Tim and Chany's Wedding!

Well, the big day is all over and Tim and Chany are now wed!! For the benefit of our foreign friends and any others who don't know the newlyweds, I thought I'd include some photos of the event we came home for. :)

The bride and groom are good friends with us both; Tim was the best man at our wedding, and Chantelle, along with her younger sister, Andreana, was one of Roxy's and my "adopted little sisters" when we lived in Bundaberg. Dreana was Chany's bridesmaid and the best man was Tim's younger brother, Wes.

It was an absolutely beautiful day and SO special to be there with the ecstatic newlyweds and many of our nearest and dearest, in my old hometown! The rest of the weekend was wonderful too - staying up late with the girls the night before the wedding, relaxing at the beach at Bargara afterwards, spending time at Woodgate with my parents, a large group picnic in the park for Sunday lunch, and road tripping with friends. :D Enjoy!

Final Europe trip, Post 1: Bruges, and Venice by night

I can't believe it's September and I'm about to start telling you what we did in the middle of July! Anyway, it was a trip full of enough awesome experiences and hilarious mishaps that I can't NOT write about it. So here goes...

On Friday 18th July, Ben and I each worked the last day of our English jobs, moved out of the flat we'd called home for the past year, and headed across to Europe with Delle. We took the EuroTunnel, which was a very exciting experience for Delle (and us, although we'd done it before) - sitting in our car, inside a huge train that is travelling under the ocean floor of the English Channel!

After popping up in France, we drove to Bruges in Belgium, where our night's accommodation would be at the same place where Ben and I stayed on the first night of our Christmas Europe trip - the Art Hostel. After a bit of mucking around trying to get some Euros out of an ATM vestibule that was closed for the night (if you add up all the things we fit into this one day, you will realise it was quite late by this time!), we sent Ben off on a drive to find a more agreeable machine while Delle and I set off down the street, bearing all three peoples' luggage, to find our accommodation.

It was actually a different building to last time, further down the street, but managed by the same people. After some effort I managed to unlock the front door. We then had to ascend a few flights of a treacherous and narrow staircase whilst loaded up with large suitcases; however, you'll be pleased to hear that Delle made it to the top with a pillow being the only item to plummet screaming to the bottom. Then, at the top of the stairs, before we even reached our cosy attic dorm, the first and only fellow resident we met at this hostel was a guy from... Ipswich, Australia. I kid you not.

The next day, Saturday, we grabbed some yummy breakfast from a bakery and set off on the 4 hour drive to Frankfurt Hahn Airport in Germany, where we would leave our car and fly with RyanAir to Italy for 5 days of sightseeing. We ended up being in a enormous rush at the end of the trip, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding about how much time we could afford for lunch, but suffice to say we did make it.

We flew into Treviso Airport in Italy, which is RyanAir's "Venice" airport but in typical RyanAir style is actually at least an hour from Venice. With all our luggage and no Italian, getting from Treviso to our campsite at Fusina was our next significant challenge. We managed to catch a coach that took us to Mestre, half an hour away, where we were told we could then catch a local bus to Fusina. This was a fabulous theory, but what ended up happening was that each local bus we tried to get on would send us back to the other side of the road, dragging all our luggage, to wait for the next bus travelling in the opposite direction.

Eventually we got sick of never being allowed on a bus, and split a taxi to take us the rest of the way. :) Our campsite, called Camping Fusina, was across the water from the island of Venice, and is the same place that the eight of us stayed on our 2006 Europe trip - definitely recommended as the place to stay if you go to Venice. We had two 2-bed cabins between the three of us - even with their 3-bed cabins unavailable, paying for the extra bed was still cheaper than any other accommodation I could find - and we already knew the facilities, atmosphere and location were great. Check out the pics below (last one is of our breakfast the next two days)!



That evening we headed across to Venice. It's magical at night, coming in by ferry and seeing the round golden lanterns glowing along the water's edge. We quickly got into the gelati - yum yum YUM!!! - and wandered the streets looking at the amazing old buildings, watching the gondolas glide silently along the canals, and gazing at lit window displays of elaborate Venetian masks and other local specialties. Here are some photos taken that night...



It also turned out that Venice was celebrating their Festival of the Redeemer that night, so at the end of the evening we were treated to a spectacular fireworks display, which we watched from the big open bridge (Ponte dell'Accademia) over the Grand Canal. The crowds were unbelievable. Check out this fireworks video - YouTube makes it much blurrier than the original, but hopefully you can see the ones that spread outwards in golden spirals after they explode - awesome!

The next day we went back and enjoyed Venice in daylight, but I'll save that for the next entry. :) Goodnight!

My, what a big Eye you have!

On the last night before we moved out of our flat in England, 17th July, Delle, Ben and I went up to London to ride on the London Eye (a giant Ferris wheel - a ride on it is actually called a "flight") and see The Sound of Music on West End with Kat and Mel. We had tea at Covent Garden at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen (try it if you get the chance!), and Delle raided the Australia Shop for some Tim Tams, having suffered severe withdrawal symptoms after going approximately two weeks with only the one packet she'd brought over with her. :)

Although it was right in the middle of a frantically busy time for us (tickets bought before we knew we would be moving the next day!), it was a fantastic evening. The Sound of Music was absolutely spectacular and the kids in it were SO so adorable!! It's definitely one of the top three West End musicals we've been to. Here are some photos from our second last night in London...



And here are some links to videos... the first is of some buskers playing under the bridge near the London Eye (note the percussion instrument on the left!), and the second was taken when we were at the very top of the Eye. What a view!!!!

Buskers video
London Eye video

Anyway, in case you're wondering, we had a good flight back to Australia last week! We left Heathrow Airport on Tuesday night, flew with Qantas via brief stopovers in Singapore and Melbourne, and arrived in Brisbane at 8:15am on Thursday morning.

Then we stayed awake all day - I studied for my online exam the next day and Ben got his teaching registration sorted out and signed up for supply teaching. On Friday, I studied and did my exam while Ben got his first day of work!!! So it was certainly straight into it!

That night we went to The Mikado in Brisbane with a group of friends. I think everyone else liked it - I, however, fell asleep about 15 times. Woke up at one stage to find a completely new character on stage halfway through belting out a crashingly loud song! "Who's tha...zzzZZ"!!!!

The next day, Saturday, we caught up with my family and saw my sister Roxy's flat for the first time, and that night we went to a 30th birthday party of an old school friend of Ben's.

For the next 3 months we'll be living with Ben's parents, Jim and Jenny, who live east of Ipswich (which is just west of Brisbane, Queensland, for you non-Aussies!). If anyone who is reading this has not been getting our group email updates (please email me if you'd like to get them!), our trip home was motivated by our friends' Tim and Chany's wedding, but we decided to stay on for a while longer. We hope to be in Canada by Christmas, but have not organised any further ahead than flying back to England on 17th November.

This week my priority is finding a job. Ben got his second day of supply teaching today, so we're glad that's working out. It's a strange thought that we're home, but it actually feels completely normal to be here. I'm trying to readjust to being in this timezone (the first couple of days, I was chatting to Mum at lunchtime and thinking it was teatime for her), and talking in dollars and kilometres. Everything sounds expensive and a long way away!!! :P Anyway, we'll keep you updated, and please keep in touch - especially if you're from England, because it could just be that we're missing you!!!

Pride and Prejudice links

I meant to add these links to Delle's recent blog entry about our Pride and Prejudice weekend...

Click here to watch the lake scene from the BBC version of P&P filmed at Lyme Park (the first place we visited).

Click here to watch some scenes and commentary from the 2005 P&P movie filmed at Chatsworth (the second place we visited).

And here's a random photo from our Wales weekend...



PS. We're safely back in Australia! :)

Visits to towns-with-hyphenated-names!

On Delle's second weekend here, we set off for south Wales on Thursday night and stayed the next two nights with a friend, Gwen, who lives in Monmouthshire. (Gwen is the one whose parents we had morning tea with when we were in Scotland with Jim and Jenny in May.) Here are the highlights from our two days in the west...

Friday: Delle, Ben and I spent the day exploring Hay-on-Wye, "the town of books" - a small town just on the Welsh side of the England-Wales border where there are about 40 bookshops... including one in a castle, one where every book costs £1, and one called "Murder and Mayhem" dedicated to mystery stories! We only purchased a few books between us, but could have bought many more had we not had the issue of luggage space to keep in mind! It was an extremely pleasant day spent with our noses in books most of the time. :) We definitely recommend a visit to Hay-on-Wye if you get a chance!!



Friday night: We went out for a delicious dinner in Usk with Gwen and her friends Martin, Tania and Stephen. Had one of those delightfully small-world-ish experiences whereby we discovered during the course of the conversation that Tania's step-aunt had just become my aunt...!!

Saturday morning: The three of us visited Warwick Castle, which was absolutely huge and amazing. We only had a couple of hours, but enjoyed some awesome views from the castle towers, walked through the furnished rooms, and were scared silly by a ridiculous ghost tour! We also watched a trebuchet being prepared and fired, and I got my head stuck in helmet - the type worn by a knight, not a cyclist...



Saturday afternoon: We went to Shakespeare's comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream", performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, the town where Shakespeare was born. Delle and I got bargain £5 tickets, but Ben was... er, too mature to qualify for such tickets... so his seat cost four times and much and was in a worse location than ours! But the play was absolutely hilarious and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.



Later Saturday afternoon: After the play, we wandered around Stratford-upon-Avon, a gorgeous town with lots of old Tudor buildings, a style I absolutely adore. We also visited Shakespeare's grave, which is inside a church, and drove past the cottage where he was born.



That evening, we drove home to the strains of P.G. Wodehouse's "The Girl in Blue" (one of Delle's Hay-on-Wye acquisitions) as performed by Delle and I. :P We spent Sunday back in our own neck of the woods - the start of our last week in our flat and our last week of work. By the following Sunday we were in Italy, but I'll save that for the next entry! Goodnight!