There comes a time in a man's life where he has to stay at home with the girlfriend on a Saturday, going shopping for cheap Ikea furniture then snuggling up with a cup of hot soup and an episode of Lost on TV while thousands of his fellow countrymen are out celebrating Waitangi day. Luckily that man's not me.

Armed with both kidneys functioning (I haven't noticed any scars from estranged lovers trying to extract one yet) and the determination of a bull on la Muerte de toros, I made my way to Paddington station to start the day with a liquid breakfast. As soon as I jumped out of the train at the station, there was no doubt that I had stumbled on the right place:



This was just a fraction of the continuous swarms of people wearing Kiwi rugby jerseys, sheep costumes and kiwi police outfits.

I met up with Craig and Si at the Stanhope arms and at this stage we were already a bit behind since you're supposed to start at 10am and proceed along the circle tube line anticlockwise drinking a pint at each stop. By 4pm you were supposed to be at Westminster to watch pasty white dudes do the haka. Clearly this was not to be missed, but miss it Craig and I did, and only by about 3 minutes. Never mind.

The group converged at a pub just around the road from Big Ben to chew the fat, then headed off to some suburb somewhere in London for one of the hottest butter chicken currys I've had in a long time. I was in heaven (and feeling quite a black man for that matter of being able to handle the curry). The beer scooter took me back to the hotel - good old scoooter and the next morning I was on a mission. A full english breakfast with a quick stop at Tescos to grab some marmite then lastly to the bookshop for some supplies...europe's missing some creature comforts.

I'd taken the plane out of Amsterdam on Friday evening since on Thursday night Tiga were playing up there. Pretty good stuff, although a 5am finish with work in a few hours' time was a big taxing. Got chatting with a German who was coming back from visiting the Netherlands then stopped off at Dusseldorf for a "quick" beer. Time wasn't on my side of course and I missed the last train back to Frankfurt. Whoops....Luckily my accomplice in crime had a couch for me to crash on, so all good there.

this week gonna boost off to amsterdam again and catch Vive la fete if I'm not in Bulgaria, then make my way back through Bremen and crash there the night, before coming back to Frankfurt on Sunday. That's the plan anyhow.