Trip to a small island

We commenced our travels to a small island (Britain) on the 28th of April 2006. this will be our journal and record for friends who can take the time to review our adventures - dumb as well as glum. Adventures are mostly like accidents - often never planned and regularly requiring you to know the persons involved.

In this instance, the main characters are Mark and Karolina, with Karolina being the attractive one!). We are from Australia and Kaz is taking the opportunity to get her 2 year working holiday visa and see some of Europe. Me, I am tagging along with the intention of touring around the UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy with Kaz when she is able.

Arrival – 28 April 2006
We arrived on Friday to a moderate English day to a waiting mini cab to whisk us off to my friend Ian Harris and his lovely wife Elise’s house. That was only after I was on the receiving end of a grilling from Customs. I mean, how dare I decide to come here and spend my Long Service Leave money in the UK!

The mini cab relieved us of £36 ($90) and it seems that the money has flowed steadily and frequently out of the pocket ever since. We hardly got to see the Harris(es) before they flitted off to New York. So we were in a foreign country, unfamiliar flat, tired after our 22 hour flight, but still ready to look around. Ian lives in Putney so a quick tour down the High Street allowed us a quick familiarization with English society. First impressions – the poms have learnt to make coffee! A long Black is an Americano. A cappuccino actually tastes like real coffee! How did they do it? Actually, by importing Italians I think. Australia is no longer streets ahead in coffee culture.

We purchased two £20 SIM cards and £20 of mobile credit only to find that our phones have software locks applied to them. So that led to adventures all up and down Putney’s alleyways and later down Edgeware Road to find a dodgy Pakistani to unlock the phone. But alas, the Sagems are too new and the template to unlock them (at a cost of £20 apiece) is yet to be made. Ian came to the rescue on Tuesday with an old work phone – so we have a mobile and alternating SIMS! “My turn.” “No, my turn.”

The weekend we arrived was a long weekend. After arriving, we washed some clothes which we hang on clothes horses around the flat. Naturally, disaster struck when I hung my jeans on the curtain rack. The weight pulled the rod from the wall. Bugger! So, the Sunday (30 April) of the long weekend was spent hunting down a hardware shop, then a £2 shop for some tools and an attempt to fix the curtains. When we left on the Tuesday, I think my last note to Ian was “Don’t hang that curtain for another day or two.” The cool English weather does not promote the fast drying of Polyfilla.

On the Sunday night we went to watch the English Ceroc competition. Just to spectate is expensive (£15 each). Tickets cannot be bought at the venue, only over the net. Luckily Ian had a connection. The standard has improved over the last few years since we were last here. Still a lot of bopping - the Advanced dancers are good…but there is a large gap back to the Intermediates. They had a new format called Ceroc X – the dancers were only allowed to do Beginner moves (16) and could stylize them however they liked. Quite challenging really.

Ceroc for the uninformed is a form of partner dancing done to modern music. Check out www.ceroc.com.au for details. Kaz and I dance in Canberra, Australia. Here is a picture of us from our CAPITALS dance crew.