rah goes on holiday

Tonight is my last night here in sunny England. Paris was beautiful, yesterday I hugged Robbie Williams at Madame Tussaud’s and last night stayed at Becca!’s house. Today we’re taking it pretty easy and tonight is a final dinner with Becca! and Genna before heading back to Genna’s for packing, etc. Tomorrow I’m in London all day, hanging out with Becca!, Floey, Charlie, Harriet and hopefully Jo as well. A gathering that could be bigger than my arrival will take me to Heathrow tomorrow night.

My jetlag plan is to get a couple of hours’ sleep when we take off from Heathrow and then try to stay awake until we take off from Singapore and sleep Singapore-Sydney. Nothing ever goes to plan, but I feel better for at least having one in my head.

I haven’t got the brain capacity to type up the detail of my last week here and I’m not ready to deal with the reality of leaving here. But I’m very excited to be going home to Dan and the boys and to being back in Enmore and catching up with friends, family, even work! and meeting baby Angus.

Am back at Genna’s for the night, but we’re up at 4.00am to catch the train to PARIS!

This week has been London, Newark, Newcastle, Edinburgh, York and Newark. But it’s late and I still need to dry my hair and pack before I go to bed and it’s almost 11.00pm.

But in the meantime:

today was more shopping and a disappointing visit to st paul’s cathedral. no way was i paying £10 to go through the gates and not be able to take photos! genna and i looked around the parts that we could see without paying and promptly left.

We caught a red bus tour thingo around london (open-topped and COLD) before jumping off in time to warm up and head off to see avenue q, which i absolutely adored. i also met genna’s potential boyfriend, george! who i also approve of.

tomorrow is the big internet girl meet up (11 of us in total now) which will go until lunchtime sunday. then i head home with harriet for our trip up to edinburgh on monday morning. internetting will be sporadic but my au mobile seems to be fully functional now (about bloody time you pulled your finger out, vodafone).

the end! today’s post was brought to you by the letter q and definitely not the shift key.

Tonight is 2 weeks until I go home, and almost 2 weeks since I got here. So bizarre, time’s going so quickly!

Yesterday Genna and I left the house at 6.00am to get to Avebury for sunrise and what a waste of effort that was. No sun to be seen the entire day and the Avebury rocks are just sititng on the side of the road, seemingly insignificant.

Stonehenge was far more interesting and more like a tourist attraction, even though the stone themselves were much smaller than I thought they would be. I experienced my first audio guide, which was interesting but sucked because I had to hold it to my ear with one hand, meaning I couldn’t keep that hand warm or take photos without putting it down.

That said, to look at those bloody rocks and try to work out how and why it was made, was definitely worth the entry fee.

After Stonehenge we drove over to Bath and wandered around the shops and checked out the Roman Baths (ohmygod amazing) and Bath Abbey (also amazing). Did you know that Phillip Macquarie moved to Bath after being first Governor of  Australia and eventually suicided because of the pain of an Aboriginal spear that couldn’t be removed but couldn’t be buried at Bath Abbey because suicide was a sin back then. He’s buried in some other part of Bath, near a pub, so probably a good place to be!

We stayed at 139 Bath on Wells Road and was a luxurious place to stay. Dinner was also devine at this steak place on the recommendation of the guy running the B&B. I slept like a baby and apparently didn’t even snore!

Today we drove home via Oxford and took a bus tour around the town before checking out the Natural History Museum and the local shops. Oxford really is a University town and it takes a tour of the town to actually realise this.

Drove home through my first snow shower! Needless to say, it was freezing cold.

Bunch of photos from the last couple of days are here.

Tomorrow is the start of 3 days in London, so I should catch up on all my sight seeing.

I’m still having some troubles with my AU mobile phone - Vodafone says it’s now to do with NYE congestion (yeah, right). So apologies if you’ve received a text from me about 20 times, as I suspect it may have happened to (especially you, Natty!). I’m anxiously waiting for news on Julie and Scotty’s newest arrival, which should happen any hour now.

It’s taken me about 2 days to write this, and not because I’ve been out socialising or sightseeing. I’ve been relaxing and taking it easy since I realised that it’ll be almost non-stop for the rest of my time here - hold on tight, rah!

I’ve uploaded another batch of photos to flickr - click here to see them. Since the last episode:

Saturday 29th
Genna and I trained it in to London to queue up at Leicester Square’s TKTS booth for cheap tix to RENT. I had a wander around and checked out the palm prints laid in the square - Arnie, Colin Firth and Omar Sheriff. It was cold and mostly pleasant, but the security/terrrism sirens decided to malfunction and let out this annoying wailing sound AND IT REALLY WAS ANNOYING. It was still going after we’d bought our tickets, so a good 45 minutes later.

Then we tubed it towards the Natural History Museum and geeked it up around all the stuffed animals. Through Genna’s awesome tight-arse skilling, we managed to get 2-for-1 entry to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition, which was completely amazing.
This was our favourite pic. the building itself is also pretty spectacular, complete with themed gargoyles (dinosaurs and whatnot).

We’d planned to go to the Science Museum, but we changed our minds because of the massive queues and we knew that Becca would hold it against us if we went without her.

We hiked it to Harrod’s and OH MY GOD how extravagant can one shop be?! I made a point of not going to see the Diana and Dodi memorial but we grabbed lunch from the food hall before gawking at the overpriced souveniers in the Harrod’s gift shop. The best part was the opera singing pizza chef, who decided to start serenading one of the workers while we were walking past.

We hopped on another tube and got off at Westminster so I could go back to the Westminster Abbey gift shop and buy one of the Westminster gargoyles that I’d eyed off when we were there last. Genna bought us a tickets for a ride down the Thames and the commentary was very typical British humour and well worth the price with yet another 2-for-1 offer. Bargain! We travelled up to Tower of London as sunset was starting so the long shadows made for a beautiful sight.

Tower of London is much bigger than I thought it would be and I found it hard to realise how old everything was. We checked out the crown jewels and I was v impressed with the moving walkway method to keep crowds moving. The views of Tower Bridge were beautiful and one of my fave photos of the day.

By the time we finished at Tower of London it was cold and dark and time for us to make our way to Covent Garden for dinner and to see RENT. Walking through Covent Garden at night was completely hectic, but very pretty. Lots of stalls selling things I couldn’t afford and buskers vying for our attention. We ate at Bella Italia, a nice chain restaurant with VERY nice garlic bread. It was so nice to finally sit down long enough to give our feet a rest.

My belief that all West End theatres are nice and retro was long forgotten as soon as I went to the bathroom at the Duke of York’s theatre. What a horrible, tiny place. Then I got to marvel at the bad sound set up in the theatre itself before being shocked beyond belief by the production itself. RENT being one of my all-time favourite musicals meant I was looking forward to seeing the show, even though I knew that this production was very different. Well, different didn’t begin to describe it adequately but it was interesting to see a new interpretation by the same guy who’s worked with Kylie on her styling for the last million years. Kylie’s voice even featured in parts of the show. I hate to admit it, but the whole experience made me want to watch the movie version again.

Sunday 30th
Sunday started with driving into London to go shopping on Oxford Street with Genna and Claudia. I managed to by a swag of souveniers and a new carry-on suitcase for my trip home while the girls went and spent up at Selfridges. We made our way to Covent Garden to have another look at the markets (and were treated to the sight of a guy wearing nothing but gold hotpants on a unicycle) and ate a late lunch at this restaurant were the waiters dressed like monks.

We finally got home through the London traffic and managed to convince Becca to come over a day early for our NYE fun. We played Singstar and discovered that we were all pretty amateur, really.

Monday 31st
A biiiiiiiiiiiig sleep in and bumming around the house until midday, Genna eventually got me and Genna out of the house and to Sainsbury’s for some grocery and clothes shopping at Next and Monsoon. Genna cooked us delicious pasta bake and we watched TV and movies and played some guitar hero until midnight and watched the London fireworks on TV. Not to slag of the fireworks here, but it made me appreciate the Sydney fireworks that much more. NYE TV here is freaking awesome, though, and we very much enjoyed spotting David Tennant (current Dr Who) and his sideburns on the Jools Holland special. Being the hardest of the hardcore, I was in bed just after 1.00am. Party animal central!

Tuesday 1st
A nice big sleep in and another round of Guitar Hero before Becca went home after lunchtime. Genna and I didn’t get dressed until we thought we were going out for dinner with her new love interest, until plans were made for Friday instead. We watched movies and TV in bed (I’m now in love with Top Gear) and are now getting ready for our overnight road trip that starts at 6am tomorrow.

Tomorrow we drive to Avebury, Stonehenge and then to Bath for our overnight stay, then on Thursday morning back home via Oxford.  Friday I’ve got a free day in London before going to see Avenue Q with Genna and love-interest George.

Saturday starts my big weekend with my girls - there will be 13 of us in total - 2 from Sweden and 1 from Wales and will no doubt be the highlight of the trip. We haven’t been organised enough to work out what we’ll actually do when we’re together, but sounds like alcohol will be a big part of it. London, you have been warned!!

Miss everyone back home, hope you’re doing well!!

So my Aussie mobile has been up the spout since Christmas Eve. I was blaming it on Newark since it seemed to go fruity once I’d arrived. 6 days later I decided to call Vodafone AU and encountered a woman with the personality of a wet rag (it WAS 6am, Sydney time) who told me that all of international roaming is stuffed and they don’t know what’s caused it and they don’t know when it’ll be fixed. WONDERFUL. So any texts you may have sent me since Christmas morning (Sydney time) might not reach me until next week at the rate Vodafone is going.

Today Genna and I are going back into London and will hopefully score cheap tickets to Rent. My first West End show!

Christmas photos here:

Lincoln photos here:

Newark photos here:

So! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and still feeling full from eating like there’s no tomorrow. I didn’t have a White Christmas, but a great day nonetheless. Since I wrote last:

Monday (Christmas Eve)
Genna and I took it easy after our big day in London. We went to see Enchanted with Claudia and got ready for our road trip to Harriet’s house that night. Becca arrived on time and it ended up being me and Genna being late to get on the road. I had my first UK McDonald’s experience (rated: not that different) and fell asleep in the car and missed all the rain, fog and big car accident remains on the side of the road. We made a royal mess of Harriet’s house within minutes of arriving and decided we were too tired to go out in the yucky weather to go Caroling. Sleep = good.

Tuesday (Christmas Day)
Slept in (much to Harriet’s chagrin) and eventually woke up about 9 and we stumbled downstairs and waited for Harriet’s mama, Anne, to arrive. Harriet cooked up salmon and scrambled eggs for breakfast and I experienced by first Bucks Fizz (Champagne and OJ). It took us about an hour to open presents - you could barely see the tree behind the mountain of presents. I was royally spoilt with pressies, mostly with a penguin, nun or cupcake theme. We took a good hour or two to doll ourselves up for Christmas Dinner, with Becca offering to straighten and flick my hair with her GHD, which I have fallen in love with and wondering if I can buy one duty-free. Harriet and Anne cooked up a storm with turkey, veges and whatnot to feed a small army while I was introduced to Love Actually on DVD. Dessert consisted of Anne’s pav and Genna’s trifle (not tripe, as I thought). We really didn’t need to eat again for a good 2 days. We lazed around on the couches watching old eps of RockStar:INXS and eventually toddled off to bed.

Wednesday (Boxing Day)
Running late (as usual), we managed to leave for Lincoln just before 10. The drive from Newark to Lincoln is very pretty, complete with farm animals. We walked through Lincoln centre and trekked up the hill (felt more like mount everest) to Lincoln Cathedral, where they filmed The Da Vinci Code (I thought it was a crap movie, so this wasn’t as exciting as the Cathedral itself). The Cathedral is STUNNING. Genna and I paid the £3 to walk around the Cathedral (gotta love student discounts) and the detail and beauty of the whole thing was spectacular. Promise to upload pics later on today. Afterwards we checked out the post-Christmas sales and I bought up on makeup to replace what I’m sure is still sitting on my dressing table at home. We stopped for hot chocolate at Costa and drank the biggest hot chocolate I’ve ever had - so big, the mug had 2 handles. We stopped for a drink and nacho’s a Lloyd’s, a bar on the edge of the water in Lincoln and then went to see St Trinian’s at the Odeon. I also experienced my first Ben and Jerry’s icecream and it’s no surprise that I chose Cookie Dough flavour - oh my god it was awesome. St Trinian’s was a typically British movie in its humour and featured Colin Firth in a soaking wet, white shirt. For that alone the movie rates highly. Afterwards we went back to Lloyd’s to eat some Wetherspoons for dinner and drove home after that listening to Harriet’s musicals playlist on her iPod. For once I didn’t fall asleep in the car and “amuse” everyone with my snoring.

Thursday
Today was leftover day at Harriet’s, with Floey and Maz joining us for the day. We filled up on leftovers before walking into Newark for a couple of games of 10-pin bowling (at which I mostly sucked and wished for my skills in the Wii version) and then to the Old Post Office Pub for nachos and drinks before walking Floey to the Newark Castle train station. In what is apparently typical form, we were advised of the train cancellation 1 minute after the train was due to arrive and then we hiked over to Northgate train station so we could get Floey onto the next train from there. By this time it was about 5pm and dark already and pretty cold (although milder than it had been on other days). Genna and Becca challenged themselves to finding Harriet’s house on their own while Maz, Harriet and I made sure Floey got on her train, with the help of a Costa’s mint hot chocolate to keep me warm. I LOVE MINT HOT CHOCOLATE. By the time we got back home, I’d basically walked right around Newark and seen virtually all of Newark Castle except the inside. We rugged up on the couch, ate more leftovers and watched Legally Blonde, which was the only movie we could all agree to watch. I struggled to stay awake (again) and gave myself an early night (again), so I was probably asleep by 9pm. I love sleep.

Friday (Today)
After my previous wake ups during the week, me not getting up until 9 was a massive sleep-in for me. The girls didn’t start getting up until about 10.30, which proved interesting since we’d decided to leave at 10.00am. We packed ourselves up, tried to clean up the mess we’d made of Harriet’s house and waved Maz off before jumping in the car with Genna and Becca and the 2hr drive home. Traffic jams in a few places so we detoured our way around them. It’s amazing how similar Australia and the UK seems - just the odd castle or cathedral on the horizon amongst all the typically British houses along the side of the road. All in all a pretty view, but even more so first thing in the morning and covered in frost. Genna has taken off with Claudia to pick up their dogs Jake and Roxie, so I’ll soon be covered in doggie happiness. We planned to see Avenue Q tonight, but no deals on because of the Christmas season, so hopefully better luck next week. Tonight Sophie has a bunch of friends coming over, so even though the house is pretty damn big, we’ll be keeping a low profile so as not to uncool Sophie’s shindig  :o)  I’ve been spending time working on uploading my holiday photos and whatnot.

So it’s been quite relaxing the last few days. A few more quiet days ahead before NYE celebrations (Guitar Hero and Singstar, so THAT should be interesting) and then it will pretty much be a whirlwind until I go home.

So I ended up having about 6 naps on my first afternoon here and I’m sure I would have had more except BECCA! surprised me in my bed just before dinner and we had a couple of hours of laughs with her before she had to go home again. Becca and Genna and I are driving up to Harriet’s tonight for Christmas.

Yesterday was my first London day. We’d planned to catch an open-topped bus, but the weather was too crappy to make it worth the overpriced cost. We drove to St John’s Wood station and tubed it in to Westminster station. Tube trains are overheated and just like they look in the movies. At some stations they’ve installed protective walls on the ledge of the platform - there are only gaps for the doors on the carriages and is supposed to be extra protection in the event of another London Bombing. A lot of the streets have ram-raid barriers as well, it’s amazing how unsecure Sydney now seems in comparison.

As we were walking into St John’s Wood station, I notice a Beatles souvenier shop and Genna said that Abbey Road was only a 10 minute walk away. Score! We hoofed it down there and checked out the fence of Abbey Road Studios which are completely graffiti’d with tributes to John Lennon and co (some psycho also declared their love for Mark Owen from Take That). Apparently they paint over parts of the fence every now and again so that the fans have a clean canvas to work on. Genna took a photo of me walking across That Crossing at Abbey Road and I can safely say that I look more like Kevin Smith except without the beard.

Genna very cleverly walked me out the right exit of Westminster station so that the first thing I saw was Big Ben and holy cow I started crying. Tragic, aren’t I? I managed to keep my cool after that, but there was just something about seeing Big Ben and HOW BIG IT IS and it was just amazing. We started crossing Westminster Bridge to try to see the London Eye, London Bridge and the Tower of London, but the fog was still thick enough that we couldn’t even see the other side of the Thames. We walked around the Houses of Parliament (had my photo taken with a Bobby!) and checked out Westminster Abbey. Being a Sunday it was closed to tourists but we ogled the detail of the outside.

It was only a few degrees outside and I was pretty well rugged up for the weather but we still dropped into Caffe Nero and bought this hot chocolate that was just like melted chocolate. It was about a week’s worth of chocolate in one hit and I LOVED IT.

We walked down to Trafalgar Square via the Horse Guards Parade and stared at the guards and beautiful horses. Horse Guards Parade is just behind 10 Downing Street and will be the venue for beach volley ball during the London Olympics. Maybe this is Little Britain’s fault, but I imagined that you can walk right past 10 Downing Street and have your photo taken out the front and HOW WRONG I WAS. The security at the end of the street is insane and the police and security looked scary as all out.

Trafalgar Square has nowhere near the amount of pigeons as I thought, but apparently some politician has it in for them and is probably having them poisoned to keep them away. There’s a £500 fine for feeding the pigeons, so it’s lucky the bird lady from Mary Poppins isn’t around anymore.

Genna cultured me up in the National Gallery and saw a few Monet’s and other famous artists/paintings that I’d never heard of (this could be a running them while I’m here). National Gallery wins because it was free!!

Then we headed up Regent Street, Carnaby Street and then Oxford Street to meet up with the one and only Emma V. Emma’s a Melbournite I haven’t seen since Natty’s wedding and she’s been back here since about October. Very strange to hear an almost-Australian accent! The three of us went out for lunch on Regent Street (I think, I was pretty disorientated) and caught up on gossip until about 4.

OH MY GOD I HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH. It’s this fashion store that is more like a nightclub - dark, loud thumping music and totally not my scene. Everything is overpriced becuase it’s an American brand and so that makes it okay. The staff aren’t called ’sales assistants’ or anything useful, they’re called ‘models’. And blow me over, they’re right! Everyone looks like they’ve walked off the set of the OC or some fancy rich-kid tv show. Their thing is to have a scantily-clad man standing in the entrance and they offer to take your photo with said hottie with their polaroid camera. I’ll have to take a photo of the polariod so I can show you. They totally make it a touristey thing and pop the photo in a cardboard frame and everthing. Definitely a highlight in the eye-candy stakes.

So after all this it was dark and we popped into a few shops like Selfridges and Marks and Spencer and dealt with the crowds before catching the tube and driving home.

We planned to go out to the movies, but I ended up having a nap and not wanting to wake up. I ended up in bed before 9, which is why I’m now awake at 3 in the morning.

A heap of photos from London day are here on flickr.

There’s no better way to realise how slow 24 hours really is than be stuck in a middle seat on a flight from Sydney to Heathrow. BUT! I have arrived in one piece and all is well.

My beautiful Carmel dropped me off at Sydney airport after leaving work just after lunch and I managed to survive the crowds through check in and immigration. I visited the shops and wasted $20 on a neck pillow that proved to be useless for the entire trip. I managed to keep my cool and not get excited before getting on the plane. I spoke to Dan and Natty while I waited for the plane to start boarding and ran out of time before I could call mum and Sandra and Diana. Sinapore is a great airline! Warm face cloths were the best part, along with the movies and TV shows on demand. I am hanging out to watch more of 30 Rock. 

My ears didn’t cause too many dramas (Thank you, Dr Damato) apart from the usual yawning-til-your-ears-pop business, but after Singapore my ears were completely adjusted and on their best behaviour. Singapore airport is clean and flowery in what I saw in the 20 minutes I had before getting back on my plane.

I ended up in middle seats for both legs of the journey, but at least Singapore-London got me a seat next to the seat next to the window. Made for the landing at Heathrow enjoyable until the fog appeared and then I couldn’t see diddly-squat, even after we’d landed. We landed just before 5.00am and it was -1 outside.  

I had a grand total of 5 girls surprise me at the airport, complete with glittery signs and enough embarrassment so that Heathrow is sure to remember us.

After a long-awaited breakfast in the arrivals lounge, Genna drove me back to her place in Radlett via a pond just near he work that has mostly frozen over and the resident duckies slip and slide all over the ice - reminded me of the penguins in Mary Poppins.

When we got home we had our first nap of the day (Genna is on her second as I type). I met Genna’s 2 sisters, Sophie and Claudia and very quickly picked up on the pace of the Roland household - lots of arguing. It really is very entertaining.

We eventually made it out of the house and went to St Alban’s for lunch at the Waffle House and I can safely say they were the best waffles ever tasted. We had savoury first, then sweet and they were awesome. I was given a lesson in British currency and learned that Claudia is unable to eat without spilling food on herself.

We made a quick stop to St Alban’s Cathedral, which apparently has a world-famous stained-glass window that I’ve never heard of, but the whole Cathedral was incredible. It’s the longest Cathedral in the UK and I think maybe even Europe. I’ve uploaded a bunch of pics here on flickr, including this one:

Tomorrow Genna and I are heading to London where we’ll catch a big red open-topped bus (how lovely and warm in the middle of winter) and get a start on the touristey business. Hoping to catch up with my beloved EmmaV while I’m there too. Genna’s house is only a 30 minute train from London.

It’s just gone 5pm and it’s been pitch black outside for an hour.

OH! And my flight home may be delayed because the major UK airports are looking at a 48-hour strike starting the day I’m due to fly home - I’ve told the girls that I’m impressed by the lengths they’re going to to keep me here!