London Eye, Big Ben and Halloween
- vathsanclan
- Mar 17, 2016
- 2 min read
First time ever I took both of the kids on a flight, all by myself. It was not easy, but doable - a great experience before our looooong flight back to New Zealand.
Quite often friends ask me : " Why do you live in NZ ? Why don't you live in a much closer UK? " Well, to be honest, I was also initially not sure, why exactly do we have to live at the end of the world? Few years ago Vathsan seam to have much better than me, understanding of that particular choice. Of course we love it here, the life style, the work/ life balance and nature. As time goes by, year by year, we watch our kids becoming little Kiwis which makes us feel strongly connected with New Zealand.
But liking New Zealand is one thing, and answering question, why didn't we choose to settle somewhere closer to where I come from - is another.
So just in case, if I would get all nostalgic about Europe, than arriving to UK was a great reminder why we don't live there. Yep, there is the Queen, and rain, tea with milk, and people speak English. But New Zealand also gets heaps of sunshine and smiles. Yes, smiles. Here people are laid back and friendly to each other. They simply are. Arriving to NZ, because of all that bio-security checks at the airports feels like pain, but once you've done it, you feel very welcome. In Uk? Not so much. Our arrival at the airport started with many people telling me I was not queuing in the right lane...because I came on a budget flight from Warsaw, with many other Polish people. Uk immigration couldn't believe that my kids were not UE passport holders.
Once they saw them, still were not fully satisfied. Asked me to show some additional documents, their birth certificates....flight tickets... explain some more about my current residency in NZ....Once they finally let us in, and gave us all stamps in our passports, didn't even wish me a good day! Can you imagine? Phi!
So what we were doing for 10 days in England? Once we finally successfully crossed the boarder? : )
We went to London ( to see the monuments), to the farm ( to see the animals and a big tractor ), and to the local store to pick up a massive pumpkin as we were there around the Halloween period. By the way, that day I learned the difference between a normal and a carving pumpkin : the first one taste better, and second one looks better. This made me finally understand why some people don't like that vegetable. I am sure, they were not eating the good one.
We also had some visitors. Such as Jan the Czech guy whom we visited in Slovakia ( Poland - Slovakia van tour ) , had to come to Hatfield to run some errands.
As well as Asia and Harry a Polish - Indian couple, my old friends who drove all the way from Birmingham to see us in Hatfield. They gave Yana a tube of magic snow - a crazy powder which when you mix it up with water expands it size over 100 times! It was fun, but what a mess!!!
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