‘Tis the Season

It was Christmas time, usually a time for family and friends. As I wasn’t at home, I made did with what was available to me – one friend and some surrogate parents.

In London I met up with Cat (from home and who has been living in the UK) and her friend Jess who was over for a short two month European trip. So anyway, we met up in London at the Pickwick Hall hostel, a private room for three with ensuite which was great.

The first evening we were in London, we went for a walk down Oxford Street and ended up in Hyde Park where a large German Christmas festival was being held. It was full of lights, rides, people and litres upon litres of mulled wine.

Hyde Park Christmas Festival

The days leading up to Christmas were spent sleeping and wandering around London. It was very cool to walk around a city which is so dressed up for Christmas. Everywhere you turned there were decorations and lights, stalls selling Christmas products and store windows arranged for the festive season.

Snowman!

On Christmas Eve I also had the opportunity to catch up with my friend Meri from Finland. She was in Oxford visiting her friend Lou for Christmas and New Years so I headed up to Oxford for the day. We met at the Oxford Castle which was a great idea as there was an amazing outdoor photography exhibition on called Earth From The Air which was showing beautiful airel photography by aclaimed photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s an amazing look the earth from above and how it’s changing day by day. For lunch we had a great Greek meal and then went to meet Lou. Soon we were headed back to London in the car and Meri and I parted ways (again) but promised to meet up once more before she headed home.

That evening  Cat, Jess and I went to meet up with the parents of Cat’s boyfriend, Ant (another friend from home) who were to be my surrogate parents for Christmas day. We headed to a bar, had a few drinks, then headed to the only open restaurant which happened to be an Indian place – pretty nice! But soon we had to get back to bed, early night on Christmas Eve!!

The next morning we woke latish and as promised, I cooked the girls pancakes, bacon and eggs for breakfast. Accompanying that was fresh fruit,  juice and champagne, and it was all pretty great. But soon it was time to head out for the main meal of the day, Christmas Dinner. We met Ant’s parents at a hotel which they had booked the meal at. We started with presents, I can’t believe that they had even bought Jess and I presents (albiet edible ones)!

The afternoon was filled with champagne, turkey, deserts, wine, Christmas crackers, balloons flying around the room, and a hugely expensive bill which was fully paid by Ant’s parents, an amazing show of generosity. And then bloated, we headed back to the hostel to watch Love Acutally which is apparantly a popular film for Christmas.

The following days in London were rather relaxed. On Boxing Day I headed out into the shopping hoards and bought a few things. The following day I had a quiet one, but later on met up with Meri once again before both of us had to leave London. We also managed to see the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace on the morning before we were set to leave. It was an interesting affair but really not as exciting as everyone makes it out to be!

Changing of the Guard

Part Two

That night we boarded an extremely uncomfortable bus and headed north, destination Edinburgh. After nine and a half hours of half sleep, half candy consumption we arrived faar too early in the morning, and since our rooms weren’t ready at the hostel, we had to hang out in the common room for a few hours.

It was an unexpectedly beautiful day so after  a nap we decided to go for a wander. Edinburgh’s Royal Mile runs for around a mile between the Scottish Parliment and the Edinburgh Castle. So, with this in mind, our first stop was the castle.

Edinburgh Castle

We couldn’t actually go inside as it was incredibly expensive, but we gave it a good walk around. That night, someone decided it would be a good idea to go drinking, so that’s what we did. The hostel was full of long term Australians who only wanted to drink, so we joined them (Cat had also lived there at some stage earlier in the year). Drinking games started and soon everyone moved to what, to me, was a terrible bar – but the others seemed to like it. Backpacker bars just aren’t really my thing.

The following day I spent most of it sleeping. And while Cat and Jess slept even longer, I decided to take a walk up Arther’s Seat, a rather large hill. So after a walk down the Royal Mile towards the Scottish Parliment I began my way up.

Arthurs Seat Silhouette

As I rounded the corner, I found a very cool rock face which would have been excellent for some rock climbing had I had my shoes with me. Just beyond that was another hill which I had decided was worth a climb.

Rocks!

The weather was amazing and this place was amazing, so I kept going. My mission was to make it to the highest hill around and the climb was suprisingly steep. It might have been possible that I took a hard path, but really, that’s all part of the fun. From the top the view was exellent.

View from Arthurs Seat

Soon the sun went down so it was time to head back to the hostel for an easy night, best be resting up for New Years Eve tomorrow!

The day was new years eve and I spent most of it sleeping. I wanted to be ready for the evening. In the afternoon we took a trip to the local supermarket which was more packed with people than any other supermarket I’ve ever seen.  We were mostly there to pick up alcohol so I grabbed some wine, a Hoegaarden and one of the new Kronenburg Blanc beers (absolutely amazing). The evening was started (as it usually does in this hostel) with drinking games which caused me to finish my entire bottle of wine far too fast. But it was fun, and everyone was enjoying themselves and soon it was time to head out.

Each year in Edinburgh the council holds a massive street party with live bands and DJs and around 100,000 people partying it up. So after all this drinking, we headed out into it. Almost at once I lost Cat and Jess but luckily I was hanging out with a Canadian called Zach. And this was about the last I remember. Much to my embarrasment, all the alcohol hit me at once and most of the night is lost in my muddly brain but apparantly I did participate in the count down. This is the first new years that this has ever happened and I blame it on the fact that I wasn’t with my good friends :P

Fortuntely, the next day I awoke and was feeling fine! I had wanted to do the walking tour of Edinburgh that day and Cat and Jess agreed but by the time we got there it was totally full. This was crazy, we didn’t expect there to be so many people willing to go out and tour around the city on New Years Day, so Jess and I enlisted Cat to tour us around the city which she lived in a few months ago.

It appeared that Cat has forgotten most of the city but took us to two of the more interesting places. First was the Edinburgh Graveyard. This place is full of old grave stones covered in skulls and crossbones and skeletons and such.

Gravey!

The second place which I remember was Caton Hill. This is probably the second largest hill in Edinburgh (other than Arthur’s Seat). On the top of it they have a monument which waas supposed to be a replica of the Athenian Acropolis but for some reason they ran out of oney while building it and it never got completed.

Caton Hill

That night, Cat and Jess went on the New Years Day pub crawl. I decided not to beacuse the following day I had to catch a flight back to Luton to get ready for my next adventure, Morocco!

Stockholm!

I arrived back in Stockholm at around 4pm on a Tuesday. My next Couchsurfing host was Karl. He was busy working on a student radio show that evening so I made my way to his place using the instructions which he had given me. I always worry a little bit about using the local public transport systems, but as usual, this one was indcredibley easy.

I took the metro four or five stops and then met a bus. I asked the driver if he went to where Karl lives and how much the ticket was. He replied, “one thousand.” I said, “how about I give you two.” He laughed and then asked, “American? Canadian?” “New Zealand” I replied, and he told me to get on the bus and that he’d take me there.

I arrived at Karls apartment building, entered the door code and headed up to his place, found the key and let myself in. Nort knowing what to do, I looked through Karl’s bookshelf and spent the night reading a book until Karl arrived home.

Karl arrived home at around 9:30, and straight away we got along. He was a friendly guy with what I thoughht was an American accent. I later found out that he was purely Swedish but had lived in California for a year when he was 17-18. He didn’t seem to realise, but I think that the accent atoning his english was influenced from this experience – and network TV! That night we chatted about all sorts of things ’till late including Whatipu’s tunnel of wind (some of you will know of this amazing place on Auckland’s West Coast).

The first proper day I spent in Stockholm was beautiful, sunny autumn day, so I decided that I would just start walking and see where I ended up. So I headed across the bridge from Liljeholmen to Åsön. The view was amazing;

Bridge from Liljeholmen

I saw from the bridge a nice looking park which ran along the seaside, so I decided to head into there. The autumn trees were looking amazing, but the first thing which I noticed were these crazy little houses set into the hillside. I thought they might be something like a retirement village, but after inquirement it turns  out that they are summer houses which you can hire out from the government as a place to garden and hang out in when the weather is warm. A great idea for the thousands of people who live in apartments in the inner city.

Summer Houses

I continued my walk along the seaside for another hour or so and then headed into the city. I found a  cool shop called The T-Shirt Shop where I bought an urban guide to Stockholm which was to guide me to the best of the shops and other places in Stockholm for the next few days. I even found an awesome statue of Thor beating down upon a sea serpent.

Thor!

The rest of the afternoon I continued my walk around the city and in the evening headed back to Karl’s where we had dinner and hung out for the evening, him telling me crazy stories and showing me videos of mixed martial arts legend Bas Routen. Hilarious!

The following day I decided to check out the Old Town. Almost everywhere has some form of “old town” and this was no exception. Cobbled streets, ancient buildings, and hundreds of ridiculously expensive tourist shops. The palace was also on the island where the old town was located, a huge building complete with guards and everything!

Palace

Next on the list was the Swedish Parliment and a crazy round church, walking-a-tonne, and another evening of hanging out with Karl.

Swedish Parliment

The next day I decided to check out a few more parts of the city. The town hall which had this cool leave covered wall hiding an amazing lion statue.

Hidden Lion

Next I went to check out the Moderna Museet, but ended up not having enough time to go inside. Outside, however, were some very cool sculptures consisting of child-like giant lumps coupled with strange steam-punk style machines. Very strange but very cool.

Modern Sculpture

That evening things got more exciting. There were a number of options for the evening, but we had to choose one. At 7 we headed out to one of Karl’s friend’s place, Lena. Her and her friend Mary (I think, sorry!) had cooked dinner for us, a Swedish specialty, reindeer. The dinner was amazing and after a large helping and some crazy chat, we were ready to head out. Lena was running a club night at one of Stockholm’s clubs, but before we attended that, Karl and I headed to another club to see a gig by Californian experimental band Xiu Xiu. Later after the gig we headed to Lena’s club night, met her and Mary and had a few drinks, then headed off home.

The time in Stockholm was excellent, things just keep getting better! The next day, ‘though, it was time to leave. An overnight ferry was booked for Helsinki, and at 6pm, after only making the boarding with 5 minutes to spare I was off with the sunset behind me.

Stockholm Sunset

Things I Did In Amsterdam

As I’m writing this on a night train to Copenhagen, I’ve decided to change the format for this post. Usually I write things in a pretty linear format: this day, then that happened and it keep adding up. This post will just be a series of points with no time structure, hence the title ‘Things I Did In Amsterdam.’

I spent hours each day walking around the ’straats’ (streets) and ‘grachts’ (canals) until I was too tired to walk any longer. I got lost many a time. They told me the city is shaped like an onion, I prefer to think of it as a rainbow with veins.

Amsterdam Canal

I slept in a dorm with two Swedish girls who were horribly ill, fearing that I might catch what ever they had.

I almost got hit by a bike while using a pedestrian crossing.

Bicycles!

I visited one or two of the famous Amsterdam coffeeshops and then proceeded to wander around the city in marvel at almost everything. I also went onto a balcony and who ever was on the balcony above me was having a laughing fit, which in turn I contracted, me laughing at some guy I couldn’t see and vice versa.

I went on a pub crawl, drank too much then went for felafal with two Canadians. Before our kebabs were ready, the store workers brought us each a bowl of an onion-tomato mix and a bowl of tatziki for putting on said kebab. Being in the state we were, the three of us just started scooping out the onions with the spoon, dipping them in the tatziki and eating them. The sauces were gone before the kebabs arrived, half of it in our stomachs, the other half all over our faces. Following that, we managed to cover the entire table in lettuce. I highly doubt the store owners were impressed.

I went on a walking tour of the city and learnt the history of how Amsterdam was built from just a marsh. How drugs and prostitution become the norm, why all the buildings look like the are leaning over (and they actually are) and a whole lot of other interesting facts about the city.

Leaning Houses

I walked around the Red Light District and checked out the nice ladies in the windows.

I went to the Anne Frank House. The place where Anne Frank and her family hid in an annex behind her fathers office for 2 years during WWII. This was amazing and utterly moving.

I went to the Sex Museum and saw all sorts of artifacts from ancient Greece and Asia, to modern day porn that you wouldn’t tell your friends about.

I taught a small-town Swedish girl to play snap and then I proceeded to lose for an hour. She then taught me how to shuffle cards (by God am I clumsy with cards).

I caught up with Isa, a girl that Matt and I met in Byron Bay when we backpacked around Australia in 2006.

I saw a hidden Catholic church from the days with Catholosism was banned.

Hidden Catholic Church

I shopped in the ‘Nine Streets’ district and bought myself a pretty cool t-shirt after trying on some pixie pants. I also found an excellent market with the craziest used clothes stand ever – it was just a tarpolin with mountains of awesome clothes on it. Crazy! Mama, you’d be in heaven.

I wished all you guys reading this had been there to share this with me. We are definitely all coming to Amsterdam one day, it is so awesome!

I ♥ Berlin

From Prague we drove to Berlin. Initially I hadn’t planned to visit the city, but I’m now very glad that I did. What an amazing place!

We arrived in Berlin in the afternoon, found our hostel (Ollie and Xanthe even agreed to join Willy and I there) and got settled in.  After a short while, Willy and I took a walk around our Eastern Berlin suburb and ended up at what is now known as the East Side Gallery. Rather than being an actual art gallery, this is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall which has been turned into an area decorated by local artists in memory of Berlin’s past.

East Side Gallery

The following day we decided to check out one of the free walking tours which was on offer. This one was run by a company called New Europe and it was really pretty good. Our guide Maria took us around numerous sites within the city over approximately 3 and a half hours, all the while being incredibly enthusiastic and knowledgable even though she was actually from Sweden! A few of the sites we saw were Hitler’s Bunker, the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby off of the  balcony, various Jewish and Catholic churches, Museum Island, the Jewish Memorial, the book burning square, Berlin Wall + heaps more. It was incredibly informative and amazingly interesting. Berlin is a city with so much history it is unbelievable!

Jewish Memorial

Brandenburg Gates

That night we decided it would be a good idea to go on the pub crawl run by the tour company. It took us to a number of bars in the central Berlin region (three of which I remember) and was pretty fun. There was heaps of free drinks and plenty of people to party with!

The next day I was feeling marginal to say the least. But that wasn’t going to stop us going on the Berlin ‘Alternative Tour.’ The idea of this was to take people around the sites of Berlin which you wouldn’t usually see as a tourist. It was not as informative as the regular tour but we went to some interesting places. Of particular importance to this tour was art. We saw so much street art and began to hear some of the stories behind it.

Little Lucy

Little Lucy (above right), for example, is a character seen sprayed up all over town. It is a story which follows the antics of a little girl named Lucy who is given a cat as a present but soon finds out that the cat does not work as a ‘toy’ should. The above picture is just one of many Little Lucy pieces around town. Around this corner from this Lucy was a very cool steam-punk style mechanical bat-like monster which hissed and flapped it’s wings after a euro was inserted into it. Very cool.

Mechanical Bat-Monster

The tour also took us to a pretty cool rooftop beach bar, a faux waterfall, an apartment building on which all the support pillars are painted with famous faces – called the 50 Faces Gallery – , a shop which sold camping equipment, absinthe, and bongs, and a really cool place – the name of which i forget, which has been an artist squat for a number of years. The entire building was covered in graffiti both inside and out, and you could go inside and talk to the artists and stuff, it was an amazing place but sadly I hear it has been commissioned for demolition. I also managed to buy a pretty cool jacket from a 2nd hand shop which sold its clothes by weight!

Inside the artist squat

On the way back from this tour, we happened to bump into a Hamburg-Berlin road rally, containing some awesome cars.

Kadett C, Hamburg-Berlin rally

That night we decided to go into town and see what was going on.  What was going on was the prostitution scene. In Germany, street prostitution is legal so long as the girl is registered and paying tax, etc. Willy and I were accosted by these women who looked like high profile pornstars on at least 3 occassions, all of them wanting to know if we were keen for pleasure. One even offered for us to take two girls back and swap half way through! Europe is crazy! And I thought NZ was quite liberal… it dosen’t seem so after seeing things like this.

The next day was shopping day. Willy bought shoes, I bought a t-shirt (but not ’till later in the day). We really just chilled out and checked out the local scene. We also thought about going up the TV tower but the line was ridiculously long. The next day it was time to leave on a train: 6 hours to Amsterdam!

Squirrels!

Today, amongst heading to the Soho sopping district and weaving through Camden Markets, I went to Hyde Park where I saw a number of cute little animals munching away on chestnuts. I think they are called Squirrels. So cute!

 

Squirrel in Hyde Park

Soho was cool, there was lots of stuff that I wanted to buy but I need to try to save my money for traveling around Europe. I guess that when I get back to London in January I will spend up large buying ridiculous outfits for my return home. 

Camden Markets were cool although it did seem to be the same merchandise on repeat. I got myself a new satchel to use on my trip ‘though. I also saw a neat congregation of original-style punks hanging out on a bridge. Oh, and the river that flowed under the bridge had actual oldschool floodgates where were pretty impressive to see.

On a sour note, my lower back is ruined. Everyday I end up coming home in pain. I think I shall try to visit a chiropractor or something – this can not go on.