¡Feliz Navidad!

¡Hola from Spain!

Okay, so it´s a bit after Christmas, but Merry Christmas anyway. This is very quickly what we´ve been up to:

Arrived in Spain, met Daniel´s family and checked out the villages and towns they live in here. We´re in Granada, southern Spain. Christmas was lovely with the Navarro family.

Today we went to the amazing Alhambra which is an old moorish palace. Really can´t desribe it, but I´ll post up the photos when we get back to England.

Now we´re about to head off to Barcelona in the north-east of Spain. Hope you are all having quality time with the beach or sun, or friends, family or all of the above. Have a happy new year, catch you laters!

Love Pip and Damen

Walking the longest distance between two points.

Being the cancerian that I am, my crab-like ways mean that I always manage to approach my destination from a sideways angle. I've recently decided to take a wandering approach to working out this city, by consulting my map only in the morning, then walking in what I think is the direction of my several destinations till I get to each.

As a result, I've developed a new type of route planner. It's working name is "The Triangle Tripper". By a complex set of decisions, I've found that I can make a simple walk from A to B,

into: A to R to B

If I work hard, this can be pushed further to:
A to Q to F to C to A (peek at map) to S to B.

When I get back from Europe, I'll look at patenting this technique, and starting my own tour business. Click the comment button below if you can think of a good name. Maybe "Damen's Diversions"? Nah.

A Chav Nativity

There’s this bird called Mary, yeah? She’s a virgin (wossat then?) She’s not married or nuffink, but she’s got this boyfriend, Joe, innit? He does joinery an’ that. Mary lives with him in a crib dahn Nazaref. One day Mary meets this bloke Gabriel. She’s like `Oo ya lookin at?’ Gabriel just goes ‘You got one up the duff, you have.’ Mary’s totally gobsmacked. She gives it to him large ‘Stop dissin’ me yeah? I ain’t no Kappa-slapper. I never bin wiv no one!’

So Mary goes and sees her cousin Liz, who’s six months gone herself. Liz is largin’ it. She’s filled with spirits, Barcardi Breezers an’ that. She’s like ‘Orright, Mary, I can feel me bay-bee in me tummy and I reckon I’m well blessed. Think of all the extra weez gonna get on the social an’ that.’ Mary goes ‘Yeah, s’pose you’re right’ Mary an’ Joe ain’t got no money so they have to ponse a donkey, an’ go dahn Bethlehem on that.

They get to this pub an’ Mary wants to stop, yeah? To have her bay-bee an’ that. But there ain’t no room at the inn, innit? So Mary an’ Joe break an’ enter into this garridge, only it’s filled wiv animals. Cahs an’ sheep an’ that. Then these three geezers turn up, looking proper bling, wiv crowns on their ‘eads.

They’re like `Respect, bay-bee Jesus’, an’ say they’re wise men from the East End.

Joe goes: ‘If you’re so wise, wotchoo doin’ wiv this Frankenstein an’ myrrh? Why dincha just bring gold, Adidas and Burberry?’ It’s all about to kick off when Gabriel turns up again an’ sez he’s got another message from this Lord geezer. He’s like ‘The police is comin an’ they’re killin all the bay-bees. You better nash off to Egypt.’ Joe goes ‘You must be monged if you think I’m goin’ dahn Egypt on a minging donkey’ Gabriel sez ‘Suit yerself, pal. But it’s your look out if you stay.’ So they go dahn Egypt till they’ve stopped killin the first-born an’ it’s safe an’ that.

Then Joe and Mary and Jesus go back to Nazaref, an’ Jesus turns water into Stella.

(What's a Chav then?)

Stocking Woodbine Clothing

This is a Public Notice to interested parties:

For info on stocking Woodbine Clothing, please email us at: stock@woodbine.co.nz

Cheers

London!

Kia ora whanau,

OK. So I wrote a goodbye email before I left NZ, then I saved it, so that I could sort out all of my the email addresses to send it to. Can't remember if I actually sent that one as I stopped thinking about my email outbox, and started worrying about my backpack's inbox.

Anyway... I'm in London now. This is what I've been doing:

I last emailed from Hong Kong airport. At the time I was between flights and had to wait 5 hrs till the next one. I got real hungry but because it wasn't peak time, a lot of the food restaurants had closed, so there wasn't much choice. Found one and ordered a "chicken bake". It came out too fast to have been freshly cooked, and because I only had pounds, I paid with that and got my change back in Hong Kong dollars. Then I had to convert this back into British Pounds, and in the process of these two transactions this humble chicken dish cost me just under 9 pounds, or over $20 NZD. If it was a good meal, then that would have been alright, but I think a $20 note would have tasted nicer.

Had a lovely Virgin Atlantic flight from Hong Kong to London... Landed in London at 4:30am, outside temperature -1 degrees. This was considerably warmer than the outside temperature when we were flying, but I decided to wait for Pip inside anyway. 2 hrs later - off the first tube - Pip turned up carrying a traveling pack of her own.

Packs on our backs - between tube, rail and bus lessons - I learnt that we weren't heading back to London, but instead south, to Brighton.

Brighton is like "Right On!", but without the space, and with a "B" in front. It could also be thought of as a washing powder, "Brite-On!", and is apparently the gay capital of England. Or maybe not, but it's right up there with potential gay capitals. Apparently.

Brighton has a pavilion that looks like the Taj Mahal, and a pier with a roller-coaster and other rides at the end.

Anyway, so we stayed in a room looking out to the sea, had beautiful weather, walked, shopped and relaxed.

Came back to London and yesterday I ventured out into the city. Here are some place names and landmarks. Walked from Pip's place in Kennington, up Waterloo rd, then along the Thames river to the Tate Modern. They are rehanging an entire floor there, so I only saw one floor of shows. Then across Millenium Bridge to St Paul's Cathedral, then around in circles, then back to the South Bank. Shakespeare's Globe; London Bridge; Tower Bridge; Tower of London; then all the way back to Big Ben; then home. It doesn't really feel like I did much, but it was a lot of walking, and I'm beginning to feel like I have some sort of handle on the basic geography of the city. Although I have a tendency to think North is South and South is North, I'm keeping that to myself as I can think of some terrrrrrrible downunder jokes that would come back if I said it out loud.

So today I'm going to the Tate Britain, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square and anywhere else that catches my eye.

Having a good time. It's kind of cold, and if I stay still it's really cold, but whenever I see babies in prams without a scarf, beanie, gloves or oil heater, I remind myself that it's got to get colder before it gets warmer, and if baby James can do it, so can I. (I'm not breaking out the long-johns just yet.)

So in a week we're heading out to Spain, then back to London after Christmas. I'll need to sort some stuff out, but then I'm going to take off to (not-so) far away lands with names like Croatia, France, Germany, Switzerland. Wanna get away for a bit before I come back and find a job here, then I'll hopefully make some more money before I take off again and have a better look around.

Hope everything and everyone is well. Drop me a line next time you have time.

Go HERE for more photos