Rambling About the English Countryside

December 26, 2012:
On Boxing Day, we finished doing nothing all day just in time to catch our bus to Leeds. When we got there, we were dropped off at an insignificant-looking part of a road. And although we had looked up directions on Google Maps, we took a number of wrong turns until we stumbled across a cab and decided to give up. Instead of getting into the cab, we had to call the switchboard in order to reserve a different one. Finally, we arrived at our Couchsurfing host's appartment building.

Talaira called to tell him we were almost there and fell in love with his voice. Unluckily, it was his maybe-girlfriend (probably, sort of?) who welcomed us to his home because, as we knew, he was away for the weekend. Luckily, she was great. Talaira got over the loss pretty quickly. I, on the other hand, instantly fell in love with his apartment. My life wish list now consists only of having an apartment that is nearly as well laid-out and decorated as his. It wasn't "fancy", but it was perfect. We settled in and watched the 40-year old Virgin. My life wish list would additionally include Steve Carell, if there was a remote possibility of that ever happening.

December 27, 2012:
Our Couchsurfing host also lent us his friends, Luke and Johny. They picked us up in the morning and led us the 5 minute walk back to where we'd got off the bus the night before (oops!). We only took one wrong turn. We started off at the history museum of Leeds which was pretty cool. The first thing we came across was a map, with my last name on it!

I always feel kind of famous when my last name is on anything. Like Fisherman's Friends (check it the next time you're at the grocery store. It's a thing.) I sometimes wonder if I have ridiculously rich relatives. Or if any of them are royalty or anything. But, in all cases, all I know is, a region of Leeds is called Lofthouse. Chillin'. As a city in the north of England, there was some pretty interesting history about the development of industry and how Leeds was once part of the Roman Empire and all that jazz.

We had lunch at a fairly "Indie" restaurant called Ruby Jeans. The boys joked that it was the most American-style restaurant they could have taken us to in the city, but we were both so satisfied by the prospect of baked mac & cheese that we didn't mind at all. The atmosphere was convivial and we really liked our pseudo-hosts.

Lunch was followed by a look around the Modern Art Gallery, but as I generally lack an appreciation for modern art (because I don't understand 90% of it), we didn't stay long. (I think it's generally that I don't have the patience to think critically about every piece of art or to try to analyze them based on my limited knowledge of art technique. And, really, who can be bothered with statues?). Something else I didn't really understand was the Yorkshire accent. Johny had spent some time in America, so he played it down a bit for us North Americans, but for almost an hour Luke was almost impossible. It got easier as we got used to it. They showed us the Corn Exchange and an indoor market downtown and then we parted ways...

Rather than continuing to explore, Talaira and I did what we do best. We watched Bridget Jones' diary. She's so comforting and hilarious. Later in the evening, we made our way from the flat, without getting lost, back downtown to meet up with Chrissy and the boys at Fibre nightclub for 2-for-1 drinks. This is the best nightclub marketing scheme ever. The second best nightclub marketing scheme was the Pizza Kitchen Bar, where you can order what-I-call "drunk food" as you drink. Genius! We ended up doing a bit of a pub crawl which included trying a shot of chili-flavoured alcohol (not my brightest moment), and it led us to an amazing bar playing a Spice Girls medley and then a Grease medley, and then Hairspray, and no guys were bothering us.... I should have immediately clued in that it was a gay bar. Thankfully, I am not so shortsighted that I overlooked the drag queen DJ at our final bar. What a night!

December 28, 2012:
In preparation for the transportation between the remaining four cities on our five day galabant, we printed out the 50 million train tickets before we left Leeds for Manchester. We had a Wetherspoons breakfast, and at 11:30am in the morning, there were men in the restaurant drinking at the bar. This was our first impression of Manchester. I had an easier time understanding the Spanish man at the table to my left than the English men at the table to my right. Beginner Spanish is evidently paying off! Too bad about my being a Native English speaker. Between rain drops, we got to see a very small part of the city (and it seemed nice!), but we were off to Gloucester (pronounced "Gloster". Don't look at me! I wasn't the British genius that decided "ces" is silent in place names...) By the time we got to the Gloucester Cathedral, soon after 3:30pm, it was dark.

My camera's night-time feature sucks. Being in a Cathedral after dark was really cool though. Gloucester Cathedral was used for a bunch of different scenes from the first two Harry Potter films, including the scene where Ron and Harry see the troll pass to the girls' toilet on Hallowe'en, and the scene where Mrs. Norris is found hanging from the wall during the Chamber of Secrets. They even water-damaged the floor when they flooded it for those scenes where the blood is painted on the wall. There was only so much we could see as it was technically after hours and there was no hope of a proper tour, so we set off to do some errands. I found a dress for New Years and then we waited an hour at the train station for our train to Bath. As a way to pass the time, we people-watched and decided we found Saul's doppleganger-in-10-years. It was creepy on a few different levels.

Once in Bath, we met Amy, our Couchsurfing host, and bought pasta supplies. We had this strange easiness with her. She reminded us of our roommate from first year university, Nicole. The three of us had been the greatest procrastinators, and also the greatest friends, for that year and it almost felt as though we'd gone back in time to the land of first-year student living. We watched Love Actually and went to bed.

December 29, 2012:
I woke up to the pouring rain. I didn't bring my umbrella. By the end of the day, my coat was soaked all the way through to my clothes. I looked like I was attempting to compete in a wet t-shirt contest. And I had puddles in my boots. It poured rain ALL DAY.
We saw the Royal Crescent...

...Jane Austen's apartment, the Abbey, and the entrance to the Roman Baths. We caught what we thought was an amazingly well-priced trip to Stonehenge. Turns out, the cost was only for the bus and the "tour" to get to Stonehenge which took about an hour, but didn't really teach us anything interesting. To add insult to injury, the bus dripped rain water on me. We had to pay extra to actually get in to the viewing centre and access Stonehenge. When we got there, I really didn't care much about the stones, to be honest, because my hand was too cold to hold the audio guide to my ear and there were tourists EVERYWHERE.

The best part of this day was when we got back and stopped for lunch at an authentic Moroccan restaurant called Cafe du Globe. It was exceptionally good food. Amy also told us that Bath is known for its shopping... so we shopped! We're so "with it", we even got hit on by what appeared to be an 18-year old sales boy. Ooohhhhhh yeeeeaaahhh. We had pizza for dinner and watched American Beauty (which I highly recommend) before bed.

 

December 30, 2012:

Despite the rain, Talaira had managed to fall instantly in love with Bath. I, on the other hand, was more sceptical. Sure it has beautiful buildings from the Georgian period in England and I'm sure there is a lot to love, but I could not get over the rain. Amy also mentioned how the cost of living is unbelievably high and how the residents of the city voted against having a Primark in the city (it's sort of the equivalent of a Walmart that only sells unbelievably cheap-but-nice clothing). To be fair, it is rumoured that they use child labour to produce their clothing, but I suspect the vetoing of this chain in Bath had more to do with maintaining the bourgeois atmosphere than any moral concerns. Either way, Primark doesn't have the power to stop the rain.

 

All of my stuff was finally dry by morning so I packed it, put my poncho on over my coat and said goodbye to Amy. I got tons of funny looks on the bus. We couldn't be bothered to go to the Jane Austen Museum as we had planned. Instead, we wandered around and had a bakery breakfast next to the train station.

 

When we arrived in Oxford, we checked our bags at the hostel. Our goal was to see as many Harry Potter filming locations as possible -- the Bodliean Library, Christ Church college and New College, at least -- one of which had a line-up till kingdom come and the other two were closed.

I checked the websites before we left to be sure they wouldn't be closed over the holidays, but there was a computer-paper notice on each door saying that they were closed until classes started back in January. Talaira chastised me for not knowing this because it was "common sense" that an extremely famous university and tourist destination would be closed between Christmas and New Year. It was at this point that I decided that I kind of hated England. I had taken my poncho off on the train and forgotten it in my backpack when we checked it into the hostel, so I was drenched. Wet t-shirt contest 2.0. Thoughts running through my head included, "No wonder they felt the need to conquer so many awesome countries. Their own country sucks." It made sense to me that Lewis Carroll (who attended Christ Church) had to make up Wonderlands in his head to avoid the drizzly closed-tourist-attraction bore-zone of his own country. I may have changed my mind in hindsight, because it can't be like that all the time... I hope, for the sake of the British.

 

Dinner at Wetherspoons was a saving grace. We bought stuffed peppers and soup at the train station for dinner, got the lock on the second try once we made it back to Mortlake in London and watched Miranda's holiday episode! (You only need to watch the first minute or so of video montage to see why we were excited for a new season). Good night!

Christmas in London, England

For most of you, I wouldn't need to specify that the London that I meant was in England. For my friends from Southern Ontario, however, it could have caused a stir. You see, they might have wondered why they had heard from me if I had been home for the holidays. London, Ontario is the closest city to my hometown.

December 24, 2012:
So, I spent Christmas in London, England and Christmas Eve, I had the pleasure of reuniting with my friend, Claudia, who I'd had the pleasure of meeting in Lyon.

Unlike all the fakers, Claudia is a local Londoner. She showed us ALL of the touristy things. In the pouring rain. Big Ben, which is actually the name of the bell in the tower which is officially named the Elizabeth Tower:

Westminster Abbey:

(Another side of it looks suspiciously similar to the Notre Dame...)

Covent Garden Market:

And the Tower Bridge (which is not called London Bridge à la Fergie song):

 We got the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London after approximately five hours of walking (which was splendid and included many other sites including  the Globe Theatre, the Christmas display at Fortnum & Mason's, and Buckingham Palace). We had first stopped for a hot chocolate and when we came out, we had the first glimpses of sunshine we'd seen all day. Talaira and I were soaking wet; Claudia, as usual, came prepared with an umbrella. It was perfect weather for picture taking in any case.

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting the family we were staying with. They had just gotten in that afternoon from Scotland and were headed off early the next morning for Miami (what a life, am I right?)

December 25, 2012:
Christmas Day was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It was hard watching photos go up of my family cutting down the Christmas tree, making Dad's Sugar Cookies and generally knowing that they would be together for Christmas without me for the first time in my life. So, waiting for a reasonable time to call them on Christmas Day was difficult. We didn't expect anything to be open all day, there was no public transport and we were staying in a part of the city a bit too far from the centre to be walking around, so we opted for a day of rest.

Talaira and I exchanged gifts in the morning and we had been hoping for a marathon of Christmas movies -- the Grinch, Love Actually, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, those creepy stop-motion films about the land of misfit toys or whatever -- but there was nothing! So many options and British television channels failed us miserably. We ended up watching a marathon of Friends reruns. So whatever. I was really excited to call my family. And it made my heart ache, physically, because I really do miss them. Happily, they received by presents in the mail so that they could open them that morning. Calling them was like soul food.

Followed by a quiet Christmas dinner consisting of Chinese food left-overs, vegetables in cheese sauce, smashed potatoes (as Talaira calls them) and wine. Lovely!

Wales

December 23, 2012:
The morning of Day 9 we caught a taxi and, for the first time in my life, I accidentally went to the driver's seat rather than the passengers because they were on opposite sides of the vehicle. What's worse is that I got in and didn't realize I was on the wrong side until I noticed the steering wheel in front of me. Even after a month in Australia where I actually drove a vehicle, I couldn't keep it straight. The taxi driver and Talaira thought that this was just about the funniest thing ever, and at least it broke the ice and made the drive to the ferry port less awkward for everyone.

When we got there, the sign said that the last passenger boarding had already taken place. We freaked out. The taxi driver took care of unloading our bags while I ran in to implore them to let us on the ferry. They were so casual and seemed confused as to why I was so worked up. Luckily, our tickets had been mailed to me in France before we left and we only had to trade them in. We boarded with no trouble and explored our luxury cruise liner. We had a porridge breakfast in the sunshine. Talaira fell fast asleep and I decided to read on our way to Holyhead. The ferry left at 8:20am.

We got our first glimpse of land at 11:45am. We realized we were getting off in Wales. We're obviously very organized planners.

At 12:50pm, we took a train from Holyhead to Crewe which arrived at 3pm. We were supposed to spend nearly five hours in Crewe, but luckily asked one of the train managers who said he didn't even know if there would be a train then (which is what our tickets told us) so we were allowed to take a train after only half an hour from Crewe to Nuneaton. Finally, we took a train from Nuneaton to London Euston station. We got in at 8pm rather than 10:30pm. You may be asking why we opted for the version of travel that would take us approximately 14 hours when we could have flown. Our tickets cost us £38 each, which was much cheaper than a flight at this time of year. Also, we managed to have amazing weather and saw quite a bit of the Wales countryside. It is practically unheard of to have sunshine in Wales. I had a Welsh student in one of my drama classes choosing the sound of falling rain as representative of his childhood.

Our arrival at London Euston was not the end of our journey. We took a train from London Euston to Clapham Junction. Talaira had a transport card (called an Oyster Card... the names of public transport cards confuse me), but I hadn't manage to figure out how the machine worked in order to get a transport ticket all the way to Mortlake, our destination. We had to get off the train at Clapham Junction, I bought another ticket and we got back on the same train for the last leg of our journey. We had to walk 10 minutes to get to Talaira's family friend's house. It was a really difficult ten minutes.

Travelling is so hard on your body, no matter which option you take. Even if we would have flown, the impact on your body of being at such a high altitude and moving so quickly would have been comparable to what we experienced going at a much more "human" speed. And even though we might have had more time to recover if we'd have flown, we would have missed out on some spectacular views of the countryside. All the travel was enjoyable except for the delay on our train from Nuneaton to London Euston. We were so tired by the time we arrived; we bought Chinese food at the end of the street, wrestled the door open, put on our pajamas and went straight to bed.

Ireland in 6 Days: Dublin, part 2

December 22, 2012:
The ride back to Dublin the next morning was punctuated by Gabe's live renditions of songs he wrote. Without wanting to infringe on his copyrights (if he has them), I'll just tell you, Dear Reader, that they were of questionable taste and ridiculously funny.

The last stop on our tour was the Guinness factory. It went into detail about how the beer is actually made and what sort of special efforts they put in to make it taste the way it does. We did a quick taste tester and it was strange how, after having done that part of the tour, you could actually taste the individual parts that they had talked about. Probably psychological, but still cool.

There was a section on advertising through the years which were entertaining and interesting. It reminded me of the kind of epic advertising they do for Molson Canadian:

The tour finished with each of us getting a free drink from the bar at the top of the factory (which is in the shape of a pint of Guiness)... non-alcoholic for me, because it turns out alcohol does not cure sore throats. We had a beautiful view of the city from this vantage point.

After 6 days in a bus, we were ready to break apart from the tour group and to check back into Barnacles hostel. We were checked into the same room with the exact same beds as the first time!

We had an Italian dinner with Liz, Tim and Mel which was a nice break from all of the pub food we'd been having at The Italian Connection (95 Talbot St). I highly recommend this restaurant. It was amazing food. We had a teary separation from the remaining members of the Ace Gang. And at ha'passhhht (another Gabe-ism) we tucked in to bed and prepared for the long journey we still had ahead of us.

Ireland in 6 Days: The West Coast

December 19, 2012:
By the morning, that slightly dizzy feeling had turned into an extremely sore throat and an inability to keep my eyes open on the bus. I tried my best to listen to Gabe's stories, but thankfully, he let us get away with sleeping between stops most of the day.

Our first stop was the grave of William Butler Yeats. This was pretty cool considering I studied "The Second Coming" in my first year of University. He's one of the most influential poets in the 20th century and was the first ever Irish-nationalist Nobel Peace Prize for Literature (he won just after Irish Independence from England).

 Upon arrival in Galway, I passed out on my bed wearing my winter coat and all my clothes. I went to the bathroom when I woke up and realized that my neck looked funny at which point I realized that I probably had more than a sore throat. I had the pedetriac nurse confirm that my glands were swollen. I opted to skip the Pub Crawl that night, even though I'd be missing the opportunity for a Christmas-themed dinner. Liz was even wearing a reindeer onesie. I made it through dinner at An Pucan and said goodbye to Nathan and Kate who were leaving the tour a few days early and then went straight to bed.

December 20, 2012:
I was no better by morning and I didn't have an opportunity to find a pharmacy to buy ecchinacea before we left. Our bus also had some new additions... and surprise! That meant more Australians and a South African. Our first stop was what Gabe called the "Mini Cliffs". The Cliffs of Moher are often foggy so he took us to a set of smaller cliffs that weren't first, just to make sure we got to see some cliffs at all. There was water crashing up along the rocks and it was really striking, but in my state of semi-delirium, I was more interested in a cow near the tour bus. I couldn't stay out for longer than 10 minutes and waited for everyone else to rejoin the bus by trying to fall asleep in my seat.

Sure enough, when we got to the Cliffs of Moher, you could barely see a metre in front of you. We went into the visitor centre where I nearly fell asleep during the "virtual cliffs experience" which was a video aimed at giving you motion sickness. Talaira and I walked out to the end but couldn't seea thing. A few minutes after we left, Liz and Tim said the fog cleared and they managed to get some great photos.

After a buffet lunch in a cute little restaurant with real fireplaces and cushions on the seat, we stopped at Blarney Castle, famous for the Blarney Stone. There are a number of myths associated with the origin of this stone, involving the goddess Clíodhna, witches, Robert the Bruce, etc etc. The stone is said to endow anyone that kisses it with the gift of the gab. "Blarney is something more than mere flattery. It is flattery sweetened by humour and flavoured by wit. Those who mix with Irish folk have many examples of it in their everyday experience" according to John O'Connor Power. Winston Churchill is an example of someone who has kissed the stone. And now I have, too!

The castle itself is stunning and we got to walk through some of the rooms. Afterward, we explored the Poison Garden next to it which is one of the coolest gardens I've ever been through. Each of the plants is poisonous and had an explanation of how it relates to myth. There were so many plants from the Harry Potter series that I hadn't realized were real plants.

We arrived in Killarney fairly late and my first opportunity to get some sort of medication for my throat turned up some vitamin C and some pain killers, but no echinacea. Liz, Tim, Mel, Talaira and I bought ingredients for pasta at Tesco, but I was in too much pain to really eat any. At dinner, a man who was a bit dodgy.com claimed to be a Scottish killer on the run. On that note, I went to bed early again.

December 21, 2012:
Gabe let us sleep in an extra hour in the morning and we set off on horse-drawn carriages around Killarney National Park.

The views were fantastic and they taught us a bit about the type of plants and things that grow there. Apparently there is moss there that can only grow in areas of the world where the air is pure. You could almost smell the purity.

We set off to Dingle and made several stops along the way: Inch Beach - according to Gabe this is one of the most beautiful beaches (apart from the weather) that he's ever seen but he might be biased -,  the Sleeping Giant island,

and a Celtic Church (totally abandonned with no sign of exploitation for tourism purposes). The church had acient Celtic writing and a window called the Needle Eye. According to legend, if you're able to pass through this slim hole in the wall, you will be able to pass on to Heaven. I couldn't be bothered. I was still too sick to really have any energy. We also got a glimpse of a famine house from the bus windows.

That afternoon, we had free time in Dingle so I finally managed to find some echinacea! We ate soup for lunch and I started a regimen of echinacea and vitamin C every two hours in addition to the masses of water I'd be drinking every day since it started.

Before dinner, I had a run-in with the shower. It was an electrically powered shower where you have to press power and set the temperature, etc. It seems fairly high-tech, but I was in the shower before I tried the power button and it didn't work. I tried several more times before I got exhasperated, put on a towel and asked the girls in my room if they knew why it wasn't working. Finally, I realized that there was a master power switch OUTSIDE the bathroom. Because that makes perfect sense!

Feeling fresh, we ate a sup-par dinner at the hostel restaurant (which also doubled as the bar) and went out to see if any of the other bars in town were worth visiting. I was feeling much better. All of the bars in town seemed to have two or three people that all new the bar tender. I wouldn't be surprised if the village we were staying in only had the four bars we went to visit. After we left one of them, all four or five of the young people who'd been at one of those bars came to the hostel bar. They must take advantage of the opportunity to "meet" tourists whenever they see the Paddywagon Tour bus pull up. That night we had karaoke at the bar and I was prescribed Irish Carbombs by the future doctors on our trip because alcohol is an antisceptic and kills bacteria... I can just picture my mum rolling her eyes.

Talaira and I rocked a medley of Grease songs and Liz took on Gagnam Style, which must be the most difficult song to sing karaoke to unless you are Korean. The only smart thing I did was leave long before the end of the night to try to get some rest.