A bit of Vapuu

Dublin :: Ireland

How the Finns get down.

Places: Helsinki & Tallinn

Coolest thing I did: What goes on in Estonia stays in Estonia.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Finnish word for milk is "Maito".

In a place as extreme as the Nordic north of Europe summer can't seem to come around quick enough, and moving from the eternal nights of mid-winter to the white nights of summer is probably one of the best reasons you could have a 3 day party. So myself and Mark found ourselves in Finland to celebrate what they call Vapuu, or the May Day weekend. It was interesting going back to Helsinki, as it is returning anywhere, just to see how much you can remember and what's changed since. Last time I was there was during the lead up to the mid-summer and much of the city was empty. This time it was the exact opposite.

Things were made much easier by having someone to stay with who could introduce us to what it is we were supposed to be doing. On one of the afternoons there is a ceremony when a white sailors cap is placed on a statue of a woman in the middle of Helsinki. Everyone was pretty much wearing the same caps. From what I could gather, the placing of the hat on the statue made people very happy and want to drink lots of champagne. I'm all for that. The story behind the hats isn't exactly clear to me, but it has something to do with finishing some kind of schooling, I think University, but so many people were wearing them it was hard to work out if this was a country of very well educated people or perhaps I got it wrong and the hats were for graduating primary school. The recent University graduates also wear overalls like a formula one team would wear, made in different colours depending on which faculty you were from. I pity the dudes who had to wear hot pink.

It has to be said, the nightlife in Helsinki is good fun, but it isn't exactly what you'd go so far as to call wild. We went to a few bars, which were all very cool inside (or Irish themed, for some inexplicable reason), and with a very laid back atmosphere, but not too much in the way of the joy or merriment you would expect from people who had just come out of months of complete darkness. We also went to a house party of people we were at least 3 degrees of separation from and that seemed rather tame, even if everyone was pretty well drunk by the time we got there. It's all very polite. Again, very welcoming, and good fun, but a bit reserved.

The Monday is reserved for a picnic in one of the big parks. We went to one where the people must easily have numbered in the thousands. Lots of people bring blankets and tents (which I kind of expected), but some go so far as to bring their couches, armchairs and even beds. It was a carnival atmosphere, but one tempered by good old fashioned common sense. Even when there were streakers, they seemed to get polite applause more than jeering and screaming. I suppose it's got something to do with that famous North European comfort with ones body that us Anglo Saxon descendants missed out on somehow. The group who invited us to their picnic were very welcoming, but we shouldn't have slept in as long as we did and were very behind. We also discovered that drinking yogurt and vodka actually makes for a pretty nice drink.

We had a night over at the father of our host's place for a traditional hot rock sauna, which was quite enjoyable. I don't know who was the first person to decide that making yourself extremely hot, then rapidly cold (in this case, a shower followed by beer was the method) was a good idea, but they were onto something. After four straight days of abusing myself with alcohol and lack of sleep, it went a long way towards fixing me up. The hospitality we faced in Finland was second to none I've experienced.

So we got the quick boat to Tallinn to see how another part of the world had changed since last we visited it. I last went to Estonia about 3 years ago, and Mark's last trip would have been closer to six year ago.

Two things strike you as being different this time. One is that the impact of the rapidly growing economy are visible everywhere. Last time I was there, about half the buildings in the old town were still run down and the new town had a very Soviet grey feel to it still. Every usable building now seems to have been done up, and the nightlife is starting to spill out of the stone walls into the rest of the city. Shopping malls and high rise is going up in the distant skyline and there is a feeling of energy about the place.

The other thing is that the people seem dead sick of their country being invaded every weekend by stag parties from the UK. We were taken aback at just how unfriendly many people were the second it became clear we spoke English. That definitely wasn't what I recall from last time. I guess that's the flip side of having cheap flights, people get sick of having drunken Pommy fools show up vomiting on things, getting into fights and groping women. We tried to go back to Hollywood, a night club people with Estonians that I went to last time, but the crowd was very hard to break into.

The best finds were the places that aren't obviously trying to cater to the Ryanair crowd. We found not one, but two places that did Arabic style Hookah pipes, so it became almost a ritual to sit around every afternoon and go through a copious quantity of apple tobacco. Both these places were quite well laid out, but the one in the new town could have been anywhere in Scandinavia with it's decor, DJ and gorgeous waitresses. We found more of the same in some other bars, and it shows that the pseudo-German beer halls and Irish pubs can co-exist with something a bit trendier.

Our trips out to some other clubs outside the walls were also more fruitful. One that seemed to cater to an older, mostly Finnish and Estonian crowd turned out to be an excellent laugh, despite our misgivings at the music at first. We also went back to the club frequented by the Russian speaking Estonians that I visited last time and that also seemed to have more going for it that good old Hollywood. We also learned the plight of the Russian speakers first hand, with girls saying things like “the Estonian speakers look down on us because our Estonian is so poor”, followed up without irony with “serving girl! Where are my Russian meatballs!”.

It's lucky we didn't want to go looking at churches and castles again, because most of the days were spent asleep, which is a good idea when you're getting back at around 7am every morning.

Its interesting to see places you only vaguely remember visiting last time and how the memories come rushing back as you walk around them. I had a mental picture of both Helsinki and Tallinn that was surprisingly actuate in some places, but terribly wrong in others. I'm interested to see how some of the other places, especially the ones I liked most, like Berlin, have been warped in my memory.

Closed?!?!?!

Dublin :: Ireland

On a long weekend?

Places: Belfast, Giant's Causeway & Derry

Coolest thing I did: A big long walk from a rope bridge to loads of octagonal rock things.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The IRA have better PR than the UVF.

There's no visible difference when you cross from the Republic of Ireland to it's troubled step-child to the north. I don't know why I expected something like the war zones of Israel or Bosnia, but I guess those were different scale wars. The same green rolling hills lead into the outskirts of Belfast as those that lead into Dublin, only all the petrol prices are in Pound Sterling rather than in Euros. Central Belfast is alive with the same sense of optimism and reconstruction that the southern capital is and despite softer, possibly more English sounding accents, the people seem to be just as friendly to strangers.

It was only by accidentally taking the hire car into north western Belfast that the scars of the recent conflict can be seen. In the poorer areas the police still cruise the streets in boxy, armored Land Rovers and there are lots of buildings that look more like blast shelters than houses. The murals in the Catholic areas are starting to turn their attention to freedom struggles (or terrorist acts, take your pick) in the wider world, but the old militant signs are still there. You'd almost expect there to be problems if it wasn't for the omnipresent black cabs taking tourists around to gawk at one of Europe's most recent conflict zones. At least no one seems to mind.

The countryside outside Belfast is a beautiful and green as anything in the south. The first full day was an outdoor hike from a randomly placed rope bridge to nowhere to the Giant's Causeway. It took us somewhere in the order of 5 hours of pretty hefty walking to get between the two but you do go over some widely windswept bays, overbearing stone cliffs and endless rural scenes of sheep farming. The rope bridge itself is on a dramatic causeway, connecting the mainland to a small island out in the sea. Small being the operative word, as all there really is to do there is turn around and go back over the bridge. I'm usually pretty bad with that kind of thing, but I managed to look down the entire way to the jagged rocks and sliver of water below without freaking out. I was kind of proud of that.

The Giant's Causeway looks like nothing special from a distance, but the closer you get and the more detail you can make out, the more amazing it seems. A small strip of stone stretching out into the Atlantic is revealed to be made out of what must be hundreds of polygonal rocks, all at slightly different heights, reminding me of those computer-generated fractal pictures where the smaller details mirror the larger overall pattern as you zoom in. At least, that's what I got out of it. The kids seemed to think it was cool to be able to jump from stone to stone in what looks like some infinite game of hopscotch.

The home country of Northern Ireland isn't very big. After the big walk we were in Derry before the sun even went down. In the shape of things to come, we went out with the idea of seeing some of the world famous nightlife, but found the cool pub the hostel owner recommended was shutting at midnight and no one else was going to be open any later. The place was chock full of the signs and flags of every revolutionary movement except (pointedly) their own. Rather confusingly, there was a Eureka Southern Cross right next to the Palestinian flag (“free Ballarat”?). They seem to take Easter fairly seriously, but that shouldn't have come as a surprise in a country where choosing a sect of Christianity was a definition of which side of an armed conflict you're on. When you've seen people persecuted, bombed and knee-capped because of which sect they happen to live with, then you're going to have more respect for your religion than the Godless secularists in the rest of the Western world.

Looking at those famous murals around the site of Bloody Sunday and their mirror on the Protestant side of town, you get the feeling that the public relations arm of the Republican movement is far superior to the Unionists. The highly artistic visions of slain Republicans and the heavy handed tactics of the British military make you want to side more with that side of town when they are compared to the militaristic and nationalist murals on the other side. The Unionists still seem to think striking fear into the heart of your enemies with pictures of masked gunmen and a victorious King Billy (William of Orange) and the words “Never Surrender” are the way to win hearts and minds.

The drive back to Belfast, via Armagh to see the site of St Patrick's original church in Ireland was also quicker than you would have expected. We walked the streets of a rather quiet Easter Sunday Belfast, looking at old buildings but not being able to go into many of them. I did like their own leaning tower, a clock tower in memorial for Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. The slightly droopy tower no doubt gave the wags a thousand excuses to poke fun at the man's virility, probably incorporating Queen Vic's famous line of “we are not amused”. It has to be said that going to Belfast during Easter was kind of like being in Jordan during Ramadan, you probably aren't getting the full experience. I'd been told that the nightlife in Belfast was just as good as Dublin's, but when the pubs all close at 10pm, you're going to be left a little disappointed. I think a return, just to go to Belfast for the nightlife is in order at some time during the future.

I think my favorite thing in Belfast wasn't actually in Belfast. In the morning before having to drop the car off we drove up to Stormont to see the parliament and the castle. I think it's pretty cool that you're allowed to use the parkland around the place, even though it probably was a sign of something to be destroyed during the Troubles. When you can walk right up to the Parliament building, but the US embassy looks like a fortress you can see which country is opening up and which one is closing down. It's a pity you can't even see the castle because of the fences though. I'm not sure what the use it for now, but it's most definitely off limits to the public.

I wasn't quite sure what I expected Northern Ireland to look like. I guess there was never a war there in the conventional sense, like there was in the former Yugoslav countries so the effects aren't easy to see in buildings without windows and pock-marked with the results of small arms fire. The fact that the neighborhoods are becoming more, not less segregated doesn't bode well for the future. I read that people are happier with the so-called Peace Walls separating the different sects, keeping the violent elements apart. The experience of Berlin after the wall came down or of Cypress when the travel restrictions between the two halves were removed should show that the mixing of the two halves will make violent conflict harder to carry out with public support. While the moderates are out of power I can't see the power sharing government being able to do anything, but I'd expect the future of Northern Ireland to end up separate from either London or Dublin. Unification with either will only push the extremists from the other side back into armed conflict. Surely those looking at the Celtic Tiger to the south can't help but notice prosperity will only come with stability. An independent Northern Ireland isn't what either side wants, which is why it might be the perfect solution. Let demographics take it's course and allow the next generation decide what to do with the place. That's got to be better than living under the shadow of the gun.

Once again

Dublin :: Ireland

A tale of two cities.

Places: Dublin & London

Coolest thing I did: Some of Michelangelo's raw work.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Dublin was founded by Vikings.

It has to be said that between the two most familiar cities I've visited over the last fortnight, one has undergone dramatic change and the other seems much as it was before. After the buzz and excitement of New York I was ready to feel that same energy applied to London, a city I've known better than all others over the last half a decade or so. What I wasn't prepared for was the dramatic shift in fortunes of Ireland's diminutive capital, Dublin.

Despite the fact the airport is still under construction, as it was when I first visited Ireland in mid 2000, and the roads are struggling even worse to deal with the increase of traffic of all kinds, there has been a notable change in the composition of the city. The boutiques on Grafton Street have spilled over into the neighboring alleys and side streets, and while Chinese may have been considered exotic a few years ago, you now have an interesting mix of foreign cuisines and trendy new bars (or renovated pubs) inter sped with the ancient boozers that I recall. This change, I admit, was well under way with the infusion of IT capital when I was last here in 2003, but it is far more noticeable now than it was back then. Then other big change has been to the make up of the people. You did meet people of non Anglo-Celtic backgrounds before, but now the streets either side of the Liffey are starting to look like the United Nations. I think I've heard the term cosmopolitan bandied about more than once, meaning the locals are starting to notice the change too.

St Patrick's Day, the day after I arrived, went much as expected. Our original plan to start at 7.30 at an early opening pub was thwarted by the Guardia, who seemed to think last year's chaos with underage drinking was somehow fueled by letting young kids get booze early, so we spent some time wandering Dublin looking for open pubs or hotels that would serve us, and in the end we went back to Mark's in a taxi, stopping at every off license on the way until we found one selling beer. Thankfully, we found one and managed to being at 9, slightly behind schedule.

It has to be said I can't imagine it would have made much difference down the stretch. We went back out quite happy at midday, making our way slowly into town, won some money on the horses, lost that same money on some horses, saw about 10 mins of the parade on TV and then it starts to get quite hazy. By the time the smoke had cleared, 17 hours had elapsed and epic damage had been done to our heads, wallets and probably livers.

I was informed that I should take the opportunity to see the Irish play the English at absolutely anything possible, and the last game of the Six Nations Rugby happened to be on the day after St Pats. I can now assure you that it quickly becomes chaos if the Irish win said contents with the English. Again, more damage to myself ensured, and the rest of the weekend was understandably quieter. I went on Monday to get my legal alien card thing, which now has a picture of me in a beard on it. That's going to be a pain every time I go through customs, I can feel it.

London, well, was much like it was when I left it. I think that has a lot to do with spending pretty much all of my time there with the same people I knew when I lived there, but there is nothing so good as catching up with old friends. I'd describe the place as a few more bars, a few less pubs and one great big glass gherkin different to last time I was there. Still, it's a city that I have such fond memories of, and it only took a short time of walking the streets around Westminster to realise I do miss it. I'm kind of glad I did leave to go and try other things, as I don't know if it's a place I could live again any time soon, but I could definitely visit it over and over again. I miss that stark contrast of the ancient with the modern, something you don't get on the same scale anywhere else in the world. I think it's one of the few great cities that looks like it's actually been lived in for the last 2000 years. Sure Rome is older, but it looks like they gave up doing anything to it for centuries at a time.

I took a side trip out to Cambridge, which appears to be lots like Oxford, only less so. I can't believe the cheeky buggers make you pay to go into the most interesting colleges, so despite having a good look at lots of old stuff, I was a little disappointed in it. Still, I loved all those little niches on every building with the statue of a saint, bishop or chancellor in them. I don't know if I'm seeing more of those kinds of things now I know what to look for, but I'm appreciating the old stuff far more than I would have in all those months of traveling around Europe. I guess when you've not seen anything man made older than the1700s then you forget about how much beauty that old church money created. I'm sure the people toiling the fields to pay for it didn't think so, but we get to still see the results.

By quite a fluke I read one morning about the collection of Michaelangelo drawings on display at the British Museum, so I made a special effort to go out and see them on my last day. It's all the raw sketches he did for practically every major project he completed, from David to the Sistine Chapel, mostly sketches of the male models that would have later been warped into biblical type people for the finished product. Despite having to go elbow to elbow with the grey haired brigade that had come out in force to see them, it was well worth it. Despite the being an understatement, man, could that guy draw. I also was glad to get an excuse to go and take another look at the building itself. I've always loved that dome over the central courtyard and only recently learned that it was the work of Norman Foster, the same guy that did the new Swiss Re Gherkin and the Reichstag remix in Berlin.

So I'm back in Dublin, already having moved into my new room and having mournfully removed the beard I spent so many weeks faithfully refusing to shave off. I know it's only been about 7 weeks, but I'm constantly being startled when I catch my own reflection in anything. It looks so different and I guess I'd become accustomed to the new look. Still, eating is now far less time consuming. This will probably be it for a while, the trips are over for the short term and I have to look for a (horrors!) job next week. I've been glad I took this break between countries again though, I'd forgotten how much I like seeing the world for weeks on end, rather than days. You feel like you're accomplishing so much more when you can take your time.

SoCal

Los Angeles :: USA

All good things must come to an end.

Places: Santa Barbara & Los Angeles.

Coolest thing I did: Saw the Walt Disney concert all. It's tops.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: There are oilfields right in the middle of LA.

There is a definite border between the two halves of California, as things change quite dramatically once you arrive in the lower Sans or Santas (as all towns seem to be named here). Dramatic, sweeping coastlines and cliffs are replaced by miles and miles of mountains fringed by beaches. Santa Barbara was a very nice place to stay for a couple of nights, as it seems to be a Spanish themed gated community crossed with a University town. As I mentioned last time, the weather while I was there was dramatic, but not very well suited to the beach. I did get some very spectacular photos, but my decision to ditch the car for a day and walk up to the mission that was the start of the town was not well thought out. Right about the time I was an hour out of town in the hills the heavens opened and didn't stop. The mission was a very tranquil place, and well worth visiting, but doing it whilst drenched didn't make the experience exactly what I was after. Still, like I said, it was worth the visit, but I can imagine it's even better with the sun filtering through the palms into the courtyard, rather than big fat drops of rain.

The nightlife in Santa Barbara on Saturday night, even when spring break is on for the local Uni is something to behold. There are a whole load of bars down the main street that are evenly divided between the underage drinking crowd and the aging retiree crowd and to tell the truth, I didn't quite feel at home in either. Still, it's a great Saturday out. I managed to see a complete showing of Top Gun, cage dancers in their underwear, a live blues band and the comedian Bill Maher. The last one has to be taken with a grain of salt, unless you hate Bush with a cult-like devotion. Some of what he said was funny, but most of it was plain stupid. Those were the bits the crowd cheered the most. It has to be said I don't think there are a whole lot of Republicans in coastal California.

I was prepared to hate Los Angeles. Everyone told me it was crap and I'd want to leave the second I got there. I was called mad for wanting to keep the hire car I drove down from San Francisco and use it for transport. I'm always glad when a place bucks the trend for me. I have to say I dig LA.

I think I was helped by my accidental start. I drove in through Malibu on Highway 1 and decided to take a look at the Getty Centre, as I'd heard it's a architectural gem, and would be worth seeing, even if it wasn't full of art. Thanks to the fact I entered the car park and couldn't turn around again, I ended up giving them $7 to park so thought I may as well visit. I'm very glad I did. It's not so much one building as several, perched on a cliff top looking over the city. I couldn't help but think of it as a modern version of the Alhambra in Granada, only full of Monets instead of angry Muslim warriors. The five buildings ring a set of fountains and gardens, and that was the first time I started to appreciate the scale of the place. You look down on what seems like endless flat buildings, only broken up by the few high rise buildings of downtown and the hilltop oilfields on the other side of the city. I since learned that I was only looking at about a 1/3 of the city at that point, as South Central and Long Beach lie beyond those oilfields and behind me was the San Fernando Valley, which stretches out quite some way again. Thats the trouble with building a city in a place that frequently knocks tall buildings over with earthquakes, you need top build out instead of up. It's like the anti-Manhattan.

I ended up staying down on Venice Beach, and that too was a good move. With the sun out I was ready to see a beach again (it's been more than a year since I saw my last one) and the vibe of the place during the daylight hours is revitalising. So lots of very weird people hang out there, but they are entertaining and harmless. It's also a fair bit less gentrified than Santa Monica, just down the road, making it a whole lot cheaper too. The hostel is in the dead centre (Venice Cotel for those keeping score at home) and had a very nice cafe just down the road which made me breakfast burritos on some very hung over mornings. It was a young crowd, so I ended up going out most nights and suffering for it in the mornings. Again, watching backpackers out on their first trips makes you remember why you do this in the first place, with all their energy.

My favorite bits were probably just driving around the city and checking out all the different bits. Without a car you'd be spending hours on the bus just to get between bits (it's a good 40 mins drive from Venice to the downtown without traffic) and there's nothing like a white guy cruising around Los Angeles in a Saturn Ion listening to Dr Dre. The white people just stared and the black people laughed at me. It's tops. I liked the tattoo-parlour in a juice stand grunginess of Melrose a whole lot better than Hollywood, though I did think the Mann's Chinese Theater deserves it's fame. That building is very cool, but it probably looks like it was made in Disneyland by actual Chinese people.

I've decided the Gerhy designed Walt Disney concert hall now pips the Reichstag in Berlin as my favorite building in the world. It's a silver rose bud, and in the Los Angeles sun it is a myriad of reflections and magnifications of light. I can't describe how cool an idea it is to use all that sun to such effect, and there are very few other places in the world you could have pulled that off. Compared to the tourist trap that is the Adobe house just down the road (LA's oldest Spanish house) it also has a practical use, which makes it even better in my book. Pity I don't like opera.

I thought that the rich parts of town were way too sterile. The sheer lifelessness of Rodeo Drive makes me wonder why the hell anyone would shop there, let alone pay the world's highest prices for things. I'm told it's for the anonymity that comes with paying way too much for stuff, but with tourists being the only other people there besides celebrities I wonder if that's entirely true. I did, however, dig the art deco grandeur of the Beverly Hills town hall and police stations. It's a pity they don't make them like that anymore. The statues out the front of the town hall are also very cool.

Most movie stars homes are just big houses, so seeing them didn't do too much for me. The exception was the late John Candy's mushroom house. Take one look at the magic toadstool chimneys and tell me he wasn't on some serious stuff.

I think LA was probably a pretty good place to end my American trip. This place is probably a better epitome of how the US works than anywhere else I visited. New York has the hard reality of cash ruling everything, and Wall Street's dominance of the American way. For most people, that's how life works, banks, money, working many hours and seeing other people get rich. Los Angeles is the flip side of this, the fact that there is one way to buck the system and that's celebrity. Forget Vegas, that's the big jackpot here. Every now and then, some commoner finds out they can sing, act, dribble a basketball or just look plain hot and find themselves elevated to the new American aristocracy. For the average person, that's what they aspire to, and that's what LA represents. While it has it's angry, ugly side just over the hill in South Central, it provides middle America with it's hopes and dreams. It may be a surer way to comfort to go to Uni and earn a degree and work hard, but everyone, deep down, wants to be a star. It's the release valve on the American Way, and why people seem happy with their lot here.

So that's it, I'm off to Dublin. I've enjoyed America, and it's shattered some of my preconceptions about the place, but I'm so glad this is not my country. It's such an extreme place, a land of big ideas without the tempering force of common sense most of the time. It's easy to admire, but probably best done from afar. I know I'll be back here one day.

NoCal

Santa Barbara :: USA

Going back to Cali...

Places: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Big Sur & Santa Barbara.

Coolest thing I did: Big Sur. I can't describe it, it has to be seen.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: California is just chock full of farms. I pictured all palm trees and beaches.

It appears that my last trip to the San Francisco Bay area that I'd been uncannily lucky with the weather. It turns out it's usually a whole lot colder than the temperature I'd just left in Las Vegas, but also that it varies quite a lot depending on where in the city or bay you happen to be standing at any given moment. The hills all through the city cause micro climates, meaning it can be 10 degrees colder just by going down into a valley or up a hill. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pretty uniformly rainy for my whole time staying in the city.

The hostel is just off Union Square, giving me the central tourist friendly location I never had last time I visited for work, but it also meant there were lots of pan handlers and crack heads congregating around outside. Not a big issue, but coming back at night never felt quite safe. Lets just say it adds some colour to your day when bearded drunks scream obscenities at you as you leave for the morning. Still, can't possibly complain about the location. As close to the middle of everything as you can get.

It was a trip of visits this time. Cisco had very recently moved Dave from his home in Amsterdam to somewhere in Silicon Valley and he already had his first two visitors on the same day as I arrived. It was good to see him again after about 3 years and he spent the rest of the weekend playing tour guide with his car. We went out for a good Italian in North Beach on Saturday night (though we sat in the basement and it was lucky we didn't get to eat in the meat smoking room like some people had to) and then he took us out to the Napa Valley on Sunday to do some wine tasting.

I'm assured that the scenery is spectacular in Napa, but I can't say either way. It rained so constantly that we really couldn't see much but the vague outline of some mountains on either side of the vineyards, but I can imagine it would be quite a scene. Still, we did get stuck into some pretty good wine and I learned that there is a grape called Zinfandel, and that it's a red. I also learned that Australians pioneered sparkling red wine, and they had a copy cat at one of the places that was 60% Pinot Noir and 40% of the aforementioned Zinfandel. Man, that stuff is fun in a bottle. Its like Champagne, only redder, but with similar light headed joy.

So I had Monday to pretty much be a tourist around the city, which was something I had to pack into half a day last time I was in San Francisco. I took a bus up to Haight-Ashbury to see what's become of the hippies. Just to give you a taste, the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets has a Gap on it. It's still a pretty cool place in town to hang about in but the counter culture revolution collided with market reality quite some time ago so you are reduced to buying tie dyed T-shirts or bongs if you want to relieve the old spirit of the place. I did, however, have a vegetarian meal even though I wasn't forced to. It must be the vibe.

I then went down to the Castro to see how the gay people live. Much like Sydney, there are lots of clothes shops and eateries that are far superior to most other spots in the city. Them poofs have taste, if nothing else. Having got a brief respite from the rain I crossed over into the Mission district to see some nastier looking new eateries (gentrification appears to be a couple of years behind) and lots of book shops. I also had a burrito thats as good as any I've ever had. I'd forgotten about that from last time.

The thing I did see this time in the Mission that I missed last time was the actual mission. Californian towns all tended to be built up around a Catholic Mission so there is always a monestary/hacienda looking building with terracotta roof tiles and great big bells in arches in every town. It reminds you that despite the modern Americans complaints that there are too many Latin immigrants in their country, the Spanish speakers have been in the area a whole lot longer than the English speakers.

I went over to Oakland to meet up with Colin, an old work mate from Sun in Sydney, and it was good to see him, even if it didn't look like he'd slept in about 3 days. The birth of your second child will do that. I also saw Rob and Patrick, who gave me my first job at Sun all those years ago, down in Santa Clara at a place that graded their chicken wings from mild to thermonuclear. I hadn't seen any of these guys in about 5 years, and it made the detour back to San Francisco even more worth it. I'm throughly impressed with the place once again. That mix of nature and urban lifestyle right in the middle of an earthquake zone has to be unique in the world.

I picked up my hire care and drove south, following highway 1 into the literary heartland of the US. John Steinbeck, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac all loom large over northern California, which I have to say is not what I expected. A coastline hugged by mountains, the space in between inhabited by rows and rows of farmland and the cliffs breaking out into beaches every now and then. North of Santa Cruz I was making my way through redwood forests and rolling hills. I spent the first night at the surf mecca of Santa Cruz, but unfortunately, the weather had cut the tops off the waves so they looked a lot more like speed humps. Even in those conditions there seemed to be about a thousand people out competing for the waves. I'd hate to see what it gets like when the surf is really good. Still, it was a nice little town, with a long beach to walk along and cliffs overlooking it. Sitting on the cliff tops and watching the sun set over the surfers in the water below was a mellowing feeling, vindicating my decision to continue slowly down the coast instead of flying.

The stretch between Santa Cruz and Morro Bay lives up to it's reputation as one of the most worthwhile in the entire US. The highway is a grey ribbon stitched in and out of looming great cliffs and every time you round the next bend its yet another spectacular photo opportunity. From Monterey you follow 17 mile road through golf courses looking over rocky islands and trees that are so gnarled you'd compare them to wafts of smoke if they weren't so still. Seals roll around on the beaches and sea birds sit on the rocks in their thousands, resulting in the black weed on the base of the rocks giving way to snow caps of bird poo. Even if you know what it is, it still makes a stunning visual effect against the sheer blue sky.

The area around Big Sur is the stuff of legends. This is where the road barely clings for dear life to the sides of green hills, broken up by the occasional granite bridge that makes driving there possible without backtracking kilometres inland. I don't know how comfortable I am when the bridges are described as “historic” though, it makes them sounds like they were once safe, but now, who knows. I'm not sure what it's like in summer, but I had whole stretches of this beautiful highway to myself for lots of the trip, which is good when you're scared to go more than 30 or 40 miles and hour around most of the hairpins. It took far longer than I though it would, meaning I did miss out on seeing the Hearst Castle, which is something I would have liked to do had they not made it so hard ($20 and a 1.45 hour tour is required, meaning you really need half a day). It does look like an actual castle, perched up on a hilltop over the peasants living down in San Simeon. I think the days are gone when second generation media barons can get away with lording it over the poor like that, I can't imagine what would have happened had a Murdoch or Packer decided to do the same thing in Sydney these days, probably be frowned upon.

I've noted that hostels in Northern California seem to be run by the refugees of the Berkley hard left. Unless you are ready for talks of organic farmers markets, why Bush is evil and how to make your own clothing out of hemp then this may not be the scene for you. The one I spent the night in at San Lous Obispo was the epitome of it. Any attempt at a rational conversation very quickly veered into evils perpetrated on the world by the Bush-Cheney junta. It's ok if you're willing to listen to the other side of the argument, but the cult like mentality is a bit too much. Still, it was fun night in S.L.O so the streets were blocked off and I got to eat BBQ chicken kebabs on the street, which was tops. I also re-affirmed that Fat Tire is the best mass produced micro brew (a common occurrence here) available. I'd been struggling with the American beer until California, where they appear to just make lots of micro brew, turning it into a contradiction in terms, but making good beer available in pubs that don't brew their own.

So I've arrived in Southern California, having dodged a hefty storm and looked at loads of beaches and ended up in Santa Barbara. It seems like a nice kind of spot, I'm even considering staying a second day if the rain clears up overnight.

Deal, or no deal?

Las Vegas :: USA

About these young brothers in the city of sin.

Places: Las Vegas, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.

Coolest thing I did: Drove a convertible out to the Grand Canyon to watch the sun set.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: There are even poker machines in the airport in Vegas. The airport.

To be honest, besides gambling, prostitution and booze I didn't really know what to expect from Las Vegas, the home of my first annual 29th birthday (not one American has gotten that joke yet...). You first get an idea of what's in store for you when you pull up to your hotel and it's shaped like Camelot. Grant and I stayed in the Excalibur, whose theme you can probably guess from it's eateries having names like the Round Table Buffet and the Sherwood Forrest Cafe. If you like tack, you're in the right place. We then took a stroll through an Egyptian pyramid made of black glass and guarded by the Sphinx and a Malaysian garden. Giant golden Lions, the Eiffel tower, the statue of liberty, fountains that dance to adult middle of the road adult contemporary music: this place has it all.

I'm not much of a gambler, so Grant, who seems to be a bit of a blackjack guru, did most of the gambling for us on the first night. The Star Wars pokies were just the start. Here's a tip for those going to come here, it's very expensive to go out after half a litre of Vodka each. Despite many deleted scenes (more from memory loss that anything else) we managed to work out we blew quite a bit of money playing blackjack at the Bellagio and got separated when I went to the toilet and couldn't find my way back to the table. To be fair, these places are designed to get you lost when you're sober, so being drunk makes it impossible to find out where you were before you last turned around in a circle. We did discover that people will bring you “free” beer when you gamble, but I reckon somehow the Casinos come out ahead. The rest of the first evening involved Grant being asleep at McDonalds and me being thrown out of the MGM Grand for sitting on the escalators. And asking lots of people if they'd seen Grant, usually responded to by “who the hell is Grant?”.

There were more nights like this. Besides our best intentions I learned that it's not a good idea to make your first meal of the day a buffet lunch. I don't care how hung over you are, pork ribs and fried chicken for breakfast is a terrible idea. We went for an ill considered walk to find the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign but gave up once we got to the end of the strip and had entered deep into dodgey-ville (pop. 1.5million). Despite the fact that we were staying in what we thought was white trash city, it gets far worse the further north you go. Lots of people with 19 kids trailing behind them with no shoes and mullets. Despite the rumored glamor of the place, the whole city lacks any level of class at all, even in the high end places. It's just more concentrated at one end.

The weather was tops and we actually spent some time in the sun by the pool during the days. The day after Grant left I also managed to find a golf driving range and hit a few balls without having to front the $500 it costs to do the same thing in the Wynn hotel. It was nice to think we didn't spend 24 hours a day in front of a poker table or slot machines, as appears to be the done thing here.

My actual birthday was probably the quietest night we had, being in bed by 2am and having drunk very little. I guess there's only so much you can take if you aren't a huge gambler. There is a definite lean towards the male here, meaning nightclubs are pointless as the only women in them are topless waitresses, many hired because they are women, not because they should be topless. I did have the best steak of the trip on the evening of my birthday, which is good because the night after Grant left I'm pretty sure I had nothing but Margaritas for dinner, which would explain my trying to get into nightclubs by tacking myself on to the end of big groups going in the VIP lines and fighting off hookers by asking them for outrageous acts for unreasonably low prices. Drunk single men seem to be a pretty good target so I think I had more women talk to me that one evening than in the rest of the week. In a place that prides itself on the fact you can order strippers to your room out of a catalogue I guess you can expect that.

I wonder about the fascination with animals though. If it's not caged tigers it's sharks or lions. I'm sure it's not good for them to be exposed to all the bright lights and noise, even if they are in a show or two. I guess that kind of explains why the eventually turn on their handlers, ala Sigfried and Roy.

I hired a car for the last day and thanks to a $10 upgrade, ended up with a convertible. As you make your way out of Vegas you can see just how barren the country this place was planted on is. Jagged cliffs and boulders jut out of miles of scrub and sand, and after a few hours of eating dust I decided that the convertible wasn't that good an idea after all. Still, it makes a cool story and I have sunburn that will soon look like a tan. The first stop was the Hoover Dam, which as far as I can tell was built so people who didn't need electricity in the depression due to being too poor would have jobs to provide electricity. It is, however, a pretty cool dam, as dams go. You can tell it was built in the 1930s by all the art deco touches everywhere, its kind of like the Chrysler building but rather as a feat of electrical engineering than a commercial tower. I was impressed, but didn't stay long as I woke up far too late and had to drive far and fast to make it to Le Canyon Grand.

Another 3 hours through the desert and I found myself face to face with another one of those tourist attractions that's either going to live up to the hype or suffer from the Mona Lisa Syndrome (“I thought it would be bigger”). It's hard to describe the place, especially at sunset but I was so glad I went. The colours are just radiant and almost seem to glow when reflecting the red in the background. It's a pity I took all my pictures a half hour before sunset and didn't remember to recharge my camera battery, but it's going to be hard to forget all those torn up cliffs and rifts glowing in the deepening sky. Oh, and it's also bigger than you think it's going to be, which is a nice change.

I have to say, after all yesterday's driving, I'm not as up on the whole Las Vegas thing as I was even 48 hours ago. I'd say a weekend is about all you can expect to stay here and keep your dignity intact. I guess when you found your country on the protection of liberty above all else, you're eventually going to end up with a Las Vegas at some point. It's one of those places that point out the frailties in human nature, the need for pure decadence and just plain sinning that we all have inside us, but some of us repress better than others. Practically anything you want to do that is bad for you can be done for a price here, sometimes in combination with other bad things. It's a spectacle thats worth seeing, but probably not for this long.

Charlotte airport is full of Nascar fans

Breckenridge :: USA

First a capital, then onto the snow.

Places: Washington DC, Charolotte, Breckenridge & Vail.

Coolest thing I did: Came to play in the snow.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: You can't even get within spitting distance of the White house but you can almost breathe on the original constitution.

Despite showing up to Washington DC on a long weekend, when much of the cities business has closed down, it did manage to live up to the hype of being a lot like Canberra, only less crap. If America is as much a set of ideals as it is a physical place then Washington is where these ideals are carved into stone. It's easy to admire the purity of the basic tenets of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are the basis of the American nation, and looking up at all those monuments to the key figures in the countries history it becomes even easier to get swept up in the seductive simplicity of having hard, fixed principles govern a country.

Well, that's how it works in theory, anyway.

Neo-classical seems to have been the order of the day when the three big arms of government were getting their homes set up, and despite not being able to get at all close to the White House you can't help but be impressed that so much of the world's business is decided in that one little building. I guess it's also a tribute to the strict separation of powers that the Capitol building and the Supreme Court are housed at the other end of town, with the court sitting on top of a hill, kind of fitting for the final arbiter of the laws made and executed in the other two.

That the great monuments (and the associated reflecting pools) are all either to presidents or war dead says a lot about the country. It's history has been forged into a complete narrative that can be used to tell school children the heroic and often bloody story of how the country came to be and what had to be done to keep it from all falling apart during it's many crises. I liked the elegant simplicity of the Vietnam war memorial and was most taken aback by the Jefferson memorial, even though it's less popular than Lincoln's due to location. All those enlightenment ideas that flowed from the man's pen into the founding documents of the US are emblazoned on the walls and despite having read quite a bit about his being a slave owner sprouting large about freedom and liberty, I admire those words.

The Smithsonian isn't so much a museum as a small town of museums. It's the repository of the nation's history, and like most nations, also it's spoils of war. I only went into the original institute and the American History museum but both have an impressive line up of stuff. I've read they are showing about 1% of what they have in their archives so what's in storage must be impressive. From Lincoln's top hat to the puffy shirt from Seinfeld there really is a large chuck of American history to learn about. What I did learn is that despite the positive narrative, when you look into the details the Americans have done just as despicable things in their history as many nations, they just choose to tell these as footnotes to the main story. I think one of the best things about Australian history is the self criticality that's built into it. I'd hate to see us end up with a grand narrative of our own, despite what Mr Howard would like.

The best thing I saw there was the national archives, which house the originals of those magic documents that house American's ideals. In one small rotunda is the Declaration of independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, all it's written amendments and just outside is one of the four remaining copies of the original Magna Carta. If this is a country built on ideas then these are the blueprints.

Washington also has a nightlife of Saturday night, which surprised the hell out of me.

It also has a staggering homeless problem. In the shadow of all these halls of power, hordes of people struggle around in the cold, pushing shopping trolleys and begging for change. Without the politicos in town it becomes obvious that everyone is either a tourist or homeless and these people get very aggressive if you don't give them your loose change. It's a reminder that despite the lofty ideals set in stone in this place, the reality is that in practice, they don't work to enrich everyone.

So, my next stop was to the ski fields just outside Denver. Grant has set up shop in Breckenridge this year and has been kindly putting me up in the large household he's acquired this year. The town itself is large enough to support a whole ecosystem of shops, eateries and nightlife so it's a damn site easier for someone to live in than little Banff would have been. Despite only having got a few cm of snow on the first night when I arrived there has been a record base this year and I've spent day after day boarding down these ultra wide runs under a brilliant blue sky. I was impressed enough with Breckenridge itself but we also borrowed his mate's car and took a trip out to Vail, which is a world of it's own. It took us about 2 hours to get to the most distant mountain in the park and the scenery is just breathtaking. While Breck is very windy, and it's soft white peaks appear smudged at the edges due to powder drifting off into the wind, Vail has a variety of scenery that takes the breath away. From soft hills to jagged peaks that look like British teeth, brittle twigs of deciduous trees to lush pines covered in snow, it's what you expect from the Rockies.

I'm intrigued by the seasonal lifestyle that all these guys and girls live, mostly doing jobs they'd never consider otherwise for a lift pass. I feel a little inadequate trying to keep up with these people when I can barely link my turns, but I have to say that trying to keep up with Grant at slow pace has forced me out of the comfort zone I built up in Tremblant and improved me no end. Breck is much younger than Vail as far as workers and visitors go, so I feel a lot like an old man going out at night, but the fact you can get a jug of gut rottingly horrible beer for a mere $4 more than makes up for it. I can't help but people watch as these early 20-somethings go about eagerly making the same mistakes I did back then, just starting out on their irresponsible globe trotting runs. All that enthusiasm helps remind me why I started doing this in the first place.

And another one

Washington DC :: USA

More from the town of smoking manholes.

Places: New York, Washington DC.

Coolest thing I did: Saw a one woman, 13 part play "off-broadway" as they say in the industry.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Smithsonian (off the institute fame) never set foot in the US, he just wanted to make sure their new country got off to a good start.

Since last we spoke I have been far more cultured, having gone to not only another art gallery, but also the theater in the space of a few days. Despite my usual dislike for modern art (including a legendary spat at the Tate Modern where I just ended up walking out it was all so stupid) I decided to go to the Museum of Modern Art (from here on in referred to as the MoMA). I'm glad modern meant from the late 19th century on as this means I ended up seeing loads more Van Goghs, Monets and the like. I have decided that Picasso used to be able to draw real good around the turn of the century but then obviously got his hands on some ketamine or something because everything after that looks like he's either looking at it through a broken window or a broken mind. I'm going to guess with all those pictures of absinthe bottles about the same time it was the latter. It was only towards the end that I saw all that really weird performance and installation art, some of which wasn't too bad. Then again, some of it was absolute nonsense so I felt vindicated.

I hate musicals. This fact coupled with everyone else on Earth seeming to love them no end meant I had some trouble locating something to see to tick a Broadway show off my tourist to do list. I ended up scouring the ultra liberal nonsense of the Village Voice looking for something to see that wasn't avant-guard nonsense put on by arts students and came up with a one woman show they'd panned called Bridge and Tunnel. I lined up for the half price tickets for that nights show (for anything that's not selling out months in advance you can get tickets for if you've got an hour to line up in Times Square) and wasn't sure what to expect. It turns out the woman is a genius of impersonation and she goes through a mock poetry reading done by New York immigrants. I swear she did a dozen different characters and each one was spot on and very bloody funny. There was also minimal singing, which was tops. I once saw Les Miserables and I swear to god that there wasn't that much singing in the French Revolution.

So running out of famous landmarks to gawk at I did a couple of visits to some themed areas. First day I did “rockstars that met untimely ends”. I had some trouble locating the unmarked Dakota building which saw the end of John Lennon but managed to figure out that all the tour buses were stopping out the front and everyone pointing at it. Say what you will about the man, but Mr Lennon has some impeccable taste in living arrangements. The building is amazing and right over the road from Central Park. I then took a rather long walk down to the Chelsea Hotel, which is famous mostly for lots of people who wrote stuff writing it there. It's also the location of the infamous death of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols and his chick Nancy. As Chelsea was the hip place to have an art gallery a couple of years ago they now show lots of paintings by up and coming artists in the lobby.

The hip place now to have an art gallery appears to be Williamsburg, which is just over the river in Brooklyn. Williamsburg was once a complete hole and the fact you can see the towers of the Marcy projects that gave the world Jay-Z (and if his lyrics are to be believed, led to a lucrative career in selling crack cocaine) tells us that it's renaissance is rather recent. It's a whole load of run down warehouses and decrepit buildings being given splashes of paint and being turned into trendy cafes and loft galleries. While it is all very hip and happening it did seem a little two hip and happening for me. I'm sure I'll be wearing some of the nonsense I saw people got up in two years from now and think nothing of it, I'm going to bet 90% of the stupid getup these people are trudging around in trying to look trendily miserable will never make it to the mainstream. Thank god. One tip girls, you'll all be wearing ballet slippers within the next 12 months, mark my words.

I also decided to see how the other half lives up in Harlem. I started walking up posh arsed Park Avenue at about 86th street knowing that I'd reach Spanish Harlem just over 96th. It's amazing how it goes from mansions to housing projects by crossing one street. Once you hit the 120s you end up in the Harlem of legend, and despite the assurances that money is being pumped into the place to sort it out it still reeks of poverty. I can't see how anyone is surprised when you put people that are mostly poor into high densities in a very small space and give them a view of the richest people in the world and be surprised that there's some tension. I know they had to come up with something but the very design of those housing towers lends itself to problems. Putting four of them around an enclosed park that can't be seen from the road seems like a very bad idea. No wonder even the police were scared to go in there at one time.

Speaking of which, the reason crime seems to be down is that the police presence in the area is staggering. While standing on 125th street taking a photo of the Apollo theater (ground zero for much of the black musical talent of the last 40 years) police cars came screaming in from nowhere and demanded that everyone clear the block. One old man grumbled to me as I past that this happens all the time and that they just do it to stop the young blokes gathering on the street corners in groups of more than 3. I'm actually glad someone spoke to me because despite trying to be open minded the regular stares at me being the only white face on the street were getting unnerving. I'm sure these people are just trying to get through their problems like everyone else but when those groups of young 50 cent look a likes come down the footpath in front of you can't help but tense up. I even found myself trying to guess just how many handguns there would have been in one street alone. You can try and rationalise all you want, but it is a bit terrifying.

So my final stop in tourism land was to take the train up to the South Bronx and see what must be the soul of the city, Yankee stadium. While I'm no baseball fan I was in awe at the amount of history tied to the place and the hardened looking Italian local that took us around while explaining everything in an accent that you only hear on the Sopranos made it far more authentic. I guess the Americans know enough about marketing to make that team and ground world famous. I can't imagine someone who knew nothing about cricket being as impressed by the MCG.

The view from the stadium, as an added bonus, takes in the biggest, baddest housing projects of them all, dominating the skyline of the South Bronx. This, despite what some people claim, was the birthplace of hip-hop, and despite Brooklyn and Queens providing far more of the stars you've heard on the radio, it was the reaction to the sheer hopelessness of life in those towers and the required inventiveness to overcome it that gave us the rapping and scratching that now seem to colour all popular music.

What more can I say to you? New York has exceeded all expectations I'd placed on it. I now really do wish I'd been able to get out of Toronto on time so I could have spent another couple of days here but time has run out.

The view out on the bus was just as good. Once you get out of the tunnel on the New Jersey side and look back you can see the whole extent of the island, two massive waves of skyscrapers breaking over the low rise of the villages and Harlem. From the 5th avenue stores that look like museums (and make Oxford street look like Parklea Markets) to the streets full of yellow cabs and steaming manhole covers, it just is an incomparable place.

Believe the Hype

New York City :: USA

This is a Brooklyn bound L train.

Places: New York, New York.

Coolest thing I did: Watched kids snowboarding in the Park.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: People here are far from rude, in face I can't recall the last big city where people talk to strangers so much.

I'm going to try hard not to resort to hyperbole when describing New York City, but it's going to be hard. To try and hold it off for a short time, I will describe my day today, just to give you a taste. I spent the morning walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and wandering around the brownstones of the town of Brooklyn Heights, which includes a spectacular view over the North River to Manhattan. I had a pasta lunch that could only be described as spot on (I assume this is because this is where the actual Italians all moved once the Lower East Side became decrepit) and took the subway back to Manhattan to spend the afternoon lost in Greenwich Village before going up the Empire State Building to take the whole place in at miniature scale. That rates as a rather slow day since my arrival four days ago as I'm writing this instead of bar hopping around the East Village, which is where I happen to be staying.

As you can tell, I'm having the best time.

I've been in hyper tourist mode since I got here as there is no city I've ever been to that's been so good at promoting itself and every time I do one thing I find a vaguely remembered reference to something else very close by. My first day was spent wandering around the canyons of lower Manhattan, which alternates between the very old and the ultra new. Just around the corner from the brass bull statue out the front of the neoclassical facade of Rockefeller's Standard Oil building lies the NYSE and Wall street, the very heart and aorta of the capitalist animal. While the gold and cash have been replaced by innumerable electronic signals, it is no less the hub of our globalised financial system. There is no place on the planet, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo included (or even combined) has the feel of an unrestrained free market as Wall street, which must be why it gets to be the only logically straight road in the incongruously random streets of lower Manhattan. While the rest of the city follows the logic of vertical Avenues at right angles to Streets, the layout near the tip of the island looks almost Old World.

I took the Staten Island Ferry out for a close look at the Statue of Liberty and wasn't disappointed by either the view or not taking the option of walking on Liberty Island itself. If you were still able to climb the statue, I'd have paid to do so, but no one seems to see the ultimate irony of protecting the very symbol of liberty from the “evil doers” by taking away...erm...the liberty of the people to climb it.

I also went to look at the world's most evocative hole in the ground, where two towers originally hated by New Yorkers stood. It's hard, even now, to engage in conversation with someone who has lived here long enough to call themselves a New Yorker and not have the subject of those twin cavities or the saga of their replacement come up. Everyone has an opinion here, and isn't afraid to give it out. I love that.

I spent a day in the middle of Manhattan looking at all those skyscrapers that make the place famous. In stark contrast to the business like nature of the Downtown, the beauty of some of the structures just south of Central Park can't be denied. I was fascinated by anything art deco even before coming here but seeing the Empire State, Chrysler and Rockefeller Center up close has moved me to almost make this a love letter to all things with vertical bars and gods on them. Sure, there are some monstrosities. Take the UN building, or even better Donald Trump's love letter to both extreme capitalism and himself. Looking at the GE building compared to the gold and red marble edifice that is Trump Tower only shows that there's no accounting for taste, and that the old money of the 30s at least left us something beautiful, whereas I can't see too many people falling in love with the debris of the 80s.

Having said that, the ode to the combination of capital and labour written by John D Rockefeller and engraved outside his eponymous Plaza is pure gilded age piffle that could have easily been penned by Ayn Rand (in fact, I wonder if the Atlas statue out the front in any way inspired her book title?). As a man that spent his life running an empire provided by his father by engaging in business tactics that are now illegal in most of the world it seems a bit rich for him to be telling us about the beauty of humanities achievements through the sweat of it's own brow. It's a reminder that just like the monuments left by every other civilization before this one, it's the veneration of the rich and powerful that leaves the lasting mark on the world. I guess that's the price we pay.

The Met also lived up to the hype. While they have none of the most famous artworks from any particular artist, period or culture, the sheer number of works can easily fill a day or more to see. My only regret is the most famous picture, of Washington crossing the Delaware River wasn't on display because the extensive American wing was closed for some reason. However a whole truck loads of Rembrandts, Dalis, Van Gogh and Monets more than make up for that. The Americans don't seem immune from the prestige projects of the late 19th century that saw the Met end up two entire Egyptian temples taken from their home land and reconstructed on US soil. I'd assumed that was a European kind of arrogance but it seems that in the struggle to define itself as a real country, the game of oneupmanship that infected Europe at the time crossed the Atlantic too.

As an added treat, the winter that never came ended on Saturday night with almost a meter of snow falling on the city. This left Central Park blanketed in snow and the Sunday afternoon crowds out to enjoy it as best they could. There were cross country skiers, tobogganers mixing it up with snowball fighters and snowman builders, but by far the coolest thing was the snowboarders. These kids built a jump at the bottom of a stair case and were going down at full tilt over the jump to the applause of a waiting crowd. All nominally in the middle of a city. This place is beyond unique.

So the hostel is a dive, but it's got a good crowd and it's located on the border of the East Village and the increasingly less dodgey Alphabet City. When compared with the gentrification of the world famous Greenwich Village on the other side of Washington Square, the East Village is a combination of down and out and hip. I've been going to a different cheap restaurant, bar or club every night (sometimes several bars) and there's no end of new ones in sight. I'd have thought going into these hip places would leave me feeling like an outsider but I reckon I've yet to get more than 10 mins after ordering a beer without a conversation starting with a complete stranger. God, these people love to talk. I admit, it's about work more often than not, they do seem to take an interest and love the chance to talk about themselves to a foreigner just as much. Pity the bar staff are so universally surely. Perhaps they'd rather be out on a Saturday night.

It does, however, seem like a tragically hip and naive part of town. Whilst sitting at a Belgian bar at about 3am, myself and an English bloke I happened to be out with noticed two blokes started slapping each other and rushed out into the street for a fight. It was like no one had ever seen one before. While we gave it a subtle glance over our shoulders and continued drinking the place emptied to go and watch. I guess when everyone is dressed like it's a Napoleon Dynamite conference you don't get many fights.

Right, my love letter to my new favorite city (sorry Berlin) has to end for now, but more is sure to come soon.

Game On

Boston :: USA

Where everyone is Irish.

Places: Boston & Salem.

Coolest thing I did: Superbowl Sunday. The commercials alone were worth it.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: No one was actually burnt at the stake during the Salem Witch trials. Several hangings, one pressing but no burnings. What a cop out.

I was supposed to leave Toronto the day after my work and lease ended but events conspired against me at the very start of my US trip. Thanks to several delays along the way I ended up being stuck in TO for an extra 4 or 5 days, but had a very good time being there and not working. It's hard leaving all those people I've met over the last 12 months, it's been a good time in my life. There's the downside of having to build up a whole new bank of conversation with new people but then there's the upside of all my jokes being new again. On the balance I'm pretty happy to be starting my big trip in the US.

So the background is I have a flight from LA to Dublin on the 16th of March and the time in between is all mine. At almost the last moment I booked myself on a Greyhound from Toronto and Boston (as opposed to New York), not recalling the last time I was on a long bus ride just how dull it can be. Thirteen and a half hours is a long time to spend on a bus through lots of dead tress and abandoned farm houses but it beat the $500 plane ticket option. I have to say that it's not the upper echelons of US society that catch the bus and it was pretty obvious from the get go that there were some weirdos on my bus. At one point the bus driver stopped the bus because this woman was screaming at her to turn the lights on and we had to wait while the police came and picked her up. Add to this I'd only eaten from Dunkin' Donuts, Subway and McDonalds in the last 12 hours and all my preconceptions of the US were being fulfilled. Thank god that ride ended.

The first thing that strikes you about Boston is the city is a mix of very old and ultra new being torn to pieces to make it more livable. The rump of Boston itself (wedged between the Charles River and the harbor) has been riven open with new freeways and had big tunnels poked through it. Apparently it's been going on for about two decades now so no-one seems to notice just what an unfinished state it's in. You kind of get used to the juxtaposition of freeways, parks and buildings as you walk along but it makes it very hard to navigate.

My first day was spent doing the tourist walks and learning just how little I know about American history. Here is the site of the Boston Massacre, here is where the Declaration of Independence was first read out, and so on. I'm trying to catch up quickly, but I'm constantly hearing new names and events and just trying to mash them into some kind of narrative in my head. I think the idea of conservation of historical sites came very late to Boston as there tends to be two story historical buildings wedged between a couple of skyscrapers of at least 20 odd floors. It's not a bad thing, it shows that the city has continued to progress and be a centre of commerce for the US but it does make it very hard to take pictures that just aren't all black.

The strangest thing is the turning of old public buildings into commercial sites to help fund their preservation. The beautiful old stone town hall was replaced by a concrete structure that redefines ugly and the old site has actually been taken over by an upmarket Steak House. I'm not sure if that's admirable or not but at least it's still there.

I've noticed that this is a city of joggers. I've been unable to take a picture without getting either a random jogger or an American flag in it.

It was pointed out to me last night that by mingling with the locals strictly at bars I'm only going to meet the local drunks. While this is true I can't think of another way to do it. The nightlife has been excellent, even if the beer is American. Some of the local pubs brew their own, which has been quite acceptable but if that's not on offer then it's all the generic crap that passes as beer here. The best night out so far was Superbowl Sunday. I didn't realise so many of the places would be holding organised parties so I ended up in a row of pubs on Union Street and found the first one that would let me in. I ended up propping myself on the bar between a couple of blokes from South Boston and a couple of girls from North Boston and much merriment and Guinness resulted. I learned that most people from Boston claim to be Irish but that none of them actually are. I also learned that people have been browbeaten into thinking their accent is ugly that they've just started to accept it. I have to say I find the broad accent far easier on the ears than the ones you get on TV and was quite popular for saying so. I also learned that telling people from South Boston that Guns and Roses are a second rate AC/DC is dangerous. Lucky I don't think anyone understood a word I said.

The US ads for the Superbowl are a contest in who can be funniest. I can't describe most of them but I hope they get played wherever you are as there were some gems.

I spent a day walking around Cambridge and the jewel of the US education system that is Harvard. When you come from a Uni that has such a utilitarian feel as UTS and it's 28 story office block then you can't help but be gobsmacked that people actually study in nice looking places. My head was telling me how elitist the whole place is but my heart was all for all the thinking that must go on there. I also found myself back there at night hearing the philosopher Kwame Appiah talk about his book Cosmopolitanism in the Harvard book store. I felt pretty inspired to do some hard thinking about stuff but didn't manage to do much. Instead I went to the pub for tea and watched basketball.

Just down the street from the beauty of Harvard is the pure geekiness of MIT. I had planned to walk around the buildings much like I did at it's more humanities based cousin but you get lost very quickly and soon I found myself wandering around the basements of the buildings watching people in lab coats weld things, shoot things with lasers and things like that. It was like watching people go for their PhD in Mad Science. I didn't see any very big computers but it was still very cool.

I should also mention my trip out to Salem. I went out there for the witch trial related tourism but found out that it's all a bit of a scam. All they want to tell you about is their proud maritime history. I didn't want to hear about boats, I wanted to hear about (and if possible see) witches being burnt at the stake. While I learned some stuff by reading plates nailed to walls I didn't really see all that much witch-related stuff. It was, however, a nice town, but that didn't really justify the trip out. I did learn that the whole thing was a bit of a cock up. Apparently one of the local preachers became a sort of expert on witches and published THE textbook on witchery in the late 1690s. This inspired two young local girls to have a bit of a joke and pretend to be possessed by the devil. When they were cornered they fingered a local slave (a half black, half Indian woman) who was hung for witchcraft. The girls then decided to see off quite a few more people and the accusations started flying thick and fast as everyone in town got in on the act. It was only when the governors wife was fingered by someone in some sort of plea bargain that the madness stopped (can't be hanging any rich people, after all). I especially liked the fact you could have "spectral testimony" meaning if you were the only one who heard a spirit tell you someone was a witch then no one could dispute you. Funny if it still didn't happen, only now you call people 'terrorist' instead of 'witch'.

So far the only history I've put together is there were these blokes called the Puritans, who didn't like the king of England persecuting their religion so they got on a boat and came to American where they could have the liberty to persecute whomever they liked. Then something happened and there was a war with the French. Then the local high-and-mighties got annoyed at the English for taxing them to pay for this war with the French so they dumped a whole lot of tea into Boston harbor. Then there was a war with the English. Then the US was a country. I'm sure I'm missing some bits but you get the gist.

Oh yeah, one of these local high-and-mighties (Sam Adams) has a beer named after him.

On balance, my first stop in the US has been pretty good to me. Tomorrow I'm on a bus to the city that never sleeps and I'm sure there will be lots more to write there.

Happy Holidays!

Toronto :: Canada

The paradox of keeping religion out of Christmas.

Places: Blue Mountain, Toronto Intl, Mount Tremblant & Montreal.

Coolest thing I did: Took a punt on going into the strike zone that is Mount Tremblant this year and had the best time boarding ever.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Poutine is only considered the real thing if it uses chicken gravy. Beef gravy is considered a pernicious Anglo-Saxon addition.

Oh, how the Canadians like to make fun of their brethren down south, with their lack of insight into the world, their poor public services and their downright silly litigate-everything-in-sight mentality. One thing, however, that they can't claim to do differently is how tightly they have embraced political correctness in the face of common sense. People quite happily wish you a "Happy Holidays" and products such as "Holiday Trees" and "Seasons Decorations" line the shelves at Wal-mart. I understand not wanting to offend people with different religions but I doubt very much anyone is offended by the observance of what is a Christian tradition. No matter how much you try to separate the profitable gift giving part from those pesky religious overtones that tradition still stands. Pure silliness.

Due to being overseas at Christmas and the fact that the Canadians I know would all be home with their parents the decision was made amongst the Working Holiday ex-pattery that I know here that we should hire a condo in the snow and have ourselves a Christmas lunch. This was a fine idea so the venue was chosen as a small ski resort a couple of hours north of Toronto at a place called Blue Mountain (unlike Sydney, they only have one Blue Mountain). After an unexpected night on the cheap red wine with the Japanese neighbor downstairs the night before I got on the early morning Greyhound and out we went.

While the mountain itself does not actually live up to the title (it's more of a hill, it even has parking at the 'summit') it does have lots and lots of ski runs available and I can see myself taking another trip up there to do some actual boarding. This time however, we dropped our bags off and proceeded to down some hamburgers and plant ourselves at the pub to entertain the other patrons. Not much snow sports got done except for rides on something called a magic carpet, which is really a small sheet of plastic with handles. Oh, and all the boys worked tirelessly on turning someone else's half finished snow man into a snow woman. There were disagreements on how busty to make her and the amount of padding on the booty but the results were a little too good in the end. Once this was done we moved on from Gin and Tonics to shots. Keep in mind this is about 5pm on Christmas Eve.

In a pattern that would repeat itself for the next week we found ourselves in a ski resort nightclub populated by people roughly half our age. I don't know what it is about these places and underage kids, but I'm taking it it's a trade off between filling the club with people willing to pay money and legality. What happened next is a bit hazy but I'm sure it was a good time as I woke up rather early to the sounds of a turkey being prepared and was still drunk enough to cook everyone breakfast. I think the general chipperness around the place pointed to everyone else being in a similar state of mind.

There was a hard crash somewhere around noon and the food preparation suffered a little. While I didn't think things turned out too bad the general consensus turned out to be that everything prepared was a bit crap and no one really had the stomach for solids by the time we ate. A sign of a good night before if ever I've seen one. I returned on the only Christmas Day bus to Toronto, ate my baked beans on toast because I was too forgetful to remember I had no food in the house and went to bed early for my 6am start on boxing day.

I've had some rough trips on my travels, as this diary is testament to at times, but Boxing Day this year is up there with the worst. I arrived at Toronto airport at about 7am for my 9:40am flight only to have to line up for a couple of hours to reach the checkin desk. By the time I get there I'm informed my flight has been canned for mechanical reasons and my flight is now leaving at 5:30pm. The $20 voucher the compensated me with did little to offset the boredom of Pearson International airport, buying me nothing more than a slice of pizza and two beers. Man, that must be the dullest airport in the world. So I check in at 5pm and go through security to find out the flight has been pushed back until 7:30pm. This made it a physical impossibility of me getting up to Mount Tremblant as the last bus left Montreal at 8pm. At this point I found myself a random employee of Westjet, the airline at fault and hold them hostage until my demands were met. Oh she tried to fob me off and give me 1-800 numbers but I was having none of it. In the end I got myself $100 refund and a charted bus up to Tremblant whenever they managed to get me to Montreal. On arrival (the plane was further delayed so I ended up getting to Montreal at about 10pm) I found out that so many people were late the charter company had managed to get $150 per head from Westjet for a 2.5 hour bus ride. Pretty good work. I ended up convincing the girl working at the hostel to wait up for me an climbed into bed at about 1am, in my clothes and not bothering with sheets.

I had been told there was industrial action going on between the resort workers and Intrawest that own most of Canada's ski resorts so I was more than prepared to not get up to the mountain the whole 4 days and reduced service and runs. This turned out, however, to not be much of an inconvenience at all. There is only one mountain with lifts on it an a gondola goes all the way up to the summit from the base, meaning they can keep most of the mountain open with a skeleton crew. Add to this the fact that sticking to blue and green runs (that's about the level I can handle) it takes close to 40 mins to get from the summit to the gondola station in the village below. While the lines at the bottom were longer than they should have been this was partially offset by the droves of people who were scared off by the strike and went elsewhere to ski. It was a real gamble coming up but it paid off in spades.

I can't say enough good about Mount Tremblant itself. We had either clear blue skies or foggy mornings followed by clear blue skies in the afternoon and fresh snow three out of the four nights I was there and the conditions couldn't have been much better. The physical beauty of the area is a completely different kind to that in Banff, relying on snow covered pines and frozen lakes in place of jagged peaks as far as the eye can see. You get to some of the turns that overlook the valley below and can't help but stop to take photos. I've also been told it's usually closer to -20 than the -5 it was most days so even the weather wasn't too bad (though no the last day it dropped considerably, registering a -25 ambient temperature at the summit) and you didn't need to cover your face to protect against frostbite.

I think the fresh snow and lack of crowds also helped my snowboarding no end. I made more progress on these 4 days than I probably did in the previous 15 days of learning. While I'm still no expert I found myself in that zen moment when you stop thinking about what you are doing and the body takes over. Instead of looking at my feet or a metre in front I was looking well into the distance and even planning my route down the mountain in larger terms of where to position myself at the next turn or steep incline. I also found less and less points I had to feather down the mountain rather than linking sharp turns to slow myself down. It was a brilliant experience as it's probably the only physical activity I've attempted to learn from scratch in years. It also fed my confidence enough to listen to music all the way down, which only adds to the ability to let your mind wander away from trying to control what you are doing with your conscious mind. I miss it already.

The Tremblant village actually refers to the original village, which is where I stayed as opposed to Mount Tremblant, which is a replica Alpine village used to hold the hotels, boutiques and restaurants that bring Intrawest it's money. Oh, and of course the bars. Once again the order of the day was either the very young or the very old and I doubt greatly the effectiveness of ID checking going on up there. Still, the real village was very quiet and even if you missed the bus into the resort someone always seemed to be around to give you a lift. From riding in the back of a pick up truck (which was bloody freezing) to getting a lift home at 1am from the staff of the local sushi restaurant, some of the trips home were better than the actual nights out.

The reaction to the strike reminds me of Camus' The Plague. Everyone seemed to believe they were by far the most inconvenienced by the whole thing and required some kind of retribution from both the strikers and Intrawest. Demands for discounts and special treatment abounded and I'm quite glad most of the 200 management staff who were actually working told most of them to use their common sense. You can either have someone groom an extra run at night so you can go skiing or have that person make your bed. I saw very little sucking up, but that may have also been the two weeks of 14 hour days the staff were all working. I doubt there was much energy left for toleration of fools. I'm not too surprised that the users of the mountain were mostly anti-striker. I heard all sorts of foolish justifications on why they should accept they weren't getting a pay rise and go back to work. I was far more sympathetic to the strikers demands, which may have cut into Intrawest's profits but on balance pushed the wage for the workers somewhere closer to sensible than it was before. A $13CAD an hour average pay rate, much of which is for skilled work smells a bit like exploitation to me. But then again, not many people who can afford to go to Tremblant skiing (myself included) know what it's like to work for peanuts. Seeing as Intrawest make a fortune paying the non-union labour at places like Whistler-Blackcomb even less I think they can afford to give a little here.

So I went back down to Montreal for New Years Eve due to a lack of initial accommodation in either Tremblant or Montreal. I was told it was the party capital of Canada at the end of every year and from what I'd seen on past trips I had no reason to doubt it. I decided to give the idea of paying a single huge cover charge ($70+) for a single club and go crawling around the city to see what I could find to do. As it was bloody freezing outside I chose to put my bags in a locker at the bus station overnight and catch a movie until things started livening up a bit.

Syriana is a very, very complex movie. I walked out of there more confused than impressed, but after a couple of days to think about it I can see the brilliance in the story. Highly recommended.

I started off in a couple of pubs along the Crescent and soon enough hooked up with a random bunch of drunk Americans up from Boston. This would later prove to be my undoing. In a rapidly moving night we shifted to the St-Laurent part of town via some outdoor fireworks and at least two separate visits to fast food restaurants. The St-Laurent area is far more trendy but this did mean cover charges, even after midnight but everyone was a bit too drunk to care by then. Along the way the yanks were doing their best to pick up random women and by the end of the night we were in a rather seedy looking pub with nothing much going for it except the fact that it was still serving alcohol. A small subset of the group remained doing shots of Vodka when last drinks were called (I was obviously oblivious to the fact I had to be on a plane at 7am) and one of the girls suggested we go to a house party of a mate of hers who lived in the area for more drinks. This seemed like a fine idea until we hit the cold outside and one of my new mates tried to get a bit of a kiss from this girl but inadvertently vomited all over her. Pure class. Needless to say that put the breaks on the whole party idea and I found myself with probably the only sensible yank left eating smoked meat sandwiches until 4am.

It was a long, cold and rather sobering period between 4am and getting into my bed in Toronto at 9am. A sign informed me that the temperature was hovering at around -23 and despite wearing long underwear and all the clothes I could get out of my bag and put on the hour wait for a cab at the bus station was pretty miserable. If you are standing still your snot freezes and any exposed skin hurts like it's being whipped. With hindsight a 7am flight was rather foolish this time around. I managed to be in a pretty foul mood by the time I got back to Toronto and proceeded to spend all of New Years Day in bed. I look back at the night and I had a great time but it would have been made perfect by having somewhere to crawl home to at 4am.

So now I'm in the home stretch for Toronto. Everything going to plan I should be finishing up working here at the end of January and I should be heading to New York the day after. I'm just waiting for my passport to come back with an Irish visa and them I'm away.

I think I like snow

Toronto :: Canada

Brrrr, it's cold in here.

Places: Toronto.

Coolest thing I did: Went for my agency Christmas drinks on top of the Manulife Centre. Pity about the view.

(un)Coolest thing I didn´t know: Canadian elections are even more boring that Australian ones.

After a blink-and-you'd-miss-it autumn, winter has arrived in it's most pleasant form. While the nastier winds I was promised have been intermittent over the last month or so the snow has been falling in great big, slow falling flakes and it's quite spectacular. After wading through grey slush and having wet ice fall on me in the UK I was a little skeptical that snow was anything like it was on TV, but I've had my faith renewed by the last few weeks. Last night was the heaviest single fall we've had and I walked through the softly falling flakes from the subway and was surprised at just how pleasant it was. Add to this the novelty of the snow capped houses and skeletal trees and I'm really enjoying this.

The Canadians appear to take some perverse pleasure in telling me how much worse it's going to get. When I say I'm enjoying the winter they boldly laugh and go on to tell me about the time so much snow fell the army had to come and plow the streets. Or how it's going to get to -20, -30 or even -45 at some point soon, which to someone where the winter gets down to +10 sounds pretty close to the point where atoms stop moving. The Ontarians are not the worst though, anyone who comes from the flat cold middle bit of the country love to tell stories about digging out meters of snow from their doorway before going to work on their snowmobiles.

I'm starting to doubt the authenticity of some of these claims. It's kind of like when Australians tell people we all surf and wrestle crocodiles for fun.

I had my work Christmas party and the band was Kool and the Gang (yes, THE Kool and the Gang), which meant I did lots of not knowing what any of the songs they were singing were expect for Jungle Boogie. I'm assuming they all get together with John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Sam L Jackson every Christmas and give thanks to Tarantino for rescuing their careers. There would be no black Jedi without him.

I had my agency party last night, which was a far more noteworthy affair. They hired out the restaurant at the top of the Manulife Center on Bloor Street, from where I'm told the view usually competes with that from the CN tower. It also coincided with the biggest snow storm we've had thus far and I thought that they had pulled the blinds down when I first got up there. No, that was the wall of snow limiting the visibility to about 10 cms outside the window. Anyway, there was an open bar which more than made up for the lack of view and the fact I didn't really know anyone there. My agent spent a bit of time introducing me to lots of other contractors and man, was there some money in that room. I was starting to wonder why I don't own a Porsche and go skiing in Switzerland but then I remembered I'm not a tosser. It was an interesting bunch but I have to say I'm kind of glad I don't hang out with rich people very often. The walk home from the subway station through the park in the snow was very nice, but I have a feeling it was made more pleasant by the fact I was drunk.

Christmas, as you are probably aware, is approaching with some speed. I decided to take the whole week off in between Christmas and New Years and there isn't going to be much sitting still done. As it common with all the working holiday ex-pattery, we're having an Orphans Christmas Party here and it's a mostly Antipodean affair. Some girls I know have organised an appartment at the Blue Mountain ski resort a couple of hours north of the city so I've decided to go up for Christmas Eve and come back on Christmas Day. I'd already planned a trip up to the resort at Mt Tremblant in Quebec over my week off so I'm fitting all that in. Blue Mountain is supposed to be more of a hill than a mountain so I'd rather go to the best place I can within striking distance of here and try and get some more snowboarding under my belt. My goal this winter is to go from shakey and crap to steady and crap on a snowboard and I think it will be helped by actual snow and long runs rather than hills you can walk up and long queues for the ski lifts. I have been warned Tremblant is very friggin cold so I'm going to go buy thermals and a balacalva this weekend. I'm a little concerned at how on earth you figure out what size thermal underwear you are supposed to buy as I doubt you can try it on.

Problems we just don't have at home, eh?

I'll end up on the note that the Canadians have decided to have yet another election, only 18 months after the last one. If you thought politics was dull at home you should see it here. Not only are half the debates in French, but the leaders have zero charisma and all the policies are so damn sensible. I guess this is the price you pay for good government, dull politicians.

Mouldy Pumpkins

Toronto :: Canada

Haloween appears to be a bigger deal than I thought, even for grown-ups.

Places: Toronto.

Coolest thing I did: Carved a proper haloween jack-o-lantern.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The of Jack (he of the lantern) was originally about a squash, not a pumpkin.

So Haloween rolled around and I was a little unprepared for it to be treated like a second Christmas. The amount of effort that goes into decorations and costumes for the big night is a little worrying, but both the kids and the adults seem to have a good time. While our own efforts were a little half hearted we did decide to get a bit of good old-fashoined pumpkin carving under our belt.

Has anyone else ever actually tried to carve a pumpkin? I don't think I've even cooked something with pumpkin in it before so it was an eye opener to see just what the hell is in one of those things. After hacking a suitable lid out of the stem and ripping the hole open you're confronted with a whole load of sticky, seed ridden goo, kind of like a big orange spider's web that's been smacked with a sunflower. While the actual carving is a whole load of fun the cleaning out of the goop is tedious. A tip is don't try and scratch it out with a fork. Once you work out this is a stupid idea you also have a whole lot more work to do with the spoon, which is the proper instrument in this situation.

Still, after a bit of work we were all standing around the kitchen table beaming proudly down on our new member of the household. We tried to name it but no consensus could be reached so it was forever known as 'the pumpkin' or alternatively, 'pumpkin'. The pride lasted about as long as it took to go to the Haloween party we had been invited to that night.

Some of the pumpkins that had been carved out as decorations in shop windows and even at the party made ours look, well, a little ordinary. How long must it take to carve out "Happy Haloween" in old English on both sides of a tiny little pumpkin? Too long to bother with, even if it does look a bit cool.

The party we went to last Saturday night saw myself and Yvette don rubber masks purchased from the chemist the day before, chosen mostly to not look stupid on the streetcar on the way there and to allow beer to be drunk through the cleverly placed mouth holes. We, once again, were a little underdone compared to everyone else. The costumes were all very well done, and some were even very inventive. One of our mates went as a vending machine and even gave you stuff when you pushed her buttons (oo-eer). As the night dragged on and her responsed got slower and more erratic they placed an 'Out of Order' sign on her, which was tops. All the backpackers we know who showed up put in quite an effort we thought. That is, until the Canadians started to arrive.

The best costume of the night had to be the "Danger Will Robinson" robot from Lost in Space who had blinking lights fixed on the front of it. We all felt a little shamed by the effort (well, more drunk than shamed, but there was some shame in there) but the Canadians didn't seem to mind. I was talking to a bloke who used to live out in Sydney and knew didn't give a toss about Haloween so was surprised some of us put in the effort we did. Despite the build up of saliva and sweat in my rubber mask, I tried to keep it on in recognition of those who put in so much mroe effort than me.

Much fun had by all.

Our landlord put up a sign on the doorbells directing all the kids trick or treating to his floor, which I thought was tops, but the girls in our house decided wasn't fair. However, once the 700th (or so) kid showed up looking for sugary treats it did seem like a good idea after all. I reckon if was faced with sugar hyped kids all night I would have become a bit sick of it but the locals seem to love the whole thing. It's either that or they don't want kids throwing eggs at their houses. I heard this one story of kids filling their SuperSoakers with wee and demanding junk food or the dousing of the householder in urine would result. I'm sure that could be classed as armed robbery and get you 10 years.

So I put our now furry pumpkin out last night for the garbage man. It only took about 12 hours for it to start smelling funny and the aroma of penecilin was unmistakable when walking into the house yesterday. I'm not sure how long they are supposed to last, but it seems to be a leading factor why people display them outside their houses, not like we did.

On a side note we indulged Yvette's culinary fantasies on her last night here by going out for dinner in the poshest Tapas bar in the world, Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar. No reservations are taken so you show up, they take your mobile number and you get a call back sometime in the next hour when they have a table. We ended up with a nice little number out the back where the really expensive wines are racked (and probably rigged up to alarms). The idea is that the menu changes daily so you just have a small plate of everything and they suggest a wine to go with each one. We tried this idea at first, but it was becoming rapidly too expensive so we went for a bottle instead with our last few dishes. Duck liver, Poutine with pork belly, rare beef and mushroom gratin, it's all pretty rich stuff. I enjoyed it more than I let on, but I think the range of food is more to do with the fact that most of us are too poor to eat there more than once, so we'd best get our try of the whole range on that one visit. Still, Yvette loves all that kind of gourmet stuff so was pretty happy with the whole thing.