No, This is Amore

Distance Traveled:   42,410 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF-CZ-SV-L-BP-ZG-SP-LJ-VN-PG-SZ-MN-ZR-GV-ML-FC)

Time Difference: -8 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Almost entirely barbershop, although I have also been tearing my heart out to Joplin on occasion and putting it back together with the help of Joni.

Currently Inspired by: Michelangelo, Botticelli, Da Vinci

Stacks: Just a few little trips here and there that always happen to people like me who don't pick up their feet on uneven streets
Words written: 83,502 (after deleting an entire chapter I didn't like)

And a buon giorno to you, from the swarthy south of the sexy succubus that is Italy, where the men are hairy and the women are... hairy.  Err...

I'm not really in the south, but let's say I am for alliterative purposes ;)

Both Italy and its Italians are mad, bold, passionate, generous, expressive and voluptuous.  Neither does anything by halves.  With thickly polluted air, eccentric traffic, buildings covered in graffiti, peeling paint, drooping shutters, streets dusted with litter and packed with touts, beggars and gypsies, Italy and her cities are not pretty – until they are – at which point they are not so much pretty as jaw droppingly, pants wettingly, mouth wateringly stunning.  It’s like the payoff you get for putting up with all the other stuff.

Grumbles of old men drenched in Eau-De-Vaporub sit together along park benches in their long pants, shiny shoes and woollen vests regardless of the weather, chatting merrily and occasionally breaking into animated but good humoured arguments with one another.  Large family groups, comfortably squashed onto restaurant footpath tables for half their numbers, squabble and vie with each other for attention, hands flapping around and volume going up as the whole all-talking-no-listening group of them attempts to outshout their neighbour.  A casual glance might give one the impression that a family feud is on the verge of erupting, but personally I believe they are saying nothing more controversial than “pass the Parmesan, Jeff”.  The men here flirt with every breath they expel and the women with every step they take.

Oh, hi honey!  We were just... err... talking

Before attempting to negotiate the city traffic as a pedestrian, eat a chewy margerita pizza fresh and hot from a fiery oven, then top it off with an icy cold scoop of pineapple gelato.  That way you’ll at least die happy.  They serve food and drink with a wink here, like you and the waiter are in cahoots on some fabulous secret.  I’ll tell you a secret right now...  Italy is where the gods live, and Florence is where they keep their summer residences.  From the ornate Palazzo Vecchio with its distinctly homoerotic statues to the densely decorated bulk of the mighty Il Duomo, each of Firenze’s eighty million piazzas yields a new and spectacular architectural treasure to explore in depth.  They all make me want to kiss in their corners.

Sleepy sunburned tourists who have clearly had a glass of rosso vino or two at lunch stumble around the uneven and strangely bewildering streets of Firenze, useless Italian maps clutched in sweaty palms.  I think most people would agree that in terms of quality and quantity, Italy contains the lion’s share of Europe’s most famous art.  Try finding it though, or figuring out which line to get into to buy your ticket.  The Italians would spend half a lifetime trying to make something beautiful, but wouldn’t spend half an hour making something practical.  You have to love them for it.

Does this sling make me look fat?

In the Galleria L’Academie I fell into a kind of trance looking at the finely defined musculature of the famous and colossal statue of David, the raised veins on his hands, the way his expression changes as you walk around him.  All I could think was “this couldn’t have been made by human hands”.  Of course they weren’t really human hands, were they?  They were Michelangelo’s.  This is the same rather eclectic gallery that also contains classical sculpture, paintings by famous Italian artists throughout history and works by Picasso, Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, not to mention an oddly out of place Museum of Musical Instruments which houses a beautiful Stradivarius violin, lonely and wasted in its glass prison.  Will a human ear ever hear its music again?  Surely the world possesses a few virtuosos worthy of such an instrument – indeed its price (virtually priceless) reflects the music it is capable of making.  Soundless, it is worthless.

How could anyone want to burn the goddess of Love?

The Birth of Venus is arguably the most famous of Sandro Botticelli’s paintings, and not without reason.  The divine innocence on clear display in the flawless face and beautifully pale form of Venus as she stands upon her pink shell serves as a stark reminder to those who know the story of Botticelli:  That later in life, turning from virtual agnosticism to something of a spiritual crisis brought on by the stern and misguided monk Savaranola, this humble, talented and tormented man was urged to destroy his earlier, “heathen” works on the Bonfire of the Vanities and retain only his darkly Christian themed pieces.  Thank the gods for all of us, The Birth of Venus and many others of his works that I have spent many happy hours on the trip viewing, survived in the palazzos of others.  But I could weep when I think about what got eaten up in the flames.  The expression of Venus seems to whisper "Am I not spiritual, also?"

The city of Firenze provides even the most casual observer the unrivalled opportunity to compare the best classical pagan sculpture with more “modern” Christian effigies.  Despite the inevitable yellowing that appears on the surface of marble over millennia, even with the most loving care and restoration, the classical works are far superior in my opinion.  You don’t even need to look at the exquisitely rendered faces to understand the emotions involved because the classical sculptors contorted their pieces into the most lifelike and evocative poses which immediately provided the mood or the theme of the sculpture.

Part of Il Duomo

The majority of Christian pieces, made for church decoration, have been of course made with great skill and care to ensure that through the garments, hair and context the subject is easily identifiable, however the postures and expressions are almost uniformly stiff and pious, and sadly lacking any sort of character (with a few notable exceptions).  Without doing any research on the matter, I have come up with a few possible theories for this. 1. It may have been considered blasphemous at some stage to render images of Jesus, Mary and the saints in poses or expressions that seemed too “human” in their aspect.  2.  Artisans of that period wanted their pieces to be popular in order to sell more and therefore couldn’t run the risk of being controversial in their contexts. 3.  The sheer quantity of pieces required for the huge numbers of churches and cathedrals meant that the amount of care couldn’t be taken when creating the pieces as was employed in the classical period.  Who knows?

Inside the Dome

Clambering up the dark and narrow stone staircase into the largest dome of any cathedral in the world, my quadriceps began to complain “how many frigging things to do want to climb on this trip?” Poor things.  When I go back through these blogs I am going to have to count approximately the number of steps I have clambered up, because it’s really ridiculous.  I must have buns of steel at this point!  When you finally get up to the base of the dome to look “up close” at the 3.6 square kilometres of artwork that decorates the interior of it, you could really spend all day observing the details in the painting.  The Last Judgement is a common theme, but I have never seen it so massively rendered, and it was truly awe inspiring.  Once the cranky staff makes you move on reluctantly to make room for the millions coming behind, you are faced with another few minutes of clambering before popping out onto the cupola at the top.  I think this entire experience belongs in the top ten of one of the most worthwhile and valuable I have had so far on this trip, and I haven’t even been into the actual cathedral part yet, because I haven’t yet been properly attired.  (Must wear pants or skirts below the knee and tops with sleeves).

Last week I promised the saga about getting here, but let's just say it was a comedy of errors created by my own complacency and the classic Italian lack of organisation that saw me waiting for six and a half hours at a Lyon train station that was an expensive trip from the one I initially went to, finally a train which arrived an hour late into Milan where I was breaking my trip up for one night, a taxi in the rain to a hotel which (although I'd pre-booked) did not have a room available for me, then another taxi in the rain to their sister hotel (a crappier one), finally collapsing to sleep at midnight and then getting up to do it all over again to come to Florence!

Part of a line

I am not going to go on any more about Firenze, because I will still be here next week and thus am taking my time, ambling around and seeing things at a snail’s pace.  Thank goodness I have time to spend here, because high season has arrived and I have not waited for less than an hour to get into anywhere yet. The price one pays for good weather!  Day trips out to other places in Tuscany will be coming up soon, no doubt.

You can click here to see my photos of Florence.  Unfortunately photos are not allowed in much of it.  The ones here of David and Venus are from the net.

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

Run to the City of Refuge

Distance Traveled:   42,410 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF-CZ-SV-L-BP-ZG-SP-LJ-VN-PG-SZ-MN-ZR-GV-ML-FC)

Time Difference: -8 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Screaming Trees, Marilyn Manson, QOTSA, Desert Sessions

Currently Inspired by: "There is not one blade of grass, not one colour in the world, that is not intended to make us rejoice" John Calvin

Stacks: None which is amazing considering it has been raining consistently.  Still jacket weather.  Where the eff is Spring, I'd like to know?  It's nearly Summer!!
Words written:  79,111

Following on from the end of my last blog, fortunately the guy I had contacted so late for his details did get back to me and I was able to stay with him in Geneva.  He was a terrific host, showed me around the place and took me out for dinner on my first night, made me so comfortable and ensured I had everything I needed.  For anyone who is considering travelling I highly recommend Couch Surfing, it’s a fantastic initiative.  Like any online service it’s bound to have its share of bad eggs but if you’re careful, check references and go with your gut I think you’ll be fine.  I have used it three times in cities where I couldn’t find accommodation within my budget and everyone has been great.  

Why haven’t I used it for the entire year, you ask, and not paid for accommodation anywhere?  I have certainly met people who have been doing that, and who also have been hitchhiking everywhere, spending money on food only.  Well first of all, I feel uncomfortable being a guest in people’s homes.  It’s stressful.  I feel like I’m imposing constantly.  Secondly, I feel like I need to pay back into the universe what I have taken from it, indeed that is the main premise of Couch Surfing, so this way I only need to have 3 people come and stay with me when I’m back in Australia and have a place, rather than 100! :)

A very unusual cathedral

Geneva was about as exciting as Zurich ie. not terribly, and I was glad I was only there for one full day.  Zurich and Geneva were the only places I booked for such short periods so I must have had some kind of presentiment.  Although neat and clean, with some interesting architecture and water features, neither contains anything that hasn’t been done ten times bigger and better in any other major European city.  The only thing I saw that I hadn’t seen anywhere else was  Protestant Reformation Museum, which was actually quite interesting.  I knew little about the Calvinists or that whole movement really, and I didn’t realise that Geneva was called the Refuge City because it’s where the reformers came while their kith and kin were being burnt elsewhere for heresy.  It was quite silly of me not to visit lakes and mountains while in Switzerland, but I guess I know for next time.   At least the chocolate was amazing, if expensive!  Everything was expensive in Switzerland.  It was the first country I have been to since I left, that was actually more expensive than Australia.  Click here to see the pictures I did get in Geneva.

Pic from the net for you!

I caught a train rather eagerly to Lyon in France where I was to remain for the next four full days, and it did not disappoint.  Some people get freaked out when they think about cooking in the French style but I don’t think it’s that complicated really.  I think it’s a matter of excellent quality fresh produce and proper technique.  I had some wonderfully simple and surprisingly tasty dishes while I was there in cafes but actually the best dinner I had was one I scoffed in my room after visiting a fresh food market.  I picked up a petit fresh goats cheese, an avocado, a still-warm crusty bread roll and half a kilo of cherries, and that was it.  Utterly delicious.  Despite the profusion of patisseries lining the streets with their multicoloured window displays of macaroons, tarts, chocolate, caramel and cream everything, I didn’t have a dessert whilst in Lyon.  Twice I actually walked into a patisserie and twice I walked out again after massive lines and slow service gave me time to reconsider the ridiculous number of calories.  I still haven’t decided if that was a good thing or a really, really, really stupid thing.  As a result I don’t have any mouth watering French desserts in the food album for you I’m afraid! 

Having hoped before I arrived that the famous French rudeness might be limited to Paris only, I was disappointed when I was hung up on by a French lady while attempting to order a taxi in English over the phone and also to note that for the most part I was treated with a kind of grudging sullenness in shops and cafes, despite the fact that I said hello, thank you, please in French, ordered what I wanted and asked questions in French wherever possible.  No doubt my accent gave me away as a tourist, but shouldn’t you get points for trying?  Like everything, there were exceptions, and I did meet some very friendly people.  Not enough to dispel my impression of French people as being generally ruder than other nationalities, however.

My red face from the climb! Haha

There is a stunning cathedral that sits atop a very high hill in Lyon, and I felt rather triumphant after scaling my way up there, despite it taking much longer than I expected.  I took a wrong turn and had to head back down about a third of the way in order to go back up again, which was heartbreaking at the time, but the view from the foundation of the cathedral was worth the effort, and the scent of the gardens on the way up was spectacular!  I’ve never been so engulfed by scent, it was truly divine.  Lyon is a pretty city, divided into three parts by two green rivers and as such has a profusion of bridges that connect the different areas, so you can imagine it was really nice to see from a distance.  The cathedral itself managed to elicit a tiny gasp even from this jaded vagabond, as its exterior was partially and painstakingly constructed from the palest pink veined marble, a material that I have rarely seen on the exterior of a building, and I could easily have spent an hour or more staring at all the designs and figures.

One of many beauties

Lyon has quite a few other drawcards.  In the main city square there is a fountain which is the biggest and most magnificent that I have ever encountered, despite the profusion of beer bottles and other detritus floating in its bowl.  Pigs.  The city contains a simply gigantic art gallery / museum which has a huge collection of paintings from all over the world and through the ages, carefully organised by country and date (meaning I could move through most of the place at a reasonable clip and make a decent beeline for the Renaissance stuff), as well as a stunning sculpture collection on the ground floor that had me gaping at the skill involved, and a huge ancient Egyptian display which included not only mummies and painted coffins but the most complete and perfectly preserved tablets containing cuneiform I’ve ever seen, with English translations.  It also has a large and very attractive city park, a plethora of modern shops and restaurants and many kilometres of cool but creepy underground tunnels.  Click here to see my photos of Lyon.

One of my faves.  So realistic!

One of the main attractions for me was a museum that I actually stumbled across on my way somewhere else.  I have certainly never seen its like before and doubt I will again.  It was a museum of Cinema and Miniatures.  It contained many props and sets from films, as well as miniatures from films, and a massive collection of actual miniatures just built for the love of the craft.  It might sound a little bit strange but I was utterly spellbound, particularly by the miniatures.  I wanted to shrink and walk around inside them!  Cinema props in harsh lighting and out of context always look fake and silly in my opinion, and this was no exception although it was kind of cool to see actual masks etc that I recognised from films.  But those miniatures!  People must really do it for love because the good ones look incredibly labour intensive, and I spent ages being completely charmed by tiny little pairs of glasses, miniscule tubes of paint, carefully drawn spines of hundreds of books in tiny bookshelves.  When I’m in my seventies and living in my crazy old lady house with fifty cats, I think I am going to take up miniatures. (If I can still see them and my hands don’t shake).  Click here to see the pics from the Museum of Cinema and Miniatures.

I don’t know what I’ve been putting out in the universe lately, but I’ve had two interesting experiences.  One was when I was sitting quietly in a garden in Geneva, halfway up to visiting yet another cathedral.  It seemed like a relaxing place so I sat there and meditated for a bit, and a woman about my age or a little younger walked down the steps from the church, came up to me, pressed a coin into my hand and said something in French (French is the main language in Geneva although most of them speak Italian and German as well).  I could tell she had been crying, and I asked her in English “what is this for?” she looked at me and nodded towards the church “Someone helped me,” she said “and he’s not here anymore.”  So obviously she was trying to pay it forward, which I thought was really sweet, and I have my lucky franc in a special place in my wallet and when I get back I am going to get it made into a necklace, because it is infused with all of her good intentions and feelings.  The second thing that happened was not as significant but no less unexpected.  When I was leaving my hotel in Lyon the staff took my key and then called me a taxi, at which point I went outside to wait.  Just as he pulled up, the receptionist came running out looking for me, and pressed an apple into my hand with a smile, before waving me off.  Weird, and actually inconvenient because I didn’t want an apple and I had to put all of my shit down and unzip my bag etc, but I still thought it was very sweet.

Just a short one, and a late one, this time.  I’m currently in Florence, Italy in an apartment for the next 17 nights, and I’m deliriously happy about it.  Getting here was a saga and a half in itself, however it happened after Saturday night so it’s going to have to wait until next week!

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

 

U bahn, Me bahn

Distance Traveled:   41,665 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF-CZ-SV-L-BP-ZG-SP-LJ-VN-PG-SZ-MN-ZR)

Time Difference: -8 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Still Mozart, barbershop, Enigma. Been chilling.

Currently Inspired by:  Life

Stacks: There was a thick straw doormat at the place I stayed in Munich that was on slippery ground that I continually forgot about and went for a skate on every. single. time.  Didn't actually stack though.
Words written: 73,770. I have sent out the first draft of the first five chapters for some friend feedback.  Anxiously awaiting the results.  I wish I could just write, get paid for it but have no one ever read it!  This is the worst part!

I heart Munich.  Happy, friendly, Brisbane-sized, good looking, interesting, diverse, cultural, mild weather, easy to navigate, full of “the good life”, birthplace of Nazism... er...

"New" Town Hall

Apparently there is a saying about Munich that it is really the northernmost town of Italy rather than the southernmost town of Germany, and it does have a bit of an Italian vibe to it, but overall I found it to be pretty German, with all that my preconceived notions about Germany entailed.  It’s efficient and tidy, full to bursting with sausages, pork schnitzel, potatoes and giant steins of beer, and (my favourite part) easily half to two thirds of the women there are my height or taller, and many of those are... let’s say well built, so I didn’t feel like such a giant!  I could look most of the women in the eye pretty easily.  It was a great feeling.

The famous Hofbrauhaus

I had a break from bread and now I’m back on it again, like we never parted.  However I’ve been getting quite fed up with the taste and smell of meat lately after so much travelling and so many meat dishes (and so few vegetables), so I haven’t eaten any meat since Prague, and it will be interesting to see if I go back to it.  Right now I feel perfectly happy without it, but who knows?  I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since early March and I feel well and truly over that as well.  So being in Munich without drinking beer or eating meat felt very strange and at first like I was “missing out” on something, but I saw and did so much while I was there, I wondered more if it is the people who spend thousands of dollars to fly there and then sit around in beer gardens the whole time who might actually be missing out.  The Germans find a way to get stodge into you without meat anyway, with their national vegetarian dish which is basically cheese noodles, and a variety of salads literally drowning in mayonnaise.  I enjoyed it while I was eating it but regretted it afterwards!

Beautiful Spring flowers

Australians are embarrassing.  In Munich they joke about Aussies a fair bit, because of Oktoberfest.  First, let me recount the astonishing numbers I heard.  Munich, a city of 1.3 million people, hosts SEVEN MILLION visitors every year for Oktoberfest.  From all reports you get your drinks and tent seats relatively easily, the toilets are plentiful and tend to stay pretty clean, there is one security guard for every ten people, anyone who is drunk and rowdy gets thrown out quickly, and last year they had the most fights ever, which was something like 30 (and unfortunately Australians and Brits are involved in most of them, almost never Germans).  Incredible.  I don’t know any other country that could pull off organising like that.  However the craziest part, and something that the Germans I spoke to thought was hysterical, is that every year the Australian embassy from Berlin comes and sets up a mini embassy in Munich because out of the thousand or so passports that get lost every year, about 900 of them are always Australian.  Why?  Who knows.  Perhaps we are just careless drunks.  My question is why bring your passport there in the first place?  Lock it in your hotel!  Idiots.

"Hard Work Will Set You Free"

I was hosted by two lovely people from Couch Surfing, one of whom suggested to me that I check out Dachau Concentration Camp on one of my days.  I initially balked at the idea, feeling like I’ve seen more than enough of war and mistreatment on this trip, thank you very much, but I realised that later I might regret travelling all that way and not seeing it in person, so I relented.  It sucked.  I don’t know what anyone else would expect, but it was just as bad as I expected it to be, and I left feeling as depressed and with the same cracking headache that haunted me for hours after visiting the killing fields and S21 in Cambodia and the Vietnam War Museum in HCMC.  The way some people treat each other... the mind boggles.  You can click here to see photos from Dachau.

Old Town Hall

Munich sustained about 80% damage during WWII bombing and they have calculated that only 2.3% of it was completely undamaged, which is incredibly low.  As a result, the city is a hodgepodge of newer style buildings that were clearly built in a hurry to get people into homes, old buildings that have been shored up sometimes with obviously new patches, and old buildings that have been carefully mended in their original style.  You can walk down a street fairly easily and say “that was damaged, that was replaced, that is original”.  You can do that in a few of the European cities I have been to so far, but it is most marked in Munich and the scars remain as a constant reminder of its role in the war.  Not that anyone who lives there would ever forget!  The actual city itself is gorgeous however, particularly when viewed from the bell tower of St Peter’s.  Click here to see the general pictures from Munich.

River Surfers waiting

There is a gigantic city park in the centre of Munich called the English Garden due to its landscaping style, which, and there is some debate about this (although why I don’t know because it should be easy to tell), is in the top five city parks of the world in terms of size, and is apparently larger than Central Park in New York.  It is lovely, but in a park that size you can’t ever really enjoy all of it.  You just find your little corner and sit down, which I did.  The river Isar runs through Munich with its icy Alpine water, and a few crazy Germans were jumping in from the park banks, screaming their heads off, on the warm afternoon that I sat there listening to Mozart and lazily swatting at flying insects.  Only slightly more sensibly, surfers in wetsuits jump on their boards, one after the other, from the banks of the river onto a man made “wave” near a fast running portion of the Isar, and are able to surf there for as long as their luck and strength holds out.  When they get swept away, the next one jumps on, and so forth.  Apparently they do this all the way through winter as well, which to me is unimaginable.  I dipped the tip of a toe in the Isar and nearly threw myself back ten metres with the shock of it.  Not if the pits of hell were yawning open in front of me, would I willingly get into that water.  Pack of mads.

"The Killing Machine"

I saw, or I guess *heard* a very interesting art exhibition while in Munich at the Haus der Kunst, renowned for its avant-garde exhibits and not the kind of place this Renaissance girl would normally go, but it had a few shows on and one of them was a sound exhibition which is a genre I have always been interested in.  The first installation was just weird, a guy climbing a hill and filming it so you could hear his breathing.  The second was a movie in a strange box that once inside made you seem as though you were right at the top and back of a massive cinema, and while the actors were talking on the screen, there were other sounds of people eating popcorn and worrying about leaving the stove on around you, like they were in your ear, and finally a menacing man making weird threats and laughing into my ear which freaked me the hell out!  Third there was a huge padded room with an amp and a pedal in it, and when you pressed the pedal, The Star Spangled Banner, played on guitar Jimi Hendrix style, came blaring out at just-under-unbearable volume.  That was amazing.  The final one was the best, in my opinion.  It was called the Killing Machine and based on Kafka’s story “In the Penal Colony” about an execution device, and it was so strange because I had literally just read that story for the first time a few days before, as I was curious about Kafka after visiting Prague.  The story itself really resonated with me and obviously with the artists too.  It had a huge emotional impact.  All the components of it kind of danced in this strange jerky animatronic rhythm to a dark and haunting piece of music that had been electronically distorted.  It was absolutely amazing.  If these artists come to Australia I recommend checking out their stuff.  Their names are Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller.

One of many

The Residenz, Munich’s Royal Palace and now also museum, takes about two to three hours to go through properly, and by the end of it I had rather inevitably got my cranky on about the amount of money wasted throughout history on gilding and ornamenting the homes of royalty and the houses of “god”, be they temples, cathedrals or whatever, while whoever isn’t so lucky as to be born into the right family sits outside the gates in rags and starves.  I mean we still have it today.  People who have more money than they would ever know what to do with are essentially, through the creation of their wealth, maintaining the rest in poverty, but today’s royalty – dot com billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, at least appear to have philanthropic urges and support a variety of causes.  “Let them eat cake” springs to mind as an example of the indifference of royalty in previous times.  Still, the Residence is almost overwhelmingly beautiful, each room giving way to another, more ridiculously ornate than the last.  It’s as though each room was designed by someone different and they were all trying to outdo each other.  I’m glad I got some photos because some of it has to be seen to be believed.  You can see them here.

I headed to Zurich without doing much research (complacency strikes again) and there is really isn’t a whole heap of stuff to do here and also it is outrageously expensive.  Taxis start their metres at about $6.50 AUD and then it’s $4 per kilometre.  I’m not joking!  I had a dull mushroom ragout with rice today, a bottle of sparkling mineral water and a saucer sized plate of not very nice salad, and it was nearly $40.  I had arranged to stay with someone again via Couch Surfing in Geneva tomorrow for two nights but I forgot to get back to them until this morning and now I don’t know if I can stay.  There is absolutely no accommodation in Geneva that I can afford (and hostels are all booked up, and would still be about $70 per night for a shared room) so if this person doesn’t get back to me by tonight I’m going to have to figure out somewhere else to go for two nights, tomorrow morning before I check out.  The other places I would like to go in Switzerland are Bern and Lausanne, but the accommodation situation is the same there.  I can just suck it up for two nights I suppose.  Or maybe I’ll be able to find somewhere cheaper in France!  I did go for a wander around Zurich old town today and as my expectations were low I found it surprisingly nice.  There really isn’t much to do past two days here I would think, tourist wise, unless you have a particular fetish for large concrete financial institutions.  You can click here to see today’s pics.

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

My Favourite Things

Distance Traveled:   41,200 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF-CZ-SV-L-BP-ZG-SP-LJ-VN-PG-SZ)

Time Difference: -8 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Mozart

Currently Inspired by:  Mozart

Stacks: A skid on wet polished concrete and a turned ankle on uneven stone steps.  Nothing major
Words written: 70,038. Not feeling it!

How sad I was to leave Vienna!  After only four days, and only two of those days up and about, I became immensely attached to it.  Prague was next, and it suffered by comparison, poor thing.  It is actually an exciting place, full of beautiful buildings and interesting culture, however after the spring sunshine, music and almost blinding beauty of Vienna it seemed to have a darker and sadder air about it, like an old man who carries a lifetime of cares on his face.  The fact that it was overcast for the most part did not help matters.  When does Spring actually hit up here, I wonder, because I’ve been wearing a jacket solidly since December and after those magical two days of sunshine in Vienna I have had to put it on again almost every day!  Much like Beatrice, I fear I must sit in the corner and cry hey ho, except for a season change rather than a husband (heaven forfend).

Amazing astronomical clock

Who would have lived in the middle ages if given a choice?  My god, life sucked back then didn’t it?  If you weren’t rotting internally from some malnutrition based ailment then you were being poisoned by the lead based “cure”, stabbed in a duel, horribly tortured and then burnt alive for witchcraft or dying in childbirth (mother or baby or both).  The astronomical clock in the Prague town centre is an extraordinary feat of astronomy and engineering, and is the oldest one in the world still functioning.  However legend has it that incredibly clever and forward thinking clockmaker Hanus was blinded and had his tongue cut out by city officials upon the completion of his work, so he could not create another for any other city.  Now, I don’t know much about WHS but I think that might be frowned upon in this day and age.  I’m sure if offered the option to sign a gag order, or be blinded by a big fuck off piece of steel, he would have chosen the former.  Anyway, I have some doubts as to the veracity of that story, but I’m sure it happened to someone, somewhere at some point during the middle ages.

One of many beautiful buildings

Prague town had quite a few interesting places like the clock tower, each with a touch of the quirk about them.  The Charles University is apparently the oldest in Central Europe, although I understand it is no longer used for classes so I’m not sure if it can claim that title?  The Old New Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter is thus named because when it was built in the 1200s it was the new synagogue however it was partially constructed from old stones brought over from Israel.  The Prague Communist Museum is rather amusingly placed in a building that contains two other businesses: a McDonalds “restaurant” and a Casino.  The Tyn Cathedral contains a statue of the Virgin Mary that apparently came to life once and grabbed the arm of a thief that was trying to steal the gold necklaces left around her throat in tribute.  That’s not the quirky part.  Apparently they couldn’t release the thief from the statue so they cut his arm off.  After all, why would you wreck a statue when there is human flesh to be sawn off?  Arms grow back, right?  That STILL isn’t the quirky part.  Even though there is no chance that this actual story ever happened, inside the cathedral is a desiccated human arm, preserved, apparently for posterity and to lend some credibility this story.  I shake my head in wonder than anyone remains faithful to any religion.  But ANYWAY.   My overall impression of Prague is that it is a beautiful, fun and interesting place to visit and I would recommend it to anyone.  You can see photos of Prague here.

One of the decorations

Outside Prague in a town called Kutna Hora is the Sedlec Ossuary, a church which contains internal decorations made entirely from real human bones.  I get the feeling this is one of those situations where the phrase “only in the Czech Republic” could be applied.  It’s a ghoulish site, and one feels ghoulish looking at it, particularly when grinning for photographs.  Still, it’s an extraordinary feat of artwork, if nothing else.  Apparently the bones were “donated” by the mass graves that held victims of plague and war, and nobody minded because the spirits of the people were gone and the bodies were just a shell.  Nobody minded, I wonder, did they ask everybody?  It is estimated that between 40,000 – 70,000 bodies were used in the decorations.  That’s a big family survey.  The rest of the town was stunning, and had a huge cathedral, despite never in history having had an archbishop.  At one point they were so rich frm silver mining that they decided to build a cathedral "just in case" they ever got one, but of course the silver, and therefore the money, ran out and so the cathedral which didn't even have an archbishop for it ended up taking hundreds of years to complete as work had to be continually stopped so they could save more money.  How about feeding the poor, huh?  Because of the silver mine there was also a mint, and the workers used a hammer type object to stamp the coins.  Apparently thieves in prison could have their sentences commuted if they volunteered to work in the mint for one month, holding the coin while the worker slammed the stamp onto it.  If they failed to last one calendar month (because their hands were smashed beyond repair and they could no longer hold the coins) they were sent back to prison.  Click here to see the photos from Kutna Hora.

A little complacent after seven months of travelling, I bought my ticket to Salzburg without even looking at what kind of a journey it was ended up taking a monster eight hour long way around via Munich (where I am going after Salzburg) via both bus and train.  The bus was late in arriving to the train station, and I had to run with my suitcase and knapsack to make it.  I burst on red faced and gasping, much to the amusement of my fellow passengers, and the train pulled out about three seconds later.  I am so unfit.  I seriously began to get this horrible pressure in my chest and I was thinking “what, am I having a heart attack from a ten minute run??” and began to cough uncontrollably.  Seriously, I would stop coughing, the tickle would build up and then I would start coughing again probably less than half a minute after I had just finished.  The people who had been staring were now edging away, and I was turning puce from a combination of the run, the cough and desperate embarrassment.  It finally subsided after a good twenty minutes and I had two seats either side of me on which to stretch out, so it wasn’t all bad.  No idea what the hell that was all about!  I’ve run before, for longer, and that never happened.

Alps

Salzburg is an adorable little postcard town.  I didn’t realise it was so small.  It has a population of 150,000 and receives 300,000 tourists per year, mostly for the Sound of Music tour, and some to see Mozart’s birthplace and the Mozart Museum.  I came for both, and they were both excellent.  The Sound of Music tour takes you to several locations where the movie was filmed, over Salzburg and a little way outside it, in a small village and its surrounds.  It was so wonderful to see, in the flesh, bridges, houses and statues that I remember from the actual film, and to sing along with  a bus full of tourists from all over the world that nevertheless know the songs word for word.  I cried a little during Eidelweiss, I have to say.  I defy anyone to drive along Austria’s lush green hills, stunning, snow capped Alps in the background, in a group all singing that beautiful song softly and reverently, and not get a little teary!  Especially if you know what it means, not literally, but what its significance is to the Austrians.

The Mozart Museum contains, to my intense pleasure and utmost astonishment, actual original compositions by Mozart, in his own hand.  I stood and stared for so long at these articles, carefully kept under glass but, I imagine, infused with a tiny amount of that genuis’s energy and spirit.  How I longed to lay a finger on a piece of it!  You are not even permitted to take photos inside this museum, which generally doesn’t stop me, but security was very tight at this one.  He is such an inspiring figure in many ways, and in some ways he is a little... disturbing.  For instance I had no idea that he had such a propensity for scatological humour.  Don’t know what that is?  In a word: shit.  It is humour about shit, shitting on people, eating shit, arses, etc.  Many letters of his were discovered in which he writes shit-related poems or talked about making up shit related canticles - letters to his father and even his SISTER, who apparently shared his humour on the subject.  A friend, after he died, attempted to destroy some of these so that only an ideal view of him would remain, however some made their way into the hands of historians via his wife who thought a real picture would best serve the public, and this is how we know.  I didn’t know until I went to the museum and saw a target he used to use for shooting practice upon which was painted a picture of a man bending over with his trousers down and another man about to lick his bottom, and I came back and searched for answers.  You can imagine the kind of things I was typing into Google.  I probably have an FBI file. 

The fortress

The rest of Salzburg is equally as delightful, and I spent many happy hours just wandering around and getting as lost as it is possible to get in a town this size.  There is a huge fortress which overlooks the city, and apparently it is either an almost vertical twenty minute “walk” or a train thing that gets pulled up the slope, neither of which really appealed to me.  Fortunately it was closed due to inclement weather and I was spared the choice.  This is the last time I am going to thank the cold and rain however, lest it enjoy my praise and continue.  The most notable sight in the rest of the town, for me, was the cemetery and catacombs.  The cemetery is really beautiful and well kept, and the catacombs were the creepiest place I have ever been in my entire life.  I thought all catacombs were underground, but there are above the cemetery and a few steep and uneven flights of stairs up.  They contain merely roughly hewn stone chapels, are incredibly cold and dark and difficult to see in.  Alone in the top chapel, I became convinced that there was some kind of spirit presence in there with me, and began to march down the stairs as fast as I dared, my brain creating a tap-tap noise on the steps behind me (which in hindsight was probably the pull tag from my poncho), which I was sure was going to make me hurry and fall.  I have never been so glad to get onto solid ground and into the daylight, and company!  Heart pounding, I gave a sheepish smile to the couple at the bottom, convinced they had seen my rush down all a-flutter and were suppressing their sniggers until I left.  Gathering up my poncho, I flicked it over one shoulder, Roman emperor style, and nose in air made a haughty exit which was only slightly hampered by turning my ankle on an uneven step on the way out.  Click here to see my photos from Salzburg.

Off to Munich this afternoon!

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N