emalou's Blog

Got it, loved it, need more of it

Looking back on my very corny entry video of ‘put me in the picture’ I’ve realised I have now been in the picture, taken the photos and gotten the t-shirt but it’s so much more than that... I’ve gone from being so incredibly nervous of travelling with a whole new group of people to not wanting to ever say goodbye to our ‘MyOE family’. I’m left now summing up our trip to others as simply ‘amazing’ yet that doesn’t even come close to describing how good a time I have had travelling. Now that I’ve had a taste I want more and I can’t stop talking about wanting to go back and live in the UK. I’ve also realised it is not just the travel, the old buildings, the history or the culture - it’s mostly the people you meet along the way that makes it so memorable. It’s just the little jokes, sayings, MyOE ‘Get it: Live it’ photo shoots and those out of your comfort zone moments we had along the way that I will remember the most.    

I’d just like to give a massive THANKYOU to MyOE, our group 1 leader Ben, Photographer T-Bag, Franny the MyOE house coordinator/our awesome driver, and thanks to everyone else who won the trip that made it such a great experience for me. I can’t wait to meet up again with everyone during the reunions we are already planning and talking about almost every day. All the future winners are not going to know what hit them and I hope more people realise they have the opportunity and deserve to win so they should defiantly enter.   I’ll be definitely recommending MyOE to anyone considering working in the UK!

I’d also like to add that as a teacher, travelling gives you knowledge and skills that you can’t just read about and learn from a text book. This includes knowledge of cultures and history as well as working and living with other people. This trip has opened up my opportunities and considerations of where I can go as a teacher and I really hope to be back in the UK and then other countries to continue my experiences.  The thought of combining work with living and travelling in another country is so exciting and I can’t wait to start doing it.

Link to youtube video/10 things to know about London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4vxfaAZYI

Last days getting it and living it from Brighton to London

Sandwhich lunch today as we stopped off at Stonehenge where famous prehistoric rocks were arranged and finalised a certain way about 3500 years ago. On first sightings, it’s a bunch of large rocks in the middle of nowhere that you can’t even walk up to for heritage reasons. It does however have a deep history about its purpose which no one really is exactly sure about ...so if you want to have a look into the different theories you can google them or have a look here http://www.stonehenge.co.uk/index.php. It is however meant to look really nice during the summer and winter solstice and the spring and autumn equinox where people are allowed to walk around and touch the rocks. It’d be nice to get back there for one of these!

We then arrived in Brighton only for me to spend the night sick in bed. With everyone out I still stayed up having a good chat with Dazza who was having complications with her food baby. Thank god Katie was also looking after me as well – thanks for my vegemite on toast love J

Katie, Biggsy and I strolled up the pier the next morning looking for some breakfast – where we found possibly my favourite breakfast of the trip. It was called ‘Moo Moos milkshakes’ and you could pick one or multiple ingredients from their large selection of chocolates to form the best tasting milkshake ever. I had Cadbury cream eggs – SO good. To top it off we were drinking them at the beach (well the English rockier version) – and it seems that it doesn’t matter how far away you are from home there’s always something about the ocean that makes you feel comfortable I think.

 (*Moo Moos)

 

(*Brighton Pier)

It wasn’t long before we hit the local shops down the road and Katie had LOST her wallet!! We ran back to the pier to have the milkshake place send us to the security office where a nice lady had handed it in - thank god! Strange thing is, the security guy asked Katie to lift up her sunglasses only to tell her she doesn’t look like the picture from the wallet... but there weren’t any photos or ID in the wallet?? This then called for some much needed tea and food where I’d like to announce that I got my ‘real’ tea with tea leaves (L)

Meeting up with the group there was fun to be had and ‘Get it: Live it’ photos to be taken on the dodgems, tea cups, rollercoasters and even the very ‘spooky’ horror ride on the pier... then we were off back to LONDON! Last day in London and Matty, Biggsy and I were on a mission to get the presents for our MyOE leaders. This lead to our favourite photo from T-Bags album being framed and signed by the group for Ben, T-bag and Francis (Link to photo: http://www.myoe.com/index.php?option=com_myoe&view=displayphoto&user_id=309&album_id=2497&photo_id=6347&Itemid=282). We then also went slightly crazy in poundland buying everything the colour ‘MyOE orange’ we could get our hands on ... from emergency whistles, to chips, to baseball bats, to ant poison we covered all our bases.

 (*Katies first time on a roller coaster that goes upside down) 

A few drinks into the night and it was time for speeches, presents and awards for people in the group– very sad but still very funny times. We were then off for our final rounds of Off the breakers and lots of dancing...

... before we knew it we were regretting giving Ben that emergency whistle as he blew it at every opportunity to keep us up all night ready to leave at 5am! This continued to the train station and onto the airport .... *Blow* train arrives in approximately 5 minutes *Blow*

 *Blow* time to get on the train everyone stand up *Blow*

*Blow* Next stop *Blow*

Haha we and everyone else around us appreciated the updates – thanks ben!  

The solution to my battle with chop sticks – o and good times in Bath

Spent our 2 hours in Manchester today seeing the sights of Primark – similar to Kmart, BigW and Myer but bigger, better and cheaper. We all had a lot of cheap buys and I’m pretty sure we need to start a ‘bring Primark to Australia’ face book group, or I’d like to think there is already one.

 

Off to Bath now for the next lot of road tripping, dinner, pub, early morning, hungover check out, quick look around and then road tripping again.  Bath is on the South West side of the UK and is built around natural occurring hot springs. These led the Romans to making large public Baths and hence why Bath is a popular tourist spot. It was a shame though by the time we arrived late in the afternoon and had breakfast in the morning it didn’t leave much time to check these out properly – but always good to know when I come back. I could definitely spend some time just sitting around reading in some of the open square areas of Bath - it was quite relaxing listening to the local music and looking at the buildings even with the large amount of people being around.  

 

With little time during the day once again we took advantage of the night life. This started with some Japanese at ‘Wagamummas’ – where, while waiting for our food we started to play with the chop sticks and talk about who is right and left handed in the group. There were a strange large number of left handed people in our group and I went on to talk about how I do different things with different hands. I’m very strange, I write on paper with my left hand but on the black board with my right hand. This of course led to our end of the table trying our skills at writing with either hand. Then Francis asked me to try holding chop sticks in either hand to compare. This was something I’d never tried before – I had just always naturally picked them up with my left hand and unnaturally attempted and failed at always using them – even after years of working in a Chinese restaurant. To my shock horror I was able to use them perfectly in my right hand! Very weird! All this time of being absolutely hopeless and travelling to Korea last year where the experts couldn’t even get me using them properly and ALL I had to do was swap hands! So the poor table had to listen to my excitement all through dinner that I could now use chopsticks.

The night then had its ups and downs for me as I lost in our MyOE horse racing but won some illegal roulette later on and then lost my battle with the DJ to find some better music. To explain this horse racing card game it is really worth doing it in person when you can play it and really appreciate its fun. You basically have four cards (one from each suit) faced up symbolising a different horse. Each horse is named and the group put their bets in the form of shots onto a horse. The remaining deck of cards is up the other end of the table and one person flips them one card over at a time as the race starts. The suit that is shown by the card flipped means that the corresponding horse with that suit gets to move up one. The first to move beyond the selected amount of cards up along the side of the ‘race track’ up the table win. The person who had a bet on this horse gets to give their shots to any one or more people in the group. If you lost then you have to have the number of shots that you originally bet. There are some other minor details but save those for when we play it. Anyway I named one of the horses Emma – very original of me – and Emma struggled to win any of the rounds, even with my continued support of shots (not the best idea in the end).

Next we moved on from the hostel pub to find a pub that had taken up most of its floor area with an unnecessary and illegal roulette table. Of course the group sat down and put down 1 whole pound each to try our luck at winning the prize bottle of champagne. Never having played this game in my life I did attempt to ask for advice but in my drunken state I went against the odds and put my chips wherever I could reach from my seat. Turns out I had a good strategy going as I cleaned up the chips and won the bottle of champagne!! Although we had a pretty good chance at a drink from the bottle I’d say with only our MyOE group playing and someone having to win.

With the champagne gone we opted for some much needed nightly dancing – too the worst Dj I’ve heard in my life. I wasn’t alone in thinking this and decided I’d go up and handle the job myself. Turns out his records gave me nothing to work with and after a few photo ops of me pretending to do some turn tabling the Dj kicked me off.

 

Back in the room we were all settling in except for two of our boys still on their nightly prowl once again. This time they managed to bring two girls back to the hostel and were talking to them outside our groups’ room ... anyway Matti soon brought this to an end as he stuck his bum out the door in his now famous undies with ‘Pow’ written on them and shouted ‘POW POW!’ Haha classic moment of the night I think. He now has a line of merchandise out if anyone is interested ... Biggsy and I picked up these awesome socks...

How to get into a restricted upper-class press club in Manchester

First thing in the morning and we are moving on from Edinburgh to Manchester ... well lucky I was talking to Francis about where we were going before we left because he had punched Nottingham into the Navman. Hehe maybe it was not solely the Navmans fault for getting group 1 so lost after all hehe.  

James, Katie and I squished into the Kombis back seat today and spent the trip chilling to a bit of Jack Johnson as we tried a million different positions to try and get comfortable – taking it in turns at leaning forward was ok for a bit but we ended up going for two sitting on the seat and one half lying across the top of the both – this made for a nice photo which joined many of the other photos we’d seen of others trying to get comfy by spooning, hugging, lying on the kombi floor instead...got to love road tripping in a Kombi.

Just as I was relieved to say goodbye to the third floor with 6 sets of stair levels to our Edinburgh hostel room we were put on the fifth floor with 3 sets of stairs for each level – that’s 15 sets of stairs and no lift in Manchester – eek! The boys however once again had a lower level, lucky they are nice and helped us carry up our bags. I’d like to give a big THANKS to Oli today for carrying my bag even after I tried being stubborn and wanted to carry it myself, only to make it to the second floor J  

Off to dinner and I was eating some very fancy pizza with a mix of great cocktails – one of which the guy behind the bar made especially for me and said ‘If this doesn’t put you to bed by 12 pm, then I havn’t done my job properly’. Well I did end up making it past 12 – I don’t think he knew what our myoe group was capable of – pretty sure I’ve built up a massive tolerance for alcohol by this point in the trip. The same bar guy also told the boys they were doing ‘girly’ shots and made them have a potent shot of jager mixed with rum and bombed in beer – ew. This did slow down the boys for a moment there.

Another pub later and T-bag our myoe photographer was standing up handing us all a business card each with different names and professions. I was to be Chloe Borne a solicitor – and tonight we were getting into the local very restricted ‘Press Club’. The plan was to all pretend to be ‘important’ people on an ‘important’ business trip out for a few drinks, this is where the business cards came in as proof of who we were. So of course as we all ran for a taxi we decided this was ‘the amazing race’  jumping into the closest taxis in our groups shouting ‘go go go’ as we headed for our next challenge.

The security guy to answer the door either totally didn’t buy our story but figured no one else was inside tonight so he might as well make some money OR he wasn’t the brightest guy and didn’t notice that when he asked if we had business cards we ALL chorused ‘yes’ together at the same time and already had our business cards ready to quickly show. We weren’t worried about how or why though – we were in, with a whole private bar, dance floor and duke box to ourselves! This is where the groups closet dancers came out with our break dancing by t-bag, ballroom by Katie, Oli and myself, MJ moves by Ben and lots and lots of  twisting and twirling all over the place for most of the night by everyone else - AND i got it all on video!!

This is what happened on Sunday night Matti ...

After one big night last night... bigger for some more than others, we started to relive the funny events that came out of all those ‘off the breakers’ ... most of which left us laughing with Matti about his entertaining performances. So in short this is our night out in Edinburgh...

-Dinner with the group where James and I tried Haggis – just tastes like mince meat, don’t think it’ll become a part of my diet still though

-Biggsy fell asleep/passed out on the dinner table

-Back at the pub: Biggsy is back up and ready to go again

-Ryan and James give open mic night a go: anyone reading this should check out Ryan’s music, just search ‘toi boi shy’ on youtube or myspace.

(http://www.myspace.com/toiboishy)

-Crazy lady thinks we’d rather have her dancing in front of our myoe video camera than seeing the boys singing – camera gets turned off

-A few drinks and off the breakers later and we are about to head off to another pub and Matti decides it’s a great time to write a blog

-The girls and I get hungry and wonder off to find food. I get an ice-cream, Ryan’s favourite haha (private jk)

 

(*this ones for you Ryan)

 

-“Homeless” person tries asking me for money – I tell him I like his new nike shoes and he laughs and decides to cover them up. I now remember my hockey coach telling us when we got to Edinburgh a few years ago that the city is known for people faking being homeless.

-Walking to next pub and Matti tries to talk to/dance with every person we walk past

-Found pub with live music: Matti hits the previously empty dance floor

-Matti tells the singer it’s his birthday (...he just left out that it was actually a week and a bit ago)

-Next song: Matti and Ben have an off the breaker

-Matti shows off his dance moves

-Next song: Matti and Ben have an off the breaker

-Matti entertains the pub with his moves still and requests snow patrol because it’s ‘his birthday’

-Next song: Matti and Ben have an off the breaker

-Matti tries to pull anyone onto the floor with him and then requests snow patrol

-Next song: Matti and Ben have an off the breaker

-Matti is not happy with the choice of snow patrol song and tries requesting snow patrol again

-Next song: off the breaker

-Matti interprets the song ‘free falling...’ as ‘free balling...’ and gets his birthday suit on

-Next song: off the breaker again

-Hours later with off the breakers every 5-10 minutes we attempt to get Matti and Ben home

-After having us on either side holding Matti up, getting lost, Ben deciding he needed to work on his push ups half way home, Matti stacking it in the gutter after looking up to point out how amazing a veranda was they made their way up to say hi to the poor girls sleeping in the hostel. It wasn’t long after we got them out of our room that we could hear matti running around the hostel and knocking on our door – no one answered and he was off again back for the boys room.

Make sure you talk to the locals

Edinburgh castle was worth the visit even after almost an hour waiting in a line for tickets – so a word of advice, buy prepaid tickets if you’re planning on going to see the castle. The castle was quite big and had been renovated more inside than London Tower to include more tourist information and artefacts ranging from the war memorial, war museum, St Margaret’s Chapel (the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh), some more crowns and jewels, prisoner cells and other large halls with plenty to see inside. There was also a Scottsman playing his bagpipes - something I already love about Edinburgh, it seems that no matter where you are at what time you can always hear someone playing the bagpipes.

Out of the castle one of the main streets was FULL of tourist souvenir stores so we popped in and out of those as I tried to find something – well anything in the end – that had something with the surname Stirling on it, or about the surname for my boyfriend. After finding every other name except Stirling on the souvenirs I pretty much gave up thinking maybe I’d got it wrong and the surname wasn’t Scottish. Funny enough though I then found a book of Scottish surnames which when was turned to the name Stirling it read ‘Stirling is one of the most common names in Scotland’ – well where the hell is it then?

We had a bit of a detour from the shopping into a down stairs Kilt making place which was pretty interesting. They had every pattern and colour combination possible and Katie and I even found what looked like our old school uniforms! You could also watch the massive machines that thread the material together and then the people who cut up the fabric before taking it to be made into something. Here I asked a lady about the name Stirling and she actually found a kilt pattern that was called Stirling because it was originally worn by the ‘Stirlings’ which was a pretty interesting find. Everything was really nice but none of it came cheap.

(*Stirling Pattern)

Last stop was a more upper market looking tourist store that I ended up finding out did large print outs of information on the background information of names – so that is what I ended up with after all that searching. I did then however start chatting to a local guy who was serving me. We talked about my search for the Stirling name and he pointed out that most of those stores are run by foreigners who really just have no idea hehe. Anyway, just my luck he put me in a better mood when he started telling me about a famous fudge shop that I’d also heard about – it didn’t end there though, he actually knew the family who owned and ran the shop so he ended up walking us all the way down the street to personally let his friends know that ‘these are my friends visiting from Australia can you look after them’. OMG it was the NICEST fudge I’ve had in my life and we were getting all these free samples! Mmm so GOOD! It was so hard to decide what to buy but I ended up with a caramel one and Belgium chocolate one mmm. He was also very helpful with offering other places that we should visit – too bad we had to leave tomorrow :-(. He did say a must do if anyone goes to Edinburgh is an underground ghost tour. Apparently Edinburgh was built on top of another town and you can still go underground to see part of the old town buildings – maybe next time when I’m back here!

(*looking out of the castle walls - Katie is dressed in theme today! hehe)

P.S. I can now be googled - how exciting! The uni have written a little something about the trip on their csu global and news websites - http://www.csu.edu.au/special/global/ and http://news.csu.edu.au/director/regionalnews.cfm?itemID=E700BD16D7529BB616BC8307ED646B6A&printtemplate=release

Smelly balloons, Angels, Flower fields, Moths, MJ, climbing and EDINBURGH!

Wierd combination for a title, good mix for a roadtrip from Newscastle to Edinburgh...

Bright and early once again – before packing back into the Kombi and van we had an hour and bit to cover some of the grounds of Newcastle ... wide cobble stone street shopping, a range of flowers decorating side walls and shop fronts and amazing old buildings everywhere pretty much sums up what we got to see. I also found a market stall selling giant balloons that have different smells... why anyone would feel the need to have a helium balloon they can smell I don’t know but I still went up to see what the fuss was about and they really do smell nice.

 

First roadside stop was the ‘The Angel of the North’ ... a 20 metre tall, 54 metre wide statue of what sort of resembles an Angel. This was something the artist was inspired to create because he said that there were no other angel statues in the UK... and that is what it is now famous for, being a tourist attraction... that was quiet wierd to read about on the first information sign. Anyway it made for some good MyOE photos, one of which an elderly lady I got talking to asked me to pretend to pray underneath the angel – I did what she asked for whatever reason she wanted me to  and we were off again.

After a few promotional video clips were taken of the Kombi driving across and back and then across again to Holy Island it was time for Lunch. The very welcoming or unwelcoming bar service here started with not letting us eat hot food outside because of previous complaints that the food goes cold too quickly. Even after willingly explaining that there’d be no complaints most of us were left needing to still eat our hot food inside. It then supplied our group vegetarian Dari with some meat in her salad – meat in the form of a moth. After an initial OMG Dari was quite excited about her Moth – more because she didn’t actually like the salad and now could order a more expensive meal for FREE.

Listening to MJ along the way made the trip slightly quicker and before we knew it we were over the border into Scottland and into Edinburgh – amazing! Some of us took off straight from the hostel with Francis (he runs the accommodation at the MyOE guesthouse) to walk up what I think was called Arthurs seat. Francis did say it would be a 15 minute stroll – but that depends whether you’re like Oli and James who decided it was best jogged and rock climbed. It was really nice to see in the evening Ben (Sarah’s Ben back home) especially on the first day in Edinburgh to get a good view of the whole city from all directions – great suggestion to do it!

Putting our trust in the guys

The deal for today was for the guys to dress the girls and the girls to dress the boys for the horse races at New Market. With a budget of 50 pounds for us to spend Jess, Little J and I headed for the op shops this morning.  We picked out a nice range of coloured suits and matched them up with who we thought should have which. Although we did get these from the women’s section they were strangely better suited to the boys than the ones in the guys section... there was just the minor detail of some of them being totally the wrong size.

 

Swap time – and... we got moo moo dresses!! Mine was just right with a lovely shade of purple.... black, yellow, orange, pink, white and blue...nicely combined within triangles, stripes, circles and random Indian/hippie type markings. Pretty much my thoughts were it could have all been a lot worse, thanks boys! Still this didn’t stop the stares and double take stares which we got from pretty much everyone walking past, on the train trip and waiting for the taxis... secretly I think we looked better than most people also waiting for the taxis for the races anyway..not.

Arriving at the races we skipped the first few upper class looking gates and headed down what felt like the side back door to the only section that would let us in dressed like we were...

Being 3pm without lunch we all rushed for the first food stall for a burger and strongbow (mine and biggsys drink of the trip). Our section only had one food stall with one man who didn’t feel the need to serve all his customers... all being Matti and Ryan. It started with Ryan asking about the curry (one of only about 5 dishes he had listed) and the man’s response was that he hasn’t had the chance to cook it and wasn’t going to now. This was strange because I’m pretty sure we are almost the only people in this section and he was sitting down reading a newspaper as we walked up to him. Then talking to Matti later he said he tried giving it a shot with the burgers which the man also didn’t feel the need to cook at the moment... haha too funny. They did get their burgers in the end, only over an hour later.

A few wins and losses to the horses later and group 1 arrived looking wayyy too good to be op shop dressed. Group 1 had left from New Zealand and Brisbane a week earlier than our group and so were now coming to the end of their trip as we started to do what they just did. They may have missed the races but there was still time for swapping stories, a few get it: live it shots (check out TT’s profile.) and suggestions/warnings about what to expect over the next few days.  So we found out first hand apparently what the next few days will be like in the Kombi with its unreliable technology of the Navman but either than that I can’t wait! There were then drinks to be had at a roadside country cafe house and then to the pub for dinner ... before long we had to say our goodbyes, swap leaders and start our adventures in the van with a 5 hour drive and 2am arrival in Newscastle.

Live now sleep later

Running on little sleep Jess, Dazza and I headed to London Tower for some sightseeing. I’d been here before when I was younger but it was good to see it again because I’d forgotten most of it and I mostly didn’t take the time when I was younger to care about the history. The tower was mainly used as a fortress, a royal palace, and a prison for mostly high status royal prisoners. Now you can walk through its walls, read some history and have a look at the crown jewels of the UK. Katie went through the tower yesterday and told me to look out for the walls that the prisoners had carved messages into but I couldn’t find them L that would have been good to see.

Just when I thought it was great that there was an unusual lack of pigeons inside the towers yard I pretty much fell over when I saw this dinosaur of a bird ...

and if I had of known about them being in the tower I wouldn’t have gone in because as most of the tour group have learnt (some the hard way by being swopped/attacked when they were walking with me – one came really close to Dazza in Nottingham) birds and I do not get along, they are out to get me ... and this bird well and truly reaffirmed my phobia.  So of course I did not take this photo (thanks James) I was on the other side of the yard at this point, heading for the exit with my umbrella on close guard. Since then I’ve learnt that there is six of these ravens who have lived here for centuries. Apparently Charles II ordered to have them removed back in the day because of complaints from the towers royal astronomer – then he changed his mind because he heard that to remove them would bring bad luck and cause the entire kingdom to fall. I don’t know what I prefer more... that they just stay in the tower and won’t follow me home or that they can never be taken away from anywhere because of ‘bad luck’.

Next we headed to the famous Harrods which is definitely overrated but I still gave into their product labelling and bought a Harrods bag. I can now justify it though because after all that dancing last night my straps on my bag loosened and then broke today L. Nightfall soon came and after locking myself out of my room again then James climbing in through my balcony to unlock it we finally got ready to go out to see Pricilla on stage. I’d already seen it before in Australia but it was good seeing it again, especially in an old London theatre. It didn’t take long for the songs to put the group in the mood  for dancing which found us at Tapas. Nothing is better I think than sitting down around a small table, in a dimmed candlelit underground restaurant, ordering a mix of unknown small dishes and sharing them around as a group to beat of a good mix of music.

Surrealism to Monopoly

Ticked off the touristy site seeing for the day - Quickly got through the TATE Modern by sticking mainly to the surrealism and cubism sections with a bit of Lichtenstein, Duchamp, Warhol, Dali and Kandinsky ... then I needed a drink to start off our monopoly pub crawl.

I didn’t waste any time and got going with a red bull and vodka or two or three ... which is why there is a lack of any detail from now on. Even though eating is cheating lunch came soon after and then we were off to the next pub. Our MyOE Aussie mascot was dubbed Judy (aka Jumping Judy) in memory of Biggsy’s toy Kangaroo that she once had too... so Judy joined our pub crawl and Ryan helped show her to the beer, pose for photos and even threatened to drop her out the window if she didn’t... eek! She even has a bit of theme song now from Ryan - ‘JUDY! That’s a nice name. She’s a nice lady’.

  

Next stop we caught up on drinks, watched some street entertainment (which was not very entertaining) from the pub veranda and met up with the MyOE crew. Heard all about Matt being a Bee in Katies dream... heard it from the way that Matt would have liked it to have gone so lets just leave the idea of his stinger up to your imaginations...bzzzz LOL

Next pub, few more drinks and the conversation turned to deep and meaningfuls so it was time to move on again ... the next place was cool I think it was called Oneills, it was pretty big and had lots of different entrances to other small areas to chill out. Katie, Oli, Judy and I however found ourselves needing to spend most of our time in the confessions box conveniently also inside the pub. A few more rounds and I made a friend with an English girl Ellie who was out for her Birthday. Hung out with her and her friends for a while and swapped details then moved onto the next and last pub or so I thought.

Ben was then going to take me home so we left and he took me by an unmarked taxi because it was cheaper. Pretty sure the episode of trouble in paradise before we left highlighted not getting into unmarked taxis – but it’s all good we filmed the episode of us on the show already on the way home just in case but still made it home safetly (i’ll still put the video up anyway later). By making it home though I didn’t mean straight away - apparently home to Ben means the pub around the corner from home. So we headed on in and I was introduced to the famous “off the breaker” by Ben himself (aka Brad, aka Scotty to Hotty – a whole other blogs worth of stories right there). Three off the breakers and a shot later we walked/tip toed (haha Ben was avoiding being noticed by an ex as we walked past the police station where she works) and then I was left to crawl into my bed not looking forward to getting up in a few hours.

Welcome home Queen!

Quote of the day:

It seems that everywhere in London you can find either randomly or outside a shop a small market stall with a range of fruit including quite a few bananas. Katie also noticed this and today said walking past a stall “Omg ... Bananas must grow on trees around here they sell them everywhere”. LOL Katie J love you!

Jumping on the tube Dazza and I must have talked a little too loudly about our confusion of where we were even going and getting off at because quite a few people started explaining the tube system to us. One English guy was really nice and after a bit of a chat about travel he got us off at the right stop.

After walking through the park and taking our ‘everyone look “casual”’ photos which I failed to follow we got to Buckingham Palace where the Queens flag was up and therefore she was home! It was more crowded than yesterday and police were starting to set up barriers across sections of the road. It didn’t take long before we were convinced the flag was up because the queen wasn’t home yet but was coming home and WE were going to see her!

Apparently not... we found out about 2 hours later after standing in the front row next to one of the main gates with an increasingly populated and pushy crowd that it was a ceremony for the changing of the guards. So in between putting up and pulling down our umbrellas and putting on and taking off our jumpers of course within the four seasons we managed to see and take a few snaps of a parade, some soldiers and a guard leaving his post. All still sort of worth it in the end.

Next we headed off to the national portrait gallery with a few photos with giant lion statues along the way. We did try and hail down a taxi but after almost giving up one stopped..instead of driving us however he offered directions and suggested that it’s quicker and cheaper to walk – aww we take back that all taxi drivers here are impatient and horrible. Inside the gallery I past the more historical works and strolled straight through to the BP portrait awards 2009, an exhibition on Bob Dylan and some of the other more modern works...some of them had the most amazing detail which made a painting look like a photograph... and some were just wierd using real blood from their own body to bring life to their image. I did although find one of Lily Allen who I didn’t know is actually originally from Hammersmith where we are staying at the MyOE guesthouse in London.

We did then successfully get the tube by ourselves to Nottingham for a celebrity tour but then failed to successfully find exactly where the tour was starting...so after missing that we headed to East London (the slums of London) for the Jack the Ripper tour. Keeping it short Jack the Ripper is famous for killing lots of people and never officially being caught for doing so... and if he wasn’t over 120 years old I would have thought the tour guide was him. This tour guide was overly obsessed with every minor detail of the killings and seemed to enjoy re-enacting them for us at each location throughout the walk –  in hind sight though it was necessary to make the tour interesting. Jack the Ripper got away with murdering what is recorded as 11 different prostitutes by stabbing and slitting their throats and then mutilating most of them by pulling out and cutting off their organs. Made for a lovely storey just before dinner of which I didn’t feel like tonight...

(*I was more interested in finding Where Wally is than Jack the Ripper)

Four seasons in one day learnt the hard way

This morning after seeing (thanks to jet lag) the 6am rain, then the 8am sun stick around for a few hours...

Girls – “yeh it’s hot i’m wearing shorts and maybe a light jumper just in case”

Everyone agreeing in denial as we walk out the front door – “Nooo we won't need umbrellas it'll be fine it’s sunny now it won't rain again”

Walking out of train station at our stop and its pouring rain – “CRAP!”  

~But on the bright side it’s a Great excuse for a new corny British umbrella!! ~

So with a mix of rain, hail, wind and stinking hot sunshine changing within a few minutes became the story of our whole day – something we had to become used to for the whole trip.  

Umbrellas up – meeting for fat tyre bike tour

Sun out – walking to pick up our bikes

Sun still out – sitting on our old school bikes (mine having the name tag Kate Winslet) listening to our guides give an overview of our ride and an offer of a rain poncho

 

 

 

 

Wind starts to swell – me still in denial thinking surely I can save 1 pound ($2) and not have to buy a poncho.

Starts to sprinkle – Ben comes to the rescue and has bought us all a poncho (of course he’d know having lived here for four years)

Rain is getting heavier – we all hurry to move our bikes for cover in the side alley way that starts our tour

Sun out – it’s boiling and I’m already ready to take off my poncho and all we have done is pushed our bikes half a block to get into the gates of Hyde Park

Sprinkling – as we start our ride through the park (weather we ride to the left or right of the park path I still don’t know because I swear he kept saying stay to the left but then spent most of his time on the right).

 Anyway you get the point so here are some of the things we got to see and hear about on the tour...

Peter Pan – Right next to Hyde Park in Kensington gardens is where the location was found for the setting of the story Peter Pan. There is now a statue there of peter pan which Barrie (the author) began planning in 1906. They are now showing a theatre production of the story in the park which would have been good to see.

Wellington Arch – aka constitution arch aka the green park arch aka victory arch – this didn’t confuse me much at all when trying to remember what it was called... It has however changed names due to being moved to different locations over time. The arch was planned in 1825 by George IV to commemorate Britain’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars. The sculpture now on top depicts the angel of peace descending on the chariot of war with the Quadriga horses representing riding across the heavens... and then the small boy... who is actually just the son of the man who funded the sculpture.

 

 

(*I love all the symbolism that surrounds just a random boy on a huge important statue).

The flags not up so the queens not home – but we did get to hear about some successful break-ins into the Palace. One of which a 32 year old got in unnoticed when an alarm sensor that detected him was passed off to be false by a worker. He spent time wandering around viewing royal portraits and rested on the throne while drinking half a bottle of wine. Out of more than 600 rooms he managed to find the Queens where he sat on the end of her bed while she slept. The Queen did eventually wake up and calmly proceeded to have general talk with the man while waiting for a maid to come with cigarettes who then sounded the alarm. Funny enough since it was then a civil wrong rather than a criminal offence the man was not charged with trespassing. Instead he was charged with theft of the half bottle of wine but these charges were dropped when he applied for psychiatric evaluation. Apparently his mother commented later that all her son wanted to do was say hello and discuss his personal problems.

National Gallery Museum – located in Trafalgar square where we locked up our bikes for a wonder around and lunch. There was not enough time to look at the museum at this point but there was hype about the artists who won the chance through an exhibition of their artwork to stand on top of a large pillar by themselves. This was outside the museum and they were allowed to do ANYTHING they wanted to do in front of the public crowds for half an hour. We were lucky enough to see the first artist to stand up and do... nothing... nothing but stand there... definitely the highlight of the trip thus far.   

 

HAHAHA just thought i'd put this photo in, I just found it today 3 weeks after the trip... this is what Aussies do when they get up on the plinth outside the museum... what the?

 

 

(*Meh it wasn’t really that big and impressive...)

First Pub Lunch in the UK – it was the first time I’d walked into just a pub feeling slightly underdressed. It was a nice old building with what looked like more upper class elderly ladies and gentlemen but it turned out to be quiet laid back. I strangely ordered a beer to start off our pub adventures for the trip, something I don’t even drink in Australia.  Winston Churchill – who was he? A British politician who all I remember being said about him now is something about being in the War and his calls... * "Winston, if you were my husband I would flavour your coffee with poison" -said Lady Astor to Churchill
Churchill’s response - "Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it" *Bessie Braddock to Churchill "Winston, your drunk!"
Churchill replies "Bessie, you're ugly, and tomorrow morning I shall be sober"   

Summing up the bike tour ... it was a great way to start off London just to get our head around where things are quickly. A bike would actually be handy to have for the rest of our trip even if the cars (especially the taxis) around here don’t mind not stopping at crossings for you and just beep continually then possibly if you didn’t stop (because they don’t) they will run you over.

(*that just about sums it up...) 

We then met up with the boys to take a look out of the London Eye – nice view – got in a few ‘Get it: Live it’ shots – pretty sure we confused a few people getting on, stripping off, all getting in matching orange and then screaming and taking photos, then stripping the orange off and getting dressed again before getting off.

Ordered my first pea soup (I’m sure everyone is interested to know this) but it was a very cool green (my favourite colour so I loved it)... I then spent more time taking photos of it and changing its colour with features on my camera than actually eating it.

Pretty sure we all just realised how late (1030pm) we were actually eating dinner and jet lag kicked in and we were off to bed early again...

 

(*Andy Warhol that soup)

what happened BEFORE 9pm

As MyOE would say I have been spending too much time getting and living it and hence why it isn’t until now that I am trying to put together some of the things from the previous few days…so with a self inflicted hangover from last nights  Monopoly pub crawl adventures I’ll try and remember back to our first day together… 

So it’s the first night in the MyOE guesthouse and we’d sussed out our rooms (I’ve put some photos up of mine - and yeh hehe stirlo I got lucky with the big bed and all those pillows!!!) and ran in for our first shower in what felt like weeks after the 20 something hour flight. Sitting down in our back courtyard Ben decided that it’d be a good idea to go around the group sharing something about ourselves. It didn’t take long before the comfort set in and we were sharing beyond g-rated stories that we thought would be best kept for after 9pm… so in continuing our joke and keeping these blogs G rated for my dear mother I’ve titled this blog to share what little that actually happened on our travels to London… Somehow I still can remember the names of everyone in the group even after the blurred nervous state I found myself in walking up to them all in Sydney airport. It wasn’t really because I was worried at all about whether this was all some kind of con but more that it was like moving away from home all over again for Uni where there was no one that I would know. Turns out though, just like at Uni, I had nothing to worry about and everyone is good value and really nice! After checking in (at 0.2kg below the limit might I add - Sarah you'd be proud haha) we sat down for our first free beverage before the flight.. well everyone else did.. I however had to take my motion sickness tablets which quickly sent me to sleep at take off even in between the unusual amount of screaming children surrounding our row. My good old body knew what it was doing and made sure I woke up for the surprisingly really nice meals and then it wasn’t long before we stopped over at ABU Dhabi and then landed in London.  

London welcomed us with a nice summers afternoon for a bbq and drinks (almost like we never really left Australia) with the group, some of Bens mates and people from MyOE. Some of who casually informed me of their roof in their London house recently falling through into their lounge room.  This filled me with confidence walking on the creeking floor of my second level room in an old style apartment. This guesthouse is really good though and I get my own ensuite, tv, fridge and even a little old school balcony. There's something like 10 rooms ranging up about 5 flights of stairs - lucky for me my bag only had to be dragged up one of these levels. Mum - you'd probably guess it but of course I was the first one to loose my room key within the first few hours ... and it's still missing so hopefully I havn't lost it outside of the house. So generally our round of life stories found that our group were a mixed of science, international, business and teaching etc degrees…and what happened after 9pm was that I (sadly) went to bed and faced the start of jet lag.

 xo

Location.. Location..

A few people have been asking me where I will be throughout the 2 weeks so I thought it would be a good idea to quickly put up my itinerary. If anyone has any suggestions for what I could do along the way at any of these places feel free to leave me comment letting me know

Remember that time when you won that trip to the uk...

Good day ladies and gentleman *curtsy* (well practised at this point in time for when I address her majesty by the 'proper English' way)

So here I am, finishing up my study of primary teaching at CSU Bathurst and now somehow im the one to tell someone else about my amazing opportunity to travel around the UK for FREE!  Before I embark on this unimaginable 2 week trek i'd like to start with a blog sharing how this all happened...

Once upon a time there lived what I like to think of as a princess'...  joking (the start of some of my very lame primary teacher jokes that actually applies perfectly to the assignment I should be completing right now). Anyway, so it was a usual Tuesday night when I read the email from Ben, who I now know as our group 2 MyOE leader...

...it came just when I needed it most, I was tired and stressed from working through assignments, organising packing up after my four years in Bathurst to move back home, realising i'd have to leave all the awesome people i've met here and looking after our new Korean housemate for (what I thought at the time) four weeks. So there I was doing the usual avoidance of assignments by checking emails, facebook, youtube and whatever else I could think of to google. Then scanning down my recieved emails there was one word... that one word that usually equals spam... that one word that usually is a con that is quickly introduced to the delete button... that one word that this time made my heart beat faster as I clicked the capitalised CONGRATULATIONS in disbelief . All this because of a short video of photos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1jT2dV2AnI) I'd made and entered into a competition I saw advertised on the university forums.

What followed was a repeating hysterics of me saying 'omg OmG OMG!'. Looking back on it now I'm pretty sure this is part of the reason why our new Korean housemate (sorry Sarah hehe) decided he'd be more comfortable flying back to Korea a few days later. At the time though he got excited with me and nodded (aka I have no idea what this crazy Australian is saying but it looks like I should agree) as I continued with the 'OMG'. This called for a change of immediate plans and I decided to head to the pub for a few drinks to help the impossible calming of my excitement.

The timing was also quiet conveniate as well, as I was attending a 'Teach in the UK' information session first thing the following day...but now I get to actually find out first hand what it will all be like to be in the UK before I hopefully move over there. So now the preparation begins and it seems the only thing that MyOE has left up to us is packing and finding out about possible extra activities we can do in our travels. So i've found my bag... and then I found a bigger bag :-) and I'm hoping there's room for it in our Kombi that we will be driving (in true Aussie fashion) around the UK. I've also spent some time in borders having a flick through some of the travel information guides available... but I've come to the concluson that I will just take it as it comes . I did read however that the English drink on average five cups of tea a day so I'm pretty sure I will fit in quite well with that side of things. It may be almost what I am looking forward to most, mmm real English tea (easily pleased I am). So do you add the tea to the warm milk, or the cold milk to the tea, or no milk at all? Then there's the stirring, right or left? AND for how long? Some of the many deep and meaningful questions I have ready to go..hehe.      

So I'll leave you all for now, at least until after the 4th of July when our flight leaves around 11pm...from there I hope to share some our interesting and funny stories, photos and videos across the 2 weeks.

 Em - woohoo group 2!