Tonbridge, Kent, England September-December 2005

I was quite lucky when finishing up my Contiki tour in September, that I was able to get a job and somewhere to live straight away, as my sister, who had moved to the UK three years prior, had married Mark, who was running a pub in Tonbridge in the south of England, called the Ivy House. While I had never worked in a pub before, I felt comfortable in the job, and Mark was a great boss, teaching me everything I needed to know to not only work in a pub, but also run one.

In my time at the pub I was asked for some weird drinks. The first was a lager top, which as I found out, is a lager beer, with a dash of lemenade in the top. I thought this was a little girly, but was further mortified to find lots of guys also drinking shandy's. What is with that?

Had to get used to plenty of vocab too....

Pants = Underpants
Chips = only ever the hot ones...they insist on the others being crisps
Thongs = not the ones you put on your feet
Alright?= How are you going?/Hello

When my sister and Mark left the pub to purchase their own, the The Beehive in Bradford-On-Avon in Wiltshire, I too left the pub, and decided to get an office job.

Going through Office Angels I got a basic office admin job in an insurance company, Allianz-Cornhill. While it was boring, and the pay kind of ordinary, the people there were really nice, and made my 8 weeks there fly by.

I was in a very fortunate position while in Tonbridge, as I had a family away from home with Mark's parent, Jo and Simon who virtually adopted me as their own, and whom we had an amazing Christmas dinner with. Every traveller should be so lucky!

I made some short trips to london during my 3-4 months in Tonbridge. The first was to see the 2005 Aussie Rules Grand Final, where we saw the Swans cling on for their first premiership as Sydney. Another good London trip was when I went up for the weekend to see of Sarah, one of my fellow Contiki Travellers, and visited "The Church" which is an Antipodean must when visiting London. There I got to catch up with other Contiki survivors Joel and Jac. Over subsequent weekends I also caught up with Giselle, Georgie, Kelly and Katie.

On the whole I enjoyed my time in England, but it was time to move on.