Romania
2001
Leaving sunny England
3 September 2001 04:29 & 05:16
From my travel agent: Hi Ian
This is just to inform you of yet more flight scheule time changes !
25th September Santiago to Buneos Aires is now departing at 6.40pm the flight number is still the same.
It would be a good idea to reconfirm these flights in Sth America if you can.
The result was that I had just half an hour between flights. The Pocket knife story comes later.
Apparently the summer here in England was one of the hottest and sunniest for a long while, which is good to know, since it makes my surfing holiday in Cornwall that much more special. There was a little bit of cloud on the first day, but that soon vanished and the sea turned that beautiful Cornwall Blue that Famous Five stories were made of (or at least book 12).
Highlights included eating a real Cornish pastie, exploring caves that MIGHT have been smugglers' tunnels once upon a time, and finding myself swimming with a seal when we were taking a break from jumping off rocks on a dead-surf day. The beautiful clear water and my prescription goggles gave a fantastic view of it ducking underwater, swimming around me and shooting off underwater. Sadly, everyone I was with were sitting on the surrounding rocks (looking on enviously) and none of them could get my video camera out in time.
Requests the same day by the local street kids for me to do more (apparently rather spectacular) belly flops were turned down. They didn't hurt because of the full length wetsuit I had been loaned, but we were late for lunch.
The day after getting back from Cornwall I was off again - this time to Paris for the day. I did several of the main tourist things, namely Notre Dame (it really does have Disney-ish gargoyles!), the Louvre (it really does have a lot of nude statues!), the Arc de Triumph, and the Eiffel Tower. It was all quite a rush, in more ways than one. For example, the viewing platform at the top of the Eiffel Tower is the best part of 100 metres higher than the viewing platform in the NZ Sky Tower, even though the Sky Tower is a handful of metres taller than the Eiffel Tower (mostly thanks to a radio mast). The Eiffel Tower is also unquestionably more attractive than the NZ tower.
The cost of living is really high here in England and in Paris. Think $15 for a Burger King or McD's meal. And in England a pizza costs the same in pounds as they are in dollars in New Zealand (ie, about 3.6 times the price).
Back in Leatherhead (just south of London outside the M25 ring road), I went for a walk yesterday afternoon - the first of autumn - and strangely enough, it suddenly did feel like autumn. Just the smell in the air, or something, I guess. Tomorrow (Monday) I'm off on the next step, to Denmark. Many many thanks to Andrew and Phil in my rest and recuperation.
God bless.
Ian
8 )
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