9 months in a foreign city or How I learnt to love summer
A very common question I keep getting asked is what Christmas is like in Australia. This means that my creative streak has been given a run. Stories can range from ‘Oh no, we do actually get snow. It’s 40 degrees in the day and then goes down to -10 at night and we usually get a blizzard on Christmas Eve. The Kangaroos hate it!’ to ‘Who’s this guy in red? At Christmas we sacrifice a platypus to appease the sun gods and then give each other a different platypus innard depending on how close the person is to you.’
It’s been fun.
What people seem to not realise is that in Australia, everything about Christmas is practically the same… just hotter. What’s struck me is how similar Christmas is here. Growing up in a country where the temperature regularly gets up to 40 on Christmas Day, yet the pervading imagery around the place is of furs and snow. It has always felt a little wrong.
Being in the cold feels right at Christmas. Especially because this year mother nature put on a show and made it snow a week ago. I’m currently sitting in a room with a real tree, surrounded by traditional Christmas decorations and when I look out the back window there’s a blanket of white across the garden. It’s slightly magical. And the fact that I’ve been accepted into Em’s family like I’m one of them is something that makes it even better (I was just given my first chore. Emptying the bin on to the compost heap. I think that means I’m one of them now.).
One thing is missing, though. The fact that my family and friends from the past 24 odd years are approximately 9000 miles from here. It’s funny though, because I don’t get homesick. Everyone tells me it will hit me soon, but it never has. I think it’s mostly because I’m still slightly in denial that I’m so far away and thanks to technology I am never that far away from family and friends. In fact, Facebook is a great way to say hello to someone, which I’m sure is not what it’s meant for. Since I’ve been in the UK, I’ve rarely used it to stalk and have actually used it to communicate with people! It’s especially fun when I’m sitting at my desk at 9 in the morning talking to my inebriated friends at 8 at night.
I’ve gone off on a tangent. Back to what I was talking about.
The first time I’ve been here and felt slightly homesick (or maybe just nostalgic) was this morning. I was standing on the platform at Twickenham Station, freezing my hands off (we’re polite here. Plus I was wearing thermals so we weren’t worried about that) listening to my ipod. I’d just downloaded Tim Minchin’s ‘White Wine in the Sun’ and it damn near made me tear up. Mostly because it’s true. (cue cheese) I know that wherever I am in the world at Christmas, my dad, my brother, my sisters, my aunts and my uncles, my cousins, my gran(s) and my mum will be waiting for me in the sun.
So here I am, writing a sappy Christmas post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and to let the people in Australia know that I miss them. All of them. Except for the ones in Doonside. And most of Western Australia. And Tasmania. Nobody misses Tasmania.
Merry Christmas.
The following Monday brought the promise of a proper look around the nation’s capital. Em needed to meet her new boss near Trafalgar Square in the morning and we had plans to meet some friends in the evening in Angel. Therefore, that meant a full day of London, some accompanied by a guide, some on my lonesome. The train in wasn’t too bad at all. However, something I failed to mention in my last post is the ridiculous cost of public transport in the UK. Let’s do a comparison, shall we? In Sydney, a rail ticket from Penrith to the city (approx 33 miles) will cost you $14.40 return. A ticket from Letchworth to London (approx 36 miles) will cost you £28 (approx $56). That’s over $50 for a half hour train ride. And locals were wondering why I was shocked…
Anyway, on to the real point of the post. Walking to Trafalgar Square from Leicester Square station gave me my first glimpse of some West End Theatres, something that I was very excited to do ASAP. However, the standard touristing had to get done first. Once Emily was on her way I took a small walk done the Mall (something that English seem to mispronounce every time… they say Mal where the correct pronunciation is somewhere closer to Maul). This short 10 minute walk provided me with a few English firsts: My first London squirrel sighting, my first (of many) losing all sense of direction, my first mistaking a road for a public walkway and similarly my first almost getting run down by a London cabbie. What I was rewarded with at the end of this walk was a lot of tourists. Oh, and a rather large palace. I didn’t stick around long. I thought it was nice to tick Buckingham Palace off the list, but it just wasn’t too exciting standing outside a gate looking at a rather boring building. Sure, the guards wore funny hats, but nothing else that interesting. I took some photos, feeling as if I’d be scalded if I didn’t, and went on my merry way.
Emily’s instructions were to either go toward Westminster or to go toward Buckingham Palace. Seeing as I still had an hour to spare I decided to rock the boat and tick Westminster off at the same time. Westminster Hall, unlike Buckingham Palace, is an extremely impressive building. Not only does it provide one of London’s most recognizable tourist attractions (The Westminster Clock Tower, also known as Big Ben, which coincidentally doesn’t actually refer to the Tower but the Bells inside the tower), it also stands across the road from the equally stunning Westminster Abbey. Both buildings are architecturally beautiful and the ornamentation is stunning. In addition, Westminster Hall is guarded by heavily armed police. Being from Australia, I have never seen this and it took me slightly aback. It’s probably why one particularly friendly policeman nodded at me and said ‘mornin’, after I stopped mid stride and stood transfixed by the large assault rifle he was holding. It just seemed slightly… surreal. Anyway, the buildings were pretty.
After this I made my way back up to meet Emily. I seemed to pass every single parliamentary or government building on the way back, including Downing St. I was very disappointed. It looked nothing like Little Britain.
We then made our way through Covent Garden (or ‘Theatreland’ as the street signs say) and jumped on a tube to head to the V&A. The V&A is Emily’s favourite museum, and upon visiting most other museums and galleries throughout London, I have to agree. The Victoria and Albert Museum exists to showcase culture. Therefore, the galleries consist of fashion, jewellery, furniture, paintings and drawings, architecture and performance, amongst many more. The first gallery we visited was the fashion (not my choice) and I was quite surprised to see period dress standing next to a 2005 Dior outfit. Basically, the museum collects pieces of culture and then displays it. The result is a fantastically eclectic collection. Also, they have a theatre and performance section, which completely sold me. Filled with costumes, set designs, props and memorabilia, I almost wet myself walking through here. Also, they have a dress up section, which amused the inner 5 year olds for about 20 minutes. In the end, the greatest things I got out of the V&A visit were a kick ass monogram, a lesson on how to tie a cravat (step one: fail, step two: ask Emily to do it for you) and a stomach ache from the giant meringue I devoured.
Then we met Emily’s friends and drank. The lesson I learnt that night was that 5 pints is not the same as 5 schooners.
After acquiring phones on Tuesday and getting stung by bees and watching Fantastic Mr. Fox on Wednesday (I love the fact that some movies are released here MONTHS before Australia), we made our way to Birmingham on Thursday with Em’s parents for an antiques fair. I would like to say that shenanigans followed, but unfortunately it was an extremely tame day. We walked around, Em spent some money, I decided that I wanted to buy a Mini and a grandfather clock, we learnt about suffragette pieces and then jumped back into the car and went home. A rather pleasant day out.
On Friday it was raining. Surprisingly, this hadn’t actually happened since I had arrived. So therefore, Murphy’s Law states that the day where we move our belongings from Letchworth to Twickenham it rains. Actually, it only really rained during the portion of the activity that required us to be outside: packing the car and driving there. Also, the UK does a different kind of rain to everywhere else…
In Australia it rains. Water falls from the sky and it falls on you and you get a bit wet. Sounds simple. The UK has this kind of rain. However, it has another kind of rain. This is the kind of rain where you look outside and think ‘that’s not too heavy, I can handle that!’ However, when you walk outside you realise you have made an awful mistake. Within 10 seconds this so called ‘rain’ has covered you from head to toe in water, managing to get inside your clothes, shoes and possibly underwear. It’s kind of like the napalm of rain.
Suffice it to say that I got wet. That day we managed to travel a road called the North Circular (also known to some as the 7th circle of hell) a total of three times that day. However, as Em wasn’t convinced that my license was valid in the UK, I did all of it from the passenger seat. Some would think that this would make the trip slightly better. Those people would be wrong. I, who had been in the country for a week was the ‘navigator’. As a result, we managed to stay on the North Circular a little longer than planned, missing our turn off… twice. Anyway, after getting IKEAd up, we managed to head home to our new house in Twickenham. A bottle (or two) of champagne later we called moving in quits and retired to a lovely blow up mattress. Clearly, our trip to IKEA wasn’t actually that successful.
Next Post: A birthday in Letchworth, My first interview and some wandering around London.
It’s almost been a month since I departed my plane at Heathrow airport and I have been slack in keeping up correspondence with… well… anyone, really. It has been a fairly busy month, and a recount of this will understandably be quite long. Therefore, I’m splitting these posts up into a few parts. I will be having a fairly uninteresting week this week so it should give me an opportunity to bring this blog up to date.
I’m currently making my way through Bill Bryson’s Notes on a Small Island to bring me up to speed with the remarkably small island that is the UK. It is one of the funniest books I’ve read for a while and has thus inspired the title of this blog.
To start I could entertain you with the long and amusing story involving our baggage dilemmas and some hilarious mixups with the airline companies. However, this could take days and I will sum it up in two sentences. The night before we flew, we had to repack 5 suitcases and attempt to fit the important stuff in 2 suitcases. As a result, we now both officially hate British Airways and Qantas, and their stupid One World Alliance.
Once we were on the plane, our anger subsided to be replaced with joy at the fact that the plane was practically empty. This meant a much more comfortable 24 hour flight than I was expecting, even if the food and movies were terrible. I did, however, manage to confirm my love of top gear over the period of about 12 hours (something that has continued considering there’s a TV channel here that pretty much does Top Gear 24 hours a day. Thank you Dave).
Sydney was a nice and chilly 40 degrees when we left. However, due to lack of space in suitcases, we both managed to pile on most of the clothes we own and looked something like Michelen men. However, upon landing at Heathrow this seemed to be a rather intelligent idea. It was cold.
Thanks to Em’s parents, we then jumped in a car and headed north. As this is my first foray overseas, I was expecting something a little more… dramatic. Being on the other side of the world I expected it to look somehow different. I’m not really sure how, but I expected something to look not Australian. Aside from the signs
After a 32 or so hour drive, we arrived in Em’s hometown. Letchworth (full name Letchworth Garden City) is a beautiful little town in Hertfordshire (Pride and Prejudice country) that lays claim to having the first roundabout in the UK. Apart from that there’s not much else there. That’s not to say that it isn’t a lovely place. In fact, they do have a cracking cinema (cheap as chips. Slightly small though) and also lay claim to being the only place in the UK where you can find black squirrels. True story.
We didn’t last long that day. I believe I may have met some family and I’m sure that I made a great impression as a zombie but we hit bed fairly early. On that note, I love jet lag. You can blame anything on it. Feeling particularly cranky? Sorry, jet lag. Don’t want to go anywhere? Sorry, jet lag. There’s a ridiculous amount of housework? Sorry, jet lag. Unfortunately, Em stopped counting it as an excuse fairly early.
The few days that followed were interesting. On Friday night I was introduced to a crime against humanity. For this, I blame Em 100%. She decided that the best way to introduce me to the London Underground was during peak hour on Friday night at Kings Cross Station. Now, the train down was nice enough. The train was fairly full and had a lovely odour of stale sweat, but this was nothing, I repeat nothing, compared to the Tube. Firstly, they had closed the gates at Kings Cross tube station because the platforms were too congested. Once we eventually pushed our way in, Em made the comment that we would have to take the Northern Line. The deepest line that, in Em’s words, “is so dirty it turns your bogies black”. Charming. However, to get there we were herded like sheep through a series of long, low, small tunnels to a platform where I’m fairly sure if you put your arms out, three people would end up on the tracks. It was lovely. However, the night did end well as we saw a fairly good Victoria Wood musical, Talent (the review of which you can read at my other blog).
Saturday brought a baptism of fire. Em’s dad turned 60 the day we flew in and had his celebrations on the Saturday night in a way that any normal man would: A barn dance. Cue Luke being terrified at meeting almost the entire family and friends network… and then dosey doeing with them. However, it was actually a fun night. I met everyone, they all seemed lovely, I was dragged up to dance by one of Em’s mum and dad’s friends, etc etc. Fish and chips were consumed, along with a fair amount of alcohol. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Then again, I do have a fairly active imagination.
Saturday also saw Em and I frantically searching for a house in Twickenham. Out of the possible three it came down to two. Unfortunately, I desperately wanted one, and she desperately wanted another. Mine was a cute little cottage and hers was a cesspool that backed on to a factory (bias?). Of course, I won. We spent Sunday in a lovely lazy manner. First off we had a family pub lunch in a nearby town (the Brits do pub lunch well, I must say), then we headed to another pub to meet Em’s book club. In mentioning that, I must say that all of Em’s friends and family I’ve met have been rather lovely (A good thing considering some might by reading this… uh… hi…). They have all been welcoming and nice and haven’t mentioned the Ashes. I’m looking forward to spending more time with a lot of them, which is a good thing, I suppose.
I think that’s probably a nice place to end this post. That covers three four days in Britain, so by this rate I should be up to date in about a year. Luckily I have had an unexciting week or two since then.
Next Post: First day in London, antiques in Birmingham and moving our belongings to Twickenham amongst other things…
