Mike Crowl's Travel Diary

Final post from USA trip

2012-01-13T20:25:00.000+13:00

Notes from 12/1/12

Arrived homeexhausted yesterday, after spending the day in Auckland with one of my daughters and her family. (Not exhausted because of the daughter but because of the lengthy flight from San Francisco.)

One of Liz's friends, Keri (she'd come to NZ in October last year with Liz) took Jon Beck and usto a place called Barbacoa. It’s a bit of an Arabian nights approach in décor, with chunks of art on the walls and strange seating arrangements, and dimlylit. The food wassuperb, made even more enjoyable by the fact that Keri wanted to pay for the meal. I had an Idaho trout (a halftrout, I think, in fact) cooked on cedar wood – there were no bones (asspecified in the menu) and the flesh just fell away and was wonderfullysweet. It was served on a some kind ofrice which the menu online doesn't identify: this had a bitter tang to it, andwas a bit overpowering for the fish, we felt (Celia had a bite or two, ofcourse). Keri then took us on a bit of a tour aroundthe North End of the city (Boise, in this case, which, by the way is from theFrench word for trees; hence the city’s name: City of Trees). She showed us the student campus and theolder houses that were being done up and the grass hillon which the house of a wealthy industrialist stands – supposedly the grass onthis hill is mown once a week. Crikey!

Afterwards Celia and I sorted out our bagsand got ready for our departure the next morning. Cindy dropped us off at theairport where we had to repack our suitcases when we went to book in. Even though the combined total was under theproper weight, one was over and one was under. In Dunedin they hadn’t worried about this; just put them through. But the woman in Boise was insistent that ithad to be done properly, so we fiddled around with the cases until it was. These sorts of things really get me frazzled,as do the security places in the US airports where you have to take off shoesand belts and hold your handkerchieves above your head (as happened in LA) andgenerally make yourself look a prat. Thecustoms people in LA were very pleasant – indeed they have a charter on theirbooths telling us they will be pleasant – but the security people take their powerrather too seriously I think. The wholesecurity thing is a farce anyway; it smacks of paranoia, and of course now thatit’s in place can’t be got rid of without thousands of people losing theirjobs. In NZ, the security people aremuch more friendly – at Auckland last night we’d bought a milkshake and a longroll when we realised we probably needed to be on the other side of security. We stuffed the rolls in one of our bags and Isaid to the woman, can we take these drinks through? Yup, no problem. They were the same at the customs side inAuckland – in LA they’d fussed about a couple of packets of seeds that theydidn’t want us to take in; in Auckland we told them we had some lollies for thekids and such and they just put us through without worry.

San Francisco is a differentairport altogether to LAX – as we’d been told it would be. It has life and warmth and visual interest,and is generally much more friendly. Youhave to wonder why LAX is so different.

We got onto the plane forAuckland on time at 7 pm, but then sat for an hour while they dealt with someone who’dbecome sick and had to be taken off again – and until they found that person’sluggage amongst the hundreds of items. In spite of that we got to NZ at the time we should have: 5 am. We were booked in a three-seater; we’d askedif we could change to a two-seater but the women on the counter taking all theboarding passes from people who’d booked through a different airline (they werechanging them to AirNZ boarding passes, which seemed like doubling handling) said the plane was full and they couldn’t do anything. The plane wasn’tfull, by any means, and there were spare seats scattered around – includingbeside us! So we had three seats betweenthe two of us, which was good.

The trip from SF was very long. It’s only an hour longer than the reverse version,but seemed interminable. I read a lotmore – even in the wee hours of the morning – but thatdidn’t help much. I couldn’t getcomfortable for long, whichever way I sat, so sleep was very intermittant. I’d picked up a book from a shop in theairport – Nicholson Baker’s TheAnthologist – which had been on sale for under $5US. It turned out to be a treat – a novel inwhich the narrator, a poet, discusses the need for rhyme, and a host of otherthings. I’d never heard of the author,and might see what else he’s written. This is his tenth novel, I think. It may be that it suited my taste because of its subject matter, morethan anything, but the writing is a delight, full of wonderful phrases, andlots of self-deprecating humour. It wasas well I had this book, as the Michael Connelly thrillers we’d bought forKindle were all short stories, and Nathan Berma’s Bringing Heaven down to Earth proved to be rather thin. I got through some of it, but wasn’tinspired. I’d finished Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age ofDistraction a day or so before we left.

Anyway, finally into Auckland at5 am, and after Customs and Security yet again we got out into the main areaand disposed of our bags into AirNZ’s care once again. Libby turned up around six, with Israel, andwe headed out to her place. Zonked. It was great to besomewhere where you could put your head down if you felt like it, and I did fora while. We spent the day out, going bytrain to Newmarket (which was as far as it was going while they did somerepairs) getting the bus into Britomart, and then the ferry across toDevonport. All for free on our Gold Cards. The day was beautiful, and wepaddled in the water. It started to rainon the way back but not enough to bother anyone, and then got very muggy oncethey rain stopped. It was a bit of arelief to get to the airport! And homemy daughter Abby picked us up, with her son, Tom ...and with our dog, Marley, who was over the moon at seeingCelia again. He sat on her lap the wholeway, though he did manage to give me a couple of minutes attention at one point.....

Day after the wedding

2012-01-13T20:09:00.000+13:00

Notes from the 8th Jan - day after the wedding.

Well, the wedding is over and done, and we’reall walking around like zombies. Wewent into the church at ten (I’d thought that was when the wedding wasstarting and wondered why everyone was being so casual about the time) and hung around for an hour until the actual service at eleven. This meant we greeted people as they came in. The girls were running around in the background - they getdressed and doodied up at the church, here. Sarah was visible occasionally, but not Liz, who managed to stay out ofsight. Cathy had made some wonderful 'buttonholes' (I'm not sure what the American word is) for everyone in the bridal party. These were made out of various bird feathers, including pheasants feathers, and were held together at the bottom so that they formed a kind of miniature spray. They looked great.

We got the latest update of theorder of things from the pastor, Harold, a lovely man keen to make sureeveryone was at ease (I think he found Dom’s shenanaghins at the rehearsal abit surprising), but Liz had already re-ordered things by that stage by email,and so we finally went with her version! Harold had thought there wasn’t anofficial run of things and had made one up in case. Ben and Dan, as well as being part of the bridal party, worked as ushers. This meant that Ben took Celia down the aisle with me following;a little odd, but what the heck. Sarahcame in by herself, as she was the only bridesmaid - although Daniel was alsoon Liz’s side up on the altar steps - he spent most of the service with his capon (except when they were praying) and much of it checking out thecongregation.

The service went well - a fairly pregnant ladyplayed the piano for the songs (we didn’t stand, which would have made themeasier to sing) and I read Psalm 103 from the NASB. Had quite a numberof people afterwards asking if I was a Pastor/Preacher because I read it so well! (I said, nope, just an actor, which bemusedthem a bit.) Anyway I was glad itwent over well - I was the only non-wedding party person to do anything.

Both Dom and Lizchoked up at points in the vows section - and then Dom didn’t realise, afterhe’d put the ring on Liz's finger that he was supposed to say an I will at that point(I will accept this woman, or something) so that caused a bit of a laugh allround.

After the service the two families and Dom and Lizstood in a line and greeted everyone as they went out. It took at least an hour, and we wereall exhausted by the end. Each personwanted to say something, or felt they should, and then we talked and so it wenton. The grandparents were included in this line, as well as Chris' step-mother, who retired early on. It was exhausting keeping up with it.

Home for a snooze or a rest and trying toremember what else was needing to be taken to the reception. Seems we've spent the last couple of daystransporting things hither and yon. Thereception was a bit different to a New Zealand one: for starters all the guests were already therewhen we arrived and the food ladies were well organised. And people weren't dressed up, as they had been for the wedding. Only those 'officially' involved (including the parents) were still in their wedding finery.

There were supposed to be 200 guests, butthere were probably more like150, perhaps less…which meant we had a bit of a crisis whenwe cleared up later on: there was heaps of food left over. We managed to give away some of the excessfood and took the rest home where no doubt it'll get used up fairly quickly.

Sarah made a speech about Liz, and that wasfun, and Jon made one about Dom and explained ‘wench emancipation day’ - atCelia’s behest. I wasn’t sure whether Iwas supposed to speak, although Dom had asked me too - there wasn’t a master ofceremonies as such - but they called me up and I delivered my somewhat preparedspeech; 'somewhat' in the sense that I’d made notes and went a bit beyondthem. I wanted to pray for them too, soI’d written the short prayer out, but got very choked up in the middle of it,as I had briefly while reading Psalm 103. And again all sorts of people congratulated me on the speech - it’s theAmerican way, I think: they’re very encouraging.

There was a bit of uncertainty about whether wewere supposed to clean up before we left, but people were starting to leave by 7.30- 8.00 anyway, so we got on with it. Chris said he’d never had to clean up after a wedding and I said, justmake a start and people will help, and they did. The chairs and tables were put away in notime, but the food sorting out took longer. The volunteer ladies had cleaned up the kitchen well, and it was mostly amatter of figuring out how to sort the food. We had enough hands on deck to do all the work. In spite of exhaustion Cathy and her family came backto the house and stayed till some early morning hour; Christin and Rick, whowere supposed to be leaving about 5.30 am the next day were apparently up till 2 or more; Celia stayedup till 1 am, playing games with the others, and another group were drinking and talking out in the workshop.

So my baby is married; seems ridiculous, butthere it is.

Friday: the day before the wedding

2012-01-13T19:45:00.002+13:00

Some notes from the 6th Jan.

Another thing that's popular here in Idaho is homeschooling. Liz and her siblings were homeschooled, and Cathy is still doing it with two of her boys. We met another woman at the wedding reception who homeschools all five of her children.

Nampa - and Boise to an extent - are places where you need a car. I don't know how you'd do shopping in Nampa without one. I discovered later that there's an older part of town (near the reception hall, as it happens) that's more built-up, and where the shops are close to each other like Dunedin. And Boise has a similar older area. But in general everything is well spaced-out.

Last minute things are being done all over the place - small things and big. Chris is making a 'prop' to take photographs against (I thought it was for the couple, but it was actually for anyone who wanted). It's a board with a couple of large rectangles cut out for people to stand behind, and a bunch of sepia photos in frames scattered around the rectangles. It got a lot of use at the wedding reception. We had been planning to go to the reception hall this afternoon to get things ready for the wedding tomorrow, but there was a funeral arranged at the last minute and the hall was being used. Curiously, the wedding rehearsal was to have been today (Friday) originally; it had to be shifted to the Thursday because of another funeral!

Anyway, after a sandwich-type tea, put together byMargaret, a friend of Patty, (they're both friends of Cindy’s from way back, we went off to the reception hallfor the big sort-out. We were there forthree hours almost, and got huge amounts ready for tomorrow, though there arestill some decorating things to do - but they’ll be done by some others. There were quite a lot of people - maybetwenty - so the work got well done. Lizwasn’t there (she had gone to stay the night down the road with Sarah at afriend’s house) and neither was Dom, who hopefully got some rest before his big day.

The two sisters, Christin and Cathy got togrips with the thing, along with Cindy and Celia, and labelled stuff andorganised and made it clear for the volunteer ladies coming in the next day as to whatneeded to be done. Note all these names starting with C - there are more in Cindy's family. And Chris and Carol (brother and sister) also start with C. Thankfully, the children's names break the mould!

More from the 5th

2012-01-13T12:25:00.000+13:00

More notes from the 5th Jan.

Another sister has arrivedwith her family - Cathy and Dave, and their three boys. This family is staying in a nearby motel (although nearby in Nampa terms can be several miles.)

We’resupposed to be having a Thanksgiving Dinner (somewhat out of season) andthere’ll be a host of people here, though the turkey was taking its time to cook through. The best man has arrived with two of his brothers and the girlfriend of one of those brothers. They've been in Houston, Texas for a family reunion, and have made this part of the USA stay. Liz's brother and sister are here, and her grandparents. There seems to be people everywhere.

Most of the men had gone shooting this afternoon, including those who've never touched a gun in their lives. The ones who do know what they're doing gave the others careful instructions, and they were only shooting at targets anyway. The only accident of any sort was when the gun the best man was holding recoiled onto his face and nearly gave him a black eye to sport at the wedding. You can see this on You Tube, believe it or not: the video has the title, The Moneyshot.

Meanwhile, Celia and I were taken into Boise by Sarah to pick upChris’s sister, Carol, and she came with us while we went around the Capitol (see photo) and some of the streets nearby. (There was even the leftovers of an Occupy movement tent site in the park nearby - and squirrels frolicking.) This was the first time we'd done any touring around, and it was nice to see a different side of the area: more built-up and not nearly so spread out.

We met a woman from Glasgow inthe Basque museum shop; she’s married to a bloke from Idaho who cameover to Glasgow to ask her father for his daughter’s hand (!)

Carol is from California(Newport Beach) and has a nice wit. We were talking about Dom being a toy-boy atone point, because he’s six months younger than Liz (whose birthday is the dayafter the wedding!) and someone else said it was more the other way around. I can’t remember what word they used, but Isuggested cougar. Carol said she’d toldsomeone who said she was a cougar she was more like a sabre-tooth tiger.

Shopping and rehearsal

2012-01-13T12:10:00.000+13:00

Notes from the 5th Jan.

In the morning, we got onto dealing with thepotatoes and coleslaw, and while we were doing that Christin and Rickarrived. They're staying in a caravan parked outside the garage. Christin is Cindy’s youngersister (one of several) and they’d driven from California, taking some fourteenhours with a bit of a sleep at some point. They’re a great pair: she’s lively and funny and full of beans. Rick seems laconic at first, but likeall the others he’s full of stories and humour, though he takes more time aboutthe telling. Christinchipped in and helped with the coleslaw sorting-out the moment shearrived.

In the afternoon we went to the shops again andthe three blokes (Ben, Rick and I ) initially went into Wal-Mart with thewomen, but later on went for a drive around Nampa by ourselves. It just seems to go on and on, and it wouldbe pretty much impossible without a car. There don’t seem to be any buses either, so I don’t know how peoplewithout cars get on. We had kind ofgone out to see what the place had in the way of ‘tourist’ attractions, but allthere seems to be - and no doubt we’re wrong - is retail and more retail andbigger retail.

Anyway, home for dinner. Meals here lean towards Mexican-style food, with chilli beans and tacos and ground beef (something like the equivalent of mince) and things like Bell peppers (our capsicums) and Jalapeños (pronounced halapeños). This last item is another pepper, but dangerously hot if you happen to get the right one in the batch. I refrained.

Everyone was up fairly sharply to get to the rehearsal at nine this morning. It’s the first time the household has reallybeen up early since we’ve been here. Chris normallygets up at 5.30 am and goes to work early and gets home early after a ten hourday. So he's finding these late starts a bit disorientating, I think.

We're expecting upwards of 200 guests to the reception. Hopefully there'll be enough food (us Crowls always like to have more than enough, just in case - it's one of our traits.)

I slept very badly last night - took ages toget to sleep, and then woke early. Notenough exercise and too much strolling round shops - getting ‘shopping legs’ as Cindy called them in the process. Chris reckoned it’s a world wide phenomenon:women enjoying shopping; men not. (I think more that we tend to go into a shop to get something, not just browse. Although that does happen: in my case in a bookshop, in the case of other men in shops like Cabela's.)

Chris is a brilliant hobby furniture-maker, (hisjob is carpentry) but he also does a lot of other bloke things like diving and fishing and so on. Anyway, he dives in the local river everyyear and collects all the stuff that people lose in the river, or throw awayfor some reason. He’s got a collectionof sunglasses, and has picked up all sorts of other things, includinglaptops! Last night Ben fitted twomemory cards that had gone into the river into the two laptops we’ve gothere. Both Dom and mine were strugglingwith memory (and ours with having far too much loading at start-up) After a bit of jiggling, both of themworked, so both the computers are running a good deal better.

We went to the wedding rehearsal this morning: for me it was a bit chaotic with the young people clowning around. The minister was very pleasant - a littlefellow called Harold (I think) - and very patient. Perhaps he’s used to young people these daysbeing so all-over-the-place at the rehearsal. Liz’s grandparents were there (Cindy’s father and his second wife). It's their second marriage in each case, and they met at the Sacramento Opera where both of them sang in the chorus. So we had something in common.

I’m supposed to be reading a Psalm at the wedding service. I hadn’t heard about it tillthis morning, and so checked up on the Psalm that I was supposed to read - Psalm 45 - and found that while it had some connections with the wedding ceremony, it also talked about the groom shooting his enemies with arrows. Decided there might be a better Psalm to try and eventually we went for Psalm 130, a psalm I know well and enjoy reading.

I thought I might have to play the piano at the service too, because the church organist wasn't available. However, a friend is happy to do it, and so that relieves me of that duty.

Third day in Nampa

2012-01-13T11:50:00.000+13:00

Notes written on 3.1.12

Funny day today - woke about 8 and thingsdidn’t get going much before 10.30. Bythat time most of the others had gone for a run/walk, and then when Liz gotback she realised they had to go to see the Pastor about a kind of pre-marriagetalk. So she and Dom rushed off together inthe hired car. Chris at some point wentoff to see his physio - he fell off a ladder a while ago and hurt his shoulder -and Celia, Ben, Cindy and I headed into Nampa to go to the thrift stores (op shops in NZ).

I'm a bit confused as towhere we’ve been today, as it’s been a ‘shopping’ day to a certain extent: wewent to Cashco at some point, and that must have been in Nampa because Dan wasthere working (he's the fiancée's younger brother). It’s massive, and ofcourse, it sells stuff in bulk, so everything seems bigger and bigger. Then we had lunch, and I’m not sure now ifthat was in Nampa or Boise - think the latter. This was at a place rather like Great Taste in Dunedin, but with a muchwider range of Chinese food, and little or no European food. It was buffet, with an eat as much as youwant approach. The food was good, butof course with those sorts of places you need to watch that you don’t eachas much as you want, or you make yourself sick. Anyway, afterwards we went over to the bank across the park to try and get some cash out. I’d tried to use my HSBC debit card in Cashcobut it wouldn’t go. The bank was veryfriendly, but couldn’t take the driver’s license as identification because itdoesn’t fit into their system, and they weren’t sure where else we could try -though the manager did offer a couple of other suggestions. I was concerned that maybe my pin numberwasn’t the usual one. Anyway, we couldhave gone to another bank tomorrow with our passports, as the bank manager suggested, but instead we decided to trythe ATM in the same bank…and both of us got money out on our credit cardswithout problem. Ridiculous: machines trust us more than people.

After the bank episode, Chris and Cindy both managed to lock themselvesout of the car - Chris then tried the old clothes hanger thru the window thing,and that wasn’t working and then this burly young family came along and saidhe’d 'done this hundreds of times,' (which could have been ominous!) and after trying the clothes hanger withoutsuccess and then something else and then something else he finally managed to getthe car open. Great rejoicing. Dom and Liz, meanwhile, had been runningaround getting the marriage licence, something that had required them to go backand forward and hither and yon.

Anyway, while the women went to some shop forsomething to do with the wedding, the men went into Barnes and Noble. This was an experience in the sense that itshows that books are definitely not on their way out yet. Huge, of course,like everything else (including the two thrift shops), and packed withinteresting stuff….none of which I bought. Finally after we’d gone into some other time-wasting shop for noparticular reason, the blokes escaped to Cabela's, a real man’s shopwith guns and fishing equipment and real fish in an aquarium (trout andcatfish) and stuffed animals in a big scenic thing in the middle of the shopand hunting gear and clothes and shoes and everything else. This was more interesting certainly than theprevious place, but I was getting bushed, and finally, after the women arrivedI went and sat in one of the cars and nodded off. Celia went back in the shop and said laterit would have been her choice for a place to really look around in.

Lastly, Ben drove Cindy, Celia and me home inthe hired car. He was okay, except he found thefact that the stop signs weren’t highlighted on the road itself with markings rather disconcerting,and at one point he nearly went sailing through one, with all three ofus shouting Stop!! It's nervewracking driving on the right because your brain insists the traffic is coming towards you on the same side of the road, and when you turn at an intersection you seem to be heading towards the wrong side of things. The stop signs are everywhere - they're aren't any Give Way signs (although there's the occasional 'Yield') and there's this funny rule about turning right when you're on the extreme right of two or three lanes even though the lights are red and the right turn arrow is also red!

2nd day in Boise

2012-01-13T11:30:00.000+13:00

Notes written on the 2nd Jan relating to that day.

I didn’t wake till 9.am Boise time, which was great, because it meant I actually slept very well in spite of the changes of time. The house didn’t rouse up much until later, in fact, but my older son, Ben (who'd arrived the day before) and Celia and I spent our first ten minutes trying to figure out how to get the water to come out of the shower instead of the bath in the bathroom nearest to our bedroom. Our hostess, Cindy, arrived and saved the day: there’s a little round disk that needs to be pushed up - that’s all it is; very simple.

After breakfast - or maybe even before it (with all the guests mealtimes were a bit erratic around here) Chris (my future daughter-in-law's dad) showed Celia and me his workshop. Massive. Not only the main workshop but a toilet room, an office, a paint shop, and a cupboard in which there are two big pipes for sucking the dust and chips out of the main workshop. Everything is neat and there are places for everything: he’s in the middle of doing a walnut entertainment cabinet for someone, and has done a host of other similar projects over the years. He has stacks of spare wood and machines and tools - you name it. The ’tour’ took nearly an hour by the time Celia has asked about this and that. And he was pleased to tell her. They enjoy talking, these Idaho people - everywhere we go they’re happy to talk and tell you stories, and find out more about you. It’s great, really, and very friendly.

Cindy, Celia and I went and visited the place where the reception is going to be held. The colouring of houses and countryside is rather muted perhaps because all the grass is browned off and the trees are bare. I think it’s the lack of greenery that surprises me, but of course we've come from high summer. Everyone here has been expecting snow, but there's no sign of it, and the ski fields are getting desperate.

Celia and Cindy had a big sort out as to what we’d be doing for the meal (pretty much a buffet) for the wedding and have got it in hand. They went shopping this afternoon and bought in all the supplies. At the same time Liz (fiancée), Dom (son getting married), Ben and a friend of Liz’s called Heather who’d been at the house organising something else to do with the wedding - and me - all went into Boise, met up with Liz's sister, Sarah, and dropped her car off to her, and coincidentally met her father-in-law. Sarah and her husband Joel have an apartment above where Joel’s dad works, and also above the restaurant Sarah used to work. Joel has guns, and a massive collection of Lego - which impressed Celia. Guns are popular in Idaho, as we were to find out.

Then we went onto the airport and hired a car - Ben seems comfortable with driving and thinks that having an extra car would be good, but on this trip Liz drove back because we had some navigating to do.

In the end it had got dark by the time we dealt with hiring the car - the guy behind the counter was very friendly and chatty, as was the girl in the next booth, who came in to help - and so we headed onto the tuxedo place where the fittings needed to be sorted out for Dom and Ben. One of the girl assistants turned out to be from Russia even though she seemed to speak American English with no accent at all. Curiously she didn’t seem to know about Siberia being used as a prison area - don’t ask me how we got onto that…!

Travelling to Boise, Idaho

2012-01-13T11:08:00.003+13:00

Travelling to Boise in Idaho for my son's wedding. Notes written on 2nd Jan relating to 1st Jan.

We spent some thirty hours getting from ourhouse to the my daughter-in-law-to-be's house in Boise. Thatwas leaving our house at around 9.45 am on our Sunday, and arriving in Boise ataround 7.30 at night their time. Therewere breaks between our arrival in Auckland and leaving again, and the same atthe Los Angeles end. This addedconsiderably to the length of the trip. I’d picked up a cold the night below we left, and was feeling too tiredto do anything much, so in a way I was quite relaxed about the trip, more thanI would have been otherwise. It meanton one hand I read no more than half a dozen Kindle pages on the two firstplane trips, and didn’t even read in the airports, and on the other felt quitecomfortable about the great length of time the trip involved. I onlybegan to feel alive again by the time we got to Los Angeles (and this was aftera night of not really sleeping well on the plane - though at least I did sleep;Celia didn’t much at all), and that was when I started reading again, finishingoff The Eyre Affair (a novel recommended to me by a friend). My coldseemed more like really bad hay fever, in the end, and I got something tooffset that at a pharmacy in the Auckland airport, and along with vitaminC tablets and Panadene, kept me more alive than otherwise.

We didn't have to worry about our bagsanywhere, after Dunedin, which was good (only the easy little transfer from oneroom to another at Los Angeles); the only stuff we were carrying were a largishblack holdall with some clothes and odds and ends, and Celia’s backpack withvarious items including the laptop, and her purse, which carried everythingelse. My older son had told us that there was aquiet spot along by Gates 5-10 at Auckland, and so after having some lunch andgoing through security, we stayed there for the afternoon, having theoccasional snooze laid out full-length on the seat. It was fairly muggy in Auckland, and earlieron we’d stayed outside for a bit, but it drizzled occasionally, and theplace we’d chosen was obviously the smoker’s ’hut’, so we didn't stay therelong.

Our plane for Los Angeles left around 7, andwe’d been able to get a two-seater, right towards the back. This was good because we didn’t want to besorting out with another person all the way (or two, if we were in afour-seater - there are no five-seaters on these planes), and meant we couldspread ourselves a bit in terms of luggage. However, we’d hardly got off the ground before the young married couplein front of us pushed their seats right back as far as they would go -this meant not only were we more cramped but we couldn’t easily watch thelittle movie screens. We pushed our own seats back, but being the last row we couldn’t push too far back. I asked the girl if she would mind movingthe seat back a little more forward again, and she did, but her husband wasn’tnearly so obliging, and for much of the trip, including during the night, hekept it pushed right back. We talked tothe hostess early in the piece but she wasn’t in the mood for confrontation itseemed, and didn’t do anything, even though Celia said it was hard on herback being forced to sit that way. Next morning, when breakfast wasbeing served, the (very) old steward (he was older than me, I think!), withoutmuch persuasion got the guy to put his seat up straight - the guy’s commentwas, What, further? However, weboth survived. Celia said afterwards theman had very long legs, and would have been cramped too, but…

The staff began to serve the evening meal very soonafter we took off, but in spite of that we didn’t get our meal until around9.30 by which time there was no choice - one type of meal had been used upcompletely. The older steward commentedthat at least at breakfast we’d be first on the list, but even then he onlymeant that we’d be in the first serving, rather than being firstaltogether.

There was a huge choice of movies and tvprograms, but the noise in the plane made it hard to hear some dialogue easily,so some movies were more accessible than others. I started to watch Puss in Boots, butapart from it being a bit inane, it was set at night for quite a while at thebeginning and didn’t show up well. So Igave up on that and watched the oldie, The Night of the Hunter. Directed by Charles Laughton it was a ratherweak story layered with pseudo-symbolism and some hysteria. The boy who was one of the main characters (Billy Chapin) wasn't too bad, but his littlesister (Sally Jane Bruce) was weak. Robert Mitchumplayed the supposed preacher who went round marrying women for their money andthen murdering them, and Lillian Gish the old lady who eventually took thechildren in. Shelley Winters was in itfor about two-thirds and had a rather underwritten role - she became Mitchum’slatest victim. The film also seemed toreach its climax and then develop a whole new section, making it seem morelongwinded than it probably was. Ofcourse I had a meal in the middle so that didn‘t help it to be morecohesive. Roger Ebert gives it a rave review, calling it 'one of the greatest of all American films,' which seems a bit over the top for the otherwise sound Ebert.

I tried watching Jane Eyre as well, butthe sound was just a blur, so I gave up, and watched, out of the corner of myeye, and without sound, Drive, with Ryan Gosling. It looked very slow, but well made - andincreasingly violent. Celia switched itoff before it finished.

As we were starting to descend my ears began toache something awful - to do with the cold, no doubt. They wouldn’t clear and it was extremelypainful. The same thing happened, to alesser extent, coming down into Boise.

Los Angeles airport was an unpleasant place:lacking in humanity somehow, very undecorated, huge and awkwardly laid out - welanded at Gate one and had to go to Gate seven, which was a good hike aroundthe ‘horseshoe’ that forms the airport. We could have got a shuttle, but it seemed reasonable to walk, eventhough it was fairly warm - hot in fact, considering it‘s winter here. Wedecided to go up to the third floor to check out the departures section,thinking there would be restaurants, cafes etc. Nope, nothing but the security section, and an enormous queue, many ofthem standing out on a bridge that led into the security section, in theheat. Incidentally, the queue at Auckland into theplane to Los Angeles took forever - we sat waiting to join it and waited andwaited. It never came to an end, and itbegan to look as though it never would before the flight was supposed to takeoff. They were trying to process bothLos Angeles and San Francisco flights, but they didn’t have a computer system,for some reason, and everything was being done manually. It seemed impossible to believe that thatmany people would be getting on one plane.

I had a bit of a meltdown at the LA security:they were being rather over-the-top, and when he told me not only to take offmy money belt, but my trouser belt, and my handkerchiefs out of the pocket, Ihad had it. I didn’t go off at the securitypeople but to Celia, who told me to pull myself together. Anyway, we got past security and discoveredthat on the other side of security there were some places, like two Starbucks forexample, and a couple of bars, and a newsagents, but that was almost it. Had some rather expensive lunches sealed upin plastic boxes, and got coffees (after discovering that the girl behind thebar and I were both deaf - she couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t understand her -partly cultural linguistics and partly blocked ears from the plane). Celia had a sleep, and, finally feelingbetter, I did some reading. The plane toBoise was a fifty-seater, not too noisy, and served by one hostess who rattledthrough all the safety precautions at such speed that if you didn’t know theinstructions from having heard them dozens of other times, you’d have had noidea what she was talking about.

Finally arrived in Boise and met by my son and his fiancée. Relief!

Huka Falls

2009-11-01T19:54:00.004+13:00

These holiday posts aren't going to be in any sort of order; sorry about that. If I'd done them at the time it would have been different, but not having my laptop with me (by choice) I'm forced to pick up on them later, and that's usually not very successful.

Anyway, the Huka Falls. As I mentioned in another post I went up in a float plane last Monday while in Taupo. While I was flying, I saw the Huka Falls below, and later in the afternoon, my wife and I decided to go and see them close up.

We got to the starting place, walked over the bridge from the parking lot, saw a lot of rushing water beneath us, looked at the sign ahead of us, and, for some reason known only to the Universe, we ignored the sign that said '1 minute' to the left, and took the sign that said '1 hour' to the right.

The one hour walk proved to be at least three-quarters of an hour, and it was up hill and down dale, and across a couple of little bridges and so forth. Very pleasant, and it would have been well worthwhile if it had actually led to the Huka Falls. Instead it came out at a bridge where some teenage boys were jumping off the railings into the water below. Other people were lying around in the water, which turned out to be warm from the steam given off further up the hill. None of these people had come there to see the Huka Falls.

Finally we asked a couple where the Falls were. They pointed back along the path - about an hour that way....

After a short rest, back we trudged. How we'd mistaken the sign I have no idea, but sometimes it just happens. We were somewhat footsore by the time we got back to the original bridge, and went on for the hundred metres of so to see the famous Falls we'd been chasing for the last couple of hours.

They were certainly worth seeing, but not quite as remarkable as I'd thought from the air. The drop is about seven metres, but you view that from above, and so you don't get that sense of the water falling down towards you. Never mind, we have a memorable walk to record in the holiday diary instead...!

My daughter has just informed me that a float plane engine 'exploded' (as most of the news reports put it) over Lake Taupo this afternoon. Since there are only two float planes operating on Lake Taupo it could well have been the one I went on. Here's the report - which is pretty identical everywhere you look, making it rather seem as though the whole thing was a bit overblown...
A scary experience for the pilot of a float plane while in the skies over Taupo this afternoon: a full emergency response was initiated when the plane's engine blew up.

Police say members of the public who were doing a spot of weekend fishing on Lake Taupo telephoned police after seeing a smoke trail coming from the back of the plane.

The float plane managed to land safely on the water at Tokaanu Bay. No-one was injured. The Civil Aviation Authority is investigating.

The photo of Huka Falls was taken by someone who goes by the nom de plume of 'weir thru a lens' on Flickr.com

October 09 holiday - first post

2009-10-30T20:11:00.008+13:00

I've just introduced this latest holiday on my main blog- it gives a bit of background as to why we were on holiday in the first place.

We both flew to Wellington on Wednesday the 21st - on separate planes. This had come about because when we were booking online a few months ago, we had to book separately, because my wife was doing a multi-stop and I was only doing a return trip. Consequently, Air NZ's online system couldn't somehow see the point of putting us both on the same outward flight - or perhaps it was trying to give us the cheapest options - and we took 'em!

We actually asked the guy at the desk if we could be put on the same flight, but he'd had something unpleasant for breakfast, apparently, and didn't even give the idea the time of day. (My wife later told me her flight was half empty.) I put my suitcase through, and my wife put her rucksack through (one of those we carted around Europe in 2007) and we assumed we'd meet up with them later. The rucksack had the items of food we'd brought (we were going to be staying in Youth Hostels) along with the toiletries and some clothing, and a few other odds and ends.

She duly got on her plane - the one which would stop in Christchurch, and then arrive almost at the same time as mine, which left an hour later (!) - and I sat down and waited until my own flight left. Officially it took off late - by about ten minutes - but I still managed to arrive only minutes later than my wife, who was standing by the baggage carrel when I got there - waiting for her knapsack to arrive.

And then we both waited. My suitcase came through, but no knapsack. Finally a young man from the baggage section came over to see if everything was all right. No knapsack. Did lots of tapping on his keyboard, couldn't find why it had gone awol. Assured us that it would probably be on the next flight out of Christchurch, and if so, he'd have it sent round to the Youth Hostel.

We went to get the hire car; they came and picked us up and took us to their base, and then it was off into the Wellington traffic, using my wife's recently acquired iPhone with its GPS application.

This one got the name Frankie (his predecessor in England had been Malvina), and in general he was pretty good at guiding us around the country. I'll talk about the Hostel in another post, and finish off what happened about the knapsack.

I rang the baggage people back later in the afternoon as there'd still been no sign of the pack - and no word from them. Of course, I got someone else and we had to start all over again. Still no sign. Finally, about 10 pm that night they rang: still no sign.

We had had to get some more food in (fortunately the Hostel is across the road from a New World supermarket), and we had to get some more toiletries as well. Next day still no news, and finally, late on the second night in Wellington, we got a call: the bag had gone to Auckland and then onto Napier!

They were merrily chirping on about getting it sent back to Wellington when I informed them that we were leaving for Napier in the morning, and would appreciate that they didn't start sending it around the country again. So finally we met up with our food and toiletries and odds and ends in Napier when we arrived - at the youth hostel there. The boiled eggs weren't too healthy, but the cheese survived, as did the margarine and the rest of the items.

The joys of travelling. [Photos of this trip are on a smart card in Auckland at the moment; my wife took them with her when we split after our return trip to Wellington, so they may get added in later. The photo here was taken by Stephanie Anne (flickr.com) and shows a bed/room similar to the ones we had in the Wellington YHA.]

Returning Home

2009-01-26T16:41:00.004+13:00

The Internet at the holiday place in Cromwell was a bit expensive considering that it’s not particularly fast, so I didn't upload any more of the notes I made. Now back at home, and catching up.

It was very difficult to sleep at night in Cromwell: the bed was okay, but it was so hot and stuffy during the night, that you couldn’t decide whether you wanted to be covered or not. It was very hot and blowy on Friday, but Saturday was just plain hot, with that kind of blazingly blue sky Central is famous for. We went to Wanaka, because my daughter, who'd come to stay with us, wanted to take her five-year-old to Puzzle World. Quite a successful trip overall, and we spent a fair amount of time there. Even went through the maze, something none of us had done before. Didn’t quite make it round all four towers - the last one eluded us somehow - but did pretty well in general, and mostly only gave up because of the heat.
We were going to stay down by the lake for a while, but it was very crowded and finally we decided to come back to Cromwell so the others could go for a swim at the pool.

We considered coming back via the Lindis Pass today; it’s a different route from the one we come home normally on, pleasant enough to drive and there’s a lot less twisting and turning than there is on the usual route through Alex and Lawrence and Roxburgh. Don’t think it takes a great deal longer - if it’s longer at all.
However, in the end we did the usual route, partly because we knew that an old friend of ours had bought a cafe in Clyde, and we thought we'd look her up. Surprisingly, since we had no idea where her cafe was, we found her by asking at the first place we went into: the cafe was two doors further down! As always she was greatly pleased to see us, and we had cappuccinos on the house. Unfortunately she was so busy that she didn't have much time to stop and chat - the place wasn't rushed off its feet, but was certainly too busy to take time out.
Anyway, it was good to talk to her albeit briefly: her husband had prostate cancer a few years back, and so she sympathised greatly with my current situation!

Picture of the Clyde Bridge courtesy of the Promote Dunstan site.

Moving on

2009-01-26T16:21:00.002+13:00

On Thursday last week, Celia and I did a meandering sort of trip over from Otematata to Cromwell; it’s quite a pleasant ride through the Lindis Pass (which isn’t one of those high up over the mountains kind of Passes) and the time went quickly enough.

Cromwell was very hot the following day, although it was pleasant enough later on to sit outside and type this. A bit of a breeze came up and the sun went down enough to take the edge of it.

Our self-contained unit had two good-sized bedrooms, a reasonable lounge area and a good toilet/bathroom. But the kitchen was ridiculous: pokey and cramped, with only one cupboard - and that was below the sink. There was a kind of bench, but it was very loosely fixed to the wall, and wouldn’t hold any great weight. The sink was all of a piece with two gas hobs that didn’t work, and then there was a plug-in unit with a couple of hot plates. No oven, but there was a fridge and a microwave. The air conditioner didn't appear to work either.

Unfortunately the kitchen rather undercuts the value of the rest of the unit, and appears to have been an add-on to the rest of the place at some point. It's plainly not geared for people who actually want to cook, but for those who might like to heat up some package meals or somesuch.

Celia went for a swim in the afternoon, but I wasn't really fussed about trying to wrap up the catheter and all underneath my swimming togs (!) It might be manageable, but the disadvantages seemed to far outweigh the advantages...

Second day

2009-01-20T19:18:00.003+13:00

Neither of us has been laid low by drinking untreated water, so obviously our stomachs are tougher than the Waitaki District Council believes. Which is a good thing. However, today we got a call from my doctor saying that they’d written out a script for yet another antibiotic! I’ve already got enough tablets of a different kind to last me till next week, but it seems that on the basis of the lab results that came back after my last urine sample, (taken when I visited the After Hours doctor on Friday night) they think I need to be on this different antibiotic rather than the other. Will I be resistant to anything at the end of all this? LOL
Anyway, to get this script filled we had to go to the nearest chemist, who just happens to have a pharmacy in Twizel, which is a good half hour up the road from Otematata. Celia found this out from a woman who lives near where we’re staying and she said there was a bit of a shortcut to Twizel on the Omarama Rd at Prohibition Rd. (Interesting name for a road.) We found it, and headed off to Twizel.
This is an up and coming burgh, with a great big market area surrounded by shops, and its own radio station. Twizel came after Otematata in the dam-building towns. Once everyone had finished dam-building at Roxburgh, they moved half the houses to Otematata, built the Benmore dam, and then did the same thing a decade or more later when Twizel was the new place for dam-builders to be.
All these little towns have also been long-standing places for people to go for holidays. We met one man today who’s had a place in Omarama for thirty years. To me the area is a bit dry and hot at its best to be really enjoyable, but the lakes are great for fishing and boating (if you fish and boat) and everyone comes up in the Christmas holidays and meets all the people from Dunedin who they normally see at home.
Anyway, Twizel, Omarama and even Otematata are all building shopping areas: who shops there when all the visitors go home I don’t know, but obviously they think it’s worth their while. Otematata is just in the process of completing a long building that has a grocery at one end, a café in the middle and an as yet unfinished community hall at the other. Twizel, as I said, has this very new market/shopping mall. Omarama has what appears to be an all new shopping area too. Including an antiques and collectables shop. Compared to the one in Kurow it’s like going from a child‘s bedroom after he‘s thrown all his toys around in a huff to a museum display. Here everything is labelled, in groups, tidy, walkaboutable - and there’s even a display of costumes from Hercules, Xena and some other fantasy show that was made in NZ in the early 2000s which I’ve never heard of: Cleopatra in the year 2525 or some such, if I recall.
We had lunch by another one of the man-made lakes (something with Taniwha on the end of the name), headed along the road to look at the salmon farm where the salmon were threshing about as though they hadn’t seen anything to eat for a year, whenever any food was thrown into their water. And then, after our trip to the shopping metropolis of Omarama, we stopped off at a Fish and Game reserve (it’s just before you get to the Lake Benmore Camping Ground going south). Tranquillity.
Although we’d struck rain a couple of times during the day, it was warm and sunny at this stage, and the lake was a beautiful deep blue, the flowers along the banks were a kind of lilac/purple, the hills were their usual washed-out grey/blue, and the grass was actually green in some parts. After we’d sat for a while half drowsing, we went for a walk down to the lakeside. (Yes, I walked quite some distance and managed it without much discomfort at all.) There we met the man who has had the house in Omarama for thirty years, and his wife - who turned out to be a patient at the Health Centre where my wife works. Of course. My wife said, what are the odds of meeting one of my patients in a place like this? I thought, on the basis of past experience, the odds of not meeting a patient were much greater!

First day in Otematata

2009-01-19T20:46:00.003+13:00

We discovered last night that we weren’t supposed to be drinking the water straight out of the tap, after I’d already had a least two glasses of it with my various tablets. Found it hard to get to sleep: probably feeling neurotic about the possibility of adding yet another thing to my current state of health (although I seem to be all right) alongside concerns about something going wrong with the catheter bags during the night in someone else’s bed (!) I’m finding I’m having occasional really blue days - today started off that way (not helped by sleeping very badly) but I’ll just have to keep moving forward. How people who have much worse operations to look forward to cope I’m really not sure. I’m having enough trouble with this relatively minor one.
The day started out cloudy again, and not particularly warm, but it became been sunny later and very pleasant. We went out to Benmore Dam, which is just a hop and a skip across from where we're staying, pretty much. Very spectacular, because for the first time in about ten years, they're having to let loose a lot of water - for once there's far too much in the dam.

Back on holiday

2009-01-19T20:40:00.001+13:00

Haven't used this blog for over a year, but since we're back on holiday (albeit a rather less involved one than the last) I thought I'd use it again.

Travelled to Otematata yesterday - first day of our away-from-home holiday. We’ve been given the use of a house for four days, a house, I might add, that can hardly be classed as a crib or bach. It’s got three bedrooms, is fully furnished (and not with all the cast-offs from the real house), and all the mod cons it needs.
Otematata is near three or four of the big lakes up this way: Benmore, Aviemore, Waitaki. They’re all pretty much within spitting distance of the town.
On the way up we stopped in Oamaru and had a look at the public gardens - first time we’ve ever done that in all our times of stopping in the town. And later we stopped in Kurow, a place similar in size to Otematata, I think. It has the distinction (in our eyes, anyway) of possessing a curios/antiques/junk store which is not only itself absolutely cluttered, but has spread to a shop (maybe two) across the road, and into the two cars parked permanently outside.
It’s almost impossible to move in the main shop without feeling you’re going to knock something over, and whatever the organisational pattern is, I didn’t discover it. Books were absolutely everywhere, stacked high, low and in piles that threatened to come down when a heavy truck went through the town. Hundreds of collectors’ items stood on shelves in every direction. Outside, shelves hosted dozens of teapots, mostly metal ones.
The owner claims to able to find any book you want to ask about; just as well, as no one else has a hope of finding it. If you don’t happen across something that catches your fancy, forget about looking for something that you really want. Ninety percent of the books are shrink-wrapped. There’s a sign - amongst a number of signs - saying that all shrink-wrapped books have been inspected for marks or torn pages or any other wear. Shrink-wrapped means they’re in good condition. But it also means you can’t read a few pages to see what sort of book it is. On the other hand, there’s a sign telling people that the books are for buying, not reading in the store. And another sign demanding that parents make sure their children put all the books back in order. And another sign saying that all the hardcover books are in the store out the back; just ask, and the owner will get whatever it is you want. How you’re supposed to know what he has is another issue.
There’s also a sign saying that few stores offer the sort of service this store does!
If you follow the available space between the books you eventually come up to a dead end - and another sign on the way that says something like No thoroughfare through here. Not that there’s much chance of a customer going into that particular ‘area’ as it’s well and truly barred by the usual stacks of books.
I suspect that this shopkeeper has some really valuable stuff in the store. But he doesn’t seem to know that people like to browse, and in order to browse they have to be able to get their hands on things. Little chance of doing that here - the book you’re most likely to want to see will either be shrink-wrapped or at the bottom of a stack. Trying to pull it out will cause a major collapse.

The weather was great when we left Dunedin yesterday, but there were great black clouds looming before we got far north. It stayed warm and didn’t rain until we were nearly at Otematata. But later on, while both of us were having a bit of a kip, there was a heavy hailstorm, made all the more effective by the stones rattling down inside the metal chimney.

Back on holiday

Wrapping up things

2007-12-16T21:22:00.000+13:00

For the time being, I won't be doing any travel - at least not in the sense that I've been doing it over the last six months. We're settling back down to normal life (a bit of a task after being away so long) and getting back to enjoying life in the home town.
At first we were unsettled being here, but meeting familiar faces at every turn, and being greeted with enthusiasm by people who've known we've been away and are glad to see us back, is actually very pleasant. Plus we're both back at work, and that makes a difference too, as we have some purpose to our days again!
The house is a bit chaotic, as Celia got into renovation within days of our return - the tenant's toddler had pulled some wallpaper off the wall in one of the bedrooms upstairs, so Celia pulled the rest of it off. And off the bedroom next door. And will paint the lounge upstairs too.
She's been plastering the two bedrooms preparatory to painting them as well, so the place isn't quite in its tidiest state. And things aren't going to change in that respect for a while. My daughter's coming to live with us - with her four-year-old son - and that means more shifting around of furniture. I'm starting to get my muscles back again, the ones I've used constantly over the years in shifting furniture around our house, or in and out of our house and in and out of various children's flats and so on. Might get fit again after all!

What we saw and didn't

2007-12-07T21:32:00.000+13:00

I mentioned quite a while ago in this blog that while we were camping in a place in North London we saw a host of rabbits in the next field. Bunnies everywhere!
In fact, we saw quite a lot of wildlife while we were travelling around: a fox in a churchyard in Kentish Town (a London suburb); plenty of squirrels around the Norfolk lanes and even one in the backyard of my niece’s house in Braintree. He was running along the fence as if he owned the place, stopping when he felt like it, and taking stock of the situation.
We saw a deer one day – apparently they’re quite common in the forest areas on the sides of roads, and there are signs warning motorists to watch out for them in places. I’m told there are some deer in the woods at my great-nephew’s school in Taverham.
Pheasant were common hopping in and out of the hedgerows, and pigeons were everywhere on the country roads. They appeared to have no common sense. One of them flew up in front of us when we driving along one day, and instead of flying to the side, it kept going straight. It didn’t even go higher than the car – just straight. Fortunately at the last minute it swerved, but I thought we were going to make impact at some point.
At my other niece’s house, there were frogs in the garden, and even on the roadside near where she lives. And in the place we stayed in near Bury St Edmunds, there was an infestation of moles – though we never actually saw them, only what they left behind: large mounds in the grass.
Domestic animals were a different matter. We hardly ever saw a cat, though there were plenty of dogs around. Dogs everywhere: held in their owner’s arms, tangling up their owner’s feet; on the buses, on the tube; in the museums, and other public places.
And the only place we ever saw sparrows were in some of the cities. I never saw one in the gardens of the houses I stayed in. Isn’t that strange? I really missed the little critters.

This photo was taken by Tony Northrup; you can see a large version of it on his site, as well as other nature photography.

Back in our own bed

2007-12-02T20:11:00.000+13:00

My rough calculations as to how many beds we slept in while we were away from home comes to just under thirty, some of which we slept in more than once.
Some were drastic, most were okay. Probably the best one was at my sister-in-law's place in Northampton. They'd bought a new bed before we came (I think for us, in fact), and it was very good to sleep in.
Perhaps the worst was in a room above a cafe we stayed at in West London. The middle leg was broken, and had to be propped back in place. Consequently sleeping on it was a bit of a ‘take care’ situation, in case it suddenly collapsed.
On the Continent we found that in Germany and Switzerland, they don’t have pillows the same shape as those at home. They’re large and almost square, and virtually flat, and it’s hard to know how they’re supposed to function. We never quite found out.
Some Continental hotels put two single beds together as though they were a double. You discovered the gap fairly quickly. Others were double beds, but they had separate covers on them. This worked quite well, except when Celia threw her cover over on mine. Still, it’s something she does at home anyway, so what’s the difference?
Many places don’t use a top sheet any more, including many of the places we stayed at in England. And they use duvets almost everywhere. I found the problem with these was they were often too heavy for the summertime, and I’ve lost count of the number of nights I woke up sweating.
The great thing about it all, I suppose, is that we became more flexible about just getting on and sleeping, whether it was in our tent with airbeds, or in a king size double bed in Valencia. Many places don’t have curtains heavy enough to keep out the light – many places, especially in Spain, don’t have curtains at all. So sleeping under these conditions is a test of how tired you are and whether you’re going to make a fuss about it.
Anyway, we’re home, and we’re back in the bed we belong in – and it’s great.

Korea, and the return home

2007-12-01T14:01:00.000+13:00

On our second day in Korea we left our bags at the hotel reception and went on a bus tour with Seoul City Tours. We’d asked the man at reception if there were ‘hop on hop off’ tours in the city, and he was most intrigued by the phrase, repeating it several times to get it into his head. The SCT was the best bet, though they weren’t quite as hop on hop off as the European tours we’d done. You had to state where you were going to get off, and couldn’t just keep going round the tour when you passed your initial stop. That was okay, we didn’t have time to do too much anyway.
Seoul is an enormous city, full of contrasts in terms of the buildings. There are skyscrapers, modern apartment buildings, little old one-storey shops and multi-storey department stores, ancient buildings (such as the palaces and the original city gate) and winding alleyways full of tiny shops. The streets are so narrow in some places only a motor scooter can safely drive down them, and so wide in other places that there are four lanes on either side of the road. The motorways are extensive and there are several long bridges over the (very wide) river. It takes an hour and a half to get from any of the major hotels in the city to the airport, and for much of that distance there are buildings or industry. We passed a quarry at one point which went on for at least a couple of miles alongside the road. The city has churches everywhere, both ‘foreign’ style designs, and more modern buildings. Yonggi Cho’s church is a great modern building (it doesn’t look like a church on the outside) that rises several storeys high.
And there are gardens everywhere, from tiny ones to huge botanical parks.

Our flight from Korea was longer than the one from Heathrow by a couple of hours, so by the time we got to Auckland we were very glad to get off the plane. I actually slept an hour or so at one point, which was a major achievement, and kept the material shades on over my eyes at another point, just to get some rest from the light.
This time we didn’t have the little tv screens on the back of the seats in front of us, and had to watch whatever was showing on the main screen. One film - which I watched part of without the sound - was Gracie, a rather second-rate piece about a girl who wants to become a soccer player, and the other was the Simpsons Movie, which turned out to be a lot of fun, full of clever lines and crazy ideas.
I managed to read another Ian Rankin book between the time we began the flight and the time we reached Dunedin, but neither of us enjoyed the flight much: Celia wasn’t feeling great, having got a solid dose of the cold I had a couple of weeks ago, and I still had leftovers of the cold itself. Besides that we were both just tired, and couldn’t get enough sleep to catch up.

And then there was the stress that Security on planes causes these days. Both of our main suitcases were large and fully-packed. Apart from lugging them about they turned out to be the least of our problems. In Heathrow, we’d been told in no uncertain terms that we couldn’t carry more than one bag into the plane itself. This meant that we had to try and shove stuff from Celia’s handbag into the backpack she was carrying and the computer bag I had. Both were already full of bits, so it was a major task. Yet Korean Air didn’t have any such restrictions at all, and when we got past security we just reverted to what we’d started with. In fact, they’d taken the third overnight case with the other two big ones without a qualm or any extra cost.
Likewise when we left Korea there was little difficulty; even in their security area, they didn’t worry about us carrying both our handbag and manbag as well as the other two large items - and a stone plate Celia had decided she had to have at the last minute. (We’d been for lunch in a restaurant where they presented the food on utterly hot stone plates, and also cooked meat and vegetables on a little stove on the table.)
However, when we came to leave Auckland, they charged us for extra kilos on the large cases, and told us if we’d come via America it wouldn’t have cost us anything. Weird.
It all adds to the stress of travelling.

Getting lost in Seoul

2007-11-26T22:47:00.000+13:00

After our market and mall explorations, we started to walk back home. Went down the underground, which runs the length of one long street, and contains dozens of shops (as well as the tube). Thought we knew which exit to come out of, and did. But even though it seemed as though we were in a place we recognised, it turned out not to be. So we crossed the road (via the underground again) and came out on the opposite corner. Went along the road: gradually realised this wasn’t an area we recognised either. Scary, since the streets don’t appear to have street names (unlike most of Europe where signage is very good, and usually on the corner buildings). We looked at our map, but it’s a tourist map and shows buildings and places rather than streets. Tried to work it out from the underground map but it was just as confusing because we couldn’t reconcile streets with the area above us. Went above ground again and found a bus map which had streets on it, but it didn’t seem to match up with our map either.
Finally, a man came along and offered help. The only trouble was he didn’t speak any English. Consequently, somewhere along the line we had a misunderstanding, and he led us two blocks in the wrong direction!
It was quite cold at this point, and, against all our best principles, we went into Starbucks and bought some very expensive cappuccinos. In there, I met a young lady (I think she was one of the staff, but was off duty) who spent quite a bit of time trying to help. Even she couldn’t figure out from our map where we were (!) but she finally offered to go and look on the Internet (in the staff quarters) and print out a map.
After some time she reappeared, with the map. Great relief.
We thanked her and set off in the right direction this time. Crossed the canal we shouldn’t have crossed before, crossed the square as marked on the map, and before we came to the street where we should have turned left on according to the girl’s map, we found the fish market! Having been caught out several times before in terms of thinking we knew where we were (previously we‘d two or three times seen what we were sure were shops we‘d previously passed but they weren‘t), we weren’t completely convinced this was the same fish market we’d seen before, but we decided to go through it anyway, and gradually realised it was the same one. Enormous relief.
In Europe, for the most part, I could figure the language, but of course here, even though there’s a lot of English signage around (particularly in advertising) the majority of words are in Korean.
I meant to mention, in my post about the shops here, just how small many of them are. Many stalls cover a very small area, but the shops aren’t much better: some are so crammed with stock that there’s virtually no room for anyone inside. Some shopkeepers work outside on the footpath. All your competitors are likely to be within spitting distance, selling exactly the same items. And the tiniest shop I saw had a man sitting in what must have once been the doorway to an upstairs apartment. He was surrounded by keys and his key-cutting equipment. He wouldn’t have been able to stretch out either arm, let alone both. There was no room behind him, and presumably he could only get into this ‘shop’ by taking out the little barrier that was in front of him.
Celia made some rude comment about just how much room we’d ‘demanded’ at the bookshop.

Shopping in Seoul

2007-11-26T22:00:00.000+13:00

Slept really well last night, in spite of being woken at 3 am by someone trying to get into our room when they were supposed to be going next door.
Breakfast wasn’t quite up to the standard of our other Korean hotel, but it was still fine, and the room itself is very comfortable. So far, that first hotel has set the bar for all others.
Korean traffic is interesting: there’s plenty of it, but no one seems to be hassled, and there aren’t horns blowing all the time. Italy was the worst for city traffic: it was dangerous for pedestrians there, quite apart from the speed everyone drives at. (I nearly got run down twice by cyclists in Italy, and motor scooters paid no attention to pedestrian crossings.) Here in Seoul they drive fast enough (our taxi driver was doing 80 kph at times) but they don’t give pedestrians so many frights, even though motor scooters drive on the footpaths as well as the roads.
We decided to go walkabout this morning, and investigate the markets. Went down the road and found the fish market - or what we call the fish market: the stallholders sell fish almost to the exclusion of anything else. Sardines, fish like whitebait, herrings, all that sort of thing as well as bigger fish. But there are thousands of them, boxed or strung together on strings. The place smells very interesting. And it’s packed: the stalls all run into each other, and go off down other lanes on either side. There are real shops, but even these tend to have stalls outside. Many of the stallholders were sitting watching mini-televisions while waiting for customers.
After this we turned right, intending to go towards the Dongdaemun Market, which is held within the Dongdaemun Stadium. This wasn’t so interesting, because many of the stalls were still closed. I don’t know whether Monday is a holiday for many or whether they just start late. But again the place was packed with stalls, and with stuff. Koreans don’t go for the minimalist look: quantity is everything. In a European or British department store, you’ll have plenty of stock, but it’ll be laid out with some breathing space between items. In Seoul, the shops are stuffed full. We road up the escalator in one clothing shop (about eight storeys high) and every floor had mannequins standing row upon row, and clothes taking up every bit of available space.
We had lunch at a roadside stall - it had seats, some of them on the road itself. It was a wonderful lunch, a thin soup, noodles with a spicy sauce, and chicken kebabs. The lady didn’t sell coffee, but gave her mate along the road a bit a wave and she brought a couple of small coffees over. The woman was very friendly and helpful and we really enjoyed the meal - until we had to pay. It was 25,000 won, which is about £13. A lot more than we thought it would be, because food is very cheap here.
It’s been very overcast and misty today, and even rained a bit. It’s even cold, which we didn’t expect!

Flying home...

2007-11-26T01:15:00.000+13:00

The flight from Heathrow to Seoul left at around 8.45 pm which should have meant we could fall asleep naturally and spend some of the flight in slumberland. Well, some of us did, but not me. Tired as I was I remained awake and finished up watching three movies: Oceans Thirteen, the latest Die Hard and, for my choice from the classic movies, The Grapes of Wrath.
I’d slept a bit on the coach coming from Attleborough to Heathrow, so that helped, but I would have been happier to have slept some of the night as well.
When we got to Incheon airport in Seoul, it was 3.35 local time - but about 6.30 am England time, which is what my body was still trying to run on in spite of my efforts to convince it otherwise. So I’d been awake all night.
On the coach into Seoul itself I slept a couple of brief times, and again since we arrived at our hotel. Which means my sleeping clock is completely out of kilter.
We were at Incheon for quite some time in the end, firstly through trying to find somewhere to park our two large suitcases for the two and a half days we’re here, and then trying to find the right bus to catch to get to our hotel - a hotel virtually nobody seemed to know about. When you see the size of Seoul city, it’s probably not surprising.
Finally we caught a 5C bus outside the airport, but as time went on and the bus seemed to be travelling forever, we asked a couple of guys behind us, Koreans who spoke good English, if they could help. One of them finished up ringing up the hotel to check where it was, and wrote the address down in Korean. And then when they suggested a stop to get off at, they helped us get a taxi as well. Meanwhile, three black English-speaking women in front of us on the bus got in on the act as well, and discussed at length the fact that they didn’t know where the hotel was.
However, the taxi driver drove with confidence (and considerable speed) to the hotel, and was enthusiastic about finding it. So were we!
The Korean man at reception, when I wrote that our home address was Dunedin, cried with delight: Dunedin! I stayed there four years ago as an exchange student. If he hadn’t liked us before, he certainly thought we were wonderful after that!

We're off! We're off!

2007-11-25T02:07:00.001+13:00

Twenty years or more ago, I began writing a children's opera, in which the children sang a rousing chorus, We're off! We're off to the Fantabulous Mountains.
The song is buzzing round in my head. This is the last post I'll be writing from Attleborough (certainly in the foreseeable future), and in an hour we catch the bus to Heathrow, and not long after get on our plane for Korea.
The phrase, mixed emotions, doesn't cover it. We had a family tea here last night with all the family connected to the people we've stayed with the most, plus another of Celia's brothers and his wife. Last Tuesday we said goodbye to another couple, and Celia's just been on the phone to both her sisters. We're feeling keen to get off yet know that we won't see any of these people again in any hurry - in some cases we may not see them again at all. (The older members of Celia's family are getting up round the 70 mark.)
Four of the great-nieces and nephews were here last night, and two of them went home in tears, apparently. One of the little g/nephews did an anagram puzzle of his family's names for us, as well as a kind of poem of the important things he's done with us, and a maze, in which I was stuck at one end missing the flight, while Celia was on the plane. Help Mike get on the plane, was the instruction.
Both the nephews were here this morning for an informal breakfast, so we said goodbye to them again; one of them prayed for us as well. We're going to miss all these people we've got to know while we've been over here, as well as those we've known before.
There have been times when we thought we hadn't had much of a time here, but in fact, when we look back and remember things, it's been a great time. The bad days are nothing compared to the highlights and the general times of just enjoying other people's company. We've been very well cared for by the family, and we've met dozens of people both here in England and on the Continent who were friendly and helpful. It's been rare to be rebuffed by anyone.
How much longer this blog will carry on after we get on the flight is a question. No doubt my inveterate writing fingers will insist on adding some more, and no doubt we'll have other things to say about our travels.
Meantime, we watch the minutes go by and keep breathing.

Selling the car

2007-11-21T12:32:00.000+13:00

Over the last few days we’ve had a bit of concern about being able to sell our car. We’ve put ads in the windows of the car and sat it outside the local supermarket. This was quite effective, as when I turned up to collect it (after having left it there for just under two hours) a couple was looking at it, and I was able to give them one of the signs to take with them. When Celia went back to do some shopping later she also found someone interested. However, nothing came of either of those.

I also advertised it online in the Eastern Daily Press (EDP), the big Norfolk-wide daily newspaper.

Out of this I got two calls, and as well as this my brother-in-law had an inquiry from one of the people he works with. So we were feeling as though we might get it sorted.

And we did. The second person to call, a woman from Norwich, wanted to check it out today, so we went to her home on our way back from Cromer, where we’d been staying overnight with one of Celia’s brothers and his wife. We found the house via our faithful friend, Malvina, and within half an hour the car was sold, and a deposit made on it. It’s going to be picked up on Thursday morning from Attleborough.

Hallelujah! This will also give us a bit of spare cash, as we were getting very low on funds.

Going Attractions

2007-11-18T06:07:00.000+13:00

When you go to the cinema you often see a board advertising ‘Coming Attractions.’ I’m inclined to think I should post about ‘Going Attractions,’ all those things we didn’t quite make it to while we’ve been overseas.

I have this feeling that when we get home some people will say, But why didn’t you visit the….? (Enter a word of your choice, such as the Louvre, or the Prado in Madrid, the latest musical, Covent Garden, or…)

Partly the reason we didn’t was budget constraints. Partly it was laziness – making the effort to get to some things proved beyond our combined energies. Partly it was a rather laissez-faire attitude to the attractions. If we missed them we missed them. Simple as that. They’ll still be there, and we won’t be.

In the end, there’s only so much you can see, even in six months. And if you’re not in London for much of that time, you won’t see much of what’s on in London. (Even when we were there, the 50% discounts for several theatres still amounted to tidy sums).

If you miss getting to Paris or Madrid, you’ll miss the big museums. But why didn’t you make the effort? This may be your only opportunity!

Yup. But the problem was also that we were continually swamped by choice. There is just too much in the world to try and catch up with. And the bigger the city the worse the choice gets, until in the end you’re inclined to stay home and watch the telly out of enforced apathy.

Partly this holiday was also about revitalising ourselves, and sometimes that involved nothing more than sitting beside some nondescript stream and reading.

Countdown

2007-11-18T04:57:00.000+13:00

Well, it’s a week today till we head for home. We’ve changed our dates without difficulty from early December to the 24^th November, meaning we’ll be home before the end of the month. That gives us a bit of breathing space at the other end, before we head back into work.

It took a bit of organising to make sure we still had somewhere to stay in Seoul, Korea, on the way home – the travel agents in NZ must have started to tear their hair out a little when we changed the dates not once, but twice. However, everything is all organised now – we just have to figure out how to get from the airport to our hotel and we’ll be fine.

We’re also trying to sell the car, that great little Peugeot that’s served us so well. We’ll be sorry to say goodbye to it, really, because it’s very economical; far more so than our Mitsubishi at home. But trying to take the Peugeot home isn’t within the possible budgets, so it’ll be staying here, hopefully with a new owner very soon.

The only thing I don’t like about it are the bucket seats (typical of most small cars, of course). I get back ache very easily in them, and that, combined with the neck ache I got from the stress of driving on English roads I wasn’t familiar with made life a bit unpleasant for a while. I think I’ve learned how to deal with both, as I’m certainly not getting the problems now. I suspect we’ll find driving on NZ roads a breeze after the English ones.

The joys of owning a car in England

2007-11-17T03:01:00.000+13:00

You’ll no doubt remember that we bought a car for the time we’ve been in England. It’s been great, a Peugeot 306 XR, and we’ve done a lot of mileage in it. It’s also been very economical in terms of petrol, probably a lot more economical than our Mitsubishi Chariot at home.

However, we had to pay for its annual registration last month - £63.00 – which works out to about the same as we’d pay in NZ. But we also had to get an MOT – the equivalent of the NZ Warrant of Fitness – and this has been a bit of a shock.

I’m not sure what the current cost of getting a WOF in NZ is. (This is a post full of acronyms, isn’t it?). I don’t think it can be more than $40 or so. That would be the equivalent of around £14.85 in British money. Here, however, the cost for the MOT is £50.35 (goodness knows what the 35p is there for – it’s like the sign in the Italian subways, where they would charge you 50 euros and 5 cents if you didn’t have a ticket). That’s about $135NZ. Good grief.

Worse, because there were a couple of things wrong with the car (two of them utterly minor, and one to do with the brake pads) we had to have some work done on it. This cost another £80 – or $215NZ.

And then, because the people who’d tested the car had to do a ‘partial re-test’ they charged us again: another £25.13, making the total for the MOT about $200NZ. How on earth that can be justified is anyone’s guess. (I happened to look up this garage when I was trying to find their phone number the other day, and obviously I’m not the only customer who hasn’t been satisfied with them. Have a look at the comments section.)

So in the last couple of months our great wee car has cost us over £200, which has seriously reduced our bank account. We’re now heading towards almost nothing in it – gulp! – and we’ve still got another week here, as well as staying two days in Korea. It reminds me of a time when I was young man and went to Australia to see if I could work there as a repetiteur (I’d already worked professionally at the job in NZ). I didn’t get any work, and after a month of swanning around, came home, only to realise when I flew into Christchurch, that I didn’t actually have any money to get the train home to Dunedin. Fortunately the lady I was staying overnight with in Christchurch coughed up the readies, and I was able to repay her later (no doubt out of my mother’s money, since I didn’t have a job to come back to either!)

A few notes

2007-11-16T01:40:00.000+13:00

One of the great advantages of having relatives in England who care about you is that we’ve been looked after very well, even by those who’d hadn’t seen us for more than thirty years. Without our extended family over here, this trip wouldn’t have been possible in any sense.

I’ve just been checking back over some of the words that HitTail has turned up and find that the windmill in Cley, which we visited (well, we walked around it as it was closed at the time) was restored by the parents of a singer/songwriter called James Blunt. His real name is James Blount and he’s the composer of the album, Back to Bedlam. There now, did you know that?

I mentioned too that we’d had to get Vodafone to unlock the content control on the mobile connect, and that it had been a bit of an issue doing so. Seemingly, Vodafone is the only company that actually does this for free (why do they lock them in the first place?). Some companies in Australia, apparently, charge anything from $27.95AUD to $199! What a racket.

I’d talked about Gaudi’s architectural approach to the Holy Family Cathedral in Barcelona, and said it looked like the stone was melting. This isn’t unusual in Gaudi’s work, apparently: in a recent article in the NY Times, the writer talks about the way Gaudi used this melting effect on houses and roofs and other architectural features.

Our frequent mention of McDonald’s brought us into a search result as well. I don’t know if I wrote that we didn’t go to McDonald’s in Spain because they didn’t serve milkshakes. Whether it’s something to do with the way they bottle milk or what, I don’t know, but we couldn’t get a milkshake in Spain (not from McDonald’s anyway).

It was interesting the way the McDonald’s vary. When we came back to London we had more trouble communicating with the staff in the two McDonald’s we visited than we did in any of the countries in Europe. There the assistants were pleased to interpret our English into McDonaldsese. In England, even though the assistants were all English-speaking, they got our orders muddled, didn’t seem to hear what we were saying and in generally were surprisingly obtuse. Ordering in McDonald’s shouldn’t be that difficult: they have a kind of universal language, and you find the order boards are the same wherever you go around the EU.

I said in my last post that we’d been to Cambridge. Apparently Sir Humphrey Cripps, the man who built up the Pianoforte Supplies company in Roade was an honorary Fellow there. He was ‘the greatest single benefactor the College has had since its foundation over 500 years ago.’

And finally, Buckley’s Canadiol Mixture gets yet another mention in HitTail. I haven’t had to use it yet for the cold I’ve got at the moment, but just the mention of it brings to my senses that wonderful aromatic and throat-burning mixture.

Catching up

2007-11-16T00:08:00.000+13:00

Spent our last morning in London in the launderette where the woman in charge, with some amusement, was letting one of her customers show us how to work everything. The women were all giving each other cheek and generally enjoying themselves.

Before we left London, we had a cup of coffee in a café run by a man who was more than a little off the wall. He sang, and he made ridiculous jokes, and claimed that the old woman assistant and the attractive young assistant were both madly in love with him. He had a voice like a door in need of oiling, and appeared to do far more talking than working. But it was fun to be there watching and listening.

Onto Northampton to see Celia’s two sisters and their husbands for a couple of days. This is the last time we’ll catch up with them and it was all a bit sad when we left. Watched the latest James Bond movie on DVD because my brother-in-law is a mad Bond fan, and has all the movies in his library. (When he came to NZ a few years ago he watched most of my son’s collection of Bond movies…!)

We also went to see Ratatouille, which Celia had been keen to see for a while – even though it’s an animated movie and she normally falls asleep during them!

Stopped off in Cambridge on the way back, a place we’d talking about going to see a couple of times previously but hadn’t ever managed to do so. It’s different to Oxford, which appealed straight away, but it has its own charm – and when we went exploring St John’s College (pretending we were students rather than tourists) we discovered just how pleasant it must be to attend University there. The buildings, dating from the late 17^th century, are certainly very pleasing to look at, and have been built to delight the eye. We didn’t explore a lot more (apart from a wonderful bookshop and the market) because it was getting colder and colder and a chilling drizzle was starting.

It's also a bit strange wandering around a town that has an area called Jesus.

And so back to Attleborough, by which time a cold that’s been hassling me for a couple of days decided to get itself into full gear.

Third day in London

2007-11-12T23:54:00.000+13:00

Third and last day in London and a bit muddly. First we drove up the road until we found a couple of churches: we decided on the Methodist one. At first thought there wasn’t going to be anyone there, but in fact it was quite full - and it was a fairly new building. And talk about welcomed. We hadn’t even got out of the car before an elderly couple who’d parked in front of us came up and greeted us, talked about New Zealand, told us about collecting NZ postal items, and gathered us up. Inside it was the same; people didn’t just say hullo, they actually spoke to you, both before and after the service. It was Remembrance Day and at eleven o’clock the radio was turned on for a few minutes and we listened in to the service (with the Royal family) at the Cenotaph. The rest of the service consisted of various people talking about their war experiences, and especially the many people who hadn’t necessarily served at the front but had been back-up workers in various places: firemen, voluntary constables, nurses and so on. They also had communion which was good, as we haven’t been to many services in England where there’s been a communion (except last week as well!)
We were going to go to the movies after lunch but it took too long to get there so we went right into London central again and pottered around a bit. Celia wanted to get some of the artificial snow from Hamley’s (not Hambley's as I think I wrote previously) - you add water to it and it grows to ten times its original size. The place was still abuzz with people, far more than in most of the other shops along Regent St. (Though when we came back along the street later in the evening, the streets were packed again.)
We couldn’t decide what we wanted to do so in the end we got on a bus and went for a ride. Wound up at the Albert Hall and found that there was a concert on in the evening at 6.30. And there were tickets going at a reasonable price. So we bought some, got back on the bus, went and had something to eat (Celia had a little snooze in the café!) and got the tube and bus back again. (The joys of one day passes.) The concert was wonderful - I’ve written about it in more detail on myother blog.

Still in London

2007-11-12T23:43:00.000+13:00

Another day in London. We met up with an old friend, Cathy, and had lunch with her, then walked down the road to the Science Museum and checked it out. It’s a massive place - five storeys - and full of quite remarkable things. Unfortunately, like so many of these places, you can’t take it all in at one go, and it gets tiring trying to absorb all the info and exhibits. There are lots of hands-on items, and both the adults and kids were having fun with these.
Later on we went to Hamley’s, the huge toy shop - and another five storeys. It was absolutely packed with shoppers, and toys, and lots of happy faces and people - adults and kids - having fun and enjoying themselves. Quite a few of the staff were demonstrating toys and having a ball playing with them: a tiny helicopter that actually flew around people’s heads, cardboard planes that would invariably return to the person who’d set them off, racing cars with front wheels that could go into a 360 degree turn and so would never get upset by any angle, a wipe-off board which a young guy was drawing coloured pictures on with great ease, three or four guys playing with a more update version of the yo-yo. One boy of about seven or eight was having a great time clapping his hands and making a whole rack of teddy bears shake - clapping was what set them off. Occasionally adults would join in the fun. Around the store were waist-high boxes with walking fluffy toys in them - little dogs that yapped, a drummer boy, a giraffe that moved its long neck up and down. I was very tempted to get the giraffe, I must admit.
We were out of our hotel room by eleven this morning and didn’t get back till around 8.30, so both of us were whacked. I’ve been reading the Hitchcock book while Celia snores.

Back to London again

2007-11-10T11:42:00.000+13:00

We travelled to London today, partly to box up the extra stuff we’re sending home separately, and partly to catch up with one or two people (and London itself) who we won’t see again for a while. And thirdly, to check out with Korean Air as to whether we could alter the dates for our return. We’ve decided we want to come back a bit sooner. Korean Air was very helpful, and will do the alteration for free! So we’re going to leave England on the 26th November, rather than the 2nd of December.
Korean Air is situated in Piccadilly, so after we’d been there we wandered back along the street looking at the shops, including one extraordinary place (called Andy and Tuly) that supposedly sells waistcoats primarily, but had nothing but cufflinks in its windows, hundreds of pairs of them. And all of them priced over the £100.
Crown Relocation, who are sending our extra stuff home, couldn’t have been more helpful. They provided everything, were very pleasant with it, and best of all: we managed to get everything we’d taken with us into the two boxes.
We’re staying in a rather unusual accommodation: it’s over a Café in North West London - South Ruislip, to be exact. The café obviously caters for drivers and other blue collar workers and its food is good old-down-to earth English; the room we have isn’t the best we’ve had (!) but for three days it’ll be okay. The leg of one of the beds ’broke’ when a certain wife sat on the bed after we arrived, but the leg has obviously been broken for a while. I told the owner, and he feigned surprise - I say, ’feigned’ but it may have been genuine. The room has a tv, fridge, microwave and a kettle - the latter item is something that’s always been missing from European hotel rooms.
I drove all the way into Ruislip today - a first. I haven’t driven in London at all before. It certainly wasn’t as bad as the previous two times we came when we got stuck in long traffic jams and the brakes heated up and failed.
The Indian community is apparently celebrating Diwali - or else there are a lot of people using up unused fireworks out there. One enthusiastic lot let a whole pile off while we were standing at the South Ruislip station this afternoon - it was a bit pointless since none of the lights could be seen. However, there was a much more timely display later on, when it was dark, while we were sitting in a café in Shepherds Bush having milkshakes (with NZ icecream in them).
We had a meal in the West End, at a some sort of noodle house in the Haymarket. The food was great: I had a chicken satay and Celia a large noodle soup with chicken. This was after we’d spent some time exploring the five storeys of Waterhouse’s - good grief. Too many books, but I finished up buying one on Alfred Hitchcock and his movies anyway, by Patrick McGilligan.
Then we got the bus back to Shepherd’s Bush, pointing out well-known places as we passed them, checking out the Christmas lights in some of the major shops (Fortnum and Mason’s is celebrating its tricentenary and have done the Twelve Days of Christmas as their window display. Hugely detailed and wonderful conceived.
We also stumbled on the Orlando Chamber Choir rehearsing for their performance tonight of Handel’s Jephtha. It was a bit bitzy, as you’d expect, but worth sitting in on all the same.

All quiet on the East Anglia front

2007-11-09T03:58:00.000+13:00

We went back to Sheringham yesterday. Sheringham, as you might remember, is Celia’s other ‘home.’ On the way we called in at Gresham Church where her parents are buried, along with her grandparents and aunts and uncles. We’d been there once before, back at the beginning of our English stay. Yet again we forgot to take the camera - or rather I did. It’s in my man bag which I haven’t been using much since we got back to England.
Celia dropped her handbag out of the car while we were there, and only discovered later that she didn’t have her cellphone. She’d picked up everything that had dropped, she thought, but obviously the cellphone went somewhere different. Anyway, we weren’t aware of having left it in Gresham until this morning when I tried ringing the phone to see if it was in the car somewhere or around the house. A woman answered, instead. She said she’d found the phone yesterday and had picked it up, thinking it probably belonged to one of the locals. We’ve arranged to go and get it when we get back from our London/Northampton trip. (We leave tomorrow and come back Wednesday.)
We didn’t do anything particularly exciting in Sheringham. Celia just wanted to ‘breath it in’ again. Even managed to avoid picking up anything in the op shops, though we did find four Ian Rankin books that we haven’t read going at £2.50 each.

Snooze level

2007-11-07T06:54:00.000+13:00

Another quiet day. Virtually all of interest we’ve done is book ourselves a room in South Ruislip and go and see one of Celia’s brothers.

We’re going up to London on Friday for three nights for two reasons. One is to say goodbye to a couple of our friends, and the other is to drop off a pile of stuff at a removal company that’s being sent home separately. One of my daughters works for the NZ branch of this company and has arranged for our excess stuff to go at a super cheap rate. So yesterday we sorted through the books we’ve bought and the other items, and the clothes, and organised what we’d send that way and what we’d take with us. Hopefully everything we want to send separately can go. If not, we’ll have to do a bit of a rethink.

A little shock

2007-11-06T11:29:00.000+13:00

This morning we went into Norwich to check out the mobile connect, which you may remember suddenly stopped working in Switzerland. We’d been a bit concerned at the time that maybe it was chewing through the costs, and that we’d get a large bill, so I was also rather screwing up my courage in terms of how much it was going to cost. I hadn’t been able to get Vodafone to respond by cellphone or email to my request for assistance in this area while we were in Europe.

The guy in Vodafone Norwich looked up the number on the screen and said, There’s nothing wrong with it. A credit bar has come up because there was concern that someone was using it illegally. Because there was so much owing on it.

Like how much?

£969.

Yup, you read that right. That’s $2618.29 in NZ dollars at today’s exchange rates. Yet we’d been using the Internet in Barcelona for a euro an hour!

I got shivers up and down my spine and spoke to the customer service people at Vodafone on the assistant’s cellphone. It didn’t help. That was the bill, the girl said.

The assistant asked if I knew about an alternative way of using the mobile connect on the Continent. In that case you paid £111 and could download 200 megs. That would have been better, although we’d managed to get through 200 plus megs in the times I’d been using the thing.

We went home in a state of shock. Literally. Celia was in tears, as you might expect, and I didn’t know what to say at all. The only thing that the assistant had recommended was to ring Vodafone back again and get hold of a Team Leader, as they were sometimes able to do something about such unexpected bills.

I had some lunch, though had some difficulty downing it, and finally rang Vodafone and asked for a Team Leader. They told me one would be available to ring me back in about an hour, so I thanked them, and hoped I wouldn’t be waiting too long.

Tried to do other things, without much success. And then the phone rang. Before I could say anything much the guy announced who he was and that he was putting a credit through for the £969 and he was charging out each 24 hours at $8.50 a time and that the bill would come to $59 or thereabouts, plus the usual monthly charge.

I was almost too stunned to thank him. Not only having the gift of such a large amount rescinded but to have it done without me even asking for it was extraordinary.

There was sudden rejoicing amongst the Crowls. And on top of that, a short while after Celia unexpectedly found the connection to one of the innumerable electronic toys she plays with which a long search yesterday had convinced us was lost. We’d gone to Norwich this morning to get a replacement for it, but had forgotten all about it in the stress of the moment…

Quiet

2007-11-05T09:31:00.000+13:00

Things are a little quiet on the travel front, so there’s not much to report here in the blog. Spent most of Saturday resting after our long exertion on the Friday, watched X-Factor in the evening and disagreed entirely with the judges and then watched some odd pilot and the second episode which was showed straight after it. It was a tv series called Shooting the Past, and it turns out it was made back in 1999. More about that on my other blog.

Today we’ve done nothing more than go to church, have lunch with our niece and her family, and come home.

Life may get more interesting –who knows?

Home to Attleborough

2007-11-04T00:39:00.000+13:00

Long day yesterday, all focused on travel. We could have quite happily have got on a plane back to New Zealand, but we still have a month to go in England before we go home. That’s okay, we have all these friendly relatives here who look after us, so we can’t complain!

The plane didn’t go till 16.20 so we had quite a lot of time to fill in. The trouble with travel days is that you tend to do little else except wait around: so we had a coffee and coke in a café around the corner from our apartment, moved up the road and read for a while under a willow, moved further up the road and caught the tram, transferred to the Metro which conveniently took us all the way to the airport, sat around in the airport reading, had more coffee (our own from the famous flask this time), read more, eventually stood in the queue to get on the plane (I stood in the queue – Celia sat and read), sat and read some more, had more coffee, stood in the melee to get on the plane, got on the plane, read on the plane, snoozed on the plane, got off the plane, got on the bus and finally got home. Exciting.

The biggest bonus of the day was that we already had our ticket booked for the National Express and there was no problem getting back with them, and they got us here a quarter of an hour earlier.

The other unusual thing was getting to Stansted and finding that all the passengers, having disembarked from the plane, then got on the airport tram and were shot off to the arrival lounge, which must have been a kilometre or more away. Stansted is huge.

More details about paddling

2007-11-03T11:38:00.000+13:00

The apartment we’ve moved into isn’t quite up to the standard of the previous one, even though by all accounts it’s more luxurious. There’s a lack of kitchen utensils, for instance; a lack of dinner plates (Celia reckons they’re back at the other place and the rest of the set is here); and various other small things that add up to it not being quite what we first thought. That’s okay; we were much better off in the other apartment for the week.
We had nothing much in the house for lunch so we walked in Plaza de Reina (Reina meaning Queen) and pretty much took up the first café/bar we found. It was advertising an English breakfast, but once inside we opted for the Paella, even though our last experience of paella, in Barcelona, was most disappointing. It had been very salty and rather burnt underneath.
We also opted to stay inside out of the sun, because by that time the sun had decided to give it a go, and it had become very hot. Opting to stay inside meant we were (a) able to read Lesson 42 in the Spanish/English course that was left on our counter. It was a lot of fun, and obviously was partly done with tongue in cheek. ‘Your cologne smells like gasoline.’ ‘You remind me of Robert Redford. You have made me feel like a real man.’ ‘Why aren’t these accounts up to date? What, you think I’m some kind of magician? You need to be, or else you’ll be looking for another job.’ ‘I read The Economist. It tends to focus on gay marriages and the legalisation of drugs.’ And so on.
(b) We were also in the firing line kitchen-wise. It was rather like being not in the restaurant but in the kitchen itself, and of course, with the staff all being Spaniards, there was a great deal of full on in-your-face discussion. Fun.
The paella was lovely when it came, and just what the doctor ordered.
From there we caught the tram back down to the beach, which was more crowded than the other day: lots of families, and kids, and couples. We watched a father play with his children (aged from about four to fourteen) for ages: he was creating a circle in the sand and they had to get him out of it or get him down. They never did. Even when his wife joined in, he stayed on his feet - she went down with quite a thump at one point. Celia was tempted to join in, but restrained herself.
We also paddled in the Mediterranean. The first wave was cold, but nothing like Dunedin beaches. And after that you didn’t feel chilled, but just comfortable. We walked along the beach quite a way, Celia’s foot apparently enjoying the change.

The NZ tourist's wife paddles

2007-11-03T11:36:00.001+13:00

Celia sampling the not too cold water of the Mediterranean, in a Valencia beach.

The NZ tourist paddles

2007-11-03T11:33:00.000+13:00

Mike paddling in the Mediterranean. Notice the rolled up trouser legs, the man bag, and another bag as well containing books to read and various odds and ends.

Quality end to the European holiday

2007-11-01T23:52:00.000+13:00

Today is a public holiday - All Saints - so things are fairly quiet out on the street, though they weren’t during the night when lots of young people were out and about yahooing and generally waking up old people in the middle of the night. Anyway, we didn’t have to get up quite so early this morning, even though we shifted out of the apartment.

The new apartment is about five minutes walk away (at normal walking speed: with our bags and Celia’s foot it took us somewhat longer), and it’s entrance is in a much narrower street again. In fact cars don’t go down it. There’s a square just on one corner with a statue of what looks at first like a skateboarder; think it’s some explorer, though. The trees in the square seem to be growing mandarins, or some equivalent, and outside one of the balcony windows is the back of the Cathedral with a door that looks as though it hasn’t been opened in some time.

The apartment is much more luxurious-looking than the other place, although both of us found the previous place to be very comfortable and up to date. This one has a lot more ‘antique’ furniture. It may actually be antique; I don’t know, but it probably came with the place when Nicholas, the owner, bought it. Again it has a superb oval glass-topped table, with six chairs this time, instead of four. There are all the mod cons in the kitchen and bathrooms (two of these again!) including a dishwasher again. We’re not much into bothering with dishwashers; most of our English rellies have them, but we’re quite happy to wash up as we go.

There are original paintings everywhere, some by an artist called Antonio Ferri. You can read a short biography of him here. Seems he’s a local painter, who’s spent some time in the States but has decided that home is best.

There’s even a hallway to this apartment, something our previous only pretended to have. In it is an antique couch with cushions, gold braid and so forth, and opposite a shelf with a delightful statue of a horse. Celia’s a bit iffy about being in a place with so many knickknacks of the antique sort; she doesn’t want to turn round suddenly and break something.

The lounge has two modern couches facing each other, another glass-topped (square) table, and more antique furniture. Plainly the latter isn’t hard to find in Spain!

Finally, there's an even more up-to-date tv and dvd. And a different collection of movies. We're having a blob day (after all our exertions yesterday) and Celia's watching something while I type.

I haven't mentioned that in both these apartments I've had free wireless for the Internet. The last place had one option - this has three!

The picture by Antonio Ferri comes courtesy of Galeria Estil in Valencia.

A little frustration

2007-11-01T10:33:00.000+13:00

We decided to go to Alacante today and use up at least some of the remaining money on our Eurail Pass. This meant getting up at 5.45 in order to catch a train at 7 am. (This was Celia’s idea, not mine.) We managed this task, although for some reason (I think I’d eaten too many grapes in one go) I had to get up during the night at least three times, and I had the most incredible dreams which didn’t make me feel as though I’d slept well at all. In fact I actually went to sleep on the train for a half an hour, something I rarely do.
We arrived in Alacante without any hitch and without having to pay any additional supplement on our Pass. The sun wasn’t shining much when we got there and I anticipated a chilly day, but it got hotter and hotter and finally we were shedding stuff in order to survive.
We discovered that there’s a tram system in Alacante and thought we’d take it to one of the beach stops, Costa Blanca. But finding the tram was a major issue. We found the place the main stop was named after - the Mercato, a two-storeyed market with dozens of fish and meat stalls - but couldn’t find the tram. Celia saw a sign for the tourist information - and then we couldn’t find that. But we did come across a small museum dedicated to the artists who are involved in the St John’s Festival time. (Hogueras St Juan is the Spanish name.) Seemingly they elect a Princess (and possibly a Prince sometimes) and they make all these extraordinarily imaginative installations (Celia’s word, and apt) which in some cases stand several metres high - and seemingly at some point they burn them! Now I may have got something wrong here, so don’t quote me on this yet.
Anyway, in the museum were posters, photographs and even better, working models of the installations, mostly done in plaster. At least that’s what I gathered they were: things rescued from oblivion by some interested parties. They were a delight: fantastic and detailed and very creative, done by men who were superb artists and sculptors, men who had great senses of humour and weren’t afraid to be robust in their humour!
After this we found the Information place, and had to walk back up the street (and a short hill) to get to the Tram. Still no sign of it and then we realised it was underground - again. Certainly it is a tram, but it begins its run underground and only gets to look like a tram after about five minutes.
We got to the beach and had lunch and sat and read and probably got burnt a bit, and were greeted with a Buenos Dias by two elderly Spanish ladies, but ignored by the Brits. And finally we decided it was time to come home.
We were going to catch the 15.25 but when I checked I was told it was full. So I booked on the next one at 16.16 and even got a refund on the booking charge we’d had to pay last weekend for our tickets to Madrid. But then the fun started.
You might remember that we had to get a bus from Barcelona Sants to Tarragona last week before we could get on the train. This is still happening, and today it caused a great long delay. The train from Barcelona arrived about 16.35, and because they then had to clean the thing before anyone could board it, no one was allowed on board till well after 17.00. I don’t suppose we were the only frustrated people, but the Spaniards in general kept it hidden from view.
The train shuffled off at 17.25 and meandered its way to Valencia. Instead of taking only about an hour and a half, it took nearly two hours, the same as it had in the morning, when we’d been on a slower train.
Got into Valencia and intended to catch a 5B which goes down our street. 5Bs were few and far between apparently. In the end, (frustrated) we got on an 8, which we’d taken this morning, only to find that the board that allows disabled people to get on the bus wouldn’t retract after a person in a wheelchair was put on. Several people got off, intending to get the next number 8 (they were much more frequent), and then a 5B turned up! We raced for it - even Celia with her sore foot - only to find that the driver refused to accept our tickets. ‘But the ramp was stuck!’ cried Celia, frustrated. The driver hadn’t a clue what she was saying but there was no doubt that he wasn’t going to let us on his bus with another driver’s tickets.
I got off in a little dudgeon. (It wasn’t ‘high’ just moderate.) And we boarded the number 8 again, which had now got itself sorted out (a mechanic had appeared from somewhere). Amazingly they offloaded the person in the wheelchair and left him sitting on the pavement! The ways of the Spanish are beyond the ken of English-speaking people.
Finally got to the famous Towers of Serranos once more and crawled back to the apartment. Which we have to vacate tomorrow morning, so as to move to our next apartment five minutes away.
And then home on Friday. Well, home to Norfolk.

Of course, I found out all about the Bonfires Festival on the Net after I'd written the stuff above. Check it out here.

An arty morning

2007-10-31T07:21:00.000+13:00

For the first time since we’ve been in Europe, Celia went in one direction this morning and I went in another. We arranged to be home by three o’clock. I had the cellphone, and Celia had the number (and the street address). It felt quite strange, as we’ve hardly been apart for more than half an hour since we arrived in Hamburg at the beginning of the month.
Anyway, Celia went off to the mall/supermarket (I hardly need to remind you that these are her museums), and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, which is in easy walking distance. And it was free.
What a dream of a place! In the large foyer, there are paintings that would barely fit on the walls of our apartment. As you go in beyond this there are rooms and rooms of wondrous religious art, some of it huge. Upstairs is a mixture of later art works, with more portraits, and then upstairs again are more modern works, though nothing seems to date much beyond the beginning of the twentieth century.
It was exhausting just trying to take it all in, what with Goya and El Greco and various other great Spanish painters on display. And then there were two courtyards: one is a wonderful fresh garden, with palm trees, and green, green plants. The other is bare apart from a statue of Martin de Tours and the beggar. However, around the windows on the first floor is a wondrous blue colour.
It’s interesting how limited the range of subject matter is in religious art. While the Spanish paint St Francis a good deal more than other countries, there are dozens of versions of the Crucifixion and the events surrounding it. Curiously there aren’t many Nativity scenes in this museum. But there is one vital and energetic picture of the Holy Family (plus John the Baptist). Unusually the two boys are grown men in this picture and along with Joseph they’re hammering away at something not very obvious in the centre in a very muscular fashion. Mary is stuck on one side.
St Sebastian comes in for several portraits. [That's him in the picture.] Here in Spain he’s always shown in his dying agony with just one arrow in him. (Usually in other countries there’s a welter of arrows). It’s a puzzle why he’s such a choice subject for artists. I’ve just had a look at the interesting Wikipedia article on him, and seemingly even though he was shot full of arrows he survived, was nursed back to health, and went on to bring more people to Christ. So it’s interesting that the Spanish versions have him with only one arrow, and obviously dead. The other curious thing is that he’s always virtually naked in whatever country he’s painted, and his body is always romanticised as being a fine specimen of young manhood. (The Spanish tend to make him a youth, in fact, which he wasn’t when he was shot.)
In the museum there are few examples of mythical art, though the Rape of the Sabines makes its usual appearance. It’s curious that this is another motif that’s so common in art of this time. Is it because we lean towards certain themes, or is it because of something altogether different? It’d be interesting to know.
After this I made my way into town (which is when I discovered that the Metro is both underground and tram) and finally found a place to post the postcards we’ve been carrying around for days. At the Post Office, of course. Post boxes are a rare thing in Valencia, as far as we can make out.
Celia finally arrived home half an hour after our arranged time, absolutely exhausted, of course, but still fairly cheerful. Her foot had stood up to the pace, apparently.

Lost, language, and other matters

2007-10-31T06:58:00.000+13:00

Tonight, went back to try and find the jersey I’d left behind today. Found the café, which was an achievement in itself, as there’s a café/bar about every ten metres in Valencia (and probably in most Spanish cities). No joy. My miming and pulling at the other jersey I had on brought some recognition of what had happened, but no jersey. I think what the woman probably said in Spanish was: You are a fool and only a fool leaves his jersey behind. Go! The only reason I was carrying one was because it was chilly again when I set out this morning. By the time I’d got up the street the sun was well and truly hot, and I didn’t need the jersey for the rest of the trip. In spite of that most Valencians were wearing coats and scarves, even though the temperature, according to the sign in the underground train, was 20 degrees.
What does Valencia have in common with Rotorua? Every so often you get a whiff of something unpleasant - in Valencia’s case it’s more likely to be the drains.
The streets around the historic city, where we are, are very confusing. I’ve now got lost twice today, though tonight it wasn’t as bad. If I’m not careful I’ll be the next thing we leave behind on this trip. One part of the problem is that you’re surrounded by three and four storey buildings in narrow, one-way streets, and you’ve no landmarks visible. The other part of the problem is that on our map the street names are in one language while the street signs (which are mostly attached to the corners of buildings, as they were in Italy) are in another. In some cases there’s not much difference, but in others the difference is considerable. Once you get the hang of the fact that you’re possibly looking for a different word on the map, things fall into place a bit more, but it still trips you up. There doesn’t seem to be much consistency in the use of the languages: in some places you see things in both languages, particularly on public transport, but in others you have no idea what language is being used.
I’d thought I’d got the word for milk sussed: La Leche, as in the breastfeeding League. That was easy. But when I’ve tried leche in Valencia, they look blankly at me. It may be lette or latte; I really don’t know. Some shopkeepers have patience; others get into a Spanish grump, as in: You are a fool who only speaks English and dares to try to speak our wondrous language. Desist!
And there are two distinct types of people here. Those who we’d regard as Spanish from movies and other pictures, people who look more European. And then there are those who appear to be South American in origin. I suppose hundreds, maybe thousands of them were bought back as slaves during the Conquest, and these are the descendents, living alongside their original conquerors.

Rethink and Rules

2007-10-31T02:55:00.000+13:00

The Metro in Valencia isn’t just a tram. It’s also an underground. Ah, well, we’ll get it right eventually.
The Spanish don’t seem to have a sense of personal space: they’ll bump into you in the street and make no comment, and if you ask them something, they’ll often seem to ignore you. On the other hand, when they do respond, they’re just lovely and friendly. Well, apart from the bus driver we got last night, who wouldn’t let two old people off the bus (he’d missed opening the door for them) until they shouted at him - and then he wouldn’t let a woman on at the same place! There have to be exceptions everywhere, I guess.

I’m going to start compiling a list of tourist ‘rules.’

1. If you see a toilet, use it, even if you don’t want to go at that point. Toilets are hard to come by. (Curiously, toilets in Spain are called the WC.)
2. Words like ‘hola!’ in Spain, ‘prego’ in Italy, and ‘bitte’ in Germany may mean anything the speaker wants them to mean. But they’re handy words, all the same.
3. It is inevitable that you will lose things while travelling. Don’t fuss. So far we’ve lost the cover to Celia’s knife, maybe even the knife itself, possibly a pair of my underpants, a piece off Celia’s Swiss Army Knife, and maybe some things we haven’t noticed so far. I got all the way home today before I noticed I’d left my jersey somewhere - probably in a café where I stopped for a cup of very milky coffee. Trouble is, I probably can’t find the place again - I got completely lost on the way home as it was.
4. The main thing is, Don’t lose each other. And be nice to each other - this makes a big difference under stress.
5. Never assume that you know everything about the city just because you’ve found your way from the railway station to your place of abode. Usually the city is a hundred times bigger than you thought.

The picture is of a toilet in Spain - not one we've used though.

Celia puts a brave face on it

2007-10-30T09:17:00.000+13:00

Today we managed two trips out, in spite of Celia’s sore foot. She bravely walked along at a snail’s pace, and eventually we got to where we were going.
First trip was to the covered Market, [see photo] which is reputed to the be the largest covered market in Europe. It may be, but it wasn’t somehow as pleasant as the market in Barcelona, which was only a couple of blocks away from our place of residence. The Valencia market is very spacious, and things are divided up more clearly, so that the fish market is isolated from the rest. Yet it didn’t have the friendly feel of the Barcelona one, nor the exuberance of the Melbourne one we saw three years ago. Never mind, we bought plenty of food there, enough to keep us going until we go home. It’s the first time we’ve actually had food on hand to any extent. We had a cup of coffee each in the café across the road - a real blue collar café - and the coffee was very black.
On the way back I found that there was an art exhibition in the building next door. I think the place is called Obras Sociales - or it could be Caja Mediterráneo. Both names appear on the two catalogues they gave me for free. Entry was free as well.
There were two exhibitions, one related to mental health in the community (related very loosely, but that’s by the by), and the other by Marlén Ramos, about whom I know nothing really since the text is all in Spanish. Both were good exhibitions: the first had paintings collected together from a variety of 20th century artists, many of whom are now dead. Ramos’ work came under the cover of ‘Patchwork Paintings’ and were carefully crafted abstract pieces. Both the catalogues have reproductions of all the paintings in their respective exhibitions. That was a bonus.
Our second trip out was to the Aquarium. We got the 95 bus as far as we thought it went and then found that it went all the way. Unfortunately this meant Celia had to walk some distance, from in front of the Science Museum, past the next building and the covered garden and right down and around the corner to the Aquarium entrance. In due course we got there!
Pluses. The walruses were a delight, swimming on their backs right under where we were watching from, and huffing and puffing and grunting and making rude noises in their usual fashion. The something-or-other whale (I’ll really have to take a notebook with me) was equally enthusiastic about swimming past us, as was a single penguin in a large area that had lots of other penguins preening themselves. The first area we went into had fish from coral reef areas; two huge tanks with hundreds of fish of all sorts swimming around. There were seats between the two tanks so you could just sit and relax. (After our walk it was essential.) The hypnotic tank of jellyfish, and of course, the seahorses and seadragons were a delight.
Minuses. In spite of this being touted as the biggest aquarium in the world, it isn’t the most exciting. It’s spread out over a large area, but includes three restaurants in that area. The walruses and that whale are in tanks that really aren’t big enough for them long-term, and having an aviary in an aquarium seems a bit odd. The flamingoes and pelicans have a lot of room, but there are only ducks in another pond (!) and what are they all doing in an aquarium? The tropical fish aren’t particularly colourful - in fact, there were far more colourful fish in the shop we went to in Norfolk (for free) than there were here.
I think the aquarium in Melbourne, though not so large in terms of space, is actually better value for money. Presumably the Valencia one has plenty of room to expand!
Worst Minus: the terrible music that accompanies you wherever you go in this place. It's monotonous and trivial.
And so back onto the 95 bus, which we thought would take us in a loop back around to the Towers of Serranos, which are at the top of our street. When we got to the bridge across the riverbed that leads onto the towers, Celia said she didn’t feel like walking across, so we stayed on the bus assuming that in ten minutes or so it would come back closer to home. Half an hour later we finally got there, having gone into the depths of suburban Valencia, and sat for five or ten minutes while the driver had a break. In the meantime it had got dark, which made seeing the Towers more difficult. And we were very hungry.

Need to correct a recent post

2007-10-30T08:51:00.000+13:00

The riverbed in Valencia, the one that’s dry, is now called the Gardens of Turia, Turia being the river’s name. It has been diverted to the south of the city in a specially made canal and the great flood that brought this about happened only in 1957 not 1907. Besides the playing fields we saw there are actual gardens, and at the other end from where we’re staying the Science Museum, the something else museum and the Aquarium (about which more later) are all built on the former river.

Quiet Sunday in Valencia

2007-10-29T08:51:00.000+13:00

In spite of Celia’s sore foot, we went to High Mass at the Cathedral this morning. Mass seems to happen every hour on the hour there, as well as next door (literally) at the Basilica! Not that the Cathedral was packed, but there were half a dozen priests saying Mass together. It’s the second time we’ve gone to Mass since we’ve been away: in Florence we went to one in an ancient church in the old city. Again it wasn’t far from where we lived. On both occasions I can truly say I had no idea what the priest was preaching about!
Came back from there and decided to get out of the apartment anyway, even though Mrs’ foot was sore. Walked up over what used to be the river. I don’t know quite what happened, but there are notices locally about the Great Flood of 1907 (if I’ve got my facts right) when the historic city (where we’re staying) was flooded badly. The river bed is very wide, so for it to have flooded must have been a considerable achievement.
Equally, for it to be totally dry, as it now is, is another considerable achievement. Again, I don’t know why this is, but presumably any water that used to go through there is now diverted somewhere else. This afternoon the area closest to us was being used as a parade ground for umpteen soccer teams (all dressed in the most colourful uniforms) and when we returned several teams were still playing games. The whole river bed near here at least is one large community recreation area.
We finally discovered, after four days in Valencia, that the Metro here is not an underground train, but the tram system. The trams are very new and tidy, and we caught one down to the beach where we sat and did very little for quite a long time. It was a lovely afternoon, and people were out in full force. That actually meant little, because the beach is so vast, and the promenade area is wide and long, that you didn’t feel crowded in the least.
We watched half a dozen people playing volleyball for a long time, and then later saw a man and a woman flying kites in tandem. They both had the same model kite, one that has two strings attached to it. The strings are connected to a handle that the flyer uses, and because of the shape, the kite can be manipulated very readily. The man was ‘leading’ with his kite, and where he led, the woman would aim to follow with her kite. I think he was coaching her in some way, but my Spanish is a little limited. Anyway, it was a lovely sight to see these two kites echoing each other around the air space.
And so home to the apartment, where we snoozed for an hour or two (it’s daylight saving changeover here today) and then Celia whipped up a perfectly decent meal from the next to nothing we had in the fridge.

The picture is of the Cathedral; just to its left is the Basilica (not shown). Celia missed the step just near the door.

A bit of a rethink

2007-10-29T08:37:00.000+13:00

We’d thought that Celia’s foot had reverted to her old problem from a couple of years ago, but we’re now wondering if it’s not a reaction to when she was walking across the Cathedral Square (which is just a couple of blocks from our apartment) and missed seeing a step down at one point. She jarred herself badly and it may be that her foot is reacting to the mishap. In a way that would be better than if the heel thing had started up again. In a way.
Anyway, it’s caused up to rethink our options, and so it may be a good thing that we couldn’t book Madrid to Paris yesterday. We’ve decided to go back to England the day after Valencia week rather than heading up into France. Our concern was that with her foot being so sore to walk on, another series of walks with the full rucksack wouldn’t help things to heal. So we got on the Net this morning and rearranged our flight. It cost us a bit more, but it’s better that she gets ‘home’ to Attleborough as soon as practical, where at least she may be able to talk to a doctor who understands English.
Unfortunately it means we might not be making the fullest use of our Eurail Pass, but again, her health comes before that as a consideration. Our ‘landlord’ here in Valencia has kindly said we can go to another one of his apartments for the extra day at the same price as we’re paying here. It’s only five minutes away, so it shouldn’t be too much of a shift!

Frustrating Day

2007-10-28T11:10:00.000+13:00

We’ve had a rather frustrating day today, though not entirely. You can read about the good bit on my other blog.
We sat down to plan what we’re doing next this morning. We know already that we’re flying home from Lyons in France on the 7th November, but what we were going to do in the week before that hadn’t been organised. In the end, after some debate, we decided to go overnight from Madrid to Paris on the 3rd. Tried to book online. Complications. Eventually decided we’d go down to the Railway Station and book there. This was after lunch, and we arrived at the station just before 13.58. How do I know it was that time? Because that was the time we picked out a ticket from the booking office and sat down to wait.
We were ticket number 567. The tickets that were being handled when we sat down were in the mid 300s.
It was around four o’clock when we finally got attended to, so you can imagine our disbelief when the guy behind the glass told us we couldn’t book an international ticket because international tickets were only booked on Saturdays until 1 pm. And not at all on Sundays.
Celia berated him a little. To put it mildly. I had to carry her out of the office screaming. We did manage to book a ticket to Madrid for the 1st at least - before she had hysterics.
So that put paid to another day in Valencia. Our intention had been to go to the Market, and then get a tram to the beach. Achieved neither. Worse, Celia’s heel, which hasn’t been playing up since she had a cortisone injection last year suddenly decided to make its presence felt again. We’ve been walking around Valencia mostly, so far. But with her heel playing up we’re not sure how we’ll get from A to B. We got a bus to the show tonight, but we walked back (because it was difficult to find a bus), and her heel didn’t enjoy it.

In Valencia

2007-10-27T04:40:00.000+13:00

In Barcelona, as we’ve no doubt mentioned, we were on the fifth floor - officially the fourth floor, since the Spanish call what we call the first floor the E floor (don’t ask me what the E stands for) - but anyway, there were 83 steps up to our apartment. We know this for a fact because Celia counted them every time - up and down.
In Valencia, which strikes me as a very pretty city, with real style - and rather more aggressive traffic than Barcelona - we have an apartment with around 40 steps. 40 steps are a lot less than 83, believe it or not, and Celia has not counted them every time. Once was enough.
The other difference, however, is that we have the whole apartment to ourselves. Unlike our place in Barcelona, which was part of a system called The Loft, where unused apartments were rented out to as many people as they could get into them, (and where they must have made well over 200 euros a night, and still couldn’t supply toilet paper), here in Valencia, the owner of this apartment has rented out the whole place to us (two bedrooms, laundry, bathroom, kitchen, dining-cum-living room) for 75 euros a night. Not only do we have privacy, but it’s a lot less noisy (and far fewer steps - did I mention that?)
Moreover, it’s well-decorated with a modern painting over on one wall (looks as though it’s an original, too), a large hanging version of Da Vinci’s man in a circle (or is it two men in a circle - or one man with four arms and four legs?), a really comfortable couch, an equally comfortable armchair (in which somebody is currently asleep), good beds that neither squeak nor roll nor anything else that beds shouldn’t do, an equipped kitchen (it has a toaster! and an electric kettle!! and much more), a television and a DVD player - and about a dozen DVDs. In English. (We watched Finding Neverland again last night.) On the walls are other decorations: Spanish decorated plates, or little round ceramic sculptures; there are plenty of standard lamps and a general air of comfort. And a washing machine. Wow! No more laundrettes for a bit.
So pleased with the place was Celia that she remarked: the pièce de résistance (she lapses into French on special occasions) would be if the laptop could get on the Internet here. And it does! We’re using some apparently free WiFi without difficulty. Which means we’ve spoken to most of our kids today again, via Skype.
Our intention in Valencia is to rest. Which is why we’re here for a week. We’ll take a couple of trips out of town on the train (we’re getting to the point where we’ve got to use some of them up) but in general we’re not going to push ourselves. In spite of being on holiday, we’re actually tired…
Incidentally, when we were in Rome, we booked into an expensive hotel thinking that for once we'd treat ourselves. It proved to be very ordinary: a room with a bed and an en suite. And seven towels in the en suite. It cost us an unbelievable 140 euros a night. Yet here in Valencia we have a whole apartment for 75 a night. It's hard to get a balance, that's for sure.

Incidentally, I now discover that the da Vinci isn't called a couple of blokes in a circle, but The Vetruvian Man. There, isn't the Internet just wonderful for educating us?

Train joys

2007-10-26T10:07:00.000+13:00

As I said in another post, there has been some interruption to the train services - ours particularly, so that when we got to Sants this morning we found we had to reserve a seat, like it or not. We sat waiting for some time and then suddenly everything was go: officials galore gathering up the passengers and, with signs, walking them outside to a waiting bus. Where we waited. Finally, at eleven, we took off. Knowing that there’d been some interruption, we weren’t too worried as we thought the bus would just drop us off at the nearest connecting station. It did. An hour and a half later - at Tarragona. By that time everyone on the bus was sweating profusely as the heating was one (it is autumn in Spain, after all) and the air conditioning wasn’t. With great relief we all abandoned the bus, and are now all on our way to Valencia (and several points in between), forty minutes late, but at least there’s room to move - and there’s a movie (Orlando Bloom in Spanish - it’s something we’ve seen before [Elizabethtown] and it isn’t very good), and the train has a decent toilet and a restaurant car with reasonable prices.

What a night!

2007-10-26T10:06:00.001+13:00

Our room in the apartment in Barcelona is one of five bedrooms and mostly they’ve been fully occupied since we’ve been here. And equally most of the occupants have been pleasant and fairly quiet, from a Russian woman and her six-year old daughter, and their adult lady friend (the child’s former kindergarten teacher), to the Australian couple and a Japanese pair. But last night, after the Aussies and us had gone to bed (the Japanese were still out and the others had gone back to Holland), we were awakened at around one in the morning by the most outrageous yahooing and banging and crashing you can imagine. As it is there are notices everywhere about the other tenants of the building being likely to call the noise police (fine 400 euros), but whoever these two guys were, they couldn’t have cared less. Celia got up at one point and told them to Shut Up!, and briefly they did, but the shouting and noise carried on, along with what sounded like boots being dropped on the floor continually. They’d left the apartment door open (another no no) and when they went to their room there was screaming and yelling like I’ve never heard. Only God and them knows what was going on.
Finally silence.
And then the Japanese arrived at two…! The lift well, which was outside our window, amplified all sound (including that of the person in another apartment whose tv went from 9.30 am to 11 pm), so the Japanese footsteps up the 83 stairs, and their voices sounded quite clearly - along with the stair light being switched on. The gave the apartment door their usual crash shut, and then wandered around doing their ablutions and what have you with no great concern for the hour.
This morning we are shattered.

Getting Lost in Barcelona

2007-10-25T07:49:00.001+13:00

Our intention today was to go and see the Picasso Museum. Unfortunately a couple of days ago we lost the index booklet that went with our map, and so it proved to be a bit of an issue trying to find the street. Finally I saw on the map that Montcada was served by a Metro station and a bus. But when we got to the Metro station itself there was no sign of Montcada. So we deduced that the bus 96 must take us to it. Twenty minutes later we arrived at a outskirts suburb called Montcada. Celia didn´t want to get off there as it looked as though we might be in the middle of nowhere. And there was no sign of any museum - she said it was unlikely that it would be way out there anyway.
So in the end we gave up on Picasso.
We came back into La Rambla via the Metro planning on walking quietly along the seafront. However, I needed a loo (what´s new?) and there was a boat sitting there waiting to go for a tour round the harbour and beach.....
So on we got, into the loo I went, and we spent an hour and a half on the sea. It was very pleasant actually, although the water was quite rough outside the harbour basin (one woman was sick on the way back). Anyway, we saw Barcelona from the water....
When we got back to shore, we decided to have a cuppa from our faithful flask (the one we bought in Hamburg after our English one broke only a couple of weeks after we bought it. And because we weren´t sure where the train station is in Barcelona, we decided to have a recce and find it, so as to save ourselves hassle tomorrow, when we leave for Valencia.
It was just as well we did. The station at Arc de Triomphe (sorry, can´t remember how the Spaniards spell it) someone had told us served the trains doesn´t. There´s only a very large bus station there. We got back on the Metro and headed for the station called Espana, where the real train station is.
After getting on a suburban train instead of the Metro, and going three or so long stops before we realised something was drastically wrong (none of the stations were named on our Metro map), we got off and went back to where we started - almost. We were able to save one train stop by getting out a stop early. Eventually we found the Metro to Espana only to arrive there and be told that the train is kaput (as one non-English-speaking official told us). It turns out that the line is ´broken´ as another official charmingly put it, and we could either get a bus from Espana to Sants Estacio or get the Metro to it.
I´d read something to this effect in the Metro newspaper, one of the freebie papers that turn up on the underground, but hadn´t quite been able to figure out from the Spanish when the train was going to be kaput. I´m still not sure how long, but hopefully, when we go to Sants Estacio tomorrow, we´ll be able to get the mainline train to Valencia without difficulty. If not, we´re in trouble!

More on Parc Guell

2007-10-24T07:18:00.000+13:00

The gatehouse is out of a fairy tale; the house opposite is a like the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel - and has an enormous turret on top. A sweeping balcony further up the hill gives a wonderful view of the city, and is decorated with mosaics in every colour. And of course the edge is wave-like. Further up the hill again is a kind of walk made from stone pillars. But being designed by Gaudi, they’re made from stones of all shapes sitting on each other, and seemingly barely holding together.
The other house that was completed is slightly more ‘normal’ but only slightly. There is a long stone corridor with more of Gaudi’s leaning columns - and built onto these are all sorts of statues, some very defined, some only just creeping out of the rock. Across from there is the area beneath the balcony (when I say balcony, I’m talking about something that’s at least half an acre), in which the usual round columns you’d see in most places appear - but they’re everywhere. And between them, on the ceiling, are large plates of mosaics, not set into the ceiling but hanging from it.
The man must have had a wonderful sense of humour as well as design. Though how he persuaded some people to take up his ideas is something I’d like to know! Maybe the Spaniards are more open to quirkiness than other people.

Sacreda Familia

2007-10-24T07:16:00.000+13:00

Yesterday we got to Sacreda Familia (Holy Family) rather late, so didn’t go in. It’s Barcelona’s Cathedral, and is still being finished - after more than a hundred years! This isn’t for want of trying - there may have been some patches of inactivity since it was begun in the 1880s, such as during the Spanish Civil War (when the Cathedral was damaged) but in general it’s been on the go since day one.
It was the dream of a Barcelona bookseller, but I don’t suppose he ever dreamt he’d get what is now in existence. The first architect got as far as building the crypt area, which is substantial in itself, and now houses a museum to the second architect, Gaudi, who between other projects made it his life’s work to design the most remarkable cathedral in Christendom. He sometimes lived in the Cathedral; he had his workshop there at times, and he’s buried there. He’s so honoured that I’m sure most Barcelonians know his name. And he deserves all the honour heaped on him. Somehow he managed to create a monument to God, to Christ (and Mary) and to creation that is so strange and so remarkable that at first you just don’t know what to make of it.
Our first view of it, from across the street, made us wonder what the heck the place actually was. Because it’s still being built, there are cranes everywhere, and scaffolding. Several of the twenty odd towers that will eventually exist are there, and some of them have been there for more than a century. But your first impression of the building is of towers that are full of strange holes, and of a surface that’s so decorated you can’t grasp anything.
Fortunately, when you get up close you realise what’s going on. The way the surface seems to be sliding off itself, like icing melting on a cake, isn’t the case at all: the surface is covered with natural things such as plants and animals. Sculptured vines and creepers cover the building; there are dozens of sculptures of animals and people: stories from the Bible, and liturgical symbols. Each spire has a different top, and nothing is repeated anywhere. At present the tallest tower is 120 metres; in due course the one that focuses on Christ will be 170 metres, making the Cathedral not only the tallest building in Barcelona, but also the tallest church in the world.
Gaudi said: to be original go back to the Origin. And he has done. He continually studied plants and animals to see how things were structured, and used the designs in his buildings. (Not just the Cathedral but also all of his other architectural pursuits.) This created enormous problems for his sculptors, his engineers, his stonemasons, and everyone else connected with the building. But so loyal were they to Gaudi, and to his vision, that they overcome the problems again and again. Gaudi himself made intricate models of the most difficult parts of the structure, and many of these are on display in the museum in the crypt. Unfortunately most of his drawings and plans were destroyed in the Civil War, but subsequent architects and others have worked hard to discover exactly what he intended and to make sure his intentions are carried out.
The inside of the cathedral is at present full of scaffolding, but some areas are complete. In due course all the windows will have stained glass in them, but for now only two of these are finished, and they are both kaleidoscopes of colour. The inner columns weave up to the ceiling area like great plant stalks. None of them are simply round: they have been built so that they almost spiral upwards. In the ceiling itself, the stone is shaped like flowers and leaves, and these hang out over the columns. The balcony, which is high above the floor, and goes along both sides of the building, will hold 1200 to 1500 singers one day - when the place is complete. It’s shaped in a great wave, weaving in and out. The staircases are spiral, and you can already climb far up to the top of what’s completed - or take a lift. Celia reckoned Health and Safety would have something to say about thousands of tourists coming into a building site - which is what it is. Most of the floor is covered with moulds, and great pieces of stone, and building materials.
Outside what is currently the front entrance, are some of Gaudi’s famous leaning columns. These start out some distance from the wall, and fall back onto it, as it were. And over the doors are sculptures of the fourteen stations of the Cross. They’re not in the usual order - Christ naked on the cross is at the centre - but they wonderfully vivid, and striking.
As you can see, the place made quite an impression on us. And then we got a bus to Parc Guell, which was originally intended to be a place where sixty of Gaudi’s designed houses would be built. In the end only two (and a gatehouse) were finished. It’s now been turned into a park for the public, and has more of his almost outrageous designs scattered about. Perhaps more on those in the next post.

In Barcelona

2007-10-23T08:28:00.000+13:00

We weren’t sure how far it was from the ferry to the place where we had to get the key for our ‘loft’ in Barcelona, but a policeman at the port area said La Rambla, the street we were looking for initially, was only ‘past the monument.’ Okay, we thought, we’ll walk to the monument. And then we walked up La Rambla (Barcelona’s most famous street) and then, when we were going to catch a bus to Caller de Portaferrisa, which runs off La Rambla, a woman told us it wasn’t worth getting the bus; only five minutes’ walk. So we walked some more - with our rucksacks on our backs and our heavy smaller backpacks in front. And finally we found Portaferrisa, and then had trouble finding the little lane called Caller de Roca, for which we’d been given precise instructions. It was so little that we missed it altogether. Finally found the office for the people who run the ‘Loft’ system, and then we had to walk for at least another five minutes (rucksacks, backpacks, sore feet) with one of the staff to the apartment we would be sharing with whoever else was staying there. (The Loft is a group that rents out unused loft space - or areas high up in buildings - maintains them and offers them at very cheap rentals.)
Finally got there (rucksacks, backpacks, sore feet and sore backs) and found that we had to climb five flights of stairs! The lift doesn’t work anymore.
At least here we have a kitchen to cook our own meals, and though we’re sharing bathrooms, there are two of them. We had our first ‘home-cooked’ meal since we left Switzerland, and used some Mexican sauce which turned out to be very hot (though not as hot as the next level up apparently).
Anyway, Barcelona seems a pleasant place: the traffic isn’t nearly as frantic as in the Italian cities, and people actually stop at pedestrian crossings. In Italy it’s a challenge as to whether they will. (The motor scooters are the worst culprits for trying to run you down.) Even the Metro doesn’t seem as crowded - though we got literally shoved onto the train tonight by an enthusiastic feller, who laughed at our surprise - along with his friend. You couldn’t get mad at him.
La Rambla is a long pedestrian street with single-lane traffic up either side. There are buskers all over, especially those ones who act as statues, and it’s full of life even late in the evening. Unfortunately, the McDonald’s doesn’t sell milkshakes, which is the only disturbing thing we’ve discovered about Barcelona so far.
The place we’re staying in is only a few minutes from La Rambla, and there are little shops everywhere, plus clothes hanging from the balconies, tv aerials covering the roofs, dogs barking, people relaxed and pleasant (apart from a bit of fisticuffs we saw about to happen this morning), and at least two internet shops within spitting distance. On the ferry we’d had to pay 7.50 for half an hour for the privilege of using their internet; in the street near here it’s one euro an hour.
And this morning, as I was going to pay the bill for the room we’ve got, I got caught up in the making of a movie. A man ran out of a building and handed a bag to a guy on a motor scooter. This fellow had horns on his helmet (!) As he drove off, another scooter with a driver and a cameraman raced behind him. There were the usual twenty or thirty crew scattered about, and one person who looked like an actor but didn’t actually do anything. I might have been in the shot of the scooter taking off, but they looked as though they were going to shoot it again, so I might not get into a Spanish movie after all.

On the Ferry

2007-10-23T08:27:00.001+13:00

21st Oct, 2007
I’m writing this on the Ferry from Civitavecchia (pronounced, roughly, Chiv-ee-ta-veck-ee-ah) to Barcelona. We left over an hour late last night, so it doesn’t look as though we’re going to get into Barcelona (which apparently is spelt, Barcellona, in Spain) until at least an hour late, and maybe longer.
We got to the ferry terminal much too early, being a bit concerned in case we missed the thing. As it was, we sat around from two to six waiting. And reading - more of Ian Rankin. Stood out in the cold waiting to go on board because Celia was concerned that the machine we had to go past might notice that she had knives in her pack - and so we were trying to avoid it! In fact, we didn’t put our luggage through there at all in the end. Maybe they don’t use it anymore.
When we finally got on board we found that the cabin is more than adequate for anyone’s needs: a shower and a toilet included, and bunks and a little couch, and a small desk with a chair. Only about seven foot across, but surprisingly well-designed. We opted for the buffet meal because the ‘proper’ restaurant was expensive. Perhaps we should have gone with the expense: the buffet food was lukewarm, and the beef stew was full of gristle. Very disappointing, and not that cheap for what it was. Breakfast this morning wasn’t much better: very little choice - the only cereal was cornflakes. Never mind, it’s fun being on the boat with hundreds of Italians all doing their usual shouting at each other, and with East Europeans who’ve been shopping in Italy and are bringing all their goodies home.
I didn’t find it easy to sleep, though Celia dropped off while listening to one of her audio books around nine and didn’t get out of bed again until eight this morning. The boat rocks, of course, but that’s no big deal. But when you’re lying in bed you’re much more aware of noises and movement. It shudders continually, but like it’s breathing; so there’s a space and then a shudder, a space and shudder and so on. And every so often it hits a solid rock of a wave, and it sounds like one of the articulated lorries in the hold has come loose and gone for a wander. After this crashing down below had gone on for quite a while this morning, I went and talked to the Purser, and an Italian-speaking guy came round to explain, not long after, that it was the ‘machina’ that was making the noise. It still sounds as though it’s trying to drive a hole in the side of the hold, however!

Some notes about Rome

2007-10-23T08:26:00.000+13:00

Rome has been interesting, but because our hotel has been so far away from the tourist areas, we’ve had to do a lot of travelling. It’s cheap enough to do so, because the three day tickets are very reasonable and you can go on the Metro too, but the buses leave something to be desired. They have very few seats (so more people can cram onto them) and with everyone hanging on - and sometimes almost falling over - it’s quite an experience in human contact! The trams seem to have gone from the Roman streets - Celia says it was trams we used last time. The streets aren’t really built for vehicles: rattling over the cobblestones in a bus is bone-wrenching and this morning I couldn’t get words out to Celia because my teeth rattling around in my mouth.
Italian is a language I think I’d get tired of soonish: the way the words are overloaded with vowel sounds gets a bit tedious. German, by comparison, was actually a lot more varied on the ear. And the Italians, some of them, race through the words at a speed that’s quite phenomenal - again it must be something to do with the excess of vowels. It produces a kind of sing-song effect after a while. Furthermore, they all talk at full bore - there’s no kind of quietness about their conversation. Everything has to be done as though the whole world wanted to hear.
ATM machines in Germany are called Geldautomats. In Italy they’re Bancomats. Geld of course is the word for money in German - and has links with our ‘gold.’ Banco is the Italian ‘bank.’ Occasionally you come across a Postomat in Italy; the Post Office has its own system, seemingly.

When in Rome - do the laundry!

2007-10-23T08:17:00.000+13:00

Yesterday [now three days ago] was another laundrette day. Don’t know why we’d run out of clothes so quickly again, but it was very necessary. Maybe we’ve left some behind somewhere. Anyway, we also supermarketed, which gave Celia a bit of a rush. In the afternoon we headed into the old part of town again, specifically to the Colosseum. Got ourselves conned into having our pictures taken with a couple of ‘Roman guards’ who then demanded ten euros for the privilege. Celia gave them two euros and they said she was stingy. The Colosseum, like much of the area in the old Roman forum, is being restored. Some of it looks quite new, in fact. Many of the old columns in the forum have been put back together, jigsaw fashion, and there’s a huge amount of restoration going on. I don’t know that we walked through this area last time we were in Rome, but it’s certainly getting a lot of attention.
As we came out of the forum we discovered the Paul Gauguin exhibition that we’d read about. It was being held in the back of a building which we’d passed several times and hadn’t been able to name. Turns out it’s the main Art Gallery - at least as far as I understand.
The Gauguin, interestingly enough, didn’t have many of his South Sea Islands paintings, which are mostly what I’ve known him for. But it did have a wide range of his pictures overall, including a lot of his early work, which is wonderfully coloured, and a delight to the eye. To the end he remained a superb colourist, and seeing these early works as well has confirmed he’s an artist I really enjoy. His life, like so many of the artists of his time, was a muddle, and the political statements that the write-ups on him in the exhibition claim he was making are not that obvious - to my eye, anyway.
And talking of painting: we made our way to the Piazza del Popolo towards evening (after having had an excellent and economic meal at the Railway Station). Celia wanted to go there because it was close to the place we stayed at last time we were here. But neither of us could remember exactly where we had stayed, unfortunately. Anyway, the Piazza, when we got there, didn’t look at all familiar (!) and neither did the surrounding streets. But halfway along the Corso we came across this boy, who couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16, and he was painting with spray cans. He’d flip each can out of the box, give it a twist and a shake (rather like those guys in bars who throw cocktails around to mix them - and show off), and then set to with complete understanding of what he was doing to produce a painting. The whole thing was performance art, really, because it was done at great speed, with utter confidence, using the cans, the hands, pieces of cardboard torn on the spot, an old pie dish (for part of a circle), mixes of colour done with ease, and a total concentration that was a bit scary for someone of his age. At the end of it he sold the painting on the spot to someone for ten euros (!) He was working by the light of the shop next door, and at one point someone came out and said he needed to move along because the crowd watching him was blocking the shop doorway. So he just upped his equipment and moved a metre further, and then got back onto the job. There was another painter doing something similar further along the road - actually working almost in the dark - but he none of the panache of the boy.

Tripping around Roma on the bus

2007-10-20T07:36:00.000+13:00

Turns out that the 881 goes from outside the door of the hotel to St Peter's and Vatican City. Suddenly we turned a corner and there was the famous dome and colonnade. Still as extraordinary as ever, even though it's a place we've been to before. We followed the crowd in one of the queues and discovered that the bag Celia was carrying - with her Swiss army knife and another knife - had to go through a metal detector. For some reason it went through without the guards paying the slightest attention, and so we were able to park it in 'left luggage' and go inside without carrying it.

It turned out that we were in the queue that was heading for the crypt area, where Popes are buried. Well, we hadn't been there before, so we thought we'd give it a turn and catch up on the Basilica itself later. It wasn't the most inspiring place - except for those Catholics wanting to pray in front of the tomb of Pope John Paul II - and we trundled along with the crowd, climbed some stairs at the end, not quite knowing where we were going, and suddenly: we were inside the Basilica itself, with that awe-inspiring altar of four spiralling columns made of black marble.

Celia says we didn't get inside the Basilica when we were here in 1974 because there was a Mass being celebrated. I can't particularly remember. I know we saw the then Pope from a distance at one point on that occasion; he was being carried around on his throne high above the crowd. Anyway, the Basilica is fantastic, as you'd expect. This is one of the treasure houses of Catholicism after all. It's full of wonderful statuary and paintings and design. And then there is an actual treasure museum which we visited. Seemingly these particular treasures have been ransacked more than once and have had to be re-found again. Strangely enough, one of the most impressive items in the collection is very new: Pope John Paul II's vestments. They are so richly brocaded and designed that you just stop and wonder with delight.

We spent quite a long time at St Peter's all in all, and didn't actually get round to having lunch till five o'clock! (We'd stoked up on breakfast in the morning, anyway.) Found a restaurant near one of the bridges over the Tiber where the food was at our sort of price. Celia had a very nice spaghetti cabonera and I had a beef dish. Plus we shared a salad. Very tasty meal, slightly offset by the fact that what they then charged for the bottle of water and the bread was exorbitant.

Celia's idea of fun is to jump on a bus and see where it goes. She's full of confidence because we have a bus route map. So we got on a 64 and it took us through some of the touristy areas to the main station, where we discovered a bookshop with a whole area devoted to English novels, and yet another McDonald's. The latter have infested Europe like flies - but their milkshakes are rather refreshing, even though in Italy they only seem to have to flavours available: strawberry and chocolate. And their milkshakes are smaller than the ones McDonald's provide in Germany, where you get a choice of large or small.

Sleeping in Rome

2007-10-19T04:29:00.002+13:00

Neither of us slept well last night, so we finished up having breakfast in the hotel this morning (part of the package, for once) and going back to bed for a snooze. It had been increasingly humid during the day, and stuffy during the night. Celia even got up at one point and leaned out the window to get some cool air. We may just have to get used to it: Barcelona, our next stop, probably won’t be any cooler. Seems there’s been very little rain in Italy generally over the last while, although it rained during the night a little. The riverbeds throughout Italy - the ones we’ve seen - are very dry.
After we’d booked this hotel, which, for a change, was supposed to be an improvement over some of the places we’ve stayed, we realised that it was quite some distance from the centre of things. So the night before last we’d sat down with a Roma timetable and map and worked out how we would get here. Mumma mia! what a trip!
We would get on the Metro at the Roma Termini (where our train would come into), travel some eight or nine stops to Cornelia, hop on the bus to Villa Cartegna, get off, get on an 881 bus and come to the hotel. The actuality was somewhat different: we got the Metro part right, sweating all the way, got onto the bus (the 791) to Villa Cartegna, with the help of some non-English speaking people (!), got off at the right stop, and then proceeded to go in the wrong direction on the 881. Saw the street number of the hotel as we passed by, got off, had a conversation with a woman who only spoke Italian as to where we should be going - lontano (a long way) - had another conversation with a rather blunt woman in a street front office who told me it was Pisana, not Pasana, as I was saying it, but who at least told me that if we went the way we were going we would land back up in San Pietro (a Metro station we’d already been through). Went back to the bus stop, smiled at the old lady who’d told us lontano, and discovered that it really was a long way to Via Pisana. But another older woman on the bus knew the hotel, and helped us arrive at it - in due course.
When the Italians are smiling and friendly, they’re lovely. When they don’t want to know, they seem very cold. Fortunately there are plenty of friendly ones!
Getting a meal last night proved to be a bit of a mission too, as there are no restaurants around our area - in fact, it’s a bit of a semi-industrial area mixed with residential. (Which isn’t uncommon in Europe.) We got on the 881 one again, went back to Villa Carpegna, because it had seemed that there was more life up there, and found that while there were some restaurants, they weren’t the most economic. In the end settled for a ‘first course’ of pasta each, which was plenty. The restaurant was very busy, the food was fine, we had a quattro litre of red wine between us (which is also plenty) and came home on the famous 881 (in the right direction) and tried to sleep.

Travelling to Rome

2007-10-19T04:27:00.000+13:00

17 October 2007
Travelling to Rome, after a quick detour to Pisa, to see the famous leaning thingee. We had to get a bus to it, and it does lean fairly dramatically (the thingee, not the bus - though that was pretty rough as well). I wouldn’t trust getting on it, though people were climbing to the top quite happily. The cathedral it’s alongside is also leaning a bit, I think, though Celia wasn’t convinced.
Pisa was very hot, and it’s got hotter since. We’re travelling down the coast some of the time, though at present we’ve lost sight of it. It’s nice to be near some sea again.
My post about yesterday’s sightseeing was a bit short, and during the early hours I was thinking what else I should say, but, as though things do, they’ve now dissipated. I meant to explain what a double recorder was: seemingly it’s something you can blow two notes on at once, as it not only has two mouthpieces (very close together) but also the note holes are separated into two halves. Be interesting to have a go on. There were richly endowed early keyboards, one with some thousand jewels embedded into its surface. The serpent I spoke of yesterday is a serpent-shaped horn, seldom used in orchestras or bands these days, but reasonably popular in its brief heyday. There were some other pseudo-serpents: instruments that looked playable but were probably just for use in a theatre performance. One violin had an absolute encrustation of carving on its underside; would have been quite uncomfortable to hold, I think. It was sitting alongside a Stradivarius, that doyen of violins. There was an upright piano - literally. The keyboard was still in the same position as usual, but the strings were vertical, as they are in modern uprights. However, the difference was that these strings were arranged in the way a grand’s strings are.
The Palazzo Vecchio, apart from what I said about it yesterday, has room after room upstairs with decorated ceilings. I don’t mean a pattern painted on, but umpteen paintings, some mythic, some religious. The artists must have worked years on the place. It also has many wonderful craft works on display: items that are for practical use but have been adorned by men (perhaps women) with an artistic nature, and the results are just wonderful. Superbly fine carving in bone with details so minute you wonder how they managed to avoid damaging the work. It was the same with Michaelangelo’s David: one misstep in the making, and this enormous work would have had to have been abandoned. The actual statue is twice human size, I’d gauge, and it stands on a plinth that’s about human size again. So it towers above you. You can’t see some of the detail, but we were looking at a book after we’d viewed the statue, and the eyes are done in such a way that they appear to be looking at something. They’re not just blank, in other words. The strap of his sling is pitted, as though it was some material. The details of the limbs are extraordinary (though of course Michaelangelo wasn’t the only master of such details); but there is a sense of human flesh under the skin, and there are even veins showing in places.
We also saw statues by Benvenuto Cellini yesterday - he was virtually Michaelangelo’s equal in his ability to work with stone, and various other wonderful artists whose names didn’t mean so much to me.

Just a quick note

2007-10-17T05:41:00.000+13:00

As I'm running out of time in the Internet shop. By the way, Italian keyboards have the ' up the top, the @ as a third option on a key in the middle row, and various other quirks. Makes typing interesting.
We spent the day visiting galleries. Missed out on the Uffizi, unfortunately, because there was a huge queue and we weren't sure how long the other galleries were open. But managed to get into the Palazzo Vecchio, the Galleria Academia (where the 'real' David statue is - and what a wonderful piece of work it is) and the Bargello, which also has some Michaelangelo work.
David is outstanding. We stood and looked at it for ages, and nothing else in the gallery comes near to it. Though there was an intriguing and quite unrelated exhibition of old and odd musical instruments there too - double recorders, for instance. And a serpent (you'll have to look it up!)
The cinquecentro gallery (not the quatrocentro, as I originally had here!) in the Palazzo Vecchio is wonderful, but there was a conference going on in half of it, so we couldn't get up close to some of the statues. Nevertheless (in spite of Celia counting all the steps we climbed) it was well worth a visit.
Left the hotel at 8.50, walked to the Uffizi, where we decided that spending an hour in a queue wasn't the best option at that point, and then spent nearly an hour trying to get in to see David. Very tiring day, but mentally and aestethically very stimulating. Though of course we had to visit a supermarket on the way back to make it complete! (And that was around four o'clock, which gives you an idea of how long we spent out gallery-visiting.) Rest day tomorrow, I suspect, when we go to Rome.

Bit more update

2007-10-16T06:16:00.001+13:00

Celia's over in the corner reading another Ian Rankin thriller - he's become our writer of the month while we've been on holiday, even though we had to leave behind one of his novels because of the weight (we'd finished it, of course) along with a Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey) that I brought with me.
Anyway, today we've been on two city bus tours, and seen a good deal of the place, including Fiesole, the kind of 'other' city that exists near Florence. (It's virtually a suburb these days.) Seemingly the two places have a long and entwined history of conquering and being conquered. I didn't realise Florence was the capital of Italy for a relatively brief period in the 19th century, either.
Fiesole is set up on the hill above Florence. The villas there are surrounded by cypress trees, many of them planted by the British when they fell in love with the place in the 19th century. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried in one of the city's inner cemetaries, along with other British worthies.
We haven't yet got into any of the galleries - some of them were closed today - but that's on our agenda for tomorrow. I thought we'd found Michaelangelo's David, yesterday, but it turned out to be a copy they have in one of the squares here (along with some dozen other famous statues). It's full-sized, and is still a remarkable piece, but in fact the real thing is inside a major gallery here in Florence. We'll track it down tomorrow.
Michaelangelo is Florence's famous son, of course, but he shares fame in the city with Dante, Goldini and a heap of other well-known names. Did someone mention Da Vinci? Think he's well connected with the place too, if I remember rightly, but my brain's gone a bit numb listening to an endless commentary while on the buses.
Part of our day today involved doing the laundry. Things like that shouldn't happen on holiday, but of course there was no way we could carry enough clothes with us not to have to do the laundry at all. Celia sat in the laundrette chatting to a couple of New Zealanders who were there at the same time.
I've bought what she calls a 'man bag' after my wallet loss. It slings around my shoulder and curiously enough it's a lot easier way to carry far more than I could ever carry in my pockets - and it's still relatively compact. Jokes about the ' man bag' have been rife, but I've got big enough shoulders...
Tonight we dined in the Chinese restaurant across from our hotel. Had four and five course meals between us, sharing a good deal. Ended up with fried ice cream. Yup. Ice cream inside a ball of batter. In-ter-est-ing.
Our hotel room has a balcony with shutters on the outside of the window, french windows inside that (made of aluminium), ordinary french windows inside that again, lace curtains, and shutters on the inside over the glass in the inner french windows. Hope you're thoroughly confused. The only doors that actually shut out of that lot are the outside shutters.
There's an antiquated lift that will only hold the two of us (getting inside it with our backpacks was a mission), but it works well. Needs to, as we're on the fifth floor. Our hotel reception is on the second floor (piano in Italian) and another hotel has the floors between. There's a third hotel on the same side of the building somewhere, plus the two or three in the other half.
Italy is certainly different. The bathroom basin doesn't drain for ages, there are bidets everywhere you look (in the bathrooms, I mean - we had one in our bedroom in Milan), all the wall plugs are funny shapes (Switzerland's were worse, with about six holes to a plug), our room overlooks a balcony below, and right into the windows opposite.
But Florence is a delight. After Milan, it's just lovely. And sunny! Eat your heart out, all you poor freezing Dunedinites!

On the Eurostar

2007-10-15T21:53:00.000+13:00

14 October 2007

On the Eurostar, going from Bologna to Firenze. We’ve just come from Milan on a train on which we had to pay a reservation charge of eighteen euros. We were told about this when before we got on the train by the guards, and thought perhaps it only applied to first class, so we sat in second class, which was certainly comfortable enough anyway. But the charge applied to second class as well! Worse was to come: the guard on that train told us that we’d need to book on the train to Firenze, so we did - at a cost of thirty euros! This is because it’s the Eurostar apparently. We’re sitting in first class, not even with each other (across the aisle) and it’s not even particularly roomy. Hmm. Not that impressed with the Italian trains. The toilet on the previous one could only be described as grotty: you could see straight down through the toilet onto the tracks beneath! There didn’t seem to be anyway to flush anything (not that that mattered much since it was already dispersed along the line) and the tap wouldn’t work. The two compartments that should have been shut were both hanging open, and I couldn’t find anywhere to put the paper towel. Oh, dear. And we paid an extra eighteen euros for that.

Celia worked out this morning on one of her little machines how much I lost in NZ dollars when I had the wallet stolen. She claimed it was close to $500. Good grief. I’ll have to get a ‘man bag,’ as they’re nicknamed, so that I can keep all the bits close to me. Forgot to say that the pillows in Germany and Switzerland are virtually flat. And square rather than diagonal. Not sure how you’re supposed to use them; Celia folded hers up. Amazingly I’ve been sleeping comfortably on them without doing so. Maybe coming away is making me more flexible after all!

More on Milan

2007-10-15T21:50:00.000+13:00

Amongst other things today we wandered down the Corso Buenos Aries, claimed by the Milanese to be the best shopping street in Europe. Well, by day, it looks like one of the more scruffy shopping streets to be honest, but by night (we were back in it tonight) it’s very sparkly and glitzy and certainly everybody and their brother was out. Along with a million cars.
We also went to the Duomo, a wondrous cathedral with its own Metro station and an immense Piazza, While we were there, we watched a Liturgy being conducted by a Cardinal - we think it might have been some sort of Harvest Festival equivalent, but can’t be sure. Anyway it was being relayed onto big screens around the immense church, while the voices of the speakers echoed and boomed. We couldn’t actually ‘attend’ it - they were keeping touristi out, but we watched it for some time, and, because we were handed a booklet with all the text in it, actually spoke along with the congregation - and sang. All in Italian, of course, at which we’re becoming very proficient. (As we did with German!)
Outside the church is a huge kind of 18th/19th century mall - a huge covered-in gallery with shops all down each side, and apartments up above. All of it in wonderful stone, with carvings and paintings. And as you come out the end of that, you run into one of the most famous opera houses in the world: La Scala. I’d completely forgotten it’s in Milan.
After some debate over how to get there - because Celia wanted to go on the buses in preference to the underground (not just because of yesterday’s incident, but to see more) - we found our way to the Castle. What a whopper! It puts most of the castles we’ve seen to shame, though it doesn’t have the antiquity of many of them. It’s as wide as it’s long, and though I would have thought it’s two or three hundred metres each side, Celia seems to think it’s only about one hundred. Not being able to get on the Net I can’t check. It has three moats because there are three walls, the second inside the first and so on. It’s thirty or forty feet high, and the tower at the front rises up way above that again. There are huge turrets on each corner. Inside it has cloister-like walls, and arched windows, and because it’s not made of the grey stone most other castles are made of, but rather a more reddish stone, it’s somehow more imposing. Very impressive, anyway.
By the time we finished with the Castello, it was getting on for half past five or nearly six. Celia wanted to go on a bus to find an area where there were restaurants, but we couldn’t in the end figure out which part of the loop the bus we’d caught to the Castello was on, and so we gave up and got on the Metro. We got out at Lima Station, which turned out to be back on the Corso Buenos Airies again. (We’d earlier found ourselves back on the street with the main police station in it while heading towards the Castello. It goes by the delightful name of Via Fatebenefrattelli.)
After we’d wandered up and down the Corso for nearly an hour we still hadn’t been able to find an actual restaurant. They were all bars, or pizza places. No spaghetti, no ravioli, no nothing - and no Asian or Indian restaurants either. Celia was getting exhausted by this time and proposed coming back to the hotel. We’d check on what was able at the Loreto Station area, and go from there. There was nothing. Not a thing. Even the McDonald’s was back down the Corso!
She couldn’t take walking around any more and we came back ‘home.’ And rustled up a perfectly good meal of wholemeal bread and cheese (she had the Gorgonzola, I had the Gruyere), apple, the remains of a salad we’d bought at lunchtime, and apricot jam. The bread and cheese we’d acquired during the course of the day, the former at an Arab bread shop, and the latter at Celia’s most favourite ‘museum.’ It’s a wonderful shop underground in the Loreto station. When we were in there today, around ten assistants were talking loudly to each other and the customers, and the customers talking loudly back, and there were cheeses galore, and all sorts of meats, and whole hams hanging up, and it all looked more like something out of the movies than real life. ‘My kind of shop,’ says Celia.

Meanwhile

2007-10-15T21:49:00.000+13:00

Meanwhile, the computer’s mobile connect continues to play up, so that we can’t use it to go online. This had become quite an issue, as we hadn’t booked places in Florence or Rome, and we are due to go to the first of those tomorrow. The reason for delaying on this had been that the YHA had advertised a special deal in both cities in hostels, and we were waiting for a response from them. For some reason they’ve been very slack, and still haven’t replied - and we couldn’t get them on the phone either.
We finally found a Vodafone shop here in Milan today, and got a definite No from them in terms of help. They’re a different company, and don’t help UK customers. Finalmente! We found an Internet shop where we could use the computer for an hour for one euro. Very cheap! Found that my daughter had managed to cancel both the NZ cards, and had also found the address for sorting out my NZ driver’s licence. Later in the day we found a second Internet place where we surprisingly quickly booked hotels in Florence, Rome and Barcelona. Think they go from the sublime to the ridiculous, but at least they’re booked.

The traveller’s worst nightmare

2007-10-15T21:47:00.000+13:00

13th Oct, 2007

Well, maybe a worse nightmare would be to fall down the Spanish Steps and break your neck. Okay, this wasn’t as bad as that, but it certainly pained us considerably. We’d managed to find our way around the Metro here, and were starting to get confident. (Plus we managed a long ride on the 33 tram, which was a bit scary, but not impossible. Plus we didn’t pay, because we didn’t realise we were supposed to have a ticket before we got on.)
Anyway, about seven we got on at the Central Railway Station underground stop where there was a real crush, with people pushing and shoving to get in the door. That meant that everyone was bang up against everyone else as well, and we all travelled that way for the two stops that Celia and I were going. We got off the train at Loreto, and I suddenly realised there was a lightness in my left trouser pocket - the place I keep my wallet. Someone had nicked it, presumably during all the hustle. Consternation.
All sorts of thoughts of not being able to travel because we had no money came to mind, though in fact Celia had quite a bit of cash in her wallet (which she didn’t fail to remind me was around her waist and secure), and she still had her debit card and credit card. But I lost both my debit card and three credit cards, two of them from New Zealand, plus maybe a couple hundred euros, and my driver‘s licence.
We told the guard at the Metro exit, and he said we needed to go back to Polizei at another one of the stations (I’ve now forgotten which, but I think it was Duomo). So we did, feeling increasingly stressed, got there and found the police, who very helpfully pushed us onto the main police station near Turati Metro Station. And even though they gave us instructions how to find the Police station, it took us something like half an hour of wandering to track it down. People twice sent us in the wrong direction, which didn’t much help!Eventually we got there and while they weren’t offhand about it, they weren’t greatly concerned either. Which isn’t surprising, probably, as both they and we knew that’s unlikely we’ll see the wallet and its contents again.
Celia was feeling very low about it all, and even more, was concerned about our contacting the banks to stop the cards. And of course, I’d left my cellphone back at the hotel, so we couldn’t do anything about that until we got there. Finally we dragged ourselves home, very dispirited, and I eventually managed to get hold of someone in the UK about the HSBC cards. Fortunately that didn’t take as long as I’d thought it might, but I won’t have any cards of my own for the rest of the trip. Celia’s cards remain valid, which is a major relief, and certainly left us feeling better. Eventually.

On language

2007-10-15T21:46:00.000+13:00

12th Oct, 2007 again..

The language situation in Luxembourg was intriguing, you might remember. It‘s equally so in Switzerland, where German, French and Romany all exist - as well as Swiss German. The latter is their ‘native‘ language, but is so different in pronunciation from German itself that I found it impossible to recognise words when people were speaking. And yet they read and write ‘High’ German as their language, because it‘s the common denominator. Very confusing. Swiss German is even more gutteral than ordinary German, which sounds relatively soft by comparison. Celia reckons if she goes along making gggghhhh noises with her throat, she’s doing a pretty good version of the language.
She’s also discovered that the word, Migros, means supermarket in Swiss - it’s obviously a brand name but it helps to know what sort of shop it is. In some Migros stores there is a great range, but in the one we went to the other night on the way home from Thun, we went round and round struggling to find any sauces to use with the chicken we were going to buy. In the end we bought yet another couple of packets of Pelican filets - I don’t know they were filets of, apart from being fish (and they certainly weren’t Pelican; that’s the brand name) - which we’d already tried before and found quite tasty, if a bit salty and buttery. But to buy fruit and veges in this particular store you had to sort out the price ticket yourself, which meant getting the number from above the item you were buying, taking the goods to a weighing machine, pressing the number on the screen and waiting for a ticket. We’d already got to the check-out before we discovered this and had four items needing prices, which flustered the woman at the counter not a little. Rather too much in the way of self-service, to my way of thinking. Though in England, in some of the big stores like Asda and Sainsbury’s, you can check out all your items yourself. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s quite fun in the end.

Phew! Found a way

2007-10-15T21:43:00.001+13:00

12th Oct, 2007
If you’re reading this, you’ll know I’ve solved our problem with the mobile connect: it's done a bit of a runner, and won’t connect - so at present it’s mobile but nothing else. So the notes following are catch-up stuff.
I’m writing this on the train from Brig in Switzerland to Milano in Italy, where we’ve got a couple of nights booked. We had a major rest day yesterday: slept till at least ten (Celia quite a bit later) and then had another snooze in the afternoon. Read a lot, and had dinner with our hosts. Even managed to get a hold of their baby; we’re missing holding babies. Today is mostly a travel day. Celia had been a bit disappointed that we hadn’t stopped longer in Zurich, so we decided to travel back to Bern, by way of compensation, travel forward from there to Brig and then onto Milano. Bit of back-tracking, but the famous Eurail pass covers it all. Bern turned out to be a very grey city. Grey might not exactly describe the colour: it was kind of sandy stone colour, meaning it had a slight beach sand tint. But all the buildings in the old city were made of this, and they’re all solid and imposing. It’s like someone has said: we’ll build a city all in one colour, all in one dominant style and that’ll be it. This is the old town I’m talking of; across the bridge over a huge drop down to the river, there are many houses that are much traditionally Swiss - and to our eyes, much pleasant.
Anyway, we ‘did’ Bern, and hopped back on the train after about an hour and a half. That took us back along the line past Thun and Spiez, and then it veered off somewhere, and we climbed and climbed until we were so far above the valley, the cars looked like insects crawling along. Why they built the train up on the side of the mountains I‘m not sure. You‘d have thought they‘d have built it in the valley, since most of the towns are down there. Still, the views are spectacular - when they‘re not interrupted by one of the innumerable tunnels. Huge mountains, caverns, raging torrents, waterfalls, snow on the highest peaks - you name it! This is certainly a marvellous piece of countryside, though it might be a bit difficult of access! And now we‘re heading through more of the same, so I‘m going to stop typing.

Travel writing in abeyance

2007-10-15T00:58:00.000+13:00

Sadly, I can't get online to upload my notes about the trip at the moment. As I've explained in an email to some people, the mobile connect has gone AWOL - we've tried all sorts of things, like uninstalling it and so forth, but it's just not wanting to work. This means I'm having to rely on Internet cafes\shops, and though they're not expensive, it's not so easy to get things uploaded.
We went to the Vodafone shop in Corso Buenos Aires yesterday, but the young man in there refused point blank to help us. He belongs to Vodafone Europe - we belong to Vodafone UK. And trying to ring Vodafone UK from here doesn't work at all. We get a lovely Italian lady telling us something at great length, and then the usual English woman saying we appear to have dialled a number that doesn't exist.
Anyway, I've written up lots of notes and have them on my computer. If we have time I'll come in and put them on here. If not, know that we are still doing things! (In Florence, at present.)
PS Everything on Google is in Italian. Makes a change from German.

A proper look at Thun

2007-10-11T22:19:00.001+13:00

Another trip into Thun yesterday, to check out booking a ferry from Rome to Barcelona. When we got on the bus, I asked the driver if we could purchase a return ticket. No, we couldn’t, but did we have a Eurail Pass? !! Of course we did, and we got on [for] free. Strange, but good.
Had a much better look at Thun, especially the main street shops (!) and the Castle. Thun has two rivers/streams running through the middle of it, so that its main street is divided from the next section which is then divided from the part that the Castle is on. Bridges everywhere, of course, and what looks to our eyes to be a very cluttered set of buildings along the riverbank. I’m not sure that they’re actually a rivers/streams, having said that. The two arms of water seem to flow off the Lake itself. Where they go from there I don’t know, and why the Lake doesn’t empty out rapidly I don’t know either.
Anyway, we climbed to the Castle. Celia had got to about 107 steps when she lost count. And there were a lot more to go. Anyway, the Castle looms above the town so that by the time you’re standing in one of its top towers the buildings below are miniatures.
The Castle contains a museum, some of which seemed to be in a state of shuffling about, as there were displays with nothing in them, and others that didn’t seem relevant. Nevertheless, by the time we’d seen about four floors of museum, we were well acquainted with some of the wonderful craft work done by the Thun people: beautifully decorated plates, and fine miniature pottery to name but two. And then there was the very impressive sleigh, with a full-sized dog carved onto the front of it. Not your poodle-sized dog: this was a fiercesome large creature. It would have gone well in the production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The Castle itself is fairly well preserved. The wooden beams, great chunky things, that hold up the roof of the Knights’ Hall, date back to the original building. A lot of it has been renovated at different times, however, so it’s not easy to tell what was there from the beginning, but I guess the basic structure, with its wonderful four pinnacled towers, and its two round prison cells, is all original.
We were standing waiting for a couple of people to come up the stairs at one point (because most of the stairs inside are circular and not negotiable by people going up and down simultaneously) when we heard this distinct Australian accent. ‘Come on, you Australians!’ cries Celia, and next minute is in full conversation with an Australian woman who was pleased to hear an accent close to her own.
As you come back down to the town, the houses are all clustered together on the hillside, with winding lanes, and steps, and tiny gardens with fountains, and a general sense of beauty. The Swiss delight in decoration: there’s one house near where we’re staying that has its front covered with pots and pans. And another that has a model of the house itself parked outside. And another where there’s both a live parrot and a model one.

Sailing away

2007-10-10T07:56:00.000+13:00

We went for a boat ride on the Lake of Thun today. We thought we’d have to pay part of the cost, but for some reason which we didn’t quite understand, the trip was free today only, via our Eurail pass. The boat took us to Interlaken, which I’d heard about from some source - can’t remember which - as being a special place, but it struck me as Switzerland’s equivalent of Queenstown, that is, all tourist shops, and lots of things to do if you’re an outdoors person. (There were several people paragliding when we arrived, for instance.) The buildings are a delight, however, and speak of a time when people paid big money to build in Interlaken.
In spite of my misgivings about Interlaken, the trip itself was lovely, the lake calm, the mountains a little misty but still reasonably well-defined, and the air warm. We sat outside on the boat for most of the trip. At the end of it, the ferry navigates its way down a narrow channel, with only a few metres to spare on either side.
Though we could have gone back on the boat, we decided to have a look around Interlaken for an hour or so, and get the train back to Spiez, and then the bus to Einigen. The train, of course, was covered by our Eurail pass anyway, so the trip only cost us the bus fare. (Though no one actually came to check our pass on the quarter hour trip from Interlaken to Spiez, so some people might well have got on for free!)
I didn’t mention yesterday that we had a mini crisis. By mistake I put my debit card (Eftpos, in other words) into a ticket machine at Spiez railway station, thinking it was a money machine. I tried to cancel the operation but no card appeared. Nothing worked, and suddenly we began to think we’d have to face the next week or two unable to get money. (We have quite a bit of cash with us, but we hadn’t got any Swiss francs before we arrived in Switzerland.)
In the end I went up to the ticket office, and explained the situation to the man behind the counter - who fortunately spoke good English. (The Swiss don’t seem to be quite as strong on the English as the Germans are, and some of them don't care!) He came down with a tool, opened the machine, pulled out the part that had the card in it, dug around at it, pried at it, worked on it - all to no avail. We stood there chatting, trying to feel confident that he was going to achieve something! Finally he went back upstairs, called the office in Bern, and they told him on the phone what to do. Voila! one returned debit card - and considerable relief.

Heidelberg

2007-10-09T08:39:00.000+13:00

Heidelberg was lovely. Wonderful old houses and streets echoing with voices; huge churches in the middle of the residential area; bars and restaurants galore; wonderful wide river that turns out to be the Neckar and not the Rhein, as I’d thought! We must have given the Rhein the slip at some point in our trip south.
We were in the Aldstadt, or Old Town, and it’s obviously the tourist area. We walked right to the end of the Haupstrasse last night, and came to Bismarckplatz, a platz we’d remembered from our rather hectic bus ride a couple of days or so ago. It leads into the new town, but it was all rather dark, so we didn’t venture much further.
Tried out the strange taste of a Heidelberg schneeball (snowball) yesterday; it’s hard to describe exactly what it is: something between a sweet biscuit and a pastry coated with different flavours. A bit too sweet for our taste, but memorable (even more as we asked to sit down in the place where they were selling them - and have been making them for generations - and it cost us extra to do so!)
We didn’t stay up for last evening’s World Cup game. Couldn’t take any more disappointments on that front.
Missed out on our breakfast of one hot drink and one croissant this morning, because the place that provided it doesn’t open till eight, and we had to be away before that to catch the train. We tried to get the proprietor to give us the drink and croissant last night by way of recompense, but he wasn’t having it on. Not the most PR minded, this particular lot!
Anyway, today we’ve travelled from Heidelberg to Stuttgart in one 45 minute stretch, hung around at Stuttgart station for just under an hour and got on a train to Zurich, (another three hours) and then less than ten minutes after we got to Zurich we headed for Spiez, (another hour and a half) which is just near where we’re staying with one of the people (Darren Hight) who used to be at DCBC, our home church. He married a Swiss girl about 18 months ago, and now they’ve just had a baby daughter - she’s two weeks old. They’re living in a community that offers hospitality to different groups, Christian and non-Christian, and also has a small farm. We’re in the first floor of a chalet (some three hundred years old, but renovated) and have a view overlooking the Lake of Thun - with the Alps in the background. Celia said, If she’d known she was coming to Queenstown she wouldn’t have bothered, but she was kidding! The place is absolutely beautiful. Certainly it’s reminiscent of Queenstown, though the Alps are probably bigger still than the mountains there, but it’s also reminiscent of Dunedin and its harbour.
Since we’re catering for ourselves here, we walked down to the dairy/grocers - the only one in Einigen, the local village - and back again. Going down was fine, but the walk back was a bit of a mission: all uphill.
The photo is of the oldest church in Einigen; in fact, one of the oldest in Switzerland.

We watch the World Cup

2007-10-07T23:53:00.000+13:00

Last night we had a donor kebap at a narrow shop around the corner from our hostel; the proprietor’s daughter (about five or six, maybe) was playing with her ‘pinguin’, after she‘d had a go at cracking some nuts by bashing them on the marble counter top.
We strolled down the Hauptstrasse, looking at the shops - it seems that German shops must stay open till all sorts of hours as a matter of course, but they’re closed on Sundays - and were just checking something out when Celia said, with some excitement, They’re playing the NZ national anthem. And they were. An ‘Irish’ pub had just begun showing the NZ v France quarter-final game on a huge screen. We bundled ourselves into the pub, found some space near the back with three friendly young Americans, and made ourselves at home. A female bartender kept coming around to get drinks for people, so that everyone could stay in place and not have to lose their spot.
The Americans had never seen rugby before and were surprised at the energy and brutality. Even the way one of the players is hoisted up in the air during a line-out gave them a thrill. It was a great game which NZ should have won: a couple of moments undermined their chances. One, when there was an ongoing ruck towards the try line by the NZeders, they lost the ball at the very last moment. And Dan Carter’s replacement missed a goal kick. Either of those would have kept them in the game.
Back at the hotel, the bed turned out to be fairly hard, but not impossible. (It still doesn’t beat our hardest hotel bed ever which was in Roxburgh.) Celia still has a cold, and needs to rest a lot, so we didn‘t get up till fairly late. Even then we were up long before the place downstairs where we were supposed to get our hot drink and croissant (the ‘breakfast’ part of our hotel bill). They finally opened about 11.00, so we had the coffee and croissant as a morning tea instead, having made ourselves breakfast in the hotel room.

Bits and pieces

2007-10-07T04:49:00.000+13:00

We took the scenic route from Köln to Heidelberg, which meant we were travelling alongside the Rhein for a good deal of the time. And built along the Rhein are dozens of small towns, villages, and a few cities. Nearly every place had its own castle up on the hill above the town. Some of the them were more like fortresses, some had those delightful turrets that look as though they should belong in a fairytale illustration.
The more you travel around the more you wonder about all the people who live in these places, and what they do and how they all make a living. It’s strange how communities thrive in one place and not in another, how cities come into being in one place when another place never seems to grow. Just seeing the neverending crowds in the streets here is mindboggling. Where do they all come from? Do they all have homes somewhere? How did they come to be in this place at this time?
And as you travel along in the train you seen the endless building work that’s gone on: houses, factories, skyscrapers, railway lines by the million, train stations galore - and all the paraphernalia that goes with the presence of humans. We certainly make our mark on the earth.
And then there are the beggars. It’s very difficult to discern whether some of them are just conmen/women, or whether they have a real need. I determined not to pass another beggar by when we were in England, even if it was only to hand over a pound or two, but it’s become an impossible task here in Europe, where begging is a full-time profession for many. And as Celia says, some of them are so well-dressed. What are they doing begging?
How do you reconcile what Jesus says about caring for the poor when you’re overwhelmed by beggars on every hand? Do you have a right to give to one and not another? How much should you keep for yourself? The questions go on and on, and I don’t find the answers coming very easily.

Never mind the quality....

2007-10-07T04:36:00.000+13:00

The room we had in Köln was lovely: light and airy, with those European windows that open by leaning into the room to let in some air, or which can be opened fully as NZ windows are with a switch of the handle. Plus there was a desk, a chair, two bedside tables, bedside lamps, curtains, a rubbish bin, and a wardrobe. It had a toilet and shower en suite. Note these things.
Even better, breakfast was a buffet, with a wide range of Continental and English options. Note this too.
For this hotel we paid 130 euros for two nights. That’s on the cheaper to middle range for b&bs.
Today we arrived in Heidelberg and found our hotel. Except it wasn’t our hotel. We’re being billeted in another building five minutes walk away. We’re on the second floor, and we’re paying exactly the same amount of money as we paid in Heidelberg. The only difference is that this is classed as a hostel, not a hotel.
The only difference in terms of nomenclature, that is. The difference in quality is astonishing. Our bedroom has no curtains, no desk, no chair, no rubbish bin, no lamps, no bedside tables, no wardrobe. It does have a hat stand. And nine power points. And a slightly sloping floor. For breakfast we will receive one hot drink and a croissant. Whoopee. The toilet is shared with three other rooms on this floor, as is the bathroom - which admittedly has a bath as well as a shower, and is very large. There is also a towel in there, the only one provided on the whole floor.
Celia isn’t feeling well, having got a cold overnight, so she isn’t terribly excited about this place. Certainly it’s in the middle of the Altstadt - the Old Town - the area Heidelberg is probably most famous for, but that doesn’t quite compensate for the minimalist approach to hotel rooms.
On top of that we had a bit of fun with the train this morning. We’d booked from Köln to Heidelberg, which should have taken about three hours. The train was a bit late - an unusual occurrence in Germany, I gather - and it somehow got later as it went along. In the end, as we were heading toward Mannheim, (known only to me because of Mozart’s links with it) an announcement was made in German telling us that the train wouldn’t be stopping at Heidelberg, because it was running late!
Fortunately, the German lady in our compartment picked this up on our behalf and went in search of the guard. He told her we needed to get off at Mannheim and take the train back to Heidelberg. Seems that Heidelberg would be sidestepped completely. So we got off the train at Mannheim, found platform neun and hopped on the Heidelberg train, which was a local one with not much room and a short fat girl going round asking anyone who was eating anything if they would give it to her. Still, our faithful Eurail Pass was perfectly acceptable to the guard and we arrived at Heidelberg a bit late, but none the worse for wear.
From there we had to get a number 33 bus to the Platz just down from where the hotel was (or was supposed to be). The driver must have forgotten to take his happy pills this morning, as he seemed to be all over the show, and since both of us had our backpacks on we were struggling to keep upright.
But here we are, Celia’s asleep, I’ve walked across one bridge over the Rhein and back across another, the day is lovely, the mobile connect is working perfectly and things could be far worse!

In the photo you can see one of the bridges I walked across - and in the background is Heidelberg's castle.

Nature calls...rather too often!

2007-10-06T07:44:00.000+13:00

Second day in Köln and the weather was a bit cooler. Unfortunately I’d got it into my head that summer had returned and went out in short sleeves again without taking a jacket or jersey. Froze. We decided not to get one of the tour buses around the city because a number of the places were within walking distance anyway. Headed for the river - the mighty Rhein - and because I had a bit of an upset stomach, I needed to find a loo quickly. No such luck. There were three portaloos along the bank of the river, but each one of them had a hefty padlock on the door. The last public WC we’d seen (and used) had been quite a way back.

Things haven’t changed by the way, in terms of needing loos. When Celia and I were on our honeymoon in Rome some 33 years ago, searching for public toilets was an issue even then.
Anyway, there were a number of large river boats alongside the bank, and in the end, in desperation, we paid to go on a trip up the river so that I could be sure of finding a loo in a great hurry. Most expensive loo we’ve had to pay for yet!

Anyway the river trip was pleasant, and worth relaxing for an hour or so on.

We’ve both been very tired today. Came back home after the river trip and slept - again. Think it’s probably all the sights and sounds and noise and travel. Whether we’ll get any better at it or not remains to be seen. How these old people who go on fourteen days on the continent type tours cope, I have no idea. Up at the crack of dawn, five hours in a bus, tramping round a city for another couple of hours, off again and then finally kipping down in a strange bed for the night. We like to take our trips a bit more easy.

Onto Köln

2007-10-05T07:37:00.000+13:00

We went on our first train trip today, from Hamburg to Köln. We had seats in first class, in a carriage that was virtually empty - it was the first carriage behind the driver. There was only one other person in our compartment (six to a compartment), so we had plenty of room. The second class part of the train was much fuller, as I found when I went for a walk from one end of the train to the other. At the back of the train was half a carriage reserved for large luggage and bikes - there was none of either - and a few let-down seats. So I sat in the space for a while and watched the world go by.
The trip took four hours, but it didn’t seem long. Apparently this was the ‘slow’ train, if you can call anything that goes at a normal speed of 163 kph, slow.
It was just beginning to rain when we left Hamburg (after a beautiful day yesterday) and it had obviously been raining over most of the country we passed through. However, by the time we got to Köln the sun had come out and it was hot enough to change back into short sleeves and my faithful sandals - which I’ve worn most of the time we’ve been away. The pair of waterproof shoes I bought in Oswestry a couple of weeks ago are great, and have been useful during the rainy days we’ve had recently.
Which reminds me: we’re back in the land of toilets you have to pay for. England has pretty much got rid of this archaic notion - Oswestry was the only place in England where we had to pay - but Germany still regards it as the norm. At the railway station yesterday I went down into the gents and Celia went down into the ladies opposite. I put my money in the machine, went through the turnstyle, and then heard her speaking in the ladies, which was open to the men’s! Weird.
Our hotel in Köln is near the Cathedral, and the railway station. Which is convenient, except that the railway line runs along the back of the building, and the rumble of the trains is fairly loud. But the Cathedral (or Dom, as they call it here) is superb. How it survived the bombing in the War God alone knows: the surrounding area was mostly destroyed.
Furthermore, the Dom is free: you don’t have to pay to go inside. And it was packed with visitors, of course. It’s awe-inspiring: the vaulting soars forever above your head, the stained-glass varies from detailed 19th century pictorial to wonderfully mosaic-like modern. And it’s just vast. You could walk around in it for days, so it feels. We might go back tomorrow!
Just around the corner from the Cathedral is a street that leads into the shopping area, which goes off in several directions and was also packed with people. I don’t know whether it’s a late shopping night or what, but the people were out in droves, even though it was getting on for 5.30 by the time we went looking. We bought a few odds and ends for tea (we’d had a very late Thai lunch) and a new flask, since the one Celia bought only a month or so ago has gone kaput. And we were both struggling yesterday in not having a cup of tea/coffee handy. I had to go and borrow an electric kettle for our hotel room otherwise Celia would have gone home, I think. Fortunately they were happy to lend us one.
The holiday Germany was celebrating yesterday, I found out, was Reunification Day.

A few notes

2007-10-05T07:16:00.000+13:00

When we were flying into Germany we could see several wind farms. From the air they looked like crosses in a military cemetery.
I forgot to mention yesterday that Johannes Brahms, the composer, has great links with Hamburg. He’s one of Hamburg’s beloved sons. And alongside the dedication to him in St Michael’s Church is one to Teleman and another to Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, both of whom were Music Directors there.
Tagging - the art of painting on walls alongside railway lines, must be an international thing: there was mile after mile of tagging between Hamburg and Köln, today.
And tv advertising in Germany is just as silly as it is in England - or NZ.

First day in Hamburg

2007-10-04T08:53:00.001+13:00

....and exhausted. We came home about 4.30 and slept.
Most of the day we’d spent in doing the hop on hop off thing on one of the double-decker buses that tour around Hamburg city. They take about an hour and a half to do this, and we got off twice. The bus we’d started out on was the 100, but the one we went back onto was the 200, and it takes a somewhat different route - in fact we wound up going over much of the route we’d already taken but approaching it from the opposite direction. Finally, somewhat desperate that we were never going to get back to point A, we got off in Rathaus Square (Rathaus is just the Town Hall - I suppose the ‘rat’ part has some links with ratification), and walked back along Monckebergerstrasse to the Hauptbahnhof - the main railway station - which is just near the hotel.
Doesn’t sound like an exhausting day, you say?
Well, our first hop off was at St Michael’s Church, and instead of going into the church proper, as we’d thought, we found ourselves climbing up the tower. At least 25 flights of stairs, if not more. By the time we’d got to the point where we’d both have preferred to have given up, we thought we might as well carry on. Certainly the view from the tower was amazing, but it took a while to get the breath back. We got the lift back down (yup, this is a church with a lift to the tower), and none of the passengers had quite figured out, when we got to the bottom, how to get the door to open. So we all went up to the top of the tower again, before coming down.
After this we finally got into the church itself, and it’s an amazing building. Wonderful curves everywhere to offset the usual straight lines of the architecture. It’s been thoroughly restored, so all the golds and whites are as they would have been. It just glistens. And because it’s Harvest Festival (here as in England) the church was full of decorations related to food: wreaths made of vegetables and stalks hanging from the balcony; breads in all sorts of shapes (such as a mouse and a snake); an enormous canopy affair hanging in the sanctuary made out of corn sheaves, and various statements such as Our Father (in German, of course) made out of bread on a baked backing.
Hamburg is an extensive city, with a large port and waterfront. We went past areas with houses that are worth several million euros - wonderful places on the street that’s closest to the large lake that’s within the city. There are embassies everywhere, and of course these are all large and imposing - and no doubt costing their home country a large amount of money. The buildings vary in their materials, but there are many that are made out of bricks, vast structures rising way above the street. The whole place has a very permanent air about it, an air of having survived a cluttered history. It’s going full steam ahead at present: there are acres of building going on, both office space and apartments, down by the water.
It was a holiday today (not sure what holiday) and the crowds were out in full force, but most of the shops were shut. Restaurants were doing an enormous trade. We went into the railway station first thing this morning to get our Eurail pass sorted out. We were hoping that they actually knew what it was all about, and of course they did. We’ve booked ourselves a couple of seats to Cologne for tomorrow - booked seats because of the holiday today, which apparently might affect tomorrow‘s travellers.
The railway station is large, as you’d expect, full of shops. There’s one area that’s given over to food shops, all within a kind of mall. You just wander from one food group to another. And there are plenty of other shops - including the ubiquitous McDonald’s where we went and had a milkshake (again) tonight, and watched while a couple of teenagers spent almost all the time we were there in a long, long kiss. A long kiss.
There was also a kind of large mini-market (if that makes sense) and Celia was in her element. I’ve come to the conclusion that English or Continental supermarkets are a kind of art gallery or museum to her. When I proposed this new theory, she smiled enigmatically.

We DON'T have senior moments

2007-10-03T20:45:00.000+13:00

Before we left yesterday we had one of those senior moment crises. My sister-in-law was going to sort out the car registration, which is due while we were away, and she asked if we could leave the certificate of insurance to take.
Insurance? Surely we had insured the car, hadn’t we? We remembered doing a lot of investigating and sorting out before we came and thought we’d done more when we got here and had then gone ahead, but where was the information? Where was the insurance policy? Absolutely no idea.
I checked through my emails, and checked through the laptop files, and checked the online bank statements. Nothing.
And yet we were certain we wouldn’t have forgotten to insure the car after all the fuss we’d been through.
I rang the insurance company and found myself talking to a girl in NZ - at least I think she was in NZ; she had a NZ accent and said there were two New Zealand girls in the office and one English girl….
She found the policy details without any difficulty - so she must have been in NZ; if she’d been in England, such speed of finding the info would have been impossible! - and said she’d send a copy out.
And then, of course, I realised where all the stuff probably was. I knew we’d taken it on the tenting holiday with us, but I’d thought it would have been in the computer bag with all the other papers. Nope. It was in the suitcase we’d carried the bedding in, sitting there waiting for me. Wondering where I‘d been.

Wir sind in Hamburg

2007-10-03T09:48:00.000+13:00

Today was a day of chunks of travel. Two hours from Attleborough to Stansted Airport, by bus, with the weather becoming increasingly overcast (and the toilet on the bus, which we’d chosen to sit beside, giving off incredibly unpleasant whiffs every so often). The obligatory two hours at Stansted waiting for the flight to take off (decreased somewhat by the fact that we were late getting there, and there were queues for everything (but for some reason we were given priority tickets so that helped to get us on board a bit faster). They took my laptop off in the security area, and gave it a looking-over. Poor Alphonse! - the laptop - he was appalled to be considered a security risk. But at least we didn’t have to take off our shoes. Not sure what they’re expecting to find in shoes.
An hour and a half on the plane (virtually) with the usual Ryanair minimalist approach to service - not enough coin change when you bought something, no sick bags, no string bags on the backs of the seats to put your magazine in, no room to spread out in any direction.
And then an hour and a quarter or so from Lubeck airport into Hamburg city, again by bus - a very quiet bus, it must be said, so quiet that you weren‘t really aware of the speed you were doing.
And into Hamburg BusPort. Which is only a little way from our hotel. We had to go to the Hotel Keiler Hof to pick up our key from a very grumpy receptionist. She was friendly really, just liked to do the grumpy thing. The reception desk was on the first floor - I have no idea what was on the ground floor, but it wasn’t part of the hotel. And then we had to take our three keys to the building next door, Luebecker Hof, use the large key to open the building door, go up to the first floor again, use the blue key to open the door to that floor, and then use the third key for our room. I thought our room number was 213 until I realised that the label actually read Zi3 - or zimmer 3. (Zimmer being ‘room’.)
The room is quite large, with a private shower. The shower isn’t exactly en suite, as it’s in the room itself, next to the wardrobe. The toilet is across the hall, and serves all the people staying in rooms 2-6. (Room 1 seems to have vanished). We’re going to have our breakfasts in the Keiler Hof. On the first floor. This idea of having hotels on the first floors and upwards seems to be a European thing. It was the same in both the hotels I stayed in, in Rome. The ground floor is usually occupied by some other business altogether.
After settling ourselves in we went out again to get something to eat - it now being around 9 pm. Found a kebap place around the corner (yup, kebap), and had a very nice meal in the open air. It's been a very warm day in general. The area we're in seems a bit less than salubrious - ladies of the night are very visible, as is the sex sho (not sure whether it's meant to be shop or show) just around the corner.

Lack of fitness

2007-10-01T03:11:00.000+13:00

Since we went on our road trip, tenting every night, I’ve found I’m suffering from a real lack of fitness. Before we came to England, we were going aqua-jogging a good deal, and I normally walked to work. But since we’ve been here we’ve done less and less exercise. There have been occasional patches when we’ve got up and going, like when we stayed with my sister-in-law and her husband. She’s a fitness fanatic, and enjoys taking a bus to the next village and then walking back. This can mean a walk of several miles. Naturally while we were with her, we got up and moving again.

But the long hours of driving while we were moving from place to place over the last month hasn’t been good for me at all. I don’t enjoy the bucket seats that most cars have (our van at home has straight up and down seating – much better for the back), and I find when I get out of the car at the moment that I feel as though I’ve got to unfold. Very unpleasant.

Twice in the last month or so my back has given one of those nasty clicks and I’ve felt very uncomfortable for days afterwards. At present I find getting something up off the floor makes my back cringe, and even sitting for too long at a table becomes uncomfortable. Don’t mention sitting in the average lounge suite. They’re killers on sore backs.

So, the last couple of mornings I’ve gone for a decent walk before everyone else got up (yesterday I walked for an hour). This hasn’t made my back less achy yet, but it will in due course. My legs are complaining that they’re on holiday and shouldn’t be made to work, but I tell them that if they don’t work they won’t work soon, and they grudgingly accept this.

Different links

2007-10-01T00:15:00.000+13:00

We went to the local Attleborough Anglican church this morning. Think I’ve mentioned visiting it before, though I can’t find the post at the moment. (It has the grand title of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by the way, but I think is called St Mary's, locally.)

It’s full of history, as so many Norfolk churches are, and there is evidence everywhere of the many Christians who’ve gone before, from the faded paintings on the reredos to the almost as faded paintings high up on the wall above the altar; from the stones showing where people are buried beneath the stone floor to the extraordinary design of the ‘other’ pulpit (the one that was nicked from another local church, if I remember rightly).

There’s something about worshipping in a place that’s been inhabited by Christian brethren for centuries.

The other good thing about the Norfolk churches is that all seem to be open all the time; further north we found churches were more likely to be closed to the general public.

And, while I think about it, there’s the way England and NZ are so inextricably linked: everywhere you go you find someone who’s got a relative in NZ (think I’ve mentioned this before too). We were at the 30^th birthday party of our niece last night, and Celia spoke to at least three people who had relatives in NZ. This morning, after the service, we had coffee with a couple who’d travelled throughout NZ, and then met another group who all had connections, including one couple who’s son had studied at the Otago Medical School.

Quieter interlude

2007-09-29T02:17:00.001+12:00

Last few days have been a bit quiet, but yesterday we took another trip back to Sheringham, Celia’s childhood home.

We typed Sheringham into the Sat Nav, and for some reason she took us all round the back roads. Fortunately, because it was a pleasant day, this wasn’t a big issue – just a surprise. In fact, we when we turned off to chase up a notice that said antiques at one point, we wound up going past the rest home where Celia’s former English teacher now lives. So we popped in to see him. And then a couple of miles down the road we came across one of roadside vans that sell food, so we stopped and had some lunch. (These vans are all over the place: they get towed to the site in the morning and the guy running it makes sandwiches and hot potatoes and buns and provides coffees and so on. Often they’re in the lay-bys on the motorways.)

It was exceedingly bracing at Sheringham Beach, but we survived. Though the streets weren’t as crowded as they’d been last time we were there, there were still a lot of people around.

Celia wanted to go up to Sheringham Woods as well; just as we set out it started to pour, but then it decided that we didn’t need any more rain, and by the time we’d had a cup of coffee in the woods entrance, it had cleared up again. So we had the pleasure of a glistening wet woods with the sun shining through the branches. Celia wanted to find some chestnuts, but they weren’t ready yet, even though she insisted on crushing a good number of them in the process in order to discover this fact. Chestnuts, in their little spiky shells look like baby hedgehogs might look; seeing Celia stomping on these was not for the fainthearted.

Today we’ve been trying to get our teeth into planning this train trip in Europe. It’s proving more complex than we imagined, even given the combined forces of the Internet, the various books we’ve got of timetables and ways to get around and the maps. Just when you think you’ve got it sussed you find you can’t get a hotel at a reasonable enough price, or that the train doesn’t go where you’d like it to go.

However, we think we’ve got the first leg of it sorted.

Just resting

2007-09-27T09:25:00.001+12:00

The last couple of days have been rest days – mostly. Both of us were zonked when we got back from our tenting trip, more tired than we’d been for weeks. The tiredness had kind of crept up on us both, and we were both irritable, and just plain weary of traveling and erecting and de-erecting tents.

It’s nice to be back to a bit of normality at our ‘base camp’ and to have some people to talk to. In the campsites it’s been amazing how few people there have been who’ve stopped and talked, or showed any interest in us. Which means we’ve been thrown back on each other for all our resource: we both need other company as well as each other.

We’re now going to plan our train trip in the five European countries in more detail than we originally intended, because part of the problem with the tenting holiday was just not knowing where we might end up, and whether we’d have somewhere to stay. It meant that a certain side of the trip was unrelaxing, and almost unenjoyable.