Travels.

I guess I should finish what I started in regards to my recent trip. Better get it done before I fly away again. This time last year, I had never been overseas. Come August, I will be off on my fourth overseas trip. That's a good stat. I have well and truly "caught the bug" and have a lot more planned as well.

My last day in England was warm, but it was more humid than sunny. It was still brilliant that it was wasn't raining. I went into the city and wandered around, I got to the British Museum. I would say if you had a detailed look at every exhibit there, you would know the entire history of the world. The British Empire's centuries of raiding other countries has paid off for their museum, it is a huge place.

The British Library I was not so impressed by, I was expecting another grand old building, but was faced with an ugly modern structure. The British Library is only a recent addition, around ten years old. They had an exhibition there called Magnificent Maps, I was keen to check it out, but I've got to say I was fairly underwhelmed by the exhibition, it just really didn't interest me that much.

From there I went back to Dan's, packed up my bags and made my way to Heathrow. Heathrow is probably the only airport that I've seen that has a great outside area. I played footbag in the courtyard there for quite some time. A little kid watched me for a while, I started chatting with him, he was moving to Brisbane.

I checked into my flight so I could get rid of my pack and spent the last of my pounds on beer and dinner. I boarded my flight with Qantas. Flights aren't really exciting, so why bother talking about it. I'd just like to say, I probably had a more pleasant experience flying with Air Asia than with Qantas.

We stopped in Singapore a short while and I got in 30 minutes of footbag. Once again, it was just good to get the legs moving, get some blood flowing after sitting down for so long. After a slow start I actually started playing reasonably well. Next stop was Melbourne.

I arrived into Melbourne at about 5am, I had booked a trip to Brisbane to see Evergreen Terrace that night, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to go anymore. Shai Hulud were also playing with I Exist in Melbourne that night, but that would mean waiting around for the whole day. I wanted to go home, that's where I wanted to go and I didn't want to spend anymore time in airporrts. I thought maybe I could go by train, so I went into the city and asked about that. Train was booked out.

I went onto the internet, and decided it was going to cost the same if I went home that day, or if I flew home from Brisbane the next day. After a wander round the city, I was back on the Skybus. I played some more footbag in the airport in Melbourne, then I had to wait a couple of hours in Brisbane for my friend Josh to pick me up.

I got some more uni work and some other writing done, so it was a productive time sitting down in the Brisbane airport. Josh cooked a steak, which tasted great. I went off to the Evergreen Terrace show. The tickets were more expensive than I expected, but at least it wasn't sold out. I walked in midway through Dropsaw, their new stuff sounds even heavier, if that were possible. No one was really into though, just a few people headbanging at the front.

More people were into Casey Jones. All their songs sound exactly the same. People looked like they were having fun though. I stood about halfway up the back, hanging out for Evergreen Terrace to play. I moved over to sit on a small ledge once Casey Jones finished to make sure I got a decent spot. While I was sitting there, there were some fisticuffs around the merch desk, I have no idea what happened, but there were punches thrown. I filmed the opening song from Evergreen Terrace, “Enemy Sex”. Then I just watched the rest. It was a lot of fun, Evergreen Terrace are on of my favourite bands, especially in the live setting. I think this was the sixth time I've seen them, every time has been a really enjoyable experience. To top things off, they played Dear Livejournal, a song I don't think I have seen them play before.

I got the last bus back to Josh's place, got a good rest, finally in a bed, then he dropped me off at the airport the next morning. I got back into Canberra, I called Caroline to see if she wanted to kick that day, she come up with a better offer, a lift home. Sounded good to me.

More of London

Raiders fans wave money at the cheats from Melbourne

I will continue my tales about my trip I took recently. I better finish it off before I go on another trip, it's just over a month before I head to San Francisco for the World Footbag Championships. I'll set the scene, we're at the Walkabout, one of those "Aussie pubs", it's 10:30am and the Green Machine are on TV.

We got away in time, and walked in to the pub right on kick off. There was an AFL game on the big screen (Geelong v Brisbane) and the Reds were playing Super 14 on the next screen with the commentary on. We sat behind a bloke in a Raiders jersey watching the silent screen. I went up to the bar and asked if we could get the sound on but he told me it couldn't be done. Soon enough he realised no one was watching the Reds, and switched the Green Machine on to the TV with sound. That was more like it.

So the Raiders lost to a team one million dollars over the salary cap. They were cheated by the video ref on three occasions against a bunch of cheats. Normally these would leave me disgruntled, possibly a pathetic mess for the rest of the day, but I didn't care. It was nice to be able to see the game at all, and we had more important business at hand, the table tennis table was back out.

I was on a hot run, I think I won five in a row, to add to my victory from a couple of nights before. As the beer went down though, so did my skills. It seemed like everyone else was coming back into the games. Suddenly the run was over. We had some burgers for lunch, they were absolutely enormous, it was awesome. The last game of table tennis, I finally had another win over Matthew, our new Raiders mate.

Some of his friends were watching the AFL game, one Cats fan, one Brisbane. One happy, one sad. Brisbane were absolutely pumped. Funnily enough both girls were from Geelong. They invited us to a picnic in the park, it sounded good. I had planned on going to Cambridge that afternoon to visit Matt Bailey, but the more beer I drunk, the further away Cambridge seemed, and the more likely missing my plane early the next morning seemed.

There was a bit of sun out, it was a nice day to just be hanging out in a park with some new friends. Matthew bought a soccerball, so we started kicking that around, whilst drinking more beer. I though this was a perfect way to finish up my time in England. Eventually the picnic came to an end. In that time, Dan said to our fellow picnicers that I may be the most famous person to come from our year in high school. I have been thinking about this in my head since that day, and all it makes me do is worry about the other people who were in that year. Once they left, Dan told me one of the girls seemed to be making moves on me, inching closer all the time, hanging on to every word I said. I honestly had no idea, but found it quite humorous.

After the picnic, we met some young guys who were kicking a ball around, they were pretty good, made us look like fools really, drunk fools, which was exactly what we were, though I had a couple of tricky moves up my sleeve, which never fail to impress. No matter how drunk I am.

We kept drinking, until I caught the bus to the airport. That was at 3am. What a ridiculously big day.

Shine bright baby shine bright- Break Even in London

This particular day was my favourite day of the whole trip. It combined numerous interests of mine, mainly sport, Break Even and beer.

I took a tour at Wimbledon. I got off at Wimbledon station and walked, which is not the way to go, it's quite a long walk. The museum at Wimbledon is very impressive. Being such a tennis aficionado, I was wearing my Rod Laver shoes, and found there to be a lack of mentions of the great man. I took a tour, which was also quite interesting. I wouldn't mind going to Wimbledon someday, I think that would be a good sports experience. Right up there, actually.

From there I decided to make my way to Hampstead Heath. My guidebook, which I probably looked at once, told me I could get good city views from there. To get there, I had to change trains four times, a couple of them being on the Overground line, which is notably inferior to the Underground. Funnily enough, they both run on a mixture of over and underground lines.

Hampstead Heath is an enormous park. It was still cold, so I found it surprising to see a guy swimming in one of the lakes there. There are walking and cycles paths everywhere, though no signage to tell you where your going. I think many London authors may have had there ideas of enchanted forests and that type of thing after a visit to Hampstead Heath. Once I got to what seemed like one of the highest points, I could look down to the city. I could barely make out anything as it was quite foggy. I took some more tourist pictures, then waited at the bus stop. The bus apparently came every six minutes, I think I waited twenty. It came eventually, I had to take a bus, then get a tube down to Camden.

Break Even were playing at a place in Camden called The Underground. It my normal style of organisation, I had no idea where it was, how I was going to find it, or if “Camden Town” was even the right stop. Coming out from the station, I looked down the road a little way, there it was. That was easier than I expected. I popped into a record store, they had a good collection there, if I was a collector of records, I may have parted with a significant amount of money. I'm not though, I don't have a record player, so the worry of how to transport these things was not an issue.

It had been a pretty long day, I wasn't really in the mood for talking to anybody, so I sat at the bar and drank some pints. I was meeting Dan is the pub upstairs from the venue, Worlds End. It was a pretty big place, so I wasn't sure where to sit. I had a pint in each bar, then ordered some chips. Just as I was finishing my plate, Dan walked in.

Break Even were on first, it seemed an early start, they were on at 7.30. We were sorted for pints and had a good position as they went into “Run For Your Life”. They played the usual set of songs from The Bright Side, but today they were in brilliant form. Definitely one of the best times I have seen them. During the time I started a circle pit around a pole and did a stagedive, all on the other side of the world. Their set was a lot of fun, and there were quite a few people getting right into it, singing along to all the words.

We went outside in search of some dinner. We ate some pizza slices from a nearby place, they were terrible. Probably some of the worst food in my life. We missed Awaken Demons, and came back in and saw a song of TRC. What a terrible band. They have two singers, one guy looks like a security guard patrolling the stage, that's how little he actually sings. I can't even remember really what sort of style they played in, but it wasn't good. Back to the bar for some more beer.

We had some good chats with Mawds, singer from Break Even. He may just win the prize for “nicest guy in the world”. I told him I was going to Perth later in the year, he told me he'd show me around. The Ghost Inside were next up, I didn't really know anything about them, so I was a little sceptical. They were really good, I will definitely check them out when they tour here later in the year. Kind of Hatebreed sounding, but with an added punk edge. I liked them a lot. I couldn't say the same about Deez Nuts. I've avoided them for so long, but I thought, while I was there, I might watch them. I think I lasted 45 seconds. What an absolutely terrible band.

Sometime in the bar, we met some more people from Australia. Most of them were wankers. However, Dan met this one girl that he had met once before at a punk show in Canberra and fallen madly in love with. They never met again until this night, unfortunately for Dan, the girl had met another bloke at that same show, they were now an item.

We had a few more beers after the show, then made our way into the city. We had to change from the tube to a bus as by this time it was quite late. We were walking somewhere around SoHo and came across a few guys kicking a soccerball in a laneway. We asked if we could join and got involved. As time went on, more and more people started doing the same, there must have been 20 people involved at one stage. Football fever is well and truly alive. The game was great, the ball would just come off windows, into cars, play on. It wasn't a game as such, but people would get on a run and then just as many people would come in as defence. It was a lot of fun. The game eventually dissipated, and we waited at the bus stop. We waited for a long, long time and eventually along came a red double decker bus. We both fell asleep and I woke up to “Next stop, East Acton”. “Get up, get get up, let's go”. “Lucky you were paying attention” “I just woke up, quick quick, let's go”.

When we got home, some of the other guys were drinking some more out the back. I think I might have had one more beer, but I was so tired, I was ready for bed. Goodnight.

London- Day Two

A few weeks back I went to London for a short while. So far I have only written about my first day.

My second day in London, Dan was up super early to go to work. At the time he was working as a demolition man, kicking holes in walls, smashing things with crowbars and the like. He said it wasn't as fun as it sounded. As I was leaving London though, he was lining up a new job, setting up tents on the festival circuit. Free entry to massive rock festivals doesn't sound like such a bad deal.

Anyhow, he got up at the crack of dawn, I thought I might get up soon after, so I could make the most of my first real day in England. At midday I stirred. It was good to get a good rest, and this probably got me over any jetlag.

After having some troubles entering the country, I thought it may be time for a cleaner look. I had walked by a barbershop the day before, so I went to see if I could get a haircut. “No appointments necessary” that's what I like to hear. The shop seemed to be run by a Polish family, we joked about the fact that no English people lived in London, and I was served a cup of tea during my time. Unlike the barber I went to in my youth, they didn't talk about guns and fishing, or ask me my thoughts on the current topics of the day. Back then, I normally kept quiet. My views seemed to be regularly the complete opposite of old Reg, and I've read the man from Ironbark.

Looking about ten years younger, I stepped out into the streets of London. It was still fairly cold, though at least it wasn't raining. I didn't really have a plan, I just thought I should go around and have a look at things. I went into the newsagency and bought an Oyster card, these are the cards used on London transport, so I felt almost like a real Londoner each time I swiped my card through at the station, just like everybody else.

I got on the tube with no particular destination in mind. Looking at the stops, I decided on Notting Hill Gate. I walked around Notting Hill to see if anything of interest was around. I entered a few record stores, seeing if I could find a street press, but most of the places sold second hand jazz records. I don't really know anything about jazz, so they didn't occupy my interest for long.

I kept walking and went into Kensington Gardens, a large park adjacent to Hyde Park. I was interested in taking a look at the palace there, but the entry fee was fifteen pounds. In 2000, they decided entry to most of the museums in London would be free. I decided I would be better off sticking to the free places and kept walking.

The park was quite nice, it probably would have been more pleasant if there was sun shining, but I had a jacket on, it was spring I was sure the weather would clear up soon enough. It didn't. On the other side of the park, I came to the Royal Albert Hall. I'm sure there's been plenty of big bands to play there, but I know Cream played a reunion show there around 2006. That would have been a pretty amazing show to attend. Dad actually has a tape of that in his car, I listen to it sometimes when I go to visit. I took a photo, but didn't bother going inside. Just around the corner there are numerous museums.

First stop was the Science Museum. I was hoping for a Questacon-esque experience, a really fun, hands on place, but it was more just what the title implied, a museum of scientific stuff. There were some good exhibits, especially one that concentrated on what the Muslim community brought to Science over the years. There were also millions of screaming kids there, which made the experience much less pleasant. At least it was warm in there.

My next stop was just a few doors down the same street at the Natural History Museum. I went to a similar museum in Vienna last year, which I found a bit weird, so I wasn't sure if I should bother with this one. Entry was free, and it was nice and warm, so it was a good decision to enter. Not only that, but the exhibits were excellent. Apart from the animal type exhibits similar to what I had seen in Vienna, there was a lot of focus on things like earthquakes, volcanoes and movement inside the earth's core. I didn't really know anything on these subjects, so I actually learnt something from this visit.

Back out into the cold, and I wondered, where to next? I saw a sign pointing me in the direction of an underground station and headed there. I grabbed a bit to eat in some cafe, and got on the tube at South Kensington to get off at Westminster. Oh, here we are, this looks familiar. This was the place for some famous sights of London. I thought about taking a riverboat along the Thames, but in that weather, there was no point. I took a few touristic photos, then went by foot along the river.

I found some signs pointing me in the direction of the Imperial War Museum. I headed that way. I crossed the bridge and headed for the museum. I assumed it wouldn't be that far, that was incorrect. It seemed I walked quite a long way through the cold, and each step it seemed to be getting colder. I was reading Down and Out in Paris and London at the time, and I wondered how these characters got through the winters if this was Spring.

Eventually I was at the museum, they had an interesting exhibit about the different spy divisions within England, the whole exhibit seemed to question whether these agencies should exist at all in what is a time of peace. They also had the usual assortment of tanks, planes, guns etc. On the top floor there was a holocaust section, I was heading up that way, but decided I couldn't stomach that kind of thing and headed back out.

I found a tube station at North Lambeth after a bit more walking, I got out at Charing Cross, I decided to check out the National Gallery. You know that feeling you get when you've done too much in one day, a feel of being overwhelmed, I felt like that. I wandered through the galleries, paying vague attention, it was basically a waste of time me being there, but once again, it was free and it was warm.

Liking the idea of seeing some more of the monopoly board, from Trafalgar Square, I walked up Pall Mall in the direction of Oxford Street. I got on a tube eventually and went back to Dan's place. I got out of the station and walked confidently in the direction of his house. I thought I remembered what it looked like, but on arrival, I wasn't so sure. For some reason I hadn't written down the number of the place, or committed to my memory. It was number 14, that's the number of my house I lived at when I was a child, and the number of my Grandma's house. I wouldn't be forgetting that one again. One of the Kiwi guys came outside “hey, Dan'smateDan”. I was “home”.

That night we went out for a meal at an English pub in Shepard's Bush, a couple of stops away on the tube. Fulham were up against Atletico Madrid in the Europa Cup final. There were some people watching the game, but it wasn't packed. Fulham lost in extra time, the Fulham fans looked completely despondent. From years of watching the Canberra Raiders, I knew the feeling.

Dan wanted to show me how stupid these “Australian pubs” were, so we went over to the Walkabout, just round the corner. It wasn't so crowded on this particular night, but as the night on, people arrived in big bunches, which I assumed were Contiki tours and the like. Anyhow, they had a table tennis table and the beer was reasonably priced, I didn't think it was so bad. I won the table tennis 21-17.

We got the bus home, and once we got off, Dan was busting for a piss. He ran off the bus and into a nearby park. He was so worried about the task at hand, he didn't see a low fence, which put him flat on his face in the park. He had a nice wound and a sore shin the rest of the week.

London, innit (Day One)

So let me continue the story of my travels. My last post on that topic, I had just arrived in London, at Marble Arch. Marble Arch is just near Hyde Park, and who would have thunk, it's a big arch made from marble.

When I was at the airport, the lady told me it wouldn't be too far to walk to Trafalgar Square. She told me to take Oxford Street, then on to Regent Street...just like in Monopoly. My plan had been to get to all the places from the Monopoly board, you can actually do Monopoly bar crawls, but I didn't get the time to do that.

After walking a while, and consulting my map, I decided it was going to be better to get on the Tube. The Tube system is actually amazing, it's rare to wait more than three minutes for a train. So I got on at Oxford Circus, then got off a couple of stops later at Charing Cross.

I had organised from the other side of the world to meet up with Matt Bailey, he was one of my roommates at Worlds in Berlin last year. We had a great room at the Hostel XBerger, just a few steps from the event site. On this trip I decided not to take a phone, nor had I had the chance to check the internet and Matt was coming from Cambridge, so I hoped for the best that we would be able to meet.

I hadn't been able to check the internet, if I had I would have noticed a message on Facebook letting me know I had a little bit more of a wait ahead. We were due to meet at Trafalgar Square, so I wandered around there for a while. I had my big bag and everything, so I wasn't so keen to carry that very far.

It was getting to the point where I was wondering what to do, these people asked me to take their photo, it turned out they were from Brisbane, it later appeared EVERYONE in London is from Australia or New Zealand. Just as I was taking their photo, Matt arrived, we were ready for action.

We started kicking, it was freezing cold. Far too cold to be playing in short shorts. I kept on my long sleeve shirt. When I arrived that morning they said "welcome to London Stansted airport, it's one degree". I don't think it was a whole lot warmer once we started kicking.

Neither of us played that great, however it was good to get in a kick, especially so soon in my trip. Matt was very busy with uni, so it was lucky I could meet him at all. We were both trying some new tricks. The session was a lot more about trying new stuff, rather than hitting long runs, there was definitely not a lot of long strings.

For my last trick, I had been trying a new move for a while, and I finally got it, right on the buzzer.

Unfortunately I dropped the handcatch...

We kicked for a fair while actually, considering the outside temperature. During the kick some guy talked to us about doing some kind of demonstration at a launch of his new clothing score. He talked like he thought he was Dizzee Rascal or someone, and I think he was full of rubbish. He got Matt's number though, so you never know.

After the kick, we went to a nearby purveyor of fine ales, my first experience in an English pub. Matt doesn't drink, but it was a nice warm place to sit, so I'm sure he didn't mind. We chatted about what we had been up to, almost a year has already passed since Worlds. Eventually it was time to go, back to the Underground, and I was heading in the direction of my friend Dan's place.

Dan and I go right back to Bega High, then he had a stint living on my loungeroom floor in Canberra, so it was time for me to return the favour. I had to head to East Acton, which is on the Central line. It involved just one line change, and I managed to get there without any hassles. Once again, I had organised for the meeting from the other side of the world, and once again I had a little while to wait.

Dan met me and we went back to his place. He lives with an unknown quantity of other people, at a guess there were maybe 11 people staying while I was there. Not everyone was living there, but each person would have a guest staying for a few nights. The best part was that every time somebody came home, they would bring more beer. Perfect!

So the first night, there wasn't much on. Everyone was quite happy to hang out at the house. There are four couches there, which was almost enough to fit everybody staying there. Somebody put on the movie 9 Songs.

According to IMDB

In London, England, love blooms between an American college student, named Lisa, and a British glaciologist, named Matt, where over the next few months in between attending rock concerts, the two lovers have intense sexual encounters.

So that's the story. This couple watches a band at the Brixton Academy or somewhere like that, then they have sex. Then it moves on to the next band. I think I fell asleep two songs in. Dan set up a blow up mattress in his room, that was my abode for the next week or so.