There and back again.
Soooooo, I'm back from my travels. I came back last monday (13th of june).
The holiday was in one word just AWESOME! I never enjoyed myself so much in my life.
I left on monday the 6th from Schiphol airport Amsterdam to Heathrow London. My parents dropped me off at the terminal otherwise I might not have gotten there on time coz I live 300 kilometers away from A'dam and my flight left quite early. Anyway, I got to London and I had a bit of trouble finding my way around. Luckily my english is quite good so I asked around and things just fell into place like they're supposed to. I regretted not buying one of those suitcases with wheels tho. I had a big backpack and a small ruckzack and for some reason (or lack of it) I choose to carry the big one in my hand like a regular suitcase and strapped on the small one. So my arms felt like they were falling off as I arrived at my hotel in Paddington. I settled in and went outside to take in the scenery :p London felt too big for my liking and I was lucky I brought my gps with me otherwise I would have gotten lost a few times coz for some reason I totally lost my sense of direction. It smelled bad too, London. The next day I woke up with a headache and at first I thought it would pass and I had my breakfast and went outside but after walking a bit it got worse and I quickly went back to my room and lay on the bed all day. My headache had turned into a full blown migraine attack and I was knocked senseless. So my tuesday was a lost day. Luckily I did manage to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum on monday so my stay in London wasn't a complete waist.
On wednesday I set off for Oxford. I was staying at a stones throw from Paddington station so I could get a train there which brought me to Oxford in less then an hour. My gps at one moment informed me we were doing 180 kilometers an hour, which is the fastest I have ever gone in a train. It felt like we were doing 80.
So I arrived in Oxford in style and way earlier then I had anticipated. Again I choose my Bed & Breakfast well coz I only had to cross the road and there it was :) The room was twice the size of my London broomcloset and the lady who runs the place was really nice. I settled in and then I went out for my first walk into Oxford.
Oxford is smaler then I expected. You can walk from one end to the other in about half an hour. So after walking ten minutes I found myself in the center near Christ Church. immediately I recognized the place from the inspector Morse series. It's a big sandstone castle which looks like it came straight out of a Harry Potter movie (probably coz it was actually used in the movies, lol). Before it is a wide walkway aptly called 'The Broad Walk'. It was featured in ceveral Morse episodes which I won't name here but if you want to know more I recommend you watch the video series I made (am still in the process of making as I typ this) about Morse locations in Oxford on my EdEditz YouTube channel.
I follow the lawn but soon found myself out of town so I did a 180 and walked back. I went to the university grounds and there it was just a feast of recognition. It all features in Morse and in too many episodes to even name. It was great, just a shame the colleges were closed for the public.
For the next few days I kept on this awesome hunt for locations setting myself a few goals every day and trying to see if I could find everything. And luckily I did. I went to the Botanical Gardens, which are the oldest in England. I saw the Radcliffe Camera which is a big round dome in the middle of town. I saw many things and it was everything I had hoped for when I was planning this holiday, and so much more. It was busy though. Full of tourists (like myself) during the day but if you took the effort to get up early and go into town at about 9am then you almost have the place to yourself until about 11am. Especially so with the pubs I visited. Morse in the tv show, is a great beer connoisseur and thus the series features many pubs. I went to all the ones that feature in the series and of course had a few beers myself even though I normally do not drink at all. I mean totally not. So after my first beer in Oxford I felt tipsy and for the next drink I ordered a coke instead, lol. Luckily it wore off soon enough but you just have to try the beer if you're there don't you?
Then it became saturday and this was the day I would meet up with my youtube pall John (SparkyGerbil). I stood up at about 8 that morning in the understanding he would arrive between 9 and 10am at Oxford station. So at 8:20 I texted him asking if all is going to scedule and he answers he's almost there! So I had to rush to get finished in time to meet him but I managed. It was great meeting him. He's the first youtuber, I mean real one, that I have met IRL. He's a great guy and I would even say a sweet man. A family man who tragically lost his young daughter to meningitis last year, which was really sad and a great shock to me when he told me that after it happened.
So we set out from the station and headed for city center. We parked ourself by the edge of the river at Upper Fisher Row for a moment to get our bearings and decide where we'd want to go first. We went to Jericho, a suburb of Oxford were there's a house with a boot yard which features in the first episode and the house oposite is where the first murder took place.
We found it after going the wrong way a few times. Then we decided to walk to Wolvercote which is to the north of Oxford. There's a famous pub there called The Trout Inn which we wanted to visit. It had gotten fairly warm by then so when we finally arrived we really felt we earned our drinks. John was wise and suggested we'd take the bus for our next venture which took us too Marsden to the Victoria Arms which features in the very last episode and it's the place where Morse recites the lines of an AE Housman poem.
After we had done the far away stuff we went back to the center and went to some places that John especially wanted to see. I had pretty much been everywhere in the center so I could show him around instead of the other way around haha. We discovered that Balliol College was open and I bought us two tickets and we went in. At a certain moment we were in a hallway and there was a thick curtain blocking an entrance. We went in even though I'm sure we weren't meant to and we found ourselfs in a beautiful chapel which I also recognized as being used in Morse. We felt like we had just discovered the Lost Ark :) After that we nosed around in the Masters private garden which was awesome too. The English certainly know a thing or two about gardening, make no mistake!
All in all it was a great day. I walked John to the station and he took the 17:25 train back to Solihull.
I really hope we will meet again some day.
Sunday was a the only day that it rained all the time. But that didn't deter me. I had bought an umbrella at the Pitt Rivers museum gift shop a few days before and it came in handy now. It had better, it cost me 25 pounds!! I went into town early but on sundays the stores don't open until 11am so I went to the Kings Arms first which was allready open. I had a cola and then I went to the book stores, Looking for Alaska. I mean I went looking for the John Green novel 'Looking for Alaska'. I found Paper Towns instead (his second novella) and after going into Blackwell's I also bought Looking for Alaska. The rest of the day I spent just walking through town. I went to 'The Eagle and Child' which is a pub where J.R.R. Tolkien used to drink and was in a writers club called 'The Inclings' along with C.S. Lewis a.o.
It was crouded however so I just filmed a bit and went out again.
The most money I spend on this holiday was on SD memory cards. I bought 4 with 8gig capacity and class6 speed. I also bought a nice little pocket watch which was totally open so you can see the inside and was incased in a glass sphere so when you looked at it, it was like looking through a fisheye lens. Really weird and I thought that this watch would be ideal as a prop in a future film. It could serve as a secret source of unspeakable power or some time-machine like thing. It really looks the part.
Well, that about covers my trip. I think I typed enough and if you made it all the way to this part I want to hug you for being awesome.
Anyway, the flight back was un eventful and all the subsequent trains were nicely timed and on time so I got back home at about 2am on tuesday the 14th having traveled half the day.
I was exhausted but boy was it worth it.
At this moment I'm still filled up with energy and I'm full of creative power. I made 3 stencil paintings this week and I've been editing for days!
I feel great!! It really feels like my batteries are charged again and only now do I realize how totally empty those batteries were to begin with. I needed this holiday badly and I'm glad I persisted and insisted on going. So let this be the moral of the story. If you feel like there's something you really must do, then do it and let no one persuade you otherwise. Afterwards you will know how right you were.
Thank you for reading all this. It really really means a lot to me.
Eddy
(btw, I can't be bothered to do a spelling check so forgive my writing errors :p)
The holiday was in one word just AWESOME! I never enjoyed myself so much in my life.
I left on monday the 6th from Schiphol airport Amsterdam to Heathrow London. My parents dropped me off at the terminal otherwise I might not have gotten there on time coz I live 300 kilometers away from A'dam and my flight left quite early. Anyway, I got to London and I had a bit of trouble finding my way around. Luckily my english is quite good so I asked around and things just fell into place like they're supposed to. I regretted not buying one of those suitcases with wheels tho. I had a big backpack and a small ruckzack and for some reason (or lack of it) I choose to carry the big one in my hand like a regular suitcase and strapped on the small one. So my arms felt like they were falling off as I arrived at my hotel in Paddington. I settled in and went outside to take in the scenery :p London felt too big for my liking and I was lucky I brought my gps with me otherwise I would have gotten lost a few times coz for some reason I totally lost my sense of direction. It smelled bad too, London. The next day I woke up with a headache and at first I thought it would pass and I had my breakfast and went outside but after walking a bit it got worse and I quickly went back to my room and lay on the bed all day. My headache had turned into a full blown migraine attack and I was knocked senseless. So my tuesday was a lost day. Luckily I did manage to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum on monday so my stay in London wasn't a complete waist.
On wednesday I set off for Oxford. I was staying at a stones throw from Paddington station so I could get a train there which brought me to Oxford in less then an hour. My gps at one moment informed me we were doing 180 kilometers an hour, which is the fastest I have ever gone in a train. It felt like we were doing 80.
So I arrived in Oxford in style and way earlier then I had anticipated. Again I choose my Bed & Breakfast well coz I only had to cross the road and there it was :) The room was twice the size of my London broomcloset and the lady who runs the place was really nice. I settled in and then I went out for my first walk into Oxford.
Oxford is smaler then I expected. You can walk from one end to the other in about half an hour. So after walking ten minutes I found myself in the center near Christ Church. immediately I recognized the place from the inspector Morse series. It's a big sandstone castle which looks like it came straight out of a Harry Potter movie (probably coz it was actually used in the movies, lol). Before it is a wide walkway aptly called 'The Broad Walk'. It was featured in ceveral Morse episodes which I won't name here but if you want to know more I recommend you watch the video series I made (am still in the process of making as I typ this) about Morse locations in Oxford on my EdEditz YouTube channel.
I follow the lawn but soon found myself out of town so I did a 180 and walked back. I went to the university grounds and there it was just a feast of recognition. It all features in Morse and in too many episodes to even name. It was great, just a shame the colleges were closed for the public.
For the next few days I kept on this awesome hunt for locations setting myself a few goals every day and trying to see if I could find everything. And luckily I did. I went to the Botanical Gardens, which are the oldest in England. I saw the Radcliffe Camera which is a big round dome in the middle of town. I saw many things and it was everything I had hoped for when I was planning this holiday, and so much more. It was busy though. Full of tourists (like myself) during the day but if you took the effort to get up early and go into town at about 9am then you almost have the place to yourself until about 11am. Especially so with the pubs I visited. Morse in the tv show, is a great beer connoisseur and thus the series features many pubs. I went to all the ones that feature in the series and of course had a few beers myself even though I normally do not drink at all. I mean totally not. So after my first beer in Oxford I felt tipsy and for the next drink I ordered a coke instead, lol. Luckily it wore off soon enough but you just have to try the beer if you're there don't you?
Then it became saturday and this was the day I would meet up with my youtube pall John (SparkyGerbil). I stood up at about 8 that morning in the understanding he would arrive between 9 and 10am at Oxford station. So at 8:20 I texted him asking if all is going to scedule and he answers he's almost there! So I had to rush to get finished in time to meet him but I managed. It was great meeting him. He's the first youtuber, I mean real one, that I have met IRL. He's a great guy and I would even say a sweet man. A family man who tragically lost his young daughter to meningitis last year, which was really sad and a great shock to me when he told me that after it happened.
So we set out from the station and headed for city center. We parked ourself by the edge of the river at Upper Fisher Row for a moment to get our bearings and decide where we'd want to go first. We went to Jericho, a suburb of Oxford were there's a house with a boot yard which features in the first episode and the house oposite is where the first murder took place.
We found it after going the wrong way a few times. Then we decided to walk to Wolvercote which is to the north of Oxford. There's a famous pub there called The Trout Inn which we wanted to visit. It had gotten fairly warm by then so when we finally arrived we really felt we earned our drinks. John was wise and suggested we'd take the bus for our next venture which took us too Marsden to the Victoria Arms which features in the very last episode and it's the place where Morse recites the lines of an AE Housman poem.
After we had done the far away stuff we went back to the center and went to some places that John especially wanted to see. I had pretty much been everywhere in the center so I could show him around instead of the other way around haha. We discovered that Balliol College was open and I bought us two tickets and we went in. At a certain moment we were in a hallway and there was a thick curtain blocking an entrance. We went in even though I'm sure we weren't meant to and we found ourselfs in a beautiful chapel which I also recognized as being used in Morse. We felt like we had just discovered the Lost Ark :) After that we nosed around in the Masters private garden which was awesome too. The English certainly know a thing or two about gardening, make no mistake!
All in all it was a great day. I walked John to the station and he took the 17:25 train back to Solihull.
I really hope we will meet again some day.
Sunday was a the only day that it rained all the time. But that didn't deter me. I had bought an umbrella at the Pitt Rivers museum gift shop a few days before and it came in handy now. It had better, it cost me 25 pounds!! I went into town early but on sundays the stores don't open until 11am so I went to the Kings Arms first which was allready open. I had a cola and then I went to the book stores, Looking for Alaska. I mean I went looking for the John Green novel 'Looking for Alaska'. I found Paper Towns instead (his second novella) and after going into Blackwell's I also bought Looking for Alaska. The rest of the day I spent just walking through town. I went to 'The Eagle and Child' which is a pub where J.R.R. Tolkien used to drink and was in a writers club called 'The Inclings' along with C.S. Lewis a.o.
It was crouded however so I just filmed a bit and went out again.
The most money I spend on this holiday was on SD memory cards. I bought 4 with 8gig capacity and class6 speed. I also bought a nice little pocket watch which was totally open so you can see the inside and was incased in a glass sphere so when you looked at it, it was like looking through a fisheye lens. Really weird and I thought that this watch would be ideal as a prop in a future film. It could serve as a secret source of unspeakable power or some time-machine like thing. It really looks the part.
Well, that about covers my trip. I think I typed enough and if you made it all the way to this part I want to hug you for being awesome.
Anyway, the flight back was un eventful and all the subsequent trains were nicely timed and on time so I got back home at about 2am on tuesday the 14th having traveled half the day.
I was exhausted but boy was it worth it.
At this moment I'm still filled up with energy and I'm full of creative power. I made 3 stencil paintings this week and I've been editing for days!
I feel great!! It really feels like my batteries are charged again and only now do I realize how totally empty those batteries were to begin with. I needed this holiday badly and I'm glad I persisted and insisted on going. So let this be the moral of the story. If you feel like there's something you really must do, then do it and let no one persuade you otherwise. Afterwards you will know how right you were.
Thank you for reading all this. It really really means a lot to me.
Eddy
(btw, I can't be bothered to do a spelling check so forgive my writing errors :p)