LATE post, but its here!!

Hiiii.
I know I haven't updated in a while soz bout that!

Anyhu, last week Jake was at science camp again all week. I found a craft store reasonably near by and went there to get some scrapbook stuff, which was ok. Its been a bit of a palava since then with me getting charged twice for stuff, not getting refunds for others etc, hopefully that all works out ok!
It was suuuper sunny last week, ended up getting a little sunburnt! Ouchy. Just kinda hung out round home really, had a few play dates and yeah.

I found Oxford St.....Thursday I went into Euston Station to meet a mate. He had just come back from camp (where I went last year) and had time to kill at Euston station before a train home. After that I just went wandering in town for a bit. Managed to find Oxford St, finally! Amaaaazing street! I went into TopShop (whot, BTW do free personal shopping sessions...guess I'm just gonna have to get me one of those!) and got a really cool skirt for £13 odd, TopShop also do student discount -huzzah!, and just kept wandering. Found the Disney store. Geeked out a tad there! Went on down the street cos I wanted to get to Selfridges. Hehehhehe. Got there. Its amazing. I didnt have much of a chance to look round, but I booked in a free makeup thing at Bobbi Brown before I had to go get the tube home. Went to pick up Jake and we went to this indoor playcentre thing with climbing things and a ball pit etc. Mucked round there for a bit, I got into it sometimes....I met a really nice chick who gave me her number, shes also a nanny and is a Londoner, so meeting up with her tomorrow to get the lowdown!

Me with Princess Sophia the First

The next day I headed back to Selfridges for my makeup lesson at Bobbi Brown. I had a bit of time to kill before hand so I went around the designer galleries, especially the shoe ones! I wandered into the Gucci Shoe Gallery and some guy came out and showed me round. Zomgggggg. I didnt really like the heels much, but fell in love with some jandal type things and some sneakers (only a cool £250 as I found out online when I got home). Did this make up thing, wandered the rest of the store -loved the toy bit!! And then I decided to wander. I wanted to check out the Buckingham Palace  shop with all their Prince George stuff, so tubed to Green Park and wandered though, past my happy place (where I HAD to take pics) before I found the shop. Amazingly, I didn't buy anything. The mug I wanted (that goes with my royal wedding one and diamond jubilee one) doesn't have his name on it, it was an extra £20 for that, so I walked out to think about it, and I still am!

When we picked Jake up from Science camp that day, the 4 of us went to London Zoo. They have a family pass thing and are gonna get me a year pass, so we didn't catch everything while we were there, but I did have little HP geek out at the Reptile House! I think I wanna go back there one time without Jake so I can look round myself, but while we were there we had a good time. Just looking round, penguins and chimps and snakes. Fun times.

Yep, this is HARRY POTTER'S reptile house

My "I told you so" moment

This gorilla was just sitting there for ages,
like it was his photohoot

Tucans. Zomg. Coooool.

Butterfly Crysalisis'

Penguins swiiiim

Saturday rolled around. In the morning was the AB's test and I had arranged to watch it from home. Jake came up to my room cos he was super excited to watch the Haka haha. We watched it and about 20 minutes through the Internet cut out...nooo. I ran around the area I'm in and couldn't find anything open with Sky Sports, sucked. I ended up coming home and getting it on my phone with Radio Sport. Anyhu, after that, I had organised to catch up with one of the guys from camp. So we walked from Waterloo station to M&M world (which was a suuuper long walk!). MY GOD M&M world was super amazing. It was like 4 floors of chocolatey goodess. Anything you can think of that could be branded, was. It was amazing. The aircon has the chocolate smell going through it so it just smells of chocolate. Like, I don't even know what to say, it was just amazing. Hopefully these pics will do it some justice.

Piotr and I then went to Planet Hollywood for lunch...that was an interesting experience. Neither of us really knew what was going on....but we eventually got our food and ate, and then paying was an odd experience too....

And theeeeeen we went to the Museum of London. I was only there for a little bit that I needed to get back home, but I seriously wanna go back cos it looked amaaazing.

That night, I had Jake to myself as Emma and Ant were going to the theatre. Thankfully he behaved himeself quite well and we read some stories and he went to sleep pretty well. Phew!!

Sunday I chilled at home for the morning before heading out to the Notting Hill Carnival. It was an interesting carnival. For those of you who don't know anything about it, its a carnival celebrating the West Indian Community in London. It was full of drum and bass music and a whole lot of drinking and dancing and food. It wasn't me, especially not by myself. But yeah. I dunno. Bleugh.

I'll leave that week at that! It was a long post so congrats if you have made it this far!! I'll update the rest sooon xxx

First week in London

Yeah, soz, not very good at coming up with cool blog titles.

Well, I've been here a week now. My room is starting to look more like me! See pictures below. I've spent a bit of time and money sorting it out, but I figure if I'm going to be here a year, I want it to be nice and functional.

Jake, the 5 year old boy, is fun. Hes pretty adventurous, he had me outside attempting to play soccer today! I ended up in the goal and managed to save a few, yay! Hes going to science camp every weekday from 9-3.30 and then his parents put him to bed, so we hang out in the mornings and afternoons. He has next week off so we are making plans. Zoo, Natural History Museum, so that should be fun. Hes knows what he wants to do and what he likes doing, so homework could be interesting later on....

They don't have a large, private back garden area, but there is about an acre of communal garden, which is all locked away and only the residents who surround it have access. Which is still quite a few, but its empty a lot of the time. I was out there today reading HP OOTP and managed to get slightly sunburnt! Amazing haha. It was reaaaally nice today! Its meant to continue for the rest of the week, yay!

Emma, the mother, is pregnant! Baby is coming in Jan/Feb, so that's exciting! Shes only like 13 weeks along and feels a bit off some days, so that's when I come into it. Haven't had to do any cooking yet, but lots of tidying and dishes etc.

Anthony, the father, is currently on garden leave, heading back in, October I think, might be September. But there is an extra pair of hands around the place at the moment, so that's making settling a bit easier cos I have time to explore and get used to the surroundings and figure out where things are - which is great.

Been hanging out in my room at nights, mostly. The last 3 nights have been LOTR and tomorrow is The Social Network. I wanna see the One Direction, so will pop out on Thursday or Friday I think.

Managed to get to a pub in Shepard's Bush last Saturday for the rugby, Cruden was on fire! (Apart from those 2 missed kicks, but he made up for it!) Hoping I can get it here next time. I've been given a Samsung Smart TV in my room, so can webs it up on there, hopefully! (Pointers are welcome!) I wonder if I can join up my tablet to the TV somehow....

So yeah, had the weekend off. After the game on Saturday, I just wandered around Covent Garden, amd Tottenham Court Road (which made my inner geeks squee.....musical theatre and harry potter) and by the time I came home, I was exhausted! Have had to cook for myself twice which has been ok. They  have the meat stocked up pretty well and I can improvise....to a certain degree! Sunday I went to Primark in the morning and the library in the arvo before spending the arvo reading and chilling.

Not much else to say really. Just been chilling out really! Its been good though, long may it continue!!

This is a small bit of the outside garden

One of my photo walls - Warhol-ised!

My little bathroom. Good shower, which is important!

Out onto my little balcony

Hope you are all well! I want to hear your news too! Email me or hit me up on FB! I got my NZ phone unlocked so have a smartphone. The GPS has been a lifesaver!!
Love x

Being a Tourist in Liverpool

So, on Sunday while Gaby was at work, I decided to do the Hopon, Hopoff tour around Liverpool. It was pretty cheap too. Using my student ID (Thanks Massey) I got the bus tour and a ferry tour for £8.50, for 24 hours!

Again, there is only so much I can tell you in words. So I'll let the pics do the talking!

My bus for the day. Well, one of many at least!

Taking touristy shots from the top of the bus before a MASSIVE rainstorm hit.
That's the Liverpool Eye and the Echo Arena.

The Chinese Arch that Liverpool got from Shanghai
(their sister city) a few years back.

Lime St Station. There was something significant about it, can't remember now!
Its where I caught my train from to get to London.

So I went on the 1 hour ferry trip across the Mersey river. It was really odd cos I felt really sick! I don't usually get seasick and it wasn't overly rough, but hey. Dad said he reckons its cos I'm on the other side of the world so I was really upside down. That makes sense to me!

This building probably has some significance, but I can't remember it.
It just looks cool!

That's the Liver Building. Its got the Liver Birds on top of it. Yep.

Its quite pretty really.

See!

So after the ferry trip, I got back on a bus and went back to the Anglican Cathedral. Its so pretty! I walked in there and the organ was playing. It sounded AMAZING. The cathedral is like the 5th biggest one in the world or something, MASSIVE!

The Anglican Cathedral.

After the cathedral, I got the bus back down to the Albert Dock. And I went to the Maritime Museum. The docks at Liverpool pretty much made it into the hugemoungeous city that it is, and there is a lot of Maritime history. For example - its actually where the Titanic was built, and where White Star had their main office. A lot of the cruise liners were built there and there were a lot of offices and stuff around from that time. The maritime museum had a really interesting exhibition on about how Liverpool and the Titanic were related, so that was cool. They also had a whole lot of stuff about the wars and how the torpedo's worked and the German side of stuff too. It was really cool, but there was a lot of it!

Dadaddddaaaa

So after I got over museuming for the day, Gabie came down to pick me up. While she was on her way, I has a bit of time to kill at the Albert Dock, so I took lots of photos. Here is a selection that I hope will make my photographic family proud (I'm looking at you Dad, Sarn and Greg!).

This carousal constantly played Beatles Music. It got annoying after a while.

I figured proof that I was actcually there would be helpful!

 The next day, my last in Liverpool, I had the day to myself again. I got a ride into town and went to the World Museum. Man, that place needs a serious make over. It has some really cool bits, but at the same time some of the lables are quite obviously peeling off the walls, the exhibits SMELL so old and musty, it just needs some love. But if you look past the cosmetic side, it was quite interesting. It took me about 2.5 hours to go around, so totally doable. They had a live aquarium on the first floor too, which made me lol cos I know thats what TP wanted to do originally. And it totally worked. The kids loved it! The NZ part was ok, not very informative and the langugae was a bit all over the place. I listened to the Rangi and Papa story and they literally called it "Rangee". It was pretty gross.

This fish literally was going in and out of the coral a-la Marlon.

Carved Elephant Tusks - AMAZING!!!

After the museum, I went to have a look at the main Library. I had been told it was just done up and it was beautiful. So spacious and light and natural light and so many cool books! And the signage was funky and colourful. Ahh, neat-as library. I'd want to go there all the time if I lived there!

The book walk up to the library.

I like to think of this bit as the "Belle Library"

 I then ended up at St George's Hall, which I don't really know much about. But it was pretty. And they had lifetd up the wooden false floor that they usually use for the "Minton Tile Reveal" so that was pretty stunning to look at. Its quite a funny hall because its like a gorgeous event hall thing up top, and down the bottom are all cells and grossness. The oldschool court room is even in there. Odd to put the 2 together, but I guess it saved some money at the time!

So yeah, that was my day. I meet up with Crabbe again after that and we went shoe shopping. Then I had to go back home and pack :(. Caught the train down to London the next day with not much happening (sat next to a lovely kiwi family who are about to take their daughters back to NZ to live, so that was neat. The guy helped mewith my MASSIVE bag!). Yeah. So I guess thats it. 

One day soon I'll post again about what I'm up too here, but right now I think I'm gonna go. I have to get some potatoes from Waitrose on my way back for dinner tonight. YUM!! Jacket potatoes seem to be a real thing here, heaps of cafes serve them.....whatever floats your boat! At least they are gluten free haha. 

Catchya!