "Juno" which I think is the best movie I've seen in ages. The lead chick, Ellen Page, was brilliant (I think she got an Oscar nomination for this role). Sense of humour was right up my alley. Plus it had Michael Cera in it (who for those who don't know is the skinny nerdy guy on SuperBad) and he rocks. Oh and Jennifer Garner is in it too. Enough said. It's got a great soundtrack too with some great lyrics... and that's coming from me, the "I never listen to lyrics" guy.

Got to say a big thankyou to Kate who took us to the Airport yesterday arvo. Thanks Kate, you're a gem! And also to Peter (Jen's dad) who kept us company in the lounge.

Well I'm terribly excited about watching more movies and purchasing a duty-free worldwide adaptor that was advertised in the duty free catalogue on the plane. Does anyone ever buy anything from those catalogues? Or will I be the first?

Edge of your seat excitement here folks.

Will write more in London.