LONDON

Welcome to the land of double-decker buses and squirrels in your backyard. You heard it right folks - SQUIRRELS!

So we have finally ventured back to a country where English is the first language. After six months of various games of charades, the world is suddenly very loud as we can understand what everyone is saying, all the time. Very strange. But despite our initial objections to doing the "Aussie living in London" thing - it has come to the point of our trip where it seems the most logical step, especially considering it's time to top up the bank accounts to fund more adventure. So we arrived in London two weeks ago and have been slowly finding our feet. We got off to a good start, becoming the first Aussies ever to come to London and not have to spend endless weeks looking at terrible rat-infested accommodation before finding something liveable. Thanks to our Adelaide mates Tim and Traci, we managed to move straight into a gorgeous house in Muswell Hill (a trendy/posh northern London suburb) on the day we arrived. It's a pretty huge house - and there are about eight of us living here - so there's always something going on, which we absolutely love. The communal areas are all very modern - stainless steel appliances (we even have a dishwasher!) and cable TV throughout. And our room is amazing - an attic conversion with ensuite - so if we ever want to get away from the household commotion, we have our little third-floor retreat. But considering Bol and I are probably the loudest people in the house, it's not really a problem!

So .... ladies and gentlemen .... welcome to Muswell Hill

Home sweet home

Our gorgeous loft conversion

With a very cool shower

And ever so sparkling toilet

Our backyard where the squirrels like to hang out

Where our chef-man Bol creates

And the lounge where housemates and mates from Adelaide get together for beer o'clock

Bol with housemates Ben and Ben. Thanks for making it easy to remember guys!

Our local shopping strip

And the park at the other end of our street (there is also a big duck pond and ice-skating rink!)

The view over London from just near our house

Now since we've arrived, we have not had much of a chance to leave the house. We call it the "financial forced grounding" - but we anticipate freedom should only be a matter of weeks away. We did manage to go out one night to catch up with our AWESOME mates we met in Vietnam, Grant and Dave. And we have done a "walk around London Bridge" day. But apart from having some mates around at our place and job-hunting, there's not much to add about our first two weeks here. Except this one heartwarming story:
Dave (champion in pics below) came around to our new house a few days after we arrived and brought with him about a million tupperware containers filled with amazing Indian food. His mum and dad had cooked it for us as a "welcome to England" type housewarming gift. Awwww ... the people you meet when you travel!

The London tube system is a crazy, crazy thing to get used to

The River Thames with St Paul's Cathedral in background

London Bridge is falling down ....

Our champion mate Dave at our travellers' reunion

First the camel and now this - Should I be worried?

Grant (who we travelled with for 6 weeks in Asia) and new girlfriend Kristen

Onto Africa


When in Europe, why not head to Africa? That was our view exactly. After almost two months in Europe - knowing we were to head to London to live and work very soon - we decided to head to where it was warmest and bask in the sun before it disappeared for many months. So we flew from Budapest to Tunisia where the land was dry, the camels were stubborn, and the lazy days kicked in.
Upon arriving at our hotel we were soon to discover that absolutely no other guests spoke English - a slight problem considering we were hoping to have some sociable times in Tunisia. After three days of eating, drinking and swimming alone, along came Eoin and Martyna - a poor unsuspecting Irish guy and Polish girl. Picture Bol and I sitting at the bar alongside the pool when we overhear someone actually order a drink in ENGLISH! I immediately went over to the guy and said "Excuse me - where are you from?"
Poor unsuspecting guy: "Ireland".
Me: "Oh my god - we have been trying to find someone to hang out with for days. I can't believe you speak English. This is soooo good. Pull up a chair. Have a drink."
Poor unsuspecting guy: "Ummmm - I was actually going to have a swim."
Too bad. We gotcha now! Fastforward another day and another poor unsuspecting Dutch man Roel joined our group.
So a happy Em and Bol had found our friends in Africa and we spent the rest of the trip eating, drinking, laughing, lazing, swimming and dancing to cheezy African music together. A very cool bunch who we will definitely visit in their respective countries as soon as we can.

Martyna, Eoin, Bol and Roel during one of our night sessions in the hotel pub

Nothing like waking up to this in the morning

Or this out the front of the hotel

And who can go past this kind of evening entertainment

Roel and I get into the hotel's "chava chava" dance

Our champion barman and mate Kader

Bol decides to show off his bar tending skills

So apart from lazing about our "everything is included" hotel, we went on a few trips to the neighbouring towns Sousse and Monastir (Where Life of Brian was filmed) and we also of course joined the "no tourist can go to Africa and not go on a camel ride" tour. Unfortunately, I actually became the "first tourist to go on a camel ride tour and not get on the camel" because I chose to steer the horse and cart instead. The saddle looked unsafe, okay!!! Plus, they wouldn't get the camels to sit down while you got on, so you had to be lifted up in a very uncomfortable manoevre, which I decided against. Such an idiot! But I did feed the camel a piece of cactus with my teeth, so I guess that counts as my African camel experience.

My view from the "camel cop-out" cart

And Bol on his "I'm not a cop-out" camel ride

He wants to kiss the camel but a piece of cactus stands in his way

Wandering the deserted streets of Sousse

And the not so deserted streets of Sousse

A Tunisian man taking a siesta

And who can go past the African sunset

All in all Tunisia was a much needed week of pure relaxation and sun. Now we are off to the big smoke of London - I guess you could call it returning to reality. But we will be sure that between the work and rain, we have some UK adventures to remember. It shouldn't be too hard ...