Let's see, where did I leave off...ah yes, transportation.
So on Thursday we went to Camden again, just because it's so awesome. Liesl got some really sick gauges that are one size bigger than her old ones.
On Friday we said goodbye to our wonderful hosts, whom we hope to see again, maybe in December. We left and walked to the tube station, skipping our planned grocery shopping just to make sure that we got to the bus station on time. Fail! We rushed from one tube line to another--carrying our 40 pound-ish backpacks the whole time--only to find ourselves running late, and almost literally running to the station. We missed the bus, and the tickets were non-refundable. The new ones were three times as expensive, though they still weren't that bad.
We arrived in Bristol to stay with our new host, whom we'd met at the North London Punx Picnic. She and some friends were waiting for us at the station, and we walked about half an hour to her house. Just to be clear--we were still carrying our backpacks.
We had an amazing time in Bristol, which is quite a nice town. It's very old, and everyone is really friendly. We got more of an in depth experience of punk culture than either of us had had previously, and had some great conversations with some great people. Did you know that squatting is legal in the UK? And until a couple of weeks ago, it was legal in residential buildings. Now it's only legal in commercial buildings. I was amazed and absolutely fascinated by this. I nearly got to go with our friends to break a squat, but that didn't end up happening.
We learned some British slang, and spent a lot of time talking about politics, religion, British stereotypes, fascism, and imitating each others accents (Liesl and I were way better at the accent thing than them).
We all went and saw GBH on Saturday night. They were brilliant. It was a small venue, and there was no barricade which made for a much more intimate show, with much moshing and stage diving. They even played White Riot by The Clash, which made me so happy, because it's one of those amazing songs that I might never have gotten to hear performed. (And no, I can't go more than one blog entry without giving a link to a punk song).
We stayed up till about 5 a.m. and slept till I can't remember. That's been our schedule, going to bed pretty late/early, and waking up really late. After the club bus incident we slept til 2 or 3 p.m. I was pretty severely deaf, but you'll be glad to know that my hearing has returned to normal. Liesl on the other hand, was not so lucky with her physical ailment. Our friend bit her hand--don't ask me, I don't know what the deal was--and her thumb has been partially numb every since.
On Sunday we set aside nearly two hours in order to catch our bus on time. (You may have noticed a trend with transportation on this trip). However, we left maybe an hour and a half early. We definitely walked pretty slowly at first because of our backpacks. We stopped at a grocery store, and somehow we only had around 15 our 20 minutes to get to the bus station. Our friends who were leading the way were not quite sure of where the station actually was, so it took a little longer than we'd anticipated. By the end, we were again nearly running. I was pretty much 100% sure that we'd miss the bus, but somehow it was still there when we arrived.
The ride was long, but they scenery was splendid. I saw a lovely graveyard in Birmingham which was probably the highlight of the ride for me. I'm dead set on spending some time in graveyards here, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Instead of a baby screaming the whole time like on the last bus, there were these super annoying girls giggling raucously and talking loudly behind us. This lasted for most of the ride. I tried the "stop talking" glare, but they didn't seem to notice anyone except for these guys that they were talking to. So guys better have been pretty damn wonderful, 'cause I didn't see any reason that they should have talked that loudly.
We arrived in Leeds, and got picked up by a friend of Liesl's dad, who took us to our new hosts' home. They're very nice. We've spent the last coupe of days hanging out, and getting ready for our hike. We're leaving today! We're both very excited for it. I'm even excited for the train ride, because it's supposed to be beautiful and because it'll be our first time on a British train.
Booking this train was something of a nightmare, though not as scary of a nightmare as you'd have if you watched this creepshow thing on youtube that Liesl showed me the night before last. I'm not even going to tell you what it is, because I know you'll watch it. Anyway, getting to St. Bees where our hike begins is terribly difficult, our book even says so. We must have spent hours on trying to book a train. Luckily, Liesl's dad is a computer genius and kindly helped us out. However, we couldn't actually buy the tickets online because you apparently have to have a UK credit card to do that. (What the hell, right?). So yesterday we went down to the station. We got the tickets in about two minutes, and for a fairly reasonable price. That's the last time I ever spend more than five minutes trying to book anything online.
Our hike should take around 12-15 days. We're bringing Liesl's laptop, which I'm using currently, so hopefully I/we will be able to update the blog regularly. We'll definitely take some pictures too.
Well, I'm sure I've missed some things, but lastly I'd just like to say thanks to all of the awesome people who've hosted us on our trip! You guys are sound.
Cheers,
Stephanie
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