Roadtrippin' UK

As this may be my last blog before I get home, I'll try and keep it short and sweet. Matt and I headed up to Newcastle to see their football club play against Sunderland, their crosstown rival. Now, keep in mind that its pretty much winter here, if not officially, my internal temperature gauge says so, and about two hours out of Newbury (and headed North!) I sat up and gasped, 'I left my peacoat at home!' Unfortunately that was my only winter coat and I was out of luck unless I wanted to buy a new one, which I didn't. Luckily, I pack like any girl would, and I had more than enough long sleeve shirts, cardigans, hoodies and such to make sure I had on at least 5 layers. Anyway, we made it up to Newcastle and spent an hour driving around the city trying to find a car park at a hotel of which we had no address, so after countless phone calls and passing one way streets we couldn't go down (sat nav has no idea about one ways) we made it. We chucked down our stuff in the hostel and went to get Matt a new Newcastle team shirt with his favorite player's name and number on the back and to watch another football game on the telly at a pub.

Next day we got up early, (I wore tights, knee-high baseball socks, jeans, a long sleeve tshirt, a thicker long sleeve shirt and a hoodie), and headed down to the Tyne to see the bridges and a bit of town. Then we went to a pub for some cheeky pre-game pints. At approximately 1130a, barely round the side of a building I saw another Newcastle fan chundering all over the ground, and on an already large puddle of his barf. Ya gotta love hardcore football fans! I've never been to an English football game, or any football game of any importance (well, except my great childhood games, of course) so it was really exciting to see the stadium and be in the atmosphere of these fans. It was electric! People were so pumped up and Sunderland was above Newcastle in the standings, and being rivals it was of utmost importance that we give them a right a** whooping. Our seats were AMAZING! At just about the 18 yard line (the bigger box around the goal) and 2nd row back. I could literally see individual pieces of grass. And being my first football game I was so stoked at our location. We were also next to the season ticket holders, aka the rowdy crowd doing all the yelling and such at the games. If you didn't hear, which you probably didn't, Newcastle won 5-1, with one player getting a hat trick. And the best part, well, not the best but always a treat, was a streaker! It certainly made my game! Oh, and this precious little nugget was 'warming up' the goalie by kicking balls at him and every time he scored he was such a ham!



After the game we continued North, yay no peacoat!, up to Edinburgh, Scotland. A friend of mine, Liz, from back home is working and living in Glasgow for a couple of years so she caught the train over and met Matt and I for a few cocktails out in Edinburgh the first night.

 The next day we went on a free walking tour of the city for three and a half hours. It was actually a really good tour, even though I was wearing the same amount of layers plus a scarf, hat, and my raincoat, and the guide was very knowledgable and friendly. We learned about the Mercat Cross, the site of punishments and proclamations; Maggie Dickinson, a Scottish woman who was hung til she was dead and on the trip back to her home town a few miles down the road she came alive and wasn't punished again since she technically had already been hung until dead which was her punishment; Burke and Hare, two men who lured people to a boarding house to kill them and make a profit selling their dead bodies; Greyfriar's Kirkyard where they buried a policeman and from that day his little dog held a vigil over his grave until the dog himself died; and Deacon Brodie, a deacon and cabinetmaker who stole from his customers with copies of their house keys, ended up being asked to head the search for himself, and later was found out and jailed.

Next day we did the tour of Edinburgh Castle, checking out the Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny (a large sandstone block that the King/Queen put their feet on during their coronation). At one in the afternoon we witnessed the setting off of a canon that they used back in the day.

After the castle we headed a bit more North to Kinross and Dollar, the small town from where our surname comes. We attempted to see another castle but since it was on an island in the middle of a loch, it was closed for the winter. Instead we stopped in Dollar for a bit, went to a really cute little tea shop where we got some 'tea for one' in a presh little teapot and some scones with jam. Delish!

 Unfortunately its not a tourist-y town and I couldn't purchase anything with the name Dollar on it but I did get some snaps. Small but quaint little town.

We spent the night in Stirling and went to the Stirling Castle and the William Wallace monument.

Stirling is the small city near where William Wallace and Robert the Bruce won an important battle during the War of Scottish Independence against the English on the Stirling Bridge spanning the River Forth near Bannockburn. Historically it was the gateway to the Highlands from the Lowlands and thus an important place for the Scottish to have control. Stirling Castle was also the site of many battles during this time.

The end of our trip took us to Leeds and Birmingham to meet up with some friends from Australia. Being back home after a 5-day, 1000-mile trip felt REALLY good. Oh! On the way back, we stopped for petrol and there was this massive swan at the petrol station. It came up to my window and gave me a good looking-at before it went and bothered another customer. I kept expecting it to peck the window or attack me but it just chilled and then peaced out. Kinda cool!

I digress. That's it for the adventure. We had a blast and hit the ground running when we got back making preparations to leave again. T-minus 4 days. South East Asia here we come! Love to all! xx





Newbury Plus

Hello, again. Been in Newbury for about 6 weeks now and have decided to finally update you on what I've been doing. I'm sure most of you know I've been living with Matt and his family (mom, dad and brother, Andy), in Newbury, since I got here. It's really great, and I'm so fortunate that his parents have let me stay here. Their house is lovely and their garden (NOT yard) out back is very pretty as well. They have a rabbit, 3 chickens, apple trees, coi pond, a hot tub and a small vegetable garden.

                                   (Matt's room is the top right)

The first weekend after I got here Matt's mom, Sarah, had her family over for a bbq. I met all of them. It was quite overwhelming, but they were all curious who I was after hearing some girl was coming to Newbury to stay there with Matt. I volunteered to help Sarah bake before the bbq to take some stress off her to get everything done before the day. As I wasn't used to the measurements here, or their fancy (and celcius) oven, I created some cupcakes that I was utterly mortified of. I think you all know I LOVE to bake and haven't had anything come out wrong in AGES. Luckily Matt came home for lunch the day I was baking and set me straight. AND, to make things worse, I knew his mom baked wedding cakes (WEDDING CAKES!!) and I (having talked about loving to bake) had produced something to the effect of cupcake turds. They were the tiniest little things you've ever seen, and definitely not baked all the way through. (sigh)

My second batch turned out...better than the first ones but not by much. :(  Not such a great success as I had imagined. 

I'm pretty sure she'll never ask me to help her again, but I think that's ok with me. I didn't take a snap of them, but recently I made some scones and they turned out lovely. So there. 

The Newbury Rugby Club where Matt also works nights and weekends and where his friends play rugby together.

I have been lucky enough to have met some of the WAGS of Matt's friends. (Wives and Girlfriends....tho, no wives yet, that I know of, but that's what they call us). They're really great and were REALLY welcoming when I met them all. I met Woosie (that's her last name, couldn't tell you her first but that's what they call her) that first weekend of Matt's mom's bbq and she gave me a great big hug and said, oh its so nice to finally meet you. I really like her. Vanesa, Sam, Nikki and Robin I met at a drinks get-together one night soon after I got there. That night Nikki invited me to a burger-and-beer night with her, Woosie and Vanesa. It was really great to be included as I'm so far from home and haven't had a lot of girl contact like this since I left! Matt and I did go on a 'booze train' outing with two other couples, Phil (Simbo) and Nikki, and Chewy (his first name escapes me at the moment) and his girlfriend Hetty (they call her Hefty...so mean). We bought tickets on the train that runs through Newbury and on (might be the one that goes all the way to London) and at every stop we got off and went to the local pub near the station. It was really fun. 

The other night I was also invited to Vanesa's with Woosie for a chat/snack sesh. So nice to have some girls to talk to. Matt 24/7 is nice and all, but its nice to be able to whinge to someone about how annoying something is and have them agree. Woosie's good for that. We seem to be a lot alike.

One of the first places we went to on a weekend off was to Stonehenge. Not as amazing as I thought it would be, but still amazing enough. You can't get within, say, 30 feet of it (and I understand why) but still woulda been nice to see it more up close.

Then we headed down to Southampton for an overnight and then Portsmouth. Southampton had an enourmous shopping mall with a massive H&M (clothing store) where I bought a super-cute coat (as it's practically winter weather here for me). In the morning we headed to Portsmouth to the Gunwharf Quays where there are ships you can go see and the Spinnaker Tower. We had a nice lunch out on a patio of a restaurant, then walked around to the Dockyard to see some of the ships. 

On the way down to Portsmouth we stopped to see the Salisbury Cathedral. Pretty impressive.

A few weekends after that we headed down to Bath on a Saturday night after Matt got off work and stayed with his aunt Sue and uncle Phillip who live near there. They were nice enough to take us out to dinner at a pub near a lock and Sue was helpful and picked us up some pamphlets on Bath for the next day. She even cooked us an English breakfast the next morning and lent me two books, one on Buddhism (!). Bath was such a cute little town. I loved it. We decided on a free walking tour given by the Mayor's fully-trained honorary guides. The best part is that they don't expect tips/gratuities so you're not left at the end feeling uncomfortable about the amount you should give them. And our guide was really knowledgable, enthusiastic and interesting. The tour was two hours and took us through the Royal Crescent, the King's Circus (a circular street of connected houses), the Queen's Square, the Assembly Rooms,  and our guide told us about Jane Austen, who lived here for a time, and some other stuff. 

  ( The Royal Crescent, a residential road of 30 houses, in a crescent shape (duh). The homes have housed some notable people over the last 200 years.)

    (The Assembly Rooms, a gathering place for members of the higher social classes for events such as masquerade balls, public concerts and assemblies. Note the pig to the right of the doors. The lions are the second creation to be sold at auction, the pigs, having been inspired by King Bladud's pigs, the first. More on him and the pigs/lions later.)

                                                  (Bath Abbey)

Matt and I also went and saw the Roman Baths (not included in the tour) but an amazing thing to see as well.The Roman Baths are below the modern street level. There are four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century. You're not allowed to go in them, but in true boy-fashion, Matt just HAD to dip his toe in, not once, but twice. Supposedly, the British King Bladud discovered these springs in 836 BC and claimed the spring cured him and his pigs of leprosy. The Great Bath is the main bath and its massive...and really green. 

    (The Sacred Spring...where the water bubbles up first...can you see it?)

                                           (The Great Bath)

Walking around Bath was really great. The architecture of the buildings is amazing, as are the little shops tucked in. I particularly like the way England does the pub. I love the way they decorate the front, with a nice sign (with a GREAT name!) and flowers hanging. Its lovely. 

               (Just a view down a street during our walking tour)

(There are a collection of 100 individually decorated lions around Bath. They'll be sold at a charity auction.)

(This is a small tea house that was suggested to us...it had neither scones or tea, both of which we were really looking forward to. Nice enough tho.)

Just this last weekend we went to London to see Matt's brother, Simon, and do some errands whilst there. It only took a little over an hour to get there, even though the motorway was closed and re-routed us through back streets. Simon lives in East London near the Thames. His flat looks out over it. We, unfortunately, didn't go for sightseeing, but we did do a lot of walking, heading first to West London to the Thai Embassy to put in our application for our Thai visas. We had to give up our passports which made both of us nervous. We won't know if we got them until Simon picks them up sometime when he gets some free time. Then we walked from there through Hyde Park and up to Oxford street where I picked up a purse I'd been eyeing and hemming and hawing about for some time, and then off to sell this gaudy ring I found in the ocean on Whitehaven beach in the Whitsunday Islands in Oz. We figured whatever we got for it could be used to get dinner and drinks for the night for the three of us. 

        (Bet you'll never guess how much we got for it? £65. Yep. And the exchange rate is a little over 1.5...so almost a hundo. Sweet! And incidentally, it did pay for food and drinks all night. Perf!...I bet it came from a fat, hairy, sweaty Italian guy who happened to accidentally chuck it off his yacht...sucker)

   (Down the river from where Simon lives. We walked along this to a Saturday market for breakfast.)

 

(Matt and I in Hyde Park. Bad weather. :(  )

                                            (Heck yes!!)

  ( I think we did this because we're 'old'...and check out my previously purchased awesome winter coat...so cute!)

Anyway, this must have been the longest blog I've written yet. Sorry for that. But I wanted to keep a record of what I've done since I got here and this is it. Seems like a lot, eh? Hope everyone's well, Matt and I will be getting things together until Thailand on November 15th. Peace out!  xx

Cairns, Queensland and Beyond

Well, hey, its been a hot minute but I'm back with some more AMAZING blogging for you. :) 

Last I wrote I was starting work in Cairns. It happened to be at The Courthouse Hotel (NOT a hotel, though) and I was meant to be bartending. It worked out ok. And not to be a chooser, you know how that goes, but I really hated 'sprooking'. That's where they send you out front of the bar on the sidewalk, with menus for the restaurant (when did I sign up for restaurant work again??) and make you talk to EVERY person who walks by, offering dinner or letting them know happy hour was on or whatever dinner was on special that specific night....blah blah blah. Now, if you don't know me, I'd have to say I'm not a big people person. Don't get me wrong, I like people, I just am not a sales person type person. Thus, I HATE approaching people offering something that they could come looking for if they really wanted it in the first place. And I'm not a pusher. If someone says no I'm like, yeah ok. I wouldn't want someone in my face. Probably because that would make me want whatever they had even less. Am I wrong? No, I don't think I am. Anyway, some things I did notice while sprooking that kept me entertained for those 4 hours (and the longest 4 hours of my life!!): there's a large group of bats that come out around 7p (sprooking starts at 5p) that fly overhead to wherever they're going to eat/sleep. And by large I mean both a big group and that the bat is larger than any I've seen in California. They're pretty amazing to watch fly overhead. Now, the Courthouse also has a massive outdoor beer garden where we have a massive screen where we play music videos (and on Thursdays Wii games). Another thing to keep me entertained was watching the couple of aboriginals dancing to the music on the large divider in the middle of the street. I happened to sprook for a few thursdays in a row and they were always there. They could cut a mean rug too. I might just steal some of those dance moves for the future. A short while before the bats came out there'd come the rainbow lorikeets. Gorgeous multi-colored birds flocking to their sleeping tree on the Esplanade. More on the esplanade later. Anyway, they'd come flying over in packs of 10 or so screeching and bobbing and weaving. The only other two things to keep me from pulling my hair out was the ABC license plate game (going thru the alphabet on the license plates that drove by) and seeing how many of the Asian tourists that came by would nod back at me if I nodded at them. Certainly more than ever returned my greeting or came in to the restaurant. But that's neither here nor there. The days I wasn't sprooking I was working behind the bar, getting people 'a beer' when they requested it and cleaning incessantly. Got paid well, and it covered my housing and food and anything else I wanted to do so it all worked out in the end.

About a week after getting to Cairns, I got said job at the Courthouse, and then managed to find a share-house that had 5 other girls in it to live in. It was a good 20 minute walk out of town, and thru a small shady neighborhood, but it was really nice and cheaper than staying in a hostel for the duration of my stay. The other girls also worked so it wasn't a party house, which was really nice. They were Aki, a really nice, quiet Asian girl who took care of the spoiled house cat, Tina; Alex, from New Zealand; Pamela from Switzerland; Theresa from Germany and her always-there boyfriend Stefan; and Jenna, I think she was Aussie but she walked, I mean, stomped around the house all the time making a racket. Luckily she was almost always at her bf's house so I never really saw her. The owners Shane and Tanya lived next door so that was kind of cool. 

He replaced our massive tv with a flat screen, mowed our lawn, did repairs to the house and we could borrow DVDs as well. My room was a good size with a full-size bed. The house had a nice big shower, overflowing with girl products of course, and a washer and dryer, which is almost unheard of around here. I walked home from work every night, thru the shady neighborhood, but was very cautious and careful so it turned out ok. 

Cairns has an esplanade. It goes along the waterfront. Can't call it a beach because its mud and you can't go in it, I think because of crocs, and the water receeds about 300 yards daily. So instead they have a lagoon which was being renovated until a few weeks after I got there. It is surrounded by grass which is nice for a sunbake and is pushed up on the water's edge so is a nice view out across the water when it's around. I had many a sunbakes there with Paul, my English friend who was working in Cairns too, and whichever friends were in town who were traveling through Cairns at the moment. We'd sunbake and play cards, get 50 cent McDonald's ice cream cones and just laze around all day.

The Esplanade also had a small street with the grass and water on one side and shops on the other. The Night Markets were there, which were open from 4-12p nightly and where you could find any little souvenir you desired. I really enjoyed going to Rusty's Markets on the weekends for fresh (cheap!) produce. I'd buy kiwis (my new favorite fruit), Pink Lady apples, oranges, pineapples, stir fry vegetables, 'fancy' lettuce (as the sign said) and anything else I fancied eating that week. 

Paul and I made time to go to Cape Tribulation/Mossman Gorge, Kuranda and snorkeling/diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Kuranda is a small little town in the mountains about a 20 minute drive and 30 minute skyrail trip away. We took the Scenic Railway back. We got to go to the Koala Sanctuary where I FINALLY got to see some crocs, Koalas (so freaking cute!) and I even got to feed some kangaroos. Lazy fellows, but I would be too if people approached me with food all day! 

There's not much to do in Kuranda but its beautiful and has a few markets you can go to for souvenirs. The train back was ok. Unfortunately I was put in the middle of the car and was facing backwards so I couldn't see much. The window nearest me faced the mountain wall so I pretty much napped on the way back...mostly so I didn't barf from going in reverse. 

Snorkeling and diving was one of the best things I did in Oz. Of course the day we went it was SUPER windy so the boat ride out there I was sat with the other sea-sick kids outside at the back of the boat with my barf bag.

Then when we got to the reef we did the free intro dive first. It was so crazy. With my minimal asthma it freaked me out at first breathing thru the regulator. But I told myself to breathe deep and stay calm and it worked out amazingly! I can't wait to get certified in Thailand. After that I sat in the boat being really seasick while Paul snorkeled. I decided I paid for the trip so I'd snorkel once more before we left and I was really glad I did. I got to see some rainbow fish and all kinds of other really cool fish and coral. It was kind of scary looking down where the coral ended and seeing nothing below. Freaky! Since it was still really windy the ocean was like stewing and wavy and angry. Made it really hard to get around.

It's not that I didn't enjoy my time in Cairns but I had to make a decision. The job wasn't ideal, I may or may not have kicked up some drama between the managers and ended up paying the price for it which ended up in job dissatisfaction. It got better in the end but I was really missing having close friends (Paul was the only one I had! even though I met lots of people in and out of work) so it was either stay there in Cairns working at my job I was not particularly liking and waiting until mid-October to go to SE Asia or go to England and be with a great Englishman I met traveling in Oz, and stay with him until we went to SE Asia together. My lovely mother helped me make the (obvious) decision, so in the last week I've moved out, quit my job and moved temporarily to England. It's been amazing so far. Living with Matt's parents has been great, they're lovely.  I have also met his group of friends and been invited this very night to a burger and beer dinner with the girls. Something I've been missing since I left CA....the girl time, not the burgers and beer. :)