London: An Introduction

I’m in London. Have been for just over a week now. And my blog title is finally relevant: hurray! Things have been crazy. I think I’ve lived several lifetimes in the past nine days. I’m going to try and summarise it all, but I’ll likely forget half of it.

First there was the whole ordeal of getting to my apartment and dumping my suitcase. This took some effort, especially after completely failing to understand the tube system and getting lost in a series of stair-filled stations. When I finally got to Great Dover Street and ploughed my way through the herd of freshers, I could have died of relief.

Equally fantastic was the size of my room. It’s massive. It’s literally three times the size of some other rooms I’ve seen here. I don’t have a freezer, and the kitchen lacks a toaster, but it’s not too shabby here.

My flatmates are great. I’ve landed myself a nice bunch of freshers, all interesting and friendly and – can you believe it? – tidy! There are seven of us in our flat. Didn’t meet a couple of people for a few days, but we’re all settled in now. I’ve even established a sort of routine, with amazingly absorbent weetabix in the morning and some form of dire college cooking in the evening. I’m sure my cooking skills will improve. Probably right about the time I get sick of beans.

London is… incredible. It’s everything I thought it would be. There’s so much I want to do that I can’t even write it all down. The important thing is that everything’s doable here – swing dancing, apple harvesting, 90s clubbing, market going, gallery viewing, picnicking, etc etc. I’ve done all these things in the past week.

I’ve also gone to the Tate Modern, traipsed from coffee to cupcake to Covent Garden to Carnaby Street with Melbournian Maddie, met one billion people, participated in a pub quiz (the first of several million), and registered for uni and all that.

I’ve wandered through Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath, both beautiful, and I’ve discovered the most delightful kitschy shops on little windy streets.

I’ve shopped. I’ve mastered the underground. I watched How to Train Your Dragon in a beautiful old church. I also watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but it was much less entertaining (although the marching band played a rockin’ Bond theme). I’ve had coffee at the ‘best coffee shop in London.’ Somewhere in between, I found time to go and see a fantastic exhibition on science fiction at the British Library. And I can tick Borough Market and Covent Garden Market off my ‘markets to see’ list – though I’ll definitely be returning to both.

I also signed up to the mailing lists of countless clubs and societies at the Freshers’ Fayre, including (but not limited to) the history society, the musical theatre society, a choir, the Gilbert and Sullivan society, the dance society, the law society, the Erasmus society, the English society… oh, and let’s not forget the Harry Potter society. My inbox is getting a little cluttered. I think I’ll probably wind up picking and sticking with about three societies. We’ll see.

There’s so much more that I can’t even remember right now. I’ve been spending every day just out in the city exploring. And I have list upon list of all the things I’m desperate to see and do! (My law readings don’t make an appearance on this list.)

King’s seems a fairly decent place. It’s got a nice terrace with a Thames view, for one thing. For another, the library is absolutely beautiful. Oh, and here’s a little picture of what I see every morning on my walk to the Strand campus.

It’s crazy wonderful.

Oxford, Oxfordshire

They’re not kidding when they call Oxford the city of dreaming spires. Walk past the Bodleian Library, and you’re just about slapped in the face with spires, spires everywhere! It’s overwhelming. It’s basically too beautiful. And the colleges – oh, the colleges!

Against all odds, I arrived on Thursday afternoon. The UK seems to have an epidemic of train delays and breakdowns. (Or maybe it was just the sheer weight of my suitcase that did them in; who knows?) The hostel was reasonably close by. It was also reasonably dodgy. Luckily, the central part of Oxford was but a short walk away, so I dumped my stuff and got out into the streets. They weren’t the nicest looking streets, so I made my way into the Ashmolean Museum and raced around the exhibitions in an effort to see everything before closing time. After they’d finally booted me out, I did what any good book nerd would do and hunted down Tolkein and C.S. Lewis’ favourite pub.

I had fish and chips – and mushy peas! – for dinner. It was fairly decent. I even liked the peas. Slowly but surely, I am learning the ways of the Pom.

The next day was a manic rush to fit in everything I wanted to do in Oxford. At half past eight, I raced out the door and straight to the Bodleian Library, determined to reserve my place on a guided tour. I was the first in line. [I was the only one in the line.] To pass the time before the 10:30am tour, I went to the university church and climbed its tower to take in the views. To sum it up in a word: spires.

This next part is slightly shameful. Shameful but awesome. As I wandered the streets, I realised that it happened to be Oxford College Open Day. The colleges were all closed to visitors to cater for prospective students. So I decided to become a prospective student for the day, and got myself free all-access tours of about five colleges. During the course of the day, I visited the colleges of John Donne, Lewis Carroll, Evelyn Waugh and many others. It was amazing. Alice in Wonderland and His Dark Materials amazing.

I also saw the pub where Bill Clinton smoked but didn’t inhale in his college years, and where Bob Hawke skolled some ridiculous amount of beer in record time.

Eventually it was time for my library tour, so I headed back and got to see really, really old books. Really old. Books that they chain to the shelves. It was all ridiculously pretentious and rather wonderful. The library also acted as the Hogwarts library in the HP films, and the examination room downstairs doubled as the Hogwarts infirmary. Scintillating stuff. Perhaps more excitingly, I got to see the university courtroom where Oscar Wilde was repeatedly berated for failing to repay his student loans.

Afterwards, I headed to the famous Oxford Covered Market, where I found quite a lot of tourist-targeted rip-off material, and an incredibly yummy pie. It arrived on a bed of mash, swimming in gravy. Mmm. British.

I also ate a couple of delicious, delicious chocolate and ginger biscuits from a place that attracted me with its use of Quentin Blake illustrations.

Having sorted out food, I then went and joined a two hour walking tour of the city. Like all the other walking tours I’d done over the past month, it was incredibly interesting and worthwhile. A highlight was peeking into the Christchurch garden where Alice (of Wonderland) used to play.

After that, I dashed off to the Museum of the History of Science (or something equally boring-sounding) to see their intriguing exhibition on eccentricity. It was great! The entire exhibition revolved around the strange obsessions of Oxford professors and graduates. There was one notable fellow who spent his spare time eating as many different animals as he possibly could. One night, when invited to an aristocratic friend’s house for dinner, he was shown a curious piece of shrivelled flesh that he promptly popped in his mouth and swallowed. This turned out to be a family heirloom, the salvaged heart of King Louis the Fourteenth. Whoops.

I spent the early evening wandering back through the Christchurch gardens and finding the section of the River Thames where Lewis Carroll dreamt up his Alice adventures while being rowed on a boat. He was apparently rubbish at all physical activity.

And that was it! I managed to see everything I wanted to see, which was a bit of a miracle. Since arriving at King’s, I’ve had quite a bit of Oxford college envy… but more on that later.

Cardiff, Wales

Cardiff. Home of Roald Dahl and Doctor Who. City of arcades and castles, of the beautiful Bute Park and the Ianto Jones memorial shrine. I loved it there. I’d live there. I’d live at my hostel forever. It was absolutely brilliant, with free breakfast and dinner most nights, and even free cider on one occasion. It was also warm and clean, which was a definite step up from other hostels I’ve been to.

The people there were brilliant - Aussies and Germans for the most part. We went out on a pub crawl on the first night, and got to a grand total of three before everything shut down at 11pm. Each pub had two or three ciders on tap! We were the only ones out apart from a group of older Welsh men, but to be fair, it was a Monday night.

I spent the first day touring a couple of nearby castles with Laura, a lovely Melbournian I met at the hostel. I chose not to go to the Cardiff Castle, due to the fact that the entry price cost more than the combined entry prices of my chosen castles. I still can’t pronounce either of the castles’ names: Castle Coch and Castle Caerphilly. Both were stunning, Coch for the gorgeous interiors and Caerphilly for the dramatic exteriors. They’d been done up in the late 19^th century to look like they would have in the 15^th century when they were built.

Castle Caerphilly requires special mention for the fact that its keep housed a certain big blue box. I found the tardis in a sprawling stone castle in Wales!

When I asked at the information desk, I was told that there’d been some recent Dr Who filming at the castle, and would I like a free poster and postcard? Yes, yes I would – and I also got quite a few embarrassing photos with the tardis.

My second day was spent in an equally Who-related fashion. I caught a bus to Cardiff Bay on a beautiful sunny morning, and spent ages just strolling up and down the pier. I also spent ages taking photos of Roald Dahl plass. It’s beautiful, lies at the front of the Wales Millenium Centre, and is where Torchwood was filmed.

I also visited the Norwegian Church where Roald Dahl was christened. It’s now a café slash gallery. It’s situated rather beautifully on the edge of the bay. It also turns out that I was in Cardiff for Roald Dahl Day (his birthday) – awesome.

I spent my third night out on the town again, this time at a little club with a set of three bands. The headliners, Joint Pop (of Trinidad), were actually staying at our hostel, hence how we found out about it. We weren’t expecting much, especially after the two warm-up bands, but Joint Pop was brilliant! They had a great reggae sound. It was a really great night out.

So that’s Cardiff: a beautiful, relaxed sort of city with a beautiful castle-side park in the centre, a couple of magnificent castles nearby, great vintage shops, lots of Doctor Who locations and the best hostel in the UK, possibly the world. I’d go back in a heartbeat. Might still have to, if this train doesn’t keep breaking down. Next stop: Oxford, with any luck.

Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire

From the moment I bought the train tickets, I second-guessed my decision to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon. Would it be worth it? Would it be tacky, touristy and Shakespeare-manic? Yes. Yes, it would. And I thoroughly enjoyed it all. In fact, I’d say that anyone who travels to England and has even the most remote interest in Shakespeare must visit Stratford.

My hostel was ages away from the train station – a good half hour walk, as I discovered during the next couple of days. As it was, my suitcase required a taxi and a set of strong taxi driver arms. Once I arrived, I was pretty impressed with what I found there. Sure, there were downsides to the hostel. There was a surprise surcharge for non-members, and you had to pay extra for breakfast and wifi. On the other hand, the room was enormous, I’d been placed in an all-female room, and every single person in that room was incredibly friendly.

I spent my first night in Stratford trudging to a supermarket for essentials in the rain and getting to know my roommates. I bought a microwavable meal for dinner, mostly because it didn’t contain peanut butter and did contain meat. One of the girls in my room, Claire, suggested that we sightsee around Stratford together; another woman promptly handed us a brochure full of two-for-one deals, and we were set.

We left the hostel bright and early in the morning. Well, not early, but definitely bright: it was a wonderful, sunny day. Once we’d reached the town centre, we crossed one of the picturesque bridges and found our way to the bank of the River Avon. It was a great little boat ride. The commentary wasn’t exactly historical, but it was pretty entertaining. The guide seemed largely concerned with pointing out all the weird and wonderful things that rich people had done to their river-facing gardens.

After the cruise, we decided to head towards Shakespeare’s birthplace and museum. Along the way, we saw a good part of the town. It felt like I’d wandered right back into Hogsmeade in Harry Potter World! All the houses are decked out in the Tudor style, with cream walls and dark wooden slats.

Here’s me with Hamlet.

The street containing Shakespeare’s birthplace was an incontestable tourist trap. I saw life-sized toy soldiers, Shakespeare’s ghost, more bookshops than you could throw a stick at… It was great.

Like the boat cruise, our tickets for the birthplace museum were effectively half price, and it was well worth the money once we got in. First off, they stick you in front of a short film of Shakespeare history, then you enter the beautifully arranged gardens before continuing into the actual house where the bard was born. Every room contained a costumed guide who gave you a summary of how the place would have operated in Shakespeare’s time.

Best of all, our birthplace tickets let us into two other Shakespeare houses for free! We headed off for Nash’s house, the final home of Shakespeare and, currently, the site of an archaeological dig. We didn’t spend much time there as it was mainly targeted at children, so we hurried off and joined a walking tour – again half price! – of Stratford. The guide was incredibly enthusiastic about Shakespearean history, so the tour was very fun and informative. Apparently Shakespeare’s dad, John Shakespeare, was a person of questionable character. As well as becoming mayor of the town, he had a series of jobs dealing with the treatment of animal skins and illicit money-lending operations.

The tour took us all over the city, and ended nearby the church containing Shakespeare’s tomb, as well as those of his wife, sister and brother-in-law. The guide ended the tour with a neat little poem about Shakespearean idioms, and we then walked on to our second free house visit, Hall’s Croft. This was the house owned by Shakespeare’s sister’s husband, the eminent Doctor Hall. It was filled with medical instruments, plants and dubious bottles of bile.

Having used every minute of the day to the best Shakespearean advantage, Claire and I finally sat down in a pub and had a great pork roast dinner. [To beef or not to beef? This was on the wall.] Yorkshire puddings are the best. The plate contained two different types of potatoes but alas! no chips. Two of the girls in my room, both from Somerset, informed me that the best place to eat chips is out of newspaper on a dodgy beach in the rain. This is, apparently, the authentic experience.

So that was Stratford! I really enjoyed it. It was definitely one of the most interesting and attractive places I’ve visited on this trip so far. Next up is Cardiff.

Windermere, Cumbria

A couple of things made my short time in Windermere a little dodgy. These included the fact that, despite booking a bed in an all female room at the hostel, I wound up as the only female in a room full of guys. Furthermore, there was nobody on reception in the hostel at any point during the day and a half I was there. It worked on an honesty system. This meant I couldn’t complain about my lodgings or get switched to another room. Additionally, after walking for half an hour to reach the famous Windermere lake and taking a million photos, I basically ran out of things to do.

A couple of things made my stay in Windermere pretty awesome. Firstly, everybody at the hostel was incredibly friendly. Better yet, nobody in my room was too friendly. I spent quite a while chatting with some of the backpackers, who came from a range of places, including France, India, Germany and Oxfordshire. Finally, before I went to the station on the morning I was due to leave, I hiked up to Orrest Head, a lookout point over the lake. It was incredible. The views were breathtaking in every direction. And I was the only one up there! Those views made my trip to Windermere completely worth it.

It was so Jane Austen.

Also, I managed to pick up two books – Wuthering Heights and Sherlock Holmes – for a total of 1.99 pounds. Sweet! And now I don’t have to read my Emily Bronte on my mobile, which is greatly appreciated.

And while I think of it, can someone explain to me whether or not I need to turn off my wifi in order to use my phone network’s internet? I fiddled with something and now I can’t get an internet connection. Aaahhh, why did I buy a phone that’s smarter than me?

Sparket Mill, Cumbria

Hello, England!

Everything about my stay at Sparket Mill was fantastic. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and was greeted at the station by Alan and Sylvia, who relieved me of my suitcase, drove me home and set me up. I got my own bedroom and bathroom – essentially one whole side of the house! I was very well looked after.

After a cup of coffee (the first of many) we set out for a walk across the nearby fields, which quickly turned into a hike through the rain. We were sodden in minutes. The landscape was incredible, all green fields and rolling fells and ancient iron gateposts. I thought the rain made the whole thing feel quite authentic. We finally arrived at the local pub in Dacre and I enjoyed my first British lager. Verdict: much better than the watery stuff in Melbourne (though I’d still prefer a cider).

Before turning back, we had a quick look at the Dacre castle. I spent much of our walk home pointing out the numerous ‘beware: red squirrels’ signs. Apparently red squirrels are becoming endangered, and aren’t much helped by their tendency to freeze when faced with car headlights. Back home, we watched a dvd of the Tinning Family Reunion, pausing every time Mum, Mel or Grandma appeared.

Thursday was a big day. I think by the end of it I’d seen just about every inch of the Lake District except for Windermere, which is my next destination. I woke up and opened the curtains to find a much nicer day – and a red squirrel! Good timing. After breakfast, Alan and Sylvia drove me out to Pooley Bridge, where we got out and walked around a short stretch of Ullswater, the nearest lake. It was beautiful. There was a tugboat on the water, and ducks, and everything!

Next we went to Dalemain Manor, an enormous old house fitted out with a cobblestone courtyard and, more importantly, a deer-filled field! The nice old gardener noticed my interest in the deer and called them over with a bag of brown bread. He gave me a few slices and I gave them, in turn, to the deer – or, rather, to one greedy-guts deer who kept coming back for more. They were lovely and dainty looking until they started moving, and then they just looked ridiculous. They have this strange way of prancing along, two sets of hooves moving together, like Pop-E at high speed.

The gardener then told me to hold out my hand. Once I’d finally worked out what he meant, he tipped a small measure of nuts onto my palm. I just stood there, wondering if I was meant to give these to the deer as well, when tiny birds – chaffinches – started landing on my hand. I screamed, and entertained all the other visitors. Just like Mary Poppins!

From Dalemain, we went to Penrith, the closest town to Sparket Mill. We had a coffee and scone in a café and checked out the architecture of the local shops. Afterwards we headed out to Greystoke, where we visited a thirteenth century church and graveyard. Next stop was Penruddock, home of Janie Tinning’s [distant relative] primary school. When he spotted me taking photos of the schoolyard, the headmaster came over (presumably to determine whether or not we were paedophiles) and invited us in once he’d heard that I’d come on a family history tour. He was very nice, and we learnt a good few things, including the fact that ‘Penruddock’ and ‘Penrith’ are both named for their ‘red hills’.

We returned to Sparket Mill for lunch, then drove the whole length of Ullswater to reach Aira Force, a stunning waterfall at the end of a short hike.

We next drove down past Brotherswater and found ourselves stuck in a bit of a traffic jam. I’ll just stop and mention that the road was extremely, extremely narrow. Bike-lane narrow. It had obviously been built as a carriageway, and like many other roads we drove on that day, my heart leapt every time a car squeezed by on the other side. So there we were, for a grand total of five minutes, as we watched an emergency helicopter take off with the victim of a very foreseeable road accident.

We finally got to Ambleside, a favourite for tourists due to its pretty houses and lakeside location. A point of interest was a tiny two-storey house that had once held an eight-person family. It was an ‘old lady who lived in a shoe’ sort of situation. I can’t really imagine how eight people could fit standing up, let alone sleep or use furniture.

Next up was a definite highlight: Grasmere, home of Wordsworth’s house, museum and grave. There was a little daffodil garden set up with park benches and an engraved stone footpath, the first of which started with, ‘I wandered, lonely as a cloud…’ We then had a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in a café on the opposite bank of the river. It was great, but might have been better without all the orange-seeking bees. There were also some rather interesting ducks in the river, which Alan later labelled as grebes. Thank you, Great British Book of Birds.

Afterwards we drove past Thirlmere, another lake, and dropped in at Keswick by mistake when we got a bit lost. When we got back on track, we made our way to the Castlerigg Stone Circle, which was very much like Stonehenge except that you’re allowed to approach – and even sit on – the stones. We then finally made our way home, prepared dinner, and washed our ‘welly boots’.

Observations of the UK: Swedes (as in the vegetable) are incredibly massive in England. In Australia, they’re about the size of a cricket ball, something Alan couldn’t believe. Also, carrots taste better in Britain. And I’m really struggling to suppress the word ‘pants’ from my vocabulary. And people drink a lot of coffee. Here I was thinking of England as the land of the tea-drinking people; apparently not.

While the roast pork cooked, I was taken on a very comprehensive tour of the mill and all its workings. There was about five times the amount of machinery that I expected. Alan and Sylvia have compiled a mass of historical mill pieces and curios. It was like visiting a mill museum. I also got a proper tour of the house, which Alan and Sylvia have done up beyond recognition, especially considering its condition when they bought it. It was great to have this kind of look into how Janie would have lived, and how everything would have looked like in her day.

Before leaving the next morning, I was shown a whole pile of legal documents and manuscripts relating to the ownership of the mill. Believe it or not, it was incredibly interesting to see how title deeds have changed over the decades. And then Alan and Sylvia drove me to the train station, where I said goodbye and started off for my next location: Windermere.