Sunday 5 August 2007

And now for the least exciting news of your year...

I have a blog! Being neither a Myspacer or a Facebooker, I felt it was definitely time to jump on the information Super-Highway and give the world a piece of my mind, body and soul. Well not quite. As some may know I’ve begun my 6-month sabbatical and, having conquered Vietnam, am now in the process of tackling the mother country. Good old England is indeed where I find myself (at least for another 3 weeks) until my trusty amigos and I hop over to wee-Paris to start our little Eurotrip.
So… where to start? As I’ve previously expressed to one (or possibly both) of the Natashas in my life; the interest-value or at least, relevancy seems always to be lost when travel experiences are recounted to another party. That’s basically a nicer way of saying I usually get bored when people say; “Ohh Rome was great! I loved Rome. You simply HAVE to go. Oh and Paris was great. You’d love Paris. Oh and…” or the even more tedious; “On the third day we went to……. It was really nice. Then we had lunch and afterwards we saw ……… I took lots of photos etc etc.”
So err yeah- not only have I conveyed what a self-involved snob I am but I’m also no closer to writing anything of meaning.
I suppose I feel like I should be bleating about how tough the backpacker life is and how I want to be home in my own bed (the latter being only partly true). The thing is I’ve been taken care of so much since I made it to London and am currently typing this from what is surely one of the nicest houses I’ve ever stayed in. Even I can’t bitch about my state of living. To explain the house thing: thanks largely in part to a lovely fair-haired Tintin-esque chap who currently shares residence with my sister, I’ve been granted fairly stately accommodation and, due to the Golding’s extreme hospitality and kindness, am now here on my own for the next few days as they’ve taken a summer holiday.
Other stuff…well the three of us (comrades Rory, Tristan and myself) have done much if not all of London’s touristy attractions. Big Ben, Buck Palace, Trafalgar Square (in fact all the squares) are in their own respects very interesting but much as you’d imagine. Other than that we’ve been trudging around from place to place without much of a destination (or a map) but it feels like it works for us..



The London I’ve enjoyed most has probably been the markets, stalls and inner city vibe (for want of a better word). Would have to put both Camden and Portobello Road Markets very high on my list of stuff we’ve done so far.
Little things like the music, the people, the clothes and the smells (though unfortunately I’m not in a position money-wise to dabble much into local cuisine) are what really do it for me and in my opinion, sets them apart from anything we in Australia have to offer.
Played a bit of Football (soccer) and downed a few (but not too many) pints at some pretty cool and “authentic” pubs. Had the displeasure today of watching my beloved Chelsea go down to Man Utd on penalties at a pub near Kings Cross. Good atmosphere though and, contrary to world hype, opposing supports all seemed to get on well.
Did Greenwich a few days back. Nice place though true to form we ploughed through most of the noteworthy sites pretty quickly. I shall at this point include a very cheesy and cherry picture of myself in Greenwich, mainly to prove to my mother dearest that I am still alive but also because it seemed to be the done tourist thing.

Err had a job thing that unfortunately fell through (at least in the them paying me sense) and have had to budget accordingly.
Heading up to Edinburgh via the Lake District and Newcastle (for a match) in a week or so. Hoping to catch a bit of the festival so that should be pretty good.
Have otherwise run out of things we really want to do and I’m personally itching to get on the road in Europe. It’s a good feeling but one I want to satisfy pretty soon. Actually, having read On The Road recently I found myself comparing our own style of travel (or at least the way we’re taking on England) to that in the book. More in the sense that we kind of set off randomly to go and “dig places” (as it is said by the Kerouac’s Dean Moriarty) and get our kicks. Regrettably there’s been less carousing and yahooing and I feel I may at some stage have to break off the shackles of my self-restraint and prove myself to be a truly obnoxious backpacker.
So I think that shall do for now. I apologise for how thoroughly uninteresting this has been but I hope it will fill the void of any emails I forget or don’t have time to send.
I’ll endeavour to continue our journey rather than destination mentality but will also try and find something more interesting to write in the next one of these (whenever that’ll be). I promise it’ll be much more enthralling and blogtastic than this…
I miss most of you very much.. Sorry if I haven’t gotten back immediately to some people. Also, I have a new overseas no. so if anyone wants that they can email me for it.
Hope you’re all well

Jeremy
Song I’m listening to at the moment: Pimping all over the world- Ludacris… Actually no, never but he’s an artist who’s always able to capture my state of mind.
P.S. Feel free to comment either saying hi or instructing me on spelling or sentence structure.
P.P.S. To allay your fears Mum, I can include regular photos of me holding the days newspaper if that is of any comfort

10 comments:

Unknown said...

i like the cheesy greenwich photo. and of course ludacris has a special place in all our hearts...

Unknown said...

ps. that was lit-tash, in case you couldn't tell.

Anonymous said...

You have a blog! I can't believe you've been so technologically savvy and finally done it! Well done indeed. And I'm glad you did b/c I was starting to think you'd gone off and had so much fun you'd forgotton about me (and Mum, who was starting to get a bit tetchy. Don't you forget about her or its me who has to suffer the consequences!).

Anywho, I guess I should probably write you a proper email some time. But for now this will have to do. So "hello" from me, miss you, and keep having a splendiferous time!

Love, Tash-Sis

Anonymous said...

PS: How long did it take you to figure out your Zodiak year was the Dragon?? Heh. Time well spent I'm sure...

Anonymous said...

Tintin-esque? I suppose it's true insofar-as I've never *really* made it past 14, I wear the same clothes on most days (except while visiting the Picaros), and I hang around with people who exclaim with antiquated and salty expletives. The last being your sister, of course.

Very glad you are enjoying your time in the company of my relatives, although I had already heard of your hour-long Mr. Men session with Eleanor. Very brave of you. Anyway, please remember that when Tash-sis suggests that it's really her who suffers that in actuality there is a long line of suffering ending at yours truly. So I expect to see this blog updated quick-smart, you bashi-bazook.

Dan

Anonymous said...

The internet tables have turned my friend, in two weeks the return fire for all the myspace bagging will begin. And no amount of blogging irony or Ludacris references will save you (btw Lil Wayne > Ludacris)

Anonymous said...

well, you may not be a myspacist but you sure have the profile shot thing down pat! down freakin pat. nice work on the blog, can you believe even my mum has been questioning your whereabouts, not so much in a tetchy fashion, but many thanks anyhoo.

much cousinly love from reuben and the schmidts, and yudai

Pauk said...

Would you believe ten whole days passed before anyone told me this blog exists? And even when they got around to it a typo delayed attempts to view it even further.

Congratulations be to you for choosing one of the few flights that made it successfully to England... many fall out of the sky, I hear. Aside from that, you should be commended for not being killed yet in one of the many many ways there is to be killed when backpackorging around as you are.

I have to say, however, that I am a tad disappointed in you on two accounts:

1. That you declined my invitation to bloggorgog on my bloggalog and join my rapidly growing family of traveling bloggolings. Nevertheless I ask for your permission to at least add a link or thingamagoo of similar-ness to make up for it.

and...

2. Why did you not choose to spend your 'Gap Year' (a term I only recently became familiar with) serving the nation by running around with guns shooting at cardboard cut-outs, para-sailing around the bush and other things that help defend us from all the people who keep attacking us?

In any case, keep up the bloggorlogglinging and I shall keep up the commententornating and inventorating words that I like to do.

P.S - Is Bath anywhere near where you are/were? If it is and you haven't already leftorated England, go to Bath - It seems to spit out a high percentage of awesome people. Who know why?

Ally said...

Hi Jeremy, I just sent you a message but I don't think it went because I'm totally blog illiterate and I hadn't blogged in. Anyhow saying hello and trying to work out how to do this so if the other one comes through, that wasn't that interesting anyhow, you'll know I've worked it out. Love Alisonxxxx

Ally said...

Dear Jeremy
love reading the blog. I've been trying to send you a message but have forgotton my password, so I've made another one and now my user name is different!! Hope the pasta and God knows what else you're eating is not giving you constipation. Not great when you're sharing a room with 4+ others!! Hope Rozza has seen the light when it comes to Sangria... 4 litres of the stuff may be terminal.
Keep having fun and put your feet up somewhere if you have the time
Love you
Alisonx