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Chris and Emily

166 Blog Entries
1 Trip
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Trips:

Europe 2009

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Anzac day at Westminster Abbey.

London, United Kingdom

Ahhh, Anzac day. A day of remembering what the diggers did for us and of how blessed we are to be a) Australian and b) be living in such an amazing, free country. We always like to celebrate this day back home and the fact that we are half a world away didn't stop us doing so today. We hopped up early and ran from our dodgy backers to Westminster Abbey where we were attending an Anzac day ceremony with Chris' old friend Bron and another friend of hers named Adam. We'd heard that free tickets were being given out for today’s service; we’d jumped online to secure some but had missed out on seating tickets and instead been allocated standing tickets. No matter, we were happy to be going along to celebrate and remember Australia’s history in such an amazing, beautiful Abbey. Now, my dad has always called me Big ears as I seem to have this amazing knack of hearing conversations etc a mile away and for once my super human ability came in handy as I heard an usher saying "These seats are free, standing guests may sit in them if they wish" Yes please! So I grabbed Chris' hand and made a mad dash to the small row that was free, score! The ceremony was lovely, so many ex pats filled the Abbey and there were so many representatives from around the world, Australians, British, New Zealanders, Turkish, it was lovely. Lots of flag bearers, bugle playing, hymns, bible readings and laying of wreaths on the grave of the unknown soldier. It was moving and I admit I had a tear or two. The Abbey was also amazing. It normally cost 12 pounds per person to get in, so Chris and I were taking as much in as we could during the service to save ourselves going back, another good score for the day! The Abbey has amazing stained glass motives and stories built into the glass, amazing statues and pillars and beautiful ceilings. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos due to the service; we just had to ‘Kodak moment’ the place in our minds. After the service we all piled out side where we decided to honour the diggers in the only way Australians know how. With a beer. We trudged off in search for a pub with some sun and eventually after much trudging and almost forming blisters we came to the pub of choice. I don’t know its name but it had a great view over Westminster and was situated right on the Thames. Very nice. We consumed a few beers, a few pimms and a few ciders and wrapped ourselves in the supplied blankets as we did so. I thought it was showing a lot of forward thinking for this pub to have blankets for the taking (and returning, though I wonder how many people just happen to ‘accidently’ forget to return them...) They were lovely and warm and Chris and I must have looked like right old nannas tucked up under ours while sitting outside. Eventually it came time in the day for us all to part our separate ways and Chris and I head towards Shakespeare Globe to see if they happened to have any spare tickets available for the nights showing of Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately they didn’t, so instead we head to the Tate Museum of Modern Art where we saw quite a few of Picasso’s paintings. I freely admit that I stood in front of his paintings for some time, taking it in and trying to understand what the big deal was about. The paintings are good and all and I understand that Picasso paved the way for many in his field of art, but it just doesn’t do it for me. In a way it looks as if a kinder kid has gone in and tried to draw a picture of their mum. None the less, we spent quite a bit of time in there checking his stuff out. After this and deciding we were both tired and hungry we head for our dodgy backers. We’d stopped at the supermarket for a few supplies and were making our way ‘home’ when 2 slightly intoxicated young women jumped out in front of us and began talking all at once. Between the two of them Chris and I were able to make out that: They were in London on a girls weekend, that they’ve been out drinking all day, should have gone back to their hotel to get cleaned up first but didn’t and now were in this pub listening to this really AWESOME (there words, not ours) singer who was really upset (there words again) as no one was in the pub listening to his music and the bar man had told them that if they could get some more people in then he’d give us free shots with any drink brought. Well, we’d hate to see these poor girls beg for nothing, so in we went for a drink and shot. The guitarist wasn’t fantastic I must say, but in the same sense he wasn’t all that bad either, none the less we cheered for him loudly and clapped till our hands hurt. The group of girls we’d met and been pulled in by were also very nice, loud, lovely and friendly and we had a nice time talking to them until we made an excuse about our shopping needing to be put away and got out of there. It was a random, fun thing to have happen at the end of a full, fun filled day!



permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 25, 2009 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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London again

London, United Kingdom

We're baaaaack! We left Bristol at lunch time and head back to the big smoke, arriving at around 2pm. We love the train, but sadly this time there were no more happy holiday makers willing to buy us free booze. Can't have it all I guess *sigh* Actually, I think they remembered us from last time and had assigned us special seats.... this time we were in the 'quiet carriage' where you had to whisper and the mere opening of a chip packet felt like a sin as it was breaking the cone of silence that was enveloping the carriage...

Anyhow, we checked into the worst backpackers known to man... alright, slight exageration perhaps... it's not the WORST but I do think it's close too it, I certainly won't be back again nor will I ever recommend the place to anyone I like (but I could drop it's name to those I don't... ;) Kidding!) We're in a dorm room of 9. We arrived, took ages to check in as staff were slow and incompetant. Finally checked in, were given our bedding to take with us, upon finding our room found that there was only 1 bed available, went back told staff of this, they came down and had a look and said "Ummmm, it should be okay, just make up this bed and if the person comes back and wants there bed back tell them to come see reception" HUH?! We did try to point out that this was not really a good solution but staff assured us that they had looked at the bookings and it should be free... right... okay...

So, we made the beds up and then went to pop our valuables away in our locker where we found someones dirty sheets... hmm, not nice. We had to pay for a locker (per night value too, not just a one off fee) and upon removing the dirty sheets, popping our bags in the locker and closing it we found it didn't bloody lock. Right, okay. Back to staff. They had the "back in 10 mins" sign up once more, I ignored this and lined up and just talked over the lady that was telling me that they were 'closed' (rude I know, but I was so so so over it!!) Was told by an older man "I'll fix it in 5 minutes, just wait here" Right. Okay. We waited and true to his word, 7 minutes later he arrived saying he'd 'fixed' the problem, we thanked him and then head down to the room to grab a few things.. only to find that yes the locker did lock now, but it also wouldn't bloody open. Unimpressed. We were over it though, we'd been stuffing about with the back and forths of trying to get our accomm. sorted for over an hour now so we left, headed towards the Portobella Markets which stated it was open 7am-7pm. I love a good market so I was quite excited about heading here, especially as we had 2 hours to wander along and discover it at a leisurely pace... and we did find it, packing up at 5.15pm. I felt so ripped off! We had a bit of a look at the stalls that were still a little displayed as they packed up before deciding "you know what? We're tired, we're getting cold, we want to sit down and we want to eat" So we head back towards the silly backers, then realised we'd forgotten to look for the book store from the "Notting Hill" film that I love so much. Infact, when we consulted the guide book it stated that we'd walked right past it while at the crumbling markets. Oh well. Next time (if there is one!)

We had a half decent pub meal, another cider and then back to the backers to try and find some cups for our hot drinks (rare as hens teeth here!) and hopped on the p.c to blog etc etc. Will head back to the room soon (in common room at mo, more like a pub here tho, wine and beer everywhere!) and TRY not to wake the jet lagged room mates as we climb a gazillion small ladder steps to our bunks that are high above the clouds... I'm sorry to say that the excitement of backpackers and share dorms is long gone on me, I'm getting old, enjoy my own space and want to be left alone, not have young party animal room mates keeping me up. I am officialy a grumpy old woman tonight! :)

permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 24, 2009 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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Quick trip to bristol and hours in a "aussie" pub

Bristol, United Kingdom

Don't expect much from this entry for one thing this is Chris writing and I am not as gifted with spinning a yarn as Em, secondly there isn't much to write about we didn't do much today we just jumped on the bus and went to a little town (or suburb as we call it) called Westbury. We went there once before to use the internet joint there but this time Em dragged me back there as she had spotted a charity shop with a 2 books for 1.50 pounds, so needless to say we are now dragging two more chicklit books around the country with us!

After Westbury we got a bus into the city centre and walked around looking at a lot of expensive shops resisting the urge to buy any more clothing items (think we have enough now!) Instead we picked up another Lonley Planet book to cover the countries we were missing. I have given up on not looking like a tourist anymore and excepted that I am a photo taking, acent speaking, map reading, guidebook checking, fau'par making tourist! It's just too hard to navigate without checking the map from time to time or to take photos without looking like your taking photos, every now and again you need to have a photo with you in it as proof that you were there at least and that means posing like... a tourist. Anyway I digress from the topic of todays activities, after the guidebook purchase we headed towards a the local Walkabout pub, they are a chain of pretty cliche pubs with an Aussie theme, they don't serve any good Aussie beers though but they are pretty cheap, have lots of screens and most important free wireless, also their venues are always pretty big so if you go there during the day you can usually get some space. So in the "Aussie" pub we spend about 3 hours drinking cider from sweden and doing stuff on the net very exciting!!

After a bus ride home and a quick pack of our bags for tomorrows trip back to London we were picked up by Jen and went to Martin's for dinner, he whipped up Nachos (to make up for the famous Nacho incident mentioned in a previous entry) followed by chilli very yummy.

Day done!

  • What Chris failed to enter was a fantastic stumble he made today up the back door steps, which are made of stone. It was very funny for ME, not so for him. I was having a wee rest upstairs with the window open, the day, despite it not being much, had wiped me out (I'm still recovering from the dreaded head cold) so, anyhow, I was upstairs just relaxing with the window open when I heard this "whump" noise. I then heard Ann calling out "OH JEFF, are you alright?" Now,I don't know who Jeff is but I knew, just KNEW that this noise, very familiar of someone falling up or down the stairs, would be Chris, and sure enough I heard a strained voice call out to Ann "Yep, fine, I'm fine!" Now, I know Chris well enough now to know the different tones of his voice and I knew he wasn't fine like he was making out, rather he was in a bit of pain. I thought I could do it, I really did, I THOUGHT I could have all my giggles out by the time he hobbled up the stairs, but I didn't and couldn't. Just seeing him stumble through the door amitting a few choice words made me giggle louder and harder and then he got a tad annoyed at me for laughing. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I can't help but giggle or laugh when there's an injury of some sort. It's a sick habit I have, but one that I've had for as long as I can remember, I think it's just a nervous thing, I don't think it's neccessarily that funny but I'll giggle away. Oh well. I'm not 100% sure why Chris was called Jeff, I thought I had misheard but after his long list of expletives, the rolling around on the bed clutching his knees (which for the record are both skinned and red and one was actually quite abit swallon) Chris sat up and asked "Did she call me Jeff?!" So we knew we'd both heard correctly. Where there are stairs Chris is guareenteed to go up or down them, but not always on his feet... in the time I've known Chris 97% of all his injuries have resulted from a set of stairs, which made his trip today even more hilarious for me. Anyway, that sadly was the funniest part of my day. Em


    • permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 23, 2009 from Bristol, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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    Dang head cold!

    Bristol, United Kingdom

    Sick is not what you want to be when you’re travelling, but the colds and head flu that Chris and I have been trying so desperately to beat and kick has finally caught up with us and knocked us down. Bugger it. I guess it was inevitable really. We’ve constantly been in the cold, wet, windy weather and then back into the warm cars, houses etc, then back out in the chill again, and the weather swinging from one extreme to the other hasn’t helped either. Oh well. I thought that I had been dodging in quite well and had been caring for Chris who had been suffering quite badly, but I’m 99.9% sure that I fully caught the dreaded cold when he so lovingly and violently sneezed directly into my face. I can tell you he had to care for himself there for awhile, I wasn’t so impressed. Ah, love. Despite feeling as if our eyes are falling out of our heads, noses dripping like taps and having no ability to swallow without feeling like there’s a fire raging in our throats we had an okay day lying in bed watching game shows (my fave over here in the UK is Word Play) and copious amounts of UK news. We now feel intelligent and informed AND sick! On another note, our standing tickets for the Anzac day ceremony in Westminster Abby arrived today. We’re really looking forward to this day and to catching up with Bronwyn who we haven’t seen in a very long time! We did manage to crawl out of bed and witness a hot air balloon floating over the house in the late afternoon before crashing back into bed.

    Hot air balloon from our bedroom window.

    A few observations, realizations and ponderings of the UK

    • With a massive lack of the glorious, slightly addictive substance of Milo here in the UK it has been discovered that Ovaltine makes for a reasonable substitute, though, it in no way replaces the golden, revered Milo.

    • On the same note, with the ever popular breakfast spread Vegemite being as rare as hens teeth here in the UK, it has been temporarily replaced with its cousin Marmite. We shall consume large amounts of Vegemite upon our return to make up for our trespasses.

    • I think, if you can of course, it would be nice to retire to the UK. Old Betsey’s get everything for free once they’re over 60! Free prescriptions, free TV (though we get that too) free bus passes… free lotsa things!

    • Heterosexual men here drink cider (aka Zi-der) This is a rare oddity in Australia.

    • The UK population appears to be well and truly addicted to TV soaps, practically Australian ones. Life revolves around the TV guide. Seriously.

    • In some aspects, the UK seems to be stuck in the 50s -70s era. Some of the housing, décor, clothing, and hair cuts... Let’s just say that some it needs updating.


    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 22, 2009 from Bristol, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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    Clevedon Jetty

    Clevedon, United Kingdom

    Ann and Brian kindly offered to take us out for the day to see the small village of Clevedon. This was a lovely little place situated on the Bristol Channel with a lovely old jetty that was built in August 1868. It was lovely to walk along the pier, see all the locals fishing and read just some of the 10, 000 plaques that are situated along the planks. You can buy plaques, inscribed with what ever you wish and have them displayed along the sides and floor boards of the jetty. There were sad ones, happy ones, celebratory ones, all sorts, but the ones that made me really giggle are in the photos below.

    One of my favourite plaques at Clevedon Jetty

    Another of my favourite Clevedon Jetty plaques

    I found them very amusing! We took a nice little walk along the sea side and I was amused to a degree to see that the beaches in England are full of pebbles, just like you see in all the pictures and films. It was a very chilly day, and yet I saw quite a few families taking young children down to the ‘beach’ with a bucket and spade to play and swim. I thought they were slightly mad, but it seemed to be the norm here.

    Scenic shot of Clevedon

    Some of the homes near Clevedon Jetty

    We stopped in at a sweet little pub for a quick lunch where I got chefs ‘special’ of chicken and leek pie, and special it was. My pie arrived with a puff pastry triangle sitting on top of my chicken and leek filling. You had to put your own filling into the pastry... hmm, special indeed! Home again where we spent the arvo trying to beat the colds that were making us sniff and sneeze all day.



    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 21, 2009 from Clevedon, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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    Photos

    Bristol, United Kingdom

    Just a quick note to say we have 109 photos uploaded to this site so far, and most of them are not linked in the blog. Hit the photos link above to browse through them :)

    Cheers n Beers

    Chris

    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 20, 2009 from Bristol, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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    Mall once more

    Bristol, United Kingdom

    Well, despite the fact that we weren’t huge fans of the mall Chris and I trooped back today to attempt it once more. Not completely sure where our sanity has gone, I think our on coming colds have devoured any common sense. It all fairness though (that’s quite a popular saying here in Bristol) we did manage to find a few decent items of clothing that we were lacking, and it was far less busy as, thankfully, school had resumed again. Today, instead of dodging prams and young children we just had to walk slowly behind the old folk who were out for a bit of a stroll. We had made the offer of making dinner tonight, Chris’ famous lasagna, and with the amount of love and concentration that went into making it, it was a very successful meal.



    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 20, 2009 from Bristol, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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    Sunday roast

    Bristol, United Kingdom

    Today is Sunday, and we know now what that means… yummy Sunday Roast! A typical English tradition and such a delicious one! A quiet day consisting of good company, a good laugh and a great roast. Lovely. Not much else to report!

    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 19, 2009 from Bristol, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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    The mall (rhymes with Pal)

    Bristol, United Kingdom

    A quiet, relaxing day today which was lovely! Slight sleep in followed by a trip to the local “Mall” (not pronounced mall like we’d say, rather rhyme it with pal, mal...) and it was a huge shopping complex! We think the shopping centers in Melbourne or Sydney are big but we’re sadly mistaken! The shopping complex’s here are huge!! We spent 2.5 hours there and only saw a very small corner of the complex. In this time we hunted for a new pair of pants for myself, which I have to say, was hell! Trying to convert the sizes, trying everything on, converting the currency so I knew how much I was spending… argh! In the end I grabbed an ok pair off a sale rack just so I could get the hell out! It was so nice to get home so that we could just relax, have a nice lunch, work on CVs, nap, work out a rough itinerary, watch the rugby (Wales won for the record) and read. Ahh, lovely!

    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 18, 2009 from Bristol, United Kingdom
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    Hot Fuzz Tour (Wells)

    Wells, United Kingdom

    Those of you who have seen the film ‘Hot Fuzz’ may recognize some of the photos below as being the landscape for the shoot out scene at the end of this film.

    Town square where Hot Fuzz was filmed. This was where the last shoot out happens.

    Wells is a lovely little village full of cobbled streets, green rolling hills and sweet little cottages. It also boasts an awesome, massive cathedral which is as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside.

    Wells Cathedral

    The very very old, very correct clock of Wells Cathedral, that still has it's tick

    As the weather was truly shite today (bloody bloody cold and constant, light but drenching rain) we spent the majority of our day on a tour of the cathedral. It was lovely! We had this sweet old guide, who you just knew loved her little job and could talk the leg off a wooden chair given half the chance. She took us all around the Cathedral telling us stories, showing us ‘hidden’ statues and filling us in on all the history, it truly is an amazing place! She was saying that back in the day when the steeple was being raised it caused the Cathedral to begin to sink. To save the cathedral (and their heads I imagine) they brought in a ‘top’ architect who designed scissor arches, this would support and even out the weight of the cathedral and save it from disrepair, but these scissor arches are the only ones that can be found in all of Europe. There is also an 800 year old clock. To first look at it appears very confusing, but once it is explained to you its very simple. It has 24 dots in a circle representing the 24 hours of the day, the month of the year and then, the lunar calendar. It also has a little figurine that clicks its heels on a bell X amount of times to signal the time of the day and as this happens four little jousting men on horses ride about in circles and two are knocked backwards off their horses as they go around. Far more entertaining than Hobart’s ‘Diddle diddle’ clock I have to say (as much as I do love the Hobart clock believe me) We then had a quick look around the Bishops Castle which has a real moat around it and trained swans who ring a bell for their meals.

    The Bishops house, complete with Moat.

    Moat around the Bishops palace(?!)

    It was cold, it was wet and to warm ourselves we stopped for a quick hot drink before a quick stop at a typical English sweet shop and then onto “Thatcher Cider Brewery” I have to say, cider is my new drink and to arrive at the brewery was a little exciting for me. I’ve found that to order cider like a local you have to pronounce it as Zi-der, but then they’ll bombard you with questions like “Well, do you want a cloudy one or a clear one? Would you like a dry one, a medium one, a heritage one or a sweet one?” and then I panic and just pick any random one and my cover of a ‘zi-der’ local is blown. Oh well. As it is, any of the ciders are nice (including the pear zi-der) so it doesn’t really matter which one you get in the end. Anyhow, it was then back to Martins for a lovely warm, home cooked risotto, a few glasses of cider and some relaxing TV viewing.


    permalink written by  Chris and Emily on April 17, 2009 from Wells, United Kingdom
    from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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