So, what’s been goin’ on? Not a lot on here, I can tell you that much. July has been a very very hot month here in London with an average of about 26oC across the month. So working in a hospital you can imagine the heat has been pretty insane for me. I can’t remember having a summer this consistent in soooo long. In saying, it’s meant to cool off a little for the rest of this week (low 20’s). So it’ll be nice to not be sweating before 7 am.
Enough about the weather, let’s get into some highlights from July!
Portugal
The month started out great by waking up in Lisbon, Portugal in the same Airbnb as our long-time kiwi friends Emma and Matt. We spent four super fun days in Lisbon, walking around the city, visiting the beautiful palace in Sintra and watching the Football World Cup on big screens in the middle of town. It was awesome to catch up with such great friends in a foreign city and explore with them (blog post to come!).
Football World Cup
I can’t really talk about July without mentioning the Football World Cup especially having endured it in England. July saw the beginning of the knockout rounds and this is when England fans started getting super riled up and singing “It’s coming home” at any opportunity possible. Not only was it sung in the streets before, during and after each game. I also heard people use it as a substitute for goodbye and a train announcer use it over the loudspeaker. But you’ve got to admire their passion if anything, good on them for getting behind their team and getting as far as they did through the World Cup.
The semi-final was also an experience I’ll never forget; the utter awkward-ness and dead silence in a full pub in the final few minutes of extra time when Croatia won… quite uncomfortable. It was an exciting time to be in a footballing nation during the World Cup especially through such a great campaign.
Biking around London
In July, James finally bought a bike so most of our weekends have been spent biking around London. St James Park, Chelsea, Kensington, Hyde Park, Vauxhall and Battersea just cruisin’ the bike lanes and sweatin’ up a storm in the heat. I also branched out by trying a disposable camera and working with film instead of digital. I quite liked the outcome and want to give it another go.
Wimbledon
I spent a lovely Tuesday evening at Wimbledon drinking Pimm’s in the sun and mildly watching tennis. We had a great picnic on the grass, watching the big screen and admiring the London skyline. As the final match was getting into the last legs of the game, they opened up centre court for anyone to go and watch. It was awesome! We sat and watched a Men’s Doubles pool match. There I was along with everyone else cheering for the one Brit on the court, only to find there was a kiwi in the opposite team. So, I switched teams part way through and that was when the New Zealander started winning. So I looked like a bandwagoner but that’s ok.
Hockey World Cup
Halfway through the World cup competition, we found out it was actually on. So about an hour before the game began we booked tickets and headed out to Olympic Park to watch the Black Sticks in their final pool match. The game was against Australia so tensions were high and there was a lot of support from both teams in the crowd.
The event was really well run with helpful volunteers lining the way from the train station to the venue, nice food and drink and a bloody great playlist. Unfortunately, the dominant New Zealand team weren’t able to score a second goal and the game was drawn at 1-1. It was still an entertaining night and great to watch some trans-Tasman rivalry so far from home.
July has been a bit of a quiet one for us, but fun nonetheless. It’s been nice to be a bit more chilled because the next couple of months are going to be a bit manic. However, as I usually say I’m going to try and keep up with the blogging. So please keep an eye out there should be more posts to come this month.
Comments are closed.