The 9 to 5 Grind

Hi all, Here's a quick update (well quick for me!) on what we've been up to since the last blog... The weekend before last we had a party at our flat which was a blast. Don't know how we partied til 3am without the neighbours complaining, because there was bad dancing and worse singing to be had which can't have pleasant for them to put up with lol! Our flatmates are a pretty cool bunch and are neat to chat to at the end of each day and hang out with watching tv. Last Saturday Ryan and I went along to a double header at Twickenham for the Guinness Premiership with the four London teams playing. Went with ourold Pommy flatmate James, his gf Katie and some others. Fun day out all round even if the weather was average (as per). We saw two games for £15 each - bargain! First up was London Wasps (reigning champs from 2007) vs London Irish, who we we're supporting just cos they were the underdogs. There were a few familiar faces in the team line-ups, including Southland's own Clarke Dermody as prop for the Irish, ex-Highlander Seilala Mapusua, Mark Robinson as halfback for the wasps. London Irish supported by their drummers in the grandstand (like the Warriors back home) won out on the day. In the second game up, our adopted team, Harlequins (just because they're closest team to where we live) took on Saracens. Again more familiar faces with Nick Evans at 10 for Harlequins and Chris Jack at 6 (I know, I know, he's a lock, but they're playing him at 6, so go figure) for Saracens. Scrappier game than the first and who should be the ref, but the man die hard AB fans love to hate, Wayne Barnes! (He does know how to stick his arm out for advantage and what the signal is for a penalty shot at goal. You may beg to differ, but I have photographic proof). Our team eventually came out on top in a close game, 24 - 21 (or thereabouts). There was a big crowd of 52,000 for the first game up in the Guinness Premiership and was a good atmosphere. When the Mexican wave started up I thought the wee kids in front of us were going to wee themselves with excitement! I took note of somethings that the NZRFU should jot down for The final in 2011. 1) Twickenham is in the middle of suburbia. This is not a valid excuse for Eden Park. 2) They didn't shut off the main road near the stadium, but the smart Londoners largely stayed off the roads. They did shut the smaller roads so the crowds could walk down them to and from the game. 3) Twickenham is ugly on the outside but pretty darn functional - they have stairs AND escalators to get the masses up to their seats. At the end of the game, they reverse the escalators to get everyone down and out of the stadium. 4) Some smart bugger has put lids on the plastic beer cups for when you carry 4 back to your seats at once in one of those coffee cup holder thingys. 5) They had trains leaving the nearest station every 4 minutes after the game. Now it may be too late to retro-fit Eden Park with escalators but I reckon we can give the rest a shot, especially seeing as the final will have only another 8000 people than what were at the games we went to. Food for thought. On Monday I officially gave up that lady of leisure lark. And am back into a Monday to Friday, 9 - 5 grind. Actually its more like 9.30am - 7.30pm. Which is a long day on your feet for most of it. Am so outta practice at standing all day in a retail position! Have done Monday and Tuesday so far and then was rostered off today. Learnt lots of management, KPI's, financial reports, etc on Monday, but didn't get shown how to put through a transaction on the til computers, and haven't been given my training on the products Kathmandu sell, so am as useless as tits on a bull when a customer asks me which jacket/footwear they need for a super windy island off Britain/walking on the Inca trail for 4 days and they expect me (and rightfully so) to be an expert and to have an opinion or suggestion for them. On Tuesday I got shown how to open the store, keys, alarms, lights, music, fans, opening safe, running reports and updating ledger from previous days sales, sorting til floats etc etc. Then at end of (long) day got shown how to close the shop up. Opening again tomorrow. Bit nervous about pending first day on my own when Myriam (manager) wont be there to hold my hand! Staff discount is heaps, will be brilliant for getting some gear for Egypt/Turkey for absolute peanuts. Working Thurs, Fri, Sat and then have Sunday off. Today on my rostered day off, I had a job interview with one of the Council's in west London (good for commute from where we live), the London Borough of Hounslow (on the way out to Heathrow). My agent who got me the interview at Dartford Council, also got me this one. He put my CV forward last Thursday quick smart so it was one of the first CV's they saw, and called me on Friday to say they wanted to interview me. One day to make this shortlist decision is speedy by anyone's standards probably, but is truly outstanding for one of the London borough Council's given the convoluted recruitment process they have! Murphy's law that as soon as I start a job, I get an interview with a Council. Lucky I was rostered off or would have had to make an excuse such as a 'doctors' appointment to get off work which would not have been a good look 3 days into the job! Feck, oh well. Council job is paying twice that of the retail assistant manager. Which makes me not feel so bad if I have to leave Kathmanud after only a week. Waiting to hear if got job. Should hear by end of Thursday. Ryan is still slaving away on 12 hour days at Westfield. They think now that the job may last until December. I'm glad he's getting a break this week coming, cos on Thursday we're off to Munich! Woop woop!! Exciting!!! Back 6 days later on the Tuesday. Expect a big blog sometime after that! But this is it for now. Love to you all, Rach and Ryan

Do you know what an Okapi is??

Hi again all!

I seem to be getting frighteningly regular at this blog lark! Well it may not last. I finally have better things to do with my time. Such as earning the pound. That's right some of these £.

£££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

Yes, I emailed some of you in my excitement about finally joining the taxed workforce and contributing to the GDP of Great Britain (and they do like to emphasis the GREAT part, having finished about 3rd on that Olympic medal tally thing), but some of might not have heard the good news! I am employed. As an Assistant Manager of Kathmandu. Doesn't that sound flash. Yahoo! Yup, after 2 interviews, each as laid back as each other, I am venturing back into the world of retail that supported me through my student days. I spent way more time getting to each interview, than I did being interviewed! I start at the Covent Garden Kathmandu store on Sept 8. Store hours are 10am - 7pm so am guessing my hours will be that or similar. Have a week of induction at Covent Garden and then they will decide whether I stay at that store or move to the Spitafields store. I will be pulling for Covent Garden as its on the Piccadilly line, which I can take from my local station and is only about 30 mins away. The Spitafields store will see me travel a bit further.

So it's not what I came here to do, but beggars can not be choosers. I will keep my agents looking for planning work for me (don't tell Kathmandu!) and if I secure any interviews I will have to come up with a suitable excuse for a couple of hours off work. One agent suggested I tell Kathmandu I am of poorly health before I start work, so that if I have some 'doctor' or 'dentist' appointments they don't begin to ask questions. I like the way he thinks. However, the interviews for planning work have been so few and far between I don't think I am going to raise any suspicions over regular 'doctor' appointments!

While I'm on the job topic, it would seem it never rains but it pours. (Though the drought in planning land continues). No sooner had I had my second Kathmandu interview, than the agency Ryan works through let us know that their secretary is heading home so a vacancy had come up, that I could fill. I spoke to the director of the company and provided my CV. The catch was they want someone for a year or more, and aren't very flexible for people wanting to take off for a week or long weekend or a van tour of Europe. They told me to think it over and decide what our travel plans are and see if I can commit to it. Then I got the call to say I had the Kathmandu job. So I told Construct Recruitment this and they decided that they could accommodate my travel plans and take me for 9 months or so (til we will be taking off round Europe) and did I want their job instead of Kathmandu. So I thought about it some more, and decided to stick with Kathmandu. Couple of reasons really. If a planning job doesn't turn up (heaven forbid, for the entire time we're here!) then there is more scope to move up the ladder at Kathmandu (good) and they have quarterly salary reviews (good) and they have exciting plans for world dominance (well at least mass expansion into the UK) so there is scope for more responsibility. Also Kathmandu has the fabulous uniform of jeans and t-shirt, meaning I don't need to splash £ on office work clothes. And staff discount will come in handy for travel gear!

So come the beginning of fall (i.e Autumn) I will be back to work. I think I may have forgotten how. Speaking of Autumn, we are a couple of days away from the end of a summer that never began. No really. August has been one cloudy day after another. Glad we didn't come for the climate. Can't begin to think what its like in winter. Do they dispense pills for SAD? You know, that seasonal disorder from lack of sun, and too much gloomy wintery-ness.

Ryan had his first 12 hour day yesterday. The beginning of two months. Its cos he's working on the White City Westfield, which I'm guessing (cos our flatmate Paula who works in a lingerie store is due to start retail work there in October) is under some pressure to be completed! In a backwards sort of way, the guys at Construct put Ryan onto the job to be nice to him - so he can make some great money.

Ryan's mate from school, Claire, who we went out with last Saturday, and I went to London Zoo on Thursday. It cost £17 which is comparable to the cost of going to Auckland Zoo. Auckland Zoo is better. But the London Zoo has an Okapi. Do you know what an Okapi is? No? Neither did Claire or I. It was my favourite animal just because I'd never heard of or seen one before! An Okapi looks like a cross between a zebra and horse and giraffe. Look it up on Wikipedia. Briefly it would seem that the Okapi is a relative of the Giraffe, and whilst it has a shorter neck, it shares the same unbelievably long flexible blue tongue (try 30cm). It can wash its eyelids, and clean its ears (outside AND in) with its tongue. It has markings on its back legs like a zebra, and the rest of its body is dark like a dark horse. It comes from some rainforest in the Congo, and while it was only discovered by Europeans about a 100 yrs ago (it was thought that it was an African unicorn) its been known to ancient civilisations for about 2500 yrs.

Aside from the Okapi, we also saw Camels, Gorillas!, Toucans, Warthogs (hakuna matata), Penguins, and giant Anteaters. These were other highlights, as hadn't come across them before. And the Meerkats were cute and funny as always!

But Claire and I were both a bit disappointed with the quality of the zoo and its enclosures, both size wise and quality of the replicated environments. Some notable omissions were Elephants, Baboons, Bears, any cats other than Lions and Tigers, any fish bigger than a penguin (Auckland has seals which are always great to watch swimming and playing). This zoo has a LOT of birds and monkeys. But it was a pretty good avo out anyways, and we still managed to spend 4 hours there without realising.

We're having a party at our flat this Saturday, so that should be good. And am getting super excited that its less than 3 weeks til Munich and Oktoberfest! Awesome!

We were also super excited to get the news yesterday morning that Regan and Nicole welcomed a gorgeous baby girl into their family! Thank goodness for the beauty of emails and pictures over the internet or we would feel so disconnected from all the exciting happenings back home!

Thats about it for now folks. I've got one more week before I start work at Kathmandu, so maybe now I will get around to writing a bit of a scribble on the backs of the postcards I have on my dresser for ya'll...

Rach and Ryan

A weekend of Speights, Banana fritters and Jerk Chicken

Well lord you'll never guess where we went last night. I am almost ashamed to admit it. Hmm should I tell you. We went to the infamous group of pubs fondly called the 'Walky' or the Walkabout. On their website they claim to be the 'coolest Australian bars this side of the planet and prides itself on providing customers with an authentic Australian experience.' The Walkabout offers good food, live sports and music with an Australian twist, including all the latest Rock hits plus the best anthems from the last three decades. It was like stepping back in time. About 5 years in fact. To a time when my weekends consisted of drinking at various places, like for instance The Bowler, KC's, The Outback etc. And when Ryan's consisted of going to The Shed. You get the picture. The pubs have sticky floors, filthy toilets, and play timeless tunes from Guns and Roses etc. This was like that. We walked in and I nearly fell over each time I took a step I was stuck to the floor so bad. Away from the range of new beers to try and back in familiar territory, Ryan caved in and soon had a speights in his hand. We sat down with our drinks, looked around, before looking at each other in horror. It was a meat market and everyone was up for some friendly trans-Tasman relations. We proceeded to drown several drinks to forget where we were and spent the rest of the night on the sweaty sleazy dance floor . We rolled home at 2pm and stayed in bed til midday. I think I regressed to my student days! It all came about because we headed out last night to catch up with an old school friend of Ryan's, Claire and her partner Michael at the Boathouse (one of our fav more classy pubs). It was cool to meet Claire properly as I've met her a couple of times with Ryan before, and they're both great fun people. This last week has also seen us move flats. We moved last weekend, after borrowing our old flatmates smart car. Not so smart, no pun intended! as the lack of a back seat and pretend boot meant it took 3 trips to move our gear. We've settled into our new place which is only a few minutes from the first. Its cosy (read smaller) but that also means its cheaper than what we were paying (£680 per month including utilities) which is pretty alright really. Don't convert it to NZ dollars! Our new flatmates are great. There's another kiwi couple, Dave and Lucy. Dave's from Blenhaim and studied physio at Otago, the same years I was at uni. Lucy is a teacher and comes from Chch. We've got an Australian guy Finn who is a sparky and so laid back he's almost horizontal. His sister Emily is staying with us at the moment too. And for our token European we've an Italian gal named Paula (pronounced Powla) who works in a lingerie store and at a pub. Apart from Paula whose 27 and me a year younger, everyone else is 25. Dave and Lucy only got back this weekend from a 3 week camping trip round Spain but they seem pretty neat so far. We're having flat drinks and nibbles next weekend. Guess that'll be our welcome do! Ryan is finished his 3 weeks up in Chalk Farm working on house. On Tuesday after the long weekend he's moving to a new site for 2 months, working in White City. It's the closest site to where we're living that he's had so far. We think he'll be working at the massive new Westfield mall being built there, as his brief for the job is that he'll be doing 2nd fix stuff and shop joinery. While I'm talking about jobs, I've got an interview on Tuesday at Kathmandu for an assistant manager position. I had an initial interview Thursday just gone for either a sales assistant position or for the assistant managers position. The guy asked what I wanted to try for and said he thought I'd be good as assistant manager, and that if I got it, they'd start me off in their Covent Garden store which is their smallest. So I'm going for the assistant manager position. Twas easier to get an interview for this than a planning interview. Saw it advertised on TNT, put in my CV one day and had the interview the next. So will see how the second interview goes. Other than our big night on Friday, this weekend saw us heading off to the Notting Hill Carnival, a massive multi-cultural festival. Its the largest street party in Europe, with more than 1.5 million people going over 2 days! There are dozens of masquerade bands with elaborate and colorful costumes who parade around a 3.5-mile route, and heaps of sound systems, playing reggae, jazz, soul, hip-hop, house and garage. There are hundreds of street stalls selling exotic foods, including curried goat, jerk chicken and banana fritters!

We took along a bag of Strongbow, which is dirt cheap cider, cos there's no bans on drinking on the streets at the festival! We saw heaps of great costumes and music. It was so packed that it was just one big crowd and crush moving in one direction along the pavements. We've got a link on the blog to our carnival festival pics so you can check out the fab costumes. It was pretty cool! It's only a month til Oktoberfest which we're looking forward to and at the end of September we've got Cat and Aaron coming to stay for a week, which we're really looking forward to as well! Think that's about for now really.

From Pillar to Post...

Hi all, So after being in our flat for about 7 weeks, we are moving out. We've kinda been looking since mid July, for something a little cheaper, having the luxury of an en-suite is expensive (the 2 smaller rooms without en-suite's in our flat are paying more than £200 per month less than us and the other en-suite bedroom!) We don't need it that much! We had found a flat to move into but the day before we were to do the paperwork and money, the people advertising the room called to say that their flatmates had unbeknown to them, had decided not to move out and had in fact resigned for another 6 months, so the room was no longer available! So damn annoying. So we were back to searching for a new place. Our minds were made up about moving out, when the weekend after going to Barcelona, we came home at midday on Sunday with our groceries, to find our kiwi couple flatmates with some friends in our kitchen ingesting a powdery substance into a bodily orifice! We were a little shocked at the openness of this recreational activity, the timing and the place. Now if we'd seen such goings-ons in a pub or club toilet at night, then I'd imagine that it wouldn't have bothered us. We're kinda sad to be moving out as its a neat flat and our other two flatmates, Bec's (she's new, an Aussie), and James, our token Pom in the flat, are really great people. But we've found a cheaper flat about 3 mins walk up the road, still sharing with 6 people all up (including us), again another kiwi couple, an Australian guy and again a token local/European - an Italian. Don't know names yet! Another reason for moving was because the lease runs out at the end of October and cos we're not on the lease we've no idea whether it will be renewed or not. We've got our name on the lease at our new flat until April which suits us well, as we're planning to start doing most of our travel from April onwards. We're losing the luxury of the en-suite, and of having 2 kitchens/living areas, but its reflected in the good price, £680 for rent and all bills, which over here is not just electricity, gas, Internet, but also includes TV license (yes that thing that NZ got rid off years ago), water (I think only Aucklander's pay for this back home, certainly down south its unheard of and laughed at), and Council rates (cos the landlords don't pay it here for some reason). To put that in perspective, we were paying over £900 pound per month at our first flat for rent and bills. Don't convert it to NZ dollars, its frightening, and if you are tempted then don't forget to convert the weekly wage into NZ dollars, which makes it all okay. Anyway, our new bedroom is on the first floor and the house has carpet instead of wooden floors, which I'm sure we'll be glad of in winter. Our bedroom in the first flat was half beneath ground level (lots of rooms are like that over here, which I guess explains how on average they cram 5000 people into every square kilometre of London, and in some places up to 16,000 people). Cos the new flat is very close to this one, we're still in Zone 2, so still close to the central city, and still in the suburb of Hammersmith. So we're moving from one quiet street to another, will do pictures soon and will also let everyone know our new address once we find out what our postcode will be. Not sure if we have a landline at the new place. Ryan tells me that our soccer team that we will be supporting will be Fulham! We're a couple of minutes closer to the Hammersmith tube station with it's 3 tube lines. Aside from the flat move, Ryan has shifted to a new building site, on June 13. One of the other Construct recruitment guys he's mate's with from his first job has also been shifted to the same site. It's cos the hotel refurb they were working on is waiting for the next stage of chippie work to start, so there's a bit of a lull in chippie work on the site for a month, so the last 3 chippies hired have been put onto other work for now. The lull in work is pretty much cos of the way the Brit's do things, they prefer to finish the work on one floor of the hotel before starting on the next floor, so rather than have the labourers head up to the next floor to start the prep work for the chippies to then follow behind and do their work, they have the labourers mucking around sweeping and shit on the floor they're finishing, which then creates a lag time between the chippies finishing their work on one floor and the next floor being ready for them to work on. Daft Poms. Anyways, so Ryan and his mate Deano (Aussie, if you couldn't tell by the 'o' at the end of his name! are working up in north London on a house with a whole bunch of Polish guys. Neither of them are minding the change, as they're doing some actual building, like laying floors and stuff, rather than the mind-numbingly boring work at the hotel. This site has work for about a month, by which time, the next stage at the hotel should be ready for chippies again. We had drinks with all the flatmates at our local the Friday before last, which was good fun and provided some entertaining moments. Vicky, our 29 yr old peroxide blond kiwi hairdresser (yes one of the powder ingesting duo) had knocked back a bottle of wine on her own before we left, had one wine at the pub, tripped over walking out to the garden bar and failed miserably at telling the bouncer that she wasn't drunk, but that her flip flop had tripped her up (flip flop -what is she, an Aussie or a kiwi?) So her bf Paul carried her out through the hedge surrounding the garden bar and took her home. James and Ryan put away a few pints, and having the munchies when they got home, James cooked Ryan up a mean pasta dish at 1am. After Ryan struggled through a half day of Saturday work, he crashed into bed for a couple of hours kip before we headed down to the Boathouse, a great pub in Putney for birthday drinks for his workmate Deano. But the lasting effects proved to much and we headed home early and watched some DVD's with James instead. More recently, we caught up with one of the girls I used to work with at HG in Auckland, to celebrate her bday. She had dinner and drinks at an Italian place, Carluccios, and it was great to catch up with her, and some other friends from HG who are over here. Even London can be small, as we found out that one of the other HG girls is living on the street where we are moving to, and another of Renee's friends lives one street over. Last weekend was pretty quiet for us, I spent the time cramming in as much info as I could about the UK planning system, as I'd found out on Friday that I had an interview with a Council on Tuesday. Didn't spend 5 years at Uni for nothing, if not to learn how to cram! So I swotted up on the Council and UK planning and was as prepared as I could be (all for a 30 min casual interview!). The interview on Tuesday went well, aside from the first question/statement being 'So you don't have any UK experience?'. My agent who got me the interview called me afterwards for a bit of a de-brief on how I thought it went, and said he'd try and get some feedback from the Council on what their thoughts of me were, and that I should know their decision by end of Wednesday. My agent called on Wed, to let me know that the Council had offered it to another candidate over me, due to the UK experience thing, but that the candidate hadn't accepted it yet, so had been given til the end of the week to take it, and if they didn't then the council were 90% sure they would then offer it to me. Was gutted, its kinda like getting 4th at the Olympics. Being the next choice doesn't count for much unless something happens to the person in front of you; caught in a drugs test, or not taking the offered position! Friday has rolled around, and hadn't heard that the chosen candidate had taken it, so contacted my agent at the end of the day, and waiting to hear back (probably on Monday now) whether they took the job or not. Don't know whether to cling to any hope that no news is good news, and that they didn't take the position, or forget about it. This weekend will be moving, so don't expect to be doing a great deal. Will be watching our NZ rowers though! And also the rugby which is on at 2pm on Saturday. Next weekend is a long weekend with a Bank holiday on the Monday, so we're probably going to take the opportunity to get out of London and head off to Bath or Stonehenge, or Stratford-upon-Avon, Brighton or somewhere for a look. Not sure what a Bank holiday is in aide of, but its a holiday none-the-less! That's all for now, will give you our new contact details when we know them.

Lucha de Bull, Paella, sangría, sol caliente y la Sagrada Familia

(Bull fighting, Paella, Sangria, hot sunshine and the Sagrada Familia)

Hola,

Well July has almost passed by, cannot believe how quickly time is going by - it's mad, mad, mad. Well we've shed the familiarity of London and mid-way through the month we jetted out to tapas, sangria, bullfighting and pickpockets ... that is Barcelona, Spain!

Friends of ours, Cat and Aaron are winding up their van tour of Europe in early August, so they invited us to come spend a long weekend with them either in Barcelona, Amsterdam or a mid-weeker in Paris. We opted for Barcelona and booked some flights there for a 4 day weekend!

And Barcelona was great, as was seeing Cat and Aaron! We were up at an ungodly hour of the morning to get out to the airport by 6am (will book better flight times for the next trip!) But can you believe it, its less than 2hrs flight to Barcelona - that's quicker than Auckland to Invers!

Met Cat and Aaron at airport and after a drive to the nearest town for food and liquid supplies we head to the camping ground which is in Castelldefels, 20km south of Barcelona on the coast. The camp is right on Castelldefels beach, and in amongst heaps of trees which prove so handy for sheltering from the hot Spanish sun! The beach is brilliant, no pebbles here, and no need for flags to swim between! After a dip in the Mediterranean, we spend the avo in and by the pool in the camp and typically I get my first dose of sunburn in Barcelona!

On Saturday we headed into the centre of town on the bus. Wander down the main street, La Rambla, which is a mad house, heaps of street performers, flower stalls, people selling live animals - chickens, rabbits, birds of all kinds etc, souvenir stalls. Duck into a market off to the side of the street, which is massive, hundreds of stalls, the farmers markets back home have nothing on this! Heaps of fresh fruit, vege, meat, fish, cheeses! Find out later that La Boqueria is Barcelona's most famous food market.

At the end of La Rambla is Monument a Colam or Estatua de Colon - hopefully you can gather that we have reached a monument or statue! Statue of Columbus as it turns out, commemorating his return to Spain after discovering the Americas. From here we cross into Barcelona's port/marina, Port Vell (old Port) which was sprussed up for the 1992 Olympics - beaches of sand created, palm trees planted, the whole lot. Fairly typical marina - food places, shops etc. On the way to Barcelona Cathedral we come across a remaining section of Roman wall and defence towers - from the second enclosing of Barcelona, then known as Barcino in the 4th century - soooo old! And we thought London was old! Barcelona cathedral is covered in scaffolding :(

We walk over to Barcelona's Arc de Triomf (said to be better than the Paris version). The arch is the entrance to Parc (Park - see Spanish is easy!) de la Ciutadella. The park dates from the late 1860s, and has a cool cascade fountain, Catalyan parlament (parliament), lake (complete with manky green water), paths, gardens, museums etc.

We catch the metro over to Sagrada Familia, the symbol of Barcelona, started in 1882 and not finished yet!! They reckon they'll finally finish the roof in 2010 and the whole thing by 2030. Our 10 euro is a drop in the bucket of the 10 million euro they take in from tourists each year, and which hopefully will go someway toward finishing it...

The church does take your breath away when you step up out of the metro station and its right across the street. You stop in your tracks and other commuters getting out of the station bump into you, its a 'wow' moment! Anyway, the church is actually kinda boring inside, though this is relative to its indescribable outside. We line up for an hour and pay another 2 euro to catch the lift up one of the eight 100m high bell towers. The wait is worth it, with fabulous 360 degree views of Barcelona and out to sea and up close views of the church. Inside the bell tower we crane our necks up and see that the bells are actually speakers - cheats! Tis said the church will be the 8th wonder of the world.

Heading home and eating not much before midnight, we have quickly and unintentionally slotted right into Spanish time and the way of doing things!

We have another beach day and then back into town for another day's sightseeing on Monday. We walk to the side of Parc (Park remember? - I have taught you all some Catalan!) Parc de Montjuic, an enormous mountain park rising about the town of Barcelona and containing all the Olympic stuff (and other stuff). We catch the cable cars to the top where there is Castell (yup castle) de Montjuic - a castle from 1640. It was used for years as a prison and torture centre for political prisoners and is pretty grim and dull, save for more great views of the city and coast. We walk over to the Olympic stadium. We go by the Museu Nacional d'Art - presumably the National Museum of Art. Impressive palatial looking building sitting at the top of masses of stairs and a symmetrical layout of water fountains (photos will explain this awful description!). There's a drought, so none of the fountains are going unfortunately.

We head over to Placa Monumental - one of the most prestigious bullrings in Spain, dating from 1914. Its the only bullring in Barcelona at the moment, and whilst once it was probably on the outskirts, its now smack in the middle of town! It comes complete with protest slogans painted on the footpath outside ('stay away' and paint splatters to represent blood). From here we walk to Barcelona's version of the London Gherkin (not sure who had it first...). We dined on Spanish cuisine, tapas, paella and oooh pitchers of Sangria (yum!)

And that was our fabulous break away in Spain! Soooo hot and sunshiney! Like 30 degrees, but bearable due to the see breeze that kept you from melting!

Less exciting news is that am still job hunting. Still holding out for a job in town planning, as the money will make the wait worthwhile. Think £15 per hour minimum, possibly more like £18 - £20, and increasing after each contract (typically 3 months). Do you know being unemployed while its sunny is kinda like being a student (either bunking class on hot days or over the summer break, take your pick!). And since we got back from Barcelona the weather has been stunning!! High 20's and 31 degrees yesterday. Sorry to those back home in NZ nursing chilblains and going to bed with the electric blanket on!

Have another couple of agents to help me in my quest to become employed, so will see how that goes and if it throws anymore opportunities my way. Fingers crossed. Got shortlisted for a permanent job that I put an application in for, but the interview was less than an hour after we flew back in from Spain, so couldn't make it. Tried to get it changed, or to change flights, but neither worked. Thems the breaks. Least am on right track with CV etc.

Ryan's work is chugging along on the hotel refurbishment.

Back at start of July we moved into our new flat and have settled in. All of the aussies moved out and ourselves and another Kiwi couple (Paul and Vicky) moved in. Jamie, our Welsh flatmate who outlasted the aussies, is still in the flat (though is moving out cos he has a looonng commute to work), and after a couple of weeks we had a Pom James (sans for now, girlfriend Katie) move into the top bedroom. We all get along well, and went out for some pints at our local last night.

Off to Munich for 6 days for the opening weekend of Oktoberfest. Given I'm much more of a wino fan than beers, this is definitely more Ryan's thing than mine, but am sure it will be a blast! Strangely, we're off to Oktoberfest in September...

Also looking at tours to Egypt for later in the year when the English winter sets in. We're also heading off to Cardiff for a weekend in Nov to watch the AB's play Wales.

Went for a jaunt down to Greenwich last weekend, beaut wee village, absolutely bustling with crowds for a Saturday french market, tasted some delicious marinated red pepper stuffed with feta - mmmm, chocolate waffles. Found a candy store with jars of lollies up to the ceiling, like the one in Willy Wonker. Walked under the Thames. Yes under. There's a tunnel like over a 100 years old under the river from the Canary Wharf side to Greenwich meantime side. And I swear we saw some water seepage inside the tunnel!! Dodgy?

Went for a stroll round Hyde Park one Sunday avo, and horror of all horrors saw old men in speedos lying about. Shudder. So tis true - people use it as their beach. Looks like a great place for a lazy Sunday afternoon picnic listening to the band play and relaxing. Thought not near any old men in speedos!

Somewhere in amongst all of that I got another year older too. Am into the depressing generic 26-39 age bracket that survey's have! Thanks for the cards, emails and posts on Facebook :)

Thats all folks,

Rach and Ryan

First month in London

Hi again all!

Well time is flying by, we've almost been here a month! In our second week Ryan meet some guys who run Construct Recruitment and place Kiwi and Aussie builders onto sites in central London. They have about 150 guys on their books and you can be put onto a site for either as long as the project lasts or until you want to take a week off to jet off to Europe. They replace you on site with someone who is coming back from their week in Europe, and then when you come back, they'll find you work again. Seems perfect for what we're doing! They kitted Ryan out with all the PPE gear, and 3 t-shirts and will give him a hoodie when it gets colder - sweet deal!

At the end of our second week we watched Changing of the Guard which was neat, with all the pomp that accompanies the old guard changing shifts with the new guard. Was quite amusing when the old guards band broke out playing the theme tune to Thunderbirds, and the new guards band responded with the James Bond theme! After the ceremony we found 2 young Queen's guards, guarding a side entrance to the palace, so we got the obligatory photo taken. Not quite like the movies though, you can't wear the guards big black hat or play the fool with them or anything like that, you can't even touch the guards as we found out!! Walked around Waterloo Place & saw the statues to the Crimea War, including Florence Nightingale. Some of the city parks here are full of deck chairs for people to lounge about it. Poor buggers, obviously wish they had a nice beach close by! Saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament - all very amazing!

Veronica, an old mate from high school, arrived on the 13th, and the following day the 3 of us were up early to go watch the Trooping the Colour for the Queen's bday. There were masses of people there, but we got a good posse opposite where all the bands and Queen's guard performed the ceremony. Saw all the royals arrive by carriage, Camilla with Wills and Harry, Princess Anne, Charlie, HRH herself and Prince Phillip! After the ceremony we headed up to Buckingham Palace and watched the whole whanua wave from the balcony!! The royal air force do flyovers the palace in formation at the end of the ceremony which is neat. We also go by 10 Downing St, but its blocked off at both ends by security gates and half a dozen police. :( Btw, George Bush came to visit the next day, and we hear that 800 police guard the ends of Downing St!!! Overkill?

Caught up with Jess, an old mate from uni, over all you can eat Hell Pizza (not sure if Hell Pizza has made its way into many South Island towns?) for £5. Ryan ate way too much pizza, as one should when its an all you can eat deal!! The pizza (esp the desert pizza) was superb, as was catching up with Jess after a couple of years!

Ryan started work at the Royal Horse Guards Hotel, just down the road from Buckingham Place and the Houses of Parliament back on the 17th. Beck Interiors are running the refurbishment of the hotel for the Olympics, and reckon there could be 6 months work for Ryan, so will see how that pans out. He's working 8am (sweet!) to 6pm (not so sweet) and is finding it pretty good so far. There's other guys there from Construct Recruitment, mainly Aussies, as well as lots of other nationalities.

The work front is a bit quiet for me at the moment. Stink. Mainly bcos the global credit crunch and a downturn in the England housing market is causing the Council's to see a drop off in the volume of household applications they're processing, which is making them consider taking on contract staff carefully. But the recruitment agencies working for me have told me to sit tight and not head back to NZ just yet!! They both reckon I'll be able to pick up a position when someone from NZ or Oz heads home. Also old workmates from HG working here, reckon the first job is the hardest to get as you have no UK experience. In the meantime I've been doing more sightseeing with Veronica while Ryan's working.

A couple of Wednesdays ago, Vee and I picked up cheap tickets for the matinee session of Les Miserables. Which was awesome!! Very London of us, going to the theatre! We wandered the streets around Piccadilly, finding the fab wee Piccadilly market! The following day we did a different kind of theatre, checking out the Globe Theatre (where Shakespeare's plays were written and performed! We get dirt cheap (£2.50) standing tickets to the afternoon show, doing what all the poor of London used to do, and stand to watch the play from in front of the stage (called Goundlings) in Shakespeare time. The play, The Merry Wives of Windsor is 3 hours long, so we're fair knackered from standing afterwards!

The following day, we'd had enough of standing, so opted for something different, and went to watch parliament in session at the House of Commons. I didn't realise, but the Parliament is housed in the Palace of Westminster, and there is a hall at its entrance which dates from like 1099, and is where Sir William Wallace had his trial in 1305 and where the royals, most recently the Queen mum, lie in state. There were bugger all MP's in the chamber on a Friday at midday, but there were a few from the opposition giving the government minister present hell over a bill designed to audit the costs and benefits of being a member of the EU. Enthralling stuff it was not. We stopped off at Abbey Road on our way home, and snuck some quick pics of ourselves marching across the pedestrian crossing outside EMI records, ah la, the cover of the Beatles Abbey Road record!

The 3 of us watched the AB's thrash the Poms in the second test and as the weather was pretty shit (for the first time since arriving though mind you), we checked out the Tate Modern. We left sure in our opinion that modern art is a crock, that we would all be capable of producing something fit for the Tate Modern, and bloody glad it was free to get it! We rounded off our Saturday, in typical London style, down at the pub for tea and pints watching Euro 2008. Soccer is kinda growing on me lol!

I spent the first 3 days of last week flat hunting. Looked at something mad like 25 places over the 3 days, mostly all double studios for just the two of us, before deciding to share a flat instead. We had to be out of the hostel by this Sunday just gone, so took a room in a flat we liked and organised to move in on Sunday.

Last Thursday, Vee and I treated ourselves to a posh avo tea at the Dorchester Hotel. Champagne, finger sandwiches (yes including cucumber and cream cheese), scones with jam and clotted cream (does the cream go on top or beneath the jam??) and delicious cakes. Ooh la la.

On Friday we keenly headed off to Wimbledon, not really knowing what to expect. We got there at midday, and hit the end of the queue and were given a queue card showing us to be approximately the 9000th person to arrive and join the queue. We queued for a couple of hours, deciding to leave when the drizzle started, but not before quizzing the stewards on a good time to arrive the following morning to get in. We stocked up on food and drink for queueing on Saturday, including the must have strawberries and left the hostel at 5am, catching the tube and arriving at 6.30am. We were dismayed to see the queue of campers in front of us, but stoked when our queue cards are numbered in the 3000's. We're guaranteed to get in on a Ground Pass for £20 and be able to watch any games on courts 3 - 19. Kiwi Marina Erakovic is playing first up at 12pm on Court 11, yahoo! We kill time in the queue before the gates open at 10.30 by reading mags and newspaper and get into the grounds at 11am, make our way to Court 11 and get awesome seats amongst all the other Kiwis. Marina lost in a close 3-setter, but it was definitely a game that was hers for the taking. We watched some bits of other games and then at 5pm headed to the re-sale office to queue once more for second hand £5 tickets to centre court to watch Nadal play Kiefer. Got in about 7.30pm when it was about 5-4 in the first set. Centre Court was AWESOME as was watching Nadal play!

On Sunday we moved outta the hostel and into a flat in Fulham/Hammersmith. Its about 10 mins walk from the Hammersmith tube stations, which is handy for Ryan to get to work. Its a really nice area and nice flat. There's another kiwi couple, a Welsh guy and an Aussie, who is moving out on Thurs and filling his room with someone else. We've got a big bedroom and en-suite and there's 2 kitchen / living rooms, one downstairs which we use and one upstairs. Its nice to be outta the hostel, not sure how long we'll stay as the lease is only until end of October.

That's about it for now, I promise that I'll try and get some pictures up on our blog and facebook!

Catch ya'll later, and keep the emails from home coming.

In'nt sick, fing is we in London!!

Translation: Isn't it great, thing is we're in London!! Hi! Yup after visiting most of you before we left (which was great by the way!!) we arrived last Wednesday, dead on our feet from the killer of a flight. Left some tearful parents behind in Christchurch airport to board our flight to here via Singapore. I watched an unhealthy amount of romantic comedies, while Ryan overdosed on action movies (thank christ for individual TV screens!). We arrived into Singapore, and thought, hey maybe this long haul flying thing isn't as bad as everyone makes out. Fools, fools!! We killed 6 hrs in Singapore airport (missing the free 2 hr tour of the city by 30 mins), checking out all the wonders of duty free shopping - giant tolberones and enormous bottles of booze, as well as the hard out security guys hiding behind fully grown gum trees planted inside the airport with automatic guns at the ready! We boarded our plane round 11pm for the second leg of the flight (3am NZ time!) and quickly discovered plane seats are not made for sleeping. The next 13 hrs passed. Ever so slowly. And then we arrived into Heathrow! (At 6am London time). We made our way on the train to Paddington and then to our hostel. We discovered we'd been bumped from a double room into a studio of our own for the first 5 days - nice room and seemed like a nice area (found out today that Willesden Green, where we stayed is considered one of the 'rough' areas, but coming from Manurewa, we didn't notice!!). We've since been transferred to a different building one suburb away in Kilburn so that we'll be in the same hostel as Vee when she arrives. Our first day was pretty much a write off. The following day I had 2 interviews with recruitment agencies, as all the Council's in London go through recruitment agencies, with a middle man between the agencies and Council organising the whole recruiting process. We caught the tube into central London. My first interview was close to the Thames, so afterwards we wandered the sides of the Thames taking in the famous London sights we stumbled across - Globe Theatre, Millennium Bridge, Tower of London, Tower Bridge etc. The Thames itself is grotty, so grotty. Never seen a river so brown - ugh! After the second interview we saw Westminster Cathedral and then headed home, pro's on the tube already. The tube, despite being sometimes crowded, (so crowded you could be impregnated by or impregnate strangers, as Ryan found out this morning during rush hour!) and desperately in need of air con, is very easy to use and get around on. Friday we both had interviews in the morning, after which we took in the Gherkin (?) some crazy glass showpiece of modern architecture shaped like, that's right, a gherkin, some amazing Gothic church and then St Paul's Cathedral. I've quickly decided that I LOVE the double decker red buses and the black cabs that dominate London streets, as they continually scream 'you're in London!!!!!!!' to me! Ryans loving the history and all the old buildings and has already decided that soccer is not a bad game to watch (Euro 2008 has just started). We've done some boring stuff like suss out where Ryan can get cheap hand tools from and arrange appointments for our National Insurance numbers. On Saturday we caught up with Krystal which was awesome! Sunday after tea we caught the tube over to Nottinghill just to wander the streets - just cos we could! Yesterday we were in Camden and saw the obligatory punk rockers and other alterno types on the street. Also discovered the wonder of the catalogue store Argos - crazy! For those that don't know its a store where you go in and there's heaps of tables with catalogues, and you thumb through the catalogue for whatever it is you're there to purchase (home goods, furnishings, appliances, electrical/technological stuff, tools, diy, gardening, the list goes on. Once you've decided what you want, you put the reference number for the item down on a piece of paper then go up to some self-serve machine and enter the number, then your chip and pin card to pay (EFTPOS card - Britain is so funny!) and you get a number printed out. The number flashes up on a screen and up go up to a customer services desk, collect your purchase and you're done. Different and great! Today we stumbled across the bell casting shop where Big Ben was created, and then decided to head to Buckingham Palace and watch the changing of the guard and all the royal pomp that goes with that. Didn't have a very good view, so we gonna go back another time and get there earlier. Saw the royal carriages, carrying some dignitary go by, and police on horses! We meet a pom in the crowd who told us that today is Prince Phillips bday, and that to celebrate, there would be a display in Hyde Park with horse drawn cannons, being raced from one end of the field to the other, where there would be a 42 cannon gun salute for his bday, so we went down to the park to watch it, which was great!! Ya don't get that back home! That's about all we've been up to so far, there will be lots more to tell as we see and do more stuff! Btw, they have marmite flavoured chips here. As well as prawn cocktail flavour. We're supporting the homeland by buying some NZ steak! We also found an Aussie pub (thanks Zane!) to watch the rugby in. Dismal game, we're hoping for a better display this week, so we don't suffer any ribbing from the Poms! Right, that's about it for now, at some stage will try and figure out how to put pics on our blog, so watch out for that! Rach and Ryan