The big world and all it’s glory
So I suppose I should be updating this more often than I have. For that, I apologize! Sometimes I do forget that I have a blog and that some people actually read it! I can't remember when I last posted here, I think it was some time after New Years? It's a helluva long time ago that's for sure, as it's now pretty much April.
So what have I done? Well, I'll sum it up in a short list first.
1. Work is great.
2. Switzerland was fantastic.
3. Skydiving over the Alps was life-changing.
4. London is getting a bit warmer.. sometimes.
Work
What can I say? I'm having the time of my life at work - I've actually got a job I look forward to going to every day. I look forward to seeing the people at work, look forward to the tasks I have to do and look forward to just being there as much as I can. It seems the longer I stay around, the more that happens and the more fun I have. It's true though, that the people definitely help make the job fantastic. My floor staff is just amazing to be around, and I've become close to a lot of them, which is great because we all go out a lot too. The management on our floor is just as fun as the staff as well! I get along well with all my managers and supervisors and can easily talk to them about anything and everything, and it helps that they too are quite young. Overall though, it's been a good time, I get paid to have fun and enjoy myself, and I love it!
Switzerland
So, we went to Switzerland from the 10th to the 17th February 2010. It was myself, Pete, Andrea, Rachelle, Kathryn and Dayna (who we met up with at Switzerland). We stayed at Interlaken, which is about 3 hours south of Zurich by train and situated between 2 lakes. It really was an amazingly beautiful little town - it had charm, character and the people were extremely friendly and welcoming. It's apparently one of the popular places for young people to head to for their winter sports since it's located near some good slopes, extreme activities and generally easy to get around. It's true too, we did see a lot of fairly young people around the town, and it was very close to some good slopes (Grindelwald - 20min). We ended up doing some Night Sledding, I went Snowboarding for the first time and in the end I learned how to do it and of course we did the Skydiving which I'll get to later on. After Interlaken though, me and Pete went up to Luzern for the last few days and ended up in the middle of their Carnivale festival which was just nutterz! We were expecting to have a nice, relaxing couple of days before we got back to London but instead we were out all day, mixing in with the crowd and sampling some of their Carnivale foods! It was worth it though, I was really happy to be there and soak in the atmosphere of the locals. The entire trip was rather expensive, but I absolutely loved it, and it was so worthwhile!
Skydiving
So yes, we went Sky Diving. 4 of us in total, in a place near Interlaken called Reichenbach. The morning we were supposed to go was extremely cloudy and overcast and we had our doubts as to whether or not we could go. We called the company and they said to wait it out for another couple of hours to see if the weather would get any better. Luckily for us, the weather did improve enough for us to go, and we made our way to the airfield. According to the company we went with - we were probably the only sky divers in the whole of Switzerland that day, since the weather for the rest of the country was quite bad, plus it WAS Valentine's Day. What can I say about the jump though? It was just freakin amazing! There's just no words to describe the feeling you get from jumping out of a plane at 13,000ft. It's like you're floating, you're free from all worries for that minute of free fall and nothing in the world matters anymore! The view from up there was incredible as well, you can see all over the Alps, those magnificent giant beasts of mountains, which looked amazing in Winter, covered in snow. It was fairly expensive but I don't care, I'd do it again!
London
So it's now apparently Spring here in London. It still feels like Winter, but it has started to get a bit warmer on some days - I think we even reached 14-15 degrees! What a day that was! At the time of writing though, there has been some severe heavy snow and gale force winds up north in Scotland, I just hope that doesn't come down to London! The city is still as amazing as ever, and I do love going out even just for a walk around the place. You always seem to find something you never knew or noticed before which is cool.
I'm going to leave it there now though, it was just a simple update to get things rolling again.
If you want to see some photos, check out my FB page since I've uploaded them there! I hate to use it too often, but I have to admit it's extremely useful for keeping in touch with people, and everyone here uses it as well which makes it even easier.
Bye for now!
Nick-
So London is Pretty Sweet
God it's been so long since I made a post on this site! I'm blaming that on the majority fact that I didn't have access to reliable internet for some time, and the other fact that I haven't exactly been home or available to sit in front of my computer and type something up.
In case you're wondering - everything is excellent.
So, London is an amazing city when you have friends to see it with. It's quite expensive to do things normally (as in, you can't really go out and splurge on food like we do in Sydney, since it all adds up and costs a fortune), but if you know where to go, and know where to eat, then it's a city that has immense amounts of options to offer. I'm still finding little bits of London I haven't seen before and am still being surprised by how large this city is compared to Sydney.
Just so you know, I have moved home again, and am living with Peter in a sharehouse in Kilburn Park (North West London). It's about 5min walk to Abbey Road (The Beattles), and a 20min bus ride to Wembley Stadium (which looks fantastic by the way). It's also 14min to Oxford Circus (where I work - in the middle of London) by Tube without any transfers which is EXCELLENT.
Not TOO much has been happening that will really make you guys WOW, except maybe I visited Stonehenge and Bath. Pics are being uploaded as I type this, so the gallery will be the next post. Amazing trip, Stonehenge is incredible to see in real life, and it is actually quite big. I might visit again in Summer, when they open the entire site to the public - I also hear they have parties and raves inside the centre of Stonehenge which would be EPIC.
Have been working for the past 3 weeks or so at Hamleys as well which is fantastic. I can't believe I'm happy going to work, and enjoying my day. I wake up in the morning and smile that I've got a shift, it feels weird. As Aaron has put it, I'm a happiness consultant on the 2nd Floor (Pre School) which is really cool - I haven't interacted with a baby in a long time, and I forgot how cute they are when they smile or laugh - it really brings a smile to the face. The people I work with are all awesome too, which is cool, and I'm getting along extremely well with everyone, including all my managers and supervisors. Christmas shopping will start happening more now, since the lights have been turned on and the front window displays now reflect that time of year. 10,000 people come into the store on weeks before Christmas, I hear this number pretty much quadruples during the Christmas rush, which I'm excited to see. I'll let you guys know how it goes! lol.
So yeah, that's pretty much it for now, I'll try and keep this updated more often, now that I have a little bit more time and have started to go out a little bit less (saving money for trips and stuff). In the meantime, anyone wanna send me a care package with cans of Spam, 2 Minute Noodles and Twisties? @_@
The gang.. well, some of them anyway.
So, these are my mates. I figure I better throw this on here, so you know who I'm talking about when I start saying names!
From left to right:
Sussanah: Australian! Yay! from Sydney too O_O
Andrea: Canadian~ Toronto
Me: Australian, I think.
Peter: Canadian, Edmonton.
Vicky: Canadian, Sth of Toronto
Nate: Canadian, Somewhere in New Brunswick (was it St Paul?)
M for Mary: Canadian, Toronto
Kai took the picture, though we've sort of labeled him as the beer. He's from Norway. He's also a viking in his spare time. At least, that's how the legend goes.
Not going to go into detail of course, they're all on Facebook anyway and while I don't like using the service, it is handy for arranging things with the people who DO use it.
I buckled
Yeah I didn't expect to, but I couldn't resist. The offer was just too good to pass up. It was also the last one available so, at that time I weighed the pros and cons and went with it. You're obviously wondering what I'm talking about, since I haven't really mentioned anything about it yet.
I bought a PSP.
Sexy lounge? Check.
I didn't know about this until tonight, but the lounge in my place is pimped out and awesome. Stuart turned them on for the first time, and from now on I'll definitely keep them lit up. Here's a pic:
Below the lounge is 2 large, flat Ultraviolet lights hooked up to a power board on the floor. To my knowledge they only have 1 setting (on/off) though I haven't really seen the lights by themselves. They could have some sort of pulse/beat setting, I'll have to check it out later on.
Either way, it turns the lounge from being awesomely large and comfortable, to awesomely large, comfortable and sexy. Whip on some rockin beats, turn up the bass and this nice, modern lounge becomes a party pad.
Sweet!
Oh, I forgot to mention
Whilst I was in Barcelona, I got to try something I've always wanted to try.
Stuart took me and Maier through the back alleys of Barcelona, and into the semi-rough areas to find a bar. But not just any bar, this bar hadn't been cleaned in about 300 years. You could tell this by the amount of dust piled up on the old scotch and wine bottles displayed along the ceiling of the bar. The floor was swept regularly, but that was about it. Now, this bar was special in that it was famous for serving 1 type of drink as it's specialty, and this drink is what I tried.
The story so far…
So I've now been away for a good week, and a tonne of things have happened. To put things into perspective, this last week I have:
1. Landed in 4 different countries
2. Traveled approx. 20,000km
3. Been on a plane for about 24hrs
So after all that traveling I'm officially dead.
10 things about Amsterdam
So straight after Barcelona, I headed over to Amsterdam. Weather was very similar, slightly cooler which made it perfect for traveling around the city. To be perfectly honest, I didn't really know much about Amsterdam other than that 1 obvious fact that everyone knows - marijuana consumption is legal. I did however, learn a lot more, even though I was only here for 2 days.