Wine tastings at De Kloof are not to be missed, and this original idea is a new favourite.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Nelson Mandela Day – 67 ways to change the world
“Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day.”
Today is the 95th birthday of a man that people across the
world know and love. It has also become a day where people across the world
dedicate 67 minutes to making a positive change in our world (to honour the 67
years of his life that he dedicated to the struggle for human rights and social
justice).
The overarching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire
individuals to take action to help change the world for the better, and in
doing so build a global movement for good. Ultimately it seeks to empower
communities everywhere. Change has been a continuing thread throughout Nelson Mandela’s
life. He said: “We can change the world and make of it a better place. It is in
your hands to make a difference” -- Nelson Mandela (2009)
Think of others
1. Make a new friend. Get to know someone from a different
cultural background. Only through mutual understanding can we rid our
communities of intolerance and xenophobia.
2. Read to someone who can’t. Visit a local home for the
blind and open up a new world for someone else.
3. Fix the potholes in your street or neighbourhood.
4. Help out at the local animal shelter. Dogs without homes
still need a walk and a bit of love.
5. Find out from your local library if it has a story hour
and offer to read during it.
6. Offer to take an elderly neighbour who can’t drive to do
their shopping/chores.
7. Organise a litter cleanup day in your area.
8. Get a group of people to each knit a square and make a
blanket for someone in need.
9. Volunteer at your police station or local faith-based
organisation.
10. Donate your skills!
11. If you’re a builder, help build or improve someone’s
home.
12. Help someone to get his/her business off the ground.
13. Build a website for someone who needs one, or for a
cause you think needs the support.
14. Help someone get a job. Put together and print a CV for
them, or help them with their interview skills.
15. If you’re a lawyer, do some pro bono work for a
worthwhile cause or person.
16. Write to your area councillor about a problem in the
area that requires attention, which you, in your personal capacity, are unable
to attend to.
17. Sponsor a group of learners to go to the theatre/zoo.
Help out for good health
18. Get in touch with your local HIV organisations and find
out how you can help.
19. Help out at your local hospice, as staff members often
need as much support as the patients.
20. Many terminally ill people have no one to speak to. Take
a little time to have a chat and bring some sunshine into their lives.
21. Talk to your friends and family about HIV.
22. Get tested for HIV and encourage your partner to do so
too.
23. Take a bag full of toys to a local hospital that has a
children’s ward.
24. Take younger members of your family for a walk in the
park.
25. Donate some medical supplies to a local community
clinic.
26. Take someone you know, who can’t afford it, to get their
eyes tested or their teeth checked.
27. Bake something for a support group of your choice.
28. Start a community garden to encourage healthy eating in
your community.
29. Donate a wheelchair or guide dog, to someone in need.
30. Create a food parcel and give it to someone in need.
Become an educator
31. Offer to help out at your local school.
32. Mentor a school leaver or student in your field of
expertise.
33. Coach one of the extramural activities the school
offers. You can also volunteer to coach an extramural activity the school
doesn’t offer.
34. Offer to provide tutoring in a school subject you are
good at.
35. Donate your old computer.
36. Help maintain the sports fields.
37. Fix up a classroom by replacing broken windows, doors
and light bulbs.
38. Donate a bag of art supplies.
39. Teach an adult literacy class.
40. Paint classrooms and school buildings.
41. Donate your old textbooks, or any other good books, to a
school library.
Help those living in poverty
42. Buy a few blankets, or grab the ones you no longer need
from home and give them to someone in need.
43. Clean out your cupboard and donate the clothes you no
longer wear to someone who needs them.
44. Put together food parcels for a needy family.
45. Organise a bake sale, car wash or garage sale for
charity and donate the proceeds.
46. To the poorest of the poor, shoes can be a luxury. Don’t
hoard them if you don’t wear them. Pass them on!
47. Volunteer at your local soup kitchen.
48. Help at a local children’s home or orphanage.
49. Help the kids with their studies.
50. Organise a friendly game of soccer, or sponsor the kids
to watch a game at the local stadium.
51. Coach a sports team and make new friends.
52. Donate sporting equipment to a children’s shelter.
53. Donate educational toys and books to a children’s home.
54. Paint, or repair, infrastructure at an orphanage or
youth centre.
55. Mentor someone. Make time to listen to what the kids
have to say and give them good advice.
56. If you play an instrument, visit your local old-age home
and spend an hour playing for the residents and staff.
57. Learn the story of someone older than you. Too often
people forget that the elderly have a wealth of experience and wisdom and, more
often than not, an interesting story to tell.
58. Take an elderly person grocery shopping; they will
appreciate your company and assistance.
59. Take someone’s dog for a walk if they are too frail to
do so themselves.
60. Mow someone’s lawn and help them to fix things around
their house.
61. If there are no recycling centres in your area, petition
your area councillor to provide one.
62. Donate indigenous trees to beautify neighbourhoods in
poorer areas.
63. Collect old newspapers from a school/community
centre/hospital and take them to a recycling centre.
64. Identify open manhole covers or drains in your area and
report them to the local authorities.
65. Organise the company/school/organisation that you work
with to switch off all unnecessary lights and power supplies at night and on
weekends.
66. Engage with people who litter and see if you can
convince them of the value of clean surroundings.
67. Organise to clean up your local park, river, beach,
street, town square or sports grounds with a few friends. Our children deserve
to grow up in a clean and healthy environment.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Eurotrip Day 25: Off with your head!
Refreshed is not really a word I'd use to describe the way I was feeling when I woke up. As usual, coughing fits prevented me (and Nicole, since I'd wake her) from getting adequate sleep, and the uncomfortable bed was giving me pretty serious lower back pain. Nicole said that the first few moments of every morning were spent with me moaning about my cough, my back, how tired I am, how I miss the sun, and so forth, and then I'd only start having normal conversations again after that.
We decided to give the miserable breakfast a skip and head straight to the hop-on hop-off bus instead. You will never believe what was waiting for us on the bus- an audio guide! And the bus audio guide was every bit as excited about every single thing in London as every other audio guide we'd used. What the guide was useful for, though, was letting you know where to get off to change bus lines. The one that ran past our hotel was not the same bus that headed to the East Side of London, where we intended to spend our day.
Our bus driver was very helpful, letting us know how to get to the bus we needed as well as when we needed to be back to catch the last bus. We found the connecting bus stop, but the lady in charge there told us the bus wouldn't be around for another 15 minutes. To escape the cold, we decided to duck into the Costa Coffee across the road for lattes. There, we met a super cheerful British lady (a very rare find, believe me) that was surprised that we had chosen to leave sunny South Africa for the miserable weather in London over the Christmas period.
Back at the bus stop, someone else had joined our bus stop. Andrew was an American guy visiting the UK who had spent some time working in South Africa. Since I was last in Europe, I've noticed that people have become far more clued up about our country. They know about Cape Town and Joburg, some even know about Pretoria. They know you have to go on safari to see lions, you can't just find them in someone's back yard. They just can't seem to understand that not all white people are the same. We're all Afrikaaners, as far as the world is concerned. Andrew, having lived and worked there, at least knew better.
He opted to sit upstairs in the open to enjoy the better view, while Nicole and I enjoyed the warmth of the bus downstairs. It took forever to get to the East of London, as the bus merrily made its way past Buckingham Palace and the original Hard Rock Cafe (it started in London and not America). We said goodbye to American Andrew between Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, where he went to check out the church as we continued on past the London Eye towards Tower Bridge. Meanwhile, the audio guide continued to drone...
Eventually, we arrived at the London Dungeon. It was my second time, so I was prepared for the horror that awaited, but Nicole wasn't quite sure what to expect. It didn't help that, when she asked me about it, I gave her a vague explanation, saying "it's a scary presentation about the horrors in London's history, like the Black Plague and Jack the Ripper. It's a lot of fun. I enjoyed it!" That should have been her first warning, right there. Her second warning was the super creepy tunnel we had to walk through to get in, where a statue actually makes a noise as you go past it, making us both scream. Her final warning, before going beyond the point of no return, was when the one of the guys working there told us to "have a horrible time."
Maybe it's because we were already there and the tickets were already paid for, or maybe she was just feeling brave, or maybe she just wanted to humour me, but we forged along into the underworld of London. Most unfortunately, they don't let you take pictures, possibly because they figure you won't need it after all the mental scarring they try to leave you with. It starts off innocently enough, walking through a maze of mirrors for what feels like forever. After that, though, things start to get really scary, and people jump out at you from the dark and your heart, in turn, jumps out of your chest.
The scariest part, for me, was when we were in a pub and an actor was talking to us about Jack the Ripper. As he was talking, the lights went out. When they came back on, a man in a black cloak and top hat tried to grab someone in our group. I almost jumped into Nicole's arms! I got such a fright! That pretty much settled my decision about whether or not to do the Jack the Ripper walking tour or not - I had more than my fill of scariness for one day! This was crowned by a free-fall we did on a ride (they strap you up nice and tight) to simulate a hanging.
Personally, I really enjoyed the London Dungeon, despite the fact that my head was pounding with increasing intensity as the tour and rides progressed. We were meeting a friend of Nicole's soon afterwards for lunch and needed to get to the Tower Bridge in a hurry, so we were about to buy tickets for the underground to get us there, when we saw the hop-on hop-off bus arrive. We dashed to catch it, and my head felt like it might explode after the sudden exertion.
The first thing we did, as we jumped off at the Tower of London, was buy me a bottle of water in case it was a dehydration headache. It actually felt like the onset of a migrane, since I couldn't even count out the money myself and I was feeling nauseous. I finished the bottle of water, as we waited for Nicole's friend to arrive, and took some pain killers as well. Nicole promised me that, if my head wasn't feeling better by the end of lunch, we could go back to the hotel and skip the Tower of London altogether. She gets migranes quite often, so she is very sympathetic.
Nicole's friend, Anthony, finally arrived, and we headed to a pizza place up the road. The two of them "caught up" while I willed my headache away. I've phrased the previous sentence in that way because Nicole and Anthony had never actually met each other before. They have only ever been Facebook friends. It was quite cute, actually, for Nicole to want to meet an online friend. I do it all the time, and she gives me a lot of flack for it, so it was quite sweet to witness her first time ;) He's a really great guy, although I'm sure his impression of us was "my word, but those two girls can talk!"
I had another bottle of water while I was there, and my headache slowly began to dissipate. We all had pizzas, but I'd picked one that was a little different. Boasting that it was under 500 calories, the pizza had a super thin and crispy base formed into a ring. It was called a Leggera. The hollow centre of the pizza was filled with rocket, as a salad. The pizza was lightly topped with chorizo, jalapeño, and cheese. It was delicious! One thing I have to give the Brits credit for is that they make it really easy to eat lightly, since everything has calorie counts on it - even restaurant meals, apparently!
Luckily, my headache was gone by the time we said our goodbyes to Anthony and headed to the Tower of London. As we walked through the gate, one of the Beefeaters (Yeoman wardens) had started giving a free tour, so we slotted in right behind the group he had assembled. As he began telling us about the two princes who had mysteriously disappeared in the Tower only to find their bones much, much later, we were greeted again by Andrew, the guy we had met on the bus earlier that day. It was a nice surprise, and we spent the rest of the tour taking photos with him.
Of special interest (for me) at the Tower of London was that one of the kings was very superstitious and believed that if there were ever less than 6 ravens on the premises then London would burn to the ground, so he made a law that there always needed to be at least 7 kept there permanently. One for extra luck! Also interesting is that the Wardens with their amusing titles and somewhat comical uniforms are actually highly decorated with perfect track records (which the amusing Beefeater explains means that "no one has ever caught us doing anything wrong). They certainly have a better time of it than the guards at the palace who have to wear those stupid hats, walk with stiff arms and legs, and stare solidly into space while tourists make fun of them. These guys get to walk around freely and chat to each other and us.
Of special interest to Nicole (and the whole reason we visited the Tower at all) was the collection of Crown Jewels. Leading up to them, there are all sorts of ceremonial trinkets behind glass cases that you can check out, like golden spoons and decorated plated and goodness only knows what is required nowadays to crown someone, but anyway. You go past quite a lot of those displays. Then you get to the Crown Jewels where they don't want you to hang around for too long, so there are moving walkways on either side of the display both heading in the same direction - out the door. The Cullinan Diamond is a sight to behold. I think Mandela should ask for it back. Although, it's probably safer in London (it's only every been stolen once - then obviously recovered - before they put in their 'barely-look-and-certainly-don't-touch security policy).
Before we headed back to the bus to make our way to our day's final destination, we made arrangements to meet Andrew again the next day at Madame Tussaud's since his hotel was nearby and visit the famous wax museum together. Meanwhile, Nicole and I were off to a different museum - the Tate Modern. Entrance into anything in London tends to either be free or set you back 30 pounds. Luckily, the Tate Modern is free and neither Nicole nor I had ever been there, so we went to check it out. The best part of that experience was getting to walk along the Thames in the twilight (very romantic), passing the Globe Theatre (Shakespeare's theatre) on the way. One day, I'm going to attend a show there. Unfortunately, it's only possible to do so in the warmer months of the year.
The Tate Modern itself is a rather unassuming, rigid block of a building. It has a set of long escalators between each of its 4 floors. The exhibition inside is constantly changing, so there is always something new to see. I'm making it sound more interesting than it is, though. I'm not really into Modern Art, and it seems that Nicole isn't either. Maybe it is just because we'd been so spoiled artistically in Italy and France over the last few weeks that a framed ball of string just didn't seem incredibly impressive. In one dark room, there were two huge sheets of light moving towards each other from the ceiling and the floor (each about the size of a door) that come together in the middle in a blinding flash before leaving the whole room in darkness. It's supposed to represent the way overexposure to the media is blinding us and leaving us in a moral darkness. That's the kind of stuff you could see inside. We glanced through it all pretty quickly before heading back to the bus.
The next bus took quite a long time to arrive and Nicole began to worry that we had missed the last one. It seemed like every other bus in London was coming, but ours was nowhere in sight. When it did eventually make its appearance, we explained to the bus driver that we needed to catch a connecting bus that would be leaving fairly soon. We would be lucky if we made it. Nicole's state of panic continued (despite the fact that we could always take the tube as well - but money was getting tight and we didn't want to waste anymore of it on transportation). Thankfully, the bus driver made an extra stop for us where he shouldn't have, told us to take the next bus coming from the other direction who also made an extra stop for us where he shouldn't have, and then gave us pretty clear directions on where to run to catch the bus back to the hotel. When we got to that bus stop, though, there was no bus in sight. Nicole's panic reached an all-time high after we had gone to so much effort to get to the bus in the nick of time. It's hard to talk her down from the ledge when secretly you are seriously considering that you may have missed the last bus after all as well. Imagine our shared relief when it finally arrived! The bus driver very sweetly said to us "don't worry, I wouldn't have left you here," as he took us back to the stop outside our hotel.
I was ready for another dinner sandwich in the hotel, but Nicole was suffering from cabin fever. So we enjoyed another leisurely pizza together while using the wifi to send messages back home. Eventually, though, we had to return to our tiny room, where we passed the time watching British TV late into the night. One thing that really stands out is how intolerant Brits are to people with a weight problem. There are reality shows mocking them, there are fitness shows helping them lose weight, and every second ad on TV is about weight loss, dieting or gym. They're obsessed with it, and so mean to anyone that is struggling. In the restaurants and grocery stores they have special sections for those trying to lose weight. There are signs everywhere promising weight loss (not fitness - not even at gyms) for a certain fee. It really makes you feel self-conscious. Especially after weeks of lavishly eating local cuisine. Oh well, as Nicole loves to say, diet starts on Monday. Today, we enjoy London!
We decided to give the miserable breakfast a skip and head straight to the hop-on hop-off bus instead. You will never believe what was waiting for us on the bus- an audio guide! And the bus audio guide was every bit as excited about every single thing in London as every other audio guide we'd used. What the guide was useful for, though, was letting you know where to get off to change bus lines. The one that ran past our hotel was not the same bus that headed to the East Side of London, where we intended to spend our day.
Our bus driver was very helpful, letting us know how to get to the bus we needed as well as when we needed to be back to catch the last bus. We found the connecting bus stop, but the lady in charge there told us the bus wouldn't be around for another 15 minutes. To escape the cold, we decided to duck into the Costa Coffee across the road for lattes. There, we met a super cheerful British lady (a very rare find, believe me) that was surprised that we had chosen to leave sunny South Africa for the miserable weather in London over the Christmas period.
Back at the bus stop, someone else had joined our bus stop. Andrew was an American guy visiting the UK who had spent some time working in South Africa. Since I was last in Europe, I've noticed that people have become far more clued up about our country. They know about Cape Town and Joburg, some even know about Pretoria. They know you have to go on safari to see lions, you can't just find them in someone's back yard. They just can't seem to understand that not all white people are the same. We're all Afrikaaners, as far as the world is concerned. Andrew, having lived and worked there, at least knew better.
He opted to sit upstairs in the open to enjoy the better view, while Nicole and I enjoyed the warmth of the bus downstairs. It took forever to get to the East of London, as the bus merrily made its way past Buckingham Palace and the original Hard Rock Cafe (it started in London and not America). We said goodbye to American Andrew between Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, where he went to check out the church as we continued on past the London Eye towards Tower Bridge. Meanwhile, the audio guide continued to drone...
Eventually, we arrived at the London Dungeon. It was my second time, so I was prepared for the horror that awaited, but Nicole wasn't quite sure what to expect. It didn't help that, when she asked me about it, I gave her a vague explanation, saying "it's a scary presentation about the horrors in London's history, like the Black Plague and Jack the Ripper. It's a lot of fun. I enjoyed it!" That should have been her first warning, right there. Her second warning was the super creepy tunnel we had to walk through to get in, where a statue actually makes a noise as you go past it, making us both scream. Her final warning, before going beyond the point of no return, was when the one of the guys working there told us to "have a horrible time."
Maybe it's because we were already there and the tickets were already paid for, or maybe she was just feeling brave, or maybe she just wanted to humour me, but we forged along into the underworld of London. Most unfortunately, they don't let you take pictures, possibly because they figure you won't need it after all the mental scarring they try to leave you with. It starts off innocently enough, walking through a maze of mirrors for what feels like forever. After that, though, things start to get really scary, and people jump out at you from the dark and your heart, in turn, jumps out of your chest.
The scariest part, for me, was when we were in a pub and an actor was talking to us about Jack the Ripper. As he was talking, the lights went out. When they came back on, a man in a black cloak and top hat tried to grab someone in our group. I almost jumped into Nicole's arms! I got such a fright! That pretty much settled my decision about whether or not to do the Jack the Ripper walking tour or not - I had more than my fill of scariness for one day! This was crowned by a free-fall we did on a ride (they strap you up nice and tight) to simulate a hanging.
Personally, I really enjoyed the London Dungeon, despite the fact that my head was pounding with increasing intensity as the tour and rides progressed. We were meeting a friend of Nicole's soon afterwards for lunch and needed to get to the Tower Bridge in a hurry, so we were about to buy tickets for the underground to get us there, when we saw the hop-on hop-off bus arrive. We dashed to catch it, and my head felt like it might explode after the sudden exertion.
The first thing we did, as we jumped off at the Tower of London, was buy me a bottle of water in case it was a dehydration headache. It actually felt like the onset of a migrane, since I couldn't even count out the money myself and I was feeling nauseous. I finished the bottle of water, as we waited for Nicole's friend to arrive, and took some pain killers as well. Nicole promised me that, if my head wasn't feeling better by the end of lunch, we could go back to the hotel and skip the Tower of London altogether. She gets migranes quite often, so she is very sympathetic.
Nicole's friend, Anthony, finally arrived, and we headed to a pizza place up the road. The two of them "caught up" while I willed my headache away. I've phrased the previous sentence in that way because Nicole and Anthony had never actually met each other before. They have only ever been Facebook friends. It was quite cute, actually, for Nicole to want to meet an online friend. I do it all the time, and she gives me a lot of flack for it, so it was quite sweet to witness her first time ;) He's a really great guy, although I'm sure his impression of us was "my word, but those two girls can talk!"
I had another bottle of water while I was there, and my headache slowly began to dissipate. We all had pizzas, but I'd picked one that was a little different. Boasting that it was under 500 calories, the pizza had a super thin and crispy base formed into a ring. It was called a Leggera. The hollow centre of the pizza was filled with rocket, as a salad. The pizza was lightly topped with chorizo, jalapeño, and cheese. It was delicious! One thing I have to give the Brits credit for is that they make it really easy to eat lightly, since everything has calorie counts on it - even restaurant meals, apparently!
Luckily, my headache was gone by the time we said our goodbyes to Anthony and headed to the Tower of London. As we walked through the gate, one of the Beefeaters (Yeoman wardens) had started giving a free tour, so we slotted in right behind the group he had assembled. As he began telling us about the two princes who had mysteriously disappeared in the Tower only to find their bones much, much later, we were greeted again by Andrew, the guy we had met on the bus earlier that day. It was a nice surprise, and we spent the rest of the tour taking photos with him.
Of special interest (for me) at the Tower of London was that one of the kings was very superstitious and believed that if there were ever less than 6 ravens on the premises then London would burn to the ground, so he made a law that there always needed to be at least 7 kept there permanently. One for extra luck! Also interesting is that the Wardens with their amusing titles and somewhat comical uniforms are actually highly decorated with perfect track records (which the amusing Beefeater explains means that "no one has ever caught us doing anything wrong). They certainly have a better time of it than the guards at the palace who have to wear those stupid hats, walk with stiff arms and legs, and stare solidly into space while tourists make fun of them. These guys get to walk around freely and chat to each other and us.
Of special interest to Nicole (and the whole reason we visited the Tower at all) was the collection of Crown Jewels. Leading up to them, there are all sorts of ceremonial trinkets behind glass cases that you can check out, like golden spoons and decorated plated and goodness only knows what is required nowadays to crown someone, but anyway. You go past quite a lot of those displays. Then you get to the Crown Jewels where they don't want you to hang around for too long, so there are moving walkways on either side of the display both heading in the same direction - out the door. The Cullinan Diamond is a sight to behold. I think Mandela should ask for it back. Although, it's probably safer in London (it's only every been stolen once - then obviously recovered - before they put in their 'barely-look-and-certainly-don't-touch security policy).
Before we headed back to the bus to make our way to our day's final destination, we made arrangements to meet Andrew again the next day at Madame Tussaud's since his hotel was nearby and visit the famous wax museum together. Meanwhile, Nicole and I were off to a different museum - the Tate Modern. Entrance into anything in London tends to either be free or set you back 30 pounds. Luckily, the Tate Modern is free and neither Nicole nor I had ever been there, so we went to check it out. The best part of that experience was getting to walk along the Thames in the twilight (very romantic), passing the Globe Theatre (Shakespeare's theatre) on the way. One day, I'm going to attend a show there. Unfortunately, it's only possible to do so in the warmer months of the year.
The Tate Modern itself is a rather unassuming, rigid block of a building. It has a set of long escalators between each of its 4 floors. The exhibition inside is constantly changing, so there is always something new to see. I'm making it sound more interesting than it is, though. I'm not really into Modern Art, and it seems that Nicole isn't either. Maybe it is just because we'd been so spoiled artistically in Italy and France over the last few weeks that a framed ball of string just didn't seem incredibly impressive. In one dark room, there were two huge sheets of light moving towards each other from the ceiling and the floor (each about the size of a door) that come together in the middle in a blinding flash before leaving the whole room in darkness. It's supposed to represent the way overexposure to the media is blinding us and leaving us in a moral darkness. That's the kind of stuff you could see inside. We glanced through it all pretty quickly before heading back to the bus.
The next bus took quite a long time to arrive and Nicole began to worry that we had missed the last one. It seemed like every other bus in London was coming, but ours was nowhere in sight. When it did eventually make its appearance, we explained to the bus driver that we needed to catch a connecting bus that would be leaving fairly soon. We would be lucky if we made it. Nicole's state of panic continued (despite the fact that we could always take the tube as well - but money was getting tight and we didn't want to waste anymore of it on transportation). Thankfully, the bus driver made an extra stop for us where he shouldn't have, told us to take the next bus coming from the other direction who also made an extra stop for us where he shouldn't have, and then gave us pretty clear directions on where to run to catch the bus back to the hotel. When we got to that bus stop, though, there was no bus in sight. Nicole's panic reached an all-time high after we had gone to so much effort to get to the bus in the nick of time. It's hard to talk her down from the ledge when secretly you are seriously considering that you may have missed the last bus after all as well. Imagine our shared relief when it finally arrived! The bus driver very sweetly said to us "don't worry, I wouldn't have left you here," as he took us back to the stop outside our hotel.
I was ready for another dinner sandwich in the hotel, but Nicole was suffering from cabin fever. So we enjoyed another leisurely pizza together while using the wifi to send messages back home. Eventually, though, we had to return to our tiny room, where we passed the time watching British TV late into the night. One thing that really stands out is how intolerant Brits are to people with a weight problem. There are reality shows mocking them, there are fitness shows helping them lose weight, and every second ad on TV is about weight loss, dieting or gym. They're obsessed with it, and so mean to anyone that is struggling. In the restaurants and grocery stores they have special sections for those trying to lose weight. There are signs everywhere promising weight loss (not fitness - not even at gyms) for a certain fee. It really makes you feel self-conscious. Especially after weeks of lavishly eating local cuisine. Oh well, as Nicole loves to say, diet starts on Monday. Today, we enjoy London!
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Eurotrip Day 24: Mysterious and magnificent stone displays
We had an early start to our day, since a bus would be by at 8am to take us off to Windsor, Stonehenge, and Bath. We headed to the hotel restaurant, where a very miserable continental breakfast awaited us, which included cold toast, even colder coffee, tinned orange and grapefruit slices, watery orange juice, and our choice of cornflakes or all bran. It was not a great start to the morning at all. At least we hadn't been kicked out of bed by the cleaning lady, I guess.
After breakfast, we tried loading blogs again in the lobby until a blonde lady with a French accent came to collect us for our courtesy bus ride to the Victoria train station, where we had to board another bus that would take us off to Windsor and beyond! The bus was very full, and the only place Nicole and I could get a seat together was at the very back in the aisle. Luckily, when the guide told a passenger by the window that the bus was going to be completely full, he decided to go sit with his family rather, and we were able to move over to his seat.
It turned out that the bus had actually been over-booked, and one passenger didn't have a seat at all. It turned into an argument between the guide and the girl with nowhere to sit. Eventually, the guide offered a free trip on another tour to any person or couple that was interested, but wouldn't give it to the girl being inconvenienced because she formed part of a group of three. Even after she had a seat and the couple taking the free tour had left, the fight continued with the girl threatening to report the guide to the manager and the guide telling the girl to just leave if she wasn't happy. It was a super awkward start to the tour.
Eventually, we got underway, and the guide began telling us about London as we drove through it. It quickly became evident why Mr Congeniality was able to be a tour guide despite his evident lack of people skills: he could speak a second language. We had a lot of Asian people on our bus, and he repeated everything he said to us in Mandarin for their convenience. What was interesting about that was that some of the words he used while speaking to them were either English or very strongly Anglicized, like spa and sauna, as if there isn't an equivalent word in Mandarin.
It took us a full hour to get to a very foggy Windsor Castle, which is actually more like a small village than a mere castle. It seems that each royal family adds to it in their own style, and the current royals still occupy part of it today. We got to see the older part of the Castle, much of which has been recently refurbished after it all nearly burned down in a massive blaze a few years ago. You'd think that the British would be very good at extinguishing fires by now, especially in the home of the Royal family, but apparently they are slow learners (after the great fire of London and all that).
After we'd gone past the station that had been built for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and herded like cattle through the group tour section, we were given free audio guides that walked us through the Castle grounds, Princess Anne's doll house, and the state rooms. The doll house, which was never intended for children and only ever as a display, is a miniature replica of the palace at the time with everything made as originally as possible and to scale. It had full electricity, working plumbing, and even silver cutlery and crockery in the dining room. It really was fascinating to see.
The State Rooms were lavish displays of wealth in rich gold and crimson tones, filled with collections of art and tokens from around the world that the royal family had collected over time. One room alone was dedicated to china collection, with one elaborate and patriotic display that showed off the best of Britain (with pineapple stems, oddly) having bankrupted the company that had donated it to the royal family. The audio guide called it a "noble disaster."
Besides small amusing anecdotes like that, however, the audio guide tended to drone somewhat in its flat British accent. What's more, the audio guide has an unusual taste in detail, pointing out the most mundane things in bits of furniture, or taking us from portrait to portrait to yet another portrait, while glossing over the things that actually did seem interesting. We began to form the impression that the audio guide would find something to say about anything at all if you let it.
This was most evident in Stonehenge, where we arrived after another hour-long bus trip, where the free audio guide proceeded to go into less than fascinating detail about the moss on the stones. The droning audio guide also proved to have an affinity for making things up, as it would go into surprising amounts of detail about the personality and trade skills of the people living in the area who built Stonehenge, as well as providing large amounts of insight into how the stone circle had been built with enormous and heavy rocks from 30km away, while reminding us continuously that no one actually knows how it was built. Nicole eventually just gave up when the audio guide decided to go into the mathematics of Stonehenge...
It was bitterly cold there, and there wasn't a great deal to see, so we rushed through it a little bit in order to get to the cafe at the entrance next to the souvenir shop and get something hot inside us. We had two very tasty British delicacies: bread pudding and a cheese scone. As we ate it, while waiting for our bus to get going again, Nicole began her lamenting about how disappointing she'd found Stonehenge to be, which continued even after we had got all the way back to South Africa. A few "mysterious and magnificent" rocks (terms the audio guide used every few minutes) were not as impressive to her as the Brits like to believe it is. She referred to them merely as "a pile of rocks," and even wanted to use that term as the title for this blog to emphasise her disappointment.
What was far less disappointing, at least, was the beautiful city of bath, which is completely made out of stone by the Romans. Although Nicole expected the actual Roman Bath ruins to be bigger, she was impressed by the old city and its hot spring. Back in the day when they were trying to take over the world, the Romans used to hang around the baths, exercising and getting massaged. It sounds like a pretty good life. Again, though, the audio guide tended to drone on a bit about absolutely anything it could find, and as Nicole says "could do with some editing."
The water of bath was said to be able to cure any and all illnesses, so I drank a little in the vain attempt to finally cure my cough. It was not very pleasant, and Nicole delighted in taking photos of my face as I attempted to finish the small cup (getting me back for the cough syrup tasting photo shoot the day before). She, surprisingly, could not be tempted to try the water at all. "You want me to drink it after you've made that face?" It wasn't that bad, though, just luke warm and not a normal taste for water. It's filled with iron, at least, so at least I got something out of it. It didn't cure my cough, sadly. Not even a little bit.
Because we'd gotten into the habit of ignoring the audio guide for the most part, and also because our Contiki tour through Europe had made us used to seeing sights in a hurry, we breezed through the Roman Baths with time to spare. We would've waited out the remainder of the time on the warm bus if it had been where we'd last seen it, but we ended up wandering the streets of Bath instead. Along one of the streets, we found a fudge shop that sold a delicious selection of fudge. We couldn't resist, and walked away with cherry brandy, salted caramel, and ginger fudge (three different kinds, not one odd mix of all the flavours). It was the yummiest thing we got to eat while in the UK.
Perhaps one of the strangest features of the place, and this is evident in some parts of London as well, are the windows that were bricked up in a time when England had a "window tax" for the amount of windows on your house - "daylight robbery," as our guide put it. He could be funny, when he wanted to be. Actually, his sense of humour was so dry that sometimes it was hard to tell when he was joking and when he wasn't. For example, he told us that due to the rainy weather, all the wooly mammoths in the area had shrunk and turned into sheep (funny). He also told us that farmers heated the pig pens because pigs feel the cold the way humans do (not sure if he was being serious or funny, since the Brits clothe their horses in winter, so anything is possible with them).
Three very long hours later, which I spent catching up on my blogging while Nicole napped, we finally arrived back in London. It was already dark by then, and we were not dropped off at the hotel, but had to make our own (expensive) way back on the underground. Since Nicole and I had not enjoyed the day as much as expected, she wasn't keen on our original plan to have Tesco sandwiches for dinner, which was what we'd had for lunch on the bus. (They had a great meal deal going on where you could get a sandwich, soft drink, and packet of chips or a chocolate for only 3 Pounds.
Instead, we decided to grab a pizza at the pizza place at the hotel, which made that yummy jalapeño pizza, while I continued to get no joy from the wifi in my attempt to upload blogs. Eventually, we headed back to our room and found that the cleaning lady had tidied up our chaos a little bit while we had been out. We spent what was left of the evening watching a fun show called Mr Selfridge, about an American man that decided to open London's first department store, despite the many obstacles in his way. Londoners really seem to love period films, mini series, and plays or other productions. Bed time followed, since we had a big day of London sightseeing ahead of us where we intended to get as much done as possible (the way we'd done in Paris). We needed to be refreshed for that!
After breakfast, we tried loading blogs again in the lobby until a blonde lady with a French accent came to collect us for our courtesy bus ride to the Victoria train station, where we had to board another bus that would take us off to Windsor and beyond! The bus was very full, and the only place Nicole and I could get a seat together was at the very back in the aisle. Luckily, when the guide told a passenger by the window that the bus was going to be completely full, he decided to go sit with his family rather, and we were able to move over to his seat.
It turned out that the bus had actually been over-booked, and one passenger didn't have a seat at all. It turned into an argument between the guide and the girl with nowhere to sit. Eventually, the guide offered a free trip on another tour to any person or couple that was interested, but wouldn't give it to the girl being inconvenienced because she formed part of a group of three. Even after she had a seat and the couple taking the free tour had left, the fight continued with the girl threatening to report the guide to the manager and the guide telling the girl to just leave if she wasn't happy. It was a super awkward start to the tour.
Eventually, we got underway, and the guide began telling us about London as we drove through it. It quickly became evident why Mr Congeniality was able to be a tour guide despite his evident lack of people skills: he could speak a second language. We had a lot of Asian people on our bus, and he repeated everything he said to us in Mandarin for their convenience. What was interesting about that was that some of the words he used while speaking to them were either English or very strongly Anglicized, like spa and sauna, as if there isn't an equivalent word in Mandarin.
It took us a full hour to get to a very foggy Windsor Castle, which is actually more like a small village than a mere castle. It seems that each royal family adds to it in their own style, and the current royals still occupy part of it today. We got to see the older part of the Castle, much of which has been recently refurbished after it all nearly burned down in a massive blaze a few years ago. You'd think that the British would be very good at extinguishing fires by now, especially in the home of the Royal family, but apparently they are slow learners (after the great fire of London and all that).
After we'd gone past the station that had been built for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and herded like cattle through the group tour section, we were given free audio guides that walked us through the Castle grounds, Princess Anne's doll house, and the state rooms. The doll house, which was never intended for children and only ever as a display, is a miniature replica of the palace at the time with everything made as originally as possible and to scale. It had full electricity, working plumbing, and even silver cutlery and crockery in the dining room. It really was fascinating to see.
The State Rooms were lavish displays of wealth in rich gold and crimson tones, filled with collections of art and tokens from around the world that the royal family had collected over time. One room alone was dedicated to china collection, with one elaborate and patriotic display that showed off the best of Britain (with pineapple stems, oddly) having bankrupted the company that had donated it to the royal family. The audio guide called it a "noble disaster."
Besides small amusing anecdotes like that, however, the audio guide tended to drone somewhat in its flat British accent. What's more, the audio guide has an unusual taste in detail, pointing out the most mundane things in bits of furniture, or taking us from portrait to portrait to yet another portrait, while glossing over the things that actually did seem interesting. We began to form the impression that the audio guide would find something to say about anything at all if you let it.
This was most evident in Stonehenge, where we arrived after another hour-long bus trip, where the free audio guide proceeded to go into less than fascinating detail about the moss on the stones. The droning audio guide also proved to have an affinity for making things up, as it would go into surprising amounts of detail about the personality and trade skills of the people living in the area who built Stonehenge, as well as providing large amounts of insight into how the stone circle had been built with enormous and heavy rocks from 30km away, while reminding us continuously that no one actually knows how it was built. Nicole eventually just gave up when the audio guide decided to go into the mathematics of Stonehenge...
It was bitterly cold there, and there wasn't a great deal to see, so we rushed through it a little bit in order to get to the cafe at the entrance next to the souvenir shop and get something hot inside us. We had two very tasty British delicacies: bread pudding and a cheese scone. As we ate it, while waiting for our bus to get going again, Nicole began her lamenting about how disappointing she'd found Stonehenge to be, which continued even after we had got all the way back to South Africa. A few "mysterious and magnificent" rocks (terms the audio guide used every few minutes) were not as impressive to her as the Brits like to believe it is. She referred to them merely as "a pile of rocks," and even wanted to use that term as the title for this blog to emphasise her disappointment.
What was far less disappointing, at least, was the beautiful city of bath, which is completely made out of stone by the Romans. Although Nicole expected the actual Roman Bath ruins to be bigger, she was impressed by the old city and its hot spring. Back in the day when they were trying to take over the world, the Romans used to hang around the baths, exercising and getting massaged. It sounds like a pretty good life. Again, though, the audio guide tended to drone on a bit about absolutely anything it could find, and as Nicole says "could do with some editing."
The water of bath was said to be able to cure any and all illnesses, so I drank a little in the vain attempt to finally cure my cough. It was not very pleasant, and Nicole delighted in taking photos of my face as I attempted to finish the small cup (getting me back for the cough syrup tasting photo shoot the day before). She, surprisingly, could not be tempted to try the water at all. "You want me to drink it after you've made that face?" It wasn't that bad, though, just luke warm and not a normal taste for water. It's filled with iron, at least, so at least I got something out of it. It didn't cure my cough, sadly. Not even a little bit.
Because we'd gotten into the habit of ignoring the audio guide for the most part, and also because our Contiki tour through Europe had made us used to seeing sights in a hurry, we breezed through the Roman Baths with time to spare. We would've waited out the remainder of the time on the warm bus if it had been where we'd last seen it, but we ended up wandering the streets of Bath instead. Along one of the streets, we found a fudge shop that sold a delicious selection of fudge. We couldn't resist, and walked away with cherry brandy, salted caramel, and ginger fudge (three different kinds, not one odd mix of all the flavours). It was the yummiest thing we got to eat while in the UK.
Perhaps one of the strangest features of the place, and this is evident in some parts of London as well, are the windows that were bricked up in a time when England had a "window tax" for the amount of windows on your house - "daylight robbery," as our guide put it. He could be funny, when he wanted to be. Actually, his sense of humour was so dry that sometimes it was hard to tell when he was joking and when he wasn't. For example, he told us that due to the rainy weather, all the wooly mammoths in the area had shrunk and turned into sheep (funny). He also told us that farmers heated the pig pens because pigs feel the cold the way humans do (not sure if he was being serious or funny, since the Brits clothe their horses in winter, so anything is possible with them).
Three very long hours later, which I spent catching up on my blogging while Nicole napped, we finally arrived back in London. It was already dark by then, and we were not dropped off at the hotel, but had to make our own (expensive) way back on the underground. Since Nicole and I had not enjoyed the day as much as expected, she wasn't keen on our original plan to have Tesco sandwiches for dinner, which was what we'd had for lunch on the bus. (They had a great meal deal going on where you could get a sandwich, soft drink, and packet of chips or a chocolate for only 3 Pounds.
Instead, we decided to grab a pizza at the pizza place at the hotel, which made that yummy jalapeño pizza, while I continued to get no joy from the wifi in my attempt to upload blogs. Eventually, we headed back to our room and found that the cleaning lady had tidied up our chaos a little bit while we had been out. We spent what was left of the evening watching a fun show called Mr Selfridge, about an American man that decided to open London's first department store, despite the many obstacles in his way. Londoners really seem to love period films, mini series, and plays or other productions. Bed time followed, since we had a big day of London sightseeing ahead of us where we intended to get as much done as possible (the way we'd done in Paris). We needed to be refreshed for that!
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