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Wow!!! It has been a million years since my last blog entry. I settled into London and abandoned my blog, taking up facebook again. Now that I’m about to set off again, I thought it was time to do an essay/mini book of whats been happening in my travels and life over the last nine months. I’m going to try and set out some of the sights I’ve seen in chronological order (being the organisational freak I am!) so bear with me and skip through if its getting a bit boring.
I settled in London in late August 08 and moved into a huge, crappy house in north east London living with 8 others; sharing a room with two girls from Australia and New Zealand. I scored a sweet job in UK govt and have had an awesome time living it up over here.
I have seen a few bands over here; went to get loaded festival in Clapham Common where I saw supergrass, presets, and kate nash, and cut copy at Koko in Camden and Xavier Rudd at the Forum with Eryn.
I went back to Ireland again to visit Nick and Meg, and they headed over to London for a weekend before they moved over to the UK in November.
I saw changing of the guards at Buckingham palace, took a day trip to Stone Henge and Bath with Beth. I’ve been trying to get ‘cultural’ seeing theatre and opera and trying to take advantage of everything this ace city has on offer.
I wrote a list of things I wanted to see while I was here and there’s only a few things left… I’ve checked out the Tate Modern, Transport Museum (all I wanted to know was how fast the tube goes- I swear- and they didn’t tell me but they did have a simulation machine so you could have a go at pretend driving the train through the tunnels- b.t.w. Google told me they go up to 30m per hour).
I also went up to the viewing platform on the Tower bridge (which gives AMAZING views of the river), V&A, borough markets, spital fields, and petticoat lane market, walkie, natural history museum, science museum, Churchill museum, the annual tnt travel show where I got a Australian meat pie and dim sim (which just wasn’t the same!).
I took a day trip to York for the xmas markets (which were non existent because of the horrible rainy weather!), a day trip to Oxford where I punted down the river (and bought the hat just for the photo op!) and Cotswolds where jade and I had traditional scones with cream and jam. I also atttended Westminster Abbey for the bushfire memorial (I sat less than 100metres away from KRudd, Gordon Brown and Prince Charles!!!), clink prison museum and more…
I’ve visited most of my rele’s over here and it’s enabled me to see lots of areas of Britain I would’ve have otherwise like Norwich, Devon and Sheffield, and have had numerous trips down to Brighton, shoreham-by-sea, and visited Lewes to bring back some childhood memories and visit granny’s grave and house.
A few places left on the list like the National Portrait Museum, Cambridge and the Lion King…
For New Year 2008/2009 I went on a Fanatic’s tour to Edinburgh for Hogmanay which was FREEZING but ace nonetheless. It is a really amazing city which is quite haunting and gothic in so many ways. I would’ve loved to have lived in a town like that years ago, but not sure if I could deal with the cold- it’s a really humid cold rather than dry which makes it really unbearable. Hogmanay was ace- we went to a pub to count in the New Zealand NY, then to the walkie for the Aussie NY then snooze, before putting on every layer of clothing I had and heading out- two layers of leggings, jeans, leg warmers, about 10 layers on top (at least), thermal beanie, ski gloves, thermal socks… then we got there, and there’s chicks seriously wearing a bikini top and tutu’s- ‘Hello 2009 and pneumonia’! On new years day we did a ghost tour through the tunnels underneath the main bridge which was freaky but well worth it. There was a graveyard tour too that I was keen to do but the pub was calling!! That night there was a festival which seemed to be for the local scottish folk, which was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen- I am still of the belief that they were all on crack! Ha ha (j/k!)
London was pretty cold over winter and when Shanna visited she even brought some snow over in October when we got out of seeing the Chicago musical; I walked home in the snow that night!! But I don’t think anyone was expecting the amount of snow that arrived in early February- so much, and so unprepared was the city that all public transport stopped - I couldn’t even get into work; and then when some of the tubes did start again, it was forecast that it would get worse in the afternoon so we were told not to go in. My housemates and I walked up to Finsbury park to make snow men, do snow angels, and play in the snow all day.
The end of that week I headed to Norway with Bonnie to visit Sara and have a bit of a Cambodia girl’s reunion! It was crazy because there was snow on the runway at Stanstead airport and it cancelled flights and caused delays all morning; then when we arrived at Oslo the plane flew onto snow on the runway, and we were surrounded about 6 foot of snow! While it was cold but didn’t feel anywhere near as cold as it was in Edinburgh because it wasn’t a wet cold. The place was like a fairytale; I saw these houses in the middle of no-where, surrounded by snow, and their occupants cross county skiing to get out to the road. It puts a whole new meaning to ‘I’ll just duck out to get a pint of milk’- that’s for sure! We sat at the front of the bus on the trip from the airport to the city which was a petrifying experience because it’s this huge coach driving on snow and it was slippery. Mad. And it snows for six months of the year, every year. The sea freezes over in winter, and people go swimming in summer. Such extreme changes! Oslo was an awesome experience!! Both nights we partied until 4-5am so missed out on some of the touristy things we would have done if we were up before midday! I’ve got to say- standing in a line; waiting to get into a place at -10 degrees is a whole other experience, and walking home half pissed- well, you wake up pretty quickly trying to navigate through the snow. We did manage to get to the Edward Munch museum and got a photo with ‘the scream’! I can’t believe they were fine with us taking photos as long as we had the flash off; especially after the museum was broken into and paintings stolen a few years back- I gotta say tho- the security was crazy extreme!
Jade and I headed down to Newquay for Easter- we were desperate to see some sand and water (i.e. Beach!!) We took an overnight bus there which was horrid- seven hours, stopping every twenty minutes throughout the night I swear. We got in at 6.30am and the hostel didn’t open until at least 10am so we walked around and found a coffee shop and stayed there for a couple of hours to kill time. We couldn’t find the beach though- it looked like just cliffs and sea; until we returned from the coffee shop and walked back towards the hostel and all of a sudden there was a huge beach- the tide was insane- I reckon it would’ve gone back about 1km, and pretty quickly. It was a really nice little town, sort of reminded me of Lennox Head, or of Byron before it became developed. There was a HUGE Walkabout pub- I couldn’t believe it- a tiny town of 15k people and a huge Walkie- ha ha- I think all the Aussies must flock there in summer for the English version of sand and surf! It was forecast for rain and a max of ten degrees so I was stoked that the sun was out the whole weekend and it got to about 17 degrees- I think I thought it was summer and sun baked in a singlet; and got the flu as a result! Had a fab chilled out weekend.
On Thursday I’m off to Turkey- last day at work tomorrow. I’m doing a tour starting in Istanbul, heading to Anzac cove, Gallipoli for the Anzac day service, and then heading through Ankara, and down to Cappodocia, down to the coast, and back up again, then a few extra days in Istanbul at the end! Can’t wait…
Then of course the big news- I’ve got a position on a training trip to be a tour guide- I’m stoked! Start in just over a month; first stop a classroom in a hostel in London for a week, then Paris and onwards! I CANNOT WAIT!
Make sure you keep in touch with me and write some posts- from now on I’m going to be contactable on a sporadic basis as I’m going to be a bit of a nomad again- yah!
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