Visitors from NZ

One of the coolest things about living in London (as opposed to Tokyo) is that people are more likely to take up the offer of crashing in my lounge room - and at the end of July Kerry came to stay at my place for a week (between travelling in Germany and Aussie) and we also managed to catch up with Andrew (between a TopDeck tour of Europe and heading to Sweden to study). Was great to see you guys here! Needless to say it was a pretty crazy week!

With Kerry a little tired from the trip over it was nice to chill at home on Wed night and see loads of pictures from the past year or so at home - awesome to see familiar faces again! Thursday it was Brady's birthday so we went out to have steak for his dinner and then introduced Kerry to a few of the local watering holes around Soho including Waxy's and a bit of dancing at the Roxy. Friday was another quiet night in but we were saving ourselves for a big weekend.










Saturday we went for a big London touristy walk to take all the pictures you have to do. The District Line was suspended eastbound from Enbankment (what a surprise!) so we wandered from there all the way up Saint Pauls and up the Monument (this was closing for major refurbishment on the Monday and I'd never been up before so it was great to seize the opportunity) £2 and 311 steps later we got a pretty nice view out over London.



















We continued our wander past the Tower of London and over Tower Bridge to the other side of the Thames to check out the painted guitar display - stoked it was still there! Went to Borough Markets to soak up the atmosphere (and grab some free samples) before deciding on some delicious cheese, fresh potato and rosemary bread and cherry tomatoes for a picnic lunch enjoyed outside Tate Modern and then wandered up the Oxo Tower for a free view of the city from the other side of the Thames - gotta love London!



















Checked out all the weird and wonderful buskers at Southbank, watched some grafitti artists at work in the skatepark and played in the fountain / art "Appearing Rooms" before taking more compulsory pictures of the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Walked down Whitehall and checked out the security at Downing Street, saw some horseguards and then wandered up through Admirality Arch and St James's Park to Buckingham Palace. A couple of final photos at Picadilly Circus and a stop off at the NZ shop for some much deserved pineapple lumps and our great London tour was over.



















That night was Steele and Belinda's leaving party (going to miss you guys!) and it was at a pretty funky club called Strawberry Moons just off Regent St. There were a lot of hen's parties going on so Kerry had a great time getting photos with heaps of random girls and they even managed to convince me to get up on stage to take a shot from the half naked Vodka boy! Had fun dancing the night away and it was a great send off for Steele and Bel who head back to Aussie on Friday!




















Sunday we were up bright and early for breakfast at Weatherspoons and the tube up to Kentish Town for the Church (Gow and Nina might remember how this goes!) It was Kerry and Andrew's first time and it's pretty hard not to have a good time there. For those of you who dont know the Church (you should have from my previous posts, although Im not as regular a church-goer as some!) its 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon of drinking, dancing away to classic songs and some good old NZ vs Aussie rivalry / patriotism - oh and they have a stripper to : P




























Monday was back to work for me and Kerry took a rest day hanging out around Fulham, met Andrew after work and cooked dinner for both the boys before heading to the Simpsons movie - perfect way to end a crazy day at work and topped it all off with a couple of pints at So Bar afterwards. Kerry checked out the free London tour on Tues and headed up to start life in Edinburgh early on Wednesday morning. Was great to catch up with friends from back home and show them around London as well as just chill - thanks for visiting guys!