7 days, or 3000 words, in the life and times of the traveller :-)
Ok, I have to begin by apologising for not updating this in SEVEN DAYS. Jeez guys, give me a break! Like, I’m living over here!
Right now I‘m doing what I’ve been doing for an hour every night this week – doing 
the housemate thing by watching the housemates. Yes that’s right, everyone in this house says they hate big brother and yet, all week we’ve been watching the latest season of Big Brother on Channel 4. I suppose it’s a bonding experience so I don’t mind losing a few brain cells. (This pic is of our six housemates hanging out of each window – Lija’s and my room is the top left hand window where Dwain is. The bottom floor is the neon sign shop!)
Dinners have been great this week, there’s still been about ten of us in the house, but every night a different pair takes it in turn to cook something. Lija and I did honey soy chicken drumsticks with rice and salad, which everyone enjoyed. Although we were told we had to cook again just so they can check that it’s good enough!
Sunday June 17
Today was awesome – we went down to Greenwich Village for the day, took the train there and walked around checking out the sites. We went up to the observatory – home of the Prime Meridian – Longitude 0’ – and of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), where time is measured. Greenwich Park is the oldest of London’s royal parks, and the whole area is World Heritage listed. (Me standing on Longitude 0′)
We also checked out the Greenwich market and found these gorgeous glass nail files, which can last up to 3 years on your nails provided you don’t break it! Naturally we both thought it was a great investment, and not that expensive.
We walked past the charred remains of the Cutty Sark, which I think made it to Melbourne news several weeks ago. We were at the hostel when we saw the Skynews report about the fire which damaged a lot of the boat. Luckily though, it was actually in repairs and half of the boat was being housed elsewhere.
From the wharf we took the ferry all the way to Westminster, an hour long ride under the 
Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Millenium Bridge (a footbridge designed for the people that turned out to be structurally unsound to begin with and blew the budget costing taxpayers a fairly expensive millennium present)! And stopping at Westminster Pier opposite the London Eye, which currently has a big replica of the Silver Surfer from the new Fantastic Four film (which premiered in Leicester Square last Thursday), and with great views of the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Because it was already late in the afternoon we decided to leave the Abbey for another day, not to mention we were freezing certain body parts off because it was supposed to be decent weather, however, London’s 22’ doesn’t mean light shirts and ¾ length shorts, here it means take your scarf or you’ll freeze your arse off.
Walking through Traf Square there was a Korean festival with dancers and food, there are a lot of free fun things to do in the city all the time. You just have to know where and when.
Lucky for Starbucks, a place I used to hate in Melbourne but has now become my second home so much so that I even have a Starbucks card. Oh, I also own a Boots card (Boots is a pharmacy like Priceline, but you get 4 points for every 1 pound you spend!) and I have a Tescos (supermarket) card which is like Flybys. But Starbucks offered tasty warm coffee to take away the goosebumps and chills.
We were going to go home for dinner and rather than taking the tube and having to change for our line, I prefer walking. We walked through Picadilly Circus, (seen here) and 
to change the pace we went a different way and ran into London’s Chinatown where we decided we were too lazy to cook dinner and chose a not-so-pricey but not cheap looking restaurant. Cheeky buggers add their own service charge to the bill, as do a lot of food places – even Starbucks charges extra if you want to sit in – and this is on top of the VAT tax. The VAT is 17.5%, so I no longer feel the need to complain about GST!
The house was pretty quiet when we got home because all the boys were still pulling up after yesterday’s festival. Adrian said it was awesome, Keira Knightly was there and they got her up on stage when Daft Punk was playing. Simon and Carrie went to a big polo match today as Simon has contacts in high places. The royal family was there and Carrie was telling me that she got as close as four metres from the Queen! And she found it funny that although Queenie was only there for half an hour to present the trophy, when she left she got into the front of a car, and Carrie just thought, Oh, she’s shotgunned the front seat – in fact, she drove home with (probably) her bodyguard in the front passenger seat. Yes, you heard right, the Queen drove herself home. It was only a fifteen minute drive back to Windsor, but she was more than capable. 🙂 Ain’t that a story and a half!
Saturday June 16
We took the train to Notting Hill Gate and walked down Portobello Road which was all full of markets. It rained and poured and we got soaked even though we had our brolleys there, which also turned inside out several times! We saw a few things we liked but it was more the atmosphere that was exciting, so many people.
I don’t know if anyone remembers the Disney movie “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” with Angela Lansberry, but it used to be one of my favourites, and they go to Portobello Road and sing a song about it.
Portobello Road, Portobello Road, street where the riches of ages are stowed,
Anything and everything a chap can unload, is sold off the barrel down Portobello Road.
Well, I don’t know if they used that Portobello Road as the one in the movie because it didn’t at all resemble what I remember from the movie. Oh well. I still hummed the tune all the way down the road.
We enjoyed bratwursts in rolls with ketchup for lunch, and drooled over the buckets of feta and olives that we can’t afford, and almost considered buying these delicious-looking and not-too-pricey salmon steaks for dinner, but didn’t.
From there we took the bus back to Marble Arch and walked down through Hyde Park
where all the boys were for the day at the 02 festival. The outside barriers weren’t that far from the main stage so we both got to listen in for free! We walked all the way down to Kensington Road where we found Harrods, and had a good look around all the ladies’ so-called fashion.I mean, seriously people, what’s the deal with Jimmy Choo shoes – they were all horrible. But they had the best food hall with the biggest yummiest looking sundaes that were ten pounds each but we were so tempted to skip dinner and go the sundae! (Lija outside Harrods)
However we were very good and instead took the tube back up to Covent Gardens where there was yet another marketplace, amazingly though, you don’t see the same things at these places. It’s not like walking two rows of the Queen Vic Market and seeing five souvenir places, ten t-shirt places with the same shirts and three mobile phone stalls.
The whole square had performers every ten metres or so.
One of them was really tested. When we sat down to eat dinner at an outdoor eatery, there was one man we saw setting up his act, having a hard time of getting an audience. Half an hour later and he had a fully attentive captive audience as he was getting several participants to strap him into a straightjacket. Needless to say we didn’t stay to watch. We had dinner at Fuel, the same place we went when Sarah came into the city. It was nice – good pizza, but dad – not enough ANCHOVIES! Hehe Lija and I love the hairy fishies!
Us girls had a quiet night in because there were NO BOYS home! It was great – Carrie went to bed early, and I watched A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, starring Robert Downey Jr, Rosario Dawson, and my favourite young hot male actor Channing Tatum, he also played the lead male in Step Up and She’s the Man. Good movie. Stupidly after that I watched The Number 23, Jim Carrey’s latest thriller, which was quite creative and reduced me, sitting in the living room on my own at two in the morning with no lights on and not knowing when the boys would be back, to going to bed eyes wide open watching that no one was creeping up from behind!
Friday June 15
I went to the National Gallery where I got to see paintings from Monet to van Gogh, da 
Vinci, Renoir, Raphael, Michaelangelo – all the ninja turtles! 🙂 Chris would have loved that. The National Gallery is the big building in Trafalgar Square behind the fountains. Next to that is the National Portrait Gallery which wasn’t as good but I got to see portraits of some of my favourite authors and poets – T.S. Elliot, Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter, Virginia Woolf and it just goes on. (Me facing away from the gallery, towards Traf Sq)
It was literary wonder and I was in my element. I became one of those freaks who just sit spellbound in front of a picture for a while to examine its inner meaning and see what it really says. Before I wandered around on my own I went on a guided tour which was basically the lady talking us through about 5 of the whole gallery’s paintings, which didn’t seem like a lot, but I felt that I learnt enough to go back myself and understand a bit more. I mean, most of the pictures that were painted were commissioned, whether by royalty, religion, or well-standing names, there was a reason for every picture painted, who or what was in it, where objects were located. A lot of paintings were based on religion, mythology or stature of well-known families.
I have something very important to pass on to Vecmamma. My grandma’s two favourite foods are KFC and baked beans, and here in London baked beans are a part of KFC’s menu! I was so excited when I found that out, there are ads everywhere for the zinger meal with a side of a tub of baked beans. So that on Thursday I think, was my first junk food that I’ve had just so I could tell Vecmamma I had baked beans with my KFC!
I can’t even remember what I did Monday to Thursday. I know each morning I spent several hours job hunting and there were two days that consisted of laundry, dish bitch and taking the trash out. I swear, I told Adrian earlier I’m really living up to my year 12 formal awards name – Mother Mara. Ha, and I’ve been told I won’t survive living out of home and here I am bloody taking care of a bunch of boys. (Lija and my room, lots of space to left hand side.)
Lija got to the shower the other day with the disinfectant – it was seriously like those 
cleaning ads where with one swipe the cloth leaves behind a shiny white background between the grimy dirty bath tiles. I don’t think the boys are perceptive enough to even care or notice about that kinda stuff. Not that I blame them but still. (Our clothes horse we had to buy for all the washing, we leave the windows open during the day to air dry. No one has clothes lines in flats, Dwain strung up rope on their floor to hang clothes, so we walk through a maze of shirts and briefs to get to our room!)
Thursday when I was done on the net I took the tube to Notting Hill and went for a walk,
I also walked down through Green Park and St James Park, past Buckingham Palace – Lija and I will do Bucko one weekend, and on through to Traf Square I think. (And just to proove I’m not nuts hehe, here is another squirrel in St James Park – they’re everywhere!)
In the afternoons I’ve been out, somehow all week I’ve made my way to Embankment when the two free afternoon commuter papers come out. I get my coffee and sit in the park reading the papers. Embankment is then my tube line to get home. It’s a hard life 🙂
Finally, after the nerves of that last week before leaving when I managed to bite off all my fingernails, yes I know it’s a horrible habit but it’s getting less and less prominent, my nails have finally grown back – yay! It takes forever you know. But I don’t necessarily think it’s a good thing because they get so grimy around London that I have to full on scrub them every night, not to mention I wash my face morning and night.
I really need to take a photo for you guys but even that won’t do justice I doubt. Standing however many miles underground with no ventilation, even the transport system knows it gets so hot down there they are trying to find ways to combat the heat including testing ice blocks under seats, read about it in the paper, anyway, the sweat drips run down your back after just five minutes down there, and as the trains pull up and leave, the bits of dirt that go flying with the exhaust or whatever it is, makes you feel like one of the chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins.
It’s quite strange and scary how I’m settling into this whole new life without realising it almost. I mean, obviously I have if I’m able to talk about it afterwards, but some of the unconscious decisions I make in my daily dalliances are interesting to say the least. The most obvious is the human sardine box on wheels also known as the tube! People sit with their headphones in, hands in lap, shoulders hunched in so as to protect any personal space they may be able to snatch up.
I’m still not fully there yet – I can’t help the odd smile or toe tap when I hear a particular song, or even the roll of the eyes to someone else when a third party does something stupid. On the tube I can do that, but I get singled out, ridiculed as a freak. I’m sitting here writing this in my notepad and this lady opposite me is staring as if I’m bloody plotting something bad. I tried to give her a smile and she just looked through me! Haha – they won’t break me, I tell you!
The tube trains need some sort of moving scenery or background images because pitch black tunnels whirring past really don’t do anything for me and my imagination. Although because the train windows curve up – tube trains really are tubes, not like our almost box-like trains – you can sit and move your head so it looks like you have two joint heads, or an alien face with four eyes. Yes I admit my imagination tends to run wild when I’m bored.
On Wednesday I had my interview for Carina Careforce, a care agency that offers live-in and day work.
It was out near Putney, which is just past Chelsea’s home stadium. The interview was at a pub!
I had to sit and fill out forms for half an hour and then have a short interview. I had all the qualifications and they were impressed with my experience and knowledge but there were two things that turned me off. The first is that fact that they don’t offer work in London. The closest place is Stevenage, which is about an hour or two away.
The second is the pay is only just above six pounds, which is about $5 less than I was earning at Interchange.
I found out my name can be held on their list for six months before being taken off, so I said after I finish travelling in October I’d like to take some different jobs around the country.
On the documents they gave me about Carina, it says I have to call back the next day between 11-1 to see how I went. However, Caroline basically said when I was leaving, just give us a call and we’ll sort out when we can place you (not if). The next day I had Sunny call at 10am telling me about a few jobs available at the moment. I explained to her what I said to Caroline about work and she understood and let me go. Half an hour later I had John, the manager big boss of Carina, calling me and telling me about some of the opportunities there. But still I had to say I already have this rent agreement here and plans etc, but when I come back in October I’d be more than happy to do the training and be placed.
Which leaves me sitting here writing this blog today, Tuesday June 19, almost 3000 words later. I think you may finish this by the time uni goes back Clare! Hehe
Love to you all, and missing you heaps. xoxo
Tags: Travel
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