South Africa was one of the most interesting countries I have visited in the past few years, particularly because I have made so many good South African friends since coming to London. Because of them I had a certain idea of what South Africa would be like, but it still managed to surprise.

One of the first things that struck (shocked?) me were the electric fences everywhere. The vast majority of houses in Cape Town seem to be equipped with electric fences, and many new developments are completely fenced off. I'm not sure how effective these will be in the future because of the current power outages, which the government has recently announced will continue for the next five years at least.

Could you imagine how people would react in Australia if we were told there would be periodic blackouts (called load shedding in South Africa, blackouts are politically incorrect!) for the next five years? I don't think the government would be sticking around long.

One of the other things that I noticed immediately was Table Mountain. It really does dominate Cape Town and it makes for some beautiful landscapes. The views from up top are spectacular.

I spent a few days hanging around Cape Town and its surrounds before heading up to Langebaan, a resort town, for a few days of kitesurfing.

There is quite a negative feeling in South Africa at the moment, at least among the people I met. Crime is still getting worse, the leader of the ANC, Zuma, appears to be a bit of a maniac, and corruption is on the rise. I can see why many people there are looking to leave. Having said that its still a really beautiful country and perhaps things will improve.

So now I'm finally back in London after three very relaxing months enjoying summer in the southern hemisphere. I'm enjoying all the comments on how relaxed and tanned I looked, I must have looked very English last November! Its going to be a bit of an adjustment getting used to life back here, although I've missed a lot about London; the energy, the buzz, my friends.

Some English expressions I like:

1. Proper. As in 'He's proper minted'. Or 'She's proper ugly'. Pronounced like proppa. 'E's made a right proper mess of this asn't e?'

2. 'Orright?'. Used like 'How's it going?'. 'Orright Tom?'. I don't tend to use this one much but everyone else does quite a bit. I still haven't quite worked out the right response to this one. 'Orright?' 'Yes, I'm well.' or 'Uh-huh'. or 'I'm alright, how are you?'. I don't think any of these are correct.

A similar one is 'Howz it?' or commonly 'Howz it bro?' (with the bro pronounced brew). This is a South African term not an English one but there are so many saffas over here it might as well be a London term. A good response is 'Lakka, bro'.

3.'I'm not being funny, but...' This is usually followed by a complaint. 'I'm not being funny, but would you get off your arse and do the dishes??' But this phrase always prefaces a mild complaint. If you were making a serious complaint, and you were really angry, you would drop the 'I'm not being funny'. 'Get off your arse and do the f***in dishes!' So, you would be being funny, even though you were angry. Get it? Good.

create your own visited countries map

So what really has been going on over here. I guess I haven't written a great deal because England, and London in particular, are jam packed with Aussies. Jaf(f)a's...Just Another F***ing Aussie. In India I felt like I could write about what was going on because I was doing something unusual, but over here I feel like I am doing the same thing as half of Australia.

None the less, I've decided to bore you all and write something.

I moved out of the Duke of Wellington around Christmas, for a variety of reasons, but I guess in general the atmosphere was getting a bit hectic (plus I was picking up too many South Africanisms, hectic being one of them). There is only so long you can live with between 12 and 16 people and get along with everybody, and towards Christmas the atmosphere changed for the worse. To be fair I think it was time to go anyway. I didn't really want to spend all my spare time partying in my own house, although it was quite good fun for six months!

Unfortunately I have moved in with a bunch of over the hill Englishmen and woman who are about as much fun as daytime TV. Well they're not all bad, I guess we all have our own things going on and its just the overall house atmosphere which is a bit of a let down after my previous digs.

I'm beginning to get a bit over Brixton itself. What a hole. You can feel the difference even on the tube...the Victoria line ain't too bad south of Victoria station, but as soon as you reach the home stretch between Stockwell and Brixton, the noise level jumps about 50 decibels as you listen to 100 year old rails screeching in pain. As the train hits the station it jerks violently just as you stand up to get off. And classical music is piped loudly through Brixton station itself to keep out the pimps and ho's (although I'll put my hand up as a bit of a nerd and say I don't mind their selection!) (the music, not the selection of ho's).

The walk out of the station is a gauntlet. I have never made it through without being offered skunk, (in that hideous loud whisper of 'skunk, skunk, hey man, skunk), and I've been asked for spare change by the same bloke with the same bloody story around twenty times. My street itself is quite alright, but the station is a zoo. Still if you are looking for the best crack in London, I have been assured time and time again that I'm at the right place.

Any more observations on the English? Class differences are larger and more obvious than in Australia, from the accents through to where people live. I'm starting to notice that sort of thing a lot more. They even have different classes of supermarket, and I'm not talking about Coles vs Bilo, its really graded over here. I'm learning that London is a completely different kettle of fish to the rest of England - sometimes it feels like you never meet anyone in London who's actually from the place - but some things remain the same throughout the country, eg, chavs and the weather.

Reading over this I worry that I am picking up the English knack for complaining. There are plenty of good things over here...the English countryside is beautiful. It lacks the feel of real wilderness and space you have in Australia but is less harsh and more picturesque. I even found some beautiful beaches over the weekend, and I struggled to believe I hadn't crossed the channel into France or Italy.

I was planning to do some European travelling over the summer (well ok, I still am) but am also hoping to spend plenty of time exploring Britain.

The English people remain a decent lot, once you get to know them, although having said that one of my housemates got knifed over the weekend in a club that I was at the other week, and he's had 36 stitches to put his ear back together. He's not sure, but thinks he may have looked at somebody the wrong way.

The last six months in photos...

A trip to Amsterdam I don't remember too well
Seeing Dita Von Tease ...

John came to visit:I don't remember that too well either

We went to Stonehenge

And Bath

I finally moved out of the legendary Duke of Wellington


And into 'Sunny' Brixton

I received a rousing welcome




Me and John spent two weeks travelling through Dublin, Rome, Florence, Paris & Amsterdam (again!) with Mum, Dad and Dan - great to catch up with the family.

Spent New Years in Paris with John



The other highlight was watching Dan attack Eurodisney mascots:
And voila! Six months gone like that.

Hope everyone is well back in Oz. I'm planning on writing more regularly in my blog now that I live in a normal house with my own space and time.

Right now the only vacation photos I have are some pictures I took with the intention of making John look as ridiculous as possible. See the results for yourself here. The rest of my photos should be up in a week or so.

Update - the rest of my photos are up now at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamoney/

The first thing I saw on leaving Edinburgh train station was a bearded man wearing a kilt, playing bagpipes, with a sign around his neck saying “Welcome to Scotland”. Clearly, these Scots had a great sense of humour.

Actually, what I liked most about Scotland was that the people were still Scottish. For instance, you see different guys on the street randomly wearing kilts, and not just punks either. Haggis isn’t something you have to go to great lengths to find – people actually eat the stuff (and it’s tastier than it sounds). And the accent – well, I had no idea what half of them were saying a lot of the time, but I liked it. The people are much friendlier than Trainspotting led me to believe, with no Begby’s threatening to glass me. Instead, they were generally quite friendly.

The festival was great fun. There was a real atmosphere around the main performance areas, with tons of buskers, actors promoting their shows, musicians playing kerbside gigs, and other random events. Although you’d probably get sick of it all going on for a month if you lived there, for four days it was brilliant. I managed to catch about eight shows plus a couple of music gigs, with most of what I saw being pretty decent, and the music excellent. I caught up with some people I knew from college and had too many late nights, although never as late as the Irish people I shared my dorm with, who seemed particularly fond of getting back at 5.30 in the morning and shagging quietly in the corner.

Other than the festival, just exploring Edinburgh was pretty cool. Climbed Arthur’s seat, basically a big cliff on the edge of town. Toured the castle. Got lost in the wee hours of the morning. All good. It’s a much, much more attractive town than London, they’ve managed to maintain a great deal of their older buildings and refrained from building too many newer monstrosities. Aside from the new parliament building, which looks like a bad rip-off of Federation Square, without the square, and somehow cost the Scots a billion pounds.

Some photos are up here.

Today will probably be the hottest day ever in the UK. Which isn't too bad by Australian standards, but it will in the high 30's so hot enough. Catching the tube is a nightmare - apparently it got up to 47 on some of the trains yesterday, and up to 52 on buses.

Unfortunately, with perfect timing my bike was stolen last night, so I was on the tube this morning. I left my bike locked up while I went to see a movie last night, and 3 hours later it was long gone. Bikes go pretty quickly in London. So I'll most likely head down to Brick Lane market on Sunday and pick up a bike stolen off some other poor bugger, thereby completing the stolen bike circle of life.

If everybody in London refused to buy a stolen bike then we wouldn't have this problem, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be the first one. Wouldn't reduce my chances of having my bike stolen any (unless I believed in karma). Someone could probably write a decent economics essay on how Londoners screw each other over by all buying stolen bikes.