Jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 >>

Wednesday, 28 April 2010 - West Bromwich by bike

So after four long and trying weeks of working in West Bromwich (next week is my last thank Christ), I finally decided to hire a car for the trip up this week and bring the bike too for a bit more of a look-see. More of the usual crap on the motorways in the way of traffic.		Hell! Hay anyone?

Not far out of Birmingham / West Bromwich a pair of trucks gave each other a love-tap on an off-ramp which closed a lane and delayed us all - usual story.		Anyway it was apparently the warmest day we've had all year so far today (23 degrees - whoopy doo) - good night for a burn! Big problem though, the locknut assembly for my front wheel (added security measure - prevent pricks stealing the wheels) loosened itself off during the drive up while the wheel was removed from the bike, and was nowhere to be found. I spent twenty minutes pulling the whole damn car to pieces and finally found the parts in the smallest little nook beneath the rear seats (which I had to rip out hehe).

And I was off! A few West Bromwich sights: a large pile of burnt clothing...		An illegally parked car, around which the forklift staff in the pallet store there placed some of their goods to box him in hahaha...

And a crapped-out old van for sale that has apparently driven God hehe.				There is a tram line passing through West Brom that runs between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. I started following the path out of the ghetto in the direction of Wolverhampton.

It meandered along the tracks for several kilometres before just stopping dead in the middle of nowhere. Along the way I passed a lot of interesting-looking folk, who clearly thought I was interesting-looking too considering they all stared at me intently as I passed.
Upon leaving the path I picked a road and started following it. Less than 60 seconds later a cop car went screaming past me and down a side street. As I do I went for a nosey and took photos hehe. Some scumbag was getting searched by a dog unit while abusing the cops, and the local youth were loitering around also watching the show and also staring at me. Clearly I'm quite a fascinating sight in these parts, maybe because I'm not wearing a tracksuit. I carried on, and as expected there was absolutely nothing worth seeing.
Eventually I found one of many canals in the area. That way looked a bit dodgy...		...so I headed this way, which didn't look a lot better but anyway. I followed the canals some 10kms back into West Brom, and along the way I went through areas smelling like bread, gas, cabbage, chicken shit...
...and burnt stuff hehe. With this and the burnt-out pile of clothes earlier, clearly the locals love to play with matches. So yeah - what a shit hole! One week to go and I'm outta here.		It's a public holiday here next Monday (for no particular reason I don't think) so Katie and I are heading through to Bruges in Belgium, where the canals are a lot nicer than these (along with everything else)!

Friday, 30 April 2010 - Back to Bruges, and back to the Belgian beer!

This shot was taken on my 25th birthday three years ago in Bruges, Belgium. Well it's a public holiday in the UK on Monday so Katie and I are taking the train through to Bruges for the long weekend - hell yeah! I try not to revisit old destinations since there's still a lot of Europe I'm yet to see, but Bruges is one of the nicest wee places I've ever been and there is a lot of cycling to be done around these parts which I didn't have enough time to make the most of last time. So I'm bringing my own bike with me this time and it'll be a weekend of cycling and enjoying the greatest beer in the world!

Monday, 3 May 2010 - Three years on, still loving the Belgian brews ;)

I'm not quite as good-looking these days as I was hehe, but the Belgian beers are just as good ;) 125kms on the bike all up across two days, a lot of food, a lot of beer, but unfortunately a lot of rain that didn't help to make the weekend quite what it could have been but nonetheless it was (as always) good to get away! This is my final week working in West Bromwich (phew!) - plenty of time to kill in the hotel because outside the hotel is not a good place to be, so the photos and whatnot should be up by the weekend :)

Friday, 7 May 2010 - Back to the English crap
Bruges photos are up! :) And I'm off to Oxford for the night with a few chums to catch up with a mate we haven't seen in a while, so it'll be another boozy night but it'll likely be English piss-water rather than Belgian gold. Oh well.

Saturday, 8 May 2010 - Oxford in a night

Oxford, an even 100kms northwest of London and made prominent by its medieval university, has a population around 160,000 of which the bulk of it is probably students. Anyway a few of us were here visiting a mate who moved here last year to study for his MBA. In other words we came up to get drunk with all the students. While following the GPS to the hostel to dump our stuff, I noticed George Street was covered in beer mug icons hehe, so of course we ended up back along there.

The Turf Tavern is pretty legendary around these parts. It dates back to the 13th century, is hidden down a narrow winding alley, and is full of students and tourists. It was supposedly at the Turf where Bill Clinton "did not inhale" while smoking marijuana as a student at Oxford University in the sixties hehe. It is also at the Turf where former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke set a Guinness World Record for consuming a yard glass of ale in 11 seconds hahaha!				Next pub along I found some chick's jacket that had been left at our table. It was there for a good hour or so before I decided they weren't coming back for it and so I put it on hehe I was drunk.

We eventually ended up back at the hostel (which was a Kiwi hostel by the way and had Maori all over the walls hehe, probably slagging the white man off).		The hostel bar closed before we got back but we were still thirsty, so Matt blatantly reached through and stole Corona for us hahaha! Aucklanders huh.		We later went out again to another bar, and long story short I was feeling pretty rough this morning. Hooray for strong coffee!

The weather today was the usual but we had a quick meander around the city centre anyway.

It's not hard to see that Oxford is as old as the hills. This thing ain't gonna last much longer before it implodes.				Umm, big old stone tower, yeah.

Some of the Oxford University grounds and student residences. Flash, and old, and full of tourists again.

In a nutshell it's old, it's pretty, it's full of students, and it's full of tourists, and well worth a look and/or a night out.				Oh and just around the corner from where we were, a royal rumble broke out between about 20 people at 3am, and one of them was stabbed to death. Lovely.

Sunday, 9 May 2010 - God bless drum and bass!

A couple chums and I spent last night into the wee small hours at Cable near London Bridge at a drum and bass gig. For those who follow the D&B scene, it was the Metalheadz crew versus A Bunch Of Cuts (hehe). Goldie, the dude with the ugliest mug in drum and bass (shot on the right), had a two-hour set which alone made the night worth it for me and I'm guessing the rest of the crowd, at least two of which turned up anyway despite being on crutches hahaha! If you're in the mood for some tunes, may I highly recommend this :)

Monday, 10 May 2010 - Canadian yeehaw!

On Friday night in Oxford we randomly met a Canadian chick with the very cool name of Ashten (and a very unpronounceable surname). She got all excited that night telling us about some Canadian dude who was playing in a Soho club on Monday night. Well, Monday night came around, and here we all were, in London's favourite gay hangout - Soho.		Ashten on the right, and her pal Celia on the left. Canada represent!

Anyway this dude was a Canadian indie rock musician by the name of Joel Plaskett. When I looked him up this afternoon, the first thing I noticed were his freakishly long fingers (although not too obvious here, they really did look like alien fingers!).				Long digits or not, Ashten was clearly in love hehe ;)

He had a mate too called Peter, but I thought he looked more like a Gonzalez. Either way, he was also clearly in love with Joel.		Bring it home boys!		Gonzalez was pretty good at pleasuring the keyboard too.

Joel and Gonzalez put on a pretty awesome show, and there was even time at the end for some cheesy photos - nice! :) For anyone who gives a shit, I'm still planning on relocating to Canada next year - can't wait!

Monday, 17 May 2010 - Edinburgh vs. London

Edinburgh: it's pretty, it's full of Scots, and there's a lot of good cycling...				London: it's a mad house, it's full of dickheads, and there's a lot of good cycling if you like wrestling with traffic and pedestrians, which I do ;)

Friday, 21 May 2010 - Ahhh Belgian nectar!

Ahhh good start to the weekend! Katie organised to get about ten folk to the Lowlander Grand Cafe in Covent Garden. This place is the only place in London I've come across with a proper beer menu, and most of it Belgian - brilliant!				Total bill after three-hours worth of Belgian booze and nibbles - £365 hehe. Who's up for a dine-and-dash?

Jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 >>

Page Comments