Combined Travel Update

---

So I've been really slack with updating my travels just because not a lot has been happening lately. Be warned, it's pretty boring haha.
I haven't finished writing about London yet, so I'll start this entry with that.

Buckingham Palace

So first of all this is London Day 4 and not day 3 (even though it jumps from 2 to 4) simply because it was the 4th day I was staying in London.
I spent the day with Hannah checking out the remainder of touristy sights around London.
I started off by going into Buckingham Palace while Hannah watched the changing of the guards (I had seen enough of it at Windsor Castle).

The inside of Buckingham was real impressive. Everything room is just massive and the amount of gold, silver, marble and varnished wood is just incredible. Unfortunately you can't take photos inside, which again is a royal kick in the old coin purse, but such is life.
To give you an idea of what it was like inside there, the dining room itself has 4,000 different pieces of gold cutlery.
Basically, the royal family are living like royalty. Funny that.

After the Palace I went and said hi to Aunty Jane briefly at her work. She gave us £10 for lunch which was awesome! If you read this Aunty Jane, you rule.

London

After that we went walked past West Minster Abbey and took a few photos of Big Ben and the London Eye, just coz.
Had lunch at a Vegetarian Restaurant by which was really good for value, food wasn't too bad either.

That night I went to a party with Luke (in a NZ band called The King Cannons) at some recording studio. They were serving free fruity drinks all night so we took advantage of that and got pissed. There were some bands playing who were all pretty cool.
Luke then got up really pissed at the end of the night and played a solo set which went alright although I think the crowd was too drunk to apprecaite it. Meh, I had fun rocking out.

Newcastle United Vs Tottenham Hot Spurs

After London I came back to Newcastle to stay with Mark and went to a live Football game with the cousins. This was a real cool experience despite the game being boring, our team being shit and the fact that we lost.

It's really crazy how many people turned up to the game. There was probably more people watching that one game then there is in some cities in NZ and it wasn't even that packed out.
The atmosphere in the Stadium was really impressive. Things like listening to the crowd chant, everyone booing the player who transferred from N.U to T.H.S, the comments made from people around us, the passionate people screaming their lungs out whenever their was a bad call made, the number of police officers there as security, etc. Definitely worth going to.

Nairn & Inverness

I went up to Nairn to stay with Jane and Gareth for a few days just to catch up. Jane too me to a Scottish Premier League game between Inverness and Killie which was completely different from the English game I had been to. It t reminded me of how we play football back in NZ. You know, piss poor reffing, lots of running, although there's structure, it's not all about the structure like you see with English football. I guess the difference here is that although they were Pro teams, they aren't corrupted by money as there probably isn't much in it for them.

The amount of fouls that they got away with in the game was mind blowing. I think the ref handed out 6 or so yellow cards to Killie. They really got done over by him though. Although all the calls he made the entire match were shit, he totally was biased against Killie because Inverness was the home team. Ah well.

Basically the rest of the time spent there we went to the pub, met some more of Janes friends and got drunk a whole bunch. I tried to go to Culloden Battlefield but the bus didn't turn up so I spent half a day walking around Inverness by myself until Jane finished work when we went to watch Celtic play... at a pub haha.

It was a really good few days.

Corbridge Roman Fort

So Dom and I drove to Corbridge which is about an hours drive from where we are to go and see a badass castle. Unfortunately, it was closed for the winter, so we went to the Corbridge Roman Fort which was originally built in 85AD.
It was a lot smaller then some of the other forts I had been to, but was still really cool to see. Have a look at the pictures.

Travel Update Generic

So I've decided I'm going to stay in the UK for longer and try and get some work. At this stage I'm not sure how long I want to stay or even if I do, I just figure that while I'm over here I might as well give it a go as aside from my Band back in NZ I've got nothing really going for me.

I've opened up a bank account, applied for a NIN (National Insurance Number) and have been applying for jobs everyday in Inverness and Newcastle.
I've really enjoyed my time in Inverness so, even though it's in the middle of fucking no where, I figure I'll give it a go and just see how I do up there. I can still go back to NZ or Marks if things don't work out.

Next week I've got job interview in Inverness with an IT company, but I'm sceptical about it as the pay is pretty lousy and it'll probably be quite tough trying to get myself a flat and live comfortably on the pay. We'll see though.

Applied at the Royal Bank of Scotland and passed my telephone interview with them so they're looking to give me a job somewhere as well. Will just have to see how that goes. Other then that I've just dropped my CV into pubs around here.

Going to Glasgow at the end of this month to see Rancid and Flogging Molly which will be awesome.


So here's the update for those of you who thought I'd vanished off the face of the Earth. Hope all is going well back home.
Chur

---