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.