Sparklyladybug.com.au

Well! I made it! I'm in London, how exciting is that! I got here about 4 days ago, some stories since then:

Day 1
My flight was delayed and by the time i got to my hotel is was 2:30. After a mostly sleepness night (love overnight flights!) I decided to walk for miles around the city and saw quite a bit which was great. Then I decided to go back to the hotel, which is never as easy as it seems. I got lost, and it was raining and 2 two hours later, after wandering in countless circles finally made it back to the hotel tired and very wet...I sure was happy to sleep!

Day 2
I got up early in hopes of finding a new home. I went out to Chelmsford, the town I'm going to live in. Visited 4 apartments, and this time got very lost on my way back to the train station, an hour later (should have taken me 10 mins) I finally found the station, and somehow, again it was raining...however, getting lost the day before must have done me some good cause this time I found my hotel a lot more quickly.

Day 3
I took a day off getting lost, a wise idea a think. I went to the Tate modern art gallery. Which was great, I needed a day of being dry inside...although it was quite nice outside. I did lots more walking too, saw the parliament buildings, walked over London bridge.

Day 4
I was back in Chelmsford seeing more apartments, the good part is, this time I didn't get lost, in fact, I was quite good at being unlost...which was encouraging! However, I'm still homeless. I'm looking at another apartment tomorrow, fingers crossed i'll find a home cause it is my last night of accomodation in the hotel, although i'm sure i could book for longer.

Anyhow, wish me luck tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have some good news!

So, there are times when I think that I should give up blogging...for all my good intentions on writing and updating it, well, I would say they certainly are not evident. However, in my defense, this last month has been pretty insane.

It all started with packing up and leaving Australia...most of you who read this would know about that. I had a fairly smooth departure, for once in my life was not up till the wee hours of the morning packing and minus the 36 hour journey really had an easy trip.

After detouring through Sydney, Auckland and Los Angeles, I finally made it back to Toronto. Toronto was good, I spent almost a month with my family, and it was great to see them again. Caught up with the 4 roomies, friends, and more friends. It really was good to see so many people, and have some time just to hang out and enjoy it. I had a BBQ out at my parents place which really was fun...gotta love the pool and hot tub. And between my father and sister, there was no chance of any of us dying of thirst! Hopefully I'll some pictures up from that soon...

After some fun times in Toronto, I wandered out to Halifax in the East Coast of Canada to visit my other sister. She has been in Halifax for about 6 years now, and this was the first time that I have been to see her in Halifax as she usually comes to Toronto. Halifax was really great, we did a tour of the downtown area and shops, caught a few acts at the busker festival and went to a beer tasting festival.

We drove out of the city (not that it took much to get out of the city, almost as soon as you are on the highway you are surrounded by trees!) to Mahone Bay for an afternoon. Did a little kayaking and sightseeing which was quite fabulous. There are three churches that face onto the bay that look quite lovely, and I took a couple pictures of them, but for some reason they don't seem to be on my camera now...the mystery's of technology.


We also took a mini-roadtrip to Prince Edward Island. It was great! If anyone has every read or watched Anne of Green Gables, it is the island where the story takes place. It really is as gorgeous as the movie and book show it to be.








We went to see "Anne's House" (i'm the person in the red t-shirt in the photo although you can't see me so well!) , took a walk through the "Haunted Wood" and strolled down the infamous "lovers lane". We had hoped to go see "Anne of Green Gables the musical" but the timing just didn't work out for us, so next time. However, we did see a play called Salt-Water Moon, which was fabulous.









Tracy even got to try milking a cow!











After seeing Anne's House we ventured to some of the other sights and went to see "bottle houses"...they were pretty amazing...I was pretty impressed with the amount of drinking they would have had to do to make the houses, let alone they actual building! And i'm guessing those two things didn't happen at the same time!
































One of the most interesting things about PEI are the red beaches and the red sand/soil. Apparently, there is heaps of iron in the soil, which gives it it's colour. It also makes it good for growing potatoes, apparently PEI grows 1/3 of Canada's potatoes! Which given the size of the island is quite impressive.


And lastly, we went to see a lighthouse. We climbed to the top which was pretty cool, then back down to the bottom where they had a restaurant and we ate dinner, the food was pretty good, but the service was super slow.


Getting out of the Toronto area was good for me I think...driving around Nova Scotia and PEI really reminded me about how beautiful Canada really is.

The Maritimers have long been known for throwing a good party. Traditionally, they would have what were known as "kitchen parties" and often involved fiddles, guitars and spoons for music. Needless to say, there would be lots of singing, dancing and drinking, and really what more could you ask for! This little kitchen party scene as made out of red PEI sand and then sprayed with glue and water to hopefully help it stay there for a little while.














































Talk about an impressive sand castle! Modeled after the church in Charlottetown, PEI.