York, Yorkshire

York was nothing less than a winter wonderland, all castellated city wall, fake snow and Harry Potter ice sculptures. It was like walking into a festive cliché. I had an amazing time, and York jostled its way to the top of my ‘favourite British towns’ list.

Half the fun was sharing the experience with Zoe. She was the one who originally convinced me to go on the International Student House’s York trip. We all met at the ISH at 7:30am on Friday morning, from which we left for Kings Cross and eventually wound up in York.

First off, we took a tour of this mediaeval Disneyland. Among other things, we saw a church that had once housed its very own hermit. Not the most glamorous career. We also walked along part of the city wall towards the monumental York Cathedral. Lots of stained glass in that building. It was all removed during World War II to prevent potential bomb-damage. Bomb shelters were for glass only. (Civilians < glass.)

After a quick peek at the Shambles, a famous windy alleyway of a street overhung by houses, we went for dinner at a pub called the Black Swan. I had a gigantic Yorkshire pudding and beef, and then shared some spotted dick with Zoe. Good stuff.

Day two began with Vikings. We headed down to the JORVIK Viking Centre for the full Viking experience, which encompassed guides in costume, a ride with mannequins, and ‘authentic’ Viking smells. Mum, your cubs would love it.

Next came the York Castle Museum: a collection of rooms, objects and narratives done up like the past. I learned heaps about the evolution of toilets and soap and mourning clothes and mince pies. They even had an indoor street scene, complete with an actor performing a one-man Dickens extravaganza: A Christmas Carol. He tried his hardest to grope Zoe, but she fended him off with admirable skill and dignity. Humbug.

We then went and had cream tea at Betty’s, a famous teashop that was beyond brimming every time we passed it. Somehow we squeezed our way in at low tourist tide.

Next we heaved off for dinner. We met up with a couple of the others and embarked on an epic quest to find a pub with room to spare. This took about an hour. We wound up with approximately ten minutes in which to eat before we had to rush off for a ghost tour, which was hilarious. I didn’t get scared, and that’s saying something, as I’m still fairly jumpy around unfamiliar bathrooms (thank you, Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock). Only screamed once. The guide just made fun of everyone the whole time.

On Sunday morning, Zoe and I hiked out along the town wall and found ourselves at the Yorkshire Museum. Lots of interesting stuff there: Romans, mediaeval churchy stuff, dodos, and a really fat over-stuffed platypus.

One museum obviously wasn’t enough, so we struck out for the National Rail Museum, which wound up being more or less as fascinating as it sounds. There were some very cool Thomas-esque tank engines and more than a couple of trains that bore close resemblance to the Hogwarts Express, but apart from that… we bought nice postcards.

We wound up our York trip with a carol service at St Denys, a local church. It was lovely – lots of kids scrabbling around for chocolate coins, and a fairly awful band accompanying some fairly questionable singing. Just how I like it.

Paris, France

Mel, Steph and I went to Paris and we did everything. Everything. Well, except all the stuff that my friends told me to do, but I have to reserve a little reason to return to Paris. That’s my excuse. That, and sore legs.

We suffered an appalling early start: the Eurostar left King’s Cross at 6:30am. I somehow managed to miss the whole tunnel part, possibly because my eyes were shut. Once in Paris, we headed straight for the Eiffel Tower, bags and all. It’s bronze. I never remember that. The view from the second level was breathtaking; I remember that much, at least.

After dumping our stuff at the (very cushy) hotel, we struck out for a lower sort of tourist attraction: the Parisian catacombs. The warning signs out the front were fairly foreboding – ‘not for people of a nervous disposition’ – but the length of the queue was scarier. To while away the time, I went and fetched some chocolat chaud and pains au chocolat: the perfect remedy for drizzle, fear and queueing.

The catacombs themselves were about as morbid and creepy as you might expect. And they stretched on forever! Half of Paris is built on bones. We wandered past a total of six million ex-Parisians – all arranged in decorative (if monotonous) style along a dark labyrinthine tunnel. I kept having visions of skeletal hands reaching out and grabbing my ankles à la Carrie. Nice.

We emerged into evening gloom (it was about 4 o’clock) and headed over to the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs Elysées was stuffed with people, busy busy, especially closer to the Place de la Concorde, where market stalls lined both sides of the street. It was a fantastic Christmas market, but perhaps a bit too popular. We bought our crêpes and struggled along against the tourist tide.

By this point, we were all becoming a little exhausted, so we headed down to the Place de la Concorde to find our bus home. This was something of a trial. We’d been feeling pretty good about our decision to use the Parisian bus service to get around, right up until we realised how bloody hard it was to locate bus stops. We spent a million years trudging up and down the Champs Elysées, searching fruitlessly. We found the stop right as tensions reached the ‘homicidal’ range. And we got home. And we watched Miss France on TV until we all felt a bit better.

Sunday was just as crazy busy as the day before. Having managed to get to Paris on the first weekend of the month, we found that we’d stumbled upon free Sunday entry into all major museums - quelle chance! Taking full advantage of this, we hit up the Loeuvre – here, da Vinci; there, Napoleon – and then the Conciergerie, which seemed to be hosting some strange sort of art exhibition on the theme of animals. I have never seen such a fine unicorn pelt.

Next up was the Notre Dame: just as gothic and monumental as I remembered it. There was even some organ music accompanying us up the aisles, adding to the fantastic Victor Hugo atmosphere.

After feasting on some baguettes in a nearby café, we caught the bus up to Montmartre and somehow hauled ourselves up the killer stairs. Mel barely survived. But all was worth it when we reached the Sacre Coeur and its spectacular city views. (I didn’t faint once inside, to the sorrow of nuns everywhere.) We then explored the touristy bits of Montmartre – berets, paintings, hawkers everwhere – and came across a Salvadore Dali exhibition. Loved his Alice in Wonderland stuff. Just as surreal as advertised.

Crêpes followed, and then a brief visit to the Paris Opera House. We returned to the Gare du Nord, and there ended our Parisian adventure: back on the Eurostar with one last baguette, half-crippled by the endless walking, and masters of the Paris bus system.

Fin.

London: Hallelujah

A couple of weeks ago I rediscovered London. It started off on a Friday and featured a good deal of my good friend Zoe. We went to the Charles Dickens museum in Bloomsbury, which is situated in one of his numerous London houses, and contains a lot of interesting Dickensy stuff: portraits, his favourite armchair, first editions of his works, all that sort of thing. This was actually our second attempt at the Dickens museum. First time around, we turned up to find the place closed. It was good to finally get it under our belts.

We followed literature with some art. Having headed down past Holborn to get to the National Gallery, we joined quite the crowd of elderly tourists and took a tour. Very cultured, aren’t we?

But wait: there’s more. Saturday brought a free tour of Westminster Abbey (kindly organised by the King’s College Chaplaincy). I’d already visited the Abbey a couple of years back, but it was nice to get back in there and revisit some of my favourite memorial slabs of stone. The tour took us through places inaccessible to the ordinary visitor. We got to stand on the raised altar bit where the Royal Wedding happened, and see where the queen was coronated. She was crowned with her back to the people: brilliant.

Along came Sunday, and with it, the Old Spitalfields Market with Alice and Maddie. Maddie and I struck out for Liverpool Street Station, heading across London Bridge and past the Monument, catching a glimpse of a Harry Potter guided tour and giving semi-informed directions to a lost tourist. The Market itself was top notch, delivering a very nice bundle of Wodehouse books and some pistachio-flavoured Turkish delight.

I left the others to go and meet up with Zoe again, this time at an advent carol service at St Martins in the Fields, the rather impressive-looking church opposite Trafalgar Square. We went expecting to sing carols; instead, we got a fairly powerful sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. There was lots of talk of hell and judgement, nicely balanced by some wonderful choral singing.

Monday arrived, but my London touristing barely paused for breath. Zoe and I went to 39 Steps, a play based on an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Our restricted view seats turned out to be incredibly worth it when we found ourselves in an otherwise empty row, and we managed to land ourselves an unrestricted view after all. The play itself was great fun – a slap-stick pastiche of the film noir genre, with the fourth wall broken clear through by a very talented cast.

On Tuesday, Maddie, Polly, Kyveli and I headed back to Westminster Abbey to attend a performance of Handel’s Messiah. While we were seated behind the choir, the acoustics were fairly monumental, delivering a full-bodied performance of the Hallelujah Chorus. We even got to sit in the wooden choir stands! It was a fantastic night.

Finally, on Wednesday, after struggling through some more uni work – yes, that all continued as per usual – I went along with Alice and Maddie to a bar to see a band called Foreign Slippers. It was great music, great cider, great times. The perfect end to a rather hectic week of Londoning.

(Do you love the birds? I do. I dragged Zoe out to a very random, very eccentric, very awesome exhibition in Shoreditch, and we did a spot of bird-watching.)

Canterbury, Kent

Canterbury was loads of fun. I went down for the weekend with the King’s Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and so spent three days hanging out with some of London’s finest. To be honest, I didn’t even see that much of Canterbury. We spent Saturday at the beach at Broadstairs and the rest of the time crammed in a single room in the Canterbury hostel.

Getting to the hostel was a challenge in itself. Obviously I went and stood outside the wrong building for a good twenty minutes, wondering where in the hell all the G&S people were and how exactly one got inside reception. Turns out that reception was very easy to find once I’d shifted myself one door down the street. It was a fairly gorgeous building, to be fair – entirely unhostel-like, in my experience.

We spent Friday night quizzing it up, answering most questions with ‘W. S. Gilbert’ and the like. And, by some miracle, my team won. Brilliant. Was not my fault. We dined on pizza and Chinese food – with chips! The insanity continues.

Saturday was spent at Broadstairs, a lovely little seaside town. It was much nicer than Brighton. We ate fish and chips on the beach, and I even got a separate little container of mushy peas.

A singularly thrilling event was the sand sculpting competition. Genevieve and I may not have won, but we made a pretty damn amazing loveseat throne.

We were treated to a fabulous three-course meal on Saturday night, dressed in our finest back at the hostel. I lost spectacularly at chocolate poker soon afterwards, but there was enough welfare chocolate available for everyone.

I spent Sunday morning racing around Canterbury to catch a glimpse of the famous churches and, of course, the Cathedral.

Curiously, I think I saw more of Canterbury last night at the advent carol service at St Martins in the Field near Trafalgar Square, as the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the sermon. (It was more Russian Orthodox than St Aidans, with all its talk of judgement, death and hell and the like, and the gratuitously creepy organ music more than suited the tone.)

I’m glad I managed to get out to Canterbury, but the real highlight of the weekend was the beach. And the people I stayed with weren’t too bad either. :)

London: In Between Events

Sandwiched in between Ireland, Latvia and Canterbury were quite a few notable events. The first that leaps to mind involves a certain microwave. A certain exploded microwave. A microwave that no longer exists in our flat save for the distant smell of burning.

Okay, so I’m not completely hopeless. I know how to use a microwave. I now know how not to use a microwave. I’d set some bread on to defrost and had returned to my room when I caught a whiff of this awful acrid smell from the kitchen. I ran back to find that the entire kitchen was engulfed in thick impenetrable grey smoke. I panicked. I inhaled a kitchenful of toxic fumes while opening the windows. I ran to reception for advice and was told to try to avoid setting the fire alarms off, and maybe try opening the windows?

So essentially our block reeked of burning for about a week. On the plus side, they replaced our microwave the very next day and I haven’t managed to destroy this one yet. My lungs may be dead inside, but hey, shiny new appliance…

The second exciting event arrived on a Tuesday afternoon when I came home from King’s to find a parcel waiting for me outside my door. Forks! Tiny teddies! Hev sent me amazing wonderful things and it made my day.

And then a third fantastic thing occurred that very night when Maddie and Alice surprised me with tickets to see Matilda, the musical version of Roald Dahl’s novel adapted for stage by Tim Minchin. Brilliant brilliant brilliant! It was absolutely top quality, so much fun, so much Trunchbull. I laughed, I cried, I want to see it again and again. I normally hate kids singing on stage, but I loved all the little kiddie actors in this production. Genius.

So there we go: microwave, teddies, Matilda. Very notable events.

Riga, Latvia

When I tell people I’ve just been to Latvia, they tend to get this funny startled look, as if Latvia isn’t really the first place they would’ve picked for a holiday. I’d honestly never given it much thought either until circumstances arranged themselves into an arrow sign pointed to Riga. It turned out to be an incredible place for a tourist. I couldn’t get enough of it, with the forest, the culture, the architecture, the food, and, obviously, the company.

After meeting up with our Melbournian-Latvian host, Antra, Alice and I dumped our stuff and headed out for a night on the town. What a fantastic introduction to Riga. The first place we went to was this wine bar featuring a live Latvian band – I’m talking violin, piano, mandolin and tuba. Amazing. They played a great set of Latvian and Russian songs, and even made room for a random cover of ‘Always Look On the Bright Side of Life’. Monty Python in Latvia: why not? Next stop was another bar down the street for our first taste of Latvian beer, where I notably tripped and fell flat on my face.

This was not the last time that the three of us would make public disgraces of ourselves in Riga – oh no.

We spent Thursday wandering through the Old Town of Riga, all beautifully ornate Latvian architecture and cobbled streets and cat statues on spires. Visual feast is accurate. There were several market stalls scattered through the streets, one of which had the best babushkas I’ve ever seen. Look closely.

There was no way we were going to miss Antra’s art exhibition in a local café, so we dropped in and admired her fantastic silk-screen prints. Check them out, they’re stunning: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MinkaSvarcs?ref=pr_shop_more

After a Latvian-style lunch of ham and beans and rice and veggies, we continued walking through the streets and soon bumped into a camera crew. Obviously attracted by our puffy jackets and crocheted scarves, the director begged us for a contribution to his documentary on Riga’s awesomeness. We almost but not quite managed to give them a passable ‘We… Love… Latvia!’ and there was embarrassment all around. And now we’re probably famous.

That night we headed up a pub called Chomskeys only twenty metres down the road from Antra’s apartment. It was there that we first met Antra’s Swedish medical student friends and collectively came up with the concept of a moose-kangaroo crossbreed that could swim, attack tourists and dent cars. It was a great night.

Friday only got better when we took the bus out to the National Memorial and the local forest. There was a really moving memorial service. Despite being warned by the Australian Travel Advisory website about ticks in Latvian forests, we then headed out to a forested area and had a fantastic time discussing determinism and compatibalism and throwing bunches of leaves into the air. No ticks spotted so far.

It turned out that Friday night marked the lacplesa diena festival in Riga, which pretty much meant that the entire town turned out to light candles, stick them in the castle walls, and light massive bonfires which they then set loose down the river. There was a stage with live music and everything. It’s lucky there were bonfires, actually, because by this stage, I was basically more icicle than human. Alice and Antra engulfed me in their puffy jackets, hence saving my life.

After watching the bonfire float away downstream, we went out and got some amazing and cheap-as Russian dumplings at a fastfood restaurant that should definitely be exported to Melbourne. Next we popped into the local Irish pub – felt like I’d gone back a week in time – and watched Antra’s friend sing a set of classic hits. After that, we headed over to the Swedish medical students’ apartment. Quizzes, Business Time, and a boxful of organs: that’s how I’ll remember those people.

We woke up extremely late on Saturday, which was a bit of an issue as the sun had taken to setting by 3pm. Making the most of the remaining daylight, Antra took us on a tour of some incredible burnt-out buildings in the area. Feeling reasonably certain that the staircase would collapse, I wimped out early.

Afterwards we went and located some delicious Latvian pancakes – almost but not quite as spectacular as Latvian bread. We then went to a great little bar called Leningrad, which had all you could ask for in honey beer and clientele drunkenly sexy-dancing on tables. Alice was the victim of an Antra attack.

The night progressed to some clubbing with Swedes, and eventually, to a fake snow fight in the middle of the city. Antra and Alice disgraced themselves. It was great fun. We got home much too late and scarfed some leftover Latvian borsch that Antra had made earlier.

Woke even later next morning and hurried out to walk through a different part of town, where the Soviet influence was clear as concrete. The best part of the day was our visit to a gallery showing interactive art. All three of us took it in turns to be strapped down to a white hammock that looked nothing less than homicidal. You whacked on a set of headphones and listened to music reflecting sound vibrations onto your skin. I think.

There was also this plant that made sounds when you touched its leaves, and a set of atlases that showed the geographical distribution of internet connection, multi-million dollar companies and all this other sociological stuff. Fascinating. I was pretty taken by a toaster-building project one design student had embarked on, constructing a functioning toaster from organic materials at an exorbitant cost. He did this to show how little understanding we have of modern technology and ecological consequences, and how we generally fail to think about how our kitchen appliances came to be.

And he quoted Douglas Adams. Nice.

We left that night, full of wonderful Latvian food and language. (Like lapsa. That means fox.) Paldies, Antra!

Ireland, The Republic Of

Ireland was somehow exactly how I’d imagined it, Bernard Blacks and leprechauns all over the shop. Everywhere but Dublin was ridiculously green, Dublin being more of a greyish colour. But Dublin gave me my favourite Irish experience: Chinese food served the Irish way (with chips instead of rice) with the fabulous Sarah, an authentic Irish redhead and everything.

Dublin itself was quite a decent city. It was full to the brim with Oscar Wilde stuff, just as it should be. I really enjoyed wandering through Trinity College – home to the Hogwarts Great Hall! – and the cathedral district. So many cathedrals. My favourites were St Patrick’s Cathedral, with its Jonathon Swift memorial, and Christchurch Cathedral, for the cat that almost gave me a heart attack by stalking my tuna sandwich.

The next day marked the start of my five-day Shamrocker tour of Ireland’s south and west coasts. The bus was 75% Australian: great people, fun times. We left Dublin and headed into the (green, green) countryside, making a stop at Blarney Castle for the obligatory kissing of the Blarney Stone. Apparently, being groped by an old man as he suspends you over a chasm at the top of a castle in order to kiss a stone gives you the ‘gift of the gab’. You'll have to judge.

The Blarney grounds were incredible. I climbed the Wishing Stairs backwards with my eyes closed as instructed, visited the Druids’ Circle, took a wander through the Poison Garden – very cool but concerning – and generally enjoyed myself. Meanwhile, one of the guys on our tour asked his girlfriend to marry him, which was incredibly sweet.

Also, it was Halloween, leading to surprises like this in the castle:

We spent the night in the town of Killarney, where I enjoyed some proper Irish stew – delicious – and watched Pa the Storyteller perform in a small room above a pub. He was phenomenal. He drank a total of six pints of Guinness and a couple of shots of Jamieson whiskey as part of the performance. Mad. And he gave me a free cd of songs he’d recorded in his youth, so he was pretty all right.

A note on Guinness: it tastes like vegemite minus the salt. And the correct way to drink it is in three mouthfuls, to prevent it from settling and tasting awful.

I stuck to cider.

Day two took us to the Dingle Peninsula, land of incredible views and coastline. We passed through the hometown of Jack Duggan, ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’, and, more excitingly, a man who shares his name with our street. We made a stop at Coumeennole Beach, where several of our group waded into the sea and hence lost bits of their souls according to legend. I was wearing tights, and so preserved my soul. We spent the night in Ennis.

Day three delivered the highlight of the tour: the Cliffs of Moher, otherwise known as the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bride, or the Cliff Entrance To The Cave Where Dumbledore Drank The Poison And It Was Creepy.

The views were spectacular. We were almost blown off our feet as we looked out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Next (or maybe before... Eh, Irish time!) we headed out to the Burren, this stretch of rubbly stone hosting the occasional dolmen. It was all very grey and eerie.

We hopped back in the bus and made a brief stop at a fairy circle, having heard all about the fascinating Celtic legends of fairies, leprechauns and general superstition. It was like something out of Enid Blyton. Abiding by the strict warnings of our guide, Carol, nobody stepped into the fairy circle, hence averting tragedy and bad luck.

We stopped for the night in Galway, Dublin’s ‘funky sister city’, and made a tour of several pubs, all of which featured live traditional Irish music.

We spent day four back on the bus, exploring Connemara’s beaches, mountains and peat bogs. It was fantastic to learn more about Irish history while visiting the National Famine Memorial. We heard some fascinating, tragic stories about the famine.

One of the best things we saw in Connemara was a statue outside a little town marked by a rather curious sign: “The Connemara Giant – late 20^th c: antiquity.” The statue itself bore a plaque stating, “Built in 1999 for no apparent reason.” Brilliant.

The next day marked the end of the tour, so after taking a guided walk through Galway in the morning, we all got back on the bus and listened to Carol’s very thorough explanation of the current Irish situation.

All in all, it was a great use of my reading week. I still can’t believe how very Irish the whole thing was. And Sarah, the London offer still stands!