Old Mates, New Mates. Bonn, Berlin and Istanbul

October

October was always goıng to be a good month.  Kıckıng off wıth a week ın Bonn, Germany, stayıng wıth old mates Keıth and Patty, followed by a stınt ın Berlın, whıle catchıng up wıth Helen, Aıdan and Guddıe, then a couple of weeks checkıng out what Turkey has to offer.  A pretty solıd month was on the cards.  The realıty - and I don't know how thıs keeps happenıng - was approxımately 4 tımes as good as I could have ımagıned.  Possıbly there was a shıft ın the space tıme contınuıum, maybe the planets were alıgned.  But what I lıke to thınk ıs that ıf you are ın the market for good tımes, are free and have nothıng to worry about, good tımes wıll fınd you.

Possıbly too many good tımes.

Bonn (well that was what I thought)

5 nıghts ın Bonn, 3 mates, 5 crates of beer was keıths call on arrıvıng at hıs house.  A crate of beer ın Germany ıs a thıng to behold.  20 half lıtre fresh German beers sıttıng there pleadıng to be drunk ın each crate, at the crımınally low prıce of 10 euros per crate (cheaper than double brown - and almost as delıcıous). 2 nıghts ın and we were laggıng slıghtly behınd the askıng rate (keıth and patty had the excuse that they had to work, but would make up the defıcıt ın the weekend).  I was doıng my best to help the cause by drınkıng durıng the day whıle they were at work.  A true team player.  As the weekend approached ıt was stıll touch and go as to whether ıt would be done. 

Patty at work.

Frıday afternoon my phone rıngs.  It ıs Owaın Pennıngton.

Where are you?

Bonn.

Germany rıght?

Yup.

Ill be there tomorrow.

Ok.

Suddenly 3 mates becomes 4.

Keıth, Owaın, Patty. Bonn. Justıce.

Saturday nıght the lıvıng room was converted to a beer pong room.  Beers started dıssappearıng faster than you could say where dıd that last crate go.  Pızzas were made, consumed, lamps were broken (sorry keıths landlord!), spırıts were hıgh, Reggıe Mıller was lookıng good.  Town was hıt, and town was domınated.

I don't have all my Bonn photos on me rıght now, so here is one I prepared earlier.

Every physıcs student knows that every actıon has an equal and opposıte reactıon.  Accordıngly, the next mornıng was, to say the least, rather subdued.  Keıth cooked up a 5 star breakfast of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, ımıtatıon trı browns, baked beans and toast.  It took us 5 hours to fınısh ıt.  The day was sunny though, so to get over our woes a few haırs of the dog were consumed ın the local park whıle playıng a made up cross over game of handball/football/slıps catchıng/duck shootıng.

Monday 

Keıth and Patty were back at work on Monday.  Owaın and I needed a plan.  Wıth a bıt of artıstıc lıcence taken, thıngs kında went a bıt lıke thıs: 

What should we do today? 

Go to Amsterdam?

Done.

We rented a car, drove for 4 hours and got ınto Amsterdam just after mıdday.  Owaın had taken keıths guıtar, we went to Vondelpark and started wrıtıng songs.  I texted Jos, another frıend who lıves ın Amsterdam.  Thıs ıs actually how thıngs went down:

Yo Jos, Mark here, just arrıved ın Amsterdam - you should come and meet us ın Vondelpark.  Brıng your banjo.

Sweet, sounds good!  See you ın an hour!

I love my frıends.

Owaın and Jos.  Banjo and Guıtar.  Vondelpark. Monday.

A full day was spent.  Much fun was had, endıng wıth a lousıana style blues band playıng us off at 1am.  From there ıt was only a short 4 hour drıve back to Bonn.  Thıs left me just enough tıme to pack my bag, hard boıl a couple of eggs, and catch the 6am traın to Berlın.

Thıs ıs not the traın to Berlın, but I lıke the photo better than the one of the traın to Berlın.

Berlın

Stıll half dazed I stumbled ınto Nıcks place, a couchsurfer from Berlın who had saıd yes to hostıng me on the condıtıon that I arrıved wıth beer.  Sounded lıke a perfect ınvıte, and wıth a backpack on my back, camera bag ın one hand, rucksack over my shoulder, and a 6 pack of beer ın my other hand we met.  Nıck works as a tatoo artıst from a room ın hıs massıve flat.  The rest of the massıve flat was fılled wıth everythıng under the sun (ıncludıng a flyıng clock) and 6 other couchsurfers.

Nıcks Flat - note the flyıng clock on the roof

Two days at Nicks place = several new mates, from London, Sweden, France, Copenhagen and Berlin.  From there it was a timely visit from some old mates, Helen, Aidan and Guddie for a weekend of adventuring around Berlin.

 Berlin architecture; not so inspiring.

One of the more interesting sites we came across was an abandoned American spy base, sitting ontop a mountain of rubble, literally.  One of Nick's couchsurfers told me about it, and it sounded too good not to visit.  After the second world war, Berlin had a fair amount of rubble to get rid of.  Approximately 400,000 houses worth of that rubble was used to bury a former Nazi training camp.  Over the years vegitation has overcome the rubble, and now it looks like any other normal hill (albeit a hill with bits of rusted iron and bricks sticking out of it in places).  The hill is known as Teufelberg (Devil's Mountain) and at 80m high, is the highest point in the whole of Berlin.  The spy base was used by the Americans to spy on the East during the cold war, and looks like a series of golf balls stacked on top of each other.  It is surrounded by security fences, but those fences have several holes in them, perfect to slip through and do a bit of sight seeing.

Helen in one of the golf balls, overlooking Berlin.

After the weekend I had a day to spare before meeting up with the next couchsurfers.  I met an American kid in the hostel I had checked into that day, and decided to head out with him for the night to an underground punk gig at a Berlin squat.  We had a few pre game beers, and headed for the metro.  We had to change metro lines 10min into the journey, and call me Shirley if we didn't run into Gareth White while we were swapping trains.  Gareth is an old friend from school days.  Neither of us had any idea that the other was in town.  I asked him where he was staying, and call me Francis if he wasn't staying in exactly the same room that I was in the night before.  Crazy.  Well Gareth decided to come out with us to the gig, and after that we met up with David Gordon and the rest of the crew Gareth was in town with.

The Gig.

The Toilets at the Gig.

The rest of my time in Berlin was spent with another awesome group of Couchsurfers, Karo, Jonas and Bori.  I left their place to go for a walk through Gorlitzer Park the first day I was there.  The park is awesome, and I met quite a few interesting locals.  The first was a guy in full camo gear (including mask), long dreadlocks flowing out the back of his mask, and a bat swinging by his side.  By the way he was riding a bike too.  I took a photo.  He saw me, changed direction on his bike, and while passing me, told me in no uncertain terms "f*** your camera".  The next group of hospitable locals gave me a vocal chorus from 50m away.  It took me 100m of walking to get fully past them, but I could still hear their shouts in the distance.  As they were shouting in German, I didn't really understand.  They could have been saying "hey mate, hope your photos are coming out good, want one with all of us in it?", but then again I doubt it.  I also found a 9mm bullet casing in the kids playground there. 

 Outside the Park.

Berlin was good.  Very good.  Rough in places, but that is what makes it interesting.  There are the must sees, like the holocaust memorial, something you really have to experience, a very powerful memorial and extremely well done.  But then there are the hidden gems like the spy base, or the abandoned roller coaster park in the suburb of Treptower.  Berlin rewards the curious.  Many of the highlights came from places and events not to be found in any lonely planet.  Find some locals, get their knowledge and have a blast.

 The abandoned soviet era theme park.

Ditto.

The Holocaust Memorial.

Istanbul

From Berlin to Istanbul, and some quality airport time.  The Berlin flight left at 3am in the morning.  You would think that Sun Express (the airline) would at least have the decency to turn the lights out on the plane so that you could sleep for the 2.5 hour journey.  You would think that.  The reality?  Between the pilot, the first mate and the cabin crew, there was no more than 5 min of dead air at any one time over the intercom, they served you a meal at 4am (wtf?), and the lights were on extra bright the whole journey.  Not a chance to get any sleep.  Hitting the Istanbul airport at 7am I had not slept.  I found a nice bench seat though, so decided to have a power nap.  2pm I woke up nice and ready, but not expecting, the 3 hour, 30km journey into Istanbul.  Anyone who has been to Istanbul will understand.  15million people in a city with worse public transport than Auckland does not make for a quick ride.

When in Istanbul you operate on Istanbul time.  This lady will take 1 year to hand weave this carpet, barely 6 foot long.

Thankfully, everything else about Istanbul absolutely kicks ass.  With kebabs costing from $2NZ, and a ferry ticket from Europe to Asia costing $1.50 you know you are going to have fun.  Istanbul strategically straddles both Europe and Asia (if you need a further geography lesson ask Chia), and the two sides of the city are linked by two bridges.  Once a year, the Istanbul Marathon is run, starting on the Asian side, crossing the bridge and finishing in Europe.  I wasn't stupid enough to sign up for the marathon, but I did enter the 8km fun run, on the insistence of Zsuzsanna (who incidentally got all four of us staying at Ali's place (my Istanbul couchsurfing legend) to also sign up).  Ali was the only one to actually run though, fighting his way through the fiercely athletic crowd, the rest of us could do no more than walk.  Before you laugh, take a look at the crowd.  There were approximately 100,000 people walking (that is a figure I just made up), but to run, you basically had to judo kick and karate chop your way through this bunch.

Part of the 100,000 strong crowd.

But my favourite photo is this one below.  To me it embodies the spirit of Turkey.  All these guys know they are not athletes, but turn up to have a pretty good party, and enjoy the day walking between continents. 

Old man & friend psyching up for the big race.

8km fun run Istanbul style, complete with backgammon board and rug.

The one thing that I had heard from several people was while in Turkey, you should go on a hot air balloon ride.  Most travel suggestions I politely nod to, then blatantly ignore, but this was one said with such conviction that instantly the idea was cemented in my head.  I will track down a hot air balloon.  Thankfully it is not that hard, as hundreds every day launch out of Capaddocia (12 hours inland from Istanbul).  Thank you Leroy, Helen and Aidan for your recommendation.  It was one of the best things I have done this year, and sensationally photogenic.

Early morning sunrise.

This girl claimed she could actually see the other balloon waving at her.

Yup.

Before I left to go ballooning, Ali had mentioned to me that he was going to visit his family in Gallopoli the following weekend, and asked if I would like to join.  I really couldn't believe my luck.  Yes was the only sane answer to that.  To visit a place of such significance which has until then lived solely in your imagination, is like living a dream.  For starters, the Gallopoli peninsula is of stunning beauty, and the evening we visited, there was not another living soul around.  The sun was just setting, a gentle sea breeze was wafting in and there was silence, complete silence.

Anzac Cove - where the troops landed.

It was emotional and inspiring.  Another must see that just takes your breath away.  You come away with a lot of respect not only for the ANZAC troops, but the courage and camaraderie shown by the Turks in defending their own land.  There is no animosity between the two, and by the end of the battle, both sides had come to deeply respect each other, a feeling still evident when visiting Gallopoli today. 

So that was October more or less.  Right now, I am in Mumbai, India.  I have a feeling November is going to be pretty epic too.

Istanbul

The Blue Mosque

Talk soon,

Mark

England, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Finland, Germany!

Overload!

Wow, to be honest, I´m a little bit scared in starting this particular blog.  I have literally thousands of photos in front of me, taken over the last month, all which bring thoughts, feelings, and stories to the fore.  Which ones to pick, what stories to tell. It´s impossible to do them all justice, and stupid to even try.  To compromise, I will attempt a crude summary of the last wee while below, before telling a few stories related to the lucky images that make it through my arbitrary selection process.

My fleeting mates, friends for 30 seconds, then gone.

Crude Summary Attempt:

The last month or two, or since whenever the photos stretch back to has included:

• renting a budget car driving north out of London with Owen Watts having absolutely no plan, but equiped with a GPS and 48 hours.
• spending an awesome week with Lucie Doutaz in Switzerland; fondue, chocolate, fireworks, lakes, and watching her dad, the mayor of Gruyere give a speech during Swiss national day.
• sliding down hills in the rain with Nick Rossiter in Edinburgh before catching the Edinburgh Festival along with Mark Windsor and Martine Braid.
• catching a meteor shower while sailing the lochs north of Glasgow with Jen Devlin, Brian Devlin, and the rest of the Devlin crew.

Scottish Lochs

• tearing up the ´Drid and the ´Lona (Madrid and Barcelona) with Ciaran Pennington and Owen watts, including encounters with a drug dealing gaunt face Dr. Gay, and the Rib Witch.
• mountain biking 800km with my brother through northern spain (the subject of my last blog), including falling off my bike while trying to take a piss while riding downhill (which I forgot to include).
• couchsurfing in Porto, Portugal, which is categorically the best city I have yet visited.
• a 3 day lightning strike to Oktoberfest, Munich, sinking a great deal of pints and singing and dancing bad German with Monika, Guddie, Niels, Grant, Brett, Alecia and Jack.
• and right now I am in Helsinki, Helsinki, that is right, Helsinki. (well I was at the time of writing, now, at the time of finishing this blog, I have been back to London for Andrew & Liz Bailey's wedding, and now am back in Germany, in Bonn with Patty and Keith).

Porto.  This is a Monday night.  No special event, it is just where people in Porto go to hang out on a Monday night.

Road Tripping.

Jumping in our rental car, I realised Owen Watts is one of the few I have travelled with who has less regard for planning than myself.  A sleeping bag and jumper were two of the many things Owen just didn´t bother packing.  I knew it was going to be a good trip.  We had plans on heading to Manchester for the first night, but when we loaded up the GPS, we saw a nice national park that looked pretty cool.  So the plan changed.  We bought a few beers, a few packets of chippies, and went searching for a quiet place in the national park to drink our beers, eat our chippies, and car sleep for the night.  During our drive through the park, we ended up in a standoff with the law (as apparently we had found our way onto private property with an old castle containing (and I quote from the law) ´´billions of dollars of priceless art´´, and a scout jamborie with (again I quote from the law) ´´6,000 scouts just 1km down the road).  So we were strongly censured, as ´´we can´t have two male adults cruising around here in a car´´.    I´m not sure whether we looked more like art thieves or peodofiles to the law, but managed to find another spot close enough to camp.

Owen, myself and our camping spot for the night.

Day two saw us give Manchester the Manchester Shuffle, and instead head to Blackpool, a crazy carnie town, that looked like it hadn´t changed since the early 80´s, and contained a large number of beer gutted, self tatooed, chain wearing 50 somethings trying to relive their glory days of the early 80´s.  Embarrassingly enough, I also got fleeced 5 pounds by the damn carnies in an obviously rigged snooker related game.  It was a good trip.

Blackpool

Scotland

Whiskey drinking, sailing, comedy, music, beers, friends, getting rained on, enjoying getting rained on, playing like 5 year olds in the rain, climbing hills, jumping in long grass, Edinburgh, reading Trainspotting (harder to read than to watch), Glasgow, lochs, meteor showers, nightime walks in scary dark woods, castles that are older than New Zealand, wicked scenery, strong winds, bagpipes, a bit of Russell family history, street performers, well that was Scotland.  

Jen - this was a combination of stong winds, lochs, and sailing.

This castle is pretty much older than New Zealand.

Switzerland

Switzerland, and Arizona.  Couldn't really get two more opposite places.  Heaps of Cacti and desert as opposed to heaps of cheese and lakes.  But there was one similarity, Lucie Doutaz, who I met a few years back when we were both studying in Arizona.  Lucie took me on a drive to some of her favourite spots around Gruyere, but being a classic woman driver got lost.

Looking out the window in the Gruyere Castle.

She did introduce me to the best sausage I have ever eaten though, and Switzerland was also one of the only countries in continental Europe that I have found with salt and vinegar chippies.  On a personal cooking note, I also managed to bake a chocolate cake without a recipe which turned out surprisingly well (mum, you taught me well).  But along with chocolate, bread, cheese, plenty of laughs and a night of whiskey and rock and roll, I didn't really want to leave at the end of the week.  

Lake Geneva

Madrid and Barcelona

A boys trip, with Ciaran and Owen to a couple of Spanish hot spots.  There isn't much else required for a rollicking balls to the wall week long non stop extravaganza of epic proportions.  As unrelentless as the 35 degree heat, it was flat out from day one, and moreover night one.  The unlucky 3 others in our hostel room apparently didn't take too kindly to our entrance back into the hostel at 4am, or the snoring, or the spewbag, but as we didn't move till midday the next day, we didn't really notice.

Ciaran and Owen

We did manage to get a few cultural experiences though in between the $1 cervazas.  Notable mentions include the Kings House in Madrid and the mountaintop town of Monserratt.

The King's House.

Cable car to Monserratt.

Up top.

We also did a fair bit of walking, thanks to the fact that Owen just couldn't keep hold of his 10 trip bus ticket, losing 2 fresh ten trip tickets in the one week.  This was much to the displeasure of Ciaran, who had injured his ankle quite badly after trying to jump down 8 concrete steps in one motion.  I only managed 7.  Owen outdid himself and nailed 10 steps.  

Taking it to the streets.

Anyone that has been to the Barcelona beaches will concur that the clothing policy is decidedly optional.  Ciaran described it best as the place that supermodels go to take of their tops.  This is good.  What is not so good, is that when you are back in the middle of the city, a good kilometer away from the closest beach, you have two dudes hanging out on the street corner.  Literally.  I couldn't even bring myself to take a photo of it.  Drinking their cervaza's wearing nothing more than a pair of shoes.  It took the togs togs togs, undies undies undies debate to a new level.

Barcelona Beach.

An easy place to like.

Portugal

I had 8 days up my sleeve to explore Portugal.  Day 1 I rolled into Porto to stay with Ana, the first of two couchsurfers I was to stay with.  Day 8, I still hadn't left Porto, it was way to cool to even think about cheating on it with another city.  It probably helped that I found two of the best couchsurfing hosts around, in Ana and Tasos, but even still, you can't help but love Porto.

Porto

The city is alive, any day of the week.  It has a massive street culture, and a take it easy work ethic.  Every day, in the early afternoon, friends start meeting each other, at the beach, on the street, anywhere.  You talk, you play cards, you have a few drinks, and you get ready for the night.  At night everyone gathers at a certain spot depending on the day of the week.  You bring along your own drinks to drink in the street, or you buy $1.10 beers from the bars which you also drink on the street.  You talk some more, have some laughs and relax, maybe pressing onto a few more bars, streets, or parties as the night wears on.  You get back in at 5, 6, 7 am, sleep till 12, 1, 2 pm and do it all again.  Cheap, fun, carefree.  It's Porto.

Street life.

It has the added bonus of having some pretty choice beaches within easy reach of the city, and a pretty nice climate.  When you read facebook quotes of people bitching about the weather up in London, you don't give them much thought, when you're basking around in 30 degrees.

It seems like I have had summer constantly for the last 9 months.  I'm not complaining, just pointing it out to all of you currently in winter.

Downtown, bridge jumping.  The fat guy up top did the best freestyle dive I have ever seen.  Makes the 10m high board look pedestrian. 

It is impossible to explain how literally awesome couchsurfing is without experiencing it yourself.  I had no idea about Porto before I arrived, but within 2 hours of arriving, I was hanging out with a bunch of locals, visiting their favourite spots, and enjoying life, with new mates you never knew you had.  By the end of my time in Porto, just walking down the street by myself, I would run into one, two, three or more of the bunch of people I now call my friends, and I really feel like I know the city in a way that you could never from staying in a backpackers, or a hotel.

Ana and some of my new mates.

Tasos, with some of Carlos' work.

Thanks Porto, Ana, Tasos and the rest of the crew.

Munich

If I said it wasn't all about the beer, I would be lying. It was all about the beer.  Octoberfest to be precise, where the aim of over 1 million people over a 3 week period is to drink lots of German beer, in big tents, wearing awesome costumes.  

Warming up.

Into it.

It is probably best to leave most of the stories at Octoberfest.  But I really enjoyed catching up with everyone there for a totally coherent, sensible and low key couple of days.

Helsinki

I had initially decided to visit Lapland while in Finland, but getting back to Bailey and Liz's wedding meant a cut down time of just 3 days, which were spent in Helsinki.  After Munich, it was pretty nice to have a change in pace, and I actually enjoyed the rain, which I hadn't seen in quite a while.  Again, couchsurfing provided some new mates to learn a bit about the Finnish culture, and eat vast quantities of super foods and dumplings, which always makes me happy.  Thanks Henrii, Inka and Jussi :-)

Helsinki

Rain.

The Wedding

It doesn't get much better an occasion than watching two of your good mates getting married, and having a good party to celebrate.  Down in Witley, in Surrey was the location, and a truly memorable day it was.  Congratulations guys, and hope you are living it up right now!

aaw

Right now, I am sitting in Keith's apartment in Bonn, Germany, drinking his beers while he is at work.  Thanks Keith, and will see you soon mate!

To the rest of you guys, keep well.  For me the next month is made up of Berlin, Turkey, and a last hurrah in London before heading off to India.