Hawaiian boys, rock on, stupid train, and Will

  London, United Kingdom
Friday, September 9, 2005

Before I start - Anne's dad wanted to clear up the wasp story...
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Get it right
Sep 7, 2005 03:03 EST by jode (58.28.77.226) New!

I protest. I didn't poke the wasps' nest at all.

I was going to school one day when I saw about half a dozen other kids looking at something on the river bank. I got of my bike to see what was happening and I had just noticed a round looking hole in the grass when a whole lot of wasps started flying out of it.

I found out later that the others had been poking sticks and stuff down the hole and the wasps were a bit upset about receiving that sort of treatment and wanted to tell whoever it was to stop.

I was standing directly in front of the hole so they naturally suspected me of being the miscreant. Three or four dozen wasps made straight for me.

Why I didn't hurtle off on my bike I will never know but I charged off on foot.

Lesson 1: Don't be nosey.
Lesson 2: Wasps can fly faster than I could run.
Lesson 3: Three or four dozen wasps hurt quite a lot when they sting you.

I was late for school that day. A nice old lady living nearby heard my screams and bathed my painful head with vinegar.

Corollary: After being liberally doused in vinegar and feeling a bit better about it all I put on my jacket only to find that a wasp was lurking in the sleeve. Anguish
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hahahahaha thank you Derek...

so Wednesday morning started out much like any other - Milo...mmm mmm good, hair check (fringe was sitting quite pleasantly today)
Rummage through bag to find something to wear - mental note... must re-organise bag....
Then it was up and out of the house to make our way to Waterloo train station.
the jubilee line thankfully goes straight to waterloo station - however you still have to endure 10 stops along the way - and the glory of that which is public transport has well and truly worn off...
waterloo station is pretty average - didn't stop there for long as we had a train to catch - because today - wait for it....we were going to see....... STONEHENGE (ohhh ahhh) I know its totally exciting right - sure - chilled out on the train for a good 1hr 1/2 had some crisps :o) sang *quietly* to the MP3 player - did the shimmy dance with Anne, and the napoleon dance much to the horror of the guy near us hehehehe and arrived at the lovely and sunny Salisbury.... rushed to find a bathroom (there are never any bathrooms at the stations when you need one and when there are they are closed) ran into Chicago Rock Cafe - noticed chewable toothbrushes in a dispenser in the bathroom - decided against investigating further - had lunch in the restaurant..... had a pint of coke - which was really Pepsi... cheap bastards... meal was nothing at all to be commented on - except if your ever in Salisbury - DO NOT GO HERE....
walked down this flowery, pretty street to find the Information place - kept tripping up on the "pretty" cobblestones along the way - found the Information centre- went in to be greeted by a VERY happy staff member who sold us our tour tickets for Stonehenge which was due to leave at 2pm.... half an hour to kill... what to do..... lets sit in the bus stop.....tick tick tick tick........how about we look in that toy shop.....well that was a disappointment.....tick tick tick....how about that shop there?......they want how much for that top ?!?!?.... tick tick tick - 2pm thank god..... ok.... where's the bus???
stood around for 10 minutes - watched learner driver stall car... in front of a bus... on a main road - smooth - a couple of guys next to us helped push the car out of the main road.... noticed they had been sitting here awhile too..
clearly the guys next to us had been sussing out whether we were going to Stonehenge also because one of them finally got up and wandered over....
*insert American accent* are you girls going to Stonehenge?
T&A - yes
oh ok cool.... do you know where the bus is?
(Tara's Brain - its past freakin 2 if we knew where the bus was do you think we'd still be sitting here?!?!?)
T&A - no sorry.
well it was about 2.30 and we were a little concerned - so i rang the number on the back of the ticket and the impolite British woman told me that they were probably running late (its 2.30 lady of course they are running late) and that I should bear with them....
so I passed on this nice little tid bit of information to our new Hawaiian American friends which lead to some actual conversation.... told them about New Zealand... "lord of the rings is like filmed like everywhere right?".....yes... yes it is.... talked about our plans for Europe etc etc and finally the bus arrived at the convenient time of 2.45... got on the bus to be greeted by a rather nice looking tour guide... yes indeed... forgot that the bus was late instantaneously.... and naturally forgave him when he told us that the bus had broken down rather spectacularly....
well cute guy was a really good tour guide - told us about the surrounding land, what went down back in the day - at one point he mentioned that one of the fields is where the Anzac's came and fought - and at that moment Anne and I raised up our hands yelling "woo hoo".... I can officially point out that we were the ONLY kiwis on the bus.... and EVERYONE was staring....from that point on we were known as those kiwi girls - but it gets worse....
got to Stonehenge and started on our walk around.... Anne had decided to wear her wicked napoleon shirt and as we were being herded over to the site - I heard a little American boy behind me...
boy - do the chickens have large talons... mom what does that mean?
(me - oh no... hahahaha)
mom - you know its from that movie napoleon dynamite
boy - oh yeah I know that movie
after calming myself down I told Anne who started cracking up - but just as we thought it was over there was a chain reaction - ever other American on the bus with us saw her shirt and there was a minor commotion over the joke and napoleon's greatness.... just as it started to die down one of the guys we were chatting to earlier saw the shirt and said "do the chicken have large talons? I don't even want to know" which resulted in more chuckling and poor cute tour guide had to wait so he could tell us about the wondrous rock formation we had just travelled 2 hours to see... sorry cute tour guide.

yay rocks!

ok so Stonehenge looks NOTHING like in pictures - basically because its falling to bits and is really old.... took the usual pictures... took photos for other people who were on our bus and seemed to be comfortable with us kiwi girls - total novelties we are - and then made our way back to the bus.... I saw one of those penny machine things that squash your penny into a souvenir - Anne and I had already got one from Madame Tussads so we thought - why not.... Unfortunately there was a slightly mentally challenged guy having far too much fun with the machine and we thought it best to leave him to it...
got back to the train station - said our sad farewell to cute tour guide and our Hawaiian friends and got ready to get the train back to London.... whilst getting ourselves an ice-cream we heard 3 of the Americans from our tour "hey aren't those the New Zealand girls?" - damnit....ok time to leave....

Thursday was Stratford upon Avon day - a day to see where Shakespeare was born... and died... cool.... well I was looking forward to seeing it....
today's tube ride was just as annoying as ever - 7 stops on the jubilee line - change expertly over to the Bakerloo line and take it to Marylebone train station. we arrived a little early so had a look at the shops in the station - noticed the pigeons scuttling across the floor dodging the looming threat of passers by...went on an unsuccessful hunt for caramel waffles our new favourite food - left feeling slightly disappointed, picked me up a newspaper - which are just like picking up a trashy magazine, and hopped onto our train....
the stupid train took 2 hours and there was no food trolley!!!!! it was very upsetting... not even charlotte Churche's possible bust up with her boyfriend cheered me up... thank god for flight of the conchords and albi the racist dragon... got to a dank looking station and jumped onto the very large tour bus - scammed the bus driver out of a whole pound (hehehe - poor bugger that was his commission) and after realizing that there was next to no one on our train and that we were his only customers - off we went... drove all of 2 roads away and got off the bus to see the house that Shakespeare was born in.... it was large, white and crooked.... the inside creaked, exhibit ladies jumped out at you and started explaining crap to you before you could escape into the next room and we weren't allowed to take photos.... all for the low low price of £6.99...wicked....
felt slightly ashamed for the dead poet and his classics as we passed shops such as the restaurant "food of love" the cafe " as you like it" and my personal favourite "much ado about toys"....jumped onto another tour bus which this time had people on it - and a tour guide too.... pity he sounded like a monotone Robin Leach (you know the nauseating.... Champagne wishes...Caviar dreams guy...I'm Robin Leach, sucking up to the rich. Showing you things you can't afford. Making you feel like the lowest of lows. See this fabulous home in Bel Air, it's something you'll never own... but someone far more famous and wealthy than you does) had to put up with 20 minutes of this guy until we finally reached the Holy Trinity church where Shakespeare was buried.... only had to pay £1 and i got to take photos - got back onto another bus where we were stuck until we could get off at stop number 8 which would take us back to the train station.... logically - if you put a number 8 on a stupid map that would indicate that you would infact STOP at that destination - apparently that's not how things work in Stratford upon Avon and we ended up being driven lord knows where past Anne Hathaway's house (that was Shakespeare's wife don't cha know) and back into the centre of town where we had to hoof it back to the train station - only to find we had missed our train by 15minutes... saw a young Asian girl chucking a fantastic wobbly at this information and Anne and I headed back into town with our dignity still intact.
Anne had spotted an Italian restaurant on the brochure we had and so that's where we had dinner - quite a nice place - alot of food, waiter told me that if I thought this was alot that Italy was worse - made an executive decision with Anne to share food.
walked back to the train station to get our train back - another 2 hour ride with no food trolley and my mp3 player died about 30 minutes into the journey - as a result Anne and I mimed petrov yelyena and me, the bus driver song, and albi the racist dragon much to the horror to a couple of the passengers near us...
the stupid train kept stopping - had train driver tell us that there was someone walking on the tracks (let me out of the stupid train I'll deal with him) got back to Marylebone - hauled some serious butt to catch the tube - missed it by seconds - had to wait for the next one to come - but it was the end of rush hour so didn't have to wait long - missed the tube for the jubilee line by seconds (getting good at missing trains) had to wait.... got on the next tube - noted how good we were getting at not falling slightly and looking like complete goobers when the tube begins to move (yay) I could swear the tube was moving slowly on purpose - oh and why the hurry you ask? well we were running fashionably late for Steph's gig at the koz bar.... got off at Willesden Green and managed to navigate quite well to find the koz bar and catch the last 30mins of Steph's set... Steph was wicked, and not just a little bit - but like alot... had a few drinks and chatted with everyone - then went back to the flat for a few "quiet ones" (i took a poster with Steph's name on it on my way out hehehe)

so there you go - hopefully another pleasing update - today eventually we are going to try and see the globe theatre (i cant wait!!) and Trafalgar square (more pigeons).....

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams..... Tara