More of London...

Hi all,

I am at the end of my second week in England and I finally have some photos to show you. The weather is definitely cooler but sunny so it is really pleasant. The first couple of photos are with Dave and Stu in Cambridge. It was a lovely town to visit. I included the first photo because we were having an English breakfast in England. Please tell me someone out there appreciates the fun in this because of the three of us I think I am the only one who loved the concept. It took us a while to actually find a place that served breakfast so it was more brunch but it was what we needed before starting off on our 'Architecture between 1950 and 2000' walk around Cambridge. It was lovely to have some friends from home to hang out with but all too soon they had to go back to their normal lives.

As they left on the Saturday I had my own adventure and journeyed down to Oxford to stay with friends. It was lovely to be out of the city again and enjoy Oxford and visit some of the surrounding villages. I got back to London on Sunday night to stay with some lovely people I met in Turkey. This week was the start of Grand Final week and here is proof that I was doing my part on the other side of the world. The scarf was the least of my efforts - I had to wake up at 4.30 to watch it live! What a game! I watched it with a group of expats and it was fantastic. They had a projector set up and we were soon cheering with the best of them. A few mid game and post game conversations with friends from home capped off what was an excellent week. Go Hawkers!!!
I am still in London but I am not sure for how long. I have seen so much and feel quite at home in London but with the extra time I would like to go somewhere else. I am hoping to go on a tour of Jordan at the end of this week but not sure if it will work out. I hope you are all well and enjoying the warmer weather!
I'll let you know what works out with the extra time. I hope it will be Jordan but if not I know it definitely won't be Turkey or England...perhaps Spain or Sweden or Tunisia???

London...where do I start?

Hi all, I have now been in England for about two weeks and the time has flown so rather than wait until I can post some good photos I will tell you a little bit about what has happened so far. I arrived in London on 14 September and it felt so familiar after Turkey. It was lovely to be able to stay with friends and feel very much at home. Another treat was to have Dave and his colleague Stu in London for the week and it was great to have some buddies to explore London with. We went to the V&A, the Tate Modern, the British Museum among other things. I am not sure if this happens to you but I sometimes get surprised about what I especially like and a definite highlight was seeing the Rosetta Stone! We went to some fabulous restaurants (Bret - I don't know you but thank you very much for the great recommendations!) and also did the obligatory architecture tours which was actually quite interesting. I was able to tell the difference between a corinthian and ionic column but this didn't quite evoke a suitable amount of respect so I chose to ask questions instead.

We went up to Cambridge overnight which was fun. Getting out of London was good and it is a beautiful town. The weather was perfect so our architectural walk (are you seeing a pattern??) was very pleasant. Dave and Stu and it was quite sad to see them go. This was compounded by having a 'mid-holiday freak out' so thank you very much to my very dear friends who talked me through this one!! It was also helped by the fabulous news of the Hawks being in the grand final and I have been wearing my Hawks scarf with pride ever since. I have had Australians coming up to me to wish me all the best for Saturday...hmmm...do they realise that I am not actually on the team?? Well, why split hairs? I will be going to a grand final party and watching it live which will be ace.

In the two weeks I have also been to Oxford which was another wonderful overnight trip and have continued exploring. It was nice to see Kath this last week and see a play with her. We saw the Mousetrap (don't you have to see the longest running west end production when you are in London?) which was really good. I have also seen Ivanov (a Chekhov play adapted by Tom Stoppard which starred Kenneth Branagh. It was pretty dark but really good. I have seen and done so many things in England but I should probably give you a rest!

I'll write more soon and hopefully put in some photos!

Go Hawks!

A few more photos of Turkey before I tell you how much I am enjoying England...

These are some random photos from the tour. 

The first one is a typical cave in Cappadocia near Goreme. This one was a monastery. The second photo is also from Cappadocia and was taken when we were going on a walk in the area ( I know - it's absolutely beautiful isn't it!!). The third photo was taken on the day we went on a boat cruise on the Mediterranean. The day was perfect. I was so happy and relaxed so I thought I would include the photo.

The fourth photo is at Kas which is on the Mediterranean. I took the photo of the sunset from the top floor of the hotel which was a terrace. Do people actually mean it when they say if you have seen one sunset you have seen them all? They should come to Turkey.

The last photo in the selection was taken at dinner on my last night in Turkey. I am having the turkish drink Raki which was very nice and toasting the end of the tour. It was a lovely holiday and I am really pleased I decided to go but now let me tell you about London...

More of Turkey...

I am in London but more of that in a later post because I want to tell you more about Turkey. I had a fabulous time and am convinced I will go back there very soon. After Cappadocia we went to many other places, I will resist relaying the entire itinerary but I will give you some highlights. As much as I loved Goreme, it was wonderful to go to the coast. We went down to the Mediterranean and based ourselves in Kas for a few days. On one of these days we spent the entire day on a boat swimming and relaxing. By this time I had pretty much decided to live in Turkey and the trip kept on getting better. I really enjoyed visiting Ephesus and walking around the ruins which are very well preserved (see the first two photos below!) and included a library, a theatre and even a public toilet! Other places we visited included an old Lycian city (photo of me posing with dramatic faces) and Pamukkale (the sunset picture below) which had beautiful cream coloured rocks.

Hopefully you will appreciate how restrained I am being because I could talk about Turkey for hours. It was one of the places I have visited where I liked it from the beginning. Unfortunately my pack is starting to shrink or it might just be the turkish rug I bought. Hopefully I will be able to give this to someone to take home for me so that I don't have to carry it around too much longer.

Sorry for being slack with emails. I didn't have much spare time on the tour to access internet but hopefully you will understand and know that I still love you!

Quick update - Budapest to Turkey

Hi all - I am back to limited internet access so I will have to make this short! Budapest was a lovely city and it was great to have the opportunity to explore the city and beyond. On the Saturday they took me for a drive where we visited a really interesting museum beautiful towns and I even saw the border of Slovakia! It was very sad to leave...

I arrived in Turkey on Sunday and loved it. In the interests of public record - Andrew you were right - I love Turkey. We are in a town called Goreme at the moment which is in Cappadoccia. This is where all the caves are (photos will be coming) and we have been able to do some exploring. Turkey is incredibly friendly. When I arrived I was supposed to be met by the tour which didn't happen. This didn't matter because someone came up and offered to help me and before I knew it I was in this comfortable shuttle bus heading to my hotel! Even when you haggle the people are friendly. It is not hard to enjoy it when they are telling you that you are beautiful! I have bought some great things including a rug which I don't have the room for. I am also developing a taste for Turkish coffee (when in Rome...) and the food is great. I got a bit of a tummy bug but it was the day we went to a magnificent vegetarian restaurant so I just ignored it and it was worth the pain. The food was amazing. I have so much more to tell about Turkey and photos to publish so stay tuned...