Bathrooms 2, Alex 0

I'm back to being a bit behind with the blogs. It's school holidays and I am procrastinating about EVERYTHING, from doing the washing to writing my plans for next term, to just going to Sainsbury's to buy food. I am one of those freaky few who hate school holidays. I like to be busy, I like to have purpose and I have neither of those things this week. Photo - Me and Rach in the car in Londonderry.

Anyway, so I am now procrastinating about emptying the dishwasher so I thought I would write in my blog about my Easter Road Trip to Northern Ireland with Rachael, Davina and Michelle.

I'd been to Northern Ireland before back in 2003 with Rachael G. We'd done a driving trip around the island of Ireland and I actually disliked Northern Ireland immensely. I felt a real connection to the South but the North felt grotty, dirty and a little bit scary. It could have something to do with the fact that a bomb went off in Belfast while we were there at a place we had only visited 90 minutes before hand. Or the massive protests in the main streets. I also felt really, really sad there. Growing up in Australia my best friend in the whole wide world was Christine. She was Prodestant, I was Catholic (I know because in primary school we were separated during scripture time and I was not happy about it). If we had grown up in Northern Ireland, same as we were, same time, just in a different location, we would have been sworn enemies. And that made me so sad. Especially because Christine's friendship still means a lot to me, and there are thousands of young children who miss out on experiencing that over there due to someone long ago being an arse and stubborn about their religion.

So when Davina asked me to come along I was not jumping for joy at seeing Northern Ireland, but I was really keen to have a girlie road trip. I hadn't done a full girlie road trip before. Vic and I had driven around Scotland together but that was just the two of us. This would be 4 chicks in a car driving from London through Wales, catching a ferry across the channel and then pottering around another country. Davina joked that I was asked to go along to be the chauffeur. Turns out I was the only girl over 25 and thus the only person legally allowed to drive a hire car (yay, age has it's benefit finally) and one of only two of us able to drive a manual. Photo - Davina and Rachael in the back of our road trip vehicle.

Good Friday morning saw me set off on the tube for Heathrow and meeting the others at Terminal 3. We then picked our car up and headed off towards North Wales. North Wales is absolutely beautiful. I really enjoyed seeing the mountains creeping up off the horizon and dotted with snow at their peaks. At about this time we got word that our ferry from Holyhead to Dublin had been cancelled due to high winds and we had been bumped back to the one at 2:45am. So instead of ploughing our way through Wales we meandered instead, stopping at a fabulous pub along the way for lunch and then slowly winding our way up to Holyhead. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Caenarvon, right by the castle. By this stage I'd been driving for 10 hours and we needed a break so we drove to the ferry and checked in. Then all four of us tried to catch some shut eye until the ferry boarded. Four people sleeping in a Vauxhall Vectra was a little bit squishy and I kept waking myself afraid that we'd missed the ferry and would be stuck in Wales forever. I needn't have worried. A ferry man came up the rows of cars and banged on the roof shocking us back into the real world. Photo - Caenarvon Castle.

The ferry ride across was a bit of a blur. I found a piece of couch and actually managed to sleep through most of the worst as we were tossed from side to side on the rough seas. I did catch myself once about to fall straight onto Deev who was sleeping on the floor beside my bit of couch. Rachael, being tiny and short, managed to squeeze onto two chairs. To this day I don't know where Michelle was. You know how when you fly you can have extreme turbulance? Well we had extreme turbulance on water. The noise of the hull smashing into the huge waves was very freaky. Photo - Rachael curled up on the ferry chairs and me (the black blob) on the couch.

5:30am saw us all loaded back into the car for another big day. We got through Dublin due to Rach's superb navigation skills (I don't do numbers well and all the roads are numbered. I needed a destination, not an easy task when destinations were not clearly labelled) and headed north to Belfast to meet Deev's friend. We then kept driving towards Carrick-e-rede where there is an amazing rope bridge suspended over a huge drop into the roaring sea below. Absolutely amazing location and almost mystical. You get the intense feeling of history as the winds blow the long blades this way and that. Walking ahead of the others gave me the opportunity to "listen". It's almost as if a song was being played across the hills. Complete with me sniffling in time. :) We had to wait about 90 minutes to cross the bridge as there was only so many people allowed on the small fishing island on the other side. 90 minutes in the freezing cold was not very pleasurable and as a result I got really ill. It was only a strong cold but coupled with 1hr sleep and 16hrs of driving at this point I was beginning to think I had reached my limit. I made a bargain with myself though that if I wasn't at the front of the line by a certain time I was headed back to get a warm drink at the tourist info centre and hope to thaw out my extremities. But the fates had me crossing the bridge with only 5 minutes to spare. Photo - The rope bridge.

The island had been used many moons ago by local fisherman who erected the bridge as a way to cross so that they could fish from the more advantageous point. There is a small cottage that was built to give them safe harbour from fast approaching storms and a place to gut their catches. The cottage has long since been boarded up, but I could imaine myself living there with the fire blazing, watching the clouds rolling past the magical headlands and across the tempermental grey ocean. An electrical storm would have been something else altogether!

Rach managed to slide down one embankment on her rear end but not before the lady beside her did as well. I've never been more thankful for my trusty hiking boots. The views were fabulous and "breathtaking" is not sufficient a word to describe it. Photo - Walking down the stairs to get to the rope bridge.

Our next driving stop was the Giant's Causeway, which was Davina's chief reason for travelling to Northern Ireland. Because I had been before I stayed behind and tried to organise some accommodation for the evening at the Tourist Information Centre. I did manage to find something against the odds (it was Saturday of the easter long weekend) and we made our way down to Coleraine to a hotel...where I got locked in the bathroom. For over an hour I was in there as the lock had fallen through after I locked myself in for a shower. The others were still down in the restaurant so I had to MacGyver myself out with bobbypins and a pair of tweezers! But, I survived! Funny though that it was the second bathroom I had been locked in in the last month (other was at Mark's pub the George and Vulture). Maybe they are out to get me? :) Bathrooms 2, Alex 0. Photo - Michelle, Rachael, Me and Davina on the fishing island right after Rach slid down the hill on her rear end.

Sleep was amazing. Sleep was beautiful. Sleep was the best! After nealry 20 hours of driving, 1 hour of interrupted sleep on a sea sick ferry and a rope bridge crossing that bed could have been made of nails and I still would have fallen into a welcomed slumber. Photo - Me driving and Michelle in the front seat of the Vauxhall Vectra.

Sunday saw us drive all the way through Londonderry up to the coast road back in the Republic near Ballygorman and then leisurely down through Donegal and then evetually all the way to Navan. Deev and Michelle found us this amazing hostel to stay in just outside of the town. It was so lovely. It used to be a nursing home but an older couple had bought it and refurbished it with huge plasma screens, computers, leather couches and great breakfast facilities. Before getting there we made a stop at this lookout, sipping cups of tea that Davina has thoughtfully provided in thermoses and eating biscuits "acquired" from the hotel mini-bar. You stood there and felt like the world was completely behind you and you could just see forever. There were some sheep grazing in the paddock that skirted the edge of the sea. I got the feeling that the sea was a powerful character in the story that is Ireland. I've heard it referred to as a life force before but never really grasped the concept until that moment. It surges with force the same way your heart pumps blood through your veins. Photo - Michelle, Rachael, Me and Davina at our tea stop in Donegal. Starting to think I am a giant compared to these girls!

Our ferry back to Holyhead was scheduled for 7:30am so we drove the last hour into Dublin in the early morning mist. Thankfully this trip across the channel was much more pleasant and we arrived in Holhead ready to see some of the renowned Snowdonia in Wales. Passing through small country towns which backed onto these snow capped mountains is beyond description. It is so different to anythign I had experienced anywhere else in the world. I love hiking expeditions, despite my unfit state, and was eager to join one of the many groups of walkers that were seeting off on their journeys from one of the many towns nestled at the foot of the hills. Photo - The Welsh Snowdonia countryside.

Snow began to fall as we snaked our way towards our final destination, London, fittingly somehow drawing a white curtain over our weekend of girlie road trip fun.

And they said it would never happen...

Yes, that's right, it has snowed again in London. That's four times now since I moved here. And before I left Australia I was told not to get my hopes up for snow since it was a very rare sight in London. To be truthful, I think I have experienced snow in London more times than I have experienced hot days!

The Olympic Torch run

On an otherwise snowy and cold Sunday morning and in an effort to see more "London", I took my friend Marleen up on her offer to head into London Bridge to see the 2008 Beijing Olympic Torch run. Having been part of the security with the RFS when the torch made it through Sydney in 2000 I knew that this would be a little less exciting as it had being able to run along side the torch on Wakehurst Parkway, but still, this torch relay is in London, and that always adds a little extra exhilaration. Photo - Torch relay at London Bridge. Torch is labelled on right hand side.

I needn't have worried though because the runners actually by-passed us. We got a fabulous spot only to just catch a glimpse of the action as the runners took a detour. I got to see a flicker of flame and about 30 armed policemen guarding the runner but that's about it. Turns out that the Police changed the runner's path because of protester mayhem about Tibet (see any news broadcast). I can say that I was very impressed that the armed policemen managed to keep up with the runner. They must be very fit! :P

It was good to see Marleen again. She is from the Netherlands. I met her on the Tube one day last year. When I lived with Karen in Chiswick she told me about an article in the newspaper about how people never talk to one another on the Tube. One day I was travelling south on the Northern line and that conversation popped into my head. So I turned to the person next to me and started chatting. And that was Marleen.

Photo - Marleen and me at London Bridge just after the Olympic Torch completely bypassed us.

There's a current in my puddle!

How is it that I can buy a digital camera at Tescos (supermarket chain) for less than the price of a disposable camera? Mind you I also had to buy batteries to go in it and they cost the same price again. But still!!! I've been smacking myself on the back of my head for losing my camera battery charger. I have this amazing Sony 8MG pixel camera that I bought before leaving home in 2006. But it does me no good because somewhere between Mum's place and my Tooting flat I lost the charger. I have a sneaking suspicion there is a customs officer in Singapore with an extra camera charger he dug out of the lost and found box at the airport. My lovely brother found me a new charger in Sydney and my wonderful mother has posted it to me but unfortunately it won't be here in time for Easter which is when I head off on my next adventure - road tripping through Northern Ireland. Hence why I grabbed the camera at the supermarket this afternoon. You can also blame my lack of blogs on my lack of camera battery charge too.

Because of my lack of camera I have been looking at London with the eyes of someone who has to rely on words rather than pictures to describe the situation. And it is a enlightening experience. Maybe it is because I walk or catch public transport everywhere instead of drive that I am seeing more of "life" and it makes you smile. Like the man in Victoria Library on Saturday. I went up there in search of a particular crime thriller I was searching for and ended up sitting against the stacks enthralled in a book. Half an hour into my little read I heard a thud and looked up to see the old man asleep, having dropped his book. He sat there snoring away for a good 20 minutes before he woke himself up with a particularly loud snort and promptly lent down to pick up the book and continue reading. Then there is the little girl in the line with her mother at the bank. We stood there having a competition crossing our eyes and giggling. Then there is the laundromat - a mecca for random people. I go down the road to dry my sheets for the grand sum of 40p. One week I sat and chatted to a guy from Clapham South who was washing and drying the team shirts for the rugby team he played for "The Pink Ladies". I helped him fold some shirts while we talked about travel and places we'd been and were yet to go. Another week I got into a debate with a large black Caribbean lady about British celebrities in the OK magazine. And then last week a old man came in and started talking to me while he spun and dried his weekly washing. His preferred topic - the size of railway tracks in Ireland and their influence on the Indian-Pacific track in Australia. He also had a lot to say about the women's vote coming into effect in the 1920s.

I notice more things during my walks to and from school too. I think I let life whizz by my side mirrors in Australia as I drove past in my Mazda 6. I notice how gorgeous little children are in their coats and scarves, especially little girls with stockings and Mary Jane shoes on. I notice that I pass 13 men walking to the station in the morning and 19 women. There are also spy puddles here. You can't see them. They are in stealth mode. The only way you figure out that they are there is when you're ankle deep in water. I have a sneaking suspicion that they have a plot to take over the footpaths of London. I currently have 3 pairs of shoes up against the radiator trying to dry out. But I have come up with a way to bring down this invasion!

We had amazing wind storms and rain showers earlier this week. The wind was pushing at me with such force that I made it home in half the time it usually takes me! :) But my trusty M&S umbrella was a casualty of war. On my charge home, I saw that there was not just a ripple of water running across the stealth puddles, but an actual current! And for the first time in a long time I made it home with dry shoes! So, to flush out the enemy we just need to watch for the tell tale sign of a puddle being pulled out to sea! :P

Yes, I think I have lost the plot. But I bought a camera today so the next blog should be back to normal. Either that or London has made me cuckoo again and I need to escape. Good thing I am headed over to Ireland tomorrow.

The George and Vulture

Davina's friend Mark decided towards the end of last year that he wasn't enjoying his job so much over here so he and 3 mates went and bought a pub. It is called the George and Vulture (what is it with the weird and wonderful pub names over here?) and is in Pitfield Street in North London. Last night, after weeks of refurbishment that they did themselves, it had it's opening night.

As is the way with London, the Northern line was shut on the branch that stops at Old Street which is the closest tube station to the pub. Added to that the fact that the overground station at Old Street was also closed, it took most of us over 2 hours to get there. But it was great to see some familiar faces and share a pint of brew (or in my case a Strongbow laced with blackcurrent - don't knock it till you've tried it) at a pub that is now part of our "London family".

It never ceases to amaze me every day that my photos contain the people nearest and dearest to me. 98% of which I had never met 18 months ago. Huge shout out to Davina, who was the photographer of the night and whose photos I have "acquired" for this blog. Cheers mate!

So if you are in London at all, stopping over of staying for a while, why not head up and over to the George and Vulture?

Photos from top to bottom:

1) The bar at the George and Vulture

2) Barry and Davina

3) Nina, Me, Davina and Gabby

4) Rachael and Davina.

Wonderful but wet Wales, with a little bit of Mozart thrown in.

London had mid-term holidays last week and I was very much looking forward to having a lie in each morning and getting through some planning work for school and generally just catching up with myself. Obviously my body thought catching up would be a good idea too and struck me down with a rather nasty case of the flu. The flu is so much worse when you can't whinge to your mum and she looks after you by making you tea and bringing you chicken soup! So, the first 4 days of my week were spent in bed surrounded by tissues, magazines that Karen had given me and cups of lemon and honey tea. Don't get me wrong, I am actually grateful that it happened in the holidays because, as I am a supply teacher, I don't get paid if I don't teach.

On Tuesday night I managed to pull myself together to go to the Mozart symphony with Karen, who had scored some free tickets through work. It was an adventure, I tell you. Here I was thinking I was in for a night of classical music, and how wrong I was. First of all Karen and I were the last to arrive and we couldn't find our seats so we ended up walking the full length of the auditorium trying to find seats 34 and 35. As per normal we were both wearing the same colour and of course, it had to be bright red, so inconspicuous we were not! Then after an usher rushed over to get us to sit down, a guy 2 rows from us had a fit and threw up all over the place before promptly passing out, and then an old gentlemen needed to make an emergency stop at the bathroom and it took him 25 minutes to climb the stairs and then he just disappeared and never came back! Add to that the hoopla involved in getting the ambulance officers into the auditorium and set it all against the backdrop against the fine tunes from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! What a night!

By Thursday afternoon I managed to function on 7 out of 8 cylinders, which is an improvement on me normally anyway, so on a whim I booked a trip to Wales. Wales was the only UK country I hadn't explored and thought that it was high time to get my butt into action and head west. It was very last minute as the tour I booked left London at 7am on Friday morning! There were 21 people on the bus and our tour manager, Gary, was very good at coming up with ways to keep us entertained during the drive out of the city to the Welsh countryside. Usually it involved a story where he completely embarrassed himself!

If I had to describe Wales I would say that it is a poor man's Scotland. I know that sounds unfair but it is exactly how I felt about the countryside and cities. I am extremely partial to Scotland as you could probably tell by my blog entry from when I went exploring the Highlands with Vic back in October 2007. So anything compared to Scotland was always going to come off second best unfortunately for Wales. Wales just lacks the vibrancy and the colours I see in Scotland. We originally drove into Newport and stopped for morning tea. It was a pretty place, but nothing jumped up and grabbed me.

I was very much looking forward to visiting Cardiff. I am a Rugby Union nut and love watching the game, so why not visit the home of rugby? Millennium Stadium is massive! And stuck in the middle of all these other buildings. I am so used to Sydney, where they build the stadiums in the middle of nowhere and it takes you ages to get there and they are surrounded by huge car parks. Millennium Stadium is smack bang in the middle of the city, with other buildings almost touching it's edges. Not sure where people park their cars though??????

Wales was playing Italy that afternoon (Wales thrashed them) so they had cancelled all the stadium tours meaning I missed out on going inside, but I am sure I will be back there at some point. I will have to catch a game there before I head home. Instead of touring the stadium I tried to find the waterfront. I tried for an hour and a half but had no joy so headed to the castle and took a tour there.

We stayed at a rather dodgy pub which doubled as a backpackers, called "The Black Sheep". Most of the girls stayed in a 20 bed dorm room which had the unmistakable odour of cat pee. Luckily my bed had slats missing and in order to prevent getting to know the girl sleeping below me better in the middle of the night, I moved to the 7 bed dorm where the couples and 2 other girls were sleeping. Turns out it was an excellent move. Not only because my bed actually had slats but also because I met Chris and Michelle, a married couple from Adelaide. It was good having some friendly people to chat with on the bus, or walking with them when we went to certain sites etc. Plus they like UNO (as do I, with a passion) so we played a championship game after dinner one night.

The Black Sheep served food a'la chips, peas and pies or chips, peas and lasagne or chips, peas and faggots (giggle, giggle). Oh Yes! The Welsh delicacy of FAGGOTS! (giggle, giggle). Faggots (giggle, giggle) are basically sausage type meat balls. On our second night there some of us couldn't handle chips, peas and something, so we went out for a very expensive but nonetheless yummy meal in town. I had the Moroccan Lamb and it was delicious.

We toured some of the dams in the south of Wales but none had tipped over the edge, so rather than cascading, they were casually dribbling not unlike your old age grandma. We also saw one of the Welsh beaches. The best description I can come up for this is grey. Grey sand, grey water smothered by a grey sky. To counteract this "greyness" the people have painted the buildings that line the concourse a variety of pastel colours which actually compliment the grey rather than compete with it.

I think that the highlights of the trip were The Big Pit and Tintern Abbey which we saw on Sunday. The Big Pit is one of the last coal mines in Wales. It was closed in the 1990s and now serves as a working museum. We got kitted out with emergency packs, air canisters and hardhats with headlamps just before descending down into the mine shaft. It was a good thing I am not a) claustrophobic or b) afraid of the dark because the mine corridors are pretty scary. Added to the tight spaces and darkness was the very chilly air and all up you get a rather freaky experience that makes you glad that you never had to work in those conditions. I think I will take my 29 smelly, snotty, snivelling children any day!

Tintern Abbey is a magnificent set of ruins that used to be a grand abbey that served the Southern Wales people for ages. It was destroyed under the ruling of Henry 8th when he developed the Church of England (bastard!). What a waste! It would have been an awesome sight to behold in it's heyday. Most of the external structure had held, but all of the interior has been reduced to sprouts of weeds and grass spurting between upturned rubble and rocks. It's not hard to imagine the monks wandering around the draughty halls and lofty rooms that would have made up the buildings within the compound.

Whilst Wales was not spectacular or soul moving, like Scotland is for me, I am still impressed by it. I hear that the northern parts of Wales e.g. Snowdonia are amazing and I am hoping to travel there in May. There is lots to see in Wales but the best part is listening to the accent. It's like the Welsh people are singing to you as they speak. The lilt is more like a tune. Absolutely beautiful!

February was "Found a house" month

Yes, you read correctly, I finally found a house at the beginning of February. I now live in Balham in a house share with 5 others - 3 guys (Aussie, Indian and English) and 2 girls (Aussie and English). It is not the best looking house I saw but the people make up for that without a doubt. They are great flatmates and seem to get on very well. We have a house dinner each month (lamb roast this month) and tend to eat at the same time so all sit around the kitchen table. After living alone for a while it is nice to have some people to talk to although I never seem to be able to find a place to dry my washing on the lines. :) Can't complain though as the house has an "ironing room", a room filled with airers and an ironing board!

I'm never moving again though! It took me a full month of looking at places. 19 to be exact. I was out seeing places after work and it was not a happy experience. I saw some beautiful places but people wouldn't ring you back and I saw some really dodgy joints where you had to run home for a shower because you might have caught something just from stepping foot over the threshold!

Here are some photos of my new place...