I got picked up at the Stockholm airport at 11pm by a friendly face I hadn’t seen in a while. Id been planning to surprise Kristin for a few weeks and because I got in so late her dad picked me up at the airport to stay the night at their place before shocking her with my visit. The plan went perfect, the next morning about 8am I walked over to Kristin’s house, put my finger over the peep hole and rang the buzzer…. Few seconds later the door creaked open to reveal a half asleep Swedish girl standing in the door way rubbing her eyes saying “what the fuck, this cant be”. It took about 5 minutes for the shock to set in before 15minutes of non stop laughter and swearing came out of the shower, “are you really out there”, “this has to be a fucking joke how did you get here”. Basically the week consisted of eating some of the best home cooked meals since I left home, thanks ma and pa, chilling out and walking around, watching movies and just plane old catching up, oh and got my brain ticking again by reviewing Kristin’s PHD thesis and making minor changes to the English, I know all about the 3 spined stickle back fish now and how it can be used as a biosensor for marine pollution!! I love going to Sweden and this time didn’t disappoint, it was the start of winter so the temperature was dropping and all the trees were various shades of yellow and gold, Id love to live there someday.

Back to London and our free house in the city, checked out Kensington Palace and gardens, very nice, oxford street and walked about 3hrs to London tower to get some fish and chips that I had a few weeks back (they were great Katie). Met up with whistler veteran Lisa for what would turn out to be a long, drunken and amusing night. Kicked off with 2 for 1 coronas (like it wasn’t going to be HUUUGE) where I got abused by some fat English twat in a suit for not giving a drunken homeless lady a beer, why should I support a bad habit, im not frickin Santa (thanks for your input Lis ;-), introduced Lisa to the wonderment that is the Cornish pastie, well worth waiting for. The PorterHouse would get a visit next to try some of their own brew before ending up at the walkie for jugs of snake bite while teaching Lis how to flick bottle caps and coins. An hour went by, lost two coins, and two sets of people had moved tables from getting hit in the face with shrapnel before we just accepted the fact that she cant do it and we got kicked out.

Had a look at the Tate Modern art gallery, everyone knows that im the last person on earth to give a rats ass when it comes to artsy fartsy stuff, but after being schooled by Scottish in South America on arts, I thought I better have a look. I must admit that it was actually really good and the displays were great, even if your like me and wonder if all this artsy hippie shit really matters these days. It wasn’t just heaps of splodgy paintings that don’t make sense, had cool scupltures, big metal spiders, all this touchy feely stuff and a lot of things that played tricks on your eyes and spun you out, great value for the $0 entrance fee, recommend it to everyone. Strolled down the Thames walk beside the river, taking in Shakespeare’s globe, the old borough food markets located in a very old part of London and got to watch a free Spanish dance show. What a cultured day!! I actually did all of this and im not lying, there is the odd occasion where I actually do this kind of stuff.

My last day in London, rugby grand finals, perfect recipe for a big night ahead. Lee’s palace was the venue starting around 3ish with a back yard BBQ covered in slabs of meat and sausages, just the way a BBQ should look. Was a bit of an Isa re-union with Lee, Belinda, Hannah, Olivia and Feather all catching up on old times and current aussie goss, along with other BBQérs from all walks of life. Beers were going down quickly, Lee being the genius that he is puts the speakers on a 2^nd story window and says “no way they’ll fall down” hour later and they are doing a swan dive into the ground, no one was surprised, over time we have all come to expect this from Lee. We tried to get into the pub to see the game, after about 5mins off heaving pushing and a total progress of about 2m in the door we decide we head off and found a quieter pub. Jules thought vodka shots were a great idea but poor old Lis couldn’t handle it and started dropping things on the floor and standing on them. The Saffas won as you all know, of course all the aussie’s were supporting them and one couldn’t help but run up and down the road yelling obscenities at all the crying English people after the game.

Well that’s England done for me, saw all the touristy things and did all the things to be done, again if it wasn’t for all the friends there it would be a grey boring concrete jungle. I’m going to Thailand now, thanks to everyone for the great times, random moments and hope to see you all again soon, preferably not in London.