London Part 2

Wednesday September 8, 2010
Currently in the hostel eating left over spaghetti bolognaise from last night's dinner. About to head off after tea though. Eavesdropping on a conversation with a very well traveled Dutch guy.

The Dutch bloke facing us in the top centre of the photo. 

At forty-two years old, he's been a bachelor for ten years. He was in the army for seventeen years, and he's been all over the world, and stayed in lots of hostels. He's been in this one for six weeks and reckons this one is one of the best he's stayed in. Reckons it's got a good vibe, friendly people, just a nice place. I agree. Most people here seem to be from various European countries like France and Italy, and a lot speak their own language here with their travel buddies. The hostel cost me £33 for two nights, which I think is pretty good. I was in a twelve-bed dormitory and there have been no noise issues, other than the traffic noise outside, but you get used to that.

A view of the hostel from outside; it used to be a court.

The place is kept very clean, and I heard there were 600 beds here. That'd probably be an exaggeration though. I will ask reception on the way out (edit: okay, it actually has 250 beds, that sounds more realistic).

Breakfast at the hostel.

Breakfast at the hostel.

 There are lockers and a luggage room (which is where I left my stuff today, so that I didn't have to lug it around London. And coincidentally, just as I was writing that sentence, a girl asked me where the luggage room was. I could tell she was a kiwi by her ecksint. I showed her the luggage room and used the opportunity to grab my numerous bags.
Speaking of accents, I love hearing the English accent here. It also serves as a continual reminder that I'm in a foreign country.
Yesterday I didn't accomplish much. I wanted to get all the supplies I needed like toiletries (I didn't bring any!), cycling shoes and a tent. I headed off from the hostel at around mid-day after reading about the 'Tube strike' and about Julia Gillard winning a minority government in Australia. I asked reception where the nearest major supermarket was (they seem to have little ones all over the place but not many big ones like all the Coles and Safeways in Victoria. Anyway, she gave me a map and off I went.
(interruption: they're playing Muse at this hostel common room, I kinda wish I'd put some Muse on my iPhone - the older albums of course).
Navigation is an important consideration on this trip. Which is why I paid $120 for a GPS app.
However, on this occasion I thought I'd give the GPS a rest and try the good old fashioned traditional map for navigation. I like to think I'm proficient at using a map. Just like how Dad used to say "mate I used to have the Melways sitting on my lap and read it as I was driving around Melbourne". However, after about five minutes I was already lost. The street names are difficult to see sometimes. I didn't mind being lost though, it was quite pleasant riding around the old streets anyway. And great not to have the panniers and be manoeuvrable and fast again. So I just rode around the old streets fairly aimlessly, and after an hour I'd pretty much done a big loop and was back near where I started, which meant I was close to where I was going. So then I turned on the GPS and got to the supermarket. Shopping there took a long time since the layout and brands are all different. They didn't even sell methylated spirits there (for the Trangia) or handkerchiefs.
After that I got back using TomTom, then rode around to several different bike shops. The good thing about the GPS navigation is that you don't have to waste time reading the map, just type in the address and then you can look around at the street scape as you ride and the iPhone will tell you where to turn. To an on-looker, it would have actually looked like I knew where I was going.
And on the topic of navigating, it's amazing how many people have asked me for directions! From middle-aged Englishmen to Asians to attractive young women to Americans, so many people have asked me for directions. The American guy said I was much easier to understand than the poms and initially thought I was American too. And I was actually able to help him out with directions using my GPS. I'm not sure why so many people asked me for directions, I surely couldn't have looked like I knew where I was going. Probably just because I was often stopped, working out where I was going myself or doing something on my iPhone, and therefore more approachable. Most of the time I just had to say "nah, not sure sorry, I'm not from around here..."
Anyway, shopping in London, eventually I bought a pair of shoes at a bike shop in the city for £83 (from Cycle Surgery, one of the two major bike chains in London, the other being Evans Cycles).

New shoes, and chain imprints on my pants.

A customer at the bike shop told me he was doing a survey and asked if I'd had any bikes stolen. I told him "no, but I've only been here a few days..." Apparently he had had his stolen and reckoned it was a real problem in London, a pandemic. And I have noticed that just about everyone locks up their bikes properly, including the wheels, whether it is with two D-locks or one D-lock and a cable lock or by taking the front wheel off and locking it beside the back wheel with a D-lock. Sometimes people lock up their seats too. Because of this and what the police officer had said to me yesterday, I was pretty paranoid about my bike or something on it being stolen. So I got into a routine every time I stopped at a shop: unplug the iPhone from the E-werk, remove the iPhone from the handlebar dock and pocket it (I do this first because it's the most valuable item), take off the speedo and put it in the handlebar bag, take the D-lock out of the bracket and the cable lock off the rack, lock up the bike and both wheels, take off the handlebar bag and take it with me. Then reverse this when I get back. It was a bit of a hassle having to do that each time.
Next I went to Blacks (a major camping store chain) and bought a tent from a Swedish bloke for £90. He reckoned it was a gooden (he didn't use that word though, I paraphrased there).
Speaking of Swedish people, I just spoke to a Swedish bloke here at the hostel who's been touring around Europe for a few months. He reckons he's run into Australians in every place he's been. As they say, "Australians love to travel". And he reckons I should visit Sweden, because camping is free and you can camp wherever you want.

I'd wanted to get away to head out to my cousin John Chant's place early afternoon, but it's past 6 o'clock already, time always gets away from me,  I'd better get going!

There were lots of guys like this riding taxi bikes. Not sure if that's what they're called, but they taxied people around, pretty cool job, huh? This guy even had an umbrella!

Ride Stats:
Distance: 27.63 km
Average: 15.2 km/h
Maximum: 40.5 km/h
Time: 1:48:49