Volume 4: Pete in Europe Part 1. A young balding mans journey through 10 countries and back
Day 1 or Day 2… or maybe Day 3 – Melbourne to London
Volume 4 sees me venturing into 10 countries in just 25 days. A trip of a lifetime, one which I hoped to repeat later. A chance to leave reality for the month of May and party with 39 people I’d never met before, but would never want to leave again, through much of Western Europe. Yes, for the next 25 days I would be repeating over and over in my head: “Life is good” and “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”.
I was pretty happy with the first part of the journey, the flight to Singapore. The now compulsory loud crying kid that appears on all my flights was well out of ear shot, and the seat in front of me had a small TV with many movies and video games to keep me occupied. Sure, I’d missed out on sitting next to the hot German chick sitting just one row in front of me (an ideal candidate for my “sex before the plane crashes girl”), but I was happy to have the 2 seats next to me left empty. I had had a quiet chuckle when the emergency video they show at the start of the flight talked about you reaching for your toes and putting your head between your legs (and kissing your ass good bye) as the plane headed to the ground in a crash situation. Or as they implied to any fat bastards on the flight, “reach as far as you can” because you probably haven’t seen your toes for a number of years.
Of course the Gods never like to see a look of content on your face, so they decided to mix things up for the Singapore to London leg of the flight. The 2 seats next to me where now filled, and some little annoying snot of a kid was now sitting in front of me. I can tell you this; that kid is going to grow up to be an absolute turd. How can I have such great foresight into the future you say? Well the fact that his father was a complete an utter turd who reclined his seat so far back that the 10cm by 8cm screen on the back of his seat now looked as big as an IMAX screen to me is a key factor giving me such great vision. That coupled with the food trolley slamming into my elbow every time it went past, and every clown slapping the back of my head as they went to the toilet left me in such a pissed off state that I would have kicked the living crap out of any fool had they been stupid enough to hijack the plane. I could just imagine the press conference:
Reporter: “Mr Hart, you’re a true hero. What inspired you to take on 10 crazed terrorists armed to the teeth willing to die for their god?”
Me: “Well I was so pissed off with the little snot in front of me and his turd of a father. The friggin food trolley hitting my elbow each time it went past and the fact that my head had a series of hand prints on the back of it from every clown that went to the toilet, well, the hijacking was the last straw. I just had to kick someone’s ass!”
I swear, my right elbow was 2 inches shorter by the end of the flight. If that wasn’t enough, there was a new set of flight attendants on this next leg of the journey. The flight attendants were far more uglier, and there was one woman who looked older than Yoda. Why do old age women insist on wearing so much makeup? It doesn’t cover up the wrinkles, it magnify’s them.
After departing my flight and picking up my luggage I was happy to discover an airport with even more relaxed customs than Fiji. Fiji had one guy asking if you had anything to declare (and hoping like hell you said no because that would’ve meant more work for him). Heathrow; not a single soul. I thought I had accidentally gone through the EU section, but after talking with fellow travellers on tour I had in fact passed through the correct ‘customs’ section. I use the talking marks because I don’t consider an empty room with an exit door a customs section.After spending 2 and a half seconds in ‘customs’ I then proceeded to the tube to catch the train to Russell Square. I must have looked like a local because some bloke with a cockney accent asked me if our train was going to London. Although, the fact that he was reading “The Star” or some other classy newspaper that has a half naked woman on the front may have implied his intelligence was less of, say a rat, and that he was part of some experiment that was much like a rat trying to find its way out of a maze. I had another chuckle when I discovered my train was on the “Cockfoster” line. Conjures up pictures of a row of penis’ hooked up to hydroponics being farmed in a tin shed somewhere in the English countryside.
I departed the train at the Russell Square station and was greeted by the quiet streets of London experiencing a public holiday. Well, they were quiet until I was greeted by the ‘Unofficial Welcome To London Committee’. The committee comprised of only one person, or to be more accurate, one nutter. Some skinhead guy was walking down the street at a decent pace yelling at everything and nothing. I decided it would be wise to cross the road and to avoid eye contact. It was at this point he yelled at me “We’ve got the same hair cut”. I was tempted to yell back “Yeah, but I’m not a friggin psycho-weirdo-freak” but I didn’t think he would look too kindly on that.
I got to my hotel room at 7am and much to my surprise they let me check in. Instant Karma. After talking with some people on my tour some days later, I discovered they hadn’t been let into their room until 2pm. One such unfortunate individual tried to check in at 1:30pm and was still told to ‘go away luv’. You can imagine her delight when she finally checked in after her 24 hour flight and discovered her double room already had her room mate in there from the night before.
Once in my room I fell asleep watching the British TV show “Allo Allo” (who would’ve thought that was possible?!?) and caught a solid 15 minutes sleep. I WAS IN LONDON! I didn’t want to waste a minute so I got up, had something to eat and then went off to see the sites.The first stop was the British Museum. The price was right, ie free, so I thought I would enter. There was a sign at the entrance reading “Recommend 5 euro, £3, $5 donation”. I couldn’t help but remember an episode of “The Simpsons” where a similar sign was displayed at the Springfield Museum and Homer Simpson had laughed at it, just as I was now doing at the sign at the British Museum.
It was in the Museum that I discovered that the British are the greatest thieves of all time. It left me surprised that the Pyramids are still standing, as it seemed like they’d taken everything else out of Egypt. The Museum was made up of sections dedicated to the different continents of Earth, all except Australia (and Antarctica but that doesn’t count). How could this be possible? Where’s the history of the esky? The Hills Hoist? The Victor lawn mower? All great technological innovations that have changed the planet for the better.
After exiting the Museum I headed down to Picadilly and Oxford Circus. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered these circuses had no clowns or lions or elephants. WHAT A JIB!Disappointed by the whole circus experience, I retired to my room for an early night. I watched “Family Feud” in German, “Weakest Link” in Spanish, and 4 English hours of Snooker. It’s probably one of the few sports the English are still competitive at. This is through no use of their own, it’s just that no other nations care about snooker or they’re pissed when they play it. Another interesting show had Yuri Gala commenting on while he was watching “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!” that one of the competitors had not taken a shit for 12 days. Those were his exact words, so you can understand why the host of the show he was on wasn’t too happy; given it was a breakfast show.
I fell a sleep at about 9pm, and but for some fool at 3am near the fountain outside the hotel making a bunch of noise, I had a pleasant sleep.
Day 2 – London
I think this is day 2, but having flown for 24 hours and landing on a day with the same date as the day I departed I’m left I little confused. We’ll declare it as day 2 and leave it as that.
After a solid 12 hours sleep I awoke ready to take on London. “Allo Allo” was not on TV so there was no reason to stay in the room so I soon departed after a shower and breakfast.
Although I hadn’t received an official invitation from the Queen to visit Buckingham Palace, I’d thought I’d wander down there so every time I saw it on TV when I got back home I could annoy everyone by saying “I’ve been there”. It didn’t look far on the map from my hotel, so I decided to walk. Besides I find you discover more on your way to your destination when you walk. One such discovery was St James Palace and my first beefeater. There was only one guarding the entrance, which apparently means the Queen isn’t in residence there. Apparently the 2nd guard makes all the difference as it doubles your disbelief at the amount of poncing around they do thus rendering you paralysed (and 20 crazed gunmen) with laughter. The beefeater was quite happy to pose for photos, read not move or acknowledge the person standing next to him, leaving him wide open to a camera gun attack.
As there was only one guard, I avoided becoming paralysed by laughter and eventually made my way to Buck Palace. There were a large number of tourists and mounted police surrounding the Palace so I could sense something was about to happen. That something turned out to be the changing of the guard. Those mounted police turned out to serve more as a photo opportunity then anything else, occasionally blowing their whistles to get tourists off her majesty’s precious statue out the front of her pad.
After the conclusion of the changing of the guard, and thinking “is that it?”, I wandered through St James Park and across to the Cabinet War Rooms. The guy checking bags before you entered was in his 60’s, sitting on a chair, and wearing a neck brace. Unless an armed quadriplegic intended to storm the War Cabinet Rooms I couldn’t see how he was going to be able to stop anyone overly keen and with working limbs on getting in. As I was in the queue to get in I heard a couple with a German accent ahead of me. I figured they must have been still trying to find out why they lost the war. From all the old Hollywood war movies I’ve seen I reckon the biggest disadvantage for the Germans was that their superior officers all spoke English. That’s got to affect the success of communications when the majority of troops only speak German.
From there I headed off to get my regulation picture of Big Ben, took a look at Westminster Abbey from the outside, and decided to head in the general direction of my hotel which would take me past Downing street. It wasn’t until I got to Trafalgar square that I realised I’d passed it without realising. I was extremely disappointed as I had intended to yell out “Bush’s Bitch” to Tony Blair as I went past number 10. By coincidence, it turned out this day was Tony Blair’s 50th birthday. So what would British TV talk about on this grand day? His foreign policy and his part in the “collation of the willing”? The legacy he and his government would leave on future generations? No. There was an in depth conversation on how bad he looked in a recent photo shoot.
After stumbling across Trafalgar square, and Nelsons Column, which judging by the size of it he was inadequate about the size of his manhood as it may be the most phallic tribute to a man I’ve seen, I then proceeded to stumble across the National Gallery at Trafalgar square with the price right again. Having never really appreciated art before, I was blown away by the grand scale of some of the works and couldn’t help but think I would have had a greater appreciation of art if I’d seen something like the gallery as a child. That said, I still can’t understand why anyone would spend millions of dollars on a single painting. For one thing, think of all the beer you could buy with that money. During my visit to the gallery I came across Van Gogh’s “The Chair” and “The Sun flowers”. It only reconfirmed one thing for me: Van Gogh is the most overrated hack in the history of the art world (I can say stuff like that now because I’ve got a greater appreciation of art). There was also a Da Vinci cartoon enclosed in darkness. Not knowing that a cartoon in the art world meant a charcoal sketch used as an outline for a future work, I expected to see the first ever Road Runner cartoon. You can imagine my disappointment when all I saw was something Da Vinci had doodled while waiting for his toast to pop up in the morning. Also at the gallery was an exhibition from Aussie sculptor Ron Mueck. One of his statues had a naked chick with her newly born baby-sitting on her chest with cord still attached. While another statue had a naked old bloke sitting in a boat. I swear it was haunting; the eye of the penis followed you all around the room.
After 7 hours of walking and sensory overload, I retired back to my room for a half hour rest before meeting my future Contiki brothers and sisters. It was later that night I would enjoy my first pint of beer on English soil with my new found brothers and sisters. I was shattered when I forget to take a picture of it or commission an artist to paint a portrait of this monumental event. It was a fairly quite night, with everyone heading off to bed early knowing it was probably going to be the last time they had more than 5 hours sleep for a long time.
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