I've Been Bad, Haven't I?

I haven't blogged for a month and a half as many of you have noticed (and then reported back to me). I apologise for that. I'm shifting the blame onto the fact that it took so long to get internet in this house and the internet cafes in this area are painful.

Rather than trying to catch up everything chronologically I'm just going to start blogging things as I feel (haphazardly). Both from the computer (retrospectively) and from my phone (instantly). I'll start tonight from the Björk gig I'm going at Hammersmith Apollo. It's been confirmed that Tounami Diabaté will be playing with her tonight. I've also read that the London gigs are being filmed for DVD but that's probably bullshit.

Peter is adamant that he wants to get to the front so it's 3.30pm right now and we're about to head out to Hammersmith on the tube :S

Sweden Catchup

So the blogging in Sweden started out alright and then collapsed. Sorry guys! I'll now try and give a quick overview of what I got up to.

On my first (full) day I met up with an old school friend, Jakob, at Hagakyrkan (a church) and went to his university's cafeteria for lunch. I ate a baguette with some sort of Swedish shrimp mornay (I don't even know what mornay is) for which I was left pining for for the rest of my trip. Yum! I mentioned to Jakob my quest to replace my beloved, and lost, Cheap Mondays (Swedish Jeans) and so he took me straight to the source, a shop called Weekdays where I found exactly what I was looking for for 400sek. We then had a expensive (but good) coffee (okay, it was actually mocha and hot chocolate) at a fair trade cafe, where Jakob helped me with my first Swedish practice - Jag tar Moccha, Tack.

That night an Icelandic band of which I had heard of but not heard called 'Benni Hemm Hemm' were playing at Pustervik (not far from my backpackers). I'm rarely won over by bands just from live shows but I would describe them as 'amazing'. I even bought a t-shirt, whoa! One of the guys from the band informed me that he was touring Australia with Mum later this year. Oh, I should also mention that it was at Pustervik that I indulged in 'Cactus Cider'. WTF? It wasn't repulsive but I sha'n't be having it again.

Post-Pustervik we headed to a club called Uppåt Framåt (Upwards Forwards) which I quickly fell in love with. The music was unknown but completely likeable (something that's very rare) and the decor (mainly the bar) was awesome too. Had a couple of Pear Ciders there and went home. Unfortunately didn't return :( Probably next time.

Next day I woke up late (backpacker bed was great) and then just went for a walk by myself though the city. Looking at shops things. All I bought was some discounted Cheap Monday gloves and two bottles of cider (one blueberry and one flower blossoms..???) from the System Bolaget. Swedish government has a monopoly on the sale of alcohol (except light beer and light cider) and so alcohol must be bought from a System Bolaget which close about 8pm. That night I went to a housewarming gathering of Jakob's friends and then onto a club called Svanen (The Swan) which was freakishly similar to the Depot. We stayed till close and I implemented my new-found ability to always be able to find my way home in Gothenburg no matter where I am.

Friday I slept till 4pm (I tell you, it was a good bed!) and I decided I should probably get some rest. I forget what I did for the rest of the day but I'm sure it was uneventful but nice.

Saturday was when I went up to Slottsskogen's and took a bagillion photos. Lots of pretty flaura and captive fauna to look at. I'll let the pictures (they're on facebook) describe it rather than my blog.

Saturday night I went to a gathering (once again, Jakob's friends) where I confirmed that, yes, all Swedish interiors do look like IKEA show rooms, and all swedish apartments/houses have 'shoe rooms'. A room for shoes. And jackets. It's the first room you step into as you enter the house and yes, you MUST take your shoes off. The night was enjoyable, everyone spoke in Swedish (except when speaking directly to me) so I had little idea what was going on, but I don't mind that. I spent most of the time trying to follow topics of conversation based on my poor Swedish lsitening ability. Later on we all headed to a night club but the lineup was huge and I was tired so we went home making a few stops along the way.

Sunday I caught up with another friend and Monday I decided to go on a massive walk around the city trying to cover as little familiar ground as possible. The walk was fun. Saw a lot interesting sites and took some photos. Ate at a place called Cafe Tin Tin. And got sore legs.

Tuesday I left and I was pretty sad to leave even though I was looking forward to going back to London. I'll definitely be back. All the locals say it's amazing in Spring, so maybe I should take their word for it.

Fat Tuesday

I just finished eating an apple and cream-filled cardamon bun called 'Semla'. Oh, whoops, that didn't come out right. I haven't taken to naming my food before I eat it, that's the Swedish word for the food. Anyway, it was pretty great. They were being sold on the street as part of an event called 'Fat Tuesday' which after a while my super-detective skills figured out is in fact the Swedish equivalent of Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday. It is not much of a religious event here, though.

So I arrived in Göteborg today and met a friend at the airport who drove me to Slottsskogen's Vamdrarhem (backpacker's) and then showed me around the city. It is typical English weather here at the moment (infact, more so than London), but I don't mind. Unfortunately there's no sign or expectation of snow. They have trams here, I like trams. And we had to press a button and get a ticket number and queue (there was no queue) to buy the tram pass. Pressing buttons to get numbered tickets and queuing (like at a supermarket deli) is a common Swedish past time (so I've read) and so this was a little exciting.

After being shown around the city my friend took me out to dinner at a Thai restaurant and that was delicious (paneng tofu curry). Thai always wins! I went back to the vandrarhem, met and chatted with two Swedish mature-age students in the room and soon after went to sleep. I was exhausted (again!) and this was the first comfortable bed I've had since leaving Australia, and thus I didn't get out until 1.15pm!!!

Freedom

Today I experienced the strongest feeling of freedom I have ever. Walking through Standsted Airport by myself as I headed to the RyanAir check-in for Gothenburg it was almost palpable. It was the feeling I've been longing for for so long. The one I first tasted when I moved out of home. I want to bottle it.

So then we went House Hunting!

I didn't really recover from my sickness/exhaustion as well as I'd hoped, but fucked if I was staying in the house any longer than 3 days.

So we went out drinking in the infamous Camden. First to The World's End which is an absolute maze of a pub/club. It's advisable to take a rucksuck of basic supplies if you want to venture to the toilet because you may not make it back otherwise. And then we moved onto The Cuban Bar, which, disappointingly, lived up to it's name with live Cuban music. Not mah thang.

Anyway on Saturday Laura, Charissa, Monica and I had the exciting (well, atleast for me) task of viewing potential rental properties. Two houses, both in Finsbury Park. Both were pretty good, although one a tad expensive and by the time we got in contact with the agent about the other it was gone *sad*. I think we're in some sort of negotions for the more expensive one and still looking, maybe at a cheap place much closer to the city in Islington. Fingers crossed. I'm really excited about having my own little pad in London.

On Sunday I rested and blogged a little more before heading out for a Bangladeshi (sp?) dinner in Brick Lane. It was pretty shit. Tasteless and I was grumpy. And FFS would restaurants please stop using supermarket-style frozen chopped vegetables in dishes. It's not cool.

Oh, and one other thing I wanted to mention, on Monday night I went shopping on Oxford St and am now the proud owner of my first coat. I heart it but still feel reall awkward wearing it. Was only £10 pound too. Bargain Hunter! Got a scarf and beanie/cap thing too. I'm totally a winter person now.

Another Spare Moment

Okay, so I never actually finished the blog last Thursday, and now it’s Sunday, and I’ve managed to find a spare moment to write some more. We’re in the living room watching The Mighty Boosh and Laura’s making some swt, swt shortbread. I’ll start where I trailed off last time.

So I was meant to be going out for Indian that night in Brick Lane with Laura and her friend, and for this reason I did. On the way we went to a small English pub, where there were as many people (men) drinking outside on the street as there were inside. Then we made our way to Brick Lane and on arriving were ‘attacked’ by restaurant workers trying to coax us into their restaurants with promises of discounts and alcohol. Laura’s friend Beth managed to negotiate 25% off and one and a half pints of cider for each of us. Score! Dinner was great (cheap!) and we got drunk and made our way home. I’ll make sure to go back there many times.

The next day was Australia Day. I was a little apprehensive about our plans to spend the day in a Walk-a-bout (chain of Australian pubs), but that’s what was organized and we could at least listen to the hot 100 which had been recorded and was being played back. We arrived at 10.30. The pub was quite empty but still thick with unsettling patriotism. Over the course of the day, the pub packed out and it all became more and more difficult to bare. Charissa had arrived during the day and at about 4pm we moved downstairs where we could actually hear the countdown and people cared about it slightly more. At #25 they made the predictable and frustrating decision to stop the countdown, play some painful Australian pub rock and elongate the whole situation. Charissa and I figured this would be a great opportunity for her to show me the nearby Leicester Square, Picadilly Circus, Soho etc.

On apprehensively returning to the Walk-a-bout I was slightly relieved to see a giant line to get back in. The line wasn’t moving. We waited there for a while before Charissa went to check out another pub in the area that was also playing the countdown. Half an hour later she returned, I’d move about 1m in the line and so we (with Laura) headed to a much less painful bar with more levels, nooks and crannies than the other place had bogans but also spare tables and chairs! We sat, chatted, Charrissa’s friend Peter joined us, drank and vaguely cared about the fact that Muse beat Silverchair by 12 votes.

At about 8.30pm Peter took us a nearby club called Trash Palace were we drank, chatted and dance and didn’t make it to bed till 4am after a long bus ride. I was more tired than I’ve ever been. I’d started to get sleepy around 10 hours earlier. Next day I woke at 2.30pm and made my way home on the tube and spent the rest of the evening in a daze, making shortbread and not noticing when Laura spoke to me.

Monday morning was catching up on organizational crap and webcamming with my family. Monday arve I caught up with Monica who had finally gotten over her jet slag for some fashion shopping and English pub meal. Monday evening I caught up with Peter and went for coffee (well, Mocha) in Soho.

Tuesday was fucked. Woke up at 12.35 and remembered I had a 1.30 booking for an ‘induction’ info meeting and bank account sign up. I leapt out of bed, threw on my clothes, raced to Laura’s work to pick up my passport and then onto FirstContact (where the ‘meething’ thing was) just 20mins late. The whole thing was really painful. The room looked like a uni lecture room and, I felt like a uni student – too tired to concentrate. But two and a half painful hours later I had a free umbrella (ella…ella) and an HSBC bank account.

The rest of the evening was painful. I walked around Oxford St waiting for Peter to finish work feeling like I was going to collapse from exhaustion. I went home after a couple of hours at Starbucks and that’s where I spent the next 72hours trying to recover.

My First English Rain

Well it’s Thursday, my 9^th day in London and I’m sitting in Laura’s room recovering from exhaustion/sickness. It’s raining outside, the first time since I’ve been here and rather than go out and catch another cold I’m attempting to catch my blog up on one of my most physically- and emotionally-hectic weeks…

My departure hiccupped before even leaving the ground. An inoperable emergency exit light in combination with strict airline regulations created a 3 hr delay. It wasn’t until negotiations between QANTAS and some authority was met and their staff managed to convince 60 customers without connecting flights to divert through Sydney (ouch!) were we allowed to board the plane, with the whole middle section cordoned off.

The first leg of the flight was mostly enjoyable. I like flying. I enjoy the challenge of keeping myself occupied in solitary. I probably had enough media to keep me entertained for 20 across-world flights but ended up just watching the back-of-the-seat tele – The Great Global Warming Swindle w/ follow-up ABC commentary, Denton v Elton interview, some Kath and Kim (ick!) etc. The only problem was the ‘friendly’, drunk Australians behind me who kept bumping the back of my seat for the whole 7 hours. They asked me to have coffee with them on arrival in London…I smiled and nodded reluctantly and was delighted to find out that on the second leg that the hangovers had well and truly set in and they weren’t so friendly.

At Singapore it was a bit Rush Rush Rush Go Here No There Now Wait Wait? Why? Get On Plane. Despite still making it (just) in time for the connecting flight we were rescheduled onto another flight half an hour later. My only concern was that I was now flying QANTAS instead of British Airways and had lost my window seat. Hmmf!

To my left was an old Swedish lady with athritis (who spoke less English than I do Swedish) and to my right, a European couple who also spoke no English (I found that out the awkward way). Despite getting up every hour on the first flight I spent the next 13 hours seated, much to the delight of the curled-up fingers beside me I’m sure. I slept most of the flight, mainly just waking for meals, and that was nice.

The feeling of real cold (not the uncomfortable airconditioning cold which irked me during the whole flight) on my skin as I stepped from the plane through the tunnel brought a smile to my face. I don’t know why, but it still does everytime I step outside the house. It’s just comforting, as if familiar. Anyway, the passport check, immigration ‘grilling’ (‘Do you know the Working Visa rules?’, ‘Yes’, ‘Okay’) and customs took a grand total of about 1 minute. I was amazed.

I met with my friend Laura who’d been nice enough to wake up at 5am to collect me on her way to work and make my arrival a whole lot easier. She organized for me my own Oyster card which is a multi-purpose swipe card for London transport and we caught the Piccadilly line for a 32 stop journey from Heathrow to Turnpike Lane where Laura lives. On the above-ground parts of the journey we passed many typically-English sights and I couldn’t help but contrast my emotions with those of arriving in New York. There wasn’t the excitement or surrealism experienced when finding myself in Brooklyn but more relief, and more strongly, contentment. Like I’d finally reached the place I’d spent my life trying to get to (I hadn’t).

Laura left me part way through the journey to go to work and gave me the simple instructions to get off the tube at the station ‘Turnpike Lane’. You’d think that I’d be able to follow those instructions, right? Well, of course I could, and I did. There I met another friend, Charissa, who coincidentally lives nearby and walked (and bussed) me to Laura’s place (via Tesco’s for sandwiches).

I’d previously decided that I was going to dedicate all physical and emotional energy of the first couple of days into combating Jet Lag in the hope of recovering as quickly as possible. And so I spent this whole day sitting on Laura’s bed playing with the internet and trying to keep myself awake. It worked. I stayed awake until Laura came home, we ate dinner, constructed my floor bed and then went to sleep.

Next morning I woke at 5.30am and in typical jet-lag style I felt as if I’d slept about 10 mins. Getting up and having breakfast I found myself in pain and feeling completely miserable. By 9am I decided I couldn’t take it anymore, went to sleep for 3 hrs, woke up feeling comparatively a million dollars and then went out for lunch with Charissa to my first English pub. Lunch was a vegeburger (deep-fried pattie...wtf?!?) and chips with a pint of cider for 4.50. Yum! Post-lunch Charissa took me to the place she’s staying and introduced me to their 5 gorgeous (well, all but one) cats. I hung out there for a while and Charissa gave me a rundown on essential information I had to learn (such as how to find out about and book gig tickets) and then I scooted home to get ready to go out.

That night it had been organized well in advance that I was heading out to see a local band of whom Charissa was a friend and fan and Laura a fan. I caught the tube (by myself…yay!) to the infamous Camden, met up with Laura and her friend and headed to the markets to have some ‘two pound, two pound, everything two pound! Wanna try some? Two pound!’ asian food. It was pretty tastey except I put half it on my jeans. We walked around a little aimlessly under the lead of Laura before finding a small, cosy and well-laid-out Bullet Bar with stools, tables and Bullmer tallies (hi tim!). After some unpleasant sound-checking, The Gadsdens played for about 20mins and I quite enjoyed them. Charissa introduced us to her Slovakian friend she’d met in London and we chatted for a short while before heading home, much to the delight of my fatigue.

The next morning was always going to be a challenge. To do for Monica (who’d flown over hot on my trail) what Laura had done for me two days prior. Getting up early wasn’t a problem (thx, Jet Lag!) but the one and a half hour nauseas journey was, but I was totally happy to do it. After meeting Mon and having a mocha and sandwhich at the airport’s starbucks, we set out on a scavenger-hunt-like journey around the city to find her friend and future flatmate’s work. By the time we met up it had been about 2.5hrs of lugging luggage down a busy street and I was ready to collapse. So I did (at home).

Unfortunately the sleep only went for an hour (half an hour of which my alarm spent trying to wake me) and boy did I feel like road kill after that. I was meant to be going…

Ready, Set, Go!

So I'm at Mel and Josh's place and, surprisingly, I have some time to spare (read: stress) . After the whole visa saga, which I've spared this blog, I've been left still not quite convinced this is my last few hours in Australia and that soon I'll be in London.

The goodbyes have sucked. Not just because they're sad but because I'm so terrible at them. I should have googled for tips and hints prior.

Anyway, cept for some possible phone-blogging, this'll be my last till London. This is what I'll greet the Queen in:


Fuck I'm tired.

Some Things Have Changed

Last I blogged I was nested in my Roseglen St bedroom which, had he been there, would've caused my dad to remark on cue 'It's like a brothel in here!' (I've never really understood that similie, I've always though that key ingredients to a brothel would be a prostitute and a certain smell, not a months worth of scattered clothes and a trees worth of study notes, but anyway...), I was probably eating instant noodles, vegemite on toast or dominoes pizza and spending countless hours whinging via the internet about how much I hate uni as I plodded through my last 4 assignments and braced myself for my last 4 exams.

Now I'm laying back on a verandah in Mackay over-looking the north-side with a most-pleasant sugar-laced breeze while internetting on a laptop and listening to iPod tunes over a decent sound system (oh, and since you asked, it's Britney (,bitch)). Hmm...one sounds considerably nicer, I think.

Anyway, since then I've finished my degrees (5 years!); celebrated ; packed, moved and cleaned (I never want to smell spray-and-wipe again) out of Roseglen St and flown to Mackay. Oh, and played my (insignificant) part in removing the Howard regime; my first vote and I look forward to doing it again 2010/2011.

Now my biggest concern is how best to spend my days relaxing and going to the optometrist, orthodontist, doctor and dentist (to trial contact lenses again, check if my teeth have moved much without retainers, find out if I need to get any needles before heading overseas and give my poorly-maintained mouth a complete overhaul).

Two more weeks of this and then back to Brisbane to don a hideous gown and be presented a fake testamur.

Oh, Hello Blog!

So, I haven't blogged for a while. Missing from this URL is the last one and a half weeks of my New York holiday (the pressure of documenting everything just got too much and imploded, and I probably would've spent most of the type bitching about a) leaving NY b) being in LA) and also the last 3 months of my life. Not that it's been very exciting. My university student lifestyle in Brisbane doesn't really match up to my stint in the city that never sleeps.

I have been busy, though. Busy procrastinating my studies. And sometimes busy studying. It doesn't matter if you're busy studying or busy procrasinating, one still feels stressed and under pressure with the giant work load constantly looming above them.

It's all over (seventeen years of it!) in two weeks. Pretty sure I'm going to consume the world's entire supply of euphoria on that date.

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to document was that I just booked my BNE --> LDN flight. (It's been hard slog working myself up to doing it). Flying Qantas and British Airways and was fortunate enough to use the 'rent's Frequent Flyers/Credit Card award points that have been accumulating over the past deacade. So I just had to pay taxes. It's a pretty quick flight; just a short stop in Singapore.

22/01/08
13:45 : Depart Brisbane
19:30 : Arrive Singapore

22:55 : Depart Singapore

23/01/08
04:50 : Arrive London


No return flight. How delightful!