Home again home again jig-edd-y-jig

Ahh where to begin. Our journey has ended, and we’re home again.

Why don’t they serve the food in accordance with where you’re going instead of where you’ve come from? Doesn’t that make sense to anyone else but me? I’d prefer breakfast in the AM time of the destination, which I’m trying to eventually acclimatize to.

Pleasantly surprised we weren’t over-weight with our baggage, which I thought was almost a certainty. Although, we did have a small wheelie carry on, a backpack, my handbag, the laptop AND a secondary bag full off “stuff” all as carry on bags.

I wish we’d had more time. I wish we could go back with the benefit of hindsight and give ourselves another 2 weeks at the end. We could have spent a week in each country exploring all the little nooks and crannies and the hidden gems.

There’s so much to see, and you miss so much. We didn’t see the “page” of Kells (so named as you only get to view two pages of the Book of Kells; the oldest book so far discovered and its an illustrated copy of the Bible.

We didn’t see The Magna Carta.

We didn’t see Dyfed, which I had hoped to visit.

We didn’t go in to Penryn castle in Gwynedd, because it was 12 quid or something p/p and it was too expensive.

We accidentally missed seeing the Castle in the Harry Potter movies, that features as Hogwarts. 

We didn’t see “Britain’s most beautiful beach”, which I suppose isn’t a patch on a Sydney beach anyways…

We could have spend weeks just in Wales, which apparently has more castles than any other country in the entire world. Plus they obviously care about preserving them/making money from them, as they’re well maintained, unlike all the numerous “ruins” we saw everywhere in Ireland.

You could spend every minute you have traveling just along the coastline of all these countries. Perhaps I feel that way because beautiful coastline can simply take my breath away.

I wish we’d had more time to spend (a week?) in the Scottish Highlands. I loved them, my second favourite place from the trip, and that was quite unexpected for me. I mean, you know you’re going to these places to “see the countryside” and everything, but it was amazing. We were there late afternoon, and dusk, and I just wanted to pull the car up and stay forever. The lochs, and the mountains, I hope I return some day.

We spent a day chasing Hadrian’s Wall. We weren’t to realize that it sits several 100 metres from the roadside. Should you wish to go and see it, prepare to hike over to it, its not set up for a quick photo op, and having spent 5 hours trying to find it and stuffing about, we ran out of time for the 4 hour round trip walk along it, which would have been fantastic. Next time!

We spent over 2 hours in Bath trying to get a hotel room, having not realized we’d be there on a Saturday night, and its clearly a hopping town for a weekend away from London. Having found a Starbucks, and PAID for Wi-Fi (After seeing free wi-fi all the other times we didn’t need it of course) we paid for an hour, knowing they were only open for 25 minutes more, because we were getting desperate and had to get online to find a room (www.laterooms.com) for the evening. We arrived in Bristol (a short 15 min drive from Bath) to a wonderful Mercure hotel for a bargain ₤69. Then, due to a stuff up in the restaurant with their receipt printing, we received a (very late) but Very free dinner, which was exquisite.

We DID visit the Roman Baths @ Bath and they were amazing.

We DID stand astride the Meridian Line @ Greenwich AND got a certificate.

We DID go to Stonehenge on a gorgeous 21°C day with blue skies, on a Sunday (didn’t think that through!) When you’re a tourist days mean little though and its easy to lose track.

We DID fluke being at Windsor Castle in front of Victoria Barracks when the changing of the guard marched out and we walked all the way to the Castle with them which was hilariously fun. We then also had to RUN back to find where we’d parked the car as we’d been looking for Tourist Information when we chanced upon the Barracks, and had only put half and hours worth of parking in the meter. 

Didn’t expect to have to remove my boots twice at Heathrow Airport which was annoying! Having only just put them back on from walking through the Security point, they have another check where the sole purpose is to make you take your shoes off. Very strange.

So, very depressing to come home to open piles of mail, including one from our home loan lender that our mortgage is about to go through the roof (as of tomorrow!) since our fixed period ends then. Annoying!

Oh and BTW- I've just clicked over the 700 post mark!

London; redux

Location Belfast, IRELAND

Weather cold! Avg temp about 10 degrees, but getting used to it 

Local time 8pm 

Well it appears the Punk/ Alternative scene is still very much in style in London. Or at least parts of it. We visited Camden having been recommended to see the markets there. I wish we’d walked as far as the Lock however, as I am a fan of all things water control, not sure why.

Could have owned almost everything I could see, and very much felt like re-joining the Goth scene for all the fantastic Pink and Black clothing you can own. As I said to M, if Sydney was like Camden, I’d never have gone back to “normal”, and clearly part of London never did. Bought a few things, but not all I could have.

The London Eye, and a classic Telephone booth

London in general I have found to be much more “out there” than Sydney. I suppose this is to be expected, but it is still weird to find. There are many more strange looking outfits and combinations that are accepted here without question, and they have well and truly embraced winter/fall fashion for the season, temperatures dropping to the early teens whilst we were there for a few days after the tour. I have bought a myriad of things in London, particularly at a wonderful shop called Primark. Best shop ever. Wish we had one in Sydney, but alas, will have to be content with SES and Temt. Got a fab pair of jeans for only 8 quid!

Some other London highlights, A West End show; The 39 Steps, which we kind of got roped into going to, in that it kept us in London a day or so over what we initially planned, but it ended up being a good time frame as both London Tower and Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace took WAY longer than expected. Changing of the Guard I would not do again, due to the ridiculous crowds (and its late September, certainly not “high season”!) and the push and shove. And the fact that they take a break for the marching band to serenade you with love ballads in the middle of it all?!?!?

Me Buckingham Palace, front side-great weather this day

London Tower was awesome, even though London put on some typical weather for the day by pissing down, we paid a few quid extra and got the Audio guides and managed to spend 4.5 hours there all up. Highlight would certainly have to be seeing The Crown Jewels (and no I don’t mean M pulled down his trousers), which M didn’t realize we were seeing at all. Unfortunately there’s no photography allowed in that area, I would love to show you the incongruously enormous security door that they have in the middle of this medieval building. Until that point I must admit I was getting skeptical that we were going to see THE crown etc, but once I saw the door, it was all ‘on’.

Another big highlight was managing to squeeze in on the last day of the exhibition that was the Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. I am REALLY glad we did that, it was just incredible. This year, for the first time (so the guidebook says) they also laid the Grand Ballroom tables as though for a State Dinner, when a Head of State comes to the Palace for dinner (Yeah Hi Liz, look we’re just going to pop around for a bit of a barbie, you put on the snags, we’ll bring the Coleslaw?)

Buckingham Palace was the first place we encountered the self paced Audio guides as they are included in your ticket cost, and they were great. With options to skip or “hear more” they were very informative and are what prompted us to get the one at The Tower.

Me, Buckingham Palace Gardens.

S o yes London was great for a second visit, and I could surely see us being happy to live there, if we so decided (not on the cards quite yet)

Lastly, quick note on London, that I think I saw Prince Harry near Victoria Tube Station, but M doesn’t believe me :P 

Currently sitting on the ferry over to Ireland, (though this will be posted sometime/somewhere later I imagine). Am thoroughly sick of boats and ferrys, this being the……ninth water vessel we’ve been on this trip. Ferry’s have come to mean hours of entertaining oneself, however the last few we caught got to be quite fun with the tour group, with drinks and conversation.

We have our hire car, a Holden/Vauxhall Zafira, which we would be quite happy to own at home for kiddles too (hehehe). We have called her Vauxy, which sounds a bit like Foxy, and the wonderful GPS lady’s name is Tina. She has been ₤10 well spent I can tell you. Ciao for now. :)

English people are weird

I have heard, on more than one occassion that Australians are in denial about the weather. Some people think we pretend its not cold, shirking warm clothing for thongs and singlets. While this is not always true, I agree with it for the most part. The sunday before we flew out of Sydney, the sun came out and I perservered with shorts, for the first time in 3 months or so. It was awesome, for about 12 seconds, and then the sun went behind a cloud, I put a jacket on, and it felt less like summer after all.

Me at Tower Bridge. Loved it.

The point is, I think English people do the exact same thing : in reverse. The convince themselves its really not that hot!
Our first full day in London, it was gorgeous weather. We walked the banks of the Thames, being utter tourists, but it almost felt like we could be at home, most definitely a bare legs day, thongs and sunscreen.
But the "natives" were all walking around like it was 10 degrees colder than it actually was. I think it hit 25-26 degrees and I spotted a woman in Ugg boots (sheepskin slipper boots).
It was insane! And people were carrying coats everywhere!! Nuts.
Sadly we even saw a little boy, whose parents were only wearing T-shirts, but for some reason they thought he needed a woolen vest. I assure you he did NOT.
I think I mostly found it weird because we're just leaving winter at home, and they're just leaving summer, but they were wearing very similar things. Jeans and boots, knitwear etc. Scarves!

We managed to squeeze in a Soccer/Football game while we were away also, and that was great.

 West Ham United vs Blackburn.

The atmosphere was just incredible, and one of the things I was amazed by was the tiny number of spectators for the other team. Go to an NRL game in Australia and the ground might be 60/40 home to away. But in a ground of 33,000 people that turned out for a regular round match of soccer, there would have been lucky to be 1,000 supporters for the other side. Their section wasn't even full.

The "away" supporters at the game 

Oh yes, Section. They're not allowed to sit together! The black mesh in this photo spanned about 5 rows of seats, (its not standing up) and there were police all over the section too. Crazy!

The other amazing thing was that we were at West Ham for the ground, and its Suburban! 33,000 had to then catch the train back to wherever they came from and they have it so wel worked out we were on a train within 20 minutes of leaving the stadium. That would NEVER happen in Sydney. We're very impressed with the Tube system!