Where did she go?

Man it’s been 4 1/2 months since I arrived in the UK! It seems so much shorter than my 4 months in SE Asia. I've had plenty more adventures but they have slowed in the last few weeks due to lack of a job. Most of you must think I've disappeared but I thought I'd give you all a nice long break from my lengthy monologues!

I landed on my feet in my first week scoring a PA job at General Electric Real Estate (through my friend Aimee from Wellies) so I had little idea of how hard it is to find that kind of job with my limited office experience. The job lasted 6 weeks and I turned down another 2 month role declaring I was off to Edinburgh as originally planned.

My first little trip was a weekend Buddhist retreat at Gaia House, an old monastery in the gorgeous autumnal, hedge-rowed countryside of Devon. I had met a couple of people while travelling who had links to it. It was an interesting weekend (we weren't allowed to talk!) but I'm not going to become a monk just yet.

I also had a weekend (I had to go away for weekends when I was between flats) with Annah Smyth (from wellies) down in Brighton where we had a fun (but freezing) time by the sea and hanging out with all the Aussies at the Walkabout Pub. Also had a great night dancing to Groove Armada. I could definitely live in Brighton!

When my job ended in mid November I joined the huge protest march against the war in Iraq. For three hours up to 100,000 of us paraded around central London ending in Trafalgar Square. It was a great way to see the city too - unfortunately it got dark half way through though!

I then met up with Annah for a few nights of fun in Cardiff, Wales. They really do speak a whole other language there, when I got off the train all the signs were unpronounceable and un-spellable. We saw the castle, a few bars and on our last day we managed to drag ourselves down to the harbour and had a beautiful sunny cruise around the fresh water artificial bay. There were also a lot of large, new, very funny shaped buildings in Cardiff.

Back in London I stuck around for another week for my birthday - a few of us met up at CherryJam, a wee club in Notting Hill. We even saw a celebrity, self-proclaimed CherryJam regular, Anita McNaught! A few nights later we went to the Loop CD launch at Notting Hill Arts Club and saw lots of familiar faces from Wellies.

In December a few of us decided to head to Belgium for a long weekend. Tim Harris (from Wellies) had just arrived via Denmark and India so he joined Annah and I. We caught the EuroStar to Brussels and then headed straight up to Bruges on a smoke filled train (every carriage is smoking with pathetic little plastic screens for non smoking sections). Bruges is a gorgeous little old town with gingerbread style brick houses, canals, brick lanes and cathedrals everywhere. It really felt like a Christmas card with twinkly lights and an ice rink in the middle of the town square. Our guesthouse was cosy with a cool little bar and huge delicious meals. We spent our time sampling some of the 500 Belgian beers and a few choccies.

And then on to Antwerp where we were picked up by my Belgian friends Marjan and Greet (sisters) who I met in Laos. They drove us straight out to their wee village, Retie, for a big 'Vat' (Keg) party for Marjan and 10 others who had turned 21 in the village that year. After a delicious home cooked meal (man I miss those) we went to the local youth club where at least 40 bikes were parked up outside! It was a good party and felt vaguely like home, apart from the funny man who arrived as it was November 5th, the night Sinter Claus (different to Santa as they also have him on the 25th) visits many parts of Europe and puts chocolate in your shoes! Sinter Claus, dressed in a pope hat has a 'bad' black assistant who takes away bad children in his sack but this time the intoxicated Santa was black! And before we knew it it was 6.30am and time to walk home through the fields for a breakfast of fresh bread rolls stuffed with delicious cheeses and chocolate!

That night we headed back to Antwerp to the girls cool apartment and then out to a club where they had a huge mattress made of balloons! Home at 7am with fries for brekkie (apparently fries were invented in Belgium) in time to get on a tram then train then EuroStar back to London. We were a bit tired and grumpy by then - its hard getting used to partying so late after 11pm closing times in the England. I loved my first taste of Europe, the very liveable town centres, bicycles everywhere, beautiful foods, and strong cultural variety.

I arrived back and moved into a beautiful room (by London standards) in Maida Vale (NW London) with 5 other great girls - I met them the week before and for some reason decided to move in (this without a job!). So I had to quickly find a job, which I did, however I won’t go into it but it paid the bills for a few weeks! I lived with 2 kiwis, Lauren and Aimee (ex-Wellies), 2 Hungarians and 1 Aussie, Soelae.

I decided to go back to Belgium for Christmas and had another fun filled long weekend of drinking, eating and no sleeping only this time I was the only native English speaker so the family Christmas parties got a bit boring - I just nodded and smiled and wasn't much help in the family trivia quiz. I was nearly fluent in Flemish after a few drinks though!

And finally to Scotland for Hogmanay - the Scottish New Year celebrations in Edinburgh. Its true what they all say - it is a very beautiful city in an ancient, dark, gothic, striking way. I had a great week thanks to the Wellies contingent and their flatmates (Jaime, Tony, Tim and Richard). You may have heard that Hogmanay was washed out (just like a normal NY in NZ) but we didn't notice and were having too much fun to care. I caught up with some travel buddies from Asia as well and then made my way back to London on an overnight bus with the flu in time for work on Monday - how depressing!

I spent January recovering and half-heartedly looking for a decent job before finally dragging myself and all my worldly goods back to Edinburgh - yay! The pay outside London is about half what I could be getting in London but Edinburgh is a much easier place to live. Fortunately thanks to a travel buddy from “back in ‘nam” I have managed to score my own free room until I am on my feet work wise - and hopefully for longer!

For the last 3 weeks I have been in a whirlwind of agency interviews, and 12-hour workdays so I can get saving for my next adventure with Marie in May! We are starting in Egypt then Cyprus, Turkey and Greece where we may look for some work in August when the Olympics are on. If anyone is going to be in those areas then we should try to hook up!

My next little adventure is to Belfast for Easter to see my mate Jo from Wellies. And otherwise it will be work, work, work and a bit of Scottish play - because it’s very hard to get away from it with cosy pubs everywhere (I’ve gone from the highest ratio of cafes per capita in Wellies to the highest ratio of pubs per capita in Ed)! I haven’t been tempted by the Scottish fatty food diet yet and through living and working with Scottish people I am starting to understand them also. We’ve had a couple of blizzards, nothing too spectacular in Edinburgh but in my last week in London the city was blanketed in thick snow within 5 minutes - very beautiful and very exciting for us Antipodeans.

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