I’m debating what Euro festival to go to to see the cure. The soonest is in Amsterdam but I’ve been there already. All the other concerts are close to my leaving time though :C

Weeks 1 & 2: London (Part 2)

On the night of February 3 we went out with Cam and Em. Jadro met Cam whilst they were at Uni. A few years back, Cam and Em moved to London to live in Hackney, which has a lovely reputation. They invited us to stay with them in two days when our time at the hostel was up. Being the dirt-cheap travelers we three are, we gratefully accepted the offer.

Nothing worth reporting happened during or last nights at the hostel. We spent our days exploring London and the surrounding area just as we had the previous days.

On the 5th we packed up, got in the van, and took off to Cam and Em’s place. They live in a three bedroom one bathroom apartment. the third bedroom stays locked and could be rented out to somebody by the landlord at any time, and the second room is awaiting it’s conversion into a lounge room. Until then it holds a single bed and a semi-deflated air mattress. 

Our first night was celebrated with homemade pies, the main ingredients being beef mince, tomato sauce, and vegemite. They were surprisingly good.

We lived in antique and flea markets for the next week, visiting a new one every day. Portobello road was especially good-  managed to pick up a 50’s stratton compact for Jen (my mum’s partner. She’s just started collecting compacts), and after years of searching Erin finally found a full set of flying ducks to hang on a kitchen wall when she comes home- yay!

We also saw musicals whenever we could get discounts. We saw We Will Rock You which was great and could be appreciated by any Queen fan. Next we went to see les miserables which was amazing and was extremely well set up. Wicked still stands as my favorite musical though.

We had planned on staying with Em and Cam for four days- a week tops, but we had a problem; Erin has arthritis and our aunt was sending us some prescribed medications from Scotland which hadn’t been in stock at the pharmacy when Erin left We ended up staying for nine days until the 14th of February. The medication still hadn’t arrived but we needed to start moving. Em ensured Erin that she would send the medication to the campsite E&J would be staying at in Amsterdam as soon as it arrived.

We planned to go in the van on the train to Paris and then drive to Amsterdam, but wanted to spend a night in Brighton first. We left at nine in the morning and arrived at our hostel just before one. 

I knew I would enjoy Brighton, but didn’t realize how much. Originally my reason for being attracted to Brighton was to buy Mum and Jen chocolate from choccywoccydoodaa- a chocolate store in central Brighton made famous by a television show about the chocolate sculptures that they make.

The whole city is beautiful and we were content with spending most of the day walking around taking in our surroundings. We had fish and chips by the sea despite it being 1 degrees C out and spent the night down at the pier. I won a little plush tiger on a skill tester and named it Blossom of the wild. Evidently I miss my dog. 

I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had to leave for our train to Paris the next morning.

My hostel is in the middle of Frankfurt’s red light district. Just now a woman was practicing her “dance routine” outside the window.

Free show!

Weeks 1 & 2: London (Part 1)

Originally I had only planned on staying in London for one week as I’ll be back there mid-year on my way home, but there was a change of plans.

See, my sister Erin and her boyfriend Jadro have been based in Croatia since July of last year. A few months ago they began travelling around Europe in a stealth camper van. They were in Scotland not long before I was due to arrive and decided to come and see me. So, on Erin’s request, I cancelled my original hostel booking and she organised for us to stay at Palmer’s Lodge for four nights.

I left for the Airport at four in the morning on Wednesday the first of February for a flight that left at six. My Mum accompanied me to the airport and my Dad met us there. Both were red-eyed and teary. Being the emotionally awkward person that I am, I kept my poker face the entire time.

The first flight was eleven hours long and went from Perth to Dubai. I had a whole exit row to myself- score! I managed to sleep at least half of the flight thank god. 

After a four-hour stopover in Dubai I was back on a plane for eight hours. After landing and going through baggage claim and customs (who did literally nothing) it was 9pm London time. Erin and Jadro were already there waiting for me. We embraced and said our greetings before beginning our journey to the nearby train station.

It took us about an hour and a half to get back to the hostel which is located right near camden markets. After checking in and making a quick meal out of whatever I could find in E&J’s van, I went to sleep. Somehow I completely skipped the expected period of jet lag and by my first night I was already in a regular sleeping pattern.

I was originally unsure how I would react to London. Erin had told me that she’d at first found the massive population daunting, which is understandable when you go from living near a city with a population of 1 millon including the surrounding suburbs to being in a city with 11 million living in the center. I ended up adjusting without a problem. I found that though there were more people, it didn’t feel as crowded as Perth, which only really has two main streets for shopping, making that area cramped. My first four days in were excellent, despite our hostel turning out to have terrible bathrooms and antisocial guests who seemed never to leave the hostel bedroom. 

We spent half of our first day in Camden markets, which are awesome. I keep wishing I’d bought some things for myself and to send home whilst I was there, but at that time I wasn’t entirely sure how much money I could budget for those kind of purchases, and wasn’t sure I’d have the space in my luggage.

We stopped at a tea place for tea and scones and skyped mum, and then took the tube to soho. Here we spent a while searching for shoes for Erin before deciding more tea and scones were in order. Erin had discovered a place called the Soho secret tea room online a week earlier, so we decided to check it out. To get there you need to ask about it at this bar. The bartender makes a phonecall to make sure it’s okay for you to go up, and then invites you behind the bar and behind a door. You go through and take a set of stairs two floors up and welluh! there it is. The place was amazing. They used antique tea sets and made their own jam.

I’ve been having high tea withdrawal problems for the last week. Currently I’m in Frankfurt and I haven’t even seen a scone for sale. It’s horrible.

Back to the story. I’ve pretty much forgotten what we did for the rest of the night. Then next day mostly consisted of walking around London, looknig at shops, and drinking more tea. I discovered the M&M’s store; a store with four levels all dedicated to M&M’s. Awesome. That night we went to the west end. Before coming I had no idea that a theater will show nothing but a single musical for months at a time, and often it will completely dedicate itself to the show. We saw Wicked and the theater had been made over to look like Oz.

Before that I hadn’t seen a musical before, unless you count movies. It was far better than expected, absolutely brilliant in fact. The Wizard of Oz was one of my four favorite moves when I was younger (the others being rocky horror, the jungle book, and the chipmunks adventure), I even went through a phase for three months of watching it at least twice per day. I had no idea the musical tied in so well with it.

I wasn’t expecting to write this much. I was hoping to use the same amount of text to describe two weeks, but I’m barely past two days. I’ll continue later.