Continental Capers

Continental Capers

Well after a 16hr bus trip and only 2hrs of sleep followed by sleepless 9hr flight in the evening, I arrived in London positively stuffed. Still I was glad to be back in ‘Ol Blighty as I had a fantastic few weeks lined up catching up with various familiar faces in both the UK and on the continent starting with my bueno amigo de Universidad Tex, or Miguel, who was passing through after completing 6 months of study in Mexico. Having only 2 days together we had little time to waste and so we headed out to experience London despite my zombie-like state. Unfortunately waste time we did as it took us an hour of waiting outside Buckingham Palace to realize that the changing of the guards takes place every other day. We did however get the chance to heckle those damn Poms who won the ashes as they entered to collect their OBEs or MBEs for winning 2 bloody games of cricket.

I know, not technically continental... Tex and I at London tower bridge.

Having been to London previously and completed the obligatory bus tours of the sights, we pretty much spent time catching up on respective adventures and generally avoiding sleep until we headed to West End in the evening to catch a performance of the Lion King. Now for the life of me I cannot understand why I cannot get a wink when reclining during a 34 hour bus trip, or a 9hr flight but when I desperately want to stay awake to enjoy an award-winning musical, I can fall into a deep sleep whilst sitting bolt upright in a cramped theatre stall. Suffice to say I woke up with the theatre completely empty except for a few ushers and Tex laughing hysterically at the end of our row. I can only assume that Scar dies?

We passed the rest of our time together with a little museum hopping including the typically impressive British museum with its incredible collection of ripped off and stolen artifacts from around the world. More to my liking however was the Imperial War Museum with its interactive displays, tanks, guns and very realistic reproductions or “experiences” of life in a WWI trench (complete with funky trench odours) and Blitz-era London (“Lots of damage, yeah? All caused by the blitz, yeah?” Our guide was at pains to convince us of the authenticity of the scene we surveyed….). A few delicious strawberry Belgian beers in the evening to say farewell and then it was another measly 2hrs of sleep before catching a ridiculously early flight to Copenhagen, immediately putting me on the back foot again so far as energy levels go.

Tim, Chris and myself, good times in Copenhagen. Notice my semi-beard!! It only took like 5 months.

I was in Denmark to pay a visit to an old school mate of mine, Chris, who following a whirlwind romance with his girlfriend, also called Chris (quite the weird coincidence) is now living in central Copenhagen and I was joined also by another mate from school, Tim. Anyway, as a result of my extremely lethargic state and the vile weather we experienced the whole time, I was hardly in the mood for hardcore touring and so as far as I can tell from my experience, life in Denmark pretty much consists of drinking lots of beer and watching numerous episodes of Scrubs. So yep, a pretty bloody fantastic country by my reckoning, built on the pillars of any vibrant and interesting culture. That and insulting entire religious communities of course...

Copenhagen. It was cold.

Speaking, or writing at least, of beers, one of my most pleasant discoveries, especially considering the horror stories one hears about the ridiculously expensive nature of Scandinavian countries, was that of the exceptionally cheap price of a carton of beer from the supermarket, a paltry 50 Danish Kroners, or roughly AU$11 after conversion for 24 beers!! Gold. Unfortunately, as we discovered when heading out on the town later, there is a huge discrepancy between such drinks prices and those at licensed establishments and we actually ended up paying the same for a single pint of guiness as we did for the 24. Furthermore evidence of this ridiculous practice was the fact that I had to pay AU$5 for a glass of bloody tap water at a restaurant we visited. Tap water!! Tight bloody Danes.

Above is the house where eventually "our Mary" will live with ol mate Freddy. Below is the main square of Copenhagen.

Another problem which I became increasingly aware of now that I was no longer traveling with my original amigos, Pat and Tim (Porter), was that I now required to do my own photography as, in Denmark at least, I only had the other Tim (Ogston) to rely on for scabbing photos from. Now not to say that Ogston is not a fine lensman in his own right but if one was to scroll through a photo album of his own 6 month stint in Europe, you would basically find about 2000 self-portraits of Tim pulling a stupid face and making the “rock on” devil’s horns hand symbol in multiple nightclubs around the continent, taken with his aptly monikered “party” camera. Anyway, suffice to say my only photos of Denmark are essentially of this nature and hardly representative of all that Denmark has to offer. Still I had a great time….

The Ogston (above). Below is some examples of the party camera at work. Notice again, if you will, the semi-beard.

Me too. And I also love Sweden. This is the first thing I saw once stepping off the train on Swedish soil. Ah, stereotypes.

Next up was an entirely comfortable train journey over the bridge to southern Sweden to catch up with my former housemate Janne, who is currently living and working near the little town of Angëlholm. Now most people of only 24 years would generally stick to a similar profession as the one they had studied when seeking work in another country but not Janne, he ditched his electrical engineering skills altogether and is now building a house. For someone else. By himself. And I’m not talking about some shanty town style shack with fibro walls and iron sheeting, this house is a work of art, which I think is pretty amazing especially considering I can barely hammer a nail in straight. Actually I can't even do that.

My mate Janne and below, the house that Janne built. Ridiculously good.

Janne lives with his Aunt and Uncle (Janne grew up in the area by the way) in a beautiful traditional Swedish farmhouse and I was extremely fortunate to enjoy the tremendous hospitality of Britt and Karl respectively in such beautiful surroundings for several days. I can only imagine how pretty the place must be during the summer.

My entirely comfortable Swedish farmhouse lodgings.

It wasn’t all lazing about getting waited on however, and Janne and I partook in some typically Swedish activities including some ice fishing on a frozen lake complete with sausages (in the distinct absence of any fish) cooked on our little “fire on ice”, and of course we had to visit a Swedish sauna (men only) located right on the coast of the frigid Baltic Sea.

Fire on ice... Obviously the sausages tasted better than any fish would anyway.

Now I consider myself a pretty conservative bloke and I can assure you it takes some getting used to get right down in the buff, particularly so in the company of a good mate let alone many strange old Swedes, but by the end I was loving it (not in that way however). It was incredibly “invigorating” to cook yourself in 90 degrees and then run outside and dunk yourself in the Baltic which must have been approaching zero. I can assure you there was no room for self consciousness or concerns over one’s “manliness” after riding the Baltic Bronco for 8 seconds, and it was at times like that at which point I was particularly glad for the absence of any females (“but I was in the pool…”). I think most females would have been glad for their own absence in any case as most patrons in there seemed to be of the elderly, overly hirsute and obese variety, not that I was one to speak considering the state of my body following several months of my all beer and no exercise lifestyle.

The frozen lake was only marginally cooler than the Baltic sea outside the sauna below, I can guarantee you.

Writing of unhealthy lifestyles, next up was Amsterdam where I was to meet up with Tim Porter over a long weekend and catch up with our good friends Joost and Ashley whom we had met during our time in Nepal on the Annapurna circuit. They actually live in the Hague, or Den Haag, and we enjoyed several days out there catching up and generally enjoying their fine company once again. Unfortunately Ashley’s much hyped quest to round up some beautiful dutch women who may have been interested in meeting and providing some Aussie lads with a European visa, (an admittedly impossible task in my case), proved too much for her and her much vaunted single friends pretty much consisted of one Manchurian whose closest relation with anything resembling a “babe” was that of a porcine nature who has a liking for rounding up sheep. But thanks for trying Ashley…

Our incredibly gracious and generous hosts, Joost and Ashley.

Tim and I of course had to make an obligatory tour of Amsterdam, complete with its mandatory canal tour however I believe that we may have been the only two single males to have ever visited Amsterdam and not smoked some sort of drug nor pay for some form of sex show or service. I would like to think that I did so out of reasons of taking the higher moral ground but in all honesty I think it was primarily due to budgetary constraints and an initial inability to find any coffeeshops. Now any one who has been to Amsterdam is probably thinking that I must be pretty bloody useless not to be able to find a coffeeshop in Amsterdam, it is after all, hardly the needle and haystack scenario (moreso a giant pink elepahant and haystack as I later discovered) but it was not until Tim and “inadvertently stumbled” upon the infamous red light district that we became convinced that you can actually buy drugs in Amsterdam.

Typically Amsterdam.

Prior to this, we essentially spent our day touring around the beautiful canal belt, over the thousand + bridges within the city and around the numerous parks on our very Dutch single gear bicycles. We also spent much of our time abusing the stupid and oblivious tourists who would walk straight out into the bike lanes without looking or alternatively getting abused by others for doing the exactly the same thing.

Me on a bike.

I must admit, I tell a little lie in saying we didn’t engage in any hedonistic activities during our time in Amsterdam. Tim and I had decided that we couldn’t very well have been in Amsterdam and completely ignored all that it had to offer and so we agreed to check out a show of the €2 for 2 minute variety. I don’t think it really counts however as I pretty much walked out after about 15 seconds. Positively filthy, it was hardly Tommy Lee and Pamela going at it, moreso it was like walking in on your parents. Some of these clubs around Amsterdam obviously do not have stringent employment standards….

Ok, so we did do a little bit of "sightseeing". But "Shooters" (above) was just a regular pub that happened to have, completely to our surprise, beautiful women dancing on the bars.

Like moths to a flame. Amsterdam at night.

After this “cultural experience”, Tim and I headed to various jazz and live music venues where the anomaly of European beer prices continued as I discovered much to my chagrin and displeasure at one particular piano bar. €8 for one beer!! And it was my shout!! I would have been ropeable if I paid the equivalent of AU$14 for a jug of import in an Australian beer let alone for a single pint of local tap beer. Bloody tight Dutchmen…

Just when I thought I'd thought I'd scored a cheap meal. False advertising in the extreme.

A few more days with Joost and Ashley in Den Haag and then it was back to London for another week or so to catch up with several of the 300,000 Aussies reputedly living there at any one time. I really enjoyed myself during this time, it was nothing but museums, shows, pubs, beers, reminiscing and thankfully many couches and spare beds (I appreciated this particularly so due to my discovery that I was $1300 poorer than I thought due to an overpayment from my work…) Still despite my financial concerns, I managed to convince myself of the absolute necessity of buying a guitar to accompany me on my tour of South America. I was heading to Brazil next of course, the home of Bossa Nova and Samba….I couldn´t wait.

Just a few of the kind folk who helped me out during my time in Europe. Britt and Karl in their Swedish farmhouse.

Before finishing up this entry, I would just like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who showed me such utmost kindness and hospitality during my time in and around Europe, in no particular order, the two Chris’ in Copenhagen, Janne, Britt and Karl in Sweden, Joost and Ashley in the Netherlands, Amy and Michael Davis, Tim Ogston, Dave Johnson, Tim Porter, Hamish Chalmers and definitely not least of all Sarah and Simon, all of whom made my time much more enjoyable and affordable. Thanks to you all.

Until next time.