The Chance of a Lifetime...

SHIT!

my Blackberry died a horrible death, dunno why, but it did, and so updates on this will be less frequent until i can figure it out... sorry guys
email me!

posted by Kirby @ 8:26 PM 1 comments

Itchy!

We've been on this trip for 11 weeks and have been in countless hostels...last night I got my first case of bed bugs! Grr!!
Now we're in a car on the way to the outback!! I'm super excited!!
I know I have some to catch up on and tell you about but my battery is dying so it'll have to wait... Stay tuned...
P.s happy turkey day- a couple days late
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posted by Kirby @ 3:07 PM 0 comments

Roadkill

So we're on our way South from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay- maybe 10 hours, and the other car just hit a 6ft kangaroo!! I haven't even seen a kangaroo yet and they just hit one!! Jeeez!!
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posted by Kirby @ 6:19 PM 1 comments

Animals in OZ

I can't remember if I already said this but Dave and I booked a sweet tour- Brown Dog Tours www.browndogtours.com and we booked both parts- the beef and the beach!! It usually starts in Brisbane but we couldn't wait that long so we're doing the trip backwards...
Friday night we met up with everyone on the tour with us- Chris from LA, Jo and Mitch from Maryland but are all friends, go to UCLA but are studying abroad here; Mirriam from Germany and 4 from Taiwan. Tim and Shanna are the owners of the company and lead the tours... We ate dinner and hung out for a while before calling it a night.
Saturday we got up early, met up with everyone and started driving south. After about 2 hours we were in Mission Beach where we stopped and Tim cracked a couple of fresh coconuts which were yummy!! We continued driving and stopped at Jourama Falls where we had a picnic, did a bush walk and found a place to swim, it was beautiful and pretty amusing. We kept driving, Dave and I were in Tim's car and we lost the other car so we stopped for a beer in a tiny little town before finish up the drive to Airlie Beach. We arrived at Beaches hostel, ate dinner, drank and eventually headed out to some of the bars. We had tons of fun and were all prety drunk..good times...Dave made a new friend and got to ride in a ute (an al camino).
Sunday we reluctantly got up pretty early, ate breakfast and made our way to the dock to go ocean rafting- www.oceanrafting.com this was tons of fun... A decent sized boat with 2 massive engines, it weas rough out and we were taking these massive waves and flying all over the place it was great!! Check out the website for a better idea, its kind of hard to explain. However, within 10mins one of the other dude was puking over the back of the boat- GROSS!! Most of you should know that I can't deal with pukers so needless to say I wasn't impressed and I gave him a prety hard time later on! Lane was our driver and he and his buddy (can't remember his name) thought it was hillarious but I'm sure they deal with it all the time. Anyways we made our way to Daydream Island which is one of the Whitsunday Islands and we picked up a few more people. The weather wasn't great so Lane decided to reverse the trip and we went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef first. When we stopped the puker said he felt sick again! I looked at him and told him he had to wait b/c we were going snorkellong in the water he wanted to puke in. He wasn't too impressed with my lack of care but that's too bad. Anyways, the snorkelling was amazing!! There were 100s of fish and tons of coral!!! Lane threw some fish food in and they were jumping around everywhere, it was great!! We snorkeled the reef for ages then set off again and went to Whitehaven Beach which has sand a lot like Siesta Key at home, it was beautiful! The water is crystal clear and there were a ton of fish swimming around there too. We ate lunch on the boat and hung out on the beach for a couple of hours before heading home. It was a pretty amusing ride home, 1/2 of the boat got soaked, and we just laughed at them the puker was one of them so that was even better! :).
We went home, showered, napped, ate dinner, Lane was at the bar where we ate- which was also our hostel so he came and hung out with us, the puker was also there but took ages to recognize me- then we laughed about the day and his puking... We had a few rounds there before heading to Morocco's- another bar- where they asked me for ID! Do I look 17?! (That's what I said to the bouncer) haha. Chris sang "Cold Hearted Bitch" on Karaoke, it was pretty good and really funny. We left there and went to Paddy's- an Irish bar, go figure! We ordered this Nashes drink, and used Lane's sweet 40% discount! This drink is 3 shots of vodka, 1/3 can of redbull and fill the rest of the pint glass with cider- YUMMY!! It was soooo good!! We partied there for a long time, I met the owner but no free drinks unfortunately! Ha. We stayed out for a while had a few more Nashes :)
Monday Dave and I slept late, Chris, Jo and Mitch went sailing. Dave and I went and laid out by the freshwater lagoon and pretty much didn't do anything all day, it was great!! We wandered around and looked in the shops etc before going back. I was sitting on our balcony and a Rainbow Lorikeet (parrot type thing) flew over and landed on the edge of the balcony, scared the crap out of me when it screeched, b/c I didn't see it land!! Too funny. The others came home, we hung out, showered etc and went off to eat. We met up later and just hung out- quiet night, no grog! Ha. I don't even remember falling asleep, the lights were still on and everyone was still up...nice.

Here's a list of the animals we've seen so far!
Magpie geese, red and green parrots- rainbow lorakeets, goanna, great egret, black kite, brahman bull cows, lizards/skinks, bush turkey, white breasted sea eagle, jabbaroo! And a couple of kookaburra's!
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posted by Kirby @ 5:49 PM 1 comments

I found Nemo!!

We arrived in Sydney, cleared customs, and I got a stamp in my passport!! I think, wait, maybe not...dunno, will check later...if I did its only the 2nd one in 10 countries!! Anyways, we checked into our hostel, it was a little sketchy but we were so tired it didn't really matter. We walked around Kings Cross, the whole area was a little sketchy but we survived. Found a backpacker travel agent place to figure something out for our time here but they were about to close sooo we grabbed food instead, then went back to the hostel and pretty much just passed out.
Thursday we woke up realllly early- like 4am but didn't really get up until about 8. We got ready and went to the travel place, talked to the girl for a while and considered a bunch of different options that would allow us to see a prety decent amount in 18 days. We eventualy decided on a Brown Dog tour which usually starts in Brisbane, goes through the outback up to Cairns and then from Cairns down the east coast to Brisbane. Butttt the next trip leaving from Brisbane wasn't until the 25th soooo we called and found out that we could fly up to Cairns and do the trip backwards and end back in Cairns! Sweet! So we booked flights to and from Cairns and then booked the Brown Dog trip. Its all inclusive- food, accomodation, travel, scuba, sailing, cattle farms, sheep sheering, EVERYTHING you can imagine! How sweet is that?! None of the other options covered as much ground or were as cool, they also weren't all inclusive and when we worked it out, this one was the best! I'm super excited!!
So, we left there and decided to walk into Sydney...that's when the heavens opened and we got absolutely soaked! Oh, I forgot to mention that this was also the coldest day in Sydney in Nov. Since 1905!! Rediculous!! 15degrees C. Sick. But we made it into Sydney, visited the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Circular Quay etc, the observatory, and I saw Nemo swimming around in the harbour!! :). We wandered around for a while before heading back to Kings Cross. When we got back we got a coffee and tried to start figuring out a plan of attack for New Zealand- hopefully something similar to this Brown Dog tour...not sure yet. Last night we just hung out, our hostel sucked as far as social people go and we started falling asleep pretty early so we weren't exactly social either...jetlag sucks. We went to bed somewhat early.
This morning (Fri) we got up, grabbed a shuttle and headed to the airport...this is where the confusion for today began. The shuttle dude asked where we were going so I told him Cairns (in Australia), he said, "oh internttional" so I said no, Cairns, but he insisted it was an international flight, so I let him. We arrived at the international terminal with an hour to spare but a line about 2 hours long, sooo we skipped the line and sweet-talked my way into getting us checked in ASAP. The dude at the desk made some smart-ass comment about how we should have been there earlier b/c it was international, so I impolitely informed him that I was pretty sure Cairns was in Australia, and yes a different state but not international. He said the plane was going to Japan and I should have been there earlier. Well, shit, how was I supposed to know?! Ugh. So he wrote in on my boarding pass (which was stupid since we give those to staf) that any flight number below a 400 was international and any flight number above was internal. Well ours was 167 and I guess we were supposed to be psychic to know that it was international. Whatever. The other lady at the counter was saying how there are always empty seats on this flight b/c people go to the internal terminal (a whole train station away, Sydney is not a small airport!) So clearly there's a flaw in there system and maybe Qantas should inform people of this!!
Anyways, we made our flight, others didn't. We arrived in Cairns 2 1/2 hours later and an hour behind- Cairns thinks daylight savings is stupid- smart people!! We called the hostel to be picked up, they asked what terminal we were in so I said international, she asked where we flew from, so I said Sydney and we stood outside to wait. We waited and waited, eventually the shuttle showed up, she had been at the internal terminal!! No shit!! That's what we thought too!! Damn Qantas!! Although the food they served was amazing!! So we finally made it to the hostel and its amazing!! We're currently sitting by the pool!!! A pool at a hostel?! Sweet!! Its 28degrees C and beautiful!!
So there ya go!! I'm all caught up and we're ready to embark on a whirlwind tour of Queensland, OZ. :)
...Makesure you read below b/c I posted all of Prague earlier today!
P.S. I'm 15 hours ahead of FL, and 10hours ahead of England :) its going to be xmas and new year for me before allll of you!! Muhahahaha :)
Leave some love
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posted by Kirby @ 8:37 PM 0 comments

Prague!

Where to start?
Our last day in England was spent doing random last minute things, and then we took the train around 3 to go to the airport. The flight took about an hour and a half.
We arrived at our hostel in Prague around 10-11pm and since it was Dave's bday we though we'd find at least 1 beer. We checked into the hostel- www..hostelelf.com and went to go get a beer when we were stoped by Frazer, a Canadian. He said he wanted to go out so we just tagged along with him. We got to the bar he had friends at and they were leaving...Will and Niko- From Perth, Danny- from Tasmania, Paulo- from Brazil, a guy from Scotland and a guy from LA, and I think that's it...I could be forgetting someone. We wandered around for ages trying to find a bar we wanted to go to and eventyally found one we liked...an Irish bar of course, would you expect anything else is Prague?! So we had a beer there but then they closed so we went hunting for somewhere else. The next bar was almost double the price so we gave up on that. We walked home but got lost haha and took a long way home, got back and hung out for a little before going to bed.
Friday Dave and I slept kind of late before wandering around the city for a while. We went accross the famous Charles Bridge, went to the old Town Square, saw the crazy clock, and a ton of cool architecture. The weather was pretty good, somewhat sunny and kind of warm. We went to the grocery store on the way home to get some food to keep at the hostel and went home. We bought beers from the 24hr place accross the street and hung out in the common room with everyone. Eventually we headed out and went to a couple of different bars with the gang and Abbey- from Arizona but ha lived in Prague before so knew where to go, and 3 girls from Australia- Chelsea and I can't remember the other 2. Oh and Roger came out with us too! He's an older dude also from Tasmania, super interesting- is a famous sculpter, works with the goverment, has traveled to over 100 countries, all kinds of cool stories. We went to Blind Eye which is where we started the night before. It was pretty cool but we only had 1 beer before moving on. I can't remember the name of the next place we went to but it was great! It was a ton of underground rooms with a bar in almost every one. We had a couple of beers there before moving on to a club called 'U Sudu' which was pretty fun, we had a few more beers there before the group kind of split up a bit. Roger and some others went home, then I grabbed a cab with Danny...too cold to walk and drunk enough to not want to navigate, Dave and Abbey stayed a while longer. It was a fun night.
Saturday dave and I slept late and then got up and wandered around again but were too tired and were only out for a couple of hours haha. Its ok though, Prague is one of those cities that you can do that in, plus we still had a lot of days left! We came home and napped for a bit before buying beers and hanging out on the couch again. A bunch of people went out and Dave went with them but I was too tired and hung out at the hostel for the night which was a lot of fun too. Dave and I made plans with Roger to go to Karlstejn Castle early Sunday morning so I got some sleep for that adventure.
Sunday morning we got up at like 9- ouch!! Showered quickly and met with Roger. Dave had bee out until like 5am so she was in a little worse shape than me haha. Roger found it amusing. We took the train about 45mins out of town to the castle. Its known as a fairytale castle and it was pretty on the outside. Its up in some hills in a littlw village so it was great to get out of the city. Especially since the leave have changed colors but haven't fallen yet, for the most part so it was beautiful out there. The price included a tour and our guide was pretty funny, but there was nothing in the castle!! Apparently an Austrian King had stolen it all back in the day so uh yeah it was an empty castle...sweet..someone should include that in the tourist travel books. But we had fun, we were all pretty stupid...Roger had bought a big bag of peanut M&Ms and in the middle of the dudes speech he droped one and it bounced and rolled accross the concrete floor hahah it was pretty funny but you might have had to have been there. We made our way back from the castle, Roger decided to do some more sight seeing but Dave and I thought a nap might be more suitable...I slept for about and hour, Dave slept for about 4! Got up, hung out, grabbed some food for dinner- a bag of crisps, a magnum ice cream, a mars bar, and this wafer thing that I had choked on the day before- I thought I'd give it a second try! Oh ans some beers of course. Sat on the couch and everyone got into a debate about which order I should eat my dinner in, and they concluded that I should have eaten the crisps, then the ice cream, the mars bar and the wafer. This did not happen as I ate the ice cream first so that it wouldn't melt, then the crisps. I didn't eat the mars until way later and shared it with the boys...shockingly generous since Mars' are my fav! Haha. And I didn't get round to eating the wafer- others did.
Monday the boys woke us up and we went to Bohemian Bagel for breakfast/lunch...we sat there for ages staring at maps and planing future trips :) Danny changed his ticket to stay an extra week instead of heading home. We left there and went to the John Lennon Peace wall which, to be quite honest is just a ton of grafitti. There we split from the boys and Dave and I went to Prague Castle. The Cathedral was pretty cool but other than that it wasn't too impressive. Dave and I split up and both wandered around seperately...I didn't really do much and it was raining so I headed back to the hostel. Hung out there for a while, then decided we should probably shower and make an effort, the boys managed to grab showers first and by the time Dave got in there all of the hot water was gone..sweet. I went to a local Czech restaurant w/ Danny and Mark and had an amazing salad ha, it was really great! We headed back and everyone else had already started drinking, I hopped in the shower thinking it would be warm by then but I couldn't have been more wrong! It was absolutey freezing, but I had t shower then b/c we were leaving realy early in the a.m to fly to Sydney. Brrr.
Hung out upstairs for the evening, we'd colectively decided that it would be an Absynth night since it was so many of our last nights there. Gross, Absynth is gross. We had fun though, tons of fun. Went to bed really late, only about an hour of sleep before we got up at 5am! Dave and I somehow made it to the airport, and onto our flight. We flew 2 hours from Prague to Vienna, switched planes, flew 12 hours to Kuala Lumpur, got off the plane, went through security, waited half an hour, got back on the same plane, flew 7 1/2 hours to Sydney. I slept the ENTIRE time, I didn't even watch a movie, I somehow managed to eat all of the meals (free food can't be turned down) but yeah, slept the whole time!! Clearly it pays off to stay up all night before flying 20 hours. So yeah, we left Tues a.m and arrived Wed. Night!
And that's Prague!! Good times, great new friends!! Can't ask for much more than that!!
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posted by Kirby @ 1:47 PM 0 comments

I'm caught up!! Leave some love!!

Saturday night we all went out and met up in town for some drinks…went to The Slug and Lettuce, then O’neils for a little before going to H&H for a yummy chicken wrap.
Sunday we went into Welwyn to go shopping again, I didn’t buy clothes and split from Sara and Dave…I bought 2 books instead haha go figure. **I’ve since read 1 1/2 of these- “My Best Friend’s Girl” by Dorothy Koomson was a great chick-book! Totally recommend it to the girls!! And now I’m reading “The Island” and I can’t remember who its by, its not amazing but its good.**
Monday we went Edinburgh! Caught a flight, which was late- 1 of the 4 EasyJet flights we’ve been on has been on time, but they’re cheap so can’t ask for too much. We arrived, checked into our hostel, which was great!! Then went to wander around and explore. Its beautiful up there, one day I’ll back and explore Scotland further. Soooo yeah we just looked around. Tuesday=Halloween: we got up and went for an adventure up to Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat. We hiked up to the top, it was soooo tall, we got a great view of the city but it was soooo cold!! The wind was gusting like crazy. We met to Australians at the top, they took our pics and vice versa and we made our way down. But of course Dave wanted to go further sooo we climbed some other thing before going home about 3 hours later! But it was fun! We took some pics, they’re pretty amusing…we saw the queen’s palace for when she is there. Then I think we found a coffee shop and sat for a while before heading home. We showered etc, and got dressed in non-halloween costumes…no room in our backpacks and certainly no room in the budget for costumes! We went on the free bar-crawl that the hostel put on and it was kind of fun. We met a guy from WI, he was with 2 others, and they all go to the Air Force Academy and are studying abroad in S. France. We actually only went to 2 bars on the bar crawl before we split from the group. Went to another bar and ran into the guys from Australia who we met when we were hiking! One of them is a race car driver! How cool is that?! Haha. At bar time we headed back to the hostel and ended up watching some of “Scar Face” before giving up on it and going to bed. Wednesday we went to Edinburgh Castle and it was actually really cool. It’s huge!! We walked around for hours, literally like 3 hours, and saw the Scottish Crown Jewels so that was cool too. Then we walked up to some Column at the top of a hill, and a Roman ruin of some sort, and then we were tired so found a coffee shop and chilled for a while. Went back to the hostel, grabbed our packs and went to the airport. When we arrived the flight was 2 hours delayed!! Soooo annoying!! We flew into Luton, had to take the train to St. Albans and a taxi to Welwyn, it took soo long, we didn’t get into bed until about midnight- long day!
Thursday- Sara, Laura and I spent some time together, Laura decided not to go to Uni. and we all went shopping- AGAIN! I bought an outfit for my brand-new baby cousin, Michaela! She was born on Monday the 30th in Adelaide, Australia! And I bought her big brother, Ethan, a stuff-lion toy that I wanted to buy myself, but used him as an excuse :) haha and I don’t have their address so until someone sends it to me, the lion (and an outfit for a newborn) will be in my backpack haha. Thursday night we went out for Chinese and celebrated Dave and Katie D’s birthday’s a little in advance.
Friday Dave and I went for a run. Hahahaha and that’s all we did hahaha. Friday night we went to Katie D’s and had a few drinks, well more than a few. Then we went out in St. Albans, apparently to 4 bars, and then to a club. It was fun, I have some pretty amusing pictures, if you’re lucky I might find time to put them before we leave tomorrow. Anyways, Friday night we stayed at Katie D’s instead of paying for a taxi home. Saturday morning we woke up at like 8.00 freeeezing, jumped in the car and went home and straight back to bed, until noon! We all got up around the same time, I ate a sandwich and was back in bed by 12:30! I slept until 3:30 and by the time I showered it was dark again haha, productive day! Saturday night we semi-repeated the night before but with a lot less alcohol and a lot less bars! Everyone went home around midnight but I stayed out and met up with Ceri, a friend from school who now lives in Cardiff. Hadn’t seen him for about 3 years so it was good to catch up for a while.
Sunday I went to lunch with Katie S and her b/f Matt, then I hung out in St. Albans for a little. I visited my granddad and hung out with him for a while before taking the bus back to Welwyn. Dave and Sara went with the gang to see “Borat” but I really don’t want to see that so I stayed home and watched a movie here with Ralfie the hamster!
Monday Dave and I took the train down to Brighton on the south coast. We went to the pier and the Royal Palace. We met up with my dad’s best friend from school and his family. I haven’t seen them since ummm 2001 and their kids are 16, 18 and 20 now, which is a lot different to 11, 13 and 15! We had Thai and it was delicious! Dave and I hopped back on another million trains and finally made it home late that night. Tuesday Dave and I walked to the station and got back on the train and headed south again, just not quite as far…this time it was to Epsom which is close to where I was born! We met up with my uncle Clive, aunt Janet, cousin Faye, and my other cousin’s wife Fliss who is ready to have a baby any day now- literally, like now! We had lunch and caught up for a while before Dave and I jumped on another 85 trains but this time to St. Albans. We met up with Sarah W for a drink and watched Man. U lose to Southend- pitiful! We attempted the pub quiz but it was really hard and the dude was really loud so we left.
Wednesday- today!! Hooray!! I’m up to date!!
Today was great!! Yesterday Paul invited Dave and I to watch one of his dad’s horses race, so of course we said yes! However, this meant that we had to take another 900 trains, but its ok! It was totally worth it. When we got there, Paul had been able to get us on the list, kind of, so we got “owner” badges! Paul, his dad and his little bro Robbie showed up a little after we got there. Their horse- Mina- was in the 3rd race…b/c we were with the owners we got to go in the owners circle in the middle where they parade the horses around in front of the crowd, we listened to Mina’s jockey’s race plan (it was like being back at crew…kind of! Haha) anddd we got to watch from the “owners and trainers” portion of the stands. Mina’s race took off and she wasn’t looking like she was going to do well, but all of a sudden she took off and won by a length and a ½!! How cool is that?! Our little Mina won!! It was soo exciting! Then b/c we were with the owner we got to stand with Mina when she came in, Paul and I had our picture taken with her, and then Paul went up to receive the cup that they won. Then they took us through to the winner’s room where they served us champagne and played the race back for us to watch. Then they gave Paul’s dad a DVD of the race (how cool is that? That would be sweet for crew!) We watched the next race come around and then came home. Paul gave us a lift home (hooray for no more trains today!! The train there took 2 hours, and the drive home should have taken 30mins but we got stuck in traffic and it took about an hour and some). Paul’s little bro is going out to somewhere in CA to train race horses and be a day to day jockey- he was a professional jockey until about a month ago. Anyways, we came home and Sara, Dave and I went out for an Indian. Now we’re just hanging out, doing laundry and trying to catch up on this blog before we leave tomorrow for Prague!! And now I’m caught up!! Hooray!!
You’d all better leave some comments b/c I don’t think anyone’s been reading this lately and I’ve been working hard to catch up!! :)

posted by Kirby @ 4:19 PM 4 comments

catching up slowly...

When I got back from Amsterdam I just hung out on my own on Friday b/c Sara was working and Laura was at uni. I did actually go for a run though haha my first workout since uhhh August! Friday night Sara and I went to Katie D's, hung out for a little while Katie got ready. She had been to Ikea and bought some sets of drawers so I sat and started to put together some of the stuff...while drinking haha. It was pretty amusing and the nails didn't go in all that straight but it’s somewhat together. Darren- Katie's neighbor stopped by which was pretty amusing, and eventually Paul (Katies b/f) showed up with Mark and drove us into St. Albans to go out. My friends Sarah W, her b/f Rich, James T and his friend Johnny met up with us so we sat and talked...I haven't seen them for over 2 years before this trip so we had lots to talk about...It was fun. We went to a couple of different bars...at bar time we went to H&H Chicken for kebabs- hooray!! On the way Sara managed to trip and fall over and Katie landed on top of her. Naturally I just stood there and laughed at them both, it was hilarious! We eventually ate kebabs and got a cab home...good night. We went to bed and it was the first time in 6-7 weeks that I'd actually slept in a room on my own, Crazy!Saturday I hung out at home for a while, then Kate B and her sister Sarah- who I haven’t seen in about 5 years I think! Came and picked me up. We went to my old school’s pool where Kate’s other sister Jane was teaching lessons. I hadn’t been in the pool since uh ’99 so it was kind of crazy, I swear it used to be sooo much bigger!! We went back to Jane’s house- Kate lives in Norfolk now and Sarah is in the Royal Navy so doesn’t live here either…Jane is the only one still in town soooo we all stayed there! Jane’s b/f Collin and his friend were busy trying to make a Halloween costume- Wizzet the Wizard (I think? Or something like that)…it was pretty amusing, he bought a child’s pink castle play tent, cut out the bottom, arm holes, and eyes, covered it in yellow felt and was going to still moons and stars on it…it was really funny, I should have taken pics. Kate and I talked and hung out, then when Jane came home we went to dinner at a great Italian place that has AMAZING profiteroles!! It was soooo good! After dinner we went across the road to a pub and had a drink. I stayed the night, Kate and I ended up staying up really late talking, was good to catch up.
Sunday Kate dropped me back at the house and I can’t remember what I did all day. Sunday night I went to a pub quiz with Sara, Paul, Furry, Mark and a couple of others and our team won!! I really didn’t have much in-put butttt it was fun. Some of the questions were pretty ridiculous!
Monday I hung out and did some laundry etc. Laura, Sara and I went to Chinese- Sara let me drive her car!! I’ve never driven in England before, it was kind of crazy to have the traffic passing on my right, other than that it was fine, oh and changing gear with the wrong hand haha. Then Sara and I went to pick Dave up from the airport…got there and found out her plane was an hour late so we took off b/c parking is ridiculously expensive- first 10mins are free so when we left we didn’t think we’d have to pay, but apparently we’d been there 11mins and they wanted to charge us £2.50 for that 1 minute, so I yelled at the dude and told him that was ridiculous, and he let us off haha. We parked in a bus stop haha and just waited for a while. Went back an hour or so later and Dave’s plane had landed but she was like the last person through customs or something...definitely had to pay for parking this time! Haha.
Tuesday Dave and I went into London, we went to London Bridge, tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and St. Paul’s Cathedral…we climbed the stairs to the top for some amazing views of London- the weather was surprisingly great so we could see everything. So now Dave and I have climbed to the top of 3 major cathedrals- St. Pauls, St. Peters and Gioraldo.
Wednesday the weather was crap and we stayed home, cleaned the house and did random stuff…nothing exciting…then went to a social club to do another pub quiz with the guys, I think we lowered the average age by about 45years. We didn’t win this time but it was fun. Except when we left I drove on the wrong side of the road haha it was pretty funny. Oh and I stole a sweet Carlsberg-England football pint glass to add to my collection.
Thursday Dave, Sara and I went to a huge shopping mall- Bluewater- for the day, didn’t really buy much…got stuck in traffic on the way home but made it eventually. Got changed and went into town to meet the gang at a bar…hung out there for a while, got H&H Kebab’s on the way home, hooray!!
Friday, Dave and I went back into London to get our hair cut by- that one that we got talked into in Covent Garden. I went first, didn’t do much different but I like it. We wandered around for a little because Dave’s appointment was in the afternoon. Went back and Dave got hers cut pretty short, it looks good.Friday night Dave and I met up with Sarah W at her house, had a couple of drinks there with her parents and cats!! I got to hang out with cats! Haha Pebbles and Tigger, we’re old friends! I talked to another friend- Little Dan, on the phone, was good to catch up with him. Then we took a cab to a cocktail bar called Mokoko’s which is pretty new, and kind of expensive but the drinks are hugeeee. From there we went to O’neils where they were playing great music so we stayed there for the rest of the night. Except bar time was at 12:30 which sucked so we went back to Sarah W’s and stayed there for the night. Saturday morning we got up, Dave and I got some breakfast in town and then took the bus back to Sara and Laura’s where we just kind of hung out for the day...I think.

posted by Kirby @ 2:03 AM 0 comments

more pics

some more pics, but you should really read the post below this one b/c its very educational!

on the Roman wall in my home town...I have a pic of me here when I was a kid so I thought it was only right to get a more up to date one!


I was so good at tracking from my seat in the car that Barney let me sit in his seat for a bit, sooo I jumped at the chance along with my lucky bamboo and guess what?! I found a leopard!!

look at these crazy trees!!! ...on the coast in Capetown.


me on the top of Table Mountain, with Cooks Island where Nelson Mandella was imprisoned.


the whole gang: Barney our tracker, Andre our ranger, me, Sara, Laura, Mum, Dave and Dad


a tiny little tortoise that Andre somehow spotted in the road!


a mummy elephant and her baby who tried to show off and squeal at us...he was cute.


I was acting like the seal :) ...Capetown.

posted by Kirby @ 1:37 PM 0 comments

Guy Fawkes...

I thought I'd take a moment to educate those of you who are not English...
Today is the 5th of November which means it Guy Fawkes Day. For those of you who have seen "V for Vendetta" this is that...kind of. So there are fireworks and bonfires everywhere! Quite festive.
For more info please see:
http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/holidays/gregory.html

"Remember remember the 5th of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We see no reason why
Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!"

haha. Enjoy.

p.s. I'm working on catching up, don't panic! stay tuned!

posted by Kirby @ 1:30 PM 0 comments

Amsterdam

Ok so I've gotten horribly behind and have been to 2 more countries since I last wrote anything!! So this is going to be semi-brief so that I can catch up.
Dave and I flew out to Amsterdam, our flight took off like an hour late..sweet. Daves uncle, Marco, picked us up from the airport which was great, its always nice to be met. We went to their home by the Hague...when Kristy got home we went to a Thai place for dinner and it was really good but kind of strange- you don't order, they just bring a selection of what they're serving, and that's all. But it was really good because we got to try 4 different dishes all at once. The next day we went to the Anne Frank house/museum which was interesting, we wandered around a little before Kristy met us with Daves 2 cousins Jonah and Luca and we went to the Van Gogh museum which was fun ( and didn't take too long since the boys are 5 and 7 :) ) it was cute. We went back to the house and hung out for a while. Jonah bought himnelf a puzzle of a lion at the museum s I sat with him and we did the puzzle...soo cute! Then Luca came over and he asked me what my bblackberry was and so I showed him and he sat there typing on it to practise his English..and Dutch. We had dinner and then we booked our flights to Edinburgh.
The next day the boys decided to wake us up around 7am so that was fun... Jonah likes to make animal noises- like me!! Sooo they came in as lions. Once they had to go downstairs to get ready to go to school Dave and I went back to sleep and slept late. Once we eventually ventured out we went to the Heineken brewery where we received 3 beers included in our admission! Sweet!! After that we went to the Hard Rock cafe so I could get a pin. Went to a coffeeshop for Dave, wandered through the red light district, which was uhh interesting...left and got mildly lost on the way home, eventually got home and pretty much just went to bed.
I left the next morning (Friday) to go back to England but Dave stayed until Monday.
Ok I'm sending this before you all give up on my blog!!
Please stay tuned, England has been really fun and I promise I'll tell you about it all!!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

posted by Kirby @ 3:48 PM 0 comments