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.