Dreaming of Freedom

Ella, Will, Susie and Rich came round to celebrate Ella’s birthday this evening. Much fun was had and eating of cake completed. A few photos can be found in the photo gallery.

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Caught the ‘Oxford Tube’ today. It’s not actually a tube but it does go to Oxford so I guess it’s not false advertising. It rained ominously on the way there and when we arrived it was bucketing it down. It cleared up in time for me to go punting. Punting is a interesting pastime. It has little of the excitement of sailing but it has a certain damp aspect to it that is similar. There weren’t too many people out on the water so I go a chance to practice punting without crashing into others. It is certified fun! I spent the rest of my time there wandering and peeking into some of the college courtyards… it looked very like Cambridge so I felt liked I’d seen it all before.

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Went to Notting Hill Carnival today and it was as crowded, drunken and generally horrid as it had been described. As I couldn’t really see anything, I left and went and hung out in a sweet little tea shop called the muffin man in Kensington and ate cream tea and read Germaine Greer and Oscar Wilde. I really should have gone yesterday but failed as by the time I’d finished shopping - I mean reading educational books - there really was only time to eat Turkish Delight ice cream and no time to cycle to Notting Hill.

I’ve been discovering the Catherine Tate show and a whole range of music including Milky Wimpshake. They really are quite funny especially their song White Liberal Guilt. Have also been discovering Calvin and Hobbes - laugh out loud comic cartoon - well worth a read.

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A wonderfully lazy day today, I mooched around London breathing in the atmosphere. Had my first experience of Portobello Market - wow what a place! Where to start describing! The colours, the people, the smells, the sounds… ok I give up! I wandered to Kensington and had a quick look at the palace - still lots of tributes to Diana despite the fact that she died about a decade ago - people really like the idea that she was a ‘princess of hearts’ despite the fact she never relinquished her absurd title or redistributed her unnecessary wealth. Popped into the V&A only to be disappointed that there was no water in what I have dubbed the paddling pool so my feet stayed dry and hot! Ended up rather randomly eating crêpes! Not sure how that happened. It then rained until I made it into the tube.

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I’ve been attempting to look at exciting photography courses to do in London. So far I haven’t actually succeeded and so might have to delegate the task. I went to the Tate Modern yesterday - saw a Jackson Pollack, Monet and Rothko all in the same room and it was good. I think I’m falling in love with London - even the grime seems exciting - I spent lots of time yesterday staring into the dirty Thames yesterday for no good reason except that it was interesting! Photos of floating rubbish soon!

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Am very pleased with myself becuase I have added a new page to my website. See www.suzishimwell.net/Norwich for the shiny new page! I was inspired by all the travelling and using of travel guides to collate some useful information on Norwich, so any info for or comments on this page would be very welcome as it would be nice to make it into a useful resource!

Website is still in the early stages I know but bear with me - I’ll learn CSS soon!

Still chilling out after travelling… might get down to some work sometime but in the meantime I’m adjusting myself to bad English food and terrible English coffee.

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My first full day back in England. It was lovely to chill out and not rush anywhere or see anything! I’ve barely done anything except crawl out of the house to buy fruit and other necessities such as biscuits, watch bad films and hang out with friends. I spent a pleasant evening dividing my time between Matthew and Will’s birthday party. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Will if you’re reading this! It was lovely singing happy birthday, eating delicious vegan chocolate cake and drinking red wine. Of course after being in Tuscany the wine pales into insignificance but I’m adjusting quite well - with some practice there won’t be a problem. Had fun chatting to Joe Button, which resulted in my agreement to give him his CD/DVD writer back and look after his guitar for him. I’m quite surprised that he wants to store it at my house, as I’ll only try to play it. Tip off for Joe fans - he might be playing at the Blueberry pub tomorrow night. Check out the Anna Mudeka band gigs if you want to see him play.

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Clearly a slice of heaven: view from top of hill in San Gimignano

Well I’m back in sunny England. It’s so good to be home in front of a computer that I’m not quite sure what to do! 3 weeks of Internet deprivation was hard, but what I missed most was books. Being such sensible travellers Keyvan and I took the tiniest little rucksacks and what with the lonely planet guide and the Thomas cook timetable there was no room for anything lighter!

Journey back was pretty good. I visited San Gimignano with Hedda and Adil before heading up to Turino to meet up with Keyvan.

We checked into the hotel nearest to the train station and ate as much breakfast was we could this morning! From there we bused it to the airport. I know it’s very bad to fly - global warming and all but there is something so liberating and exciting about seeing the earth from above. It was an amazing flight back over the glacier-speckled Alps and through the clouds back to England.

We hung around waiting for the train back to Norwich in the corporate oasis behind the Liverpool Street Station - it’s a well kept secret as far as I can judge by the lack of people there, but it’s well worth finding if you’re waiting for a train for a long time.

Plans now I’m home? Sleep! Catch up with everyone. Celebrate Will’s birthday tomorrow with Tuscan wine!

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Woke up very early (7am!) and after eating a hasty breakfast I legged it to the Galleria del Accademia to see David. I was the first there about 7.30 and it was lovely to miss the place because there were no queues outside! Luckily despite walking past it several times I managed to be the very first in the queue! which made me feel special and justified in waking up early. The gallery is full of amazing works of arts and well worth a visit. Davis is huge and impressive. I also discovered Lorenzo Bartalini’s work which is wonderful, esp. liked Titian’s Venus!

I think waking up early and getting to the sights first is probably the best way to deal with Florence as during the day the queues are too daunting to join!

Caught the train from Florence to Siena about 11am. We arrived and went straight to our somewhat spartan but clean youth hostel on the outskirts of the city. We’ve just ventured into the centre via the last bus of the day (2pm!) Once again I was in search of internet to find out train times but I had to stop by the first pizzaria to buy a well earned slice of pizza.

Siena is a lovely medieval style city with tall buildings and bendy streets. I’m off to Turin tomorrow to meet up with Keyvan who has nipped up there to visit a friend. From Turin we will make our way home on Monday for a well earned sleep!

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Florence is nice for a city. It is busy with people in the way London is busy with traffic. There is lots going on in the Piazza and around the Ponte Vecchio, artists, street entertainers, hawkers, musicans etc. My plan to live off pizza has folded after 1 day and I ate salad yesterday, but I think I am going to try to reinstate the reign of pizza and pasta today!

We caught a night train from Arhus to Munich on Monday and had our first experince of sleeping on trains. The couchettes are cattle class style with 6 people in a tiny cabin but our fellow travellers were interesting and the journey was surprisingly ok. This was followed by a day of training it to Italy. The journey was enlived by the cartoon of wine we had left over and a new friend we found who played his backpacker guitar to us and sang beautifully.

Arriving in Lucca early evening we happened to bump into Hedda and Adil as we quickly searched the streets for something suitable to take to our couch surfing host. Our kind host picked us up and took us to her lovely old house outside Lucca, where the walls were adorning with early 19th Century wall paintings. Amazing! The morning saw us eating Italian sandwiches and drinking wonderful coffee in a lovely little cafe in the countryside as we waited for the bus back to Lucca.

Lucca is an interesting city. The old heart is surrounded by the most amazing city walls that you can walk on top of. The streets are narrow and paved and give the impression they should be pedestrianised. We saw the famous tower with the trees growing on top and ate lots of pizza!

We nipped to Piza on Wednesday to look at the tower and take photos of people pretending to hold it up or push it over. The piazza with the tower in is ugly with tourists and you are not allowed to walk on the grass. We left quickly and caught the bus to the coast where we went swimming. Most of the coast was private beach (is this even legal?) but we managed to find a sliver of public beach and jumped into the refreshing water. It could have been cleaner but it was fun all the same. Ice cream and pizza occupied our minds all the way back to Lucca.

We arrived in Florence yesterday evening, and used the useful hotel booking facility at the train station. The hotel is lovely and clean with a massive buffet breakfast which kept Keyvan happy for several hours this morning. We failed to get up in time to get to the Galeria del Academia to see David… maybe tomorrow! Sightseeing will start properly in about 10 mins!

Hope all is well back in sunny England!

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