UK Roundup - where the cars are on the correct side of the road

My first two weeks were in many ways like taking baby steps back into the world of backpacking again. I spent most of the time with friends, which always offers a different experience than when travelling alone. For me, perhaps the most pertinent thing about spending time in the UK was actually about attempting to gather the right information to make a decision about the next few years of my life – whether I’m interested in doing a working holiday visa, and if I did, whether I would do it in the UK or Canada. I didn't care as much bout seeing the 'sites' but rather, I was enjoying examining public transport, grocery prices, and understanding the neighbourhoods so there would be  context should I ever be looking at renntal budgets. It wasn't all practical though - there was healthy mount of tourist fun!


London

I arrived in London early on the morning of Saturday 21^st April, after the world’s longest flying experience. I could offer a recap of the flight experience but instead, I prefer to focus on the fact that I emerged reasonably unscathed, albeit exhausted. Having been to London before, I was able to obtain an Oyster card and navigate the tube without too much trouble. I won’t go through every single little thing that I saw, I’ll stick to the highlights.

 I can say without fail that it was the worst case of jet lag that I’ve experienced – I hardly slept on the plane and landed at 6am so it felt like it was time to sleep when really, I needed to keep myself awake for another fourteen hours or so. Fortunately, I had people to keep me going and to regulate my schedule – because my first few days in London were all about meeting up with a group of friends. I kept myself going on my day of arrival by familiarising myself with the area around our hostel, figuring out the closest tube, the second closest tube, making sure I knew how to get to Victoria that afternoon to collect the first of my friends who were arriving, and took a wander around the Sloane Square and Chelsea area. Shelle arrived on the afternoon of the day that I arrived, so I managed to get a second wind mid afternoon in anticipation for the meet up, although I suspect that I was completely incoherent that night. Great impression I would have made! I did manage to keep awake until a reasonable hour, and to sleep through the night, which is best thing you can do when you’re dealing with jetlag.

London buses and black cab

On Sunday the London marathon was taking place and just in the course of our wanderings we stumbled across a glimpse of it in progress as we wandered from Blackfriars station, and then we headed across the Thames to Waterloo and back across the footbridge back to Charing Cross – and yet again, finding ourselves amidst marathon mania. After a wander around Leicester Square we headed to meet friend #2, Holly, at Kings Cross. That night we had a classy dinner of Nandos, which is way better in England than in Australia. (If you're widely curiously as to why, they have softdrink refills and better sides.)

London Marathon

Monday was a pretty crappy weather day, a shame because this was going to tamper with some of our plans for the day. We persevered nonetheless, the three of us meeting up with the final friend to come into town – Amy, here at my blog also known as mega tech/artistry consultant – who was just coming to London for the day. We spent a few hours chatting and hanging out in the hostel before heading out to grab some lunch and toward the ITV Studios, where we had priority tickets for the taping of The Graham Norton Show that night. We arrived early (with these things, arriving early correlates to better seats) and after a miserable wait in the wet and cold, we received our wristbands which were numbered, being told that we would be given entry to the building in number order. We took shelter in a pub down the road for the next half hour before trudging back toward the studios for yet another wet and miserable wait. However it was all worthwhile when we were ushered inside, having front row seats for the taping! Due to the taping starting late, Amy missed her train back but fortunately found an alternative option which all worked out okay in the end.

Tuesday was a fairly quiet day, with the morning being spent in the Hyde Park/Park Lane area, and grabbing lunch at Piccadilly Circus. We bid farewell to Holly late in the afternoon after another train mishap – this time, with her train being cancelled, however an alternative option was quickly sourced.

One of the very pretty hotels on Park Lane

Wednesday was the worst weather day we had in London, the day that I already wrote about spending at Westminster Abbey. After the service, Shelle and I headed to the Westfield in Stratford – we’d wanted to hit up the Camden Markets but the atrocious weather made the allure of an indoor mall much more appealing. The weather cleared up later in the afternoon though, just in time for us to head out to see Billy Elliott. The show was really funny, really entertaining, and we had our seats ‘upgraded’ because we’d purchased cheap seats in the upper circle but they kept the upper circle closed and relocated everyone into the dress circle instead, so we wound up with much, much better seats.

Victoria Palace - home of Billy Elliot!

Scotland

“We don’t really do vegetables here in Scotland. Vegetables are what the food eats.”

Russell, who was my tour guide for the Scottish Highlands tour I took, made this comment and I had to laugh. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not much of a vegetable person myself. Russell made me feel like I was among friends and that was really how I felt my whole time in Edinburgh.

Thursday was departure day from London, heading back to Edinburgh to be hosted by Shelle for the next 8 nights. Our Megabus was late arriving but other than that, nothing particularly notable about the journey – a long but expected nine hours later, we were pulling into Edinburgh. Shelle had the start of a flu, we suspect picked up at the hostel and likely exacerbated by the wet, miserable morning at Westminster; and within a couple of days I was feeling something flu-like coming on as well. So our overall approach to the week was taking it easy – enjoying all of the lovely things you get by staying at someone’s house, like wi-fi and diet coke in the fridge and a gorgeous cat wandering around. I enjoy staying with someone because I feel you get a better perspective of ‘real’ life in that city. Real people in Scotland don’t live on the Royal Mile and spend time playing bagpipes and wearing kilts, despite what the rumours suggest. I was disappointed when there wasn't a bagpipe band greeting us at the Scottish border. However getting to know a 'real' city is always enjoyable. I enjoy all of the smallest things, like getting to know the local grocery stores and the associated brands.

View from Calton Hill

I had my big Scottish Highlands tour on Monday which I alredy posted the entry about; and we also took a day trip to Glasgow on Thursday – learning point, do not go travelling with children unless you’re prepared to give them ice-creams and sweets and crisps every hour to stop their complaining.  As for the rest of the time, we didn’t just sit around the house the whole time – there was a healthy number of fun outings among the relaxation, including drinks and going out dancing with the girls on Saturday night, a look around at the typical tourist fare part of Edinburgh, shopping along Princes Street, wanderings at Leith Walk, Ocean Terminal, the Botanical Gardens, the views from Calton Hill, going to the cinemas twice.

The Quintessential Edinburgh Postcard Shot

Plus, the sitting around the house, which is so me in the real world – it’s funny, I love to travel and explore but when I’m living ordinary life, I’m such a homebody so there was a great deal of comfort in this. I had the pleasure of watching episodes of Friends (season 5, yay, thanks Comedy Channel!) and The Big Bang Theory (which I’d not watched much previously but now love) and so much British ‘factual’ television – like renovation shows, auction shows, Escape to the Countryside and the like. Plus, a Border Security Australia marathon. I think Shelle may have made things a little bit too comfortable for me, being able to do three loads of laundry in eight days (unheard of, while backpacking!) and the like, because leaving was going to be hard enough on the emotional level of leaving my friend, but there was the whole added layer of having to deal with leaving behind all of the lovely creature comforts.

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

I was in Newcastle just for the night on Saturday and what can I say? Tacky as hell. So. Many. Drunk. People. More drunk people than I could fathom. I understand that it was a Saturday night, big football weekend, May Day public holiday weekend.... but come on, there were people running around the streets shrieking and shouting at 2pm! And not just an isolated few. A lot of people! I spent about four hours wandering the city centre and down to the quayside before retreating back to my hostel, and venturing out again an hour later to go to Tesco – seriously, the lunch deal is the greatest thing ever. This morning on my way to the coach station, it was like a ghost town – everyone was obviously hiding inside, hungover. I wasn’t leaving at the crack of dawn, it was just after 9am when I left my hostel, and even right outside central station, it was dead.

Quayside, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Liverpool

 
I write this on my final night in the UK, in Liverpool. I’d been to Liverpool before, on a day trip from Manchester in 2008 with an American girl I met in the hostel named Meg. Somehow Meg and I must’ve turned the opposite way from the train station because I have not seen any of the part of the town that my hostel is in before, and it seems to be the main part of town! However I couldn’t engage the energy for more than a couple of hours wandering around – it’s 6pm and I’ve had my dinner and there’s no wi-fi here and yet here I am, on the netbook, catching up on writing a few blog entries to post when I do have wi-fi.
 

Some pretty building that I had no energy to walk closer to find out what it was

That flu I referred to having in Edinburgh? I’m feeling a bit concerned that maybe it’s something more – bronchitis, a chest infection, who knows. Something in the way that I’m breathing (or, you know, struggling to breathe) is feeling unlike any other recovery from the flu I’ve experienced, and the cough isn’t that annoying after flu cough with a sore throat. Don’t worry mum, I’ll look after myself. I’m going to give it a few more days, I’m hoping that the slightly warmer weather on the mainland will help (post script edit: night #3 in Lisbon and the cough has improved drastically) – I’ve also never recovered from a flu while coming in and out from the freezing cold into the warm inside back into the chilly air, so maybe it’s just hitting me harder than before.  Anywy, this justifies taking it easy in Liverpool, to recharge for mainland Europe.

~

I’ll be back in the UK at the very end of my Europe trip, with my flight booked from Tallinn, Estonia to London and then just under a week later, my flight from London to Newark. Right now, as I sit here with less than 18 hours left here for this portion of the trip, I am looking forward to coming back – there’s a lot that I love about overall British culture, yes a certain amount is the familiarity and identification with the similarities to Australian culture, but it’s more than that although I can’t quite pinpoint it. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be up to, although I am planning a day trip or maybe overnight trip down south, a possibility for another night out at the theatre, attending the first or second day of Wimbledon, and I’d love to squeeze in a trip to York. I’m excited to figure it out but since I haven’t even planned all of mainland Europe, I figure I’m best to refrain for a little while longer!