London's calling...

Hi there campers! How goes the madness that is the big bad world? J and I have been sneezing, spluttering and coughing our way into another dreary, cold and miserable London Autumn. The only highlight is that we will miss Winter almost entirely as we ring in the New Year with all you merrymen and women in Sydney. Yes its true we're coming home for the 'I Do's' of both brothers (and sisters to be) but *sigh* we will return to London promptly after the last glass of champers is downed. But other than booking (rather expensive!!!!!!) flights home we have been busy bees yet again, working at that list of things to do/see in London before we leave. I'm happy to say that with the help of one Emma Hollows we were pretty darn successful this last fortnight.

Two Saturdays ago, with the sun shining brightly London was definitately calling us, so we decided to head down to Big Ben and treat ourselves to a lovely cruise along the river. For the AMAZING price of 7 quid we got a 3 hour round trip from Big Ben to Greenwich, with commentry and all! We learnt some odd and quirky facts such as the meaning behind the word WHARF and that London Bridge has been replaced 5 times!!! That night we wrapped up our relaxing Saturday with a nice evening of thai and a few tiddly winks.... cockney for drinks ;) The following Sunday we met a few fellow Australians for London's answer to Oktoberfest. By the end of the afternoon we were all merry from the singalongs (or the steins - you decide), had had far too many pretzels and Bec had managed to land her face not once, but twice in this weeks TNT.

This week saw the arrival of Miss Ejay the Dejay and also the crossing off of not one, not two, but THREE items from our list. We started off with Camden Market where I purchased ear warmers in preparation for New York and J tried on some questionable hats. We then made a mad dash across town to watch Tower Bridge rise and fall for the Dixie Queen before continuing on down the Thames visiting the Tate Modern briefly. That night we found ourselves on a Jack the Ripper tour which saw us relive the hellish nightmare that was Autumn 1888. We visited the still preserved murder site of Catherine Eddowes (his 4 victim) which J was lucky enough to be standing on top of! As well as visiting the now carpark multiplex that was 13 Millers Street and Mary Jane Kelly's murder site before moving on to a narrow lane in the area of Whitechapel for more atmospheric effect. There we were lucky enough to stumble across a Banksy and managed a quick happy snap. The tour ended in Spittlefields market right by the ten bells pub, the local prostitute hang out of the time, we then boarded a train and wearily headed back to Stockwell for a cuppa tea and some amazing biscuits.

This weekend we are road trippin for 9 days through various regions of the UK we have been hanging out to see. But will update you all soonish as to that adventure.

Missing you all lots,

Bec and J.

The Eye from our river cruise.

Yours truly in a magazine!!!! YAY!!!!

Jay Jay with Ejay at Camden Markets

Just after watching the Tower Bridge Lift! We're such happy tourists! :)

Bavarian Blowout!

+++THIS BLOG COMES WITH A PARENTAL ADVISORY STICKER+++
please do not judge your children based on the events of this entry!

Well the weekend kicked off with a different kind of sausage fest to what we were expecting when our 8am flight left London for Munich with the whole of two female passengers, yours truly and the fabulous Bec Weber! Before we had even taken off the flight attendant had been publicly harassed, two bloody Marys had been split (not by us) and a variety of songs sung, needless to say it was the rowdiest flight we had ever been on and we knew the weekend was just going to be plain messy!!!! After an hour and a half of sing-a-longs, we arrived in Munich. A short but interesting bus ride to the terminal saw one of the fairer sex debate if fly spray could really kill rats and a short train ride from there got us to our hostel.

Unable to check in we dumped bags and made a beerline (get it, BEERline!) for the Oktoberfest grounds. The first day saw as arrive promptly at the Hofbrauhaus at around 1ish to have lunch and our first stein. Upon arrival I devised a wonderful game where we all adopted German names and if you failed to call another by their CORRECT name you were forced to drink and the one who caught you created a new rule.... and so, Leslie, Anya, Lord Ludwig and Fritz were born. By the end of the afternoon we were rising for Lord Ludwig, using elbows or heads to point and giving the double guns anytime we asked for another round! As well as one rule that involved a slightly interesting discussion with some men in kilts as to whether they were 'true Scotsmen!' A good introductory day was had, of which we can slightly remember. We piled into bed at a reasonable hour to prepare to the next days onslaught!

Day 2 saw two fake Frauleins play dress up and head once more into the abyss of drinking and debauchery. After a quick side step past the crowds we easily entered the Paulander tent, avoiding the Italian stallion wannabes from the previous days line up, only to be seated beside a group of 65 who could only speak broken English and constantly cried out "çiao bella!!!" at every opportunity! After a few *cough*million*cough* beers we called it a day. So drunk and disorderly we unfortunately lost our way on the 10 minute walk back to the hostel. Instead of bickering as to whose fault it was we decided to board a cheap tube ride to central Munich. When we finally arrived at the hostel we had a quick disco nap, changed and headed into town for an amazing pork knuckle with a side of JW beer, little to say Mr J Wyatt was very excited!

On our final day at theresienweise we rose early as we wanted to avoid the massive queues to enter tents and make the most of our final drinking hours. Once at the grounds we were surprised to find there were no queues, and even more surprisingly... no free tables. So we saddled up to some friendly English lads and settled in for a day of drinking! Kicking off at 10am we ended up staying to see the tent close at around 11pm but not before we had danced ourselves off tables, were flashed by scots men, had been harassed by locals, been on the oompa stage, lost our table, won back our table, had Bec Weber show us her happy feet and some of us drank some questionable beer! We then headed home via a few of the rides including a roller coaster and the spinning swings and surprisingly neither of us ended up driving the porcelin bus!

Our last day saw us rise to the tune of 'beer, beer, give me another beer' ringing in our ears thanks to Jarratt. We decided to spend our remaining time exploring the town, watching the glock that rocks and having one final pork knuckle lunch at Hitler's old haunt to Hofbrauhuse. Only to close out our time in Munich watching the hours tick by at Munich airport.

Too easy, stein anyone?

Drunk and disorderly

Wenches and their men!!!