London Love

Today I’ve decided to write about one of my favourite cities in all the world. London.

Ahhh London. She is truly one of the greatest cities on this earth I think. She has almost everything one could want (I say almost because one can’t forget how crap the weather so often is there).

 

 

I remember the first time I went there, age 22, I stood, on one of my first days there, outside the entrance to Topshop on Oxford Street and just people watched and soaked in the atmosphere for a good twenty minutes. It was a spectacular day – the sun was shining and people were out and about in force, I had freshly converted pounds in my wallet ready to be spent at Harrods and Zara and Selfridges and Topshop and the day before I had had the most dizzyingly great introduction to the city where I had seen and done much more in one day than I’d thought I would be able to. And I just remember standing on that street – one of the most famous in the world surely, next to Fifth Avenue and La Rambla and Rodeo Drive – and feeling like I was at the centre of the universe right at that very moment. Like this point was where trends began, where the coolest people were born, where future megastars of fashion, music, politics, sport and media all trod the boards before they were discovered and everybody knew their names. I’ve been to Times Square in New York City many times, but it was Oxford Street London where I truly felt like I was at the very centre of the beating heart of the world.

How can you top a feeling like that? I was floored by it. And now whenever I go to London I always get off the tube at Oxford Circus and happily plunge myself into the throngs of people always surging around that crazy four point intersection.

 

 

Of course Oxford Street’s pulsing heart isn’t the only great thing about London. I love even the simple things, like the tube system. I know some Londoners hate the tube, but I freaking love it. So extensive, so clean, so easy to understand – a travellers best friend. Even the people who work at the tube stations I have always found to be super nice and very helpful (shout out to the man who still let me out of Stratford station even when my Oyster card didn’t work because I hadn’t paid the right fare for that zone). I love how you are never far from a tube station, no matter where you are in London. And it’s often paired with a Tesco or a Waitrose store right next to it: extra convenience!

What else to love about London? Let me get the list!

Wandering through the food halls in Harrods and seeing and smelling all the exotic and exuberant cakes and jams and chocolates and meats and seafood and cheeses and breads.

Being spoilt for choice over which musical to see in Covent Garden or in the West End.

 

 

Being a nightmare tourist and geeking out at things like M&M World or Ripley’s in Piccadilly Circus.

Sitting in a black cab late at night, perhaps on the way home from seeing that show in Covent Garden and staring out the window lovingly watching the fairy lights twinkling in the trees as you pass Hyde Park like you’re in a commercial for British Airways or something.

Coming across Boots everywhere and knowing that if you need a sandwich, or an umbrella or some sunscreen, you can definitely find all three of these things in there.

Melting over all the cute oh so British tube station names – Baker Street, Blackfriars, Waterloo, Regents Park, and my favourite – Elephant and Castle.

Walking past number 10 Downing Street and feeling like you’re Martine McCutcheon saying fuck in front of Hugh Grant.

Sitting with a coffee and a danish on a kerb in the middle of Notting Hill on a Saturday, just soaking in the market madness around you and maybe spotting a celeb or two amongst the millions of market sellers and tourists and musicians and crepe makers (side note: I did actually see a celeb in Notting Hill once. Not an Oscar winner or Beyoncé or anything, but it was someone all Brits would know: Trinny Woodall of What Not to Wear fame).

 

Spending entire afternoons wondering around places like the Cabinet War Rooms and marvelling at all things Winston Churchill. Britain does museums as well as America, let me tell you!

Going to that Tesco next to the tube station on your way home after a long day of touristing and picking out an armful of those dreadful(ly good) trashy magazines. Nobody does trashy mags like the Brits. Katie Price and Girls Aloud and Geordie Shore oh my! Night snuggled in bed = made.

Walking down The Mall when it is lined with union jack flags and heading towards Buckingham Palace. If you don’t feel like you’re truly in London walking down there then you never will. I remember in 2012 many of the Olympic athletic events had their courses run down The Mall and past the palace and I just thought it was the greatest idea – you’re running in the greatest sporting contest in the world and running so close past one of the most recognised buildings in the world that you could practically pop in for a cuppa with Liz and Phil. Now that’s awesome.

The innocently adorable way as soon as the mercury hits 22 degrees celsius Londoners are out in the parks with their shirts off, soaking up the sun. Innocently adorable to a suntanned Aussie anyway.

The way you go up in the London Eye and look down at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and think ‘woah – I’m looking at icons I’ve only ever seen in movies and on postcards’ and suddenly you’re getting a birds eye view of it, or you’re standing in front of it hearing Big Ben chime. They’re pinch me moments.

 

 

Everyone should visit London in their lifetime. Everyone. It is one of the most cosmopolitan, fast paced, smart, pretty and well-kept cities in the world. It’s so good that one day, if I had the right job, was the right age and felt it was the right time, I might just live there.

Until next time,

Jorgs

 

 

 

 

Things I don't understand about America

So as you know, if you read this blog regularly, I spend almost as much time in the good ol’ US of A as I do in my homeland of Down Under. This is through work, but also through my belief that you could spend a year in America and still not see it all, or have seen it properly, so I just keep going there on holidays whenever I have a chance. To date I have been to fifteen states, and while that sounds like a lot, it’s really not when you realise there are 35 more to see! But I’m working on it.

Anyways, since spending so much time in America, there are a few things I have found perplexing about this magnificent country. Some things I find truly confusing, weird, unnecessary or down right strange, so here is the definitive list of things I don’t understand about America (and just so you don’t want to go and blow your brains out after reading this, let me assure you it will today be devoid of any references to gun control, free healthcare and lower tertiary education fees. Maybe I’ll write about that another time…or maybe I won’t in case Jodhi Meares-like devotee’s jump all over me again).

 

Why is your cheese orange? And why are there so many different types, and why do they almost all taste exactly the same (and nothing like cheese in Australia tastes)?

Why do you let dogs stay in hotel rooms? And why must you bring them onto aeroplanes, into clothing stores and into shopping centres? It’s unhygienic and gross, and unless it’s a service animal I really don’t think it belongs there.

Why are you obsessed with drying your clothes in a tumble drier? Why can’t you just hang them on a clothesline in the sun?

Why does your chocolate taste terrible? (Cadbury and Lindt > Hersheys by a miiiiiiillllleeeee)

Why do you buy so much bottled water? Every time I go to Vons or Walmart or Target every single person is wheeling out a trolley full of 64 pack single serve bottles of water. You know you can refill the one water bottle you have right? Or just keep a jug in the fridge and fill up a cup from it anytime you are thirsty right?

 

 

Why are all your national monuments and select national parks free entry and why hasn’t this brilliant idea been adopted in other countries in the world?

Why do you wear foam platform thongs/flip flops? And why do you think these are fashionable? They are hideous. Haven’t you seen how the rest of the world wears Havaianas? Your platform flip-flops make you look like you belong on the set of a 1998 teen movie.

Why have you not abolished the use of drive through ATMs as a tiny way of perhaps helping the obesity cause? Every time I see a drive through ATM I feel like I’m looking at the definition of laziness.

Why do you say carmel instead of caramel? Is this just certain people’s accents gone whacko?

Also, why do you say kabob? It sounds so strange.

 

 

What is up with half and half milk? First time I heard of this I assumed it was milk that was half full cream and half skim, but then an Auckland flight attendant I work with one time made me try a glass of this stuff and I realised immediately I was wrong, and that it is in fact half milk half runny cream AND OMG WHY WOULD YOU EVER DRINK SUCH A THICK CONCOCTION THAT LEAVES A VOMIT INDUCING FILM ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF YOUR MOUTH AFTER YOU’RE DONE DRINKING?

Why are there so many places that offer to cash cheques for you? Why can’t you just go into a bank and do it there? Why do you need a third party to do it for you? Why is it easier to go into one of these dodgy looking shop set ups on most city streets than to just go into your local bank branch? Do these dodgy looking places give you the money immediately and the bank makes you wait or something? (and PS…why do you even still have cheques?)

Whose idea was it to make cinnamon flavoured chewing gum? No…just no.

Why do your Subway stores not have carrot to put on my sub?

Why are you still pre metric? It seems like you are literally the last country on earth to use Fahrenheit, inches and pounds.

Why do you call capsicum ‘peppers’? The first time I heard of this I imagined a hot, spicy, chilli type vegetable, when in fact it was just a green capsicum – possibly the most unspicy, unpeppery thing there is.

Why is your Mexican food so good and so readily available? And why has this trend not yet reached Australian shores?

Why do you omit the word ‘of’ all the time? “He’s been in Texas a couple months” Is it laziness?

Why haven’t you got rid of tipping yet? It is such a pain in the ass. Example: my taxi fare is $35, and I give the taxi driver a $50 note. He then gives me back $15 and then I have to give him a few dollars of that fifteen back as a tip. ARGH SO MUCH TOO-ING AND FRO-ING. Not to mention the poor man who drives our crew buses to and from the airport who not only has to load 21 crew member’s numerous pieces of luggage into the back of the bus but has to stop 21 times in the middle of it all to accept each crew members tip they give in way of thanks. Why can’t his company just pay him what he deserves?

Why do you still have pennies? I got back from a recent double banger of two trips in 10 days to LA for work and emptied out my wallet onto the bed when I finally got home and counted no less than 28 pennies in my pile of change *pulls hair out* I know I could put these all in a tip jar, but even though they’re annoying, they’re still money to me and I am too tight with and worry too much about money to even give 1c away when I could painstakingly count out fifty cents worth of pennies and hand it to a cashier at the local In’N’Out. But still, they’re a pain in the butt (but I’ll keep them anyway – like I said, money’s money.)

 

 

Why are you obsessed with eating turkey? And why do you so often put turkey in something when it should definitely be chicken? Like in a club sandwich? A club sandwich should definitely be bacon and chicken, not bacon and turkey!

Why do you not find cheese in a can gross? For reals, why?

Why is maple syrup bacon a thing and why do you offer to put it on my hamburger?

Why do so many people buy peeled baby carrots that are in containers with hummus or by themselves at the supermarket? These carrots look drier than the skin on my hands after I’ve been working in the galley on a 16 hour Dallas to Sydney flight.

 

Despite all these weird and perplexing things, I still love you America, and can never get enough of visiting you. I love your friendly people, your amazing array of food (pre-packaged baby carrots aside), your breath taking landscapes, your top notch museums and your sick theme parks!

 

What do you find weird about countries you’ve visited? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Jorgs

A Fortunate (Travellers) Life

Oh my goodies dear readers, I have not put in an appearance in soooo long. I’ve been a bit busy (lots of travel, situation: normal), a bit down in the dumps for reasons I can’t even put my finger on, a bit too busy with crazy full work rosters and also just zero-ly motivated to write anything at all.

But now I am back. Sure is nice to have a span of days off that lasts more than five minutes! And the number one thing on my to do list was blog. In capital letters. Second only on the list to my mountains of laundry (of which I did three loads this morning and my washing basket is still not empty…I think some things are just going to live in there for life and never get washed. Clearly I never wear them anyways).

Like I said, I have been a little down in the dumps lately and I couldn’t even tell you why, because I don’t know myself, but yesterday as I was feeling sorry for myself on the way home from an eleven day stint at work, I began thinking of things I should be grateful for, and things I should appreciate as a ways of slapping myself out of my self pity mode.

And of course my mind immediately turned to travel (again, situation: normal). I had a think that even though the last two years of my life have a lot of the time been pretty shithouse, I am so fortunate that the rest of the time I’ve been able to travel to some freaking incredible places, and have some pretty incredible experiences and met some bloody incredible people, and for that I am forever lucky. Heck, ever since I started travelling overseas seriously in 2009, I have gone to some amazing places.

Some places I have been to are true bucket list experiences. Some were bucket list worthy and I didn’t even realise they were until I was there. That they should’ve been on my bucket list all along. Visiting Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and actually moving aside the bookcase and climbing up the narrow staircase/ladder to the secret annexe where the Frank’s hid from the Nazi’s for two years was an example of this.

But further than that I have climbed the Eiffel Tower, scaled the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sailed through the canals of Venice on a gondola, been inside the Statue of Liberty, walked the Freedom Trail, stood amongst the snow on the highest mountain in Europe, toured Wimbledon, walked through Kensington Palace, touched the Berlin Wall, been mere metres from dolphins in the middle of the Ionian, watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, seen the largest sitting Buddha in the world in Hong Kong, walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and back again and done the same with the Brooklyn Bridge, taken a helicopter over the Grand Canyon, toured the iconic Sydney Opera House and Radio City Music Hall, been stunned into silence at Pearl Harbor, walked the Las Vegas strip, felt infinitely small next to the enormous rock faces of Yosemite National Park, stood in front of the White House, walked amongst the ruins of the Acropolis, thrown a coin into the Trevi Fountain, toured through Changi Prison, ‘held up’ the Leaning Tower of Pisa, explored an Amish town in rural Pennsylvania, walked over the remains of Pompeii, snorkelled in the crystal waters off Thailand and Vietnam and driven across Australia.

How can I possibly think I am not leading a fortunate life when I have done all those things? And when I can continue to do all those things almost on a monthly basis due to my job, the fact I spend 99% of my money on travel and due to this terrible affliction I suffer from called wanderlust?

I can’t. I am very lucky. I may not have heaps of friends, a boyfriend, my own house, be free of a HECS debt or living a life of luxury, but I have my passport, a camera and a thirst for adventure so what else could I possibly need?

And I’m going to write about every single one of those adventures, plus a few other random things I come across or have an opinion about, so keep coming back to visit my blog and I will be updating as often as possible for you all.

Your grateful traveller,

Jorgs

 

Worshipping the sun and the sea in
Nha Trang, Vietnam, earlier this year