Wimbledon

If there is one thing you have to do whilst you are living in London it's Wimbledon! So we packed up our sleeping bags and headed over to get in line for tickets to the first day. We arrived at the Wimbledon camping grounds at 3pm the day before the tennis, the line already had about 500 people in it. Once guy had been there since the day before and he wanted tickets for day 2!

We organised our tents and camping through the Fanatics so we were surrounded by fellow Aussie's all there to cheer on Leyton and the other Aussie's. We promptly helped pitch all the tents and bought our fantantics T-shirts and hats, painted our toenails green and gold (even Josche). We had a long night ahead of us but we did have beverages and food so we were all happy.

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

At about 11pm we were told by security that we had to go to bed so all the Aussie went to there tents to try and get some sleep before our 4.30am rise.

At 4.30am we all rose to pack up our camping gear and store it away, the whole morning consisted of queues, queue to store gear, queue for tickets, queue for food. But at midday we were finally at the tennis drinking pims and eating strawberries and cream.

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

We managed to watch Stozer, Hewitt, Clijsters and Tomic. Lots of War crys came out from the fantatics throughout the games and we even got our selves on Sunrise and the news here in London.

From 2010-06 - Wimbledon

The Hewitt game finished at about 9pm so it was a massively long day and I was a bit worse for wear at the end of it, thank god we had a day off the next day!

Cardiff

As part of Josche's job he does a lot of travelling around England and Wales, as such we try to make the most of it by seeing the sights for a weekend where he had to visit a client on the Friday. This weekend it was Cardiff.

I jumped on a train from Paddington station in London to meet Josche in Cardiff Wales, after a 3hr train ride I arrived in sunny Cardiff, Josche drew himself away from the bar long enough to come and pick me up at the train station and take me back to the hotel to have a few beverages and chat with an Aussie couple (yes aussies are everywhere!).

The next day we bounced out of bed (OK maybe not me:-) ) and went to visit the castle, because it was the Queen's Birthday we got to watch the cannons being fired- very cool.

From 2010-06 - Cardiff

From 2010-06 - Cardiff

From 2010-06 - Cardiff

After celebrating the Queen's birthday we went for a walk and came across the Welsh Beer and Cider festival this was something we just could not walk by so we bought our cider and beer drinking glasses and proceeded to try as many beers and ciders as we had time for. We met a lovely welsh couple and spent a couple of hours chatting to them about the Rugby whilst listening to a welsh choir.

After our beer and ciders we went for another walk down to the marina where there where heaps of restaurants and bars. We also found Cardiff sailing club where there were lots of dinghy's out racing!

Once we had finished our exploring we headed back to the Train station for a trip back to London.

Amsterdam

Yet another bank holiday for us to spread our wings!! We had a 3 day weekend so we scooted off to Amsterdam!!

To start our weekend in true style we were able to utilise the British Airways lounge thanks to our Qantas gold membership something that we aren't able to use on our usual cheap flights on easyjet and ryanair. So we made the most of a few quiet drinks and a feed before our flight.

We arrived in Amsterdam late Friday night, so it was straight to our B&B for a good sleep so we were ready to explore the next day.

Saturday was a jam packed schedule, we had a fantastic bike ride through the country side, where we visited a little dutch farm where they made cheese and wooden shoes (clogs). We were also very lucky to have Darren from Powderfinger on our bike tour, something I didn't realise until the very end and then made an idiot of myself because I call him Bernard.....ooops :-)...

From 2010-05 - Amsterdam

From 2010-05 - Amsterdam

This was our tour guide.....Check out the shoes!!!

Then we were off to the Heineken Factory!!! We got to sample the beer and learn all about Heineken. If you ever visit Amsterdam be sure to book your Heineken tickets online to jump the massive queue!

From 2010-05 - Amsterdam

From 2010-05 - Amsterdam

That night we took a lovely canal cruise with cheese and wine through the Red Light district, we always had in our mind what to expect but it was really different to what we expected. Josche was impressed with the quality of some of the girls :-).
After the cruise we had a few drinks with some locals who insisted some local dutch shots were sampled!!

The next day we rose early, poor Josche had a bit of a hangover :-). And set off to visit Josche's friends Rutger and Jenny in a small town called Goor. After the 2 hour train ride Josche felt much better and hooked into a few local and Belgium beers with Rutger. We had a fantastic lunch with the family thanks Jenny!!

The next day we spent walking around Amsterdam seeing all the sites we didn't see on Day 1 it was great and we were very lucky that the weather was kind to us most of the weekend considering it rains 200days a year in Amsterdam!!

From 2010-05 - Amsterdam