Faversham, England: The Faversham Hop Festival

Soon after my arrival, our lovely friend Tom invited Milly and I to the Faversham hop and folk music festival. We had no idea what to expect, so hopped a train on Sunday morning to see what we could see.

Faversham is a tiny town in Kent and I imagine it would be a very, very sleepy town for 362 days of the year, but this weekend it was overrun by festivalgoers. Don’t ask me any questions about the festival, I didn’t learn a thing about it’s history or purpose. I did learn the following things though;

Hop crowns are the best crowns.

Cider is better when consumed by the refillable flagon.

Folk music is fun, but Morris dancers are bizarre.

We danced. We drank. We had a merry time. Then we fell asleep on the train home. I’ll call that a successful day.

Cambridge, England: Day Tripping

To mark our final weekend together Milly and I decided to go on a day trip to Cambridge, one of our favourite cities. 

We rose bright and early to beat the crowds, getting to Cambridge at about 8am. It was lovely and quiet and tourist free. For about 20 minutes. Accepting that we would be fighting through hordes of tourists all day, we decided to join in and be annoying tourists too, stopping to photograph each other in front of anything we thought cute.

It begins.

And it goes on.

The ‘Milly standing in doorways’ series.

And the 'Courtney and the tree' series. 

We didn’t really do much other than take our tourist snaps. I’ve spent weeks in Cambridge over the years visiting friends and attending social events, so I felt I’d covered most of the major landmarks before.

I did learn a couple of fun facts though:

This is the Mathematical Bridge. The popular story of this bridge is that Isaac Newton constructed it using nothing but wood and maths. No nails or bolts, just mathematical principle. Following his death, a group of Cambridge students disassembled it, curious to know how it really worked. Predictably, they were then unable to correctly reassemble it, so iron bolts now hold it together.

Unfortunately, the truth is that the Wooden Bridge (the actual, and very boring, name) was constructed in 1749, decades after Newton died, by James Essex. According to the Queens’ College website, only someone without a serious grasp of reality would believe that the bridge could have been constructed without nails and bolts. Burn.

The following story possibly has more truth in it, we read it in our official Cambridge walking tour pamphlet after all! Then again, we conducted our own walking tour, with Milly as the guide, so expertise was slightly limited.

Apologies for the dodgy photo, but this the The Great Gate of Trinity College, above the gate you can see a statue of Henry VIII, the college’s founder. Years ago, the sceptre was stolen from the statue and replaced with a chair leg. The sceptre was never recovered and the chair leg remains there to this day. Oh those Cambridge students, such hooligans.

And for my final fun fact, this apple tree (next to The Great Gate) was apparently grown from a cutting of the apple tree that inspired Newton's theory of gravity. 

We had a great day out. It doesn’t matter how many times I visit Cambridge, I am never desensitized to the beauty of this little city. The streets, the buildings, the colleges, the pristine grass, and all of the old things in general.

Do visit if you can.

The Cambridge Theatre, London: A Note on Theatre Etiquette

 If you haven’t yet seen it, put Matilda the Musical at the top of your list of must see musicals.

I saw it two years ago on my last day in London, and again on Friday night with Milly. It is simply fantastic. The music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Dennis Kelly perfectly capture that Dahl cheekiness loved by generations of children.

Amazing set design by Rob Howell

The children in this show left me awestruck both in 2012 and on Friday; I find it amazing that there can be a little army of ridiculously talented and adorable Matildas, Bruces, Lavenders, Amandas, etc.

I find it equally amazing that while these children are delivering faultless performances on the stage, the adults in the stalls can be so lacking in any kind of respect or manners. We had a seriously dodgy group seated around us, inspiring me to write a simple guide to theatre etiquette.

Courtney’s Guide to Being the Perfect Theatregoer:

- If you are unable to sit quietly for 90 minute periods, stay home. Watch the film, listen to the soundtrack,    whatever – no one cares if you talk through that.

- If you are unable to sit next to your lover without kissing, cuddling, or whispering sweet nothings, stay home. The people behind you can’t see the stage when you put your heads together, and I can guarantee they won’t be happy they shelled out £25+ to watch you canoodle. 

- If you cannot listen to beautifully written songs without singing along, stay home. No one paid to hear you sing, lady. Idina Menzel you ain’t!

- If a trip to the theatre would not be complete without popcorn, ice cream, Malteasers and various other noisy packets, you’re lost. I think you were heading for the cinema. On your way, please.

- Finally, if you feel that your time is so valuable that you simply must leave before the curtain calls are over and the orchestra has finished playing, get some manners. It’s just so rude.

 So there it is. Follow these simple, common sense rules and audience, cast and crew alike will love you.

Leeds, England: Leeds Festival 2014.

I have never been to a proper music festival in Australia. I’ve been to various day festivals, but never gone all out for a three or four day camping festival.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that the reason for this is the same reason my spry, history-loving grandfather won’t walk the Kokoda Track. Showers (or the lack thereof).

I like to be clean, and no amount of baby wipes can remove festival grime! But I decided that it was time to get over that and finally go to a British music festival. Because it’s summer, and that’s what you do in Britain in summer.

Milly and I set off in the wee hours of Friday the 22^nd of August for Leeds. We found our way to Brahman Park without any issues and waited at the gate for our escort (Dan). While waiting, we noticed a lot of festivalgoers staring at us. One guy even came over and asked if we were lost. We're fairly certain it was because we were wearing actual clothes (see below) rather than clothes that could be considered 'festival chic'. That is, micro shorts, crop tops, flower crowns, and absolutely nothing to keep you warm. 

I was very excited to be reunited with Alison and Hope, friends I met in Kenya and hadn’t seen in a long while.

The next three days all followed the same pattern: go to bed freezing cold (why don’t tents have any protection from the cold!), wake up roasting hot (why don’t tents have any protection from the heat!), visit the somewhat distressing toilet block to ‘clean’ (thank goodness for bulk bought baby wipes I guess), sit in the sun for a while (oh British summer!), take cover from the rain for a while (still enjoying that British summer...), drink Pimms, wander to the festival arena for an afternoon and evening of quality tunes.

I’m not much of a muso, but I really enjoyed all of the bands I saw. Bombay Bicycle Club, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Chvrches, Imagine Dragons, Vampire Weekend, Foster the People, Flume, The Skints, and Queens of the Stone Age were all great.

I felt a little sorry for bands like Jimmy Eat World because everyone, including us, just waited for that one famous song they have, had a dance, then lost interest.

The Artic Monkeys were a little underwhelming because Alex Turner was so very drunk…but then, he’s Alex Turner. And when you wear a suit like Alex Turner, you can get away with pretty much anything.

The Kooks were fantastic, but our enjoyment was somewhat impacted by the group of young men near us urinating into empty cups, then throwing cups, then ‘sword fighting’ and urinating on each other. Seriously. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE YOUTH OF TODAY?

My first pair of wellies!

Of course, wearing wellies means you don't need to worry as much about what you're walking through. Because with a crowd like the one at Leeds, you can bet it's not just mud.

I witnessed many horrifying things over the course of the festival. For your benefit, I will not list them.

The important thing was that I got to do my first festival with these wonderful people. Milly, Hope, Ali, Dan, Robbie and Alex. We all wanted to have fun, listen to some tunes, and leave with our dignity still in tact. Mission successful!

Photo by Dan Barnby

Photo by Dan Barnby

 And no, using a selfie stick does not result in any loss of dignity. 

A Long Awaited Journey.

Well hello there. 

Those of you who have been following along for a while will know that I always keep a blog while traveling. This time will be a little different, as I am theoretically here to study; we’ll see how that goes.

It has long been a dream of mine to study at The University of Edinburgh. I’m not entirely sure why. Mainly just because I love Edinburgh, and being able to combine getting a degree with being in one of the world’s most vibrant, beautiful cities seems like a good plan to me.

UoE was the most popular university for University of Queensland students wanting to study abroad this semester, so I was absolutely over the moon to get in. I hope to completely throw myself into uni life in Scotland, have new experiences, meet fabulous people, and learn interesting things, not waste a single minute, etc etc. The usual, basically. 


You can follow along here.