New Zealand.
Hey
everyone,
Well, after
8 months and 27 days we are back in New Zealand. Back to sunshine,
thankfully, beaches, cicadas (oh how surprisingly much I have missed cicadas),
friends and family. I have been learning to drive again, attended a Hen’s
Night, and seen my bridesmaids dress. Ollie has enjoyed driving again, turned
down a job and been getting bored of Auckland
already.
Before we
flew back, we spent three days in London
staying with Ollie’s cousin Silus and his girlfriend Melissa. We caught the
three hour train from Devon to London and then
had to carry about 60kgs of luggage (I know how much as they weighed our bags
at the airport) across London,
on the underground, during the end of rush hour - not fun.
We did
enjoy ourselves in London
though. We all visited the Natural History Museum and saw the dinosaur bones
and an animatronic T-Rex. Afterwards, we ate a dodgy Turkish kebab with
miscellaneous ‘meat’ and salad. That night we met up with Ollie’s other cousin,
Chloe, and we all went out drinking in a London
pub, called something like the Rose and Crown.
The next
day we visited Camden
markets, recently in the news for a big fire that destroyed some stores. We
only saw damage to about three or four stores. The markets looked fantastic
with clothing, jewellery, art, and lots of different food stalls selling items
from goat curry to gluten-free kebabs. We enjoyed ourselves people watching as
well, with lots of proper English punks hanging around.
The next day
we cheated for the first time on our trip, splashed out and got a taxi straight
to Heathrow. We could not face another trek with 60kgs in the underground. I
enjoyed our Air New Zealand flight to LA, no one sat in the seat next to me, we
watched four or five movies consecutively, and I watched Absolutely Fabulous
and America’s
Next Top Model. We also ate some rather nice plane food, in particular a New Zealand
lamb curry that tasted delicious.
We had to
leave the plane at LA. Luckily, we sat near the front of the plane, therefore,
we joined the queue for the transit lounge near the beginning. The whole flight
had to be fingerprinted and eye scanned before we could enter the sitting area.
It took us about 20 minutes to get through, and the last person about an hour
and 20 minutes. Surprisingly, they provided crisps, biscuits, coffee, tea,
apples and newspapers for us.
The second
half of the fight was full. We took 40 minutes to take off, without any
air-conditioning (as this would come on when we took off), and we roasted. I
managed to sleep for four hours on this flight but it was more cramped, more
boring and they over-fed us and provided disgusting American bottled water.
When we landed the bridge to the airport was not in line to the plane, and the
machine to move it broke. So, it took another 40 minutes to get off. However,
the host of the Amazing Race, Phil Keoghan, and Trinny and Susannah also had to
suffer through this; Leon
saw them come through customs just before us.
We are
enjoying being back Downunder, but we will miss travelling in Europe.
We will miss seeing everyone in England
and Austria, and Geraldine
and Christopher in Spain.
We will miss proper Greek Salads, Spanish tortillas, German White Beer, and English
pub meals. We will miss seeing new things all the time and staying in different
places with different people, especially the flash, cheap places in Greece but not so much the dingy hostels rooms
in northern Europe.
I will not
miss trying to write this blog on the tiny PDA keypad or on foreign computers, which
all have different versions of the keyboard. I will not miss all the Aussies in
Europe, because they live down this way
anyway. We will also not miss the stupidity of airport security checks, where
you can and cannot have water, boots, any shoes, cameras, make up, belts, coats
checked or not checked, go through customs or not, be bomb wanded, swabbed etc.
with no pattern at all, but maybe that’s the point.
However, we
do not seem to have stopped travelling yet, as we will be going to Australia next
month, and I still have 60-something days left on my World Journal so this may
not be my last entry. I have saved everyone’s email address though and you can
always contact Ollie on ostrong01@gmail.com
and me on soqhie@gmail.com.
From
Sophie and
Ollie.
