Wails and Other Surprises

I spent a few days last week in Wales. Cardiff, to be precise. It was horrible. I think this is not entirely Cardiff's fault - it was more a case of whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. A horrible hostel, some horrible people, some creepy people and some downright unsanitary people unfortunately weighed more heavily in the balance than did the nice people I met and the cool Victorian-era faux-medieval castles I saw. I won't condemn the whole of Wales, but what I have seen of it left a nasty taste in my mouth - sorry Wales.

Since my almost indecently joyful return to London I have kind of hung around for a few days, but on Saturday I went to Brighton! It was great! I was rather surprised at this - I had decided that all continental beach towns were tawdry, over-inflated tourist traps with no more soul than a Simpson-Grierson lawyer. It turns out that if you can forget that these places are meant to have anything to do with what we Kiwis think of as a beach, they can actually be quite cool in their own way.

I am now in Paris, for the third time, and I have a cold! I don't seem to have much luck here - I've had bad weather or a cold both times (the weather is lovely this time, touch wood)! Still, it hasn't lost its charm and I am enjoying it, and am looking forward to seeing the catacombs and the (inside of) the Louvre this time.

After Paris I catch the eurostar back to London for my final weekend in London. I'm going out with Jamie on the Saturday, and possibly having drinks with all the people I've met in London on Friday or Sunday evening. I leave on Monday, in the evening thank god, so at least I don't have to rush. A week in Brisbane, and then... home!

Dreaming Spires

The air in Cambridge is rarer than in other parts of the country. It seems to be thinned out by its being spread across generations of be-spired buildings and their inhabitants, whom one can imagine all still inhabit the place, just a step to the side...

Poetic pretensions aside, it was a great day out. Tony and I got on the bike nice and early... well, sort of early... and rode up in the brilliant sunshine. Lunch was had at a place which didn't serve chips with everything (they exist! Wow!), which had a great view of the road for watching people, and deciding which were tourists, who went to the University, and which of the old mad homeless men were tenured professors.

The King's College Chapel

After lunch we went to see King's College Chapel. This "Chapel" (read: private Cathedral) was pretty amazing, but doesn't stand out as the coolest one I've seen. The way out took us in to the grounds proper, where we wandered the paths - they actually have "keep off the grass" signs! - and watched punters pass on the river Cam.

The Grounds of King's College

People punting on the Backs, as seen from the King's College grounds

Avoiding touts, we made our way down the crowded streets to where the punts start. We got in to a boat with ten other people and proceeded to be poled up and down the river by a very dextrous young man, who regaled us with tales of the colleges, and the odd gem detailing reasons why Cambridge is better than "the Other Place".Our punt, with the Cambridge "Bridge of Sighs". It connects some of the student accomodation to the exam halls.

After our punt, we went to a pub called the Eagle for a quick cooling orange-and-lemonade before the long ride back to London. A sign near our seat proclaimed that the table next to ours is where DNA was discovered and officially announced. It said that the two professors who came up with the idea ate dinner there together six nights a week. Presumambly the other night their mothers cooked for them. And so ended my enlightening day in Cambridge.

EDIT: Also, I have just added some more photos to the posts from "Ogle Castle" and up. Enjoy!

Lake District

It is the stuff of poetry - striding across windy moors, over purple heather and scrub, climbing scree slopes and finally coming out above a vast, moody lake, the view of which inspired Wordsworth, Keats, and... some other dudes.

Unfortunately, it all remained in the poetry. It rained, horribly, and the only views we got were of mist-shrouded valleys which Andy swore had lakes in them. We tried to get out to do some striding, but were blown directly back in to the car before we had even properly made it out of the car park. We huddled in the car to eat our picnic, then resigned ourselves to driving the lakes rather than walking them.

In the Battle of Peugot vs. Road, Road won.

Luckily, Cockermouth (the little town we were staying in) has almost as many pubs as people, and two breweries, so time spent indoors was by no means wasted. I have now been indoctrinated in the ways of the British warm flat beer, which they call ale. I kind of like it. It isn't the kind of thing you'd drink at home, of course, but in an old pub with blackened beams and a fireplace, while the wind howls outside and rain lashes against the window panes (and this is in summer!), you just can't drink cold beer - it is too cold!

I'm back in London now, and going to try to see as much as I can before I go to Cardiff for a bit of Welsh next week. Twenty-eight days until I'm home!

Again we confirm that forward planning is a good thing, and winging it brings its own 'rewards'

Well, my last posts have all been a bit brief and uninformative, so I thought it was time I got something up telling you where in the world I am, and what I've been up to. Not much, to be honest. Hence the short posts.

I got back from my Cornwall trip with Tony and hung out with him for a couple of days. Then, to save some money (this is the only reason, honest. I'm not a geek.) I went to stay with my friend Jamie in Kilburn, and played Oblivion all day every day for a week. I knew that wouldn't make a very good blog post. "Today I killed seven goblins, twelve mudcrabs, three slaughterfish, four bandits, and was killed by a troll. I hadn't saved so I took out my frustrations on Jamie's toilet." Fascinating stuff.

On the Sunday I had to go out to get some more blue dye because almost all of the colour had gone - it was starting to look a bit of an ectoplasm-green kind of colour. I met Antona, Andy and Tony on the way there for lunch, and then (because I found that the hair place in Camden was closed, and I decided that I might as well see some sun) I went out to a festival with them afterward. That was pretty much all I did that week, apart from going out again the next day on a slightly more successful mission to get dye, hence the second pic of me with blue hair.

On Wednesday, after a full seven days of Oblivion (in which I got maybe a sixth through the main quest - waah!) I left for Northumberland. Newcastle was exactly like the place you would imagine Geordies to come from: loud, brash, full of grotty cheap bars and strip clubs, but friendlier than anywhere else in the whole world. I found Ogle Castle, as I sort-of described in the previous post, and then moved on.

A main road in Newcastle. This is the pretty part of the city.

I had heard from some friends I made on my Contiki trip - hi Val, hi Matt! - who are living in Glasgow, and I decided it would be cool to go out with them once more before I left. Newcastle is kind-of almost in the neighbourhood, so I told them I was coming up for the weekend and that they would have to entertain me. I did, and they did, and it was great! Drunken pictionary... always good!Val and Matt (his trousers are ripped, he doesn't have three legs) hanging out in their tenement.

Unfortunately, when I had booked my ticket to Newcastle I hadn't really planned it all that well... or, to be honest, at all! What I should have done was gone to Glasgow first, stayed there four days including the weekend, then to Newcastle, and from there to Cockermouth (yes, laugh, go on) where I am meeting Antona and Andy and Tony for a few days in the Lakes District. What I did was just book my ticket from London straight to Newcastle, so I then had to rush getting to my castle (which, because I was only there for one day, involved taxi-ing - £££! -rather than the one-a-day public transport). I then spent the weekend in Glasgow, which was highly enjoyable but which left me a week away from meeting Antona and co., but too close by to justify going back down to London...

The only good thing about Newcastle - easy access to Hadrian's Wall. It's just not five days' worth of fun.

As a stop-gap I decided to book myself in to a place sort of on the way, because there looked like there wasn't too much to do in Cockermouth. Carlisle looked like the biggest place which was in the right area, so I booked there. I am now in my... fourth? fifth day? I am so confused. Anyway, Carlisle is BOOORING! I am going a bit mad here. Luckily I only have today and tomorrow left, so I can probably fill those with something. There is a castle I haven't been in to yet which I plan to do after lunch, and a museum which should occupy me for the rest of tomorrow before Antona comes to rescue me from the ignominious fate of getting stuck in Carlisle for longer than I have to.

Ogle Castle

The village of Ogle is about 20mins out of Newcastle. It is comprised of about twenty houses, and no shops - not even a pub! The Lady of the castle was out when I visited, so I only got to have a look at the front, but that was enough. It is a very pretty looking manor house, with ivy and a gravel driveway lined with trees. There are horses in nearby fields, as well as various other forms of livestock. The coat of arms on the iron gates is very familiar.

The Manor

The village of Whalton, where the church for the area (and the pub, which was my original goal) is located, is 1.5 miles (a long walk!) away down a single-track road. The church has all sorts of distingushed-seeming Ogles buried there; you can tell we were important because there are plaques to said ancestors right up the front, inside the church.

For Rob and Tony

I ATE'NT DEAD

Land's End, Cornwall, on day three.

I have just been out. Tony (Kali's brother, with whom I'm staying while in London) and I have been out touring the south west of England on his Bandit 650. That's a motorbike. A black one. We decided we'd take three days to get down to Cornwall and back, finding B&Bs on the way and generally just spending most of each day riding.

We learnt a few things on this trip. One of these is that finding a place to sleep - even on a very wet, very cold weekday - in a seaside town in southwest England during what they try to pass off as summer here, is pretty close to impossible, no matter what Angus says. Another is that a good way to round off city-riding-squared tyres is by nearly getting blown off the road by wind gusts. Another, although one kind of implicitly knows this, is that riding for long distances is always much pleasant when there is sun. So here is the story.


Day one. Rode out of London. It's quite big really. It's not like Auckland where there is a motorway right through the middle of it, either - that's what the Underground is for. Unfortunately Tony's bike wouldn't have fit through the turnstiles even if we had taken off the luggage, so we had to ride. It took us the best part of the morning; we stopped for lunch and we hadn't even reached Richmond!

We finally made it to the M3 (SW motorway), and the heavens opened. Damn. We pulled in to a service stop to don our wet weather gear (we had, rather hopefully, left it off) and then got under way again. A few hours of riding along exposed motorway on one side of the wheels, and we were in Dorset. We chose a few likely looking roads to what looked like they might have been pretty beachside towns where we might have found B&Bs. Upon reaching said towns, we were nearly blown off the bike whilst looking at the beach, and the towns themselves didn't look that charming at all.

We continued on to Bournemouth where, after about half an hour's search leading to the surety that everywhere in the whole place was booked and we would have to dig a hole in the ground for shelter that night, we found an ugly-looking B&B-cum-hotel on a main road which was actually quite nice inside. The proprietor was "bike friendly", so he let us put it in the garage ("Priavate Property - No Entry - Beware Two Dobermanns") rather than leaving it in the public carpark out the front, so the seats were even dry in the morning!


Day two. As we came down to leave, one of the two Dobermann dogs made an appearance. I was feeling brave, so I gave it a pat. It was really cute actually, much like a labrador in behaviour. Then it decided that seeing as I was giving it attention it would go get one of its toys. It came back with a short bit of rope in its mouth - it wanted to play tug. Let's just say you never want to be playing tug with one of those over a limb. Even if it was attached, you'd lose.

We rode on along the coast for a while, and pulled in after a little while at a place called Bridport. It's a pretty little town, with some neat cliffs. We went to see them, but the wind was such that even walking up on to the beach was nearly too much! A true gale was blowing - I have a video of us leaning against it. The waves were amazing!

We decided to take some back roads to connect up to the main road southwest. My, were they ever back roads! Little dirt tracks with with high hedges so you couldn't see out of the lanes, and with no signposts to speak of. So we got a little lost. By this time, of course, it had started raining again. And it was lunch time - we were hungry! So it was with great pleasure that we stumbled across the Shave Cross Inn. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by paddocks and lanes and hedges and with nothing in the way of civilisation anywhere I could see.

It was a fabulous old pub - all low ceilings (and I do mean low!), black irregularly placed beams, whitewashing and thatch on the outside. No rushes on the floor, but it totally could have had. It was quite busy - not difficult I guess as there were only two large tables in the room - it was very small - so we sat at the bar to eat. I had a ploughman's lunch, with more cheese that you would believe could fit on one dinner plate. It was good cheese though, and there were enough pickled onions to counter the cheesy mouth-stick so I made a good dent in it.

As we were eating, predictably, it started raining again. And not just raining; I mean Raining. It poured down! So we stayed for a coffee. It eased off after a while so we again got back on the bike. Luckily I had packed a fishing rod, so while Tony drove us ever so carefully through some now very flooded muddy lanes, I was able to focus on catching us something for dinner.

That night we stayed in a little place called Moretonhampstead. It is such a small village that it doesn't exactly require two names' worth of name; it is obviously compensating for its size. Or perhaps it's just indecisive. Dinner, due to my lack of fishing skill, was at a very nondescript pub, the owner of which was a large, burly woman with short hair and a nervous gaze. I assume that it was her who had decided on he decoration for the back of the women's toilet doors, as Tony assures me that his were very uninterestingly adorned.


Day three. We left nice and early on Friday morning, heading down through Truro where we had lunch and watched a Punch and Judy show (Itchy and Scratchy are less horrifying) to Land's End and back in a figure eight, so as to see everything and then start on the A39, a road we had heard was quite fun. Our first stop after lunch was St. Ives, a patricluarly popular beach town. It was quite amazing. So many people and shops... it was like Mission Bay crossed with the main street of New Plymouth crossed with Venice - the last mostly because of the fat pasty British tourists and their screaming children. If one could empty out all the people and the shops, then give it a decade or more alone so that the ecology could recover, I imagine it would be a truly beautiful place.

Land's End - the southernmost part of mainland England - was dressed up with the trappings of an amusement park, but the complex sat uncomfortably on the wild Cornish coast, looking as if the land was planning to shake the irritatingly gaudy buildings off the cliffs and in to the sea at the first opportunity. I would approve, especially as the shop didn't sell sherbert lemons.

Around the coast further and we arrived at Penzance, which we felt no need to stop at - we just drove down the promenade and onward to Falmouth, where the A39 began. We followed this road away from the coast and through some lovely green scenery - old glades as well as the inevitable agrarian scenes - and to our B&B for the night.


Day four. Back on the A39 after the best breakfast of the whole trip, and a nice long ride took us to to Lynmouth, a town built on some very steep hills indeed! Steeper than Korokoro in Wellington, although somehow safer feeling. We had a bagel and some tea there, then moved on toward Bath along some pretty fun roads. It was getting to time to sort out our night's accomodation by the time we got to Glastonbury, but they were hosting a crop circle convention *cough* so all their accomodation was booked out. We decided to strike out into unclassified back-roads to try to find some small town to stay in.

We drove for a while and it got later and later, and we hadn't passed a single B&B. It was six p.m. by the time we decided to stop at the Vobster Inn, and ask them if they knew anywhere which had accommodation. They did, and although the ones they had numbers for were all booked up, those had a few numbers of places, and eventually we found a place. We ate at the Vobster - fabulous rainbow trout! - and then limped off damply to Lime Kiln farm, which we (eventually) found.


Day five. Well, the expected three days of our journey had long passed us by and we were down to emergency measures with underwear. The discomfort was compounded by the fact that when the owner had said the room was "ensuite bath", he really meant it! No shower. Just a bathtub. Bizarre! Anyway, there was a lovely fruit salad at breakfast, as well as the usual greasies, so that made up for it. We drove in to Bath and had a bit of a look around (nice, but not as amazing as I have heard - the little villages were cooler), then drove on to Stonehenge. We didn't stop - what is the point really when they are right next to the road like that? I could se them perfectly well. I found it surprisingly impressive, actually.

We rode north across the Salisbury Plains where we saw a "tanks crossing" sign, and then went to look at the Avebury henge. I found it less impressive than Stonehenge - perhaps because the monoliths were so much more rough-hewn and so widely spaced that you didn't really get the sense of a unified structure. After that, it was back on the bike and on to the motorway for London.

So that was the end of that, you might think. Well, you're partly right. It was all plan (boring motorway) sailing until we got back into the city. The traffic around Oxford Circus was incredible! I wondered what was happening to cause the congestion; then I saw a guy waving an Iraqi flag out of the window of a car. And then I saw another one. The more I looked, the more people from that part of the world I saw in the cars. "What do you think has happened?", I asked Tony. We came up with all sorts of theories while we watched car after car filled with jubilant Iraqis. We finally decided that the most likely thing that had happened was that the new British Prime Minister had pulled the British troops out of Iraq.

We eventually made it through the traffic and got back to Tony's. Avidly we got on the net, looking for what was causing the traffic chaos in the city. War? A new Middle Eastern state? The death of Tony Blair? George Bush's head on a pike? As it turned out, it was none of these, nor even our more moderate pet theory. No, the Iraqis had just won the Pan-Asian Soccer Cup.

So we went for a pint. The End.

So, do you notice anything different about me?

Comments encouraged; anyone who can summarise their comments in to a word which begins with 'c' gets extra points.

The bit before Portugal

Well, I´m in Portugal. There is a beautiful beach, a beautiful pool, and lots of beautiful sun! But rather than describing a beautiful beach town to all of you who are stuck in winter (except to mention that there seems to be no such thing as takeaway food here! No fish and chips on the beach for me), I´ll skip that and tell you about how I got here.

We left London on Monday. I had a fun weekend that weekend - went out to a goth thing with Jamie and his cool girlfriend Soraya on Friday night, and on Saturday I had some drinks with Lisa, the Kiwi nurse I met on the Contiki trip. Tony and I woke up early on the Monday and caught the bus to Paris. We thought we would be taking the ferry across, but when we got to Calais the bus turned away from where the ferries are and drove into a tunnel. The tunnel then magically turned into a train. So confusing! And then, about an hour later, we were in France. Without leaving the bus!

We got off in the city and promptly realised that our hotel was not in the central city as hostelbookers.com had shown it as being, but rather out in the Lincoln Road, Henderson of Paris. It was terrible! But highly amusing. Well, it was once I´d found food. We´d kinda counted on getting food on the ferry, but of course that never materialised... It took us two hours to get to the suburban area our hotel was in from Paris, via about four different trains. At least between the two of us we speak enough French to get by.

Anyway, we stayed the night in this hideous hotel then got up early and went in to Paris proper. We got off at Gare Du Nord, and booked our tickets there. We hadn´t really decided what our train route was going to be, but after some back-and-forth with train-booking ladies and pamphlets and thinking, we decided to go to Bordeaux for a day and a night, then to Madrid for the same, then on to Portugal the next day. And two of the trains were TGVs!

Once we´d finished booking trains we went in and had a look around. Paris was as pretty as always, even though it was raining. Tony hadn´t seen the Louvre so we went and saw (the outside of) that, looking at all the neat stone famous dead dudes who line the eaves of the first floor. Then it was lunchtime.

I wanted crepes, so we went and found a little place not far from the Louvre which speciualised. It was full of French people, which is always a good omen, so we sat down contentedly to eat. Tony had a crepe savoyeuse, I think it was called. I wanted something appropriately cream-filled, so, given the lack of creamy mushroom-based formulations, I went for a crepe with potato, cream, mustard, white wine and... pig´s intestines. It'll be fine, I thought. It'll just taste like pork, and nothing that is cooked in cream, mustard and white wine can possibly taste bad.

Wrong.

It wasn´t awful... well, no, actually it was. It had that earthy, strong taste that only offal has. I ate half of it, telling myself that it was "just different", and that I should be open-minded about my food. Then my brain rebelled and told me that I was probably poisoning myself. So I stopped, admitting defeat and hoping that the waitress wouldn´t laugh at me. She didn´t, so I got an awesome dessert crepe to fill me up and, more importantly, to take away the flavour in my mouth!

Later that afternoon we caught our TGV to Bordeaux. Now for those of you who aren´t aware, TGV stands for "Train a Grande Vitesse": in English, "Train of Great Speed". Simple people, the French. The train reaches speeds of up to 300 km/h. I had learnt about them in French class at school, and ever since then I had thought they were cool. Ever since I had thought about actually going to France, I have had a secret ambition to go on one. And I got to go on two! Actually, it was a bit of an anticlimax - they were so smooth that I didn't notice I was going that fast, until I looked out the window and noticed something on the edge of my vision... it was power-lines, flicking past so quickly that I could hardly see them!

We arrived in Bordeaux to a much better hotel - just a chain place - and promptly went out exploring. It´s a pretty place - definitely somewhere I´d reccommend. Just avoid ordering the "Monaco" beer, eh Tony.

The next evening we caught the second TGV to connect with our overnight train to Spain. It was a three-tier, six berth carriage with officials bursting in every five minutes as you were just getting to sleep, but I slept fine. I´m good at sleeping through stuff though.

We piled off in Madrid and realised that we really had no idea where we were going to stay, or what we were going to do, or what the point of going to Madrid was anyway. I bought a guide book and, on its advice, we went into the central city to find an internet cafe to book a place to stay and our onward travel. We got a flight (a cop-out, I know, but cheaper than train-ing and I had definitely had enough of trains at that point!) to Porto booked, and then decided to use the guide book to find somewhere to stay. It recommended this fabulous little place above the Puerta del Sol (not Plaza del Sol or whatever I called it in my last post!), which is the centre point of the city. They just happened to have only one room left, which was a twin as we needed, and it was fabulous! Madrid was hot and dusty but much cooler (figuratively only!) than Barcelona. It just seemed a bit... classier, I guess. It's definitely worth seeing.

So a day there, then we flew to Porto in Portugal yesterday, then trained north to Vila Praia de Ancora, which is in the very north on the coast of Portugal above Viana do Costelo and below Caminha. It's a beautiful beach town with a beautiful beach, a beautiful pool, and lots of beautiful sun! Muahaha!

I´m in Spain!

Well, I don´t know where to start with all the fun I´ve had recently, so I will just give you a quick update on today and save the stuff about France and London for another post.

I arrived in Spain (Madrid) this morning with Tony, and after some overnight-train-induced dithering, we decided to go into town. We´ve found this fabulous little hotel-type-place (a pension? I dunno) overlooking the Plasa do Sol, which is sooo central. It is hot, sunny, and awesome.

We´re off to Portugal tomorrow, staying in a beach town in a hotel with a pool. Wheeee!

Oh, the pain, the pain!

Well, it doesn't actually hurt yet - I'm still numb. But fully lucid (apart from the adrenaline etc), thank god. I went to the dentist today.

The place I chose - Tony's dentist - was fully booked until the end of July, so the receptionist told me to come in and just sit around in the waiting room to see if a dentist comes free.

Now, this has been a long, slow process trying to get somewhere. First I had to get hold of the insurance company which was a mission, then I had to wait until I'd stayed my paid nights in Edinburgh, then find a dentist - did you know there are no good dentist-reviewing websites on the net? Once Tony had told me about his dentist, getting hold of them proved harder than I thought - there was this odd noise on the end of the line and Tony didn't know what it meant any more than I did. But I tried a few more times and eventually got through.

I was therefore, with all these little annoying obstacles in mind, pretty unsurpried when I turned up and was asked to go away and wait somewhere else for an hour because the surgery was closing for lunch.

I came back when they opened, and waited a while. It was a surprisingly short time before this nice, pretty young blonde Polish (so Tony tells me) lady came out to fetch me in to the surgery. She sat me down, had a look, and told me that the wisdom tooth that I was blaming was actually not the main problem. While it has the potential to become a problem in future (it is coming in sideways - "impacted", as they call it), the cause of the current issue is a wisdom tooth which has come through without any problems but is now biting down on my cheek and the tooth below, kinda mashing it a bit. "So we will remove the top one," she said.

"The top one?!" It took a little while for me to get that while the pain was mostly in my cheek and bottom gum, it was the fault of the top one. And then, even longer to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to have to be sedated, or have my jaw broken in to little bits, or any other of the plethora of frankly quite frightening (not to mention icky) things which need to be done to remove impacted wisdom teeth. Then just a bit more time to realise that after about a week of trying to get it sorted, it was all going to happen today. Right Now.

"So if you like, we can start numbing you up now. It will take about ten minutes, and then another five minutes to remove the tooth. Simple." After days of freaking out about having to have a long and painful operation, this sounded almost too good to be true. Eventually I got my head around it, and I am now one evil cheek-mashing tooth-o-wisdom the poorer, and one neat x-ray, some antibiotics and a report to the insurance company the richer. Problem solved!

And she said I was very brave.

Can I just say...

I am thouroughly sick of men trying to pick me up while I am watching the MotoGP on TV (the motorbike races, for all those who don't know).

I go out of my way to find somewhere to watch this, and without fail, some dude comes up to me and starts talking to me! Sure, "who do you think will win?" is acceptable, as is "who's your favourite rider", etc etc, but I'm trying to watch my sport, people! Asking things like "so how long are you in Edinburgh for?", and "Yamaha, is that the green one?"... Seriously! If you don't know and are just trying to crack on to me, wait until the race is finished. At least then I can dignify your sleazy midday lines with a multi-syllabic response.

I am a girl, honest.

Edinburgh

Well, Orkney was lovely, but I didn't see any puffins. I did however see three concerts! There was a music festival on while I was up there, and they were selling student tickets to some performances for £4! So I went to two of those in one day (one was a nouveau classical music performance, which was actually incredibly good, and the other was Bach, which was actually incredibly soporific), and caught a jazz/bluegrass performance at a pub afterward. Three concerts in one day!

On another night I went to a traditional(esque) story-telling evening, which was neat until they got us up to dance. Usually I'd be right in to it, but I wasn't really keen that night cos I was feeling a little homesick and didn't want to dance with this random guy, especially with no warning! I also saw some castles, and the MotoGP in a pub with no sound. I've planned that better this time - I am in a hostel with a TV room this weekend, so I will be able to catch it there.

I am in Edinburgh now, as you may have guessed from the title. It was quite amazing coming in - I felt like a country bumpkin! It had been a month since I'd been anywhere bigger than a small town so I was a bit awed by the size of this place!

Edinburgh is home to the ugliest human construction in the history of the world; the colossal Forth Rail Bridge. This was the sight which greeted me closest to the "Welcome to Edinburgh" sign. Happily, the central city is much more picturesque. Spiky things abound, from Cathedral spires to monuments to writers to random buildings - everything has a turret, and most things have some architectural feature seemingly designed to imperil the life of the recreational skydiver. Some of them are even serrated!

They do like their monuments here. They have one hill here with four of them on it. One of these, the somewhat famous "Edinburgh's Disgrace", also known as the National Monument (unifinished since the 1800s) is a facade of a Greco-Roman temple. Some pillars, and half a low wall. Hahahahahaha.

I went on a ghost tour one evening, with some people I met at the hostel. It was cool, and actually quite scary! I don't really believe in ghosts, but it got me going all the same. We visited one of the world's first concentration camps, called the Covenanter's prison, and entered a mausoleum which is supposed to be haunted by a poltergeist which is able to inflict actual physical wounds on people. One lady, who claimed to not be a credulous individual and seemed more fascinated than scared, came out with three bloody scratches on her finger. Nifty *shiver*.

Today, I finally got to see puffins! They were very far away though - so far that they had to be seen over a surveillance camera. So it wasn't really actually seeing them, I guess. I wanna seeeeee them! But I got to move the camera around to look at different ones and stuff, so it was cool.

I'm here until Monday, when I will be retreating to London as opposed to making my way leisurely down the country as I had planned to. One of my wisdom teeth is coming through, and being really nasty about it. It's given me pain bad enough to keep me taking neurofen all day for the last three days, and using bonjela too, so I figure I should do something about it. It sucks, cos I'm a bit scared of getting it done, but my insurance will cover it so I should just deal to it, I guess. I'm going to get it done in London so Tony can look after me and give me a towel to drool blood all over. Sound like fun Tony? ^^

Higher Lands: Our Heroine Goes Further North

Okay, so after my rather drunken interlude in Inverness - where I also saw Loch Ness (no monster, though plenty of pics I can photoshop one into) and some of the Highlands (a couple of sword-wielding maniacs, but that's another story, which I can't tell without the pictures) - I finally moved on. I headed further north.

"Why on earth would you want to go further north?" you ask. *Shrug* Why not? I reply. I think the first reason I decided to go up more was because I fell in love with the scenery on the bus ride up, and decided I wanted to see more of it. Then I remembered about all the ancient Viking and Pict sites on the Orkney Islands, so I thought that would make a good end destination. And then I read that it is the right time of year to see puffins. That sealed it!

So I decided to go to Orkney by way of a little place called Helmsdale. I stopped there for no particluar reason - it has a memorial statue to the Clearances - the Scottish Diaspora - which I thought I'd like to see, and that was about it. The train pulled in, and I caught sight of the place from the station. It is this TINY little village with two dairies, five cafes, two pubs and a permanently locked set of public toilets.

The hostel there was little more than a hall with two rooms at one end - one for boys and one for girls. It had a very nice fire, but it doesn't let you stay inside during the day. We were kicked out at 10am, and then not let back in until 5pm! As you can imagine, when I arrived at 1pm and saw that the hostel didn't open for four hours, I was a little miffed. Especially given I was desperate for the loo! It was ok though - it wasn't raining, so I found the library which had a toilet, and then found a nice grassy sward upon which to sit and read my book for four hours. I wasn't able to do much else - like explore, for example - with my 25kg (or whatever it is now) backpack on!

The next day I spent half the morning on the internet, trying to book a hostel in Edinburgh (my next destination after Orkney) and then went for a walk. It looked like a nice gentle stroll on the map, and I thought it would be a pleasant way to spend the rest of the day. Heh. It said it would take two hours but I figured I'd stop to admire the view in a few places. So I set off up this hill, carrying three huge books and the rest of my bag (needed the books for finding a hotsel, and I couldn't drop them off cos the place was closed). It was a nice walk, and I saw some fantastic Highland scenery - heather, hills, glens, rivers... but I had no idea where I was on the map! So after two hours and some images of broken ankles and hypothermia, I decided to go back the way I had come, rather than trying to find the way any longer. Kept me busy though.

The next day - yesterday - I moved on, up to Orkney, where I arrived at 8pmish. I met a nice German couple on the way up, whom I hated because I miss Simon, and then found my hostel. It has free internet! But I have much more active things to do than sit here all day. I am off to the tourist office in a minute to find out if there is public transport to all these ancient sites I want to see. And puffins!

There Can Be Only One

Okay, so it's not my best work, as titles go. I'm in the Highlands of Scotland, in the town-called-a-city called Inverness. Broadswords, kilts, drinking and fierce landscape. It's awesome!

In our last episode, our heroine (meeeeee!) had narrowly avoided death by lack of hygiene, or worse, and mounted a bus for Scotland. I headed south, as you do, then transferred in a random little place callled Preston to my bus for Inverness. As we headed north, everything got more awesome. Gah, my descriptive powers are really not up to scratch today. Oh well, you can laugh at me if nothing else. This hang over is pretty bad! Okay, so I'm going to skip the flowing narrative and just describe the cool bits.

We drove through Cairngorm (I know what a cairn is, and I know what gormlesness is... ?) National Park, and the hills were huge, bare expanses which crouched like a waiting thing along the side of the road. The weather had turned nasty and rain lashed the coach, winds buffeted us and the clouds hid the tops of the hills, shrouding everything in mysterious goloom. It was awesome.

I got to the hostel and there were three German girls already in the room. They were really cool, and within 5 minutes of meeting them they invited me to go to Loch Ness with them the next day. I did, and it was cool.

Then we went out to a pub, and met some Danish boys who were cool. I went out with them the next night.

The day after that - yesterday - I went on a "Canny Tour" which went all the way around the place... [brain... not... go good] it was really cool. Some more incredible scenery, these awe inspiring bare mountains.

Alright, I might leave it there and try to describe more later. Remind me to tell you about the lady from the Outer Hebrides. She was cool.

...And then it got worse.

I had finished writing my blog the other day, and afterward I went back to my horrid room to hang out. I then noticed that the rubbish bin had not been emptied, and the cups for tea or coffee (there were some chipped old mugs) hadn't been cleaned. I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable, when I went out to the loo (creaky bare boards, unsanitary) and came back to my room.

I put the key in, turned it, and pushed a bit. The same as when I came back earlier, that didn't work, so I pushed harder. It gave with a little snicking noise, which made me wonder. I closed and locked the door again, put the key away in my pocket, and pushed the door. Snick. The door opened.

What had hapened was that the hole in the wall I mentioned was down the side of the door, and this allowed the catch that the bolt went in to move, enough that the door could just be pushed open. I was about to sleep, a young woman by herself, in a room above a bar in a strange town, with no locks between myself and the street. For thirty-five pounds.

There was no other accommodation available in the whole town, so while I wasn't at all happy, I decided that I'd probably just have to stay there and hope I'd be safe. Then the music started. Loud, obnoxious, LOUD music. I cried.

I also texted Simon, who called me back and listened to me freaking out about not having a lock. As you can imagine, he wasn't very excited about the idea. He didn't say much, but he seemed a bit shocked. Talking to him calmed me down, so I decided I'd just have to chance it and try and find something further afield, even if it meant going back out to the place I'd stayed at the previous night - the one which cost a million pounds.

I went down and told the (rather bulshy) girl at the bar downstairs that the door didn't lock, and she said she'd send the manager up, who should be back in five minutes. I waited for half an hour, went back down, and was told that he would now be back in fifteen minutes. By this time it was getting late, and my chances of finding somewhere were getting slimmer.

Eventually he turned up, and had a look at the door. "Wait here a minute", he says, and rushes off downstairs. He came back with a handful of coasters, and proceeded to stuff them under the locking mechanism to try to pad it out! "Try that now", he said. I kind of looked at him, and he asked if it was alright, and I said "to be honest, I'd rather just have my money back and go and find somewhere else". So he gave me it back, and called me a taxi, and I went back to my old hotel of the previous night. Which was full.

Fortunately, the girl at the desk was really nice, so she called around and found somewhere for me. It was a £15 ride up the M6, and cost stupid amounts, but it was safe. I slept well, although by this time it was late, and got up feeling relatively composed for my bus ride north.

Reasons to Book Ahead; Or, There are No Hostels in Lancaster

A certain episode with the Kingsgate in Rotorua once upon a time sort of prepared me for this (eh Dad). I had a bit of a pricey one last night. I caught the ferry back from the Isle of Man, but I couldn't find any hostels on the internet so I hadn't booked in advance. Turns out, this is because there are no hostels in the port of Heysham, the town of Morecambe, of the small city of Lancaster. Typical.

I caught a taxi (the only form of transport to be had at that time of night) to Lancaster (ta Angus, you were right - it's not far at all) because that was where the driver said was the only accomodation which would be open at that time of night. I checked in to my £51 hotel room, wich was really quite comfy. I slept a little poorly (price cringe maybe? Or the "I have no plan" stress?), and got up this morning to have a nice long shower and then walk in to Lancaster proper.

The walk took me nearly an hour! I was wearing my backpack, which by no stretch of the imagination weighs just 17kgs anymore, and carrying a package of some things to post which, it turns out, weighed 6.2kgs! And the weather was hot!

I sweated my way into town, found a post office, posted my stuff (what a weight lifted! Another price cringe though... everything is SO expensive here!) and then walked on to find out where I am catching my bus from tomorrow, and to find somewhere to stay nearby. I managed both, and then (at 1pm) went out to find some breakfast!

I found a local "greasy spoon", as they call them, got a fry-up with tea for £4 and read my book for a bit. My next task was to find a book shop to buy a Lonely Planet for Britain. I figure I'm going everywhere, and it's going to be easier to buy one guide book with all the extra details than to buy maps at each place, even if it is another million kgs to carry :p

So I did that, and found this internet cafe near by. I now have to find somewhere that sells phone cards and call the hostel I am booking in Inverness, to pay by credit card before I get there.

The place I am staying is called the Duke of Lancaster, and it's basically just a pub with some rooms upstairs. It's the cheapest place in the whole city (at £35!) and looks like it's worth about £3; shared bathroom and all. Walls with holes in, doors with hand-scrawled numbers... *Shudder* Oh well, I've stayed in worse in India. Actually, I don't think that's true, apart from the trains. Hah. Still, at least I have somewhere to leave my pack. Touch wood it's still there when I get back... Heh.

Well, my bus comes at 10am tomorrow, so I won't be there long. I'll spend the rest of the day today poring over my new guidebook planning stuff, get an early night tonight, and then get up early to wrestle with whatever it is that passes for the bathing facilities and find some breakfast before I move on. To Inverness!

Race reports and next steps

The weather is much better now. And I'm leaving. And probably not coming back until dad wins lotto and brings me over in a couple of years' time. It turns out the government isn't as benign as all that: I got all dressed up to go to job agencies, and the second one I go in to asks me if I have a visa. I say no, and they say I need one. "I thought it was different here", I say. "Yes," says she, "you need a permit as well as a visa." Bugger.

The last races were excellent. I'm a bit confused as to what happened in the superstock - I thought Anstey won it, but I wrote that he won the... oh man, stupid 'super'ness. Anyway, he won one race, and it was the 600s, making four of those in a row. As to the others... meh. I wrote a report of the big one, the Senior TT, and sent it to dad, so you can all have a copy of that. It's even indented for you non-motorbike-people's skipping convenience.

Well, what an exciting race. Anstey took out his Superbike, the one that had had the problems in the first race. In an interview at the start line up, he sounded happy with the bike, saying that he just wanted to do two laps (you pit at the end of the second) and see how it went, and that "it sounded good on the dyno last night". When the interviewer came back with a comment about the dyno and the race track being two different things, Anstey came back with a typically optimistic Kiwi "she'll be right".

So, at 10.45, (actually on time!) the race got underway. McGuinness flew ahead early on, passing the two riders who left ahead of him before the first commentator point(!), Anstey not far behind, then Guy Martin, Hutchinson and Lougher etc. Not long later, Anstey is starting to flag. He slips down to fourth, then down to 11th at the Ramsey hairpin, where it is reported that he is looking over his left shoulder at something on the bike. At the end of lap one, he pulls in to the pits. When the trackside interviewer gets hold of him, he says that "the bike is moving all over the place- it's not handling properly". His race is over.

Not long later, we get the news that Daniel Jansen, from Pukekohe, is out (retired) after having totally rebuilt the bike in the wee small hours of this morning. I think I should go shake Paul Dobbs' hand - the only Kiwi to complete all the races he entered!

In the meantime, John McGuinness has stretched out his lead over Guy Martin to 21sec and gets an astonishing average lap speed of 129.853mph on the first lap! The second lap sees little change on the leader board with McGuinness leading Guy Martin from Ian Lougher and Ian Hutchinson, I'm not sure in what order. Conor Cummins puts on a brilliant show, battling with one of the Ians for 5th place!

Coming in to the pits at the end of the second lap, John McGuinness does what we've all been waiting for: his foot goes down in the stop box and the a great cheer goes up from the crowd as the commentator yells "He's done it! It has been done! John McGuinness has broken 130mph - 130.354mph!". Everyone claps and cheers as he comes flying out of the pits for lap three.

Guy Martin follows a while later, having taken a small but appreciable delay in the pits, as is now usual, and proceeds to do a blisteringly fast lap, closing the gap between him and McGuinness to 16s! McGuinness's pit board obviously reflects this as he pulls up his socks a bit and extends his lead again to 18s over the next lap.

The rest of the race passes in a blur of fairing and early chicken-counting, with the final result being McGuinness a triumphant 1st, Guy Martin a tenacious 2nd, and Ian Lougher a dependable but slightly chagrined third.

So a good race, but I was really disappointed about Anstey; I think we might have seen the 130 broken more than just the once if he'd been pushing the others along. I bet I'm not half as disappointed as Anstey though. Oh well, I'll just have to come back next year to watch it. Hah.

I depart by ferry for Heysham Port today, arriving at 11.15 (at least, that's the scheduled time!) and from there I hope to find a way to get to Lancaster, or some accomodation in Heysham, I'm, not really sure (eek). Then on the 12th, in two sleeps' time, I get a coach (as they call them here) to Inverness, where I will hopefully be able to stay for about a week, or more if it takes my fancy. I then plan to wander my way down through Scotland - not sure how long where at all - and then to my castle, then probably back to London, either direct or via some places.

I am talking with Tony and Jamie about going to Morocco, Sweden or Portugal with the former, and Ireland (for just a weekend! Hehe) with the latter once I finish Scotland, funds willing.

I hope everyone is well; give me e-mans or msns or comments or something, say hi! I'm off to Scotland!

GO! Mo'bike!

I've been here for a week now. I arrived in the middle of the night, and it was Cold. Oh well, I thought, I'm sure it won't be this cold the whole time, and at least it's not raining. Heh.

On the first day, I did the first thing one does in foreign places and found out where I was in relation to the most important parts of the city. So I went for a walk and (eventually - my poor feet!) found the race circuit. Then I went and bought a map (should have done THAT earlier) and found my way to the centre of the city. Both of these things are about 5 or 10mins walk from the place I'm staying at. It's pretty brilliant.

The next day I went a little further afield, and found the grandstand. I bought myself a nice warm polar fleece jacket with TT written all over it, and got a free cap! I also bought myself a ticket to the grandstand for Saturday's race, the 1000cc Superbike class. These are bikes which can be changed from road bikes in any way you like, except you have to use the same frame as one you buy in the shop. This effectively limits the power at a certain amount, because if you get too much torque, it twists the frame! MotoGP bikes, the next step up, are built from scratch and don't necessarily have anything in common with one you buy in a shop. Like the Britten bike.

When I arrived at the home stay, Mrs Cartmell gave me all these leaflets about things to see and do on the Isle of Man, which, she told me, came with the homestay pack, from the Government*. Added to the pile I had picked up at the port, I now have quite a library. One of these pamphlets mentioned a wildflower garden at St Johns, where they also had a little arts and crafts place, and something called Tynwald Green. I thought the garden sounded nice so I jumped on a bus on Tuesday and went out there. Well, I found a garden. It looked like it hadn't been gardened for ages, and it was pretty poky and boring. Didn't have any wildflowers either. Turns out, this was because I had the wrong garden.

The craft centre was boring, unsurprisingly, and it was actually quite a walk down this pathway. That was a very nice walk though - like walking through a leafy tunnel. As I walked back up it, I noticed a little plaque stuck in the stone wall, half hidden under ferns and moss. I had a look, and it said that I was looking at a bronze-age tomb. I took a few steps back into the road (not a very hazardous thing to do in the Isle of Man, even when there are 40,000 extra people here!) and lo and behold, there was an upright slab of rock set in to the wall, which was topped with another slab... it really was an ancient tomb! Just hangin' out, looking like part of a wall. Choice.

The Tynwald Green is this grass lawn with a stepped mound at one end of it. It is used once a year for a meeting of all the Islanders to pass any new laws. It is the longest surviving open parliament in the world! That's pretty cool.

The next day I went on a steam train! It looked just like Thomas! But without the face, of course... I got off at a place called Castletown, where they have the most well preserved medieval (wait for it...) castle in the world. It was so cool - it was a real one. And then I took the steam train back. That was an awesome day.

I did a bit of walking around Douglas on Thursday, took a train up the mountain (they only have one. It didn't have snow but was Really Cold up there) and discovered the BEST ICECREAM FLAVOUR IN THE WORLD (it's called toffee crunch, and it's like a cross between maple walnut and hokey pokey: maple flavoured ice cream with bits of toffee in. Ohhhh *drool*) on Friday, and stayed in bed with a hangover on Saturday. You may think I missed a few steps there, and you'd be right.

Those steps are the practices. Every evening from 6pm till about 9ish when the light begins to go, they close the roads (the race circuit is on normal roads) and let the racers practice. I went out to each of them, trying out different spots for viewing. I met a few different people at some of them. On Friday I went down to the Quarterbridge, which is a section of the course where they turn a corner from one long straight-ish to another long straight-ish. I sat on a grass bank along with plenty of other spectators, waiting for the practice to start. It didn't. I could make out from the speakers that there was a delay for some reason or another, but I wasn't sure when it would start. Eventually I got bored waiting, and saw the pub across the way sitting there, looking all beguiling. So I went down and got a pint. While I was in the (rather large) queue/mob of bored punters trying to get beer, I asked this guy if he knew when the practice would start. He did, and we got talking, and he found out I was on my own, and asked if I wanted to join him and his friends. They had a good spot, so I did. Then there were rounds. Rounds of pints. I should have learnt by now. There is still a lot of beer in a pint. A whole pint of it.

I woke up on Saturday morning when my alarm went off, and dragged myself up to the freezing cold grandstand to watch the race - I had bought a ticket for it, so I had to be there. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling very well. The only breakfast I had had was in reverse, and there was no juice (my preferred hangover cure). So I sat there, and waited while the race was delayed and delayed (fog on the mountain road section of the course), with nothing to distract me from how terrible I felt. And then they cancelled it. The weather was closing in, so they moved it to Monday instead, and I could go back to bed! I did a fairly good job of concealing my glee, went back down to my homestay, and spent the rest of the day sleeping or reading. It was great.

On Sunday I went and saw a ruined castle. The weather was still awful, but it was still a cool ruin. Even the shockingly dry and boring audio-guide of the place wasn't enough to put me off it.

Monday it was the day of the superbike race. Again. I went back up to the grandstand, in much better humour this time, and the weather, which had been looking a bit iffy, eventually co-operated. Unfortunately, the Kiwi's machine didn't. Bruce Anstey, who wins a lot of things here, had a clutch problem with his superbike and had to resign from the race before he even made it to the first map-clock point (ask me to explain it if you're interested and don't know. I may have to use hand gestures).

McGuinness won (no surprise there) and another favourite of mine, Guy Martin, came second despite some appallingly slow pit stops. A local lad, just turned 21, called Conor Cummins was promoted from the 28th starter to the 10th due to some people being "non-starters" for whatever reason. This meant that he was going to be circulating with guys who were meant to be a lot faster than him. A gentleman next to me thought this was a recipie for disaster for Conor - he'd either lose heart and let everyone past or push too hard and come off - but I had read in the newspaper that he was supposed to be pretty quick, so I reserved judgement. He gained three full places and ended up 7th! Must have really annoyed some of the older guys! Hehe. Go Conor!

Today, Tuesday, was the second race. It was the 1000cc superstock class, which is different from the superbikes in that you can only make the bike go faster by adding things you can buy off the shelves. So basically these are pretty trick bikes, but ones that you or I (with a bit of financial persistence) could put together ourselves. Though not me - I'm not allowed.

At the first point where they have a commentator, in the first lap of four, Bruce Anstey (the Kiwi) was already leading by five seconds from the next fastest rider, John McGuinness. By the end of the lap he had set a new record for average lap speed, and then the lap after, he set another! (128.something mph) Neither of these were "flying" laps, either - the first was the start, and in the second he pitted. So it's pretty impressive. Unsurprisingly Anstey won the race, coming home with a tidy margin of time from McGuinness. Ian Hutchinson came third, and Guy Martin failed to finish. He will be furious at his pit crew: they were slow yesterday, and today they didn't put enough fuel in his bike for him to make it round to his pit stop! An ignominious end for the "White Knight". Conor Cummins on the other hand acquitted himself beautifully, managing to pull a 6th place.

Tomorrow is the supersport (such stupid appellations for the classes - they're all super! I'm thooper, thanks for asking! Gah. It means 600cc bikes.) and on Friday it's Senior TT day, where you can ride any of your "super" bikes, regardless of which "super" class they're in. I will be watching Anstey, Martin and Cummins in both races: McGuinness is very good, but meh, I don't want him to win. Go Kiwi!


*In an aside, the Government here seems to be quite benign. They do all sorts of nice things like making the Island a tax haven (whatever that involves), not requiring a WOF on your vehicle if it's registered here, having an open parliament, and letting me work even though I didn't get a work permit before entering the UK! So although I am leaving on Sunday, it may not be the last I see of the Isle of Man.

Now in Technicolour!

Hi everyone. I have managed to get some pictures up, from the Egypt and Greece post until the end of Contili. Check 'em out! Click the images to see larger versions.

...But who needs nails, anyway?

Well, I have made it to the Isle of Man! Just! In a series of close calls! I had to catch four different trains and one ferry, and I'm still stressed! Arrggh!

Hehe, not that stressed, but it was quite a day. I had between 45 minutes and eight minutes to get off one train, find the other and board it, so I was counting on the British Railways to come through for me, cause I couldn't afford to be late. Hence the stress.

It all started at 4.45am which didn't help. This was an especially strenuous wake-up call (just my phone alarm, although it turns out it has no alarm tone which is not irritating) because I hadn't really woken up at any time before 8.30 / 9am for the past two weeks. My excuse is that I was sleeping off the horrendously early mornings we endured during both of my tours (amounting to about a solid two months!). Failing that, my excuse is that Tony was doing it.

Anyway, I wake up at this ungodly hour, notice it is light (bizzarre, huh? I think they must only have dark from about 10pm till 4am. No wonder the farmers are so surly.), get dressed, try to put on my pack which seems to be 10kg heavier than it was when I last put it on (that, or I am 10kgs' worth of less fit), try again, finally get the damned thing on, and try to sneak downstairs while my footsteps resound like some mythical giant looking for food ("I smell the blud of an English-mun!") to wait for my taxi.

It is about 5.15 (still in the a.m.) when I make it in to the living room. I have time to remove my pack, wonder how on earth I'm going to get it on again, and write a note to Tony's lovely flatmates before the phone rings. I lunge for it, knowing it's my taxi and trying to not let it ring for too long - if my giant's feet didn't do it, I don't want an automated phone call to wake them. Downstairs, lock the door on the way out, look at the key in my hand... Hmm. Hopefully they found it - I did the only thing I really could do and posted it through the post-hole in their door.

The taxi was mind-blowingly expensive, but luckily they put it on my credit card so I can pretend it didn't happen. I got to the station in plenty of time, found my platform (who ever heard of a train station with platforms upstairs? Yeah, okay, but still...). I got on the train and looked around for somewhere to put my pack. Nowhere. A nice young man told me that it would be fine on the seat beside me as only mad people would catch a train at this hour of the morning. I heartily agreed, and we chatted for an hour or so until he arrived at his station, whereuopn I went and got some (neither fresh nor reasonably priced - stupid lying advertisements) breakfast.

It was all going quite well, I thought. We seemed to be going along at a reasonable rate of knots, so I decided I could have a little nap. About an hour later I was woken by the sound of some strange but rather lound and insistent beeping coming over the intercom. My heart sunk. "If it's anything like on the busses at home..." Sure enough, a few minutes later: "Ladies and gentlemen, this train is having some technical difficulties and will have to be resigned at the next station." Bugger. "Oh well," I thought, "Surely an exchange of trains can be accomplished with minimal fuss". Hahaha.

We swapped trains, after a lot of waiting around for some (undoubtedly important :p ) reason or other, and were underway again. We had one station left to go before I had a scheduled change for the first time, and I had only ten minutes before that next train left. I was clutching my seat and trying to reason with myself that jibbering aloud, or anything in a similar vein, would not make the train go any faster.

I got off the train with two minutes to spare and a slightly panicked look on my face. I ran (well, as much as running is possible when with every step you are wondering if the paving is going to crack under your massive weight, or if your joints will go first) to the conductor to ask him where I should get my next train. He smiled at me and said, "Yours is the next one to this platform". Oh, thank god. I wobbled happily over to a seat and waited for my first train to get on its way and my new train to arrive.

This one was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that the driver seemed to have an aversion to going at any sort of speed. I'm sure I wasn't the only one white-knuckled at the end of the trip. A nice, generous gap of 45 minutes had been eaten down to a mere five by the time I arrived.

Back on a platform somewhere in England, I looked at my ticket for the next train and noticed that my seat number was "OOC", or possibly "00C", given that I had previously been in seats called things like "42A". I wondered what kind of seat that was. I showed a conductor and he seemed to have no idea, telling me to just "find a seat anywhere". This proved to be easier said than done, so I ended up sitting disconsolately on the floor outside the toilet in a seatless non-compartment full of people whose fluorescent tabards proclaimed them to be 'Railway Police', and just outside the completely empty First Class comparment whose large, plush purple seats stared mockingly at me (oh yes, seats can stare). "Well, this is going to be a great two hours," I thought. When the man came throught to check our tickets, I decided to ask him where my seat was, pointing out that this was a ticket where I was meant to get a seat. He looked momentarily at a loss, then said to me, "Just go an sit through there for me, will ya loov?". He nodded toward the First Class compartment. W00t!

I knew that at the next station I only had eight minutes to find and board the correct train. I'd made it in less than that at the previous two stations, but I'd also been a lot later in arriving than that at those stations. I tried to rest and distract myself until we got there, which mostly worked. I still had five minutes when we arrived, so I was pretty happy. I found the train with two minutes to spare, found a seat, and grinned. This was my final train, and it was going to Heysham Port! I managed to stop short of jiggling in my seat and singing "I'm go-ing to the Isle of Maa-aan, I'm go-ing to the Isle of Maa-aan", but it was a close thing.

The only thing left to worry about was getting on the ferry. This wouldn't have usually worried me, because this train would get me to the port an hour before my check-in time. However, I didn't have a ticket. I had booked it - the previous October, acutally - but my travel agent (bless) hadn't managed to organise the booking until I had left the country. All I had was a confirmation email... and I'd forgotten to print it out. I had written down the reference number, but all of a sudden I wasn't sure it would be enough.

I was first off the train and first to the check-in desk at the port - possibly due to my having looked at a map on the internet before I left to find out where it was in relation to the train station. I find I tend to do a lot more homework when I'm travelling by myself - you get just that much more paranoid because you have no-one else to blame. I stomped heavily up to the check-in desk past signs asking you to present your ticket there, got out the page which my reference number was on, and smiled with all the confidence I could muster at the clerk. "Hi, I have a booking for the 2.15 sailing this afternoon. I have my reference number." I managed to look fairly confident, and not to add "but nothing else". I gave it, got a boarding pass, and nearly skipped over to the waiting room. I valued my ankles too much to actually have tried it with my pack on.

The boat left more or less on time (well, less really but I was in too bouyant a mood to care) and I arrived at the Isle of Man. A nice taxi lady took me up the hill to Mrs. Cartmell's house, whose name is Jeanette. I am her only homestayer, but Jeanette's four-year-old daughter and Tatiana, her au pair, make up the rest of the household. So far I have figured out how to get to the town centre and the racetrack without getting lost (mapmapmapgood), and I have walked the track from Quarterbridge Road, up Bray hill, through the Grandstand and up to where the Mountain Road finishes. Not that that will make sense to more than... um, dad, but still, this is a good thing. Learned cat agrees.

The races start on Saturday when I hope to be in the Grandstand, if I can get tickets. Until then I will be watching practices every evening at about 6pm. There are SO MANY cool motorbikes here. Squee.

So, I made it! It was a nail-biter, but who really needs nails, anyway?

Ticking boxes

While in London there are a certain number of things One Must Do. This is my list so far. If I don't have a 'box' for something you're going to ask me if I've done, do comment and let me know.

• Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard
• Tower of London - check.
• Big Ben - check.
• Houses of Parliament - umm, sort of. I wandered past them...
• Westminster Abbey
  
• The Tate Modern - check, though there are still more floors I'd like to do.
• Tower Bridge and London Bridge - check - I've walked over both.
• Windsor Castle
• Hampton Court Palace and the Labyrinth
• British Museum
• Madame Tussaude's
• Go to that toy store with five floors - check
• London Eye
  
• At least one of the inner city parks - check. Done a few now.
• South Kensington museums
• Go out in Soho - check. What strange bars you have. "All the better to drinkify you with".
  
• Get rained upon - check.
• The Tube - check. I'm pretty good at the Underground now.
• Get your transport delayed by a suicide on the Tube - check.
• Take a red double-decker bus - check
  
• Take an above-ground train - check
• Catch a black cab
  
• Get lost - check, Mr. Pullar.
• Get into a conversation about communism in a dodgy-looking pub - check.
• Get mugged (might try to skip this one if possible)
• Camden Markets
• Slimelight
• Go to the Leon Paul factory shop
  

I will keep you all posted on my progress, but I may have to delay a lot of them until I arrive back in London after doing the rest, especially those things which require weekends.

In other news, the Isle of Man's ferry compnay, the Steam Packet Company, have rather badly bollocksed their bookings. Luckily I read the website and found this out, because they had me booked for a ferry I could not have possibly caught as it departed before my train arrived at the port. Happily, they have now booked me for a ferry which it IS physically possible for me to catch, and it will take me five less hours to reach the Isle of Man. Yay.

Update 24/05/07: Went out in Soho! They have bars which are like... like cool things. And they have bars which play metal, and have garlic in their shots. Don't believe me? Let's ask Learned Cat.

There you have it folks. Last night was also Caturday. Do not click link, or it is can be caturday for you today.

London Town

London is... hmm. Well, the overwhelming thing which London is at the moment, is damp. It's not raining constantly, but it has that cold (but not cold enough to have snow or anything cool like that), drizzly, constantly overcast-ness that makes me feel so at home! Honestly, why go to the northern hemisphere for summer? It's just like winter at home!

Anyway, I've obviously been here too long - I'm whinging like a pom. On the first day I was here I stayed with a girl from New Zealand called Lisa. She is a nurse and is living here. She took me to the supermarket, which, while it may not sound exciting to you, really was! Supermarkets here really are: you can get everything there. Including, it turns out, Vegemite!

On Sunday I was going to check in to a hostel when I got a text from Tony saying that I could stay at his, which is excellent. He has a lovely house, and his flatmates are really nice. That day we went for a little wander through the city. Well, it turned out to be a pretty big wander actually. We went to the Tate Modern Art Gallery, which was neat, and walked through Soho, Chinatown, and some other parts of the Monopoly board ("This is Leicester Square," says Tony. Oh, think I; That's a yellow one.) I saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Tower Bridge from a distance, along with the London Eye which I plan to go on at some point, just because I am a tourist. Hmm, maybe I'll skip that one.

Yesterday I went out to Holland Park, a very pretty park in the West (flash) end. I had some really good soup for lunch there. I told the girl "I'm not sure if I should get the soup or the bolognaise". She must have misheard me, or else she is very decisive because she immediately turned around and served me some soup. "Okay, soup it is. Thanks." Either way, it was a good thing, becuase it was fabulous soup.

After the park, I went to visit a friend of mine who is living here, called Jamie. We hung out for a bit, then caught this random overground train to Camden, then walked for five minutes in the wrong direction, but eventually found a pub where we had some food, and drinks. It was also drinks for a friend of his' birthday, so I met her, and so many Kiwi goths, some of whom I remember from way back when, that I wondered if I was really in London at all! It was cool though.

I have organised my rail ticket to the port where I catch my ferry to the Isle of Man. It is one way, because I'm going up to Scotland afterward, and it cost me 65 pounds! Eeek. I'm not quite excited about going to the Isle of Man yet - it still seems quite far away. I'm not sure exactly what will happen after that, but my rough plan goes Inverness - Loch Ness - Edinburgh - Newcastle, from where I will hopefully find a way to get to Ogle Castle which, it turns out, is in the middle of exactly nowhere (look at the satellite images by clicking the "satellite" or "hybrid" buttons here on a google map search for Ogle Castle) - and then either back to London or around to the West Country (the south-west, that is) to Cornwall, Stonehenge, Bath, Devon etc, and maybe to one or both University towns. I'm not sure how long I will be anywhere, or where - it will depend on a nujmber of factors, the major one being "when I feel like it".

The other is money. My funds aren't lasting as well as I thought they would, so there is a possibility that I will be home earlier than I had planned... Still, not having money will force me to do some things that I might not have considered doing, had I had plenty. I sense adventures ahead! Hehe.

Contiki VI - Western Europe - the End!

On the way to Munich from Vienna we stopped behind this picturesque little village called Mauthausen and visited the concentration camp there. Mauthausen was originally a slave camp, taking people from Austria and Germany to work in a quarry there, before it became a death camp like others. It was the last camp to be liberated by the allies.

We arrived at the quarry, now a picturesque lawn with a lake, surrounded with white cliffs, and took the stairs that the slaves had to take whilst carrying these huge chunks of rock. Some of us had a hard time making it to the top despite the fact that we were all relatively well-fed (Eastern Europe notwithstanding) and not carrying huge blocks of stone. It was a sobering climb.

After the steps we went to see the camp proper, although most of it was chicken-wired off due to some recent storm damage. We went in to a room and saw a video about what had happened there - it was quite horrific, but there was some hopeful sides: the residents of the village eventually became aware of what was happening there and so, when there was an escape attempt, some of them hid prisoners and helped them to safety. Go good Germans!

After the camp we drove on through some stunning scenery straight out of the Sound of Music, to see some more good Germans at a traditional Barvarian Beer Hall in Munich. I ate this huge pork knuckle (haha dad - I have photos) and drank a massive two litre stein of beer. It was great.

The stunning scenery

The Beeeeer

The next morning we had a few hours free to wander around Munich. The first job on the list was to get a haircut! I had been hating my hair since India, as my short hair was growing out into one of those mullets that you get when you grow your hair. Eew. I found a place and got a reasonable cut, although the way he styled it I thought made me look like a German! Hehe.

After that I had enough time to see the church with the "Devil's Footprint" in it, and buy some Erdbeeren - strawberries - from a stall (they were nowhere near as flavoursome as the ones at home: we are so lucky!) before going to watch the famous Glockenspiel in the town square. For those who don't know, this is a big old clock (and when I say old, I mean before New Zealand was discovered) which has this funky little clockwork dancing figure parade when it chimes at certain times. They do a little dance representing the medieval wedding it was built to commemorate, or that is what I am told it is about. The chimes are out of tune and out of time, and the figures are somewhat weathered, but it is pretty amazing for something that old!

Back on the bus, we headed back to a beautiful part of Austria which is called Austrian Tyrol (hi Andrea's sister!). There some people went white water rafting while I sat warm and dry in a cafe and waited for them, along with the others who were too poor or too smart to do it (hehe). We picked up the drowned rats a couple of hours later and went on to our accommodations. This was not a hotel as it had been for most of the way since Rome; we were back to Contiki campsite accommodation. This was good because there was a book-swap shelf there! I left my Neil Gaiman book which I bought in Florence there and took a nice, big, generic fantasy book which kept me occupied until Amsterdam, our final stop.

Before Amsterdam we did the Swiss Alps, and St Goar, which is back in Germany. The Alps were fantastic - the scenery reminds me of the south of the South Island. Huge, snow capped mountains towering over skinny, glacier-melt-blue lakes or flat glacier-carved meadows. Fabulous. Only difference is in the South Island there are no rumours of submarines in the lakes, and no overhanging cliffs which are rigged to explode! Mad Swiss. Pretty cool though.

We stopped on the way at Lichtenstein (small, had bicycles, not much else), Swarovski, where I bought nothing (the cheapest thing I liked was about $NZ600, though there was plenty more which was much pricier... *sigh*) and then at Lucerne (nice bridge, cool statue or two) where I did spend money - I bought a Swiss (Longines) watch.

The camp site was nice, nestled right near a waterfall. I didn't have time to investigate that though; most of us caught a cog railway train up a mountain called Jungfrau to a place called "the Top of Europe". The ride took about two hours, and required us to change trains once, but it didn't ever get boring. The scenery was stunning. Snow all over the place, especially high up, and cliffs and waterfalls and views over valleys... yeah, very cool.

The view from the campsite

Out the window of the cog train

We got to the top, and it was a) cold, and b) dizzyingly high up. Not from vertigo or anything; just from the lack of oxygen! I went to run up a set of stairs (I was feeling enthusiastic) and by the time I got to the top I was short of breath and dizzy. No, that does Not usually happen, thank you.


We took the lift to the top level of the building, and had some photos in front of a sign. It was like a viewing platform, but there were clouds over the mountain so we couldn't see much. I managed to drop my camera there so unfortunately I am relying on other people to send me their pics of the rest.

We wandered through caves carved of ice, with huge, fabulous ice sculptures (amusingly, there was one of some penguins and a guy was showing his family around and said "And look, here are some dolphins"! Hehe. He was from India, and I'm pretty sure they don't get penguins there, so fair enough I guess... still funny though ^^ ). We went outside, emerging into a sleet storm and I took two quick pics of one of the girls on her camera before rushing back in to the relative warmth of the building. We also went souvenir shopping - I bought, and then posted (they have post boxes everywhere now it seems!) a postcard which I sent to my Youthline peeps.

The next day we went to St Goar, stopping at the University town of Heidelburg for lunch. I was luckily able to find a couple of disposable cameras there, so I could click away at everything again. The drive was beautiful, along the river Rhine where there are castles all the way, which I am told used to serve as toll stations for the river. In St Goar we went and saw some traditional beer steins (yes, more enforced souvenir shopping - don't worry guys, I didn't get you one... evil dust collectors!) and then went to a wine tasting.

This tasting was much better than the one in Beaujolais - if you remember that one was "here, have a glass of wine. Now drink it. Okay, you've tasted wine". At this one we got little glasses of a few different varieties, and although there was no light to speak of to really look at the colour, it was a nice atmosphere and one of the five wines was actually quite good.

The next day we drove on to our final stop - Amsterdam! We went to Edam first, a suburb north of the city. It was a beautiful little place, all tulips and canals. We did a bike ride on these fabulous "granny bikes" - back-pedal brakes and everything - which I managed not to fall off. We took photos of a dyke and a windmill, and got heckled for doing so by one of the local kids. I told him that when he came to NZ and took a photo of the Sky Tower I hoped I'd be there to laugh at him, but he was walking away as I said it. Still, it made me feel better.

After the bikes we went to a "cheese and clogs" demonstration. The cheese was fabulous, so I bought a piece (cheese with ham - oh yeah. Not sure that it's better then the walnut cheese from Mercer though) and saw a guy make a clog from scratch which was pretty neat. Ten we piled, once again, back on to the coach and headed for Amsterdam.

Our hotel/hostel thing was cute, and not to far from the centre of the city where we headed after dinner. We all went for a walk through the red light district, and some of the people went to a sex show, but I was really not interested so I went out to a coffee house with some of the others and tried some of the local specialities. We then met up with the people who went to the show and went clubbing, which was fun. Home late, and slept late the next day.

The next day I ran a few errands, including buying something clean to wear out to the Final Dinner of the tour that night. We had, perhaps a little oddly, Chinese for dinner after going for a cruise along the river. It was raining heavily so we all got quite damp that night. After dinner I went out with some friends from the group and we sat in a bar reminiscing over the tour.

The next day we packed up in the rain and drove on for Calais. We left a few people behind in Amsterdam, one behind at the border (her visa had expired a year ago!) and then the rest of us parted in London. There were a few tears, but most people stayed that night at the hotel we arrived at so they went off to check in and I had to leave so I didn't get to say goodbye. I stayed my first night with Lisa, a Kiwi nurse whom I met on tour, and am now bludging off Tony, Kali's brother. I have seen a bit of London, but that will have to wait for next update!

Contiki V - Eastern Europe and the east of the West.

As you might be able to tell from my last post, I was pretty tired after Gallipoli, so much of the last week and a bit has been a blur. From one Eastern Bloc country to another, staying only a night in each and seeing very little has left me dizzy! Luckily I have been keeping up with my travel journal notes so I can figure out what I have done in the last week for you.

The day of the Dawn Service at Gallipoli, we drove to Istanbul where we stayed the night, and then in the morning we did a city tour and went and looked at some carpets. I remember going to a place called the Spice Markets, which was cool. It was a big covered bazaar, much like I had imagined these things would look. There were some spices, but much more besides that. I had managed to lose this beautiful black pashmina I bought in India somewhere so when I found one which was exactly the same there, I bought it. It cost me heaps less than it did in India! I wish I could say that it was because my bargaining skills had improved, but he was offering it about five NZ dollars so I didn't have the heart to try to bargain him down!

The Haga Sophia and Istanbul

After the markets we went to see the Haga Sophia and the Blue Mosque, two mosques which sit right opposite each other. We got some good history on them, although I already knew that the Sophia was originally a church. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go and ask them to 'give it back' as Someone thought might be a good idea, as we were off to a carpet-selling attempt. I sat through that (it was cool, but these blatant attempts to get money off us annoy me), then I went and found some lunch. Everyone else went to see the Grand Bazaar, but I was exhausted so I went back to the hotel to do some washing and sleep. It was so nice to have clean clothes! I hadn't had a chance to wash since before Egypt, so you can imagine I was a little manky. After my nap and washing expdition, the others came back from town and we all got changed and went out to see a belly dancing show. That was great, although the belly dancers were better in Egypt. The male dancers were great though - knife throwing and all sorts of fun!

In Bulgaria we just basically stopped at the hotel (which was nice), slept, and then went again. I saw very little apart from fields, a nuclear power station, and lots of those communist flats.

Bucharest in Romania was great. There was this whole street which was basically a fountain... it's hard to describe but there was like a big fountain in the middle of the road, then down the length of it in the middle was a long pool with jets spraying into and above it in all directions. Very cool! They also had a building, at the end of the street, which is worth mentioning. It is apparently the second biggest building in the world, after the Pentagon. It was built under the communists and was made, like so many buildings in Europe, to rival Versailles. It is so huge that they still can't find uses for all the rooms, despite housing Parliament and a number of other government departments there. The logistics of heating and air conditioning the behemoth are such that it is still damp and cold in many rooms, too. Yay for communist dictators who have no-one to tell them that they are being ridiculous! I like follies. Except when it's my folly.

One end of the Street O' Fountains

In the same city, we stayed in a hotel that looked like it was a converted lunatic asylum, probably haunted, and if not then definitely a hollywood supernatural horror film set. So cool. Well, I liked it. Some of the other girls were a little less than impressed. Hehe.

The next day we stopped at the castle of Vlad Tepec, also known as Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracul, or "Dracula". Apart from the name and the bloodiness he has very little in common with the fictional vampire (see Erzebet Bathory for that stuff), but the castle was cool anyway.

I think this is a living room or something. I have many more impressive
pictures, but they are all in the wrong orientation...

From Romania we went to Budapest in Hungary, where we went for a cruise on the not-very-Blue Danube and saw the illuminated sights - lots of cool buildings. There was free wine, which was not disgusting, so the next day I was nursing my only hangover of the tour so far. I rather liked the city, and will have to go back and drink less!

Ooh, look at the prety liiights

And some more scenery, in the cold light of day. It was still pretty, even though I didn't feel so well...

My next stop was Vienna. We arrived in the evening and went out to see a concert of Mozart and Strauss music, which was great, despite my apprehensions of it being a bad orchestra. The women's dresses were awful (peach and poofy, like some 80s brisdesmaid nightmare), but they were very good at what they did.

The next day I got to meet a friend of mine whom I work on the Santharia project with, by the name of Christian, though we call him Art. We wandered around Vienna together and he showed me the sights. Thanks so much for the awesome day, Art! We went on this massive ferris-wheel thing (which I wasn't at all nervous about...) and into this massive Versailles-style palace called Schonbrunn Palace, and walked around the centre of town. There were some amazing builldings, but one of the highlights I will mention was the statue of the baby elephant which is outside the natural history musem. Soo cuute! We also ate heaps of traditional food: sausage, Sacher torte, Vienna coffee... it was a fabulous place and I had a great day out! After I left Art I went and had some... oh, I forget what it's called, but it is a traditional dessert - pancakes with plums and stuff. It was very good, so thanks for the tip, Art!

A sphinx presides over the dusk outside Shonbrunn Palace in Vienna

Well, that's as much as I have time for today, but tune in next time for Germany and the West!