Adventures Overseas 3/16

These sixteen updates will be the condensed and often more erratic version of my adventures overseas, comprised of the updates that I sent home to my family at the time.

Author's Disclaimer: The following were written when I traveled overseas with my sister. They were the short and sweet version of what was going on in my daily journal. Often, I watered things down so that our parents wouldn't know how scared we really were or how bad a hostel really was. We didn't want to scare them. Also, I wrote these updates on my iPod, and in the interest of authenticity, I haven't edited or changed the formatting much. This may be less to do with authenticity and more to do with all those darn buttons I'd have to press if I edited it all. Anyway, there are plenty of little typos to go around I'm sure. I'm sorry. They bug me, too.

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Update 3: September 13, 2018 – THURSDAY

I’ve resolved to make my paper journal my main means of writing an account of my days here. It is too exhausting to be brilliant on paper, then turn around and be an original genius with an email copy.

I do still want to keep all y’all up to date on our adventures though, so I’d love to still give you an abridged version. When I get back, transcribing my written works will be an excellent winter duty.

Now, the last time I wrote more than Facebook tidbits was on the 10th, so here’s what we’ve been doing since...

September 11...

On Tuesday, Sister and I were to meet with Sarah. Sarah comes to a college (which Sister and I previously attended) annually to give a workshop on writing; I went to this in 2017, so that’s how I came to know her. Sarah is extremely knowledgeable about... most things, and has a passion for knowledge. This made her a fascinating tour guide, even as we got lost in parts of London that she’d never been to, and had many a plan thwarted by random happenings.

We met Sarah at the Charles Dickens museum, which was #49 Doughty Street; the house he lived in for a few years. It was a really interesting little museum, and I’m happy we went! If you haven’t read anything of his, I would encourage you to; he’s a bit of a genius (like yours truly).

Unfortunately, Sarah had misplaced her purse on the way, so she met up with us again after having cancelled some cards and come up with a game plan. We had tea in the garden area of the museum, which was a truly authentic experience, especially when narrated largely by Sarah’s lovely accent.

After that, we got lost a few times on our way to the bank, then we were taken on a guided walk! Sarah told us about the prominence of Free Masonry in the world, and we went to the huge Masonic temple and said the St Michael prayer. After all she told us about the Satanic rituals performed there, I was relieved it was closed when we went to look in. It’s definitely an area of the world that needs prayers.

We went to lighter places after that, heading to the massive Covent Market, then on to Trafalgar Square, to the tea shop on the crypt (literally stepping on grave stones as we went to make use of the washrooms - we didn’t stay for tea). Sarah took us to a walking bridge over the Thames, where we had a good view, and we said goodbye. I’m really glad we planned the rendezvous; it was a great tour!

When Sarah left, Sister and I admired some more views, then got it into our heads to do three things: eat gelato, buy cheese and crackers, and find Drury Lane to take a silly video. We did it all. By the time we got back to the hostel, it was getting late, but we stayed up even later to book some trains and hostels for our next leg of the journey.

Here’s a few fun facts for you now....

1. Public washrooms are NOT a dime a dozen, especially free ones. We finally shuffled into a public library and, after asking for the key, we’re relieved to relieve ourselves.

1. Public washroom stalls here are 150% better. They have doors that actually close right, usually with only an inch or so gap along the bottom. This means you don’t make eye contact through the cracks! It doesn’t seem like a big revelation, so I’m not sure why they aren’t like that everywhere. Also, they don’t use paper towel here at all. It’s all air dryers, even the small, old washrooms have dryers. Also, their toilets flush better. No like at Wal-Mart, where every other stall is plugged and has no pressure. I mean, none of this is very relevant, I just wanted to take some time to admire the bathrooms. Even if they are hard to find.

1. The traffic is insane. It’s hard to believe there aren’t more dented cars around. I think it’s because everyone’s so pushy with vehicles; it’s just expected that, even if you have the right of way, you may have to wait for buses, foot traffic, or boobs that are still in the intersection. The streets are sooo narrow, but everyone still goes down them. EVERYONE! Double-decker buses, trucks, cars, semis, motorcycles, and pedal bikes, all at speed. It’s insane. The bus drivers here have to be so bold. Also, they really take advantage of the fact that most people won’t crash into them if they turn into an intersection and block everyone.

September 12...

We got up pretty early this day and made our way to Victoria Coach Station. We had a tour booked to go and see Stonehenge. This was probably the best thing we saw. It is way bigger that I thought it would be, and so mysterious. There was a really interesting audio guide, and so many little details about the stone circle that we didn’t know about. It definitely piqued our interest, and we want to research it more, as we didn’t have a lot of time to go through the information.

By the time we got back from the tour and had coffee, it was already 4:00pm. We bought more cheese and crackers at a local store and decided to savour it in Hyde park. We walked through the Buckingham Palace area, then through to Hyde park. There was a beautiful garden-y area with loads of flowers and little paths and fountains. We found a bench among the roses and by a fountain and ate our sumptuous meal. Our peaceful repast was disturbed a little by a rat waddling by. We were horrified for a moment, but then realized that this was not the rat-free Prairies. We did not have to alert any authorities. We just had to mind that it didn’t come steal our cheese.

After that, we meandered our way back home.

We were just congratulating ourselves on how efficient we had become at navigating the Metro, when we finally noticed that the stops were nowhere near where we had to be. Leaping from that train, we sheepishly backtracked and corrected our route.

After some more route planning, we went to bed with plans of an even earlier morning...

September 13...

5 am was the wake-up call this morning. We had all our bags packed and ready, and we checked out of The Phoenix. We lived through that one!

We were way early getting to St Pancras Station for our train to Nottingham, but that worked out well, as we used the time to get some more trim tickets that we need for the upcoming days. I think we’ve got the next week planned out and ready to go now! We just have to make all our trains.

This train ticket said it was leaving at 8:34. It was not kidding. The doors hissed shut and we started rolling right when the minute changed from 33 to 34.

We made it.

Now, we’re on our way to Nottingham for a night! We plan to see the castle, maybe have a drink at Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem, the oldest pub in England, and get some sleep! In the midst of all the things we can do, it’s hard to remember that sleep is still important.

The landscapes pretty cool here (spotted with farmhouses that would be preserved as heritage sights if they were in Saskatchewan); at least, when you can see past the huge Chestnut trees that line the rail way.

I’m going to let the vistas lull me to sleep now... Sister’s gone on ahead of me already.

We arrived in Nottingham! By the bus stop, it looked like a pretty bustling, modern area. Once we got closer to our hostel, though, it looked really homey. When we dropped Sister’s massive bag off at the hostel for storage, the front seat girl told us about a free walking tour that was leaving from nearby. It was supposed to start soon, but we hadn’t had breakfast, really, so we ran to a Mark’s and Spencer’s (M&S is roughly the equivalent of a Walmart), and grabbed a package of cheese, a cucumber, and a tomato.

We were thinking we’d trail the end of the tour group and munch on our random foods, but when we got to the square and spotted the bright yellow umbrellas...

They were alone.

“Maybe,” Sister and I deliberated, “maybe they’re just waiting for more people, and the civilians sitting around this square are just waiting for it onto start.”

Nope. We approached, and were greeted enthusiastically by the two guides who were thrilled to have 100% of their audience show up at the last minute (that’s us, by the way).

Apparently, the one guy has some sort of business (it is unclear to me how he makes money) which functions in various cities (Germany, Belgium, and now England) to set up guided walking tours. This was their first in Nottingham. Kay and Andy were their names; Kay was the business owner, and Andy was the one from Nottingham, who ended up taking us on the tour.

It was a really nice, random thing; Andy took us all around Nottingham, telling us about football (soccer, to us), history, and the sights to see. He was very knowledgeable, and we learned a lot about this neat little city.

It was about a 2-hour tour, after which we just sat down to some fish and chips before wandering and weaving our way back to the hostel.

Here are some neat things about Nottingham...

1. The castle. Only a portion of the outer wall is left of the castle that was built around 1067(?). When the castle stood, it was only ever breeched once, and that was by Richard the Lionheart, who was the actual owner. He had to retake the castle from his brother, John, who had taken it over when Richard left to fight in the crusades. You might think that sounds familiar; that’s because it’s the setting for Nottingham’s more famous character (though possibly more legendary than historical), Robin Hood. More on that later. Anyway, the castle was burned long ago, then a rich guy put a mansion on the grounds and the peasants burned that, too, and then the government built an art gallery/museum there. It’s being refurbished now, with a £30 million grant. There’s more to the history than that, but there’s a recap for you.

1. Robin Hood. Not much to say here that hasn’t already been adapted into a movie. There’s quite a bit of reference to the legend around the town, but not like a Canadian town that has something famous. Take Jasper; every store there has paraphernalia about Jasper or the mountains. We didn’t find any shops like that; not even in London. It’s probably best... we can’t spend money in souvenirs.

1. The Lace Street. Back in the day, when lace was worth tons, Nottingham was the first to mass produce it, since the machines were invented here. This gave rise to the Laudate(?) movement, where workers, who were replaced by a machine, would protest. Probably not with signs, like today. I think they wrecked machines. Which leads me into another area of Nottingham...

1. The courtrooms. I can’t remember the name of it, but it is a place where people were jailed, processed, tried, and hanged (that wasn’t invariably the process. Obviously there’d be some innocent ones). Kind of a one-stop shop for the rebels who were burning the lace machines. The really significant part of this building is a typo. Not just any typo: a 1900’s typo. The guy who was carving the word “Gaol” (which is how they spelled ‘Jail’) over one of the arches, accidentally spelled it Goal. It was carved over, but you can clearly see the letters. There’s no white out for that.

Well, that’s some of the neat stuff we learned today! I’m glad we came to Nottingham, as it’s a neat little town!