Bring on the Cheese!

I hadn’t really planned what I was going to do after travelling through Italy, and at the last minute I decided to go to Switzerland in search of snow, and to begin my treck towards Paris, where I will be just before Christmas. So the morning after the Cinque Terre adventure, Carmen and I parted ways at the train station, her to Rome and I was heading to Zurich.

Eight train-filled hours later I was there. My first mission was to get to a town about twenty-five minutes out of Zurich called Winterthur where I would meet my host, Lia. Finding the train was the easy part, finding an ATM to withdraw Swiss franks was not so easy. Finally I figured this out and soon I was travelling north to Winterthur where I found Lia waiting for me.

That first night we did not do a lot, we were both tired and had decided to have an earlyish night so she could show me around Zurich thee following day. In the morning we ate and then headed into Zurich, there was much to do! Unfortunately it was raining, but this was not to stop us. First of all we headed out of the train station and down the main street, appropriately named Bahnofstrasse. This was a street filled with expensive clothing and watch stores, intermingled with douzens of different banks promoting private bank accounts. On the way down this street we stopped to check out various churches.

Church clock tower

We ate roasted chestnuts, talked and took numerous photos of Zurich dressed in it’s best Christmas attire.

Christmas pinecones

We then passed the Zurich lake and headed towards a secondhand bookshop which we both wanted to check out. The English section was not so large, but I managed to find Catcher In The Rye and Dracula for 3 franks which is a damned good deal. Lia bought a collection of 13 huge photography books that she would have to collect later as they were much too heavy to carry around.

But before we hit the bookstore, we stopped by:

Google office Zurich

This was pretty cool to see. Apparantly the inside of the building is amazingly well equipped with meditation rooms, aquariums, a gym, and much more. Outside the office was parked this Google bike! I hear that the staff are given them to use.

Google bike

After we left the bookshop, we headed back towards the centre of town, where we crossed the river and checked out another church.

Zurich's riverside

Twin church towers

And now was the exciting part! We decided to head up the local tall mountain of which I forget the name and climb the view tower. We took the train and when we arrived I was thouroughly excited to see a snowy path leading to the top. I could barely contain myself and was running around like an over excited child.

Snowy path

When we got to the top we headed up the tower and found the view of the alps in all directions. It was amazing!

View over Zurich

The sun started to set so we headed back down the the tower and began to construct a small snowman on a park bench which I was actaully able to pick up and carry around with me until I picked him up off of a chair and he lost his balance, his head falling off.

Snowman!

By this time it was getting pretty late and we had a dinner date with 100 other CouchSurfers out in the countryside. This event was run by the Zurich CouchSurfing group and was basically 100+ people in a big cottage in the countryside eating over 20kgs of cheese fondue and drinking too much wine. It was a whole heap of fun! There were heaps of Swiss people and many others from all over the world there too. One guy I talked to had even cycled from Belgium to Serbia in 4 months, crazy!

the CHEESE

This went on ’till the early hours of the morning and when Lia decided that she has drunk far too much, we headed home.

The next day the weather was terrible, it was raining something atrocious, so instead of checking out any more outdoor sights we planned a scenic train trip. This would be from Luzern to Interluken. So we got on the train and headed for Luzern. When we got there we had some time to kill, so went for a short walk in the city, over the famous bridge:

Some old bridge

and past some very cool decorated buildings:

Decorated house

Soon it was time to get on the train, so we headed back to the station, boarded the train and we were off. In no time you could feel the pull of the train heading upwards and soon enough we were engulfed in snowy forest and paddocks. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before! We opened the window of the train at one point when it stopped to get some photos and the woman sitting infront of us ended up covered in snow! It was snowing like I’ve never experienced.

Lotsa snow!

In what seemed like no time at all, the night fell and we were headed back to Zurich to meet the CouchSurfers again for their monthly meeting which just ended up being a number of people drinking in a bar. It was good to see some of the people again from last night and meet more new people. I can’t keep track of all the people I’m meeting everywhere, there are too many!

That was my final night in Zurich, it really felt like it had gone much too fast but it was definitely a great time. In the morning I was off to Bern.

A Citidel and a Dead Guy: Moscow

I arrived in Moscow at Leningradskiy Station at around 10am. Once there I was supposed to amuse myself for the day, then find my host, Krishna’s, place. I had pretty good directions: get on the Metro, take the circle line until the correct station, turn right and walk till I hit an Italian restaurant.

I found the metro, but for some reason I could not for the life of me figure out how to get inside it. I walked around the building numerous times but all I encountered was markets, beggars, and about 300 dubious looking people hanging around the station, smoking, the ground a sea of their spit. Soon I found a map and decided that I would take the red line to where I needed to go and walked to the next metro station. I had decided that to fill in my time I would go and check out the Kremlin as I had a few hours to spare.

After finally getting a metro ticket (I walked away from the counter, forgetting it at first), I jumped on the train, decyphered the Cyrillic name for the closest station on the line to the Kremlin, counted the number of stops and headed on into the central city.

The Kremlin is closed on Thursdays.

I had no idea what to do. I had not seen one tourist office and my Lonely Planet map was pretty bad, but it did have the NZ embassy, so I thought I’d drop in there to see if they could give me some information. After a fourty minute walk (I’m carrying my pack here too) down the wrong street, I didn’t find the embassy, so I walked back. Right, it was only a few hours ’till Krishna said he was going to be home, so I decided to find his place and hang out and read a book.

This was the easiest thing so far, although the guy I asked for help at first tried to tell me that I needed to be back at the original station I had started at! I found Krishna’s apartment, rang the door bell, no one was home. So I sat down to wait. Pretty soon it started to get cold, and by cold I mean it was probably below 0 degrees. People kept coming and going but no sign of Krishna. I kept ringing the door bell just in case there was another entrance to the building. When he was 20 minutes late, I rang again and was answered by his flatmate, Katija. Finally! She let me in, it was an amazing feeling to be out of the cold. We sat down, had some tea and talked. Krishna didn’t make it home ’till 11pm! I’m very glad that Katija was there! That night Ben, the Australian guy I met in Estonia, came around for a chat. It was good to see him again and we made plans to meet up the following day.

Katija also had a very cute kitten!

Katijas Cat

In the morning Ben called to say that he wasn’t feeling so good; an allergic reaction to the chili in the meal which Krishna had cooked. He needed the day to rest but I decided to visit the Kremlin anyway and would meet him later on. I began to walk from Krishna’s into town, it’s about a 40 minute walk to the Kremlin, and passes by the majestic Cathedral of Our Saviour.

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Soon enough I made it to the walls of the Kremlin which borders Alexander Gardens and the entrance inside the citidel.

The Kremlin's Wall

After waiting in what Russians appear to call a queue, which is basically a mass of people pushing to be the first to the counter, I managed to get a studen ticket to get inside. Students pay one sixth the price of regular people. So in I went.

Entrance to the Kremlin

Cathedral Square

My ticket enabled me to wander around the grounds and check out the Cathedral Square in which four white and gold cathedrals stood proudly in the winter sun.

Inside, though, was where the amazement began to set in. Every cathedral was adorned from floor to ceiling with icons painted both directly on the plaster, and on wood facades. Colourful faces and gold halos were beaming from every direction. Lining the bottom of the walls were tombs of important Russian figures throughout history. Unfortunately you were not alowed to take pictures inside any of these places, otherwise I would have taken hundreds, it was astonishing.

The rest of the buildings inside the Kremlin were very St. Petersburgian. They were really the only buildings which I saw in Moscow that seemed to have been built in the same style as the Hermitage or Catherine the Great’s palace.

I still had a bit of time left before I had to meet Ben, so I went for a wander around, over the bridge which crosses the Moscow River to get a better look at the Kremlin.

The Kremlin

The above was the view from to the north. To the south was the sunsetting on the clearest night behind the Cathedral of Our Saviour.

Sunset behind cathderal

Soon it was time to meet Ben. We got some food then headed out to an “expat friendly bar” that I “had to see.” It was true it was crazy inside this place, it was like every kind of bar you can think of in one; club, sports bar, live music venue, cafe, sisha bar, and then later in the night was what Ben had wanted me to see. At aproximately 11pm, about 25 prostitutes just strolled on in. Apparantly they pay and exuberant entrance fee to get in and just act like regular patrons. They dance with you and then pop the question about having fun for payment. Crazy.

We visited a few more clubs and soon the night came to an end. When I got back to Krishna’s I was expecting to meet his other CouchSurfer who was supposed to be turning up that night. He wasn’t there. Ah well, bed time!

In the morning I got up bright and early as I really wanted to see this dead guy. You know, my father, your father, the father of communism: Mr. Lenin. I also realised that I hadn’t visited Red Square which would have been ridiculous. So in to the Kremlin I walked again and got in line for Lenin’s Mausoleum. I passed through the airport-like security checks, and started the slow walk to the building, pased the graves of many important Russian political figures. Soon I was at the mausoleum. This place is surrounded by numerous guards which ridiculous weapons, who loudly pronounce “sssssssh!!” every 3-4 seconds. In I walked, down into the tomb site, a temperature controlled pit of black marble. Next thing I knew I was staring at a very dead man, so dead in fact that he looked like he was never alive, but only a wax figurine. I began to speculate that maybe he still is alive and that this body is indeed wax. I hear they are thinking of closing the venue to the public, though, so maybe no matter the temperature control, he’s beginning to suffer the fate of human breath.

Lenins Mausoleum

Back into the sunlight I emerged and at the other end of red square, facing back towards the State History Museum. No tanks parading through today.

Red Square

My next stop was St. Basil’s Cathedral which is located on the west end of Red square, opposite the State History Museum.

St. Basils Cathderal

This cathedral was like a candy house. If Hansel and Grettle’s witch had been more wealthy, this is what she would have had. I ventured inside. You were also not alowed to take photos in here either, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone, and everyone was doing it, so I followed the crowd. Here you can also get an idea as to what it looked like inside the Kremlin cathedrals.

Inside St. Basils Cathedral

After St. Basil’s I had one last stop in Red Square and that was GUM, the high profile shopping mall with high profile prices, situated in a high profile building. Beautiful architecture, and full of crap that stupid people buy.

I headed back to Krishna’s once more and not long after I returned, the CouchSurfer who was supposed to come last night showed up. It turned out that the previous night he had gotten lost, had no phone number to call and ended up sleeping on the steets of Moscow! Now that is crazy! Apart from the fact that it was below 0 degrees at night, who knows what might have happened. But with a name like Phoenix Mourning-Star, I guess nothing is crazy for you. He was from Colorado and told me that he did his entire college life of five years living out of a car.

Anyway, shortly I was supposed to meet Ben again to go and check out what he had called an “airplane graveyard”, so I asked Phoenix if he wanted to come along too. And also another dude called Ben who had helped Phoenix find Krishna’s apartment. We met Ben (the Australian) and a whole bunch of Moscow based CouchSurfers and headed off on the Metro to an disused aerodrome from the Cold War turned insustrial area. The planes and helicopters were in sight but were surrounded by a large fence. Not to worry, at the price of 50 rubles each, we paid off the guard and he let us in to pretty much do anything we wanted.

There were huge helicopters, missiles, jet planes with afterburners, everything adorned with the sicle and hammer and beautiful handpainted red stars. If the cockpits were smashed, you could even get inside.

But my favourite part was the fact that they planes were parked wing to wing. So at one stage near the end (and I have a video of this), I started from one end, and began to run. Along the left wing (becareful of the flaps!!), over the fuselage, along the right wing, then jump! Onto the next plane’s left wing and so on over the top of around 15 planes in a row. I can only say it was a very interesting experience, running around on the top of warplanes.

Warplane Graveyard

That evening Ben, Phoenix and I met up with some of Ben’s friends including a Cuban guy from Miami who looked like Zorro except with an uneven moustache. This guy had one of the biggest egos I’ve ever met, but he also knew where to go out, so out we went. We only actaully managed to make three stops, the first being a pie shop. There I met Eric, a Nigerian guy who ran a promotion company in Moscow and brought in hiphop acts like Chingy and Jaz-Z and Timberland, he was currently bringing over Chingy at the time. These people didn’t understand how hilarious Chingy is, but anyway.

Our next stop was a student party, held in a student club where we all pretended to be students. The music was terrible, and they kept playing this annoying “king of my castle” song over and over again, which was only topped by a remix of the Pirates of the Carribean theme music which no one else seemed to find absolutely ridiculous. I was told that to get a beer you pay 15 rubles, to get a girl you speak English.

Our next stop was, according to Zorro, the best club in Moscow and a “real club”. It was called London, and had this weird theme of umbrellas and Ducati motorcycles going on. The drinks were horrendously expensive and they were playing the same terrible music as the student party. I think Russia has it’s own dance music where they basically remix anything that they can get their hands on. We stayed there until about 4:30am, and then Ben and I decided it was about time to leave, I was staying at his place and had to get up at 8am to leave for the airport, which I managed to do okay! At 10am when I left Ben’s apartment, it was -2 degrees, when I landed in Athens at 5:30, it was 18 degrees. Aaaaaaahhhh.

A Few Days in Brussels

Three days I spent in Brussels. It is both the capital of Belgium, and also the capital of Europe, well, the European Union anyway. The people here speak French rather than Dutch as they do in Bruges so it is a little easier for me to read signs and such, but I still can’t speak to people!

As well as being my first proper city that I have visited on the continent, it is also the first time that I have spend couchsurfing. For those of you who don’t know, couchsurfing is about networking with people all around the world and staying with them instead of staying in a hostel when you are travelling (www.couchsurfing.com). Being my first time I was a little aprehensive, but Alex, the guy who I stayed with, was absolutely awesome. He was extra hospitable, and it turned out that we had a very similar music taste, so we spent a lot of time listening to and talking about music. He also loved the Belgian beers as much as I do!

Unfortunately Alex had to work during the week days so was unable to show me around, but that was ok. I was able to navigate Brussels fairly easily. It is small enough to travel around to most of the interesting sites without having to use public transport, which is good, because that is fairly complex.

In Brussels they have bus, metro and trams. This may sound good, but it is not linked very well. For example, to get from Alex’s place to the central bus station, which is probably about 3km as the crow flies, and on the same side of town as him, we had to take a bus, two trains, and a tram! Ridiculous. Luckily they are all run by the some company so you can buy a day pass and use all of them as many times as you like within the city.

The first night Alex and I just hung out at his place. He cooked a pizza with soggy dough which was pretty funny, him apologising profusely. The next morning I began my wandering. The first site which I stumbled across was the Palace.

Royal Palace in Brussels

From outside, this building is definitely grand, although no more grand than other buildings I have seen. After 10:30 in the morning, you are able to go inside. Now it is very unfortunate that you are not able to take photos inside this building as I’m not sure I can fully explain it in words. The first thing which I noticed was the scale of the interior, it was much much bigger than it appeared from the outside. And the marble, almost the entire interiour was marble. Arches, columns, floors, ceilings, and when there was not marble, there was gold, and plenty of it. Gold adorned everything! The curtains were red velvet, the walls were covered in paintings of former in kings, princes, princesses and queens. Frescos could be seen all over the ceilings, and even one of the ceilings was covered in actaual scarab beetle wings – an amazing thing to see. All I can say more about this building is “wow”. It is more than impressive.

From the palace I moved one to one place that I did know about and had planned to see, the Museum of Musical Instruments. This houses the largest collection of musical instruments in the world. This was very cool, you could walk around displays of hundreds of instruments from all over the world and listen to music from that particular instrument through headphones you were given. The music automatically played when you stood in front of the display. I was particularly hoping that I would find what I now know is called a Hanghang as I thought it was a very old instrument, but it was not there as you can probably deduce from the previous post about Bruges. Of everything in the museum, I think that the pianos were definitely the top display for me. Never have I seen so many shapes and sizes, nor such beautiful decoration. Check this out.

Fancy Piano!

Just wandering around Brussels, a few things I noticed were the large amound of beggars in the streets. Different streets seems to have different types, some for young men, some for women wearing burquas, older men, and those playing the accordian. Well, maybe not the accordian, but as a fan of the accordian I am happy to say that every single busker or busking group which I encountered had some form of accordian player, how fantastic! For some odd reason there are also a lot of hat shops, I have no idea why. Oh, and I found a bunch of record shops that sold so much old stuff you wouldn’t know where to begin. It was excellent.

Old Man Busking with Accordian

Later on in the day on I managed to find someething I didn’t know existed. This was the main square in Brussels, and the more touristific spot in the city. All it was was tourist groups, waffle and chocolate shops, and not much else. Oh, and also some terrifically old buildings, one of which was the town hall. I was unable to get a decent shot of the square as they were setting up for some free summer event and there was scafholding everywhere, but take a look at Flickr for some pictures of some of the buildings found there, the architecture is amazing!

Brussels Town Hall

My last tourist stop for the day was probably Brussels most popular icon, the Maniequine Pis. Luckily I had not known about this little fountain before I came to Brussels, or I would most probably be incredibly disappointed like most of the tourists there. It is the statue that Brussels is most known for, and in a town of amazing sculptures, it stands little over two feet high! People are loving it ‘though.

Stories as to why this exists involve one about two enemies at war, and a little boy runs up and pisses on one of the armies, it is a huge joke the the war is called off. Another tells of a small boy who put out a fire by taking a pee on it. Apparantly there are a huge number more of these stories, none of which anyone believes is true.

Manneken Pis

Not long after I had finished viewing this amazing statue, Alex turned up. We then took a walk through the city towards the outskirts to meet up with one of his friends, Eliza, who was a French language teacher. We sat around at her apartment talking for a while, then headed out to bar for dinner where I had a fantastic lasagne. Yum! And also some more interesting Belgian beer! Out next stop was very interesting. Eliza took both Alex and I, for he had never been there before, to a bar which serves over 300 Belgian beers. The menu was a massive folder with beers separated both by type and alphabetically. At a place like this, the beer really is treated like wine. The waiter approached and the conversation went something like this:

Him: “What kind of beer would you like; blond, brown, ale, trapist, white, dark…?”
Me: “Ummm, I think I’ll try a white.”
Him: “Do you prefer a strong or light beer?”
Me: “I’ll try a strong one please.”
Him: “Fruity or Acidic.”
Me: “Acidic.”
Him: “Then you must try the Blanche Du Hainaut , it is an organic beer made close to here, it ois very good.”

Blanche Du Hainaut Beer

And he can do this for every type of beer he has. He knows them all intimately and can help you choose any type of beer you may desire. Oh how I pine for such an establishment in Auckland. After this, Alex and I headed home to bed as we were both extremely tired.

The following day I began with a walk to an arch. Now this is no regular arch. For a city which everyone knows by a statue of a pissing child and something called the Atomium (I will get to this), this arch is vastly overlooked. Move over Arc de Triumphe, you have to check out the sheer scale of this arch which was built to commerate 50 years of indepence.

Arch Celebrating 50 Years Indepencence

My next plan was to try to check out some contemporary Belgian art, so I firstly headed towards a well known train station and graffiti spot, and this is what I found:

Art From Under a Rail Bridge

Graffiti Inside Train Station

The second picture is actaully the inside of the train station and is a truely amazing sight to behold. My next stop was a small art shop and gallery called A.L.I.C.E. which for some reason stands for Artists Living In Constant Elevation. Very strange. Anyway, this was a shop full of zines and interesting art books and, oh my god, Lomo cameras. If I wasn’t travelling for the next 5 months, I totally would have bought one. How excellent.

That night it rained pretty bad, so Alex and I just hung around in his apartment, listening to music, chatting, and drinking an array of interesting belgian beers, pictures of which you can find in my Flickr galleries.

My last day in Brussels was a Saturday and Alex did not have to work. While I was sleeping, he went to the bakery and bought som croisantes and panne au chocolae which was very nice of him. He then took me to see the Brussel’s famous Atomium, a massive glass and metal sculpture built for the 1958 World Fair. It is based on a Iron atom and the 9 balls represent the 9 parts of Belgium. I decided not to go up because it was pretty expensive, and anyway, there was just a good view at our next stop.

Atomium

After the Atomium, Alex and I headed towards a crazy church I had wanted to see (which I had seen in the distance the day before) but this turned out to be not as exciting as I thought it would. It was also a very commercial church, as you had to pay admission if you wanted to go to certain places in it. I’m not sure that is very right at all. Jesus would not approve. Finally we walked down to the Brussels Court. This was amazing, and too bad it was the weekend because I definately would have wanted to go inside. This building has the 3rd largest floor area of any structure in the world and was apparantly built to show the power of the justice system in Belgium. Absolutly epic building.

Brussels Court

And so that was that. My trip to Brussels had come to an end. Alex and I headed back to his apartment where I packed my things and then headed to the bus station. After thanking Alex and staying good bye, it was onward to Frankfurt!

Bruges, how romantic…

I left the Gaydon camp ground at around 4:30 in the afternoon on Sunday the 17th of August with a group of Dutch guys who had come over from The Netherlands for the Retro Rides Gathering. We then spent a number of hours driving around the English countryside en route to Dover, looking for a place to camp for the night. This proved harder than originally thought as the first place we tried decided that we didn’t fit the demographic and gave us poor instructions for another campsite ‘down the road’. This down the road was about an hour’s drive.

Soon enough, though, we found the new campsite and set up our tents just as it began to rain. The Dutchmen set up a tarp, cooked a BBQ, and we sat outside but dry, eating dinner, and talking about all sorts of things well into the night.

The next day after packing up and driving for a few more hours we made it to Dover. All I could think of was King Lear’s decent into madness and his blind crawl towards the cliffs at Dover for a pious suicide.

White Cliffs at Dover

The ferry took about two hours, and soon enough I spied France, the country where I have now spent the shortest amount of time in my life – it must have been no more than 20 minutes before we crossed the border to Belgium. We drove on straight as an arrow down monotonous Belgian highway for one more hour before Tomas and Dennis, the two Dutch guys who I was catching a lift with, dropped me at my first (continental) European destination, Bruges (or Brugge, Brugges, Bruge, depending on where you are from and what language you are speaking). This was also my first hostel experience of the trip, Snuffel Hostel.

I had only booked two nights here, so there was no time to waste. I dropped off my bags in the dorm and headed down to the bar for a Hoegaarden Grand Cru. Although that was the end of that, It was to be an early night for me as there was plenty to see the next day.

Just as a side note, the Snufffel showers were ridiculous. To get there, you had to walk out of your dorm, through another door, down a circular staricase, through another door, through the bar, up some stairs, across the dining area, down some stairs, through the kitchen, over a courtyard and up another staircase. If this wasn’t bizaare enough, the showers had no temperature controls and to get the water running you had to hold down a chain, which if you let go… well, the water would stop. Very military-esque.

Bruges itself is considered to be Begium’s romantic capital. It is all medieval buildings, cobbled roads and canals running throughout the expansive, but very walkable city.

A Typical Bruges Street

Bruges Canal

Like other parts of Europe, it is home to some magnificent architecture. Almost every building is historic and well looked after, even the apartments in which people live. From the hostel to the town square was an easy 5 minute walk, and it was this architecture which I first noticed when I entered the square. Absolutely amazing, intricate detailing everywhere.

The first thing which I decided to was check out the town hall. This building was exceptionally old. How old I can’t tell you, but I do remember that it had been expanded century after century. I know that it is older than the 1500s. Maybe you can Wikipedia it! Anyway, Inside the town hall, you are able to climb 315 steep circular stairs to the top of the bell tower, giving views which can not be bettered anywhere in the city. It is red roofs, spires and steeples for mile upon mile. If you are up there at the right time, you also have the opportunity to experience the smaller bells chiming out songs and the large bell being struck on the hour. The musical bells are very cool, as they run like a massive version of an automatic piano, it has a reel with little pins on it lke the piano, except there is nothing little about it. Click here to see it.

The next stop was Basilick van het Heilig Bloed. This is an ancient church, with the most incredible altar I have ever seen. Even as I type this I have seen a few impressive churches, but this takes Jesus’ cake. It was only small, but the fresco painted on the entire back wall was nothing short of amazing. Not only does this church have a particularly good altar, but it also has a small silver vile of Christ’s blood, or so the dedicated believe. At particular times, you are able to walk up onto a little platform, touch the vile, say a prayer and be blessed by a morbidly bored looking priest.

Basilick van het Heilig Bloed

Belgium is well known for a number of things; lace, chocolate, waffles, fries, and beer. There are shops which sell these things everywhere, and I mean maybe one of every five shops does not. Bruges especially is tourist-trap-central for these kind of things. So I decided to steer clear, with the exception of the very belgian fries with mayonaise (which actaully made me feel a tad ill).

Lace Shop

A Typical Belgian Chocolate Shop

After much more wandering around, I decided it would be good to head back to the hostel to see what was going on. There I met an Italian guy, and an American and Australian girl and we decided to have some drinks. If you are ever in Bruge, you must try the Brugge Zot beer, it is locally produced and very very good. After a number of drinks I was pretty tired and decided to head to bed.

The following day I was to leave Bruges but there was still a few things to see. The first being the very famous Madonna and Child. This was housed inside the Church of Our Lady, which also contained some very exceptional art works, altars, and the most amazing pulpit I have ever seen which was about 4 meters high, hand carved, and portraying biblical scenes all held up by the idea of wisdom and knowledge.

Madonna and Child

Outside the Church of Our Lady was a busker named Carl (I think). At first I just heard his music and I was very intreuiged. Upon closer inspection, I had just found the musical instrument which would change my life. The instrument for me. Although I had no idea what it was. It looked like two metal dishes pushed together, each about 60cm in diameter. It was played with the hand like a drum, but depending on where you hit it the tone would be different. It sounded almost like a xylophone but with more body. It was amazing. On further research it turns out the this instrument is called the Hanghang and was invented in Switzerland 8 years ago. The creators are not making them at the moment, and even when they were new they were over £1000, so a second hand one would be even more dear. This is very frustrating.

The last thing I was able to do in Bruges before I had to catch the train was to check out the Hospital Museum. This was an old hospital which had been around for literally 500 plus years which had been turned into a museum dedicated to it’s history and how it haadf changed over the years. It was very interesting to see how religous ideals were such an important part of medicine, the soul being more important to heal than the body.

That afternoon it was goodbye to Bruges for me, and hello to Brussels! Another post will follow soon with my adventures in Brussels.

Oxford!

I haven’t posted in a few days due to having spent the last few nights in Oxford – yup, the university city.

The main reason I travelled to Oxford was to catch up with a friend of mine (and Mattinum), Isaac. He goes to university in Manchester, but luckily for me he was back at his parent’s place for summer holiday. It also turned out that he was good friends with the manager of the hostel which I stayed at (Central Backpackers) which was good as this allowed him to come into the hostel for drinks and things. It was good to catch up with Isaac and hopefully I will go and visit him again in Manchester at the end of the year.

But enough about that, here are a few highlights from Oxford. Firstly, the buildings. These are (for the most part) even older and more interesting than the buildings found in London. I think that may have something to do with the great fire of London in 1666 though, as many of Oxford’s buildings are from well before that.

The Oxford Library

This building was epic. Built in the 1300s, the Oxford Library (according to Isaac) has the largest collection of books in the world, all stored underground. Apparantly they had some deal with a large number of publishers who would give them a copy of every book they published. I’m unsure if this is still going now but i’m told it was in occurance for a large number of years.

The Oxford Castle

The Castle is a newly opened attraction in Oxford as it only ceased to be a prison in 1996. It’s creation first started in 1071, making it one of the oldest buildings in the city. It was very cool to see, but unfortunatly due to it’s former prison status, I don’t think it works overly well as a castle tourist attraction. And the fact that it is in the middle of town makes it rather hard to take a decent photo of it.

But the buildings which are most commonly talked about in Oxford are the colleges. This was truely amazing. I had originally thought that there was one Oxford university and that was how it has always been. This was proven to be untrue. There are historically around 40 different colleges in Oxford, now all brought together to form the prestegious university you all know. Every college building was more impressive than the next, with architectural feats such as this:

A university square

The above image is just one of the 40 colleges seen in the city. They all now appear to house different faculties of the university from history to physics. But what I thought was the grandest of all the colleges was Christ Church. This place was amazing, just like something from a book or a film, which seems appropriate as Harry Potter was filmed there and Alice in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass were both written there.

Christ Church

Entrance to Christ Church

Isaac also took me to a pub called the Turf Tavern, which is supposed to be one of the oldest pubs in Oxford. The roof was so low that it was less than 6″ away from from the top of my head at the beams. Isaac could not stand in it properly without having to bend sideways! We got some pints of Sadlers Worcester Sorcerer Ale and sat down. Here are some fun facts I read on the wall: in the 16th centuary, the owner died in the pub. In the 17th centuary, swordfighting was a common sport loved by patrons of the pub. And in the 18th centuary, cockfighting!

The following day, I got to experience something even more exciting (even thrilling if you lose your balance). This was known as punting. It’s the British version of the Italian gondola, and you propel yourself down a calm river by pushing the riverbed with a long aluminium pole. At first I was all over the place and almost fell into the river (which was pretty haggard, baby poo-eqsue colour), but soon i got the hang of it. The worst part about it is when you slide the pole up out of the water, it all drips down your arms and you end up kinda wet, but apart from that it’s pretty good fun!

Punting!

There was also two ways which it can be done. In essence, they don’t physically differ at all, it all depends on which end of the punt you stand on. In the picture above, I’m standing on the platform which is considered to be Oxford style. You can also stand at the other end, which is not as solid. This is known to be Cambridge style. Apparantly they have Oxford-Cambridge races and such which I can only imagine would be pretty amusing to watch.

So yes, Oxford was a pretty interesting little city. Unfortunately I forgot to go up the lookout tower, but  I’m sure I can do that in many other places along my travels.

My next port of call is Southend-On-Sea in Essex, then off up to Warwickshire for the RetroRides 08 Festival which should be very cool.