• Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England,  Writings

    Travelogue of a Research Trip – Jane Austen’s England

    2nd April 2019, 4:03am I found pizza in my bed! It was the morning after our return from London and, because of my internal clock still ticking on UK time, I woke up at 4am in desperate need to pee. I pulled the blanket aside and could see in the faint light of the pre-dawn morning that there was something in my bed. It had the size of my thumb nail and my first thought was that it was some sort of mutant bug. I picked it up; it was cold and squishy. In the bathroom light I could clearly identify it as a small piece of pizza covered in…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 07 – London, cont’d

    Another cigar shop and finally pizza. We didn’t find the cigar shop we went looking for, but found a different one. The sale’s person was a man in his 30’s and was very good at his job. He was friendly, able to build a rapport with his customer and knew the Toronto Maple Leafs, but sadly not the Raptors. He played handball in Germany 15 years ago and had a wonderful British accent with a hint of eastern European in it. He wasn’t bad looking either. My brother will finally get his pipe and some rather lovely smelling tabaco. By the time we got out of the cigar shop we…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 06 – London, cont’d

    Two bitchy men and a hag Sometimes I wonder what possesses a person to bitch at a complete stranger. I had the misfortune of being at the receiving end on three occasions. The first two, both delivered by men, happened on the first and second days in London. The first when we returned to the hotel to properly check in after lunch. I was entering the revolving doors behind what looked like a business man, when all of a sudden the automatic doors stopped. I gave them a small push, maybe they weren’t as automatic as they claim to be, when that monkey in a suit turned half around, eyebrows…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 05 – London, baby! Part 2

    Excitement galore and flat feet. Every woman knows it can be utter shit when Aunt Irma (monthly period) visits. It is also shit when she does so while on vacation. It is even more shit when she comes two days early, with massive cramps and a lovely migraine. Yup. That was my travel day to London in a nutshell. On top of that it was the hottest day in April since 2007, and I truly can’t stand the heat, my brain felt like it was slowly turning to liquid inside my skull. We arrived at Waterloo station and were then supposed to take the tube to Fenchurch station. We skipped…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 04 – Stonehenge/Amesbury

    Old news and new beginnings. The sun did not leave us all day and made our short stay in Amesbury an unforgettable one. Part of me has some difficulty writing about this day, because right when I was about to enjoy the magnificence that is Stonehenge I received some news that wasn’t what I had expected. It’s strange thinking about it now and trying to sort through all of my emotions; a pendulum of thoughts and feelings that run through me and of course the constant fear that the news will taint the memory of this experience. But I’m jumping ahead again. We arrived about half an hour later than…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 03 – Bath!!

    I should state here that I am allergic to sugar in order to give some context about the following entry. So, here it is: I’m allergic to sugar, all kinds of delicious, glorious, sweet, velvety, nerve reducing, calming and comforting sugar, including fruit sugar. That out of the way, let’s begin, shall we? We had to transfer trains at Bristol Temple Meads for our 10-minute train ride to Bath Spa. The Bristol Temple Meads train station is relatively big, bigger than I assumed it to be based on the size of the town shown on the map. Teaches me once again never to assume. Since the Bath Spa stop is…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 02 – St. Ives

    Jetlag = me acting like a complete fool. And a bird shat on me. Technically it missed my head by a mere inch and landed on the handle of my luggage, which I was laboriously carrying up one set of stairs and down another in order to switch trains. I swear that thing is getting heavier by the minute and I’m not looking forward to pulling it through any more streets. I was actually going through the content of it in my head, wondering if I could leave a few things behind. And I don’t think it helped that I just bought a sweater, two books, a pair of flip…

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  • Creative Corner,  Travel Log - England

    Entry 01 – London, baby!

    Departure and first day in London. To say that I was a bit nervous would probably be the understatement of the century. Apart from constantly talking to myself listing things I still needed to do, I began to act a little frazzled. It happens to the best of us, right? Looking back while I’m now sitting on the train heading for our first official destination, still quite jetlagged and sipping on strong tea, I can say that up until now things have gone relatively smoothly. I hope I’m not jinxing us by typing this, I’m merely being extremely grateful and continue to see the silver lining in whatever may turn…

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