Greg Wesson's Esoteric Globe

The Grand Tourer Hits Madrid

2009-11-20T17:44:59Z

Hopping off the train from Salamanca, the grand tour of Iberia continues (and eventually ends) in Madrid.

Madrid is the capital of Spain, and its largest city as well. In fact, Madrid is the third largest city Europe (behind London and Berlin) and fourth largest metropolitan area in Europe (behind London, Paris and Istanbul - though that’s only really half in Europe).

Madrid is situated on the large central plain of Spain, and is situated at 667 metres above sea level (2188 ft). Not enough that I found myself puffing walking up and down stairs (as I did in Denver), but enough that I noticed that two pints was enough to give me a touch of the wobbles. I’m a cheap drunk in Madrid.

Since the middle ages, the symbol of the city has been a bear feasting on fruit from a strawberry tree, due to the prevalence of both bears and strawberry trees in the area. Other than this statue and various coats of arms, I didn’t see any bears when I was there. Perhaps they have moved out to the suburbs.

Like Salamanca, Madrid is built around a main square (Plaza Mayor), though Madrid stretches out a lot farther from its central square than Salamanca does. Madrid is at the geographic centre of Spain, so I suppose that means that Plaza Mayor is the exact centre of the country.

I’ve complained before about human statues, those “performers” that paint themselves grey and stand completely still, hoping that you’ll donate some money into their pot. Pointless, it’s always seemed to me. I saw a new twist on this in Madrid, with the headless statue. Basically, it is a human statue, but the person is wearing a really tall collar so you can’t see their head. Occasionally they will wave.

“Oh look, the headless person is waving! How can they wave if they have no head?”

If I was three, I would have probably been impressed. Of course, if I was three I probably wouldn’t have had any change to donate to a headless statue. I guess they are hoping for guilty parents to pay for the joy given to their children.

Spain has an interesting political history. Over the past 150 years, it went from a monarchy to a dictatorship to a republic to another dictatorship to finally a democratic constitutional monarchy. The current King of Spain is Juan Carlos I, and “officially” lives in the Royal Palace in Madrid, though it is really only used for state ceremonies. King Johnny-Charlie actually lives in a little place in the suburbs called the Palace of Zarzuela. The king is just another central city worker commuting in on the trains in the morning, I assume. Maybe he sees bears out there at his suburban palace.

Anyway, seeing as the Royal Palace wasn’t being used for any official functions at the time I was there, I was able to take a tour of the place. No photos allowed on the inside, but you can get a decent enough idea of the majesty of the place from the outside.

Just to the south of the Royal Palace is the Cathedral de La Almudean. Construction was started on the Cathedral in 1879, but was abandoned after the Spanish Civil War. Construction was restarted in 1950, and finally completed in 1993. Cathedrals always seem to take a long time to build.

Despite taking a long time to build, the Catholic church in Spain seems to be doing okay. As I was walking around, there was soft organ music playing throughout the church. It wasn’t from the massive organ, but rather was being pumped in out of the Bose speakers attached to columns throughout the church. Bitchin’ stereo system, Archbishop.

Not in use when I was there

Out front they have a big statue of Pope John Paul II, who was pope when the cathedral was finished in 1993. Even in bronze, he seems more life-like than the current pope.

After seeing the two main tourist sites, I took a wander around Madrid. Took in sites like the Plaza de Espana, Plaza de Oriente, Rose Garden, Puerta del Sol and points in between.

Yellow building in Sun

I shall run you through!

Ornate Window at Police Station

Riding into the sunset at Puerta del Sol

Ramiro the first statue in Plaza de Oriente

Smells like flowers!

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden!

Cross in the light

Can you hear the people sing? Statue near Principe Rio

Building near Banco de Espana

Birds bathing at Plaza de Espana

Balconies ad infinitum

After lunch, I headed over to the other side of Madrid to check out the Parque de El Retiro. Known officially was the Parque del Buen Retiro (the park of the pleasant retreat), most folks just call it El Retiro. Three-hudred-fifty acres of green space, it is known as the “lungs of Madrid.” It includes the Monument to Alfonso XII overlooking the Retiro Pond and the Crystal Palace, inspired by the place of the same name in London.

Monument to King Alfonso XII at lake in Parque de El Retiro

Fountain near Alcala gate in Parque de El Retiro

Holding the crown at fountain near lake in Parque de El Retiro

Puerta de Alcala

Tables at snack bar in Parque de El Retiro

Alcala Gates in Parque de El Retiro

Pond at Crystal Palace in Parque de El Retiro

Crystal Palace in Parque de El Retiro interior

Crystal Palace in Parque de El Retiro in sun

Crystal Palace in Parque de El Retiro

Trees turning in Parque de El Retiro

There is also a statue by sculptor Ricardo Bellver called El Angel Caído, inspired from a passage in Paradise Lost by John Milton. The sculpture represents Lucifer falling from the heavens. It is claimed this is the only known public monument to the devil, though I somehow doubt it. Anyway, my camera was momentarily possessed by a demon of ill-focus, so my picture of the fountain is mucho fuzzy.

Fountain Glorieta del Angel Ciado in Parque de El Retiro

I did at least get this in focus close up of the dragons spewing water at the fountain.

Dragon Spewing at Fountain Glorieta del Angel Ciado in Parque de El Retiro

That was a lot of wandering, so time for a break. Cervezas, Vinos and tapas sounds good.

Streets in the central part of Madrid have decorative signs for their street names. In addition to the street name, they have a picture depicting the name of the street.

I was staying at the Hotel Ingles, which was described as being a faded glory by some of the reviewers on hotel review sites. It’s really not that faded, nor glorious. Especially when compared to my hotel in Buenos Aires, the Hotel Reina. It had Marble stairways, stained glass windows, 25 foot ceilings and a wrought-iron elevator cage for the glory part. For the faded part, the elevator didn’t work and smelled of electrical smoke and the carpet in the lobby was threadbare. Now that is faded glory!

Back to Madrid (which incidentally reminded me a lot of Buenos Aires - though I suppose actually it is more the other way around - Buenos Aires is Madrid-like, as Madrid was built first). The hotel Ingles dates back to the 1880s (the specific year seems to be in doubt, even in the hotel’s own information. It is either 1882 or 1886). The rooms have been updated since then, though, and are clean though small hotel rooms. They do have high ceilings and cool wooden shutters on the windows. The hotel is central located, well priced, doesn’t have bed bugs and does have hot water, so that’s all that mattered to me.

The hotel does have CNN. I caught this little nugget on CNN - a crack down on immigration to the UK. Hopefully they let me back in the country!

The next day I headed north, for no particular reason other than I had spent most my time in South-central Madrid the day before.

Church near Tribunal station

Flats and Balconies along Calle de Almagro

Faces on building near Banco de Espana

Path and Trees on Paseo de la Castellana

Plaza Dr. Maranon

Pink flats and balconies

White building on Paseo de la Castellana

Traffic in Plaza de Cibeles

Red Curvy Building at Ruben Dario

That eventually took me to Nuevos Minsterios and Plaza de Pablo Picasso. Nuevos Minsterios is a large government complex that houses the headquarters of several ministries. Just north of it is a large metro and train station topped by a mall, and just north of that the Plaza de Pablo Picasso. For a plaza named after Picasso, it is not very cubist. It is just a shady, green square surrounded by big tall office blocks.

Arches at Nuevos Minsterios

Pool at Nuevos Minsterios

Steps at Nuevos Minsterios

Funky Sculpture in Plaza de Pablo Picasso

English going cheap at Plaza de Pablo Picasso

After lunching in the area, I headed just further north to see Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, the home of Real Madrid. Real Madrid is a football team in Madrid, playing in the Spanish league, and the team which houses superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka. Real Madrid has also been declared the most successful club of the 20th century by FIFA, having won a record thirty-one La Liga titles, seventeen Spanish Cups, a record nine European Cups and two UEFA Cups.

Seems a little concrete-ish from the outside. Maybe it is nicer on the inside.

Up the street from the stadium is the Plaza de Castilla. Its just a big traffic circle with a monstrous metro, train and bus station, but it has these nifty diagonal buildings.

From there, I took the metro back down to Sol station, near my hotel. Gotta love the metro in Madrid. 13 underground lines and 3 tram lines, it is one of the longest metro systems in the world. Its growth in the last twenty years has been dubbed the “Madrid miracle” and made Madrid the envy of many transit geeks the world over. Plus, it only costs €1 to get almost anywhere on the system except the furthest outer reaches.

That evening, after 6 meals in a row of tapas, I decided to go for a full-grown meal, and hit a Mexican restaurant near my hotel. It was nice to see that all the Mexican stereotypes that one sees in North America, and no doubt makes Mexicans cringe, are alive and well in Spain as well. Sombreros and maracas, festive lights and waiters saying “Si, Senor” like Speedy Gonzales. Despite being a Mexican restaurant, I don’t recognise any dishes on the menu. I order something with the word pollo in the name. It was okay. The Mexican beer was cold.

After dinner, I took a wander around the area near my hotel.

Palace Hotel

Traffic circle and fountain

Tio Pepe Sign in Puerta del Sol

Fountain in Paseo del Prado 2

Bench and Lights in Paseo del Prado

Wandered out, I hit a bar. I randomly choose a place near my hotel, chosen mostly for the short distance back to my hotel. Seemed a typical, small, lounge. Lots of comfy and hip grottoes and groups of young Madrid-ites hanging out, just gearing up for a long night out. Trance and dance music playing over the sound system. Waitresses that were stunning. One of them looked like former 1980s Canadian VJ Erica Ehm.

So what does this hip, lounge bar in the middle of Spain have playing on the TV? A replay of the National Hockey League’s game from the previous night of Ottawa vs. Philadelphia. I was, needless to say, the only person in the entire bar that was watching the hockey. I thought that perhaps I had died and gone to heaven - after all I had a teenage crush serving me and hockey on the TV. Then I got the bill for the beer. €4.50 for a half-a-pint. Nope, I’m still on earth.

I headed back to my hotel and crawled into bed. Turns out my room overlooked a street that was a big night out for a Friday evening. The party kept going and going and going. Finally, at 6 AM the noise stopped and the revellers went home.

The next day, my final day in Madrid, I decided to go and see the river. It was on the banks the Manzanares River that the city of Madrid was founded by the Moors in the seventh century, so I figured it would be an important and mighty water route through the city.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The river is pretty tiny, actually. On it’s banks stands Estadio Vincent Calderon, the home to Madrid’s other football team, Athletico Madrid. The banks of the river were pretty busy the day I was there due to an international football match between Argentina and Spain.

I was hungry after my walk down to the river and it was noon, so I decided to get some lunch. It was very hard to find open food. Saturday noon in Madrid is like 8 AM Sunday in London. Only joggers, young families and old people are up. There are no stores open. I guess that makes sense as party people were up until 6 AM. Everyone is still in bed from the night before.

I was cranky without my lunch. I took out my Madrid map and studied it. I hadn’t done much research on Madrid before coming, and basically had just focused my touring on the points of interest listed on the map. On arriving and first looking at the map, I’d picked out a few places on the map that seemed to be most interesting. Of those, only one place still remained unvisited on my grand tour of Madrid.

The Plaza de Toros las Ventas, or in English, the bull ring.

For me, the concept of bull fighting and Spain are inextricably linked, and the las Ventas bull ring is could be considered the spiritual home of bull fighting. (Personally, I’d lean more towards Seville or Toledo as being the spiritual home of bull fighting, though I really know nothing about bull fighting, so I have logical reason to say that. They just “feel” more bull-fighting-ish.)

Anyway, my feet were hurting, my stomach was grumbling, and the pull of seeing the bull ring was waning as the pull of a cold beer and warm meal in central Madrid grew. I spent a minute staring at my Madrid subway map and thinking about the two different routes I could take - one to the bull ring and one to Sol station.

Finally, the grand tourer in me snapped out of his languor and stepped to the fore. “Come on, Wesson. You didn’t come all this way to just sit around, drink and relax, did you?”

At this point, the vacationer in me meekly said, “a little rest wouldn’t be a bad idea.” He got shouted down by the grant tourer, though, and off me and all my personalities went to the bull ring.

The bullring was opened in 1931 after the previous bullring proved to have too few seats. The new bullring, built in the Neo-Mudéjar architectural movement that pays homage to the Moorish history of Iberia, holds 25,000 people. In addition to bullfighting, the bullring holds concerts, tennis and when I was there, a circus. I wonder if the elephants get spooked by all the ghostly bulls wandering the pitch of the bullring?

Not only was the grand tourer in me satisfied by seeing the bullring, but the stomach in me was satisfied as well. For outside the grounds of the bullring, Madrid was hosting the Fiesta Gastronomica del Marisco de Galicia y Artesania en Madrid. My Spanish ain’t great, but I recognised enough words to piece together “Seafood Festival.” Oh yeah. €14.00 for three lobster tails. Right on!

Hands still covered in butter, I looked at my watch. It was still early afternoon, and my flight back to London wasn’t until nine in the evening, but even the grand tourer in me was too tired to continue. My thumb was still hurting from the spill I had taken in Sintra, I had a blister on the big toe of my right foot, my right achilles tendon felt like it was on fire and the instep on my left foot sent pulses of pain up my leg with every step. Because I had only planned a week in places I hadn’t been before, I had packed it full to the gills with activities. The only day “off” I had taken was on the Monday, and that day off included a tour of the area around Oriente station followed by a six hour train ride from Lisbon to Madrid.

The previously meek voice of the vacationer finally got his say.

“Let’s grab a beer and chill out until our flight.”

My personalities were all in agreement, so we grabbed the metro back to central Madrid where we had a few pints in an Irish pub, watching sports on the big screen, until it was time to collect our luggage and head out to the airport.

After seven jam-packed days, I was ready to go home.

The Grand Tourer Hits Madrid remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Hola Salamanca!

2009-11-19T09:27:12Z

After a late night arrival in Salamanca, the next day I was off to explore.

Salamanca has a very long history, and much of the old town has been well preserved. UNESCO made the old city a world heritage site in 1988. The town is probably most famous for its University which was founded in the 12th century.

I did a rough circle of the city on my one day there, hitting all the highlights on my tourist map of the city, plus whatever I saw along the way.

It was a nice day, very sunny but a touch windy.

The town is centred around Plaza Mayor (Main Square). The buildings surround the square are Baroque dating from 1729 to 1755. The plaza was designed by the architect Alberto de Churriguera and finished by Andres Garcia de Quinones.

Off to the east of the Plaza Mayor is Santa Clara Convent. No longer a convent, the building now hosts a museum with murals and paintings from the 13th to 16th centuries.

Streets here are narrow and short and twisty, suddenly bursting out into open squares and park spaces, like a good medieval city should be.

Plaza de Libertad

Espoz y Mina Street

Looking down Calle Consuelo at the Torre de Clavero

Heading north from the Plaza Mayor, I eventually reached the Plaza de San Marcos and the Iglesia de San Macros, a small, round, Romanesque church at the Zamora gate to the city.

Next I headed down the Paseo de Carmelitas, a wide boulevard with lots of green space with walking paths, trees, fountains and sculpture.

Gateway to Hospital Santisima Trinidad

Spitting Boy Fountain in Paseo de Carmelitas

I cut in about halfway down the street at Campo de San Francisco, a green space that has the Vera Cruz church, Ursulas Convent and Monastery and the Palace of Monterrey bordering it.

Palacio de Monterrey Tower

Monastery of the Annunciation Doorway

Iglesia Vera Cruz bell tower

Walking to church, entrance to Iglesia Vera Cruz

Cross in Campo de San Francisco

From there, the tourist trail took me down Compania, a street jammed back with interesting sites.

The Romanesque San Benito church is along the Compania right before you get to the imposing Universidad Pontificia. Established in 1104. During the middle ages the Benedictines who worshiped at this church battled for control of the city government with the worshippers of Saint Tome. Saint John of Sahagun mediated between the two groups, bringing peace to the city and in turn becoming patron saint of Salamanca.

The Pontifical University of Salamanca, or in Spanish the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and known as the UPSA was founded in the 13th century as part of the main Salamanca University. The Spanish government dissolved of the University of Salamanca's faculties of Theology and Canon Law in 1854, closing the university. It was reopened in the 1940s.

Courtyard of Bibloteca Publico across from the Universidad Pontificia

After crossing the Plaza San Isidro, you enter the main campus of the University of Salamanca.

Columns of School of Philosophy at University of Salamanca, across from the Salamanca Cathedral

After almost eight centuries in operation, the university of Salamanca is still going strong. In addition to a number of students from Spain, the university is a favourite of foreign students, especially those looking to study Spanish, and has over 2000 foreign students.

Being in operation in 1218 makes it around the ninth oldest university in the world, though like all these lists, there are all sorts of disputes. Firstly, while being granted a Royal Charter in 1218, there was a school at Salamanca dating back at least 100 years earlier. Plus, places like the University of Nanjing, in China were founded in 258 BCE, but only became a “university” in 1888. Some claim Salamanca is the oldest because it was the first to be granted a papal decree to be a university

Whether Salamanca is 1st, 8th, 9th, or 20th on the list of oldest continually operating universities, dating back 800 years makes it pretty old in anybody’s book, I would think.

The Rectorado...

Rectorado? Damn near killedorado! Hmm, that joke seems to work a lot better in English.

Sitting just a block away from the university is the twin cathedrals of Salamanca. The original cathedral was built in the 12th century, and is a Romanesque medieval cathedral. A new cathedral was built, co-joined to the older cathedral in spurts and fits from the 16th to the 18th century, picking up elements of Baroque, Renaissance classicalism and Gothic architectural along the way.

South of the Cathedral is the Tormes river, across which an old Roman bridge dating back to the first century spans. It’s been updated along the way.

The other side of the bridge is the south side of the river known as Arrabal. The area seemed nice, if a touch quiet (excluding the traffic streaming along the main roads). Climbing up in the park gives a nice view of the old part of Salamanca across the river.

Iglesia de la Santisima Trinidad

Iglesia de la Santisima Trinidad through wooden art

I crossed back over the Enrique Estevan bridge, which lead up to the Church and Convent of San Estevan. The convent belongs to the Dominican Order. Reading from the information on my tourist map, is says that the convent shows “ global concept of a city of thought like Salamanca. The facade of the church of the convent is considered one of the best examples of Plateresque style. The cloustro de los Reyes or La Sala Capitular are just some of the attractive places we can admire inside.”

I love that. “some of the attractive places we can admire inside.” Can we? I looked around to see who the "we" was, but it was just me.

Just up the street is the 15th century Torre del Clavero. The tower is all that remains of a mansion built by Francisco de Sotomayor.

I then did a trip through the nearby Parque Huerta de los Jesuitas, which is a pleasant green space to the east of the old city. I had done a lot of walking, though, and was getting tired, so I returned to my hotel to rest up.

I had dinner at a nice little restaurant just off the Plaza Mayor. It was tapas, so I had three plates of items instead one big plate. I must admit dinner was a kind of solemn affair. I like good food, but when travelling alone I usually just grab a quick and cheap bite. Its not that I don’t want to splash out on a nice meal, its just that I feel both self-conscious and bored sitting in a restaurant by myself for an hour eating a nice meal. I wonder what other solo travellers do about meals?

After that, I looked for a place to grab a pint. Of course, I wound up in an Irish pub. Irish pubs are everywhere. I drank in an Irish pub in Ulaan Bator, Mongolia. This one was different than most Irish pubs in that it had mixed Irish pub and pirate theme. The typical Irish paraphernalia like Guiness advertisements, bookcases and stained-glass windows separating booths was joined up with cannons, guns, parrots and boxes of treasure. I am not sure why the meshed those two together.

“Arr, matey. Top o’ the morning to ya, ya scurvy-dog!”

The bar was mostly filled with locals watching a couple Spanish football league matches. I noticed that the Spanish people don’t seem to take any breaks between words. Itsoundsliketheyjustsayanentiresentenceasasinglewordwithmanysyllables. I wonder how they breathe?

I really should have gone to this place...

Mmmm, tarta de suelo... D'oh!

The next day, I checked out and bid "¡Adios!" to Salamanca and boarded a train to Madrid. The train was interesting, a small train of just 3 coaches, the interior of the cars were were white plastic, with blue fabric seats. It reminds me of a hospital from Sci-fi movies, but moving. Perhaps its design is based on a “hospital ship” from Star Wars or Aliens?

As the train runs from Salamanca to Madrid, both situated on the central plains of Spain, we passed an number of rocky hills covered with sparse forests. It reminded me a lot of the novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which probably speaks well about Hemmingway’s ability to describe landscapes as the novel does take place in the hills around Madrid.

I sat back and watched the rocky, dry scenery pass by, waiting for the next part of the trip. Despite what they might have taught you in My Fair Lady, the central plains of Spain are quite dry.

Soon the rocky hills, patches of forest and endless plains gave way to low rise buildings, highways and office parks. The exterior of all cities now, almost indistinguishable from any other city.

This specific city, though, was Madrid.

Hola Salamanca! remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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From Portugal to Spain - Notes from the Rails

2009-11-17T20:00:00Z

And that was it, after three days, my time in Portugal was over. A short trip to the country, but I'll have to come back. I never got to try the salt cod or have a glass of Port, so there is more to do in Portugal before my time on this earth is up.

I heard a lot of people speaking Portuguese during my time in Portugal. This is to be expected, of course. I don't think I've ever really heard Portuguese before. More correctly, I have probably heard people speaking Portuguese before, but it has never really registered. I've done lay-overs in Sao Paulo, where no doubt I heard numerous announcements in Portuguese, and I have friends with Portuguese background, so I may have heard it spoken by their parents and such. However, I've never really listened to it before.

What amazed me is that Portuguese sounded NOTHING like what I would have expected. Having seen it written, I expected it to sound like Spanish. It doesn't. Portuguese sounded to me liked Dutch people speaking alternating words in Russian and Spanish. Lots of harsh Russian sounds said with the slurred "sch" sound that Dutch people use, along with flowery Spanish sounding words. Very strange.

My time ended with a last glance at the International Fair grounds where Lisbon held Expo 1998. All those flags lined up along the basin, alphabetically arranged by Country.

I was excited to get down to the Cs, where I looked up the tall flag pole dedicated to Canada.

No flag! The only country where there wasn't a flag! I was crushed. However, the wind was very strong, and most of the flags were in tatters. I assume it wasn't an intentional slight, but rather more likely that the wind took away the Maple Leaf over the sea.

A couple workers were slowly working their way down the flags, taking down the tattered and faded flags and replacing them with new versions, so no doubt Canada's flag is flying high again. I just wonder how often they have to replace those flags, they way they whipped on those high, windy flag poles.

I left Portugal on the train, from Gare do Oriente (the Station of the West, literally). Oriente is one of the main transport hubs in Lisbon. It was designed by Santiago Calatrava for Expo '98, and sits right beside the grounds of the former world Expo. It is a very modern station, with lots of light and glass and swoopy curves inside, and an impressive glass platform roof (the term train shed seems inadequate here) like a medieval cathedral made of light.

I had left my luggage in the lockers in the basement (floor -2 if you are looking for them) as I wondered around the grounds of the International Fair and went to see the Vasco Da Gama Tower (covered in a previous entry). Before claiming it, I popped into the toilets on the ground floor.

Now, Oriente is a very busy commuter station. It handles 75 million passengers a year, and I was there at four in the afternoon on a weekday. Not quite rush hour yet, but still pretty busy. Therefore, I was amazed at what happened next.

I was in the toilet, standing at a urinal and doing what men do at urinals - taking care of business and staring straight ahead at the patch of wall directly in front of me. Out of my peripheral vision, though, I noticed the guy a couple urinals to my right was looking over at me. I took a quick glance over at him, and saw that he was involved in ... ummm... pleasuring himself. Right there, in the middle of a busy toilet in a busy train station in broad daylight (well, we were two stories underground - but it was broad daylight up there).

Upon me looking at him, he caught my eye and looked at me in a way to suggest that while he was having a good time, he would not be against a duet. I blushed and went back to staring at the wall ahead of me, trying to will myself to finish my biological functions as quickly as possible.

On leaving, the man was still there, still at full attention. He had now turned his attention to a man a few urinals away on his right, who was also trying his best to ignore him. As I washed my hands, the man who had been engaged in self-satisfaction zipped up and walked out of the toilet, obviously unable to attract the attention he wanted.

I finished washing and drying my hands, and I walked out of the toilet to see the self-lover standing by the door. As I exited, a commuter in a suit walked in the toilet, obviously in a hurry to quickly take a pee before grabbing his train. The stroker waited until the commuter had entered the toilet, and then followed him in.

Bold. I guess when one is dogging in a commuter train station, you might as well be bold.

The train I jumped on was the long distance train to Hendaye, known as the Sud-Express. The Sud-Express used to be a two-night sleeper train between Paris and Lisbon, but with the creation of the high-speed LGV Atlantique line, the train no longer goes direct to Paris. Instead, you get high-speed TGV to Hendaye, and then a slower train between Hendaye and Lisbon.

I wasn't going as far as Hendaye, just as far as Salamanca in Spain. It was still a 6 hour journey, though. When I got on the train, I was impressed to see that the seats were those old-fashioned six-seater compartments with a door and curtains for the windows, like in movies staring Clark Gable.

I settled in with the iPod on shuffle and started to read a book that my flat-mate had given me for my birthday - Kate Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?" It is a very good read. My only complaint is that books that involve train crashes with massive loss of life on page 149 should come with a warning of such, in the event that you don't want to be reading about train crashes whilest rumbling across the dark Portuguese countryside in a rickety, old train.

The train arrived in Salamanca at 2 minutes past midnight. The train station looked quite nice, but was deserted at that hour and all the shops were closed.

From the train station, I had about a 15 minute walk to my hotel. I pulled out my printed Google map and headed along the route towards the centre of town.

One of the things I noticed when I was in Lisbon was that most of the windows have shutters on them, and this continued to be the fashion in Salamanca and later Madrid. Big, metal things that usually roll down on the outside of the window. They reminded me of the big, metal roll doors that shops often have on the front of them when they close up at night. I wasn't sure why they were there. If it was protection from burglars or rock-throwing kids, why did they even have them up on the top storeys of 15 storey apartment blocks?

In Lisbon it was just an idle curiosity. In Salamanca, walking along the deserted streets past midnight and seeing every window protected by a metal shutter and walls covered with graffiti, and you start to wonder if perhaps there is something you don't know about the neighbourhood you are walking through. Should I have body-armour or an armed escort for protection?

Of course, it turns out to be nothing so sinister. I asked a friend who lived in Madrid, who said it was to block the sun. Most folks don't have curtains, and instead have shutters. In the hot summer, they close up the house during the day to keep the sun out, then open the shutters and windows at night to let in the cool breezes. Because I was there during chilly November, people weren't throwing open the windows at night.

I walked along the same route a few different times while in Salamanca, and even the sinister graffiti from that first night was not what it seemed. Rather than gang-tags, it was a quite well done mural of Alice in Wonderland.

After a 15 minute walk, I arrived at my hotel, all body parts still intact. You know you are getting into late at your hotel when you walk into the lobby and they greet you by name, even though you’ve never been there before.

"Hello Mr. Wesson. Welcome to Salamanca."

From Portugal to Spain - Notes from the Rails remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Sintra: The Mythical Land of Mist

2009-11-16T22:01:11Z

One wouldn’t expect that you could get on a train at a functional looking train station in Lisbon and wind up less than an hour later in a mountain village that looks pulled from a painting on the cover a fantasy novel.

One would be wrong, though, because you can get in less than one hour by train from Lisbon to Sintra.

Sintra is an example of 19th century Romantic architecture, a style which is ornate and colourful. For this architecture styling, the town was made a UNESCO heritage site. Through the years the town has attracted to those drawn to the fantastical, from fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen, who called the town the “most beautiful place in Portugal,” to romantic and tragic poet Lord Byron, who called it a “glorious Eden.”

House of Hans Christian Andersen

I first heard of Sintra through the writing of a travel blogger going by the handle of “The Longest Way Home.” He wrote of a search for a hidden Knights’ Templar well while in Sintra. What a magical place, I thought, where one can have adventures reminiscent of Indiana Jones. When heading to Lisbon, I just had to see it for myself.

From Lisbon, I headed out from Sete Rios train station, just a 15 minute walk from my hotel.

After a 45 minute trip on a comfortable suburban train, I stepped off into a village straight out of a fairy tale. I got hit with the magic right off the train. Just down the street from the train station is the town hall. The town hall was designed by architect Adaes Bermudes and built between 1906 and 1909 in “the neo-manueline style.” It is both imposing with it’s large tower, but also quite inviting and open.

Unfortunately, in addition to getting hit by magic, I started to get hit by rain. It had been sunny the day before in Lisbon, but the rain had settled in over the area on Sunday. With a train ticket booked out of Lisbon the next day, this was my one day to see Sintra, though, so I decided to brave the rain and see the sites.

Up from the town hall is the main historic area of the village, anchored by the Royal Palace of Sintra. The Palace stands overlooking the centre of Sintra, topped by two large white chimneys. The earliest parts of the palace were built in the 9th century by the wallis, the Moorish governors of Sintra. Since then it has been added to, expanded, and renovated to become the building it is today.

The rest of the town is as pretty. Up in the hills, Sintra has more of an Alpine village feel than a Portuguese sea-side village. Rocky hills covered with evergreen trees rise in all directions around the village.

From the village, there are two buildings atop different hills that tower over the village.

The first one is the Moorish castle. The castle had its beginnings as a military fort, believed to date back to the 9th century and the period of Arab occupation. It served as an excellent observation post for monitoring the coastline for attack, and because of its cliff-top location was hard to attack and easy to defend. It wouldn’t have made a great look out to the sea the day I was there, though. Fog obscured the coast, and the wind meant that even if you could have seen the coast, you would not have been able to stand on the walls for long without being blown over.

In the event that you aren’t aware of the history, much of Spain, Portugal and parts of France were ruled by Arab and North African (known as Moors) rulers from the 8th until the 13th century. After Islam rose in power and much of the Middle East and North Africa were converted, rulers of the new Muslim kingdoms sought to expand into Europe. In 711 they expanded into the Iberian peninsula, and expanded their control over the next 50 years. The area of their control was known Al-Andalus. Borders shifted and Kingdoms passed between hands for the next 350 years. In the 1100s, most of Iberia was reclaimed by the Catholics, though the final patch of Muslim rule was not returned to Catholic control until 1492.

The castle at Sintra was built by the Moorish rulers of Sintra in the 9th and 10th centuries. It was recaptured by the King of Leon in 1093, but captured back quickly by the Moors. In 1147, the castle was handed over to Afonso Henriques, who became the first king of the newly created Kingdom of Portugal.

Traitor's Gate, used as an escape path in the event of a bad siege

Knights' Quarters. A gatehouse and 3 storey housing for the guards

Cistern for storing water

I really liked the Moorish Castle, despite the wind, rain and fog. I like ruins. I’d rather see ruins than a completely restored building (even though I know extensive work has been done to keep the castle in the shape it is). Ruins speak to both the age of the building, and also the impermanence of humans and our history. The trees and bushes that sprout up among the tumbled rocks of the walls of the castle lay waste to any claim we humans make about the enduring majesty of our existence. We are just small specks on this big earth, and in 1000s of years it may be the case that no one will even be able to tell we were even here.

(Well, actually having read the book “The World Without Us,” I know that it’ll take 7 million years for the faces to erode off Mount Rushmore. But the rest of the stuff we build will disappear pretty quickly without us around to maintain it).

Atop another hill (more hiking down and hiking up in Sintra, just like Lisbon. At least I was getting exercise to offset the vacation food and drink), I hiked up to the Pena Palace. Build in the 1840s and 1850s on the site of an old Monastery, the Pena Palace sits atop another high peak overlooking Sintra.

It is the “exuberant creation” (according to the tourist brochure) of Queen Maria II of Portugal and her consort, Fernando of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. It is the epitome of the Romantic architecture, an ornate and eclectic decorative style.

In some places online, I read that Pena Palace described as “Disney-esque.” I can see that. Besides for the bright colours, it is a castle built in the mid-1800s, long after the time for medieval castles had past. It is a mish-mash of styles sporting such disparate touches as Eastern-influenced onion domes, Venetian-inspired towers and medieval battlements.

Tiled façade reminiscent of Arab influences

Triton, God of the seas

The weather had turned even worse as I reached the Pena Palace. The fog had rolled in and the wind had picked up. The weather was definitely only rolling in from one side, though. The Palace had two courtyards on either side of the main building. On the lee-side, it was quiet and gray, drizzling but with no wind or fog. Walk through the gate to the other courtyard though, and and it was foggy and windy, and the light drizzle was pelted by the strong wind into small bullets of water.

I did not enjoy the Pena Palace as much as the Moorish castle. It felt too “put on” to me. It was a Palace, not a castle. It was purely for show, a chance for the rich and powerful to say, “look at us, aren’t we grand and regal?” Bah, humbug, I say. Perhaps this is my Protestant, working-class heritage showing through, but it just seems a waste of resources on something that is nothing but flourish.

King Fernando and Queen Maria did get one thing right, though. The gardens surrounding the Palace were impressive. Like the castle, the gardens are a mish-mash as well, built with a trees and plants from around the world. Somehow, despite being on a windy and cool mountain-top in Portugal, they were able to plant flora from around the globe, including from the tropics.

Former vegetable garden and 16th century orchard of a monastery on the site, was transformed into a garden in honour of queen Dona Amelia

Queen’s Fern Valley - Collection of ferns planeted in a valley with special conditions, surrounded by deciduous trees. Felt very Jurassic Park in there

Bronze statue built by Ernesto Rusconi in 1848

Temple of the Columns built in 1840. Small temple serving as a viewpoint over the Palace (though exactly how you can see it through the fog and heavy foliage is beyond me). Built on the site of a chapel dedicated to St. Anthony.

I was going to hike out to the Cruz Alta, the “high cross.” The cross is carved in stone and stands at the highest point in the Sintra hills, at 529m above sea level. The point is also a good place to look out and see the Atlantic Ocean.

The rain intensified, though, and the fog thickened. My jeans were soaked up to my knees thanks to the wet weather. I decided to skip the Cruz Alta, figuring I wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway, and find a nice cafe for a warm cup of tea or cocoa.

On the walk out of the garden, I was stopped at a junction of a few paths consulting my park map when a couple came up. They were from Belgium, and unsure of how to get out of the park. The area surrounding the Palace of Pena is called a garden, but it covers 85 hectares, so getting lost is quite understandable. Luckily, one of the few skills I have is map reading, so I was able to lead them out to the Valley of the Lakes entrance. We walked along and chatted, and it turns out they had just come from the Cruz Alta. They confirmed I had made the right decision - the wind was awful and the fog and rain meant that you couldn’t see a thing.

one of the lakes and duck house near the Valley of the Lake Entrance

We parted ways at the exit of the park, and I headed back on a forest path to the Moorish castle, where I planned to follow the same path I’d come down to get back to Sintra. The forest paths ungulate up and down, and to make them easier those who built and maintained the castle and its paths have added stone steps to the steep bits to create stairways. Over the last ten centuries, though, the stones have become smooth and rounded. Add to that the rain that had fallen that day, and the stones became positively slick.

In my last entry I mentioned that my shoes were old and didn’t have much tread left. I’ve had the shoes for two years, so it was well past the time to trade them in. I had been meaning to go out and buy new shoes, but kept putting it off because the shoes were fine for walking on dry days on flat, even pavement. Put in a place where they needed more grip though, the worn down soles offered no traction though. Like a racing car driver on slick tires on a wet track, I lost it.

I fell hard. A French couple were passing by just then, and they were nice enough to check that I was okay. I was alive and not bleeding, but I didn’t feel great. I’d landed mostly on my back and left arm. My back, where it had hit the stones, was throbbing. There were shoots of pain from my hand as well, and I couldn’t bend my left thumb.

I hobbled back down to Sintra, skipped the hot cocoa and instead went for a numbing beer. I hopped on the next train to Lisbon, returned to my hotel and slipped into a hot bath, hoping to soak the pain away.

The back pain was fine the next day, but the thumb is taking longer to recover, though it is recovering. A poor ending to what had been a great day.

It’ll be fine though. A few days later I was reading an article about how scientist have determined that we humans actually tend to more positively remember things than they actually occurred. We save the good memories, but throw out the bad ones. Years from now when I look back at this entry, I’ll probably be surprised reading about the thumb sprain. I won’t remember it. Instead I’ll probably recall the little Alpine-feeling village in the hills outside Lisbon that had a mystical ancient castle blanketed by a magical fog.

Sintra: The Mythical Land of Mist remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Hill goes up, hill goes down - Walking Lisbon

2009-11-15T13:21:11Z

Portugal!

Unchained from my desk for a week, I decided to jet down to Portugal and Spain for a quick site-seeing jaunt. The first few days were spent in and around Lisbon.

Lisbon is Portugal's capital and largest city. It is situated on the River Tagus near where it drains into the Atlantic Ocean, making it a vital port as well.

The centre of town is still filled with very historic buildings, and lots of bendy and narrow streets. It is also exceedingly hilly, so I spent most of my time marching up and down. I realized that I need new shoes, as the tread on my shoes is almost warn off and on the smooth worn cobblestones, I found myself often losing grip and sliding.

I started my day at Santa Apolonia, and walked from there. It's about time somebody recognised the good work that Apolinia did in Purple Rain, though I think sainting her might have been a bit much.

Up the hill is the National Pantheon, which also has a small market outside.

From there, I ventured further up hill to get to the Miradouro Sra do Monte, a church atop a tall hill in Lisbon. From there, there are nice views of the city.

On a hill not far away is the Castelo de Sao Jorge (Castle of St. George). I hiked down and sweated my way back up to the top to see the Castle.

From there, it is a short (thankfully downhill) jaunt to the Cathedral of Lisbon. Along the way, I passed a number of interested houses and sites.

In the Cathedral

If you don't feel like walking, there are trams that can take you up and down the hills. On the part through the tourist area, they run olden trams that are wooden and rickety. Other trams in the city are modern ones.

At the bottom of the hill, near the river, was a modern art museum, which had giant statues of The Beatles that had them dressed up as their Sgt. Pepper alter egos on one side, and reflective on the other.

In the main part of the city is a number of squares, including Praca da Figueira.

Nearby is the Rossio train station. Modern and old at the same time.

An old exterior...

...and a modern interior

Another hill would take you up to Bairro Alto. I climbed it, but if you want you can take the Santa Junta Elevator. It is basically a vertical subway with only two stops - down and up.

In Bairro Alto is the Ruinas do Carmo, where there is today an archaeological exhibit. The ruins themselves are a church that was being restored, but the money ran out so no roof was every put on, leaving it open to the elements.

Not far away is this nice looking theatre - Teatro de Trinidade.

Back down the hill, and more walking - this time at least on mostly level ground, along the Ave. da Liberdade. Some nice tile work on the sidewalks here. There's lots of nice tile work in Lisbon, probably due to the fact that it was controlled by the Arabs for a long stretch from 700 to around 1150 AD.

Finally back to my hotel. I took a different tube line back to my hotel, and came out to find this graffiti.

At first I thought it funny because it had Bender on it, but as I walked out of the basin that the tube station was in and up onto the street, it seemed more ominous. The court of the metro was dirty, with graffiti and imposing tower block. It felt very urban jungle and unsafe. I walked along a road was cut off due to a construction site, but the large concrete barriers blocking traffic just reminded me of checkpoints at army bases. I crossed a busy road that had an uneven dirt median under an imposing concrete overpass, and then passed an and overgrown empty field. On the whole, the scene made the place seem very dodgy.

I ended up walking the wrong way. Even though I had a map, not all the streets were labelled on my map, and street signs in Lisbon are sometimes rare. Therefore I ended up walking around lost for a while. The sky had turned grey, and on the whole my mood darkened as well. Luckily I was staying at a big, bright, shiny American hotel, so I was able to see their bright red sign from blocks away.

It's quite possible that the metro stop was fine, but after that I went to one of the other metro stops near the hotel instead of that one.

Another day I went out to the western tip of the city, near Gare do Oriente and the Vasco da Gama Mall. Back in 1998, Expo was held in Lisbon, and the area around the train station is where the pavilions were. Today it is a shopping mall, arena, aquarium and river-side walkway. It also includes a cable car that runs along the river front.

Nearby is the Vasco da Gama Tower, shaped like a sail in honour of the explorer. Normally you could go up and get views of the city, but the tower is currently closed as they add on a five-star hotel. Take that, Dubai!

So instead I found a nice spot on a patio and had a beer.

Sure, it was only 1:30 in the afternoon, but it is a holiday, after all.

More to come from this trip. Sintra, Salamanca and Madrid are all coming up as I get pictures and text organised. Stay tuned!

Hill goes up, hill goes down - Walking Lisbon remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Gunners v AZ: UEFA Champions League at Emirates Stadium

2009-11-05T13:21:09Z

In the early 1950s, English football team Wolverhampton Wanderers did a tour of Europe playing “friendly” matches. A friendly is a game played between two sides that doesn’t have any league or title consequences. These games are often played in the off season so teams can stay sharp. The Wolverhampton team (“The Wolves”), one of the best teams in England at the time, beat a number of the top European clubs. The British Press started calling the Wolves “the Champions of the World” due to this success across the channel on the continent.

This didn’t go down too well with teams and fans over in Europe, so in 1955 the European Champion Clubs’ Cup tournament was started. At first only one team from each country was invited in (the winner of the national league competition), but in 1990s, the format was extended to include teams who are runners up, depending on how “good” the league they come from is deemed. At present, the England’s top four teams from the Premier League enter the Champions League (or more properly the UEFA Champions League), the most from any country (tied with Italy and Spain, who also send 4 teams).

The 32 teams are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each. The teams then play each other twice, one home game and one away game. The top two teams from the group stages move on to the knock-out stage. For the round-of-16, quarter finals and semi-finals, the teams play two games (one home and one away), and the winner is the one with the highest aggregate score. If there is a tie in the scores, away goals count more than home goals.

The final two standing teams play one game at a pre-determined site to declare the winner. Last tournament in May of 2009, the final was played in Rome. This tournament, Madrid hosts the final on the 22nd of May, 2010.

Right now, the UEFA Champions League is in the group stages. One of the four English teams playing in the Champions league this year is The Arsenal.

Arsenal’s history dates back to the 1886, when a group of coworkers at the Dial Square workshop of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich decided to form a football club. Calling themselves the Dial Square football club, the boys played their first match against The Eastern Wanderers on December 11, 1886 on the Isle of Dogs (where I used to live). It was a 6 - 0 win, over a club which I can find no more information about other than they lost one game to a team that would become one of the top teams in England. Despite the similarity in name Wanderers, they were not the same club that kicked off the Champions league back in the 1950s.

The Dial Square football club changed their name soon after to be known as Royal Arsenal. The club remained an amateur side for the workers at the Arsenal until 1891, when they turned professional and changed their name again, this time to Woolwich Arsenal. They joined the Football League, a collection of mostly northern based professional teams in 1893. However, the Woolwich team didn’t do well against the more established northern teams, and soon found themselves floundering both competitively and financially. In 1913 the team moved from Southern London up to Islington (where I currently live), to a grounds in Highbury. They dropped the “Woolwich” from the name (for obvious reasons), and have since been known simply as The Arsenal, or The Gunners.

Famous Arsenal fans (who are called Gooners, as a play on the Gunner nickname) include Nick Hornby, who wrote a book Fever Pitch about his love for the club. The book has been made into two movies, though admittedly one was about baseball. Other fans include The Queen, F1 racer Lewis Hamilton and singer Dido. As an aside, if Dido ever reads this... “Hey, how you doing? Drop me a line. Maybe we can go out and grab a drink. We can talk about whatever - Arsenal, your music, my blog, the fact I often still have sand in my shoes...” (I think Dido is foxy...)

As for me, I think I may becoming a fan of them as well. I wrote about the need to pick a football team to cheer for back before I moved over to England. I had talked about maybe Chelsea or Tottenham - both London based teams, but never committed to either. I flirted with the idea of cheering for West Ham or Millwall back when I lived on the Isle of Dogs due to their geographic proximity, but never connected. Arsenal though, I think is a team I can get behind. They have a fancy stadium (which happens to have a travel related sponsor even), are close to home and are one of the top teams in the league. I like that in team, after years of living in Toronto where we had the definitely not top of the league Toronto Maple Leafs.

Plus, I’ve already bought a shirt.

The Arsenal played at the ground at Highbury until 2006, when they moved to new, flasher digs just down the road. The new stadium was initially called Ashburton Grove, until a deal to sell the naming rights was secured with a middle-Eastern based airline. The stadium is now known as The Emirates.

The Emirates is just up the street from my flat, a 30 minute walk or a 2 stop tube ride. The stadium holds over 60,000 fans for football matches (including over 7,000 seats in the high priced “club level”), and is often sold out. On the outside, the stadium has a number of large glass covered areas which reflect the blue sky during day games and show off the fancy club level restaurants and bars at night.

Arsenal, after finishing fourth in the Premiership, qualified to be in the Champions League tournament. They are in group H along with Olympiacos from Greece, Standard Liège from Belgium and AZ Alkmaar from the Netherlands. After three games, Arsenal are atop the group with two wins and a draw. Their last game was against AZ Alkmaar in The Netherlands, where they drew 1-1.

The match on the fourth of November, 2009 at the Emirates was a chance for Arsenal to get revenge on AZ after the draw, which Arsenal thought they should have won. A win would also keep them comfortably atop Group H.

For Champions League games there are a few changes at the Emirates. Firstly, it’s not called The Emirates. Due to conflicting sponsorship between the clubs and UEFA, stadiums are not referred to by their “naming rights” names. Arsenal’s ground is called “Arsenal Stadium” on Champions League game nights. Also, they don’t sell beer. You can bet, though.

I had nice seats in the upper tier behind the north end goal. Despite being in the upper deck, the view of the field was still very good, and it wasn’t a problem to follow the action at all.

The fans were on fine form, chanting and singing throughout the match. “We love you Arsenal” was sung every four minutes or so. After the first goal, the faithful started singing “One-nil to The Arsenal” to the tune of “Go West” by the Village People. After the third goal, putting Arsenal up 3-0, the fans started a chant of “Are you Tottenham in disguise,” referencing Arsenal’s 3-0 win last weekend over hated cross-town rival Tottenham Hot Spur. One of the best chants was in honour of The Arsenal’s coach Arsène Wenger, where the fans sing “There’s only one Arsene Wenger” to the tune of Guantanamera.

Arsenal ended up winning handily, with a final score of 4-1. The game was great to watch as a fledging Arsenal fan, as it featured an almost endless offensive push by Arsenal and not much life from AZ Alkmaar. Probably not so good if you were an AZ fan, though. I bet all the visiting Dutch fans off in the south-east corner of the stadium were sitting there and looking at each other saying, “Waatsch haappening, guysch? We aare getting schlaaughtered!”

Now I have a footie team to cheer on. All I have to do is start learning some of those chants...

One-nil to The Arsenal... one-nil to The Arsenal...

At least I already have the jersey.

Gunners v AZ: UEFA Champions League at Emirates Stadium remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Happy Hallowe'en!

2009-10-31T11:55:47Z

In honour of the ghosties and goblins, some creepy shots I have taken...

Egham, Surrey:

Bunhill Fields, London:

BOO!

Happy Hallowe'en! remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Everybody Take a Day Off and Have a Picnic!

2009-10-29T12:52:06Z

I just went out to get my lunch, and it is an absolutely beautiful day today. Sixteen Celsius, very mild and bright despite a layer of clouds in the sky. Gorgeous day.

Everyone should have the day off today, so we can all be out and enjoying this weather. Everyone could go to their favourite park and have a picnic. Everyone could have a “nice weather day.”

Well, not everyone, obviously, because we would need the train drivers to get us to the picnic grounds, and the tube and bus drivers to get us to the train station. Everyone else, though, should have the day off.

Oh, except for the folks who work at Tesco’s, the grocery store, because I don’t have the stuff for a picnic lunch and would have to pick it up. So the train, tube and bus drivers and Tesco’s employees would have to work, but everyone else should have the day off.

Wait, I’ll like a cold drink when I get to the park, as I imagine everyone would. So any off license, news agent or convenience store near a park will need to stay open and have someone at the cash register. Train, tube and bus drivers, Tesco’s employees and off license cashiers, all report to work. Everyone else, take the day off!

No, just a second. I’ll probably want a pint later in the day from the nearest pub, so the pub landlords will need to be open. Sure, I could get a can of lager from the off license, but I’d prefer my beer in a glass pint. Therefore, the pub will need to be open. Okay, where are we at? Pub landlords, train, tube and bus drivers, off license cashiers and Tesco employees are all at work. Everyone else has a free day.

Oh, hang on! All those people in the park will create a lot of rubbish. We are going to need someone to pick all that rubbish up and clean out the rubbish bins. Park staff will need to be in to do that. Right, train, tube and bus drivers, off license cashiers, Tesco employees, pub landlords and park cleaners - man your posts! The rest of us are going to take a free day.

Though, I don’t really like the idea of all those people in the park at the same time I am. I’d prefer a nice quiet patch of grass. Actually, I guess when it comes right down to it, I really only care if I get the day off. The rest of you I don’t care about. So that’s it – everyone report to work but me.

Hey, here comes my boss. Wonder what she’s about to say?

I need to work overtime tonight? No chance of getting out and enjoying the weather?

No picnic for me today. I suppose it is some consolation that I can see the parking lot of my office from outside my window. It sure looks nice out.

Everybody Take a Day Off and Have a Picnic! remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Flashpacker: a Backpacker with a Hotel Loyalty Card

2009-10-28T17:11:33Z

Last week I took the tube down to Piccadilly Circus to pick up a train ticket. The ticket was for a train from Lisbon, Portugal to Salamanca, Spain on the 9th of November. Those of you who read this blog for actual travel stories rather than just my general musing about my domestic life will be happy to hear that I am off travelling again. Sadly, it’ll just be a quick trip - a week long vacation taking in Lisbon, Salamanca and Madrid.

I had booked the train ticket online, but much to my chagrin, I couldn’t arrange to pick up the ticket at the station. The ticket had to be issued physically, which meant having it mailed to me. If you aren’t local to the United Kingdom then you might not know that Royal Mail and her unions have been having a bit of a spat recently, and as such mail to my flat is generally delivered somewhere around two to three weeks after it was originally posted. Had Rail Europe posted me the ticket, it most likely would have arrived at my flat sometime in the middle of the week when I was in Portugal and Spain.

As I needed the ticket prior to that, I arranged to trundle down to the Rail Europe office in London (convenient, that) and pick it up in person. I picked up my ticket and it is now sitting on my bookshelf, underneath my passport, so I don’t forget it.

It is strange, having an actual physical piece of paper that I need to take with me on my trip. The rest of my trip has been booked electronically. Having to actually have a physical ticket for something seems so 2003, when I went to South America and last had to take physical tickets and coupons for items with me.

The internet has changed the way I travel, and probably the way most people travel. In 2003 I lugged around a three inch thick copy of Lonely Planet’s South America On a Shoestring to provide me with city maps, hotel recommendations, travel options and schedules and sight-seeing options. Nowadays I just troll the web for the plethora of tourism board, travel advice and hotel review websites.

Once on the road, things are a lot different than back in 2003 as well. My South American blog entries are pretty light on photos because I had a film camera with me at the time, along with 9 rolls of film. The photos are currently stored in photo albums sitting in my father’s storage locker in Toronto. Someday I’ll get around to scanning them, but for now my images of South America are mostly in my memory and an inaccessible storage locker halfway around the world. Other than my film camera, I didn’t have a single piece of electronics with me.

On my trip to Portugal I will likely be travelling with my digital camera, iPod, USB flash drive, laptop and mobile phone.

On the 11th of November I am planning on taking a train from Salamanca to Madrid. Instead of trolling through the pages of the Lonely Planet to find the train times, I’ll hook into my hotel's free WiFi, look up train schedules online and probably even set up an SMS alert to go to my mobile phone in the event that there are delays on the train lines.

Partly the changes in the way I travelled from 2003 until now are down to the inevitable march of technological improvement. Even the rough-looking Aussie backpackers drinking on the sidewalk outside the Journeys Kings Cross Youth Hostel down the street from me all have mobile phones and digital cameras, or even more likely a mobile phone that is also a camera, mp3 player and GPS system.

Partly the changes can also be traced to the type of trip I am undertaking. Two months backpacking in South America is a different type of trip than jetting down to Iberia for a week away from work.

Mostly though, I think the changes relate to the fact that as I age, I become less and less of a backpacker.

I was recently watching my favourite TV channel - Dave - during one of the few hours of the day when the channel isn’t showing repeats of Top Gear. Instead, they had on stand up comedy from the Apollo Theatre in Hammersmith, where Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain was talking about travelling in Australia with a bunch of 19 year olds.

Speaking to some of the young people in the crowd, he says, “go for the rucksacks for a while, and later on, you stop, you never go back.” He talks about the kids on his Australia trip, in their “rucksack stance - all of the weight up on the shoulders, pushing down on the hips,” talking about how much they “feckin’ love backpacking.” The kids go through their experiences with backpacking - seeing Australia on 13 dollars a day, getting damage to their “lower lumbar regions” and sleeping in dorms with “nine Norwegians who I neither know nor trust.”

At the end of the whole line of backpackers is Dara, with his luggage - a rolling suitcase. “Look, its on wheels, you feckin’ eejits.”

Thanks to Tux In the Backpack for the video of Dara. If you have trouble seeing the video, check it out on YouTube

I know exactly what he means. I am too old and frankly have too much money to bother with hostels anymore. The last time I stayed in a youth hostel was during my ill-fated, sleepless night in Dublin. After that I decided I may as well spend some of these dollars and pounds I am collecting and get a nice hotel with a comfortable bed, air conditioning, a safe (for all these electronic goodies I am carrying nowadays) and free WiFi.

Yes, as I get older, I become less and less of a backpacker and more and more of a flashpacker. A flashpacker is someone who still embodies the “spirit of the backpacker” (whatever the feck that means), but is willing to splash out to have a little more comfort.

I first heard the term flashpacker last summer in an article on Vagabonding. Since then the term has come into normal use, at least among travel writers and marketers. At first I resisted the term, but as it has now entered the general lexicon, I guess I can’t help but admit it.

I’m a flashpacker, and I like my own bathroom.

So in a few weeks time you’ll be able to find me somewhere in Iberia. I’ll still be wandering around looking for good local places to eat, drink and interact with some of the locals, like a good backpacker. I’ll just be doing it with a nice hotel to head back to at the end of the night.

Flashpacker: a Backpacker with a Hotel Loyalty Card remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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A Silver Rabbit and A Faux Turkey

2009-10-12T17:05:15Z

After walk through the neighbourhoods of Islington on Saturday that lay to the north of my flat, Sunday I walked through the leafier, quieter and poshier neighbourhoods to the south of me - Holborn and Bloomsbury. Former residents include folks like John Maynard Keynes and Charles Dickens. Fictional residents include the Darling family, those whose little children followed one Peter Pan to Neverland. Today, the areas have such notable residents and institutions like Ricky Gervais, De Beers Diamonds and University College London.

I was heading south because I was heading for Covent Garden, a place I normally avoid due to the overwhelming crush of the crowds there.

As a rule, I don’t mind crowds. I like the anonymity of walking through the crowds on a busy business district street, everyone with heads down and walking with a purpose.

Covent Garden is different, though. Covent Garden is full of tourist crowds, people walking slowly and erratically, constantly changing direction or stopping and staring upwards. It totally throws off my pace of movement, and infuriates me endlessly. Bad for the blood pressure.

I put aside my general dislike of the tourist hoards and headed down to Covent Garden to see a giant silver rabbit. The rabbit, created by American artist Jeff Koons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in 2007, has since travelled the world as a floating art piece.

The rabbit is in London as part of the Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit at the Tate Modern. The exhibition has been in the news over here because officers from the Obscene Publications Unit of the Metropolitan Police removed one of the works of art prior to the opening, a picture of a picture of a naked 10-year old Brooke Shields.

After spying the rabbit, to escape the crowds I headed over to the Maple Leaf Tavern on nearby Maiden Lane. The pub is a Canadian Bar, and thus I ordered a pint of Canadian-made Sleeman India Pale Ale. I was having a quick Canadian pint before heading home to prep for the day. This past weekend (including today, Monday, which is a holiday back home) is a big deal back in Canada.

It is autumn, and that means in addition to the leaves falling from the trees, Canadians will be falling asleep on the sofa with the Calgary Stampeders against the Montreal Alouettes on the TV.

This weekend, back home in Canada, is Thanksgiving weekend. My British flatmate recently asked me, after I announced it was Thanksgiving this weekend, “you aren’t American, what the hell do you have to be thankful for?”

Besides for the obvious answer implied in the first half of the question itself, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival and back in Canada we are celebrating the bountiful harvest that the majority of Canadians have nothing to do with, and don’t even notice because all our food is flown in from California and Chile.

Never mind, as this is the first Thanksgiving that I haven’t gathered with my family in Toronto since my University days, I decided I would have a mini-Thanksgiving feast for myself.

The traditional Thanksgiving dinner would be a large roasted turkey with stuffing, and mashed potatoes with gravy as a side. A turkey struck me as being overkill, seeing as I was only feeding myself, so I decided to roast a chicken. They are both foul, so I figured it would be fitting.

Because I have more money than culinary skill, I bought a pre-seasoned and stuffed chicken.

As a side, instead of mash, I just baked a potato to have along side. Of course you need a little liquid refreshment as well. I wanted to have a nice Canadian wine (yes, there are Canadian wines), but sadly they are very hard to come by over here, so I went with a Chilean sauvignon blanc instead.

It was yummy, and the best part, just like Thanksgiving back home - Leftovers! Chicken for dinner again this evening.

Happy Thanksgiving to those back home in Canada.

- * - * - *

A final note that today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of my Mother from cancer. I have marked the occasion by thinking of the good times we had together, and also sending out positive thoughts to my family back home.

It is a tradition at Thanksgiving to name what you give thanks for in the past year. So today I have concentrated on giving thanks for the years that I had with my mother.

"I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss."
Rita Mae Brown

A Silver Rabbit and A Faux Turkey remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Strolling Islington

2009-10-10T16:16:39Z

Recently I registered with a new medical practice around the corner from my flat. I should have done it back in February when I moved in, but I am a man and thus blissfully (some would say dangerously) unconcerned with matters of health generally. However, I finally got around to registering and was told that I needed to do more exercise. For some reason (perhaps advancing age or expanding waistline), I decided to listen and have actually been attempting to engage in regular exercise.

To meet my exercise requirements, I have been going out for brisk walks. Most days I just huff and puff along, not really taking in too much of my surroundings. Occasionally, though, I slow down the pace a little bit and take a look around. Today, on my partially brisk, partially leisurely walk, I wandered around Islington, which is the borough of London in which I live.

I started by marching up Caledonian Road. Cally Road, as it is known, is where I live. The southern part of the road, from Pentonville Road (near King's Cross) heading up to Caledonian Road tube station is a somewhat gritty street, mostly lined with shops. I don't mind a bit of grit, though, and the shops sure come in handy when I want the Sunday morning paper or need some dry cleaning done. Plus, there is a barber around the corner from me who charges £5 for a hair cut. That's a damn fine deal.

Just to the west of Caledonian Road tube station, off Market Street, is Caledonian Park. The park is built on the former site of the Metropolitan Cattle Market. The Market, in operation from 1855 until the early 1900s, was located on the site due to the proximity of King's Cross rail station, where cattle were offloaded from trains and marched up York Way. Today the only remnants of the cattle market are the clock tower that stood at the centre of the site, and a few pubs around the edges that date back to the period.

The clock tower is a listed building, and is "Baroque influenced." It was designed by J.B. Bunning, architect to the Corporation of the City of London.

In the 1800s, the area stretching from Regent's Canal (just north of King's Cross station) up to Caledonian Park was known Copenhagen Fields. It was across the Copenhagen Fields in 1834 that a demonstration and march took place to show support for a group of men known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The Tolpuddle Martyrs had been convicted of trying to organise a trade union, and for that had been sentenced to seven years in Australia.

On April 21st 1834 (175 years ago this year), demonstrators marched pretty much along the route that I had taken to get from my flat to Caledonian Park, starting at what today is Wharfdale Road (just north of my flat) and ending at the park. They would have gathered on the flats by the tower, though the tower wouldn't have been there at the time.

Today there was no union demonstrations in the park, just a couple kids playing in the play area and another boy playing fetch with his dog. Well, half a game of fetch. The boy would throw the stick, the dog would run after it, sit down by the stick and start gnawing on it. Then the boy would throw up his arms and walk over to the dog, wrestle the stick away, and throw it again. The dog would then bound after it, and upon arriving at it, sit down and start chewing the stick again. In this way, the boy and his dog circled the park.

Judging by the black spot on the grass where a scooter had been burnt a few days before and a lot of posters along Market Road warning drivers that they are being captured on CCTV, so they shouldn't kerb crawl, I'm guessing it probably isn't the nicest area at night.

However, things look set to change. Just north of the park is the Market Estate, a council estate that is getting a big face lift. In 2001, after the death of a young boy on the estate due to a faulty security door, the residents of the estate formed the Market Estate Tenants and Residents Association (METRA), which demanded changes. After 8 years, they are getting the changes they wanted, with a redeveloped estate being built. 175 years separate the six Tolpuddle Martyrs from METRA, but the two stories both show how those who band together to make their lives better can effect change.

Ironically, a lot of the drug activity and prostitution in the area is due to the activity being shifted away from the regeneration around King's Cross station. As I said in a previous entry, I'm part of that gentrification of the area, so I guess I am partially to blame for the Market Estate's woes.

Heading east from the Market Estate one gets into Highbury. Highbury is much poshier than the area around Caledonian Road, with lots of nice row houses and the much larger and less-scooter-burnt Highbury Fields park.

Running south from Highbury Fields is Upper Street. It runs parallel to Cally Road, only a few minutes away, but they feel miles apart. While Cally Road is all discount shops, low-end grocers and betting parlours, Upper Street is gastro-pubs, funky little clothing and furniture vendors and fancy restaurants. On Upper Street is Islington Town Hall. Today, as with most Saturdays, folks dressed up in nice clothes were milling about outside taking pictures, guests of weddings taking place in the Town Hall. You don't get many people dressed up for weddings on Caledonian Road.

That was my walk today. Heading north on the working-class, council-estate-surrounded Caledonian Road, and back down the posh and fancy Upper Street. The two roads are never more than a few minutes away from each other, but feel very different. I like having them both close at hand. It allows me to immerse myself in different atmospheres and experiences depending on my mood, all without having to walk too far from home.

Strolling Islington remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Stranger in a Strangely Comfortable-Feeling Land

2009-10-07T20:02:18Z

Home.

Stop and think for a moment of “home.”

What did you think of? Did you think of the place you live now? Did you think of the house you grew up in? Did you think of some place you used to live but have moved away from? Did you think of some place you want to live – a house in the country or a cottage on the lake?

Why did I ask you to think of home?

I did this same exercise back in July, and again recently a few days ago, and came up with some interesting results.

Why was I thinking of home?

It has to do with some thinking I’ve been doing recently about my move to London.

I recently posted an article on the website travelblogs.com about existential migration called Feeling at Home as the Foreigner. As I’ve mentioned previously in my entry I am not a Traveller, I am a Migrant, existential migration is a term invented by Dr. Greg Madison to describe the process that some people go through in deciding and executing a voluntary move abroad. It is those who choose migration as a means to find or drive a meaning in their life that they feel they cannot get in their native country.

One of the key themes in Madison’s research on migration deals with the concept of home. Home, Madison says, is not a place, but rather an interaction between a person and their surroundings. The ‘feeling of home’ arises from specific interactions with our surroundings that could potentially occur anywhere, at any time.

When I first read that in statement in July, I sat back and thought of home. The first thing that popped into my head was the Residence Inn San Ramon in California. It is an extended stay hotel in a town just south of Oakland, California, about an hour from San Francisco. I stayed there for 75 days in 2002 and haven’t been back since.

As I mulled it over a little more, I came up with other places that felt homey, at least for a time. My corporate apartment in Denver, the hotel I stayed at for my last two weeks in Paris, my place last November in Phoenix and my parent’s house all came to mind, along with other places.

In each of these places, I experienced a period where I felt comfortable and settled in my work and life. That comfort in my personal life bled over into my physical surroundings. For a time, I felt comfortable enough in a place to call it home, even if it was just a hotel or a temporary corporate apartment.

It was interesting that in all the places I thought of as home, my apartment in Toronto where I lived for 12 years never came to mind.

In the article on travelblogs, I talk about the feelings that drove me to leave Canada in the first place, and my feelings now that I am living in London.

I realise now that I never really felt comfortable in Canada. Despite having a good set of friends and a loving family, I always felt like I was a bit of an outsider. My Toronto apartment never really felt like home to me because I never quite felt at ease in Toronto.

Since moving to London, I feel more at ease with my surroundings. I’ve started to not just reference my London flat as my home, but actually feel it as such. I’ve started to connect with my neighbourhood as well, even going as far as buying a t-shirt with a close up of the King’s Cross St. Pancras tube station just down the street from me.

I am starting to feel like London is home and I feel at ease here. It is not because I necessarily fit better in London, but because I am free to feel like a foreigner here in England because, after all, I am one.

I am a stranger in a strange land. However, at home I felt like a stranger as well. If home is the interaction between a person and a place, then living abroad allows me to match my internal feelings of being foreign with my external environment.

I’ve become a foreigner so that I can feel more at home.

The Stranger in a Strangely Comfortable-Feeling Land remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The True Benefit of Government Subsidised Culture

2009-10-04T22:01:36Z

I'm not much of a museum person. Generally when I go into a museum, my primary goal is to see how quickly I can make it through to the other side. For all the time I spent in Paris in 2005, I only made it to one Museum, the Orsay. I never went to the Louvre, frankly the lines scared me away. And in 2006 when I made all those trips into New York, I skipped most of the big museums, only venturing into the Skyscraper Museum down in Battery Park and one visit to the Natural History Museum, which I liked because they had exhibits with mannequins, which is always cool. Plus, dinosaurs.

For this reason, despite living for the last year and a bit in London, a cultural capital with a large selection of museums for all tastes, I haven't really been to many of them. I have been to the London Transport museum (because I am a train geek), the Canal Museum (because I like boats) and a visit to the British Museum (because I felt like I had to).

Today, though, I was out for a walk and found myself outside Charing Cross Station, looking down the street at the National Gallery and I thought to myself, "I need to go to the National Gallery." So I went.

In 2001, in a bid to increase attendance and bring culture to the masses, the Labour government of Tony Blair introduced free admission to many museums and galleries. In London, all the big museums and galleries are free, which means my one visit to the British Museum didn't cost me a penny, though I did drop a pound in the voluntary donation box, because I am good like that.

Today, upon spying the National Gallery, it was this lack of admission charge that had me thinking I would go in.

See, just a few minutes before, I had been wandering through Charing Cross Station, looking for a free toilet. I had hoped that it wouldn't be the case but was not actually shocked to find that the toilets cost money to use. It is a sad fact that most of the train stations have pay-per-use toilets. Only St. Pancras Station seems to have free ones. Perhaps it is to impress those coming from the continent aboard the Eurostar. We wouldn't want the French to think us too money grubbing. At least not until they've exited the train station and tried to take a black cab.

Anyway, Charing Cross wanted £0.30 to use the facilities. Thirty P for a ... pee? Outrageous. Not when there are cleaner and free bathrooms to be had at the museum down the street.

So I went to the National Gallery, walked in, walked down the stairs, did my business, and left.

That is the story of my first visit to the National Gallery. I wasn't inspired by any of the art, or the beautiful architecture of the building, but I did think the toilet very clean and tidy.

Clean toilets. The true benefit of Government subsidised Culture.

The True Benefit of Government Subsidised Culture remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Groovin' Along the Rails to Ascot

2009-10-01T19:53:25Z

Today I travelled to Ascot for the day.

Before you ask, yes, the same Ascot as the one with the famous famous racetrack, which hosts the Royal Ascot race meeting every year, which in turn gave its name to a type of neckwear.

I however, was not going to play the ponies nor was I wearing a cravat. I was off to a business meeting, so I got myself suited and booted, grabbed my laptop computer, my mobile phone, my TFL Oyster card (to pay for the tube) and hit the road.

Oh, I packed one more thing for my trip, a new piece of kit that I just bought.

Let’s come back to that in a minute though.

Back in May of this year, I was asked by the editor of the site travelblogs.com to contribute to an article they were putting together on what not to pack when you travel.

I don’t know why I agreed to offer up my advice on the topic, because I am about the worst packer imaginable. I always end up with a bag full of things I don’t need and never use. When packing, I suffer from a severe case of the “what ifs?”

What if there is a freak snow storm in July in Mexico? I better pack thermal underwear.

What if I go to London and get invited to have dinner with the Queen? I better pack a suit.

What if the atmosphere of the planet drains away while I am visiting Japan? I better pack a self-enclosed space suit and supplemental oxygen.

Despite my inability to pack, I decided to throw in my suggestion of something you don’t need.

I picked something I’d seen a lot of people travelling with, but that I had never travelled with myself. Therefore, I figured, you don’t NEED to bring it, do you?

I knew when I picked the item I chose to write about, it would be controversial. I had met more than a few people travelling in the past few years who have said to me that they could not imagine travelling without this item. This despite the fact that the item in question didn’t exist before 2001, and wasn’t in regular use until a few year after that.

The item I suggested people could travel without was the iPod.

What I wrote was:

I see so many people travelling nowadays with their eyes closed and those white buds in their ears. That is fine and good for a commuter train rides. When riding a bus through the wilds of Costa Rica though, you lose something when you throw in your ear buds and select your “groove out” playlist instead of taking the opportunity to watch the scenery, listen to the sounds of travel and most importantly interact with your fellow travellers and locals. Of course, I could be wrong and this all could be jealousy on my part seeing as I have no mp3 player to speak of… But I am pretty sure I’m right.

As you can see, I tried to make it a bit of a joke. After all, I’ve already admitted that I pack too much stuff, so I figured I would fluff off the entry with a bit of a light, jokey entry.

My advice on the iPod got posted as one of the 18 Things You Don’t Need On Your Packing List.

Looking at the 18 things, I do agree with some of the things - money belts and water filters aren’t needed on the majority of trips. Some of things I understand, but still bring anyway. I know that you shouldn’t bring jeans - they are heavy and slow to dry, but I always bring them. They are just more comfortable. Some items I disagree with. I only brought one book with me to South America, figuring I could trade with folks along the road or pick up books at English book stores. Didn’t work, and I wound up spending 5 days in Patagonia without a single thing to read.

Among the other suggestions was my iPod entry. I was expecting a few negative comments, but I got a bit of an avalanche of them. Only one person agreed with me, with ten disagreeing, including calling me a “retard” for suggesting it and calling the suggest to travel without an iPod “the most stupid thing, I´ve ever heard, seriously!”

I’m pretty sure stupider things have been said in the entire history of humanity, but I suppose that’s a bit of an objective call, so perhaps I have, in fact, said the most stupid thing ever said.

When it comes right down to it, you don’t actually need much of anything to travel. If you’ve ever backpacked, you’ve probably run into someone who is travelling long term with nothing more than one change of clothes and a passport. That’s all you need, and you really only need the passport if you want to leave the country. In fact, I’ve come across blogs and articles about people travelling with no money at all, so a passport and clothes is about it.

Even with the inspiration of those who travel with nothing and a handy list of 18 things not to pack, I’ll probably still pack too much.

Turning back to my day trip to Ascot today, readers with keen deduction skills will already have guessed what the new bit of kit that I took with me.

It was my brand new iPod.

I bought it last weekend and loaded it up with the 2617 songs that I recently ripped from my CD collection. I put together a few cool playlists too, “Road Trippin’” and “Dance Dance Revolution” among them.

You know what. I liked it.

The iPod came in especially handy when, due to “severe delays on the circle line,” I wound up catching a later train out of Paddington and therefore missed a connection in Reading. With 25 minutes until the next train, being able to sit back and listen to some tunes was much appreciated.

After my meeting, I caught the train back to Paddington. Instead of hopping on the tube of catching a bus, I decided to walk home. It’s about an hour walk, but it is good exercise, so I decided to hoof it. I kept my iPod in my ears, and started the walk down Praed street with my “Car Chase Music” playlist on shuffle.

It made me realise what my life up to this point had been missing.

A soundtrack. Walking along the busy city streets with “Busy Child” by The Crystal Method made me feel a little like Jason Bourne on his way to punch the crap out of some of his evil CIA pursuers.

Therefore, I will admit I was wrong. Travelling with an iPod is fine. It helps pass the time when waiting, which those who travel will know is something that happens often - whether it is on a train platform, a bus station, a ferry terminal or an airport lounge. The music also provides an additional layer of experience to the passing scenery, whether out of a train window or walking the city.

Yes, I will admit I was wrong. At least, I’m pretty sure I was wrong...

...but...

Listening to my iPod today on the train got me thinking about another trip I did my train, but this one much longer than the hour from Ascot to Paddington (via Reading).

I got to thinking about my trip from Paris to Hong Kong, which I did without the benefit of an iPod or other MP3 player.

The iPod would have come in handy a few times. I no doubt would have gone a lot less stir crazy when I spent four days straight on the train between Moscow and Irkutsk, and iPod might have made the train station in Jining seem a lot less depressing and scary.

It would have been a shame though, if instead of spending my time trying to speak with Stan and Ollie or Soonay and Alex, that I put my ear buds in and spent my time lying on my bunk.

Plus, the iPod would have been an absolute life changer for the worse if I spent my time listening to U2’s latest on the train from Beijing to Hong Kong. On that trip, without an iPod to entertain me, I instead sought out some English speakers to chat with. I wound up chatting with a Canadian-born girl who was travelling with a British passport. She told me about the UK Ancestry visa, which three years later led to me moving over here to London.

So, yeah, I was wrong. Travelling with an iPod is fine. Just make sure you take the ear buds out and talk to those around you.

You never know where it might lead.

Groovin' Along the Rails to Ascot remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Whatcha Reading?

2009-09-26T11:08:40Z

Sunday morning. There’s nothing quite like a decent Sunday morning with nothing at all on the daily calendar, is there? A day to wake up, wander around the house, avoid showering, have a leisurely breakfast and read the Sunday newspaper. Then, maybe about 1 o’clock, after spending the day flipping through every section of the massive Sunday press, then maybe its time to get outside and do something.

Back in Toronto, when I would wander around the house, eating my breakfast and reading the newspaper, it would be the Toronto Star. A good, decent solid liberal newspaper (by Canadian standards).

The question I faced when I first arrived in London is what newspaper I should read. There are a lot of choices, and what you choose to read says a lot about who you are, or at least who you think you are.

During the week, of course, I don’t have time to sit around a leisurely read the paper. I, like most of the rest of London, read the same thing on weekdays.

The Metro. 

The London Metro is a free newspaper distributed every weekday morning. It has just about enough news to digest in about 20 minutes, and if you are feeling really ambitious or want something to do at lunch or on the evening train home, there is a Suduko.

Everyone who commutes in London seems to read the Metro newspaper. Comedian Michael McIntyre commented on this in his Live at the Apollo appearance.

And everyone's reading, you have to read, you can't be on the tube without reading, reading is very important. You get on on the morning and every single person is reading the Metro. Everyone, everyone. Why doesn't one person just read it to the carriage?

if you want to see him do it (much funnier with his delivery), check out this clip on Youtube, starting at about 2:30. Stick around for the bit at about five minutes in, when he talks about the guy trying to get on the crowded tube train. Classic stuff.

We used to have a free Metro newspaper in Toronto, one of many cities with a free morning newspaper called the Metro. The London Metro is not, however, one of that brand. The Metro papers in Toronto, New York, Philly, Paris, Sydney, Rome et al are run by a Swedish company based in Luxembourg.

The London Metro, along with the other Metro editions in the UK are run by a separate company, though they stole the name from the Swedes, so the papers are named the same.

So that covers me on the weekdays and my commutes. On weekends, though, that’s where you are faced with the decision. Saturday and Sunday editions of the many newspapers available in London are numerous, and the local news agents counters are groaning under the weight of all the editions.

As I said, what paper you read says a lot about who you are.

If you like sports, gossip and boobies, hate immigrants and have little patience for big words or long articles, then the tabloids are for you. The tabloids, also known as red-tops due to the fact many have a red banner at the top of the page, include The Star, The Sport, The Mirror and most famously the The Sun, and her Sunday companion “The News of the World.”

The Sun is one of the most read newspapers in the world, with a daily distribution of almost 3 million copies. The Sun is famous for coverage of celebrities and the Royals, Sports coverage and the Page 3 girl. The Page 3 girl is usually a comely lass who is pictured after misplacing her top and bra.

It is often said of The Sun that it is read back-to-front, as the Sports pages are at the back of the paper, and many of the readers of The Sun are football fans drawn to their extensive football coverage. Of course, in reality The Sun is read in this order - Page 3, and then back to front.

While Page 3 is enticing, for real thrills you’d have to check out the Daily Sport. The Daily Sport ditches the concept of news entirely, simply publishing pictures of naked and near naked women instead and writing a few words of copy around the picture. I must admit that I was tempted to become a Daily Sport reader, but I do occasionally like to read some real news, so decided to go for something a little more high-brow.

The Daily Express or the Daily Mail are a little more high-brow than the tabloids, though at times not much more. The Express is fond of conspiracy stories regarding the death of Princess Diana, and the Daily Mail ran a headline in 1993 entitled “Abortion hope after 'gay genes' findings,” suggesting that if there was a “gay gene” pre-natal test, then parents could choose to terminate the pregnancy. A strange suggestion for a newspaper who is editorially anti-abortion.

The Daily Mail published a story on the seventh of January 1967 called “The Holes In Our Roads” about potholes. The story looked at the crumbling infrastructure of British roads, specifically quoting the example of Blackburn, Lancashire, where it said there were 4,000 potholes. In the same issue was a story about the death of John Lennon’s friend Tara Browne.

Lennon, when writing about the death of his friend, picked up on the story of the potholes to pen the lines, “four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, and though the holes were rather small they had to count them all. Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall,” for the song Day in the Life.

Despite the historical link with my favourite Beatles song, The Mail and the similar Express, often called “middle-market” papers, tend to be conservative and euro-sceptic. As you can tell from my blog, I am pretty Euro-positive, so I decided to look for something a little more in line with my values.

That left me with the Broadsheets. These are the classy papers, the ones that fancy people read. Oh, and me, as well, even though I am not too fancy.

Each paper has a definite political slant. The Telegraph, sometimes called The Tory-graph, is conservative, while the other broadsheets tend to be more liberal. Well, the Financial Times isn’t really liberal, per se, but rather is so focused on business and the stock market to give too much care for liberal or conservative thoughts on social policy. Anyway, I am more liberal than conservative, so I decided to pick one of the other broadsheets.

The Independent is a centre-left paper, an out-growth from The Dublin Independent, but no one really reads it, so I was able to dismiss it pretty easily.

The Guardian and its Sunday edition called The Observer are left of centre and socially liberal.

The Guardian was originally published in Manchester, with the most early editions being sent from Manchester to London. I didn’t know this, but apparently the later runs of newspapers have less errors, because they are being caught and corrected as the run continues. To get the paper into the shops for the morning commuters, London papers sent their early editions to the North of England, whereas early editions of the Guardian came down to London.

Because of Londoners getting the early editions of the Guardian, many folks in London would find spelling errors in the Guardian, leading to it being dubbed the Grauniad, after an urban-myth of the newspaper’s name being misspelt on the banner.

I don’t mind the Guardian, and their headquarters aren’t in Manchester anymore, but rather down in King’s Cross, London, just a block from my flat.

However, I finally settled on reading the Times on Saturday and Sunday, mostly because my current flat mate reads The Times on Saturdays and Sundays, and therefore we can share the cost of buying the papers.

So, on Sunday mornings I get up, throw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of sandals and walk half a block up Caledonian Road to the News Agent. There, in exchange for two of my hard earned pounds, I get a thick newspaper that’ll keep me busy for the next four hours, plus a few hours here and there during the week thanks to the magazines.

I return home, make myself some toast and peanut butter and settle in to read the Sunday Times.

So, what does this choice of paper say about me? Well, officially, the paper is centre-right, so I guess that means I am a little bit conservative. I suppose that isn’t surprising. After all, I do tend to meander over the spectrum of voting. Mostly though, it says I like the concept of not always having to buy the paper.

Perhaps, though, it is best to leave it to others to determine what it says about me. For that, I turn to 1980s sitcom Yes, Prime Minister and their episode entitled “A Conflict of Interest.”

Prime Minister Jim Hacker: I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by people who actually do run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is. 

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about people who read the Sun. 

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country as long as she's got big tits.

Whatcha Reading? remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Drawing Comfort from the Smoke from the Yakitori Grill

2009-09-20T08:45:25Z

I've been cocooning recently. Working from home and a spat of cooler weather has meant that staying in has been quite an attractive option. So for the past few weeks, other than the one day a week when I head down to my office, my life has pretty much taken place in a small radius of my flat, the outer limit of the radius being the N1 centre, which has a Sainsbury's, pharmacist and movie theatre. With the N1 centre, I want for nothing.

The other day I was re-reading some of the notes I had made after reading about Existential Migration, which I wrote about in my entry I'm not a Traveller, I'm a Migrant. Reading my notes at the time reminded me that I should be taking advantage of the opportunity I have created for myself by moving to England, and getting out and enjoying life in the city.

To that end, I have (for the past 4 days at least) made an effort to get out and see London. On Wednesday I walked up Caledonian Road and checked out Pentonville Prison, which I will admit isn't very high on the tourist trail, but it is a mile from my house and thought I should check it out, in the event there is ever an escape. On Thursday, after taking the train back from my office in Egham, I walked from Victoria Station to my house (about 4 miles), taking in Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus and Soho along the way. Friday I walked around Camden for an hour.

Yesterday, I headed over to Liverpool Street station and the nearby Old Spitalfields Market.

Spitalfields used to be a wholesale fruit and vegetable market, but that was moved in 1991 to the new Spitalfields Market out near the Olympic site in Stratford. Today, the old Spitalfields Market is used as a space for restaurants, shops, bars and the occasional small festival.

Yesterday, there was a Japanese festival called Matsuri.

I quite liked Japan when I was there in 2006. I found it an interesting mix of the familiar and the strange. It is a very modern country (at least the bits I saw of it), and other than a proliferation of neon that you wouldn't see anywhere in the west, the cities seem pretty similar to those of Europe or North America. On the other hand, some of the customs are very strange to Western eyes, and I always had a strong feeling that I was an outsider in Japan. I've read accounts of those who spent more time there, and they all point to this - no matter how long you spend in Japan or how well you speak the language, you are always an outsider.

I was mulling this over while wandering around with my first cold Asahi beer, and realized that may be why I liked it so much. The research on existential migration focused my attention on a potential driver for wanting to live abroad being that I often felt like a bit of an outsider at home. I was popular and had lots of friends and good relationship with my family, but there was a nagging little bit inside me that always seemed to indicate that perhaps I didn't quite belong. In moving abroad, I haven't changed that opinion - I still feel like I don't quite belong. But that doesn't bother me now because I actually don't belong. I am a foreigner, so it is fine to feel foreign. In effect, I have changed my external circumstances to make them match my internal feelings. If you feel like you don't quite belong, move somewhere where you don't actually belong. Then everything is fine.

Anyway, I'll come back to the idea of existential migration in more detail in a future entry. For now, let's just wander around the Matsuri festival and enjoy it...

There was a lot of Japanese goods for sale.

I was mostly there for the food, though. I enjoyed a couple of Asahi beers, had a nice plate of sushi and some yakitori.

There was Japanese entertainment. The drummers were good, and I liked the children's martial-arts-cum-dancing display. There was a Shamisen player from Brazil. The shamisen is a 3-stringed lute. I found it a little too plinky-plunky.

Lots of people got into the spirit of the day and dressed in traditional Japanese dress...

...and taking pleasure from the Japanese activities and art.

It looks like love at first sight!

All and all, a good day. I got out and got some exercise walking back and forth from my place and Liverpool Street Station (which I needed after the Japanese food and beer), I got to remind myself of the great time I had in Japan, and I got to ruminate a little more on why I undertook this adventure to live abroad in the first place. To experience a culture other than my own. Which I did at the Matsuri Festival, even if it wasn't quite the culture of the country I am living in.

It was good to get out the house and look at other lands.

Oh, and because I am a great flatmate, I bought my flatmates some presents. I present them to you now in haiku.

White cartoon feline
Hello Kitty Candy box
a gift for flatmates

Dewa mata atode!

Drawing Comfort from the Smoke from the Yakitori Grill remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I can stand under my own umbrella - ella - eh - eh - eh - eh

2009-09-15T17:08:18Z

Round about lunch time today, I left my flat. Recently, leaving the flat has been a rare occurrence, at least for something other than going to the local Sainsbury’s or the News Agent to pick up the day’s issue of The Times.

One of the problems working from home is that it becomes very easy to find oneself spending all the time in the warm, comfortable cocoon that is one’s home and castle, and ne’er venturing out.

The desire to stay home has doubled of late, as the weather has taken a decidedly more autumnal turn the past week. The t-shirts have gone into storage (i.e. shoved to the back of the closet) and the sweaters brought out (i.e. dug out from the back of the closet, given a quick smell test, and then either washed or worn, depending on how dank and musty they smell). Just as an aside, they call sweaters “jumpers” here. In North America, a jumper is someone who launches themselves off a bridge.

The desire to stay home was give another boost today as well, for I looked outside and to see that London was experiencing some “wet weather.” That’s the Met Office’s euphemism for rain. The weather forecasters seem to use it a lot. “Today the South-east will experience some wet weather.”

I’m not sure why they don’t just say rain. Perhaps there is a subtlety that I am missing, the difference between rain and wet weather. Much like the Inuit apparently have half-a-million different words for snow, perhaps the English have developed multiple words for rain. Maybe I just haven’t been here long enough to understand the difference.

Despite the rainy, cool weather and internet access, I had to go out today, for I had an appointment at my local doctor’s office, called a surgery here even though there is little cutting and blood involved. MPs call their local offices surgeries as well, though given the state of the economy I can understand why that makes more sense - lots of cut and boiling blood, no doubt. I should have registered with a local doctor back when I first moved into King’s Cross, but was lazy and just got around to registering with my local surgery last week.

Hopefully this doesn’t start a whole “socialist health-care versus private health care debate,” but the way things work here is that you have to register for a doctor’s office near your home. I can choose any doctor I like, as long as they are within a few miles of my home. Some might claim that is a lack of choice, but according to the NHS website I have over 100 doctors to choose from, so I am not too fused about the lack of choice. What I find more limiting is that you can’t choose a doctor near your work. Obviously it doesn’t make a big difference to me, working from home as I am, but if I went to a regular nine to five job, I probably would be less excited about having to pick a doctor back near where I lived.

So today I had to trudge out and get my introductory consultation, which involves getting weighed, measured, blood-pressured and then lectured on how you are a fat, old, alcoholic with a lousy diet (at least, that’s my experience of it...). To do that, I had to head out into the rain. So I put on a rain coat and got out my brolly.

Now, I haven’t always had great luck with umbrellas. Back in September 2005 I wrote the following after returning from a rainy weekend in Boston:

I’m not positive that I really know how to use an umbrella. I see other people walking around with umbrella held steady and level above them, keeping them dry. I find myself struggling with keeping my umbrella above me as the wind reaches underneath the lip of the umbrella and lifts it up and away from me. I get wet, my arms get tired and the umbrella gets battered. On Saturday night, the wind took its final toll on the umbrella, snapping 3 of the arms of the umbrella, collapsing the umbrella. I deposited the umbrella in a garbage can and calculated its utility to me. I bought it in September, used it perhaps 4 times in France, a couple times in Toronto and twice in Boston. 8 days of use for 10 Euros doesn’t seem like a fantastic deal to me. I think in the future I’ll stick with raincoats.

That was then, though. Now that I have lived in the UK for a year and 3 months, I’ve had a fair amount of practice with my brolly, and I think I’ve got it sorted out. The key thing is to keep the umbrella slightly tilted towards the wind direction. This way the wind harmlessly shots over the umbrella.

Now, most people reading this will have probably already known that, or perhaps live in a desert and thus never had reason to learn it. I’m not most people though. It’s taken me a long time (almost 39 years) to figure this umbrella thing out. I like to think I am smarter than your average bear, but it appears that in fact I’m only slightly smarter than bears who never figure out how to use an umbrella.

Now that I have the operation of an umbrella as a weather protection device down pat, I think I’ll start working on the next level of umbrella use... I just have to figure out if it is more impressive to be able to fly like Mary Poppins or to administer a spot of poison in a busy crowd.

I can stand under my own umbrella - ella - eh - eh - eh - eh remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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What I Have Seen

2009-09-08T14:36:29Z

I spent the better part of 2006 working in Rutherford, New Jersey, just the other side of Lincoln Tunnel from New York City. Right outside the hotel I was staying at was NJ Transit bus route that, in only 40 minutes, would whisk me to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in central Manhattan. As you might imagine, I spent a few nights and many weekends catching the NJ Transit 192 into Manhattan to see the sights.

At some point during that year, when I was back in Toronto, I was out with my sister. “So, how you are enjoying New York City?” she asked.

“It’s good. Really cool,” I replied. It is a curse of mine that while I can come up with stuff like…

“I hung out in Times Square, wandered around Rockefeller Center, Marvelled at the Chrysler Building, went up the Empire State Building, got choked up at the World Trade Center site, worshipped and prayed to the gods of money at the New York Stock Exchange and wandered across the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain. I ate hot dogs from dirty water and mile high sandwiches at the Carengie Deli. I stared at subway maps, more than a little overwhelmed at the options. I started to talk about places as intersections, not addresses, hoping that the locals didn't catch on I didn't belong.”

…when I write my blog,, but when people ask me in person what I think of a place, I can never think of anything interesting to say. “How was Tanzania?” you might ask me one day, and I would likely reply, “Yeah, neat. Grassy.”

Despite my verbose and encompassing declaration that New York City was “cool,” my sister felt the need to probe to get more information.

“What have you seen?” she asked.

“Ummm. I saw the Empire State Building and Rockerfeller Centre and Ground Zero,” I offered.

My sister frowned. Obviously I was missing the gist of what she was asking. “When someone in the theatre asks you what you have seen, they mean what have you seen at the theatre, Greg,” she offered by way of an explanation. My sister is an actress and singer, and thus was interested in how I was taking advantage at being in New York City, the home of Broadway and theatre that is “usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.” (At least, according to a completely unsourced statement on Wikipedia).

“Oh, right. Well, I stayed at Times Square once, and SAW theatres from the outside,” I offered as an olive branch.

My sister frowned again. Obviously seeing the outside of buildings which probably contain stages is not quite the artistic experience she was hoping I would have had. “Greg, you are in New York City, you have to go and see something,” she pleaded.

And I did… but I am not sure it really counts. I went and saw Spamalot, which I will admit I only really went and saw because I like Monty Python and people said it was funny. I am not sure I can really consider myself much of a serious theatre goer if the play ends with a sing-along of “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life.”

Times Square, Heart of New York City's Broadway Theatre District

I am afraid that when it comes to making me a cultured theatre goer, my sister is probably fighting an uphill battle. After all, I am almost into my fourth decade of life and haven’t really taken to the habit yet. I am creeping towards being a gray haired dog, and you know what they say about old dogs. They fart a lot, and you can’t teach them to sit.

I do think though she was hopeful when she heard I was moving to London, which contains the “West End Theatre” district, and is “usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world.” (At least, according to a completely unsourced statement on Wikipedia.).

When I was home recently, my sister and I had a similar repeat of the 2006 conversation. “So, what have you seen,” she asked.

This time, however, I knew what the question meant, so I didn’t answer with what tourist sights I had seen, but rather with a list of all the theatre I had been to. “I’ve seen nothing,” I replied.

Unfortunately, understanding the question and having a satisfying answer are two different things. My sister frowned again. “Greg, you are in the middle of the greatest theatre town in the world!” (Obviously, she hadn’t read the Wikipedia entry on Broadway Theatre, otherwise she would have said “one of the two greatest theatre towns in the world.”) “You have to go and see something,” she pleaded again.

“I once saw a homeless man yelling at pigeons on Shaftesbury Avenue,” I suggested.

“Something inside a theatre, with actors,” she clarified.

“I was thinking of seeing Avenue Q,” I offered up by way of an apology, though again that’s mostly because it has puppets and lots of people have said it was funny. I am not positive that seeing a play whose cast includes Gary “What you Talkin’ About, Willis” Coleman really counts as serious theatre.

Piccadilly Circus, in London's West End Theatre District

I haven’t yet seen Avenue Q, but I did something this last weekend that allows me to at least answer the question “what have you seen?” with a more satisfying answer to the theatre types in the world. I have now seen an opera.

Actually, it is even better than that, I’ve seen two opera. For the price of one! Though, admittedly at one act each, they were pretty short operas.

This past weekend I and some friends went to the Peacock Theatre and saw the British Youth Opera perform Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino and La Scala di Seta. As you might expect, this wasn’t my choice for activity, but rather a birthday treat for a friend. I simply ponied up fifteen pounds for a ticket and tagged along.

The Peacock Theatre is a thousand seat (less one) theatre near The Strand in London. It is, in actuality, a lecture hall for the London School of Economics (LSE), who lease it out to the Sadler’s Wells Theatre to put on shows.

The LSE teaches economics and politics and is quite influential. It’s most famous attendee is probably Sir Michael Phillip Jagger, better known as Mick, though you probably know him because of his work with The Rolling Stones rather than his work on anti-inflationary policies and their impact international trade relations. Could you imagine though if Mick had stuck with the LSE and become a professor of Economics? That first day in the class room and the prof comes strutting in like a peacock, singing “You can’t always get what you want, but with some quantitative easing, you just might find, conditions are in place for green shoots of recovery!”

I did notice that the seats provided very little leg room. I suppose that if you are attending an economics lecture, you probably wouldn’t notice, as the torture of having to listen to someone drone on in a monotone for an hour about supply and demand curves would cause enough discomfort to overwhelm any feelings of pain in your legs. If you are at the opera for three hours, though, it sure would be nice now and again to shuffle the feet around a bit.

Both operas were in Italian, but they had subtitles on an LED illuminated reader board, so I could follow the gist of what was happening. The two comedies were both one-act farces, pretty close to the typical British sex farce, but with a lot more singing in Italian than your usual Carry On film. The singers were all good (to my untuned ear), and they did a good job of having the right level of camp for the comedic material.

The set design for the second play (La Scala di Seta, which is Italian for the Silken Ladder) was interesting. Instead of furniture on stage, they had people wearing black clothing and white masks to act as closets, coat racks and tables. Whenever anyone hid, they just held up a frame in front of their face, which quickly became the short-hand for hiding during the play. There is a lot of hiding in La Scala di Seta. I’m thinking of carrying around a picture frame to hide at work. “We need a volunteer to organise the birthday lunch for Sandra,” someone might say in a meeting. I’ll just hold up my picture frame, and poof, I’ll have disappeared.

I think for the untrained opera neophyte, one act comedies are probably a good place to start. Not so serious, you get to laugh and they are shorter than something a little more serious like Wagner's Ring Cycle. The Ring Cycle is 18 hours long, and despite not being prime comic fodder, I would probably start laughing anyway, as the music would most likely recall to my mind Elmer Fudd singing “kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!”

So there you go. I’ve actually seen something now in London. Maybe… I’m not sure that going to the opera counts as seeing something.

See, when I emailed my sister to tell her I was going to the opera, she replied, “does this mean that someday you may actually go to the London THEATRE?” I’m not sure what the difference between opera and theatre is, after all they both take place on a stage, but sounds like I still may not have seen anything in London.

What I Have Seen remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Death of the Pinstripe...

2009-09-04T14:41:12Z

"You'll have to wear a suit every day."

I heard that numerous times when I told folks I was moving over to London. Not just from folks whose experience of London was from the movie version of Bridget Jones' Diary. (That Mark Darcy, always sharply dressed in a suit, wasn't he?). Actual English people from England (originally at least) told me that.

"Everyone wears suits. Much more formal than we are over here..."

(The "in the colonies" was implied)

I believed all the hype because my experience of London working was from the movie version of Bridget Jones' Diary. I mean, sure the Hugh Grant character didn't wear a tie, but he worked in media and was a cad...

What I figured I would be wearing

Anyway, that prophecy turned out to be mostly false. Unless you work in banking... actual banking, not just working for a bank even... you probably will be dressing much like folks in North America. "Business casual." Usually I wear a collar shirt and slacks to work. Occasionally I'll throw on a tie or jacket, but never both at once. Sometimes, when I go down to my office in Egham, I even wear jeans. It's craziness.

Turns out even the bankers don't want to wear suits any more, though a lot of the coverage of this in the media tends to concentrate on the fact that they don't want to be identified as bankers, lest a stray G20 or climate camp protester starts pelting them with ecologically and ethically grown eggs. No, bankers are eschewing the pin-stripe suit for "more versatile styles," like "a plain suit, or a linen one, which they can wear outside the office."

When I wear t-shirts and jeans, I used to feel under dressed a lot here in London, but according to fashion expert Nick Foulkes, "multi-million pound hedge fund managers have always been more likely to wear jeans. They see themselves as financial artists rather than workers, so they love to wear creative garb." Therefore, if I get any dirty looks for wearing jeans and a t-shirt, I'll just claim to be a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager, and all will be forgiven.

Anyway, gotta run. I'm off to the opera tonight, and have to start getting ready. Despite casual wear being allowed in the opera house nowadays, I think I should dress up a little. After all, it's opera, so it is a special occasion.

Besides, I am likely to make an ass of myself by falling asleep and snoring, so I figure there's no point in dressing like a slob and doubling my embarrassment and shame.

The Death of the Pinstripe... remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I’ve Become Boring... and I Love It

2009-08-28T16:19:37Z

The last day of July was my last day up in Birmingham, and after returning from Toronto, I have been working on developing some internal systems training for my company, which has me working at home most days, but with the occasional trip down to my company’s HQ in Egham.

Getting to Egham requires travelling for about an hour and a half, transferring from the London Underground to Southern Trains at Victoria Station, and then transferring to South West Trains at Clapham Junction, the self-proclaimed UK’s busiest train station.

I snapped the photo yesterday when I headed down to Egham because I thought about writing a blog entry that incorporated Clapham Junction. Either I was going to go all mythbusters on the claim about being Britain’s busiest station or write an entry about commuting.

I tried writing an entry about Clapham Junction, but after reading the though the first paragraph under “Today” on the Wikipedia entry for Clapham Junction, I realized that I really had nothing to add. So I decided to try and tackle an entry on commuting. I figured it seeing as “The Esoteric Globe” has (nominally at least) become a blog about me living abroad, I guess it would make some sort of sense if I gave you an idea of what my commute is like. After all, commuting is part of living abroad.

After writing the introduction for the blog entry though, I re-read it and realized it was as boring as tweets regarding chicken breast deals at Co-Op or ferries in my line of sight. Not that things have exactly been overwhelming interesting in my other blog entries this month - an entry on how flying internationally in economy is annoying (not exactly a novel observation given the 1.5 million hits that come up on Google on the subject), an entry comparing weather forecasts and another entry on flying, though this one having nothing to do me actually flying...

Sigh.

In all honesty, I almost didn’t post my last entry on The first scheduled international flight. I read the article on it and thought it was a vaguely interesting fact. The kind of thing that one should sock away in their brain in the event they are ever at a pub quiz and one of the questions is asked “When was the first scheduled international flight?” It is not, though, the kind of thing that is deserving of its own blog entry, surely.

The fact is that earlier this week I looked at the blog and realized I hadn’t posted anything in a couple weeks and felt I needed to post something. So I posted something tediously dull, and I almost did it again today.

Fact of the matter is that life here in London has become somewhat boring. Not much travel other than the morning commute, and so little to write about. My life has become very domestic of late...

...and I love it.

I realized about a week ago that I was really starting to feel settled here in London. My life is filled up with things that normal people with normal lives do -

Work during the week and relax on the weekends; poker on Friday nights; the pub on Sunday; Wednesday night pizza night; the occasionally film or concert; putting together flat-pack furniture; going to the bank; going to the dentist; watching Top Gear.

The above mentioned concert - U2 at Wembley

It is like I’ve become a real person now, after living much of the last year in a kind of disconnected from real life state.

Before I was experiencing London, but not part of it. It felt like I was a ghost, floating through the town. Now I am here, I am employed, I have a place to live, I have friends, I have plans in my social diary (I am even going to the Opera next weekend). In the past few months it feels like the immaterial and disembodied life in London is becoming corporeal and real.

Back a year and 3 months ago, when I first arrived here, I wrote about floating on the surface of London. I said that, “If the first day I felt like I was floating on top of London, not at all immersed into it, the second day I felt that at the very least I had a toe in the water, slowly sinking into my life.”

I’m no longer floating. I am on the ground - solid and real. The streets are crowded, the tube trains too hot, there are workmen banging on metal like a steel drum band outside my window. It’s dirty and hot and real.

...and I love it.

I’ve Become Boring... and I Love It remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Happy Anniversary, International Fliers!

2009-08-25T13:54:56Z

90 years ago today, the first international, scheduled passenger air service started up, flying between London and Paris. The Aircraft Transport and Travel flew a little four seater bi-plane between a field just outside of London and Le Bourget, just outside Paris. Flights cost 42 guineas, about 3 months wages for an average working man, and worth about £7000 in today's money.

It wasn't long until international air travel took off, of course. Just 30 years after that first flight, The De Havilland Comet was introduced, the first commercial jet entered service. Today, flying 'round the globe is pretty commonplace, and in most cases, a real pain in the ass.

All that being said, its pretty amazing when you think about how far we've come in 90 years since a little 4 seater took off for Paris. Makes you wonder where we'll be flying in 90 years time.

Last call for Passenger Wesson for Virgin Galactic flight 508 to Mars. If you do not board within the next 5 minutes, your luggage will be removed from the flight and you will be denied boarding.

Happy Anniversary, International Fliers! remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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A Tale of Two Cities' Weather Forecasts

2009-08-12T14:36:10Z

I write this sitting in my flat in London, overhead fan whirling at top speed trying to keep me cool on a hot and overcast day, and I realize I have no idea what the Humidex is today.

I recently returned for a very short 5 day stint to Toronto. It was a whirlwind tour of family, friends and responsibilities like renewing my passport and cleaning out my storage locker.

It had been 8 months since my last visit to Canada and in that time I have certainly done my share of settling into England. This has allowed me to view Canada with a touch of the eye of a foreigner. A few things I noted are that chicken wings are better in Canada, beer is REALLY expensive in Toronto, the trains are slow and expensive and the buildings are really tall and shiny.

Mostly though, I noted the difference in the weather forecasts.

The weather forecast in London will be something like this: “Today will be a mixture of rainy and sunny periods with a high near 24. This evening will clear, temperatures a mild 15. Tomorrow, starting sunny, getting overcast in the evening with a high of 22.”

That’s it. The weather map in the back shows cloud cover, rain and the occasionally wind direction and speed. All very simple to answer the three primary questions “Do I need a jacket?”, “Should I take my sunglasses?” and “Should I take my umbrella?”

In Canada by contrast, you practically need a science degree to understand the weather forecast. Not only will they tell you basic information like “rainy,” “sunny,” or “snowy,” but you’ll get probabilities of precipitation, amount of precipitation (snow in centimetres, rain in millimetres), percent of cloudy cover, cloud ceiling height, humidity, humidex (impact of humidity on perceived temperature), wind direction and speed, wind chill (how the speed of the wind impacts the temperature), barometric pressure and whether it is rising or falling. Canadian weather men tell you about where the high and low pressure areas are, and how the jet stream is impacting the weather systems from west to east of the country.

That is, you will admit, a lot of extra information just to answer those three primary questions “Do I need a jacket?”, “Should I take my sunglasses?” and “Should I take my umbrella?” Of course, that’s because in Canada you often have to ask not just if you need a jacket, but also mittens, a toque, snow shovel, winter boots, snow pants, face-warmer, salt, emergency food rations or bear repellent.

The two countries do share something in common when it comes to the weather forecast, though. More often than not, the forecast is wrong.

The safest thing… Always carry an umbrella, sunglasses and a jacket. To paraphrase Dickens, it is a far, far better thing that I do, being prepared for any weather eventuality, than I have ever done before (when believing the forecast); it is a far, far better peace of mind that I have in carrying both an umbrella and sunscreen than I have ever known previously when having to choose between them.

A Tale of Two Cities' Weather Forecasts remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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If there is a bustle in your Heathrow, don't be alarmed now

2009-08-05T17:28:44Z

I just flew from London to Toronto. It was hell on Earth. Okay, not on earth, because we were actually 38,000 feet above it, but it was pretty bad. Air travel is just full of indignities.

Yesterday was the first time I have flown since last December, which is a long time considering that for the 8 years prior to last year, I tended to fly a good 40 out of every 52 weeks.

The train ride from my place out to Heathrow wasn't bad, though some woman was sitting beside me on the Heathrow Connect from Paddington sobbing uncontrollably between Ealing Broadway and Hayes and Harlington. Everyone sat on the train in uncomfortable silence as this woman sent and received text messages and let out wails and moans of emotional pain. Like good Brits, we stiff-upper-lip ignored her until she got off, and then everyone breathed a sigh of relief that any show of emotion had past.

Check-in at Heathrow was a zoo. Air Canada, in her wisdom, apparently decided that if one has four desks to man (economy, executive, self-serve bag drop, internet bag-drop) that three staff and two non-working bag-tag printers would be enough to handle the load. It wasn't, of course, and after twenty minutes of standing in one line, I was told to go to another queue. I abandoned my British ways and put on my "American" attitude at that point, and demanded to be checked-in. Luckily the Brits are as uncomfortable with the emotion of anger as the emotion of sadness, and they served me immediately to be free of the situation. They did ask, however, that I write a strongly worded letter to Air Canada management with my concerns. I shall start it "Dear Sirs, Regarding my recent flight of the fourth of August..."

Security wasn't too bad, though of course I got in the line behind the non-English speaker with the metal leg. The metal leg caused the detector to go off, and the poor man couldn't understand any of the instructions barked at him by the security folks. He looked quite bewildered as a young man with a buzz cut ran his hands over his body. It was only a momentary delay, though, and soon I was in the airport proper.

Past security was fine, actually. Heathrow terminal 3, once you are beyond the seventh ring of hell which is the check-in area, is quite nice. I had a pint of lager at one of the many restaurants while I waited for my flight to announce it was boarding.

The flight itself was just long and full of screaming children. Luckily I was on a jet with an individual entertainment unit, so I merely cranked up the soundtrack to "I Love You, Man" and "Push" and ignored the wailing. (Two forms of transport with wailing on it within a single day. Perhaps they are wailing because of my presence. I am the onion of transport, causing all who travel with me to cry...)

We landed in Toronto at the tail end of a thunderstorm, and after an approach so bumpy I couldn't actually read because the book was bouncing around so much, we landed without incident. The airport, though, had been closed for the 30 minutes before our arrival, and so we had to wait on the tarmac for 40 minutes while they cleared the backlog.

The final indignity is, of course, the luggage handling at Toronto's airport. I have discovered something flying into Toronto with checked bags. It is this. No matter how long it takes you to walk from your airplane to the customs area and no matter how long you take in customs, you will wind up waiting for 35 minutes for your bag at the luggage carousel. It is a punch in the stomach, really, being so close to having completed your journey yet having to wait for the slightest of things.

Truth be told, last night's flight was actually no worse than any other flight I have taken recently. I just think that I have lost the crusty shell of amour of indifference that one develops when one flies a lot. I'm not all that sad at having been out of practice, because I am not planing on flying too much more in the future. Just the occasionally vacation, I thinks. And in a lot of ways, flying away to some fantastic place to have an amazing vacation provides its own sort of amour against all the indignities of air travel today.

If there is a bustle in your Heathrow, don't be alarmed now remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Timmy's, but no Timbits

2009-07-31T12:42:32Z

Today was my last day of my contract in Birmingham, so to celebrate I brought in a box of doughnuts of the team I had been working with. Always a nice gesture, I think, to thank all those who helped you during your time on your contract.

More importantly, though, it was also a celebration of my birth country, Canada. Because I didn’t just bring in any old doughnuts.

No, I brought in Tim Horton’s.

Now, if you aren’t a Canadian, I will forgive you for not knowing what Tim Horton’s is. If you are a Canadian, though, your primary questions will probably be, “where the heck did you get doughnuts from Tim Horton’s in Birmingham, United Kingdom? Is the coffee as good? And do they sell Timbits?”

Tim Horton was a Canadian ice hockey player who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1950s and 1960s. In addition to playing for a series of Stanley Cup winning hockey teams, he also started up a little doughnut shop in 1964 in Hamilton. The chain quickly grew, and today has more than 3000 stores in Canada and over 500 in the United States.

Tim Horton's is immensely popular in Canada, with line ups out the door in the morning for a cup of coffee and a cruller. They are also well known for their Timbits, small balls of dough deep fried and coated with sugar, like doughnuts without the hole.

Here in the UK, Tim Horton’s made a deal with the SPAR convenience store chain where they sell coffee and doughnuts in small kiosks in the store. I previously ran into one on Haymarket Street in London, but they recently opened a SPAR with a Tim Horton’s kiosk in the Paradise Forum in central Birmingham. The store sells doughnuts, but no Timbits. The coffee is from a self-serve machine, and I am told it is not as good as the fresh brewed stuff back home.

So as I presented the box of doughnuts around to the team, I was proud to say, “you know, these are Canadian doughnuts.”

Of course, by that I mean they are doughnuts made by a Canadian company… Not doughnuts flown in daily from Canada.

I hope.

Timmy's, but no Timbits remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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I am not a Traveller, I am a Migrant

2009-07-31T10:16:28Z

I came to a realisation recently that I am not a traveller.

By that I mean that I am not the kind of person that can pack all their stuff in a backpack and head out into the great unknown. I know folks like that, who spend months – even years – on the road without a home base. I admire it, but I’ve recently realized that that type of travel isn’t really for me.

I think I’ve subconsciously known this for a while, but my conscious self has been loath to accept it. In fact, back in 2003 I wrote the following in an email (later reproduced as a blog entry on my final days in South America):

Truthfully, I have been crashing since my last few days in Buenos Aires, and I have little energy left to be the great explorer anymore. One of the most important lessons I learnt on this trip, I am not meant to be the kind of person that spends 6 months backpacking around the world. I still love travel and seeing new places, but the energy required to be constantly planning your next move and the laissez-faire attitude required for the travel is just not in me… Don't get me wrong, I am glad I took this trip. But I don't think I will be taking another like it again. My next trip - shorter, more focused on a single location or task and planned in advance.

Passport stamps from South America

While I never really took to planning in advance for any trip I take or going to just one place, I have found that I enjoy my travels a lot more if they are focused on a specific topic or event. I don’t do well just drifting without a plan (at least for more than a couple of days).

Despite writing those words back in 2003, I’ve resisted accepting that I am not a long-term traveller until recently. I chalk that reluctance to a simple reason. Since taking that trip in 2003, I have found myself drawn to keep taking trips, both for business and pleasure. Each of those trips has driven a further desire to head further afield. Each trip has increased a feeling that I had that somehow travel was important to my life. Confusingly, though, I wasn’t really sure why or how. I just knew that somehow all this travel was important and was leading someplace.

Eventually where it led, as you are all probably aware, is to a flat in King’s Cross, London, where I now live as an immigrant to the United Kingdom. Despite pretty much nothing going to the plan I had in my head when I first moved over here more than a year ago, somehow it has all felt really comfortable. Even the setbacks have felt like a movement forward.

Immigrant statue, Albert Dock, Liverpool, UK

The reason for this feeling of comfort can be found in something I wrote more than a year ago. Back in early 2008, I was feeling increasingly unsure about my future at the company I was working at. I started to jot down my thoughts on what I wanted to do next. I sometimes do this when I am faced with a big decision, finding that the writing helps me think through the issues I am facing and make a decision I can feel comfortable with. In my musing on my next move back in early 2008, I came up with a number of options, including moving to another division, moving to another company, starting a new career, starting my own business and going back to school. Over the month or so I was musing on my next move, one idea kept coming forward stronger and stronger. About two weeks before I finally made a final decision on what I would do, I wrote the following statement.

“Option: Quit job and move to London.
Analysis: Least sensible option, but for some reason this feels important to do.”

Despite being the least sensible option, I did end up taking it. When people have asked me why I did it, I’ve often dodged the question or responded with a vague reason like “wanted international work experience” or “hoped to miss the recession by moving abroad.” The real reason is that it felt important to me to do it, and there is no rational way to explain it. It was a feeling that I had to follow.

All this recently came into focus when I stumbled across a definition of something called “existential migration.” According to Dr. Greg Madison, the Canadian-born, Brighton, U.K.-based psychotherapist and counselling psychologist who coined the term, existential migration is “conceived as a chosen attempt to express something fundamental about existence by leaving one’s homeland and becoming a foreigner.” It is different from “economic migration, simple wanderlust, exile, or variations of forced migration” in that it is a chosen move, not driven by economic or political needs. In his research, he found those that many who he has spoken with “adamantly insist that they couldn’t have stayed; they had to go.” Even though politics, war or economic need didn’t make them leave, there was something in them that made them pack up and go.

Immigrant family statue, Yonge Street, Toronto, Canada

There were many things that struck a chord with me in Madison’s research, but a lot of what had been driving me over the past few years made sense. I realized that a lot of what had been drawing me into my career as a consultant was the opportunity to have a mini-migrant experience. I would move temporarily to a place and get to experience life there. It was a more settled and familiar experience than long-term travel, but still placed me in the foreign and unfamiliar. Consulting was a chance to dip my toe in and try out being an immigrant with the safety net of having a home back in Toronto.

In the past few years though, I would find myself getting “itchy” for a change after four to six months on a consulting project. At the time I thought that it was because I wanted to move on, get some place new. Now though, I am starting to think that the reason I got jumpy was because I wanted to take a further, deeper step into migration and knew that ultimately I wasn’t getting that from a temporary contract experience.

It was on reading Madison’s research that I realized that I wasn’t a traveller. All this time, I hadn’t been travelling. I had been slowly working up to what I am doing now, living in another country.

I am not a traveller. I am a migrant. It has just taken me a while to get around to actually migrating.

I am not a Traveller, I am a Migrant remains copyright of the author GregW, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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