Don't let the weather stop you!

Partly as a joke and partly for the purposes of confirming stereotypes, Paul and I decided to start counting the consecutive days that rain falls in London. I arrived here on the 11th of July and it was raining when I got off the train. The day after that it rained. The day after that it rained too. This trend tended to remain consistant for another eight days until right now. And yes, it's raining right now. Such weather does indeed have the potential to put (quite literally) a 'dampener' on one's stay in England but I haven't let it get to me. In fact, over the past 10 days I've spent time with Uncle Paul both seeing sights and hunting down a broad and diverse range of work to keep me going. At first we did door knocks on random pubs in entertainment areas, talking to mangers and generally getting turned down.

With advice from some of these mangers, we

then proceeded to refine our search to the

more independently owned pubs. No luck here either. This went on for a couple of days before I decided that I needed to try out the waters within another pool of work. This turned out to be street promotion. A job of this description usually entails getting people into a bar, club or comedy house from the streets. So, after applying for every promoting job on every job-hunting website, I finally got a trial night at the Metra night club in Leicester Square in a busy area of London, Soho. Here, I spent 7 hours walking around, doing my best to ring people into the club in competition with several other more experienced promoters who were very good at bringing people into the club (and on some occasions, taking credit for my catches). Time tended to go extremely slow and by the end of the night I could hardly stand. I thought at least the pay should be ok since my manager said she would pay me by the hour. I was wrong. I only recieved

20 quid which is about 40 bucks for seven hours. I wasn't very happy since I brought home only 12 pounds after dinner and the bus ride home at 4 in the AM.

Needless to say, I wasn't too keen to go down the promotion road too much further as I knew I could be better spending my time earning three times the money with another type of work. The problem was, I still didn't know what that work was gunna be. The next day I wrung near 50 pubs that were located further out of London in the hope that they might have something for me. Nope.

After all that, I'm happy to say that finding work in London is no walk in the park.

A couple of days ago, my luck took a slightly different course. I met a friend of Paul and Karren's, Gabby, who ended up contacting a friend of hers who works in a contruction company. So last night, we got a call here at Hampstead asking if I'd like to work with him for a couple of days this week. The cash sounded good so I accepted the offer. I actually worked with them today. We were working in a massive Gym/Spa in London city, mostly ripping up and replacing the floor and ceiling. The old back's a bit sore but a cold beer at the end of the day always tastes better after some hard work.

It's great that this kind of work managed to pop up at the right time but unfortunately it does seem pretty casual. Will have to see how things turn out.

In other news, a couple of days ago after door knocking at pubs, Uncle Paul and I were sitting in a favourite spot of ours at the top of Primrose Hill in Hampstead Heath Park drinking a packed

beer when the weather decided to turn bad. Yes, you guessed it, it started to rain. Already comfy and with 3 quarters of a beer to go, Paul and I looked back at the clouds to discover that there was a big patch of blue heading our way. After all, it was only light rain and we thought we could

tough it out, so we did. A few minutes later, we briefly peeked over our shoulders to see that a police van was following a windy path up towards the top of the hill. Knowing full well that police patrols through nice areas of London were frequent, we didn't think much of this at the time.

So, in good spirit we continued to drink our beers in the

rain (which, I might add, is quite legal here) when the police van stopped behind us and out from it emerged to officers. We thought this was a bit odd, but still thought nothing of it.

"So what are you fellas up to? Just drinking a couple of beers here in the rain are we?" The first officer spoke.

To which we replied "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.. yeah, we're waiting for the rain to s-s-stop."

The officers thought that it was quite odd that these two Australian blokes were sitting at the top of Primrose Hill in the rain drinking beers surrounded by what they

described as 'Smoking paraphernalia' (of course these were cigarette buts that were there well before we sat down).

Almost immediately, the officers began to search our bags, our jackets, our pockets and even our wallets. At this stage, concerned mothers were tearing their unsuspecting childen off playground equipment and away from these two suspected drug dealers.

Luckily, Uncle Paul didn't have anything on him at the time so the police let us go with only a ticket detailing why the search had taken place. I've provided a picture of that ticket. It might be a bit hard to read but the words 'Strange

behaviour' are printed somewhere in there. Yikes!

London

Thankgod I made it through London immigrations! The stories I've heard are true! They almost made me admit to being a Colombian druglord exporting stock from South America into the UK! I must of been at that little desk for about 20 minutes being asked incredibly indept questions about what I planned to do in England, how much money I had, what boot size I am and so on..

When I finally did pass through Heathrow airport, I caught a train to Paddington station where my Uncle Paul and Aunty Karren picked me up.

I've had a good time here in London so far, seeing the sights, getting familiar with the local area and indeed scouting out entertainment districts for potential job sites. As I'm sure you can appreciate, mainland Europe made short work of my financial buffer. Hence, I am truly needing to find something to do here in London to replenish the stocks.

Uncle Paul has helped me get off to a good start by introducing me to city and it's many entertainment districts. During the past couple of days, we've managed to sort out a brand new resume and get a feel for what it's like to look for work in the city as an Australian. Yesterday I spent alot of time talking to pub managers and staff about the best places to seek out independant venues where I might find work as a glassie, a food runner or even a bar tender.

Today, with a page full of notes, I plan to head out to areas such as Soho, West End and Camden to suss out more possibilities. Failing that, there's an area in the centre of Soho called Leister Square. Known for it's clubbing scene, I may be able to find a temporary job handing out flyers for clubs whilst I suss out more options.

Wish me luck!

Berlin

After being pryed off a pole at the Amsterdam train station by rail officials, I was thrown on my train to Berlin. With a tear in my eye the train taxied out of the station and I was off on my 7 hour ride to the former Nazi capital of the world. How exciting.

Upon arrival at the Berlin train station I worked out how I was to get to my hostel in the centre of the city. It all went pretty smoothly with the directions I was given and in no time I arrived at the "Berlin City Hostel". This place is absolutely huge! From memory, the woman at reception told me that the place could bed over 500 people. The other cool thing about this place is that over half the people in here are actually German.

Despite this and after I put my bags in my room, I met a Brazilian guy in the common room who convinced me to come on the Berlin pub crawl. Needless to say it wasnt hard work on his part.

The other reason I was keen-to-crawl was because of the reputation Berlin as a city has for quirky bars and underground night clubs. This is exactly what we experienced.

The next day I was very brave in rocking up to Starbucks (the local meeting point for historical tours). From here, free tours depart daily checking out sights such as Hitlers Bunker, the memorial to the victims of the holocaust, the hotel where Michael Jackson almost lost a baby over the balcony and the remains of the infamous Berlin wall. The tour was amazing but my favourite part was simply walking along the old wall which divided East and West Berlin for decades. Some of the murals depicted along the wall are truly amazing. Art ranges from peoples names right through to heavy political statements. Furthermore, our guide had been touring for years in Berlin so he really knew his stuff.

Tired from walking all day, I returned to the hostel after the tour and "rested my eyes" from 9pm all the way through till 10am this morning. Needless to say, I am indeed feeling quite rested this morning.

So tonight is my last night in Berlin. Im not quite sure what Ill get up to today but Im keen to get out and about before heading out to London by flight tomorrow.

" The Dam "

At the hostel in Spain I was talking to the receptionist about my future plans and she pointed out that a cheap flight to Paris from Barcelona would be better than a train ride which would cost about double. So that's what I did. The airline wasn't much chop but it did get me from A to B cheaply and in a couple of hours.

To tell you the truth, when I planned out my trip, Paris was not high on the list of things to see. I was simply needing to stay there to break up the trip north. How wrong I was. In the first couple of hours that I was in the city, I realized how many things there actually are to see. Despite being exhausted by the transition from Spain to France and lacking a nights sleep, I was keen to get out and see as many things as I could in the little time I had. I saw things like the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumf, the military museum, the Louve and Notradam. Each and every one of these sights blew my mind. Furthermore, it really led me to believe that Paris could just be the heart of European history. Unfortunately the photos that I took at each of these places are on a memory card that is giving me grief. Hopefully I'll be able to sort that out by the time I see Uncle Paul in London.

I stayed in Paris for a couple of nights before catching a train to Amsterdam.

I think I may have just reached my favourite city of the trip so far. Not for obvious reasons.. Ok, partly for obvious reasons..

The hostel I'm staying at is actually pretty dodgy for it's price but I'm really only there to crash. During the day, I am busy checking out the countless museums, breweries, parks, shops and sights that this beautiful city has to offer. Over the past couple of days I've been shocked by how quirky the city really is. Obviously the "Coffee shop" scene is a prominant component of this. They are absolutely everywhere! You could be in the park or in a bar or even walking by clothes shops when you pick up something that doesn't quite smell like tobacco.

Another one of my culture shocks came through seeing the infamous red light district on a guided tour that I took yesterday afternoon. There is actually a whole lot more to it than you might think. This knowledge came through stories that the guide told us about how the region came to be, how it functions and even why it's still a legal industry. Money well spent. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Needless to say I didn't mind the girls in the windows either. They indeed have the quality edge over what one might consider the stereotypical prostitute. Don't worry mum, the tour guide made sure I was always within eye-shot of the group.

I really have lucked out with the photos. I'd love to post some up of the last couple of days but my camera literally ran out of battery when I arrived at the internet cafe. NOTE: (this is not an excuse to keep inappropriate photos from the mature members of my blog).

So now I'm off to visit the famed Heinekin brewery where I intend to take one of their tours. They sound really good, plus, it will be good to learn about how beer is actually made as it will be my first brewery tour. May as well make it the Heinekin factory (the largest international distributor of beer in the world) !