After a week up north in Manchester, it was time to head south to London. My sister, Kym has been living there for 4 years so I hadn't seen her for a while and we were both looking forward to catching up. We jumped on a train down to Derby and were picked up by Phil who's a friend of my sister, and we were driven the rest of the way. My sister lives in a share house in Chiswick, which is just outside London but still accessible by tube. She has a great bunch of housemates such as Amanda, Steve, Naomi, Freda and Patrick, most of whom we went out with on the first night and had a few too many drinks. The next night Kym, Danielle and I went on the London Eye and saw the night time expanse of Greater London. We then grabbed some dinner at a Thai resturant that overlooks Tower Bridge. Pretty cool. The next night my sister suprised us with a night at the Sheraton in Central London. She's such a good sister. Danielle and I did some sight seeing that night including Big Ben and Westminster Abbey before eating at a resturant and retiring to our plush pad. The next day we hit the pavement and did some serious tourist stuff. We saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, then on to Trafalgar Square, St Paul's Cathedral, The Tower of London, and a quick tour of Tower Bridge. We were exhausted by the end of the day for sure. On the Wednesday we checked out the Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square, which included works by Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Rembrandt etc. Afterwards we met my sister at the Lyric Theatre in the West End of London and saw the stage show 'Thriller'. Which was a tribute to the late Micheal Jackson. It was a fun show and by the end we were dancing in our seats.
We also managed to catch up with 2 good friends of mine from Coffs Harbour, Will and Chris. Will did the same course as me at Uni so we hung out a fair bit. It was good catching up with the boys and hearing about their adventures from around Europe.
Since we had arrived in London we were applying for jobs in the French and Swiss Alps as Chalet Hosts for the upcoming ski season. We had sent off loads of applications and on Friday we had confirmation of an interview. We met our prospective employers at a pub in Bromley that afternoon and after `wowing` them at the interview, I am proud to say that we got the jobs! We will be working in St Martins, France, which is in the 3 Valleys area. The 3 Valleys is the largest ski area in the world. We will be taking care of guests in the chalet, cooking, cleaning, driving them to the ski lifts and mountain guiding. The contract starts in December and finishes in April 2012. I guess I`ll have to learn French now. I was just starting to get the hang of Spanish... Livin the dream!
