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Published: September 26th 2008
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Annalise in London
At a bar next to Primrose hill after shopping at Camden. Two guys (a probation officer and a stem cell scientist), 1 rental van, 2000km through France. The mission:to drive from London to Zurich and uplift old furniture stored for 18 years in the basement of Michael's friend, Ziggy's ex wife.
Life had been a bit hum drum since returning from Croatia. After two weeks of beautiful sunny weather we returned to the English summer, that never was (7th worst summer in recorded history) It had suddenly turned to Autumn. Work was uninspiring, Anita was struggling to get a job, the employent agencies continued to be full of empty promises (Shit) and it was 5 weeks before we were due to meet my special mate BD (and his lovely wife Julie) in Paris, yes depression was setting in. London was no longer vibrant and exciting, it was suffocating.
Our neigbhours Michael and Els are great people and have been very good to us, very warm and very welcoming. Anyway Michael is a bitsa, he is of German/Swiss origin and before moving to London spent 18 years in New York, he had mentioned that he had furniture that he wanted to collect and I thought what a great adventure, lets do
Thames Festival
The magic of the carnival parade it, how often do opportunities like this arise.
A week prior things had started to pick up, a friend of Anita's, Annalise had flown in from NZ and was staying with us for a week. It was great catching up with her, showing her around and having a kiwi stay at our little whare. Annalise arrived on Thursday the 11th and on the 13th we all went down to an Aussie pub (The Walkabout known as the Walkie) to watch rugby ABs Vs Australia. It was live at 11am on a Saturday morning in Angel. What an atmoshere, Ozzies and Kiwis, packed into a small bar in London with about 10 TV screens showing the game. And what a game, what a good day to be a kiwi, overseas and what made it even better was my son was at the game and my daughter on holiday in Brissy. The next day dawned - beautiful and we made our way down to the Thames for the end of Summer Carnival. The Poms sure know how to party, the carnival was spectacular and ended with a parade that took nearly 3 hours to pass us.
On Friday 19th at
Zurich
Sausages in Main Street 8-30am Michael and I headed for Zurich, we arrived at midnight. After catching the ferry in Dover at 12-30pm we arrived at Calais about 3pm. We had planned to stay overnight in France, 1 hour before the Swiss border but all the hotels were booked and we decided to keep going. It was a marathon effort for M who drove all the way and our longest stop in France was 20 minutes. The roads were very good and driving in France seemed relatively easy.
Saturday in Zurich was coolish but beautifully sunny and M showed me around his home town. Zurich is a beautiful city built next to a lake and surrounded by hills with the alps in the background (when visable). We travelled by tram to the hills for superb views of Zurich and the lake (M tells me you can drink from it), we headed into the city and had a traditional lunch, sausage, dipped in mustard, with bread. We sat in the main street (argueably the most expensive in Europe) and devoured them (cost $40 NZ for 3 sausages and 3 bread rolls). We strolled along the lake and soaked up the laidback atmoshpere. M took
Zurich
The Swiss enjoy their city on a beautiful day me to Kronenhalle (a unique cafe/restaurant). We had coffee and sat amongst original art works by Picasso, Varlin, Chagall, Miro and Tinguely to name a few. The maitre de noticed my NZ shirt, it turned out he was Welsh and right into his Rugby. It gave us a guided tour and some wonderful insight into the history of the place and the owner. Later in the afternoon we went to a Bar that Lenin had regularly frequented. We started talking to an American woman who told us she worked for United Airlines. We had made the assumption she was an hostess and she derived much pleasure correcting our assumption., letting us know she was the pilot...oopppps ! In the evening Ziggy gave us a tour around his city which ended with us sipping fine wine at a rooftop bar watching the sunset. Followed by a huge meal of wienersnitchal aptly named JUMBO. It had been a wonderful day.
Sunday was a long day and we arrived home at 9pm. The only notable excitment was when we were going through border control at Calais. I handed the passports over and he gave mine back, M asked me what did he
Restuarant Kronenhalle
Michael enjoying a cigarette (yes you can smoke in there. say and I said "follow that car", we took off with the border guard screaming where are you going. I still have two of your passports. Because of my NZ passport the guard had told me to "fill in the card", I had misheard panicked and nearly got us into a sticky situation.
And finally the last bit of exciting news is that we have booked a trip for Xmas. We have 2 days in Paris including Xmas day, 3 days in the Swiss alps, 2 days in Germany and end with 3 days in Holland including New Years eve in Amsterdam. We thought a white Xmas would be fitting because it may never happen again. So thats it for now, to all our friends. We love hearing from you so spend 5 minutes to keep us up to date with whats happening in NZ and in your lives. Our winter is on the doorstep as is your summer, you lucky buggers.
E noho ora mai Koutou.............Tony and Anita
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