Hola! Buenos dias, como estas?

So now we have been in Edinburgh for coming up two weeks. I feels like forever and I think now we have seen pretty much everything! We have climbed Arthur's seat and Salisbury Crag, we have attended the Edinburgh open doors day, we have learnt some Spanish, we have rock climbed up to the Edinburgh castle walls, Elle has been employed at a mint little cafe called Loopy Lorna's Tea House, Andrew has an interview on wed to hopefully get some freelance work (fingers crossed!), We are planning to visit north a little at the end of this week as we are starting to get cabin fever and need to make the most of being jobless at the moment! We met a real nice guy from Uragury also and he made us amazing pizza from scratch and then we played some mini table tennis - was epic - thanks Ernesto! Peace A&E

Our New Home

One week in Edinburgh and we are already feeling quite at home.
It certainly is a nice change, to have no urgency whatsoever, to see the sites. Mostly every other city we have visited, has been paired up with a jam packed itinerary, but Edinburgh, we are taking as it comes. Last night, just went for a casual stroll and bumped into the castle along the way... no biggie! We have gone on numerous tour buses which has given us a much better grasp on the place. It is so easy to live in a little bubble in these big cities. But as I have said before.. bus tours are the best! Especially if you're pro scammers like Andrew and I. We've managed to extend our 24 hour tickets to up to 48 hours both here and in London!
We have just moved into the long term part of the hostel. Staying in our room, are two Spanish folk both here to learn English. Sadly, our quest for employment must now begin. Andrew is getting in touch with a few recruitment agencies and I have another interview lined up for Saturday. Can't wait to start earning some sweet sweet pounds and keep this adventure going!

Best things so far:

Oppshop after oppshop after oppshop! So Many Oppshops!
The Scottish accent (although rarely heard here!)
Bag pipe buskers
Free food shelf (stuff that people leave behind) at the backpackers... amazing!
Being so close to the ocean again

Love, A&E

Scotland the brave!

We have made it up through England all the way to the ruggard north! We have had so many awesome adventures along our way starting with Bath where we stayed with the nicest family at the Bloomfield B&B. There we saw the Roman baths, visited Jane Austin museum, took a bus tour to stone henge and surrounding area. A highlight was going to watch cricket games where the children from our host family played, and we taught them a bit of BYC!

From there, we took a bus up to Birmingham where we stayed with Stacey (a NP girl) for 2 nights, did a sweet pub quiz and sampled some of the Indian cuisine. Unfortunatly we missed our bus from here and ended up having to pay for a train to Huntingdon to visit Andrew's family friends 'The Moesbauer family'. We had a great time catching up there and couldn't believe how much the kids had grown.

Next, it was off to see the Vikings! Spent a few nights in York, a beautiful wee town with loads to see and do. Scattered about the botantic gardens of the York museum, are some incredibly epic ruins of the old St Mary's Abbey, Cliffirds tower and York Minster just a 10 minute walk away. Sitting by the river with a cider in hand, was the perfect end to one of the three amazing days.

Scotland here we come! Arrived in Glasgow after an 8 hour bus trip with a big, fat sweaty Scotsman navigating us through the north of England, along the East Coast, giving us the odd glimpe of the ocean, cliffs and castles. This painfully slow trip was made worth the while with views like that!

We were kindly picked up by Lynne and Peter at the station. Had a lovely night at their place just catching up over a plate full of yummy chinese take-aways. The next day, chucked our gear in lockers at the train station and headed out to see the sights. The weather packed in rather swiflty giving us a warm welcome to Scotland! Nevertheless, we prevailed the rain and explored the Glasgow cathedral, St Mungo museum, the Necropolis cemetary, and Jamie's Italian for antipasto, all worth a visit. From Glasgow we headed 50mins north to Helensburgh to stay with some of Andrew's parents friends - Sheila and Iain, from here we traveled back to Glasgow when the weather packe dup to track down some of Andrew's family history (Turnbull & Caird). The next day we took the train to see Dumbarton Castle (10/10), Loch Lomond were we jumped on a boat and then walked around the bonnie, bonnie banks to visit Balloch castle, a gem in the hillside!

The next day we visited Hill house designed by Macintosh (very popular guy over here), pretty before his time. Then late afternoon we headed across to Edinburgh and booked into the luxurious Budget Backpackers!

Please feel free to comment on our posts! We love to hear from you guys!

A&E

Big catch up

We've been thinking of some ways to make this blog more interesting and so from here on were going to include book/movie/gig/tourist spot reviews...a little heads up on what we have found to be handy and well worth it and then the not so flash.
So here's a summary of what we've been up to...

We have just arrived in Bath...Where we'll do our second 'workaway' stint.
Before now we have been in Normandy living in a 15th century farm house doing some extreme gardening! While we were there we went to visit one of the WW2 landing beaches(Aromanche-very moving-9/10), we also did a sweet canoe trip and drank Normandy cider and calvados(disgusting- 2/10). Over all, a pretty sweet two weeks.

From there we traveled south to Rennes and stayed at a rather swish hotel which gave us complimentary tea and coffee and biscuits daily, only had French TV though so our massive flat screen was ignored. It cost 50 euros a night for a double but was right opposite train station so saved heaps on travel (Kyriad Hotel-9/10).

From Rennes we did a day trip to St-Malo(10/10) was an epic pirate town fully surrounded by massive stone walls, it also had amazing islands to walk out to in low tide.

Mont St-Michel(10/10) was an EPIC 6th century Abbey on a rock surrounded by sea and flat plains, looked kinda like the Disney castle. Would highly recommend it.

We left the from the port of St Malo to Portsmouth(6 hour journey).
Andrew finished reading 'The Tea Rose' by Jennifer Donnelly, Elle's book she brought with her! Was very romantic, tragic, gripping, not a bad read but probably more suited to a female (7.5/10). We were very excited to be in an English speaking nation once again. Our first impression was the Portsmouth ferry terminal... packed to the rafters with old punters wearing gold chains and covered in tats, welcome to Britain! We took a train to Waterloo, London and an underground to Barrons court where we walked to Shannon Armstrongs flat. She welcomed us in with a cup of tea and had an air bed waiting for us. Our first day was great thanks to Shan, she showed us around and we sorted out bank accounts with the HSBC (7/10), bought a 10 quid phone (9/10), customer service at T-Mobile (0/10), wondered through Selfridges and Harrods (two luxury department stores with nothing that we can afford... yet!) before heading to Top Shop (also have a TopMan!) Primark (full on crazy, each man for themselves kinda store) and took a stroll through Hyde Park where we spotted a squirrel. Went to a Tescos "for our main shop, not our bits"! At a pub by the Thames that night, we had a few pints accompanied by a long awaited plate of bangers & mash and fish & chips... top notch! (10/10).

We filled the next couple of days with the necessary tourist activities. A hop-on, hop-off bus is definatly the way to go. We we're really keen to catch some comedy or live music that night but failed to find a thing! It's exhausting when you don't have a clue where to go, so it was off to the next pub we saw. But we have now signed up to a couple events/gig updates.. cannot wait to see some big acts! Spent an afternoon in Camden, entirely different town. (10/10). The whole area was one big market really, packed out with vintage shops, cheap as chips food stalls and the best shoe shops we've ever seen!

Caught up with a few of Andrew's friends (Jenny and Kate) from Wellington uni. Funny how we thought we'd get lost and not know a soul... it feels just like home! Tried the yummiest swiss pear cider that night too... Kopperberg (10/10).

Changinig of the guards was over rated... they make quite a big palaver out of something they do everyday and it was much too crowded. (3/10)

It is so very awesome to be where everything happens. Any band/musician you would ever want to see will, without a doubt, come here one day. We found out the other day that the All Blacks will be playing Scotland in November, in Edinburgh! I never really felt the urge to go see a game back home, but ever since coming here, New Zealand seems so much cooler. Cannot wait to go support the Kiwis!

A night in Paris

Got to the Paris hostel very tired, rested hard. Went out to find the tower at round 7pm. It was way better in real life! Climbed up stairs to 2nd platform, saw sunset! Elevator to top floor to see night lights of Paris! Was an epic night!

Brussels

Brussels is an amazing little city with so much amazing architecture, beer, chocolate, & waffels! We crammed so much into 24hours and had a blast! Bring on Paris!

Off to Brussels!

Today we leave the Netherlands and head for Brussels. We are now having to carry our packs and are realising we didn't need half of the stuff we packed! oh well! We are both excited for the next step in our adventure! woop woop!