It´s not you it´s me...

So it´s been a while... I´m sorry. It´s not you fault, it´s just I´ve been busy... It´s not you, it´s me. Let me cheer you up with a picture of a Walrus playing an instrument... everyone loves Walruses... More on them later...

IN BRIEF
So I left off in Dubrovnik, when the girls said adios and I was chilling on my own. After another day in D-brik, I travelled to the small island of Korcula... a memorable bus trip which involved meeting Alice, a poor lost Sail Croatia girl who had woken up on the wrong boat, heading in the wrong direction, with no shoes, money, identification or idea what was going on (needless to say this seemed to be a running theme with all the Sail Croatians I met henceforth). Nevertheless, arriving in Korcula I propped myself up in Dragan´s Den and quickly met and befriended some Kiwi, Canadian, English, Irish people. A few days of beach, cliff-jumping (insert photo)

 meeting Australian-Croatians, fold-out couches and devilment (see: breaking into trampolines) it was time to say good bye! Back to Zagreb and onto a plane to fabled France...

Paris

The old Francophile capital, known for bad customer service, fierce protection of the French language and snobbishness in general... Luckily I was staying with a local, Phoebe, who has been on exchange for six months and conveniently has an apartment just off Champs Elysees, which we managed to sardine-style bed down 8 or so people in. Whilst we werent there for long, Phoebe made sure we saw all the sights, including Montmarte, Champs Elysees, the Marais, Villa Savoye, Musee Dórsay, George Pompidou Centre, Sacre Couer, drinking on the Seine etc etc. Cultural highlights included realising that Paris really is the city of love, as everyone makes out, everywhere!  And also that time that I whipped out my old highschool french and managed to tell one of Phoebe´s French friends that I was a dog...hmmm...Low lights included realising that what they don´t tell you about Paris is that it smells like a urinal because there are virtually no public toilets anywhere!
Leaving after a depressingly short amount of time I realised that Paris was a place I would have to come back to again, with more time and more money.

Our next leg of the trip involved a bit of camping. Moss, Condo and I ventured West to Normandy visited Bayeux, saw the infamous tapestry, hired bikes and rode to the see side to see the D-Day beaches and picnic like we´ve never picnicked before.
After this short jaunt, everything got a bit messy, with trains and needing to get places so simply put we managed to end up in the Loire valley in Tours, meeting Grace and Phoebe along the way. We camped in the Loire and discovered the many ways of picnicing in a park and the like... I visited Leonardo Da Vinci´s house and only then realised how much of an absolute genius he was. Condo said goodbye and headed off to follow the tour de France (come on Cadel you champion), and we attempted to go Spain-ward (something which we didn´t realise would be so incredibly difficult, more on that later).

Spain

We unwittingy found ourselves taking a detour through Spain via Bilbao, see the Guggenheim and then end up in Madrid, stay there for less then 24 hours, or long enough to meet an annoying Australian who claimed to have learnt Greek in 5 weeks and also fit in seeing the Prado-hello ´Velazquez´s Las Meninas and the Reine Sofia-Guernica baby. Another night time bus took us to Barcelona, where we allowed ourselves to actually indulge in Spanish lifestyle... something I think suits me quite well. Wake up late, big lunch, siesta, late tapas dinner, drinks and then late to bed. Spot on.

Heading to Barcelona-the cultural capital of Spain- I got stuck into some serious museum going, walked the Mercat de Bocquerie, got lost in the medieval streets and ended up finding myself alongside some Spaniards, rummaging through bins for clothing (some things never change). Highlights woud have to be all the Gaudi architecture (see below), the Joan Miro Foundation, stumbling across the Museum of Textiles and the flea markets! Barcelona feels a lot like Melbourne as there´s tonnes of alleyways, winding streets with street art (see below, Dali work found in the medieval part of Barcelona), cafes work their way into small boutique shops and book shops stock art guides to the city.

Saying goodbye to Barcelona we headed down to Benicassim for a little festival featuring the likes of The Strokes, Brandon Flowers, The Streets, Arcade Fire, Noah and the Whale, Crystal Fighters, Arctic Monkeys and many more... 8 days of camping out in a bur infested dust patch made me realise that we are spoilt at Australian festivals with our healthy dollopings of green grass and camping space. That said, the music didn´t start until around 6pm every night so days were spent chilling out at the beach (not a bad option). Festival finished (yes, I´m rushing over things, but this is supposed to be brief right?) and we headed back to Valencia, the official home of paella, but for us a well needed rest spot.
I didn´t realise before I got there, but Valencia is home to a massive arts and science museum, and all the architecture is in this futuristic style of Santiago Calatrava (current architect for Ground Zero).

And for my birthday I got a ticket to the largest aquarium in Europe! in the Ciudad! I mean they even had a 10 mete deep dolphinarium... ! Crazy stuff.
My birthday came and went and I tried not to think about how much older 22 feels then 21 by appropriately escaping reality and seeing the final Harry Potter film! Amazing!... and we got grande popcorn and everything. Thank you. We also went out for what was possibly the most amazing meal I´ve ever had. I´m talking white truffle lasagne, four cheese gnocci and homemade dips... foodgasm thinking about it.

After Valencia we trained to Granada where I stayed at the best hostel I´ve ever had, Makuteros Hostel where they have their very own bar, chill-out zone hammocks and tree house. Nothing could be more relaxing, and whilst I only booked 1 night, I´ve now been here for  nights.

After leaving Grace, Phoebe, Dan and Grace I had a small bout of food poisoning which embarrassingly left me surpris vomiting in a pot plant, much to the horror of the hostel staff. Despite this have befriended another Australian called Dave and we´re making plans for Morocco! yeah boi!

POINTS OF INTEREST

Getting to Spain via train-or the day that everything screwed up

So. The stuff up. My god, I can´t believe how wrong this went. When we were in Tours, we wanted to get to Barcelona to meet Pip, but found that there was absolutely no trains that we could get on! Eventuly after spending many hours in the train ticket office our helpful customer service officer suggested that we could get to Madrid instead, but would have to take 3 different trains and wait 2 days. Fine.

We came back in two days time to board our trains. It wasn´t until we got on the train that we realised that we´d been sold not only Eurail tickets (tickets we didn´t ask for) but 1st class tickets! Which we didn´t have a Eurail Pass for. So we were ordered off the train in Bordeaux to fix the problem, only to our dismay we realised we were going to have to pay the full price for a return ticket, thus, we sneakily bought whole new ones for an extra 30 Euros.

Then we arrived in Irun to find that the third and final ticket we had purchased for 50 Euros, from Irum to Madrid, was actually for the next day!!! Crap. We weren´t allowed on the train and as we saw it pulling up Grace speedily tried to negotiate in Spanish, but to no avail. Our only option was to disregard our train tickets and take a 30 euro bus to Bilbao, and then to Madrid (quite a scenic detour). Arriving at around 1 am we immediately treated ourselves to awell deserved beer.

So all in all, probably the most stressful 48 hours of our trip thus far.

Gaudi

Park Guell entrance

Battlo House

Sagrada Familia

Absolutely one of my stand-outs for Barcelona was seeing the architecture of the one and only Antonio Gaudi... typical tourist, I was drawn in by the sinous line, absurd sculpture of his Barcelonian Modernisme (see Spanish version of Art Nouveau). Amazing to see his Sagrada Familia (above), probably his most famous work, a MASSIVE church with incredibly intricate design details, which is hoped to be finished by 2026, the 100 year anniversary of Gaudis death-so it´s a bulding a long time in the making. Another great place was Park Guell (google image that), a Dr. Suess-esque park, which was supposed to be a housing development, but failed. Still, lots of fun to walk around all the crazy mosaics.

ART WANK

• George Pompidou Centre-I wish I had had longer in this place. Luckily I looked enough like Phoebe to get in for free. Very stoked to see my first ever Felix Gonzalez-Torres
• Villa Savoye- The Modernist masterpiece of Le Corbusier, was, kind of a bit disappointing. Very few of the original furniture was in the building and the pamphle guide explained little.
• Musee D´´Orsay-I enjoyed this museum immensely, once we finally managed to get in. Huge lines and strikes making it very difficult. I especially loved the Art Nouveau furniture, but felt that the museum didn´t make itself very decipherable for an English speaking audience-typical French.
• Reine Sofia- Obviously Picasso´s Guernicaas a highlight as I don´t think I´ve had an emotional reaction to an artwork in a while. Other highlights were a commissioned Richard Serra and seeing Dali´s The Great Masturbator. On top of that there was a fantastic retospoctive of Yayoi Kusama´s work. Involved in the New York Factory Day´s, it was great to see so many of her works together after having seen individual ones in Moma, Fruitmarket gallery etc.

• The Prado Museum- Like watching slides in my Baroque art class, except that they were the actual paintings. Las Meninas, Goya, Ribera all highlights
• Miro Foundation

Sorry about the length and lack of funny info or interesting things. I think I just had to get this one out... I swear the next one will be better.

Thanks for reading and he your safe and sound.

Amy

Hello non-English speaking countries...

TURKEY

 The IN BRIEF...

So Daniel William and I made our hearty way from mother England to Turkey at the end of May (yes, that was a while ago and no, there is not a lot of internet over here... or readily accessible for long periods of time internet).
We flew into Bodrum (South-West Turkey), a small little port town that looks like this:

There we saddled up and awaited the beginning of our cruise... an eight day epic adventure with our crew and other shipmates (who could be described lavishly as a couple of Swisse, four Swedes and two Turks, but which is probably more accurate in saying, some Swisse dentists who enjoyed hypotheticals, Turkish people who adorably sometimes wore matching outfits-made cutier by their inability to speak English and a Swedish foursome). The choices of activities included: swimming, having a nap, light reading, eating, drinking beer/wine, napping, sleeping... you understand the picture. Little to say on this point other then it was a lovely break from the running around in the UK, the water was clear, the food amazing and we managed to read up extensively on the history of both Istanbul and Croatia.

Istanbul

Flying into Istanbul for five days of high-intensity touristic activity. A city that I still cant (please excuse any missing apostrophes as I cannot find the apostrophe key) quite pin down. The only place to have been ruled by three empires (Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman), truly intercontinental, where the call to prayer marks time passing and you can find anything on the streets (including a guy trying to tell your fortune through the fool proof method of a rabbit or coq). Istanbul is a contradiction I wish I had more time to explore.
So much time spent wandering and possibly purposefully getting lost, as well as cursing all the hills that just dont appear on the map in front of you. In amongst that there was of course the sight seeing- the galata tower/bridge, funicular, galleries and museums (of course), the Bosphorus (the huge river that Istanbul hugs), Topkapi Palace (home to the Ottoman Sultans and some seriously nice jewels-86 carat diamond nonetheless), mosques, grand bazaar, spice bazaar, an ancient Roman cistern.... etcetcera... I think you understand the point. So busy. After the whole thing we felt like we needed another cruise. Everything is so busy in a city that houses 13 million people. Seriously, you can drive for two hours on highways both east and west and still not reach the edges. So everything was action packed, which meant that when we found a little bit of serenity we certainly appreciated it... Also Condo now has a fabulous story to tell about an Iranian mystical dance performance he saw and the blind guy who led him there... but thats for him to let out...
Also.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing, is better then Turkish food. Turkey turned me into one of those picture taking tourists, who must get visual record of every meal they eat for fear that it could be their last.
Also.
Upon leaving Istanbul, we went to the wrong airport... apparently Condo made bookings without realising there was more then one. Condo almost all his nails in the -nail biting incident- of the 11th of June 2011 when Amy and Dan rocked up to Ataturk airport to find that they needed to be 60km, over the other side of Istanbul in under and hour... crunching stuff.





Then there was Croatia...

 Official birthplace of the Cravat (later to be re-modelled by the French into the infamous `tie`, Croatia has been a lovely trip that I jumped on board with Phoebe Harrison and her fabulous Frenchy exchange-o friends. Rockin up in Split I was ill-prepared. Sure I could tell you the history of the country and its various regions, but how the hell did I get to Plitvice Lakes! Finding my feet and eventually sorting out where I was supposed to go I was met by a walm and welcoming kind of environment on my arrival to meet the clan...

You see, Plitvice Lakes looks a little something like this...

Dozens of waterfalls tumbling into crystal clear water, which houses various types of fish in its folds... Five hours walking took us around the upper and lower falls, through the caves and was enough time to have ensure much happy-snapping and gasps at ``the beauty of nature``... mmm sublime.
Split and Hvar
This journey was not a slow paced on in even the slightest sense of the word. Away from the islands we moved to the transport hub of Spilt... no sooner could you say ``Why is everyone here Austrlian` before we`d immersed ourselves in the culture, finding myself having to inexplicably rub Bepanthen into the back of a Native Canadians recently tattooed back, everyone loving the markets and trying to learn Croatian phrases and then realising that everyone speaks English anyway.
Away to Hvar for three nights and I counted my lucky stars on being involved in this trip as the planning wasa seamless... we had managed to snag ourselves an apartment for our stay... Days of great seafood, laughter, getting to see Phoebe again (yay!), sun, more and more pebbles and a sad infatuation with a John Grisham novel ensued....
Obviously getting restless, we moved to Dubrovnik ((with a short stop over in Serbia on the bus trip)... D-brik (as Ive started affectionately calling it) actually took my breath away and then I found I just couldnt breathe because there were so many damned tourists...
Another graphic:

And yes, I am shamelessly taking these photos off the internet. Id totally take my own and theyd be just as good as this, just in pure Amy style, I dont have my camera cord (lost, typical) and its quite crapola anywho.
But seriously this ancient walled fortress (as in the old town) is littered with little galleries, coffee shops, restaurants and shops that sell only white and blue striped merchandise. Our last day all together meant a trip to Lokrum (the island just off Dubrovnik), sunbathing, avoiding nudist beaches, boring people with our book reading, museum visting, wall climbing, wine-drinking, dinner and an exhausted getting into bed. Bon voyage to the rest of the girls and now I am flying solo in D-brik.

POINTS OF INTEREST

Ipod Death

 

 

 Yes. My ipod did not stand the test of time and was henceforth accidentally thrown into the sea just off the Turkish coast by persons other then myself. Whilst I have settled myself down now, I was quite riled up... a message wrote shortly after the incident can probably enlighten yout o what extent

I'm currently ın an ınternet cafe ın Turkey, frustratıngly tryıng to grapple wıth a Turkısh keyboard that keeps hıdıng key Englısh letters etc on me... please note my lack of 'enterıng', I have not found the ENTER button yet, or at least ıt does not work. Also, why ıs the god damn apostrophe the shıft key of the number 2! I swear, what were they thınkıng. Anywho, as you may have noted (maybe you saw my profıle status update)... I have lost the fabulous ıPod touch to the fabbled land of 'got wet broken Apple electronıcs' as ıt was accıdentally thrown ınto the GOD DAM AEGEAN SEA by persons other then myself... You may have notıced that thıs has me quıte rıled up. You would be correct. Dammıt. all my (actually some of) my musıc was on that... now all I have to look forward to are long haul Eastern European bus trıps wıth lıttle blastıng ınto my coclear then some hıghly twanged foreıgn (albeıt exotıc) tones... boo... 

The upside to this may be that I managed to start using Condos ipod and therefore find the beauty of the game Adas Hospital, a raring game where you set up your own medical clinic and treat serious illnesses such as depression by rubbing all over the face of the patient to remove their tears. See Graphic.

Couchsurfing

A couple of different couch surfing incidents popped up their head in Istanbul. Firstly I had many a random request from -people who were near me- including this hunk...

 who kindly offered to share not only his apartment, but also his bed. Selcuk you old dog.

But seriously, Condo and I scored the couch surfing jackpot. We met up, just upon arrival with Kai, a Turkish accountant who had lived in Canada for a few years! He walked us around Istanbul and let us grill him with questions about the upcoming elections, Turkish baths and appropriate protocol, history, geography, food... everything under the sun. He also showed us a fantastic coffee shop five floors above the city. Peace and quite just before we departed.

We also lucked in staying with Burark and his brother for a few nights. That were such funny guys, great music, great night out in Taksim hanging out at bars frequented by movie stars and the like, making full use of the sauna, spa, pool and table tennis... Fabulous fun. Definitely suggested for all travellers.

ART-WANK (finally)

Not sure how much more I can write, but here goes:

• Borusan Culture Centre, Istanbul- Five floor installation exhibition. Highlights being a work which involved an orchestra of printers who had been programmed to type so as to create melody, beat, rhythm.
• Sanralistanbul, Istanbul- free shuttle bus to a privately funded museum connected to one of the Universities here. Though my penchance isnt necessarily for modernist painting, I was impressed with the space and the generosity of private investors.
• Istanbul Modern- free on a Thursday and seriously good. Guy Madding was great. Rivane Neuschewander made an appearance#...
• War Photo Limited, Dubrovnik- very good exhibition space highlighting war photography. Harrowing tales of war photographers and their journey on the front line.

Goodbye Britain.

THE BRIEF


Glasgow
So last time we left off Pip and I were in Glasgow, hanging out with all the Glaswegians (or 'Weeds' as the Edinburghians like to affectionately cou*patronisingly*gh call them). Whilst struggling somewhat more then we thought we would with the Glaswegian way of speaking, we did manage to see some of the sites in the short three days we had. In short: various museums and galleries (Kelvingrove, Mackintosh, Hunterian, Mitchell Library, GOMA etc), Charles Rennie Mackintosh sites, Willow Tea Room and Glasgow School of Art inclusive... all of which doesn't necessarily mean a lot if you haven't been there.

What does mean something is that we got free whisky! At a whisky tasting!!! Which I embarrassingly had to hold in my mouth instead of swallowing, whilst stupidly nodding, as the taste-testing man asked me what I thought and explained the various tonations of flavour and levels of blah blah blah... get this stuff out of my mouth because I HATE whisky! Still, what's free is well, free.

But a trip to Glasgow wouldn't be a trip to Glasgow without one inadvertent trip into 'drug country' as our taxi driver lovingly described the destination he was dropping us off at or that incident where you just chose the dodgiest pub in town to have a few drinks at.... Thankfully we were saved by a few kind souls asking if 'we ACTUALLY knew where we were?' and advising that 'we should probably leave before it gets dark'.... hmmm...

Edinburgh

Nevertheless, Glasgow behind us and only Edinburgh (pronounced Edin-borough not Edin-burg as I so rudely found out) in front.... And if anyone hasn't seen Edinburgh before (don't jest, I honestly hadn't before I saw this view out of my bus window)...

Ok. So I slightly lie, because this is the Edinburgh castle, but you catch my drift. The whole of the Old Town is a World Heritage UNESCO site!

Nevertheless, here I was beckoned into the arms of a newly exam free Hannah Anglesey, to stay with her in her flat (thanks also to Cecilie, Kirsty and Claire her most generous housemates).

Here's the thing about Edinburgh. We liked it so much that we stayed longer then we intended. So we had a fabulous tour guide in young Hannah who had been, herself, on pretty much every tour Edinburgh offered. Point to a historical looking monument/sign/building and she would have some story of its origin (her knowledge, some say, knows no bounds).

Nevertheless we did a fair bit of sight seeing, walking up Arthur's Seat, the castle, the Royal Mile, gawking at people in quilts, eating haggis, galleries and the ghost tour that was disappointingly not scary in the slightest. 

Never mind all that, because we actually ended up making some great friends, which I can not to describe all in detail, but to say that we ate out French style, got down Underdog, had some REAL Italian and was a 'tourist in the kitchen', with healthy sprinklings of Italian, Norwegian, Scottish, Spanish and mostly definitely Swisse and had a great time (yes, you guessed it, we befriended foreigners in a foreign land, typical).

London

After bidding farewell in a hasty almost-miss-the-bus-you-typical-Haywood-you're-late-for-everything kind of style we had to leave Edinburgh, rest up on a 9 hour bus trip all the way back down South, to London town. Here we've been lapping it up in Patto's room that she has kindly lent us and hanging out with some fellow Australians... Other then that we've had wins in getting 45 pound tickets to the National Theatre for 10, catching up with Phoebe, a day-trip to Oxford where we saw some movie sets from Harry Potter as well as meeting up with some lovely couch surfers, going to the Saatchi's new exhibition and planning because I leave for TURKEY ON MONDAY! woot.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The Accent (The Scottish one that is)

I'll say it once and I'll say it again, no one can say it like the very best Mr. Robin Williams.

Seriously though, at some points I was not quite sure if what they were speaking was actual English!

The Weather (It's like we're on an awkward first date already)

Whilst we were undertaking these activities in Scotland, we found that the weather forecast often looked something like this:

And whilst we had imagined for ourselves a fabulous holiday of strolling around Scotland's streets with ease, jovially commenting on this historic landmark here, that public art work there...'oh would you like a spot of tea at that nice cafe????'' 'Oh yes I jolly well would'... fabulous fabulous... we actually found that everytime we ventured out of doors we were met with almost gail force winds that left us looking a little something like this:

Scottish Museum Staff 

Now you may think that I'm joking, but I swear on my cyber-space heart that this is actually the uniform that all the Museum staff in Scotland wear! Nuff said.

ART-WANK


A.K.A. things I would look up on the internet if I had a reliable access to it:

• Jeff Koons at Scottish Gallery of Modern Art
• Mike Figgis at the Tate Liverpool. Probably one of the most innovative and interesting attempts I've seen to seriously get a truly public audience involved in art. Figgis took some of the most iconic sculptures from the Tate Liverpool Collection and then put them in public places (ie. takes a Dan Flavin to a Primary School and puts Duchamp's Urinal in a public bathroom) and then asks the public to say what they think about it, films their response and shows it next to the original work in the gallery. Hilarious, but telling, responses ensue, such as 'I don't like it' and 'It's not art, art's supposed to be pretty'.
• FruitMarket Gallery, Edinburgh-Narcissus Reflected. A fantastic space in Edinburgh that for this exhibition looked at the changing interpretation of the story of Narcissus in art.
• Tino Sehgel-Transmission Gallery, Glasgow. Just astounded to see a Tino Sehgel being performed in Glasgow, the first of his works ever to make it's way to Scotland.
• Saatchi Gallery- especially the one permanent work by Richard Wilson, which is such a totally mind warp that I was left gobsmacked... but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But I can't believe that this gallery is totally free!
• John Soane Museum
• THE TATE MODERN!!! The grand daddy did not disappoint. What a fabulous exhibition I had to go back twice to fit in all two floors of their permanent collection. Such a fantastic presentation of the particular strengths of their collection and the relationship between artists internationally. Favourites include: Vito Acconci documentation of performances, Taryn Simon exhibition, Cy Twombly and Do Ho Suh's staircase (pictured).

I can safely now saw that whilst I wasn't totally taken by Britain when I first arrived (possibly because it's just so similar to Australia), upon leaving I've realised that I have a little bit fallen in love with it (especially London). Britain, you will be sorely missed, except for your weather which is awful.

The First Installment

As promised... IN BRIEF... what's been going on...

So I actually left in what feels like forever ago, the 26th of April, with the whole Haywood clan, my travelling buddy Pip and some stragglers (Morey and Brenno) to the airport at 2am in the morning.

A cheeky stopover in Kuala Lumpur left us with enough time to meet up with Dan Condon, see the Petronas Towers, go to the Batu Caves, try to be sold millions of wooden sculptures/bowls/crap that we don't want and then head out of there.... Air Asia here we come...

Which, surprisingly wasn't so bad...

London

Nevertheless, we ended up in London, the three of us, looking totally bedraggled and tired and making our way over to Surrey to stay with some of Dan's friends from his 'GAP YEAR' (quote Sophie Jennings). Right next to the Chelsea Football Club, I might add, not bad.

Regardless, we hung around London long enough to see the Royal Wedding in Hyde Park. With Ed Robinson, some cheese and wine and some free cupcakes from some posh Londoners who took a liking to our Aussie accents we were in the prime position to see the 'kisses' on the balcony! awww...

Hanging around London for a few days I managed to see a hell of a load of art (more on that later), Harrods, Convent Gardens, the Tower of London, St Paul's Cathedral, The Only Way is Essex, the Millenium Bridge, the madness of Royalists and just crazy people alike and some of Patto's living room... rather then the crazy partying we had promised ourselves.

Liverpool
 
 Up to Liverpool and ahoy, we're staying with more of Dan's friends... the lovely Mr Will Gudgeon. Here we soaked up some Liverpoodlian sights such as the Beatles Museum, Tate Liverpool, Docks, Slavery Museum and lots of bars. Liverpool has around 5 Universities and therefore a huge night life for students and hugely cheap drinks deals. Beers don't come in pots and pints are around £1 at most places.

The Trek

So Liverpool was also the planning ground for our Great Trek... a trek to rival all others (namely Lesbian camp AKA Wilson's Prom spectacular) and the Overland. The trek was 70 miles over 6 days and bascially looked like this:

Stunning, isn't it? It runs right through the heart of the Lakes District from South to North. If I could say that I ever experienced the sublime, it was in the Lakes District.

The long and the short of it is that after 4 weeks of fabulous weather, the heavens opened and decided to rain a bit on us. Luckily our £20 tent kept us nice and dry and we didn't even need it when we stayed at Skiddaw House (below) the highest Youth Hostel in Britain! Minor detail: I actually got quite sick and so we couldn't finish the whole thing. Bugger.

 Now

So after finishing our trek and heading back to Liverpool we stayed a couple of nights there and now we're in Glasgow, just arrived after a rather long 7 hour bus trip.

So, that was supposed to the 'brief' part, but sorry, there was just too much to tell.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The Wedding: 'A Small Family Affair'-Wills...(shucks you joker)

The 29th of May showed to me, how crazy Britain really is. The day beforehand we walked up down the Mall (the road leading out of Buckingham Palace where some of the procession would be going) and it was madness. There were people camping out everywhere. Though I did see some of the best Royal Wedding merchandise which ranged from all manner of food item (see above) to masks of Kate, Wills and the Queen herself.
Sitting in Hyde Park the atmosphere was absolutely electric and it was awesome to see the spitfire fly above us (so close) after the ceremony. In the days after, I actually found myself getting caught up in the hype... I flipped through tabloid magazine reading about the comparatives times of the TWO kisses on the balcony... ! Woah two!... I religiously looked into the designer of the dress and watched the American news reports which had come in with lip readers to read the Royals lips during the ceremony!! What...! And like everyone else, I fell in love with Harry... Man, he's such a bad boy... and that car idea, putting balloons on it, genius.

The Phone

 

Yes. you may have heard about the phone. Since getting over here I've been having a bit of trouble with my phone (it not being unlocked and all) so had to splurge on a new one for £1... I could not have been happier when the cashier pointed out which phone I had just purchased at such a bargain basement price... His hand pointed towards the stand and my eyes lighted on the phone picture above, The Commemorative Wills and Kate Alcatel Special. It was as though all my dreams had come true. Not only was this phone kitted out with a cover bearing the couples entwined initials on the back, but also their photo as the background. Who cares about not having dictionary when your rign tone is automatically set to 'God Save the Queen'... sheer joy.

Medication
Having learnt a little from Patto about how to be 'Reem' (bogan/chav word for hot) I think we were pretty well prepared for Medication, which can only be described as unbelievable. Thousands of people packed into a club which plays all the latest hits from J-Lo and sells suspiciously home-brew seeming alcohol to unsuspecting customers. Whilst some opted for costume and most normal clothes, I did appreciate that the club had shelled out some money to hire 'Reem Girls' (pictured below):

Whilst I'm not sure what exactly was required of their job description, I think it went along the lines of 'Wear Little, Look Hot'. Basically clad in underwear, Reem girls walked around the club to general cattle calling or standing up on stage looking disinterested as they swayed to the beat on their 11 inch heels.
More interestingly, there was a fight. This is how it began. Our host, Will Gudgeon, recalled in introducing us to the club ' oh no, I've never seen a fight there'.... Amy, however, decides that it's hilarious to shove back someone who had incosiderately jostled her on the dance-floor. Using her derrier to it's full effect, she actually managed to push one guy A into guy B. Guy B is suitably unimpressed and therefore mouths something (admist the music din) to the effect of 'What the F*&$ are you doing?' to which Guy A's response is a simple punch in the face. oops.

The Night We Slept in a Stranger's Garage
Having already labelled ourselves pre-hike the 'no gear, no idea' crew, we knew that there were probably going to be some mishaps. The first of which was on our first night in Ulverston, a little town which we had planned to camp before we started the hike.
Problem 1: We reach Ulverston and there are no campsites that take people with tents.
Problem 2: It's just started raining
Problem 3: As we walk into various establishments we realise that no one has any rooms.
crap.
Luckily, on the train to Ulverston we had met a nice French teacher who after graciously suggesting some good pubs along the Cumbria Way also offered that if push came to shove he'd find us somewhere to stay. Naturally, in this hour of desperation, we call him. He says he'll call back. Our hopes aren't looking up as it appears that we've been stood up, gotten the old 'I'll call you...' line before we even went on date... Luckily, Scott rang back and offered us some space at his parents house, just out of town! An awkward but funny and relieving meeting ensued as we ventured out to the little township of Scales, where we were greeted and offered the garage floor! yes! We couldn't be happier! And with a cup of tea in the morning and a lift into town we were stoked. Thank you universe.

ART-WANK
Ok. So I've exceeded myself here so can't really be bothered writing up all the things I've seen. Here's a brief run-down:

• Ai Wei Wei's installation at the Tate Modern, London. Literally thousands of hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds all splayed ou on he floor.
• David Goldblatt's apartheid photojournalism at the V and A
• Light Nights Festival. An Arts festival in Liverpool which had everything from grass-roots type installations and photography to works in the The Bluecoat, all in different venues across town 
• The Tate Liverpool. A seriously good sculpture collection which had in it everything from Dali's Lobster phone to one of the replica's of Duchamp's Urinal.
• National Gallery- and who better to take me around the Medieval Art Section then the great Matthew Champion.
• British Museum-Exhibition on drawing from Picasso to Mehretu which highlighted the necessary use of drawing, still, amongst artists across all types of mediums.

Thanks for listening. Please send through emails with what you're up to! amylouisehaywood@gmail.com

Missing you all.

A Post About the Posts to Come

Why Hello there!

Just thought I'd do some explaining about how I intend to set this blog out. For time's sake I have decided that it shall be dividing my blog into sections for easy reading's sake. The sections are as follows:

THE BRIEF
As it sounds. A brief run-down on what I've been doing/where I've been going/who I met/what trouble was caused... this is so that people who can't be bothered reading a great deal of text cough*Nick (I looked at your emails, but there was just too many words) MacRae* doesn't have to trawl through all that tripe that I'm going to put up on the net.

POINTS OF INTEREST
Things that need or deserve further explanation.

ART-WANK
The low-down on various exhibitions/museums and the like that I've been too. Turn away now most of you who cannot stand the simple mention of 'typically ironic comment on contemporary sculpture'... or the like

Here goes....