We left Ireland and went back to Edinburgh for my checkup, and to finally take Nessy off my arm. As we had planned extra days in Ireland, Kel decided to stay in Dublin a couple of days while Sara and I went to the doctors.
Luckily we were able to stay with relatives, an older couple who are absolutely adorable. (I can't tell you how lucky we've been to come from a family that warmly invites us to come and stay with them all over the world!) We arrived with bourbon, coke, bread and vegemite – everything one needs for a staple diet and were shown to our rooms… plural. A room each! Finally a night to myself, with my own bed… strangely enough after spending two months sharing a room and sometimes sharing a bed with your sister and our friend it was actually very lonely. We both lay in our beds the next morning unsure whether to get up, what if the other one isn’t awake yet? What if they are awake and I’m meant to be up by now? I wonder what they’re doing? Should I be doing whatever it is that they’re doing? …. We really had been quite dependant on each other that we no longer knew how to behave on our own.
Eventually we ventured out of our rooms and were greeted by our hosts for breakfast… well in their case, lunch. As they had already been to golf/bridge/shopping all before we had even got up!
We headed to the hospital for my 2pm appointment… and waited. Finally I was able to get my cast cut open and freed my hand for more x-rays. After more waiting my doctor was able to look at my hand. The xrays showed that the crooked bone in my ring finger was now perfectly straight again. Phew! But because of an appointment error I had to get a temporary cast put back on for the night before being able to see a physio the following day.
Once again we headed to the hospital, got my cast cut off and finally… was able to WASH my hand! I can’t tell you how gross and smelly a hand gets when it has not been bathed for a month… and how much skin comes off…ewww
Next I had a plastic cast made which I was to wear for the next couple of days, and then only at night to support it in my sleep. I was given exercises to do every hour each day and was given the all clear to continue travelling, but was told to see a physio in a few weeks to make sure everything was going well.
Kel flew in to meet us and a couple of days later we rented another car and headed to Glasgow. On the way we stopped in Stirling for lunch with more family, (Delicious soup, and cheese platter… yuuummmm!) Wallace monument and Stirling Castle (which was closed by the time we got there) We spent 2 nights in Glasgow and did the hop on hop off bus around the city, although we didn’t really find it all that interesting.
Next we headed south to York where we checked out the amazing architecture of York Minster, had our first introduction to bed bugs in our B&B (luckily we changed rooms and never got bitten) and then continued down to Stratford upon Avon.
Stratford upon Avon is a cute little town where Shakespeare was born and lived until he moved to London to advance his career. I had been here with my parents when I was 15 and began getting flashes of memory or de javu. I became tour guide and showed the girls Shakespeare’s birthplace and grave and his wife’s family home. – And when I say tour guide, I mean I knew nothing other than “this place looks familiar, mum and dad took me here and I remember being bored” and the girls feigning interest. Nevertheless we found the town quite interesting and I now have an interest in reading more Shakespeare… or at least, to watch the movies.
Next stop was Bath, a beautiful little town where we saw the Cathedral and Roman Baths and Sara went to the Jane Austen Museum while Kel and I checked out the shops.
Then of course, it was time to do some much needed washing… Now washing clothes as a backpacker is one of the most boring and tedious activities one can imagine, and yet the end result feels like winning the lottery. Clean clothes are a luxury, and while it sounds gross to wear the same clothes for days on end, it’s the only practical thing you can do, there is simply not enough space in our backpacks for more than a couple of shirts and pants, and one set of thermals. So you basically have to sit in the Laundromat, without thermals or a jumper, in your least smelly outfit for hours…and hours while you wait for your laundry to dry.
I myself am quite happy to sit still for hours on end, I’m happy to reflect on the things we’ve seen, read a book, listen to music, play solitaire, or simply have the same repetitive argument with Sara over who is the biggest bitch face mole, and discuss why the chairs are so uncomfortable, or why its so cold… on a loop, around and around.
Kellie on the other hand… not so much. Sitting still is not for her, which is understandable when she has to listen to Sara and I on repeat.
However this laundry trip was a little more eventful than usual and Sara and I were in hysterics.
One of the ladies in the laundry had come in, put her clothes in the washing machine and then waited for it to be done. When it was done there were no free dryers except for one that had clothes in it, but finished its cycle, and no one around to collect them so she pulled out the clothes, put them in a basket and put her own clothes in the dryer.
About an hour later a woman came back to find her clothes in said basket, still damp and she was ready for a fight. The other lady told her that she should have come back sooner, and that she was not going to sit around while no one collected them.
“No way! You must have pulled them out to early! I timed it and I’m back exactly when the load should be done!”
Sara and I looked at each other… and whispered.. “I’ve never seen this lady and we’ve been here 2 hours now, and the other lady has had time to wash her clothes and half dry them in the time this woman claims to have timed her drying load… but its getting heated over there I’m not getting involved”
Eventually the late lady left in a huff with her half dry clothes and we went back to discussing the uncomfortable seats, the cold, and the bigger bitch face mole.
Sara then went to check if our clothes were dry yet and was told by the woman that had taken out the other lady’s clothes that she thinks she may have put £1 in our machine by accident… umm not my problem lady I’m not giving you £1 but thanks anyway.
After more sitting around… and poor Kel almost ready to explode… it was her turn to check the clothes, so she took off her gloves to test if they were dry, and then when she went to pick up her glove again the woman tried to claim them. “Excuse me, aren’t they mine?... I’m sure I had some gloves” she exclaimed.
“umm… NO I just took them off to test the clothes” Kel politely said as she came to sit back down with us and said under her breath “I’ll fight you if you want lady”.
Poor Kel had had enough… eventually… after 4 hours… our clothes were dry (in Kel’s terms, dry is when she is sick of sitting there anymore… but we did manage to convince her to wait 10 more minutes… a few times) and we once again felt like all the waiting was worth it for brand new clothes to wear tomorrow… mmmm luxury!
So ok.. you probably had to be there, but even the most mundane things on this trip have become our funniest memories. And now every time we see a glove randomly left in the street (and you wouldn’t believe how many there are) Sara and I turn to each other and say “is that my glove, I’m sure I had a glove” and laugh hysterically again… Even crossing the road is something you take for granted at home! When you’re travelling you constantly have to remember where you are, and which side of the road the cars are coming from. Even ordering food in another language is a challenge… but I’m getting ahead of myself…
Leaving Bath, we headed to London, via Stonehenge which was, to be honest, not as awe-inspiring as I thought it would be. I admit, it’s amazing that these stones have been placed in this weird circle for centuries and no one really knows why… but really.. it’s a pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere, and it was cold… really cold. Definitely time to get back into the car to once again argue about what music to listen to on our final leg in the rental car.
London
We arrived at our hotel in London for our last night with Kel and headed to Piccadilly Circus, where we found 2 for 1 long island iced teas… mmmm. What better way to say goodbye to Kel than to get our drink on, London style before stumbling home.
The next day we all went to the London Eye… Now, I’m terrified of heights.. and fast things… but the London Eye was anything but fast. It takes 28 minutes to do the full rotation all for the price of around £25. So after freaking myself out leading up to it we jumped on and ever so slowly began the long ride… we went up and up… and up… and by the time we’d reached about 2 metres above getting on I was bored! The view wasn’t great… just a dirty river and some old buildings we had just walked past, and an overcast day which made everything look just as grey as it did on the ground. I was no longer scared, but bored… and yes I was still sitting on the bench in the middle of the bubble…. There’s no way I was standing next to the window! That’s crazy talk! …. Ok so by the time we reached the top I was feeling pretty courageous and ventured to the window for about 3 seconds while a photo was taken of us – Proof that I was brave – before quickly sitting back on the bench for a nap while I waited the last 15 minutes to get off the thing.
Then after some last minute shopping we headed back to the hotel, packed Kel’s bag, drove her to the airport and bid farewell. :(
Hmm… back to just Sara and I now… this is… weird. After 6 weeks with Kellie, who broke up the conversation, Sara and I went back to our laundry room conversation loops – basically in competition of who can annoy the other more… I think Sara won!
The next day we packed our bags and headed to another relative’s house, in London, where we were going to stay for a week or so while I found a physio to look at my hand, and checked out London a bit more thoroughly… this turned into three weeks!
I had been doing my hand exercises as I was told to but my ring finger was still not doing what it was supposed to… I could bend it by pushing it down with my other hand, without too much pain… but I couldn’t get it to move on its own, that is by making the connection from my brain to my finger… time to find a physio!
My physio in Edinburgh had told me that she would arrange an appointment for me in London, once I told her my location… but after a week and a half of unreturned phone calls, the odd email and a bit of phone tag I decided to find a hand specialist on my own.
I’d like to say that we still went out and saw London while we waited for an appointment but… instead we found the couch. Another thing you take for granted at home is the ability to sit on a couch and stare mindlessly at a television while it makes you laugh and cry, and you literally don’t have to do anything… you don’t have to look at a map and figure out which bus to get on, you don’t have to think about where to eat – because let’s face it, a couch is usually in a good proximity to a kitchen and best of all… you can do your washing while you watch it!
We had now been travelling for just under 3 months and had barely watched a scrap of telly. We had been on the move every day, gone to 2 different continents, 4 countries and countless cities… we were exhausted! … and best of all – Home and Away and Neighbours were right at the point where we had left off when we left Australia!
So ok we didn’t spend that whole week on the couch. We went and met some old friends – Blake, who Sara worked with at home, who now lives in London works in a bar one suburb away from where we were staying. So we went to have a couple of drinks at his work and then… those couple turned into a couple more… and well somehow we got the idea that Hamish and Andy were pretty funny to have pants off Friday (they interview all their guests in their underwear on radio every Friday back home) and well… it was a Tuesday so why not have pants off Tuesday? – for the bar staff that is – which they obliged and spent the night serving customers with their pants around their ankles… hilarious! At least our new friends in the bar thought so, so much so that we’re now facebook friends and are planning a pants off revolution when Sara and I get back to London to work… when the holiday part is over. – although we’ll have to be careful considering “pants” in England means “underpants” and not trousers… but I don’t think trousers off Tuesday has the same ring to it…
We also met up with Michelle, a girl Sara went to high school with, and Cassie who I went to kindergarten with – all great nights and glad we were able to catch up! And of course AUSTRALIA DAY, London style! – we met up with 2 Aussies we had met in Scotland and headed to a Walkabout pub where we got our drink on, sang Aussie rock songs and at the end of the night, ate multiple meat pies with tomato sauce!
We then went to the British Music Experience – very similar to the Grammy Museum in LA but on a much smaller scale, and only British artists. However they had a music room in which you could play guitars, pianos, vocals and drums (with headphones)… so of course I had to try it out. First I picked up a guitar… not being able to bend your ring finger on your left hand, means that holding down strings in weird formations is… well… impossible. I could play about 3 chords, with difficulty… and that was all :(
Right, time to try the piano… easy peasy… sorta. So I played 3 or 4 songs I know from memory and none of them required the use of my ring finger – awesome! I tried some scales also and while it was awkward… I figured with practice I could get semi back to normal… so not all hope is lost for the piano anyway…
So the next day I finally got to see a physio, I braced myself once again to be told the worst, that my finger was dying from no circulation because my brain couldn’t talk to it and it would need to be… removed… ok so I build things up a little too much I know.
Instead she told me that the reason I can’t move it is because it’s still healing, but also because I seem to have a build up of scar tissue which takes about 3-4 months to start breaking down and as long as I kept up my exercises I should get full movement back… in about 12 months time… ok so not the end of the world after all… but still that’s a long time, and it hurts to exercise it – kinda like any exercise really – but ok doc I’ll do it I’ll do it.
With that now out of the way we figured we should really start to see London and make arrangements for our train to Paris…. But we liked the couch, and our kitchen, and our laundry in our mansion in the middle of London. But we also didn’t want to outstay our welcome so we booked out train and began ticking things off our to-do list.
We did the hop on hop off buses, Natural History Museum, Aquarium, Tower Bridge experience, Tower of London, Kensington Palace, Clink – prison museum, Shakespeare’s Globe (to top off our education from Stratford upon Avon), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Hyde Park, Harrods, Film museum, Marble Arch, China Town, St Pauls Cathedral, shopping on Oxford circus, a river cruise and of course – when to the theatre.
We saw Wicked – awesome, Dirty Dancing – abysmal (don’t even get me started on how bad this was compared to the Australian version! The actors kept flicking between British and American accents, bad singing, bad acting, changed and made up scenes… *deep breath* lets just say it was god awful) and best of all we saw our favourite musical of all time – Les Miserables – which was spectacular! (despite the fact that Javert was African American and although he was a brilliant actor and singer, a black man in the time Les Mis is set would not have been the chief of police).
Now feeling that we had seen London, still not really wanting to move on to the hard part of our trip – the backpacking part – we begrudgingly walked our bags to the train station and got on our train to Paris.
Paris
On the train to Paris we began brushing up on our French… I have never learnt French and Sara had learnt a little at school but all she could remember was counting 1-20… We knew that chicken was poulet and we love croissants so we figured we’d be alright…
We stepped off the train at Gare De Nord – central station – looked around and said to each other “now what?”… We found an information booth where they spoke English and showed them the address of our hostel. They explained that we needed to get a train to Des Goblins and then the number 7 train which she circled on our map. So we dragged our bags up and down a thousand flights of stairs and got on the first train, all good so far. So now we had to change trains, right did that.. this is pretty easy we thought. So we came out of the train station, looked around, scratched our heads and realised that the woman had circled the wrong station – she was actually circling the number 7 train line that we were meant to take 1 stop away from the changeover. In actual fact we could have got out after the first train and walked to our hostel and didn’t need to go that extra 1 stop…. But we had gone about 7 stops in the wrong direction. *sigh*
Ok back down the stairs, our bags banging on each step, buy another train ticket go back to the last train station, come out of the station and… look around… scratch our heads… why don’t they have any street signs in Paris! Obviously looking lost a woman approaches us and says “can I help?” we say “umm yes, you speak English!” she says “are you looking for Oops?” (the name of our hostel – yay she knew we were backpackers just by looking at us, we can do this!) “yes yes! Oops! Where is it?” “just turn left here and follow it to a small door on your right” perfect.
We did it. We got on a train and landed in another country, where they don’t speak English and found our hostel – all by ourselves!
We decided to venture out and figured where else… but the Eiffel Tower. Another attraction my parents took me to when I was 15… where they had forced me up the top, where I had hid in my father’s chest, up the glass elevator to the very top… not much has changed, I’m still scared of heights but alas Sara hasn’t been up there so I have to be brave and go up with her. We arrived at night so it was lit up like a Christmas tree and very pretty. We lined up to buy our tickets and were greeted with a sign that said “2nd platform only, top closed for renovation” – oh… wow… what a shame?... They weren’t sure when the top would re-open but probably in a few days, and we figured we may as well go up now that we’re here and if we really want to we can come back if it opens before we leave.
So I put my brave face on, got in the glass lift, held on for dear life and went up to the 2nd floor ( I even managed to look out this time!). We looked around and I pointed out Notre Dame and Arc de Triumph to Sara while she took a thousand photos. When we were done we got back in the lift to go down… then the elevator stopped – “we are now at level 1, you may get out or proceed to the exit” – Sara and I looked at each other – we didn’t think level 1 would be much different to level 2 but hey we’re here we may as well get out and have a look…
We get out of the lift, turn to our left and see lots of flashing disco lights, listen to the pop music being blared out of the speakers and realise… its an ICE SKATING RINK! ON THE EIFFEL TOWER! We walk over thinking it would cost a fortune but come on, how many people can say they have ice skated on the Eiffel Tower? And to our amazement… FREE or GRATUIT… no way! So we exchanged our shoes for skates and off we went – Awesome. Next we went to the art gallery and cinema where they show a video about building the tower, walked past the restaurant and headed back down the lift to solid ground.
We had heard about a free walking tour in most European cities from the girls we met in Scotland and spent Australia day with in London, so the next day we decided to give it a go. We had tired of the hop on hop off bus tours as, being winter, they are pre-recorded and impersonal that basically just point out what you are looking at with a brief description rather than an interesting story about each… and to be honest I tend to fall asleep pretty quickly on buses…
So we met our guide and began walking around the main sites of Paris. Our guide was brilliant! A girl from Melbourne who has been living in Paris for the past 2 years, told us all about the rich history of Paris, while breaking out into song and quoting movie lines sporadically within her speech.
We learnt that King Louis (one of them… I think) had a party one night and had hired a sketch artist to draw all his noble friends… these friends however got extremely drunk so when the King awoke from his hungover haze the next morning he found the pictures so amusing that he had them made into stone sculptures and placed along the Pont Nuef bridge.
The 3 hour walking tour ended up taking 4 and ended at a little café where we had a cheese platter and crème brulee – yum! We loved our guide so much that we ended up following her to her next tour of Mont Martre, and the following day did a tour of Versailles with her as well. Then we went to see a play called “how to become Parisian in one hour” which our guide had recommended – absolutely hilarious, and thankfully, was performed in English.
We had one more day left in Paris so we went and saw the Arc de Triumph, Catacombs (very cool), walked along the Champs Elysees, wandered through Morey streets and watched some street performers before going back to our hostel to pack.
Overall Paris was beautiful and although our French didn’t improve much further than speaking English with a French accent and adding a few “le” in between words, (ie. Sara iz le biche fas le mole = Sara is a bitch face mole) most people were friendly and spoke enough English to guide us in the right direction.
Amsterdam
Once again we were hitting the road with all our bags and got to the station to await our train to Amsterdam. We are travelling with Eurail passes and for this particular route had to reserve our seats… When we boarded the train we found our… rather luxurious seats and were greeted by our waiter who had a tray of food and drinks. Puzzled, we asked “how much” to which the waiter replied in a huff “this is first class, you do not pay!” ummm ok we’ll have a diet coke, and a sandwich and an éclair thanks! Actually make that two of everything please…each! :D
We were not expecting this kind of service at all! When buying our Eurail saver passes I had noticed that the saver version was only available in first class but… this was a train… not a plane… but here we were with servants to wait on us and to top it all off… FREE WIFI! Bliss!
The guy in front of us had his handbag sized dog sitting next to him in his little basket with its own personal drinking bowl… apparently dogs may only ride the train if a first class ticket has been purchased… for the dog.
After about 3 hours we arrived in Amsterdam with instructions from our hostel to take a tram up the road so we boarded the tram and bumped all the peakhour locals with our bags and then realised… how do we pay? Oops! One of the locals told us that no one checks, so not to worry… luckily he was right.
The next day we did another 3 hour walking tour, although our guide was good, not nearly as much fun as our guide in Paris. We were taken around the canals which we learnt are cleaned out every 3-4 days through a system of locks, past the old church and the new church, the palace and the red light district. We learnt that there are 22000 bikes are stolen each year – many of which are pulled out of the canals. We also learnt that the oldest female worker is 83 and is so good at what she does, she has a 2 week waiting list… We ended the tour outside Anne Franks house, which (after having read the book on the train to Amsterdam) we found very interesting and sad.
The next day we went out to a little village called Edam and a little fishing village called Volendam which were… very little. Edam was a cute village with canals and green fields everywhere and little kids riding their bikes… what is it with the Netherlands and their bicycles? Everywhere you go there are thousands of bikes and everyone on them has a grin on their face as if to say “I’m riding a bike, what a lovey day, I’m riding a bike” and then someone gets in their way and they look swear at them to move before going back to the grinning “I’m riding a bike” face…
The following day we went out to a Windmill village and watched a demonstration on how they make clogs, tasted different types of cheeses, walked around a museum that was mainly in Dutch with very little English explanation, and a chocolate factory.
Amsterdam didn’t really inspire us… it was pretty, and the buildings were different to what we’ve seen, and the canals were nice… but it just didn’t do it for us.
Hamburg
Having reserved a seat on our train to Amsterdam we were told this was not necessary to get to Hamburg. We were given a list of the 3 trains we needed and where to get off between each one at the information booth and we set off…
First train… perfect. It went where it said it would and we go off where our paper told us to. We followed the directions and went to the correct platform and got on the next train. These trains were not quite as luxurious as our 1st class one had been but nevertheless we sat down and watched lots of stations go past with names we had never heard of but figured we must be on the right track… 2hrs later we are told we are at the end of the line… and it wasn’t the station our paper said to get off at.
We walked off the train laughing with no idea where we were… we showed our paper to a girl walking by and she said “ahh you are going to Germany”
“yes” we replied, “where are we?”
“hmm you are in northern Netherlands”
Awesome…
When we finally found an information booth, we were told we would need another 3 trains to get to Hamburg and they printed us a new list to follow.
We had just missed the next train and had to wait an hour before the next one so we got some lunch and waited eagerly at our platform…. A train came, but we had no idea if it was ours… but another traveller assured us that it was going to Leer, Germany as they were going there too. So we followed them, and eventually managed to get all the right trains to Hamburg… and it only took us 9 hrs…
We made it to our hostel.. and well… we haven’t left yet. We’ve sat in the lobby the past 2 days reading books and talking to other travelers.. perhaps tomorrow we will venture out to see the city…
No comments:
Post a Comment