Mallorca

Well so far so bloody awesome.  All inclusive is the sweetest deal ever!  3 meals a day, plus snacks, and drinks til midnight.  Loving it.  Lucky to get here though.  Firstly Amy and I both upset security by having too many liquids, so even though they were in 100ml bottles there were more than one zip lock bag each so we had to ditch come.  As a result I have no hair product or conditioner. Just letting you know my hair might not be looking its best in the photos.
Secondly I took us to the wrong terminal and we had to get an escort back, but the gate was closing as our escort picked us up so a bit of a panic was in the air.
Gotta go, jumped on someones computer once they left the internet cafe, 1 min left.
Weather is great.  Catching a bus tomorrow to Palma.
Good times indeed.
xxx

Oxford

Nath and I had a day trip to Oxford last Saturday. It is less than an hour away from London so it is a great get-away for a day.  We did a free city walking tour and went past loads of awesome buildings.  The University is spread out around Oxford and is really spectacular.  At Oxford Uni students live and study in their colleges which is quite cool.  We saw Christ Church College where scenes of Harry Potter were filmed.  Sir Christopher Wren (designer of St Paul's Cathedral) designed some bell tower at another Uni College. 

The exciting news is that we have booked a long weekend in PARIS!  I can't wait as Paris has been on my travel wish list for ages.  We are going the weekend of the royal wedding as the Friday and Monday are public holidays.   Quite crazy as we get back from Turkey for ANZAC day on the Tuesday and then we're off to Paris on the Friday.  Nice. 
Now that we both have good jobs we are starting to book more holidays away.  Although Nath is quite limited with only 20 days annual leave compared to my 17 weeks!  We have decided to make the most of long weekends so Nath doesn't use all his annual leave up early.  There is a long weekend in May and one in August so we are keen to do Rome for one and Amsterdam the other.  Exciting times. 
I am going on PD (professional development) to Brussels!  Choice aye, better than ICT conferences to Rotorua. 
It has been a year since Nath and I arrived in London.  The time has flown by.  It is neat to look back through the blog to see what we have done in the past year. 
The mornings are lighter and it is not pitch black when I arrive home from work - must mean that summer is on the way.  So desperate for some sun, I'm a weird pasty yellow colour.  Amy is coming over this arvo so we can book a resort break to Spain (or somewhere else sunny and cheap) in our April holidays.
Hope the first term is going well for the teachers back home.
xxx

Wessex Roady

This week I have been on Mid Term break so with a week off work Nath and I hired a car and took it on a Roady.  We covered most of the towns in Wessex - south west England.  What we are proud of is how budget we were when plannig our trip.  We found a web page called laterooms.com so we booked all our accom through here - B&Bs with english breakfast.  The main factor in booking a night was that it had to provide breaky - which also saved us money on lunches as with a big breakfast we found we didn't have a big lunch - usually a scone or muffin.  We also have a taste card which gives us 2 4 1 or 50% off at restaurants that have signed up so we made sure we ate only at these restaurants. 
We started off in Winchester looking at the old castle and the cathedral.  We also walked past the house where Jane Austen died.  Our first night was in Portsmouth.  Nath had loads of fun looking round the historic dockyard where the HMS Victory and HMS Warrior are moored.  They also have on display the last remaining sail from HMS Vicotry that was used in the Battle of Trafalgar - full of holes where cannons ripped through it. 
Then we visited the seaside town of Weymouth.  Enroute we explored the ruins of Corfe castle and drove to the seaside town of Swanage. Weymouth is hosting the sailing events of the 2012 Olympics. We left our details with our B&B so that they can let us know if they have any vaccancies over the Olympics as Nath and I would be keen to return to watch some sailing, especially as Kiwis would be competing.
We saw the light house on Porltand Point and the bizzarre round Portland Castle.  Then we headed for Lulworth Cove on the Jurassic coast - a UNESCO world heritage site for its fossils. We had a night in Bournemouth which was not that exciting.  Walking down the main street reminded me of Hamilton! On return to London we stopped at Salisbury and looked through the amazing Cathedral.  The cathedral hold one of four orignal copies of the Magna Carta - we counldn't read it though because its written in Latin!
Nath's text books have arrvied for him to start his accounting papers.  How fun I can be a teacher at home and at work.
Today is definitely a relax at home day.  We have been invited to a birthday dinner for Scott who we met on our trip around Ireland.  Will be cool to catch up.    
Our niece Lena is having her 1st birthday party tomorrow, cant believe she's one already! She was born when we were in Cusco.
Hope all you NZ teachers have settled into the school year and have nice classes.
Adios amigos.

 Winchester

 Corfe Castle Ruins

 Corfe Town

 Portland Castle - a bit budget, makes Larnach Castle look good

Cerne Giant

Waitangi Day and Chinese New Year

Nath and I had a cultural weekend partaking in Waitangi and Chinese NY festivities. Waitangi celebrations consisted of dressing up in NZ themed clothing and buying beers at the off license and walking the streets of London to converge on Parliament for a Haka at 4pm.  It is meant to be a pub crawl but with so many people the pubs packed out so most drank outside.  There was a shortage of toilet facilities so at one point I went into and Indian restaurant, booked a table for 8, told the man my friends were across the road and I had to go get them, and as he went to set our table I knicked off upstairs to use the toilet!  Caught up with my cousin, brother, uni friend and some peeps I went to school with.  In the end Nath and I had a reasonably quiet one, I think about 4 beers each over the space of 5hrs.  After the Haka we went home and cooked up pasta for dinner. 
Today we headed to Trafalgar Square to watch celebrations for Chinese New Year.  We saw the fireworks display and the dancing dragon and lions.  We also walked through China Town which was obviously packed and going off.
My job is going really well and Im enjoying it.  I think the students have taken to me and we get on well.  I was runner up teacher of the week last week for the yr 11s.  One of the yr 11 form classes votes on a teacher of the week and a student of the week.  I was pretty stoked with that result.  So far it is as cruisy as it first seemed, half of my teaching time is spent traveling to venues, I am starting to get frustrated with the 'dead/wated' time but we have no other options. I have started playing squash with some of the staff.  On my 1st week I bet two maths teachers 9-0 and 9-0 so that was pretty awesome as it was not their first time. 
Still no plans for half term break coming up in two weeks. Would love to go to Paris - so much to do especially Disneyland! That would be cool.
This date last year we were in Quito and on day two of our South America trip.  How fast time has flown, would love to be back there doing it all again.  Have noticed there has been no flloods and mudslides in Peru this year!! 
The weather is getting warmer, the mornings are much lighter and the evenings aren't so dark.  Spring clothing is starting to appear in the shops so summer must be on the way :)

La paz a cabo. 

Ireland

A great time was had by all on our trip of Ireland. When we flew into Dublin all the fields were snowy white and looked stunning.  Dublin itself had had some snow melt so was very icy when walking around the city.  In the morning we started our tour with Mark on the paddy wagon.
Mark was hilarious and made the tour very worthwhile. He was great at explaining the history of spots we were visiting, especially the troubles in Northern Ireland.  Often he would play us songs that were relevant to the place for example U2s Bloody Sunday in Derry where 13 unarmed protestors were shot dead by British Soldiers. Our favourite song was 7 Drunken Nights by The Dubliners - a man suspects his wife of having an affair.  It is very catchy and we requested it alot, and tried to sing it coming home drunk on a few occasions.

Hopefully the song posted above so you can listen to it while reading the blog. 

The first part of our trip was in Northern Ireland - we stayed a night in Derry and Belfast.  The troubled past between Catholics and Protestants is terrible.  We did a black taxi cab ride round Belfast to se the walls that still seperate the two sides.  But whats silly is that the heart of the city is a neutral zone so catholics and Protestants work together no problems but then label themselves one or the other at home time. Silly buggers. In Northern Island we visited the Giants Causeway and walked the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.
We then moved down to The Republic of Ireland which is on the Euro.  We did so many cool things.  Its great having a local guide as we had many little stop offs to things like the fertility stone and the Leprechaun wishing well. We took a ride in horse carriage around Killarney and kissed the Blarney stone hidden up the top of the Blarney Castle. The highlight of the trip for me was walking along the edge of the Cliffs of Moher.  Crazy how the clifs drop straight down to the sea below. 

The 7 nights we were Ireland we went to the pub pretty much twice a day - for lunch and dinner.  3 nights turned out to be fairly decent sized nights out.  We spent New Years night in a tiny spot called Annascaul which is on the Dingle Peninsular.  The hostel we stayed in was attached to a pub called the Randy Leprechaun so we started our night off there.  In the town there was one street with 6 pubs along it so we pub crawled down the street but only went into one other pub.  The others were closed or empty.  Arrived back in London with much bigger beer bellies and decreased funds in the bank account.

Snow, Winter Wonderland & Ice Skating

 As you can see from the photo's we have had a lot of snow fall over the weekend.  Nath and I were keen to make the most of it so we wrapped up and went for a walk along the Thames to get some photo's.  Along the way my canvas shoes got quite wet so it was a good excuse to call into the shops at Hammersmith and buy new shoes.
Had a date night with Amy at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.  After looking around the rides and having hot chocolates we went to the Natural History Museum for a spot of ice skating.  It was freezing out but ice skating kept us warm.
This morning as Nath was off to work the temperature was -6, so I was pretty happy that I could stay in bed and read - gotta love school holidays!  Snow is forecast every day this week which could muck up our travel plans as Britian grinds to a halt if there is snow around.  We are taking the train to Brighton on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with my Uncle, then on the 26th we fly to Ireland for our New Year trip.  Once in Ireland we have a bus that drives us around, so there are plenty of opportunities for the snow to prevent us travelling!

Winter wonderland:

Ice Skating

In Bruges

We had an early start to the day for our trip to Bruges.  It was freezing and I dont suppose canvas shoes are the most appropriate footwear to have on in the snow! Had a fantastic day wandering around the market stalls.  We didn't buy anything except for chocolates, beer and a huge sausage for lunch.  We hid in local pubs to defrost our feet when they got too cold.  

On another note - I have spent 4 days supply teaching at my new school and the staff are lovely.  I have been invited to play squash, got invited at a quiz night and the staf xmas party.  I am going to the xmas party, black tie event, £55 3 course meal that the school is paying for - sweet. Much different to the Pram Coll partys that were held at school and we had to pay for the meal.  The students are pretty ok (for London) and already Im giving them stick and so forth.  I have probably taught most of the students that will be in my classes.  At each year level (7-11) there are two form classes and Il teach one yr 7 class and Justin the HOD PE will teach the other class at the same time.  Looking forward to starting in January.