tooth soup

photo credit: vgm8383

Apologies for the long period of silence on this blog; I’m back from the grand european tour that I undertook with my girlfriend and now after a full week of trying to catch up with everyone I’m able to sit down and update this ol’ blog thang. I’ll break up the recollections into manageable parts so that I get a rest in between updates and so they happen in a reasonable time frame.

I’ll pick up the trip at our arrival at London on Christmas Eve. We caught the Eurostar train from Paris to London’s St. Pancr(e)as and I can tell you right now, that thing can move. The weirdest thing was seeing the landscape at the horizon changing, it’s just not something you expect to be moving fast enough to be able to notice. We got into the station and after walking through the arrival doors I immediately spotted Cian looking sort of half-hopeful, half-nonchalant over at the door next to ours. Thankfully she hadn’t seen us, so we looped around behind her and I surprised her with a ‘Why so glum?’ and a big hug. It was great, lots of waving of imaginary flags and gummy grins all ’round. After a quick omgyouarehereomgomg conversation we shuttled off to get our Oyster (stupid, stupid name) cards and hop the bus to the place we’d be staying. Cian had managed to put us up with Debbi’s, er, friend? Cal (real name Mark, last name Callaby, Australianame Cal) who had a spare bedroom we could use for the duration, saving us around fifty pound each per night (which roughly translated is equivalent to fifteen billion Australian dollars).

The first thing we did on dumping our clothes and scratching our heads at the weirdly slanted loft (that did its level best [hah] to crack open our skulls whenever we got up for the rest of the trip) was to run across the road and meet Cal and Debbi (Cian’s mum for those not in the know) for a pint.

Of Fosters.

That’s right, the very first thing we did in London was to have a pint of what is known throughout my home country as the single worst example of ‘Australian’ beer known to man. I had never actually had a pint of Fosters, not because I like judging things before I’ve had them, but because it is so bad that pubs in W.A. just don’t serve it. And that’s pretty intense considering they serve piss-water such as Melbourne Bitter and Victoria Bitter. But Fosters (Fozzies being the Australianame) is one of the ‘super chill’ (that is, just below room temperature) lagers they drank, so Fosters it was. I steeled my stomach, braced my tastebuds and drank, but it turns out I needn’t have, since London Fosters is brewed in england and not imported from Australia. That, or we export the good stuff. Either way, it wasn’t bad, and continued to be a beer I’d have when I was after cheap and reliable for the duration of our stay.

We had a few more drinks at the pub, still kind of marvelling at the fact that we were even there. Pretty soon the travel day exhaustion closed in though, so we said goodnight and went to bed. The next day was Christmas after all, and everyone knows that the earlier you go to bed, the earlier you can get up! Obviously we didn’t have a mound of shiny wrapped parcels waiting for us the next day but in place of that Cal offered me a Christmas Corona (yes,the beer) at the definitely-not-alcoholic time of nine o’clock in the morning. Looking at it now that means that I was drinking from nine o’clock in the morning ’til about one o’clock in the morning the next day which is a pretty good effort if you ask me. The entire day was consumed with consuming a stupidly large amount of beer, food, and spirits and gathering up the orphaned Aussies that Debbi had invited to have a bit of grub at her place. Ended up being Cian, Deb, Cal, Lou, Brian (one of the bar staff at the Pig and Whistle–the pub across the road), Lauren (Cian’s mate) and myself dancing around like idiots for hours to the tunes of Youtubed Aussie songs and stuffing ourselves with ham and roast beef. Cal wanted to have a barbeque, and had even bought a 5 pound disposable one for the occasion (with four sausages!) but I think that initiative got lost in the haze. Good way to spend Chrissie if you ask me (:

Of course, the next morning brought with it its own fair share of sore heads and necks–my neck and shoulders were brutalising me as a result of me trying to windmill my way into air-rock history. They didn’t ease up for a couple of days, so I had a bit of difficulty looking around that day as Cian tubed and walked us to the Tower of London and then on the Thames walk around the river and up to St Paul’s Cathedral, before heading over the Millenium Bridge to take a brief look and toilet stop at the TATE Modern. They had a pretty cool installation that rang a few of my speculative flash fiction bells in the form of a whole bunch of metal framed bunk beds with books attached to them filling a hall. The story behind it was that in the future (2054 I believe?) it had been raining non-stop for a few years, leading people to use art galleries and other buildings as shelters from the weird things going on outside. Apparently people had complained that the lady that did the installation shouldn’t have been paid the grand sum she received as it wasn’t really that hard to get some bunk beds in and paint them, but as Cian argued, very rightly I believe, they didn’t have the idea. The concept is what the gallery is paying for, not the materials. Amen to that my brothers and sisters.

After the TATE we wandered down past a dodgy part of town, still staying next to the river. There I saw my first glimpse of what I presume all those british comedians with their crazy dialect call ‘hoodies’. Basically skater kids with hooded jumpers emitting a combination of menace and emo. We lef them behind, giggled at some terrible street statues (in my opinion we only saw one good one the whole time we were overseas, and that was a guy in Berlin who acted as if he were drunk in poses that his back surely didn’t appreciate and his income didn’t make up for)  climbed over a bridge and hit the tubes home.

I’ll break for now, since it’s 11:30 and I’ve recently had food poisoning and need my sleep. I’ll pick this up at the point of museums and galleries tomorrow!

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