In the city and the country

Hello! So I'm settling in. I moved into a room and it's lovely, even if I don't know where they keep the ironing board. I know it isn't strictly what V.W. was talking about, but to have a room of one's own at long last is a dream. I bought a teapot. I bought throw pillows. I'm just so happy.

The thing I love best about my new place (apart from the 24-hour Tesco at the bottom of the street that has a perennial sale on the bagels I like) is the 210 bus. In London? Go to Brent Cross station and then catch it towards Finchley (and away from Tesco, I'm afraid). It takes you past sprawling mansions, through Highgate (the closest thing you're going to get to a village in these parts) and even on a real, proper hill. The best part, though, is the proximity to Hampstead Heath, otherwise known as a bleeding great wood at the top of the metropolis. I go there nearly every day. (On a vaguely related note: is anyone aware of folks hiring? Hah!) If you've looked out the window or, to my dearly beloved Southern Hemispherians, crawled out from that sunny rock you're basking on, you'll know Spring has been hesitant. I wandered down to get the starkest shots I could, but did notice that leaves are beginning to bud. I always forget how fond I am of Spring, but it really is so refreshing.

I do like Winter's contrast.

There are things I miss about home. People, places, the ocean... I didn't even realise how I felt about the latter until I saw it in an episode of Jonathan Creek (which I really shouldn't have been watching). I miss coming out of the station, walking down past the hospital and the milk bar that sells individual cigarettes to high schoolers, and seeing it, that reliable streak of blue. I didn't appreciate it. I should've. And so, much like affordable San Pelligrino's and Netflix, I'll enjoy the Heath while I've got it.

Spring is trying.

 

Lovely London: First Impressions

• Everyone hates the weather. It snowed! Sure, it's March. Sure, the last time these people saw sunshine we were all still pondering the likelihood of the Mayan end of days looking anything like this great new film 2012. Sure, sure. But you're Londoners. It's in your blood to cope with this kind of weather. You're meant to relish it, and then come to my country and complain about our weather.
• That's just the way the Tube smells. You know that sour, old milk kind of odour? Apparently, there isn't a choice about that.
• There's less obsession with royalty... Unless you make the rookie mistake of seeing a magazine stand and learning than the royal baby is now the size of an apricot or an eggplant or what-have-you.
• ...and more with James McAvoy. Him! Mr. Tumnus! The guy who played the guy with muscular dystrophy! Goddamn Gnomeo! He's a big shot action hero now and, it would seem, London's favourite stepson. In the past four days, seventeen action films in which he holds a gun aggressively on the poster have been released. He is acting in MacBeth, Hamlet and the Tempest, all at once. I think I saw a cologne in Boots. Now, I don't have a problem with any of this, and he seems like a pretty nice bloke from his Wikipedia article, but all I can say is that I didn't see it coming.

I guess I should've paid better attention to Wanted.

• Squirrels are great and nobody cares. Have people been desensitied here? I don't get it. Can't they see the little hands?
• There are dead celebrities everywhere. William Blake is a bit of a hero to me. His poetry is outstanding. The effect he had on his contemporaries, and indeed on English literature, is rivalled only by the greatest writers in human history. His work is poignant, captivating, political and proud. Oh, right, and he's buried to your left there.
• You must make your peace with limb loss. Have you been caught in those train doors? I have. Ouch.
• Food is better than Jamie Oliver told me it would be. I mean, really. I expected to find legions of pasty, miserable people lolling in the gutters since, once they tipped onto their backs, they were incapable of righting themselves again, WALL-E-style. If not that, I was waiting for some poor anaemic to pass out on me. Well now, I haven't seen any school dinners so perhaps I can't talk, but has J.O. not been in central Londom recently? PRET A MANGER IS EVERYWHERE. And I can't move for the number of Whole Foods. I know it can't be all this glorious but I'm still waiting to see a queue go out the door at Macca's.

First image sourced from here.

 

Long night, White Night

Melbourne threw its own Nuit Blanche. I think this whole world's most liveable city affair has kind of gone to its head. Australian culture dictates that a night out must must must involve booze, lest it be labelled a waste and gay. My charming countrypeople! So what started out as a bright evening of culture and jazz dissolved, by about 3 or so AM, into a distopian day-night with tumbleweeds of empty vodka bottles, Pie Face wrappers and abandoned shoes. I wish I'd taken a picture of the bottle-o because it was empty. I mean it; spirits gone, two little miniature bottles of bourbon arranged thoughtfully on the middle shelf.

 

Aiie, but I am being negative. My own White Night was... multi-faceted. That has to be the word. Highlight of highlights: I saw Cent une tueries de zombies (have a look if you don't mind the gore). 101 zombie deaths cleverly edited into 40-something glorious minutes. Not for the faint of heart. (They even included my favourite zombie death, but be warned: this video is graphic.) I also got to see Flap!, the very best live outfit in Melbourne, perform, which was excellent as always. They have this way with an audience; it's hard to describe. Every time I've seen them (and I admit, there have been a few) it takes about three songs for them to win the crowd completely over. You know the kind of person you don't actually know, but feel close to and want to buy a pony for? That's this band. They're good value folks.

After the zombies and the music it was getting towards that eerie stage I told you about. I'd said goodbye to J and IMJ (soft!) and just sort of wandered. Things get very strange for me when I'm low on sleep. I don't remember much, but I have distinct memories of trying to walk toe-heel instead of heel-toe. What can I say? In the immortal words of Honey Boo Boo Child, girl's gotta get her beauty sleep.

I resurfaced at 6am, ate too much breakfast (cold scrambled eggs, bleagh) and went home, then to work. Probably should have had a lie-down beforehand; probably shouldn't have drunk six espresso shots in half an hour. Was it all worth it? You know, I think so.

 

Collins Quarter

 

The city of Melbourne

Last week may very well have been one of the worst times to run errands in the history of the world. The heat was so bad that the Beaureau Beurau Bureau of Meteorology (in all my life I have never been able to spell that word) had to invent a new colour for it. My original plans to go visiting some rural cities and take snaps for y'all have been on hold since -- well. I was going to make a joke about bushfires just now, but that's something you just don't do here. Actually, it's always so strange for me to see the English-speaking Internet explode with excitement for Black Friday, when here it's synonymous with a day of fires so bad that we still remember them, a good 70 years later.

I'm being morose. Here's a picture of my dog looking gorgeous.

Friday! I had birthday presents to hunt down and an interview at a bakery to DESTROY and sangria to inhale. But most of all, I wanted to show you around my city. So here it is.

Bit of a perv on Lt. Collins' Yule House. Is it possible to have a crush on a building?

Whoever let a tree (a tree!) grow in front of these sensational buildings needs to take a long, hard look at themselves.

(Here's hoping all these pictures show up, huh?)

 

WitW: Turku, Finland

Introducing Finland's one-time capital, Turku. In 2011, along with Tallinn, it was the European Capital of Culture and, in 1996, (sit down if you aren't already) became Finland's official Christmas city. (Actually, that's kind of a big deal since northern Finland is basically Father Christmas' stomping ground.)

Turku doesn't have an enormous population: 170,000 people, give or take. However, thanks to its location (down at the bottom of Finland... the warm part, I guess) about a million folks pass through it to take a ferry.

In a word, Turku is adorable. It has adorable architecture, adorable boat bars (boats moored in a general vicinity that are bars; I knew you'd get it) and an adorably dorky medieval festival.

They even had a visit to their adorable music festival by Apocalyptica, who I would call adorable as well if I weren't a little bit afraid of them.



Less adorable is the public toilet re-imagined as bar. But Turku makes up for that with the bank that's been turned into a bar and is, by all accounts, quite grand. If you're looking for something in the middle, the old Swedish school -- which, needless to say, is also a bar these days -- might suit you.

Contrary to the portrait I've painted, Turku is not a fog-swamped harbour town consisting wholly of pubs. (Athough there is an ex-kindergarten bar. I'm done.) Turku Castle hosts a collection of appropriately old artefacts from Turku's glory days as capital. You know: lots of lovely rugs and goblets and things.

See what I mean? But, more than anything else, Turku seems to be a place to wander in. Let's be honest with ourselves: you don't visit this place for its (seemingly endless) stream of maritime museums. You visit to walk around and say, "UGH! So beautiful! Too beautiful! Too charming!"

Because, quite simply, it is.

All credit to my sources: TripAdvisor, Virtual Tourist, Wikipedia, Medieval Market, Turku Castle, the Guardian, FanPop, Will Go To, Get In Travel.

Where in the Wednesday is my weekly excuse to trawl through Google Images. It's a profile of the place I wish I was in and an attempt to draw my eye away from classic travel destinations. I write in the hope that you'll enjoy reading about all these places as much as I love learning and writing about them. Anywhere you think I ought to write about, from the obscure little town in your state to that place you visited in 1989? I'm at anscenicworld@gmail.com.