Where's Jane?

Life in transit

2009-12-21T05:44:00.001-08:00

Comedians often take great fodder from plane travel, the food, the rituals of getting on, off, from and to the airport and the primal state that people seem to return to when confined within tin for long hours, Seinfeld made a career out of it.
If I thought it would illuminate matters in anyway then so would I.

Part of me had been dreading the flight. The length mainly. In the weeks before hand I'd been talking about the duration of the flight like a war story with my work collegues, “Flying to Spain? Pah, this is nearly 24 hours baby, you don't know nothing”. When I flew over a year ago, I had the luxury of a weeks break between flights in Abu Dhabi with Bec and Ryan, this time I was flying right through.
Russ and I stayed at the Yotel at Heathrow the night before, partially because I love the showers and partially because it means that we don't have to get up ridiculously early in order to catch public transport to the airport. I'm an over prepared traveller, if they tell you to get there 3 hours before travel then I get there 4 just in case. The day that I don't, I'm convinced that there will be some major disaster preventing me from getting to the airport and making me miss the plane.
It helps with feeling somewhat rested before embarking upon a journey the Yotel does. I think I've waxed lyrical about the monsoon showers there before. This time when we tried the shower we found it wasn't draining as fast as it should and it was slightly flooding the bathroom, I was too tired to change rooms at this point so we just put up with it, a little bit of shower then turn it off to let it drain then a little bit of shower and then off to let it drain. We mentioned it to the desk clerk the next morning and to the credit of Yotel they emailed me about a week after I arrived here, offering me a free night in the Yotel when I get back to make up for it which was lovely. Yayy Yotel. Any how, back to the plane.
My one consolation on long plane flights is the chance to watch lots of movies, lots and lots and lots of movies. I have books and things to write in also but when I'm tired and cant sleep, what I want is movies. We took off and I settled into the flight, waiting with anticipation for them to turn on the entertainment system, flicking through the inflight mag to find out what they'd be showing.
For some reason, some peoples screens came on and others didn't. Mine was not one of the lucky ones, it looked like the system was being reloaded. Again some screens came on and others didn't though this time you could watch a movie, it was only one in English, The Time Travellers Wife, not the best thing to watch after you've just said goodbye to your boyfriend for a month. After about 10 mins, it seemed as though the movie was restarted again and I went through the same bit of the movie again feeling somewhat less emotional. Then again, and again. Suffice to say I have seen the first 10 mins of the time travellers wife 8 times. Its not bad, but it took me about 3 hours to get to the end of it. There was an announcement after the third restart informing us that we were experiencing some problems with the entertainment system (gasp!) and that the cabin crew were endeavouring to resolve the issue with the vendor on the ground. They were sure that it would be fixed soon but alas it was not. Seven hours. And I was a bit too tired to read the whole time so my only option was to play, 'what's this movie about anyway?' A spontaneous game I invented which basically involves watching movies over dubbed in foreign languages and trying to work out what they're about. There are no subtitles, basically you have to guess and lip read quickly. The movie was “Adam” with Rose Byrne, about a guy with Aspergers who falls in love with the aforementioned Rose. Its better in English, it loses something in the German overdub, everyone seems angry.
The seven hour plane ride is nothing, its the subsequent 14 hour flight that's the killer if the entertainment wasn't on that flight I think I would have turned back. I had 2 hours in transit at Abu Dhabi before getting on the second plane, a bit of a walk and some duty free shopping to occupy myself. Some random chat with a fellow traveller, a woman in her sixties who had come from Croatia, she lived in Geelong and wore black after the untimely death of her son some years before. She carried a brown coat given to her by some relatives in Croatia to protect her against the sudden cold we'd had before we left. She was angry that it wasn't black and was planning on getting rid of it as soon as she got home. She wore black so no one would forget her son, even after many years. It seemed both sad and noble.
14 hours, first thing I did was check the entertainment system and it worked!
I watched the Adam movie in English this time and a bunch of other things that provided distraction rather than entertainment. Crossing Australia seemed to take forever, we came in just over the bottom half of West Australia and cut across the great Australian bight. Everytime I looked at the map charting the plane's course we seemed no closer than before. We came in for the approach and the panic that comes from being cooped up set in “Where's the runway, I don't see the runway!” The last ounce of rationality in me summoned up a counter voice that said “It doesn't matter if you cant see the runway, as long as the pilot can then its ok”. God bless that voice. We landed without incident and then had to sit around for about 20 mins as someone had taken our gate at the airport. If we could have we would have used the emergency slides, anything to get out.
Australia is the only country where I have to fill out paperwork to get in. Everyone scrambled for pens to complete boarding cards and run the maze to get through passport control and customs. With the new passports they're issuing now you can go through these smart gate things that use face recognition software to check that you are who you say you are. I felt a little like I was being probed to be honest with you, and not in a good way. I got through customs relatively unmolested and came out the little arrivals doors feeling a little exposed to the world. Everyone lines up out the front of those doors pouring over everyone who walks through them and if you aren't who they're waiting for often times they look distinctly disappointed with you, after a long flight its hard not to take that personally. The kids made up for it though, little choruses when they saw me, they'd all gotten so tall. Jack has taken to growing his hair so now he has a little blonde mop happening. Having gone to his school concert and seeing all the other kids it seems to be a trend, I must be getting old.

In my next installment: Curtain twitching and country living.

And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

2009-12-11T01:48:00.000-08:00

The last few months of the year seem to have sped towards me with cliched swiftness and its often felt like I've had little time to mark things down. That is never a good thing as you end up forgetting little details and losing track of where you are. This is my attempt to catch up a little bit.

Since last I blogged, Russ and I returned once more to Brighton, for a day trip this time which happened to coincide with the Labour Party conference. The crowds neatly divided between bemused tourists, angry protesters and heavily armed security but the sun still shone on chav peir and we bravely removed our shoes to dip our feet in the English channel. My advice to you is don't do it, its just water and the stones, they hurt your feet. We made the trek once more to the Cowley club and explored the lanes more thoroughly as well as doing a little more caching, which is markedly more nerve wracking when you're surrounded by armed police officers.

In the middle of all of this I was finding somewhere new to live, somewhat inopportunely considering the Australia trip was looming at the end of November. I ran around like a mad woman seeing places every night and working during the day. Fretting about whether I could find something in time and if I did, how I would go leaving all my things with relative strangers, until finally I found somewhere in Richmond. Its about a 10 min walk from the centre of Richmond and about the same distance from Kew Gardens tube station. The house is beautiful as are the people, another lesson in trusting the universe I guess.

Work has also moved out to the Sky campus at Osterley as well which has lessened the commute somewhat even though there's no where interesting to walk to at lunchtime now.

All that running around and crisis gave rise to a subsequent period of relative calm which always makes me panic. And so I did. Ever so slightly, having one of those “how did I get there moments”.
In the last year I've done more things that I always wanted to do than I thought possible in such a sort space of time. I went to the icehotel, sleeping in minus eight degrees and went to Italy and partied at Balmoral castle. Lived in London and fell in love with one of its natives. Everything had been so amazing that for a second I kept expecting that at some point I'd have to wake up and return to reality. When I left Australia last year I had a return ticket and I gave myself a year. A year to have adventures and do whatever I liked, a year where I let myself do the things I always wanted without needing more reason than just wanting. As this gift of a year draws to a close I had to evaluate what it is that I want to do next, how I saw my life.
What I asked myself was why should it end? Why shouldn't life be a series of adventures. I took a risk leaving work and my home in Australia but I have to say that its one that has paid off.

I have plans for what I will do with myself for the next year, the next three years, the next five years, these are preferences rather than anything set in stone as I think if you get too attached to plans and make them to far ahead you end up being disappointed when they change. When they come to fruition I'll let you know. What has changed fundamentally for me over the last year though is the belief that if you want to do something then you should, and more often than not if you don't stand in your own way there is no reason why you cant do the things you dream of.

In my next update: What do you do when you're on a 7 hour flight and the entertainment system fails or how I almost learnt german.

A Happy Birthday, sticky balaklavas and the sea

2009-09-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

Dear god I should really be more regular with this stuff, I'm missing out on details by leaving such large gaps between blogging. Lets see how I go with that resolution shall we? Now, where have I been of late? Well lots of places actually, but lots of little places, much exploring of little bits of London. Its an activity I could well spend forever doing and still not see everything. I finally made it to the British Library last week for one thing. I have to find out how I can get a job there so I can be there every day. Right smack in the centre of the building itself is a four story glass cube which contains 'The King's Collection', which is basically the collected library of King George the third. He donated it to the British library on the stipulation that his books be kept separate from all the other books, which takes elitism to new heights one might conclude. Endless shelves of books suspended behind glass, tantalisingly, its almost voyeuristic in some strange way but maybe that's just me. Books are meant to be read I think, so just displaying them like that is like seeing them crucified. They want you to read them, crack their spines just a little and give them the perusing they so guiltily desire. Ok, clearly that's just a me thing. Do go though if you can, they have a copy of the original Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Adventures Underground, that was handwritten by Lewis Carroll and given to Alice herself as a present. Clearly she fell on hard times as an adult after the death of her husband and had to sell her copy which ended up being displayed at Columbia University in the US before it was purchased by a group of American business men and then given back to the British Public “in recognition of the publics bravery in facing Hitler before the Americans joined the war”. Aww, generous and a teeny bit patronising.
We were down that way originally to check out an open day at The School of Life which is an enterprise started by Alain De Botton which aims to offer pragmatic and considered solutions to leading a more fulfilled, spiritual, physical, political and social life. They have all kinds of books and classes which you can buy or sign up for, some struck me as interesting and others less so. I think that's possibly a good test of what it is you might be lacking in your life, like cravings indicate difficencies. I was drawn more to the political stuff and the things about how to have a satisfying work life, the purposes and benefits of work beyond a pay check. The School of life is located in Marchmont st and there happened to be a street festival there that weekend, it was just a little local community thing but there were a bunch of little book stalls and Russ bought me a beautiful copy of Jane Eyre from one of them. We found a little collection of food stalls in a court just off Marchmont street where we bought Baklava to feed Rusty's new found addiction (I got him hooked in Brighton but he can never remember what its called) and I got some beautiful aged balsamic and lemon infused olive oil which sounds incredibly yuppyish I realise, but I like balsamic vinegar damnit.

My biggest trip lately though has been to Brighton. It was Rusty's birthday this month so as a little present I organised us a trip to Brighton. I was dying to go myself and he hadn't been in years.
I found this hotel called the Artists Residence which is an art gallery and hotel where the artists decorate the rooms in their own styles. It makes for somewhere totally unique, interesting and colourful to stay and we loved it. The room we stayed in had a balcony so at the end of the day of wandering and in the morning as we made our plans for the day, we could sit on the balcony listening to the seagulls and watching the sea gnaw on the bones of the old west pier.
Our goals when we got there were simple, have fish and chips on the beach, count waves, find a cache, see the pavilion and the lanes and go visit the Cowley club. The Cowley club is a libertarian / anarchist bookshop which was named after a man called Harry Cowley who was a grass roots activist in Brighton, campaigning for things such as cheap food and practical aid for the poor and aged. The waves we counted on our first day, crashing round the ankles of the west pier, now all but claimed by the sea. We also ticked off the fish and chips on our first day as well, though found much better ones on the second day. Rusty found a cache in a big piece of public sculpture on the seafront that was crawling with muggle children, he was really stealthy about it, I was very proud.

We wandered down the seafront on our first say, past endless rows of market stalls selling all kinds of pretty at all kinds of prices down to the kitschy glory of Brighton Pier, if you dont go for the chance to hurk your fish and chips on an unsuspecting spectators while strapped to a stupidly scary ride 100 foot in the air, go for the people watching. I have no idea why but I have never seen so many women in stilettoes in my life, promenading up and down the pier, orange, sausage legs crammed into a podiatrists nightmare, tottering up and down the pier dodging fallen battered sausages and molten fairy floss. We fled and watched the sunset from the beach with our fish and chips.

Day two we walked back along the now deserted beach, the bank holiday was over for most and we felt like the only ones left after the party. We made it to the Royal Pavilion, the former seaside resort of King George the fourth when he was just the Prince Regent and had more time on his hands. Its a pity they didn't let you take photos inside, the music room was amazing, I didn't want to leave it. You'll have to go looking on the net for pictures, for me to try and describe it would not do justice to either it or my memories. Such a lot of walking though, wandering all over the pavilion and the gallery next door and then around the lanes finding somewhere for lunch. Neil, my GPS, seemed to crack the sads with us on the second day as well and so was prone to lead us off on tangents because we weren't paying him enough attention. Some people might put that down to poor satellite reception due to building obstruction but where's the fun in that.

I wondered how much it would be like St Kilda and it has to be said that there are similarities, its akin to visiting your great grandmother and observing how much your sister looks like her.
I have missed the sea though, we'll be going back there in a few weeks for a day trip to check out more of the lanes and spend a little more time in the Cowley Club.

So from here my next big trip is Melbourne, back for a month in December I am. Will be interesting visit Melbourne knowing that I'm only there for a short time. I'm hoping that it gives me a new perspective on it, I have taken for granted what I know of Melbourne. I'll have to grab the kids and go exploring again.
Ah blogging I've missed you, I wont leave it so long next time. xxx

This green and pleasant land

2009-07-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

Ah gentle readers, it has been some time since I updated here. Since I got back from Italy the hum drum of London has sucked me back in but I am nothing if not easily distracted.
I settled back into work, taunting my work mates with little anecdotes that begin “When I went to Italy....” which have replaced the ones that used to start with “ When I go to Italy.....”
And now its a steady flow of days from here until my trip to Melbourne in December. I'll be flying in to Tullamarine at about 7:15 pm on the 29th of November and I'll be around the old town til boxing day before I head back over here and back to work. This marathon stretch of no travelling will be broken only by a trip to Brighton at the end of August which I cant wait for, the sun (maybe) the sea (definitely) the sand (not so much) but I will be sure to take plenty of photos.
So what's been happening since I spoke to you last? I'm glad you asked. We had a tube strike, That was a bit exciting. I have had soft spots for unions before but it has to be said that in this instance the RMT who were responsible for this strike didn't really do a great job of getting their point across as to exactly why we should be sympathetic towards them calling this 48 hour massively annoying stop work action. From what I understand they were asking for a 5% wage increase as well as a guarantee of no redundancies which in this economic climate is probably a bit much to ask. The 5% wage increase is also double that of police and emergency service workers so again, possibly a bit much. I cant help but think that it would have served them better in the court of public opinion to simply throw open the gates to the tube stations and turn of the ticket machines and let everyone ride for free as a means of getting their point across. They have been threatening to throw another strike and last I heard their demands still hadn't been agreed to. Most people that I saw out on the 2 days seemed to be coping pretty well though, those who didn't give up completely and stay home enjoyed a crowded 2 or 3 hour bus journey to make a trip that would normally take you about 15 minutes on the tube. My workmate Vanessa and I resorted to playing I spy, ( I won) and guess that song with Vanessa's ipod (I'd forgotten what Richard Marx sounded like). Two days it lasted, a two hour journey in the morning and a three hour one at night.
The Kings Road was a little quieter than usual but at least it never rained.
Its summer here now, gentle, shoe tying breezes, green grass and drinking Pimm's by a body of water weather. For me its the Thames, I'm spending lots of time in Richmond in this glorious english summer weather, walking up and down the river, exploring little areas like Twickenham, Teddington and Eel Pie Island. Eel Pie Island is mostly a collection of artists studios and boat building sheds. An island in the middle of the Thames, there is only one foot bridge on to it and no cars at all, I think one of the residents has a tank of some sort but definitely no cars. Teddington is the home to Teddington Studios and to Teddington Lock where Monty Pythons fish slapping sketch was filmed, I stood in the place where it was filmed, they were brave men to dive into that water. The other day I had a bacon sandwich at Diners Delight, also known as the cafe where Tim and Daisy met in spaced. Richmond is also famous for its residents, Mick Jagger mostly, he lives up on the hill when he's in town apparently. Somewhat less famous is the site of Fantasy Bazzar, the comic shop run by Bill Bailey also in Spaced. It used to be the real life home of They Walk Among Us but they've moved around the corner now, vacating the immortalised shopfront to some internet hosting company. In the glorious sunshine there is nothing more I want to do than wander around London's vast open spaces, and I've been to a few now. Climbed Parliament Hill in Hampstead Heath and saw the brilliant views. Listened to the crazies at Speakers Corner in Hyde park and walked around the Serpentine. Fed the squirrels in Kensington Gardens much to the distain of Prince Charles. Wandered through Regents Park and along the canals in Camden. Climbed Richmond Hill to more expansive views and was a little disturbed by the warnings about rutting deer, but the best park so far would have to be Bushy Park in Teddington. I went the other day and saw a little baby deer and a swan and couts that follow you as you walk along the little river, waiting for you to feed them bread. I saw the surface of said river broken by a what appeared to be some kind of dorsel fin, unexpected and puzzling, only to find on closer inspection that it belonged to a giant carp. Its the perfect combination of open grassy nothings and little woody nooks along with the occasional manicured chocolate box water feature. Its a holiday at home, little sojourns into the country even though its only about half an hour from where I live. And all free, when so much else in London isn't. All winter and most of spring I have been disturbed at intervals by the blood curdling screams of the foxes making foxy love on the green outside my window. Their passion sounds not unlike a young girl being brutally murdered, I do not wish to come back in my next life as a fox. The result of all of this disconcerting ardour is new baby foxes which seem to be increasingly venturing out during the day, sunbathing on the tops of peoples garden sheds and drinking from the watering can we keep filled in the garden for them. Overnight they get into the garbage and spread debris along the lane creating little crime scenes where some plastic bag has had its insides ripped out. In the mornings I'm being woken by a squirrel, which is cute but slightly less endearing when its timescale differs wildly from mine. When I am feeding them barbeque shapes in Kensington gardens on a lazy afternoon then they are supremely cute, when they are dancing on my skylight at 5 am they are less so. We're starting to get thunderstorms as well, I'd missed thunderstorms. The summer ones in melbourne used to be spectacular but had been increasingly replaced by wind storms before I left. We had a huge downpour that apparently soaked those poor Harry Potter kids at their opening, Aw bless. Big booms of thunder like mountains falling into the sea and then the sky fell. As I write this another thunder storm is winding down. Nice little bit of thunder and lighting and now that fresh post rain smell drifting in through the french doors. Days pass decorated by these little experiences, foxes, squirrels, parks and the occasional bit of rain. I take my happiness where I can get it and store it up for the winter. Take care xxx

Venice

2009-05-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

Every day I was in Rome I found myself coming back to my hotel room and pouring out the intricacies of the day. Where I went, who I talked to, it rolled out of me but it has to be said that it was mostly intellectual observation, details rather than emotions. Venice was different. It struck me dumb. In terms of stories, I'm coming away with a million of those but it hit me on a level that doesn't lend itself to blogging possibly, blogging being a speedy kind of sketching of events rather than the slow evolution of an idea. I shall do my best to explain myself. Being in Venice feels not unlike a waking dream. The colours are brighter, the sounds are so different like the slapping of the water against stone, the low vibration of the Vaporetto and other boats, church bells and then because I'm staying in more of a residential area, what sounds like an incredibly heated argument in Italian but which is often just a couple of friends enquiring after each others health.
When I first arrived here I was hot from walking from the station, when I got to Italy the temperature soared every day, in the high 30's in Rome and somewhere in that vicinity in Venice as well with the added bonus of humidity. So I showered and changed and headed out into the city to get myself acquainted and find something to eat. You can spend so much time just hanging out here, I decided to make it a rule that there would be no lining up for things on this trip, for one reason because I don't have enough time, the second reason is that not lining up for things means that I don't see all the big attractions, like inside the Colosseum and the Basilica di San Marco. I don't know why but it feels like committing to seeing that stuff now feels so final, like I'll never come back and I want to. I really, really want to. So instead I walked, I walked all over Venice on my first day and my second day and then the third day I caught a bunch of Vaporetto's (Venice's system of water buses)out to Burano, Murano and Torchello. So here we go. My first afternoon I walked down to the Ponte Rialto but decided to save crossing it until the next day when I would also go see Piazza Di San Marco. Instead I had dinner at its feet, in a restaurant that probably charged too much but that I knew would charge too much and didn't care. Sometimes in life you have to allow yourself to do that which is not sensible but is just for fun. I spent my time regarding the Ponte Rialto drinking red wine a lot faster than I normally would, it had never tasted that good before. After dinner, mercifully sober, I wandered back through the streets of Venice until dusk began to fall, catching snippets of conversation of people as they passed me being carried on in what seemed like every language on earth. I came upon a little gelateria that made its own ice cream and grabbed a scoop of tirimisu gelato and a scoop of nutella gelato, then found myself a little spot on the shoulder of a bridge and watched the sun set on my first day in Venice. That became my little ritual, every day, 2 scoops, same bridge, sunset.
It cost me 2 euro for the gelato and I felt like I stole the sunset.
On the second day I woke up at dawn, I don't know why but I did. Watched the sun return over the houses around me and then headed out into the streets again. I naively decided that I would wander without a map, with only a plan to see the Piazza at some point, and see what else it got me. And I saw a hell of a lot of Venice, some markets, lots of gondolieri, millions of churches, crossed the Rialto bridge once purposefully and three times by accident. It really was like a dream, where you were trying to get somewhere but no matter what kept coming to yet another turning. But still in all that aimless wandering there were little moments, like finding a water fountain where I could fill my water bottle with icy cold fresh water, they were a welcome sight in Rome too, I wish we had them everywhere. Or finding little plaques and murals, sometimes of the Madonna or a saint, sometimes just a hand or a sun, I like those little details.
Eventually I just followed the hum of the crowd, the distant whispering of the ocean of people waiting to get into the basilica. That was what got me there. I sat in the square just watching them all, occasionally being bugged by a Romany Gypsy wanting euro or an African guy trying to sell me a fake Gucci bag, it kills the romance of the moment sure but that's what happened. I mapped the outside of the basilica in photographs, glad that I was moving on and not waiting in the interminable heat. I walked past Florian's, again photographing it and deciding that I did not need to pay for the pleasure of going inside it. I spent a lot of time in the piazza, wandering and photographing things. Recording the sounds in my head and trying not to kick pigeons. The pigeons are maybe too tame there.
Maybe I was savouring the moment, maybe I was stalling for time because I could not remember how I got to the square or how to get myself back. In the end I opted to navigate back as best I could and ended up having lunch in a nice little restaurant halfway back. Bruschetta and campari soda. Red, soft, tang and sweetness of the tomatoes and cool, icy, bitterness of campari.
I found the spiral staircase of the Borolo Palace as I was trying to navigate my way back to Cannareggio, a surprisingly well hidden and deserted attraction. Foot sore I made it back over to my little district, where I know my way around, know who has the cheapest gelato and granita's and had my afternoon arranchia rossa granita on a little bench I found tucked away from the action but right near the water. When its that hot and humid being away from the water is almost unbearable, the air is still and wraps around you like steam trapped under cling film bearing down upon your skin. Watched the people go by cooled by a little breeze off the grand canal and then when I felt rested, browsed through all the shops I hadn't been in yet. Found a little escape from the heat for dinner in a restaurant with a garden where I had pizza and made sure I left enough room for my evening gelato. Then, when it was time I, went to what I've now decided is my gelato place, collected my 2 scoops and then went down to the bridge to watch the sun set. I had to scare away some tourists coz they took my spot but I did it and they ran and so I ate my gelato in peace.
I limped home, I had walked for nearly 13 hours on cobble stones. I came back and turned on the laptop intending to commit my thoughts to word and promptly fell into unconsciousness waking only at some point to turn off the light. Still in my clothes, on top of the bed, until morning woke me.
Sunday was Vaporetto day, you can get a 12 hour Vaporetto pass for 16 euro otherwise its 6.50 euro for a single journey. I caught one to Murano to see the glass blowers and check out all their wares, then another to Burano so I could connect with one to Torchello. Torchello hoped to be Venice before the plague redesigned its future, and now is a mostly quiet collection of houses, restaurants and churches. There is a faint eeriness to it that is interesting. I'd like to spend a night there one time I think. Burano is famous for its lace but what struck me most about it was the brightly coloured houses. Vibrant blues and greens and even pink enhanced the feeling of being in a dream. They had welcome stretches of cool green grass and shady trees near the docks as well so I spent some time laying around there watching the world go by. When I got back to Venice I could still feel the swaying of the sea and it swayed me right into another church when a gust of cool air seduced me through its doors. They smack you dumb these churches, which I guess is the point. Like God himself catching you on the back of the head as you walk in the door and asking through clenched teeth “Believe in me now?” You cant take photos of the inside of a lot of them though so their exact renderings will have to remain mostly inside my head unless you come here. This one was stunning both for its art and the marble decorations, like black and white lace rendered in marble covering every inch of the inside of the church. I wrote most of this on my last night here and was trying not to think too much about leaving. I headed out, grabbed some dinner and then toke my gelato to the bridge to say good bye to the sunset. I walked down to the bridge and though about how to end this, my gelato in hand I took my sunset spot and waited but the sunset never came, in Venice there are no good byes, there is only next time. We had a thunder storm that night, the heat broke and there was little rain but mostly thunder and lightning, the air felt cool and scented with the rain. Today I spent the whole day travelling to get back to London. First a train to Rome, then another to the airport then a plane to Heathrow and finally my old faithful Piccadilly line.
What a way to wake up. Venice feels like its been for me, though I'm sure everybody has that reaction. As I went for my last evening walk, taking more photos than I needed to in fear of forgetting something, I saw bunches of people doing the same thing, last gelatos, last kisses on bridges, last pizza by the canal. Sometimes when things hit you profoundly, you kid yourself into thinking that you're the only one its ever happened to, like falling in love. Go to Venice.

Rome...if you want to

2009-05-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

Day 2, I felt a little more familiar with Rome. That kinda heightened state of awareness I tend to feel when I first arrive at a place subsided so that I can cross the road without feeling besieged and happily lose myself in streets knowing that I will be able to navigate myself out somehow. It has to be said though, crossing the street is a test of wills here, they don't stop for you, even when you have a green light and they have a red one the cars keep coming at you. Day 1 my plan of action was to cross with locals or other tourists, using them as human shields. Day 2 I just found breaks in traffic and strode confidently across the street with enough bravado to suggest to drivers that this girls not kidding, that street will be crossed and it will damn well like it.
So the day went like this. I got up, showered and dressed and threw all my things in my trusty green Eumundi Market bag and went for breakfast. Coffee and a cornetti again cept this time I had cappucino instead of espresso, also fantastic, oh such good coffee, why cant they make it in London? Got some Strawberries from the little market because I planned to eat them on the Spanish steps and headed off to Termini to buy my tickets for Venice before hopping on the jump on jump off bus. My destination was the Colosseum and the Roman Forum for a bit of a wander around. Climbed some hills, saw some ruins and a very pretty little church, I visited a lot of them if for no other reason than they were cooler than being outside. I found some graffiti carved into one of the walls near the forum that said Amore Vici Omni and in spite of myself I found it really beautiful. I may be getting less cynical in my old age. Love conquers all, aw.
One of the things I was most grateful for today though was the man selling bottles of frozen water at the base of the Palpatine hill, I certainly felt deep Amore for him right then, the water had been melting in the scorching Roman sun and was just icy cool with flecks of ice in it. Oh my god it was bliss. There was this woman selling little prints just near by and I thought excellent I'll get Dad a little something. She gave me the whole patter, said she painted them herself and I thought oh cool, they're only a couple of euros why not. Got him a nice little print of gondolas near the Rialto Bridge, thought he'd like that before I headed back down to the bus stop just as the next bus was pulling in.

The heat was increasing along with the tourists so when the bus pulled up to where the Bocca Del Veritas is I got off just to get out of the heat for a bit and away from them. Yes I realise that the Bocca Del Veritas is a touristy thing but I don't care. I wanted to get a picture of it and I did, not with my hand in its mouth, I wasn't interested in that, I just wanted a picture of it. I like it, the shape of it and where you can see its been worn away over the years, it reminds me of a lion with leprosy. The church next to it is beautiful inside. Gorgeous mosaic tiles on the floors and little frescos and marble sculpture. I even found some graffiti carved into a column that said Fra Bozio 1742, he is gonna be in sooo much trouble.
Then it was back on to the next bus to pootle off to Piazza Di Popolo. Its a vast, open space which backs on to the Villa Borghese and there are three streets that run off it like a trident. I walked down Via Babuino so I could see the statue that the street is named after. Its considered so ugly it became known as the baboon and that's how the street got its name. People used to write little signs and hang it around the statues neck so it became a 'talking statue' it was a way of anonymously criticising the government back in times where it was not so wise to do so. This eventually lead me down to Piazza di Spanga and the Spanish steps. There is a beautiful fountain in the centre where people were dipping their feet to cool off. Rose sellers, that wander around the piazza trying to cash in on the romance of the moment, sell the most beautiful red roses I've ever seen. The dip them in the fountains to preserve them in the heat and I got a picture to remember it. People clung to every inch of shade like sparrows in summer and I tip toed around them to find my own shady spot on the steps so I could eat my strawberries and survey the scene. Every so often a carabinieri would walk past and blow their whistle and shout something at someone that was unintelligible and constantly changing with all the menace of a quacking duck. At one point I think they said “No eating on the steps!!” but everyone ignored them and they went away. The clearly found better things to do, busting the guys selling fake Dolce and Gabbana belts and bags up the top of the steps, because those guys came running down clutching their wares and casting frantic looks over their shoulders about 10 mins later.
As I ate my strawberries and watched the square I couldn't help over hearing some Irish promotions guys trying to convince some girls to go on their pub crawl. I'm so glad I'm not that age anymore. After my little break in the shade I climbed the rest of the way to the top and surveyed the views of Rome. There are churches everywhere here and there is another at the top of the Spanish Steps which I went into and escaped the heat. You know what else there was up the top of the Spanish Steps, lots of people selling prints of Rome exactly like the one that I bought at the forum. I fell for her tourist patter but like I say only a couple of Euros, no harm done. There are American websites that warn you about all this actually, I made the mistake of reading one before I got here and ended up feeling like all of Italy was just waiting for me to arrive so it could rip me off, but like most things in the hands of Americans it was blown somewhat out of proportion.
After my resigned awakening to the pitfalls of being a tourist, it was down the steps and off to find the Trevi Fountain and some lunch. Lunch first. I grabbed some pasta in a little cafe in one of the side streets off the piazza. They had the most elaborate gelatteria set up and I watched scores of tourists wander in and order “speciale” cones only to come out with the most embarrassing looking icecreams known to man and beast. Huge things, all different colours and flavours in elaborate cones with handfuls of wafers and cream on top and little Italian flags and strawberries and tinsle covered skewers sticking out of them. The conversations usually went:
“Oh my god”
“You carry it”
“No, I'm not carrying that thing”
“I have to take a picture of this”
This was not the place I wanted to get gelato. After a little help from Neil my trust GPS and a little intuition I found my way through the warren of back streets to the Trevi Fountain. The heat drew flocks of people and they came and went in waves though the square the fountain sits in was never clear. It hovered between happily busy and mad crush. Everywhere you go there are people selling little umbrellas and hats for shade to tourists and there were bunches of those guys here, one of them copped a feel as I was wandering past but its Rome right, I would have been offended if I'd come here and someone hadn't tried to feel me up. I found a little corner near the side of the fountain in the shade and decided that NOW was the time for gelato. Helpfully there was a shop nearby, and I got some tirimisu and cafe gelato. I love coffee flavoured icecream. It was a quiet little moment of happy sitting in the cool shade on a hot day near the Trevi Fountain eating gelato. There are a couple of seagulls that hang around the fountain and man they have attitude, they're not scared of anything. They sit there defiantly, so much so that I thought they were sculpted in place until one of them moved. There were these two boys being obnoxious and trying to throw things at one of them but it just looked at them, sqwalked like it was going to come town there and beat the christ out of them and then went back to sunning itself, they, quite understandably decided to leave the bird alone.
I wandered through more back streets eventually making my way back to the Piazza Barberini to jump on another bus thinking I might check out the Villa Borghese. That's when I saw the temperature on one of those flashing signs that tell you the time. 36 degrees! Only made it as far as the Santa Maria Maggiori on that bus because the commentary woman made it sound so interesting I had to have a look. And it was. It illicited a wow from me it did. I took lots of pictures, the ceiling is covered in the first gold that was brought back from the Americas, they said that on the commentary and it caught my attention. When I headed back outside to ask the ticket guy when the next bus was coming he told me I was very lucky. I said Really? he said yes and when I asked why he told me cryptically that there was something on me which slightly freaked me out but I put down to a language barrier, I asked “Is it this?” touching my necklace and he said “No don't touch” and then started randomly chatting to me about where I was from. Most normal people would probably have been freaked out by this but personally my attitude is unless I think someone is going to kill me, they're probably worth chatting to if I have nothing better to do. After asking me one or two questions about myself, ticket guy pointed to my shoulder and said “Now look” and there was a giant fluttering butterfly there before it took off into the sky. Apparently butterflies landing on you makes you lucky. I don't remember his name unfortunately, after he weirded me out a little I didn't pay him full attention. We did chat for a bit and he asked me out which I politely declined, I'll chat to anyone at a bus stop but I draw the line at dating them. Besides which I found out he was married with a wife and 2 kids in India. We talked a bit about life and how it is to be enjoyed before the bus came and happily spirited me away. I thought maybe this time I would make it to the Villa Borghese but by the time we got to that stop I was exhausted and desperately in need of a shower.
Dinner that evening was pizza with potatoe and rosemary. Awesome, I will try making that back in London.

Friends, Romans, country men......

2009-05-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

My first day in Rome and I was exhausted. Got there on the Tuesday night at about 11:30pm and after picking up my bag and clearing customs I was chauffeured into the city by the lovely Alberto. He drove well and at the end said “ok bye bye!” which was very sweet coming from an old Italian guy with a Cheshire grin all over his face. I'm staying at a bed and breakfast in the centre of Rome which is essentially a converted apartment. We're on the fifth floor and the other apartment's are occupied by either residents or shops. I think one might be a hair dresser because on the first day, when I walked downstairs to go to breakfast, I saw they had this beautiful etched art deco sign of a Victorian looking lady with an elaborate hairstyle in profile. Unless of course its some kind of time travelling prostitution service I can see no other context for it.
So yes, where was I, ah arriving at the Bed and Breakfast I buzz up and the guy says to me “The lift is broken, you will have to climb up the stairs”. He says it quickly in the way that people do when they imagine saying things fast enough mitigates argument. Five flights of stairs with my suitcase. Climbing five flights of stairs with a suitcase in and of itself is probably not a great feat but try doing it while trying to be quiet so you don't wake everyone else in the building. As I climbed up the last stair with my case, like it was Everest, the reception guy said “Oh sorry, I didn't know that you were on your own or I would have offered to help”. Really? The fact that I booked a single room didn't clue you in? I had that happen a lot too, people being puzzled about me travelling alone and with the benefits of the post editing process I can tell you that in the time that I stayed there the lift worked only once, when I was leaving to go to Venice, poetic no? Though I suppose I cant expect a great deal from something that cost me under 200 euro for 3 nights. I even had my own bathroom, and it was clean. No matter, I was there, and it all felt happily surreal. Its hard to place Rome in one category because there is so much going on there and such a convergence of everything, time, places, people. This must be what they mean when they say all roads lead to Rome. Have you ever had a dream where you were in a place that was at once familiar but indefinably so. One of those rambling dreams that start with you saying “Well, I thought I was in my old house but then I was in a market and you were there but you weren't you you were someone else....” That's what Rome feels like in real life. Parts of it feel like Abu Dhabi, parts of it feel like Melbourne, parts of it feel like London, one part reminded me of what Beirut must feel like though I have never been and it has to be said the reference only sprang to mind because I had the distinct feeling I might be shot. Then in the middle of it, like some strange episode of Doctor Who where the Tardis has a period and the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff goes haywire, there's a giant ancient ruin or some big fuck off marble building that screams “I AM A BUILDING AND I AM AWESOME!!!” For 34 centuries people have lived in Rome, and all of them leave something behind that gets absorbed into the identity of Rome, squished in with the renaissance and fascism and gladiators. A giant wad of civilisation. It would be an interesting experience living here and if I was ever given the opportunity to I would if for no other reason than to try and get a handle on what beats at the heart of Rome. I'm glad I've had the experience of living in London for a while before coming here, because what I found there could probably be applied here too, your experience of London and your perspective on London is very much centred around where you live in it. After coming to Rome I'm beginning to develop a theory that all iconic cities have that going on with them. I'm willing to bet that if you were living around the 'La Dolce Vita' bit, that your perspective on the place would be rather set a certain way, that Rome might seem much simpler. I went around Rome on one of those hop on hop off sight seeing tour buses, this is generally not me but damnit Rome is a tourist machine and this is not a place I could just do my normal wandering around thing in. I'd get lost and sold to gypsies I know it, they're out there, they accost me if I stop moving for too long and ask me for euro like cats weaving round my ankles hoping to be fed. So, nice open topped tourist bus. I got on at Termini and it took me around the city, down streets that looked familiar and then dear god the colosseum. There is so much to see here that I went round on the bus once, so smacked in the face by all the things I was seeing that I forgot to take photos so I had to go around again. Lucky I got a pass that lets me go around and around as many times as I want for 2 whole days, 18 euro, bargain. So the bus came back to the starting point, I jumped off and grabbed some pizza (the only way I can describe it to you involves an awful lot of swearing, its good, and I have a feeling its one of those things that can only be made well there, sorry) and went round a second time. I noticed more detail the second time around. The theatre of the gypsy beggar woman near the Roman Forum in her yellow socks and sandles, bent over on a walking stick doing a kind of pained and exaggerated bhuto walk, shaking a tin with some coins in it and a picture of the Virgin Mary on it, crossing herself at intervals and kissing imaginary rosary beads before asking passers by for money.
Hard to know whether its real or entirely theatre which probably means that its both. All her props seem calculated, and she had a brand new brightly coloured back pack which made me think she cant have been doing too badly for herself all things considered if she can buy herself a spiffing new backpack.
In Melbourne I have a favourite statue I used to pass everyday on my way to work. Its the statue of Justice George Higginbotham, third chief justice of Victoria, I used to smile each day as I passed that statue because there was some thing in his eye, something in the way that he lifted his judicial robes revealing just a little ankle that was frankly, quite saucy. Predictably there are statues in Rome and I think I have found my saucy equivalent. Given that the Italians are a passionate people its not just some scanty ankle on show in this statue , its of one man standing with his shirt open revealing a rippling chest while another slightly smaller man appears to be dry humping his leg.
This might just be me, I was sitting in an open topped bus for a lot of that day and did get rather sunburned but I took a picture so you be the judge.
Then there was the crazy old man shouting something that sounded both joyful and obscene in Italian at the tourists while they passive fluttered around him taking photos of the fountain at the centre of the Piazza Barberini, when they didn't respond he decided to balance on the edge of the fountain pretending to fly and singing.
There is a Rome for tourists and a Rome for locals and this can best be illustrated in the economy of sunglasses. The ones that sell to locals you buy in the little markets that crop up in side streets the same way the have for centuries, they cost about 1 euro, I still have mine, my 1 euro specials, they work perfectly well and make me look all sophisticated. The ones that go to tourists have little signs saying latest Italian styles and cost 30 euro. I have also declared it a rule not to go into any restaurant claiming to sell real Italian pizza. If I'm eating pizza in Rome I only want the fake Italian pizza, the stuff they import from Bulgaria.
You know I thought this trip was going to be mostly gastronomic, I mean its Rome after all, but I just haven't had the head space for food. I had some brilliant coffee and a cornetti for breakfast, I had a slice of pizza with tomato, mozzarella and basil on a nice thin base for lunch, a blood orange granita while I wandered around the Campo dei Fiori and a tirimisu gelato while I wandered around looking for a bank that would accept my non Italian bank cards so by the time I got to dinner all I wanted was the strawberries I bought from the market next to where I'm staying.
Another brilliant thing about Rome is the drinking fountains, grazie Roma for the drinking fountains. The pipe beautifully cold spring water down from the mountains and they are everywhere, you just fill up your bottle and go better than paying 1.50 euro for a little bottle in a shop.
So at the end of my first day I know where things are roughly, and had begun to cross the road without believing I'd be killed. What delights await me on day 2? Tune in next time.......

Italy, rare jewels and the green, green grass of London

2009-05-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

So in less than a week I shall be in Italy! I'm trying not to lose my mind with excitement and so far self control has won out but I keep going over in my head how I can ditch clothes and make more suitcase space for olive oil, pasta, tomatoes and wine that I plan to smuggle back in my suitcase.
I don't care if I could get them here, they're the only souvenirs I want. As soon as I get back someone is getting a feast. It will erupt spontaneously at the first opportunity.
I've always wanted to go to Italy, ever since I started learning Italian in prep. Dario e sempre in ritardo. And I can still remember enough of the parrot song to sing it to babies for their amusement.

Ma che bello pappagallo
Tutto verde l’occhio giallo
Cosa fai che cosa vuoi
Parli parli parli parli
Parlo parlo parlo parlo
Ma che bello pappagallo
Tutto verde l’occhio giallo
Ma che bello pappagallo
Parlo parlo parlo sì
Tutto verde l’occhio giallo
Ma che è bello pappagallo

Though that probably wont get me very far in Rome or Venice. If I get arrested because they thought I was a lunatic in Rome check my luggage, there will be olive oil for you.
Its going to be a nicely challenging trip though, because I'll be all on my own in a non English speaking country where the streets are all twisty and disorienting and occasionally people throw babies at you to try and steal your wallet. I plan to drop kick any babies thrown my way, that'll learn em. Also beyond the basics I'm not going nuts planing this trip. I have a few things that I want to do like see the Trevi fountain and throw a coin in, see Bocca della Verità, try tiramisu in Rome and gelato in Venice. Try to find some awesome pizza so I can steal the recipe. The reason for choosing Venice apart from it being pretty was that Ms Hayes, who took me for Renaissance History in year 11 imbued me with a love of both it and Florence that has never left me. I had to choose between Florence and Venice on this trip and I decided Venice because it would be so different from Rome, where some of the marvels of Florence are its galleries and inside spaces, all of Venice is a spectacle. It was still a hard choice, but I do want to see the Piazza di San marco and drink a Bellini in Harry's bar. So Rome and Venice. Prepare to be blogged at.

In the mean time though I've been exploring London. Since last we spoke I went to the natural history museum and saw precious gems, one of which was Alexandrite, which I've fallen a bit in love with and want to find one of my own. It was first discovered in 1834 in Russia and named after Alexander the Second. The reason that its so beguiling is that it changes colour in different light sources from a bluey green to a purply red, just beautiful. I also went to the British museum, where I saw the Rosetta Stone and a bunch of mummies and then wandered through Bloomsbury. I went to Camden, which was fantastic once you got away from the crowds of people and made it to the canals, walking along them it was hard to imagine you were in London.
Since the weather has been so agreeable I've been spending a lot of time wandering around the parks in London too. Walked through Regents Park which was quite pretty. Went and saw the crazies at speakers corner in Hyde park on a Sunday where I was told I was a sinner for putting out, a sinner for not putting out enough and both the cause of damnation for the human race and of entirely no consequence to it. What was even more fun was watching the allegedly sane people try and argue with them. Don't goad the crazies, it is a fool who takes up a fools argument. Saw the Albert Hall that day as well, I still don't know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall though, even google cant tell me.
Went to Hampstead Heath last weekend and climbed Parliament Hill lay in the long grass and took in the views of London. This weekend its off to Highgate Cemetery to find the graves of Karl Marx and Douglas Adams. Ah London, I love you, we always have such fun.

Next stop Italy!!!!!

Easter in the north and the scent of gorse

2009-04-25T09:08:00.000-07:00

Finally some time to catch up on the blog. How are we all then? Time to seems to eddy and pool in ways that I'm not used to lately and in looking back at the last time I posted more time has passed than I intended between blog posts. Since last I wrote I got back from Scotland, headed back to work for a bit and then off to Newcastle to see the family for Easter. I've been up to Newcastle a bunch of times so that's nothing new I'd always had this feeling of coming home in a strange way whenever I've seen the Angel of the North but this time it was slightly different. I'm feeling much more at home in London now and so for the first time when I saw that giant rusty angel I thought of London instead. I did have a great break up there though. A bit of shopping at the Royal Quays to get stupidly cheap name brand runners. I bought a pair there at Christmas but with all the walking I've been doing I wore them out. Did some caching down that way as well and found a geo coin and a travel bug that wanted to go back to West London.
One of the highlights of this particular trip was getting to meet up with my cousin Phil and his wife Gill for the first time. They live just outside of Newcastle in a place called Warkworth which is nice and green and away from the city in the Northumberland countryside. I shall take a moment here to extol the virtues of Northumberland water, when I went to the icehotel I raved about the water, I am a lover of water, I can taste the difference when I travel from place to place and I drink a lot of the stuff, its good for you, you should try it. So anyway, my last benchmark for fantastic water had to be the icehotel, it was the water by which all other waters are measured and to be honest with you I was dubious that I would ever find something that tasted as sweet until I drank Northumberland water. Dear god, tis a mighty drop. Clean and clear and genuinely refreshing, London, I love you but your water tastes like a mixture of shame, bile and decomposition.
So Phil and Gill came by my Aunty Mary's to pick me up and took me to their local which is an amazing little place called The Cook and Barker. I had the best starter I think I've ever had anywhere which was a Craster kipper with a horseradish cream on a bed of new potatoes with a little leafy salad. I cant remember the last time I ever had a kipper let alone some fresh horseradish. I was used to the stuff that's weak and comes in jars actually so when I had my firsts hit of horseradish I felt it explode through my head in a rush. Cleared my nose though, I've never breathed so freely. Kippers I had as a kid, my Dad would make them for his breakfast and then let me have some, they are smoky and salty and beautiful if they're properly smoked and not dyed. I tried to send some back to Australia but apparently the quarantine laws prevent it now, was going to surprise Dad with them. My main was a lamb shank and dessert was crème brulee, I love cracking through the tops of them and can never pass one over on a menu. We headed home after dinner and then up the next day early so that we could head out to Holy Island also known as Lindesfarne, its the site of an ancient monastery as well as a little village and a castle. To reach it you have to cross a causeway that floods twice a day, Sir Walter Scot had this to say about it:

For with the flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle;
Dry shood o'er sands, twice every day,
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day the waves efface
Of staves and sandelled feet the trace.

On Good Friday pilgrims walk the few miles of causeway over to Holy Island as a devotional thing and as you cross it you pass what looks like little sheds on stilts with steps up to them, those are the shelters that you have to run up if you get caught by the tide, it comes in pretty quick. They make mead there as well, you better believe I got me some of that. Well, technically I got it for Dad actually I should post it back to him before I drink it. We walked all over the ruins of the monastery and then a little way around the village before walking up to the castle. It was originally built in the 1500's but was bought in 1901 by the guy who owned Country Life magazine and renovated as his summer house. When you look around inside you can see photos of the well to do's hanging around the front of the castle in their cricket whites and such. All very Pimms and Cucumber sandwiches don't you know. After making good our escape from Holy Island before the sea reclaimed the causeway we headed down the coast towards Bamburgh, another lovely place with a castle. It was packed out because it was Holy Thursday and kids were off from school so we ended up stopping for a picnic in the sand dunes between Bamburgh and Seahouses which was beautiful. It was a really windy day but in the shelter of the long grass, nestled in the dunes we happily picnicked then wandered down on to the beach for a little after lunch walk. We were passed by people riding horses on the waters edge and I looked for seashells, which for some reason you never seem to find that many of now days, why is that? We headed back to the car and then on to Craster where my previous evenings kippers came from, its a pretty little harbour village which consists mostly of the smoke house, a pub and a handful of shops. You pass through it on your way to another castle called Dunstanburgh which is mostly a ruin, even in the 1600's it was a ruin, it was built in the 1300's after all. We walked about a mile to get to it over rolling Northumbrian coast line dotted with both gorse and sheep, I fell in love with gorse. Phil told me it smelled like coconut but I didn't believe him, why would something out there naturally smell like coconut. But I swear to god he was right, now when I own a house I want to plant some, every time the wind blew over it you got this amazing waft of coconut and its such a cheery yellow.
We were all wrecked after so much walking and so went home and had a quiet dinner before relaxing in front of the fire. The next day was Warkworth Castle which is actually mentioned in Shakespeare's Henry the 8th part 2

this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick.

More walking and taking photos, two of my favourite things. The weather held out for us all weekend and the second we got back from Warkworth it started to barrel down but by then we were in the car and heading back to Mary's in Percy Main.
I had a few days back there before heading home to London, we went to a brilliant fish and chips place called Christian's, its right on the fish quay. I wanted to get pictures but my camera had other ideas.
So now I'm back at work and busying myself with plans for the trip to Italy, the flights and accommodation are all booked and I've decided to spend 3 days in Rome and then 3 days in Venice. I might see less places but I'll see more of the places I do see, if that makes sense. I'm practising ordering gelato in Italian. Finally I shall get to see all the places that Ms Hayes talked about in Unit 3 and 4 Renaissance History. My trusty lap top Bruce will probably be coming with me on that trip so hopefully I can blog in bits rather than having one giant mega blog about it all.
At least this one has been educational I've quoted Sir Walter Scot and Shakespeare at you, highbrow indeed. Ciao a tutti.

Little mouse, little mouse, where have you been?

2009-03-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Ah travelling, that's what I've been missing. The raw excitement followed by the agonising waiting and the random diversions to places you never intended to go.
Though this one wasn't my fault I tell you, this one was an act of god.
Its been about a week since I've been back and it still feels slightly surreal actually.
One of the little trips that I had planned for while I'm over here was to head up to Scotland to go to the launch of the book that I mentioned during my last post, 209-A Story by Steven Rafter.
It was being held at Balmoral Castle, which is the Queen's Summer Vacationing residence.
So technically, I went to a party at a castle!! Got all frocked up for it as well which I enjoyed to be honest, I've never really gone in for the frocking up before but I found a fantastic dress which I now want to wear all the time, if for no other reason than because it cost me a tiny fortune.
I was sick last week too, came down with one hell of a cold that laid me low for a good while but after many lemsip and bit of bed rest I was well enough to pull myself together for this little trip.
I started out on Friday heading over to Luton to catch my easy jet flight up to Aberdeen.
I'd never been to Luton before, to be honest with you its slightly depressing, I mean I know airports aren't supposed to be aspirational or anything but Luton airport gave me a very miserable kind of vibe for some reason. Got on the plane though and distracted myself with watching the sun set like I always do. Its a quick flight to Aberdeen, usually just over an hour and we were scheduled to get in at about 7:30, as we approached Aberdeen and descended to land I looked down and saw a fog so thick upon the ground, that lit from below by house lights and street lights it looked like phosphorescent mould. That's when I learned you cant land a plane in phosphorescent mould. The plane went in to land as normal and then at the last moment the engine screeched and we seemed to be climbing again, that did nothing to relax me I can tell you.
The cabin crew tried to be reassuring “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Captain has decided not to attempt landing on this occasion, this is totally routine and we should have an update for you in a moment”
Really? Routine you say? What were his stars not right? Was he supposed to get a cookie? Can he not land without the cookie? No, the bastarding, phosphorescent, foggy, mould meant we had to go all the way to Edinburgh. Takes 15 minutes in the air to get to Edinburgh, made me wonder how long it could take to get there by bus. Five hours later when I finally arrived in Aberdeen I had my answer. Hard place to get to Aberdeen it seems. Cab drivers there are lovely though, mine chatted to me all the way to my hotel which was also fantastic, the Douglas hotel on Market St, very handy for the bus and train stations if you ever go. Brilliant breakfast as well, I'm not usually all that into breakfast, beyond bacon and beans it holds little delight for me but for some reason when one wakes up in Aberdeen after being diverted from Edinburgh, one wants breakfast. They had these cute little pots of various jams and honeys on the table and a million different cooked breakfast things and toasts and fruits, you get the idea. I think maybe it was all the breakfast potential that delighted me coz in the end I just had toast and coffee. Headed down to the bus station after a couple of glitches from Neil my GPS, he's spot on in London but in Scotland he seemed as lost as I was. I switched him on and after he locked on to the satellites its as though he said “You're fucking where? Screw you lady, you're on your own”.

Found my bus to Ballater though, dragged on my case carrying my precious dress and various dressing up ingredients and then off we headed, some well meaning Scottish boy tried to chat me up on the bus ride up there but I was so not in the mood. He also struck me as a little odd. Happily he got off about 20 mins in so I could watch the scenery in peace. And beautiful scenery it is too, you drive around a corner and mountains seem to jump out at you, they change colours with the clouds from blue blacks to greens and golden browns depending on how much light gets through. The river Dee pointed our way to Ballater which is about 6 miles from Balmoral and where my second Scottish hotel was, the Auld Kirk. It was a converted church and had a kind of tardis quality in that from the outside it looked all teeny and narrow but once inside it seemed huge. Dropped all my stuff off and then wandered into town to take some photos, have some lunch and do some writing before having to head back to the hotel and get ready. Ballater itself felt a little bit like Kenmare in Ireland did though if anything Ballater felt a little sleepier. After 2 hours of getting ready, which actually felt surprisingly rushed, I'm glad I don't do that all the time, I was finally ready for Balmoral.
When I arrived at the hotel earlier that day I asked them if they could book me a taxi for the evening and was told that there was really only 2 taxi's in Ballater and that there was a gentleman staying at the hotel who also seemed to be going to Balmoral that evening and would I mind sharing with him. I didn't mind as long as he didn't mind I said and hoped that he wouldn't mind because really there seemed to be no other choice. Mercifully the other hotel guest was the lovely John Hammond who didn't mind sharing a cab if for no other reason than that it meant that he knew someone else going to the launch. Besides, he'd already hijacked someone elses taxi, that's how we met George and Kim. After picking George and Kim up from the Hilton, the four of us crammed in with Cyril the Taxi driver and headed off finally to Balmoral. A word on Cyril, Cyril came to Ballater about 27 years ago, prior to which there was no taxi service in Ballater. When he came to pick us up at the end of the night we asked him how he'd be able to get in to the security gates, “I have the security code” he said. How cool is THAT! He's the man with the code to the castle. When you meet Cyril you might think that he was possibly in his 60's, but actually, he's in his 80's. Looking damn good, Cyril. He's like James Bond, distilled into a kindly faced Scottish taxi driver. As we exited Cyril's, cab we were greeted by a lone bag piper. And it is here that I discovered the key to bagpipe music, context, on stage at an ACDC concert it just sounds like noise but at a royal estate, magnificent.

It was still light so we had a quick wander around to take our obligatory pictures of us standing casually in front of a giant castle. As others arrived we headed into the hall for champagne, canapes and mingling. The wait staff there were magic, you would get to the last draught of your cocktail or champagne and then magically, a kindly lady would be there to offer you more. As the festivities of the evening got underway we were treated to a display by the Queens highland dancers, bloody hell those girls can move. There were readings from the book, some beautiful speeches from Steven as well as his friends and family and then we all were presented with out own copies of 209-A Story. I'm reading mine at the moment, I'm really enjoying it too, go get it. We stayed much longer than we were supposed to originally but got the hint that it was time to leave as the bar staff subtly closed the shutters on the bar.
This is when you find it is a disadvantage to only have 2 cabs in Ballater. There was one van load of people that headed into town to party on then Cyril turned up and took another four people leaving me, John and a couple of others to wait it out for his return. We busied ourselves taking last pictures in the grounds and I practised my royal impersonations before we realised that it had been quite some time since Cyril had picked up the previous lot and it was really rather cold, clearly the cocktails were wearing off. Someone had a feeling that he might be up at the castle for some reason so we walked up there in the dark, the deepest pitch black dark I've experienced thus far, you're surrounded by trees and the only light is that from stars that you glimpse though the canopy. Beautiful it was, only the sound of the wind like a sea through the trees and my heels clicking on the surface of the driveway. No Cyril at the castle though so back we tottered to the school house. Then we decided hey, maybe he cant get into the gates, we'll walk to the gatehouse. This was before we knew of his connections to the top. I think that this is a beautiful life that lets me tell you that I walked the queens driveway, in the pitch dark, listening to the shushing of the trees and watching the winking of the stars, while in a ball gown, satin covered shoes and fake diamonds.
Dear god my feet hurt by the end of it though, I think I lost most of the feeling in my toes.
Cyril turned up about 10 mins after we got to the gatehouse and whisked us back into town via my hotel so I could put my runners on and get rid of those damned high heels.
Yes, I'm not a refined lass but be damned if I was going to spend the rest of the night in pain where there was dancing to be done and I was still wearing my ball gown so at least from the feet up I was glamorous. We met up with everyone at this pub in town that also had a disco, you gave three pounds to this little old man who sat entirely unjudgementally by the door and then stamped your hand. All the locals were fantastically friendly and though that we were all brides because we were in our formal gear and the guys were in their tuxes. We danced stupidly to songs I hadn't heard in years and a few I'd never heard without care or concern for how we looked to the outside world.
At John's instigation we did shots of something called Aftershock, I don't know what it was and frankly I don't want to know, it was like alcoholic mouthwash.
This was one of those evenings that regardless of who anyone is or what they do or what they have happening outside of that place and time, we all put it aside and fucking revelled. I really could have done with an extra day there if for no other reason than for more sleep but soon after the sun was up I was eating my breakfast at the Auld Kirk and packed to head back to Aberdeen for a little exploring/caching and my flight back to London.
I feel beyond privileged to have been a part of that occasion and think you should all get out and read the book, I recommend it and its out now so you can order yourselves copies.
Right now I'm back in London, back to work before heading up to Newcastle for Easter next week and planning my next trip which is to Italy.
Arrivederci amici, parlarle presto.

London baby, yeah!!

2008-12-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

Alright so here I am then. Officially landed in London where I'll be basing myself for the next however long. Flew in on Wednesday night from Abu Dhabi on what was possibly the best flight of my life thus far.
A nice 8 hours which breaks down to about 4 movies and a couple of episodes of scrubs, food was fantastic and because the plane was less than half full I got my first choice. I had a window seat and the seat next to me free and had I been of a mind to crash out for the flight I could have snagged a row of four all to myself but it was a day time flight and I like to look out the window. I got some pretty pictures too which I'll try and attach for you. It was as all flights should be but clearly cant. It was about 1 degree in London when I arrived. Dark but with a clear sky that made it feel colder. I battled my way on the underground with my suitcases so I could get myself to Charing Cross to catch a National Rail train to Sevenoaks where Katie lives and where I'm staying for the moment. Felt kinda proud of myself to be honest, negotiating my way through London on my own laden with all my worldly goods. Katie had to work the next morning so I got myself up and set off to wander around Sevenoaks. I had to find a HSBC bank so I could open my account and deposit the sterling I had been nervously carrying around. What can I say of Sevenoaks? Its very hilly I can tell you that, really really hilly. After trekking up to the high St from Katie's I eventually found the HSBC bank and opened my account with a lovely young man called Matt who asked me “why the hell do you want to come half way around the world to Sevenoaks?” Since I've taken off on my big journey I keep meeting a bunch of people who tell me they'd love to do this, love to just take off. I don't really know how to answer that, I think if they want to do it then they should. I think the thing is though that to a certain extent it seems like to do this you just wander away and get on a plane but you don't, it took about a year of organising and a certain amount of time to reconcile myself to the fact that as many plans as I might want to make, ultimately by doing this I leave a lot of what happens in my life up to chance. Which I like for the moment at least. Its a ride. I just try and enjoy things while they're in front of me and then look for something new when they are gone. And so, on Thursday I enjoyed what my little bank friend Matt might call the dubious delights of Sevenoaks. Wandered through all the little streets and alleyways, had lunch in a pub with a gorgeous open fire, got myself a UK phone and tried to figure out how I can get myself connected to the net for as little as possible. Ohh here's a good tip in case you didn't already know it, McDonald's have free WiFi over here. You can go on their website and find out if the McDonald's near you has Wifi and then just wander in and connect. Very handy. Some coffee places do as well like the coffee republic if you bring your own laptop but Starbucks have a deal going with T Mobile where by you have to register with them and pay to log on wirelessly. I don't know if they do that back in oz, I never really needed to find out. I probably ended up walking somewhere in the vicinity of 25km around Sevenoaks got a teensy bit lost on my way home, well not so much lost as I ended up finding a long way, I also found a laundrette which came in handy for getting my washing done at least and I saw my first squirrel. Went to Tesco's and got Katie and I some dinner, a roast chicken, potatoes and frozen veg which probably came to about 3 pound food isn't too bad here cost wise if you go to the supermarket and are prepared to do a bit of cooking yourself. Friday was interview day, got up in the morning and wandered up to Dunton Green to catch the train into London. I'm trying to not complain too much about the cold because its pointless and I knew it would be cold when I came here but that morning was freakin cold I'm telling you. Got to Victoria Station and bought myself an oyster card and caught my first double decker bus to Chelsea for an interview with Sky about a job with them. It went really well and from what they were saying I've pretty much got it but as with any large corporation they have a recruitment process that they go through so I had to do some testing for them as well which was no problem. I have another interview for a different company on Monday, that one is based in Waterloo so I get to go to the borough markets as well. I should find out about that job within a few hours of the interview which means by the time I head off to Sweden on Tuesday morning I'll know if I have a job. We're staying in the Yotel at Heathrow on Monday night so we can just roll out of bed and into terminal 5, I'm looking forward to it. I'll take you some pictures and post them when I get back. I've spent the weekend so far being kinda domestic, took my washing to be done at the laundrette, went to Tesco's with Katie and we got the ingredients for Christmas dinner which I then cooked and we ate while watching the X Factor final, strangely compelling viewing, maybe all this air travel has pressurised my brain. It finally stopped raining on Saturday night as well, it started sometime on Friday night, I wish I could send some of that back to Australia, particularly to rain on Bendigo and over Dad's new rain tanks. It is eye poppingly green here. Tiny, narrow, ancient and green. I'm waiting for snow, hoping for snow. Of course I'm getting snow in Sweden but snow over a metropolitan area is different to snow in the middle of no where. There's this kind of hush that it gives everything which I find beautiful. Next stop Sweden and the Icehotel.
Oh your pictures this week are of the moon somewhere over Kuwait, Mountains somewhere near Tehran and the sunset and the lights of london from an Airbus

Caching, cocktails and weekends at the Queens place

2009-03-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Alright so update is probably in order then. Much has happened since last I wrote. Firstly was the Sky Christmas party, yes I know, its very late for a Christmas party but better late than never and it meant that I got to go out and get drunk with my new work mates. We went to a place near Drury Lane called Guanabara, its a Brazilian themed place so we all got smashed on mojitos and tried to fill up on cassava chips. Some danced to the live band, some got drunker than others, some mysteriously disappeared then some time after 1 am we all drifted off into the night after finding someone to foot the bill. A highlight of London: late at night when you're a little merry and you dont particualrly want to have to fork out for a cab, London helpfully provides night buses, they don't really cost all that much and in my experience thus far seem to be fairly regular. I caught the night bus back to Acton with the lovely Vanesa who also works at sky. I was a teensy bit freaked out about walking home on my own at what was now 2:30am, there was only me and the occasional drug dealer out and I steadfastly refused to look at them. Time was that I'd have no hesitations in heading out at that time, often I'd go just for the walk, maybe I'm getting old. Maybe its just because its a newish town.

Recovered quite admirably the next day though, made my way down to the farmers market and got myself some fruit and veg as well as spending possibly too much on some silk scarves and a wrap that I wanted to wear for Balmoral. That's the other thing that's been happening lately. The gorgeous and talented Steven Rafter has published a new book which is to be launched next weekend at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and I have been lucky enough to be invited. I cant tell you how excited I am about it, when in my life am I ever going to be invited to one of the Queens residences for anything let alone a book launch. I've been busy planning what I'm going to wear and booking hotels and flights and figuring out how to get there. I will absolutely be taking lots of pictures for you all and blogging to let you know how it went. Go have a look at Steven's website and if you see a copy of his book in the bookstores, grab it while you can http://www.209astory.com/

Beyond mojitos and weekends at Betty's summer place I've finally bitten the bullet and gotten myself a GPS system so that I can go Geocaching. I may possibly have bored some of you before with tales of Geocaching but in case I havent, basically its a world wide treasure hunt involving GPS systems. You go running around with your GPS device following co-ordinates and clues and finding little caches that are hidden in all kinds of places. My brother introduced me to it before I left home and I thought it would be a fantastic way of getting to know a place so I resolved to Cache once I hit London. I found a way of doing it using one of those in car navigational GPS's that you can pick up pretty cheaply so I went and bought myself one on Amazon the other day, it arrived on Saturday morning so I ran around like a mad thing getting all my shopping done and buying the last few items for my outfit for Balmoral so I could have sunday completely free for caching.
There is apparently a cache right near where I live in Acton so when I headed out on Sunday that was the first place I went, it was a bit hard to find and people were starting to look at me like I was casing one of the houses or something so I decided to move on and look for it on the way back. I jumped on the Picadilly line, because that's where I seem to live my whole life, and headed out to Russell Square. Got out onto street level, whipped out the GPS, which I have christened Neil, and went hunting for my first London cache. It was near the Foundling Museum next to a statue of a man called Thomas Coram. The clues to the cache made me think that it would be on the statue itself so I went round and round this thing checking it out. Clearly I weirded out one of the volunteers in the museum because she came out and tried to figure out what the hell I was up to, she gave me a little history of the museum and I pretended to be very interested in the statue and as she was talking to me out of the corner of my eye about 10m's behind her I found the cache. I told her I wanted to take a picture of the statue and she seemed satisfied by this, probably thinks I'm just some very strange tourist, and I made a big show of riffling through my bag to get my camera so that I'd have the chance to grab the cache and sign the log without her noticing. Signed it, slipped it back into place and then took a photo to try and make it seem like I wasn't a total freak, then it was off to my next one! Found another one in a little secluded park I would never have known existed if I hadn't gone looking for a cache and then decided to go for a third one behind Grey's Inn. This time I think I spotted someone else who was caching but he was looking in the wrong spot and then wandered off so I don't know if he was just lost or if I scared him off. This third one was particularly well hidden so I felt all clever about it.
Last weekend Katie and I met up at Covent Garden and went for a look around the markets after having lunch in one of the pubs. I was pretty close to Covent Garden by this point so rounded off my day with another wander down there using Neil to guide the way.
Next time I shall go caching in the other direction and see what I can find around The British Museum. I'm such a geek.
At least you get to see a picture of the statue that I took to try and cover up for the fact that I was caching, I should so be a spy!

Thelma and Jane Louise do London

2009-02-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

So, after everything going on back home I have never needed a visit from Rebecca Lorraine more in my life. I was sooooooo looking forward to her heading down here and us being able to hit the sights for a little bit. She came over to he UK from the UAE, where I visited her in the first part of my trip, so she could renew her visa and visit her Nonna in Cambridge and her trip to London to see me was kind of a spontaneous bonus.
I raced up to Kings Cross on the Friday after work, getting from Chelsea Manor St to South Kensington station in a time that may have qualified me for the Olympics if there was an event for getting to tube stations, the next ones are here some one really should suggest it.
Kings cross is nuts on a Friday night, lots of people commuting out for the weekend to various points of call in the UK or trying to connect to other points in London on the tube. Its a sea of people all quietly and politely resenting you for being in their way and I knew Bec would hate it,
so my plan was to get her out of there as soon as possible. And after a brief but unexpected detour which I shall only be published in my unauthorised biography we arrived at Acton Central.
We grabbed dinner at the pub where Bec had some amazing salmon and I had a damn fine burger and then I proceeded to show Bec all the highlights of Acton which happily took about 30 seconds and we could do while standing in front of the pub.
Next morning after some military like planning we left home and made out way onto the district line towards Westminster. We had two things we wanted to achieve this weekend and they were touristy sightseeing and a visit to the westfield. Saturday, giving the more optimistic weather forecast was given over for touristy sightseeing. We got out the tube and looked up and lo and behold there was big ben. Then I said something stupid. We were standing in front of the ticket booth to buy tickets to cruise up the Thames to Greenwich and Bec asked me if we had time to go take some pictures of Big Ben before we got on the boat and my response was “Sure, what time is it?” . Its like walking into the Sistene Chapel and saying where's the art, sometimes thinking doesn't come before saying for me. We got on to our boat after many contradictory and directionless signs steering our way and puttered off down the Thames surrounded by couples. Valentines day, from deaths dark heart I stab at you. It was at this point that the camera died. Damn. We passed the Tate, the London Eye, tower bridge, the tower of London all without being able to take a single shot. Were it not for the existence of a Boots in Greenwich we'd not have got any on the way back either. As it was though we still managed to snap away about 260 shots before enough was enough.
We were starving by the time we got to Greenwich and after a little wander around, ended up at a cute little pub called The Gypsy Moth again good food and somewhere I could indulge my sudden craving for meat. After much needed refreshment we wandered back through the naval college, there were these signs out pointing the way to something called the painted hall. Oh yeah, thought, painted, huge attraction, bet there's doors and windows too, someone hold me back.

But then I walked towards the doors leading to it and caught a glimpse inside. Its the kind of sight that provokes mindless expletives, from which I generally don't hold myself back except, I've learned, when there is an echo. Never mindlessly swear in a big echoy place because then you're just the slack jawed yokel who said “Faaarrrrkkkk” and will have to listen to it over and over as it seems never to die out while all eyes turn disapprovingly towards you. Its hard to look at pretty things once you've done that. Or so I'm told....

I grabbed Bec as I stood at the front door and mutely pushed her inside, those are the things that stay with me about trips I've taken. The unexpectedly beautiful things that have been sitting around, sometimes for hundreds or thousands of year, sometimes its just something that happens everyday. Suddenly you're there and this thing that you never knew existed just tattooed itself to your brain.
That happened in the Chantry in Tynemouth and on a street early one morning in Bergen out the front of a bakers shop.
If I ever got married that would be one of the places that I'd want to do it, the humbly named Painted Hall. After walking in and out of a few less painted buildings we made our way through the Greenwich Market. Busy, busy market. Bec and I swigging on waterbottles with Berroca in them elbowing our way through people, but Bec did buy a bamboo saxophone which is actually much more impressive than it sounds and we heard someone getting engaged which was actually quite sweet. It was a couple of the stall holders and a few of the other stall holders had gotten together and written it for the potential groom. The guy who rang the old brass printing plate stall told us this as he almost talked me into paying 40 pounds for an art deco printing plate.
With our camera juiced up on batteries and some baked goods from one of the cake stalls we made our way back on to the boat and proceeded to take far too many pictures of everything.
I think we have now conclusively proven that you can have too many pictures of the tower bridge.
There can also be too many pictures of Big Ben, which was the next thing we proved.
After listening to him chime we made our way in the fading light towards Buckingham Palace through St James' gardens. Betty wasn't home that day so we turned and wandered down to Trafalgar Square where I stopped to get yet more batteries and Bec bought some souvenirs to take home. After taking even more photos we stopped in at a little pub for dinner and then afterwards Bec made me stand in front of it while she took ages to figure out how to use the Zoom and a crowd built up behind her while I stood face frozen in embarrassment, arms flung wide like I was presenting the show case on wheel of fortune.
It was definitely time to go home.
Sunday we took our time getting up and then headed out on the bus to Westfield which is about 15 mins from me. Did all the normal girly shopping things and I fell in love with a dress I couldn't afford while dressing Bec like I was either Trinny or Susannah.It was nice to have a bit of a girly shopping trip though, every so often it quells an urge. Dinner was at the Meat and Wine company at Westfield where I had been looking forward to steak. I'm sure later in life when I develop mad cow I may regret that but until that day, I can tell you it was divine. Mash potatoes and a three course special that included crème brulee and they only ended up charging us the 2 course special price on.
It was too late to tell them, we'd already gone, or we were about to leave I don't remember, either way we'd all move on emotionally and that's the important thing.
On Monday we trekked up to Acton Town and Bec went to Kings Cross while I made my way back to work. A fantastic weekend, if only we could do it all the time. xxx

A melanchonly post

2009-02-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

I just looked at the date I posted my last entry and realised that there had been a big break in our regularly scheduled programming. Very sorry about that. I guess there has been a lot happening and it can sometimes make the passage of time feel as if has passed slower than it really has.
Since my last entry there has certainly been a hell of a lot going on back there. I got a call in the morning of the 7th of Feb from my Dad. He lives out in Long Gully, near Bendigo, and told me with what I thought was a remarkable amount of restraint that they'd had a bit of an eventful day out that way. It was the cat that had alerted him to the approaching fires initially as he'd been inside with the aircon on and the curtains closed to escape the heat. Mercifully, he, the cat and the house were all ok but as it quickly emerged, others weren't so lucky. The next week was spent either talking to people back home about the fires, talking to people here about the fires or trying to get some clear information about them from news sources back home. I thought about whether or not I should make a comment about them to be honest. It feels strange being here and so far away with all that happening. Even if I was there, what is it that you can really say when something on this scale occurs. Nothing, nothing that hasn't either already been said or would ring hollow with the telling.
But not acknowledging the fires have happened and the toll they've exacted seemed a little crass and in a way naïve. So to all you reading back home, this is just to say I've been thinking about you. I know by now that physically you are all ok and I'm glad for that. I know as well that you're all rallying around and contributing in whatever ways you can to try and ease the burden now experienced by those who have been directly affected by these fires and for that I'm proud of you.
The demonstrations of the best in peoples characters might be the only good to come of this.
All that I can send you now is love, and the continued hope that every one stays safe. Take care xxx

Snow in the desert, in a mall.

2008-12-05T23:27:00.001-08:00

I don't really want to go on about it so lets get this out of the way to begin with. Driving on the highways in the UAE freaks me out. Its just so fast! I've never driven that fast before. And if it was just fast and there were no other hazards then that would be totally fine but you've got these other cars being driven by suicidal maniac types who are also doing 150km per hour and then over take and pull in front of you. Its scary. We were driving to Dubai yesterday and this black cat was in the middle of the road all of a sudden and we had to swerve to miss it, which can freak you out at those speeds. Bec and Ryan are both fantastic drivers, its everyone else on the road that worrys me. I'm sure I'll get used to it, yesterday was my first time really, the speed was fun, the other cars were not.
Let us never speak of this again.
Brunch in Dubai was awesome. I met up with my Cousin Ron and his wife Pat who live out there and we had brunch at the Jumeriah Beach resort in the Beachcombers restaurant which is this beautiful restaurant overlooking the Burj Al Arab and the Arabian sea. For the longest time I've wanted to see the Burj Al Arab, possibly the combination of too many documentaries on the discovery network and using it as the setting for a rpg once and yesterday I saw it. Its a little smaller in real life that I thought it would be but still, pretty impressive. Brunch is big on Fridays in Dubai, everybody goes out and settles in somewhere for the afternoon. Its a practise I wholeheartedly approve of, we had this beautiful buffet sitting overlooking the beach and chatting until the sun started to go down. I took a million pictures some of which I will post for you. After we left Ron and Pat we headed over to the Mall of the Emirates so Ryan could try his hand at snowboarding. That's one of the things I love about the UAE, you go somewhere and you'll find the most incongruous things, at Khalydia mall the other day we wandered past a roller coaster. In the Mall of the Emirates is a giant ski slope, chilled to a shivery minus 4 degrees you can hire skis, snowboards, gear and an instructor and settle in for an evening of skiing entirely forgetting that you're in the middle of the desert. If you don't feel like going for a ski then you can just wander around in your snow boots and big long down coats looking at the sculpture or having a little drink or snack from the ice bar. Was kind of a warm up for the icehotel pardon the pun. I'll be sleeping in that temperature when I get there, at least now I know its doable. We filmed Ryan having a snowboarding lesson, he did really well, I would have been on my arse in 5 seconds were it me.
Then at the end Bec and I, a little delirious from the cold possibly took way too many photos of ourselves mucking around in these snow caves. I would spend much more time than is necessary at the Mall of the Emirates if I lived here, and we only saw a little bit of it.
On the way home we drove on to the palm to see Atlantis, the giant luxury hotel that had the 30 million dollar party a couple of weeks back. Very pretty.
It was just a brilliant day basically, I saw some amazing things and relaxed with fantastic people. All this makes up for the year of planning, the endless running around and organising and the 24 hour not sleeping which included a 15 hour flight. Days like yesterday are my reward, and I cant thank Bec and Ryan enough and Ron and Pat for brunch. I definitely want to come back this way on my way back to Oz next year, I think another brunch is in order. xxxx

I'm stepping out for a moment, I may be some time..

2008-12-03T02:42:00.000-08:00

Technically the title of that last entry was somewhat misleading, I was departing soon but for parts entirely known, I'm sorry I lied to you.

If I'm going to be chronological about this, this trip probably started a year ago. Certainly the planning for it did. During one particularly hot summer I decided that's it, I'm not doing this again, get me to the northern hemisphere specifically the icehotel, the coldest place I could think of at that point. I had a desire, a need, to do something I wished for, rather than just wishing for it all the time and so this trip was born.
Initially it was just going to be a short trip, maybe a month or six weeks somewhere but as things evolved it became clear that I needed to devote more time to this and so I have. I gave up my house, my job, put all my belongings into various hidey holes with family and friends and have thrown myself upon the mercy of the road. I wanted change and now I've got it and so far its been pretty good.
My first part of this trip was probably before I left Australia, meeting up with all the family and friends before I take off. After I worked my last day at Optus, I headed to the airport and got on a plane to see my sister in Devonport. We spent the weekend driving around to have a look at a few places like the Anvers Chocolate factory, (I recommend the Mocha Walnut Fudge, my nephews Liam and Jayden liked the Buttersctoch Fudge.) and Reliquare which is this old house filled with a bunch of different stuff you can buy, the amusing, the unnecessary, the amazing and the unimagined. Its so green there, living in Victoria and spending most of my travelling time going between Bendigo and Melbourne you forget that places can be really green as opposed to the browns only tinged with green that I'd become used to. Penguin was beautiful too, somewhere I'd like to spend more time I think. Once I get back from this trip I'll be going over to spend more time with the family. A weekend is not long enough. I spent my last week in Australia divided between Bendigo with Dad and East Keilor with Yvette, Anthony and Miki. Time at both places was really nice and relaxing, just what I needed before the big off. Big apologies to everyone I didn't get to catch up with in person before I flew out, everyone seemed to be so spread out all of a sudden and I never seemed to be able to find a time where everyone was both free and in a place I could get to them when I was free and could get to them, I still love you and will see you when I return.
The last night in Aus was spent with Yvette, Miki and Anthony eating Taco's and Yvette's amazing mud cake (the recipe for which I will allow Yvette to keep secret :) ) under the gaze of the big smiley face of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon. I choose to see that as a good omen for my trip, had it happened the night after I left I would have had to interpret it as a sign that Australia was glad to see the back of me. While I didn't sleep much that night for the most part I feel pretty relaxed, I find myself smiling for no reason, maybe the satisfaction of having a plan and seeing it executed and I got up the next morning early to get to the airport for my first flight, to Sydney to connect with Etihad. Lina drove me to the airport (thank you!!) and I chatted to the girl at the Virgin check in desk about where I was going and what I was doing I was a lot more relaxed after finding out that my suitcase wasn't as heavy as I thought it was going to be and came in underweight, yayyy no excess baggage so far. One thing I've noticed as well is that when you talk to people about where you're going to live in London they all seem to have their own opinions as to what's good and what's not and they all seem to be contradictory, I'm at the point where I'm just not going to listen anymore, might as well make my own mind up when I get there. Got through security and got tested for explosives AGAIN, everytime I go through a security checkpoint they pull me over for that test, what is it about me? I talked to the explosives testing woman about the trip as well, I'm such a broken record. My brother John met me at the gate in Sydney and we scammed transfers over to the international terminal with Virgin, (I cant believe they try and charge you to do that) and after check in settled into this Italian restaurant in the food court that had quite a nice beer garden considering its at an airport. Made my way through the gamut of customs, through the last temptation of duty free and on to my Etihad plane bound for Abu Dhabi. I don't know where its the lack of sleep or the surfeit of things to do but mostly how I feel about all this is really calm, touch wood it'll stay that way, maybe its because I feel like its the right thing to do, I have my moments of smiling like a moron but mostly I'm relaxed, it was almost disconcerting, I'm used to freaking out about stuff like this.
Flight was pretty good for the most part, pretty spacious for economy and their onboard entertainment was fantastic, they had about 100 odd movies of all different genres one of which was The Dark Knight so I watched that for the 4th time while crossing Australia. The person sitting next to me was a 12 year old called Carys who was travelling on her own for the first time to London, she and I amused ourselves cheating at Battleship and playing Reversi which were a few of the online games but after 15 hours anything becomes a little wearing and so somewhere in the sky above Chennai I started to get restless. Oh I saw these weird lights in the Java Strait that I'm assuming were oil rigs but I have to google to check for sure and there was an amazing lightning storm over Dubai as we came in to Abu Dhabi.

In our next instalment: Arriving at Abu Dhabi or will they let Jane in the country and National Day or pimp out your car with pictures of the Sheik.

There's no business like snow business

2009-02-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

We've heard it a million times, that vexing phrase, “be careful what you wish for, coz you just might get it”. Uttered by the smug and patronising. Pah, I'd think, that's a good thing, I want to get what I wish for. Now I understand what it means. Really. Truly and deep down to my frozen toes.
I've been wishing for real snow, proper snow, chestnuts roasting on an open fire kind of snow, for as long as I can remember. Last time I was over here it snowed maybe twice and so briefly that it never even settled. The only time I got a real decent crop of snow was in the arctic when I went to the icehotel. As I was writing my last blog to you, the snow had just started in earnest and I was naïve in my anticipation of it. Oh its exciting, I wrote, there will be about a foot of snow in the lane maybe.
Well it was damn near close to that, and when I woke up on Monday morning and opened the curtains to the balcony, I have to say I was shocked. How the hell do I get to work, I asked myself. What if I cant make it to work coz I'm Australian and not built for these kinds of climates but everyone else can manage, I'll look stoopid. I really wish I had of stolen those snow boots from the icehotel I thought, as I tucked my tracksuit bottoms into my explorer socks (Ooohhh and if you think that sounds unfashionable......you would be right) As a precautionary measure I packed an extra set of trousers and socks in with my office shoes and armed with my camera set off down the lane.
It was awesome, even as jaded as I am now about the whole snow thing I have to say walking down that lane on Monday was brilliant. My feet crunched in the powdery snow, it was all white and pristine and no one else had walked on it yet, I don't know about anyone else but being the first to break a smooth surface gives me a deep sense of satisfaction that I cannot adequately define. The slide into an undisturbed pool, the foot print in the sand smoothed by tides and now the first foot print into an expanse of snow. It makes me happy. It was still snowing too as I made my way to the station, snow falling soundlessly but thick and fast. The security gates opened with a greater sense of grandeur than normal, as they swept the snow out of their way in great drifts, to let me by. The streets were mostly silent given that all the cars were buried under great piles of snow. I had to laugh as I walked past a group of school kids, who obviously wouldn't be going to school today, building snow men and throwing snow balls exclaiming “This is awesome!” All the footpaths were still covered in snow and only on the main streets could you see where the snow had been turned muddy brown from cars that had dared to venture out. Churchfield Road out the front of Acton Central Train station looked like a frontier town with white snow on either side divided neatly by a muddy strip of slush. I crunched hopefully to the train station only to be greeted by a bemused London Overland worked who laughed at me when I asked him when the train was coming, “Normally I say catch the bus but they're gone too, and even if you could get one there's no tube running” Ok then, I'll wait for a bit because I am nothing if not eternally optimistic and then I'll just have to go home and wait til it stops I guess, the responsible part of me thought. But the irresponsible part thought “Woooo hoooo, snow day!!!!” After waiting and hour and chatting to people as they wandered on to the train platform and wandered off again, I resigned myself to snow day. Ah, they joys of snow day. Its pretty, its fun to play in, you cant go to work even if you wanted to and you feel obliged to eat things that contain chocolate. On my way back home I bought some chocolate croissants from the little corner shop, and for some reason, popcorn, I had some crazy snow induced idea that I would pop popcorn in the aga and watch the snow fall. I don't know, maybe I've seen too many Bing Crosby films, I didn't end up bothering with the popcorn its still sitting in the cupboard. I spent most of my time taking photos and playing outside in between calling and chatting to people about the snow. So that was Monday, no train, no tube, no buses, no nothing. By Monday evening it had stopped snowing which gave the snow time to melt and then refreeze just a little so that all that lovely snow I'd crunched around in the day before became bone snapping ice. Walking down the lane was no longer fun. Walking anywhere was no longer fun, it was a death ride to tractionville via compound fracture alley. I needn't of worried about hurrying to the station because the train was certainly taking its sweet time. I eventually got on the district line and had to change half way because the train kept stalling. You better know that's freaky in tunnels.
I had consoled myself with the thought that surely the pavements from South Kensington to Chelsea would have been salted and gritted, those are rich people down there, surely they'd be using the finest maldon sea salt to grit their pavements lest the widow Pilkington-Smythe break a hip whilst out walking her Pekinese. Well I can tell you if she was out walking her Pekinese that morning she would have gone arse over tit because those pavements were worse than the ones in Acton. To give you an idea of how bad they were my choice was to either walk on the road which had been gritted and risk being hit by the 211 to Victoria station or risk the icy pavement and I chose the road. The walk to work down Chelsea Manor St was worse, black ice all over the place, the congealed splashes of coffee, like a Jackson Pollock painting on the ice, where someone had come a cropper with their morning cup of Joe. I had to concentrate so hard not to fall over I didn't even listen to my MP3 player lest it distract me. I didn't get to go for my normal lunch time walk because suddenly it had become hazardous to my health. In fact I didn't get to see the outside of the building until home time when I nervously shuffled my way back up to South Kensington Tube station and on to the train bound for home. Getting home was an odyssey in and of itself, on the breakneck paths from Acton Central rail. At that point, I was not happy about snow. Now its Thursday night, and after one day where its finally started to get back to normal I find out that more snow is on its way tonight. 60% chance that its going to be as heavy as it was on Monday. Fuck it, you know what, at this point I realise there is nothing to do but deal. Take the pretty when it comes and deal with the icy at the end of it. Its life isn't it. Into each life a little snow must fall and in its falling turn to slush which freezes over and tries to kill you. Here endeth the lesson.

I'm 9 to 5 but at least there's snow

2009-02-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

Another big week in London town for me. This week I started at the new job in Chelsea. Working for Sky doing various things I've done before. Its been so long since I started a new job though I think I'd forgotten what it was like. The whole orienting yourself to the subtle differences contained in each office while at the same time noticing how everything is pretty similar. In the last job we dialled 0 to get an outside line, here they dial 9, back home half the time we had huge system issues and mindless rules built into the system to make your job that much harder, here they do exactly the same thing. There are some fun people though so at least it has that going for it. And certainly in this economic climate I'm lucky to have any kind of job and at lunch time I get to wander down The Kings Road or walk by the Thames as opposed to wandering down Collins St or walking by the Yarra. I'm glad for a little bit of routine for the moment really, settles me down a bit and helps me think. The last week it has struck me that I need to formulate my next big plan. I planned this trip, the whole getting over here and travelling and working thing. Now that I know I can do it I have to come up with my next plan. I've decided that it cant just be another trip somewhere, it has to be more of a challenge than that. Something that means that I don't have to spend my life working nine to five is what I'm thinking might be what the next plan consists of. I have a vague idea of what it could be but until I've decided for sure and its all cemented in I cant really tell you about it.
Not now but soon.
So yes apart from the run of the mill office stuff I've been spending my week getting to and from work which, with the crowds and the rain we've had has sometimes been an adventure. I've always made it though. Then at lunchtime I like to get out and go for a walk. There are at least 2 chocolate shops within 5 mins of my work, one being Godiva and the other being Hotel Chocolat. I haven't been game enough to walk into them yet, I'm using it as a test of will power. There are a bunch of clothes shops, all way too expensive for me, as are the shoe shops. There is a fantastic antique shop which whilst also too expensive has lots of little curios that cost nothing to look at.
There have been some beautiful sunny days this week and I've gotten myself a sandwich from Waitrose and found this little open green space near by that I can read and eat lunch in. It takes me past this alternative medicine clinic and they had their windows open letting the smell of Nag Champa waft out onto the street, reminded me of the Preston Market and all the incense I used to buy from the 2 ladies who ran the wicker shop there. Next door to them is a noodle shop called Phat Phuc which made me giggle. The English can be somewhat restrained so I didn't expect to see that on the Kings Road.
Its been my first full week living in the coach house as well which is just fantastic. I'm getting used to cooking in the Aga which is brilliant. I've been cooking for so long that to a certain extent you get a bit complacent and forget how much fun learning to cook can be. Having to adjust everything to cooking in the Aga has made me remember how much I love cooking again. The Aga forces you to be more instinctive about what you're cooking because there are no timers or temperature gauges. I'm actually starting to prefer it to cooking with gas.
Went to the Westfeild London this weekend for a haircut and the odd bits and pieces. Discovered Foyles which is this giant bookshop a bit like borders, that might get me in trouble, I've already seen books I want to buy. The Westfield is just like any other Westfeild really but possibly slightly more expensive. I'd forgotten how going to those places on my own makes me want to hurt people. Makes me want to elbow them out of the way as the wander slack jawed and awe-struck down endless aisles of the same old shops. If I'm there with someone then its ok, we can chat, stop for a drink of something but if I'm there on my own then I just want to get in, get what I need to, do what I need to and then get the hell out of there and all of these mindless shopper drones just get in my way.
Its very close though, 15 min bus trip so that's a plus.
Today has been a bit of a relaxing day, its been freezing cold due to a front coming down from Russia. We had little snow flurries and I ran out into them like a giant 2 year old. Its night here now and since about 5 pm its been snowing pretty consistently. I've been poking my head out the balcony doors and checking on it every so often. Getting down the lane tomorrow might be fun there's probably going to be about a foot of snow down there. Its all very pretty until it melts and then refreezes all over the pavement making walking on them an adventure in and of itself. Should continue for most of this week so hopefully I can get some nice photos of it for you.
I've posted some pics of the new place and some snow shots from tonight.
Will blog a little more during the week as I have to get to bed now, I'm a worker don't you know.

Go west young Jane

2009-01-23T15:36:00.000-08:00

Ooohhhh I meant to blog last Sunday I really did but its been a bit of a busy week this one.
It started last Thursday, despite the insistence of every western calendar. Last week in and of itself started somewhat anxiously with me waiting to hear back from the Sky people to find out if I got that job, which I did. Then continued with me going to see various flat shares which made me more disconsolate with each subsequent viewing. Travellers tip, it is very difficult to live within walking distance of Chelsea unless you are an heiress of some kind. With my birthday fast approaching I decided to give it all away for a little bit to have a break and relax. After seeing an endless procession of flats that were only fit to hang yourself in I felt the need to proceed to the sea.
I grew up with the sea at the end of my street so in times of tiredness or stress, I cant tell you why, but I just need to go to the sea. A river wont do it, nor will a swimming pool. It must be the sea, salty and wavy, with or without sand. I don't even have to get in it. I just need to smell it, and look at it and I feel better. So off I went to Newcastle, gave me a chance to see my Aunty before work sucked up all my time. Caught the train this time as well after getting some very cheap tickets on the net. Had a small argument with the underground. It was our first fight which always makes it seem more significant than it really is. It started when I got on the northern line from London Bridge. The DLR had been cancelled so murders of stockbrokers (I have decided that is their collective noun) were crowding themselves into the northern line which I incidentally needed to catch so that I could get to Kings Cross. Melbourne, you do not know what you are complaining about. I have to put my hand up to this too. I complained about the trams and trains in Melbourne, and they are sucky, but I was literally swept on to this train. Had I of not wanted to get on this train I would have had no choice in the matter, the mob made my decision for me. If my phone was ringing I could not have answered it because I could not move my arms. Packed. The English are notoriously polite, you could run over one in a land cruiser and their response would be “I'm awfully sorry to bother you but you seem to have broken my legs”. But get the little fuckers underground when there are trains around and its a blood sport. I got elbowed by a pensioner. A Pensioner! Next time I see him I'm gonna break his hip. So it was crowded and I had bags with me and there was a pleasant female voice telling me to mind the gap and that there was a good service on the Northern and Jubilee lines. LIES I screamed, in my head of course, they tend not to take well to eccentricity on the tube now days. I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the Christmas and new year break. The tube and I had started a holiday romance, everything seemed fantastic and then when things returned to normal its true colours revealed themselves. I was angry, we almost broke up in fact. I was considering living in places that I'd only have to catch buses from. I did get to Kings Cross eventually though. Now I know where it is and how to get around it, it'll come in handy for the eventual trip to Paris. Here's a bonus, on National Express services they have free wifi. I surfed the net all the way up to Newcastle. Vline, take note.
Did some more revisiting of haunts from my younger days, a trip into North Shields which has only changed slightly and then Saturday it was down to Tynemouth. Tynemouth is, rather self evidently, the mouth of the Tyne river where it flows into the North Sea. The metro station is this slightly faded Victorian sea side holiday style, which reminds me somewhat of what I imagine Mrs Haversham's wedding cake to look like. When I arrived there they had a little market on. All the usual market fare except for these beautiful vintage clothes and when I say vintage I'm talking little boys sailor suits from somewhere around 1910 and flapper dresses. I so wanted to buy some but could at this point neither justify the price nor the suitcase space. I wandered down to the sea front after having a little walk around the village and soaked in the sight of the sea from the cliffs. Apart from the sea, my reason for going to Tynemouth was to see the ruins of the priory that's been there for about 800 years. I'm a bit of a sucker for some ruins and these were some gooduns. I walked in and paid my 3 pounds then walked through the door into the ruins themselves and was immediately struck by how silent it was in there. So close to Tynemouth Front Street but those walls really knocked back some sound. It was one of those beautiful cold but sunny days that happen here on occasion, which made the green grass seem so much greener and created odd shaped shadows through the crumbled walls and arches of the priory.
As I made my way through the ruins I came to a big oak door that was decorated with wrought iron embellishment. There were a couple of other people around who wandered up to the door had a bit of a look at it and then walked away. Me, I see a door and I want to know what's behind it. So I waited for the other visitors to wander away and then I slowly tried the handle expecting it to be locked. I heard a click and the door gave a little. I gave a anxious look around again like I was breaking into a safe and then snuck in to the most beautiful room I may have ever seen.
I had the strangest feeling when I walked in there though, it felt like I was coming into class late, like walking into a room full of people who were either in the middle of something very serious or were talking about you and then all of a sudden all eyes are on you. It used to be a Chantry and during the Napoleonic Wars, was used as an ammunition store. I should have taken much more photos than I did but I couldn't shake this feeling that I was interrupting something so I stood up the back taking pictures almost apologetically to an empty room.
I found a mark on the entrance way as well that I think might have been left by the master mason but I'm not entirely sure. I found some masonic graves out the back as well, well graves with the compass and square on them so I'm guessing they were masons. Another slightly odd thing I found while walking through the grave yard, right next to this big marble slab was a hole, about as wide and as deep as a human arm, and right next to this hole was a little bone. When I returned home and told my aunty about this she said “Why didn't you pick it up?” Um maybe, because its a bone and I was in a grave yard and I don't want to end up being haunted by zombie geordies.

So, that was my nice little birthday break, came back from the north on the Sunday, went to see a slightly weird flatshare in Wandsworth, well the flat was alright but the chick I would have been sharing with was weird. Then Monday, my actual birthday, I was out to Osterley to sign my contract with Sky, its nice to have a job in this time of recession but I cant shake the feeling that I've sold my freedom. Boo. But having a job will come in handy, there is the whole cash thing, and having a routine will give me a bit of structure and help me get to know London in a different way and I'll make friends as well so all that will be the upside. Oohh and my second bit of good news! Its been a lot of work finding somewhere nice to live, trying to decide what area to live in and how I'll get to work and what kind of place to live in. Places in London go notoriously quickly, I once received an email about a place and when I clicked on the links in the email to look at the ad, literally seconds after receiving it, it was gone. I don't know how that works. On Thursday, after much visiting of many crappy flatshares, I headed out west to Acton. I hadn't considered living out west before, in part because I was hoping to be within walking distance of work but considering its in Chelsea that was not really going to be a viable option at this point unless I was willing to live in a hovel. The other reason I hadn't considered it was because there are so many damn Australians out there and I felt like a cliché. But this place came up and it sounded fantastic, the pictures were beautiful and the house has an Aga which I've always dreamed of cooking on and a cat which I would never think of cooking either on or in. I got there about an hour early and had a walk around the high street which is ok, it has everything you need but its not flash or anything. First thing that struck me when I got off the train though was the sound of birds. You wouldn't think you were so close to London.
Made my way out to the house, which is a converted Coach House, and met with Jill who is the owner. We chatted for a couple of hours and she showed me around and the upshot of it all is that I'm moving in on Saturday. Hoorayyyyy! I've been so looking forward to unpacking my suitcase, I don't remember what's in there anymore. I haven't really gotten to unpack it since I moved out of Preston at the beginning of November. And its just in time for me to start the job on Monday so I can be all sorted and establish a new routine. I'll take some pictures for you once I get in there and you can see what its like. Now that I'll be based somewhere and working normal hours I can hopefully make sure that I get to blog every Sunday like I planned. Sorry I took so long.
Next time I can tell you about the fort I climbed the other day as well as the new house and job.
Lots of love.

The call of the wales

2009-01-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Its been a fairly bureaucratic week for this weary traveller, but it does give me the chance to share with you a couple of what I've learned to be, some helpful rules for travelling.
Before I left, much was made of the process of getting a National Insurance Number, tales of horror were told to me of arduous waits and Tolkien like journeys required to get one of these mythic creatures, so by the time I got here I was dreading it really. National Insurance numbers by the way are much like Australian tax file numbers or American social security numbers, they mean that I don't get charged emergency tax which is about 40% of your salary and mean that I can get access to the National Health Service and Benefits. Wanna know how long it took me to get a national insurance number?
Day one, I called them, feeling of ominous dread having built in the pit of my stomach after endless tales of revenue and customs, fuelled by the industry that has sprung up of companies who will go to the trouble of organising an appointment for you for an easy $75 AUD/ Their sales pitch is along the lines of, its so bad you should leave it to the professionals. They attach themselves to recruitment companies, a few of which I was in contact with before I left. Oh it'll take ages they said, months. Yeah I'll take my chances I said filled which what I thought at the time might be regrettable bravado. Ages, ages, ages rung in my ear in echoing flashback as I sat on the phone to the National Insurance Number people their hold music was basically just info being read out in English and Welsh. Welsh: its a beautiful language occasionally interrupted by the sound of the speaker coughing up a furball. I was in for the long haul on this phone call or so I thought, I'd even started a game of Mahjong on Bruce in expectation when all of a sudden, Hello? I was interrupted by someone answering my call by Jove. “Um, I'd like to make an appointment to get a National Insurance Number please”. “Sure, what's your name?” I told the lovely operator along with a few other bits of information and then she said something quite shocking. She said “No problem, your appointment is tomorrow at 10:30am at the Jobcenter in Tooting” Tomorrow? Really? Not five years from tomorrow if I line up now? Ok then, I say and take down my reference number, pleasantly surprised. Maybe the horror doesn't start until the interview I thought, I mean everyone had gone on about it so much there had to be some kind of horror. I envisioned waiting in the job centre for hours on end, the perfect time to continue my reading of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (fantastic book by the way) I'd bring water just in case, one needs to be hydrated.
I got myself up the next day, made my way on that clear, crisp morning through what remained of the snow and caught the train into London Bridge before catching the tube to Tooting Bec. I'm liking catching the tube, where everything is, is still mostly a mystery to me but I like the vague feeling of satisfaction I get when I manage to successfully change from one tube line to the other, sad I know but I take what I can get. Had a bit of a wander around Tooting because I was both incredibly early and considering living around that way for a bit, but by about 10am it was just too cold to be outside anymore. So I retreated into the Jobcenter to be greeted helpfully by a lady who asked me for my reference number, “I'm really early” I apologised. “No problems” she said and took my details. I sat down and unwrapped myself of coat, scarf and these brilliant angora gauntlets I got that are surprisingly warmer than gloves, and settled in with Neil. I made it through about half a page before someone called my name. Gathered up my stuff and made my way over to the desk of the lovely Johanna, she's moving to Glasgow, will be there now in fact, her husband got a new job up there and she's a little worried about how she'll cope with the weather. You know how I know this? Coz after the 5 mins it took to fill in my application we had to make small talk for another 5 while her supervisor looked it over then bang, approved. “It'll take about 3 to 4 weeks for the number to come in the post then another couple of days after that for your card to arrive” Ah I thought, that's the waiting bit but I was still out of there before my official appointment time. Spent the rest of the day wandering around south bank and London Bridge. Three to four weeks, that's ok, I thought it would be much worse. The next day was spent cooking a stew, roasting some chestnuts, waiting for snow and helping Katie organise her Ikea furniture which had just been delivered. Day after that consisted of more job applications and waiting for the microwave that Katie ordered to be delivered and then on the third day, a letter arrived. Guess what it was. That's right, from calling to getting the number in my hot little hand, 5 days. And to think I was almost willing to part with $75. Rule one of travelling: Always go with both an open mind and an open ear, never only one of those things. Sometimes things work out better than expected.

A few weeks back I was out at Heathrow and needing to make my way back into the city. There are a few ways of doing this, either catching the tube and changing a few times, catching a bus or catching the Heathrow express or connect services which will charge you anywhere between 8 and 16 pounds. I catch the bus, it gets me to Victoria Station which is where I needed to be so I could head off to see a flat share that I was considering in Battersea. Off I go to the automated ticket machine and buy a ticket on the next coach, which according to the machine isn't for another hour and a bit. Great I thought, but I had heaps of time, was even planning on killing some time by taking a look at the Saatchi gallery before my appointment, so I sat down to read. About 20 mins later an announcement came over the tannoy, the 1pm service to Victoria is now departing from bay 6. There's a stampede to bay 6 which I join, cool, more gallery time I thought. Normally there is a bus driver at the door who will check your ticket but I couldn't see them and the bus was filling up ,so I thought bugger it I'm getting on. Settle myself in and the driver gets on and doesn't really make a proper announcement which is odd, normally they say where you're going. All she says is “Sorry its a bit cold at the moment. but it should warm up a bit when we get on the motorway” Motorway? We don't usually take the motorway to get into London from here I think, but hey I don't know everything, maybe there is road works or something and they're going a different way. One of the things I love about the road signs here is when you are out on the motorway they don't just give you place names and distances, in bold letters they give you direction. TO THE WEST they exclaim as if flinging their little road signy arms wide with joy. West? I think, but London isn't west of here. I start to get a sinking feeling. About 30 mins into the journey it was clear to me that we were not heading into London, in fact we were heading away from it with increasing speed. I remained calm, giggled at myself a bit and then seriously considered staying on the bus. Oooohhhh mystery bus tour a voice inside me said. No, you have to go see that place in battersea, its right by the river and the rent is cheap said another less fun voice. Awww whined the first voice, but mystery bus tour! No, were getting off at the next stop. Less fun voice sucks. So I ended up in Reading and Macgyver like whipped out Bruce my trusty laptop used his dongle (oh er) to connect to the internet while balanced on a rubbish bin and booked myself a ticket back to London from the middle of nowhere in Reading about 3 mins before the bus back to London arrived. All the while with my fun voice whining “You shoulda stayed on the bus, it was going to Pembroke”. Made it back to Victoria in plenty of time to head out to Battersea and saw the potential flatshare. It sucked. Actually it both sucked and blowed, its the kind of place you envision dying alone, in fact that maybe all that flat could possibly the used for. “Yeah I'll get back to you” I said to the russian girl who showed me round the flat. Shoulda stayed on the bus. Rule number 2, sometimes you should ride out the unexpected, there can be such a thing as good mistakes.
Now all I have is the slightly embarrassing tale of how I almost ended up in Wales.

The God of small things

2009-01-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

This is the relatively less glamorous side of travelling to the other side of the world, I'm not travelling to any exotic destinations for the moment or preparing myself to travel to aforementioned exotic destinations. This is the business end of the trip, the how I set myself up so I can live here for a bit side. I'm doing lots of running around to find myself somewhere to live and a job and having to organise all of the bureaucratic things like National Insurance numbers.
And I don't find that fun lets be honest, lining up for things, having to convince people I wont just move into their office, steal their stationary and distract the more productive workers. Convince yet more people that I'm not a crazy serial killing nudist who has gangs of friends over to sleep on the couch and pawn their TV. It makes me frustrated. Essentially I'm impatient, when I want something I want it now. Since I moved out of my place at the beginning of November I haven't really been able to unpack my suitcase and I'm starting to crave it. I don't really remember all of what is in there, my outfits comprise of whatever has floated to the top of the pile because I just cant be bothered taking it all out only to have to put it back in again. I think as well I'm impatient for a base that I can use to orient myself around London, to have the where will I work where will I live questions answered so that I can get to know this town better. Fuck I love London. I realise the swearing is inappropriate but sometimes only an expletive will do. I love its energy. I love wandering around it and stumbling across something that I've only ever seen pictures of before. I love cruising through the tube and managing to get myself from one side of the city to the other without needing to ask for directions. I love the pasties they sell at Victoria and London Bridge Stations made by the West Cornwall Pasty company, they have a picture of a pirate on the bag and are exactly what you want in cold weather.
I love that books are so cheap here and that you can buy bunches of gloves and scarves at Primark for a couple of pound. Before I left, a bunch of people I talked to about my coming over here would leave me haunted by tales of miserable faces on the tube, the grey and unrelenting weather, the cost of everything, a million different tales of the misery that is London. All that might well be true, eventually, it's still all new to me though. I might well get to the point where I hate the weather and the people and the crowds, but I am so not there yet.
People seem to be going crazy about the weather at the moment, today The Sun ran the headline “Arctic London”, snow has hung around a few days and was pretty thick in some places so now everyone is in a tis. On Sunday as I headed back from the city after seeing a couple of share places I stood on Orpington Station waiting for my train back to Katie's, the cold had turned my cheeks to marble in stark contrast to the rest of me which was toasty warm. I paced up and down the platform feeling happy for no good reason listening to Sarah Blasko's version of Don't Dream its Over, as the song reached this harmonic choral break between verses I thought how beautiful this moment would be if it was snowing and then I felt a snowflake kiss me on the cheek and I looked up and saw the snow whirling in lamplight. It reminded me, in the midst of all this running around going to job interviews and NIN interviews and seeing flats I have to remember to find something fun otherwise what's the point of this. That's not just good when I'm in London that's good for all the time. So I've tried to chill myself out a bit, to not be so impatient. To enjoy little things like how the ground glitters when its frosty which I think my neice Livvy would love and the sound of the snow crunching under your feet. Slightly cliched possibly but fuck it, I have fun. Today after my National Insurance Interview, where I had to go in and prove I'm me so they'll give me a number so they can also know I'm me, I went wandering down around London Bridge again but this time up the other end away from the Tate I had a look into Southwark Cathedral where they have a monument to William Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre is around there so they feel as though they have a corner on Bill. As I walked into the cathedral one of the guides came up, very helpful and studious lady, let me know all about the cathedral and that I would have to buy a permit to take pictures inside, I decided no, churches have entirely enough money without my contributing to them. I didn't miss much, you can see it all on the net and I can just remember how things looked in my head ok it was only 2 pounds but that's like $5000 in Australian money. Odd little moment though as she offered me a pamphlet outlining some of the highlights and the history of the cathedral, she said “English, ok” as if she wasn't entirely sure I'd be able to read it, Had we not just been speaking in English? Had I not demonstrated a proficiency in the language, part of me thought I should get all ocker and say “Got any of em in Australian luv?” and maybe winked and then smacked her on the arse but we were in a church and I have entirely divested myself of the catholic guilt and sense of propriety.
So in answer to the questions in my last post, where will I work, hopefully I shall know that by the end of this week. Where will I live, also something to be discovered this week. The call of the wales, I'm going to keep you waiting a little for that one and is there an upside to all this cold weather, why yes there is, and its snow damnit, cute when it falls gently from the heavens and leaves tiny, cold, pin prick kisses on my cheeks. Not so fun when it turns to ice on the foot path but touch wood I still haven't fallen over on it yet. Happy New year xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Travelling North

2009-01-04T15:49:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am well over planes. I feel slightly blasphemous saying that considering my brother has dedicated his life to them but still, considering how many of them I've been on lately the thought of getting on another one made me want to scream.
It was for that reason, when faced with a the decision as to how to get to Newcastle Upon Tyne to see the family for Christmas, I chose instead to take to the road.

There are two ways of travelling it seems, fast and slightly agonising or slow and languid. I like to take the slower road, if I can get somewhere by boat, bus or train then generally I will pick one of those three. Maybe its the vast expanses of time one can spend starring out at passing scenery, (preferably moors of some description or a steely grey sea) through a rain spotted window while contemplating life, the universe, everything.
In an airplane the journey feels a bit more detached, vast expanses of land, continents, oceans are covered without the gift of being able to notice the shift in scenery. I like also, with the slower road, of knowing that I will get there when I get there, that nothing is rushed, all time is mine and I can read a book or do some writing or find the perfect song on my MP3 player to match the passing view.
We got back from Sweden on the Thursday night and not having to go to a second interview for one of the jobs I'm trying for until after Christmas I decided that I might as well take off and see the family on the Friday. This was a trip I hadn't made in about 10 years when I was a youngster of 20 and life seemed much more complicated than I've subsequently realised that it is. I'd spent a bit of time in Geordie Land then, going on little jaunts from my Aunty's place in Percy Main down to the Royal Quays to see the boats in or wander around the discount outlets that used to be frequented by boat loads of Norwegians shipped in from Bergen doing their Christmas shopping and escaping the high cost of living over there. I caught that boat once, back to Bergen from Newcastle with the freshly shopped Norwegians, they taught me to macarena and we got caught in a force 9 gale in the north sea, though the two were entirely unrelated. They've stopped that route now, to much hue and cry. You can only get the ferry to Amsterdam which I shall do later in the year with my trusty Aunt as my chaperone, I shall be Henry Pulling and she shall be.........my Aunt. I had resigned myself to tracing the route on the Metro from Percy Main to Monument via Google Earth but now I was preparing myself for free time and Christmas where I could reacquaint myself with the haunts of my almost youth.
As I sat on the coach speeding through the rain spiked night listening to The Presets I saw the Angel of the North come into view and it felt a little bit like coming home. Aww. Now to the slight drawbacks of coach travel. It is an unfortunate reality that toilets on long haul bus trips should only be entered only in the event of a dire emergency, and even then you should probably have a good long think about it. On my way up to Newcastle I made it a point to avoid the coach toilet, thinking instead of the welcoming marble facilities available to me once I got to Newcastle Central Station, facilities that were big enough to swing several cats in and would not drench me in the event of sudden breaking. I held on. And it was cold, which makes a pressing urge somewhat more pressing. But, there were certain factors that I had not included in my formulation of this plan. I was arriving in Newcastle on a Friday night, everybody would be out getting pished to greet the weekend, it was the last weekend before Christmas and most people would not have to work next week which would multiply the revellers exponentially and finally the third factor was one that I could not have hoped to calculate, the good people at Newcastle Rail Station in their infinite wisdom being fully cognisant of factor one and factor two decided to close off ALL the toilets instead leaving only one night toilet open, One. At the risk of repeating myself, one. Let me introduce to you the worst toilet in Britain.
Imagine say, a thousand drunk people, falling down, inappropriately affectionate, bad hand eye coordination, drunk people. Imagine putting them in a tiny, poorly lit space and expecting them to hit a target, imagine them missing, imagine then that some unforseen hand picks up that tiny, poorly lit urine soaked toilet and then shakes it like a snow dome. Then imagine really needing to use that toilet and lining up behind 10 drunk people at midnight in 0 C and having to listen to each and every one of them comment on how horrible the toilet was before adding to the horror and taking forever to get out again. But given the length of the queue waiting for cabs out the front of the station it was clear that this was not a matter that could wait. I would have taken a photo for you but I would rather spare you it. I did however make it safe and sound and, after some rather dexterous toilet gymnastics, entirely stranger wee free, to Aunty Mary's in Percy Main. Was a nice quiet Christmas really, much time spent watching Aunty fall asleep watching sky (which was sweet), heading up to Newcastle on the metro and wandering down by the river Tyne. Had Christmas Day at my cousin Stephen's where he put on a fabulous feast of sweet potato soup, turkey with all the trimmings and your choice of desserts, amazing soup, I memorised the recipe, when you have me in human form ask me to make it for you . I'm very lucky to have family over here, particularly at Christmas. I also indulged a little in the post Christmas sales and picked up some very cheap high quality runners that will ensure I stay upright in these icy conditions as well as some marvellous Marks and Spencer bras. I say old chap, absolutely spiffing brassieres what.
In our next instalment, where will I work? Where will I live? The call of the wales and is there an upside to all this cold weather? Merry Christmas and Happy New year to you all.

Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream.

2008-12-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

The Icehotel, its taken me a while to be able to blog about this one, even composing it in my head its hard to know what to say. Bare with me, there may be metaphors. The Icehotel had been something the rest of my trip formed around, something I'd planned for a bit more than a year really.

When I first started planning it it seemed like a fantastical idea, kind of a pie in the sky dream.
I'm gonna go to the Icehotel, sure, and while you're at it why not drop in on mars and venus.
When you've thought about something that much, daydreamed about it, reassured yourself with it to get through less pleasant tasks, worked your arse off for it and told everyone who even caught your eye in passing about it, there can be the danger of the reality not matching up to the imaginary.
This did not happen in my case. I went to the fucking Icehotel! And its made of ice! And I slept in it and didn't die!
Gah, I can only start from the beginning and hope I don't miss things.
So we flew in from Stockholm after spending the day wandering around there, love Stockholm, want to go back there, muchos pretty, read the last post.
I was exhausted by this point though, lots of wandering around and travelling in a very short frame of time for me and it really wore me out, I couldn't remember the last time I had a full nights sleep and I think the excitement of all this stuff happening made it even harder to try and sleep when I could so for the most part when I got to the icehotel I was running on fumes. That and how long I've been waiting for this made everything feel somewhat surreal.
As we flew into Kiruna airport we couldn't really see anything because of the clouds. Once we got below them Katie started excitedly pointing out the snow “where, where!” was my reply “Dude, the white stuff, on the ground” I still couldn't see it, deranged I was I tell you.
We land on a tarmac which is covered in ice and snow, it doesn't seem possible, and if it is possible it seems highly dangerous, but our skilful Swedish pilots managed it with no fuss, actually they might have been Norwegian. Kiruna is a tiny airport, the closest one to Jukkasjarvi where the icehotel is, and is about 200km inside the arctic circle. For those of you who are in Melbourne, its like Moorabbin airport but covered in snow.
They unfold these rickety little stairs and off we totter on the icy tarmac, now me, I do not have a reputation of being sure footed, a few months back when reminiscing with some childhood friends we couldn't help but notice how many of our anecdotes involved me falling over, into or on something. This phenomena only recently seems to have abated and I am falldowno free for 2008 so far but knowing this fact about myself always makes me a little extra cautious, the maternal voice inside my head berates me slightly “remember not to fall on your arse” it says “I wont” is my internal sing song reply, usually given right before I fall on my arse. Trying out my new sturdier legs on ice was going to be quite the challenge I thought but I can report, quite proudly I might add, that for the entire time I was at the icehotel surrounded by all that slippy stuff I never landed on my arse once, nor my face either. Apart from one tiny little almost slip in front of the webcam out the front of the icehotel, which I rapidly recovered from and made some gesture of turning around to look at something so it would appear as though I meant it, I was sure-footed as a mountain goat.

We shuffle into the arrivals hall at Kiruna which was, well, a hall, and then into the waiting taxi to the icehotel. We shared our cab with an Irish couple, and did the usual traveller banter. Where are you from Ireland Oh I've been there blah, where are you from Melbourne oh I've been there blah. Then everyone started freaking out a little at the speed the driver was going, but me, pah I was fine, speed, I laugh at your speed, I have been on the road in the UAE, everything after that is like a pleasure cruise.
It was actually no where near as cold as I thought it was going to be, it was somewhere around -4 to -10 C while we were there, the week before it was -30 apparently so we missed the worst of the cold snap. It was so dry that the cold just felt brisk and kinda clean really. We dragged our suitcases through the snow to the warm reception area to check in and get our snow gear. After dumping our stuff into our locker the icehotel chick hooked us up with the most amazing snow boots, they were so light but so warm, I didn't want to give them back. Snowbooted, we went off to explore our new surrounds. It was so silent there apart from the crunching of our feet in the snow, occasionally you heard some of the huskies howling but that was mostly it. We went through every room we could get into in the icehotel, some people had already retired to bed that night and the curtain pulled across the entrance to the room was our warning to stay out.
A lot of them were empty though, one of the benefits of going right at the start of the season.
My favourite room was one that was built to look like a tree house. You walked in the entrance and then followed these steps around and up into the branches of this tree that cradled your bed for the evening.
I have to say having slept in the snow room, which is a bit cheaper and essentially just a bed in an iceroom without all the sculpture, I don't really feel like I missed out on much not staying in an art suite. Its too cold to just hang out there not doing anything and when the lights go out you cant see any of it. Being a guest we got free access to all the rooms before and after the public was let in and out each day so we got to see every room relatively undisturbed anyway.

The icebar this year was Art Deco themed with these fabulous club lounges sculpted from ice and covered in reindeer skins so that you could sit on them. Incredibly warm those reindeer skins though I kept getting stray reindeer hairs on me which was a little creepy. A tip, remember to bring your gloves when drinking in the icebar. The drinks are served in ice glasses and I had a little moment of panic when I got mine as I thought I'd forgotten my gloves. I cannot for the life of me remember what my drink was but it was vodka and it was red and I wanted 12 of them. Such amazing drinks at the icehotel, I could have returned with Larry Hagman's first liver had they not cost the deficit of a south american country.
After we had drunk all we could afford and wander all we were able we decided to bite the bullet and turn in for the night. You go to the reception and they give you your thoughtfully prewarmed sleeping bag, then you are told to remove all your nice warm clothing and make a dash for it in your thermals, but you are advised to wear a hat. So off we went, me in thermal leggings, tracksuit pants and a long sleeved t-shirt, and my hat, cant forget that. I think Katie wore her PJ bottoms and a jumper. When they give you your thoughtfully prewarmed sleeping bag they also give you this sheet thing which its kind of like an envelope that you are supposed to stuff inside the sleeping bag somehow and then crawl inside the sheety envelope, inside the sleeping bag. I'm sure the reception staff just do this to give themselves a laugh seeing how long we will attempt to get one thing inside the other. Me I gave up in about 2 mins and used my sheety thing as a pillow, You do get pillows at the icehotel but they leave them in the room so they end up frozen. So we make our dash from the warm of the reception outside into the cold and then through the reindeer skin clad outside door of the icehotel and shuffle down to our room. The bed is essentially this unreassuring wooden board propped up on these bricks of ice, covered in a thick mattress and reindeer skins, the trick is to take off your boots without putting your feet down on the floor (its covered in ice and snow) then get your self inside the sleeping bag without falling off the bed onto the floor (still covered in ice and snow) and then find a way to stay inside it while you fumble for the lightswitch at the base of the bed (not by the door, coz the floor is covered in..you guessed it, bees, no, I'm kidding its ice and snow). This should be an Olympic sport. The first few minutes of our night went like this, I was really tired and kinda worn out from both all my travelling and the sheer effort of trying to get the boots off and the sleeping bag on, part of me hoped that I would fall into a hypothermic state of unconsciousness so for the first ten minutes I just lay there, mean while Katie was performing all kinds of gymnastics trying to get herself comfortable and silently resenting me for looking like I was comfortable. This took her about ten minutes, it was at this point that I realised death would not take me, and I would not fall asleep unless I could get myself into a better position but now I thought Katie was asleep and everytime you moved in one of those sleeping bags they rustled loudly which seemed amplified by the snow somehow and made me feel like I was carrying a squealing pig through a market place, you know how they make that horrible panic driven squeal but then the second you put them down wander off like nothing at all happened, that's exactly like those fucking sleeping bags, rustle, rustle, rustle that could wake the dead then nothing. Also the sleeping bag was kinda slippy, and I was trying to make sure that Katie had enough room so I was perched on the edge of an unsturdy feeling thing in a slippy feeling thing surrounded by ice. I would gather the sleeping bag up around my head like it was a cocoon and then try and gently relax into sleep but the sleeping bag would fall away and the cold would whisper in my ear like an unwanted lover. Then my hat fell off. Then I thought fuck it, and just fell asleep. Next thing I know a Swedish woman wearing a miners helmet with a lamp on it was handing me a cup of hot lingonberry juice (which by the way is delicious) and telling me its morning.
All we could think of was getting into the warmth so we downed that juice and ran with our sleeping bags, which now felt heavier than dead weights, into the warm changing area an our lockers. Both of us decided we were not up for the Swedish communal showers and headed straight to breakfast which was across the road from the icehotel and buffet style. Lovely.
We had a bit of a wait til we got into our warm cabin after breakfast, I nearly cried when the lady at the check in desk told me that, all I wanted in the world at that moment was a shower and a nap. But we both killed time in our own ways, Katie shopped and I wandered around behind the icehotel on the river and meditated to try and pull myself together and suck it up til our cabin was ready.

A brief moment to talk about the water. The do go on a bit about the water at the icehotel and its entirely deserved, it was beautiful, I gulped it down, it was the nicest water I've ever had in my life, so clean and pure it tasted of nothing but made you feel like you were drinking the finest wine, without the getting drunk part of course. I took a bottle home smuggled in my suitcase and treated myself to mouthfuls of it til it ran out. I have to go back if for nothing else than the water, everything else tastes like it came from somewhere stagnant and diseased.

Eventually reception woman took pity on me and let us into our room early. Ohh such a comfortable bed, I was never happier than when laying on it staring up at the sky through the window in the ceiling. I napped for a bit and then had a shower and then Katie and I pottered around until dinner time. I'd booked us in at this place called the Old homestead restaurant which was...well an old homestead actually, made from logs and all nice and toasty. They were serving a traditional Swedish Christmas dinner buffet style. All the names of the dishes were in Swedish but I know I ate reindeer and I think I ate wild boar, both were delicious but I wont tell the kids I ate reindeer, they would think their Aunty Jane cruel and unfeeling.
We had mulled wine seeing as it was Christmas and invited this woman over to our table who had come to stay at the icehotel on her own, turned out she was mad as a hatter but a good conversationalist and we ended up chatting til the place cleared.
Then we all wandered up to the old Jukkasjarvi church which is about 300 years old and took some pictures which were a bit blurry from my being buffeted by arctic winds. I had hoped to see the Northern Lights but it was a bit too cloudy while we were there. I shall find another way, might have to go a bit later in the season maybe. We wandered back in the snow for the last time taking pictures of anything we hadn't yet recorded, said good night to our crazy dinner companion and then wandered out the back of the icehotel to stare at the sky one last time in the hopes of seeing something northern lighty. When I went to bed I kept waking myself up having dreamt that they were waving at me like a glowing green curtain through the sky light in my roof.
Wish I was there for longer really. Will absolutely go again come hell or high water before its all melted away from global warming and a distant memory. I did manage to get some pretty sunrise pics on the plane on the way back though. If I die and it turns out there is a god, I'm gonna tell him, dude, nice job on the sunrises.

Its begining to look alot like Christmas

2008-12-24T08:33:00.000-08:00

Alright so where were we. Gamla Stan, that's right. So after the all too brief night in the Yotel with the fantastic showers it was off to terminal 5 to get to Stockholm. We had checked in the night before and the website told us to turn up 45 mins before boarding but then the bag drop lady gave us a hard time about it saying we were late and might not make it through security so that stressed me out a bit before we got on the plane. I have to say I'm so sick of going through security check points. Its all a farce, elaborate theatre to make people feel relaxed about travelling when in reality if someone really wanted to smuggle something through then chances are they could. My brother John gave me a good tip for getting through the check points though. If you walk through their metal detectors and you're wearing rings or a watch or something like that and you have your hands by your side then it can set off the metal detector and they usually ask you to take off your shoes and walk through again. If you walk through with your hands behind your back it wont happen. I do this every time now coz I hate that beeping when you pass through the check point. So far since leaving Australia I haven't been randomly tested for explosives though, it happened every time I got on a plane before but clearly here I am not their target demographic for some reason. So got through security and then trekked all the way out to the gate so we could get on a bus and be driven out onto the tarmac to reach our plane. Nice easy 3 hour flight to Stockholm where suddenly everyone is deeply attractive, if there were ugly people there I didn't see them, ok maybe a slight correction, I saw 2 ugo's in a lift once but that was it, everyone else, gorgeous. They had that whole rugged outdoors naturally good looking thing going on, I wasn't looking at the women so guys one of you will have to testify to their fitness but I can certainly vouch for the guys. Was very sorry to leave Sweden I can tell you.
Worked out how to exchange my cash and got a locker for the bags and then a bus ticket into town and we were on our way. After consulting my trusty lonely planet guide book I thought that in the amount of time we had our best bet was to spend the day wandering around Gamla Stan which is the old part of Stockholm, Katie and I both like all the old buildings and we'd be sure to get some good photos so that was the plan. But how to get there was another question. Sure the guide book had a map but there seemed to be about 5 different stations called Centrale and I had no idea which one we were at. In the end we wandered down to the tourist information bureau and I, quite innocently I thought, asked the man behind the counter how I could get to Gamla Stan. “You walk of course” was his astounded reply. Oh really, coz I thought maybe there would be magical roller blades, a talking sheepdog and a rat called Elvis that would take me there and I'd have to face great challenges and learn important moral lessons about friendship and bravery. Yes, I knew that we could walk it but which freakin way is it, I felt like saying, but I'm nice, patient and nice. Actually come to think of it he wasn't attractive, an exception to my everyone is cute rule. Ugly angry tourist help man. Not bitter at all me. So with the begrudging help of the tourist information guy we wandered from the station to Gamla Stan. A beautiful collection of old buildings and invitingly twisting alleyways. Being Christmas everything was decked out very cheerfully and it was very much the storybook vision that you get of Christmas in a cold climate. Bits of mistletoe around and these paper star things that Katie bought a whole bunch of. A little cold but I was rugged up in my thermals and coat and little hat that I think makes me look like a bit of nipple but is warm so I wear it anyway. We wandered up and down streets and through alleyways at one point coming on to a square that held a Christmas market. Lots of very cute crafty things to buy that cost an arm and a leg and at least three toes, but still pretty, and holding with that whole image of a little snowy village Christmas but without the snow. That would not come til we reached the arctic. I definitely want to go back to Gamla Stan, and stay in the town I think for a weekend or something. Find out if they had some weekendy market festival type thing and hole up for a couple of days. It was a very beautiful place I thought, if I could get a job there I'd have no problems living in Stockholm.
Tired though I was after all the running around of the last few weeks and on less and less sleep, my legs said ow and my brain said no more shopping. I'm not a great one for shopping really, I have to be in the mood, generally if I have to shop for something I'm in then I'm out again. I'd much rather take photos than buy souvenirs so at the end of the day in Gamla Stan I was ready for a bit of a rest but we still had to get back to the airport and pick up our bags before we changed terminals and got on the plane to head up to Kiruna and I think by that point I was a little too over tired to sleep.
In our next episode: Katie and Jane enter the frozen heart of the arctic, where they get fantastic boots and free cookies. Free cookies, that don't sound so bad, hey Ma we's goin' ta tha Arctic!

Oh your pictures for today are of the little christmassy market thing in Gamla Stan and this shop front we found with a surrealist window display called Very Important Clothes. Cute it was.
Rock Town was also fun, go see the pictures on facebook I'm a little rationed with the internet at the moment so I cant load all of them up here.

The Tate, pieces of silver and how to kill time in London

2008-12-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

I've been running round so much lately I don't even know how much time has passed. I shall break this up into a couple of blog entries coz there has been a bit to cover and I'd end up glossing over things. My week started with a job interview on Monday in Waterloo which if nothing else afforded me the opportunity to go and see the Tate Modern. A good bunch of the galleries and museums over here are free which is fucking awesome, you can spend whole days wandering around these amazing spaces without having to fork out a cent, or a pence or a pound, whatever currency it is that I'm supposed to be using now. I have a suitcase filled with the shrapnel of currency from 3 different countries at the moment, its annoying that currency exchange places don't take coins.
But back to my earlier point, The Tate.
I had time to kill before meeting Katie so we could head to Heathrow for our stay at the Yotel before we headed off to Sweden and so I followed this labyrinth of signs that kept assuring me that the Tate was mere minutes away when all of a sudden I stumbled upon The Globe theatre, its a replica of the original globe and its right near the Tate and the millennium bridge, I couldn't get into it because it was closed off for something so it will be another day of sightseeing I think so that I can get to go inside. I want to see a show there actually, that might be fun depending on the weather. I wandered a little further down the river bank as they had all these little stalls out, I guess its an every day thing maybe. They had heaps of handmade things, kids clothes hats, scarves and gloves perfect for the weather at the moment and various food stalls selling everything from wild boar sandwiches hot off the spit to rare breed beef burgers and mulled wine.
I ended up getting myself this handmade leather notebook I can use to write in. It smells gorgeous and the paper is made from cotton and has little petals randomly embedded in it, at 8 pounds I thought it was a bargain.
Took a couple of touristy photos of London from the millennium bridge and then wandered into the Tate for a look around. Its a fantastic space, would make a great performance space actually but who knows if they would agree to that.
Some of their surrealist pieces were really amazing.
There was this one installation that took up an entire room and it was pieces of peoples disregarded silverware, forks, spoons, knives, trays, teapots, sugar bowls, dressing table sets, all flattened with a steamroller and then arranged in these perfect circles that were suspended from the ceiling by thin wire and hovered about a foot off the floor. I guess its the obsession and the commitment to the idea that intrigues me. The artist collected all this stuff over more than a year from various op shops and boot sales and all kinds of places, these things that once, someone would have cherished, only taken out on special occasions, had a special place for and take particular care of and now its been discarded in some op shop to be picked up by just anyone and then flattened and hung from a ceiling like a dead thing. But there was something beautiful about the little glimpses of original detail on the pieces, little bits of engraving and filigree, the tines of the forks that looked like little silver tree branches after being run over. And how everything was still gleaming and swayed a little in the breezes as people filed in and out and moved around the edges of the room. Everything being arranged so specifically felt like it gave it some heavier significance whether it was perceptible to the person viewing it or not, that things had been placed just so indicated that someone ascribed a certain meaning to that particular thing, that those things were special.
I haven't done all the floors of the Tate so I'll be back there too I think, want to spend at least a couple of days wandering around the galleries and museums on that strip. The borough market is just behind there as well but they weren't open on the Monday so I'll have to head down there on either a Thursday or the weekend. The golden hind is down there as well which is this replica of a ship that was sailed by Sir Francis Drake and The Clink is there, the jail from which all other jails get their name. Looks like a bit of a novelty thing but I'll probably head in there too.
Made my way back to Victoria Station from London bridge and met up with Katie before we caught the national express bus out to Heathrow pretty quick trip which was good because by this point I was exhausted and it was freaking cold that day. What can I say about Yotel, the showers are beyond description. Far and away the best shower I've ever had, one of those big rain head shower things that pelt down on you like a tropical storm. The Yotel is this little hotel in Terminal 4 that is designed for short stays or for people who might have a layover of a couple of hours before they have to fly out somewhere, its a brilliant idea really and they seem to be springing up all over the place. They are modelled on the first class cabins of BA so the sheets are all high thread count and the towels are all nice and fluffy. We had a couple of issues with the TV and the Weatherspoon's next door had no food so we ended up having to scrounge dinner in the form of a sandwich from a Cafe Nero but still, the shower kinda made up for most of that.
Next time: Sweden, why is everyone there so damn attractive?