OK, it's been a while since I last updated this blog, and at first it took me a while to figure out why. The weather has been atrocious, and while I have definitely been getting out and pushing through the elements to see the sights, I've spent a huge chunk of my time indoors. But when I really think about it, I've actually had very little down time whilst I've been here, and it's all been due to the awesome people I've staying with.
I have a theory that culture and banter are inversely proportionate to the climate of a city. The most diabolically rainy and cold places always seem to produce art, music, and humour far superior to their more climatiously blessed counterparts. I think it has to do with neccesity. Imagine how much melbourne would suck if it had no arts scene, and a bunch of chain restaurants. I think the cold, the rain, and the lack of naturally occuring beauty drives a city to produce it's own reasons for getting out of bed in the morning. Inversely the more beautiful places tend to ignore the unneccesary things like art, culture, and basic intelligence in some cases, because, screw it....they've got a beach and they better work on their tans. Queensland for example. (This theory must be used in conjunction with my theory applying to the proximity of a city to the ocean which inversely effects the level of sanity. This helps explain my home town Bowral).
Anyway, this theory applies perfectly to the UK and Ireland. Let's not beat around the bush. The weather while I was there was diabolically terrible. I really wanted to avoid being 'that' Aussie traveller going around complaining that 'Christ, this is summer? This is bloody winter in Oz', but it really was a struggle. I caught an overnight bus from lovely sunny Paris, and the moment I got off the ferry it began raining, and pretty much didn't stop the whole time I was there. But luckily this didn't drag the mood down at all because the people here are so stoically good humoured, despite everything mother nature throws at them, that it was rarely an issue.
I started off in London where I was staying with the lovely Rosy Goodrick. I first met Rosy about ten years ago when she visited Bowral along with about 50 other british backpackers. To be honest she didn't make much of an impresion then because
A) she was only in town for a few days
B) seriously there were so many brits they all blended into one drunk whinging blob
C) she spent most of her time snogging one of my mates
However, I caught up with her again when she was maid of honour at a wedding where I was best man. We bonded at the wedding while stressing over how underprepared we were for the maid of honour and best man's speeches we were about to give. This bond was shattered when she got up and gave the most ridiculously polished speech that thoroughly wooed the crowd, and made the groom and myself thoroughly despise her as we had to follow her. However, this act of smugness is probably the only blemish I could find on an otherwise amazingly pure and beautiful person. Rosy was the most amazing host, and we had an awesome time terrorising London together.
A) she was only in town for a few days
B) seriously there were so many brits they all blended into one drunk whinging blob
C) she spent most of her time snogging one of my mates
However, I caught up with her again when she was maid of honour at a wedding where I was best man. We bonded at the wedding while stressing over how underprepared we were for the maid of honour and best man's speeches we were about to give. This bond was shattered when she got up and gave the most ridiculously polished speech that thoroughly wooed the crowd, and made the groom and myself thoroughly despise her as we had to follow her. However, this act of smugness is probably the only blemish I could find on an otherwise amazingly pure and beautiful person. Rosy was the most amazing host, and we had an awesome time terrorising London together.
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| What a host! |
I could write forever about my time in London, but here were some highlights:
* Adorably, Rosy is a massive royalist. Personally I'm not exactly a fan, but Rosy's enthusiasm was infectious, and I ended up attending the diamond jubilee. Well, when I say attending, it was more walking around in the rain being rejected from going near the Thames by the fuzz.
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| This was as close as I got to Lizzie... |
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| Apart from this. |
But I think the most fun part of the jubilee was seeing how nuts people can still get over an unelected person who is essentially the biggest dole bludger of all time. From the people who camped out in the rain, to the embarassingly gushing Rolf Harris (how is he still a thing?), the whole thing was hilarious.
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| Not pictured, union jack pyjamas. |
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| How can you be more patriotic than the union jack? Answer, union jack with the Queen's head exploding through the centre. |
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| Nailed it. |
* I got to go to my second tennis Mecca-Wimbledon. I spent one afternoon and the whole of the next day there. There's alot to love about Wimbledon. It reminded me a lot of when I went to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, except without the exclusivity and the sexist/racist history. The whole affair is just so damn polite. Unless you are one of the lucky elite to have secured a ticket beforehand, the only way to see Wimbledon is to queue for tickets. This involves what has to be the most professional queue in the world. You arrive, and receive a number and booklet explaining what is involved in queuing. This has many rules and is all very thoroughly explained over the course of about 12 pages.
This may all sound stuffy, but it actually isn't. The queue is a very social and relaxed affair, mainly because no one has to worry about douche bags pushing in, or having that middle aged lady stand 1cm behind you breathing down your neck because that will make her that little bit closer to the front of the line. The event itself is also very relaxed and fun. Look past the wearing of white, and the bowing to the royal box and you see that Wimbledon allows spectators to bring in one bottle of wine, or two pints of beer for you to enjoy during the day. Underneath the very posh and polite exterior Wimbledon manages to be amazingly egalitarian and quite unrestrictive so long as you manage to act decent.
Actual match highlights involved Rosy and I seeing a couple of younger Aussie men lose horribly, Karlovic play on a surface which he actually enjoys, Tommy Haas and Kohlschreiber play the same match they've been playing against each other since about 1982 in a brilliant 5 setter, and a major highlight for Rosy: seeing her apparent future baby daddy Grigor Dimitrov play against Kevin Anderson.
It was also great seeing the rain come down and watching one of the ground crew get dragged under the court tarp, then watching the same crew member slip on the tarp and have the crowd start chanting "You're getting fired in the mooooorning, you're getting fired in the moooooorning".
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| Good place for a picnic |
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| The fanatics struggling to find anything to cheer about. |
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| It's not the full experience without a rain delay. |
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| Rosy stalking Dimitrov |
* Rosy and I rode Boris bikes around the city, and I freaked Rosy out by making her ride around the roads in the centre of the city.
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| "My dad wants to know where your turban is" |
* I lived it up for a night going to a bar with some of Rosy's friends which was on a boat overlooking the houses of parliament. Sadly I also continued my hate hate affair with white wine, and later tried to scale the fence surrounding the parliament (the time before that I literally woke up in a gutter a block away from my home).
* I ate jellied eel, which is as tasty as it sounds. Seriously England, how do you still not get food?
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| It's cold and it wobbles and it's eel. |
* Rosy and I took a couple of days excursion down to Gloucester to see the annual cheese rolling competition. For those unlucky enough to never bear witness to this ancient tradition, this is where people go running down Coopers Hill after a disc of Gloucester cheese. First to the bottom wins the cheese. What makes this event unique is that Coopers Hill is more Coopers cliff, and most of the runners end up going head over tail at full speed in pursuit of the elusive cheese. Photos and video just don't do the hill justice. Rosy straight up refused to climb UP it!
I fully intend to do many crazy and stupid things during my trip, but chasing this cheese this early in the trip was never going to be one of them. Safely from the sidelines I witnessed this marvelous event. The runners line up at the top of the mountain. While I'm no expert on the intricacies of cheese chasing, it seemed to be an advantage to be slightly drunk, and Welsh. The cheese gets thrown and this acts as the starters pistol and the runners take their first step into the abyss. For most runners this is the last time their feet touch the ground before the bottom. The crowd at the bottom of the hill are shepharded away from the quite heavy block of Gloucester as it's going about 70km/h by the end. In the women's race you have time to watch out for the cheese then look back up the mountain to watch the women tumble their way down the mountain, but amazingly in the guys race you glanced up just in time to see the first couple of guys finish. I'm pretty sure the winning guy crossed the finish line upside down.
One of my favourite things about this event is that the local rugby team is at the bottom 'catching the participants to stop their momentum. Funny thing is that the runners are going so fast, the rugby guys have to tackle them full blooded just to stop them. They seemed to enjoy this thoroughly.
But my favourite thing about this event has to be that it is now an "Unofficial" event. The insurance costs were simply too high and the town couldn't afford to put it on anymore. It makes sense though, it's so dangerous, you'd never be able to justify that risk of life for something so silly.... Actually, the reason they can't insure it is because the crowds at the event are too large, and there weren't adequate exit locations, meaning public health and safety wouldn't approve without non slip, accessible exit points being put in place. You've got to love the irrationality of the modern nanny state.
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| Rosy is genuinely terrified in this photo. |
After my first stint in London I headed northward to check out the Manchester and Liverpool. In Manchester I was lucky enough to stay with Stacey, my mate from Uni. Stacey was our soccer teams' midfield enforcer, and most of my memories of her were either her ferociously taking down opposition players, or emotively, passionately and eloquently discussing American politics in the thickest of Manchester accents. So naturally it was a bit of a shock when she turned up in this:
From Manchester I then ventured to Liverpool. I arrived there around 11pm on a rainy Thursday night, expecting to find a quiet town with nothing much going on. Turns out it's always Saturday in Liverpool! I ended up trying to find directions from about 10 different scousers and not understanding a word from any of them, partly because the accent is so strong, but mainly because they were all completely pissed.
I was staying there with a cool local girl who was in the last year of her PhD in tropical diseases (yeh, they have a tropical disease lab in Liverpool, go figure). Liverpool was a cool city, but I enjoyed most of it with the refreshed attitude that only a cyclone force wind and torrential rain can give you.
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| One of 4 umbrellas to die that day. |
But through the misery I managed to see where the Beatles first cut their teeth, the harbour, about a million terrace houses, and Penny Lane.
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| Beatles old haunt |
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| Unfortunately they immediately spotted me as an imposter, I don't know how. |
and headed to York to see Rosy, and hear stories about my best mate's wife (If only I'd known before the wedding what I knew now. Sorry Jarrod). I also managed to get sick for the first time while in York, which on one hand was pretty horrible because it's never a good time to be sick, but on the other hand was pretty lucky as I got treated so well by Rosy and her parents that the cold only lasted a couple of days. They made me so well that I was able to record the following for my brother.
Anyway, I think that's as good a place to leave this as any. I will hopefully write about Scotland and the two Irelands soon, and then about my jaunt back into mainland europe, and get caught back up on where I'm at, but that will all depend on internet availability and how much fun I'm having. Love to you all, and till next time.......um.......man , I need a sign off.
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