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Say it slowly tour Day 54: London
Last breakfast at the Bayswater Arms. Have lots to do today, so am here right on opening. Get to help move furniture, set up the outdoor stuff. The manager has been watching marine documentaries, and she’s full of knowledge on killer whales, sharks and stingrays. The plan is huge, but I can do it. I didn’t do it. The list was: Tate Britain, Jellied Eels and possibly a good old east end pie, find bottle of ginger wine, look at other booze, National Gallery, Wallace Collection, catch up with G (and possibly A — if he’s back), work out how to pack everything. What I did was: Tate Britain, jellied…
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Say it slowly tour Day 29: Sarajevo, the bridge downtown / take me to the river
I think it’s day 29 anyway. Had a 12+ hour train ride yesterday, so kind of lost track of things. Am in Sarajevo, staying at a small local guesthouse, the sort you get by turning up at the railway station in a daze and being accosted by a couple of locals. 10 euro a night, hot water, and if they keep force feeding me coffee I may never sleep again. The location is good, too, in the old town, just down from one of the war cemetaries. They were having a big ceremony there today, like a local Rememberance Day or something. There are a lot of graves, not sure…
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Say it slowly tour Day 27: Budapest with a vengeance
I’m still in Budapest, will train to Sarajevo tomorrow. The weather is fairly sunny, a littlle fuzzy cloud cover, the obligatory polution haze, and I’m going to do my absolute best to enjoy today, I’m not going to let anything stop me. Not even my tummy trying for a repeat of Krakow. I wish I could blame it on last night’s feast ala ordinaire, but given the timing suspect it was someting I ate and enjoyed immensely. It’s a cruel world sometimes. So the plan is to head towards north Pest, check out St Stephen’s kirk, find some fine food, do some souvenir shopping (and buy a couple of books…
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Say it slowly tour Day 26: Sunshine on Pest / thoughts on easy and hard travel / Buda, Pest, and all that
Today the sun shines, and I might be able to see more of this place. I’m still pondering where there is any point to staying an extra day — I would like to see more of the place, but am not overly keen my my current digs. Will ponder some more. The Marco Polo Hostel is well promoted, and a member of Hostels International. It’s also a bit like a MacHostel, giving the basics but not much else. I realise that hostels are, by their very nature, the very very low end of the market. But if I look at the Birmingham backpackers, there were private shower cubicles with room…
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Say it slowly tour Day 25: Postcard from Budapest
If Mick Thomas is right, and “there’s no point writing postcards on your bad days”, this is a pretty pointless entry. Last night’s train ride was pretty ordinary. Second class carriages slept six, two rows of bunks three high, in a space a little smaller than the average bathroom. I wasn’t expecting the hilton on rails, but in a space that size, I’d hope the airconditioning worked. It didn’t, I tried to make it work, even got the otherwise underworked conductor guy to have a go. Nope. You’d think that the steamed up windows would give someone a clue? Nope. I managed eventually to prise the window open a little,…
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Say it slowly tour Day 23: Auschwicz-Birkenau
[Warning: opinions may offend] Today I visited the scenes of one of the darkest times in the history of the world. I was led through buildings where, 65 years before me, almost unspeakable acts were committed, where people were worked until they were killed, were subject to cruel and barbaric experimentation, were degraded, tortured and killed. Cruelly, those who were spared this treatment (most of those transported here) were marched off and gassed to death. The tour of Auschwitz took me through rooms of photos and documents, a chamber filled with 2 tonnes of human hair, uncountable numbers of suitcases (including one whose owner was born in 1936 – the…
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Say it slowly tour Day 20: Warsaw, Hades
There is a plane in hell that resembles travelling by Polish rail, second class, surrounded by surly locals, italian and american tourists, and the poor doomed soul is given a standard size backpack. I’m sure there are worse rail experiences, but right now I can’t think of any that I’ve haad, except maybe trying to catch a train from Subiaco oval after a game, or trying to catch a train in Melbourne during a heat wave. Will the next two hours get better? I doubt it. For consolation, I’m probably going to spend that time sweating out last nights vodka, making my travel compartment companions uncomfortable, too. Too small, not…
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Say it slowly tour Day 19: Warsaw, old town, the ghetto
Spent a good chunk of the day wanting to cry. Warsaw hasn’t had the greatest of pasts, and I’m here just in time for the place to mark 70 years since first the Germans, then the Russians, took half of Poland each. I’m in the right month, too. There are a bunch of exhibitions, displays and other informative bits all around the place. Not too surprising, really, given that between 1939 and 1945, the place was practically levelled, a whole lot of people died of very unnatural causes, many more disappeared and most of the population displaced on numerous occasions. Poland got it as bad as anyone during the war,…
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Say it slowly tour Day 17: I’m in Tirana, still / luggage sweep
Today I’m spending the day partaking in the national pastime. I’m sitting in a street cafe, drinking espresso and water, watching the world pass by. I’m actually writing blog posts and postcards, so am probably over doing it by local standards, but what o you expect from a tourist? Brunch was byrek and an icecream, chocolate i think, all for 80 leke. Here the icecreams come in a cone with a plastic shovel/spoon. they are cooling and refreshing, but a little lacking on flavour, i’m yet to find a reallly strong flavour but will try some of the more fruity ones before I go. Ah, all good things come to…
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Say it slowly tour Day 16: Tirana, Kruje, Stuttgart
I’m beginning this entry up a mountain, in a place called kruje, drinking Sprite and waiting for my pizza con prosciutto e funghi. I guess it’s as big a tourist trap that Albania sets; castle ruins, views, pizzerias, souvenir stalls run by friendly, pushy locals. I could be wrong, but again these seem like folks whose friendship extends as far as my wallet. I did have one guy offer me accommodation in his house, and possibly his daughter too, for all i know. I’m getting better at the language and must have all of about 6 words down pat by now. There’s my air conditioned hotel room in Tirana waiting…
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Say it slowly tour Day 14: Tirana, there is no such place
For dinner i went looking for Serenata, recommended by the Lonely Planet. I ended up with Pizza. To cut a long story short, it goes like this: stray cats, stray dogs, long walk, confusing map, wrong turns, wrong side steets, asking for directions, “It is closed”. Then find pizza.
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Say it slowly tour Day 13: Pristina and Tirana, italian efficiency, and no luggage
Was briefly reunited with my luggage at Pristina Airport, long enough to carry it over to the departures terminal to queue for my flight to Tirana. Belle Air are an efficient Italian company, i.e nothing like an efficient German company. The checking desk was a shambles, but at leastm the didn’t charge me for the extra couple of kilos. Had to run to customs, then skipped to the queue for my flight. Showed boarding pass, was then hustled into an outside greenhouse area (it was around 30 in Pristina today) with the other passengers to sweat some. The plane sat about 100 metres off on the tarmac, but would they…
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Say it slowly tour Day 08: Edinburgh, Irn Bru and defying gravity
Woke up feeling better that I probably should have, but maybe it’s one of those things: whisky drunk in Edinburgh during the festival doesn’t give hangovers. it’s a theory anyway. Head a little fuzzy, but nothing that a full breakfast and Irn Bru at the Whiski Bar on the Royal Mile couldn’t fix. Full breakfast wasn’t really full, no black or white pudding, but the bacon was perfect. Admired the whisky menu, too. Then I went off and climbed the Scott monument, all 270 steps or whatever. Rankin calls it a gothic phallic symbol, or something similar. It’s a fair description. Having climbed the Wallace monument, built around the same…
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Say it slowly tour Day 07: Edinburgh, Bobby, Whoosky n Folk
(Posting after a couple of days so please forgive gaps in the old memory.) For research, i bought Ian Rankin’s Knots and Crosses at Birmingham airport. I figured it would be as good a refresher on Edinburgh as anything. It’s a fine read too, a little rough around the edges, but that’s to be expected for an early book. Flew intae Edinburgh, got the shuttle bus into Waverley Station. Things started to look familiar, probably a little more than London did (Parts of London did look familiar, but those were the landmarks that have been put into my head from an early age watching the BBC. Edinburgh’s streets seemed familiar,…
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Say it slowly tour Day 0: Preparation
Welcome to the trip with no name (29/07/2009) As it says. the adventures of a white guy as he takes a couple of months wandering through Europe. From Albania to Zagreb, maybe. The title is ironic, based on the idea that if you go somewhere and can’t speak the language, repeating yourself slowly and louder will make all the difference. Of course, I know this not to be true. I\’m told that trying a few words in the local language goes a long way. Except in Liverpool. Possible itinerary (29/07/2009) Packing list (30/07/2009) Things I’ll be taking… Ramadan (31/07/2009) Realised last night that I’ll be in Albania and Kosovo during…
