Little things I like

It's now been ten months since I left New Zealand to come over to the UK, and on reflection I have to say that I've probably found the transition easier than most - I had a job, a place to live, and supportive friends and family already over here. So rather than struggling with London rent, homesickness and terrible English food (OK, I'm maybe still struggling with terrible English food) I instead got launched right into the swing of things. I have however found myself missing certain things at home, while appreciating others here.

Here:
Premade food. Oh my lord the premade food at the supermarkets. You can get fantastic microwave meals here, and they go on special for less than the equivalent of $4 a lot of the time.

Carrot sticks - I love carrot sticks, and hate making them. The solution? Ready-made carrot batons!

Tea (and everything that goes with it). If you want a speciality tea shop here, no problem. There's chains of them to choose from!

Opening hours and free takeout delivery - hungry at 10pm on a Thursday evening? No problem, you can choose from Chinese, Indian, Italian...and get it delivered for free!

Fashion - Londoners are STYLING. And they don't care if you wear weird things.

And they like to stuff penguins, apparently.

Home:

Good fresh fruit and veg - I have to say, it's a bit of a roulette wheel here. I've had some fabulous fruit and also some really rubbish overpriced stuff.

Good Chinese food - I don't know what it is about these British people, but it's been a real struggle to find really nice, decently priced Chinese (and more importantly, Hong-Kong style food...)

Okay, so this is ACTUALLY from transit in Hong Kong...

Traffic - there's SO much traffic in London, and you all sort of drive around each other. Much quicker to get the tube most days.

Space - back yard? Detached house? Forget about it unless you have a cool couple of million pounds (or don't live in London...)

Look, these houses AREN'T all stuck together!

These are just some of the things I notice, but it also makes me wonder - what are the things that other people notice when they move countries...?

Quick outfit update!

Despite this originally being conceived as a diary of travels, I've been the most rubbish at updating since moving to London - and that's not because of a lack of travel! I'm now working and soon-to-be-living in Paddington (like the bear) and will hopefully manage to churn out something vaguely coherent on our family trip to Paris and Venice. Until then, have a photo of my outfit for Hyper Japan (I may have gone just for the chance to eat decent Japanese food, something of a rarity in London)

Skiing Flaine - with Action Outdoors and UCPA

I love skiing. It's always fallen into the category of "one of those things that I like, but that I struggle to improve at". So this year, with the proximity and relative inexpense (compared to a similar ski package, from New Zealand) of the French Alps I decided it was about time I dusted off my ski jacket and got outside.
I elected to go with UCPA via Action Outdoors as it was the most convenient option for me and I didn't mind paying a little bit more for the convenience of having only to organise my flights to and from Geneva.

UCPA is a French organisation intended to encourage young people to participate in outdoor sports, and they own hostels/resorts throughout France. They offer package deals for long weekends as well as full weeks, including gear hire and tuition for all levels. Action Outdoors is their official UK partner and basically has set up packages that make it slightly easier for people coming from the UK, with airport transfers able to be organised with them and most packages including Saturday night accommodation rather than starting on Sunday. They also make it super easy if you don't have a group of people to travel with, as they will sometimes organise weekends specifically for single travellers and offer extra discounts.

I finally made it to Flaine, in late January - this cost £448.93 including half-time tuition and airport transfers, with flights around £80 return via Luton airport.

I called Action Outdoors for a recommendation to start with as I hadn't been skiing for quite some time and wanted to go somewhere suitable for an (improving) intermediate skier, and Flaine was one of the options they gave - and what an awesome recommendation! Although people rib on the architecture (it's a polarising concrete jungle) the UCPA resort there is 50m away from the pistes, you can return for a cooked lunch or choose to take a picnic, and all the rooms are twin share so you only have to share space with one other person. The hostel itself is not the newest, but the facilities are clean and well maintained including the all-important central heating - in fact it was almost too hot some nights!

Food

The weather was fantastic as well, with snow at night -> powder in the morning, and I met (and skiied with) a whole group of lovely people there via my room-mate who was the 'odd' person in the group. The runs are mostly intermediate (blue and red) with a smattering of black and green runs.

This is honestly what the weather was like the entire time!

I think if you're keen on off piste or more challenging skiing that it's probably not the place to be - the off piste is considered quite dangerous because of the number of holes, and I skiied most of the field and found it manageable having not really done a lot of skiing for a few years. I probably wouldn't go back to Flaine since there's so much more of the Alps to ski, but I would definitely recommend it to someone who wants to learn or improve.

I'm looking forward to exploring more of the ski areas in Europe, maybe once December rolls around...as much as I like mountains, I vastly prefer them with ski lifts and groomed pistes as opposed to walking up them!