London Update

Wow where does the time go?! I have been in London now for almost 4 months and seeing as I am currently ill in bed I thought it is the perfect time to do a little London update. 

Where to begin... We arrived in London at the end of summer and enjoyed some lovely weather, apart from a few downpours that we were not prepared for, I quickly learned that every Londoner carries an umbrella with them at all times!
After arriving from Italy quite late we caught our first tube train to meet Sue, Dans second cousin who we were going to be house and cat sitting for the next two weeks. 
It was so nice to have a homely base when we first arrived in London, with so much to organise I don't think we could have done it without Sue who we ended up staying with for 4 weeks before we finally found somewhere to live. 

We decided to jump straight into the job search when we first arrived and within 2 weeks both Dan and I were employed! Dan in a permanent role as a software Engineer and me in a contracting role as a Bid coordinator. 
Next on the list was to find somewhere to live, this proved to be very difficult as all of the best houses we found had another 20+ couples interested, this was a very draining process as we were both working full time, finishing work and spending all evening viewing houses that we ended up missing out on, this went on for a few weeks until we finally got lucky with a huge house in Shepherds Bush sharing with 2 kiwi guys and Australian girl and a British guy thank goodness we could finally stop living out of our suitcases!

Since then I have worked in a couple of nightmare temp jobs until 1 month ago I secured a permanent position at a company as a Graphic Designer yay! 

Because it has been so long and I can't remember everything we have done I am just going to post some photos with captions and hopefully remember along the way!

first things first, shopping for shoes I can never wear in London... oops

The lovely leafy suburb of Chiswick

Being tourists in Trafalgar Square

And at the London Eye

At Notting Hill Carnival with Gem and Sally on one of the wettest days, Jello shots!!

Jello shots were terrible

So many restaurants to try! Brazilian Barbecue  

So many cocktails to taste!

London is making us fat :(

My cider vs Dans beer

Dishoom, a Bombay style cafe, one of the many restaurants ticked off my London list 

The British museum with its stunning Architecture (and the 2 Architects!)

Perfect sunny day in London exploring with Christchurch friends, what a treat!

Pub food, Pie and Mash

Having a drink before the Burlesque in Southbank

Sammy came to London for a week, the best week, Cocktail week!

So many cocktails

Up in the sky at Duck and Waffle

Food from the Borough Markets, Cheese toastie heaven

We have been doing lots of day trips since Dan has a car. Oxford put on the best weather for us to chill at The Trout and have lunch.

After exploring around Oxford University

Oxford

Windsor Castle

Found his department store in Windsor 

Rugging up with a Gingerbread latte, Windsor 

Fell in love with Cambridge 

 And all its bikes

At the roman baths in Bath

Bonfire night in Notting Hill

Winter Wonderland in Hyde park is insane! Packed with German style christmas markets and rides 

Dan won me a bear :)

London is now very cold but all the Christmas lights have been making up for it!

It certainly feels a lot more Christmassy when its cold.

With only a few more weeks left at work it is time to plan our next adventure... Austria for Christmas!! I am so excited to have a proper white christmas in the fairytale city, Salzburg. We are meeting Sammy and Reuben where we will spend 10 days exploring, eating, skiing and relaxing. 

xx

Florence and Rome

We caught our first train in Europe from Venice to Florence on the Italo high speed train, reaching speeds of 300km we got there in under 2 hours. In Florence we stayed in a pretty cool Hostel called Plus Florence. This is a chain of Hostels all around Europe, I will defiantly be looking into the other locations as places to stay. With a rooftop bar, a pool and live music it is a more social place to stay in Florence. We had a private room with a private bathroom so it wasn't that much different to a hotel.

The Plus Florence Hostel

After eating so much Italian food we were craving something a little more then pastries for breakfast, we stumbled across this cafe selling omelettes and managed to get some basic scrambled eggs on toast, but they were the best scrambled eggs on toast I have ever eaten... who would have thought. They don't really do iced coffee in Italy which is weird because it is so hot but we also managed to get something resembling an iced coffee too yay :)

We got tickets for the hop on hop off bus for a day of exploring- This is a good option for a cheap tour of the main attractions of the city. You get a audio tour guide that while basic does give you a general idea on weather you want to hop off at that particular sight or not. Also its a double decker bus so sitting up top gives you a nice cool breeze! Just what you need in 35 degree weather!

The view from the Piazzale Michelangelo is well worth the trip up.

The next day we took a day tour from Florence to Siena to San Gimignano stopping off at a medieval castle town on the way called Monteriggioni.

The Tuscan backdrop of Monteriggioni.

 Lovely little streets of Monteriggioni where the population is only around 60 people.

 We had a guided walk through Siena.

 The Tuscan countryside, view from San Gimignano

Exploring the areas of Tuscany was so surreal I would defiantly recommend a day trip to Siena and the surrounding towns we went on a Ciao Florence tour and it was really well priced, we had a guided walking tour of Siena, a Gelato tasting in San Gimignano and then finally a wine tasting in the Chianti area at a rustic winery in the countryside.

The next day we got up early to catch a train to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.

Pisa only needs a 1/2 day as a stop over so we left at about 3pm to catch out train to Rome but not before getting completely ripped off at one of the cafes there!

It was an unbearably hot day and after wondering around for a few hours we decided to grab a drink in one of the cafes, after having a look at a few different options we decided to just sit down at one. What we didn't realise is that unlike all the other cafes in Pisa this particular one had no prices on the menu and after looking at the other cafes we assumed the prices would be the same. We made a rookie mistake because the cafe owner then decided to charge us a ridiculous price for our food and drinks and there was nothing we could do about it. So we left Pisa with a bit of a sour taste in our mouths :( I later looked up the cafe on Trip Advisor only to find it had over 200 reviews by people who got ripped off just like us. At least we weren't alone! This was the only time something like this happened to us in Italy thankfully.

We arrived in Rome early evening and decided to check out how much a Taxi would cost to take us to our hotel, about 2km away. When I asked a taxi driver how much it would cost I thought he said 50 Euro which was way way to high, so I got Dan to ask around while I looked after the luggage. Dan came back with a guy who was saying 10 Euro, thats more like it! he took our bags and kept walking past the row of taxis and around the corner to his little old VW golf that looked a bit bung up, he proceeded to put our bags in the boot but I was not having any of it, this guy wasn't a taxi driver he was just some random trying to make some money. We were both a bit delirious so could have easily just gone with him, but luckily I managed to pull our bags out of his car, this guy could have been a psycho! After all this I was almost willing to pay the 50 Euro it wasn't until we tried again with a proper taxi driver that I realised he was say 15 Euro, all the drama for nothing. We managed to get to our lovely hotel safe and sound. Not a good start in Rome!

Our Hotel was right by the Colosseum so we had a lovely dinner with it as our back drop and then grabbed some Gelato to do some night time exploring.

The next day we did a tour of the inside of the Colosseum. 

My favourite time of day in Rome, searching for somewhere for dinner when the sun had cooled off (slightly)

On our last day in Rome and in Italy we just explored the city a little more, we were only in Rome a few nights so will have to go back as I feel we didn't get the full experience! Im sure there will be plenty of time to do so!

We are now in London after arriving quite late we caught our first tube to Acton where Sue was kind enough to pick us up. We are staying at Sue's house in Shepherds bush where we are looking after her cat while she is on holiday. We are busy house and job hunting in the biggest city we have ever been...so far so good, I will keep you updated! xx