day 3: zen traveler fail

blogeverydayofjune 4 Responses »
Jun 212011

So I was inspired by some hardcore zen travelers like Fiona, Kathryn and Con to travel with only hand luggage. And much to my amazement, I actually managed to condense my stuff right down and fit it all into a cabin-sized wheelie. Yay me!

Alas, when I checked in at Sydney airport, the very clever ground staff weighed my bag and declared it too heavy to carry on. After all my hard work to reduce my stuff – only one pair of jeans and two pairs of shoes in that bag, people! And no GHDs! – I ended up having to check my bag in.

big gaudy suitcase

my new gaudy suitcase. see the sunlight in this pic? it was taken at 8.30pm!

After one afternoon of shopping in London (with my shopping haul now waiting for me at a friend’s place) and one internal flight with an overflowing hand bag that weighed a tonne, I have succumbed and bought myself a repulsively gaudy, enormous suitcase. All for the bargain price of 45 quid! (Reduced from 150!) So I’ll be sticking my carry on in there for the rest of the trip, leaving me plenty of room for shopping. And best of all, I no longer have to stress about fitting everything back in the way it was originally. That’s the problem with outsourcing your packing: it never goes back in the way it came out.

I admit defeat: I, Kate Davis, am far too much of a princess to travel with carry on only.

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day 2: luton is NOT london

blogeverydayofjune 6 Responses »
Jun 202011

Dear self. Next time you decide to fly anywhere out of London, thou shalt not fly on easyJet and thou shalt definitely not fly out of Luton. Kthxbai.

No seriously, have you ever been to Luton airport? It’s an absolute debacle to get to (so I forked out 63 quid for a taxi) and a debacle to get around. And seriously, if you thought flying on Virgin or Jetstar was uncomfortable, give easyJet a bash. Thank goodness Luton to Aberdeen by plane is a shorter trip than London to Luton by car. After a 4am wakeup (thanks screwy body clock!) I was pretty ready to get to Aberdeen and chill out.

I arrived in Aberdeen at about lunch time yesterday – the i3 Information Interactions Impact conference starts this afternoon (Monday). I picked up the keys for my student accommodation, realised there was no TV in the room (I have a thing about silent hotel rooms – I really need the TV on for company) and promptly headed straight into the city to grab some lunch and some DVDs to keep me company. I had a pub lunch and did a bit of shopping – picking up a pair of Vans because my feet are killing from wearing boots all the time, and season one of Glee on DVD – and pottered around to check out the sites of Aberdeen.

This is a beautiful city. But it’s kind of kooky too: rolling hills, full on ye olde town, and seagulls squawking everywhere! I really, really like it here though – cell-like student accommodation and all! Every one I talk to is super nice and it’s a really picturesque little town. After less than a day here, I know where all the important stuff is – the high street for shopping, Boots for all my pharmacy needs (essential knowledge for travelling with a chest infection), Sainsbury’s for bottled water and snacks, Starbucks for wifi and breakfast, Debenham’s to buy a bigger suitcase (yes, already)…

On returning to my room after dinner last night, I bumped into some other people who are here from the conference. They had a help sheet for the cabled internet in the rooms (didn’t even know there was any!) so I managed to get myself set up and connected. Having internet access makes such a difference. I’ve travelled on my own before and I feel a lot less isolated this time because wifi is ubiquitous. It’s nice to be able to log on to Twitter and say hi to my friends at home, and I’m managing to get a lot of work done using hot spots. This is awesome because it means I’m not going to return to a flooded inbox at the end of my trip. It’s also good because I never have this amount of free time at home, so I’m able to get things done that I wouldn’t at home.

Speaking of which… Better get back to work.

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day 1: london

blogeverydayofjune 2 Responses »
Jun 202011

I’m counting Saturday as my first full day of being away… Thursday was, of course, full of traveling, and Friday saw me exhausted after being awake for 40 hours with only about three hours of napping in between, and pretty emotional to boot. I coughed and sneezed the entire way from Brisbane to Sydney to Bangkok to London. Delightful. I had a nap when I got in on Friday and then met up with one of oldest friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant at Earls Court.

Speaking of Earls Court: I stayed at the easyHotel there (linked to easyJet). I was expecting small and economy style, but man was it small and economy style! If you had to imagine what a bathroom on a plane would look like if it had a shower in it, you’d imagine an easyHotel bathroom. The bathroom is a wet room – so no powerpoints in there for hair drying (queue bad hair days) and not enough room to turn around when in the shower. But the water was piping hot and the pressure good; it was really clean; and an awesome location. When I first got in I had a “oh my God what have I done” moment – it was freezing in the room and the bathroom was not so amusing to just-got-off-the-plane-and-dying-for-a-shower-Kate. There was also lots of road noise and I was in dire need of a nap. However, post shower and nap (which turned out to be quality despite the road noise), everything looked a bit shinier and it turned out to be a perfect place to stay.

Anyway, back to Saturday… I spent the first few hours of the morning working at Starbucks, where I had a decent coffee! Yes, at Starbucks! I was a bit stiff and sore after the flight so I got a massage, which was without a doubt the best one I’ve ever had, then headed off to London Bridge to meet my friend. We went to the Borough Markets, where we bought awesome chicken wraps and a bottle of prosseco. Then we found a spot out of the rain – on the side of the road at the base of a pylon! – and sat and ate and drank and caught up.

We spent the afternoon shopping, and I ended up with quite a haul for my nephew – clothes from the department store sales and Special Agent Oso merchandise from the awesome Disney store. We got served by an Aussie in a quintessentially British pub, downed a bottle of wine, and then headed off for awesome Thai for dinner. It was pretty much the perfect Saturday.

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