sarah abroadfoot

01 February 2011

Wow...forgot about this update thing.

So, it's been a while since i updated this page. I guess what I should really do is put up a host of photos....but avoid bombardment. I'll do what I can...

For my birthday this year, before the celebrations in London with friends, I took myself up to Scotland for a couple days. I took the train, because I think I'd kick myself if I left England having not seen the countryside, so here are a few shots from the train ride...

I also managed to book two nights at a hotel in Sanquhar, Scotland, which is where my dad's family came from. I found this war memorial on my walk around the tiny, quiet lowland town:

and a few shots from the rest of the town:

this castle ruin was just outside the town limits in the middle of a field. William Wallace was here. and if there was spray paint in his day, i'm sure that would be etched somewhere in the wall....

this next one is a sunset behind the hotel i stayed in.

the next day it was on to glasgow, a 1 hour train ride from Sanquhar....

this is a university....can you believe that?!

then, after another month and a bit, it was thanksgiving, and this year, it was more than just myself and andrew who went for turkey feast in the maple leaf for canadian thanksgiving.

then at the end of october, after parting ways with my permanent job (it was really really really not working.....so as it stands now i'm back on daily supply), i said to hell with it, and went to berlin for 2 nights.

I saw pretty much everything i wanted to in the 1 day and 1 evening i spent in this city.

the brandenburg gate:

these bears were not on my list, but they were everywhere, and they were all different!

checkpoint charlie:

the berlin wall:

another site where the berlin wall is still partially standing

a memorial park:

alexanderplatz:

then it was halloween....!

Some of you may know, I work some weekend shifts at a bar in Camden Market now that i'm just doing daily supply to kind of supplement my funds (read: pay for lunches and stuff while I'm working during the week). And if you look back far enough in blog entries, you'll have met Jesse, my Australian flatmate (who is now home in Brisbane...sad face).

Anyways, Jesse and I like this show, the Mighty Boosh, so this year we went as characters from that show. Old Gregg is Jesse's costume, and the Crack Fox is my costume....

I love the people I work with (below, we have Peter, looking up Jesse's tutu, and Marcus, with lots of blood on his face)

The Crack Fox and Old Gregg....it took until the wee hours of the night for people to recognize our characters.

the very next day, slightly hungover, and me shaking like a spastic colon (because driving in London in a manual car that has had the gear box driven to the ground is scary) for a little while, Jesse and I drove to Stonehenge. Wait, restate that, I drove to stonehenge and jesse used my phone's google maps to get us there - because the satnav got us completely lost in Chiswick for over an hour.

As a result of being almost hopelessly lost for that hour, we got to stonehenge after it had closed up for the day. So we stood outside the fence. On the 31st of October. it was spooky. the stones as you'll see are not lit up or anything. they're just there, big, black, and imposing. AND HUGE!

this is the best we could get with my camera. but next time i go, hopefully the sun will be at least in the sky (if not covered in clouds).

bonfire night happened, as it does every 5th of november, but it poured rain, so we had to run back inside and dry off. that somehow lead to jesse, myself, and pia trying on hats...?

then in december, the SNOW came, and the nation had a panic attack. BUT LOOK AT IT! I was working at lockside this particular day. and we ended up rather bored. The most we sold was hot drinks, because tourists didn't seem to understand, that you don't go out in england in the snow. no one does.

after walking to work in the snowstorm (which you can see in the background), amy looked like this, but still really excited for the snow!

then Laura left our little pub family, and we had a night out. The lockside girls...!

one day, i didn't get some work, and I was awake and dressed, so i went with some mates to Greenwich park. Here I am, standing on both the eastern and western hemispheres at the same time, and not standing in a more awkward manner than i normally would....!

the view from the observatory:

could we have actually asked for a nicer day to be out?! I don't think so.....!

then i was playing tour guide, so i took my friend to see buckingham palace. and we were in luck, someone was IN this coach. but we couldn't see or tell who it was. too bad.

My guess is that it was someone important.

Well, I have managed to upload all of these images, and write all of this text in the time that I was waiting for a phone call to go to work today. Luckily I have work lined up tomorrow, as I have itchy feet again, and want to do some traveling during the break in february. I'm not sure where yet, but what I do know is that I need money to do that. Here's hoping....!

23 August 2010

living the dream...?

alright, so this whole 5 weeks of holiday thing - it gets a little old after a while. mostly there's just a lot of feeling blah about doing things. however, the drought ended a couple nights ago. i landed a bit of a part time job that might work out to be something i can keep through the year - in fact, i'm pretty sure so long as i do a decent job of it, it already is one of those deals. want to know what it is? i bet you do! turns out i'm bartending here and there on the odd friday or saturday night at a camden town bar. so primary school teacher by day, bartender the odd night. i'm amused :)

04 June 2010

Amsterdam(age)

It's half-term again folks. These brits just can't work for more than 6 weeks it seems before needing a break. I understand though, because after the last 6 weeks of teaching, I was more than in need of a vacation. What better then to pack up a backpack and head to Amsterdam, Holland for 2 nights?

Culture in Amsterdam is definitely one to experience at least once. Everything taboo is right there in the open, and everyone's completely chill about it. In fact, it's just the norm.

This tale really does begin on Sunday night at a friend's birthday party. It was promised to be a messy night with drinks and karaoke. All things said, that sunday night definitely lived up to its expectations. For instance, I don't actually remember leaving to go home. I remember being there. I remember SOME of the end of the night...however I don't remember going up the stairs to leave. I don't remember leaving through the door. I remember being outside catching the cab home. I remember getting home. The rest - a wee bit hazy. So a good night. The pictures that surfaced in the following days say it all, to put it lightly.

So the plane took off at 3pm Monday - thought that'd be enough time to sober up and put the pieces of myself back in place. However - Monday's trek to the airport and then the subsequent hour spent there in search of food and coffee proved rather interesting. At least we made it on the plane! Both my flatmate who I was traveling with and myself were in rather rough shape at the airport, but a little bit of garbage intake from Burger King and Coke/Fanta put us right and we were off.

Landing in Amsterdam and trying to find the train into the city was our first Dutch challenge. We managed. The train dropped us off at Amsterdam Centraal train station, and then the real challenge began. First of all - the train station has two exits.....we obviously took the wrong one out and were confronted with scenery that I hadn't seen on the google maps pre-research view I had before....so that was a fun 5 minutes of "ummmm....so......WOW those are a lot of bicycles!.....where are we....and where do we go from here?"

Finally setting off in the right direction, we made our way towards the Flying Pig Downtown Hostel - and only really took about two wrong turns. This becomes amusing later on in the tale. Just trust me. SO, after all that, we checked in, dropped our bags, picked up what was going to be necessary, and set off to wander and see the city. Found some coffeeshops, had some coffee, and were back out on our way. Wandering in what seemed to be a direction that was away from our hostel, we ended up back on our street.....3 times.....it blew my mind. It always seemed like we were heading well away from where we were staying, but we always managed to get back to the starting place without even realizing we had turned off the path we were taking. Crazy Amsterdam streets all leading back to the same place. This was, we decided, going to be very handy in the end, because it meant that we could go and live it up a bit and be just fine making our way home. That assumption was mostly correct, though we did have the amusing thought that once we started to actually look for our hostel, we'd never actually find it again. Especially after becoming mildly impaired. It only took a wee bit of extra work.

The hostel itself was INCREDIBLE. There was a bar with VERY cheap drinks on the main level right when you go in with a comfy lounge room toward the back, pool tables, and chess boards. Very cool place. We almost had to force ourselves to leave it!

Tuesday was a later start to the day than we had anticipated. But we did dive right in to the nightlife the night before. That said, we weren't in too rough shape Tuesday morning. So we set off to visit some museums and some more coffeeshops, and a few pubs and places to eat as well. We managed to get to Anne Frank's house. That puts things into perspective. It was a really well put together museum, and the fact that they had preserved her room and the wall where she hung various pictures of famous people to make it seem less dreary....it was a little surreal, but in a good way. We also managed to visit the sex museum, vodka museum, and marijuana and hash museum. (See? Everything taboo is just right out there in the open in Amsterdam.) Also, the red-light district - that was just a strange space to be in. You're walking along BEAUTIFUL canals with amazing buildings, and in the windows there are women in very skimpy undies dancing, or even just standing there staring out at you. Different culture for sure.

We actually managed to find a rather cool pub in the red-light district though. There was a coffeeshop underneath, and upstairs/main floor there was a pub (with Guinness on tap, so I was a happy camper) with pool. So we wandered in there, had a few pints, and played some pool. It was fairly empty, so it was nice. No crowds. Actually, there were no real crowded areas anywhere in Amsterdam like we're used to living near Camden in London. Definitely a nice break from all that.

Anyways, Tuesday night, we found dinner (amazingly, because by the time we realized we were hungry, it was rather late and finding non-fast food was proving to be a challenge), then headed back to the hostel to have some drinks, meet a few travelers, and most importantly, play some more pool.

Wednesday wasn't much to write home about though - got up stupid-early, grabbed the train back to Schiphol Airport, and made our way back to the big smoke. All things said and done - t'was definitely a good trip!

And now for a few photographs....!