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Phone boxes - Kingston
Leany phone boxes. Not very practical for actual use.What a few days! We’ve been totally flat out every day which is awesome. Thanks for the comments to the previous blog about Captain Smiley, and I'm sure that will be more Captain Smiley action in these photos.
Saturday we went to Kingston, a ‘suburb’ of London with heaps of shops, cafés, markets etc. It was massive, and like most parts of London, you can walk and walk and walk and never find the end of the shopping area. The bus ride there was great too, we sat at the top front of a double decker bus as we weaved our way through tiny little backstreets, narrowly missing light posts. The houses on the bus route were ultra expensive style, around the areas of Kew Bridge. One house we went past is famous for the life size or bigger hedges that were cut into the shape of elephants in the front yard.
We then trekked it to look at a share accommodation place at White City which was filthy and disgusting for 150 pounds per week. We were shocked at how bad it was for such a high price! So we went home and made a couple of bookings
Bus ride
It was fun sitting at the front of the bus, on the top leve of the double decker bus. to see places at Wimbledon, so we had a plan of attack on Sunday in our quest to find share accommodation.
So Sunday we went to see a share accommodation place at Wimbledon. The area was beautiful, and as we were walking to the place we felt like we were onto a winner. An Indian man in his 60’s opened the creaky front door of this very large house slowly to us and in a very creepy voice muttered “come in”… We both immediately felt like we were in some type of low budget horror film, about to be killed. Well - this place was disgusting - I would never let my girlfriend - nor any pets - live in this hole. The 3 story house was divided up into 10 “rooms” - each with their own locked door - and a share kitchen and share bathroom on each level. The “shower room” was a closet - 1m by 1m - that had a shower in it. When you step out the shower, you would be stepping into the communal area near the stairs and other rooms. Filth, filth filth - the rooms were disgusting, old and unclean. We
Kingston
This was a nice square with markets and cafes and stuff. were insulted by the guy as he tried to explain how we can live in the room, eat in the room, bath in the room (there was a handbasin in the room too), sleep in the room, watch tv in the room, and have friends come round in our room. He had 5 rooms available - and said that if we didn’t accept one today they would probably be gone tomorrow - so we took one and will be staying there for the next 12 months…. NOT!! We left there feeling ill, and thinking that 150 pounds for a crappy room meant we would end up needing to either live in a dive room, or spend more money, neither or which are ideals.
So we walked to the centre of Wimbledon and found an internet café - desperate to find somewhere in Wimbledon or surrounding areas that we could look at immediately. Much to our surprise, the internet café had a sign on the door saying “Double Room available - Ask within”. The man informed us that the room was 150 pounds and was above the cafe, so we asked him if we could have a look, thinking it
Kingston Square
Water Fountain Goodness would be OK to live in the centre of Wimbledon above a café! Awesome!
He took us upstairs and opened the door to the “bedroom”. I use the inverted commas for a reason. He calls it a “bedroom”. I call it a storage area with a bed. The carpets were filthy and ripped up in parts. The “double bed” was too single beds put together but they were not equal height, one was about 20cm higher than the other. We pointed that out and he said “I can put in a new bed” - we said “no thanks” and walked out, angry and feeling we would never find a nice place at all.
We used the internet café to look for other places and made a few phone calls - sent off a few emails, but couldn’t really find anything half decent, even for up to 170 pounds per week, so were feeling very disheartened. Just before we disconnected the internet and paid the 1 pound to the man - Jenni found one that sounded OK and flicked off one last final email before we left.
As we were walking to the tube station depressed and realising
Kingston
The markets and stuff that there is perhaps “nowhere like home”, we had a phone call from an Australian girl, who was responding to Jenni’s very last email. It was for a place in Acton Town, an area not far West of London - she said we could come around straight away and have a look. We finally got there, our fingers crossed during much of the walk, hoping that this would not be another disaster, and another wasted afternoon.
The place looked fantastic from the front. An absolutely classic London street in a quiet neighbourhood. The hedge out the front was sculpted to perfection. A friendly Australian girl greeted us at the door and showed us around the place. It was really nice. She was moving out to live with her partner in his own apartment, and was looking for someone to take over her lease. The place was very clean, the furniture nice, the kitchen OK, the bathroom is huge. We would be sharing with another couple - and English guy and an Aussie girl.
I immediately saw Jenni’s face light up with joy, and I could tell she loved it. We are going back there today at 5pm to
meet with the other couple that we would be living with, however apparently they are nice people and easy to live with.
So after a long, exhausting, depressing day, almost thinking “what are we doing here?” we came across a nice place, and finished the day on a great note. All going well - we will meet with them this afternoon and probably move in next Sunday.
Onto the more fun things - we have already been out 3 times on the drink - so we are starting to realise that the culture here is that people certainly enjoy a good drink. The only thing is that the places that we have been so far have been Aussie pubs!! Saturday night was at the Walkabout at Shepard’s Bush, and Sunday night was at The Redback at Acton Town (perhaps our new local). The Redback or “Reddy” to the locals, is a CRAZY place. We got there at about 5pm on the Sunday arvo and everyone was SMASHED. It was absolutely huge, and had a massive beer garden out the back, but it is more a sandpit full of Aussie bogans than an English beer garden. It was kind
Jenni and Jan
Jenni and a friend of her Aunty and Uncles, Jan, at Kingston. of nice to be surrounded by similar people. The beer garden closed at 6pm and they pushed everyone inside. The music was classic hits, which every Australian can relate to, so we danced around for a couple of hours, in the back of my heading thinking how odd it is to be dancing like a freak at 7pm on a Sunday afternoon. Such is life in London I guess.
One thing that stood out to me about going out in London, is that the guys here are absolute sleazes! Drunk guys go up to any girl and basically just start talking crap to them, grabbing them, and getting in their faces. I'm not talking about 1 or 2, I'm talking about 10 within an hour or so. They go from one girl to another, to another to another to another, trying and trying, I guess until they eventually find one that is drunk enough to show some attention back. I just found this a big difference from Adelaide, where people are much more respectful. I am going to have to invest in some type of taser gun to fend of guys from Jenni, haha!
We have caught up
Tube Station
I knew Captain Smiley would make a return. I think this was a "slight" pose. with Jenni’s friend Heidi, and met all of her friends at the pubs. They are great people, all up for a good time. One has invited us to her party next weekend, so that will be good - and its nice to be building a bit of a network of friends here already. Some people have told us that we are doing well considering we have only been here for 3 full days, found a place to live, met lots of people, seen many London sights, have interviews set up and so on, so that is very reassuring.
Today (Monday) is a public holiday, or bank holiday as they say here. From tomorrow perhaps the real world will kick in. I have 3 interviews tomorrow, and Jenni has an interview for a role with the University of London. She is busy preparing it for as I type.
That’s all I can think of at the moment, but all in all we are having a ball. Our days have been very full already and it will be interesting to see where we are in a week. As much as I know we need to find work soon, I don’t
The Redback
The 'Reddy'. really want to, I’m enjoying traveling around everywhere and seeing the sights, but that’s life.
We have already come to the conclusion that we want to travel as much as possible while we are here - so we are both sure the year will be a good one. We will just need to be careful, as we can see it flying by very quickly.
Hope all is well in Adelaide. Please put up comments to let us know you are at least reading this - otherwise we’ll boycott the whole blogging thing and spend more time at the pub! Do you really want that?
Until next time!
Luke and Jenni
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lindsay
non-member comment
gi'day
Good one Lukie.. keep up the good work on the blog. A joy to read. Regards