Guess what? Yesterday was exactly two years since James and I left Australia, and today is exactly three years since James and I first met. Where oh where oh where has the time gone?? I’m feeling contemplative, and so I thought I’d…I don’t know…recap the last two years of my life. I guess I want to do it for myself, to see what I’ve achieved over the past couple of years, and I thought maybe you’d like to see it as well. This kind of arises from me being quite freaked out that two years have passed since James and I first left Perth for Singapore (26th of November 2005). Plus, I thought it’d be fun!

So! Since 26th of November, 2006, we have travelled to:

Singapore
Vietnam
Laos
Thailand
Malaysia
Switzerland (Zurich, Luzerne)
Liechtenstein
Germany (Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart, Leipzig)
England (London, Newcastle, York, Rye, New Forest, Hastings, Battle)
Scotland (Glasgow)
Republic of Ireland (Dublin, Cork)
Czech Republic (Prague)
Latvia (Riga)
France (Paris)
Belgium (Brussels)
The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Utrecht)
Cuba (Havana, Santa Clara, Trinidad)
Hong Kong
Canada (Calgary, Banff, Vancouver)
USA (Seattle)

…and I think that’s it! Our holidays planned for the future are to Germany (Freiburg in the Black Forest), Norway (Oslo), France (Nice), Spain (Madrid over Easter, and Malaga in the Summer), England (Liverpool), and possibly Uist in the Hebrides in May and a trip back to Perth in October.

Since being in London we have seen the following plays:

All About My Mother
Fame
We Will Rock You
Avenue Q
Slava’s Snow Show
Macbeth
Woman in Black
Equus
Satyagraha
Antony & Cleopatra
Blue Man Group
Little Shop of Horrors
Ricky Gervais Live

…and tonight we’re going to see Blood Brothers. I don’t think I’ve missed any plays from the above!

In the past two years, we’ve seen the following bands live (and this will REALLY test my memory!!! I think I’ll need to go back over my calendar for this one!):

The Decemberists
Art of Fighting
The New Pornographers
Einsterzende Neubauten
Bauhaus
Muse
Arcade Fire
Jose Gonzales
The Hives
Spoon
Happy Mondays
The Young Gods
The Scientists
Air
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Bright Eyes
Modest Mouse
The Black Keys

…and possibly more, but I can’t remember!

Over the past two years, I’ve been promoted twice and am now managing the membership department of a national charity. I’m really happy in my job, am learning so much every day, and work with an amazing group of people. James has worked at:

Framfab
Nature Publishing Group
BBC
The National Archives
Office of Rail Regulation

…and now is permanent at Transport for London.

We’ve made an amazing circle of friends, some new, some old, and some people we weren’t that close to in Perth but are now good friends with. I’ve joined a book club and a writer’s group, and James has started a Spanish class. We’ve had adventures, from flying to Holland to help our injured housemate, to stopping a daylight rape in London, to going to the opening of the London Transport Museum. We’ve seen many museum exhibitions, we’ve stayed up all night staggering around the streets of Soho, we’ve stayed in all night watching British TV shows, we’ve gotten up early to listen to news from home, we’ve seen TV shows being filmed, and we’ve even seen a few celebrities! We’ve gone to Camden markets for lunch on many occasions, we’ve eaten in amazing restaurants (and some not so amazing ones!). We’ve chased squirrels and admired wild horses. We’ve thrown snowballs and stomped in piles of Autumn leaves. We’ve walked in Richmond Park, Hyde Park, Regents Park, St. James’ Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park, and more. We’ve been to Buckingham Palace. We’ve seen castles (both in use and in ruins). We’ve driven on the wrong side of the road. We’ve eaten frogs legs. We’ve gotten lost in Central London. We’ve eaten three vendor hotdogs in one night. We’ve tried to get on the last train home using staff passes (although we can’t remember when!). We’ve been yelled at by cranky men on public transport. We’ve had to catch a bus from far East London to far West London at midnight. We’ve been to Peckham and survived. We’ve been inside the House of Commons.

But more than all this, we’ve had a hell of a lot of fun here. I know people complain about the weather (and today’s grey, dank weather is not very encouraging!), but we’ve never, ever been bored. There is no end to the things we can do here. We never stop taking advantage of life here, and every week we do something unique and special that we could only do in London. Sometimes, walking down the street, you’ll turn a corner and see a massive landmark (the Gherkin, the Eye, Big Ben, all of the above!), and you just take a moment and breathe it all in and think ‘Wow. I live in London!’. It really is the most beautiful, vibrant, exciting city. Even when it’s grey and overcast, I don’t get down. Instead, I think of where I am, how lucky we are to be here, and how amazing our lifestyle is. I was never a beach person. I’m not crazy about heat (although blue skies don’t go astray!). I do miss family and friends and barbecues and cruising along highways with my windows down, but I don’t miss the lack of the theatre, the small number of gigs, the expensive concerts, the limited museum exhibitions. Every time I do something like that here, I can’t help thinking ‘I would never have been able to do something like this in Perth.’ Perth will always be home, but London is definitely my life right now. Maybe in a few years, maybe after we’ve seen the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, maybe when we get tired of expanding our cultural experiences, but right now, at this moment, at the two year mark, all I can see is years more spent here, and it makes me feel so…satisfied, comfortable, settled, happy.

So! That’s it. That’s the last two years, and thoughts on the next two (and more!) years. James and I are still really happy together (not sure if he’d say the same!!!), and we love our flat. We’re very settled, and are ready for three years and more together (although he’s finally tired of doing anything I ask, which sucks for me - haha!). Now all we need is a home of our own, two cats and a pet hamster.

Life is sweet.

We chose to spend our last day doing something a little different. We went on a zipline trek, which involved five cables suspended between trees, hundreds of feet above the Earth, and whizzing along them by a harness. Wonderful fun!! I went upside-down on for the last one, which was a very crazy feeling, seeing the trees rushing below. It’s amazing how quick it is and how fast you go, but also how safe you feel. Definitely not for anyone scared of heights, though! We still didn’t see any bears.
That evening we ate, drank and merrily enjoyed our last night. Bye, bye Canada!

15-09-07: Going Home

I’m on the plane right now after a five-hour delay. Am glad to be going home, even though the Canadian lifestyle is very enviable. We’re seeing Ricky Gervais tonight – hope we get back in time!

Note We did make it back it in time, and it was good and we were happy and much joy was had.

The bus trip to Seattle was pretty nondescript. We woke early, spelt a little on the bus. The border crossing was way tamer than we thought it would be – the guards were friendly enough (although being fingerprinted was a novelty).
Seattle itself is a really lovely city – very art deco and clean. Like everywhere that has clean streets and blue skies, it reminded us so Perth. We wandered the streets a little before catching the monorail (built for the 60s World Fair where the mobile phone and microwave oven were introduced). It’s a 5/10 minutes trip, and you go through the music/sci-fi museum that Paul Allen (co-founded of Microsoft) founded .
We were hoping to have lunch at Sky City (the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle), but we got there a few minutes too late. We wandered instead to a pizza joint off Denny Way (which is not technically a ‘way’, as it’s a main road!) called Zeek’s. We ordered a medium pizza each. We got to Australian equivalent of a large pizza each, plus dipping sauce. We couldn’t finish our meal. We felt sick. Well, I did. I was so full we had to go back to the hotel and just lie there, moaning and feeling sorry for ourselves. And that was our first day in Seattle.
Well, not quite. Tim picked us up around 7pm and we went back to his place (collecting his colleague, Pete, on the way). There we met his girlfriend, Colleen, and then walked to a local brewery where we were joined by his housemate, Chris, and his girlfriend, Rhoda. The night was spent chatting and eating (although we didn’t eat because we were still too full from the pizza!). After dinner, we went to Hooters, where it was less tacky and more disturbing than anticipated. The girls were conventionally attractive, but the upsetting aspect was not their boobs, but their youth coupled with their hot pants. Chuck in half a dozen leering middle-aged nutters, and you have Hooters. Our waitress had a voice like a mouse. And they had no wine, so I had to have this foul raspberry-vodka concoction. Awesome. We were joined by Janlick, a fellow Microsoft employee and ex-Perthian, but didn’t stay for too long as it was late, and we were tired.

12-09-07: Second Day In Seattle

We arose fairly late on our second (and last) day in Seattle, only to discover that it was an overcast day. We walked to the needle, decided the weather was irrelevant since the revolving restaurants windows are tinted, and so we went up for an early lunch. The restaurant itself was really nice and is certainly worth visiting. The city is not very beautiful, though, particularly considering that you’re actually seated inside the coolest piece of architecture in Seattle!!
After lunch (I had a delicious halibut and James had the salmon, and we started with a goat cheese tart), we visited the Science Fiction museum (much cooler than and more thorough than expected, with an emphasis on novels which was really neat). The music museum seemed lame in comparison, until we discovered the ‘jam’ room, where we played instruments and giggled excessively playing with various settings in the ‘vocal’ room.
After this, we walked into town to do some shopping. The shopping wasn’t as amazing as we’d hoped, so we walked to Capitol Hill in search of a bookstore we’d heard about the day before. We walked about six blocks in the wrong direction before finally asking and finding it.
The bookstore was called ‘Twice Sold Tales’ and is famous for having half a dozen cats wandering the aisles. There were four resident cats and three kittens, I sat on the floor at one point to get a closer look at the books, and immediately a big fat cat made a beeline for me and jumped into my lap!!
I bought about five books and met James in a cocktail bar on the corner called Blue, which was really unique and cool (it had tables individualised with curtains and an amazing selection of cocktails).
Tim joined us at 8pm, and we first walked to a Mexican food bar, then back to Tim’s where we drove (across a floating bridge!) to Microsoft. The tour was brief, but we got a good idea of Microsoft’s campus feel, and what Tim’s day-to-day work life is life (pretty sweet, it seems!).
Tim dropped us back at the hotel (after a detour to a good look-out point for seeing the Seattle skyline), where we said our last goodnight to him and to Seattle.

We spent two days travelling from Banff to Vancouver, with a one night stopover in Kelowna. The first bus was so full, we didn’t get to sit together, but thankfully that didn’t happen again. Sadly, that is the only thing of interest that happened on the buses.
Kelowna was like Osborne Park, or Cannington (at least, where we stayed it was!). We stayed in one of those cheap motels you see in the movies, so that was fun. It was quite nice inside. We ate ribs for dinner at a Lone Star-type restaurant. We shopped at Walmart . We fell asleep watching the Comedy Channel. Exciting, huh? Oh, and there were loads of wild bunnies around!

08-09-07: Vancouvery Goodness

The night before, Jenn had met us at Vancouver bus terminal and brought us back to her house in White Rock, a short commute from Vancouver City.
We could smell dinner cooking as soon as we entered, but were more taken by the loveliness of Jenn and Julian’s house. Their house was an incredible three-storey ‘palace’ two blocks from the beach, and it was just so warm and welcoming. For those who can’t remember my travel adventures from 2005, Jenn is a friend we made while travelling in Laos. Our trauma bond can be read here.
Jenn’s friend, Marina, joined us for a lovely roast beef dinner because Julian wasn’t coming home until late. We drank wine and gossiped and talked until Julian came home, and then we drank and chatted some more.
The next day we headed to Victoria, a town on Vancouver Island. We planned to do an orca tour, and it was a day of incredible near misses with transport. First, we all almost missed the 11am ferry. A man in a buggy gave us a lift, but then the rude ticket lady wouldn’t let us through. We ignored her and went through anyway, ran to the berth, but the passenger doors were closed. They were still loading cars, so we ran down to the vehicle deck, where Jenn convinced them to let us on and let us buy our tickets in the gift shop. They caved, so we enjoyed the hour and a half cruise to Vancouver Island (we saw seals and a bald eagle on the way!). We ran straight onto a bus and rang the orca tour company on the way. We made it to the orca tour with minutes to spare, but found out they’d directed us to the boat tour, not the zodiac tour.
They gave us a discount for the boat, so we jumped on. It turned out to be a blessing, because we only saw one grey whale from afar. We were grateful we were on a comfortable boat and able to enjoy the amazing day.
We ate dinner in an outdoor pub/patio area called The Sticky Wicket, then wandered to Thunderbird Park which had a decent collection of totem poles.
After we saw these, we caught the bus back to the ferry. We were told that we would definitely make it in time for the final ferry, which was at 9pm. At 8:55pm we were still on our way and getting understandably panicked. The bus got to the terminal just after 9 – there was a mad rush for the ticket booths, and then they announced that the ferry was delayed anyway!!
We were ¾ of the way home on the ferry when we noticed the ferry security guards walking around, clearly looking for somebody. Then we noticed that we were actually stopped altogether!!
Jenn and I decided to investigate. We walked outside and asked some security guards what was going on. They couldn’t tell us anything, so we hung back and eavesdropped. We heard a young couple telling the senior security guard that they’d seen an old guy throwing something suspicious overboard. This was obviously the man they were looking for. We couldn’t find out much more than that.
We walked around the ship, and later saw the young couple being led downstairs to identify the man. James also overhead a cleaner telling somebody that it was all over a drunk man who was being abusive (which seems like an extreme reaction from the security team, so I doubt it’s true!). Either way, we finally started moving again. When we docked, there were police cars waiting! We got home an hour and a half late, and drank copious amounts of wine until the wee hours.

09-09-07: Stanley Park & Sushi

We slept in on Sunday after a very late night, and we set off for Stanley Park in the early afternoon.
Stanley Park is an enormous park overlooking the city. We stopped near the totel pole part, where we got to see some wonderful totem poles. We then strolled along the river, trying to spot seals and otters (of which we saw one of each). We also saw a number of lovely statues, and we took a sneak peek at the aquarium, where we saw two seals, a sea lion and some beluga whales (who were performing tricks).
We went from Stanley Park to an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner. Needless to say, we ate until we nearly exploded. Julian’s friend David joined us, which was great (although we were all so busy with panicked all-you-can-eat eating that we didn’t get to talk much!). We came home, watched ‘Blades of Glory’, and then just chilled out a bit before going to bed!

10-09-07: Lazy, Lazy Monday

Monday was one of our laziest days so far. We rose around 10:30am, wrote some postcards, checked the Internet, etc. Julian left for work at 12pm, so he dropped us at the post office and we walked home along the beach (after having fish and chips for lunch). We walked along the pier and saw lots of little fishies and some crabs. It was such a hot day, but because James had his camera we didn’t want to leave it on the beach, so we decided to go home and spend the afternoon keeping the ferrets company, doing some writing and reading. Divine!
We waited for Jenn to come home, went to the beach for a swim, and then spent the evening being entertained by ferrets, drinking, smoking shisha, and talking. Wonderful!

Despite the weirdness of day One, our taxi driver Sunday morning was great! He studied in Perth at Bentley TAFE! Weeny little world, ain’t it?
For breakfast I made fresh waffles, but had to eat them in the taxi because our bus to Banff was to leave Calgary City Greyhound shelter at 7:30am.
Leaving Calgary behind left me with a sense of unparalleled relief.
Seeing the Rockies rise on the horizon as we drove along the highway left me with a sense of stomach-tingling excitement and anticipation. The mountains are much grander and awe-inspiring than I expected . Yay for Canada! And waffles!!

02-09-07: Banff Begins

We arrived at the bus depot in Banff and immediately smiled. This is what we’ve been waiting for – crisp, fresh mountain air , flawless blue skies, that lovely stillness that only exists in small country towns. After booking our Thursday bus trip out of Banff, we wandered the town. Being 9am on a Sunday, little was open. With 3 hours to kill before we could pick up our car, we decided to get breakfast, use the Interweb and then wander the town once the shops opened.
Banff is exactly what anyone would expect of a town in a national park. It exists solely for tourism, so as quaint as it is, there is an unarguable sensation on constructedness, of conscious quaintness. The shops are dominated by figurines, furs, Canadian delicacies and postcards.
At 12, we picked up our car (a monster Dodge sedan), and began the adventure of driving on the wrong side of the road.
We found our hotel almost by accident, driving along Lake Louise Drive and suddenly spotting it by the roadside. A collection of red timber cabins, it looked exactly as we’d hoped. We couldn’t check in until four, but as we sat in the carpark, we saw a pine marten (very briefly)!
After attempting to battle to traffic to Lake Louise (Banff’s apparent piece de resistance), we gave up and chose to walk. It was a short trek with a nasty hill that left me convinced that I have undiagnosed asthma.
Lake Louise has an enormous reputation. It is meant to be one of the most stunning examples of natural beauty. It did not disappoint. Blindingly turquoise water leads to a dramatic glacier, imbedded between snow-capped mountains. It is particularly strange to see snow, but not feel cold. Sadly, the high volume of tourists and the hideous monstrosity of a hotel right on the shore diminished the sense of awe and breathlessness we should have felt.
We decided to leave and come back in the morning, before the arrival of copious numbers of tourists.
The next hour was killed buying groceries and booze for the night. Our cabin was self-service, so we decided to have Bison burgers for tea. Yum!
Despite our best intentions, we were asleep by 9pm.

03-09-07: Lakes, Lakes and Lakes

We’re lucky to have fallen into a cycle of early mornings, because Banff is stunning at dawn – plus not many people are crazy enough to be up that early!
Our first stop was Lake Louise – we wanted to experience it again without hordes of tourists. There were only one or two other couples there at 7am, and for the first time we could really feel the magic of the lake. Clouds hung low, and the snowy peaks of mountains were golden in the dawn sun. The turquoise lake was mirror-like, still, untouched. At a sight like that, all you can do is grin. You instinctively whisper – even the sound of your camera seems inappropriate. Sadly, this beautiful moment only lasted 15 or so minutes – the tourists began arriving. We started to walk around the lake, but couldn’t escape the horrific nasal Kath Day-Night voice of this other tourist. Ugh! We were also so keen on seeing wildlife, that noisy, inconsiderate tourists and their dogs would definitely make this impossible. For that reason, we decided to abandon Lake Louise for a hopefully more tourist-free location.
Our second lake was therefore Lake Moraine at 8:15am. Lake Moraine was nestled between four mountains, and, while being a well-known and popular lake, it tends to be neglected by tourists who beeline straight to Lake Louise. It was clear that it would be more stunning in winter, but the complete lack of people was very welcome. We walked through a forest path, and although we saw only a squirrel, the absolute peace was wonderful. The forest was dewy, green fresh. We dawdled, enjoying the fresh morning. About 1km in, another couple caught up with us. Damn. Enchantment over.
We finished the walk, then decided to return to our driving and stopping as it took our fancy. Our first stop was the Spiral Tunnels, which was a little less exciting than the full carpark suggested, but still cool. It’s basically a crazy arse train tunnel that goes in the top of one mountain, and out the bottom of another. Crazy spirally tunnel! James mocks it’s coolness, but all that proves is how uncool he is. The greatest thing about it was that there was a massive train going through the tunnel at the time; it was so big, that it was still going into the tunnel at the same time that it was coming out of it (and it was a loooong tunnel)! Trust me. It was cool.
We drove on. Next stop was a whim as well. We saw a sign for something called Tokkukawa (?) Falls. The detour took a long time, but mainly because we had to crawl around several crazy hairpin bends (including a z-bend where an RV was having to drive on the wrong side of the road to get around the corner).
I had relatively low expectations for the waterfall, and then we rounded a corner and I was speechless. The waterfall were visible miles before we reached them. Unbeknownst to us, our random detour had taken us to one of Canada’s highest waterfalls.
Fed by a glacier between two mountains, the waterfall bursts out of the mountainside and slams downwards. The sheer force and volume of the water was simply awesome.
500m from the fall, we could feel the spray from the water. We gazed it for a long time, not speaking, just gazing.
Two other amusing things we saw that day were a penko, a cute little Canadian hamster-thing, and three nuns admiring the falls.
We drove on. Our final stop was Emerald Lake, a peaceful lagoon-type lake in BC (we crossed state lines!). We drank Diet Coke as we dangled our feet off a jetty.
By this time, it was about 2pm, and we were feeling pretty exhausted, so we decided to head back. We stopped by the town of Lake Louise, and bought buns for our repeat dinner of Bison burgers and came home to the cabin, which is where I am as I write this, watching Judge Judy, drinking Canadian Club and about to go hunting for pine martens. Woohoo!

04-09-07: My Canadian Birthday

The plan for my birthday was that we would see some animals! We left at 7am and began the drive to Jasper National Park. This drive would take us along Icefields Parkway, in the hope of seeing a moose wading in the shallows, or a bear eating dandelions by the roadside. We saw neither.
Sadly, the nasty cold I was carrying chose my birthday to really its virusy little claws in. I had barely slept the night before because my hose has been blocked, so I was feeling very spaced-out all Tuesday.
My enthusiasm for animal spotting faded, and I began to feel extremely fatigued. We made several stops along the way: Horace Lake, Hector Lake, some nice views, etc. We were heading chiefly to the glacier tour inside the start of Jasper National Park.
We arrived at the glacier at about 10:30am. I’d had time to rest, so I was feeling a lot perkier. The tour was fantastic, we caught a bus up to the edge of the glacier, and then got an ‘Ice Explorer’ vehicle. It was so surreal to think that we were actually driving on the surface of a glacier (albeit one that was 300 feet thick!). The tour guides were really interesting, funny and charismatic – one even looked exactly like a young John Travolta! We padded along the ice for a good 10-15 minutes before our hands got too numb.
Back in the car, we drove the last 150km to Jasper, only to find it a little bit crap. Well, not ‘Field’ crap (a two street town near Emerald Lake) or ‘Calgary’ crap, but just not very beautiful or interesting. We ate burgers in a diner, then drove back to Banff, arriving at around 5pm. We had a yummy frozen pizza and CC & Dry for dinner, then went to bed early (for a change!).

05-09-07: Why Is The Day After Your Birthday Always Better??

Another early morning!! I was feeling a lot better this day, and ready to give wildlife spotting one last chance.
We left at 6:45am, and drove quickly to Lake Louise for one last photo, but it was a little too dark.
The plan was to go into Banff via Parkway, where a family of wolves are often sighted. We did a quick detour to the Gondola, but could see none of the mountain goats and bears that are rumoured to hang out there.
Alert as always, we began to slowly drive down Bow Parkway, bitching about how stupid Banff’s supposedly ubiquitous wildlife was. We agreed that our minimum expectations were even seeing one measly deer. Lo and behold, halfway down the Parkway, we finally saw a lone deer (which ran away as quickly as it appeared). We drove on, barely cheered, but at least relieved that there was indeed some wildlife in Banff!!
A few minutes on and we saw a group of cars stopped by the side of the road! We stop as well, and I could see a distinct animal shape in front of a car up ahead. I was convinced it was a bear, and I screamed at James to drive closer. Just as he was about to, he said, ‘There’s a dog behind us.’ I turned to him and said, ‘That’s not a dog! It’s a wolf!’. The animal up ahead also revealed itself as a black wolf. Needless to day, we were very excited, and we took many blurry photos!
Further on, we saw six mountain goats huddled by the side of the road. So! Not a moose, a bear, or a elk, but we still saw enough to keep us happy.
We then drove to an abandoned mining town and wandered around (amused by squirrels throwing ntus down from the top of trees – I threw one at James and pretended it was the squirrel. Such fun!). We drove to our final Banff lake, lolled in the fun for a bit and then said a sad goodbye to our car and returned it.
Our accommodation for Banff town was…interesting. Hidden behind a much nicer hotel and the nice hotel acted as the crappier hotel’s reception!), it was basically a tin shed that had been converted into rooms. The actual rooms were nice, but the halls were cheap and weird.
We hung out in our room for a bit before heading into town for lunch and shopping. We drank cocktails on the roof of a bar, gazing out at the mountains, then made our way to where we thought the Banff golf course was (in the hopes of seeing some elk). Unfortunately, James hadn’t brought his map, so we got hopelessly lost and ended up returning to the hotel for drinks.
We decided to have my birthday dinner that night, and went for an amazing fodue dinner, where we had a cheese fondue starter, boar/venison/buffalo fondue main, and chocolate fondue for dessert. Yum!!

So. We survived a 9-hour flight with no in-flight entertainment to arrive in…Perth. This wasn’t immediately apparent, although we did feel somewhat suspicious as we flew into Calgary over a flat wasteland of brown industrialism. Where were the trees? The mountains? The moose??
Our concern about the desolation of the land surrounding Calgary was quickly forgotten at the sight of our first rosy-cheeked, ivory-toothed Calgarian, wearing a string tie, checked shirt, white pants and a gallon hat. Yeehaw. Next distinctly Canadian sight was a stuffed bear in the foyer, wearing a Mountie uniform. We could barely contain our kitsch-loving glee.
My only understanding of Calgary was through my friend Jessso, who recently toured Canada and attached Calgary’s famous stampeded. Sadly, we just missed this auspicious event, which is surely the only exciting thing to happen in Calgary all year (it’s so exciting to the townfolk that the city centre is filled with stores dedicated to the ‘urban cowperson’ [which is the PC version of cowboy/cowgirl, as made up by me]).
Enter bad taxi driver number one. I must be terribly naïve, because Calgary doesn’t strike me as an overly attractive place to immigrant taxi-drivers. I was wrong. Our taxi from the airport was not driven by a quaint, parochial Calgarian, but rather by a man who would fit in perfectly driving a mini-cab in Putney. And he didn’t know where our hotel was. So we got a lift into the city centre, which we tried ever so hard to make exciting. I even bounced excitedly into one of the aforementioned urban cowperson shop. However, we quickly realised that it was exactly like Hay St/Murray St mall – paved pedestrian malls with no one walking down then and about five decent shops open (at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon).
We went to our hotel. This involved the craziest and scariest taxi diver we’ve ever had. He was Ethiopian, but had the most intense hatred of Britain I’ve ever heard. His first question was whether Pakistan had taken over Britain yet, and was disappointed when I said ‘um…no.’ He asked ‘why not?’, and then proceeded to tell how he was detained passing through Heathrow (according to him it was because he was black, and not because he was clearly insane), and ended up punching the immigration officer, which landed him in jail for a short spell. He is now banned from Heathrow (and possibly from Britain). Needless to say, we were very relieved to get out of that taxi!
Our hotel was 10 minutes our of the city, so we happily agreed to avoid Calgary city, go shopping at the local mall, and then have an early night.
We caught the train to Chinook Centre, Calgary’s largest mall (I think), where I got to buy my birthday presents (DS games and a Sony Cybershot camera). That night, I played with my new possessions and then we both had an ‘early’ night (9pm Canadian time, 4am London time).

I still have my notes from Cuba to write up at some stage, plus we’ve been to Berlin. I’ve also had some bookmarks produced by a friend in Perth and a story selected for publication in a mag called Litro. Aside from that, London life keeps trotting along. I’ll try to write a decent entry one day soon, I promise!

The place we stayed for work was gorgeous. A huge Victorian mansion, with William Morris wallpaper and mahogany pillars everywhere. Admittedly, the rooms were dorms which meant I got practically no sleep (the bunks were like children’s beds and I could barely turn on my side without fear of falling off, but the bottom bunks made me feel claustrophobic, so I resigned myself to waking up every time I had to turn over. In addition, my dorm-mate snored terribly). In addition, it was the first night I’d spent on my own in so long, and it felt so strange. I really missed having James around – I think that’s the problem with travelling together. You get so used to seeing everything side-by-side that having to travel along feels really awkward and unnatural.

The work the next day was mainly discussion-based, and I left in the middle of the afternoon to go find James in the city of York. I was so excited to show him around because I loved York when I was there as a kid. It was similar to what I remembered, but not quite as quaint or fascinating. The Shambles was a lot shorter than I remembered, and the Minster was less imposing. Still, the delight of wandering the many cobbled side-streets, ducking into ancient-looking pubs, buying things from any of the million bakeries – it’s all good!! We ate dinner in a stunning restaurant, low ceiling, exposed and warped beams. It was called ‘19’, as in ’19 Grape Lane’, although amusingly it was once called ‘Grope Lane’ for obvious reasons.

After dinner, we felt bemused and unsure of what to do in York. I don’t think it’s much of a night-life city, and we were both so tired (especially after my lack of sleeping the night before). So we bought a bottle of wine and went back to our B&B to veg out and watch ‘Who Wants To Be A Poundiannaire’.

The next day we visited Jorvik Viking centre (which had been extensively done up since my last visit!). It was all very swish and cool, and a lot of fun. The afternoon was spent wandering the streets and doing some shopping, and then in the afternoon we felt a bit bored with being tourists, so we went and saw ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ at the cinemas (which was brilliant).

The following weekend was the long awaited group trip to Cork. There were 16 of us in total, which always means that at least 1 person is almost going to miss the plane. Unfortunately, this time it was two people, and up until minutes before the plane took off we weren’t sure if they were going to make it! This was particularly worrying because they were the people who had booked everything in their name!! However, thanks to some hard-core running on their behalf, they made it in the plane literally seconds before the gates closed.

We booked two houses – one was a stone cottage on top of a hill, and the other was a beach house a couple of minutes drive from the cottage. James, myself and four others (Louis, Josephine, Laura and Chris) were in the beach house (complete with glass conservatory with stunning coastal views), and the rest were in the stone cottage (Steve, Stace, Jason, Kirsten, Kellie, Tate, Jess, Stephen, Terry and Rick). We spent the bulk of our time at the stone cottage, but that was mainly because it was super cosy and came with an indoor spa, pool and sauna!! It really was the ultimate party house, and encouraged much drinking and merriment. There was even a very inquisitive donkey in the field next to the house!

Friday night involved drinking, Trivial Pursuit, and depressed AFL supporters who discovered we couldn’t view the AFL grand final as originally hoped. Saturday involved finding a pub showing the AFL highlights and watching the Eagles swoop up victory. So, this meant we were drinking from 12pm onwards. When we got back it was time for swimming and drinking a bit more, plus another game of Trivial Pursuit closely followed by a lot of dancing.

On Sunday, because we’d hired cars, we drove to Blarney to see Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. I drove all the way, and it felt great. It’s nice to have been behind the wheel again after about 10 months of not driving – it reminds me that I still know how to, and I’m looking forward to hopefully driving again when back in Perth!

We got to Blarney at about 3pm, just in time to wander the grounds, climb the castle, kiss the stone, and then meet everyone else at about 4pm for lunch/dinner in a nearby pub. We were flying out at 9pm, but by the time 9:30 arrived and none of us were on our flight we assumed it had been delayed. Still, we were told nothing until 10:30, when we were finally given a new gate and shoved onto a plane that left at about 10:45. We arrived in London gone midnight, missing the last tube. So we had to catch the bus home, which took 45 minutes to arrive at Victoria. We finally got home at 2:30 in the morning, were asleep by 3am and were up again at 8am for work. I felt surprisingly okay, though, thanks to a lot of coffee and chocolate!!

So! That’s the latest in my life regarding big travel. We have Paris and Belgium coming up over the next couple of months, plus a walking holiday somewhere local (fingers crossed we see badgers and hedgehogs!!).

Uncle Peter’s sister, Doris, is similarly impressive. At 83, she also lives alone. She told the story of having to upturn a garbage bin every week, to stop from squishing a frog that had made her wheelie bin his home. The image of this tiny, elderly woman heaving a bin onto its side to free the frog underneath seemed Herculean to me, and worthy of an admiring smile. She did accuse me of looking like my mother, though. I think it was meant to be a compliment, but I still insist on using the word ‘accuse.’ Sorry mum.

Newcastle is a really lovely city. I think of all the big British cities outside of London, it’s got the least ‘cringe’ factor. When you say ‘I’m going to Liverpool/Birmingham/Leeds/Manchester’, you’re inevitably greeted with a cringe and the question ‘uh…why?’. Newcastle is greeted by ‘Oh! Have fun!’. And we did.

The train ride up was quicker than expected, and Uncle Peter was waiting under the big clock for us. We went straight away to see Hadrian’s Wall and an old Roman Fort, which was great. I’d seen it before, but it was fantastic seeing it again. I was 13 last visit, so it’s great seeing things I saw then, again – I think I see them quite differently now. I remember marvelling at the history, but now I feel a real sense of wonder and awe. This wall, this pile of stones, was constructed with the bare hands of hundreds of people, and now I’m standing on them. I wonder if, as a kid, I stood on the wall and could instantly see history. Thousands of people milling around, bare-footed kids with grubby faces, men with beards and matted hair, pregnant women carrying wicker baskets of fruit and bread. The romantic vision of Roman times, I know, but still I’m sure as an early teen I felt no struggle to close my eyes and suddenly be breathing in the rich smell of dirt, horses, sewerage, stews, ale. This time, as I stood on Hadrians Wall, I pushed myself to imagine it stretching into infinity, 30m high, Scots on one side, English on the other, a huge estate of stone buildings spread over the hill side. It’s hard to imagine now. Maybe I’m just become more jaded about the unreality of history. Why imagine something impossible to imagine? All my thoughts would be influenced by filmic depictions of medieval times, anyway. All the peasants would look like Sean Connery.

So, after this profound moment, we pranced down the hills and met Uncle Peter back at the car. We drove to a pub for a yummy dinner, then went home to relax and get an early night. We were in bed by about 9:30, after a very late night on the Friday. Despite this early night, we slept in late on Sunday, and got out at about 10am to go admire the Angel of the North.

What a stunning statue. It’s very rare that a large sculpture can take my breath away, but there’s something so awesome about the Angel. The rich texture of the statue coupled with the vulnerable but protective stance (wings spread in a pose that is both defenceless but confident, saying ‘I protect, but I do not attack’). You can sit on the Angel’s feet, and immediately you feel that you’re sheltered somehow, a child again, staring up at the authoritative form of a parent or guardian, looming over you but tender and caring at the same time. Such a beautiful piece of art!

After seeing the Angel, we went to see Newcastle’s castle (I know! I thought it was just a fancy name!). The only remain is a brilliantly in tact castle keep, as the rest was knocked down by the Victorians to make way for a railway. Typical Victorian destruction! It’s always progress, progress, progress with them! The keep was a real labyrinth. There were doors and stairs everywhere, and everything looked the same, which got a little disorientating at times. It was all so well kept, though, and it was the first real castle we’d seen since arriving in Britain. There’s something so magical about castles – you think of all the fairy tales you’ve read, and you try to place that decadence and romance into the cold, hard reality of a castle keep, and you wonder whether people who lived in castles read fairy tales, and then dreamed of living in a castle, not realising that their castle was it. Reality. Everyone needs to dream. So. We explored as much of the Keep as we could. Highlights include the ‘stairs to nowhere’ which just end at a wall! Apparently an addition was planned, but never done. Or they just liked confusing people. Or they thought the stairs would look prettier than a blank wall.

Lunch was in a nice Italian place close to the river, which is where James met Doris, John, Fiona and Stephen. Afterwards we wandered along the Millennium Bridge (for how solid it looks, it’s peculiar to feel it sway slightly under your feet!). We wandered into a giant marshmallow house that was an art installation for the modern art museum (inside was a screen, with the big marshmallow house talking about, I think, the relationship between art and object). It was very surreal. Then we walked to the caterpillar – oh, sorry, I mean concert hall, which was very impressively modern. Dinner consisted of sandwiches and salad, provided by Uncle Peter, and we stayed up until about 10pm chatting and playing Scrabble.

The next day we went for a walk through the park before catching the train home. The park (the name of which escapes me) was lovely and peaceful, and we wandered to every corner, admiring statues and bright flowers and ducks and squirrels (James angered a man in a wheelchair, who was feeding a squirrel, and then James tried to take a photo of the squirrel and scared it away. The man glared at James in disgust).

We left amidst promises that we’d visit again. We will. But time is like liquid here. It drains away.

- picnic blanket
- mozzie repellant
- cheap wine that tastes like the cardboard it is bought in
- cold chicken
- something to shield the screen, so that the sun (still high in the sky at 8pm) doesn’t bleed out the colour in the screen
- soft grass
- ants nibbling at your bare ankles
- a radio somewhere playing all Cold Chisel’s Greatest Hits

Outdoor cinema in London means:

- raincoats
- biting wind
- drizzle
- cheap wine from Spain that tastes damn good
- atmospheric DJ playing Kubrick-esque, psychedelia
- strange holiday light display before the film begins
- flagstone floor
- creepily front-lit statue of some admiral from somewhere staring down at you

But, at all cinemas, everywhere in the world, there’s always that group of teens who act like they’ve just found the key to their pappy’s liquor cabinet.

Must discuss every scene. Must repeat every key phrase. Must use mobile to photograph key ‘HERE’S JOHNNY!’ shot. Must start fighting with the girl who was sent an sms once, and never replied, and what are you getting angry with me for, you’re the one who didn’t reply, and fuck you, I’m not taking this, that’s it, I’m out of here!

Sighs of relief from the surrounding crowd. Talky McTalk-A-Lot is gone! Why oh why is there ALWAYS a TALKER in movies? I wonder if it’s possible to get a law passed, that says if you kill someone for talking during a movie, it’s considering a benefit to humanity. Ditto for people who a) forget to turn their phones off, and b) proceed to answer it and talk extremely loudly on the other end.

All in all, though, The Shining was a swell experience. Everything in London seems to be somehow transformed into a theatrical experience, and it was so great to sit, shivering, with numb bums, listening to the wails and wobbles of the DJ beforehand. Sends a chill down the most hardened of creep fans! And there was something so funny and surreal about us sitting in our daggy raincoats, giggling at very visible g-strings exposed through see-through raincoats! Photos are to follow!!