Friendly Faces


Muenster :: Germany

Where people put me up and I get to not be so much of a tourist.

Places: Gottingen & Muenster (usually, ue is spelt as a single u with 2 dots on top, but this keyboard dosen´t have that)

Coolest thing I did: Spanish Party III: Return of the King

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Most of the Grimm fairy tales were sanitised for English children. The original versions told to kids in Germany have far more gruesome endings.

My study in mass tourism took a detour when I decided to go and stay with some of the German friends who had offered to put me up during my long trip. So my first stop after Heidelberg was the student town (they all seem to be student towns) of Gottingen. Katherina is a friend of Mark´s who came to stay with us in both Sydney and London at various times, and she was more than happy to lend me her couch. So she met me and took me back to the converted hospital in which she´s got her student digs. The rooms are all high roofed and have a loft for sleeping in added, and the kitchen and bathrooms are shared between the inhabitants of the floor. i met many of these over the weekend, including Chemsy(sp?), who we´d also entertained in London.

The best thing about these towns has to be the young vibe. As I came for the weekend, I was introduced to the usual evening routine. A nice meal (Kat is a hell of a cook), followed by a few warm up drinks before getting out on the town at just after midnight (a phrase I used which seemed to amuse some for no reason I can fathom). Our first night was a couple of the later opening bar/clubs (cosy affairs, but both with slightly warped DJs and thus musical tastes), but it did seem a little quiet. I was assured this is because whilst you can go out and get into trouble any night of the week, Saturday is the night.

We started with a few warmups before I was loaned a bicycle and we were off to the campus Spanish Party, which is apparently organised by the large population of Spanish exchange students. This was the first time i´ve ridden a bike in probably half a decade, and after a few glasses of red I might not have had the best of balance. Still, the saying about it being just like riding a bike is true. The party itself was quite good, and I continued to meet people from countries around Europe there, especially some Polish blokes who have a cousin in Perth (having relatives/friends/pets in Australia always seems to help people befriend the stray Aussies) who were quite talkative. I´ve decided pop songs that were originally in Spanish sound far better than the English translations. I mean what the hell does "my breats are small and humble so you won´t confuse them with mountians" mean (Shakira sang that)?

I think one of the best thing about the weekend was seeing all the young Europeans mixing together on the campus. It seems really easy to study in another country over here, and unlike ourselves in Australia, alot of students do take that oppertunity (we Antipodeans seem to wait until a bit later to start globe-trotting). It would have been impossible even 15 years ago for young Germans, Spaniards, Poles and Slovaks to be sitting around a table with a lost Aussie discussing politics in English. Again, it´s a small gesture towards the hope that maybe the next generation will have less inclination to carry all those nationalistic hatreds that just don´t make sense in any way but historical curios. I was staying with a very educated group of people (all of whom seemed to speak 3 or 4 languages, something that always makes me feel like a bit of an idiot), all well into their long degrees (it takes 5 and a half years on average to finish a degree here) so maybe they are not the best indication of how the man on the ground here thinks, but it´s still nice to think in the post-Berlin wall Europe, people are getting on with the business of..well getting on.

One thing that I did get an answer for was the beggars and the dogs. All around Germany, you see people begging (though quite a few of them have dyed hair and decent steel cap boots and so on) with dogs the size of small horses (I think the Alsatians we have t home come from the runt stock. These things are huge). It was explained to me that the government gives better unemployment benefits if you have a dog. I didn´t however, get my next theory that the bigger the dog, the more money you got, validated. Apparently, the form dosen´t have space to put the size of your dog in cubic metres.

I did also get taken (as a touristy side trip) to Hamelin, the town of pied piper fame. Apparently there are alot of these little towns with half timbered houses all along this part of Germany, and you can do a tour of them all if you want to see the "Fariy Tale Road". I´d say you would have to be a primary school teacher or something to have even heard of half of these towns, so we just went to the best known one and ate ice-cream instead. Tiamisu is most excellent.

My last few days have been spent in Muenster staying with Joerg, who with his friend Burk, came over with my mate Rob to visit me in London. Again, they seem more than happy to return the favour and let me crash out here. Making up for the London leg of the 4 day bender Rob & I took them on, the boys have been taking me out and showing me how to string together the happy hours in Muenster (again, a large student town). In between this (and the highlight here is the people, not the old buildings), I have managed to take a walk around town and see the many, many churches and the castle, which is now a university (I think). The fact this town alone has at least half a dozen cathederal sized churches with all the artwork that goes with it, maybe all that reformation/counter reformation war thing did leave some good things.

One thing that has become apparent though is I´m mostly seeing restored works, due to the fact that nearly every Lonely Planet entry for major German cities involves the words "firebombed into oblivion" and "allies". People keep telling me to go and find a copy of Kurt Vonnegut´s Slaughterhouse Five, which he wrote on his memories of being a POW in Dresden during the Allied campaign. Seeing as I find him alot more readable than Twaino, I might do that next time I get the chance.

So yesterday I was a wee bit hung over and didn´t get out much. I did manage, however, to take in the only large Picasso collection outside Paris. I´ve seen the Picasso Muemum in Paris, and last year the Tate Modern in London had a show called Matisse Vs Picasso (Picasso, 10seconds into the 9th by knockout), so I had seen alot of his stuff before, but this was a private collection donated to Muenster last century. As a result of the collector´s career as a graphic designer, most of these were his lithograms, including alot of the illustrations he did for books on Greek and Roman mythology. It´s a very small collection compared to Paris, but very different. They tend to be more towards his earlier, less abstract works, which I like (though I do still like the Guernica in Mardrid the best, more for it´s politics than anything). Worth a visit, indeed (and like locals of any town, most of the guys here haven´t seen it).

I have to say, it´s been good seeing people I know again. Whilst you do meet people as you travel all the time (and meeting people in hostel bars and lounges tends to find you like minded individuals) it´s far better when you get shown around a place by friends who live there. There is far less guesswork involved, and it´s a self fulfilling prophecy. Now I´ve stayed with these people in both towns, I´m looking forward to seeing them in Sydney one day (or wherever I put my head next) and returning the favour.

And I would have never ordered the beer with strawberries floating in it on my own. That alone was worth the price of admission.

The lost tapes

Gottingen :: Germany

Where I try to remember the entries I deleted. This is a break from the normal continuity, and may differ from what was originally here. I´m an idiot.

Places: Brugge, Luxemourg, Koblenz, Mainz, Baden-Baden & Freiberg

Coolest thing I did: Worked my way down the 'on tap' menu of a Belgian bar.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The very idea of pension funds was invented by Otto Von Bismark during the First Reich. Before that old people had to be looked after by their kids.

Brugges, it turns out, is quite a cool place to visit. Despite the fact that all the cobbled streets and old buildings are obviously there for the tourists, the place has a relaxed feel, and people don´t mind wasting time having a chat with you. Some places I´ve been, you get death stares the second you finish your coffee and don´t leave the cafe. In Brugges, they don´t seem to even care whether you buy anything or not. The place itself is quite ye olde, as one would expect. The parallels to Venice are all there (they even have picturesque canals and everything), but it does feel a bit less of a Belgian theme park than Venice did an Italian one. For one thing, I could afford to do all the touristy stuff and actually stay in town.

To properly do the tourist thing in Belgium, you realy need to do 3 things: beer, mussels and waffles. At one point, I even had all three in the same meal.

The place I stayed in was a bunch of dorm rooms over a resteraunt (very much like the place we stayed in at my first Oktoberfest for all those who participated in that week of debauchery) and the bar below serverd as a good point for meeting up with people. This was helped by the free beer with your meal if you ate there. Man, here is a landlord that knows his target market.

My best night out involved myself, four Americans and a Candian. We went to a bar the yanks had frequented the night before that boasted a menu of 350 beers. The best thing about Belgian beer is every beer they have, regardless of whether it´s on tap or in a bottle, comes with it´s own glass. One of the best ones was a free standing conical flask in a wooden stand. I didnt try that actual one, but I was assured it was good (hey, they were all good). Myself and one of the other blokes decided to work our way through the on-tap menu, not taking into account such things as volume of liquid or percentage alcohol. This, in Belgium, can be dangerous. I was overjoyed with the world a mere fifteen euros later, but some of my new friends were a bit more than that. The conversation turned to those old goodies: politics, religeon, the environment and NASCAR racing. My knowledge of engines in cubic inches isn´t that crash hot, so I had to leave it there. Still, much fun had by all.

Do have the waffles with icecream. They are really, really good.

Whist taking a walk through town, you see a whole lot of buildings and gates with dates in the late 40s on them. You forget that just half a century ago, there was German artilery bombarding the place and tanks parked on all those cobbled streets. If you can fix things in half a century this well, perhaps places we´re currently bombing into the stone age have a chance.

So, it was then over the border to the first of those little historical curios no one can figure out why they still exist: Luxembourg.

Luxembourg City is quite an impressive thing to behold. It stands on top of three sheer bluffs looking over two river valleys. It has, surprisingly, also been occupied by almost every foreign power it borders on at one time or another. I can´t imagine taking the place was something you´d want even on your best day if you were a seige engineer or something like that. At the turn of the century, the Luxembourgers went all neuteral and decided to dismantle all their fortifications.

The modern place is something else. I´ve since discovered that they managed to make themselves rich through mineral deposits after WWII and then through banking since that became less lucrative. The streets are filled with designer boutiques, rich, goodlooking people and very expensive German cars. As a result, it´s got a very different feel to the other Benelux countries. For one thing, Luxembourg has an amazingly sophisticated nightlife compared to other cities of that size. I thought it might be a mistake to be stuck there in mid-week, but I managed to find a couple of nice grungy student cafes and a cool DJ bar. The DJ had impecable taste in beats and hip hop, something else I didn´t expect.

The view from the ramparts of the old city whilst the sun goes down over the valleys below is something worth going for alone. Whilst I´d never recommend someone spend more than a couple of days here, it did make a good buffer between Belgium and Germany.

So I crossed the border to a place called Koblenz. I knew practicaly nothing about the place, except it´s the point where the Rhine and Moselle rivers meet. I learned soon that the hostel (Yugendherberge in German!) was based in the old fortress looking over the city. Whilst this is a very cool location, it´s also quite inconvinent. By the time I´d carted all my gear up the 15 minuite climb in the pre-storm conditions I probably looked alot like I´d just stepped out of a shower. However, watching an electrical storm move over the city below was well worth it. It´s been a long time since I´ve sat and watched a whole sunset, but with the sun mixing red hues into the black clouds covering it, it was something to behold. It´s a pity none of the pictures will probably come out.

So from Koblenz, I took a river boat to Mainz, much further down the Rhine. There is nothing like sitting on a sunny deck and drinking wine whilst you watch the vineyards that grew it pass you by. Along the 7 hour slow journey there are numerous villages, nearly all having a castle perched on the hillside above it. They are in various states of repair and ownership, but it does make for some excellent scenery. You do, however, get a bit blase about the whole thing once you´ve seen your 9th castle of the day, but I´d much rather that than go along thinking "was that it?". The boat also passes the Lorelei Cliffs, which are famous for having mermaids on them that caused the sailors to crash their boats into the cliffs. Any industry that encourages lots of drinking and then accepts mermaids as the cause of an accident needs to have a long hard look at itself. Perhaps I should start making legends about the network elves whenever the servers crash. Mermaids. Pffft!

So I continued onto Mainz, not because I knew what was there but because that´s where the boat went. Most people got off much earlier, which I should have taken as a sign. By the time we reached our final destination, it was just me, the barman and the crew. Mainz, isn´t exactly the tourist capital of Germany. I was nearly going to give it a miss and try and make it to Heidelberg that night, but the woman at the train station asked if I´d seen the Guttenberg Bible yet. This made me go miles out of town to stay at the always incovenient youth hostel and spend a night watching school kids run up and down hostel stairs. For some reason, school groups have been at every hostel I´ve stayed at in Germany.

The Guttenberg Bible is just an old book, but it´s quite important in what it represents. Before big J Guttenberg (as he was known to his mates) invented the printing press to churn out bibles, only the preisthood really could read and own then. After this, richer common people (the plebs still couldn´t read) could have them too. Then people got thinking more about this whole Catholisism caper. Then a bloke called Sisigmund (who was a holy roman emperor by trade) had another bloke called Huss killed because of this. Then a bloke called Luther nailed a few complaints about the Pope and some of his mates to a church door. Then some other stuff happended and at the end, Europe had defined borders for countries and a whole lot more people could read and choose what religion they liked. Besides that, it´s just an old book.

Once I´d done the one touristy thing in Mainz, I took off for Baden-Baden.

In Roman times, Baden-Baden was a kind of ritzy spa resort for rich people. Now...well now it´s a kind of rityz spa for rich people. As it´s got money involved, the town is in excellent condition and has been restored quite alot. The revival in it´s fortunes had already started when Mark Twain (Twaino to his mates) arrived here about a hundred years ago as a part of his book A Tramp Abroad (which comes up a bit, and which I haven´t read). I decided to take a Roman Irish spa, which takes place in the restored ruins on the original Roman site. I could have just had a dip in the new complex next door, but if it´s good enough for Twaino, it´s good enough for me.

I quickly learned, that the whole thing is done in the nude. While this shouldn´t bother me (I´m not that much of a prude) for some reason the fact that the first three people who I saw inside were fully clothed and female did get me a bit on edge. They explained to me what order I was supposed to go do things and then I was off. The first bit is all blokes, so you get kind of used to greeting and chatting to people without looking at their bratwurst as you go through the various rooms. The saunas are something else, as you can see the steam rising off the exposed rockface that covers two walls of each room. They tell me there are pipes underneath, but I´d like to think it was all natural. After this section, you get to the pools, which are shared with the ladies. Again, I did get a bit uptight at first and didn´t quite know where to look, but after a little while you figure out everyone else is naked and they don´t seem to care. Once you get this through your head, you can properly relax and enjoy the whole thing. By the end of the three allotted hours, I was so relaxed I could hardly walk.

So my final lost destination was Freiberg. I liked this town. It was an immaculately sunny day and all the students (about 45% of the town´s population) were sitting in the parks, cafes and beer gardens instead of going to class. I miss those days.

Instead of trying to tackle the Black Forest on my first day, I decided instead to indulge in such laziness myself. I found (or rather, Europe on a Shoestring found) a beer garden on the top of a hill overlooking the town. I spent a few hours here not doing much but watching the little people walk about below. I met quite a few students skiving off classes who were full of insights on life (and more willing to share them as the beer count mounted) and I felt the most properly relaxed I have on the whole trip.

And that´s been alot harder than I expected. Though I was enjoying my job towards the end of my time in London, after it became apparent I wasn´t going to stay, the whole thing felt a bit mercenary. I thought it would be easy to just wander the world as a man of leisure, doing what I pleased, but I´m finding it hard to just sit still these days. I feel like I should be doing something all the time, and it´s only quite recently that I´ve managed to let myself do very little. I´m trying to do this more, as 8 months is a long time to be always on the go. Hopefully when I stay with a few friends later on, I´ll be able to let myself relax a bit more.

More Twaino

Heidelberg :: Germany

Black Forests, Pink Castles and the show that wasn´t.

Places: Heidelberg

Coolest thing I did: Walked through the Black Forest when the clouds were low enough to be below me.

Coolest thing I didn't know: All mammals, including humans, have a gene that switches on lactose intolerance shortly after birth. The only reason people can handle milk as adults is some freak mutation in Northern Europeans caused them to be able to handle dairy products as adults. Through colonialism, this has spread to much of the rest of the world´s population. (not travel related, i know, but it is the coolest thing I didn´t know).

After spending the sunniest day I´ve had on the continent lazing around in cafes and parks, it was poetic justice that the day I chose to go catch a cable car into the mountains of the Black Forest, it starts bucketing down with rain. Be that as it may, I was determined that I was going to go hiking in the forest, so up I went. It takes two buses and a funicular to reach the peak of Schauinsland. It´s a high enough peak that on a clear day, you can see all the way to the Swiss Alps, which must be cool. On my way up the mountain, at times I couldn´t see further than about 5 meters of cable disappearing into fog in either direction. This didn´t bode well for seeing the Alps, but it did create quite an eerie effect when rows of silouetted tress would slowly fade in and out of view. On reaching the top I found myself looking down into the rain clouds below, which is quite a cool thing to be doing when you aren´t in a plane. It did, however, mean I´d be walking through the rain most of the way down. Still, this didn´t make me too unhappy, just a bit wet.

So I followed the (now) muddy trail down the mountain and into the think forest below. I was told that in most places, the trees would be close enough together to stop the rain. This was total crap. For the first hour, I found myself walking in the clouds themselves, which meant I was getting wet regardless of if it was raining or not. I did, however, manage to forget this in my watching the same effect of trees and rocks slowly gliding in and out of the mist as I went along. I was quite taken by the effect (as you can probably tell) and found myself stopping every few meters or so to try and capture the effect on film. Besides a little bit of walking in the mountains in Morocco, I haven´t done any bushwalking like this in a very long time. I think I enjoyed the time to myself (as no one else was mad enough to be walking in this weather) after being in towns and cities pretty much the whole time since I left London. It gave me alot of time to get some things worked out in my head, and I felt I resolved alot of the thoughts and internal conversations you build up when you are working all day. I felt very relaxed. I can also imagine the track down would be a good run if you were into life threatening mountain biking.

This did, however, come crashing back to Earth a bit when I ran out of forest. I reached the road about 2 km lower than I should have and had to walk an extra 1 km in the open to the next bus stop back to town. This wouldn´t have been so bad if the heavens hadn´t chosen that exact moment to show just how much they could open up. I was a bit annoyed with the world when I finally got back to the hostel and removed my now wringable clothes. I have never enjoyed a hot shower as much in my life.

So the next day found me in Heidelberg, the start of A Tramp Abroad and thus, heavy Twaino country. The town itself has been saved by all the wars since the late 1600s, so the castle still stands mostly intact looking over the old town. It´s got a nice feel, and is made slightly less touristy by the fact it caters more to the still operating University in the heart of the old town rather than to the tourist hordes I´m assured line the place in July. I have been seeing whole troups of old Americans (you can tell them long before you hear the drawling start) being led down the main street. The bloke who owns the curry house assured me it gets worse. He was a good bloke to talk to, as his English was better than most people I´ve met here (being from Bangladesh?).

I liked the fact that there are grungy bars and cafes, and cheap eateries mixed in with the "traditional" German beer halls. It gives the place a more of a lived in feel. I was especially happy with the vinal only record store on the main Uni square. The collection would put most in London to shame, both in Dance and Hip Hop. I got talking to the bloke behind the counter and he told me that there was a show that night at the old station (which is now a concert venue/club) where the headline act was GZA of the Wu Tang Clan. For those who aren´t into hip hop, the Wu Tang Clan were the group in the mid-90s, and the GZA, in his day, was considered one of the greatest to ever hold a mic. It was a chance I had to try and take up, but there were not tickets going for either love or money. This was a bit of a pity, seeing as if I´d been in town the day before I might have been able to get one. Still, the tour continues through Europe so I might get another chance later in the summer.

Out in the line though, I did get to see the effects of having a single global culture is having on the kids. All around Europe, everyone under the age of 20 is dressing like they walked out off the streets of South Central LA. All the hostels have had a good percentage of their rooms taken up by school goups and every radio appears to be playing 50 Cent, almost in unison. I´ve seen the same pattern all across Europe (and in Morocco for that matter). I can´t imagine there being too much of indigenous culture in any of these places (or anywhere in the world with MTV) within 2 decades of now. Perhaps it isn´t the disaster most people seem to think it is. Who gets to decide which countries get the mod cons, satelite TV, mobiles phones and the latest music and who gets to be stuck in a theme park version of the way their country was 200 years ago? I know I´d be pissed off if I had to dress like someone out of Old Sydney Town (a crappy renactment of the first settlement of Australia near Gosford on the Central Coast) just to keep the tourist happy. I can imagine people in Bavaria don´t want to wear lederhosen anymore than the young Berbers of Morocco want to wear robes and lead camels through the desert. It may also help the next generation get along better, if they all have a common point of reference to go from. Either that, or everyone will have cancer from eating McDonalds in 50 years from now.

Right, rant over. I´m off north tomorrow.

The Axis of Stevil

Brussels :: Belgium

Where the beer is really, really strong. And leaving London.

Places: London & Brussels

Coolest thing I did: Received a shirt with a "Stevil" logo designed by my mates Tim & Tulo. Man, I'm going to miss you guys.

Coolest thing I didn't know: The Smurfs and Tin Tin both come from Belgium. I thought it was just waffles.

So, last week was where I tied up all my loose ends in London and said goodbye to the city that's been my home for the last 3 years. Well, that was the plan originally, but I think I managed to leave more than enough things undone than done. It's funny how everytime you solve one problem, another one crops up. Still, the biggest accomplishment was acquiring a Polish tourist visa. This should make my life easier at some stage in the future. Though my trip is kind of lacking in form at the moment, that's sure to stop me from having to find a city with a Polish embassy to wait 3 days in. Only Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic & Serbia Montenegro now require me to lose up to a week at a time. Man, I hate the Australian goverment's xenophobic views on letting people into our country sometimes. New Zealand solved these kind of issues with bilateral tourist visa agreements long ago. But I digress.

Friday night saw a gathering of people from all over the last 3 years of my life. I was happy to see everyone, even if I did lose control of events towards the end of the night and not get to say goodbye to everyone properly. If someone asked me what the single best thing about living in London was I'd say the people, without hesitation. When you are an ex-pat living abroad, you have a different view on life than when you're grinding away at a 9 to 5 at home, and it's good to have met so many people with the same mindset. Not to mention those who couldn't make it, most of whom don't live in London anymore. I've seen so many people come and go from that city that it's hard for me to get my mind around the fact that it's me taking off this time. It was also good to realise that I've actually met alot of people who aren't Australians. With a transient population that would otherwise be big enough to qualify as an ethnic minority, Australians can quite easily fall into the trap of not meeting a whole lot of people who aren't Australians. That's missing one of the big benfits of London; the fact that there are so many people living there who are from somewhere else. Oh, and the English can be good people too.

The highlight, however, is the Stevil t-shirt. I can't remember who originally decided to name my drunk alter-ego Stevil, but it has stuck for probably the last year. Thanks to creative work by some very talented people, I can now try and explain myself to a whole continent of strangers. Add to that the tag line of "Guten Tag, Mutherfucker" (which comes from antics at Oktoberfest last year, and is also on the shirt) I can also probably offend much of the Deutsch speaking world before I've even met them. Entertaining and culturaly sensitive, what more could I ask for?

So, far worse for wear and & one Ryanair flight later, I found myself in Brussels. I was warned that I would find the place a little dull, and it's not failed to impress in that regard. Despite having had next to no sleep and the hangover to end all hangovers I dragged myself out for a Saturday night in the bureaucratic capital of the Union. Having first taken in the obviously touristed bits around the main square, I followed the crowds of raucous French rugby players who seem to have invaded all at once, looking for the nightlife here. Whist you know everytime you are a tourist in a new city you are going to get fleeced by bars the locals would never go to, I was having trouble coming to terms with the crowds sitting lesiurly around tables on the cobbled street fronts. Whilst most of continetal Europe tends to go for this kind of setup rather than the either overly decorated lounge bars or standing room only pubs of London, it does lack the rowdy ambiance. I did need the break (and should probably get used to the fact that London is a different beast to everywhere else) and after a couple of relatively weak beers (a mere 8% alcohol) I wandered off to bed. Not being able to find an other English speakers floating around didn't help a whole lot either. While I've already discussed my German speaking skills above, my French dosen't extend a whole lot further. Some people did try English, which was nice, but after the pleasantries it was a bit of a struggle.

One thing that does strike me here is this has to be the most pro-European Union country I've ever been to. While I shouldn' be too surprised (I can't imagine Brussels was a political powerhouse of a city before the EU set up shop here), it makes a startling change from the anti-Euro backlash you see almost daily in the UK. I read today that the UK are going to talk about entering the single currency again in 2005. That debate is long over here. I think I've seen about 5 shops whose only specialty is selling EU merchandise. I can't imagine one of those opening up in high street middle England anytime soon.

One thing of note though is the rather unique Museum of comic strip art, housed in a 1906 art deco department store. Apparently both the Art Deco movement and the comic were products of Belgium at rougly the same time. As a bit of a comic geek in my early teens, it found it quite cool to wander around looking at all the original pages of things like Asterix and the Smurfs, and allow myself to be rather intelectual about the whole thing. It struck me that in the French speaking world (much like Japan) there is a lack of comics about blokes in tights and capes and a whole lot more about things grown-up adults read about. One striking set of pages were taken from a comic book about the Bosian war, including picutres of concentration camps, Serb paramilitaries and including the warlord Arkan as one of it's antagonists. By turning and otherwise useful medium into a strictly for kiddies world of x-ray vision and silly maks, I think the US has a lot to answer for. For one thing, I think it's a form of popular art that relates far more closely to the Rubens and Van Dykes I saw earlier in the day than anything in the Tate Modern.

Tomorrow, I see Bruges. I'm not sure whether to expect a functioning town that stretches back to medieval times (like Fes) or a theme park (like Venice). I've got this sinking feeling it's the latter.

My Irish road trip

Dublin :: Ireland

Around Ireland in a Seat.

Places: Cork, Berra, Bantry, Dingle, Galway and Dublin

Coolest thing I did: Observed roughly 25 hen's nights happen in sync (ahh, Galway).

Coolest thing I didn't know: The Blarney Stone isn' t very impressive. I'd expected an actual standing stone or something, not a brick.

As a quite regular visitor to Dulbin, the most common thing I heard before heading out of it was I'd find the rest of the country vastly different. This can most readily seen as true in the way the motorways give way to miles of blind corners, acute turns, cattle rails and single lanes almost as soon as you've left Dublin County. I haven't driven a car for probably going on 9 months, so trying to focus on driving a strange car in what can be trying conditions became quite tiring. I found myself hitting 100kph quite regularly in what would usualy be insanely dangerous conditions for me and building up a tailback behind me. These people are entirely fearless driving around with very little idea of what's coming around the next stone wall or over the next small rise, something I'm not quite used to. Lucky for me, I wasn't in a real hurry and didn't mind pulling over to let people pass regularly.

The country is much as I expected, but I was surprised at how regular the postcard scenes presented themselves to me. If I'd stopped to take a picture of every tall stone cross, ruined church, severe stone cliff or rural vista I'd have gotten nowhere. It's a truly breath-taking country to behold. I spent alot of time driving around the ranges of mountains that plunge themselves directly into the Altantic in the west of the country. Once I'd figured out my original plan of also visiting Northern Ireland within the week was far too ambitious, I was able to amble at my own pace around. It gave me alot of time to think about things and I think I managed to reconcile alot of things I'd had in the back of my mind for a long time. It's funny how you can start to tackle the tangle of unresolved internal conversations you have floating around your head when you've got very little else to do. That, and I listened to alot of radio. The only station that had reception all over the country (and not in Gaelic) was 2fm, which includes the countries' most popular morning talk show, hosted by Mr Gerry Ryan. Like all populist talkback radio, it concentrated on issues effecting the middle class of Ireland (SARS being the biggie, even though there are still no cases in the country), however it does have a certain irreverence you wouldn't find in the UK (the segment on strippers dressed as paramilitaries operating in Northern Ireland for example).

However, as much as the scenery appealed, after a few hours driving on your own, you do get cabin fever. The nights, however, were never dull. The places I stopped ranged from a small fishing village where I occupied the hostel alone, to backpacker-oriented towns to cities like Galway and Cork. The contrast isn't as big as you think it would be. As expected, the Irish love a drink and a chat. There was nowhere I felt unwelcome, and as there was a big soccer or rugby game every night the last week, I was never short of a starting point for a conversation (as an aside, it appears Manchester United are far more popular in Ireland than in Manchester). The young blokes here tend to treat Guiness as much of an old man's drink as the English lads do Bitter and Ale, so I did look a bit of a tourist drinking it next to their continental lagers. However, through years of self experimentation that I find the hangovers far less severe after a stout bender and I did have a fair bit of driving to do.

Galway was an exceptional circumstance. It is, mainly, a tourist town, even if most of them come from within Ireland itself for the big Saturday night. Also, Mark got a bus across the country to meet up with me. Galway on a Saturday night is a sight to behold. I managed to blow nearly 2 days budget in one night, but it was excelent fun. We did, however, peak a bit late and the whole town shuts down shop at 3am. Our roaming around town looking for somewhere to drink didn't net us much in the way of alcohol, but it did make us alot of staggeringly drunk friends. Oh, and for some reason Galway appears to be the hen's night capital of the country. I'm always a bit weary of hordes of drunk women, and the fact there was so many parties going on at once does make you a wee bit edgy. The evening ended with us drinking bad Sambuca directly out of the bottle with some students out on an athletics trip. Despite Mark's calls to go to the early bar where the dock workers drink at 8am, the whole thing wrapped up at around 5ish.

So the big question on whether Dublin is different, did that one get answered? Kind of. I've found the Irish, in general, to be a pretty friendly bunch of people all round. Sticking to the highly Disney like Temple Bar in Dublin probably won't introduce you to many Irish, but as I've worked out here so much, that wasn't too much of a problem. The diffence seems to be be that Dublin is very cosmopolitan City compared with the rest of the country. Whilst you get quite used to the sight of Japanese students walking down the streets of Dublin talking into their cellphones, you don't seen many people of non-Celtic roots outside the capital. This makes the feel of the place quite different. There are no Starbucks or McDonalds in most of the places I visited. In most towns, there weren't alot of curry houses or thai resteraunts, despite the presence of at least 10 bars in the smallest one street fishing village. I think this gives a different outlook on life. I found the Irish out in the country weren't that much different, just more traditional than those in Dublin. The story they are worlds more friendly seemed to depend on the size of the place I visited. The Irish are a friendly people, but Dublin, like London, is a huge, international city. People don't have the same sense of community as a place where it's possible to know everyone. And strangers tend to stick out more in smaller places.

I think the big difference between Ireland and other places is strangers are welcomed, rather than made to feel uncomfortable. Despite the almost language barrier accent differences, people were patient with me and wanted to listen to what I had to say. And they love a chat.

I did, however, come to realise out in all that country that I could never feel properly at home in small places. Being from a big international city like Sydney, I tend to feel more at home somewhere like Dublin than somewhere like Castletownbear. Walking around Dublin today, I did feel like I was leaving a place I had come to know quite well. Of all places outside London, I've visited none even remotely close to as many times as I have this one. For a place reknowned for exporting people only 2 decades ago, it's as cosmopolitan as either London or Sydney. Only, as with those two cities, it does retain some of the character that makes it belong in it's home country. I will probably not see this place again in the near future, and I will miss it.

Crescent moons to shamrocks

Dublin :: Ireland

Swapping sunshine and medieval markets for pints of the dark stuff.

Places: Fes, Casablanca, London Heathrow and Dublin

Coolest thing I did: Watched my mate Mark attempt to cook a stir-fry whilst drunk. The fact I was also sloshed made it far funnier. Imagine a parody of US style live video shows "When pissed people cook!"

Coolest thing I didn't know: Moroccans get rid of the evil eye by roasting Chameleons. You can buy chameleons for this purpose in the market and I watched a baby one change colours in my hand.

Fes was, as I expected, Morocco on an altogether different scale. Already 700 years old when the first Moroccan state was founded it is considered one of the world's oldest surviving medieval cities. The narrow, widing streets and lanes run back and forth at acute angles to each other, a proper maze of markets, Medersas and Mosques. Like nowhere else on Earth I've been, the whole place bleeds commerce in it's purest form. Everything is for sale at the right price, and the collections of Moroccan craftwork and antiques are miles ahead of anything else in Morocco. It's like there's some hidden heart deep in the middle of the place, pumping pure retail into the veins of the old medina.

My favourite place was an antique store hidden in one of the Souq's small back streets, specialising in old books. There's something special about these (mostly incomplete) leather bound, centuries old copies of the Koran that you just don't get with old copies of Moby Dick and the like in London. Like most good things in Fes, I found the shop completely by accident. Unlike Marrakesh or Meknes, wandering the old streets can turn up an unexpected gem, something that's quite rewarding after a fortnight of touring carpet lamp shops.

I'm also glad the markets were closed on the Friday when I got there (being the Mulsim equivalent of Sunday mass) so I climbed to a ruined tomb looking over the city and was treated to a view over the whole thing. When viewed on this angle you get some idea of just how much more impressive it is than the other imperial medinas of Morocco. It also made me treat it with a bit more respect than the others. I was taking careful note of every blind corner and alley I passed down, hoping to get back to a landmark that was familiar. In both Meknes & Marrakesh I was content to just barrel through and try and find my way out by trial and error. Fes would have swallowed me alive if I'd taken that approach. I did get quite lost quite a few times, but managed to make it back to a couple of landmarks and eventually get out.

While it's arguably a good idea to keep the hordes of tourists out of the holy sites in Morocco, I was slightly disappointed not to see inside the al-Attarin Medersa right in the centre of the medina. It was considered one of the centres of learning in the old Islamic world and is one of the world's first universities. You are allowed to take a picture of the courtyard from the doorway, but I think my photo is a bit spoiled by the heads of the 30 odd German tourists blocking my view. I kind of see the Moroccan's point.

I spent alot of the time in the Ville Nouvelle, where I was staying, sitting in cafes and doing some reading. I was able to get Western press for the first time since I got to Morocco and learned such insights as the war was over and the looting had begun. Oh, and all about SARS (the Daily Express had a headline about "Killer Asian Death Flu" so I'm guessing it's now in middle England somewhere). Even though Fes had the most to see in terms of old Moroccan Medina, I felt less inclined to spend all my time in the heart of it. I was getting a bit sick of the constant hassle and was becomming quite short with everyone on the street who asked where I was from as a pitch into getting money out of me. I did, however, find out from a Japanese bloke I met in the hostel in Casa that I was quite lucky. He reckons they target the Japanese above all others, thinking them the most naive and the richest. He looked quite wrecked, even after only a week in the country.

One thing I have noted is Moroccans, for whom it is now cheaper to get a mobile phone than a landline, have all gotten mobiles in the last 18 months. In a country where about 5% actually have telephones, the GSM industry is booming. As with all countries that get mobiles overnight, they don't have the accompanying ettiquete to go with the technology. Just because your phone can play 1000 polyphonic ringtones, dosen't mean you should go through them all on the train 4 times. The number of groups of young Casablancans huddled around a cafe table all having conversations on their mobiles and ignoring each other was staggering. Being from the West, you don't realise how easily you get annoyed by this kind of behaviour. Perhaps I'm being a bit over sensitive.

So, after a couple of plane rides, here I am in rainy Dublin. I went directly to the pub to meet up with Mark, my long time uni, flat & travel mate for a few long overdue Guinesses. We downed quite a few Euros worth of the dark stuff and caught up on everything that had happened since last we saw each other in London in January. Despite the fact that not a whole lot has happened, we talked for a couple of hours about the usual nonsense. I'm starting to get to an age where I've known people certain people long enough to pick up a conversation pretty much where you left off and continue with it. When you're 20 it seems like you've just met everyone. It slowly creeps up on you that you have friends you've known for close to a decade. And I've also noticed recently that age is something you start talking about almost overnight in your mid-20s, where it would have never come up before.

I managed to lose my glasses somewhere in Morocco (good start) so I've just been to the optometrist to fork out money for an eye-test and new pair (yep, didn't carry my perscription either). It's been a pretty expensive lesson. I'll have to be a bit more careful from now on. Week 3 is a bit early to be digging into the emergency cash fund.

Right, so tomorrow I get my hire car and it's off to rural Ireland. I'm not expecting Anzac Day to be hugely celebrated, but seeing it's on a Friday, and people here need far less plausible excuses for a drink, I should find some people to commemorate with. Geniuses all round.

Back up North

Meknes :: Morocco

Busses, trains & a generally much slower pace of life.

Places: Rabat & Meknes

Coolest thing I did: Sat on top of the Kasbah and watched the sun go down over the Atlantic.

Coolest thing I didn't know: The current King is the president and founding member of the only surf club in Morocco.

In the last few days, I've been taking a far slower attitude towards life here. The last 48 hours have involved alot of being on busses and trains, however the inbeteen time has been at a far less manic pace than the first week. I've been spending alot of time drinking Cafe Noir with the old Moroccan blokes in the cafes and doing my tourist things for probably under 2 hours a day. This is doing me wonders, and I feel even more relaxed than I did in Essaouria (if that is possible).

I left the guys and gals I was hanging out in Essa with and took a (very) early bus ride to Marrakesh. The guy at the bus station the day before had insisted I was there a half hour early, so I show up bring and spritely at 5:30am. I'm in the dictionary under "not a morning person" and I don't usually do 5:30am, but I did what I'm told. Morocco time, however, kicked in at this point. I got on the bus at 5 to 6 with about 4 people. By 6:45 the bus actually started moving, and here is where the fun begins. Right at the same time, all the 6am busses decided to set off and come to a halt in the gate that's only wide enough to fit one bus through. The drivers eye each other with obvious bordem whilst the conducters get off the bus and start abusing one another. At this point crowds of people decide it's time to board the bus, so personal belongings are put under the bus (including 8 pieces of 5ft long timber and a whole motorcycle). A blind man walks the length of the bus, led by his granddaughter, quoting sections of the Quoran on alms giving and getting off the back door. After about 15 mins the conductors have negotiated who will go first and the bus gets out in a slow crawl. Then, I learn, bus stops are a rather arbitrary concept here. Every 50 metres or so, the bus slows down to a crawl and the conductor helps more people get on. It appears anyone, anywhere along the whole 3 hour bus route can flag the bus down and get on. This leads to stopping quite regularly in the middle of nowhere to let people on and off. The trip that took 1 hour and 45 mins in the Grand Taxi seems like a bargain at a mere 4 hours.

After a quick train ride up, I'm on the streets of Rabat, the capital. While there are tourist sites here, this is noticably not a tourist town. You're able to walk the streets without being harassed or even looked at like an alien. While this is a very un-Moroccan experience, its a refreshing change of pace from the lunatic assylum that is touristed Morocco. I sat on the walls of the large Kasbah overlooking the Atlantic and spoke to some local blokes, all avid surfers about things. They were quite interested to hear I was from Australia and all wanted to know what the surf was like there and (as usual) if I wanted to buy some hash. Every transaction here generally ends in the offering of hash for purchase. I watched the sunset (I've done that a few times here) and after a quick meal was off to bed early. 5am starts don't leave me in a good state these days.

If you are ever in Rabat, see the Chellah, just south of the city. It's tres cool.

Meknes is a pretty good mix of Medina, Souqs and Palaces. I've spent alot of time looking at the intricate patterns in wood and stone that surround the mosque and palace doors here. It struck me just how ugly a language English is when it's written. All around the keyhole doors are decorations with Arabic script woven through it, saying very Quoronic things about Allah no doubt. It works very well and is quite attractive to look at. Or maybe that just because it looks like random patterns to me. Besides the tomb of a particularly grisley (yet well respected) king who started the current dynasty a few hundred years ago, I also saw inside the Medrassa (an old Quoranic school) inside the markets. You don't usually get to see inside Muslim buildings in this country, and the aforementioned carvings are a treat. It's a good alternative to seeing the bazillion Cathederals of Western Europe, however nothing is as well restored as the Alhambra in Grenada (if you go to Spain, see this!).

I don't know if it's the places I've been visiting, but Morocco seems even more void of Western tourists than it did last week. In the hotel I'm staying in, I'm the only guest, and I generally get the tourist sites to myself. Every now and then I get someone from France, but it's usually a family and then don't want to wade through my non-existant French. I find the Moroccans far more willing to mime out a broken conversation, and I'm quite getting the hang of sitting in the cafes with the old blokes, watching them play games with funny cards or all starting up at the football on TV. The youger ones tend to hang out in open fronted pool halls and have Eminem blaring in the background. I guess some things are the same the world over. One thing you do notice is there's no girls their age for them to chase. I guess they are all locked up in their parents homes somewhere.

Things I've learned about Morocco that are worth passing on:

• Know some French. I've found even knowing how to say "I don't speak French" a godsend.
  
• Carry toilet paper with you. Everywhere. Most toilets are "squatters" and very few have toilet paper
  
• If someone approches you in a market and asks where you are from, ignore them and keep walking. They will assume any response means you want a guide and to pay them to be that guide. If you get lost and need help getting out, ask a young boy, as they will do it for chocolate instead of money.
  
• Hotels of the grade recommended in the Lonely Planet either don't have hot showers or they cost extra. Ask before giving them any money
  
• Taxis within a given town always cost less than 10 dirhams. I paid 20 once and half the touts in town started following me, as they now thought I was the biggest sucker to ever walk the streets.
  

Right, I'm down to my last few days, so it's off to the granddaddy of Moroccan cities, Fes. Time to get out my "no I don't want a guide" stare.

Kasbahs & Camels

Essaouira :: Morocco

The first week on the road in Northern Africa.

Places: Casablanca, Marrakesh, Dades & Tondra Gorges, Merzouga & Essaouria

Coolest thing I did: Sleeping under the stars in the Sahara

Coolest thing I didn't know: People with dreadlocks are still abused openly in Essaouria after the drug induced madness following the Hendrix/Doors era here.

I have to say if the next 8 months goes anything like the last week then I may have trouble re-adjusting to working life when I get back to Sydney. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Essaouria waiting for the sky to clear up and I'm in an outstanding mood. The weather here is pretty extreme, and there was a torrential downpour this morning. They expect it to be sunny and in the mid-20s by lunchtime.

My arrival in Morocco and the first couple of days were a pretty hard culture shock. Nothing can prepare you for the all out barrage of hustling and scamming that goes on in this country. With no other jobs available, many Moroccans make a living by working on elaborate scams to get money out of tourists. After a while you come to appreciate the genius involved in quite a few of them (most of these guys speak French, Arabic, Berber, English, German and Italian as a minimum so it's dangerous to assume because they are uneducated that they are ignorant), it's pretty hard going when you first get here. By the time I'd spent a day in Casablanca and a couple of days in Marrakesh I'd built up a pretty solid siege mentality. A couple of things broke this. First, I found a nice place to stay in Marrakesh (Hotel Essaouria, I strongly recommend it) with a roof terrace to escape it all. Somewhere sane away from the souqs and main square does you wonders. The other is I was approached a couple of times by Moroccans not trying to sell me things. Sitting in a cafe, the later in a park blokes came up, shared some mint tea and had a chat about things. High on the agenda is Gulf War II. The locals seems unable to comprehend what the war is about and why people are staying away in droves because of it. In what should be peak tourist season, many hotels are empty and the stall holders in the markets sit around playing cards. The consensus is there is a notable lack of Americans around. This baffles Moroccans, who see equating Morocco to Iraq akin to thinking the public attitude in New Zealand must be the same as the US governments. People disagree with the US stance here but they are hardly turning over cars and burning American flags.

I took a three day trip through the Dades Valley to Merzouga via the Dades and Tondra Gorges. The whole valley consists of red earthen Kasbahs clinging to the side of severe red cliffs overlooking lush green below. In some instances you can see this set against a backdrop of the snow covered High Atlas mountains and a bring blue sky. The contrast is quite stunning and I'm sure serious photographers could spend weeks here taking pictures of the villages and forts.

Merzouga is a small collection of squat concrete huts on the edge of Morocco's only Saharan dunes. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Constantly shifting sands that change colour as the sun goes down were the backdrop as we were led in a caravan of camels into the dunes. While the Berber tents were obviously there for the tourist (ie us) the feeling of such isolation is something I haven't felt in a long time. Whilst the others slept I did alot of walking under a clear night sky over the moonlit dunes. The camel driver assured us we were safe from snakes and scorpions this time of year so I was free to let the sand run through my toes. Looking up at that sky that seems endless (I also realised I'd never seen the constelations in the Northern Hemisphere before...3 years here and I'd never seen the stars!) gives you time to let all the things running through your head think themselves out to their natural conclusion. That night out there really helped me turn off from my London mindset and feel like I was on holiday for real.

On my return to Marrakesh I found myself able to deal with the hawkers and scammers with much better humour and thus, far more ease. I found myself being left alone, despite the huge Friday night crush of the main square and quite at ease there. I hope I can maintain this for the biggest scam of them all, Fes.

I've come to Essaouira with a collection of Europeans of various nations I met on the tour. I've quite enjoyed returning to the beach, swimming in salt water again, eating fresh fish and watching the sun go down. I was quite a waterbaby when I lived in Sydney and I'm realising how much I've missed it in the last 3 years. This morning the rain did pour down, it's still warm and I ate breakfast on the roof terrace looking over the Altantic. It's hard to explain just how good all this is making me feel.

If this keeps up, I feel like I might spend a few more days here before moving on. I have vague plans of going to the other Imperial Cities in the north, but nothing concrete yet. Defintely nothing concrete til at least Tuesday...

The sun's just started coming through the window, it's time to continue with the de-Londonisation.

Ready to begin

London :: UK

In which, I muse on beginning the *big trip*

I'd say that before we start, a little background is in order. I'm a Sydney native who, at the tender age of 23, decided to get an internal transfer with his job and come and work in London. After three years, three jobs, five houses and upteen pints of lager, I've decided to throw the whole thing away and go traveling until mid December. This trip was supposed to start in May, however a trip to Morocco for a couple of weeks and then a week in Ireland to see a mate of mine after that made coming back to work for a week seem a bit pointless. So the entire thing has stretched into an 8 month extravaganza starting next weekend.

When people decide to uproot everything to do the whole "traveling" thing the reasons generally revolve around finding themselves and nonsense like that. My reasons tend to be a bit less high and mighty:

• I'm a bit sick of London - I've loved living in London, some of the best times in my life have been spent here over the last 36 months, but at the end of the day, I always knew I'd return to Sydney one day. I miss the sun. I could stay here another year, but I think I'd be closer to hating it than I am now. I'm going to leave on a good note.
  
• I've seen about 8% of what I want to see - No matter how much traveling you expect to do around Europe when you come here, you get to the end and think you've seen nothing. I've been to lots of Western Europe, but very little else. The more places you go, the more you want to see. My list is pretty big.
  
• I've got serious gap-year envy - I went from High School to Uni to Work without having that magical year off that many of my friends had. I want to take some serious time off. Not to find myself, mind you, just because it beats working.
  
• I've got enough money - He says now, touching everything wooden he can get his hands on. I'm a computer geek by trade, so that helps alot.
  

So, what's to come then? Well I'm working on both a very loose timeframe and generous (in backpacker terms) budget. After the mini-trip of three weeks coming up, my plan is to enter Europe on the 3rd of May and fly from London to Sydney on the 9th of December. The only fixed date I have in between is I've booked a 2 week Beetroot tour of Russia (and it must be said, it wasn't cheap. Russia, I've decided, is a bit of a scam) in mid-June. The rest of the trip is more working on general guidelines. I'm going to go to Russia via Scandinavia, then overland to from Russia to Berlin. Then meander across Central and Eastern Europe towards Greece. My original plan was to go overland to Egypt through Turkey (which I have been to before and thoroughly rate), Syria & Jordan. That appears to have fallen apart due to Gulf War II. I'll review the situation when I get to Greece, but I'm not optimistic. I hope to do some winding down in Egypt and then think about going back to London.

I'm mostly keeping this so I have some record of where I've been and what I was thinking at the time. Well, at least in those places that have cheap internet access.

Right now, I'm wavering somewhere between doubt and excitement. This will be the longest trip I've been on by several orders of magnitude (my current record is 5 weeks in Turkey and Greece a couple of years back) and I'm hoping I can keep my excitement about the whole thing up for all those months. I'd like to think I'm a pretty level-headed bloke, and I've never wanted to come back from a trip before, so hopefully that extends over the duration. The whole thing's become a bit more real now that I won't have a job, anywhere to live or a valid work permit after next Friday. That kind of bridge burning kind of forces you to focus on the task at hand. Still, I feel prepared for this.

So the next couple of weeks involves mundane things like renting out rooms, packing and shipping stuff and generally consuming alot of beer with people I won't see again soon/ever. I am sad to be leaving London, but I know the next bit will be far, far better.