So, after the somewhat rushed tour around Poland I then popped up in England.

Ah, England. Finally a country where they speak my native tongue and drive on the correct side of the road - the left one. After 3 months of traipsing about, I'm not surprised that it felt more like home than all the other places put together.

Have some ramblings I wrote up a few days after I arrived:

It 's the last day of a swing weekend (Swing Jam) here in London. Not quite in central London yet - I came here directly from the airport, but I'm already amused by all the stereotypically British things I've seen and heard, such as red double-decker buses, black cabs and people saying "blimey". I'm staying in one of the dorm rooms at Brunel University, Runnymede.

A few days ago I had a chat with the receptionist of the hostel I stayed at in Prague and she had a good laugh at all the words and euphemisms we have in English for 'toilet', such as loo, washroom, bathroom, restroom - when she heard this one she asked if we go there for a lie-down. Funnily enough, the dorm bathrooms here at Brunel actually have baths in them, as well as showers to choose from for all your bathing needs. That genuinely took me by surprise. To me, that's like actually using a figure-eight egg timer with sand in it to time your eggs as they cook. Sure, you can do it, but that's not what usually happens and it's odd to see it done because it seems so old-fashioned.

Anyway, I'm getting off track.

The campus itself is very pretty, and between the old castle-like looking buildings, the rampant British accent, and the 12 year old British boy in my dance classes I keep thinking I'm living in a Harry Potter novel. But that may have something to do with me polishing off the latest HP book on the train through Poland. Nevertheless, I constantly seem to be half expecting someone to fly past my room on a broom.

But yes, I've come to yet another swing dance camp. You'd have to be crazy to come to these, and at least this camp is being honest about that point. They give out little plastic bracelets, which look suspiciously like the ones issued in mental hospitals. Red for the outpatients, and white for those who are seriously committed. I've got a white one, of course.

My room is up on the 4th level of the building closest to the hall where all the nighttime dancing goes on. Given the 5-6 hours of dancing done during the day, I tend to pass out for a brief nap in the evenings before heading out for more dancing into the night. But being so close to the dance hall means I can hear each word of each song perfectly, even with the windows closed. This brings a bit more of a challenge, but it seems I'm up to it. I see to be now able to sleep in the daylight (as being at Herrang and turning nocturnal has shown), or with music or snoring blaring in the area. I never thought that would really be something I'd be tested at. Oh well, it seems I succeed, and after a shower and a nap I head back out onto the dancefloor.

The crowd here is a bit older on average than at Herrang. And things seem much more formal; the emcee is frequently dresssed in a suit and bow-tie in the evenings. Plus, there's a live band each night of the weekend, which is pretty cool.

In true British fashion, we've been regularly updated (even throughout the evenings of dancing) on the latest cricket scores while the test match has been going on. And as England had been kicking Australia's butt in the Ashes, the Brits were having a lovely time poking fun at the Aussies.

Something had to be done. I was one of two people from Australia there, and we felt compelled to show support for the Aussies. And so a rousing chorus of Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! was performed by the two of us and a sympathetic Canadian. Don't worry Australia, we still love you!

It's quite interesting, actually. For the entire time I've been in the UK, every time a native finds out I'm from Australia they point out how England beat Australia in the Ashes.
I'd be concerned or irritated or something about how they all rub it in, but, well, I've never been the biggest follower of cricket. So er... I don't really care. :)

In fact, the most striking thing was watching all the people who don't usually give a stuff about cricket suddenly find it enormously interesting. The whole country was struck with cricket-fever now that England didn't suck quite as much as usual. :)

I suppose we have to let them win occasionally so they can keep their hopes up. :P

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Krakow is such a beautiful city. Cobblestone roads and a big town square filled with dozens of market stalls. The buildings are colourful and the square seems to always have bands playing and people dressed traditionally doing classic Polish folk dances.
On my first day there, I had to find myself a bed for the night, so I went to an internet cafe, only to have the tunes of a marching band come flooding in through the window as I surfed.

Also in Krakow, I met up with one of my friends from Sydney. Now, meeting up with my Aussie friend who also happens to speak Polish in a Polish city was really quite bizarre. Mainly because it didn't feel weird at all. We felt so comfortable around eachother in a completely different location than usual. There's a different local language, but since we both know it, it was just amusing to chat between ourselves in English, drinking the local booze, and have the locals address us in English, only to then confuse them by answering in Polish. :)

Going off to visit my grandmother an hour or so away from Krakow was a fascinating experience, also. She lives in the countryside, and when I stepped off the train (I think only 2 people got off at that station, and I had to open the door manually - it was that sort of train) the first thing I could smell was coal. I wasn't quite sure of the way to the bus station so I had to ask a few locals along the way. I'm telling you now - I looked entirely out of place with my backpack on, trudging up the hill. But it was only when I got off the bus in the tiny town where my grandmother lives, that i really noticed people looking at me.

My grandmother lives in a town where everyone knows eachother and chats in the street, calling across the river to enquire about the other's health. This is a town where tractors roam the dirt roads, pulling trailors filled with freshly harvested wheat. It is a town where the standard car is a tiny little Trabant, which sounds distinctly like a lawnmower going by. And thus this is a place where people looked at me funny because I wasn't a local.

I was informed by my cousin that a lot of changes had occurred in this town since she was last there several months ago. They now had a local chemist (pharmacy for you non-aussies out there reading this) and mini-buses that go directly to Krakow. Can you imagine a chemist being a big deal? I suppose you could also look at my grandmother's house and say that she's only had running water and plumbing for half a dozen years, too. I'm kind of used to that fact since I've been there a handful of times, but for most of you I'm sure peeing in a bucket would be pretty odd in the late 1990s. Unless there's something you want to tell me about....

My grandmother also has a bunch of chickens. So each morning you are awoken by the fun-filled sound of the rooster crowing and the prospect of more eggs than you can poke a stick at. In a fascinating twist of events, her cat gave birth to a litter of kittens the night before I arrived, too, so I got to see the tiny things ambling about blindly in the chicken coop nest that the cat had selected for her offspring. Never seen a kitten that small in my life, let alone five of them. And here they were, squeaking whenever they were awake and lonely, and the mummy cat running towards them whenever they were distressed. Which happened right after I took a flash shot of them sleeping soundly. Apparently the cat didn't think a flash was a natural occurence in the chicken coop for some reason.

But have a look at the cuteness:



Makes me miss my kitty back home and miss having a tiny kitten to play with too. Not that my big hunk of feline isn't adorable, I mean, who could say no to this face?

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I have updated a few posts and added photos for everyone's benefit:

The second Amsterdam post now has reasonably sized photos.

My post about Germany and Austria now has LOTS of pics.

Both the first and second posts about Prague have added photos.

And the Poland post has several new photos.

But you can probably just scroll down to see them all.

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