getting by

barcelona - the rentals

Got absinthe
Got Gaudi
And I got Jamboree
Got my chicas
Maria, Anna, Monica
And I got Noemi
Got Picasso Blue
And I got the Good Bar Crew
Got Bikkini
And the New York disco
Got surreal Dali
Oh, yeah
Lost and rollin', driftin' loosely on my own through
Barcelona, Barcelona
Catalonia, take over
Barcelona

Got Iberia Got Oveja Negra
Got Zeleste
And the Karma dub
I got the Pipa Club
'a what cha gotta
Got Picasso Blue
Got a senorita too
The Panam's sex show
Got my transvestites
At the Top of the Mountain disco

Lost and rollin', I don't got much to go back to
Lost and rollin', driftin' loosely on my own through
Barcelona, Barcelona
Catalonia, take over

Barcelona

My sweet angel, Barcelona, hide me safely, give me shelter
In a dark place, under assumed name, through Catalonia
Lost and rollin', driftin' loosely, no occupation, Barcelona
The last angel, Barcelona

holiday road. part one

i've been writing this post for the last week. i was going to wait until i was in edinburgh and rach was on the plane and the dream was definitely over to post. but i am impatient when i really like things, and it's long enough already so i will post this unfinished. as part one of however long it takes to tell all the stories we have in our heads about this trip.

in riga we went out for pizza one night, and ordered a garlic bread on the side. what we didn't realise is that they would make it using black bread, not any kind of bread we were used to. it tasted.. interesting. needless to say there was a lot left at the end of the meal. here's a picture.

after driving all night from warsaw to vilinus, i was dying for a pee. the sun hadn't come up and we didn't want to walk to our hotel in the dark, so we stayed at the bus station for a while. there, i had to pay to use the toilet, which i was ok with considering how badly i needed to go. as i walked into the toilet it stunk of urine worse than most public toilets do. i soon realised this because there wasn't actually a toilet for me to sit on, rather a large drain to squat over. suddenly i didn't need to go anymore.

a bit later we found a maccas which had a normal western toilet. after the relief of weeing, i then fell asleep with my head on the table for apparently about 15 minutes. my excuse was that i didn't get much sleep on the bus because with us making up two of the three passengers on board, and given the dodgy backroads we seemed to be travelling along, i was worried about getting murdered in my sleep by one of the two bus drivers. it will forever be known as the day i paid to not go to the toilet.

speaking of warsaw, what a shithole. well the parts of it that we saw were anyway. we had about six hours in warsaw after coming via train from krakow that morning, and waiting for the bus to lithuania in the evening. the bus station was bizarre. full of all these small kebab and hamburger shops that sold beer and had about four places to sit, but then also a couple of pokie machines. we spent most of our time in the 'saw at a big shopping centre we found. the top level had comfy couches and free wifi.

we flew from helsinki to venice with a layover in dusseldorf. well that's what was supposed to happen. as we were landing into germany the pilot advised us, like it ain't even a thing, that because of fog and something broken on the plane, we had landed in cologne and not dusseldorf. lucky the two were only an hour apart [or about 10 minutes on the ice train as we found out a few weeks later travelling between zurich and amsterdam] and the airline bussed us between the two and then gave us vip status and a man to carry our bags to make sure we made our connecting flight.

we learnt two main things from the walking tour we took in tallinn: 1. every building in tallinn is haunted. 2. every single estonian is "…like what the hell." seriously, the danes came and they were like what the hell? then the germans came and they were like what the hell? then the russians came and they were like what the hell? then they won eurovision and they were like what the hell?

the boys in helsinki are delicious. we saw two in particular when we to lunch at an all you can eat thai/sushi joint at a metro station. the one that rach liked was pwning the buffet. he was making that sushi his bitch. the one i liked borrowed and then used all our soy sauce. rude.

our two favourite in-jokes born from the tour, that you will get sick of us mentioning very quickly if you are ever in our combined presence: 1. going to squats to present your work. 2. soup is the perfect accompaniment for a walking tour. allow me to explain further below.

there was this turkish guy staying in our hostel in berlin, and he took a shine to rach, so he was asking her questions about back home and etc. he asked if there were many squats in sydney, and she said that she had no experience in the field, but was sure that they exist. he explained that he liked going to squats to present his work. we're not entirely sure what his work was, however after overhearing a very similar conversation he had with the hostel owner about squats in berlin, we know it requires electricity.

because we're tight, but we like both walking and looking, we've been doing free walking tours in every city that offers one. most are run by new europe, and those ones are three or four hours long, split up usually by a half hour break at a cafe that just so happens to have the best sandwiches in that particular city. it also happens to have a sponsorship deal with the tour company, i'm sure. anyway in prague we stopped at a cafe, and just before we were about to leave, this girl bought soup. and then had to spend the next half of the tour walking around whilst eating/drinking. why the fuck would you buy such messy food when you aren't going to be sitting still?

our hostel in krakow offered free vodka shots. free and vodka are just about my two favourite words in the english language. after we drank all the hostel's vodka, someone made a bottle-o run and even more was consumed. we then hit the town with our new found hostel bff's. we thought we'd be going to a pub, but we ended up at some night clubs. if you know me and rach, you know that we aren't clubbing people. but we were tipsy, so it didn't stop us from giving dancing a red hot go. rach was even lucky enough to booty dance to billy jean with a stereo typical polish boy. skinny, blonde hair gelled to his forehead, clothes from 1991, the works. all i got was some gross british dude on a bucks turn telling me he was going to make me cum all over the floor.

oh yeah, that same night a girl we were staying with spewed into her mouth, then swallowed it back up and continued drinking like nothing had happened. what a champ.

i have mentioned in an earlier post that we went on a walking tour in krakow with a guy called pawel. pawel was a legend. at the meal break he spotted rach's pink shoe laces, and then proceeded to tell us all about the pink themed party he'd held a few weeks before. he said that he was wearing a top that had a pink zipper on the chest, and how "people kept trying to unzip me." this year he had learnt how to dance in the jewish style, and he spent 8 hours dancing at a jewish festival in krakow and broken his shoes. there's a picture on the tour's website of him busting up the jewish dance floor. i want to go back to krakow so i can hang out with pawel some more.

amsterdam was crazy, and we didn't even do much partying because i got sick. the first night we went with some girls we'd met on a tour of the red-light district. afterwards the tour lady took us to a gay bar she frequents for karaoke. feeling a bit adventurous after the beer at the bar and the space cake we'd had that afternoon, i decided i wanted to sing a song. in special dedication to rach even though i didn't know all the words, i sung billy jean. well i didn't end up singing much at all because this crazy african dude came up and started dancing with me, even lifting me jennifer grey in dirty dancing style. i then brought it home by rapping the theme song to the fresh prince of belair. i won a bottle of wine and the admiration of my peers for my efforts.

we had a crazy night in our hostel room one night too. rach and i were both up in the small hours of the morning after napping the evening before, and our other roomies, mike and alex had been out and were high and drunk. the night ended with alex adopting some aussie guy. she showered him for some reason that wasn't ever explained. he was happy that she'd saved his life, and she was happy cause she'd seen his wang. he hung out in our room because people in his room were having sex. so he thought he'd try the same thing on with alex. unfortunately those same people shagging in his room stole his laptop. highlight of the night for me was getting into bed with mike to make him stop snoring, and then rach joined in to keep us company. who knew the top bunk could hold three people?

we're all about sampling the local food. we've had sausages and giant pretzels in germany, strudel in austria, gelatinous potato things in the baltics, deep fried cheese in the czech republic, perogy in poland, pasta and pizza in italy, french fries in belgium, bitteballen in the netherlands, crepes in france and kebabs everywhere. we also had the most incredible frozen meals in zurich. seriously we're talking restaurant quality goulash here. the coke at the supermarket is also the cheapest you'll find in europe at 1.10 swiss francs. my favourite drinks have included a beer in germany that had a refreshing twist of lime, and the house cider at this pub in tallinn. seriously i am going back to tallinn just to have more of that cider.

the escalators at the metro stations in prague go faster than any other escalators i've ever encountered. it's a little bit scary. you have to take a bit of a run up to get on without falling over. the stations, and i guess the metro system itself is quite deep, so the escalators are really long, apparently if you stand still on the longest one, you're on it for a minute and a half. and of course as mentioned in it's own post at the time, when we were on an escalator on our first night in prague, we overheard some girls going in the opposite direction, singing the theme song to the fresh prince of belair. notice a theme?

keep sleeping

i realised that if you don't follow me on facebook or twitter then just like carmen san diego, you might not know where in the world i am. or have been. so here is the full list of cities on our itinerary:

-london
-munich
-salzburg
-prague
-dresden
-berlin
-krakow
-vilnius
-riga
-tallinn
-helsinki
-venice
-florence
-zurich
-amsterdam
-bruges
-paris*
-lyon
-barcelona
-bristol
-cardiff
-edinburgh

* = where we are at the moment.

in england it's morning

just before i was listening to my ipod on shuffle when a neil finn song came on and when he sang "i know where the sun goes, i have seen the world turning" it felt like he was singing it just for me.

i have chased the sunrise around the globe. i have spent the last two months changing time zones. i am a child of the earth. and i know what it's like on the other side. i have finally seen it. i have seen so much.

in belgium, on a train from antwerp to bruges, the conductor checked our tickets and our eurail pass. he didn't say anything to us before inspecting our tickets, but as he handed the eurail pass back he said "you are a long way from home."

we are so far from our little pieces of suburban sydney. but we make europe our home. cities and hostels and single beds become our home for two or three days. then the train is our home for six hours. then we start again in a new city. with new neighbours and new neighbourhoods to discover.

but soon, sydney. i promise soon i will be back within your warm and humid embrace. i will be back to catch your trains, walk down your hilly streets and watch shows at your venues. and i will be back with my people, my friends and my family, once more. and forever.

ill communication

sadly we're almost at the end of our tour, with only two cities to go after this one. and whilst still in good spirits, the batteries are low. way low. i think we did well planning our trip the way we did, so we had the smaller cities at the beginning of the tour, and now the bigger ones at the end. because at the start of the trip we were fresh, and we were getting up early every day and staying out all day. there were lots of places in the first half of the trip that we only really had one full day to explore, so we had to make the most of it and spend the whole day sight seeing.

but it think now we're slower to get out of bed, and don't like staying out for too long. it started in helsinki where we wanted to get up late to avoid having to use the group showers with, err, groups. and then it was so cold and the sun set so early that we were back home by 5 each night or we'd have to do it in the pitch black. and then we got to italy where breakfast was always served till late, and the free dinners served at the hostels that we wished to take advantage of, not served till after 9pm. so we got into a routine of sleeping in that i haven't been able to shake myself out of.

and then i got sick. i had been saying to my mum as far back as the baltics that i could feel myself getting a cold. but i ignored it and kept going and was fine. then after a night out in amsterdam my body shut down and i was the sickest i've been in years. i've never been, apart from when i hurt my back, actually unable to get out of bed. but that day of hell in amsterdam, it took me until 5pm to have a shower. and after that i had used up all my energy, and napped until 8pm.

i'm still not one hundred percent. in bruges i lost my appetite [and my lunch a couple of times] and today we walked up to the basilica at the top of the montmatre and i felt like my lungs were on fire, and i was that out of breath it was like i had just run a marathon. but over all i'm much better than the end of last week in amsterdam.

the impending end of my tour and return to the reality [as crazy as it maybe] of bar work in edinburgh leaves me with three travel goals for the two and a half months i'll have left in the northern hemisphere. i want to go to ireland, specifically belfast to see the murals, to turkey so i can make the pilgrimage to gallipoli on australia day, and back to estonia so i can go ice skating in the square they set up in tallinn.

septic tanks

between leaving krakow and helsinki, we haven't really encountered many other native english speakers. we certainly haven't stayed with many. they've usually been from other baltic states, or strangely in helsinki, all asian. and after two weeks, you kinda miss having the same conversation every time you meet another aussie "where are you from? oh, nice. i'm from campbelltown. yeah, it's not that bad."

but now we're in venice, along with paris probably the biggest tourist destination we'll visit. and we're back in the company of fellow english speakers. it's interesting how as you split the english speakers up by nationality, their reasons for being here and their travel plans vastly differ.

firstly there's the aussies and the kiwis. like us they're all long termers. either they're like me and have been based out of a european city for some time working, and are travelling to break up the trip, or before going home. or they're like rach and are on extended holidays. some people we've talked to have been at it for almost a year. ask any aussie why they come here for so long and they'll give you the same answer. australia is so far from anywhere, and getting here is such a major investment in money and time, that you want to make it worth while and pack in as much as possible. also, we never know when we'll have the opportunity to be back here, so we need to make the most of it while we can.

the brits that we've met are just doing one city at a time for long weekends thanks to ryanair and easyjet. they're usually more keen on getting pissed than sightseeing.

then there's the americans. 95 percent of the americans we've met are in europe on study abroad programs, and are on holidays before exams so they've come to check out near by cities. these study abroad programs aren't the same as the exchange student schemes that we do. they're not studying at a foreign university for a year, where they have to learn the language and acclimatise themselves with the native people and way of studying. rather they are programs offered and run by their university back home. so it's exactly like they were studying in new york or california, but they're just able to say that they're in an exotic location like prague or madrid.

i don't know why these people annoy me so much, but they do. i think it's because it's really obvious that they're all rich kids. their parents have money which has enabled them to stay for extended periods in some of the most beautiful cities in the world, but then they do it in the most sterilised way possible, staying in the safety of their american professors and american friends. and then they get to the hostels that they stay at when they decide to take weekend trips to krakow or venice. and they probably only stay in hostels because they're big enough to sleep everyone in the one room. and they whinge. they complain about having to rent a towel, they complain about having to make the bed, they complain about having to sleep in bunk beds. it's so frustrating. we're zombies after camping out in an airport all night then having our connection all fucked up, and just happy to have a soft bed with no bugs in it, and we have to put up with spoilt american teenagers whinging because there was no valet and daddy isn't here to kill a spider.

on the flip side to all this, our eurail passes are first class. i'm currently typing this out on a train from venice to florence, and they're about to bring around some complimentary wine. so we do get a bit of luxury every now and again.