Had a bit of a lie-in today which was nice – a slow morning and before I knew it, it was time to head out to Bank station to catch up for lunch with an old colleague of mine who now lives in London. It was good to catch up, and nice to see the nearby Leadenhall Market, and the ‘inside-out’ Lloyds of London building.
Leadenhall MarketInside Leadenhall Market
Boring tube trivia – I thought Leicester Square and Covent Garden were close together. Today I bothered to count, and from doors closing one station to opening at the next, was just on 30 seconds. I swear there are single stations that have longer walkways than that just to get from one platform to another.
One thing about Leicester Square – it has great buskers! There’s a defined ‘busking spot’ with amazing acoustics – this evening there was a seriously committed busker – who brought his harp along. Sounded amazing.
We took a wander back up Oxford Street the ‘fat peoples shop’ from a few days ago – called Jacamo. We each bought a shirt, so that counts as a successful trip. Stopping for ice-cream at Piccadilly Circus (as you do) we heard this chanting, singing … and what looked all the support of the Swiss team playing football that night marched past , singing, dancing, chanting, having a whale of a time. It was quite a sight (and a sound!).
The plan after that was to sit down and write out today’s blog … but an afternoon nap won out in the end… and suddenly it was already time to head out to see Wicked again. We’ve both seen it I think 5 or 6 times, and now across three continents. As always, it was an amazing show – and the lady playing Elphaba (the green one) had such an incredible voice, she hardly needed a microphone. It was easy to get to, just outside the (surprisingly huge!) Victoria station. Almost next door is the venue for Billy Elliot, so that was handy to know for Thursday.
After the show it was back on the tube to Leicester square (even late into the night you only have to wait a few minutes for a train – Sydney take note!) and a delicious dinner of pizza and delicious kebab.
No sleep in tomorrow – time for a canal-boat ride!
Today started nice and early, a there was much to do. After a few weeks travelling together, it was time for 5 of our party to break off and head for horizons anew.
They’re all off to Paris, so we accompanied them all the to lovely King’s Cross St. Pancras station so they could catch the Eurostar to their new destination.
Trip plan to get to King’s Cross St.Pancras
It was a bit of a change for us too – a change of hotel. So we also had to check out of the shoebox, but luckily they were happy to store our bags for a while, everyone else had to drag theirs down the street and take them on the tube. I wasn’t sure how much fun that was going to be for them, manhandling big suitcases down stairs and escalators to squeeze on to the tube during peak hour … but when we got there, there was hardly anyone on the train at all so it was a very uneventful trip. At the King’s Cross end it was all very straightforward, looking like it was built with suitcase-lugging passengers in mind as there were no steps involved. With breakfast done and dusted it was time to say our goodbyes … and suddenly it was just the two of us. We took a quick wander around the station to take in the sights, including the statue of poet John Betjeman, who was almost single-handedly responsible for saving the station when it was in danger of being demolished in the sixties.
With just the two of us, a whole train network stretching out before us, and sufficiently-charged Oyster cards … what to do? On a whim we chose Hyde Park Corner station. Good choice! The sun was shining, the paths were shaded and the trees were green. Actually, pretty much everything here is relentlessly, gloriously, unapologetically green.
Within a minute of stepping out of the tube station, we heard the clip-clop of horses hooves … and right in front us is a contingent of the Blues and Royals regiment, on horseback. (Yep I had to google it to find that out…)
We had a great wander up and down Hyde Park – I gotta say it’s great fun watching the big swans coming in to land on the Serpentine – how they manage to turn big skid into a graceful landing is beyond me, but graceful it definitely is. And of course the little buggers refused to do it on cue so I could video it. Luckily plenty of other people have – this video has a bonus near-miss and ensuing argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4nki3lW3mY
I could’ve watched the swans, and the ducks, and all the other birds, for ages. In fact, we did – putting a cafe at the waters edge was a brilliant idea, and a good time for a coffee. We walked on, up and over the (lovely, of course) bridge into Kensington gardens. Plenty to see (including squirrels), and a just a nice refreshing walk in the open air with not-quite-too-hot sunshine as well. Just lovely.
At the end of Kensington garden we look through hedge and did a bit of a double-take as we could just make our dozens and dozens of tiny headstones in the garden of one of the small buildings in the Gardens… Fortunately (in a way) we were able to see that it was just for pets (unless somone’s child was a ‘loving companion of 7 years’ called Bijou!).
After viewing the loving ‘Italian Gardens’ – built by Albert just because he fancied Victoria, now there’s one hell of a present, we pressed on, found the nearest tube station (Lancaster Gate) and made our way back our original hotel so we could retrieve our bags, and move on.
We took our bags for a nice walk down the road for a few minutes, down to Leicester Square to our new hotel. Things got off to an excellent start when the fellow at reception suggested that we may be a bit cramped in the room we had booked (clearly he had no idea about the hotel we’d just come from!), so voila, free room upgrade! And what a room it is – almost embarrassingly spacious compared to the last one, it’s wonderful, directly overlooking M&M world with a bit of a view down Leicester Square. Luckily it has extremely effective double-glazing as it’s a noisy end of town, with construction on one side, buskers on the other, and people everywhere else – but you can’t hear a peep inside.
So this is some kind of mini-bar miracle…!
Tonight’s show was Kinky Boots – it was amazing! It was interesting to see how much it had changed compared to the broadway version we saw in 2013. Some parts had been cut, some songs had been lengthened and changed … pretty much all for the better, I enjoyed this version a bit more than the broadway one. Just like last time, there was a full-theatre standing ovation, and again just like last time, Cyndi Lauper was rumoured to be in the house, but I didn’t see her anywhere. Anyway, so glad we had the chance to see the show again.
Post-show dinner was at another branch of Muriel’s – and just as delicious as last night’s meal.
So, Phase 2 of our London adventure is off to a promising start!
The last day we’re all together (for now) London, United Kingdom
London, United Kingdom
It’s not our last day in London, but it’s the last day in London that we’re all together. After a relatively slow morning we went back to one of the casino’s we’d visited earlier, where I witnessed a peculiar phenomenon I’d never seen before. There were a number of people frantically tapping on and/or rubbing the screen every time they had a spin. I believe it’s meant to give good luck, or totally convinces these non-existent ‘reels’ on the screen to actually stop when you top on the screen in the right spot. Who knows, but it was a bit odd to witness. It’s the homeopathy of gambling – so much effort involved but it makes absolutely zero difference to the outcome. We’ll have to try it in Sydney and see if we can get it to catch on. Maybe we can sell our secret to the gullible for zillions of dollars (heck it works for homeopathy, right?!)
We went to ‘Costa coffee’ – the scourge of all London coffee-snobs, I believe. It’s basically like the lovechild of Starbucks and Gloria Jeans.
In the afternoon Perry had an afternoon nap and I went out for a wander around the streets and a bit of a shopping mission. In my travels I saw (for the millionth time) tons of beautiful old buildings… in the end I gave up taking photos of them just go to Google Street View and choose Regent St London and you’ll have the same kind of view that I did. Anyway, it’s beautiful, and always makes me wonder who has visited these buildings in the years gone by. Who has walked these same streets. Like, last night’s theatre for Bend it like Beckham, Noel Coward debuted some of his plays there, and also acted in them … there’s so much history it can just boggle the mind.
The Apple Store on Regent Street*snigger*
I also walked past homeless people, as one does in any large city. However when he asked “got any spare change any spare change, I gave my usual “sorry mate” … but was then quite surprised by the terribly (dare I say) English reply “Oh that’s ok not to worry have a lovely afternoon”. I had to chuckle to myself (which does make me sound awfully heartless, I know).
My shopping mission was accomplished – I bought a cheap GPS for when we pick up the car next week when we leave London. I wasn’t about to pay £15+ a day to hire one from the rental company. Crazy.
On a whim yesterday we bought tickets to an event at the “London Wonderground”. As far as I can tell, London Wonderground is a little bit Festival of Sydney in a pop-up event space at Southbank on the Thames. After a lovely jug of Pimms (I can see why it’s the unofficial English drink of Summer – so lovely!!) it was time for the show.
London Wonderground
The show we saw was called ‘Briefs’, taking place in the ‘Paradiso’ Speigeltent. Very nice. Briefs is basically a bunch of Australian gentlemen (yes we travelled half way around to world to go see some Australians), who put on a kind of drag / cirque / burlesque show. It was really impressive – amazing acrobatic skills, bloody funny, and of course the performers were not terribly difficult on the eye either.
Plans didn’t exactly work out for a last dinner all together, so we had a terrific dinner with Steve & Michael at Muriel’s, where we had breakfast a few days ago. Very tasty, and finished with the largest slice of carrot cake that I have ever seen. But it has carrot in it, so it’s a health food. 🙂
You’re not-at-all terrible, Muriel!
Tomorrow we farewell our other 5 friends as they leave London and head off on their own adventures to Paris / Berlin / Copenhagen / Ho Chi Minh etc. We’ll be the ones running down the train platform as they leave on the Eurostar, tearfully waving our handkerchiefs like they do in the movies. Or something like that anyway.
We’ll also be leaving our little Soho neighbourhood, to try a different hotel a whole couple of blocks away, closer to Leicester Square. It’s been a great little neighbourhood, and not far away to return to (for the next week at least).
Today we enjoyed a bit of a sleep-in, gathering at 10:00 for breakfast at one of the many many ‘Wetherspoon’ pubs, for a cold breakfast that arrived after everyone else. At least they had coffee.
After the last two full on days this one was a little more relaxed, I don’t think anyone had any plans to try and walk over 10 kms like we had in the past two days. Over to Covent Garden we all wandered, to check out the markets, shop and stalls. The installation of 100,000 balloons is an amazing sight, simple but so clever.
Our next mission was to visit famous cake shop ‘Crumbs and Doilies’ – so we all piled on tot he tube at Leicester Square – I nearly had my arms chopped off by the closing doors but survived unscathed for our short journey.
Upon finding the cake shop (1 Kingley St is different to 1 Kingley Court, though the GPS would have you believe otherwise), I enjoyed an excellent ‘Mojito’ cupcake. Noice!
Lunch was back at ‘The Spice of Life’ pub where had dinner just after we arrived, and once again it was good tasty food.
We all went and checked out the nearby ‘Hippodrome’ casino – quite different to what you’d expect in an Australian casino as there were lots of roulette tables and not that many poker machines. But since Australia has 10% of the worlds poker machines (Which is a kind of horrifying thought) maybe it’s not such a surprise. The Casino itself was in a converted cinema or theatre – I guess that’s better than just knocking the place down. There a ton of historical info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippodrome,_London
Then it was time for a nanna-nap… yes all this holidaying can be hard work… and we needed all our energy to travel a whole 2 tube stations down to Embankment, to the Playhouse Theatre, to see a production of 1984.
Now I’m no theatre critic, I’m finding it hard to describe what I saw. All I can keep thinking is “Holy crap that was so intense!”. It started off somewhat confusingly… I spent at least a good half hour or more trying to work out what is going on, unsure if the production was too clever to me, or too clever for its own good. It was hard to follow – but I guess all the disorientation, the repetition of scenes and not being sure what was present, past or future – was their way of showing how the character of Winston felt, or at least was meant to feel. Even if the story wasn’t making a lick of sense, the lead actor was doing an absolutely brilliant job of a nervous and paranoid Winston, like a cornered rat (ok maybe not the best choice of animal).
It was very cleverly staged – the scenes where Winston thought he was finally on his own, finally away from big brother, and finally not being watched … were all actually played off stage, but relayed to massive screen above stage via a video camera. For all we know they could’ve just play the same video every night, but no, it was all done live… at least I’m pretty sure it was.
One extremely bit of effective metaphor is when he is found out and betrayed … the front part of the set is lifted away, exposing the ‘private’ room and showing the video camera that is projecting the image above the stage… as Winston’s life falls apart, so does the entire stage set. Piece by piece every bit is dismantled by gas-masked troops, destroyed bit by bit as Winston realises his life has been similarly destroyed, until there is nothing left but a completely bare stage and nothing but expanse of grey and a deflated Winston. It was all played against a background of extremely loud noises, gunfire, helicopters, electronic buzzing… designed to shock, and shock it did. However that was nothing compared with what was to come.
Room 101 was suitably horrifying. The set was just plain white curtains on three sides, but the real menace was in the nameless faceless torturers and the calmly menacing O’Brien. As the torture commences, O’Brien simply says “The fingertips”… the stage goes completely black, and the lights come up to a screaming Winston whose fingers are dripping with (fake of course) blood. His discussion with O’Brien continues a little longer and we’re wondering what horrible thing is going to happen next. All goes silent, there’s a pause. We’re all holding our breath.
“Teeth.”
The entire theatre gasped, myself included. This was visceral, intense stuff. Quite literally knuckle-biting, I looked around and saw pretty much every fellow audience member biting their knuckles as well. It was brutally uncomfortable to watch when the stage lights came up to a Winston with so much blood (and teeth) being spat – but I guess it shows the power of theatre, it was completely gripping, challenging, horrible… but definitely effective.
Surprisingly the ending isn’t quite as bleak as usual – by including the novel’s Appendix as part of the script, and I think it all hinges on a single word, where a footnote states that newspeak ‘was’ the language of the Party. We find out at the end that the cast we met at the start is mostly a kind of ‘book club’ picking over Winston’s diary, showing that the years of The Party are actually behind us – nobody uses Doublespeak anymore, but of course due to all the ‘unpersons’ and the destruction of history by the Ministry of Truth, they don’t really have a clear idea of what really happened. Indeed, they all agreed that Winston himself was just a figment of imagination and his diary was written by a number of collaborative authors trying to express an idea. So its still a pretty bleak ending that indicates what happens to those who haven’t learnt from history.
Of course in this day and age it draws a lot of parallels to contemporary culture – but I think that’s something 1984 has always done. It had me thinking of North Korea where everything is always wonderful, and closer to home, of Nauru where bad things never happen because it is illegal to talk about it. As per 1984, once you control the language, you can’t even have thoughts against the regime as you won’t have the language any more to express it.
The finally curtain call was a kind of release… a good way to realise that this bunch of people holding hands, smiling and taking a bow, are just actors, it didn’t really happen, it is just a work of fiction, and Winston still has all his teeth. It was a welcome way to break the spell.
So in short, a confronting experience, it’s hard to say ‘enjoyable’, but I can see why all the proper reviewers have been raving about it, and I’m glad we got the chance to see it, just one day before closing night.
A quick tube ride back to Leicester Square and then we were back at the hotel – we popped out to a nearby Spanish restaurant for some tasty tapas, and that was the end of that day. Only 9.5km today, it was an easy one! Not sure what’s on the agenda tomorrow, but guess you’ll hear about it in about 24 hours. Goodnight!
Sep 2 Hello, good morning, breakfast was at “Muriel’s” – it was really nice, so unfortunately we couldn’t say “you’re terrible Muriel”…
Groovy decor at Muriel’s
Today was an Oxford St Shopping mission – to keep it short here’s a quick rundowns for the places we visited:
Primark (like Supre with a men’s section) Curry’s (like Dick Smith) USC (bit like a factory outlet) Fat people’s shop (whose name I can’t remember but I am going back coz it’s the only place selling clothes I’ll fit into!) Topman (relatively cheap ‘fast fashion’). (EDIT: It was called Jacamo) G-star Raw (far too fashionable for the likes me) John Lewis (a bit like Myer) Marks and Spencer (good old Marks and Sparks – also a bit like Myer)
So what clothes did I buy? None! But it was fun way to spend a few hours walking up and down, seeing, as always, beautiful old buildings along the way, and I’ll definitely head back to the ‘fat people’s shop’ – to firstly find out what it’s name is, and to maybe even buy something.
My feet were definitely due for a break by then … so headed back to the hotel for a few minutes. Perry was having a nap, so this was a good opportunity to feed my inner nerd and check out the London Transport Museum. On my last very brief visit to London 10 years ago, it was closed… so I’ve been waiting a while to get back. It was good – not amazing, great, awesome … but quite interesting all the same, and it still has me wondering how people put up with steam trains operating underground. Naturally, I caught the tube there, even though it was within say walking distance. Good to know my Oyster (like Opal) card works.
Very early tube carriage. Not at all claustraphobic…
Once I was done with the museum I didn’t check the maps on my phone, I thought Id just wander the general direction of the hotel and get myself a bit lost it – which worked a treat as I found my way to Leicester Square and the massive M&M World, which I’ll have to pop into if only to make some more customised M&Ms for my nieces.
Fortunately when I did find my way back to the hotel it was time for them to lay on the free wine & cheese, so I caught up with all the others and had me some good dairy product.
Then it was time for our first West End show – The Book of Mormon. We saw it on Broadway two years ago, so naturally it was very exciting to see it again, especially with all our friends who hadn’t yet seen it. It was, as before, so hilarious, an absolutely brilliant show, was so glad we had the chance to see it again – and we’ll definitely be there when it opens in Australia in 2016. Just brilliant.
So all in all another big day – only walked about 15km this time, but that was enough. I’m not sure what we’re up to tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure it won’t involve as much walking lest my feet fall off 🙂
Today has been a busy one with a lot to cover, so makes yourselves comfortable and let’s get on with it. Follow along on the map (at the bottom of the page) ! We walked out of the hotel (1) into beautiful sunshine, which turned into rain even before we made it as far as breakfast. Welcome to the beautiful Melbourne, er, London weather… ready to keep you on your toes, and your sunglasses, jackets, umbrellas, and so on, and so on. But it’s all part of the fun – it’s not going to rain on our parade, even if it does literally rain on our parade.
“View” from the hotel room window
There’s not too much exciting to relate about breakfast, but I enjoyed pancakes with bacon and maple syrup – yum!
A brief wander later and before we know it we’re in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. (2) It’s certainly understated when compared to Times Square – but still more than enough neon, even during the daytime.
After that it was time to get on to some more mundane, but very important, practicalities. First up – laundry. We were all very much in need of getting some laundry done – and the folks at the hotel helped point us to the closest laundrette, which was still a 10 minute walk away. Still, that’s ten minutes of walking down streets wed probably never walked down before, so off we set, bags of dirty clothes in hand, on our washing adventure. OK so it wasn’t at all adventurous – we walked down the street and put some washing in to get done. There’s not much I can do to talk up something so unexciting. However when leaving the laundry place and walking down one laneway, we chanced across the one-legendary home of all things sartorial – Carnaby Street. (3)
Now I’m no expert of professor on the history of London by any means, but I don’t think any of our Intrepid Travellers know of its former significance. Looking at it now though, you wouldn’t know … it’s a really quite unremarkable street with a bunch of high-end high-street clothes shops having long replaced all the ‘it’ boutiques from the sixties and seventies. The closest thing I think it comes to trying to retain any of that spirit was the under-construction ‘Pretty Green’ boutique – Liam Gallagher (that’s him out of Oasis, yeah? With me? Ok good, carry on…!) ’s fashion label. Maybe there was more to it, but our Carnabetian Army marched on, not dedicated followers of it’s now-faded fashion. (Here’s some context: https://youtu.be/KXaO3zgaf5Q )
Then it was on to the other mundane but important issues of being on holidays for a while – getting a haircut. We were all getting a little fuzzy so it was time to tidy up – and having a hairdresser just a few doors down from the hotel came in very handy. For the none-too-princely sum of only £8 I now have freshly buzzed and definitely-not-fuzzy scalp once more.
With the mundane stuff out of the way, time to get into some sightseeing. So we started walking – first point of note was Drury Lane. (4) Do you know the muffin man? (The muffin man?) The muffin man! He wasn’t on Drury Lane, but we did find a nice spot to grab coffee and rest our feet for a bit until we carried on.
Next point of interest was reaching the Thames. Hundreds of historians, poets, storytellers, songwriters have written about far better than I ever could. So, like, it’s this big river, and we like walked over a bridge and that? Yeah. And stuff. It still does afford some very pretty views though.
Our travels brought us to Southbank and the London Eye. (5) I missed it on my last (very brief) London visit 10 years ago so it was great to get the opportunity to go up and around today and see the sights. Great sights, too! A comprehensive view of London and its surrounds, thought it was hard to not just keep taking photos of Big Ben (St. Stephen’s tower if you want to be pedantic) and the Houses of Parliament. It was about a 45-50 minute trip on the Eye, but really it felt like it was all over within about 10 minutes.
Having given London a good seeing-to, next stop was across the Westminster Bridge (attention nerds, this is the one the Daleks went across on telly in the 60’s), which leads us right by the houses of parliament and Big Ben. (6) It’s always nice to hear Big Ben toll for real – yep it sounds just like it does on the telly.
Walking on (and on) past many lovely old buildings brought us to St James’ park (7) , home of beautiful trees, geese, swans, ducks … and squirrels (yay!). It reminded me of our time in Central Park two years ago – squirrels are cool, end of story.
At the end of St James park is another tourist must-see: Buckingham Palace (8). What a lovely big old building, the spiritual home (kinda) of a lovely big old institution. The Union Jack was flying above the palace – I can’t remember if that means the Queen is in or not… (and the internet here is so ridiculously slow it would take me half an hour to find out), so your homework assignment today is to find out if she was in or not. Either way, she didn’t invite us in for tea which I felt was a bit rude 🙂 Surrounding the palace are lovely ornamental gates from current and former lands of the realm – Australia, Canada, West Africa … I’m sure there were others but those are the ones I saw at the time. There’s a lot of significance embodied in every detail of the palace and its decoration – from the aforementioned gates to the Victoria Memorial and everything in between. Google will be able to tell you a lot more about it than I could – and today’s entry is already plenty long enough as it is.
Having taken plenty of photos (And thanks to a random passer-by for taking a photo of all of us) it was time to move on, and I think by this time it was nearly 2:00PM so time to start thinking about lunch. We continued our walk, this time through Green Park (9) – (aptly named of course), with the aim to get back to the hotel.
On the way was passed The Ritz – and no we didn’t stop there for lunch. We settled The Cambridge, one or two doors down from the hotel, or near enough. We had delicious late (nearly 4PM) lunch, helped along by good beer and a cheerful barman. To call my lunch a chicken burger would be to do it a disservice – it was tender slices of perfectly grilled chicken on a delicious bun, piled high with salad, delicious sauce, and served with coleslaw and chips. And don’t forget, washed down with beer. Just the thing after a massive trek across London. We checked our watches / phones / FitBits and came the conclusion that in this day so far we’d covered about 14 kilometres. Good work, good work-out!
But the day is not yet over – we still had to pick up the laundry we dropped off this morning, so it was another ten minutes back to Marshall Street to pick up the washing. To cut a long story short … we thought ‘hmm, the bag feels maybe a little lighter than it did?’ for a moment but carried on walking. We got back to the hotel (another 10 minutes) to find that I had only one t-shirt, no shorts, and Perry was also missing shorts, shirts, etc … so this wasn’t the happiest moment. So you’d never guess how we spent the next ten minutes. Yep, back we go yet again, despite not having any receipt or paperwork, crossing fingers that things would somehow work out, despite the sign out the front that says “unless you have an itemised list of every item of washing, there can no disagreement about the number of items after washing is returned”. As luck would have it someone at the laundrette had a good memory, and was able to locate a whole bag of clothes – at least half of what we’d originally put in. So phew, crisis averted lest I’d spend the rest of the holiday with just one t-shirt. (ew!)
With that mission finally accomplished, it was time to enjoy one of the nice features of this hotel – free cheese & wine every afternoon. Sweet! It hadn’t been that long since lunch so can’t say I was too hungry, but there’s almost room to some nice camembert and a glass of red. Nice hotel feature – gets you out of the little shoebox for a while, and a chance for free booze. What’s not to like? The cheese and crackers was basically dinner, after the huge late lunch.
Still, the day was not yet over, and there was still work to be done. Out for drinks, first at the famous gay club “G-A-Y”, which was equal parts loud and empty, so we quickly moved on to one of the pubs recommended by the Londoner we met in Mykonos. The Duke of Wellington was much more relaxed with a good vibe. We stayed there for a drink. Compared to Sydney, its great to see just how many venues are open and active even on a school night.
Finally, at last, thank goodness, this day has finally drawn to a close. After 23,407 steps, and 18.29 kilometres walked, I think we put in a pretty good effort, and it really is time to (wrestle with shocking internet to try and upload a few photos, and then) get some rest. Goodnight!
This last morning in Mykonos started with a good laugh. I probably shouldn’t but when I saw some of our fellow travellers looking very much the worse for wear after a huge night out, I couldn’t help but have a laugh at the shambling, wincing messes that presented themselves at breakfast. What a perfect day to have to pack and then take two flights… anyway it’s always fun to watch when you’re the chipper one. Somehow again even though we’ve only bought some very small and meagre souvenirs its a real struggle to pack everything in the suitcase but we both managed it. Thankfully, and something for which I shall be forever grateful, someone came to collect the cases and carry up the three or four flights of stairs to get them to reception. Brilliant. Then all of a sudden it was time to leave all the beautiful island life behind and to the ugly island life, also known as Mykonos airport. What can I say, it’s a dump, and a bit of chaotic one at that. But we didn’t have to hang around there too long before we had to take a little bus ride across the tarmac to the plane, and walk up the stairs, just like they did in the good old days.
The flight to Zurich was great – again it was ‘pretend business class’ – where business class just means there’s nobody in the middle seat, but boy did we get fed! It felt like they were bringing out more food every ten minutes – beautiful swiss chocolates, little cakes, all sorts of good stuff. The second flight was delayed, but thank goodness it was Zurich airport at which we had to spend out extra time, and not Mykonos. We eventually boarded nearly an hour late, and were on our way. Zurich to London is a short trip – about the same as Sydney to Melbourne, except it involves flying over a bunch of countries. One other cute touch was all the in flight announcements that started with “Dear Ladies, Gentlemen, and Dear Kids”. All was well at Heathrow – didn’t take too long to get through immigration/customs/whatever, but since we were late it took us a while to find our driver that was taking us to the hotel – I think he’d given up, but we tracked him down, and then we were on our way.
It was funny – a few of us said that once we left the airport terminal it was quite reminiscent of Sydney airport for some reason. Then the drive in felt very similar to the drive from Tullamarine to Melbourne. But as we drew in closer to our hotel, it became very much London. Especially when we drove straight past The Ritz, Harrods and Harvey Nicks.
Dodgy photo of The Ritz taken from a moving car
We checked in to the hotel – now in line with all expectations, it is indeed a shoebox. But to be honest, it’s actually bit larger than I was expecting. Having said that the double bed is walled in on three sides, so the room is about 2 metres by 6 metres, thereabouts. It’s 12 metres squared, anyway. So, kinda like a caravan. But fortunately we have some windows (unlike some of the other rooms!) so it’s not as claustrophobic as it might be. Let’s see if we still feel the same way in a week though. As soon as checking in we went out for a quick wander – surrounded by pubs and restaurants, which has gotta be good. We walked into The Spice of Life pub which was almost on our doorstep, and had excellent food. So within minutes of arriving at London we already ticked off ‘Pub!’ from the tourist list. Didn’t exactly feel like an episode of EastEnders but hey not too far off 🙂 We had a very brief walk around as it was already getting a bit late after a long day – due to the change in time zones today is 26 hour long… so definitely tie to wrap this up, get to bed, and get ready to hit the town tomorrow. Hello London!
It’s our last full day in Mykonos – and it started out as one of the slowest. I don’t have anything much to report until about 3:30 in the afternoon, when we headed out to “Jackie O’ on the beach” – a much bigger and fancier arrangement than the other Jackie O’ near the main port. This place was awesome – it overlooked ‘Super Paradise Beach’, the tunes were really pumping (as the young folk used to say), it was just a really good, positive atmosphere.
Then, who turned up but our new Leichhardt friends George and Mary! It’s a small world, and Mykonos is a small island. Was great to catch up with them again and have a good chat. The couple from Newtown that the other boys met down the beach were there too, so it was all a bit of a school reunion, well, if you’d left school like two days ago. There was also a couple of lads from London, so it was great to get a heads-up on some good places to visit.
And it would be remiss of me to mention that yes, there was also a hell of a lot of eye-candy. Both for ladies and gentlemen of whichever persuasion. I guess its one of the places the ‘beautiful people’ hang out, but luckily they let me in as well 🙂 We drank delicious expensive cocktails and ate some good (also expensive) food – then moved over to the pool area, where a drag performer did her thing – and id it well, performing against a backdrop of mountains and ocean… sure was one hell of a stage for someone to lip-sync to a couple of show tunes.
Strangely for the Mykonos party scene, this places closes down around 10, so we left a little before. Originally we were all heading back to the hotel (including taking Mary & George back as well), but the Intrepid Travellers were in the mood to be Intrepid Party-ers on their last night in Mykonos, so after a bit of convincing the hotel bus driver dropped them in the middle of town. Happy to be the boring one, I headed back to the hotel, ready to start packing everything up because we leave tomorrow.
Mykonos has been a bit of a mixed bag – the hotel is wonderful, the island is less beautiful than Santorini, but there are places like Jackie O’s that have a really wonderful, friendly vibe. So, it’s definitely been a very enjoyable few days. Tomorrow, everything shifts gears – from the tranquility of chilled-out Mykonos, straight into the hustle and bustle of giddy London… it’s going to be a bit of a culture shock (and a temperature shock), but I am so looking forward to it.
(Sorry not too many pictures today, having a minor technical difficulty and a major lack of patience 🙂 )
I could probably sum up the day in a sentence, but I’ll try and drag it out at least a little bit. The breakfast buffet was just as sumptuous as yesterday, plus some of our party managed to sneak a few bits of meat to one the cats that was hanging around. After that I was able to get on to Mum & Dad via FaceTime for a good chat and to show them my surroundings. It was good to hear that all’s well back home.
After that we headed down to the beach – this time I went around the long way to try and avoid ‘that sinking feeling’. There are umbrellas set up everywhere to provide at least a little bit of shade – provided you buy at least one expensive cocktail to cover the cost of what is effectively beach chair rental. And yes, this was a pretty free-and-easy European idea of beach time. Boobies and willies and bums, oh my! All shapes and sizes of people were there and nobody bats an eyelid. And no, I did not partake – I stayed very much clothed, trying to keep the punishing sun at bay. I spent my time there reading a book on my phone – making sure I had my finger covering the camera lens at all times, lest anyone thought I was there for the wrong reasons. On the way back we went along the beach front, trudging slowly over wet sand – getting a bit miffed that everyone else seemed to glide upon the waters like Jesus whereas every step I was up to my ankles in sand and rocks. I guess this is what happens when you weigh too much and your feet aren’t big enough. Anyway I did make it back in one piece.
The others hung around the hotel pools but I was keen to get out of the sun (after all, we computer nerds are a bit like vampires in that regard), so I headed back to the room. It was still being cleaned, so I spent 15 minutes on one of the (indoor) hotel lounges reading my book, when along comes Queen Elizabeth (the cat not the monarch), and sits at my feet. After a few pats she dozed off, then woke up and sat up on the chair next to me. Aww… I still have the skills with the ladies, as long as they have four feet, whiskers and a furry tail 🙂
Dinner was at the hotel restaurant – which, for a hotel, was reasonably priced and pretty darn tasty. it’s a full moon tonight so it was quite a treat watching that rise up dramatically over the hill while we dining on the restaurant terrace. It was about this time that whole hill is lit up as well, making for spectacular sight. Apart from Queen Elizabeth, it’s the only other thing I took a photo of today.
That about rounds up this very quiet day in Mykonos. Tomorrow is (already) our final full day here.
After all the grandeur and fanciness of yesterday’s arrival, I figured breakfast would probably also be a pretty sumptuous affair. Sure enough, i was not disappointed. A huge buffet with meats, cheese, hot things, cold things, cereals, juices, etc, etc … and even decent coffee. Oh and staff wandering around asking if we’d like a glass of strawberry juice. That’s a new one.
Suitably stuffed full of breakfast, we decided to wander down to check out the beach – the good part is apparently at the end opposite to our hotel.
Now, walking along a sandy/rocky beach is, in my opinion, one of the most frustrating exercises known to mankind. So after maybe 20 metres of soggy sand, sharp rocks, and almost slipping over – then seeing just how far I still had to travel, I was just hating every second of it so I turned back. The others stayed a while longer, enjoying a lack of drinks service (boo) but beautiful weather (yay) and apparently lots of european-style beach nudity (boo or yay depending on your attitude to such things). I was very productive, and had a big nap back at the room after wandering through the hotel taking a few happy snaps of the decor:
During my wander around the facilities I (almost literally) bumped into a nice couple who hail all the way from Leichhardt. There’s a surprising amount of Australians both here and in Santorini. Had a good chat – they had only arrived today, and they’re visiting Santorini after Mykonos, so boy are they in for a treat.
At 6PM we all piled into the free shuttle bus provided by the hotel, and took the half hour ride onto Mykonos central. We had a look at the famous bars Babylon and Jackie O’s. Apparently these places don’t really come alive until about 1AM – so forgive me if I’m not around for that. We had an excellent dinner at The Captain’s – recommended by a couple of ladies that the others met from the beach. They were all the way from Newtown. It’s a small world in Mykonos! Like most restaurants, this one also had a cat, so a little bit of the meat from my hamburger accidentally fell on to the floor once or twice. Maybe three times.
We wandered the (very narrow) shopping streets of Mykonos – I think some of these would have been too narrow for even one donkey to fit. But unlike Santorini this was all very level, with lots of fancy boutiques. I guess the rich folk go to Mykonos more often than Santorini. Of course while wandering the streets, we bumped into Mary & George from Leichhardt – they’d already chatted with the rest of the gang even before I met them, so it was good to catch up and have another chat.
The bus back to the hotel leaves at half past the hour, every hour. We figured 10:30 was a good time to be returning. So, it seems, did everybody else staying at the hotel. It was a bit of a mad rush to get on the bus, luckily we all scored a seat and didn’t have to stand the for half-hour journey back. Of course, Mary & George were on the same bus – not sure who’s stalking who 🙂
We had another cocktail at one of the hotel bars once we returned, a suitable way to finish the day.
JVL+PJC 