Snow plus Britain equals good times

You may have heard something in the news about how Britain is have a spot of bad weather. Flash snow storms are A OK with me since they mean days off work :) Last week was great, worked Mon, Tues, Wed, and the rest of the week snow and ice meant our buses weren't running – no work for Jen and Joe! 4 day weekends are awesome :) We wandered through the snow and took lots of pictures, very nice. Built a snow man too, had fun smashing it, and started the packing process. We have four more weeks until we have to move out of our flat and we need to pack up what we want to keep into four suitcases. Not too bad but we still have 6 weeks left of travel and there may be further souvenirs! I'll try not to cling to too much rubbish :)

The weekend before the snow, Joe and I rented a car and drove around the surrounding Shires, which was quite fun. Went to Warwick Castle, Stratford upon Avon (the Globe in London is a better shrine to Shakespeare I think) and Oxford, and then a drive around the bus route I take to work so I could stop to look at the many villages along the way that are so very quaint. Might do it again so we can get to Cambridge and maybe visit some places that Mummy dearest wants me to check out for her genealogical quest...

Also recently – went to the Comedy Store to see the Comedy Store Players doing improv comedy, which was pretty darn awesome! Some of the players used to be on Whose Line is it anyway, so real veterans. Bit gaggy but overall very crowd pleasing comedy. Joe and I went along with Chris, Neil and my improv buddies Amanda and Lucas, who I will hopefully hang out with again before we leave!

We've booked up most of the rest of our holidays, and the travel plans thus far are as follows:

From 23rd March – Naples (4 nights) Rome (4) Geneva (3) Bordeaux (3) Paris (4)
Back to London for Easter plus another week
20th April - New York (6) LA (1) Las Vegas (1) Phoenix (1) San Diego (3) LA (4)
6th May – Get on plane to NZ, arriving in Wellington on the 8th of May at 8:30am (sorry 7th of May, we will miss you entirely)

So yes, very exciting! Also planned is a trip to Brighton on the 15th of April to catch a PJ Harvey concert, and a trip to Wales and Stonehenge and Bath before we head to Naples. Still need to book those but hopefully they'll work out...

I've just written all these blogs while riding the bus to work this morning, which has been reasonably eventful for once. Bus was 20 minutes late, and was a double decker for a change, so of course I went up top. We got 5 minutes down the road and it broke down, so sat and waited for a while. Then jumped on another bus, a normal one this time, and have been driving through fields still covered in thick snow, and roads that seem to be bearing the brunt of the melt that's just started (lots of puddles). So I'm a tad late for work but I'm sure it will be fine. Everyone's been disrupted by the weather.

Anyways. Adventures now up to date! I think. If I am missing something, then.. oh well. I've tried!
Maybe Joe will write something (he is a bit slack these days :D)

Love Jen

Amsterda-ym, gurl

We took a long weekend in October in order to visit Amsterdam, and it was pretty much awesome :) Arrived Friday night and got a tram to our hostel, and then popped up the road to a local place for dinner. The waiter was lovely and translated the menu for us – denizens of Amsterdam pretty much all speak English so we were fine without much Dutch – and the food was tasty indeed. Went back our room, which was a private top floor room with a TV and windows that overlooked a lovely park. Interesting tidbit – our tram stop was right outside a theatre that during WW2 was the place where the Jews had to gather when they were carted off to the death camps :( It is amazing to be confronted with that sort of thing while you're doing something as mundane as catching a tram.

Saturday we headed to town and wandered. Had delicious pancakes for brunch from a pancake house that was very touristy. While there we overhead someone asking for directions to Anne Frank's house – neither of us realised that it was in Amsterdam so this was very lucky! Turned out to be just down the road, so after mopping up our syrup we wandered down the road and found a huge queue of people snaking down the road and round the corner. Not wanting to spend the day in a queue, we decided to come back on Sunday.

We spent the rest of Sat wandering around the canals, doing some Christmas shopping and admiring the red light district, very... average. Well not average, but I think I was expecting something a little more shocking from the stories I have heard. Lots of ladies beckoning men from their shop windows, hardly any women on the street, it was mostly gangs of men most likely on stag parties from Britain, and some interesting adverts for sex shows.

Next day was a bit quiet, went to a funfair and rode on some rides and had some chips with satay sauce from a street vendor which were delicious! And apparently very Dutch, or at least Amsterdam-ian :) Got some tulips and a Miffy book – I LOVE Miffy so that was a bit of nostalgia for me and exciting to find out she's Dutch :)

Also on Sunday and Monday morning, we went to some museums which was cool, Anne Frank's House (really fascinating), Van Gogh museum, the big Dutch art museum which has a fancy name but it escapes me at present. Then off to the train station to get back to the airport.

A very brief account of events but sadly as it has been so long I can't remember it play by play :) There are of course photos up that you may have already seen, given that I am so much better at updating photos that I am the blog!