From April 17 2005 I began a new and exciting phase of my life in London. While over here I hope to see as much of England as I possibly can. Of course I will need an income first before I can go exploring the country, but that should be coming soon.

England is a beautiful and varied country and I hope I can capture this here for you.

Photos and Commentaries

England Observations

  • People can bring their dogs onto the Tube. I caught one this morning and there was a dog sitting upright on a seat right next to its master. These aren't guide dogs, by the way.
  • Alcohol is so easy to buy and consume here. First of all, I love the fact you can pick something up while you're at the supermarkets. It's great. You can get a 700ml (roughly) bottle of beer (from Fosters to the great German and Belgium beers) for £1.58 at Tescos...cold. You can drink in public places, you can walk around the streets with a drink. You can ride the Tube with a beer. In fact we did that the other week.
  • There is a lot of waste at the supermarkets. Tesco, for example, is like a Coles or Woolworths. In the fruit and veggie section things get weird. A large percentage of the items here are individually wrapped in plastic. Whereas at Coles you could go and fill a bag with some broccoli from the container holding all the broccoli, here each piece of broccoli is shrink-wrapped! You buy a bunch of beans (and there are only a few, mind you) that are presented on a container and shrink-wrapped much like our mince and meat is at Coles. There is so much waste...and there's no recycling going on as far as I can see, definitely not like in Brisbane.
  • It is far more 'multicultural' here than what we like to think Australia is. As you walk around you here so many different accents and languages.
  • The major roads have instructions painted on them for pedestrians: "Look Left" and "Look Right". I think it's for all those who come from parts of the world where people drive on the right hand side of the road.
  • You can buy insurance in the local supermarket!
  • The newspapers here are absolute rubbish, containing limited real news and mostly dribble you expect from Queensland's The Sunday Mail. I have no respect for Brisbane's Courier Mail and especially The Sunday Mail, but their news-reporting ability is, scarily, far superior the papers I've had the misfortune to read over here. What a joke! (PS, the papers in Ireland weren't that much better!)
  • The McDonalds here let you swap your side order of fries for a side order of salad.
  • It's not cheap here at all if you convert from Aussie dollars, but if you're earning the local currency, it's really not that bad, on a whole. The food's not that expensive, rent and council taxes etc are, things like phone calls, though, are cheap as anything (at least here in the UK).
  • Some restaurants have a Service Charge (12.5%) on top of what you pay for your food. Some require tips. Some don't care.