Southern England and London Day 1

So we came to England – over on the ferry from Dunkirk, seeing the cliffs of dover on the way in – I thought they were just like our cliffs on the great ocean road except white. But they were ok I guess. We went up to the lookout and had a small walk around there. There weren’t many people there. We then drove to Tunbridge wells, and met our host kwok – born and bred in England and showed us around there. On our first night we met someone that was from northern england, her accent was clearly different, but not difficult to understand. We went to watch England play against Montenegro in the football(soccer) and watched the pub go crazy as they squandered a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2. Amusing.

The next day we were trying to work out what was best to do, it is hard to plan places to go in a country that costs a lot of money – eg: 16 pounds to get into a castle that you might not even like, and other gardens that might be nice to see – but cost over 12 pounds also. So a good couple of hours were spent trying to work out what we were going to do. We ended up going to Brighton, and seeing the Brighton Pier, which was like luna park in Melbourne, but on a Pier. Free entry and then what you buy/go on rides you paid for yourself. We played a couple of mini gambling machines for 1 pound (2 pence per go) for about 30 mins, cost us a pound each – which was good entertainment/fun and then we went to look at the pavilion in Brighton – which according to Kwok was an indian style medical hospital in the war times. Interesting.

At this point the cold that I was starting to get in Boxmeer was well and truly set in, and I was feeling miserable. Kwok was really nice, he cooked us almost every meal we ate while we were there, which was so cool. Spanish chicken, breakfast of beans and toast and eggs, Spaghetti marinara, toasted sandwiches and so on. We had some fish and chips the last night we were there which was so interesting “Mushy Peas” what the hell? Pea fritter? Do we have this in Australia? I had never seen it, and they didn’t know what a dim sim was, and no potato cakes! Strange.

Ever wondered what the 'home of fish and chips sell'

The second day I didn’t feel like going anywhere, and the guys didn’t need any convincing either and we stayed indoors, and tried to come up with a plan or what to do and where to stay in the UK. For 3-4 hours we worked on things to see, and finally came up with a basic itinerary for our month – clearly not going to put it on here, but if you would like it – send me an email. Couch surfing has been good, but finding a host is becoming increasingly difficult as its’ popularity  increases, add to that the fact that there is 3 of us, and we quickly get less replies then answers of ‘no’ which is so disheartening when I spend at least 15 mins sending 1 request. To put it in perspective,  in boxmeer I sent 12 to London, 2 to south east England, 5 to central England and 3 to Northern England, and I received 4 replies – all with ‘sorry I can’t’ or similar, and 1 yes. With a hit rate of 20% for at least an answer, it is quite frustrating. It is any wonder people get annoyed at people ‘spamming’ and sending out 200 requests in 10 minutes.

The abby

So our next destination was London, and organised a hostel to stay at after a long search to find a place (everything was booked out almost) but I am looking forward to the next few weeks as I am almost over my cold as we know what we are going to see, and Ireland and Scotland are much less populated. ( so I hear). I forgot to mention that the traffic and parking in England is crazy. We have been all over Europe so far – and nowhere has it been like this, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and other places have nothing on how crazy the car parking is where we have been in England so far.

We arrived at our hostel – run by some polite Indians in nothernfields – about 30 minutes away from the center of London on the tube. The hostel man tried to con us by charging us almost 95 more pounds cause he thought we didn't book on the internet. Quite quickly we fixed the problem :)  

We rolled into the city on the tube - and to my amazement as the train rolled into the station - I commented "Where is the rest of the train?" I was shocked to notice that the trains were much narrower than the trains in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Brussels, Stockholm - or anywhere else that we have been... What is going on London?  I'm sure I will get around to looking it up.

So we got on a packed train on sunday afternoon... my goodness it was sunday afternoon!! Crazy. Tomorrow we are going to try and get on during rush hour.... Wish us luck!!!

Big ben and something else...

We walked around London! Wow, what an experience. I like the city - apart from the fact that rent is 2000 a month for a small apartment (that is pounds) and parking is almost impossible, the trains are overcrowded and things are horribly expensive, but the city itself seems to be wrapped in history and bursting to provide you with entertainment. We walked to Trafalgar Square (let down a little - I thought it was going to be better) - I took 20 mins to see some Leonardo paintings in the Gallary, we then walked through the St James park, then to Buckingham palace, then to Big Ben and Westminster Abby and then to leischester square to see the crazy busy theater hawkers etc. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon - even though we didn't go into anywhere, cause we are buying a London card, and it goes for 3 days - we will get our money worth (it is 64 pounds) and we will see how much value we get out of it (we think at least 100).

We came back on the tube... and then had some cheap Kabab food, and then back to our hostel where a fight with the internet broke out - so so slow, and so temperamental - but we managed to book a few things, and work them all out for the next few days. I will try to get some pictures in, but I don't know how I will go with this internet.

Look how much food we got

Anyway - pretty much over my cold now, so a run tomorrow might be on the cards.

later later!!