Return to norwich - week two and a bit

I started my previous post by commenting on the shabbiness of my MJB Norwich accommodation. Since then I've risen and subsequently fallen off the ladder of MJB room quality. When I went to check out but mentioned I would still be staying in Norwich (with friends), they said they had a lot of rooms available and offered me a reduced rate, so I took it. This was much swankier.

Then from Wednesday to Friday of that week Til and I were supposed to visit Grandpa and Christine near Newcastle, but sadly we had to cancel. When I looked online to book another two nights, they were offering rooms in the most expensive building on the property, 'The Plantation', for 14 pounds per night down from 100, so I snapped those up obviously. 

The Plantation viewed from my previous room.

Unfortunately I didn't actually look at the room details and just assumed that if I was paying 24 pounds a night for my nice room, a room worth 100 pounds a night in the nice building must be better. This grim little box (the English seem to use the word 'grim' a lot; it's so apt) lacking a double bed, TV, or bathroom is what greeted us:

It's also right next to this charming little staircase to nowhere, an artistic statement right out of the Tate Modern (but more on that later).

Til arrived in Norwich from Sydney via London via Los Angeles on a Monday afternoon but, without any way to contact me, could only give me an approximation of her arrival time. So I waited outside the Cathedral for about forty minutes, amusing myself by taking photos of moss and bugs.

At one point I was sitting in the nearby bus shelter and I was approached by an Eastern European woman who had been arguing vehemently about payment in broken English with the fed-up reception staff earlier. She wanted me to help her lift her daughter's mobility scooter up the stairs into the hotel. I agreed, of course, although it was weird being in a country with enough old buildings that they don't all have disabled access. And also weird that she was wandering up the street to ask me instead of seeking help from the staff.

'You strong?' she asked in her heavy accent.

'Yeah?' I replied hesitantly.

Outside the hotel she designated me the heavier end and I lifted, but quickly put it back down when the older woman grunted with pain. 

'Are you okay?'

'No, not okay, not okay', she said squeezing her shoulder. I hoped it wasn't my fault somehow. But she said, 'Good, you strong.'

We managed to get it in the door and then she started blessing me and assuring me that Jesus loved me. 

Shortly after that I was back out on the street leaning against a wall conspicuously. I must have looked quite obviously like I was waiting for something, and while I was taking one of the above photos, a woman who had been sitting at the bus shelter came up behind me and excused herself.

'Sorry, were you looking to buy some books?' she asked me.

'Books?' I actually said. Like an idiot.

'Yeah.'

I looked down at the plastic co-op bag she was holding, which contained maybe two large children's books. 'Uh, no,' I laughed.

She said okay and walked back to the bus stop where she sat for a while before wandering off across the road to what I suspect may be a housing commission estate. Only when she was gone did I start wondering if she'd been offering me something else, if the bus stop was some kind of known meeting place for nefarious transactions and 'books' was a codeword.

But anyway, Til and I were eventually reunited, and we discovered that she had unknowingly smuggled a dead bee into the country in her undies. So if you hear of some biohazard or outbreak of bee disease or something in the UK, and the country is quarantined and we lose contact, it was probably all her fault. We celebrated Til's surprise successful anthophile smuggling with Italian in town.

A hyperrealistic reconstruction of the event rendered by Til's family back home when she told them about it.

Cool dipping garlic bread at the restaurant.

We slowed down in pace a bit this week. I'm a bit sick, so I'm a little too eager to just laze around doing nothing, but I still went to dinner with some of Til's friends and had a day out in London with my fantastic tourguide, Kim. We met at Embankment tube station and walked up the Thames, Kim pointing landmarks out to me along the way. 

Famous graffiti.

Some dude (Flame Proof Moth) playing in a beach chair on the shore of the Thames.

His album is called 'Women should be in charge'.

From the public viewing platform at the top of Oxo Tower (we had to steal through a very private-looking restaurant to get to it).

The Globe.

Southwark Cathedral. Just before this we had a surreal moment when a pair of Australian tourists from 'Malbin' asked me to take a photo of them eating kebabs.

After that we were able to enjoy lunch in the Tate Modern members cafe due to Kim's membership, and then we toured the gallery. I always tread the line between appreciation and cynicism with modern art. It does get a little tiresome when every artwork is just a subversion of some random assumption or attitude, though.

After that we navigated the insanity of the tube at rush hour to get to Brick Lane for curry with Nick, where I gave him Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, before going for a quick pint at a pub before I returned to Victoria Coach Station for my bus back to Norwich.

The next day Til, Sam, George and I met up at the University of East Anglia's bar for a few cheap drinks. Til and I were dying for a nostalgia dinner at Zest, and timed our arrival to allow this, but it turned out the website had led us astray and it closed earlier than it said. It was weird to be back. I felt very graduated. And, therefore, old. This sensation was exacerbated by the fact that it was just after 'freshers' week so the bar was full of eighteen-year-olds.

The day after that, Til and I organised trains and buses and reservations for the rest of our trip, then met up with Sam at Frank's and went back with him to hang out and watch The Social Network and chat with he and Chris.

Our eleven-dollar apple juice in Frank's. The waitress couldn't believe it when I asked for the whole bottle, but Norfolk apple juice is amazing! I sculled the whole lot in like five minutes last time I was here.

The next day Til and I went to the site of many pleasant mornings after from our last trip, the Copper Kettle, and feasted on breakfast food. I don't think we ate again until late that night we were so full. We've kind of made that a habit: pooling breakfast and lunch in a midday feast and then having a small dinner later. The next day we did the same at two separate little delis.

Super-indulgent chocolate croissant pudding at Louis' Deli.

More Bicycle Shop soup.

More pleasant Norwich graffiti.

Til's ridiculous meringue, which she couldn't finish.

 A blurry candid shot of the legendary Norwich 'Puppet Man'. 

That afternoon Til and I met up with Sam at UEA for a drink before Til went out with her old flatmates. She was supposed to ring me so I could meet them in town, but she left her phone on their lounge so I just chilled at the hotel. Then at midnight I realised I was STARVING and searched all over the internet to see if anywhere was open. I ended up finding a place that would deliver pizza and ordered some, although it was a fifty-minute wait. 

The delivery guy called me asking for directions to the hotel in an indecipherable accent, but I worked out that he wanted me to go out on the street to wave him down if he drove past. When I walked out I saw a car waiting on the side of the road and waved, thinking it must be him, but it was actually Til in a cab with her friends. Apparently they had just been discussing how she would let me know she was coming without her phone when Til saw me and said, 'Well, there he is ...'

After maybe five more minutes I walked a little way up the street to see if the dude was around the corner, and a beautiful big red fox trotted out from around the corner. Foxes are my favourite animals, and this was the closest I've ever been to one, so it was pretty cool. And yeah, eventually the pizza dude found us and we had a 2am feast.

On Tuesday night Til, Sam, George and I went over to Rob Perry and his girlfriend Hannah's house for what was essentially a latenight chat about topics as diverse as the state of the USA, night terrors, home invasion and Australian tourism advertising.

One thing I've been thinking about is how weird it is that we (Australia) seem to be so much in the social consciousness over here. There's Neighbours and Home and Away on every day, of course, but there's also a show where they give depressed UK families a week in Australia trialling three different lifestyles to see if they want to move there. Apparently it's the obvious choice for gap year students. And just now I saw a story on the news about our men's community shed idea being taken up over here. Then again, the other day I was reading the UEA student newspaper Concrete and they had an article about our same-sex marriage bill failing which misidentified (and misspelled) the Opposition leader's name as 'Mike Abbot' [sic].

On our second-last day in Norwich, we had one last coffee at Frank's with Sam, where we were joined by Rob and later Hannah. We were getting ready to part ways when it emerged that Rob and Hannah were going to dinner at the Italian restaurant chain Ask with a 50% off voucher code, so we tagged along with them.

After that Rob and Hannah very kindly offered to chauffeur the rest of us around Norwich, first to NS&P's for one last tea with George, Chris and Liam, and then to Til's old flatmates' house.

Among other things, NS&P's is a house of disembodied faces. This little number is still floating around after we last year took it out on the town with us to comfort ourselves after Sam's departure. 

 A pleasant addition to Ms Gellar.

 Spotted this little guy on the way out.

At Brydie, Jess and Helen's, we watched awful (hilarious) '80s gameshows and marvelled at the girls' wall of shockers and bucket list items. Then when it came time to go, Brydie was devastated and had to cry while comforting herself with Dominos pizza.

The next morning we met with Kim and Nick at The Bicycle Shop for a last breakfast before we left that afternoon. As you can see, it was quite a feast:

The journey to Gilly's in Winchester from Norwich was a bit crap, since we opted for the cheapness of the bus over the expediency and comfort of the train, but we eased the pain by reading Gilly's amazing book on the way, except Tilly was too sick and couldn't look at the screen so I ended up reading aloud to her half the way.

Anyways, more on Gilly's in the next blog

Return to norwich - week one

The place I’m staying in Norwich is pretty shabby, but for forty dollars a night, I’m not complaining. Every door has a sticker on it welcoming you to the Beeches Bar and Restaurant, and the other night I went out in search of this fabled eatery. I wandered around in vain for about ten minutes before finding an employee smoking on some steps. She informed me there is no such place, and the stickers should’ve been removed ages ago.

But it’s not without its charm. It’s nicest when the morning sun comes in, and the other day I spotted a squirrel bouncing around outside in the quaint English garden.

During my first week in Norwich I have fallen into an enviabe pattern of waking up early and sitting in bed for a few hours while the hotel internet is still fast, half-watching Antiques Roadshow or Judge Judy or some historical documentary before showering and venturing into town to wander those famous Norwich laneways and eat soup in one café or another, then meeting up with friends in the afternoons and evenings.

The very cool Bicycle Shop, where I came last time to see Nick play a gig.

Sighted these two almost identically dressed (down to the headbands) twins walking about town.

You can't really see, but this was a very lively street band and an old man dancing, shopping in hand.

Guilt mushrooms on toast at Frank's. I felt bad sitting in there with just a coffee when they were so busy, so I had second breakfast.

Spotted Liam playing with some friends one day on my ramblings.

Aside from soup, I love (and miss in Australia) pasties. God damn, I love pasties. I keep walking all the way into town from my hotel in the vain hope that they will be open for dinner, but they never are (they don't post opening hours in the window, frustratingly). At the time of writing, I have consumed six pasties in two days.

Bible bashers outside the West Cornwall Pasty Co.

Norwich recently became a UNESCO City of Literature (along with Melbourne), and it's not hard to see why. Everywhere there are young people reading literature, and down every lane is a bookshop. I've even noticed a substantively higher quality of graffiti! Sure, you've got your standard 'Elizabeth woz ere', but you've also got Keats!

And for you New Agers ...

On the afternoon of my first day, I was reunited with Sam and George in Norwich’s coolest café, Frank’s Bar, where it took us only an hour to get into one of our customary D&Ms. Lately I’ve found all my resistance to alcohol has evaporated somehow, and after two of the English ciders I’ve so missed since returning to Australia, I was beginning to feel the effects, which was amusing. We speculate that this was the cause of mine and Sam's mid-consumption complementary lollipop swap.

After a quick trip to Norwich’s fine Millennium Library and Tesco, we set off on the hour walk to George’s house in Costessey (pronounced 'cossy'), where I got to see other Norwich friends Liam and Chris. We basically hung out in the malodorous lounge room all night talking, often about Pokémon, as Chris is re-playing the classic Blue. We also watched an episode of Mad Men and played a few rounds of Super Smash Bros Melee, which Sam dominated, professing it was probably his third greatest skill.

Character of choice, Sheik the he-bitch.

The next day after my morning wanderings and soup breakfast, I met Sam and George at Frank's again, but was this time joined by the legendary Rob Perry. I also commenced dispensing the stack of Australian books I had brought as gifts from home, with Sam taking Christos Tsolkias' The Slap, George taking Nam Le's The Boat, and Rob taking Anna Funder's All That I Am. I later gave Markus Zusak's The Book Thief to Liam, David Malouf's Remembering Babylon to Avani, and Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book to Kim.

Leaving Frank's.

That night 'the Transcontinentals' were reunited when Sam (USA) and I (Aus) visited Kim's (UK) house, where she kindly cooked us dinner (and accommodated my vegetarianism when I informed her of it at the last minute). We continued in our tradition of Whedon-viewing (when I was last in the country we watched Dollhouse from start to finish) by starting Firefly, which I'd never seen.

We also discussed what mine and Sam's names might mean, Balderdash-style. See below.

luke

(verb)

1. to bungle, often by complicating a simple matter. She luked the report.

(noun)

1. the act of luking. He really made a luke of the birthday party.
2. a globule or dollop of viscous or gelatinous matter, typically expelled through a nozzle onto a conveyor belt. The machine produces 400 lukes per minute.
3. a bag of milk, or any other liquid. Pass me the luke.

samuel

1. an archaic song, performance, or dance, or a ritual comprised of such. The performers completed the samuel.
2. a small rodent endemic to Latin America. A sulfur-spotted samuel scurried through the brush.

On Friday the Transcontinentals were due to convene once again, but Kim got caught up at the phone shop replacing her relic of a phone, Sam overexerted himself remedying the abovementioned noxious carpet at George, Chris and Liam's (or Newell, Stephens and Pritchett's) and spent the whole afternoon napping, and I did likewise after a week of getting up early and staying up late while generally jetlagged.

So we rescheduled for the next day. I knew Kim would be walking up the other side of the block my hotel is on, and I wondered if there was a way to get through from my side. I expected a dingy overgrown pathway or something, so imagine my surprise when I was greeted by this sight, accompanied by a timely parting of clouds:

Apparently the hotel backs onto a Victorian garden (which you are supposed to pay to enter). To my distress, however, there was no exit to the other side of the block. Luckily I was able to scale a wall just in time to run into Kim as she walked up the street. We spent an hour perusing in Norwich's best bookshop, the Book Hive, then met Sam at the cinema bar for drinks.

That night I headed over to NS&P's for pre-drinks, where I was to see some more familiar faces in Avani and Jess. I got very drunk, and we played Kings and Werewolves, and spectated as Sam taught Liam a Chinese drinking game.

For some reason they decided the dying rounds required belts to be tied round their heads.

We got a cab into town and met Rob Perry and co at the Playhouse, before making an unsuccessful attempt to get into Vodka Revs. Apparently Liam's shoes were too low-brow for that fine establishment. But never fear, for we were in the company of Rob Perry. Shortly after he said he wouldn't be able to work the same magic he had last time at the bar across the road because the management had changed, we were all walking in ahead of the queue, without a cover charge, being ushered into a (completely silent) private room where free Jagerbombs were awaiting us. We had a terrible dance, a drink, and then sat around chatting, reminiscing about the time Rob put his balls on George. Then Rob bestowed more free drinks upon us.

At some point before I went home, Avani and I discussed a fry-up at NS&P's the next morning. I rocked up at eleven thinking I'd probably have missed it, and that they would have all been up hours ago, but it turned out that after I'd left they hadn't been able to get a cab and, inhumanely, did the walk back to Costessey.

We basically hung around watching Mad Men, Magnum P.I., and the incredible Adventure Time (which I hadn't seen before), and feeling very day-after. I was also introduced briefly to Liam's tradition of Punk Rock Book Club, which originated when he had friends staying but no money, so they just spent every day in the backyard drinking and reading.

Chris Stephens: Jabba the Hutt, Grotty Mermaid, Insect Creature.

'Put a black and white filter on it. "We're having new age fun with a vintage feel!"' – Chris Stephens

Eventually I felt I needed sleep and headed back to the flat. And thus began my woes. The hour walk back to Norwich wasn't so bad. And it was pretty on the way.

The real trouble began when I got to Norwich and spent another hour walking around, just trying to find somewhere to get some takeaway food. Apparently Norwich is as dead as Wollongong on a Sunday night, if not deader. I've never had that much trouble finding food in the Gong. I eventually found a Pizza Hut on the other side of Norwich, where I ordered a drink and a pizza. What they gave me was a tiny pizza and a gigantic 7up (which I don't even really like). All I wanted after two hours of walking was to get into bed and watch TV and use the internet, but the hotel wifi was unusably slow, and all the channels except BBC had inexplicably disappeared off my TV. 

And that wasn't the end of it, either. I decided the next morning that I'd do my laundry at a laundrette I'd walked past on my way back from NS&P's. Once I got there, though, I realised I had no cash. The lady in the laundrette said I could leave my washing there, and directed me to the nearest ATM (or 'cashpoint'), at a Tesco down the road. Unfortunately, it was being serviced, so I enquired and was directed to the Co-op even further up the road. Unfortunately again, the ATM wouldn't accept my travel card OR my regular card. So I consulted my phone for the nearest ATM, and saw there was one off in the middle of nowhere and, slightly further away, a cluster in town. So I stupidly opted for the one in the middle of nowhere. I got halfway there before realising it was much further away than I'd originally thought, and also that if I went all the way there and it didn't work I'd have to go all the way back into town, so I decided to just go into town straight away, where I was to try a further two separate ATMs before I found one that worked, and walked ALL the way back to the laundrette where I'd left my washing. Fun times. And, yes, for the second post in a row, #FirstWorldProblems.

Luckily, things picked up after Til arrived that afternoon. But I'll write about that in my next post.