We went to London.

A few months ago my dad very generously offered us some money to go on a little holiday somewhere, his reasoning being that we couldn’t possibly spend nearly a year in Europe without seeing at least one major city. We chose London because it was the only place we both really wanted to visit and the thought of an English speaking country was very appealing. London won over the closer and probably cheaper option of Venice because our friend Imogen is in England at the moment and we wanted to see her. So, off to London we went!

How did we get there?

It snowed in Bulgaria the week were supposed to leave so to be cautious we bussed to Sofia the day before and stayed the night in a rather charming hostel in the centre of the city. We went out for dinner at a place called The Ale House which was a brewery and each table had beer on tap which you helped yourself to. It transpired that Stu couldn’t pull a beer and I could (to be fair, I did once work in a pub).

The next day we caught a 1 lev bus to the airport (gotta love finding cheap airport transport in Europe!) and spent a few hours in arguably the most BORING airport in the world. Yes, worse than Launceston.

We flew with a budget airline called easyJet and they did the job – sort of like Jetstar. Arriving and clearing customs was easy peasy  and we were soon on the 50p shuttle to London-town, playing ‘Zitch [insert spotted London/British cliche]!’ For example: ‘Zitch red double decker bus!’ ‘Zitch Marks and Spencer!’ etc. Kept us entertained us for at least two days!

Where did we stay?

We stayed on the 6th floor (no lifts and yes, it was painful) of a dirt cheap hostel called Astor Quest (huh, I did NOT see a pool table). I say ‘dirt’ cheap because dirt was certainly present. It was the kind of place that makes you pay a deposit for just about everything and talks you into bringing your sheets and towels down when you check out so they don’t have to leave the comfort of the first floor. The showers worked sporadically and the toilets were filthy (and the toilet brushes had DUST on them!) They did supply you with breakfast and it was cheap so we can’t complain too much. It wasn’t too bad considering how little time we spent there.

What did we eat?

We were probably more excited about the diversity of food that would be available to us in London than anything else. Bulgarian food is nice, but we’re spoilt little Australians and wanted some of that diversity back! We enjoyed Thai, Indian, something that can only be best described as Tapas, focaccias, French flans, Cornish pasties… and of course English pub food. It was gastronomically very exciting.

Oh, and coffee! Stu did some research and we visited some cafes that served us some very awesome coffee. Stu’s favourite was Milk Bar in the Soho district but I still remember fondly the rich and creamy taste of the coffee made for us by the funny vague humming girl in Wild & Wood.

Actually, Stu made a Coffee Map of London which you can keep for reference.

What did we do?

Ooh, lots of things!  Most importantly we were joined by Imogen for most of the weekend. With the combined forces of Stu and I not being too big on the touristy scene and Imogen having recently seen most of the major sights, we ended up doing things that appear a little further down on the ‘What you should do in London’ list. Like visiting the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill and Imogen’s idea of a tour around London: walk in a random direction, pick a landmark (eg. the Gherkin), then find the least straight path to it. Was tiring and fun. We also saw Avatar in 3D (and I still haven’t lived down falling asleep in it) and had dinner with all the London Wegmans we could cram together in one apartment (ie Imogen and her brother Alex and his wife Emma and their baby Sophie).

Oh but of course, we did go and gaze at Big Ben (and the surrounding parliamenty things), Downing Street, Hyde Park, the British Museum, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Picadilly Circus, Harrods, Tower Bridge. We had a go at looking at Buckingham Palace but caught up in crowds waiting for the changing of the guard ceremony and since we were supposed to be actually meeting Imo in Notting Hill we left without seeing either.

Best fun: The London Eye. It was actually good value really and a nice way to see all of London at once and remain sitting. We entertained a nearby elderly couple by taking dozens of photos of Imogen and I jumping in the air – to make it look like we were ‘jumping over London.’ We discovered that anything that claims to be a ’4D Experience’ is actually 3D with bubbles blown at you.

What did we think?

We loved London! Even though it was only a very small taste, we’re so glad we got the opportunity to go see it and a massive THANKS to dad for making it possible.

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So now we’re back home in Haskovo and having a go at making a start at packing (yep, procrastination at it’s finest). So far we’ve made a number of piles around our living room that are looking promising. We’re trying to reduce our lives again to two 20kg packs and an up to 20kg box to post – not that we want it to be that heavy!

Only 2 weeks left in the country!

See you all very soon!

We went to London!

And…

We’ll…

Blog…

About…

It…

Soon.

Byee,

Love Stu and Elly.

We got the scooters again on Wednesday! They were too much fun (and too cheap) to resist. We went back to Osman to hire them… despite meeting another nice young scooter hirer the night before. This other guy invited us to have free elma çay (apple tea) and a chat. He had great English and had actually been to Australia – plus his brother lives in Melbourne. We asked his name as we said our farewells and were astonished to hear that his name was Jesus. Actually, his name is İsa (which is the Turkish word for Jesus), but we told us the Anglicised version. We thought it would be a rare name for a Muslim country, but Dave later informed us that that isn’t the case.

So as cool as it would have sounded to say that we hired scooters from Jesus, we went back to Osman. That’s a hugely hilarious dichotomy of names for anyone who’s familiar with the history of the Ottoman Empire – which was founded by Osman I!

This time we decided to drive a couple of towns away to visit one of many underground cities scattered around Cappadocia. We chose Kaymaklı Underground City because it was the biggest, even though there were smaller ones that would have been free. We were talked into paying for a guide to take us around, thankfully we only had 20 lira on us which was accepted instead of the usual (exorbitant) fee of 70. It was worth having Mustafa (a retired ministry of tourism official) take us around as there were no signs explaining anything once we got inside – Peter Grant, you would be out of a job here! It was quite surreal to be walking around tunnels and caves where the Hittites hid from Assyrians and the early Christians hid from the Romans.

After visiting the underground city we headed back to Göreme to do some off-road exploring – the real reason for hiring scooters again. We drove through some very narrow valleys and I had to hop off the back of Stu’s and walk along behind for some sections. By this time I had had a few solo runs and some with Stu on the back, they were ok but I didn’t have the hugest confidence in my driving! Nevertheless when we got closer to the highway to take us back to the hire place I felt I could get there on my own! I think I just wanted to say I drove on a public road in Turkey without a licence. I didn’t last very long before I scared myself and the boys (who were trying to catch up!) by nearly side-swiping a concrete barrier.

Our last full day in Göreme was another walking day. We decided to walk to the nearby town of Üçhisar for lunch then walk back through the Güvercinlik (Pigeon) Valley. The valley was an interesting walk. We’re very used to Tasmanian walking tracks that are extremely well marked out, even to the point of laying out duckboards just so we don’t get lost. With the valley walk, there were moments where the track branched out into 2, 3 or more paths and I we had to choose which way to walk. Sometimes we were lucky and found that our selection took us in vaguely the right direction, but sometimes the path we chose ended at a cliff edge or a river or under a tree. It was like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel! We eventually made it through the valley just as the sun set which was lucky.

As a reward for our long week and to celebrate our last night in Cappadocia, we visited Göreme’s Turkish Baths. Ahh. It was lovely. In brief, it went like this:

• Mud mask slapped on
• 50° sauna for 15 minutes
• Shower then lie on a marble slab for 10 minutes
• An attendant comes who then sloughs off your dead skin with a scratchy mitt (eww) and rinses you off.
• The attendant then used an air-pillow with soap suds in it to massage/cleanse your skin. This part was very relaxing for me as my attendant was gentle, but I could hear groans of pain coming from the boys as various joints (inc back, neck, elbows, knees) were cracked rather forcefully.
• We then showered off and headed to a small pool to paddle round in for a bit before heading back for a second stay in the sauna and a few more laps of the pool.
• After our final shower we headed to the towels where we were accosted by a towel-wielding man who insisted on drying us down for us. That was weird, reminded me of being 3 and fresh out of the bath again!

The next day, Thursday we were supposed to fly out at 9pm at night, but discovered that getting from the airport in Istanbul to Sultanahmet before the last bus/ferry/tram would be extremely difficult and it would be cheaper to cancel the flights and catch an overnight bus instead. Apart from being uncomfortable to get a decent night sleep in the bus was fine and we arrived in Istanbul bright and early at 7am. Stu and I had originally planned to catch another overnight bus to Haskovo but due to tiredness and some not-so-subtle hinting from Humf we decided to spend the night so we could see him off at the airport the next day.

Humphrey! He has gone

We hope he had a good month with us, we think he got a good taste of some rather obscure European countries and what it’s like to live in close quarters with the same people for a few weeks – now he knows how I survived only having brothers

We had a rather entertaining bus ride back to Haskovo. For those not friends with me on facebook I will re-post here soon what I wrote about that trip.

Now we’re home. Kathryn and Aydin have been having a ball in Australia and we came home to the news that they are planning on returning to Haskovo for the next 6 months at least. We received high praise from his teachers and educational psychologist for all the hard work we have put in over the past 5 months which was really good to hear. Well done Aydin!

We still have two weeks break until we have a student again and we’re looking forward to some quiet pottering about and intensive Turkish (maybe).

Til we post again!

Elly