It was pretty cold in the lead up to our first London Christmas, so we swapped our familiar Aussie activities to make the most of our cold surroundings - Glühwein (instead of cold beers), ice skating under the stars at the picturesque Somerset House (instead of beach cricket), Christmas tree shopping at Columbia Road Flower Market (instead of pine trees from the farm), and a ballet performance of the Nutcracker. Read the rest of this entry »
December 2008
With an evening flight from London to Berlin, we awoke in the German capital to discover that the weather forecast was wrong and sadly we saw no snow - but lucky for us it didn’t rain either! We headed off on foot from our hotel towards Charlottenburg Palace, back past the topography of terror (the site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters), and then on to Checkpoint Charlie where apparently you can have your passport stamped for East Berlin. Read the rest of this entry »
Well we thought this deserved a post - it was actually the second time it has snowed in London this winter (the first was in October), but this was the first time that we saw it. It was actually Brad’s very first time of seeing snow fall period (although it didn’t last very long) so I just had to add a photo taken from our apartment balcony. We had read in the forecast Read the rest of this entry »
October 2008
And as the weather turned cold in London, we left for the south coast of France to learn French for a week in Montpellier and cling onto the last remnants of the summer. The French school was just off the Place de la Comédie (the main town square) which was a decent walk from our host family’s apartment near Le Lez. Our days started with a freshly baked croissant or pain au Read the rest of this entry »
Our first Eurostar trip has made us a convert to train travel - no checking in your baggage which means no long waits at the other end, no long queues, no fighting for seats (as per budget airline requirements) and the upgrade to “Leisure” travel meant we were well fed and drank champagne 
woohoo! Read the rest of this entry »
On the last Friday of every month the Victoria and Albert museum hold late night openings - this time the theme was ‘A Village Fete’. With a range of fun (and a little bit crazy) stalls and games, we made our way around the grounds, smashing china vases to win prizes, guessing the names of hidden records to win Brad a home made record player (and yes it really does play music), getting fake Read the rest of this entry »
After many weekends in the UK we finally made it up to Doncaster in South Yorkshire to visit my Aunt for a long weekend. We had a chance to meet some more of my family from my mum’s side with a trip to the farm at Walton. A bit of fresh air and the open countryside was a nice change from being in London. Read the rest of this entry »
Firstly, thanks to the loads of people that remembered my birthday and sent texts, made phone calls, and sent messages through various online means. It’s nice to hear from you all! Read the rest of this entry »
You do really mean to get around to doing something about it, but other stuff keeps getting in the way. So why the long delay? I’ll go with the internet was down. Actually that’s not very convincing. How about a long trip to Africa? Read the rest of this entry »
After my parents left London, they went on a three week tour of Italy. They ended with a few free days in Rome which was the perfect excuse for us to take our first weekend foray into Europe. Read the rest of this entry »