9 posts tagged “uk2k6”
I haven't really said anything about it, but it's been one year since my trip to England. I honestly believe that was the best trip of my life, even though that was my first trip out of the country! The night I came home, I remember craving a cuppa so bad, and my sleep patterns were off and I made a cuppa with a dirty mug and a Lipton tea bag. Good old sleep deprivation.
In any case, I guess that was the trip that triggered a lot more changes in my life. Much like my surgery did with we wanting to be healthier and live a better life, my trip to England made me want to experience life. England gave me another goal to reach for and I think I'm doing pretty damn good. I can't wait to make my way back, even before my move but as usual no money, mo' problems.
Anyhow, home is where the heart is and I can't wait to go home!
I was really excited about Newcastle before I went there.
When I was in the planning stages of the trip, I made a list of cities I wanted to go to. Why not go to the place where my favourite beer is made? (That idea is sparking off another trip!)
Anyhow, I remembered that another UT friend resided in Newcastle so I e-mailed him up and asked to impose. Flib agreed and it was all arranged. I'd only be staying for the day, as I had to leave back for home early the next day. I said goodbye to Janey and her family, and armed with my sexy knickers (which were really, really too big) I was on the train to Newcastle.
One thing I wish I had gotten some pix of was the English countryside. It really is lovely, and I think that the countryside alone is worth a trip. Gorgeous.
Anyhow, my train was a bit early and Flib's (er, Peter is his name) bus was late so I hung out in their massive train station:
I only had to wait a few minutes and was attempting to figure out what time my train to London was departing and there he was! I can't explain how cool it has been to meet all the people I had been talking to for so long! Plus I was dying to hear the infamous Geordie accent (verdict: what's all the fuss about?). We got into a taxi with the most abysmal taxi driver ever. He wasn't very cheerful guy, but he got us where we were going.
I will however complain about Peter's street. Mullholland Drive has nothing on that crazy zig zag of a street. I kind of wish I knew what it was called, but it seriously made me nauseous every time we went up and down it. It was amazing in crazy school bus sort of way. There's a trick to getting off the bus - maybe it's because I hardly take public transport ever, and am not used to it. And he lives right next to a hospital which kind of made me wonder how the ambulances get around without dropping the bodies all over the place.
Peter actually has a very nice house/flat/place to live. It was too nice. I think maybe is mum or girfriend comes and cleans up for him, because out of all the boys that I've known, none of them have been very neat. We dropped off all my stuff, had some apple juice and went out to explore the city. First off, he was going to take me to a museum. yay!
On the way to the Baltic Flour Mills, Peter took me to see the castle of Newcastle fame. I argued that it needed to have a moat to be a castle. Peter promised me a moat. I also said it needed to have a dragon and a knight. Peter said "well, it doesn't have them, but it has a moat". So we get to the castle...there's no moat. Liar. But here's a picture.
So the pigeon poo! After seeing the old castle, a pigeon dropped an aerial bomb that hit Peter! So sad (but hey, at least it wasn't me!) and we went to the Baltic at Gateshead which is a really lovely museum. It's big and modern and all of that. They had an exhibition there called "Fat House", which reminded us of Super Mario Bros. (Super Gaming Nerds) and there was a few installations, but all I really cared about was the museum shop. Ok I just wanted an excuse to shop. I bought some loverly things there, namely some arty thank you cards, a bag with a photo of the Baltic on the Side and The angel of the North on the other, and a black half pint mug. 40 some odd (ugh!) dollars later, Peter was dragging my purchases all over Gateshead and Newcastle.
He then took me to see The Sage Centre, home of mostly classical concerts: looks like a giant shiny condom. I said shiny slug but whatever. We had some delicious treats there, and had a very nice view of the city. I'm not joking when I say I could very easily live there.
On the way back down (and I feel really bad, because for most of my time in Newcastle -- all I really wanted to do was sleep. boooo.) the Millenium Bridge was being let up and it really is an interesting sight to see. It's like an eyelid, it flips up and the boats go under and then goes back down. Wow, that doesn't sound too impressive does it? But it is! I swear it!
We sat on the sidewalk and watched the bridge and the people on it and came up with a new reality show, where contestants are forces to stay on the bridge while it flips up. The tricky part? The bridge is covered in lard. Then, because I was extremely nervous, I started telling some of my most embarrassing stories. I always do that with people that I meet and really like. They just pour out. I think I mentioned something about my infatuation/obsessive love with Disneyland Park. If he didn't think I was a freak...he did then.
So then we went to the Laing Art something -- I can't recall the name. I can really only remember that we really wanted the samurai swords, and there was this huge retrospective of this artist that was really crap. He did like three different color of ink splots; like someone took a tennis ball, dipped it in black ink and had a go. The title: Evening in Venice. If that's what Venice looks like at night, do NOT sign me up.
We then walked down the "Nicest Street in the UK" - Grey Street. Named after some guy named Grey, it's pretty nifty street with a nice leaning curve and some shopping. It was nice to just walk around the street and just chill. We went to an Italian cafe for lunch where I was served by real Italians. Who, upon hearing my accent asked "What's wrong with your country? You're all crazy!" GAH! I thought I had made it all the way through England without having to defend my country. My response "Yeah, we're all a little crazy" made Peter burst out laughing and me, I just wanted my pineapple juice and sarnie. Wonder of wonders, my mom calls during to ask what time I'll be home tomorrow. She overhears Peter talking and asks if that's her future son in law. oy. She's still trying to marry me off.
Is waking up and leaving Skelmersdale.
I don't remember the train ride into Derby to visit Janey. I do know that I actually got some sweet, sweet sleep. Before I knew it, I was in Derbyshire and meeting up with Janey and Dean! Jane is one of my oldest UT friends, and it was so great to finally meet her. She's so wee! Dean was very nice - they've recently married (by recently, I mean a little over a year or two ago) and have just gotten a new house so I was very excited. For those of you who are fans of a British Sitcom called "My Family" you're in for a treat. Dean and Janey live down the street from lead actor Robert
Lindsay's dad Norman! I waved hello to Robert Lindsay's dad, he looked very confused and went back in his house.
Janey and Dean took me back to their very cute little house and made me sammiches and tea. This is where I become a full fledged fan of British Tea. I must have drank 30 cups (it felt like!) of delicious tea. Two sugars. Big steaming mug. Delicous. I also loved how we all stood around and Jane and Dean rolled their own cigarettes! It was definately an "Oh Snap" moment, and I almost started to miss my grandpa a bit. I only see people roll their own when I'm visiting relatives down South. I met her oldest son Liam, who showed me his coin collection, and even had a US dollar that he was very proud to show me. I sent him a $5 in the goody box I sent them when I got home. Janey wanted to show me the town and I was very excited to go!
Ilkeston like all of England, is very green and quaint. Janey and I did what all girls like to do: went shopping. She needed to return a shirt and I was in the mood to find some flip-flops. Janey found what she wanted, I didn't but I got some gummy bears out of the deal! (or jelly babies, I won't be particular) Ooh! I also got some cheap socks out of this sporting goods store that was going out of business. Janey then presented me with a Union Flag thong, in honor of
England (which she suggested I wear to Flib's house --cheeky!). On the way back I saw this giant courgette (zucchini)
that I wanted to bring home to show to everyone, but alas, I know customs wouldn't have let me back with it. :(
We went back to Janey's for more tea and to decide on what we wanted for dinner. They had an awesome stovetop at their house that I was itching to cook on, but remembering that I was on vacation, I held myself back. We called Dead and made him decide for us, while we drank tea and watched "My Family".
They have the cutest dog, called Frodo and he really is sweet. He likes chocolate (!) so I was feeding him Minstrel's while we watched TV.
Dean came home as did Jane's youngest, Drew. Nanny (Jane's mom) came over and off we went to The Festival Inn for dinner. It's like a gastropub, but more family oriented. It was a lot of fun, especially when it rained! Real rain, not So. Cal drizzle. I mean thunder and lightening and the kids were laughing at me so hard over the expression on my face when it started! We went back home after dinner and popped in Doctor Who and drank tea and it was a very, very chill night. The next day I would be off to Newcastle and to Flib's and then back home. I didn't want it to end.
Thanks Jane, Dean, Liam and Drew!
I guess it's been taking me so long to tell everyone about my trip because life happened. Or is happening. It's coming up on my favorite and busiest time of the year and I feel like I'm being pulled in 15 million directions. Also because I don't think anyone cares too much about my trip; when I came home-- well I couldn't really get anyone to listen to me. They had that vacant stare- you know what I mean, because you do it to your friends too. Anyhow, I guess the entries are more for my own amusement and I'll get them up there when I get damn time.
In any case, I went out and bought my CLEP book so I can prepare to study and test out of some courses. I didn't do my homework for this next course (but I will! Researching now!) starting Tuesday. I'm so excited! It's more exciting now because I have a definate goal in mind so I am extremely motivated. If you don't see me for a long time, just look under the pile of papers.
Is it bad that the highlight of my week has been my retractable Sharpies? I love Sharpies.
I also have some very interesting news regarding business stuff...but I want to wait for it to be definate before I really say anything.
over and out.
Yes. London was blast and I had a fantastic time. But it was off to the real reason why I came over.
Victoria's wedding. And visiting people.
First stop after the wedding was town called Skelmersdale, outside of another town called Wigan, closely identified by a town called Liverpool.
But the wedding.
The wedding was held in Windsor and I felt a little funny wearing all black to wedding being held ta 2:30 in the afternoon, but hey. The British rail system was really easy to get around once I learned how to read the signs. Windsor is only about half an hour away by train, so I was extremely early to the wedding. I mean, I got there at 12:30pm and the wedding didn't start until 2:30pm! So I hung out with the little old ladies who wanted to take me through Eton College (which I had driven through on the way to the church) and Windsor Castle. They settled for taking me to the best place to get a photo of Windsor Castle from afar.
In short, the wedding was small but beautiful. We had to sing hymns - which were unlike anything I had ever heard before- and we were off to the reception. Victoria's family is hilarious and they all took very good care of me. It was all really good times. If I had known what to expect when I got to Mark's -- I probably would have just stayed at the hotel.
The train ride was about 4 hours and on my way, I learned some valuable lessons like:
2. Charge iPod battery before hand, so it lasts entire trip.
3. Never piss off a girl from Manchester. Not only will she beat the shit out of you, she'll probably fuck the guy you're with afterwards.
I met quite a few interesting characters on the train when the iPod battery went out. There was one particular gentleman who kept offering me some Stella from an empty can. He was very sweet though and kept me company into Wigan.
Wigan and its sister town Skelmersdale - where Mark lived - were full of fucking roundabouts. Roundabouts that make you get incredibly nauseous when taken at high speeds, in a little Citroen C2.
Mark's house was filled with my two worst fucking fears: a filthy toilet and spiders. I slept in full body armour that night: socks, pants tucked into socks, a t-shirt and a hoodie. You know that saying how we eat 7 spiders per year on average? I think I hit that quota. And then some. Even the kick ass 50" TV couldn't distract from the fact that there were spiders EVERYWHERE. boo hiss.
The next day - I slept until 1pm in the afternoon. Mostly because I was tired and mostly because I had stayed up until 3am because I was scared to go to sleep. Took a shower (here's where the toilet comes in) and we went out. I had to get a backpack to stick my very sexy new shoes in and lighten the load in my suitcase and purse. We met up with Mark's friend Andrew and his very, um interesting girlfriend for bowling, the pub and some snooker (I suck). Then we went out for bad chinese, home for bed and I was ready to get the fuck out of there.
But it really was a nice town to visit. Here's picture of one of its nicer places, and something I thought was cool. Photo courtesy of Mark's cellphone (thanks Mark!):
On my second and last day in London, I was all set to visit some friends and Le Cordon Bleu. Got up early, fought with the shower and afterwards ate a lovely breakfast prepared by Mr. Cook. Only I was so nervous about being in the city all by myself that I could barely eat.
Luckily, the keen taxi hailing skillz developed in NYC were still in full effect... got me a taxi driver who was pretty kickass! Although we did get lost because I kept saying Marylebone Street instead of Marylebone Lane...there is a difference you see. He was a very nice taxi driver and dropped me off right in front of Le Cordon Bleu. As typical with me, I was 20 min early but instead of letting me chill in the nice warm lobby, the receptionist kicked me out to the coffee shop across the street. I took full opportunity to walk around the area, there's a lot of cute shops and what not there and the coffee shop had damned good coffee. More people made fun of my accent, so I decided to stfu.
Le Cordon Bleu. What can I say? There's a large lecture class of about 40 students (which in a cooking school, is actuallly quite a bit of students) and I was freaked out at first. Then Mr. O'Leary showed me around the school and further explained to me that after the lecture the class is broken up into groups of 10 to 1 chef. I just about wet my pants in happiness. He took me around to see the intermediate classes and they culinary level was doing sommat with fish and the patisserie level were doing sugar sculptures. LIEK WHOA! I was very excited and encouraged, and it helped to see that a lot of the students there were from America. I couldn't bombard them with questions like I wanted to. Then Mr. O'Leary made more fun of my accent, gave me a bunch of stuff and sent me on my way.
Maybe it was the clear blue sky, or maybe it was the bag off Minstrels I had on my way to Harrod's. Somewhere between my $24 ramen noodle bowl and Marks and Sparks (Target has NOTHING on them) I decided that I had found where I would like to spend a year of my life. Yes, I know its going to be hard, scary and lonely but I decided to move to London. Which is why as soon as I am done getting my business degree at UOP, I am going to Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute.
I'm outta here.
Finally bought my towel and grabbed dinner at a creperie before turning in early (again! I know! what a loser). Ever had chicken tikka masala in a crepe? It's delicious. Followed my a dessert crepe and packaged in convienient little containers to eat as you go. London? It's definately a good thing.
London Heathrow! Yay!
Met up with the lovely Simon (and found my little old lady again!) and we tried to figure out the Tube. At first glance, the Tube is really confusing - or it could have been that I was spazzed out to the nth degree-- I WAS IN FUCKING ENGLAND!!!- but on second glance, it's really really easier. It's all colour coded! Dead easy, and although I did have access to the Heathrow Express, Simon didn't and it's quite expensive. So we splashed out and took the Tube directly from Heathrow to SoHo, where I was staying.
Now I don't have any pictures of the FANTABULOUS SoHo, but here's one I found on the net.
So on the tiny little corner where my B&B was, there was a bookstore on one end and a seedy sex shop on the other. Then directly across from the B&B was on of their police bulletin signs, which I found really interesting. Well the fact that the Police there post bulletins half my size asking for witnesses to a "violent sex crime that took place Sept. 5th involving three men and one lady...if there are any witnesses to this serious crime please come forward" followed by a number. Simon took one look at me and said "Be indoors by 7pm every night. I'm dead serious." Me? I was already thinking of finding another place to stay.
But we got to the B&B and Mr. Cook let us up. Turns out Mr. Cook is a very sweet old man with a very nice garden. I'll post the pictures up as soon as I can get figure out how my scanner works.
Mr. Cook was very nice, showed me around the flat and gave me my very own set of keys to come and go as I pleased. I decided to take a shower and get cleaned up, since a) I had travel crotch, and travel crotch is never good and b) my hair and swelled to double its normal size. I gave Simon the task of hooking up my electricals and went off to take a hand-held shower. From now on I will never bitch/moan about my shower head, how it sometimes loses pressure or gets calcium or whatever on it. That is better than trying to shower whilst actually holding the shower head. Gigantic pain in the ass, not to mention it's hard to wash out shampoo. After the difficult shower got out and dressed and went out into the lovely London afternoon.
I quickly discovered that I could pretty much walk wherever I wanted, we took a trip up to Buckingham Palace to stop in and see the Queen.
The saddest part of the day was putting Simon on the Tube back home. I was all set to meet up with other friends the next day, and visiting Le Cordon Bleu. He couldn't stay and I couldn't go, so with a hug and a kiss I sent him off. It was still early, so I figured I'd do some shopping. Now, I bitch and moan that everything closes by 9pm so I was really pissed when I found out that everything there closed between 5 and 6pm. So I grabbed some of the best gelato I'd ever eaten (pistachio, naturally) grabbed a drink from Tesco and parked it in Trafalgar Square to be amongst the pigeons. Ew. They were cleaning the statues, and as I walked by that one totally got sprayed with water. Don't worry, this isn't the story about the pigeon poo yet.
It was time to go to bed.
Went into my lovely little bedroom got my things ready for the next day, as I wasn't sure how far away I was from the school and I didn't know when the jet lag would hit me, so I wanted to go to bed early. Got into a nice sleep, and at 2am GMT my mother decides to call. And have a conversation. Boo.
Months and Months of waiting and finally, September 5th came along.
Everything that could go wrong on that day, did. It was a good thing I didn't fly out until the 6th.
First things first: on tuesday night I had class. I had finally washed about 3 weeks worth of laundry to be packed up and taken with me. However, the toilet decided to overflow and flood the living room, JJ's room and the downstairs apartment.
Oh yeah, it also flooded my room. And everything that was on the floor.
Everything? You ask.
My clothes, my suitcase, camera bag, travel purse, passport, e-ticket and every other little piece of paper, item I had planned to bring. Soaked through.
So at 11pm I had to wash all my clothes again, and attempt to dry things out before I had to be up 6am for my flight. I finally sit the sack at 3am, which was good because I wanted to sleep the entire flight over there.
Not so.
Woke up at 6am with all my brightly colored suitcases (a steal at Target. LOVE Tarjay!) and my Pelican super-camera case and we was on the road. Mom was supposed to drive me to LAX, but I some how mysteriously found myself in the drivers seat. Driving. Half asleep. While Mom was asleep next to me. Do you have any idea how hard it is to drive when you're sleepy and someone next to you is asleep? Damn near difficult.
Keep in mind, my flight didn't actually leave until 3:30pm. But with traffic both here in S.D. and L.A., the current security situation and the fact that we wanted to stuff our faces at Sonic before I got on the plane. My mom and I kept calling it my last meal, since I'm horribly fatalistic and kept thinking that the plane was going to crash. (BTW Sonic's Peach Smoothie? Awesome.)
Got to LAX alright. We met this little old lady who was on her way to London as well, and she promised that I would love it. My mom started telling her how nervous she was about letting me go, and the little old lady promised to watch over me on the plane. Mom had a very hard time leaving me, but after I checked in my things and walked her back to the car, she was ok. I just have to say LAX is the armpit of hell of airports, and Wolfgang Puck is pure evil.
I am adding Virgin Atlantic to the list of airlines that I will only fly on from now on. The cabin crew were extremely friendly, and they fed you a lot!! I think I ate the most food on the plane than I did all of England. 10 1/2 hours is a very long time, which I passed by watching some fliks (Thank You for Smoking, Failure to Launch, The Wind that Shakes the Barley), listening to some music, and sleeping despite being sat directly across from a 1 year old child. My seatmates were Dutch, and got up a lot. Since I was sitting on the aisle seat I expected that, but they were nice and slept when I did, so I can't really complain. Is it bad that my highlight of the plane trip was that we flew over Greenland? I thought that was so dope.
When we were about to land, the plane banked down and since the window was finally opened I got to see my first aerial view of England. It's green! No really it's green and all the fields were pretty and looked all patchworked, like a quilt. My Dutch seatmates and I were ooh-ing and ahh-ing, and they turned to me and said in the most perfect English I'd ever heard "is this your first time to England?" I was so shocked because we had been doing hand signals the entire flight over! They didn't think I spoke English and vise versa. It was weird, but they were very nice and since I can't reach the overhead compartment, they got my stuff down. Very nice, the Dutch :P
BTW the little old lady found me midway on the flight and gave me a big hug, she was just checking on me :)
Got off the flight and breezed through Passport control, and was very excited to get my first of many stamps. In fact they probably thought I was crazy because I started grinning like an idiot. Walked right through customs (is it bad that there was no one in customs?) and picked up my luggage and met my friend Simon from Travisonline.com to go into London. I made it.
(And that is where this is going to stop kids. Next post is about my days in London. Fantastic!)
my camera blows.
I've got three pictures of the total trip. Two of Mr. Cook, owner of the B&B I stayed in. One of Mr. Cook's garden.
In any case.
When my body has adjusted, I shall give a full report in parts. I'm very, very sad about the piccie situation though.
Guess that means I'll just have to go back and try again :)
