England

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Welcome to Jolly Old London. Ok I admit it - last time I was in London I was perhaps a little harsh and its not such a bad place at all. In my defence though last time was the first time I had really travelled to Europe and i though it was too big and too dirty (so didn't know what that was all about then did I?) Comparatively though it is really quite clean and it's not really that big so my apologies to hating London last time. Ok now that that is out of the way I get into bloody Heathrow airport, find the tube station and discover that there is a bloody tube strike for the next 3 days that only just started that evening so there is no way for me to get the tube into Central London where my hostel is. bummer! I ended up speaking to like 5 different help people trying to figure it out but at the end just caught a train into Paddington and then a taxi to my hostel so took about 3 hours to bloody do! argggh ... never mind I got there.

The hostel I am staying at is called Generator and it has just over 800 beds so really big and I picked it because it has a lot of facilities including a chill out room, cafetaria (3pounds 50pence for dinner) and its own bar with nightly events so thought that would be a good place to stay since I don't want to spend too much money - mwahaha what a joke in London but anyways - probably should have spent more time checking out the quality of the showers rather than bars but we have to have our priorities don't we *grin*

So basically was staying at a very friendly place and being such a friendly person I made sooo many different friends and there was always lots of people to hang out with and do stuff with. Met this guy Kelvin who is from Auckland (I decided to forgive him as first time I spoke to him he asked if I was an Islander!!! grrrr not happy Jan! hehe) anyways after that fantastic beginning which I gave him heaps about for the rest of the time we hung out quite a bit and stuff which was cool. There are a lot of Australian's staying at this hostel (probably because it is reasonably cheap and all plus it has its own bar yay!) so most of the time was hanging with them.

Kate (my friend from Canberra) came to London for the weekend so we went out to a pub with a friend of hers Jean who is also from Australia and we went to Angel (as in the Angel Islington on the monopoly board). The not smoking inside laws were only just introduced in England in July so its not really set up very well for it but we went to a place that had a garden section and had some dinner and a couple of drinks, it was nice. Unfortunately, Kate wasn't feeling very well the next day so ended up going back to Folkestone but I went down the following weekend to visit and it was fantastic. Kate is living with some friends she made in China John and Jen and they have this amazing english house. It was a fully detached house over four stories and was just gorgeous. The house was like 120 years old or something so they have obviously done a lot of work to it and it was lovely. On the Saturday Kate and I wandered around Folkestone which is a coastal town and it was just so cute. Did some shopping and then had really yummy fish and chips for lunch and it was pretty good (way better than fish and chips in Perth anyways - doesn't beat NZ fish and chips but then nothing does mwahahaha). Sunday we went with John and Jen to Dover Castle and the Secret War Time Tunnells which were used in WW2 to evacuate men across the channels and stuff. Was really interesting - dad you would totally love it. The Castle was really cool as well, an actual proper castle where apparently King Henry VIII came to visit when he was worried about invaders coming over through Dover. Monday Kate and I went to see Canterbury however it was raining so we only went for a little while and managed to get the bus back in the afternoon with the school kids. OMG i thought kids were bad in Australia but this was absolutely amazing. They can't actually speak English and I really think we should stop calling the language English since most of the people in this country can't actually speak it properly . It was soo weird listening to these kids on the buses but I am actually now dummer from having been made to listen to them ... hehe.

Did the hop-on hop-off tour of London which was great because they actually drive you around to all the sites and there is a commentator on board who tells you about famous stuff (and dogs politicians) and what happened in buildings and how sayings came about (and dogs politicians) and things which was really quite funny. I went with Elise (a generator friend) and we spent the day doing the sites and then went to London Dungeon's which I thought was fabulous. It is like a haunted house and has actors and exhibits as well as lots of laughs and things - a totally enjoyable day.

Also met up with my friend Leandra who I had met doing the Contiki tour back in 2004. She actually lives in Australia (Adelaide) but we never managed to catch up in that country so it was a total spin out when she emailed saying she was over in England (staying with family up north) so she came down to visit me in London and stayed at the Generator with me for a couple of nights. She came down on the Wednesday and we went and saw the West End Show 'Wicked' which was absolutely terrific. It is a musical based on the Witches of Oz so encorporates the Wizard and Glinda , Tin Man, Munchkins etc and Dorothy and stuff and I thought it was so very cleverily done (is cleverily even a word?). The music in it was very clever as well as awesome costumes and scenery and stuff - just terrific. We did the matinee show and then that night was Games Night at the Generator bar so we did that too ... oops. Ok so games night was teams of 4 (me, Leandra, Kelvin and Patrick) and first of all was a quiz with everyone and then the top two teams had to go up to the stage (yup we were in there) and then we had some drinking games, had to talk about a subject for 1 minute into the mike without saying umm or erm - i won't tell you what subject i was assigned just in case my parents read this but it was hilarious - had to find something in the hostel and then skull a jug of beer. hmmm but i don't drink beer but i would never let my team mates down and can actually skull pretty fast so we won that but then we lost the total overall (by 10 points sooo disappointing) but then because the girls who won don't drink beer they gave us their jugs of beer and they kept the jugs of cocktails. Does anyone else notice that there was A LOT of drinking that night - how totally unlike me! anyways the rest of the night passed in a blur and Thursday was a pretty quiet day out of necessity (poor Leandra came all the way down to see me in London and I didn't want to move all day mwahahaha). Anyways Thursday night was Karaoke night and I made Leandra get up and sing a song as well. We had great fun although I didn't win AGAIN! came second AGAIN! I was robbed i tell ya ... mwahahaha we had a great night anyways and then Leandra had to leave at like 6 in the morning or something disgusting the poor thing. I did manage to open one eye to say goodbye to her but that was about it. Anyways it was so great to catch up and we have decided perhaps next time we might catch up in Australia since we both live there anyways *grin*

Ok well I guess you can tell that I had a pretty good time in London. I am really looking forward to going to USA tomorrow as I am kind of over being here (i'm getting too old to drink so much besides people have stopped giving me their drinks cards so I would have to buy them now and that is just too sad especially considering how expensive the pound is) as I have done everything I wanted to do and ended up drinking on the street yesterday with a whole bunch of us who are too poor to drink in the bar so went to the supermarket and got some cheap drinks and then drunk them but I was thinking how terribly low budget it was but still had a good time anyways. *grin*

Start spreading the news, i'm leaving today ... New York, New York!

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Photos

Big Ben & Parliament
Elise and I did a hop-on hop-off tour of London to see all the sights.

Westminster Abbey
This is the abbey - was pretty big building and they told us all the famous stuff that happened there but I forgot - never mind then!

London Dungeon
Me & Elise went to the London Dungeons. It was great fun - 90 minutes going through history of Black Plague; Great Fire; Jack the Ripper; Newsgate Gaol and other scary things - was great fun.

Harrods
Here is the infamous Harrods store in Knightsbridge - great for a laugh to wander around and spin out about how much people will actually pay for a frock INSANE!

Kelvin & Leandra
This is when we were at the bar at Generator (happened once or twice). Had lots of fun

Wicked
Leandra and I went to see the West End Show Wicked - it was the untold story of the Witches of Oz and was absolutely fantastic. If it comes to Aussie everyone should try to see it - loved it!

At the Generator Bar
This was Karaoke night (I came second AGAIN!!). Me, Leandra, Nick, Matt and Katie. Had an amazing night.

Me & Kate
Me and Katie at Dover Castle when I went down to Folkestone to spend the weekend with her - had a great time.

View from Dover Castle
Absolutely beautiful views from here, Dover Castle is at the top of the white cliffs of Dover so was really windy but totally gorgeous.

Street drinking
Apparently drinking in the streets isn't illegal in England so we thought perhaps we should do a little bit of it hehe the boys were buying a 2litre bottle of apple cider called White Ace. It only cost £1.99 so really good quality NOT!

Comments

[maegan]

On behalf of London I accept your apology. My daughter Sarah is most impressed at you seeing Wicked, one of her favourite musicals. Looking forward to seeing New York - will you do Broadway?