Leaving London - 3 months to get home

Argh London. If you had asked us a few months ago whether we would miss you, the answer would have been a little hard for you to bare. We certainly have had a love/hate relationship with you. From amazing experiences at events like Wimbledon to the ritual weekend dance of dodging vomit walking to the gym, you have been blissfully annoying. Living here for the past 3 years (Yes 3!) has allowed us to experience a new way of doing things and we have been fortunate enough to also travel to so many new and exciting places which is almost impossible to do living on the other side of the world and earning NZD.

I guess London, if we were to look back on our time together, we'd not only see your exciting never ending sleeplessness but also your geniune acceptance of all races, all cultures, living side by side and for the most part being treated very much alike. I guess that is what has made me proud to call myself a Londoner for a few years, even if people have been known to take a late night shit on our beautiful doorstep in Clapham (True Story).

The hardest part of leaving any place that you have come to know, is leaving behind the people who have helped made it great. London, you have some bloody good people left here. People who will make others feel just as welcome as they have us, people who will make others laugh and people who will make this city just so much better for being in it. To all of those people who have made our lives here so much easier when we've been homesick or nervous or lonely, to those who have educated us on the "British" way of doing things, and most importantly to those who have become life long friends, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Our experiences here have been so greatly enhanced by having you in our lives (even if you continually get us drunk on mojitos/espresso martinis). Our door is always open, you just need to fly to the other side of the planet to come on in.

So London. It is with great sadness that we must now go our seperate ways. Thank you for teaching us patience at train stations (haha jokes), for introducing us to all different types of cuisines we have never tried, for providing lots of little parks for squirrels and for being so bloody accessible that we could visit many of our dream destinations.

As we take the train to Glasgow today, we embark on a three month travel odyssey. We will spend one more week in UK travelling around by car before we fly to Finland to commence our 9 country tour through Russia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore all without stepping foot on a plane (with the exception of London- Finland) before arriving back in our beautiful NZ on the 23rd December. We plan to blog our entire journey, alternating days of writing so you can hear it from both sides. If there is anything you are keen to learn about or find out about, let us know and we will make a note to point it out.

One adventure is over as another begins. Goodbye London. It has been a blast.

To Finland and Beyond!

Courtney and JamieRead more