Are we there yet?

It ends where it all began.

homeless_harry — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 19:45:00 GMT

A holiday isn't really over until you are back on home soil, but Bangkok is as close to home as it gets, geographically and sentimentally. It is very familiar territory and a great place to unwind and transition back into the Broome heat of my real home that awaited me. But it was probably the saddest I have ever felt traveling towards Khao San Road. Fortunately enough, Julia and another tattoo awaited, so it wasn't just going to be sitting around drinking alcohol like it could somehow stay the execution.

Julia was just finishing her two month South-East Asia trip so it was great to see each other at the beginning and end of our respective trips. We had grand plans for all the things we were going to do in Bangkok, but we slotted back so easily into a routine of shopping, drinking and people watching that we didn't find much time for anything worth relating here, or anything I could relate.

One thing definitely worth mentioning is the incredible work Aod did adding some more of his signature genius on my skin canvas. I merely sought a touch up of the 20 year old owl on my shoulder, and a darkening of my deltoid so it didn't look so pale compared to the awesome Canova sculpture tattoo he had put around my elbow at the start of the trip. Never have I been to a tattooist who takes so much pride in his work and is not happy until he has made any tattoo, old or new, completely his own. If anyone wants a tattoo, do yourself a favour and go see Aod at Divine Ink. I wouldn't trust my skin with another tattooist now, except for myself, but that's just for fun rather than the quality of the results.

Aside from sitting around doing nothing, or laying around doing something, it was good to be able to get around in less than 20 or so articles of clothing. But unlike the European winter, where I had decent weather except for a little bit of rain and snow in Istanbul and Scotland, one night in Bangkok saw a downpour so epic that it filled the surrounding area with ankle deep water. Fortunately the area being surrounded was a bar so we just hunkered down and used Black or White Russians to avoid the disappointment of not being able to drunk shop that night. I ordered a phad thai there and it's oily blandness made me wonder why they even bothered when it's far superior from a street vendor 50 meters away and sold for one quarter of the price.

There was plenty of opportunities for drunk shopping the other nights that ensured by the time it came to leave, my backpack was full but my wallet was empty. None of the stuff I bought was terribly valuable, or even worthwhile. Wanting a thin backed singlet to avoid the fresh ink being imprinted on anything non-disposable, on one walk back from a bar I snatched up a couple of singlets, failed to haggle, or check the size, and wasn't in the slightest bit surprised when I woke the next morning to find they wouldn't have fit an 8 year old. And I must have been in a more effeminate mood than usual, as the picture below shows, my choice of colour shows that I probably would have been arrested had I tried to wear it out in public in Abu Dhabi.

I also bought a Barcelona soccer shirt with their main man Messi, arguably the worlds best players name on the back. Julia was as shocked as any about my new found interest in the game but took great delight in me cheering wildly one moment, asking what the fuck was going on the next. I got nods of approval and high fives from other people sporting their colours, and when I inadvertently ignored one guys appreciative shout out of “Barcelona, Messi” Ash said not to worry as he was probably just making an astute observation of my experience in Barcelona, ie. messy!

I clearly have no idea what I am doing in any of these pictures!

By the time it came to say a sad goodbye to Julia, I felt I was more than ready to go home. I had one last curry fried rice, spent whatever baht I had left on tramadol and then, with 14 other people, boarded an airport shuttle bus that had 12 seats, 2 of which were taken up by luggage. Fortunately the flight home was the opposite to that game of human tetris and having the whole row free meant I was able to lay down and get as good a sleep as any could hope for on an overnight flight.

The next day I was walking down a vacant street in Broome without a single person as far as I could see in every direction. I realised I hadn't had so much space between me and another human since I left. It was the perfect opportunity to fart, but instead I used it to finally accept that the holiday was over. It was a sad feeling as it had been such an epic trip, but I also gave thanks that I had such a beautiful place like Broome to return to. Reality hit 2 days later when a 4:20am alarm woke me for work like a kick in the head, from Iron Man.
This is home. Incredibly beautiful with touches of rain.

So after 22 flights in 81 days that took me to 11 countries, let me round out the trip with some concluding thoughts. (As I typed that sentence, my spirit bird, the beautiful Brahminy Kite, flew into the tree outside Em and Richies home that I am currently sitting under! I consider it my spirit animal because it always, always appears at special and significant times in my life.)

Traveling really makes you realise how blessed we are to be alive. Every moment is different, unique and exciting, even if it's only your state of mind that is different and nothing else. Every day is a new adventure. Every thing that happens is an opportunity to express love and experience it all around you. The same is true for the lives we live when we are not traveling. Every day can be exciting no matter whether you work in an office, a coffee cart or a spaceship. Life is what you make of it, and it is all about the state of mind with which you approach it. For your own sake, and those around you, make every day count.

I saw some truly incredible places that made me completely awestruck in the face of what humans of capable of creating. I also saw places that are defined by the hideous things humans have done to each other. There is a lot of unnecessary negativity in this world, yet I was spared most of it. I spent 10 weeks traveling around and the most adverse experience I had due to another was a random dude in Indonesia and a whole room full of hookers in Abu Dhabi copping a free feel. That is extremely lucky to say the least, and as a dude, many would argue for that being a positive.

Aside from unparalled experiences like hearing Vivaldis Four Seasons in the Leglise de la Madeleine, the ezan in surround sound in old Istanbul and visiting the Sagrada Familiar to name but a few, the most significant aspect to this trip was seeing my friends. The times that I spent with friends I have been in regular contact with over the long years of absence, showed me what true and unconditional love is. I want nothing but the best for them, will do anything to make them happy and want nothing in return except to share this love with me. (That is not to say that I aren't blessed with the friends I am fortunate enough to live close to, or the other dear friends that misfortune stopped me from seeing on this trip.)

I am constantly moved to tears when I think about how much I care for each and every one of them. It didn't matter whether I spent 3 hours or three weeks with such amazing people, as it would never have felt like enough. “Always leave them wanting more” has always been my motto, but I know that I left wanting more of them as well.

The truly heart breaking thing is wanting to have them as part of my everyday life, but with them spread across the globe, a day will probably never come when that will happen. Life wasn't meant to be THAT easy, and I don't think I could ever come up with a better justification for traveling than simply being able to see all these beautiful friends again. Being able to reconfirm how much these people mean to me is enough reason to consider this trip to be an overwhelming success beyond my wildest hopes. And enough motivataion to start planning for the next time I can see them.

P.S. Thank you to all those who shared the whole journey with me through these journals. I hope that some of the enjoyment I derived from writing them was shared in reading them. And even if I wasn't able to convince you to throw caution to the wind and just start traveling the world, I hope you're more inspired to live life fully and more appreciative of the life we do live. If you are able to read this, you are better off than a lot of people in this world. Always be grateful for what you have.

Love, peace and Harry hugs.

The sins beneath the surface.

homeless_harry — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 23:42:00 GMT

Abu Dhabi.......Perhaps that is all I should say. It is almost all I can say, because my memory and camera were rendered redundant the entire time. 'Abu Dhabi' was something that was said a lot, as a justification for whatever crazy shit was going on at the time. I am very thankful I didn't end up stopping here at the start of the trip or I may not have been able to afford to go to Europe at all.

My cousin Gow has moved there for the next two years as the draughting work he does is far more abundant in Abu Dhabi than it is back in Melbourne. The delay with his work visa had seen him arrive 48 hours after I had passed through two months ago and as much as I bemoaned a 31 hour 4 flight extravaganza at the time, it was definitely Plutus the God of wealth, looking out for me.

Abu Dhabi is composed of roughly 80% ex-pats. Up till half way through the last century the area was a desert with a few villages ecking out a pretty tough existence. Someone was probably trying to bury a goat, struck oil and sky scrapers sprung up, fertilised by all the money oil brings in. Two million people live in a place that will always be a desert no matter how many air conditioned hotels with pools they put in. It is very prosperous place though and people throw their money around like the dirham is diseased and must be shed like lepers limbs.

I didn't want to join in with such reckless abandon, but if you don't, you don't do anything at all. This isn't like London where you can wander the streets through millenia of history and look from the outside if you don't want to mortgage your house just to visit a museum. Everything is less than 50 years old, and while there was an impressive mosque or two around, and a few beaches, I had seen some grand examples of the former and was about the return to one of the best examples of the latter.

I certainly didn't take that photo either.

Abu Dhabi wasn't that hot while I was there and that is a matter of context that requires elaboration. In summer, it regularly gets above 50 degrees, hot enough to melt butter into coal. It was a fuckload hotter than Europe and I soaked my thermals with about 3 litres of sweat just getting to the hotel. And the 30+ degrees while I was there didn't feel that hot because I was hardly ever in it, either sleeping it out or going from one air-conditioned place to another.

Within an hour of arriving, my perception of the place had been turned on its head. You cannot have 1.6 million ex-pats here on a working holiday, making great coin, unconcerned about personally observing Islamic religious practices and not have some an underground scene of everything banned by law. Humans have needs and those needs will be satisfied in sketchier and sketchier ways dependant upon how hard the blue line comes down on it.

Gow received his residents card while I was there, meaning he was allowed to become an alcoholic to a degree entirely dependant upon his income. Having survived on some gin and whiskey that he'd snuck in, he was now legally allowed to buy beer freely. Nowhere near the extent that he would like, but far more than a 50ml bottle of moonshine a cleaner or restaurant worker would be permitted.

That is only personal possession though. I thought pubs and clubs would be so underground, the only way to get to them is to dig. Our first beer was in an open air pub whose only dubious element was how crap they were at bringing out the bill. We waited for half an hour after three requests to pay, then figured someone would accost us before we made it to the door. Not so, and that was the only time something didn't cost us an arm and a leg.

The next bar cost $35 to get in, although that got us two drink vouchers as well. After a few ass gropes, a lot of winks, and even a few sly handfuls of my junk, I thought backpackers must be in demand in a city full of western office workers. Gow burst that bubble pretty quickly by stating that the more obvious ones were more interested in what's in the side of your jeans, rather than the front. Who in their right mind thinks a backpacker ever has any money, especially one at the end of their trip? Simply telling the owners of the wandering hands that I had no money was more than effective at sending them on their way.

There was a great Filipino band belting out Rock covers while I nervously smashed my way through pints and for the first time ever in a club, I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. Time and circumstance vanished in a haze and the night ended on Gow's hotel floor with a belly full of KFC chips.....Abu Dhabi!

It must have been a late finish cause the next day didn't start till around 3. We had some Mongolian for lunch and tried to piece together the night. It didn't matter too much as we did virtually the same thing again that night. This club was a lot fancier and cost about $120 each for entry. That did get us a small bottle of Chivas Regal to share, and a front seat to the band that could have been mistaken for the same one as the night before except that the guitarist was Jimi Hendrix reincarnate. This guy was a virtuoso and had fingers that could probably speed read braille. That he was a comedian as well, and had a penchant for Metallica covers meant that Gow and I were his most vocal supporters......Abu Dhabi!

Singing duties were shared with a gorgeous curvy Filipino lady, but her repertoire was more Rihanna, Beyonce......and I'm thankful that they are the only two performers I can quote from that style of music. During her singing, something very strange was taking place. Being so attractive, one could be forgiven for thinking something very normal could be taking place, but the truth of it is about as shocking as it gets.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a very strong dislike for soccer. I recognise that I am in the minority in that regard, and would have had a completely different European holiday had I not had such a negative opinion of the sport. This may seem completely off topic from hot singers, but after surprising myself watching soccer highlights at pubs around Europe, I found myself enthralled by the skill of Messi as his Barcelonian team beat Manchester City. It was the first time I had watched a game that wasn't a World Cup final and I confess, I loved it.

This makes me very happy, but also extremely sad. I am happy that I am not so fixed in my ways that I cannot change long held opinions when confronted with persuasive evidence to the contrary. I am a long way off calling myself a fan, and I almost reverted back to disdain when I saw the soft cocks taking a dive whenever a player was feathered by their opponents shoe lace. That I am open minded, even over something as trivial as sport, means that I am not as old and narrow minded as what my grey hair suggests.

I am very sad though that I wasn't more interested in the sport as I traveled around Europe. Like cricket on the sub-continent, if you like soccer, you have something to talk about with EVERYONE in Europe. Perhaps not the women, but that is what Tinder is for. That didn't help me in Abu Dhabi as Tinder, like drugs, sex toys, public nudity or anything fun, is banned to the point of beheading. But any casual conversation on the street, or in a pub in Europe, could have been a lot more involved than just discussing local sights and cultural differences.

Another bottle of Chivas ensured the night didn't end early, or the next day start until the sun had almost set and my last experience in Abu Dhabi was sharing a shisha with Gow on a beach out the front of a nearby hotel. Submersing anything in sea water had been as appealing as eating cucumber while doing it so the chance to dip my toes in the warm ocean waters was too hard to resist. Unfortunately that constituted some form of enjoyment and was not allowed after 7pm. I have never been so politely threatened before in my life.

And that pretty much spells out Abu Dhabi for you. You can go off the charts mental if you want, but if it is seen by the wrong people, the resulting punishment could be off your shoulders. I may not have seen any of the city, but I certainly got a good sample of what it is like to live there. I'll be sure to notify my bank manager before my imminent return.

Photos: Abu Dhabi

homeless_harry — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 23:30:00 GMT

….but my liver would strongly disagree!

homeless_harry — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 16:04:00 GMT

The next morning I woke up feeling so dastardly that Laura said I was looking very Irish, ie. Green. Half a slice of toast made me go white for awhile and had I doused myself in fake tan like all the pikie women in Ireland did, I'd be a flesh version of the Irish flag. The side of the road leading to the Cliffs of Mohar nearly got some half digested Thai curry fertiliser, but any complaints about my state of health, and there was plenty, stopped soon after viewing our destination.

That was because the cliffs themselves were breathtaking, and I had concluded that breathing was half of my problem that day. Upon reaching the Atlantic ocean, lovely grassy hills dropped over 100 metres, and the limestone cliff faces stretched both directions as far as the eye could see. Straight down was not one direction I was willing to look or straight up something would come, but views along the coast showed that at some points the ocean petered out onto rocky beaches, in other places smashing against the cliff face hard enough to blur the impact area with mist. The sea here in Europe seems more foreboding and mysterious and not just because it is closer to a solid state than back home. Australian waters may contain more natural threats, but these waters have claimed more sailors than what our oceans ever will.

I got as close as I could to the edge, even creeping up on my stomach at one point to see how far my vomit would have to fall if heaving didn't drop me along soon after. I took comfort in knowing that I may not be the bravest, but I'm not as stupid as some who got close enough to be sacrificed by a stiff breeze for the greater good of humanitys gene pool. Fortunately Laura didn't get too close as she managed to slip down one of the muddy slopes and turn her camera into an usuable dirt magnet.

We stopped for lunch in a town smaller than the one we had spent overnight in, but it still had a pub, and plain chips was all I was able to stomach. Stopping there wouldn't have been worth mentioning had the lock on the car not stopped working and refused to let us in. Had that been any other day I would have seen that as a sign from above and gone straight back into the pub feeling divinely obligated. After 45 minutes of numerous cunning but ineffective ploys, Colin had managed to work one of the windows down far enough to squeeze inside and save the day.

I slept all the way to Kilkenny, which gave my toxic system enough time to prepare itself for the nachos extravaganza that I was expected to cook up. I should make some sort of business out of traveling around the world and cooking nachos for people in their own home. What a life that would be! Further proving how awesome they are was how invigorated I felt the next morning, possibly aided by an early and alcohol free night.

This was crucial because it was St. Paddys day and still feeling too crook to drink may have gotten me deported. Laura had her Fathers Months Mind to attend, so Shane I and took in Kilkenny Castle. While being impressive like all castles are from the outside, the interior had been resurected from a derelict state 50 odd years ago and lacked the grandeur of a place that hadn't been rebuilt just to show off a few fancy tapestries. That is being pretty harsh I must admit, but I would have been more impressed with epic ruins than the remodelled hotel feel that it had. Laura admitted that you quickly get 'ruin fatigue' living in Ireland, so they're obviously pretty keen to rebuild one when it's located right in the heart of town.

We took a drive to visit the Dunbrody, a coffin ship stationed in a town famous for sending JFK's great grandparents off to change the face of American history. The ship isn't worth detailing because even though it was open until 6, the guy locking the gate at 4:45 said that you weren't allowed on anymore. That's a bit of Irish logic for you, but it meant we got to have a nice meander home through the countryside at dusk instead of high-tailing back to Kilkenny to get our Paddy's drink on.

You would think that the Irish would start St. Paddys day by 'Irishing' up their coffee more than they do any other day, but it was surprising just how small the celebration was. There was a parade in Kilkenny, followed by a big night on it, with Shane nearly getting beaten up by a lesbian, and only allowed into the last pub if we didn't let him near the bar, but the consensus seemed to be that the Irish are more mad for it overseas because it's an effective way to combat homesickness. I'm sure it would have been mental in Dublin, and needing to be in Kilkenny for Laura made me extremely thankful I wasn't in the capital city, but apart from the over abundance of green novelty apparel, I imagine most nights on the piss in Ireland would be as much fun.

What wasn't fun was waking to the second diabolical hangover in 3 days. Thanks to Laura using sex to overcome the fact that the alarm on Colins newly smashed phone wouldn't stop, I was unable to sleep even half of what I needed. We set off 2 hours later than we had planned and by the time we had gotten to the incredibly beautiful valley of Glendalough, it became immediately apparent how much better it would have been to have had 2 more hours there.

As already mentioned, this was the last day of the trip and Mother Nature had turned the winter skies up to maximum blueness. We stopped at the upper lake first and the sight of angled sun cutting through the slighty misty air across the lake was one of the most enchanting scenes I had seen on this trip. Shane and I tried to skip a few stones across the water and proved that we either hadn't done it before or shouldn't ever try to do it again. We took a walk along the boardwalk to the lower lake but by the time it came into sight, we realised it was time to leave.

I tried to sleep as much as possible on the trip back to Dublin because this hangover was a creeper. Lack of sleep is the biggest factor and the hangover gets worse as the fatigue of the day increases. The toxic hangover from the other day was different in that you feel better as the day goes on and the body to continues to remove more and more crap from your system. Being able to distinguish the difference between the two meant that I was having them too frequently and should consider leaving Ireland before I have to bury my liver there.

Unfortunately that had already been booked in for the following morning, and a return again soon is an absolute must. As long as Laura is here, I will always have a great reason to return, and the sheer magnitude of my hangover forced me to forgo a visit to the Guinness factory. While I possibly could have staggered my way through it, I would not have enjoyed it, nor been able to even take the top off of the pint they give you at the tour's completion. Like Scotland, Ireland also has a brewery that I can use to justify a return visit to the country just to see its most famous brewery.

I may have left the best for last....

homeless_harry — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 20:29:00 GMT

Let me tell you about the luck of the Irish. They are incredibly lucky to live in such a beautiful country. They are lucky that they are all incredibly friendly people. They are lucky their famously cold weather played nice for the entire time or I could have been writing this in less than glowing terms from a hospital hypothermia ward. (Apparently it gets cold enough to require whole wards to treat hypothermia; citation needed) They are lucky I am to starting to run low enough on funds to think about bumping off a rich relative for some inheritance, or otherwise I would definitely extend my stay a lot longer. And they are lucky that guinness is the national drink because I do need to bump off a rich relative after my copious consumption of the black gold almost kickstarted their economy again.

I've insulted a few places with the brevity of my visits, foolishly believing the scant days I spent in incredible cities was enough to get even a vague idea what it was like. 6 days in Ireland being summarised in two journals is almost the biggest insult of all, especially as I spent most of that on a awesome road trip rather than just hanging out in the capital city. That I was driving around (Not me driving obviously as licences are for people that are good at planning) somewhat explains why I wasn't writing as I went along. And the booze. And the leprechauns. The latter appearing after lots of the the former.

After missing Laura in Paris and Barcelona due to the terrible misfortune of her father passing away, there was no way she could avoid me in her home city of Dublin. And after having so many of my plans to see friends fall through, it was a special treat to have my American friend Shane start his UK stay in Dublin at the same time of my arrival. We had worked together in Bowen and Orbost and had chosen to move to Broome together because working in cornfields will compel you to make random, life changing decisions. Laura had also convinced her boyfreind Colin to be our chauffeur, a strange but likeable fellow who often used goat noises to convey numerous ideas and emotions.

Day one started like all road trips should, ie. with most of us still drunk from the night before. We hadn't gotten carried away, but seeing dear friends for the first time in 6 years was more than enough reason for a celebratory ale or three, seven, maybe eleven, who knows? Laura stalling the car at the lights and using the pedals like she was kicking a football made me somewhat thankful that once we had picked up Colin, he was more than happy to be the designated driver for the entire trip.

First port of call was a service station for fuel and a business idea that could revolutionise road trip pit stops in any country if some entrepeneur was willing to impliment it. I've already spoken about the wonderful simplicity of a chip butty, a roll stuffed with hot chips. Same principle, but a bain marie full of standard cooked breakfast foods, stuffed into a roll! Somehow stuff a guinness in there and it's the perfect food. Given that Ireland has Guinnessed the shit out of everything, I was just as surprised they hadn't guinnessed a brekkie roll as I was that brekkie roll places are quite common throughout the whole country.

We were heading west and Laura warned that is tantamount to heading through Hell's front gate as far as adverse weather went. Even though it was overcast and cold, it wasn't raining, and was nowhere near as cold as I feared. It was to stay that way for most of the duration too, the last day being one of the sunniest and best days I've had in Europe.

Our first 'tourist attraction' was an castle haunted by an entity known as 'It'. I was somewhat dubious that anything could live up to the name of the freaky clown in Stephen King's book of the same name and the only thing freaky in that castle was the guy who lived there. Seeming somwewhat entrepreneural himself, he let us wander his home and then he regaled us with stories of the hauntings he had no way of proving. Except for the even more crazy lady visiting at the same time who was convinced that the motes of dust floating in the slanting window light was actually an apparition more real than her gullibility.

We headed on to a B & B in Galway run by a nervy and socially awkward lady called Anne who had me temporarily convinced that the Irish might be lovely and all, but they are all batshit crazy. She was nervously strangling a sheet of paper in her hand and had managed to back herself out of our room before even finishing with her introductory speech. Shane's bed making with army trained precision the next morning probably lead Anne to conclude we were pretty weird too with only one single and one double needed to sleep 3 guys and a girl.

The next morning we wandered around the quaint pedestrians alleyways of Galway, where a market furnished my stomach with a savoury crepe whose oily deliciousness negated the need to eat again for the rest of the day, possibly the trip. I acquired some souvenirs and selfies somewhat fearful the coming nights festivities may remove most of my memory of the day.

And the uninspiring Alliwee Caves may have meant that wasn't a bad thing seeing as it was just a long cramped tunnel within some limestone hills that may have looked more impressive if the hillsides colour wasn't identical to the grey skies above. Fortunately crazy Mick was working nearby, being so passionate about his woodcarving and survival skills that by his own confession, he “never clocks out” from his job. His fire starting trick took 6 more attempts than he claimed it would, but lacking the tools or the need to learn such a trick, his showmanship was always going to be more entertaining than educational.

That night we shared a four bed dorm in a hostel in the gorgeous little town of Doolin. That it only had one pub gives you an indication of how small it was. We had dinner there even though the menu made no mention of vegetarian food. Our waiter went to the kitchen to see what could be done for the carnivourously challenged and I was polite enough to accept the offer of a thai curry, lest it end up garnished by the chef's pubic hair. It turned out to be divine, and the couple of pints of stout I had beforehand helped me overlook the possible presence of the chefs signature DNA.

A musical trio entertained the almost packed pub with guitar, accordian and an Irish version of the bagpipes that is played under the arm like someone squeezing fake farts from under their armpit. A young girl of 6 or so danced a jig like she was squashing cockroaches, her arms pinned to her sides as the crowd clapped her on and I felt I was part of real Irish life. The guinness glass getting rapidly lighter beside made me feel like this was quintessential Ireland, and I was thankful for the total immersion in the life and ways of the Irish. It was a great feeling and a night I'll never forget.

I've already forgotten the rest of the night though, as we went back to the hostel and continued to drink in our room while playing uno. Some lady banged on our door to complain about the noise so we considered the tactless way she approached the situation and decided to quieten down and go to bed......three hours later.

to be continued.....

Photos: Ireland

homeless_harry — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 20:16:00 GMT

A delight for the senses.

homeless_harry — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 19:08:00 GMT

Scotland has so thoroughly pampered my senses that writing about it soon after leaving, I feel like I should be relaxing with a cigarette and praying the neighbours were asleep. 'Touch' is probably the only sensation that hasn't been lured into loving Edinburgh like the Sirens were excellent bagpipe players. It makes me feel like a dirty cheating scumbag as Istanbul is going to make me sleep on the couch if she catches wind of how Edinburgh has charmed me.

I felt anything but charmed being snored awake again at 5am, but coffee is more than a fitting compensation for any of lifes challenges, and even sleep deprived I couldn't help but wander the town with a lovers grin glued on my face. I had to find a tour operator open early as I had decided a tour was my only option at 10:02pm, 2 minutes after they all closed the previous night. The bad luck had ended at 3 dumps on my plate by Lady Luck and the tour I chose at random turned out to be a winner.

Murray was the guide and sported a kilt and a Billy Connolly type sense of humour that not only kept me entertained the whole day, it made me confident that if a dude in a man dress can handle the cold, I can tough it out wearing a jacket overloaded with the pluckings of woodland creatures. I feared a total lack of comprehension when encountering the Highland accent and if a tour guide couldn't speak legibly, I might as well just leave the country. Me understanding Murray calling the sun an invasive species and not native to the highlands humourously summarised all the aspects of this paragraph.

After 2 hours of driving, our first stop was in Callander, the gateway to the Highlands. Looking back the way we came, a patch of blue sky was still visible, but our path ahead lead us into some pretty bleak and scary looking clouds. All the mountains were still covered in snow, and the taller ones remained hidden behind the low lying clouds they had attracted like moths to a flame. Rivers of blue slate rubble had avalanched down every mountainside, harvesting themselves as valuable building materials and leaving only the assembly of abodes to human hands. Also giving the Highlanders more time to slaughter each other is the multitude of trees that have felled themselves, as snow laden, a strong breeze is enough to uproot their tenuous hold on the thin soil than covers the solid rock underneath.

Like Gallipoli, such amazing natural phenomena was soaked with blood as the Scottish clans had survived the harsh conditions by ensuring there was less competition for the limited resources. After Scotlands gruesome history and the atrocious conditions of Gallipoli, the next tour I do will be of Disneyland, a nursery, or most likely, a brewery. If I had a choice though, I wouldn't do any tours, even though they are far more informative than driving around yourself constantly cussing out the local cartographers. A tour is just like any bus trip somewhere except it costs three times as much, you feel more obligated to look at the passing scenery, day dreams are routinely interrupted by random facts and your starting point conveniently doubles as your destination.

It wasn't long into the trip that the snow started to fall and I gave thanks that I wasn't actually driving through conditions I had never encountered before. Any form of precipitation was sporadic and there was enough breaks to see most of the beautiful countryside we were speeding through. With a day to cover so much ground, a lot of incredibly interesting sites had a tale told about them as we gunned it past. The Monty Python castle referenced in the previous journal was definitely one that deserved more than a rapid shutter drive by. It highlighted the experience/evidence paradigm in that without photos of what was happening, does it negatively impact upon the poignancy of the memory? If I don't have a selfie of it, did it actually happen at all? Ancient Zen koan right there people!

I passed up on a £17 add on of a cruise around Loch Ness as the constant rain on approach meant Nessie would have to hop into the boat to be seen. That gave me plenty of time to stock up on cheap Chinese crap that had something to do with Scotland and drink 6 free samples of Scotch before the lady came over to inquire if I was going to buy anything or just get blotto right there in front of her. I opted for a 50ml bottle of Scotch honey liquer that wasn't so much a rip-off when you factor in that I had just drank three times that much for free. I befriended the two Finnish girls sitting opposite me on the bus and a couple of delicious stouts in their company was the perfect way to end a day that had delighted my eyeballs with so much incredible scenery.

The third day was a bonus day in Edinburgh, but had come at the high cost of missing out on the Brewdog brewery. That could be rectified with a visit to the local brewdog bar, the second of 27 to have opened. That is an endeavour best approached sober but a tour at The Whisky Experience was permissable because I love contradicting myself about not doing another tour and it would take more than a few drams to push me past sober.

I had wanted to visit a real distillery, but that plan had succumbed to my stupidity as well, so with one of the Finnish girls accompanying me, we took the slowest and least scariest ride in a barrel through an imitation distillery. That was actually extremely interesting and educational and our friendly and discerning guide Gavin gave me good cause to further reconsider my position on tours. His obviously sound sense of judgment had pegged me as a gentleman of distinction, largely because of my Australian tendency to just shout out when other nationalities remain silent in groups of strangers.

Scotland has five very distinct areas of Scotch production and a scratch and sniff style test had endeared me to Gavin when I shouted out anything that came to mind while smell testing the characteristics particular to each region. Based on that, we chose a region to sample and no matter how much of a rapport I forced upon Gavin, he couldn't be convinced to give me extra samplings. Upon entering a room holding the largest private Scotch collection in the world, I implored the Finnish girl to distract Gavin while I figured out a way to rescue some bottles whose age and uniqueness would put their value beyond measure.

One dram certainly had no effect on my brewdog aspirations, but made me a lot more interested in tasting my way to a better understanding about whisky production. More important drinks awaited and for any of my non craft beer loving readers who are probably sick of my gushing praise for Brewdog, I won't detail what was enjoyed this night. Needless to say my tongue will never forget the loving caress of so many delicious beers that makes Scotland worth visiting for it's most famous brewery alone.

With sight, smell and taste accounted for, it was time to end my stay in Edinburgh with a treat for my ears. I had been lucky enough to jag one of the few remaining seats at Usher Hall to hear the Scottish Chamber Orchestra perform Mozarts Requiem and Schuberts 8^th. Making my way to my seat on decidely shakey legs, I couldn't believe how close I was to the action for just £15. I took a lot of photos and even some movie footage because you just simply couldn't afford seats this good at a classical concert in any other city.

And I couldn't afford these seats in Edinburgh either unfortunately. With the usher preoccupied, I had helped myself to what I thought was my seat, aided somewhat by brewdog when it came to finding where I was going. I was ready to mark my territory with a few hopefully quiet seat warmers when an old lady came up and thanked me politely for keeping her seat for her. This wasn't the Oscars so I knew something was amiss, other than this being a dry event.

Turns out I had overlooked the biggest and most important text on the ticket that said my seat was one of the ones closest to the roof. Up a level I went and the elevated view also gave me a close up of the rail in front of my seat. “No bother” thought I, as it was more about the sound anyway. And what a glorious sound it was. Usher Hall may have lacked the acoustics of some of the better venues I had heard classical music being played in, and it aesthetically couldn't compare to even the front door of the Leglise de la Madeleine. The performance was still amazing and passed by quicker than my rapidly sobering brain could fully grasp its sublimity.

Back I wandered to the hostel in the drizzling rain, never before being so unaffected by adverse weather conditions. Ireland is the last stop on my European jaunt and it has a lot to beat given all that has come before it. Although missing out on visiting the Brewdog brewery almost negated my reason for being in Scotland, the need to return to visit it will give me another opportunity to fully grasp why Edinburgh is one of the most amazing cities I have visited.

A day of wonder followed by disaster and dorm snoring.

homeless_harry — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 20:12:00 GMT

Some cities grow on you. London crept into my favour like its cold that crept into my bones. Some cities are just instantly spellbinding. Istanbul was breath-taking from the first moment I started heading in the wrong direction from the bus stop. Edinburgh was definitely on the instant favourites list, and it's actually quite difficult to define why.

I arrived at night and wandering up and down a street in the rain looking for a hostel that had no signage would not normally be a good first impression. Fortuitiously enough, the one place I went into to ask for directions, turned out to be the place I wanted. I paid the human staff little heed as the most welcoming thing was the huge Rottweiler who wanted to play fetch in a 4 metre square room.

I had another ridiculous one whole day to take in Edinburghs' sights, at least I thought I did at the time, and a brilliant blue sky was the perfect greeting stepping out into the chilly but bearable morning air. Strolling out of the perfect grid that makes up the new part of town, a wonderful wall of history greeted me as I looked up towards Edinburgh Castle and the old town.

I had to stop at Wellington Coffee to see if they were doing my name proud, and by the time I stopped for breakfast an hour later, my eyelids and camera shutter were glued open, my jaw was cleaning the cobblestones beneath my feet, and I was caffeine euphoric. A cafe named Haz Beans continued my uncanny association with great things and their £6 veggie breakfast was so epic it didn't even fit on the plate. I almost expected 'Harry's homebrews' to be the store next door.

Returning to my wanderings, I was dismayed to see a cloudless sky had morphed into its opposite, and the rain made the ubiquitous blue slate buildings seem somewhat drab and repetitive under the grey skies. Like the sun that bleaches things white, perhaps the cold stains things a blue grey as Edinburgh seemed built from frozen stone. The rain didn't last long, as it had cleared again by the time I had ascended Carlton Hill. I paid £4 to see the view from the top of the Nelson Monument, conversing somewhat lobsidedly with a bored ticket guy about how London would have charged me four times more for the priviledge.

The view was stunning, revealing very few buildings of merit from the last five centuries as all the sturdy stone buildings looked like Scottish versions of an igloo and were similar enough in age and design ethic to imitate a lego toy town. The appearance of being ancient is not surprising whent they are all made of stone and even when it is cut into a shape appropriate for whatever purpose, the material itself is still millions of years old.

Hollyrood Park laid off to the left of the city, or to the right if you were facing the other way, and a walk up to Arthurs Seat promised better views for £4 cheaper. By the time I had sweated and panted my way to the top, I had stripped down to a t-shirt and the strenuous exercise was enough to give my calves the ache of neglect for the remainder of the day.

The weather had alternated between rain and sunshine so regularly that I was thinking that Scottish people could use it to tell the time, if there wasn't so many clocks around. The appeal of the archeitecture of the Royal Mile that ran from the Castle down to the Royal Palace was equally changeable with the weather, at one moment a beautiful contrast with the blue sky, the next so bland as to blur into the skyline.

One thing that rarely changed on the Royal Mile was the wares of the shops. If you want tartan, Edinburgh has definitely got you covered. Combine that with cashmere and kilts and you get pretty bored of window shopping before too long. Every second shop had a request for staff posted in the window, and the staff most of them had were Polish making me think Poland must be devoid of its own people.

Fortunately walking uphill takes you into the Castles once foreboding, now welcoming arms, well, as welcoming as you would expect paying £16. I am now glad Australian immigration charges the almighty fuck out of would be residents, because nothing we have is culturally significant enough to charge such a fortune to visit. If I pay $36AUD for a gnocchi and a beer back home, I'd at least be souveniring some cutlery, even to dump in the Op shop bin outside like a modern day Robin Hood.

Before entering, I looked back retracing my steps and realised I was close again to a personal best for ground covered on foot in one day. There was no one around to high-five so I'll accept one from anyone who reads this and thinks me worthy next time I see them. Such exertions had reduced my interest in the more historic aspects of a castle so impregnable that it hadn't been laid to seige once since its construction 800 years ago.

I always thought of Castles as walled military posts full of soldiers willing to throw domestic animals at would be threats. Being small minded and from a country whose only castles are on chess boards, I never gave it much thought. Of course people have to survive in them so they are in effect small vaillages, often housing people who aren't happy unless there is enough rooms for concubines and at least 6 confectionary master chefs.

My historical interest wanes even further when it comes to the opulence of royalty, so I got trigger happy on the view and came close to another personal best. I remember taking 247 photos of the amazing Angkor temples and the days photographic output clocked in at 237. The problem with going up mountains or towers is that the higher you go, the more redundant the earlier pictures become, so I'll probably only end up with about 50 keepers.

There has been a few times I have written a journal in a hostel common room. I can't think of another time when I have done it at 5am because some lumberjack in the dorm has a 500 hundred horse power chainsaw punctuating his sleep. I dare say it is more just unconsciousness seeing as he was too drunk to remember the security code and my third mistake was getting up to let him in. Yeah, third mistake!

The first was ending an awesome day of Edinburgh sight seeing with two pints of beer. Harmless in itself, but I chose to sit outside at dusk to do it. Why? Other than routinely making inexplicable life choices, I thought it would be a good way to ready myself for the Scottish Highlands I intended to spend the next two days driving through. -2 degrees was cold enough to ensure I don't have to worry about catching a cold up north, because I already have one.

The second and biggest mistake renders the first even more mute as I'm not going to be driving anywhere without my drivers licence. Leaving it behind was a nonchalant packing decision that didn't seem worthy of more than a few seconds consideration. My plans for this trip changed so many times, but I don't know what they would have been at the time to negate the need to bring a licence on the off chance of wanting to drive. It's not heavy and highly unlikely to take up much valuable souvenir space. The licence photo is no worse than a hundred other, more ridiculous photos on Facebook so I had no need to keep it hidden either.

I also managed to figure out that I didn't have my drivers licence with me straight after paying for the non-refundable car hire. The scope of my stupidity was immediately apparent in that although I am just filling in time now until I go on a far more expensive Scottish Highlands tour, it won't take me anywhere near my beloved Brewdog brewery. That is heartbreaking but I take comfort in knowing that I now have a very good reason for coming back again as soon as possible and if things happen in threes, there they bloody well are.

The double tonne.

homeless_harry — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 06:02:00 GMT

Edinburgh was always meant to be a milestone. I thought it was going to be the site of my 40^th birthday party extravaganza but an inexplicable (Word of the week) desire to freeze the nuggets saw me here two months too early. So instead, this journal marks the 200^th time I have burdened the internet with my traveling observations and nonsense.

Like all significant things, there is always an exception, and that comes in the form of the Mongolian journals. They were deleted when the novel was written as they read more like a first draft and were letting people read for free the novel that I had slaved over and give away for free anyway. Encompassing the last 9 or so years of travel, the journals have followed numerous trips to Asia, my bike ride from Brisbane to Melbourne, all my moves around Australia, and now my wonderful European jaunt. They have currently been viewed a total of 260907 times making me wish I made more effort to correct all the mistakes. But traveling is more about getting out there and spending money on souvenirs, rather than spending your time in a hostel hunched over a computer.

Feeling that I have said enough already in the 199 previous journals I am going to let Edinburgh speak for itself with some of the amazing pictures I have so far taken of the place. But fear not, I'll never pass up an opportunity to waffle on about a place so more literary nutrition will follow shortly.

But thank you firstly to all of you who have read some, or all of my journals. I do get a lot of joy out of trying to write about my travels in an interesting and humourous way, and failing anything else, I will be happy to have documented proof of all the things I have done, when the way I have often done them catches up with me and I'm old and senile. Your comments, likes and shares have been very much appreciated, and I sincerely hope you are still reading when I write journal 400, and beyond. And now, cop some Edinburgh beauty.

Photos: Scotland

homeless_harry — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 21:44:00 GMT

A place that deserves to be more famous than it is.

homeless_harry — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 22:37:00 GMT

Ask any Australian about Jersey and the only thing they can think of is the cows. The small island is part of the UK, but just off the edge of France with French road names, is full of Polish people and with Parishes (or countys) like St. Johns, St. Marys, St. Lawrence, etc. it sounds like a martydom after-party. They know the value of their most famous residents, as where most countries watermark their currencies with monachs, Jersey notes show a cows head when held up to the light. Buy a chip butty with a 10 pound note and you'll most likely get change in Jersey sterling. It's worth just as much as English sterling but comes with the added bonus of not being accepted anywhere else but Jersey.

If carbs are your thing, a chip butty is your Holy Grail. I ordered one with curly fries and hot chili, and even though the girl serving me barely understood a word I said, I managed to receive what I asked for. Perhaps I should have ordered some caustic soda on the side cause the chili just melted the bread into a semi set cement and the starch overload was building some post-modern sculpture in my stomach before I was even half way through. Upon completion, because I've never been bested by a meal with chips in it, we made a mad dash to the nearest pub with the sound of an ambulance running through my mind. I ordered a stout, and when the Polish girl tried to give me a Stella, I finally accepted the fact that Australians mangle the English language more than they speak it.

Alex had been my house mate in Broome, and joined me on my first trip to Hobart, so he was pretty sound when it came to grasping my slang. What he failed to grasp what the necessity of tidying up before the arrival of guests. When his sister Jo, one of the 8 girls I had lived with in 'A spy in the house of chocolate, chick flicks and cosmopolitans' dropped me off, we both stopped in our tracks at the entrance to Alex's apartment. We stared in disbelief unable to find a clear path that lead within. Apparently Alex had done three 12 hour shifts in a row and obviously spent the other 12 hours of the day pretending to be Keith Moon in an unattended hotel room. My blow up bed took up every available inch of floor space, and then some, but turned out to be one of the more comfortable beds I have slept on, largely because Alex and I mastered the art of getting plastered together a long time ago.

I stayed for 4 days and save for one morning shift, Alex was able to be my tour guide for the entire time. Having heard plenty from Jo and Alex about the beauty of Jersey, but hardly believing them, I had a pretty open mind about what we would do. I thought Jersians might ride their cows around like us Australians ride kangaroos around, but we actually had to go out of our way to find some cows.

It wasn't too far out of way though. Due to the Islands size (119 square kilometers) anything out of the way is in another country. The roads were so narrow, with built up edges and no shoulders, that driving anywhere felt like zooming around a go-cart track. Jersey drivers are used to having 2 inches of space or less so they drive like life is one big game of Super Mario Cart. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the cars were hatchbacks, sportcars or those silly smart cars that look like an armchair with wheels and a plastic rain cover.

The island is incredibly beautiful though. The interior is quintessential English countryside with beautiful manicured fields of green velvet grass or the almost as famous Jersey Royal potatoes, edged by stone fences so old they seem to have grown into a homogenous entity with old stone cottages over looking real estate as valuable for its beauty, as much for its rarity on such a small island. The islands periphery varies from steep ragged cliff faces that overlook little inlets to vast stretches of beautiful beach, composed of very unEnglish like sand. Alex had boasted about Jersey having bigger tides than the incredible ones we get in Broome and I scoffed in his face as much as one can without seeming like a prick. Turns out my face should be adorned with his spittle of disdain as Jersey has a truly epic tide. St. 'Who even cares which saint it is by now' Castle defended the island for over 400 years and spends as much time surrounded by deep water as it does connected by a path to the mainland a good 500 metres away.

One night we sat on St. Heliers main beach, the water in far enough to make the castle a decent swim away and watched a sunset that would compare with the best that Broome has put on. Like drinking stout and getting trolleyed with Kirsty, sharing intimate stories with Ainslie (albeit just about poo this time!) Steph letting me down, shagging Julia and eating with Maz, sunsets with Alex is one of the defining aspects of our friendship. Most free nights in Broome were spent down on Guantheaume Point, me rolling my eyes at Alex as he tried to convince me Jersey had sunsets just as good. Judging by the photo below, you can understand why I happily admit to being wrong.

We visited Gorey Castle as well, but as both of our accounts would make a welfare recipient feel good about themselves, we decided to just drink a delicious Dublin porter in the shadows of its walls instead. Edinburgh and the Scottish highlands are next on the itinerary so I wasn't too concerned about missing both of Jersey's castles. The weather was so beautiful, I was more than happy to drive around and stare out the window as the roadside embankment threatened to adjust the side mirror everytime a car passed the other way. I was even getting around in only a t-shirt at one stage, although that lasted 10 minutes and even the locals were looking at me like I was either an idiot, an Australian or both.

Jersey even has its own mini versions of Stonehenge, in what they call 'dolmens'. The are just like stonehenge is that their purpose is just as much a mystery and they are every bit as interesting as what you would expect a pile of rocks to be. Being built around 5,000 years ago is quite remarkable and gives an indication of how long Jersey has been inhabited for, but further confuses the matter of why they hadn't gotten around to building wider roads in that time.

Visiting friends in foreign destinations is a fantastic way to get a free tour guide, and to find things a tourist simply couldn't on their own. One of the best things is being invited to a family dinner when such a treat is too many months and miles away to even consider the next time it could happen. The first was at Jo's house, where her Australian husband was probably just as happy to hear my accent as I was his. Alex made a curry out of jackfruit that was so random and delicious that it will be one of the first things I try to emulate when I get back home. After a chip butty that is.

On my last day I was invited along to a lunch with the extended family, and had that been as the new partner of a girlfriend, the afternoon would have been fraught with judgement and stink eye. As a ring-in with plenty of traveling tales to impart, I loaded up on lasagne like I was on welfare, and passed the time so pleasantly, Alex had to literally drag me away.

The weather had finally gone a little British and our plan to watch the sunset from a pub on the westcoast had to change. I was still having a last pint regardless, but we had to settle for watching a bunch of crazies surf in a pretty choppy mess under dire grey skies instead. Such conditions made me about 1% less sad to be leaving as you would have had to have dragged me away kicking and screaming if the weather stayed as it was for the first three days.

While I never doubted my friendship with Alex, I was always highly dubious about his claims of Jerseys beauty. After 4 days, I can safely say that I have never had a more erroneous assumption about a place than Jersey. It was simply amazing, and I didn't even try a Jersey ice cream. And to be honest, I don't think the chip butty was the best way to sample to Jersey Royal potato either.

London cram session.

homeless_harry — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:17:00 GMT

Three days to see London? Really? That is just flipping the bird to the city of double-decker buses, that lady that graces all our currency, Artic weather, millions of rude pedestrians but overly polite drivers, amazing architecture and my heritage. What could I possibly hope to see, let alone afford, in that time? And to make it worse, I went to Brighton for one of those days. Cop a pair of devil horns Motherland.

I knew London was going to be expensive from the moment I was quoted a fortune to book a bed in some army like barracks of a hostel in the middle of nowhere, that was still probably considered central London. I knew London was going to be awesome when a friend emailed me half an hour later saying I could stay with her in the swanky hotel she managed in Chelsea, an area so posh you aren't allowed there unless you talk the Queens English and you wear a top hat, to bed.

I happily ditched the dorm deposit knowing that the Chelsea Hotel was an appropriate middle ground between Barcelona's loft apartment par excellence and the pigpen that is Alex's room in Jersey. Upon moving in, the big four poster bed immediately made it apparent that it was going to be a lot closer to the former than the latter. With tight corridors fit for people or luggage but not both and wallpaper from a time before wallpaper was invented, the only thing missing was Basil Fawlty at the front desk and Manuel taking my bags somewhere other than my room.

The first day in London was a living hell. I woke up with my addled brain singing the Proclaimers “I would walk 500 hundred miles....” like I already had and figured I would walk 500 more to get out of London. It was sunny out but deceptively cold, especially when the wind blew with the potency of weaponised liquid nitrogen. My 'sleeping bag with arms' jacket needed the sacrifice of at least another 500 ducklings to best those weather conditions and as I walked along the Thames, I couldn't stop thinking “Why the fuck would anyone chose to live in a place like this?”

I took photos from the outside of Westminster Abbey, St. Pauls' Cathedral and Tower of London and asked “Why the fuck would people even visit here?” when those tourist spots cost £20, £17.5 & £24.5 respectively! Really? $50 to see the Tower of London? You really are just taking the piss England! The city is beautiful, the buildings and history are mind-boggling but I couldn't think of a worse way to wax cash than to spend 50 knickers on geezing at some old prison.

Admittedly my mindset was somewhat affected by the physical and emotional consequence of having a 3 day bender in Barcelona. No matter where I was, my look of utter disdain would have been immutable that day. I had Maz, my recent ex from Tasmania over for a nachos extravaganza and with the beauty of her friendship to cheer me, things started to feel a little less like purgatory and more like a cold version of paradise.

The next day looked beautiful from the comfort of my bed and I long considered that to be the extent of how much I enjoyed it. Riding a bike is always where I feel happiest so I decided to brave the elements no matter how cold it was. Rugged up enough to bounce if I fell off the bike I headed over to Hyde Park and Royal Albert Hall because today was all about doing cheap shit. The bike had cost £2 for the day, unless someone had scratched away '00' from the sign.

A visit to the Lords cricket ground was a must, and this was one of the first times where the changing of my holiday from summer to winter became more biting than the weather. Had I come in May, June and July like I originally intended, I would be here while Australia was playing the second Ashes test. If ever there was a time for a sad face emoticon in a journal, it is now. I got what satisfaction I could from seeing the ground, marvelling at how small the stands are compared to the SCG or MCG then I marvelled at how even smaller the actual Ashes are. The urn is hardly bigger than the screws that hold together normal sized trophies, but at £5 to see them, I was happy to be sticking to my creed.

Yesterday had taken me along Fleet Street, Oxford Street and Trafalgar square and as I rode along Park Lane, Euston rode and towards Kings Cross Station, I couldn't help but feel like I was trapped on a big monopoly board. The people I passed were as friendly as plastic figurines, and even though drivers were courteous enough around stupid tourists riding all over the road, I never feel safe without a bike helmet on. One had saved my life as a 13 year old when my noggin paid a high velocity visit to a gutter, and as big as my beanie is, I knew it would just make a convenient meat sack if I was to go ass over tit.

I had the most delicious Le Smokey burger from Bryon Burgers in Soho, but anything less would have seen a hostage situation develop given that the burger, with a small side of fries and a beer had cost me $40. I stepped out in to the sunshine sans hostages and marvelled at the blue sky stretching off into the distance as the lone cloud above me gently laid snow down all around. Given it was still too cold to measure, the presence of snow didn't change the temperature but added a beautiful fairy tale like element to the day.

By the time I was wandering around the streets of Camden though, there were no clouds around and I had decided that London is a truly amazing city. That conclusion was helped by hanging out with Rach, my ex whose leaving Broome was detailed in 'Succumbing to the style and cycles of the sisterhood' and also in the journals from Bowen soon after. 5 years of absence felt like 5 minutes and it was great to reconfirm another friendship that isn't unduly affected by distance.

The very same was further confirmed with Maz when we went out for another Le Smokey burger for dinner, and not even the bacon they had forgotten to remove could wipe the smile from my face. I was loving London, and was overjoyed to be reconnecting with friends, but I longed to see some countryside. Our blood line has been traced back as far as Throckmorton in 1256, but 6 generations ago one of my kin was deported for, well, if the blood that flows through me is any indictation, either naked intoxication, smoking weed or drawing dicks on pictures of the Queen.

The train ride to Brighton wasn't exactly the scenic meander through rolling hills that I wanted, but it was a pleasant trip to a lovely beachside town nonetheless. I bought myself a blue floppy newsies hat as they remain my favourite style of head ornamentation. Asking if wearing one would make me look like a tourist, the sharp salesman rightly said that I would look like more of a tourist without one on.

I strolled down to the famous Brighton pier, blending in seemlessly thanks to my new hat. Patchy skies and a slight breeze took some gloss of what I imagine would be a Londoners Mecca in the summer. They really should save up a few more pennies and come to Australia as even our shittier beaches put Brighton beach to shame. The shore was like a cobblestone pavement and the sea was so brown, you couldn't tell how it deep it was, even at the water line.

My stay in London ended exactly the way I wanted with a pint in a pub. It was a delicious hand pulled amber ale, and I trained my focus on the pub memorablia in an effort to stop myself from just gulling down the delicious beer. It may have been the strength of the beer, the love I now have for the city, growing up on English comedy shows or the generations of ancestry that still shapes my DNA, but I felt a stronger kinship with England than I had with any other country thus far. It may not have been my favourite place on the trip, but it certainly felt a lot more like home.

Or more probably, I just wish we had pubs like English ones back home!

Not for the judgemental.

homeless_harry — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:08:00 GMT

Unfortunately this is not the first time I have had to start a journal with a warning, and if you are a long term reader, either previous warnings were heeded and you live in ignorant bliss, or warnings were ignored and you're ok with the stupid things I do. This is about as crazy as I've gotten, and as incriminating as I've written. Therefore, I urge you to read on only if you know me well enough and your opinion of me is somewhat immutable. Or you don't know me, then who cares.

Most of the former would know that I grew up playing a lot of basketball so my teens and early 20's involved alcohol and playing video games while waiting for the internet to be invented. Most of my mid 20's were spent living in Buddhist communities that didn't permit alcohol or the overload of porn that was flooding the newly invented internet. By the time peers were acquiring boats and their second mortgage with kids who were grown up and such and such, I was just starting to travel and find a more hedonistic way to live.

So drugs were never a big part of my life. I can still count on my hands the times I have tried nearly all of the more common drugs. I had tried cocaine twice so I was always a little concerned about going to South America, thinking that it was cheap and easy enough to go from newbie to rock and roll burnout in a week. The cost is incredibly exhorbitant in Australia so it was never an option. This is not a problem in Europe so Barcelona had always been pencilled in as the time I let my hair down and widened the nostrils.

I was a bastion of restraint and didn't even consider the stuff for the first four days, knowing full well that it was best to have Kirsty there as my partner in crime, that being either the best or worst way to describe her. Awaiting her arrival, I couldn't help but pace relentlessly, but that had far more to do with the excitement of seeing another dear friend I've missed greatly for the last year or more. The fact that she was off chasing weed as soon as she arrived contributed to the grooves I walked into the apartments fancy rug.

The first night was rather sedate, by our standards, thanks to the lateness of her arrival. A 6-pack of Estrella beer that I had bought from a shop for completely the wrong reason, and that was that. That may have lulled the liver into a false sense of hope but by noon the next day, the liver knew exactly what to expect.

Lunch was at the lovely Black Lab brewery, where I decided I liked the staff enough to buy a glass rather than just pocket one. Next was a highlight that had been a very long time in the coming. Being Scottish, Kirsty and I had always bonded over Brewdog, and had talked for hours about making it to one of their bars together one day. This was that day.

Luckily it was early afternoon so there was only two other punters that saw our eyes and our tongues enter before we did. I bought a t-shirt first, to commenorate the ocassion, then sunk a few of the usual delicacies before moving onto the big boys. I knew Kirsty would love the U-bolt as we share a fondness for dark drinks more like gravy than beer. Then shit got real, as you would expect it to with a 24Euro beer. Every year or so Brewdog get highly experimental and release some limited edition random idea under their 'abstrakt' range. This was a triple coffee rye imperial porter and was without a doubt worth every cent spent on it. The bar even had an 'End of history' bottle, one of only 12 ever made that contained a 55% beer wrapped in a taxidermed squirrel or stoat. Unfortunately it was empty, but licking the inside of the bottle, like so many before me probably, felt like licking Jim Morrisons grave stone. Fortunately I hadn't had been able to do that.

As we wandered circuitously back to our apartment, we noticed the streets had filled with all manner of shady characters selling Estrella beer cans. That was obviously a front for something a little more illicit, making my Estrella purchase from the shop an idiotic mistake that Ash will never let me live down. Apparently sniffing in their general direction was a sign you were looking, and for something more expensive than just tissues.

I sniffed in the general direction of everyone walking passed me and the strange looks they returned meant that I needed to be a bit more judicious with my nostril signals. It didn't take long and before we knew it, we were in some shady upstairs apartment down some back alley with a room full of Pakistanis. They were super friendly and at no point did we feel threatened in the slightest. We even walked out of the first one because Kirsty reckoned we could get better stuff elsewhere.

10 minutes later we were in another room full of Pakistanis. Apparently Colombians flood the city with goods and the transaction was so routine for them they were more interested in talking about the cricket. It all seemed so surreal sampling the goods, not having any fucking idea what was good and what was not, and trying to bargain knowing that being such an ignoramus was blatantly obvious to them. It may not have been as cheap as you can get it, but it was still one tenth of the cost in Australia and was probably a 1000% profit for them. No wonder they were such friendly and welcoming people.

There is no need to detail how the night went as such experiences are beyond description, and more often than not, beyond memory as well. The most important thing was that when my alarm went off at 7am to go to the airport to fly to London, I still hadn't been to bed. The most logical thing to do was snort whatever was left, get to the airport and make it abundantly clear that you were not smuggling drugs because you had already taken them all. The only thing I felt like doing was to keep going and just miss the flight. I've missed flights for as many reasons as there are for doing so, and at least this one was vaguely volitional.

Once I realised that a cheap enough flight could be booked as a replacement the following day, the party continued on until something A.M. when it became apparent that not even drugs could keep an exhausted corpse animated. Having another night in Barcelona meant doing it all again, so that is exactly what we did, so exactly that I could just 'copy and paste' from the first half of the journal and leave it at that.

Fortunately I had to leave or my fears about going to South America might have been realised in Spain instead. The replacement flight was booked in for mid afternoon meaning that an earlier night was needed than the last, but 4am wouldn't be considered early by many peoples standards.

Everything about changing countries went far more smoothly than you'd expect after a 3 day bender, until I got to British customs. Fuck, I thought Australian immigration was bad. I've had job interviews where they've asked less questions than this guy. He had gotten to know me so well, I wouldn't have thought twice if he'd asked me for a date at the end of it. The whole time I was trying not to look too sketchy while holding in a fart because I had long since passed the time when I could trust them.

Once in London I was able to give thanks for the incredible time I had had in Barcelona, but also for the fact that times like those are not sustainable at all. It was awesome to have set a new standard for blowouts between Kirsty and I, but it's done now. As addictive as my personality often is, this was one experience I don't need to repeat again for awhile. That's probably not an umcommon statement made two days later when you're coming down, freezing your bollocks in London and shitting more times in a day than you normally do in a week, if that is a week you don't spend in Paris.

Photos: UK

homeless_harry — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 08:29:00 GMT

The saga, and the walking, continues.

homeless_harry — Thu, 5 Mar 2015 22:00:00 GMT

Mesmerised by the Sagrada Familiar and up to my third eye in Gaudis incredible vision, I decided to double down on the crazy and see where it lead. Describing my visit to Park Quell was actually intended to be a part of the previous journal, but after thinking I would struggle to say anything at all out of awe, I succesfully managed to ramble on quite a lot. How uncharacteristic!

Even after ole Light-fingers McGee had a crack at stealing my empty bag, I was still feeling like I had just been somewhere other worldly. It must have been this bewilderment that helped me overlook the fact that the Park was fucking miles away. Or the fact that it was up one of the hills surrounding Barcelona. Yet the anticipation of more Gaudi helped time pass in a semi haze.

I wish I had bought a pedometer on this trip because these feet weren't made for walking anywhere near as much as this mouth was made for complaining about them. As previously stated, the fossilising left calcaneal talar joint has performed above and beyond it's usual standard of just locking up after a two degree drop in temperature or a walk over a few hundred metres.

The Park was free to enter, but a ticket booth was set up at the gate that people were queuing up for. I wax enough cash on sites where payment is compulsory so I certainly wasn't about to do it voluntarily. Which soon become apparent as the mistake it was. If you want to wander around and look at trees while endless scores of people try and sell you trinkets and sunglasses from blankets laid out along the pathway, that shit is free all day long. If you want to see something that Gaudi designed, you had to pay for that so I guess it must have been in the park information fine print.

I wandered around hoping to find something inspiring, but that came in the form of a few more souvenirs for back home. By continuing to just walk upwards, I managed to find the top of the hill with some incredible panoramic views over the city. The weather had been warm enough on the walk up to strip down to a t-shirt, but the uncovered peak was being buffeted by winds strong enough to blow my moustache off.

I caught a taxi back to the hostel because I am not masochistic, but I do love beer. So I coaxed another small effort out of my aching legs to get me to the Brewdog bar as a reward for a long days hard slog. Two of my all time faves in Punk IPA and 5am Saint Red Ale barely touched the sides. Dogma and Brixton Porter felt like they may have made an impact, and the incredible U-Bolt smoked porter put it beyond doubt at 8.4% ABV.

Feeling like my jelly legs had become octopus tentacles, I slivered out the door and began the long walk home. Because my subconscious IS a masochist, and thanks to my utter non-reliance on maps, I simply started walking without worrying about direction. 30 minutes later, I was wondering about the complete absence of anything recognisable.

Apparently drunk tourists wandering aimlessly down backroads are a high priority for muggers, but all the shady characters I walked passed must have simply taken pity on me, or admired my stupidity for how far I had managed to walk in the wrong direction. Eventually I pulled out a map and found that I had added an extra 3 kilometres to the days walkings. Apart from the time spent inside Sagrada Familia and the Brewdog bar, I had been walking from 9am until 10pm.

The following day I had nothing planned other than moving out of my hostel and into the apartment that Kirsty had rented out for her birthday. She wouldn't be arriving until the day after, giving me a chance to put dibs on the best bed and have a solo night in luxury before seeing a dear old friend and getting too fucked up to appreciate how good this place was.

I didn't know exactly how amazing the apartment was until I got there and decided to just leave my slack jaw hanging open for the rest of the trip. The pimping first floor loft apartment overlooked a beautiful square and had wardrobes bigger than the dorm room I was just staying in. The apartment is to that dorm what the Sagrada Familiar is to a church in rural Victoria. It has featured in several magazines and TV programs and will feature high on my list of most opulent places I have stayed. Manuel the owner looked like a rather suave dude and I know he designed it specifically to have lots of rich person sex in there.

Having not even had poor-persons sex for awhile, on my days of wandering I couldn't help but notice how beautiful Spanish women are. And they seem to like me. I'm not entirely sure what that is all about but I'm getting checked out, eyed up and down and perved on more than I would at a tattoo convention. They are similiar to the incredible Turkish women, but grungier. Peircings and tattoos prevail, op shop wardrobes, 'three styles in one' haircuts, and passionate swaggers in their hips.

Because I am a slow learner and always willing to throw myself on the altar of shame just to get something to write about, I got back on to Tinder to see how many hot girls wanted to avoid me again. Boom, I was getting matched all over the place. And with a fuck pad of this magnitude, perhaps women could sense privilidge oozing from me as I overlooked the plebs in the square below. I had started a conversation with a delightful English teacher with no particular intentions, but that quickly escalated and yes, Spanish women are very passionate. Enough said.

After four delighfully clear and sunny days, my first day in the apartment had been pencilled in as the day that I hired a bike and ride to the more inaccesible parts of the city. Given the legwork from two days prior, I felt the only places I couldn't walk to where in another country. I woke at a time when my work would be finishing back home, and offered sincere thanks to the beauty of 3 months worth of sleep-ins. I looked out the window to see a miserable, drizzly sky and offered sincere impugnation to Lady Luck and her permanent grudge.

It was my last chance to do it, and having had no exercise in over a week except for one night of it horizontal, I was getting a bike regardless. My brazeness must have been respected because 5 minutes after heading off, the clouds parted and a beautiful day unfolded. I'd already walked up one hill, so I thought I'd aim for the one that the 1992 Olympics were held on. Having been so long since I had ridden a bike, I felt like an Olympian making it to the top of a hill that wouldn't have even drawn heavy breathing a few years ago.

Everything was better a few years ago, and I think the same could be said for the Olympic structures in Barcelona. Sports fields always have a use, even ones on top of hills and far away from human habitation. But purpose built Olympic buildings, including a giant toothpick, were never that practical in the first place. Fortunately, more incredible panoramic views of the city were fitting reward and with two days straight of working up a sweat, I could probably look at cutting my prune intake down to pre-retirement home levels.

A pleasant roll along the beach foreshore ended the day of riding, and after four hours I returned to the bike shop, which was conveniently located in the square outside my apartment. There was also a vegetarian restaurant there where I had dined for dinner and breakfast, and with a tattooist and a few bars making up the squares commerce, I think I have found a new best place in the world. Now for Kirsty of Purple Coconut fame to join me in tearing up this town.

An insight into the unrivalled genius of Gaudi.

homeless_harry — Mon, 2 Mar 2015 20:10:00 GMT

I'm speechless. As I was born with the gift of the gab though, there was only the briefest of pauses after that first sentence. I visited Gaudi's still uncompleted masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, and I feel I need not go into another church again, nor want to. There is simply no way to describe the design or the effect of the place. I do love a challenge though, so with a delicious brewdog beer quickly emptying beside me, I'm going to have a jolly good crack at it.

I prebooked tickets online to avoid queues, but something this popular is always going to have queues. Big ones. The biggest being the suckers who hadn't pre-booked, but I still had enough time to finish my Americano before being granted entrance through the line for smart bastards who plan ahead. That was a good opportunity to start deciphering the busy fascade that looked like a traditional church made of wax that had started to melt. The conical hexagon laced towers at the front proved this wasn't a conventional church, but just how unconventional continued to unfold throughout my visit like Russian nesting dolls.

I took an obligatory selfie out the front, to prove I had been here and not downloaded photos of the place. The fascade hadn't given away any of its secrets so I hoped the interior might. Upon crossing the threshold, I almost felt myself become digitized. This was unlike anything I had ever seen before, and could only imagine seeing in the best designed computer games of our day. Well, not my day, as we considered any game more involved than getting a frog from the side of the road to the other side of the swamp as being futuristic.

As construction started on this church over 100 years ago, and will continue until 2030, the inside shows no signs of age like all other European churches. Therefore, the newness of the surfaces adds to the hyper-realism of it. I didn't take more than 5 steps inside before simply stopping and gazing around in awe. This lasted at least 10 minutes, and still gave me no way in which to describe what laid before me.

Stained glass windows to my left poured predominantly blue light in to combat the orange windows on the opposite side. There was no images on them, merely abstract shapes and forms that combined to describe a mood or a feeling more than a scene. I set my camera to semi automatic and wandered through the milling throng who were all doing the same thing. A clear sky outside ensured that I was getting the maximum effect and it was breath-taking.

Prebooking tickets meant agreeing to a particular time of entry and my ride up one of the towers was booked in for 15 minutes later. I headed to the lift surprised but suspicious of why there was no queue. Like Notre Dame, my luck had run out again and no one was going up the towers due to the wind outside. Missing out on views of the city was disappointing, but I was still so dazed that I walked away from an attendant who was more informative than a 'technical reasons' sign without even hearing him describe how to obtain a refund.

I felt the best thing to do at this point was to just sit down and stare. There wasn't far to walk anyway and I was staring upwards unblinkingly while half accidentally bumping into all the selfie sticks being waved around like a royal rumble fencing duel. There were seats in front of the main alter cordoned off for silent reflection and meditation.

Little kids will wail and cry, Asian girls will giggle, and secular people will talk loudly not understanding the concept of sacred space so silence was not possible anywhere. Particularly with construction going on for at least the next 15 years. It was hard to hold onto any sort of peace when jackhammers were pounding and saws were grinding in the immediate surroundings. Once they stopped though, it was like someone bumping the stereo at a party and everyone went quiet realising how loud they were actually talking. Then they adjusted their volume and just keep talking anyway.

The most impressive thing that struck me at this point was the almost complete absence of gory scenes. Christ was being crucified on the main alter, but as it hang some 4 metres above the ground with a halo of lights around it, his ascension was more apparent in this portrayal than his suffering. No where else was there a depiction of the atrocities so ubiquitous in every other church. This was almost as impressive as the building itself. The focus was leaning heavily towards symbolism and emotion rather than literal portrayal and comprehension. When so much of Christianity misinteprets a book of analogies and parables as fact, we have the world we live in today. Other churches can only dream of having the universal appeal of a place so broad in its language and so heavenly in its expression.

I sat for an hour and watched attendants embody the very essence of Christian patience as ignorant tourists kept entering the area of silent reflection merely to get a better view of the roof. As at peace as I felt, I still wanted to take their selfie sticks and use it to take a photo of their small intestine from the inside. I still failed to unlock the buildings secrets, or the intentions of Gaudi, so I went in search of the museum.

Time spent there reading into Gaudi's life and motivations is integral to understanding what is going on with the Sagrada Familiar. I had very little clue to the man or his methods, but his organic architectural style was abundantly clear from the other buildings I had seen. Once I grasped how closely Gaudi aimed to imitate nature, the more I saw how the building grew, and in doing so, how it grew on ones perception. “The interior of the temple will be like a forest” Gaudi stated, and with that in mind, the true majesty of the design unfolded.

The supporting columns split like the branches of a tree, strange bulbous shapes surround the intersection like errant boughs had been cut away. The criss-crossing shapes on the roof emulate leaves and accentuate the hyperbolic geometry that is used like its humanitys purest language. I cannot describe this better myself than how the Gaudi museum narrator does in the photo below.

Even though churches are sacred spots dedicated to the connection between man below and God in heaven above, Gaudi had made the Sagrada Familia to be just as much a celebration of nature. It truly felt like being in a nest, or a hive, and was without doubt the best attempt I had seen at combining the physical world with an ethereal realm. It was out of this world, but very much of this world. By focusing what we would usually consider to be the mundane aspects of life around us, Gaudi has turned them into the supramundane.

I walked out in to the bright blue day feeling like I had visited another realm of existence, and not taken any drugs to do so. On a trip where I have seen more impressive erections than at a Viagra convention, the Sagrada Familia is in a class of its own. And it's not even finished! With space on the balconies for a 1000 person choir, I hope I live long enough to return and hear Beethovens 9^th or something similiar performed there.

And because mankind has always tried to encapsulate spiritual ideals in consumable goods, I wanted some sort of souvenir to remind me of the time I whole-heartedly felt the true spirit of Christianity. With a construction timeline stretching over a century, bills had to be paid somehow, and a lot of that was being recouped in the souvenir shop. As many desirable things as I saw there, most of them would have resulted in a no beer budget for the rest of the trip. Sadly, I restrained myself and bought two bookmarks for 1.60Euro and rejoiced in leaving with my spiritual, and fiscal wealth, intact.

Contemplating the profound experience I had just had over a bowl of steaming hot noodles. I was lucky enough to catch a hand that was slowly extracting my bag from the stool beside me. Turning towards the idiot the hand was attached to, I snatched my bag back as the dude apologised and straightened out the coat on the back of his chair like that had been his intention all along. His calm countenance lulled me into momentarily believing him, combined with my shock at his brazeness and it was only his hasty exit that made me reconsider his intentions. I scoffed my noodles and went outside to ruin any sort of spiritual enlightment by giving this guy a piece of my mind, or a piece of my fist. Unfortunately he was nowhere to be seen, but the divine countenance of the Sagrada Familias fascade was right in front of me and I was able to regain some equanimity before returning to life outside of the most incredible place I haven't needed drugs to visit.

Pounding plenty of Spanish pavements.

homeless_harry — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 20:46:00 GMT

Something itched under my armpit. Before I knew it, there was a strange sensation of moisture on my skin. It was sweat, something my body had forgotten how to do. It's not like I had returned to Broome where sweating is as normal, and as necessary as breathing. And it's not like Barcelona is warm enough to make someone sweat without them earning it. In this case, I was wandering aimlessly around the streets in my usual manner, marvelling at the clear blue skies above and completely oblivious to the fact that I still had about 5 layers on.

After 2 weeks of temperatures closer to your average soccer score, 15 degrees felt like a heat wave, or more like it, a heat ripple. Seeing the sun and having a days worth of blue skies was as refreshing as the first beer that accompanied it. Even more so because it was barely past noon and I wasn't planning on having a beer till the evening.

I'd just seen a huge parade come slowly dancing down the street, ornate outfits twirling, drums pounding, asses gyrating and I'm not sure anything was actually being celebrated or whether it was just another Sunday in Barcelona. Enough people were excited by the action to prove it was somewhat unusual. But just as many people paid it no heed like it was usual weekend fare.

I spent a good portion of the morning walking along the rough path it was salsa'ing along, feeling the sensual rhythm almost dance me along. Almost. My arthritic foot has performed exceedingly well under thestrenuous workload of long daily walks, even with the cessation of tramadol reliance out of fear it's a colonic cement as well. So, well ok, I'm not going to use my foot as an excuse. I just don't have any rhythm, unless I'm at least slightly tipsy. Then I still lack rhythm, but giving zero fucks at least loosens up otherwise unco-ordianted muscles.

So when a lady thrust a flyer into my hand because I didn't know the Spanish word for no (It's 'no'), I was pleasantly surprised to find it was for a brewery, one that was conveniently located just around the corner. Had I have found the parade by any means other than getting ridiculously lost in the first place, I would have just returned to the brewery later. I knew I'd find Portugal before that same spot so I headed into Black Lab brewery ostensibly to steal a glass for my labrador loving sister.

Dogs are allowed in most places, and the BlackLab bar/restarurant was no exception. And there was a gorgeous beagle puppy inside, confirming that they are one of the most common dogs I have seen in Spain, third only to Golden Retrievers and the strange but adorable French Bulldog, an uncommon breed in Australia that looks like a cross between a moth and a wombat. The brewer was lovely, the dry stout 'Black Mirror' was a smokey treat and the girl handing out flyers came in later to hit on me in a sweet and bilingual way that made me wish I knew more Spanish. All that amounted to the place being impressive enough to tell them they should nail more of their stuff down.

It would have been my new favourite bar had I not spent that evening in the recently opened outlet of my favourite brewery in the world, Scotlands Brewdog brewery. And before this journal starts to sound like an alcoholics odessey, I had done my budget that morning and realised that beer was going to be a luxurious and infrequent treat. I had always planned to visit the Brewdog Bar ever since I heard it had opened two weeks prior, and I was willing to skip lunch or dinner if it meant being able to taste some of their incredible beers off tap. Being lost near Blacklabs was just the universe telling me that I must skip lunch AND dinner to try some of their beers as well.

In between the two bars, I had taken in a little bit of the city from my base just north of the more pedestrian orientated part of La Rambla. Barcelona was a strange hybrid of Istanbul and Paris. The 6 odd storey high buildings all contained similar fascades to each other, and to those in Paris (Except for the ones that Gaudi had laid his craziness on) and there were a lot of broad avenues. Some of the broadest I had seen actually, as Barcelona had demolished some possibly important things from the past to make the future easier to navigate. Most of the city was laid out in perfect grid formation with roads so wide as to afford either pedestrian paths or bike paths exclusivity down the middle. Often both.

Contrasting that were the tightest, rabbit warren of alleyways I had yet come across. And here was the resembalence to Istanbul as the inner city portion of Barcelona had the town planning aesthetics of a broken spirograph. Buildings still extended to their regular 6 or so storey height, but their closeness made the blue sky above redundant. It was such a striking contrast to walk off a broad avenue and into an alleyway that was as long as the avenue had been wide.

Gaudi is possibly Barcelonas most famous architect and plenty of his masterpieces were spread across the city. I'll leave his opus, the Sagrada Familia for the next journal, largely because I go there tomorrow, but I did wander past a few of his other bizarre works in La Manzana de la Discordia. You may notice I said wander past, rather than visit and explore in its totality. Due to aforementioned budget restraints, and remembering the feeling that the Topkapi Palace and harem in Istanbul had been a waste of good beer money, I chose not to pay the 18.50Euro they were asking for entry into each place.

Barcelonas bizarre architecture would make it the perfect place to visit after stocking up in Amsterdam on space cake, cannibis gob-stoppers and more 'happiness' inducing foods than a Laotian 'happy wedding' (Who's been reading my journals long enough to get that '8 year to the day' link back in 'From deck chair detonation to Dantes dead bum express'?) Given the complete dearth of public toilets, Barcelona is probably best visited straight after Paris. Honestly, I am yet to come across a single public dunny, but am yet to see one person pissing in public so that raises questions I am unable to answer.

Other highlights of my wanderings, (now spanning the following, more sober day) was the Boquiera market, a veritable rainbow of healthy looking foods. Because I am on holiday and more concerned with pampering to impulses than eating well, I walked straight passed all the nutritious goodness and bought myself two of the fattest spring rolls I have ever seen. They were so big I considered calling Guinness book or records but there was no way they would gotten there before I had devoured them, Dutch Herring style. They may have been deep fried, sometime in the last week, but they were jam packed with veggie delights. That was a relief as well because I had just guessed that 'verdura' meant vegetable and bit into it praying a chickens foot didn't end up dangling out of my mouth.

A visit to the Barcelona Cathedral was quite impressive, but probably not due to the intentions of its founders. It offered great views of the city from its roof, and as impressive as it's Neo-Gothic architecture was, it only confirmed my opinion of Christian sacred spaces. The Church is dedicted to Barcelonas patron saint, St. Eulalia who was martyred at age 13 by the Romans. If that wasn't bad enough, the Church is covered in effigies of her various torture and sufferings, and while that is horrific, it makes me hate Romans more than love Jesus.

The darkened interior, punctuated by beautiful stained glass windows still seems morbid and oppresive compared to the opened Calligraphic sketchpad and your 'Arabic grandmothers bathroom tiles' stylings of a mosque. One thing I love that it has in common with all the other old buildings I have had the priviledge of visiting has been the steps, doorways and entries into these ancient spaces. Not what most people would be impressed by, but their degree of wear was evident and remarkable. It was even more impressive when marble entranceways were 3 inches lower in the middle thanks to centuries of the faithfuls footfalls. It is an icredible feeling to know you are walking in the exact same footsteps as what humanity has done for centuries, often millenia.

That is exactly what I wanted from this trip. To breath in the eons of history that Europe has (Of Western culture that is, acknowledging that my hometown of Broome has a much longer indigenious history) while refreshing the love I feel for friends whose period of absence is inversely related to the strength of the love we that share. If only they were all able to see me, and I didn't have to subject them to epic sagas of my ass when I did.

Photos: Barcelona

homeless_harry — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 20:15:00 GMT

Cannibis, culture and constipation.

homeless_harry — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 03:30:00 GMT

Amsterdam is a Utopian wonderland for your average teenage stoner. Drugs are either legal or tolerated. Bikes are the main form of transportation so it's easy to go get munchies without being busted DWI. Dutch potato chips enjoy world renown. Prostitution is practised from so many roadside displays that give a whole new meaning to window shopping. Coupled with the fact that Dutch women are so attractive as to be genetically superior beings, it quickly turns to window cleaning; with drool.

Unfortunately, this liberal approach to licentious pursuits, and the sort of tourists it attracts, leads to the centre of the town feeling more like a theme park. One with no puppy pooper scoopers and the occasional pile of vomit. The few Dutch were actually easy to pick out of the crowds because they were the ones not smoking, or making an idiot of themselves.

Forunately I had a Dutch tour guide to help me avoid making most of the more common tourist mistakes. Getting stoned was not one of them, as the first thing Ainslie did was take me to a weed cafe. Coming from a conservative country, I was used to a more lounge room or street corner orientated transaction for the purchase of such an item. My slack-jaw had dropped open upon smelling the aroma wafting from the first group of people we passed on the street. It reached 'snake consuming a kangaroo' level when the store clerk thrust a list at me detailing all the different potency, methods, flavours, and sizes of getting off your face.

That was possibly the most Australian analogy ever written, but it was apt because I was behaving like nearly all my peers would and tried to buy one of everything. Even though Ainslie turned out to be quite the enabler, she had nothing to do with my original plan of buying a joint turning into a little baggy. I partially regretted it straight away, as I was more interested in enjoying the country, and Ainslies company, than getting stonkered and eating Amsterdam out of potato chips.

Outside tables were set up like a real cafe even though the only thing eatable being sold was space cake. Ainslie rolled a number that would have satisfied a small army battalion and given that it had been awhile since I had indulged, I was too ripped to even finish the thing. As soon as I giggled with utter delight at a passing beagle puppy, I knew that the afternoon was going to be more 'dazed and confused' than touristy and cultural.

As Ainslies charming and slightly crazy brother pointed out later, there is a lot more to the city than getting high and considering paying for something that is usually free because IT IS RIGHT THERE IN THE WINDOW! Unfortuantely I was baked so my first night was not going to be anything more than an old Australian stoner wandering around giggling at the sites and smells of the Amsterdam 'zoo'.

Laid out in co-centric u-shaped canals, the inner city is easy to navigate.... if you're either not stoned and a newbie, or a woman with absolutely zero sense of direction. Together, Ainslie and I had that covered and it was a good thing our wanderings had no particular destination because we would've have found exhaustion before our goal.

We did find an erotic art musuem, or what I think was one of many of them, and decided to see how artistically people could portray dicks. Being an unparalled master in the art of drawing dicks on things, I would usually be fascinated by what was on show. There was the most bizarre sex cartoon with strange dubbed over voices (Probably because all English speaking countries would be too conservative to concoct smut of this magnitude) that held our attention for longer than any other cartoon could hold an adults attention, take note disney!

Aside from being stoned and prefering to stare at the real boobs on nearly every street corner, I was actually feeling like shit. Or more to the point, I wasn't feeling like a shit. The three days in Paris had made me a plaster cast of my colon and it was not in any rush to be moved from it's place of creation. I know this is an unpleasant thing to write about, and I could be a lot more graphic like I usually am, but this was really strarting to affect my experience.

I was over-joyed to be seeing Ainslie again as it had been nearly five years since we had met in Broome. We hadn't hung out much then, but have become very close penpals in the years since. That was rather lucky because had it been anyone else, I would have felt guilty with at least half of my conversation being about my ass and its absence of productivity. She was very understanding, and was as bewildered as me that I was impervious to the usual effects that weed, coffee and exercise have.

Needless to say, I didn't eat much in Amsterdam. I didn't do anywhere near as much as what I would have 10,20 years ago. Every time a red lit lady returned my gaze, Ainslie would shove me in her direction, probably hoping the interaction would give her at least five minutes without me talking about the toilet. That was definitely an expense I could do without, and I still wasn't feeling any real inclination to do anything but look, and hope that it one day converts into viable libido currency.

The next day we wandered further afield, taking in the Rijks museum that showed the amazing talent of Dutch artists. There was some absolutely incredibly artworks, possibly most famous and one of the largest pieces I have been awed by in Rembrandts Nightwatch. Jan Willem Pieneman's 'Battle of Waterloo' is the largest painting I have ever seen and Vermeers 'The Milkmaid' one of the most impressive.

Had I felt any better, and not been to the Louvre two days prior, I would have been blown away by the museum. Given my dismay at the apparent lack of real Dutch life I had thus experienced in Amsterdam, and my state of health, it is no criticism of the museum that I am not far more glowing in my praise of a place that is undoubtedly a rich treasure trove of culturally important artworks.

Moving to Ainslies home town of Delft for the other three nights certainly gave me the slice of Dutch life that I craved. Where Istanbul had been a mystical blend of Asian and European flavours without being defined by either, and Paris was the quintessential European city with grand structures and broad avenues that had some degree of town planning, the Netherlands was rather quaint but delightfully beautiful.

Being 4 metres below sea level, the whole country was covered in canals and dykes and even though there was plenty of places where water wasn't present, it was those little river side homes that were the most striking. There were some taller structures, including the Nieuwe Krek, or New Church, which afforded amazing 360 views of the town from the top of its belfry. The tighest winding stair case granted access and had a bowl full of prunes not finally fixed my condition, I would have struggled to carry the extra weight up so high.

The Oude Krek, or Old Church, was my favourite as its leaning belfry was so striking that in a continent covered in such buildings, this one must be unique. But not by design. During construction, the building started to sink and developed a serious lean. Possibly taking advantage of certain Dutch drug liberties, the stoned builders just shrugged their shoulders and kept on building, I like to imagine anyway. They had actually checked the structural integrity and further building incorporated optical illusions in attempt to offset it's obvious slant. I let you decide from the photo below just how successful they were.

Being such a flat country, bikes are far more common than cars. At least it would appear that way if you were to judge it by the parking bays at the train station. I originally planned to do a ride around the country but gave up on that when I found out that winter would make it a more harrowing experience than using a bike trailer with the hand-brake permanently engaged. We did ride to a restaurant one night but my over indulgence in strong Dutch beers saw me fall over the bike before even getting on it, breaking the rear fender and permanently dislodging the chain. I managed to get it home via the Flinstones method of propulsion but unsurprisingly, Ainslies boyfriend Casper was not willing to let me near any other modes of transportation.

Fortunately the weather had been a 50/50 mix of bright, clear sunny days and overcast, drizzly days. The country, and particularly Delft, had struck me as incredibly enchanting and once my health returned, so did my appreciation of the wonderful places I was seeing. It was heart-breaking to say goodbye to such a dear friend in Ainslie but as the saying goes, “It's not goodbye, it's see you later”. I'm sure the saying I'm after is articulated better than that, but the sentiment is true and the Netherlands is high on the list of countries that I must return to sooner rather than later.

Photos: The Netherlands

homeless_harry — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 03:21:00 GMT

Paris pilgrimage

homeless_harry — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 06:43:00 GMT

Disney and the Doors in one day.

Paris hadn't even been a part of my original plan. Europe is full of so many amazing cities that Paris was just going to be one of those ones that got over-looked, largely because I suspected it would be full of French people. Whoever said the French were rude and arrogant? Yeah right, that was me, but there is nothing like a bit of travel to highlight erronous assumptions. They have been nothing but delightful, extraordinarily helpful and more than willing to overlook my attempts to murder their language.

By some strange stroke of luck, I had been reading Victor Hugo's 'The hunchback of Notre Dame' as I was planning this trip, and suspecting I had a latent love for epic structures, I decided to add a stopover in Paris. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque revealed the depth of my appreciation for big old erections and while not quite having that effect on me, even my first glimpse of the twin towers of its belfry from Place de la Concorde left me wide eyed and slack jawed.

Ignoring how bad Disney is at historical fact, I had watched it's animated version of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' one night in Istanbul. It had served it's purpose and got me more excited to see the building with my own eyes, but also made me want to see if Esmeralda was around and using Tinder. I had turned that off after my request for company for the concert yielded nothing but more disappointment, and considering my degree of comfort with my own company, I have concluded that the app is best left to the more desparate and dateless.

My first night was in the hotel Laura had booked but I moved to a dorm in a hostel closer to Notre Dame for the next two nights. Before leaving, I paid an extra 12Euro to have as much white toast, croissants and black tar coffee as I wanted, which wasn't much at all surprisingly. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a hostel costing a third of the price offered such a feast of simple carbohydrates for free. So I did the 25 minute walk feeling 5 kilo heavier than I wanted and wondering if the French ever went to the toilet eating so many crepes, croissants and baguettes. Probably not I concluded, or else their public toilets wouldn't try and kick you out after 20 seconds.

Taking nearly 80 years to be constructed into its current appearance, Notre Dame has only undergone a few minor cosmetic changes in the seven centuries since. And that is understandable as the edifice and interior is as awe-inspiring as it needs to be. The patronage of the French Monachy was demonstrated by the 28 Kings that line the lower portion of the fascade. Every other ornate embellishment is either Christian or symbolic of the Gothic style of architecture that the building gave birth to.

A queue to enter filled half of the front courtyard so I returned later completely unsurprised to find the line had tripled in length and snaked back on itself. Leaving entrance until the last part of the day meant I missed out on ascending the belfry due to 'technical reasons'. A multilingual sign hung over the fence told me so, accepting my maledictions without expanding on what they were.

Unlike Islamic places of worship, I find the Christian iconography too literal, and too depressing to be inspiring. Jesus being cruficied is important to remind Christians that he died for their sins, but that excuses me from feeling guilty for commiting such sins. The cross is suffering incarnate, and the martyred saints that accompany Jesus show the casual observer Christianitys history of persecution and suffering. Mohammed cannot be portrayed lest he distracts one from the grace of Allah, so mosques are filled with elaborate Arabic calligraphy of Koran verses and pretty mosiac patterns. I always found Buddhist iconography to impress me most because the serene countenance of the Buddha was always something I felt I wanted to aspire to.

I also aspired to be a rock star and visiting Jim Morrisons grave would have been far more important when I was an impressionable teenager. The Doors provided a large portion of the soundtrack to my tripping and even though their airplay has lessened over the years, the life and poetry of Jim Morrison still fills me with wonder and inspiration.

I paid my respects to other musical heroes in Theodore Rossini, Georges Bizet and Frederick Chopin, and having read 'The Portrait of Dorian Grey' before hunchback, I also visited Oscar Wilde's lipstick covered memorial. Having seen such impressive and worthy reminders of the aforementioned, I was somewhat shocked to find Jim's uninspiring little plot stuck behind other, grander tombs.

It was covered in flowers, graffiti, stickers and other ways I found it baffling that people would think is a sign of respect. The area was even cordoned off meaning my plans to have a beer while seated beside a rock idol will have to be left to photoshop to fulfill.

Seems legit.

Caravaggio and Canova to conclude.

Setting aside a day for the Louvre is better than none at all, but is tantamount to giving yourself 20 minutes to read the entire Buddhist Canon. Therefore, I had to pick out the highlights and anything more would be a bonus. On top of that, I was joined by Charlotte, an ex-girlfriend whose break up had inspired me to move away from Melbourne and started what has turned out to be a rather transient lifestyle. For that I am grateful to her, and even more happy to hear she is blissfully married and living an enviable existence in the south of France.

Having Canova's sculpture recently inked into my arm, it was there I wanted to head first. Had it been the sole display, I could have happily spent the day staring bewildered at it's skilfull execution and the dynamic emotion of its characters. Instead, I happied myself with 20 minutes and about 50 photos before the vastness of the Louvres collection beckoned me to move on.

Caravaggio has been a favourite artist of mine since seeing some of his pieces in a Melbourne gallery at an age that I am now too old to care when exactly. He is famed for his use of foreshortening and being one of the best proponents of chiaroscuro, or the contrast of light and shadow. His work has inspired a lot of my own, but I was somewhat disappointed to see the only a few of his lesser pieces were on display.

All day we wandered amongst masterpieces that alone could arrest your attention for hours, unfortunately being collected together meant they were afforded minutes each. Nearly walking past a small room in one of the more distant wings, Charlotte and I nearly overlooked what easily became both of our favourite find for the day. Loius-Leopold Boilly is an unparalled master in intricate detail and it was this particular skill that almost made us miss his work. The pieces looked more like scaled down versions of much larger pieces and as an artist myself, I found it absolutely baffling how he managed to squeeze so much fine detail into so small a canvas. The scenes themselves, or the composition aren't as impressive as other highlights like Theordore Gericaults 'Raft of the Medussa' but Boillys work deserves far more credit than what it's placement in the Louvre showed it gets.

Before too long the gallery was closing and we upped our pace to power pack in as much art appreciation as we could. We made a brief stop at Vermeer's 'The lacemaker' but Rembrandt and his peers had a few photos taken as we hurried by. Eventually we were ushered out the door and my Paris pilgrimage was over all too soon. My three days were an incredibly profound experience and parting ways with Charlotte, I made her a sincere promise that I would be back as soon as I could, and for a much longer stay.

Only music could describe such ecstacy.

homeless_harry — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:10:00 GMT

To be in Paris, the city of Love, on Valentines Day is the sort of smaltz that Hallmark wish they could encapsulate in some consumable way. I imagine a significant amount of romancing happens on your average day for the city to have such an appelation, so I couldn't tell if all the couples smooching and touts selling roses was out of the ordinary or not.

When you are single, you tend to notice these things more anyway, but my first impressions wandering around felt like being the only eunuch at a city wide orgy. I may have well been a ghost because everyones eyes were on their lovers beside them. That worked to my advantage as I could take in this beautiful city as a wide-eyed first timer without being hassled to buy crap, except for roses.

As positive as my first impressions of Paris were, my overwhelming sentiment was of sadness at Laura's absence. To anyone who knows her, or puts any credence in prayer, please direct them her way as her father struggles in hospital with stomach cancer. This was supposed to be our first catch up since The cold winds of change in April 2010. Checking in to the hotel room she had booked for us, part of me hoped beyond hope that she would be waiting there for me.

It wasn't to be, and I was left to wade my way through the ocean of PDA's the Parisians were putting on like some Broadway show. I'm more than happy with my own company, which is lucky because that is the way it has been for most of my life. Most of the time I don't even give it another thought. When it feels like you're back at your high school dance, your date has deserted you and everyone else thinks your personal space is the best spot to make out, you can't help but question whether being 39 and single is tantamount to social leprocy.

Turning 40 is a big milestone, one with which I hope that all of Hobart will know about at the end of May, and I have given a lot of thought to a lifetime of bachelorhood. While being single means there is one less person you have to make compromises for, a lot of experiences, particularly traveling, can be more entertaining with another. With no romantic or intimate connection to Laura, I thought the date and location may be noted at some point, jokingly lamented as we both are single. But alas, like Istanbul, the city was mine and mine alone.

We had an amazing night planned and paid for so I was going to do it regardless. A shameless plea on Tinder yielded as many results as my other attempts to use it, ie, none, and it was probably for the best that everyone I passed was paired up or I might have been tempted to show them the spare concert ticket I kept in the inside pocket of my long overcoat, with nothing on underneath it.

After another day subsisting solely on airport food, my wandering starting with the intention of finding food. My hotel was almost underneath the Eiffel Tower and the sheer number of lovers lolling around meant someone must have been selling food. And they were. Crepes, crepes, crepes, more crepes and some hot dogs. Is that all the French eat? How can 10 crepe stands right next to each other all stay in business? A couple of enterprising places bucked the trend and sold baguettes as well, but with the only vegetarian option being a white bread a cheese extravaganza, I thought it best to go hungry rather than eat more colon concrete.

The buildings that line the Parisan streets all reach a similar height and are packed together so tightly as to feel like you are walking along a 6 storey deep trench. The banks of the River Seine offered more open air and twilight saw the tower light up like a homing beacon for crepe lovers. From the Place de la Concorde with its ferris wheel, the view back towards the tower was something to behold. Some places just ooze beauty and I was so mesmermised I felt like grabbing the nearest passer by and getting some pash on.

The hypnotic wonder of the city reached another level again upon stepping inside the Leglise de la Madeleine. Epic, ornate, humbling and all other superlatives except for ones that suggest the place had a toilet. Having just pointed at word underneath the listing of 'vino' over dinner, I was delighted and dismayed to receive a 375ml bottle of white wine. It was delicious but I didn't want the performance interrupted by a bursting bladder. Back I ran to the restaurant restrooms and lost the ticket along the way. Had my new hero not been running after me just as fast and shouting in a language I quickly grasped the urgency of, if not the meaning, my quick glimpse inside the church would have been the only one.

Restraining the urge to get my pash on with my saviour, I returned to the Legalise de la Madeleine and was treated to one of the most impressive concerts of my life. The 5 piece orchestra was lead by the violinist instead of a conductor, and his bow was sawing away like he was trying desparately to cut his violin in half. The result was a more up-tempo rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons than I am used to and combined with Franz Schubert's Ave Maria, the one and a half hour concert was over in the blink of an eye.

Upon finishing, it felt like waking from a dream to find yourself still dreaming. One cannot describe the sublime nature of classical music to anyone who does or doesn't appreciate it. Like poetry, ballet, or exquisite fine wine to name a few, the beauty is in it's depth, and the more you be absorbed by it, the more it moves you. And to experience that in such an incredibly sacred spot like Legalise de la Madeleine is a blessing beyond words.

I sat glued to my seat long after most people had left and dwelt internally in an almost post orgasmic appreciation of my surroundings and my amazing good fortune to be there. I would have benn speechless for a very long time, even if Laura had have been there to talk to. Like Gallipoli, but in a vastly different way, I feel my shortcomings as a writer become increasingly apparent as I fail utterly to even come close to describing my experience.

So, I'll go back to talking about toilets again, but not in a gross way at all so please keep reading. Paris has public booth like toilets where you press a button and are granted entrance to a sterile little room fit to accommodate men, women, the mobility challenged and junkies. Upon entering, I pressed the red handle assuming it locked the door, but instead it opened it. I waited for it to close again, then turned around to work on my aim. The door decided to open on its own accord and looking over my shoulder I saw two young ladies giggling as they strolled past.

Fortunately I wasn't seated or my embarrassment would have been doubled, as would my misfortune, because before finishing, a mechanical French voice said something and the toilet started to retract into the wall. I hadn't finished with the half bottle of wine, but the toilet had finished with me so I was left to pee on the floor where the toilet had once been. It was inside the wall cavity getting a gerney clean that was spraying my pants with a soapy mist.

The chill of the Parisian night was mild compared to Istanbul, but my wet pants from the knee down forced me to return home with more haste than what I would have wanted. I did manage to find a supermarket that sold me a 6-pack of Belgium Leffe beer and 3 of them found a new home as I reflected upon the night. The more profound I realise the experience was, the more I lamented Lauras absence. And the more my heart breaks for the reason of her absence.

I may have been alone on Valentines Day in a city full of so many lovers that le a'mour filled the atmosphere like a delicate perfume. But, I have come to realise that I am never alone with so many dear friends and family so close to my heart. Their physical absence never stops me from feeling their presence, and tonight I could feel Laura, and my classical music loving Father living vicariously through me. I am alone in Paris, and as an almost 40 year old, but I will never, ever feel lonely.

Photos: Paris

homeless_harry — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 18:56:00 GMT

I wish a week was a lifetime.

homeless_harry — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 04:38:00 GMT

Every day in Instabul feels being lost in a fairy tale. Fairy tales don't come cheap it seems, and ticking off all the sights could have bought me another backpacks worth of goods from the Grand Bazaar. And getting lost can be just as costly, as I found out on my two return visits to the Bazaar. I did get lost enough once to find the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, but that was the same as its Grand kin except for a quarter of the stalls and perhaps a few more of them selling spices.

One day was spent looking at just museums because travel apparently makes you a more charitable person and do stuff you would consider as boring as bat shit back home. $15 was well spent visiting the Basilica Cistern, a vast underground network of columns built in the 4^th century which really felt like the bowels of Constantinople. I had a pretty good idea what to expect having read Dan Brown's latest novel 'Inferno' which features the cistern in its far from gripping climax.

Aside from being mildly atmospheric with orange lights at the base of some of the columns, sharp, contrasting shadows and soft music echoing from all quarters, the space was nothing more than a big room of columns, but an awe-inspiring one at that. Water dripped constantly into the 3 feet deep lake like a coy pond and large fish swam around doing whatever it is fish do when they have nothing to play with other than the base of columns. In the far corner, two Medusa heads had been pillaged from Rome, and laid as the base of two of the columns, and were the only things that offered any variety.

Not that the place was dependant upon that. With the streets outisde covered in snow, I was thankful for the shelter and pleased that the other visitors were awed enough to maintain the peace. It is haunting being in such an old space, relatively unchanged since it's construction and overlooked by the sands of time. The same couldn't be said for the constantly morphing Haghia Sophia, my next port of call.

It was just across the tram tracks from the Cistern but the short trip and the queue to get in was long enough to require dusting off a layer of snow before going inside. The current building was apparently the third on the site, and most likely the grandest as it would take more than a fire to destroy this old dame. 1000 years it spent as a Christian Church before conquering Sultan Mehmet decked it out to suit the needs of his Muslim brothers.

Half of the interior was covered in scaffolding, giving the paradoxical appearance of being ancient yet still under construction. It was similar to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, in as far as it had a dome and lots of Arabic calligraphy, but the few differences like the scale and blend of Islamic and Christian art didn't realy justify the $20 price tag. It also lacked the sacred feel of a religious spot, now being used only as a musuem, and wandering around was more historically interesting than spiritually so.

I should have left it there for the day as I could feel my interest in old buildings waning, but with the Topkapi Palace sitting directly behind the Haghia Sophia, and the snow refusing to relent, I thought I should wax another $20 and visit there as well. Being the Sultans Palace up until the fall of the Ottoman Empire, I should have known that the exhibits were just going to be normal shit with extra bling. Granduer is fine if it is for the glory of God or spiritual pursuits, but when it is pampering to some rich snot, it just seems extremely wasteful. The Palace kitchen employed 6 master chefs and about 100 apprenctices, in the confectionary section alone! If all of Constantinople ate so well, all well and good, but judging by how rulers have hoarded their wealth over the centuries, I would say the Sultan wasn't big on sharing his lollies.

Out of boredom I decided to spend another $10 to visit the harem, half hoping there might be some modern concubines in there to inject some life into the place. I thought there must have been something different for having to pay more again, but alas, the only thing there was more of, was indulgent opulence. I pretty much just walked straight through and felt the snow as a welcome wake up call after nearly falling asleep on my feet.

My room was a similar degree of opulence compared to what I am used to tralleving, so I spent the evening there getting as drunk as a sultan, minus the 15 attendants he had for each meal, and the concubines he undoubtedly used as a digestive. That meant the next morning was used to do very little except watch the snow fall outside the window. Living in a part of Australia that rarely gets cold enough to justify pants, I could easily justify staying in a warm bed and looking out at the world slowly turning white.

I paid the Little Haghia Sophia a visit, as it was right next door to my favourite restaurant, but that brief wander through a magical snowy wonderland made me realise there is only so much time you can sight-see before you need to buy something. I had seen an amazing calligraphy artist plying his trade in the Grand Bazaar and I had only managed to pull myself away by being unable to decide what I wanted him to write.

So, I had a definite destination in mind and prepared for the trip thoroughly by completely failing to look at a map of the layout again. I wandered past the same tea shop so many times again that getting lost is starting to feel like it is some undiscovered skill of mine. It's a good thing I never played football or I probably would have gotten lost on the field. Fortunately, I managed to buy only one fridge magnet before finding the guy. And one t-shirt trying to find the exit again.

On my last afternoon I did another tour, ostensibly to cruise up the Bosphorus Straight. We first went up Pierre Loti Hill to get an elevated view of the city beyond the Golden Horn. Sometimes I have to try really hard not to make crude jokes. Looking at the Cable Car we were to take to the bottom was no laughing matter though. We hoped in, the tour guide asked me where I was from and where I was going next and we were at the bottom. It is so ridiculously short they should just ditch the cars and make it a flying fox instead.

Fortunately the rain had eased enough to be able to see both shores on the cruise. But the wind made being on the top deck feel like doing a luge run in the nude. Tiny slits for eye holes and fingers briefly exposed to take photos were all I could muster. Luckily enough the scenery was a fitting compensation and I marvelled at all the massive liners that made their way onto the Black Sea and Russia as they cruised passed the beautiful little seaside homes, punctuated frequently by mosques, both epic and quaint in structure.

As my blood felt like liquid nitrogen, I headed straight to the cafe next to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque because I knew they had heaters blaring non-stop. And it was the most Turkish, and not just in a touristy way as most of the clientelle were locals. Waiters constantly carried trays of tea to lounging folk smoking shisha and playing the Turkish version of backgammon. I dined on a plate of mixed dips while a three piece band played the sort of Arabian inspired music that for once confirmed a stereotype.

For awhile, a Dervish dancer joined them on stage and swirled so constantly, even I was starting to feel dizzy. I believe the origins of the dance came from, or encouraged, a sort of mystic ecstacy, but old mate looked more bored than inspired and after more twirls than your standard Gravitron ride, he retired back stage probably to stare at the horizon for awhile.

It was a fitting way to end my stay in Istanbul, inelegantly forcing in chunks of dip covered bread while breathing in the heady aroma of apple shisha under the shadow of the amazing Sultan Ahmed Mosque. The city had been so entrancing, even while it rained and snowed on me and only showed me sunshine on my first afternoon. Thanks to a failed military operation 100 years ago, Turkey will always be a special place for Australians. And after one of the most magical weeks I have spent traveling, Istanbul will always have a special place in my heart as well.

A day that epitomises why I travel.

homeless_harry — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 07:22:00 GMT

Judging Istabul by Istiklal street is like going to the Taj Mahal and judging it by the garden out the front. I may have been a bit too premature with my praise for Istanbul, literally, but after a couple of days in Sultanahment, I don't think my approbation for this city was profuse enough. It may just be my excitement at something completely new after only ever seeing different aspects of Asia, but I reckon I have found a new favourite place in the world.

The ezan did wake me at a time that would be considered a sleep-in back home. Holiday sleep patterns are vastly different to work ones, in duration, but also in the absence of alarms. If my alarm was less beep-beep-beep and more Takbir (God is great) and Shahada (There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah), I would probably start the day with a completely different mindset. Not that I did this morning. I still wanted to fling open the window and tell the faithful that if God is great, he would still be in bed at this hour as well. Instead I rolled over and imagined myself laying amongst my harem, playing chess with my genie while stroking my luxurious moustache and frowning at other stereotypes I have inherited from Disney.

After an hour or two procrastibating, I ventured out into a climate that makes fridges totally redundant. I didn't care what the closest restaurant had in vegetarian options, it was going to come with enough white bread to satisfy me regardless and it was as far as I was prepared to walk without a coffee. Turkish coffee is served with the grind and the consumer is supposed to lack the desperation that would see it gulled down before the grind settles. My waiter noticed this being completely absent in my actions and thoughtfully brought a glass of water straight out while I kept trying to swallow down the ground coffee that layered my tongue like unset cement.

First port of call after breakfast was the Blue Mosque. It is actually called the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and I cannot really grasp why it is called the Blue Mosque. As you can see from the photo below it has blue tiles in it, hence the name, but not enough to really think blue and nothing else when you look at it. It's like calling Earth the planet of snow cause you can see the white stuff from most angles in space, I imagine.

Anyway, shit analogies aside, I prefer the full name because it speaks more of its Islamic heritage, rather than being a smurf playpen. It sits directly behind my luxurious and stately apartment, but remains completely unseen by my room needing a supporting wall or something. Why else wouldn't it have some sort of viewing portal in it when it sits so close to one of the most amazing buildings I have seen? The earlier reference to the Taj Mahal was not a coincidence as that building is the only one I have seen up close that could surpass the Sultan Ahmed Mosque for awe-inspiring beauty and sheer grandeur.

As soon as I rounded a corner and merely the side of the structure came into view, my jaw dropped and my camera started clicking away reflexively. If I was writing this from my rooftop terrace, I might have been inspired enough to give some sort of poetic description of the place. Instead, I recall thinking “I must be colour blind because that thing looks every shade of grey to me!” And unfortunately it did. There was a carpet of light grey clouds that hung overhead, robbing the view of any contrasting shadows or interplays of light across the minarets. That I was blown away as it looked its most bland, tantilises me with what it would look like under a setting sun.

I took so many photos walking in that I probably should have just had the camera in movie mode, and playing with all the functions to make the awesome structure look more alive in the shit light means a lot will end up being deleted. I had 30 minutes until the next ezan, and the faithful don't apprectiate gawking tourists taking photos of their ass while they crouch in submission to Allah, so I just kept aiming, shooting and walking.

Segregating the believers from the on-lookers makes practical sense but it did make me feel dislocated from the beauty of the interior. I was trying my hardest to find blue tiles at first, but once petty concerns died away, I tied to connect with the sanctity of the place. It was hard while so many of my traveling kin fired their cameras off like Gatling guns and harped on about the harmony of the place completely unaware of how much they were upsetting it.

I breathed deeply of air redolent with centuries of prayer and could see how mankind can imprint its beliefs into the very structures they use to communicate with their God. I was moved, but not enough to convert, and wandered out before the mosque could assume its real purpose and fill with people who surely must feel blessed to worship in such an amazing place.

I wanted to continue on in the same vein of historical and spiritual examinations, but the Haghia Sophia was closed on a Monday and I interpreted that as a sign to fully embrace the contrast of extremes available to me in Istanbul. Or I just wanted to go shopping and any justification will do. Whatever the reason, the short walk between the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar was long enough to convert my burgeoning spiritualism into rampant commercialism.

That didn't stop me from being impressed upon first seeing the grand bazaar, but that was more out of knowing what laid within instead of what was immediately visible. I hadn't even bothered to look at the layout of the place, and it wasn't long before I came to regret that oversight. I planned on a 'turn whichever way seemed most interesting' approach because I assumed the place was large enough to afford such aimless wanderings.

And the consumerables on offer meant I wouldn't care where I was going anyway. There was an abundance of carpets, silks, shishas, lamps, leather goods, teas, tiles, Turkish souvenirs, knock off crap and on and on I could go. This was a trinket Mecca to a person like my sister. I had come ostensibly to take photos only, but when the camera battery started flashing red after the first photo I took that as a sign. A sign that makes stall holders wring their hands in anticipation.

I was spending like Turkeys economy depended on me and my bargaining approach turned out to go like this, “How much you say? Holy fuck, that's cheap man, here's my wallet. How much of anything you're selling will that buy me?” Fortunately my short, sharp breaths of excitement didn't stop me from remaining aware of the need to carry whatever crap I bought for the rest of my trip, so I kept my purchases to as small and as cheap as possible. I even bought tea, and I don't drink the stuff. As I walked past with a fist full of money, the guy pitched it as a relaxant that is very good sedative when you are stressed. That sounded like other things I had enjoyed in the passed so I bought 100 grams before figuring out I had no way to make a tea in my room.

By the time I passed the tea shop for the third time, I realised I was probably just seeing the same 10% of the place. My random turns weren't as random as I thought and I must have one leg shorter than the other or something. I continued this pointless exercise because I still had palpatations and it was fun looking at stuff I wanted to buy if I could somehow figure out a way to combine a backpack with a shipping container. And I was accumulating as I went along.

After the tea shop guy merely laughed when I passed for the fifth time, I knew it was time to find the exit. That intention introduced me to another 10% of the building and I couldn't help but think how lost you had to get to see it all. I always figured that if you get lost badly enough, you usually end up in the right spot. Strangely enough, that theory wasn't turning out to be related to fact in any way. I was starting to stress enough to consider just eating handfuls of this 'relaxing' tea.

Just when I thought I'd find Dr. Livingstone before the exit, there it was. I had still managed to buy another 3 things before getting there though, and had only stopped because I had ran out of money. I consider them gifts, but I am so in love with Istanbul that I will probably not want to give them up once I get home. I may not need 4 bookmarks right now, but it sounds like a pretty good reason to start reading a lot as soon as possible.

As I dragged all my bargains home wishing I had taken an empty horse and cart out with me, I turned random corners that the map in my pocket would have made seem less random, and came across all manner of delights. In Australia it would be a pub, in Thailand it would be a 7-11, in Bali it would be an Australian, but here it was either another beautiful mosque or a ruin whose prominence suffered from the sheer frequency of them. What a city! Before eating dinner that night, I quietly gave thanks for such an awe-inspiring day that other travelers will appreciate, but too few people experience.

Postscript. This journal was written before the Gallipoli blog posted previously, but I chose to post that one first because it was far more important than the things I write about here.