The time has come.
Kangaroos in Deutschland is going on temporary hiatus.
My decision has nothing to do with creative inspiration or motivation to write: I have at least five or six half-written posts and ideas for a further eight or nine - four of those from the last week alone - and the temptation to curl up on my bed with a mug of tea and a biscuit is very strong. But one thing is preventing me from doing that.
That issue is time. Until about a month ago, I had a lot of it. I worked part-time, and could fill in the rest of the week tutoring, translating, teaching myself Turkish, being a tourist when I wanted to, and writing until my heart was content.
In August however, I applied for a place in a Master's course in linguistics at Humboldt University in Berlin. I was accepted, passed a German language test, and two weeks ago, I started classes. The number of contact hours is relatively low, but the preparation required for each class is enormous. On top of that, it's in German, and my linguistics terminology is not only in English, but also pretty rusty, since I finished my studies in 2004. This means more preparation and revision time.
Considering that I'm still working twenty hours a week at the English language school, I don't have a lot of time left over. I've had to stop the weekly voluntary tutoring I was doing at a local library, helping school kids (primarily with Turkish and Lebanese background) with their English and German homework. I've also had to stop tutoring a friend's son on Saturdays: I miss the cash, and the tutoring itself, but I just don't have the time for the travel or the tutoring.
The ideas will keep coming, and I'll keep writing them down, storing them up for the Christmas holidays and the semester break in March, but until then, they're going to have to remain ideas, and I'll do my very best to resist the urge to flesh them out until I can justify spending the time on something other than university work.
I just hope it's possible to snap-freeze creative motivation... and that it doesn't have a defrost-by-date. Guess we'll find out.
Until then...
The Paradox of the Holy Grail
Hello, my name's Australis, and I'm a science geek. Well, kinda.
At high school, I was an A or B student in almost everything. English, maths, geography, history, German, French, IT. Everything except science. I liked it - I just wasn't all that good at it... Ok, I was terrible at it. Despite my father being a chemical engineer and both of his parents scientists or science teachers, I just couldn't get my head around the theory of it. I liked learning about the origins of the chemical symbols (I guess that's the linguist in me - I still remember that the chemical symbol for lead is Pb because the Latin term is "plumbum"). I found genetics and the human body fascinating in biology. I enjoyed learning about the practical effects and application of the laws of physics. I just never got the grades for it, and eventually dropped science at the end of year 9 after getting horrible grades two years running, despite my best efforts.
As a child though, many weekends and school holidays were spent in the company of my paternal grandmother at various museums in Melbourne. The Museum of Victoria was my favourite. I still remember walking around in the darkened minerals exhibit as a seven- and eight-year-old, awestruck by the black-lit glow of various precious and semi-precious stones, and looking at all kinds of skeletons and geological exhibits. That is, until the mid 90s when Scienceworks opened.
Scienceworks was my absolute favourite place to go in Melbourne as a kid. I think even my grandmother got sick of taking me there at one point. Every school holidays for as long as I could remember, we'd drive across the Westgate Bridge in their blue Honda to Spotswood, and spend the afternoon playing with the pulley exhibits, figuring out spinning pictures, learning about aerodynamics, space exploration, our galaxy and a whole host of other activities. Occasionally we'd go into the Planetarium in the city; sitting there underneath the dome, watching the constellations zoom across the screen above us, then being taken on a guided tour of the solar system and beyond into the rest of our galaxy entranced me. To this day, I remain in love with astronomy. I therefore amend my previous statement: I'm a science geek, with a major in astronomy.
Going to those museums as a child though, I remember seeing that some of the exhibits had plaques next to them, acknowledging their temporary status due to them being on loan from somewhere called Smithsonian. Over the years, this name, "Smithsonian", kept coming up - not just at museums in Melbourne or even Australia, but in the natural history museums I visited overseas, and in all kinds of books: this or that was on loan from the Smithsonian, or on display in the Smithsonian. This "Smithsonian" place attained a status with me as the holy grail of museums, and it was never a question of whether or not I would go there, but when.
So when I ventured to the States for the first time to meet up with my sister and her boyfriend in New York for a few days in July 2010, it was a given that I would go to Washington D.C., with the goal of finally visiting the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian Museum - where apparently everything of any value in natural history was stored. The Apollo shuttle. The Hope Diamond. And much more.
I was like a kid on her first day of school. The alarm went off at 5.30am; by 7am, I was on a train pulling slowly out of Penn station. Four hours later, I arrived in DC. First stop was a tourist information stand, where I found out to my surprise that the Smithsonian wasn't a museum. It was a complex of museums, known as the Smithsonian Institute, comprising natural history, art, scuplture, Native American and African American museums, to name just a few. And the holy grail of holy grails for me - the National Air and Space Museum (NASM). First was a brief bus tour of the city, then I hightailed it for the NASM.
I remember exactly how I felt when I first walked through those hallowed (to me, anyway) doors. Absolute amazement. No, that's not expressive enough. I was dumbstruck. Literally speechless. And completely overwhelmed. I could not stop smiling in awe and disbelief at what I saw before me. The silver-haired man behind the information desk was watching me with a small smile - I had stopped in my tracks about ten metres into the lobby, and was simply staring up at the rockets, shuttles and planes hanging from the ceiling high above me and at the photographs of planets and constellations adorning the walls, oblivious to the hordes of people swarming around me.
Eventually I broke out of my trance and approached the man at the information desk to find out exactly what was on display here. He told me about some of the best exhibits, some of the most popular displays, and his personal favourite, the Ole Miss. Then he pointed out the Apollo 11 lunar module and the landing capsule about 100m away. I grinned, giddy with disbelief and excitement, and he smiled back at me, enjoying my first-timer's reaction to the museum. Like I said, I'm an astronomy geek. And I was in astronomy geek heaven.
Suffice to say the two hour time bracket I'd allocated was never going to be sufficient. I think I had known that even before I got to DC. Sure, I could see everything I wanted to see, but in a whirlwind, not stopping at one display for more than a few minutes before moving onto the next, the time ticking away in the back of my mind. It was very different to how I had imagined my Smithsonian experience - spending an entire day there, or a few hours one day, then a few more the next, absorbing the history, the trivia, the scientific discoveries of the past, present and future. But I would much rather have had two hours there than nothing at all. And those two hours - wow.
The temptation to stay longer was enormous, but while I was enraptured with the NASM and everything in it, I was also in DC, which had a lot more to offer than just the NASM. So after two hours, I reluctantly made my way back to the lobby, bought a souvenir patch, thanked my good friend at the information stand for his tips, and ventured back out into the 37°C heat of the DC summer. The same day, I managed to cram in the Natural History Museum and a few others - not half as much as I wanted to, but an incredible lot, considering I was only in DC for a total of nine hours.
Three months later, on a Saturday afternoon in Berlin, I heard that the German Natural History Museum was commemorating its 200th anniversary with free entrance for a weekend. I'd wanted to go for ages, but a combination of time availability and wanting to explore Berlin's free museums first had put it far down on my priorities. But since it was free, how could I refuse?
After about twenty minutes though, my initial curiosity and wonder customary to a first-time visit to a museum was replaced with a strange feeling. While interesting, all of the displays and artefacts seemed somewhat lacklustre, as if somehow the entire museum had been painted in a matte finish. Everything was interesting, but that's where it ended. Not mesmerising, not fascinating, not enthralling. Just...interesting. And mildly disappointing. The astronomy display was where I noticed it the most. It seemed so small, as if half the exhibits had been removed for cleaning or restoration. And the exhibits that were there appeared to have lost their glow - as if a thin veil had been lowered over everything.
Then I noticed a small sign on one of the displays of moon rocks. "On loan from the NASM, Smithsonian Institute. Washington DC."
The penny dropped. That's why everything was different. This was the first museum I'd visited since I'd experienced the Smithsonian Institute. And the effect was phenomenal. The visit to my holy grail of museums had apparently forever changed the way I would experience museums as a visitor. The aura was gone. The almost childlike curiosity I used to get when I walked into the foyer of a museum, the excitement at being on the brink of learning unknown facts about long extinct animals, geographical phenomena and stars and planets that no living human will ever reach had been extinguished. The standard of exhibits, especially in the space exhibits, had been set so high that it was completely out of reach for any other museum.
This revelation made me sad. Fulfilling my childhood mission of visiting the hallowed Smithsonian, land of all that is sacred and most important in the area of Natural History and Astronomy (in my eyes, at least) had simultaneously apparently forever destroyed my future museum experiences.
I'm not sure if this is something that can be worked around; if now that I know that I'll never get that Smithsonian feeling anywhere except DC will enable me to lower my standards and enjoy other cities' natural history museums for what they are. I'm not sure. I guess only time will tell. In the meantime, I can be forever happy knowing that I have made the pilgrimage to the Smithsonian; that I have seen the landing module that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins landed on the moon in, and the landing capsule that brought them safely back to Earth again, both first hand, and that the two hours spent there were worth every single second of the eight hour return train trip from DC to NYC.
At high school, I was an A or B student in almost everything. English, maths, geography, history, German, French, IT. Everything except science. I liked it - I just wasn't all that good at it... Ok, I was terrible at it. Despite my father being a chemical engineer and both of his parents scientists or science teachers, I just couldn't get my head around the theory of it. I liked learning about the origins of the chemical symbols (I guess that's the linguist in me - I still remember that the chemical symbol for lead is Pb because the Latin term is "plumbum"). I found genetics and the human body fascinating in biology. I enjoyed learning about the practical effects and application of the laws of physics. I just never got the grades for it, and eventually dropped science at the end of year 9 after getting horrible grades two years running, despite my best efforts.
As a child though, many weekends and school holidays were spent in the company of my paternal grandmother at various museums in Melbourne. The Museum of Victoria was my favourite. I still remember walking around in the darkened minerals exhibit as a seven- and eight-year-old, awestruck by the black-lit glow of various precious and semi-precious stones, and looking at all kinds of skeletons and geological exhibits. That is, until the mid 90s when Scienceworks opened.
Scienceworks was my absolute favourite place to go in Melbourne as a kid. I think even my grandmother got sick of taking me there at one point. Every school holidays for as long as I could remember, we'd drive across the Westgate Bridge in their blue Honda to Spotswood, and spend the afternoon playing with the pulley exhibits, figuring out spinning pictures, learning about aerodynamics, space exploration, our galaxy and a whole host of other activities. Occasionally we'd go into the Planetarium in the city; sitting there underneath the dome, watching the constellations zoom across the screen above us, then being taken on a guided tour of the solar system and beyond into the rest of our galaxy entranced me. To this day, I remain in love with astronomy. I therefore amend my previous statement: I'm a science geek, with a major in astronomy.
Going to those museums as a child though, I remember seeing that some of the exhibits had plaques next to them, acknowledging their temporary status due to them being on loan from somewhere called Smithsonian. Over the years, this name, "Smithsonian", kept coming up - not just at museums in Melbourne or even Australia, but in the natural history museums I visited overseas, and in all kinds of books: this or that was on loan from the Smithsonian, or on display in the Smithsonian. This "Smithsonian" place attained a status with me as the holy grail of museums, and it was never a question of whether or not I would go there, but when.
So when I ventured to the States for the first time to meet up with my sister and her boyfriend in New York for a few days in July 2010, it was a given that I would go to Washington D.C., with the goal of finally visiting the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian Museum - where apparently everything of any value in natural history was stored. The Apollo shuttle. The Hope Diamond. And much more.
I was like a kid on her first day of school. The alarm went off at 5.30am; by 7am, I was on a train pulling slowly out of Penn station. Four hours later, I arrived in DC. First stop was a tourist information stand, where I found out to my surprise that the Smithsonian wasn't a museum. It was a complex of museums, known as the Smithsonian Institute, comprising natural history, art, scuplture, Native American and African American museums, to name just a few. And the holy grail of holy grails for me - the National Air and Space Museum (NASM). First was a brief bus tour of the city, then I hightailed it for the NASM.
I remember exactly how I felt when I first walked through those hallowed (to me, anyway) doors. Absolute amazement. No, that's not expressive enough. I was dumbstruck. Literally speechless. And completely overwhelmed. I could not stop smiling in awe and disbelief at what I saw before me. The silver-haired man behind the information desk was watching me with a small smile - I had stopped in my tracks about ten metres into the lobby, and was simply staring up at the rockets, shuttles and planes hanging from the ceiling high above me and at the photographs of planets and constellations adorning the walls, oblivious to the hordes of people swarming around me.
Eventually I broke out of my trance and approached the man at the information desk to find out exactly what was on display here. He told me about some of the best exhibits, some of the most popular displays, and his personal favourite, the Ole Miss. Then he pointed out the Apollo 11 lunar module and the landing capsule about 100m away. I grinned, giddy with disbelief and excitement, and he smiled back at me, enjoying my first-timer's reaction to the museum. Like I said, I'm an astronomy geek. And I was in astronomy geek heaven.
Suffice to say the two hour time bracket I'd allocated was never going to be sufficient. I think I had known that even before I got to DC. Sure, I could see everything I wanted to see, but in a whirlwind, not stopping at one display for more than a few minutes before moving onto the next, the time ticking away in the back of my mind. It was very different to how I had imagined my Smithsonian experience - spending an entire day there, or a few hours one day, then a few more the next, absorbing the history, the trivia, the scientific discoveries of the past, present and future. But I would much rather have had two hours there than nothing at all. And those two hours - wow.
The temptation to stay longer was enormous, but while I was enraptured with the NASM and everything in it, I was also in DC, which had a lot more to offer than just the NASM. So after two hours, I reluctantly made my way back to the lobby, bought a souvenir patch, thanked my good friend at the information stand for his tips, and ventured back out into the 37°C heat of the DC summer. The same day, I managed to cram in the Natural History Museum and a few others - not half as much as I wanted to, but an incredible lot, considering I was only in DC for a total of nine hours.
Three months later, on a Saturday afternoon in Berlin, I heard that the German Natural History Museum was commemorating its 200th anniversary with free entrance for a weekend. I'd wanted to go for ages, but a combination of time availability and wanting to explore Berlin's free museums first had put it far down on my priorities. But since it was free, how could I refuse?
After about twenty minutes though, my initial curiosity and wonder customary to a first-time visit to a museum was replaced with a strange feeling. While interesting, all of the displays and artefacts seemed somewhat lacklustre, as if somehow the entire museum had been painted in a matte finish. Everything was interesting, but that's where it ended. Not mesmerising, not fascinating, not enthralling. Just...interesting. And mildly disappointing. The astronomy display was where I noticed it the most. It seemed so small, as if half the exhibits had been removed for cleaning or restoration. And the exhibits that were there appeared to have lost their glow - as if a thin veil had been lowered over everything.
Then I noticed a small sign on one of the displays of moon rocks. "On loan from the NASM, Smithsonian Institute. Washington DC."
The penny dropped. That's why everything was different. This was the first museum I'd visited since I'd experienced the Smithsonian Institute. And the effect was phenomenal. The visit to my holy grail of museums had apparently forever changed the way I would experience museums as a visitor. The aura was gone. The almost childlike curiosity I used to get when I walked into the foyer of a museum, the excitement at being on the brink of learning unknown facts about long extinct animals, geographical phenomena and stars and planets that no living human will ever reach had been extinguished. The standard of exhibits, especially in the space exhibits, had been set so high that it was completely out of reach for any other museum.
This revelation made me sad. Fulfilling my childhood mission of visiting the hallowed Smithsonian, land of all that is sacred and most important in the area of Natural History and Astronomy (in my eyes, at least) had simultaneously apparently forever destroyed my future museum experiences.
I'm not sure if this is something that can be worked around; if now that I know that I'll never get that Smithsonian feeling anywhere except DC will enable me to lower my standards and enjoy other cities' natural history museums for what they are. I'm not sure. I guess only time will tell. In the meantime, I can be forever happy knowing that I have made the pilgrimage to the Smithsonian; that I have seen the landing module that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins landed on the moon in, and the landing capsule that brought them safely back to Earth again, both first hand, and that the two hours spent there were worth every single second of the eight hour return train trip from DC to NYC.
A is for Apple
This was in the Australian news a month or so ago.
"Buy buy mummy: iPad toddler's spending spree" - The Age, 15th September, 2010.
The story of three-year-old Sienna Leigh of Sydney, who ran up a AUD$50 bill on her mother's credit card in the online Apple store buying iPad applications. Her mother didn't notice until she saw the emailed receipts for Sienna's shopping spree after the little one had gone to sleep.
The kid has skills with technology - I'll give her that. I'm 28, and I'm not sure I could do much with an iPad beyond turn it on without being shown how, let alone find the Apple store and purchase applications. This little girl is only three - she can't yet read or write her own name, but she can go shopping online on her mum's tab.
But while the article seemed to almost jovially research how Sienna managed her feat, and detailed how to disable iPad access to the Apple store for other parents, I found myself asking a more fundamental question.
Why the hell does a three-year-old have an iPad of her own? Following on from that, why does she spend a few hours a day obviously unsupervised with an incredibly expensive and sophisticated piece of technology, which also happens to have access to the internet?
For those of you less in the know, or who like me don't champ at the bit every time Steve Jobs releases another "must have" Apple product, the iPad is just like an iPhone - only bigger. Six times bigger, to be exact. Touch screen display, huge internal memory, internet, access to all kinds of applications ranging in levels of usefulness, practicality, entertainment and idiocy. Oh, and you can also make phone calls with it. iPads retail at AUD$629 in Australia for the most basic model, and over AUD$1,000 for the top of the range version. (€499 - €799 on the German Apple website for those not familiar with the Aussie dollar.)
With those prices in mind, it seems like a good time to repeat my previous question. Why the hell does a three-year-old have an iPad of her own, regardless of whether or not she shares it with her siblings (as is mentioned in the article)?
There are so many issues I have with this. I'm going to stick with just three though. The first is the price of the thing. AUD$629. It's a lot of money. I've only spent anywhere near that amount of money on two purchases (flights aside). A car, and my current digital camera. I could possibly understand an adult spending that much money on a piece of technology for themselves, especially if he or she is an Apple fanatic.
I cannot understand spending that much money on one non-essential item for a child, regardless of what it is, how old they are, or whether or not they are going to share it. Aside from still not understanding why exactly a three-year-old needs an iPad (or for that matter, a computer of any kind), giving a toddler something, half of which happens to be made of glass, is asking for trouble. iPads are easily broken by adult users as it is - just google "broken iPad" if you don't believe me. The screen is glass, the back casing is smooth metal, and there's nowhere for hands, large or small, to get a good grip. In short, it's pretty easy for it to just slip out of your hands and crash onto the floor. The LCD is also prone to distortion, and could easily be put out of action by an energetic poke from enthusiastic little fingers. Game over. At least until it's fixed or replaced.
My major beef though wasn't so much what it was spent on, but what it wasn't spent on.
Take that wad of fifty dollar notes. Here are some alternatives to lining Steve Jobs' pocket with it.
1. Save it. Put it in a trust fund - a savings account, term deposit - whatever. If you want to get a little something on the way back from the bank, grab a stack of colouring books and a pack of crayons. There'd still be over AUD$600 left. $200 per kid in a savings account. Not bad.
2. If the urge to spend is that strong, round up the kids and let them loose in the local toy store with the cash. Think of the number of books, Lego sets, bats and balls, dolls, crayons, board games, and action figures you could get for the same amount of money!! Instead of taking turns with an iPad (or anything else for that matter) which invariably leads to bickering and fighting (and let's face it, who needs more of that?!), all of the kids could use these toys simultaneously and further their development in the process. Get them to hone their fine motor skills and thinking processes, broaden their imagination, learn hand-eye coordination, learn their ABCs while turning real pages of real books, and best of all, run around outside in the fresh air, playing with each other and getting some exercise (considering the rising obesity rates around the world, who can argue with that?), rather plonking them alone on the couch with a touch-screen computer as a high-tech babysitter.
Sure, Apple might have games and applications suitable or even designed for children, but at the end of the day, it's still a computer.
(NB: I originally wrote this on the 16th of September, but never got around to posting it. That is, until I noticed this in the New York Times.
"Toddlers’ Favorite Toy: The iPhone" - New York Times, 15th October, 2010.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one alarmed by the increasing role of technology in childhood, and its ramifications. -A)
"Buy buy mummy: iPad toddler's spending spree" - The Age, 15th September, 2010.
The story of three-year-old Sienna Leigh of Sydney, who ran up a AUD$50 bill on her mother's credit card in the online Apple store buying iPad applications. Her mother didn't notice until she saw the emailed receipts for Sienna's shopping spree after the little one had gone to sleep.
The kid has skills with technology - I'll give her that. I'm 28, and I'm not sure I could do much with an iPad beyond turn it on without being shown how, let alone find the Apple store and purchase applications. This little girl is only three - she can't yet read or write her own name, but she can go shopping online on her mum's tab.
But while the article seemed to almost jovially research how Sienna managed her feat, and detailed how to disable iPad access to the Apple store for other parents, I found myself asking a more fundamental question.
Why the hell does a three-year-old have an iPad of her own? Following on from that, why does she spend a few hours a day obviously unsupervised with an incredibly expensive and sophisticated piece of technology, which also happens to have access to the internet?
For those of you less in the know, or who like me don't champ at the bit every time Steve Jobs releases another "must have" Apple product, the iPad is just like an iPhone - only bigger. Six times bigger, to be exact. Touch screen display, huge internal memory, internet, access to all kinds of applications ranging in levels of usefulness, practicality, entertainment and idiocy. Oh, and you can also make phone calls with it. iPads retail at AUD$629 in Australia for the most basic model, and over AUD$1,000 for the top of the range version. (€499 - €799 on the German Apple website for those not familiar with the Aussie dollar.)
With those prices in mind, it seems like a good time to repeat my previous question. Why the hell does a three-year-old have an iPad of her own, regardless of whether or not she shares it with her siblings (as is mentioned in the article)?
There are so many issues I have with this. I'm going to stick with just three though. The first is the price of the thing. AUD$629. It's a lot of money. I've only spent anywhere near that amount of money on two purchases (flights aside). A car, and my current digital camera. I could possibly understand an adult spending that much money on a piece of technology for themselves, especially if he or she is an Apple fanatic.
I cannot understand spending that much money on one non-essential item for a child, regardless of what it is, how old they are, or whether or not they are going to share it. Aside from still not understanding why exactly a three-year-old needs an iPad (or for that matter, a computer of any kind), giving a toddler something, half of which happens to be made of glass, is asking for trouble. iPads are easily broken by adult users as it is - just google "broken iPad" if you don't believe me. The screen is glass, the back casing is smooth metal, and there's nowhere for hands, large or small, to get a good grip. In short, it's pretty easy for it to just slip out of your hands and crash onto the floor. The LCD is also prone to distortion, and could easily be put out of action by an energetic poke from enthusiastic little fingers. Game over. At least until it's fixed or replaced.
My major beef though wasn't so much what it was spent on, but what it wasn't spent on.
Take that wad of fifty dollar notes. Here are some alternatives to lining Steve Jobs' pocket with it.
1. Save it. Put it in a trust fund - a savings account, term deposit - whatever. If you want to get a little something on the way back from the bank, grab a stack of colouring books and a pack of crayons. There'd still be over AUD$600 left. $200 per kid in a savings account. Not bad.
2. If the urge to spend is that strong, round up the kids and let them loose in the local toy store with the cash. Think of the number of books, Lego sets, bats and balls, dolls, crayons, board games, and action figures you could get for the same amount of money!! Instead of taking turns with an iPad (or anything else for that matter) which invariably leads to bickering and fighting (and let's face it, who needs more of that?!), all of the kids could use these toys simultaneously and further their development in the process. Get them to hone their fine motor skills and thinking processes, broaden their imagination, learn hand-eye coordination, learn their ABCs while turning real pages of real books, and best of all, run around outside in the fresh air, playing with each other and getting some exercise (considering the rising obesity rates around the world, who can argue with that?), rather plonking them alone on the couch with a touch-screen computer as a high-tech babysitter.
Sure, Apple might have games and applications suitable or even designed for children, but at the end of the day, it's still a computer.
(NB: I originally wrote this on the 16th of September, but never got around to posting it. That is, until I noticed this in the New York Times.
"Toddlers’ Favorite Toy: The iPhone" - New York Times, 15th October, 2010.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one alarmed by the increasing role of technology in childhood, and its ramifications. -A)
Berlin to Newcastle... via Paris... and Amsterdam... (or "Why I Hate Charles de Gaulle Airport")
I've been on a few flights. Around Australia, across and within Europe, to the States, and let's not forget the 24hr odyssey between Australia and Europe via Asia a couple of times. Fifteen at last count. That's a few. But somehow I have never found myself in the unfortunate situation of missing a flight. Lost luggage? Definitely. Had delays and stopovers lasting hour after hour in all kinds of airports with expensive food, stale air, smelly co-travellers, uncomfortable seats and little or nothing to do? More times than I care to remember.
But never missed a flight. Came close in Vienna a couple of years ago; fell asleep at the gate, but fortunately Austrian Airlines don't leave checked-in passengers behind, and chose instead to mangle my name over the PA and give me five minutes to get my act together.
Made up for all of those years of good fortune a few weekends ago. One of my best friends lives in Newcastle, England, and I don't get to see her nearly often enough, so when I got a few unexpected days off work, I researched flights. There are no direct flights between Newcastle and Berlin. Last time, I flew to Edinburgh with RyanAir and got the train down. That was the first time I'd flown with RyanAir, and god I hope it's the last. The alternative? AirFrance + KLM, via Paris on the way there, Amsterdam on the way back. Done. I just wouldn't check any luggage (experience with AirFrance taught me that the hard way).
First flight, Berlin to Paris. Slight delay, but I figured if I can make it from David Jones to K-Mart in ten minutes in Boxing Day crowds at Chaddy, I could make a one hour connection at Charles de Gaulle.
Or not. The problem wasn't the spaghetti junction of gates and corridors and confusing signs. The problem was getting through customs in under half an hour. Showing the obnoxious guard at the entrance to customs my boarding pass for a flight departing in less than thirty minutes from a gate I still was yet to locate didn't help an iota. Actually, it had exactly the opposite effect. He reinforced my steadfast belief that France would be a fantastic country if it weren't for the French. He refused to let me through the express lane, designed exactly for passengers in my situation, instead demanding that I join the back of the queue; he seemed to be enjoying my rising stress levels as the departure time ticked closer. Sadistic bugger.
Got through eventually, ran another ten minutes to the gate, and made it five minutes before departure. I could see people still walking down the gangway to the plane. Exhale. Sweet. Made it.
Spoke too soon. An AirFrance employee, who seemed to find just as much pleasure in my misfortune as the customs guy had, told me "Ze flight 'as left." Excuse me? "Ze flight 'as left." No, I understood you the first time. But how have I missed the flight if the plane is still at the gate and passengers are still boarding? All this guy had to do was to scan my boarding pass and let me through. Problem solved.
No such luck. The next flight? In an hour, and already full. His solution? A five Euro food voucher that might get me a small dishwatery coffee if I was lucky, and a connection to Newcastle... via Amsterdam. In five hours. And all of this with the trace of a smile. Sadistic bugger. I'm sure the etymology of "Schadenfreude" can be traced back to French somehow.
Five hours later, I'm at the gate, ready to get on the flight to Amsterdam, right on time. Bored out of my mind, sick of hearing Français, and desperate for some actual coffee and decent food, but right on time. Well, I'm on time. The flight's not. A forty minute delay. My connection time in Amsterdam? Ninety minutes. Oh yay. Let's hope Schiphol Airport isn't as much of a mess as Charles de Gaulle, and that it's not remotely interesting, because I'm going to have to run through it.
Left Paris, flew to Amsterdam. Sure enough, the ninety minute connection became forty minutes, and I legged it through Schiphol. Fortunately the Dutch seem to have more in common with the Germans than the French when it comes to airport design; Schiphol airport is not only more organised, but better signposted. Security was shorter, travelators were used exclusively by courteous fellow travellers who either walk or move aside, Dutch security is less anal than French, and I was actually permitted to use the express lane at customs for the purpose for which it was implemented. I felt like I'd just run a marathon as I took off various metal items to go through security at the gate, but I made the flight. Two hours later, I was in Newcastle, and had an absolutely fantastic four days with Squishy and co. in the English sunshine.
What I didn't know at the time... that was just the preview. Believe it or not, my Charles de Gaulle experience was nothing compared to the return trip four days later. Stay tuned...
But never missed a flight. Came close in Vienna a couple of years ago; fell asleep at the gate, but fortunately Austrian Airlines don't leave checked-in passengers behind, and chose instead to mangle my name over the PA and give me five minutes to get my act together.
Made up for all of those years of good fortune a few weekends ago. One of my best friends lives in Newcastle, England, and I don't get to see her nearly often enough, so when I got a few unexpected days off work, I researched flights. There are no direct flights between Newcastle and Berlin. Last time, I flew to Edinburgh with RyanAir and got the train down. That was the first time I'd flown with RyanAir, and god I hope it's the last. The alternative? AirFrance + KLM, via Paris on the way there, Amsterdam on the way back. Done. I just wouldn't check any luggage (experience with AirFrance taught me that the hard way).
First flight, Berlin to Paris. Slight delay, but I figured if I can make it from David Jones to K-Mart in ten minutes in Boxing Day crowds at Chaddy, I could make a one hour connection at Charles de Gaulle.
Or not. The problem wasn't the spaghetti junction of gates and corridors and confusing signs. The problem was getting through customs in under half an hour. Showing the obnoxious guard at the entrance to customs my boarding pass for a flight departing in less than thirty minutes from a gate I still was yet to locate didn't help an iota. Actually, it had exactly the opposite effect. He reinforced my steadfast belief that France would be a fantastic country if it weren't for the French. He refused to let me through the express lane, designed exactly for passengers in my situation, instead demanding that I join the back of the queue; he seemed to be enjoying my rising stress levels as the departure time ticked closer. Sadistic bugger.
Got through eventually, ran another ten minutes to the gate, and made it five minutes before departure. I could see people still walking down the gangway to the plane. Exhale. Sweet. Made it.
Spoke too soon. An AirFrance employee, who seemed to find just as much pleasure in my misfortune as the customs guy had, told me "Ze flight 'as left." Excuse me? "Ze flight 'as left." No, I understood you the first time. But how have I missed the flight if the plane is still at the gate and passengers are still boarding? All this guy had to do was to scan my boarding pass and let me through. Problem solved.
No such luck. The next flight? In an hour, and already full. His solution? A five Euro food voucher that might get me a small dishwatery coffee if I was lucky, and a connection to Newcastle... via Amsterdam. In five hours. And all of this with the trace of a smile. Sadistic bugger. I'm sure the etymology of "Schadenfreude" can be traced back to French somehow.
Five hours later, I'm at the gate, ready to get on the flight to Amsterdam, right on time. Bored out of my mind, sick of hearing Français, and desperate for some actual coffee and decent food, but right on time. Well, I'm on time. The flight's not. A forty minute delay. My connection time in Amsterdam? Ninety minutes. Oh yay. Let's hope Schiphol Airport isn't as much of a mess as Charles de Gaulle, and that it's not remotely interesting, because I'm going to have to run through it.
Left Paris, flew to Amsterdam. Sure enough, the ninety minute connection became forty minutes, and I legged it through Schiphol. Fortunately the Dutch seem to have more in common with the Germans than the French when it comes to airport design; Schiphol airport is not only more organised, but better signposted. Security was shorter, travelators were used exclusively by courteous fellow travellers who either walk or move aside, Dutch security is less anal than French, and I was actually permitted to use the express lane at customs for the purpose for which it was implemented. I felt like I'd just run a marathon as I took off various metal items to go through security at the gate, but I made the flight. Two hours later, I was in Newcastle, and had an absolutely fantastic four days with Squishy and co. in the English sunshine.
What I didn't know at the time... that was just the preview. Believe it or not, my Charles de Gaulle experience was nothing compared to the return trip four days later. Stay tuned...
Notes From The Road: Wooden shacks and silver castles
31st of March, 2010. Gjirokaster, southern Albania.
Right now from where I'm sitting astride the high stone wall of Kalaja e Gjirokastrës (Gjirokaster Castle), my view is nothing short of spectacular. I'm looking north along the wide Drino river valley hundreds of metres below me, the sun is slowly descending behind the Gjerë mountains to my left and is casting a golden glow over the snow-covered mountain peaks to my right on the opposite side of the valley.
Somewhere off in the distance, cowbells are clanging, sheep are bleating, and a group of children are laughing and calling to one another on their way home. A little further down the hillside, a plume of smoke is rising from a wooden shack, and if I closed my eyes, I would swear that I was standing outside the restaurant I was at in Tirana a few nights ago - whatever is being cooked on that open wood fire smells absolutely divine.
A spectacular view.
Gjirokaster is small - a lot smaller than I expected. Well, that's not entirely true. I hardly expected a thriving metropolis in the quiet hills of southern Albania. One feature that cannot be disputed is its unique topography.
While the tourists come for the picturesque old town, the majority of the 43,000 inhabitants live downtown in the modern lower area. In Gjirokaster, going downtown literally means travelling a good few kilometres down. The city is built into the steep sloping valley wall, and the old town is not only significantly smaller than the newer part, but also about 200 metres higher. The bitumen streets leading up from the petrol stations, schools and supermarkets of modern Gjirokaster are relatively flat for the first 100m in from the main highway running along the river, but the further you venture, the steeper the streets become, and the next few kilometres are uphill all the way, the gradient nearing 40degrees at times, until the bitumen turns to cobblestone and you reach the grey slate buildings of UNESCO World Heritage listed Gjirokaster. Here, rather than continue straight up the slope, most of the streets follow the contours of the mountain like waves, gently rising and falling every fifty or so metres. The only way you can continue your journey up the mountainside is on foot, using the steep old stone staircases, or by winding around for a kilometre in one direction, slowing to a crawl for a hairpin turn, then doubling back on yourself on a road running parallel to the first but about ten metres higher.
I very quickly realised that the 2EUR for the fifteen minute taxi ride to my hostel in the old town was definitely a good investment. In most places, especially smaller towns and villages, I rely on my feet to get me around, but the topography of Gjirokaster doesn't exactly lend itself to exploring the town on foot. I'd considered wandering down through the streets to the lower part earlier this evening, but since I only have one night here, I instead chose to stay up here in the ancient Minas Tirith-esque grey cobblestone old town and just enjoy the view.
Settlement in Gjirokaster has been traced back to ancient Greece - the name Gjirokaster comes from the Greek argyro (silver) and kastro (castle) - but there's nothing left now of anything from that time. The oldest remnants of Gjirokaster's history are the city walls I'm sitting on, which date back to the 3rd century AD. The majority of the old town isn't actually all that old, having been constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries when the area was under Ottoman rule - its status as a "rare example of a well-preserved Ottoman town" is what earned its UNESCO recognition in 2005.
Although I don't like to think about it, there's only one more stop left on this trip before I go back to Skopje to catch the flight north to Germany, which means leaving these quaint stone towns and the rural atmosphere behind until I next venture into the Balkans.
This trip has been so different to the other two though - to my Magical Mystery Tour around the Balkans in July and August 2007, and the Estonia/Latvia trip for Easter 2009. Maybe it's because Albania's tourism industry is relatively underdeveloped, in comparison to the rest of the Balkans, and especially in comparison to the rest of Europe. Maybe it's because travelling in off-season means I've had private rooms or the only occupied bunk in an entire hostel, and the owners at my beck and call, for most of the trip. Or maybe it's because Albania, unlike many of the other Balkan countries, was never part of Yugoslavia: Albania remained an ally of the USSR, but retained its independence. I don't know.
What I do know is that I absolutely love this country. I could quite happily spend another few weeks travelling around here - and would, if I didn't have this pesky thing called "work" calling me back to Berlin. In its own way, Albania is so incredibly beautiful. Maybe in the north it's different, but the south at least, Albania seems like it may be the Balkans as it once was, or even the Adriatic Coast as it once was - a few hotels here and there in the larger towns, but for the most part small fishing villages every few kilometres along white sandy beaches; further inland, jagged mountain peaks, sweeping valleys and isolated shacks dotted along the winding roads. As I said, I would love to accidentally on purpose forget about my flight home and roam around here awhile longer.
But watching Albania and its people and landscape from the window of a bus, or listening to roosters crow, sheep bleat and cowbells clang from up here on the fortress wall, I can't help thinking that while it's a beautiful country, I'm amazed that a country like Albania can still exist within the borders of today's Europe.
Life here must be so incredibly hard. I can see it on the faces of the people who live here. The people I see walking down the street, the men and women in the shops and marketplaces. The kids riding around dusty villages and along dirty littered city back lanes, stains all over their worn hand-me-down clothes, looking at me and my camera like I'm from outer space. Although being a female who most definitely is neither local nor married tends to raise some eyebrows around here anyway.
I've spoken to a couple of locals here in the last few days - Burim the young bus driver in Prizren whose German was better than his English, Miri the student from Korca who insisted he pay for my bus fare in Tirana and accompany me to within sight of the cable car station I was looking for, the taxi driver in Tirana who lived in London for a few years to earn money to send back to his family here, and the guide in the bus down from Tirana whose name I still can't remember who redefined hospitality. Coincidentally, all males. The majority of locals on the streets in Albania are males, or females in the company of males. From what I've read and been told, this is apparently partly due to the dominance of Islam in Albania. Either way, it makes me stand out like a sore thumb.
But aside from that, all of them told me a very similar story. Every single one of them was either working as many hours as they could physically handle in whatever job they had managed to find to get themselves and their family out of Albania, had worked outside Albania for several years and sent money back to their families, or like Burim, were dreaming of leaving Albania to follow their families who had already managed to leave, but unfortunately were themselves years of work away from getting their hands on the paperwork they needed to join them, much less the money to pay for the travel.
Writing that and rereading it, I realise how strange it sounds - to say that life in Albania is hard, when the two books I've read on this trip are set in much more challenging conditions. One is "The Poisonwood Bible", set in the Congolese jungle in the 1950s, the other is "A Thousand Splendid Suns", set in 1960s Kabul.
I think the difference here is that both of those locations - Congo and Afghanistan - are almost synonymous with some of the most horrible living conditions you could think of. Poverty. Famine. Civil war. Drought.
Albania's not quite in the same league as Africa or Afghanistan, but it's definitely well below the living standards you'd expect from most countries in Europe. Ramshackle houses, grotty little kids roaming the streets and toothless old men and women selling their wares in the marketplaces are something you could well expect to be confronted with in various African countries. It goes with the territory.
You don't expect to see that in Europe. If I turn around and look south from my vantage point on the citadel wall, about twenty kilometres in the distance is the Greek border. Greece - a member of the EU, of the Eurozone, of Schengen. If I turn to look directly west into the Gjerë mountains, my back to the valley, the other side of those mountains is the Adriatic Coast; 60km west of the Albanian beach is the south-eastern tip of the Italian mainland. EU. Eurozone. Schengen.
Travelling around the country, every so often I feel so sad that living conditions like this exist within the borders of the European Union. And every single time, I wish there was something I could do - anything - to help these people and their country. But short of what I'm already doing in supporting their local tourist industry and enthusiastically recommending other like-minded backpackers or explorers to do the same, there's not a whole lot I can do.
Apparently Albania applied for EU membership last year. Travelling around here, I can't envisage that happening in the next ten years. Maybe one day though.
And here's where I pass the baton to you. Take the plunge and venture to somewhere off the beaten track. France and Spain and Portugal are always going to be there. Scandinavia and Austria and Italy won't change all that dramatically in the next ten years. But Albania - I don't know how long this sense of having travelled back in time will linger once it gets out that Albania is worth the adventure. So don't just take my word for it. If you're in Europe and are even mildly interested in seeing first-hand what I've just described, including the magnificent view from up here on the stone wall of Kalaja e Gjirokastrës, explore the Balkans on your next holiday. Albania. Bosnia. Macedonia. Ok, Croatia and Slovenia if you're not quite as adventurous and insatiably curious as me. But go there, and go soon. Explore, relax, escape. Support the local tourism industry, spread the word, and help the Albanian and Balkan economies get on their feet.
Right now from where I'm sitting astride the high stone wall of Kalaja e Gjirokastrës (Gjirokaster Castle), my view is nothing short of spectacular. I'm looking north along the wide Drino river valley hundreds of metres below me, the sun is slowly descending behind the Gjerë mountains to my left and is casting a golden glow over the snow-covered mountain peaks to my right on the opposite side of the valley.
Somewhere off in the distance, cowbells are clanging, sheep are bleating, and a group of children are laughing and calling to one another on their way home. A little further down the hillside, a plume of smoke is rising from a wooden shack, and if I closed my eyes, I would swear that I was standing outside the restaurant I was at in Tirana a few nights ago - whatever is being cooked on that open wood fire smells absolutely divine.
A spectacular view.
Gjirokaster is small - a lot smaller than I expected. Well, that's not entirely true. I hardly expected a thriving metropolis in the quiet hills of southern Albania. One feature that cannot be disputed is its unique topography.
While the tourists come for the picturesque old town, the majority of the 43,000 inhabitants live downtown in the modern lower area. In Gjirokaster, going downtown literally means travelling a good few kilometres down. The city is built into the steep sloping valley wall, and the old town is not only significantly smaller than the newer part, but also about 200 metres higher. The bitumen streets leading up from the petrol stations, schools and supermarkets of modern Gjirokaster are relatively flat for the first 100m in from the main highway running along the river, but the further you venture, the steeper the streets become, and the next few kilometres are uphill all the way, the gradient nearing 40degrees at times, until the bitumen turns to cobblestone and you reach the grey slate buildings of UNESCO World Heritage listed Gjirokaster. Here, rather than continue straight up the slope, most of the streets follow the contours of the mountain like waves, gently rising and falling every fifty or so metres. The only way you can continue your journey up the mountainside is on foot, using the steep old stone staircases, or by winding around for a kilometre in one direction, slowing to a crawl for a hairpin turn, then doubling back on yourself on a road running parallel to the first but about ten metres higher.
I very quickly realised that the 2EUR for the fifteen minute taxi ride to my hostel in the old town was definitely a good investment. In most places, especially smaller towns and villages, I rely on my feet to get me around, but the topography of Gjirokaster doesn't exactly lend itself to exploring the town on foot. I'd considered wandering down through the streets to the lower part earlier this evening, but since I only have one night here, I instead chose to stay up here in the ancient Minas Tirith-esque grey cobblestone old town and just enjoy the view.
Settlement in Gjirokaster has been traced back to ancient Greece - the name Gjirokaster comes from the Greek argyro (silver) and kastro (castle) - but there's nothing left now of anything from that time. The oldest remnants of Gjirokaster's history are the city walls I'm sitting on, which date back to the 3rd century AD. The majority of the old town isn't actually all that old, having been constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries when the area was under Ottoman rule - its status as a "rare example of a well-preserved Ottoman town" is what earned its UNESCO recognition in 2005.
Although I don't like to think about it, there's only one more stop left on this trip before I go back to Skopje to catch the flight north to Germany, which means leaving these quaint stone towns and the rural atmosphere behind until I next venture into the Balkans.
This trip has been so different to the other two though - to my Magical Mystery Tour around the Balkans in July and August 2007, and the Estonia/Latvia trip for Easter 2009. Maybe it's because Albania's tourism industry is relatively underdeveloped, in comparison to the rest of the Balkans, and especially in comparison to the rest of Europe. Maybe it's because travelling in off-season means I've had private rooms or the only occupied bunk in an entire hostel, and the owners at my beck and call, for most of the trip. Or maybe it's because Albania, unlike many of the other Balkan countries, was never part of Yugoslavia: Albania remained an ally of the USSR, but retained its independence. I don't know.
What I do know is that I absolutely love this country. I could quite happily spend another few weeks travelling around here - and would, if I didn't have this pesky thing called "work" calling me back to Berlin. In its own way, Albania is so incredibly beautiful. Maybe in the north it's different, but the south at least, Albania seems like it may be the Balkans as it once was, or even the Adriatic Coast as it once was - a few hotels here and there in the larger towns, but for the most part small fishing villages every few kilometres along white sandy beaches; further inland, jagged mountain peaks, sweeping valleys and isolated shacks dotted along the winding roads. As I said, I would love to accidentally on purpose forget about my flight home and roam around here awhile longer.
But watching Albania and its people and landscape from the window of a bus, or listening to roosters crow, sheep bleat and cowbells clang from up here on the fortress wall, I can't help thinking that while it's a beautiful country, I'm amazed that a country like Albania can still exist within the borders of today's Europe.
Life here must be so incredibly hard. I can see it on the faces of the people who live here. The people I see walking down the street, the men and women in the shops and marketplaces. The kids riding around dusty villages and along dirty littered city back lanes, stains all over their worn hand-me-down clothes, looking at me and my camera like I'm from outer space. Although being a female who most definitely is neither local nor married tends to raise some eyebrows around here anyway.
I've spoken to a couple of locals here in the last few days - Burim the young bus driver in Prizren whose German was better than his English, Miri the student from Korca who insisted he pay for my bus fare in Tirana and accompany me to within sight of the cable car station I was looking for, the taxi driver in Tirana who lived in London for a few years to earn money to send back to his family here, and the guide in the bus down from Tirana whose name I still can't remember who redefined hospitality. Coincidentally, all males. The majority of locals on the streets in Albania are males, or females in the company of males. From what I've read and been told, this is apparently partly due to the dominance of Islam in Albania. Either way, it makes me stand out like a sore thumb.
But aside from that, all of them told me a very similar story. Every single one of them was either working as many hours as they could physically handle in whatever job they had managed to find to get themselves and their family out of Albania, had worked outside Albania for several years and sent money back to their families, or like Burim, were dreaming of leaving Albania to follow their families who had already managed to leave, but unfortunately were themselves years of work away from getting their hands on the paperwork they needed to join them, much less the money to pay for the travel.
Writing that and rereading it, I realise how strange it sounds - to say that life in Albania is hard, when the two books I've read on this trip are set in much more challenging conditions. One is "The Poisonwood Bible", set in the Congolese jungle in the 1950s, the other is "A Thousand Splendid Suns", set in 1960s Kabul.
I think the difference here is that both of those locations - Congo and Afghanistan - are almost synonymous with some of the most horrible living conditions you could think of. Poverty. Famine. Civil war. Drought.
Albania's not quite in the same league as Africa or Afghanistan, but it's definitely well below the living standards you'd expect from most countries in Europe. Ramshackle houses, grotty little kids roaming the streets and toothless old men and women selling their wares in the marketplaces are something you could well expect to be confronted with in various African countries. It goes with the territory.
You don't expect to see that in Europe. If I turn around and look south from my vantage point on the citadel wall, about twenty kilometres in the distance is the Greek border. Greece - a member of the EU, of the Eurozone, of Schengen. If I turn to look directly west into the Gjerë mountains, my back to the valley, the other side of those mountains is the Adriatic Coast; 60km west of the Albanian beach is the south-eastern tip of the Italian mainland. EU. Eurozone. Schengen.
Travelling around the country, every so often I feel so sad that living conditions like this exist within the borders of the European Union. And every single time, I wish there was something I could do - anything - to help these people and their country. But short of what I'm already doing in supporting their local tourist industry and enthusiastically recommending other like-minded backpackers or explorers to do the same, there's not a whole lot I can do.
Apparently Albania applied for EU membership last year. Travelling around here, I can't envisage that happening in the next ten years. Maybe one day though.
And here's where I pass the baton to you. Take the plunge and venture to somewhere off the beaten track. France and Spain and Portugal are always going to be there. Scandinavia and Austria and Italy won't change all that dramatically in the next ten years. But Albania - I don't know how long this sense of having travelled back in time will linger once it gets out that Albania is worth the adventure. So don't just take my word for it. If you're in Europe and are even mildly interested in seeing first-hand what I've just described, including the magnificent view from up here on the stone wall of Kalaja e Gjirokastrës, explore the Balkans on your next holiday. Albania. Bosnia. Macedonia. Ok, Croatia and Slovenia if you're not quite as adventurous and insatiably curious as me. But go there, and go soon. Explore, relax, escape. Support the local tourism industry, spread the word, and help the Albanian and Balkan economies get on their feet.
Notes From The Road: Liberty Street & Church Street, NY 10006
26th of July, 2010. Lower Manhattan, New York City.
There are some places on this beautiful planet of ours that are quite simply breathtaking. They're rare, and they encompass all landscapes, climates, countries and continents, but the one thing they have in common is that they are awesome. Not awesome as it is commonly used today by anyone under thirty as a synonym for cool. Awesome as in commands the visitor to stand before it in awe. They demand respect. They literally take your breath away.
Most of them are breathtakingly beautiful. They inspire writers to wax lyrical over colour hues, artists to spend hours at the site with oils and watercolours and tourists to take cheesy snapshots of themselves with said wonder in the background - just to prove to family and friends back home that they were there.
This place is breathtaking, but it is not beautiful. There are no painters here. The writers write, but their stories are of tragedy and death, chaos and destruction, tears, lost loved ones and fallen heroes. Even the tourists don't linger - they come, they wander awhile, trying to imagine what used to be here. They take a few photos of what remains, then they leave the shadows and windswept emptiness in favour of sunshine and light.
Behind me is the Cortland Street subway station. In front of me is an immense construction site. Ten years ago, it looked very different. There used to be five tall office buildings and two immense skyscrapers here. Together, the seven buildings were known as the World Trade Center, the heart of the New York Financial District.
The eleventh of September, 2001, changed all that.
Ground Zero - actually being here - is strange. Like the other tourists visiting New York for the first time, I too am trying to imagine that this huge crater in lower Manhattan was once occupied by two of the tallest buildings ever built, and am finding it a little difficult, to say the least. Some guy flogging an A4 photo book with "Tragedy 9/11" scrawled in red across the cover told me as part of his sales pitch that if you want to get a sense of scale here, double the height of the tallest remaining building in the area, and you're getting close to the height of one of the twin towers.
You can't see much of the site - well, of the ground anyway. All that's visible are the umpteen cranes, each with the stars and stripes proudly, resolutely, defiantly fluttering in the breeze from the topmost point. The two-metre cyclone fencing barricading the area is completely covered with a long plastic banner advertising the visitors' centre, which I had no intention of visiting.
I remember waking up the morning of the 12th of September in Australia - it happened at about 11pm local time in Melbourne. A Tuesday. I watched Rove, then turned the TV off before Sandra Sully's face popped up on screen with the late night news so I could get some sleep and make it to my Italian class at 9am the following morning. My mum woke me up long before my alarm though - she said something, a strange look on her face, then turned the TV on in my room. Like so many people, I thought at first it was a new action movie, then I saw the CNN logo in the corner of the screen, and the footage of the second plane. The coverage had been going all night, and there was no escaping it during the next few hours, days, weeks and months.
That was more than enough opportunity to hear all I ever wanted or needed to know about what happened. Not only does the visitors centre have a photo display and various other informative resources, but they also coordinate guided tours of the site run by volunteers - living victims: people who experienced it firsthand, or who lost their partner, sibling, parent or child that day. There was no way I was going to do that. I wanted to visit Ground Zero, to see the area, see what's left, try to imagine what used to be there. Then I wanted to leave the area and not return. If I wanted to know more from someone who was there, I could listen to one of the hundreds of interviews, read one of the many written accounts or watch one of the several documentaries or feature films. To see the look on someone's face as they talk about their memories of the buildings coming down around them, or as they remembered someone they lost that day, someone they dearly loved and sorely miss... I couldn't do it.
So I didn't. I sat on the steps outside one of the buildings around the outside. For an hour or so. I just sat there, thinking, writing, remembering, imagining. At one point, a fire engine roared past, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and a spectacular American flag emblazoned all the way down the side. I took a deep breath. Listened to the sirens fade into the noise of the city. Then I left.
If you happen to be in New York and can handle an intensely negative experience, go down there. Walk around. See the memorials. Pay your respects. Experience the site. It's worth a visit. But I won't go back.
There are some places on this beautiful planet of ours that are quite simply breathtaking. They're rare, and they encompass all landscapes, climates, countries and continents, but the one thing they have in common is that they are awesome. Not awesome as it is commonly used today by anyone under thirty as a synonym for cool. Awesome as in commands the visitor to stand before it in awe. They demand respect. They literally take your breath away.
Most of them are breathtakingly beautiful. They inspire writers to wax lyrical over colour hues, artists to spend hours at the site with oils and watercolours and tourists to take cheesy snapshots of themselves with said wonder in the background - just to prove to family and friends back home that they were there.
This place is breathtaking, but it is not beautiful. There are no painters here. The writers write, but their stories are of tragedy and death, chaos and destruction, tears, lost loved ones and fallen heroes. Even the tourists don't linger - they come, they wander awhile, trying to imagine what used to be here. They take a few photos of what remains, then they leave the shadows and windswept emptiness in favour of sunshine and light.
Behind me is the Cortland Street subway station. In front of me is an immense construction site. Ten years ago, it looked very different. There used to be five tall office buildings and two immense skyscrapers here. Together, the seven buildings were known as the World Trade Center, the heart of the New York Financial District.
The eleventh of September, 2001, changed all that.
Ground Zero - actually being here - is strange. Like the other tourists visiting New York for the first time, I too am trying to imagine that this huge crater in lower Manhattan was once occupied by two of the tallest buildings ever built, and am finding it a little difficult, to say the least. Some guy flogging an A4 photo book with "Tragedy 9/11" scrawled in red across the cover told me as part of his sales pitch that if you want to get a sense of scale here, double the height of the tallest remaining building in the area, and you're getting close to the height of one of the twin towers.
You can't see much of the site - well, of the ground anyway. All that's visible are the umpteen cranes, each with the stars and stripes proudly, resolutely, defiantly fluttering in the breeze from the topmost point. The two-metre cyclone fencing barricading the area is completely covered with a long plastic banner advertising the visitors' centre, which I had no intention of visiting.
I remember waking up the morning of the 12th of September in Australia - it happened at about 11pm local time in Melbourne. A Tuesday. I watched Rove, then turned the TV off before Sandra Sully's face popped up on screen with the late night news so I could get some sleep and make it to my Italian class at 9am the following morning. My mum woke me up long before my alarm though - she said something, a strange look on her face, then turned the TV on in my room. Like so many people, I thought at first it was a new action movie, then I saw the CNN logo in the corner of the screen, and the footage of the second plane. The coverage had been going all night, and there was no escaping it during the next few hours, days, weeks and months.
That was more than enough opportunity to hear all I ever wanted or needed to know about what happened. Not only does the visitors centre have a photo display and various other informative resources, but they also coordinate guided tours of the site run by volunteers - living victims: people who experienced it firsthand, or who lost their partner, sibling, parent or child that day. There was no way I was going to do that. I wanted to visit Ground Zero, to see the area, see what's left, try to imagine what used to be there. Then I wanted to leave the area and not return. If I wanted to know more from someone who was there, I could listen to one of the hundreds of interviews, read one of the many written accounts or watch one of the several documentaries or feature films. To see the look on someone's face as they talk about their memories of the buildings coming down around them, or as they remembered someone they lost that day, someone they dearly loved and sorely miss... I couldn't do it.
So I didn't. I sat on the steps outside one of the buildings around the outside. For an hour or so. I just sat there, thinking, writing, remembering, imagining. At one point, a fire engine roared past, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and a spectacular American flag emblazoned all the way down the side. I took a deep breath. Listened to the sirens fade into the noise of the city. Then I left.
If you happen to be in New York and can handle an intensely negative experience, go down there. Walk around. See the memorials. Pay your respects. Experience the site. It's worth a visit. But I won't go back.
Taxi driver of the year
I don't usually take taxis. My habitual way of getting around Berlin is either public transport, walking a lot further than most normal people would, or cruising around on my beloved bike.
In foreign cities, that changes. Some are the perfect size to walk around, some have amazing public transport networks, and some are just too big and too hot to avoid taxis for the entire trip.
When I was in New York recently, my options were just those three: subway, walk or taxi. I'd happily walk, especially in a massive city like New York (you never know what gems you might find when you wander through the smaller streets and laneways), but the two weeks I was in New York, every day was over 35°C with high humidity, and I just didn't have the energy to walk for miles and miles in the sun. No one did.
The subway... well, the New York subway has earned its very own blog post. Suffice to say it's hot. Very hot. And very humid. The day I met the subject of this blog post was my last day in New York, and I was on my way to the airport. At the other end of the overnight flight back to Berlin, I would have to go from the airport straight back to work, so I'd just showered and was clean and shiny. The thing about the subway in summer, from my few days' experience, is that while the upper level where you buy tickets is relatively cool, the lower level is a public sauna. Anything more than about ten seconds on the platform and you're sweating as if you were standing on St Kilda beach at 3pm on a scorching February afternoon in Melbourne, wearing thermals and a ski suit, wrapped up in an alpine-warmth sleeping bag and a foil heat blanket, demolishing a chicken vindaloo. Yeah, you're sweating. A lot.
So since I definitely didn't want to be all sweaty for the next twelve hours at the airport, on the plane, at Heathrow Airport, on another plane, and for my entire shift at the other end of the flight, I decided to splash out on an air-conditioned cab ride. Just as I went outside the hotel where I was staying, a so-called "town car" pulled up - a sleek black sedan with a leather and mahogany interior, air-con and tinted windows. As the door man helped the passengers out and the bellhop got their luggage, I asked the other doorman to hail me a taxi and I waited with my backpack in the shade at the door.
"Well, instead of a taxi, would you like to take this town car instead? Same price, just a little more comfortable."
Is this a trick question? Uh... yes. Yes. Definitely yes.
We set off in air-conditioned comfort through the streets of Midtown and I watched my last few scenes of New York through the tinted windows, and had a bit of a chat with the driver along the way.
First question: "So, where are you off to?" he asked me.
"Berlin." And that started the rest.
After I explained to him that I live there but that I'm not German, and told him a bit about my studies, my work, and why I had tried so hard to get a place in Berlin, he began to tell me a bit about himself.
Turns out his name is Mike, he's originally from Brooklyn and he served in the US military in the 1970s and 1980s... in West Germany. He was sketchy on the details, but the one thing he would tell me is that as a way to earn some money on the side, he and some of his army mates worked as couriers, smuggling various small but valuable items across the border into East Germany. Among the more regular requests he received were Beatles and Rolling Stones records, Milka chocolate, food and particular groceries only available in the west, and bottles of Coca Cola (the fourth time he smuggled Coca Cola over the border was the only time the border guards' searches ever found anything).
When I asked him about the strangest thing anyone had ever asked him to smuggle over, he laughed, and said it was a tie between women's stockings in all manner of colours and styles for a 46-year-old cross-dressing accountant in Erfurt, and a Harley Davidson.
I had to ask.
Apparently a motorbike enthusiast in East Germany kept them in business for two years with a special order: he had arranged to have a Harley Davidson motorcycle delivered to a friend in West Germany, who then dismantled it and paid couriers like Mike and his army colleagues to smuggle it bit by bit across the border to him in East Germany, where he put it back together. The whole process took about two years, and amazingly none of the parts were ever found during border searches.
After having received all the parts and having reassembled the bike in his barn, this Harley nut could only ride it because he lived in a very rural area well away from border patrols, and then only in the darkness of the very early hours of the morning. On top of that, the amount he paid to have the bike dismantled and smuggled over was almost as much as the bike itself.
There were so many more questions I had for him - about his experiences with the border guards, what it was like when the wall fell and in the months and years after reunification, but as luck would have it, just as he finished the Harley story, we turned off the freeway, and a few moments later we pulled into the parking bay at the main terminal of JFK.
He seemed genuinely happy that I was so curious about his experiences, but by the same token, I got the distinct impression that just sharing the Harley story and telling me about his time moonlighting as a smuggler reminded him of other things he would rather not remember. Earlier in the conversation when I showed interest at the mention of his military experience in Germany, he started to tell me about the first few months living in Germany, and how the whole courier idea started. Apparently one of his mates had the idea, before -
And that's where he stopped, mid-sentence. It was as if Mike had suddenly remembered that he didn't know me from a bar of soap, and whatever came after "before" was something that he had just realised he didn't particular want to share with someone he'd known for all of five minutes. He didn't talk for a few minutes, and when he started again, it was the Coca Cola story - lighthearted, as if nothing had happened.
He didn't bring it up again - his friend, nor how the courier idea came about - and I knew better than to ask.
The moral of the story? Public transport is cheap, and walking still cheaper, but taxis, while pretty darn expensive comparatively, can pay dividends in story-telling material and invaluable experience, if you just ask the right questions.
In foreign cities, that changes. Some are the perfect size to walk around, some have amazing public transport networks, and some are just too big and too hot to avoid taxis for the entire trip.
When I was in New York recently, my options were just those three: subway, walk or taxi. I'd happily walk, especially in a massive city like New York (you never know what gems you might find when you wander through the smaller streets and laneways), but the two weeks I was in New York, every day was over 35°C with high humidity, and I just didn't have the energy to walk for miles and miles in the sun. No one did.
The subway... well, the New York subway has earned its very own blog post. Suffice to say it's hot. Very hot. And very humid. The day I met the subject of this blog post was my last day in New York, and I was on my way to the airport. At the other end of the overnight flight back to Berlin, I would have to go from the airport straight back to work, so I'd just showered and was clean and shiny. The thing about the subway in summer, from my few days' experience, is that while the upper level where you buy tickets is relatively cool, the lower level is a public sauna. Anything more than about ten seconds on the platform and you're sweating as if you were standing on St Kilda beach at 3pm on a scorching February afternoon in Melbourne, wearing thermals and a ski suit, wrapped up in an alpine-warmth sleeping bag and a foil heat blanket, demolishing a chicken vindaloo. Yeah, you're sweating. A lot.
So since I definitely didn't want to be all sweaty for the next twelve hours at the airport, on the plane, at Heathrow Airport, on another plane, and for my entire shift at the other end of the flight, I decided to splash out on an air-conditioned cab ride. Just as I went outside the hotel where I was staying, a so-called "town car" pulled up - a sleek black sedan with a leather and mahogany interior, air-con and tinted windows. As the door man helped the passengers out and the bellhop got their luggage, I asked the other doorman to hail me a taxi and I waited with my backpack in the shade at the door.
"Well, instead of a taxi, would you like to take this town car instead? Same price, just a little more comfortable."
Is this a trick question? Uh... yes. Yes. Definitely yes.
We set off in air-conditioned comfort through the streets of Midtown and I watched my last few scenes of New York through the tinted windows, and had a bit of a chat with the driver along the way.
First question: "So, where are you off to?" he asked me.
"Berlin." And that started the rest.
After I explained to him that I live there but that I'm not German, and told him a bit about my studies, my work, and why I had tried so hard to get a place in Berlin, he began to tell me a bit about himself.
Turns out his name is Mike, he's originally from Brooklyn and he served in the US military in the 1970s and 1980s... in West Germany. He was sketchy on the details, but the one thing he would tell me is that as a way to earn some money on the side, he and some of his army mates worked as couriers, smuggling various small but valuable items across the border into East Germany. Among the more regular requests he received were Beatles and Rolling Stones records, Milka chocolate, food and particular groceries only available in the west, and bottles of Coca Cola (the fourth time he smuggled Coca Cola over the border was the only time the border guards' searches ever found anything).
When I asked him about the strangest thing anyone had ever asked him to smuggle over, he laughed, and said it was a tie between women's stockings in all manner of colours and styles for a 46-year-old cross-dressing accountant in Erfurt, and a Harley Davidson.
I had to ask.
Apparently a motorbike enthusiast in East Germany kept them in business for two years with a special order: he had arranged to have a Harley Davidson motorcycle delivered to a friend in West Germany, who then dismantled it and paid couriers like Mike and his army colleagues to smuggle it bit by bit across the border to him in East Germany, where he put it back together. The whole process took about two years, and amazingly none of the parts were ever found during border searches.
After having received all the parts and having reassembled the bike in his barn, this Harley nut could only ride it because he lived in a very rural area well away from border patrols, and then only in the darkness of the very early hours of the morning. On top of that, the amount he paid to have the bike dismantled and smuggled over was almost as much as the bike itself.
There were so many more questions I had for him - about his experiences with the border guards, what it was like when the wall fell and in the months and years after reunification, but as luck would have it, just as he finished the Harley story, we turned off the freeway, and a few moments later we pulled into the parking bay at the main terminal of JFK.
He seemed genuinely happy that I was so curious about his experiences, but by the same token, I got the distinct impression that just sharing the Harley story and telling me about his time moonlighting as a smuggler reminded him of other things he would rather not remember. Earlier in the conversation when I showed interest at the mention of his military experience in Germany, he started to tell me about the first few months living in Germany, and how the whole courier idea started. Apparently one of his mates had the idea, before -
And that's where he stopped, mid-sentence. It was as if Mike had suddenly remembered that he didn't know me from a bar of soap, and whatever came after "before" was something that he had just realised he didn't particular want to share with someone he'd known for all of five minutes. He didn't talk for a few minutes, and when he started again, it was the Coca Cola story - lighthearted, as if nothing had happened.
He didn't bring it up again - his friend, nor how the courier idea came about - and I knew better than to ask.
The moral of the story? Public transport is cheap, and walking still cheaper, but taxis, while pretty darn expensive comparatively, can pay dividends in story-telling material and invaluable experience, if you just ask the right questions.
By request
Everything I've posted on this blog so far has gone through one of two channels - one of two methods of composition. Either it's been an entry that involved on-site notes, preparation, drafts and self-editing, or it's a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants entry, that I write strictly off the cuff. Usually at ridiculous o'clock, which tends to be after midnight.
This is one of the latter. It's just past midnight, so it fits the time prerequisite, and it has absolutely no preparation: I didn't even know I was going to write it until about five minutes ago. Added bonus: this one has a dedication.
To Connor - for reminding me that I have a blog, and for informing me that there may just be some people aside from my totally awesome mum at home in Melbourne who actually enjoy taking a few minutes out of their day to peruse my latest musings.
So what's been going on recently? Well, suffice to say, a fair bit. A trip to New York and to D.C., a few days in the former with my sister and her boyfriend, summer in Berlin, ridiculously high temperatures leading to sleepless nights and rides through Berlin's government quarter at 1am (no better time to explore and take photos - hardly any tourists!), exploring abandoned Olympic villages and military complexes in western Berlin, watching movies on rooftops, riding my bike along the abandoned runways of old airports, some of our fantastic students bringing us icecream on really hot days to show their appreciation for all our hard work behind the reception desk, friends coming and going (unfortunately mostly going, or planning to go), and making plans for the next few years in Berlin.
All this has got the cogs turning in my head, leading to some serious thinking. I don't tend to do my best thinking inside - academic work excepted. Instead, I usually have a few places I go if I need to think, to clear my head, or to escape from the four walls of my flat for a while.
There's Paul-Linke-Ufer on the Landwehrkanal if I don't have the time (or the energy) to venture anywhere further. The Landwehrkanal is a tributary of the Spree river that runs through Berlin's inner southern suburbs - right through Kreuzberg, about 10 minutes' walk north of my place, and it's a great place to go on a summer night to hang out, enjoy a cold beer, dip your feet in the river, and watch the Kreuzberg locals practise their juggling routines or strum a tune on their guitar on the Maibachufer. It's also the same river I walked on in February when Berlin rediscovered the ice ages, so I definitely like that area - anywhere from Pannierstraße to Prinzenbrücke.
A little further, and south this time, is my latest discovery: the old Tempelhof airport. I've got a post in the works about that place - it's definitely earned it's own post - so I won't say too much about it here, but there's something very cool and extremely humbling about sitting under a century-old oak tree beside the runway of an airport that essentially saved the city you're living in from starvation only a few decades earlier, and all this within walking distance of your flat.
Even further afield are Berlin's lakes. I'm a water-baby: I grew up either in, beside or on the water, and I naturally gravitate toward the water when I need to relax or to take time out. The lakes are a fantastic escape from the city, but they require a packed lunch and a cooler - Müggelsee in the south is at least an hour and a half away by public transport, even with a bike to ride to and from the station, and Flughafensee in the north or Schlachtensee in the south-west aren't much closer, but if I've got the time and the energy, I'll venture to one of those.
The ultimate though? The ultimate is somewhere that I used to go a lot when I was little. Melbourne's beaches. Yes, Sydney-siders, Melbourne only has bay beaches, but half-metre waves make exactly the same sound as six-foot ocean swells when you listen to them crash on the shore. I spent almost every summer until I was about fifteen at my grandparents' beach house on the Mornington Peninsula - walking along the beach with my grandmother, collecting shells and materials for collages, and just talking. During the year, I'd go fishing or sailing with my late grandfather on his yacht on Port Philip Bay, and I loved it, for exactly the same reason - spending time on the water, listening to the waves lap at the side of the boat, escaping from the city, and talking to him and to my grandmother.
The last few years that I was living in Melbourne, my place of choice became the Esplanade in Brighton. It only took me about fifteen minutes to drive there from my place, and I could quite happily stay sitting on that beach for hours at a time - just thinking, mulling over what was going on in my world, and figuring out the next step - from sunset until well after the stars were twinkling across the skies. It was on the sand at Brighton beach at about 8pm on a summer night in late 2003 that I made the decision to apply for the assistant year in Kusel. It was on the same beach around the same time a few years later that I decided I would reapply for the same program in Berlin, and listening to the waves and watching the stars arc across the sky has provided me the space and clarity of mind to sort through other things in my world - work, friends, family, what I'm doing with my life... You know, the usual.
Like I said, there's a few things going on in my world at the moment - I think everyone is in the same boat - and there is almost nothing I wouldn't give to be able to get into my little white 1987 Corolla hatchback, cruise down North Road, hang a right onto the Esplanade and pull into the car park behind the Brighton bathing boxes, stroll down the ramp onto the sand, find a spot away from the floodlights and just think... listen to the waves, watch the stars, and just think. But I don't live there anymore: ironically the decision I made back there in early 2007 to move to Berlin has meant I can't just drive on down there.
But I've got my places here - Paul-Linke-Ufer, the oak tree at Tempelhof Airport, and the shores of Schlachtensee. These are my Brighton beaches in Berlin.
This is one of the latter. It's just past midnight, so it fits the time prerequisite, and it has absolutely no preparation: I didn't even know I was going to write it until about five minutes ago. Added bonus: this one has a dedication.
To Connor - for reminding me that I have a blog, and for informing me that there may just be some people aside from my totally awesome mum at home in Melbourne who actually enjoy taking a few minutes out of their day to peruse my latest musings.
So what's been going on recently? Well, suffice to say, a fair bit. A trip to New York and to D.C., a few days in the former with my sister and her boyfriend, summer in Berlin, ridiculously high temperatures leading to sleepless nights and rides through Berlin's government quarter at 1am (no better time to explore and take photos - hardly any tourists!), exploring abandoned Olympic villages and military complexes in western Berlin, watching movies on rooftops, riding my bike along the abandoned runways of old airports, some of our fantastic students bringing us icecream on really hot days to show their appreciation for all our hard work behind the reception desk, friends coming and going (unfortunately mostly going, or planning to go), and making plans for the next few years in Berlin.
All this has got the cogs turning in my head, leading to some serious thinking. I don't tend to do my best thinking inside - academic work excepted. Instead, I usually have a few places I go if I need to think, to clear my head, or to escape from the four walls of my flat for a while.
There's Paul-Linke-Ufer on the Landwehrkanal if I don't have the time (or the energy) to venture anywhere further. The Landwehrkanal is a tributary of the Spree river that runs through Berlin's inner southern suburbs - right through Kreuzberg, about 10 minutes' walk north of my place, and it's a great place to go on a summer night to hang out, enjoy a cold beer, dip your feet in the river, and watch the Kreuzberg locals practise their juggling routines or strum a tune on their guitar on the Maibachufer. It's also the same river I walked on in February when Berlin rediscovered the ice ages, so I definitely like that area - anywhere from Pannierstraße to Prinzenbrücke.
A little further, and south this time, is my latest discovery: the old Tempelhof airport. I've got a post in the works about that place - it's definitely earned it's own post - so I won't say too much about it here, but there's something very cool and extremely humbling about sitting under a century-old oak tree beside the runway of an airport that essentially saved the city you're living in from starvation only a few decades earlier, and all this within walking distance of your flat.
Even further afield are Berlin's lakes. I'm a water-baby: I grew up either in, beside or on the water, and I naturally gravitate toward the water when I need to relax or to take time out. The lakes are a fantastic escape from the city, but they require a packed lunch and a cooler - Müggelsee in the south is at least an hour and a half away by public transport, even with a bike to ride to and from the station, and Flughafensee in the north or Schlachtensee in the south-west aren't much closer, but if I've got the time and the energy, I'll venture to one of those.
The ultimate though? The ultimate is somewhere that I used to go a lot when I was little. Melbourne's beaches. Yes, Sydney-siders, Melbourne only has bay beaches, but half-metre waves make exactly the same sound as six-foot ocean swells when you listen to them crash on the shore. I spent almost every summer until I was about fifteen at my grandparents' beach house on the Mornington Peninsula - walking along the beach with my grandmother, collecting shells and materials for collages, and just talking. During the year, I'd go fishing or sailing with my late grandfather on his yacht on Port Philip Bay, and I loved it, for exactly the same reason - spending time on the water, listening to the waves lap at the side of the boat, escaping from the city, and talking to him and to my grandmother.
The last few years that I was living in Melbourne, my place of choice became the Esplanade in Brighton. It only took me about fifteen minutes to drive there from my place, and I could quite happily stay sitting on that beach for hours at a time - just thinking, mulling over what was going on in my world, and figuring out the next step - from sunset until well after the stars were twinkling across the skies. It was on the sand at Brighton beach at about 8pm on a summer night in late 2003 that I made the decision to apply for the assistant year in Kusel. It was on the same beach around the same time a few years later that I decided I would reapply for the same program in Berlin, and listening to the waves and watching the stars arc across the sky has provided me the space and clarity of mind to sort through other things in my world - work, friends, family, what I'm doing with my life... You know, the usual.
Like I said, there's a few things going on in my world at the moment - I think everyone is in the same boat - and there is almost nothing I wouldn't give to be able to get into my little white 1987 Corolla hatchback, cruise down North Road, hang a right onto the Esplanade and pull into the car park behind the Brighton bathing boxes, stroll down the ramp onto the sand, find a spot away from the floodlights and just think... listen to the waves, watch the stars, and just think. But I don't live there anymore: ironically the decision I made back there in early 2007 to move to Berlin has meant I can't just drive on down there.
But I've got my places here - Paul-Linke-Ufer, the oak tree at Tempelhof Airport, and the shores of Schlachtensee. These are my Brighton beaches in Berlin.
Notes From The Road: The Tail End of a Very Albanian Bus Ride
29th March, 2010. Just outside Saranda, southern Albania.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... or rather at the end of a nine hour bus journey. The departure from Tirana, the Albanian capital, was almost eight hours ago now, and according to our intrepid guide, whose name I can't for the life of me remember, but who is the epitome of Albanian hospitality, we have about another hour to go before we roll into Saranda, a small fishing village on Albania's south coast, about 20km north of the Greek border, and our final destination.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel... or rather at the end of a nine hour bus journey. The departure from Tirana, the Albanian capital, was almost eight hours ago now, and according to our intrepid guide, whose name I can't for the life of me remember, but who is the epitome of Albanian hospitality, we have about another hour to go before we roll into Saranda, a small fishing village on Albania's south coast, about 20km north of the Greek border, and our final destination.
The road, as has become standard for Albania, was ridiculous. The distance from Tirana to Saranda is a little over 300km. The journey took nine hours. That includes a half hour lunch break, but no other major breaks. Yes, the roads are that bad. Potholes at regular intervals, some a foot wide and at least six or seven inches deep. Roadworks crews taking up the whole road and then some. Mountain shepherds laconically herding their flock across the road, blissfully oblivious of anything beyond their rural farming acreage. Sometimes all three within 100m of each other.
The terrible roads also mean that I can't use writing to pass the time in the bus - well, not for most of the road anyway. In the last hour though, as we get closer to the Greek border, the road has become somewhat better, so I'm taking the time now to make some quick notes of the "highlights" of the bus ride.
Coming in at number three is the scenery. About two hours after leaving Tirana, we passed through Dürres, Albania's major harbour, then headed directly south towards Greece. As we left Dürres and the houses and buildings became fewer and further between, the countryside transformed from industrial complexes and apartment blocks to rolling hills and flat green meadows, and off in the distance ahead of us, an imposing mountain range rose from the plains. Within an hour, we were trundling alongside the Drin river as it carved its way north towards Montenegro, soaring snow-capped mountains flanking the valley. As I'm sure some of you can imagine, I was so overwhelmed with excitement, I could hardly sit still, to the amusement of the other passengers on the bus: I kept switching from the left side of the bus to the right and back again, taking photos, basking in the sunshine and absorbing the magnificent view.
A close second in my highlights list is the aforementioned guide - the bus driver's right hand man, and ticket vendor. As I said, I have no idea what his name was, but he was the best possible representative for tourism in Albania that the government tourist board could ever hope for. As soon as I found the bus to Saranda and the guide realised I wasn't a local, he switched into surprisingly fluent English and would have quite happily bent over backwards to make sure that I was happy. He offered me food and drinks for the road, helped me find fruit and water at the bus stop, offered to buy me lunch when we pulled into the truck stop (though after four hours in a bus where two young children had been throwing up most of the time, I didn't have much of an appetite left), and during the longer stretches between stops, he would venture back to where I was sitting in the middle of the bus to have a chat about anything and everything: where I was from, where I was going in Albania, what I thought of the country, what I liked about it, and especially why on earth I'd chosen Albania as my Easter holiday destination. (I got that question a lot.) In short: he was very cool.
Number one has to go to my assigned travel companion for eight and a half of the nine hours. The guide told me at one stage what his name was, but it was long and complicated and Albanian. In my head, he will forever be "Toothless Old Guy." He got on the bus five minutes after me in Tirana, took the seat on the opposite side of the aisle, and travelled all the way from Tirana to a bus stop on the side of the road in the mountains in the middle of nowhere about twenty minutes before the end of the line. I pretty much ignored him for the first few hours - I was too enthralled in my book to pay much attention to anything else ("A Thousand Splendid Suns" - highly recommendable), but after the lunch break around 1pm, I noticed that this older gentleman was regarding me with a curious expression. He had figured out that I wasn't Albanian, nor was I Greek/Macedonian/Balkan in any way (the book in English and the camera were big give-aways), and this proved to be a great source of entertainment to him. He tried talking to me, but there were two slight problems. First: I don't speak Albanian. Second: he had been slurping from a two-litre bottle filled with an orange coloured liquid, which made him smell suspiciously like raki (an Albanian/Balkan version of Ouzo) and the whole bus seemed to erupt with laughter whenever he spoke; this made me relatively certain that even if I'd had some skills in Albanian, I wouldn't have been able to understand him.
About fifteen minutes before he got off the bus, he offered me two oranges, with a renewed effort to get a conversation going. This time he was yelling so loud that the guide ventured from the front of the bus to take the seat in front of me to translate between the two of us. With him as an intermediary I discovered that Toothless Old Guy was a mere 65 years old (I had guessed at least 80, possibly 85), a devout Muslim (as are most Albanians), and that he had a small farm in the mountains of southern Albania which he shared with his two wives. The best part? The reason he had been badgering me to talk to him for the last few hours was because he had his slightly blurry sights set on me as #3 in his collection. I almost died trying to suppress my laughter - after all, it was beyond ridiculous to me that I would be Wife #3 to a 65-year-old Albanian farmer, but in his world, I would clearly be crazy not to take advantage of an opportunity like this. Yes, Toothless Old Guy was the highlight of the bus ride.
He got off the bus about ten minutes ago. We're now well into countryside very similar to what I would expect of northern Greece: orchards of olive trees as far as the eye can see, low stone walls lining the roads instead of the usual curved metal barriers, and every so often, a small white stone altar by the side of the road. Out of the front window of the bus, I just caught a glimpse of a wide expanse of blue water, which can only be the Adriatic; this means that we're very close to Saranda, so I'll leave you here for now, and promise to continue my rambling notes from the beach tomorrow at the latest.
New Series: Notes From The Road
As some of you know, I like to travel. No. That's not the entire truth. I love to travel. I love the experience of getting on a train, plane or automobile and going somewhere I have never been before. I love the challenge of leaving my safety zone and going to a place where I don't speak the language, where I have no idea what I'm going to see, hear, taste or smell next, and where I'm forced to hastily learn some very basic phrases in the local language just to get by. In the last ten years since I really started travelling, I've managed to get quite a few countries' stamps in my passport: 33 at last count, and I'm not done by a long shot.
Being the Miss Independent that I am, I much prefer to travel alone than with friends, if the safety situation in the destination country permits. I love the absolute freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I feel like doing it - to not compromise on where I'm going to go, what to do there and how long to stay. Apart from meeting a lot of new people I probably wouldn't meet were I travelling with someone, I can indulge my three favourite travel activities to my heart's content.
I can take a quick look at the map then shove it safely in my jeans pocket and head off in the general direction of where I want to go, wandering through the streets, taking a left here and a right there as the spirit moves me.
I can take as many photos as I want. I just upgraded to a Pentax X-70, and it is my absolute favourite toy. I had a Sony DSC-800 until March of 2010, and while it served me well for a long time, it was on life support by then, and there was no way I was taking a dying camera to Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania (my Easter trip this year). I'm learning about shutter speed and aperture and ISO numbers and settings, and loving it.
The most important? I can stop whenever I want, wherever I want, to write as much as I want. I can scout out somewhere comfy where I can watch the locals go about their daily activities and mull over my thoughts on whatever country or city I happen to be in at the time. I didn't write a whole lot in most of the western European countries, mostly because we were on the go all the time. Yes, I was on one of those big organised tours: a three-week booze cruise on wheels, trundling along the highways of Europe. Hello, my name is Australis and I have been on a Contiki tour. Back in 2004, I wasn't the confident adventurous traveller I am today. Back then, I had been to a total of five foreign countries - well, four and New Zealand for three weeks with my family when I was eleven. So I booked a group tour to explore all these new countries with a safety net of a tour manager and thirty of my "closest friends". Since then it's pretty much me and my backpack - no more guided tours for this little black duck, unless safety says otherwise.
Anyways, the point is that I have a lot of "Notes From The Road". One of them is already on here: "Musings from a rusty Estonian bus", from my Latvia/Estonia trip over the Easter weekend in 2009.
There are a whole lot more where that came from. So in the next few weeks, I'll be posting my new series "Notes From The Road" from a whole range of places - from Edinburgh to Pristina, from Tallinn to Marrakech, from Lisbon to Istanbul. Enjoy!
Being the Miss Independent that I am, I much prefer to travel alone than with friends, if the safety situation in the destination country permits. I love the absolute freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I feel like doing it - to not compromise on where I'm going to go, what to do there and how long to stay. Apart from meeting a lot of new people I probably wouldn't meet were I travelling with someone, I can indulge my three favourite travel activities to my heart's content.
I can take a quick look at the map then shove it safely in my jeans pocket and head off in the general direction of where I want to go, wandering through the streets, taking a left here and a right there as the spirit moves me.
I can take as many photos as I want. I just upgraded to a Pentax X-70, and it is my absolute favourite toy. I had a Sony DSC-800 until March of 2010, and while it served me well for a long time, it was on life support by then, and there was no way I was taking a dying camera to Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania (my Easter trip this year). I'm learning about shutter speed and aperture and ISO numbers and settings, and loving it.
The most important? I can stop whenever I want, wherever I want, to write as much as I want. I can scout out somewhere comfy where I can watch the locals go about their daily activities and mull over my thoughts on whatever country or city I happen to be in at the time. I didn't write a whole lot in most of the western European countries, mostly because we were on the go all the time. Yes, I was on one of those big organised tours: a three-week booze cruise on wheels, trundling along the highways of Europe. Hello, my name is Australis and I have been on a Contiki tour. Back in 2004, I wasn't the confident adventurous traveller I am today. Back then, I had been to a total of five foreign countries - well, four and New Zealand for three weeks with my family when I was eleven. So I booked a group tour to explore all these new countries with a safety net of a tour manager and thirty of my "closest friends". Since then it's pretty much me and my backpack - no more guided tours for this little black duck, unless safety says otherwise.
Anyways, the point is that I have a lot of "Notes From The Road". One of them is already on here: "Musings from a rusty Estonian bus", from my Latvia/Estonia trip over the Easter weekend in 2009.
There are a whole lot more where that came from. So in the next few weeks, I'll be posting my new series "Notes From The Road" from a whole range of places - from Edinburgh to Pristina, from Tallinn to Marrakech, from Lisbon to Istanbul. Enjoy!
Back with a vengeance
Wow. I knew I'd neglected this once-beloved blog of mine, but I had no idea it had got this bad. It didn't completely disappear from my memory - every few weeks or so, I'd see, hear or experience something relatively random and think "man, that would make a great blog post", but that's where it finished: ideas were swallowed up by the all-consuming depressing darkness of the most ridiculously hermit-creating winter I've ever experienced. Some of the best of it fortunately got documented in my journal, which is going to be the source of the next few posts.
Sitting here perfectly comfortable now in just a singlet and jeans, the April afternoon sunshine streaming in through my window, is in itself the best possible way to illustrate the contrast between the circumstances of then and the circumstances of now. Four months. Four whole months since December 24th. Back then, it was snowing on and off outside, sunset was at about 3.40pm and the average daily top temperature was rarely above -10°C.
So here comes the update.
The day after the last entry was a very chilled German expat Christmas, then quite possibly the best Boxing Day ever (Glühwein, chocolate and good mates - what more could you want?). New Years - this one definitely made it into my top five: again, good mates, good food, great fireworks in Berlin, and added bonus, a whole lot of snow!
That set the trend for January - well, the snow at least. Snow and more snow, and then just a little bit more snow. Oh, and beyond freezing temperatures. And a blizzard or two. The coldest winter in Europe for decades. Explorative photography adventures in the snow, walking and playing soccer on frozen canals in Berlin, the official christening of my new gumboots (with three layers of socks), coming home at 2am to see a thick layer of ice on the _inside_ of my windows... And then there's Australia Day - which has earned its very own blog post (a work in progress).
February - well, to be perfectly frank, February is best forgotten. Cold, depressing, stressful beyond belief, and not short enough. March - the first teasing signs of spring. One day it's 15deg and the sun is shining, the next day there are snowflakes falling gently from the heavens and everyone's digging through their wardrobes for the winter woollies again.
Honestly the best part of March was the 25th. The flight south to a part of Europe that had actually somehow defrosted enough to be considered to be enjoying spring weather, for ten blissful days in a living breathing history classroom. Blog posts to come from my journal notes in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo - give me a few weeks to get it together.
The point? Australis is back. With a vengeance, a whole lot of new post ideas, and a certainty that summer 2010 will be the best ever. There are music festivals, cultural festivals, food and beer festivals all over Berlin in the next few months. If that's not enough, it's a World Cup year - summer and football. Winning combination.
The best part? Hours and hours of sunshine-filled afternoons in the next five months to savour with great mates. Oh yeah. Bring it on.
Sitting here perfectly comfortable now in just a singlet and jeans, the April afternoon sunshine streaming in through my window, is in itself the best possible way to illustrate the contrast between the circumstances of then and the circumstances of now. Four months. Four whole months since December 24th. Back then, it was snowing on and off outside, sunset was at about 3.40pm and the average daily top temperature was rarely above -10°C.
So here comes the update.
The day after the last entry was a very chilled German expat Christmas, then quite possibly the best Boxing Day ever (Glühwein, chocolate and good mates - what more could you want?). New Years - this one definitely made it into my top five: again, good mates, good food, great fireworks in Berlin, and added bonus, a whole lot of snow!
That set the trend for January - well, the snow at least. Snow and more snow, and then just a little bit more snow. Oh, and beyond freezing temperatures. And a blizzard or two. The coldest winter in Europe for decades. Explorative photography adventures in the snow, walking and playing soccer on frozen canals in Berlin, the official christening of my new gumboots (with three layers of socks), coming home at 2am to see a thick layer of ice on the _inside_ of my windows... And then there's Australia Day - which has earned its very own blog post (a work in progress).
February - well, to be perfectly frank, February is best forgotten. Cold, depressing, stressful beyond belief, and not short enough. March - the first teasing signs of spring. One day it's 15deg and the sun is shining, the next day there are snowflakes falling gently from the heavens and everyone's digging through their wardrobes for the winter woollies again.
Honestly the best part of March was the 25th. The flight south to a part of Europe that had actually somehow defrosted enough to be considered to be enjoying spring weather, for ten blissful days in a living breathing history classroom. Blog posts to come from my journal notes in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo - give me a few weeks to get it together.
The point? Australis is back. With a vengeance, a whole lot of new post ideas, and a certainty that summer 2010 will be the best ever. There are music festivals, cultural festivals, food and beer festivals all over Berlin in the next few months. If that's not enough, it's a World Cup year - summer and football. Winning combination.
The best part? Hours and hours of sunshine-filled afternoons in the next five months to savour with great mates. Oh yeah. Bring it on.
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