Almost 3 weeks ago, I left my home to embark on a new journey. For those that haven't heard from me, I decided to do a study abroad term at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This is my real first time leaving home for an extended period of time and so I was really excited. However, it also came with a lot of responsibilities but I was ready for them and planned for months in advance. Before I started school in the UK, I decided to go backpack Europe for 2 weeks. I thought I would talk about that in this blog post.
I arrived into London 7am and I was dead tired after a 9 hour trans-atlantic flight because it was now approaching midnight in Vancouver time. Instead of wasting my day sleeping and getting more jet-lagged, I decided to venture out in the city. London Victoria Coach and Train station were really hard to navigate if you have never been there before. There were so many people there and the roads all went in their own direction. Getting to the Astro Victoria hostel was another challenge with my heavy backpack and my big luggage. First time hostel experience and it was awful. Astro Victoria was small and it wasn't very clean either.
My first impression of London was pretty bad. Cloudy skies and lots of really rude tourists. I don't think the locals were that mean but I met lots of very uncourteous tourists that would blow smoke in my face and generally think the pavement belonged to them. I didn't know how the metro system worked so I walked around Buckingham Palace, British Museum, Trafalgar Square and London Eye. After a good night of sleep, day 2 in London was much better. I bought the Big Bus Tour where I could jump on and off this tourist bus that goes to tourist locations. I visited a few other locations (can't remember all) and was very impressed by beauty of Regent Park. Such a big and beautiful park in the middle of the city. The next morning, I flew out of London Stansted to go to Vienna.
At the London Stansted airport, I had a weird encounter with a Southeast Asian lady. I was near a vending machine and I was approached by this really smiley lady. She was probably high 40's to low 50's and was dressed pretty well. She said something in her own language but I couldn't understand it. I tried communicating with her in Mandarin, Cantonese and English and I found out we didn't share a common language. She kept mumbling on but I didn't understand any of it. I knew she needed some sort of help though. Smartly (so I thought), I took out a pad of paper and a pen and gave it to her. She wrote down "TICH KE TOURS". At this point, she kept pointing to a queue of people lining up at a boarding gate. I thought she was crazy at this point trying to buy a ticket for a tour? I don't understand at all. Afterwards, she dragged me gently to another gate and pointed at the TV at the boarding gate. She took the pen and drew an arrow pointing towards the word "TOURS". I still don't understand why she wanted a 'tour'. I asked for her boarding pass and she didn't have one. That didn't make any sense either because we were both standing in the terminal where we already passed security. I was getting really confused that she might be up to no good at the same time. At this point, already 10 mins has passed and I still can't figure out what she wants. We both gave up on each other and I said by good byes to a hand gesture.
Upon walking away from her, I randomly glanced at a TV of a boarding gate where they were calling for final boarding. Looking at the screen, it said "TOURS". Aha! Apparently she is flying to the city 'TOURS' and she doesn't know where her gate is. Since it was final boarding, I ran back to where she found me in the first place and dragged her to the gate. Mystery solved! When we got to the gate, I saw her face lit up when she found her son. Her poor son had spent the last 15-20 mins trying to find and somehow her non-English speaking mom just wondered off. Her son thanked me and apparently they speak Vietnamese. She didn't thank me in words because we don't share a common language but she gave me the biggest smile ever. I smiled back and waved good bye and started to head in another direction. I turned around and she was still looking at me smiling and waved good bye again. It's always good to know that you helped someone!
Without further problems, I flew to Linz and took a WesBahn train to Vienna. I stayed at the Wombat hostel and it was a 5 star hostel for sure. It made my stay in Vienna that much better. Vienna was a small relaxing city that I really enjoyed. I went to the usuals such as visiting the Ring Road, a few museums there and the SchronBrunn Palace. It was hot there! Haven't not eaten much Chinese food, I visited a Chinese restaurant ran by Hong Kong expats. Nice to meet a few waiters that spoke my mother tongue! They had a lot of really old Andy Lau pictures on the walls too. Apparently, Andy Lau visits Vienna quite often.
After spending 3 days in Vienna, I took off to Salzburg where the movie 'Sound of Music' was filmed. I went on the 'Original Sound of Music' tour and apparently the locals don't know very much about the movie because it wasn't translated very well into German and was very unpopular. Anyways, the movie was 47 years old and therefore, the tour had mostly older people. I met a Chinese student studying in UK, Jenny and we were both younger than others by a lot. The next day, I took a cable car up the mountains and went for a small hike. The hike was great and the view was beautiful but I didn't bring any good shoes and I hiked in my birkenstocks! Ahh! I was lucky that I didn't stubb a toe but all the locals were laughing at me! :)
After spending 2.5 days in Salzburg, I took off to Italy for Florence. Florence and Rome were both beautiful in their own ways. The architecture was definitely a lot different from the rest of Europe but travelling by myself, I had a sense of uneasiness while I was there. For example, lots of time, I felt like people wanted me (the person!) or they wanted my money and possessions. The train ride to Florence was rough because I took a stuffy night train and didn't know when to get off. I felt asleep in a squatting position in my chair because I was so afraid of losing my stuff! The highlights definitely were eating gelato, going to see Duomo and the view at Piazzale Michelangelo. The hostel wasn't the smoothest but I met 2 good friends in Yolanda and James who made the trip even better!
I took off to Rome shortly after and stayed a whooping 5 days which consisted of me walking in random directions on most days. On one day, I almost walked myself off the map I was given because I messed up my directions by 180 degrees. Whoops! I had a compass on me but it was completely broken. Everytime I shook it, where ever the needle landed, that was North according to it. I saw the usuals such as Vatican city, the museums, Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Roman Forum, Coliseum etc... Nothing too special to report here in the blog because you have to be there in person to experience how amazing they are. At first, I stayed at a womens only hostel but I found it too lame after 3 nights. Afterwards, I took off to the Yellow (famous party hostel according to HostelWorld). It was definitely a great decision because I ended up meeting Camilla from Brazil, Alyssa and her boyfriend James who are south of the 49th parallel neighbours from Seattle! We had a great time meeting Camilla's friends and friend's friends and had an amazing night out. After probably having way too much gelato, pasta and pizza, I finally returned to the UK!
The trip to Birmingham was a super long one. I flew into London Gatwick again and this time around, I used the automated passport gates for EU passport holders with biometric passports. So cool! I then picked up my massive suitcase that I left behind at ABC Storage and got on a National Express bus to Birmingham. The bus ride was 3 hours long because it took 1 hour to get out of London. Yes, the traffic was that bad. On the bus, I met Sharif who was also going to UoB. My first experience with the Brummie accent was with the taxi driver and it was awful. :P At about 10 pm, I arrived to Pritchatts House reception to pick up my keys. After some really tiring stairs, I made it to my dorm!
