it's almost time

Anni and I have been relaxing, just sitting around doing nothing much, except... PACKING! That's right, the big move west starts on Wednesday! Hazaah! Finally, I get to go see stuff!

Only problem is, every time Anni starts packing, the cat tries to help out too...

Haha, how cute is that?

winter pasttimes

Update for all those lucky people living in the Northern Hemisphere: It's cold down under. It's winter time, and whilst we don't get snow and freezing conditions like you do, it's still cold to us. So Anni and I have been stuck inside, watching movies and drinking lots of tea, and playing around with our blogs. And one of the coolest things we've made is a fancy button!



<center><a href="http://angus darcy.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/z328/theanita1/angusbutton.jpg" /></a></center>

Tada! How cool is that? We got the coding from For The Love of Blogs, and edited the photo using Picnik.
Sorry we don't have any exciting travelling adventures, but thanks for popping by and keeping us happy!

reminiscing

Okay, so having come back to Melbourne our lives are rather quiet and there's not much travelling going on, sorry about that guys. Countdown update: There's about 5 weeks left until Anni and I move to Perth, Western Australia, so that's exciting!
Today, the first of June, is the first day of winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. And the forecasted weather today in Melbourne is sunny with a top of 19 degrees (celsius). STARK contrast to the forecasted weather on the first day of winter six months ago in London...


This photo was taken on Anni's way to work at about 7am, whilst walking through Parsons Green.


However, the weather today is strangely not much different to the weather experienced a year ago on the first day of Summer in London. This picture was taken in South Park, Parsons Green whilst Anni was walking home from the supermarket (oh how we miss Sainsbury's) after work at about 6.30pm.
How wonderful. And today in Melbourne kinda looks like that. It was incredibly foggy driving to work this morning, and now that the fog has been burnt off, the sky is this blue you could get lost in and the sunshine is making the possibilities of summer and beaches and ice cream seem not like lost causes. Best kinda day to rug up in a blanket next to a window with a great book and a cup of hot chocolate.

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español

Anni is learning Spanish! That is rather exciting, hopefully sometime in the future we can go to South America! Or even back to Spain! Oh, so many places you can go when you know Español...

Photobooks

A little bit off topic, but Anni and I were wondering if anyone had any recommendations for where to get photobooks printed, or even software to use to make photobooks etc. It would be cool to have my travels published in a book!

Newcastle and Northern Beaches photos

Anni forgot to upload the pics from our trip! duh!

So here are some photos from our lovely trip up north. There's one of me at Nelson's bay, one of me at Newcastle beach atop Anni's sandcastle, and one at the "Summer Bay" Beach (Palm Beach).

Newcastle and Northern Beaches

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Newcastle is the second most populated area in the state of New South Wales.

And that's where Anni and I found myself during the last school holidays, visiting Tash, a friend from Melbourne who has relocated up to the port-side city and loves it.

The weather was fantastic whilst we were there, sunny blue skies, warm enough to sunbake in the middle of the day, cool breeze coming up of the ocean. The cafes are fantastic there also, lots of yummy soy lattes were consumed. And a sandcastle was built, in which I was the king of.

The reason for the trip was to attend a wedding down in Sydney for Beemo, so we flew up to Newcastle and stayed with Tash for a few days, and then caught the train down to Sydney to stay with Rach on the Northern Beaches, and then we went to Beemo's wedding next to the Harbour Bridge.

The Northern Beaches of Sydney are like nothing you've ever seen before. It's like it's own little place away from the world, and yet only twenty minutes drive from the city. And the Northern Beaches is where "Home and Away" is filmed! Rach took us there, and I got to have my picture taken on the famous beach, and I even put my feet in the water!

After the wedding, some more yummy cafe food and some beautiful beachside scenery, it was back up to Newcastle for some amazing fish and chips and a ridiculously early flight back to Melbourne.

If you ever come to Australia but you're short on time and you want to see something other than Sydney, we definitely recommend Newcastle. Two hours on the train from Sydney, it's amazingly beautiful, old but upcoming, and the weather is amazing.

Only 8 weeks left until the big road trip to Perth!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! Anni and I have had a luxurious two weeks school holidays which has included a day of wine tastings and a trip to the beachside. We've just returned home for Easter so Anni can start back at work in a few days. Then it's only twelve weeks until the "Big Road Trip" with Debdeb. Very exciting times!

a note from us

Dear Readers,

We just thought we should update you as to what has happened to our ever adventurous duo of Angus Darcy and Anni
We returned back to Australia mid-February, and since then, we've been a bit under the weather, a bit blue, a bit hesitant to reminisce too much about our European adventures, because we're really quite sad that it's over, and we miss our London friends very much! Sure, we've kept the blog updated a little bit, but it's been hard because Anni has started full-time work, and there's been no new exciting adventures.

However, this doesn't mean that "The Adventures of Travelling Angus" are over. Far from it! In the next few weeks we are venturing up to Newcastle in New South Wales, as well as going wine tasting and playing golf. And later on this year we're moving from Melbourne west all the way across to Perth, and to get there we're driving!

So whilst life in Melbourne is quiet and our adventure updates are lacking, please feel free to suggest places in Victoria, Australia we could go to on day trips, or go back and read some of our past tales of awesomeness.

Thanks for reading, we'll be back on the road soon!

Anni and Angus

Last Week in London: Wednesday

Tuesday was somewhat of a lazy day at home; Anni started to attempt to pack... By the picture you can see it was going to take all week.

Wednesday was not just another day in the last week of us being in London, it was Anni's 25th birthday! So to celebrate we went on a beautiful outing to Richmond Park. It had rained the day before so Anni got to wear her wellies, and along with Timtam's little girl we jumped in all the big mud puddles.

We also had some tasty toffee ice cream, and then fed the ducks and swans. Ungrateful little creatures came and chased after us when we ran out of bread. Eventually we found the elusive deers, and some of the young bucks were practising their fighting (well, that's what it looked like anyway).

Then we went shopping in Richmond and Anni bought some really cute boat shoes, which fit in perfectly with her birthday outfit!

For dinner we went to Anni's favourite Mexican restaurant, Wahaca, at Shepherd's Bush. Her friends bought her some very funny birthday presents, including some personally decorated rubber ducks and some fake poo. Ha ha ha.

All in all, I thought Anni had a very good birthday

Last Week in London: Monday

Anni has been lazy in updating my blog *makes angry face at Anni*

So for the last week Anni and I have graciously been put up by Timtam's boss (Timtam is a live-in nanny) near Northfields, which makes for easy access to a lot of the parks that we haven't yet been to. Today we went to Kew Gardens, and it was amazing weather for it. We took Timtam's little charge and had a fantastic time chasing the peacocks and taking photos of flowers. When it came to lunch time, Timtam bought this lunch pack thing for her little girl, and told her to dip her carrots in what she thought was a dip, which turned out to be peach yoghurt! hahaha.

Other than that the day was pretty uneventful. Sorry.

Last Week in London: Saturday

So we flew back to London, and whilst being delayed by over an hour, we made it back to the city we have called home for the past 18 months in two pieces. And the immigration line at Heathrow was the longest we have ever been in. As always, the air conditioning wasn't working at Heathrow, so the next 55 mins was agony for Anni, especially seeing as her supposed best friends frapped her and changed her facebook profile shot to be the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, whom she absolutely detests. Why was being patient and allowing the borders of the United Kingdom be protected so annoying for Anni? Because we were running late for her BIRTHDAY party!

The "Fantastic Nerdy Party!" was held at the King's Arms, in Fulham. This pub is fantastic. On the corner of New Kings Road and Fulham Road, right next to the Putney Bridge, it was the perfect place to have a great party. It was really quiet that night, but Anni and her mates managed to fill up the place in their lab coats and school dresses. Her mates made some lovely cupcakes, complete with a rubber ducky made from rice krispies!

So that completed day 1 of the last week in London.

Roma

At last we reached the last stop of the Kamuka tour Anni and I found ourselves on. The tour actually didn't include any time in Rome, it just dropped us off on the side of the road and continued on it's merry way. Brilliant.

Anni hadn't downloaded the instructions on how to get to the hostel we were staying at (because the last hotel we were staying at didn't have any...?! See, if we were staying in backpackers then there definitely would've been internet! Stupid tour. Seriously!), and so it took us three and a half hours to get to the amazing Hotel Lodi.

Absolute rave here: Hotel Lodi is fantastic. Yes, it's a little out of the way, but the service and friendliness and cleanliness totally make up for it. And they are so accomodating. Anni hadn't booked a second night (stuff up with the airflight booking which could've been rectified had we had the internet...), and so although they didn't have any official rooms left, there was one that was half renovated, and so at a reduced rate they let Anni and two other girls stay there. And they carried Anni's bags up the three flights of stairs, which was incredible, seeings as Anni had four bottles of wine in there! They served you breakfast and there was unlimited internet and it was a nice end to the tour.

Rome was as brilliant as it was last time we visited. This time Anni and I went around with what Anni claims as a very gorgeous trainee blonde Italian firefighter (everyone has different tastes), and so we threw a coin in the Trevi fountain again, so hopefully we will be back there, climbed the Spainish steps, went around the Vatican, saw the incredible Vatican museum including the Sistine Chapel. Now, just on the Sistine Chapel, may I say do not go just to see where David touches God, but instead spend some Euro's and go with a tour guide who will explain the whole Chapel to you, because it is AMAZING! You learn so much more and it makes the whole experience so worth while. But make sure it's a registered tour company also.

So that was the end of the Kamuka tour. I don't know whether I would recommend it, but it fulfilled the purposes of going to Paris and Florence, but we missed out on Pisa, and the tour leader wasn't that nice.

Unfortunately you remember that Anni broke her camera in Florence, so any photos were taken on her blackberry, and they are awful (another reason why we should go back there). So that's why there are no photos attached to this post. Sorry. After this we fly back to London for our last week there before returning to Australia!

San Gimignano

Our next stop on the Kamuka tour was Roma, the capital city of Italia. But before that we stopped at a little Tuscan town called San Gimignano, where Anni and the gang had the most amazing wine tasting session, which included a huge plate of cheese and salami, a big bowl of bread and bean stew and some beautiful biscotti, along with four huge glasses of wine (the bus from there to Rome was very quiet...). The views from the small walled town were incredible, you could see all across the Siena countryside. Unfortunately Anni's camera was broken, so she borrowed the token kiwi girls camera and downloaded the pictures.

This place was amazing. The town was peaceful and quiet, full of tiny little art galleries. Highly recommend you visiting there.

Firenze

Firenze, known to the English-speaking world as Florence, is the city of flowers, and most famous for the leather markets and the David statue.

It is also imfamous for where Anni's camera broke.

Yes, it is true. For some reason her amazing Cybershot no longer takes photos. You can see the picture on the LCD screen, but then when you play back the photo all you see is white. There is an issue with capturing the photo data and transferring it to the memory card. So until Anni buys a new camera (possibly a new Cybershot seeing it did so well previously), most of the photos are taken with her Blackberry. Sadness overcomes us.

But although there was brokenness in our hearts over the loss of our trusty camera, it didn't stop Anni shopping. The leather markets are fantastic. They were a lot smaller than we imagined, but seeings as we were there at the start of February it was probably off-season. Anni managed to grab a fantastic pair of black leather high heels, and a wallet for her little brother.

Again, the Kumuka tour let us down, this time in the choice of walking tour guide. Lovely lady, don't get me wrong, but I think she leads a lot of ESL (english as a second language) tourists, because she spoke really slowly and made silly jokes that don't really make much sense in correct English (because Australians totally use correct language...). However the lady didn't detract from the amazing beauty of the Ponte Vecchio, Uffizi gallery, the locks on the bridge, and the fantastic statues everywhere.

I loved Florence, and hopefully Anni takes me back there again!

Interlaken

Interlaken means in between lakes, which is where you will find Interlaken, Switzerland. It is situated in between Lake Brienz and Lake Thun, with the Aare River connecting the two lakes running through the town. And it is also where Anni and me found ourselves on the next stop of our Kumuka tour.

The main reason for stopping here was to catch the train to the highest point you can get to without being an Alpenist; The Jungfraujoch. The cog railway is pretty cool, taking you up the steep sides of the mountain to a complex of restaurants and cafes that smell kinda funky and an Ice-sculpture palace that has frozen animals in the walls. The best part is being able to go outside onto the peak where the temperature was about -16 degrees. The sky was incredibly blue and sunny.

Instead of going back down the train all the way to Interlaken, Anni and the gang got off at Grindlewald, from where they hired superfast sleds and went down a fairly scary sled piste that included a blind corner in the midst of trees with a rock wall... eek! I got to ride on the sled a little bit at the bottom when Anni was having gluhwein.

Other than that Interlaken consisted of giant 2L boots of blue alcohol, disgusting cheese fondue and lots of swiss chocolate!

Next stop, Firenze...

Paris

Bonjour! We finally made it to Paris!

Anni and I went on a Kamuka tour with 15 other people, starting in London, catching the Eurostar to Paris, and then via bus to Interlaken, Florence and Rome. The tour group was an

interesting mix of people; three married couples, a Dad and daughter combo, a thirty-something single guy, five single 20-year old girls and Anni. Throw in a bus driver who brought along his bogan Aussie girlfriend and his sexually frustrated gay brother as our Tour Leader, and you've got a very interesting six days.

But back to Paris, the home of couture, perfumes, and lots of monuments to get photos taken at. We saw most of them in the central area of Paris; the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Opera House, the Bastille, Notre Dame, Pont des Arts, and of course the Moulin Rouge. Anni went for a show in there and was extremely disappointed. She said it was all just "chicks walking around with their tops of and no actual dancing".

Although we had been warned not to be too excited about making it to the City of Love, it was still slightly disheartening to realise that Paris is just another European city; busy, full of old buildings and rude people. However, the magic of sitting in the middle of the Arc de Triumph whilst all the cars rush around, seeing all the fancy stores down the Champs Elysees, and of course the engineering feat that is the Eiffel Tower, was spectacular.

And now Anni knows how to order une baguette au jambon et fromage s'il vous plaît.

claim token and Notting Hill

I'm not sure if this is what I'm supposed to do, but I'm trying to get my blog rated by technorati, and I'm supposed to put my claim token (YRA64W3YCZB8) up on a post? So hopefully this works.

On other matters, Anni, Biheng and Courtney braved the awful London weather and went to Notting Hill Gate today. Despite the cold and wet the tourists turned out in their drones, trying to get a unique antique or piece of jewellery. And of course there was the incredible Hummingbird Bakery. Amazing Red Velvet cake... drool. Anni didn't have time to grab me before going because she ended up in the hospital again last night after falling on her sore wrist again. It's okay, she hasn't broken it, but she does have an appointment with the soft tissue injury clinic just to make sure that there's nothing too serious. But that won't stop us going to Paris!

Time and Longitude

Hello! Yesterday Anni, Maria, Indy, Anne and I stepped across time. We jumped from East to West. We crossed over the Greenwich Meridian Time Line.

Again, the weather was perfect for an outing, clear blue skies and crisp fresh winds. The Greenwich Information Centre is cool; lots of toys and games for you to learn about it's rich history. My tip; go during school hours when school is actually on. Then you don't have annoying children trying to play with the games when you are obviously trying to learn!

The walk up the hill to the Royal Observatory is decent, but so worth it. You can see right across London, complementing the view you get from Primrose Hill to allow you to appreciate the awesomness that is London.

So it's going to be a bit quiet for a week; Maria and Indy go home today, and Anni is off to Varese to see her bisnonna (I'm not allowed to come because she doesn't have enough room in her hand luggage). But then on Friday we go to PARIS!

Walking in Westminster

Finally, after living in London for 18 months, Anni and I went back to tourist basics and did the New Europe London walking tour, along with Maria, Indy and Anne.

It was the perfect winters day to go on a walking tour; fresh crisp wind, gorgeous blue skies, lovely lovely sunshine, and a tour guide with a fantastic Irish accent (yes, Anni was incredibly happy). We covered Hyde Park Corner, Buckingham Palace (where we got to see the changing of the guards), Trafalgar Square, 10 Downing St, St Stephens/Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament where we saw a fantastic rendition of the hung, strung and quartered.

There is still a lot of tourist places in London that I haven't been yet, but I think Anni has done a pretty good job of getting out there whilst keeping under a tight budget also. Next week we go on our last hoorah tour, including PARIS! Oooh la la. Am definitely looking forward to that.

ooops!

At the last update, Anni and I were supposed to go to Seville... Alas, we are back in London town instead! Just after Anni wrote that blog she went out partying and fell over, hurting her wrist and loosing her bankcard. So she booked a flight home and thus we are here. However, there are plenty of things we can do whilst here, so our adventures shall not finish. For example, Primrose Hill. And possibly a day trip over to Wales? Also, we are still going on tour at the end of the month, and Australia Day is coming up, so there are plenty of awkward photo opportunities ahead.

Just because Anni can, here is another pic from Gibraltar, this one you can see me pointing at Africa (Morocco). Also, if you have any suggestions for what Anni and I should do this weekend, let me know.

Granada

Hola from Granada! It is amazingly beautiful here in the Arab quarter of the city. We went up to see the La Alhambra today and Anni took over 300 photos of things... seriously! Tapas and Churros mixed with lots of Sangria is what is on the menu, so yummy. If you're ever wanting to come to Granada, you must stay at the Oasis backpackers... awesome.
As promised, the photos of the monkeys attacking me in Gibraltar. This hostel has a SD card drive on their computer, so here it is!
More adventures to come. Tomorrow we go to Seville.

update

Well we were supposed to go to Poland, but Anni got too cold whilst in Berlin we ended up back in London for New Years Eve and instead of returning to the negative temperatures, we headed to sunny sunny Gibraltar.
Gibraltar is a UK colony on the southern tip of Spain, separated by 27km of water from Morocco. Its 7 squared kilometres with 29,000 inhabitants who are both UK and EU citizens. And most of it is taken up by a giant rock.
The airport goes over the main road that goes into the country. Anni and I actually walked over the border into Spain today. Technically we haven't actually entered Spain because they didn't stamp her passport.... But we did get an awesome Gibraltar stamp!
The monkeys at the top of the rock are soooo tame, they actually climbed all over me and tried to bite my face! Anni promises to upload photos asap.
So the trip to Poland and Germany has been cancelled. Where to next we don't really know. At the moment we are in Malaga. Tomorrow we go to Granada. After that...