Some misc photos

Update: some photographic evidence that Barcelona's charms are not limited to Pork Face.

Having more-or-less zero knowledge of architecture, La Sagrada Familia was quite an amazing and surprising experience for me.

Photos here.

For those as ignorant as I was: it's a church, designed by Gaudi, construction was started on it in 1882, and a current optimistic estimate is it might be complete by 2020. It's definitely the most beautiful construction site I've ever seen!

I thought multi-century constructions were a thing of the past! It is absolutely huge (and will be 50% bigger when finished), the halls with palm-tree columns, towers with fruitbowl tops, huge sculpted bible scenes over the entryways. Every single detail is unique and hand-crafted. Check out the details on the doors.

Whilst I'm not really one for the functional uses of churches, I do find it plausible that there is only architecture where there is something to glorify.

Words can't really explain it, so I'll stop. Photos can't really either, but I took lots anyway. It's something that has to be seen and walked through, like Petra.




Well why not? Summer relaxing in Vienna's museum quarter.




At "Wombat's Hostel" in Vienna. When I asked the girl at reception why they had Australian flags with "we love norway" written between them, she said "isn't that the Norwegian flag?"




Dunno what it means, but I like how it sounds




No comment




A guesthouse at Seefeld, a popular skiing resort. Not sure they really workshopped the message they're sending with that one.




The Austrian Kaisers were feared throughout Europe. No really, they were!




You think Aussies get the shits with Americans asking us if we ride Kangaroos etc? Imagine how the Austrians feel!! Of course, I bought one... can't wait to wear it in America and try to explain it to people!




At one hostel, they rooted my reservation, and I had to sleep on a mattress under a stairwell!




The "pork face" that Gay Dodgy Steve and I ate in Barcelona. Note the small hairs!

However this was trumped by Jo* with this pic from a recent trip to China:




* - not the Jo I travelled through spain with, or the one I went skiing with, but Egypt Jo, who I stayed with in London, and who is now the "Senior Crown Prosecutor, Confiscation Unit, Organised Crime Division, Crown Prosecution Service". Sweet!!

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough. Also, skiing.

Another picture, a panorama from the top of Hohe Munde, the big bastard Robbo and I climbed, click here, then click the image to magnify it. The mountains behind the cross are in Italy, the green valley you can see to the far right is in Germany, all the rest is in Austria.

Going to the right from the cross you can see the Valley where we started, moving up the saddle between the peaks (halfway point), then rough valley (the nearby cliff face) and the last gravel path to the peak. Wait, why don't I just draw a line. here.

A few more photos of my trip are up. First up, running of the bulls:
http://www.pbase.com/ianm_esquire/bulls

As previously reported, a stolen watch stopped me getting a great spot from which to photograph the run, but I found three pics that pass as tolerably interesting. Most of the rest are of street scenes of Pamplona madness and filth. For obvious "I payed a lot for my camera" reasons, there are no pics of the actual bull run I was in, or of the roundabout we slept and were robbed in.

Now to the second set. Regular readers may recall that on my last day in the alps I intended do some more hiking in an area where chair lifts do most of the work. Well, that was Tuesday, and as per plan I set off to the bus station in Innsbruck to head towards the Stubai Valley, a beautiful area about 50km south of ibk. Sabine's friend Dani grew up there, and had given me some tips. (Incidentally, Dani's brother is an olympic gold medalist in ski jumping.)

As I was boarding the bus, three girls ran up, noticeably out of breath, and one attempted to ask me something in German. I gave a confused shake of the head and said "English?". Much relieved, another asked me in English, with a strong Aussie accent, "is this the bus to Stubai?". "Why yes it is, young ladies, and its departure is imminint!" I said. Or words to that effect. Perhaps slightly less gay. Anyway, turns out two of them, Jo and Jaz, were shire girls (but otherwise decent) and the other, Linda, (who had attempted the German) was dutch, and had met the other two at their hostel that morning.

So we gots a chatting, and they were there because they had heard that there was a glacier deep in the stubai valley where you could still ski! In the middle of July! Obviously, I quickly hitched myself aboard that train.

Turns out it was the last week the resort would be open for skiing, and only one run was left open. The conditions were, umm, somewhat slushy. We got lots of confused looks from the staff as to why we would want to ski in such shit conditions, but we were super keen. We heard many mutterings of "crazy bloody aussies" (or the German equivalent) but we got our ski gear and headed up to the glacier.

Photos are here:
http://www.pbase.com/ianm_esquire/austria_ski

99% of the people around were there for hiking. We got many looks from Austrians that seemed to ask "what the hell are you doing that for in summer???", but we had the glacier almost to ourselves. At any time, there may have been three or four other skiers around, other times it was just us. Pretty cool!

It being 35 degrees in the valley, and around 15 on the peaks, by early afternoon conditions were somewhat lakelike, especially at the base of the lift. We were literally waterskiing up, and snow skiing down!!

Probably the crappiest snow I've ever skied in, objectively speaking, but also one of the most fun days I've ever had skiing, for the sheer unexpected randomness of it, meeting 3 cool new friends and suddenly changing my plans, waterskiing on a t-bar, all the confused looks we got, twas gold!

I had recently had some shocking nights at hostels getting scarcely more sleep than our nights spent bum-style, which had set me thinking that backpacking is for jerks and lesbians. But it's days like our random glacier ski trip that keep bringing me tearfully lovingly back to it!!

Sleepless in San Sebastian

Or in Spanish: "Thleepleth in Than Thebathtian"



Well, I am back in Sweden, and 4 gig of photos are transferring from card to disk, so now is the time to regale anyone who's reading with a non-chronological selection of stories I deem worthy of propagation. First up, we moonwalk backwards in time to before the running of the bulls, to a night in San Sebastian.

So, I had an enjoyable and moderately calendric few days in Madrid, where after some uncertainty I met up my Phase 1 travelling companions, Jo, Tori, Jeremy and Nick, and we departed by bus for San Sebastian. We had no accomodation booked, and knew that arriving at 7pmish our chances of finding any were slim, but we were backpackers heading towards a beach town during the hot hot summer in Spain, and Nick and Tori had told us exciting stories of sleeping through rush-hour in Munich train station on a plasticated table cloth. We'll be fine, we can sleep on the beach, what could possibly go wrong?

View out the bus window as we approached San Seb:


Now, everybody knows that the rain in spain falls mainly on the plains, and whilst I can't prove this wrong, I do maintain that the legalese small print of "mainly", as opposed to "exclusively", is underemphasized to the point of misleadingity (perhaps a new word - google search finds zero hits).

Fearing the rain for its capacity to make us wet and sleeping difficult, we inhaled some burgers and set off around the old town looking for a room. San Seb old town has heaps of little pensions, basically an apartment with dorm rooms rented out by the resident, like a tiny hostel. The first five or six we buzzed we got no answer or an abrupt "we're full". But then we struck gold, or at least tin, but tin that eventually evaded us, as tin is wont to do.

We were buzzed up to an old lady in a dressing gown who apparently had a room, but spoke no English. Tori's knowledge of Italian served us well, and eventually we figured out that she would take two of us, and her manfriend the other three, put up on crappy beds in a bare room for 25 euro each a night ($50 aussie).

We went to inspect manfriend's room, a few blocks away, which was even worse. Thinking the price a bit steep, we discussed amongst ourselves, and agreed to try to talk her down to 20 each, and then there was a brief but fierce rock-paper-scissors battle to decide who got the crap beds, and who got the even crapper beds. We then went back to the woman, only to find that in the meantime she had given the room to someone else.

Back on the streets with nowhere to sleep, rain not heavy but lingering in the background.

For the next part of this story, you would do well to look at the annotated photograph located here. Perhaps you could open it in another window, and refer to it as needed.

A couple of us sat and minded bags in the street while the others went off to search for a sleeping place. The were gone a long time, and apparently they journeyed far and wide, but they came back marching proud with victorious glints in their eyes.

They had found a long portico type thing at the beach (location "A"). There were a few bums sleeping at one end, but it was quite long so we headed for the non-bum end and sat ourselves down on the concrete.

Singalong story time at Location A:


After sitting and chatting for a while, quite pleased with our location, we started thinking about getting out the sleeping bags and the plasticated table cloth and getting some shut-eye. We witnessed a domestic between a bum couple and in the process learnt what we assume is a terrible swear word in Basque. Or perhaps the name of the guy. Anyway, after a while the cops came through and started hassling the bums trying to move them on. We watched all this with fingers crossed, but slowly but surely they worked their way along the line to us.

We decided honesty was best, and explained our situation. The police were really very nice, very sweet and kind. They said "well, we can't let you sleep here, it's forbidden. But what we can do is tell you an area where you can sleep. The good news is: there are no police patrols, so you won't be moved along. The bad news is: there are no police patrols, so you'll have to be careful".

The area they spoke of was the other end of the beach past the tunnel, occupying the lower-right-hand corner of the annotated photograph. There was no covered section here, but at that stage it had stopped raining so we thought we'd take our chances in the open.

We were going to sleep on the beach amongst the rows of deck chairs, but then Jeremy and I went for a pre-sleep walk up the beach, and found the building marked with the red "B" in the photograph. It was kinda a surf-club/restaurant/kiosk type thing, but we noticed it had a rooftop dining area which was not locked. We snuck up to have a scout around and, finding it to our approval, went back for the others.

It had no roof, but had walls which provided good protection from the wind, which we would have suffered from on the beach. By now I think it was about 1am, and we lay out our sleeping bags between the rows of tables and chairs and tried to get some sleep. The floor was metal with those nonstick bumpy bits on it, and we had no sleeping mats, so it was a bit uncomfortable and bruising, but we all got a little bit of sleep, or at least some rest.

Rooftop restaurant at location B:


At, I think, about 3am it started raining again. We were slow to move, not wanting to get wet but tired and warm in our sleeping bags. Except for Tori and Nick, who didn't have sleeping bags and were getting pretty cold and wet. We slowly started packing away our stuff, kinda hoping the rain would pass and we would go back to sleep.

But then, how it hadn't happened earlier I'll never know, but one of us set off some sort of motion detector and big bright floodlights went on everywhere, blinding us in a most unwelcome way. As we recovered our vision we realised there were surveillance cameras everywhere, and we were sitting there like deer in the proverbials. So we quickly gathered together our stuff and snuck down the stairs, giving quite a shock to a bunch of spanish guys who were sitting downstairs having some quiet beers, and certainly didn't expect five backpackers to come down bleary eyed carrying sleepingbags.

At this stage the rain was coming down, so we made straight for the only cover we knew of, the pedestrian tunnel marked with the yellow "C" in the photograph. About 3:30 am now, and we lay out our sleeping bags on the cold hard tiles and tried to sleep.

At 5:00am, Sarah called me from Australia having forgotten about the time difference wanting to ask about this or that detail for Steves wedding. I wasn't really in the mood for a chat, and I think I made that fairly clear but I later apoligized and it was this phone call that gave me aussie number that helped me get new glasses in Barcelona (as per previous post).

Early morning at Location C:


Some were lucky enough to sleep. We stayed in bed until about 6:30 when the disgusted looks from morning commuters passing through the tunnel got too much. Then packed up our gear and went off to eat something and find some goddamned accomodation for the next night.

Packing up stuff at Location C:


Just after sunrise, as we went back to town to find a room:


We found a room at "Pension Aussie", but couldn't move in until 12:30 after cleaning.



The proprieter, a slightly strange aussie ex-pat, tried to convince us we should see the city and shouldn't sleep, but as soon as the clock hit 12:30 we were straight to bed for a much-needed afternoon slumber. Like logs we was.

I'm not sure if I had slept at all during the night. I didn't think I did, but perhaps I did drop in and out of sleep a bit in the tunnel. Either way, after so much bone-bruising concrete and metal, the softness of a mattress and a pillow that afternoon felt like heaven itself, I was so thankful I nearly found religion. Except I couldn't find one that worshipped comfortable bedding.

End of story.

Austria

Heya gang, in Innsbruck, Austria, at Sabine's flat.

I've just spent a few days at Robbo's family's hotel in Telfs, a small town in the Austrian alps. On thursday, he and I climbed Hohe Munde, the local neighbourhood alp.

Bloody hard work!!! Got up at 4am, the whole hike up and back took 11 hours. We went from an elevation of around 1,300m to around 2,700m, 1.4km up and back! My legs were absolutely dead afterwards!
A few pics, from the hike and around telfs, here:
http://www.pbase.com/ianm_esquire/austria

Have a look at the one marked "rough valley", and try to spot the little red dots, and the cable handrail marking the trail. That section, a couple of hundred metres long, took an hour to traverse. Hanging out from the cable on vertical rock, abseiling style, without any ropes or harness, short of breath from the thin air. I was shitting myself!!

Last night exchanged the harsh pointy rocky alps of Telfs for slightly more rolling and green alps of Salzburg State (think Sound of Music) and went to a BBQ to celebrate the Graduation of a friend of Sabine's. Twas held on a big balcony at his parents' office, stunning view of the surrounding hills. Hilari-arse night, very funny group of people.

Key points:

1. As well as Hitler and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austria also gave the world that "Mac-don-alds, Mac-don-alds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut" song.
2. There was a guy there with a very round face, buck teeth, and a Abe Lincoln beard. Of all the people I've seen in my life, he looked most like a ginea pig.
3. When Snoop Dogg talks about getting his wisdom teeth out, he refers to them as his "wizzle tizzles"

Back to Sweden on Wednesday. Between now and then, I might do another day walk in the alps, depending on weather, but its pretty stormy now, so I might just chill.

More later
xox

Barthelona

Update: well, I'm in Vienna now. Spain was awesome. Barcelona is like the best bits of New York and Egypt thrown together, plus all the Gaudi and Picasso and Barri Gotic. And good kebabs, finally! On a Tuesday night it's jumping more than Sydney on a Saturday night.

Following Steve's lead, I've decided to record some of my more memorable experiences in Haiku form. From our last night there:

Leathery, small hairs,
Salty and tough like Blackbeard,
Not crackling, pork face.

Photographic evidence to come. (Yes, it recycles an analogy previously used here, but its not plagiarism if you steal from yourself, its just uncreative.)

A day or two solo in Wien, then I head west for some hiking in the alps, a party in Salzberg with Sabs, and a beer festival in a town near Innsbruck with Robbo.


Steve and I get jiggy in Barthelona.

This city rocks--
this keyboard ais wierd and doesnt have backspace. More news when I get to a usable computa.

xox

I mean, seriously

Update: Thanks largely to Sarah's detective work, my optical situation is now more-or-less resolved, albeit expensively. When I walked into the optometrist, the girl at the counter immediately went to the back room, and came back out to me with a glass of water and a mint. I suspect I'm giving off a serious bum vibe and/or stinkfields you can see, squiggly lines through the air.

In Barthelona now, stinking hot.

Pamplona pt 2: sleeping on roundabouts has its downsides, apparently. I mean, apart from it being noisy, uncomfortable, and people pissing next to you during the night, it's also a prime place to get robbed.

After running with the bulls, we had one more night in Pamplona. We decided we would try to get up really early again, and get a good position for some photos and video footage (Jeremy) of the carnage. During the night I was robbed. They stole two things: my prescription glasses, and a cheap crappy digital watch I got for free somewhere, but which happened to be functioning as our alarm clock. Could have been much much worse, but annoying nonetheless.

There were sunnies, money, shoes, but they left all that and took my prescription glasses. Also, no alarm clock meant we slept late(ish) and got relatively crappy spots to watch the run (thus no pentax-ad shots, katie), which was unfortunate as apparently it was absolute mayhem. Several gorings, and a pile up of people tripping over one another lying in the street, bulls stampede over the top of them. Made ours look like a tea party.

After that, we got the hell out of hell (pamplona) (you were right to drive on, Chia, the place is not fit for 100% humans like us). Went into southern france (Bayonne) for the world cup final. Lovely place, shame about the result. Bloody eye-talians.

Hauled bottom to Barcelona in a rented car (buses full, trains infrequent) which only I could drive (over 25) with sore eyes (dry dusty air, contacts, tiredness) got RBT'd: 0.0 (lucky not random eye test).

Silver lining on the phone call I got from Sarah (which will feature in future post about past experience in San Sebastian) is that I had her number in my phone and was able to call her, to get her to call my optometrist in Sydney to get my prescription details so now I can try to find more contacts and/or glasses in Barcelona or Austria.

Ten thousand drunken aussies and twelve angry bulls

Quick post, lots yet to come, but I feel I should add something.

This morning we (Jeremy, Nick and I) ran with the bulls in Pamplona.

Everybody we asked had different stories. When it starts, where to be, what happens. About the only thing everyone agreed on was that if you try to leave the course, the police beat you with batons and throw you back in. No kidding.

Earlier, a yankee girl had her camera grabbed from her by a random guy, she tried to get it back, he belted her over the head, leaving a massive cut, and splattering blood on the pavement. Then he arrested her for assaulting a police officer (he was an undercover cop). The cops here are scary! We met her after she had been released and was walking around where it happened in a state of shock trying to find a necklace.

Impressions of the bull run:

1. Panicking people are scary, more so than bulls. Especially when they are drunk.
   
2. Bulls are huge and faaaaast!. Like a car. Before you know it, they are past you.
3. They herd you into the bull ring, where a little steer completely nails heaps of people, we climbed up the fence and watched it hanging from the stands.
4. There are shitloads of aussies here. Definitely the second highest contingent, after spaniards.
   
5. Pamplona smells like one giant portaloo. Jo and Tori saw someone taking a crap in the street.
6. We have no accomodation, and have been sleeping on a roundabout at a busy intersection. Not too bad, considering.

Trying to figure out if we can duck over the pyranees to watch the world cup final in the south of france, before heading to Barcelona for a few days with GD Steve.

Funny stories from San Sebastian to come, but the bull run took priority. Lots of photos to come. Maybe from Austria, maybe not till I get back to Sweden.