Saturday August 1
Did a bit of touristy site seeing to start the day, with a trek to the tower bridge and the area around it.
Later in the day we caught up with my old school friends, Teneale who I went to college with and Gemma who I went to primary school and college with. I haven’t stayed in touch with anyone from school, I kind of drifted off my own way at the start of year 12 then dropped out early to take my first drafting job. So it was going to be something different from me. It had been 12 years since I had anything in common with these girls. I’d talked to Gemma a bit on msn and knew she was into dance music now, so that was a bit of a start.
We arrived in Camden at about 2.30 and headed to a pub called The World’s End. When we walked in, they were playing Pendulum so we got a good vibe straight off. All of the staff were very alternative and sported visible tatts and piercings. We hadn’t found anything we really loved about London yet, and from what Teneale had said Camden sounded like our kind of place. We had a sit down meal of some pretty good Thai and some beers while we waited for Gemma and Teneale.
After a wander up the street to buy Steve a new phone, we met the girls out the front of the station. The 4 us headed into Camden markets, chatting and catching up on news along the way. The Camden markets were so cool, we could have spent sooooo much money there. It had anything and everything alternative as well as old antiques and stuff. There were little pubs and cafes dotted through as well. After a while of window shopping we headed to a bar for some drinks. It was a CBGB tribute bar but kind of felt like stalls for horses in the way it was laid out and furnished. We had a few drinks there and then headed elsewhere as the music was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talking.
At the second bar we started properly catching up, and reminiscing about our college days and all the mischief we got up to. I felt a bit bad for Steve because he didn’t really know any of the people we were talking about and I know I always hate when other people do that to me, but he seemed content. We talked for a few hours before we realised we were well on our way to drunk and so it seemed a logical progression that we would kick on somewhere and keep drinking and hanging out.
We left the bar and headed back to Gemma’s place, which was also in Camden. We stopped at the bottle shop on the way and decided there was no way a bottle of vodka was enough so we got 2. Gemma’s place was pretty cool, a nice spacious one bedroom apartment. It would be the sort of area I would want to live if we ever lived in London, Camden was so cool. The 4 of us talked and drank the night away. Gemma and I had some very ‘deep’ conversation, the sort you only have when you are really trashed, the theory of evolution etc so it was an entertaining night. Teneale headed home around 4, and Steve and I crashed on the blow up bed on Gemma’s lounge room floor at around 5.30am.
Sunday August 2
We woke up around 1 and headed back to The World’s End pub for lunch with Gemma before heading back to our hostel. We had an early train to Manchester the next morning so we were both asleep by 8pm.
Monday August 3
4.15am the alarm goes off. Mmmmrrrrrrrrrrrr. I don’t want to move....
We haul ourselves out of bed and get our gear together to head to the station. We’d lined up a place to live in Manchester for the next month while we looked for work. It was with 2 sisters, from Australia who needed someone to fill a room for a month only, which suited us fine as we couldn’t promise more than a month. We arrived in Manchester after a 2 hour 11 minute train ride. Just to explain how good trains are here, we arrived at the Manchester Piccadilly Station within 20 seconds of our due arrival time. They’d want to be good for 28 pounds each! (Ouch) And that was the cheapest we could find by a long way.
We got on a bus to our new house and discovered that our new housemates are dwarves. Not I’m not sure if that is the politically correct name as I know they are touchy about what you call them. I message Jessie and tell her I’ll never call her a midget again... Our other 2 housemates are a bit odd. It’s a 4 bedroom house, 1 downstairs and 3 upstairs. There are 2 larger double rooms (1 of which is ours) and the other occupied by a black guy called Richard. The single room is occupied by someone who plans not to occupy it. He is in a relationship with a Muslim and he isn’t so he needs an escape route if her parents show up lol. So even after a week (which is what is it when I am writing this) we haven’t even seen this guy. And we have only spoken 2 sentences with Richard.
Our new place is in a really beautiful street. A lot like the inner north in Canberra, big mature oak trees lining the streets and cool old houses. The houses here are all 2 storey though.
Our street
Our neighbourhood - Chorlton
Weather in England, however, can eat my butt hole. I have to confess that the weather here has made me question whether I really want to stay here. I mean, I can make more money at home and replenish my traveling money faster. I can get back to some initially cold but soon to be warm weather. Seriously, the weather here is shit. I have been told by lots of people it’s shit, but nothing really prepares you for a summer where 23 degrees is the MAXIMUM. Everyone raved about the weather the day it hit 23, it even got a mention in the local news paper because it was such a special event. FFS! Brian and Julie, see if you can guess this one ;) The guide to Manchester we read says the temp for summer here is 11.4 to 21 degrees. w00t. Who's idea was this anyway?
Steve and I’s room is a furnished double room with a new double bed. Apparently they don’t make queen sized beds in the UK. After dumping our gear and getting the tour we headed down for some Primark action. Primark is like Kmart but way cheaper, so we got work interview clothes and bed clothes. For 67 pounds (the exchange rate is awesome atm so that’s about $130Au) we got 3 pairs of pants, a belt, 1 shirt, 4 pillow cases, 3 pillows, a fitted sheet and 10 pairs of socks. We then headed to the super market and our ‘set up’ shop was 100 pounds ($200Au) and that included cheese grater, washing liquid etc, all the extra crap you need to start up, so we figured we were off to an OK start financially.
Tuesday August 4 – Wednesday August 5
Found ourselves a free internet spot/local pub called the Iguana Bar. Beer was an OK price at 2.20 pounds ($4.40Au) a pint. It’s true that no one in England drinks pots (though they call them half pints). The standard is a pint. If you don’t specify, it’s a pint. Suits us fine. It’s not even like your beer will get warm in SUMMER here. Most alcohol through Europe has been cheaper than Aus due to ours being so heavily taxed. We didn’t go to Ibiza though because of the stupidly expensive drinks there – 8 Euros for a bottle of water ($16Au) and 14 Euros for a vodka ($32Au). And Spain is full of the type of English people I have come to hate. But everywhere else, including England is still cheaper. Perhaps is holds some allure after all.
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