Freshin' your drink, Gov'na?

(Fair warning, this is an epic entry.  Grab a cuppa and prepare to do no work for the next half hour.)

Hullo all, The Ferro’s coming atcha for another update. 

Busy busy busy is a good way to describe our days since the late night arrival at Heathrow.  As I type this, I find myself once again in a flying metal coffin, though this one is sitting on concrete rather than miles above the earth, (that may change by the time this entry is through though).  I initially tried to write this last night at midnight, but as I had to be up at 3am for this flight (London to Venice).  My wife rightly pointed out that sleep might be a good idea.

Paddington Station, London.

So, where to begin?  The first “proper” day in London began at 5am, when my body told me it was not 5am in London, but rather 2pm next Wednesday.  Still, after a token attempt at going back to sleep, I decided to begin my day.  Kat and I had much to do, we needed to sort bank accounts, figure out the London tube system, meet up with Jess Waine (another Aussie in London), get Oyster cards, foreign currency, etc etc.  We started with a light brekkie, (Vegemite on Toast) and headed into Woolwich, the sort of town center nearest to my sister apartment.  The walk from Michelle’s to the tube station at Woolwich, which is a beautiful walk along the banks of the Thames, takes about 20 mins.  We headed into town and pretty much spent most of the day exploring.  By the early afternoon the spectre of jetlag reared its head and we crashed, rising for a light dinner.  End of day one, very little to report. 

Day 2, however, proved interesting throughout.  We (btw, I’m flying over green English countryside now) woke up again at six, and left the apartment at nine.  As before, we headed into Woolwich, but this time we caught the DLR (train) to London proper.  Or rather we caught three different trains.

The London rail system has to been seen to be believed, both in scope and complexity.  Rather than a train company, a la’ Queensland Rail, London is made up of about twenty separate rail providers, each who provide services to different areas.  For example, we catch the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) to London, then as we roam London we get the Underground, and to visit a friend we caught the Overlander.  It’s certainly takes some getting used to, and we spent many hours peering at our London Rail guide, debating the merits of catching Underground to Popler station, then crossing to Bond  st, then getting off and walking to Oxford St, etc etc.  Still, by the end of the day, Kat and I had caught no less than fifteen trains to various parts of London. Our to do list included

-Visiting the Italian Consulate in the la-de-da district of Eaton Square.  When someone lives in a tiny three bedroom townhouse but has a Bently, an Aston Martin and a Maserati Quadroporte outside, you know housing prices are steep, to put it mildly. 

-Heading to the bank to try and get British bank accounts.  Long story short, we were essentially told to get a “Passport Account” especially for students and travellers. Conveniently for them, there’s eight pound a month in fees.  Kat and I politely declined by expressing our displeasure at this arrangement, and conjectured that our consultants mother was a prostitute who practiced poor personal hygiene.

The view from Michelle's Apartment

-Walked to Oxford st to fix our broken Travelex cards, which has 3000EU that we can’t use anywhere.  To all future London travellers, Eaton Sq to Oxford St is a few cms on a map, but in reality is about an hour walk.  (The Rail map is not to scale.  At all.)  Long story short, we have to get a new Travelex and withdraw our euro as cash.  I was bummed.

Hopefully, Australia's next immigrant.

-Ate a yummy lunch of burger and Oreo milkshake.  This brilliant invention needs to emigrate to Australia, like, now.  Also, my burger came with a pickle.  Not a sliced pickle on the burger, an actual whole pickle.  I dipped it in mustard and ate it, and it was good.  Kat didn’t get a pickle.  I was bummed again. (see above).

-Train tickets from Amsterdam to Munich.  Kat and I foolishly thought than when we got to Amsterdam, we would just, kinda,” get”, somehow, to Munich for Oktoberfest.  Again, my map and scaling skills failed me as I found out that this is an 800km journey, and my brain failed me as I realised that perhaps Kat and I weren’t the only people who might be heading from Holland to Germany for Oktoberfest.  (Kat just looked out the plane window and is literally talking to the French countyside.  Marriage: Annulled.)  So off to the St Pancras International Train Station (does  anyone else read that as St Pancreas?  The patron Saint of Bile and Digestion, maybe?)  to organise some tickets.  My brain (again failing) thought this would take about twenty minutes.  However, the staff at St Pancr(e)as have a system that is almost beautiful in it’s total inefficiency.  It’s truly bureaucracy in action. 

Upon arrival, you stand in line, as per usual.  But upon reaching the front  of the line, you are told you have merely been in line to get a number to get in the REAL line.  So I got my number (41) that was four away from the person they were currently serving.  I should also mention that for some reason, Two staff serve each customer, and there were only two staff.  So Kat and Carla (my mother) and I sit on some nearby chairs and wait, were I eavesdrop on a young Aussie guy talking to a Belgian chick, and massively talking up how dangerous Australia is. (“There’s about a person a week eaten by sharks.  And watch out for Kangaroos, they’ll punch ya face in.”)  and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I didn’t get it, each person was talking about half an hour to get a ticket.  I guessed they must be planning some elaborate journey that includes the Gan, Transiberian, Silk Road, Swiss Alps and Rocky Mountain Railways.  I began chatting to the Belgian girl (innocently, I’m a married man) and found out she was a ballet dancer heading home to Antwerp.  She just wanted a Eurostar ticket from London to Brussels.  Piece of cake, I thought, should take two minutes.  And Kat and I were next.

An hour later, it’s our turn and I realise why it takes so long.  These guys have no effing idea whats going on.  It’s seems to me that when you tell them what you want, they literally just google “Train, Amsterdam to Munich” and see what pops up.  No database, no timetables.  Then they print out a list of every train and begin a deep discussion about which one you would like.  After finally settling on one, they fuss around for fifteen minutes trying to print tickets, getting confused about boarding passes and in general acting like it’s their first day.  Hell, I could do this home.  Moral of the story, the staff at St Pancras should stick to praying to the god of Stomachs, and leave train travel to people who can organise it.  Read: Everyone else.

-After a brief visit to my sisters place of employment, we met up with Jess in Camden for the actual fun part of our day.  And boy howdy, it was fun, more than making up for the trails of the day so far.  Also, we had managed to ditch my mother by then, so my mood improved considerably. 

Camden is a fascinating and seriously cool place.  It’s hard to make a comparison to an area in Brisbane.  The closest thing I can think of is the valley, but a million times more interesting (Catherine et al, 2010).  Everywhere there are punk clothing stores, tattoo and piecing places, giant metal scorpion hanging front shopfronts, old style pubs next to nightclubs, the list goes on.  And then, five minutes down the road is a market which is crammed with chinese food vendors (3 pound a box!), second hand clothing, a store that sells nothing but gothic corsets and Cyber Dog, a underground store slash nightclub that only sells fluorescent underwear, bras and shorty shorts.  Oh, and that’s just in the first street.  I have a feeling that we will be spending many a night in Camden.

Hello, Italian Alps

So Jess, Kat and I went to a 2-4-1 cocktails place and ordered drinks, (Mint Julep for me, Kat got some god awful creamy passionfruit thing.)  Of course, I downed both of mine, (we had two each) and kat got through a whole half of her first, so I had to come to the rescue and polish  (BTW, the Italian Alps are outside my window, and they look freakin’ AMAZING!) off her other drink.  Naturally, Kat was drunk and I didn’t feel a damn thing.  We then hit up the aforementioned cheap chinese and started back to Jess house in Acton, another three trains away. 

It was about eight when we got to Jess’ house, an old townhouse.  Lee and Luke, it’s a spitting image of your place in Glebe.  Anyway, we were introduced to the three other ladies who lived there and three friends there for some drinks and laughs.  Me and eight girls, story of my life.  I put away two glasses of the British version of Passion pop, chatted to a Sydney girl about Muse, cupcakes and why there was undrank (is that a word?) absinthe in the cupboard.  They were all heading out to the Pub, but Kat and I decided to beat a hasty retreat and get home for some Zs, which we badly needed.  Fate, my broken brain and British rail colluded, however, to deny us even this simple pleasure.  I will explain.

Upon leaving Jess, we headed to Acton Overlander station and caught the first train to Stratford.  However, two stops in, Kat turned to me and asked me to get something out of my backpack.  I gave her a blank expression for a second as my brain realised that I hadn’t taken my packback on board.  For what seemed like a horrific hour, but was probably only a few seconds, Kat and thought that our passports where in that bag, as we had needed them to open bank accounts.  We quickly rummaged through Kats bag and realised they were in fact in there.  After my heart starting beating again, I did a mental inventory and remembered that only thing of value in there were my prescription sunglasses.  I couldn’t believe it.  Why?  Why does god hate my sunglasses?  For those who don’t know, less than 24 hours before leaving for our Vietnam holiday, Kat and lost my last pair of sunnies.  I had to spent three weeks running around Vietnam and Malaysia without any, and trust me, it sucked.  (The holiday was still awesome though.)  And now, again less than 24 hours before leaving for a large holiday in Italy, Holland and Germany, my sunnies were gone.   Remember, I can’t just go to Myer and get another pair.  Not only is there a significant dollar cost involved (about $700 a pair) but they take between one and two weeks to be made.  I  felt like such and idiot, I literally wished that my clone walked into the train so I could fight myself.  Instead, Kat and I got off and caught the next train back to Acton to check on the platform.  They weren’t there, as I expected.  We left our names and my sisters phone number and left, knowing we still had at least an hour and a half train ride back to Woolwich.  We were damn lucky, we only just made the last train back from Popler to Woolwich, otherwise we would have been stuck somewhere in London.  After an additional twenty minutes walk from Woowich to Michelle’s, we crashed into bed  about twelve thirty.  It had taken three hours to get from Jess’ to here. 

The story has an unlikely, though happy, ending.  My bag, with glasses intact, was handed in and Jess picked it up on her way to work.  I met her the next afternoon and got it back, just in time for our holiday.  Maybe god was just testing me.  Or maybe I was damn lucky. 

That’s it for now, I’m off.  See my next entry for the first non-english speaking entry of The Travels of the 

Ferro.