Z & M - the Europe Edition

Just Rome'n Around

2010-02-18T22:07:00.002+11:00

Matthias Batemus - Sunday

We left the city of Florence with great haste as we had to catch a train to the well known and popular city – some of you might have heard of it – Rome. We took a nice train ride, mostly uninterrupted, except for a guy coming around asking for money for the poor. He spoke completely in Italian, and we shot him some confused glares before some Italian girls we were sitting with translated him. But thankfully the guy had given up and walked off before we had a chance to make a definitive answer. A shame really because we were going to give him Zach’s 200 euro note that he has stowed away for a rainy day.

We arrived in Rome and it was a beautiful day – the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky. So, we did what most people would do in Rome on a nice day... stay inside our hotel room. Only thing was, we didn’t end up staying in our hotel room the first night. Oh no, there was a problem with our room and thus we had to stay in the hotel next door called The Windrose which, interestingly, took its grandiose emblem located in its regal foyer from the four elements. Ok, that wasn’t interesting at all. But what was interesting was when we took a walk down the street towards the Colosseum.

The colossal Colosseum closes at 3:30pm every day, so we didn’t go in today, but we walked around its circumference and in doing so, saw two dogs fighting – one was two times the size of the other. So we stayed and watched them fight for a while, satisfied that we were able to see a battle at the colosseum.

Anyway we walked back to our hotel and set out for dinner, at a crappy restaurant featuring a waiter who told us that it was “too early” to get our bill. Also it took ages to get our meals and it took around half an hour for our waiter to get the bill.

Zacheus Rafterius – Monday

We started today by heading to our real hotel, the Eurostars Domus Aurea, for breakfast. As we’d been forced into spending the first night into the adjacent hotel as they’d stuffed up our room, and the other hotel didn’t offer a full breakfast, I talked Matt into breakfasting back where there’d be bacon and eggs. We headed on up (the breakfast room was on the sixth floor, on a penthouse level with a nice view of the city) and, while the spread was quite nice and varied, the eggs were awful. They reeked of burning. After this, we bought daily Metro passes and headed down to the Colosseum. We paid our entry fee and went inside. It was fantastic. Just how it has survived the elements, natural disasters and marble raids is fascinating in itself.
We then were pleasantly surprised to find out that our Colosseum tickets let us into the nearby Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. The forum was like the city centre; it had a civic centre, markets, and religious areas all in one. We took many photos with various ruins, and then headed up the Palatine Hill – the hill where, legend says, the founder of Rome (Romulus) killed his brother to become the first King of Rome. Legend also says that both were abandoned by their mother, and were raised by wolves.

After this, we caught the Metro and headed to Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica. It was epic wow. We spent half an hour in the Square taking pictures and just generally checking it out. We’re going to return tomorrow to do a tour of the Vatican Museums and the Basilica itself. After seeing the square, we walked to the Spanish Steps and photo’d. Then we found the Trevi Fountain, threw some coins in, and photo’d. Local legend says you throw one coin into the fountain over your opposite shoulder to return to Rome, two to meet a Roman, and three for Marriage. Matt and I both threw in one.

Then we found the Pantheon. It was majestic. Inside are the tombs of Vittorio Emanuelle II, the first King of a unified Italy, and the artist Raphael. The Pantheon forms a perfect circle in that it is both as high as it is wide. It was originally constructed as a place of Pagan worship but was consecrated as a place of Christian worship after the 7th century. After this we found the massive monument to Vittorio Emanuelle II – it was HUGE. The biggest monument to one mortal man I have ever seen in my life.

We returned back to base, and went out for dinner, trying to find a new “regular” restaurant. We were unsuccessful.

Matthias Batemus - Tuesday

Tuesday. Not too many days left for our trip and already our feet are weary from the traversing of several plains around the city. Today was no exception as we were heading to a totally new country – the smallest country in the world with a population of 900. Vatican City. We already got some spoilers yesterday, but today we had our guided tour to the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St Peters. We took the metro – which always seems to be in peak hour and there are never enough lines – and when we got to the Vatican, it was raining.

Anyway we started our tour off in a court yard with a 2000 year old pine cone. Close to this was a large golden spherical statue depicting the world. In the centre of this, as if piercing through the Earth’s core, was a church. I can’t remember whether religion is the most important thing or whether it’s the centre of the Earth, but either way, their point was obvious – Religion: Serious Business. Everything was serious here. We took a stroll through another courtyard with some awesome sculptures of Apollo and other copies of Bronze statues that had melted during the time of the fires started by Nero. One particular statue caught our eye – a dramatic one of a guy and his two children being attacked by Sea Serpents. One of the boys was already dead, while the other was fighting them off his father, who had just been bitten. Melodramatic stuff. Next we walked inside and looked at some of the other famous sculptures including an original bronze work depicting Hercules. It wasn’t that great, but because it was an original bronze statue that somehow survived the fires and being melted down by the ‘money hungry corporations’ it proudly stands in the Vatican Museum for all to see. In the centre of the room was Nero’s bathtub which was sculpted from a single rock. No pictures could do this justice – trust me, this bath tub was bigger than most people’s bathrooms.
We bailed on this room and headed through a few corridors, getting ever so closer to the Sistine Chapel. On the way, we were told that the Catholic Church were very much against nudity in statues and other works of art, and works of art that featured nude males either; 1. Had their junk broken off, or 2. Had their junk covered up later with a leaf. Either way, the Catholic Church are to blame for the desecration of many a hundred works of art. Try getting into the museum in Florence today and chiselling off David’s Dong. They wouldn’t have any of that. Thank...God?

Anyway, we saw some nice tapestries depicting the resurrection of Jesus and the death of Julius Caesar. Some tapestries gave the illusion of a stone or table swivelling across as you walked left to right of the tapestry. This would have been difficult to weave. Next we walked down a hallway 160 metres long. It was remarkable – golden and featured paintings that looked 3D but were not at all! Ah...the ole’ optical illusion trick again. It was a shame that they had to line the entire hall with boring maps.

At the end, we saw the apartment where one Pope lived. Lining the walls were a range of brilliant Fresco paintings by Raphael. As we went further along, we saw a masterful piece by Raphael which featured a whole range of colourful characters – Plato and Aristotle in the centre, debating each other, to the left – Alexander the Great. To the right was Raphael poking his head out amongst the others. In the centre, writing on a podium, was Michelangelo who was the only one wearing boots. Apparently, when he was working on the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo didn’t shower or remove his boots for the four years he worked on it. Michelangelo was originally not going to be included in the painting, as Raphael was jealous of him and considered him his rival, and was happy when Michelangelo was forced into painting as it meant the eventual death of his career. It was not until he walked into the Sistine Chapel and looked at Michelangelo’s masterpiece that he admired him and included him in the painting as a way to express his gratitude for his marvellous work.

Yes, the Sistine Chapel was that great. It was one of the greatest works I have ever seen in my life. It’s amazingly atmospheric (apart from the guards yelling at you to be quiet and not to take pictures, as well as a P.A. announcement requesting the same thing that kind of sounds like communist propaganda in the Soviet Union – we took pictures anyway just so you know) and it is absolutely stunning. It will take your breath away. In the centre is the most famous ‘Creation of Man’ where God (in a human brain with a group of humans that he is just about to create) is reaching out almost touching Adam, probably creating him, or he has just been created. This is highly debated. The rest of the works depict the rest of Genesis. Apparently Michelangelo was not a painter, and the pope requested that he was to repaint the roof of the Sistine Chapel with the twelve apostles. Michelangelo said that he would repaint it only if he could do whatever he wanted. The pope agreed, and now we have this. Botticelli added some paintings of stuff on the walls, which weren’t that great compared to Michelangelo’s work. Apparently Michelangelo was asked to come back and paint the wall near the podium as “no one was paying attention to the sermons, and always admiring the ceiling.” So he came back for six years and painted more. Apparently someone criticised his prominent nudity in the painting, so he painted them in hell, completely nude with a serpent around his body biting of his junk. Looks like MC Angelo had a sense of humour. He also painted himself as the skinned alive body, as if to describe how he felt ‘skinned alive’ after spending ten years working in the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo sometimes makes you wonder – Leonardo who? We also saw the famous ‘Thinker’ sculpture, just before we entered the Sistine Chapel. I did not know that statue was featured here, and that it was so small.

We exited the Sistine Chapel and made our way to St Peters Cathedral – the largest cathedral in the world. They didn’t mind showing that off either, with markings on the ground indicating how far other cathedrals stack up in length. Surprisingly enough, you could take pictures. It just goes to show how illogical other cathedrals and Basilicas’ are requesting you not to take any photos. I should mention that we were not allowed to take photos of one statue in the cathedral because there was a sermon going on well out of the way of where the statue was located. I took a photo sneakily and quickly enough so the angry guy who looked like Al Pacino didn’t spot me and wondered whether souvenir shops inside cathedrals would stop while a sermon was on because it would be disrespectful.

We walked over to the centre, where only the pope may sit, and looked underneath the cathedra. There was this church’s relic – the bones of St Peter – the first pope and one of the twelve apostles. Of course, you can’t see the bones, but apparently they are there because archaeologists went down there one year and found bones that didn’t have feet. They would have unmistakably been St Peter as he was crucified upside down and his feet cut off, and they wouldn’t have buried his feet with the rest of his body. Underneath the cathedral was where the popes are buried. We thought we’d check that out...when in Rome right? We decided against climbing to the top of the cathedral due to the length of the queue. On our way out we looked for the Swiss Guards, but because it was raining, they were wearing raincoats. Pretty lame, but what can you do? Kill one of them and de-robe them in front of everybody? Seems pretty dangerous to me.

Now for the reason why there are only two metro lines in the city. Because apparently if you dug underneath the city, you would find heaps of ruins – 65% of Rome hasn’t been excavated. Apparently when houses burned down, the Romans didn’t do the most logical thing and clear away the rubble, they actually built on top of the rubble and used that as a basement. Apparently that is why the Pantheon has only one step up to get into it, compared to it having a lot more steps in the past. Further proof that Italians are stupid, and that the Roman Empire could never last under such unintelligent people. That’s my view anyway.

Zacheus Rafterius – Wednesday

We headed out today on our Naples & Pompeii tour. Rising at 6:30am, we were disappointed that we would miss out on the breakfast that the hotel provided as it was too early. On the voucher for the tour that I’d booked, it said if you wanted a free hotel pickup, to call the phone number on the day before your tour. I didn’t do this, because when I looked at a map, the place the tours left from was only a short walk from the hotel (maybe 10 minutes max) so I thought, instead of us waiting for an hour before the tour departed, we could just walk there 20 minutes before. So we headed out at 7am, to find a tour bus waiting out the front to pick us up. It seemed I had put the name of the hotel into the website tour form when I had booked it months earlier.

We caught the first bus to where the tours set off from, and boarded a second bus. Unfortunately this second bus was almost full, there were only a couple of seats left, and we had to sit in front of a noisy American fuck. He decided that I needed to listen to whatever he was listening to with his portable listening device by turning the volume to way past the safety levels recommended by the Department of Defence. And when he wasn’t listening to it, he was talking arrogantly about some American baseball team to his equally annoying American friend behind him, and what they need to do in order to win this year. The guy was obviously an expert.
The tour bus made its way towards Naples from Rome. It was a three hour trip, and about every half an hour, the tour guide would come on the microphone for about a minute, and say “There’s some trees over there” or “There’s a castle here”, which would be followed by the exact same spiel in Russian, and then in Japanese. Thank God there wasn’t any Spaniards on board, because it would have been spewed out in Spanish too. We stopped along the way for a “pit stop”, and then continued on, Naples bound.

We drove first past the “old” part of the city, the harbour, and where most of the people live. It was quite a dive, to be perfectly honest. Rubbish was overflowing on the streets, the buildings looked like they were about to collapse, and it was just generally quite ugly to look at. I’m sure if it hadn’t have been a drizzly day, it would have had a nice view of Sorrento and Capri off the coast (as the tour guide assured us). We then headed past the “new” part of the city, which actually had skyscrapers and was recently architected by a Japanese architect (which they must have repeated about five times). Just so you know, each time something was said it was then translated into Russian and Japanese – got annoying? It also means they got away with giving us 1/3rd of the information that other, full-English tours would have provided. Bastards.

After this, we went to a Coral factory. Why? I have no idea. Most of the coral isn’t even collected here; it’s from Tahiti and the Bahamas. But they carve patterns into the side of it for some reason.

Me: “Why do you carve the coral here?”

Them: “Well, because the coral is here – can’t you see it? And... we’re coral carvers. So it makes sense”.

Me: “You know, that really doesn’t make sense. Why don’t you go to where the coral is collected?”

Them: “Because I’m here?”

You get the idea. Stupid people.

We then went to Pompeii for lunch. Just the base of it for now. Lunch was included in the tour price, and it was pretty decent albeit small, and they charged a fortune for drinks (three euro for a can of coke – that’s like 5.50 Australian dollars). There was an American family sitting opposite Matt and I, and I kid you not, they are the most annoying people on the earth. This woman was extremely offended that her spaghetti didn’t come with any eggplant on it, and had no problem announcing it to her family, to our table, and finally to one of the waiters. I would have loved to break an eggplant in her face, if you know what I mean. I would have given her mine, but the only thing I wanted to give her was some hurt.

Matt and I bought a couple o’ souvenirs from a nearby shop, and then we headed to the ancient city of Pompeii on the mountainside. It was pretty amazing, and I’m really glad we did it despite the rest of the day being mediocre at best. We spent two hours looking around the ancient city with the guide showing us a typical house, a rich family’s house, a wine store, a brothel, a bathing area for men only, a temple and finally a basilica. The most amazing sight was probably the brothel; on the walls, it had erotic frescoes that were perfectly preserved, sort of like a “menu” – the man would pick which position he so desired by pointing at it on the wall. The beds looked quite uncomfortable though – they were made out of solid rock. Bedrock. Get it?

We walked down the mountain, and waited for the tour bus to pick us up. Pompeii is filled with stray dogs that people leave when they don’t want them anymore, so Matt and I befriended a dog which we named many things, but among the most prominent were Russell, Failhound, Gnarls Barkley, Barkey McBite, Barkey McDog, Bitey McBark, Russel Barker, and Wolf.

We jumped back on the bus, and restarted the three hour journey back to Rome. By this time it was dark, and the journey was relatively uneventful.

Florence'd

2010-02-14T22:28:00.000+11:00

ZACH: Florence: The Seg-way

Started today pumped for our first full Florentine day and because we had booked a SEGWAY tour for 10am. Yes, that’s right. Your lovable heroes were about to board the most advanced form of individual singulate electric transport known to man (and possibly woman). We raced down to the small Piazza next to the Duomo where the Segway Tour place was located. It was a small close with a couple of builders who were repairing a building, one of which looked strangely like Al Pacino. After waiting for fifteen minutes, the attractive Italian tour guide turned up. She informed us that we would be the only two on the tour for that day – Matt, and me, and her, on Segways.

She busted out the Segways. They were furious looking beasts, able to consume the weaker form of man. Fortunately Matt and I are near perfect examples of the male specimen, thus we handled the Segway as if it were Alexander’s Bucephalus, or Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia. In all seriousness, it was exceedingly easy to drive after a ten minute orientation session. It’s all in the feet. I’d explain it to you but... that might ruin your future first session with a Segway, and you must do this. This is non-optional. By reading this sentence you hereby agree to try a Segway before you die.

Matt and I did figures of eight and small circles around the close with the tour guide watching on. After a few minutes, she told us to encircle the block, which we did. Then we returned back to base to sign a form releasing them from liability should we kill ourselves en-Segway. Then we put on our headsets so we could hear her talk while doing the 38-40 miles per hour the Segways were limited to, and then we set off.

The tour guide informed us that Segways were still a strange sight in Florence despite her tour company operating for five years. She told us today, in Florence, we were celebrities. She was not wrong. You would be amazed (or perhaps not so) at the number of heads a Segway turns. Especially the Japanese. You’d think for a people that created a car that can park itself, ASIMO the lovable Artificial Intelligence robot, and the Pokéball, they would be used to mind blowing electronic technology, but apparently not so. We were photographed and stared at all day. Our tour guide told us to keep smiling.

On the tour, we stopped at the Duomo, which was quite majestic though we had seen it previously that morning while walking to the Segway tour. We then stopped outside Florence’s first consecrated Church (which was unfinished), a couple of other churches with works by Michaelangelo on them, the Piazza Della Republica where the government offices and the “centre” of Florence was, the Uffuzi (Italy’s largest art gallery), and the Cathedral at Santa Croce where Michaelangelo and Galileo are entombed. We also stopped outside Dante’s house (the guy who unified the Italian language and wrote The Divine Comedy). Turns out his wife and his mistress both lived on either side of him – convenient genius or madness? You decide.

Upon retiring from our Segway adventure, we walked straight to the nearest internet cafe and, among other important internet activities (such as Facebook and MSN), researched the approximate cost of a Segway. Matt tells me it’s around ten thousand dollars back home. Bargain. Matt has already set up his savings plan with Westpac, in an account named “Segway Fund”.

We ate dinner at an epic restaurant (epic as it was exceedingly cheap compared to, oh I don’t know, everywhere that’s not McDonalds) that was conveniently located just down the street from us. As it was so cheap, I ordered a first and second course. The first course was huge. I was expecting it to be tiny like, oh I don’t know, everywhere that’s not McDonalds. So I had to down a huge plate o’ spaghetti and then a huge pizza. It went down, but there were breaks.

MATT: Florence Continued

You know you’re in a better city than Bologna when there aren’t police and army vehicles constantly driving around the main piazza in town. And you have one of the largest cathedrals in the world that isn’t in a city known for its strong inclination for homosexual activity. That’s Florence for you. A wonderful city known for the housing of Michelangelo’s famous statue of David, the Birth of Venus painting, the home of Dante – creator of the Italian language and where the Mona Lisa was most likely painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s safe to say that a lot of stuff happened here, and it’s such a shame that for most of its most memorable assets, you are unable to take pictures. More on this later.

We started our day with a trip to the museum where Michelangelo’s David was located. When we got in, we were extremely disappointed that we could not take a photo with the gargantuan five metre high statue, that we sneakily took one anyway. It was an amazing statue – it is considered the most handsome, most perfect sculpture, and that there is no point looking at any other statues because of this. I probably agree. As we walked up and down the aisles, we saw some other sub-par statues and some unfinished works by Michelangelo. You know you are an exceptional artist or sculptor when a museum proudly displays your works that are only close to 25% complete. I found a painting by Mussini featuring a dying Leonardo Da Vinci in the arms of Francis I to be a brilliant and emotional piece. Everything else was simple, crude paintings dating back to the 1200-1300s. Nothing we were all that interested in.

Next we hit up a cathedral with the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo and Dante among others. Unfortunately, they were refurbishing Dante’s ‘tomb’ (or destroying it even more, seeing as the Florentines seem to hate him). There was an organ being tuned which echoed out over the cathedral and this created a rather eerie and unsettling atmosphere for all concerned.

Next we set our sights on the Uffizi museum. We had no idea what to expect and what was featured in the gallery, but we decided to check it out anyway. Unfortunately, you couldn’t take pictures in here either, which made me really upset. Apparently, if Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t take the Mona Lisa painting to France himself, then it would have ended up in Florence, and probably the Uffizi gallery, which would have been a real shame as no one would be able to take a picture of it! I tell you one thing, as much as we hate the French, they know how to run a damn gallery! Anyway, we saw the popular Birth of Venus (I think it’s called). We also saw a few works by Leonardo Da Vinci – one entitled Annunciation featuring remarkably detailed backgrounds and strangely an elongated lectern. Apparently Leo Da Vinci intended the painting to be viewed from the bottom right corner.

After we spent twenty minutes navigating the halls attempting to exit the seemingly infinite museum (and walking past the endless amount of souvenir stores along the way) we stopped for lunch at a place that wasn’t McDonalds! It was a pub that advertised a meal and a drink for 8 Euro or 2 meals and a drink for 11 Euro. What a bargain. The only drawback was that the meals available to Zach on the 11 Euro board were written entirely in Italian, and he had no idea what he was ordering. So he asked the waiter, who looked strikingly similar to Al Pacino, and he wasn’t much help either. One of the meals he described was ‘egg sauce.’ Sounding so tempting to Zach that he chose that meal with enthusiasm. I stuck with the 8 euro meal and drink, which was a pizza. Zach got his meal, and it was egg in sauce. Yeah, egg in sauce.

Next we decided to cross the gross green river, and walk up a large hill to Michelangelo piazza. From there we had an exceptional view of the city in all of its wonderful glory. There we saw the people on the Duomo, and felt sorry for them paying 8 euro to go to the top and stare at buildings blocking the view. We then headed back to the hotel and got ready to venture out to the club – Space Electronic to experience the best nightlife the Florentines had to offer. But first, we had to get dinner from our ‘usual’ restaurant (after enjoying our meal there the night previous). We decided to indulge in some red wine – Chianti Banfi 2008. It was quite the tasty beverage. After downing some gnocchi and pasta, we walked over to the nightclub to see if it was open. We walked down this dirty alleyway and Zach was scared that he was going to get knifed like jail, but we pulled through ok, but the club wasn’t open yet. Clubs open at midnight in Europe, unlike Australia where they just open at 10pm and make most of their money on alcohol. We went back to the hotel and played some Warcraft 3, then set out at 11:30pm. The cover charge was 16 euro, but Zach wasn’t too fussed when he saw that a world-renowned DJ, GiGi D’Agostino, who Zach admired would be mixing. We went up to the dance floor and saw the man himself, in what appeared to be a pimp suit. The only thing missing was a pimp cane. He played a whole range of Italian favourites, including a dance remix of Conte (Time To Say Goodbye). Zach said he could die happy knowing that it had been remixed to accommodate for the younger generations desire to dance to operatic music. Despite the fact that no one seemed to be dancing, they had some flashing wand like things they were waving around like fairies as they bounced up and down. These would be considered weapons back home. Anyway, we were satisfied when the DJ played his most famous song (I’ll Fly With You) and we watched people hum the melody lines to the Black Eyed Peas ‘I’ve Got a Feeling.’ We headed back to the hotel but we were stopped by another tourist who was looking for the river. We told him where it was but he continued, adding a swear word in as an adjective. We told him we were Australian, after which he did not believe our directions. He was probably a stupid Frenchman – which is why he said ‘pardon my French.’

ZACH: Pisa

Our last day in Florence. Except it wasn’t to be our last day in Florence because for most of the day we were going to spend in PISA. The Italian city that has a broken tower, a church, and nothing else. You may have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa? If not, go back to primary school. We set off on our train Pisabound. The trip took about an hour, and when we jumped off the train, we found a map of the city and worked out how to get to the Leaning Tower. Basically, it was “walk down one long street, cross a bridge, continue walking, and you’ll see it”. We walked through Pisa which we likened to both Bologna and Venice – Bologna in that it was kind of a standard Italian city without a whole lot to do, and Venice in the buildings. The buildings were very Venetian-esque, in that they fitted together as if there was zero town planning done (which there probably wasn’t) and each building was in a completely different colour and style to the next.

After walking for about twenty minutes, we caught sight of the Leaning Tower. It was pretty awesome. Dodging the fake watch and bag sellers on the street, we made our way in front of the tower and took some pictures. Then we bought tickets to scale its mighty staircase. FIFTEEN EURO? What the Fork? What a Pisa Crap (Haha, get it?) That’s almost thirty bucks to climb it, which is double what it cost to get into the Louvre or the Galleria dell Academia yesterday to see David. But we bit the bullet and paid the money. We still had time before our 12:30 climbing session, so we walked the market street, taking in the hundreds of stalls all selling the same tiny leaning towers, leaning mugs, and boxer shorts with a leaning tower facade in front of where the genitalia would be located inside the shorts. Classy.

It then started to rain, so we made like “California Dreaming” and ran for the Church. It was a pretty big church. There was a dead Saint in it and everything. We looked around, took photos, and then sat down and waited for our time to climb the tower. The time came, we booked my bag into the bag holding place (which, surprisingly, didn’t charge to take our bag – you can’t climb the tower with a bag, and I thought they’d try and rip more money off me – surprisingly it was free – I say free, but I did pay fifteen euro for a ticket). And then, we climbed it. It was awesome climbing it – a lot easier than some of the other places we’ve climbed, like St. Pauls in London or the Tower in Bologna which had tiny wooden steps. These were 400 big marble steps and were quite easy to scale. We made it to the top and took some rather epic pictures. And I phoned home, which gave both Sam and Kathleen quite a buzz I believe, to receive a call from the top of the Leaning Tower. I’ll invoice them both for my voice and associated telephony costs upon my arrival back home.

We descaled, demounted, and dewalked down the tower, had some lunch at Micky Dee’s, and then walked back to the train, where we had what can only be described as the nosiest train trip of our lives. To begin, the train was extremely loud – it was as if it was one of the famous Steam Trains of Maryborough which continuously cart the large crop of Husked Corn out of that tiny and uncivilized town. I actually felt like I was on the outside of the train, it was that loud. And then, part way through the journey, a couple of enraged African-Italian passengers had a furious screaming match with two of the train company employees, over what I can only imagine is a ticket issue. We had no idea what they were saying – only that these were some of the angriest people I have ever heard screaming in my life. Matt recorded some of the outrage on his phone. We both feared for our lives. At the next station, the police were waiting to take them both away.

Venice, Bologna and Rome

2010-02-11T23:47:00.002+11:00

Z. Layne Raftery - How to Conquer Bologna in an Hour and a Half (and make an American Quilt)

We awoke to a grand Venetian morning for our last day in the Veneto. Trudging up the now familiar staircase in the hotel complex, we broke the fast at a bright and early 7:30am and made our way back to Arsenale ferry terminal for the 40 minute ferry ride to the station, up the Grand Canal. It was forking cold, though it was good to actually take a ride the whole way up the canal and take in the sights that we missed from the shore. Venice is dirty, grimy, mouldy, uneven, collapsing, decaying, smelly, broken, old, and decrepit. It’s also one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever visited.

We jumped on our train (first time on the actual Eurostar) bound for Bologna. Why Bologna, I hear you ask? To be honest I have no idea. I can’t remember why. I just looked at a map of Italy, saw it there in bold, capital letters, put it to the Board (Matt) and then booked a hotel there. I didn’t look at what there was to do there, and knew nothing about it, except a guess I held that Bolognese sauce was invented there. I was right. Bolognese sauce was invented here.We jumped off the train and into a cab at Bologna Centrale, one of Italy’s most important rail hubs as it’s at the crossroads between Milan, Venice, and Florence. It took five minutes to find the hotel in the cab, which was good because we feared it would be extremely expensive. It wasn’t so. Catching a cab also gave Batesy’s suitcase a much deserved rest (one of his two wheels has gotten stuck, and is dragging along the ground slowly decaying, while the other wheel valiantly continues its rolly quest).

The Savhotel was an epic hotel, as Matt put it, like a Hilton in the middle of Ipswich. The area in which it is built is a dive – it looked like the ghetto or the Bronx. But the hotel was fantastic. And free WiFi! What more could you ask for?We checked in, did some interwebs-ing, and looked up some stuff to do in Bologna. Well, the list of stuff to do in Bologna is relatively short. Once you’re in the main part of town, the city is quite pretty. All of the buildings have the same red-tile roofing which makes for a great uniformity. But other than that, it’s quite a boring, somewhat sleepy city.

We walked first to the Neptune Fountain, which was pretty cool, and featured many Roman Gods with water squirting from their nipples. Matt decided to copy their pose for a photo. Then we went to the Duomo (Cathedral). Although it was closed, until 3pm. As it was 2:30pm we walked around the block, and checked out the many stores that were also closed. I figured some kind of siesta was enforced here. Returning to the Duomo at 3pm, we checked out its insides. It’s the 5th largest Cathedral in the world, and was beautiful. It was going to be the biggest (bigger than St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican), but the Pope hundreds of years ago wasn’t a fan of this idea and commissioned a university to be built right next to it so that it couldn’t be expanded. Bam.After this, we walked to the Two Towers – two leaning towers in Bologna that stand together. It cost three euro to climb the taller one of the two, and we thought what the hell – why not? Not like we had anything else to do in this town. We climbed it, it was exhausting (even moreso carrying the Lonely Planet guide to Italy), and took in the view from the top. It was epic. Hundreds and hundreds of red-tile buildings in every direction. We photo’d it.

Upon descending the tower, we returned to the hotel, where we relaxed for a bit, confident we had conquered Bologna. For dinner, we both decided to eat something Bolognese. The hotel offered this at its restaurant, and so we ate there. It cost 23 euro, or roughly 36 AUD, so we were expecting something huge. The tagliatelle Bolognese that was delivered to us was not huge – though it was delicious, it was small. We ate, satisfied for taste but not quantity, and asked for the bill. The guy told us that another course was coming. Out came another plate, of cold cuts and cheese. I have no idea what cheese it was, but it was amazing. After downing this, our want was quenched. We retired to the room, where I read a little about Florence before collapsing from exhaustion after completing a huge day of Bolognese activities.

M.G.R. Bate - Four to the Flor-ence

We awoke to a frosty snowy morning in Bologna. Such a dismal sight was unwelcome in our humble hearts as we were required to carry our large, voluminous bags two or so kilometres down the uncovered footpaths to the train station. Yes, we were about to leave the gay capital of Italy for the prosperous and more heterosexual community of Florence. But first, it was off to the breakfast buffet. And oh what a buffet it was! Bacon, scrambled eggs and breakfast sausage (and I’m not talking about the kind of breakfast sausage you get in Bologna after waking up in a strangers bed after a night at the discotheque – A Hoy!). It made the Astor Quest’s selection of breakfast look like...well...the Ass-tor quest (if it didn’t already because of its small shoebox like room).

After breakfast, we booked a day tour of Florence for the following day. The tour takes place on a Segway. Yeah, you read correctly, and in case you didn’t read, I’ll repeat in capital letters: A SEGWAY. But more on that tomorrow. First we had to make it through the drizzling snow to our train station two kilometres away.

We made it.

It was a short 40 minute train ride and we saw some remarkable sights. Within the space of ten minutes, we saw fields completely covered in snow to fields that were luscious and green without a single snowflake resting gently on the bosom of any blade of grass. We also had a creepy Italian dude sit near us, who kept looking at me in-between playing a game on his phone.We arrived at the platform in Florence, and Zach informed me that the hotel we are staying in is not too far from the train station. He was right. We checked in at around 10am, much to our delight. When we got in our room, it smelt like a Grandmother’s house. Basically, it reeked of old person smell. We quickly deduced - after discovering our room’s bathroom was larger than the rooms in the hostel we spent in London and Belfast put together – was in fact a disabled room. Well that solves the case of the smelly room. Conveniently, and unfortunately, our room is located right near the breakfast buffet room and reception. But on the plus side, we get a little seat thing in our room to help us into our wheelchairs. So it all evens out in the end.

After taking a well earned break to catch up on some blogging, we set off to find an internet cafe to locate our meeting point for the SEGWAY tour tomorrow, as our printed ticket did not give us the address. So we set off, did a little surfing, found the address and had a bite to eat. Next we set our sights to the Duomo, the number one thing to do in Italy, according to the Lonely Planet guide (which lists having a picnic in the top 25 things to do, and doesn’t even mention the colosseum. Thanks LP!). It’s the fourth largest cathedral in the world and it was mighty impressive. What’s more, they even allow you free entry and you can TAKE PICTURES. So much for that crappy cathedral in Venice that wouldn’t even let you talk quietly or take pictures – yet they had no problem selling you full access to the cathedral for 6 euro in total, and the loud sound of a cash register opening in the store, just opposite of the entrance. Cha-ching!

We found our meeting spot for tomorrow’s tour and walked around the streets for a little bit. We stopped into the free entry supermarket (yes! Free entry to the supermarket! I know! I couldn’t believe it myself. I was flabbergasted. Goodbye to the entry fees I have to pay to get into Woolworths at home! I know where I’m going to live!) and bought some 95 cent chips and some coke for dinner as our large breakfast was an adequate feast compared to the meagre shoe-laces that we had for breakfast everywhere else.

When in...Venice

2010-02-10T07:52:00.002+11:00

The following was written yesterday - and is lagged by one day. Due to our lack of internet access, the following was unable to be posted on the date of writing and therefore has been posted on the following, adjacent day. Thank you for your time.

So it’s our last full day in Venice today, and it was time to say our goodbyes to the beautifully ugly dock city that we both loved so very much. We had a tour and gondola trip organised in the afternoon, and because we had experienced quite a lot of what the city had to offer over the past two days, we spent most of our time downloading the latest episode of Skins over an unprotected wifi network and basking in the warm glow of a sunny Venetian day.

We entered a number of shops that lined the dank and narrow alleyways of the gigantic wharf city to see what they had to offer in the way of souvenirs to satisfy the weary Australian traveller. Each one was littered with enough nooks and crannies to put Forest Lake markets to shame. Since it was Carnivale time, most of the stores were lined with glamorous masks to please anyone flirting with the idea of hosting a Masquerade ball party in the near future (and if you are, don’t bother, cause we didn’t buy any masks for anybody – they were far too expensive). Instead of buying anything at the petit stores, we felt it was necessary to make excellent use of the new and innovative system of ‘free entry’ into the store, something that is unfortunately absent from shops at home. Here in Venice, some stores granted you free unlimited viewing access to a range of on-hand stock, without any pressure to make a purchase. Isn’t that just wonderful?

So after we looked around the stores for FREE (because it is so innovative, I thought I’d mention it again...FREE) it was three o’clock and it was time to commence our informative and wonderfully navigated tour. Our first tour guide – Gretchen we shall call her (I don’t know if it was her real name, but Gretchen is a name that, to me, is synonymous with her position on the social hierarchy as ‘sea hag’) – she took us to the gondola stop for the start of the tour. There was no introduction, and because we had some dumb Italians who couldn’t speak any English at all on our tour, she had to speak in both English and Italian. So she was talking to the Italian bumpkins – one of whom looked like Al Pacino – and did not acknowledge any of the English speakers at all. So she just started walking and we naturally followed her.

So we made it to the gondola stop, and we hopped in a gondola with 2 god forsakenly annoying American tourists and their equally annoying baby. I don’t need to tell you that midway through the gondola ride, that god damn baby started crying about some god damn thing (as usual, something miniscule). When it cried for a longer period of time, I turned to Zach and he acknowledged my distress, and he knew that if that baby continued crying, then there would be a “Children Overboard” scandal in Venice...only this one will be real, and there will be only one child going into the river...and it’d be that baby. So the gondola ride was fantastic, and not gay at all like Zach originally mused. We went out through the Grande Canal and then through the small canal thoroughfares – the kind of thoroughfares that – if they were on land instead of water – you’d expect to get mugged and perhaps murdered in a fashion similar to Bruce Wayne’s parents in Gotham City at the beginning of Tim Burton’s Batman movie adaptation. The canal was so small, and most of the time we only just managed to squeeze through certain turns. The drivers are exceptionally skilled and avoided every possible collision with such precision. We sailed past a 5 star hotel that was on the canals, then we sailed all the way back, reaching the security of the gondola stop relatively dry and safely (can’t really speak for the baby though...).

Upon getting off the gondola, we were welcomed with a different tour guide to Gretchen. His name was Alphonse (again, I don’t know what his real name was, but to describe him, he sorta looked like Al Pacino). Anyway, Alphonse was a great help in giving us information about Venice that we DIDN’T NEED TO HEAR. He talked about how the town was built so poorly, that most of the buildings were rotting because of the way they were inadequately built, that towers were falling over and they have built these things to stop them from falling onto houses. He also talked about how they never get any water in summer and they rely on rain water for a lot of their clean water supplies. He also recommended we try a 13 euro sundae, which he excitedly stated “contained real bananas! What a bargain for only 13 euro.” Considering this in Australian dollars, this equates to roughly $26! In summary, this tour guide couldn’t give us a single explanation as to WHY Italians would be so stupid as to live on the water. In fact, he gave us 20 good reasons to NOT LIVE HERE. And I need to know. The Americans didn’t help either, asking irrelevant, stupid questions that were so frustratingly pointless that I won’t repeat them here because I’ll have a heart attack getting so angry about them, but mark my words they were annoying. Then the baby started crying, and I actually threw it in the canal. No kidding – I threw it into the dirty canal water where it died a horrible death by typhoid.

So, we decided to head back to Arsenalle, and have a bite to eat. We both got some nice filling pizza from a shop just around the corner from us, run by a lovely Italian family of Chinese people. Ironically, they worked in a pizza and pasta gig, but when we went in to pay for our meal, their family were sitting at a table and all they were eating was Chinese food. We had a walk, and saw a couple of people who looked strikingly similar to Al Pacino performing some excellent karaoke, before we ventured up to our rooms to get a hearty night sleep for our train trip to Bolonge – the gay capital of Italy.

Yes, I will point out the irony here that Zach said a gondola ride would be “slightly gay” yet he was enthusiastic about our trip to Bolonge... I’ll leave that one for you all to muse over ;).

Arrivederci!

Milan and Venice

2010-02-08T20:35:00.001+11:00

ZACH BLOG – END OF PARIS, START OF MILAN

5:30am. The time before when Jesus wakes up to start the day off. Matt and I were up, and we made our final voyage to the Blanche metro station, saying our final farewell to the world’s most famous Red Windmill. We jumped on the Metro, bound for Gare Lyon railway station. As we entered the station, we located the ticket office, got our Eurail passes validated, and jumped on our TGR train bound for Milano Centrale. There’s not much to write about this journey, except that the train bypassed some of the most beautiful scenery in the known universe. France’s countryside was reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands, or New Zealand’s Remarkables. In between taking breaks playing music and games on my portable telephony device, I’d look up and gaze in awe at the mountains and lakes, snow capped trees and crashing torrents of huge bodies of water that Australia is severely lacking in. One of the best parts of this journey, to me, is simply seeing water. The cities all have seemingly endless supplies of water, which they use all over the place in fountains and water features scattered throughout their spider webbed streets. The creeks and rivers that flow, know how to flow – and could (and should) teach Australian rivers a thing or two.

While on the train, we had our tickets inspected by a Frenchman, then another Frenchman, then French National Police checked our Passports, then an Italian checked our tickets, then an Italian checked our tickets again. We arrived at Milano Centrale after seven hours on the train. The Italian countryside, in stark contrast to the French, was quite atrocious as we neared Milan. It was like a huge dump. Thousands of condemned buildings scattered the horizon, remnants of World Wars, building waste, and shanty towns. It felt like Papua New Guinea. However, as the train made into the station, the scene changed drastically.

We made our way down about seven escalators to the Milan Underground, also known as the Metro. Luckily, the station we needed to head to (Moscova) was two stops away from Central. Fantastica! Just as I had worked out the ticket machine, some loud mouthed Italian fuck walks over and starts explaining how to work the machine. Being polite I let him work through the motions, then he said “And that’s it, you’re done”. I thanked him, and he walked off. Then he walked back and asked for some money to get to his station. I told him to fuck off. No, I didn’t. Sorry mum. Not in those words, anyway. I declined him the monetary reward he requested. How’s that? We boarded our train, and hit Moscova. There, to our delight, we discovered the hotel was literally a 50 meter walk from the train station. This was, of course, due to our epic planning, and NOT due to total fluke. *Cough*.

We arrived mid afternoon, so we hit the streets in search of treasures and glory. Or, at least, a feed. We found a “ristorante”, which seemed quite decent in pricing (5.50 euro for a lasagne, 7.00 euro for a margarita pizza). We ordered, myself having the pizza, Matt getting the pizza. Just as I was telling Matt that the pricing seemed quite reasonable in regards to Paris, my lasagne arrived, and dead set it would not have fed an anorexic. 5.50 euro is equivalent to roughly $10 Australian. I’d paid ten bucks for a square of lasagne. I polished it off and ordered the pizza as well. Needless to say, after a $24 lunch, I did not eat dinner that night.

We got lost. Or rather, I got us lost. After being the Navigator for much of the trip up to this point, my skills had officially failed. Though I had a map, I just could not orient our way. Matt gladly took up the helm at this point and led us back to the hotel. We threw some TV on, bought a beer from a vending machine, and hit the sack.

Next day we awoke at 8am and headed down to break the fast. Probably the best breakfast so far on this trip. Nothing hot, but a wide selection of colds and bread. Then we headed into town, for a 9:30am city tour. We jumped on the bus, and took off on the tour. First stop was Fort Milan, a fortress that once stood at the top of the town, when it was a walled city (where Da Vinci worked). It was pretty epic. In the part of the fortress where the Lord lived, the stairs leading up to his apartment were wider, so he could fly up there on his horse, Zorro style. Leaving the Fortress, we hit the bus again bound for the Santa Maria Della Gracie church (I think that’s what it’s called) which houses The Last Supper. We walked in through two glass vaults before we were allowed in the Refectory where the painting is. They give you fifteen minutes face time with the painting, before they allow the next small group in. It was amazing standing in its presence. I had no idea that it was as big as it is (it takes up an entire wall). The apostles in the picture are all life sized, as Da Vinci had designed it to look like an extension of the room. I had no idea about the intricacies of the picture – that all the apostles are showcasing different emotions - that John next to Jesus was a mellow biblical character, whereas Peter who is next to John is holding a knife (he was the one that furiously de-eared the guard who grabbed Jesus), and Judas in front of him, I never noticed, carrying the bag of coins he was paid with for his betrayal. The apostles are grouped in four lots of three, three being of course one of the most important religious numbers (the Holy Trinity, etc). Just amazing to be standing in its presence. It was damaged by monks putting a door in underneath it (the kitchen was in the next room, stupid Dominicans), allied bombing during WWII, and restoration efforts of the 20^th century which removed 80% of its colour. The most recent restoration took twenty years! They wouldn’t need to restore it so much if Da Vinci had painted it right in the first place – he painted it in a dry, non-fresco style which took him over three years, when paintings done in the fresco style are meant to be completed within a week. The painting started to decay at 20 years of age. Anyway, it was a great experience.

After we were shafted from the church, we headed to the bus for the Milanese Opera House (La Scalla), one of the most famous Opera Houses in the world. We got to go into a private box to watch a rehearsal of tonight’s performance – was pretty great. The outside of the Opera House is incredibly boring, however it’s still better looking than the concretious turd that is QPAC. Prima Donna such as Maria Callas became famous at this place. After hitting the Opera House, we headed to another Church – Milan’s Duomo, the third biggest Cathedral in the world. It has the most amazing marble facade on the outside, and was the place that St. Augustine was baptised. It is truly a beautiful thing to admire. The inside isn’t as brilliant as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, but the outside is incredible. Though on the inside, right at the top of the Cathedral’s east end (the most Holy end), there lies a Relic that is said to be the nail that pierced Christ’s right hand on the crucifix, which is pretty cool. At this point in the day, it started to snow. Hard. It was fucking awesome. I love snow so incredibly much. After catching snowflakes for a while, we headed inside the Galleria Vittoria Emanuele II, which is right next to the Cathedral, and investigated some of Milan’s great brands such as Gucci, Versace, and Prada. We looked in all the stores of the high end stuff like Louis Vuitton and Cartier, and the stuff they have is just amazing. Matt bought an epic tie from Louis Vuitton, which he is incredibly proud of. After looking around at the stores, we decided to go to the other main high end section in Milan, the Quadrilatero d’Oro (or Golden Quad). This part of town houses the flagship stores of the brands like Versace, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Mont Blanc, etc. I bought a wallet from Mont Blanc, which I am particularly pleased with.

We trudged home through the sludge that now lined the streets, our shoes and socks drenched with snow sludge, with Matt once again leading the way as I had led us down a street in completely the wrong direction after leaving the Galleria. Now we’re defrosting. Snow keeps falling in the background of my vision, like the negative light you get when you stare at a light bulb then look away.

MATT BLOG – END OF MILAN, START OF VENICE

Buon Giorno! We left snowy Milan at around 7:30am, relieved that we were able to fit in what was probably our best breakfast on tour – with cold meats available with our chocolate croissants and various other breads. We took the train from Milan to Venice, which took almost 3 hours. During that time, an Indian man sat next to us and started making conversation with Zach, whom he took a great shining to. He would regularly talk to Zach and even invited him over to his seat to talk to another Indian friend. He asked about the crisis of Indian students being targeted for violent attacks, which we told him were over-exaggerated by the media outlets. Anyway, this Indian guy took pictures of EVERYTHING – including of us, him getting on the train at a stop on the way to Venice, a picture of him handing the ticket controller his ticket and we took a picture of him sitting down on a seat, keen for the adventure ahead.

We got off at the train station in Venice, and at first the place seemed like a dump. A large sweeping canal going all around the city separating the city. When we eventually found out where we were staying, which was just near San Marco square, we were slightly relieved. But we had to pay 6.50 EU for a boat to take us from the train station to the hotel. When we first found the hotel, we were a little pessimistic as to the state it would be in. When we got inside the reception, it smelt like a used toilet / a regularly used slaughterhouse and faeces processing plant mixed into the one. It would be safe to say it smelt like burnt leathery bacon. Anyway, we walked 200 or so metres to get to the room (which was in the new part of the hotel, and was ages away from reception) and once we got in, it was by far the best hotel that we have stayed in on this trip (save for the Clontarf Castle, but it was up there).

We realised that we had arrived during a popular time in Venice – Carnivale. Everyone wore masks or dressed up in elaborate garments and took to the streets to celebrate a somewhat meaningless event, but fun nonetheless. San Marco square was packed with people and a large display was set up for what seemed to be a big opening ceremony for the event. We had lunch at a restaurant near the area, where a band dressed completely in green were smashing liquor down and starting to play outside the restaurant. They were a big success as people were dancing around, including one kid who looked slightly homosexual as he pranced about the streets while his parents placed their hands over their own heads. This band marched and played for about 100 metres, to another pub where they sat down and drank some more. Later in the afternoon, they had reached another 400 metres or so down the road and were outside another pub trying to play their instruments, but they were quite a lot more intoxicated than before and therefore struggled to keep in time. But the people still loved them and were still dancing along.

We went down to San Marco square to see the opening ceremony thing which was due to start at 7pm. However, nothing was happening and they didn’t look ready to start at 7pm, so we looked around, took some pictures of a guy in an apron smoking a cigarette who was doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for an hour. When we came back at around 8:30pm, the show hadn’t started and that guy with the apron was on stage doing absolutely nothing. Zach and I were obsessed with this guy, that we regularly took pictures of him going about his chores in preparation for the big event.

Considerably bored, we went home at about 9pm and slept. There’s no wifi anywhere, even though Venice had a big wifi infrastructure put in a couple of years ago. So the only internet we can use is the computer in the hotel reception, where a creepy Indian receptionist looks over your shoulder every 3 seconds to see what you’re doing. Ciao!

ZACH BLOG – VENICE, DAY 2

Ahhh, Venice. You beautifully ugly thing. Contradiction? Perhaps. We awoke this morning to dry shoes and socks (our first for a couple of days, ever since the snow sludging at Milan) that we had dried next to the room heaters during the night. This apartment is exciting as Matt and I each get our own room – Matt claimed the double bed again, and had his suitcase carried to the room for him by the hotel guy. What can I say – the man is better at shotgun. I’m on what’s effectively a couch bed – I thought it would fold out into a double – I was wrong. There’s a TV in my room, true. But it only has Italian channels, and one channel of English movies dubbed entirely in Italian. Oh, there’s something funny I wanted to point out to you – it is HILLARIOUS hearing Italian children talking. “MascerpaROne, Mamma, Si, Si!” It’s funny enough hearing Italians talk, what with all their seemingly unnecessary variations in vocal range during the middle of a word – SpaghEHtti. BelIIIISSIIImo. It is FIVE TIMES FUNNIER to hear the kids do it, with their squeaky voices. God, it makes me laugh.

Anyway, we awoke, and breakfasted in the hotel down the street. Simple continental breakfast, very decent. Then we headed downstairs to use the internet and to post our last few blogs – only we couldn’t use my laptop, because they didn’t have WiFi. Nobody in this country has WiFi. Though they had advertised on the internet they HAD internet that could be used, we could ONLY use it on THEIR computer. So, I put the blogs on a USB and went to their computer – which was behind the reception desk, and was actually the computer they use for all their hotel stuff. The Indian guy was welcoming. At first. After five minutes, he asked me if I was finished yet. Then he proceeded to look over my shoulder every fifteen seconds at what I was doing. He asked me again if I was finished yet, after another three minutes. I said “soon”. He asked me again. By this point I was pissed off, and just said “no”. But then I thought, blow this, I’m not going to give this guy the satisfaction of seeing what I’m doing anymore, and just logged off. Oh, and the computer had no USB port – so I couldn’t even post the blogs. Totally unsuccessful endeavour.

We left the hotel, and decided to get lost walking around Venice. We found a cool church, something in our region of Castello, which had its very own leaning tower. It was less glamorous than Pisa (I guess, we haven’t been there yet) and we weren’t allowed in because it was a Sunday and only church goers are permitted in on Sunday. Rather than attend a service entirely in Italian, we bailed. We walked down the quiet canals of Venice taking the odd photo. Venice’s beauty, in my opinion, is not in the San Marco square where ALL the tourists go (especially at the moment with Carnavale on, but more on this later), but in the random canals that poke past the residential streets. Venice is beautifully ugly, because it’s just a huge dock. If you’ve been to any dock anywhere in the world, you’ll see that it’s a dirty, mouldy, rusty, thing. Water acts on everything if it’s there long enough, and Venice has been here a while. But it’s inexplicably beautiful. I found myself thinking “God, this is like the Venetian in Macau” and then realized that the Venetian was based on this place. Everything was based on this place. The random mashing of different buildings together is a, why, it’s a bittersweet symphony. Thank you, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

We found the only McDonalds in Venice and it had absolutely free, no-need-to-provide-your-passport-details WiFi. Absolutely free – not just free (That was for you, Shan). We stayed there for an hour and a half using phone WiFi for information purposes, and we will return to use it tomorrow with the laptop hopefully so we can post our blogs.

Leaving McDonalds fed, we accidentally stumbled across a HUGE grand canal armada of singing gondolas. There were thousands of people taking photos, and I somehow got to the front of a large bridge to get some epic shots. It was great. We continued walking around Venice not looking at a map, and then all of a sudden found ourselves on the other side of Venice. It’s a tiny place! It was getting on in the afternoon, and so we decided to head towards home. We walked back through San Marco, however, and due to Carnival that place is a car park. We got to one bridge that was literally not moving. The people on it were stagnant. We walked around and found the same thing on an adjacent canal bridge. Totally lamecore. We eventually made it home.

Notre Damed If You Do, Notre Damed If You Don't

2010-02-04T06:51:00.000+11:00

Salut! You probably wouldn’t have known of my disappointment with walking the Catacombs of Paris. I was told that it was going to be filled with dead people, but when I got down there, what did I see? Living people! Fair to say, I felt ripped off. If I wanted to see some living people, I’d walk the 1.7km above the ground thanks. But I digress – we had a feeling that today was going to be a big day when I first arranged the itinerary at home. Little did I know that Zach booked us into a hotel so close to the Montemarte area and the various sex clubs littering its filthy streets.

We decided that today we would make the trek up Montemarte hill to see the Sacred Heart Basillica (Sacre Coeur) that is clearly visible on the Parisian skyline. What wasn’t clearly visible from the top of the hill, was the Eiffel tower or the Arc De Triumph. Instead, the stupid Parisians decided “hey let’s build a huge hotel in front of the view of these iconic buildings on the Parisian skyline!” But we did get a good view of Paris’ only skyscraper. Next we went into the Sacre Coeur and to my dismay, we were unable to take pictures. I found it quite hypocritical however, to see a charming gift shop to the right of the sortie (exit) featuring enough Jesus memorabilia to satisfy any hardcore Christian. Finding this ironic, I took a sketchy picture of the inside of the Basilica with my iPhone. However the first one I took caused my phone to reset, erasing the picture, and I thought “was this a sign?” I quickly pushed this thought to the back of my mind and took another one. This time I was caught out by a French Indian security guard who told me to put my phone away. Man wasn’t even praying. Man probably worships Buddha or something.

We left and walked down the hill towards the Montemarte cemetery where the famous painter Degas and the writer of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas – were buried. On our way we stopped to check out some traditional French souvenir shops run by some traditional French people...with turbans. I guess French people wear turbans too! Kind of like the traditional Scottish people I saw running souvenir shops in Edinburgh! This particular guy shouted at Zach in complete French when Zach was admiring some ear muffs. I’ve never seen a souvenir shopkeeper act negatively towards a customer’s potential purchasing of their crap-o-ware. But then again...this was France. We found the well documented stereotype of Paris’ pathways covered in dog excrement (possibly human...don’t rule out anything when talking about French people) to be absolutely true. It was everywhere. Zach and I had walked past a tree that was littered with six different types of dog faeces (again: possibly human). I can tell you now, that these mid forty year old ladies walk around the streets with this yappy little poodle like dogs. They probably call them Fifi or some crap. But the point is, they take them everywhere. For example, we saw one dog striding along faithfully with its master (her name probably being Genevieve) in the department store Gallerie Lafayette! She even had the nerve to bring it in to the McDonalds there, where it sat and waited for Genevieve to finish her Le Sandwich. She was probably a nice lady, but I wouldn’t have minded if her dog turned on her sometime in the near future and ate her skin.

Anyway, enough ranting about our hatred of the French – we eventually arrived at the cemetery after walking a full 360 degrees around the barrier. We pondered the existence of the barrier. I mean...what were they trying to keep in? It’s not like anybody is going to escape the graveyard or anything. So we got a map and found the tomb of both Degas and Alexandre Dumas, as well as the tombs of lesser known people with last names ranging from Hamburger to La Roux. As we were looking, we designed our own future crypts. Such popular suggestions were six television screens with each Star Wars episode looped (Zach) and the possible inclusion of a ‘Crypt Cam’ where you can look at live footage of my own decaying body inside the coffin (with pre-recorded footage of me sitting up in my coffin, giving a thumbs up and winking at the camera before sitting back quietly in my coffin.

We decided to have some traditional French cuisine for lunch – including ‘Ass Beef’ and ‘Ass Kebab’ before sitting down over some ‘Hot Urine’ (no joke...actually appears on a cafe menu. I have pictures to prove it). Actually, we had some steak and chips at what appeared to be a Lebanese / French take away joint. Following this, we stopped over to the most famous ice-cream parlour in Paris - Berthillon. We dropped in to get two scoops of their delicious ice-cream, consisting of a total of 70 different flavours. It was such a blistering hot day, we thought we’d take some time out to enjoy an ice-cream and look at the dirty Seine River. It was a sweltering 4 degrees after all! What was ironic about the Berthillon though, was the fact that the owners usually go on holidays during the mid-summer months. Yeah, you heard correctly. The mid-summer months. When do you think people are mostly to have ice-cream? If you guessed winter, you would be absolutely correct in this case. I think most French people were looking at us strangely as we ate our ice-creams while they ate their breadsticks and croissants while they shivered in their jumpers, scarfs and berets. They were French after all. So they were probably just being asses.

We walked back to Notre Dame to consider climbing the steps to the top to get a good view of...another building 50 metres directly in front of the skyline of the Notre Dame. To avoid paying the 8 euro required to climb the steps, we formulated a plan where we would act as UK citizens – talking in a cockney British accent – to get in for free as members of the Euro under 26 got in for free. But we decided against it as “lies make baby Jesus cry” and we both found it a little unsettling to be lying to a church. So we decided to head to the Shakespeare and Co bookstore where James Joyce’s Ulysses was first published. I thought I might pick myself up a copy, for the sake of being able to say I bought Ulysses at the place that was bold enough to be the first to publish the book. We saw revised first editions of the book for 500 euro, which I thought was a pretty acceptable bargain. Instead, I decided against it, and left with my 11 euro copy of the book, published in 1993. Perhaps if I become famous, I can give the book to someone as a gift and they can sell it for 800 euro (note: this was actually done by someone famous and was on sale for this price at the aforementioned store).

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by Hotel De Ville to see if any ice-skaters would stack it again. Unfortunately no one did, but we saw the same guy we saw yesterday skating around in the same pink underwear he wore the following day. We concluded that he probably never left the rink. On the way, we were heckled by beggars and people trying to scam us (one asked us to look at what looked to be some coloured cables in a loop) asking us whether we spoke English. I quickly shook my head and replied ‘Nein’ in the strongest German accent I could muster, and quickly walked on.

Overall, we were very satisfied with the amount of time spent in Paris. We managed to see everything we wanted to and more. I was not expecting to fit the catacombs in originally, but because we lived so close to certain places, we were able to with no problem. In conclusion – Paris was one of our favourite cities. It was beautiful and had some brilliant history and great architecture. However, I’d be DAMNED if I was to live there with those French bastards. But it could be worse...I could be in Belfast again, and nobody...NOBODY wants that to happen again. I’d probably come back to Paris to see a Moulin Rouge show if I had a spare $200 AUD floating around, but I certainly won’t be returning to Belfast anytime soon. And if I’m lucky, probably never. Tomorrow we head by train to Milan with the intention of finding a place with working WIFI instead of having to go down the road to use ‘Quick Burger’ (a popular fast food chain in France...one would inquire as to why it has never taken off in Australia – they don’t live up to their name. It literally took us half an hour one evening to get a meal from there) internet that drops out about as often as a College stoner drops out of classes.

Four Blogs (Only the Brave will read all)

2010-02-03T06:33:00.003+11:00

Hello, dear readers. As the internet situation in France has been next to fail for us, it has taken many days for us to be able to bring to you this Collectors' Edition of four of our Parisian blogs. Please, read one, or two, or all if you dare. Enjoy. We begin with Monsieur Bate.

PART ONE – M. Bate, 31^st Jan, 2010.

Bonjour! Comment allez-vous? Tries bien. Merci! Je m’appelle Matt! Parlez-vous anglais? Bon, cause I can’t keep up with this crap any longer. This was the day we made the longer than it should have really been journey from Edinburgh to Paris, France. Most of the day was spent waiting at the airport – nothing all that unusual. I managed to help a fellow traveller out by notifying them that they dropped their passport on the ground – because that’s the kind of guy I am! I also got a random cavity search, so that was interesting. Ok, I’m just kidding about the cavity search. But, we made it to Paris ok, and we managed to find our highly recommended hotel (in fact, 85% of the people did not deem the hotel fit for anyone to stay the night!) Disregarding that, it’s not too bad, considering we’ve been staying in shoebox sized hostel rooms on our adventure. So the room is starting to peel, big deal. As long as I’ve got a heater, shower and toilet that works and a nice basket of fresh bread and croissants in the morning for breakfast, then I’m sorted as far as I’m concerned. The hotel is also really close to the red light district of Paris, and within 50 metres of the Moulin Rouge, so there’s plenty of family fun for everyone in our area!

When we got off the bus, we were dropped outside the Arc De Triomphe, which was illuminated under the city lights. We proceeded to find our way using the metro station system which was completely in French, and we had to wrestle our bags through the metal spinning things that we have to go through to get down to the trains. Now the metro station is just like the one in London. So, after we finally managed to tame it and work out the lines, we found it to be a piece of cake.

We decided we might go out clubbing as it was a Saturday night and we had heard that clubbing in France can be quite a memorable experience. However, clubs don’t open in France until 11:30pm. So we spent our night in a cafe/pub neighbouring the ‘well received’ club The Rex, which was supposedly France’s premier nightclub experience. We found out that it opens at 12am though, so we kept drinking then walked over, where we lined up with a group of German girls. Whilst we were lined up, we weren’t being let in yet. Now the time was getting to about 12:30am and people were walking up to the bouncers and kissing them on the cheek and getting in straight away. But we heard no music, there seemed to be not many people going in at one time, and the German girls were asking us in broken English what was going on. The bouncer looked at Zach and I and asked “how many coming in you?” We said “Deux” or “Two” or something and he walked away. On his phone background was a picture of a muscly black guy with his shirt off flexing. I thought that nobody could be THAT vain enough to have a picture of themselves on their phone, half naked flexing. So I thought that it might have been a picture of his boyfriend or something. To this day, I don’t know if it was him or not – I wasn’t really looking – but Zach ASSURES me it was in fact a picture of the bouncer himself. Eventually, we were getting sick of standing outside in -4 degree cold for a half an hour after the club opened, so we left and took the metro station home. Thankfully it was still open. We passed a stop called Alexandre Dumas which was named after the author of my favourite book - The Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers.

So, clubbing failed in France. It was no Dublin, that’s for sure. Not even by a long way. But we were home by 1am for our 7am rise to get to the Louvre the next day.

PART TWO – Z. Raft, 1^st Feb, 2010.

We awoke to our first Parisian morning. Stumbling out of bed for a 6:30am start (I don’t think either of us moved until five to seven), we prepared for the day and headed down the tiny spiral staircase (of which none of the lights stay on for – they’re timed switches – health and safety much?) towards the first level, where breakfast was being served. Everybody gets given cereal, juice and three pieces of bread – one bun, one normal croissant and one filled with chocolate. It pretty tasty, so we devoured them with noticeable speed. We then headed out, Louvre bound.

We arrived at the Louvre quite early in the morning – around 8:15am. There was –nobody- around. From thousands of people telling us we need to arrive as EARLY AS POSSIBLE to avoid the crowds, at 45 minutes before opening there was one other person and a dog to be seen. We took some photos which were eerie even to us, as we’ve seen everybody else’s Louvre photos with heaps of people in them and ours had just us. Even 20 minutes before opening, there were only three people in the line. We jumped in, to be fourth in line. By opening, there were maybe 30 people lined up.

We were let in at 9:05am and we ran for the ticket counter, bought tickets, and sprinted towards the Denon wing of the Louvre with one immediate target – Mona Lisa. We threw the pace on, almost sprinting past thousands of beautiful artefacts in order to be among the first to see the Mona Lisa for the day, and get our photos without any other people in them. It was pretty easy to locate the Mona Lisa – there were signs up around every turn indicating which way you should go in order to see it. Apparently, it’s pretty famous over here.

We made it to its house, a giant wall in a room of amazing paintings (including the giant Wedding Feast at Cana). We ran right up to the barrier, almost alone in the room with the world’s most famous painting. It was, for lack of a better phrase, an unforgettable thing, standing before this painting. You’re not allowed to get up close to it anymore, so as far as general visibility of the painting itself goes, you’d be better off googling it should you wish to observe its intricacies. It’s more the eminence of the painting, the standing in front of it and observing it, being in the presence of the real (we’d hope) painting that has attracted global acclaim.

After spending a few minutes with Lisa (as she allowed us to call her – Matt decided to refer to her as “Big M” or “God, she’s a Moaner”), we cast our attention to the other stuff in the Louvre. I especially was eager to see Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” which features famously on the front cover of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida album, and was the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty in New York. We also spent some time with the Venus de Milo, which I didn’t find all that awe inspiring to be honest. It seemed to be one of those things that are famous for being famous, like Paris Hilton. There were literally hundreds of more carefully crafted and intricately designed statues in the Museum, in my humble opinion. But there you go.

I was extremely keen to see that painting of God and Adam; you know the one where God is reaching down from the Heavens and touches fingers with an earthbound Adam? So I texted Shannon to see if she could look up what it’s called, and where it was so we could find it. She texted back that it’s actually on the roof of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Whoops.

We found the Sphinx and photo’d with it, and with The Winged Victory of Samothrace statue. I was also a big, big fan of Psyche and Cupid by Canova, and Matt found particular interest with The Dying Slave by Michelangelo. We took some lulzy photos with the Borghese Gladiator, and then went back to the paintings. I discovered I love an artist named Antonio Campi, who painted a painting I’d never seen before called “Les Mysteres de la Passion du Christ” which I can only imagine translates to “The Mystery of the Passion of the Christ”. It was magnificent. I will attempt to buy a print of it when I come home, maybe.

I won’t bore you with telling you all the artists and paintings we saw, but take my word for it, we saw a few. After spending the next couple of hours strolling around the other stuff in the museum, we took individual photos with a few of da Vinci’s greats which we had run past only hours previous in our haste to see the Mona Lisa and had missed. Then we went back to see the Mona Lisa again (because, let’s face it, how often do you get to see this thing in real life?) and left the Museum.

We decided to walk from the Louvre to the Arc de Triumph. It was a nice day. The Egyptian Obelisk at the centre of the Place de la Concord (my newly decided favourite place in Paris) is over 3,000 years old. The Place de la Concord itself is just amazing, the architecture is phenomenal, and if you don’t see it before you die you’re living an empty life. You can see all the way from the Arc de Triumph at the end of the Avenue des Champs Elysees right down to the Louvre at the other, with the Place de la Concord in the middle, and it’s a great walk.

We stopped along the way to the Arc to have McDonalds – to get our Royale with Cheese (French Quarter Pounder in Cheese – because of the Metric System) made famous by the movie Pulp Fiction. It was quite tasty. We spent like five minutes trying to get the Airport Check-In like machines to take our money, but they wanted a special Navigo card (Equivalent to Brisbane’s Go Card or London’s Oyster card, which we decided to not purchase) and thus it wouldn’t work. So we ordered, and devoured, our Royales with Cheese.

Then we went to the Arc. It is, majestic. It was built by Napoleon to celebrate a military victory, and it’s filled with, on the inside, the names of some of France’s greatest generals and the greatest battles. It sits in the middle of the world’s biggest round-a-bout on the Ave Champs Elysees, which I am shit-scared of. I could not live in this city and drive. I have no idea how they do it, but there are no lines or lanes on the round-a-bout, and people seem to think they can go from the middle of the round-a-bout to exiting it without indicating, and INSTANTLY. So very scared of it. I see my own death every time I am on a bus on that thing.

We took photos with the Arc, and then headed back to the ranch. We live so close to the Moulin Rouge, every time we come back to the hotel we see it. Can’t get the forking WiFi working; the first Hotel desk assistant told us the password (which is 3,000 characters long and didn’t work), the second told us it wasn’t working in the rooms only in the lobby (but didn’t know the right password), and the third told us they didn’t have WiFi. Summing this juxtaposition of French inadequacy and inconsistency with the general way the French have treated me, I have decided that I do not like French people. Don’t get me wrong – some people are lovely. And I love the city of Paris – so incredibly much. Perhaps moreso than London. But I can’t stand the people who live here. They are arrogant – it is true what people say. And I can’t necessarily blame them for being arrogant – they get 26,000,000 visitors a year, most of whom don’t speak their language. Because of this, I can understand their shortness with people – but it doesn’t mean I have to like them. Which is good, ‘cause I don’t.

We then headed out for the Eiffel Tower, which we had to wait in a line for about an hour – as only one of the four “legs” of the tower was letting people up. I could feel my lungs crisping as the number of people smoking in the line slowly cooked my internal organs with their foul exhaust. After a wait, we were let up in what’s known over here as “Zee Lift”. It lifted us to the lofty heights of the second floor – as the top of the tower is closed in Winter (which was not disclosed to me by the travel agent – damn you, Flight Centre). Anyhoo, the view from the top was quite majestic, and then at exactly eight o’clock, the tower glittered with its ten minute display of epilepsy lights which it puts on every hour. Matt and I decided to walk down in lieu of catching the lift, and got quite a display from these lights on the way down. There were many stairs, but it didn’t take too long to reach the ground where literally hundreds of African-Frenchmerican (what’s the politically correct term for a Black French guy?) were quite eager to sell us miniature Eiffel Towers for the lowly price of One Euro. Which seemed a decent price, to be sure. But what the fuck am I going to do with a tiny Eiffel Tower? We declined their energetic offers, and then saw a dance troupe performing what appeared to be their signature dance under the Eiffel Tower. Matt and I guessed they were also tourists who’d come to Paris on their trip schedule, and thought, for a ‘laff, they’d do their dance under the Eiffel Tower. I filmed part of it, and it sucked, to be quite honest. I’ve seen better dancing from cows at the abattoir. Then, we made our way back home. A big day.

PART THREE – M.Bate, 2^nd February, 2010

Bonjour au bonsoir whatever time you are reading this. My friend Zach, got a little carried away with dissing the French, and I apologise on behalf of any French people who were offended by his harsh criticism. He got so fired up about the French that he totally forgot to mention our trip to the Eiffel tower – which he has now added in at my request (at the time of publishing)

We kicked off the day with a leisurely stroll to the metro station (Shake Shake, Shake Shake, a Shake It – Zach). For today we took our hop on hop off day bus tour around the city. We started with the intention of heading to Notre Dame. But instead we drove past some brilliant sites – The Les Invalides, where Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte) is entombed under the dome. We drove past the Trocadero stop, where you could get absolutely stunning pictures of the Eiffel tower on elevated land over a waterfall. We also drove past the Musee D’Orsay stop, which we visit tomorrow.

Eventually our bus arrived at Notre Dame. It was a lavished cathedral – originally intended to be destroyed until Victor Hugo came along and wrote a little book called The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The book became a classic, and the townspeople were against Notre Dame’s destruction. Today it’s a working cathedral and you climb the steps to the top and look out over the town...for a fee. So we didn’t bother, because some things are just too expensive. Plus, we got a view of the city from the Eiffel tower...which is x metres higher than Notre Dame. So we didn’t really mind.

Next, we hopped on the bus to the Opera House, where notable musicians are engraved on the top of the building. These included Beethoven, Mozart and P Diddy among others. We then looked around France’s answer to Harrod’s – the Gallerie Lafayette department store (which has the biggest perfume section in the world) which featured several expensive crap by Rolex and Monte Blanc among others. It even featured a posh McDonalds, with such wonderful menu choices as Le Sandwich and Le Big Mac.

After looking at some brilliant Samsonite bags (which are totally much better than anything we have for luggage and didn’t look like the handle could break off making it near impossible to efficiently carry my bag around), we took the bus to Grand Palais and Petite Palais (which wasn’t even mentioned in the Lonely Planet book) and we took some epic photos, including one where Zach crossed the road and we took photos of each other on the stairs of opposite Palais’. We then returned to Trocadero where we took some brilliant, breathtaking photos of the Eiffel tower.

Next up, we took the bus back to the Opera House and took a leisurely stroll home. We walked through a park where we saw a couple having a serious conversation on some park benches and what seemed like the girl breaking up with the guy. The city of love? More like the city of... break ups. On our way to dinner that night, we were invited to a sex show...twice, which we generously declined in French and English. It reminded me of the really family oriented neighbourhood we live in.

Au revoir!

PART FOUR – Z. Raft, 3^rd Feb, 2010.

We had a pretty cruisy day today. We were on the second day of our hop-on, hop-off tour, so we caught the Metro to Charles de Gualle – Etoille and then jumped on the bus. It took us through all the stops we’d jumped off at yesterday, like the Grand Palais, the Louvre, the Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower, etc. We just sat and enjoyed being driven around. We jumped off at Musee D’Orsay, keen to check out some paintings and sculptures. We took pictures of a few different pieces of art by Van Gough, and Renoir, and some Monet and Manet, and Degas, and Cezanne, to name a few. Quite a few of the paintings on display I quite disliked – I’m more into the Realism sort of art, and I get quite annoyed at Impressionism and Symbolism. But, to each his own, and I recognize that some of this stuff was quite liked by some small minority of people who’ve since made it famous by talking about it so much. The pastel stuff by Degas I’m a big fan boy of. We strolled around everything else the Museum had to offer, which wasn’t really much in comparison to the Louvre, and then we took off for a walk.

We walked to the Hotel des Invalides, where Matthias has told you that Napoleon Bonaparte is buried. We didn’t go inside though – instead choosing to photograph from a distance. The huge golden dome is quite a spectacle of Paris, and so we enjoyed it as I enjoy quite a few things in my life – from afar. We then walked to the Catacombs of Paris, which I had no idea what they were all about. I thought it would be crypt-like, with lots of graves and tombs and headstones and whatnot. I was wrong. It was filled with bones – literally millions of bones, skulls and bones, and more bones, setup in an attractive wall-facade. I told Matt I would considering getting a skull-and-bone wall installed in my future home. We broke the rules and touched a skull each, Matt choosing to tap out “La Cucaracha” on his chosen cranium, showing great respect to our fallen Parisian friends. Hey, at least we didn’t build a wall out of them!

Exiting the Catacombs, we strolled back towards the Seine. We stopped along the way because there was a huge building that we hadn’t seen before. Investigating the map, we discovered that it was actually Paris’ Pantheon, or a mausoleum for famous people. Reading a bit about it in the Lonely Planet guide, we discovered that people as famous as Victor Hugo were entombed in there, and the first woman to be allowed in was Marie Curie, who I THINK from memory, and don’t judge me if I’m wrong, discovered Radium? In any case, she discovered something awesome and invaluable and died because of it, and she was only shipped in, in 1995! I have no idea where they kept her nuclear ole’ bones until then, but I’m hoping somewhere safe where she couldn’t be turned into a warhead.

We then strolled to Hotel de Ville, which Matt tells me is famous because there was a photograph of a couple kissing in front of it. Go, Hotel de Ville. It was pretty awesome, it had an ice-skating rink in front of it, which we decided to not use because we both can’t skate. We instead watched for about half an hour as lots of tourists tried (and failed) at ice skating, and much enjoyed watching them stack it. One guy fell on his face, and slid arse first into a huge wooden barricade in the middle of the rink for children to skate inside of. It was beautiful.

We returned home to the classy, puritan and sophisticated red-light district, and let our feet dry off before supping at one of France’s finest eating establishments, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

EdinBRRRR

2010-01-30T07:31:00.003+11:00

Hey everyone! Again this is a two parter as we have to come down to the pub in our hostel to use the interwebs. So the first part is written by Matt and the second part is written by Zach. The transition between these two days will be clearly marked for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

We took the midday train going anywhere and arrived at Edinburgh one solid hour later. Our hostel is thankfully 100 metres or so from the train station, so we didn’t have to drag our luggage too far. At first glance, the city is totally different to Glasgow. They’re scummy and old school looking, with stone roads generating some eerie Jack the Ripper-esque backdrops. Unlike Glasgow, there isn’t a pub on every corner, so every single one is full at around 7:30pm. More on that later.

When we got in to Edinburgh we thought we’d look around a little bit. We checked out the Museum and saw Dolly the cloned sheep. It raised some interesting philosophical questions that we certainly won’t go into here. We also saw Jackie Stewart’s vehicle, and tested our own skills in a virtual f1 car. Surprisingly, Zach crashed on every corner – much the Loch Ness Monster’s enjoyment (who was featured in the map). We also found out the fundamental secrets of Scottish castle wall building. Bricks made out of foam are not sufficient for defending incoming catapults. We soon learned this after we experienced the model catapult and castle wall in the children’s play area of the museum.

After laughing at a famous Scottish sportsman named Willie Wood, we decided to walk to the Scottish parliament building. It was built with bamboo sticks all around the outside, and looked as if a Panda would be quite at home outside its semi-guarded walls (there were two police officers standing outside not even looking at the building). We saw a mountain in the distance and thought hell...let’s climb it. So we climbed the freaking mountain. What up? When we got to the top, it gave us a superb view of the entire city. It seemed like a great place to have a picnic as well, except for the hanging rocks. That would have been quite dangerous.

As we returned down the mountain, we thought look for some souvenirs for people. When we entered the stores, we were greeted by some genuine, authentic Scottish people. By the way, I never realised so many Scottish people were of Indian descent and wore turbans. Well, that goes to show how much I know about Scottish history huh?

Anyway, we looked to indulge in a feed, so we walked up Cockburn St and saw, much to our dismay that all the pubs were full, and the food was extremely expensive. So we went back to our hostel and had dinner in the pub downstairs, while we watched Egypt destroy Algeria in the football. The Algerian keeper, who had a blue streak on the side of his neck (I think he was trying to copy off Avatar: The Last Airbender, but got it all totally wrong) got sent from the ground along with two other Algerian players, so Egypt just casually made their way up the middle of the ground without too much trouble. Then the pub started getting really packed with boisterous Australians taking part in a pub crawl. The only people who don’t drink beer here seem to be the Australians (other than us) who seem to only drink rum and coke. Ironic isn’t it, seeing most people consider our tradition as kicking back and having a cold one, huh? We don’t even really have the pint in Australia. I think it’s safe to say that we need to make way for the true champions of drinking...everyone else.

Anyway, we watched some of the match between Andy Murray and some other guy. Andy Murray was getting smashed so we left. Turns out the Scottish bastard won the match. I still, to this day, don’t know how he managed to get off Scot-free.

Part Two

We awoke at 8:00am this morning and headed downstairs for breakfast. It was the first (and possibly only, but you never know) time that I have ever eaten breakfast in a bar. The bar (Belushi’s, on Market Street) is owned and co-operated within the Hostel building, so in addition to getting a 10% discount there (w00t) we also are provided with “free” breakfast down there. I say free, but I’m pretty sure the cost is included in what we pay for the hostel.

I realised this morning we’re living across from where the Head Office of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo is. There you go.

We walked up Cockburn to outside Starbucks on the Royal Mile (I think that’s what it’s called) to await our free tour of the city which was to last for three hours. It was incredibly cold today – I’m not sure of the exact temperature, but it was the coldest that Matt and I have been all trip (we voted). It was so cold that it STARTED SNOWING. OH YEAH. It only snowed for like five minutes, but it was unexpected and very welcome. Snow is a beautiful thing, and if I was God, I would make it snow in Brisbane in winter. Luckily for everybody else, I am not God. But anyway, it was ridiculously cold, my toes felt like they were going to snap off on multiple occasions and at regular five minute intervals, Matt would announce to me that he was cold, or any combination of the words “Jesus”, “Cold”, “Coldest”, “I”, “Am”, “Freezing”, or “Bollocks”. And though I was thinking and sometimes saying the same things, I was, and am, loving it. I much prefer freezing than living in my own sweat.

Our tour guide’s name was Kate, and she is Canadian, although annoyingly would refer to herself all day as being Scottish. She’s been here for five years, and sounds no more Scottish than Warwick Kappa. And whenever she gave us an interesting piece of history about the Scottish people, such as when they won a battle against the English, she put herself into the battle by saying “Then WE took the Castle back from the English, and WE celebrated by burning it down”. It annoyed me to no end. “DID YOU NOW, KATE? WAS THIS BEFORE OR AFTER YOU GOT YOUR WORKING VISA CLEARED BY THE CANADIAN HIGH COMMISSION IN 2004?” It’s one thing for a Scottish person to claim themselves victorious over the English; it’s entirely another for someone with little beady eyes and a stupid flapping head. Ah well, gave me something to laugh “aboot”.

We stopped at St Giles Cathedral (I think that’s what it’s called), which has the Chapel of the Thistle built into it – the place where new Knights of the Order of the Thistle are knighted by the Queen. Sean Connery was knighted there! Second greatest Bond ever, after Roger Moore (we voted). We looked at a couple of statues, got a glimpse of Edinburgh Castle, and headed down to the Grass Markets, where many Covenanters were hung for refusing to accept an English king as head of the Church of Scotland.

We then went to a church at Blackfriar’s. Some of you may be aware this is the final resting place of Blackfriar’s Bobby – the dog who, after the passing of his master, the Church night watchman, stayed fourteen years beside his grave. There’s a small statue (the most photographed in Scotland) outside the graveyard, with Bobby on top of a drinking fountain for humans, and a smaller fountain for doggies at the bottom.

Just outside of the graveyard is the something Elephant cafe, where a formerly poor J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter (Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets). Now, she’s worth over one billion pounds. Not bad for a struggling writer who could only afford one cup of tea a day. The Cafe proudly displays itself as the “Home of Harry Potter”.

We next headed to a Close where the guy who wrote the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lived. I don’t know why transforming into Mr. Hyde caused him to lose his PhD, but there you go. An unanswered question.

The last place we visited was on a bridge overlooking the North Face of Edinburgh Castle, where Kate went into furious and energetic detail about the Stone of Destiny, the stone which the ancient kings of Scotland were crowned on for hundreds of years. It, along with the crown jewels, now resides in Edinburgh Castle. The stone means a lot to the Scottish people though, it’s said wherever the stone lies, a Scotsman will rule. It spent 700 years in Westminster Abbey though, so I guess they were wrong? In the 1950’s it was stolen back by Ian Hamilton (I think that’s what his name was), who drove to Westminster with a couple of mates and dragged it out, and threw it in the back of his Ford Anglia. He brought it back to Glasgow and dumped it at a Church, but the Minister phoned the authorities and it was back in London within 24 hours. It was only recovered from the British in the 1997 general election campaign of John Major & Tony Blair. Funnily enough, it was John Major who pledged to return the stone, and he got his ass handed to him (one COULD say majorly - Matt) Probably because Tony Blair was pledging to give Scotland its own Parliament and people wanted that more. In any case, they got the stone back too.

We tipped Kate, and then headed to the National Gallery of Scotland, where we saw some more works by artists such as Rembrandt, Raphael, and da Vinci. Those guys really knew how to paint, hey. Amazing. It’s an ethereal feeling, standing next to works of art created by these men of myth and legend.

As this was our last full day in the United Kingdom on our trip (sad face), something had become quite urgent for Matt and me. (And yes, that is correct grammar for all of those haters out there who think that “Matt and me” looks wrong. Ask your English teacher). We’ve both been collecting the 2008 commemorative shield coins that the British have been printing. But we were missing some, and it’s our last day in the UK so we really wanted to finish our collections (the coins were 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, and 1 pound – for what this looks like, wiki Coins of the Pound Sterling in the UK). I was missing 50p and 5p, and Matt was missing both of these and the 10p. We went to five different banks, all of whom recommended another bank after they disappointed us by not having the coins. You’d think a bank would have some coins, but this is the UK so you’re lucky they have staff. It came down to it, some of the banks had a couple of the coins, but in the end we were both missing the (supposedly rare) 50p coin.

We decided to ask the bar maiden at the pub downstairs (Belushi’s). She went through the coin drawer and found TWO 50P COINS! FUCK YEAH! COMPLETED SHIELDS ANYONE?

So that made us happy. We’re about to head out for dinner and a few beers, so hope you’re well. Amstel - a new discovery of ours last night – very tasty beer. Next time you hear from us, we’ll be in Paris. Very bon!

Glasgow: Day 1 + Day 2 - Loch & Load

2010-01-28T20:36:00.003+11:00

The following is a combined blog written by Matt Bate (part one) and Zach Raftery (part two).

Part One: Glasgow Day 1.

I awoke this morning from what was a horrible nightmare. I dreamt that we were still in Belfast and had to stay there for the remainder of the trip because we had our passports stolen. Thankfully it was only a dream, and we were in Glasgow now, and everything was going to be ok.

We got our breakfast from level one of the hostel – the usual cereal and stuff. But what was really cool was that SOMEONE ACTUALLY CLEANED UP OUR BOWLS. We were surprised. We had our own lunch lady. Lunch lady Doris I’ll call her. Anyway Doris was fat and had cigarette breath that wilted any flowers within a 3 kilometre radius. After we had breakfast we walked around the brilliant city, taking our guidance from Lonely Planet’s ‘Glasgow Walking Tour.’ It led us to Glasgow cathedral where we stopped in to look around. We didn’t originally know which one it was because there were about 4 different cathedrals in sight when we came up the road, and then when we crossed the road, another came into view. It was the most gothic looking church, so we assumed it must have been it.

Inside was...well it was just like another cathedral. Except this time, we could take pictures. After walking around the cathedral, Zach threw them a 1p donation for its continuation and maintenance. How generous of him. Then we set out to look at the Necropolis out the back of the cathedral. The necropolis is this towering big hill with a hell of a lot of gravestones, crypts and tombs on it. Most of the crypts were family owned ones, and Zach found it chilling that if he were to have a family crypt, he would know where he was going to end up when he died. It also housed a lot of rich dead people. Astonishingly though, they don’t bury anyone who lives within a five mile radius of the necropolis. The reason for this though, is that they are still alive. Ha. We found a gravestone of a person near the edge of the elevated ground, overlooking the rest of the city and discussed that at the time of his burial, pointed out that he would have had a brilliant view of the city. Problem now is that there’s a big building in the way. This man probably suffered his entire life as an orphan child, working in the coal mines and had all sorts of problems and, at the time of his death was offered a great view of the city. He’d be raging now though.

Anyway, back to the point. We stopped off for lunch and took a walk around the main shopping part of town. It’s a city that sort of reminds me of a larger Brisbane / Sydney, only with more bagpipes playing in the streets. Anyway, this shopping centre was very small – about 11/39ths the size of the Myer Centre back home in Brisbane, and everything in it catered to the typical female needs. We exited, unsatisfied and continued to walk around the streets and over the Clyde River, whilst taking several photographs.

We returned to the hostel and had a beer at the pub downstairs – I plan to have a Fosters or something Australian that doesn’t suck later on to show my Australia day patriotism (it’s 6:15pm at the moment on Australia Day). Who knows, maybe I’ll enjoy it?

Part Two

This is the second part of a combined blog that Matt and I decided to post together because it was incredibly inconvenient to have to head down to the bar to post the first blog (which Matt wrote) after he had written it, because, well, we were tired. So deal with it. Then I didn’t start typing THIS blog until the morning after the first day’s events. So the first part, which you have just read, written by Matt, is about the events of the 26^th of January, our first day in Glasgow (as you may have picked up from reading it). And this second part is written by me, about the events of yesterday, the 27^th of January, and our day at Loch Ness, Glencoe and the Highlands.

We started our day at 7:00am which was, for lack of a more descriptive word, dark. We both dressed and headed to the Glasgow Tourist Information Centre where our tour was to depart from. Come 8:15am (still dark), a friendly Scottish man named David Campbell (not even kidding) rocked up with a bus. His tour only was to have six people for that day – Me, and Matt (the only other native English speakers) and four Germans. He went into some brief detail about Glasgow as we drove out of town, like how important the Clyde was to the city (or used to be), and the population of Glasgow (staggering two million – I had no idea it was so big – but apparently there’s only 5 million in Scotland altogether, so we can still take ‘em).

First stop on the tour was Loch Lomond, and a little town called Luss. God damn, I just Luss the game. Anyhoo, it was quaint, he gave us half an hour to explore the town, Matt and I found a small river that led into the Loch which had the most amazingly flat stones in it – after doing some more than superb skimming for about ten minutes, I put one of the stones into my pocket to bring home (hope I can get it through the airports). The Loch itself was fog coated so we didn’t see much of it, but what we did see was pretty spectacular. Matt and I walked out onto the Pier at Luss and were soon joined by Dave, our tour guide, inquiring in thick Scottish accent as to where the “Nazi’s” went. Ah, we knew then that it was going to be a great day.

We had a couple of photo stops along the way to Loch Ness (the evidence of which you shall see when we arrive home). Scotland is very similar to New Zealand in its Highlands – just better, because it’s not covered in kiwis. I can’t remember the names of all the places we stopped because we stopped like five or six times, but some of the photos we’ve taken are pretty incredible. Snow capped and covered mountains, lakes that look like mirrors in front of said mountains, just amazing views. Drove past about seven different Lochs on this tour, I was almost Loched out. Haha, get it.

David went into detail about some of the Highlands history, like the Macdonald Massacre. Apparently the Clan Campbell decided to break Highland Hospitality in around the Three Sisters (a set of 3 huge mountain rages) and massacred about thirty or forty Macdonald’s. He then proceeded to point out his last name was Campbell, and there’s an old Scottish adage that you “Can’t trust a Campbell”, and they have “crooked” smiles. He then told us that there’s a pub near Loch Ness that has above the door “Campbell’s Not Welcome”. I told him I didn’t know if I could believe him. After all, he IS a Campbell.

We arrived at Loch Ness and Matt and I had a nice lunch at a Pub called Bothy’s before heading out on the Royal Scot to discover the Loch Ness Monster. Photographic evidence will prove conclusively, when I return home, that I saw the Loch Ness monster. Matt can confirm. I actually even caught it. I had to put it back though, apparently it generates TWENTY EIGHT MILLION POUNDS for the tiny town of Fort Augustus EVERY YEAR. The town surrounding the Loch is so small; your mother couldn’t fit inside. And it makes £28,000,000 a year. Dave said that “every country should have a monster”.

We came home via the inland route, doing many hours of driving through country Scotland and stopping at a few monuments along the way (such as the Commando monument – Churchill’s last ditch effort to produce an elite fighting force to combat the Germans in WWII, which was largely successful). It got dark quickly (around 4pm) and so much of the five hour drive home went unseen, but we did get pointed out to us Stirling Castle and the hill where William Wallace had his first and only defeat. Dave then went into detail about the truths and lies in Braveheart, which I found quite fascinating and made me want to watch the movie so badly. When I get home, this will happen.

Arriving back in Glasgow, we tipped out tour guide for a fantastic day, and started walking back to the Hostel. I asked Matt what we should have for dinner, and he said “Mickey D’s” (McDonalds – hey, good food is expensive over here, and we had a pretty good lunch). I told him I could murder some McDonalds like a Campbell. Oh, too soon?

We ate, headed back to the Osmosis bar (underneath the Hostel) to watch some of the Manchester United versus Manchester City game (a local derby almost as big as Rangers and Celtic, and definitely 100x bigger than Broncos and Titans). Man U won convincingly, much to the dismay of half of the pub. But it was hilarious to watch how into this game the patrons were. One Man City supporter came back from the toilet AFTER his team had scored a goal (and consequently after the pub had already had their uproar in joy or disgust, depending on who they supported), and decided better LATE than NEVER to celebrate – and started screaming his ASS off, lifting chairs into the air, randomly kissing people – ah, it was fantastic to watch.

Edinburgh today.

Thank God Hellfast is finally GlasGONE!

2010-01-26T07:24:00.000+11:00

We awoke this morning to the muffled sound of screams and distance shots being fired from across the street to our hostel. No, that’s a lie. Sorry about that. The screams weren’t muffled, they were loud as all hell. Haha, another joke. There were no shots and no screaming. But there should have been. Belfast is one scary town to live in. The saving grace of the place was the fantastic hostel – it was simple: the room only had beds, a heater and no sink, but the facilities were perfectly adequate for our needs. Free WiFi in the room was a godsend. It’s amazing how much WiFi can aid the inquisitive traveller. We broke our fast at around 9am, with some delicious and nutritious bubbles of rice. Then we grabbed our stuff, left our keys, and walked into the city centre.

We first went to the Europa bus terminal to see if we could leave our bags until 12pm (as we didn’t have to be at the airport until 1pm). They said no. So we dragged our bags right into the middle of the city, Matt went in search of a book at the Waterstones (along the way a very friendly “typical” Irish gentleman helped us find where the bookstore was located – never, ever in Brisbane, I believe, would a random man on the street help two travellers who were looking confused as to which direction to head), and I waited outside with our luggage. I’m amazed at the amount of beggars that Belfast has – most of them are women of Turkish descent, all of whom claim to have children to feed. Being poor and weary student travellers, Matt and I decline to help most of these people. Buskers, on the other hand, are awesome. You know, people who at least try to work for their money – unlike all you God damn Ruddlovers.

Matt found a book to purchase. Then we headed for Topshop, had a quick look and took a photo outside of it for the future Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans (Esq.). He shall be privy to this photo upon our return to the sunburnt country.

We went back to Europa bus terminal, and boarded a bus bound for “Belfast Airport”. I asked the bus driver if we were going to the right airport (BHD) and he said “Yes mate, this is the bus for the International Airport”. We were heading to Glasgow, so we paid for our tickets and jumped on board. We bussed all the way to Belfast Airport, where Matt commented “Never, ever, EVER will I return to Belfast”. We jumped off the bus and walked inside. And I couldn’t, for the life of me, locate where the Flybe (Airline) check-in counter was. I asked a man at the Information desk, and he informed me that Flybe don’t fly into this airport – they fly into the CITY airport (BHD). So I had been lied to by a bus driver (shock horror, a dishonest prick of a bus driver – universal, it seems), and we were at the wrong airport. Luckily I am extremely anal about time, so it was 10:30am and our flight didn’t leave until 4:05pm.

So we jumped in a cab bound for Belfast City Airport. The cost? 29 quid. Altogether, it cost the both of us 43 quid to get to the airport – equivalent of $86 AUD.

Irony: not half an hour after Matt claimed he’d never return to Belfast, where do you think we end up. In a fucking Cab, in the middle of Belfast. God works in mysterious (and sometimes smartass’d) ways.

We made it to Belfast airport and checked in – WORD OF CAUTION TO THE UNSEASONED UK TRAVELLER – if you fly with Flybe, be aware they charge an extra 18 QUID ($36) if you want to check in ONE BAG under 20kgs – ludicrous, as the ticket itself was only about $36, but what can you do). We chilled out for the next few hours, Matt did some reading and I engaged in some quick and pleasant conversation on the phone with some extremely pleasant people. Then came 3:35pm, and it was time to board our flight. We jumped on to this tiny plane with two propellers (as Billy Connolly would say, you could smell the glue drying on the wings). Twenty five minutes later, we were in Glasgow. I shit you not. Shortest flight I have ever taken in my life. Did not even get time to finish the in-flight magazine - which is probably a good thing, because it was awful.

Picked up our bags at Glasgow airport, and headed outside. As soon as you walk out the doors, Airport – City Bus. Cost? 3.30 quid. Amazing. Had free WiFi, so with our iPhones we found it extremely easy to know exactly where we were, and then to navigate once we got off the bus at Glasgow Central Station to our Hostel (which was about ten minutes walk).

First thoughts of Glasgow? It’s awesome. Buildings that are taller than five stories! And cleanliness! And attractive people! And no immediate and ever present threat of impending danger or death! It’s only night time now, but already we both LOVE this place fifteen times more than Belfast (100 times more for me – Matt).

Arriving at the Hostel, we were impressed as it had an actual lobby. You know your standards have been lowered when you see a lobby and you’re impressed. We checked in, and went to the lift (yes, this was exciting too, having an elevator) and took it up to the 7^th floor. The room is, for lack of a better phrase, pretty awesome. It’s like a really shit hotel room, but it has SPACE, and it has a TOILET and a SHOWER, and it has BEDS. So it’s all we need. Very impressed with this place. While it may be a really shit hotel quality room, it’s a really awesome hostel quality room.

We had a pint downstairs at the Osmosis Bar, and have just dined with the Colonel (Sanders, that is), and returned back to our humble abode. There’s free WiFi in the Osmosis bar, so I guess I’ll head down there to post this blog. That’s all for now! Thank God Hellfast is finally GlasGONE!

Hellfast

2010-01-25T08:51:00.000+11:00

Greetings weary readers! We awoke at around 10am after effectively sleeping for somewhere between the vicinity of 12-14 hours in an effort to get over our stubborn colds. I can safely assure you that the stranglehold it has had on us has weakened, and this was shown by Zach’s lack of inconvenient nosebleeds today.

We decided to check out the town, and see what this hole has to offer. The answer...nothing at all really. They have their own ‘Brisbane Eye’ – a pitiful excuse of a Ferris Wheel marking the city centre – and this was juxtaposed with the ‘statement making’ city hall that neighboured it. After being heckled by a group of blue collar (their shirts were blue also...) tour guides trying to flog their sub-par tours of a sub-par city, we settled on a free tour offered by a spritely mature-aged chap by the name of Arthur. His tour focused more on how far Belfast has come since ‘The Troubles’ and how they are bridging the gap to a better Belfast. He started the tour by describing how the main city areas were barricaded off and that getting in to the city required searches not unlike what you would experience at an airport. Then, upon entering a shop in that barricaded spot required another search. Those these barricades have been torn down, one such still remains as an example: The police station has an outpost with bullet proof windows and was surrounded by reinforced concrete walls with a 2 metre high barricade on top of that. Ironically though, as pointed out by the tour guide, there was a lone ‘Police’ sign sticking out just above the outpost. As we walked along, we saw tank jeeps drive in to the compound – each of them bearing ‘POLICE’ and their associated colours in clear paint. An example of ‘Normal, but not really normal’ according to our guide.

And that really was the motto of Belfast. People seemed ambivalent to these striking views. Where there was a large IRA bombing in the city, killing a large amount of people, there was no plaque commemorating those that had died there. However, we soon learned that people have come to accept what happened. People know what happened. But they want to strive forward and work towards something brighter.

Anyway, we walked around the city and out to the river where we could see the Harland and Wolff shipyard in the distance – the same shipyard that built the Titanic back in 1912. However, the people are quick to point out that despite Belfast being known for its ‘violent and racist wars and the construction of the doomed Titanic ship,’ it was not at fault for the death of so many people on that ship. They mostly blamed a man named Joseph Bruce Ismay and the fact that it was sunk by an Englishman. They even have that on t-shirts in the shops here – ‘RMS Titanic – built by Irishmen...sunk by an Englishman.’

We almost walked on to the set of an upcoming movie ‘Kill Bono’ about a guy who was in the same class as the motley crue of the band U2, and is jealous because his band never reached the same amount of stardom. We watched the filming for a while, but then decided to head to the first Presbyterian church for a quick tour. The man there was very knowledgeable and friendly and let us look around and take pictures. He also informed us more about this Ismay character, and how he asked to have the number of lifeboats on the ship reduced because the First-Class passengers would not have an adequate enough view. Essentially, the Titanic had enough lifeboats for everyone on board to begin with. From the vibe I got from the tour guide, people don’t really like this Ismay character too much. Apparently he did some other stuff in regards to the Titanic sinking, and he managed to safely get onto a lifeboat and escape, but apparently he had to have his right leg amputated so it’s good.

After leaving the church, our tour guide gave a lecture to some passer-byers inspecting the church. This resulted in a heated conversation; (read in traditional Irish accent)

“My name is Arthur, what is your name?”
“You’re speaking to Norman”

The other guy quickly walked away exclaiming “I don’t want to get shot” and entered the nearest clothing store in fear for his safety. This was not the only time our Arthur got into a heated debate. Not soon after, he was being heckled by the same tour company that heckled us...

“Look at you, walking around Belfast for 3 hours! You must be tired! You must be knackered”
“It beats spending three hours behind him”

They heckled each other a little bit more. That was just a notable snippet. Eventually our tour rounded out at the Ulster hall, where a notable range of music performers have played over the years. Apparently Led Zeppelin played Stairway to Heaven there the first time. He then explained to us that he was in a band and that he was best friends with the producer of Joy Division. I guess friendship means nothing in the music business if your band is crap.

Anyway, we stopped over at Crown Bar for a feed. We were recommended the ‘Crown Champ’ – a combination of mashed potato and sausages and some other thing which we didn’t know, but instead we decided on something a little bit more flattering. After we ate (while watching Stoke City smash Arsenal 3-1 and the Irish patrons overwhelmed with laughter and joy) we decided to head up to the mural dedicated to those who perished as a result of the needless conflict. Just as we got up to the neighbouring houses just outside of the city, we were met with a nearly full beer can, coming from the top level of a large apartment complex, falling and exploding on the patchy bitumen sidewalk in front of us. We both thought that the IRA were bombing again. But we were thankfully mistaken when we didn’t see any AK-47 wielding, balaclava wearing Leprechauns come out afterwards. After that, we walked through a neighbourhood that was most unsanitary and unsettling, and walked across a bridge overpass that was caged off, preventing people jumping off to the Westlink highway below. Not surprising really, seeing as I would jump off if I had to spend another day in this god forsaken city.

Anyway, we returned home as it started to get dark, and it felt as if we were going to get killed if we stayed out any longer. On the way to dinner, after coming to the conclusion that ‘hey, Dublin isn’t THAT bad after all,’ I alerted Zach to the freshly blood-splattered sidewalk near our hostel. It really has come a long way from its violent ways.

As I’m sitting in this hostel (perhaps the only fantastic thing Belfast has to offer. Brilliant and helpful staff, free wifi in the room and no creaky stairs) typing this blog, I looked out the window to the street below where I see people exiting the church in direct line of sight, and as I watched them file off one by one to their cars, as optimistic and cheerful as they were, I wondered how they could ever believe in God while they live in a hole such as this.

Belfast: Welcome back to the UK

2010-01-24T20:46:00.000+11:00

Today’s blog will be small, because literally nothing overly important occurred. We awoke to a beautiful Dublish morning and the last day of waking up in a castle. As you can tell, I can’t get over the castle thing. It was a real fucking castle. It was built in the 1100’s. Though the part we slept in wasn’t all stone and suits of armour, the fact is, it was inside a damn castle. Plus, after sleeping at the Astor Quest Hostel in London, in a room the size of my laundry back home, anything slightly larger and more luxurious was bound to be well received. And well received it was.

Anyhoo, we packed our bags, bussed to Connolly Station and then Trained to Belfast Central. Beautiful landscapes, as the train line from Dublin to Belfast, from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, runs along the eastern shore of the island. So on the right window, you’ve got the ocean and the beach, and out the left window you’ve got typical Irish scenes of green rolling fields, sheep, and the occasional derelict/condemned farmhouse. I have been having serious nosebleeds since I’ve been in this country, and I have no idea why. I had my fourth nosebleed on the beginning of the train trip, which was mildly inconvenient. About an hour into the trip, I fell asleep and woke up as we crossed the border to Northern Ireland and my phone reminded me that I would now be paying cheaper rates as I was back in the United Kingdom. Fuck yes for the British Empire! W00000T.

When we arrived at Belfast Central station (which looked a lot like Wacol Station, really. Ok that’s a lie. It looked a lot like Indooroopilly Station), we couldn’t find any tourist maps anywhere so I took a photo of the big city map that was on the wall with my iPhone, and we set off in search of our new hostel. It was 2 miles away, and we decided to walk it. We were not overly impressed with the sights we saw on the way – this side of Belfast (south side) we find to be a lot like a very cold Inala. The footpath was fashioned out of about twelve different kinds of material, we surmised due to the great amount of IRA bombings that destroy the footpaths on a weekly basis. Every person’s front yard looked like a tip – not even kidding, bottles and rubbish were –everywhere-. This didn’t bother us, it’s just the way it is. And we’re guys, so we can put up with shit like this. We found the hostel okay, checked in, and then chilled out in the room for a while – it’s bigger than the Astor Quest, and nicer despite the fact it has no sink.

After chilling out, we walked down the street looking for dinner. We nearly stopped at a couple of restaurants, and then we saw the Holy See. KFC. Thank you, Jesus, for bestowing upon us this great beauty of a restaurant, and within short walking distance of Vagabonds Backpackers.

We fed, came home and slept by 7pm. Both of us are pretty sick, but we’re survivin’. Had another nosebleed, think that it’s not healing properly because I keep coughing and sneezing. Anyway, see how we go.

Ireland: Everything you desIRELAND.

2010-01-24T05:59:00.000+11:00

Ireland: Everything you desIRELAND. That should be the axiom displayed on walls and billboards everywhere. Ireland – a country that...sure...it had is foibles, like crappy bus drivers, but aside from those unfortunate scum of the earth, it is a country that will always share a special place in my heart. Like the movie Freddy Got Fingered, or Pokémon.

When we awoke in our homely and well furnished Castle hotel room, the sun was shining and the weather was mildly chilly. We decided to walk into town to check out the Guinness factory and do a tour there. The tour was intriguing – we learned about all the stuff that goes into Guinness and we learned of a secret ‘fifth ingredient’ that contributes to the refreshing and revitalising flavour you taste in each pint of Guinness today. After processing all of this information, it was time to head up to the bar at the top of factory and kill our brain cells once more with a cold pint of Ireland’s pride and joy, on the house. From there we got a view of Dublin for what it really was – a large country town. It seemed like a quaint, family friendly neighbourhood, and this was further supported by the presence of bright blue neon lights in the toilets of McDonalds, where we stopped for lunch.

After walking around the town for a while, we decided to head back home and get ready for a night on the town. I found a highly regarded place called The Barcode, which we thought was a pub and restaurant style. However, we started to go in and were told that the place didn’t open until 10pm. Wondering what the hell kind of bar opens at 10pm! Anyway, we grabbed a couple o’ pints at a pub around the corner until it opened 3 hours later. We were watching some Rugby Union match between Munster and Whothehellknows. Then we made our way to the Barcode which, hands down, beats every single nightclub in Brisbane. Let’s see how they stack up:

Nightclub Feature	Brisbane Nightclub	Barcode Nightclub - Dublin
No overly aggressive, self important bouncers or anal door bitches outside preventing anyone coming in.	X	√
Cheap drinks on Weekend evenings all night	X	√
More females than males	X	√
People that don’t look like Sarah Jessica Parker	X	√
A premier nightclub without an entry fee	X	√

In addition to all of these things, there was an arcade room above the dancefloor where you could test your skill at picking up plush toys or racing one another in a game of Daytona. In addition to this, we were heckled by quite a few Irish people – one took a particular shine to calling us ‘skip’ and bouncing around like a Kangaroo, which I regrettably informed him that it offended me because my pet ‘roo died recently because of a Dingo attack. Plus, he also jokingly said some other stuff to us, which we didn’t understand at all, so we just waited for him to start laughing and then we laughed along with him.

It seemed that we were ‘Dublin’ in all kinds of things in the Republic of Ireland!

iLand (Ireland)

2010-01-22T18:38:00.001+11:00

This will be a relatively small blog, as yesterday we made the massive voyage from London Heathrow to Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland. We awoke at 8am, breakfasted, and then went for a final walk through Hyde Park (as we had been kicked out on our first day, and hadn’t fully explored it). We went back to the Round Pond which was cordoned off the day we’d been kicked out, and we found the spot where the Police found the dead girl. There were some flowers there, and cards saying “If only we’d known” so I think she must have committed suicide. Very sad. Made me think, though, that if I was going to suicide I’d probably chose a more glamorous location. Maybe I’d try and hop the fence at Parliament – naked – and run screaming like a madman towards Gordon Brown. I don’t think it would take long for the police to do something about THAT.

We left Hyde Park and did a final check of our cell at the Hostel, then checked out. Got on the Tube, tubed to Heathrow. We weighed our bags and evened out our distribution of stuff so that we were both under 20kgs. Plus I put on two extra jackets to decrease some more weight. Stupid 20kg limit. Qantas has 23. We really are a fat nation if the “Spirit of Australia” says its okay to be heavier than everyone else.

We waited for the plane from 11:30am-4pm, and then got on board. The flight took one hour. ONE hour. Matt and I were all like, is this thing gonna take off yet? Oh, we’ve landed. Got a nosebleed on the descent though, to which Matt’s initial reaction was “Ewww” for a couple of minutes. Then, being closer to the aisle, he wrangled some tissues off an air hostess. Really inconvenient time though, when the plane is landing. We landed, went through the Irish girl asking us very blunt questions. No joke**, this was the conversation.

Me: “Hello”
Irish Customs Girl: “What de fook are ye dounn harrr?”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Irish Customs Girl: “What... de... fook... are... ye... do..unn... heyar?”
Me: “Yeah, saying it slower doesn’t help”.
Irish Customs Girl: “What is de purpowse of yer visut?”
Me: “Holiday”
Irish Customs Girl: “Is dat riyte?”
Me: “Uh, yeah. Believe it or not”.
Irish Customs Girl: “And hoe lawng ahr ya intendin’ ter stey?”
Me: “Ten days”.
Irish Customs Girl: “Is dat riyte?”
Me: “Do you have any other programmed response?”
**I may have taken some creative licence with the exact text.

Leaving that, we walked into another big hallway. Matt says to me “Dude I think we go down this way” pointing left. But I was quite confident we just had to walk forwards. There were three channels you could walk through at Dublin Airport – red was if your flight was from an EU country but you had something to declare. Blue was if your flight was from an EU country and had nothing to declare. Green was if your flight wasn’t from an EU country. They were literally right in front of the corridor leading from our plane, so I decided we should walk through the blue channel. Which would have been great, if we had already picked up our bags. It seems counter-intuitive, to have the place you walk out through right in front of you when you get off the plane, and not have the fucking bags first. But anyway, that was my mistake. We spent a few minutes with some other British people who made the same mistake, on the phone to security, to try and let us back in so we could pick up our bags. Eventually they let me back in and I harvested our bags from the conveyor belt.

Next task was to get to the hotel. We caught a public bus from the airport to the city centre for 2.20 euro, although we didn’t have any idea where to go from there. We have now also gathered evidence that it is not just Brisbane bus drivers who are pricks – Irish ones are also pricks. Thus, there is a cross-continental correlation between profession and level of prickness. Upon arriving in the city, we got a taxi to our hotel.

I say hotel. But we’re living in a Castle. Not even kidding, this castle was built in 1132. The room is fully modern though, looks like any other regular hotel room. But the outside facade and the lobby and whatnot? It’s pretty much all castle. Forking. Epic. And ten minutes from the city centre.

We had dinner at the Castle, and we did as the Irish do and had a Guinness each. It was Matt’s first. He’s in love with Guinness now, which is a problem for me because I’ve never been the biggest fan of Guinness and I assume he will wish me to keep drinking it with him. Sigh. We’ll see how we go with that.

Heading to the Guinness Factory today hopefully. They give out free Guinness.

Yay.

That’s all from me.