There's been a lot happening in the past couple of months and I thought it was time I finally put some of it down. Tish and I arrived back to the UK in late January after a great few months in Australia. While at home, we spent two months working back in Dubbo and Narromine which was a heap of fun - we had a crowded calendar between weddings and catchups and also got to see Coldplay in Sydney which was an amazing show. We spent the majority of December and January between Brisbane and Mackay which was a welcome change in temperature after a cold and wet year in the UK!
Nonetheless, gluttons for punishment, we returned... It has been a great couple of months already and the schedule just keeps filling in. We have been lucky to pick up work pretty consistently for the whole time we've been back in London, where we're now staying in a friend's room in South Hampstead until the end of April. We've settled in well there and got off to a flying start with Tish treating me to seeing England vs Scotland at Twickenham in the 6 Nations which was an awesome experience - massive atmosphere when there's a healthy dose of 'friendly' rivalry.
Our first adventure away was with a group of mates to St Antons, Austria for a week's skiing. It was an absolutely fantastic week. As far as th e weather/snow went we had two cracker days, a couple of extremely snowy days and a couple in between. The snow was amazing for the whole week and the first experience of powder was awesome, despite having absolutely no idea how to negotiate it. The Austrian hills are also well known to host a proud culture of après (after-ski drinks) which we sampled fairly broadly and it lived up to expectations. A couple of bars in particular were hotspots for drinks and dancing which was not by any means confined to the floor - chairs and tables copped the good news for several hours a day from ski-boots all round... hilarious stuff. The daily temperature ranged from about -11 to -18 so it was pretty chilly but the skiing was pretty challenging as well as a lot of fun so there were no complaints!
We didn't initially have much planned after arriving back from Austria. We made it two weeks and then booked an impromptu three-day weekend to Budapest with one of Tish's college mates. It wasn't somewhere I had specifically planned to visit but I'm so glad we did. It is a beautiful city with loads of stuff to do and see. We had a great time between the sites and the food. We had a great day just walking around the city and having a look around the castle, the citadel, down across the river and up to the House of Horror and finally up the main boulevard to the Heroes Square. The House of Horror was a fascinating museum recounting Hungary's post WWII history, which I had no prior knowledge of. The tumultuous times between independence, German occupation, Soviet influence and finally democracy were fantastic to read about. Finally, we had an afternoon at the thermal baths which was nice and relaxing - the sky was blue but the weather was nippy, making it all the more enjoyable!
So again we headed back to London... we lasted two days until we booked the next weekend away in Prague. Prague definitely was somewhere I had wanted to go on previous accounts and recommendations from friends and it didn't disappoint. What was really interesting was comparing it to Budapest (and the Czech Republic to Hungary) in terms of recent history, as they have really suffered very similar post-WWII/Cold War fates. The only suffering we had were the -9°C days, this time with no physical acitivity like skiing to keep the body temperature up! We had two out of four mornings dusted with snow which was magnificent to look at. The Castle, the Charles Bridge and the Old Town lived up to recommendations - we easily spent a day all totalled at the Castle alone. As in Hungary, the food was very hearty, revolving around pork, goose and cabbage. Whilst I don't think I would describe it as exquisite as such, it was pretty tasty. We also braved the cold for a walking tour which was well worthwhile - it's always great to get a bit of local knowledge and history, even when it has a healthy serve of bias attached. Our #1 cultural outing was to the Opera at the State Theatre which was, among other things, hilarious! We saw Dvorak's Rusalka and the theatre was small but spectacular. The Opera was translated into English subtitles that ran across a small screen at the top of the stage. The singing was really impressive but the child in me just couldn't stop giggling at the fact that a solid two minutes of singing was translated to 'You're doomed!' or something of the like - it was a very dramatic story and the set was equally doom and gloom for poor old Rusalka the love-plagued water fairy.
The city itself was absolutely wonderful and I think given a little warmer weather later in the year, it would be very similar to Brugge in that it would be nice just to stroll about in and take it all in. The architecture was extremely intricate but equally as variable so there was no boredom in walking down any given street and checking out the buildings.
For the time being we are back in England again - Tish has headed up to Cheddleton for the week whilst I have stayed in London. Hopefully we'll both be in London full time as of Monday until mid May, travel aside. We don't have any international travel planned until then at this stage but we are heading down to the beach at Cornwall for an Easter camping trip. It is still absolutely absolutely freezing so we'll be crossing fingers for a heat wave at the end of next week to make our trip a bit more pleasant. We're heading down with one of the couples (Kate and Nev) who we also went skiing with which will be heaps of fun - the camping site is apparently a bit of a musical hippy ghetto so we'll hopefully get to sit around and sing Kumbaya at least once.
The schedule for the next 6 weeks contiues to be action-packed and is very exciting! We may end up sneaking over the continent again but otherwise it's full of catchups, London sight-seeing, music and sport as well as friends visiting London. The London sightseeing is very underdone at this stage but we're hoping to really get cracking! I got to Wembley Stadium this week for a tour which was pretty cool - a massive facility - and also got to West End for The Lion King which, as everyone constantly raves, was spectacular. Plenty more trips to West End I hope! The other thing high on the agenda other than the standards (Big Ben, London Bridge, Westminster etc) is an FA Premiership match which we'll hopefully jag late in the season. We are seeing England vs NZ at Lords in May, although the Kiwis will have to step it up a notch if our 4th-day tickets are to be of any more use than a bookmark. The Rugby 7's in May are also booked which is supposed to be a lot of fun.
In mid May we start moving around again for a while; we have a week planned in Krakow and Berlin and then a week (finally!) in Aberdeen with some of Dad's family. We then come back to Australia for a fortnight to see Chloe, both of our families and to go to one of Tish's friends' wedding. That will be another busy fortnight but then on returning to England in mid-June we are settling in for a few months work living in Ormskirk, which is just north of Liverpool. Ormskirk is about halfway between the Lakes District and Snowdonia (Wales) so we're hoping to get plenty of hiking in during time off.
All very busy!!! It's a very exciting time and it has been awesome just to fit so much in to the 8 weeks since we've come back already. I will be sure to write again - every time I seem to say 'soon' which inevitably turns out the opposite.
So until... sometime...
