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Iceland, ho!

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Through some stroke of dumb luck Andrew was working from home this morning which meant I didn’t need to get up super early and head to the airport. So I woke up nice and late (about 8am) then popped out to buy two steak bakes and biscuits to take to the States for Pam and Kat – digestives for Pam and Hobnobs for Kat.

Then I loaded up and said goodbye to Andrew.

me and 32kg of luggage

Thanks to some sneaky check-in maneuvers I managed to sneak on my overweight carry-on bag. The trick is to hide the 4kg laptop on the floor and pick the bag up like it weighs nothing.

cabin baggage with approved label

Delayed

After getting to Gatwick nice and early my flight was delayed. Thanks to a free trial of TripIt Pro I knew that it was going to be delayed slightly but the delay just went on and on.

The plane we flew on was tiny. Like super tiny.

tiny Iceland Express plane

I wish we could’ve gone on the Iron Maiden plane instead:

Iron Maiden plane

But I must admit that the inside of the plane was very cool. Only because of the tapestry on the wall:

tapestry in the Iceland Express plane

We finally got to Reykjavik, Iceland and I was hoping that we’d be rushed onto our flight and my stupid heavy bag could be shipped to Portland so I didn’t have to deal with it. Sadly I think our pilot was on our flight so my bag made it through to Newark safely. Boo.

Thanks to a head wind we also had to make a fuel stop in Canada. I won’t count it as my first visit as I didn’t even leave my seat on the plane.

No frills flight

My no frills flight on Iceland Express wasn’t too bad. I slept most of the way but got stuck with a non-aisle seat. Speaking of getting up to go to the toilet, at one point I took the opportunity when the older guy next to me had got up to pop to the toilet. The green light was on so I went to the toilet doors and pushed on the one that was vacant. It seemed to be stuck so I pushed a little harder. Then the door opened to reveal the old guy sitting on the toilet. Ah! Talk about awkward.

New Jersey to New York

I had pre-booked a Super Shuttle which actually arrived pretty quickly after I called them to let them know I had landed. After picking everyone up from various terminals I ended up sharing the van with two Kiwis. We’re everywhere!

The Gershwin Hotel

The best thing about this hotel? Free wifi! So it’s catching up on the last 24 hours or so of web activity.

Posted in 2011, New York, travel, UK, USA | No Comments »

Meg & Colin’s wedding

Monday, August 15th, 2011

Two of my favourite people got married. Yup, Meg and Colin tied the knot after getting engaged on New Year’s Eve and I couldn’t be happier!

They got married at Shendish Manor, unfortunately inside as it had been raining in the past few days so the ground was too wet. Meg had chosen my sari (a dark green one of her mum’s) and I was whisked into a hotel room filled with aunties and women undressing. Down to my undies I was spun around a few times and pinned into place. Ta da! It’s as if they’d been doing this their whole lives, haha.

The funny thing was that arriving at the venue we went in search of the room and passed Meg in the hallway. I literally walked right past her and had to double back because I didn’t even recognise her!

I had a quick word to Meg’s uncle who was the photographer for the day and he told me that it was a really small wedding (only 280 people). The weddings he usually does have 800-1000 guests!

The ceremony was nice and short (about one and a half to two hours) and we finished up the evening with yummy (vegetarian) food and dancing. Meg uncle and dad got down and truly funky. I hope someone posts that video on YouTube. It was finally at the end of the night that I went back to my room (the one where everyone was getting changed) and realised that I didn’t have a single drop of alcohol in me and yet had the best time!

Hector

Colin, a coconut and his friends and family

Meg's gorgeous cousins

Meg's mum, dad and husband

Colin feeding Meg

Hector bored with it all

me in a sari and Ankit

kids on the dancefloor

Meg and Colin dancing

Posted in 2011, Great Big Trip, UK | No Comments »

Coming home

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Landing at Stansted was like coming home. Everything was familiar, almost like I’d just come off a plane from Europe.

The dreaded seats at passport control

So it would appear that if you want to reenter the UK on a visa that you paid £750 for after being away for less than 11 months they will make wait for 30 minutes while they see if this is possible. So I got to sit on the seats at passport control that you only see dodgy people/foreign language speakers sitting on. Only to be told that yes, in fact I could enter the UK on my old visa. Damn straight! Did I mention the £750 I paid for it?!

giffgaff

And it would appear that my SIM card wasn’t working so I went all old school and called Kim from a payphone by the luggage carousel. I think she found it amusing when I said that I was calling from a payphone. Thank goodness I’d kept the phonecard that Karen gave me upon leaving work last year!

The long trip to Holloway Road

Thanks to the flight being delayed by an hour I already knew that I had to take a taxi from Baker Street (after hopping an easybus). So I managed to flag a taxi down and get him to take me to Kim’s street. We drove the full length of the street before he said that this was the end of the street. And?! Why didn’t he drop me off at 36?! So back around we went and he tried to convince me that she lived in a block of flats. I was pretty sure this wasn’t right but got out anyway and proceeded to wake up some lady in flat 36. Then I loaded up with my 34kg of stuff and lumped myself back down the full length of the street. Kim actually found me dragging my sorry ass down the footpath. The noise of the taxi doubling back (about three times) alerted her to my arrival. I hope the taxi driver felt super bad. He felt bad enough to go and look for 36 but not bad enough to pick me up again. Pah.

And in case you were wondering what 34kg – aka 58% of my body weight – of luggage looks like on me:

34 kg of luggage on me

Adopted home

I knew that I missed living in London but I didn’t quite expect that coming back would be like coming home again. Everything is familiar, prices don’t shock me… I just feel comfortable here. How bad is that?! Especially given that I’m not coming back to live.

Posted in 2011, Great Big Trip, rants, UK | No Comments »

Figwit

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Bret McKenzie as Figwit in Lord of the Rings

Bret McKenzie as Figwit in the Lord of the Rings

Source

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How to pay your National Insurance contributions via internet banking

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

I went online to pay my National Insurance contributions and HSBC require I use the predefined organisation list but I ended up calling the helpline as HSBC present you with a confusing list of options and I didn’t want to pay it into the wrong account.

So, in simple steps which doesn’t state the obvious:

  1. Make a payment
  2. Pay a bill or organisation
  3. HM REVENUE & CUSTOMS
  4. Select a payee: HMRC NIC QUARTERLY
  5. Payee’s reference: 18 digit number on your NIC bill

The part I got stuck on was choosing a payee and there were two NIC options. A quick call to the hotline (I waited longer on hold longer than I spent on the call) confirmed that I should use “HMRC NIC QUARTERLY”.

Clear as mud?

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Who Tall Are You Mirror

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Who Tall Are You Mirror

£59 from redcandy

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a river in our room

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

We woke up yesterday to a nice river in our room. Good thing we had the sense to put everything off the floor. Still no power after it switched off the night before though. And no hot water.

We made our way to Yalla Bar for a Continental and American breakfast. Nom nom nom. After paying we went in search of a cash machine that worked. We couldn’t find one along the whole strip! Or even further down out of town. Thankfully The Kitchen took card so it was off there for Tom’s birthday dinner of Thai red curry, butter makhani and gulab jamun. If only their card terminal actually worked… They were nice and let us come back once the machines were back up and running again which, thankfully, this morning they were. We never thought we’d feel skint in this country!!

After the hot water still wasn’t working this morning we had a chat to reception and now we’re in a room with a view and a balcony :)

Brunch was pizzas at Jay’s and onto Yalla Bar where they have free wifi :)

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nam jim sauce

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Ingredients

lime
chilli in a tube
chopped fresh coriander
brown sugar
fish sauce
garlic in a tube

Method

  1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and serve on pretty much anything.

I had a go at this recipe last night after going to Inamo and tasting the sauce for the first time. Amounts are a mystery to me as I just chopped, squeezed and added until it tasted good. It went great with steak and today I tried it with green beans. Nom nom nom.

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the August review

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

After being bad and not updating since March, here is my August review of my new year’s resolutions.

  • photos: I took 11GB of photos and videos from 31 May to 23 June. Epic.
  • Rubix Cube comp/air guitar comp/La Tomatina: La Tomatina is fully paid for and I’m ready to go!
  • music festival: DONE! Rock Werchter was fantastic. So much so that I’ll be going back next year :)
  • concerts: I went to see Nek in April and Green Day in May. It doesn’t get much better than that. Except for when you get enough Green Day tickets for you and your friends in the Idiot Club presales!
  • learn Spanish: I started following @learnspanish so I know more than I did last time I updated but not THAT much more.
  • free range chicken and eggs: some random chicken has sneaked its way into my shopping basket but the eggs are still going strong.
  • grow something: I bought two basil plants and they lasted for months. Then they started looking worse for wear so I’m onto my fourth plant of the year.
  • books: I can’t believe I said I was going to read The Fountainhead next. I don’t think I’ve read a book since! But I have managed to sort them out into ones I’ve read, ones I’m going to sell and ones I have to read thanks to a new bookcase. Plus I keep saying I can’t buy any more books until I’ve read the ones I already own… and then I bought The Basketball Diaries

And of course the underlying goal that I didn’t write down: the gym. I signed up for a six month gym membership that will take me to Christmas. Now where did I put my motivation?

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top 5 moments of the Nek concert

Monday, April 20th, 2009
  1. Nek asking, “Come statè?” and everyone (including me) shouting back, “Va bene!!!”
  2. Everyone singing the woo-oh-oh part of Se Una Regola C’è.
  3. Waiting for someone to slap me for singing the wrong words all night.
  4. Everyone singing Almeno Stavolta during the gaps.
  5. Making the split decision to leave my coat on my chair and rush up the front for the last three songs. (How glad am I that I did coz he sang Laura Non C’è and Almeno Stavolta?!)

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