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Damn you FLAMES!!!!
I thought it would be easy to keep this thing up to date but wow, so much to do and sitting inside for an hour or so in front of a computer just seems so wrong for some reason. As you will notice I don’t have access to get my pictures off my camera so this update will be text only.
Ok where was I?
April 27th
Went out with the Steve last night, got a little drunk so I didn’t really wake up till around noon-ish. Steves buddies paid for every single drink they had by doing magic tricks to the people in the bar, never seen that before but I might have to give it a shot. The night clubs out here are pretty much the same except for the fact that they were charging up to £10 cover on a week night. With the amount of people that were out at the clubs that didn’t really seem to stop many people though. Found my way down to Trafalgar Square to check out the National Gallery. All of the major museums and galleries here are all by donation only, great for broke travellers like me. It really is a shame that I don't know much about art. In this museum were some of the most amazing and important paintings in the world and I feel like this is lost on me. It’s really hard for me to appreciate unknown paintings by people I had never heard of. I did get the audio guide which was defiantly worth the £2. These devices are about the size of an IPOD and they come with headphones. Certain paintings had special numbers on the description and when you keyed that number into the audio guide it would tell you the history of the painting and the artist. That this was worth its weight in gold for and art dummy like me. I caught a free tour and in an hour we only covered 5 paintings but it was defiantly worth the time. Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Tinteretto, it was pretty interesting to see paintings that I had only ever seen on TV or seen prints of.
After that I skilfully made my way down to the British Museum. They had some amazing displays on the history of Europe and the Americas. I was wandering around their Egypt wing when I saw a large group of people huddled around a large chunk of rock. Me being the curious type and wanting to get everything out of a free museum I wandered over. At first I didn't really realize what the big deal was but then I realized that I was looking at the actual Rosetta Stone! For those of you that don’t know the Rosetta Stone was a chunk of rock that had writing on it in two languages, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Greek. This stone and these writings were used as a key to decipher the writings of the ancient Egyptians! Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.
London Eye, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, the outside of Westminster Abbey (damn thing was closed), and then back to a pub in Camden for some drinks Funny thing about this place was that I knew every single song they were playing! I was looking forward to hearing some "foreign" music but here they were playing AC/DC, GNR you name it. So we were just about to leave there and then the night got interesting. Steves buddies cell phone rang and next thing you know we are in a basement suite for an unplugged session by this little local band. HOLY CRAP WERE THESE GUYS AMAZING!!! I’m hoping they get like U2 big so I can look back on those pictures and say I knew them when. The lead singers girlfriend was insanely hot, I really need to be in a band.
April 28th
Tate Museum today and it’s really interesting what some people think art is. There are several Tate Museums and its all modern art. Some really…now can I put this…COMPLETELY INSANE things here. Just Google artist Barnett Newman and you will get an idea what I’m talking about. There was this one room where there were the walls were all painted this strange off white colour and there were some drawings that the actual artist had just done straight on the wall. Right next to a metal sculpture that had been mounted to the wall there was a fire exit that had been painted over with the same colour. The funny thing about it was that there was this couple that were looking at this fire exit for about 5 minutes as if it were a piece of art itself. I went off a bit and just watched them waiting for them to realize what they were doing and all of a sudden I saw the guy looking for the card displaying the artist name and then he figured it out. Now that’s what I call modern art!
After that I was off to take the tour of the Globe Theatre and the Shakespeare museum. Really interesting the history of this building and they had rebuilt it as accurately as todays health and safety codes would allow. Over the Tower Bridge to the Tower of London only to find that it was already closed, grrrrrrrr. Good thing I fly back out of Gatwick, just going to have to hit it on the way back. Had to make a stop at the infamous Harrods department store and it was disgusting. You know you are walking into an expensive store when there are tourists taking pictures of the cars parked outside. Back to back was an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, and a Bentley. I guess someone can afford the crap in here. $600 jeans, $400 t-shirts, a $36000 mattress, a $20000 fridge with Swarovsky crystals in the front…I wouldn’t shop here even if I could afford to. Pubs here close down around midnight, where does everyone go? I know, to sleep!!
April 30th
Off to Oxford today and wow is this interesting place. A city with a population of 140 000 and around 20 000 students and they all own bikes. I was surprised that a 3 year course here will cost you about $20 000. I was expecting it to be more expensive but it’s just getting in here that’s the hard part. Even with perfect grades, if you don’t have a family member or some sort of a contact that went there or is associated with there good luck getting in. It’s a really strange system there. You all live in different colleges and the majority of the study is self paced. Once a week you have to meet with your tutor who is pretty much your only contact and they make sure you aren’t goofing off and help out wherever needed. I guess there is a big rift here between “town and gown”, the people that live in the city and the stuck up students that go here. I guess when you take the best of the best from all over the world they don’t really mix very well with the average blue collar workers.
For those of you that are Harry Potter fans (Jen) they did a TON of the filming for the movies here. The great hall was filmed in the dining room of the Christ Church Cathedral and there are locations throughout the town that are all in the movie. Some of them have been digitally enhanced but if you know what you are looking for you can find them. I also found out that a mathematics tutor here, Charles Dodgson was really good friends with the daughter of the Dean, a young girl by the name of Alice. He would spend quite a bit of time with her making up stories to tell her using people and places around Oxford while they would go on boat rides up the river. One day Alice asked him to write them all down for her as a birthday present, who could say no to a cute little girl? Being a very serious man he decided that when he wrote them down he would take up a pen name so that his reputation as a mathematician wasn’t harmed. The pen name? Lewis Carrol. One of the stories? Alice in Wonderland! Ended up meeting a crazy American, Michelle on a ghost tour of Oxford. Strange that I came here to meet new people and I end up spending the next day hanging around with a girl from the States. Tourists. 2 days and combined 3 hours of sleep really messes with your mind when you are on the road.
May 3rd
Found my way up to Stratford-Upon-Avon today and by the time I got there pretty much everything was closed. The hostel was this amazing old building and was quite nice on the inside. Pretty much everything in town was closed so I asked the guy at the counter what there was to do. Catch a play if you can was his only advice. I called up the box office and they said that they were sold out but I could wait in line for the returned tickets. I got there about 6pm with the show at 730 and am I ever glad I did! For £10 I found myself 4 rows from the front of the stage! It was a production of Hamlet by a touring South African group. These guys were amazing!
May 4th
Met a really nice girl on the train today, Lara Oliver. She was a little on the “fruit loopy” her words, not mine, so we got along great. I thought about buying a paper or reading my book but we killed the hour and a half train ride in no time. People over here are so friendly when they find out I’m not American. Found my hostel in Oxford and it’s a really cool place filled to the brim with amazingly interesting people. Headed down to the Cavern Club where the Beatles got their start. There was supposed to be a really good Beatles tribute band but instead there was this touring Queen Tribute band “God Save the Queen” from Argentina and they were AMAZING!!!! The lead singer looked just like Freddie, even down to his chest hair, kind of creepy in that way. That closed down around midnight and I found my way into this nightclub just down the road. Holy crap was it ever crazy in there. I don’t know how I made it home but I had the worst hangover the next day. Oh well, all in good fun.
May 6th
I became the most hated man in the hostel last night. There were about 8 of us sitting around the kitchen table drinking and sharing stories and the topic of work visas came up. When I told them that I had my British passport they almost killed me. Half of them were either working over here or looking for work and being that they only had temporary work visas they were having a hard time finding good jobs. When I first applied for it I wasn’t really thinking about it but now that I am here the idea of working over here is getting better by the minute. The stories that everyone were telling me were just AMAZING. So many things I haven’t seen and so many places I have never been, I think I am going to have to change that.
Well that’s about it for now, off to be the tacky tourist!
Thanks for the emails and pictures people, its great to hear from you all!!
Till next time!
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mum
non-member comment
i can spot canadian guys
that response was so quick we must have been on line at the same time. you must type at the speed of sound so much and not to mis athing. try not to have too many too many nights as it may spoil the fun of the next day.have you learned any magic tricks yet. enjoying your sharing more that words can say, previous comment allowed cos i,m your mum and I don,t want you to miss aTHING MUCH LOVE .