I’ve made no secret in the past of my
indifference towards London – I’ve really never seen what all the fuss is
about. But it was right at the top of Kaitlyn’s list and that, coupled with
seeing it through the eyes of an old local (Ricky), made me a little excited
about going. And, if nothing else, I knew we’d somehow make it Sexy.
We were staying at the Smart Russell
Square or, as I took to calling it, Smart Russell Squat. And having said that,
I think a lot of hobos would turn their noses up at the prospect of squatting
there. We were on floor five, the top floor. There was no lift which was
initially annoying given my shell and the rest of our luggage, but it turns out
the stairs were an absolute bitch even sans-shell; they were obviously a
co-design between MC Escher and someone with severe vertigo, as half of them
didn’t actually lead to anything other than wall, and the ones which did lead
to actual floors were on such severe angles, every time I attempted them, I
felt like a clumsy, lumbering alcoholic. (I had the hostility and resentment of
a chronic-alcho too.) Once we navigated our way up the stairs, we arrived at
our room to discover two things: Andrea Boccelli was the interior designer, and
we were going to have the same roomies for the entirety of our stay.
Our roomies were two Swiss girls and
one Swiss guy who, it turns out, came to London with two intentions: shopping
and partying – with the focus unquestionably on the latter. Until the last
night, we didn’t actually see them at all because they’d be getting home just
prior to (or just after) we left for the day, then they’d be out shopping when
we returned in the afternoon, and then they’d be out partying when we returned
back from what we thought was partying (but comparatively was a game of bingo
at the RSL). But we did end up spending a bit of time together and they ended
up being awesome. Plus, they provided us with a few of our most memorable
London moments.
I’ve decided this isn’t going to be a
chronological blog as such, primarily because there are several (night-time)
moments about which I’m not too sure where they sequentially took place, but
also because I’d prefer to get all of the traumatic hostel moments out of the
way first. Now, the next morning I awoke quite early – about 6.00am – as our
roomies stumbled in, so decided I may as well get up and shower. I managed to
shower at about 7.30am. Not because I was accosted by Christian Bale on the
Staircase of Stupefaction and let him have his way with me against the skewing
balustrade, but because that is how long it took me to get to the showers. Every
morning. There were no showers on the fifth floor, or the fourth floor, or even
the first floor; there weren’t even showers in the basement. The only showers
in the entire hostel were in the sub-basement. To reach the showers from
our room involved navigating 244 steps, and seventeen doors, most of which
varied so much in height and width, I often felt like Alice in Wonderland.
Although, there was absolutely nada wondrous about that shithole.
Unfortunately, journeying through the
seizure-inducing fluro blue labyrinth of stairs and corridors to reach the
showers was the least traumatic part of the showering experience in Smart
Russell Squat. Upon arriving (exhausted, disoriented and dehydrated) to the
bathrooms, I found myself in a voyeur’s dream. There were about fifty shower
cubicles, only three of which had sheer shower curtains – and this wasn’t the worst
aspect. The cubicles were so small, you couldn’t bend over to reach your
shampoo without sustaining a coma-inducing concussion; the water had about as
much pressure as the spray of juice from someone biting into a juicy corn cob,
and only stayed on when you were firmly holding the button in; continuing in
the hostel’s fashion of ridiculous slanting floors, the bottom was slanted in
from each side causing a ten-inch-deep foot-bath to appear seconds after
commencing the showering process.
Despite the bathroom being full, I
managed to score myself one of the “curtained” showers. However, within ten
seconds of entering, the curtain was yanked back and a crazy lady started
yelling at me in Polish. Turns out it wasn’t just me she was yelling at, as she
proceeded to make her way down the shower bays screaming at everyone. Newsflash
illegal immigrant: you’re in England – NONE OF US UNDERSTAND YOU, and yelling
your words at a level which perforates our eardrums isn’t going to change that.
It took fifty, dripping wet, naked women staring confoundedly for her to
realise none of us understood a word she was bellowing. “OUT NOW. WE CLEAN.”
Advice From an
Objective Foreigner: If your hostel has a check-out time of 8.30am, 7.30am is
not a good time to clean the showers. If you don’t believe me, check out the
fully-occupied showers, and the queue of people you muscled your way past to
get in here. Given that I had shampoo all through my hair and soap all
over my body, I yanked my curtain back to quickly finish my shower. I was just
rinsing my hair when I felt something scratching on one foot, and a semi-severe
burning on the other. I looked down, and there was a gloved-hand rubbing
steel-wool over my left foot (taking all the skin and a decent amount of flesh
with it), and a gloved-hand pouring chemical all over my right. There’s gentle
exfoliation to reveal smooth, polished skin, and then there’s chemical scouring
to reveal smooth, polished bone. On the plus side, my preliminary fears of
contracting tinea were instantaneously quashed.
I came out of the shower burning
(but, arguably, with the cleanest feet in the Northern Hemisphere), and changed
into the most Londony, hipster-friendly outfit I had. I was just packing my
things away when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around expecting to see
Kaitlyn, but instead saw a whole lot of boob and an equally large amount of
va-jay-jay. This woman was standing in front of me, dripping wet, and asked,
‘Can I borrow your towel?’. Saywhat?! Lady – if you hadn’t gone Playboy
Centrefold on me the answer would still have been ‘no’ because that’s
disgusting, but the fact that you essentially forced me to conduct a gynaecological
exam on you, you can add a ‘hell’ to that ‘no’. Then I went and sought out my
Polish friend and asked her to pour her cleaning product into my eyes.
After climbing the Staircase of
Calamity (and needing to re-shower afterwards), I was in desperate need of
nourishment. Fortunately, the one-hour serving of “breakfast” had commenced.
The inverted commas around “breakfast” are not a typo; to describe what they
serve as being breakfast is as accurate as describing me as a blonde. I’ve seen
homeless men pull more edible food out of giant skip bins. The night before,
upon our arrival and check-in, Kaitlyn commented that she felt somewhat like a
battery hen. “Breakfast” only exacerbated this feeling. Advice From an
Objective Foreigner: I know that you British are often typecast as being,
amongst many things, tight. Serving “breakfast” for only one hour in a hostel
of 400 people is only perpetuating the stereotype.
As we arrived in the breakfast room,
we were rudely herded into a queue, in which we had to wait several minutes to
move a solitary step. After ten minutes of shuffling forward, the offerings
eventually became visible: slices of stale, white bread precariously piled on
top of each other, a giant bucket (yes, an actual bucket) of jam, a
giant bucket of butter, and an urn (which, upon sampling, turned out to encase
a coffee which made International Roast taste like Goddamn espresso). As the
hens proceeded forward, the bread towers shrank, and the slop-buckets of
condiments began to empty. I began to worry that it would all run out before we
reached the food. I wish it had run out before we got there. Upon closer
inspection, there was more fluff and foreign objects than jam in the jam
bucket, and more hair in the butter bucket than butter. If I had wanted some
protein with my bread and butter, I’d have brought some eggs at Tesco. Or
chewed off some of my fingernails – either would have been preferable. Upon
procurement of “food”, one then had to attempt to find somewhere to consume it.
Normally at breakfast, one would simply sit down at a table. But the Smart
Russell Squat must have exhausted their budget on cleaning chemicals and bulk
butter, rendering them unable to purchase any furniture whatsoever. Everyone
was literally standing all around this room trying to eat whilst simultaneously
balancing plates and plastic cups filled with boiling water.
After “breakfast” we departed the
Squat and commenced our London sight-seeing. When Ricky lived in London, he
worked out in Clapham (the major site of this year’s riots), and he intended to
give us his two tours of London: “The Royal Tour” and “The Riot Tour”. The
former was first up, and was to consist of London landmarks: The West End,
Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Parliament, etc., etc. The
first part of the Royal Tour was to catch a red double-decker bus. This
proceeded to be our first problem of the day. As I mentioned before, Kaitlyn
was uber-excited to be in London, with it being one of the top destinations on
her list. So for the first fifteen minutes of our day, she was endearingly
pointing out famous Londony things and squealing. ‘AHHHH! A BLACK TAXI!’;
‘AHHHH! TESCO!’; ‘AHHHH! A RED PHONE BOX!’; ‘AHHHH! A RED POST BOX’; ‘AHHHH! A
RED BUS!’ Then it was ‘AHHHH! WE’RE ON A RED BUS!’. It was awesome. And then it
wasn’t, because it was tantrum time.
To be fair, this one was slightly
more warranted than those about European wasps, cobblestones and British having
the right directions back to our hotel in Prague; no one likes to sit in gum
and have it ruin their carefully selected “First Day in London” outfit. Still,
as much as no one enjoys this experience, I feel that few people would react
with such a level of intensity. As we stepped off the bus it literally went
from ‘AHHHH! TRAFALAR SQUARE!’, to ‘F$@%. THERE IS F$@%ING GUM ON MY F$@%ING
SKIRT. THE F$@%ING BRITISH ARE ALL DIRTY
F$@%ING BASTARDS. I HATE THEM ALL. THIS WAS MY FAVOURITE F$@%ING SKIRT. NOW I
F$@%ING HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR.’ At this point she stormed off ahead of us, and
Ricky and I Paper, Scissors, Rocked to decided which of us was going to
approach her to tell her she was walking in the wrong direction. Fortunately my
paper beat his rock. But I did suggest he hold onto his rock as he approached
to aid in self-defence.
After she stormed back past me and in
the other direction, Ricky covertly inquired as to ‘how long these tantrums
last for?’ I replied honestly that they vary considerably, but I failed to
mention that I had a feeling she wouldn’t be seeing a Trafalgar not clouded by
tears. It turns out over-active tear ducts didn’t really compromise her view,
as Trafalgar was mostly covered in scaffolding. And as our Royal Tour
continued, it became apparent that Trafalgar wasn’t merely the current London
landmark to receive its Olympic overhaul - literally every building and London
attraction was covered in scaffolding and/or undergoing construction. So, as I
pointed out to her later, Kaitlyn didn’t really miss anything while she was
sulking over on the other side of the square. Next stop was Leister Square. Or,
I should say, the Scaffolding of Leister Square. We literally didn’t see a
single part of it, as the entire area was completely hidden from view as they
made repairs. Walking through the West End, we were actually able to see a few
famous theatres free from construction, which excited my inner Broadway-nerd.
But really, all of these stops on the Royal Tour were actually preparing us for
the tour’s climax: Primark. For those of you who don’t know what Primark is, it
is probably best described as the Chickenfeed of clothes. On steroids. You know
how in movies (and on ACA and Today Tonight) they beat-up the
Boxing Day Sales and make them look more dramatic and terrifying than Libyan
riots? Well, inside Primark is actually a lot like what I imagine it would be
like to be in Tripoli.
Primark is essentially the clothes
and accessory sections of Target, with prices which would have allowed me to
purchase two of every item in the store and still have had enough money to
continue my trip. And if that description makes you want to jump on the next
plane to London and high-tail it to their landmark Oxford Street store, you
might want to bring protective head gear and a stick, because you’re going to
need them. For £10.00 I managed to buy five pairs of 70 denier tights (four
black, one turquoise), a pair of knee-high socks, a black and white
ruffle-front shirt, a watch, a pair of black flats, and a grey jumper. That
£10.00 also bought me a bruised foot, some scratch marks on my hand, a bite
mark on my arm, and two cracked-ribs, courtesy of some “minging chavs” (ugly
bogans) who felt that they were more entitled to these items than I was just
because they were four times my size and had four times as many children than
me. The injuries aren’t true, but there were a lot of minging chavs getting
pushy in the New Arrivals section. And they were all fat and surrounded by
children.
I feel the need to vindicate myself
slightly here by saying that every time I adorn my body in any of my various
Primark pieces, I say a little prayer for whichever Third-World-three-year-old
knocked it up. According to Wiki, there are no sweat-shops involved in the
business…but also according to Wiki, my accountant friend is Australia’s
foremost scientific mind, and currently working with world-class engineers to
develop an underwater channel from Southern Tasmania to Antarctica. Still, my
conscience is slightly clearer.
Imma
break this down for y’all: Piccadilly Circus - scaffolding; trees in Hyde Park
– scaffolding; back of Buckingham Palace – scaffolding; front of Buckingham
Palace – mercifully free of scaffolding, but obscured by enough tourists to
make up Australia’s population twice-over; statues outside the Palace –
scaffolding; Westminster – visible, but enough scaffolding to ruin every
photograph; Big Ben – refreshingly scaffolding-free; Parliament –
construction-free, but ruined by the world’s most boring man behind me giving
the world’s most boring run-down of the British political system and making my
ears bleed; Tower Bridge – scaffolding; every entrance and exit to every Tube
station – blocked by scaffolding; Covent Garden – mostly obscured by
scaffolding; my entire London Facebook album – ruined by scaffolding.
Now, I
remember London winning the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games and, whilst I
can’t provide an exact date off the top of my head, I do know that it was
pre-August 2011. So I am thoroughly perplexed as to why they have waited all
this time to begin sprucing up their landmarks. And not just their landmarks –
the entire city is a concerto of construction. Kaitlyn, Ricky and I gave up
trying to talk to each other as we walked the streets, instead embracing the
Digital Age like all good Gen-Yers and using our phones. Every morning at
6.30am the construction would begin right outside the hostel. Yes, even the
Smart Russell Squat was covered in scaffolding…although I feel that this was a
structural necessity as opposed to cosmetic. Regardless, London have even less
of chance of being Olympic-ready by next year, as I had of being bikini-ready
for Bail last year (when I was still eating six Subway cookies a day the week
of my departure).
There was actually more to see on the
Ricky’s Riot Tour. It probably looked that way because the Riot Tour was
conducted after we patronised various bars in his old ‘hood, and my vision was
beyond double. We had a sweet night out that evening, visiting the drinking
establishments where Ricky worked during his time as an LDN local, and happily
consuming the countless free bevvies which were offered. Ricky and I ended up
really embracing the spirit of the Riot Tour, creating our own miniature clash
on the way home. As a claustrophobic, I have an immense dislike of the Tube
and, as a former local, Ricky thoroughly enjoys it. Basically we disagreed on
my ability to “embrace the city”, but given that we never argue, it’s safe to
say it was really my Jaeger consumption disagreeing with his Sambuca
consumption. Still, we made it home without causing any major damage to the
city, and without my dying of suffocation.
I wasn’t at all surprised when we arrived
home at 4.00am to an empty room, assuming our roomies would still be out
partying. However, when I turned on the light, I initially wondered if instead
their absence was due to kidnapping, as our room appeared to have been
thoroughly ransacked. As our drunken-vision cleared, I realised that our room
hadn’t been burgled, but the mess littering the floor was that day’s shopping;
apparently the Swiss Franc is going great-guns against the Pound, and these
guys were able to buy four of everything in Primark and still have enough money
to party ‘til dawn. I literally had to step over bags just to reach my bed, but
I must say I preferred the Primark-tiling to the reflective blue lino.
On the final night, we actually spent
a fair bit of time with our roomies, but until that point our interactions were
as follows: on our second morning, having been woken up by the jack-hammer
symphony outside, I was just drifting off to sleep when someone’s alarm went
off. I knew it wasn’t Ricky’s or Kaitlyn’s, so I ignored it…to begin with. When
I say ‘alarm’, it wasn’t a Top 40 pop-hit, or even a nice soothing melody, but
a sound not unlike a forklift reversing. And as it went on, it got louder and
louder and LOUDER – it would not have surprised me if the rest of the Squat had
evacuated from the building. Each of our beds had a curtain and, whilst the
three of us had pulled ours back and were looking incredulously at each other,
the other three curtains remained firmly closed, so we had no idea which bed it
was coming from. Had I not heard them stumble in, I would have assumed they
weren’t yet home, because I didn’t think
it was possible for anyone to sleep through that. After another few minutes,
Kaitlyn yelled out ‘Can someone please turn that off?’ In a real role-reversal,
I was the one to crack the shits and yell out ‘Turn that off. It’s [freaking]
annoying’. When there was no response, I started to worry that they were all
unconscious. Or dead. So I got out of bed and followed the screeching to
Daniel’s bunk. I opened up his curtain to find he was still very much alive,
passed out with his BlackBerry shrieking into his ear. Normally I wouldn’t
touch another person’s property, but after twenty minutes of irreparable
ear-damage, I had no qualms yanking it off his pillow and turning that piece of
shit off. We later ascertained that none of them had any memory of his alarm
going off, eventually waking at 3.00pm in time for some High Tea and shopping,
before returning to primp and pre-drink.
We eventually cracked it with the Smart
Russell Squat, choosing to spend our two final nights at The Generator. I’ve
heard nothing but bad things about The Generator since but, after the Squat, I
found it quite luxurious. Admittedly, the part where the lady who checked us in
- a New Zealander who felt a connection to we Taswegians – gave us two dozen
free drinks cards for the bar, probably contributed to my positive feelings
towards the place. Even the “Turbine Room” - the communal area with an interior
reminiscent of Doctor Who, the acoustics of a wind tunnel, and an
Internet connection with dial-up-like speeds – rocked after a dozen vodka
sodas.
The rest of our time in London was
touristy and, therefore, not particularly blog-worthy. The only thing that
might be even vaguely interesting was our visit to Harrod’s. Practically everything
about that place is ridic, but the pet section was by far the most preposterous
of all. I believe it’s actually referred to as “The Zoo”, but I have
certainly never been to a zoo which
sells leopard-print g-strings for dogs. Yeah…this isn’t like my fake Primark
injuries…I’m not making this one up. If you want to dress your dog up, I will
judge you a little bit (whilst secretly thinking it’s kind of adorable), but if
you dress your dog up in a sailor’s oufit, a tutu, camouflage fatigues complete
with fake medals, a black PVC bondage-style suit, a toga and head-wreath, or
the aforementioned leopard-print g-string, I will judge you and report you to
the RSPCA. I don’t know who makes these things, and I don’t know who buys them,
but the fact that they even exist is more perplexing to me than the fact Isaac
Brock still hasn’t left his fiancé for me. We also took a photo of me smiling
in front of the Dodi and Diana Memorial. This wasn’t supposed to be disrespectful
but, surrounded by the Egyptian-walls and escalators, even a
seasoned-professional such as myself couldn’t
keep the pout in place.
Next Up: a night bus to Edinburgh – the location of a hypothermia-inducing walking-tour, a “sexually-arousing” karaoke duet by Kaitlyn and myself, and Londonesque construction
