Two Weeks in London

Sorry not to blog for so long. I've spent a great two weeks in London, chilling out and trying pointlessly to save some money. Completely impossible as London remains the most ridiculously expensive city on the planet. Tokyo doesn't even come close (or maybe it's just that I miss my monthly salary).

I am also dismayed to say that I have completely forgotten not only all the cool places to go (proabably not cool now anyway), but also I can't remember how to use the tubes and buses. Plus, every time I go through Waterloo I have this urge to sing ABBA but it's not really the done thing sitting at the back of the top deck of a double-decker.

Since the sailing weekend with Charles, I've been staying with Tasha an old school friend I've known since we were 12. Tasha went to London for three weeks during her second year at University and she never actually came home. She is now almost a qualified medical doctor with one more year to go. I have been quizzing her all the questions you've always wanted to ask your doctor but were afraid to ask, such as "what causes Athlete's Foot?" (a subject closer to home than I like to admit), and "what happens when you give birth - does it really hurt??" (don't worry - this one's not at all close to home). Most of the answers are generally ~ "umm I don't know", or "yes it does really really hurt and anyone who says it doesn't is a lier. Still, she's been coming top of her class so I remain very impressed!

Sailing with Charles turned out to be less sailing and more educational, reminiscent of those knot-tying classes we used to do at brownies. I felt sure I deserved a sailing badge to sew on my lapel at the end of it all. Charles belongs to a sailing club down by the coast and in order to avoid additional club fees, members have to do one weekend of race management a year. This was Charles' weekend and I got to come along for the ride. Well, we were out on a little boat called Betty or Daisy or something. We had a bunch of different coloured flags and five poles. There were a bunch of different types of racing boats with names like 2000's and 750's and Fast Fifteens. We had to record all their numbers as they sailed around us and then get the flags up and down using a timing system which everyone but me could understand. Honestly it was all greek. All the flags meant something, like Race Delayed, or 2000 type boat 5-minute to start, etc... If we got it wrong (we did a bit) we got people sailing close and giving us some stick about it - "where was the two minute warning??!!". Oops. All very serious.

The second day I got to go on the banana-boat thingy that was actually the rescue boat. My job was to dive in and save anybody who might have been in trouble. Suffice to say, I didn't get to save any lives though but was good to be off the other boat as quite honestly it's a dull four hours of flag raising and knot tying. Got to drive it too which was cool!

I've spent the last two weeks hanging out with Tasha because with amazing good timing she is also on two weeks vacation before she heads to the Australian outback and Aboriginal country to do her 'electives' - where the students have to spend two months overseas anywhere of their choice shadowing doctors in another country.

Also I've been catching the sales (ok - I lied a bit before about money-saving - actually I am hopelessly weak during sale season and it's such a rarity to a c t u a l l y f i t t h e c l o t h e s.)

Have also booked the remainder of my trip which will go something like this:
Friday 1st August: Busabout (www.busabout.com) trip to France, down to Tours and Bordeaux, Madrid Spain, 1 week's camping tour of Morocco, Lisbon Portugal, back to Spain, down to Nice, Up to Switzerland, down to Venice, boat to Greece for a little island hopping, boat to Turkey, two weeks touring Turkey, three day all-inclusive mediteranean cruise, boat back to Athens, boat over to Italy, Island of Corsica for about three days, rest of Italy, back to London via Venice and France again.

Seems a bit back and forth but that's the limitation of the buses and really it is just a big circle.

I will get back to London beginning of November and then leave again on the 9th of November (nicely timed to be in London for my birthday don't you think?), via Dubai where I have always wanted to go, to Delhi. Then I will make my way South to Sri Lanka over five weeks and take exit flight out of Colombo to arrive home in time for Christmas for once! From NZ, I will book the South American portion of the trip, (hopefully I will have enough money left) - if not will have to try to work for a while to save.

That's as far as I have gotten. I hope to be back to having some more new adventures very soon and will be sure to update the blog with my next set of disasters and general humilations.