The Lovely Irish

Moving on from Bath we headed to the Welsh capital, Cardiff. About the same size as Christchurch so we felt right at home. Accomodation was lovely, right opposite the Millenium Stadium.

Our host was very nice (but sorry Mum, suspect was gay!). Not a heck of a lot to do in Cardiff, but they have a huge castle in the centre of the city - we were too cheap to actually go in.


Took a little bus out to St Fagan's Natural History Museum, just on the outskirts of Cardiff.




Unlike most museums, this is situated on about 100 hectares of land. They've taken a whole lot of buildings from around Wales and plonked them on this site for us all to look at and see how the Welsh lived over the last 300 years or so. Was really interesting and the weather was beautiful so we spent the whole afternoon wandering around.





The Welsh were really friendly and helpful, but could hardly understand a word they were saying! Unfortunately alot of the men aren't particularly good looking and the women cover themselves in makeup and all seem to have a kid hanging off them. Great contrast to what we've experienced in England though!

We were hoping to go have a look at Castell Coch the next morning, but Cardiff is getting a new bus station, and we just couldn't figure out where we were to catch the bus. The directions we were given by the bus information lady weren't that helpful either, even though we had worked up all our courage to ask given that we weren't that sure how to pronounce the name of the castle! Instead, we decided to check out the shopping in the city. Favourite had to be Primark, really cheap clothes, shoes, accessories etc. Got a couple of singlets for only £1 each!! That's about $2.50 - bargain. Spent the afternoon checking out the National Museum of Wales, nice and quiet compared to the British museum and pretty interesting exhibits. Even had a pretty scary Woolly Mammoth that scared the bejesus out of me when it moved!!

We flew from Cardiff to Dublin. Took forever to get from Dublin's airport into town (about 2 hours, when it should have taken about 1/2 hour). Had a typical Irish bus driver who thought he would take a short cut through the rush hour traffic by cutting through the port. He soon realised that that would be possible, so we had a double decker bus doing a seven point turn and holding up some pretty annoyed people trying to get home. Welcome to Ireland!!

This morning we decided to try one of those hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tours (this is after we got horribly lost last night trying to find our accomodation!). The Irish drivers we're very funny, it's like we were paying for stand up comedians plus tour guides all rolled into one. Took in Trinity College, but decided to skip the Book of Kells (queue was very long - must really find out what this Book of Kells actually is, suspect is famous!).

Took in Merrion Square, and the Oscar Wilde memorial. He was born in Dublin, according to our comedic bus driver. Lunch in St Stephen's Green (there you go Stephen, apparantly you were a Saint in another life, who would have thought!). The park seemed really popular with workers at lunchtime. Apparently this was a very important place in the Irish struggle for independence.

We spent a few hours in Kilmainham Gaol (visiting only!). This is a very old prison that saw the executions of a number of the instigators of the Easter uprising in 1916. Fascinating, but didn't want to spend long there - quite an eerie place. Amazingly, people actually committed crimes to get thrown in there, following the potato famine.

Went past the Guinness storehouse. Didn't actually go in, since it would be wasted on us. Huge place though, and didn't seem short of visitors either.

We took in Temple Bar this evening. Only really passed through since it was really starting to fill up after 5pm. Looked like there were a few people who had been there quite awhile already :-)

Tommorrow we spend the morning in Dublin then catch a bus to Belfast. I've liked Ireland a lot, the people really make it though. Probably helped that we've had some sunny weather today, much better than what we had in England. Not that I'm shallow, but Dubliners are a lot better looking than your Cardiff folk - the accents definately help with that though!

By the Sea

Katie came up to visit us on Saturday for our last day in London. We took the opportunity to have a really cheap day and so did all the free stuff. Started out by taking a walk past Westminster Abby and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Pretty impressive buildings much better than our crappy little Beehive! Thames River is pretty dirty though but fits in with the smoggy overcast weather we'd been having. But at least we got to see the real London, even though every one keeps saying that the week before they had beautiful warm sunny weather. Doubt that I believe them though since all we had were cold, overcast and drizzly days!!

Took the tube to the Natural History Museum. Since we have very short attention spans we just went round the main exhibits. Dinosaurs were pretty cool but the 'real-life' T-rex wasn't all that scary. Next port of call was a trip into Harrods. Crazy busy with tourists, sure the Londoners wouldn't be caught dead actually buying anything there. Very extravegant though. Favourite for the day had to be the British museum. The entrance itself is spectacular. The ancient Egyptian exhibit was amazing. Extraordinary that this stuff is so old! Again there were tourists for Africa so we fit right in with our cameras and comfy shoes.

By this stage we were pretty knackered, and my feet absolutely ached (really should have worn my sandals in a bit more!!). So we were pretty happy to take the tube to the Tate Modern which was the final stop for the day. The Tate is a converted power station which houses heaps of modern art. The entrance into the gallery is huge and very minimalist (probably goes with the whole alternative theme!) Only artists I really recognised were Picasso and Monet, so it was a bit wasted on me (the art-lovers will be hating me right now!). Favourite had to be the soap on a rope - very cool 'cause some guy thought it was art to use hundreds of used soap and string them on a rope. I thought this was pretty funny, but like most modern art I'm sure I could have done that myself!!

Next day we took the train to Hove. Hove is about 2 miles from Brighton so they've become incorporated to become known as Brighton & Hove. This is where Rebecca's friend Katie lives and we spent the night at her flat. So nice to get out of hostels, even though we've barely been gone a week! We explored Brighton with Katie and her friend Susanna.

The pier was the first stop (of course). Just as tacky and noisy and colourful as I thought it would be. You really just have to appreciate it for what it is! We spent about 10 mins trying to figure out how the stripy deckchairs folded out - much to the amusement of the locals. Sure it looked pretty funny the four of us looking like typical girls not being able to work out how they worked! Checked out the Royal Pavilion. Another weird structure stuck in the middle of Brighton. Looks like it would fit better in India somewhere, rather than by the sea in England. Had a bit of a look through the Laines, lined with quirky shops and even more eccentric people looking through them. Summed up Brighton, really. That night we caught the sunset over the countryside just outside of Hove. We stopped at a typical English pub (obviously a must-do). This seemed to be a pretty posh pub though, judging by the fancy cars parked outside. Experience was probably a bit wasted on me though, since I don't drink beer at all, but the banter with the publican was classic.

The next morning was spent being spoiled for breakfast by Katie, and then trying to walk some of that off through her neighbourhood in Hove. In the arvo we took a train to Bath, about 3 1/2 hours away (or 4 in our case, since the train had to be diverted).


Bath is the most gorgeous town. The houses all look the same (but you seem to get a lot of that in England, anyway). The view from our hostel is stunning, apart from the tree which is blocking a bit of the view. Took a look around the Roman Baths this morning as soon as they opened. Turned out to be very good planning, since it seemed like a whole school of American kids turned up after we had made our way through most of it! Like everything else we've seen, the baths are v v old (obviously). Amazing to think that they were actually used hundreds of years ago, a bit hard to picture it now though, especially when you have noisy kids running around you :-)

Spent the rest of the afternoon having a bit of a stroll through the rest of Bath. It's a pretty small town so it doesn't take long to walk from one end to the other. So nice to take it a bit quieter after everything being full-on in London. Bad thing is that we've discovered the local supermarket, which also means that we've had to sample the local chocolate (for comparative purposes only, of course).

Tomorrow we head to Cardiff, only about an hour's train ride away. Best be off to practice my Welsh accent then.

Spent the next day being

London Calling

Finally arrived in London after a VERY long flight! Being the nice sister that I am, I let Rebecca sit next to an alcoholic Russian for the 11 hour flight to Singapore. His English was pretty poor and the only words he knew were 'vodka' and 'whisky'. His problem was that with a Russian accent, 'vodka' sounds very much like water, so instead of alcohol he kept getting given water by the poor airhostess. But he soon learned that they could understand the word 'whisky' so he kept asking for that for the rest of the flight. According to Rebecca he reeked of the stuff by the end of the flight. Nice.

We got to Singapore a bit spaced out, but were pretty pleased to see a familiar face in Ai Li. She was so good to come all the way out to the airport to see us, even though we were only there for a few hours in transit. Tried very hard to convince her to come back to NZ to work at Wynn Williams again, but no luck just yet!



Been in London for 3 days now, and managed to achieve heaps. Got there at 6am on Wednesday and after being dropped at our hotel had a quick glimpse of Hyde Park before heading into the city to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Pure luck that we were walking past when they were doing it. Also had cruise along to Regent's Park in a canal boat from Little Venice. Amazing that people actually live in those canal boats, they're absolutely tiny! Then we had a bit of a look at the zoo, nothing compared to the Auckland zoo, animals seemed a bit sad to be locked up but pretty sure it's heaps better than when it first opened. Fell into bed at 6.30pm and slept for 12 hours solid, no tea or anything which is extremely unusual for us!



On Thursday we packed in a cruise along the Thames, the Tower Bridge exhibition, Tower of London (much bigger than what I thought), St Pauls Cathedral (so many stairs to the top - but awesome views), the Tutankhaman exhibition at the O2 dome and finally the Lion King show in Covent Garden. Bit of a mission to get from the O2 to Covent Garden after figuring that the only way to get there was with 4 tube changes! But we got there just in time, with no wrong turns - so much easier than what I thought. Really packed tubes at rush hour though, you definitely can't get too hung up about protecting your personal space when you're packed in like sardines!







Hampton Court Palace on Friday, huge place. Seems ridiculous that people could have actually lived in a place that big! Beautiful gardens though.

Have to get off the internet now, we only get 1/2 hour at the hostel - really good that it's free though! Last day in London then we head to Brighton :-)