We decided to go to Bristol from Simon's house, since it seemed like we'd be spending a lot of time in Leeds moving from place to place, which at this point is about as unappealing as walking multiple miles with our backpacks, though actually that's often included in moving around. We contacted our friend in Bristol that said we could either stay with her or squat with some other friends, and that we would work it out.
We got a megabus out to Bristol. It was a six hour ride, and seemed to take a lot longer than any of the other bus rides we'd had. We arrived in Bristol at 8 p.m., and as we hadn't eaten since about 11 a.m., we found the first Thai restaurant in the area, got the best directions we've ever received in the UK, and went and had some delicious food that was definitely out of our budget. The restaurant was pretty nice, and we mused about how funny it would be if we went from this nice to restaurant to a squat that night.
We went across the street and sat on a bench for about two hours with our giant backpacks, trying unsuccessfully to get through to our friends. Eventually we talked to our friend Priscilla who'd said we could come in the first place, and she said that our other friends were waiting for us at a pub. We got directions--a few times--and eventually found our way there, somewhat intercepting a couple that was have a verbal and somewhat physical fight along the way.
We got to the pub around midnight. Our friend Ben told us that there weren't really any suitable squats, all of the potential buildings were to heavily alarmed to break into. He asked around in hopes of finding a party we could go to so we could sleep at someone's house, or someone that would be willing to let the four of us--Ben, our friend John, Liesl and I--stay with them for the night. We had no such luck.
Liesl and I were completely exhausted, and joked about just pitching our now useless tent on the sidewalk in front of the pub and just sleeping there.
Then Liesl remembered something: we'd forgotten her guitar--which we'd been carrying around with us the whole time we'd been in the UK and hadn't played once--on the megabus. Fuck.
We were desperately miserable. Ben said that Priscilla was at a friend's house, so we couldn't stay at her place. We eventually just decided to pitch our tent somewhere.
It was about 2 or 3 a.m at this point. John suggested that we sleep in castle park--yes, there is a real castle in the park--so we headed that way. I wanted to sleep in the castle, but apparently it was locked or boarded up or something.
We tried to find a suitable spot to pitch the tent, and soon settled on a small grassy hill in the park near some trees. We set up the tent and our sleeping apparatus.
I'd like to take a moment to describe our sleeping situation.
We have a two person tent. There were four of us, two huge-ass backpacks, two sleeping mats and two sleeping bags. Liesl and I shared a mat and used my sleeping bag as a blanket. The part of me that was not on the mat was really cold, so I shoved two of my jackets into the crack between me and the tent wall. We probably went to sleep around 4:30 or 5 a.m., sleep here being a relative term. We were pretty much spooning or squished together all night, turning over constantly to try to be more comfortable.
I woke up at 6 a.m. to the sound of rain on the tent. Good thing we had a waterproof cover on it.
...and too bad I didn't close to tent flap properly. I'd actually half thrown my rain jacket out the door, and it was wet. I went back to sleep.
Liesl and I were sure that the cops would come at tell us to leave at the very least, if not take more serious action. But we slept until around 9 a.m., and were never asked to leave by anyone. My backpack had gotten somewhat wet, and my sleeping bag, and our tent. But we packed everything up regardless. John had left, but Ben and Liesl and I headed to Priscilla's to drop off our backpacks, as she'd said we could when Ben had talked to her on the phone the previous night.
We walked all the way to her house in the rain, only to find that she wasn't in. We went and sat under a brick tunnel to decide what to do. Liesl and I kept looking at each other miserably, unsure if we would have anywhere to stay that night, much less for the next nine days before we went to Ireland (more on that later).
We'd spent our first night as homeless people. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, since we do have money and whatnot, but I'd say that sleeping in a park because you don't have anywhere to stay pretty much makes you homeless in my book.
We were wet and cold, and sick of carrying our backpacks. We wanted to find a coffee shop or somewhere with WiFi where we could hang out and decide what to do. It was Sunday, so lot's of places were closed. Sunday doesn't mean anything to me, so it always irritates me that things are closed that day. Eventually we walked to a pub and hung out there, emailing the people that we'll be staying with in Ireland to see if there was any chance we could come earlier. We booked a hostel for that night, not knowing if we'd have anywhere else to go, and determined to not spend another night camping in the park in the rain. We got a Facebook message from Priscilla seeing if we wanted to come and drop off our stuff.
We walked to her house to get a cab. She asked where we'd been last night, saying that she'd told Ben on the phone the previous night that we could have stayed at her place. Wow. She said we could stay with her, but we'd already booked the hostel, so we got a cab and drove to it.
It's a really nice place, and where I'm writing from currently. We were so, so happy to have our own beds, and to be able to shower and change into dry clothes. We decided to stay an extra night so as not to have to rely on anyone else.
Moving from place to place all the time is horrible, really, it's absolutely dreadful. It would be manageable without our backpacks, but really, sleeping somewhere different every couple of nights is pretty sucky. All we could think about this whole terrible time was Ireland, how we'd be in one place for nearly three months. We could unpack, and actually move in. Also, we get our own apartment in Ireland. The prospect of this was tantalizing in the face of nine days of unknown living conditions.
We're staying at this hostel again tonight, and we should be going back to Priscilla's tomorrow for two days, then flying to Ireland and Thursday, as long as everything works out. I'm honestly not sure that "everything working out" is even a possibility on our trip at this point. But as bad of a time as we've had, we've also had a lot of fun. I really like this country, but we're both ready to leave now, if only because there's nowhere solid for us to live here.
But for today at least, we have food, a kitchen to cook it in, and a place to stay. That's good enough for now.
Cheerio,
Stephanie
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