Life lately - 16 March 2015

Time sure does fly when you're having fun...or when you are just crazy busy!!

Since we last caught up I had my first full pay cheque, and that only means one thing...shopping!! 30 kg's worth of clothing/personal belongings really isn't that much when you unpack it.

We ventured down Oxford Street 2 weeks ago and wandered in and out of the hundreds of shops that line the street, Primark was the most fruitful destination on that day! We went back to Oxford Street on Saturday afternoon, this time for Riaan (ok, mostly for Riaan - I couldn't resist a new handbag from Aldo, mine saw its ass this week!!)

We located the ONLY Steers in London and embarked on an adventure along the South Bank with our eye on the prize - a juicy King Steer Burger!! We ended up walking all the way to Steers (12 miles), which really isn't that bad when you're just strolling along taking in the beauty of the River Thames. It's on adventures like these that we find awesome places...like this craft beer boat!!

We have both got our NI numbers and I'm waiting for my residence card from Home Office, hopefully we get it before the end of April...we need our passports back because we want to go to the Netherlands for our second wedding anniversary, continuing the tradition (or starting the tradition? It can't be a tradition after only doing it once right?? Hmmmm food for thought!!) of going to a new place for every anniversary. *Awwww*

I started my weekend lectures for ACCA the weekend before last, which is why I've been so busy. I spent the week in Oxford, and I'm spending this week there aswell, it's such a pretty little town. Emphasis on the little!

On Saturday we went to Camden Market! It is awesome and I highly recommend this, if you have a open Saturday with nothing to do, head down to Camden Market! Take a few hours and just browse the stalls, there is literally something for everyone there! Art, antiques, food, clothing, home decor and random gadgets. I found a 60's style pin up dress that I love...I see another shopping mission in the near future!

My favourite face!!

Yummy!!!

After Camden we went to Oxford Street and after all the shopping we were ravenous! We roamed the streets of Soho and in true Riaan and Simone style it took us over an hour to decide where to eat! We eventually settled on a lovely little Italian Restaurant we found called Stefs. We had champs to celebrate Riaan's new job... he starts tomorrow!! Oh and some delicious italian food , creamy mussels, calamari, and linguine with salmon and spinach, accompanied by a smooth red of course!

Somewhere in Soho

Our plans for the next few weekends include the Portobello Road Market, lectures, Brighton for our birthdays and some random wandering adventures!

If you have any suggestions about where we should go or places you'd like to go to that we can test out for you, let me know in the comments below!!

Living in London - 5 Essential Apps

I'm a very excited girl! More than one of my friends is looking to move to London and/or the UK in general in the coming months. Some have spilled the beans recently and some we knew about before we left, either way it's all very exciting!!

So, I have taken it upon myself to help them (and anyone else looking to take an amazing leap of faith) out. I will provide knowledge where I can and share what we've learnt in our first 2 months in London.

My 5 Essential Apps

 1. City Mapper
City mapper is my new BFF...for realsies!! I just tell it where I am, and where I want to be and it will tell me how to get there (walk, cycle, taxi, tube - along with a multitude of different line options, bus), how long my different options will take and how much said option would cost. It gives you to the minute updates on train statuses, which pretty freaking awesome! It also has a "more rain safe" option, perfect for the unpredictable weather in London!! We've actually been rather lucky since we got here, but I do believe it will start raining more as it gets warmer...

2. Google Maps
When I'm looking for my nearest tesco/waitrose/sainsburys I just type it into google maps and they pop up all over my screen, little red dots of convenience! It's just as helpful when you're wandering around London, on a general explore and want to see what's in your immediate surroundings. Don't forget to zoom in and take a screen shot if you're low on battery power, GPS can drain that very quickly!

3. Whatsapp/Viber/Skype
ET phone home! Whatever your preferred method of communicating with your loved ones back home, it will become your daily go to.

4.Wingit/Hype
These nifty little apps tell you about cool/fun things happening in your area/wherever you find yourself wandering around wondering what to do on a Saturday/Sunday or any day really.

5.Word Lens
This app isn't really applicable for London, we only really used it in France, but if you find yourself if a foreign restaurant/shop in London this will definitely come in handy. You enter your language and the language to be translated and then, using your phone's camera you aim to the text to be translated (as if you were going to take a photo) and your phone will translate the text to your chosen language!

There are a few more apps that I will be trying out over the next few months as we settle in, I'll be sure to let you know what they are and how good/helpful they are.

So, that's it for now, I'll be back soon, sooner than last time, I promise!

Life lately - 20 February 2015

Hi everyone! I was very surprised to see my last life lately post was almost a month ago...Damn! I'm sorry! I know a few of you want to keep up with how things are going here and what we are up to, so here goes...

Last time we caught up I told you that we'd be moving in to our new apartment...we moved in, and we've been busy sorting out paper work and updating all the service providers with our details and all those fun things you have to worry about when you're an adult...I often wonder why I was in such a rush to grow up when I was little, then a few minutes later I remember - independence and freedom. I have no one moaning at me for going through a bottle of peanut butter a week (except Riaan HAHA!), but I have good reason, I'm still in search of a good replacement for Yum Yum...So far the Waitrose brand is in the lead, but I'm on my 3rd bottle from Waitrose and every bottle has tasted different - it' so weird!! Any London-based self-confessed peanut butter lovers willing to help a sista out??

Talking about peanut-butter...in case you missed it, here's a snap of the awesome peanut butter hot drink I found here! It's super tasty!!

So for the first week we got by with the bare minimum, not because we couldn't afford to buy everything we need but because we couldn't carry everything we needed to buy on our first trip three trips to the shops. It's so weird not having a car!! We ended up going to the shops three times to get the bedding right...THREE TIMES? IN ONE WEEKEND...That's not normal!! On the Saturday we bought a duvet inner, pillows, flat sheet and fitted sheet, but no duvet cover set because we couldn't find one we liked. We got home to discover the bed actually isn't a double, it's bigger, so we had to go exchange everything for the correct size - back to the shops! Then we got home to discover we got a valence sheet instead of a fitted sheet - so on Sunday we had to go exchange that. What a mission!! In and amongst all these trips we bought some groceries and a few basic kitchen utensils. The stuff urban survival is made of!

The following weekend we did some shopping in Stratford at the Westfield and on Sunday we missioned to Wembley to go to Ikea and Curry's PC World. The TV and TV stand we got at Curry's was so big and heavy that we didn't bother going to Ikea because we wouldn't be able to carry anything else, we had decided to get the TV and stand home by train because the delivery fee was a rip off. Well that was fun!

The following weekend we went to Ikea again, we spent almost the entire day there, it's just so big and fascinating. They literally have something for everything. I found stuff I never knew I needed, what sorcery is this?? We ended up buying some shelving solutions for our shelveless cupboards and some basic house stuff. The kind of stuff you don't realise how much you need/use it until you don't have it. Hangers, coat hook, shower caddy, clothes airer etc.

I love Ikea, we are going again tomorrow to order this awesome shelving unit for our lounge, and to get some decorative goodies for the apartment.

Image source

Last weekend we celebrated Valentines day and spent the day sightseeing and wondering around London. I will share our day in  photos with you soon! Here's a sneak peek for now!

We happened to see two vossies (foxes), one was next to the river on the south bank in between the restaurants. The other one was in the woods across the road from our apartment, that one told us the long awaited answer to the question "What does the fox say?"...The fox doesn't say anything, it screams, like a young girl being attacked. It's quite disturbing actually.

So that's it, a month summed up, nothing too exciting or eventful. Oh it snowed!! That was awesome, a tiny bit of snow, but hey who's counting, snow is snow!! Hope you enjoyed the post!!

Life lately - 23 January 2015

I can't believe in one week January will be pretty much over...already??

AND ...

I know I owe you all some of the awesome photos we took in Paris, but I've been so so busy. And it's not just a case of uploading them ... they are HUGE! So I have to convert the format before I can resize them and then editing and then finally I can upload them! What a mission, not to mention that we took over 500 photos in one week ... I have a mammoth task ahead of me!!

But here's a teaser for now ...

 Our selfie stick was super handy!! Dankie Hanroux!!

So, I thought I would just touch base today and let you all know that we haven't forgotten about you!

First things first ... Paris ... Aaah!! It was amazing! Everything I imagined and more! I love Paris! So much so that I already started planning our next trip before we had even left the city! And Riaan loved it too, which I was super relieved about because we HAVE to go back!!

I promise I will have a few photos up by the end of next week!

We've been in London for 5 days now and we're enjoying it, we haven't really seen much of the city, attractions wise - except for Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and the Shard, which are all right by my office. I can actually see them all from our office, which is pretty awesome!!

We've successfully navigated the subway (thanks to our crash course in Paris - in French nogal!!), and I've taken more trains in the past 5 days than I care to count.

Riaan has been hard at work house hunting and sorting our lives out, and thanks to him we'll be moving into our new apartment tomorrow!! It's a beautiful, modern little one bedroom apartment, and it's walking distance from my office, BONUS!!

So our plans for this weekend involve a move (of a whole 2 suitcases), opening a bank account, a bit of shopping for some household goodies and hopefully some adventuring!!

What will you be getting up to this weekend??

Feel free to follow along on instagram to keep up with our adventures as they happen!