Sheffield & Peak District

In New Zealand, being too far away was always our excuse for not being able to fly to Europe for visits, birthdays, weddings etc.... . Now, we're back in Europe and very close to three airports, so we're slowly catching up with visiting our friends in the surrounding countries (more invitations always welcome! :)).
In September, Moritz and Hannah invited us for a visit in Sheffield. We made good use of the cheap Ryanair connection Rygge-Manchester, and "sneaked" through the Peak District by train to get from Manchester to Sheffield.
We were warmly welcomed by the two, although with the typical English weather - rain. However, no reason to worry - after having had such a hot and dry summer in Oslo, experiencing Sheffield how it probably looks 360 days a year was just perfectly fine. :) We explored the city with an extensive Saturday stroll, and went for a joint boulder session at the "awesome walls" gym in the evening.


Almost unbelievable, but when we opened our eyes the next morning, the sun was brightly shining! Seemed to be one of those five days where that happens. How lucky! Moe and Hannah quickly organized a bunch of friends, and we drove to the close Peak District to check out the famous Peak climbing. It was somehow difficult to find a place to park the car, and a rock to climb without thousands of other people - but Moritz guided us to a wonderful spot a bit off the beaten track. I had the impression all Sheffield and Manchester used the beautiful day for an excursion to the Peak District. Or is it like that every weekend? It was for sure a perfect day, and the view and rock were awesome!!


We completed our little English experience with a dinner and quiz at the pub (like in New Zealand, we couldn't answer a single question :)), and took lots of good memories back to Oslo.
Thanks Moe and Hannah for the perfect weekend!

London

Oslo has not seen any sun for weeks now, it is cold and grey-white and I found it difficult believing that the sun does still exists... . So I quickly booked a flight to London to search for the sun. Maybe London wasn't the right place to look for it though... very unsurprisingly it rained, and rained, and rained...! But never mind, I was also looking forward to meet old friends I had not seen for ages and do some classic London sightseeing!

First thing we did was getting totally lost between tons of imported cheap chinese and creative London stuff at the Camden market. Coming from glamorous and chic Oslo, the fancy and cheap Camden market is heaven! I bought a dress and ear rings and could have bought a dozen more items if I only was traveling with a suitcase... . After running around between the open-air stalls for hours and crossing London bridge to have a glimpse of the Tower bridge and the new Shard tower, we were totally wet and frozen and had to warm ourselves by visiting the big modern art museum "Tate Modern". Famous pictures of Kandinsky, Dalí, Picasso and many more are seemingly unprotected displayed and can be examined up close.

On the second day we started somewhat earlier to have enough time to pass by famous Big Ben, St. James Park and Buckingham palace before totally loosing track of time in the Natural History Museum. The impressive building has so many fascinating things on display that half a day is not enough to explore it. There is of course the famous Darwin statue, a piece of the moon from the last Apollo mission, a Dodo skeleton, the model of a scary T-Rex, a Moa, at least three stuffed species of Birds-of-Paradise and many many more things... . In addition there was also the "Wildlife photographer of the year" exhibition with extraordinary animal and landscape pictures.

Of course I ended every day with a delicious international dinner - pizza on the first day, followed by Vietnamese and Indian cuisine. So nice to go out for dinner again - what a contrast to our daily pasta at home ;)

And here's the whole story summarized in pictures:

London tourist classics:	phone box,	bus n' bobbies,	underground.
London Bitch-Kitsch.	Big Ben.	Queen's Life Guard	Wow, Darwin!
London in the rain..!	The Shard.	Tate Modern art.	Art by Mary Martin.
Over the river Thames.	Tate Modern outside.	Moa in the NHM.	St. James Park.
Natural History Museum.	Tate Modern.	Russian Revol. Posters.	Art by Gerhard Richter.

Tower Bridge	Tate Modern art.	Hummingbirds at NHM.
Bali memorial.	Male Smew.	Duck at St. James Park. ID?
Dodos in the NHM.	Dalí's Metamorphosis of Narcissus.	Art at Tate Modern.
Starling.	St. Paul's church.	Natural History Museum.
So many cheap stuff...	... at Camden market.	London bus.
London through a London bus.	Pub at Finchley central.	Cup cakes at the Hummingbird cafe.

A really big thank you to the three girls who made my visit to London so enjoyable! Thanks for acting as a tourist guide, a hostel and for driving hours to meet me in London!! Hope to welcome all of you in Oslo some time!

PS: Just before take-off, the clouds disappeared and suddenly there was blue sky and a bright bright sun!!