South Bank

So in an attempt to do some sight seeing without spending too much money we went to check out a food festival in South Bank on the weekend. The weather was really quite good so we wanted to make sure we made the most of it because clearly it's not going to last! Anyway we went for a wander along South Bank with about a million other people. Checked out the food, the street performers and the MASSIVE line for the London eye. And no we didn't go on the London eye. Do you know how much that thing costs! So we have to wait till we're a bit richer before we can go for a spin. You can get a private capsule for 400 pounds if you're really keen. haha.

We had some lunch on South Bank which was quite nice with the sun out. It wasn't really that warm though. I was still wearing a jumper. I'm not looking forward to winter at all:/

There was heaps of street performers and this one was a bit freaky. If you go to my Flickr photos you can see how scared this little kid looks on the right hand side. He was freaking out completely, yet his little brother in the pram was quite happy to watch. haha

Anyway here's the pics of South Bank

Our Flat

So just in case you didn't see the pics on Flickr, here's a couple of pictures of our little flat. So if you were wondering what 200 pounds a week can get you, then this is it! Much less if you live any closer to central London. This is our little lounge/dining room. There's a TV in the corner now. We have a 2 seater couch and a little dining table with 2 chairs.

This is our bedroom with a double bed (a bit different from our king size bed at home!). The room also has a chest of drawers and a small built in wardrobe.

This is our little kitchen. One of those doors hides the smallest fridge in the world and the other hides the washing machine. So only one is actually useful for storage which is why we only have one saucepan. haha. At the top the middle one is a pull out extractor fan and the one on the left has the food and the one on the right has all the cups/plates etc. And you can imagine that when the oven is on it gets very hot in the kitchen!

Southall - Little India

My friend Jyoti was in London briefly staying with some family in Southall which is known as little India. So Nathanael and I head out there to meet up with her for lunch and a wander along the high street.

According to wikipedia (the ever the reliable source of accurate information) the population is over 55% Indian/Pakistani and i also found out that Southall was the primary location for the film "Bend It Like Beckham". The Macdonalds here is halal. Although it seems to be a bit controversial whether it is or not, but the signs definitely say it is! Southall high street is filled with Indian restaurants and heaps of Indian sweet shops (pictured below). There's also countless stores selling jewellery, saris and dodgy Bollywood DVDs.

So we had a curry buffet for lunch followed by a selection of Indian sweets. I don't remember the name of them all but the "milk cake" was my favourite (the big slab looking one). Wayne, you should try and get it at Mela, it's delicious. It tastes like condensed milk. yum.

Also Jyoti kindly bought us a housewarming present. She spotted what looked like possibly the most hideous and wonderful clock ever made and i couldn't love it more! Check it out.....!!!!! How awesome is that! Thanks Jyoti:)

A mean time at Greenwich

While hanging out waiting to get a job, Laura and I went exploring. We caught the tube down to Canary Wharf and then strolled along the Thames, and the under it, to Greenwich. It was quite a nice day out. Here's some photos.

The craziest traffic lights I've ever seen and in the middle of a roundabout no less! These crazy Brits. What are they like, hey?

This is me (the one standing in the Western Hemisphere) and Laura (she's the one all the way over there in the Eastern Hemisphere).
This is what we observed from the old observatory. No stars, just the old royal naval college and the queen's house (see below). Oh and that's not the London eye, it's its little sister.

The queen's house from the front. Now the name is a little strange, because the queen doesn't live there... you can read about it here.

Berlin

Ok, so I'm really slack and haven't posted anything for ages. I have no excuse, I'm still unemployed!

Anyway it was my birthday a while ago and my wonderful Mummy and Daddy gave me some money(thanks parents!), so even though we are flat broke we managed to get some cheaps flights to Berlin so we could catch up with my friend from school Jyoti, her sister Kiran and her mate Lauren. Here's a picture of us all enjoying a traditional German meal at a pub (except Lauren who's a vegetarian which isn't traditionally a German thing i don't think!)

As usual we checked out the culinary delights. We sampled the curry wurst which was basically a sausage covered with tomato sauce (they use a ladle!) and then sprinkled with curry powder and served with a bread roll. We also checked out the Berliner Wiesse which is beer flavoured with syrup. Either Raspberry or Woodruff (whatever that is). Anyway it was pretty sweet and you could get it in a bottle, or in a glass with a straw. So not really a man's drink. haha.

Of course we sampled the pretzels in all varieties. The pumpkin seed one was the best.

And to top off the German experience we had some apple strudel.

This little man is the cross walk man. He's pretty cool and seems to be the mascot of Berlin. He's everywhere! This was at a shop dedicated to selling merchandise with his image on it. He has a little German hat, and so did the disabled person sign on the road. How cool is that!

We spotted this crazy bike cruising down the road so we decided to go for a little tour on it. It was heaps of fun, but a little bit scary at times. I was convinced at least one person was going to be seriously injured, but we were lucky. We left from Brandenberg gate and went down to the Reichstag. We then cruised along the river and through the Tiergarten (a huge park in Berlin) until we arrived back at Brandenberg gate and went in search of Bratwurst. Pretty good way to see the sights though.

We came across this beer garden with an urban beach. Pretty cool. They should totally do this in Perth. We hung out in deck chairs here for quite a while drinking beer and eating German treats.

We also checked out the Jewish museum while we were there. It was kind of a cross between a museum, an art exhibition and scitech. There was absolutely heaps to do and after a few hours we were wondering if it just went on forever. Anyway we finally find our way out and went in search of food (again).

We spent our last night on a pub crawl through the city. Plenty of gin and tonics and jager bombs were consumed and a good time was had by all. We ended up at a really cool bar that was kind of like being in a junkyard! Very random place, but very cool.

All in all we had a great time. Berlin is a really cool city and i can highly recommend it. It was awesome to catch up with the girls, the only bad thing was the bees. They're everywhere!

As usual there's pics on Flickr so if you want to check them out then click here

The Wurst of times

Laura and I have just spent a couple of days in Berlin catching up with a few friends. I'm sure she'll write some more about it, but I thought I'd just post a few photos. And now I can do it from the couch, hooray for the internet at home!

The Brandenburg Gate.

The Wurst place in town (*groan*)

And the currywurst Laura got from it.

Checkpoint Charlie

The metre of beer which we had at Georgebrauhaus

London

So after Moscow we flew direct to London and spent a week looking for a flat and getting bank accounts set up etc. Surprisingly it wasn't easy for two people from another country with no credit history and no jobs to secure a flat. Luckily my very kind Uncle said that he would be a guarantor for us so that we could get a place. We looked at a few places around London but we ended up applying for a 1 bedroom flat in Willesden Green (NW London). It's close to the tube station and it's a pretty quick journey into central London. And it's about 50 metres from the supermarket.

We didn't do too much sight seeing as it's pretty expensive to be a tourist in London. We're talking $50 to go to Madam Tussaud's, $25 to go to Westminster Abbey and God knows how much to go on the London Eye. And yes, i know the museums are free. But anyway we decided that we've got plenty of time to see the London sights so we just strolled around. Here's a pic of Nate with Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

Anyway it took a while to get everything sorted out as real estate agents here are just as useless as those in Perth so we had some time to kill. Nate mentioned in a previous post that we got some cheap bus tickets to Cardiff, so we headed off to Wales for a few days (which turned in to a week).

Wales

So we set off to Cardiff for a few days. We got 10 pound tickets from London and it was about a 3 hour coach trip which was nothing compared to some of our journeys so far.

Anyway we arrived in Cardiff and found our hostel a few minutes away from the bus station. Cardiff is a really easy city to sightsee in as it's small enough to walk around and see most of the sights. The first day we arrived it was raining and we just checked out the town and sampled some of the local produce. We went to he markets and I had a welsh cake (pictured below) which was kind of a cross between a scone and a pikelet, then covered in sugar. Anyway i took a photo (like i do) and some of the locals found it quite amusing.

Nathanael also sampled the local cider.

The second day we were there, the sun came out! So we spent the day checking out Cardiff castle which is right in the centre of Cardiff. Then we got a water taxi and went down to Cardiff Bay to enjoy the sunshine with the locals. As Dr Who is filmed in Cardiff we managed to check out the Dr Who exhibition (yes, we saw it Kay!). Then we went and had a cider and a chat with a few locals about the Olympics and drug cheats (Phelps!)

We also headed out to Caerphilly to check out their massive castle which the town is built around. We had lunch in a pub overlooking the castle which was pretty cool. Although i have to say, Wales seems to have more teenage mums than Rockingham!

So as the flat in London was taking a while we decided to hang around in Wales and hire a car so we could see a bit more of the countryside. We got to see quite a bit of West Wales and South Wales and also managed to see the ONLY Welsh distillery. We got chatting to the girl and guy working there and ended up staying ages talking about deadly snakes and spiders in Australia. They also gave Nathanael a taster of everything they had which included 4 whiskeys, a vodka, a gin and a liquer. Needless to say, he left quite happy.

We also managed to head to the Seaside and check out the locals enjoying the beach. It was raining, windy and no where near 20 degrees. BUT, it was summer, so no one was stopping the locals getting out on the beach. I realised that my parents must have put me through that kind of stuff when i lived in England as a child. We were concerned about children getting pneumonia! There was people in their bathers, eating icecream, yet others were dressed in long coats with scarves and hats. It was bizarre to say the least!