Hey everyone, welcome to the Blog.
Since this was inspired by your response to my travel emails, and since people have been requesting all the old Episodes, what better way to start?
You can now find all the Episode of the Palunawack Tours, Dec 2008- Dec 2009 on this site, below. Enjoy!
So what can you expect here now I'm no longer traveling? Damn good question actually...
But as you all can probably attest to, I'm rarely without an opinion on pretty much anything, so stay tuned and we'll see how this works out together.
Want to make sure you don't miss out on anything? Just become a Follower of this blog - it's as simple as clcking the link on the right hand side there.
What cheer!
Gordon
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Palunawack Tours - Episode 13, Scotland and spontaneous communism
G'day all, welcome to the second last Episode. Only 20 days left of the trip and the end looms near, so I better cover Scotland and my spontaneous trip across eastern Europe or else I'll be doing it on the plane home.
As always, keep the replies coming! Not too long now and I'll be back home on Australian soil, wondering what the hell to do with myself, so I looking forward to seeing a lot of you soon!
Disclaimer: These emails may be misleading
So my parents tell me I'm giving the impression that I am attempting to destroy my liver on this trip. And after the Irish episode I can understand how you think that...
Do not worry! I actually don't drink that much (with some notable exceptions). In fact the vast majority of my time is spent in museums, talking to people and just generally walking around. Unfortunately none of this makes for good reading. Phrases like "In London I went to the museum and stared at rocks for 2 hours" are not terribly inspiring.
So fret less! I will return home in one piece and without any addictions! That you're going to find out about anyway...
India editions
A big shout out to the other holder of the only 2 Palunawack shirts in existence, Mr Mark J. Lucas, who has been doing stellar work spreading the gospel of Palunawack to the Indian masses. The Taj Mahal will never be the same again!
Our unplanned campaign for accidental world domination continues...
Scotland!
The ferry over from Ireland to Glasgow wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected - after the one to Malta I was bracing myself for several hours of near-death sea sickness with the occasional unscheduled flight across the cabin when we hit a nasty wave. As it was we had a nice trip and me and Mum found ourselves under one of the most dramatic skies I've had the privilege of seeing. An auspicious welcome to another land of my forfathers.
Hooray for Biagmy!
We found out this year that my Mum's grandfather had two families - one in Australia and one back home in Scotland. Needless to say this was a bit of a surprise to the distant cousin who was doing some family tree research, but my family being how we are, this was considered pretty hilarious and we ended up getting in contact with the 'new relatives'. All of which ended with me and Mum getting an invitation to visit them while we were in town.
The plan was to hire a car, and I was impressed to find out Mum had already arranged one before we arrived, thus showing more fore-planning than I have for my entire trip. And in accordance with Murphy's Law, this naturally backfired.
We ordered a small car. We got a van. With no side windows. Anyone who knows my Mum can probably guess what came next, and I was treated to a great opportunity to compare her conflict resolution techniques to my own:
Gordon: speak calmly, commiserate with the person, get them onside and ask them to help me out.
Mum: spend several minutes tearing shreds off the operator until they flee in terror and their supervisor gives you what you want.
Mum wins.
Two hours later in our nice new small car, we met up with the new relatives near Glasgow. Mum was curious to see if they were going to be anything like us, and if energetic, welcoming and generous are things you'd associate with the Saliba clan then yes, they were.
Stirling nightlife - not the good kind of stirling
Stirling is a historically significant town where William Wallace killed a lot of English. There's a memorial and it was all well worth seeing, the Scottish (along with most of the english-speaking world) being very enthusiastic about any killing of the English in a historical context. It's rather frowned upon now unless it's done at a football game.
As it was this was my first taste of Scottish night-life, so I ventured out to check it out. The fact I spend most of the night stone-cold sober hanging out with a busker gives you an idea of what I thought. Frankly, it felt like home. It was something about the girls carrying their shoes around, the guys walking into bins, and the endless queue of people screaming "Oasis!" at the busker that really connected with my inner bogan.
One small complication to the situation was that I was wearing my Rovers hoodie. Rovers are the old section of Scouts back home, easily confused with the football team 'The Rangers', who have very strong connections to the Protestant/Catholic disagreement that defines a dozen interesting wars throughout Europe. Happily, drunken Scots aren't too hard to confuse, giving me plenty of time to run away.
You take the high road while I gape at the scenery
The Glen Coe valleys and Ben Nevis, Scotland's largest mountain officially go down as some of the most amazing landscapes I have ever seen, and I have seen a few. Go there. There's something about the rolling, treeless, yet sheer mountains that connected with something in me pretty deeply. If only it didn't rain so much, I could have spent a week on those hills.
We compromised by climbing Ben Nevis and me and Mum got some pretty odd looks as we powered past the crowd in t-shirts. Normally being under-dressed in hostile conditions doesn't worry me, but the people coming back down the hill looked like they'd just returned from Everest Basecamp. Turns out they were right. Apparently the summit of Scotland's largest mountain gets about 20 days a year when it's not covered in cloud and today was not one of them. We decided to job back down the mountain...
$^%!* Volvo Drivers!
Bad driving is nothing new for me in Europe but this guy was pretty impressive - driving 50 kmh in a 80 zone, while weaving just enough to make passing him risky. Imagine my joy then when I noticed that he was not only a Volvo driver, but he had the Volvo Hat sitting on the back seat. The Ringwood High boys will enjoy that. I laughed for half an hour.
Surprise Australians
Throughout the whole trip I've been getting email along the lines of "I'm in europe! are you anywhere near? Let's catch up!". Naturally this usually means there's 3 to 4 countries between us, so it's never really happened. I knew Rowan was in Scotland somewhere, but it was still a pretty awesome surprise to walk into him in the hostel at Inverness, the nearest town to Loch Ness. We chatted for most of the night and arranged to catch up again in Edinburgh. As it turns out, I could have done with the extra sleep, because tomorrow I was to tackle my greatest foe once again...
Whoever designed the manual car can go and...etc.
Which was one of then many things I muttered under my breath as we stalled, mashed gears and bunny-hopped across the north coast. Generally, the open road was fine, but throw up a set of traffic lights, tight corner, or the ultimate challenge: a roundabout, and it was a mess. Mum was not impressed. Naturally I thought it was all pretty funny.
Oh, and a warning should you ever be in Scotland and think that standing stones are a great historic thing to see. Don't bother. After a 15 minutes detour and much anticipation we drove straight past the things. Not usually a good sign if you were expecting Stonehenge.
Edinburgh!
Me and Mum had an incredible trick on our tour of turning up for the major local events for each town, 3 days after they had happened. It was uncanny, we must have done it five times in a row. So I was pretty happy to find out we were getting to Edinburgh in time for the last week of the world-famous Edinburgh Festival. The street performers were great, as were the various exhibitions they had on, including the highlight of an entire orchestra made up of tradies using their tools. Very cool.
Mum left me at this point to head off on a tour of eastern europe. This presented us with a problem. I had to drive us to the airport, and then back to the hostel for the company to pick up the hire car. And it was raining. Heavily.
Somehow the predictable nightmare scenario never eventuated and I made it back in one piece, however nature threw a couple of challenges my way:
I wish.
It was sad to see Mum off after a pretty good time together, but at least I knew she was going to enjoy her tour, even if she didn't at the time. It was great of the folks to take the trouble to visit me, but that's the kind of parents I have. Excellent service!
Mates!
So for the first time since I arrived in Ireland two months ago, I was shacked up in a hostel in Edinburgh, and set about getting in touch with two good mates.
First up was Rowan, who invited me to a get-to-know-you party for new international students from his friend's university. 12 months ago being at at party I so obviously had nothing to do with would have made me feel awkward. Not any more. Having got myself into this sort of situation regularly for the whole trip, I was in my element.
As two young Aussie males will do when they haven't seen each other for a while, me and Rowan were looking for trouble. So when we found the drinks lift from the kitchen, it wasn't long before we were sending down notes requesting "A cheese and mustard sandwich for the Manager and make it snappy". It may have been our handwriting didn't match the manager's or perhaps the fact the note was written on a coaster, but no luck.
2 hours later at closing time I found Rowan stealing alcopops from the same lift. When I asked him what he was going to do with them, his very philosophical reply was "Steal them". That's the kind of night it was...
Next was Alison, someone who's been expecting me to visit pretty much since May. She looked after me for pretty much the rest of my stay there, including quite a few big nights at the local pub, the fireworks for the end of the Edinburgh Festival, and 2 rather unexpected but surprisingly enjoyable visits to the local heavy metal bar. There's something amazingly refreshing about staggering off the dance floor with 5 decent bruises on you. And getting hit on by a 7 foot tall gay punk was certainly an exciting, if terrifying experience. More running followed.
Where is the beer?!
One of the strangest things about Edinburgh - and being a perfectly preserved medieval town, it has quite a few - is the smell. There is a permanent smell of hops, thanks to the brewery just out of town. This was just the right combination of bread smell and beer smell to drive me into a near frenzy every time I went outside. And while beer was never too far away, much to my horror the UK does not to bakeries. Sliced white loaf or nothing! The horror...
Other quirky features of Edinburgh include:
The best sight in Budapest? The inside of the world-famous Turkish Baths. Nothing like a nice soak in a thermal pool after walking around all day in 32 degrees. Spectacular.
And I went to the opera. It wasn't really on my program, but one of the girls at the hostel, Una, walked into the common room in a cocktail dress and I ended up getting an invitation. Just as well I brought my suit! A lovely night all round. I feel cultured.
Ljubljana, Slovenia
If you can find this place on a map I'll give you a coconut. I had no idea where it was, but since this is where one of my Austrian friends has recently moved, off I went. As it turns out, this is one funky little town, featuring one of the most amazing nightspots I've seen on the whole trip.
The next day me and Tobi were both feeling pretty average, so we went to the market for brunch. If someone had told me at the start of the trip I would find myself half-stoned, hungover and eating a horse burger in 10 months, I would have been rather skeptical. I also would have been wrong. Horse is a kinda greasy combination of beef and pork - not the greatest decision I've made recently.
So fueled by horse and a strong aversion to daylight, we decided to check out the castle up on the hill. The front door was far too obvious so we decided to check out a small garden in the moat and were surprised to find a door down there. We were even more surprised to find it lead through to the basement, that the basement had a staircase, and that the staircase led all the way to the function room on the roof.
So after hanging around on the roof for 15 minutes or so, we strolled out through the 5 star restaurant into the castle and had a look around. And then we noticed everyone was very well dressed. Too well dressed you might say. And why is that woman wearing so much white? Oh crap.
Yeah we wandered straight through a wedding reception. Happily no one noticed us and we were too out of it to realise what was going on until we had left, so no harm done, except a bit of anxiety for me and Tobi.
Krakow, Poland
Slovenia to Poland is not a short train trip, so when I arrived at Krakow at 5am I was happy to find a bed all ready for me at the hostel. And this place was great - not only was it practically empty, had a great breakfast included, plus free internet, and the staff were the friendliest I've met on this trip. They not only answered every question I had, but shared vodka with me and took me out on the town, ironically to another get-to-know-you party for new university students. As we stumbled back to the hostel I mentioned it was getting pretty cold considering it had been 32 degrees in Hungary only a few days ago. One of the staff joked that if I was lucky I might even see snow.
Sure enough, the next morning it was snowing. And happily, all my pants were in the wash, meaning I got the unique experience of having an entire Polish town stare at me as I wandered around in shorts all day. Since most Polish women seem to do the same thing wearing tights, I found this a little surprising. Apparently my legs weren't quite up to Polish standards, which I must admit, are very high.
Given Poland's unhappy history under the Nazi's and then the Communists, there's plenty of history here, including a guided tour of the only purpose designed communist city, including a tank. And I also had the privilege of visiting Auschwitz. No need to go into details, but you can still smell something burning at that site. We should all visit a place like this once, just so we know what life can really be like.
Brno, Czech Republic
Kati is another friend I met in that German castle who I had seen again in Vienna. She invited me to come and visit her for her Dad's birthday party. Who could say no?
I knew I'd made a good decision when I was ushered to the dinner table as soon as I walked in through the front door and delivered a massive bowl of beef stew. What with horse-burgers and all I hadn't been doing too well as a vegetarian, so I figured I didn't have much to lose. It's just as well I took that attitude too because I have never eaten so much meat in one day before as I did here.
Kati is a pretty crazy girl, and when her family got together to party I could see it was a bit of a family trait. The night started with vodka, continued with 3 courses of meat, and finished with a lot of beer and dancing, featuring one of the best blues bands I've ever seen, fronted by a white Czech guy who sounded uncannily like a black version of Elvis. Yeah it was weird, but good!
When I eventually figured out she was talking about cocain I decided it was home time. In the 4 days I was there I was offered pretty much everything there was to offer, which went a long way to explaining why everyone danced so strangely.
As always, keep the replies coming! Not too long now and I'll be back home on Australian soil, wondering what the hell to do with myself, so I looking forward to seeing a lot of you soon!
Disclaimer: These emails may be misleading
So my parents tell me I'm giving the impression that I am attempting to destroy my liver on this trip. And after the Irish episode I can understand how you think that...
Do not worry! I actually don't drink that much (with some notable exceptions). In fact the vast majority of my time is spent in museums, talking to people and just generally walking around. Unfortunately none of this makes for good reading. Phrases like "In London I went to the museum and stared at rocks for 2 hours" are not terribly inspiring.
So fret less! I will return home in one piece and without any addictions! That you're going to find out about anyway...
India editions
A big shout out to the other holder of the only 2 Palunawack shirts in existence, Mr Mark J. Lucas, who has been doing stellar work spreading the gospel of Palunawack to the Indian masses. The Taj Mahal will never be the same again!
Our unplanned campaign for accidental world domination continues...
Scotland!
The ferry over from Ireland to Glasgow wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected - after the one to Malta I was bracing myself for several hours of near-death sea sickness with the occasional unscheduled flight across the cabin when we hit a nasty wave. As it was we had a nice trip and me and Mum found ourselves under one of the most dramatic skies I've had the privilege of seeing. An auspicious welcome to another land of my forfathers.
Hooray for Biagmy!
We found out this year that my Mum's grandfather had two families - one in Australia and one back home in Scotland. Needless to say this was a bit of a surprise to the distant cousin who was doing some family tree research, but my family being how we are, this was considered pretty hilarious and we ended up getting in contact with the 'new relatives'. All of which ended with me and Mum getting an invitation to visit them while we were in town.
The plan was to hire a car, and I was impressed to find out Mum had already arranged one before we arrived, thus showing more fore-planning than I have for my entire trip. And in accordance with Murphy's Law, this naturally backfired.
We ordered a small car. We got a van. With no side windows. Anyone who knows my Mum can probably guess what came next, and I was treated to a great opportunity to compare her conflict resolution techniques to my own:
Gordon: speak calmly, commiserate with the person, get them onside and ask them to help me out.
Mum: spend several minutes tearing shreds off the operator until they flee in terror and their supervisor gives you what you want.
Mum wins.
Two hours later in our nice new small car, we met up with the new relatives near Glasgow. Mum was curious to see if they were going to be anything like us, and if energetic, welcoming and generous are things you'd associate with the Saliba clan then yes, they were.
Stirling nightlife - not the good kind of stirling
Stirling is a historically significant town where William Wallace killed a lot of English. There's a memorial and it was all well worth seeing, the Scottish (along with most of the english-speaking world) being very enthusiastic about any killing of the English in a historical context. It's rather frowned upon now unless it's done at a football game.
As it was this was my first taste of Scottish night-life, so I ventured out to check it out. The fact I spend most of the night stone-cold sober hanging out with a busker gives you an idea of what I thought. Frankly, it felt like home. It was something about the girls carrying their shoes around, the guys walking into bins, and the endless queue of people screaming "Oasis!" at the busker that really connected with my inner bogan.
One small complication to the situation was that I was wearing my Rovers hoodie. Rovers are the old section of Scouts back home, easily confused with the football team 'The Rangers', who have very strong connections to the Protestant/Catholic disagreement that defines a dozen interesting wars throughout Europe. Happily, drunken Scots aren't too hard to confuse, giving me plenty of time to run away.
You take the high road while I gape at the scenery
The Glen Coe valleys and Ben Nevis, Scotland's largest mountain officially go down as some of the most amazing landscapes I have ever seen, and I have seen a few. Go there. There's something about the rolling, treeless, yet sheer mountains that connected with something in me pretty deeply. If only it didn't rain so much, I could have spent a week on those hills.
We compromised by climbing Ben Nevis and me and Mum got some pretty odd looks as we powered past the crowd in t-shirts. Normally being under-dressed in hostile conditions doesn't worry me, but the people coming back down the hill looked like they'd just returned from Everest Basecamp. Turns out they were right. Apparently the summit of Scotland's largest mountain gets about 20 days a year when it's not covered in cloud and today was not one of them. We decided to job back down the mountain...
$^%!* Volvo Drivers!
Bad driving is nothing new for me in Europe but this guy was pretty impressive - driving 50 kmh in a 80 zone, while weaving just enough to make passing him risky. Imagine my joy then when I noticed that he was not only a Volvo driver, but he had the Volvo Hat sitting on the back seat. The Ringwood High boys will enjoy that. I laughed for half an hour.
Surprise Australians
Throughout the whole trip I've been getting email along the lines of "I'm in europe! are you anywhere near? Let's catch up!". Naturally this usually means there's 3 to 4 countries between us, so it's never really happened. I knew Rowan was in Scotland somewhere, but it was still a pretty awesome surprise to walk into him in the hostel at Inverness, the nearest town to Loch Ness. We chatted for most of the night and arranged to catch up again in Edinburgh. As it turns out, I could have done with the extra sleep, because tomorrow I was to tackle my greatest foe once again...
Whoever designed the manual car can go and...etc.
Which was one of then many things I muttered under my breath as we stalled, mashed gears and bunny-hopped across the north coast. Generally, the open road was fine, but throw up a set of traffic lights, tight corner, or the ultimate challenge: a roundabout, and it was a mess. Mum was not impressed. Naturally I thought it was all pretty funny.
Oh, and a warning should you ever be in Scotland and think that standing stones are a great historic thing to see. Don't bother. After a 15 minutes detour and much anticipation we drove straight past the things. Not usually a good sign if you were expecting Stonehenge.
Edinburgh!
Me and Mum had an incredible trick on our tour of turning up for the major local events for each town, 3 days after they had happened. It was uncanny, we must have done it five times in a row. So I was pretty happy to find out we were getting to Edinburgh in time for the last week of the world-famous Edinburgh Festival. The street performers were great, as were the various exhibitions they had on, including the highlight of an entire orchestra made up of tradies using their tools. Very cool.
Mum left me at this point to head off on a tour of eastern europe. This presented us with a problem. I had to drive us to the airport, and then back to the hostel for the company to pick up the hire car. And it was raining. Heavily.
Somehow the predictable nightmare scenario never eventuated and I made it back in one piece, however nature threw a couple of challenges my way:
- Rain. But not just any rain! The heaviest downpour in a decade, causing widespread flooding! Hearing a news reporter recommending you avoid all unnecessary car travel while trying not to stall is not for the faint hearted.
- Breaks in the Space-time continuum. There is one road in Edinburgh that defies the laws of physics. At one end, left is east and west is right. At then other end, without any notable turns, it's the other way around. I drove this road 4 times and still cannot figure out what happens. I am baffled. But after the first 2 times I chose to suspend disbelief and didn't get lost.
I wish.
It was sad to see Mum off after a pretty good time together, but at least I knew she was going to enjoy her tour, even if she didn't at the time. It was great of the folks to take the trouble to visit me, but that's the kind of parents I have. Excellent service!
Mates!
So for the first time since I arrived in Ireland two months ago, I was shacked up in a hostel in Edinburgh, and set about getting in touch with two good mates.
First up was Rowan, who invited me to a get-to-know-you party for new international students from his friend's university. 12 months ago being at at party I so obviously had nothing to do with would have made me feel awkward. Not any more. Having got myself into this sort of situation regularly for the whole trip, I was in my element.
As two young Aussie males will do when they haven't seen each other for a while, me and Rowan were looking for trouble. So when we found the drinks lift from the kitchen, it wasn't long before we were sending down notes requesting "A cheese and mustard sandwich for the Manager and make it snappy". It may have been our handwriting didn't match the manager's or perhaps the fact the note was written on a coaster, but no luck.
2 hours later at closing time I found Rowan stealing alcopops from the same lift. When I asked him what he was going to do with them, his very philosophical reply was "Steal them". That's the kind of night it was...
Next was Alison, someone who's been expecting me to visit pretty much since May. She looked after me for pretty much the rest of my stay there, including quite a few big nights at the local pub, the fireworks for the end of the Edinburgh Festival, and 2 rather unexpected but surprisingly enjoyable visits to the local heavy metal bar. There's something amazingly refreshing about staggering off the dance floor with 5 decent bruises on you. And getting hit on by a 7 foot tall gay punk was certainly an exciting, if terrifying experience. More running followed.
Where is the beer?!
One of the strangest things about Edinburgh - and being a perfectly preserved medieval town, it has quite a few - is the smell. There is a permanent smell of hops, thanks to the brewery just out of town. This was just the right combination of bread smell and beer smell to drive me into a near frenzy every time I went outside. And while beer was never too far away, much to my horror the UK does not to bakeries. Sliced white loaf or nothing! The horror...
Other quirky features of Edinburgh include:
- The Disgrace of Scotland - up on the hill near the town is what looks like a Greek ruin. Apparently it was going to be a war memorial, but since every time they got one of the 14 pillars upright the builders had a big party, they ran out of cash and it never got finished. True Scottish style.
- Bag pipers - The first one I saw was novel. After seeing 15 of them in one day, I became suspicious. It turns out the Edinburgh tourist board actually employs these guys to add ambiance. And a hell of a lot of noise.
- Arthur's seat - the huge extinct volcano within walking distance from the town centre gives brilliant views and a pretty challenging climb for those who chose to ignore the signs and climb the cliff face up the west side. Especially exciting when you get halfway up and realise those signs were there for a reason.
WWOOFing, mark 2.
Having had such a good time in France I figured I'd give this farming caper a shot in Scotland as well. And for some reason I had a hankering to work with animals. Odd that.
So I applied online and got a positive response for a cattle farm at a little town called Dunoon, north of Glasgow. So far, so good. What I didn't plan on was getting a call asking if I could get there 2 days early? Eager to please as always, I figured I'd hire a car and head out there that very night.
Guess what sort of car was available? I nearly cried.
Of all the things I recommend you DO NOT DO in Glasgow, stalling a manual car five times in a row on a freeway on-ramp is probably number one.
An hour later, I'm out in the country and mercifully away from very angry Glasweigans. Time to check some directions, so I pull over off the side of the road, check my place on the map and go to reverse back onto the road. Pretty easy right? Except I can't find reverse. It's right there on the gear stick, but despite nearly snapping the thing in half I can't get it into gear. This is embarrassing. Faced with the option of flagging down a car, I find myself pushing the car by hand back onto the road. As if this wasn't bad enough, the mountains around here mean all I pick up is BBC 4's radio theater of Shakespeare's 'Edward II', who chooses this precise moment to be executed by having a red-hot poker stuck up his arse, scaring the absolute buggery out of my (excuse the pun).
Finally I limp into town, find the farm, and get a few hours of sleep in before an early start with the chickens. Hooray.
The urgent rush for me to get out to the farm was so I could turn the hay over, keeping it dry and preventing it from spoiling - this meant using a tractor. I've done it a few times before so this was no problems, and me and the boss, Thea, settled down into a pretty good rhythm with her going off to work each day and me messing about with the tractors and the hay.
The locals are still talking about it...
Remember I wanted to work with animals? Should have been careful what I wished for.
Thea had four highland cows; two calves and their mothers and I had to go and fetch a trailer out of their pen. Sadly I forgot the part about closing the gate after me and 15 minutes later found all four happily eating grass next to the road.
Now at this point it's not a big deal. They're right next to their field, right? Easy to scare them back into the pen. Apparently cows don't think like me because they bolted off down the road. I'm now slightly concerned, so I jump the fence, circle around in front of them and scare them back the other way. Cows completely ignore the gate and go down the road the other direction. Directly into the hay field. Holy crap.
There is a years worth of hay in this field but something tells me the cows aren't going to ration it out. There's only one entry to this field over a bridge. If I go in that way they'll just run in further and then I'm screwed. So I bite the bullet, wade through the river, jump another fence and manage to scare the cows out again. By now the poor things are pretty scared of this mad creature swearing in a strange accent and take off at full speed down the road.
This is not going well. I do the obvious thing and close all the gates and then sit down for a think. Finally I get my brains in order, fetch the feed bowls and lure the cows back into their pen. Feeling rather smug, I jumped back in the tractor, drove back onto the field and forgot to raise the forks, leaving two massive scrape marks along the road. Further swearing ensured.
After that everything went pretty well at Stonefield farm. We got the hay in alright, met a few locals and generally had a good country rest. And then on the last day, as a parting goodbye, I put the tractor into a ditch.
Thea had warned me about this ditch, so happily she had gone to work for the day and didn't get a chance to pull my ear off. So how do you remove a 4 tonne tractor from a ditch? It says something about how agitated I was that I attempted to tow it out with another tractor and a rope for a while before realising that the only thing that was going to happen here was the rope was going to snap and kill me. Eventually I managed to get it out by shoving half a tree into the ditch under the wheel and make a quiet escape.
Victory!
From the farm, I was off to visit some more relatives, in a small town nearby. It wasn't until I had been driving for about half an hour that I realised I was driving a manual car and I hadn't stalled it yet. In fact, it turns out that ever since working with tractors for a week, I am now a completely competent manual car driver! Victory is mine!
Visiting the relatives was an interesting experience. This is the branch of my Mum's family that never left Scotland, have been living in the same house ever since a distant ancestor built it with his own hands, and don't leave the local town if they can help it. I was warmly welcomed once they figured out the strange foreigner asleep in their driveway was actually a relative, and was congratulated on being 'very clannish'. Tea and a couple of biscuits later and I was headed back to Edinburgh.
Visa troubles - with the Swiss of course.
Long time readers will remember I was detained by Swiss customs when I left for Ireland, having stayed 15 days too long in mainland Europe. My confusion about what exactly was going on was not helped by them sending me a letter explaining everything to my home address in Australia. And just to make sure everything was absolutely clear, the letter was in German.
Dad received the letter and had a German-speaking friend translate it, just in time to find out I was two weeks late to respond to their final deadline for an appeal.
Finally after a dozen emails to government departments and embassies we figured it all out:
I am officially banned in Switzerland! My first criminal record! Woohoo!
Until I pay a fine of about $500 AUS I am down as a foreigner with a criminal record in Switzerland. I cleverly got around this challenge by going to Austria instead.
Unfortunately it also turned out I had to wait another week before I was allowed back onto mainland Europe. But I'd had enough of Edinburgh so decided to go anyway.
Vienna
I've been meaning to go to Austria ever since I met a bunch of Austrian Scouts all the way back in May in a German castle. How I ended up in that castle I'm still not entirely sure, but it ended with me getting an offer to visit some friends in Vienna.
So now in October, I jump on a plane, somehow get through passport control without them noticing I'm technically an illegal immigrant, and arrive on Schabbi's doorstep that night.
Man I missed the continent. I didn't realise it until I came back, but there's something about being in a country that doesn't speak the same language as you that makes everything that much more exciting. Suddenly you have to pay attention to everything. Also, the Austrians know how to make bread really really well. I was a happy man.
Shabbi did a great job of showing me around the place, including taking me out to many of the 92 museums in Vienna (they have a museum for everything, including a pastry museum, toy museum, abortion and birth control museum, and a museum dedicated to a mad queen), a wedding lunch, an anti-development protest camp, and a new local film that I insisted on going to even though I had no idea what was going on.
Vienna is quite amazing for it's architecture. In addition to the beautiful style of architecture throughout the area, the city also boasts a number of WW2 air defense towers. When the government tried to demolish these massive concrete pillars after the war, the explosion required broke windows for 2 kilometers around. So they just left them there. One of them now houses an aquarium.
But by far the best thing Shabbi did for me was to sit me down and make me a list of all the eastern European countries I had to see while I was still on the continent. As far as she was concerned my original plan to go straight back to Germany was simply unacceptable. One cannot come all the way to Europe without seeing the east.
She was very persuasive.
Spontaneous communism
When I was planning my euro trip I had decided that eastern Europe would be too difficult and too dangerous to tackle on my own when all I spoke was english. Turns out I was misinformed.
My quick tour through four countries over the iron curtain showed me some of the most culturally intense, affordable, friendly and best serviced locations in Europe.
Budapest, Hungary
Budapest apparently had it pretty easy during communist rule, compared to the other satellite states. This might be the reason it's the only ex-communist state that kept all the propaganda statues and put them into a cool little park. Pretty awesome to wander among the relics and get a couple of photos with Stalin. I seem to be putting together a few 'I love communism' photos on this trip. No doubt the CIA is collecting a file as we speak. Hell I could have added them to this email list by now for all I know.
Having had such a good time in France I figured I'd give this farming caper a shot in Scotland as well. And for some reason I had a hankering to work with animals. Odd that.
So I applied online and got a positive response for a cattle farm at a little town called Dunoon, north of Glasgow. So far, so good. What I didn't plan on was getting a call asking if I could get there 2 days early? Eager to please as always, I figured I'd hire a car and head out there that very night.
Guess what sort of car was available? I nearly cried.
Of all the things I recommend you DO NOT DO in Glasgow, stalling a manual car five times in a row on a freeway on-ramp is probably number one.
An hour later, I'm out in the country and mercifully away from very angry Glasweigans. Time to check some directions, so I pull over off the side of the road, check my place on the map and go to reverse back onto the road. Pretty easy right? Except I can't find reverse. It's right there on the gear stick, but despite nearly snapping the thing in half I can't get it into gear. This is embarrassing. Faced with the option of flagging down a car, I find myself pushing the car by hand back onto the road. As if this wasn't bad enough, the mountains around here mean all I pick up is BBC 4's radio theater of Shakespeare's 'Edward II', who chooses this precise moment to be executed by having a red-hot poker stuck up his arse, scaring the absolute buggery out of my (excuse the pun).
Finally I limp into town, find the farm, and get a few hours of sleep in before an early start with the chickens. Hooray.
The urgent rush for me to get out to the farm was so I could turn the hay over, keeping it dry and preventing it from spoiling - this meant using a tractor. I've done it a few times before so this was no problems, and me and the boss, Thea, settled down into a pretty good rhythm with her going off to work each day and me messing about with the tractors and the hay.
The locals are still talking about it...
Remember I wanted to work with animals? Should have been careful what I wished for.
Thea had four highland cows; two calves and their mothers and I had to go and fetch a trailer out of their pen. Sadly I forgot the part about closing the gate after me and 15 minutes later found all four happily eating grass next to the road.
Now at this point it's not a big deal. They're right next to their field, right? Easy to scare them back into the pen. Apparently cows don't think like me because they bolted off down the road. I'm now slightly concerned, so I jump the fence, circle around in front of them and scare them back the other way. Cows completely ignore the gate and go down the road the other direction. Directly into the hay field. Holy crap.
There is a years worth of hay in this field but something tells me the cows aren't going to ration it out. There's only one entry to this field over a bridge. If I go in that way they'll just run in further and then I'm screwed. So I bite the bullet, wade through the river, jump another fence and manage to scare the cows out again. By now the poor things are pretty scared of this mad creature swearing in a strange accent and take off at full speed down the road.
This is not going well. I do the obvious thing and close all the gates and then sit down for a think. Finally I get my brains in order, fetch the feed bowls and lure the cows back into their pen. Feeling rather smug, I jumped back in the tractor, drove back onto the field and forgot to raise the forks, leaving two massive scrape marks along the road. Further swearing ensured.
After that everything went pretty well at Stonefield farm. We got the hay in alright, met a few locals and generally had a good country rest. And then on the last day, as a parting goodbye, I put the tractor into a ditch.
Thea had warned me about this ditch, so happily she had gone to work for the day and didn't get a chance to pull my ear off. So how do you remove a 4 tonne tractor from a ditch? It says something about how agitated I was that I attempted to tow it out with another tractor and a rope for a while before realising that the only thing that was going to happen here was the rope was going to snap and kill me. Eventually I managed to get it out by shoving half a tree into the ditch under the wheel and make a quiet escape.
Victory!
From the farm, I was off to visit some more relatives, in a small town nearby. It wasn't until I had been driving for about half an hour that I realised I was driving a manual car and I hadn't stalled it yet. In fact, it turns out that ever since working with tractors for a week, I am now a completely competent manual car driver! Victory is mine!
Visiting the relatives was an interesting experience. This is the branch of my Mum's family that never left Scotland, have been living in the same house ever since a distant ancestor built it with his own hands, and don't leave the local town if they can help it. I was warmly welcomed once they figured out the strange foreigner asleep in their driveway was actually a relative, and was congratulated on being 'very clannish'. Tea and a couple of biscuits later and I was headed back to Edinburgh.
Visa troubles - with the Swiss of course.
Long time readers will remember I was detained by Swiss customs when I left for Ireland, having stayed 15 days too long in mainland Europe. My confusion about what exactly was going on was not helped by them sending me a letter explaining everything to my home address in Australia. And just to make sure everything was absolutely clear, the letter was in German.
Dad received the letter and had a German-speaking friend translate it, just in time to find out I was two weeks late to respond to their final deadline for an appeal.
Finally after a dozen emails to government departments and embassies we figured it all out:
I am officially banned in Switzerland! My first criminal record! Woohoo!
Until I pay a fine of about $500 AUS I am down as a foreigner with a criminal record in Switzerland. I cleverly got around this challenge by going to Austria instead.
Unfortunately it also turned out I had to wait another week before I was allowed back onto mainland Europe. But I'd had enough of Edinburgh so decided to go anyway.
Vienna
I've been meaning to go to Austria ever since I met a bunch of Austrian Scouts all the way back in May in a German castle. How I ended up in that castle I'm still not entirely sure, but it ended with me getting an offer to visit some friends in Vienna.
So now in October, I jump on a plane, somehow get through passport control without them noticing I'm technically an illegal immigrant, and arrive on Schabbi's doorstep that night.
Man I missed the continent. I didn't realise it until I came back, but there's something about being in a country that doesn't speak the same language as you that makes everything that much more exciting. Suddenly you have to pay attention to everything. Also, the Austrians know how to make bread really really well. I was a happy man.
Shabbi did a great job of showing me around the place, including taking me out to many of the 92 museums in Vienna (they have a museum for everything, including a pastry museum, toy museum, abortion and birth control museum, and a museum dedicated to a mad queen), a wedding lunch, an anti-development protest camp, and a new local film that I insisted on going to even though I had no idea what was going on.
Vienna is quite amazing for it's architecture. In addition to the beautiful style of architecture throughout the area, the city also boasts a number of WW2 air defense towers. When the government tried to demolish these massive concrete pillars after the war, the explosion required broke windows for 2 kilometers around. So they just left them there. One of them now houses an aquarium.
But by far the best thing Shabbi did for me was to sit me down and make me a list of all the eastern European countries I had to see while I was still on the continent. As far as she was concerned my original plan to go straight back to Germany was simply unacceptable. One cannot come all the way to Europe without seeing the east.
She was very persuasive.
Spontaneous communism
When I was planning my euro trip I had decided that eastern Europe would be too difficult and too dangerous to tackle on my own when all I spoke was english. Turns out I was misinformed.
My quick tour through four countries over the iron curtain showed me some of the most culturally intense, affordable, friendly and best serviced locations in Europe.
Budapest, Hungary
Budapest apparently had it pretty easy during communist rule, compared to the other satellite states. This might be the reason it's the only ex-communist state that kept all the propaganda statues and put them into a cool little park. Pretty awesome to wander among the relics and get a couple of photos with Stalin. I seem to be putting together a few 'I love communism' photos on this trip. No doubt the CIA is collecting a file as we speak. Hell I could have added them to this email list by now for all I know.
The best sight in Budapest? The inside of the world-famous Turkish Baths. Nothing like a nice soak in a thermal pool after walking around all day in 32 degrees. Spectacular.
And I went to the opera. It wasn't really on my program, but one of the girls at the hostel, Una, walked into the common room in a cocktail dress and I ended up getting an invitation. Just as well I brought my suit! A lovely night all round. I feel cultured.
Ljubljana, Slovenia
If you can find this place on a map I'll give you a coconut. I had no idea where it was, but since this is where one of my Austrian friends has recently moved, off I went. As it turns out, this is one funky little town, featuring one of the most amazing nightspots I've seen on the whole trip.
Tobi picked me up from the hostel and took me out to Metelkova. The best way to describe this for people who have followed these Episodes from the really early days, is it's a small version of Christiania in Denmark. If you don't know Christiania, think massive hippy town.
Metelkova has five complete music halls, two art galleries and one hell of a lot of marijuana. I didn't touch it, but as usual, I didn't need to. I am to marijuana smoke what a 12 year old is to caffeine. So the night was pretty great!
Metelkova has five complete music halls, two art galleries and one hell of a lot of marijuana. I didn't touch it, but as usual, I didn't need to. I am to marijuana smoke what a 12 year old is to caffeine. So the night was pretty great!
The next day me and Tobi were both feeling pretty average, so we went to the market for brunch. If someone had told me at the start of the trip I would find myself half-stoned, hungover and eating a horse burger in 10 months, I would have been rather skeptical. I also would have been wrong. Horse is a kinda greasy combination of beef and pork - not the greatest decision I've made recently.
So fueled by horse and a strong aversion to daylight, we decided to check out the castle up on the hill. The front door was far too obvious so we decided to check out a small garden in the moat and were surprised to find a door down there. We were even more surprised to find it lead through to the basement, that the basement had a staircase, and that the staircase led all the way to the function room on the roof.
So after hanging around on the roof for 15 minutes or so, we strolled out through the 5 star restaurant into the castle and had a look around. And then we noticed everyone was very well dressed. Too well dressed you might say. And why is that woman wearing so much white? Oh crap.
Yeah we wandered straight through a wedding reception. Happily no one noticed us and we were too out of it to realise what was going on until we had left, so no harm done, except a bit of anxiety for me and Tobi.
Krakow, Poland
Slovenia to Poland is not a short train trip, so when I arrived at Krakow at 5am I was happy to find a bed all ready for me at the hostel. And this place was great - not only was it practically empty, had a great breakfast included, plus free internet, and the staff were the friendliest I've met on this trip. They not only answered every question I had, but shared vodka with me and took me out on the town, ironically to another get-to-know-you party for new university students. As we stumbled back to the hostel I mentioned it was getting pretty cold considering it had been 32 degrees in Hungary only a few days ago. One of the staff joked that if I was lucky I might even see snow.
Sure enough, the next morning it was snowing. And happily, all my pants were in the wash, meaning I got the unique experience of having an entire Polish town stare at me as I wandered around in shorts all day. Since most Polish women seem to do the same thing wearing tights, I found this a little surprising. Apparently my legs weren't quite up to Polish standards, which I must admit, are very high.
Given Poland's unhappy history under the Nazi's and then the Communists, there's plenty of history here, including a guided tour of the only purpose designed communist city, including a tank. And I also had the privilege of visiting Auschwitz. No need to go into details, but you can still smell something burning at that site. We should all visit a place like this once, just so we know what life can really be like.
Brno, Czech Republic
Kati is another friend I met in that German castle who I had seen again in Vienna. She invited me to come and visit her for her Dad's birthday party. Who could say no?
I knew I'd made a good decision when I was ushered to the dinner table as soon as I walked in through the front door and delivered a massive bowl of beef stew. What with horse-burgers and all I hadn't been doing too well as a vegetarian, so I figured I didn't have much to lose. It's just as well I took that attitude too because I have never eaten so much meat in one day before as I did here.
Kati is a pretty crazy girl, and when her family got together to party I could see it was a bit of a family trait. The night started with vodka, continued with 3 courses of meat, and finished with a lot of beer and dancing, featuring one of the best blues bands I've ever seen, fronted by a white Czech guy who sounded uncannily like a black version of Elvis. Yeah it was weird, but good!
We wound up back at Kati's parent's place where the family had all come to stay for the party and had a good chat. Apparently all that meat after so long as a mainly-vegetarian did something to me because I decided to take advantage of all this incredible hospitality by sleep-walking!
The first thing I knew about it, I was standing upright (thankfully still clothed) in someone else's bedroom, facing the wall behind the door, with someone telling me to "Get out!". Aparently I had been there for a while too, because when we discussed it all the next morning I was already there when the couple woke up. If anyone elseout there knows of me sleepwalking please let me know. This is freaking me out!
Prague, Czech Republic
Hmm, Prague. What to say about this conundrum of a place? On the one hand you have the castle, incredible buildings and bridges and probably the largest number of galleries I've ever seen in one street. And on the other hand you have the place where I was offered more drugs than I would have believed possible.
You're dancing away in a nightclub (and eastern Europe has some pretty good ones) and a lovely lady comes over your way. Things are looking good and then she asks you, totally openly:
"Would you like to buy me some toilet powder?"
Um. What?
When I eventually figured out she was talking about cocain I decided it was home time. In the 4 days I was there I was offered pretty much everything there was to offer, which went a long way to explaining why everyone danced so strangely.
Beyond this the place is remarkable and well worth a look. During the communist era they had a world's largest statue of Stalin on the hill. When they pulled this down, they needed a replacement that was refined, exciting and symbolic of the city. So they went with the giant metronome.
This thing is hilarious. I could watch the damn thing all day if it wasn't so cold. And it was cold. After that nice kick of summer in Budapest, winter was getting some revenge.
All in all eastern Europe is brilliant. I'll have to come back again for longer next time, and the best part is, you can afford it! This one month, including flights, cost me less than a month in the uk.
Back on the boarderline - Berlin and Dusseldorf
So after this delightful unplanned tour of eastern Europe, I was back in Berlin to visit some friends and to see a bit more of one of the most interesting cities in Europe. This was my third time in Berlin, at three different times of year and it's right what they say; it's amazing how quickly it changes.
Unfortunately most of the guys I met my first time in Berlin back in April weren't in town, but Sandra had me around for dinner, a catch-up and a poker tournament. It was great to see her again, even if it did involve losing all my money to her.
It was a good time to be in Berlin in any case and I managed to catch some of the special celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. Quite a monumental occasion.
My final stop for Germany and the continent was Dusseldorf. As always Wiebke was great fun and since I had plenty of time on my hands (not having to rush to Malta this time) she showed me around the sights properly this time.
It turns out Dusseldorf has a beach! Despite the fact it doesn't have a coastline, those industrious Germans have built a beach on the river bank. On the one side you have a great view of barges going past, on the other a series of factories, and then there's the added bonus that if you go more than 5 meters into the water you will inevitably drown in the powerful current. A fun day for all the family!
The Media quarter on the other hand is far more impressive, as were the many cafe and micro-breweries around town. All in all it was a great way to end my stay.
Next stop, England. A only slightly delayed by 7 months or so.
Photos and videos
I've finally got my act together - all the photos are now up to date. Check them out. What cheer!
Gordon
The Palunawack Tours - Episode 12: Ireland and why my liver hates me
I promised it, you get it. And it’s a short one too!
Ski week 6 revival
I had been looking forward to the Ireland leg of the trip ever since February ,when a group of Irish stayed at the ski resort and crashed a staff party. The results were hilarious. It was with these same guys I was staying and I had been told preparations had been in the making for me for months.
The fact that my birthday was in the same period and my parents were making a trip across to see me definitely added to my anticipation.
Health freak
Having just spent a week hiking around Corsica and another week climbing peaks in Switzerland, the day I landed at Dublin airport I was probably the fittest I have been for the entire trip so far. I felt limber, fresh and healthy. Ireland managed to beat this out of me within 24 hours.
10:00am - Landed at Dublin airport and caught bus to meet mates
12:00pm - Met mates and made our way to Slowey’s holiday house
12.30pm - Had my first Guiness in Ireland
1.30pm - Had my first whisky in Ireland
2pm - Drunk for the first time in Ireland
3pm - I’m somehow convinced to go swimming in the Irish Sea. Bloody freezing.
8pm - We are in the local pub and I’m attempting to speak Gaelic to the waitress.
10pm - I’m put to bed by the guys because I’m falling asleep on the table.
11pm - Woken up by Richard banging two woks together 3 inches from my head and towed back to the pub. Still drunk.
1-2am - Wrestling competition back at the house for reasons no one can recall
3am - Put back to bed after being found comatose on the couch.
8.30am - Woken by a phone call from Mum
3pm - I’m somehow convinced to go swimming in the Irish Sea. Bloody freezing.
8pm - We are in the local pub and I’m attempting to speak Gaelic to the waitress.
10pm - I’m put to bed by the guys because I’m falling asleep on the table.
11pm - Woken up by Richard banging two woks together 3 inches from my head and towed back to the pub. Still drunk.
1-2am - Wrestling competition back at the house for reasons no one can recall
3am - Put back to bed after being found comatose on the couch.
8.30am - Woken by a phone call from Mum
8.30am and 15 seconds - Hangover kicks in. Continues for next 8 hours.
Now I love my parents, but being woken up after a big night of drinking by a phone call from your mother goes down as the second worst way of waking up of all time. Especially when you simultaneously discover that Guiness doesn’t so much give you a hangover as much as it simply shuts down your entire digestive system for two days. Not a pleasant experience.
Sacrificed to the fertility goddess
The second night in Ireland I spent with Richard at his parent’s holiday home in a caravan park by the coast. As it turned out there was a bit of a party going on that night for the residents of the park, so I tagged along. I met Richard’s folks and a few neighbours. And then I met Rosy. Rosy is somewhat of a local character in the park: built like a pagan fertility goddess, she has a similar attitude to one (use your imagination), and I was warned that if she found out I was Australian she would be all over me.
They weren’t kidding. I eventually met Rosy, who immediately took a shining to me in a rather terrifyingly persistent way. At one point during the party a live band was doing some pretty good tunes. I was hanging back with Richard and a couple of other guys when Rosy comes over, plants herself in front of us and announces “I need a dancer”.
Richard and his mates look at each other. They look at me. As one man they grab my arms, take my drink and throw me to the wolves.
Dancing with Rosy was an art-form of evasion. On the one hand you have to keep a pretense of dancing with her and not running away, while simultaneously avoiding roving hands, knees and feet at all times, and occasionally taking a moment to give Richard the finger across the room. I eventually made it through the song, relatively unmolested and beat a hasty retreat back to my beer and safety.
Surf’s up!
I am still not sure how he did it, but somehow Richard managed to convince us to go swimming in the Irish Sea for a second time. The boy is certainly persuasive. The water was absolutely freezing and I expected to last for no more than 2-3 minutes. And then we saw the board…
There are surf lifesavers on Irish beaches. This is a ridiculous concept of itself since anyone stupid enough to go into water that cold (and this is in summer) is obviously way beyond human help. But these lifesavers have the tools of the trade with them and that includes the long foam board used to ferry people back to land.
Now I’d never tried surfing with one of these things before, but after missing summer back home I was willing to give it a shot. I jogged up to them and asked if I could borrow the board. I was expecting a flat out 'no', but I had forgotten something - between the tan I picked up in Italy and the long hair I'm sporting these days, I'm now something of a stereotype in Europe: the 'Australian surfer dude'. So when I came up to these lifesavers and asked to borrow their board, they stared at me in this kind of reverent awe and all but laid the thing at my feet.
If only I could live up to the stereotype. Let's be clear here, I cannot surf. I can boogy-board, body-board and swim, but I am yet to even be able to stand up on a surfboard for more than 20 seconds. So me and Richard spent the next hour nose diving into the surf, which the lifesavers found pretty hilarious. Especially when the board shoots 4 meters out the back of the wave.
Car troubles
I was offered a lift back to Dublin by a mate of Richard's that night. I'm still not sure why I took it but it turned out to be a fairly poor decision. About 15 minutes down the freeway the car suddenly started making very strange noises. Very bad noises. Acting prudently, the driver decided to pull over and re-start. Except the car wasn't having any of that and refused to kick over. So we attempted a running start.
Now at this point I had yet to accept the fact that summer in Ireland is wet and cold, and was still wearing sandals around the place in a desperate bid to convince myself I was still in Italian weather. And on this particular car trip, I wasn't even wearing the sandals.
So here I find myself pushing a car down the freeway, in the rain, in the dark, in bare feet. The car get rolling but still won't start, but instead of stopping at this point, the driver decides to let it keep rolling with us chasing the bloody thing down the road. In bare feet.
And then I dropped my camera right in front of a truck. Happily it missed the poor thing but the impact and the wet probably wasn't good for it...
Eventually we got the thing off the road and they called some friends out, who actually got it running again, but with a catch: as soon as the revs drop the car will die. So we find ourselves with the driver being told "just keep your foot on the accelerator at all times! If you need to stop, use the clutch". And then the cabin started filling with smoke...
We caught a cab.
Your attitude!
After the first weekend I ended up spending the rest of my two weeks in Dublin at Richard’s place in the suburbs. This was a good base to see the city while not actually being in it and we ended up playing basketball with the locals on the nearby nets, by the primary school. In between games we messed around a bit and one of the guys climbed up on top of the ring at one point. And then we spotted the guy with the camera-phone.
This fella was walking up to the courts, holding up the camera like some sort of liberty torch. Naturally we all stopped to watch this odd behaviour and he pipes up with “This video is for the police! You are all trespassing on private property! You have 5 seconds to leave before I call the Guardia and have you all arrested!”
I’m pretty sure we would have complied if he hadn’t stuck his fingers up in the air and started ticking them off. But instead our little righteous citizen found himself in the middle of a group of thirty 15-25 year olds asking what his problem was. If there’s one thing that really stands out about the Irish attitude to life, it’s a complete intolerance of bullsh*t.
As it turns out, our man was the principal of the primary school next door, to whom the basket ball courts actually belong, which sort of explains his approach to the situation. At one point, when asked whether it was just the kid standing on the ring that was the problem, his reply was “No, there’s a second problem. Your attitude!”. At this point we gave up and went back to the game. We knew he would probably call the cops, but knew equally well they would care about the ‘offense’ about as much as we did.
Sure enough, about 45 minutes later the Guardia car rolls up. The Guardia are Ireland’s police force, and by all accounts, you’d be hard pressed to find a more relaxed police force anywhere in the world. These officers actually had a laugh with us about the situation and nearly apologised for having to kick us off the court.
Blue lights and cross dressing
The Blue Light is an awesome little pub up in the hill above Dublin where you can listen to some traditional Irish music, have a chat with some locals, and get prodigiously drunk on Guiness. It was my first time at this lovely little pub and after a night of pretty good fun and successfully avoiding my mate's attempts to get me to "sing us something Australian!" on the stage, we decided to continue the party at Richard's place.
Now to this day we're not entirely sure what Richard was thinking when he decided to give Slowey and the rest of the guys his keys and for me and him catch the second taxi. And it took Slowey about 15 seconds to come up with a plan to abuse this situation.
It was just a matter of luck that Richard's sister was sleeping in her parent's room that night because the plan was for me and Richard to be welcomed home by the guys, all of them wearing his Mum's dresses. Lucky for them that is, because the dresses would have been given quite a stretch and Richard's Mum would have slaughtered them...
So, robbed of their original scheme they decided on the more subtle idea of turning every painting, photo wall hanging in the house upside down. It took Richard about 2 days to find and fix everything after that. He had his revenge though. I now have a great photo of the moment Richard burst into the shed where we were carrying on from the Blue Light, wielding a chainsaw and screaming his head off. So needless to say, these boys know how to party.
More electronic casualties
The only real victim of the entire night turned out to be my camera. It still took pictures but the screen no longer worked, so since then I have a months worth of pictures that were pretty much guess work - should be interesting! But despite my best efforts of dismantling the poor thing and electrocuting myself twice in the process, the camera eventually packed up and died completely. After the amount of punishment the poor thing suffered at my hands, I'm very impressed it survived as long as it did. RIP little camera...
March of the Orange Men
Richard has the rare but extremely annoying quality that he doesn't get hangovers. So the morning after the Blue Light, he dragged me out of the house to go hiking up a beautiful spot in Northern Ireland. Now I know about the Troubles and the ongoing Irish-English dislike, but I never realised it was still a very current thing. Driving up through the north and seeing the Union Jack up everywhere was quite a surprise, as was the footpath being painted red, white and blue. This was an unpleasant surprise for me, especially since many of the songs I'd heard the night before were IRA protest anthems which I now could not get out of my head and had the urge to hum aloud...
The walk itself was lovely - the Irish countryside is very different to anything I've seen in Australia, though the Bogong High Plains come close for those who know what I'm talking about. The heather on the hills, rocky landscape and waterfalls everywhere made for a scene you often read about but rarely see. But on the way back down the mountain we ran into an Orange March.
One of the fellas walking with us was a rather political person, and while not in favour of the IRA, felt very strongly about Irish independence - a good fella to wind up for some fun. Now he was already a little on edge being up here in the north, so running into the Orange Men, the pro-British faction in Northern Ireland, putting on a festival to celebrate an old English protestant victory against the Irish catholics, was not exactly good timing.
And when one of the old guys at the entrance to the festival told us "Ye lads can walk", we beat a hasty retreat before things got out of hand.
Unbelievable irony
So there was a party. Someone had a bit of a birthday and it was all good fun. And one of the guys there had brough along a bit of a party trick: a glass that looks like it's full of orange liquid, but when you suddenly tip it on someone - wow! it's all in the rim of the glass and no on gets wet! What fun!
Well it would have been all fun if someone hadn't been mixing their drink with Fanta that night.
We were playing cards, I lost a hand and thought I'd have some fun and, you guessed it, use the joke glass on the guy who brought it. Only I got the wrong glass...
I've thought about this and I cannot conceive of a more ironic situation: getting covered in orange drink because some idiot mixed it up with the joke glass you brought with you.
Needless to say the guy was pretty pissed off. Unfortunately I couldn't stop laughing, which kind of undermined the whole outrage angle he was going for. There is something about watching a guy dry out his pants with a hair drier that just makes it very hard not to laugh.
Birthday with the family
My parents had been talking for quite a while about visiting me during my trip, and we eventually settled on Ireland for my birthday on the 15th August. So they flew in and we had a pretty great reunion in Dublin, a nice family dinner and I introduced them to Richard and his family.
But as good as it was to see the folks again, I was a little nervous about them being there for my birthday - you see I'd already told the Irish lads about my birthday and they were planning a big night back at the Blue Light. My parents have seen me prodigiously drunk before and it's not a situation I really wanted to repeat, but being in Ireland, I wasn't really going to get much choice.
Looking back through the photos my Mum took is pretty much the only record I have of the night. A combination of Guiness (including one which Richard forced me to scull), whisky and being assaulted with masking-tape mean I remember very very little of what actually happened that night. Here are some highlights we've since pieced together:
- Falling off the bar stool and taking out the musician. To his credit he kept right on playing with me at his feet, tangled in his electrical cords.
- Dipping my nose in my Guiness like in the add. Unfortunately I followed through with most of my forehead as well.
- Bouncing around like pinball in the boot of some guy's truck because we couldn't find a taxi and the guy drove like a maniac. I had bruises the next morning...
- Dozing off on a couch and waking to find my legs being masking-taped together by Richard and friends.
- Biting off parts of Richard's hair in a desperate, but successful, attempt to get free.
- Suddenly realising about 30 minutes later I had a kettle taped to my left leg and couldn't be bothered getting it off
- Being found by Richard, passed out, face down in a near-by playground, still with the kettle taped to my leg
If I've learned anything from the experience it is this; no matter what, my parents will always be my parents, and while that includes looking after me and offering me sympathy, it also comes with the impulsive need for them to make comments along the lines of; "I think you drunk a bit too much last night, don't you think Gordon?" and "You know you don't have to drink if you don't want to" and other equally frustratingly true comments, all of which are the last thing a half-dead, hungover man-child wants to be hearing at 9am in the morning. I find it equally hard to deal with when I know for a fact that there are stories out there about both my darling parents that completely overshadow any of my antics. And one day I'm going to find out exactly what they are...
Gaelic tours
Hangovers aside, the trip I took with the family around the south and then the north of Ireland was brilliant, with some of the most dramatic cliffs and hills you're likely to see, especially along he western coast. As anyone ho knows the family could probably guess, it was almost inevitable that we ended up climbing the highest mountain in Ireland while we were there. Generally the mountains in Ireland are pretty easy going - gentle curves, not too many cliffs and virtually no vegetation to get in the way. Carrantuohill on the other hand required us to climb up a waterfall.
The only thing that really prevents Ireland from being a number 1 tourist destination is the weather; I have seen more rain in one day during an Irish summer than the last three winters in Melbourne combined. Literally. So naturally, going up this mountain didn't really give us much in the way of views, though since I've managed to leave my raincoat in Sweden, it nearly gave me a dose of hypotermia.
The only real other challenges we had on our tours around were driving related. For the most part the signage in Ireland is fine, but in remote areas, they make a point of only speaking Gaelic. And since our road map was only in english, we promptly got lost. Speaking to the local around there wasn't that helpful either - evenb if they understood us, we sure didn't understand them. But eventually, thanks to plenty of hand gestures we got back to Dublin, though I made some pretty good attempts to prevent that.
Manual cars are bloody stupid and should be banned
Or so I was heard to say frequently as poor Mum attempted to teach me how to drive one. Between my inability to get into first gear and my stunning timing when it came to stalling in only the busiest of intersections, I nearly had Mum in dispair. If the gearbox on that rental car lasts for more than another couple of months after what I was doing to it, I'll be very surprised.
Seriously though - automatic transmissions were invented for a reason and you can go on about 'more control', and 'marginally better fuel economy' for as long as you like, the fact is that stuffing around with this ridiculous stick mechanism when a machine can do it better and with a hell of a lot less fuss, is absolutely moronic. Just because I can wash my clothes by hand doesn't make it a good idea!
Right, that's my bit said. Let it be a lesson toall you car manufacturers out there!
The Pink Pub and off the Scotland
Gettin back to Edinburgh was pretty good and catching up with Richard and the lads a good laugh, especially when they took me down to their local for a goodbye drink. Now this pub has a name, but I will forever remember it as The Pink Pub. Someone at some point has got it into their heads that "What this pub really needs is to be painted entirely pink. Yeah, that'll look masculine and pull in all the locals!". Well they must have been right because it's a pretty lively place to drop in and watch the game.
I also got introduced to hot whisky that night. I don't get along with whisky ever since an unfortunate incident during schoolies, but this stuff, lightly spiced with nutmeg orsomething, was actually pretty good! Strongly recommend.
And then the next morning we were on a ferry and shipping over to Scotland, another place of my ancestry and a location I had been looking forward to for quite some time.
That's where I am now and that's where I'm leaving you. So until next time people, stay happy, stay healthy, reply to this email and go and see my brother in 'Small Talk' at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
More photos and videos up soon, as soon as I get a new camera...
What cheer!
Gordon
The Palunawack Tours - Episode 11: Boats, bushfires and hiding under bushes.
In the last Episode of The Palunawack Tours...
Swedish highschool students, romps through Venice and 3 mad weeks in Malta. And I though things couldn't get any more crazy.
As always, the email is long. I haven't even written it yet and I know it's going to be long. So some...
Housekeeping! (woohoo...)
Miss you all! Thanks for the ongoing replies, it's good to hear all the day to day happenings around the world.
Photos and videos are woefully behind (due to reasons I'll explain shortly) but will go up soon. There's some good one coming, trust me. David Hasslehoff and George Cloony feature as special guests.
More shameless selling out!
Anyone is into the Fringe Festival? My brother Matt the thespian, as see winning $20,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire recently, is staging a play he has written. It's called Small Talk and runs from 25th September - check out the invite at the end of the email and go and get some culture!
And now, our feature presentation...
Farewell Malta, hello Italy
So I'm on the train in Sicily, heading north up Italy having just finished 3 weeks in Malta. I like trains, they give you time to relax and reflect on the fact you have no idea where you're going.
After 3 weeks on Malta I'd lost the traveling edge - being able to plan, book and travel with ease between locations was no longer second nature and I was anxious. So when it came to planning where to go next I more or less went with the prettiest picture I'd seen of Italy - and found myself headed for Amalfi.
6 hours later and a hellish night train experience later (the next strange Italian grandfather who ruffles my hair is getting a black eye) I found myself gawping out the window of the ferry along the coast to Amalfi. Describing this place is difficult: Imagine cliffs up to 500m high falling directly into the ocean. Gouge out some extremely tight valleys into these cliffs, wedge tiny townships into them and a couple more on the peaks, and that's Amalfi. Absolutely stunning.
Unfortunately these vistas come at a price; extremely narrow and steep roads. And when your suitcase weighs 25kg and there's no footpath, dodging buses is no longer a creative description. If the buses didn't honk before taking each corner I'd have had a very short tour of the cliffs, followed by an intimate introduction to the Mediterranean.
After checking into the hostel I was told I could get free internet and good deals from the cafe down by the beach. I should have realised the second an Italian mentioned a "Good deal, he look after you!" what I was in for. Sure enough...
"Hey my friend, you new here? you look new here, you eat here I look after you, you travel alone? no girl? I know plenty of girls. Where you from, you Australian? I know good Australian girls, you come visit me tonight yes? Good good, I be seeing you my friend!"
Being hustled by an Italian is disturbingly like being interrogated. You don't answer, they just keep talking until they get all the facts right. So shaken was I by this bombardment that it took me even longer than my standard 30 minutes to realise I'd been offered a prostitute, again. Apparently travel has cultivated me an aura of desperation.
That night found me in the next town over looking for some dinner as far away as possible from my 'good friend' and taking in the sights. Here I learned two very important facts about Amalfi. One: the food is extremely good. Two: there is a cover charge at the restaurants.
So I sit down with 14 Euro in my pocket. I order 13 Euro of food, just to be safe.
The bill arrives.
16 Euro.
Uh oh.
I have no card on me and the rest of my cash is a 15 minute walk away. The english here isn't that great and I don't like my odds of explaining the situation to the waiter, who looked pissed off enough just having me eat there.
Bugger.
So what was my responsible and culturally aware solution to this dillema?
Run away. Carefully placed my 14 Euro in the dish, got up, walked to the nearest alley and ran for my freakin' life.
Swedish highschool students, romps through Venice and 3 mad weeks in Malta. And I though things couldn't get any more crazy.
As always, the email is long. I haven't even written it yet and I know it's going to be long. So some...
Housekeeping! (woohoo...)
Miss you all! Thanks for the ongoing replies, it's good to hear all the day to day happenings around the world.
Photos and videos are woefully behind (due to reasons I'll explain shortly) but will go up soon. There's some good one coming, trust me. David Hasslehoff and George Cloony feature as special guests.
More shameless selling out!
Anyone is into the Fringe Festival? My brother Matt the thespian, as see winning $20,000 on Who Wants to be a Millionaire recently, is staging a play he has written. It's called Small Talk and runs from 25th September - check out the invite at the end of the email and go and get some culture!
And now, our feature presentation...
Farewell Malta, hello Italy
So I'm on the train in Sicily, heading north up Italy having just finished 3 weeks in Malta. I like trains, they give you time to relax and reflect on the fact you have no idea where you're going.
After 3 weeks on Malta I'd lost the traveling edge - being able to plan, book and travel with ease between locations was no longer second nature and I was anxious. So when it came to planning where to go next I more or less went with the prettiest picture I'd seen of Italy - and found myself headed for Amalfi.
6 hours later and a hellish night train experience later (the next strange Italian grandfather who ruffles my hair is getting a black eye) I found myself gawping out the window of the ferry along the coast to Amalfi. Describing this place is difficult: Imagine cliffs up to 500m high falling directly into the ocean. Gouge out some extremely tight valleys into these cliffs, wedge tiny townships into them and a couple more on the peaks, and that's Amalfi. Absolutely stunning.
Unfortunately these vistas come at a price; extremely narrow and steep roads. And when your suitcase weighs 25kg and there's no footpath, dodging buses is no longer a creative description. If the buses didn't honk before taking each corner I'd have had a very short tour of the cliffs, followed by an intimate introduction to the Mediterranean.
After checking into the hostel I was told I could get free internet and good deals from the cafe down by the beach. I should have realised the second an Italian mentioned a "Good deal, he look after you!" what I was in for. Sure enough...
"Hey my friend, you new here? you look new here, you eat here I look after you, you travel alone? no girl? I know plenty of girls. Where you from, you Australian? I know good Australian girls, you come visit me tonight yes? Good good, I be seeing you my friend!"
Being hustled by an Italian is disturbingly like being interrogated. You don't answer, they just keep talking until they get all the facts right. So shaken was I by this bombardment that it took me even longer than my standard 30 minutes to realise I'd been offered a prostitute, again. Apparently travel has cultivated me an aura of desperation.
That night found me in the next town over looking for some dinner as far away as possible from my 'good friend' and taking in the sights. Here I learned two very important facts about Amalfi. One: the food is extremely good. Two: there is a cover charge at the restaurants.
So I sit down with 14 Euro in my pocket. I order 13 Euro of food, just to be safe.
The bill arrives.
16 Euro.
Uh oh.
I have no card on me and the rest of my cash is a 15 minute walk away. The english here isn't that great and I don't like my odds of explaining the situation to the waiter, who looked pissed off enough just having me eat there.
Bugger.
So what was my responsible and culturally aware solution to this dillema?
Run away. Carefully placed my 14 Euro in the dish, got up, walked to the nearest alley and ran for my freakin' life.
Breakfast at this hostel was interesting. I for one didn't know croissants came in wrappers. But it does give you a good opportunity to meet people, and me and a Canadian fella named Hart ended up hiking up one of the numerous cliff for a view. Amazingly enough we passed dozens of houses with no road access, and these steps were steep. All I can say is the people living there must have enormous calves.
One thing leads to another and me and Hart met a few more backpackers. Next thing you know, we’re on a boat.
The life aquatic
Hiring a boat is the single best idea anyone will ever have in Amalfi. Throw in a couple of bottles of red wine procured from my ‘good friend’ and you’re in for an afternoon of excellent fun. For one thing, you can drive to the caves you normally have to pay 20 euro to get into and attempt to break into them. Having dropped anchor and discovered it didn’t actually touch the bottom, we attempted to use the back entrance to The Blue Grotto – by swimming through an underwater tunnel.
4 attempts and a near-drowning later, we realized what we were doing was monumentally stupid and decided to hoon about in the boat for a while instead. And it’s just as well that the anchor chain wasn’t long enough to touch the bottom, because we forgot to pull it up. It took us a solid 15 minutes to figure out why the boat was dragging on one side…
Incompetence aside, there is no better way to appreciate Amalfi than drinking red wine in a life ring, floating in the endless blue of the Mediterranean, while pretending to be a pirate.
The Hoff gets concussion
In fact the only way to improve on the experience is to hire a BIGGER, FASTER boat the next day and pretend to be David Hasselhoff. I don’t know what red wine fuelled inspiration came to Hart, but the next thing you know he’s standing on the bow, yelling ‘I’m gonna save your life!’ at some rather bemused swimmers, before diving off the front of the boat.
Wrong angle.
So we were treated to the spectacular sight of a man doing a half cartwheel across the top of the water, before sinking quietly below the waves…
Leaving Amalfi is an adventure in itself. You can either take the boat, which is nice but pricey, or you can take the cheaper bus. I did wonder why the bus was so much cheaper. In retrospect it was probably because of the 200-400m vertical cliffs on one side of the single-lane roads they use. The buses honk before every corner. This is to prevent them knocking cars over this precipice. I am not joking about this.
45 minutes later and rather more aware of mortality, I was off to Rome.
Roma
Look, I’ll be honest; Rome was ok. When you take out all the obvious things to say about the Coliseum and Roman ruins and the Vatican, there wasn’t much more to it. Needless to say it is all well worth doing and quite surreal to see, first person. The poor buggers dressed up as Roman soldiers in the middle of summer earn their cash alright – in fact they will chase you, complete with sword, if you try and take a photo without paying.
Exodus of the street vendors
While in Rome, take the opportunity to study the herd-migrations of the street vendors. There’s nothing quite like walking up the Spanish Steps and being passed by 20-odd of these guys galloping away from the cop who has encroached on their domain. Threatened by their natural predator, the vendors will shelter their precious cargo of imitation handbags and sunglasses, secure in the knowledge that the cop sure as hell can’t be stuffed climbing all those stairs. Once the predator leaves, the vendors will cautiously drift back down to their turf and re-commence their business. This pattern in known to repeat itself every couple of hours.
Inappropriate Behavior in the Vatican
Murphy’s Law states that things will go wrong at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way, so in heading to the centre of all things puritan, it was virtually guaranteed I was going to screw up. I am now firmly informed that the following constitute ‘Inappropriate Behavior in the Vatican’.
- Shorts and sleeveless shirts are forbidden in the Vatican in order to ensure a proper state of dress. Asking in a loud voice why ‘knees are considered an abomination unto God’ is Inappropriate Behavior in the Vatican.
- Managing to walk around the entire visit with your fly undone, even if unintentional, is Inappropriate Behavior in the Vatican.
- Filling up your drink bottle from the Holy Water (not me for once) is Inappropriate Behavior in the Vatican.
- And finally, declaring ‘Thank Christ I’m a Buddhist’ during the guided tour is definitely Inappropriate Behavior in the Vatican.
And I am apologising for none of it. You wacky Catholics…
I humbly wish to apologise…
There is a common trap when backpacking to think of everyone else as tourists. “I’m not a tourist, I’m far more enlightened, culturally sensitive, capable, etc. All the stereotypes don’t apply to me”
There is a common trap when backpacking to think of everyone else as tourists. “I’m not a tourist, I’m far more enlightened, culturally sensitive, capable, etc. All the stereotypes don’t apply to me”
“Wrong” says the god of poetic justice, “You are a tourist and here’s a nice little humiliating experience to prove it to you”.
The train tickets in Italy come from an automatic machine – you put your card in, pay and get your ticket. Except my credit card didn’t come out this time. Naturally, I instantly remembered all the travel horror stories about identity theft and panicked. After eventually finding a maintenance guy, I explained the problem and expected a quick fix. Nope: “Impossible! Cannot happen” he tells me. 30 seconds of emphatic declaration that it was possible because it had happened ended with me dragging him to the machine where he checked it over, all the while insisting in fragments of English that it wasn’t possible for the machine to eat my card. I insist that it must be possible because the bloody card is still in there mate! He demands that I should check my pockets.
Sure enough…
The look on the poor guy’s face when I pulled the card out my pocket should have killed me where I stood. I made a quick exit, secure in the knowledge that I am officially a dumb tourist.
Corsica
Right back in the first months of the trip I was contacted by friends from Perth, inviting me to come hiking in Corsica in July. They needed a 4th party member and since I was in Europe already I was the obvious choice.
Corsica
Right back in the first months of the trip I was contacted by friends from Perth, inviting me to come hiking in Corsica in July. They needed a 4th party member and since I was in Europe already I was the obvious choice.
Unfortunately, these things tend to slip the mind, so I found myself rather late in June trying to figure out, firstly where Corsica was, and secondly how to get there.
Turns out Corsica is a small French-owned island between it and Italy. A beautiful rugged landscape with dramatic hills and coastlines. The local people are a bit more rustic than mainland French and retain a strong sense of independence, which occasionally manifests in the cheerful bombing of symbols of France. Just to keep them on their toes
After eventually meeting up with my friends after getting prodigiously lost at our first stop (flat phone, wrong address, no english, no taxis), we set off in the summer sun on our 5 day hike from east coast to west. Well, they called it a ‘hike’. I call it ‘walking between 5-star hotels’. Some of the places we stayed at on this trip were beyond belief – 3 course meals, complimentary wine, candles and mountain views were standard fare.
‘Hiking’
But by far the best night was the second one. Much of the details of this trip were arranged by a friend of a friend who spoke some French, and we were a little unclear on the details for this night. All we knew was a man would pick us up from the town. When he turned up in a ute and told us, with the 6 words of English he had, to get in the back, we got a little worried.
Never judge a book by it’s cover! The cottages he took us too had one of the best views on the entire trip and after a few bottles of the local red wine we ended up having a great night. We yelled the 4 phrases we knew in French and they yelled the ones they knew in English and it all seemed to work somehow. We seemed to make a good impression in any case because the owner refused to take the full price we offered him and actually offered us jobs on his farm. Herding pigs apparently, though I’m not trusting that translation.
Where there’s smoke…
We’d commented a few times during the hike how similar Corsican landscape was to parts of Australia. Little did we know how true that was about to turn out.
It was day 4 when we spotted the smoke. At first you sort of assumed it was a chimney or something, or a bonfire at worst. After all, Europe doesn’t have bushfires, does it? Right?
Wrong. 4 hours later we sat in town with the entire local populace and watched the flames reach the crest of the mountains in the distance. The same mountain range we were scheduled to walk over the next day. It was promptly agreed day 5 was cancelled. Australians know a thing or two about fires, but it’s very easy to let paranoia get to you, ‘just in case’. Even though we knew the fires had no chance of reaching our town that night, we still slept in our clothes. As one of our party eloquently put it, “It’s bad enough having someone burst into your room at 3am screaming ‘fire!’. Imagine if they did it in french!”
Sleeping under bushes with emotionally unstable French women.
Bet that title got you hooked. Ok, here’s what happened:
After arriving at the end of our hike, we planned to go our separate way. I was headed back to Switzerland to catch up with some friends. To do this I planned to take two buses to the north of Corsica, a ferry to Italy and two trains to Switzerland. With careful planning, I had arranged to do this massive trip in a single day and was very proud of myself.
So I turn up for the first bus, nice and early at 5:50am. There’s a woman standing by the stop. I politely ask whether I’m at the right stop. Now, you know how sometimes you start a conversation with someone and the second they open their mouth you know you’ve made a mistake? Bingo. Asking this woman a single question was like bursting a dam.
It turns out she was on holiday with her boyfriend, caught him with another woman, promptly packed and left the hotel and walked for 3 days to get to this bus station. By this point I already knew I was in trouble. Consoling a heart-broken woman is bad enough when you know them properly and speak the same language. This was going to be painful.
2 hours on the bus later I am now in a state of extreme anxiety because this lady has told me that the bus I was expecting to take to my ferry does not exist. She has also volunteered to help me find an alternative – we are now travel buddies.
Long story short, I miss the ferry and on her suggestion (since she only has 14 euros left to her name since her ex has cancelled her credit card) I find myself bedding down for the night underneath a bush in the front yard of a block of luxury apartments, while my French friend rabbits on about relationships and meeting new people and starts to make some very pointed comments about moving on. Sleep was elusive that night.
And in the perfect conclusion to this situation, we were woken the next morning by a bucket of water thrown from the third floor.
Laying there in the early morning sunshine, covered in soapy water and attempting not to scream, I took a moment to ponder how exactly the hell I got into this situation and how I would NEVER EVER AGAIN fail to read a timetable IN DETAIL and make TRIPLICATE COPIES GOD DAMMIT.
Knife fighting in Milan.
Later that morning saw me on the ferry and some welcome relief. Catching the next train from the port to Milan was no problems and I expected an easy transfer from there to Switzerland and a warm welcome home to the Kandersteg ski chalet I was working in all those months ago.
So I got to Milan. And I checked the timetable for the next train to Switzerland. And I checked it again. And I went to the info point just to be sure. And then I sat down for a bit and attempted not to cry.
I’d done it again. I had screwed up my connection for the second time in 48 hours and the last train to Switzerland had left 2 hours previous. I have no hostel and no internet access to book one. Only one option left: spend the night until the first train in the gardens outside Milan train station.
“Milan!” you’re probably thinking, “The fashion capital! Surely a safe and beautiful place to be stuck in.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The best illustration of the entire evening was that I actually went to McDonalds in order to avoid having to sit outside for any longer than necessary.
Me. In McDonalds. Absolutely unheard of. Contrary to everything I stand for. And yet I would do it again if I ever found myself in that situation twice. I spent the rest of the night seated on top of my suitcase with my pocket knife open and held in clear sight. Paranoid? I wish.
As I sat there a young man snuck up next to an American couple who were in the same situation as me, but who had fallen asleep beside their bags. I watched as this fella quietly took hold of their bags and began to pull them away. Then he spotted me watching him. He grinned at me and just kept on pulling!
Naturally I went over and woke up the couple, but where you would expect a thief to run for it at this point, this guy actually came up to me and started abusing me, I assume for getting in the way of his ‘legitimate business’. I decided vacating the area for a while was the safest option and ended up boarding the train to Switzerland at 6am, filthy, exhausted but relaxed for the first time in 3 days.
Kandersteg revisited
Long term readers will know I started my trip with three months working in a International Scout Centre, a ski resort in Kandersteg, Switzerland. Many newer readers will have actually met me there. Having left there in March with snow still on the ground, returning in the peak of summer was quite a shock. For one thing there was green, and for another there was smell! And best of all, we managed to get 7 of the 11 people I was working with back there at the same time, so we had a bit of a reunion at the same time.
Peaking
The main reason for returning to Kandersteg however was pretty simple: ever since I arrived there the first time in the dead of winter, I took one look at those mountains and wanted to climb them. In winter, snow and avalanche risk makes this impossible, but in summer it’s another story.
In retrospect it was a bit ambitious trying for three peaks in the one day. After making number two at 6pm, getting some serious head-spins on the way up, and having a close encounter with a mountain goat on the way down I decided to ease off the pace a little.
So instead of more mountain peaks, we decided to have a go at the Via Feratta. A via feratta is a pretty simple concept: find a cliff, hammer a bunch of metal stakes into it, climb. Sounds pretty straight forward in principal right?
Then you climb it. Sure there’s a safety cable, but it’s only once you’re up 200m above the ground, perched on two tiny pieces of slippery metal that you realise that each section of safety cable is 10 meters long, which means you’re not only in for a hell of a fall, you’re going to hit every one of those steel spikes on the way down. This is not a good though to be having at thios altitude, especially when one of the rules of a via feratta is that under no circumstances can you go back down once you have started. Once you’re on it, you either finish it or fork out $10,000 for a helicopter evacuation.
Detention
Eventually I had to push on and catch my flight to the UK and on to Ireland. So on the 31st July I took a train to Zurich station, put on my ski clothes again, checked in my luggage and headed for the gate. But the Swiss border police had other ideas.
When the guy pulled me aside the first thing that went through my head was that he thought I was smuggling something in my ski clothes. I have to admit they look pretty bloody suspicious in the middle of summer, but my suitcase is too heavy to leave them in...
But no. It seems I had over stayed my tourist visa by 15 days. Not a problem traveling by train as no one checks passports, but flying is another story. I was given 3 options: pay a 350 euro fine, spend two days in jail, or defer the matter to a tribunal and risk being banned from Europe for 2 years. I took door number three. Given I am now attempting to visit Germany again in a week or so, I may be posting the next email from a cell. Stay tuned!
Two Episodes for the price of one!
I made a promise to one of my Irish mates that after the exceedingly good times they showed me, I couldn’t leave Ireland at the bottom of an email where no one is going to read it.
So stay tuned, because the next one is already in the works.
Episode 12: Ireland will be out in 2 day maximum. Who says I don’t offer value for your hypothetical dollar!
What cheer!
Gordon
The Palunawack Tours - Episode 10, Sweden revisited, The Descent, and Maltese Madness
In the last Episode of the Palunawack Tours it was Spain.
Thanks to complete ineptitude, rare internet cafes and the simple fact I was busy having fun, I am now 2.5 months and 7 countries behind.
BUT NO MORE! Due to popular and incredibly persistent request here it is at last: Episode 10.
Needless to say the happenings since where I left you last time - freshly arrived in Sweden back in June - have been numerous. And intense. So I’m going to do my best to summarise here, but as always some formalities.
Miss you all. Yes I mean it. And yes I mean you. And welcome also to the new additions to these travel emails, I hope you enjoy them and if you’re lucky, you might even remember who I am!
Photos and videos are abundant! Inks to both at the bottom of the email. Seriously, some of the videos from Malta especially are awesome, bordering on terrifying.
And now, back to Sweden…
Swedish Graduations
It was awesome indeed to be back in Scandinavia, especially since the ski pants I was wearing to reduce the weight of my luggage didn’t look quite as stupid as they did in Spain. You want odd looks guys, walk through a Spanish airport in ski pants. In summer. Frankly I’ll pay the excess luggage charge next time.
Greeted with that massive Swedish enthusiasm I remember at the station and dove straight into it. For those who don’t know the story it goes like this. After my last stay in Sweden I was invited back to the high school graduations (cough) of my friends there. The description of ‘5 solid days of partying’ was pretty convincing so here I am again, ready to go.
They weren’t joking. Within 24 hours of arriving we’re on a ferry to Denmark and back, on the roof and rather happy with ourselves. Next it was back to the local night club, also on a boat. All around a great night but apart from nearly slipping up on a banana on the dance floor, not too eventful.
Happily this was only the warmup. In Helsingborg there is a castle with about 200 steps leading down into the town. The tradition when you finish high school is to dress up in a white dress or suit, run down these steps and do 3 laps of the statue at the bottom. If you can imagine an invading barbarian horde with exception dress sense, that’s more or less what it felt like standing at the bottom of these steps. This effect was enhanced by the pelting rain and the fact nearly all graduates were chanting at the time.
3 laps of the statue at the bottom don’t sound like a big deal does it? Try doing it with 2000 students. All schools in Helsingborg graduate on the same day. Let’s pause here to allow the teachers among us to recover. The overall centrifugal effect means that the students on the outside have to run, and those near the middle end up doing closer to 15-20 laps because they literally can’t get out.
Next they load into trucks, vans, car and one extremely awesome bathtub pirate ship and drive around town for a few hours, before heading to people’s respective homes to celebrate. Then, the bar. I vaguely remember teaching someone to dance at some point here (quite likely against their will) however I refuse to comment on this on the grounds I may incriminate myself.
However it was when the club closed at 4am that things started to get interesting. ‘Why don’t we go on the ferry?’ said some genius. The fact no one was selling tickets for the first ferry didn’t bother us in the least. Until we got to Denmark that is and were asked for said tickets. Uh oh.
It was my time to shine. One lesson from this trip - there is no problem in the non-English world you can’t get out of using an Australian accent and a large dose of wide-eyed innocence: “Tickets? Oh bugger mate, didn’t realise we needed any! Can you cut us a break cobber?” (yes I actually said that…). 30 minutes and one bewildered ticket inspector later we were back in Sweden, I had made a walking stick out of an umbrella and we sang in the rain, through a fountain and arrived back home at the tidy and extremely bright hour of 6am.
Needless to say the next 2 days were spent recovering.
The ‘oh bugger’ moment and Epic Descent
I’ve been doing Europe with a Eurail pass: 3 months, any train I like. I highly recommend if you plan to move around a lot. It was on my last day in Sweden that I realised I now had 10 days to get to Malta before it ran out. And no idea how to get here, where I was staying, or reliable internet connection to organise these.
Bugger.
And so began, the Epic Descent through Europe.
Helsingborg, Sweden to Berlin, Germany
After arriving in Berlin at 11pm and the rain, remembering how the trains worked, and reaching my hostel, I made an interesting discovery: the reason my bed was so cheap to night was because I was staying in a 50 bed dorm. It was like walking into a barn. Fortunately one of my mates from my earlier trip there, Elmar, managed to catch up with me for a beer and turn the night into a great catch up. Berlin is indeed a city to experience with friends.
Berlin to Dusseldorf
A short one to visit a friend from the Castle Rieneck Jubilee, Wiebke. Plenty to see in Dusseldorf, not least the very very many breweries there and park benches made of fluro tubes. Awesome.
Dusseldorf, Germany to Venice, Italy
Yep, that’s right, Venice. 19 hours, three countries and a hell of a sore arse later, I finally arrived in Venice, where I quickly came to appreciate the complete lack of logic in the street design, abundance of steps, and lack of signage as I blundered around with my carriage, trying to find my youth hostel at 11.45pm. If it hadn’t been for the guy on the balcony I would have completely missed the place, largely because you had to cross a drawbridge to get to it.
The Venice Fish hostel goes down as both the funnest and dodgiest hostel I have even been in, as well as the first to have it’s floor held together with duct tape. Spent a few days in Venice and it can be summed up thus: you can tell that you’re in Venice because you’re lost. When you are no longer lost, you are no longer in Venice. Don’t even bother buying a street map - half the streets aren’t even on it, and unless you have a compass, the rest aren’t going to help.
Mind you this is half fun. Get lost in Venice and you find all manner of stores, boutiques, bridges, churches, alcoves and people. The masks made there are incredible, as are the odd art exhibition, gondolier, and architecture, especially since most of it is sinking at a fair pace.
Two warnings about Venice though:
1. Do not piss of the Gondoliers. They run this city. One English bloke managed to throw up out the window of the hostel, directly on top of one of the gondoliers. Within 2 hours a crowd of 20 or so of them, plus the local cops were out the front, looking for blood.
2. Do NOT swim in the canals. Sure it sounds like a good idea after a few beers, but a swan dive off the balcony will get you an infection of every orifice you have, plus a few you didn’t know you had.
Venice to Trieste to Sicily
One of my good mates from RYLA back home, Mr Aaron Callagari take a bow, told me that if I come to Italy, I have to visit his home town, Trieste. So I did a quick day trip out there and now wish I had have spent a few days. Beautiful town, featuring cliffs, castle and a fair bit of history. Also a hell of a strong wind and no less than 50 broken umbrellas. I recommend!
Next though, it was the big trip; Venice to Sicily for the ferry to Malta. A total of 25 hours in the train. Argh. But it did have the distraction of yet another Denmark-style train-into-boat excursion. Always fun. So after hanging around Sicily for a few hours I eventually found the departure point for the ferry, met a dozen other anxious tourists wondering if we were in the right place, and set off for the long awaited rest - Malta.
**Break to reality** As I’m writing this email it’s 3.40am and I’m in Ireland, staying with some mates I met back when I was ski guiding in Switzerland. And 15 minutes ago his sister just walked through the door after a big night and is currently simultaneously amusing me and making me feel extremely old. So if the writing starts to get bit distracted here, that’s why. Drunken Irish interference. **Back to the show**
Malta
After 6 months of tripping around Europe with an average of 4 days at each place, I was looking forward to 3 leisurely weeks in Malta to recover. In retrospect, this was a very silly thing to expect. Incidentally, Malta is a small island in the Mediterranean, just south of Italy.
The crossing to Malta was rather rough. As in, throw you 5 meters across the cabin while you’re doing laps around the boat to try to feel less sea-sick rough. This turned out to be a great bonding experience and I made pretty good friends with a couple of Russians, Kris and Kate, and Jon the Canadian banker.
On landing I was met by Ramone and Matthew, two of the Maltese I guided skiing back in Switzerland, who insisted that sea sickness was irrelevant - it was time for a beer.
So my first resounding image of Malta is sitting at a beach side café, looking out over the bay towards the night lights of Paceville, drinking beer with Ramone, Matt and a half dozen other Maltese they introduced me to.
The happenings on Malta are too numerous to cover them all, so here's some highlights for you:
Exploring Valetta
Valetta is the capita of Malta and originally a fortress city. As with the rest of Malta, the entire city looks like it was carved out of the rock rather than built. Everything gives the feeling of being ancient and riddled with history. There are aso a number of museums here including the Archaeological museum. I bought my ticket; I expect a full experience. Therefor I was rather annoyed to find the top floor closed for renovation. In retrospect however, attempting to break into the top floor via the elevator which was fairly obviously barred off was not the smartest move I could have made. Sure enough, no sooner am I in the elevator and press the button, all the lights go out. Now I have a decision to make: do I call the emergency button and try and explain what the hell I though I was doing? Or do I take the Holiwood exit through the top of the lift? Eventually I just pried the doors of the lift open, escaped the museum and considered myself very lucky.
Russian toasts and Canadian pads
Called up the guys I met on the ferry over and arranged to catch up for drinks. After this went well I got an invitation to head out for a drive with these guys, and then a Russian dinner back at Jon's place. Obviously too tempting to pass up. What I didn't know is that, a) Russian food is awesome, and b) Jon has a batchelor pad that would not be out of place in the Hilton. So several bottles of wine, excellent cooking and shamefully, a can of Fosters for me (I had to try it at least once), I was introduced to Russian toasts. These aren't the standard 'To health and happiness' toasts. Every diner is expected to stand up and give a speech, and a good one dammit! In fat if you're not up to standard you will be asked to start again! Needless to say, I love this idea.
Pitchers, pools and why I'm no longer welcome at the Hilton Hotel
So it was a Friday and Matt got in contact with me: 'We're going out'. Seems Matt knows someone who's rcently opened a club in the notorious Paceville area and this place has a promotion on, 2 pitchers for the price of one. Now what you need to understand about Malta is that alcohol is cheap - getting a second pitcher free saved me about 4 Euro or $8 AUS. Also, alcohol is drunk in vast quantities - these pitchers came with straws in them.
Needless to say, when I decided to walk home I was not in full command of my senses.
It was a nice warm night, like they all are in Malta, so I decided to walk back along the beach. All was well until I hit a wall. Well I was buggered if I was going to go all the way back to the road, so, naturally, I climbed over it. Again, you would have though seeing a rather luxurious pool on the other side would have set off some alarm bell yeah? But no. It was a full 10 minutes before the security guards noticed me, followed by a brief chase that ended with me vaulting over the wall and legging it to the hostel. I am fairly sure I was singing something rather loudly and I suspect it wasn't polite.
Mad dogs and Australian cyclists
After the first week I moved in with Ramone for the next 2. Among other acts of awesome hospitality, I was loned a mountain bike to get around on. Given Malta is only 30 miles long and 18 miles wide, this seemed the perfect solution. So when Jon and Kris invited me to come along to Paradise beach in the far north of the island, I didn't even bat an eyelid - I'll ride there!
Mistake.
Sure, 30 miles ain't too far on a bike. However, 30 miles in 38 degree heat, 70% humidity, over seriously undulating terraine makes it just a little more difficult. Especially when you run out of water half way. And most especially when you decide that cutting directly cross country towards where you want to go sounds like a good idea. All in all it took me 3 hours. Pain.
Concerts
The Maltese know how to party and thanks to some awesome connections I ended up at two of the better concerts in town. It turned out that Ramone's job is building stages which is no easy feat when you're doing it in the Maltese sun and everything is made of metal or black fabric. But it has it's perks - namely, backstage access.
The first major concert was Moby. Love his music but had no idea how he would go in concert; after all he's more a composer than a performer. As it turned out, he's pretty amazing, but frankly it was worth going to watch the crowd alone. As I said, the Maltese know how to party. It's like they're just looking for a reason to go nuts, run around, dance like maniacs, stand on people's shoulders, crowd surf. You name it, they tried it. Set again the back drop of a dark orange sunset then a full moon, it was an amazing night.
The second was the Isle of MTV concert. Anywhere else a concert featuring Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas would be pretty pricey yeah? In Malta, it's free. The tourism board paid for it to encourage visitors. And while swine flu deterred a few people, about 40,000 still turned out for the night. Can't say it's my kind of music, but still a pretty awesome night.
Fireworks! Run for your lives!
The Maltese have a completely different attitude to gunpowder than pretty much anywhere else. I rocked up right in the middle of the festival season, during which every town on the island has a village feast. I was told by the Maltese that these are rather boring, mainly for families. Me and Jon decided to give one a visit anyway and see what it was like.
Back home any fireworks display will be cordoned off by 200m, occasionally with security guards, with the fireworks being fired very very high to avoid any fire risk. It is a serious undertaking liable to be cancelled at the drop of a hat.
In Malta, the display is set up in a field. The fireworks go off close enough to the ground that we were under a rain of ash and I personally saw the ground catch fire 4-5 times. But that was nothing because then they brought out the catherine wheels. These diabolical contraptions are a series of gears, pullies and frame metal designed to make the freworks strapped to them move in the most interesting way possible. The are usually powered by rockets.
So picture the scene: fireworks being rotated at random angles on a machine made from light steel and duct tape, with the crowd standing back at a safe distance of say, 2 meters. I swear I saw one rocket break off and miss going into someone's window by 30cm.
And here's the best bit, when me and Jon arrived at the feast 2 hours prior, we had walked directly through this display and wondered what all the paper tubing was for. The fuses for the entire display were at eye level and completely unattended. One kid with a lighter and a deathwish could have set off the entire show in 2 minutes flat. And yet no one is ever injured! So much for OH&S...
Relations
The main reason for being in Malta was that my Grandfather hails from there and I wanted to track down some relatives. To do this I had to head to the island of Gozo, where I was welcomed by the extremely helpful Laurie Saliba, shown the many natural wonders of the island and set in pursuit of distant 5th cousins. Unfortunately the only two people who may have remembers my great grandfather were two old ladies. One blind, the other deaf. We never managed to meet them, but I can only imagine the scene if we had...
Onwards to Italy
After 3 weeks of chilling it was a bit of a shock to realise I was leaving Malta. I'd become quite attached to the place and suddenly it was back to the fast paced life of youth hostels, trains and guidebooks. So it was with heavy heart I loaded myself onto the ferry, said goodbye to all my mates there and headed for Italy.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Yeah I know, I'm doing it again. But let's face it, this email is now moving on 4 pages and I'm tired damn it. Frankly, if you've made it this far, you're doing an incredible job! Next edition will be out soon, hopefully in a few days. Here are some snippets for you:
Some more good ones due to go up on Facebook and Youtube very soon, well worth the look I would say!
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/
So, until next time, keep those replies coming!
What cheer!
Gordon
Thanks to complete ineptitude, rare internet cafes and the simple fact I was busy having fun, I am now 2.5 months and 7 countries behind.
BUT NO MORE! Due to popular and incredibly persistent request here it is at last: Episode 10.
Needless to say the happenings since where I left you last time - freshly arrived in Sweden back in June - have been numerous. And intense. So I’m going to do my best to summarise here, but as always some formalities.
Miss you all. Yes I mean it. And yes I mean you. And welcome also to the new additions to these travel emails, I hope you enjoy them and if you’re lucky, you might even remember who I am!
Photos and videos are abundant! Inks to both at the bottom of the email. Seriously, some of the videos from Malta especially are awesome, bordering on terrifying.
And now, back to Sweden…
Swedish Graduations
It was awesome indeed to be back in Scandinavia, especially since the ski pants I was wearing to reduce the weight of my luggage didn’t look quite as stupid as they did in Spain. You want odd looks guys, walk through a Spanish airport in ski pants. In summer. Frankly I’ll pay the excess luggage charge next time.
Greeted with that massive Swedish enthusiasm I remember at the station and dove straight into it. For those who don’t know the story it goes like this. After my last stay in Sweden I was invited back to the high school graduations (cough) of my friends there. The description of ‘5 solid days of partying’ was pretty convincing so here I am again, ready to go.
They weren’t joking. Within 24 hours of arriving we’re on a ferry to Denmark and back, on the roof and rather happy with ourselves. Next it was back to the local night club, also on a boat. All around a great night but apart from nearly slipping up on a banana on the dance floor, not too eventful.
Happily this was only the warmup. In Helsingborg there is a castle with about 200 steps leading down into the town. The tradition when you finish high school is to dress up in a white dress or suit, run down these steps and do 3 laps of the statue at the bottom. If you can imagine an invading barbarian horde with exception dress sense, that’s more or less what it felt like standing at the bottom of these steps. This effect was enhanced by the pelting rain and the fact nearly all graduates were chanting at the time.
3 laps of the statue at the bottom don’t sound like a big deal does it? Try doing it with 2000 students. All schools in Helsingborg graduate on the same day. Let’s pause here to allow the teachers among us to recover. The overall centrifugal effect means that the students on the outside have to run, and those near the middle end up doing closer to 15-20 laps because they literally can’t get out.
Next they load into trucks, vans, car and one extremely awesome bathtub pirate ship and drive around town for a few hours, before heading to people’s respective homes to celebrate. Then, the bar. I vaguely remember teaching someone to dance at some point here (quite likely against their will) however I refuse to comment on this on the grounds I may incriminate myself.
However it was when the club closed at 4am that things started to get interesting. ‘Why don’t we go on the ferry?’ said some genius. The fact no one was selling tickets for the first ferry didn’t bother us in the least. Until we got to Denmark that is and were asked for said tickets. Uh oh.
It was my time to shine. One lesson from this trip - there is no problem in the non-English world you can’t get out of using an Australian accent and a large dose of wide-eyed innocence: “Tickets? Oh bugger mate, didn’t realise we needed any! Can you cut us a break cobber?” (yes I actually said that…). 30 minutes and one bewildered ticket inspector later we were back in Sweden, I had made a walking stick out of an umbrella and we sang in the rain, through a fountain and arrived back home at the tidy and extremely bright hour of 6am.
Needless to say the next 2 days were spent recovering.
The ‘oh bugger’ moment and Epic Descent
I’ve been doing Europe with a Eurail pass: 3 months, any train I like. I highly recommend if you plan to move around a lot. It was on my last day in Sweden that I realised I now had 10 days to get to Malta before it ran out. And no idea how to get here, where I was staying, or reliable internet connection to organise these.
Bugger.
And so began, the Epic Descent through Europe.
Helsingborg, Sweden to Berlin, Germany
After arriving in Berlin at 11pm and the rain, remembering how the trains worked, and reaching my hostel, I made an interesting discovery: the reason my bed was so cheap to night was because I was staying in a 50 bed dorm. It was like walking into a barn. Fortunately one of my mates from my earlier trip there, Elmar, managed to catch up with me for a beer and turn the night into a great catch up. Berlin is indeed a city to experience with friends.
Berlin to Dusseldorf
A short one to visit a friend from the Castle Rieneck Jubilee, Wiebke. Plenty to see in Dusseldorf, not least the very very many breweries there and park benches made of fluro tubes. Awesome.
Dusseldorf, Germany to Venice, Italy
Yep, that’s right, Venice. 19 hours, three countries and a hell of a sore arse later, I finally arrived in Venice, where I quickly came to appreciate the complete lack of logic in the street design, abundance of steps, and lack of signage as I blundered around with my carriage, trying to find my youth hostel at 11.45pm. If it hadn’t been for the guy on the balcony I would have completely missed the place, largely because you had to cross a drawbridge to get to it.
The Venice Fish hostel goes down as both the funnest and dodgiest hostel I have even been in, as well as the first to have it’s floor held together with duct tape. Spent a few days in Venice and it can be summed up thus: you can tell that you’re in Venice because you’re lost. When you are no longer lost, you are no longer in Venice. Don’t even bother buying a street map - half the streets aren’t even on it, and unless you have a compass, the rest aren’t going to help.
Mind you this is half fun. Get lost in Venice and you find all manner of stores, boutiques, bridges, churches, alcoves and people. The masks made there are incredible, as are the odd art exhibition, gondolier, and architecture, especially since most of it is sinking at a fair pace.
Two warnings about Venice though:
1. Do not piss of the Gondoliers. They run this city. One English bloke managed to throw up out the window of the hostel, directly on top of one of the gondoliers. Within 2 hours a crowd of 20 or so of them, plus the local cops were out the front, looking for blood.
2. Do NOT swim in the canals. Sure it sounds like a good idea after a few beers, but a swan dive off the balcony will get you an infection of every orifice you have, plus a few you didn’t know you had.
Venice to Trieste to Sicily
One of my good mates from RYLA back home, Mr Aaron Callagari take a bow, told me that if I come to Italy, I have to visit his home town, Trieste. So I did a quick day trip out there and now wish I had have spent a few days. Beautiful town, featuring cliffs, castle and a fair bit of history. Also a hell of a strong wind and no less than 50 broken umbrellas. I recommend!
Next though, it was the big trip; Venice to Sicily for the ferry to Malta. A total of 25 hours in the train. Argh. But it did have the distraction of yet another Denmark-style train-into-boat excursion. Always fun. So after hanging around Sicily for a few hours I eventually found the departure point for the ferry, met a dozen other anxious tourists wondering if we were in the right place, and set off for the long awaited rest - Malta.
**Break to reality** As I’m writing this email it’s 3.40am and I’m in Ireland, staying with some mates I met back when I was ski guiding in Switzerland. And 15 minutes ago his sister just walked through the door after a big night and is currently simultaneously amusing me and making me feel extremely old. So if the writing starts to get bit distracted here, that’s why. Drunken Irish interference. **Back to the show**
Malta
After 6 months of tripping around Europe with an average of 4 days at each place, I was looking forward to 3 leisurely weeks in Malta to recover. In retrospect, this was a very silly thing to expect. Incidentally, Malta is a small island in the Mediterranean, just south of Italy.
The crossing to Malta was rather rough. As in, throw you 5 meters across the cabin while you’re doing laps around the boat to try to feel less sea-sick rough. This turned out to be a great bonding experience and I made pretty good friends with a couple of Russians, Kris and Kate, and Jon the Canadian banker.
On landing I was met by Ramone and Matthew, two of the Maltese I guided skiing back in Switzerland, who insisted that sea sickness was irrelevant - it was time for a beer.
So my first resounding image of Malta is sitting at a beach side café, looking out over the bay towards the night lights of Paceville, drinking beer with Ramone, Matt and a half dozen other Maltese they introduced me to.
The happenings on Malta are too numerous to cover them all, so here's some highlights for you:
Exploring Valetta
Valetta is the capita of Malta and originally a fortress city. As with the rest of Malta, the entire city looks like it was carved out of the rock rather than built. Everything gives the feeling of being ancient and riddled with history. There are aso a number of museums here including the Archaeological museum. I bought my ticket; I expect a full experience. Therefor I was rather annoyed to find the top floor closed for renovation. In retrospect however, attempting to break into the top floor via the elevator which was fairly obviously barred off was not the smartest move I could have made. Sure enough, no sooner am I in the elevator and press the button, all the lights go out. Now I have a decision to make: do I call the emergency button and try and explain what the hell I though I was doing? Or do I take the Holiwood exit through the top of the lift? Eventually I just pried the doors of the lift open, escaped the museum and considered myself very lucky.
Russian toasts and Canadian pads
Called up the guys I met on the ferry over and arranged to catch up for drinks. After this went well I got an invitation to head out for a drive with these guys, and then a Russian dinner back at Jon's place. Obviously too tempting to pass up. What I didn't know is that, a) Russian food is awesome, and b) Jon has a batchelor pad that would not be out of place in the Hilton. So several bottles of wine, excellent cooking and shamefully, a can of Fosters for me (I had to try it at least once), I was introduced to Russian toasts. These aren't the standard 'To health and happiness' toasts. Every diner is expected to stand up and give a speech, and a good one dammit! In fat if you're not up to standard you will be asked to start again! Needless to say, I love this idea.
Pitchers, pools and why I'm no longer welcome at the Hilton Hotel
So it was a Friday and Matt got in contact with me: 'We're going out'. Seems Matt knows someone who's rcently opened a club in the notorious Paceville area and this place has a promotion on, 2 pitchers for the price of one. Now what you need to understand about Malta is that alcohol is cheap - getting a second pitcher free saved me about 4 Euro or $8 AUS. Also, alcohol is drunk in vast quantities - these pitchers came with straws in them.
Needless to say, when I decided to walk home I was not in full command of my senses.
It was a nice warm night, like they all are in Malta, so I decided to walk back along the beach. All was well until I hit a wall. Well I was buggered if I was going to go all the way back to the road, so, naturally, I climbed over it. Again, you would have though seeing a rather luxurious pool on the other side would have set off some alarm bell yeah? But no. It was a full 10 minutes before the security guards noticed me, followed by a brief chase that ended with me vaulting over the wall and legging it to the hostel. I am fairly sure I was singing something rather loudly and I suspect it wasn't polite.
Mad dogs and Australian cyclists
After the first week I moved in with Ramone for the next 2. Among other acts of awesome hospitality, I was loned a mountain bike to get around on. Given Malta is only 30 miles long and 18 miles wide, this seemed the perfect solution. So when Jon and Kris invited me to come along to Paradise beach in the far north of the island, I didn't even bat an eyelid - I'll ride there!
Mistake.
Sure, 30 miles ain't too far on a bike. However, 30 miles in 38 degree heat, 70% humidity, over seriously undulating terraine makes it just a little more difficult. Especially when you run out of water half way. And most especially when you decide that cutting directly cross country towards where you want to go sounds like a good idea. All in all it took me 3 hours. Pain.
Concerts
The Maltese know how to party and thanks to some awesome connections I ended up at two of the better concerts in town. It turned out that Ramone's job is building stages which is no easy feat when you're doing it in the Maltese sun and everything is made of metal or black fabric. But it has it's perks - namely, backstage access.
The first major concert was Moby. Love his music but had no idea how he would go in concert; after all he's more a composer than a performer. As it turned out, he's pretty amazing, but frankly it was worth going to watch the crowd alone. As I said, the Maltese know how to party. It's like they're just looking for a reason to go nuts, run around, dance like maniacs, stand on people's shoulders, crowd surf. You name it, they tried it. Set again the back drop of a dark orange sunset then a full moon, it was an amazing night.
The second was the Isle of MTV concert. Anywhere else a concert featuring Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas would be pretty pricey yeah? In Malta, it's free. The tourism board paid for it to encourage visitors. And while swine flu deterred a few people, about 40,000 still turned out for the night. Can't say it's my kind of music, but still a pretty awesome night.
Fireworks! Run for your lives!
The Maltese have a completely different attitude to gunpowder than pretty much anywhere else. I rocked up right in the middle of the festival season, during which every town on the island has a village feast. I was told by the Maltese that these are rather boring, mainly for families. Me and Jon decided to give one a visit anyway and see what it was like.
Back home any fireworks display will be cordoned off by 200m, occasionally with security guards, with the fireworks being fired very very high to avoid any fire risk. It is a serious undertaking liable to be cancelled at the drop of a hat.
In Malta, the display is set up in a field. The fireworks go off close enough to the ground that we were under a rain of ash and I personally saw the ground catch fire 4-5 times. But that was nothing because then they brought out the catherine wheels. These diabolical contraptions are a series of gears, pullies and frame metal designed to make the freworks strapped to them move in the most interesting way possible. The are usually powered by rockets.
So picture the scene: fireworks being rotated at random angles on a machine made from light steel and duct tape, with the crowd standing back at a safe distance of say, 2 meters. I swear I saw one rocket break off and miss going into someone's window by 30cm.
And here's the best bit, when me and Jon arrived at the feast 2 hours prior, we had walked directly through this display and wondered what all the paper tubing was for. The fuses for the entire display were at eye level and completely unattended. One kid with a lighter and a deathwish could have set off the entire show in 2 minutes flat. And yet no one is ever injured! So much for OH&S...
Relations
The main reason for being in Malta was that my Grandfather hails from there and I wanted to track down some relatives. To do this I had to head to the island of Gozo, where I was welcomed by the extremely helpful Laurie Saliba, shown the many natural wonders of the island and set in pursuit of distant 5th cousins. Unfortunately the only two people who may have remembers my great grandfather were two old ladies. One blind, the other deaf. We never managed to meet them, but I can only imagine the scene if we had...
Onwards to Italy
After 3 weeks of chilling it was a bit of a shock to realise I was leaving Malta. I'd become quite attached to the place and suddenly it was back to the fast paced life of youth hostels, trains and guidebooks. So it was with heavy heart I loaded myself onto the ferry, said goodbye to all my mates there and headed for Italy.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Yeah I know, I'm doing it again. But let's face it, this email is now moving on 4 pages and I'm tired damn it. Frankly, if you've made it this far, you're doing an incredible job! Next edition will be out soon, hopefully in a few days. Here are some snippets for you:
- Mountain climbing, boat hire and running out on the bill in Amalfi!
- Escape from bushfires in Corsica!
- Dangerous under-bush liaisons with French people!
- Foiling criminal masterminds in Milan!
- The Irish get me drunk! Repeatedly and mercilessly!
Some more good ones due to go up on Facebook and Youtube very soon, well worth the look I would say!
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/
So, until next time, keep those replies coming!
What cheer!
Gordon
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