I'm dreaming of a white christmas...

Oh no not dreaming its acttually gonna happen.... This is so exciting, four sleeps till christmas and its snowing hard right now. Even if it doesnt snow on Christmas Day we are definately counting this as a white christmas.

The snow is causing so much disruption all over the country but for us (well mostly me) its just "YAY its SNOWING"!!!!

We had a bit last week, everywhere else got heaps and Shepherds bush missed out only a light sprinkling, we went out to Ealing on Saturday and there was quite a bit but now... its 10 to 5 so i'm about to go home and it has been snowing for the last hour and there is heaps built up on the path outside my office window (by heaps i mean less than an inch but still) and its still going, big fat fluffy flakes. I'll try take some pictures on the way home.




On Saturday we had a pre Christmas Christmas Day with Auntie Kath, Pam and Andrew which was really lovely, Pam cooked up a big turkey dinner and we had table presies and crackers and a slide show of old family photos. J and I had to walk down the road in the snow and ice with lots of snow still in gardens along the way so that was white christmas number 1.

Sunday was the St Simons candle light carol service which was just beautiful, the church looked so pretty all lit up with just candles all around and the singing was super.

So Merry Christmas to everyone, whether you're enjoying winter wonderland or summer sun. Have a lovely Christmas filled with lots of family, friends and food

Lots of Love

Gem XXXXX

We're leaving, on a jetplane, don't know when we'll be back again.

Yup, its official, we're leaving. We booked out flights on Sunday night and will be flying home on the 21st February, arriving in Auckland around lunchtime on the 23rd.

It was a really difficult decision which we have been thinking about for a while, we have always planned on coming home for Julia's wedding and it really came down to finances whether we could afford to return afterwards. Tn the end the decision was made very quickly once we realised that flights were very quickly getting more expensive as the cheap ones sold out. So we booked.

We're left with pretty mixed feelings about the whole decision. On one hand we are really looking forward to seeing our families and friends and to living near to them again. We are looking forward to settling back into real life with proper jobs and a proper sized house with a sink in the kitchen and a bit of disposable income. There are a lot of aspects of living in the UK which we are not going to miss, like banks and accents and attitudes and being called 'love' by old men.

On the other hand there are lots of things we are really going to miss, particularly the friends we've made. It seems that each time we go somewhere and just start getting to be good friends with people, we leave. We have loved living in London, there are so many opportunities here that we haven't yet taken advantage of, even the 20 or so restaurants within less than a minute walk of our house. And there are still so many places that we want to travel to all throughout the UK and Europe. It might be the end of another phase in our lives but it doesn't mean we will never travel again and we've still got plenty of time to see the rest of the places we want to.

Well that's it really, we're sad and we're excited, we don't want to leave and we can't wait to be home.

Winter Wonderland

This weekend we visited the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It was very wintery and very wonderland like. There were heaps of fair ground rides all (actually only most there were pirates too) with a christmassy or wintery theme. There was a rollercoaster and an observfation wheel (like a mini London Eye) and carosel. Plus there was a German Christmas Market, whcih was mostly food stalls (mulled wine, frites, saussages, candy floss), but also a few crafts and stuffed toys. There was even one selling fake snow!!! All the stalls were in wee wooden cabins which were really cute and there were heaps of fairy lights everywhere. It was very festive and really got us even more into the Christmas Spirit!!!








We have our Christmas Tree up at home now, its only a foot tall but it has lights and is really cute. We just need to get some pressies under it. (anyone want to send a care package???)



After the Winterwonderland we walked along the park and down Knightsbridge, the plan was to go and see the ice skating outside the Natural History Museum. It started raining which was a bit miserable and we came accross the Victoria & Albert museum which we havent been to yet so we diecded to go in. Turns out its actually right next to the Natural History museum so we were in the right place but that'l have to wait for another weekend.

The V&A was really amazing, such a beautiful building and so many differet collections, such a wide variety. We arrived just at the right time for a free tour so we got a bit of an explaination of some of the exhibits including a 500yr old persian carpet, some historucial dresses, cartoons by raphael (lifesize plans for tapestries, not like comics!!) modern occsional chairs as well as some sculptures. it was facinating.

Stuff

Jeremy and I have had a pretty busy week this week.

Today Juliet and I went to Portobello Market. I actually work right round the corner so I go most days and have a wander around. there are not nearly as many stalls during the week, mostly only veges and a few clothes stalls. some of the Antique shops are open and more open later in the week. Its almost a totally different place on a Saturday. To start with its packed!!! There were so many people and it felt like we were always going against the flow of traffic! There is so much cool stuff there, loads of pretty jewelery and clothes, I had my eye out for a cute dress for Julia and Mark's wedding but haven't found anything yet. Julz got a georgous headband with feathers and a fabric flower on it, sort of 1920's style. There were live christmas trees for sale too.





I'm so loving getting into the Christmas sprit this year. London is all lit up everywhere. The christmas trees and lights went up along the Shepherds Bush Green this week which looks great. Last night we held and event at church called Create for Christmas which was heaps of christmas crafts to take part in. It was really successful, I helped out with the card making table and brought home two beautiful cards I made all by my self! Sophie came along with me and while I was busy helping people make cards she made a table decoration, seasoned olive oil and a bowl of dried fruit and marzipan which all looked awesome. We drank mulled wine and then made some jewelery together. I'm really pleased with my necklace, it has quite big beads and looks awesome (if I do say so my self!!).

On Thursday we helped out at the homeless shelter at church. We've been doing it for a few weeks now and are finding it really rewarding. Its a great bucnch of voulenteers and its so good to be doing something to give back to the community. Its much like working in a resturant, and lots of dshes!!! We make the guests leek and potato soup, chicken curry and sponge with custard and fruit.

On Tuesday we had out home group round to our place which was lovely. Next week will probably be just as busy as everything starts to ramp up for christmas. There are carol services, christmas parties and all that fun comming up. I'm so looking foward to it!!!

Love Gem

Rainy Sunday

So this was what our weekend looked like.


At least we havent had as much rain as they had in Cumbria, I really feel so sorry for all those people who have been flooded out of their homes.

So we did what you should do on a rainy Sunday which is nothing. We read our books and I baked a cake. Lovely.

I did venture out briefly, to the mall. The christmas lights are up there too and they look very awesome.

That is all

Love Gem

November

Already its only six weeks to Christmas, and it felt closer on the weekend. We went for a walk down Oxford Street after Jeremy finished work on Saturday and all the Christmas lights are up already and all the shops have their Christmas displays. Of course it was pretty much dark at 4.30pm so they were all sparkley and looking great. There were heaps of people out shopping and around about even tho it was cold and on and off raining all afternoon. Such a great atmosphere even this far away from christmas, I don't think it'd really be that fun in the week before Christmas tho as even now it was hard to make our way down the street!!!



SO yup Jeremy got a job. We are very excited about this cos now we can afford to have a life and go do things and really enjoy London life. He's working in little cafe in Central London which mainly caters to business people, he makes coffee, serves food and generally all the usual cafe duties. He starts most days at 7am and its a 30 min tube ride so we've been having very early starts in our house at the moment!!!

We really enjoyed the Guy Fawkes celebrations here, it is a much bigger deal here that at home (obviously) and the fireworks for sale sounded much more powerful than the ones at home too. for the week before and after the 5th Nov we could hear lots of loud banging all round our house. We went to a council bonfire and fireworks display which was fantastic. A huge bonfire and the firewoks were really good and put to music too. (I'll try to remember to put up some photos). There was heaps of fun fair rides and candy floss stalls and mulled wine for sale.



At the moment we are thinking about the logistics of coming home in late February for a visit so stay tuned.

Lots of Love Gem

Central Perk in London

The Central Perk cafe from Friends came to London for a few weeks so we thought we'd go check it out and have a cup of coffee (which we had a free voucher for) in the same place as Monica, Rachael and the rest.

Turns out all of London had the same idea on a Saturday afternoon, it was packed and there was a massive queue outside just to even get in. It looked really cool, all the furnishings and the layout were just the same as on TV but we decided that it just wasn't cool enough to wait for an hour or so for. As much as we are fans of Friends we're not that big fans. So we flagged that and had a nice wander round Carnaby street and down Oxford street, before heading back home.

Today I saw...

Today I saw a Cat stalking a Squirrel...

In the park as I walked to work there was a wee squirrel sitting on the grass eating a nut, there was also a cat about five meters away crouched and watching the squirrel very intensely, he looked like he was ready to pounce but just then a few people walked in through the gate and broke his concentration. He gave us a look that said 'who me, I was doing nothing' and walked off very casually!!

Well that's my story, not very exciting but it was pretty funny if you were there :)
Love Gem

Friends - new and old

We've been a bit social lately which has been nice.

The highlight has been having Meredith staying with us all the way from New Zealand, I've so enjoyed just hanging out and chilling at home with her. there is so much to catch up on when its been over a year since we last saw each other !!! We also managed to fit in Camden Market and a bit of other shopping...I was soo tempted to buy so many things but budget is still tight so resisted the urge to get a whole new wardrobe of cute clothes!!! We did but the yummiest brownies tho mmm gooey chocolaty goodness. Having a house guest was a super excuse to start trying out some of the many restaurants in our area. We went to a wee Greek taverna just down the road and had the most massive dinner ever. It was a mixed meze thing which the menu very accurately described as 'almost endless', I think we counted almost 20 dishes all of which were totally delicious and its such a great way to eat as you get to try everything as don't get menu envy!!! Totally recommend The Vine Leaf on Uxbridge Road.

We are also slowly meeting new people here in London. We went 10 pin bowling on Saturday with Juliet and some of her friends which was awesome fun. I even got 101 on one of my games a total personal best as I usually bowl gutter balls!!!

ON Thursday last week we went to a dinner at church. Every winter they run a night shelter for homeless people on a Thursday night. Other churches in the area do the other nights of the week so that homeless people have somewhere to go during the coldest time of year. They provide a hot dinner and breakfast as well place for 35 people to sleep. The dinner on Thursday was for church members to get an idea of what the team do and to raise money for the whole project. It was a really interesting evening and great to find out more about the shelter, Jeremy (and probably me)will volunteer for it in the winter. We also got to meet lots of lovely people from church and it was two of the girls we were sitting with that recommended the Greek restaurant to us (along with about a dozen other super places locally, we are spoilt for choice!)

We have also joined a home group through church which is another great place to be meeting people. Our group is mostly other people our age and who seem really nice and we are really looking forward to getting to know them all.

London Life and the search for work

Hey everyone,

Thought it was probably time for an update on our lives since we have moved into London.

Not that we have been doing much as being unemployed meant that we don't have much money for anything.

But luckily two weeks ago I got a job as a receptionist at a conference center for a council. Its not the most exciting job in the world but will help to pay the bills in the mean time :) Basically all I do is greet people that come in and send them in the right direction. The phone rings every now and again and there is a bit of filing but thats pretty much it.

So am keeping my eye out for a geography job and possibly have an interview for one in the next few weeks.

Jeremy is also still looking for work, he too has a possible interview in the next few weeks so we are fingers crossed for that one. We'll keep you posted.

Its been quite depressing looking for work, many of the jobs we apply for have more than 500 other applicants which is really frustrating. We very rarely hear back form recruitment agencies so never know where into cyber space our applications have disappeared to!

Despite the occasional downs of being unemployed we are really enjoying living here still. We have had several picnics in Hyde park which is only half an hours walk from our house and we went with Juliet to the Notting Hill Carnival which was awesome. There were tonnes of amazing floats with dancers and really loud music and all sorts!!

We went up to Leeds last weekend for a visit to my Cousin up there. Its always great to catch up and they took us to see a whole pile of buildings which were just open for the weekend. So we climbed up the top of the town hall clock tower and visited a church with an amazing mosaic, among other things.

Thats about all for now but we will try to keep you posted a bit more often, even if there is not much to say.

Love Gem

To call London Home?

After such an amazing trip it was quite a shock to return to reality when we got back to England and we came back down to earth pretty hard.

We stayed in Cambridge with Jeremy's wonderful Auntie there for a week whilst we sorted our lives back out. We had to find somewhere to live and jobs to pay for it, an overwhelming task when the most difficult decisions we've had to make for two months are about gelato flavours!!! So after a bout of Homesickness ("Its all too hard and I just wanna go home waaahhh") we decided to bite the bullet and give London a try.

We found a flat pretty easily, its in Shepherds Bush, which is a super Location, in Zone 2 for the tube with two tube stations pretty much at the end of our street and the massive Westfields mall right round the corner. We also have tonnes of wee takeaway shops, a park, a market and a movie theatre right round the corner too. Well pleased!

The Flat itself is a one bedroom flat which is part of the downstairs of a terraced house. The Landlady lives in the rest of the house and we have our own lounge, bathroom and a mini kitchen. We also have access to the garden if we wish so that’s all fantastic!!!!! The rent seems horrendous especially as we don’t yet have jobs and even worse if we turn it into NZ dollars (just don’t think about it!) but from what we've seen actually seems pretty reasonable for London :)



We don’t have jobs yet but are sending off applications like crazy so hopefully something will come up soon.

Our first impressions of living in London are good, obviously as we are living on a very tight budget (no jobs = no £££)we haven’t been out too much, if fact we haven’t even been into central London since we got here but there is plenty in walking distance to do.

The shepherds bush market is interesting, there are so many people here form all different cultures, there are heaps of people from Africa and India (met a guy at church from Ghana!)and loads of women wearing head scarves and even a number of women in full burkhas (?) doing their shopping (and then getting picked up in a limo!?). I decided to get our fruit and veg from the market, which was awesome, I hardly ended up buying anything cos I didn’t know what anything was, there were all sorts of sweet potatoes, I’m sure maybe taro or other roots like it, not to mention crazy looking fruits, it was like being in a foreign country.

To reassure both our Mums I’ll say that we feel pretty safe here, even walking down the street at night felt ok and our street seems nice. there are lots of police walking the beat around and when we had a picnic in the park there were heaps of families. You hear about knife crime in London but we don’t feel like we need to worry here as we walk out our front door. (which by the way has two doors and three locks we need to unlock and lock each time we go in or out)

Well that’s all from me just now, will keep you posted with our London experiences and the job hunt.

Lots of Love Gem

Back to reality

Its really hard to believe that we've been travelling for two months now. Its longer than we had initially thought we'd be able to do, even if we didn't make it all the way up to Prague. We've well and truly spent all of our cash though and now we're onto our next adventure - working.

So knowing us, we'll probably not have much to blog about for a while. This is a travel blog, not a "we went to work and came home and slept" blog. So there will be some radio silence here for a while.

Seeing as this post will linger here at the top for a while, here is a link to the start of our most recent trip, for those that missed reading about it while we were actually traveling.

On the Road Again

Hopefully we'll be travelling again soon. Until then - Much love from us both
Gemma and Jeremy

Cheers!!!

Cheers, Thanks to my mum who's idea it was we are today drinkng Champagne in Champagne.

Love Us :)

Czech it out!!!

Czesky Krumlov castle was absolutly fantastic. we had to take a guided tour to see the inside which was totally worth it, as we took the tour in English there were only two others so we basicaly had the guide to ourselves. she was so informative, telling us stories and legends about all the families who had owned the castle and all about the decorations and archetecture also. The interiours were decorated in rococo and renaissance styles and were very beautiful. the highlight was the maskerade hall which in the rococo stlye had painted walls with over a hundred people painted on all in different costumes and masks. it was very cool. the views out of the windows over the town were also lovely.



I ate an awesome round sweet thing, but i dont know what it was called. it was a bit like a pancake or donut whuch was wrapped around a hot cylinder. hard to describe but very yum. (Jez: for those itching to know, its called a Trdelnik)

This evening we are back in Germany, in the heart of Bavaria, we are staying in Rothenburg ob der Tauber which is the cutest little walled town. all the houses are traditional and loads have timbered facades and pretty window boxes. whilst wandering the streets we discoverd a local speciality, the schneeball, or snowball, it appears to somekind of circular biscuit and is traditionally rolled in icing sugar, hene snow ball. we bought one (chocolate with chocolate filling!!!) but have yet to try it! As i said this town is really cute, if you think of german christmas markets and really traditional germany then this is it! it is awesome. we walked most of the way round the walls which reminded us of Dubrovnik, not that it is any thing like it,(not hot, not by the sea, not all orange tiled roofs) but its got a similar feel with a living town inside the original castle walls, which we liked.

Tomorrow we press on towards home further, heading we think for chanpange in France.

Weren't we in Austria Yesterday?

Time is going by so fast and i'm getting eaisly confused about were we are and were we have been. Actualy cannot believe that it is getting on for late July already!!!

This morning we had a look around Melk, it is such a cute town and the Abbey was amazing. it is a massive yellow and white Baroque building and so beautiful. Every room was beaultfuly decorated with painted ceilings and eloborate gold everywhere. the church itsself was amazing with so much gold everywhere and we were also fortunate enough to hear the Seattle Girls Choir sing a few songs while they were there too. The acoustics were so beautiful.





On the road again to the Czech Republic now and we are in Cesky Krumlov which is totally cute also. The river which runs through the town is popular for canoeing and rafting and although we didnt give it a go (its hot here still but not that hot by the time we had our accomodation sorted) we did have a good laugh at all the people trying to get down the some of the rapids and falling out. We are staying in a pension right in the middle of the town which is awesome. we ate our dinner in a wee cafe by the river with a live band playing a mix of songs in Czech and heavily accented English, awesomness!!!

Budapest

Budapest is a really beautiful city and is especially well lit at night time. All the famous buildings are beautifully lit from all angles so they are even more spectacular than they are during the day. The first thing we did the first night in Budapest (after pizza for dinner that is) was to book ourselves on a night cruise on the river Danube. This was probably the highlight of our time in Hungary, as all of the best buildings are visible along the Danube and make a fantastic scene.





The next day in Budapest we crossed over the river to Buda (we were staying in Pest) and climbed up to the old castle. We visited the Church of Our Lady which was a beautiful church. It is built in a really interesting style with coloured tiles and bricks. Unfortunately the big spire was covered up with scaffolding so we couldn't see it at its best. We also walked along to the palce and the old castle walls but it was really really hot and not at all a good temperature for touristing it up. We quickly made our way to the famous Gellert Thermal Spa where we proceeded to relax the day away in the nice cool wave pool interspersed with soaks in the thermal pool.



Next day, on the way out of Budapest we strolled up to Hosok Ter (Heroes square) and the Budapest City Park. We saw a big statue of our friend Arpad (from the National Historic Park and Fetzy Panorama) who we keep seeing lots of statues of. We also saw a huge statue of the dude Anonymous (who wrote the early history of Hungary).



While Hungary and Budapest were awesome, we're finding that we're running out of steam (and cash) and are about ready to start making a break for home (home UK that is, not home NZ, sorry guys). So we're going to give Vienna and Prague a miss at the moment and start heading west. Right now we're in Melk (we randomly chose Melk as our destination this evening) which has a massive monastary above the wee town. We're staying in a cute guesthouse and there were two teddy bears on our bed when we came in. Pretty cute :)

Lake Balaton

Lake Balaton is the largest lake in Europe so we thought we'd head there for a nice relaxing bit of camping. We headed over to the western tip of the lake and set up our tent in a campground near Keszthely. We had picked a spot way in the corner away from all the other tents and parked up our car next to it. However, later on in the evening heaps of new people arrived and set up, leaving our car blocked in by a wall of tents! The next morning, after enough people had left leaving us space to drive out, we headed up to a town called Tapolca which had an underground lake right in its town centre. The cave lake was discovered when they were drilling wells and now you can paddle a little boat around inside of it. It wasn't as cool as the Magura caves and there were heaps of people and boats (enough for a boat jam). Still pretty cool and the water was real clear and warm.



Next we went for a swim in a radioactive lake. No kidding! Lake Heviz is a huge thermal lake and is famed for having medicinal water (only a little bit radioactive). They also use the radioactive mud for therauputic purposes. The water was 32 degrees and quite pleasant for lounging about in. Everybody else had life rings and noodles but we had to just swim and try not to drown too much. Kinda weird being in hot water with bits of mud and waterlillies floating around.



On the way up to Budapest the next day we came across a really nice grass beach on the south side of the lake (all the beaches are grass, weird!). It was the only free beach we had come across as all the other good bits of beach were in strands that you had to pay to get into. The lake is really shallow on the south side and there were people way out in the distace that were only chest high in the water. Awesome.

Birth of Hungary

I woke up this morning not because of an alarm clock, but because its too hot! The sun hit our tent at 8am and instantly turned up the temperature to roasting. We packed up our tent and checked out of the campground. This was a little confusing since I don't speak very good german and have no idea of any words in Hungarian. The camp lady did spend the entire time we were there in her togs (night and day) which was pretty funny. It was certainly hot enough.

We then explored the castle next to the campground which was made of brick and pretty much completely intact. It was a bit hot (already!) to be exploring it too thoroughly and lots of the stuff was just in Hungarian but we saw enough of it to get a good feeling for it. Climbed up onto the ramparts and had a good view of the town and the surrouding moat.



We headed down the road and had lunch in a pretty town called.... wait for it.... Hódmezővásárhely. Try saying that 10 times (with correct pronounciation) quickly! (Those who can speak Hungarian can't play). We sat in the town square eating our pastries while the wind blew little yellow flowers down from the trees above us like hail :)

We then went to Ópusztaszeri Nemzeti Történeti Emlékpark (its the National Historical Memorial Park) and is the birthplace of Hungary and where the Magyar tribes first decided to settle down. The best bit we saw there was the Feszty Panorama which is a big circular painting 120m around which depicts the conquering Hungarian (Magyar) tribes as they arrived on the Great Plain. The immersiveness of the panorama was fantastc and it was sometimes easy to miss where the painting stopped and the modelled foreground started. It had sound effects too!



Unfortunately the sky opened up again and we're back to thunder and lighting once more. We're holed up in a hotel south of Budapest and are decideding whether to go to Lake Balaton or Budapest tomorrow ;)

Romania to Hungary

Well its been a few days since we've written. In fact we have come all the way through Romania.

Our first impressions of romania were not really very good and it wasn't really until last night that they improved. Saying that all we mostly did there was drive and the roads were pretty bad.

The first day we drove all the way to Brasov in pretty much the middle of the country. This was not really part of our plan, unfortunatly we got our wires crossed and ended up there anyway. We had intended not to travel that far east but whatever. Apart from the roads and the fact that it took forever to get there the countryside was really pretty. We drove through loads of rural villages with everyone cutting their hay by hand then loading it into their horse and carts and building cool old school hay stacks. The views from the mountains were amazing and the villages were super cute. Unfortunatly in the mountains our car was threatening to over heat so we didnt really get to enjoy it!!! The towns not so much cute with crazy traffic and pretty run down seeming.

Brasov i'm sure is a nice place if you don't arrive tired and very hungry at half past eight at night. We proceeded to get lost before discovering to our dismay that tourist hubs are not as cheap as out of the way places in Bulagria. We ended up in a nice enough guest house right in the center and drowned our sorrows in too much pizza. mmm pizza!!

The next day we looked at Bran Castle, this is where Bran Stoker set the Dracula book and is consequently famous. It is a very cool castle with loads of secret staircases and winding rooms and tonns of balconies. There was also heaps of interesting info on the Romanian royal family and Vlad Tepes the original dracula!!!



We then made our way to Sighisoara where we had intendeded to stay. Again with the towns not being so nice, the castle and old town center could have been awesome apart from that all of the roads and paths had been dug up and no replacement looking likely. As we sat having a drink at wobly pavement table (cos the pavement had been half dug up) we watched two guys almost randomly removing the cobbles from the only remaining paved section, right by where some people were sitting. They dug about a meter then stopped and sat down. hmm. we decided to move on.

The lonely planet talked about some cute villages about 100 km away apparently the epitomy of rural romania. we decided that was doable. we discivered the village of Gura Raului, looking for the the lonely planet homestay we drove the legnth of the village (which just kept on going) the houses are all painted bright pastel colours with big walls and gates. We passed loads of horse and carts and locals sittng out by their gates and a few cows wandering the streets. this was more like it!! The cart drivers all gave us funny looks for having the driver on the wrong side, mirrored by our looks at them for driving horses, awesome!!



We found a Pension run by a lovely family with window boxes and pet turtles. We sat out on the shaded terrace planning out the next few days. The owner came out and offered us dinner from a menu in romanian only so he just suggested a couple of things which were totally yummy. Breakfast was also super yummy, a massive platter of cold meats and cheeses and Jeremy had something romanian which was like a frankfurter. the whole family was lovely and the place and village was really nice so it really seemed that just one place redeemed the whole country in my eyes.

Today involved again a lot of driving but we are now in Hungary. We crossed the border this afternoon into the town of Gyula which is lovely. We are camping right in the center, from my chair (we finally got chairs, its awesome) in front of the tent i can see the castle and it was only a few mins walk accross to the Thermal Baths. It was so hot today that even Jeremy suggested going for a swim. The baths were awesome, sort of like a cross between Jelly park and Hanmer for those that know what I'm talking about. We swam in the wave pool and went on the hydro slide before checking out the thermal pools once we had cooled off. The water was really dark brown coloured, something to do with its thermalness I expect, it wasnt as hot as Hanmer, only 36-38 degrees in th hottest one, but that was super. There were intense massaging jsts that came on every now anad then and poured out from above!!

'This is soo cool' x infinity

Today has been the most amazing day. We love it here in Bulgaria, it is a stunning country and to top it off things are super cheap so we are living in luxury which just makes things even more amazing.

The first thing we did today was get lost trying to get to a cave in the hills, we drove for ages through the very pot holed but stunningly beautiful scenery of rural Bulgaria up a really winding mountain road, when the signposts to the cave ran out we followed something in Cryllic to a place with loads of signs in cryllic which could have been it but there was no english to confirm or deny so we ended up moving on to the next destination. Back down the crazy road, past the amazing forrest and through the cute wee rural villages. As we drive along we go past fields of sunflowers and heaps of locals driving horse and carts piled high with hay and their families.



Belogradchik was the next stop, with rock pillars sprouting up out of the forrest on the way up and a fortress at the top in amoungst them. it was totally amazing and really the start of the well repeated phrase of the day 'this is soo cool'. it is hard to explain what it was like but the views from the top were fantastic all around the surrounding countryside, you can see why they chose it for a fortress!!!





We then did a whole lot more getting lost after Tom told us to turn off the main road then took us down incressingly narrower and more pot holed roads untill we ended up onto a gravel track. not cool, tho we got to see heaps more country side and as we drove through a village we saw some storks nesting on the top of a power pylon!!!

We finally made it to the Magura Cave which was totally worth all of the driving around. This is probably the most amazing place we have been to yet, words completely fail me to describe how it was but we just spent the whole time repeating the phrase of the day. the cave is about 2km long and winds through the hillside and is filled with staligmites and staligtights, it was inclredibly beautiful and awe inspiring. it was lit up by flood lights up some of the walls and fairy lights along some of the paths so had an amazing atmoshpere. it was also amazingly cold compared to the hot day outside. It was soo cool and we loved it!!!!



Tonight again with the affordable luxury for us here, we are staying in the flashest hotel in Vidin. we had cool drinks by the pool before dinner which was awesome.

So to sum up today was awesome and we love Bulgaria and would reccomend it to anyone with a good map.

Love Gem

Luxury in Bulgaria

Exploring the monastary was very fun. It was great to be in a monastary that is still filled with monks. Since we woke up in the monastary itself, we were pretty much the only tourists there in the morning. The Church of the Nativity was amazing and it is covered with murals of biblical scenes on both the inside and outside walls. Inside the church we felt like we were intruding a little as we were the only ones (at first) who were not monks. Like other Orthodox churches it was quite dark inside (in comparison with Latin churchs) and everywhere you looked there were pictures of saints and angels. Bulgaria's holiest relic is here, its the left hand of St Ivan of Rila. According to our guide book the right hand was taken on a tour of Russia to raise funds for the monastary!



We made our way to Sofia next. I had not thought that pot holes and bad roads were to be as prevalent as they were in Bulgarias capital. The weirdest bit was that some of the main roads towards the centre were cobbled (driving along them at full speed is very bumpy). We parked up and quickly found a bankomat to aquire some funds of our own. We visited the two big churchs/cathedrals, the Sveta Nedelya and Aleksander Nevski, which were amazing for their huge domed cupolas (Aleksander Nevski has golden domes!). We even managed to catch the changing of the guards at the President's Building. The lonely planet described it as "boot sole-slapping" and I wanted to find out why! Turns out they walk a few steps normally and then a few steps of swinging their legs up high and slapping them down on the ground really loud. Not as huge a fanfare as the Buckingham Palace guards but still very cool (and they don't look nearly as ridiculous either).





We're now up in Vratsa which is up near the Balkan mountains. We didn't know where to stay so we just rocked up to this really flash hotel in the centre of town and found that a double room is only 70 leva! Thats less than we normally pay for two beds in most hostel dorms! Ah, hotel rooms with air-con and a view up to the mountains, I could get used to this! :)

Update: We just went out to dinner and had two courses and wine for just 20 euros, definitely living it up :D

Rila Monastary

Turns out it was a big accident involving three cars. They were letting more cars through in the opposite direction than ours, I think because they didn't want cars queueing up in the tunnel which was just after the accident.

So we made it to Rila, although much later than we had planned. I managed to navigate through the Bulgarian language enough to allow us to stay for the night in the Rila Monastary itself. However, had not planned well enough and we had only gotten 50 euros changed into Bulgarian Leva and after paying for the room we still had to find some dinner. We tried in a couple of restaurants but they wouldn't take visa so we just decided to find out what we could get with our 30 remaining leva. Turns out that food is really cheap here and we had a full restaurant meal for less than 20 leva (1 euro is about 2 leva).



Staying in the monastary is pretty cool. The Church of the Nativity is right in the middle of the monastary and our room is just on the outside edge. Its all beautifully painted with frescos and with geometric patterns/lines. I'm looking forward to exploring it all tomorrow morning :)

Waiting in Bulgaria

So right now we're stuck in a Bulgarian traffic jam. Not sure just yet what is causing the pile up big we're not really moving at all. So far we've crossed into Bulgaria from Greece and we visited the town of Melnik which is famous for its family made wines. It looks like the town had been recently washed out by a flood, as the road was in poor condition and everything was a bit muddy. However it didn't look like anybody was in a rush to fix anything up. The shops and hotels themselves looked in fairly good repair but the public roads were just filled with rocks and mud. We didn't stay long as it didn't seem very vibrant there and instead we are heading up to Rila (which is where we're stuck in the traffic jam).

On top of the world

Well the clifftop monasteries were absolutely spectacular. The cliffs are totally dramatic, rising out of the plain like sheer vertical walls. The photos that we took just couldn't get enough of the scenery in to really do it justice. It was fantastic.



We headed up to the monastary called the Great Meteoran first. I was feeling the heat straight away since I was in a shirt and jeans (no shorts allowed). Gem had to wear a skirt and covered shoulders but at least it was slightly more attuned to the heat. From the carpark we had to go down heaps of stairs and cross over to the pillar that the monastary is actually on before climbing back up to the top, in some places cut through the rock itself. There was a rope and net that went down to the lower level which used to be used to haul goods up (and the monks too!). Nowadays there is also a cable car thing which can be used to transport heavy stuff. At the monastary entrance they have heaps of shirts and sarongs which can be borrowed if you're not covered up enough for their liking. The monastary itself is very pretty and we had a look inside the chuch inside the monastary too. This was really the first time we've been into a proper Orthodox church and it was cool to see all the walls covered with frescos of saints. The halos are done in gold paint and in the dim light they really shine.



We also visited Aghios Trias and Aghios Stephanos. Aghios Trias was a smallish monastary preched on a really thin pillar and we could get up onto the bare rock for a nice view all around. Aghios Stephanos is now a convent for nuns and closed just after we got in so we had to quickly look around in there. The views from each of the monastaries out to the surrounding rockfaces and also over to the other monasatries was pretty dramatic.



We then headed northwest over towards the Aegean Sea. The view of the scenery as we drove up and down through the mountains was again prety cool and a very different view of Greece than the coast and islands we usually picture in our minds. As we drove through one of the villages we saw a crazy greek man standing on a digger bucket which was raised right up so that he could change the street lamp bulb! Awesome :). We had a bit of a hectic time at the end of our journey with bits of new motorways and roadworks confusing us. A couple of the entrances onto the motorway were blocked off without any warning until we got right up to it (ie there were signs onto the motorway earlier, just no way to actually get on)

We're now in a campground (Olympus Beach or something), one of a string of many towns/resorts along the east coast of Greece. Tomorrow we are planning to strike into Bulgaria and continue our epic trip.

Cars that think they're scooters

Leaving Athens yesterday was a bit of a relief, even tho J found the drive out on the motorway a bit harrowing. We have figured out what it is that make the traffic so crazy here, its cos they all think they are scooters, even if they are giant trucks!!!! We were glad to get onto the quieter road along to Delphi.

The road up was very spectuctacular, very steep and winding and the surrounding area is very beautiful, mountians with pines and olives. Delphi is sited pretty much on the edge of the steep hillside.

We camped in an amazing campsite right on the edge of the hill and with amazing views over the plains below. From out tent we looked out over the olive groves neat Itea, according to our guide book, some of the most ancient in greece. But realy the best thing about the camp ground is that it had a really nice pool. We therefore spent the rest of the boiling hot afternoon lounging and swimming which was wonderful. I'm tempted to say that a pool beats Air conditioning, it is really awesome!!!!



After dinner with a view, we sat in the really flash resturant and had some local wine whilst we watched all the lights come on in the villages accross the valley. it was wonderful!!!

An absoultly georgous spot to camp, unfortuantly the sinking air bed stuck again so we slept on the ground a bit. We have patched it up but next oppurtunity we will probably get a new one as intermittatly sleeping on the floor is not ideal.

right now i am fighting off the bugs in the car as they are attarcted to the light of the laptop as i blog from meteora. This morning we explored the runis of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi which was very cool, it is a dramitic site as it it very steep so the Sacred Way winds back and forth up to the temple.



We had intended to visit the Temple of Athena also where the iconic Tholos is. Unfortunatly it was closed due to we think a fire, there were fire engines and greek men waving there hands saying 'no!, problem!' and turning us back!!! but we saw it from a distance from further up.

Another long drive today up to meterora, we had intended to do it in two legs and chill out by the pool in a campground somewhere in between but it turns out that there are no campgrounds between delphi and meteora so we drove on and got all the way here. another very scenic drive through the mountains and another lesson in greek overtaking, apparently you only need about a cars length spare for it to be a successful overtake. it has definatly got us thinking about NZ's road saftey campaigns and how effective they are!!!

Another afternoon lounging by the pool here and an evening drive up towards the monitstarys. they are amazing, each one perched on the top of the cliff pillars (i'm sure thats the tecnhnical term). it was especially beautiful with the sun setting behingd the hills and the dusk light silloetting the rocks.

I'mmm Melllltttttiiiiing

It is very hot in Athens, in fact 'very' would be an understatement, a massive one. the wee weather card that our hotel gives us each night for today said it was going to be 37 degrees today and it sure felt like it!!!

We made the trek up the shady side of the streets to the National Archelogical Museum this morning. There are heaps of ancient greek sculpture and vases which are pretty cool they are both organised by time so it was interesting to see the progressions in style. well i thought it was, Jeremy was a little tired, after a while one vase looks like another and there is a limit to how many statues of poorly endowed naked marble men one can look at!!!

The actual highlight of the museum is the finds from the grave circles at Myacane where we visited a few days ago. There are loads of things made from gold including the Mask of Agamemnon. Weapons and jewelwery and more vases and loads of other cool stuff was found. i think it was interesting cos we had just been to the site so it tied it all together.

On the way back, even with my portable shade (my umbrella, not just for rain) it was massivly hot so we poped into a few airconditioned shops and had our lunch in the shade of a park by Syntagma Square. The thing with walking down the street is that its not just the heat, its the mad traffic, think five lanes of speedy cars plus scooters ignoring all possible road rules including the ones about pedestrian areas, plus the people everywhere and people trying to sell you stuff. Its all a bit overwhelming so its quite a releif to get back to our room and turn on the air con in the quiet!!!!

We had some relaxing drinks in the bar downstairs and wrote some postcards (if we don't have your address and you want one, tell us your addy) before waiting till the cool of the day to venture out again. We visited the Roman Agora and had one last stroll through the Plaka (much more pedestrian, tho still cars and scooters everywhere) and a souvilakia for dinner. We say good bye to Athens in the morning and are off on the next adventure.

Lost your marbles?

Couldn't come up with a good title for this post so I just went with an reference to the Elgin Marbles which we've heard a bit about today. Mostly in a rather unimpressed tone, and understandably, as from a Greek perspective Lord Elgin stole some of the best bits from the Parthenon. We went to the newly opened Acropolis Museum today. Its only been open for a couple of weeks now and is all new and sparkly. So new that I kept seeing the security staff reading the exhibit info and checking out all the statues alongside the tourists. I really enjoyed the museum and is well worth a visit if you're in Athens. It was even a bargain at one euro each to enter (must be an opening special). The best bit is definitely the Parthenon display of the frieze and metopes as they have constructed a display showing them as they would have been placed on the actual Parthenon. They've also filled in the gaps with plaster casts of the Elgin Marbles and the others that are in the Louvre.



Before that we visited the Temple of Olympian Zeus which is (or was) the largest temple in Greece. The columns that are still standing are gargantuan. The fluting down each column is larger than my head (and yes, thats a standard measurement :p). The sky was cloudless and made an excellent backdrop for some tourist photos :D

Us Photo Madness

Hi Everybody.

As a bonus update I've created a wee collage of our "Us Photos". These are a collection of snaps that we've taken where ever we've been. The rules are that it has to be taken by one of us, with both of us in it. That mean sticking our arm out and snapping randomly (how touristy!). You should be able to click on the collage to see it in full sized glory :)

Ancient Greece

Its been a couple of days since I last posted so here is a quick recap of the last couple of days.

First of all we slept in after skype-ing with our parents and julia until 2 in the morning. We had breakfast in bed again and then packed up our mountain of stuff before setting off up the road to Corinth. We visited the site of Ancient Corinth, taking many photos of the Temple of Apollo there. We also walked up to the site which they think is where the Roman governor sat in judgement of St Paul against Jewish accusations. It was the middle of the day in the sweltering heat (the worst time to do touristing in the ruins) so we didn't linger for too long in the actual site. We had lunch on a shaded terrace which overlooked the site which was just a magnificent experience.



We crossed the Isthmus into Greece proper and caught a glimpse of the Corinth Canal as we drove over it on the motorway. Once hitting Athens itself the traffic started getting a bit more madder (it was already a bit mad). The addition of heaps of scooters just makes it that more hectic. Watching greek traffic is quite entertaining in a frightening kind of way. At multiple times the slow traffic seemed to be in the middle lane with cars overtaking on both sides. Even saw a car overtaking by pulling out onto the shoulder at the edge of the road!

We are splashing out on our Athens trip and we are staying in a hotel the site right on the edge of the Plaka, just a couple of streets down from Syntagma square. This had been totally fantastic since we can just stroll out of the hotel and are right in the heart of the tourist district. This was totally awesome today, as once the heat of the day was burning us to a crisp we just went back to our room, turned the a/c on and had a wee nap.



Speaking of today we got up early and headed up to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. We arrived about an hour after opening and there were already a couple of tour buses there. An hour later though and the whole of the Acropolis was completely packed with people and we were glad that we hadn't left it any later to come up. The Parthenon was huge and awesome but I really liked the Erechtheion.



After our midday interlude we checked out the Ancient Agora. The Areopagus is here, which is were Paul gave his eloquent speech to the Athenians. We took lots of photos of the Temple of Hephaistos since it is still mostly in one piece, with lots of columns and friezes.



Hope that everyone is enjoying our blog. I'll update the last post about Nafplion with some photos now :)

Don't damage the ancient rocks!

Today has been a blissfully relaxing day. We've sleep in, had a late breakfast and stolled through Nafplion's beautiful streets (while Gem looks in the souvenir shops).



The ferry seats ended up not being as comfortable as we first thought (as the armrests didn't fold up and were pointy) and for some reason the ferry was really really vibraty. Gem managed to get some sleep by lying on the floor along with 20 or 30 other people cloggin up the corridors but I couldn't get comfortable to sleep much at all. The end result was that we were absolutely shattered, nevertheless we managed to drive through scary gGreek traffic to get to Nafplion. We rocked up to a pension and got a room with air conditioning. Yay for air conditioning, its awesome. Didn't really feel we needed it in Croatia but it is oh so good now.



We also went on an excursion to the ruins of Mycenae (Gem thinks my use of the word excursion makes us sound like 70 year olds on a tour bus or cruise ship). I was still a bit dopey from lack of sleep and there were lots of old rocks there (which would have been cooler if I was more awake).



Gem: Mycenae was pretty amazing, some of the 'old rocks' were built in the 13th century BC, thats a long time ago!!! Admittedly it was pretty hot and some of the ruins were hard to figure out. We have a really detailed guide book but it is a bit pompous so sometimes the info goes over our heads. The most famous bit of the site is the Lion Gate, which was pretty cool, and the Tholos tombs which are underground and shaped like behives inside.The Treasury of Atreus was the best of them as the roof is completly intact and its massive, the door lintel weighs about the same as 100 cars!!! what i think is crazy is that the tombs were coverred over and lost so that when the classical greeks were around they built a theatre on top of one of them cos they didnt know it was there.

Nafplion is a really pretty town. The guide book says its one of the prettiest in all of Greece. The old town has tons of really narrow little streets with pretty houses with shuttered windows and vines growing on them. And little restaurants everywhere with tables out on the streets. We walked out to the waterfront and looked across to the wee castle on the island. The water is once again really really clear and blue. Although later on we also watched the daily thunderstorm from the same waterfront. Massive forked lightnings and I caught part of one on camera.