One way to the UK?

Well I’ve just written so much, and waffled on about Istanbul and it’s sights that I’m going to regather my thoughts before writing about my actual ANZAC day experience

The Wednesday morning (our day 3, but tour day 1) was an early start, where Mara and I were near-close to being first for breakfast. Yum, the hotel (4*) did put on a good breakfast. The only problems with the Hotel was the smelly (yukk) bathrooms (the water smells) and the fact that the advertised ‘roof pool and bar’ and ‘gym and sauna’ were still under construction! Anyhow, back to the tour. We got on the bus and headed up to The Hippodrome. The site is now flat and landscaped, and houses the last three standing pillars of the original Hippodrome; what was once a giant stadium like the Coliseum or a modern day football stadium. One pillar stands at almost it’s full height, the next bronze one is now tiny and missing the meduse heads which used to top it (one head lies in London’s museum), and the third pillar is only half it’s original size and missing all the bronze panelling it once had. Next we went to The Blue Mosque (westerners call it that) which was interesting to see inside of (chandelliers very low to the floor… muslims must all be short) and cushy red carpet. After the Blue Mosque we walked across (directly) to Hagia Sofia which has been rebuilt three times in it’s lifetime. Hagia Sofia was first an Orthodox Church. Then it was turned into a Mosque - the muslim people never destroy a church, but rather take down the crosses etc, and plaster over religious mosaics. Hagia Sofia is now a museum, showing both parts of Orthodox and Muslim faith. It was really interesting to hear the stories about Hagia Sofia, including how the Muslims still believe there was a Jesus and Mary Magdalen and they respect them as religious figures - you never hear about that, usually only hear about Allah and the bad things related to muslim/islam. After seeing the mosque and Hagia Sofia, we broke up for lunch, where Mara had some issues with getting money from a bank and after a quick? phonecall back to her bank in London, we realised it was the specific bank that didn’t like her card Grrr! Anyhow after lunch we met up all together again, and went down to The Underground Cistern. Years ago, Istanbul was running low on fresh water, so a giant underground cistern was built to house water which was shipped in to the city. It now is only about 4 foot deep and home to goldfish (and tourists). The lighting, obviously added for the tourists, gives it a great effect. There are some interesting pillars in there; one carved with ‘the eye’ that is weeping to respect those who died building the cistern, and two which have Medusas head carved at their bases.  Following this, we boarded the bus which took us to the Bosphorous River for our cruise. The cruise showed us many sights of Turkey, and we also figured our the European and Asian sides of Turkey - took a bit of map-searching with a group of people and some constructive arguments before we all figured our what was where! On the cruise we also saw all the thousands of giant Turkish flags which are everywhere - talk about national pride! And we met a group of Aussie guys which we remained friends with over the coming days of the tour. Also found out two of them also live in ‘the Ghetto’/East End, just one DLR stop from our Bromley-by-Bow house!

After the cruise, we headed as a group to the Grand Bazaar, and Mara and I took the guys through parts of it, and then down to the Spice Market to look at foods. We got the tram back to the hotel. Nothing like integrating youself to a country by using their public transport system so we always make an effort to do so! We all had about an hour break before having to meet at 8pm to walk to our Turkish Experience Dinner. Hmmm much to be desired on that experience. There were 160 people there from OnTheGo all together. The dinner entree was nice, a mezzee platter, the main was crap (cold chicken anyone?) and the desert was five pieces of fruit (as in five slices, not five whole pieces). And then drinks were extra, as was tipping the ‘prostitute’, I mean, the ‘belly dancer’ they had on first! Argh what a cringe-fest! Even the guys were embarrased at her antics. The second act was a karakoe singer, past her prime (mutton dressed as lamb) who was singing half english and half in turkish… the third act was traditional dancers. Finally something worth watching. It was really well done, and the costumes were nice, and authentic and the dancers even got people up to learn how to do it too! Then back came karaoke lady, and then anothe rbelly dancer - this one actually knew her art well and was excellent, and didn’t go around asking for money or hanging herself all over the men. The best part of the dinner was meeting the girls at our table (table of 4 and we didn’t get to choose who we sat with) - Mina and Leah are lovely girls and both live in Bristol so we’ll be catching up soon (tomorrow actually from when I’m writing this, now a week after Turkey!). So we makde two lovely friends from the dinner and everyone left pissed off that it had cost 30 Pound each, which converts to 70 Lira each, which is more than what Mara and I spent in our whole week there!

After dinner the place turned into a nightclub, but everyone (and I mean everyone) cleared out! Mara and I along with Trev and Ben decided to have Shisha and upstairs from the restaurant - we decided on an apple one. It wasn’t too bad - I think the strong apple tea kind of detracted from the weaker apple shisha taste, however a good Turkish experience. First and last time I ever smoke though! The next morning was an early, 5am wakeup to head to Gallipoli.

Quite a while ago, after attending services for years in Alice Springs, I decided I really wanted to attend the ANZAC Day memorial this year, in Gallipoli (Galibolu), Turkey. After searching through TNT Magazine Mara and I decided on OnTheGo tours and their 5 day ‘Digger’ Silver package. It was a holiday to look forward to, but not just in a ‘happy holiday’ type but rather as something respectful towards the soldiers who have given their lives over the years, and those still fighting what seem to be ‘other people’s battles’ today.

So, on Sunday 21 April Mara and I caught the latest tube from our East End (Bromley-by-Bow) to Heathrow, arriving just after midnight and settled in for a few hours sleep, at the airport (very uncomfortable), with a heap of other people also waiting for check in to open about 0400 hours. Once it opened and we checked in, we then had to wait around inside the security area for our flight to board. And, being Swiss Airlines it all left on time, like clockwork! The flight was lovely - so much better than the cheapies RyanAir and EasyJet that we usually use. I mean we even got fed on the Swiss flight without having to pay extra haha (such little luxuries). We changed over in Zurich and arrived in Istanbul about 1330 where we were met by the OnTheGo staff and put onto their bus into Istanbul city. Well, after telling people THREE TIMES where we were booked into (pre-booked by OnTheGo remember) after being in the bus for about 2.5 hours and arriving at the Fez Travel head quarters (turns out FezTravel, OnTheGo and The Fanatics are all sorta one company for ANZAC Day), that they had forgotten to drop us off, and our damn hotel was THE SECOND ONE FROM THE AIRPORT! So yes, we could have been there two hours ago… Grrr not happy! So we got put into a ‘luxury’ smaller minivan thing and fiinnaally dropped at our hotel. We checked in and a worker carried our bags to the room, which oops, we read later we were supposed to tip him for! Shame we didn’t even have any Lira on us yet and hadn’t read the guidebook completely yet either.

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Okay so a while ago I was feeling a bit down on London and meeting new people (lack of etc) so my friend Ali suggested I join a ‘team sport’ instead of just going to gym… so after much research and looking around I decided on Kickboxing! Not exactly the ‘team sport’ he had in mind but hey - it’s proved enjoyable so far! I was chatting about it at work one day too, so Mandi, my colleague (and temp HR manager) decided to join me on the 8 week beginners level 1 course. I went down ‘for a look’ the night before the classes started and was laughing on first impressions - you walk down concrete stairs and the door says ‘gym’ in graffiti writing, and then once inside it’s a desk in a ‘wire cage’ and then the gym is all exposed brick walls in the basement (hence The Basement Gym) but once you stop and take a look around, you realise the Dojo is quite nice with padded floors and pillars, a ‘ballet’ bar along mirrors for stretching and people always training or sparring in the boxing ring.

The first class was great, our trainer Rob is a lovely guy and always has a smile on his face.. most likely because he’s thinking up new moves to try out and new painful or funny ways of warming us up. Lots of people turned up for the first class at the beginning of April… now we’ve settled into our actual committed group of about 11 people! Always an odd number for some reason as I think one or two cannot make some classes etc. Anyhow it has been great so far, and also a great addition to my normal gym reigime. I’ve been going for one month now, so one more month of Level 1 before the 8 week Level 2 course starts. I’m not sure if Mandi will keep coming after this Level as she said two nights a week of exercise is a bit much (argh). Umm what else? Oh yeah I have my own ‘bindings’ now for my wrists and I don’t know why but I’m the only one in the class with white ones!? That’s just what the gym gave me - good for keeping clean I guess as they can be napisanned/bleached. So yes.. next to purchase is my gloves… still deciding on Black or Green perhaps?

We’ve learnt some pretty good moves so far, round-house kicks, front kicks, side kicks, cross and jab, left hook and right uppercut and an axis kick, duck and slip.. what else? Loads of useful things! So look out anyone who gets in my way when I’m next shopping on Oxford Street! Or walking home for that matter…

Oh so if you want to check out my ‘basement’ gym or the trainers etc, view the website www.paragongym.co.uk

Well what a busy time it has been lately - April came and went very quickly. I gave my month’s notice on the 18 Holsworthy sharehouse and am still trying to get the agents to give back my deposit, or even answer our phonecalls for that matter…

Umm so yes a few nights were spent searching ‘gumtree’ for new digs, and I decided to stay in the Ghetto, on the East End of London rather than move to where all the Aussies are. It might be more sociable, I might spend more nights and money at the pub, but really if I wanted to be around that many Aussies I would move back home!

One of the other reasons April went tso fast was that I took up Kickboxing - oh and went to Turkey for ANZAC day - both deserve their own entries which will be forthcoming.

Today, Sunday 6 April the Olympic Torch came on it’s journey through London. Naomi, a colleague of mine from when I used to work for 2012 and I met up at Canary Wharf (with me running late) JUST in time to see the Flame being run by….. the torch-bearer was surrounded by that many bloody policemen and assistance-runners that I barely saw the thing! I was quite disappointed! Instead of trying for a photo I captured some video of the torch running past, however you have to look really hard to see it being held by a little man in red, surrounded by the aforementioned police and assistance runners. Hmm yes, not happy with what we could see!

I guess though, it’s a little understandable after the TV footage that’s been shown all day showing police tackling Free Tibet protestors to the ground when they tried to blockage the torch’s path and also one tried to run up and physically snatch the torch from a runner - so I’d say by the time it got to Canary Wharf where we were waiting, security had indeed been beefed up! Even the rubbin bins around inside the Wharf had been removed in case of terrorism attacks etc.

Still, it’s a good thing to watch - the Olympic torch in London, as the next time it will be here is for ‘our’ very own Summer games in 2012!

Well that’s about it for now - I’m finishing watching the second half of a great show “Casualty 1907″ which is a film of The London Hospital in the time of plague and medicating patients with brandy and of people dying left-right-and centre. The London is still located just up the road from where we live in East London…. hopefully things have changed a bit since then, but after working for the NHS a few months I’m not completely convinced! hahaha especially as my friend had his head operated on last week and when going back to get the dressing changed he got in trouble for not bringing back his own bandage to re-use… hmm sterilisation standards anyone?

Well it has been done - I have survived a British winter. Last Sunday morning at 0200 hours we had to wind forward the clocks one hour, so that we now have more hours of sunligh, and nicely the sun has actually been shining a bit lately too… (except for today!). It’s almost like over the winter people around the place bred or immigrated into where we live in Bromley-by-Bow… now-days when I get home from work and gym there are kids EVERYWHERE, playing games on the football (soccer) pitch near our house and kicking the ball around in the street and in the green area in front of our block of flats… I seriously wonder what the kids did and where they were kept in the winter!

So yes it’s now british summer time, however, after a nice Friday of about 17 degrees celcius where I took a lunch break just to actually experience some warmth, today London awoke to SNOW! Yep that is right, snow on the ground and still falling from the sky. So now I can almost say I’ve seen everything in terms of weather whilst walking down Oxford Street in the centre of London. It was unusual to see and feel the snow falling and then the sun out for a brief spell, and then more gentle snowflakes falling down!

Last night (Saturday), Kristy and I were supposed to have a quiet night in at her house after she’d had a few drinks at the Wheatsheaf with her fellow rugby team members… I was planning on heading to that side of town about 5pm, however fell asleep after reading some of my new book (People of The Book) and didn’t end up getting the tube until 7pm… and Kristy was still at the Wheatsheaf so I went and met her there! On arrival, she was pretty drunk! Oh lordy - so there went the quiet DVD night haha. I didn’t drink much at all (very restrained of me I know) but still stayed out until about half three in the morning, where Kristy and I along with Chris (Lilly) and Adam headed home from Sandy’s house (we all ended up back there as low-and-behold the pubs were all closing). Anyhow it was a good night! Kristy and I were out like the lights and as I said, woke up to snow this morning! We got dressed and braved the cold, actually the winds and snowflakes to get to a little breakfast place in Clapham Common and I enjoyed a very lovely Eggs Benedict with hashbrowns and grilled tomatoes, as well as bottomless cups of tea! Mmm just the right thing for a Sunday.

Well Friday morning I headed off and had a good training session at the gym; in preparation for the 4 days of Easter!

At about 130pm Mara and I arrived at Liverpool Street station to catch the train out to Stansted… we had it planned to meet Sarah and Emma there and get the 1340 train, and meet Kate 11 minutes later at Tottenham Hale station to head to Stansted all together! We ‘just’ made it onto the train all together after Sarah and Emma arrived a little late from their connections etc… anyhow all went well and we had a good chat on the way to the station! Once we’d checked in at Stansted, our flight was almost on time, we got caught up a little in security as Kate only took hand-luggage and one of her expensive face creams was in a 200ml bottle (oops!) but luckily the nice security guy let her go through to Boots and purchase some little 100ml containers to decant it into!

We then had a look around the small range of duty free shops, tried some free Baileys and Snow Queen 5x distilled Vodka, before buying a bottle of that and a British tin with cookies inside as Jen’s thankyou present! Mara and I grabbed a coffee each and the other girls grabbed something for lunch before we walked through to the Ryan Air departure area for more waiting… our plane literally pulled up and disembarked while we were all in line waiting to get on (quick turn around, no wonder Ryan Air planes aren’t always the cleanest!). Anyhow Sarah, Emma and Kate had priority boarding (paid the extra 2 Pound) so they saved two seats for Mara and I to join them! Mind you, for once just as it worked out, Mara and I were at the front of the ‘other passengers’ boarding line so it wasn’t too bad regardless.

Jen picked us up from the airport in two lots, and as I was in the first car to her house I got a proper bed to sleep on (haha). I’m sure next time we’ll swap around for couch duties. So, Friday being Good Friday all the pubs in Ireland were closed, and the alcohol isles in the supermarkets were blockaded off; literally NO purchasing of alcohol at all! In Ireland! Jen has stocked up the house well with food and drinks to last the weekend so we were all quite happy to all just talk and talk and catch up and drink and eat bits and pieces for dinner until the early hours of the morning (well about half one we headed to bed!).

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Well seeing as tomorrow is Easter Friday, Holy Day, and Mara and I are heading up to Cork for a girls weekend/reunion I thought I’d better quickly write about last weekend, which was spent in Dublin helping the Irish and thousands of tourists celebrate St Patrick’s Day in style! St Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, contrary to the popular beliefe that he drove the snakes away, that’s not actually why he’s famed and given a day in his honour.

Dublin is a lovely city - quite small and homely and with a massive spike in the middle of town… literally just called the Dublin Spike. The weather wasn’t exactly on our side for the weekend however we still made the most of visting a new city, and as it wasn’t windy (like London) it was actually pretty tolerable. On the Friday after checking into the B&B, well located right near town, we headed off down the main shopping streets and visited Trinity College… started because the Queen (way back then) was worried ‘her people up there’ were heading off to Europe to be educated. The College is quite nice, and small which I’m sure is pleasant for the students there… as are all the pubs on every street!

We were all on a strict budget for the weekend but still managed to have a great time - vodka, juice, loaf of bread, crackers, nutella, ham and cheese and jams, oh as well as bottles of water and 5 choccie bars each to sustain us for the weekend! The B&B included a great Irish Breakfast (same as an English breakfast, but eaten in Ireland…) and the rest of the time, when we weren’t walking around or visiting coffee cafes and chocolate shops, we were on the Bulmers Cider in the various pubs we visited. Kristy and I also visited the Guinness Storehouse - quite interesting set up that takes you through how Guinness is brewed (roasted barley to give dark colour) and the best part was getting to pull our own beers. I drank a bit of it… the foam of Guinness is nice however the actual stout is definitely not my kind of drink so I won’t go ordering that anytime soon!

In Dublin we also visited St Stephen’s Green (huge green park area), Christchurch Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral and spent most of our time in (the touristy area) Temple Bar. It was really a lovely city, and I wouldn’t mind going back there apart from the fact that there’s not a massive amount of things to do there… and it rains a lot and pay in Euros seems to be a bit lower than pounds!

Well not much happening - feeling a bit isolated sometimes in such a big city! Been going to the gym lots, which fits in really well with new job  as I finish at 430pm most days (unless we have an after work function) umm so yeah, really happy too cuz I’m finally doing all my proper weights limits rather than lowering them! What else? Oh yes, I’m moving to a different gym this week due to personal issues and involvement so, so be it.

Kristy, Mara and I are heading up to Ireland for this weekend to have what will hopefully be a brilliant time, dressed in green to help celebrate St Paddy’s Day! You have to do it in the Irish capital at least once in a lifetime! I don’t drink Guiness but perhaps I might give a green pint a go…  

By the way, apparently the Guiness Book of Records was started by Guiness following a dispute in a pub that couldn’t be settled… so a record book evolved