where the bloody hell are you?

I had mixed feelings about London, but overall it was a brill (ha.. local speak), experience. The city is so huge, yet through place names and architecture, so familiar. Bike riding around helped see more of the layout than I would have in a Tube (though that was fun). Props to Matt and Melissa for lending me a bike and letting me crash xmas while I was in town

Meeting up with an ex-girlfriend went better than expected. This is super ancient history, but every time we interacted after we stopped seeing each other in 2002 involved tears, awkward 3am SMS and uncomfortable silences. Our last gauche meeting 18 months ago (a few months before she left for her first big world trip), I suggested travel would make these emotions seem insignificant and trivial. I had many reservations about meeting up with her, but as she is quite a kind person, I decided to give it a shot. Once we met up and I stayed a few nights with her and her flat mates, my theory proved true and things seem to have settled without the weirdness. I think by the next time we meet, we'll be on the way to a normal friendship.

Staying with Simon and Alex was fab. Although I spent more time with Simon, these guys were the only Brits I interacted at length with. Great guys to meet and hang out with - talking music, travel and life over a few beers. It also gave me a chance to see south London, spend plenty of time around Battersea and catch up on last year’s Doctor Who. Browsing their extensive music collection didn’t hurt either. Bill Drummond is a genius.

Oh.. and now I’m in Dublin

SW17

Cripes.. I have butterflies about this year. I have had such a good couple of weeks, the dark chasm of unknown which is 2007 excites me rather than phases me - for the time being at least.

At first, I didn't think much of it, but now I'm starting to get London. It has taken a little while to warm to it, but I think after a few more visits it'll be somewhere where I really like.

Today I rode about 15 miles from Camden to Balham and visited a whole bunch of places in between, listening to the Beatles love album, INXS kicks and the Bladerunner soundtrack. I saw Harrods (the outside), the British Museum (which holds the loot from several centuries of ransacking other countries), and the Australian War memorial (a very nice tribute to England killing off our grandads). As I crossed the Thames in the dark, I saw off in the distance the Battersea Power Station, probably my favourite building in the world and will be checking it out over the coming days.

The coolest part about being is England is that I can pull up on a street somewhere or go into a shop and strike up an interesting conversation with anyone, without the need to use crazy hand gestures or convoluted charades to establish basic principles.

I think I've solved the issues I was having with my computer, but everyone keep their voodoo dolls at the ready in case it has a relapse.

I'm now staying down South for a couple of days so I can get an idea of southern London. I wonder if I'll meet a Womble?

popped

NYE was nice and quite. When the fireworks around Big Ben went off on the telly, I did get the feeling that it would have been nice to be there. But playing pictionary with family was still pretty good.

Here's the video we took while Henge Hunting - which doesn't appear to be working properly..

In sickness and in heath

Jo, Craig and I rented a car and went Henge Hunting. We forgot the lyrics of the Spinal Tap song, opting rather for an alternative mix of the Pet Shop Boys' Go West, replacing the main line "go west" with "Stonehenge", making up random shit to fill in the following bits. We saw some mounds of dirt used for burying important people, some fancy stones arranged in circles and drove through a lot of British country side. Jo gave some of the big rocks hugs and then we made our way to the Stonehenge. We got stuck in a traffic jam which chewed up most of our tourist time and got there with twenty minutes to spare. This did mean most of the people had already left and we got to share the area with about 30 others. Nice. Afterwards we found a nice ye olde English pub and ate stodgey English food by a cracking ye olde English fire.

Travel is that exotic thing you daydream about while sitting through another pointless office meeting. But in reality, it can sometimes suck, especially when you're sick. Thankfully I have friends and family around feeding me soup and chocolate and not a severe looking Finnish nurse inserting a lubricated hose up my bottom.

Tomorrow it will be 2007. Looking back, the highs and lows of 2006 have cancelled each other out - leaving me feeling a bit empty and a little bonkers. Now that I have the leveling influences of Jo & Craig around, I'm noticing that I have changed subtly since being in Australia.

Here's a short list of what I've learnt this year:

I have a stimulus limit
Travel in Russia is cheap and comfortable
Travel in China is very cheap and uncomfortable
A dozen ways to say hello, thanks and cheers
Relationships with emotional hypochondriacs aren't fun
Bratislava is a city, not a country
Americans aren't all bad
Tear gas does make you cry
Mongolia looks a lot like Australia
China is in no way, shape or form a communist country
what the inside of a pig looks like
Kiddy fiddlers go to jail
Hostels usually suck
Babylon isn't just a cafe in Slovakia
Saturn looks cool through a telescope
My jokes are still bad, even in other languages
Okinawans think that big boobs sharpen you up
There is actually a monkey on the mountain
Lenin looks like something from the House of Wax
English beer is crap
The longest Slovakian word - najnevjpozitavatelnrjsie
In Germany, carrying your passport is the law
The Dutch speak better English than the British

In other news, my Trabant video won me some loot.

Happy New Year

diagrams & equations

On Xmas eve, Jo and I called mum. It was nice to talk to our mummy bear.

I canned my plans for early morning photos at Piccadilly Circus on xmas day. This was mostly due to me not finding the place that interesting (where are the clowns, elephants and trapeze?), but laziness and respect for sleep did play a part. We had a breakfast of bacon and scrambled eggs. The bacon here in England is really juicy and meaty, with bugger all fat.

I played the Christmas Fairy, distributing the gifts from under the tree to their new owners seated around the lounge. No surprises that bub (being her first xmas), received the most presents. I cleaned up, with a fresh supply of bonds undies from Jo & Craig topping the list. Mum gave me a year's subscription to Flickr (my first virtual gift), which was a great choice. While the whole idea of christmas irks me, I still like getting loot. I spent the afternoon reading, counting the indigestion formula commercials on telly - 34. Matt got an Xbox 360 and Gears of War, which we played a co-op mission until 5:30am Boxing day. After sleeping a few hours, Jo, Craig and I went exploring around the Regent street sales. Craig bought some Vans and Jo bought a pair of jeans. At Muji I bought a new notepad, and at Uni Qlo I bought some socks. I am a Japanese brand whore.

Last night I had a dream that someone with the first name of Jean had released a book detailing the crazy ideas of Luke Toop. Every page explored a different Toop idea through diagrams, mathematical equations and shaded in squares of graph paper. Weird.

the loot tree

Last night I ended up hanging out with Phil, a bloke from Adelaide who works here in London as an Accountant. We rode down to Westminster and near Downing street and had an entertaining conversation with a copper with a rather large gun.

Today, on the way back to where I'm spending xmas day, I saw the weirdest thing I've seen in London so far. I was riding along Seven Sisters Road towards Tottenham at about 8:30pm, there were a few cars on the road, but it wasn't busy. Coasting down a hill, I see a guy about 200 metres ahead run out from behind a fence, press the button on a pedestrian crossing and then run back behind the fence. The lights change and the traffic next to me begins to slow down. As I go to get onto the footpath, a white dog runs out from where the guy was, stops in the middle of the road and drops a big poo in front of the stopped traffic. After he finished, he ran back to the spot behind the fence, leaving his fresh package laying in front of the cars, with their lights catching on the steam. My question is how does a person train their dog to do this?

Merry non-religious day together with friends and family, where you swap gifts wrapped in paper decorated with snowmen. And a Happy New Year.

I hope this video puts you in the same calm mood it put me in.

It's been a funny old year.

James Brown is dead..
Total chaos, man it's resurrected

don't believe your reviews - good or bad

Went to the football the other night with Marina, a lass I know from Adelaide. The free seats we got were pretty crap, but at 30 Pound for a regular ticket, I was happy with what I was given. During half time, I went to have a closer look at the pitch, with my cohort joining me after a bit. There we were standing at the edge of the pitch appreciating our new found proximity to the action, when people started flooding back into their seats and the players returned to the field. However, rather than returning to our seats in a galaxy far, far away, we followed the crowd into the more exclusive area where we found a couple of empty seats close to pitch and enjoyed the second half from there.

Afterwards, we went to a little pub in what looked to be a ritzy bit of town. The girl behind the bar was really friendly, saying they had just taken on the business two weeks earlier and that she liked Aussies. We got there about 5 minutes before the end of service and ended up seated at a table with a few of the locals and joined n on the conversation. A rather pissed 40 something guy arced up once he found out we were Australians.

Pissed guy: You fucks come ere on ya 2 year visas, take all the fucking jobs and think you fucking own the joint. Pack of maggots you fucking Australian cunts are.
Me: err.. I'm only here for three weeks, and then I'm off to Ireland.
Pissed guy: Three weeks? How the fuck are you supposed to see anything? Disrespectful cunt.

Can't win, can I?

A bit later, his mate (who really enjoyed the price of steak in Australia but not much else), reminded the pissed guy that he was Scottish and should mind his Ps and Qs. Not wanting to perpetuate the hostilities, I avoided the "My last name is Murphy and I'll be visiting family in Ireland" conversation with these UK lads.

I've been a little spoiled in Austria, Slovakia and Hungary where being an Australian is still a bit of a novelty. "Hey everyone, this guy's from Australian", "Whoa.. Australia.. Kangaroo, Cool". But in this London bar, I felt a bit weird getting an earful about being from Australian. True, they (we), are everywhere in London, but as I pointed out to the twat hurling abuse at me, the same goes for UK travellers in Australia. He had caught me by surprise and taking the bait, I allowed myself to get agitated by what could be at worst described as a bit of drunken shit stirring. Just today, I counted six Australians, plus a group of five Commonwealth Bank cash card toting girls in front of me in the ATM cue, complaining about health issues while bragging about their drinking accomplishments. No novelty there.

The fog here in London is crazy. Yesterday wasn't too bad, but today I couldn't see more than about 400 metres on street level, with the view out of my fifth storey window limited to the side of the neighbouring building. Jo and Craig's plane back from Paris last night was cancelled and BA put them up in a hotel for the evening, flying them out of France at the Butt Crack of 4am this morning. Today, we met up for lunch at Camden Markets and wandered around the shops until we froze. I found 20 Pounds on the footpath, which I used to buy a rather spiffy scarf with. I can't remember the last time I had a scarf (if at all), but it is a welcome addition to my wardrobe / backpack.

vintage tees

Saturday I was on a mission. Matt and Melissa needed to get a car, but couldn't fit in actually buying one between their new baby and working. I volunteered to go to the mechanics, check it out, buy it and drive it back. I rode from their house in Tottenham all the way to the garage in Harrow, about 30km through suburbs, parks and back streets. It was a beautiful, but chilly day and I got to see Finsbury Park, Hampstead Heath, Wembley Stadium and a whole bunch of little places I've heard mentioned on the telly, but never really imagined I'd ever see. Suburb, street, shop and last names which all have different uses back at home. It took almost 3 hours and was a good way to see the northern parts of London.

While waiting for my own Arthur Daley to rock up and take the cash for the car ("I'll be there in 20, I'm just down at the pub and want to finish me pint first"), I sat down and struck up a conversation with Kevin, the 5 year old son of one of the two mechanics. Kevin had just started school, he was hungry and he liked watching his dad fix cars. His dad and his colleague had spentthe better part of the day replacing the "moh-a" on a Rover hatchback, which some "dozy geezer" had blown on the M1, but was paying a packet to get it fixed by 5:30pm. While attaching the final tubes and the finish touches on the engine swap over were being executed, the car sales guy turned up just as the two guys who owned the car did, forming a small audience around the front of the car. Kevin started making little groans and grabbed at his mid section. I asked if he needed to go to the loo, and he said yep. It was at that moment a fire broke out in the engine bay of the Rover. The mechanic under the bonnet starts yelling, "BLOWER.. Get a fuckin blower", as he was blowing at the fire like a 10 year old kid trying to put out the candles on their 76 year old grandfather's birthday cake. Kevin tugs at my sleeve, I look down and see his face, twisted into a tormented expression looking back up at me, with a small yellow puddle forming at his feet. The other mechanic races over with an extinguisher, puts out the flames and then leads Kevin away to the loo while his dad explains the mess to the car's owner. I was waiting for Jeremy Beadle to pop out of from behind the door and say, "'e wasn't expecting that, was 'e?".

On the drive home, I navigated my way across London in about an hour, only missing two turns and surprisingly not seeing any of the expected nightmare traffic. With the roads clear, the scenery new but vaguely familiar and the radio on, I remembered what I like about driving. I'm amazed at what you can get for 500 Quid. A 1996 Ford Mondeo with 52,000 miles on the clock. An idea is stirring. Nah.. Too much hassle.

Today I went to the Camden Markets. It's not just one little back street car park with trestle tables and a handful of hippies selling Nepalese beanies. It's an entire suburb with old factories and mills gutted, filled with stalls, lights, cafes, vintage shops, jewelers and a whole lot of hippies selling Nepalese beanies. It'll take a few visits to see it all, but I might wait until Jo and Craig get back from Paris.

I got free tickets to the Football tomorrow night. Fulham vs Middleborough. Nice one Bruvva.

city limits

London

Big place. Rode a bike I borrowed from Melissa (Craig's sister), to the centre and then around the some of the more famous bits. Surprisingly I felt pretty safe on the roads, but it has been weird swapping back to the left hand side, and I think I pissed a few drivers off with my occasional hesitation.

Big Ben really isn't that big and Westminster seems tiny after Budapest's Parliament. But it's still fairly impressive. The Eye looks cool, but at 20 pound a shot and an hour long wait, I decided against it. I accidentally on purpose found my way onto a guided tour of The Globe, where I got to see where the great unwashed stood. I spent an hour or so riding around the Thames, checking out a few of the little back alleys and side streets. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Tate Modern (having a little unexpected nap on the couches), which I reckon I'll be returning to a few times while I'm here. There's plenty I didn't get a chance to look at, and besides, I've still got to have a turn on the slides.

As expected, prices are at the least double of what they are in Australia, and in some cases four times the price. However, after spending three months in Hungary, where everything is half to a third of the price, the equilibrium of financial karma is catching up.

The weather is scarily beautiful. It's cool but not cold and today there are blue skies and bright sunshine. A nice day to go to the Camden Markets.

Proper foreigners

I realised on Tuesday afternoon that my flight from Bratislava to London was on Thursday.. not Friday. This meant one less day with the guys in Vienna, no going away dinner and no drunken late night conversations. The upside to this was I would see Jo and Craig a week early, as they are due to jet off to Paris for 5 days on Friday, the same day I thought I was meant to arrive. I figured this might make for a good surprise and thankfully it did. I met Craig's sister Melissa, her husband Matt and their new, smiley baby Alexis. It all paned out really well and it's so great to see my sister again after 9 months. Family reunion in isle 5. But as most things that seem to happen on this trip, it's not the destination where the story is, it's the journey.

On the email from Ryanair:

Do not wrap any presents that you are carrying in hand baggage as the wrapping will be removed at security. Merry Christmas from all of us here in Ryanair.

Merry Christmas indeed. Very Un-Australian.

Freshly equipped with my missing day, I did more things in Vienna in one day than I did in three while I was there last time. I bought gifts, had lunch with friends, went to galleries, explored streets and back alleys I missed the first couple of times. Basically I spent an entire day riding around on my bike, saying goodbye to it in the best way possible. Using a borrowed camera, I took more photos of the town I had thought I had already captured and found cool shops I had somehow overlooked last time. I got a bit emotional when I said goodbye, but knew that I would always welcome back to Hirschengasse. I donated Frankenbike to the household, so he wouldn't just be left in some shed gathering dust. Then I grabbed a train to Bratislava and stayed with Radovan again. In the morning I followed a backhanded route to the airport (take the free Ikea bus to the shopping centre, then take the number 61 - which is usually too full for a conductor to operate - to the airport). I gave myself plenty of time and apart from the fully loaded run from Ikea to the 61, my journey to the airport, check in and boarding was all performed with the serenity of a Hindu cow. Taking off in thick fog was cool, because as we got above it, the low cloud carpeted the ground, breaking on the hills around Bratislava like water lapping at the banks of a lake. The flight was uneventful, with Ryanair cutting costs everywhere (some overheard conversations: you mean I have to give back my in flight magazine? Stansted is how far from London? Why is only one toilet working?). As I've had a bit of a stomach ache on and off over the last few days, my only concern was Where's the vomit bag/cheap film processing packet? Too bad if I ever wanted to do both. I wonder if anyone has posted vomit to the film company before..

Arriving in the UK was weird. Signs in English. Only English. I could understand all the announcements. I was able to eavesdrop. The amount of useless information we are presented with in day to day life is only highlighted in the first couple of hours of when you arrive back in familiar territory. But like being confronted with ear splitting rush hour city traffic after a weekend in the country, eventually it all becomes common place background noise. It's been 9 months since I was in an English speaking country. Sure, nearly every young person in Europe speaks English, but the world around them is always in their mother tongue, not mine.

After walking through the labyrinth of Stansted, I finally find my way to immigration. About 200 people are standing ahead of me and they're not moving very fast. Arse. I then notice the 3 different lines: UK citizens, EU citizens and ALL OTHERS. I walk over to the ALL OTHERS line, and there is only two people ahead of me. I walk past the huge queue as if in the VIP line of a nightclub. I felt a bit like royalty or some fancy pants celebrity. I had a big grin on my face and started to whistle Rule Britannia, singing the '6 Chinese crackers up your arse' bit quietly to myself. I get to the big yellow line you stand behind when waiting for the next person to get their passport stamped, a guy hands me a little form and I go fill it in. I then come back and start chatting with him.

me: Ahh.. It's so easy being back in an English speaking country. It's a big relief just to be able to read the signs.
guy: yeah?
me: yeah.. I haven't been in one for about 9 months. and this is my first time in the UK.
guy: Really? you staying in London long?
me: About three weeks. I've heard so much about it and I'm curious what all the fuss is about.
guy: you gotta keep an eye on your wallet though.
me: yeah, I heard the UK was kind of expensive.
guy: nah. Lots of foreigners.
me: (looking at my passport and the guy) What? Like me? I'm a foreigner.
guy: (waving a hand at me as if to say "don't be silly") No. You know.. Proper foreigners.
me: Oh.. you mean the ones that take all the jobs and marry all the women? yeah.. big problem that.
guy: can't trust any of them.. and with this EU thing, so many different people coming and setting up shop here. I dunno.
me: Kind of like reverse colonialism.
guy: erh?
me: All these places occupied or attacked by the British way back when, finally coming back to the "mother land". (exaggerated quotation gesture)
guy: not sure about that. 'ere, mind ya way.

..and he waved me through.

Welcome to the United Kingdom.

In the Nothing to Declare section, there was no one to not declare anything to. I peered around the corner into the Declare section, and again there was no one there either. Later, to prove to myself how open minded I am, I asked a young Muslim woman for directions." 'ang a right at the next lights, then a left and then up a bit 'til you get to the brightly coloured offie and then take a right'. But it wasn't her mouth of marbles British accent which caught me off guard, it was her Calvin Klein branded Hajib which made me double take. No assimilation my arse.

After hanging out with Jo and Craig for a few hours, the last 10 months seems like a dream. While I like to blab about the cool things which are happening to me on this blog, in person I'm fairly reserved about it, holding back on the 'when I was there' stories. I remember around the time I was beginning to think quitting high school to work was a bad idea, I started meeting people who had just returned from their gap year holidays. Their stories of European adventures told with Cockney accents picked up in the transfer lounge at Heathrow really shitted me. I always got jealous, but it wasn't what they told it was how they told it. This lead to me making a promise to myself that if I ever got the chance to travel, I would try not to be a precocious wanker about it when I got back. But if I ever bail you up and start dribbling shit about killing pigs, riding bikes and getting arrested, Andy, the American guy I met in Budapest, felt the way I want everyone who hears/reads my travel stories to feel:

"I'm not jealous. I'm inspired"

Go see the world.

Get off your arse and open your mind. Even if you can only do a bit, see something different to your little world. And if you can't travel, make a friends with someone from another country. Eat something you've never heard of. Catch a random bus somewhere in your town. Talk with someone standing next to you in the bank. Geeze I sound like one of those cheesey life coaches.

I haven't explored the city yet. That's tomorrow.