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Europe
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Up to September 16, 2004
Well, here I am back from my European Magic Tour.
My flight from Dublin to London was about an hour and a half late, if I recall correctly, making it my second flight in a row to be delayed for longer than the length of the flight. The flight was very short compared with my previous ones... I was wondering whether we'd get a meal or a snack. By the time were served sandwiches (either chicken or egg... I was tempted to ask which came first but I just chose chicken) we were already flying over England. I didn't even get a chance to walk backwards (across the Irish Sea.)
I arrived in London eventually and took a bus back to the hotel... it was like I'd been thrown into a Monopoly board. There was Euston, Park Lane (with a hotel on it... what does that cost to land on, something like 1100 pounds?) Oxford Street, and so many others I recognised. Even after many years of using the New Zealand edition of Monopoly, it was pretty surreal. There's actually a Park Lane hotel not far from where I live, but it's not the Park Lane.
Anyway, I arrived at the Royal National hotel, where I'd been told my Contiki documents would be available to pick up. I'd have picked them up from the travel agent I booked the tour through, except that by the time my tour was confirmed I was almost as far from the travel agent as it is possible to get without leaving the planet. In fact the documents were supposed to be in the Contiki basement nearby, which makes sense. The Contiki basement was down a flight of steps, which also makes sense, as it's a basement. What doesn't make sense is that the stairs are the only way to get to the basement, and most people who are going to the Contiki basement have large suitcases with them. There is a sign at the top of the stairs which says that if you need help getting your luggage down the stairs, you should ask a Contiki rep for help. Anyone brave enough to leave their luggage at the top of the stairs and go into the basement seeking help will be confronted with a sign saying never to leave their luggage unattended because there are thieves operating in the area, and told that the Contiki representative is not able to leave the desk.
Luckily a group of girls came along while I was wondering how to get my suitcase down the steps, and they organised for one of them to stay and supervise the bags while the others went down. She agreed to look after my bag as well. It turned out that my documents were not there, which confirmed my suspicion that although my travel agent is very experienced (most times when I email her I get an auto-response saying she's on holiday) she's not actually very good. Never mind, eventually they found my records on the computer, and I was told it was not actually very important to have the voucher itself. After an hour I had my bedroom card so I could check into the hotel. By that time the girls looking after my luggage were getting very impatient.
I checked into my hotel room, where I had two roommates. One was from China, and was about to go on a longer tour than mine, and the other was from either New Zealand or Australia and had just finished a tour. Now, I'm not one to get Australians and New Zealanders confused... whatever Americans think the accent is very different, and they are completely separate countries. The reason I'm not sure is that there were about three girls together, one of which was my roommate. The other two were staying in a hostel and they changed their mind at some point which one was going to be in the hotel room. I can't remember which one it was in the end. Anyway, I had a nice chat with the Chinese girl, whose name is either Wen or Grace depending on whether you are too English to use a name like 'Wen'. She gave me a Chinese hanging ornament thingummy when I gave her a NZ 20 cent piece. I figured that even though it was made in China like so many cheap souvenirs worldwide, the ornament was worth more than 20 cents, so I gave her a little kiwi ornament.
At 6p.m. I had a meeting with my tour group. We met our tour guide Colin and driver Stu, were told a few things about what would happen the next day, and had to fill out forms etc. Everything went fine, I was allowed on the tour despite my lack of a voucher. I met a few people from my tour, but the only one I talked with long enough to remember his name was Jeremy, who came all the way from somewhere in England. It seems like he'd travelled the least distance to go on the tour, but actually the other New Zealander on the tour has been living in London for a while, and one of the Australians lives in Leeds. Later I found out that Jeremy has actually been both taught and run into by Stephen Hawking. How cool is that? Now he's some kind of accountant, which is what a lot of people think I am when I say I have a degree in mathematics.
I later found out that most of the people on the tour are from either Australia or Canada. There were some from the USA, South Africa, Japan, China, Israel, and elsewhere... I can't think of all the nationalities right at this moment. Some of the Canadians came from small towns which they thought nobody else would have heard of. For instance, there was a couple from Clinton, a town I'd seen signs for on the way to Paisley, and some brothers from Medicine Hat, which I've heard a song about by Wayne & Shuster. The Med Hatters gave out Medicine Hat pin badges.
We all had to be ready to have our luggage weighed and put on the coach at 6:45 the next morning. There was a limit of 20kg of luggage for each person, which presented a problem because my suitcase had weighed in at 24kg at the airport. Officially the solution was to leave some stuff in storage at the hotel, but the tour guide said to just move things into my carry-on bag since they only weighed the suitcases. Not wanting to haul my suitcase down to the Contiki basement to weigh it as I took things out, I just had to put all the heaviest things into my backpack and hope I'd removed 4kg. The next morning my suitcase weighed in at exactly 20kg -- how's that for good estimation?
We rode the bus out to Dover, where there are famous white cliffs which don't look particularly special. There's actually a lot of green on them. The point of going to Dover was so that we could catch a ferry over to Calais in France. The ferry ride was neat. The whole time we could see England on one side and France on the other, I could imagine Homer Simpson looking repeatedly from side to side and saying, 'England, France, England, France' etc. I could also look probably further North than I've ever seen before. I looked to the South but couldn't see New Zealand... that darned equator was in the way. Those white cliffs look more impressive from a distance. They're very visible and recognisable... I think their fame is more of an emotional thing, somebody returning to England would perhaps watch them approach and see they were getting closer to home.
Going somewhere by surface really brought home how far I've actually gone. I mean, I could see England and France at the same time, but they were still pretty far apart, and it's a few times that distance to Dublin. Then there's a stupendously large body of water separating Ireland from Canada, and about that far again to San Francisco. Where would I be without air travel? Auckland, most likely.
Anyway, unfortunately I left my camera in the bus (which was on the ferry, but off-limits to us) during the ferry trip, so I didn't get any pictures. Once in France we drove through France and Belgium to get to The Netherlands, where we stopped for a night in Amsterdam. On the way I saw trucks bearing URLs with all different top-level domains... it was clear that I was on a continent which contained a lot of countries. I also saw a truck with 'BORK' written on it in large letters. I can only assume it was a Swedish catering company. Somewhere on the way I saw a nuclear power station which looked like the one in The Simpsons... not just a building like the one in Canada. From the angle I first saw it, there was a windmill right in front of it... an interesting superposition of energy sources.
In Amsterdam that evening, we had the option of going on a canal cruise. Some people preferred to wander around in the red light district looking at girls in windows, going to 'cultural shows' (a.k.a. sex shows), or smoking weed in 'coffee shops', but there were quite a few people (myself included) on the cruise. I took a picture of sunset over a Heineken building, just to make it absolutely clear which country I was in. I tried some Heineken on the boat, even though I don't like beer, because it was included with the cruise and seemed to be part of the culture that I ought to experience. I prefer Guinness, but when it comes down to it I actually prefer sparkling grape juice. It's been pretty difficult to get grape juice in this hemisphere, actually... twice I was given grapefruit juice instead. See the confusion which occurs when you drop the 'fruit' from a word? That's why we call a kiwifruit a kiwifruit, and call a kiwi a kiwi.
We had 45 minutes after the cruise to wander around before the coach was to return to the hotel, so I wandered around with a few other girls. We didn't see any girls in windows, but we did have somebody try to sell us drugs, as we'd been warning might happen. It was a slightly different warning from what I'm used to... 'if somebody on the street tries to sell you drugs, just say no... go into a coffee shop and do drugs there instead.' Back at the hotel most of us hung out at the bar, where some of us got talking with a few local boys. I left my roommate Alicia taking a moonlit stroll with one of them.
As we were approaching Amsterdam, someone got Colin (or perhaps Stu, I don't know who was actually controlling the CD player) to play 'Rotterdam', which was quite apt... same country at least. On the way out of Amsterdam, they played 'Because I got High'.
That night I realised my iBook's power adaptor had finally given up the ghost. I could have bought a ridiculously expensive one in Ireland, but hoped it would last until I got to Grace's place in Germany so I could order one from Madsonline. There was very little chance of finding an Apple shop on our extremely fast trip, but also very little time in which I would have used my Mac anyway. The main problem was running out of space on my camera's memory card without being able to copy the pictures to my computer, and most photo shops can write photos from a memory card to CD these days so I just did that a few times.
We had about three hours to spare the next day before heading on to St. Goar in Germany. We had the option of attending a demonstration of diamond cutting, which I did. There's a lot to see in Amsterdam, far more than anyone could see in three hours, and there was nothing there I had been waiting my whole life to see so I went to the one thing I probably wouldn't be able to do without Contiki organising it. There was still plenty of time after that though. Knowing that I'd be missing most of the tourist spots anyway, my principal goal was to get back to where the coach would be leaving from in time. I set off in that direction with somebody else who had a similar goal, figuring we'd probably see one or two interesting things along the way without any need to rush around in a panic. We had nearly three hours and the walk was 25 minutes, so even at my walking speed we had time to spare.
Just as we were nearing the pickup point we noticed the, er... 'cultural' museum. We figured we may as well go in, for a laugh. I only took one picture, as this is a family show... but check out the sign I saw. Do you see anything wrong with it? There's a row of blue buttons, a row of green buttons, and the instruction to push the red button of your choice. After the museum we had some lunch in a cafe (not a coffee shop) and went to the pickup point.
The next stop was St. Goar, by the Rhine river in Germany. We had an optional wine tasting that night. I'm not a huge fan of wine either, but I went to that for approximately the same reason I had Guinness in Dublin and Heineken in Amsterdam. The first wine tasted similar to the wine I've had before, but each wine was sweeter than the last, so that I actually liked the last two. The last was ice wine, and so expensive that we only got a little dribble of it. We got to keep our wine tasting glasses.
The next day we heard all about beer steins, in a shop where they have all kinds of fancy and rare steins. The man who was telling us about them described what the different sizes were for... Germans have 1 litre steins, while the half-litre steins are for Englishmen. He then pointed to the really small steins which looked like they'd hold about 100ml, and said they were for Asians. The shop also had the world's largest beer stein, which holds 35 litres... that's for Australians.
I didn't buy a stein... they were too expensive for someone who doesn't like beer. I did, however, go across the road to the Steiff bear store and get a teddy bear on a key ring. I took a picture of the extremely large bear outside the shop, and the world's largest free hanging cuckoo clock.
One thing I remember about one of the stops in Germany was the toilet. There's something unusual about them in most places, but this one was particularly alarming because when I stood up, the toilet seat actually went round a full circle while something at the back of the toilet cleaned it.
That day we went on to Munich, and were stopped by police somewhere along the way. I think they were just checking that Stu hadn't been driving for too many hours at a time or something. At 5p.m. we watched the Glockenspiel do its thing... that's a huge clock which pretty much performs a 15 minute musical with the figurines in it every day at 11a.m. and 5p.m. It's pretty incredible that somebody put so much effort into a clock, and that something with quite ordinary chiming like Big Ben can be just as famous, if not more so.
The main optional excursion in Munich was the Hofbrauhaus, the famous beer hall where the main Oktoberfest celebrations are held. Some people wandered around, went into the beer hall to have dinner, and went back out again. I went to the beer hall pretty much as soon as we'd finished watching the Glockenspiel, and stayed there. I'll have plenty of chances to do other things in Germany while I'm staying with Grace.
After we'd been sitting there for a little while, we saw some band members pass by in what appears to a tourist to be traditional dress. Somebody noticed that two of them were in fact the two Nathans from Australia... they'd bought the clothes from a souvenir shop, run back to the hotel, got changed and then got a taxi back to the Hofbrauhaus. They were pretty entertaining the whole night.
As I've mentioned, beer comes in one litre steins. Apparently the waiters and waitresses there can carry up to about 15 of these steins in each hand, piled up on top of each other. I might not have remembered that correctly because it seems pretty far-fetched, but it seemed pretty incredible at the time too. I know it was at least six in each hand. I wonder how well the Germans did in weightlifting in the Olympics.
I had a beer, as it seemed to be the obvious thing to do in a beer hall. I also had a delicious wiener schnitzel and potato salad. Some people had traditional pork knuckles, sauerkraut, and sausages... some of the sausages were white. I had a taste, and they were quite nice.
There was a lot of singing going on, some German songs, and some English songs. The Aussies all piped up when the band played Waltzing Matilda. At some point we were joined by a few Germans, whose English was not very good but better than my German. The one I was talking to was amused that we had people from so many different continents; Australasia, America, Asia and Africa. I think the only European doing the tour of Europe was Jeremy, and I don't think he was there at the time.
Thye next day we set off for Venice, driving through Austria on the way. We were surrounded by mountains most of the time, and the view was spectacular. We actually got to stop in Innsbruck, Austria, for an hour and three quarters, which was not mentioned in the brochure. I was so busy looking around the shops that I didn't have time to eat lunch, and only just had time to use a toilet. I went up some kind of tall building and took some pictures... I'm of the opinion that the best thing you can do anywhere is get somewhere high and take pictures (though ironically I didn't get high in Amsterdam.) I can't even remember what the building was, because I've been up so many towers now.
I hadn't realised that Swarovski is based in Austria -- I've always liked looking at Swarovski's very sparkly crystal in jewellery shops, though I could never justify buying any. For that reason I thought I might buy some Galway or Tipperary crystal while I was in Ireland, but nothing really caught my eye. I had to admit that I loved Swarovski and no other. And in Austria, it is cheaper and has souvenir value, so I bought a small flower pot. I wanted to buy a Swarovski key ring with my initial on it since I collect key rings, but they had all the letters except A. Another souvenir shop had key rings with letters on as well, and they'd also run out of As.
For the first time in the trip we had two nights and an entire day in one place. I had been intending to wear my silicon T-shirt as it has 'Si' on it in large letters, but unfortunately couldn't find it... I must have left it in Dublin or somewhere. We took a ferry to Venice early in the morning and one back to the hotel late that night. A few minutes after we arrived in St. Mark's Square somebody had already bought something only to find it cheaper at the next store... I think that happened to all of us at some point. Rip-offs are all over Venice, whether they're overpriced goods or rip-offs of famous brands.
The square is overrun by pigeons and tourists. For something like ten years they've been feeding contraceptive-laced seeds to the pigeons (I don't know if any similar measures are taken to reduce tourist numbers.) They probably used to work, but nothing exerts selection pressure as directly as something affecting ability to breed... naturally the pigeons best able to breed despite the contraceptive did so, and now I suspect that the only thing the contraceptive-laced seeds do is feed the pigeons, thus ensuring that the square will always be overrun by pigeons.
To start the day we had the option to see demonstrations of glass blowing and lacemaking. I attended both, and bought a few things at the glass-blowing place (which I found at less than half the price elsewhere.) The next thing I did was go to a photo shop and say, in Italian, that I wanted a photo CD. I knew that the shopkeepers in that area would know English, but I have an Italian phrasebook and wanted to make up for not speaking much German in Germany. The shopkeeper understood me and said something in Italian (perhaps some kind of insult to see if I would understand) while she went and put my memory card in the machine, then she told me in English that I should wait two minutes and that I'd need to manually delete the pictures from the card as the machine doesn't do that.
I think I wandered around for a bit, and was about to find somewhere to eat when I ran into the couple from Clinton. They were keen to go into Saint Mark's Basilica, so we did that. It's pretty impressive looking. We went up to the balcony and took pictures of the square, but I couldn't find the others and went downstairs, where I had to wait for them to give up looking for me upstairs and come down. There's a fee to go up there so I couldn't just go back up. It was an interesting wait though... there's a long seat which is basically a board propped up by some chairs, although it's not obvious that's what it is. Normally it would be balanced but every so often somebody would get up from one end and the people at the other (unsupported) end would get a shock as their end of the board tipped. After seeing that happen a couple of times I made sure I was sitting right over one of the supporting chairs.
Anyway, then we went walking to see the Rialto bridge and Bridge of Sighs. We met up with some other people from the tour, but at some point on the way back I lost them, because I was walking very carefully down some steps. All the steps in Venice have marble along the edges, which makes them slippery at just the part where it's important to get good traction. My ability to descend steps was made worse by the fact that one big toe was sore from when I tripped over in the hotel in St. Goar, and the other was sore from being stood on while I was waiting in the Basilica.
I wondered back to the square and sat down on one of the many vacant chairs outside a cafe. Eventually somebody came and asked me what I wanted, and I figured I ought to have something, having used their seat for about half an hour. I asked for a cappuccino but changed my mind after hearing it was €7.70... that's about NZ$15. For a moment I was tempted to have one just to find out what could possibly make a cappuccino worth that much, but I soon realised that the only thing that can possibly make a cappuccino worth that much is a square full of gullible tourists. The best thing about a $15 cappuccino is the fun I can have telling people about it, and I get that for free.
At some point during the day some of us went on gondola rides. That was fun yet relaxing, although I can't think of a lot to say about it. It was interesting to see front steps of houses going straight down into the water. Oh yeah, and some of the water smelled pretty bad.
After that was dinner. We could either find our own dinner somewhere or go to the dinner organised by Contiki. I did the latter, and I'm glad I did... who do you think can organise a better dinner, a tourist who has been in Venice for less than a day and doesn't know the language, or an organisation with loads of experience and the power of a group booking? We had a restaurant to ourselves, with delicious food, too much wine, and people playing the accordion, singing and dancing for us. The moment they came out one of the Nathans sang, 'when a pie hits your eye...' so they got him up and had him sing 'That's Amore' with them. He didn't know the words, but nobody seemed to mind. Later one of the entertainers got me up to dance, I guess because I was the only female conveniently placed at the end of a table. Well, he didn't know what he'd let himself in for... I know how to dance about as well as Nathan knows how to sing, 'That's Amore', and at one point I actually fell onto a table. Luckily it was one without food on.
Each of the ladies at the dinner got a rose, which as I understand it was from Colin since it's his last tour. Afterwards, Nick bought a rose for Nathan for some reason, which upset his wife Yotta, so he bought every rose the rose seller had left and gave them to her. Nice save!
The next morning we set off for Lucerne in Switzerland. Most of us went up to the top of the Stanserhorn, to see the breathtaking view from up there. I was running out of room on my camera's memory card so I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. Just when I'd almost run out of room I realised we could go up a bit higher, and see the marmots. I took one picture of a marmot, which is a lot like a groundhog, and I know that because I've seen a groundhog! How very worldly.
We didn't have much time to look around Lucerne. I got my photos put onto CD, and looked at some souvenir shops. I wasn't too fussed about getting souvenirs since I'll be going to Geneva later on to get all the Swiss stuff. I found a place selling T-shirts quite cheaply, and was debating getting a Lucerne one, but while I was looking through the rest of the shop somebody came and bought all the T-shirts in my size. There are a lot of shops selling good cheap clothes but all the souvenir T-shirts I saw after that were very expensive. I don't have room in my suitcase for clothes that aren't souvenirs.
That night was the optional lake cruise and clubbing. I wasn't too interested in clubbing, so I almost didn't go, but I wanted to go on the cruise. It was basically a party on a boat, the view was nice but it was dark for most of the time. Later we went into a night club on land, whose floor was covered in sand for a beach party theme. For most people that merely made it difficult to walk, for me it made it easy to accidentally dance, but nobody seemed to be particularly happy about it. I didn't hang around for very long but it was interesting to know what a Swiss nightclub is like.
The next morning we didn't have as many people on the tour. From what I've heard the guys from Melbourne had an argument during the night, threw a TV through a window, and ran away. We went on to Paris without them. The first stop was the Eiffel tower, which most of us went up. Unfortunately there was some kind of problem with the lift and we could only get to the second level, not to the very top. It wasn't the first lift-related problem of the day... somebody, and I suddenly can't remember who, had got stuck in the hotel lift that morning. There's a nice view from the second level of the Eiffel tower but I'd love to see what it's like from the top. We did get to see it before and after dark though. At 9:00 the tower lit up... there are lights all over it which flash on and off at different times so that the whole tower twinkles for several minutes. It looked pretty awesome, and I got a few pictures.
We had to be at the bottom of the tower waiting for the tour bus by 10:00p.m, and some of the smarter people on the tour realised why... so we could see the hourly twinkling from the bottom. I took a few pictures of that too, although it would probably be better to get a movie of it.
We had the entire next day to look around Paris. We had the option of going to a perfumery first to find out how perfume is made, which I did for lack of any better ideas. There was nothing in particular I wanted to see in Paris, although I was thinking of going for a cruise down the river. I couldn't find anyone else who wanted to do that so in the end I tagged along with some girls who went to the Louvre. The Louvre is a very big place. We probably walked past a thousand priceless works of art on our way to see the Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa. I have never seen so many stone genitals. One of the girls, who shall remain nameless, got told off for touching them.
Later we went to a cafe/restaurant and had crepes. Yum! And in a country famous for letting its grapes ferment, I actually managed to get some grape juice. One of the girls introduced herself in French and the waiter was so infatuated with her because of that that he gave us all champagne. It turned out he was actually Italian.
There were iPod-ad style posters everywhere announcing the upcoming Apple Expo. If I'd been on the tour I'd originally booked instead of this earlier one, I'd have been in Paris for the expo.
We had a bit of trouble navigating the Paris Metro, but actually got back to our hotel a more direct way than the tour manager had suggested. We had to be back quite early to get ready for the most expensive optional excursion in the whole trip... Moulin Rouge. If I lived in Paris I would probably never go to Moulin Rouge, but since that was probably my only chance (and a whole lot cheaper than flying all the way to Paris again to go at some other time) I went.
The dinner was nothing too flash. Tomato soup, steak and chips, and a delicious chocolate creamy dessert. Alicia couldn't have the dessert because it contained dairy products, so she was told she'd get a fruit salad. She was wondering if it would be a nice fresh fruit salad or if they'd just open a can of fruit salad. I think we were expecting it to be fresh since it is a very fancy, expensive, and famous place. Well... it was fresh alright, but not exactly fitting for a place like Moulin Rouge. She was served a whole apple on a plate. And Alicia said it wasn't even a very nice apple. The show, however, was fantastic. I guess Moulin Rouge isn't famous for its food.
The next day we went through France, with a brief stop in Canada. Yeah, believe it or not there's a piece of Canada in France, around the war memorial at Vimy Ridge. The land is owned by Canada, and has trees on it imported especially from mainland Canada (guess what kind), but whether it's actually part of Canada (as we were told) is debatable.
Then it was back to Calais, over on the ferry to Dover, and back to London. It was all over! Well, nearly. Some of us arranged to meet in the bar at the hotel that night, which we did. I was staying at the hotel that night anyway, because I was doing the Contiki 'check out London' tour which includes two nights accommodation. I went to the Contiki basement to get that sorted out (luckily some people from my tour were there as well so they carried my suitcase down the stairs) to be told that although I could go on the Europe tour without any documentation from my travel agent, for the London tour I absolutely needed the voucher. They could give me a bedroom card for the accommodation, but I couldn't get the rest of the package until they'd received a fax from my travel agent. It was about 6a.m. NZ time so I had to wait until the next morning to find out whether I could go on the tour I'd paid for.
Fortunately, the travel agency had faxed the documentation, so I picked up the 'check out London' pack the next morning. The pack included a theatre ticket, a ticket for a bus tour including a river cruise, a map of London, and some brochures. I used the internet for a little while in the Contiki basement, ate a packet of crisps (chippies) hunted frantically without success for my last charged pair of rechargeable AA batteries, got my photos transferred to CD, and then rushed onto the bus tour so I'd get as much time on it as possible. It's a hop-on, hop-off tour like the ones in Dublin, but I wanted to be sure I saw the complete circuit so I only hopped off to buy some disposeable batteries for my camera. While off the bus I also stopped to have some lunch at a sandwich bar/cafe. There seems to be quite a focus on sandwiches in a lot of the eating places around London.
I saw a lot of London from the outside. I'd been told to go to Piccadilly Circus and say "but... it's only a roundabout", which I did. It really is only a roundabout. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is much more deserving of Piccadilly Circus's reputation. You can't even get insurance that covers accidents on that roundabout. The tour guide said something about Piccadilly Circus being more interesting underneath.
After completing the circuit, I got off the tour at the next place the river cruise left from. I got on a boat without being particularly sure it was the right one. I'm still not sure. It went to Greenwich and back, with excellent commentary the whole time from somebody who stressed that being a tour guide is not actually his job so if he's any good at it we should leave a tip. I did.
Near the end of the tour the de facto tour guide mentioned that it's a good idea to go up on the London Eye, that giant ferris wheel that was erected too late for the new millennium celebrations. I'd actually got on the boat right next to the Eye, and yet for some reason I hadn't even considered 'flying' the Eye, as the operator British Airways puts it. The tour guide's suggestion reminded me that getting somewhere high and taking pictures was exactly what I liked to do, and if I got off the boat where I got onto it I could fly the eye almost immediately. That's what I did. The normal price is ten pounds fifty, but a disabled person can get on for nine pounds and take a caregiver for free! I wish I'd had someone with me to get on for free.
The Eye takes about 35 minutes to go all the way around... it moves pretty slowly, so they get people off and on while it's still moving. The platform is curved to match the arc of the pods so there's quite a long time in which they can get people off and on. On the way down some cameras take photos of each pod which you can buy for seven pounds fifty... I guess they can charge ridiculous amounts for the photo because it would be difficult to get a picture of yourself on the Eye any other way. Unless of course you knew somebody in the next pod over. Anyway, I didn't buy a picture. I could barely be seen in it anyway and I'm more interested in the pictures I took from up there.
The bus tour had long finished by then, so I went back to my hotel on the underground. It's pretty simple to figure out, being a simple non-directed graph with labels in English (not French.) By chance I had to change trains at Piccadilly Circus, so I tried to see something interesting about it from below, but it's just a subway station. Somebody I know bought a toothbrush from there once, but that's about it.
Back at the hotel I had a chance to have a better look at my Contiki 'check out London' package. It included a 'discounted' price for the London Eye, which unless I remembered it incorrectly was in fact the normal price. I also realised that breakfast was included, something I would have been able to take advantage of if only I'd had the package earlier.
During the cruise, and afterwards back at the hotel, Margaret O'Grady (Tony's sister) and Eric Bridgstock got in touch with me to arrange what would happen in the next few days. The next afternoon I was to take a taxi to Margaret's work, where I could play with my computer until she'd finished work. Then we'd go to her place, where I'd stay the night, and the next day she'd put me on a train to Eric's place where I'd stay until my flight.
The real geeks among you will have spotted a problem with that plan, or at least realised what I had to do the next morning. I'll give you a few blank lines in which to work it out.
Have you worked it out yet? The next morning I had to buy a new power supply for my Mac. I'd called Tony (who was on holiday in Spain by that time) to ask which Mac place he'd used in London, and found that it was within walking distance of my hotel. So there I was, a New Zealander in London going to a Mac shop recommended by an Irishman in Spain.
I only knew the name of the shop and which road it was on, so I was worried I'd arrive at exactly the wrong part of the street and have to wander the whole length of it looking for the shop. As it happened, the shop was the first one I saw when I got to the right road. I only had to wander much of the length of the street looking for an ATM. I was getting pretty hungry so I stopped in at another sandwich store, and was very tempted by the chicken and avocado sandwiches, but went for coronation chicken because I'd never had it before. It wasn't particularly nice, and it stained my T-shirt from Venice, but I'm still glad that now I know what coronation chicken tastes like. I also know a lot more about how other people on the internet have managed to get rid of turmeric stains.
Anyway, I got the power supply. It was about halfway between the price it would have been over the internet from Madsonline and the price it was in Dublin. In theory I could have saved money by waiting until I got to Regensburg, but I don't like to think about what the last week would have been like without my Mac. This log entry wouldn't have been nearly as fresh from my memory. I also bought adaptor plugs so that I could plug in the new British plug into European sockets, not realising that my new power supply actually comes with a European lead as well as the British one.
I took one of those famous London taxis to Margaret's work. It was really spacious, and according to the signage, even wheelchair accessible. There's a special make of car just for London taxis. At Margaret's work I started typing up this log. It's been just over a week since then so I'm not finished yet.
We went back to her place, and sorted out where I'd be sleeping, etc. Had some nice conversations, although at this moment I can't remember quite what they were about. We did discuss how to remove the stain from my T-shirt, but I'm sure that was the least interesting topic. We figured out it was her boarder's birthday, so I gave him a NZ pen and let/made him listen to a silly NZ song somebody had sent me as revenge for telling him about the Cernettes. Margaret got him to blow out a match and make a wish.
The next morning (or was it that night?) I remember there being a frantic search for something or other. I can't remember what it was, either my iPod or my new power supply I think, but we found it eventually. The morning was mostly taken up by my slowly getting ready to go and packing away all my clothes that had been washed and left to dry overnight. It's all a bit of a blur, even though I was quite used to only staying one or two nights in each place by then. I ended up safely on the train to St. Albans.
Eric found me straight away at the station in St. Albans. He'd asked if he could get through to the platform without buying a ticket so he could help me off the train with my suitcase, to be told that they knew all about me and even which carriage I was in. He'd heard an announcement that the platforms should be tidied up because a celebrity was going to arrive on one of the next trains, but it wasn't me.
I'm not sure if I remember everything in the right order, my memory is schmarrn, but I think we went to the waffle house next. That's a place that has been recommended to Eric many times but which he'd never been to. I had waffles with pecans, butterscotch sauce, and whipped cream, though I was too busy waffling to actually eat them all.
We went to a few interesting places in St. Albans, though I can't remember if that was that day or the next. A transport museum, a Roman museum, St. Alban's Abbey (which has the longest nave in the world), Stockwood craft museum and gardens (can you tell I have a brochure for that one?) And at some point, of course, we went to Eric's house and I met his wife Val, daughter Sally and son Tim. It was Thursday night, and by chance they planned to go out for curry... just like Thursday Night Curry at home. After that we played card games, looked at each other's foreign money (Eric has a huge collection, which now includes NZ coins) listened to some amusing tapes, and traded puns. Some of that might have been the next night, but you get the idea. It turned out that I had an episode of 'I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again' which Val had particularly been looking for. They all sound English, and sometimes I could have sworn I heard them humming the theme tune to Coronation Street.
The next day Eric and I went to London to look at some of the things I didn't get a chance to see earlier. By that time we had established that I had lost my 'checking out London' pack, which contained the unused theatre ticket. Whoever finds it can use it, I guess. I was having trouble deciding which show to go to anyway. Anyway, we bought day passes for the trains, had a very brief look at Chinatown, went to the Dali exhibition down by the London Eye, and then to the science museum.
The Dali exhibition was, of course, surreal... I'd never seen so many drawers, melted clocks, spanish beans, Venuses (Veni?) and crutches all in one place. I suppose if a hospital supply room landed on Venus you might get something vaguely similar. The science museum was great too... we spent a lot of time looking at the mathematics and computing section, of course. There's a whole lot of different (but topologically equivalent) Klein bottles, giant computers including Babbage's difference engine number 2, and even (just to make me feel old) a Vic 20. They're building a really large computer. There's not a lot to see of it at the moment but the sign reads like the exact opposite of a modern computer advertising spiel, touting such things as it being the largest computer ever built, designed 150 years ago, and taking five seconds to perform a calculation. There's also a display of toilets, including a genuine Crapper, and a kind of toilet which is, according to the sign, still used a lot in Europe. Having just completed a tour of Europe I was able to confirm that. We also had a lot of fun playing with the different exhibits in the interactive part of the museum, which did not include the toilets.
That evening we had the traditional English meal of bangers and mash, which isn't entirely foreign to me. Actually England seems fairly normal, probably because most of the population of NZ is probably descended from the English, and Patricia did say that a lot of the un-Canadian things about NZ sounded very English. It seems like it would be almost pointless to go halfway around the world from NZ just to go to England, the novelty to distance ratio is too low. It still has its fair share of weirdness though. Everything seems so... well, English. It's the first place I've been where most signs are only in one language.
That night I searched without panicking for my iPod and my passports, knowing that they weren't far away. I found them both, of course. The next day I had to catch a plane to Frankfurt. Eric dropped me off at the airport, and I found my way onto the flight. It was a little bit weird, because when I got my boarding pass I was told there was no gate to go to, I had to just watch the screens to find out the gate. It seems that flights are not assigned a gate until they actually start boarding, and you show your boarding pass on entering the gate rather than sitting around there waiting for a while and then showing the boarding pass when they start boarding. In the mean time I wandered through the duty free shopping and spent my last few pounds on a T-shirt.
The flight was remarkably uneventful. The flight from Dublin to London was just as long, yet on that flight I hardly had a moment to spare, there always seemed to be something to see, hear or taste. On the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, nothing much happened the whole time, so I had some time to read. I read some of the in-flight magazine, which was in English and German, to practise my translation, and learnt the German word for halo.
Soon after I stepped off the plane a staff member who was driving a golf cart around the terminal noticed me, and got me to hop on. She took me to baggage claim (which seemed to be very far away) to get my suitcase, and through customs, etc. She then told me how to get to the train station in the terminal, so I could catch a train to the main train station near my hotel. I was staying two nights in Frankfurt before going to Regensburg to see Grace, because Grace was at a conference in Switzerland.
I tried to arrange for somebody to help me get my suitcase onto the train, but there was some misunderstanding and I ended up getting somebody to take my suitcase to the platform, which I could have done myself. Luckily I heard some Americans talking and asked if they'd help me, which they did. They said they were getting off at the same station that I was, so they'd help me get my suitcase off the train as well. When the train arrived at what looked to me like the right train station, the Americans talked to a German girl across from us (who had learnt English in Scotland) and she convinced them that the station they wanted to get to was two stops further along. We all stayed on for another two stops. Well, I don't know if the Americans were at the station they wanted to be, but I quickly realised that I wasn't. I wasn't too far away from where I wanted to be though.
I decided to leave the station and get a taxi somehow. Unfortunately I didn't pull my suitcase onto the escalator quite fast enough that time, and ended up having to let go of it. While I was preoccupied with looking down at the people who had picked up my suitcase for me, I didn't notice when I got to the top, and I ended up on my bum. The guy who'd picked up the suitcase brought it to the top of the escalator, helped me up, and said something in German. I asked him (in German) whether he understood English, and he said he did, a bit, so I asked where I could get a taxi from and he found one for me only a few metres away.
On the way to my hotel I noticed the sign for Goethe Street. That was interesting because one of the first phrases I learnt in German, from the introductory audiobook I downloaded, was 'wo ist die Goethe Strasse bitte?' (Where is Goethe Street?) I was quite thrilled by the thought I might get to use the exact phrase from the audiobook -- if I hadn't already filled my day's quota of looking like a dork, I would have cried out gleefully, 'Die Goethe Strasse ist hier!' (Goethe Street is here.)
At the hotel the taxi driver said something to the receptionist in German (probably, 'here is somebody who can neither speak German nor ride an escalator, you'd better give her the room with padded walls and no small parts.') I went straight into talking to the receptionist in English, and was glad I had a printout of my reservation.
So... two whole nights in one hotel and nothing in particular to do. I had a bath (inadvertently getting some of the carpet wet, because although there was a screen to stop water getting onto the floor, it only works if the water is not pointed at it... whatever the taxi driver said about me was probably right) and watched some German comedy on TV. Some of it looked like it would be really funny if I understood what they were saying, some of it was funny anyway. Later on I went back downstairs and asked for a day of internet (€12.50 a night... roughly the same as it was at the Marriott, but it seemed so cheap compared with the rates I'd put up with in internet cafes.) The man at reception said to wait until his colleague came in an hour, because he didn't know much about it. I did that, and even though all I needed was a username and password, the new man at the reception wanted to see my computer to help set it up. I was glad, or at least, I think he might have been glad, that I have my computer set up to use German so that I'll learn it more quickly.
The next day I pretty much just slept and used the internet. Much like a normal Sunday. I went out to try to find some sticky tape to fix up something which had broken off my suitcase, and I found a shop which probably had it, but since it was a Sunday the shops were all shut. It wasn't essential though.
That evening I went out in search of food, and I managed to order a Hawaiian pizza entirely in German. The conversation went something like this (translated to English):
Me: A Hawaiian pizza please.
Pizza guy: blah blah blah blah?
Me: (stands there in stunned silence)
Pizza guy: blah blah blah eat here blah blah eat blah?
Me: Here.
Pizza guy: Blah blah blah something to drink blah?
Me: No.
Other customer enters and places an order.
Me: (stands there doing nothing particularly interesting)
Pizza Guy: How are you, is everything okay?
Me: Yes. (sits down)
What I understood of the conversation only used what I learnt from the very first introductory audiobook I'd listened to of German. Everything I'd learnt since then was useless. While I was eating my pizza some American guy who apparently hadn't even learnt that most basic German came and ordered his pizza in English.
The McCoy O'Gradys have large supplies of sparkling mineral water at their house, and while I was staying with them I got rather accustomed to it. I figure that if you're going to be paying for water it may as well be water which is easily distinguishable from tap water. I secretly wondered whether sparkling mineral water would have the same appeal if it were called what it is; dilute carbonic acid with impurities. Well, while eating the pizza I set about using my German dictionary to translate the menu. There was 0.2L water, 1L water, or 1.5L water without carbonic acid. Not only is it called what it is, but water is carbonated by default. That's great for me, because I like it that way and it means I don't have to pronounce Kohlensäure to get it. I've heard it's caught other tourists off-guard though.
I figured out which train I had to take to Regensburg using the most excellent Deutsche Bahn website, and sent an email to Grace telling her when to pick me up from the station. I had planned to send her a text message, but my global roaming seemed to have stopped working. For some reason it went onto using my prepay credit while I was in London, instead of going on the global roaming account, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Anyway, I had breakfast at the hotel, crossed the road to the train station to buy my ticket (which involved two or three traffic islands and about five crossings) then bought half an hour of internet and sat downstairs at the hotel reading my email for a while. I didn't have a response from Grace so I got somebody to send her a text message just in case she hadn't read the email.
Later I went to the train station and caught the train to Regensburg. I accidentally sat down in a first class carriage at first but other than that the ride was pretty uneventful. Grace spotted me soon after I got off the train, which was a relief. She put me and my suitcase on a bus and raced ahead on her bike so I'd know when to get off.
Grace got me all settled at her place, and then she had to go meet a friend so she gave me a map and told me where to meet her at 6:00. I got there alright, but sat waiting on the wrong side of a church, probably only metres away from where they were but we didn't see each other until I went wandering toward a different church thinking I must be in the wrong place. I met some of the friends whom I'd read about in Grace's book about moving to Germany and the beginning of New Jerusalem... more on them when I get to know them better, I guess. They proceeded to pray and sing and stuff, while I read my German book and tried to figure out what they were saying.
On the way home we had doner kebabs, which are just called döners here. I also had an apfelschorle, which is apple juice mixed with fizzy water. It's a lot like Appletise.
I've been to a few more meetings since then, with more praying, singing, people from the book, and talking that I don't understand. I'm getting better at German though. Grace taught me a few idioms. I feel a little cheated though, because the first thing anyone learns about a new language (if we ignore swear words) is how to say hello and goodbye. Guten tag and auf wiedersehen, right? Well, here in Bavaria, people tend to say 'hello' or 'hi' for hello, and 'ciao' or for goodbye.
One day Grace and I went swimming at an outdoor pool, but that was more or less like swimming in any country, except for the occasional sonic boom from overhead. After that we went to the carnival which just happens to be on at the moment. I ate a Regensburger, which is a short fat sausage. Now I've eaten Frankfurters, Hamburgers, Berliners, Bavarians (which nobody in Bavaria has heard of) and Regensburgers, I wonder if anyone has ever tried to eat their way through all the 'citizens' of Germany?
The first day Grace was back at work, I planned to just stick around home typing up my log and trying to finish the last couple of weeks of lessons in my German book. I actually ended up going out with Ilse, Grace's flatmate. We stopped at a cafe where I had a drink which looks like beer but has more sugar and no alcohol. It's made especially for children so they can think they're drinking what the grown-ups are drinking. It's very nice, the only 'beer' that I actually like. We had problems with wasps trying to fly into the glass and the bottle to drink it though.
The next day I went into town intending to have a look around and also go on the round-trip tour bus. I somehow managed to walk right past the square where the bus left from, but I realised I was quite close to the Kepler museum, so I decided to go to that instead. Unfortunately, it seems to only be open on weekends, and on weekdays for pre-arranged groups. I went back to the square where the bus was to leave from. On the way, I stopped to buy a Germany badge. After I'd put down the badge on the counter, the shopkeeper said something which sounded like, 'das was?' I thought, 'the what?!' and tried to figure out what she could possibly mean by that. I thought it must be a new idiom. While I was standing there trying to work out what 'the what' could possibly mean, she worked out that I spoke English and asked if that was all. I found out from Grace later that she actually said, 'das war's?' which is short for 'das war es?' which basically means, 'is that it?'
By the time I got to the square, it was 2:10, and the next tour bus was to leave at 3:00. I figured that gave me plenty of time for a coffee or something, so I sat down at a cafe. It turned out to be an icecream salon... yum! I ordered some kind of nut sundae. I'd eaten most of it when a wasp flew right in and wriggled around drinking the melted icecream. I wasn't keen on eating the rest after that.
Cafes, restaurants, beer gardens, etc. everywhere in Europe that I've seen use the system where you sit down, wait for a waiter (ironic name, isn't it?) order something, wait for it to arrive, eat it, then wait for a waiter again so that you can pay for it. I think this is to give the waiters more to do (even though they're not the ones waiting) so that it will seem like we got our money's worth when we tip them. For those of you who don't know, in a cafe in NZ, you'd go to the counter, order something, pay for it, and then wait for it at a table, which eliminates both stages of waiting for a waiter. In a NZ restaurant, you still wait for a waiter after sitting down, but when you've finished you go to the cashier and pay, so one stage of waiting for a waiter is eliminated. Anyway, when you have a half-eaten sundae in front of you the waiters don't get the message that you've finished and would like to pay, so it's quite difficult to actually pay for your food and get out of there. I'm not much good at epping even in English-speaking countries, and I wasn't having a lot of success when I didn't even know what to call out to them.
After a while I gave up trying to attract a waiter, and went to the counter. I said (in German) something like, 'I have a nut sundae eaten' and the guy at the counter said something along the lines of, 'You've eaten one, or you want one, or what?' I said, 'I have eaten, and I would like to pay' which he understood, and he asked whether I'd been served by the blonde or the brunette. I said I'd forgotten, or I would forget, or something along those lines. Anyway, eventually I managed to pay the bill, although I didn't leave a tip (despite all that quality waiting) because I didn't have the right change and I couldn't remember how to say how much of a tip I wanted to give. By that time it was too late to go on the 3:00 bus tour and I thought I might be too late home if I went on the next one, so I just went home.
On Saturday Grace, Doro and I went to the wedding of a friend of theirs from Africa. It was a trilingual wedding, with talking in English and then translated to German, and a few songs in French. It got a bit confusing when the couple had to repeat what the celebrant said, but not until after the translator had repeated it.
Saturday Night was Museums Night. That's the one night a year when you can get a ticket for 7 Euros and visit all the museums you like in Regensburg, until 1a.m. I went with Ilse and some of her friends. Our first stop was the city museum, which we had a tour of. The commentary was all in German, but I understood words and sentence fragments here and there. I've constructed a fairly consistent fantasy about the history of Regensburg based on those snatches.
I wanted to go to the Kepler museum, but we were too late for that, so we went to the Thurn & Taxis museum. Thurn & Taxis is kind of difficult to explain, especially if you don't understand it anyway, but it's a royal family which pretty much invented the postal system back in the day. Read the English version of their website. Apparently one of them had trouble with the rent at one time so she opened a museum of some of their elaborate expensive stuff, in order to make money from the admission fees. Something like that anyway. So I had a look at a whole lot of elaborate, expensive stuff. I didn't take any pictures, because I wasn't sure if it was allowed.
After that we went to a restaurant and had some crepes. I was able to order mine simply by saying the German for 'me too', just as Grace had done once after getting me to say my order properly. Someone else they knew came and joined us, and talked to me for a while in English. She'd been to the Kepler museum, where they'd talked mainly about Kepler's mother. She told me that the next Saturday they'd be talking more about Kepler himself, doing some kind of play or something.
On Sunday Ilse invited me to go to church at the cinema. I figured I may as well, since it's not often I'd get to see a church service in a cinema. Apparently it's there because the church doesn't have enough money to have their own buildings. It turned out to be the famous 'open door' church, as mentioned in Grace's book. After church, and tea and cake, we went with some of Ilse's friends to a beer garden and had something to eat. I saw something on the menu which seemed to translate to cheese sparrow or cheese pasta, which I decided not to risk trying. A few other people had it and it looked nice. After that, and some talking overlooking the Danube, we went to a cafe and had coffee. I had a particularly nice iced coffee.
When we finally got home in the early evening, it was nearly time for New Jerusalem to start their singing and praying and stuff. That and some noodles afterwards went until after midnight, because Amin was a few hours late, and he was doing most of the talking. So how about that? An entire day of church and food.
I was invited to breakfast the next day at Doro and Wolfgang's place, who needed help tidying up their new flat after getting married three or four weeks earlier. I had some breakfast, moved a few boxes, and then I guess they got sick of having to talk to me in English so somebody got me to stamp the New Jerusalem contact details on a pile of tracts. I'm quite experienced at stamping things, because I stamped and cancelled library books for four hours once as a way of paying my library fines. It wasn't quite as boring as it sounds. I got some nice pictures of the city from their 7th story window.
We ended up engrossed in conversation and almost didn't get to the square in time for the usual 6:00 Monday NJ meeting. We took a taxi, which had the fare displayed on the corner of the mirror rather than a separate large gadget. This time I, er, 'helped' conduct a survey, by following Ruth around mute while she asked the questions. I also took a few pictures of the group, including the 'unterheiligeshein' from the bench they were sitting on.
Maybe it was later that night, maybe some other night, but Grace and I went to a beer garden so I could have some schmarrn. Schmarrn is a sort of mangled pancakes (though the ones I got were merely chopped up.) 'Schmarrn' is also an interjection, which somebody will say if what you've just said is a load of rubbish. Also if you've made a mess of a situation you'd say you've made a pile of schmarrn. So you can understand why I had to eat a pile of schmarrn.
On Tuesday I finally had a chance to go on the bus tour. It was a bit weird because I already recognised most of the things that were pointed out. This was not a hop-on, hop-off tour, we just went once around the circuit and hopped off. I met a Canadian couple in the English carriage of the bus. They're from Dresden, near London, Ontario, and they'd heard of Paisley. I didn't get to talk to them much because the commentary started. After that I wandered around town a bit, looking in some shops, and then went home.
On Wednesday, I had arranged to meet Grace so I could have lunch with her and the policemen she works with. She said they leave for lunch at 11:30 precisely, so I'd have to be at the police station by then. I got distracted by reading a book and wasn't sure if I'd get there in time, then when I did I wasn't sure which building was the police station because the sign was behind a pillar. Grace saw me though, so we went to the canteen where I had a Bavarian dish whose name translated as 'cheese loaf'. It's actually meatloaf, served on top of a pile of potatoes and underneath a fried egg. Very nice. Unfortunately the policemen had decided not to join us.
Before going back to work Grace showed me to the Thurn & Taxis palace. I spent a while sitting in the cafeteria drinking an apfelschorle, and took a picture of the interesting ceiling. Somebody saw me do that and said something I didn't understand about photography, so I didn't take any more pictures. After that I went on a tour of the palace, which used to be an abbey. Furnishings fit for a king, which look like they are no longer used. It's probably just as well, because for all the ornate decoration the chairs didn't look very comfortable. I went on the tour where the commentary was on a tape and the guide just lead us from room to room telling us when to turn the tape on. Unfortunately I missed a cue to turn my tape on (that's one German word I learnt a few minutes too late) and thanks to the tape's sequential access once you get behind in the commentary, it's impossible to catch up unless you know where to fast-forward to. So I didn't get any commentary for most of the rooms, which is a pity because I would have understood some of it. I will remember to only go on tours with live commentary in future.
We'd arranged to meet at Rainer's place for more NJ stuff, so I went there not long before the appointed time to find a note on the door saying he had visitors so we'd have to meet somewhere else, which we did, after meeting outside Rainer's place and reading the note. After that was more NJ stuff which wouldn't have made any sense to me, so I went to a famous pub, tried some of the cheesy sparrow (which Grace had told me I should try -- it's a vegetarian dish) and went home. The cheesy sparrow dish is like macaroni cheese with crumbed onion rings or onion bhaji on top, only the pasta is a different shape and so is the oniony stuff, which may or may not have contained actual onion.
Even if I could get the galleries working again, I wouldn't be able to upload all these new photos on a modem, so you're just going to have to wait until I get home.
Oh yeah, the fridges here don't look like fridges, they're in cupboards -- which is probably why the German word for fridge literally means 'cool cupboard'. That means you can't tell which one is the fridge until you open it (unless it's standing apart from the other fridges like it is in Grace's flat) and there's no market for fridge magnets.
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11 August 2004 to 18 August 2004
Okay... a lot to catch up on. In summary, I've been on the Viking Splash tour of Dublin, a bus tour to Glendalough, another bus tour to Newgrange, a day trip by rail to Limerick, and to the national wax museum.
So let's start at the beginning. Even with two Dublin bus tours behind me, I thought the Viking Splash tour might be interesting, because I'd get to ride around the streets on a duck roaring at people, and then ride around on the River Liffey roaring at nothing in particular. By duck, I mean an amphibious vehicle from WWII called a DUKW, which was not an acronym. I think it stands for Dual Use Killer Wa[te]rcraft.
After some shopping and general wandering one day, I went to the Viking departure point on St. Stephen's Green. I was told that the tour starting from St. Stephen's Green was booked solid for the next couple of days, but if I walked up to the St. Patrick's cathedral stop I might be able to get on. That tour was also pretty much booked for a few days, but there was one space left on the next tour... there's the advantage of travelling alone. I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the cathedral from the outside.
I saw some of the usual tourist attractions, with a little bit of Viking-related trivia thrown in (although not as much as I'd expected.) I knew from going on tour busses that the people on the Viking Splash tours roar at people on bus tours. We also roared at people on the streets. A lot of the locals (and quite possibly the tourists) are well aware of this habit and a few tried to get us to roar. At one point we passed a family in their front yard and a very young girl got us to roar for her.
Towards the end of the tour the duck went into the River Liffey, as promised, and had a wonder around. It didn't go through the centre of town or anything, which on one hand means there wasn't as much to see, and on the other hand means I saw stuff I hadn't seen on the other tours. One of the tour guides pointed out a place where U2 did some recordings or something. I took a whole lot of pictures from the duck, on and off the water, some while we were moving, and not all of things which were of any touristic significance, but maybe they'll give you a feel for the place. If they don't, then nyaah, I'm here and you're not.
I met up with Teresa (Tony's wife, for those of you who don't have psychopathic powers) in town for late-night shopping, and we also met Adam (their son) after he finished work. I did a lot of shopping, but not a lot of buying. Before meeting Adam Teresa and I went to a place called 'Chocolate Soup' which sold, among other things, chocolate soup. That is, some really exotic kinds of hot chocolate. I can't remember the name of mine, but it involved white chocolate, spices and apple flavouring.
Aah yes, I don't think I mentioned that on my last night at the Rixes' who roxes I tried the abomination that is pumpkin pie. It didn't taste like pumpkin at all, in fact I think the dominant flavour was nutmeg, but it could be some other spice to which I have attached the label nutmeg. Anyway, it was more reminiscent of some kind of moist muffin than pumpkin, which is just as well, because sweet pumpkin is just wrong. The reason I bring this up now is that the chocolate soup I had also tasted of nutmeg. Who would have thought that hot chocolate could taste like pumpkin? I suppose they're both good as soups.
There was a good view from Chocolate Soup of the street below... I think it was Henry Street. It's one of the many pedestrian streets in the area. The main pedestrian street is Grafton Street, and that's usually crowded with shoppers, people selling birdy whistles, people pretending to be statues, and people playing music. Anyway, I took a few pictures from Chocolate Soup, including one of my own chocolate soup just to show off.
The next day Tony and I went on a bus tour to Glendalough. This tour actually included a stop at Powerscourt house and gardens, which was the main destination for the last out-of-Dublin tour we did. It was good to get a look at the gardens without any rain, even if I didn't have time to look at as much of it. I just walked around the front lake, and took some pictures of the Japanese gardens from above while I was near them. I also took a picture of a very still (though not sitting) duck. Birds don't usually pose that well for pictures.
The main destination for the tour was, as I've said, the really old monastic settlement at Glendalough. The most interesting feature is the round tower, which is thought to have been used as a bell tower, for storing storing things out of reach of the vikings, and also sort of like a church steeple, to draw the eyes upward. The cool thing is the tower is 34m high, but the foundations are only 0.9m deep. To keep the tower stable the door has to be several metres off the ground. On the way back the bus stopped in a few places so we could take pictures of the scenery.
A few days later we went on another bus tour, this time to see the passage tomb at Newgrange. On the way to that we stopped at Monasterboice and Mellifont Abbey, to see more ruins of churches, high crosses, and another round tower. The round tower was not in as good condition as the one at Glendalough but some parts of the abbey were quite impressive.
Then came the main attraction... Newgrange. This is a huge tomb with an opening at just the right place so that the inside chamber is lit up during the five days surrounding the winter solstice. There is a lottery for who gets to be in there during the solstice... and even if you win that lottery it could be too cloudy for you to see anything. I missed my chance to buy postcards showing the chamber lit up by the sun, but there are some pictures of it on the web. We went inside, and had a look at the chamber with the aid of artificial light. The inside chamber is shaped like a cross and in each of the three arms (not counting the passage from the entrance) is a stone basin which was presumably used for some ritual... the most important one probably being at the end which is lit up during the solstice. The tomb is about 5000 years old (that's older than the pyramids in Egypt) so nobody knows exactly what it was for.
There are other satellite tombs around the place, and mounds which haven't been excavated yet. People think that perhaps after some ritual (perhaps leaving a body there until the solstice?) in the main tomb the remains were moved to one of the satellites. I think some of my pictures show mounds in nearby fields.
We walked around the outside of the main tomb and saw a newer stone building of no (pre-)historical significance, and some stones and chips of stone which are surrounded by fences so must be important.
The next day Tony and I went on a day trip to Limerick by train. There's a deal on at the moment so that you can go on a return trip within a day to one of several cities for only ten Euro. Unfortunately, we missed the train to Limerick by about a minute, and we had to wait about two hours for the next one. That meant we didn't have much time in Limerick, but I had a good time anyway. I realised I don't think I've ever been on a proper train trip before.
We went to see King John's castle, which was built for King John but if I remember correctly he never actually went there. The castle was usually in use by someone in connection with him though. Some of it was much like the Dublinia exhibition, with models of typical scenes around the place, except that it was in a real castle. There was a fairly good view from one of the towers but we were up there during the five minutes in which it was raining so I didn't get many pictures of the view. I got one of Tony though.
After a perfectly normal dinner at McDonald's, we went back to the train station where we found, to our astonishment, that the bar/cafe was shut. Imagine that... a bar in Ireland that's shut, while it's still light outside!
On the way to Limerick, and again on the way back, we had to change trains at Limerick Junction. Limerick Junction is a junction in the middle of nowhere, about 45 minutes out of Limerick if I remember correctly. While waiting there on the way back I took a few pictures, for those of you who like to look at trains and scenery in the middle of nowhere.
On Wednesday night Tony, Teresa and Adam went out for dinner to celebrate Adam's exam results. I have been asked to take more pictures of them, so I took the opportunity to get a picture of them all dressed up for dinner.
Thursday was my second to last full day in Ireland, so I decided I'd better see another tourist attraction. I had a look at the pamphlets I had and decided that the wax museum looked like fun. I also wanted to take some pictures of the Liffey, so I got off the bus near there and took some pictures featuring the Ha'penny bridge -- so called because it used to cost half a penny to cross it. It has an 'official' name too but I can't remember what it is.
Anyway, all that taking pictures of bridges had made me hungry, so I went into the West Coast Cafe for something to eat. I was wondering what a west coast cafe would be doing on the east coast, and thinking perhaps the coffee is different on the west coast of Ireland. Then I noticed that the logo featured the Golden Gate Bridge, so it's obviously all about the west coast of the USA. Everywhere I go I see things from places I've already been... like the TV show I saw where somebody was showing us how to paint a sunset. It's obviously a popular TV show because he got to go to Canada and paint the sunset there, and he completely bungled the explanation of looneys and tooneys (or is that loonies and twoneys? It's more of a spoken thing... but there's a store called looney tooney I think so I'll stick to that) saying they were one and two cent coins. The looney is a $1 coin, so called because it has a loon on it, and the tooney is a $2 coin, so called because it's worth two dollars and rhymes with looney, which people were already familiar with when the tooney came out. Oh yeah, and there's a Chinese restaurant in Dublin called Maple Leaf. I have no idea why.
Anyway, back on topic. It was a nice cafe, the frappe was one of the best I've ever tasted. The weather was rather Auckland-like, with the rain stopping and starting at random, so I ducked into a few shops and looked around. By the time I got to the wax museum it was 4p.m. The wax museum closes at 5:30, so I thought I might be a bit rushed but I'd still have quite a bit of time to see the place. As it turned out I was out of there by 5:00, having seen all of the exhibition and having just taken the last photo I could fit on my camera's memory card. It worked out pretty well. The wax museum was pretty cool... they had everything from Bob the Builder to the pope. There was a hall of horrors, a hall of megastars, a section full of characters from children's stories and TV shows, and the 'main' exhibition of politicians, sports people, popes, famous Irish people, etc. The very first display in the main exhibition was the teenage mutant ninja turtles. The place was a little mixed up... there was almost a mini-chamber of horrors long before the real one, and fictional characters scattered around the place. It all added to the excitement though, I never knew who would be in the next room or how much more there was to go.
On my last full day in Dublin, I decided to stay home (if I can call Tony's place home) write up my travellog and pack my suitcase. I didn't get very far with either, and later on I went into town with Tony and Adam, met up with Teresa, did some shopping and had dinner. I'm glad I did. I got to have a hot chocolate at Butlers chocolate cafe, which I'd been advised to do because you get a free chocolate with every hot drink. I was told I'd get to choose the chocolate from Butlers' extensive range but the girl at the counter just gave me one. It was nice anyway.
I also took my last chance to have a look at an Irish supermarket. I bought some clove drops, because I never would have believed that people would make clove-flavoured lollies. I actually first noticed the packet because I thought it said clover drops, and I thought they might be shamrock-shaped or something, but the truth was much weirder. They're flavoured with clove-leaf oil. They taste as weird as they sound, but kind of like aniseed, so I could probably get used to them. I don't think I will though, I'll give them to people I meet later in the trip and watch their reactions.
It's now 8 minutes past midnight on Saturday August 21st. Later today I'll be flying to London, meeting up with my tour group, and checking into the Royal National Hotel for the night. At 6:45 the next morning I'll be leaving on a nine-day tour of Europe. I have no idea how often I will have internet access, I think we're staying in fairly expensive hotels so the odds are that if there's internet access it will come at a ridiculously high price.
Apologies for the temporary lack of photo galleries... I haven't had time to get them going again since a configuration change on the server put them out of action. Busses, parks, gardens and monuments
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7 August 2004 to 10 August 2004
Yikes, what have I done since the last update? Erm...
Well, one day I went to St. Stephen's Green, where I took pictures of the many statues. These Irish really seem to like their monuments, or else they know how to attract tourists... they're everywhere! (Monuments and tourists.) Dublin even has Europe's tallest and most expensive monument, that spike I mentioned in a previous entry. It's officially called The Spire of Dublin, though it was originally going to be called (and still is sometimes called) The Monument of Light, or the Millennium Spire, though it was not completed until 2003. I've heard from various tour guides that it's known by locals as the erection at the intersection, the stiffy by the Liffey, the stiletto in the ghetto, the spike in the dyke, or simply the spike. They do that for all their monuments too -- think of rhyming nicknames for tour guides to tell people about. It seems somehow fitting that the man who has created more apronyms than any other should happen to live in this city. Have I mentioned that Dublin lays claim to a whole lot of famous writers too? I suppose there are enough famous writers that any particularly large city which has been around for a thousand years or so would have had quite a few pass through it, but still, it makes it seem like some kind of wordplay nexus.
Anyway, back to my adventures in St. Stephen's Green. I started off just wandering around, taking pictures of scenery, and the occasional duck. Considering they're all over the place, it took me a while to notice any statues. The first one I saw was a head on a pillar, which turned out to be James Joyce, the poor chap. I took pictures of that, then sat on the bench dedicated to James Joyce and took pictures of other people taking pictures of the herm of James Joyce. I'd like to think somebody had the absence of mind to take a picture of me taking a picture of the people taking the picture of the herm of James Joyce, but I doubt it.
Soon after that, I found a map of the park with all the monuments marked. Being a good tourist I set out to find all the monuments and photograph them, although sadly I have to admit I probably missed several. Not to worry, later on I took a picture of a sign showing pictures of the monuments. I'd like to think that somebody out there has the absence of mind to take a picture of my picture of the pictures of the monuments, but I doubt it.
The next actual monument I found was the Three Fates, followed by 'Famine', hungry looking figures which somebody had left some fruit and a coffee out for. Other statues, in order of appearance, are Wolfe Tone, Thomas Kettle, Constance Markievicz, Mangan, W. B. Yeats, and the archway at the main entrance to St. Stephen's Green. Most have signs on them saying what they are... I love self-captioning photographs.
On the way home I took a picture of some terraced houses, which seem to be the norm here. They're all joined together, seemingly identical prisms which only differ in the facade. In the Georgian squares in town, only the doors are different, but they're pretty famous doors.
That night Tony, Teresa and I went out for dinner at the Thunder Road cafe. It's in the Temple Bar area, which is known for its hip places to eat, art galleries and other 'cultural' things. Temple Bar used to be the venue for countless hen and stag parties, but they were banned because apparently too many such parties did not make it a pleasant place to be, so we only saw two hen parties while we were there. The cafe (which is really a restaurant and bar) has some kind of American theme, with particular attention to motorcycles. The website calls it a bikers' cafe, and I get the feeling it's themed after some movie or other that I've never heard of. There's a statue of liberty holding up a TV just inside the doorway, much like the restaurant I went to in Canada which I can't remember the name of. Food around here (not just in Temple Bar) costs about the same amount in Euro as it would be in NZ dollars, so with the exchange rate factored in it's about 1.88 times the price it should be.
The next day, we all took the South Coast & Gardens bus tour. I took a picture of a place where the tide goes out about four miles, because it's such a change from the six-inch tides of Lake Huron. It was raining by the time we got to Powerscourt, but I ventured into the gardens anyway, glad (not for the first time) that I bought a jacket at the Apple company store in Cupertino. I didn't get many pictures, and the ones I did get were from just the right angle to ensure that the rain wouldn't be blown into the lens. I'm sure the place looks more impressive when it's not raining, too. It was interesting anyway... the bus driver was talking and singing the whole time, giving us information on the places we were passing through and telling silly jokes.
The next day I decided to go on the other Dublin bus tour, but not before having some lunch. I found a place called O'Shea's Irish Restaurant, which seemed to be especially put there to ensnare hapless tourists like me (when was the last time you saw a 'New Zealand Restaurant' in New Zealand?), so I went along with it. The lunch special was a three course meal, where one of the 'courses' was tea or coffee. I ordered an Irish stew, because no other main course seemed particularly interesting. This one was much more like the canned Irish stew I'd had at home. Dessert turned out to be a scone with jam and cream. Overall it wasn't as bad as it sounds, because I usually can't fit in a real three-course meal.
Anyway, I joined the tour, and got off at Dublin Castle. I could have taken a tour around the castle, but the tour group about to go around was full, so I would have had to wait twenty minutes or so before the tour started. Instead, I hung around in the courtyard taking a few pictures. I might not have seen much of Dublin Castle, but I saw Dublin Sandcastle... there were several people making sand sculptures for some sort of exhibition in the courtyard. I did ask them about it but I've forgotten what they said. It looks like a repeat of this exhibition from 2003.
I hopped back on the bus and got off at St. Patrick's Cathedral, taking a few pictures from the bus along the way. St. Patrick's Cathedral is another place with more sculptures than you could shake a crucifix at. I didn't take pictures of many of them, there was just too much to take in. One of the stranger displays was a door, sitting there in the middle of the floor. It's the Door of Reconciliation which Gerald Fitzgerald (how's that for a name? He's his own father!) stuck his arm through as a gesture of peace. It took me a while to locate the statue of Saint Patrick himself, which was clearly marked on the map. In the midst of all these life-size or larger statues, Saint Patrick was just a little thing. Maybe he was a leprechaun.
There is actually a gift shop inside the cathedral, and right near the gift shop is a large statue of some guy pointing. He seemed to be pointing at some name crests that were on sale. I didn't buy one, but I took a particularly bad picture of them.
My next stop on the bus tour was in Phoenix Park. I hoped I might see some of the hundreds of wild deer that roam around the park, but I didn't actually look very hard. For some reason I was in a hurry to get back, but I can't remember what the reason was. Anyway, I took some pictures of the Wellington monument.
Back on the bus, I took a picture of the James Joyce bridge over the Liffey as we passed it, just in case I don't get a chance to take a better picture. It's the newest of many bridges over the river. I got off and wandered around for a bit, taking pictures of monuments, and the River Liffey. I also managed to get a picture of an 'Airport Express' bus, which I think is funny because it doesn't look anything like Apple's AirPort Express.
The tickets for this tour also last 24 hours, so the next day I got back on the tour. I was late getting into town so I only had a few more hours left on my ticket. I went to the Dublinia exhibition at Christ Church, and found out all about mediaeval Dublin. I had to rush through a bit because I wanted to see the actual church and get the bus back before my ticket expired. Once I got through the exhibition I found that there was a concert or something going on in the church, so I couldn't have a look around. I went and took some more pictures of things outside instead -- this time in my effort to get the name of the statue in the frame, I chopped off the figures' heads.
On the way back I took some pictures from the bus, then I went to the cafe in the tourist information centre for a coffee. I think I've mentioned before that the tourist centre is a converted church. I took a few pictures from the coffee shop in there so you can see what a coffee shop in a church looks like. Actually, I should have taken a picture of the gift shop at St. Patrick's, to go with the 'weird things to see in a church' theme.
My other task for the day was to post home my WWDC backpack, since it's taking up a lot of space in my suitcase and yet doesn't weigh too much so is cheapish to post. For the rest of my journey I won't be seeing anyone who will be impressed by a WWDC backpack, and it needs some stitching up anyway. The post office is just across the road from the tourist centre, but they don't sell envelopes or any other packaging for mail, which is very inconvenient. They did tell me where I could get envelopes etc. There wasn't much of a range there either, and the shop assistants weren't very helpful, but I bought the largest envelope I've ever seen and posted the bag home.
On the way to get the envelope, I took the obligatory picture of the statue of Molly Malone. I've heard it's the most photographed statue in Dublin, so I thought I'd better do my bit to keep it that way. This particular statue has been pointed out to me on tours several times, and I'm pretty sure I've walked past it several times, but I'd never actually seen it. It's very easy to miss because there are so many people sitting on it obscuring it.
In other news, I decided that going by boat and train to London is too much hassle, and more expensive than going by plane anyway. So I've booked a flight to there on the 21st. It turns out I need to be there the night before my tour anyway, for a meeting with the rest of the tour group, so I'm staying that night at the Royal National Hotel. I have to be at that hotel both for the meeting and to pick up my documents on the 21st, and the tour leaves from there very early in the morning of the 22nd, so it's about the only sensible option. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned when I booked the tour. If it weren't for email I wouldn't have known that I had to be there the night before until I'd already arrived and picked up my documents, and by that time it might have been too late.
And from the department of partially obscured signs... from the bus I saw a bar called 'Lynch the Swan Bar'. I know that pubs can have pretty strange names, but I couldn't imagine why anybody would think of lynching a swan, even while drunk. As the bus went past the corner of the bar I saw that the full title was actually 'John Lynch The Swan Bar'. Even more shocking was 'Vagina Tandoori' -- once the bus moved forward a little I realised that the sign read 'Nagina Tandoori' but had the N partially obscured. The font didn't help.
Dublin
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6 August 2004
It's about time I posted about Dublin.
On Monday Tony and I went on a bus tour of Dublin. To start with just stayed on the top deck of the bus to see what there was to see, without getting off at any of the attractions. Dublin, as you probably know, is a very old city... many of the buildings we saw are probably several times as old as any buildings in New Zealand. A few old churches, a lot of old pubs... even the tourist information office (which used to be a church) was very old.
Right where we joined the tour was a tall spike. Tony explained that this was a replacement for another monument. Apparently the IRA blew up half of it quite cleanly, and the authorities blew up the other half to get it out of the way, damaging nearby buildings in the process. Nobody could agree on who to make a statue of to put in its place, so they ended up with a spike.
We also saw parliament buildings, a lot of statues, the Guinness brewery, Phoenix Park and St. Stephen's Green. Phoenix park is the largest enclosed park in Europe, and it has large herds of deer roaming free... I didn't see any from the bus, but I intend to go back there. The name is actually just an approximation to the pronunciation of the Irish 'Fionn Uisce' -- it has nothing to do with the phoenix bird.
Taking pictures from the top deck of a tourist bus is harder than it looks... it's difficult not to get the bars in the way. (Actually, it's probably difficult to take any pictures of Dublin without bars getting in the way.) I did manage to take some pictures from the ground though. The bus tour we went on actually has two different routes, which go to mostly the same places but diverge at a few points. We went on one tour first, then stopped to have something to eat and walk around a bit, and went on the other tour. While walking around we came across a rapper performing for a thin crowd, whom I took a picture of because he looked better than he sounded. Some of the other pictures were taken on impulse just to give you a general idea of the buildings, the streetlamps, and the pedestrian crossing signals (they're different in every country I've been to.)
The bus tour ticket lasts for 24 hours so we went back the next day and made a few stops. Actually, to be perfectly accurate, we only made one stop, at the Guinness Storehouse, and I took so long in there that by the time I got out the tickets had expired. There's a lot to see, hear and smell (some parts smell like Marmite), and a lot of signs to read. There are no tour guides... people just wander through at their own paces, and my pace is generally pretty slow. I now know everything I ever wanted to know about making Guinness (but was not interested enough to ask.) If you want to know more about what I saw there, there's a great shockwave presentation of it on the Guinness Storehouse website. Having a passing familiarity with the subject from this answer, I was quite interested in the video on coopering, which was displayed on several screens inside barrels.
Naturally, the tour included a pint of Guinness. I don't like beer in general so if I'd ever had any Guinness before it was just a taste. Anyway, Guinness is really quite palatable, for a beer. I still wouldn't choose it over, say, iced coffee, but if for some reason I absolutely had to drink beer, I'd drink Guinness. I wonder how long I'll survive in Germany with that attitude.
Anyway, it's a good thing I was able to drink the stuff fairly easily, because I wanted to get rid of the glass so I'd have the hand free to take photographs. I was in the Gravity Bar, which is high up, has glass most of the way around, and a great view of the city. Later that night I saw some kind of sports draw being broadcast from that very bar. I like being able to point at the TV and announce, to everyone's annoyance, that I've been there. It's even more fun than pointing at the TV and announcing, to everyone's annoyance, that I'm going there.
Since we couldn't continue our outing on the tour bus, Tony and I had some lunch at The Bank on College Green. I had a traditional homemade Irish stew, which doesn't seem to be mentioned on the menu on their website. It was understandably different from the canned Irish stew I've had at home -- the potatoes weren't chopped up to fit in a can, for one thing.
I toured the old Jameson distillery, and found out how whiskey is made. Much of the process is the same as that for making Guinness, the main difference being that Jameson's whiskey is made in a distillery rather than a Guinness factory, and so it gets distilled.
Tony has been on the tour before so he suggested that I should raise my hand when they ask who likes whiskey at the beginning of the tour, so that I'd be picked to taste-test different whiskeys at the end. That sounded like a good idea to me, although I wasn't at all sure that I did like whiskey, since I'd only ever had it mixed with large quantities of sugar and water. I didn't want to be saying I liked whiskey at the beginning and reacting like somebody who's accidentally bitten into a chili when it came to the taste tests.
As it turned out, I didn't have to pretend to like whiskey... at the beginning of the tour the guide asked explicitly for two men and two women to take part in the taste test. I volunteered.
The tour started with a video about the history of whiskey in general, and Jameson's whiskey in particular. I think I was the only person who laughed at the pun when they said John Jameson had good business acumen and a pioneering spirit. I was definitely the only person to laugh when they mentioned that John Jameson's motto was 'sine metu' meaning, 'without fear'. I was thinking about how much funnier it would be to have the motto, 'without pants'. (See the entry on Killarney.)
After the video the tour guide took us around the distillery. It was good to have a guide to tell us about the place, but due to the number of people and being rushed into the next room it was sometimes difficult to get a good look at things, or good photographs. I stayed behind in most rooms to get pictures but that meant I missed some of what the tour guide was saying. Much of it was familiar to me from the Guinness tour though... malting, milling, fermenting, coopering etc.
There's a good summary of the tour here, and there wouldn't be a lot of point in me repeating it all, especially since I'd be looking at that page to refresh my memory anyway. I'll just add a few subjective observations. The general impression was that it's a lot like making beer. The grain store smelled delicious and the stills looked like giant metal Hershey's kisses.
The guide had a good sense of humour, though I sometimes wonder how tour guides and the like can handle telling the same jokes to group after group. I can only tell the same joke about a hundred times before getting bored of it. Anyway, in one room we were told about how they needed to employ cats to get rid of the rats (or was it mice?), and there was one cat which caught an average of 22 mice (or was it rats?) per day, so to honour its achievement, after it died they had it stuffed and put on display. I have taken a picture of it, although I think that was one of the pictures I wished I'd used the flash for. Anyway, then the guide went on to mention the man who had to carry the sacks of grain up ladders on his back, to get them all piled up something like eight storeys high. We could see some kind of statue of a man climbing a ladder with a sack of grain on his back. So the tour guide goes on about the man in the same way he did about the cat, saying that to honour his achievement, after he died, they (at this point we're supposed to all think they stuffed him and put him on display) made a wax model of him. Well, I guess you had to have been there. I'm only telling this story so you'll wish you'd been there, that way you'll all envy me.
At the end of the tour the four volunteers all sat at a table ready to taste different whiskeys, while everyone else got their measure of Jameson whiskey. There was no trickery about it, we knew what all the brands were, and more importantly, we knew that all the Irish whiskeys were made by the same parent company, so we didn't have to pretend to like Jameson. We tried four different Irish whiskeys, and after each one the guide would ask us what was different about it. Well, actually, he pretty much said things like, 'Now, what did you think of this one, did you find it to be a little more X than the other ones, perhaps a little Y?' and we'd kind of nod in agreement or maybe say something, and he'd announce, 'our testers have said that this one is a little more X, a little Y, if you like.'
The whiskey tasting was neat (well, mixed with a little bit of water to bring out the flavour, actually.) It wasn't so strong that I pulled funnier faces than usual. I found the Jameson whiskey to be pretty flavourless, my favourite was the Powers Gold Label, which happens to be the one most often used in Irish coffees. I guess I'm just a coffee drinker at heart. Two people chose Jamesons and one chose one of the other ones, which I've forgotten the name of. After we'd chosen our favourite Irish whiskeys we had to compare them with a scotch and a bourbon. We were supposed to notice that the scotch tasted smokey due to the malted barley being dried using peat, but I couldn't recognise the smokiness. The last thing we had to do was decide whether we liked our favourite Irish whiskey better than the Scotch or the bourbon, which everybody did. Having made the correct decision the four of us got certificates saying we're qualified Irish whiskey tasters, and more of whichever whiskey we had chosen. I mentioned to somebody that I'm a real scholar now, but he pointed out that perhaps I meant sculler.
On the subject of scholars, the next thing we did was go to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. Before I had finished looking at everything in the exhibition, the place closed, and we had to leave without even browsing the gift shop, but what I saw was still interesting, especially finding out how (and sometimes why) the colour artwork was done. There was no photography allowed, but you can get the general idea from this site.
Chesley
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29 August 2004
Now it's about time I filled you in on my visit to Chesley, the day before I went to Toronto to be missed by my flight. One of the main reasons for going to Chesley was to see Big Bruce, the giant steer. He used to be steered around on a truck (Patricia tells me it was quite surreal seeing his head emerge out of the fog one day) but now he's stuck in the one place.
Chesley has quite a nice fish, but parts have been pulled off. We wandered around a few parks and the Chesley Heritage Trail, and saw the remains of the Krug Brothers & Company Furniture Factory. We saw a few swans along the trail, but they were quite far away and are pretty small in the photographs. Later on we saw some swans eating the grain somebody had left out for them, and I took some nice close-up pictures of them. I've seen plenty of swans before and not felt inclined to take pictures of them, but now that I'm a tourist I take pictures of everything. People from North America probably think it's strange that I take pictures of chipmunks and squirrels since they're so common there. I'm taking pictures of swans for all those people who live in countries where swans don't.
There are many Mennonites in the area, and we saw horse-drawn Mennonite buggies going down the streets in Chesley often. When we stopped to get a drink we saw one parked, so I took a few pictures of it. Later, when we went to buy eggs from some Mennonites, we noticed a duck taking refuge from the sun underneath a buggy, so I took a few pictures of that.
In this film are a few pictures from canoeing which somehow escaped the last entry.
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