I can’t believe it is this time of the year already! I shouldn’t really be surprised when the chocolate and eggs have been out in the shops since January and it’s been so long since the last Bank Holiday (Public Holiday for those in Australia).
You will be pleased to know that we have finally found a flat to move into in April, and a lovely new flatmate, Frances. We are currently searching for flatmate number 4 and sorting out all of those fun household things that you need to sort out before you settle into a new house – who is responsible for cleaning? Do we need Sky Sports when there is a pub at the end of the street? How does everyone feel about naked Tuesdays? (That last one was a joke… )
We said our goodbyes to Raf and Paulina and moved out of our flat in Shadwell last Tuesday. Since then we have been “couch surfing” with our good friend El in East London. After months of waiting, El finally received notice that she could pick up keys to her brand new flat last Friday. So we spent this past grey and drizzly weekend moving El’s stuff (and our stuff) to her new flat, only a few streets away. We have gratefully claimed a corner of her lounge room for our own and are back to living out of our backpacks while we are between houses.
It seems so long ago that we were organising our first wedding anniversary this April. This is the year that we are supposed to celebrate our anniversary with “paper”. For those lucky people who are not aware of the tradition or have not been suffocated by bride-to-be magazines, the first wedding anniversary is traditionally associated with paper, year two with cotton, three with leather, four with fruits/flowers, five with wood, ten with tin/aluminium, twentieth with china, twenty-fifth with silver, fiftieth with gold and sixtieth wedding anniversary with a diamond…. And so on.
To be fair, paper can be almost anything, but this year we have gone with… plane tickets to Egypt! We leave in 20 minutes (I write this at the airport) for our first ever group tour and our first trip to the continent of Africa.
Concerned with current demonstrations, political turbulence and stories of recent kidnappings in the North and South Sinai regions, I am rather glad that we have opted for a 2 week tour of this fascinating country. (I now work in insurance and have access to all of the up-to-date security reports that will scare the pants off anyone!) After recent reports, our tour has been altered slightly to include a four night stay at a resort in Hurghada, on the Red Sea. After nine days of Cairo, Pyramids, Aswan, Luxor and a felucca up the Nile, four nights by the Red Sea on my birthday will suit me just fine!
It has been so long since I was exploring new destinations (Samones in January seems like a life time ago) a experiencing different cultures that I have almost forgotten that the main reason we came to the UK was to travel! Now, finally, I feel that we are back on track…
If you would like to catch up with me more often, please feel free to check out my weekly column in the AustralianTimes.co.uk, distributed across London and published online at http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/uk-life/honeymooning-nomad.
For frequent updates and photos, follow me on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/jacqui.travels?fref=ts, on Twitter @12mthhoneymoon and on Pintrest http://pinterest.com/12mthhoneymoon/.
The next time I make contact will be on our return… catch you on the other side! X
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