12 weeks

Today marks 12 weeks since I left Australia. It has been an amazing 3 months and I have travelled to more places in this time than I have in my lifetime.

Europe was amazing and the UK has been very exciting. I feel I've managed to settle into London well, its had its ups and downs but it hasn't been as difficult as I was told it would be...but then again, winter hasn't hit yet!

I miss my friends and family but they don't feel too far away as I can talk to them on the phone or internet whenever I want. Plus I'm keeping really busy now with work, gym and weekend adventures theres not much time to stop and think.

I'm really enjoying meeting new people and getting outside of my comfort zone. So many more adventures to look forward to.

❤❤❤

Notting Hill Carnival - London- August 2012

Went to the Notting Hill Carnival today. It's a Bank Holiday so everyone has the day off yay! The carnival is basically a huge street festival in Notting Hill with a parade that goes around all day full of drummers and dancers. The vibe was heaps of fun with everyone partying on the streets.

We wandered around the carnival checking out the food stalls and the parade and random DJ's set up along the street. We found a good DJ and had a dance for a while on the street before moving on to find some lunch. They say around 1/2 a million people were expected at the carnival today! In London you can drink on the street- which means things get messy! By the time we left the crowd was getting pretty rowdy, but still was a pretty cool party.

Alton Towers Theme Park - England - August 2012

Hayley and I went out to Alton Towers theme park on Saturday. It was an early morning departure, caught the train from Euston Station at 6:55....I got there at 6:54 and basically ran onto the train just in time!

The train took about 1.5 hours to Stoke-on-Trent, then we caught a taxi to the theme park. It was incredible. It's a huge area of land and has a big castle in the centre...surrounded by gardens and crazy rides.

We ended up going on a heap of rollercoasters and rides until we finally felt sick and couldn't ride anymore. The rides we went on were the Oblivion- a vertical drop into a hole in the ground (scariest!), Thirteen - awesome rollercoaster that stops halfway, does a free fall drop into darkness and goes backward down a dark tunnel; Air- a rollercoaster where you are face down to the ground so it's like you're flying, and Nemesis- a super fast rollercoaster (this is the or that made us sick!).

The theme park is awesome. I'd definitely recommend it. Such a massive park with some crazy, exhilarating rides. I was so scared.

Here are some of our ride photos...hilarious!

 

 

Hampton Court Palace - England - August 2012

On Sunday we headed out to Hampton Court Palace. No royalty lives there any more so it's mainly used for tourism. The Palace was really nice inside, lots of medieval history. We had an audio guided tour to listen to but it wasn't great- too slow and too much talking, so we gave up on that and just walked around in our own time.

The best thing about this palace is the 60 acres of gardens. They are amazing. Very well kept and manicured. There was also a big hedge maze which was fun and pretty easy to get through.

House Hunting - London - August 2012

I've been house hunting for the past month with no success. It's really hard to find anything decent in London and rent is very pricey! I'm looking with my friend Hayley (who I randomly met at another house viewing)- we've both moved over from Aus on our own recently and have found jobs but no homes so decided we'll stick together in our search.

We've been trying to find something in Clapham Junction close to the station as we both can catch the train to work from there. So far what we've seen has been pretty crappy for the price we want to pay. London rent is very expensive! We found out we cant go through real estate agents as they charge you for reference checks, and asking around, we basically will both fail checks as we have no credit or rental history in the UK! So private rental it is.

Yesterday we headed off to look at a house share that has a few rooms becoming available. It is a big Victorian house, 3 stories, 6 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, big garden! Its the nicest place we've seen so far and in a good location. There were about 20 other people going through to look and all seemed keen to apply, but we were lucky enough to get the landladies interest and secured two of the rooms while we were there. She said we looked like nice girls, haha. I think we got lucky and had more of an advantage because we were looking together.

So woooo I have a home! No more student accommodation (which is getting rowdy now cos all the students are coming back from summer break soon).

I don't move in until mid-september but am looking forward to it. We met some of the housemates at the viewing and they seemed pretty cool too. It's going to be an experience living in a 6 bedroom house but hopefully it will work out well and it won't get too crowded! The house is huge so think it will be good. I'm just glad I'll finally have an address I can call home :)

A Royal Saturday - London - August 2012

I had a fantastic day out yesterday. Started off by meeting my new friend Hayley at Harrods for breakfast. We went to a fancy tea room there and promised ourselves we would get a group of girls together and come back for a day of shopping and high tea at some point in the future. Harrods is great- so huge! I've been there twice now and have got lost both times.

We went on to Buckingham Palace for our 11:30am appointment. They open the State Rooms to the public over summer, so we pre-booked some tickets to go have a look. It was amazing! I have never seen such elegant, decorated, hugely impressive rooms in my life. It was absolutely beautiful inside the palace. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos so it's just something you have to see for yourself. Well worth the £18 we paid to go in.

The tour lasted for about 90 minutes and we had an audio guide which explained what each room was used for and it's history. We were also shown the Queens jewellery including the crown and necklace she wore at her recent Diamond Jubilee.

The tour ended up at the back of Buckingham Palace, where the Queens Garden Parties are held. It was stunning. There was a gift store at the end and I was very tempted to buy a royal teacup set, however it was way too pricey! The good thing is we got our tickets stamped to come back for free, so I can make my way back again when another friend wants to check it out.

It just so happened that the Olympic walking race was on that day too, and the course went right past the front of the Palace. Hayley and I went for lunch and then headed back there in the afternoon to watch the Women's Walk. Go Olympics! I met with Nicole and Simone there too, and we cheered so hard that we even got a wave from one of the Aussie athletes as she powered on by.

After the race, 3 of us went to find our friend Ally (from topdeck tour) who has just moved to London! She's working in a pub in Holborn so we headed over there, found the pub and caught up with her for some drinks as she worked.  A great day out.

Friday night fun - London- August 2012

After work on Friday evening I caught up with my buddies Nicole and Simmone at London Bridge. We had dinner & drinks at a pub nearby then wandered along the river towards Waterloo.

Theres a lot to see while walking along the river. My favourite was stopping at Wonderland on Southbank. It's a cute garden bar set up which leads through to a Magners Maze and then 2 big rides (a rollercoaster and a giant swing). We were going to ride them but the line was too long! Made it through the maze though.

We then went and watched some street performers, Nicole got into it and became a performer.

                                

Then played in a playground until closing time.

A gift to myself

To celebrate getting a new job I decided to treat myself to a new piece of jewellery...a Links of London sweetie charm bracelet :)

I love it. You can buy charms separately and add them on as you like. I plan to buy charms symbolic of my travels and adventures to add to it.

Today I just started with one charm (they are quite pricey so it's going to take me a while to build up the charms!). I chose one of the olympic edition charms, a small love heart with the union jack on it.

Love ❤

More Olympics...The Womens Marathon

I went and watched the women's marathon today. It was a free event so I walked over the London bridge to the north side of the river where the streets of London were shut down and people were lining up waiting for the athletes to run past. The course involved 3 or 4 laps of the same route so I was able to see them run past a few times and I walked towards the finishing line as time went on to see how it all ended.

The crowd was amazing cheering the athletes on and encouraging them all no matter which country they came from. Towards the end there was a girl who started walking - the crowd all encouraged her to keep going and when she started running they gave her the biggest cheer. It was really nice to see.

It was raining during half of the event so got totally drenched, but had my rain jacket on and it was worth going out in the rain to see such amazing athletes. A runner from Ethiopia won in the end and Australia came 17th, 39th and 100th. It was an achievement just to finish the run. They've inspired me to get off my butt and go running again!

The Aussies

The Winner on the right (Gelana)

Working Life

As mentioned before, I have now been off work for 2 and a half blissful months of holidays. But if I want this adventure to continue I need to replenish my funds and start earning some Pounds!

The whole process of applying for jobs is different here- you have to go through a recruitment agent who puts you forward for roles and arranges interviews and all the finer details for you.

I don't like to mention work on the internet so I won't go into details, except to say I've just finished my first week of my new social work job at an acute hospital just out of london. It is about an hr commute each way and is surrounded by farms and forest. It's a bit far but the pay rate is good, and I don't mind the ride or the fresh country air! I have been podcasting Hamish & Andy to keep me entertained which is quite funny as I'm often chuckling to myself while sitting on the train.

The team is super friendly and I've enjoyed my first week- though there is so much to learn! They do things quite differently here in the UK so will take me a while to get my head around how it all works.


Its now Friday and I'm looking forward to the weekend- getting back to full time work has actually been quite fun, but super exhausting! I keep waking up in the middle of the night worrying I've slept in, but once I get into the routine of things I should be fine. So here I am with a 9-5 job now, no more weekday adventures to report on! Plenty of weekend excitement to look forward to though, theres always something happening here.

Ringwood, Hampshire

I went on a day trip last Saturday (28/07/12) to the town of Ringwood in the Hampshire region. It was a two hour bus ride (which turned in to 3 hrs cos of the olympic cycling blocking the roads in london).

Ringwood is the town that our family farm is named after, as my dads family came to Australia from that area back in the day.

The town was quite cute and had a lot of history. They have weekly markets on a Wednesday that have been running since medieval times! I went on a Saturday so it was a bit quieter. Walking through the town didn't take long as its quite small and quaint, so I then took a scenic walk along the town edge and to the river and paddocks that runs alongside it.

It was a cute little day trip and I can see why the farm was named after it, the surrounding farmland looks quite similar to home and the town is on the edge of a thick forest (New Forest).

Pretty horses in surrounding farmland

Town Streets

The London 2012 Olympics

Me at the Gymnastics stadium

Olympic fever has hit London! There was such a buzz around the city leading up to the Games which has continued all week. There were big worries about the transport system not being able to cope but we're a week into it now and as far as i can tell things are all going smoothly. There are volunteers everywhere around London keeping things in order and directing everyone where to go.

I went to the pub with a few aussie friends last Friday to watch the opening ceremony. The atmosphere was incredible as we watched it on the big screen with everyone cheering like crazy.

I really wanted to go see an event but had almost given up on getting tickets as its quite a difficult process. But I persisted as its not everyday the olympics are in the city you're living in!

I got so lucky that one day Gymnastics popped up on the ticket website and I immediately clicked to buy (they sometimes release tickets the night before an event). It is one sport I love to watch on tv every Olympic games, and I never thought id ever get tickets to it.

But I did! I got two tickets to the women's artistic gymnastics qualifying rounds. I didn't really need the two, but after I bought the first one, tickets for the Australian round came up, so of course I had to buy that too! That ticket actually got me into two rounds so I got to see 3 out of 5 of the qualifying rounds. Yaaaay :)

I loved it! It was amazing being there in the Arena. I had such good seats too, 3 rows from the front and right in front of the balance beam. I went by myself but was sitting next to a friendly bunch of American girls- since USA weren't in the round we were watching I convinced them all to cheer for Australia too, very handy with their loud voices.

The Aussie girls did well :) So so amazing to be there watching. Felicity was watching it on TV in Aus and I told her what I was wearing (the only green thing I own) and she saw me on TV in the crowd!!

I'll hopefully be able to see a few of the other free Olympic events around London too. I've already seen some of the cycling athletes ride past in a race- I think they were coming dead last though.

I'll be cheering the Aussies on and hopefully will see a few more Olympic events in the next few weeks if I get the chance :)

My Olympic Shirt