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.
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.
