In general, London has still been great, the weather is holding up for the most part, there have been patches of rain but enough blue skies that I would still call it summer. The temperature here never really gets about 25, so between 20-25 is a nice 'warm' day. Its weird to talk like that right, cos in Sydney if its not above 25, its definitely not summer. I guess you do adapt quite quickly...
I know I've said this before, but London when the weather is nice must be one of the best cities in the world. The parks here are quite nice, we have Hyde park, regents park, even clapham common is nice enough on a summers day. People really make the most of warm weather and the parks are full of people lying about 'sun tanning' or just having a picnic and a chat. It will be interesting to see how this all changes dramatically come the winter time. We've been to quite a few more places since my last update and had a few visitors as well, but i'll get to those in time.
I think the first thing that happened since my last update was I went to Royal Ascot - the Melbourne cup of London. Its quite the day out, with Ascot being about 1hr out of London by train and people really dressing up for the occasion. I've never been to the races in Sydney or Melbourne so it was a new experience for me. This is how it works here: There are 3 types of tickets you can buy:
Silver ring (30 pounds) : gets you into the grass area, pleasant enough in the dry, but when it rains, like it was on the day we went, it can get MESSY. Shoes were ruined, and gumboots were not an uncommon sight and I'm sure those girls wearing the gum boots were very glad they did. After a while, the smell of the churned up mud, the damp, and the portaloos starts to become unpleasant. The people here are dressed quite well, guys are in suits, girls are in dresses, but its a slightly more casual affair, with picnic mats where the ground was remotely dry, plastic chairs and tables under temporary pavilions and temporary stalls. Pimms is the drink of choice.What ticket did i get? The silver of course! Mostly BYO food here, with some food stalls also. Thanks to T for providing us with an amazing picnic spread!
Grandstand: (50 pounds): gets you into the actual facilities, through a proper ticket gate, into the grounds where there are gardens, a outdoor screen, and into the lower levels of the actual building - which is in line with the finish line. This is traditionally where you would imagine people to be when they go to the races, with the concrete steps where you stand and cheer for your horse, then throw you losing stub on the ground in disgust. Food here not that much better actually, there were pizza stalls, fish and chips but at least they provided tables and chairs (sometimes plastic also) but at least you were in a building. Thanks to NV, who snuck Ben and I into this area for the second part of the day, out of the mud and away from the commoners! Top hat and tails are sometimes seen here.
Funny incident: when we tried to get into the grandstand area using other peoples tickets that NV had smuggled out for us, they wouldn't work through the machines because she hadn't scanned them out when she took the extra 2 tickets so it said 'double entry'. At this point the ticket guy said accusingly 'Have you actually scanned these out?' To which i then said to him in my most outraged tone whilst waving the tickets that weren't ours: 'Mate we just came out of here before, we didn't scan out because you just let us out without scanning, LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE!' as i pointed at several people leaving by the gate. The ticket guy apologetically let us in through the gate :) My friends, it is all about the delivery.. you have to make him believe!
Royal Enclosure: This is in the upper levels of the buildings - unfortunately i couldnt find a way to talk myself into this one, you needed a badge and almost all the guys were in top hats and tails - hard to fake. I can only imagine the pure decadence that exists at this level...
So gamblingwise - let me just state that i hate horse racing, its pure lottery and I don't believe anyone knows what they are doing. So I win my first race, doubling up and lose the next 5, being down aboud 60 pounds for the day. Thats my first and last attempt at the races. In fact, I had one of those cliched races where the horse i randomly chose led, all the way from start tothe last 1/2 lap where everyone else overtook him and he came last....
Unfortunately Nancy as unwell and wasn't able to come to Ascot, so maybe i'll have to go next year anyway..
Stoney and Nara came to visit! Due to the South American volcano, they didnt make it to south america but did manage to come to London. I even scored a nice meal out of them! Thanks guys!
Viv Arrives in London - where she turnsup at our doorstep in a jacket and s scarf and asks 'this is summer?' and then goes straight to the much warmer greek islands! Shes back now and hopefully settling in nicely in her new pad!
Helsinki and Tallinn - Alby's birthday on the 25th, and Linda organises a trip to Helsinki and Tallinn to celebrate his and kind of my birthday! Quick observation about Helsinki:
- It doesnt get dark dark in Helsinki till about 11pm, and hten gets light again at about 3am
- We went during some kind of public holiday so it was very quiet lost of restaurants were closed
- I over ate during our first breakfast which basically affected my ability to eat for the rest of the trip... I know that just because its 'included' doesnt mean I have to over eat. I just can't help it.
- Soumellina was quite nice - its a fort that the russians/finnish/swedish occupied at various points - the walls seemed kind of low to me to be a 'fortress' and i believe the only time it came under attack, the commander surrendered anyway...
- Our guide at Soumellina was cute - and apparently her name was not Guida - i just say the first 4 letters of her 'Guide' tag and assumed....
- Doable in a day, maybe two if more things were open. Not as expensive as I thought it would be..
- Church in the rock was pretty cool - and there was a guy playing piano there - shame we couldnt stay longer to relax, but we had to go catch our...
Ferry
- First time on a proper cruise liner
- Couldnt feel any movement, the ship was massive
- Cheap booze and tobacco..
- Stayed over night in quite cramped sleeping arrangements and in the morning we got off at :
Tallinn
- Capital of Estonia where supposedly, the most beautiful women in the world are from
- Women were OK - not amazing
- Old town is nice, they play up the whole medieval thing a lot there, cobblestone streets
- There is some evidence of stag weekends here, with a few gentlemens clubs around the town
- Free walking tour by an enthusiastic uni student guide - recommended
- Food highlight - our meal at Olde Hansa, where we had Bear (Good), Elk (Very good), wild boar, sausages, duck and various other things. Novelty factors include roleplay by the staff - including the owners son, owners daughter, serving wenches and a menu written in 'ye olde english'
- Soviet bloc country until the 80s - visited a hotel the KGB had set up on a top floor that 'didnt exist' and had bugged all the rooms. Interesting insight into communist and soviet life, and how they wanted to be portrayed to the rest of the world.
- 1 day for the old town is OK, but 2 days allows you to do a few more things and take it easy...
Back in London for my birthday - thanks for all the birthday wishes on facebook - i know that if facebook hadn't told me,most of you (except Mindy) would have forgotten! Had a quiet night in - Nancy cooked despite not feeling great and spent the night watching come dine with me and just chilling out.
Went to L'entrcote (BIG fan of this place!) for Ming's birthday on the 29th and had my first karoke session in London - they use a touch screen to choose songs, but other than that its quite similar to Sydney, Had a good old sing, particularly for a school night! Went to Bar Boulud (of Daniel Boulud of 3 Star Daniel of NYC fame) to have one of his famous burgers - supposedly one of the best in London for my kind of birthday dinner on saturday, unforunately quite average. The 'porkie' burger that I had was 12 pounds (18 AUD) and had an overpowering horseradish taste, which drowned out everything else. The pattie was quite thick, and I ordered minemedium rare which didn't quite work in this context. The pattie WAS cooked correctly, but I don't know if having a rare burger really adds to the burger experience. I found the burger relatively flavourless, not like a steak tartare for example which is heavily seasoned and the only difference was the texture, which was interseting with the raw mince inside. I think I rated this burger a 4/10, not because it was bad tasting, but because it was so expensive for what it was, and the taste was average , and barely that when you factor in the horseradish...
No comments:
Post a Comment