Christmas came a little early in London Town...

There is nothing like getting good people together for good food, drinks and good banter. Jo and Ben thought they would host a pre Christmas, Christmas as we won't all be together on Christmas day.

Although it wasn't white out side we have had a bit of snow during the week, Londoners were calling it sleet and tell you to, 'wait till it really snows then you will be wishing it didn't'... I told them to please stop ruining my buzz. I was very excited at the first site of falling snow in a city...

Benjamin working his magic

As per usual with celebrations there is always too much food and not enough stomach space. I had been anticipating Ben Brights roast since little sissy Gemma had told me about them, and seeing that I eat and enjoy roasts since I have moved to London (actually since my awesome boyfriend cooked the best roast in the world and converted me!) I was most impressed with the spread... Not to mention the masses of deserts.

Lucky we are in London in winter and it is acceptable to eat 5000 calories in a sitting because the woolie jumpers allow it!

We did have cutlery

Gemma putting her guns into it..

Katie's turn for a work out, before fishing out the missing screw in the  cream

What a beautiful pav care of Katie Wilson

Can't forget Roys chockie pud just like you buy in the shops!

This being the highlight of my day, after seeing all the secret Santas prezzies waiting to be opened of course. JETPLANES... Thanks Roy, and ah Roy's sister for sending them.

Awesome way to spend a Sunday. Sorry about the lack of good photos, I left my camera at home so was stealing Kellys phone (Thanks Kells!) every five minutes to get snap happy just for you to all see.

Night Night from chilly dark but still awesome, London!

x

This is a quick post to show you how we celebrated the most anticipated most exciting day of 2011 here in London. After weeks and months of prayers it only seemed appropriate to watch the fever reach its height at The Church.

Life here seemed to be consumed by the Rugby World cup. Many Saturday nights have been sacrificed so that we can get up in time to be bright eyed, ready for a 9am beer and The Big Game.

The AB's Straya semi was a big game - lots of nerves an worries, lets give it to them, the Australians play a good game of rugby and they were a real threat... However we of course pushed on through for an awesome 20-6 win!

We watched the semi final at The Church - a friend of a friend got us the best seats in the house and put on plenty of beers and drinks for us - Waiukuan's = Good people.

So we dominated the Australians, surely the final was ours? I think it was assumed that the boys in black would just have to show up on the day and the cup was ours... I have to give it to them the French had my knuckles white and my toes curled for a full 80 minutes... The last ten of which were spent praying  (lucky we were in Church so I am sure God heard me loud and clear!) that we didn't let the French get a penalty.

Who would have though aye Mr Too-busy-catching-white-bait-to-talk-to-you-Mr-Henry scores us the point that wins the RWC 24 years in the making. 

                               

In the words of Katie Wilson, and I couldn't have put them better myself - If your're not overseas it's hard to understand how the anthem can pull at your heart or how the haka can bring tears to your eyes and give you chills all over. The world cup brought the Antipodeans together to the point where I actually could have been in a pub back home for the final. Its the sort of thing that makes stranger the best of friends if for just 80 minutes.

Some of the moments from the day....

Jo ready for the big game with her big back pack of beer

Half time photo moment

Cool and Calm

Nek minute... We are Winners

Very very stoked

So are these girls

Probably the happiest guys in the house

Probably the happiest I have ever seen Scott 

Sealed with a kiss!

Proud kiwi girls!

These guys, not sooo happy but still - good game.

The Maori Boys came on stage to do a Haka post win

Friends!

Dedicated fans

The best dressed in the place - No really, they even got  a prize for it!

Well chuffed these two are...

Now to celebrate!

You actually forget it is daylight until you step outside and suddenly your drunk, you have work tomorrow but HEY we just won the RWC who cares!

Well done Boy's so proud of you all.

Short and Sweet - A weekend visit to Gothenburg

We have a spare weekend next weekend, what shall we do? Lets find cheap flights and go ANYWHERE, we are in London we are close to everything.... Is how the conversation went that saw us end up in Gothenburg this weekend. Not sure I had even heard of the city even though it is the 2nd largest in Sweden and is home to the largest amusement park in Scandinavia (not that that is any good to a chicken like me who is afraid of looking down from the Sky Tower), before we booked the flights. The images I had in my head of the place were dark and ominous, full of vilans that Batmam and Robin would soon bring to justice... Imagination runs away on me sometimes..

Anyway we booked cheap as chips flights via Easy Jet which we discovered are much better to fly with than Ryanair. First flight was on time, second one landed early and we didn't have to line up for any long passport check lines - Shot Easyjet.

Our Saturday morning started bright and early... So early we were at the bus stop with all the drunkards still out and about enjoying their Friday night.

Not too happy to be up and about at 3am...

The bus ride from the airport to Gothenburg city gave us a feel for Sweden, lots of pine trees, lakes and rocks, reminded me of what I imagine parts of the US would look like... We were waiting for Yogi bear to jump out of the bushes. One thing we weren't expecting was the cold... Kelly, always the optimist read a high of 16 degrees, shame that it was only 10 degrees. We did not arrive prepared. 

After checking into our hotel we went on the food hunt... Gothenburg is not a touristy town which was great because there weren't thousands of people everywhere and felt like we were right amongst a different country, not so good that they don't accommodate for English speaking people as much. We couldn't read the menus so we ended up at an American restaurant that reminded us of the Hard Rock Cafe (situated next door).

We decided to get a feel for the city we would take a boat tour around the moat. There was a tour guide up the front of the boat giving the commentary spoke in three different languages, thankfully one English. The guy at the back driving the boat looked just like Craig Wilson!

An old lock

Getting low for the Cheese cutter bridge. OSH would of had a heart attack.

London Eye copycat

The Lipstick... Eugh

Cranes in the port

Low bridges again

After a very cold boat trip we explored and amazing food market, an anti pasto lovers haven, then jumped on a tram and went for a ticky tour. You can buy a 24 hour transport ticket that gets you on the trains and buses… It was a waste of our money as no one was checking tickets and we didn’t validate our cards or swipe them once.

Swanky food market

Delicious meats!

The old Cons were a popular mode of transport

People protesting... Hospitals want more money, same shiz different country.

We decided we would get a couple of bottles of wine to drink back at our Hotel before we went out… Went into a 7 Eleven to ask for the closest liquor store. I thought the lady was taking the piss when she told me that you actually can’t buy any. WHAT? *outrage* apparently in Sweden the only people that sell alcohol are a company owned by the government, which closes at 3pm on a Saturday and don’t open on a Sunday…  Some monopoly carry on. Luckily the 7 Eleven had a few sneaky (expensive) cans of Carlsberg in their fridge that we had to make do with before heading out. Dinner was delicious Italian (you can tell we really got amongst the Swedish food) followed by a drink at a local pub that looked a lot like an English one.

Haha sorry Scott I had to put this picture in... 

The next day we got the tram to the end of the line out by the ocean, again it was cold but very quiet and quite beautiful. Tried to get Scott to go for a swim but he wasn't keen, only because he had no towel he reckons! Sure sure. 

Brave girl

All in all a great weekend out of London. Though there is a lot of not so awesome things about London in comparison to NZ there sure are a lot of awesome things too, one being that you can get on a plane and in under two hours be amongst a different culture in a different country. It feels great to be doing what I came here to do. If only I had the cash to do it every weekend.... 


Next stop, Brussels? Amsterdam? Paris? Watch this space.....


(More photos on Facebook)


xx