And so it begins. First stop, London.

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The first time I flew into London I somehow managed to avoid any real semblance of jetlag. Through the excitement of my first journey overseas there was a lack of sleep in Melbourne, and the stopover in Tokyo definitely helped. By the time I landed in London in the morning I had somewhat already adjusted my sleeping patterns to suit the new time zone. This time around, I wasn’t so lucky. Leaving Melbourne in the middle of the day, I flew straight to Kuala Lumpur at around 11pm (Melbourne time) waited a few hours for the connecting flight and finally landed in London at 4.30am (London time). A staggering 23 odd hours after I left Melbourne, and I should point out that like most people I struggle to sleep on planes. And to make matters worse I get to my hostel at around 7am, meaning I have to wait another 7 hours before I can check in, have a shower and get some proper sleep. Brilliant.

The day itself was cool, overcast and in some parts rainy. It’s almost like I never left home. And the coming week pretty much forecast more of the same. The receptionist at the hostel kindly pointed out that the previous three weeks had been almost perfect, with the temperatures hitting around the 30 degree mark. Thanks mate. Not really what I wanted to hear after 23 hours of flying, and facing another 7 hours of sitting around in miserable weather. But really, I probably shouldn’t have expected the weather to be any different.

London for me was always going to be a stopover. I had been here before and it had never really appealed to me. The city itself is far too large, expensive and filled with people who seem to be stressed 24/7. And you know it’s odd, for a country and town that’s supposed to be prim and proper and somewhat known for the necessity of politeness and manners, all this seemed to be thrown out the window when you’re trying to walk to streets or get on the train. People push past you without even acknowledging it and even a hand to apologise and people walking in the opposite direction will NEVER move out the way but rather walk straight at you and expect you to move. Yep, once I had done what I needed to do I was on my way to Edinburgh.

What I really needed to do was get a National Insurance Number. I had signed up with this agency that had a postal address to get things sent to me. Once I had called up whoever I needed to call I had to play the waiting game for the forms to get sent out. To fill in the time I did all the tourist things around London I had already done with a French guy named Ezekial I met at the hostel. Now I’m not going to really cover everything I’d done in detail, basically because I wasn’t paying much attention to what I was doing and only really wanted to pass time, I will give a quick rundown of the markets. Portobello market (Notting Hill) is pretty cool as long as you go on the weekend, lots of antiques and second hand stuff going around. It is also incredibly long and seemed to go on forever. I remember walking down to another train station that happened to be on a completely different line that I took in, and needed to get back to my hostel. This train station also happened to be closed for the day. Now at the time this was obviously a massive pain in the ass. I’m not going to berate the London tube system too much as it is actually a fantastic system that can get you around pretty much anywhere in London quite easily. But still, what a pile of shit. Anyway back to the markets, Camden market was great, full of cool alternative clothing and heaps and heaps of food. All the food vendors here offer you a small free sampling of their food to compete for your business. Had I not already eaten and known this little fact, I probably would have turned up with a beer in hand and gone on a free Indian/Asian tapas tour. And finally onto Borough market. Borough market is almost like your Queen Vic market of London. All of it is food related, though mostly takeaway food rather than fresh food for cooking. They seemed to have every type of food, and at decent prices. Meats, burgers, fish, potato’s, cheese, chocolates, paella... really too much for me to remember. It’s pretty much a food junkie’s heaven.

One last small story, after my new mate Ezy had left to go back home I was pretty much on my own again. For some reason all the people I shared my dorm with were pretty much snobby foreigners. Now I know what you’re probably thinking, they’re obviously going to be foreigners you’re in a completely different country. No, I mean the kind of foreigners who don’t speak any English unless they need something from you, but mainly the worse kind of foreigner, the Spanish. Don’t get me started on the Spanish. Anyway, so I’m on my own and I decide to go on a 3 hour walking tour. And I had managed to avoid the rain to this point with ease. Until now. I’m pretty sure for the majority of the walking tour it rained, and not lightly, it really bucketed down at points. Credit where it’s due, a lot of the people on the tour actually kept on going I guess mainly because we couldn’t really get any wetter. It turned out to be an interesting and memorable day though.

Anyway, by this point now the forms for my NIN had come in and I’d filled them out and shipped them off. It was time to move on to Edinburgh.

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