TRAVEL & OTHER TRANSIENT THINGS

Sunday, 05 July 2009

  • Back to work!

    After two weeks of a whirlwind family holiday that swept from the galleries of the National Gallery, to the wooden benches of the Globe, to the glimmering waters of the Lake District, through the windswept mountains and heather-filled moors of Scotland, past the Gothic spires and medieval closes of Edinburgh, back to the crowded seats of the West End and crawl of human bodies on Oxford Street - I have to head back to work. 

    Tomorrow, actually. Perish the thought! 

    I'll be honest. I'm looking forward to earning some money. But I wish I had more time to spend with the family - it was so lovely to have time and go on holiday together again. If wishes were horses... so I tuck away my familiar guilt and my nostalgia, and get ready to greet, once again, the hustle that is London life. 

    I will be home, in Australia, for good, soon. I promise.

    Today has been spent mostly writing, or stretching out in the sun. The heatwave of the past week has abated, and although there is still sunshine, the temperature is no longer pushing 30 Celsius. I intend to head to the gym after work tomorrow; I wonder how many emails I will have to read through when I get into the office. Life in all her detailed glory, all her nagging chores have come rushing back at me, and in her flood I am swiftly carried away. There are bills to pay, budgets to update, work to do, articles to write - hustle or be hustled, London seems to say, as I stare the start of the working week in its hideous face. 

    Jeff and I are talking about exploration in South America together, next year. My head is far too distracted by this tantalising possibility to focus on what must be done to allow that to happen - the earning, and saving, of money. I am looking forward to heading to New York next month, and chilling out lakeside, playing games of chess and Monopoly, barbequeing seafood and swimming in warm waters. 

    The beaches of Newquay are next, at month's end, and the Egypt tour needs to be booked, and soon. There is a daytrip to Paris somewhere in October, Iceland at the start of December is set now in stone, and Christmas leave has been approved - though I know not where we will be come year's end. And after winter next year - a month back home, a reprieve, before the start of a new chapter, a new exciting adventure in a new city ripe for exploration. 

    Work first, then dreams. The dreams come later, after you've worked for them. 

    P.xo
    Currently
    The Magus
    By John Fowles
    see related

Saturday, 20 June 2009

  • Belfast, Northern Ireland: 5 -7 July, 2009

    The flight is delayed, and we land in Belfast a half hour later than scheduled. It is summer in this part of the world, and the sun is in the process of setting as we clamber aboard the airport-city bus transfer. Belfast, at first glance, is much like any other city, small and quiet, huddled in a valley underneath the greenly rolling hills of the Black Mountains.

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    Little islands off the coast; the winding pathway down to Carrick-a-rede bridge

    The city lies in the province of Ulster and is the second largest city on the Isle of Eire. Belfast was founded by the Celts, who named the city after the sandbanks that formed around the mouth of the river Farset. The Vikings attacked, raided and settled all along the coast, bequeathing red hair and their knowledge of metal works and the beautiful designs now known as Celtic knots. The English, under Queen Elizabeth I, came a-conquering in the 16th century and Plantation started in the 17th century, sowing the first seeds of the violent sectarianism that would come to trouble Belfast in later years.  During the Industrial Revolution Belfast was the centre of the Irish linen industry, tobacco production, rope making and shipbuilding – the ill-fated RMS Titanic was constructed here.

    There is no evidence of this turbulent history as Denise and I walk down Great Victoria Street from the bus station. Belfast is quiet, incredibly quiet, compared to London, on a Friday night. Our B&B is located near Queen’s University and the Hospital, in downtown Belfast and along the way we pass by a few bars and restaurants. For an unfamiliar city at night, Belfast feels safe and welcoming. We venture out for some naughty fast-food then hit the incredibly comfortable beds.

    An early start the next morning awaits us. The day dawns alternately bright and cloudy, and we wait for our bus that will take us up to the coast of County Antrim in the cold, blinding wind. Northern Ireland is split into six counties – Antrim, Tyrone, Down, Armagh, Derry/Londonderry, and Fermanagh. Over twenty American presidents have some Irish ancestry, and the majority of these come from these six counties. We have booked a daytrip with Paddywagon Tours, an outfit that runs a hostel in both Dublin and Belfast, and a tour that starts from Dublin at 5am, to Belfast and then onwards to Carrickfergus and the Giants Causeway.

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    The ruins of Dunluce castle

    As we journey up north, out of Belfast, the clouds clear and there is a bright, brilliant sunshine. Northern Ireland is as green and rolling as her fair southern sister, and I soak in the views as the bus plows up on the basalt plateau that is County Antrim. Our first stop is Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, located on the North Coast in a National Park. A short coastal pathway winds its way from the ticket booth to this precariously dangling suspension bridge, spanning a chasm almost 80 feet deep. Along the way are views of the cobalt blue waters of the Irish Sea, stark white limestone cliffs plunging precipitously into the ocean and verdant, emerald grassland dotted with black-and-white cows. The bridge itself was built by fishermen to check their salmon nets, strung out from the very edge of Carrick-a-rede island. Nearby, Sheep Island stands sentinel and on the very far horizon, on a clear day like we had, are the misty blue mountains of Scotland.

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    Sheep Island; grey slated white washed cottages on rolling green hills

    The next stop is The Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fable is that Finn McCool, the Irish giant, built the Causeway to get across the sea to fight his Scottish nemesis, Bernandonner. However Finn fell asleep before he could cross over to Scotland and Bernandonner came looking for him instead. Finn’s wife, Oonaugh, put the sleeping Finn in his cradle just as Bernandonner reached Ireland and told the Scottish giant that the baby in the cradle was Finn’s son. On seeing the enormous baby and logically deducing that the father must be much bigger, Bernandonner ran back to Scotland, tearing up the Causeway as he went to prevent Finn from coming after him. There are similar formations across the water on the Scottish side.

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    The Giant's Causeway, Carrick-a-rede bridge 

    The Causeway’s origins are a little more prosaic in reality. Formed by a molten lava flow millions of years ago, basalt rose from the chalk beds then cooled and cracked evenly, resulting in the tall hexagonal columns that make up the Causeway today. The tallest column is around 36 feet high, towering over the crashing waves of the sea.

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    Memorial to victims of Bloody Sunday; the Bogside of Derry; the loyalist section of Derry

    Derry/Londonderry, or Stroke City, is where we first get our first real brush with Irish Sectarianism. Our guide talks us through the history of the Troubles and the current situation, of his own personal experiences living in the Bogside, known to the British Army as the IRA’s backyard, and of the struggles of ordinary people against the military. We get a balanced view, rounded out by our Dubliner bus driver, who tells us of the tit-for-tat measures employed by the IRA – militant violence met with civilian bombings, heavy handed governmental action against murders in the night. There are schisms in Derry/Londonderry still, the Protestant loyalists huddled in their own enclave, and the Catholic republicans on the other side of the wall. Old hurts run deep and the memory of Bloody Sunday resonate too strongly in these streets.

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    Shankill and Falls road; murals on the Catholic side of the Peace Wall

    Back in Belfast, we book a black cab tour. Our driver is a red-faced, florid (Republican, I think, though we didn’t ask) Irishman with a lilting accent, less hard and more rounded than Dubliners. He takes us to the murals along Falls and Shankills road, and tells us story after story of murder, intrigue, and political travesty. The names and fates of these common people are woven into the streets of Belfast, and I think their stories should continue to be told, lest we forget. Children, fathers, wives, these all, victims of British snipers, IRA gunmen, civilian-thrown petrol bombs – an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind!

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    The facade of the Crown Saloon

    Belfast is a safe, laidback city, welcoming of tourists and easy to navigate. Prices here are cheap still, a world away from the inflation of Dublin or London. We pass the Europa Hotel, bombed 36 times during the Troubles, and known as the most bombed hotel anywhere in the world. We walk past Belfast Town Hall, where an environmental sculpture exhibition is currently being held. We have dinner at the Crown Saloon, the Most Beautiful Bar in the World. It is a splendidly Victorian pub with delicate painted glass, old-fashioned carved wooden ceilings and intricate mosaic floors. The façade is a riot of vibrant Italianate tiles, held up by false Corinthian columns. It is cosy and comfortable, and it feels like it belongs to a world that ceased to exist 30 years ago.

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    Protestant murals; wire over houses backing onto the Peace Wall

    In fact, a lot of Belfast has that aura, reminiscent of the 1970s, with only a few spots starting to show a more modern development. People talk about the Celtic tiger that is Dublin with more than a little wistfulness, but perhaps it is better for Belfast to catch up more slowly. Where is Dublin now? Caught up in the great Credit Crunch of 2008, the housing market there has collapsed and the inflow of foreign investment has halted. Better for Belfast to regain strength slowly rather than on false idols – this dignified, quiet city has seen enough troubles to last lifetimes.

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Saturday, 13 June 2009

  • Getting Clucky

    Are you one of those women whose eyes are always drawn away, whose gaze greedily tracks, swallows whole, sadly follows the object of your attention, as it is gathered up by someone else, as it follows someone else's footsteps home? That hollow feeling of want that rises up in the back of your throat whenever you see one... how do you deal with that? Knowing that it will be years before you have your first, before your dream idea of a perfect family can be made real? 

    I was out at the park today, all greenly summered in new grass and dotted with tiny flowers. Families were out and about in force, a gaggle of boys played hacky sack, the bees flitted from bloom to bloom and a houseboat or two glided past on the canals. I had brought a book out, a suitably serious one that I'd already previously read before, but for the sake of appearing like an intellectual, took out for a spin again, but I couldn't concentrate. There were too many of them, running around, bounding up and down to strangers expecting love and affection in that good natured, naive way they have, cuddling up to their families, laughing and smiling. 

    It will be a few years before Jeff and I can have one of our own. It is dependent on so many things - if we stay together, if we buy a house, if we settle in Sydney. There are too many variables and everytime I see one out my heart aches selfishly. If I could, I would have one now, but that would be extremely selfish. What kind of life could I give it, here in my tiny flat where I work 50 hour weeks and travel so constantly? 

    It wouldn't be fair on the poor thing, so I guess we'll just have to wait until we've settled down somewhere and have a house with a garden out the back. Now the only question is - what breed do we want? A chocolate Lab? A paws-like-dinner-plates German Shepherd? A irascible Border Collie? Or a water-loving Golden Retriever? 

Wednesday, 10 June 2009

  • The Banal Post

    The flat smells like lilies... the bunch of pale pink flowers I bought last week has bloomed and more than one has shed its petals. After about three weeks worth of sunshine and the mercury steadily creeping above 20 degrees, we are back to mid tens, showers and grey cloud. O Summer, where art thou, Summer? 

    There's been a tube strike. It started yesterday and it'll go on till Friday morning. Transport isn't crippled, but is extremely irritating. Thankfully I live around the corner from the office - an oft overlooked positive to living in the ghettos of the East. 

    I've lost my writing mojo. There has been scarce inspiration lately and I am not prone to look for it overly hard. Sometimes things just be that way. Sometimes the words go away and take a holiday. I'll admit that it's almost a guilty pleasure to not be working this hard; 50 hour weeks, then home to study Spanish or write, or to the gym to make 5km on the treadmill. The moment it all starts feeling too much like hard work, is the moment life loses its shine. 

    We went to Belfast, and have returned. Photos and travelogue up probably this weekend - right now I just feel like going to bed and sleeping. Ah sleep, that elusive dreamwraith that comes too late, stays too fleetingly. I booked my Egypt flights. Almodovar's new film is coming out next month and I be buying tickets tomorrow. The house finally has food today - the bare and bereft fridge shelves got too much for me after the third day. 

    VIP guests in 1.5 weeks, hurrah! 

    Pegs.x

Sunday, 31 May 2009

  • Sun Day

    Give me sunlight and I'll be happy, joyous, perfectly pleased. I am a child of the sun and while I am soaking up its rays my soul is refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated. We chased the golden light as it danced across a backyard, shifting rugs and drinks and shoes and plates of food and our behinds to follow it as it arched across green grass. We chased it until we cornered it, or it cornered us, in the upper most, southernmost part of the bricked-in yard. A triangle of light containing almost-friendships and too few old friends, but what did it matter, as long as I could bask in sunlight and stretch out, catlike in the warmth? A blue sky filled with bobbing, wind sped clouds, a delicious mauve and pink and baby blue sunset, delicate and tender, unlike the vicious, sharp-as-a-knife dying of the light in Australia. There are days when I love London, like sun days filled with quiet, velvet moments of solitude and sunshine. My skin is newly honeyed with the light, golden touched again. My thoughts are pleasantly dulled with the words of the weekend papers and the warmth of a lingering, languid afternoon. Days like today, these sun-filled days like today fill my spirit with a pure happiness, they dull the homesick-hurt longing I have for the sea. What need have I of material things, what lack have I of any thing or beast or place or person, with this dusting of golden light, this strong warmth of a new sun on my back, a good book with words I can fall into, the silky sheen of red ripened cherries that burst with a bright taste of summer, this day filled with the promise of long days and sultry nights? What want have I of anything, on a sun day like today?

Wednesday, 27 May 2009

  • If Wishes Were Horses

    I would be by the sea somewhere, somewhere warm and suitably far flung. Somewhere wild and a little untamed, away from the world and all worldly worries. If wishes were horses mine would be a grey Arabian stallion with a fine head and a high stepping gait. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride and the world would be entirely too topsy-turvy to make any sense of.

    Time has a trick of flying by like lightning just when you want it to stop. Time crawls when you least want it to, it slows right down to a murderous trickle designed to test your patience. If wishes were horses, time would stop and rewind back a week and stay forever there, which would be pleasing but after awhile, I think, a little too boring at least for me.

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    Lunching at La Fromagerie with the happy family

    My bestie, her husband and their Tyrone was in town recently and it was amazing hanging out with them all as usual. Some friendships need no maintenance - they are as fresh and close as ever without the intricacies of the everyday. We went to eat at a Pakistani restaurant called Tayyabs, which serves up amazing lamb chops and spice-laden karahis. I also brought Jeff there last week and he, of course, loved it.

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    A spread of amazing food at Tayyabs

    Another bank holiday weekend - the first one since I moved to London when I didn't leave the UK. Insane, but true. It was a pleasure to just have three days off and not do anything, have no plane to catch, no hotels to check into. It was also lovely and sunny and hot - a weird sort of sensation for Londoners - so we hopped a train to Brighton, London-by-the-Sea, where the beaches are rocky but the soft serve ice-creams as delicious as they should be.

    Last weekend the girls strapped on their dancing shoes and we all traipsed past the red velvet ropes to party at Kitts. Sadly, no Prince Harry in sight (word on the street is that he goes midweek nights) but there were crazy people-watching to be done and some good songs cutting it loose on the floor. I love warm weather because it gives me an excuse to dust off the the shorts and short(er) skirts and acres of bare, honeyed skin that haven't been aired all winter!

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    The whole crew out at Kitts

    There is a gorgeous, Dickensian pub along Narrow Street called The Grapes. Charles Dickens used to frequent it, and the walls are dark wood panelled, with a tiny deck over the Thames, and narrow stairs leading up to the restaurant, famous for its fresh fish. Jeff wishes we'd discovered it sooner, but what's done cannot be undone. What's definite is that we'll be haunting the narrow confines of The Grapes a lot more over the next few months. It's cosier than the Narrows, with a more eclectic, settled-in feel. Less civilised, if you will. My kind of place.

    I am still writing and the writing is going well. After the private commission ended I was worried that the articles I wrote on-spec wouldn't sell, but the majority of them have actually gone to other buyers. I think it's a numbers game, and the more I write, the higher the chances of selling. I am actually looking forward to some time off from work to just sit tiptapping on the laptop while at the Finger Lakes in New York, come August.

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    Down to the seaside we go! L-r: The Royal Pavillion, chilling on a deckchair,
    jellied eels, anyone? And lastly our lunch menu.

    A few weekends ago some girlfriends and I headed to The Berkeley for high tea. Pret a Portea here costs about £35 per head and its only claim to fame is the cutesy, brightly coloured little cakes and pastries that are inspired by the latest fashion of the season. Unfortunately, however, the service here was atrocious. Go elsewhere for better value high tea. If interested in the details, I've encapsulated the entire negative experience in a review.

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    Pret a Portea at the Berkeley Hotel

    I'm looking forward to: Belfast, in a fortnight; Jo coming back to London; sending off my visa to be renewed (okay I'm not really looking forward to that but I'm trying to psych myself up!); tripping around the UK with my family next month; Cornwall in July and finally, chowing down on a long list of must-eat food in NYC (pancakes at IHOP, soul food in Harlem, cheesecake slices, seafood at the Oyster Bar, 24/7 Korean downtown, chocolate at Serendipity, hotdogs from Papaya Express, KFC - yes, seriously! No one does fried chicken better than the US of A); followed by a blissful week outdoors in a lakeside cottage, sitting in the sun, barbequeing fresh seafood, heading out on the jetski and boat, drinking Moet by a full moon and starlight - my heart is looking forward very muchly to New York right now.

    If wishes were horses, that's where, I think, I would want to be in this moment.

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    Smokin' on the dancefloor, Kitts

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

  • Copenhagen, Denmark: 1 - 4 May, 2009

    The plane flies north as the sun sets. If I crane my neck I can just see the brilliant reds and golds fading away on the horizon. As we lose altitude I make out the spindly silhouette of the Middelgrunden, the windfarm just off the coast of Copenhagen. I love flying into cities at dusk and twilight, when day and night interchanges and the time is that magical place between shadow and light. 

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    Soren, Lauren's housemate, teaching me how to say his name properly

    I'm crashing with Lauren, who's very generously let me stay with her for the weekend. First impressions - the city is much like any other West European capital - cleaner, a little more orderly than Rome, perhaps, but otherwise nothing stands out too much in the spring night I land in. We head to her apartment to catch up, then I crash early - it's been a long day at work and I need a good long rest.

    The next day we start with a late morning and brunch, the perfect preamble to my city break in Cope. The Danes do a mean breakfast. We order the everything-included brekky and it comes laden with chorizo, grilled peppers, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, two delicious slabs of cheese, an American pancake, dark rye bread, fruit and coffee. After filling up Lauren takes me around the city.

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    The atelier where designer headbands are made - a business venture run by Soren and
    his business partner Signe Muusmann, who designs and makes these beautiful pieces.

    Copenhagen is a very walkable city - the attractions are located close to each other, and the landscape is flat. We head to Radhusapladsen, the main square where Town Hall is located. It's a beautiful, sunny day and a flea market is busily set up in the middle of the square. I wander around happily, trailing inquisitive fingers across antiques and other people's trash and treasures. I love flea markets - there is a history and uniqueness from age and association that comes with second hand goods that the flat, shiny, new-smelling products from high street stores just can't replicate.

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    Corners are clipped off in Copenhagen - this was because in medieval times, the fire trucks
    couldn't get around the tight, narrow corners fast enough and the city burned. Clever, no?

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    Roadtesting the very expensive egg chair; Brunch in Copenhagen

    We take a very very long walk along Stroget, the main shopping street of Copenhagen, and check out the incredible Danish design for sale at Ilium Borghaus. The iconic egg chair, retailing at EUR9,000 is well out of my budget, but I eye a Georg Jensen candelabra going for 50% off - tempting! (I come back on my last day after some hemming and hawing and finally buy it)

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    Beautiful Nyhavn

    Nyhavn is very picturesque, and buzzing on such a beautiful day. This used to the be unsavoury part of old Copenhagen, where the sailors would find land based entertainment - whores, drink, drugs. Hans Christian Anderson, the poet and writer, lived in an apartment in Nyhavn, no doubt drawing inspiration for his stories from the real life drama happening outside his windows and revelling in his poverty-stricken artists' existence.

    We also drop by Marmorkirken, or Marble Church. Emulating the great blue dome of St Peter's in Rome, this is Copenhagen's biggest domed church. Originally laid out with expensive imported marble from Norway, the city ran out of money and finished the building with cheaper local Danish marble instead. At Amalianborg Palace, the flags aren't flying which means the royals are probably out and about somewhere else. Lauren tells me interesting little snippets and stories about the Palace - it used to be some rich burgher's apartments, then the royal residence burned down and they moved into these rooms. The royals liked them so much they never gave it back to the merchants who once owned them. It's good to be the king, huh?

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    The guards at Amalianborg Palace; Marmorkirken 

    No trip to Copenhagen is complete without a walk to see the Little Mermaid. She is overrated, tiny and really not worth the long walk, but it's one of those things that have to be done, so after a refreshing ice cream pit stop at St Alban's Church, we head along the dock. We catch the ferry back over to Christiana, which completely trips me out. It's a completely unexpected side of law abiding, clean and orderly Copenhagen. No photos are allowed, but Christiana is definitely worth a visit.


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    Rosenborg Slot, where the Danish crown jewels are kept, guarded by the world's friendliest lion;
    timbered house in Roskilde 

    Originally an army barracks, squatters moved in when the army moved out. They set up shop and soon had a nice plant sideline going on. This continued for years, and Christiana attracted (and still does) hippies, free spirits and anarchists. The community at Christiana is not legally part of Copenhagen, and there is no running water or electricity, no paved roads and no taxes. When Lauren and I were there we saw some men playing golf on the roof, and while the hard drugs of Pusher Street is no longer in existence, there was still the very distinctive smell of weed wafting by us.

    Trippin!

    A weekend in Denmark must be spent eating Danish pastries, and after all that walking, a recharge is definitely in order. Lagkegehuset is a franchise bakery recommended by Lauren, full of delicious delights, and I sit on the banks of a canal happily dropping crumbs on myself in the sunshine. I Heart Copenhagen! An example of how orderly this city is: you take a number and wait to be served for everything, even bakeries. None of this pushing, shoving and yelling that you do in a typical cafe say in, Italy.



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    Roskilde Cathedral; the Sea Stallion, a perfectly reconstructed Viking longship

    The next day we head to Roskilde, the ancient capital of the Danish Vikings to see old ships and eat herring. Archaeologists found the remains of five wooden boats, sunk one on top of the other at a strategic crossing point in the Roskile fjord. They built a wall around the site, drained all the water out and started digging. After two years of preservation and restoration, these five ships now rest in the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. There is a longboat, all sleek lines and deadly intent, and a bottom bellied merchant's scow, amongst the five. The bones of the ships arch gracefully, silhouetted against the light.


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    At the Viking Ship Museum

    The food in Copenhagen is as expensive as they say, but uniformly good, though I might have had an advantage as I had the benefit of Lauren as my local guide. I have to try herring while here, so in Roskilde, I order a starter of three different kinds - curried, pickled and cured. The fish come with sides like red onion, hard boiled eggs and capers. You're supposed to build your own open sandwich, or smorrebrod from these ingredients, on the thin rye bread that accompanies the dish. I actually really liked the curried herring, and the cured isn't so bad either, but the pickled takes a bit of getting used to. 

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    Danish pastries; herring

    Top Five Copenhagen Moments:

    1. Eating pastries in the sunshine, sitting by the canals
    2. Re-entering the EU and normalcy after leaving crazy Christiana
    3. Finally having a smorrebrod in a little cafe along Vesterbrograd on my last day - yum!
    4. Getting up close and personal with a Viking ship
    5. Buying a Georg Jensen piece

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    We're supposed to be Viking maidens, I think.

Friday, 08 May 2009

  • Living the Dream

    I'll admit that I'm exhausted. Who wouldn't be, with my schedule?

    This week especially has been rather full-on. It's hard finding enough hours in the day to accomplish everything I've set out to do. Too many projects, social events, work commitments. I have a stack of reading material to work through - mostly magazines. There's still a tower of books on my bedside table, but there usually always is, which seems to eye me reproachfully every night I collapse into bed without touching a single one of them.

    Luckily I had such a lovely relaxing weekend in Copenhagen (thanks to Lauren!), else I'm not sure how I would have been able to cope with this week's mad whirl of work, writing, classes, running, etc. Post to follow when I have a bit more time and energy to write one up.

    There's still a massive rush every time I sell an article. The buzz is addictive. I'm aiming for writing two a week at least, but it's not easy to find the focus to write well, especially after a gruelling day of my "real" job. It's nice having an outlet for creativity, and also self affirming to be able to actually produce something commercial enough that others would pay money for. Baby steps, I tell myself, as I file away interesting material that might or might not form the basis of a prospective piece.

    Wouldn't life be grand if it wasn't quite so much hard work?

    Currently
    The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel
    By Salman Rushdie
    see related

Thursday, 30 April 2009

  • Busy Little Bee

    Where has April gone? I blinked and the entire month's disappeared. The cheerful daffs and delicate crocuses have come and gone, and suddenly all the trees in the park are no longer naked. They are clothed in sungreen leaves and the birds are back. Spring is such a lovely awakening, such a welcome change after this winter's snow and frost.

    Am running with a few personal projects on top of work at the moment, which has completely leached away my spare time. The writing took off during the month and I've just finished a private commission (phew! I got really tired of writing about the zodiac towards the end) in time for the monthly payout in the first week of May. I also made a new resolution to run on Monday nights and go to yoga as usual on the weekends that I am in town. Lastly I've also scheduled in Spanish classes at home every week.

    It was quiet for the first three weeks of April but the last week has sapped me. Summer is around the corner, so there has been a flurry of organising gigs and activities. Holidays to Iceland, Cornwall, Egypt and Italy need to be organised, flights booked, accommodation sorted out. My bestie was here (she leaves tomorrow morning to Venice) for almost a week and I tried to spend as much time as I could with her. It is always joyous and fun and insane when we meet, even if we only meet at best, once a year on average. Some friendships are so deep and simple that they need no maintenence save a sporadic reconnection every now and again. There has been the occasional night out to a comedy gig, dinners with friends, virtual dates online with Jeff, a tiny bit of guilty shopping done in Canary Wharf to celebrate the fact that I am now an official paid writer (hurrah!).

    Heading to Copenhagen tomorrow. I was awake till 2:30am yesterday reading The White Tiger. There is a parade of people coming to London this summer: Idaman leads the mob in a few weeks, then I'm heading for a weekend to Belfast. My family comes for a fun filled two weeks in June - London, Oxford, Bath, Stratford-Upon-Avon, the Cotswolds, the Lake District, Edinburgh, The Highlands - I challenge you to fit anymore sights into an incredibly compact itinerary. Spanish classes start in July, and Charli comes for a lightning visit, before dropping back in again here in September. Lloyd is coming for a few days and it will be absolutely fab to see him again. Jeff and I are planning to eat at a number of places in NYC, then rent a cottage by a lake in upstate New York for the rest of the week in August. We don't intend to do very much else besides sit on the deck in the sun, swim, go for a spin on the jetski, barbeque fish outdoors, read and hang out together. Bliss.

    In between now and the end of May are a movie night with Michael, an all day writing course, dinner with high school friends, high tea at the Berkeley, a National Theatre play, a friend's birthday night out at Kitts, and then Jeff arrives and we'll have our own amusements. If the weather is nice we'll probably head down to Brighton for a day trip. Honestly the pace of London takes my breath away with its sheer brilliance and speed. I love it, but it does take a lot of energy to keep up with her, this city of my dystopian dreams, always demanding more, always with just one more new restaurant to review, one more achingly cool gallery just opened, another precious, ancient exhibition. I'm not tired of London yet, nor am I tired of life, but right now I'm definitely tired of running around the way I have been the past week.

    May promises to be hectic, if April is any judge.

Monday, 20 April 2009

  • Berlin, Germany: 10 - 13 April 2009

    Buzzy, vibrant, gritty, grown up – Berlin is all of these and much more besides. A polarised, dissected, ravaged city, Berlin has seen her fair share of recent 20th century history and still she rises, still she stands.

    I have wanted to visit Berlin for a long while, and managed to score a deal with Expedia for a three night stay in a 4 star hotel and flights for under £400 over Easter. I land in the evening, and catch the bus into the city, getting in just in time for a glorious sunset behind the glass domed Reichstag and Germany’s defining monument – the Brandenburg Tor.

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    My hotel, and the ghostly facade of Anhalter Bahnhof, the only surviving part of the railway

    My hotel, the Möevenpick, is situated by an old, bombed out façade of the Anhalter Bahnof, long ago Berlin’s foremost train station. The Gateway to the South, the railway terminus brought in guests and visitors from Prague, Vienna, Rome, Naples and Athens.

    It’s a beautiful weekend while I am there, and after a sleep in I head out to join Sandeman’s free walking tour. This is a brilliant little outfit. It started off as guides offering free walking tours because they wanted everyone to see the city, not just the tourists who could pay. You tip your guide whatever amount you can afford at the end. They also have special tours which you pay for like Berlin by bike, the Third Reich tours and Red Berlin, which focuses on the communist highlights of the city. Sandeman does free walking tours in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Paris, Madrid, Jerusalem, and is branching out to Prague, Brussels, and Tel Aviv in the near future.

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    The juxtaposition of Stalin's TV tower and the domes of Berlin's Cathedral

    Founded in the 13th century, on the river Spree, the city had opened its doors to the Lutheran movement, Jews, Huguenots, the bubonic plague, and the Thirty Years War by the 15th century. However Berlin did not gain prominence until the Prussian Empire made the city its capital. Between kings, French invasions and the Industrial Revolution, Berlin gained grand royal palaces, Humboldt University, a State Opera House and a cathedral.

    World War I left the city starving. The defunct Prussian Empire collapsed, giving way to the heady, decadent days of the Weimar Republic which birthed, among other things, a sophisticated and innovative culture in Berlin. The Roaring Twenties had their heyday in this city. Dada, jazz, swing and hedonism ruled.

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    The Reichstag, seat of Germany's parliament

    After the Great Depression, Berlin was the battleground for a number of political parties, amongst which was the Nazi party. Hitler seized the reins on the spurious claim that the German nation was under threat, and emergency powers were granted to him by Germany’s president. He was now Fuhrer. Anti-Jewish actions started immediately, culminating in the Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht. This would be the precursor to Hitler’s Final Solution, but the world didn’t know it at the time. Stores, businesses and houses were smashed and ransacked, and all firearms belonging to Jews were confiscated. Synagogues burned and about 30,000 Jewish men were arrested to taken to Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen. The names of these concentration camps are an awful, familiar roll call.

    The Jews who could, fled. The pogroms of Kristallnacht sparked a massive emigration of Jewish Germans, all the way to South America and China. Their story is captured in the tortured, disorienting Jewish Museum, a metaphor in itself. Three axes make up the museum – The Axis of Exile, the Axis of the Holocaust and the Axis of Continuity. There are no windows, instead black gashes in a steel clad façade provide strips of sunlight. The architecture is stunning, and more importantly, thought provoking.

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    Inside the Holocaust Memorial; Pariser Platz with the Brandenburg Gate

    As the Third Reich gained momentum, World War II Was soon began in earnest. Hitler’s Final Solution – Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen – started an inexorable, awful extermination of the Jews. The 6 million victims of the Holocaust are commemorated in the Holocaust Memorial. Approximately 2,700 blocks of grey, somber stone stand, lean and tower over an undulating plot of land, near the Brandenburg Gate. The sculpture is interactive; sound is different in the midst of the stones, the light is shadowed and people appear and disappear from view as you navigate through it.

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    The Jewish Museum - outside and inside

    At the turning of the tide, war came to Berlin. Allied and Soviet forces were racing to enter Berlin first. The Russians came first, inflicting war crimes on Berlin’s civilians. Hitler shot himself, and his mistress Eva Braun in a bunker underneath his Chancellery. This is now a parking lot, and his body burned to bits and scattered to the four winds, so that neo-Nazis have no shrine to worship at.

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    Graffiti at the East Side Gallery, the Berlin Wall 

    Germany was divided into four zones – The Allieds each took a third, and the USSR the Eastern half. Berlin, firmly in East Germany, was further divided into four sectors. The Cold War began and Berlin found itself at the forefront of it. As East and West relations deteriorated, the Soviets began the Berlin Blockage, blocking all land access to West Berlin. I can just imagine Stalin sitting in Moscow chuckling to himself and thinking “I’ll have West Berlin on a platter in two weeks!” The city was surrounded by a sea of red, with thirty five days of food and forty five days of coal left.

    The Americans and English responded with the Berlin Airlift (France was occupied with her own flight shenanigans in IndoChina, enough said) – 4,000 tons of food a day, and sometimes sweets and candy for the children. These planes were nicknamed Raisin Bombers. A USAF pilot attached chocolate bars and other goodies to handkerchief parachutes to the children waiting below. When asked how they could recognise his aircraft, he said that he would wiggle his wings. At the peak of the Airlift more than 1,500 flights were made, 4,500 tons of cargo were shifted a day and one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds.

    Humiliated, the Soviets lifted the blockade in May, 1949. The US Air Force delivered 1.7 million tonnes, and the British RAF 541, 937 tonnes. Together, 92 million miles were flown, roughly the distance the earth is to the sun. 71 American and English pilots died, mainly due to plane crashes.

    East Berliners staged a revolution, halted only with tanks sent from Moscow. The Soviet occupied East government started to build the Berlin Wall to stop the massive numbers of East Berliners fleeing into the West. The Wall went up after midnight on August 13, 1961. Citizens of both East and West Berlin were stunned and confused. Free travel was curtailed. You could pass through from East to West through strictly controlled checkpoints. The Death Strip, on the Eastern side of the wall was mined with explosives, patrolled by guards with dogs and control towers overlooked the sandy no-mans-land. Almost 5,000 people tried to escape through the Wall – their brave attempts via car hood, car boot, suitcase, scuba dives, stolen identities, forged passports and speaker boxes are documented at the Charlie Checkpoint Museum. Most died, shot by guards or had their home dug tunnels collapse on them.

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    The replica of Checkpoint Charlie; bright lights and high rises at Potsdamer Platz

    The world reacted with horror. International pressure and internal revolts pushed the Eastern government to allow travel again. The Iron Curtain weakened in Hungary. A surprise political gaffe on live television precipitated the fall of the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989, border guards allowed crowds from East Berlin over into the West. Crowds gathered for a wild celebration at the Brandenburg Gate. Not much of the wall remains now – I took a walk to see the East Side Gallery, where bright, light hearted graffiti adorn a 1.3 km stretch of Wall.

    The story of Berlin is rich and varied, marked with wars and plagues, unbelievable hardship, incredible courage, and filled with inspiration. Now a centre for all that is hip and cool, the city throbs with techno music, the latest DJs, and avant-garde designers. There is a laidback but nevertheless cutting edge vibe to Berlin, an exciting thrill of possibility, like anything could happen.

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    Lewis, my "free" tour guide getting fired up as he tells us the story of how the Berlin Wall came down; standing on the Wall in my black buckled shoes.

    After all that the city and her people have been through, all the fire and death and revolution and 28 years of a Wall that cut through buildings, main streets and over underground metro lines – Berlin is reunited and reborn. There are about 170 museums in Berlin and on my last day I head to the Pergamon and the Altes museum. The former houses three amazing treasures from antiquity – the Greek Pergamon Altar, the Roman Miletus gates and the Babylonian Ishtar gates. Amazing, incredible, wondrous – a must see. The Altes museum is currently the home to the Egyptian Museum, abiding place of the most beautiful ancient queen in the Nile – Nefertiti. 3,300 years old and still gorgeous.

    There is so much to see in Berlin, from the futuristic high rises of Potsdamer Platz, the brutal spike of Stalin’s TV tower, the grand Communist era ‘palaces’ of Karl-Marx-Allee, the circus of Checkpoint Charlie (a reproduction – the original was torn down not long after the Wall came down. The name comes from the phonetic alphabet; Alpha, Bravo, Charlie).

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    In the Lustgartens

    In Berlin, there is history everywhere, even underneath your feet. Our guide pointed out the double row brick line that marks the Berlin Wall, and the infamous tripping stones, which commemorate the Jewish victims of the city. Each stone, or plaque, is set in the ground in front of the house where the man or woman lived, and details their name, date of exile, camp and date of death.

    Berlin is an extremely walkable city, and after we have been taken through Parisier Platz, Branbenburg Gate, past the Reichstag – Germany’s seat of parliament, Checkpoint Charlie, Gendermarkt with its two almost-identical churches, the plaza where over 2,000 books were burnt during the Nazi era, past evocative monuments to soldiers, victims, women and children… after all of that I find myself completely immersed in Berlin, and not a little admiring of the city’s resilience and spirit.

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    Symbol of Berlin - the Brandenberg Tor at dusk.  

    Tips for visiting Berlin:

    • If you intend on using the public transport a lot, get a three day City Tour or Berlin Welcome Card. These give you small discounts at certain attractions like the Jewish Museum and Checkpoint Charlie Museum, as well as hassle-free access to all S and U bahns and buses.
    • A Museum Day card will save you a ton of money. These operate in sectors e.g. Museuminsel gives you access to all the museums on Museum Island. They are valid for a day and are a culture buffs’ dream ticket to the world class exhibits available in Berlin.
    • In the tourist places everyone speaks English, but a “guten tag” and “danke” are appreciated. Other words: “bitte” means please, and “die reichnung” means the bill please.
    • Expect service to be slow and in some places a little surly. It’s not personal, it’s just Berlin. Sit back and have another (excellent) beer and chill out.

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    Chilling out on the grass in front of the Altes Museum

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