Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Working is like... so uncool man...

Void of positivity and enthusiasm lately, I decided to do some cliched soul searching. After going in to a zen like trance for what seemed like seconds I was able to extract myself from the lotus position and make lunch. While dipping my toast in to a particularly spicy bowl of vegetable soup possibly cooked by Chef from South Park; I found myself on a chilli induced "time travelling" dream sequence with a kind of "Ghost of Christmas past character". This character gave me the impression that I was conversing with the naked Indian and Jim Morrison from Wayne's World and for some reason there was a touch of the Grim Reaper from the 'Bill and Ted' movies thrown in to the mix

After wandering aimlessly over sand dunes for what seemed like seconds, I came across a water cooler and drank deeply. From behind me a voice told me that usually the answers I seek could easily be found by looking within myself and examining the root causes of my lack of enthusiasm and positivity using a series of Hollywood produced dream sequences. Only problem was that the voice was really busy lately with double bass lessons.

The voice paused for what seemed like seconds allowing me to ponder how a mere voice could play the double bass without fingers, before I could come to a conclusion the voice simply said, "If you book them, they will come." I explained that this didn't really didn't help my situation so I asked the voice to clarify "God damn woman, I'll stop bein' all cryptic an' shit and tell you the god damn answer, didn't I just give you sweet lovin' five minutes ago?"

Confused, I continued to listen, and then in a loud and serious tone the following words of wisdom were issued from the lip less voice "If you quit your job, you will be happy". Genius!

I woke up lighted by the kindly glow of my old friend patiently and gently force feeding me pop culture full of characters and tag lines stronger and more poignant than anything the "real world" ever gave me. Pausing for what seemed like seconds, I hugged the TV.

So after a rather hectic, stressful, and ultimately depressing two and a half months in a job I didn't really like, I decided to cut my losses and re-join the hordes of anti-establishment TV-hugging hippies. My only complaint was that I didn't get to play twister with my movie-like dream sequence guy... but I guess that only happens in the movies.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Screw the stiff upper lip...

Its pessimism that will get you a long way in London...

I arrived in London, it was raining, my holiday was over and like an incontinent relative my bank account was experiencing serious leakage at a surprising rate. I needed money and I needed it fast.

I didn’t immediately discount selling my soul and or body until I realised that from the customers perspective, they would be getting what they payed for and I as far as I was concerned the only part of me for sale was my toe nails. After extensive market research the best price I could get was a pat on the back and a concerned look thrown in for free, they didn’t even want the toe nails.

As the toe nail business just wasn’t working out I decided that it was time to dust off the old CV and eminently adaptable cover letter or as I like to think of them “those trusty, ingenious, well constructed, adeptly presented, half truths on three bits of A4”. In my opinion CV’s are simply a whimsical art form, they have no realistic reflection on a persons skill, experience or ultimately what they are like to employ.

Either way, armed with my incredible and whimsical piece of art I was unstoppable and the phone was ringing off the hook. I had job interviews galore. I prefer to liken a job interview to a first date. Both parties make ego-centric conversation about themselves before deciding if they want to jump in to bed with each other but in this case there is no food and wine to occupy yourself during the awkward silences.

Within a week I had started working for “the man” and had ended up selling my body and soul after all, of course that depends on if you consider the soul anatomical or intangible which is a whole other conversation that I as an agnostic don’t want to get in to with the caped crusaders. Yes you, you know who you are you lewd naughty dirty devout belief in the absolute little so and so’s. Oh sorry did I question the validity of something you hold dear and make you feel guilty? I feel like masturbation, in the noun and verb senses of the word, oh my god quick hand me The Cloth.

I think I’m going to... sooo
get fucked by Catholicism for that.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Swiss army knives/watches/chocolate etc...

It was time to cash in on another generous offer of free lodgings, this time I was off to Switzerland to visit the lovely Amanda.

As it turns out, even the efficiency of the German trains couldn't’t help the fact that the journey from Copenhagen took an entire day and cost a shitload. Still it was totally worth it.

Incidentally I met quite possibly the nicest German guy in the world on the train. No honestly! It turned out that my ticket was wrong and I had to pay extra, having no cash I was pretty much fucked until the aforementioned ‘nicest German guy in the world’ offered to pay it for me. Now it was no measly sum, a full 30 Euros had to be coughed up. I was incredibly grateful. I arrived in Zurich where again ‘nicest German guy in the world’ proceeded to buy me a beer and a sandwich while I waited for my train change.

As I left there was handshakes aplenty and promises to spread the goodwill of the Germans, because around that part of the world, God knows they need it ;-)

After a first class journey between Zurich and Lausanne (no really it was first class, oh dear, wrong seat again Ben, tut tut tut) I arrived late at night and met up with Amanda and her friend Laura who makes a great Thai green curry by the way.

Amanda and I undertook many adventures in and around Lausanne, the first of which was a hilarious bike ride to Morges. Mainly hilarious for the fact that Amanda could hardly reach the pedals, and the ‘Amanda versus hedge’ incident which I’m sure the nation of Switzerland will be talking about for some time.

A short train ride to Montreux, town of the rich and famous was made especially interesting by the fact that it had an official Freddy Mercury celebration day, on discovering this I of course was immediately sold on the place.

Freddy The Great!

In between times Amanda, Laura and I proceeded to drink cheap wine, eat well, and generally be merry.

Eventually I made it to Geneva to see the UN headquarters, but as usual due to being subject to veto by the powerful few it was closed to the weak and helpless masses that day so we just went to a Thai restaurant instead which was equally as satisfying.

With a large block of Swiss choolate under my arm it was off to London to search for a house/job/wife/life etc. Wish me luck!

Swiss photos
here:

Amandas blog
here:

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Copenhagen: Party central, not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of Congo

Firstly, let me set the scene: After an e-mail to my Danish friends sent around lunch time that I would be arriving at 11pm I set off cursing my usual unorganized self hoping that they received the e-mail and that at least one of them would meet me.

Fortunately as I arrived so did a bicycle and on that bicycle there was Jonas. As all the hostels were full I slept on the floor on an air bed at Jonas's place, hilariously it took about two hours to blow up the air bed as we lacked the proper equipment, lung capacity, and determination to actually do the job properly. I suppose the two of three beers we downed didn't really help either. Bring back any memories Paul? Stu? deja vu man.

I stayed at Søren's flat the majority of the time. His flatmate Nana is a musician; no let me rephrase that, an awesome musician. So to give her due credit we went along to see her play solo at a small cafe an d then play with her 80's band the following night which was awesome even though the beers cost 60 kroner ($15NZ). It was at this point I realized that Copenhagen was Scandinavian geographically and Scandinavian in price.

This seemingly insurmountable barrier did not stop us having a good time, and since this website is called TheBeerEffect an entry would not be complete without a few stories involving myself and some fellow travelers getting seriously boozed up.

The unfortunate thing is, I'm writing this a full month later and Copenhagen treated me well, far too well so there is inevitable gaps in my memory, but for you my loyal reader, I will soldier on!

Søren's friend was celebrating something to do with clothes, I'm not sure why but it involved beer and 'Joy to the world', the song... Yes after months of searching I had found a karaoke bar. The problem was I thought that it was the first time I had done karaoke in ages, I was wrong. My memory had proved fallible, fortunately there is one thing karaoke bars the world over have and that is a long lasting memory of me and this place was no exception.

As I walked in pissed off my nut seemingly for the first time, I was greeted from the stage by the MC in English, "Hey everyone, its Ben, he's from out of town". At this point I was thinking, how the hell does that fat fucker know my name? and considering we're in Denmark, why the hell isn't he speaking Danish?

Immediately I guessed.. "ahhh, thought I had a big one last night". I rode my bike back to Søren's... wait a minute... I have a bike?

Moving on: Near the centre of Copenhagen is the 'free town' of Christiana.

Christiania's Mission Statement: "The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the well being of the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted."

So as you can imagine the place is, or at least was a Hash drug den, awesome. These days the drugs are not quite so openly sold but still obviously there. Just listen for the whistles which signal the arrival of the police.

Following a telling of the "train ride to Prague story" it was revealed that a wild Danish woman by the name of Elana had used my inebriated state to shave my pubes off, this fact was greeted by copious amounts of laughter. The party was on and Beer, as usual was my drug of choice.

There were other things that happened but I'd better just pictorially summarise them:



Perhaps the pics need a few words to go with them: Had beers, saw football game, kissed wrong girl, pretended I didn't speak English, stole a bicycle, crashed it, pissed on expensive car, crashed bike in to police station, avoided police, got back safe, woke up 8hrs later still drunk, took wrong door, wandered the streets of Copenhagen at 8.30am, snapped out of it, rang Søren's doorbell from the street, thanked god that I was at the very least wearing boxer shorts....

Running out of money, having great time, wish you were here.

Photos:

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Fuck the Nazis...

The four days I spent in Berlin blur together as the beer was very reasonably priced, and as you know I like reasonably priced beer, a lot. The sites were pretty awesome too.

With a couple of Scottish guys I went on a organized pub crawl, not the usual sort of thing that I would normally indulge in but it was only 10 Euros and it included a good amount of free drinks which I thought would be worth it, and it was. The night was a bit of a blur and we ended at a place called The Matrix which was pretty cool, I seem to remember women dancing in cages but that may have been me, dancing in cages.

The following night we decided that because the kitchen at the hostel was so good that perhaps we should use it, cue super market visit and cue buying of Spooks. No not the British television drama series, or the little known Hip-hop group, and no, it has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. What are you talking about Ben? Everyone knows the Smiles that you bake in the oven right? Well in Germany they have Spooks which are a scary version of the Smiles. Either way we thought that they must be just about the most awesome things on the planet, they tasted quite good too.

Post spooks we hooked up with some Aussies; Beth, Denise, and Amanda. They were keen for a beverage or two or three which suited us fine. After a fair few empty bottles lay scattered around the living room I decided that it was time to sow the seeds of an idea I had been mulling over in my head for a few days. The idea was a particular pub I had heard about. At first it was a hard sell, the name of it was 'White Trash Fast Food' but eventually curiosity, and a few more excellent beverages, got the better of them, we were off.

After bargaining with the door staff and saying that there were ten of us when there was only six we managed to get in for half price. Gotta love those law abiding Germans, they're so law abiding the thought of anyone doing something dishonest doesn't even register.

The most notable thing about White Trash Fast Food was its clientele’s propensity for anti-fascism. The place itself is just one big full on anti-fascist party. Cue the bands.

Imagine standing in a room not knowing what is about to happen surrounded by people that do. Then imagine that these people are very still but very excited, like locked and loaded mouse traps close to a mouse; they were ready to go off.

Then it happened.

From the darkness of the stage a single guitar played a single G string over and over at break neck speed. The Guitar whirred and whined, its string sounding close to breaking point when as abrupt as it started, it stopped. Not missing a beat a single spotlight centered on a punk, green Mohawk, leather jacket and piercings galore, he was holding a guitar, The Guitar.

“Fuck the Nazis”

“Hey”

“Fuck the Nazis”

“Hey”

“Fuck the Nazis”

“Hey”

The crowd responded immediately and enthusiastically to the Guitarists statement, everyone knew the script, hell even I knew the script

As the G String was stretched to its limit again and again the chants increased in volume. These guys were aggressive, hot blooded, and they were zealous. So was I.


Cool imagery huh?

Friday, September 15, 2006

Good bye Turkey.

I flew to Vienna from Istanbul because the train out of Istanbul would’ve taken a few days rather than the hour long flight and I didn’t think there was much point in revisiting places that I’d already seen.

Nothing was really notable about the flight itself apart from the red stockings on the lovely Austrian Airlines staff which kept me thoroughly entertained.

It was good to see Heidi, Silvia, and Helmut again, and I am forever indebted to them for their hospitality. As Heidi was working pretty solidly Helmut and I did things like hiring out DVD’s, watching TV, and eating takeaway pizza, it was almost normal; he didn't speak English but it was just what I needed.

As travellers know, trying to do simple day to day things in a completely different setting/language/currency etc. is one of the cool things about traveling. The unfortunate thing is, cue double edged sword scenario, the novelty wears off. I guess I’m missing the carefree days when I knew exactly when I was going to get my next meal/shower/tikka masala with a garlic naan, etc.

So I’ve decided to make some attempt to return to “normality” (what ever that is), and make my way back to England to get a good curry.

But before my curry wishes could be fully satisfied, a promise I had made months ago to some Danes back in Romania needed to be fulfilled. I departed for Berlin with my eyes ever northwards in the direction of Copenhagen.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Yes mum, I am looking after myself...

After all the e-mails of concern over the previous entry, I guess I better follow it up pretty quickly with the recuperation part of the story.

After the horror of the food poisoning of the last week, I decided that I need some rest and relaxation. I thought to myself that it would need to be in a place that I felt comfortable just doing nothing, apart from home there was only one place that sprung to mind, that place was Selçuk, Turkey.

I stopped briefly in Çanakkale where I had enough time to consider another visit to the Gallipoli peninsula, but decided against it on the grounds that apart from seeing it a month beforehand, I was scared that it wouldn't live up to the first time I visited. I'll save a second visit for an ANZAC day sometime in the future.

"So, here we are in Selçuk" I muttered as I exited the stuffy and sterile air conditioning of the bus. As before it was a beautiful sweltering day, and as before I wandered towards the ANZ Guesthouse where I knew I would meet Michael and Mehmet at the carpet shop. This time however the smiles and hand shakes (there is always handshakes in Turkey) were a reunion rather than a meeting, I was feeling better already.



I don't know how long I stayed, sure I could probably work it out, but to be honest I don't really want to know. I must have taken off my watch to have a shower one day and just forgot to put it back on. It was good to lose track of time.

Not to say that I didn't do anything at all, I had beach days, sleep in days, read a bad book days and... well that was about it, until Harry (the owner) asked me if I knew anything about computers. Before long I had redesigned the breakfast menu and received a free dinner for my trouble. Soon after it was my pleasure to attempt any odd job Harry or for that matter, anyone in town could offer.

The odd jobs ranged from simply correcting spelling or grammar to selling boat and bus tours. I was pretty much living for free for about 3 hours of work a day, which still left plenty of time for sleep-ins, books, and beach days.

Daniel worked around the corner and had been living "the lifestyle" for about six weeks longer than me. Being Kiwis, Otago Uni boys, and in the same situation we naturally hung out a bit. It was hilarious watching the Turks observe us as we chucked a Rugby ball around. Ever the triers, the Turks joined in but they simply could not match us in hand-eye coordination with an oval ball, this was round-ball country and we revelled in our superiority.

During a sleep-in day I was woken around mid-day by Daniel who had managed to find a pub in a nearby town with a Satellite dish that could possibly pick up Sky sport. This meant, he explained slowly to my sleepy brain that we could watch the Springboks play the All Blacks live in a few hours time. Of course I was interested, relative to the previous weeks this was an event, an occasion, a momentous spectacle worthy of beers! A trip to civilisation! What was I going to wear?

On arrival we were sorely disappointed to learn that there was a English Rugby League final on at the same time and there was only one decoder. A disappointed look between Daniel and myself passed between us as our dreams for a taste of home and a worthy occasion for beers disintegrated in to little pieces.

This did not stop the Turks however, as we all know the Turkish pride themselves on perfect customer service. Perfect customer service, as I am reliably informed by my previous profession is where a win/win situation takes place. This win/win situation came in the form of a quick call to the towns resident set-top-box hacker, a soldering iron, and a quick fiddle with the remote control. Suddenly everyone was happy. Beers were followed by beers which was followed by an All Black win.

Our revelry back in Selcuk that night was infectious, we combined the forces of three or four local hostels for a party back at my place on the rooftop terrace. Daniel and I proceeded to teach people from fifteen different countries the intricate nuances of Otago University's best export, and I know you know I'm talking about 'Circle of Death' right?

Waking the next afternoon with a pleasant hangover I decided it was time to move on.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Dry Humour...

Istanbul... I think I'm going to die in a horrible vomiting shitting mess. The fact that I am here today writing this proves that I didn't die, though I wished that I did at the time.

"Arse of steel, arse of steel" I calmly repeat over and over to myself. One question remains as I make it to the hostel, "How have I not shit my pants yet?"

I collapse, a doctor is promptly called, who promptly calls an ambulance, which promptly arrives and rushes me to hospital. As I'm in the ambulance a single thought enters my dehydrated semi-conscious brain, "When I wake up, I hope they've cleaned the shit and vomit off me".

Once I regained my conscious ability to think my first thought, rather then being something profound about near death experiences, the meaning of life, or the way silent Velcro works, was "fuck somebody shit their pants". My second thought followed within seconds, simply "Oh fuck". Holding my breath made the unconsciousness come faster.

For a holiday experience I'd really recommend waking up in a pile of shit stained sheets on a low bed in the hallway of a busy foreign hospital, it really puts things in to perspective. There will forever be the before and the after, life changes from this point onwards.

As I regained my strength but certainly not my dignity; "No" I thought to myself, "dignity would come much later", I was acutely aware of a stabbing pain in my arm. "Hurt, pain" said a Turkish accent, despite the words not being a question "Yes" I answered, to no one.

It turned out that he was a Doctor and he was squeezing a bag which led to a drip in my arm. "What are you doing?" I asked accusingly. "Hurry hurry, busy busy" he said indicating the already overflowing hallway, I took it to mean that the concept of triage had decided to check me out as quick as possible.

I was allowed a shower and soap which went someway to restoring dignity. In a plastic bag I found my clothes with a bit of vomit on the tee shirt but thankfully, and incredibly no shit whatsoever. To this day I don't know whether they had washed my boxers or if I'd managed to hold on, I'd like to think it was the latter, and I'll swear to the day I die that that's what happened if anyone asks.

Dignity restored, and feeling like a million dollars mostly due to my newly and speedily hydrated body, I knew that I needed receipts for my medical care for insurance purposes. This was denied me by the long line and no English speaking receptionists. Fuck it.

The comedown from the magical Saline solution didn't take long, so I slept for about 12 hours and woke with a pain in my stomach. A burning ring of fire later and I thought that I'd better get in to the prescribed medicine.

Three days later and feeling like I was about to lapse back to square one, I crawled downstairs and hit Wikipedia. One final shit, I was determined that it was to be the final one, and I was off to the pharmacy with the name of a drug. Of course the drug was prescription only, my face dropped and I thought maybe if I shit myself here in the pharmacy they'll get the picture that I'm not fucking around.

Instead of shitting myself I calmly place twenty lira on the counter and look the pharmacist in the eye, he holds my gaze. I repeat the process until there is a hundred lira on the counter, his gaze falters. I've got him, he's mine, and so are the drugs.

Forty minutes later gazing at the beautiful Blue Mosque of Istanbul, words drift aloud from my lips "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I smell no sulphur."

Ironically and without emotion, my raw chaffed arse gets the joke and laughs with relief.

Thankfully there are no photos.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Goreme, no kebabs please.

Still with most of the guys from the boat, I check in to Kose pension at around 6.30am with Kim cause shes so god damn organised. Crashing out for a few hours is required following our gazillion-hour overnight bus journey. It takes a morning snooze and a walk around to realise that we are in fact in a really, and I mean really beautiful part of the country.

Surrounded by volcanically created scenery we take lots of photos and hit the open air museum in the afternoon. Its hard to enjoy in the 45 million degree heat but impressive all the same. An early night and a swim in the hostel pool concludes the day.

Taking in the main sites of Cappidocia proves to be a sweaty all day task, apparently the bus has air conditioning, apparently. Highlights of the day include a walk by a river where some old women appear to be beating a sheep to death, and me climbing in to a fairy chimney closely followed by a woman who gets stuck and holds up the entire bus, I was the only one who found it hilarious though.

I meet a carpet salesman and his Canadian wife while wandering past their shop. The man is having difficulty with his digital camera and he can't speak any other English apart from the word "help". His wife explains that despite the instructions being in English she can' be bothered reading them, and would I like some tea? Of course I want tea, what do you think I'm doing walking past a carpet shop for?. Fixing the digital camera takes about 12 seconds and we chat for a few hours about nothing of consequence but its nice to experience some more Turkish hospitality.

The next day I spend lazing around in the pool with Jess and her British friend until grabbing a kebab and taking another overnight bus to Istanbul.

The photos are far more impressive than today's meagre writing effort so you'd best look at them here:

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Olympos, Turkish style...

Due to being my usual disorganised self I hadn't booked anywhere to stay and it was pretty much the busiest time of the year. Fortunately I had met Kim on the boat trip and she was over-organised and had overbooked and prepaid, this we found was advantageous to us both. We stayed in a room named "Sunset Strip". The "luxurious" Sunset Strip kind of had its own toilet and shower and was outfitted hilariously with, for two people that don't really know each other, a double bed. And just for your information, yes Kim is a total wild one in bed. I honestly haven't had such hilarious conversations with a sleep talker since 1992 where my younger brother Daniel, at age seven thought that 1am in the morning was a good time to do his tax returns.

Apart from Kim's night time shenanigans, Olympus was relatively uneventful, though there were a few moments to remember. There was a decent rock to jump off at the beach and I met a group of local kids, some of which were crazy enough to jump off the rock head first. Also during the beach visit I noticed that there was a decent amount of good skimming stones along the beach. I was having a grand old time skimming stones, right up until the point where I inadvertently hit one of the local kids on the head with a rock. I guess I was fortunate that he could understand the word "sorry" in English, pretty funny in hindsight actually.

With making a sly getaway at the forefront of my mind, I ended up going quad biking with some of the guys from the boat trip, it was notable for a ripe-for-the-picking fig tree, my hooning, and one of the other guys (Ben) driving in to a ditch.
Me Kim Amanda Kirk Ben Deb Anna AdrianAfter quad biking we checked out the famous Chimaera flames (above) which were pretty cool.

On our last day in Olympos we went to lunch at a cool restaurant situated in trees on a river and literally ate lamb-loads of lamb cooked in a kind of Turkish hangi before taking the night bus to Goreme.

Click
here for all the Olympos photos.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Four days of pirating pleasure...

Looking back on it all, all the days seem blur in to one. Basically I spent my time swimming, drinking, reading, eating, snorkeling, fishing, and then repeating the cycle with a great bunch of people.

I guess there was one particular moment of note though. After mooring in a bay for our final night on the water with about 20 other boats we found ourselves taking a water taxi to a bar.

Firstly, I should explain that this is not the kind of terrain that one would expect a bar to exist in, a rocky but calm bay on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey only accessible via boat, and utterly devoid of people. In fact it seems like this is the last place someone would put a bar. I guess no one told the owners of Smugglers Inn.

On arrival the said owners of Smugglers Inn 'treated' the crowds of people to a selection of pop music from various times in the last thirty years. You know the kind of music that everybody knows the words to and screams at the top of their lungs and dances like flocks of headless chickens to? So um yeah that's basically what we did for a few hours. Eventually in the early hours of the morning, sweating and laughing, we caught the water taxi back to our boat.

But our hardy drinking souls had not quite finished yet, no not when there were still cold beers on the boat to drink and pop songs still fresh in our minds. During this final beer someone had a fantastic idea (well all ideas at this stage of a big night out are fantastic), Lets streak! This so-called 'fantastic idea' was later attributed to me, however to this day I disagree to it being my idea personally, in my opinion it was more of a group decision arrived at collectively after some rigorous democratic debate.

Either way there were ten very drunk and very naked people in the Mediterranean that night. However there was one problem, the definition of streaking implies that one first get naked and then run around stupidly in front of people who are not, as we were, in a state of undress. Where the hell were we going to find such people in the dead of the night? let alone somewhere to simply 'run around stupidly' while swimming in the middle of the bloody Mediterranean?

The answer was quickly discovered after some more 'rigorous democratic debate'. 'Hey look a boat' someone shouted, 'lets go' added another. So there we were, drunk, naked as the day we were born, and about to climb aboard another boat with the intention to 'run around stupidly'. Climbing aboard presented no real problem, they had conveniently left a ladder down so that we could do so. The problem was that unlike the pirates of time gone by, we were neither stealthy, ruthless, or indeed cunning. Between us our pirate skills amounted to drunkenness, loudness and an exceptionally high quality of stereotypical pirate-like quotes.

'Hand over ye booze and women ye scurvy scoundrel, or I`ll keel haul ye and throw ye bloody remains to the sharks, ARRRRGHH'

Hence with only one of us on board the ladder was withdrawn and one unlucky soul was made to unceremoniously walk the plank. We returned defeated but defiant to our own boat and slept soundly, the subject of our dreams being similar to your average Wilbur Smith novel.

Finally, a collective sigh was uttered as peace reigned again over the Mediterranian, ...

Boat trip photos
here:

Monday, August 07, 2006

Day tripper, y'all...

So on the way to Fethye from Selçuk I decide to check out Pamukale to see the famous Heiropolis ruins and the thermal water-filled natural white terraces (travetines).

The ruins, especially the Theatre, are quite impressive and make for some
great photos. However the much vaunted travetines proved to be a bit of a let down. The brochures implied that you could walk around them and even swim in them however due to it being a protected area of natural beauty this was not the case. I wouldn't have wanted to anyway because the Turks, in their infinite wisdom, had drilled down elsewhere and taken all the thermal water, leaving a bunch of naturally created white dusty terraces. I think the Turks need a lesson on how we (mostly) look after that kinda shit back home.

My day however was not to be ruined because the bus stopped at this random point on the highway and we were told that we had an hours break and that there was a waterfall 10 minutes hike away that we could swim in. Of course this was told to me in Turkish and I had no idea what was going on but I followed the locals as they wandered off in to the forest. The waterfall itself was fantastic as the temperature in the bus was hovering around 30 degrees despite the best efforts of air conditioning. I play the crazy kiwi and do a few cliff dives, well I say cliff dives when I mean I bombed off a rock that was about 3m above the waterfall, but none of the Turks did it! Oh and I saw my first frog.

Arriving in Fethye I find Ned, the guy who "booked" my accommodation has not actually booked anything, fortunately he's the guy that owns the boat for the boat trip that I'm going on the next morning so along with two others in the exact same situation I get to sleep on the deck of the boat for the night for free.

Before sleeping there was the small matter of 'bars are open and they have beer that needs drinking', now that's a problem me and my trusty wallet can help with. I head off with Arthur and Kim and we head to a bar that is full to the brim of people that hilariously I've already met and are basically travelling in the same direction as me. Much drinking and dancing ensues until I decide to try out my new best come-on line "so I've got this boat..." and I bring back not one but two girls (Claire and her sister) for more beers. Of course I'd already met them a few days before in Selçuk but still, I gotta get my own boat man...

I end up not sleeping at all and the girls leave about 8am and I get some breakfast followed by a haircut and a Turkish style shave at the barber. Now for those of you that don't know the significance of a Turkish shave I will explain.

First of all they lather up your face in shaving cream then proceed to shave you with a cut-throat razor, once that is done they re-lather you up and repeat the process. This is followed by a lemon spray which inevitably makes my face sting like crazy and then some sort of facial cream stuff all over my face. The man proceeds to crack my neck and all my fingers and begins to massage my arms and shoulders. He then gets me to lean forward and washes off my face.


I thought it was all over but he dips his hands in alcohol and smears it over my face and puts his fingers in my ears. This is a little weird but nothing compared to what follows, he lights up a small torch and at this point I'm a little nervous because my face is basically flammable right now but he leans my face back and taps the flaming torch on my ears and face to burn off what remains of the hair. While I don't get burned or anything the smell of the burning hair permeates the air as I walk out reminiscing about the last time my face was this smooth, i.e. when I was 11 years old. Now lets be honest, the Gillette mach 3 has got nothing on the Turkish shave.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Selçuk, and I saw breasts too...

Well they're just not common in Turkey... anyway...

Making it to Selçuk I depart the air conditioned stuffiness of the bus and crash headlong in to a wall of heat, sweating as I head for the shade in the park across the road I am met by a smiling Turkish feller who walks me a block or two to the 'Australia New Zealand Guesthouse'. Fittingly the owner is Turkish/Aussie/Kiwi/Korean etc. well basically he has the accents down to perfection.

The evening BBQ and beer hits the spot, but I'm shattered so I hit the sack only to wake at about 5am to the airy loudspeaker broadcasted morning prayers that somehow seemed louder here than elsewhere.

Breakfast turned out to be a fair reason for getting out of bed I thought as I greedily munched down the decent sized omlette on the roof top terrace. Now lets get one thing straight, if there is one thing that I'll take home from Turkey its the roof top terrace concept but understand this: I'm a fan of omlettes and as you know I'm a fan of the roof top terrace concept but combine the two? Genius.

This hearty breakfast inspired me to borrow one of the hostel bikes and have a beach day, the beach being about 8kms away. I picked what I thought was one of the better bikes, ie. the one where the pedal didn't fall off when I touched it, and I thought to my self that this will be a good little half hour work out right? Well it took about 40 minutes but the beach was fantastically worth it.

I did howver feel a look of puzzlement cross my face as I observed the odd Muslim woman swimming in her clothes with full on head scarf, but I thought to myself 'Don't knock it to you try it Ben', but lacking a head scarf there was to be no trying that today so I biked off.

Twenty minutes later I realised that the bike I had chosen was, (while being one of the better ones) not exactly road worthy and I ground to a halt with a flat tyre and no front breaks. After sweating my ass off walking 20 minutes and then running out of water my soft ass decided to hail down an extortionly priced taxi rather than walk back.

The following day I went to the ancient city of
Ephesus with another Kiwi and some Aussies. The ruins were impressive and I got the odd good photo. The hostel drove us there and then back to a resturant where we lazed on carpet and cushions eating Turkish pancakes, drinking Efes beer and snoozing.

As the sun set I tucked in to the hostel BBQ and the cold beers that I had bought from a curious old man who in halting English promised me a small refund on the glass bottles if I brought them back once empty. Laughing and drinking followed as we played a stupid drinking game until finally pulling out the MP3 players and speakers and rocking out to some tunes until the early hours of the morning.

In my mind I had designated the next day as another beach day, fortunatly there were others who had the same idea so we headed to a different beach nearer Kuşadasi where the girls treated us to a rather spectacular (i.e. bare breasted) sychonised swimming routine, don't tell their mothers, or more to the point the thousands of surrounding Muslim people that shun that kinda thing, but a round of applause duely followed all the same.

Oh yeah and a weird old Turkish guy pinched my ass... twice. I was mildly disturbed.

Finally picked up some new shorts from the Selçuk market on the Saturday and life was good.

And so are
photos so look at them.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Ayvalic...

Even though I stayed in a Pension that was once lived in by a French ambassador to a Sultan... Ayvalic was bit shit to be honest so I caught a bus to Selçuk.

Oh there is a nice photo:

Kia Ora and G'day's galore in ANZAC Çanakkale

"Thats Bull-Ant, but with only one 'L" our tour guide rather seriously pointed out to us as we set off on the Gallipoli tour with what turned out to be an awesome tour guide. His name was of course 'Bulant' and he was quite possibly the most knowledgeable man on earth concerning the subject of the World War One Gallipoli campaign, and he revelled in it. Honestly the way this man gives a tour you'd think his life depended on it, he obviously loves his job.

It was inspiring to wander along ANZAC cove and North beach knowing that along one of these beaches a distant relative of mine once wandered, or more likely crawled or ran for his life.

RIP John William Small, died 15 April 1915 Lone Pine Gallipoli.

According to my distinguished official family historian (i.e. Dad - is there anything he can't do?) he was my 1st cousin 4 times removed.

The trenches though mostly filled in and sometimes a little reconstructed were pretty cool too and i got some good photos. Chunic Bair was of course a highlight, it was airy wandering around what really should be a simple hilltop but is in fact the site of pilgrimage for thousands upon thousands of Kiwi's come every 25th April. A simple hill top where so much drama took place circa 1915 and so much literature written about it subsequently. Pretty awesome actually.

On the sagely advice of my guide book I didn't bother with the Troy tour and instead met crap loads of backpackers doing organised bus trips along the coast. We went out for dinner and I tagged along to enjoy their pre-organised discounts, special drink deals, and their multitudes of Australian women. Am i being sarcastic about that last one? I'm honestly not sure...

Check the
photos:

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Istanbul: My friend, my friend!

So the 19 hour train journey turns out to take 24 and a half. Surprisingly the trıp wasn't quite as bad as the extended hours suggest, I was fortunate to meet two Canadians (Tanya and Thea) on the train in the next compartment, their help was instrumental in stopping me from going insane stuck alone inside a small cabin that was more similar to the inside of a cramped but furnished prison than a train cabin.

But to be honest the train compartments reminded me of the Ian Flemming novel 'From Russia with love', the unfortunate thing was I going in the opposite direction, I did not have a Tatiana Romanova to share it with, and the tag line for my movie was not:

"JAMES BOND IS BACK! his new incredible women! his new incredible enemies! his new incredible adventures!"

Yes ladies and gentlemen my tag line read:

"BEN SMITH IS GOING TO ISTANBUL! his new friends the Canadian backpackers! his only enemy the hot and sweaty confined cabin where the the air conditioning does not work! his incredibly new sweat soaked nothing to pass the time boredom!

However, after minimal hassle from the infamous Bulgarian border guards and maximum train going forwards and then backwards and then forwards again we finally arrived in Istanbul.

Being my normally organised self I had no idea where I was or how to get to the hostel that I had booked, this obviously is not a wise thing in a sprawling city of millions upon millions. Fortuitously lady luck blind as she is guided me miraculously in the right direction.

I never knew that I had so many friends until I walked in to the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul. Seriously. Calls of "My friend, my friend, where you from?" called from... well everywhere! People clamour around to give directions or take me there themselves and to give their recommendations of the various hostels on offer, of course my pessimistic mind knows that the directions they give me have a carpet shop stop on the way and the recommendations come from the people employed to scout for customers. However this knowledge does not dampen my spirits as its great to just walk around and talk to people after being confined to quarters for the last day.

So after a fair amount of "Kia ora, Kia ora, hey Kiwi, free apple tea, no obligation to buy, have a seat my friend, what kind of carpet do you like" I make it to my hostel and check in exhausted.

Meeting up with the Canadians for dinner we go to a roof top restaurant with views of the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, and the mighty Bosphorus. The meal itself wasn't very memorable but the view is what we were paying for. A few drinks later we head back to the roof top bar on top of my hostel with a surprisingly even better view, we drink and swap travel stories until late.

The following morning I head off in search of some tee-shirts as the European summer has rotted the few remaining ones I have and I get sidetracked by those carpet salesmen again. A shitload of apple tea, a beer and a kebab later (all free of course) they finally understand that when I say "I'm not going to buy a carpet whatever the price" that I mean it and not that I actually want a lower price.

Finally hitting the Grand Bazaar I bargain for some "Raybans" sunglasses. I'm trying them on in the mirror and a man says

"You like, You like?"

and I reply "Yeah, how much?"

"Eighty seven lira, fixed price"

I laugh and say "I only have ten"

"twelve" he replies "because you are my first customer today" - keep in mind that its 2pm and crawling with tourists since opening.

"Deal" I say walking away "thinking" I got a deal.

I wander past a kebab shop that I ate at the previous day and I get the usual "my friend, my friend very good cheap food"

I reply "yes I know I ate here yesterday" at which the owner pipes up from the back "yes yes my kiwi friend, for you today freshly squeezed orange juice, as much as you can drink! on the house!"

Well I'm sold.

Istanbul photos
here:

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Romania - No I didn't see any vampires

The train to Sighisoria Romania was undertaken mostly in the dark, my cabin-mates spoke about three words of English and I spoke no Romanian, hence conversation was at a standstill. Once it gets light I decide to check out the scenery, it looks grim, but that could just be the ghost towns, overcast weather or copious amounts of stray dogs.

I’m not sure what station to get off at so I decide to get off at the one closest to the estimated arrival time on the schedule, fortunately the train is exactly on time and I turn up in the right place, still a few place name signs viewable from the train would’ve been nice.

The hostel turns out to be an easy four minutes walk from the station; I settle in and decide to go on a tour because that’s what everyone else appears to be doing. Weirdly two Dutch guys in a jeep pick us up and we all pile in. We begin to see how the locals in the surrounding villages live, either really really poor or just really poor. The weird thing is that despite their poverty they greet us with smiles and the children follow us around striking poses, laughing and making faces. Of course if you take their photo they expect a few coins in return.

We visit all the deserted but well kept fortified Saxon churches that were pretty much abandoned centuries before. Saxon because the ruling Hungarians of the time gave land in return from protection from the Ottomans to the south and fortified, well for obvious reasons.

Drinking a beer in almost every village proves a great way to interact with the locals who are friendly but look at us like we’re aliens, which we are I guess. One bar has four old men sitting in it and all of them are wearing fantastic hats. I mention the words “awesome hats” enthusiastically to our group and one of the old fellers enthusiastically tips his hat towards me. As he looks me in the eye his wrinkled and aged face cracks a huge smile. I enthusiastically tip my cap back at him and return his smile, language barriers are broken.

After a few more beers the locals decide to really show us their hospitality, they crank up some phat tunes on a rusty old tape player. The thing is they assume that because we visit the Saxon church they believe that we are all Germans and the music turns out to be the oldest German folk music known to man, hilarity ensues as we don’t have the language or even the heart to tell them that actually none of us are in fact German.

In the evening I hang out with Soern and Jonas who are from Denmark. We drink a few unbelievably cheap beers, laugh and swap travel stories until the following day we all depart for Sibiu.

The minibus ride is notable for its death inducing driving as the three of us sit clutching the seats in front with whitened clenched knuckles as the locals calmly nod off despite the random swerving and dangerous speeds undertaken by the driver.

Old town hostel is nothing special in terms of its facilities however it is notable for its party hard staff. At this point I begin to realise that not only do Romanians drink every day, they drink every day to excess. As first I’m thinking that the Romanians are my kind of people but then my body informs me that I am not Romanian and therefore I will struggle to keep up with a people that treat beer drinking as an Olympic sport and every night is the gold medal match. Corporeal consequences are endured. I’m not so naive to say the clichéd “I’ll never drink again” speech but my body makes me resolve to cut back for at least a few days.

During the train ride to Bucharest an old man yells at us for taking our shoes off and I have an unrelated epiphany. It may have had something to do with the uplifting music on my MP3 player such as Guns n Roses, Queen, and interestingly a touch of Meatloaf but as the sun went down over the endless sunflower fields of Romania I came to the conclusion that I have a great life, Soren and Jonas backed away slowly at my over-enthusiasm.

Anyway, enough superlatives because here we are in sweltering Bucharest. My first impression of Bucharest occurred as we exited the train station, to my left an old man grunted as he blasted fourth a turd towards the already shit stained pavement, directly ahead of me a child of about 12 or 13 masturbated freely and laughed as three female Canadian backpackers hurried past, I decided that this was all too much and I promptly turned right and stepped in dog shit. I could tell already that I was going to have a ripper of a time.

Dinner was consumed in an Italian restaurant where my previously rock solid no alcohol resolve was finally broken. Hey twenty hours without alcohol is doing well for Romania! The next few days pass by uneventfully and Soren and Jonas depart for home with promises of a bed in Copenhagen if I need it.

Soldering on by myself I continue the daily battle to find a shady spot to sit/stand/walk in and sighting a McDonalds I feel an involuntary tingle as I smile with glee, McDonalds has air-conditioning! As I sit watching TV in the spot directly below the air-conditioning a man speaks to me as if in a dream, crap he wants me to buy something or get out, has it been 20 minutes already?

I decide to move hostels to a better one because the one I’m in is shit and I need a break from the party atmosphere. I meet a Swiss girl and we go for a walk in the park, she asks if I want to go for a beer and without thinking I’m having yet another beer. Hunger inevitably sets in and we hit a restaurant and proceed to wine and dine until the small hours swapping travel stories, talking EU politics and eventually ‘swapping recipes’. I figure I’ll just sleep on the 19hr train journey to Istanbul tomorrow right?

Check out the photos here:

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Booty-pest... booya...

Vısited Budapest again because it was on the way to Romania, my intention was to stay for just a day or so but I was sucked in by that eastern European charm or more accurately the cheap beer and a great nightlife.

After checking in at a smallish but charming hostel I was confronted with a yellow g-string clad Italian man of about 35-40ish who looked at me curiously for a moment too long. To break the awkward silence which had developed I simply said "Hi, how are you?" to which he replied in broken English "I am fine, or is it I am OK, or maybe I am good?" My response to this was to back away saying "ahh any of those will do" as he was beginning to rub his belly in disturbing and ever widening circles.

As it turned out other people in the dorm had similar experiences with The Belly Rubber. One young girl reported the Belly Rubber rubbing his belly with some kind of lotion, as she looked quizzically at him he thrust fourth his hand towards her face saying only "Calvin Klein". Backing away slowly ensued.

Apart from the Belly Rubber the hostel was full of other backpackers who like me were up for a party. With a few Americans, British girls and yet another Aussie called Scott we hit the town a few nights in a row and got positively slaughtered.

Sampling the local women, which incidentally I rate along side the beautiful Polish girls, was a priority. Being dangerously drunk and having the whole exotic "Hi I'm Ben from New Zealand" pick-up line this did not prove too difficult, as Scott and I found ourselves chatting to two beautiful Hungarians... well Scott did the chatting while my communication technique was much more body language orientated.

The following day Scott and I went to the outdoor water park on the Island in the middle of the river. You may recall in my previous Budapest entry that I visited the baths and was thoroughly unimpressed... I, simply put am an idiot, I was just at the wrong outdoor pool. This place has water slides, hot pools, cold pools and massage fountains, oh and there was a serious amount of hotties too. So obviously we stayed until closing.

While walking back from the pool in the early evening we were caught in the rain, and when I say rain I mean the mother of all thunder storms decided to let loose and bucket down on us. Eventually finding shelter in what looked like a cafe we got a coffee and found ourselves chatting to some friendly locals who seemed very excited to speak English with us, and very happy to share a few stories over a beer. Being Budapest and all one beer tends to turn in to two, which in turn turns in to three, and then of course you find yourself back at the hostel around 4am.

Ooh I almost forgot, I had a brush with the law. My intention to catch the metro to the train station to buy my ticket to Romania was almost thwarted by the local metro ticket inspectors who, after me paying every single day previoulsly, decided to check tickets the day I decided to have a freebie.

I had not even boarded the train when a woman approached me on the platform asking for my ticket, stalling for time while pretending to search my wallet looking for my ticket, I explained that I thought I had left my Metro pass in my hotel. This lame excuse did simply not cut it with the self important train inspectors who were already pissed at having to work on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Smiling as she proceeded to explain that I had to pay a fine, and if I didn't then she would call the police and the fine would be ten times as much. I realised that I had to think fast. Brilliantly I decided that by feigning the fact I couldn't speak English I would be able to play the dumb tourist card. This of course was an utter failure. However it did allow me to stall for time a bit more until, as luck would have it a train arrived on the platform with hundreds of people who hadn't had their tickets checked. She takes her eyes off me for a split second and at the same time a choir group wanders past singing in Hungarian, I stand behind a tall guy taking off my hat and jacket and begın to hum along as we all drift up the escalator to freedom.

Damn I'm good...

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Vienna: Part Deux

Heidi meets me at the train station which is awesome of her. Even though I rate myself to successfully navigate (i.e. avoid death) around Vienna after visiting once before its still nice to not have to think about that sort of stuff.

Friday afternoon we see the massive palace which for years was the centre of the Austro-Hungarian empire, photos are taken and monuments are looked at.

We spend the afternoon in the sun along the Donau (Danube river) where Heidi unsuccessfully attempts to kill me by taking me to ISLAND OF DEATH!! Well, in all honesty its not actually called "Island of Death" but I guess I just have a habit of naming things in relation to the happenings of the place rather than actually knowing the real name.

So I ask Heidi where her favourite swimming spot is and she points out this seemingly innocuous island a short wade out in to the river. At this point I'm thinking "oh yeah hanging with the locals and going to the best spots..." Little do I realise that after spending 30 seconds walking (not sitting) on this so called paradise that I am covered in killer ants up to my arm pits. Sure they may not have been actual killer ants but the situation was disconcerting enough for me to dive in to the water hoping that these were just the mild form of killer ants rather than the more deadly killer-swimming ants.

The evening is spent hanging with one of Heidi's mates Fiona. Now for those of you who don't know Fiona which I'm guessing is all of you shes the kind of woman that half the time you think shes high on speed and the other half just wonderfully nutty.

Because of language difficulty I think that we're going to visit some guy called Herman until we turn up at an actual bar called Hermann, oh dear imagine my embarrassment. Its turns out to be a faux beach bar with beach deck chairs by the river-side. The bar is rather busy and leading on from my earlier faux pas I loudly but jokingly ask to speak to Herman, the girls thinks its hilarious but at least we get some service. Once we find a seat its turns out to actually be pretty cool.

The second bar was only notable for two reasons, firstly; the waitress taking a fancy to me because of my New Zealand accent, ooh I'm so exotic, and secondly my realisation that Austrian men have no hips and hence can not dance.

Saturday afternoon Heidi and I take buses and trains to the top of this mountain overlooking Vienna and I get paranoid about snakes as I'm not sure if Heidi is joking about their existance or not. I take one photo, hope it turns out cause it was actually a good view. Later on Heidi models a red bikini... Oh um I mean we went swimming, but I mainly spent my afternoon avoiding death, well more specifically, islands of death

In the evening we decide to go see a film festival movie at Kino Unter Sternen or Cinema under the stars. As I don't speak German and Heidi didn't really read the program we have no idea what the movie is until it starts. As the title rolls on screen my exact words are "oh my god this could not be more hilarious and awesome".

Cracking open the beers I brought with me should this exact scenario ever occur we settle down to watch the classic stoner flick, Dazed and Confused... Now Guy Stapleton I know you're jealous!!

By the time the classic "I get older and they stay the same" line occurs I'm quite plastered so of course the line is shouted out loud. Arty film festival types turn, stare, and laugh... hilarious.

Heidi is fortunately sober so we navigate back to her apartment pretty easily where she proceeds to laugh and beat the crap out of me with a pillow, the kill Ben theme continues.

A lazy Sunday afternoon and Heidi takes me to Prater which is a kinda fun-park-fair-ground kinda place. They have roller coasters, ghost trains, go karts but these petty things are not for us oh no. We're here for a gentlemanly competitive game of mini-golf. The course is not really up to the high standard of the courses back home but we have a competitive game all the same. (Well I take Heidi to school but its really how you play the game right? ;-)

Feeling hungry we hit a restaurant called Running Sushi where the food is on conveyor belts that travel between the tables and you can just pick however much you want of whatever you are game enough to try.

To conclude the evening we watch True Lies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Surprisingly, despite Arnie sprechen de Deutch he does not do his own German voice overs!! This small detail actually makes the movie funny.

Heidi goes back to work and I just hang out relishing the chance to relax and not have to worry about anything. The following evening Heidi has to work again so I hang out with Silvia who is Heidi's older sister. We go to the outdoor swimming pool at the palace where literally mens jaws hit the floors as "ever so modest" Silvia reveals just how good she looks in a bikini. As we tire of the pool our thoughts turn to food so Silvia shows me her favourite Italian restaurant where they actually serve the red wine at room tempeture rather than those crazy eastern europeans who drink it chilled.

Leaving Vienna is hard as my hosts have been so gracious but I must soldier on...

Check out the Vienna photos
here:

Monday, July 10, 2006

Back to Vienna...

Back to Vienna, not sure why I'm going back rather then hitting the beaches in Croatia, but I think it has something to do with a certain Austrian called Heidi. So here I am breaking travel rule number one "Don't change travel plans for a woman". I justify it to myself by saying that "Free accomadation is free accomadation and I'll hit the beaches on the Black sea instead of the Adriatic - or do both!".

Ljubljana, Slovenia. No cars, no bras...

The train in to Ljubljana (loob-lee-ana) takes a rather awesome scenic route that reminds me of road tripping the west coast of the south island back home. Forest everywhere but every now and then you can see the odd patch of cleared land where budding wine makers have their life style blocks.

I check in to this hostel that apparently was once a prison, honestly its a place you have to see to believe, all the rooms are ex-cells redesigned by Slovenian artists and... well... just look at the damn photos.

The evening is spent with a couple of students from ye olde England and we drink in the hostel bar in which weirdly we are the only foreigners. We eventually head out to a bar called Dr Skeleta or something similar, but I affectionately rename it, SKELATOR!!! Its a bar full of skeletons in the roof and walls and floor, to go to the toilet you have to push on the right book in the right book case, otherwise you'll embarrassingly end up in the staff room... like um... this um... dumb tourist from New Zealand did, but I didn't know him.

With the same guys from ye olde England I catch a bus to the lake in an area called Bled. I can honestly say that this place has got quite a lake, not big but beautiful, surrounded by mountains with castles, and with a large church on a small island. In fact one could, and one did say "would you like a touch of island with that church Sir?"

Finding a sweet spot where people are swimming we strip down and jump on in as its 35 degrees and we're wet through with sweat anyway. The lake turns out to be surprisingly warm and women are sunbathing topless. In fact one could, and one did say "Welcome to tit town boys, population somewhere abreast of tit-thousand tit-hundred and titty tit" to laughs aplenty. On closer inspection there were quite a few lookers but they unfortunately weren't the ones getting their gear off... Still the scenery will suffice.

In the evening following the lake I meet two different Englishmen. At first I think that they are gay bikers, however they bring up in conversation that everyone they meet thinks that they are gay bikers and I bullshit them and say " really? nah that didn't occur to me at all". We eat at a Mexican bar and the service is shit so we get a free round on the house.

After some good conversation we head to SKELATOR and the boys are suitably impressed. After a few cocktails each we head back to the hostel bar where we tell jokes and meet some local students. At this point the Englishmen head off to bed because they are English and the English as we know have weak bellys.

I go out to a few bars with some local students. Going out on the town in Ljubljana is hilarious as the locals travel between bars via bicycle. The fact that I don't have a bicycle doesn't seem to matter as I think I stole one from somewhere. We have a bit of trouble getting around as we're all quite wasted but as it turns out six people traversing gutters on mountain bikes while incredibly intoxicated is heaps of fun! I was almost sad that the trip to the bar was so short.

We all have an awesome time and at their request I teach them a Haka which they think is awesome, even the girls want to do it too but unfortunately I don't know any females Hakas...

Check out the photos
here:

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Wien, full of Wieners

Went to Vienna for three days, it rained. Got some washing done. Spent a shit-load of money, didn't really do anything.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Beer cheaper than water?

Warning to Dave Wynne, I think I found your heaven...

So I'm heading back towards Bratislava in Slovakia because of one simple fact, my guide book says that the price of beer is cheaper than water. This I gotta see...

I meet up with some Serbian-Australians called Rebbecca and Miller and a Brazilian called Mariella. We spend the day sweating and wandering the city in 35 degree heat soaking up the sites. Bratislava has an "old town" area much like all the other cities in Eastern Europe, a bunch of extremely modern and random bits of architecture, and a familiar contrasting post-soviet feel. By that I mean they have old castles and churches, large grey Soviet-era apartment blocks and a completely random UFO bridge!

We watch a Soccer game as it seems like the thing to do when the Soccer world cup is on. The pub is just around the corner from the hostel but its not like we can venture very far anyway as there is a rather disconcerting amount of thunder, lightning and rain outside. The beer does is in fact turn out to be ultra cheap, I spend about $6 NZ and I'm done like a doggies dinner.

The following afternoon, as the morning is a write-off, we mission to the castle at Devin which is about 25 minutes from central Bratislava. Its a beautiful place on the Danube and I climb to the top and take some good photos of the view. You can see all the way back to Bratislava and across in to Austria which appears to be covered in massive wind turbines.

The castle up close is rather disappointing as it feels like it was actually rebuilt the year before with a bunch of possibly old stones that may have been used in a castle possibly on that particular site. I'm certainly no castle expert but the light switches in the walls and air conditioning really give it away guys...

Deciding that I need some food, I find myself going out for dinner with Steve, Steve and Rob. They're all Uni students from England here for the cheap beer, i.e. my kinda guys. We find ourselves in the Slovak Pub sweating like bastards, fortunately this place serves up some fantastic cheap food, and by this stage the much needed cold beer, we proceed to eat drink and be merry.

The lower floor of the Slovak Pub is actually located in the old sewers of the city and proves to be the only place we can escape the incessant heat.

We hit a Cuban themed bar called Havana with awesome live music and order a Hemingway special thinking that Hemingway is the mans man of the literary world right? so obviously we're ordering a mans man of a cocktail. What arrives turns out to be a rather girly looking cocktail with little umbrellas. Needless to say the Hemingway special is downed rather quickly... in fact rather too quickly as the alcohol content turns out to be a rather manly portion. This speedy introduction of rocket fuel leads to dancing and a touch of grooving if you will.

Heading to the Danube because if there is one thing I've learned so far in Europe its that: if there is a city on the Danube then there shall also be a bunch of bars floating in the river itself. The theory appears to be correct as we descend below the water-line on a dodgy looking boat in to a pumping bar with poles and pole dancing aplenty - no it was not a strip club Dave, it was just your average Slovakian bar.

Eventually we stagger back to the hostel and start chatting to some Mexicans that switch between Spanish, French and English without warning. I'm rather drunk so I don't really notice but one of the Steves speaks fluent French albeit with a hard Scottish accent, its really quite awesome to listen to to be honest.

Waking sometime around 2pm I decide that I need to see the castle on the hill so I climb to the top of Bratislava castle. I'm glad I did really as the view is rather awesome. From this height you can see all the contrasting architecture and landscape; from the Communist-era apartment blocks, to the weird UFO bridge, to the Austrian wind turbines and finally the Danube snaking away in to the distance.

As the evening rolls around I brace myself for another big one because that's what you do in Bratislava. I met some more English students, Max and Jack. We eat more great cheap food and drink more ultra cheap beer. The night turns in to an absolute write off and my memory is limited to a lithely Scottish girl with a high proportion of "breast on chest".

Not a bad city really...

Photos are
here:

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Hungary for Buda...pest

Arriving in Budapest after a rather pleasant eight hour train journey I look at the weather and my map thinking that its a lovely day so I'll walk the 20 minutes to the hostel. Turns out George W Bush is in town so the Metro is closed anyway, stupid Americans. So about an hour later I'm sweating like a bastard as I buzz the door to what looks like an absolute shit-hole of a building. Nothing happens. I re-buzz. Again nothing happens. Giving up I take off my pack and sit down on the footpath exhausted. I'm thinking, not only have I booked the shittiest hostel in the world but they won't even open the door.

Moments later a woman pokes her head out of the door and says "Hello, come in" to me in English. I'm thinking eh what the hell it looks like a shit-hole but its probably cooler inside than out. After taking the worlds worst elevator one floor as its quite clear that I can hardly walk, I ignore the shittiness of the hallways and suddenly find myself in this beautiful apartment come hostel. Its practically a B&B!

I get offered a customary welcome drink, visions of iced fruit cocktails run through my head until I snap out of it when she, whose name turns out to be Silvia, comes back with a bottle of spirits and a couple of shot glasses. Explaining to me that its customary to have a drink with someone and I'm travelling alone she decides to have a drink with me. The drink itself scorches my already parched throat and my eyes water like a little girl, Silvia assures me that after a lie-down I'll feel great in 5 minutes.

True to her word in five minutes I'm feeling like a million dollars.

The evening is spent with some Americans, Theo and Morgan. We catch some dinner and I try the local goulash and fresh water trout, a local delicacy I'm assured. As I begin to eat I begin to realise that every city in Eastern Europe along the Danube claims that the goulash and fresh water trout is their own. Still, I'm not complaining as the meal is nice.

Wanting a taste of the Budapest night life we find a couple of young Scottish gals who are up for a good time. We hit the "beach party" clubs along the Danube where we all partake in dancing, drinking, sitting in huts, and general good times.

The morning is spent nursing a hangover, so with the women of Scotland in tow I check out the famous Hungarian Turkish style baths. Warning to all: In Europe fat ugly people exist too, and insist on exposing all that is fat and ugly about themselves, shudders and general feelings of fear will follow.
I have a night out with Bianca the Aussie and we eat at a fancy restaurant. Fancy because it just turned out that the only one we could find that served a main lacking meat was rather fancy, those vegetarians, tut tut tut. Still after downing the odd bottle or two of fine Hungarian red I wasn't complaining. A very civilised evening if I do say so myself, which of course I do.

As I am experiencing the phenomenon known as "travellers feet", whereby after a month or two of travelling your feet cease to function as normal due to the inordinate amount of blisters and general "walking my ass off every day", I decide to partake in a city bike tour.

The tour takes in all the major historical monuments and our friendly tour guide, in between dinging his bike bell at all the attractive women, explains the sobering fact that in Hungary's entire history it has never been on the winning side of a war.

Not really believing that our guide is telling the truth concerning the Hungarian custom of dinging ones bell at attractive women I can't argue with the fact that my dings are eliciting waves and smiles from women too. At this point another sobering thought wanders through my head, perhaps they are not waving at me but at my exorbitant amounts of foreign currency?

Back at the hostel I'm drinking with Bianca and Nick the Brit. Nick has an awesome public school boy accent and apparently speaks fluent Portuguese. Our friendly host Silvia directs us to the clubs worth visiting on a week night and I again find myself out with some Scottish birds, although different than the previous ones. We find a cool bar with table football and many awesome games are played. Hilariously because of the Hungarian currency being generally great the table football games cost approximately 4 cents NZ and beers about $1.50, oh and the girls got balloons too.

What a great city...

Check out the photos
here:

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Prague: City of Sexy Danger...

Like lonely planet says the night trains to Prague are for hardened travellers only. I catch the train with Scott the Aussie and we are with two Irish rugby players that are absolutely slaughtered and not finished drinking yet. One of them begins to freak out so badly that he hurls his clothes from the window of the moving train and decides that he wants to fight someone.

Cue Czech border guards who inform the Irish that there is no drinking on this train to which they reply, but we're Irish as if the Czech can understand. At this point 'naked Irish freaking out guy' gets the fight he wanted and the Czech border guards in their best broken English subdue him... oh and the gun pointing and punch in the face help too.

At this point using a Czech phrase I prepared earlier for such an occurrence I inform the Czech boarder guards that I'm not with them and flash that beautiful beautiful thing that is the New Zealand passport. This gets me and the Aussie out of the room and in to the next cabin where upon we spend the next two hours listening to the Irish get their bags and by the sounds of it, cavities searched.

After a eleven hour train journey that would've only taken nine hours I arrive in Prague exhausted with no accommodation at the busiest time of the year. Fortunately it only takes one hour to find a place. Note to all, never stay at a place called Golden Sickle or Golden Shit-hole as it shall now be known.

Prague itself is beautiful, the history and architecture blows me away. Just walking through the cobbled streets is pleasure and the famous Charles bridge lives up to expectation. Its a shame I ran out of batteries or I would've taken more pictures really.

I get some top shelf Czech vodka for about $12 NZD and polish it off with two American women from New Jersey. We get hammered and hit a massive club with 6 floors of all different kinds of music, The girls (Nicole and Anthea) proceed to pole dance often with me as the pole. Nicole decides that it is her duty to show me exactly what American, specifically "Jersey girls" can do and dirty dirty dancing ensues. Tourists and locals aghast but I'm hammered so I don't give a shit.

Loud porn star style sex follows where moves such as the reverse-cow-girl are flawlessly enacted while in an eight bedded dorm but everyone else was Canadian and therefore ever so polite.

We wander the city and catch some paddle boats on the river for an hour.

To apologise to the Canadians I get some more top shelf vodka and Scott the Aussie and I introduce them to Circle of Death. Three games later everyone is pretty hammered.
The Canadian boys head for the clubs but I'm in the mood to just chill so I go for a wander. On my return Anthea has injured herself while drunk believing that she was on the bottom bunk when in fact she was on the top. There is blood everywhere. I take a look and its just a flesh wound on her toe. Simpson's style calls of "I'll get the Iodine" occur, man I crack myself up. I clean and bandage her up and she promptly falls asleep.

Nicole is keen for more porn star style sex but I'm a bit tired and drunk but I think to myself "That's no excuse" and there is no stopping her anyway. Checking my watch 35 minutes later as I blow my load balls deep in her throat I'm thinking that Prague is awesome and I could really go a kebab right now.

Prauge photos
here:

Monday, June 19, 2006

Krakow... Beautiful...

After getting on the wrong train, i.e. first class instead of second and express train instead of slow train there is casual gun pointing and fines to pay, the fine is 10PLN and I ask if they have change for a hundred. I continue my journey to Krakow in style.

Ahhh Krakow... Beautiful, I'd fully recommend it to anyone, great night life, beautiful sites, castles and of course Auschwitz is an hour and a half away.

The hostel has a BBQ every night so despite already having enough Polish sausages to possible overdose I decide to go along, plus they have a pub quiz following.

I drink with some Canadian chicks and we get slaughtered on the hostel bar's 10 shots of polish vodka for 30PLN ($12NZD).

The following day I meet up with some Scots and an American and we go to a lake which used to be a quarry. The women are unbelievable and insane cliff diving ensues. Pity I didn't take the camera that day.

In the evening we all have a few beers and play pool at the hostel, surprisingly I take everyone to school. A relatively quiet night because the next day we're going to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz is... well its un-be-fucken-leavable, you can literally feel the personal hell of the people that died there. Everything is presented so matter of fact, from the bullet holes of the firing squad to the scratching of the names on the wall.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau is completely different, the scale is much bigger the numbers are much bigger, its more of a production line of death and appears to be less personal. As far as the eye can see there are the chimneys of the huts that housed people while they waited to die. There are two separate ash piles with small signs. Its quite hard to comprehend "Here lie the ashes of approximately Six hundred thousand people".

Back at the hostel the next day I wandered in to a massive Catholic procession. It turns out that it is a national holiday today and I run in to some school kids that I met in Warsaw who are on a class trip, they are keen to chat and tell me whats going on.

I go to a resturant and have a big night out on the town with some Danes and Swedes. I have a paticulary "good time" with a curly haired Swedish blond called Elana. I take her to the lake the next day and we get caught in the rain on the way back.
Scott Anne Elana and unpronouncable name girl
Check out all the photos here:

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Warsaw Poland: What the hell…

Arriving in Poland via air I get a very reasonably priced taxi to the hostel. I have a random night out with some Irish guys. We go to a club that is full to the brim of beautiful women, at this point I realise that Poland has no men, apparently according to the Irish all the men are in Ireland working.

I meet a hot hot hot local girl called Nap or Lap or some other single syllable name and take her for coffee, dinner and dancing, she is obvisouly blown away by my cosmopolitian ways and likes me for some strange reason, hey I'm not complaining. The next morning she says she wants to meet up later on so we can spend another day together. I wander through the hostel gates and there she is in all her hotness with... her mother. Mother and daughter smile at me and Mother says "You marriage". At this point I start freaking and politlely decline. Damn woman, I'm not ready for that kinda commitment!

The next day is spent wandering the city and then come dinner time I met an Aussie and a Canadian travelling together who are keen to go get a bite to eat. We go to a restaurant called Sphinx and eat heaps of fancy food and drink heaps of Polish beer and vodka. I’m dreading the bill but it turns out that everything is amazingly cheap here. Quite simply, we have a fantastic night out.

Belinda Courtney and I wander the town coming across an awesome park full of naked Greek statues, do I hear a photo-op? We see Poland's tomb of the unknown soldier and its at this point I realise that since 900AD Poland has pretty much been at war every 50 years or so.
The old town square is beautiful, after world war two it was utterly destroyed but they rebuilt it lovingly brick by brick. The weather gods are far too kind cause I’m sweating like a bastard and surrounded by oceans of beautiful women. The evening is spent drinking in the hostel with Belinda, Courtney and Rob the English guy.

The next day I check out the parks and museums and monuments. Suddenly I realise that there is a huge amount of cops with full on riot shield gear. I’m getting a little worried as I have no idea what is going on so I decide to head for the safety of the hostel. The problem is the more I walk the bigger the police presence. Once fear has reached all time highs I walk around a corner to the tune of Like a Virgin by Madonna which is blasting from somewhere. I’m so confused and I’m thinking that this is the biggest practical joke ever when I stumble upon what appears to be Poland's first Gay-pride peace march… Thanking the lord follows as I can be pretty sure that these guys aren’t going to cause trouble and the police are only there because Poland is a hard-core catholic state that is paranoid about such things. A few trannies on the back of a truck pass by rather harmlessly and all is well in the world again.

I see an Arthur Miller play in Polish for cheap. The unfortunate thing is that I speak three words of Polish and I can’t even guess which play it is so I pretty much have to guess at the story. Glad I went though.

Belinda and I go for a drink and play some pool, we get some even cheaper beers from the Supermarket and drink in the park on a grassy mound. We hit a jazz bar and drink and dance the night away. I experience the local vodka which is drunk with apple juice, I decide that I like it very much.

I check out the Jewish cemetery and its very airy. Some of the graves that pre-date World War have obvious bullet holes.

All the photos are here:

And that's Warsaw, hope your’re happy I’ve updated now mum ;-)

Monday, June 05, 2006

Gettin bark ta beer-sics…

Had a few beers in Maida Vale with Mike, Sylvie, Sion and Jane, Sion as it turned out had a few too many, it seems Jane will never live it down.. Poor Sion, all he needs is a good cuddle.

So after a semi-big night out I set off quite hung over towards London Euston station to catch a train to Birmingham. The train is one of those fancy new fangled devices that leans in to the corners, and as a bonus I eventually saw some actual grass, it was green too.

For those that don’t know, Birmingham is the ugliest city in the world, it’s so backward the only colour that has reached this so-called modern world is brown, though to their credit it’s obvious that they have splashed out on the odd different hue of brown. Fortunately as it turns out Andy lives about an hour away from it in Lichfield which turns out to be a nicer area and the houses aren’t all joined together which is a nice change from the rest of England.

So the guys sit down to watch some football or soccer, I take my leave and have a snooze, football as it turns out IS good for something. We start BBQing and drinking the second shittiest beer after Lion Red in the world, yes that’s right Fosters.

Games of football and touch rugby follow, playing rugby and passing backwards turns out to be too much of a mind job for Harv who insists on running over the touch line and expecting people to pass him the ball.

A guy turns up dressed as a punk rocker and I think ‘eh what the hell, this is England after all’ until he says “how come no one else dressed up too?” Turns out that the English have practical jokes too.

Oh yeah there was an Irish guy too.

I was beginning to wonder if Andy had any female friends at all when some eventually turn up though clearly not enough to go around, jokes about going to France to see the Eiffel tower ensue.

We toast marshmallows on the BBQ and rip in to the spirits eventually settling down to bed Andy’s sister, I mean settling down in Andy’s sisters bed – ahh semantics - for a well earned sleep about 3am.

The journey back to London is rather uneventful though it is notable for a win to Sion over Jane at chess. Gratuitous fist pumping resulted.

Well I’m off to Poland tonight and I’m frantically trying to simultaneously learn Polish and read everything there is to know about Poland as I currently know nothing except what there is to know concerning WW2. At this stage pretty sure that mentioning the war or fraternising with Germans and Russians is not a good thing… will keep you updated.

Over and out…

Check out all the photos
here:

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

In and out of the English gloom.

Its time I gave people a proper run down of the London experience from
the beginning so here it is.

After a long flight I get in about 7.30pm GMT. Seeing Sion and his
newly shaven (balding) head is a sight for sore eyes, he's come to
pick me up, what a dude! Jane, Andy, Sion and I proceed to Waterloo –
yes THAT Waterloo - station for a few alcoholic beverages and a catch
up, I tell all about Singapore and the others tell me all about what
they've been up to in the year since I saw them all back in good 'ole
NZ.

At this point I've been awake for about 23 hours with four beers in me
I'm feeling a little tired, i.e. having trouble functioning. Waterloo,
Waterloo couldn't walk if I wanted to… We stumble home to Sion's at
about 1am.

As I wake the next morning I find myself in a room with a Corr's CD in
it, Sion man, we have to talk. The weather is typically English, i.e.
gloomy. Sion shows me around nearby Wimbledon but there's nothing much
to see.

The next day I'm a little less jetlagged so Sion plays tour guide and
we go to the Science museum, which is awesome! Sion and I spend hours
and hours in there doing puzzles and picking locks and learning stuff.
Learning turns out to be kinda hard work and it tends to make one
hungry, cue Sion – "I've heard about this famous Pie and mash shop in
Greenwich".

The pie turns out to be… well… lets just say that the English were
never known for their cuisine.

The pie has proven good for one thing however, it has brought us to
Greenwich and Greenwich is home to the Maritime museum and GMT date
line. Highlights include a Harrier jump jet and Sion full of pride
says "Some insignificant countries don't have such modern technology…"
my reply is "Where's the empire Sion, where's the empire? I guess not
even a jet that can take off vertically allowed the English to retain
their precious empire."

The actual date line - yes there is a line on the ground - is pretty
cool, jumping left and right while chanting "I'm on the east side, I'm
on the west side" confuses the Japanese tourists but makes me feel
like I'm doing something significant. The observatory and
time/watch/clock exhibits are pretty cool too.

The next morning Sion ad I embark on another big day. First stop
Leicester Square where I snap a pic of Charlie Chapman, the statue.

Piccadilly Circus… what a shitty circus.

Trafalgar Square where Lord Nelson is currently under refurbishment
and the mermaids are interestingly nip-less. Must write to the queen
about that one. Wait a minute there she is! We see her majesty drive
past looking lovely in yellow if you care about that sort of thing. I
play it cool thinking that its quite common to see the queen until
Sion admits that "Today Ben, we're on a par, its my first time too".

This inspires us to go and see if the old bird is up for tea and
biscuits with a couple of hansom young men like ourselves. However
security with automatic weapons and bushy hats say "NO" without us
even asking.

Sion went back to Guildford for a day or two so it was time to wrestle
all by my lonesome with the very arteries of London itself, i.e. The
London Underground, or more simply the Tube.

I saw London Bridge, which didn't fall down, and the Tower Bridge,
which was indeed towering. The Tower of London was less so, but
interestingly there is a legend that if the Crows leave the Tower then
London will fall, this is taken so seriously that all the poor birds
wings are actually clipped… Meaning that to take London all I needed
was a BB gun.

The Tate Modern museum was very enjoyable, I enjoyed the Lichenstein
cartoons and the 'Constructing USSR' exhibits, I could've spent days
in there.

St Paul's cathedral was big, beautiful but catholic. I tried to drum
up support for a 'Catholicism Wow' campaign that had more appeal to
the masses ya know… But everyone there was French and refused to
understand my concept of a 'Buddy Jesus'.

The National Gallery was the highlight of the day; I spent hours there
and got kicked out at closing. But not before seeing Scarlet Johansen.

The next evening I met up with Stu at a town hilariously named
Shepherds Bush. We had a few drinks at the local Aussie/Kiwi bar
called 'Walkabout' we met up with some friendly and un-annoying
Aussies. We got pissed and went to a bar called Puzzle where we
proceeded to play a game of giant Jenga… it was awesome, there was
people snorting cocaine in the toilets too… which was… hardcore.

Speaking of cocaine I met up with Katy from school the next evening,
welcome to the London drug culture, thanks for the warning.

Needing a scare on a gloomy bank holiday Jane, Sion and I visited the
London Dungeons. I thought it was kinda lame and not worth the money
or the queue but Jane screamed like a little girl, which was
entertaining.

My last night at Sion's so I cooked dinner and got a bottle of wine to
say thanks for putting me up on the cheap. Tonight I'm sleeping at
Mike and Silvies place until I get to Birmingham to see off Andy then
Warsaw Poland on the 6th of June.

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