Him saying this greatly upset me as if you've read my blog a great deal of my hiking is done with my Dad. I told him that he just needed to do some physio, and healing the unused and damaged muscles. I told him that when I hurt my ankle it took ages to heal and at the time I was 26, so it would take him longer as he is 65,but he would get there.
2015
October
I don't want to get bogged down on the details, but a trip of this size took a lot of planning. Months of it. Working out a budget, deciding on places we wanted to go, things we wanted to do, and how to get there. Being under 25 at the time we found hiring out a rental car would cost us too much to insure, and so we decided backpacking would be the best way and using public transport, we then found that you had to prebook train trips on most Eurorail trips so we really had to map and plan out when and where we were going to be and made sure we stuck to it, this limited our freedom a bit in planning for Europe. In the end our planned trip took us from Arriving in London, staying with my girlfriends Great Aunt in Gravesend in Kent for 2 weeks, before we went off around England and Scotland for a month before flying to Finland, for 11 nights then to France, Rome, Germany and Poland.We flew out on the 5th of October 2015 after a long and hot drive to Sydney airport in my Dad's non air-conditioned van, wearing our Saint Christopher (the Patron Saint of Travelers) necklaces gifted to us by my wife's Nan. Although neither of us were christian we really liked the sentiment and wore them for the entire trip.
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| "Away we go" I posted on Facebook with this picture at Sydney Airport |
We flew with British Airways and actually found the flight surprisingly pleasant, or as pleasant as could be for a 23 hours flight. There was plenty of films to watch at no additional price, decent amount of food served, the food was not terrible, and we had enough room. Although it's a long economy flight and we felt pretty much dead even by the time we hit our Singapore stopover, (which my girlfriend exclaimed she would never go to Singapore after because the humidity made her hair go crazy) we continued on eventually arriving at Heathrow Airport walking out like zombies and being met by my girlfriends great aunt Ann, and her husband Jeff. It was very early on in the morning n England, and I couldn't help but think "I'm actually here!" having wanted to travel there my entire life. As we drove from the airport we started going past a lot of farmland covered with mist, and I realised this was completely unfamiliar territory and I had no idea where we were, or where we were going. I was excited, anxious, and barely keeping my eyes open as we went past a church and graveyard, I was amazed because I thought it looked exactly like the church and graveyard from Mad Monster Mansion, a level in one of my favourite, (and first ever) video games for the Nintendo 64, Banjo Kazooie. We finally arrived at a quaint little street and Ann and Jeff showed us inside into our room we'd be staying in. A massive guestroom with a huge bed for us. We thanked them before promptly laying down and falling asleep until later that afternoon.
When we awoke Ann had already prepared a delicious home cooked dinner of Steak and Kidney pie. I'd had steak and kidney pie before so knew it was good, my girlfriend (I keep going to type wife but I'm staying true to the time period) had never and I could tell she was a little concerned if not for trying a new food, just because she potentially felt unwell with jet-lag. The dinner ended up being completely delicious, as we found with all Ann's cooking, there was just something homely, flavoursome and authentic about it. It has been 4 years since we were there and we still miss her cooking.
We ended up going back to bed and setting an alarm for in the morning so we could try and set our body clocks to British time.
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| In the bedroom at Ann's |
In the next few days we got a little tour of Gravesend from Ann and Jeff, showing us how to get into town from where we were, the local shops, we even stopped in at a church and graveyard (St George's Church) where Pocahontas was buried. Which as a history enthusiast, really excited me.
We also got taken to New Tavern Fort and a walk through the local parks before being shouted dinner at a local pub where I tried Gammon, and attempted to try Pigeon as an entree before my girlfriend told me not to as her Aunt was paying. I said I would pay myself and she told me not to be rude and I'd try it another time. To this day I still haven't tried it. Jeff found out I was a keen beer drinking and had a passion for trying new beers and made sure I tried many different sort of beers, often going to my head as most pubs served pints, bigger servings than your average schooner in Australia.
One day were also taken for a drive to Rochester where we saw Rochester Castle, and were taken on a Charles Dickens tour by a local volunteer which was actually pretty interesting.
On one of the days after discussing heritage as my girlfriends mother's father (who was Ann's deceased brother) finding out my family tree on my Mothers side came from Sussex and Battle in particular, Ann and Jeff took us out to Battle (where we really didn't get as much time to look around as I would have liked) before heading to the picturesque seaside town of Hastings
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| At Battle Abbey in Battle, East Sussex |
The seaside town of Hastings was beautiful, but the first thing we noticed was how shockingly big the seagulls were compared to ours back home. We had a little food by the beach while Jeff pointed out at a nuclear power plant. He said the warmth of it attracted lots of fish so many fishermen went out there to catch fish. Something about that made me uncomfortable and I just kept thinking back to a classic Simpson's episode with Blinky the 3 eyed fish.
We then went up to Hasting Country Park that seemed like it was on a big plateau. I remember taking the East Hill Cliff Railway, but I'm not sure if we only took it down as I remember being very puffed walking up the grass hill to a great view over the town and the ocean, all the time wondering if I would get to see a Badger or a Puffin.
After making our way back down we went into a free maritime museum with tonnes of local history, including a piece of the original London Bridge that I was actually able to touch. I saw a program run for local volunteers and students where you could come in and get to do scuba diving to help locate treasures in the waters from old ship wrecks and I thought to myself that if I'd lived in the area that would be something I would love to do, having looked up volunteer archaeology and paleontology in Australia and seeing that it would actually cost me a fortune I wished that I'd been born in a different location with opportunities.
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| Replica Ship |
We spent the day exploring the city, starting by doing a walk around the Tower of London, however we didn't pay for the inside tour (at the time we had to sort of pick and choose what we did financially, if we had gone now we probably could afford to but at the time we didn't think we could and chose not to)
We passed the Globe Theatre, famous for any Shakespeare fans, something I wanted to see having had to study Shakespeare through school, doing Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth in English and studying Hamlet in Drama where I also performed the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy from Act 3, Scene 1.
My girlfriend was ridiculously excited by most things, being a first generation Australian (her mother had came over with her Nan when her mum was 12), she was a huge anglophile and even had a British Passport. So every time she stopped excited to take a photo with something, like a red telephone box, I took one too.
We made our way through the city, doing many things like crossing the Millennium Bridge that Death Eaters destroy in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, eventually working our way through Leicester square, which my girlfriend laughed and my pronunciation of (and it wouldn't be the last place in England where that happened). We made our way down the streets and arrived at Buckingham Palace which I got in trouble for calling 'Bucking-ham' instead of 'Bucking-em'.
My girlfriend was jubilant and we spent quite some time there before heading of for a long walk through the beautiful Kensington Gardens. Where I got super excited by the presence of cute little fluffy SQUIRRELS!
Making our way to the statue of Peter Pan, who I've always related to as a boy who never wanted to grow up and just wanted to spend my life having adventures.
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| Peter Pan |
We spent the rest of the day lazing about just enjoying being in the beautiful gardens, remarking on how everywhere we had been so far in England seemed to be so dog friendly compared to back home. We ended the day at Kensington Palace before taking the train back to Ann and Jeffs to come back in the next day to explore the museums of London, some of the greatest museums in the world.
We busted out the British Museum, the Museum of London, and the Natural History Museum. While I loved all 3, my girlfriend was a bit tired by the end of the day, but it was awesome to see so much history, including mummies, ancient celtic masks, the Rosetta stone and a heap of Dinosaurs too.
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| Celtic Mask |
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| Platform 9 3/4 |
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| Hogwarts Express |
We made our way through the studio feeling like excited kids until we got to try something I'd dreamed of trying since I first read The Prisoner of Azkaban... Butter Beer!
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| Tastes like Creaming Soda with marshmallow foam |
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| The Knight Bus |
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| In Diagon Alley |
It was a great day, and a must for any of the Harry Potter fandom. Our next trip into London we just used to explore the city, enjoying the typical tourist locations of Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey as well as going to 'The London Dungeon' which is sort of like a walk through play. You go through locations, and learn about the gross and dark history of London, learning about medieval torture devices, one in particular that stuck with me was the one that was inserted rectally and opened up to basically explode your butthole. It was different then what I was expecting, like witnessing a play that you walk through. But a fun experience all the same.
On one of our final days in Gravesend before we would eventually head of on our own to go an explore England we had a decision to make with our free day, whether we would take the train to Dover as I wanted to see the famed White Cliffs of Dover or whether or not to get it a particularly long train trip so that I could go to Ashdown Forest, the basis for 'The Hundred Acre Wood' from Winnie the Pooh (yes I'm a Winnie the Pooh fan, since I was a kid, was in England when I was 23, and still am now at 27). In the end we made the decision to get the train out to Dover, a 1 hour train trip instead of the 8 hour trip it would take to Ashdown. Along the way we once again stopped of in Rochester to look for jackets in the many second hand shops we had noticed in preparation for our eventual trip ton Finland. My girlfriend ended up finding one, I was unable however as we got a train to continue in to Dover. As we stepped off the train we were hit with freezing winds, as we walked through the little town, noticing a castle on the hill in the distance, with no real idea where we were going we headed east towards the ocean. We stopped in at a little visitors centre reading about ways to see the White Cliffs before simply heading down to the waterfront and looking North towards what we assumed were the white cliffs, although, from where we were sitting they weren't looking to white. My girlfriend joked calling them the not-so-white-cliffs. There was also a crazy man swimming it what I can only imagine as icy cold water in a speedo. Maybe you had to go further up, as there were many boat tours, but with the icy wind blowing a gale my girlfriend stuck it out as I sat gazing, wishing we had the money to carelessly take a boat tour without caring about the cost, eventually we worked our way back to the station and back to Gravesend enjoy the end of our hospitality from Ann and Jeff.
The next day we said our goodbyes as we were dropped at the station to make our way to Stonehenge, at some point, at some station (the memory of which is lost to me), there was a dilemma with the trains, I think something wrong with the tracks and everyone ended up having to get a bus transfer, and as we arrived to the next station the guy looking after the next station sent the train off, in which we should have made if not for having to take a bus. I remember a man (dark skinned) questioning why he would let it go when obviously there was meant to be connecting passengers needing to go somewhere. I remember his dismissive uncaring attitude and even tone towards the man which in my mind I questioned whether the way he spoke was for any racist reasons, and remember even saying so to my girlfriend at the time. Obviously we were stressed out, because we had had to book in a time prior to arrival of the time we would go and view Stonehenge and we were stressed about missing it now. Eventually we arrived (our 2 hour trip turned into a 4 hour one) no questions were asked and we were allowed through as we walked along the road to Stonehenge.
We were amazed by it's beauty. Obviously Stonehenge is famous for it's history and mystery, but while we walked around it and inside we both felt a weird feeling, like a euphoric feeling of belonging, and almost spiritualism.
We soon boarded a little bus that took us through the heels surrounding Salisbury, including some ancient burial mounds, eventually going past Salisbury Cathedral where one of the four original surviving copies of the Magna Carta are held. Eventually we made our way into Bath, where we had a meal at a restaurant called 'Giraffe' where we had nachos and were informed drinks where half price that night. I continued in my beer journey trying another new beer I had never tried from Jamaica. We eventually hopped on a bus, where we (thought we) knew what stop to get off at. However at night it was hard to tell and the stop we thought we were meant to stop at never came. Eventually another couple got up to talk to the driver, who seemed very dismissive of them but we could see them looking at their phone, it was obvious they had GPS, and internet on their phones (we didn't) and they got off at the next stop and we did too, looking at our saved version of a map from google maps and trying to find our way through the streets in the dark to our accommodation at The Old Mill Hotel. We awoke to a buffet breakfast before having a look around the gorgeous hotel in the day time.
It was a beautiful place to stay and reminded me of something out of a fantasy. We caught a bus back into town to go to the Roman Baths as I am a really into Ancient Roman History. As we walked through the baths I couldn't help but touch and look at everything to which my girlfriend questioned why I felt the need to touch everything as I dipped my hands into the water of the warm pools.
As we progressed through exploring the bath house we made our way underneath where the was a water fountain with water you could drink meant to contain 43 minerals and be very healthy and have all sorts of properties. The first thing I noticed when I tasted it was that the water was warm, the second thing was the rich iron flavour, almost like when you get a cut in your mouth and the bloody iron flavour.
From Bath we caught the train to Nottingham, and from there we took a bus out to a small town called Edwinstowe, as I has made it mandatory for our trip to go to Sherwood Forest as I am a huge Robin Hood fan and have been since I was a kid. We ended up having to stand up on the bus, trying our hardest not to fall over as our big backpacks swung with the g force of every turn.
We made our way to the Dukeries Lodge, arriving just on nightfall, where using the available Wifi we were able to have an idea of the town and it surrounds. The next morning we awoke to our full English breakfast meal, happy we had it included in our cost to stay as we were starving. We then spent the day exploring the town.
I also had my first ever bakewell tart from a local bakery and we played a game of 'Pooh Sticks' off a bridge next to the road at my girlfriends suggestion to make up from not going to Ashdown Forest.
The next day we were up bright and early as I was excited and wanted to spend the whole day exploring the forest. We stopped in at a local store on the way and purchased a 400kg punnet of strawberries for a ridiculously low price of 49p, which (at the time with exchange rates how they were) was about $1 Australian. As soon as we reached the forest I felt overcome with joy, even passing the children's play park on the way in, given a Robin Hood, obstacle course them, the kid in me wanted to run over and play on it. (I didn't as there were actual children playing on it).
There was a little centre and gift shop here that you could walk through providing information and history about the forest and the myths of Robin Hood. We soon continued into the forest were we came upon the Major Oak, which according to local folklore was Robin Hood's shelter.
While enjoying the view of the magnificent tree we had a group of very loud Americans come up behind us, with one exclaiming "OH IS THAT THE BIG OAK", which, my girlfriend and I found hilarious and made jokes for the rest of the trip about the 'big oak'. We then had another family come and stand in front of us and begin smoking right in front of us. Even though you weren't meant to smoke in the forest.
I later posted the above photo on my instagram in a retrospective post, as I didn't get a smart phone til later, and had a group called 'Friends of Earth' asking if they could use the photo in a video featuring actor Sir Mark Rylance about protecting the forest from fracking. I agreed, but had seen and replied too late and missed out on being featured in the video.
We walked all day through the forest, my girlfriend getting annoyed with me because she really needed the bathroom and I had kept us walking for so long and deep into the forest we had actually gotten lost. We stopped at one point and just sat and admired the nature around us and I couldn't help snap a shot of the beautiful canopy.
After an extremely long day, and with very sore feet we made our way back into Edwinstowe where we got take away from a local Indian restaurant. We got the 'set meal for 2'. It could have fed 4. Two curries, two containers of rice, 2 huge onion bhaji, chicken tikka, aloo gobi, 2 poppadoms, a ginormous naan, as well as raita and mango chutney. We weren't able to finish it and actually ae so much we felt sick, and had to lay down nursing our stomachs.
The next day we continued to explore around the town and local countryside, walking back down for a little walk around the forest but letting my girlfriend have a bit of a rest day as we had been doing things non stop every day and she was beginning to fatigue. We spent our last night in the Dukeries Lodge before strapping on our huge backpacks getting the bus in to Nottingham and making our way to Liverpool.
We made our way to our accommodation, arriving at a small white house that didn't look anything like the bed and breakfast, with virtually no sign. My girlfriend was actually having a panic attack and feeling really anxious about it, not wanting to go in and just find somewhere else. I calmed her down and we went up and knocked. Soon a middle aged woman opened the door (her looks and behaviour reminding me of my high school drama teacher). She soon asked us to make sure we weren't allergic to cats (my girlfriend was mildly), and led us to our room while introducing us to other various foreign people who seemed to be staying there, we realised we had a room in this random ladies house, but at least our door had a lock. We put our stuff down and tried to get out as soon as possible heading into the city in an attempt to view famous Beatle locations like Penny Lane, and others which after a whole lot of running around, turned out very disappointing as they were just normal everyday, rundown streets. We went back to our accommodation feeling a bit miserable. That night we head off down a very long road in the dark in an attempted to find a pub whose menu sounded suitable and affordable. After arriving I ordered a peri peri burger and a beer, (a Cubanisto a rum flavoured beer that was actually really nice and my girlfriend, who is not a beer drinker, enjoyed it to). The burger was crazy spicy (which I wasn't expecting from peri peri, especially cause everything in Australia is ridiculously mild). The next day we awoke to our paid for breakfast, where we got vegan sausages and orange juice. It was really weird and we were a bit annoyed because the accommodation and breakfast inclusion was not cheap. We didn't even get the option of tea and coffee and we left as soon as possible making our way into the city to go to Liverpool Museum, discussing that even if the woman was a vegan her terrible breakfasts shouldn't be forced on paying customers staying at her B&B. We enjoyed looking around the museum, including a free planetarium showing as well as some Beatle things to appease my girlfriend, a mad Beatles fan. We then made our way to 'The Cavern' where the Beatles played many of their earliest gigs.
After our day in the city we made our way back to our awkward accommodation stopping in at a local milkshake place ordering a bounty flavour milkshake (that was delicious), they also had 2 for 1 pieces of cake. As we ordered the girl serving us (who looked incredibly like Cara Delevingne) became excited because we were Australian (she was one of the first to actually notice, many people couldn't pick my accent, asking me if I was Canadian). Yelling to her friend out that back that they had Australians in their shop. As we got back to our accommodation we found they had given us an additional piece of cake free of charge, which brightened our day.
We again decided to go to the pub for dinner enjoying our huge burger and drink. However this time the person serving me wanted ID. I showed them my Australian drivers license, and they said it wasn't a good enough ID. I told them I still wanted the order and I'd go get my passport if it was necessary. They said it was so I paid for our meals with the credit card and went for the long walk in the dark back to the bed and breakfast to get our passports to show the person, even though it was obvious I wasn't lying as I had still paid for the meals. Showing them my ID at the bar, the local British man standing next to me told me he thought it was ludicrous they made me go and get my passport and that he would have just gave it to me. I commented to my girlfriend that the local pub culture so far had been so friendly compared to pubs back home as we sat to eat our meal. I soon realised with a sinking heart, that the beer I had ordered (because it was one I'd never tried before) was actually alcohol free. This further depressed me and my girlfriend insisted I could just buy myself an extra to make up for it (we were trying to budget for the rest of our holiday) so I ordered another Cubanisto.
The next morning we awoke to again, a shitty vegan breakfast... of incredibly salty mushroom soup. It was an incredibly strange breakfast and we noticed our host had this morning watered down the orange juice. She sat with us and talked to us the entire time we ate asking us about our journey and were we planned to go after Liverpool. We told her Leeds and Warrington, which she interrupted with "WARRINGTON, why on Earth would you go to Warrington!" She laughed. We explained that my girlfriend who a big Rugby League fan and her English team was the Leeds Rhinos, while I had chosen to support the Warrington Wolves. We soon left, eager to escape, my girlfriend bemoaning the price and how terrible the stay was while I commented that it was over now, and that at least looking back on it it would be a funny story.
We arrived in Warrington for a one night stopover. It was a small quiet English town. We enjoyed staying here as it again just felt like living our lives in the shoes of a local, exploring the local town. We soon realised that had we arrived here a few days later (when we would be in Leeds) we could have actually watched the Leeds Rhinos and Warrington Wolves vs each other. However it was not to be. We went out for dinner at a local chinese restaurant before heading back to our apartment to enjoy the view as leaves were beginning to change colour. By this time it was the 25th of October, and our weather so far had been unseasonable hot (while the whole time planning our overseas trip all my girlfriends family told us how cold and wet it was) and this was our first really cold day, besides one freezing day at Dover. With access to wifi I received a message from home from my brother, explaining that my Mother had been threatening to remove all the things from my bedroom, and dump them all in my car our the front. At the time I had a cheap car, a old worn down Lexen I had bought of one of my other brothers friends for a mere $45. I had dubbed the car 'Chappie' as I got it the day of seeing the film at the cinema. The car was so bad that I actually couldn't unlock it, and thus had to leave the windows slightly down while keeping a coat hanger to actually pop open the lock if I was to ever lock my car. Needless to say the idea of all my possessions being dumped in an unlockable car out the front for the coming months, gave me a great deal of anxiety. My brother assured me that himself and my youngest brother wouldn't allow her to do it and would look after my stuff for me. For those wondering why my mum would do that, it would be because we had a tumultuous relationship, and for months before actually taking the trip neither of us had been speaking to each other. I also believe (based on information my brothers gave me) that her boyfriend at the time, ex rugby league player, had spurred her on. Needless to say myself and my brothers have particularly low opinions of this guy, finding his personality to be that of a major asshole, to say the least. An obnoxious, washed out prick with very high opinions of himself. But more on that later. With my brothers reassurances all I could do was try and put it from my mind and enjoy the holiday. My girlfriend telling me to ignore it, knowing my Mother was simply trying to ruin my holiday.
The next day we arrived in Leeds, we enjoyed walking through the main city which had markets on all through the main streets. We ended up buying a couple of different foods and at one point I ducked into a shop and couldn't resist buying some marmite chips.
The next day we went to the Royal Armouries Museum as we were both lovers of Knights and all things medieval.
That night we couldn't help but enjoy a 'cheeky nandos' which as a lover of spicy food I couldn't help but indulge with all the free sauces.
The next morning our train took us on a long trip to our first new country... Scotland. Arriving in Edinburgh we tried to find the way to our inn, hunting through the streets actually situated quite a while away from the city, but still within walking distance. One of the first things we noticed about Edinburgh, it was hot. REALLY hot. I don't know what was going on in the city but we were constantly sweating. I wished I had brought some cooler clothes with me. The second thing we noticed is that so many people were smoking. To be fair a great deal were E-Cigs, but still it was a bit of a shock compared to all the places we had been.
We awoke the next morning to head towards Edinburgh castle. The closer we got the more 'Scottish' things became, with men on the streets playing bagpipes, and lots of gift ships and whisky stores. We arrived at the castle and did feel an awe towards it.
We enjoyed walking around and reading all the history of the Castle, my girlfriend for the first time hearing about Jacobites and the 'Bonnie' Prince Charlie. I tried to explain more to her, as an avid history buff and fan of the TV Series 'Outlander' of which there was much merchandise around Edinburgh city. We enjoyed a free whisky tasting, both enjoying the 2 whiskys we tried. A Scottish Honey and Oat Whiskey and a Scottish Cream Whisky. Edinburgh castle ones I believe. Though I can't really remember anymore. My girlfriend loved that they had a special animal graveyard within the castle while I kept looking at the amazing view of the mountains, wishing to have the time to go and walk them, though my girlfriend wasn't much into hills.
After spending the day at the Castle we walked through the city hoping to find a place to try black pudding and haggis, as I had desperately wanted to try them and had only seen black pudding once in England while at Dover and we had already packed lunch and my girlfriend had told me I would get to try it and that it would be everywhere....
We ended up at a burrito joint for dinner that reminded us of the fast food chain 'Guzman Y Gomez'. They had a haggis burrito, which sounded really good. But I really didn't want my first time trying it to be as a fusion food, and so I got the lamb, which was absolutely delicious, but the Scottish man serving said as I ordered "I see you didn't order the haggis burrito'. I told him I'd be back and have it another time.
The next day we went to Edinburgh Zoo, as my girlfriend was a huge lover of animals especially Chimps. We spent an entire day walking around the huge exhibit and seeing the vast array of animals and learning about them. My girlfriend giving some money towards Chimp conservation and myself donating to Gorillas. We were incredibly lucky while in our session to view a Panda that the Panda was up and active and we were able to get a good view of the beautiful animal.
While at another show we had little Armadillos set loose and the little fella ran right over to me and started sniffing my boots, it was the cutest little thing. When the zookeeper picked him back up and put him down to run around he just ran back over to me and began sniffing my boots again. It was adorable and I was so excited by it the thought of taking a photo didn't even cross my mind.
I also probably found way to much joy in the a portion of the Zoo at the time was dedicated to Dinosaurs. Although the Dinosaurs were fake as a huge Dinosaur fan the kid in me came out again with boyish glee at seeing the Dinosaurs.
The next day we explored around the city, just exploring around us (I believe this day was Halloween) and found a local cafe to go and have a 'Scottish Breakfast'.
The consensus being that both black pudding and haggis were delicious. From the cafe we made our way to the National Museum of Scotland. While I still loved every moment I could tell my girlfriend was a bit worn out by museums, in particular I could tell she was sick about hearing about Jacobites and the Bonnie Prince Charlie. I was showing her around the Viking section and explaining about Viking Chess that I had learned about at a Viking Exhibition in Sydney. At the time my girlfriend wasn't particularly interested, but now she loves Vikings and Norse Mythology and we own Hnefatafl and she constantly beats me.
Walking back to our accommodation there were many people dressed in scantily clad Halloween outfits appearing to be a much bigger event than in Australia, although that might have just been in the city. We stopped in at a local family owned burger joint not to far from where we were staying called 'Armaans'. It become our go to place as the burgers were great and affordable. We ended up staying in Edinburgh for 5 nights going back to the burrito place and getting the Haggis burrito one night (it was fantastic).
The train we were on had free wifi, after turning it on I had a bunch of messages from my brother filling me in on everything that had happened. My mother had ended up moving all my things out into my car out the front and began painting my bedroom pink and turning it into a room for my Niece, all while I was overseas and could do nothing about it. However my brothers had done as they said and and taken all my belongings, placing them back in the room and bolting my bedroom door shut from the inside, climbing out the second story window and closing it behind him so that I mum couldn't access it. Upon finding this my mum told him to remove the bolts. My brother refused. She said to remove them or she would call the police. He told her to call the police.... she did. She called the police on her own son, gave a big spiel about how he had showed 'violent and threatening behaviour' all of which was bullshit. Putting an AVO on my brother and kicking him out of the house as well. All of this putting me under extreme duress while on my holiday. Eventually the wifi cut out as we continued north and I was left in a state of rage and anxiety questioning whether I would have to cancel our holiday to go home and sort stuff out. My girlfriend was obviously upset too as we had spent so long planning the holiday for my Mum to do everything in her power in an attempt to ruin it. Eventually I calmed down realising it was just out of my power and knowing my brother would sort things out for me.
While going through a little track through the mountains our train seemed to hit something on the tracks almost derailing and I saw heaps of mud fly past the window. Everyone on the train seemed incredibly shaken. A French couple seated across from us attempting in the very little English they spoke to ask what was happening, however we didn't know. The train began to reverse and we saw out the window that we had actually hit a cow, that was left across the tracks split in half and still alive, my girlfriend left angry by this wishing someone would have at least got out and put it out of pain. Eventually a voice came over the speaker informing us that the train would take us back to a station in Perth where we would have to get a new train through to Inverness.
When we finally arrived at Perth to get off the train we went around the front to see the damage.
We eventually got our new train and made it Inverness. We waited at the bus stop. However our bus never came. I checked around at the other bus stops bus this was the only one with a bus to Drumnadrochit. Soon we noticed that the train we had missed only arrived in the summer season, and that our original bus we were meant to catch we had missed due to our train hitting a cow and making us late. So we now had no way in to Drumnadrochit. We went back into the train station and I informed the man working that we had missed our last connecting bus due to our train colliding with a cow. He looked it up telling us there should be another bus in half an hour while in informed him that the said bus wasn't running at this time of year at which he said in a very funny way "Ugh that's so annoying!" in a Scottish accent while he tried to help us. Eventually he organising for a taxi to collect us and take us to our accommodation letting us know we wouldn't be charged and that the trains would pay for it as it was their responsibility that we had missed our bus, which was awful nice of him.
Our taxi soon arrived and took us a bit around Drumnadrochit including a beautiful drive by Loch Ness on the way, saying that she'd show us the scenery seeing as we didn't need to pay for it anyway which worked out well. We soon arrived at the Kilmichael House B&B and the lady their showed us too our room. A nice cosy little upper story room in a little flat out the back of the property looking over a little paddock filled with cows. She further informed us a bit about the area, explaining there was only really 2 restaurants left open because it was the off season, and gave us advice on how to make it through to the Loch Ness from where we were.
We explored our way through the town taking note of a Loch Ness Monster museum that my girlfriend refused to let us go to. Making our way past a farm and on to a icy cold river we had to cross to make it to Loch Ness.
There wasn't a great deal of signage and we at one point bumped into a local Scottish lady as we enquired how to make it through to the Loch Ness. She noticed I wasn't Scottish when asking where I was from. I told her I was Australian. She told me I didn't sound Australia. Again, being told I sounded Canadian. I insisted I just watched too much TV, and when my girlfriend spoke she got told she sounded Australian, (which she took as a grave insult). Eventually we made it to what I believed was the little river we had to cross, my girlfriend insisting she didn't believe it was the right way. The water was absolutely freezing cold (the taxi driver had told us that you couldn't survive too long swimming in Loch Ness at this time of year because it was so cold). After I walked across, I had to go back to carry my girlfriend across because the water was so cold it was physically hurting her. After we made it across we got in a little bit of an argument because my girlfriend didn't believe we were heading to Loch Ness. I again had to carry her across before going back to collect our shoes and bring them across.
We walked back to our Kilmicheal B&B where I had a warm shower to try and warm up my feet which felt frozen. We left at night to make our way to the Benleva Hotel for dinner. Upon arrival I also found it was linked to The Loch Ness Brewery and had it's own beers on tap. The beers where fantastic in particular the 'Dark Ness' which my girlfriend who as I stated before, doesn't like beers, enjoyed. We noticed how absolutely dog friendly England had been and Scotland was the same as a local brought his adorable Dog into the Hotel and all we wanted to do was play with his Dog. We ended up having Rabbit and Pheasant Pie cooked in stout for dinner served with vegetables and it was absolutely delicious. That night due to the cold my feet had been through, I apparently whimpered and curdled up tight trying to keep warm all night.
The next day I decided that the way we had went (after having a little look of Google Maps) was the right way to get to Loch Ness, and we made our way through the forest back to the creek where there were people with a Dog and a video camera who explained that they were making either a documentary or a film, I honestly can't remember, but I did spend some time after we got home trying to find anything shot in the area and couldn't find it. My girlfriend, was adamant she wanted to cross herself this time (the day was slightly warmer) particularly because she was worried about how cold my feet had gotten crossing so many times the day before.
I ended up being right and it was less than a 5 minute walk once we had crossed over as we came through to a beautiful secluded shoreline along the Loch Ness.
We spent all day down by the Loch, just admiring the serene beauty. My girlfriend (who doesn't like the sun) ended up getting sunburnt, and to this day when people ask her about why she doesn't like being outdoors in Summer she tells them she got sunburnt in Scotland in Autumn.
Again that night we went to the Benleva, not even bothering to try out the other restaurant, and this night we had the special of haggis and black pudding meatballs, which again were delicious. Walking back to our room just has we had reached the bridge over a little river in town fireworks began and we sat in the cool crisp air of night watching the fireworks.
We spent 3 nights in Drumnadrochit and as we left it really felt like it wasn't enough. I wished we had spent more time exploring the highlands of Scotland and we both said that we would one day come back. We left and headed to Glasgow, being the other big Scottish city. However we found our stay in Glasgow incredibly disappointing. We couldn't find much to do in the city, we found everything very overpriced, and there seemed to be a lot of dingy people around. The whole city probably wasn't bad. However it just felt like a city, and didn't even feel Scottish. Maybe it was were we stayed but the only thing worth noting that we did or saw here is I got a photo with the TARDIS.
From Glasgow we head down south back into England, this time heading towards Blackpool. Our last stop in England (besides a night at Gravesend at Ann's) before catching our flight to Finland. I didn't know much about Blackpool, but my girlfriends family had fond memories of it and I was told by my girlfriends Nan that I needed to try a Blackpool Rock (she also told me to try Pease Pudding and Faggots, which I never saw anywhere.... can't imagine why...).
When we arrived I couldn't help but stop at a cafe and buy a coffee, a real coffee, as the whole trip I had either barely drank coffee, or simply had instant made with either no milk, or little milk sachets.
We walked through the town admiring all the lights hung up as decorations for 'The Illuminations'. We stopped in at a local Tesco, and I stocked up on some more Dark English Beers that I had never tried before to keep in the fridge in our room. That night we walked along the seaside admiring the illuminations over the town and the waves upon the shore. We walked up and along a few piers that hosted many carnival games and rides, we saved the money though as the next day we planned to spend the whole day at Pleasure Beach, a local theme park. There was one thing that did catch my eye though. A area where you could go and get a themed photo based on a setting, such as gangsta, or victorian era. I really wanted to do it but my girlfriend felt uncomfortable, so we didn't get one taken.
The next day we spent the entire day at the theme park, and I have to say for the price it was it was great value, the rides where fun and there were heaps of them. My girlfriend wasn't as much of a thrill seeker as me, so at one point there was an upside down, chairlift sorta ride (that's the best I can describe it as), I was adamant I was going to go so left her while I lined up to go on. Almost near the front she came up into the line with me, feeling pressured into it (although I told her I was content to do it alone). As soon as the ride started she began screaming and crying, saying she was going to break up with me, obviously traumatised from the ride. I calmed her down and we went on a few less extreme rides and she perked up. We ate at an all you could eat buffet within the park, definitely getting our moneys worth to feed our starved bellies, before continuing on to other sections of the park, where my girlfriend discovered I'm not really comfortable with chair rides. You know the ones, you it in a little chair attached to lines and fly around in circles? Sounds like a death trap to me. We went to go onto a Viking themed Valhalla ride unfortunately it was shut for the day by the time we arrived.
We stayed right up until closing, buying ourselves and my girlfriends family some Blackpool Rocks from the gift shop, as we left rain began to fall, so we retreated to our little room, and indulged ourselves in a couple of drinks.
The next day we walked along the beach again, enjoying the beach-side town that seemed like something off a movie.
With a change of heart my girlfriend decided that she would get a themed photo with me, and even though she was super anxious we got a really cool printed and framed Cowboy/Western themed photo out of it.
We made our way back to Gravesend to stay another night at Ann's and drop off our big backpacks as our flight to Finland had been booked in a way to save the most amount of money, this included only carry on luggage and a 10 hour stop over at Helsinki airport. We packed as much as we could into our two small backpacks and new we would wear everything else onto the plane. We got some sleep before being driven in to Heathrow for our flight.
We arrived in Helsinki later that day, and found all the food very expensive, we ended up wandering around the airport. While using the free airport wifi I saw an advertisement that there would be a new season of Australian Survivor, and there hadn't been an Australian Survivor since I was a kid (even then it was shit). As a huge Survivor fan I instantly applied while in the airport. Shooting a video digging into my bag to pull out my Survivor T-Shirt, saying I had watched every season of the American show since I was a kid. I obviously didn't end up on the show, but I have applied every season since, so who knows, maybe one day.
We continued to walk around the airport well into the night until our hunger became insatiable. However by this point all the stores selling food had closed. We found ourselves laying on the floor, laying on chairs, laying all over the place in a desperate effort to feel comfortable. In the end there was no reprieve and we had fracked sleep until the airport began to come alive the next morning. While inspecting an open gift shop I saw they were selling chocolates filled with Cloudberry Liquor, or 'Lakkalikööri', a drink I had wanted to try since I had first become enthralled with Finland in my early high school years after getting into the band 'Sonata Arctica' and subsequently more Finnish musical acts. We bought a packet and decided to save them for our trip back to England. When we were finally able to progress through the airport we found a Hungry Jacks (it might have been a Burger King, same thing) we ended up ordering a cheeseburger meal, and I was so starving I smashed into it without taking off the pickles (I use to hate pickles) I was so hungry I even told my girlfriend to put hers on mine and I devoured it. Ever since I leave my pickles on, and can eat sliced pickles on things having developed a taste for them from this experience. We soon got on a small plane and set off from Helsinki further north, heading towards Ivalo. We got served a free Danish and coffee and blueberry juice. Our steward came over and asked if we had been to Finland before, realising we had no idea what anyone around us was saying. We told him it was our first time and he told us that in Finland so many blueberries grow in the land during the summer that they have so many that they freeze them to keep and have enough for the whole of winter. The blueberry juice was delicious and we had a few glasses as we tried not to drift off to sleep. At one point our plane landed at another airport, I believe some people got on and others got off and we noticed the wing of our plane was being sprayed down with a sort of anti freeze due to the severe cold.
Finally we arrived at Ivalo and walking through the airport I noticed that they had bear salami and canned bear meat. Obviously I was eager to try bear, however at 40 Euro my girlfriend told me not to try it out of a can, scoffing at the idea.
We got our prearranged transport (which we were stressed would not turn up, however there was no issue) to our accommodation at Naverniemi Holiday Center. The owners of the centre, a friendly Finnish couple by the name of Henri and Paivi told us a little about the area and the way to the local shops, letting us know we were welcome to take little snow scooters at our leisure and asked if we would like to be notified about any Northern Lights. We said yes and settles into our accommodation looking over the beautiful snow covered park and frozen lake just down from us.
We tried to make our way to the local shops in the dark, as the day lasted around 4-5 hours at this time of the year, but ended up going the wrong way and getting lost down some old snowy road where we wandered on to some property where a dog started aggressively barking at us.We made our way back to a main road where here were a group of young boys, from across the road I yelled to them asking if they spoke English. One of the boys yelled back 'No.' and they wandered off down a road.
"I bet they do speak English". I said giving an evil squint.
We continued down the road the opposite direction then we had last traveled, soon coming upon a church and noticing we were in the town centre.
We explored the supermarket trying to decipher what certain things were. The majority of things were in both Finnish and Swedish, which I was mostly able to understand due to my limited incredibly basic knowledge of Danish, which was not too dissimilar. We ended up buying some mince and pasta to last us a couple of nights as well as some blueberry juice, and a special Christmas juice of apple blueberry and cinnamon. We also got a fruit we had never tried or seen before called Physalis, or Gooseberry from South America (though I have since seen it, albeit rarely in Australia). We continued to come back to the store to try various alcohols and foods including a Moose salami and some delicious fish fingers. While walking back Henri saw us walking and offered us a lift.
We stayed up a little late keeping an eye out for the famed Aurora borealis. However having to be up to go on our Husky Safari we soon went to bed.
The next day we said our goodbyes as we were dropped at the station to make our way to Stonehenge, at some point, at some station (the memory of which is lost to me), there was a dilemma with the trains, I think something wrong with the tracks and everyone ended up having to get a bus transfer, and as we arrived to the next station the guy looking after the next station sent the train off, in which we should have made if not for having to take a bus. I remember a man (dark skinned) questioning why he would let it go when obviously there was meant to be connecting passengers needing to go somewhere. I remember his dismissive uncaring attitude and even tone towards the man which in my mind I questioned whether the way he spoke was for any racist reasons, and remember even saying so to my girlfriend at the time. Obviously we were stressed out, because we had had to book in a time prior to arrival of the time we would go and view Stonehenge and we were stressed about missing it now. Eventually we arrived (our 2 hour trip turned into a 4 hour one) no questions were asked and we were allowed through as we walked along the road to Stonehenge.
We were amazed by it's beauty. Obviously Stonehenge is famous for it's history and mystery, but while we walked around it and inside we both felt a weird feeling, like a euphoric feeling of belonging, and almost spiritualism.
We soon boarded a little bus that took us through the heels surrounding Salisbury, including some ancient burial mounds, eventually going past Salisbury Cathedral where one of the four original surviving copies of the Magna Carta are held. Eventually we made our way into Bath, where we had a meal at a restaurant called 'Giraffe' where we had nachos and were informed drinks where half price that night. I continued in my beer journey trying another new beer I had never tried from Jamaica. We eventually hopped on a bus, where we (thought we) knew what stop to get off at. However at night it was hard to tell and the stop we thought we were meant to stop at never came. Eventually another couple got up to talk to the driver, who seemed very dismissive of them but we could see them looking at their phone, it was obvious they had GPS, and internet on their phones (we didn't) and they got off at the next stop and we did too, looking at our saved version of a map from google maps and trying to find our way through the streets in the dark to our accommodation at The Old Mill Hotel. We awoke to a buffet breakfast before having a look around the gorgeous hotel in the day time.
It was a beautiful place to stay and reminded me of something out of a fantasy. We caught a bus back into town to go to the Roman Baths as I am a really into Ancient Roman History. As we walked through the baths I couldn't help but touch and look at everything to which my girlfriend questioned why I felt the need to touch everything as I dipped my hands into the water of the warm pools.
As we progressed through exploring the bath house we made our way underneath where the was a water fountain with water you could drink meant to contain 43 minerals and be very healthy and have all sorts of properties. The first thing I noticed when I tasted it was that the water was warm, the second thing was the rich iron flavour, almost like when you get a cut in your mouth and the bloody iron flavour.
From Bath we caught the train to Nottingham, and from there we took a bus out to a small town called Edwinstowe, as I has made it mandatory for our trip to go to Sherwood Forest as I am a huge Robin Hood fan and have been since I was a kid. We ended up having to stand up on the bus, trying our hardest not to fall over as our big backpacks swung with the g force of every turn.
We made our way to the Dukeries Lodge, arriving just on nightfall, where using the available Wifi we were able to have an idea of the town and it surrounds. The next morning we awoke to our full English breakfast meal, happy we had it included in our cost to stay as we were starving. We then spent the day exploring the town.
I also had my first ever bakewell tart from a local bakery and we played a game of 'Pooh Sticks' off a bridge next to the road at my girlfriends suggestion to make up from not going to Ashdown Forest.
The next day we were up bright and early as I was excited and wanted to spend the whole day exploring the forest. We stopped in at a local store on the way and purchased a 400kg punnet of strawberries for a ridiculously low price of 49p, which (at the time with exchange rates how they were) was about $1 Australian. As soon as we reached the forest I felt overcome with joy, even passing the children's play park on the way in, given a Robin Hood, obstacle course them, the kid in me wanted to run over and play on it. (I didn't as there were actual children playing on it).
There was a little centre and gift shop here that you could walk through providing information and history about the forest and the myths of Robin Hood. We soon continued into the forest were we came upon the Major Oak, which according to local folklore was Robin Hood's shelter.
While enjoying the view of the magnificent tree we had a group of very loud Americans come up behind us, with one exclaiming "OH IS THAT THE BIG OAK", which, my girlfriend and I found hilarious and made jokes for the rest of the trip about the 'big oak'. We then had another family come and stand in front of us and begin smoking right in front of us. Even though you weren't meant to smoke in the forest.
I later posted the above photo on my instagram in a retrospective post, as I didn't get a smart phone til later, and had a group called 'Friends of Earth' asking if they could use the photo in a video featuring actor Sir Mark Rylance about protecting the forest from fracking. I agreed, but had seen and replied too late and missed out on being featured in the video.
We walked all day through the forest, my girlfriend getting annoyed with me because she really needed the bathroom and I had kept us walking for so long and deep into the forest we had actually gotten lost. We stopped at one point and just sat and admired the nature around us and I couldn't help snap a shot of the beautiful canopy.
After an extremely long day, and with very sore feet we made our way back into Edwinstowe where we got take away from a local Indian restaurant. We got the 'set meal for 2'. It could have fed 4. Two curries, two containers of rice, 2 huge onion bhaji, chicken tikka, aloo gobi, 2 poppadoms, a ginormous naan, as well as raita and mango chutney. We weren't able to finish it and actually ae so much we felt sick, and had to lay down nursing our stomachs.
The next day we continued to explore around the town and local countryside, walking back down for a little walk around the forest but letting my girlfriend have a bit of a rest day as we had been doing things non stop every day and she was beginning to fatigue. We spent our last night in the Dukeries Lodge before strapping on our huge backpacks getting the bus in to Nottingham and making our way to Liverpool.
We made our way to our accommodation, arriving at a small white house that didn't look anything like the bed and breakfast, with virtually no sign. My girlfriend was actually having a panic attack and feeling really anxious about it, not wanting to go in and just find somewhere else. I calmed her down and we went up and knocked. Soon a middle aged woman opened the door (her looks and behaviour reminding me of my high school drama teacher). She soon asked us to make sure we weren't allergic to cats (my girlfriend was mildly), and led us to our room while introducing us to other various foreign people who seemed to be staying there, we realised we had a room in this random ladies house, but at least our door had a lock. We put our stuff down and tried to get out as soon as possible heading into the city in an attempt to view famous Beatle locations like Penny Lane, and others which after a whole lot of running around, turned out very disappointing as they were just normal everyday, rundown streets. We went back to our accommodation feeling a bit miserable. That night we head off down a very long road in the dark in an attempted to find a pub whose menu sounded suitable and affordable. After arriving I ordered a peri peri burger and a beer, (a Cubanisto a rum flavoured beer that was actually really nice and my girlfriend, who is not a beer drinker, enjoyed it to). The burger was crazy spicy (which I wasn't expecting from peri peri, especially cause everything in Australia is ridiculously mild). The next day we awoke to our paid for breakfast, where we got vegan sausages and orange juice. It was really weird and we were a bit annoyed because the accommodation and breakfast inclusion was not cheap. We didn't even get the option of tea and coffee and we left as soon as possible making our way into the city to go to Liverpool Museum, discussing that even if the woman was a vegan her terrible breakfasts shouldn't be forced on paying customers staying at her B&B. We enjoyed looking around the museum, including a free planetarium showing as well as some Beatle things to appease my girlfriend, a mad Beatles fan. We then made our way to 'The Cavern' where the Beatles played many of their earliest gigs.
After our day in the city we made our way back to our awkward accommodation stopping in at a local milkshake place ordering a bounty flavour milkshake (that was delicious), they also had 2 for 1 pieces of cake. As we ordered the girl serving us (who looked incredibly like Cara Delevingne) became excited because we were Australian (she was one of the first to actually notice, many people couldn't pick my accent, asking me if I was Canadian). Yelling to her friend out that back that they had Australians in their shop. As we got back to our accommodation we found they had given us an additional piece of cake free of charge, which brightened our day.
We again decided to go to the pub for dinner enjoying our huge burger and drink. However this time the person serving me wanted ID. I showed them my Australian drivers license, and they said it wasn't a good enough ID. I told them I still wanted the order and I'd go get my passport if it was necessary. They said it was so I paid for our meals with the credit card and went for the long walk in the dark back to the bed and breakfast to get our passports to show the person, even though it was obvious I wasn't lying as I had still paid for the meals. Showing them my ID at the bar, the local British man standing next to me told me he thought it was ludicrous they made me go and get my passport and that he would have just gave it to me. I commented to my girlfriend that the local pub culture so far had been so friendly compared to pubs back home as we sat to eat our meal. I soon realised with a sinking heart, that the beer I had ordered (because it was one I'd never tried before) was actually alcohol free. This further depressed me and my girlfriend insisted I could just buy myself an extra to make up for it (we were trying to budget for the rest of our holiday) so I ordered another Cubanisto.
The next morning we awoke to again, a shitty vegan breakfast... of incredibly salty mushroom soup. It was an incredibly strange breakfast and we noticed our host had this morning watered down the orange juice. She sat with us and talked to us the entire time we ate asking us about our journey and were we planned to go after Liverpool. We told her Leeds and Warrington, which she interrupted with "WARRINGTON, why on Earth would you go to Warrington!" She laughed. We explained that my girlfriend who a big Rugby League fan and her English team was the Leeds Rhinos, while I had chosen to support the Warrington Wolves. We soon left, eager to escape, my girlfriend bemoaning the price and how terrible the stay was while I commented that it was over now, and that at least looking back on it it would be a funny story.
We arrived in Warrington for a one night stopover. It was a small quiet English town. We enjoyed staying here as it again just felt like living our lives in the shoes of a local, exploring the local town. We soon realised that had we arrived here a few days later (when we would be in Leeds) we could have actually watched the Leeds Rhinos and Warrington Wolves vs each other. However it was not to be. We went out for dinner at a local chinese restaurant before heading back to our apartment to enjoy the view as leaves were beginning to change colour. By this time it was the 25th of October, and our weather so far had been unseasonable hot (while the whole time planning our overseas trip all my girlfriends family told us how cold and wet it was) and this was our first really cold day, besides one freezing day at Dover. With access to wifi I received a message from home from my brother, explaining that my Mother had been threatening to remove all the things from my bedroom, and dump them all in my car our the front. At the time I had a cheap car, a old worn down Lexen I had bought of one of my other brothers friends for a mere $45. I had dubbed the car 'Chappie' as I got it the day of seeing the film at the cinema. The car was so bad that I actually couldn't unlock it, and thus had to leave the windows slightly down while keeping a coat hanger to actually pop open the lock if I was to ever lock my car. Needless to say the idea of all my possessions being dumped in an unlockable car out the front for the coming months, gave me a great deal of anxiety. My brother assured me that himself and my youngest brother wouldn't allow her to do it and would look after my stuff for me. For those wondering why my mum would do that, it would be because we had a tumultuous relationship, and for months before actually taking the trip neither of us had been speaking to each other. I also believe (based on information my brothers gave me) that her boyfriend at the time, ex rugby league player, had spurred her on. Needless to say myself and my brothers have particularly low opinions of this guy, finding his personality to be that of a major asshole, to say the least. An obnoxious, washed out prick with very high opinions of himself. But more on that later. With my brothers reassurances all I could do was try and put it from my mind and enjoy the holiday. My girlfriend telling me to ignore it, knowing my Mother was simply trying to ruin my holiday.
The next day we arrived in Leeds, we enjoyed walking through the main city which had markets on all through the main streets. We ended up buying a couple of different foods and at one point I ducked into a shop and couldn't resist buying some marmite chips.
The next day we went to the Royal Armouries Museum as we were both lovers of Knights and all things medieval.
That night we couldn't help but enjoy a 'cheeky nandos' which as a lover of spicy food I couldn't help but indulge with all the free sauces.
The next morning our train took us on a long trip to our first new country... Scotland. Arriving in Edinburgh we tried to find the way to our inn, hunting through the streets actually situated quite a while away from the city, but still within walking distance. One of the first things we noticed about Edinburgh, it was hot. REALLY hot. I don't know what was going on in the city but we were constantly sweating. I wished I had brought some cooler clothes with me. The second thing we noticed is that so many people were smoking. To be fair a great deal were E-Cigs, but still it was a bit of a shock compared to all the places we had been.
We awoke the next morning to head towards Edinburgh castle. The closer we got the more 'Scottish' things became, with men on the streets playing bagpipes, and lots of gift ships and whisky stores. We arrived at the castle and did feel an awe towards it.
We enjoyed walking around and reading all the history of the Castle, my girlfriend for the first time hearing about Jacobites and the 'Bonnie' Prince Charlie. I tried to explain more to her, as an avid history buff and fan of the TV Series 'Outlander' of which there was much merchandise around Edinburgh city. We enjoyed a free whisky tasting, both enjoying the 2 whiskys we tried. A Scottish Honey and Oat Whiskey and a Scottish Cream Whisky. Edinburgh castle ones I believe. Though I can't really remember anymore. My girlfriend loved that they had a special animal graveyard within the castle while I kept looking at the amazing view of the mountains, wishing to have the time to go and walk them, though my girlfriend wasn't much into hills.
After spending the day at the Castle we walked through the city hoping to find a place to try black pudding and haggis, as I had desperately wanted to try them and had only seen black pudding once in England while at Dover and we had already packed lunch and my girlfriend had told me I would get to try it and that it would be everywhere....
We ended up at a burrito joint for dinner that reminded us of the fast food chain 'Guzman Y Gomez'. They had a haggis burrito, which sounded really good. But I really didn't want my first time trying it to be as a fusion food, and so I got the lamb, which was absolutely delicious, but the Scottish man serving said as I ordered "I see you didn't order the haggis burrito'. I told him I'd be back and have it another time.
The next day we went to Edinburgh Zoo, as my girlfriend was a huge lover of animals especially Chimps. We spent an entire day walking around the huge exhibit and seeing the vast array of animals and learning about them. My girlfriend giving some money towards Chimp conservation and myself donating to Gorillas. We were incredibly lucky while in our session to view a Panda that the Panda was up and active and we were able to get a good view of the beautiful animal.
While at another show we had little Armadillos set loose and the little fella ran right over to me and started sniffing my boots, it was the cutest little thing. When the zookeeper picked him back up and put him down to run around he just ran back over to me and began sniffing my boots again. It was adorable and I was so excited by it the thought of taking a photo didn't even cross my mind.
I also probably found way to much joy in the a portion of the Zoo at the time was dedicated to Dinosaurs. Although the Dinosaurs were fake as a huge Dinosaur fan the kid in me came out again with boyish glee at seeing the Dinosaurs.
The next day we explored around the city, just exploring around us (I believe this day was Halloween) and found a local cafe to go and have a 'Scottish Breakfast'.
 |
| Haggis, Black Pudding, Sausages, Baked Beans, Potato Scone, Egg and Bacon Roll and an Irn Bru |
Walking back to our accommodation there were many people dressed in scantily clad Halloween outfits appearing to be a much bigger event than in Australia, although that might have just been in the city. We stopped in at a local family owned burger joint not to far from where we were staying called 'Armaans'. It become our go to place as the burgers were great and affordable. We ended up staying in Edinburgh for 5 nights going back to the burrito place and getting the Haggis burrito one night (it was fantastic).
November
We eventually moved on, catching a train to Inverness from where we would get a bus to Drumnadrochit. The scenery and hills from the train where beautiful as we sat and admired from the train.
The train we were on had free wifi, after turning it on I had a bunch of messages from my brother filling me in on everything that had happened. My mother had ended up moving all my things out into my car out the front and began painting my bedroom pink and turning it into a room for my Niece, all while I was overseas and could do nothing about it. However my brothers had done as they said and and taken all my belongings, placing them back in the room and bolting my bedroom door shut from the inside, climbing out the second story window and closing it behind him so that I mum couldn't access it. Upon finding this my mum told him to remove the bolts. My brother refused. She said to remove them or she would call the police. He told her to call the police.... she did. She called the police on her own son, gave a big spiel about how he had showed 'violent and threatening behaviour' all of which was bullshit. Putting an AVO on my brother and kicking him out of the house as well. All of this putting me under extreme duress while on my holiday. Eventually the wifi cut out as we continued north and I was left in a state of rage and anxiety questioning whether I would have to cancel our holiday to go home and sort stuff out. My girlfriend was obviously upset too as we had spent so long planning the holiday for my Mum to do everything in her power in an attempt to ruin it. Eventually I calmed down realising it was just out of my power and knowing my brother would sort things out for me.
While going through a little track through the mountains our train seemed to hit something on the tracks almost derailing and I saw heaps of mud fly past the window. Everyone on the train seemed incredibly shaken. A French couple seated across from us attempting in the very little English they spoke to ask what was happening, however we didn't know. The train began to reverse and we saw out the window that we had actually hit a cow, that was left across the tracks split in half and still alive, my girlfriend left angry by this wishing someone would have at least got out and put it out of pain. Eventually a voice came over the speaker informing us that the train would take us back to a station in Perth where we would have to get a new train through to Inverness.
When we finally arrived at Perth to get off the train we went around the front to see the damage.
We eventually got our new train and made it Inverness. We waited at the bus stop. However our bus never came. I checked around at the other bus stops bus this was the only one with a bus to Drumnadrochit. Soon we noticed that the train we had missed only arrived in the summer season, and that our original bus we were meant to catch we had missed due to our train hitting a cow and making us late. So we now had no way in to Drumnadrochit. We went back into the train station and I informed the man working that we had missed our last connecting bus due to our train colliding with a cow. He looked it up telling us there should be another bus in half an hour while in informed him that the said bus wasn't running at this time of year at which he said in a very funny way "Ugh that's so annoying!" in a Scottish accent while he tried to help us. Eventually he organising for a taxi to collect us and take us to our accommodation letting us know we wouldn't be charged and that the trains would pay for it as it was their responsibility that we had missed our bus, which was awful nice of him.
Our taxi soon arrived and took us a bit around Drumnadrochit including a beautiful drive by Loch Ness on the way, saying that she'd show us the scenery seeing as we didn't need to pay for it anyway which worked out well. We soon arrived at the Kilmichael House B&B and the lady their showed us too our room. A nice cosy little upper story room in a little flat out the back of the property looking over a little paddock filled with cows. She further informed us a bit about the area, explaining there was only really 2 restaurants left open because it was the off season, and gave us advice on how to make it through to the Loch Ness from where we were.
We explored our way through the town taking note of a Loch Ness Monster museum that my girlfriend refused to let us go to. Making our way past a farm and on to a icy cold river we had to cross to make it to Loch Ness.
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| River under the town bridge |
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| My friend the Horse |
There wasn't a great deal of signage and we at one point bumped into a local Scottish lady as we enquired how to make it through to the Loch Ness. She noticed I wasn't Scottish when asking where I was from. I told her I was Australian. She told me I didn't sound Australia. Again, being told I sounded Canadian. I insisted I just watched too much TV, and when my girlfriend spoke she got told she sounded Australian, (which she took as a grave insult). Eventually we made it to what I believed was the little river we had to cross, my girlfriend insisting she didn't believe it was the right way. The water was absolutely freezing cold (the taxi driver had told us that you couldn't survive too long swimming in Loch Ness at this time of year because it was so cold). After I walked across, I had to go back to carry my girlfriend across because the water was so cold it was physically hurting her. After we made it across we got in a little bit of an argument because my girlfriend didn't believe we were heading to Loch Ness. I again had to carry her across before going back to collect our shoes and bring them across.
We walked back to our Kilmicheal B&B where I had a warm shower to try and warm up my feet which felt frozen. We left at night to make our way to the Benleva Hotel for dinner. Upon arrival I also found it was linked to The Loch Ness Brewery and had it's own beers on tap. The beers where fantastic in particular the 'Dark Ness' which my girlfriend who as I stated before, doesn't like beers, enjoyed. We noticed how absolutely dog friendly England had been and Scotland was the same as a local brought his adorable Dog into the Hotel and all we wanted to do was play with his Dog. We ended up having Rabbit and Pheasant Pie cooked in stout for dinner served with vegetables and it was absolutely delicious. That night due to the cold my feet had been through, I apparently whimpered and curdled up tight trying to keep warm all night.
The next day I decided that the way we had went (after having a little look of Google Maps) was the right way to get to Loch Ness, and we made our way through the forest back to the creek where there were people with a Dog and a video camera who explained that they were making either a documentary or a film, I honestly can't remember, but I did spend some time after we got home trying to find anything shot in the area and couldn't find it. My girlfriend, was adamant she wanted to cross herself this time (the day was slightly warmer) particularly because she was worried about how cold my feet had gotten crossing so many times the day before.
I ended up being right and it was less than a 5 minute walk once we had crossed over as we came through to a beautiful secluded shoreline along the Loch Ness.
We spent all day down by the Loch, just admiring the serene beauty. My girlfriend (who doesn't like the sun) ended up getting sunburnt, and to this day when people ask her about why she doesn't like being outdoors in Summer she tells them she got sunburnt in Scotland in Autumn.
Again that night we went to the Benleva, not even bothering to try out the other restaurant, and this night we had the special of haggis and black pudding meatballs, which again were delicious. Walking back to our room just has we had reached the bridge over a little river in town fireworks began and we sat in the cool crisp air of night watching the fireworks.
We spent 3 nights in Drumnadrochit and as we left it really felt like it wasn't enough. I wished we had spent more time exploring the highlands of Scotland and we both said that we would one day come back. We left and headed to Glasgow, being the other big Scottish city. However we found our stay in Glasgow incredibly disappointing. We couldn't find much to do in the city, we found everything very overpriced, and there seemed to be a lot of dingy people around. The whole city probably wasn't bad. However it just felt like a city, and didn't even feel Scottish. Maybe it was were we stayed but the only thing worth noting that we did or saw here is I got a photo with the TARDIS.
From Glasgow we head down south back into England, this time heading towards Blackpool. Our last stop in England (besides a night at Gravesend at Ann's) before catching our flight to Finland. I didn't know much about Blackpool, but my girlfriends family had fond memories of it and I was told by my girlfriends Nan that I needed to try a Blackpool Rock (she also told me to try Pease Pudding and Faggots, which I never saw anywhere.... can't imagine why...).
When we arrived I couldn't help but stop at a cafe and buy a coffee, a real coffee, as the whole trip I had either barely drank coffee, or simply had instant made with either no milk, or little milk sachets.
We walked through the town admiring all the lights hung up as decorations for 'The Illuminations'. We stopped in at a local Tesco, and I stocked up on some more Dark English Beers that I had never tried before to keep in the fridge in our room. That night we walked along the seaside admiring the illuminations over the town and the waves upon the shore. We walked up and along a few piers that hosted many carnival games and rides, we saved the money though as the next day we planned to spend the whole day at Pleasure Beach, a local theme park. There was one thing that did catch my eye though. A area where you could go and get a themed photo based on a setting, such as gangsta, or victorian era. I really wanted to do it but my girlfriend felt uncomfortable, so we didn't get one taken.
The next day we spent the entire day at the theme park, and I have to say for the price it was it was great value, the rides where fun and there were heaps of them. My girlfriend wasn't as much of a thrill seeker as me, so at one point there was an upside down, chairlift sorta ride (that's the best I can describe it as), I was adamant I was going to go so left her while I lined up to go on. Almost near the front she came up into the line with me, feeling pressured into it (although I told her I was content to do it alone). As soon as the ride started she began screaming and crying, saying she was going to break up with me, obviously traumatised from the ride. I calmed her down and we went on a few less extreme rides and she perked up. We ate at an all you could eat buffet within the park, definitely getting our moneys worth to feed our starved bellies, before continuing on to other sections of the park, where my girlfriend discovered I'm not really comfortable with chair rides. You know the ones, you it in a little chair attached to lines and fly around in circles? Sounds like a death trap to me. We went to go onto a Viking themed Valhalla ride unfortunately it was shut for the day by the time we arrived.
We stayed right up until closing, buying ourselves and my girlfriends family some Blackpool Rocks from the gift shop, as we left rain began to fall, so we retreated to our little room, and indulged ourselves in a couple of drinks.
The next day we walked along the beach again, enjoying the beach-side town that seemed like something off a movie.
With a change of heart my girlfriend decided that she would get a themed photo with me, and even though she was super anxious we got a really cool printed and framed Cowboy/Western themed photo out of it.
We made our way back to Gravesend to stay another night at Ann's and drop off our big backpacks as our flight to Finland had been booked in a way to save the most amount of money, this included only carry on luggage and a 10 hour stop over at Helsinki airport. We packed as much as we could into our two small backpacks and new we would wear everything else onto the plane. We got some sleep before being driven in to Heathrow for our flight.
We arrived in Helsinki later that day, and found all the food very expensive, we ended up wandering around the airport. While using the free airport wifi I saw an advertisement that there would be a new season of Australian Survivor, and there hadn't been an Australian Survivor since I was a kid (even then it was shit). As a huge Survivor fan I instantly applied while in the airport. Shooting a video digging into my bag to pull out my Survivor T-Shirt, saying I had watched every season of the American show since I was a kid. I obviously didn't end up on the show, but I have applied every season since, so who knows, maybe one day.
We continued to walk around the airport well into the night until our hunger became insatiable. However by this point all the stores selling food had closed. We found ourselves laying on the floor, laying on chairs, laying all over the place in a desperate effort to feel comfortable. In the end there was no reprieve and we had fracked sleep until the airport began to come alive the next morning. While inspecting an open gift shop I saw they were selling chocolates filled with Cloudberry Liquor, or 'Lakkalikööri', a drink I had wanted to try since I had first become enthralled with Finland in my early high school years after getting into the band 'Sonata Arctica' and subsequently more Finnish musical acts. We bought a packet and decided to save them for our trip back to England. When we were finally able to progress through the airport we found a Hungry Jacks (it might have been a Burger King, same thing) we ended up ordering a cheeseburger meal, and I was so starving I smashed into it without taking off the pickles (I use to hate pickles) I was so hungry I even told my girlfriend to put hers on mine and I devoured it. Ever since I leave my pickles on, and can eat sliced pickles on things having developed a taste for them from this experience. We soon got on a small plane and set off from Helsinki further north, heading towards Ivalo. We got served a free Danish and coffee and blueberry juice. Our steward came over and asked if we had been to Finland before, realising we had no idea what anyone around us was saying. We told him it was our first time and he told us that in Finland so many blueberries grow in the land during the summer that they have so many that they freeze them to keep and have enough for the whole of winter. The blueberry juice was delicious and we had a few glasses as we tried not to drift off to sleep. At one point our plane landed at another airport, I believe some people got on and others got off and we noticed the wing of our plane was being sprayed down with a sort of anti freeze due to the severe cold.
Finally we arrived at Ivalo and walking through the airport I noticed that they had bear salami and canned bear meat. Obviously I was eager to try bear, however at 40 Euro my girlfriend told me not to try it out of a can, scoffing at the idea.
We got our prearranged transport (which we were stressed would not turn up, however there was no issue) to our accommodation at Naverniemi Holiday Center. The owners of the centre, a friendly Finnish couple by the name of Henri and Paivi told us a little about the area and the way to the local shops, letting us know we were welcome to take little snow scooters at our leisure and asked if we would like to be notified about any Northern Lights. We said yes and settles into our accommodation looking over the beautiful snow covered park and frozen lake just down from us.
"I bet they do speak English". I said giving an evil squint.
We continued down the road the opposite direction then we had last traveled, soon coming upon a church and noticing we were in the town centre.
We explored the supermarket trying to decipher what certain things were. The majority of things were in both Finnish and Swedish, which I was mostly able to understand due to my limited incredibly basic knowledge of Danish, which was not too dissimilar. We ended up buying some mince and pasta to last us a couple of nights as well as some blueberry juice, and a special Christmas juice of apple blueberry and cinnamon. We also got a fruit we had never tried or seen before called Physalis, or Gooseberry from South America (though I have since seen it, albeit rarely in Australia). We continued to come back to the store to try various alcohols and foods including a Moose salami and some delicious fish fingers. While walking back Henri saw us walking and offered us a lift.
We stayed up a little late keeping an eye out for the famed Aurora borealis. However having to be up to go on our Husky Safari we soon went to bed.
The next day we were picked up by our guide Sini from Extreme Huskies, who filled us in about what to expect from the dogs as she drove us through the thick snow covered forests. As we arrived at the kennel to see the beautiful dogs she told us that many people had misconception about the dogs, expecting them to look like the more stylish 'Siberian' Huskies often shown in movies, but that their dogs (Alaskan Huskies) were bred to run, not for their looks. We soon had a little talk through tutorial by Sini and another trainer, Henna joined by another couple who were from Italy.
We soon began, with me in the standing position while my girlfriend sat. I have to admit that I did struggle a little in my attempts to control the directions and at one point was worried that we would tip over into a little stream. The ladies were incredibly professional and helpful insuring everything ran smoothly. The Dogs while running often pooed and farted and the smell was quite toxic, as I can hardly stomach the smell of dog poo. It was a fun and thrilling experience going through the stunning Lapland scenery.
When we arrived back we got to spend some time with the dogs and I couldn't stop giving them pats and hugs and they looked so proud of themselves. We made our way into the hut built on the kennel property warming ourselves by the bonfire enjoying a hot drink and dessert. Our host was fascinated to hear about Australia as we were so far the first Australian to come on the safari. Soon it was time to leave and as Sini drove us back to our accommodation I asked if there were any particular Finnish things we should try. She recommended to us 'Salmiakki', a kind of salted licorice, using ammonium chloride and not actual salt. She said this was one thing many Finnish people say they miss when they go to other places in the world, I guess it was there Vegemite. (Although I was at least able to substitute that with Marmite in England, though it wasn't the same).
Back at our accommodation we explored around our centre even walking down by the frozen river where we found what looked like Wolf footprints. We played in the snow keeping an eye ever on the sky for the Northern Lights. That night, hearing from home I heard that my stuff and my brothers stuff was in storage, courtesy of my friends mum who worked in a storage facility. While my brother was staying at a friends house.
The next morning we had a reindeer sleigh session booked. We caught a local bus and made our way up to Inari Saariselkä. We had to wait for the store to open and so to keep warm we went into a local pub.
When it came opening time we made our way over to Joiku-Kotsamo Safari. Were we got given special gear for the sleigh ride. Soon our guide arrived running late as he had had an issue with his car and got a taxi down from where he lived (an hour away). I said that it must have been expensive, to which he told me that he didn't pay as the cab driver was coming this way anyway. As I looked at him with a confused expression he told me that in Lapland people helped each other, he said it was just the culture there due to the severe weather that people just relied on each other because if they didn't no one would make it.
As we set off the man asked what he had been up to so far. We told him about the Husky Safari, looking at us he informed us this wouldn't be as 'high speed' or thrilling as that. We told him we didn't mind that we just wanted to go anyway. So we met our reindeer's and hopped in the sleigh beginning our tranquil slow sleigh through the white forest. I loved just laying down with a reindeer ahead of me and just really enjoying the view, wishing I could spend months if not years in this beautiful country and not just the 11 nights we had booked.
On our ride our guide talked to us a little about the Sami, the original inhabitants of Finland before the Finns (I'd never even heard of them). He told us about how all reindeer are left free to wander and they are just tagged, about how reindeer was one of the healthiest meats you can eat, and that when he was younger he was banned from speaking the Sami language and he never understood why. Telling us a little of Sami culture and beliefs and myths on the Northern Lights. Soon we stopped by a little fire pit in the woods for some sweet snacks and coffee, being told that coffee was the most popular drink in Finland.
We soon continued on, enjoying the slow pace. Though the Huskies were exciting and fun it was a nice change of pace and we still enjoyed it just as much. We reached a hut in the woods, where we came inside to a well lit, traditional Finnish hut for more coffee, reindeer soup and traditional Finnish rye bread. As I sipped up my vegetables and bits of reindeer (which tasted great) I looked out the window to see my reindeer pal looking at me, feeling a twinge of guilt that I'd eaten one of his family members. It was a great day (though very cold) and we said goodbye to our reindeer pals and headed back into town.
While waiting at the bus stop to head back to Ivalo we ran into a blonde chick who turned out to be a fellow Australian from (I think it was Melbourne), she told us that she was on her own and had been skiing all day and that she was continuing on from here to go and explore Russia. Our bus soon arrived dropping us at Ivalo, we said goodbye and wished her well on her travels.
Over the next few days we enjoyed ourselves in the holiday centre, playing in the snow, going for trips into town (were we tried the delicious salmiakki, as well as blueberry chocolate) on the supplied snow scooters.
I made a comment that the centre reminded me of a level from one of my favourite games, Banjo Kazooie, called 'Freezeezy Peak'. Which inspired me to ask my girlfriend to film the video of me below.
One night starring up at the night sky I saw something move across the night sky. My girlfriend told me it was just the clouds (as I had got excited thinking I was seeing the Northern Lights before), I refused to go back inside even though it was freezing. It was around 2 in the morning and the other guests had all long since went to bed, but lucky I didn't as the lights soon began dancing across the sky like a giant light serpent, slivering as it glistened. It was amazing to see and we were both psyched because so many people come without being able to see them (which we were stressed about).
When we arrived back we got to spend some time with the dogs and I couldn't stop giving them pats and hugs and they looked so proud of themselves. We made our way into the hut built on the kennel property warming ourselves by the bonfire enjoying a hot drink and dessert. Our host was fascinated to hear about Australia as we were so far the first Australian to come on the safari. Soon it was time to leave and as Sini drove us back to our accommodation I asked if there were any particular Finnish things we should try. She recommended to us 'Salmiakki', a kind of salted licorice, using ammonium chloride and not actual salt. She said this was one thing many Finnish people say they miss when they go to other places in the world, I guess it was there Vegemite. (Although I was at least able to substitute that with Marmite in England, though it wasn't the same).
Back at our accommodation we explored around our centre even walking down by the frozen river where we found what looked like Wolf footprints. We played in the snow keeping an eye ever on the sky for the Northern Lights. That night, hearing from home I heard that my stuff and my brothers stuff was in storage, courtesy of my friends mum who worked in a storage facility. While my brother was staying at a friends house.
The next morning we had a reindeer sleigh session booked. We caught a local bus and made our way up to Inari Saariselkä. We had to wait for the store to open and so to keep warm we went into a local pub.
When it came opening time we made our way over to Joiku-Kotsamo Safari. Were we got given special gear for the sleigh ride. Soon our guide arrived running late as he had had an issue with his car and got a taxi down from where he lived (an hour away). I said that it must have been expensive, to which he told me that he didn't pay as the cab driver was coming this way anyway. As I looked at him with a confused expression he told me that in Lapland people helped each other, he said it was just the culture there due to the severe weather that people just relied on each other because if they didn't no one would make it.
As we set off the man asked what he had been up to so far. We told him about the Husky Safari, looking at us he informed us this wouldn't be as 'high speed' or thrilling as that. We told him we didn't mind that we just wanted to go anyway. So we met our reindeer's and hopped in the sleigh beginning our tranquil slow sleigh through the white forest. I loved just laying down with a reindeer ahead of me and just really enjoying the view, wishing I could spend months if not years in this beautiful country and not just the 11 nights we had booked.
Over the next few days we enjoyed ourselves in the holiday centre, playing in the snow, going for trips into town (were we tried the delicious salmiakki, as well as blueberry chocolate) on the supplied snow scooters.
Over the next day or two, the Paris terrorist attacks occurred shocking us, not just because our next destination was France, but because we had altered our journey to come to Finland and were originally supposed to be in Paris when it occurred. Obviously it was heart-wrenching hearing about it, and it was frustrating online seeing that the attack had succeeded in probably the two most important things. Causing fear, in creating a divide. The amount of people who began to express xenophobic or racist comments upset my girlfriend and I. If there is one thing you learn from traveling is people are people, you learn to embrace, accept and open your mind to other cultures and to see that happening as well as the damage caused by the asshole terrorists was greatly upsetting.
We soon started receiving emails from home hoping we were going to bypass France, however we refused, besides we weren't even really staying in Paris since we altered our trip.
In a few more days it was my birthday (twice if you account for the time differences between Australia and Finland). I turned 24 and it was my 3rd birthday I had experienced overseas (my first in New Zealand, and my second in Bali, Indonesia).
The night of my birthday (after midnight from the 18th) we again witnessed an Aurora, while we sat outside and listened to Wolves howling. We soon went to bed to wake up, on what was still my birthday were we went to the shops and bought myself a birthday cake, which was a Cloudberry Swiss Roll.
We later in the day attempted to build a snowman but failed miserably. My girlfriend giving me gifts she had sneakily purchased for me including a Finnish T-Shirt, a little toy reindeer I named 'Sami' before taking me out to a local pub, 'Pub.fi' where I had a few Finnish beers enjoyed some jalapeno poppers, and two different reindeer pizzas (we shared, although I totally could have devoured them myself). To top it off a Finnish band I like called 'Poets of the Fall' played on the radio.
I got to celebrate my birthday a second time as the next day was my birthday in Australia, so while I received well wishes my girlfriend was having none of it, saying she'd already given me a birthday I wouldn't get two from her, so it mostly acted like a normal day of exploration (and trying not to get lost while we did it). I tried to convince my girlfriend to do a Finnish sauna, where you also get naked and then run out into the freezing cold snow. We didn't end up doing it.
Soon it was time to leave Finland, and utterly depressed I stoked up on salmiakki and blueberry chocolate, guzzling down the last of our blueberry juice as we hoped into our transport to the airport. I felt truly sad to leave the beautiful country, saying that if I had the money I would move there in a heart beat.
We soon got our flight back to Helsinki where we swapped over and flew to Heathrow again (no 10 hour stop over this time, and hopefully never again).
Ann again picked us up taking us back to hers for the night (and the next day) again feeding us and washing all our clothes (we had spent 11 nights in clothes that had to fit into carry on luggage).
We then got taken to a different train station where we caught the Eurostar across to France. We arrived at a train station in Paris with armed guards patrolling the stations, which was a little intimidating. We had our huge backpacks on again, and I wanted to leave the station to wander a little around Paris to see things like the Moulin Rouge and Notre Dame (that I wish we had now seen before the recent fire).
In the end my girlfriend didn't feel comfortable due to the terrorist attacks and hearing horror stories from people about "Gypsies" and pickpockets.
We struggled a little with language, (everyone in Finland had pretty much spoken English) but French people really seemed to really not know English. We eventually found our way to a connecting train to Compiègne.
We arrived and made our way to the accommodation, all the while keeping an eye out for any restaurants selling frogs legs and escargot. (I didn't end up trying escargot in France, first trying them at French restaurant 'The Little Snail' in Sydney.) Upon arriving and setting our stuff down I switched on the TV which opened on some 'art' channel filled with naked women, on daytime free to air TV. The first culture difference.
We set off exploring, enjoying a walk over a local bridge and down by the river where I got incredibly excited.
"Beaver!" I yelled to my girlfriend, so excited as I loved Beavers. Soon my excitement became a big hesitant... that wasn't a beaver tail, it was a big rat tail. They looked like huge rats with giant orange teeth. We looked at each other a little disgusted.
Soon an older French lady came down to the river and began feeding them while she talked to them. Back in a room with wifi we looked them up finding out they were 'Coypu' an invasive species from South America. While looking around town with a map from our hotel a helpful old lady came up trying to help us find a local Christmas market, however she didn't speak a word of English so we communicated through hand gestures.
At the Christmas markets we bought alcohol flavoured marshmallows and some chocolate.
The next day we took a bus out to Pierrefonds, solely to see and explore the Chateau, which had been a filming location for a BBC show we both enjoyed called 'The Adventures of Merlin'. We spent the day walking through an exploring the chateau.
At exploring the chateau we explored around Pierrefonds, entering a bakery and buying ourselves the nicest croissants we ever had (a huge pistachio one) for 1 euro.
The next day we got a train back into Paris to get a train through to Rome. The metropolitan trains were a hassle, as they were very crowded and we had heaps of people bashing and whacking into our huge backpacks, sometimes almost dragging us off at certain stops with them. At one point we had a French woman turn around after getting off at a station and begin abusing us.
Finally we made it onto our prebooked train through to Rome (with Eurail). We found our booked seats and sat down. We were early and sat waiting for our train to leave. Soon armed police came on to the train telling us we would have to leave the train for another one due to a bomb threat. So we now had to go onto an alternate train where all the passengers had to join passengers that were already on another train, with no seats booked we were lucky to get a spare seat. We had a long train journey through the mountains enjoying some beautiful scenery. We eventually arrived at Toro in Italy where we were due to swap trains. However due to the bomb scare we had missed our connecting train. We spoke to one of the rail workers who informed us when the next train through to Rome would arrive changing the train details in our Eurail pass so it was ok for us to board the train. When that train finally came we found that there had been a mix up (although our train was going to Rome), and the details in our Eurail were wrong and we had no reserved seat. We sat the majority of the way in a baggage storage section until a train worker came through inspecting passes. When we told us that our pass was wrong I explained the story and he took us through and found us seats, taking the train details we had been given with him.
Hours later another train worker came through checking passes, he told us we were on the wrong train and I tried to explain what had happened and how the other worker had taken the details. This man didn't speak great English and the Italian lady seated across from us helped us translate the story as I tried to explain once again feeling very stressed and tired. It all worked out ok, and we soon arrived in Rome just before midnight. We took out the printed paper of google maps showing us to our accommodation. By this time it was past midnight and we were starving using the internet wifi to try and find a place still open. here was only a 24 hour take away shop back closer to the train station we had walked past open. So we made our way back through the streets to the 24 hour place buying some chicken biriyani to take and eat back in our room. We walked to the other side of the road to avoid a homeless man who was shitting off the side of a gutter.
We smashed the biriyani commenting on how delicious it was coming from a 24 hour (sorta dingy) location, before showering and getting some much needed rest.
The next day we set off to go and see the Roman Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Pantheon. Before getting to the Colosseum we stopped in at a hidden cafe that gave you a cornetto (croissant) and a cappuccino for 2 euro, which was great as a lot of stuff in Rome was overpriced to catch tourists. As we walked and saw the Colosseum in the distance I was in awe, being a huge lover of Ancient Roman history. I commented to my girlfriend about how accurate the location had been when you play through it on the video game 'Assassin's Creed II: Brotherhood'.
My girlfriend commenting that I kept touch anything, I told her I was just so in awe to be this close to history. We spent ages walking around before we continued to head to walk through the Roman forums.
This was a huge area filled with houses and temples of Ancient Rome. It was something truly spectacular.
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| Veni, vidi, vici |
From we befriended a little Cat we found wandering around the forums and dubbed him 'Figaro'. At one point we threw a coin into a fountain for the Roman Goddess Minerva. I was completely in awe when we came to the Senate steps. I kept pointing at thing to my girlfriend and telling tidbits of history like "And that's where Marc Antony nailed Cicero's hand!"
After we head to the Pantheon which we found lackluster as it was now a Christian Church instead of an Ancient Roman one. Continuing through the main streets wearing our backpacks on the front (from online advice to avoid pickpockets) we headed to the Fontana de Trevi, a famed fountain. It was cool however there were many people there trying to sell selfie sticks and we actually witnessed a man have his backpack robbed and caught the guy in the action and was demanding his things back.
The next day we caught a train to Naples where we went to the ancient ruined city of Pompeii. As we walked to enter we were inundated with many gift shops selling many dick shaped objects such as cups and straws and Pompeii is famed for it's roman graffiti many of which included drawings of the ol' phallus. So I guess nothing had changed. The city was huge and we spent all day walking through the remains. Much of which were ruined homes which had been stripped bare from the famed plaster-cast bodies (many of which were in museums, or in a store for objects at the beginning of the city for us to see).
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| Famed Mount Vesuvius |
The amount of history was amazing and it was a hugely unique experience to walk through such vast ancient ruins. Being able to walk through the ancient market places, into temples, villas and even famed brothels.
Towards the end of the day we reached the amphitheatre of Pompeii were ancient gladiatorial bouts were had. Inside the theatre was a modern man made pyramid showing of displays of the plaster-cast bodies in a fashion that I found trashy, and insensitive, being more like an art display then being able to view history in a more organic sense.
The next day we made our way to Vatican city. While both not really having strong affinity towards Christianity or Catholicism, we knew it was a unique experience. We stopped on our way to get a gelato (it was one of the foods we made sure to try in Italy, along with pizza, lasagna and pasta). We made our way through the museum in the Vatican, which actually had a lot of different stuff and we commented on the sheer power and financial wealth the Church held and commented on what ancient historical things they had kept hidden and in secret. After the museum, we made our way through endless golden halls wath beautiful artworks hanging from the walls as well as painted art on the roof, just endless beautiful pieces of art.
(I have no photos taken inside as there were signs advising not to take photos, and I didn't want to piss of the Church as I know how powerful they are, although I did see people taking photos).
We continued through keen to make it to the famed Sistine Chapel that we hear so many people rave about. Eventually we made it there, it was a small overcrowded room, and honestly... the paintings didn't hold up in my opinion. The Creation of Adam painting was good, but the rest to us didn't hold up to the standards of the thousands of paintings through the previous halls, which, honestly we found to be better quality. It was one of those things of simple fame and over hype.
Over the few nights we stayed in Italy we had been shopping in our never ending quest to try new flavours and discover new things, one such thing I remember being Orzo, which we tried (my girlfriend hated it), as it was a wheat based drink. We ended up finding out later it was used as a coffee substitute and my girlfriend hates coffee.
The next day we checked out in the morning however our international overnight train through to Berlin was not until that night so we carried our huge backpacks and sat out the front of a huge Church for the entire day, popping in one at a time if we needed to go to the toilet. The Church itself inside was very beautiful and I commented that it was better even than the Sistine Chapel.
That night we found our way aboard our train in our individual carriage. We hadn't paid for beds so we barely slept all night as our train made it's way to Berlin. Inside the carriage was boiling hot, the seats were uncomfortable and we were in with a breastfeeding mother and her child much to the ire of my girlfriend who is a little conservative with these things (I didn't care).
Finally after an uncomfortable 13 hours on a train (I think we actually had to swap at Munich and I remember finding that difficult to find where to go in time and while being half asleep). That night in Berlin I wanted to go out and experience a bit of Germany as we only had the one night there before going to Poland (it was more of a stop over spot). As we walked through the streets were saw many places were you could go and watch 'sex shows' as many of our friends had gone to and experienced while holidaying doing 'Contiki' tours our organised bus/group holidays. My girlfriend, commented on how disgusting it was looking at me with a 'I dare you to say any different' look, and I kept my mouth shut. We found a small pub that served German food, and I tried a traditional German meal (at the time I had never tried any, since eating German food multiple times every year as my girlfriend (now wife's) Fathers side of her family are German and Polish.) I enjoyed a few German beers and the bartender seemed to like me as he was young and told me he was learning English as he wanted to travel, and when he made a few people cocktails he offered me the leftovers for free.
December
It wasn't a long stay, and I would love to see more of Germany, but on our budget we simply had to skip over it to make more time for our stay in Poland. We caught our train to Krakow, which I remember being rife with near disasters too, almost missing a connecting train all together if not for a helpful Polish worker on the station (even though he didn't know much English).
We arrived at the train station in Krakow, entering out into a giant shopping centre all decorated for Christmas. We walked through the streets and commented on how beautiful the city was. Our hotel was beautiful too and we dropped our stuff of the walk up to main square of Old Town Krakow which was beautiful and bustling full of stalls celebrating the upcoming Christmas.
We bought many things from the stalls, vodka infused hot teas, Belgian chocolate waffles, a chocolate coated chilli (that was spicy as all hell), and bought a couple of souvenirs here for people back home, and ourselves. (Buying myself a Dragon beer mug).
We explored the city the next day, enjoying the history and learning many things (as I had never even thought of Krakow in my life, and only came to visit Auschwitz, it ended up being the nicest city of our entire trip).
That night we went to a restaurant called Cafe Art, that was serving a traditional Polish meal. The meal was huge an absolutely delicious, and we learned that because of World War 2 the Polish economy hadn't really recovered and so everything was exceptionally cheap for us, including buying many long neck beers for $1 Australian. Which, although worked out well for us, because we could splurge a little, did make us feel sad considering that all the people in Poland were so nice and friendly.
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As we walked through there were many signs and pictures explaining the history of Auschwitz, that I at least thought I knew from films. But nothing really prepared me for the horrors of the experimentation on children, being in the spot where people where executed or gassed to death. It was horrible. We walked through halls where they had rooms filled with suitcases and glasses of the many executed. I didn't even know it wasn't just the Jews who were executed, but Polish people, gays and more. That they were forced to wear different insignia's to be identified. In one room seeing it filled with the hair that they had from the shaved heads of Jewish women that were used to make and sell textiles. It was all around horrific. We came to a room with a list of people who had been executed and while looking through my girlfriend came to her Polish families name featured and she broke down crying. I comforted her as onlookers stared at us, and we soon moved on down the stairs where we came to a room filled with the original striped pajamas they would wear. It was haunting. After walking around the first camp we caught a bus to the second camp, which was again horrific as it featured the cabins as well as a bombing attempt by the Nazis to hide the atrocities of the war when they knew they were losing. It was an intense and intimidating day, but something I recommended for people to experience, because if the unnecessary cruelty of history is forgotten, it will likely repeat itself.
We had a more joyous time enjoying the rest of our stay in Krakow, both putting it on a list of places we would like to return to. Enjoying a huge Polish hotdog as we walked to the Wawel Castle built upon Wawel Hill where medieval Polish myths told that the Wawel (W's pronounced like V's) Dragon lived inside a cave beneath the hill.
Poland was a vibrant colourful city with heaps going on. At one point we witnessed a protest at what I think was a university with all the students dressing as Santa.
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| Polish aliens? I don't know. |
Our original intention had been to take trains from Poland all the way back to France (going through Amsterdam) but given the stress and train drama we had had, we got a bus back to Germany, spending another night there, before waking up and leaving around 3 in the morning to the airport for a flight through to Paris, where we then caught another flight back to Heathrow. If you've ever been on an international flight you'll know that airports are an absolute fucking nightmare.
We didn't return to Gravesend to Ann this time, instead booking last minute accommodation in London. (as we hadn't followed our plans of the big train journey back). It was almost Christmas now and London had changed to reflect that. There were Christmas market stalls and chestnuts roasting. We enjoyed our last nights in the city with my girlfriend commenting that now to her, England felt like home.
We caught our flight back to Australia on the 8th of December, which didn't seem as pleasant on the way back (although maybe that's because we didn't want to leave). Driving through Australia on our way home I commented that it didn't feel like home, and my girlfriend agreed.
It was almost Christmas and I was homeless, my Dad had originally told me I could stay with him and my step-mum, reneging on that once I had returned home as my step-mum said me living there would cause her and my Dad to divorce (What? How? I know right?) My girlfriends parents let me stay there until the new year where a friend of mine lent me his van he had decked out for camping with a mattress, curtains and blankets. I spent the next few months living in that on the streets unemployed before getting myself hired in a thing called 'Green Army' which was conservation and land management (Bush regeneration) at the local state park 'Killalea'. I continued living in the van while working here, where I made some great friends and had great times and experiences. I knew my friend would eventually need his van back at some point and after a few more months my girlfriends parents invited to to live with them indefinitely. I soon got my motorcycle license for transport to work, gave my friend his van back, and then more work roles progressed from working in a local bottle shop, to working casually doing parks stuff. I did attempt to write this original blog... getting no further than the post title 'Euro-Trip', which looking at now, is a weird title given the whole Brexit thing, but I left it because had I written this post then, that's what it would have been titled.
Soon my motorbike died and I bought my girlfriends old car to work. Never progressing to my Red P's (though I plan to get a motorbike again one day soon). Eventually we got engaged, and then married moving out into a rental. Years have passed and we have finally purchased our first house (which occurred during my time writing this) although we have not moved in yet. But I thought I should include this progression as I noticed it brought the whole being homeless story full circle. I haven't spoken to my Mum since being kicked out and I'm pretty content honestly, having a pretty good relationship with my Dad. I will hopefully have more overseas holidays in the future but in the mean time I'm trying to get out and have as many adventures as I can.
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Thanks for reading! - Steven
