Hej everyone! Or if the Swedish greeting is not to your liking, perhaps buongiorno from Italy. More on my travels abroad in a moment.
Today I had the most unbelievable experience. I actually washed the dishes simply because it was a good excuse to plunge my numb hands into hot water. Over the last week, a cold front has moved across the UK – straight from the arctic circle – so it’s not enough that the days are getting shorter and colder for winter. On Tuesday night it snowed in London – the first time it has snowed in October in London since 1934!
It’s a wonderful city London – any extreme temperature change and the whole city shits itself. Too cold (or too hot!) and you can guarantee that there will be trains breaking down, delays across the whole tube network, traffic chaos, power lines collapsing, the works. Soldiering on, we went rowing on the Thames today, the water was like ice and it was windy and drizzly. At the end of the session, I couldn’t feel my hands, and was amazed to see blood running down the oar handle – my hands were frozen so tight to the oar, I could no longer feel them but I had popped no less than 3 blood blisters on each hand.
Talking with ol’ Maggie down at Putney Town RC over a beer on Thursday, we talked about the good old London weather. I’d done a bit of research on the sunrise/sunset situation due to my time in Sweden (where it is very dark very early already). With the winter solstice around December 21st this year, surely things would start picking up after that, right?
Apparently not. In fact, according to Maggie, the worst of it won’t come until the 3rd week of January. Locally this is known as ‘suicide week’ as it allegedly has the highest number of suicides that any other time of year. Well, this could be an urban myth but it’s still a good yarn! And you can understand that there are a number of contributing factors – a terrible lack of daylight hours (no Vitamin D to lift people’s moods), the rain and drizzle really sets in that time of year, everyone is over the holiday season buzz, the credit card bills from Christmas start coming in, and if divorce is on your mind, generally it is the New Year when couples are more likely to file for divorce as part of their new positive change or outlook for the year, or new year’s resolutions. So, apparently I can’t yet complain about the weather. But I just did. You buggers back home I’ve been reading up on the 36 degree sunny days, the awesome surf at the first Sydney Branch boat carnivals… uuagh! (Note to self – come on Brucey, toughen up! You chose this road, now follow it to the end! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…)
On the positive side, I got my first pay last week, so I’m rapped that the cashflow is starting to move in the right direction again! And there are a lot of things on my calendar for the next month – starting with tonight when sister Karlie comes to town with Wheatus (of Teenage Dirtbag fame)! We have free tickets to the gig, so can’t wait to go and catch up with big little sister!
Also work and rowing Christmas parties coming up, plus plenty of other socials with Putney Town RC on the cards. President’s Wine and Cheese night, the ‘Rugby and Curry’ drink where I get to rub it into all my Pommy rowing mates when Australia kicks England’s sorry arse. And also did my first ‘Friday Night’ after work drinks this week with the work crowd, where they have a regular haunt at Old Street, a pub called ‘The Princess Royal’. Not a bad joint, the beer is OK (as long as you stay away from the terrible English Ales) and the bar chicks are quite ‘fit’. Last night everyone was dressed up for Halloween – I didn’t realise it was so huge over here. One girl took the whole day off work just to get ready for her costume party. On the tube on the way home, I reckon one in 3 people was dressed up as a werewolf, zombie or dead corpse. It was pretty cool actually, I’m a bit miffed I didn’t clue onto it earlier and find a party to go to – you all know how I love to dress up! Maybe next year.
So how have my travels been? Well last week, Michelle and I hit Italy – heading to Verona for two nights, with a last minute decision to head to Venice on a day trip. Beautiful places both, would definitely go back there, perhaps with a nice girl one day to do the Gondola ride and also schedule in a concert at the Verona Arena – a massive colosseum, the 3rd largest in Italy. Apparently everything from Mozart to Metallica has played at this venue, so pity there was nothing on while we were in town.
Following this, we spent 5 days in Sverige (Sweden) which was absolutely awesome. The country is so beautifully clean – you could nearly drink the water out of Stockholm harbour, and they are BIG on the environment, recycling and all that green stuff. Even more so than Germany. In some ways, Sweden reminded me of Australia – yet in other ways it was completely different. I definitely could live here for a while – preferably in the summer when the sunset is around 11pm and sunrise at 3am!!
We stayed in a new hostel in Gamla Stan (the old town) which was right in the heart of Stockholm, merely 2 blocks from the Royal Palace. The weather was very cold, and I finally caved in to realising that braving the European winter in my bonds singlet and thongs wasn’t going to be an option. You wouldn’t recognise me now; I am the proud owner of a stylish black coat, and I even brought a scarf! Haha imagine that, I always thought blokes that wore scarves in Sydney were just being metro-sexuals, horses hoofs or religiously supported a football team. But over here – everyone wears them, because it is GENUINLEY COLD. So I’m happy with that, and I actually like wearing my scarf, funnily enough.
From Stockholm we travelled a bit north to the university town of Uppsala. We met Rachael Holland for Fika (Coffee and cake basically) and yes Greg, I gave her a BIG hug for you (but not too big as requested!). Then we had a blast at Kajsa’s farewell party (my Swedish Army Lifeguard friend who is going to Australia for the summer.) Was an awesome night, met many wonderful Swedes and it was great to get involved in a ‘house party’ and then hit the town. Kajsa dragged me out to the local nightclub called BJ’s where we had an awesome time. I loved the souvenier shirts they were selling (I heart BJs, haha). And just quietly, the drinks are not cheap in Sweden I can tell you! So the duty free Southern Comfort was a good move.
Naturally I’ve uploaded the photos of my travels and a few other short albums to Facebook, along with some amusing commentary for you all, if you are interested.
(edit – now you can view them directly from this Foreign Correspondent website!)
Was homesick for a good couple of weeks after leaving Sweden – I mean absolutely miserable. Yes, I definitely left a piece of my heart back there, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that I was showing all the Swedes photos and videos of surf boats and lifesaving on the Internet. Coupled with the complete irony that I am stuck to endure a cold, dark European winter when I would much rather be showing Swedes around Sydney instead of just ‘telling’ them how good it is. So it was a bit of a struggle to return to London and head back to work.
Mind you I’m better now, work is going well and I’m back in the rowing routine again. Plus I had a real good drink with Alex and Karla (two of the SLSA girls) on Tueday night, just as it started snowing. It was refreshing to see them both and while Paffy will be MIA for a few months, Alex and I plan on heading south to see the Geezer from the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI, or the UK equivalent of SLSA) and maybe also head to Edinborough for NYE – Hogmanay! A white Christmas will be a first for me also, and it’s also Guy Fawkes Night next Wednesday so I might get some fireworks and blow a couple of fingers off. So plenty going on and I am enjoying things. In fact I’m kind of looking forward to the winter in a weird sort of way – keen to see just how bad it is and whether or not I can handle it… so far so good I guess.
Ok, that’s enough. See my photo commentary for more stories – there have been some good ones!
Miss you all and please stay in touch, I love getting emails from people back in Oz and updates on all the happenings with my mates and the surf club.
Until next time!
MATTHEW BRUCE
Foreign Correspondent | Cronulla SLSC
