Arriving in the United Kingdom

It was strange arriving in England as everything felt incredibly familiar. Of course New Zealand is very similar to the United Kingdom in a lot of ways, but I think this was really emphasised after Thailand.

London
We got into Heathrow at about 7.00am feeling sleep deprived and cranky but managed to take the tube to our backpackers. We had a few hours before we could actually check in, so left our bags and headed to Piccadilly Circus for a look around. I caught my reflection in a shop window and realised I looked a lot like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars (sans lightening shooting out of my fingers) but felt a lot better after sleeping for the rest of the day.

The following morning we met up with Troy and Willow (who had arrived while I was sleeping), and decided to do some sight seeing without spending too much money. This involved visiting Big Ben, the British Museum, and a traditional English Pub. In the evening we were joined by Campbell and went out for dinner for Owen's birthday.

I'm not usually a fan of cities so I was quite suprised to realise that I love London! I really want to go back and stay for at least a couple of months. It seems like there is always something exciting and interesting happening somewhere in the city, and you could find anything you wanted if you just knew where to look.

Bristol
From London we took a bus to Bristol where we stayed with Troy and Willow for a few days. The charms of Bristol were somewhat lost on me, but it was really good to spend some time with friends/family and also gave us a chance to sort out our next steps.

We had originally planned to spend the next couple of months in Cornwall, but after some fruitless days trying to find jobs and/or accommodation decided we'd have to find somewhere else to go first. By using my tried and tested method of random decision making Owen and I decided we'll live in Belfast for the next two months or so.