Em & Lachlan's Excellent Adventure!

London, Stonehenge and Paris, oh my!

Hey hey!

Long time no blog, we know, but as we’re about to rush out for another day in Paris we thought we’d quickly bring you up to speed.

The first of the photos are up, click through from any on the left hand side of the page and you can browse backwards. I’ll hopefully have them organised in sets and collections tonight and will post a link here when I do.

As you can tell, the secret adventure Em mentioned below was a day trip to Bath, the medieval village of Lacock and Stonehenge, where we got to actually go inside the stone circle! (Em: !!!!!)

The next day we went shopping - first hunting out the only Flat White coffee in London (Em: it was pretty good. Not great. But the best coffee I will get this side of Sydney. Why? Why?!? It makes no sense) then an awesome nerd store recommended by Mark, before spending the rest of the day in Camden markets. (Em: yes, I found the “original” docs store, and yes, they had the exact boots I wanted. But since I can buy them online from the US for half the price, I declined paying £130 for them.)

(Cassie – we didn’t get you anything in Camden. We were going to get you the Boots cream, but £20?! Sorry!)

On our final full day in London, which just happened to be Em’s birthday, we spent the entire day exploring the British Museum before going on ‘scary’ Dark London and Jack the Ripper tour, which was brilliant. We ended the night with a late dinner at the Sherlock Holmes pub – Toad in the Hole and Spotted Dick, what could be better?

On the 9th we flew to Paris! Our journey was… interesting. I convinced Em to take them British Airways up on the offer to transfer us, if they needed to, to a later flight in return for about £100. However, they didn’t need us and we ended up having to run through Heathrow’s new Terminal Five in order to make our original flight. (Em: Oh, yea. I think I had blocked this out. Turns out I am stressed enough in airports without having to make a run for it. I should point out, though, that I wasn’t in it for the money. I didn’t like the idea of us going ahead of someone who urgently needed to go somewhere, and they had completely overbooked the flight. Why would they do that? We had nowhere else to go, plus if we got on the later flight, I could hang around the airport a bit more, which I like).

Meanwhile, Terminal Five? More like Terminal Fine! It’s awesome!

In the few days since arriving in Paris we’ve wandered the streets, seen Notre Dame, eating copious food consisting heavily of bread and cheese, and yesterday we’ve visited the Louvre (I’m going back for another full day later this week though.)

Today, we’re off to see the Arcades!

Love to you all,

~Lachlan

A short summary of highlights and observations

So, yesterday we “did” London. To be specific, we got off the train at Westminter: wow. It’s kinda big. Initially, I thought the big bit was the Abbey, but it turns out that’s Big Ben and the houses of parliament. In comparison, the Abbey is sort of small and crappy, although, to be honest, I  didn’t go inside because I am too cheap - £12! Each! All money going to the restoration of the Abbey? No thanks. Maybe I will do the London Eye instead. Or that Movie museum Lachlan wants to go to.

After hanging around in a park behind Westminster, and getting covered in pollen, we wandered across to the south bank. Here we found some Dali stuff, a dancing wizard man, and a pigeon named Paul. We ate our Emma-made sandwiches (which only cost us about £6 for two chicken sandwiches each!) and watched people doing touristy things. Most of the path along here reminds me of Darling Harbour - although simultaneously crappier (it’s just not as pretty) and nicer (it’s more human-friendly. Not so much of a wasteland…)

We walked to the Tower Bridge, via lots of other bridges; the recreated Globe theatre; Starsucks (the coffee is just as bad as Starsucks in Australia. Which is to say it’s much better than any other coffee one can get around here); and the arse-end of the Tate Modern (we were looking for a payphone). We also loitered in the Tate giftshop, looking at Miffy books and art supplies before engaging in a heated debate on why I just don’t like art (on our way to the Tower Bridge).

Due to my insistence that we go to the Borough Markets (which were CLOSED. D’oh. I saw them on Eataholics…) we ended up wandering around for about an hour and not getting anywhere, before our final troop across the bridge - my main observation, it has lots of blue! Sort of almost baby blue. WTF? I never imagined it would be so garish. Very strange. Still, it was pretty, and the Tower of London looked cool too - except Lachlan won’t let me do the tour, because the tower is “shit” :(

Other highlights of the day included: KFC from down the road (they don’t have Mountain Dew, though. OR potato and gravy. Strange land.) and playing in the Marcs and Spencer food shop (they have so much ready made, pre-prepared food, I have no idea if anyone actually cooks in London. It’s amazing!). Lachlan and I might open up an international fast-food consultancy firm, where we can import all the great fast-food innovations from different nations. Whee!

And that’s about it. I am hoping for more cobblestones, and I have yet to see a great amount of “quaintness”, but I think tomorrow might be a better day for that, on the other side of the river (also, British Museum, yay! Free!!)

Today we go on a secret adventure! Updates soon :D

~Em

“Flying’s alright, innit?”

Hey hey, party people!

Despite the picture I chose of the post apocalyptic vision of London, everything is fine! I’m sure most of you know such a pic just appeals to both Em and I and you should all click through and look at the full size version - it’s awesome.

I figured I might take this chance, while Emma yells at websites on the computer next to me, to expand on our trip so far.

After a lovely, spontaneous fairwell brunch, we headed to the airport, accompanied by me Mum and Dad, who both did extremely well at calming Em down and fetching drinks while we waited in line.

The first problem was that our, otherwise fantastic, travel agent Mark (hi Mark, I’m sending you a link to this blog today!) had seemingly failed to link our tickets and we couldn’t sit together from Sydney to Bangkok. Luckily I managed to convince an old man to swap seats, and I later saw him chatting to the young couple I had been sat next to, so at best I’ve inspired a friendship and at worst a terrifying threesome.

The rest of the trip was filled with being highly impressed with Qantas’ On Demand movies and TV, giggling about the Buddhist monk watching American chick flick He’s Just Not That Into You (although Em pointed out this and Mall Cop seemed to be the only films with subtitles), and being scared for the last few hours before Bangkok as we hit a storm and had some crazy turnbulance.

Bangkok was uneventful as we were only there an hour or so. I tried to get onto the free internet machines but the queue of people lining up, who all seemingly logged into Twitter.

After leaving Bangkok we met a lovely Scottish bloke who was meant to be sitting next to us but wanted an aisle seat. As we waited to see if the stewardess could seat him somewhere else, as Em needs the aisle seat, he regailed us of why he was returning to the UK. Seems he had a could appearance. “I was caught with three thousand cigarettes, a load of tobacco and some tazers - which are firearms in the UK, if ya don’t know.”

Clearly this was a man who had been framed.

At no point did he deny he had had those things though, and soon he was moved to another row. We slept most of the rest of the way to combat jet lag. Overall the trip was pleasant, with the food prepared in Australia being great and the food we picked up in Bangkok being fairly average.

After landing in England we got through customs (there’s a story here but I’m currently drawing it for Maternal Fakocity. Will post a link when it’s done) and, being the highly cultured people that we are, went to Starbucks and jumped on the internet.

After that we jumped on the tube, dumped our bags at the YHA, and walked the streets around Earl’s Court Station killing time til we could check in as it was only about 7 AM.

Emma tried her first entry on her International Tour and Inspection of McDonalds’s Cheese Burgers - she judged the UK one as “the same as ours used to be” for those who care - and I stared into the face of the devil eating these. They are the most disgusting things I’ve tasted in a long time, but at only £1 pound I had to try them.

After checking our bags in we went out, bought a phone card and grabbed some dinner before heading back to our rooms and passing out.

Which brings us up to here, now, sitting in the 50 P internet cafe, wondering why UK keyboards swap the @ and the ” symbols around, and trying to ignore that my computer sounds like a WWII fighter plane.

The long of the short of it is we’re happy, healthy and having fun.

Stay human,

~Lachlan


Edit: and yes, there’s been another delay on the pics. They will be up tonight, I promise!

First post from OS!

He says:

Well, we’re in the UK! Lots of fun already, including:
 

•  A Buddhist monk watching the chick flick, He’s Just Not That Into You.
• Friendly UK criminals
• Star Wars loving Customs Officers and
• A queue of people at the free web kiosk in Bangkok logging in and updating their Twitter.

We’re on a short time frame at the moment, so a longer post will come later but for now be assured we’ve arrived safe and sound.


She says:

Someone should have warned me about the scary flushing toilets. I was not expecting it to open up some kind of horrible portal to hell. Not cool guys! At what point did it not occur to anyone that this might frighten me?! Toilets which give the impression of wanting to suck you into their evil clutches would be the first thing I warn people about…

Otherwise, pretty uneventful. Mega stress at the airport was mostly unnecessary. We got through customs with no problems, and have been reunited with our bags! Hurrah. Also, I slept on the plane for at least six hours. Other than the occasional lurching feeling if I sit still for too long, feeling remarkably spritely and, hopefully, jetlag free! 

We winz at teh flyingz :D


EDIT: Oh and yes, pics have been taken and are coming. Soon guys!

Help?

I’ve replaced the standard Last.FM widgit in this design with a Google Map where we will be tracking our progress. It works, but seems to have a habit of starting zoomed right in on Central African Republic.

Anyone know how to get it to centre on one of our trip markers as a default? If not, it’s cool, it’s just a little weird.

Edit: And yes, I know the pictures so far have nothing to do with the trip. They’re coming, OK? Jeez!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… BLAST OFF!

Greetings, true believers,

I write this with a number of things on my mind. Firstly, cerebrospinal fluid and layers of bone, skin and hair, but beyond that there are also intangible elements at play.

My packed suitcase lies in the other room, it’s currently 2:37 AM and we fly out at 5 PM today.

This blog will chonicle our adventures on our upcoming trip. Pictures uploaded to my Flickr will appear over on the left, any Twitter updates will appear above that, and (hopefully) semi-regular blog posts will appear here.

For those playing the home game, our first stop is London, followed by Paris, Berlin, Kiev in the Ukraine (including a planned day trip to Chernobyl), back to Berlin and then finally on to New York.

Not long now :)

~Lachlan