All posts by cl@rks

Eastern Europe, Europe, Hungary, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 3: Budapest / Sziget

BUDAPEST / SZIGET

11 -13 August 2010

Got up and breakfeasted Kyjev-style and then in a taxi and off to Hlavni Stanica (train station – the very ‘humble’ one mentioned in Travelogue 2) to board for the train to Budapest. Fortunately only a 2.5 hour ride as people fall over themselves to get the seats with a table (the ones where the seats face each other with a table in between), which wouldn’t be so bad if they actually used the table… but most just go to sleep or read a book, which leaves us card-playing-surfaceless for nothing 🙁

Fortunately had emailed beforehand and gotten very clear and literal directions from station to hotel because Budapest is far bigger and more confusing than the previous cities. There’s very little English signage (or spoken) and far more public transport options. Of course, by following the directions so literally when we arrived – in our excitement to get to the festival – ended up at Sziget without having taken down our address, so in essence not knowing where we live!

Where we live…

We were staying at Hotel Lucky. A nice enough place, where we were lucky enough to get the round turret room which makes for easy identification and good story 🙂 The day concierge was a bit of a challenge. We’ve taken to calling him Basil (Fawlty)… and not calling him at all. He’s got an annoying habit of echoing questions, eg:

Christian: if we take the blue metro line…

Basil: the blue Metro line?

Christian: yes, the one that connects to the red Metro line…

Basil: the red Metro line?

Christian: the one that runs this way *points to map of underground system*

Basil: runs this way? *adjusts specs*

Christian: how do we get to Obudai Sziget?

Basil: Oboduai Sziget?

Christian: never mind.

Hence, we left ‘home’ without thinking to ask for an address.

With some effort, we did manage to suss the trams, trolleybusses, busses and trains to get to Sziget Festival. Incidentally, ‘Sziget’ means ‘island’ in Hungarian, and the festival is held on an island in the Danube in Budapest.

The festival was amazing! People streeeaming in all afternoon and evening, but no queues. Very well organised. Sadly, the beer sponsor was Dreher, which wasn’t one of our favourites, but the blow was softened when we got to do the free ‘Dreher in the Sky’, which was like the Dinner in the Sky concept they had at Monte Casino a while back (which cost R1000 or more) and we were strapped into a seat and suspended at a table 50m in the air to enjoy(ish) a cold (and free) pint of Dreher – and the views of the festival below, the city beyond and the countryside for miles around. Very cool. And free (foreign concept for SA, where am sure they’d have charged a fortune).

All the bands we saw were brilliant as well.

First on our roster was The Toy Dolls. THIRTY years they’ve been doing their thing! They were amazing. Never had been on my ‘must see’ list, but super-glad we saw them. Nelly The Elephant seems to be as much a classic here as it is at home and all sorts were jumping around singing along about Nelly’s absconding from the circus. And by all sorts, we mean all sorts – punks, trendy sorts, preppy lots, princesses, mohawks of all descriptions, you name it, they were out to play! Funfunfun.

Caught the tail end of Ska-P, who are a Spanish ska band. Have noted to look them up as their performance was excellent and they seem to be really well known by lots of people (here). Don’t necessarily agree with all their politics (inevitable in this genre), but we can overlook that (especially the bits sung in Espanol hehe).

Then off to grab a slice of pizza (seemingly the staple fast food source of Eastern Europe) and hit Ill Nino. Can’t believe I only heard them for the first time a few weeks ago – very sad that i have wasted so much time!! They were madly excellent. They played in the MTV Headbangers Stage, so was a trifle warm (Mick’s phone weather app would have called it an ‘flan-flopping high 30-somethings and sweaty’… and been right for a change) but still, was totally worth losing the moisture. Definitely going to spend more time on them when I get home.

Managed to work our way back to main stage to catch the last few songs of The Hives. Good performance, lead singer is a bit up his own though.

Beers and Jagers later plus a whirl past the merch stand to see what was on offer (and narrowing down to about 10 tees we simply couldn’t live without) and a flit through the market. Lots of food and drink options … and a Vans stall with prices so heinously low that I was credit card ready… but Christian seems to hate shoes and not want me to have any more ever… and something about impractical to carry around a festival or something.. and I left empty-handed. And -souled. (And -soled).

Madness was incredible. Also a 30 year commemoration tour, with all the favourites and some more fan-pleaser oldies. Awesome stage presence, album-perfect delivery, a TON of fans pogo-ing and walk-dancing about the place. Lots of fun.

Last but not least, Christian’s favourite band of all time – Bad Religion. Also a 30 year tour for them! Am so glad I did the research I did (had been warned) as REALLY enjoyed their show… alongside Christian who was so in his element that there are no words to describe 🙂 They delivered an hour and a half of literally back-to-back songs (not a word or a breath between tracks, just straight from one into the next!) and sounded like I’m sure they did 30 years ago – only giveaway of aging was the bald and balding band and the lead singers ensemble of jeans and red plain golf shirt (which I’m sure that no new punk band would dare, opting rather for some long shorts / angry-message tee shirt and certainly dreads / mohawk / unnatural coloured hairdo). Still, books and covers, they were as energetic and spritely as any of the young bands we’ve seen or saw there). Good on them.

NEEDING merch to commemorate the experience, headed to the tee tent only to be told they’d closed for the night (despite us having checked twice earlier in the day to ensure we didn’t miss out and being told both times that it was open until 3). This was about 1.30 so we weren’t having any of that. After extensive debate we managed a Bad Religion shirt (shh, don’t tell Christian cos it’s a bday present), a The Hives tee for me and a festival tee each.

Then headed for home. Bustling train station, packed train and we ended up at a station we didn’t know (having followed to advice that C got from the Van’s attendant while i was shopping), so ended up looking up the hotel’s address on the internet (what did we do before it?!) and getting a cab. Only got home about 3 in the end, can’t imagine what time it would have been if we’d persevered with public transport!

All in all, an awesome festival. Highly recommend to anyone considering it! (and so civilised to be able to festival and then commute to a warm bed and running water etc).

THURSDAY

Thursday we did some sight-seeing. Hadn’t intended to do much with the day having gotten in so early (late), but it’s a city that sucks you in because everything is so close together. Started with the Buda side, checking out the Citadel and Gellert Hill, then on for a walk around the Buda Castle (a whole mountain top complex), through the Palace (which is the opening of the Castle), onto the Church of St Michael and the Fisherman’s Bastion – a look-out point with spectacular views over Pest.

Taking the Chain Bridge (famous as the first bridge to connect Buda and Pest across the Danube) to St Stephen’s Basillica, the largest church in Budapest (and there are many!). Then potentially the most exciting stop of the day – Burger King! Christian had the special – California Whopper, beef burger with guacamole and salsa – and I had the cheese and bacon whopper (obviously). The special also has kettle-fried style chips (but hot like fries), really excellent and we intend to try and microwave Flannigan’s at home to see if we can get the same effect.

All fuelled, we took a quick walk to Parliament Square. What a breath-taking building!! HUGE (691 rooms – largest building in Budapest) and all neo-gothic ‘n stuff…

Had a bit of a hitch there. Decided to go to Acquincum, which is a Roman ruins town just past the Island we’d been on the day before. We had little trouble finding out where it is, nor mapping our route, but couldn’t find the Metro station! Barely perceptible nestled in among the office buildings alongside all the splendour and wonderment of Parliament and Kossuth Park. Eventually found it – and enjoyed the downtime, letting the train do the work for a change. Quite interesting, but the (local) staff didn’t do it justice with their lacklustre attitudes and seeming indifference to us as patrons and interested tourists. Those Romans were a clever bunch, they had underfloor heating and running sewerage systems even back then in 100 AD.

Had a marvellous sundowners session on Margit Island – the one before Sziget Island – named after the poor princess whose dad promised to confine her to a nunnery on the island if some political thing or another was ceded to him. It was and he did. She was only 9, poor thing. Place was a bit more upbeat for us and it was great to kick off shoes and sip daiquiris watching the sun set over the Danube.

Stayed a bit too long and ended up on a fruitless mission to try and find a late dinner. But it’s holiday, so still fun to make way back to hotel and have a dinner of plain salted chips over pints of (our least favourite so far) Dreher and playing some cards. 🙂

FRIDAY

Friday was chill day. Headed out of town a bit to Memento Park, which is an outdoor exhibition of communist statues and plaques, with memorabilia (that’s what they call it, really just some t-shirts, caps and postcards) and there’s a phone booth where you can listen to communist dictators’ speeches. Was cool to see Stalin’s Boots, which is the remains of a Stalin statue that was toppled during the 1956 revolution and never rebuilt because Stalin was already dead, so they just left the boots. Wouldn’t rush to recommend the park to anyone (except Neal).

Headed back to town – more trains, trams and busses – and another Burger King. Got a ‘Party Pack’ of 2 double cheese and bacon burgers, 2 XL fires, 5 chicken pieces (mini), 6 burritos (more like little deep fried Mexican spring rolls) and onion rings. That ruined our plans of traditional Hungarian dinner; who has space after all that?!

Walked the length of the picturesque, but underwhelming, Andrassy Avenue to see Heroes Square and Varosliget Park and stumbled across a mini German beer fest. Good laugh. And left us on the right side of the park to head to Mexico Street station and catch a tram back to the hotel. We had finally got the hang of this transport system – it can get you from anywhere to anywhere, but every journey is complicated with multiple changes and multiple modes of transport.

Found a gem of a spot called Randevu (there are lots of cute anglicisations, like ‘csendvic’ which is totally phonetic for sandwich) – where we had a quick beer while waiting for our tram… at R14 for a 500ml AND a 300ml Arany Aszok! We were so marvelling at our bargain that we missed the tram – and had another round while we waited for the next one *grin*

Overall, Budapest was a bit of a surprise after Prague and Bratislava. It is much bigger and more bustling. The people are very unhelpful (we’re inconclusive as to whether they don’t speak English or don’t want to). The transport systems are very complicated, not helped by all signage being in Hungarian only and the language is VERY foreign with long words and all sorts of punctuation we don’t have. The Communists clearly let the place go to rack and ruin and it was such a shame that beautiful old buildings were in such a state – grotty and dirty and unkempt – and there was graffiti everywhere. The funniest of which we saw on Gellert Hill’s look out point where people have tagged the pillars with their favourite bands, reading from left to right: Megadeth, Kiss, Satan, Slayer, Warrant, Metallica, Def Leppard, early Bon Jovi. Got a pic of that teeheehee.

Back at the hotel and destined for bed, we were prepped and ready for our super-early start for Zagreb in the morning *yawn*

Austria, Eastern Europe, Europe, Slovakia, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 2: Bratislava – Vienna

BRATISLAVA & VIENNA

08 – 10 August 2010

It made practical and economical sense to do Bratislava and Vienna from one or the other as a homebase since the two cities are only 47km apart.

So there we were, on the train from Prague, when Christian went “oh shit, we’re here!”. ‘Here’ being Bratislava of course.

What a non-event of a station. Looked as desolate and ramshackle as the last few very rural ones had – and we’d expected something a little more urban and impressive. Nonetheless, new places and excitement. Jumped into a taxi (a 1980-ish Opel Astra) with an aging rocker-style driver, blaring Iron Maiden while pointing at things ‘n stuff along the way and repeatedly telling us everything was “Short walk. Centrum”, with Yellow Pages finger walking motions for full effect.

Bratislava seemed very grimy, dirty and ‘modern’ compared to Prague (ie not the pretty old facades and bridges, rather grey, grimy glassed buildings you’d expect in Pretoria or any other place that had a building spurt in the ’70s and little interest paid since). We had a bit of a sinking feeling that maybe we’d started on too high a note, to the detriment of the more modest Central European countries, and that we’d made the wrong choice opting for the extra night in Bratislava over one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Vienna.

But all was not lost… we loved our hotel from first moment.

Described as “70s retro” by their own website (www.hotelkyjev.com), the place is a gem, with a little yellow Police Trabbant in the foyer, amazingly helpful staff (who speak good English), a pocket-buster of a metal art nouveau room keyring… and pints for 1 Euro in the lobby bar (emblazoned everywhere as ‘the best price in Bratislava’ – we subsequently checked and it sure is!).

The room was spartan in a 70’s porn way, with an all-in-one built-in carpeted headboard, side-table cum ledgey thing coupling with a mid-shin coffee table and a burgundy velvet(een) chair to make a very comfortable seating amenity, next to the double-paned windows with blinds between the panes (boy did that keep us entertained for the first few minutes) and the brightest, happiest, least hotel-ish yellow, orange and brown floral curtains you have ever seen!

We tested the in-house bar. The pints were indeed 1 Euro each (and very lovely cold Staropramens – new favourite so far – at that) and the staff amazingly accommodating and friendly (seeing as we got there at 22h50 and they close at 23h00 after actually working an entire day). They forgot to mention on the flyers that the bar also has the highest barstools in Bratislava (and potentially the world, I bet). Which was ironic since the locals all seem quite stocky, men topping out at about 5ft8.

MONDAY

They did a cracker of a buffet breakfast too. Always hate a continental breakfast, feeling like – being the morning person I am (not) – the effort to be grateful for the breakfast inclusion isn’t worth the croissant and fruit offering. This one was a pleasant surprise!

– cereals x 3 with chilled milk (didn’t touch)
– Danishes and breakfast pastries platters (didn’t touch)
– fruit (nabbed an apple and orange for later)
– yoghurt (had a strawberry one at breakfast, Christian took a raspberry take-away)
– bread baskets with white and brown rolls and slices of health bread (nabbed rolls for breakfast AND lunch take-aways)
– cold meats platter (nabbed 2 types of ham and salami for lunch rolls)
– cheese slices in 2 light cheese varieties and a basket of cream cheese triangles (liberal handful grabbed)
– fried and scrambled eggs (me scrambled, Christian fried)
– bacon: strange little 5cm x 3cm mini-slices, half fat, half meat (grabbed a heap of that mmmm)
– viennas (nabbed)
– chourico (nabbed)

Too many goodies so we did cooked breakfast subs at the table and made ham and cheese rolls for take away and hit the streets of Bratislava.

We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to see as we’d spent some time studying the map in the bar the night before. We had no idea how close everything was though. Turns out that everything’s a couple of roads this way or that and it’s a really manageable city to navigate around – fortunately with enough to see and do for us to keep ourselves out of trouble for the better part of the day. We walked ourselves flat, touring the Castle, seeing countless churches (including one called The Blue Church, very obviously from it’s garish brrrright blue paint job worthy of no less than Lenasia! Not sure if this is a sign or a warning seeing as things have finally started moving on The Blue House), the Old Square, the Old Town etc etc.

Couldn’t defy convention, so settled into a nice avenue cafe for some sundowners in anticipation of the final trawl home. The Hare Krishna squad had set up shop in the park opposite and were dishing out mounds of white, reddish and yellowish stuff. Likely rice and lentil sorts of things. Bratislava’s needy were an orderly, presentable and well-behaved bunch, queuing for their plateful, retiring to the park to eat, rejoining the queue and wash/rinse/repeating until it was all gone. Not sure where they went afterwards though because, despite it’s humble first impressions, the city is spotless and seemingly free of vagrants or underworld of any sort.

Stopped en route back to the hotel to get a ‘Rich Man‘, which Christian had read about online. A chain of sandwich shops (seemingly mostly operating from little portable kiosk akin to the cell phone ones at home) that specialise in a heated sandwich with ham, cheese, mayo and cabbage. 1,60 Euros for a mammoth sandwich that fed the 2 of us. We tried, we like.

Quiet evening in (beer and cards in the hotel bar) to save strength for impending day trip to Vienna (oh, and we were knackered from a day of pushing the pavements. And we love our hotel) and then ended the day with a quick visit to the local KFC. Very disappointing. Mash very good, gravy like coloured water. Skinny chips like McD’s, but cold and chewy. I had the Grander burger, punted as the equivalent of a Chomp to a baby hippo. All that was bigger was the bun, so the poor little chicken fillet looked like Nigel No Mates. On a BROWN bun. I mean, really? Christian’s Tower Zinger was OK.

Still counting ourselves lucky we didn’t hit the McD’s though. Had interest piqued since Prague by their new campaign, which is all blue background, with a feature burger… with a whale tail behind it. Seriously. Closer inspection seems to indicate that the blue / whale theme is supposed to be Mediterranean. The feature menu is:
1) Tzatziki and feta beef burger on a herby focaccia
2) Parmesan beef burger on a parmesan ciabatta
3) Provenciale crinkle cut potato wedges
4) Tempura-style deep fried prawns

Check it out http://www.mcdonalds.sk/sk/novinky/prid_na_chut_stredomoriu.shtml . Very odd.

TUESDAY

Up and out bright and breezy this morning. Same routine with the breakfast / take-away rolls for lunch routine, then out for a brisk walk to the bus station to catch the 09h30 to Vienna. Although only something laughable like 47kms away, the bus takes an hour and a half, slowing to a crawl through some very narrow one-lane country towns along the way. Very pretty countryside though – and still pleased not to have to drive as the right hand side of the road is no more comfortable than when we first got here.

Great day out in Vienna. Beautiful city, with beautiful old buildings and plazas, conveniently tightly locked in a very manageable epicentre so we got to see everything – and some stuff we wouldn’t have bothered with had they been any further out seeing as we were on foot and only had the one day to explore. Got loads of pics of us posed like proper tourists in front of all sorts of buildings and fountains that am sure will be a challenge to caption when the time comes, but still…

Made a stop in at the 1516 Brewing Company and tried out the local recommendations, then hit the other side of the Danube to see what the residential quarters had to offer. Managed to find a cosy little wendy-house type thing to settle in for our sarmies and joked that with property prices what they’re likely to be, this would be our new settling home should we move to Vienna (which incidentally, we think we’d do in a flash).

Caught the Twin City liner down the Danube for a riverboat route home and can’t say there’s much to report on the journey or view. (Probably because we were both napping after another day of marathon mileage on foot).

Boat docked in the new part of Bratislava, which we hadn’t bothered with. Glad it did – awesome marina with loads of riverfront bars and cafes, a live concert set-up, wonderous sunset… and the inevitable sundowners (Christian’s beered out now and onto wine).

Sticking with the mariners theme, fish, calamari and chips for dinner, accompanied by a local special – potato dumplings with bryndza (sheep) cheese. very good.

Up and off to Budapest tomorrow. Might have to have a lasty in the hotel bar tonight to get Christian to sleep any – he’s super-excited about seeing Bad Religion tomorrow! Bring on Sziget!!

Czech Republic, Europe, Germany, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 1: Munich & Prague

MUNICH & PRAGUE

05 – 08 August 2010

Our adventure began with using the Gautrain for the first time. Beating the rush hour in Sandton was the first victory, the short queues and helpful kiosk assistants were the second and the literal 12 minute train journey the coup de gras! Well worth the R100 each!

Victory was hollow however, having arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport pre-5pm for a 20h40 flight and waiting around for the check-in gate numbers to be posted, which just never happened. When we eventually got to check in, we were horrified to find that we had seats pre-booked by our travel agent (the lovely people at eBucks who had almost lost my ticket completely because they spelled my name wrong in the original booking) THIRTY PLUS rows apart. Awesome. We managed to change them, but the only seat left side-by-side were in the middle of the middle of the 4 seat rows.

Turned out OK though as somehow Lufthansa seems to have INCREASED the size of their seats and the amount of legroom… although this loss of income clearly must be subsidised by their savings on the entertainment front – the only ‘new’ movie was Sherlock Holmes (the Robert Downey Junior one), the majority ‘classics’ and the never-tempting Avatar in a category all to itself. Lufthansa must be monitoring my Twitter account as they managed to thwart the ‘chicken AND beef’ strategy by only having lamb left by the time they got to us. Hhhmpf.

Fortunately we had very quiet and reserved neighbours (and half a sleeping tab each) so managed 6 hours of uninterrupted blissful slumber, waking just in time for the ‘quiche’ breakfast. Amazing what those airline chefs can do with (or rather, to) an egg!

We had an 8 hour stop-over in Munich until the flight to Prague, so we darted into town to the Marienplatz for a very early beer, sausage and pretzel breakfast. The Germans are clearly very experienced with their sausaging; marvellous idea to serve them (in this case weisswurst white veal sausages) in a turine of boiling water to keep them juicy and hot. Slicing and dicing them, dipping into sweet mustard and complementing with sections of salty bready pretzels makes for a wunderbar snacky-cake!

Pity the weather was lousy, very drizzly and mizzy, so we didn’t do much walking around… but we did find the Hofbrauhaus! Big Daddies all round! Christian got bust doing the photo ninja to an Oriental group. They took it in good spirits however and asked if we would actually pose in a picture with them. Mom and teenage son piled onto our beer bench and – arms around shoulders and toothy grins later – Dad took the pics. Christian then offered to take a pic of them, which they seemed quite excited about, clambering over each other to let him out, then letting mom in to sit next to me for the next ‘family holiday pic’.

Further family fun was provided due east of our table where a pre-teen was sitting with dad (?) and uncle (?) enjoying his Hot Wheels colouring-in book between swigs on a pint. To be fair though, he was only drinking pints and not 1 litre steins like the rest of us! Ironically, the oldies next to us were giving US the beady eye while we were trying to surreptitiously get a photo of the young ‘un.

Attempted without success to find a pizza bar to get a good pic of “Germans in the Pizza Bar” for the album (See F***ing Fulfords reference) and then it was back to the airport without incident (or excitement) (but maybe a short nap) and we were off to Prague!

Taxi guy waiting when we got there, we were planted at the apartment, with Christian’s cousin Lucy and her hubby Mick all ready and waiting to meet-and-greet with cold beers and Cava sparkling wine (and Mick’s genius refrigerated glasses). Anyone planning to stay at Krakovska 3 when visiting Prague should know that Apartment 19 (Mick & Lucy’s) was the one used for the photos for all the web references. The rest of the building looks nothing like it. They got the looks, but we got the TV and washing machine. Granted only sport and Czech channels and it was our first day so we had no washing, but still…

Straight off into the Prague night, deftly avoiding being too close to one-man-bandness and super-chuffed to be where we were, we slugged back some beers and played catch-up and nice-to-meet-yous.

Prague is excellent, but don’t eat at Mike’s Cafe. We did. Trying to sample Czech cuisine, we’d bypassed firm favourites like the Colonel and Mickey D’s and the one-on-every-corner pizza/pasta spots to find somewhere authentic. Drinks served and ready to order from their Czech Speciality section, we were told they were out of Goulash and Czech Chicken (which was 3 of our 4 orders). Hmmmm.

Christian and I ordered the pork steak, which was served looking and tasting a lot like beef steak, but the waiter, having consulted his notepad (rather than the meal itself) was indignant and aggressively insistent that it was pork. No chance. Mick had the ‘tabaco’ chicken, which was described in the menu as ‘chicken (with garlic, spicy)’. When Mick asked the waiter what the chicken was all about he said it was “chicken, with garlic. spicy”. Very helpful. Especially from someone who’d moments earlier told us that they were out of chicken.

Nonetheless, good time had by all… and we headed for home to rest up for the Big Weekend ahead. Sniffles had set in, likely from the plane germs and walking around in the rain, so Mother Cain’s Care Package was welcome solace, with a comforting Lem Sip putting us out like lights. Very street.

SATURDAY

Saturday was sadly also intermittently rainy, but didn’t dampen spirits! Our hotel was amazingly well situated, right at the top of Wenceslas Square by the museum, making for easy landmarking and being a natural starting point to adventure through the centre, past the Astronomical Clock, over King Charles Bridge and into the Old Town (and up the hill trek to the castle etc). Found a most excellent pub to wile away the afternoon in – medieval tavern style – dark and dingy and all by candlelight. A quick beer became several (as we do).

Disillusioned from previous night’s meal debacle, we decided to play it safe and opt Indian. We shared a lamb madras and a butter chicken, with garlic Naan bread (and the inevitable ubiquitous Praha beer) – a rare gem on Stepanska Street and really recommendable (and the Cain / Lawton / Newcombe lines are no beginners to curry, I’m told).

A lick and a promise later, we were out for the night, ditching the planned tour pub crawl because it was too far to mission in the rain and sliding down the stairs to the Majora Zemana pub literally next door to the hotel. Interesting spot. hundreds of open books nailed to the roof to create a lowered layered ceiling, weird wallpaper of pages from what looked like genetic experiments and rare diseases, life-size mannequins in military uniforms, weird Communist looking portraits painted directly onto the walls, arms and ammunition suspended from the rafters and a map showing what Europe would have looked like in 1941. Tried to take some pics, but the waitron rushed over, index finger extended and wagging and told us ‘No photo! No photo! Police bar’. Uh-huh.

The rest of the pub crawl relied more on us and our witty banter and cracking humour to keep ourselves entertained – 2 Irish bars, a rock ‘n roll themed bar and the knock-knock Club (24-hour with slot machines, crusty locals, dodgy Czech music-heavy jukebox and Blade 2 on the TV).

A good night had by all 🙂

SUNDAY

On Sunday we did the last of the city that we hadn’t seen in ‘abundant sunshine’ (Mick’s weather forecaster’s prediction) and succumbed to pizza slices for breakfast – although in our defence we had entered the sandwich shop we got them from in order to buy, you guessed it, sandwiches. They ‘were out’. Same like the Czech dishes the night before, but different.

We had a really good river stroll which showed us most of the city from a whole new perspective – and it was the perfect weather for it – and then wandered through the old town again and headed back up towards our hotel from an unchartered angle.

Found a delightfully local looking spot to have lunch – finally tracking down the goulash we’d been after. Good 3 course meal option. Easy for us, not so much for Lucy. Being a vegetarian, she wasn’t doing the goulash, but inquired about the breaded cauliflower, only to be told they ‘were out’. False alarm this time though and they came back resolved that they indeed had it and she was on the 3-course bandwagon. Only to find that the lentil soup we’d been served for starters had bacon in it! Clearly, I’m not the only person who thinks bacon is garnish and should be an honorary vegetable!

Fed and watered (well, beered), we meandered back to the hotel, got our stuff, said our goodbyes and headed for the train station. Christian is really good at the time-keeping thing (me not so much) so we were (over-)cautiously early, with a good 45 minutes on our side. And then the train was delayed. What a waste of what could have been more Praha-haha time.

No mind though, very comfortable train and fleeting journey, taught Christian Spite & Malice (the very best card game ever) and before we knew it we were in Hotel Kyjev in Bratislava.

But more about that at another time…

Canada, Europe, North America, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Canada 4: Wales

WALES

30 October 2009

Arriving in London from my jaunt in Niagara Falls,  I got through the Heathrow experience and to Kings Cross without incident. I was met at Burger King (Rodeo King deal – cheese and bacon burger with onion rings) by RoRo. SO much better a brekkie than the banana muffin that Air Canada thought would suffice!

Then it was off to Barry’s office to dump (ever-increasingly heavy) luggage. Newly liberated, me and RoRo headed to find Faye HQ – Guardian London. Conveniently close + bud with useful gameplan = Camden!

Was heaving! And had changed so much since I was there last (worked out it was 1992 – believe it. Or not) but all for the good – lots of atmosphere and oozing with the under-promise of over-delivering good times! ;o)

First pint in days…

…and then second…

…and then faye arrived.

*giggles, chatter, hysteria, nostalia, giggles, snickersnort, wittybanterwittybanter, giggle, PHOTO!*

Off to next pub. Barry got off work early, but had the dreaded lurgy so it was a tea for him 🙁

We needed to head back towards the office to outrun London peak traffic to collect (dreadedstartingtohatethecommitment) luggage. Traversed the city effortlessly to deposit selves at Ruby’s. So very the first people there. Was a bit ‘eurotrip’ as the next 2 hours disappeared on fast forward and people filled every conceivable space around us.

Then it was off to Kings Cross and Paddington to get on the train to Wales (picking up BK en route, Bacon Caesar Angus burgers of cheese, bacon, onion straws and Caesar sauce + spicy jalapenos and chewy cheese encased in a crunchy batter).

The train was heaving. We got really lucky finding a table for 2 in First Class (and no conductor so not having to pay upgrade!) seeing as there were people IN FIRST CLASS who stood 2/3 of the 3 hours journey! Passed the time with ‘Spite and Malice’ (our favourite card game). Was 5-1 down at one point, but we ‘agreed’ to call it quits when clambered back to 5-5 position.

Quick power-snooze… and we were there. Swansea.

Interesting locals. Very slapperish uberhighheelpelmetskirts types. Waited for John (Moir) and headed for ‘home’. Couldn’t see much seeing as it was about midnight, but happy to get to <the unpronounceable=”” town=””> and the lovely warm home where we could start our Wicked Weekend in Wales adventure :o)

Did the usual slumber-party, catch-up stuff and then had the greatest night’s sleep in as long as I can remember (YAY). To wake up on Halloween…

SATURDAY

The day started as every day should – was woken with a “don’t ask questions, just follow me” (Barry)… and was led to the kitchen where a full fry-up was waiting! Even though it was a heart-stoppingly early 09h30 (which is super-early considering sleep depro the night before and that night’s extended slumber party antics with me and JM giggling like schoolgirls til 3 in the morning) was still an XL YAY! :o)

All fuelled and ready for action, we headed off to town to do the last minute shopping for Halloween, namely costume accessories, pumpkins and a few odds and sods for our dinner feast. Mission accomplished, we retired to McD’s for a hearty lunch of a Big Tasty With Bacon (100% Beef patty, streaky bacon, a slice of cheese made from Emmental, onion, juicy tomato, crisp lettuce and Big Tasty sauce – which is sort of like a smoked version of the sauce on the Big Mac – in a sesame seed bun) with POTATO WEDGES with sour cream and chive dip! Total awesomeness! McFlurry’s for pudding – with Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Caramels oooo!

Spent the afternoon around the kitchen table, laughing, giggling, catching up, dying hair, making jack-o-lanterns, decorating the house (with orange spray paint and stencils, plastic bats, fake cobwebs and plastic tombstones) and generally having a grand old time.

Was the usual rush to get ready, even though we’d had the whole afternoon to do it. It was all a hubbub of getting costumes on (me Morticia, Emm Vampira, Barry a Vampire, John the Templar Knight), applying facepaint for each other, smearing eyeshadow all over the show and (the other 3) putting in wicked costume contact lenses. We were supposed to be out at 5, we eventually left about 5.40. Oops.

So, we get to the party the better part of an hour late. And we’re the only grown-ups in costume!! The guy Emm works with that had invited us to the party had told Emm everyone dresses up, omitting that he meant all the CHILDREN dress up! We felt a bit arse… but was all part of the fun in the end (and the party came to a rather abrupt end about 20 minutes later when, after a short fire-dancing and fireworks display, everyone just packed up and left). The never-say-die people we are, we just adjourned to the pub (The Greyhound, B&E’s local).

2 pints and 2 tequilas down – having been treated to a class joke (John was in a Knight’s Templar outfit, so one of the locals saw the Maltese Cross insignia emblazoned on the cape and said “how do you make a maltese cross? poke him”. It was funnier when john caught it about 10 minutes later than it was when the local told it though! teehee), watched the kids breakdance, done a modelling shoot in the bathroom using the hand-drier for effect – we headed for home to get us fed and Griff to bed.

Sumptuous dinner of steak tartare and raw salmon (let me hear you say ‘es ki mo’ – see previous travelogue), nachos and sour cream – all washed down with delightful red and to the dulcet beat Shnee Wurt Schnit Shnee Wizey Wize (yes THE SWSSWW that B had been looking for for over half a lifetime!! … which Emm also loved in the day… and which I never would have guessed was the song it turned out to be, which I recognise but would never have fitted Barry’s fantasy lyrics to!) – and it was bedtime for B&E and back to the pub for J and me.

By the time we got back (about 10 maybe), the pub was more festive and there were at least a few more people in costume. One such being an ‘attractive blonde girl’ that John spotted across the bar and thought had potential, what with her lithe frame and shortshort hotpants… until we got closer and saw the Adam’s apple and hairy legs through ‘her’ stockings. We’re still not convinced it was a Halloween costume. There were also a fair number of slapper type chicks that I could have sworn were fancy-dressed as pumpkins, but I’m told the tanning salon craze has hit here in a big way. It’s crazy, they’re all orange. Orangeorange. Like nowhere near natural tan colour. And not – soso very not – attractive.

We made quite an impression on the barman seeing as we ordered tequilas with every round, which is a rarity in these parts apparently. He started pouring us half tots since their standard tot glasses are doubles, until John goaded him into giving us full tot glasses (still at singles prices). Eventually the poor man was just pouring for us freehand into halfpint glasses… and having one himself! Funfunfun.

We calculated 8 pints (and who knows how much tequila seeing as there was no standard measure), which would explain why the details of the walk home (yes, I said WALK home) are a little blurry. We must, however, have decided quite spur of the moment to leave for home seeing as we both brought our glasses home and there was still a considerable amount in them in the morning. Hmmm…

SUNDAY

In the morning B&E had to mission in to town as there had been a little mishap with Griff spilling water on the TV, killing it dead. while they went to get a new one, me and John walked (yes, there’s that word again) to the corner store (called the Red Shop by Emm, have yet to ask why) where I found some of life’s simple pleasures and some great mysteries:
– Pringles cheese and onion
– Aero instant hot chocolate sachets
– thick slice bread
– mince with onions and gravy in a can
– All Day Breakfast in a can: sausage, bacon, egg nuggets (intriguing), beans in tomato sauce, cereal (WTF?!) and chopped pork (if it’s not sausage or bacon then what is it?!)

Humour restored, I dutifully watched John make omelettes (well sort of, was tres busy with uploading pics from the previous night) with cheese, ham, onion and bacon. genius, pure genius!

Spent the rest of the day much like the day before, just enjoying the pleasure of each others’ company. We had some really classic moments too. Like when John was making comment about my growing mound of clothing starting to impede access to our room and said that we could never live together, expressing very matter-of-factly, with much gusto that he ‘really likes an anal cleaner’. Of course, I had no choice but to reply with ‘why? does your anus get THAT dirty?’ … the whole episode cuing all sorts of offers from Barry for his plunger to sort out Emma’s plumbing in the tradesman’s entrance etc etc etc. Hearty guffaws all round and we’ve replayed the joke every which way all day and it’s still as funny as the first time. We’ve had a very non-PC day, but sososo much fun!

Tried to get some salt marsh Lamb on the way to drop John off at the station, but alas we were too late and the shop had shut. Sad to see John off, but not too terrible as he was due home for a visit in a few weeks so it was a literal ‘bye for now’.

Back to the kitchen table, Hobgoblins for me, a bottle of red for Emm, superlative company for Barry, a wheel of Camembert with water biscuits (which are completely tasteless but I’m told take more calories to chew than the calories you take in by eating them), ham sarmies (with real butter and mayo) and more chatchatchatlaughlaughlaugh (and some teeter-tottering around in Emm’s oh-so-beautiful-but-the-most-ridiculously-uncomfortable-shoes-EVER-made super-too-high-and-then-some emerald green sequined heels).

Am loving these peeps and every minute here!! :o)

MONDAY

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the bustling metropolis of Llanrhidian. B&E (and mom and Griffin) were in a house literally right next door to the school, so it was super-convenient and meant the mornings were quite a relaxed affair seeing as school only starts at 09h00 and it’s a 25 second walk.

We went past their new house as well. It’s in a (yes, hard to believe) SMALLER village than this one, called Landimore. There are no road names (not a biggie since there are essentially only 2 roads) so the houses don’t have numbers they have names. B&E’s new house is called The Cottage. If you ever want to rediscover the lost art of letter-writing then you can reach them on:
The Cottage
Landimore
Wales
SA31HD

Easypeasy just like that. :o)

We’d set off on a mission to go and secure some salt marsh lamb for SCM and to take to the Londoners, but the people at Weobly Castle felt it wasn’t a work day so there was nobody there, nor answering to the numbers posted on the door. Never fear though, this is sheep territory so we just got details for a butcher in the neighbouring town and set out on a mission to find said demigod. We bought the most spankable 2kg rolled SML londres, cubes for the lamb stew for SCM and some delightful sirloin as a bonus round.

Then we decided to drive into the country (about 7.5 minutes in any direction) for lunch at The King Arthur, so named because it’s right by Arthur’s Stone, which legend says started off as a pebble in King Arthur’s boot that was irritating him and as he was such a great man, he pulled off his boot while riding to shake loose the stone. The stone rolled down the hill and became a massive boulder. Which is now perched all alone atop a little hill (he was THAT great that the stone rolled uphill, nogal) and makes a good landmark on the horizon, if not a very ‘I have a vivid imagination I’m not afraid to use’ story. (And a great place to get engaged – this was the spot that B&E did ring swap and the official official thing).

The pub is a super-traditional one that must have been operating forever and a day, with all the usual pub fare you’d expect (like steak and mushroom pies with mega puff pastry caps) and some unusuals (for me). We shared the chicken wrapped in bacon with cheese and leek sauce and mash and a wild boar steak with cider and apple sauce and homebrew chips. YUM. All washed down with usual pint of Carling. I cpuld see why this was often said to be one of the Top 10 pubs in Britain.

All fed, cooking done and housework down (am definitely bringing Martha next time) we set about to practice our sloth. Had to rest up for the Wig Party! Emm had bought us wigs for our Halloween costumes, but typically, they arrived 2 days too late…. so we used them for a global Outies SCM theme dinner instead. Was very weird having a Skype webcam conv with the 3 of us here and the usual suspects at my house over there. It also seemed a trifle unsettling for Mick and Mal who didn’t seem to understand where my voice was coming from. Was marvy to catchup with everyone again tho. Methinks this might have to be a regular calendar event! The lamb stew was great tho, served with garlic bruscetta with melted feta.

Emm’s mom also got back from Costa Rica the day before so there was much joviality (not at all because of the champagne, red wine, beers and jagermeister) and some exotic dancing in the kitchen. We were clearly not as merry as the other night tho seeing as we weren’t even tempted to try walking in Emm’s ohsoprettybutnevergonnawearthem green sequined heels. We did find other uses for them tho – you know hat, earrings, guns, the usual…

TUESDAY

We were off to catch the train to london – for a (bound to be) merry reunion with Faye, Lix and RoRoRo (I gave him my middle name so he gets a bonus ‘Ro’. I’m not taking ‘Birkmyre’ tho!)

Canada, North America, Travelogue

Travelogue Canada 3: Niagara Falls

NIAGARA FALLS

28 – 29 October 2009

So you’d think I have nothing to say seeing as I spent the whole day in transit, right? wrong!

These amazing things happened before we left Churchill at 09h15:

  • (no surprises) I woke up before the alarm (set for 07h00) at 06h15. was showered, dressed, packed and ready ridiculously early.
  • Ate almost my body weight in bacon with breakfast. Sacrificed the French toast to make space seeing as Doug had gone out of his way to get 20 lbs (whatever that is in real weight) for this morning as he’d noticed liked it so much (oh yes, and I complained repeatedly because there was none yesterday). Have also taken to drowning breakfast in syrup (like in the proportions I have gravy with a roast dinner!), which is a habit I might have to try and leave in Canada.
  • We got a photo of Doug next to one of the (many) yellow school busses so you can see what a Small Town Super Hero looks like
  • We intended to get more sunrise photos (sunrise is at a very civilised 08h20 or so), but it was too misty 🙁
  • I took a trot to the Eskimo museum (which we still muse over why it’s not called the Inuit Museum – see previous travelogue) to purchase a mini polar bear plush. Made sense seeing as I have so many that I actually have one from the home of the PB. Of course, keeping to convention of naming them after where I get them, have named him Churchill.

Nothing remarkable about Churchill Airport.

Great snack box on the plane though. Croissant with hickory type ham with lettuce (which is rare for these parts – considering the weather, it’s considered an exotic and goes for in the region of $9.50 a head!!). There was a marble Cheddar cheese stick in the box which I broke up and stuck on the croissant. GENIUS! There was also a bag of small orange deathsticks (baby carrots, which I refuse to eat since the attempted murder incident of circa 1981 where I almost choked to death on one. Granted, I used to swallow them whole because my Gran insisted I eat them and I couldn’t bear the taste. But still).

Calm Air (the airline that did our Winnipeg – Churchill return flights) managed to break my suitcase. The zip that works the expander section, so went to report that. Expected resistance seeing as the damage isn’t critical to the function of the suitcase, but they called the area supervisor who said that I can get it fixed at home and send her the bill and she’ll reimburse. Very civilised. So i complimented her on their sandwiches and said I’ll be in touch! :o)

Winnipeg airport turned out to offer me the most amazing experience – HARVEY’S!! the best burger I think I’ve ever had! The bacon cheddar 3 ringer burger (the 3 rings are battered deep fried onion rings). Awesome burger, similar to Velskoen style patty with lettuce, onion, tomato, ketchup, mayo and mustard. 6 stars!!

Uneventful flight (buy-your-own catering. Bummer)

And then was back in Toronto. Managed to find the hostel no probs (back in room #32, the ‘Wayne Gretsky’). Worked the public transport like an old pro :o)

It would be off to Niagara then next day, and then to London and Wales!!

THURSDAY

Niagara was cool. I had arranged a ticket for an organised coach tour, so there was not much to do except show up and get on the bus. Which I did.

I was pleasantly surprised at how pretty the town of Niagara is. The bus stopped so we could have a wander up and down the streets, get snacks, have a bio break and take some snaps. It was quite lonely doing it on my own; I am not a very good solo traveller.

The Niagara Falls experience was less of a tour and more of an ‘self-guide with a raincoat’ vibe. You can approach the viewing decks within your own limits, on the understanding that the closer you get, the better the view, but the more you are going to be ‘one with the water’.

Glad I did it, seeing as it’s a big ‘natural wonder’ deal ‘n all. Lots of falling water but not enamoured by the drenching of close-up shots… especially seeing as it was a foggy day so there was limited WOW photo potential.

Did manage to achieve one of my personal Canadian Bucket List goals by finally finding an actualfactual Wendy’s!! had the Baconator. 3 words: in. cred. ible. sort of like a double McD’s 1/4 pounder, with double cheese and a packet of bacon. No regrets, was TOTALLY worth the wait. (And took pics, so don’t rely on imagination because it’ll so understate!)

Got to the airport well in time.

Got stuck next to a seat-leech on the plane, which made for a world of pain. She not only took over the armrest (we were ‘sposed to be sharing) but also had impossibly accurate elbows, that have seek-and-destroy function for my (poor unsuspecting) ribs. Ended up leaning almost entirely in the aisle, meaning that every moving body in the aisle bumped my foot/knee/elbow/head as they passed and I dozed in 5-7.5 min spells over the (already challenging) 3.5 hours set aside for sleepy time.

Not even the chicken breast with creamy sweet mustard sauce and frilly noodles could lift spirits. Although the fact that my neighbour is a vegetarian and had forgotten to order special meal so was reduced to a dinner of bread rolls alone did marginally *evil laugh*

Nevermind, just needed to get some shut eye and I’d be waking up in London… on my way to Wales!

Canada, North America, Travelogue

Travelogue Canada 2: Winnipeg & Churchill

WINNIPEG & CHURCHILL
POLAR BEARS

23 – 27 October 2009

All fed and ready to go, headed to airport to meet (almost literally) Phillipa to go to Winnipeg & Churchill together to see the polar bears. Did a catch-up at the Toronto Airport (including me giving her a guided tour of Canadian sandwiches – they are EVERYWHERE here) and then hopped on plane, managing to swap seats to be next to each other.

Chatted and giggled like old friends and an indeterminate (thanks to changing time zones and the added complication of daylight savings) few short hours later we were in the booming metropolis of Winnipeg.

We caught a taxi to the Fort Gary Hotel and found that we were indeed the dowdiest people here. Tres chic digs indeed. Fortunately the Clan Cameron reunion – complete with freezing Canadians in kilts and acoustically-bold foyer and incessant bagpipe combo – meant we slipped through relatively unnoticed.

After our long planestrainsandautomobiles journey, the big poofy cloud-like beds almost caught us, but we resisted just long enough to get off to Pizza Hut to eat way too much. We didn’t last long on return though and again I wondered, post 23h00 to 07h45 sleep, if my bio-rhythms aren’t trying to tell me something…

SATURDAY

Our lovely hotel delighted us with a big brekkie in the morning – Denver omelette with cheese, ham, spring onion and mushrooms + back bacon + some other pea-something bacon that’s crumbed and sort of like gammon. Running out of space to try everything I was forced to pocket all sort of little nibbly-bit cheesey things for the flight.

With Free Time to kill, we did a quick whip around Winnnipeg. There was not a whole lot going on and not much to report. We realised we wouldn’t need the extra day on the return journey so put in motion plans to get back to Toronto to try squeeze in a Niagara Falls tour instead.

And then it was time to get to the main event. Off to Churchill!

Shame man, Churchill Airport was so cute with the little almost conveyor belt they have. It doesn’t even loop or anything, just sort of crescenty grey smile-in-motion sort of thing. Anyway, did the trick, so I shouldn’t be condescending.

We checked into the Churchill Motel, Room #17. The motel was in the middle of the main <read: “only”> road in town and was lovely and clean and spartan and adequate. Not even a distant relative of the Fort Garry Hotel plushness of the night before! … but (again) did the trick, so I shouldn’t be condescending.

We ambled over the road to our welcome dinner at the Trader’s Table. The best restaurant in town, so we were told. We had tomato soup starter (was either that or something called ‘salad’, so opted for the safer, more familiar option), Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon with roast baby potatoes for main and something unfamiliar and (compulsory) unrecognisable for pudding, which was something fruity with something baked, so dabbled with the ice-cream and left the rest largely untouched. Phillipa had the salmon for main (served with a honey and soy sauce glazing) which was heavenly. I have never ordered salmon before, but should have adventured it this time seeing as my steak was overdone (well, ‘done’ seeing as I had ordered it rare and it was cooked).

We were home and in bed by 21h30! A new record! AND up (before alarm!) at 06h30! what is becoming of me?!

SUNDAY

Fabulous ‘pancakes’ (flapjacks) and French (Canadian) toast with bacon and syrup for brekkers and then (uncharacteristically) on-time for 07h45 departure for polar bear expedition.

It was literally freezing cold.. but nothing a pair of tights, fleece trackie pants, socks, ski socks, thermal vest, jersey, ski suit, ski boots, scarf and gloves couldn’t solve!

We boarded the tundra buggy trading a seat in the middle, close to the actual fireplace in the vehicle (!!)  for the front seat for best vantage point.

We spent the day happily ogling polar bears, arctic hares and arctic foxes in the tundra, padding across frozen bodies of water, snoozing in the kelpy stuff by the water’s edge and just generally chilling and arbing about the place… and right up close to the buggies! Total Awesomeness!

We had a laugh early on in the morning when the tour guide was going on about how we should keep an eye out for Artesian Whales along the way. Of course he was pointing at a trickling streamlet no deeper than 10 or so cms at the time, so we were marvelling at what these could possibly be, considering the possiblities of miniature this and that, the sea creatures on the back of comic books etc etc… until we realised it’s a dialect thing and he was talking about Artesian WELLS! duh! *giggle* It became a running joke all day and never ceased to amuse :o)

The same guide redeemed himself with a useful factoid though: Eskimo is a derogatory term to the people we’ve always called Eskimo. They are actually the Innuit (which means ‘The People’) and got the name from the Cree Indians who called them that based on the words in their language ‘e ski mo’ which means “eats raw meat”. Tres interessant.

On the food front: delighted by another soup and sarmie combo for lunch. This time chicken noodle + turkey on Portuguese roll. Had to say it for these folk; they do understand the bread:filling ratios. Very nice.

Seeing the polar bears up close was incredible. They were so big and beautiful – and I STILL don’t think they’re as vicious as they’re accused of being, having seen them padding around and stretching curiously up against the buggy.

It was such a literally awesome day that we couldn’t wait to get back out there. But we would have town tour and dog sledding the next day before getting back into the tundra on Tuesday). Phillipa’s took a ton of really good pics with her new camera, so will bore whoever I can corner when I get the disk(s) from her.

On return to the motel, I made headway with Plan Niagara by befriending Doug, the dude at the front desk and (so we learned) owner of this place. And all the town’s school busses. And I say ‘all the town’s schoolbusses’ because all the tour busses are the traditional yellow schoolbusses – as well as the one which obviously transports the kids to school (189 kids in Churchill from nursery school to matric – Doug’s a veritable RainMan when it comes to this town).

So, Doug lent us his phone, his laptop, his internet, his best advice… and made Travelogue-ing and Plan Niagara a reality before dinner at Gypsy’s. Another surprisingly quality meal in this tiny town; a tastytasty chicken cordon bleu burger and poutine (chips with melted cheese and gravy on top) and a couple of beers (Lebatts Blue)

MONDAY

We pulled a (now) usual and got up before the alarm went off at a usually-alarming 06h30. Fortunately with the time difference with Toronto and the 24-hour Air Canada call centre, I was able to get started on Plan Niagara.

The results were a mixture of good and bad news. I could change my flights to skip the day in (dreadfully dull) Winnipeg in favour of a day in Toronto for a day trip to Niagara, but Phillipa couldn’t. Reason being that I had stop-overs on my journey already (whoop-whoop for Wales extension tour!) so my ticket was broken down into legs, but P’s ticket was essentially one ticket from Jhb-Winnipeg. Upgrading hers would be hundreds of $$$ so not economically viable, which is sad for both of us as we have turned out to be enormously compatible travel-buddies.I was brave and bold and soldiered forth with the excursion. A big step for me (and big thanks to Marian and the girls for accompanying me and taking some of the scary out of so much alone time).

Anyway, back to the Churchill experience…

We took a ‘city tour’ of the booming metropolis of Churchill, which somehow they managed to turn into a 2-and-a-half-hour affair despite the fact that it’s a 1.5 road town, with 700 odd (in both senses of the word) inhabitants and no roads in or out of the town (only access via train or plane!). They do have an ice-rink and curling rink (indoors because it’s TOO COLD outside), movies, bowling lanes, Eskimo museum (surprisingly not called ‘Inuit’ museum – see above), post office (which stamps your passport with a polar bear stamp – YAY) and some wheat silo thing which got waaaay too much time with talk of bushels and other (more)agri(than)cultural bollocks.

The highlight of the tour was the polar bear jail. They have to incarcerate bears that wander through town and do all sorts of menacing and scrimmaging things. They get locked up and given water – “no food, it’s not a hotel after all” – and tranquilised and airlifted to the great blue yonder. There were 15 bears in jail when we were there, but they wouldn’t let us see them. It’s not like we were going to give them cakes with keys in them or anything… 🙁

We went on a dogsled adventure in the afternoon. Those animals are really (p)awesome! The dude (Dave Daily) that hosted is some champion with accolades in all sorts of races I’ve neverever heard of. He had maybe 35-40 dogs and they were all well-groomed and well-adjusted despite the fact that they live outside all year round, chained to their individual kennel with a 2 or so metre chain. It sounds restrictive, but they are close enough to interact with their neighbours, and are clearly well taken care of and well-exercised – and it was heart-melting to see the way they interacted with their Alpha Male (Dave) who lavished them with affection while he took us on a tour of the set-up.

He hooked up 12 of them to a cart (there wasn’t enough snow to warrant a sled) and took us on rides in groups of 6 at a time. Crazycool that the dogs (all mixed breeds, but most with Husky influence) are so strong – and they seem to really get off on pulling the cart! It wasn’t as adrenalised as anticipated, nor as I would expect the sled would have been, but was still a good way to spend an afternoon.

We did dinner at Northern Nights on the last night; sharing a table with the tour guide and naturist, so on best behaviour. We gorged as usual with beef and rice soup starter (seems soup/salad option is included as standard), then shared (with Phillipa) a shrimp (big prawns, shelled but still with tails) fettucini and chicken parmesan with baked potato infused with garlic butter.

All the adventuring (and early mornings) had taken their toll and we we reached a new bedtime low, falling asleep watching TV sometime between 20h30 and 21h00. Eish.

TUESDAY

We had an early start for another tundra day. It was worth it because we saw INCREDIBLE stuff. Sightings started with a mother and 2 babies – quite old cubs, estimated to be 18 – 20 months or so. Apparently this multi-cub thing is quite unique to Churchill; most polar bears only have 1 cub elsewhere, but here it’s quite common to have 2 or even 3 cubs! Also, the animals’ curiousity seems to outweigh their skittishness and they are relatively brave with coming to check out the weird 2-legged and 8-wheeled non-bear stuff.

We got some AMAZING photos of the bears right next to the buggy. Even with my camera, they were THAT CLOSE! We saw so many bears over the course of the day that we got to the point where we didn’t even get up for Binocular Bears (so far that only really worth checking out with binoculars) or the Boring Bears (the ones sleeping in the kelp), only making effort for the Bonus Bears (ones that did cool stuff worth photographing) and Baby Bears.

We kept ourselves entertained in between with people watching (and lunch of course – chicken noodle soup again and a brilliant sweet ham with smokey rind and strong yellow cheese white roll). We’ve been with these people (most of whom are around about mine and Phillipa’s combined age) for how many days now and only know one name. A yugoslavian old lady called Audrey (who has lived in Toronto for 40 years but still speaks like Borat), whose name actually isn’t Audrey, but it’s the easier English version of an otherwise unpronounceable name.

Highlights of the rest of the group were:

– Red Jacket Lady: a Canadian from Ottawa, a schoolteacher and a right eager-beaver. Eager to the point of selfish and rude though. Always at the front of everything, muscling her way to the photo vantage points, making space for the naturist to sit by her so she can ask lots of questions and giggle coyly at his anecdotes.
– Loud American and friends: started off as one American lady who stood out, but slowly her troupe have gotten to us too. Over time have figured out that it’s her and husband and her brother and his wife. There was a lengthy and heated debate today over ages when her and what turned out to be her brother were arguing over whether or not she is 68 and he 72. Argument was settled when calculating back from birthdays (Nov ’42 and Mar ’38 respectively). Interestingly, she is also a schoolteacher.
– Old Man and Young Boy: boy must be mid-teens, travelling with what we suspect to be his grandfather. Yet to hear boy speak – he sits in hoodie, head down and either snoozes or watches stuff on his iPod. Old Man made conversation with us several times today (in between avidly reading his copy of The Economist cover-to-cover).
– Mr and Mrs Painful: she’s built like Jabba and walks with a cane. He doesn’t get to speak for himself (right down to Mrs P asking if the people in the queue for the loo needed it badly because Mr P ‘needs to go’. Have you ever?!). Coup de gras tonight when we got stuck at dinner with them and he couldn’t have the potato and bacon chowder starter because he “can’t” eat potatoes. S8uhe sent her steak back twice, proudly exclaiming that it’s not unusual for her to send something back 3 or 4 times, but then ended up getting a take-away chicken strips instead… and couldn’t have the chocolate torte pudding because she’s lactose intolerant and couldn’t have the suggested peaches substitute because it ‘pains her gall stones’, so she ended up with apple pie and we ended up leaving early.
– Singapore couple: can’t work out what their story is. They seem to be playing married, we’re not so sure. Oh, and they seem to share and alternate a pair of disturbingly tight ski pants.
– The Walkers: a painful couple who are just too over-achieverish with this X-treme adventure thing. When we were just languishing in the being on land thing, they had already walked to the airport and back twice. They didn’t do the city tour on the bus, they walked from point to point. You know the type.
– German trio: Mr (male nurse) and Mrs (social worker) + her mentally disabled brother. They’re not too bad.
– Irish Chick: Typical middle aged woman. Trying desperately to be friends with Audrey, but Audrey keeps shaking her and trying to be friends with us
– Aging Hippy Chick: convinced she’s the only American on the trip. keeps exclaiming it loudly and with disbelief. That, and the oddest fitting pair of jeans of ever (sort of like denim Hammer pants, with unreasonably OTT ode to the elasticated waist).
– David, our tour-guide, ornithologist and naturist: he has long, delicate slender fingers with manicured enviably long nails, a bouffant silver grey hairdo, a whistling speech style with over-enunciated verbiage and jeans that always sit askew, with the Greenwich mean of the back-seam slicing his right butt cheek diagonally in half. That said, he really does seem to savour every sight and sound the tour has to offer… even getting excited – after a long day of awesome polar bear spotting – about the ‘lesser spotted Rock Ptarmigan and not the Willow Ptarmigan’ or of course yet another Artesian Whale (see above)
– Doug: not on the tour, owner of the Churchill Motel, driver of the school bus and who knows what else. He’s been our shining light. Lent us a laptop, sorted us out with what we needed for Plan Niagara, given us collectors’ 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics quarters, ordered 20 pounds of bacon in time for our farewell breakfast in the morning etc etc etc.

Anyway, as soon as we had ‘gotten to know’ these folk, we’re about to be parted. Had our farewell dinner (potato and bacon chowder, Arctic char and chips, chocolate torte) and had packed bags and ready to leave the next day. It would be more planes and trains with Churchill flight back to Winnipeg, booking luggage into storage then bus and train into town to the old faithful, The Canadiana Hostel.

The Polar Bear Tour was truly epic because I had seen and done everything (and more than) that was on the agenda. But it all went by so fast…

Canada, North America, Travelogue

Travelogue Canada 1: Toronto

TORONTO

21-23 October 2009

Almost didn’t get out of the airport, thanks to Virgin and changing the boarding gate at the last minute without warning. Still, managed to get on (3rd last passenger) and score the emergency exit seats.

Flight was without incident – bar the battle of wits it took to convince the steward that chicken OR beef could actually be chicken AND beef. Am pleased to report that the chicken casserole and roast beef and mash were equally yummy and worth the effort.

The Heathrow Airport 5-hour stop-over went by faster than anticipated thanks to:
1) HMV sale: narrowed it down to about 176 items (totalling the GDP of a small African country, say The Gambia) which I will obsess over until my return to Heathrow next next Sunday
2) a take-away called EAT, which does an awesome toasted Swiss cheese and hickory ham croissant
3) Marion Keyes, officially my new favourite travel partner.

Made friends with the old duck next to me on the Air Canada flight. She was from Winnipeg – where I was headed – and had been on the polar bear tour before. She said it was AMAZING, which was good to hear bearing in mind the effort and expense I was going to for this same adventure.

Enlisted the help of the Travel Aid desk (an Australian; they really are everywhere) to sort out my stay in Toronto. Had arrived with no plans and an open mind and we sussed the best plan to be the Canadiana hostel and public transport. The polar bear people had recommended a hotel @ $138 for the night and coach @ $28; we managed a hostel @ $30 (+$5 deposit for towel and $5 deposit for linen) and $2.25 for the transport, which was a bus and 2 undergrounds depositing me 2 blocks from the hostel. Score!

Found it easy enough. And luckily the evening’s planned activity was free pool at the pub, so showered and headed out to The Charlotte Room with a motley bunch of people from all over. Played shocking pool, but blame the table as is half-size versus thirds we have at home. Not enamoured with $6.25 a pint either!

Headed out from there for a flit through Chinatown and Little Italy, stopping to Fast Food Meze along the way with a KFC snacker (difficult choice as there’s SO much we don’t have at home. was conflicted about starch choice as didn’t want a whole chips and mash & gravy so couldn’t justify the $8 and don’t like the whole sloppy poutine experience they have with chips drizzled in mash and gravy), Taco Bell double cheese tortilla and a McD’s cheese and bacon burger (SO the future – we NEED them at home!!)

Then ambled through Toronto’s main bar streets – Queen St and King St West – and headed for home, which is bunking (literally) in a Quad room I’m sharing with an Indian girl and a French girl. They’re both ‘living’ here at the hostel so it feel more like a slumber party.

Was asleep by 23h30 and woke naturally at 06h45 which leads me to believe that my bio-rhythms think they’re home!

FRIDAY

I was a long wait for my free pancake breakfast  at 09h00 (these people are so civilised, breakfast from 9-10 AND they have free wireless even in a hostel. EVERYONE wanders around with their laptops – as you can imagine I feel very left out!)

The morning was dedicated to a city tour – and the hope of finding a Wendy’s, BK and Popeye along the way for snacks and nibbly bits.

The Toronto City Tour was the world’s greatest, with a brilliant guide with a good combo of history and trivia and (seeing as I was the only one on the bus most of the way he shared) some of the left-of-centre factoids that I’m guessing he doesn’t tell just everyone. ;o)

Toronto is a very interesting city. I loved the fact that they have an entire mall/city under the city itself. What’s not to love about 17 square kilometres of shopping under the hustle-bustle of the poor bastards that have to work for a living?!

I was pleased to discover that fast food underground was just as satisfying as overground (although I guess I could have just checked that with The Wombles). I was persuaded through some not-so-subtle indoctrination by the tour guide to sample Tim Hortons – the biggest fast food chain in Canada started by some famous sports guy. The chain controversially bought out Subway and is now based in America – oooo). They’re famous for their soup & sandwich combos… and you know how I feel about sandwiches. I had a (magnificent) french onion soup and chicken / BLT / honey mustard club on sourdough. Woah, awesome!

Blitz tour of Toronto done, it was time to get to the airport to meet Philippa and be off to Winnipeg.