Bristol, South West England

Great city, Bristol. Very green, and full of ships. Well, boats. Little boats tied up by the river-quay thingy. And not so green in the Occupy Bristol stamping ground, but grassed-up enough elsewhere. I headed up on Wednesday night after my crim lecture and stayed with Maddie and poor, unsuspecting, generous Jonny, who was kind enough to offer me a spot on his floor.

Wednesday night was fun. Glasses were ruthlessly smashed – and it wasn’t even my fault this time, Lucy and Mel. Jonny and Maddie met me at the bus station, and we headed out directly for The Apple, a pub-on-a-boat selling nothing but cider! My kind of pub. Sadly, Jonny may never be able to return, but it was a great time while it lasted.

Thursday morning dawned bright and not-too-early, so we swept through the flock of uni students and headed into town for breakfast. Jonny then left for work – together with my heavy bags, hurrah! – and Maddie and I started off on a day’s wandering through Bristol.

It was like Skins! Especially the bits that I recognised from the show. Sweet as. Admittedly, I only recognised about two places, but I made sure to get a Cassie-type photo of me on a park bench with Bristol in the background, because that’s just how cool I am. Shin, I missed your ring tone. Would have been most appropriate accompaniment.

Despite its slate-grey backdrop, Bristol turned out to be rather good-looking, all suspension bridge and cathedral and quay. There were some wonderfully colourful buildings sticking out in unexpected places, and a good slab of street art dotted here and there.

Maddie and I got lunch in the local market and ate it by the quay, surrounded by dodgy-looking pigeons and one enormous, evil duck. They got nothing from me.

We met Jonny for a coffee during his break, at which point Maddie and I rested our aching feet and admired our purchases. Yes, we went shopping. No, it wasn’t for us. We had a very successful present-buying expedition at one of the local shops, so felt quite pleased with ourselves.

Oh, and let us not forget the giant cakes we found in Sainsburys. So many ready-made cakes! Where’s Wally cakes, Smartie cakes, gargantuan chocolatey cakes… Coles needs to up its game, that’s all I’m saying.

And soon enough it was six o’clock, and time for me to head back to London. Bristol was the perfect mid-week adventure, and it was great to spend time with Maddie and Jonny. (And live Skins a little.)

Lyon & Lille, France

Un séjour à Lyon est plus doux que cent pucelles.

Not my words, but true enough. And un séjour à Lille is just as good in terms of food and company. I spent three days in Lyon and two in Lille, and I wish I’d had more time in each city – but then I might have sunk the ferry on the way home, and that would’ve caused even more delay (but more on that later).

Brioche. Tart. Café. Baguette. Raclette. Lyon was a gastronomic adventure. My insides must be bright pink and crusted with sugar: Fiona aux pralines, a Lyonnais speciality. Don’t judge too harshly till you’ve been there and entered a couple of boulangeries. You won’t fit out the door.

I left for the airport at some ungodly hour on Wednesday morning, drooling my way through the train ride to Gatwick and only reviving with the aid of Three Musketeers and the promise of seeing Maddie for the first time in almost two months. Upon arrival, Maddie was the perfect host. She knew exactly what I wanted from Lyon – bright pink sugary things – and gave me the grand tour of the city, which encompassed spectacular city views, local boutiquey shops, and endless, endless stairs.

Most excitingly, I attended three of Maddie’s French lectures at the Lyon III university: one on Kant (argh), one on pan-Europeanism, and one on the French Revolution. While it’s true that I spent 75% of these lectures struggling to keep my brain intact and my eyes uncrossed, I did eventually click into the French.

I’d been slightly worried that my French might have slipped away entirely from lack of use, but it came crawling back over the course of the trip. Sure, my grammar was creative at best, and unintelligible at worst, but I spent a good many hours chatting away and succeeded in being vaguely understood. By Sunday afternoon, I was back to using the subjoctif like a pro.

But let’s get back to more important things, like fondue. Prior to Lyon, my closest encounters with fondue involved chocolate fountains and an Asterix comic that depicted a roomful of people becoming gradually roped together by strands of melted cheese. Authentic fondue is even more fun and delicious. The cheese! The bread! The cheese!

I spent my second night in Lyon chez one of Maddie’s friends, who very sweetly invited us around to dinner. This provided me with an opportunity to exercise my French in a non-threatening setting, and to eat delicious homemade quiche and (non-French, but decidedly nommy) apple crumble. And some vin, of course. We’re talking France, after all.

And so, having waddled from coffee to coffee and brioche to brioche with NO REGRETS, Maddie and I bought some bread and cheese (chevre!) from the local market and made our way north to Lille by TGV. Polly met us at the station and drove us back to hers, where we promptly settled in and watched a decidedly non-French film, Pearl Harbour.

Next day, we got up bright and early (I must not tell lies), and headed into town to explore. Polly showed us all the sights.

The best sights involved food behind windows. Oh look, a montage:

Somewhere amongst the pastries, we also saw two spectacular cathedrals, the local mall – complete with triffid-type flowers – and met a couple of Polly’s friends at a swanky-chic café. We also made time to duck into a bookshop, because obviously my suitcase won’t be heavy enough at the end of my trip.

And then – dinner! Polly’s parents took us to this lovely restaurant with traditional northern French cuisine, and wined and dined us in an incredibly generous fashion. I had cannelloni and pecan tart, both of which tasted heavenly. This restaurant was actually our second choice – first choice was booked out – but wound up saving us a half-hour trip to Belgium. Yes: Belgium. We almost drove to another country for tea.

That night we watched Welcome, a French film about illegal immigration from France to England, which was really quite sad and also foreshadowed the trials that Maddie and I would undergo the next day (but more on that in a minute). Following the film was an epic board game battle – Jungle Speed, Pictionary and Taboo – which I only lost because the whole thing was done in French. Actually, board games turn out to be the absolute best way to learn a second language, especially those requiring heavy description. Articulate is definitely the way to go.

And then it was Sunday morning, and time for Maddie and I to pack up for our journey to London. We spent the morning wandering about the area near Polly’s house, picking up essential travel supplies (chevre, pains au chocolat, lollies, jam). Lunch was an amazing chicken pie courtesy of Polly’s mum, and then we took off for the train station.

And then it all went horribly wrong. For eight hours.

Okay, it wasn’t actually that bad: our bus trip just took three hours longer than it was supposed to, that’s all. And Maddie and I didn’t even wind up at each other’s throats. Instead, we regressed to childhood-type maturity and got told off by the bus driver and Maddie spilled the lollies down the aisle and we had an eight-hour long sugar high. So really, it was fun.

And now we’ve both travelled across the Channel in three ways: train, plane, and ferry!

And there ended my adventures in Lyon and Lille – for now, at least. Pink sugary things are calling my name.

Liverpool, Merseyside

Liverpool seems to get rather the same publicity as Latvia. More than one British friend gave me a funny look and a more expressive, “Why in the world would you choose to go there?” Because of The Beatles, obviously. Because of the flat grey skies and the steeply sloping roads. Because of the Magical Mystery Tour, and a little less because of the Maritime Museum.

It was brilliant. I was travelling with the International Student House travel club and happily wound up with a friendly bunch of people. We got there by minibus, grabbed lunch (soup) and toddled off on an introductory walking tour. The tour led us to two consecutive cathedrals, both relatively new, one quite modern and the other simply enormous. More exciting was what lay between the two: our first Beatles monument! It consisted of a pile of stone guitar cases outside the Liverpool Music Academy. Apparently Paul McCartney comes back each year and presents the graduation certificates.

Following the walking tour, which took us all along the docks and encompassed much talk about the Titanic, the town’s involvement in the slave trade, and Beatles Beatles Beatles, I went off with a couple of new friends to get my museum fix.

After much wrestling with maps, we finally discovered that the Maritime Museum and the International Museum of Slavery co-existed in the one building. After a brief tour of each, we climbed back up to the non-modern cathedral, the massive one located in a graveyard-turned-park. It was just as massive on the inside. Also, it had its very own café right inside, which seemed an odd touch.

We met up with the group for dinner at the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, a gaudily decorated pub with delicious sausage and mash. Next came the highlight of the trip: the Cavern Club. This famous basement space is where The Beatles started out, and has heard gigs from the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Arctic Monkeys, Elton John, Adele, The Zombies, etc, etc.

New-friend-Tori and I let the others go off to their boring old pub and spent five hours rocking out to the best of the sixties. I really felt the absence of my gogo boots. It was amazing. The house band was in top form, and invited members of the audience to come up and let loose. Some let looser than others, forgetting whole Beatles verses (the shame) but others were on the ball.

The most memorable performances were those featuring the guitarist who played half his songs with his teeth. His teeth. I thought that was just some hilarious rock ‘n’ roll joke, but no. Picks are for the weak (take note, Mel). He also had Mick Jagger hair, and seemed to like standing on the drum kit and playing the guitar behind his back. Rockin’.

And that was just Saturday! Sunday started rather later, but earlier for us than for the locals, all of whom had been out on the streets at 1:30am. The streets were near empty till noon.

Down at the docks, we hopped on the world’s second coolest Mystery Vehicle and enjoyed a Beatlemanic Magical Mystery Tour.

It was great fun. Among other things, we saw each of the Beatles’ birthplace, Strawberry Fields (which contained a Lewis Carroll-inspired set of red gates), Penny Lane, a bunch of places mentioned in Penny Lane, and heard a whole lot about the band’s early history.

After the tour, Tori and I got woefully lost in the Liverpudlian streets. Having somehow made a massive circle, we headed up to China Town for a late Chinese lunch, then back to the hostel to meet the others for the bus.

It was a fantastic trip. Liverpool is absolutely worth the visit. If nothing else will convince you, I present the town mascot: SUPER-LAMB-BANANA.

Mind blown.

Norwich, Norfolk

Norwich. Norwich was cold. Finger-bitey cold. It wasn’t quite the Ukraine, but it was approaching Latvia, and I’m faintly surprised that Polly, Kyveli and I retained all limbs and extremities. Might have had something to do with our expert café-hopping skills. It was a great excursion, all churches and coffees and tank-shaped teapots.

First impression of Norwich: this is a lot like Canterbury. Churches cropped up all over the place, each and every one of them looking a whole lot like a cathedral, which didn’t really help things during our struggle to find the Actual Cathedral. Like Canterbury, the whole piece was incredibly picturesque. The overcast sky did nothing to detract from the dramatic castellation of the local castle, which was Stop No. 1. We weren’t much impressed by the museum inside. The highlight of the collection was the world’s largest – and most awful – teapot collection. I'm talking tank teapots. I'm talking camels.

Starving, we left the castle in search of food. Kyveli found us a vegetarian restaurant nearby the market, so we ate and warmed up a bit before continuing on our adventure. The Norwich market wasn’t much to sniff at, so we soon left, embarking on a church-crawl.

Apparently Norwich has one church for every Sunday of the year, and one pub for every weekday. The churches were all highly good-looking, but more importantly, warm.

After my natural instincts kicked in and we utterly failed to find the Cathedral, some kindly local pointed us in the right-ish direction. It turned out to be a good sort of cathedral: what it lacked in hunchback, it made up in choir. The courtyard outside looked like it had been pinched from Westminster Abbey, or Cambridge, according to Kyveli. We admired it with solemn dignity, as was its due.

We wandered around Elm Hill and the Cathedral Quarter until someone mentioned waffles, prompting an immediate stampede. Belgium has ruined me for waffles, but these were still delicious. And the shop was warm. Which was becoming increasingly important.

We left the waffle place – hello, Cinderalla! – and ducked in and out of endless cutesy shops, unable to stick the cold for more than a few minutes at a time. (Somebody later told me that it had been minus five degrees that day. Felt like it, too.)

We finally gave up and collapsed over hot drinks in a nearby café, before striking out for dinner at the town’s oldest pub.

Turns out the town’s oldest pub stops serving food at 7pm. Option No.2 was starters in Zizzi, and it was quite satisfactory. Polly discovered pesto sauce. It was marvellous. And then we headed over to the train station, freezing our bits off, having had a wonderful Norwich day.

Things got exciting when we got back to London. SNOW. SNOOOOOW. Snow created perpetual delays on the Central line. Snow made London transport (and the three of us) panic a little. But once Polly and I had farewelled Kyveli and finally made our way to Borough Station, snow was incredible. Cue crazy shameless photos and an impromptu snowball fight in the Great Dover Street courtyard at midnight.

SNOW.