‘Tis the Season

It was Christmas time, usually a time for family and friends. As I wasn’t at home, I made did with what was available to me – one friend and some surrogate parents.

In London I met up with Cat (from home and who has been living in the UK) and her friend Jess who was over for a short two month European trip. So anyway, we met up in London at the Pickwick Hall hostel, a private room for three with ensuite which was great.

The first evening we were in London, we went for a walk down Oxford Street and ended up in Hyde Park where a large German Christmas festival was being held. It was full of lights, rides, people and litres upon litres of mulled wine.

Hyde Park Christmas Festival

The days leading up to Christmas were spent sleeping and wandering around London. It was very cool to walk around a city which is so dressed up for Christmas. Everywhere you turned there were decorations and lights, stalls selling Christmas products and store windows arranged for the festive season.

Snowman!

On Christmas Eve I also had the opportunity to catch up with my friend Meri from Finland. She was in Oxford visiting her friend Lou for Christmas and New Years so I headed up to Oxford for the day. We met at the Oxford Castle which was a great idea as there was an amazing outdoor photography exhibition on called Earth From The Air which was showing beautiful airel photography by aclaimed photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s an amazing look the earth from above and how it’s changing day by day. For lunch we had a great Greek meal and then went to meet Lou. Soon we were headed back to London in the car and Meri and I parted ways (again) but promised to meet up once more before she headed home.

That evening  Cat, Jess and I went to meet up with the parents of Cat’s boyfriend, Ant (another friend from home) who were to be my surrogate parents for Christmas day. We headed to a bar, had a few drinks, then headed to the only open restaurant which happened to be an Indian place – pretty nice! But soon we had to get back to bed, early night on Christmas Eve!!

The next morning we woke latish and as promised, I cooked the girls pancakes, bacon and eggs for breakfast. Accompanying that was fresh fruit,  juice and champagne, and it was all pretty great. But soon it was time to head out for the main meal of the day, Christmas Dinner. We met Ant’s parents at a hotel which they had booked the meal at. We started with presents, I can’t believe that they had even bought Jess and I presents (albiet edible ones)!

The afternoon was filled with champagne, turkey, deserts, wine, Christmas crackers, balloons flying around the room, and a hugely expensive bill which was fully paid by Ant’s parents, an amazing show of generosity. And then bloated, we headed back to the hostel to watch Love Acutally which is apparantly a popular film for Christmas.

The following days in London were rather relaxed. On Boxing Day I headed out into the shopping hoards and bought a few things. The following day I had a quiet one, but later on met up with Meri once again before both of us had to leave London. We also managed to see the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace on the morning before we were set to leave. It was an interesting affair but really not as exciting as everyone makes it out to be!

Changing of the Guard

Part Two

That night we boarded an extremely uncomfortable bus and headed north, destination Edinburgh. After nine and a half hours of half sleep, half candy consumption we arrived faar too early in the morning, and since our rooms weren’t ready at the hostel, we had to hang out in the common room for a few hours.

It was an unexpectedly beautiful day so after  a nap we decided to go for a wander. Edinburgh’s Royal Mile runs for around a mile between the Scottish Parliment and the Edinburgh Castle. So, with this in mind, our first stop was the castle.

Edinburgh Castle

We couldn’t actually go inside as it was incredibly expensive, but we gave it a good walk around. That night, someone decided it would be a good idea to go drinking, so that’s what we did. The hostel was full of long term Australians who only wanted to drink, so we joined them (Cat had also lived there at some stage earlier in the year). Drinking games started and soon everyone moved to what, to me, was a terrible bar – but the others seemed to like it. Backpacker bars just aren’t really my thing.

The following day I spent most of it sleeping. And while Cat and Jess slept even longer, I decided to take a walk up Arther’s Seat, a rather large hill. So after a walk down the Royal Mile towards the Scottish Parliment I began my way up.

Arthurs Seat Silhouette

As I rounded the corner, I found a very cool rock face which would have been excellent for some rock climbing had I had my shoes with me. Just beyond that was another hill which I had decided was worth a climb.

Rocks!

The weather was amazing and this place was amazing, so I kept going. My mission was to make it to the highest hill around and the climb was suprisingly steep. It might have been possible that I took a hard path, but really, that’s all part of the fun. From the top the view was exellent.

View from Arthurs Seat

Soon the sun went down so it was time to head back to the hostel for an easy night, best be resting up for New Years Eve tomorrow!

The day was new years eve and I spent most of it sleeping. I wanted to be ready for the evening. In the afternoon we took a trip to the local supermarket which was more packed with people than any other supermarket I’ve ever seen.  We were mostly there to pick up alcohol so I grabbed some wine, a Hoegaarden and one of the new Kronenburg Blanc beers (absolutely amazing). The evening was started (as it usually does in this hostel) with drinking games which caused me to finish my entire bottle of wine far too fast. But it was fun, and everyone was enjoying themselves and soon it was time to head out.

Each year in Edinburgh the council holds a massive street party with live bands and DJs and around 100,000 people partying it up. So after all this drinking, we headed out into it. Almost at once I lost Cat and Jess but luckily I was hanging out with a Canadian called Zach. And this was about the last I remember. Much to my embarrasment, all the alcohol hit me at once and most of the night is lost in my muddly brain but apparantly I did participate in the count down. This is the first new years that this has ever happened and I blame it on the fact that I wasn’t with my good friends :P

Fortuntely, the next day I awoke and was feeling fine! I had wanted to do the walking tour of Edinburgh that day and Cat and Jess agreed but by the time we got there it was totally full. This was crazy, we didn’t expect there to be so many people willing to go out and tour around the city on New Years Day, so Jess and I enlisted Cat to tour us around the city which she lived in a few months ago.

It appeared that Cat has forgotten most of the city but took us to two of the more interesting places. First was the Edinburgh Graveyard. This place is full of old grave stones covered in skulls and crossbones and skeletons and such.

Gravey!

The second place which I remember was Caton Hill. This is probably the second largest hill in Edinburgh (other than Arthur’s Seat). On the top of it they have a monument which waas supposed to be a replica of the Athenian Acropolis but for some reason they ran out of oney while building it and it never got completed.

Caton Hill

That night, Cat and Jess went on the New Years Day pub crawl. I decided not to beacuse the following day I had to catch a flight back to Luton to get ready for my next adventure, Morocco!

Oxford!

I haven’t posted in a few days due to having spent the last few nights in Oxford – yup, the university city.

The main reason I travelled to Oxford was to catch up with a friend of mine (and Mattinum), Isaac. He goes to university in Manchester, but luckily for me he was back at his parent’s place for summer holiday. It also turned out that he was good friends with the manager of the hostel which I stayed at (Central Backpackers) which was good as this allowed him to come into the hostel for drinks and things. It was good to catch up with Isaac and hopefully I will go and visit him again in Manchester at the end of the year.

But enough about that, here are a few highlights from Oxford. Firstly, the buildings. These are (for the most part) even older and more interesting than the buildings found in London. I think that may have something to do with the great fire of London in 1666 though, as many of Oxford’s buildings are from well before that.

The Oxford Library

This building was epic. Built in the 1300s, the Oxford Library (according to Isaac) has the largest collection of books in the world, all stored underground. Apparantly they had some deal with a large number of publishers who would give them a copy of every book they published. I’m unsure if this is still going now but i’m told it was in occurance for a large number of years.

The Oxford Castle

The Castle is a newly opened attraction in Oxford as it only ceased to be a prison in 1996. It’s creation first started in 1071, making it one of the oldest buildings in the city. It was very cool to see, but unfortunatly due to it’s former prison status, I don’t think it works overly well as a castle tourist attraction. And the fact that it is in the middle of town makes it rather hard to take a decent photo of it.

But the buildings which are most commonly talked about in Oxford are the colleges. This was truely amazing. I had originally thought that there was one Oxford university and that was how it has always been. This was proven to be untrue. There are historically around 40 different colleges in Oxford, now all brought together to form the prestegious university you all know. Every college building was more impressive than the next, with architectural feats such as this:

A university square

The above image is just one of the 40 colleges seen in the city. They all now appear to house different faculties of the university from history to physics. But what I thought was the grandest of all the colleges was Christ Church. This place was amazing, just like something from a book or a film, which seems appropriate as Harry Potter was filmed there and Alice in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass were both written there.

Christ Church

Entrance to Christ Church

Isaac also took me to a pub called the Turf Tavern, which is supposed to be one of the oldest pubs in Oxford. The roof was so low that it was less than 6″ away from from the top of my head at the beams. Isaac could not stand in it properly without having to bend sideways! We got some pints of Sadlers Worcester Sorcerer Ale and sat down. Here are some fun facts I read on the wall: in the 16th centuary, the owner died in the pub. In the 17th centuary, swordfighting was a common sport loved by patrons of the pub. And in the 18th centuary, cockfighting!

The following day, I got to experience something even more exciting (even thrilling if you lose your balance). This was known as punting. It’s the British version of the Italian gondola, and you propel yourself down a calm river by pushing the riverbed with a long aluminium pole. At first I was all over the place and almost fell into the river (which was pretty haggard, baby poo-eqsue colour), but soon i got the hang of it. The worst part about it is when you slide the pole up out of the water, it all drips down your arms and you end up kinda wet, but apart from that it’s pretty good fun!

Punting!

There was also two ways which it can be done. In essence, they don’t physically differ at all, it all depends on which end of the punt you stand on. In the picture above, I’m standing on the platform which is considered to be Oxford style. You can also stand at the other end, which is not as solid. This is known to be Cambridge style. Apparantly they have Oxford-Cambridge races and such which I can only imagine would be pretty amusing to watch.

So yes, Oxford was a pretty interesting little city. Unfortunately I forgot to go up the lookout tower, but  I’m sure I can do that in many other places along my travels.

My next port of call is Southend-On-Sea in Essex, then off up to Warwickshire for the RetroRides 08 Festival which should be very cool.

Dramas and Travels

I haven’t managed to update anything lately as Flickr has stopped working in this house. Another thing which has stopped working here is the respect. The flat is leased by Jermone, a polish electrician. He sub-lets a room to Jamie who is a yoga instructer, and another my mate Adam.

Last night, both Jamie (who is probably 40 years old and an awesome guy) and Adam got megalomaniac-styled letters from Jamie complaining about all sorts of mess in bathrooms, kitchens, people staying and a whole lot more. It was pretty intense and over the top, as this place is pretty clean all the time and both Jamie and Adam rarely even eat here. What’s more is that Adam asked if his Dad, and I, could stay here weeks ago, even offering him extra rent money (which he declined). Now he’s having a go at him for having people stay. Ridiculous.

Anyway, Adam is going to France to do some snowboarding on Friday, so I think I shall head to Oxford to visit my friend Isaac. Time to pack up again!

Will update with more stories just as soon as Flickr starts working again.