A strange one to blog; this is more a feeling than a recap of recent adventures. Tonight brings with it the beginning of the end chapter in Cardiff as I told my flatmates I was leaving 'probably within the next 10 days'. I am not seeking another tenancy in Cardiff. This is most likely the end of me living in Wales in this lifetime.
I feel sad. But thankfully it's a positive sorrow brought about by a largely positive experience; a wistful longing for the really great, poignant moments I've had here, and a feeling of loss for my good friends that I will no longer be able to see on a daily basis. Tinged with this is a sorrow born of angst; a niggle in my brain that my friends will forget me once I move on, or more upsetting still, the half-thought that perhaps they never truly knew me in the first place. A worry, either way that I will not have left enough of an impression upon them, for us to ever meet up again - to have accomplished nothing with their friendship more than to be a part of their recent past than their continuing present and future. This is a worry born from no more basis than the fragility of my own character and the value I place on the individuals I know means I insist I keep them close to me inspite of geographic distance. I am wise enough, having 'moved on' many times personally, to know that these feelings will pass and are not to be dwelt upon. They deserve to be acknowledged, and now I have I can look to the future and bring my friends along with me in the adventures soon to unfold.
I have progressed with my hunt for a job in London and Monday saw me train-ride back to Cardiff after a telephone interview with Millward Brown. The strangest rush of nerves hit me during that interview and I am convinced that I did not give a true account of my ability to communicate. Nevertheless, I wait in anticipation of the email today that will tell me if I progress to the final interview. If not, I attended a 6 hour seminar on 'marketing your CV effectively' as a professional yesterday. 4 hours were dull and uniformative but 2 were sensational in that they opened my eyes to the industry rather than service of recruitment. 3/4s of jobs are never advertised. 95% of job searches by recruiters are for CVs posted within the last 7 days. 90% of jobs are filled with an online search only. These sorts of facts, and the techniques I learnt convince me of two things; (i) employing them (pun intended) will stand me in great stead for getting a job (ii) if I can find a way to present this information to the market appealingly, I can definately make some money from the information I have.
Other relevant items in my everyday life are: I met Aled on Monday night after years of not seeing each other. It was brilliant to see how comfortably we sank back into our friendship as though no time had passed since we graduated all those 3 years ago. One pint quickly led to 4 and there were some strong parallels with our recent experiences with Aled having been out of employment for 8 months post his managerial role in PrimeCare last year; largely because he could, and also because a job is tough to get. It's strange that he's ended up taking a backward leap to man phones at Lloyds TSB but the job holds options to work his way up and he likes the prestige of a bank. The strangest aspect of this is how similar he sounded to Lissa in his aim to progress up the financial ladder. Meeting Aled gave me some strength as I always believe people I don't see are sprinting past me in the progress of their lives and this illusion somewhat stallwarts my own progress as I belittle my endeavours. Its was comforting to see Aled as stoical as ever, and I must admit I was a little happy to meet someone who was honest enough to admit to being envious of both my PropBox business and my travels. It made me feel my personal actions were not immature, insignificant detours off the path of grown-up life. Meeting Aled was just like old times, with my conversational flamboyance counteracted by his blunter banter. I'd like our meeting up not to be an annual event or worse and shall try to keep in touch more hereon.
Also:
I have struck up an email-friendship with Sara, my 16 yr old niece as a result of my birthday card to Yvonne. I think I have 'convinced' Dad to come to the Bar Mitzvah now he knows Naomi and I shall attend.
I recieved a beatuifully penned postcard from Lizzie (from Stockholm) from her time in New York - I am very pleased to at least have been on her mind during travels :)
And finally
Today is the day Phil is due to/could become a Dr. I wish him the very best of luck today in his Viver and look forward to seeing him this afternoon to know the result. Good luck Phil. I know you deserve it. :D
Oh, and thank you Cardiff. I may be ready to move on, but by and large you have been good to me. Thank you for being my host for the last 6 years :) x x x
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Sunday, 23 May 2010
A new entry; the New Mr and Mrs Lang.
Dear few people that read this blog, it is time I re-invigorated the dormant beast and wrote a new entry. It is clear that the world judges us all on actions alone, and this is not a blog unless I write.
The best entry I can think of is to recap Sammy and Stu's wedding. Since this wonderful day I have managed a few acts of noteworthy socialising and progress with employment, but nothing is as noteworthy as their fantastic day.
Sammy and Stu's wedding, for me, began with an alarm clock that decided to deny me an alarm and a mad rush to shower, shave and shape up in the 5 minutes we had before all heading off on the open road in a mini bus. Being a master of last-minute dives I had the foresight to put breakfast on before addressing everything else (other than underpants and Tshirt) so at least I had dry toast to fly out the door with.
The journey to Stamford was entertaining enough. Ash, Rhys, Amy, Tristan, Poofincat (of course) and I all made the 3 and a bit hour journey up, with Amy threatening to be sick in the seat in front, the sat nav threatening not to take us to our destination, and I drifting in and out of transport-induced-coma at the back with Tristan and Poofincat.
Arrival in Stamford brought with it a beaming and beautifully dressed hostess-of-the-changing rooms; Xania, - as all 5 of us crammed into her spare bedroom to change into suitable wedding attire before strolling to the church. Stamford is the quintessential English village town - cute cobbled side streets, shop fronts the width of cupboards and a town centre grossly over-populated with churches. 4 churches including St George's on Mary's street, and St. Mary's on St George's street were within a stone's throw of each other and its was trial and error trying to find the right wedding party to attach ourselves to.
Finding the church we found Stu looking incredibly handsome (the first time I had ever seen him dressed smartly) and Chris standing regally to his side keeping him calm. The day beamed with sunshine as the photographer busied herself taking photos of all the smiling faces as the wedding troupe, and one man in particular, waited for the bridal car to bring its passenger to the gates. On getting the signal, we headed in and took our seats, and the rest was a blur. A beautiful, regal Sammy, glided down the aisle on the arm of an emotional father to take her position besides the sweetly nervous Stu, and the 'I dos' and the rings were exchanged flawlessly. In a flash our friends became Mr and Mrs and I, like everyone else, couldn't help but beam back at the smiling (and relieved) couple.
Next followed the sermon, and though I have written in front of me a rather scathing account of some of the allegory the vicar used to convey the need for love and persistence in marriage (namely i didn't agree with his over-analysis of Paul's letter to the Corintheans and his over-stressing of the strife of married life on a day of happiness) his words were all well meaning and well received, being the respected family vicar.
Photographs aside we all journeyed to the barn where the reception was to be held. We all ate hearty honest food, and despite no-one really remembering what they had ordered, were all served large portions of the menu with no dinner-envy in sight. Sat opposite Ash, and next to Rhys, I soon knew the names and stories of those within shouting distance. The star of our table, (which ran the length of the room) in my opinion, was Kate who was determined get the wine in. She was expert in drawing another bottle from the caterers and soon commanded an impressive hoarde for herself. Among my new friends from the day were her, Sarah from Manchester and Roxy from Cardiff but special mention has to go to the definition of Bristol sat to my right. The couple were great company but it hit home I was in Somerset when they leant across mid-meal and informed me conspiratorially should the free-bar start to run dry they 'had a solution' having found where the stash of booze for the evening was kept. They practically jumped for joy once they realised they could replace the wine they had been dutifully drinking with cider for the remainder of the wedding meal.
In a change from traddition speeches preceded food and Chris did a valiant job of making-it-up-as-he-went-along with his best man speech. He was to some extent ill-prepared, having penned bulletpoints with Dave on the train up there the night before instead of having something well rehearsed, but to make matters worse he found himself without a side-kick. Dave, best man #2, had been so intent on making the wedding that, having woken up with agonising backpain, he had taken a whole day's recommended dosage of painkillers only to collapse en route to the church. Only then did those around him realise that what he had taken was half a packet of anti-depressants....it is by no means a surprise that he turned up as a lucid thunderbird later on in the evening.
The best part of the night was by far and away the barn dance. Tables and chairs were pushed to the side, the cider was stacked high on the bar (the bottles which had got away from my Bristol couple), and the band struck up with guitar, fiddle and the best costume of the day - the dance leader's all-in-one fish-print suit. The beauty of the barn dance was evident; no opportunity for shameful grandad shuffles across the floor to 1970s classics or disturbing moves by toddlers to Britney Spears medleys - just an honest drum and fiddle rythym and a few 'simple' (dance-leader speech for hillariously-complicated) dance moves.
Maddi turned up post her exam, and joined me as my most glamorous dance partner. There wasn't too much competition for her to outshine as among others, my notable dance partners for the evening had included Ash. Exactly.
The best movers-and-shakers of the night apart from Sammy and Stu (that IS me being bias) was Chris and Tristan who are somewhat well-versed in Caelith dancing. Tris and I, being similar weights and similar calamity-pursuing mentalities practically threw ourselves off the floor whenever we locked arms to spin around the dancefloor and we all sported some good old-fashioned bruises in the morning. We could have danced for hours, despite the sweat patches on suit shirts, and the smeared makeup on cheeks, and we did. We all danced to the very last chord of the very last song.
Although this wedding didn't have a bridesmaid to chase, and only staged one best-man instead of the planned two, it was a beautiful event. I feel so privileged to have witnessed the ceremony and to see the love between Sammy and Stu on this, the first day of many of their married life together. It was beautiful for me personally, to have spent a whole day having fun with the people I call flatmates this year (that includes Maddi, Amy and Tristan) and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I wish Sammy and Stu every happiness together, and am glad to hear already, that even on her honeymoon, Sammy still remained true enough to her football-core to go and watch the Champions League Final in the bar :) x x x x x
The best entry I can think of is to recap Sammy and Stu's wedding. Since this wonderful day I have managed a few acts of noteworthy socialising and progress with employment, but nothing is as noteworthy as their fantastic day.
Sammy and Stu's wedding, for me, began with an alarm clock that decided to deny me an alarm and a mad rush to shower, shave and shape up in the 5 minutes we had before all heading off on the open road in a mini bus. Being a master of last-minute dives I had the foresight to put breakfast on before addressing everything else (other than underpants and Tshirt) so at least I had dry toast to fly out the door with.
The journey to Stamford was entertaining enough. Ash, Rhys, Amy, Tristan, Poofincat (of course) and I all made the 3 and a bit hour journey up, with Amy threatening to be sick in the seat in front, the sat nav threatening not to take us to our destination, and I drifting in and out of transport-induced-coma at the back with Tristan and Poofincat.
Arrival in Stamford brought with it a beaming and beautifully dressed hostess-of-the-changing rooms; Xania, - as all 5 of us crammed into her spare bedroom to change into suitable wedding attire before strolling to the church. Stamford is the quintessential English village town - cute cobbled side streets, shop fronts the width of cupboards and a town centre grossly over-populated with churches. 4 churches including St George's on Mary's street, and St. Mary's on St George's street were within a stone's throw of each other and its was trial and error trying to find the right wedding party to attach ourselves to.
Finding the church we found Stu looking incredibly handsome (the first time I had ever seen him dressed smartly) and Chris standing regally to his side keeping him calm. The day beamed with sunshine as the photographer busied herself taking photos of all the smiling faces as the wedding troupe, and one man in particular, waited for the bridal car to bring its passenger to the gates. On getting the signal, we headed in and took our seats, and the rest was a blur. A beautiful, regal Sammy, glided down the aisle on the arm of an emotional father to take her position besides the sweetly nervous Stu, and the 'I dos' and the rings were exchanged flawlessly. In a flash our friends became Mr and Mrs and I, like everyone else, couldn't help but beam back at the smiling (and relieved) couple.
Next followed the sermon, and though I have written in front of me a rather scathing account of some of the allegory the vicar used to convey the need for love and persistence in marriage (namely i didn't agree with his over-analysis of Paul's letter to the Corintheans and his over-stressing of the strife of married life on a day of happiness) his words were all well meaning and well received, being the respected family vicar.
Photographs aside we all journeyed to the barn where the reception was to be held. We all ate hearty honest food, and despite no-one really remembering what they had ordered, were all served large portions of the menu with no dinner-envy in sight. Sat opposite Ash, and next to Rhys, I soon knew the names and stories of those within shouting distance. The star of our table, (which ran the length of the room) in my opinion, was Kate who was determined get the wine in. She was expert in drawing another bottle from the caterers and soon commanded an impressive hoarde for herself. Among my new friends from the day were her, Sarah from Manchester and Roxy from Cardiff but special mention has to go to the definition of Bristol sat to my right. The couple were great company but it hit home I was in Somerset when they leant across mid-meal and informed me conspiratorially should the free-bar start to run dry they 'had a solution' having found where the stash of booze for the evening was kept. They practically jumped for joy once they realised they could replace the wine they had been dutifully drinking with cider for the remainder of the wedding meal.
In a change from traddition speeches preceded food and Chris did a valiant job of making-it-up-as-he-went-along with his best man speech. He was to some extent ill-prepared, having penned bulletpoints with Dave on the train up there the night before instead of having something well rehearsed, but to make matters worse he found himself without a side-kick. Dave, best man #2, had been so intent on making the wedding that, having woken up with agonising backpain, he had taken a whole day's recommended dosage of painkillers only to collapse en route to the church. Only then did those around him realise that what he had taken was half a packet of anti-depressants....it is by no means a surprise that he turned up as a lucid thunderbird later on in the evening.
The best part of the night was by far and away the barn dance. Tables and chairs were pushed to the side, the cider was stacked high on the bar (the bottles which had got away from my Bristol couple), and the band struck up with guitar, fiddle and the best costume of the day - the dance leader's all-in-one fish-print suit. The beauty of the barn dance was evident; no opportunity for shameful grandad shuffles across the floor to 1970s classics or disturbing moves by toddlers to Britney Spears medleys - just an honest drum and fiddle rythym and a few 'simple' (dance-leader speech for hillariously-complicated) dance moves.
Maddi turned up post her exam, and joined me as my most glamorous dance partner. There wasn't too much competition for her to outshine as among others, my notable dance partners for the evening had included Ash. Exactly.
The best movers-and-shakers of the night apart from Sammy and Stu (that IS me being bias) was Chris and Tristan who are somewhat well-versed in Caelith dancing. Tris and I, being similar weights and similar calamity-pursuing mentalities practically threw ourselves off the floor whenever we locked arms to spin around the dancefloor and we all sported some good old-fashioned bruises in the morning. We could have danced for hours, despite the sweat patches on suit shirts, and the smeared makeup on cheeks, and we did. We all danced to the very last chord of the very last song.
Although this wedding didn't have a bridesmaid to chase, and only staged one best-man instead of the planned two, it was a beautiful event. I feel so privileged to have witnessed the ceremony and to see the love between Sammy and Stu on this, the first day of many of their married life together. It was beautiful for me personally, to have spent a whole day having fun with the people I call flatmates this year (that includes Maddi, Amy and Tristan) and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I wish Sammy and Stu every happiness together, and am glad to hear already, that even on her honeymoon, Sammy still remained true enough to her football-core to go and watch the Champions League Final in the bar :) x x x x x
Monday, 26 April 2010
Poland, Warts and All?
Original text:
I'm sat in a 24 hour internet cafe in Katowice train station having 'missed' the train that decided never to turn up and left a set of passengers, with a distinct British minority, rather stranded. That means that the connection I had between the planned Intercity train and its partner of 9 minutes at Breclav is going to be rather difficult. Budapest will have to be on Europe #2.
I'm laughing. The ashen cloud from the Icelandic Vocano has made everything very exciting lately. But with a rail pass that expires at the stroke of midnight, and with no way to easily extend it from form-filling, stamp-happy Poland, its time to return. Stansted, parents, the prodigal son returns in the morning (fingers crossed) :-).
The architecture of Poland is uninspiring. It's buildings fullfil function not flare. Grey blocks tower over slightly less tall grey blocks which are surrounded by more grey blocks. Even the colourful painting of the odd few buildings doesn't break up the aesthetic misery of Communist architecture. It's a good job the weather wasn't cold or I would have been critical about this backdrop. But this holiday within a holiday was never about break-neck tours of city centres; it was about the people I was meeting and that is what I shall judge it on.
Krakow
It was a sombre time to arrive here, with preparations for the President's funeral taking hold of Poland, let alone this city where he was to be buried. All partying and organised celebration had been banned as a mark of respect. And both the market (Stare Miasto) and the Church of St Mary (Mariacki Church) were filled with people paying tribute to the President, and a mass of memorial candles.
I met my ex-pat friend AJ after successfully meandering my way out of the confusing train station and we headed to the nearby hostel. Tom and Gregg's is nothing remarkable in decor, but it was still remarkable. We walked through the door and someone thrust cheesecake and a spoon into my hand before I'd reached the desk. We were all treated (as standard) to traditional Polish dinner, with traditional-sized portions. And the staff passed round shot after shot of free vodka (flavoured) to get everyone talking and feeling like an international family once food had settled. Everyone knows the way to my heart is through food, so I fell in love.
Being here for the night meant both AJ and I were keen to explore the culture (he'd never been here either). We asked at reception and found ourselves heading to an old synagogue down a narrow cobbled street. I welled with pride as I succumbed, finally, to my religious curiosity. We approached the door, nearing a crowd of bearded Jewish men. And then we turned left and stepped into the bar next door.
Here, we were transported into the stereotypical bar of Poland. Cosy, warm and so dimmly lit you need to allow your eyes to adjust before risking walking to the bar. Dotted around the rustic wooden tables and chairs were men with moustaches drinking beer, and the occassional bowl of soup.
A couple of honey-beers here (better than the mango beer of Berlin) and we moved on, settling in a sparsely decorated vodka bar that boasted 50 different vodkas. We opted not to try all 50 as the portions of drink are as generous as the food. 4 40ml vodka shots later and the journey back to hostel was a slightly merry one.
Poznan
The following day we headed to Posnan. A casual 400 km journey of 7 hours on archaic trains that can't go above certain speeds as the train tracks will crack otherwise. Isa joined us along the route, and so now I had the veritable company of both the individuals I had come all this way to meet.
In Poznan I was treated to yet another night of Polish generosity. Isa's quirky friend Marak gave us a place to stay for the night in the heart of the city, and was entertaining and lively with his talk of everything Polish, in particular his fascination of trains.The highlight was attending an English-speaking couch surfer's meeting, with about 30 different ex-pats and their Polish partners all crowded round one very large table in the centre of a local bar. Strangely, given the venue could only hold about 50 comfortably, there was a very very large projector just behind the table, churning out, at the request of the ex-pat organiser, a Phil Collins concert DVD. I was glad, for the standard measure in the bar to be 100ml even if I did baulk at the sight of it initially...
I can't say much about the beauty and splendour of Poznan because the following day Mikey (the Phil Collins obsessed organiser) took us on a tour of the sites. It started in a graveyard, followed on to a dodgy canvas-roofed market, and ended in the ruins of what was once a football stadium. I reiterate; buildings here are not to be looked at. But the graveyard was interesting. First, it was the burial site of the real officers of The Great Escape, and second it demonstrated a worrying eagerness of the Polish people to makeout on and around tombstones. In fact, we saw some VERY dodgy photographing of a girl with a very short skirt and a smile ontop of one of the tombstones. I am convinced there's some popular graveyard fetish mainstream around this part of the world.
Anyway, Mikey turned out to be an affable tour guide and I am glad that, even if the pickings of Poznan were slender, we were shown them by him. In the couch-surfing / TEFL community around there he seems to be 'The Don' and it was a pleasure to be shown around by a big fish of the Poznan pond.
Additional text:
Glogow
A return to the residence of AJ and Isa brought even more honours being bestowed upon me in terms of hospitality. For those of you unaware of Glogow (I'm sure that will be most of us) it is a small town of some 60,000 residents that was flattened literally, by the War. Its not unusual in that respect. Its claim to architectural fame is the 3rd tallest town hall in Poland. It has a pleasant mix of shops and quirky Polish supermarkets, and the obvious sign of regeneration, a bloody Tesco.
On my first night here AJ and Isa cooked up some Pierogi me in their flat and took me to their local. Because I hadn't seen enough of trains over the last month I was pleasantly surprised to find their local is a train-themed bar called InterCity. In retrospect there's an irony to this which extends beyond my personal irony: why is there a bar dressed to look like the inside of a train when a train is practically the ONLY place in Poland where it is illegal to drink? Nevertheless, as a bar, with its mock train-scape windows (paintings of people on station platforms), its ticket machine by the entrance, and its smiling barman Pawel who knows AJ and Isa well enough to allow me to leave a tab for them as a gift (practically unheard of in Poland), Intercity is a decent place to end up.
Day two of Glogow
Today saw me have my most authentic experience of the tour! I was invited for dinner at Isa's parent's house, where I met my new Polish family! I sat down in the lounge around a dark wooden table laid with the best-Sunday-set with mum, dad, brother and sister, two crazy crazy dogs (one of which loves, the other of which loves to bite) and the state funeral on the TV in the background.
Isa's mother is the well known English teacher of Glogow and was delighted to have the opportunity to check out her syntaxes against a native speaker. She beamed as I walked through the door, and rightly so as she made a delicious meal of lentil soup followed by kotlets (similar to schnitzels), potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, and cake and tea. She has that incredible desire to religiously pile more food onto your plate; a trait I previously reserved for Jewish mothers. Isa's father is Polish Mario; one hell of a moustache, a big smile and broad shoulders. He LIKES a drink, and spent all his time trying to insist AJ and I went drinking with him down his local (a fate, if accepted, I was told we'd never return from). Isa's sister (Magda) and brother (Adash) are fluent in English (although Adash hardly speaks) and did the translating for me as Isa's dad seems to think that English is a mixture of Polish and German that being British, I should obviously understand... I loved my meal here. I've never felt so warmly welcomed by people that knew so little about me. The food was good, the conversation was fun, and I've been invited around for meal #2 the next time I return to Poland..
The mountain
My travels wouldn't have been travels if they hadn't involved trekking up yet another moutain, and the following day brought a journey in a rickety Polish car (complete with manual choke) to the mountains that border the Czech Republic - Karkonoski National Park. Here, AJ, Isa and I expected a pleasant hike to the top akin to a nice ramble. We were greeted with a black walking route and endless, difficult to navigate snow to the summit. The mock 'Bear Grills Survival' commentary we started at the foot of the mountain looked uncomfortably appropriate halfway through, especially as we walked off the tracks (breaking rule 1 of the hiking guidelines) and over the section that read 'Warning, Avalnaches Likely. Do Not Cross' (breaking rules 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 etc of any hiking guideline). It did NOT make for an easy walk given the lack of snow boots and the fact as we were walking over frozen lakes, with their undulating rises and falls, you were unable to tell if the next step was going to bring a sink of 2 inches of snow or 10. For AJ you had a pretty certain rule; if he could end up up to his waist in it, he did. Our trip to the top was a little breathless and they saw the end to a good pair of hiking boots destroyed by the blanket of freezing, wet, snow, but the views of the alpine trees, snow, and lakes once there were breathtaking. I even managed to take some photos for once...
The decline brought with it a delicious wooden hut on one of the easier walking routes and yet another Polish tradditional cuisine; Bigos - a very salty beef and cabbage stew served with bread which was well deserved given our exertions. Hats off the the Poles in this regard; we found and passed a shak at the top of the mountain, and though there must have been less than 10 people trekking that day both venues were open for any business.I pity the workers the ardous slog through the boredom.
The complications
Obviously, like the rest of the 'European World', I was due to leave Poland sooner than I actually did. I was cut off from a return to Blighty by the spoutings of a volcano over Iceland, dormant for the last century. I was NOT phased by this, and wouldn't have had the beautiful mountain exertion if it hadn't been for this fact. AJ and Isa were incredible hosts, and put my enjoyment ahead of their routines. I'll hapily return the favour. They gave me free reign of their beautiful Polish-style flat complete with ex-pat trimmings; massive uber TV, colourful walls and comfy sofa-bed. I could not have asked for anything more from them and I am so incredibly grateful. But two days later than planned and after 2 re-scheduled, then cancelled flights I tried to make a dash for it over to Budapest, to enjoy the last of my rail travel. As you may have gathered from the start of this article, the Polish trains did not want to give me this icing on the cake, so one of my last sitings of Poland is the 5 hours I had to spend in Katowice. It was while stranded I had my final interview with STA Travel for the World Internship, and although unsuccessful that ray of light in the otherwise unfriendly Katowice train station will always be with me. It was a beautifully comic moment to be asked by interviewer Alex 'Where are you now' and to reply, having just found the train had not arrived 'I don't know, you tell me', 'I'm stranded but smiling'. And that sums up Poland for me. In part I felt stranded here because it was such a different experience to the whilwind tour preceding it. But, I never felt fazed or unwelcome, so was always, always smiling. x
One final postscript on Poland: I eventually returned to Krakow to take a 10 o'clock flight to the UK the following day. It is here, post funeral, that I realised I have to visit Poland again. I need to give Krakow a 2nd chance. The difference in this city was astounding. Although I had fun first time round, seeing the place bursting with people, music and life, it really felt like a capital. One where the fun had been switched back on...I saw, even if only briefly, why this place is so popular with stags and hens because despite its beautiful traditional backdrop, Krakow has one hell of a vibe to it. Plus, AJ and Isa, I need to see just how good your snowboarding is :-) x x x
I'm sat in a 24 hour internet cafe in Katowice train station having 'missed' the train that decided never to turn up and left a set of passengers, with a distinct British minority, rather stranded. That means that the connection I had between the planned Intercity train and its partner of 9 minutes at Breclav is going to be rather difficult. Budapest will have to be on Europe #2.
I'm laughing. The ashen cloud from the Icelandic Vocano has made everything very exciting lately. But with a rail pass that expires at the stroke of midnight, and with no way to easily extend it from form-filling, stamp-happy Poland, its time to return. Stansted, parents, the prodigal son returns in the morning (fingers crossed) :-).
The architecture of Poland is uninspiring. It's buildings fullfil function not flare. Grey blocks tower over slightly less tall grey blocks which are surrounded by more grey blocks. Even the colourful painting of the odd few buildings doesn't break up the aesthetic misery of Communist architecture. It's a good job the weather wasn't cold or I would have been critical about this backdrop. But this holiday within a holiday was never about break-neck tours of city centres; it was about the people I was meeting and that is what I shall judge it on.
Krakow
It was a sombre time to arrive here, with preparations for the President's funeral taking hold of Poland, let alone this city where he was to be buried. All partying and organised celebration had been banned as a mark of respect. And both the market (Stare Miasto) and the Church of St Mary (Mariacki Church) were filled with people paying tribute to the President, and a mass of memorial candles.
I met my ex-pat friend AJ after successfully meandering my way out of the confusing train station and we headed to the nearby hostel. Tom and Gregg's is nothing remarkable in decor, but it was still remarkable. We walked through the door and someone thrust cheesecake and a spoon into my hand before I'd reached the desk. We were all treated (as standard) to traditional Polish dinner, with traditional-sized portions. And the staff passed round shot after shot of free vodka (flavoured) to get everyone talking and feeling like an international family once food had settled. Everyone knows the way to my heart is through food, so I fell in love.
Being here for the night meant both AJ and I were keen to explore the culture (he'd never been here either). We asked at reception and found ourselves heading to an old synagogue down a narrow cobbled street. I welled with pride as I succumbed, finally, to my religious curiosity. We approached the door, nearing a crowd of bearded Jewish men. And then we turned left and stepped into the bar next door.
Here, we were transported into the stereotypical bar of Poland. Cosy, warm and so dimmly lit you need to allow your eyes to adjust before risking walking to the bar. Dotted around the rustic wooden tables and chairs were men with moustaches drinking beer, and the occassional bowl of soup.
A couple of honey-beers here (better than the mango beer of Berlin) and we moved on, settling in a sparsely decorated vodka bar that boasted 50 different vodkas. We opted not to try all 50 as the portions of drink are as generous as the food. 4 40ml vodka shots later and the journey back to hostel was a slightly merry one.
Poznan
The following day we headed to Posnan. A casual 400 km journey of 7 hours on archaic trains that can't go above certain speeds as the train tracks will crack otherwise. Isa joined us along the route, and so now I had the veritable company of both the individuals I had come all this way to meet.
In Poznan I was treated to yet another night of Polish generosity. Isa's quirky friend Marak gave us a place to stay for the night in the heart of the city, and was entertaining and lively with his talk of everything Polish, in particular his fascination of trains.The highlight was attending an English-speaking couch surfer's meeting, with about 30 different ex-pats and their Polish partners all crowded round one very large table in the centre of a local bar. Strangely, given the venue could only hold about 50 comfortably, there was a very very large projector just behind the table, churning out, at the request of the ex-pat organiser, a Phil Collins concert DVD. I was glad, for the standard measure in the bar to be 100ml even if I did baulk at the sight of it initially...
I can't say much about the beauty and splendour of Poznan because the following day Mikey (the Phil Collins obsessed organiser) took us on a tour of the sites. It started in a graveyard, followed on to a dodgy canvas-roofed market, and ended in the ruins of what was once a football stadium. I reiterate; buildings here are not to be looked at. But the graveyard was interesting. First, it was the burial site of the real officers of The Great Escape, and second it demonstrated a worrying eagerness of the Polish people to makeout on and around tombstones. In fact, we saw some VERY dodgy photographing of a girl with a very short skirt and a smile ontop of one of the tombstones. I am convinced there's some popular graveyard fetish mainstream around this part of the world.
Anyway, Mikey turned out to be an affable tour guide and I am glad that, even if the pickings of Poznan were slender, we were shown them by him. In the couch-surfing / TEFL community around there he seems to be 'The Don' and it was a pleasure to be shown around by a big fish of the Poznan pond.
Additional text:
Glogow
A return to the residence of AJ and Isa brought even more honours being bestowed upon me in terms of hospitality. For those of you unaware of Glogow (I'm sure that will be most of us) it is a small town of some 60,000 residents that was flattened literally, by the War. Its not unusual in that respect. Its claim to architectural fame is the 3rd tallest town hall in Poland. It has a pleasant mix of shops and quirky Polish supermarkets, and the obvious sign of regeneration, a bloody Tesco.
On my first night here AJ and Isa cooked up some Pierogi me in their flat and took me to their local. Because I hadn't seen enough of trains over the last month I was pleasantly surprised to find their local is a train-themed bar called InterCity. In retrospect there's an irony to this which extends beyond my personal irony: why is there a bar dressed to look like the inside of a train when a train is practically the ONLY place in Poland where it is illegal to drink? Nevertheless, as a bar, with its mock train-scape windows (paintings of people on station platforms), its ticket machine by the entrance, and its smiling barman Pawel who knows AJ and Isa well enough to allow me to leave a tab for them as a gift (practically unheard of in Poland), Intercity is a decent place to end up.
Day two of Glogow
Today saw me have my most authentic experience of the tour! I was invited for dinner at Isa's parent's house, where I met my new Polish family! I sat down in the lounge around a dark wooden table laid with the best-Sunday-set with mum, dad, brother and sister, two crazy crazy dogs (one of which loves, the other of which loves to bite) and the state funeral on the TV in the background.
Isa's mother is the well known English teacher of Glogow and was delighted to have the opportunity to check out her syntaxes against a native speaker. She beamed as I walked through the door, and rightly so as she made a delicious meal of lentil soup followed by kotlets (similar to schnitzels), potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, and cake and tea. She has that incredible desire to religiously pile more food onto your plate; a trait I previously reserved for Jewish mothers. Isa's father is Polish Mario; one hell of a moustache, a big smile and broad shoulders. He LIKES a drink, and spent all his time trying to insist AJ and I went drinking with him down his local (a fate, if accepted, I was told we'd never return from). Isa's sister (Magda) and brother (Adash) are fluent in English (although Adash hardly speaks) and did the translating for me as Isa's dad seems to think that English is a mixture of Polish and German that being British, I should obviously understand... I loved my meal here. I've never felt so warmly welcomed by people that knew so little about me. The food was good, the conversation was fun, and I've been invited around for meal #2 the next time I return to Poland..
The mountain
My travels wouldn't have been travels if they hadn't involved trekking up yet another moutain, and the following day brought a journey in a rickety Polish car (complete with manual choke) to the mountains that border the Czech Republic - Karkonoski National Park. Here, AJ, Isa and I expected a pleasant hike to the top akin to a nice ramble. We were greeted with a black walking route and endless, difficult to navigate snow to the summit. The mock 'Bear Grills Survival' commentary we started at the foot of the mountain looked uncomfortably appropriate halfway through, especially as we walked off the tracks (breaking rule 1 of the hiking guidelines) and over the section that read 'Warning, Avalnaches Likely. Do Not Cross' (breaking rules 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 etc of any hiking guideline). It did NOT make for an easy walk given the lack of snow boots and the fact as we were walking over frozen lakes, with their undulating rises and falls, you were unable to tell if the next step was going to bring a sink of 2 inches of snow or 10. For AJ you had a pretty certain rule; if he could end up up to his waist in it, he did. Our trip to the top was a little breathless and they saw the end to a good pair of hiking boots destroyed by the blanket of freezing, wet, snow, but the views of the alpine trees, snow, and lakes once there were breathtaking. I even managed to take some photos for once...
The decline brought with it a delicious wooden hut on one of the easier walking routes and yet another Polish tradditional cuisine; Bigos - a very salty beef and cabbage stew served with bread which was well deserved given our exertions. Hats off the the Poles in this regard; we found and passed a shak at the top of the mountain, and though there must have been less than 10 people trekking that day both venues were open for any business.I pity the workers the ardous slog through the boredom.
The complications
Obviously, like the rest of the 'European World', I was due to leave Poland sooner than I actually did. I was cut off from a return to Blighty by the spoutings of a volcano over Iceland, dormant for the last century. I was NOT phased by this, and wouldn't have had the beautiful mountain exertion if it hadn't been for this fact. AJ and Isa were incredible hosts, and put my enjoyment ahead of their routines. I'll hapily return the favour. They gave me free reign of their beautiful Polish-style flat complete with ex-pat trimmings; massive uber TV, colourful walls and comfy sofa-bed. I could not have asked for anything more from them and I am so incredibly grateful. But two days later than planned and after 2 re-scheduled, then cancelled flights I tried to make a dash for it over to Budapest, to enjoy the last of my rail travel. As you may have gathered from the start of this article, the Polish trains did not want to give me this icing on the cake, so one of my last sitings of Poland is the 5 hours I had to spend in Katowice. It was while stranded I had my final interview with STA Travel for the World Internship, and although unsuccessful that ray of light in the otherwise unfriendly Katowice train station will always be with me. It was a beautifully comic moment to be asked by interviewer Alex 'Where are you now' and to reply, having just found the train had not arrived 'I don't know, you tell me', 'I'm stranded but smiling'. And that sums up Poland for me. In part I felt stranded here because it was such a different experience to the whilwind tour preceding it. But, I never felt fazed or unwelcome, so was always, always smiling. x
One final postscript on Poland: I eventually returned to Krakow to take a 10 o'clock flight to the UK the following day. It is here, post funeral, that I realised I have to visit Poland again. I need to give Krakow a 2nd chance. The difference in this city was astounding. Although I had fun first time round, seeing the place bursting with people, music and life, it really felt like a capital. One where the fun had been switched back on...I saw, even if only briefly, why this place is so popular with stags and hens because despite its beautiful traditional backdrop, Krakow has one hell of a vibe to it. Plus, AJ and Isa, I need to see just how good your snowboarding is :-) x x x
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Stockholm and something beginning with 'S'...
Sometimes in life I realise I'm an idiot. I turned up at the hostel after a 7 hour journey across countries from Oslo only to find I had booked for that night and the night before as opposed to the night of my arrival and the following one. I had lost my booking and now they were fully booked. The opportunity to sleep on the train station floor looked mine. But as I'd eaten nothing aside from the remnants of last night's pasta at breakfast and it was past midnight, I was going to take advantage of the hostel's late-night menu from its kitch attached cafe before I left for a waiting room bench. I ordered. I sat down exhausted. And then I realised the lone girl serving me was as exhausted as I was.
'What's up?' I asked.
'I work 3 jobs' she replied. And so began a beautiful conversation in an empty cafe, with jazz playing gently in the background and dimmed lights to keep us company. The scene describes Stockholm; so incredibly, casually cool. It was a moment when life imitates film, and totally plutonic. Sarah, a make-up artist among many other vocations, shared a similar music taste to I and 2 hours later, a couple of cups of black tea and a real good heart to heart she'd found me a spare bed for the night, and I'd introduced her to Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill via Spotify. A fair return. Heading into the heart of this amazing hostel, which looks like an aircraft-hangar-sized Ikea apartment, complete with sauna, it was clear that there was still life to be found. Within ten minutes of settling in I'd made two new friends; Sarah and Lizzie from good old Blighty. Conversation flowed, and continued to with the addition of three other characters to the play; James, Jonny (who insisted on being called Legend, and yes, was just as annoying as any individual who insists on creating and enforcing his own over-sized nickname) and the good natured vegan Mark. By 3am when we finally went to bed we'd agreed to meet the following day to explore as a troupe.
Fellow readers heed my advice: even when making friends as a solo traveller, always be brave enough to stick to your own plans. My new found friends were late risers and I found myself frustrated in waiting until well past midday for them only for their plans not to materialise as they were ill-thought out. For a man only here for 24 hours time was pressing so I settled for meeting up with them later that night and did my own thing. I was only here for the day, they were here for the week.
So what do you do in Stockholm in 6 hours? I phoned a man from a payphone, turned around and walked 45 minutes out of the centre to a large corrugated shed. Then I borrowed bright, buoyant waterproofs, headed to the edge of a jetty, and lifted one leg, then the other off the platform and into a sea-kayak.
I've never been sea kayaking before. I turned up so ill-prepared it wasn't funny. I had no waterproofs, I had never held let alone used a paddle, and I couldn't tell you what the fin thing that goes in the water at the front of the boat was called and still can't. Eric, the man renting me the equipment, was concerned. The water was freezing, with ice on the canals down to the harbour. He refused to rent to me first of all, thinking it was too dangerous if I capsized, being unused to the water. I countered with I couldn't leave Stockholm without doing this, I had a need to film it, and this was one of my dream-activities of our tour. I was too enthusiastic for him to say no.
Eric eventually loaded me up with equipment and helped me into the water. He's a funny personable man not much older than I with a beard (always trust an 'extreme sporter' with facial hair) who laughed at everything. He told me he'd give me odds of about 1000-1 against me managing the trip without capsizing, doing so with a broad grin. Once he finished filling a very wide kayak with sandbags I looked more like the navigator of a tank than a boat.
My first 40 minutes of kayaking was comical. Combine zero technique with my insistence on filming it and you get the idea of how imbalanced I was. I navigated my way around a wide, wide turn straight into a tree almost killing an unaware swan in the process. Then I spent the next 30 minutes going down the waterways dangerously zigzagging from one side to the next, managing to change direction only centimetres from hitting the bank of the canal each time. In the blazing sunshine, looking more autistic than artistic on the water, I was exhausted quickly.
Eventually I got the hang of straight line paddling and found myself working VERY hard to go at a leisurely pace down towards the main harbour. The scenery for the most part of the journey is not stunning, but best described as pleasant. Pedestrians walk the grass paths either side of the canals down towards the harbour and the odd cafe crops up with people sat on decking overlooking the waterfront. By the time I'd managed the 3km down the canals I felt confident enough for a challenge and headed into the main harbour complete with massive boats and shipping lanes. Instantly the water changed, becoming choppy, and very deep. I felt very insignificant and rather too fragile passing pleasure boats and water taxis into the main harbour, seeing the beautiful parliament building in the process. I bee-lined it for the massive bridge between two of Stockholm's 14 islands before turning back and heading 'home' to the rental site. I realised I had over done it. At the very least the next 60 minutes was an arduous slog against the clock to return the kayak before 6pm when they shut and would fine me for late return...
At 5.59pm (no exaggeration) I stumbled onto the jetty, happy, tired, and most importantly bone dry. A smiling Eric was so impressed he chattered away with me for ages and then gave me the rental at half price (equivalent to 15 Euro only)
I returned to the hostel to Swedish-meatballs 'hostel style'; pasta, sauce, and no meatballs (as they'd run out) and got chatting to Lizzie etc. We soon headed out in search of some bars after the receptionist recommended a couple and I navigated. We never found the bars, despite being where they were pinpointed on the map. I felt like an idiot, leading people I barely knew who had trusted me, to the middle of nowhere. On my exasperated return the receptionist apologised admitting that the bar we were trying to find is 'disguised' as a house to keep tourists away and drink prices cheap...a very helpful omission.
Plan B materilalised. A bottle of Southern Comfort (bought for nearly 40 Euro, but happily not by me) found its way onto the table next to a deck of cards. And then a free-for-all of drinking games followed that saw me hitting the hay at 4.30 in the morning to get up again at 6.30am for my trip to the airport. Let's just say when I finally got onto my 2nd RyanAir plane of the tour, I closed my eyes and woke up 2 hours later in Poland having no idea we'd even taken off...
'What's up?' I asked.
'I work 3 jobs' she replied. And so began a beautiful conversation in an empty cafe, with jazz playing gently in the background and dimmed lights to keep us company. The scene describes Stockholm; so incredibly, casually cool. It was a moment when life imitates film, and totally plutonic. Sarah, a make-up artist among many other vocations, shared a similar music taste to I and 2 hours later, a couple of cups of black tea and a real good heart to heart she'd found me a spare bed for the night, and I'd introduced her to Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill via Spotify. A fair return. Heading into the heart of this amazing hostel, which looks like an aircraft-hangar-sized Ikea apartment, complete with sauna, it was clear that there was still life to be found. Within ten minutes of settling in I'd made two new friends; Sarah and Lizzie from good old Blighty. Conversation flowed, and continued to with the addition of three other characters to the play; James, Jonny (who insisted on being called Legend, and yes, was just as annoying as any individual who insists on creating and enforcing his own over-sized nickname) and the good natured vegan Mark. By 3am when we finally went to bed we'd agreed to meet the following day to explore as a troupe.
Fellow readers heed my advice: even when making friends as a solo traveller, always be brave enough to stick to your own plans. My new found friends were late risers and I found myself frustrated in waiting until well past midday for them only for their plans not to materialise as they were ill-thought out. For a man only here for 24 hours time was pressing so I settled for meeting up with them later that night and did my own thing. I was only here for the day, they were here for the week.
So what do you do in Stockholm in 6 hours? I phoned a man from a payphone, turned around and walked 45 minutes out of the centre to a large corrugated shed. Then I borrowed bright, buoyant waterproofs, headed to the edge of a jetty, and lifted one leg, then the other off the platform and into a sea-kayak.
I've never been sea kayaking before. I turned up so ill-prepared it wasn't funny. I had no waterproofs, I had never held let alone used a paddle, and I couldn't tell you what the fin thing that goes in the water at the front of the boat was called and still can't. Eric, the man renting me the equipment, was concerned. The water was freezing, with ice on the canals down to the harbour. He refused to rent to me first of all, thinking it was too dangerous if I capsized, being unused to the water. I countered with I couldn't leave Stockholm without doing this, I had a need to film it, and this was one of my dream-activities of our tour. I was too enthusiastic for him to say no.
Eric eventually loaded me up with equipment and helped me into the water. He's a funny personable man not much older than I with a beard (always trust an 'extreme sporter' with facial hair) who laughed at everything. He told me he'd give me odds of about 1000-1 against me managing the trip without capsizing, doing so with a broad grin. Once he finished filling a very wide kayak with sandbags I looked more like the navigator of a tank than a boat.
My first 40 minutes of kayaking was comical. Combine zero technique with my insistence on filming it and you get the idea of how imbalanced I was. I navigated my way around a wide, wide turn straight into a tree almost killing an unaware swan in the process. Then I spent the next 30 minutes going down the waterways dangerously zigzagging from one side to the next, managing to change direction only centimetres from hitting the bank of the canal each time. In the blazing sunshine, looking more autistic than artistic on the water, I was exhausted quickly.
Eventually I got the hang of straight line paddling and found myself working VERY hard to go at a leisurely pace down towards the main harbour. The scenery for the most part of the journey is not stunning, but best described as pleasant. Pedestrians walk the grass paths either side of the canals down towards the harbour and the odd cafe crops up with people sat on decking overlooking the waterfront. By the time I'd managed the 3km down the canals I felt confident enough for a challenge and headed into the main harbour complete with massive boats and shipping lanes. Instantly the water changed, becoming choppy, and very deep. I felt very insignificant and rather too fragile passing pleasure boats and water taxis into the main harbour, seeing the beautiful parliament building in the process. I bee-lined it for the massive bridge between two of Stockholm's 14 islands before turning back and heading 'home' to the rental site. I realised I had over done it. At the very least the next 60 minutes was an arduous slog against the clock to return the kayak before 6pm when they shut and would fine me for late return...
At 5.59pm (no exaggeration) I stumbled onto the jetty, happy, tired, and most importantly bone dry. A smiling Eric was so impressed he chattered away with me for ages and then gave me the rental at half price (equivalent to 15 Euro only)
I returned to the hostel to Swedish-meatballs 'hostel style'; pasta, sauce, and no meatballs (as they'd run out) and got chatting to Lizzie etc. We soon headed out in search of some bars after the receptionist recommended a couple and I navigated. We never found the bars, despite being where they were pinpointed on the map. I felt like an idiot, leading people I barely knew who had trusted me, to the middle of nowhere. On my exasperated return the receptionist apologised admitting that the bar we were trying to find is 'disguised' as a house to keep tourists away and drink prices cheap...a very helpful omission.
Plan B materilalised. A bottle of Southern Comfort (bought for nearly 40 Euro, but happily not by me) found its way onto the table next to a deck of cards. And then a free-for-all of drinking games followed that saw me hitting the hay at 4.30 in the morning to get up again at 6.30am for my trip to the airport. Let's just say when I finally got onto my 2nd RyanAir plane of the tour, I closed my eyes and woke up 2 hours later in Poland having no idea we'd even taken off...
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Oslo...On My Own
I'm going to ask you to lend me your mind. Lend me your mind and I'll paint you a very vivid picture.
Imagine somewhere ludicrously expensive. So much so that you're forced to stop eating properly and embrace hunger-based delirium. Imagine a place where a Subway 'Sub of the Day' costs £7 instead of £1.99 and a generic hamburger from a venue you'd turn your nose up at unless you were steaming drunk costs £10 alone. Now imagine bright blue skies, lakes as flat as mirrors, alpine trees and a quaint, bustling but by no means large city centre. Add some good looking women. You've just imagined Oslo. I loved it but I was so very glad to move on. I was so beautifully hungry.
The two days I spent here were an understandable blur. They started with an unpleasant introduction: a RyanAir flight to a RyanAir concept of Oslo's location - Rygge, 60km away.Over an hour's bus journey at well-past midnight followed.
I have two more of these joyous sardine-style encounters in the skies and assuming I make my flight to London Stansted with them as planned I will probably touch down somewhere nearby. Somewhere like Norwich.
Eventually we got into Oslo itself after the Ekspress bus took a decidedly British-public-transport definition of 'express' and turned up 25 minutes late. On the way there I got involved in my first Scandenavian conversation; chatting with a man who looked, dressed and sounded like an accountant but who actually was a conceptual artist named Stein. Stein gave me some good tips on Oslo, strongly recommended the Viking Ship Musuem after recounting the impact the ships had on him and saw me to my hostel. A thoroughly nice man well worth the exchange of emails.
What confronted me at the hostel was a strange site indeed, a totally empty dorm room. Even the space normally occuppied by Phil laid very much vacant this time...
The only was to deal with change is to embrace it. The following day in Oslo saw me walk further and travel farther than on any of our previous journeys. Having paid £20 mainly for fruit and water from the cheapest supermarket there was no need to stop for the day and I walked from 10am to 9.30pm straight. I covered the city centre, it's shops, the Royal Palace (which is rather austere and hence not photographed), the Viking Museum, the amazing human-sculpture park Vigelsparken, and an ENITRE island of Oslo hiking through its miles of woods and scrambling its shingle/rock coastline.
The Viking ships are incredibly impressive in that there are 3 of them in what is largely just a hall on Bygdoy Island but it was difficult to share Stein's enthusiasm that they were 'on par with the Pyramids'. Perhaps it is because they are so well preserved that you need to continually remind yourself they ARE Viking and were built over a thousand years ago. Or to put it another way, they were in everyday use well over 10x our lifespans before us and could STILL be in everday use now...
Without a doubt the outside elements of Oslo have had the biggest impact on me. I've always wanted to see if the ever-green image of Norway was accurate and a step into the densley packed forest of Bygoy has confirmed it to me. There's not much I can account specifically about the trees except that the forests had a decidedly homely feel to them and it was a pleasure for me to be able to hear, see, and record a woodpecker at work. One observation is the Norweigians seem as keen on outdoor running as Austrians are on skiing and whoever's selling bright spandex must be laughing all the way to the bank...
To break out of forest and onto an isolated beach was treasure for me and I embraced it fully by trying to traverse as much of the coastline as possible. The rock to my amateur geology is rather slate-like, hence a grainy grey shingle beach. It also means a smooth grip for the hand, and plenty of attempt-worthy toe holds. So I headed straight to the cliff faces thinking (a) they were easy and (b) they weren't that high. I started to climb up and down the stretch of rockface between the shore and the woodlands. It was only when I was attempting such a manouevre and I found I had a mouth-wide-open spectator at the top of one of my climbs that I realised the 'saftey harness' of a single shoulder strap bag and a jumper around the waist probably weren't sufficient enough for a 20 ft drop onto ragged roacks and waves. In my defence, and my climbing-buddy Andrew will back me up I'm sure, they were only about a level 5 climbing difficulty...
My return to the hostel found me in good company as Paula and Emma - 17 year olds from Sweden - had turned up ready to attend the Metallica concert that had materialised and saw an influx of people dressed all in black staying at the hostel. We got on well, I feeling brotherly to them (before anyone suggests otherwise) and I helped them make their signs with typical Swedish grammar. The dorm really came to life when a group of elder French teachers arrived. I'll state my concerns for the English-speaking standard of the next generation of Frenchmen however. One of the teachers (of English), whose name eludes me, sounded like a cross between the policeman from Allo Allo (there's that reference AGAIN) and Ronan Keating...not easy to understand at all!
Those of you expecting details of late night clubbing antics are going to be sorely disappointed for now. We'll wait until Poland before alcohol makes a return...but I'm in Sweden now and I certainly won't rule out late night antics of any other sort just yet ;-) x
Imagine somewhere ludicrously expensive. So much so that you're forced to stop eating properly and embrace hunger-based delirium. Imagine a place where a Subway 'Sub of the Day' costs £7 instead of £1.99 and a generic hamburger from a venue you'd turn your nose up at unless you were steaming drunk costs £10 alone. Now imagine bright blue skies, lakes as flat as mirrors, alpine trees and a quaint, bustling but by no means large city centre. Add some good looking women. You've just imagined Oslo. I loved it but I was so very glad to move on. I was so beautifully hungry.
The two days I spent here were an understandable blur. They started with an unpleasant introduction: a RyanAir flight to a RyanAir concept of Oslo's location - Rygge, 60km away.Over an hour's bus journey at well-past midnight followed.
I have two more of these joyous sardine-style encounters in the skies and assuming I make my flight to London Stansted with them as planned I will probably touch down somewhere nearby. Somewhere like Norwich.
Eventually we got into Oslo itself after the Ekspress bus took a decidedly British-public-transport definition of 'express' and turned up 25 minutes late. On the way there I got involved in my first Scandenavian conversation; chatting with a man who looked, dressed and sounded like an accountant but who actually was a conceptual artist named Stein. Stein gave me some good tips on Oslo, strongly recommended the Viking Ship Musuem after recounting the impact the ships had on him and saw me to my hostel. A thoroughly nice man well worth the exchange of emails.
What confronted me at the hostel was a strange site indeed, a totally empty dorm room. Even the space normally occuppied by Phil laid very much vacant this time...
The only was to deal with change is to embrace it. The following day in Oslo saw me walk further and travel farther than on any of our previous journeys. Having paid £20 mainly for fruit and water from the cheapest supermarket there was no need to stop for the day and I walked from 10am to 9.30pm straight. I covered the city centre, it's shops, the Royal Palace (which is rather austere and hence not photographed), the Viking Museum, the amazing human-sculpture park Vigelsparken, and an ENITRE island of Oslo hiking through its miles of woods and scrambling its shingle/rock coastline.
The Viking ships are incredibly impressive in that there are 3 of them in what is largely just a hall on Bygdoy Island but it was difficult to share Stein's enthusiasm that they were 'on par with the Pyramids'. Perhaps it is because they are so well preserved that you need to continually remind yourself they ARE Viking and were built over a thousand years ago. Or to put it another way, they were in everyday use well over 10x our lifespans before us and could STILL be in everday use now...
Without a doubt the outside elements of Oslo have had the biggest impact on me. I've always wanted to see if the ever-green image of Norway was accurate and a step into the densley packed forest of Bygoy has confirmed it to me. There's not much I can account specifically about the trees except that the forests had a decidedly homely feel to them and it was a pleasure for me to be able to hear, see, and record a woodpecker at work. One observation is the Norweigians seem as keen on outdoor running as Austrians are on skiing and whoever's selling bright spandex must be laughing all the way to the bank...
To break out of forest and onto an isolated beach was treasure for me and I embraced it fully by trying to traverse as much of the coastline as possible. The rock to my amateur geology is rather slate-like, hence a grainy grey shingle beach. It also means a smooth grip for the hand, and plenty of attempt-worthy toe holds. So I headed straight to the cliff faces thinking (a) they were easy and (b) they weren't that high. I started to climb up and down the stretch of rockface between the shore and the woodlands. It was only when I was attempting such a manouevre and I found I had a mouth-wide-open spectator at the top of one of my climbs that I realised the 'saftey harness' of a single shoulder strap bag and a jumper around the waist probably weren't sufficient enough for a 20 ft drop onto ragged roacks and waves. In my defence, and my climbing-buddy Andrew will back me up I'm sure, they were only about a level 5 climbing difficulty...
My return to the hostel found me in good company as Paula and Emma - 17 year olds from Sweden - had turned up ready to attend the Metallica concert that had materialised and saw an influx of people dressed all in black staying at the hostel. We got on well, I feeling brotherly to them (before anyone suggests otherwise) and I helped them make their signs with typical Swedish grammar. The dorm really came to life when a group of elder French teachers arrived. I'll state my concerns for the English-speaking standard of the next generation of Frenchmen however. One of the teachers (of English), whose name eludes me, sounded like a cross between the policeman from Allo Allo (there's that reference AGAIN) and Ronan Keating...not easy to understand at all!
Those of you expecting details of late night clubbing antics are going to be sorely disappointed for now. We'll wait until Poland before alcohol makes a return...but I'm in Sweden now and I certainly won't rule out late night antics of any other sort just yet ;-) x
Some extras
Here are some extra details from the Berlin trip;
- We joked in Austria that there must be an Austrian joke book to teach locals how to be funny. I found one and bought it.
- Mango and Banna rice beer in Potsdamer Platz is the best in Berlin (probably).
- Phil shouldn't read The Guardian newspaper website - it recommedned going to The Caberet Club in Berlin as a 'must do event'. The performance the night we strolled up to buy tickets for was an all-German play on words and had we atteneded we would have brought the average age of the audience down a good 30 years.
Berlin Berlin Berlin
What a bloody surprise this place was; it's amazing! Never did I think I would love the German capital enough to place it in the same breath as London or Barcelona as somewhere I'd consider moving to , but there it is, I would!
Berlin's a hotpot of bold expression, grand modern architetcture; a forward thinking city steeped in 'living memory history' with explosions of pop art, culture and bags of youthful vibrance. And, reading that back that is exactly the type of travel guide sentence I hate - a set of contextless words that sound impressive but mean nothing. I'll impart a context shall I?
"Steeped in 'living memory history'"
Two tour tango
Our visit was the tale of two tours. This was the ONLY place we had opted for a guided tour. They're incredibly interesting if you know nothing about what you're looking at. If you know something about the subject matter you realise they are essentially a performance above a history lesson, but an entertainment nevertheless.
We signed up because (a) there was a lot to see that we knew nothing about (b) it started from our hostel (c) it was free. Three solid reasons.
Our tour guide Marta was amazing, giving an emotive performance that had the history crowd cooing. There is just one thing I'd flag up to the organisers in future; in a place running Hollocaust Concentration Camps tours alongside free tours surely it is best NOT to ask everyone to line up, wait to be segregated, and take a number. We wondered how authentic a tour we'd opted for...
Our crowd of 'tour goers' made the tour. There was Susie and John; a larger than life Sheila and Bruce, Steve, who'd managed to follow us (by chance or by design? Is he watching me now?) from Vienna, through Prague to Berlin and who could be described as an amicable Canadian legend, and Freddy who'd lived in Spain, London, Italy and had just moved to Berlin that week. He speaks as many languages as I have fingers but is still fundamentally Irish, and therefore a damn good laugh.
We went around all the sights - the Reichstag, the Memorial to the Jews, Hitler's Bunker (pleasingly unmarked and a regular haunt for local dogs to do their business), the Wall (which is much smaller 'in person'), Checkpoint Charlie etc etc.
"Explosions of pop art, culture."
By the halfway cafe-stop Frddy and I had seen all the bits we wanted to see (cathedrals featured in the second half) and so made a dash from the crowd, leaving Phil and Steve in the lurch. Instead we went for an amazing German poached salmon in rosemary and apple sauce with potatoes in a gem of a Bavarian restaurant Freddy had found earlier and then toured the many pop art galleries charging thousands per piece, and the shops (Freddy needed a new phone) before taking an inspired turn down an unmarked alley of a sidestreet. We were astonished. We were no longer in Berlin walking pavements and roads, but sand. Shops had been replaced with metal shaks blasting out house and electro tunes. Pop art galleries had been replaced with an open sale of pot. We were in an artists commune and although crazy metalwork pieces littered the landscape for sale, liberalness ruled as artists and visitors wondered about, lighting up, and drinking from the onsite cafe/bar. We spent some time her ebefore moving on.
The 2nd tour
Phil and I decided on day 2 to attend the Concentration Camp tour. It clearly wasn't meant to be: (a) we didn't have enough money to pay for our tickets in advance like everyone else had (B) we hadn't bought our day train tickets as we were supposed to. So when the troup rushed for the train set to depart in 2 minutes for the other side of Berlin, we were left to the mercy of a ticket machine that had a conscious objection to taking our money. We were forced to wave the train goodbye. To be honest, it wouldn't have been a happy or a fitting end to a tour that has been all about forward thinking over reflection.
"Bags of youthful vibrance"
We DID find ourselves on another tour of sorts, in our attempts to fittingly celebrate our 3 week whirlwind. Freddy, Phil, and I went on another pub crawl. We have become somewhat a set of connoseurs of them over the last few weeks, resorting to them whenever we found a hostel without a pulse. Unfortunately, this one was not good. There was no free T-shirt in sight. The 'free beer' ran out within the allotted free-drinking-time never to be replaced, and of the venues we visited the clientele can be described in one word: us.
Being with an Irishman though it would hav been rude NOT to get drunk. So we did. Then we lost the pub crawl for 5 minutes when searching for food en route only to find when we queued up to our final club (with free entry for the wristbanded) we ordered to pay because we were late. We decided to go elsewhere. But not before Phil thought he'd be opportunist and take a drink for the road. The only problem was it was a bottle, we were in a queue, and it was after a slightly unfriendly exchange with a bouncer. Phil's neck met the vice like grip of the bouncer's hand and was immediately flanked by backup. Only Fredy and mine's immediate protestations got them to let go and back off quickly, we called the boy a massive, massive idiot and headed to an all-German nightclub instead. I'd describe it as a party in an epileptic sauna with the German leg of the 'Sex Pistols' fan club. Bright white lights flashed sporadically at eye level, punk music interspersed indie and the crowd looked the like the alternative section of Topman. Nevertheless we soldiered through, buoyed by the idea of a Kebap at closing time and eventually returned 'home' at 4.30am via the metro that runs 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays (are you listening Borris?). A suitably messy end to Berlin.
Phil's farewell to Europe
A brief note deserves to be made on this. We travelled to Shoenfeld airport together, taking the typical Sunday alternative public transport; a replacement bus service instead of the train. We wrapped up the tour with an iconic photo of the 'plane station' instead of a train station. Then there was the manly, manly double hug handshake with extra pat on the back reserved for momentous occassions among all Man-Kind and that was it. We went our seperate ways with heads held high.
Phil, it's been amazing and I'm glad I've shared this leg of the European Adventure with you. With all our individual imperfections aside (yes we DO both have them despite being convinced otherwise) I couldn't have asked for a better friend to go travelling with. See you in the UK and good luck with a certain something...
Berlin's a hotpot of bold expression, grand modern architetcture; a forward thinking city steeped in 'living memory history' with explosions of pop art, culture and bags of youthful vibrance. And, reading that back that is exactly the type of travel guide sentence I hate - a set of contextless words that sound impressive but mean nothing. I'll impart a context shall I?
"Steeped in 'living memory history'"
Two tour tango
Our visit was the tale of two tours. This was the ONLY place we had opted for a guided tour. They're incredibly interesting if you know nothing about what you're looking at. If you know something about the subject matter you realise they are essentially a performance above a history lesson, but an entertainment nevertheless.
We signed up because (a) there was a lot to see that we knew nothing about (b) it started from our hostel (c) it was free. Three solid reasons.
Our tour guide Marta was amazing, giving an emotive performance that had the history crowd cooing. There is just one thing I'd flag up to the organisers in future; in a place running Hollocaust Concentration Camps tours alongside free tours surely it is best NOT to ask everyone to line up, wait to be segregated, and take a number. We wondered how authentic a tour we'd opted for...
Our crowd of 'tour goers' made the tour. There was Susie and John; a larger than life Sheila and Bruce, Steve, who'd managed to follow us (by chance or by design? Is he watching me now?) from Vienna, through Prague to Berlin and who could be described as an amicable Canadian legend, and Freddy who'd lived in Spain, London, Italy and had just moved to Berlin that week. He speaks as many languages as I have fingers but is still fundamentally Irish, and therefore a damn good laugh.
We went around all the sights - the Reichstag, the Memorial to the Jews, Hitler's Bunker (pleasingly unmarked and a regular haunt for local dogs to do their business), the Wall (which is much smaller 'in person'), Checkpoint Charlie etc etc.
"Explosions of pop art, culture."
By the halfway cafe-stop Frddy and I had seen all the bits we wanted to see (cathedrals featured in the second half) and so made a dash from the crowd, leaving Phil and Steve in the lurch. Instead we went for an amazing German poached salmon in rosemary and apple sauce with potatoes in a gem of a Bavarian restaurant Freddy had found earlier and then toured the many pop art galleries charging thousands per piece, and the shops (Freddy needed a new phone) before taking an inspired turn down an unmarked alley of a sidestreet. We were astonished. We were no longer in Berlin walking pavements and roads, but sand. Shops had been replaced with metal shaks blasting out house and electro tunes. Pop art galleries had been replaced with an open sale of pot. We were in an artists commune and although crazy metalwork pieces littered the landscape for sale, liberalness ruled as artists and visitors wondered about, lighting up, and drinking from the onsite cafe/bar. We spent some time her ebefore moving on.
The 2nd tour
Phil and I decided on day 2 to attend the Concentration Camp tour. It clearly wasn't meant to be: (a) we didn't have enough money to pay for our tickets in advance like everyone else had (B) we hadn't bought our day train tickets as we were supposed to. So when the troup rushed for the train set to depart in 2 minutes for the other side of Berlin, we were left to the mercy of a ticket machine that had a conscious objection to taking our money. We were forced to wave the train goodbye. To be honest, it wouldn't have been a happy or a fitting end to a tour that has been all about forward thinking over reflection.
"Bags of youthful vibrance"
We DID find ourselves on another tour of sorts, in our attempts to fittingly celebrate our 3 week whirlwind. Freddy, Phil, and I went on another pub crawl. We have become somewhat a set of connoseurs of them over the last few weeks, resorting to them whenever we found a hostel without a pulse. Unfortunately, this one was not good. There was no free T-shirt in sight. The 'free beer' ran out within the allotted free-drinking-time never to be replaced, and of the venues we visited the clientele can be described in one word: us.
Being with an Irishman though it would hav been rude NOT to get drunk. So we did. Then we lost the pub crawl for 5 minutes when searching for food en route only to find when we queued up to our final club (with free entry for the wristbanded) we ordered to pay because we were late. We decided to go elsewhere. But not before Phil thought he'd be opportunist and take a drink for the road. The only problem was it was a bottle, we were in a queue, and it was after a slightly unfriendly exchange with a bouncer. Phil's neck met the vice like grip of the bouncer's hand and was immediately flanked by backup. Only Fredy and mine's immediate protestations got them to let go and back off quickly, we called the boy a massive, massive idiot and headed to an all-German nightclub instead. I'd describe it as a party in an epileptic sauna with the German leg of the 'Sex Pistols' fan club. Bright white lights flashed sporadically at eye level, punk music interspersed indie and the crowd looked the like the alternative section of Topman. Nevertheless we soldiered through, buoyed by the idea of a Kebap at closing time and eventually returned 'home' at 4.30am via the metro that runs 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays (are you listening Borris?). A suitably messy end to Berlin.
Phil's farewell to Europe
A brief note deserves to be made on this. We travelled to Shoenfeld airport together, taking the typical Sunday alternative public transport; a replacement bus service instead of the train. We wrapped up the tour with an iconic photo of the 'plane station' instead of a train station. Then there was the manly, manly double hug handshake with extra pat on the back reserved for momentous occassions among all Man-Kind and that was it. We went our seperate ways with heads held high.
Phil, it's been amazing and I'm glad I've shared this leg of the European Adventure with you. With all our individual imperfections aside (yes we DO both have them despite being convinced otherwise) I couldn't have asked for a better friend to go travelling with. See you in the UK and good luck with a certain something...
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