Travel tales: finding a fellow Aussie, The Trocadero, the dodgy part of town.

Travel can be lonely. There are so many people to meet and sights to see, which can be great, but as I am travelling alone, there is little regular conversafion. I have met many lovely people here so far – my hosts who I have come to know better, people at the conference and Changing Faces, and I strike up conversafions with complete strangers who have turned out to be lovely. But there is no one here that truly knows me. And I miss having lengthy conversations. I miss close friends. I miss sharing experiences. London is so big and filled with so many people that you are never truly physically alone, yet you really are emotionally alone. But I am having fun amd not unhappy, so don’t worry. I think it is just an emotion associated with travel.

Yesterday after some more time at Changing Faces I met up with Michelle, Jen’s sister who is here to teach. We both arrived in the same week and both looking to hang out with someone. We had not met before but got along as though we knew each other for years. While it was good to be hapless tourists together, and giggle at the quirks of London life (people stand on the right hand side of escalators, not the left, and telling someone “but we stand on the left in Australia” won’t cut it when there is an ambush of busy commuters running down am escalator!), it was great to have a friend to sight see with. And to take photos of me without fearing she would run off with the camera!

We caught the Piccadilly line and found ourselves at The Trocadero. Which looked interesting, and sounded like an exotic ice cream. But in reality, it was a little bit overwhelming. We walked through a basement-like corridor into a weird flashmob dance gang situation. Part funny, part weird, part scary. At first it looked like a dance class or flash mob, but as we walked through further, we saw it was a large group of youths dancing free style in a graffittied basement leading into a games centre. Of course I took a photo and then realised that was probably a silly idea. I fast paced it through but Michelle had to dance her way out of the dance gang.

When we had navigated the maze of The Trocadero, we found ourselves in Leicester Square which we had both been to. And so we agreed to take the first street that looked exciting – with the promise of bright lights and bustling crowds. Those bright lights were actually sex shops and strip bars in Soho. Posing in the phone box should have indicated that we were in a dodgy end of town – its walls plastered with sex chat line pamphlets. Or maybe that is regular wallpaper for phone boxes?

We just saw strip bars and ice cream shops really. Here are some groovy lights on the ceiling of an ice cream shop.

I had to be back home earlyish to discuss some accommodation options for Saturday through to my departure date, so Michelle and I just had a quick drink and dessert for dinner. At a shop called Mango Addicts – selling all things mango, complete with pink amd yellow men floating from the celing.

I had mango sticky rice and she had cheese cake. We also did the two-for-one cocktail deal amd each had this mango, pineapple, raspberry and vodka drink. At two for £6.50, it was a good deal.

As we drank our cocktail I noticed that my outfit matched the interior. One must always ensure one’s outfit and skin tone matches the interior, for one never knows when one requires to be camoflaged.