Taniwha v Dragon

We took the opportunity of the All Blacks taking on Wales in Cardiff to head to Wales for the first time.

The city pulled out all the stops for the test match and the influx of New Zealand fans. We were made to feel welcome wherever we went by knowledgeable local rugby fans.

And what a ground - the Millenium Stadium was filled to capacity with Welsh hymns reverberating around around the stadium as the crowd tried to rouse their boyos to victory (although to no avail).

On the Sunday we took a train up into the Welsh valleys and went wandering around the base of the Brecon Beacons at Abergavenny.

Although (typically - we were told by modest locals) the weather was a bit dour, that didn't stop us engaging in some intrepid canal wandering.

Wales - a great place to visit with fantastic food (roast takeaway) and welcoming locals - we will be back.

S

Papists and pasta in Rome

Buon giorno Rome ! We spent a great 4 days in Rome. Already better than London simply by being warmer, after this trip, Rome for me beats Paris and even Berlin as a cool city to spend a few days in. And finally, after all those photos and postcards I finally got to see what the Colosseum looks like on the inside!

One of our first efforts was to try and beat the crowds at the Vatican early on a Friday. As someone more used to the relative austerity of Presbyterianism, the Vatican seemed hopelessly luxurious. Gold leaf everywhere and outrageously famous paintings appearing on every second wall. It was weird to realise that paintings I've seen in books are not only here on the wall - but are actually painted straight onto it. Still oddly like a palace though ..

Outside the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, it was time to visit the enormous St Peters Basilica. After trips to some impressive temples last year, and a couple of pretty decent mosques, I'd been thinking that members of other religions might not be all that impressed by what Christianity had been building. But St Peters is the motherlode - over a football field long (and almost as wide in parts) with enormous marble columns, and Michelangelo's Pieta tucked into the top corner. That was the weirdest thing about churches in Rome - an embarrassing display of incredible statues almost jostling for position.

Shaun has urged me not to be misleading so I will clarify that the above 2 pictures are of other churches in Rome, not St Peters. Breaking out of the churches, there were other things going on in Rome. In particular, our first day coincided with a massive street march and protest for something in Italian which we think had something to do with schools. It was certainly the first street protest I'd ever seen with happy balloons. There was also time to terrorise some pedestrians on a segway - and to perfect donuts and slaloms around streetlights.

In between visits there was a lot of pasta to be eaten, and weird kitschy Jesus babies to take photos of:

But to sign off , the last word goes to someone slightly better qualified than me (click to play):

M

Democracy - the next big thing

As I type this we're sitting up late watching the live coverage of the US Election results. Hopefully in about 12 hours Obama will be the new president of the US. However for some reason the papers over here have been a little bit less generous in their coverage of the upcoming clash between Helen and John. I did my bit (and so did Shaun - but he wasn't willing to be the poster boy for democracy) last weekend at the great retro New Zealand House.

M

[Go Jeanette!]

Life under the Crunch

A few people have been sending emails from home mentioning the credit crunch and wondering if we still have jobs. It's been quite a surreal couple of months. Suddenly, drops in share prices of 9% are commonplace, almost every other week some large financial institution announces cuts of up to 10% of its workforce and headlines like the ones below appear almost daily - even on the good old "theLondon paper" (a free daily paper which usually focuses on Amy Winehouse photos):

Despite all this we are both still working and at the moment the stories on the news haven't made their way home to roost for either of us. Fingers crossed.

The weather is steadily getting colder and winter is definitely on its way. Shaun and I decided to venture out into St James Park and enjoy some late autumn sunshine along with half of London on a Sunday afternoon earlier this month - with the leaves turning yellow overhead. Even a couple of weeks later it seems that most of London's leaves can now be found on the ground.

M

An Alternative National Gallery

Sometimes it just takes a bit of direction from a dead Chinese fellow.

On the alley ways and streets in the East End around Brick Lane and Old Street some of those ideas have ended up on street walls (along with a few old fart jokes ...).

Of course even on the streets some work is more highly prized than others. This work by the famed "Banksy" has been covered in glass to protect it (maybe from the Tesco PR machine) ...

S

Oo are ya oo are ya

On Tuesday night we got some cheap tickets to an Arsenal match at Emirates Stadium just up the road. Arsenal were playing Sheffield United and, from the point where they went 4-0 up just after half-time, chants of "Who are ya" were emanating from our part of the stand towards the hapless Sheffield United supporters.

Being a Carling Cup game Arsenal didn't play their big stars but their B side (with an average age of 19) still managed to finish up with a 6-0 scoreline. Angus and Jamie came along for the game and outside, Shaun got very excited about the prospect of photographing some riot police (the only action they saw was Shaun taking this photo) complete with their riot steeds.

M

Trepidation in Transylvania

For our end of summer trip we decided to chase vampires in Transylvania. 10 days isn't long to see the highlights of Romania but with backpacks on once again we determined to give it a decent shot. We found castles (this one is Peles Castle)

... but first there was Bucharest; given some fairly bad press by some tourists apparently but if you like stark contrasts between old and new 'architecture' then its for you. Actually I kind of liked it.

Most of the new buildings are courtesy of a giant demolition job by Ceaucescu, who took out 8 blocks at a time to create one crowning 'achievement', the People's Parliament - still unfinished and the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon - it is a monster.

Leaving Bucharest we headed north to Transylvania for some fairly disappointing looking hiking (but a memorable few cable car rides up the mountain and a sleepless night in a mountain "cabana" with drunk Romanians and loud dance music). No sign of Dracula in these mountains: and not much in the lowlands either. Actually, despite a couple of Dracula-themed hotels, there isn't much vampire-related stuff in Transylvania at all. Instead there are some beautiful old medieval walled towns, complete with fortified churches - the most popular of which is Brasov, where we stayed for a couple of nights and where Shaun got to enjoy beer served with his KFC.

Apart from its old churches and beautiful squares Brasov has another more unusual tourist attraction - bear watching. Apparently half of Europe's bears live in Romania and now we have seen some. Looking forward to some wildlife adventuring we climbed into the front seat of a tour driver's van late one night to be driven through the streets to a series of inner city rubbish skips - parked across the road from a row of apartments - where massive bears lumber down the hill and flip the skips over each night rummaging for food. Having been warned off these things with all sorts of grisly stories in Alaska it was pretty shocking to be sitting in a van 4 metres away from some massive wild animals looking like they were fairly unfazed by the human population. It won't be long til someone loses an arm.

A blog entry on Romania wouldn't be representative without a mention of some famous Romanian cuisine (the one at the far right is tripe soup, which Shaun volunteered for):

We thought that was bad, then we saw this on the menu:Leaving Brasov in our 4WD machine "Murray the Matiz" - (Daewoo Matiz that is, an 800cc South Korean manufactured city car and the only rental car left in Brasov) - we drove north to Maramures, not before encountering some slight motoring difficulties. That, however was nothing compared to the cow-size potholes, manic passing on blind corners (by other drivers) and other hazards ever present on Romanian roads:

Maramures is in the north of Romania bordering the Ukraine and is described as the part of Romania that the last 3 centuries have forgotten about. While there are signs of modernisation, driving along the roads we passed scores of women with headscarves and saw men with sickles, haystacks in the fields, horses and carts around almost every corner, and religious icons by the roadside in almost every town to wish travellers safe passage. The Sapanta Cemetery (definitely a tourist spot) was really lovely - with tombstones carved from wood showing the occupation or hobbies of the person who died. However, most of the time we just drove around staring at people out of the window.

M