The European Tour Catch-Up Blog

Abbey was pregnant. All was well in her world!  And if Abbey was deleriously happy, then everybody else must be, too.  That's when I got the call.

"I've found you a boyfriend!"
"What?"
"A boyfriend!  You wanted one and I found you one. Although....one catch...he's in Germany"

I'd never been to Germany, this could be a benefit, not a catch.  And a quick scan of flight prices from London supported my flicker of interest. "OK," I said "set me up."

So an exchange of email addresses and phone numbers, he gave me a call, we chatted on and off for some weeks. We tried Skype, but I got ridiculously shy. I know: ridiculous. Then when I was in between assignments, I found myself on a flight to Germany to stay with someone I barely knew.  Because surely that's what you do when you're travelling - you take risks and open yourself to the great and beautiful opportunities that the Universe (and Abbey) are providing.  (Amsterdam anyone? Ha! What is it with me and old men???) 

Lutz picked me up from Stuttgart airport and took me back to his small village where I was to stay with him, his father, Herbert and his dog, Alberich. Although Lutz is a pilot and speaks 5 languages, (yes, I was very impressed) his father doesn't speak any English, and we communicated through the minimal German I know, the minimal English he knew, the smatterings of French and Italian we both know, we wrote numbers down and prayed to heaven above that we weren't left alone in each other's company for too long. After I'd returned to NZ, I was speaking to Lutz on Skype one day and his father heard him speaking in English and correctly assumed he was speaking to me so came rushing into the room to speak with me:

'Hallo!'
'Hi!'
...then the great silence as we simultaneously realised that he still doesn't speak English and I'd gotten no further with my German.

I enjoy languages, but was surprised at how difficult I found the pronunciation of German.  I went into bootcamp for 2 weeks, learning how to say 'ich' properly. Finally Lutz just gave up on me and said "yeah, I know what you mean" *pats head condescendingly* and let me progress to the rest of the sentence: '...sprechen kein Deutsch'.  A most useful phrase, second only to 'Weisswein, danke'.
Having said that, I felt much better about my feeble attempts when Herbert's girlfriend, Antya (that's completely creative spelling, for the record) commented in surprised delight after I trotted out one of the basic words I had 'mastered', that her daughter has been married to an American for 20 years, and she has never once heard him say a single word of German. Even when they're in Germany - nary a 'danke'.

So I was just getting a hold on this German business, when we went to Italy and I didn't need it anymore.  It's great travelling with a person who is so multilingual, it just makes life easier. You can learn and try when you want to, but when you're tired and over it and just need the information, you have your own personal translator there with you.  I was amused to find though, when Lutz spoke German, he had his normal body language; when he spoke English, again, his normal body language; French: the same; Italian: hands flying everywhere, gesticulating wildly.  (I never heard him speak Portuguese for those of you who are counting).  As a matter of experiment, I tried holding his hands down when he spoke Italian - he said he couldn't think. 
I have found Italian quite easy to pick up (this was my 3rd time there) as the vowel sounds and how the words are broken up into syllables are similar to Maori - which I learned (basically) at school as a child. I can hear the words in Italian, whereas in French they may be saying a word I recognise in its written form, but I don't recognise it in its spoken form.  And German, I just can't replicate the noises. Well, not properly, anyway. Apparently. So I've been told. I'm not bitter.

I'd been warned prior to going to Meina on Lago Maggiore (near Milan) that it was a sleepy place. That all you want to do there is sleep - but I didn't really believe it. Then when we got there - all I wanted to do was sleep.  I'm curious to know what it is that affects us so - we assumed atmospheric pressures. And one of these days I'll research it.  But today is not that day.  I wondered how the people that live there function on a daily basis.  I felt like I was continually wading through mud.
The weather alternated between bright sunshine and dramatic electrical storms. And we whiled away our days swimming in the lake, playing gin rummy on its shores, eating beautiful Italian food,  playing with the dog, and watching many episodes of Dexter when it was stormy. There was an Irish bar there, which amused me greatly as it seemed so incongruous.  The incongruity was amplified when the men we met there looked very hard and incredibly dodgy.  I found out later one was the chief of police. Lutz and his friend, Dario, who were lovely, gentle men, looked quite dangerous when sitting next to them also, such was the reach of their dark aura.  (I told you I'd been watching alot of Dexter episodes, didn't I?)
By the time we moved on from Italy, a number of weeks later, the days were reaching 37 degrees, and driving into the mountains it dropped to a respectable 30 degrees.  (These days I whine at 23!  Happy to be home?)

We had a great tour about Northern Italy - but I am sad to report that the presence of a boyfriend did keep me out of trouble so there is nothing of interest to report other than I did it and it was great and if you haven't been, then go. I swam in the Adriatic Sea, visited Verona and Venezia, Ferrara, Ravenna, Treviso, then back to Germany via Austria rather than Swizterland, this time.

And then back to the UK for work.  I thought I'd never see Lutz again, but there was one more adventure left in us, it would seem, and we met up again in Bern/e (Hi Sherif!), toured a little through Switzerland, Northern Germany (toes in the Baltic Sea!), Popped into Poland for a couple of hours just to say I've been there (Szczecin - don't ask me to say it, but my understanding is that you just ignore the z's) then for my grande finale in Berlin (I love that city!), before making my way after more tearful farewells back to Switzerland to visit my brother in Geneva, see my friend Cila from Neuchatel, collect my snowboard and climb back on the plane to head back to NZ. I almost missed my transfer at Heathrow (due to a late connection), and turned up in Auckland with neither suitcase nor snowboard.  But their homing instincts are remarkable and they found their way home without me.  Wagging their tails behind them. Happy Ending.

Oh, and PS:  the best Mojitos I've ever had were in Germany.  German precision counts for something!

Egypt: Dogs, Cats, Camels and a Blog without a Point.

Oh, Good Morning Egypt!

Against my very nature, I was up at dawn and had made my way across the road from the hotel to the beach in order to watch the sun rise.  Me!  I know...shocking.  Impressing myself by being almost on time for it, I gazed across the gulf of Aqaba  to see the sun making its way up and over the ranges that made up what I could see of Saudi Arabia.

I'd been told that morning was a glorious thing - hitherto, I wasn't so keen to risk disappointment, but breathing in the morning air, trying my level best to feel awake and invigorated, I could see that it was indeed very pretty - although perhaps not more so than sunset, which also happens daily, but at a decent time.

Thoughts of a morning yoga session - saluting the sun - were thankfully quashed by the stony nature of the beach.  So I sat down to contemplate the things I needed to contemplate - which, after a few days of Egypt soothing my soul, were very few.

Must.
Stay.
On.
Beach.

If you're going to get up at the crack of dawn to watch the sun rise, you have to squeeze as much milage out of it as possible, no matter how much the part of the brain that dictates your core personality might be saying 'Sun is up. Experience crossed off the list. I can go back to bed now'. 
I mollified that part of my brain by promising it breakfast very soon.

Sitting on a stone on the beach, I look up to see a dog running towards me.  This, in itself, is not unusual in Dahab - the place is filled with wild dogs and cats - so much so, I had started a game... (which, admittedly never really caught on due to, I like to think, a lack of readily available time keeping devices) ...called 'time the cat'.  You would be entirely correct to assume that it's a time trial: - your dinner gets served then you time how long it is between the plate hitting the table and the first cat showing up, begging for food. You never have to wait long. Diners at the good establishments in Dahab not only get their hands washed with warm water and lime juice and free entrees (ohhh... the best baba ganoush I've ever had!)  - they also get a spray bottle of water to ward off unwelcome visitors.

So, back to the dog. 
He's happily running towards me with that big, pleased happydog! look on his face.  The dog, who was a regular at the hotel, had been named Newie.  He, obviously, was newer than the previous dog. Always a happydog! with plenty of tourists to tell him that he's a good boy in a multitude of languages, I could see it was even happier today by the acquisition of the biggest stick on the beach - a good 2 metres long.  I was in the process of trying to think of what kind of tree it had found that had grown that large on the edge of the Sinai (...that wasn't a Palm...) when the dog got close enough for me to realise - that's no stick.  He had the complete foreleg of an animal.  After much deliberation, I settled on the likely victim to have been a camel.  From foot to femur. Hoof to hip.  How and where did the dog get an entire foreleg of a camel?!?

It was on the night of our departure, when we were in the van, heading back to Sharm Al Sheik that I saw the likely source of Newie's pleasure - there are exposed mass graves of camels in the desert.  How and why they got there, I don't know. Are they like the elephants and have ancestoral places to die, or is that where the camel's owners dump them when they can't take the tourists fat arses anymore? So much for a straw breaking a camel's back.  Well. Suddenly I felt really bad about the camel trip I'd organised for the group.  There were about 9 of us crowded onto a single camel! Well, not quite, but was our amusement killing these animals? (Probably not).

At least our amusement was very amusing:
"the best £5 I ever spent - I've not had this much fun since that night at Hove"
was the enthusiastic endorsement of one particularly happy customer.  I'm unsure if the camel was consenting or not. Maybe they die of shock? One camel in particular, was not looking in the best of health. I can't really describe what the side of its face was doing.

I really enjoyed the camel ride - not to the same level as my aforementioned companion, but really enjoyed it, nonetheless.  Camels are REALLY TALL. When they stand up, they almost throw you off to the front and then to the back (hmmm... this seems to be supporting the theory that they're not enjoying it as much as we are), which engages my internal squeaking device. They have a lumbering, swaying gait which is fun. We went for about 20 minutes up a valley and into the desert to have a cup of tea with the Bedouins, who, in large, ignored us. 
The Bedouin children had created an amazing maze of coloured rocks-
We lost Vimal.
We found him again!
Phew. That was close.
The children were playing 'slide down the mountainside' - a popular game in those parts. Making use of what you have. The adults had built us a mesmerising fire to sit alongside.

And, as we rode back towards the resort, the train of camels turned a bend, and lo! before us, the full moon had risen, bathing the sea, the desert, the camels, and indeed, ourselves in its cool light and beauteous mystery. And I didn't even have to get up ridiculously early for that!

Amsterdam - it's a Walk in the Park

No matter how undeserved we thought the 5 stars were, it was a bit of a come down to leave the 5 star hotel that I shared with my friend and slink on over to the €20/night, 6 bedded hostel dorm, once she had flown back to Geneva after our weekend in Amsterdam.

It was great having a friend to explore Amsterdam with - soaking up the culture at the art galleries and museums, cruising on the canal, pottering about the flower market, trying to avoid being run over by bicycles, tittering at the displays of the red light district, being shafted on tasteless muffins with no apparent extra special qualities (me), and lamenting the limitations of the gluten-intolerant diner and eating chips for breakfast (her). But the other benefit of having a friend in Amsterdam was that it provided a little buffer. A little protection. Safety in numbers.

So, after settling into my new accomodation now I was on my own again, with no 5 star luxury to entice me into staying in (not that I was really inclined to), I went to complete the things that I hadn't managed to see over our weekend together.  I had booked into a day trip around Holland for the Monday, and was flying out on the Tuesday, so I then turned to considering my options for the rest of Sunday. Well, springtime in Holland - there must be a blaze of flowers out at Vondelpark so I set off with my (at the time functioning) camera to see what I could see.

And all that I could see - was a park covered in a blanket of, well, not tulips, that's for sure. The previous day had been a beautiful, sunny day, and apparently this was a rarity. I was told that 9000 people had been in the park on the Saturday - you couldn't move for people on the Saturday.  You couldn't move for rubbish on the Sunday. The park staff don't work on Sundays: bins were overflowing, refuse strewn all over the ground. The water features were filthy with oil, plastic and paper floating on the top. And amongst all of this mess, families were frolicking in the debris, children were skipping, lovers wandering about hand-in-hand, yogis doing yoga. Unbelievable.

Wandering about in a horrified daze, taking photos that would have been great for a blog or whatever, if my camera still worked and I could upload them, a man approaches me, and starts making small talk.  I took the opportunity to ask what on earth had happened to the park. Hmmm...mistake #1.  Couldn't get rid of him after that, could I. So, I'm wandering along, taking my photos, and he's following me. Waiting very patiently while I spend *quite* some time getting  the right shot. He's suggesting things for me to look at - just over here, behind these bushes... yeahnah, you're alright. I'll just stay in public view, if that's ok.
The little dance of my trying to tactfully get rid of him - and him not going, continued for quite some time, until I came to an epiphany - 'why am I being tactful?' so I turned to him and said 'excuse me, but you're making me feel very uncomfortable.' to which he immediately said 'oh, sorry!' and turned and left. Who would have thought?

Out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Well, now I was alone again - and I'm getting the feeling that you don't go into the park in the middle of broad daylight on your own in Amsterdam, because now the drunk vagrants are eyeing me up, and I'm not enjoying the attention, and I'm backing away, keeping my eye on them, and they're rowdily yelling things at me in Dutch, that I don't understand. Thankfully. So when an elderly man, walking his dog comes up and starts chatting to me, I'm quite relieved. I have my buffer back again.  He's intrigued by my camera and modern fandangled technology, we have amiable conversation, he shows me the parrots and I'm thinking - this is good - loneliness is a serious issue for the elderly, and this lonely old man gets some company for an hour or so, and I'm not being approached by every desperate man in the park.  An hour later, I'm thinking - what a nice man, so when he invites me to go and have a cup of coffee with him, I say yes, that would be lovely. We go walking towards the shops, and I'm surprised when we don't walk into a cafe, but up to a private residence. Oh, he's taking me to his house for a coffee. Hmmm. What do I think about this? Well, really, I'm pretty confident that I could beat off an 80 year old if it came to it.  So, coffee turns into dinner, and a glass or two of wine, he turns on the music and starts dancing and pulls me up to take a twirl with him.  What is it with me and old men? And what is it about me, that doesn't get that although in my head, I'm having dinner with grandad, in his, he's on a date and planning his seduction? Yes, mid-twirl, he makes his move and takes a lunge at me-
I duck!
He dives-
I'm grabbing my bag, and am heading for the door-
'You can't leave me!' he cries with a wretched tone in his voice.
'Watch me', I think at him. Callously.
'I'll walk you home.......'
I don't want him to know where I'm staying, so I continue on with my storming off.
He follows.
I get outside, and realise that I don't know the way home. Damn. I walk off in the general direction that we had come with him following close behind.
I'm irritated. Then I remember - he's in his 80's.  I'm not.  I pick up the pace, leaving him in the distance, calling after me -
'Don't leave me! I'm your man! I'm a man, I'm a maaaaannnnn!'
I guess that loneliness is still a serious issue for the elderly.

The next day, on my bus tour, I look into my bag and saw that he'd slipped me a packet of stroopwafels (caramel waffle biscuits) for the trip. If only he were 50 years younger.

The Dodgy Italian and the Interpol Bust

It's a hot, sunny day in London. The novelty is not lost on me, nor on the millions of Londoners who are out in force in their lunchbreak.  After a rather lovely picnic lunch with a friend, in a small, but lush and verdant park, abundant with spring flowers (cue 'ode to joy'), I'm sitting on a park bench by the Thames, as the teeming masses go back into their office blocks.  I'm  reading my New Scientist magazine, working on my 'nerdy-cool' look (ha!), minding my own business, passing time until it's time to go and catch my plane to Portugal, when this old Italian guy (what is it with me and old men?) comes up and says hello...

'hello'

'where you from?'

'New Zealand'

'you want to come have coffee with me?'

'no, thank you'

'why not? I like you- you beautiful woman'

So I'm now wondering if that's so true then why would I want to go for coffee with an ugly old goat like him? But I've not been brought up to be nasty, so I say:

'I'm happy here in the sun enjoying my magazine.'

'you come with me, I pay for everything, you understand? Come see me in Roma and I pay for everything - planes, trains, hotels...'

...and he proceeds to open his wallet and show me wads of money in differing currencies.

Now, I'm seriously hoping that my sunglasses are concealing that momentary temptation flickering in my eyes - has god heard my I-need-a-job-distress and is sending me an answer!? Not an answer I would accept, but as I said: momentary. Perhaps lasting only a nanosecond. (Or two).

So I'm there, staring at this guy showing me wads of money in disbelief, when in blaze of televisionesque showing of badges, this cop from Interpol or something comes up and starts interrogating him-

'who are you? what are you doing here? why have you got all of this money?'

then got a highly technical, special, mini-micro-spy sized ...err...LED penlight out and started checking his money for counterfeit.  Surprisingly, it was all good.  So he chased him off with a few legal threats and turned on me.  The thing about this is that it all happened so fast that I wasn't quite sure what was going on.  The flash of badge was fast and aimed at the Italian, so I didn't get to read it, and wasn't quite sure if it was as he had said, or if this was a doubleact scam and I was entering phase II. So with a bewildered, nervous look, I told him that the Italian was hitting on me and I was telling him where to go. He warned me that these guys were after 'infomation' (for what? he didn't say! had I given him the information he needed?!?) and passports.  Having dual citizenship, I have two passports, so credit where it's due, he picked the right girl.  Time, place and presence of authorities obviously needs working on.


So, in the eyes of men, I went from man-stoppingly attractive, to potential prostitute, to gullible fool in about 5 minutes.
In my eyes, of course, I was just trying to read my New Scientist in the sun.


But wait, there's more -

On leaving the scene of the intended crime, I twisted my ankle in a pothole crossing a very busy road, fell over, grazed my knee, bruised my elbow,  totalled the lens of my digi SLR, couldn't get up because of my heavy backpack, with traffic about to approach with the light change. And lost my beloved cowgirl hat....it flew away and got squished by a car.  Oh, and when I did manage to get up I discovered that my top was unbuttoned to my waist.

I think London and I both agreed that it was time for me to hop on a plane and go somewhere else.