(no subject)
Since I'm too slack to do a real run-down on what we got up to in England...here's copies of the e-mails we sent to family and friends while we were gone. Name-dropping of places that people have never heard of was so Jess's mum and anyone else who felt inclined could look up where we'd been.
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(Sent Monday night)
Heya!
Here we are in merry england, end of our second day here - we got in about 6am yesterday morning and had a pretty quiet day, feeling good today after a good night's sleep though. Trip was for the most part pretty good, first plane we were on was a bit flasher than the second, so it's a shame that was the shorter flight!
Haven't done a lot so far, mostly catching up with Tam and Fin, who's even cuter than we remember. Had a bit of a tour of bristol, saw the suspension bridge and the camera obscura tower thingy, and went up to the downs - which sounds really wrong when you say it, but it's a grassy park area up the top of a hill, so it's up - it's just the name that's stupid.
Heading down to Bath tomorrow, taking the bus or train - haven't decided yet - so it should be our first 'solo' adventure. Weather is predicted to be a max of 10 degrees, same as today, so we'll make sure we rug up. At least it hasn't rained much at all since we arrived, it was fairly bucketing as we left the airport and came in along the motorway but cleared up as we arrived in bristol and has just been overcast with a bit of breeze since.
Probably be hearing from us soon,
Us
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(Wednesday night)
Hey folks!
Quiet-ish day today, went for a bit more of a walk around bristol. The seagulls here are about twice the size of the ones at home. Got some good views from the top of some tower on a hill, probably the steepest and narrowest staircase we've ever been though.
Bath yesterday was great, got some really good photos. Weather was pretty good for the most part, with only a few spots of rain and us wishing we had sunglasses for the most part! Admittedly the glare wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been reflecting off damp cobblestones, but it was sunny so we were happy. Went on a few double-decker open-top bus tours - one around the city, and one that took us out to the outskirts, the university and such - both were pretty good and only got slightly damp. The roman baths themselves were pretty cool - amazing to think the lead piping put in over 1500 years ago is still going strong.
Hopefully got a dry-slope skiing lesson tomorrow to let us get to grips with the basics before we hit the slopes for real in a week and a half - also checking out some cottage a bit out of town as well I think.
Cheers!
Us
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(Thursday night)
Heya - today was pretty unexciting but thought we'd fill you in :)
Didn't end up booking the dry slope lesson for today, we're doing that early next week instead.
Visited the 'prettiest village in England', Castle Combe - even though it doesn't have a castle.
Also booked accomodation for our nights in london - we'll be there wed / thurs / fri next week, and are staying at the Generator hostel there - cheap, but hopefully not too nasty!
We decided to hire a car - was only going to be for one day but the place Tam rang had a good deal for over the weekend - only £60 to pick it up lunchtime tomorrow (friday) and drop it off some time monday morning, so we'll be hopefully doing a bit of a sea-side journey on saturday and hitting the cotswolds (supposedly very scenic villages) on sunday to give Tam and Rog a bit of time without us pesky aussies.
Today got up to 9 degrees after freezing overnight (the car said so). The end of the week is supposed to be 'more wintery' so it could get interesting indeed. Hope the weather there isn't too uncomfortably hot.
Cheers
Us
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(Monday night, second week)
Hey people,
Well, had a pretty big weekend. Picked up our hire car on friday, so took it for a 'test run' out towards Wells on friday afternoon. Didn't make it all the way due to a diversion on the main road, but did a little loop out around Midsomer Norton, Oakhill and may or may not have made it as far as Shepton Mallet - we didn't take a lot of notice of village names, just the scenery.
Saturday we took off towards the 'seaside' - even the locals don't try and pass them off as beaches. We went down through Glastonbury - went up the tor, was an amazing view - to Lyme Regis where we grabbed some chips for lunch, then along to the fantastically named village of Beer - beautiful cliffs and a nice pebble beach. Went to Sidmouth in the dying light - was nice there as well, then found our way home with a minimum of confusion, even though the headlights on our hire car were pretty dismal.
Sunday we hit the Cotswolds, an area full of quaint little villages that was really pretty - all very green and lush. Almost every building would be the sort of thing that would stand out in Australia as being old. We went through Bourton-on-the-water, which was very scenic. Stopped there for a wander through some shops, checked out the model village (updated regularly, apparently) and then went through a maze - I didn't think it was going to be great since it was in such a small area, but it was good fun - well and truly enough space to get confused. Solved the puzzle from clues around the place and managed to find the golden dragonfly. We could tell you how, but then we'd have to kill you. Drove on through Stow-on-the-Wold to Chipping Norton for a pub lunch, then back down through Burford and Bibury.
Today Roger's sister Cat picked us up (we had to drop the hire car back this morning) and we tootled off to check out Wales - it's absolutely gorgeous. Had a really nice drive through Abergavenny (which is amazingly the most pronounceable place we went through all day) up to - wait for it - Lord Hereford's Knob in the Black Mountains. Funny, they seemed more greenish. Bad puns aside, it was freezing up there - when we first arrived it was 3 degrees at the airport, so I walked out in shirt and shorts to see how it felt. Today I was in leggings, long pants, singlet, long sleeve shirt, jumper, scarf, beanie and wool gloves and felt a lot colder. Went up to Hay-on-Wye for lunch at a pub (again), then went back the way we'd come, due to a lack of any other minor roads going the direction we wanted. Didn't really matter, the weather had changed enough that everything looked different - it even snowed ever so slightly while we were back up near Lord Hereford's Knob (hee hee).
Tomorrow we're going to go watch Fin at his swimming lessons - apparently he's the star performer in his class. We've got a dry slope skiing lesson booked for the afternoon, that should be interesting to say the least :) Might get a bit of shopping done in Bristol after that if we find the time.
Missing the warm weather (and you guys),
Us
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(Wednesday night, week 2)
Only a short update today, we didn't do a lot - had an early start to get the bus into london - over half the time of our flight to singapore, and no in-transit entertainment whatsoever!
Booked into our hostel, and did a bus tour and a bit - got all you can eat pizza for tea, took some photos at trafalgar square (best of the red street, yeah!) then caught the tube back to the hostel.
Heading up and around on the London Eye tomorrow, should give us a new perspective on things :)
Us
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(Saturday night I think, e-mail by Jess so don't blame me for grammar, spelling or capitalisation :P)
well the trip to london was good, nothing special but. The hostel was ok, but we didn't spend much time there, just slept there.
The underground was abit daunting to start with but as we used it more, it became very easy. But rush hour on our way home was a suprise, many many people.
We did the open top bus tours, there were 3 different tours all up. But once you'd seen a few of the sites, they all get the same, pay your money, walk around, take photos if you can, it got a bit boring towards the end. But happy that we saw them all.
It was raining alittle when we went on the London Eye, so wasn't as clear a veiw as we had hoped for but still good anyway.
It snowed a tiny bit more for us when we were there, thats about when we decided to move from the top level of the bus to the undercover level.
Tomorrow we're off sking, alll very excited and alittle scared. Mostly of falling over at the chair lifts where either everyone can see that you've fallen or fall so that your in everyone's way. But oh well, they can just deal with it.
Went shopping today for thermals and ski socks because we're told to expect a max temp of about 4 and a wind chill factor of about -21. Freezing cold, here we come.
May or may not be able to e-mail why'll we're sking so you'll hear from us in about a week.
Love Us.
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And there ended the e-mail correspondence. Skiing was a lot of fun, we did all the stuff like make a snowman, have snowball fights, made snow angels and of course stacked it face first into the snow while skiing. That last one several times, just to make sure we got it right. Really. Fin enjoyed his tobogganing, we had fun skiing, Corey (an old friend of my sister's who joined us) battered his body around a lot snowboarding. Our class only had 2 other english speakers, so we got to be good friends with them while also trying to understand the natives - I guess gesticulating wildly and saying 'Zoom, zoom!' is pretty much the same in any language.
Went back to england for about a day and a half, did a tour around Windsor Castle. Wasn't bad. Had lunch in a really nice thai restaurant. Saw the sights of Marlowe, had Roger's Dad take us for a drive in his little Alfa Romeo. Was nice. Flew out to Singapore....
....which was full on. We arrived at the airport around 8 or 9am, went and checked in to the hotel, then went out shopping. By the time we got back to bed around 11pm our day had been about 25 hours long, so we had a bit of a sleep in, did some more shopping. Got trundled all over the city by a bus driver who said yes, this bus does go by Hotel Miramar, then got to the end of the line and informed us he had no idea where we wanted to go. That sucked. Decided to stick to the MRT (mass rail transit, very similar to the tube in London) after that, although we also went on a tri-shaw once. Went out again that night, around Clarke Quay, which was a touristy area but seemed really cool. Did a reverse bungy. Jess screamed lots, I laughed. We've got it on DVD - very funny to watch. Got back to bed around 2.
Up at 6 to get out to the zoo in time for breakfast with the animals! The zoo was pretty cool, though I imagine zoos everywhere are much the same. Got some decent photos of some of the animals. I got dragged into a coconut husking competition against an orangutan. Emerged victorious! Strength of four men: maybe. Attention span of a 3 year old: definitely. It's not often I'm the more motivated one. Found that nowhere in the damn place would take a credit card, and there were no cash machines to be found. Eventually realised that Ben and Jerry's outside DID accept credit cards, so we chowed down on icecreams, smoothies, bought some soft drinks and water for later and generally stocked up. Moved across to the Night Safari place next to the zoo, caught some cool Borneo dancer people doing a show. Went back and watched it again later and Jess got dragged up on stage to get involved - she put a fire stick thing into a guy's mouth, and then they threatened to put it in hers. Sadly, she lost the nipple dance-off. Night Safari in general was okay, but not as good as we expected. Discovered otters are noisy bastards when they want to be fed. Saw and heard a couple of wolves howling - that was one of the highlights of the night, such a soulful sound.
Got home around 1:30, almost 2:30 by the time we were packed up - had to pack up that night because....
....up at 6 the next morning to get taken to the airport. Feeling somewhat seedy by this point, but survived. Had a bunch of singaporean schoolgirls around us on the flight home, most of whom had obviously never flown before - the collective 'aaaaaaaAAAAAAH' as we took off was a bit of a giveaway, as were the white knuckles any time we hit some turbulence. Matt picked us up, came home, got ready for bed.
Was going to give Graeme a ring just to let him know we were back - found out he and a bunch of the crew had gone out for tea for some people's birthdays, told them to drop around afterwards for a bit if they felt like it. Then they did, and then we found out some other people were going into town, and so we went and met up with them. Not the sanest thing to do after the amount of sleep we hadn't had in the last few days, but it was damn good to see people again.
Since then...gone back to work, the store is now open (K-mart, if I haven't mentioned it before), that all seems okay. Had superleague the weekend after we got back, I'm playing mens 2 this year and we won 7 and drew 1 out of 8 games - had a ball doing it, so we're all happy. Jess's team won 5 of their 8, so not too shabby either.
That's really about it. Long update for me, but stuff actually happened, so don't expect this to be the norm, in case you were scared of that happening :P
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(Sent Monday night)
Heya!
Here we are in merry england, end of our second day here - we got in about 6am yesterday morning and had a pretty quiet day, feeling good today after a good night's sleep though. Trip was for the most part pretty good, first plane we were on was a bit flasher than the second, so it's a shame that was the shorter flight!
Haven't done a lot so far, mostly catching up with Tam and Fin, who's even cuter than we remember. Had a bit of a tour of bristol, saw the suspension bridge and the camera obscura tower thingy, and went up to the downs - which sounds really wrong when you say it, but it's a grassy park area up the top of a hill, so it's up - it's just the name that's stupid.
Heading down to Bath tomorrow, taking the bus or train - haven't decided yet - so it should be our first 'solo' adventure. Weather is predicted to be a max of 10 degrees, same as today, so we'll make sure we rug up. At least it hasn't rained much at all since we arrived, it was fairly bucketing as we left the airport and came in along the motorway but cleared up as we arrived in bristol and has just been overcast with a bit of breeze since.
Probably be hearing from us soon,
Us
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(Wednesday night)
Hey folks!
Quiet-ish day today, went for a bit more of a walk around bristol. The seagulls here are about twice the size of the ones at home. Got some good views from the top of some tower on a hill, probably the steepest and narrowest staircase we've ever been though.
Bath yesterday was great, got some really good photos. Weather was pretty good for the most part, with only a few spots of rain and us wishing we had sunglasses for the most part! Admittedly the glare wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been reflecting off damp cobblestones, but it was sunny so we were happy. Went on a few double-decker open-top bus tours - one around the city, and one that took us out to the outskirts, the university and such - both were pretty good and only got slightly damp. The roman baths themselves were pretty cool - amazing to think the lead piping put in over 1500 years ago is still going strong.
Hopefully got a dry-slope skiing lesson tomorrow to let us get to grips with the basics before we hit the slopes for real in a week and a half - also checking out some cottage a bit out of town as well I think.
Cheers!
Us
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(Thursday night)
Heya - today was pretty unexciting but thought we'd fill you in :)
Didn't end up booking the dry slope lesson for today, we're doing that early next week instead.
Visited the 'prettiest village in England', Castle Combe - even though it doesn't have a castle.
Also booked accomodation for our nights in london - we'll be there wed / thurs / fri next week, and are staying at the Generator hostel there - cheap, but hopefully not too nasty!
We decided to hire a car - was only going to be for one day but the place Tam rang had a good deal for over the weekend - only £60 to pick it up lunchtime tomorrow (friday) and drop it off some time monday morning, so we'll be hopefully doing a bit of a sea-side journey on saturday and hitting the cotswolds (supposedly very scenic villages) on sunday to give Tam and Rog a bit of time without us pesky aussies.
Today got up to 9 degrees after freezing overnight (the car said so). The end of the week is supposed to be 'more wintery' so it could get interesting indeed. Hope the weather there isn't too uncomfortably hot.
Cheers
Us
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(Monday night, second week)
Hey people,
Well, had a pretty big weekend. Picked up our hire car on friday, so took it for a 'test run' out towards Wells on friday afternoon. Didn't make it all the way due to a diversion on the main road, but did a little loop out around Midsomer Norton, Oakhill and may or may not have made it as far as Shepton Mallet - we didn't take a lot of notice of village names, just the scenery.
Saturday we took off towards the 'seaside' - even the locals don't try and pass them off as beaches. We went down through Glastonbury - went up the tor, was an amazing view - to Lyme Regis where we grabbed some chips for lunch, then along to the fantastically named village of Beer - beautiful cliffs and a nice pebble beach. Went to Sidmouth in the dying light - was nice there as well, then found our way home with a minimum of confusion, even though the headlights on our hire car were pretty dismal.
Sunday we hit the Cotswolds, an area full of quaint little villages that was really pretty - all very green and lush. Almost every building would be the sort of thing that would stand out in Australia as being old. We went through Bourton-on-the-water, which was very scenic. Stopped there for a wander through some shops, checked out the model village (updated regularly, apparently) and then went through a maze - I didn't think it was going to be great since it was in such a small area, but it was good fun - well and truly enough space to get confused. Solved the puzzle from clues around the place and managed to find the golden dragonfly. We could tell you how, but then we'd have to kill you. Drove on through Stow-on-the-Wold to Chipping Norton for a pub lunch, then back down through Burford and Bibury.
Today Roger's sister Cat picked us up (we had to drop the hire car back this morning) and we tootled off to check out Wales - it's absolutely gorgeous. Had a really nice drive through Abergavenny (which is amazingly the most pronounceable place we went through all day) up to - wait for it - Lord Hereford's Knob in the Black Mountains. Funny, they seemed more greenish. Bad puns aside, it was freezing up there - when we first arrived it was 3 degrees at the airport, so I walked out in shirt and shorts to see how it felt. Today I was in leggings, long pants, singlet, long sleeve shirt, jumper, scarf, beanie and wool gloves and felt a lot colder. Went up to Hay-on-Wye for lunch at a pub (again), then went back the way we'd come, due to a lack of any other minor roads going the direction we wanted. Didn't really matter, the weather had changed enough that everything looked different - it even snowed ever so slightly while we were back up near Lord Hereford's Knob (hee hee).
Tomorrow we're going to go watch Fin at his swimming lessons - apparently he's the star performer in his class. We've got a dry slope skiing lesson booked for the afternoon, that should be interesting to say the least :) Might get a bit of shopping done in Bristol after that if we find the time.
Missing the warm weather (and you guys),
Us
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(Wednesday night, week 2)
Only a short update today, we didn't do a lot - had an early start to get the bus into london - over half the time of our flight to singapore, and no in-transit entertainment whatsoever!
Booked into our hostel, and did a bus tour and a bit - got all you can eat pizza for tea, took some photos at trafalgar square (best of the red street, yeah!) then caught the tube back to the hostel.
Heading up and around on the London Eye tomorrow, should give us a new perspective on things :)
Us
---------------------------------------------
(Saturday night I think, e-mail by Jess so don't blame me for grammar, spelling or capitalisation :P)
well the trip to london was good, nothing special but. The hostel was ok, but we didn't spend much time there, just slept there.
The underground was abit daunting to start with but as we used it more, it became very easy. But rush hour on our way home was a suprise, many many people.
We did the open top bus tours, there were 3 different tours all up. But once you'd seen a few of the sites, they all get the same, pay your money, walk around, take photos if you can, it got a bit boring towards the end. But happy that we saw them all.
It was raining alittle when we went on the London Eye, so wasn't as clear a veiw as we had hoped for but still good anyway.
It snowed a tiny bit more for us when we were there, thats about when we decided to move from the top level of the bus to the undercover level.
Tomorrow we're off sking, alll very excited and alittle scared. Mostly of falling over at the chair lifts where either everyone can see that you've fallen or fall so that your in everyone's way. But oh well, they can just deal with it.
Went shopping today for thermals and ski socks because we're told to expect a max temp of about 4 and a wind chill factor of about -21. Freezing cold, here we come.
May or may not be able to e-mail why'll we're sking so you'll hear from us in about a week.
Love Us.
---------------------------------------------
And there ended the e-mail correspondence. Skiing was a lot of fun, we did all the stuff like make a snowman, have snowball fights, made snow angels and of course stacked it face first into the snow while skiing. That last one several times, just to make sure we got it right. Really. Fin enjoyed his tobogganing, we had fun skiing, Corey (an old friend of my sister's who joined us) battered his body around a lot snowboarding. Our class only had 2 other english speakers, so we got to be good friends with them while also trying to understand the natives - I guess gesticulating wildly and saying 'Zoom, zoom!' is pretty much the same in any language.
Went back to england for about a day and a half, did a tour around Windsor Castle. Wasn't bad. Had lunch in a really nice thai restaurant. Saw the sights of Marlowe, had Roger's Dad take us for a drive in his little Alfa Romeo. Was nice. Flew out to Singapore....
....which was full on. We arrived at the airport around 8 or 9am, went and checked in to the hotel, then went out shopping. By the time we got back to bed around 11pm our day had been about 25 hours long, so we had a bit of a sleep in, did some more shopping. Got trundled all over the city by a bus driver who said yes, this bus does go by Hotel Miramar, then got to the end of the line and informed us he had no idea where we wanted to go. That sucked. Decided to stick to the MRT (mass rail transit, very similar to the tube in London) after that, although we also went on a tri-shaw once. Went out again that night, around Clarke Quay, which was a touristy area but seemed really cool. Did a reverse bungy. Jess screamed lots, I laughed. We've got it on DVD - very funny to watch. Got back to bed around 2.
Up at 6 to get out to the zoo in time for breakfast with the animals! The zoo was pretty cool, though I imagine zoos everywhere are much the same. Got some decent photos of some of the animals. I got dragged into a coconut husking competition against an orangutan. Emerged victorious! Strength of four men: maybe. Attention span of a 3 year old: definitely. It's not often I'm the more motivated one. Found that nowhere in the damn place would take a credit card, and there were no cash machines to be found. Eventually realised that Ben and Jerry's outside DID accept credit cards, so we chowed down on icecreams, smoothies, bought some soft drinks and water for later and generally stocked up. Moved across to the Night Safari place next to the zoo, caught some cool Borneo dancer people doing a show. Went back and watched it again later and Jess got dragged up on stage to get involved - she put a fire stick thing into a guy's mouth, and then they threatened to put it in hers. Sadly, she lost the nipple dance-off. Night Safari in general was okay, but not as good as we expected. Discovered otters are noisy bastards when they want to be fed. Saw and heard a couple of wolves howling - that was one of the highlights of the night, such a soulful sound.
Got home around 1:30, almost 2:30 by the time we were packed up - had to pack up that night because....
....up at 6 the next morning to get taken to the airport. Feeling somewhat seedy by this point, but survived. Had a bunch of singaporean schoolgirls around us on the flight home, most of whom had obviously never flown before - the collective 'aaaaaaaAAAAAAH' as we took off was a bit of a giveaway, as were the white knuckles any time we hit some turbulence. Matt picked us up, came home, got ready for bed.
Was going to give Graeme a ring just to let him know we were back - found out he and a bunch of the crew had gone out for tea for some people's birthdays, told them to drop around afterwards for a bit if they felt like it. Then they did, and then we found out some other people were going into town, and so we went and met up with them. Not the sanest thing to do after the amount of sleep we hadn't had in the last few days, but it was damn good to see people again.
Since then...gone back to work, the store is now open (K-mart, if I haven't mentioned it before), that all seems okay. Had superleague the weekend after we got back, I'm playing mens 2 this year and we won 7 and drew 1 out of 8 games - had a ball doing it, so we're all happy. Jess's team won 5 of their 8, so not too shabby either.
That's really about it. Long update for me, but stuff actually happened, so don't expect this to be the norm, in case you were scared of that happening :P