With England being so close to France and the rest of eastern Europe, you can't help but plan a weekend or two away on the "mainland". I'm in the middle of planning a weekend in Paris with Vicky, hopefully on the bank holiday weekend between April and May.
So far flights are just over $200 Aus from London and it'll cost about $100 Aus to get to London by train (this isn't the cheapest way but it gets me there in time to fly out).
Also, it turns out that hotels are cheaper than hostels in Paris. Strange but good.
France is meant to be expensive right now so I am really trying to ensure that my costs stay down but sometimes you have to pay for the privilege.
Things I want to see:
-Eiffel Tower (I don't think I could avoid seeing it tho)
-Notre Dame (there is meant to be a really good boat tour from here through the city)
-A wing of the Louvre (not sure which one yet)
And that is just a start.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Musgrove Park
I have been working at the Musgrove Park Hospital for the last seven weeks as part of my final placement for my Occupational Therapy Degree. Halfway through last year I finally decided to put the effort in and organise to do my placement here in the UK instead of somewhere in Aus (most likely Brisbane). It was a relatively easy option as I have my mum's side of my family over here so it wasn't going to be overly costly apart from flights. The UK is one of the most expensive places you can fly to from Aus.
So I sent letters out and got a reply back from Musgrove offering me a fourteen week placement in Orthopaedics. I am really glad I came. It has been a great experience so far there have been barely any differences between UK and Aus Occupational Therapy practices in an acute setting.
I work on three orthopaedic wards, mainly Gould ward which is trauma. Most of the patients are 70+ and have had falls resulting in # neck of femurs or need revision hip or knee replacements. However, that doesn't mean there aren't tons of other ortho conditions that come in, these are just the main ones I'm meant to work with.
Now that I've gotten the hang of how the place works it has been pretty easy seeing patients and following through with treatment plans. Although Gould ward patients tend to throw a spanner in the works when you least expect it. Like a lady saying that she lives in a 2 floor house but doesn't have any stairs (cognitive issues?). But the most common problem is someone having no family or support at home.
I have decided that when I finally settle down one day I am living in a ground floor bungalow with a walk in shower and grabrails tastefully/strategically places around the toilet, shower and entrances.
So I sent letters out and got a reply back from Musgrove offering me a fourteen week placement in Orthopaedics. I am really glad I came. It has been a great experience so far there have been barely any differences between UK and Aus Occupational Therapy practices in an acute setting.
I work on three orthopaedic wards, mainly Gould ward which is trauma. Most of the patients are 70+ and have had falls resulting in # neck of femurs or need revision hip or knee replacements. However, that doesn't mean there aren't tons of other ortho conditions that come in, these are just the main ones I'm meant to work with.
Now that I've gotten the hang of how the place works it has been pretty easy seeing patients and following through with treatment plans. Although Gould ward patients tend to throw a spanner in the works when you least expect it. Like a lady saying that she lives in a 2 floor house but doesn't have any stairs (cognitive issues?). But the most common problem is someone having no family or support at home.
I have decided that when I finally settle down one day I am living in a ground floor bungalow with a walk in shower and grabrails tastefully/strategically places around the toilet, shower and entrances.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
London
I met up with Vicky in London a few weekends ago (I've been quite lazy with blog posting).
We started by checking out the Tate Modern which wasn't as thrilling as I'd expected. Although there were some random bits or art like a giant spider towering over masses of bunk beds with books chained to them in the main foyer. There were broomsticks hanging from the ceiling, flattened cutlery and crockery hanging from the ceiling. There was a giant wooden double adapter (again hanging from the ceiling) and what looked like giant poos scattered around the floor. Although the strangest by far was a movie of couples rolling around in their underwear as if they were making out but then I realised that they had raw chickens and fish stuck between them and they were rubbing them on each other using their bodies... strange.
We stayed in the Dover Castle Hostel. It is a pretty cool place, friendly, stinky and run down but with interesting people and cheap drinks in the bar. I found cider at the corner shop for just under 3 pounds. It was 2Ltrs with 9 drinks. After the cider, half a bottle of cherry wine, smirnoff red and some magnas Vicky and I were well on our way.... to Wicked. We made the show just in time and had the most amazing experience of our lives (though Vicky ended up in the wrong row at the other side of the theatre, I don't know how). So we made our way back the hostel to check out the bar and find a dance club somewhere. Vicky introduced me to aftershock shots which tasted nice at the time but definitely not the next day when it came back up on a tree outside the hostel.
Saturday started with a lovely fry-up at the nearest Witherspoons (cheap, scrummy pubs all around the UK) before we headed to Piccadilly Circus to check out the shops. We got off the tube, couldn't see any shops and walked straight into the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum which was an awesome 3 hours of amazement and amusement. We had a go in the mirror maze which wasn't a heap of different mirrors making us look funny but a maze of identical mirrors which freaked you out when you saw yourself straight up to you when you thought you were walking down a straight corridor.
The London inner city is awesome. Pubs and bars everywhere and so much to see and do. We walked around till we found china town, walked straight through it and into an Irish pub at the end of the street and had drinks in the middle of hundreds of Irish and scotts cheering on the rugby.
The next day Vicky left back to Ireland and I wandered around the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum. Both are worth seeing particularly the Natural History Museum. It's quite interactive with some amazing exhibits including an (estimated) life size tyrannosaurus rex and an actual scale model blue whale.
It was a packed weekend and there is still tons more to do next time.
The Quantocks
This is a large mass of wilderness in the middle of Somerset (the county where I live).
I've been up there twice now. The first time Sue (my aunt) took me up on my first weekend in England there were still piles of snow. It was such a surreal experience finally touching and seeing snow without a screen between. I was going to make a snow angel but I didn't have a camera and it wasn't worth getting wet and even colder for no benefit.
Last weekend Caroline (another aunt) took me and Millie (Nanny's westie) up and we hiked for close to four hours and had a picnic which was interrupted by wiled ponies.
We walked up many steep hills and finally found the Triscombe Stone which turned out to be the most unexciting crumbly looking mass of rock I've ever seen. You could barely tell it was there. It was a crossroads marker for old day English farmers who were leading their cows/sheep through the area. We ended up at the highest point in Somerset and promptly walked to the car and drove home. Millie was pooped and collapsed on the floor as soon as we returned.
Meeting family
I arrived in London at midday and was surprisingly awake.
What surprised me most about heathrow (well terminal 3/5) is the lack of security. There wasn't anyone around to check bags or accuse you of smuggling drugs in your surfboard case. They didn't even ask if you had goods to declare. I even tried walking through the declare corridor and neither of the two bored looking staff asked me anything. So much for security against terrorist threats. Although there weren't any rubbish bins around. They now use clear plastic bags suspended by metal rings so they can see any "bombs" that might be left in them.
My aunt met me from the airport and took me back to a friends place on the edge of London where I had my first experience of "snow", which was just a muddle ice pile on the side of the road which I kicked for a bit and felt thoroughly dissapointed.
The next day we met my aunts aunt/ my great aunt Barbara at the airport and drove down to Taunton (2 1/2 hrs south west of London) to where my grandmother and my aunts live.
Settling in was rather easy. I'm living with my grandmother (Nanny) and Barbara in Nanny's townhouse which is very posh. It is really comfortable. I have a room on the 3rd floor with my own bathroom. It overlooks the garden and a hockey pitch where the school next door play hockey most afternoons.
It's a 2 minute walk into town through Vivary Park which is beautiful, green and full of flowers you only see in books in Australia. Here there are crocuses, daffodils, pansies and now tulips (and probably a lot more that I don't know the names of but are gorgeous just the same). There is a stream and a bit of a lake with ducks, geese and swans. The new ducklings are starting to appear, but then so are the seagulls to snatch them and take them away :( I love walking through the park every day watching winter turn into spring.
What surprised me most about heathrow (well terminal 3/5) is the lack of security. There wasn't anyone around to check bags or accuse you of smuggling drugs in your surfboard case. They didn't even ask if you had goods to declare. I even tried walking through the declare corridor and neither of the two bored looking staff asked me anything. So much for security against terrorist threats. Although there weren't any rubbish bins around. They now use clear plastic bags suspended by metal rings so they can see any "bombs" that might be left in them.
My aunt met me from the airport and took me back to a friends place on the edge of London where I had my first experience of "snow", which was just a muddle ice pile on the side of the road which I kicked for a bit and felt thoroughly dissapointed.
The next day we met my aunts aunt/ my great aunt Barbara at the airport and drove down to Taunton (2 1/2 hrs south west of London) to where my grandmother and my aunts live.
Settling in was rather easy. I'm living with my grandmother (Nanny) and Barbara in Nanny's townhouse which is very posh. It is really comfortable. I have a room on the 3rd floor with my own bathroom. It overlooks the garden and a hockey pitch where the school next door play hockey most afternoons.
It's a 2 minute walk into town through Vivary Park which is beautiful, green and full of flowers you only see in books in Australia. Here there are crocuses, daffodils, pansies and now tulips (and probably a lot more that I don't know the names of but are gorgeous just the same). There is a stream and a bit of a lake with ducks, geese and swans. The new ducklings are starting to appear, but then so are the seagulls to snatch them and take them away :( I love walking through the park every day watching winter turn into spring.
Over 24 hours on a plane
Well three planes to be exact.
I flew from Townsville to Brisbane, Brisbane to Dubai then Dubai to London.
Dubai was an experience. A huge cocoon shaped airport which is so sleek, new and easy to get around. It was still quite hot there and the hair smelt like spices. No joke.
I had my first experience of an A380 and it was kind of a let down. It was just a bigger version of a 747 with slightly bigger toilets and nicer toilets. Emirates is fantastic to fly with anyway so the A380 didn't add much to the experience. They serve way too much food on Emirates and everyone is really nice and just want to make you as comfortable as possible. Definitely worth flying with once in your life time. Just be careful not to let the great experience ruin your flights on every other airline. Note: I can only really compare this to Qantas, JAL, Virgin & Jetstar.
They had way too many movies to watch and television and radio and numerous mp3's. I did contemplate writing a list of everything I wanted to watch/hear but in the end I just watched movie after movie which made the time fly.
I flew from Townsville to Brisbane, Brisbane to Dubai then Dubai to London.
Dubai was an experience. A huge cocoon shaped airport which is so sleek, new and easy to get around. It was still quite hot there and the hair smelt like spices. No joke.
I had my first experience of an A380 and it was kind of a let down. It was just a bigger version of a 747 with slightly bigger toilets and nicer toilets. Emirates is fantastic to fly with anyway so the A380 didn't add much to the experience. They serve way too much food on Emirates and everyone is really nice and just want to make you as comfortable as possible. Definitely worth flying with once in your life time. Just be careful not to let the great experience ruin your flights on every other airline. Note: I can only really compare this to Qantas, JAL, Virgin & Jetstar.
They had way too many movies to watch and television and radio and numerous mp3's. I did contemplate writing a list of everything I wanted to watch/hear but in the end I just watched movie after movie which made the time fly.
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