New Friends and Numbers

Firstly – thanks to the 3 of you who posted comments in response to me request in my last blog. Although you were the 3 that I knew anyway… *coughs* ah well… it’s all good. Hi!

So, a couple of days ago (they’re flying by so fast by the way, its crazy) I went down to Kensington to meet one of the girls that’s going to be on my Contiki tour – not a bad idea to get to know some people before I guess. Make it a little less awkward when all 30 or so of us are all in one room together… anyway, so initially the plan was to meet Helen at Kensington station after catching the train there… that was until I actually googled Kensington to see where it was and found that there are actually 25 Kensingtons in the UK. And I panicked a bit – so Helen was nice enough to come into town and meet me at Waterloo station and take me back to her town/s. She lives in one and works in the next – I mean, they’re all almost virtually part of London. Not quite but almost. Very nice little towns, bustling shopping areas and restaraunts boutique shops and department stores. All very clean and neat…

Anyway so we walked for a while, and then we walked some more, and a bit more… I saw some amazing English countryside that could have been right out of the TV. In fact apparently quite often the people that film the TV series the Bill do it in that area. Pretty cool. Walked along some amazing scenery – river banks, Kew Gardens, some other place that I don’t remember, but feel like I maybe should… anyway… really really nice… Then we went had had dine in Pizza Hut for the first time in I can’t remember how long. SO GOOD. The pizza was perfect, and then ALL YOU CAN EAT ICECREAM! Awesome… I haven’t had that in I can’t remember how long either… it was great… then we walked some more, which is probably a good thing, I needed to walk it off… I was so full. Then we went to a pub and had a couple of drinks… all the while talking about anything and everything. I can see that I will get along with Helen very well, I think if there’s anything that I want to get out of the tour (Apart from awesome photos etc) is some life-long friends. I think I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again – if you’re spending 40 something days with someone, you’re either going to love them or hate them… so yeah… it’s looking good.

Anyway, while I was at the pub, I realized that my mobile phone had dropped out of my pocket at some point in my travels. Oh well… shit happens… it was a good phone, but I’m not overly fussed. So the next day one of my tasks was to get another phone etc, so I did this in an interesting way – I firstly got the same deal on the sim card I had before with the cheap overseas calls 10 Pounds, then I got a mobile phone on a prepaid thingy on a different network, cause the first one is no good in the rest of Europe. So I now have 2 numbers in Europe – the one I’ll use the most will not be the one that I’ve previously posted – it will be 07932227356 which 1. Is easier to remember, and 2. Is the sim that’s in my phone and I can’t be bothered changing them…

If anyone wants to call me, give me warning and I’ll swap sims.

So… anyway, the next day I decided to go for a walk and get my ticket for my weekend trip up to Burnham-on-Crouch. Birthplace of Dad, and where a couple of his cousins still live. So once that was organized at Liverpool station, I decided to walk back for a while, stopping once to purchase a hard covered sketch book, and then to get a coffee and a blueberry muffin… I got my sketchbook out and before I knew it I was drawing… not bad for someone a bit rusty, I thought… so I kept walking and eventually found the ruins of the old London Wall… Amazing… it’s the oldest built thing so far that I’ve seen with some parts dating back to 200AD. So I sat down and sketched that too, and then another part… was quite a nice way to kill an afternoon, in fact, being a nice day today as well, i'm thinking I might do something similar. Might head down to the Museum and have a look around there.

Anyway, last night I bumped into a couple of sisters from Gawler near Adelaide and we ended up going out for a few drinks and a dance with a guy from Brisbane. Really good night, probably the longest night out I’ve had in a while – Got in at about 4am this morning (I’ve had 3 hours sleep! Yay) to find some wanker sleeping in my bed. He’d actually moved all my stuff off and got new sheets and everything when there was a spare bottom bunk right next to it with nothing on it… I mean, for goodness sakes, use your brain man… so I had a bit of a go at him, and after getting new sheets for the bed that I had to sleep in, got to sleep at about 4.45. Nice.

Anyway, that’s my excitement so far for the last few days – I’ll try to keep posting more regular… Talk to you soon!



You can only be young once. But you can always be immature. - Dave Barry