Category Archives: city

city, Europe, national park, travel

An awful lot of talking (for me, probably not for some)

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Another airport, another chance to sit down & update these musings. This time it is Madrid Baribas Airport & I am at the end of ten days in Spain. Due to a slight adjustment in my sleeping hours towards what seems to be the Spanish norm & a very intense week I am having a little trouble remembering exactly all that I have done & seen in my brief time here. I do remember that for my first three days (spent in Madrid) the weather was pretty average (by London standards, bad by Madrid standards) – cloud, light rain & cold. First impressions were of the Metro from the airport in to the city – & those impressions have lasted; the Madrid metro has all the good things about it that the metro in Paris has (quick, on time, regular trains, clear & easy to understand maps & signage), but it is also much cleaner & newer & with far fewer beggars. In the central city my hostel was easy to find and about average. I think Thursday afternoon & evening were spent walking around the central city & getting orientated – which is very easy to do & I found plenty of parks, small side streets & hills to keep me interested.

Like most old European cities, the streets are mostly small & twisty – but with some quite wide arterial routes that help one from getting at all lost. I made the mistake of bringing a very good book with me (thanks a lot Neil) – the second in the Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson, where one of the main characters is the most unlikely hero (if you like a good thriller/crime novel with a decent plot, I would do well to recommend these books – that’s for you Dad), so when I got sick of walking around in the gloom it didn’t take much to persuade me to go back to the hostel & read. Madrid of course likes to party, so my few nights at the hostel did not exactly provide me with sound sleep to prepare me for the exhausting week at Vaughan Town.

Back to Madrid, Friday was spent at various galleries & museums. The most famous of which are the Museo Nacional de Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum & the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. The Prado was a great collection of art & is a much more manageable size than the Louvre – a lot of Goya, Raphael, Bosch, Titian & pieces from other Spanish & European artists. My favourite of the three was the Thyssen – the landscapes (my favourite – I get a little sick of endless religious art – Rest on the road to Eygpt, & so on – & portraits of people that I know nothing about) there were fantastic & it wasn’t as crowded as the Prado. I’m still a complete ignoramus when it comes to modern art, so there was little to interest me in the Sofia. My antipathy towards modern art was well reflected by one of the first rooms I went in to in the Sofia – a long room painted in white that had a few slabs of steel of various lengths standing on their long edges. How a room that looks like the guys in the caster have got a little keen with the slab cutter & then done a little extra scarfing can be construed as art is completely beyond me. Steel can be used to great effect in architecture, but slabs are hardly interesting enough to look at as art.

Even Picasso’s Guernica was disappointing – needless to say was the highlight of the Sofia for me was the viewing point of the city from the third or fourth floor. Also that day was a rail museum which were interesting enough considering there was very little translation in to English & my Spanish can generously be described as poor.

A bit of lie in on Saturday, conceding that my book was much better than the weather, before heading to the Palacio Real de Madrid (the royal palace of Madrid). Thanks to my Madrid Card (which is not nearly the great value that the London, New York & Paris Passes have proved to be) I was able to skip the ever-growing queue to get in. Another typical impressive palace, but thankfully not nearly as extravagant or large as Versailles – but pretty fancy all the same.

I also spent a bit of time wandering around some of the many parks & green areas in Madrid, which were very nice considering the drizzle.

That night was a small tapas evening at a bar for the English-speaking volunteers to meet each other before the week of a lot of talking, something I was unsure I was up to but willing to give it a go. It was a little strange to speaking only English in Madrid, but nice to meet people with accents from all over the world. The night continued for a few of us in various other bars & I was back in the hostel late for me, but early by Spanish standards & the curse of “I know I have to get up early to meet some form of transport & so now I can’t sleep” struck & I had very little sleep before dragging myself out of bed & off to meet the coach & most of the rest of the other Anglos I would be spending the week with – one bonus of being kept awake was the conclusion of my book, I’m looking forward to starting the third one & the movie of the first installment that is just being released in English. A pleasant drive through the Spanish countryside for three hours south-west(ish) & we were almost in Portugal before we stopped at the hotel in the National Park that would be our home for the week.

Most of the Spaniards at this particular course work in the hospitality industry & quite a few of them work for the same chain of government owned hotels & know each other; even so I imagine there were quite a few nerves on their part as the program kicked off with introductions from all participants & a basic outline of how the week would work. The whole idea of the program is to improve the English conversation of the Spaniards & get them used to hearing different accents (of which we had quite a few – different parts of England, Glaswegian, Aberdeen, Irish, American, French & my Kiwi one – thankfully, a lot of the more difficult accents for the Spaniards to understand [including mine] had been softened somewhat by travel). We must have had about twenty one-to-one sessions during the week, each of the three meals of the day were at tables of two Anglos & two Spaniards, a few group activities of the team building type & the socialising were all of course in English – it was quite intense for the native English speakers, & was clearly exhausting for the Spaniards who had to think almost every time they said or heard anything. I was surprised that I managed to talk so much, even if I often found myself repeating similar stories to numerous people. Of course, working & growing up in NZ were common subjects (which started to make me a little homesick after the third or fourth time) as well as my trips to Kenya & Canada and also what I was planning on doing in Britain. For me, it was a great way to meet some local people (rather than just being a tourist the whole time), understand the country & culture, & get to know some great people.

Perhaps the most surreal part of the week was during the evening meeting (a chance to perform a song, skit, tell a story or so on) on Monday night when two different groups of people got up & performed Argument Clinic and the Four Yorkshiremen skits made famous by Monty Python. I was slightly annoyed I missed the opportunity to participate in those – the saddest thing would have been that I could have probably done so without a script. These sketches led in to a long discussion at dinner with one of the Spaniards about Python & how well it translates in to Spanish, our favourite movies & lines – that was one conversation I would never had thought I would have! After a couple of grey days, the sun came out for the rest of the week on Tuesday & many of my one-to-ones were spent walking in to the small village close by, or the opposite direction down the road, to escape the confines of the hotel & ward off cabin fever.

We were lucky to be able to do so – apparently the other group were in a much smaller hotel & had a lot of snow & were stuck indoors for most of the week – it may have driven me mad. Bird watching, gypsy jump, castle… bridge. It turned out that just down the road from the hotel was one of the best places in Europe & the world to see various species of birds – vultures, eagles, storks & many others. During another one-to-one, Ricardo drove me down to the Gypsy Jump (the name – from a local legend – given to the two large rocks standing tall either side of a narrow gap in the Rio Tajo – the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula) to spot the vultures – with the aid of some binoculars & Enriques’ powerful monocular we could easily see many vultures flying around & nesting on the rocks; we were also lucky to spot a couple of the less-frequently seen black storks. Another outing was to the small castle (a keep really) on the top of the rocks above the Gypsy Jump that was built by Arabian goodness knows when – the panorama from here was spectacular & it wasn’t all that cold.

On Friday it time for goodbyes & the bus back to Madrid. After a week of way too much food & too little sleep it was nice to get back to Madrid. But of course there was that common drawback of travelling & meeting so many wonderful & interesting people – every silver lining having a cloud & all that – you go your separate ways with no guarantees of crossing paths again, but what happens there remains to be seen. Six of us English speakers found a much quieter hostel than the one I had been in the week before & after a movie for some of us, I was in bed at the comparatively early hour of one o’clock to have the best sleep I had had for some time. Up to see brilliant sunshine, pack up & on the Metro to have brunch with a distant cousin I had never met – our great-grandmothers were sisters, that makes us third cousins (I think). A very pleasant two hours meeting Christine & her roommate & once again eating well too much (not to mention three cups of tea – Christine is British after all) before heading to the airport…

city, engineering, Europe, history, travel

A week in Paris

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So I’m back from seven days in Paris, all the washing is done, I’ve spoken to the family back home, my hair is cut (much needed) & I’m almost over a twenty-four hour cold – time to sit down & try & remember all the wonderful things I saw & did in over the last week. It’s a bit hard to tell, as they are quite different, but Paris may just have knocked New York City off the top of my favourite city list. NYC is a lot more intense & has a lot more energy, on the contrary Paris is generally pretty relaxed & the whole place is just beautiful & there is so much history & culture (chockas!).

Anywho, a nice simple & quick trip to Paris Gare du Nord on Eurostar – sort of odd to think that one is underneath the English Channel for twenty-odd minutes. The change from English to French countryside after the stretch of darkness was immediately noticeable. The hostel I stayed at for the week was easy to find about four Metro stops north-east of the train station & right on a canal. I was still unpacking my gear when I strangely familiar face walked in to the room – the Te Puke connection strikes again! Alastair was two years behind me through primary school at Fairhaven (in Adele’s year) & I went through school with his older sister – needless to say I was quite surprised to see him in the same hostel room as me in Paris. He had just arrived from NZ & was off to play centre for a French rugby club somewhere out of Paris. After that excitement & a quick meal, it was off to see that most famous of Paris icons – the Eiffel Tower. Quite beautiful lit up at night it was & good to get a view of the city from the top – I was surprised at just how flat the place is. For some reason, I thought that the tower was grey & steel coloured; I was intrigued to find it is painted bronze. Quite an achievement for the late nineteenth century – especially when it was only three years from conception to completion.

Friday morning it was off to Invalides to check out Musee de l’ Armee (the Army Museum). This started off by visiting Napoleon’s tomb inside the impressive Dome Church. It’s quite a massive tomb in the basement directly under an impressive dome.

There were also the tombs of one of Napoleon’s brothers & some other notables. The bits of the musuem I could understand were quite interesting (thankfully the English translation was through most of the displays) – especially the display going from France’s defeat by Germany in 1871 through to the invasion of France at the end of World War II. It was nice to get a different take on the events of the first half of the twentieth century & also to learn a bit about of Free France Forces. My history got a good brush-up with the exhibit detailing of the military events around France’s first days as a republic until the monarchy came back after Napoleon’s exile. Being in Paris, the museum was housed in an impressive & large building – I’m not sure what was going on, but there was some event in the courtyard with a lot of parading military types & a military band playing. Upstairs in the attic of one wing of the building was an extensive collection of scale relief models of different towns & forts of France from 1668 to 1875 in the Musee des Plans-relief. It was a curious collection founded by Louis XIV to get an idea of what his troops were up to & where they were stationed – impressive in it vastness & detail.

After all that history I wanted to explore a little of the current city, so walked & Metro’d around a bit until I got to Montparnasse Tower – one of the few skyscrapers in Paris outside of La Defense business district (which is a fair way from the centre of the city & in Zone 3 of the Metro). The viewing platforms at 56 & 59 stories gave great views of the city on what was another typical (of the week) brilliantly sunny & warm autumn day. Unlike last night’s Eiffel Tower visit, I got a good appreciation of the city layout & just where such landmarks such as Notre Dame, the Pantheon, Arc de Triomphe, & the Louvre really were.

Somewhere in here I popped in to the Postal Museum, but that wasn’t too interesting as it was all in French & I had no idea what it was all about. Went down to the Louvre to check out the building & park close by, was there at sunset:

After a bit of an early morning stroll around the local area went to check out the Pantheon. Built by Louis XV in memory of Saint Genevieve in the later half of the eighteenth century it has spent alternate periods of its life as a house of Christian worship & secular use. It has been in secular use since the funeral of Victor Hugo in 1885 & holds the tombs of some of France’s most famous – Hugo, Dumas, Voltaire, Braille, the Curies (Marie being the first women entombed here). It’s another grand building & interestingly from its dome hangs Foucault’s pendulum. The pendulum was first installed in 1851 to prove the earth’s rotation.

A deceptively long walk down a slight hill & over half of the Seine & I was at Notre Dame – had a brief visit underneath the square in front of the cathedral to the crypt. It shows rooms & foundations of the city from the Medieval & Classical Ages. Due to the huge lines waiting to go in to & up the cathedral, I skipped Notre Dame & went to the other end of the small island to check out the Conciergerie & Sainte-Chapelle.

The Conciergerie started out as a palace many centuries ago, became a palace & a prison and when the royal family left it became more of a prison than a palace until it was eventually just a prison. It was used by the Revolutionary Tribunal & many dissidents were held & guillotined there – some of the more famous ‘residents’ include Marie-Antoinette & Robespierre.

Almost next door is Sainte-Chapelle built in the 1240s for the eventual Saint Louis to house the relics of the Passion. It’s a very grand Gothic chapel & I was intrigued by its relatively small footprint, in relation to its very tall walls. The walls, especially on the top of the two stories are filled with massive stained-glass windows – some of which have been recently restored.

Leaving the centre of the city I was off to the Musee des Arts et Metiers, which is a large museum of innovations & invention. I spent quite a bit of time in the exhibits at the start of the museum that concerned measuring the world & the industrialisation of process. Particularly neat were Lavosier’s laboratory (he worked out the chemical composition of water & is considered by many to be the father of modern chemistry) & the ironmaking, steelmaking & rolling mill models & very good history of the these processes. The blast furnace model was very good & it was good to learn that tuyere is a French word – it always seemed an unusual word to me, but it makes a bit more sense now that I think about it.

A quick whizz around the rest of the museum as it was close to closing time – more good exhibits & models of construction techniques through the ages, communication, energy, mechanics (I think my grandfather would have particularly enjoyed all the gears & machines in here) & transport. They even had the original ball from Focault’s Pendulum (the one swinging in the Pantheon is a replica). The Musee national d’art Modern’e was open late, so I took a look around. It is housed in a suitably modern building, & although it had some good pieces in it – I once again showed my general disinterest & lack of appreciation of modern ‘art’. Wonderful onion soup for dinner (big hunk of cheesy bread floating on the top) & a nicely tender & tasty stew as well.

I managed to get to Notre Dame before opening on Sunday morning & be in the second group up to the towers. It’s a bit of a dizzying climb up spiral staircases to sixty-nine metres – but the view is worth it. The towers and carving are pretty neat as well – as is the mammoth “Emmanuel” bell which has a mass of over 13000 kilograms! The panorama of Paris was spectacular – is funny how you don’t have to get very high in Paris to get a great view of all the old buildings & the monuments. Down from the towers, I popped in to the cathedral with hordes of tourist while Sunday morning mass was taking place – the congregation seated in the centre of the cathedral & the tourists wandering around the periphery. The air was heavy with overpowering frankincense – this is only really of interest to me & Trish as we recently finished watching the BBC series on the frankincense trail.

From here I made my way to the Musee d’Orsay – housed in a big old, but renovated, railway station; the station had been built for the 1900 Exhibition so is a work of art itself.

This gallery quickly became my favourite so far & still remains one of the best that I visited during my stay. It displays work from mid nineteenth century to the eve of the Great War & holds a lot of Impressionist, pre- & post-Impressionist, Naturalist and Academism works – not that I can really pretend to know much of the difference. Monet’s works were, as expected very good; I also enjoyed works by Signac & Detaille, and saw Whistler’s famous old woman sitting on a chair. This polar bear is for Uncle Geoff:

In a departure from all the galleries & fabulous buildings, my next port of call was Musee des Egouts de Paris – a museum of the Paris sewer system. It was of course the engineer in me prompting me to visit these dark & slightly whiffy tunnels under the city – only a slight unpleasant odour, much better than those unforgettable field-trips. Paris seems quite proud of their sewer system & I begun to see why. The 2100 km of tunnels not only transport wastewater (storm water & sewage seems to be mixed), but the tunnels are so large & go to so much of the city they also carry the potable & non-potable water supplies, phone cables, fibre optics & compressed air; the only don’t carry electricity & gas because of the fire risk. Geek that I am, I was of course fascinated by the small glimpse at this large network that has been around for over a century. There were all sorts of ingenious mechanical means that they had invented for clearing the bottom of the channels of silt & sand – this is a giant iron ball (slightly smaller than the cross section of the tunnel) that moves slowly down the sewer, of course backing up the flow behind it & the extra pressure displaces the sediment.

It was a pleasant walk along the Seine to the Maritime Museum past the Eiffel Tower again – these were the best looking bikes I saw all week. Admittedly, not all that practical; but compared to all the commuter bikes that are around – these were the closest to mountain-bikes I had seen for some time.

The Maritime Museum was not all that great – probably because it was mostly in French, unlike a lot of other museums which are tri-lingual at least, & also it had to compete with the British Maritime Museum which is excellent & I had been to only a week prior. There was this Imperial barge:

Off on the Metro to La Defense, I took the #1 Line to the end – these must be the newest trains on the Metro – they were noticeably faster, you didn’t have to release the doors manually (after the driver had unlocked them – you can’t just open the door on a moving carriage) & you could see right down the train from one end to the other – it’s really just one big carriage. While on the subject of the Metro – it was great. The trains were regular, quick, comfortable, there were no delays, the map & signage was easily understood (even though it was in French), you didn’t have to scan your ticket/card to get out & there were stations everywhere – Parisians are rightfully proud of it.

At La Defense I went up the Grande Arche, which is twenty years old & sits at the end of the “Historic Axis of Paris” – a straight line from the Louvre, through the Pyramide de Pei, the Arc du Carrousel, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Place de la Concorde, Champs Elysees, & the Arc de Triomphe up to Grande Arche. Really it is a hollow 110m cube, with the two side full of offices & the top floor a viewing deck & exhibition space. Yet another different, but good, view was to be had of Paris and pleasingly & surprisingly there was a computer museum at the top. It had some wonderful artefacts (it’s funny calling things only ten to twenty years old such, but that’s the speed of development) – right from punch card makers & readers, through one of those wonderful computers from the ’60s that fill an entire room, the vast range of PCs that started to proliferate through the ’80s & things that even I recognise from school in the ’90s (still didn’t see Carmen San Diego though). In a side room, there was also an exhibition of Macs from the last three decades – fascinating. I may be a nerd, but am not all that much of computer-geek – but it was still a very different museum to most I have seen & was excellent.

With it being so obvious from the top of the Grande Arche, the Arc de Triomphe was the next obvious place to visit. It may not have been as tall as some of the other towers, but it was all stairs to the top & the spiral sure went for a long way without interruption.

I managed to arrive at the right time to see the lighting of the flame for the Unknown Soldier of World War I – the small exhibit upstairs (I wasn’t expecting there to be so much room inside the structure) proved a little bit of a distraction before heading up the last few stairs to the roof & once again there was another vista of Paris before my eyes. Looking straight down the Champs Elysees,

It was easy to work out where I was going to wander next – all the way down to the Concorde (a gift from Egypt once upon a time).

Just as well it was all gradually downhill – it was a long way; I was surprised that most of the Champs Elysees was so built up, I was expecting it to be more open. Eventually it opened up to a small park near the bottom.

On Monday, I was keen to get away from the centre of the city, so went out to the end of 13 line (north of the city) to visit the Basilica Cathedral of Saint Denis (“there’s some lovely filth down here”), who was apparently martyred on this site around 250 AD. Parts of the current cathedral have been around since the fifth century & most of the kings & queens of France have been buried there since the sixth century. There are plenty of recumbent statues & all sorts of crypts – the remains of Louis XVI & Marie-Antoinette are here, moved there by Louis XVIII – the last king to be buried there in 1824.

Changing Metro lines a bit, I found myself climbing what must be the only hill in Paris. At the top was quite a touristy with a lot of outdoor cafes crowded around a small square & it was one of the only places I saw artists trying to convince people to sit for portraits & caricatures. I was up there to go the Salvador Dali Museum; it was quite small & I was surprised at how much I liked it. There were a lot of interesting paintings, sketches & sculptures, especially the melted clocks.

There is of course a big church (Sacre Coeur) on the top of the hill & on the steps in front there were plenty of street performers & spectators – & even a bride & groom (not an uncommon sight in various public places around the city).

From the bottom of this great park (with its own spectacular view of Paris) it was a bit of a walk back to the Metro & I walked to one more stop to see the Moulin Rouge – passing through a rather seedy looking stretch of road on the way. Took the obligatory photo & went back to the Concorde for, surprise, another museum. This one, the Musee de l’Orangerie is quite a lot smaller that some of the more famous museums & was chosen & arranged by Monet. The top floor is dedicated to two large rooms displaying Monet’s spectacular “Water-lillies”. Downstairs in the basement there are many more pieces; my particular favourites were Renoir & Derain.

More Metro-riding & I was at the Musee du Cinema – quite a small museum, but with a good audio-commentary explaining the development of the technology & art of cinema; the most notable thing on display (to me) was Norman Bates’ mother’s head, which was a gift from Hitchcock to the museum. By now I was quite weary & headed back home for another good meal & rest.

By now I was getting a bit exhausted from all the walking & excitement, so Tuesday started off with just a ride to a Metro stop one station away to one of the best science museums in the world – Cite des Science & de L’industrie. It is housed in a large, new building near the same canal that runs adjacent to the hostel, with a rather strange looking reflective sphere sitting in a vast lawn next a beached submarine.

The museum started off well with a very good exhibit about innovation & taking ideas to market, & there was also a very informative section on epidemics – which I strongly suspect was put together before swine flu raised its head & snorted rather loudly. But apart from that, the rest of the place was quite disappointing, partly due to the exhibits being rather old & tired & the English translation rather poor (for the record, the best translation at a museum was at Musee des Arts et Metiers – it was clear & without strange turns of phrase that took time to decipher). I was however pleased to have a poke around a submarine from the ’50s. It was, by today’s standards quite small, diesel powered, carried a crew of forty & an arsenal of eight torpedoes. A pleasant stroll in the sun along the canal for a short break at the hostel before heading off to the Picasso museum – which, it turned out, is closed for a couple of years for refurbishment. I did stumble across the Musee Carnavalet – I never worked out exactly what the theme of the museum was as there was little translation, but it did have a big section on the Revolution & was a maze of a place & over all quite large considering it was on what I thought was quite a small block. It was quite close to the Bastille, which I was quite keen to see, but there doesn’t seem to be much left of the famous prison. Due to my weary feet I spent an hour sitting down on a boat on a cruise up the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.

My last full day in Paris, Wednesday, I had planned a tour of the Opera House, some wine-tasting & then on to the Louvre. But in the end I couldn’t bring myself to leave Paris without visiting the famous palace at Versailles. So I was out with many others walking from the train station up towards the palace shortly before eleven. It was great to finally visit such a place with such an interesting history (Fifth-form History was of course where I first heard of Versailles – curiously, I did not see a single mention of the treaty that set such a disturbing & tragic ball rolling). The whole place was just exquisite & as happens in the occasional place, I walked around conscious that my mouth was half-open in amazement. No matter how many photos I put up here, I still don’t think I’d be able to convey the grandeur of the place; so I’ll stick to one of the chapel & one of the Hall of Mirrors.

Overall, there were huge paintings, sumptuous decorations & furnishings, marble columns; in some ways it was easy to get an inkling of perhaps why the monarchy was overthrown – just so opulent & completely over the top, quite incredible. After all the exhibits indoors to go around, it was time for a stroll around the gardens. If the palace was big, the gardens are just massive; actually, looking back at the palace from the gardens, the palace didn’t look as big & as impressive as I always thought it was from various photos – perhaps I was just not in the right place to get the best perspective. The beauty of the large gardens was that it was very easy to escape the crowds & find a little peace & quiet.

Still, there was a lot of walking to be done to get down to the comparatively small, but still very big, houses – Grand Trianon & Petit Tianon. The Grand Trianon was built for Louis XIV to be able to escape to the far end of the park at Versailles; it also had a wonderfully fragrant garden. It was all slightly uphill to get back the town to grab a late lunch & the train back to the Louvre.

Thankfully, Wednesday is one of the late nights at the Louvre so I had plenty of time to get around most of it. Once again, I was aware of walking around with my mouth open at times. It was hard to know whether to be more impressed by the building or the collections; with both being vast (to say the least), the shear size of the collection was staggering & is what the Louvre is most famous for, despite being a very large former palace. (As for the pyramid, it has great function – but looks out of place in the courtyard & I didn’t really like it.) The sculptures

& vast collections of Etruscan, Mesopotamian, Iranian, Egyptian & Greek artefacts was incredible (how does one collect so many items?).

And then there were the paintings; I’m a bit lost for words about them. After hearing occasionally that the Mona Lisa is a lot smaller than one expects, I was surprised to find she was a lot larger than I thought she would be. It was also pretty easy to get close to her (although I was surprised at how many Indians came up to me elsewhere in the museum asking for directions to the most famous of paintings); actually, there were masses of people around, but the place is so big it wasn’t a problem anywhere – I’m just glad I came to Paris at the end of September & not the height of the summer holidays.

After two incredible palaces in one day, my feet were aching a bit too much so I was happy to hop on the Metro again & head back out to the hostel & then out to grab a bite to eat (first time I remember being the only diner in a restaurant – it’s a little odd; I’m used to not having conversation when I’m dining, but to have no conversation around the whole restaurant is a little strange).

I was hoping for a nice sleep in on my last day as check-out was at ten & my train didn’t leave until mid-afternoon; but that was not to be – however, it was nice to have a chat to someone with a Kiwi accent over dinner & share travel stories. With a few hours to kill, I left my luggage at the hostel & headed in to town to check out a couple of buildings I had seen from a distance. Here is the Assemble Nationale, outside which a young woman tried to pull the “I just found this wedding band on the pavement, is it yours?” in broken English on me. As I was walking away from my photograph taking, she picked a massive wedding band off the pavement, asked me if it was mine, then tried to give it to me as it didn’t fit her (not surprising – it was huge) & then asked me for some money. That was strange enough, but as I was crossing the road & still thinking about what had just happened another guy came up & tried to pull the same trick – I just had to laugh & tell him there was another ring on the other side of the road if he wanted that too. A bit more walking around, stumbled across a lot more fancy-pants shops than I had seen, got back to the opera house & then had had enough & took off back to the hostel.

After another quick & uneventful trip back on the Eurostar (I did manage to read most of a very interesting book on Captain Bligh of the Bounty), I was back in London & on the Tube listening to the PA apologising for the delays going in to Aldgate – typical.

city, travel, UK

Rebus & the Ta-too

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This must be about my fifth or sixth day in Edinburgh by now & I am pleased to report that yesterday it didn’t rain once! It’s a little like Auckland in that it seems to try & rain at least once a day – not much & often only drizzle, but precipitation all the same. It’s also decidedly cool – but I expected as much & have found it pleasant. Thomas’ flat is about twenty-five minutes walk from the centre of the city, so I’ve been doing the return trip once or twice a day in a bid keep some semblance of fitness – at least that’s the excuse I give for the big sleep-ins (doesn’t make much sense as I write it).

The first day in town was a very domestic day, with a walk in to town to have a look around & get orientated – masses of people around of course for all the festivals & street performers tend to attract large crowds of course. The last few days have been a mixture of wandering around checking out this wonderful city, its architecture,

windy cobbled streets & closes, street performers,

a bit of stand-up & some Rebus walking tours. I have a new appreciation of just how hard stand-up can be after seeing four acts in one day – only one of them really made me laugh. And that was probably because I’m a geek – it was called “Control Alt Delete” & was pretty much about computers & being a computer nerd. Admittedly, I only learnt to write in one language (C in case anyone is interested) & not the eighteen that the comedian had learnt in his previous life – so can’t really claim to be a computer nerd, but I’m still enough of a geek to have found the show funny.

I love how Edinburgh Castle can suddenly come in to view when you are wandering around the city – you see it down a skinny alley way, over the top of a building & so on. This photo taken from the top of the National Museum of Scotland.

I then went to see a Kiwi comedian, just to hear the accent really – the title, “Life after Divorce”, didn’t do much for me; it was nice to hear the accent, but it was a real struggle for the guy. There were only six in the audience, he paced a lot over a small spot (I hate this) & was sweating when he couldn’t get much out of us; I think it would have been better titled “How crap life was when I was married”, as he talked a lot more about this than post-divorce. The best part of the whole act was a young guy in the audience spoke up in a broad Scottish accent – “is it always this bad?”. That was pretty funny, we then got in to a discussion of why it wasn’t working & how unfunny it was – very bizarre. Also popped along & saw Raybon Kan (because I had heard of him) – he had a better audience, with a fair smattering of Kiwis, in a small sauna of a room; he was much better, but like the previous guy seemed to like beating up on people. I’ve had a few days off comedy, but tonight off to one that should be better.

As I was half through the Rebus novel I picked up for three quid in Cornwall, yesterday I went & did a couple of Rebus walking tours (didn’t have time to do them last year). As these novels sparked my love of Edinburgh & its history I was pleased to be able to be shown around some of many places described & pick up other snippets of history. I crammed two tours into the same day as it was a beautiful sunny day & I didn’t know if this would happen again. After four hours of walking around, I was a little sick of it – but got home to cook a nice steak up & prepare for the tattoo (which really just meant put on as much Icebreaker & other warm clothes I’d bothered to bring up from London).

The Tattoo had sold out many months ago when I started thinking of coming to Edinburgh for the end of August. So I was particularly pleased, stoked in fact, to get a return ticket for the late Saturday night show (this one has fireworks too) in a good seat at the end. I went along thinking that this would be one thing to cross off the list (it’s a figurative list) & not go again; I left thinking that I would love to come back & see it again another year – it was fantastic. The rain stayed away, the castle is a wonderful back drop (the light show & animation projected on to the castle ramparts was impressive, I thought) & music & choreography of all the different performers was incredible. The compère did a good job of getting the crowd warmed up (my NZ cheer was rather pathetic compared to all the Americans behind me) & he quaintly pronounced ‘tattoo’ as ‘ta-too’ (& on a trivial note, welcomed the guest of honour – General Petraeus of US Central Command). The show started off with ten different Highland bands strutting their stuff (one of the bands was from the Auckland Police) & it was great. The groups from Tonga & then China were obviously quite different, great. The two consecutive Swiss groups were one of the highlights of the night. The first was a band from the Swiss Army (conscription must really help the recruiting for band members) & they were well choreographed, had brass instruments as well & played a pretty cool part of “Hey Jude” that had everyone singing along. The second group for Switzerland was the Top Secret Drum Corps from Basel – a group of about twenty drummers & flag-bearers. Their drumming was like nothing I had seen before – the climax of it (coming after twelve or so had stood in a line beating each others’ drums & swapping drumsticks by throwing them at each other, all the while keeping a magnificent beat going) was when the lights dimmed & the drummers some how ended up with flaming drumsticks – the visual side to this part of the performance was quite something to add to the audial experience; I was conscious that my mouth was wide open in wonder for much of their performance. As is so often the case, my words don’t really do justice to the whole event. The show closed with all the performers on stage & pretty good fireworks display.

And I’ve forgotten to put the photos in the text, so here is a bunch from the last few days (yes, I could go & put them in the text, but I can’t be bothered).

city, friends, history, USA, vehicles

A roundabout route to DC

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Currently, I’m sitting on my first (& probably last for some time) Amtrak train returning to Philadelphia after my small trip over the last week. The trip to San Diego was really just an exercise in medium distance travel – almost two hours of train travelling to PHL & eight hours of flying & stopovers & I arrived in San Diego & back to the heat (thankfully not the 106 that it was in Phoenix when I changed planes). Kindly, Beverley picked me up from the airport & it was back to La Jolla. Nice to catch up with the Turners that were home – Anna-Marie had returned from a month or so in Europe the previous day. As the Turners had a foreign student staying for a while & both girls home, I was relegated to sleeping on the couch in the lounge – just as I was going to bed Andrea wandered in from opening day at the races, so that necissated a catch up & talk about tomorrow’s testimony. After all that travelling, I thought I would sleep, but it wasn’t really the case; I must have had two or three hours of sleep. Up at six, as it was light & Beverley was up, & ready for our date in court at eight o’clock.

After Andrea handing & me studying my summons, the three of us (Anna-Marie was persuaded that she should get up & come too) were off to court. It was of course a big anti-climax – we sat in a waiting room while our case was assigned a courtroom & judge; it was quite annoying that I had my iPod in my pocket, but no earphones – so I had to settle for staring at the walls & reading year old magazines for the best part of two hours. Eventually we had a courtroom & we walked a very long way through the building & then through the next one to find it & the DA & detective met us there. After all that, the three defendants saw the writing on the wall (as the DA had managed to get five witnesses & countless police testimonies together) and they all pleaded guilty. It took a bit more waiting in a corridor for this to be confirmed & the paper work done. So in some ways I had travelled all the way across the States to sit & wait for three hours, just to go home. On the other hand, it was a good to get a result & it’s one less thing for us to think about & hopefully Andrea will be able to go back to plan one & go to Costa Rica to live. After leaving the courthouse, the girls took me down to the SDPC HQ & I got my stolen money back (finally) – the lost/recovered property & evidence room in the basement of the headquarters was massive (I think it covered an entire city block). It’s a short drive from downtown to SAN, so the girls dropped me off at the airport & I was off again cross-country.

The trip was uneventful, but from Vegas to DC I was stuck between the window of a 737 & one of those wonderful people who are intent on sharing your seat with you & spill over the armrest – just as well I have no discernible upper body presence. Due to a change of planes in Vegas, we were well late getting in to Dulles – but Adam & Jen (the friends I stayed with in DC – Adam is a Te Puke friend from way back) faithfully met me & they only live ten or fifteen minutes from Dulles – so in bed by two in the morning, fantastic (at least I was back in the same time zone as I had been thirty-six hours before).

Wonderfully, I didn’t get up until 10.30 & proceeded to do not a lot the rest of the morning. After lunch, Adam & I decided to go back to Dulles as the National Air & Space Museum (a Smithsonian museum) has another site out there (the main one is on The Mall in DC). This site consisted of a huge hangar filled with all sorts of aircraft & a sizeable tower that you could go up to get a great view of the airport & the surrounding area.

Also there was a air traffic control exhibit on the floor below the observation deck – as well as the display, an interesting part was the live audio & radar feed from Newark airport. Of course there were all sorts of planes & other aircraft – the highlights were a Air France Concorde (it fitted across the width of the hangar),

Enterprise space shuttle,

SR-71 Blackbird (it once flew from LA to DC in sixty-four minutes & then promptly was transferred to the museum)

& the Enola Gay (the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima).

We managed to cover most of the hangar in detail, before having to leave to meet Jen & some of her workmates for Friday happy hour. It was at some Italian restaurant that had great pizza & twenty buck carafes of sangria – I rated the pizza, but the sangria went down pretty well (at least judging by how quickly some of the glasses were emptied) too. It was a great group of people & conversation & the couple of hours passed quickly.

Afterwards we had a few options when some of the group dissipated – five of use went around to Dave’s & tried our hands & voices at Guitar Hero World Tour. On the way, I had my first ride in an American muscle car in America – Dave’s Corvette, of course we had to put the top down. I had never played Guitar Hero before & it showed – as well as my complete lack of timing & musical ability. I was able to play the guitar to some level eventually & sing a little bit – but the drums completely evaded me. That may have been something to do with the red I was drinking – I found later in the night, that it wasn’t just me that though it tasted bad (beef jerky apparently) – but after two, who can tell & who cares? Somehow it was two o’clock before we got home & I went to bed – nevermind, a great evening & I learnt some new songs.

Another big sleep in on Saturday – I don’t recall doing too much for most of the day or perhaps I recall doing not much for most of the day. The last few days’ travelling & late nights had caught up with me & it was nice to sit around on the couch watching TV or Blackadder & napping. Plus it was very hot & humid outside so the chilled townhouse was a pleasant alternative to that. Did get my first visit to Trader Joe’s – a great variety of food there, a pity all the NZ wines were big names & for some reason the only NZ cheese on offer was some no name cheddar (it’s the single most popular cheese in the world!) – if you are going to import NZ cheese, why would you choose cheddar?! A big thunderstorm came from somewhere late in the afternoon – but that didn’t change our plans of heading to see the monuments after dinner (I’m told that they are better by night). When we got in to town it was still raining, but jackets & umbrellas were more than enough to ward off the moisture – the rain had the added bonus of scaring some of the tourists away. Saw most of the monuments – Lincoln,

Vietnam, WWII,

Washington (the two red navigation lights on top remind me of The Blackadder – Witchsmeller Pursuivant) , Korean

& Jefferson. It seems a bit strange picking favourites, but the WWII & Korean were mine.

Sunday was another good sleep in – we just had to get up in time for brunch in Reston town centre with another couple of Adam & Jen’s friends – Eric & Amy. Eric & Amy being long time locals, they know all the best places. For thirty five bucks we got a huge buffet & were supposed to fit a entre off the menu in somewhere. Of course we ate too much of buffet (the desserts were fantastic; I managed to get kiwifruit, boysenberries & blueberries to make the full Willingale Orchard complement), so by the time we tactfully ordered our entrees, we were too full to fit them in & just took them home for dinner. Another nice nap & we were off to check out the Marines Corps/Iwo Jima monument

– another pretty good one & then a nice walk to burn some of the brunch through Arlington Cemetery.

Saw JFK & family’s graves & the Tomb of the Unknowns.

The changing of the guard (that we managed to stumble on at the correct time) was pretty good – quite simple & with lot of clicking/banging of heels. Back home for my paella & then it was Transformers on DVD – a favourite of Adam & Jen’s but I hadn’t seen it. Was pleasantly surprised by the humour & action (I’m easily pleased). Also balanced the bearded lizard on my shoulder.

Six-thirty was a bit of a shock to get up on Monday morning to head in to DC to check out a few of the other sights. I think I was in town before nine & wandered from the Metro to check out the White House. Good to finally see it in the flesh, but funnily enough no real surprises – I knew it would be small. It appeared a lot smaller than it would have if the turf in front was managed properly.

We had hardly had any rain over the weekend & the park in front was sodden – very poor drainage. I was not much more impressed by The Mall – the grass & patches of dirt were a mess. After walking around the Washington Monument (flags at half mast everywhere – apparently the anniversary of the end of the Korean War),

it was off to the Holocaust Museum. Much as I expected – well done & quite sobering, plenty of artefacts from Germany & Poland & Czechoslovakia to help illustrate the awful truth.

By now it was noon & after another disappointing hotdog from a street vendor conveniently placed to sucker tourists like me I checked out the science & transport parts of the Museum of American History. Some good parts, but mostly didn’t really do much for me. Then off to the Air & Space Museum – ultra popular & crowded. The place was in desperate need of the exhibits, more the explanations, having a makeover. The crowds were too much for me – but a very good exhibit on the Wilbur & Orville Wright and all the experiments they went through with gliders & windtunnels & aeronautical engineering; also got to go in a 747 cockpit (it was really old). As there was not as much space in this facility as at Dulles, there were not nearly as cool exhibits. I was quite impressed by the Capitol building,

walked around it to see the Supreme Court

& then was amazed by the Library of Congress (Jefferson Building) – had to go in the largest library in the world of course. A tiring day on the feet, but very cool over the last few days to see so many places that I have read about in thrillers, seen on TV & in movies. Back home on the Metro (which is very clean & well signposted – pity about the crash on the Red Line a few weeks ago) & Adam & I decided to go & see Transformers 2. The movie was better than I was expecting (but who takes infants to a movie at 8pm? In a small, almost empty cinema they were so annoying & the parents next to useless) & I was quite pleased to see sights in NYC that I just been to the top of or walked across, then shots across the The Mall & low & behold a whole scene in the Air & Space Museum at Dulles. It was – “I saw that plane, & that plane, & that plane too, walked along there, walked up those stairs, saw that plane & that one too” – very fun; a shame our schedule (or is that sked-ule?) did not fit seeing the film at the Imax at the museum – that would have been quite a coincidence.

Tuesday morning was pack up, say goodbye & thanks a bunch to Adam & Jen, on the Metro & in to DC. Had a few hours to kill before my train, so went around the International Spy Museum & enjoyed it immensely.