Saturday - Sunday 21 - 22 April

Saturday 21 April

Happy Birthday Mum, although it wasn’t until much later in our day that we actually told her happy birthday and a little bit different to last year was that we were telling her in person.

Our day began at 2:30, we did go to bed the night before although I am not sure whether this was a good thing or not. We snuck out of the house and down stairs to find that the one of the guys who owned like 3 white vans in the car park, had parked in front of us and blocked us in!!!! Arggh we could hear people still up and about in this apartment so Duncan yelled from the road (Consequently waking Vic up – oops) while I ran upstairs to bang their door down. Finally we got the car out and drove to Luton Airport which is actually on the other side of London. Rather uneventfully we parked, got on the bus, checked in, got through security and boarded the flight.

As has become relatively commonplace, our flight was delayed leaving London. One of the Easy Jet guys looked a little uneasy about all the Kiwis and Aussies boarding the plane, and asked us whether it was Australia day.

The flight to Turkey is 3 ½ hours long, although it seemed a lot longer than that I think because we were so tired.

Finally we arrived in Turkey landing on the Asian side at an airport whose name I can neither pronounce or spell (Sabiha Gockcen??). This is where we ran into a spot of bother. We had forgotten that we needed to buy visas on arrival, and we hadn’t brought any cash with us, because we usually get it straight out of an atm. So we were stuck behind passport control with no money and all the cash machines were on the other side of passport control. Unfortunately we were not the only ones in this situation, so me and another guy had to be escorted through to get some cash. So at the atm we got out some Turkish Lira (the new Lira) and took it back only to discover that they do not allow you to pay for your visa with Lira, it must be American dollars, Euro or pounds. So back out we went got some euro and finally after what seemed like an age, we were through.

Sammys tour agency were waiting to a whole group of people off the plane, and it was nice to not have to worry about how to get to the hotel for a change.

Visa issues had delayed us a little so we were now running a little late to meet mum and dad, little did I know that we were going to be later courtesy of the Istanbul traffic. I have never seen anything like it. Lets just say it was not free flowing and moved slowly enough, that little men walked up and down of the white lines selling cups of green olives, bottles of water, roses, mobile phone chargers etc.

Finally we made it to the hotel, dumped our bags and went to find mum and dad – and a happy little reunion too, mum and dad travelled well, and are both looking great – dad seems to have lost a lot of weight which is just fantastic. We chatted for a little while (would you believe that mum and I are both reading the same book?!?) before grabbing our cameras and braving the public transport system to get down to the old town of Istanbul. Our destination was the Blue Mosque. It was late afternoon when we got there – just in time for the evening call to prayer – so unfortunately we could not go in but admired it from the outside, took lots of pictures and instead when to the Grand Bazaar. These were markets similar to the ones we had encountered in Morocco, however they differed in the building they were housed in was an impressive stone building with marble floors in places and domed ceilings, and it seemed to be more brightly lit, so had a different ambience. Like the souqs in Morocco there were different sections for different crafts like gold, leather, carpets etc. Mum tried her hand at bartering for a magnet…. But then left it to me and walked away J, we also found some really nice cushion covers for the couch but she decided she didn’t want them.

We have all been amazed by the hospitality and courtesy of the Turkish, particularly the young men. Without fail they have offered mum a seat on the train or even just walking though the park. And they have been sooo helpful. Not in that ‘I am expecting you to buy a carpet from me if I help you’ kind of way but in the ‘I would genuinely like to help you, and if you buy a carpet that’s a bonus’ kind of way.

We stopped for coffee before trying to navigate our way out of the passageways and grabbing a taxi to get back to the hotel.

Quite by chance we had an amazing dinner for mums birthday. We walked down a little street of the main road a short way from the hotel. There was a restaurant that had a bright neon light out the front of it, and for want of another place to go we chose that one.

The little man once again went out of his way to look after us, and he accommodated us by preparing a mezze of salads and starters and fresh Turkish bread before bringing out the most enormous platter of mixed grilled meats. Duncan and I also started with some Lentil soup (which Belinda had recommended that we get) which was very tasty. The staff were all very helpful, and the waiter earned his tip during the course of the evening not only by excellent service but by very entertaining impressions of Kangaroos.

Crossing back to the hotel Dad and I stopped at the little ice cream shop, and I know what you are all saying about dad having ice cream, but it is not as bad as you think. Picture the choc-bombs you get at the movie theatre, now shrink it till it is about an inch an a half high and that is what we had.

We were all still recovering from our flights so with extremely full bellies we took ourselves back to the hotel and went to bed J

Sunday 22 April.

It was just close to 9 when we met for breakfast, breakfast was something that Duncan and I had seen before in some of the hostels tomato, cucumber, cheese, a kind of polony and fresh bread.

Dad though he might like to go to Troy but we had left it a little late to try and organise a day trip there, so we decided we would go and visit the UNESCO listed Museum Aya Sofia, which was formerly known as Hagia Sofya. It was completed in 537AD (Byzantine era) after ~50 years as an Orthodox Church, it then became a Catholic Church before the Turks conquered Constantinople and converted it into a mosque. In doing so all the religious mosaics were plastered over and painted (due to the Islam ban on icons representation). And they stayed like this for many years before whoever was restoring it discovered the mosaics. Now the important mosaics are uncovered and the museum is a mix of Christian and Islamic art and decoration. Very impressive.

We made our way back to the hotel where we had to be for 12:15 to join a cruise of the Bosphorous Straight which is a straight between the Marmara Sea and the Black sea. And the Marmara Sea is connected to the Aegean Sea by the Dardenelles. Confused?? Me too!
The cruise was a failure (mum’s word), kafuffle (dunc’s word) and I will describe it as a debacle (dad’s asleep so I can’t get his word). After waiting for two hours we finally got onto the boat. The commentary lasted only long enough for the crazy spoon dancer and not so traditional belly dancer to start their stuff. So we didn’t get a good description of what we were looking at.

After what seemed an eternity we finished the cruise and were delivered back to our hotel. Mum and Dunc and I rushed down back into town to visit the inside of the Blue Mosque. It was different to what I expected, there were no pictures just patterns and tesselations, even the stain glass windows were just patterns. And it was very differently lit to the churches we are used to visiting it had enormous electric candelabras that hung all over the mosque suspended from the ceiling by cabling, so that when you looked up it looked like a giant tangle of cables. I tell you what the seagulls wouldn’t have been able to fly in there J

We hurried back to the hotel hoping that the gala dinner wouldn’t be quite as disastrous as the cruise. Unfortunately there was no pleasant surprise and the food was no where near the standard we had had the night before. We did however randomly meet Jacqui and Jax (OT and dietician from home) who were on our bus – what a coincidence. Joy for us we even got to watch the spoon dancer and stripper – oops – I mean belly dancer again. At least this time Duncan had to get up and dance with the spoons so that was worth it :)

April 15 - 21

Well on countdown, 1 week to go until our trip to meet the parents.
It seems strange that we have barely unpacked from moving in and now we have to pack it all up again to go on holiday.

Belinda has been staying with us for this week, so we have had our first dosser on couch.

Our Landlady came around to introduce herself, and she seemed very nice.

Apart from that and a series of shopping trips to make sure we had everything we needed the week was realtively uneventful.

I did forget to mention in the excitement of my last post that on Friday the 13 Belinda and I went to Tea and the Ritz which was very exciting.... we got all dressed up and had our cucumber sandwhiches, scones and cream and little cakes.

Anyway back to this week, I took Friday off to tie up a whole lot of loose ends that needed taking care of before we went away. And then it was Friday night. Bel cooked us a lovely dinner before we hit the sack relatively early.

April 1st - April 15

Whoa, what a fortnight!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A veritable roller coaster that’s for sure.

Last we spoke, we were setting up for having a chilled weekend at the end of March. We went and explored the Roman Road Markets, which were ok but not as good as some of the other ones we have seen in London. I did walk past a free trade shop that had some really nice summer dresses so I purchased :).

On the way back to the apartment we walked through the park and were amazed to find that ‘our’ swans had a ma-hoo-sive nest with 8 eggs in it. We stayed and watched her for a while, she occasionally stood up and turned all her eggs and then sat down again, while her bread provider swam close by making sure that we weren’t going to hurt her.

I spent most of that afternoon cleaning, we went to Sainsbury’s to do a mahoosive shop (and incidentally get the car cleaned by a random car park car washer-man), and chilled out over a movie.

The next morning was breakfast at our house. Luke, Belinda, Vic and Grant came around with all the laptops and over a cooked breakfast made by Dunc we tried our hardest to get tickets for the world famous Glastonbury festival. Alas, after three hours trying to get through, we did get through to find all the tickets were gone. So we took our sorrow to the Slug and Lettuce in Fulham and watched the Eagles beat Sydney! The drive to Fulham was pretty cool we drove right through the centre of London, along the Thames past Harrods. Very cool indeed.

On Monday morning I got a SOS text from Bel. She and Luke had come to a mutual agreement to end their relationship. Obviously this was still a very distressing time, so naturally I insisted that on Wednesday she come around for dinner.

This evening of consolation and listening did not end exactly how I thought that it would. It fuelled a reaction in our flatmate that we didn’t expect, and long story short (further details available on request) Duncan and I decided that it was not an environment that we wanted to continue to live in. So we made a few phonecalls and within the hour had decided to move out with Vic and Grant who were looking for somewhere to live………

Roll on Good Friday – an extra long weekend J. Duncan and I, Vic and Grant, Mark and Gordo, Magnus and Nicole and Belinda (Luke was unwell with the flu and decided to stay in London) got up really early on Friday morning to avoid the mad rush of bank holiday-ers on the motor ways. We made really good time up to Cumbria, which is probably better known as the lakes districts.

The drive up to Cumbria was mainly on motorways, but once we got into the district itself it was so beautiful. The towns had a strangely marine theme to them; you almost felt you could have been on the coast.

We had a toilet stop at Windermere before heading for our little camping barn. And it was so cute!! Nestled at the bottom of the hill just off the main road it was an old barn that had been converted so that it had 10 bunks, a shower and toilet and a kitchen. We made our way from the barn to the local town which was Keswick, strolling through the town we found a pub for lunch, bought some supplies and went back to the barn to settle in for the night with pizzas, garlic bread and of course beer wine and soft drink.

The next morning was for me the highlight of the trip. Belinda, Dunc, Vic, Grant, Mark and I – we went Ghyll Scrambling. For those of you who are not sure what this is I shall enlighten you: A ghyll is a mountain stream. So Ghyll Scrambling is climing to a top of the mountain stream, getting in and sliding, scrambling, and jumping your way down to the bottom. This meant walking along different sections, staying low on your bum and sliding down smooth rock slides and jumping off waterfalls into falls. And being the beginning of April it was extremely cold. But after the adrenalin kicked in we were alright! We went with guides by the way not on our own, they told us where to stay low, where to jump or dive etc.

We went to a nearby pub for a delicious lunch overlooking one of the valleys watching the hikers come in and out and being entertained by ?handkerchief dancers?

The afternoon was spent in pursuit of history, we drove to Carlisle Castle and after not being over impressed with the view from the outside and not wanting to spend money to go in, we decided to skip it and drove to Hadrian ’s Wall instead. That was quite interesting although I was a little disappointed that it actually is no longer the border between England and Scotland so I couldn’t jump on one side and be in England and jump on the other side and be in Scotland.

That night we went to the local hotel down the road, their normal seats were completely full, so we were sat in their proper dining room with table clothes and silver cutlery and all. The food was very nice although poor Vic wasn’t feeling too well so didn’t eat much.

On Easter morning we had our breakfast on the table in what was part driveway, part field. It was cold but it was fine. After breakfast we had an easter egg hunt, that grant did extremely well at, we suspect their may have been some cheating going on! :)

We drove through the bleak but starkly beautiful Buttermere valley, the village of Buttermere before pulling up along side the Lake Buttermere for a picnic lunch. Once again the sun was out, and the warmth was enough for us to take off our big jackets and use them as pillows on the grass.

We split up that afternoon. Duncan and I, Mark, and Magnus and Nicole walked from the town up to Castlerigg, another stone henge. I never realised that there was more than one until we came to England but these bizarre relics are all over. This particular one is set smack bang in the middle of a sheep field. But what is really strange was there was no sheep manure within the circle of stones. It stopped a fairly consistent distance from the outer edge… spooky…. do they know something we don’t?

We joined the others for afternoon tea and dinner at a pub where they had been watching the cricket.

On Monday we packed up had some breakfast in Windermere on the way home. Duncan, Magnus, Nicole and I got stuck in horrendous traffic; I had called the others to let them know, so the lucky buggers avoided it.

So back to reality in London we had a lot of work to do. As they say four heads are better than one and after viewing a couple of places on Tuesday, by the end of Tuesday night Vic and Grant and Dunc and I had found a place to live. And by the Saturday we had moved in. It wasn’t as smooth sailing as we would have liked it to be but lets just say we got out of where we were and got our bond back!

And of course moving house meant shopping so we got to induct Vic and Grant to the Argos experience – I love Argos!!

And there you have it, a week before our trip to see mum and dad, we had moved house.