the land of baguette and cheese
There's so much to say about this France trip that I don't know where to start. The sights have been wonderful, having a car is so handy (I even learned how to drive manual - now THAT's exciting) and we've been just going wherever the flow takes us, for the most part.
The highlight so far has been the town of Chamonix near Mont Blanc, Europe's tallest mountain. The scenery around this area is a sea of orange, red and green leaves at this time of year and it's beautiful. It actually reminds me a lot of Switzerland, I travelled through the Swiss alps at about the same time last year, so all the memories of that trip are coming back.
There have been a lot of tiny european roads that wind their way around hills and valleys, and old medieval towns with their castles and cobblestone streets. There have also been overdeveloped tourist towns and some creative sign language when our very limited French vocabulary has failed us. But everyone has been very friendly and helpful, especially in the far out towns where fewer people speak English.
We haven't gone
too crazy with food, although our last leg (Lyon) is known as the gastronomic capital of France so I'm sure we'll be eating well there.
I've taken a million photos. Anyone who's gone travelling with me knows how snap-happy I am; well, I'm nothing compared to Cameron. We've taken a lot of panoramic shots which I hope to upload soon. I've put one of Jasper up (see previous post).
Anyway, the travelling portion of my holiday is just about over. It's been fun, but I'm ready to stop living out of a suitcase now... :)
my new toy
Cameron has
this cool software that stitches photos together.
Here's a panoramic shot of the town of Jasper. Larger sizes are available. Would suit 4 monitor display. :)
Preparing for Battle
I'm back in Edinburgh, we just finished the tour this evening. I have mixed feelings towards it, but for the most part it was fun. I'm earmarking time to update with details later. Right now I'm mentally preparing myself for the 10 hour bus trip back to London tomorrow...
Edinburgh
I left the comfortable surrounds of London for a gruelling 10 hour National Express bus to Edinburgh, and only
just made it before it left Victoria coach station (due to my poor planning, and sleeping in just a wee bit too much). I slept most of the way and daydreamed out the window - honestly, there's not much else you can do. It was cheap, but if I had the option (i.e. was not travelling spur of the moment) I'd definitely go via train or fly.
The bus passed through Alnwick, a gorgeous little town just north of Newcastle that reminded me of Bath with all its Georgian stone dwellings. I later found out it's also the home of
Alnwick Castle, otherwise known as Hogwarts from Harry Potter. Now I want to go back and visit :)
I arrived in Edinburgh at 7:30 and stumbled upon my hostel quite by accident. I'm glad I did, because otherwise it would have been very difficult to find... the hostel is very plain, no locks on doors, but on the plus side the dorms are small.
I withdrew a whole bunch of Scottish pounds from the ATM, not realising they were going to be different to the ones in England. They're still the same 'stirling', but the notes are issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland, and apparently people look at you very funny if you try to use them in London, or so the nice lady at the hostel informed me. It was not comforting news. I immediately began a campaign to use a note to pay for things wherever possible, and resolved that if I ever got change in English pounds I should keep the note instead of spending it again :p
I went for a quick wander around town after I checked in. Edinburgh is a beautiful city, at night the castle and other historic buildings are lit up. They would make lovely photographs if it were not raining.
My hostel had run out of maps of the city, and since I had not brought one with me (what crazy hostel doesn't provide a map of the city?) the guy behind the desk lent me his Lonely Planet for a couple of days, which was really nice.
Anyway, next day I had a leisurely sleep in and breakfast. It did wonders. I started the day with the
free Haggis walking tour, which is recommended because it is FREE and the guides are all terribly scottish and fun. Edinburgh is very easy to explore by foot, so we got a lot of information about local sights.
In the afternoon I visited
Edinburgh Castle, and even though it's expensive, it's well worth it, especially hiring the audioguide if you like history. The castle is very big and imposing, and full of history. There are war memorials and museums inside the castle grounds. The Scottish crown jewels are also on display, as well as the Stone of Destiny, which is a stone that all Scottish kings have been crowned on for, like, a thousand years (I don't remember the actual figure, but I'm not exaggerating by far). The English stole it and embedded in their coronation throne for 400 years - it's only just recently been returned, and will be again shipped to Westminster Abbey for the coronation ceremony when Charles or William takes the throne. They also provide a lot of information on Mary, Queen of Scots and her son James VI who eventually became James I, King of England. I'm pretty sure my mum would love the place.
After the castle I headed to Calton point on the opposite side of Edinburgh (the 'new' town) which has a nice vantage point over the city. There's an observatory, a half-built parthenon and a nice view of Arthur's seat which is a great big cliff that sits in the middle of the city.
The weather was very dramatic, lots of clouds and wind. It drizzled pretty much all day, continuing my spell of bringing the rain with me. I also ran into more Australians today, and I'm beginning to think we're like a disease. We're everywhere! I feel a bit ashamed about our abundance.
I went to Bar Trivia with some people from the tour, and we felt
really stupid. While it purported to be 'general' knowledge, there were a lot of English or Scottish-centric questions which we had no hope of answering. But, at least we didn't come last. And we got free pizza.
random moment: I heard JXL's version of
A Little Less Conversation in a shop today and I started picturing the DDR steps in my head. Does that make me more of a nerd, or a loser (or both)?
I <3 superdrug!
It has rained every day I've been in London. I've been told that I brought it with me. :(
I just had two new and exciting adventures, involving the supermarket and the pharmacy.
London supermarkets are a single cook's heaven. A lot of things come in single serve portions, like fresh pasta (similar to Latina), sauces, vegetables and meats. If you're lazy, they also have a huge array of prepared meals ready for heating & eating. It seems a lot more acceptable to eat the prepared meal here, the prepared foods section is just as big as the fruit and vegetable section, if not bigger! Even
Marks & Spencer (what seems to be a UK Grace Bros) and
Boots (Priceline) have food sections.
They also offer you 'grades' of preparedness. For example, you can buy raw carrots and broccoli. Or, you can buy raw but pre-cut carrots and broccoli. Or, you can buy pre cut carrots and broccoli with a knob of herb butter in a microwaveable container so that all you have to do when you go home is warm it up. (Or pre cut carrots and broccoli with dip on the side for an afternoon snack). Same goes with meat - you can buy raw meat, marinated meat, or cooked meat that you just need to heat up. I know, I can hear you all saying "but you can get that in Australia!" but instead of being relegated to bachelor meal status, it seems to be okay if you eat the prepared meal in London. It's like it's reached a higher elevation on the food chain.
My first adventures into Boots and Superdrug were eye opening. The most impressive was the fact that they have a TRAVEL SECTION of toiletries, where all your most favourite brands come in a mini version 1/8th the size! I was floored. I love miniatures of anything - in Australia you have to pounce when they're in the supermarkets or offered as promotional items, but they're ALWAYS available here. Always!
The other thing that amazed my little heart was the self checkout available at Tescos. It's completely human-free. You scan everything yourself, and pack them into bags yourself. It has little sensors in a 'packing' area to detect if you've put something in a bag that you haven't paid for. Once you've scanned everything, you swipe your credit card, pick up your goods and go merrily on your way.
I say again... wow!
Scotland
I'm going to Scotland on Wednesday!
I just decided it today and booked the
tour, accommodation and bus to Edinburgh. I'm going spur of the moment because I have about a week in London before my France departure, and I figure I should postpone hanging around London until I'm waiting for interviews instead.
The bus trip to Edinburgh takes about 9 hours, but is waaaay cheaper than the train on such short notice (30 pounds as opposed to 150 pounds).
The tour isn't very indepth, I would have liked to go on a longer tour but I have an appointment to get my UK bank account and sim card on Tuesday so I can't leave before then. The only downside to this tour is that the tour company is called Haggis (I hope I can come to terms with that fact before Wednesday).
In other matters, I met up with Cally & Phil today, it was great catching up with them and they took me on a power tour of the markets and Angel areas. I also ran into Gabby at the tube station on the way home - she's just come back from Italy and it sounds like she had a great time!
4am London
I caught up with Niall tonight, which was great fun. I haven't seen him in almost a year! He has facial hair now! I should have taken a photo so all you kids at home can see what he looks like now.
We went to
ping pong for dinner - a yum cha restaurant that serves cocktails (Brilliant!) The taste wasn't too bad, but it was odd eating yum cha for dinner. And you have to order it from a menu, it doesn't come around on trolleys.
After dinner we went in search of a pub, but didn't find any that were open. London has some archaic licencing laws meaning that most pubs stop serving drinks at 11pm. This forces a whole bunch of inebriated people onto the streets between 11 and 12, and makes bars open after 11pm very, very popular places. After much effort, we found such a bar somewhere south of Leicester square. The place was packed! I had a raspberry champagne cocktail and chocolate martini - both very tasty.
The real adventure of the night came at 2am, when that bar also stopped serving alcohol. We decided to call it a night, and I went in search of the magical N87 bus that would take me all the way back to Clapham Junction. The problem was, I was in the wrong part of town. And it's very, very hard to find a bus when you're not along the route it takes to get to its destination.
I was very reluctant to catch a cab because of the expense, even if by some miracle we found one in the city on a saturday night. So Niall and I eventually hopped on a bus to Victoria station (thanks Niall!) - at least it was going south - in the hope that my bus would be somewhere along that way. We ran into a guy who seemed to have memorised the bus routes of southwest london and was randomly advising people where to go. He told me to catch another bus to Vauxhall, and my magical N87 bus would be waiting there to take me home. He was right! I left Niall at Victoria and by the time I got back to Clapham Junction it was 4am. Everything was so quiet I saw a fox rumaging through garbage (I can't believe they have foxes in urban areas).
Anyway, that was my exciting London adventure for this weekend. From now on, I'm
always going to look up the bus routes on the internet before going out!
