The Bulldogs are Cheating

Summer 2011

European Adventure: Ping Pong, Pot and Prostitutes

18 August 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

Luxembourg was almost instantly better than Brussels, and not just because the sun was finally out. Catching the bus to the hostel from the train station I quickly got a good look at the rocky crag the old town (and originally fortress) was built into. Soon I got an even better look as the hostel was at the bottom and the bus only dropped us about ¼ of the way down. Walking down with the heavy bag without falling as tough and in fact a girl off my bus did stumble, luckily reaching the handrail before she did a full header. I’d gotten here fairly early, but my room was ready (and I was the only one in it) so I settled in for a few minutes before exploring.

The hostel was gorgeous, only 3 years old or so and quite spacious. There was a restaurant (I’d probably call it a cafeteria) with a garden patio. A lounge with TV and pool table was in the lobby with another massive patio outside on which were several ping pong tables. I really got the feeling this place was often booked as a school retreat as they also had conference facilities, and a large open hall in the basement with extra bathrooms and showers where they could easily set up cots. The rooms themselves were spacious with large lockers and ensuite toilets and shower. About the only sour note was the continuation of northern European ‘large windows that only open at the top and not much’ and the abysmal pillow (which I solved night two by stealing a different one from the empty bed before the new roomie got there.)

Walking up into the city again I began to dread doing that climb early in the morning with my heavy bag trying to catch the bus. Putting it out of my mind for now I walked across the narrow bridge/causeway to the crag, discovering that halfway across there was access to the old fort casemates and kilometres of tunnels under the mount. I paid my three euros and began to explore, narrowly avoided cracking my skull open a few times and wondered just how so many people with armor and halberds etc got through there at any speed. Long practice I guess. The casemates are well worth the visit for both the tunnels themselves and the magnificent views you can catch out the various cubby holes as you look down at the lower town or up at the towers above.

Once I’d emerged from the ground I made a less positive discovery. It was apparently a catholic feast day and Lux is fairly hard core R.C. so most of the little cafes that are my usual meals were closed. The big touristy places on the plazas were open, but a dinnertime meal was averaging 25-30 euro (around $42 cdn when I was there.) I’m definitely going to treat myself to an expensive meal a few times, but it’s not going to be someplace where that’s the average. Though god was I tempted to hit up the first remaining Chi-Chi’s location I’ve seen in two decades. Annoyingly (and probably because it’s almost all tourists and shopping up there) there were no super-markets anywhere remotely accessible from the old town or the hostel according to people I asked. I ended up with what tasted like (and felt like in my stomach later) a slightly undercooked chicken pita. Despite the food issues I really enjoyed the city and explored the various squares, walked around the Grand Duke’s palace and inspected various old carvings that popped up somewhat randomly.

Unfortunately I was also basically out of clothing so when I got back to the hostel it was time for laundry. Let me preface this by saying that this hostel has 240 beds, 5 floors and enough room in the cafeteria to seat ~200 at once…. There was one miniature washer and one miniature dryer. I spent the rest of my night checking every 15 minutes if it was free, finally getting my chance around 10:00pm only to find that the instructions were in german. Thankfully I’d brought my laptop down so I sat there playing peggle forever since I’d apparently chosen the 112 minute german special cycle where the dirt particales are shamed slowly out of the clothing. The dryer wasn’t much better taking 1.5 cycles to get things to a “mostly dry” state which is the best I could do because at this point it was 1:45AM and I’d been up quite a while.

I notice now that I haven’t mentioned my roommates. We got a 4th guy the second night, but the first night it was just me and this father and son duo on a cycling trip from Germany. The son was quite pleasant, had worked in Newfoundland in fact and knew Canada well, the dad didn’t speak any English. We’d talked a bit when they first arrived until I went out for my long walk and a few minutes later on. In between checking laundry status I’d gone for another little walk in the darkness and upon returning finally found the damned thing free. Getting up to the room, I noticed it was dark and I figured they were tired and sleeping, so I tried to be quiet, but clearly I had to turn on my over bed light (at least I didn’t have to turn on the main lights.) You would have thought I’d shot the dad, he made this enormous annoyed grunt and looked at me like I was General Patton (Fun fact: buried in Luxembourg.) I said: “sorry, laundry is free” and got out of there as fast as I could. Altogether, my evenings weren’t really looking up.

The next morning after being very nice and navigating my way to bed with my laundry by the light of my laptop screen they got up very noisily at 6:45AM despite the fact that they weren’t riding on yet. I eventually got back to sleep for a while but was grumbling and making murderous plans to come back at 9:30 that evening and start flashing the lights randomly on and off with some dubstep playing since quiet time isn’t enforced until 10. Once I was up and degrumpified I went for another long walk, this time circling the lower town and seeing more examples of the old fortifications, most of which were pulled down in the late 1800s as a treaty requirement. There were a number of beautiful parks surrounded by ancient buildings and canals. All of these places connected to the rest of the city by very steep cobblestone streets that were a pain to walk on at times. I eventually made the discovery that for many businesses, the holiday wasn’t over. In fact it seems a very common thing in Luxembourg for businesses to close for most or all of august completely for holidays. We’re not just talking small taverns and mom & pop grocery stores either, one of the bigger hotels in town that had two restaurants and a great location near the casino and overlooking the cathedral square was completely shut down for 3 weeks. I guess their hotel economy isn’t so focused on summer tourists that that’s the kiss of death, but yikes. Even so tons more was open and I managed to get a cheap and delicious helping of four cheese pasta a beer and a raspberry ice cream cone for less than a ¼ of what Chi Chi’s wanted for fajitas.

That night after the sun began to set I went back to the hostel, grabbed a beer and sat on the patio reading. I’m currently alternating re-reading Terry Pratchett books with finally getting into George R.R. Martin, a few biographies and some of Jeremy Clarkson’s rant collections. If this sounds like a bit much to you and you don’t know my reading speed I’ll put it this way. I bought myself a Kobo e-reader for this trip, and on my four hour train ride the other day I read two full length novels before starting on a third. Later in the evening two very weirdly intense german children began to play table tennis on the table across the patio from me. I don’t know how they managed it but they proceeded to hit the ball so it span and bounced towards me at a 90 degree angle somewhere around 40 times before the night was out. Their parents ended up having to come out and sit near them as well since they couldn’t stop arguing with the younger one at one point throwing the paddle at his brother.

In between grabbing their balls for them ( >< ) I watched the various other new guests trickle in. There’s one thing that a lot of HI (hostelling international/yha) hostels have in common and that’s the number of quite older people that use them. I don’t mind this at all (after I’m older than the average backpacker) but I have to say I get really peeved when I see people obviously in town for business using them. In Sydney one of the guys told me that his brother often stays in a YHA and either keeps his big budget hotel expense payout or spends it on booze and food.  I’m amazed there are still companies that wouldn’t require a hotel receipt or invoice, but given the number of be-suited people I see with roller briefcases at these places I think the practice is alive and well over here too. That’s not what hostels are for though and it ticks me off to think that I’m having to overpay for some fleabag motel because somebody is scamming their company and taking the last hostel beds.

 

The following morning it was Amsterdam time. I was planning to take a different route back into Belgium (supposedly more scenic) then cross into the Netherlands before heading up to Amsterdam. Thankfully I decided to check before boarding the first train or things might have been worse. The lady in the international office gave me a different itinerary, 4 changes and a lot of hours but still relatively scenic. Don’t get me wrong, it was quite a pretty ride, but the smallest of the trains broke down or had a warning signal or something and delayed us into the station by 5 minutes (unfortunately I had a 6 minute layover there…) With some slapdash rearrangement (thank goodness for the eurail pass) I hopped a different route and eventually got into Amsterdam with an extra train change. Unfortunately I had to get right back on a different one and head to a different station (one that rather dauntingly sounds like MURDER PORT!!! When they say it,) but no matter. Having heard a few less than auspicious Amsterdam hostel stories I’d booked in a big and modern but well situated hostel a little ways out of the core. Some might argue that I’m losing out on the experience of staying in the nuts areas, but I’d rather do that when I can afford a nicer hotel down there. Besides this place is right on the tram line and I can be almost anywhere within a few minutes.

I actually didn’t have any specific plans other than get out of the hostel and explore, but I ended up taking the tram to dam square and ranging about for a while until a glance at my map told me I was near Anne Frank House. As with many/most of you I imagine her story had always touched me deeply and the museum was open late so I braved the 90 minute line and visited. I’m not afraid to say that I was sniffling quite heavily by the time I left. The exhibits are powerfully presented and even though you already knew what happened, seeing how close they came to surviving only to be murdered is just devastating. I’m a fairly stoic person most of the time, but the darkness that exists in humanity to let something like this happen is simply more than I can bear. So many millions of people died in and around World War II with the slaughter of the Jewish people being the most well known, yet we in the western world rarely mention the others. Many of the roma people were hunted down as well and you were just as screwed if you were gay or suspected to be. The slavs, especially in the Ukraine and surroundings, who suffered first at Stalin’s hands before being worked to death by Hitler (or just flat out shot and buried in mass graves.) The eastern front saw the mass deaths of more civilians than in all previous wars put together. This is all without mentioning the atrocities in the Japanese theatre and at least the German government doesn’t deny any of the Nazi deeds.  I’m an incredibly loyal person to my friends and I have one hell of a temper if someone mistreats one of them, but would I have had the courage to fight back? To join the resistance if I’d lived one of these places then? I like to think I would have but as someone who’s never had to face that tipping point of fear vs. outrage I think it’s an unanswerable question. Of course I’m a half breed myself so I’d probably be on the cleansing lists anyway.

Taking a circuitous route back to the tram in this state of mind I found myself in basically the polar opposite of where I’d been an hour before: the red light district. It’s everything I’d heard of course. Vast clouds of pot smoke pouring out of coffee shops, restaurants and hotels with prostitutes making come hither gestures in windows on either side and sex shops everywhere from the tasteful to the over the top. I particularly liked the couple tour groups of old grandmotherly looking ladies walking around with their eyes popping out of their heads. And speaking of grandmothers, I had not one but three different sex shop owners of the grandmotherly persuasion  ask me if I needed something for me and my ladyfriend as I walked by during my visits in the red light area. Thanks for that lady, cause I didn’t already feel depressingly single enough on this trip. I suppose I should be glad they didn’t peg me as gay like the bizarre live sex show ticket pusher who didn’t want to take no for an answer. The other bizarre factor was the number of parents taking their children through the district. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty much anti-puritan in that respect and think kids should be taught and shown that sex is a normal part of life as early as they’re ready for it. The European attitude of the human body being natural but why the  hell are you letting your kids watch someone’s head explode makes a lot more sense to me. That said, there’s a world of difference between letting your children see a movie with a tasteful sex scene and explaining it vs. taking them down a narrow alley where scantily clad women are pressing their breasts against the window with a riding crop between their teeth. But maybe that’s just me.

The next morning I got up reasonably early, grabbed a pear and some toast with chocolate sprinkles and headed off to the Van Gogh museum. It was magnificent, they have so much of his work and they’ve presented it with other pieces by artists who either taught/inspired him or were inspired by his work and continued his style. I’ve always been a massive Van Gogh fan but even I was surprised by the vast changes in his style over his quite short career. I don’t know why but his work speaks to me on so many levels and I actually visited some of the galleries several times. The Rijksmuseum on the other hand was a massive disappointment. It’s in the middle of a total refurbishment/reconstruction that has been going on for aeons and only a small portion of the collection is on display in one wing. This doesn’t stop them from charging nearly $20 cdn to see it and if I hadn’t been dying to see Rembrandt’s Night Watch I likely would have passed. If you’re going though, I definitely recommend buying your tickets in advance as you get to skip most of the line, really really don’t go to the Rijksmuseum though until it’s fully reopen.

Unfortunately after this the rain finally figured out that I’d ended up in Amsterdam and let loose as I was buying some cheese and having lunch back near the red light district. I toughed it out for a while, but didn’t have my coat so I decided to come back to the hostel and write for a bit. I’ve booked my train onward to Prague on Saturday but tomorrow’s plans will depend on this terrible weather. At the moment I’m hoping to rent a bike and tour the city a bit like the locals do.

European Adventure: The sky is falling!

14 August 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

Thankfully my train back to London wasn’t leaving until early afternoon so after checking out and storing the gigantobag I headed to the Scottish National Museum which turned out to be startlingly near to my hostel when I’d passed it the day before. I mostly skimmed their natural history and world cultures section (though I was impressed at how proper their Canadian First Nations section was despite its small size) since I’d done that sort of thing a lot at bigger museums of late and I was short on time. Instead I focused on their particularly great history of Scotland section, which traces the history of the nation from the ancient kings up to the present. Though it was presented with a very proud to be scots message, I was glad to see that they showed the other side of most of the sticking points of history. Their collections of artefacts are quite vast and the collection is well worth a look, though by god it’s one of the most convolutedly designed museums I’ve ever been in. It’s quite an old building that they didn’t move into that long ago so it’s been completely modernised, but in doing so they neglected to create any kind of actual path through the Scots section. Displays are stashed everywhere and unless you can read the mind of the curator in charge you’re likely to either stumble from  Mary of Queen of Scots legacy to a medieval church from hundreds of years earlier then back again. I failed this telepathic test but enjoyed things all the same.

It was raining again off and on in Edinburgh, I’ve definitely fallen in love with the city and want to be back but unless I start moving across the continent I’ll likely miss out on using some of my rail pass. Besides, I can definitely see myself coming back and putting a month long trip just into Scotland. The train ride was a little less eventful this time and we pulled into London then I hopped on the tube. My hostel this time actually wasn’t too far from the hotel my parents and I had stayed in in earl’s court. Unfortunately upon arriving I was presented with a desk clerk who asked if I could wait a moment while he finished his cash drawer count. Fine whatever, but I proceeded to wait 25 minutes while he chatted or hugged or smooched every person who came in, all of whom seem to be staff. For a hostel that isn’t particularly big they seemed to have a ton of staff given that it was past cleaning times, perhaps it’s because none of them actually do anything. Once I’d finally checked in I headed back to Gloucester Road to grab some drinks and a snack for the train ride the next day. Since I ended up being all of half a block from it I kept going and ended up having a quick meal at the pub we’d eaten at the first night in London. It was just as good the second time around.

Back at the hostel I headed down to the common room to take advantage of some free wifi, I’d just settled in with a guy from france and two from Denmark at the same table when there was a monstrous crash and the plaster from a quarter of the ceiling dropped down inches from my head. Had I not moved chairs I would have been seriously injured and I suspect the trip would have been over. Luckily no one was hurt though two girls who were just about to enter the doorway when it fell were near speechless. Needless to say we all exited the lounge quite quickly and were herded out onto the sidewalk with many of us closest to the drop laughing the nervous adrenaline filled laughs you get in that situation. Mixed in were a large number of coughs from the giant cloud of plaster dust as well. Some of the staff kept us outside while someone who must have been the acting manager threw on a high visibility vest and inspected things. A while later they told us it was safe to come back in, but given it had been all of ten minutes and I’m fairly sure none of them are civil engineers I’m not exactly sure where that belief was coming from. At that point I knew my train was leaving early the next morning for Belgium so I just went to bed, watched a tv episode on my laptop then tried to sleep.

Guess my hands were a bit shaky…

 

What is it about England that they don’t understand temperature? I get that it’s not warm enough to justify A/C for most people, in fact they look at you like you’re a wuss if you mention you have it. Of course, let them enjoy a +43C w/ humidex summer day then say that. Even so, surely it’s obvious that muggy summer days and small rooms = too hot to sleep? Is it not patently obvious that when you chop a large old townhouse into tiny rooms with doors that stay locked that you lose all the cross ventilation that kept them cool? Put a ceiling fan in, hell give us a window fan and I’d be happier Also, in a hostel that was recently renovated (though the plaster would say not well) how are you only having only 2 plugs and no individual bed lights? Admittedly one of my roommates was a total bitch, coming back, turning on the light while the other two of us were trying to sleep and rummaging around in her bag for 10 minutes before going to take a shower and leaving the light on. Individual bed lights at least give a person the chance to not have to turn on the overhead. When morning came I’d probably only slept about 3 hours.

Getting to the Eurostar departure lounge was pretty painless, but getting on the actual train was an exercise in stupidity. Like most stations they don’t post the platform for the bigger trains until it’s ready to go so that they have free access to the platform. My train to Brussels was leaving at 8:57, a train to Paris was leaving at 9:00. There was no other train before for at least 40 minutes, and the next train after was in another 30. They have 3 platform areas with a train loading on either side. So what do they do? Load both the trains from the same platform of course. I was up and in the line for the ramp asap and I still ended up waiting so long that they were calling final boarding before the departure lounge was even half empty. For a continent so good at public transport their larger transport traffic control (airports and international trains/coaches) really sucks. The train itself is quite neat and there’s nearly instantly a massive sensation of speed from the scenery flying by even though the train itself doesn’t feel like it’s straining at all. Before I knew it we were into the chunnel and back out and suddenly all the announcements were in French first.

It was only a little over two hours from departure to arrival in Brussels and since I’d thankfully had a chance to check before the ceiling fell I knew just how to get to my hotel. Once I’d dropped off my bag I went for what turned out to be a hell of a walk around town. Apparently since becoming capital of the European Union Brussels has been somewhat overrun with Bureaucrats, with this being the weekend and university also being out of session most of the city other than the heavily touristy grand place area was completely dead. I did manage to snag a quick tour of the Palais Royale after walking through the Parc de Bruxelles and really enjoyed the interiors. Unlike Windsor though it’s not set up for tours all the time (they only happen during part of the summer) so a lot of the rooms had a somewhat stripped feeling as anything easily stolen was not just somewhere safe out of reach but completely gone.

The other fun thing is that it’s the first of several really bilingual countries I’ll be in. As a result some street signs have the name in both languages and some only in one. Directions will sometimes only point you to one of them, which in some cases isn’t too bad. I can certainly figure out Rue de Lombard and Lombardstraat, but Chapelier/Hoedenmakers is a bit more opaque of a duo. Most of the streets near my hotel are named for the old guilds. There’s Butcher, Baker, Brewer, Chickenmarket etc… all centered around the Grand Place, a gorgeous old square absolutely surrounded by amazing architecture. All the old buildings were apparently previously the guild houses for the old market city. You can really see how they each tried to one up the other as they were built. The square is constantly full and surrounded by cute little cafes and bars. I really didn’t feel like much to eat the first night (I seem to be getting back to my Australia style eat once a day plan of attack) so I grabbed a proper cone of Belgian frites. They of course invented the so called French fry and everyone I mentioned belium to said I had to try them, they’re fried once during the prep process then flash fried again when you order. Though everyone knows the famous mustard and mayo combo they like, I got them diabla style which involved three different kinds of spicy sauce. I then camped out a spot in the grand place and sat for a while. The frites were amazing and I definitely recommend Friterie Tabora if you happen to be in Brussels. Later on while enjoying the view after dark I also treated myself to a proper Crepe Nutella, I know it’s somewhat sacrilege to not have a waffle here, but i’ve been craving a proper crepe like my last French trip ever since seeing some in England and not buying one because they wanted the equivalent of $10 for a simple nutella crepe.

I was pretty wiped by this point since I’d been up since 6AM, but Belgium is famous for Beer as well,so I found a likely looking place (hardly difficult here) and ordered what turned out to be a pretty great Raspberry Wheat beer. Not something I’d drink every day, but it fit the moment. It was also probably about 8% so it didn’t help the fatigue factor. Back at my hotel I discovered something I’d previously missed. I’d originally thought I didn’t have a bathroom, but then I’d seen a door when checking in so I assumed I’d gotten an upgrade. Not so, apparently I have a shower and sink, but not a toilet. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd? You think they’d just put a shower in somewhere central and give everyone a toilet, people use toilets more and a shower requires expensive tiling all the way up the wall. Thankfully on this floor at least there are at most two rooms without a full ensuite so I haven’t had to wait for the WC yet. The only other problem is that all the lights are on motion sensors in public areas, even in the potty so as you sit there you either need to shimmy a bit or wave your hands from time to time.

The next morning I treated myself to a bit of a sleep-in before further exploring. I’ve been enjoying the music of the occasional busker floating up to the room from the square below. I’d also just been thinking that I had only heard American style sirens when I finally heard a proper Doppler shifty euro-siren screaming past. I think after further inspection that it’s only the ambulances that have them where the police cars have shifted to yank style L I was finally forced out of lazy semi sleep by the first of several barrages of bells from the 9 or so churches within hearing distance (the 11am one being particularly noisy.)

Day two ended up being quite like day one sadly, as pretty as it is, this isn’t the world’s most exciting town for someone travelling on their own. The architecture is gorgeous, but it’s really a town made for sitting in a cafe with your significant other, enjoying conversation and the view. As a solo traveller on a Sunday afternoon/evening, it’s not really the perfect place for me. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a little afraid it will be like this a lot of places on my journey. I’m not the most lightning quick to make friends and 90% of the other travellers even in the hostels, aren’t travelling solo. I ended up at the train station to activate my eurail pass for tomorrow’s journey then mostly walked around again. There actually turned out to be a music festival going on this evening, I was too cheap to buy a ticket but you could listen to most of the stages just by wandering around some of the squares, some even had video screens pointed to public areas. I ended the day with the aforementioned waffle sitting and listening to a string combo with a lot of talent that was set up right outside my hotel.

Tomorrow I’m off to Luxembourg, haven’t decided what’s after that, likely Amsterdam. I’ll be glad to be solo in Amsterdam since I’m fairly sure even getting near the door of a coffee shop would give me an asthma attack and I don’t know any of my friends who wouldn’t have at least wanted to check one out. Speaking of though, does anyone have any hostel recommendations for Amsterdam, Prague or Rome since those are my only firm destinations so far?

European Adventure: #edfringe

11 August 2011
Toast
1 Comment
Categories: Travel

Edinburgh itself entranced me immediately. The train station is smack dab in the middle of the city and I emerged practically in the shadow of the castle. To be fair of course pretty much anything in downtown Edinburgh is loomed over by the castle, the mount is that imposing. I eventually found my way to the hostel after a few wrong turns, not the world’s best map and I had to pull out my laptop and look at my thankfully cached google map while standing in the fringe crowds. It turns out that the hostel is actually a University of Edinburgh residence that seems to be used as one just for the summer. Reception even seemed to be in an RA room.

 

August in Edinburgh is festival time, this means of course the Fringe but also the art festival, the Royal Military Tattoo and others. Most of you know how much I love Winnipeg’s fringe which if you count the actual theatre is more or less tied with Edmonton as the world’s second biggest. They both pale in comparison to this. It’s incredibly massive. Yet almost immediately I can see why many performers who do (or have done) both say they prefer Winnipeg and Edmonton because they’re more personal. It’s insane how much competition there is here. The leaflet handouts are incredibly aggressive at times and even if I hadn’t been told that many artists entire year of wages rests on this month I would have guessed. Still historically having a hit show in Edinburgh is the gateway to being picked up for the major BritCom touring circuit or a guest spot on one of the panel shows so popular over here. As a result the marketing here is ridiculous with what seems like the entire cast of some shows making an cordon across the high street and passing out leaflets with production values you generally only see on the top end shows in Canada. In addition many of the groups have ridiculously elaborate standees, flags, sandwich boards or other elaborate attention grabbers. If everyone here who claimed to have “new comedy from Cambridge” was telling the truth the university drama department would have an enrolment equivalent to some small South American nation. Overall it’s quite sad in many ways as you know that there’s simply too many companies/artists here for some people not to lose their shirts.

The streets are therefore packed with performers and tourists and it makes things completely impassable at times. My first exposure to this was made even wilder by what can only be described as a massive pack of almost universally bra-less Dutch girls running around at high speed on some sort of scavenger hunt. Apparently a Canadian or North American was one of the things required and I had on my RCAF hat so I ended up in a few photos. I saw the same couple with a pair of dogs stopped at least 5 times as well. “Pleashhh can we have your fotosh!” The crowd was quite diverse though, besides Dutch girls I saw a pack of kids (pipers I think) from Kitchener-Waterloo where I lived for a while during co-op, several large Japanese or Korean tour groups and of course thousands of English. This last group was somewhat split in emotion (be they performer or attendee) as every time they went near a television they saw the ridiculousness going on down south. The riots are very much on everyone’s mind here and it’s all anyone talks about if they aren’t discussing the shows they just saw.

On that initial walkaround the walkway up to the castle was absolutely jammed and it wasn’t long before I discovered that was the tattoo. If you’ve never been to one it’s basically a giant military marching/music display and the Edinburgh one is considered one of the best. It runs nearly every night and I think one of the things I read mentioned something like 150,000 people attend annually. This also explained why I heard a fighter fly over a bit later while going online to buy fringe tickets.

I picked up tickets to some of my favourite brit comedians that I’ve seen on TV (more about that later) and headed back out to grab something to eat and look for something cheaper to see that night. Some of us have been bitching about increasing prices at fringe back home, but we still max out around $10, but for three headlining shows here I paid the equivalent of $65cdn. There’s of course also a street theatre portion of the fest and I finally got rid of a bit of the 10 pounds of change in my pocket while watching a few jugglers, a Canadian acrobat/unicycle guy and a set of fantastic saxophone players who I sat watching for nearly half an hour. I also had a giant nerdgasm moment when I saw Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer walking around with his daughter. I didn’t want to be one of the douchey fans that run up and gush at a star when they’re on holiday though, much as I would love to meet them both so I just smiled and moved on. Mostly though I just wandered around appreciating the gorgeous (if sometimes severe) architecture and falling in love with the city.

I ended up seeing a couple short, cheap shows that night that were quite good. I couldn’t help making comparisons to home though. They have a fantastic surplus of really neat venues that the Winnipeg fest would die for. My first show was in a former wine cellar in what seems like it was probably a 16th century building, the second was in a loft built under a bridge with a gorgeous vaulted ceiling. The only problem is that they aren’t huge on risers so if you’re late your sightline will likely suck. Making up for this is that I have yet to be to a venue that doesn’t have a bar that provides drinks for it, even if you (shockingly by Canuck standards) have to walk out and down the street to another entrance to go in. There’s also a weird lack of uniformity that explains some of the comments about preferring Winnipeg for the community feel. It seems like there are a variety of larger mega-venues that are each made of a bar, a separate merch area, and 3-10 venues in some large building. It’s hard to describe (I’ll post some pictures later) but it’s as if Winnipeg Fringe was made up of MTCZone which is all the MTC/Pantages venues surrounded by their own fence/entrance  then a few scattered independent ones, usually in bars (think the king’s head), before you get to say Artspace, but an Artspace which has 10 different rooms, their own specialized programs, beer gardens, marketing banners and teeshirts etc… Very very different. The shows themselves run on nothing like the strict schedule we’re used to and it wasn’t until the Ed Byrne show I caught that one was really spot on time. I finished the evening with a pint at a place called the brass monkey before turning in, unfortunately hearing that someone had thrown themselves off the bridge that night, explaining the sirens that had almost drowned out one of the earlier shows.

 

Waking up the next morning I really was glad that I hadn’t gone to school and stayed in this rez. Never mind that the only access to this massive complex is down a VERY dark alley that I wouldn’t be super keen on entering after midnight myself, much less as a woman on her own. It’s also quite grim inside and every door slams heavily meaning that whenever someone goes to the toilet, comes back from the bar, or leaves for a train (or class) at 7am you’re going to hear it. Also, five flights of stairs after a long day sucks. I kept going back to sleep though, enjoying the chance to lie in a bit since I’ll be on the move more come Europe. Once I was up and about I booked my next steps in the trip then headed up to Edinburgh castle. Unfortunately the rain and cold had followed behind my train, Shilpa confirming that it was sunny back in London. Umbrella etiquette is as lacking as at home too, particularly while I was waiting in line for my ticket/audio guide and the Spanish woman behind me nearly incessantly poked me with the razor sharp edges of hers. When she wasn’t doing that she has holding it in a way that every drop ran off it and down my back. Whenever I tried to give myself some extra space she’d come right back up to me as if crowding me would get her there sooner, eventually I had to turn around (after several excuse me’s) and literally push the umbrella backwards every minute or so. Her husband eventually got embarrassed and made her put it away but not until we’d been through most of the line. Luckily it was soon forgotten (except for being stored for a blog anecdote) as I got to explore the castle. The history nerd in me enjoyed a lot of the ancestral stuff (having been told many times how I was descended from King Robert the Bruce by my grandmother) and the views from the mount when the fog and rain faded from time to time were breathtaking. I’d love to be there on a sunnier day though so I’d go again for sure. Got to see the Scottish crown jewels (which somewhat pale in comparison to the English ones, but are older since most of the English date from post-restoration) the stone of scone and various other relics as well as the Scots war museum. It’s definitely the most visually impressive and together (and beautifully sited) of the castles I’ve visited this trip, I still think Caerphilli is my favourite though.

That night I got to see David O’Doherty who I’ve been a fan of since seeing him on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. He was absolutely brilliant and I’ll be hoping he makes a trip to Canada at some point. Today I saw the Phill Jupitus quartet (also of NMTB) which was a pretty standard but hilarious improve show and an absolutely fantastic set by Ed Byrne of Mock the Week fame. I’ve loved Ed’s stuff forever, but he’s even better live. He’s a good sport too, jokingly ripping a guy who went to the bathroom in the fourth row then looking on in increasingly bewilderment as 3 other people from the same party went on to do so over the rest of his show. He even gave a shoutout to the walnut bladders at the end of the show. For the last night I had a couple pints in a couple interesting pubs on the way back to the hostel, watched the end of tattoo fireworks (and the typhoon soaring overhead.) I also had an incredibly hilarious few minutes listening to a pair of Scotsmen cover Outkast. Imagine a less talented version of the Proclaimers (of 500 miles fame) doing Hey Ya, then imagine how I had to struggle not to laugh. They were earnest, I’ll give them that but I don’t think it’s the greatest song choice for them.

Tomorrow it’s back to London before catching the Eurostar to Belgium the next morning.

 

European Adventure: All by myself…

9 August 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

 

The last couple days with the parents were eventful to say the least. Our Cotswolds B&B was fantastic given how randomly we’d chosen it and the region itself was quite pretty. Lots of little villages with cute shops and restaurants and supposedly great antiquing. I stayed out of the antique shops though, sure I’d see something I’d either love and couldn’t afford or couldn’t afford to ship home even if I could afford the price. The village of Bourton-on-water closest to us was particularly pretty being mostly set along a picturesque river/canal and made up of mostly old stone cottages. I doubt the photos will really evoke the charm of the place but we’ll see when I get them back from the parents. We ended up enjoying another proper cream tea as well as some other tasty meals. I must say thought that it’s quite the older folks area and I’d probably have started to go a little stir crazy had we stayed there as long as we’d stayed some other places.

The next morning we were off to the Reading area to meet some distant cousins that my mother has been in contact with on the net. Amazingly enough I managed to get us there despite no real map of the area and some pretty shoddy google map info I’d transferred onto a notepad. They turned out to be quite friendly and wonderful hosts and shared some stories of distant relatives on my mother’s side of the family. Unfortunately we needed to have the car back by 3 so our time with them was short, but they’d been busy when we’d been near London initially so we had to make do with this time slot. They warned us that we’d have to leave reasonably early to beat the potentially terrible M25 (ring road around London) traffic. How right they were…

We’d seen signs warning of a shutdown on the traffic warning signs, it turned out the M25 was shut down completely right around the exit we needed.  Long story short apparently there had been some sort of epic accident that closed all 8 lanes (both directions) for over 24 hours. Needless to say, we didn’t have the car back by 3, in fact we spent over 5 hours in the jam and only got it back around 8 pm, collapsing in exhaustion in the Airport Holiday Inn at Gatwick in preparation for my parent’s flight home the next day. Terrible end to an awesome trip for them, still we got them off safely the next morning and they’re home now. As I write this they’re probably bathing kennel-stinky dogs.

I on the other hand made my way slowly into London, collapsed into a hostel I’d booked for my first night and slept for a couple hours before stumbling down to the common room and hopping on the internet. This time the hostel had a pretty great food service so I actually just ate there. Big pizza with chicken and brie for about $10 cdn is hard to beat in London. Even better that they sell alcohol during pub hours so I had a tall beer. I followed it up with a quick walk over to a cinema and finally saw the last Harry Potter movie. Much like my Sydney experience this was an overpriced small place (though with a great projector) with that weirdest of things to us North Americans… assigned seats. Still, I figured it was my last chance to see an English movie on the big screen for a while so I took it. Probably the weirdest moment was the pre-show music, I hadn’t really been listening but then I was suddenly struck by exactly what it was. The Aleksandr Nevsky suite by Prokofiev for the epic Eisenstein Stalinist propaganda film. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, it’s always been a favourite piece of music but seemed somewhat out of place there.

Today I transferred to a new hotel as recommended by a friend, it’s in somewhat of a shambles due to some renovations but I do at least have a single with ensuite. Of course the internet is broken and the tv near non functional but I went out for the afternoon/evening anyway. My friend Shilpa from my RIM days invited me to meet her out for dinner in Windsor so I decided to go out and see the castle first. Luckily the new hotel is more or less directly opposite Paddington station so it was an easy trip to catch the train which was helpful. Less so was the guy who told me it was two stops when in fact I needed to transfer at the first one… costing me extra to come back and almost making me too late to do the full tour.

Windsor Castle is even more beautiful than I imagined. The outside architecture a mix of really old and relatively new, most of the older more rugged bits having been prettied up as the castle passed from being a fortress to a more ostentatious royal residence first. St. George’s within the grounds is every bit as pretty as it always looks in pictures as well, incredibly Gothic inside and out with one of the prettiest ceilings I’ve seen yet. It’s home to the Order of the Garter so the quire is surrounded by the heraldic arms of the current members. I actually just got into the chapel though as it closes before the rest of the castle. Moving on from there I went to see Queen Mary’s Doll’s House which is incredibly intricate, every miniature crafted with precision and care. Some of the paintings inside are actually miniature versions of other works painted by famous artists. Moving on from there I toured the state apartments, many of which were restored to 17th century state after the fire back in 1992. So many old masters on display, beautiful art by Reubens, Bronzino, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and others. I really can’t even describe what tickled my fancy as every room had some kind of feast for the eyes. I really hadn’t considered Windsor anywhere near top of my list to visit but it turned out to be amazing.

Eventually I met up with Shilpa and her friend Wilfred and we had a drink in Starbucks (they don’t make the one hot drink I like there over here) before heading on for a tasty Asian dinner.  It was great to see Shilpa after a year or so and catch up. Annoyingly I forgot to take a picture of us all, but oh well. Was definitely a good night though as I’d started to feel the stirrings of melancholy I felt in Sydney after saying goodbye to my NZ friends. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issues setting off alone but something about switching over to that mode makes me a little mopey. Of course, now I’ve returned to Paddington and I’m watching on my TV as riots rage at various places around the city. There is the smell of smoke in the air and straining out my window I can see a few red glows. The sirens passing both nearby and in the distance around the city are endless. I’d been planning to go out and have a pint but I think I’ll stay in and write instead as the violence has been spreading and the Met Police are begging people to stay off the streets. Hopefully I’ll be able to post this tomorrow with wifi as I’m expecting about 20 “are you ok” messages on facebook when I log on. So in short, yes I’m ok and I’m heading to Edinburgh tomorrow so things shouldn’t be an issue.

European Adventure: Oops, catchup time.

4 August 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

Oof, I’ve fallen quite behind in the old travelogue. Mostly this is because of a barrage of quite busy days combined with questionable or non-existent internet. Overall we’ve been having a blast and have ended up seeing a lot more of the country than I’d really expected to. Continuing on from the previous post…

 

On Friday we decided to head a bit further afield in Cornwall by heading west. We didn’t quite get to Land’s End (and we’d heard it’s gotten super commercial and tacky anyway) but made it to Penzance before indulging in some proper Cornish Cream Tea. I have to say that the Cornish clotted cream is fantastic, at that point we had in on scones, but we’ve since also had it on various cakes and puddings as well. Before now I’ve actually only had it on a British Airways flight over a decade ago, the real thing is so much better.

On the way to Penzance we stopped at Pendennis castle in Falmouth. Originally a coastal keep for Henry VIII, it was various enlarged and modified right up until World War 2 where it was more of an AA battery than a coastal fortress. It has a fantastic view over the mouth of the harbour, displays of the various bits of weaponry as well as different  buildings created during the various eras of the fort. The vast numbers of sailboats, fishing trawlers and oil tankers made looking through the gunsights on the shore guns a little more true to life. Sadly you weren’t able to traverse the big guns with the cranks.

After tea in Penzance we were actually pretty wiped so we started heading back planning to stop at St. Michael’s Mount but were foiled again by England’s terrible signage. We’d seen a few different signs for the turnoff on the way into town, on the way out there were either zero or only the tiniest of signs at the actual turnoff because we missed it. By the time we were sure it seemed best to head back home as Dad was getting quite tired and we didn’t need him drifting off and putting us off a cliff on the drive back. Back in Looe we ended up in another incredibly old pub, this time sharing space with various costumed weirdos who had just participated in a three-legged race for adults. Given that it was 18 plus and more than a few of them were tanked we got the feeling that pre and post game drinking was encouraged. Of particular note were a pair of Smurfettes, two bunches of grapes and some quite cute lego men.

The next day we ended up heading to Tintagel a beautiful castle site vaguely associated with the Arthur myth (but not really other than in a tourist sense of things.) There’s the remains of a much later castle that’s quite visible but the earlier castle site is a near empty plateau out on a tiny isthmus high above the sea. It’s quite a walk as you nearly walk down to the sea, then up narrow cliff inset steps to the top. An incredibly beautiful site but somewhat rampant with loud French school children on holiday. Down below by the seashore there is a cave running deep into the rocks, it’s actually the lower divide of the isthmus and is now known as Merlin’s Cave for reasons entirely random. Despite the shaky association I couldn’t resist buying a couple quite nerdy gifts for myself in the little giftshops before I navigated us down a different road in hopes of avoiding some of the traffic on the way out.

This turned out to be a stroke of luck as we ended up in the absolutely gorgeous little village of Boscastle. Nestled at the end of a very protected inlet it’s a tiny village with large chunks recently refurbished due to a devastating flash flood. In the visitor center we watched a video of the flood, it’s truly amazing no one was killed in it. I think the video is on youtube, really quite wild. If I end up back in Cornwall anytime soon I’ll likely end up staying there in one of the gorgeous B&B’s. We walked out to the coast along the inlet enjoying the gardens. If I could draw at all I probably could spend days out there. On the way back to Looe we headed across Bodwin moor and stopped for a pint at Jamaica Inn of Daphne DuMaurier novel fame. It’s not quite the isolated place it once was apparently and (though nice enough) was far from the most isolated old place we visited. Coming back into Looe it was the night of the Lions carnival ending the week of strange events but we managed to just miss it (but thankfully late enough that the roads were no longer blocked)

Thankfully we’d managed to again get an extra night in our current digs as the family friends were having a big lunch that we were invited to, it was nice to not have to take off afterwards to find new lodgings. Before lunch I got to visit with their donkeys, once they apparently had quite a few and were a sanctuary. Even now they have five donkeys and a mule, all adorable and attention seeking when you go in to pat them. The lunch itself was at one of the few small towns near Looe that we hadn’t yet visited. It was a great lunch at a sea side beach, gorgeous despite a grey day. After saying our goodbyes we went to a somewhat famous old fishing village called Polperro, ultra narrow streets (no one non-resident allowed to drive in) and lots of gift-shops/restaurants. There were a ton of very neat looking holiday rentals (many of which looked empty) that would make a fantastic place to spend a couple weeks. Still, there were so many rentals there that I wasn’t surprised to hear from our host back in Looe that the town is basically closed in winter.

Our plan for the rest of the night was to pack for the next day when we’d be leaving, apparently unsuccessfully. We later found out we left some of our laundry behind. Oddly enough (especially given the number of yachts and ships) there didn’t seem to be a laundromat in town. When they found out we needed to do some, one of the B&B owners went ahead and did our laundry for us. Ridiculous service, if anyone’s planning to head to Cornwall anytime soon I really recommend you check them out.

Once we finally hit the road we decided to explore northward by first heading up to the coast near Tintagel again and heading east across the Cornwall coast into Devon. Our main goal was to visit Clovelly, another narrow street seafront town. The difference with this one is that they use donkeys and sledges to import and export goods and refuse. Unfortunately my parent’s recollections of the place will have to do because the place rather ridiculously charges a fee roughly equivalent to $10cdn a head to enter the village. Apparently this is possible because the feudal lord’s family still owns more or less the entire village. I’m sure it’s pretty, but I’m also sure it’s not THAT different from the other places and $30 for the three of us even before buying lunch etc is Crazy McNuts.

Still, we visited a number of other gorgeous towns and villages before having to call it a night due to driver fatigue at a lonely inn at the top of a hill. This turned out to be the Blue Ball Inn, formerly known as the something or other sandpiper. The current incarnation opened in about 1800 as a coach inn and was called The Blue Ball for 180 years before some genius bought the place and decided to rename it (first to the blue bear inn) Perhaps this was due to the other meanings of blue ball, but seriously… 180 years of history trumps that. Despite the location it wasn’t cheap, but included a fantastic breakfast with their own raised pork sausages and bacon.

We actually had dinner there as well since Dad didn’t really feel up to driving back down the massive 25% hill to the village. This place really had the feeling that Jamaica Inn should have had. We even had a number of sheep wandering past the door bleating incredibly loudly. Given the fog rolling in I was actually pretty glad that we’d stopped after seeing the fuzzy little thing since there was no way we’d see them coming around corners. No idea how the dogs handle it though. That’s actually one of the weirdest things about Cornwall and Devon, pretty much any pub is happy for you to bring your (well behaved) dog into the pub with you or onto a patio. The innkeepers themselves had a couple dogs, once of which followed dad back up to the room after he went to the front desk the next morning. I heard a tail slapping the door as I had a shower and had flashbacks to home. Definitely miss the dogs, but having the occasional furball to give a pat helps.

The next morning we gunned fairly hard with only one big stop. This time it was at a castle though it was heavily remodelled so it should really be called a manor. We enjoyed the displays, most of the rooms have been kept as they were last used as a family home into the 50s. Before long we pressed on, hoping to get to Wales and have a couple days to look around. This was somewhat “interesting” though as my navigation basically consisted of some educated guessing of what might be a pretty region of Wales with somewhere to stay. It turns out I managed to stumble upon one of the prettiest sections of the south end of the country and we stayed a night near Brecon just outside the Brecon Beacons national park. We actually ended up driving a gorgeous road at sunset through the heart of the park common, basically a giant grazing area for thousands of sheep and more horses/ponies. Definitely kept dad on his toes driving since apparently the sheep feel the tastiest grass is the stuff right next to the road, but the views were very worth it. It’s the place in the UK most like New Zealand for me honestly. Rugged (if not massively tall) mountains and vast open plateaus. We ended up driving this road a few times and we loved it every time.

The next day was more of the same randomness. Starting from the Brecon place we took a spin down the wild road then stopped for a roughly two hour hike up to see some very pretty waterfalls on the edge of the park. It was quite a nice walk, until I slipped on some moss and went ass over tea kettle, managing to protect the expensive camera but hurting my thumb quite badly. I’ve since woken up with a sore back and hip as well, but of course this is the first time in a while that I haven’t had access to a bathtub to soak away my aches. Clumsy me L

We ended the day nearly all the way to the west coast of Wales in a small walled town on the coast called Tenby. It turned out to be a very neat little place, but it was the day of a Fireman’s carnival so again we just missed a parade and had some issues finding some place to spend the night. The seaside aspect pleased dad though as we had what was probably in the top two orders of Fish and chips for the trip (so far he says.) On my side I had to keep myself from laughing again at the girls coming into these pubs where all ages are eating and drinking who are all tarted up in short dresses and ridiculously over the top makeupfor a night on the town. It’s just not something you see as much in small towns back home, even in places where there’s no actual dance club type place.

Much as we would have enjoyed spending more time in Wales we have one more personal visit to make as well as a need to bring the rental car back in time, so we decided to head back into England the next morning. Thankfully we felt we had time for another castle stop, this time at Caerphilli. This place is a serious fortress and is even surrounded by restored water defences (and, somewhat incongruously to us, Canada Geese.) It’s very much a strategic fortress, built with multiple rings of defences and battle sight lines. It fell into ruin in the 16th century before being somewhat restored in the Victorian era, oddly enough by someone who made a point of using different stone so it was clear what was original and what wasn’t. These days the heritage folks have simply made the great hall livable for state events and preserved what’s left for safe viewing. The towers command imposing views of the surrounding town and you definitely get a taste of just how much command of the area archers lining the battlements would have had.

Once back in England we ended up in the Cotswolds area as planned to give ourselves some flexibility in our last few days. Oddly enough we’re very close to Swindon again and had we known might have been able to play with some earlier plans a bit. We had a fantastic meal at a little pub called the Mousetrap hereabouts tonight and we’re planning on spending tomorrow exploring somewhat randomly round the area. After which I really need to get off my butt and plan my post-parental departure meanderings.

That’s the lightning round version of the past week, more info to follow with pics about stuff that’s particularly interesting.

European Adventure: Fun in the Looe

28 July 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

We ended up staying an extra day in the New Forest since the B&B had an opening for the next day and it was so nice. The next morning we took a trip down to Bournemouth to first stock up on some goodies for the room and the car before heading to the seaside. Summer holidays had just started for Brit kids though so it was quite busy. It was actually quite a nice beach though the water was fairly cold. Very British beach experience though, the shore being lined by miles of long beach sheds. Some of these are very involved with paintings and whatnot and some are little more than a place to change into your suit. In between these sheds (some of which are for rent and some which have apparently been in the family forever) there are ice cream shops or amusement arcades full of the terrible sort of coin gobbling “games” you only see in the worst midways over here. That said, we did through a few 10 and 20 pence coins into one of them but had no luck.

After walking back to the car via the surf (brrrr…) we traipsed back up the hill and into the car to hop along the coast to Highcliff Castle. This place is actually a manor house of sorts, built in the 1830s in the style of a much older home to encompass ancient stonework bought by the owner from medieval French buildings. It actually burned multiple times after being abandoned but over the past couple decades has been slowly restored. It’s now quite pretty again and actually one of Britain’s busier wedding sites. They had a good number of exhibits on the history of the castle and the various people who had owned and visited the place. It turned out to be quite a good random stop.

The next morning we got quite an early start and began somewhat of a marathon day by heading first to Swindon where my Great-Grandparents are buried and my mother spent 6 months during her childhood. We spent a few hours visiting an old friend of my grandmother’s before finding the gravesite and visiting a few landmarks with my mother. It was interesting to get to see a few of these places and get a bit of a window into the family’s past. Lots of things had changed since she was last there though, but she was able to find most of the locations she could remember.

Once we’d finished up there we headed on to Cornwall, again giving us a bit of scale we managed to cross a big chunk of southern England in all of 3 hours going from Swindon to Looe. This was also Tristan’s introduction to REALLY narrow English roads. We’d done a few narrow semi scary ones in the New Forest etc, but the final approach to Looe was a whole lot of the single lanes with massive hedges creating a canyon effect. We inadvertently took a B road approach which was a number of these narrow sections then a sudden dive down into a river canyon along narrow switchbacks before suddenly popping out onto a busy street filled with pedestrians and tourist traffic. Scary to get used to.

Looe itself is an ancient fishing port and center for the smuggling trade. It’s actually two little towns linked by a medieval bridge. In modern times it’s of course now relying as much on tourism as fishing (including fishing trips for tourists.) Our B&B turned out to be a beautiful old Georgian three story directly overlooking the tidal river that flows between the two halves. The joy of things being that this is of course an ancient town which in our modern world can easily be summed up by: lack of parking. We quickly unloaded the cases and had to transfer over to a car park about a 5-10 minute walk (dependent on busyness) from the place. Even a large number of the residents on this side of the river have to use the big lot but I expect they get a substantial discount. The B&B itself was quite nice and before long we were ensconced on the veranda with a drink poured enjoying the view, or as the host put it: “Watching nothing happen.”

Eventually we roused ourselves and went for a long walk round the town following the host’s advice and heading well down the restaurant row before we stopped at what turned out to be a quite good Thai place. Not spicey enough for my tastes (unsurprising in tame taste bud Britain) but lovely flavours. The couple that own it are an English man and his Thai wife, they run the restaurant most of the year then take off for Thailand in the winter. Can’t say I disagree with that choice of life. After a nice dinner we headed down to the shore of the channel again and walked along the waterfront and took some great photos. I particularly enjoyed a family of tourists playing around with a basketball at the beachfront hoop who were absolutely the most terrible players I’ve ever seen outside of a first grade class back home. I’m guessing their hotel had a ball and they went down for some fun but I’ve never seen so many creatively wrong ways to throw at the hoop.

We ended up finishing the night back on our side of the river at a pub called the Jolly Sailor which has apparently in been in operation since sometime around 1516. It’s one of the local’s pubs and in fact on the night in question it was local music night. A bunch of locals had brought down a wide variety of instruments and were playing their hearts out in turn. When we first arrived a quite talented man was playing irish flute with accompaniment. Despite the rather varying skill level of the rest of the musicians we would have liked to listen, sadly the only table available was near a table of germans who felt the need to talk incredibly loudly so you couldn’t hear a damned thing over them. We ended up giving up and moving to the farthest end of the bar.  It was a pretty neat place, though of course my father smacked his head more than once on the low hanging beams that looked like ship lumber.

A bit later we returned to the B&B to find out the Cornish family friends had called the place to ask if we wanted to head out on a beach day with them the following morning. After a quick phone call we agreed to get an early start and join up with them to head out early. Thankfully our host was able to get our breakfast going early (this turned to be kind of unnecessary in the end as they weren’t really ready to go until long after we got there.) We ended up caravanning with them down to a gorgeous beach on the north coast that was absolutely swarmed with people. The Cornish coast is so rugged that the beaches tend to be smaller but deeper, apparently this one called Penzeath is often completely covered at high spring tide. After a ridiculously elaborate and tasty lunch round the back of the car we basked in an incredibly un-England sun for a while then dove into the cold waves. Between the swimming, sunning and everything else we ended up staying until long after most other people had left. We even grabbed a wood-fired pizza before a walk along the coast to finish the day. I absolutely understand why smuggling was (and maybe is) big business along the coast here. I keep saying rugged but it really is the best descriptor for it, notches and caves everywhere, long narrow inlets with high cliffs to keep out prying eyes.

We’ve thus far avoided driving much at night but we got an… interesting introduction to it. One of the A-roads we needed to take back was closed for works. We took the detour to start, but soon our friend took a winding garden road to bypass the bypass. Probably one of the scarier trips I’ve ever taken. Quite black everywhere, 7 foot wide road with other locals having the same idea in either direction. One particularly fun moment was a bridge labelled “weak bridge” that was apparently only 6 feet wide and had steel bars to keep you away from the weaker sides. My father isn’t really fantastic yet at the gear changes heading uphill so once or twice we fell behind and we became worried we’d lose our guide. I can’t imagine what we would have done since none of the turn offs were marked and it would have been a matter of wandering round single lane roads until we stumbled out onto a marked A road probably. Thankfully we eventually popped out onto a proper road and we waved goodbye to them at a place I knew and I navigated dad home in one piece. A quick drink and it was bedtime

It was time for a bit of a lie in the next morning so we slept in until *gasp* 8:45 before eventually heading out on a wandering trip to the ancestral home of my grandfather’s family in Fowey (pronounced Foye.) Along the way we stopped at the ruins of a 13th century castle with fantastic views. It’s apparently a favourite picnic spot and you can see why. It’s fantastically sited on a spire hill with a near 360 view that would only have better in the days when the trees would have been cleared for field of fire. After enjoying the view and exploring the castle we headed on to Fowey. Fowey was another interesting reminder of how non-hilly Winnipeg is as we had to go down at at least a 30 degree slope for a 15 minute walk or so. It’s a beautiful little town (I definitely prefer Looe though) with a number of touristy shops and restaurants and a bay full of sailboats. We checked out the shops and had a lunch Cornish pasty (amazing) sitting by the sea. It another lovely relaxing day but we’re hoping to perhaps go a bit farther tomorrow.

Tonight ended up being quite the experience as we went back to the Jolly Sailor for Sea Shanty night and spent 2 hours and a few ciders/beers singing along with the “Miner Quay” group. These guys knew their stuff and took us through any number of old tyme type chanties while explaining a lot of the history behind many of them. The ancient pub combined with the singing made for a quite special evening, especially with the help of the mega-powerful local cider.

European Adventure: Bathtime

24 July 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

 

Our last day of this stay in London was a bit short as we had to be at Gatwick to pick up our rental car in the afternoon. We ended up taking a nice long walk up into Kensington and across Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park. London continued with its hot sun/cloud and cold wind switches in five minute intervals so this walk ended up being a lot putting on my jacket, taking off my jacket. The gardens themselves were beautiful, though we missed the dogs as we saw any number of pups enjoying the park. We passed Kensington Gardens where Will and Kate will be living when in London then walked down the park checking out the gorgeous Albert Memorial as well as the rather silly Princess Di moving necklace of water thing. I can only imagine what living near the park costs, but I couldn’t help but imagine living in London as we sat by  the serpentine and enjoyed a slice of cake and a bevy.

Sadly it wasn’t going to be long before we had to head to Gatwick so we began a circuitous walk back via Notting Hill where we had a quick look at the markets but things were bonkers and it was time to head back so we walked down to the tube station… and found that to go anywhere we had to hop back to Notting Hill gate station. Once we arrived back at Notting Hill Gate to transfer we found a massive crush of people that wouldn’t let us get off the train. I practically had to shove my way in while yelling at them to let people off before they boarded. Sadly though, the reason that the central platform was so crowded was that the proper line wasn’t running from that station beginning that morning. This was particularly lovely as it forced us to walk what we’d already walked and put us a little behind schedule, but eventually we got back to the hotel to grab our bags and hopped another tube for Victoria Station.

It marks me as a giant nerd, but there is something incredibly romantic to me about taking a proper train out of London (Gatwick is a fair ways out for those who haven’t been there.) As the train heads out into the country the industry of south London fades away fairly quickly and soon you’re passing through residential neighbourhoods that again look like something out of a brit-soap. Yet there are so many points where you can only see the false tudor tops of houses, or perhaps a farmhouse on a ridge further out. At these moments all signs of modernity disappear from the view and you can easily imagine yourself in any number of old novels or movies. For me it was the scene from the opening of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when the Pevinseys are being evacuated from London during the blitz. All too quickly though we were back to reality as we picked up the rental car and my father reacquainted himself with driving a manual while at the same time driving on the left, always fun. Eventually we managed to get on the right road and on our way. I’ll never understand the brit fascination for the roundabout. Don’t get me wrong, they absolutely have their place, but they show up far too often over here on what should be major uninterrupted stretches of road. Instead there’s a roundabout for every podunk back lane you cross.

Intellectually I know Europeans are used to tiny distances for everything, but I couldn’t help but be amazed at how close to the coast we actually were. Just driving down the highway for 20 minutes to get to the road we’d use to head west we ended up all of 15 miles from the English Channel. All the time in Australia I’d hear brits and other euros whine about how far of a drive it was to make it all the way up the coast, small wonder when driving across half the country is like driving to Brandon for us. The truly scary part of the journey wasn’t dad failing at roundabouts but instead nutso drivers (particularly motorcyclists) passing on blind corners and trying their damnedest to cause head-on collisions. At least twice we were in serious danger of a crash if dad hadn’t slammed on the brakes.

Our B&B turned out to not be quite in Salisbury but instead a few miles south in the New Forest. Driving into the narrow lane we ended up seeing some of the famous free roaming ponies just as we reached the turnoff for our place. Apparently there are absolutely tons of them, I can believe it since in the one small clearing by the pub there were probably 15 ponies and several foals grazing. We left them behind until later and found our home for the night where it turned out that our B&B “room” was actually a small contained suite with a bed and bath, kitchen, tv room and sunporch. As I write this the next night I’m sitting in a powered recliner on the sun porch and watching horses from a riding school nearby graze on the downs back towards Salisbury. We couldn’t believe our luck, especially at 90 pounds a night. The place was perfect, the surroundings were gorgeous and there’s a lovely pub within walking distance with a lovely Somerset cider on tap and delicious food on the table. Bliss.

The next morning we got up and were treated the second B of the B&B, a proper full English breakfast made to order like I hadn’t seen since Australia (including the baked beans and grilled tomato of course.) The plan for the day was to visit the city of Bath, famous of course for the ancient Roman bath complex as well as some gorgeous architecture. We did the full tour and explored the baths and accompanying frigidarium and caldarium (hooray for putting that art history course knowledge to use) as well as the temple finds. My parents say they’ve vastly increased the accessible area since their last visit 30 odd years ago. I loved the place, especially sitting in the main pool area, looking around at the ancient stones and imagining just how incredibly different Britain was back then. The juxtaposition of Bath Abbey rising above as you look up only reinforces how much history is concentrated in this little area. The abbey itself is a bit odd looking (being a 16th century restoration of an earlier 15/16th century catholic restoration of a more ancient cathedral.) It does have some beautiful stonework and what seems like a massive surplus of flying buttresses.

After a quickie late lunch at a sandwich/pasty shop we wandered around the rest of the old town enjoying the architecture and views of the river Avon until our parking was just about done. Since it was still relatively early and the site was on our way home we ended up heading to Stonehenge. It was a bizarre experience. Being from Canada I was honestly expecting a somewhat more involved experience with a big visitor center well back from the site itself and paths leading out to the point of interest. Instead, you come over a small rise and boom, there it is, more or less next to the road with the tiniest of gift shops and potties under a tunnel across the road. As you drive up it essentially looks like a car park in a farmer’s field (and basically is.) I later found out that they’re trying to raise the funds to do basically what I described… close that road (which actually bisects a chunk of the site) and move the visitor center well back with a shuttle to the site itself in a controlled manner. I hope they get their wish. The stones themselves are every bit as impressive as I expected. Somehow bigger AND smaller than I thought they would be there is a permanence about them that is intimidating. It makes you feel very aware of your insignificance… these stones have been standing here since 5000 odd years before you were born, and will likely still be there when you’re worm food twenty times over. While it may be crowded, the site is still big enough that you can find many a spot to take in the stones without 80 other tourists right in front of you. According to my parents you can also get much closer than you used to be able to (though they were here at a hot point in the Troubles so there was even barbed wire.)

We headed back to the New Forest for dinner, this time running into more ponies, pigs both tiny and enormous, a peacock and some sheep all crossing the road. I can’t really fathom driving down that road any later than we were, at least not without doing 5mph with a giant spotlight on the roof.

Tomorrow’s plans aren’t set yet, we’re likely heading into Swindon to inspect some family history and visit with someone before moving on to Cornwall. Pictures should be following shortly, I really should have uploaded some tonight while I had a decent connection but to be honest I’m a little too tired and I still want to write a postcard.

The European Adventure: Prologue

17 July 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Travel

So here I sit, desperately trying to think of anything I might have missed packing. I rather annoyingly lost a few pieces of kit and had to replace them last minute with a trip to the dreaded Walmart last night. The bag is tighter and lighter this time, lessons learned from the last trip and all that jazz.

Roughly 18 hours from now I’ll be in London. It’s a city I’ve always wanted to visit, but until now I’ve been limited to a couple hour stay in Heathrow as my only real experience. As much as I adored the antipodean adventure… THIS trip is the one that’s been on the radar for over a decade, cancelled at the last minute a few years ago and just generally subject to as much bad luck as you could possibly imagine. Well this time my mother hasn’t broken her leg, there appear to be no imminent volcano eruptions or anything else that should stop us today.

Once we’re all there the parents and I will be doing 3 weeks in various parts of England before I move on to the continent (with a possible Scots interlude in between.) Posts will be up here in much the style of the Aussie portion of the earlier trip, likely every two days or so depending on the amount of rain I’m hiding from or how much I drink down the pub (mmmm cider.)

The Next Adventure

17 June 2011
Toast
No comments
Categories: Things Toast cares about..., Travel

With the Antipodean Adventure complete I settled back into Winnipeg fairly happily. Arriving back just before the May long weekend in Canada meant relaxed times all around. After a really (really) lazy week I attended the fantastic U2 360 show here.

All of this was of course a lead up to the real reason I came home when I did, my University convocation. Though I hadn’t really been looking forward to the occasion I did definitely want to attend just to have it really sink in that I was finished. This is of course in addition to the fact that (though she denies it’s true) my mother would have been heartbroken if I hadn’t gone.

It was definitely nice to catch up with a few of my Comp Sci classmates, people I hadn’t seen since the big final co-op party just before Christmas. Most of the people I was closest too were of course asking how the big trip had gone and given that it was somehow bordering on sub zero temps with a howling wind I said quite truthfully that I wished I’d never left.

That evening my parents surprised me with a party that turned out to not be a small family only gathering but a large get together with unexpected friends and family, great food and drinks and a large amount of teasing about the length of time I spent in school. As part of the pile of gifts and whatnot that I received my alcohol store was replenished to the point where I’m set for wine and beer (great beer too) until I hit the road again.

Since then I’ve been working on a short-term contract for a friend’s game company while trying to settle back into staying in one place for more than three days at a time. It’s honestly more difficult than I expected, I find myself itching to hit the road to europe already even though I haven’t made much more than a stab at planning. Of course the first part of the trip will be a more sedate jaunt through parts of England with my parents anyway.

With that in mind though, do any of my friends and readers have any suggestions for Europe? Thus far my tentative starting plan is to cross the channel, rent a car in Calais or Arras and do a trip out to Vimy Ridge, then maybe another random day along the north coast of france before heading back to turn the car in and hop a train to Bruges or Brussels before heading on to Amsterdam. I figure a few days in Holland then probably on to Germany, possibly to poland but definitely the Czech Republic. I suspect this will be the farthest east I get since part of me would definitely like to revisit Spain and the south of france. The last portion of the trip will be Italy as I leave from Rome, but I haven’t decided what else to make the effort to see there (other than restaurants to feed my love of pasta.)

Other thoughts:
-My parents loved Luxembourg when they travelled there way back when, still nice these days anyone?
-Strongly considering an Irish side trip, but it will likely depend on flight costs while I’m there.
-I’ll probably make a trip to Scotland before crossing the channel, this may be more contingent on where I end up towards the end of my time with my parents though.
-Sadly I think Scandinavia is too large of a cash/time investment for this trip.
-Thoughts on overall route construction? I’m planning to buy a rail flexible pass.
-Cash is of course an issue, thankfully I’ve refilled my coffers a bit from the side job so hopefully I can live somewhere above absolute squalor most places.

I’m also really looking for any interesting places that are still fairly easy to get to with public transport, but might be off the usual routes or tourist destinations. For my euro friends that I met in Aus/NZ please remember to think on a “colonial” time scale, a 3 hour drive is nothing to me.

Apologies for any site wonkyness, had to rebuild it right before leaving.

Latest Posts

Find a Post by Tag