The art of relaxation.

Our second time round in London is a bit of an exercise in learning to appreciate staying still.  We piled off the bus from Holland around dawn on a monday morning... and three tubes later we were firmly positioned on a couch in front of a tv... this happening to be the first monday of the Olympic games, our first day back in London was over before we knew it.

The weather was grey and flat, there were constant sirens outside, everyone was complaining... only this time, unlike when we first got off the plane from Auckland, we weren't looking to be tourists experiencing the city, and somehow none of that mattered.  We met two great South African guys that first day in the hostel, and spent hours watching Olympic sport and jointly lamenting the fact that neither of our countries had won a single medal.  And then we enjoyed rubbing in the fact that at least we had a small population to explain our lack of success... and again when even Togo got a medal... and again when South African-born Kirsty Coventry picked up a haul of medals for Zimbabwe... yeah, we watched a LOT of sport.

But to counter the abundance of sedentary behavior, the guys walked to a nearby sports court in the evenings, and played a seemingly rule-free game of four [or five, or however many turned up] -a-side football against some local Brazilian guys.  Best moment: an eight year old kid was on the court when we got there, to compensate for stealing his practice space, he was asked to join in the game.  He then proceeded to single-handedly score the first three goals.  The kid was good :)  Even after the guys decided they wouldn't 'go easy' on him any more [yeah, right] he continued to show them all up.  Until, that is, his mum came and called him home for dinner.

Later that week, we transferred hostels, the Olympics were still going strong, and we made some new friends... as well as meeting some *interesting* characters...  For the next five days, the couches were taken over by two Aussies, two kiwis, and one sad South African [they still didn't have any medals, and neither did we.]  We all cheered on the Aussies in the pool, gunned for the kiwis in the rowing, and waited for a South African to make it to the final of... something!  Even the Aussies were on the edge of their seats when the Evers-Swindells squeaked ahead at the last fraction of a second, and the running joke of New Zealand's high ranking on the fourth place tally began, as we racked up a succession of near-hits.

We also had a lot of fun with a guest-who-shall-remain-nameless who picked a fight over tennis by telling us that Rafa Nadal is ruining the game, and plays like absolute rubbish... needless to say, some intense conversations followed, and we enjoyed pointing out exactly who it was with a gold medal around his neck by the end of the weekend.  Though it turned out tennis wasn't the only controversial topic..  We were in the pub watching the ABs squash South Africa 19-0 and he had to come by and claim rugby was barely a sport and that he could outrun any of our wingers... then we were watching some gymnastics finals, and that was too easy as well, anyone could do it!  He also claimed his superiority at kickboxing, held that he could beat anyone in the room at a tennis match [even though he hasn't played in 17 years] and I think somehow it came out that apparently his father single-handedly established parts of Australia... anyway, we learned very quickly not to take this guy seriously, and consequently had a lot of fun waiting for what he was going to challenge next.

Our second week in London we moved into our own place with our Australian friends, Bryce and Ewan.  It's pretty small, and not exactly in the greatest of neighbourhoods, and there are some interesting housemates there too, but it is great to have our own space, to be able to unpack, and to buy more than a day's supply of food at a time.  It's also surprising how much we appreciate having friends!  We've met heaps of nice people on our travels, but when you only get to see them for two days before you both move out of town, it's not quite the same.  But it's been fantastic getting to know the guys, hanging out watching movies, listening to music [cheers for the speakers, Paul!], kicking a ball around at the park, sharing travel stories and plans, having a few drinks watching rugby [just having people around who know that real sport is played with an oval, not a round ball is a huge bonus too!]

So, while we're super excited about our next trip, and can't wait to be seeing new sights again, we've also really learnt to appreciate staying in one place, not having to carry our worldly belongings on our backs everywhere we go, and not feeling like half our lives are spent on trains!

Fun in the lands of the Vikings...

From Germany we headed north to Scandinavia, to see if we could find us some vikings!!
First stop: Copenhagen, Denmark: beautiful city, we loved being surrounded by water again, it's something you don't think about, and don't think you'll miss till you don't have it. We walked along the waterfront around to the Little Mermaid sitting on her rock in the sea [she really is little!], and cooled off by the Gefion Fountain, which apparently the Danes think of as their own Fontana di Trevi... but it was very cool-and is the biggest monument in Copenhagen. We wandered back through the town, up and down the pedestrian shopping street [we like those too] and went into the Round Tower which was built in the seventeenth century with as an observatory, and is unique in that rather than having to climb hundreds of stairs to get to the top, it was built with a 210 metre long spiral ramp! Great view of the city, and interesting to look at the old observatory equipment still inside. There is an awesome church in town with an awesome external spiral staircase...but unfortunately it is closed for renovations till 2009 so we could only look from the outside. We also visited the 'free town' of Christiania, a suburb that was started in an old barracks by some hippies in the 70s, and has semi-legal status as an independent community [complete with 'you are now entering the EU' signs at the exits back into regular Copenhagen]. It was an experience, the place runs on it's own rules [though not many of them] and is like a giant commune. Cars aren't allowed, dogs run free, weed is openly sold, and there are some pretty basic looking houses [to say the least]

Next stop: Gothenburg, Sweden: We took a train from Denmark to Sweden over the bridge that connects Copenhagen and Malmo, and then up to Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. We were staying about 12km out of the city, at a fantastic hostel in the bushes - it was a hell of a walk to get there in the scorching sun up a steep and winding road with all our packs on...but an absolutely beautiful place once we made it! We took a train back into the city on our second day and wandered around-Gothenburg is one of the biggest ports in Sweden and the docks were impressive. There is also a very cool maritime museum which actually just consists of about 20 vessels moored off the wharf that you can walk around, including a submarine and a destroyer. There are some lovely canals in Gothenburg, as the city was designed by Dutch city planners because the area was quite marshy and we know how the Dutch can build on ground that should really be water :) We also spent quite a bit of time lazing by a huge, beautiful lake that was a ten minute walk through the bush away from our hostel, enjoying the Scandinavian sunshine. It was a really relaxing place, and so great to feel like we were away from a big city feel for a while.

Take three: Stockholm, Sweden: Once we'd had enough of being lazy at the lake [not really...could easily have spent another week there...] we headed across to the capital city. Stockholm is an absolutely fascinating city, made up of thousands of islands, though you can walk around much of the centre without realising that you have actually crossed several of them, as the roads just keep going. We wandered through Gamla Stan, which is the old city centre, made up of three islands, and has some fantastic architechture [and lots of buskers with accordians!] We walked most of the way across the city to a telecommunications tower which you can go up to the top of for a great view. After that we were pretty tired [it was around 30 degrees] so we spent the afternoon at a 'beach' which was more like a park by the water, and was absolutely packed with locals. In the morning when we had some energy again we went to a Viking exhibition at a museum, very cool, heaps of old relics including the skeleton of a viking girl from an outer island of Stockholm. After charging through the city to the ferry terminal, we got on a Viking Line ferry to Helsinki, and spent the next fifteen hours watching the world go by. The departure from Stockholm was especially picturesque, as we weaved our way through the islands, some of which are very tiny, and seem to be inhabited by no more than one guy and a dog-what a life!

Next stop: Helsinki, Finland: we finally made it to Finland early the next morning, and found our way to our hostel which was actually in an outer area of Helsinki, near to some forest and some nice little beaches. We spent the first afternoon lazing at the beach, marvelling at how fantastic the scandinavian weather was... Made it back into Helsinki central the next day, and spent the day wandering the streets. It's a really nice city, lots of parks and lakes, and we found a fantastic huge market to wander around, and some very impressive churches to visit, we even nearly got ourselves included in a wedding! It was scorching hot again, topping 32 degrees, and this was obviously noteworthy in Finland, because we saw tv cameras filming in the city centre while we were relaxing by a nice fountain...then were surprised to see the footage on the 6 o'clock news back at our hostel that night!! We spent some more time at the beach, and visited the Helsinki City Museum, which gave a really interesting overview of the history of the city right from it's inception, through all the various invasions, and the five [5!] times the city has burnt to the ground [which helped explain why there aren't many old old buildings in town]. Grudgingly, we got back on the ferry and crossed back to Stockholm, raced across Sweden to Malmo and back to Copenhagen for another night, before heading back down to Hamburg and setting off for more bogan times at WACKEN!!

We absolutely loved Scandinavia, saw some beautiful cities, enjoyed some fantastic natural settings, and had amazing weather... disappointing number of vikings though!! Maybe we'll see more next time... :)

Getting a bit Germanic

Next adventures after leaving The Netherlands again meant swinging through Brussels for lunch with Mel and Dani and ending up in Cologne by dinner. The cathedral in Cologne is absolutely amazing, thought to be the largest gothic building ever constructed, and it now looms in all it's dark and imposing glory right across the square from the train station.. we liked Cologne before we even found our hostel. Inside, it's just as spectacular, and we decided a workout was in order and walked up the 509 narrow, tightly winding steps to the top - fantastic view, but the 509 back down were definitely easier! We also visited a very cool sculpture park and had fun (probably illegally) climbing on the sculptures... :)
After Cologne we stopped in Trier, a small German town near the border with Luxembourg, which was once the capital of the Western Roman Empire, and has some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. Not your typical German town, then. We wandered around an old Roman bathhouse complete with a crazy system of underground tunnels and fun big rocks to climb on, looked in on the original amphitheatre (which is clearly still getting good use-The Pink Floyd Experience was coming to town later in the month and were doing their show outdoors in the amphitheatre!), went in the Dom (cathedral), and also had a look in the Constantine Basilica-which was actually the throne room of the emperor Constantine, and is now completely restored/rebuilt, and is a very imposing place.
While we were in Trier we decided to take a day-trip to Luxembourg (it was so close!) and spent an afternoon walking around the streets and through some of the spectacular parks and gardens. Luxembourg City is a beautifully placed city and it was impressive approaching on the train and seeing the city appear among the valleys and hills.
From Trier we traveled further south to Freiburg im Breisgau, a beautiful town in the heart of the Black Forest region. The town has a unique system of shallow micro-canals running along the side of the footpath in the city centre, originally used for supplying water for animals and such, but it now has the great effect of keeping the city cool, even on scorching hot days like when we were there. We wandered around the town itself, there are a few remaining medieval towers, and a very impressive red sandstone church in the main city square. Mostly though, we just hiked through the forest, which was the closest we've come to feeling like New Zealand yet, really dense tall beautiful green trees... :-D It was a hot day and we were feeling it, but then we stumbled, buried in the depth of the forest, upon a crazy tall tower built of steel and huge tree trunks... and with 230 steps to the top...but the promise of a good view was too strong, so we duly climbed our way up, and it truly was spectacular, and all the more awesome because it was a complete surprise. Only downside of the forest was on our way to find some nice patch of grass to rest on after climbing the tower, we both managed to brush past some stinging nettle, though Antony got the worst of it - such a strange sensation, and at the time, we had no idea what it was so were a bit worried till wikipedia came through and told us it was stinging nettle and the itching would soon go away...
We needed to start making our way up the country again, so next stop was Frankfurt, where we met some awesome people with great music taste who we spent a lot of time sitting around chatting with...as for Frankfurt itself...has to be the least interesting place we've visited. We wandered along both banks of the Main river and looked at the churches and buildings (though most of them are new because the city was flattened in World War Two) but overall we found it to be just a big, bustling, relatively soulless city. Then again, it is the financial capital of Germany, so what should we have expected??
One more quick stop in Bremen en route north to Scandinavia, and that was our first German excursion over... we saw some awesome locations, met some lovely people, and had a huge amount of fun, so it's a good thing we'll be back soon to see some more!

Bogan times in Belgium

We've just got back to The Netherlands for a brief stop after a week in Belgium, where we had a fantastic time. We were there for the Graspop Metal Meeting, an annual three day metal music bonanza held in an obscure area of North-eastern Belgium for around 100,000 bogans from all over Europe [and two kiwis!], but also spent time travelling around falling in love with tiny Belgian cities.
The music part can come in another post because there was too much awesomeness, and these posts keep getting longer and longer as it is...
So: Belgium.
*Antwerp: on the way to Graspop we spent a day in Antwerp, mostly just wandering around taking in the city. We went inside the Onze-Lieve Vrouwkathedraal [Cathedral of our Lady], which dominates the city skyline, and it was huge and very impressive inside. Antwerp's greatest son, Peter Paul Rubens [a very famous seventeenth century Flemish artist] has a number of works displayed inside as well.
*Bruges: We took off to the Western side of Northern Belgium [Flanders] straight after Graspop, and within two minutes walk of the train station, we found our new favourite town in Europe. This place is phenomenal. It has a reputation for being the best-preserved medieval city in Europe, and completely deservedly so! It is full of tiny narrow streets, large gothic buildings, two big beautiful central squares, medieval designed houses, fantastic parks, and the ruins of the medieval town fortifications. We had a fantastic time just walking around and exploring, stopping for the occasional picnic in one of the parks to sample a few tasty [and cheap!] Belgian beers from the supermarkets. We did a brewery tour, of the last brewery left in Bruges - [the narrow streets, though fun for walking around, don't make for the easiest mass-transportation of beers in a modern context, so most of the breweries have shut down or moved out of town.] It was really interesting to see both the pared-down, stainless steel, lights and buttons and levers modern brewing room, and the four floors of copper and barrels and vats and pipes that it used to take to produce beer there. We also got to go out on to the roof of the brewery and take in the fantastic view. Included in our tour was [of course!] a beer-the brewery was called Brugse Zot and they only make two varieties now, a blonde and a dubbel, and the blonde they serve on tap is unfiltered - but it was delicious. So much so, that we tried the dubbel as well - intense and tasty.
*Ghent: We spent two days in Ghent, which isn't as well-preserved as Bruges, and has actually tried to improve it's reputation as a tourist destination by 'creating' medieval buildings, most of which were built in the early twentieth century and are not even remotely authentic. All the same, it was another beautiful town, and had a series of fantastic huge cathedrals/churches. It also has the advantage of possessing it's very own castle [which has, apparently, been 'creatively restored' but is still awesome.] We took a tour around the castle, which included a large selection of torture instruments - wow those medieval jailers must have had some sick ideas! We also poked around the massive botanical gardens located in the outskirts of the city, very cool.
*Brussels: We took a day trip to Brussels on the way back to The Netherlands, and spent it crossing the city taking in the sights. We saw the European Parliament, the Palace of Justice, a number of huge, impressive churches, and of course, that bizarre Belgian symbol - Manneken Pis -the statue of the little boy peeing [Manneken Pis is Dutch for 'little man pee' - great.] We also found out that there is actually a corresponding little girl statue, called Jeanneke Pis, erected by a restaurant owner in 1985, but as the restaurant has closed down, she no longer pees, but she's still there, and still bizarre!

T. I. H.

Once again we've been off travelling, and away from internet, so there's some catching up to do.
Just one more quick note about the Netherlands first...
T.I.H. is a phrase you learn to use rather quickly around here...it stands for This Is Holland and is used frequently by the international students to refer to the peculiarities of everyday dutch life. Kind of like 'only in america' with a european twist.
*Almost everything is closed on Monday morning, apparently because the shops now open on Saturdays... so the workers take Monday morning off to make up for it. This applies not just to small family-run businesses, but big department stores and nationwide chains. Or they could just hire more staff...?
*As an aside, we found out that a library in The Hague also follows this policy, opening at noon on Monday...even though it is closed on the weekend...
*The three of us were walking along a road by a canal on our way to the train station, finishing our beers as we went. A police car pulled up alongside us, and the officer leaned out her window and told us it was forbidden to drink outside in the city centre. We apologised and were about to discard our vessels when she said to us "so next time, just remember to hide them better, you need to be more sneaky" and drove off...
*Absolutely everyone goes everywhere on their bikes. Most of which have special adaptations so that they can conduct their everyday lives while balancing on two wheels, such as big barrows out the front, bags hanging off every available surface, and some with up to three child/baby seats attached. Or then there's those who just have a plain straight bike, and ride home from the supermarket twisted around with one hand holding a crate of beer behind them...
*Because supermarkets close quite early, there are a plethora of 'night shops' around every town... which evidently take their name quite seriously, because they don't open till evening. But then they close at only around 10 or 11pm - T.I.H. They could do with a starmart, aye.
*Far more popular than generic fast food, around here the grease and cholesterol cravings are filled by deep-fried croquettes, deep-fried sausages or deep-fried noodles, and these are available on most streets and train stations from a place called Febo, that dispenses them from coin-operated holes in the wall. So fresh and tasty! :-S

There have been heaps more times we have had to use this phrase, but this is enough of an introduction to T.I.H. :-D

Waterworks: tacky beaches, canals, canals, canals.

Other than football [but I decided that needed it's own post] we've done a bit of exploring in other towns while we've been here.
Our second day, while the weather was still nice [which we were firmly instructed NOT to get used to] we took a trip to Scheveningen, the 'most popular beach in the Netherlands'. And what a monstrosity it is. The beach itself is nothing to write home about, it's quite large, flat, reasonably nice sand through most of it, calm water... but then there are the shops, stalls, bars, restaurants... and the beach chairs. Now, any sane New Zealander, when going to the beach, will tend to sit on a towel on the sand, looking at the water [when they're not out enjoying the waves, that is]. But this beach was absolutely crammed full of little huts and covered chairs, umbrellas, even some beds... all of which you had to pay the staff of the bar or restaurant your chair was in front of before you could use them... and all of which were facing away from the beach!! So this is how to appreciate the nicest beach in Holland... don't sit on the sand, don't look at the water, don't let any sun get through your shelter... Why you'd bother to leave home in the first place, we couldn't fathom. But we did have a nice walk up the beach, and even almost got a tiny bit sunburnt, so it was a pretty good day out for us.
Later that week we took a day trip to Delft, home of the famous Dutch blue and white painted ceramics. It was a very pretty town, with [of course] the characteristic canals and bridges everywhere, and hundreds of places where you could purchase said blue and white souvenirs.
We also eventually took our first trip into Amsterdam. And it pretty much lived up to all the hype. The smell of smoke [of the green variety] was considerably stronger than in Leiden, Delft or The Hague, and the 'coffeeshops' were much more blatant and tacky. We took a short stroll down the red light district canal [just because you have to say you've seen it once] and even though it was early afternoon, it was still fairly shocking. Window after window full of pouts and flirty smiles... though we have been told that it is a far less peaceful stroll in the evening, when those on both sides of the windows get more pushy... but we decided hearing about that was more than enough! The Amsterdam canals are quite spectacular - they are as prevalent in the smaller towns, but much smaller, so they don't leave quite the same impression. Some of the old buildings were as impressive, particularly the tiny narrow houses that are left over from when rates were charged based on how much road frontage your building took up - one house is a mere 2.02m wide!! We went on a canal tour, and the city certainly has a lot of charm to it, particularly when seen from a peaceful viewpoint on the water.
But overall, we felt it lacked a lot of what we like about the smaller towns due to the general big-city-feel, though of course it always has it's points of difference [dubious though they are].

For now though, it's time to get excited about Belgium and all the awesome music we're going to see this weekend at Graspop....bring it on!

Hup Holland Hup

Having now been in the Netherlands for over two weeks, it must be time for an update. We took the cheapest [read: slowest] option to get here, which involved spending eight hours of Antony's birthday in a pub in London, all our belongings piled up in a corner, watching the Nadal Federer final and some football to kill time before jumping on a bus headed for Amsterdam. Twelve very long hours later, after a bus trip to Dover, a ferry across the water to Calais [mirroring exactly the Eurostar trip we took that very morning], then back on the bus and through Belgium to the Netherlands, we eventually climbed out of the bus in The Hague, found a train to Leiden, and ran into Paul in the train station just after seven in the morning. Needless to say, by about 11, we thought it should be late afternoon and could have done with a nap [who would have thought those bus seats weren't comfortable?] but we struggled on, familiarising ourselves with Leiden before having our first real European football experience...
We trained back to The Hague with a group of Paul's friends for the Netherlands opening Euro2008 match against Italy, and not much could have prepared us for the orange madness that we would meet when we got there! Every pub/restaurant/bar/house in town seems to have draped itself in orange flags, banners, posters and anything else they could lay their hands on, and every tv was tuned in. The crowds jumped and screamed and clapped every time a Dutch player landed boot to ball, and as the goals started coming, it only got louder. Coming from a nation where the national economy takes a hit every time our sports teams take a fall, we thought we knew a bit about patriotism and crowds going wild. Turns out we were wrong. These guys really know how to enjoy a game of football :)
We've watched each of the Netherlands games since [as well as a fair few of the others, just to keep up with the results ;) ] in different locations, all crowded, all very orange, all very loud. And yet even when the Quarter on Saturday ended in the shocking result that it did, the supporters put on a brave face, packed up their orange and dispersed quietly. The pub we were at even put on 'Always look on the bright side of life' over the PA system, and the crowd started to sing along. They were proud of their team for doing as well as they did, and in a way, Netherlands was the winner on the night either way, as Hiddinck, the Russian coach, is a former coach of the national side here.
It seems All Blacks fans have got something to learn after all.