Poland: Auschwitz and Saltmines

After hearing/reading/studying/watching so much about the Holocaust it was surreal to be there. As the guide said, the whole complex should be treated as a cemetery, and it really felt like it. Auschwitz I was small, the Arbeit Macht Frei sign was small, and the day we were there was an anniversary so it was packed out with tour groups which helped to imagine the numbers of people they had in there. What affected me the most was the rooms full of shoes; kids and adults, most of them were faded brown boots but there were red sandals, little heels, slippers with pompoms on the end which made it personal seeing these individual choices of shoes. Same with the named suitcases.

Birkenau (Aushwitz II) was 30 times bigger, it's the one with the train track running down the middle where the selections took place, and fences and shacks as far as you can see, either side of the rails. It was massive. We were there on such a hot day, blue sky and green grass. Kept remembering images out of 'Auschwitz and After' by Charlotte Delbo which is my favourite (??) Holocaust literature.

Another day we went to the Wieliczka salt mines.. in which there are enough tunnels and caverns to walk through for 2 months straight... we only went around 3 levels and walked 3 kms! That's less that 1% of the total mines! I hated that horses were kept down there so long that they went blind in the darkness, but the caverns were amazing. Imagine an underground chapel carved entirely from salt, even the floor is patterned to look like tiles but it is salt. And the crystals on the chandeliers are salt. And murals carved into the walls, religious statues with lights inside them so it looks like they are glowing, etc. There was also a huge ballroom where events take place, weddings and concerts down there. Underground rivers and lakes (think Harry Potter) which are at saturation point full of salt so would be really easy to float in. Didn't take any photos as it wouldn't have done justice to it, so you'll have to use your imagination!

Poland: Krakow with mum

Felt just a little out of place in the lobby of a nice hotel looking like a dirty backpacker! Hopped in the shower hoping to beat mum because after 30 hours of travel she would want a shower straight away, but of course she was early and I had to greet her in a towel mid-shower! She looked a bit skinny and pale and sick after the events of last week, but very happy to be here. She felt up to dinner out so we explored the main square (not as pretty as Wroclaw IMO) but she loved the balmy evening air and the flowers in window boxes and the horses & carriages and all the restaurants spilling out into the square... She loved everything and it made me see Europe through fresh eyes again!

Over the next four days we had some amazing adventures around Krakow. We did a walking tour based on the Jewish history of the city which we both loved and learnt a lot from... There were 65,000 Jews in Krakow before WWII mostly in Kazimierz (Jewish quarter), then they were forced out across the river to a ghetto. The walls of the ghetto were shaped like Jewish tombstones in a cruel way to make them feel they weren't going to get out alive. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1943, those that didn't fit onto trucks were shot in the main square which we visited. The square is filled with an installation of empty chairs, symbolising that after the massacre, all the furniture was thrown out of the houses because Jews often hid valuables in chair legs, so that square was full of bodies and chairs.

Learnt that Roman Polanski escaped this ghetto as an 8 year-old by swimming down the river, and that he turned down directing Schindler's List because he wasn't ready to face it yet.. when he was ready, he did The Pianist.

Also learnt the real Oskar Schindler story when we visited the site of his factory, he wasn't quite the hero of the movie but I won't spoil it for you. As the guide said, whatever else Schindler did/didn't do, he still went to Auschwitz and saved his workers who were on the wrong train, after they had already been shaved for showers. No-one else ever got out after they had been shaved. And 'he who saves one life, saves the world entire.'

Now there are only a few hundred Jews living in Krakow, and only 97 of them are orthodox, so all the old synagogs which survived are now museums and things like that.

My favourite area of Krakow was Kazimierz. It used to be the cheapest place to live because the communist govt filled it with psychopaths and criminals (!!) , so all the artists and poor writers etc moved in, and now it's turned into the coolest area full of bars and alternative shops. There was a bar in which you didn't walk through a door, you walk through a wardrobe... I thought that was the best idea ever!

We skyped home to Dad and Pete which was so bizarre suddenly having Mum on this side of the computer screen, and also stumbled across a Pierogi (dumpling) festival in one of the old squares! There was a whole row of stalls from different restaurants selling only pierogi, and getting votes to compete with each other. There were choirs singing about pierogi, and someone read out a poem which sounded like an Ode to Pierogi. The fillings we tried were: white cheese and potato; smoked chicken, spinach and cheese; sauerkraut; blueberry; cherry and apple, chocolate... etc

Food and weather were great, Mum loved the Planty gardens which are a belt around the Old City and we did a couple of day trips to Auschwitz and the salt mines.

Poland: Krakow

Pretty arcade in Kazimierz (Jewish quarter.) A scene in Schindler's List shot here.
The Wawel Dragon & me
Tai and I caught the train to Krakow pronounced "Krakof" on a really hot (over 30) and sunny blue sky day. I realised that mum was at the airport already in Melbourne, but I wouldn't see her until tomorrow night! Such a long journey. But it made me so happy to know she was on her way!

Our hostel had a great free BBQ dinner outside that night and we met lots of Aussies, a German couple who looked like supermodels, NZ, USA, Brits, a Scot and an Italian. We all went out to a club and somehow found our way home past the Wawel (castle) sitting up on the hill, through the Planty (gardens) filled with homeless people, stopping for kebabs and zapiekanka. (Fastfood snack of toasted open baguette covered in cheese & mushrooms and whatever other topping you want. )

Italian, Ballarat, Tai and I explored the Jewish quarter cool shops the next day and then went down into the dragons den in the castle grounds. So the story goes that a king of Krakow claimed there was a dragon living in a cave under his castle, and in order for the dragon to stay happy and not come out and ravage the town, it had to be fed young virgin girls once a month. Who knows what really happened to those little girls, but it was a huge dark, dripping rocky cave system under there! The dragon is the city mascot; you can buy soft toy dragons, shot glasses with dragons, tshirts, hats, umbrellas, postcards all covered with this friendly looking dragon.

I checked out of the hostel and made my way to a real hotel near the old town square where I was meeting mum!

Poland: Wroclaw

Had to laugh, my arrival into Poland was so bad! Couldn't find an ATM to get money for a tram ticket (no more Euros for a while!), then couldn't find the tram, then couldn't find the hostel... Then couldn't find reception inside the hostel!! Ridiculous but I got there in the end! There is suddenly a lot less signage in English and the words in my directions to the hostel didn't match up with the words I could see on the streets haha. Also pronounciation is a problem because Wroclaw isn't as it looks... It's "vrots-wahf"!

Quickly made friends with two guys in my dorm. One is a Brazilian who's lived in Ireland for the last 8 years and befriended the large Polish population there, so he now speaks Polish too and calls Wroclaw his 3rd home. The other is a half Spanish half Japanese guy who's lived in Barcelona his whole life.

We went out with Washington's (Brazil) Polish friends that night which was awesome! Learnt Polish words like 'Na zdrowie' (cheers) and one of them explained that our generation still feel a bit of hostility towards Germans because they have been brought up with grandparents who lost their own parents etc, so they think it will take a few more generations to all be forgotten.

Poland has been so badly treated in history! Wroclaw has been both a German and a Prussian city over the years, and they all imagined the country would be so much better if it hadn't had to rebuild from scratch so many times. They said it's not a good place to live and work as they can emigrate to places like Edinburgh and Dublin and be paid so much more for the same work.

Tried a Polish bisongrass vodka that they always mix with apple juice, it was nice!

Tai (Barcelona) and I explored the city the next day, the centre square (rynek centrum) has gorgeous building facades, all different colours and ornately decorated with curly and contoured rooves, all sitting next to each other around the square it was one of the prettiest squares I've ever seen. As we walked further out we saw all the communist block apartments and the grand university (it's a massive student town) but that's all really there is to see. Had a traditional Polish lunch in a serve yourself cafeteria where you pay by the weight of your plate at the end! So tried some dumplings and potato cakes and salads, avoided the meaty stews cos didn't know what they were..
Had dinner out with more of Wash's polski friends and tried golonka.. Described by them as "pig knee" it's traditional Pork knuckle with potato, it was so tender and delicious! And more wodka.

Poland is cheap for food and drink and accomodation, which is nice!

Germany: Berlin

East Side Gallery
Orna & I inside the Tacheles artists squat

Had an awful overnight bus trip from Amsterdam to Berlin thanks to the creepiest guy on the bus sitting next to me and annoying me. Finally arrived in Berlin around 7am and was completely overwhelmed by the s-bahn and u-bahn trains and couldn't even understand the ticket machine in English! Got someone to help me and then it was all uphill from there, found the hostel near Landsberger Allee station, dropped my pack there and snuck a sneaky free breakfast even though it wasn't included until tomorrow. But it's such a massive hostel, it's not like anyone would recognize me as not having checked in yet, very different to Noordwijk!

Decided to soldier on with the day despite having had no sleep so I joined the free walking tour. Saw Brandenburg Tor & the Hotel Adler where MJ dangled the baby, the Reichstag (govt) where Hitler took power (and now has a symbolic glass dome on top that people walk around in looking down at parliament so that govt is literally transparent & noone can take power like that again.)

Walked through the Holocaust memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe (the grey rectangle stones one) which was intense. Had learnt about it in 'Memory & Memoir of 20th century Europe' subject in uni last year but the experience was so different than expected- from the edge it looks simple to walk through but as you start, the ground dips down at the same time the blocks soar up above you so it feels really overwhelming. You lose sight of the people you're with, you're split up, you can't see the way out, the blocks are like tombs or trains, you make one small choice about direction and you end up somewhere different etc. I found it really effective. And the company who manufactored xyclone-b (gas chamber gas) now manufacture the anti-graffiti surface spray and maintain the memorial.

We stood on top of Hitler's bunker where he married Eva Braun then comitted suicide, above it is a gravel car park and is apparently the only spot in Berlin you can take your dog to relieve itself, and not pick it up.

Saw Babelplatz with the book burning memorial (a glass window in the ground looking underground to empty shelves) and the chilling quote on a plaque written a century before ww2 "they who start by burning books, end by burning people." The uni in that square where Einstein used to lecture has a book sale out the front every single day, manned by students, to apologise for letting the book burning occur.

I listened to the 3rd Reich history a lot better than the old Frederick and Wilhelm histories just because I struggle to get my head around all that time, but Berlin really has so many layers of history on top of each other.

I napped for about 3 hours in my empty dorm, had a shower and returned to Irish girls literally crawling all over the dorm! I counted 7 of them, and it was an 8 bed room! All their names seemed to end with an 'a' but they don't really, and I couldn't connect names to faces until the next day.

I went downstairs to check emails for the first time in a few days and got the terrible news that my Grandy had passed away completely unexpectedly (he was healthy) a few days earlier, and my family were trying to contact me because I'd taken the sim out of my phone. So that night turned into the lowest point of my whole trip, I felt so sad for my mum and aunts and nana who must have been in so much shock, and wanted to be at home with my family. The Irish girls were sweet though, then they went out clubbing and I spoke to family in the middle of my night.

The next night went out with the Irish girls on a really fun alternative 'anti pub' crawl which went to cool themed bars like a hippy flower power bar, a goth horror scary bar, an absinthe bar, an empty apartment called dr pong's where you play around the world table tennis, and finally a graffitied club in a bombed out railway depot called Cassiopeia. It was an awesome night out and my Irish accent got pretty good!

I also did a street art tour with 2 of the Irish and loved it, learnt all about the alternative lifestyle and artists squats and our guide was an amazing band member/ artist/ script-writer half French half Argentinian girl living in Berlin. She pointed out the different street artists whose work we kept recognizing around the city, described that you get in less trouble from police if you're glueing up a stencil rather than spray painting, and all the warring or supportive relationships between different artists! Ended up at Cassiopeia again, this time to find in the other bombed out buildings there is a skatepark, circus school, art studio, rockclimbing & bouldering gym, etc.

For the rest of my time in Berlin I saw the East Side Gallery of the wall (east side, so it wasn't allowed to be painted on until 1989. It was cleaned & restored in 2009 for its 20 yr anniversary so looks all shiny and new now.) Went to the Jewish museum, spoke to family on skype lots, hung out in the Tiergaten and saw one of those laughing for fitness groups... slapping their thighs and roaring with laughter in a circle. People are so weird!
And chilled out on the grass in front of Reichstag because the queue to go up was too long.
Bit sad I didn't meet those girls before I went to Ireland because they were a lot of fun.. Here goes: Rachel Roisin Helene Laura Lisa Orna and Amelia!

I would go back to Berlin, even though I was there for 5 nights I feel I've barely scraped the surface.

The Netherlands: Amsterdam

Struggled up the steepest and narrowest staircase of my life in the hostel, trying not to overbalance backwards! My dorm was on the very top floor and I sat in there alone for one minute looking at the map and wondering what to do, when two beautiful Australian girls giggled into the dorm and I knew straight away we were going to get along so well! Lilly is from Byron and Hana is from Adelaide, and they met each other studying in Japan (and are now traveling together in Jap uni hols. ) Chris, a 19yo Australian boy came in next, then Yuta (a guy from Japan who was shy but the girls were happy to practise speaking in jap to him), and finally Anna a Swedish girl completed our dorm.

We went out on a big pub crawl as a whole dorm that night to celebrate Hana's 21st birthday that day! Had lots of fun despite the cold rain as we ran across canal bridges from one bar to the next in the leidsegracht area. Hana celebrated her big day in style and for the rest of our time we kept bumping into people who recognized her as 'birthday girl!' including restaurant owners, bartenders, hostel staff, pub crawl organizers, randoms..!

My friend Matt (from Adelaide who I met in Asia and again in London) joined our dorm the next morning and for the next few days our dorm operated as a unit, eating and going everywhere together which made it so special; I was so lucky to be with a great group because it would be a completely different city on your own! Reminded me yet again that it's the people you meet (or don't meet) that can make or break an experience. Plus it means never having to go home alone if you're out with dorm ppl, or worrying about waking people up when you get back, if they're all out with you!

Amsterdam is such a strange city. On one hand it's so beautiful and picturesque with cobbled streets, canals and bridges and flowers everywhere. Then there is intense bike and tram traffic which makes every road crossing a brush with death .. And as the bike lanes are always paved more nicely than the footpaths, we kept accidently gravitating into them and nearly getting mown down by locals! They even have their own bike traffic lights.

On the other hand, due to several substances being legal in this liberal city, there were so many freaks around! Lots and lots and lots of freaky people, especially at night I was glad to always be out with my dorm group!

We found the IAMsterdam letters and tried to climb on them, had a picnic in Vondelpark (big botanic gardens) on a hot and sunny afternoon surrounded by sunbaking locals, found Anne Frank's house which looked modern, and had a tourist queue about 10kms long...

At night we explored the red light district which was so bizarre and surreal because there were so many gawking tourists (like ourselves) that it felt like a carnival or something, there were even adults holding hands with their kids walking along the canal, the brown water turned red with neon reflections! As for the girls jigging in tiny bikinis, half opening and closing their glass doors... Some were really attractive, some old, some large, there was even a ladyboy. Something for every taste!

We discovered FEBO, a Dutch fastfood chain which sells hot food out of tiny vending machine windows... Dodgy looking but cheap and hot- just insert coins and open the hatch! We kept returning to the same Italian restaurant for €5 pizza/ pasta and one morning Lilly & I shared Dutch poffetjes (which didn't taste as good as the ones from the market at home!)

Amsterdam was so expensive, even worse than Paris and London. It was my most expensive dorm room so far, even though Anna and I were lucky enough to have bedbugs included in the cost :) we were absolutely ravaged by them!!! But I don't regret staying there and wouldn't change it for the world because of the great friends I made and amazing memories I have! It was sad to say bye to those 2 gorgeous silly Aussie girls!

Belgium: Brussels

I only spent 1 day and 1 night in Brussels but that's all I needed; had a lame (and empty) dorm with no-one I liked, so just wandered around on my own and saw the comics museum (Belgium has a massive comic strip culture) which showed the history of Tintin and The Smurfs and other Belgian comics, it also had a temporary exhibition on Moomintrolls (even though they're Finnish) which I loved because remembered reading the books with dad!

Saw the stunning main Markt square and the tiny Mannekin Pis fountain plus all the chocolate mannekin pis' in every chocolatier window! I ate a plain sugar waffle after my local map suggested these are the real deal, waffles with nutella on them show you're a tourist, and waffles covered in whipped cream and fruit scream 'come and mug me!' Got to speak French all day which was fun, but didn't like the area my hostel was is, it was a bit ghetto.

Also learnt that 'french' fries were invented in Belgium, and are only called French because soldiers from ww1 remembered those who were cooking them up spoke French, and assumed they were from France... So they are very proud of their frites! Hopped on a train to Amsterdam after this!

Belgium: Bruges

I love leaving cities, because by then I know how they work, how to get around, I can reflect on what I've done there and be excited for heading somewhere new. Leaving is so easy. Arriving is exciting and overwhelming and a bit of a drag. Being dropped off a plane/train/ bus weighed down with my packs, no language or map or ideas of how things work is hard. I always feel so vulnerable and ignorant and out of place. City buses are my worst enemy! I have learnt from much experience that I can't guess the stop I need (I always panic and get off too early or relax and miss it) so now I ask the bus driver or other passengers to please tell me when to get off, and still they forget or tell me the wrong stop! I haven't had good experience with city buses! Trams are easier, metros are the best. Metros have maps and announcements and they stop at every station! Love them!
Anyway in Bruges I had to get a bus. I went too far, had to get another bus back, and the driver forgot to tell me when to get off. Then I trekked to the wrong Hoogestraat street. So for a small town, I managed to stuff up arriving spectacularly.

Bruges is beautiful, but most of it is fake because it was bombed so much. They've recreated the step-gable roof facades so all the streets look quaint, but only a few buildings are genuine (and have plaques out the front to proove it.) The town is so touristy, packed out with older tourists but there are also quite a few backpacker hostels and lots of people come because of the recent film 'In Bruges' which is funny, because the film basically just bags it out and yet has made it more popular. Every single shop is chocolate or lace or postcards, horse-drawn cart tours clop by non-stop, and buskers play classical music. It's like a fake fairyland with amazing cobbled roads and the belltower striking out songs for a whole hour. There are tiny canals under 15th century bridges (the ones that survived) and windows covered in flowers and windmills at the end of the road.

I climbed the 366 steps up the Belfry,

Ken: Coming up?
Ray: What's up there?
Ken: The view.
Ray: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.
Ken: Ray, you are about the worst tourist in the whole world.
Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't.

and the top section was so narrow that if someone was coming down, you couldn't go up. It was built like that so if enemies came, they could put the treasure up the top, and the enemy would have to go up single file and get knocked off one by one (300-style). And is where the overweight american tourist had the heart attack in the film.

I went out with people from my hostel to a specialty belgian beer bar where there were over 200 kinds of beer on the menu and it was easier to describe to the bartender what you felt like, and they'd produce the perfect beer. I had a peach one which was so delicious, and a honey beer, and a coconut beer served in a coconut shell (they had run out of their chocolate flavoured beer!) Some of the boys drank 12% beer... that's as strong as wine!

U.K: Kingsdown (near Deal, which is near Dover, in Kent... England)

I went to stay with Rob & Ro, friends of my grandparents whose children my Dad was friends with when he lived in England as a kid. They live in a tiny seaside town near Dover, in a lovely house with the most amazing garden I´ve ever seen. Think ´Secret garden´mixed with the garden from the ´Charm Bracelet´ series mixed together with Famous 5 clubhouses, cubbies, hidden swings, fairy circles, fish ponds, Ro´s handmade hidden treasures all through the bushes, Peter Rabbit´s veggie garden and a hidden shed covered in ivy. I would have gone nuts playing in there as a kid!

For the next couple of days Rob & Ro took me on bike rides, walks through the woods (badgers and foxes and rabbits and everything!) to Dover castle and Deal castle, we played lawn tennis and croquet and they introduced me to prawning in the English Channel! I didn´t mind standing in the water scooping them up in the net, but I hated the feel of picking them out of the net all slimy and sharp and jumpy!

There is a maze of tunnels in the White Cliffs of Dover which we explored around, they were used first in Napoleonic wars and then expanded to be a massive base in WWII and they were set up as if everyone had just left the room and you were back in time to the war... food on tables, cigarettes in ashtrays, phones ringing, sound of planes flying overhead etc which set a great mood in there.

Dover castle was fantastic, different yet again to the elegant French chateaux and the Irish ruins I´ve seen so far. It was massive and square and defensive, with all sorts of hidden passage ways and murder holes to pour boiling oil down onto enemies, and fires burning in the grates and shooting galleries facing out on all sides. There were even holographic projections of medieval people going about their daily business in there!
So many layers of history all heaped together here, a Roman lighthouse from 1AD next to a medieval castle and then 20th century war base...

I got on so well with Rob & Ro, they were so full of life and energy and good conversation, I´ve decided when I´m older I want Christine´s book collection and Rob & Ro´s garden (and their amazing painting skills would be nice too!) I feel like I have a 3rd pair of grandparents now!

From the ferry port I got a bus to Bruges (assumed it would go on a ferry but no! The bus drove straight onto a freight train which went under the channel in the tunnel!)

U.K: London

My megabus broke down on the way from Wales to London and I had one of those moments when I realise I´m alone... everyone was on the phone telling friends or family that they´re going to be late etc, and I just sat there writing my journal and eating chocolate enjoying the storm outside because I had nothing to be late for, and noone to tell! It was a weird feeling, but not a bad one.

My hostel is near Kings Cross, it's set in an old courthouse and the Internet room was in the actual court room so you could sit up at the judges big chair and everything! Apparently Charles Dickens worked here when he was really young, and The Clash were tried here for something. My dorm STUNK of smelly feet and there was a terrible rip-roaring snorer... They should wear a badge or something saying 'I snore like a motorbike' so reception can put them all in a room together.

Went on a great free walking tour with people from the hostel and heard awesome stories, this 'new europe' tour company employs history and other students to run the tours in heaps of cities and they really entertain the backpacker crowd and only work for tips. Loved the stories about easy break-ins to Buckingham Palace (like the fat man in spiderman costume who danced on the roof, police threatened to shoot him down but did nothing, they waited for him to get tired and climb down himself haha. And the students who camped in the lawns thinking it was a park, cooked meals and slept and only got found out when they approached a guard asking for directions!)

The Queen wasn't home, but the princes were, and the changing of the guard soldiers marched to 'dancing queen'!

Met up with Matt that evening (Adelaide guy I travelled with in Laos/ Vietnam) for some drinks then we went on a hostel pub crawl around Soho & Covent garden.

The rest of my week in London I stayed with Christine, a friend of my grandparents who Pete & I had stayed with in 2001 on our family Europe trip. She lives about 25 mins out of the city centre on an overground train so pretty similar to going to my house from Melbourne city! I got a UK simcard so I could contact my friends in London easily (the red phone boxes chew up sooo much cash!!) and an oyster train card and felt like a local travelling in and out which was fun. Christine was so helpful, cooked me meals and let me do laundry & use phone and internet all the time which makes such a difference!

Met up almost every day with my mate Tom from work at the Nurses Board, he was staying in Brick Lane which is a really cool st which feels like Fitzroy; cool bars and vintage shops etc, but the major population is Bangladeshi so millions of curry restaurants!

Highlights of rest of week:
Went to a couchsurfing event at a little music festival one day and met lots of travellers there,

Got a rele cheap ticket for 'Hair' musical off lastminute.com and loved it so much, bit lonely going by myself but the music was so uplifting & happy it made me love life

Went to Windsor horse races with Tom and his friend Jack one evening, got to see the castle and had a boat trip down the river to the racecourse which was beautiful, the races were funny- so laid back you could walk across the middle of field to see the start and then the finish (but the favourites won every time so it was no fun picking out random names like at Melbourne cup where every horse has a chance!)

Went to Sherlock holmes museum @ 221b Baker st for a bit of nerdy jess time, and had a giggle at an American lady who thought he was a real person... Also checked out Tate modern with Tom, ate some great curry, and spent the best part of a day in queues and waiting rooms at a hospital trying to get them to change my Australian script into an English one (lost all my pills somewhere so annoying!)

I liked Hyde park & Kensington gardens, wandered around and got stuck in 2nd hand bookshops in Soho, checked out the markets at Covent garden and Camden and was pretty much a pro at the tube even on weekends when they closed like 4 of the most important lines for construction so had to backtrack a lot to get anywhere!

On my last night I went to see a play that Christine recommended called 'War Horse' as I got a cheap ticket to that as well. It was so amazing I want to see it again, apparently Spielberg is making it into a movie at the moment! The play used giant horse puppets (like the animals in lion king musical) but the actors had the movements and noises so perfect you forgot they were people and just saw the horse. It was about a boy´s horse which got sold to the war cause and he enlisted just to try and find his horse again, it was really sad, funny, scary... Amazing.

London was so expensive, topping up oyster card etc, even with free accomodation and some free meals I was spending over my budget every day. The weather was perfect (or 'frightfully hot' as Christine put it!) and I saw squirrels in her garden which she'd charge up the stairs and bellow at because they ate her bird food! I had a lot of fun and good conversations with her, and hope one day I can repay the kindness she showed to me, to some other traveller!