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Published: February 21st 2008
Moving Conditions
This is the start of the snow storm in the last weekHiya
Well we’re here. We made it. We are now in the UK.
The last week in Vancouver was mainly spent moving furniture, cleaning the apartment (thankfully there wasn’t a lot to clean as the apartment was so small), catching up with and saying goodbye to friends and some last minute souvenir shopping.
At the beginning of that last week Vancouver had its heaviest dump of snow so far this winter. Snow covered the ground for three of four days which made life interesting when it came to shifting furniture. We had hired a U-Haul and having never really driven in any substantial snow before, there were a few hairy moments sliding down hill without a lot of control of the truck (thankfully Emma wasn’t in the truck at the time). But we managed to get most of the stuff back to Emma’s friend pretty much safe and sound (we only broke 4 out the 6 chairs, put a chip in the glass table and broke the TV remote). Once the furniture was gone there was nothing else to do but clean, so clean we did. After the first couple of hours of cleaning we were pretty much
Cleo
Hypo German Shepherd buggered so went and met Jesse and Julie at a restaurant for a feed and a few drinks. It was not only a goodbye meal but also a chance to celebrate the loving couple’s recent engagement. With both of them being away from family they hadn’t really had a chance to celebrate with anyone so it was a pretty good night. Emma and Julie went silly over wedding magazines and both had one or two too many Balini cocktails. We called it a night pretty early and headed home to continue cleaning, finally finishing up at 2am.
Next morning we tidied up the last few things, dumped all our unwanted things in the lane (not 10mins after dumping our stuff there were bums sifting through it claiming whatever would come in handy for them), handed in our keys and left our apartment for the last time. We trekked our way into town to the backpackers in which we would be spending our final Vancouver night. Emma got shat on big time by a dirty old pigeon. It wasn’t the nicest goodbye from Vancouver but we took it as a sign of good luck (so we’ve been told), Vancouver’s way
Wet Wet Wet
Amy and Gaz walking in Edinburgh rain of wishing us well for the rest of our trip. The backpackers was the same one we spent over a month in when we first arrived in Van, and fittingly we were in exactly the same room. Little had changed over the preceding 10 months. The hostel looked very much the same and it still had those familiar ‘hostel’ smells and sounds. Even the fan in the mens room sounded the same and brought all those memories of when we first arrived flooding back. In away it felt like we had never left and spent 10 months living in our apartment. Very weird indeed.
Jesse and Julie were kind enough to invite us over for dinner that night which is just what we needed. Its was much better to be relaxing in their comfortable living room watching the hockey and enjoying some nice beers and a homecooked meal of roast chicken, than spending the evening on our own in our cramped hostel room getting all nervous about leaving the next day. After a pretty good nights sleep we got our shit together and headed out to the airport nice and early. We spent a lot of time waiting in
Birthplace of Harry Potter
The Elephant House Cafe - Where J K Rowling created Harry Potter. the airport but it is a pretty cool, relaxing airport to do so. Our plane was late leaving by about 40mins due to some cargo loading issues, but we eventually got airborne and left Canada.
The flight went pretty smoothly but was god awful at the same time. We were both absolutely stuffed but could not get to sleep at all and Emma developed a throbbing headache. Thankfully it was only a 9 hour flight so we were circling over London in no time, waiting for a gap in traffic to make our landing. I’ve never seen so many passenger jets in the sky at once. We had one flying right next to us but at a slightly higher altitude. I could almost make out what colour the pilot’s eyes were they were that close. Emma almost lost her breakfast on landing but otherwise it was pretty smooth.
We were pretty nervous about going through immigration after the debacle of a week early on our way to Las Vegas. However things went very well (must have been the pigeon shit) and we really needn’t have got ourselves so nervous. The immigration officer who processed us was sitting next
Greyfriars Bobby
When his owner died he spent 14 years guarding his grave. to her fiancé, also an immigration officer. They were having a wee argument and then started joking about what a happy marriage they had to look forward to. Then they started putting the heat on us about when we were getting married, especially when they found out we’ve been together nearly 7 years. It was all very relaxed and they basically stamped our visas no questions asked. What a relief.
We made our way to our backpackers via the Underground and our first impressions were one of a very cramped, crowded, old city, but one that we instantly felt we would enjoy. Once we arrived at our hostel we tried to stay awake as long as possible in order to get to sleep at a normal time but we just couldn’t do it. We crashed at about 4 in the afternoon and woke up again at about 7 the next morning.
The next two days were spent travelling around London trying to work out where our interviews were going, and then going to the actual interviews themselves, so we didn’t really see any of the touristy things. The interviews all went pretty well and Emma can basically start
Edinburgh Pub
Some of them have such funny names work whenever she is ready. It might take me a little while longer to find work but my agencies are on the job and working on a couple of opportunities. Fingers crossed.
After our interviews we made our way back out to Heathrow to catch a plane to Edinburgh where we were going to stay with Emma’s sister Amy. On our way we experienced the tube at rush hour. Not very pleasant. Man they cram people on to the trains and the number of people they must move each day would be phenomenal.
The flight to Edinburgh was again pretty uneventful but the landing was the worst either of us have ever experienced. We met Amy and her boyfriend Michael at the airport and then headed back to their flat where we were introduced to Cleo the hypo German Shepherd. We spent a couple of hours catching up with them then crashed on our inflatable bed on the floor of the living room.
Day 2 in Edinburgh was pissing down with rain so we decided to go for a walk through town and got absolutely drenched. That night Amy and Michael took us out to the famous
Forth Rail Bridge where we had a nice hot chocolate. The next day we headed into town again and had lunch at a Pub before Emma went and had her hair done. It was a late birthday present from her sisters and was the first time she’d been able to do it since we left NZ.
The next day we climbed up the Royal Mile to the Edinburgh Castle and spent a good portion of the day there wandering the grounds and through the old buildings and various museums. The place is so full of history and stories its unbelievable. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to go back and see the parts we didn’t manage to get to. I managed to accidentally kick the wall quite hard in the Birthing Chambers where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to King James VI in 1566, leaving my own little mark on Scottish history.
In the weekend we headed out to watch the Scotland v Wales 6 Nations match on the big screen at a pub in town. We tried a couple of bars on Rose St but they were chocka with mainly Welsh supporters. Would have made
Micheal
Ha ha got a picture of the camera shy Micheal (Amy's boyfriend), the only one though he is fast. a good atmosphere but was to crowded for our comfort so we settled on the Walkabout Pub a little further away. This pub was still busy and again it was mainly Welsh supporters making up the numbers. They were in full voice singing their Welsh songs which made for a pretty good atmosphere. The best part though was that being and Australian pub they serve Speights which tasted unbelievably good. It washed down our delicious Springbok burgers very nicely.
Over the next few days we continued to explore Edinburgh and all it had to offer like the Royal Mile, Calton Hill, the Walter Scott Memorial, Holyrood Palace and some great old cemeteries. We also spent a lot of time back at the flat with our feet up relaxing. With Glasgow being so close we decided it would be rude not to make a day trip there for a looksie. Its only a little over an hour away by bus so we leisurely made our way there mid morning and took an open top bus tour around the city. What an interesting place. Edinburgh is the popular tourist city in Scotland but we both quite like its poorer cousin Glasgow
Edinburgh Castle
It looks very majestic sitting up above the city. as well. They are both of similar sizes but in recent times Glasgow has had a bit of a rougher life economically and socially. Its still a thriving city with all the grand old buildings and charm you’d expect in a British city. We had a great day and the Glasgow weather really came to the party as well.
On our last day in Edinburgh we took a tour along an underground street called Mary Kings Close. The tops of the buildings were chopped off back in the 1750s to make way for the Royal Exchange building which now lies over top of a bunch of little streets called Closes that still contain all the old houses and workshops etc. It was a pretty interesting but eerie place. On the last night we went out for dinner at Pizza Hut (so good) and then went bowling. Emma thinks she won the first game but has no proof of it. I of course won the second game. We said goodbye to Amy, Michael and Cleo earlier today and are now sitting on a train back to London (5 hours away) where we hope to spend the weekend flat hunting and
Edinburgh Castle
Gaz at the entrance of the castle maybe doing a few touristy things.
That’s us for now.
E & G
p.s Sorry this took so long to post and as you can see it is now a little out of date. As some of you will know things have started falling into place here in London so there will be another blog in the next week or so with updates on jobs and flat etc.
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Jesse
non-member comment
good work kids
Hi Gareth and Emma, We miss having you guys around in Vancouver. Looks like you are having an absolute ball over in London. The weather has fined up here just nice and is sitting at sunny and warm 8 degrees. Heading to the snow this weekend for some more boarding and a few beers. Good luck with the job hunt Gareth and congrats Emma on your job, maybe gareth can be a kept man again over in London..... Enjoy yourselves guys and look forward to catching up soon. Have a few Speights for me mate! Cheers, Jesse