In my head….

Yes – the general question doing the rounds (particularly in my Inbox) is “what the hell have you been doing?”.

Well sadly, not much. I was all amped up for a big weekend after the Campden Pub Crawl (http://www.thecamdencrawl.com/) – but instead I had to cancel all plans, because I ended up in bed with a runny nose, head ache and sore throat. That was more than three days ago – and I’m still stuck in bed…

Before I got sick I did a bit of art at the Tate Modern…

Found a Space Invader (http://www.space-invaders.com/) in one of the dodgiest side streets you’ve ever seen…

Saw THE BEST beatboxer I’v ever heard. He was magnificently hilarious…

Laughed at crazy English people eating ice cream in 11 degree weather…

Read a few slogans…

Sussed out the crazy booksellers market under the bridge (strangely, not very cheap, and a lot colder than a second hand bookshop – I think I’ll be sticking to my local Oxfam, thanks!)

Had a friend show me the joys of Borough Markets (did I mention I’ve put on about 5 kilos in three weeks, from all the wonderfully good food I’m eating??!!). Lots of cute Italian boys trying to sell cheese and bread and meats…

And then looked at this view for most of the weekend and this week – cause I got the flu!

Other than my trip to the ANZAC service (post below) I’ve been lying in bed and using my time to write job applications.

Am hopeful I’ll be up and about in a few days – particularly cause I want to see Babyshambles play a free concert in Trafalgar Square… which should be interesting since Pete Doherty got arrested at the end of my street yesterday for buying drugs and is now supposed to be in jail!

Until my Grandad died a few years ago, ANZAC didn’t mean a great deal to me. It was an important day to remember those who had fallen in the pursuit of honour and freedom, but I’m not, and never have been, “big” on war.

I always naively believed that ANZAC day was about honouring the war. It was only after my grandad died, that I began to release that I could honour those who fought, without glorifying the battles and bloodshed.

ANZAC day was one of the most important days to my Grandad (beside Valentines day – the anniversary of my Nanas passing). He marched proudly every year, and in later years took my cousin Simon with him, to carry on the tradition. I believe Simon still marches every year in Rotorua, and wears Grandad’s medals proudly, and in his name.

The year after my grandad died I found myself in Cairns with my dad on ANZAC day. We went to a dawn service, which was drizzling and cold, but heart breakingly beautiful.

After that I made a promise to myself to always try to commemorate ANZAC day, because that dawn was the closest I’d felt to understanding the poignancy and importance of Grandad’s memories, and the need for us to be there to remember them for him.

This is all a bit soppy, I know, but I promise you – it’s leading somewhere!

Today I pulled myself out of bed (not an easy feat, as I’ve been bed-bound with the flu for a number of days now) and went to the Westminster Abbey service for ANZAC day.

It was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever shared with a room full of strangers. The service was strangely less God-centric and more History-centric. To have the choir sing so mournfully for people who fought and died. There was barely a dry eye in the room by the end of the service.

On a funnier note – I managed to navigate my way through 20 policeman, two personal effects searches and one passport check (plus a policeman gave me his number…) without anyone thinking to check whether I had a ticket or not. I’d only gone to Westminster on the off chance I might see something from the outside, because when I called Australia House yesterday, I was told I needed a ticket to attend the service, and 48 hours to do a security check before they could process the ticket, so I wouldn’t be able to get in. They were wrong!

I’m going back to bed now… I don’t think running to catch a bus in the rain and sitting in a draughty cathedral did my flu much good!

This is the war memorial:

These are my Grandad’s medals

This is a wreath from the RSL in Rotorua that my Grandad belonged to:

I went to the markets at the end of my street today. No matter what day you go, there are always lots of people jam-packed into a tiny space, haggling over vegetables.

She may look innocent enough – but I’ve quickly learnt not to mess with the little old ladies when they have their eye on a bargain.

The vegetables are fresh everday

but it’s the crazy indian desserts sold in the market stalls that I’ve become addicted to!

Everywhere you go there are little old ladies, dressed up and making the most of their “day out”. Sometimes they’ve hooked their arms five people across, and there’s no way to pass them (plus I’m scared of them – they give me evil eyes!!) so I have to dawdle behind until they all enter a stall

You can buy anything at the street markets. I love the scarf and pashmina stalls (of which there are hundreds)

but you can also buy saris

and various knick knacks…

And even when it’s 13 degrees and I’m wearing gloves, there’s always ice cream and slushies for sale. There are slushy stands everywhere, and they always have customers. Crazy English people!

One of the greatest things about living in the East End is the variety of culture, the mix of races, the hodge podge of people you live side by side with.

I’ve made friends with my local video store guy.

No – I’m not as lame as you’re thinking. It’s not because I’ve been in a new country for a week and already I’m bored enough to join a video library.

On my second day I was walking to the tube station and the video store guy was standing in the doorway of his shop. I passed a few pleasantries with him, and it turned out we are both lovers of bolliwood films – I’m an amateur and he’s a walking encyclopaedia.

He’s from Bombay, and has the largest collection of bolliwood films you’ve ever seen – from the very very early black and whites, right through to a large percent of the thousands of bolliwoods that get made yearly. He’s an addict.

Now he watches for me as I pass in the mornings and afternoons, and he saves films for me to take home and watch, because he knows I don’t have a TV, and I’ve been an insomniac for the last few months, so I need something to do at 2am when I can’t sleep. It’s so sweet – I feel like I’m part of the neighbourhood.

By the way – if anyone manages to find ‘Black’, I thoroughly recommend it. It’s a slightly more childish, Indian bolliwood cross with Lars Von Triers style of film (ie – it’ll have you in tears in no time!)

The only problem – my video store owner has such a thick Indian mixed with East End accent, I couldn’t understand when he told me his name, all three times I asked him. I’m now too embarrassed to ask again, so I have to avoid referring to him by name…

Here’s a glimpse of some of my more surreal moments over the last week:

I’ve yet to go into a pub without meeting a crazy person. Around 4pm most afternoons I’ve chosen a pub (you know the ones – ‘The Pig and the Porpoise’, or ‘The Wheelbarrow and the Clock’, something along those lines) and I have a glass of wine before the ‘after work’ crowd moves in.

It’s as if the moment I sit down with my newspaper, the craziest person in the room spies me, and thinks to themselves, “here’s someone who needs a nut-job in her life”.

Then they sit down beside me and talk AT me for the next hour, until I find a polite way to leave. Then they force their phone numbers onto me, saying something along the lines of “this is fate, we were meant to meet – I’d love to do this again, please call me, please?”

I now have the phone numbers of the three craziest people in London – let me know next time you’re in England and I’ll give them to you if you want an afternoon of entertainment, conspiracy theories, religious rants and general weirdness!

I also found a Tescos down the road from my house. I’m in love. The pre-packaged meal section is my dream come true. It’s pure heaven. I can eat well (and reasonably cheaply), but never actually have to cook again!

Although, (and here’s a rant you never expected to hear) – there is no where in London you can buy flavoured tuna. They just don’t do it. I know flavoured tuna isn’t everyone’s thing, but I like it, and it simply doesn’t exist here. No tuna with tomato and basil. No tuna with lemongrass and lime. No tuna with caramelised onion. I know I’ll be able to cope, but I’ll miss my tuna!

Other things I’m going to miss: Twisties, Cheezels, Cherry Ripes, Sustagen and decent muesli bars.

I went to check out the London Eye – but the line was the longest I’ve ever seen, and the idea of standing in the wind for an hour and a half wasn’t enticing.

Instead I had a ride on the carousel just underneath. I think I was the oldest carousel-rider, sitting proudly atop a pink plastic horse, by about 20 years. The nice carousel-man let me have a ride, despite his concerns that the horse might not take my weight(!!!)

So far I’ve loved my Underground adventures. Despite the fact that there are posters everywhere about the 53 people injured because they didn’t Mind The Gap and the 1134 people who were injured on Underground escalators and stairs (!!!!).

I know I promised everyone I’d stick to the buses only, but I love the smell and the warm rush of air as the train zips through the passageways. And it lands ever so smoothly at my feet, like a chariot!

Hmmm – what else? Brick Lane is close to my house. It’s difficult to describe the texture and smell of Brick Lane. It’s like walking down Carlton St in Melbourne, but instead of Italian restaurants, it’s all Indian, Chinese, Thai and “Contemporary Asian” restaurants. Lots of good food, yummy smells, touts waving at you, welcoming you in, offering menus, mixed soundtracks of modern duff duff Indian music mixed in with traditional Bolliwood style singing.

There are so many people walking the tiny footpaths – a mixture of tiny old women in saris, 18 year old ‘hood boys with their pants around their knees and their boxer shorts showing, lots of exchange university students jibbering away in German, French, Russian and Spanish, older East End blue collar English couples and lots of gangs of women out on girls nights, hens nights, after work drinks – everyone squeezing into the smallest space possible.

And the street signs are written in a combination of English and Arab, which adds to the feeling of having landed in a foreign land.

Speaking of which – London has some of the craziest designed buildings I’ve seen:

And a bizarre way of remembering heroes:

There’s a whole line of plaques like this commemorating people who died through saving someone elses life, just outside a church in the city. I guess the moral of the story is – don’t save someone else unless you’re pretty sure you can save yourself as well…

I live in the East End, which is really hard to describe – there’s definitely no suburb in Australia I know of that’s similar.

My flats are here – they’re pretty cute:

This is the sign close up:

On my street alone there’s a Tibetan art gallery, Buddhist temple, traditional London Pub (called The Florist), Venician restaurant, Chinese restaurant, Indian Restaurant and a Lunch Bar – all within one block.

I’ve heard more languages spoken in the last three days in my neighbourhood, than I have in my entire life combined. It’s an area of migrants, travellers and clichéd East Enders. I love the East Enders I’ve met so far (when I can understand them – their accent isn’t the easiest to negotiate).

There are street markets on the sidewalk every day selling scarves, fabric, underwear, CDs, flowers, innumerable items… It’s a higgledy piggledy place – I love it.

Plus – my local Off License sells 60p pints of milk, alongside bottles of Bollinger worth more than 100 pounds. I wonder who buys Bollinger at a deli?

The craziest things about my flat are that there’s no shower (only a bath tub – which sounds blissful, but is actually a pain in the arse if you don’t want to take more than 15 minutes getting ready to go out), there’s no laundry – the washing machine sits side by side with the fridge in the kitchen, and there’s plastic over the windows (apparently in winter everyone tapes up their windows tightly with clear plastic to prevent wind getting in through the old window frames).

The first time I went to press my face against the window to see outside, I hadn’t realised the plastic was taped to the outside of the frame, and my forehead literally bounced off it. Very strange.

I have an empty flat.

It’s a wasteland of unfriendly furniture and no personality!

Here is a photo of me sitting in front of one of my many blank walls:

If you would like to help brighten up my life and send me a postcard to put on my walls and give some life to my empty shell of a home, email me or leave a comment here and I’ll give you the address of where you need to send postcards…

Help a girl in need!

If I can give you one tip, one kernel of Fiona wisdom, it would be this;

It’s worth getting lost sometimes. I’ve spent much of the last week living life like a dream – no travel guides, no mobile phone, no Internet connection. Nothing but vague desires to reach certain places, and attempting to achieve it.

Sometimes I get to my proposed destination, sometimes I don’t. But I keep on moving, and exploring, and finding…

 In case you’re wondering, I’m happy – really happy. Probably more relaxed than I’ve been in a really long time. My days consist of long coffees at cafes, reading the papers (I’ve discovered the that Londoners have about 20 daily papers, 95% of which are atrocious), jumping on random buses or tubes and seeing where I end up, walking the streets around my amazingly colourful neighbourhood, drinking a glass of wine at the pub across the road from my house (The Florist is a great local – nice bar staff, friendly patrons, reasonably cheap wine… what more can you ask for?) and generally wandering around and seeing postcard images come to life.

I can’t tell you I’ve done anything particularly exciting – mostly I’ve just been submerging myself into life here.

Easter was spent with a lovely English family in the country, about an hour away. When you think that an hour away from Perth is Mandurah, whereas here an hour away is rolling countryside, windy one-car-wide roads, little villages with huge churches and cathedrals, and manor houses which apparently belonged to English royalty, it’s quite a dramatic change!

Other than that, the most exciting day so far has probably been today – because the sun is out and it feels glorious. I walked from my flat to the Thames, alongside the London Tower, across the London bridge, and stumbled on the Design Museum. Which I loved.

Galleries and museums have a lot of competition here – so many to visit, tonnes of ‘’special exhibitions” running, too many to even contemplate visiting in less than a month period, and even then only if you’re dedicated. But of all the galleries and museums I’ve visited so far, the Design Museum is by far my favourite, and is the first I’m considering buying membership to, so I can go in all year for free (that’s the other thing – they’re bloody expensive to visit! Today cost £7. Which is actually quite cheap – the Dali exhibition I went to was £14, and the Shakespeare one was £11. That’s a small fortune here).

As I said – I’m happy, and relaxed. Everything seems to fit so well here. From the second day I’ve felt as though this is home. I love my flat (although it’s very stark right now, which doesn’t suit my personality, but a few visits to the bric-a-brac markets will fix that!) My neighbourhood is a breath-taking mish mash of Indian curry houses, Sari fashion stores, traditional English pubs, upper market restaurants and ‘workers lunch bars’, bookshops accommodating every known language and churches belonging to nearly every religion I’m aware of.

So yes, I’m happy, I’m settling well and I can’t wait to have visitors!

How do I describe the last 24 hours?

How do I make you understand how overwhelmed I feel at the moment?

I’m sitting in KL airport, only half way through my 6-hour stopover. I haven’t slept properly in days, and there are moments when I think I’m hallucinating just from sheer tiredness.

The last day in Perth was pretty surreal. Saying goodbyes to friends and family, but still not taking anything seriously. Which I now kind of regret.

Should I have cried at the airport? I didn’t. I still feel this strange limbo of emotion, running the breadth of sadness, through to excitement and back to disbelief.

Actually – that’s a great word for how I feel at this moment – “disbelief”.

Anyhoo, back to the immediate setting laid out before me. KL airport is architecturally interesting, although a little too modern and minimalist for my tastes. But I really like the way it’s been designed so you move through the space in a circular way, whilst actually being in a structure that’s the shape of a cross.

There are young looking boys wearing uniforms and carrying guns, which whilst it’s expected, is still a shock to see. I had to catch a mini-train from one terminal to this one, and the whole way I was crowded against this 11 year old looking police officer, and his gun was so distastefully close to me, I wanted to move backwards so I wouldn’t be so close. I stopped myself because it would have been too obvious and rude, but I think he knew how I felt because he ended up switching position so I was further away from the gun.

Probably the best bit about the airport (other than the stores I can’t afford – Coach, Hermes, Versace, Harrods…) is that there is wireless network all through the airport, so I can play with my trusty Babar (that’s the name of my Mac. For all you Babar fans, you will have a giggle to yourselves when I tell you my USB thumb drive thing-a-mee is called Isabelle).

I’m plugged into my itunes, listening to The Frames, whilst lots of well dressed women click through the marble floored halls, and business men pull their Samsonite trolleys toward departure gates.

And I sit here. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

I can’t read anymore, I need a break from Scrubs (my TV series of choice to watch during my journey) and if I have another coffee at the Starbucks (which is as “eww” as I imagined it to be) I’ll end up jittering my way through the next 15 hours.

I’m still waiting.

Funny how much an anticlimax it is to sit around and wait in the middle of an adventure. The momentum fades.

Okay – I think this disjointed nonsense needs to stop for a while. Plus, I just noticed that I’m sub-consciously dancing (you know – the sitting down side to side movement with a bit of foot tapping thrown in for good measure), which explains why the nicely dressed women are starting to look at me funny.

Next post will be from the UK. Eeek!

Ahhh… A sigh of relief.

It’s so close!

I cried this morning because I couldn’t decide what clothes to wear for my last day of work. I actually sobbed for about 10 minutes. I know it’s not about the clothes, but the closure… and eventually the sobbing turned into giggling. And I think the significance of the day melted with the tears, and I managed to start coping!

Last night I was taken on a hugely decadent and food-orgy-fest of a meal – an eleven course degustation at Jacksons (dubbed The Big Dego), with three surprise courses thrown in, and a different wine to match each course.

My clothes are significantly tighter today.

The food was magnificent – tastes and combinations you couldn’t even imagine. The course were literally bite-size, which meant you were able to keep going through all the courses. Except the rich chocolate tart, which some of us only managed to eat half of (and I swear gave me incredibly vivid and haunting dreams).

I was spoilt beyond belief!

So here I am – my last day of work. I have a new hair cut (it’s curly and short and red – I’ll post pictures tomorrow). I have no piles of work or outstanding lists. I have a surprise work-drinks ahead of me.

I have only two and half days left in Perth.

I have the jitters.