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Iberian Spring: Day 13 Barcelona
Soundtrack: “Barcelona”, Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe Final day in Barcelona, last day in the Iberian peninsula. Why is it called the Iberian peninsula? I have no idea, I didn’t get around to googling this, I got bogged down in how Portugal and Spain ended up as two separate countries, and how Catalonia considers itself to be a place all of its own. English history is so much simpler than trying to understand European history. England: we had a bunch of tribes, then the Romans came, then other folks came, some king wasn’t ready, then the French conquered, then some flowers fought each other, then Scotland joined with James the…
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Iberian Spring: Day 9 Madrid
Soundtrack: “Spanish Bombs”, The Clash | “Hieronymous”, The Clouds Today is art day. Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado, or The Prado for short, houses some of the world’s most magnificent paintings by white people. It’s amazing how language translation works, here Prado means things of beauty, while in Australia Prado means ugly faux-tank driven by white people. According to google translate, prado actually translates to meadow, which really neither describes a multi-storey building with over 100 rooms full of priceless artworks, nor a metal box that flattens all in its path, plants or otherwise. (Apparently there used to be a meadow where they built the museum, sometimes the truth is…
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Iberian Spring: Day 6 Seville
Soundtrack: flamenco clapping and stomping For our first full day in Seville we booked a food tour, a mix of culture, history and hopefully good things to eat. We met our guide P under Seville’s controversial Parasol or Setas (mushrooms), a huge wooden structure that dominates one of the old squares. The square has featured a marketplace for hundreds of years, but about 15-20 years ago the authorities decided to jazz the place up, held a competition that was won by a German architect, and the result was an over budget structure now known as the mushrooms. From here we headed off into the market under the mushrooms for a…
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Iberian Spring: Day 0-1; Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Karaburun
Soundtrack: every song by every band about spending time in airports and travelling (on repeat) So it begins again. Having spent 4 months back in the real world of day jobs, traffic, kicking against the pricks and generally just doing what has to be done these days, it’s time to dust off the passport. It’s been a long few months, so this break is very welcome. It’s a crazy old world out there. Flight tracking maps have a couple of vey obvious gaps, and we’re heading right through those to the other side. We’ve had to do some last minute flight changes to keep out of the way, including changing…
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Buns2025: Day 3 – Melbourne > Sydney
Soundtrack: “Best Years of Our Lives” – Richard Clapton Day started on too little sleep, what a surprise. At least part of the late night was me packing, so there would be no last minute panic there. Fortunately the reason for the early morning was to catch up with one of my oldest pals A, who is very particular when it comes to coffee so wherever he picked to meet would be good. He’s also vegan, so while I was guarded about any food recommendations, at least the coffee would be good. His pick was a little coffee and bagle place called Five Points, where a large coffee comes in…
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7NNT: Day 33 – Singapore
Soundtrack: First full day in Singapore, and first priority is sorting laundry so I have enough clean clothes to get me through. I failed to find a laundry service nearby (a mall might have one but I walked around it and couldn’t find the place, I did find a second hand bookshop to check later). Instead I headed for a coin operated DIY facility, it’s sad that it’s come to this, no option to just hand my bag and some money to someone else, this load was all on me. Being Singapore, the coin laundry was clean, everything worked, there was a coin change machine, and the washing machines dispensed…
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@home, 2024 | baltics24, estonia, europe, finland, helsinki, istanbul, latvia, lithuania, riga, tallinn, turkiye, vilnius
Baltics24: Days 19-20 – Istanbul – Home
Home. Not Istanbul, nor Constantinople, nor Byzantium. Not Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm. Just a couch with a dog that has mostly forgiven, and the heater on, because we’d certainly acclimatised to 30 degree weather and are feeling the chill of an otherwise mild Perth winter. The journey home was uneventful, Singapore Airlines generally took care of us well (except for their website stuffing up L’s gf selection, and their online help being next to useless to correct it — Jeshua I’m keeping my eye on you). We bounced through Changi with enough time to grab some duty-free, and it’s good to see Changi airport has a lot more stores…
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Baltics24: Day 16 – Istanbul
I’ll write the second half of day 15 after this, but figure I should get today down while it’s fresh, a few extra hours won’t hurt my memory. I’m also distracted keeping one eye on the absolute shitfest that is England vs Slovakia, it’s currently half time in extra time and JFC it seems that England have finally managed to turn up and remember what that funny white framed net thing at the other end of the pitch is for. It’s been painful to follow. Istanbul (not Constantinople — I promised that would get rehashed often once I got here), or Byzantium if you’re really really damn old. Probably one…
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Baltics24: Day 7 – Tallinn
A full day in Tallinn. Started with the hotel breakfast, which was okay, a bit chaotic as breakfast buffets go, but I was introduced to the Estonian “superfood” kama, a mixture of different flours (generally barley, rye, oat, pea but others could be involved) which was mixed with milk like a smoothie. So a grainy super smoothie or something. We then headed out to the Balti Jaama Turg market, probably Tallinn’s largest daily market, three floors of food, clothes, random stores, and weird bric-a-brac masquerading as “antiques”. The antique corner had a number of crowded stalls, jammed high with everything you could imagine: every shape of glassware, badges, soviet army…
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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 7 Da Nang
A day of exploring the strange wonderland that is Da Nang. After an okay hotel breakfast we took a stroll, the first stop being the Da Nang Cathedral, otherwise known as the pink church. Why is it pink, I don’t know. A quick google didn’t tell me either. It did tell me that the church is around 100 years old, built by the French, and on top of the cross is a chicken weather vane, so the locals also call it the chicken church. Around the walls are a number of images depicting JC in action, and if you thought that western churches had whitewashed his image, in these he…
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Day 18: Fort William, Edinburgh
Welcome to day 18, basically where the Scotland part of this trip starts to wind down, with Edinburgh being the last stop. It kicked off again with waking a little too early, even with the hill the room got bright quite early. Snoozed until it was time to pack and do all the showering things, before heading down to one last attempt by the bnb host to feed me until I exploded. I went with the porridge this morning, because have you really been in Scotland if you haven’t had porridge? Then came the usual cooked goodness and fruit and yogurt, enough to see us through the morning. There was…
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Vietnam the third: Day 6, Sapa
It’ll likely be a short post today (I can hear the sigh of relief over the rain and the rampaging children from here) as, well, we didn’t do much today. Managed 14,500 steps of not much, somehow. We kicked off with the hotel breakfast, nothing too fancy but al least this way I get my daily ration of pink dragonfruit and lychees, along with what is best described as coffee flavoured mud — they keep their pot going strong, but sadly I didn’t find any condensed milk to give it what it really needed. It’s probably the first sign that I’m starting to go bamboo, actually looking to put sugar…
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Vietnam the third: Day 2, Hanoi
Coffee. Vietnam grows and exports a lot of this, though it’s over 90% robusta, the unfashionable cousin to arabica. It’s also starting to drink more of it and develop a bit of a coffee culture, with all manner of chains and little cafes springing up around Hanoi. I don’t recall seeing so many on previous trips, my impression from the first trip in 2014 was that tea was still the king. Coffee, where available, involved a tall glass of ice and a mix of evaporated and condensed milk. Now coffee comes in many varieties. Want a glass full of coconut icecream and coffee? They have that. Want your coffee topped…
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Day 10: Mambo de la Luna: Trinidad, Santa Clara, Cienfuegos, Havana
Our last full day in Cuba. Another wonderful breakfast at the casa before we hit the road. I don’t think I’ve described the breakfasts we’ve been getting, which have all been both substantial and great quality. The usual starter is a bowl or plate of fruit, which has consistently featured mango but can also have guava, pineapple, rock melon, orange, or banana. I’ve been loving the fresh fruit. Then comes some eggs, any way we like, but omelette has been a consistent choice, as we’ve also been given plates of cheese and ham. There’s also usually bread, and today we also had sweet, jam-filled biscuits that looked like dumplings or…
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Day 8: Mambo de la Luna, Camaguey to Trinidad
Historic Camaguey, or Port Principe. The tour started with an old church, including an offer to tour the crypt. I took the tour, hoping to get a glimpse of some relics, maybe a body part of a saint or two, or a chunk of the true cross. Sadly no such luck. They had three rooms open, each with some interesting items. The first had a candle presented to the church by Pope John Paul II, the glasses of a priest that is held in high regard the locals, some other items like 17th century art that has been found under the church. Through a very low doorway into the second…
