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English "Holiday" - My fun adventures in my home country
Not many of you will know that I've been dragged along with my family for a 2 week "holiday" in the UK. We're here to see my grandmother, who is slowly passing away, and I'm typing this from my Uncle's PC (who is a computer building nutcase, must remember to scrounge a few megs of RAM and WinXP off him while I'm here). So, I'm giving you entertainment in your cosy homes by spilling out my adventures thus far.
Saturday Morning: Took off from Auckland Inti at around noon on an Airbus. Cramped. Couple of good movies, food was crap, and I stared at a picture of an airplane on that "AirRoute" thing which tells you where you're going. It didn't appear to be moving. We soon arrived at Hong Kong.
Hong Kong: I've seen morgues which are more lively than this place. SARS has really done it's business. 3/4 of the airport is closed, 5 people murder eachother fighting for the priviledge of ordering your can of coke to the chinese girl are the counter. Soldier shoves a temperature thingy in my ear. Wears a mask which only works for 20 minutes, after which time the water vapour makes it more dangerous than breathing in the air. Soon we took off for Heathrow.
Plane: We grabbed an empty row of seats in addition to our prebooked ones. We achieved the near-impossible feat of sleeping inCattle-Truck Economy class. Took the scenic route from Hong Kong to Heathrow: Over the Himilayas, Siberia, Urals, Finland, sweden, Copenhegen, Amsterdam, London. Happy to get here. Off the plane and in Terminal 3 car park in 30 minutes. Our luck it was 5am local time and BAA didn't have anything to keep themselves from doing the arduous job of dumping our bags onto a conveyor belt. 18 months ago we decided to come back from Malta on September 1st 2001, at 6pm. Big mistake. England vs. Germany, no bags for 3 hours. Pattern?
Went to Worthing and has lunch with my uncle. Went 10m down the A34 to Littlehampton, where my grandmother lives. Base Camp. Stayed awake until around 9pm. Fell asleep. Fun.
Next day: Met the extended family, bladibla. I swear if I want to see bloated animals play with their meat with their hands, I'll go to the tigers enclave at London zoo. Had my cousins scared to death that I would cough on them. Fell asleep around 9am again.
Monday: Went to Portsmouth. Saw the D-Day museum, and the Aquarium. All good stuff. After this we went to Hastings. Bracing wind, and it was nice to see the convoy of caravans starting it's anual convoy to Butlin's again this year on skinny little unicycle wheels. I drove our VW Golf today. Managed to get it to go 100 down the m-way. Heavy. Wrenched the arms from my shoulders.
Tuesday: Went to Chessington via Crawley and some village near there. Dad couldn't resist peeking into one or two garden centres there. Chessington was fun. Some mentally retarded day out it appears, but this didn't detract from the 5 minute waiting queues. Went on Rattlesnake, Vampire, Rameses Revenge, Samurai (very cool), Rodeo, Mystic East, and Runaway Train (the last of which was about as fun as having piles.) Had Chicken Burrito for lunch. Crap. This computer is new, and hasn't been updated to British keyboard settings, so the price was GBP7.50. Daylight robbery. Thats NZ$22.50. Went home after buying a cornetto off a shady looking eastern european.
Wednesday: Went to my birthplace, and home for 15 years, Reading. Met my brother (an estate agent). Hates the job, but recently sold a 3-bedroom terraced house in the slums of Reading for GDP400,000 (around US$600K). I'm amazed people can survive on prices here. 80p for a litre of petrol?
It's 30p in NZ, and we don't have any fancy oil companies like BP (Blair Petroleum) or Shell. Ate fish and chips, drove home.
Today: Did nothing. Sister was sick, watched TV.
That's my diary thus far. I may not get on until I get back to NZ (Late July).
Random thoughts for Brits to answer:
Why can't you mark tests in red pens, or have egg & spoon races anymore?
How can you afford to buy at these prices?!?
Why did England suck so much last night against Sloppakia?
Jonny Wilkinson sucks.
Why isn't there a pay & display sign on the M25?
Saturday Morning: Took off from Auckland Inti at around noon on an Airbus. Cramped. Couple of good movies, food was crap, and I stared at a picture of an airplane on that "AirRoute" thing which tells you where you're going. It didn't appear to be moving. We soon arrived at Hong Kong.
Hong Kong: I've seen morgues which are more lively than this place. SARS has really done it's business. 3/4 of the airport is closed, 5 people murder eachother fighting for the priviledge of ordering your can of coke to the chinese girl are the counter. Soldier shoves a temperature thingy in my ear. Wears a mask which only works for 20 minutes, after which time the water vapour makes it more dangerous than breathing in the air. Soon we took off for Heathrow.
Plane: We grabbed an empty row of seats in addition to our prebooked ones. We achieved the near-impossible feat of sleeping in
Went to Worthing and has lunch with my uncle. Went 10m down the A34 to Littlehampton, where my grandmother lives. Base Camp. Stayed awake until around 9pm. Fell asleep. Fun.
Next day: Met the extended family, bladibla. I swear if I want to see bloated animals play with their meat with their hands, I'll go to the tigers enclave at London zoo. Had my cousins scared to death that I would cough on them. Fell asleep around 9am again.
Monday: Went to Portsmouth. Saw the D-Day museum, and the Aquarium. All good stuff. After this we went to Hastings. Bracing wind, and it was nice to see the convoy of caravans starting it's anual convoy to Butlin's again this year on skinny little unicycle wheels. I drove our VW Golf today. Managed to get it to go 100 down the m-way. Heavy. Wrenched the arms from my shoulders.
Tuesday: Went to Chessington via Crawley and some village near there. Dad couldn't resist peeking into one or two garden centres there. Chessington was fun. Some mentally retarded day out it appears, but this didn't detract from the 5 minute waiting queues. Went on Rattlesnake, Vampire, Rameses Revenge, Samurai (very cool), Rodeo, Mystic East, and Runaway Train (the last of which was about as fun as having piles.) Had Chicken Burrito for lunch. Crap. This computer is new, and hasn't been updated to British keyboard settings, so the price was GBP7.50. Daylight robbery. Thats NZ$22.50. Went home after buying a cornetto off a shady looking eastern european.
Wednesday: Went to my birthplace, and home for 15 years, Reading. Met my brother (an estate agent). Hates the job, but recently sold a 3-bedroom terraced house in the slums of Reading for GDP400,000 (around US$600K). I'm amazed people can survive on prices here. 80p for a litre of petrol?
It's 30p in NZ, and we don't have any fancy oil companies like BP (Blair Petroleum) or Shell. Ate fish and chips, drove home.Today: Did nothing. Sister was sick, watched TV.
That's my diary thus far. I may not get on until I get back to NZ (Late July).
Random thoughts for Brits to answer:
Why can't you mark tests in red pens, or have egg & spoon races anymore?
How can you afford to buy at these prices?!?
Why did England suck so much last night against Sloppakia?
Jonny Wilkinson sucks.
Why isn't there a pay & display sign on the M25?
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