ChristChurch

And we're in New Zealand!
We landed in Christchurch last night at around 11, and it wasn't until today we actually got to see the effects of the earthquake. Portaloos squat stubbornly on the pavement outside every 3 or 4 houses, and to begin wth I assumed it was because of all the building going on. You see portaloos, you think builders (unless of course your at a music festival, in which case you think NO GO ZONE!) It just came on the news that the waterworks were so effected that for hundreds of people their bathrooms are still not suitable for use, and so if theyv'e got to go it's going to have to be outside, in the portaloo. And even more unfortunate than this is the fact that, as is usually the case with portaloos, they are disgusting. Piled up tissue and urine and...everything else. You don't have to have the best of imaginations to know what I'm talking about!  We can't drink out of the tap in our hostel, and we're some of the lucky ones who have any running water at all. Hundreds of people are homeless and have been made redundant, not to mention the hundreds that lost their friends, family and loved ones. It's not something you think about really effecting the western world. I personally didn't think much of the earthquake. It was so far away, and compared to some of the other natural disasters 100 lives isn't alot. But it's still 100 lives. 100 sisters or brothers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends. So I'd like to ask everyone to send up a thought or a prayer or what ever you'd like to call it to those whose lives are currently in pieces. 

Because of this it's difficult to enjoy the city. The center's cut off with army men guarding its entrance and piles of rubble where peoples homes used to be, so instead of write about the city I'm going to write about something pretty trivial that happened whilst in the city. 

Me and Jake are crossing the road to catch a bus, or more accurately, Jake is crossing the road and I'm wondering aimlessly behind him until he starts pulling me along, in which case I just slow down even more because I'm like, Hey! We're on holiday! Why rush!? When something mahogony in colour, round and smooth winks out at me from under the grass. What is that? Could it be!?

It was a conker.

You may not see why this is a big deal. Why I suddenly got so excited. It was the fact that something so known and common to me growing up in Cornwall could possibly be there, just the same, on the other side of the world. I bend down to pick it up and realise there's more! Dozens of them littering the floor. I pick up one. Then another. Soon I'm scooping them into my handbag.

"Beth? What are you doing? Seriously!? We're going to miss our bus for some conkers?!"

He goes quiet for a second, and I see in my peripherals a white blonde circle bobbing around by the floor.

The conker fever is catching!

Me and Jake return to the hostel and tip our treasure onto our bed, to admire the sheer number of them! Theyr'e like an army of tubby, squat shiny brown people. 

It suddenly hits me that there's NO way they're going to let me take 50 conkers through customs..maybe if I declare it...

Are you bringing any food in your luggage? No

Are you bringing an amount of tax deducted items that come to over 1000 dollars? No

Do you have in your luggage any wooden items, or items that may be made partly of wood? I have a total of 153 conkers, but I promise the reasoning behind them being there is innocent and trivial, maybe even juvenile.

Do you have in your luggage any seeds? As I before mentioned, I have a total of 153 conkers. I plan to plant none of them. If this is going to be a problem I'm willing to leave 53 behind, but any less than that and I lose my title of conker centurian. This is a title I will not reliquish readily.

Sometimes I really struggle to explain why I do things. I just do!  When I was younger I used to have this weird "What if?!" Problem. It was very simple. I, for example, remember sitting in a car, on the motorway on the way to Bristol and my brain suddenly goes

"What would happen if I throw care to the wind and fling open the door?"

As soon as this thought gets into my head it sticks there and I find myself realy considering to do this ridiculous thing.

I remember walking up the stairs, with my favourite cup. It was Beauty and the Beast style, with two layers of plastic and between the two layers of plastic was liquid, bits of glitter and little plastic shapes that moved around. I'm pretty sure everyone in my generation had one of these cups. Well I get to the top of the stairs and think "What would happen if I dropped it over the edge?" 

After being in mental turmoil for a couple of minutes I reluctantly drop my beloved plastic, glittery Beauty and the Beast cup and watch it fall. 

It smashes into 100 pieces.

I start to cry.

It was pretty standard. Nothing interesting happened. It just fell and smashed. But I must have done something like that at least a dozen times before I got the hint. Gravity really is a stubborn bum!

We're headed off to Tekapo tomorrow, expect hundreds of photos of one great big beautiful lake!!

Love to all. 

Xxx

City of Lights, Second attempt!

Hmm...

about the last post, I would like to apoligies.But I blame it on the invention of boxes of wine!

Not only can you have copious amounts for a very small price, but it's very hard to keep track of how much you've drunk! With a bottle it's just, oops, I'm halfway through, better slow down, and then once you've finished the bottle you know your at prime perfect drunkness and thats the time to swap onto lemonade or something.
With the box you have no idea how much you've drunk, until the box becomes considerably lighter and Jake decides to, out of curiousity, take the bag out of the box and see how much was left.

The answer? Not alot. Between me and Jake nearly all 4 litres had been consumed. Yesterday morning began at about 2pm with a banging headache, spinning dorm room and overactive gag reflex. Blerg!

Anyways, I'm going to try and explain (again!) why I'm referring to Melbourne as the city of lights. 

In the daytime it's nothing spectacular. I mean, it's pretty great but not like, wow! Well, a little bit wow. Quite a bit wow! But the lights are the cherry on top. In the day there's buskers on every corner, artists drawing famous paintings in chalk on the sidewalk, thousands of boutiqes and cafes and gymnasts all competing for your loose change. It's hustley and bustley, but it doesn't feel as crammed as London. So you get the feeling that there's something going on all the time, without the voice in th back of your head going "So, this is what it feels like to be a sardine!" (That's the sort of thing my little voice often comes out with. If everybodies conscience was as absurd as mine Pinnochio would have been a much more interesting movie!). But at night the citie's just incredible. 

The trees lining the side of the roads are apparantly, not quite green enough, and so they pump the bark with a luminescent green glow, kind of like The Hulk in foliage form. Every building is lit up in bright whites and yellows, and the stadium in the distance twinkles in pinks and purples. Me and Jake stop off at the bridge, where we get a great view of the whole city (twice over if you count the reflection), and a bierded busker starts tootling away on his flute. Jake turns to me,  "Well that's a nice touch!". Suuuure is. 

On the way home we pass through the rememberance garden. The Romanesque building, with two lots of steps on every side and 5 columns lining the entrance is basking in a honey glow, as the sprinklers fracture the light and add extra entertainement for those immature enough to dare try and outrun them. There's a fire lit, flickering either side. 

And that's why it is the city of lights!

Hopefully I've redeemed myself a little. I haven't read through the last post. I'm too ashamed! But I can't bring myself to delete it, I guess it's all part of the blogging thing!

Love to eeeeeeeveryone back home. :)

T.T.F.N

X

The City of Lights!

That's right, we are in the city of lights!
...Ok. No, we are not in Paris, but Melbourne gets pretty lighty once the sun goes down!
Our jouney didn't start off very well.
First, we have a 10 hour train journey. I can handle this, Australia is a big country and so travelling across it will take a while, but the night before we're off, disaster strikes! (For those males who struggle with the womanly neccessities you might not want to read this next section)
For the first time, in about two months, my period starts!!!
So, I'm on a train for 10 hours, with cronic period pains, continuously having to visit the toilet (which smells awful iffy!) and in the worst mood ever! We finally get to Melbourne station, and decide to get a taxi considering we have huge backpacks and have no idea where we're going.
The taxi driver took us to the wrong park street! What stupid city has two streets with the same name! So even after paying 10 dollers we get to walk around the city for about an hour. At least we bumped into some nice locals who led us bascaly to our hostel's front door.
Then we enter St Arnauds.
From outside it looks clean and fresh but pretty standard. White walls with blue trimming, the sign in blue and a font I'm pretty sure I've seen on "word" before. But inside it's something else!
There's a gramaphone in one corner, an old fasioned spindel (think sleeping beauty style), with chandeliers and an old fasioned cabinet full of bits and bobs. We go upstairs, and to the right as the stairs splt and then back on ourselves to our dorm room. There's 6 beds all in all, two of them are already occupied by german girls, who are very lovely. Another girl comes in. She's very friendly, and it turns out she's from London. We get talking and it turns out all the other people in our room are in their 20s, and most of them speak 3 languages! Feeling like very amateur travellers at this point!
We're now sat with a load of very load 20 something year olds, and a box of red wine. I've just glanced up and there's a cat, sat in the middle of the room. I swear it wasn't there before!!! Bring on the travellers life style!
(just incase there's any horrendous spelling mistakes or any sentences that make NO sense, I'd like to point out that I have had about three glasses of red wine. So bare with me!)
I'll blog soon! :)
(i've just realised I haven't talked about the lights at all, which was the whole aim of my blogging, but I'll get to that tomorrow night or something!)
Beth
xxx

Our trip to the Zoo

A few posts ago I mentioned my first travel related apiphony, that I am far vainer that origionally thought. Today I had a second. I turn into a bad bad person in the heat. It's lovely to begin with. The sun shining down on you, kissing you gently with its rays...but then after about 4 hours of walking about in it I get a bit like, Do you mind woman!? Can't you see I'm trying to DO things?!? Stop kissing me with your rays!!! YOUR STRESSING ME OOOOOOOUT!!!

Then I feel cloustrephobic and my skin gets all itchy and everything is just wrong! Jake pointed out the road was clear to cross so started making his way to the other side, and in my head I said something along the lines of

"Oh Reeeeeeeeeally!? You want to cross the road now do you!? That's right go ahead. Don't worry about meeeee! We'll just do what YOU want to do. All the time. Everyday...Hmpf!"

It was one of those things where I know I'm being completely unreasonable, but I'm in such a bad mood I don't really care. 

So there we go, I'm vain and the heat turns me into a stroppy cow. I'm hoping I get a positive apiphany soon. It only seems fair!

Apart from stifling heat and sore feet the zoo was great. Its the first time I've ever seen giant pandas! The male was named WangWang, and the female Funi....Hopefully you, like me, would have thought somthing like "Well, that seems appropriate! Hehehe *snigger*". Another thing that amused me about the zoo was how very un P.C the whole thing was! I'll give you an example of what I mean...

One of the icelollies is names "Golden Gaytime", there's a cheese named "CoonCheese" and, to top it off (this seemed like the most absurd, probably due to the visual aid) was a sign saying "No disabled access"...fair enough. Exept it was accompanied by a picture of someone in a wheelchair slipping uncontrollably down a slope into the open jaws of a crocodile!

Maybe I'm just being very English.

Only a couple of days until we're off to Melbourne. VERY excited :)

Xxx

Laygo

You may be wondering, what is this laygo I speak of? Is it some Australian thing? Or maybe some fantasy item? No.
It is Lego, but for some reason alot of Australians have that annoying, rather American habit of prounouncing certain words belonging to our language incorrectly. (and yes, I do stubbornly maintain that the language of "English" belongs to the people of England, and therfore if anyone pronounces it differently to us they are WRONG!). This includes status being pronounced to rhyme with cat-us (if there was such a word), and route managing to rhyme with about.
Me and Jake where discussing the odities of language on our way back from the bus stop, with ecclectic comments about how bazaar it is, and Jake randomly comes out with "Whats the plural of sausages". I thought about this for a bit, and replied "I don't know, I've never really thought about it, I guess it would be sausagi.", "Hmm, it's funny how little that word comes up in conversation". We were quiet for a moment, both being lost in our own little thought bubbles, then all of a sudden a confused/concerned look simultaniously spread across our faces...
"Sausages is the plural, isn't it"
"Yup."
"And "Sausage" is the singular"
"Sure is!"
"...Lets not ever mention this to anyone"
...*perfect blogging moment, Thaaankyou!*
It seems amazing that after speaking a language for about 17 years all it takes is a day in the heat to scramble your brain!

Back to the subject of lego (or laygo, depending on your diction), we got a box of the stuff out earlier and began to have a good old remeniccent building session, aided, of course, by the 4 and 6 year old we're staying with (Please! We wouldn't be sad enough to start playing kiddy games without some children to pin the immaturity on!). We managed to build a superdog, a house and garden for said superdog, along with a car, a garage and a campervan. Jake was the brains and muscle behind the car. As we're putting our creations back into their box, after all the hard work and attention to detail that had gone into them (not to mention the sweat and tears, and believe me there was a lot of the latter!) Jake says to us, concern in his voice,
"Put them back carefully! Don't you dare break them!"
And just as I'm putting the garage in...complete with car
"but you couldn't break my car, it's indistructable!"
At that moment I tilt the garage and the car comes rolling out. It hits the floor with a CRASH and bits fly everywhere, a firework display in plastic primary colours! I glance back at Jake, all 6ft 7 of him statue like in horror! Mouth wide open. Disbeliefe in his eyes!
"Why would you doooooo that!?"
"It was an accident! I promise!"
"Noooo! Really! Why!?"
"I was distracted for a second and just tilted the garage a bit and...actually. Your 18, its lego, I'm not going to feel bad about it"
At this point Jake is scrabbling around on the floor, picking up pieces and trying to put it back together.
"I can't find the break light!!!"
"Nope, I REFUSE to feel bad about this" *walking out*
"Now people are going to crash into the back of me!"
"Nope, refusing!"
"It won't pass its M.O.T!!!"
This is the main reason I've found time to write my blog ...he's currently ignoring me.
I maintain that I have nothing to feel guilty about. It's not my fault nobody put the handbreak on! Goh! Laygo drivers nowadays!

I'll write again soon, I realise there's been rather a large gap in my efforts. Admitedly I have been SUPER busy. Going to the beeeach , soaking up the sun, enjoying ice cold beers. But hey ho, as is life, ;)

T.T.F.N
Beth

P.S. Jake has just come in with the offer of a cup of tea, I think it's fair to say I've been forgiven. I think he may be missing his car just a liiiiiiittle bit more than he's been letting on.

SunSafe

Lets open this post with a fun little fact. Did you know that UV rays can penatrate through clouds? Did you? Really?!
WELL NOBODY TOLD ME!!!
I am very sunburnt. So sunburnt infact that I could stick a couple of straws to my forhead, take a dip in the sea, join a lobster colanie, get caught in a lobster trap, be taken onto the boat where the fisherman would think it their lucky day because not ONLY have they captured the worlds biggest lobster but also the worlds only talking/blogging lobster! I would then be sold to a freak show and live out the rest of my life alone and miserable, taunted by the paying customers, with the stage name of "Lobbie the Lobster girl", a meer side attraction to the fat, beareded siamese twin ladies. *Siiiiiiigh*
...Ok, admittedly this a bit over dramatic but I hope I've made my point.
Another down side of being burnt in Australia is that the whole attitude to the sun is very different here to in England. Here I have a 6 year old giong "Are you sun safe? You need your hat and some sunglasses and a long sleeved top and your neck should be covered. Make sure you reapply your suncream every 2-3 hours and drink some water every half an hour."
In England the attitude is more like...
"Sunburn? What?...I'm pretty sure you need some sun for that."
So that means sunburnt people in Adelaide, despite the copious amount of sun, are quite a rare thing. This partly explains my experience in the pharmacy earlier.
I role up thinking, hey, I'm sunburnt! But it's been sunny! These things happen! And one of the helpful pharmacutical ladies wander up to me...
"Are you looking for anything in particular?"
"Uuuurm, yes, wheres the aftersun please?"
"Oh, just over here. Oh yes, you are sunburnt. Did that happen today? Only today and its that red already?! Oooh, it's going to get worse! Hey Bruce! BRUCE!!! Come and have a look at this"
*Me trying to look very VERY consumed with my choice in aftersun"
"Oooh, blimey! That only happened today?! Is it itching yet? Oooh, it'l probably start itching. You should get some stuff for that itching!"
Within half an hour I had ALL the staff circling me. Sighing and oohing and shaking their heads. A few of them also seemed to think that due to my accent I couldn't really understand them. This lead to a couple of ridiculous hand gestures. One of them suggested I use yogurt, to draw out the heat. This was followed by a thigh slapping gesture. If anyone can work out the link between these two please let me know.

Anyway, I'm off to have a cold shower, smear myself in aftersun and hide my face due to high levels of shame!
T.T.F.N
Yours pinkly (Jake's input)
Beth

Tie me Kangaroo down!

I saw Kangeroooooos!

Oh yeeeh!

For some reason catching a glimpse of those ridiculous animals makes it seem kinda official. Oh, wow, look! A kangaroo!...I guess I really am in Australia!

And don't think me mean for referring to them as ridiculous, because they really are.

They have faces and eyes like a horse, ears and paws like rabbits, the torso of a bear (and by this I just mean its round and furry!) a tail like...well, its just really very long and the bottom half of the love child of a clown and a rugby player! And thats not the weirdest bit! The weirdest part is its behaviourisms, they're almost a bit...human. We went to the animal park and they where all just chilling in the grass, soaking up the sun, when one of them noticed we were walking bye. So it sat up, yawned and followed us with its gaze, whilst resting on its elbow. Another stood up, stretched and started scratching its armpit! For some reason the fact it did this with its other paw rather than with its teeth was really rather comical, although I couldn't really tell you why! However, despite these human characteristics there is one distinct difference between people and kangeroos. 

Kangeroos can't fart.

Gworing up in England you get the impression that where ever you go on holiday the food there will be cheaper than it is abroad. WRONG!

We went food shopping yesterday and it was 5 dollars, so thats around £3.50 for a pack of 6 slices of ham! I was appaled! A average sized pack of minced beef was around 10 dollars (so lets say £7) and a smal bottle of dove shampoo was over ten dollars! Overall we went in with a shopping list of 

Aftersun

Moisturiser

Stuff for lunch (sandwiches)

Stuff for tea (chilli con carne)

We came out with

Tea bags.

Jolly good old chaps I say! And after that there shin dig I was like WotWot!? Out we come to visit the colanies and they try to extort us so!? Weeeeell, I said that's just not cricket I say I say!

I guess we're far more English than we previously thought.

Something I'm very greatful of is that the family we are currently staying with, Jake's Auntie,has a four year old daughter, and so she often comes out with the little things that only a four year old girl could come out with. It fills in a little hole that I guess has been made by a lack of hearing the silly things Lou often says! Anyway, our conversation on the way back from getting ice cream went something like this.

"Bes! (struggling with the "TH") There's a koala up there"

"Ooooh yes! He's probably having a nap because it's very hot at the moment"

"That's good, I wouldn't want him to come down and steal our icecreams!"

"...do koalas often rush out of trees to nick peoples icecreams?"

"well, no. But I bet they get angry, because they don't get to eat icecreams very often"

Following this comment was a conversation based solely around why koalas don't often eat icecreams. We came up with the following contributing factors

• Koalas are too short to reach the counter
• They can't hold the stick properly, so would have to shove it in their mouths in one go and get brain freeze.
• Koalas wouldn't be able to open the packaging
• Nor could they reach into the icecream storage box thing without climbing ontop of it, and I'm pretty sure the super markets don't like you climbing on their icecream boxes!
• Supermarkets in Australia have quite a strict "Please leave your rucksack at the door" policy. This causes marsupials several problems (admittedly I brought this one up)
• Aaaaaand Koalas aren't very good with money.

I'm off to the beach now! Its very warm today, again, and our bus leaves soon. I'll probably write again later...it's pretty addictive.

Love to all those back home

xxx

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step...then a car journey and a bus then two trains and two flights and one final car journey. Few!

I am finally in OZ!!!
There are many things I could blog about right now, but firstly, and probably most importantly I feel like I should write about the journey, as that is the only part of my journey which is actually, well, kinda compulsary. It wouldn't be a very good blog if I didn't actually go anywhere! The problem with this is, although as I mentioned it's a pretty straightforward and neccessary part of the whole travelling experience it also took the best part of three days, so I'm going to try and make this simple.

Things I liked about travelling

• The fact that I was flying. Not as gracefully as one might imagine, as I was stuck in a stuffy tin can but hey, beggars can't be choosers
• Lots and lots of new movies. Simple minds and all that
• The fact that Jake put all the gherkins on my half of the double cheeseburger. Nom nom!
• Aaaaand the fact that I was getting to where I was going...as you do.

Things I didn't like

• Sitting still for too long
• Not washing/sleeping in 3 days. Leads to much grumpiness
• Being called a "gerk muncher" for enjoying my gherkiny side of the burger...by Jake
• Aaaaand the fact that I didn't see sunlight for a few days, due to flying alongside the night most of the time (as dramatic as that sounds it actually just involves a whole lot of NOT looking out windows). Oh this point also has a kind of side note; eating your main meal at around midnight 3 days running. Really gets your digestive parts in a muddle!

The last couple of hours of the flight though we managed to catch up with daylight, and so the looking out of the window commences. Australia looks stunning from a plane. Really honestly does. It looked like something off of the discovery channel! I could basically hear David Attemborogh (forgive the spelling mistake, but there was no way I was going to get that one right!) commentating in the back of my mind! I suppose this could be taken as proof of hearing voices due to severe sleep deprivation though, rather than being testiment to how beautiful Down Under is from up high, but I'll leave that one to your judgement!

I need to go and have a shower. Really really do. Feeling a little bit smelly right now.
Love to all of you
T.T.F.N