Hello again -
This blog has been sadly neglected - sorry. Partway through our trip we found that the hostels we went to no longer had free internet, or easily accessible internet, which meant that we got behind with our blogging, and then it became a vicious circle: the blogging paradox. So much to do, not enough time to blog everything including our backlog, and blogging became a sort of responsibility. The more we put it off, the more we had to write about, meaning the more time we would have to spend writing it. When we did write, we wrote in so much detail/had so much to say that it took quite a while.
So we have been home since August, felt that we might add more post-trip to the blog but didn't get around to it. Needless to say, we enjoyed our trip a hell of a lot, enjoyed writing the blog, and would do it all over again. I may write a few things about particularly memorable places/things we did at a later date.
Thanks for reading
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Wednesday 16 July 2008
A funny thing happened on the way to the Pantheon...
Well, we have been too busy to post lately, so here is an update. We're now in Rome, staying in the apartment of a generous friend of my family, Manu. It's lovely to be here where we can feel comfortable and enjoy privacy. It's also great to be out of the center, as we have experienced a little of what the 'real' Rome is like, as opposed to the tourist traps around the sights.
We arrived from Florence on Monday, but it was very late at night. We hadn't realised how big the Roma Termini station is, so when we went to get our ticket to Vienna for Wednesday the queue took over an hour. Then the taxi ride took a long time and thus became more expensive than we had expected, but it couldn't have been avoided as the apartment isn't easy to get to at first, especially in the dark and with luggage.
Finally we arrived and got settled in, but there was certainly no time to go out or do anything before bed. The next morning we got up and took a while to get out of the flat. We ate breakfast at a cafe nearby, then finally set off to find a bus to the Pantheon at about midday. We wandered down the street to an area we had been told was well connected to the rest of Rome, but we still couldn't find the bus numbers we were looking for. So we kept walking. After a while we stopped for some sandwiches which turned out to be disgusting - never order a sandwich when you see that the ingredients are preserved in oil. My sandwich was just dripping with the stuff, it went on my skirt and hands and the floor and everywhere, and it made me feel so sick.
Anyway, 2 hours after setting off we still hadn't found our bus. At this point Meg realised her purse was missing, so we trekked back up to the cafe and she found it hidden under a magazine. While we were there, we decided to take advantage of the guy behind the counter as he spoke the best english we had encountered so far that day. He told us to get the Metro just round the corner, and get off at Spagna. That's what we did, and when we emerged we bought a map so we could navigate from there to the Pantheon.
On the way we passed by the Spanish Steps, but without realising that's what it was because there was no clear sign or anything. Then we popped over to the Trevi Fountain, one of my favourite monuments ever. Finally we made it to the Pantheon and had a look around. Entry was free which is always nice, and Meg listened to one of the audioguide machines and pointed out some details of interest to me.
After that we realised we still had some time, so we wandered vaguely in the direction of some of the monuments illustrated on the map. Meg was also on the hunt for an ice cream place as she fancied some more italian gelati. We found ourselves in a gigantic square, which turned out to be exceedingly fruitful.
The first thing I noticed was in the centre of this piazza was a railing, obviously to stop people falling into some precipice beyond, from which ragged columns were poking into the air. I convinced Meg to ignore a possible gelateria and have a look at the ruins with me, and when closer we saw there were a bunch of crazy bright pop art works and wooden structures mingling with the ancient ruins.
Then Meg pointed out a black cat way down below. I got all excited and took a billion crappy photos of this far off cat. Then we walked around a bit, and saw another cat. Again, I got excited, took awful pictures, and we moved on. Then we saw another cat.. and another... and another two together.. then six or seven cats in just one patch of this huge square. We started really looking and must have seen about 20 cats. We joked that this was like a really cool pet store where you spot the cat you want roaming around the ruins.
After a while we went off and had ice cream, then planned to go find the monument we had initially been seeking. However, we were drawn again to look at the cats, some of whom were much nearer. Then we saw a sign saying there was a cat sanctuary. We couldn't really tell where it was, but I saw some steps leading down to a garden type place and insisted that we go in.
There were maybe 10 cats in this tiny patio, some friendly and some shy. Then we went inside... WOW. Dozens and dozens of cats just roaming around, sat in baskets or on top of a microwave, in cages on the wall, or in a big room to the side with restricted entry. The ones in cages were kittens who weren't ready to be allowed to roam freely, very cute. Then an American woman came over and started talking to us. She was a volunteer, and explained about the cats and how it worked there. Everyone was volunteers, no paid staff, and the cats were clearly well looked after and well loved.
She took us into the restricted entry area which is for cats who aren't allowed to wander free for various reasons: illness, disability, runaways, or just cats who prefer it in the 'nursery'. She told us about all the different cats: this one has his eye out, this one has his ears cut off from skin cancer, this one was bit by a dog and has a big chunk out of its back. My favourites were these 3: Ramingo, a black fluffy cat with a neurological problem which made his walking really crazy like he was on ice and kept sliding around. Forrest Gump, an orange tabby who is deaf, blind, and has cat AIDS. And Ambrosino, an orange cat who reminded me of my dearly departed cat Spike, I think he was just shy and preferred the nursery. I stroked him for ages and he looked very blissful throughout. We chatted with the staff for ages and stroked many cats and it was wonderful.
After a long time enjoying the company of the cats and the friendly volunteer workers, we headed back to the apartment. On the way we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, and we came across a nice looking, traditional Italian restaurant. We asked to see the menu and it looked a little expensive, but we decided to go with it and just have one course.
Then a youngish waiter came over who spoke great english. He was very funny and friendly, insisting that the restaurant was our home and we could have things how we liked etc. We explained that we don't eat meat, and he described how traditionally Italians would start with a room temperature bean soup, then a pasta, then a meat course, then dessert, but we could have just the soup and pasta. We asked how much it would be and he said €4 for the soup and €6 for the pasta, so it would be €10 total each. That is about par for our dinner budget, and great value for 2 courses. The menu had said the soup was €7 and the pasta €8 or something, so we began to sense this guy was giving us a nice deal, perhaps because he could tell we were stingy.
The soup was delicious and I am desperate to make it myself somehow when I get home. It has beans, and little squares of pasta, and the soupiness was thick beany goodness, yum yum yum. We each had a spaghetti with tomato and basil dish, only Meg had chunks of fresh tomato, and fresh chopped basil and parsley ('spring' pasta) while I had normal tomato and basil sauce and some cheese on top. These were also very tasty. Finally the guy came over and we decided to ask for the dessert menu as the food had been so good. The waiter explained that there were just 2 choices: a sweet wine with a biscuit to dip in it, or fresh watermelon. We asked how much the melon cost and he said it was a gift to us. Free watermelon! We were tickled pink to match our juicy watermelon wedges. Thus in the end we had 3 courses of delicious food for €10 - amazing! We decided to go back there on our last night, hopefully the experience will be repeated, as tonight we were forced to eat Chinese food which was extremely unenjoyable.
I will be brief about today as this is so long already: we saw the Palatine and the Colosseum. The entrance to the Palatine was not clearly marked so we trekked around for ages and got hot and bothered. It was great inside but without the audioguides (trying to be stingy) we couldn't know what most of the ruins had been. It is thus advisable either to shell out for some form of guide, or get lucky and hop on one of the free tours which I passed by after I had wandered around for an hour already. Also the Palatine is HUGE and Meg and I got seperated and found it very difficult to navigate our way back to each other. So try to stay together, or arrange a meeting point and time just in case. When you go to the Colosseum, do the Palatine first and then you won't have such a long queue for the ticket, as the Palatine has a faster ticket booth and the only available ticket is for both. And as with many other monuments with paid entry in Italy, residents of EU countries can show their passport to get a half price ticket, and that is a great money saver.
Ok, I want to go to bed soon so this is it for today. Tomorrow we will walk to the Vatican City and spend the day there, return to the restaurant for dinner hopefully (I worry that it will be too early in the day now that I think about it....), then we go to catch our train to Vienna at 7:10pm.
Mojo
We arrived from Florence on Monday, but it was very late at night. We hadn't realised how big the Roma Termini station is, so when we went to get our ticket to Vienna for Wednesday the queue took over an hour. Then the taxi ride took a long time and thus became more expensive than we had expected, but it couldn't have been avoided as the apartment isn't easy to get to at first, especially in the dark and with luggage.
Finally we arrived and got settled in, but there was certainly no time to go out or do anything before bed. The next morning we got up and took a while to get out of the flat. We ate breakfast at a cafe nearby, then finally set off to find a bus to the Pantheon at about midday. We wandered down the street to an area we had been told was well connected to the rest of Rome, but we still couldn't find the bus numbers we were looking for. So we kept walking. After a while we stopped for some sandwiches which turned out to be disgusting - never order a sandwich when you see that the ingredients are preserved in oil. My sandwich was just dripping with the stuff, it went on my skirt and hands and the floor and everywhere, and it made me feel so sick.
Anyway, 2 hours after setting off we still hadn't found our bus. At this point Meg realised her purse was missing, so we trekked back up to the cafe and she found it hidden under a magazine. While we were there, we decided to take advantage of the guy behind the counter as he spoke the best english we had encountered so far that day. He told us to get the Metro just round the corner, and get off at Spagna. That's what we did, and when we emerged we bought a map so we could navigate from there to the Pantheon.
On the way we passed by the Spanish Steps, but without realising that's what it was because there was no clear sign or anything. Then we popped over to the Trevi Fountain, one of my favourite monuments ever. Finally we made it to the Pantheon and had a look around. Entry was free which is always nice, and Meg listened to one of the audioguide machines and pointed out some details of interest to me.
After that we realised we still had some time, so we wandered vaguely in the direction of some of the monuments illustrated on the map. Meg was also on the hunt for an ice cream place as she fancied some more italian gelati. We found ourselves in a gigantic square, which turned out to be exceedingly fruitful.
The first thing I noticed was in the centre of this piazza was a railing, obviously to stop people falling into some precipice beyond, from which ragged columns were poking into the air. I convinced Meg to ignore a possible gelateria and have a look at the ruins with me, and when closer we saw there were a bunch of crazy bright pop art works and wooden structures mingling with the ancient ruins.
Then Meg pointed out a black cat way down below. I got all excited and took a billion crappy photos of this far off cat. Then we walked around a bit, and saw another cat. Again, I got excited, took awful pictures, and we moved on. Then we saw another cat.. and another... and another two together.. then six or seven cats in just one patch of this huge square. We started really looking and must have seen about 20 cats. We joked that this was like a really cool pet store where you spot the cat you want roaming around the ruins.
After a while we went off and had ice cream, then planned to go find the monument we had initially been seeking. However, we were drawn again to look at the cats, some of whom were much nearer. Then we saw a sign saying there was a cat sanctuary. We couldn't really tell where it was, but I saw some steps leading down to a garden type place and insisted that we go in.
There were maybe 10 cats in this tiny patio, some friendly and some shy. Then we went inside... WOW. Dozens and dozens of cats just roaming around, sat in baskets or on top of a microwave, in cages on the wall, or in a big room to the side with restricted entry. The ones in cages were kittens who weren't ready to be allowed to roam freely, very cute. Then an American woman came over and started talking to us. She was a volunteer, and explained about the cats and how it worked there. Everyone was volunteers, no paid staff, and the cats were clearly well looked after and well loved.
She took us into the restricted entry area which is for cats who aren't allowed to wander free for various reasons: illness, disability, runaways, or just cats who prefer it in the 'nursery'. She told us about all the different cats: this one has his eye out, this one has his ears cut off from skin cancer, this one was bit by a dog and has a big chunk out of its back. My favourites were these 3: Ramingo, a black fluffy cat with a neurological problem which made his walking really crazy like he was on ice and kept sliding around. Forrest Gump, an orange tabby who is deaf, blind, and has cat AIDS. And Ambrosino, an orange cat who reminded me of my dearly departed cat Spike, I think he was just shy and preferred the nursery. I stroked him for ages and he looked very blissful throughout. We chatted with the staff for ages and stroked many cats and it was wonderful.
After a long time enjoying the company of the cats and the friendly volunteer workers, we headed back to the apartment. On the way we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, and we came across a nice looking, traditional Italian restaurant. We asked to see the menu and it looked a little expensive, but we decided to go with it and just have one course.
Then a youngish waiter came over who spoke great english. He was very funny and friendly, insisting that the restaurant was our home and we could have things how we liked etc. We explained that we don't eat meat, and he described how traditionally Italians would start with a room temperature bean soup, then a pasta, then a meat course, then dessert, but we could have just the soup and pasta. We asked how much it would be and he said €4 for the soup and €6 for the pasta, so it would be €10 total each. That is about par for our dinner budget, and great value for 2 courses. The menu had said the soup was €7 and the pasta €8 or something, so we began to sense this guy was giving us a nice deal, perhaps because he could tell we were stingy.
The soup was delicious and I am desperate to make it myself somehow when I get home. It has beans, and little squares of pasta, and the soupiness was thick beany goodness, yum yum yum. We each had a spaghetti with tomato and basil dish, only Meg had chunks of fresh tomato, and fresh chopped basil and parsley ('spring' pasta) while I had normal tomato and basil sauce and some cheese on top. These were also very tasty. Finally the guy came over and we decided to ask for the dessert menu as the food had been so good. The waiter explained that there were just 2 choices: a sweet wine with a biscuit to dip in it, or fresh watermelon. We asked how much the melon cost and he said it was a gift to us. Free watermelon! We were tickled pink to match our juicy watermelon wedges. Thus in the end we had 3 courses of delicious food for €10 - amazing! We decided to go back there on our last night, hopefully the experience will be repeated, as tonight we were forced to eat Chinese food which was extremely unenjoyable.
I will be brief about today as this is so long already: we saw the Palatine and the Colosseum. The entrance to the Palatine was not clearly marked so we trekked around for ages and got hot and bothered. It was great inside but without the audioguides (trying to be stingy) we couldn't know what most of the ruins had been. It is thus advisable either to shell out for some form of guide, or get lucky and hop on one of the free tours which I passed by after I had wandered around for an hour already. Also the Palatine is HUGE and Meg and I got seperated and found it very difficult to navigate our way back to each other. So try to stay together, or arrange a meeting point and time just in case. When you go to the Colosseum, do the Palatine first and then you won't have such a long queue for the ticket, as the Palatine has a faster ticket booth and the only available ticket is for both. And as with many other monuments with paid entry in Italy, residents of EU countries can show their passport to get a half price ticket, and that is a great money saver.
Ok, I want to go to bed soon so this is it for today. Tomorrow we will walk to the Vatican City and spend the day there, return to the restaurant for dinner hopefully (I worry that it will be too early in the day now that I think about it....), then we go to catch our train to Vienna at 7:10pm.
Mojo
Sunday 13 July 2008
Ramblings with no direction from Meg
Hello, bonjourno, etc. I'm writing to you today, dear readers, to bring you random thoughts and notes from my scantily-scrawled-upon journal and to update you and my psychiatrist on my state of mind, just in case.
Random/General:
Random/General:
- "Aiawawa!" - catchphrase of the trip, we heard a man shriek this at Weatherspoons at Gatwick whilst greedily ingesting our 7am veggie breakfasts like zombie gannets
- A moment in which we spontaneously hummed something from the Nutcracker Suite and danced like puppets
- "We ARE the station!" - a rather enthusiastic expression of quite enjoying waiting around in stations, something we've had to do rather a lot of. Reading good books (we've both been reading "If on a Winter's Night A Traveller" by Calvino, lying around on marble benches drawing faces in pen on my upside-down chin - Chin People, freaky, and making weird noises (and having weird animal noises made at us by various Spaniards...male and female)
- Watching a guy swiftly and adeptly play crystal glasses set out in front of him, each with different notes (different water levels)
- must mention again the boy-racer type taxi driver - music blaring, cigarette-readying. Reckless, slightly handsome (as is the Meditteranean theme, as I have said, time and time again), swerving terrifyingly to unwrap Starbursts. All in all highly inappropriate as Mojo was feeling sick...
- "Madrid is SO GAY" - www.gaycircus.net. We saw them setting up stuff on HUGE trucks by the park we were in on our last day, and felt sad that we couldn't continue our perusal of liberal Madridian festivals. I must say, some very attractive men were readying for the circus, but sadly the title of the show hinted at their likely unavailability.
- "and we emerge as beautiful shiny conkers" - a phrase used to simultaneously refer to and disguise the fact that everywhere we've been so far we sweat about 10 buckets per day, each. Enough to provide one week's ration of salt for a WWII family
- I can't stop laughing about/remembering the drag queen performances we saw in Madrid. The most extreme, over-sexualised, gaudy performances.... drunk audience singing along, wigs swooshing through the air like nylon whips, fake patent leather everywhere, and the heaviest makeup and most energetic simultaneous miming and dancing I've ever seen
Trains:
- (I know Jo's covered it already, but..) the first train we had from Madrid to Barcelona was amazing - cold as a fridge, super-modern design with posh LCD screens and glass informing us of our speed and the outside temperature (35°C), a film showing (The Nanny Diaries, in Spanish, but nevermind), a genuinely comfy headrest with nice reclining seats that worked smoothly (rather than after 5 minutes of your irritable wrestling and jealous glances at reclined neighbours). The views were also great, I should sort out some photos soon, from the window. That said, they're rubbish, but give you an idea of the landscape. LASTLY, we travelled at 273km/h! Beat that, National Rail.
I'll post again later. I need to eat lunch, wash my feet (mmm..they get SO dirty), recover from the shock, awe and strange delight at the absolute downpour we just had in Florence, complete with thunder, lightning, and opera on an ipod, and on top of all that we plan to go to San Croce cathedral.
See you later alligators,
Meg
Friday 11 July 2008
Well, it's been a while....
Yes, too long since our last post. In Barca the hostel comps were always packed with people, and in Milano our hotel charged €1 for 15 minutes of internet - rip off.
Here's my rundown of Milan:
We arrived as scheduled, but the bus proved hard to find, so we took a taxi. No one had heard of the hotel (no one= taxi driver and the people she yelled at asking where it was) so the ride cost us more than it needed to, but oh well. The hotel, though budget was pretty nice. No AC and the breakfast wasn't great, but the room was nice and private too.
We didn't do anything except eat that night. The next day we went to buy our train tickets at the station (we forgot to on arrival) and ended up with a different time than planned as it was cheaper. Then we walked down towards the Duomo. On the way we got some super delicious ice creams: Meg had chocolate cherry and 'buon biscotto', while I had the latter and cafe latte. At the Duomo we enjoyed the pretty building and tried to stave off African men forcing stringy bracelets on us (You're beautiful! It's free, a gift from Africa! I love you! I'm a good man! A euro for Africa? Come on, give me a euro....). Meg gave money to one of them, but learnt her lesson by the second one.
We wandered into a shopping mall next to the Duomo and came across a photoshoot for Italia's Next Top Model. This was phenomenally exciting for me, as I am a longtime watcher of the Next Top Model series. We stayed and took pictures of the photoshoot, which featured several models flying through the air, all in the same dress and make up. It was amazing to see how it's all done. We also had a snack of a pizza pasty that tasted a bit doughnutty (panzerotti) which was delicious and oozy with cheese.
After that we wanted to go in the Duomo, but sadly Meg had ignored her own advice and didn't bring a cardigan to put on over her revealing (by catholic cathedral standards) dress. So I went in with my cardi on, but was promptly ushered out again a few minutes later as it was closing time. Oh well, it wasn't as pretty inside as out.
Then we trekked out towards a restaurant we had read about in the guidebook, Il Verdi. On the way Meg stopped to photgraph a flowerstand man, and his colleague gave us each a flower for free - take note creepy, pushy African bracelet men! Sadly at this time I began to feel a migraine coming on, and by the time we made it to the place I felt awful and couldn't eat. I had already ordered my €9 plate of pasta so that went to waste, as I brought it back in a doggybag but couldn't stomach it even a few hours later (luckily for Meg, she could).
We got a taxi back to the hotel because of my migraine, and the driver was awful. He swerved all over, opening a starburst packet and sticking a cigarette into the flaps of the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. Finally we were back, and after a brief rest and a shower I felt better, and we had a late night chat before sleeping our final night in Milano.
So today we came to Florence on the train. The train wasn't as nice as the Spanish fast train, but it was a good journey because the views outside were pleasant. The man next to me had terrible breath, but I managed to survive it by listening to my ipod and daydreaming. On arrival we realised that the train station was different from the one I had planned for. Yes, it turned out that the nice woman gave us a cheaper train but failed to mention it went to a different station. We emerged in the sweltering heat of Florence and had no clue how to get to the hostel. With the aid of a map we found a bus stop to take us to the other station, and when we got on the bus we realised we were both covered in sweat - more so than before. It was gross. At the main station we got our tickets to Rome, then walked to the hostel.
And thus here we are, at Academy Hostel in Florence, less than a minute's walk from the Duomo. We share a bedroom and bathroom with 4 other people here, the beds are singles not bunk beds, and we have found out that they do breakfast for free too so that is something to look forward to...
Until the next blog,
Mojo
Here's my rundown of Milan:
We arrived as scheduled, but the bus proved hard to find, so we took a taxi. No one had heard of the hotel (no one= taxi driver and the people she yelled at asking where it was) so the ride cost us more than it needed to, but oh well. The hotel, though budget was pretty nice. No AC and the breakfast wasn't great, but the room was nice and private too.
We didn't do anything except eat that night. The next day we went to buy our train tickets at the station (we forgot to on arrival) and ended up with a different time than planned as it was cheaper. Then we walked down towards the Duomo. On the way we got some super delicious ice creams: Meg had chocolate cherry and 'buon biscotto', while I had the latter and cafe latte. At the Duomo we enjoyed the pretty building and tried to stave off African men forcing stringy bracelets on us (You're beautiful! It's free, a gift from Africa! I love you! I'm a good man! A euro for Africa? Come on, give me a euro....). Meg gave money to one of them, but learnt her lesson by the second one.
We wandered into a shopping mall next to the Duomo and came across a photoshoot for Italia's Next Top Model. This was phenomenally exciting for me, as I am a longtime watcher of the Next Top Model series. We stayed and took pictures of the photoshoot, which featured several models flying through the air, all in the same dress and make up. It was amazing to see how it's all done. We also had a snack of a pizza pasty that tasted a bit doughnutty (panzerotti) which was delicious and oozy with cheese.
After that we wanted to go in the Duomo, but sadly Meg had ignored her own advice and didn't bring a cardigan to put on over her revealing (by catholic cathedral standards) dress. So I went in with my cardi on, but was promptly ushered out again a few minutes later as it was closing time. Oh well, it wasn't as pretty inside as out.
Then we trekked out towards a restaurant we had read about in the guidebook, Il Verdi. On the way Meg stopped to photgraph a flowerstand man, and his colleague gave us each a flower for free - take note creepy, pushy African bracelet men! Sadly at this time I began to feel a migraine coming on, and by the time we made it to the place I felt awful and couldn't eat. I had already ordered my €9 plate of pasta so that went to waste, as I brought it back in a doggybag but couldn't stomach it even a few hours later (luckily for Meg, she could).
We got a taxi back to the hotel because of my migraine, and the driver was awful. He swerved all over, opening a starburst packet and sticking a cigarette into the flaps of the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. Finally we were back, and after a brief rest and a shower I felt better, and we had a late night chat before sleeping our final night in Milano.
So today we came to Florence on the train. The train wasn't as nice as the Spanish fast train, but it was a good journey because the views outside were pleasant. The man next to me had terrible breath, but I managed to survive it by listening to my ipod and daydreaming. On arrival we realised that the train station was different from the one I had planned for. Yes, it turned out that the nice woman gave us a cheaper train but failed to mention it went to a different station. We emerged in the sweltering heat of Florence and had no clue how to get to the hostel. With the aid of a map we found a bus stop to take us to the other station, and when we got on the bus we realised we were both covered in sweat - more so than before. It was gross. At the main station we got our tickets to Rome, then walked to the hostel.
And thus here we are, at Academy Hostel in Florence, less than a minute's walk from the Duomo. We share a bedroom and bathroom with 4 other people here, the beds are singles not bunk beds, and we have found out that they do breakfast for free too so that is something to look forward to...
Until the next blog,
Mojo
Sunday 6 July 2008
The Prado and the Botanic Gardens.. Last Day in Madrid
After another night in our hot little Mad Hostel 4 -bed room recovering from our strange drag-queen and jack daniels infused night before, we decided to make the most of our last day in Madrid by heading out to another of the 3 must-see Madrid art galleries, Museo del Prado. It seemed to be much busier than the Sofia Rene, and we had to wait in a queue outside in the sun to get tickets, before being sent round to the main entrance. Once inside we strolled appreciatively (at first..) through dozens of rooms of medieval and renaissance works, huge moody canvases caked with dark, mostly biblical scenes. I really liked some of them, and HATED many of them, but admired the skill put into all of them. We got a little insight into that: as we were walking round, artists from a Madrilean art school were sat with canvases and oil paints copying paintings. It was incredibly impressive, it obviously took a fairly long time, a lot of concentration and a hell of a lot of skill. The copies were to such a high standard - obviously the style of the originals was very intricate and detailed, and the copy painters emulated it almost exactly: often the differences were imperceptible.
My favourite part of the trip to the Prado, as it happens, was a youngish painter copying a portrait. He seemed to capture the essence of being a bohemian artist, and was very attractive, as seems to be the trend for Spanish boys so far. We shuffled around to get a look at his painting ( yes, the painting) and admire it. Unfortunately he had not actually begun painting again for the day and was just preparing his palette, so we returned later to see him painting away very impressively. He looked up, saw us, and smiled and waved, which was somewhat unexpected as we didn't know him. I waved back perhaps too enthusiastically. Later on, when we returned to the hostel, I thought I saw him in our bar as we sat blogging. Jo didn't think it was him but I like to think it was - and it would explain why he may have waved as he might have recognised us from around the hostel. Jury's out on that one.
After tiring ourselves out shuffling through the Prado, and perhaps somewhat tired of being surrounded by fellow tourists, we struck out for lunch and found ourselves in a lovely restaurant next to the Botanic Gardens, titling itself in accordance. It was great as there were hardly any other tourists there at all, if any - we could only hear spanish. We had a spanish-style slow lunch drenched in sun, with finches darting around us, and briefly, an accordion player serenading us. In this instance not a touristy thing as he serenaded all the Spaniards too. He was pretty good, played one of my favourite songs - la vie en rose - odd choice in Spain, and also somewhat less graceful on an accordion. Then we happily trotted down to the Botanic Gardens - about 1 euro to get in, and very nice too. Although I prefer our hometown Oxford Botanic Gardens! We had a nice time relaxing on a bench. with the birdies.
After our usual sweaty siesta we headed off, on Madrid time (9pm), for dinner. We went to a restaurant called La Artemisa or something to that effect, not far from the almost unbearably popular and crowded Sol plaza and area. Luckily the restaurant is about 10 minutes walk away and nowhere near as crowded. We had a great vegetarian dinner - I was really surprised to find so many good places to eat in Madrid (seeing as the concept of being vegetarian seems to be somewhat alien to many - vegetarianism seems to be a new thing in trendy areas like La Latina and Malasana). Finally we headed off to a very popular and touristy establishment for some churros con chocolate - essentially long thin doughnut type affairs with syrupy and sweet cups of chocolate: tasty, but in my opinion, a little overrated, at least where we tried them. Cheap though, at only 3 euros each, and we couldn't even finish the portions we were given. My advice is (unless you have the stamina of a Madrilean bull) to share a portion between 2 or 3 people.
All in all an absolutely fantastic day, if I remember anything else I'll add it in later. See you,
Meg
My favourite part of the trip to the Prado, as it happens, was a youngish painter copying a portrait. He seemed to capture the essence of being a bohemian artist, and was very attractive, as seems to be the trend for Spanish boys so far. We shuffled around to get a look at his painting ( yes, the painting) and admire it. Unfortunately he had not actually begun painting again for the day and was just preparing his palette, so we returned later to see him painting away very impressively. He looked up, saw us, and smiled and waved, which was somewhat unexpected as we didn't know him. I waved back perhaps too enthusiastically. Later on, when we returned to the hostel, I thought I saw him in our bar as we sat blogging. Jo didn't think it was him but I like to think it was - and it would explain why he may have waved as he might have recognised us from around the hostel. Jury's out on that one.
After tiring ourselves out shuffling through the Prado, and perhaps somewhat tired of being surrounded by fellow tourists, we struck out for lunch and found ourselves in a lovely restaurant next to the Botanic Gardens, titling itself in accordance. It was great as there were hardly any other tourists there at all, if any - we could only hear spanish. We had a spanish-style slow lunch drenched in sun, with finches darting around us, and briefly, an accordion player serenading us. In this instance not a touristy thing as he serenaded all the Spaniards too. He was pretty good, played one of my favourite songs - la vie en rose - odd choice in Spain, and also somewhat less graceful on an accordion. Then we happily trotted down to the Botanic Gardens - about 1 euro to get in, and very nice too. Although I prefer our hometown Oxford Botanic Gardens! We had a nice time relaxing on a bench. with the birdies.
After our usual sweaty siesta we headed off, on Madrid time (9pm), for dinner. We went to a restaurant called La Artemisa or something to that effect, not far from the almost unbearably popular and crowded Sol plaza and area. Luckily the restaurant is about 10 minutes walk away and nowhere near as crowded. We had a great vegetarian dinner - I was really surprised to find so many good places to eat in Madrid (seeing as the concept of being vegetarian seems to be somewhat alien to many - vegetarianism seems to be a new thing in trendy areas like La Latina and Malasana). Finally we headed off to a very popular and touristy establishment for some churros con chocolate - essentially long thin doughnut type affairs with syrupy and sweet cups of chocolate: tasty, but in my opinion, a little overrated, at least where we tried them. Cheap though, at only 3 euros each, and we couldn't even finish the portions we were given. My advice is (unless you have the stamina of a Madrilean bull) to share a portion between 2 or 3 people.
All in all an absolutely fantastic day, if I remember anything else I'll add it in later. See you,
Meg
Since the last post
Meg is going to do a post about the day before last, this here is a post about yesterday.
The plan had been to get up at 8am, get fed and ready and leave for the train station at 8.45am to catch the train to Barcelona at 9.30am. Here are the things that caused us to miss that train:
The plan had been to get up at 8am, get fed and ready and leave for the train station at 8.45am to catch the train to Barcelona at 9.30am. Here are the things that caused us to miss that train:
- Meg has a tendency to turn the alarm off and go back to sleep before I hear it, so we got up over 20 minutes late.
- When we got to the train station we waited in a queue at a ticket booth and when we got to the front we found that the man didn't speak English, and were instructed to go to customer service.
- We waited for a while at customer service, before being told by the woman at the desk to go to the room next door.
- That room had a lot of people in it, and you had to take a ticket and wait your turn. We had to wait maybe about 15 minutes.
- When we finally got to the desk, it was half 9, and the man told us the train was full too.
So we bought tickets for the 4.30pm train, and spent the day lounging in Retiro Park reading the Guardian. Today we are going to the train station (a different one, or else we would have done this on arrival) to buy our tickets to Milan for a few days time.
It's definately advisable to book your tickets on arrival in the train station, or if like us you don't arrive by train then make an excursion there a day or two before you want to depart. You never know if the train will have space, if you will need to wait a long time, or if you will simply be unable to find where you need to go.
And the best advice is if you are ever in doubt, ask someone. When we went to the station later to catch the train, we couldn't tell where to go to find the platforms. So we spent a few minutes sat in the customer service booth, before approaching the desk, and receiving a withering look and given the simple explanation that it's upstairs. It wasn't obvious to us!
The train was fabulous by the way, sleek and modern, with a film showing in Spanish (The Nanny Diaries) and reclining seats. So a comfortable train ride later we arrived in Barcelona, metroed our way to the right station, and emerged... directly across from Gaudi's bone house. What a great way to start our time here. I think Meg is a little less excited because she has been here before and see all the Gaudi, but it's all new to me and I am very enthusiastic to see it all.
We found our next hostel without too much traipsing, Centric Point, a huge building with staff who speak good English, thankfully. This time our room is 12 bed, and so far it's all girls. After two much needed showers and getting set up in our room we ventured out to find dinner. The place we intended to go was closed, evidently not everywhere is open as late as in Madrid, though by this time it was 10.30pm, somewhat late even by Madrid standards. We ended up at a very polished tapas place, and went a little overboard because it seemed so cheap. We need to start curtailing our dinner spendings, but it's tough when we just snack all day on whatever we can find.
The plan for today is to go to the Bone House and get our tickets to Milan, then maybe stroll down the Ramblas.
Til the next blog,
Mojo
Friday 4 July 2008
The first leg of our voyage - from London to Madrid
Hello everyone, from sunny Madrid. Sorry to make you jealous, but the weather is amazing here! Strong sun with plenty of shade and a nice breeze to ventilate, hahaha. It´s important to think about hygiene, guys. Anyway, it´s nice sitting around in the sun being peaceful here. A stark contrast to our mission to get here. We awoke at 2am on Wednesday morning after both having troubled nights trying to sleep with butterflies in our stomachs. We taxi-ed into town, a very friendly taxi driver chatted to us along the way about where we were going, but to be honest we were both so tired and nervous we didn´t want to talk. We did anyway however, so as not to appear rude. That´s true English behaviour. We both got cash out at Natwest but the schizophrenic machine decided to let me type in my pin then completely and utterly break down, not giving my card back! The screen went black and Windows appeared. Typical. I´m sad to say, as a mac-user, despite my horrifying loss, I found time to snort at the fact the ATMs used nervous-breakdown Windows. After I´d finished snorting, I started to panic. I hadn´t even left Oxford, let alone England, and my card had already been lost. I had a grand´s worth of moolah on that card, and there it was, just beyond reach in the jaws of the ATM. I was furious. However, we had to make sure we got the plane, or the entire trip would be jeapordised. As soon as I got to the airport I used my iPod touch in a genuinely useful way and hijacked Gatwick airport internet to find useful contact numbers for Natwest, and cancelled my card. So I´m now using my emergency credit card, the parents are paying it off as the expenses rack up, and I´ll pay it off when I get home.
You know they say that whenever something stupid happens something smart happens somewhere to balance it out? OK, maybe that´s a bank advert, but I´m sure someone says that sort of thing about good and bad things. The GOOD arrived in the form of Seb, a friend from school. In a beautiful stroke of fate, Seb got onto the coach to Gatwick right behind us, and, unbelievably, was booked onto exactly the same flight that we were - Easyjet from London to Madrid. He even came part of the way on our Metro ride in Madrid, before heading out to his organic farm placement just outside of the city. It was really nice to see Seb, as neither of us have seen him in quite a while. We also got to laugh at an incredibly racist man claiming to be an Ex-Pat in the boarding lounge together - he decided to spout a torrent of vile anti-Muslim comments at a poor unsuspecting man sitting in the seat next to him (clearly a one-way conversation). We watched and cringed, and laughed. I really couldn´t believe someone would vex himself up so much like that, with so much self-conviction when he was clearly an idiot, at 7am in the morning.
Luckily, after our flight (during which we all slept), we got the hang of the Metro fairly quickly, and got to our hostel to flop down and chill out. We even managed a good day of sight-seeing afterwards (see Mojo´s post). I loved wandering around the streets getting to know the neighbourhood, and loved the art gallery. One of my favourite artists there was Daniel Rozin. Google Sachiko Kodama and Ferrofluid, perhaps, for the magnetic liquid stuff, or try this video (I can´t watch it, no flash on this computer). Also check out Theo Jansen´s crazy Strandbeests, and Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen´s "Listening Post" here.
Love,
Meg
You know they say that whenever something stupid happens something smart happens somewhere to balance it out? OK, maybe that´s a bank advert, but I´m sure someone says that sort of thing about good and bad things. The GOOD arrived in the form of Seb, a friend from school. In a beautiful stroke of fate, Seb got onto the coach to Gatwick right behind us, and, unbelievably, was booked onto exactly the same flight that we were - Easyjet from London to Madrid. He even came part of the way on our Metro ride in Madrid, before heading out to his organic farm placement just outside of the city. It was really nice to see Seb, as neither of us have seen him in quite a while. We also got to laugh at an incredibly racist man claiming to be an Ex-Pat in the boarding lounge together - he decided to spout a torrent of vile anti-Muslim comments at a poor unsuspecting man sitting in the seat next to him (clearly a one-way conversation). We watched and cringed, and laughed. I really couldn´t believe someone would vex himself up so much like that, with so much self-conviction when he was clearly an idiot, at 7am in the morning.
Luckily, after our flight (during which we all slept), we got the hang of the Metro fairly quickly, and got to our hostel to flop down and chill out. We even managed a good day of sight-seeing afterwards (see Mojo´s post). I loved wandering around the streets getting to know the neighbourhood, and loved the art gallery. One of my favourite artists there was Daniel Rozin. Google Sachiko Kodama and Ferrofluid, perhaps, for the magnetic liquid stuff, or try this video (I can´t watch it, no flash on this computer). Also check out Theo Jansen´s crazy Strandbeests, and Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen´s "Listening Post" here.
Love,
Meg
What Meg and Mojo did next
Yesterday was a great day. We started with a rather good breakfast of croissant (anaemic donut for Meg, regrettably), hot chocolate and orange juice. All free courtesy of MAD hostel. Then we began our days activities by rambling around in the general direction of where we thought El Rastro street market was, but didn´t manage to find it. None of our maps were informative enough to resolve this, so we changed plans and walked towards Plaza Mayor. It is a beautiful square but not much more than that, so after taking lots of pictures we set off for Palacio Real.
Before going in we sat at a cafe for Meg to drink a cappuchino, and we observed some little details of people walking by and the tiny, fast birds that are all over Madrid. After chilling out for a while we went and took pictures of the Palace and the Cathedral opposite before going in. Most attractions have been a reasonable €3 or so with the student ISIC cards we´ve got, which is good for our budgets. Inside the palace was some amazing interior design, including a room where the walls were entirely decorated with painted porcelain pieces (try saying that 10 times with a mouth full of grapes).
After perusing the Palace we wandered toward the Puerta Del Sol. On the way through a park we bought some cold treats - for Meg, a decadent ice cream sandwich for €1, for me, a simple lime icepop for a miserly €0.30. We planned to get the metro to Sol, but the line was closed so we walked there. It´s not difficult to walk almost anywhere worth going in central Madrid, as long as you have a decent map. When we made it to Sol we were starving so we sat down at a cafe and bought spanish omelette (tortilla) sandwiches. Meg and I have trouble adhering to the Madridian routine of lunch at 3-4pm, dinner at 9pm or later. We have tended to indulge in lunch at noon, then again a bit later, a late siesta at around 6pm, then out to dinner.
Well that is just what we did after leaving the Puerta Del Sol. We had a little snooze to recuperate from our hard days walking. Meg had a shower and did her hair while I sat on the somewhat sunless sun terrace (it´s blinding there during the day) and read my book (Kafka, in anticipation of our visit to Prague). Then we planned out our night: Metro off for dinner at another of Madrid´s vegetarian restaurants, followed by a short Metro ride to Tribunal and drinks at some of the trendy bar venues there, leaving for bed at 1am latest. 1am is a very early night to native Madridians, but we didn´t want to eat into our time the next day.
Well we got confused and started the Metro ride to Tribunal rather than toward the restaurant. We realised and got off the Metro and back on to Sol where we could switch to the red line to Sevilla.... could, if that section of the line was in operation, which it wasn´t. Luckily Sol was only a short walk from Sevilla, so we ambled down the road and found the restaurant, Al Natural. Left alone with the menus entirely in Spanish for about 20 minutes was a little awkward, especially when the waitress finally came over and we asked if she spoke English: her face fell, and she gave us some menus in English which were out of date but would give us a better idea of what the dishes were. She translated some words for us and I decided on a spinach and mushroom pie, while Meg dared to try `seitan´, a meat alternative made from wheat, which was coated in breadcrumbs and fried. It was quite a nice meal but not as delicious as El Estragon the previous night.
After our meal we successfully Metroed to Tribunal where the bars are, however there was some trauma: a skanky witch with ugly white high heels on tumbled as the train stopped, stumbling back and essentially stamping down on my foot, on the top where it was uncovered. It hurt so much and today it is bruised from the impact. Oh well, I soldiered on, determined not to complain. Now came a slight low note: we had trouble finding the bar we wanted to go to, La Via Lactea. Meg navigated us down a street, glancing into each offshoot, but it was no use. Finally we strolled off course and I spotted someone singing on a stage a block or two away. We approached, and realised it was part of the gay pride celebrations that are prominently advertised throughout the city. We decided to stay and watch, and for a while we brimmed with enthusiasm as we watched the glamorous drag queens miming on the stage, confidently strutting around and performing with buckets of sauciness. We were watching it from behind the stage as it was so busy, but we still had a good view. The performers were all utter divas, dressed to the nines in corsets and hairpieces, and we were glad to have happened upon the show.
However, the fact remained that we had set out to find La Via Lactea, and we wanted to find it. We still had time, so we set off down another street and asked directions from a club hostess standing outside her place of employment. She and those with her seemed eager to help direct us, but their broken English and vague gesturing weren´t enough to get us back on track, and after more wandering we headed back to the street we had started on. We asked a trendy looking young girl and she obviously knew where it was. Her friend was quite good at speaking English and together they managed to point out where to go much more clearly. Sadly it was the opposite direction of where we had been searching. We found the street but still we couldn´t see the bar. We did pass a bar which I had expressed interest in visiting. It was called Tupperware, and described as being decorated with dolls and pictures of television actors, and playing 80s pop. This didn´t appeal to Meg at all, but exasperated with our long bouts of searching for her choice of bar, she suggested that we check out Tupperware so that the night wouldn´t have been in vain. We went in and it turned out to be a lot cooler than it sounded. It was a really funky hole in the wall, playing indie music rather than 80s, and the `dolls´ were actually vintage toys and gadgets, displayed behind the bar in cute plastic toy TVs. We each got a Corona and ventured upstairs where we were able to sit down. This bar was clearly no tourist trap, and unlike anywhere in our hometown of Oxford. It was very hip and independent, and everyone there was young and fashionable.
It was nice to be in a `real´bar rather than a tourist trap, but it meant that we couldn´t strike up conversation with anyone, as we don´t speak Spanish. So after that drink and chatting to each other we decided to have one last look for La Via Lactea. We tried the street parallel to where we were looking when we saw Tupperware. Halfway down the road, there it was, and we were excited to have found it. The guidebook had promised old soul and rock n roll music, which the bar delivered, though the patrons weren´t dressed up in a retro style as had been suggested. Meg ordered a Jack Daniels and coke, and I tried to order just a coke, but the woman started pouring some unknown spirit into my glass and I didn´t want to make a fuss, so I went with it (even though`it´made for a €6 price tag, humph!). We got good and tipsy from that, and again ha a nice time chatting and observing the locals.
One thing we have seen a lot of in Madrid is horny couples unashamed about public displays of affection, and there was one pair in the bar which really needed to get a room. We´ve also noticed that a lot of people smoke and there is no ban on indoor smoking like we have in the UK, so after we emerged we smelt of smoke, an unpleasant downside to going out. Another thing we have seen a lot of is what we call time-sensor lightswitches. They turn off the light off automatically after a few minutes, and that is just what happened to me while I was using the bathroom at La Via Lactea. Unfortunately, the switch was outside the door, so I was forced to make myself respectable in pitch black darkness, my forlorn wailings of "Meg!" having ellicited no response.
After this we went back to the hostel and went to sleep, and that was the end of that chapter. In summary our night out was really fun, we found an awesome outdoor concert by chance, and we each got to see our bar of choice and enjoyed both. Tomorrow we embark for Barcelona, so the stories of today will have to wait.
Mojo
Before going in we sat at a cafe for Meg to drink a cappuchino, and we observed some little details of people walking by and the tiny, fast birds that are all over Madrid. After chilling out for a while we went and took pictures of the Palace and the Cathedral opposite before going in. Most attractions have been a reasonable €3 or so with the student ISIC cards we´ve got, which is good for our budgets. Inside the palace was some amazing interior design, including a room where the walls were entirely decorated with painted porcelain pieces (try saying that 10 times with a mouth full of grapes).
After perusing the Palace we wandered toward the Puerta Del Sol. On the way through a park we bought some cold treats - for Meg, a decadent ice cream sandwich for €1, for me, a simple lime icepop for a miserly €0.30. We planned to get the metro to Sol, but the line was closed so we walked there. It´s not difficult to walk almost anywhere worth going in central Madrid, as long as you have a decent map. When we made it to Sol we were starving so we sat down at a cafe and bought spanish omelette (tortilla) sandwiches. Meg and I have trouble adhering to the Madridian routine of lunch at 3-4pm, dinner at 9pm or later. We have tended to indulge in lunch at noon, then again a bit later, a late siesta at around 6pm, then out to dinner.
Well that is just what we did after leaving the Puerta Del Sol. We had a little snooze to recuperate from our hard days walking. Meg had a shower and did her hair while I sat on the somewhat sunless sun terrace (it´s blinding there during the day) and read my book (Kafka, in anticipation of our visit to Prague). Then we planned out our night: Metro off for dinner at another of Madrid´s vegetarian restaurants, followed by a short Metro ride to Tribunal and drinks at some of the trendy bar venues there, leaving for bed at 1am latest. 1am is a very early night to native Madridians, but we didn´t want to eat into our time the next day.
Well we got confused and started the Metro ride to Tribunal rather than toward the restaurant. We realised and got off the Metro and back on to Sol where we could switch to the red line to Sevilla.... could, if that section of the line was in operation, which it wasn´t. Luckily Sol was only a short walk from Sevilla, so we ambled down the road and found the restaurant, Al Natural. Left alone with the menus entirely in Spanish for about 20 minutes was a little awkward, especially when the waitress finally came over and we asked if she spoke English: her face fell, and she gave us some menus in English which were out of date but would give us a better idea of what the dishes were. She translated some words for us and I decided on a spinach and mushroom pie, while Meg dared to try `seitan´, a meat alternative made from wheat, which was coated in breadcrumbs and fried. It was quite a nice meal but not as delicious as El Estragon the previous night.
After our meal we successfully Metroed to Tribunal where the bars are, however there was some trauma: a skanky witch with ugly white high heels on tumbled as the train stopped, stumbling back and essentially stamping down on my foot, on the top where it was uncovered. It hurt so much and today it is bruised from the impact. Oh well, I soldiered on, determined not to complain. Now came a slight low note: we had trouble finding the bar we wanted to go to, La Via Lactea. Meg navigated us down a street, glancing into each offshoot, but it was no use. Finally we strolled off course and I spotted someone singing on a stage a block or two away. We approached, and realised it was part of the gay pride celebrations that are prominently advertised throughout the city. We decided to stay and watch, and for a while we brimmed with enthusiasm as we watched the glamorous drag queens miming on the stage, confidently strutting around and performing with buckets of sauciness. We were watching it from behind the stage as it was so busy, but we still had a good view. The performers were all utter divas, dressed to the nines in corsets and hairpieces, and we were glad to have happened upon the show.
However, the fact remained that we had set out to find La Via Lactea, and we wanted to find it. We still had time, so we set off down another street and asked directions from a club hostess standing outside her place of employment. She and those with her seemed eager to help direct us, but their broken English and vague gesturing weren´t enough to get us back on track, and after more wandering we headed back to the street we had started on. We asked a trendy looking young girl and she obviously knew where it was. Her friend was quite good at speaking English and together they managed to point out where to go much more clearly. Sadly it was the opposite direction of where we had been searching. We found the street but still we couldn´t see the bar. We did pass a bar which I had expressed interest in visiting. It was called Tupperware, and described as being decorated with dolls and pictures of television actors, and playing 80s pop. This didn´t appeal to Meg at all, but exasperated with our long bouts of searching for her choice of bar, she suggested that we check out Tupperware so that the night wouldn´t have been in vain. We went in and it turned out to be a lot cooler than it sounded. It was a really funky hole in the wall, playing indie music rather than 80s, and the `dolls´ were actually vintage toys and gadgets, displayed behind the bar in cute plastic toy TVs. We each got a Corona and ventured upstairs where we were able to sit down. This bar was clearly no tourist trap, and unlike anywhere in our hometown of Oxford. It was very hip and independent, and everyone there was young and fashionable.
It was nice to be in a `real´bar rather than a tourist trap, but it meant that we couldn´t strike up conversation with anyone, as we don´t speak Spanish. So after that drink and chatting to each other we decided to have one last look for La Via Lactea. We tried the street parallel to where we were looking when we saw Tupperware. Halfway down the road, there it was, and we were excited to have found it. The guidebook had promised old soul and rock n roll music, which the bar delivered, though the patrons weren´t dressed up in a retro style as had been suggested. Meg ordered a Jack Daniels and coke, and I tried to order just a coke, but the woman started pouring some unknown spirit into my glass and I didn´t want to make a fuss, so I went with it (even though`it´made for a €6 price tag, humph!). We got good and tipsy from that, and again ha a nice time chatting and observing the locals.
One thing we have seen a lot of in Madrid is horny couples unashamed about public displays of affection, and there was one pair in the bar which really needed to get a room. We´ve also noticed that a lot of people smoke and there is no ban on indoor smoking like we have in the UK, so after we emerged we smelt of smoke, an unpleasant downside to going out. Another thing we have seen a lot of is what we call time-sensor lightswitches. They turn off the light off automatically after a few minutes, and that is just what happened to me while I was using the bathroom at La Via Lactea. Unfortunately, the switch was outside the door, so I was forced to make myself respectable in pitch black darkness, my forlorn wailings of "Meg!" having ellicited no response.
After this we went back to the hostel and went to sleep, and that was the end of that chapter. In summary our night out was really fun, we found an awesome outdoor concert by chance, and we each got to see our bar of choice and enjoyed both. Tomorrow we embark for Barcelona, so the stories of today will have to wait.
Mojo
Thursday 3 July 2008
Hola from Madrid!
Hola people, it´s 9:20am and I am sat in the common room at MAD Hostel in Madrid while Meg is primping and preening back in our room. We agreed that she would write a post about our journey here, which had some interesting twists and turns, so I am covering what happened after we got to the hostel.
We checked in and were given some room keys which are electronic watches that you swipe on things. At first we couldn´t open our door, and no one came to help us so we were forced to ask the man at the desk, who already seemed a touch exasperated with our ineptness. I could just see him thinking "newbs".
After he taught us how to open the door, we went inside to flump down on the beds and rest.... only the beds were messy and had various items strewn o´er them. One even had a set of clothes on it; another had an empty bottle and a lot of hairs of suspicious origin...
We decided to lock up our luggage and head out for a wander round the neighbourhood while the cleaners tidied up our room for our return. It was nice and hot, and after sitting on the sun terrace eating squashed danish pastries we set out. Meg bought some Pineapple Emotion juice and a sticky yellow plum from a little shop, and I continually referred to Spaniards as Mexicans by mistake (I can´t stop doing that for some reason).
After meandering around some backstreets that weren´t very intriguing (several Indian restaurants on one street), we headed back to a main street and followed it down. We saw a pet shop with lots of tanks with animals in them. There were adorable kittens and puppies, but they all looked hot and it was dirty and smelly in there, so it made me feel sad to see them all cooped up.
We went further on and I noticed an impressive looking building down a turning, so we went there and found ourselves in a big square, dominated by the Museo de Arte Sofia Reina. We decided to have a drink and then go in, so I had a beer and Meg had a latte and we staved off several men scrounging for change (one of them at least serenaded us on his guitar first).
In the Museum we saw lots of Picasso, Dali and other famous Spanish painters´works. We saw the Guernica and lots of works Picasso did to prepare for it. We also saw some exhibitions that weren´t in the permanent collection. One was photography by Steichen which was exellent, and the other was about technology combined with art, which was AMAZING. There was one piece which was a wall of pieces of rubbish, which fluttered and rippled like the ocean. We realised that there was a camera in the middle, and the rubbish was moving in response to us moving, forming our silhouettes on the board. This was called "Trash Mirror". There was also one that made our picture from woven curls like a mat or basket, and one that used spinning discs to the same effect. Then there were some amazing pieces looking at light which I can´t even describe. Finally there were some pieces using electromagnetic fluid that forms into spikes like stalagtites, then melts back down into liquid, it was so interesting.
After the Museum we headed back to the hostel, napped briefly and met one of our roomies who was crying and thus not very sociable. We left her to herself and headed out for dinner. After a lot of wandering and asking for directions we found El Estragon, an all vegetarian restaurant I had read about. We enjoy a lovely atmosphere, delicious food, and great music (Nina Simone), but didn´t enjoy the price (€30 in total, ouch). We will need to be more careful finding cheap food in the future, but it was our first night and we were exhausted.
I think Meg will cover our nighttime antics, so I´ll sign off and grab some free breakfast, i.e. a croissant.
Mojo
We checked in and were given some room keys which are electronic watches that you swipe on things. At first we couldn´t open our door, and no one came to help us so we were forced to ask the man at the desk, who already seemed a touch exasperated with our ineptness. I could just see him thinking "newbs".
After he taught us how to open the door, we went inside to flump down on the beds and rest.... only the beds were messy and had various items strewn o´er them. One even had a set of clothes on it; another had an empty bottle and a lot of hairs of suspicious origin...
We decided to lock up our luggage and head out for a wander round the neighbourhood while the cleaners tidied up our room for our return. It was nice and hot, and after sitting on the sun terrace eating squashed danish pastries we set out. Meg bought some Pineapple Emotion juice and a sticky yellow plum from a little shop, and I continually referred to Spaniards as Mexicans by mistake (I can´t stop doing that for some reason).
After meandering around some backstreets that weren´t very intriguing (several Indian restaurants on one street), we headed back to a main street and followed it down. We saw a pet shop with lots of tanks with animals in them. There were adorable kittens and puppies, but they all looked hot and it was dirty and smelly in there, so it made me feel sad to see them all cooped up.
We went further on and I noticed an impressive looking building down a turning, so we went there and found ourselves in a big square, dominated by the Museo de Arte Sofia Reina. We decided to have a drink and then go in, so I had a beer and Meg had a latte and we staved off several men scrounging for change (one of them at least serenaded us on his guitar first).
In the Museum we saw lots of Picasso, Dali and other famous Spanish painters´works. We saw the Guernica and lots of works Picasso did to prepare for it. We also saw some exhibitions that weren´t in the permanent collection. One was photography by Steichen which was exellent, and the other was about technology combined with art, which was AMAZING. There was one piece which was a wall of pieces of rubbish, which fluttered and rippled like the ocean. We realised that there was a camera in the middle, and the rubbish was moving in response to us moving, forming our silhouettes on the board. This was called "Trash Mirror". There was also one that made our picture from woven curls like a mat or basket, and one that used spinning discs to the same effect. Then there were some amazing pieces looking at light which I can´t even describe. Finally there were some pieces using electromagnetic fluid that forms into spikes like stalagtites, then melts back down into liquid, it was so interesting.
After the Museum we headed back to the hostel, napped briefly and met one of our roomies who was crying and thus not very sociable. We left her to herself and headed out for dinner. After a lot of wandering and asking for directions we found El Estragon, an all vegetarian restaurant I had read about. We enjoy a lovely atmosphere, delicious food, and great music (Nina Simone), but didn´t enjoy the price (€30 in total, ouch). We will need to be more careful finding cheap food in the future, but it was our first night and we were exhausted.
I think Meg will cover our nighttime antics, so I´ll sign off and grab some free breakfast, i.e. a croissant.
Mojo
Monday 30 June 2008
MEG-A HUGE UPDATE! (See what I did there?!)
OK, so I've been dancing around, slobbing out in front of the Steve Wilkos show, and have only in the past few days really got into gear, but I'm almost ready to go on our trip. I had a mini anxiety attack last night worrying about the actual REALITY of going, but that's all sorted now, I know when I get there I'll love it. Or most of it, hopefully, fingers crossed, yada yada.
So, as I said, I've been getting some stuff done, Mojo and I have both been madly rushing around (and as an irrelevant aside, I was stopped whilst driving with my stepdad because our vehicle EXACTLY matched the description of a getaway car driving around that very night - how cool?!). Anyway, I've been on the phone a lot, waiting around in "queues" being told that my call was "very important" and that I would be shortly connected to someone who would be "glad to assist me". In the case of O2, the man I spoke to was evidently not that glad to assist me (he sounded as dull as a rainy day in Slough) and I'm obviously not THAT important to O2 as they're only allowing me to use one quarter of the texts I'm owed next month whilst I'm abroad, and NONE of the minutes! How rude! So despite shelling out £15 (could be put to much better use), I'm only going to get 100 texts (rather than my usual 200 minutes 400 texts). I mean, what's that? 1.50 per text?! RIP OFF. I'll just avoid using my phone. On the other hand, my conversation with the STA representative was much more satisfying. I was "connected to" the gorgeous-sounding, mellifluous, uber-helpful Rory. He sorted out my Interrail ticket for me, as for some reason my card payment had failed online. We even shared a little joke about the dire hold music - never-ending-solo jazz, you know the kind. My favourite.
Rory prefers silence to this jazz medley too. Rory, if you're out there - we're made for each other. I love you. I've booked the venue and chosen the dress. Call me.
I also phoned Barclaycard and had to wait 10 minutes while someone desperately tried to sell me something I didn't want. Lovely lady, but why didn't she understand?! I'm a poor student just calling to tell you I'm-going-to-Europe-so-don't-block-my-card-please. I can't afford this 3 year insurance plan, Judy! or Ursula, or Winnifred, or Vera, or Pam. (Shout out to Pam at Electrocomponents. Receptionist solidarity, til the day I die. You see I do have SOME sympathy for people working on the other end of the phone: I used to).
In other news, I've been buying yellow raybans (knock offs from Primarche, Primarni, whatever you want to call it). Am I joking when I wear yellow Raybans? Is it ironic? or edgy? cool? post-post-modern? FIERCE? Who knows, watch this space. Also in my shopping basket - summer dresses, good for a bit of all-round ventilation, probably well needed sur la route. Although I do worry about stray gusts of wind revealing my wares to all and sundry. Luggage and locks - Mojo and I paid Boswells a visit, not without an embarrassing hosiery hoisting incident, or contrastingly, a shameless unabashed plugging of this beautiful blog to the shop assistant. Dear Boswells Employee, I hope you are reading. We chose two roll along suitcases that can also be lifted by handles, hold-all style. Super practical AND super chic, elfin dimensions yet packing a 50L punch. Beautiful. And a mere snip at 25 Great British Pounds. I have also purchased an ISIC card (thankyou STA) for discounts along the way, books for reading on the train and while in queues etc., and the MTV guide to Europe. A surprise winner - inane on the outside, but with an inner core of gold - written by Frommers, cool-ized by MTV. I picked it up, had a read, had a chuckle, then realised that if it had substance and chuckles it could be worth buying. Have you ever read "the Rough Guide to..." and laughed?! I certainly haven't. The published, literary equivalent of a rice cracker, if you ask me - you can just about get by on it, you know it might be good for you, but it's boring, dry, and leaves you wanting to throw it away and get a drink. I'm not talking water. Gin, darling, gin. Or Pimms like my gran makes it - Pimms, fruit, skip the lemonade, just top it up with Gordon's.
I have also purchased a fine pair of shoes, for walking. Not shoes for jumping, or running, just walking. Well, they're not walking boots per se. But they're comfy. Office, £20. Decent. Your lowly, run of the mill plimsolls? I THINK NOT. Quote: "This classic plimsole is a must have style for right now! The pump features a canvas upper and rubber sole offering all-day comfort and durability." I bought them today - Monday. Or MonKday. We saw two groups of monks. Buddhist, and your traditional Friar Tuck-esque, roaming around town.
You think perhaps I'm wasting your time and really this post contains nothing interesting/useful re: Europe and inter-railing? Think again, my dear reader! Last week Mojo and I met Molly - our point of contact with the team from the website STA travel buzz - see further down the page for our link to posts about us on their site, and an earlier post on us gaining the grand title of "STA explorers". So we met Molly face to face for the first time last week in Starbucks. We approached a puzzled-looking grey haired woman in her mid 50s (don't worry Molly I didn't really think it was you) and then suddenly realised that Molly was sat right in front of us. We had a chat about the trip, the plans, the meaning of blogging, what we looked for in men, and our desire to avoid being seen as "STA b*&ches" whilst graciously accepting freebies from STA (true story). We each received a t-shirt with an interesting, slightly aggressive slogan on the back (GET OUTTA HERE) and STA logo on the front, some travel wallets, and lovely Moleskine journals, however we must stress that it was not bribery for our undying commitment to and/or promotion of STA (unless we're talking about Rory here). All in all it was great meeting Molly, and a nice insight into the travelbuzz website and intentions. Plus our Starbucks went on Molly's work expenses, so I pigged out and felt pretty sick. Grande caramel frappuccino, and a muffin = ill, but worth it, because it was F.R.E.E.
I'll next write from Europe. See you there. Wednesday 7am flight here I come!
Meg
Sunday 29 June 2008
Getting verbal
Well it is an insane 2 days before we leave, and there are tons of last minute preparations to do.
One of our concerns is how to communicate while we are abroad. An obvious solution would be to buy phrasebooks, but we are going to six different countries so that would be expensive, and a lot to carry around. I set about compiling useful phrases for each language from the internet, and stumbled upon a website which did exactly what I was doing, only better.
SingleServing.com: This website provides an A4 page of useful phrases and translations which you can print and fold into a handy little booklet, nice and small to fit in your handbag or pocket. I have made two for each country we are going to, one for me and one for Meg.
Mojo
One of our concerns is how to communicate while we are abroad. An obvious solution would be to buy phrasebooks, but we are going to six different countries so that would be expensive, and a lot to carry around. I set about compiling useful phrases for each language from the internet, and stumbled upon a website which did exactly what I was doing, only better.
SingleServing.com: This website provides an A4 page of useful phrases and translations which you can print and fold into a handy little booklet, nice and small to fit in your handbag or pocket. I have made two for each country we are going to, one for me and one for Meg.
Mojo
Saturday 21 June 2008
News About Shoes
What with all the discussion of bookings and tickets and things I feel that I have overlooked some of the important minor details of planning a trip. Hence this blog entry will cover a subject which is imperative for any traveller to contemplate at length - especially so for females.
SHOES. What is a tourist without their trusty treadware, with which to traipse the well-trod trails of... okay I am annoying myself now. Basically, it's important to choose the right shoes for your expedition. Having the experience of trudging along Prague's punishing cobblestones for 5 days a few years ago wearing my fashionable ballet flats, I am all too aware that I will have to sacrifice a little style (just a little, though) in exchange for some substance.
Here were my mental notes regarding shoe requirements for our Epic Romp:
So here they are: soft leather for malleability, slight heel for shock absorption, padding for arch support, cute little flowers and a Mary Jane strap for cuteness, these are the shoes which won an all expenses paid trip around Europe:
Mojo
SHOES. What is a tourist without their trusty treadware, with which to traipse the well-trod trails of... okay I am annoying myself now. Basically, it's important to choose the right shoes for your expedition. Having the experience of trudging along Prague's punishing cobblestones for 5 days a few years ago wearing my fashionable ballet flats, I am all too aware that I will have to sacrifice a little style (just a little, though) in exchange for some substance.
Here were my mental notes regarding shoe requirements for our Epic Romp:
- It will be hot. Ideally my shoes should be breathable, light and preferably sandals.
- We will be most likely be walking for hours everyday. The shoes must be comfortable, and provide arch support, shock absorption, and all those other boring chiropodistic catchphrases.
- I want to wear dresses, skirts and shorts most of the time, so my shoes must be versatile enough to go with all of these. This means NO TRAINERS or other horrible, clumpy, inelegant footwear.
- On the note of versatility, neutral colours are best. Browns, tans and creams are the best bet.
- Clarks
- Scholl
- Ecco
So here they are: soft leather for malleability, slight heel for shock absorption, padding for arch support, cute little flowers and a Mary Jane strap for cuteness, these are the shoes which won an all expenses paid trip around Europe:
Mojo
Friday 20 June 2008
T-minus 11 days...
Well, Meg and I are due to embark in 11 days. That seems crazily soon. There haven't been many updates lately because there hasn't been any news since I made all those bookings.
Meg has finished her exams now, and after that she has had what I can only imagine to be a wild couple of weeks partying like Paris Hilton on heat. Because of this she hasn't been in contact with me as much as usual. As far as I'm aware she hasn't booked her Interrail ticket yet, so hopefully when she does book it there won't be any problems, otherwise there may be some trauma getting it corrected. I'm sure everything will get sorted out though.
She is returning to Oxford today, so hopefully she will soon be back in the swing of things and making some blog posts of her own. I feel a bit silly writing this update about her, knowing she will see it and I might have gotten things wrong.
I have lots to do before we go, so that's all for now, even though this update is pretty crummy. Hopefully soon there will be more exciting things to talk about here. Exciting like fighting off Nazis with our bare hands!
Mojo
Meg has finished her exams now, and after that she has had what I can only imagine to be a wild couple of weeks partying like Paris Hilton on heat. Because of this she hasn't been in contact with me as much as usual. As far as I'm aware she hasn't booked her Interrail ticket yet, so hopefully when she does book it there won't be any problems, otherwise there may be some trauma getting it corrected. I'm sure everything will get sorted out though.
She is returning to Oxford today, so hopefully she will soon be back in the swing of things and making some blog posts of her own. I feel a bit silly writing this update about her, knowing she will see it and I might have gotten things wrong.
I have lots to do before we go, so that's all for now, even though this update is pretty crummy. Hopefully soon there will be more exciting things to talk about here. Exciting like fighting off Nazis with our bare hands!
Mojo
Friday 30 May 2008
More booking than a library...
...or something.
In the last few days I have gone booking crazy. I finally ordered my Interrail ticket (very quick and easy using the STA Travel website) which arrived swiftly the next day - thanks to a mandatory £9 next day delivery fee. Hopefully Meg will be getting hers in the next few days.
I also booked our flights. We wanted the cheapest flights possible, to start our trip (London to Madrid) and end it (Amsterdam to London). A few months ago I earmarked flights on the Easyjet website, but for some reason I put off booking the tickets. Meg reminded me a few days ago that I should book them before the prices went up, and sadly it was too late. We have chosen to embark on our trip on a very early flight in order to keep costs down, so I am expecting to leave my house at about 4-5am in order to make our early morning flight. Oh well, at least we'll catch the worm right?
Finally, I finished all the hostel bookings yesterday. Unfortunately some of our picks were now unavailable so we had to spend a few hours debating and negotiating on replacements. The 3 contentious hostels were as follows:
I am definitely glad that Meg and I decided to book hostels in advance. Having seen the multitude of horrifying reviews that the majority of hostels have, and the lower availability of good hostels even a month or two in advance, it seems we would be stuck in a festering hellhole if we left it to providence. Plus, I can't imagine it being fun to traipse around the city after a long train ride, looking for a place to stay with our rollalong suitcases in tow.
Here are my perceived benefits of booking hostels in advance:
So in summary, here are my tips for accommodation during your travels:
In the last few days I have gone booking crazy. I finally ordered my Interrail ticket (very quick and easy using the STA Travel website) which arrived swiftly the next day - thanks to a mandatory £9 next day delivery fee. Hopefully Meg will be getting hers in the next few days.
I also booked our flights. We wanted the cheapest flights possible, to start our trip (London to Madrid) and end it (Amsterdam to London). A few months ago I earmarked flights on the Easyjet website, but for some reason I put off booking the tickets. Meg reminded me a few days ago that I should book them before the prices went up, and sadly it was too late. We have chosen to embark on our trip on a very early flight in order to keep costs down, so I am expecting to leave my house at about 4-5am in order to make our early morning flight. Oh well, at least we'll catch the worm right?
Finally, I finished all the hostel bookings yesterday. Unfortunately some of our picks were now unavailable so we had to spend a few hours debating and negotiating on replacements. The 3 contentious hostels were as follows:
- Barcelona - HelloBCN was now unavailable. Choice was between Centric Point - good area, but very big and noisy - or Downtown Paraios - not so good area, not so sociable. In the end we went with Centric Point, deciding that it is more of a hassle to deal with a stolen passport than a sleepless night.
- Florence - We couldn't find the place we'd picked, so we needed a whole new place. For some reason HostelWorld showed a high-rated hostel, Academy Hostel, as not having enough space for us a to share a room. However, I checked back later and it said there was space. We think that website is a little dodgy in this respect, but we got it booked so it's all gravy now.
- Amsterdam - As has been discussed in the blog before, we decided to ditch St Chris' at the Winston because of it's rampant mouse population. The replacement contenders were narrowed down to 2: StayOkay Vondelpark, a HUGE basic studenty place, or Hotel My Home, a small family run place. In the end we went with Hotel My Home, which appealed to me greatly for several reasons: it's really central, the staff are friendly, the breakfasts are supposed to be fantastic, and it has a cat! Homey the cat will protect me from the evil mice, and provide me with "cuddles and purrs", I can't wait to meet him.
I am definitely glad that Meg and I decided to book hostels in advance. Having seen the multitude of horrifying reviews that the majority of hostels have, and the lower availability of good hostels even a month or two in advance, it seems we would be stuck in a festering hellhole if we left it to providence. Plus, I can't imagine it being fun to traipse around the city after a long train ride, looking for a place to stay with our rollalong suitcases in tow.Here are my perceived benefits of booking hostels in advance:
- You know you are getting the features that you want: 24 hour reception/access, no curfew, lockers in rooms, internet access, etc
- You have read all the reviews, so you know where to avoid due to lack of security, safety, thieving cleaners (I've read stories...) and so on
- You know exactly where to go when you arrive, so you don't waste time trying to find a place to stay
- You're already booked into a place, so you are somewhat guaranteed a place when you arrive, as opposed to earmarking a place and turning up hoping it has room (but possibly/probably being turned away disappointed)
- It's one less thing to worry about, and you can get on with your trip without having to think ahead - less stress, more enjoyment!
So in summary, here are my tips for accommodation during your travels:
- If you know where you are going to be and when like we do, book hostels in advance, the earlier the better.
- Make sure the place has good reviews, and important security and convenience features such as 24hr access, luggage room, lockers.
- Print off important details before you go - names and addresses of hostels, directions from the train station. We've also noted the size of room we booked so we can check we get the right place and price, and where has laundry facilities so we can plan when to wash our clothes.
- If you know anyone at your destinations, ask them if you can stay with them. It will be a nice change, and it will save you lots of money.
- Shake it up a bit - Meg and I have picked a mix of basic hostels, home-run places, budget hotels and a friend's house. We expect this will give us a broader experience, and if we don't like one place then we won't have to suffer through the same type of housing for the whole trip. For instance the budget hotels will give us a few days of respite from the crowded, loud hostels, and if we find it boring being isolated from other travellers, at least it's only for a few days and we will move onto a more sociable place.
Thursday 29 May 2008
One of the most hilarious reviews I've ever read...
"it is a dirty place.while ı was sleeping a mouse entered into my bagage and ate my chocalates ı wake up because of its voice"
And what a voice it had. I've managed to find a candid recording of the tiny mouse singing:
Sadly this review is about St Christopher's at the Winston, although I love the look of it.. shame everywhere in Amsterdam seems to have mice!
and it turns out mice CAN actually sing - read!
read about a famous singing mouse
Meg
STOP. LOOK. LISTEN.
Thanks to http://europe.mordac.org/index_2002.php for the photos. Yeah I don't know them, but I couldn't resist. Bad me, I know, I know.
You may be wondering, or even WORRYING about us. What, you scream feverishly, are you going to DO to entertain yourselves during the long hours spent on trains during your trip?! HAVE YOU EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THAT?
Well, yes. We have. We're thinking of books to read (see our wishlists further down the page), I'm going to crack out a few thrilling mini travel games (check ME!), and of course any spare minute will be spent plugged into every 21st century audiophile's saviour: the iPod. Mmm. I can't live without mine, especially during long journeys. Or even short journeys. There's something so right about rolling down the road in a bus, or gliding along in a train, or even walking along on your own two feet that complements the beat of your favourite songs. To me, travelling and music fit together like pieces from a jigsaw, or:
- club beats and dancing feet
- being cosy in bed when there's a storm outside
- coffee and newspapers/books and/or peoplewatching
- turning your alarm off and going back to sleep
These videos seem to capture some of what I mean (though they can get a bit pretentious..):
or this one
or the best night travelling music from Burial - try this
and watch out for some tracks on my mixtape.
In summary, music provides a soundtrack to my life: you probably have your own soundtrack too. When I listen to music I love, it can complement or change my mood, can make me feel amazing or comfort me when I'm not feeling great, or bring back memories of good times. Perhaps I should read a book I've been meaning to for a long time and find out why:
In keeping with being an anthropologist I'm already reading this other one by Mithen too:
So what are our soundtracks for this trip? We decided to let you listen to a sample of the music we're likely to have on heavy rotation during our bon voyage by making little "mixtapes" for you to listen to. Possibly while you're reading our blog. Now wouldn't that be civilised and lovely? Have a look for a little teddy bear with speakers and an oldy-fashionedy tape on this page - click for sweet musique, a digital serenade. Well that's Mojo's mixtape, hopefully you'll like some of mine too. And keep your ear to the ground/speaker as the content of our tapes will change (mine definitely will). Hope you enjoy.
“Music, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.”
Joseph Addison (he definitely got it right)
And all of heaven we have below.”
Joseph Addison (he definitely got it right)
p.s. we are soon to post on buying train tickets... and our sidebar link is almost up on STA travelbuzz...
Meg
Tuesday 20 May 2008
Escaping the mouse factory
You may recall an entry over a month ago discussing the hostels we had booked. One of them, St Christopher's at the Winston in Amsterdam has a mouse problem, but we decided to overlook it because there weren't many nice, cheap alternatives.
Well, my resolve is weak. I had another look at the reviews the other day and realised that I will be on edge all the time if we stay there, and probably unable to sleep for fear that a mouse will brush against my leg. Not only that but it appears to have some other unpleasant and offputting qualities - here are some reviews that hopefully prove I'm not just being picky:
I've started looking for alternatives and Meg has agreed to as well. I'm certainly glad we are picking hostels in advance - dead mice in bed would be a pretty horrible surprise.
Mojo
Well, my resolve is weak. I had another look at the reviews the other day and realised that I will be on edge all the time if we stay there, and probably unable to sleep for fear that a mouse will brush against my leg. Not only that but it appears to have some other unpleasant and offputting qualities - here are some reviews that hopefully prove I'm not just being picky:
"If you like smoking and prosty's they both a stones throw a way...if you're into more of a laid back not red light oriented stay best to avoid this place."
"dead mouse in the bedroom are just terrible and awuful!"
"The sheets were stained, I found other people's hairs in my towles, and we CAUGHT TWO mice in our room in one night."
"Winstons was the filthiest place I've ever stayed in. We switched rooms because of mice but the second room had mice scurrying around too, so we cancelled the remaining two days and are awaiting a refund."
"mice living in bed!!!!!! and only got 1/2 money back."
"In the bathroom, unless you were amputated, you had to take a shiit sitting sideways, because there wasnt room for your legs infront of the bowl."
"I watched people being mugged and chased walking to and from the hostel and there is a bell that rings outside the window every 15 min till midnight so if you had an early flight like me u got no sleep. Not a safe place staying alone in this area."
I've started looking for alternatives and Meg has agreed to as well. I'm certainly glad we are picking hostels in advance - dead mice in bed would be a pretty horrible surprise.
Mojo
Monday 19 May 2008
"Not just Granny, Dad, a few friends and the pets..."
Uber-fantastiche news! We have been chosen to be featured as STA travel “Explorers” (ooh, Columbus!) on their website -
“we'd like to feature you as an 'STA Explorer', so others from all over the web can follow your experiences through blogs, photos, videos, podcasts – the whole shebang. The hope is that by reading your experiences, viewing your photos, and watching your videos, our readers can get a real insight into the places you visit, the way you travel and (hopefully) learn something for their own journey.”
We've already been written about, commenting on STA Travel. I chose to call them STI travel as a joke - a bit cheeky. It wasn't a typo. Look how far away 'I' is from 'A' on the keyboard!
The aforementioned great news has led to my wasting of the entire day drinking too much coffee and going a bit crazy listening to Vampire Weekend and Billy Joel, and doing hamster-in-wheel impressions*. We’ll be linked to from their website, and hopefully earn our 2 minutes of Internet fame. And a few more readers, genuine ones, not just Granny, Dad, a few friends and the pets. Not that we’re doing this for readership – we’d be making this blog if it were only for Jo and I to read once we got back, to laugh/cry/mutter about “the good old days”. If you come here from STA travel, leave us a nice little comment somewhere as proof of your existence (that’ll solve your existential crisis). Plus we’re super celebrities now so, start a blossoming friendship with us now - when you have that financial crisis in 2030 we’ll be more likely to help you out.
In response to Jo’s post this morning, the only big trip I’ve done before was my 4 month Gap Year trip in Thailand last year. I did some teaching in a nice remote village called Mae Meung Noi, then learnt how to scuba dive and travelled around like a lazy gap year bum in Koh Tao and around islands and the coast. Lots of great things happened, and I learnt a lot, in a clichéd life-changing type way. It might be naff, and sound boring, but you do really change when you travel, especially for a longer amount of time. Accosted by bad experiences (having my passport stolen), and overwhelmed by the good (many things, including being made to dress up as a jungle savage and dance with burning torches in front of hundreds of schoolchildren), I learnt how to just go with it and have a good old laugh when before, my response to trouble would have been to throw myself against the nearest brick wall with emphasis.
My feeling is that Jo will overcome many of her perceived “uptight” tendencies, and I might rein myself in a bit and gain some self-control. When left to my own devices I simply slob and have fun. The truth. You should see my room at uni: dire. Having Jo be so organised has been like some kind of manna from heaven – I hope to contribute to the trip ethos by occasionally interjecting with something along the lines of Thailand’s unofficial motto: “mai pen rai", meaning 'never mind', 'don’t worry', “being able to deal with difficult situations, not brooding over material and personal loss and an all-pervading cheerfulness” (Not too cheery, because that's creepy). I assure you it’s a useful attitude in times of stress. However, I'm not some total hippy. I can still panic, scream, and run away flailing limbs in the air.
I think Jo and I will find a happy compromise between seeing all the wonderful European sites we aim to see, chillaxing in café’s, and slobbing (including the occasional lie-in if we feel like it).
I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment and not what I decided was best for me yesterday.
Hugh Prather (whoever he was he had the right idea)
True happiness is…to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
Seneca
Meg
*consists of screaming “RUN!!!!” in a high-pitched hamstery voice and running on the spot for many minutes
“we'd like to feature you as an 'STA Explorer', so others from all over the web can follow your experiences through blogs, photos, videos, podcasts – the whole shebang. The hope is that by reading your experiences, viewing your photos, and watching your videos, our readers can get a real insight into the places you visit, the way you travel and (hopefully) learn something for their own journey.”
We've already been written about, commenting on STA Travel. I chose to call them STI travel as a joke - a bit cheeky. It wasn't a typo. Look how far away 'I' is from 'A' on the keyboard!
The aforementioned great news has led to my wasting of the entire day drinking too much coffee and going a bit crazy listening to Vampire Weekend and Billy Joel, and doing hamster-in-wheel impressions*. We’ll be linked to from their website, and hopefully earn our 2 minutes of Internet fame. And a few more readers, genuine ones, not just Granny, Dad, a few friends and the pets. Not that we’re doing this for readership – we’d be making this blog if it were only for Jo and I to read once we got back, to laugh/cry/mutter about “the good old days”. If you come here from STA travel, leave us a nice little comment somewhere as proof of your existence (that’ll solve your existential crisis). Plus we’re super celebrities now so, start a blossoming friendship with us now - when you have that financial crisis in 2030 we’ll be more likely to help you out.
In response to Jo’s post this morning, the only big trip I’ve done before was my 4 month Gap Year trip in Thailand last year. I did some teaching in a nice remote village called Mae Meung Noi, then learnt how to scuba dive and travelled around like a lazy gap year bum in Koh Tao and around islands and the coast. Lots of great things happened, and I learnt a lot, in a clichéd life-changing type way. It might be naff, and sound boring, but you do really change when you travel, especially for a longer amount of time. Accosted by bad experiences (having my passport stolen), and overwhelmed by the good (many things, including being made to dress up as a jungle savage and dance with burning torches in front of hundreds of schoolchildren), I learnt how to just go with it and have a good old laugh when before, my response to trouble would have been to throw myself against the nearest brick wall with emphasis.
My feeling is that Jo will overcome many of her perceived “uptight” tendencies, and I might rein myself in a bit and gain some self-control. When left to my own devices I simply slob and have fun. The truth. You should see my room at uni: dire. Having Jo be so organised has been like some kind of manna from heaven – I hope to contribute to the trip ethos by occasionally interjecting with something along the lines of Thailand’s unofficial motto: “mai pen rai", meaning 'never mind', 'don’t worry', “being able to deal with difficult situations, not brooding over material and personal loss and an all-pervading cheerfulness” (Not too cheery, because that's creepy). I assure you it’s a useful attitude in times of stress. However, I'm not some total hippy. I can still panic, scream, and run away flailing limbs in the air.
I think Jo and I will find a happy compromise between seeing all the wonderful European sites we aim to see, chillaxing in café’s, and slobbing (including the occasional lie-in if we feel like it).
I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment and not what I decided was best for me yesterday.
Hugh Prather (whoever he was he had the right idea)
True happiness is…to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
Seneca
Meg
*consists of screaming “RUN!!!!” in a high-pitched hamstery voice and running on the spot for many minutes
The Introspective Traveller
We all know travel is great for helping a person "find themself". Many people would argue that the only way people can figure out their values, nature, priorities etc is to undertake a challenging, life-changing journey in unfamiliar lands.
Of course, a month romping around Western Europe is probably among the least challenging trips one can take. I'm confident that we won't be harangued by petty criminals, forced to eat grubs, or shit in a hole in the ground (though I have heard hostels bathrooms can be nauseatingly revolting).
Yet I do think it will challenge me to face up to some of my flaws. I am an uptight girl, and I know it. It's simply part of character that I cannot change, inherited from my dear mother. I doubt I will ever evolve into a laidback, low-maintenance kind of girl. However I know that on this trip to Europe, my highly strung nature will be tested, and it will be an excellent opportunity to improve myself in this respect.
Of course, being uptight isn't all bad. When it comes to our Epic Romp, Meg's life is made a lot easier by the fact that I am the uber-organiser. I designed a route, made spreadsheets to map out details, and all the printed information we have is filed neatly in a folder. All Meg has to do is sign off on things that she approves of. She is the Queen to my Prime Minister. It's not that she is lazy and leaves all the work to me, in fact she has worked hard to help me with picking hostels and checking train connections etc. But I gave her the instructions on what to look for before she had the chance to research it herself. So far she hasn't complained about my overeagerness in organising the trip.
However, it may well be a different story when we get there. Meg is a very chilled out, go-with-the-flow type of girl. I can imagine her wanting to stay out late chatting to people we've met, then have a long lie-in in the morning to recover. All the while I would be stressing about not getting enough sleep, then desperate to get up as soon as the sun rises in order to get a full days sight-seeing in. It seems likely that I'll be so busy worrying about what we are going to do next that I won't have time to enjoy what we're doing in the present.
So I plan to tackle my restiveness during our trip. I will endeavour not to complain when I am hungry or tired (and not to get grumpy either). I will attempt to be laid back about our schedule, though I feel that Meg and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to how we like to spend our time (culture + cafes) so it might not be a problem.
Hopefully I can keep that side of myself under control, and chill out enough to enjoy the trip to the max - and not drive Meg crazy with nagging.
Mojo
Of course, a month romping around Western Europe is probably among the least challenging trips one can take. I'm confident that we won't be harangued by petty criminals, forced to eat grubs, or shit in a hole in the ground (though I have heard hostels bathrooms can be nauseatingly revolting).
Yet I do think it will challenge me to face up to some of my flaws. I am an uptight girl, and I know it. It's simply part of character that I cannot change, inherited from my dear mother. I doubt I will ever evolve into a laidback, low-maintenance kind of girl. However I know that on this trip to Europe, my highly strung nature will be tested, and it will be an excellent opportunity to improve myself in this respect.
Of course, being uptight isn't all bad. When it comes to our Epic Romp, Meg's life is made a lot easier by the fact that I am the uber-organiser. I designed a route, made spreadsheets to map out details, and all the printed information we have is filed neatly in a folder. All Meg has to do is sign off on things that she approves of. She is the Queen to my Prime Minister. It's not that she is lazy and leaves all the work to me, in fact she has worked hard to help me with picking hostels and checking train connections etc. But I gave her the instructions on what to look for before she had the chance to research it herself. So far she hasn't complained about my overeagerness in organising the trip.
However, it may well be a different story when we get there. Meg is a very chilled out, go-with-the-flow type of girl. I can imagine her wanting to stay out late chatting to people we've met, then have a long lie-in in the morning to recover. All the while I would be stressing about not getting enough sleep, then desperate to get up as soon as the sun rises in order to get a full days sight-seeing in. It seems likely that I'll be so busy worrying about what we are going to do next that I won't have time to enjoy what we're doing in the present.
So I plan to tackle my restiveness during our trip. I will endeavour not to complain when I am hungry or tired (and not to get grumpy either). I will attempt to be laid back about our schedule, though I feel that Meg and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to how we like to spend our time (culture + cafes) so it might not be a problem.
Hopefully I can keep that side of myself under control, and chill out enough to enjoy the trip to the max - and not drive Meg crazy with nagging.
Mojo
Sunday 18 May 2008
Tension, Schmension!
I don't care what people say, I'm determined to avoid grievous buddy-ly harm on this trip, and undue pessimism. At times we might have differing opinions on things, but I remain optimistic that both of us will be able to quickly work things out and be fair and considerate. If not we can act like a mixture of a co-habiting couple and nuns/that boy from little miss sunshine and just sleep in the same places and not speak to each other. I hope you realise I'm joking and in no way expect it to get that dire. Having read Jo's post below I decided that the ground rules were good and that I might look up some third party advice on a cheesy gap year site. Here's what I found, with the addition of moronic comments from myself:
“Travelling with friends may well bring you to a new level of intimacy - with their strange senses of humour, quirky traits, and disgusting habits (you can say that again). Ask anyone who has ever travelled with a friend and they will tell you that it is literally the best of times and worst of times, all at the same time. To make the most of your [journey], and to keep your friendships firmly intact, set some ground rules before you go and remain flexible. A great trip won't be far behind (rather than a monumental bust-up, deportation, and mutual restraining orders). Travel can be a frustrating endeavour. Long lines, delays, unfamiliar foods (crazy stressful European food - argh! sarcasm, obviously) and a lack of creature comforts can all add up to a tiring time. With this in mind, choose carefully which of your friends might make good travelling companions, and which may be better off staying home. Remember, your best friends may not always be the best travelling companions (eep!), and the best travelling companions may not always be your best friends. When you are thinking of a companion for your travels, evaluate:
Set Some Ground Rules Early: (...we're one step ahead Watson!)
When you decide to travel with friends, setting ground rules before you leave home can help head off squabbles/a ruckus/scuffles/skirmishes/tiffs/raising of fisticuffs/pistols duels at high noon as you go. Issues to address may include:
* Daily budgets - what do you each expect to spend on food, activities, mementos, etc.
* Responsibilities - how will you divide the cooking, hostel reservations, phoning home, etc. (I imagine we won’t be doing loads of cooking, and if we do, it will most likely be you. Joking. As for hostel reservations, we’ve done them, and phoning home is not an issue seeing as we have mobiles)
* "Must sees" - plan out the regions and sites you each must see, and create an itinerary that values everyone's requests (done, almost done, and done).
* Travel specifics - decide if you are open to all types of travel, and how you feel about being "bumped" from flights, travelling overnight, taking domestic flights and ferries, etc (not an issue! Though I would like to fit a donkey trek in somewhere).
* Respect alone time - during any trip a traveller may feel the need to be alone. If this happens with you or your friends, respect everyone's wishes (certainly).
* Other travellers - decide if you are open to the idea of travelling together with others you meet on the road (yep, but only for a while, and as long as they’re not psychos – agree?).
* Divide the possessions - decide if it is important for you each to bring your own iPod, mobile phone and sunscreen, or if you can share items to lighten your load (hmm we have not yet done this…)
* If you decide to share, remember that you will need to be patient and won't be able to use every item at all times (I WANT TO USE THE SUNSCREEN NOW JO!!! NOWW!!!!!) Travellers must expect the unexpected. No matter how well you prepare, or how finely you plan, life may have other ideas for your [trip] (ruh-roh!).
If you are travelling with a friend who can go with the flow, life will be that much easier, but if you are travelling with a high maintenance model, even more of the responsibility will be on your shoulders. Keep this in mind when you select your travelling companions, and remember that above all, you want to have fun and make memories. A friend who feels the same way will likely be an asset! (we can go with the flow, I’m pretty certain ☺) "
Meg
“Travelling with friends may well bring you to a new level of intimacy - with their strange senses of humour, quirky traits, and disgusting habits (you can say that again). Ask anyone who has ever travelled with a friend and they will tell you that it is literally the best of times and worst of times, all at the same time. To make the most of your [journey], and to keep your friendships firmly intact, set some ground rules before you go and remain flexible. A great trip won't be far behind (rather than a monumental bust-up, deportation, and mutual restraining orders). Travel can be a frustrating endeavour. Long lines, delays, unfamiliar foods (crazy stressful European food - argh! sarcasm, obviously) and a lack of creature comforts can all add up to a tiring time. With this in mind, choose carefully which of your friends might make good travelling companions, and which may be better off staying home. Remember, your best friends may not always be the best travelling companions (eep!), and the best travelling companions may not always be your best friends. When you are thinking of a companion for your travels, evaluate:
* Friends who live similar lifestyles (crazy).
* Friends who hold similar values and opinions (more rights for coffee chain customers! Say NO to burnt coffee).
* Friends who you know are patient and flexible (hopefully you think I am).
* Friends who can manage money and be serious when required (I lose on both counts).
* Friends who are mature and responsible, and deal well with tricky situations (you know I can do at least some of this. If in doubt I’ll just scream “RUUUNNNN!”)
* Friends who appreciate and wish to explore foreign cultures and environments (hello!? Anthropologist!)
* Friends who you have travelled well with in the past (there's a first time for everything).
* Friends who hold similar values and opinions (more rights for coffee chain customers! Say NO to burnt coffee).
* Friends who you know are patient and flexible (hopefully you think I am).
* Friends who can manage money and be serious when required (I lose on both counts).
* Friends who are mature and responsible, and deal well with tricky situations (you know I can do at least some of this. If in doubt I’ll just scream “RUUUNNNN!”)
* Friends who appreciate and wish to explore foreign cultures and environments (hello!? Anthropologist!)
* Friends who you have travelled well with in the past (there's a first time for everything).
Set Some Ground Rules Early: (...we're one step ahead Watson!)
When you decide to travel with friends, setting ground rules before you leave home can help head off squabbles/a ruckus/scuffles/skirmishes/tiffs/raising of fisticuffs/pistols duels at high noon as you go. Issues to address may include:
* Daily budgets - what do you each expect to spend on food, activities, mementos, etc.
* Responsibilities - how will you divide the cooking, hostel reservations, phoning home, etc. (I imagine we won’t be doing loads of cooking, and if we do, it will most likely be you. Joking. As for hostel reservations, we’ve done them, and phoning home is not an issue seeing as we have mobiles)
* "Must sees" - plan out the regions and sites you each must see, and create an itinerary that values everyone's requests (done, almost done, and done).
* Travel specifics - decide if you are open to all types of travel, and how you feel about being "bumped" from flights, travelling overnight, taking domestic flights and ferries, etc (not an issue! Though I would like to fit a donkey trek in somewhere).
* Respect alone time - during any trip a traveller may feel the need to be alone. If this happens with you or your friends, respect everyone's wishes (certainly).
* Other travellers - decide if you are open to the idea of travelling together with others you meet on the road (yep, but only for a while, and as long as they’re not psychos – agree?).
* Divide the possessions - decide if it is important for you each to bring your own iPod, mobile phone and sunscreen, or if you can share items to lighten your load (hmm we have not yet done this…)
* If you decide to share, remember that you will need to be patient and won't be able to use every item at all times (I WANT TO USE THE SUNSCREEN NOW JO!!! NOWW!!!!!) Travellers must expect the unexpected. No matter how well you prepare, or how finely you plan, life may have other ideas for your [trip] (ruh-roh!).
If you are travelling with a friend who can go with the flow, life will be that much easier, but if you are travelling with a high maintenance model, even more of the responsibility will be on your shoulders. Keep this in mind when you select your travelling companions, and remember that above all, you want to have fun and make memories. A friend who feels the same way will likely be an asset! (we can go with the flow, I’m pretty certain ☺) "
Meg
Saturday 17 May 2008
It's been a while...
Meg and I haven't blogged in a while, the reason being that we are both busy being scholars, and also because there isn't much news to report. We still haven't booked our plane or interrail tickets, and a good half of the hostels we plan to stay in haven't been booked yet either, but none of those things are especially urgent.
It's about 6 weeks until the trip and that sounds so soon it's almost scary. One thing everyone keeps saying to me is that by the end of our travels (or probably sooner than that) Meg and I will be completely sick of each other and possible tearing each others hair out. We've never travelled together before, we both have a tendency to become irrational when intoxicated, and we both get grumpy when we're tired (well, I know I do). This is a surefire recipe for tension and I have no idea how we will cope with it. Hopefully we will be so excited and happy to be travelling around Europe that we won't have time to think about how annoying the other is. Ideally we won't be annoyed by each other at all, but that is very idealistic.
One thing that will help is to come up with some ground rules, I think. Here are some ideas I have come up with which could help prevent trauma and catfights instead of harmonious, platonic friendlove:
Mojo
It's about 6 weeks until the trip and that sounds so soon it's almost scary. One thing everyone keeps saying to me is that by the end of our travels (or probably sooner than that) Meg and I will be completely sick of each other and possible tearing each others hair out. We've never travelled together before, we both have a tendency to become irrational when intoxicated, and we both get grumpy when we're tired (well, I know I do). This is a surefire recipe for tension and I have no idea how we will cope with it. Hopefully we will be so excited and happy to be travelling around Europe that we won't have time to think about how annoying the other is. Ideally we won't be annoyed by each other at all, but that is very idealistic.
One thing that will help is to come up with some ground rules, I think. Here are some ideas I have come up with which could help prevent trauma and catfights instead of harmonious, platonic friendlove:
- Stay together no matter what. Of course I don't mean we have to go to the toilet together, or be in plain sight of each other at all times. What I am worried about is that going out for some refined drinks in a bar may lead to Meg wanting to ditch me in favour of a dashing European beau. Scurrying back to the hostel alone in the dark is not an appealing thought, and neither is lying awake in the uncomfortable bunkbed worrying about the health and safety of my compadre. No matter how cute a boy is, I would like to make it a rule that if we go together, we leave together.
- On a related note, it is important that one person isn't sat around miserably being hounded by sleazy European greaseballs while the other is enjoying being the life of the party. Of course empathy comes into play, and many situations can be endured for the sake of the others happiness. However, there needs to be a code for cases where one of us feels ill, or depressed, or angry, or exhausted, or whatever, and strongly wants to leave. In such instances, the unhappy camper should notify the happy camper that they want to leave, and then they should leave within a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I always hated when I was a kid and wanted to leave, and my mum would appease me by saying "5 more minutes", but of course it was 3 hours before we actually did. 10 minutes to wrap things up is fine; half an hour more conversation (no matter how fascinating) isn't.
Mojo
Wednesday 16 April 2008
A word on the Zen of Journaling from Rick Steves
Yeah I don't know who this guy is, but I read this, and through the slush, it's nice and kind of true.
The Zen of Journaling
I love to journal while on the road. I'm writing a short essay on the value of journaling. This is my first draft. I'd enjoy any suggestions on how to make this shorter, yet more effective in inspiring travelers to put pen to paper in a journal:
Travel can make you a poet. Travel can be spiritual. By venturing far from home and looking back, you can better understand home. Traveling challenges truths you assumed were self-evident and God-given. It rearranges your cultural furniture. By traveling, you learn about yourself.
But without capturing your thoughts on paper, the lessons of travel are like shooting stars you just missed...and butterflies you thought you saw.
Your journey is a facet of your broader life. Journaling thoughtfully relates your travel experiences to your life in general. It brings meaning to eurekas that might otherwise have eluded you. Collecting intimate details on the road and then distilling them into your travel journal sharpens your ability to observe and builds a souvenir you'll cherish for a lifetime.
Enjoy the physical act of putting pen to paper in order to capture then organize the thoughts and experiences that wash ashore with each day of your trip.
If your life is a canvas, travels bring new color. And journaling is like a painter standing back every once in a while to both understand and enjoy the art as it unfolds.
The discipline of journaling as you go is critical. Capturing feelings and intimate details is like enjoying a good espresso — it's only right when still hot and steamy.
My wish for you: happy travels and — with the help of your journal — both meaningful experiences and vivid memories.
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