London: Last Ten Days

My last ten days in London were insane. I became the queen of Life Tetris, slotting in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society ball, two floor guests, the Jubilee, Melbourne friends, Borough Market x 3, French musicals, baking, many many many goodbyes, and terrifyingly last-minute packing. It was sad, it was stressful, and it was fun.

The ten day countdown started with two grand occasions: the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and much more excitingly, the arrival of Sarah, a friend from Dublin. Sarah did much more than simply sleep on a bathmat on my floor. Sarah ate brownies with me in the captain’s quarters of the Golden Hinde, introduced me to The Avengers, held my hand at the London Dungeons, and even ate cupcakes that I accidentally flavoured with soy sauce. 

Sarah and I made a half-hearted effort to engage in Jubilee festivities. At 3pm on Sunday, we decided to wander down to London Bridge and watch the flotilla, only to be turned away by the police due to full audience capacity. Defeated, and daunted by the dreary weather, we took our takeaway noodles back to my kitchen and spent a good couple of hours mocking the BBC commentary. Did you know that the Queen “famously hates beige”?

We did, however, manage to ‘attend’ the Jubilee Concert the next night. My friend Natalie decided to hold her birthday picnic in Hyde Park overlooking one of the giant screens broadcasting the concert from Buckingham Palace. We were briefly rained on, showered with novelty bubbles, plied with picnic food, danced to Elton John (well, I did) and ultimately froze to death. It was great fun. British people turn out to be rather patriotic, especially the ones sporting bowler hats with little Union Jacks on top. 

My first goodbye arrived on Tuesday morning when Sarah left. This was a highly tragic occasion as we’d been having such hilarious fun together. To cheer myself up, I had Polly and Alice around for dinner, after which we watched 10 Things I Hate About You because Polly hadn’t seen it before, and friends don’t let friends behave in such a way.  

On Wednesday, with five days to go, Niki arrived and took up residence on my floor. It was beyond fantastic to catch up with her, Kathy and Edward, all friends from Melbourne, and future travel buddies in Barcelona and the Greek Islands. I saw these three at increasingly random intervals over the next five days as my schedule became more and more hectic. Somewhere in there, Niki and I managed to pop into the British Museum to check out the pilfered Parthenon stuff in preparation for visiting the actual Acropolis.

And then the painful part of my last ten days began in earnest, and I started the devastating process of saying goodbye to my London friends. I farewelled Tori (and family) at Borough Market, Alice at St Ali’s (a suitably Melbournian café near Old Street station), and Vicky from Iolanthe after watching the purple-panted Aussie version of Pirates of Penzance.

On Friday, the goodbyes continued in a fun but heartbreaking stream. Miki and I finally watched Mozart L’Opéra Rock like we’d planned for months on end, which was absolutely amazing. I then went to dinner with Polly and Kyveli at an Italian restaurant in a rather nice area of Chelsea that I’d never visited before. We attempted to attend a philosophy night at the French Institute before giving up and going for drinks and dancing in a bar on the south bank of the Thames.

Saturday was a particularly crazy day, starting with Josh-and-Muney-baking in the morning. It was almost successful baking, too. My last ten days in London were marked by some sort of cooking curse. I spent a good couple of unexpected hours at a last-minute hairdressing appointment. I then dropped into Borough Market for one final farewell before meeting Fiona at Bea’s of Bloomsbury near St Paul’s. It was an absolutely lovely day. The blue sky was clearly designed as a London farewell just for me.

Cara came over for dinner and watched me take down the first few posters from my wall. Several people warned me not to leave packing until the last minute, so I left it until the last midnight. 

Those final hours before midnight were great. Cara and I met up with Niki and Nabila at The Anchor (near London Bridge) for Crabbies. It was when I got back home that the hellishness kicked in. I packed and dissembled feverishly for three and a half hours until I flopped into bed, then woke at 8am and continued the effort, pausing only for a delicious parting brunch with Polly and Kyveli on Bermondsey Street. And then it was back to the packing, and the panicking, and the general manic stressfulness of it all.

Somehow I was only forty-five minutes late meeting Kathy, Niki and Edward. Somehow we made it to London Bridge station in time. Somehow we caught the right plane to Barcelona. The only positives to leaving packing to the absolute last minute were that I got to spend ten full days hanging out with the best people in London and that I was too crazy stressed to be overly despondent about ending my incredible exchange year.

My love to everyone who made the past ten months so wonderful. Come to Melbourne or else.

Oxford, Oxfordshire RETURNS.

I can be spontaneous. Ask anyone. More specifically, ask Alice, who was my partner in crime on a spur of the moment trip out to Oxford last Friday. She’d never been. I hadn’t been since last September. The urge to rectify this situation proved uncontrollable.

Our day began with an epic train chase through Paddington. We left Alice's house with what seemed like plenty of time to spare, only to arrive at Paddington a mere ten minutes before our train left. Alice made the terrible decision to follow me as I ran towards our platform only to discover that our platform was, in fact, in the complete opposite direction. We pivoted and legged it back towards the train, and somehow made it with a good minute to spare. Who needs the Olympics with this stuff going down?

Once in Oxford, we made our way to Christ Church College, the only college fully equipped with its own paddock. The college was as beautiful as I remembered, all decked out in dreaming spires and ivy and other glorious bits and pieces. Instead of going inside, we strolled along the nearby river and had adventures.

I finally found the Magic Faraway tree.

Alice tested the strength of a ‘Weak Bridge’ and made tourists think she was about to do a Sherlock.

Having made our way back around to Christ Church College, we peeked in at the garden that inspired Alice in Wonderland and then took a wander through the backstreets of Oxford. Admittedly, the wander wasn’t supposed to be quite so directionless, but we did eventually manage to find the Bodleian Library and all the accompanying spires.

We grabbed lunch and headed back to the lush grass just beyond Christ Church for a picnic. One of us eventually checked the time, and we hurried off to the Eagle and the Child – the Inklings’ pub – for a quick pint.

And then we hopped on the train, and we didn’t even have to make a run for it this time. Victory. 

Tintern, Wales

When I procrastinate, I make an effort. In the deepest depths of my exam period, I emerged from my room-cocoon and went on a day trip to Wales with the International Students House Travel Club. 

Having driven through parts of the Cotswolds, our first stop on the way to Wales was Gloucester. Prior to the trip, my impressions of Gloucester were largely shaped by the town’s annual cheese-rolling event, during which participants chase a giant round of cheese down a hill, the winner being the one who ‘catches’ the cheese, the prize being the cheese itself.

All of which slightly departs from the topic at hand. The most exciting thing about Gloucester cathedral is the fact that it played home to the corridor leading to the Gryffindor common room in the Harry Potter movies. Jealous, Mel?

Next up was a lookout somewhere within the Forest of Dean (a forest you might recall from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I swear, every single teensy bit of England was used as a location in those films). The lookout point was great, all sweeping green, white cliffs, and a twisting river.

We knew we’d reached Wales as soon as the road signs stopped making sense. I love the look of the Welsh language, all swirly bits and upside-down-looking letters. I remained happily oblivious to the meaning of the passing road signs until some smart cookie pointed out that the English translations were right beneath the Welsh.

Tintern Abbey was immediately spectacular. The ruins of the cathedral were incredible up close, almost as striking as the ruins of the St Andrews cathedral in Scotland. (St Andrews wins out mostly because of its location on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.) 

I had icecream for lunch and became very sunburnt by the time we got back onto the bus and headed to a nearby Welsh town, Stockport. Here we posed at the line dividing England from Wales and narrowly avoided being run down by passing cars.

There was also a nice sort of castle with a very nice sort of shade. A few of us lay down on the grassy slope and enjoyed a brief respite from enhanced sunburn.

Afterwards, we drove back to London, which seemed much greyer than normal after all that blinding green. And then I despondently returned to my exam revision, just a little bit redder than when I’d closed my books the night before.