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After an extra fascinating day on Thursday at Boston airport and on British Airways (which was much more enjoyable than American Airlines), I finally arrived at Heathrow at about 10pm and got to my hostel about 1am (but not before I got slightly lost and amused myself by giggling about being lost on a Monopoly board whenever I passed Regent Street or Pall Mall or Piccadilly Circus). Had a good sleep in on Friday before doing small amounts of touristy things like Big Ben and the London Eye which were both impressive. I then met up with Victoria, my friend from Melbourne, and a couple of her friends and we went out for a few pints.
Saturday started out very pleasantly with scrambled eggs on toast at a place called the Muffin Man (the Muffin Man? The Muffin Man). (The place was just called the Muffin Man, the stuff in the parentheses was me). We went shopping at the Portobello Markets which seemed to go on forever. I resisted the urge to buy anything since (for economic reasons that I still don't understand cause, dammit, I worked hard for my money), my money is worthless over here (ok, maybe not hard, but I did have to put up with Melbourne Health). I did, however, indulge in a cupcake from Hummingbirds which was well worth it. We went to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on Saturday night to see The Merry Wives of Windsor and got standing yard tickets for 5 pounds. The show was great and was one of the highlights of my trip thus far. We went out for pizza / pasta afterwards and had an extremely hilarious dinner (the food was excellent, the conversation was the hilarious part). The staff at the restaurant may have been concerned about us.
Sunday started with some frantic organising of train tickets and such followed by shopping at Camden Town, the local alternative area. I did cave and buy a dress but it is an awesome dress so I'm not feeling too guilty about it. I had some great Indian food while I was there and spent the rest of the day hanging out at Victoria's while she dyed my hair and her housemate, Jodi, became my travel agent, booking my flight to and accommodation in Norway where I will be heading on October 1st.
Monday morning I headed off to Salisbury, determined to make it to Stonehenge before the end of autumn equinox. I arrived in Salisbury and went on a search for the number 63 bus which supposedly would take me to the hostel. The bus station turned out to be on the opposite side of town to the train station so I had a bit of trek to get there, followed by an interesting bus ride down tiny, hedge-lined lane where the bus made several stops and then had to do a 3 point turn to get out again. Then came the half hour trek down a country lane to the hostel! Not fun when you have 25kg of stuff strapped to you. It was, however, a lovely hostel on a farm where they had many bunnies, guinea pigs, regular pigs, goats, sheepies and horsies to pat. It was also nice and quiet and by far the cleaniest and nicest smelling hostel I have stayed at. It was, as you may have gathered, in the middle of nowhere, so I opted to catch a cab up to Stonehenge. I was suitable impressed with Stonehenge, except for the extremely large contingent of stupid tourists taking stupid tourist photos. I spent quite a long time both taking photos being very careful to ensure that no stupid tourist solied my photos and generally being in awe of the large pile of stones that is Stonehenge.
I spent most of Monday night and Tuesday bumming around the farm, generally being lazy and having a holiday from my travels. I also went into Amesbury briefly to obtain some more cash (my credit card has not before suffered this kind of abuse), which was, errm, interesting. I had beans on toast for lunch (they love their baked beans here) and a latte which I'm quite sure was made from UHT milk (it made a skin on top..eww). Anyway, the place was very pleasant but decided to make my way back to London on Wednesday partly so that I could save a few quid by staying with Victoria for a few nights and Tim and Di for a few nights and partly because I'm mad at a certain boy who shall not be named and felt like going back to where I had friends.
So, Wednesday I packed up all my stuff again and did the trek back to the bus and then the trek between the bus and the train. It wasn't as bad on the way back as I knew what to expect. Victoria (who was devestated by the smashing of her laptop screen) and I (who was still mad at unnamed boy) went out for an indulgent dinner of garlic pizza, pasta with buffalo mozzarella and the most decedent banana and chocolate waffle ever. Plus a fair amount of wine. We quite enjoyed it.
I had a rather hilarious day today. I had to go to an Australian themed pub (called Walkabout) to get tickets for Saturday's Grand Final (doors open at 5am) and ended up near Southbank so I thought I would wander around for a while. I remembered that I had previously purchased a ticket to the London Dungeons but it was an off peak ticket so I couldn't use it before 3pm. I happened to walk past the London Bridge Experience and London Tombs and decided that I had an hour to kill so I might as well. It looked rather kitchy and hilarious. Turned out to be both kitchy and hilarious and also terrifying. The tombs were a series of very dark rooms which scary things in them and people jumping out of the dark to scare the crap out of you (mum, this would be your worst nightmare). It's not often that I find myself screaming like a girl but this was one of those few occasions. Anyway, back to hanging around at Victoria's house, which is actually very similar to staying at a hostel. About 10 people live here.
Love and hugs to Neptune and Bunni. Love to Sammy.
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