san sebastian - spain

san sebastian in basque country was our next stop in spain. very nice.
there were pontoons that henry and i swam out to and went down slides and did bombs off. we were too busy entertaining ourselves to be concerned that most people on the pontoon were perhaps more than a decade short of our mature age.

there was also a jazz festival on the beach...

..and, quite shockingly, we proved that not one person attending this event had a bottle opener. ingeneously zoe managed to open the wine without an opener. we celebrated by drinking it and eating more cheese.

'jess and ramsey's instant (3 person) house' was proven to be a wise investment. we reconsidered this briefly when one night, it started raining, all our rucksacks had to be stowed in with us (and not in the northern annex, which is incomparably more comfortable), and henry was tying down garbage bags with some ropes, pegs, and i believe his underwear, to form some amazing contraption to stop leakages. luckily, this was highly entertaining for the other more experienced campers.

barcelona - spain

i stopped briefly for a night in nice to meet up with henry and zoe again. the next day, henry and i busabouted to barcelona, to be there on time for the summercase music festival (two days of party fun and music). meanwhile, despite knowing quite well that there was a festival on that weekend in barcelona, and hostel type accommodation would be heavily booked, i had failed to book accommodation. so i decided to wotif it and stay in a bit of luxury, which i justified by believing i deserved it. hence the welcome note on the television in my room. summercase was fun. here are some photos. at the start...

...at the middle..

...at the end...(note the mysterious sunglasses change).
henry, zoe and i went on some amount of adventures, some without even leaving the camp site. we went to see gaudi's sagrada familia... ...and his park (left) which were fantastic. we also had a wine and cheese night while watching the magic fountain light and sound show... ...(it is aptly named the magic fountain, for it was the most amazing fountain i have ever seen). this followed a delicious seafood paella luncheon and a walk along the beach. this beach had ready made speech bubbles.

cinqueterra - italy

alone, (as alone as one can get on busabout), i trek forth to cinque terra (five small villages on the positioned along the north-eastern italian coast). i am reacquainted with kate, who i had met before on the busabouts, and we head to riomaggiore (one of the five villages) for a couple of nights, go on the 12 km walk along the coast through the five villages, (which was arduous), and eat plenty of pasta with pesto, foccacia with pesto, and gelati with no pesto, (which was easy). unsurprisingly i had forgotten to charge my camera, so we took some indisputably magnificent photos on kate's camera, which was then tragically/inconveniently stolen in madrid. here is a completely unrelated replacement picture, of my passport wallet that i picked up back in scotland*... which is quite relevant with regard to the ramjet/jess approach to travelling thus far.

[the interesting thoughts of edward monkton]

*if interested in cinque terra click here...

final farewell to fancy in firenze

ramsey and i fly back to roma to join the busabout circus for the journey to florence. we have purchased an instant house (carefully labelled jess and ramsey's instant house) to reduce our expenses in the european summer high season. we are very happy with our new home and washing line. please note the stylish (and practical) windows in the northern (perhaps eastern or possibly southern) annex. unfortunately the joy of our new home does not cure ramsey's sickness, and she departs for adelaide after putting me on the bus(about) to cinque terra. i have decided to stay and gallivant around europe for the last two months of the trip instead of heading to SE asia. fancy is worried, as am i, who will remind me to apply sunscreen to my neck.

together again in sicilia

the ramjet and jess super tour team reunite (see left for mt etna volcano on ramsey's head). after a mad day of travelling for both of us (berlin to sicily was further than i had speculated, and ramsey's train went inside a boat) we met at the messina train station with a dramatic running hug. here we were escorted to ale and antonio's house by vincenzo and fed tasty pizza before passing out on our beautifully prepared beds.

in the following days i ate a very significant quantity of delicious food under the supervision of the very hospitable ale and antonio (almost my cousins). this included granita, foccacia, canoli, calzone and a huge multiple course fish feast. here is me with our super excellent hosts eating gelati on a day trip to taormina... ...where we also saw the very ye old greek theatre which, quite dramatically, has the smoking etna in the background.

back in messina, we saw another glockenspiel type show from the church tower. we found this more impressive than the münchen experience due to the fabulous/quaint roaring lion and crowing bird. glockenspiel manufacturers should note that the experience would be much enhanced if objects moved at least 5 to perhaps 100 times faster.


in sicily we saw some impressive churches; typical norman architecture with byzantine influence. this means that, much to ramsey's delight, they are fitted with many geometric shape motifs. our favourite was san cataldo church (left and below), palermo, which was built in the 12th century crusader days (still with original altar) with some arabic style.

we embarked on a ferry to the aeolian islands from messina for a few nights (me with a hamper of regional specialties, which, under ale's advice, i clearly not could leave messina without trying). here we stayed on the island of vulcano (see above for me on the black sandy beach with crater in background) where we climbed to the top of the volcano, looked at people in the pungent mud pits (which according to tourist information are apparently a cure for mainly all ailments known), and i went scuba diving. here is the smoking vulcano crater...and sulphur crystals with smoke...

for some jurassic type reason, vulcanoes and dinosaurs are compartmented in the same section of my mind, and hence i was inspired to be a dinosaur in the photo to the left. perhaps a raptor.

other notes: an australian bar 'aboriginal internet cafe' in palermo serving a cocktails named after all australian capital cities. feeling patriotic, we sampled an adelaide; surprisingly, it was so similar to a midori splice, that it may well have been one.

ramsey's italian adventures

after henry, zoe and i absconded from the busabout in ancona on our way to croatia, ramsey continued to roma to perfect her self portrait photo skills. see the spanish steps, pantheon, trevi fountain, and lastly pompeii.

notice the addition of the indiana style jones hat in pompeii. extremely fashionable in all ruin sightseeing adventures. below observe ramsey re enacting the vesuvius eruption though interpretative dance. i am unsure whether she is embodying the volcano itself, or about to be crushed by a indiana jones type rolling boulder.

after this ramsey spent some quality time on the beautiful amalfi coast, meeting interesting people and getting bed bugs.

berlin - again

and so our travelling party breaks up once more; henry and zoe to rome, and i'm back to berlin for csd. i met again with maike (see left, refer first berlin entry) and stayed with her for the week.

saturday was parade day, and it was everything i expected, (referring to fast paced kylie tunes), and more (referring to the number of falafels i consumed). regrettably, most probably due to a combination of some unorthodox dance moves and the graceful ascending and descending of floats, my jeans did not survive the day.

i managed to do a bit more sightseeing in this stay, including, after much resistance, tasting the berlin speciality of curry wurst (it was actually quite tasty; i guess there's not too much that can go wrong with a sausage, tomato sauce and curry powder). other memorable times include the security check at the reichstag (german parliament) being slightly confused as to why i was bringing 6 asahi beers into the building in my backpack (i was only reminded of my purchase made earlier in the day by a familiar clinking sound when i placed my bag on the x-ray belt). disappointingly, they did not place these in the fridge for me while i took a tour.

budapest - hungary

lured by the cheapness of eastern europe, we ventured north to budapest. it was only on arrival that we found out that budapest is home to the biggest tesco supermarket in the world! they even had large fish swimming in tanks. unfortunately we did not think to bring cameras to the supermarket, so here are some other photos. below you can see henry and i with sara (who ramjet and i stayed with in london) and her friend atop a monument.

here is zoe and i on henry's somewhat steep 'shortcut' to the fort..
some of the time in budapest was spent recovering from croatia. after this we partied in some pretty neat bars. here is henry giving me hand/back to climb a tree. the reason why i am climbing the tree can not be pin pointed exactly, but it was definitely relevant at the time.

other interesting things include public baths, and the reading material at an otherwise respectable italian cafe being made up of a range of playboy magazines.

split and hvar - croatia

finally we make it to a mediterranean beach! we spent a night in split after our overnight ferry from ancona (highlight being duty free vodka) and headed to the island of hvar for a few nights (beautiful!). here we stayed with luca (luca's lodge); think perhaps a fawlty towers john cleese with a heavy eastern european accent, who progressively increases the volume of his voice through a conversation. luca had cousins who could get anything conceivably and inconceivably possible done for us (when we pointed out some donkeys in a field we were offered the half day or full day hire of donkeys from his cousin's friend).

unsure what we would do with two donkeys for a half day, we took up the offer of renting a boat from luca's cousin for a whole day. venturing out to the islands we discovered some secluded bays with unbelievably still and transparent water. intermittently anchoring up, we jumped overboard for swims (see above for me and below for henry). however, getting back on board was somewhat less graceful due to there being no ladder.

after reading the warning in the lonely planet about sea urchins, and relaying this information to everyone repeatedly, i promptly stepped on a sea urchin. however, having 10 splinters embedded in my foot did not dampen my spirits significantly. below is nurse zoe attending to my injury as i sip on an icey beer (the tastiest coldest beer you can imagine. at this fridge temperature we had to justifiably sacrifice all perishables)

other special moments included luca's non english speaking brother in law(?) cooking us some chevapchichis on the bbq (luca had taken us to his very good family friend the butcher earlier in the day), nights spent at the local bar (where quite violent sparkles were placed in our drinks, and some young french man wearing a nautical outfit including cravat tried to woo me with some ballroom style dancing; luckily he had to be back on his boat soon after this).

the great divide

a change of plans has occurred, and side . ramjet is off to london to see the parents (thus breaking the first rule of npnr; no parents). henry, zoe and i are heading east.....

venezia - italy

here we are in sunny venice/crazy tourist town. for the first day it was not so sunny venice, and it was rather difficult to locate a dry picnic spot. fortunately we found a lovely dank alley in a not so busy area (lost is a strong word) to prepare what was definitely not the first cheese and tomato sandwich i have consumed on this trip. on the rare occasion ham is added, and salt and pepper are considered valuable and luxurious commodities. here is ramsey stretching/about to contract a temporary bridge over the canal.

me and a previously constructed bridge. highlights other than the sandwich included san marco, where we saw olde decaying bits of holy people in elaborate jars. this was slightly disturbing. the bright gold mosaics on the ceiling were inspiring, and i then understood sally's hankering for an extracurricular mosaic class.

one sunny day we went on a boat out to the islands and had a grand time. ramsey and zoe bought lovely glass rings, and henry and i had rather tasty gelati.

ramsey on the island with colourful houses.we also noted the unauthorised use of the CHEMS symbol on antiwar propaganda throughout the city.

münchen - germany

we return to germany, but this time to bavaria. we are informed that bavaria is very different to berlin, i.e., people not too fond of each other, and we are to not mention how much we loved berlin. again we are forced to drink beer so as not to cause offence to traditional culture. but this time ginormous 1L beers. i am a firm believer that lifting this heavy glass stein counts as exercise. here is me contemplating a workout.
in true npnr style, henry and i embark on another pubcrawl. we made a new friend called tess. there are events that occurred on the pubcrawl in which a detailed recount of are not necessary. these events were largely considered a direct result of the event pictured below, in which henry led the way in a team bucket cocktail drinking race.

needless to say, apart from a few inanimate objects, everyone made a full recovery and we went on another free city tour (highly recommended). here we saw the anticlimactic glockenspiel, beer halls where hitler convinced people he made complete sense, and buildings entirely renovated to their pre war days.

one day we went on a trip to schloss neuschwanstein (or the disney castle), built by crazy ludwig. he sure was crazy.

ramsey in the bavarian countryside...

salzburg - austria

we found the hills alive with tourists striking curious julie andrews style poses. it took great strength to suppress the medley of sound of music songs bursting through my head so that they would not escape out my mouth (i may have had some brief moments of weakness).



after a lazy morning of watching a well worn copy of the sound of music, and considering the feasibility of creating a new wardrobe out of the curtains, we headed to the world's largest ice caves. it was recommended that we wear warm clothes and sturdy shoes (as in the past a number of australians decided thongs were appropriate footwear for a walk through a cave, ascending 700 steps, at near freezing point). so with ramsey wearing all the clothes from her rucksack, and i convinced by ramsey that a jumper would be probably a good idea and shorts were definitely not, we headed off on our tour with yet another over enthusiastic australian tour guide (yes australian not austrian. it is apparently our largest export of skilled workers).


inside the cave (really as cold as they said) were many naturally formed ice 'sculptures', and we listened in earnest as they were explained to us as having an uncanny likeness to polar bears or elephants or some other large fat sort of animal in an obscure position. here are some pictures, and one of me carrying a lantern (it is otherwise pitch black inside the cave). my fingers got cold/extremely cold but the novelty of carrying a carbide lamp suppressed any immediate need to complain.
here are some pictures from outside the caves...

vienna - austria

it was without question that in vienna we had to eat a weiner schnitzel. obviously one giant schnitzel per person is not enough, so two massive pieces were served to all of us, in some cases on top of each other with filling inbetween. see below for before and after shots..

now grossly overfull and justifiably unable to move from our chairs, we discovered that it is common to take leftovers home. we adamently packed up some leftover rice and set out for a walk/lumbering roll to the fair ground. here is the oldest ferris wheel in europe. not such a great selling point i would have thought, especially that now it has half the number of cabins due to an incident during ww2. here is henry and i being attacked by a monster at the fair.

coincidentally, there was a soccer match between austria and scotland in vienna at the same time of our visit. ramsey and i were lucky enough to have three scantily clad scotsmen in our dorm, who checked the validility of our chemical engineering graduate claims by quzzing us on the chemical symbols for a variety of elements. convinced that we were genuine, they then entrusted us with buying presents for their wives, as they were running out of time if they were to be start drinking at noon.

other notes on vienna - a taxi cab with a dvd player showing happy feet. this distracted us from where we were going and ended up at a closed bowling alley instead of a nighclub. other attempts to leave the hostel bar resulted in ending up in a 24 hour copy centre. we decided that the hostel bar was not that bad.

cesky krumlov - czech republic

cesky was a beautiful little place in the czech countryside. they had bears at the castle, and lots of fun boating activities. here is us watching from our hostel balcony and drinking beer as people head down the drop and fall off their boat. we found it hilarious.

after watching this spectacle we decided that we should do some boating. here is us with some new australian friends heading down the river. this rowing was significantly more succesful than the rowing in prague, perhaps due to a current which made it quite unneccessary to row at all.



post rowing team shot... this was taken after our graceful landing, which including desperately chasing at least two different havianas downstream.... lunch time on the balcony, zoe, jess and 'no pants tuesday' henry...

other notes: in cesky, people often mow their lawns in their bikini.

prague - czech republic

perhaps the most captivating aspect of prague was the price of beer, coupled with the free breakfast at our hostel which was open until 1 pm. despite these setbacks, we still managed to make the best of the days and get some sight seeing in.. here is us on a boat on the river. henry and our new kiwi friend rowed, mainly unevenly and sporadically and around in circles, while some under 10s on some sort of scout day rowed efficiently around us. the entertainment value of this boating expedition was heightened by our new friend neglecting to tell us before emabarking on the boat that she is petrified of water and not a strong swimmer. surprisingly she is smiling in the following photo...

henry and i after some amount of time in happy hour..
look at this giant beer on a boat!

other memories of prague include the wisdom written in the toilet cubicles in our hostel. we were inspired by the 'no parents, no rules' slogan written by some hyperactive teenager on their first trip away from home. hence from now on our trip is governed by the npnr rule, with us as the executive committee and henry as self appointed president.

berlin - germany

it was in berlin where we met up with henry and zoe again! berlin was quite an experience; confronting history lessons and excellent fun party nightlife. below you can see ramsey and henry escaping over what remains of the berlin wall...

below you can see the fernsehturm (tv tower, built 1965-9 in the days of the gdr). it was necessary for me to enthusiastically exclaim how much i liked it whenever i saw it.

we met many new friends, including two white russians (who we drank white russians with all night), maike, who amazed us with her method of transporting .5L beers into clubs by tying them into her laces, and tim who was unsurprisingly less successful in his attempted smuggle of 16 beers into what we now refer to as probably the best bar in the world (see henry and ramsey relaxing below)...

this was not just the best bar because we floated on pontoons on a canal under a willow tree, with a ramshackle bar and dj... but also because the staff offered to put tim's 16 beers in the fridge when he was caught with them. see new friends below..



here is a snap from around east berlin.. we wanted to take a picture of the anarchists who lived in a commune down the street from our hostel, but we decided against it.

we were quite overwhelmed with a visit to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp (1936-1945), and moved by the extroadinary monument to the victims of the holocaust in the centre of town.

amsterdam - the netherlands

after hearing the term 'amsterdamage' a significant number of times on our busabout journey from brugge, we had high expectations. these were generally realised and as such there are not too many appropriate pictures for the blog..

one day we hired bicycles and rode to a cheese factory. after an hour or so of riding we stopped to ask some (very friendly) locals where the hell we were. they confided in us that we were no where near the cheese factory and it was still a ridiculous distance away, and that it was never riding distance from the city anyway.... however such is the netherlands that we came across a cheese and wooden clog factory on our way home. here we tagged along for a factory tour with two buses full of elderly germans... so that´s how we ended up where we didn´t want to go on a german language tour of a dutch cheese factory. here is ramsey with some smoked cheese and clogs.

conversley, we were extremely moved after a visit to the wartime hiding spot of anne frank and her family. perhaps more moved than the american who drawled that it was much smaller than she expected, although, she guessed, they couldn't really go outside.

brugge - belgium

in paris we joined the busabout crew (more contiki than we initially expected) and set off on our continental europe adventures. first stop was brugge, belgium (see above and below), which has lots of medieval architecture and bicycles.

belgium is infamous for: beer, chocolate and....tintin (also lace, which is generally ignored in this entry due to the importance of the previous three and my slight disinterest in lace stein holders). after a much anticipated trip to the tintin shop (which has the most uncompetitive prices imaginable) we moved onto the beer and chocolate. we visited a bar which serves 300 types of beer, all of which must be consumed from a very specific and unique glass (a far cry from cracking open tinnies on the balcony at beverley). please note that this creates much (unnecessary) washing up.

we visited a local brugge brewery 'brugse zot', where we marvelled at heat exchangers (left) and other wonderous beer making equipment.

we also found on our walks a playground that looks like a castle. i had slightly more fun than ramsey, who is sulking because of a head injury sustained in climbing to the top of the playground fort (see below). despite all the beer and chocolate and tintin, our favourite part was hanging out with the locals at the fresh produce markets (below). here we sampled an array of fresh fruits. due to the rain, notice that ramsey has quite stylishly and practically, and in the spirit of tintin's pantaloons, rolled up her pants.
another canal shot...

bone fete maman!

paris

after another brief stint in london town we set off for continental europe. for some reason it had not occurred to us that the 10 hour bus trip from london to paris would involve a ferry journey across the channel. this would have been less of a surprise if we had consulted a map. to the left is a self portrait in a surprisingly strong sea breeze on a ferry with the cliffs of dover in the background.

upon arriving in paris it then occurred to us we may have benefited from a french refresher course. this may have allowed us to compliment the extensive range of phrases we did know, (largely including bonjour and merci), with anything that would be remotely helpful in attempting to communicate. we compromised by speaking english with a french accent.

first stop in paris was the lourve (free on the first sunday of every month!), where we experienced the rush of heavy tourist traffic on the mona lisa/venus de milo express route. being serious arty cultural buffs, ramsey and i quickly abandoned the crowds in order to truly appreciate the exhibits (see below).
one blustery evening we packed a picnic (wine and chocolate), stole a rug from the hostel and went with our new friends from dorm 106 (very excellent french canadians) to the bottom of the eiffel tower, where we witnessed the very exciting light spectacle. we noted that cheap wine is bad in most countries. and a here is picture of our friends from dorm 106 below... we learnt from them that the question 'are you allergic to fun?' is not a successful pick up line, contrary to the belief of an enthusiastic american gentleman.
musee d'orsay was a definite highlight for us (we were starting to tire of the renaissance). again, as in every city, we walked a lot and stumbled across interesting things, pausing every now and again to eat baguettes with cheese (left). see below for some funtimes shots.

another highlight was visiting dad's friend michael kennedy at his canadian bar, the moosehead. here we drank tasty canadian beer and ate tasty canadian bar snacks, and even received complimentary t-shirts! yayyy! here is me being a moose. quite a likeness.

aran islands - inis mor

from galway we embarked on a visit to the island of inishmore (14.5 km x 4 km), which is the biggest of the three that make up the aran islands. my concern that i would get sea sick on our voyage was somewhat heightened with the announcement that we should sit down the back because it would be 'a bit' rough. however, assisted by ramsey's helpful hints, such as 'wow, look out the other window now - it's like we're on a sea saw!', i managed to survive.

we has some amazingly clear and warmish weather in which to explore this spectacular island, which we did by foot. to the left you can see kim, who led us enthusiastically around the island. the island was full of very green, very small paddocks enclosed by a maze of stone fences.

the biggest highlight of the island was the 4000 year old fort, dun aonghasa, perched atop some very impressive cliffs..

here is me closer to the edge of the cliff than i initially thought ...

and a shot looking down at our feet over the edge of the cliffs at the fort where we stopped for a rest...

and looking back through the fort entrance over the island..

on the eastern side of the island were some lovely bays, which would have been appropriate for bathing with an increase in ambient temperature of perhaps 15-20 degrees celsius.

here are some happy locals..

and ramsey rowing a boat that requires some amount of maintenance..

in the evening we frequented the local and made friends with an islander who taught us some irish words which we now cannot recall.

grand so in galway

quite suddenly, everything got very irish. there was a moment of bewildered concern before departing dublin, which was that brian and sue did not live in galway, but in a place called gaff, which they told us was not very big. fortunately louise informed us before we had our travel route redirected to the little known small town of gaff, that gaff means house.



galway was excellent, except for the cryptosporidium outbreak in the tap water. this forced us to drink guinness for the sake of our health. this is us with our excellent hosts at perhaps stage two of our rigourous 10 step health program. ramsey may be on stage three in the following photo.

other fun times included a tour of the uni and very impressive college bar with greg, a friend of brian and sue. here we enjoyed a galway hooker (the name of a local pale ale) in the sun. although greg, like most irish people, talked exceedingly fast, we did learn from him that the words to the chorus of the song 'she moves in mysterious ways' is definitely not 'shamu, the mysterious whale'.


we again had lovely sunny weather for our long sightseeing walks- but failed to take any photos on those days. this is ramsey watching the spectacle that was brian and sue's tag rugby team being defeated. match highlights included the umpire falling over, sue being hit in the face with the ball and brian being sent off the field. note that these were not immediately succesive events.

here is ramsey pushing a dinghy ashore, with colourful galway houses in the background.

dublin...ar potatoes

we arrive in the land of potatoes! we stayed with simon and louise. there were some issues associated with locating their apartment, including, what we found out later to be, an unrequired bus journey. here is a picture of the kimba reunion with the big pointy dublin spire in the background..

we were spoiled again with delicious home cooked food, which gave us plenty of stamina to complete the entire bus tour of dublin by foot.
under simon's advice, we snuck into the guiness factory and avoided the admission fee. the factory was interesting from both an alcoholic and process engineering technical aspect...here is alex in quality control..

...and me with some ye olde guiness propaganda. i sympathised with his surprised reaction to a guiness-napping seal.

we also briefly visited the old jamison whiskey factory...this is some sort of process equipment.we very much enjoyed relaxing in st stephen's green with the beautiful flowers. we also went to phoenix park to unsuccessfully find deer. simon and louise took us on both a daytime and night time tour of temple bar... here is THE temple bar...

the area turns into some kind of crazy british hens and bucks nights extravaganza at night. to the left is us at the apartment getting ready to head out. this photo of temple bar at night is appropriate for publication.. we also walked past this quite frightening sculpture everyday. it is of extraordinarily tall irish people starving when the potatoes ran out. they look similar to the 800 year old preserved crusader corpse we got to touch in st michans church in dublin. arh!

one evening we went for a drive to the marina at howth. here is a pretty sunset.. nice.

kilmany and st andrews

from edinburgh we travelled up to kilmany, an estate outside of st andrews, to stay with jane's friends william and lauren. we very much enjoyed hanging out with their young family and having super tasty homecooked meals (very exciting after many many not so gourmet ham and cheese sandwiches on our previous uk adventures). we also discovered what the grand national is, and i became quite passionate about it after winning the family sweep.

longing to do something productive after a month and a half of holiday and travel, ramjet and i got stuck into some gardening at kilmany. william kept us motivated with a constant supply of pimms while we planted the following lawn over a couple of days...

during the night, floppy and/or jelly (the dogs) realised that it would be excellent fun to pull the individual tufts out..one..by...one. we learnt our lesson not to try any more productive work.

the weather continued to be wonderful, and we went for an afternoon trip to the seaside with lauren and the kids...this is ramsey constructing a sand castle and perhaps one of the characters from thomas the tank engine...

and some scenic shots...

we went to st andrews for a couple of hours one afternoon and pretended to play a game of golf. this is ramjet raking a sand bunker...

st andrews is where prince william went to university. i read he is single now.

edinburgh

after easter we headed up to scotland...here are some shots of the castle in edinburgh...



















we enjoyed the slower pace of edinburgh after london.. we did lots of walking and sitting in parks in the sun, listening to bagpipes and making nice friends in the hostel (except for the old man who smelt and who ramsey argued with passionately because of his unreasonable statements and random nonsensical claims). here is some lovely blossom in st andrew's square in edinburgh...

we went to a couple of pubs in edinburgh and it was fun. we concluded that it was very similar to going out at home, except the pints are larger (the more you drink, the more you drink) and we experienced slightly less inhibition associated with our fantastic dancing techniques as it was quite unlikely that we would see anyone we knew.

it was about this stage of the trip when we started to forget to take photos...or at least interesting blog worthy ones. we are working to rectify this.

a day trip to brighton

ramsey, henry and i made a daytrip to the seaside. here is a photo of ramjet and henry relaxing on the pier between the pleasure dome and the palace of fun (this is right outside the bar which claims to have 'probably the most interesting ceiling you'll ever see').

although the day was cool to start with it warmed up after our visit to the museum. we enjoyed this interactive experience immensly. this is us getting dressed up in some sort of perhaps early/late nineteenth century clothes.

we went to a pub with self proclaimed 'salubrious surroundings' for an afternoon beer in the sun.

here is a morning shot on the beach, followed by an afternoon shot on the beach... observe the increase in fun. also observe that the beach has pebbles instead of sand. an unfortunate pigeon discovered that although ramsey may throw like a girl, it is with pin point accuracy.

greenwich - not beach..beachcomber..

it was an uncanny coincidence (perhaps more uncanny than the shakira~mumbai concidence) that henry arrived in london on the same day as us... this is us meeting outside the national gallery in trafalgar square. we then decided to buy 'probably the best lager in the world' and drink without guilt in public places. then we went to greenwich, continuing this public place drinking experience on the train. greenwich is the place which divides the east and west hemispheres. this is us in both hemispheres, plus or minus 10 % (there was an admission fee in order to stand over the labelled date line, so we guessed a place in the park nearish to said date line).

then, inspired by pat mullins of we can be hereos fame(http://www.abc.net.au/tv/heroes/pat/default.htm) ramsey and henry rolled down the hill...

...while i followed the lead of all the other parents and followed/chased them down the hill with the video camera.

london baby

we arrived from a hot steamy mumbai to cold.. cold london, and very quickly made our way to an outdoor clothing shop to buy some wind breakers. immediately after these purchases, the weather cleared up and london proceeded to have the warmest days of the year. i may have even managed to get burnt in london. this is us in trafalgar square on our first day of sightseeing. after our chaotic indian experiences, we were satisfactorily stunned with the order and queuing abilities of the english.


on the cold days we did much museum and gallery viewing, and managed to briefly check out big ben, westminster abby, tower of london, and tower bridge (below). we enjoyed the art galleries very much, notable the impressionist display in the national gallery and tate modern. we also loved viewing the fruits of english plundering in the british museum.
we also watched the changing of the guards, which was slightly more pompous than the average shift worker changeover.
while in london we are staying with dan scan foodlan fran's brother (and five other australians). this is him in his backyard.

goa - palolem & patnem

the day after shakira we headed to goa (a state south of mumbai) to relax on the tropical beaches of palolem and patnem (palolm beach above). we congratulated ourselves on making the commendable decision of avoiding fleas on a 13 hour bus by flying on our favourite discount airline. we stayed four nights at palolem beach with this the view from our room...

and me contemplating the view from our verandah...

this is looking down the beach early in the morning from our the front of our hotel...

we went out fishing at 530 am on one of the traditional boats shown above and caught some fish that were a bit nem0-like on hand lines. shown below are some boys fishing in the afternoon, and an afternoon catch (much more successful than ours) arriving back to shore.

after our joint 'conservation of mass' experiences, we were slightly turned off indian food for a while, and although we enjoyed some excellent tandoori tikka on the beach, were delighted to find excellent western food at patnem beach (below).

we hired a motorcycle for a day in palolem and went for a drive to the wildlife sancturary, where we saw less wildlife than is common on a typical indian street. the rainforest was deicidous, and looked very familar due to the abundance of gum trees.

the hips don't lie

it was an uncanny coincidence that alex and i were in mumbai at the same time as shakira.

ramsey and i managed to make remarkable recoveries from our illnesses. we consulted a doctor with regard to ramsey's stomach functions, while i preferred the self-medication approach (no prescriptions required here) which cut out the unnecessary middle man and the associated expenses. both of these methods worked excellently, and we were apparently well enough to make the somewhat uncharacteristic decision that we should go to the shakira concert...mainly because it was on, and according to peter, when in rome...

so, much to our surprise, we found ourselves at a shakira concert in mumbai. peter's enthusiasm (see below) did rub off on me (assisted by shakira's nice dancing), and ramsey even knew 3 songs (one more than initially speculated). however, we were skeptical of the live aspect of her singing...but you can't dance like that AND sing, so i concluded it was all good.

the conservation of mass

consider the well known conservation equation

in - out = accumulation - generation

let us call alex reactor A (see above picture) and jess reactor B. reactor A is behaving as a batch reactor, where out and generation are equal to zero, leaving in = accumulation. increased mass in is rejected countercurrently. reactor B is behaving as a continous plug flow reactor (in - out = 0) with a very very low residence time.

in conclusion, it is fortunate that peter has more than one toilet at his house.

delhi

apparently we had miscalculated a day in our trip planning and therefore spent only 10 hours overnight in delhi before flying* back to mumbai.
maybe next time.

*we caught a discount airline. it disturbed us a little that there were no life jackets on board. however the flight attendant reassuringly showed us in the safety briefing that we were to use our seat cushions in the case of a watery landing.

jess' birthday (and the taj mahal)

on my birthday we got up at 5 am so we could watch sunrise at the taj mahal. it was very very amazing. see photos.

we then walked to the agra fort to have a look around. on the way we were hassled to buy souvenirs, one of which was a taj mahal snowdome (apparently made of real marble). after walking 200 m with us, the seller had gone from asking US $20 to 20 Rupees ( 80 c) for the high quality marble snowdome.

we held my birthday luncheon at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the taj. it was tasty at the time. alex thought it was only tasty for 15 minutes, before it was promptly removed from her system.

this is my well prepared birthday card from alex.

overcome by the heat and harrasment from rickshaw drivers and vendors, we escaped to the refreshing airconditioning of a five star hotel for a celebratory afternoon cocktail. i had a pleasant time sipping my caprioska and watching the afternoon sun hitting the taj and some shoulders while ramsey enjoyed the luxurious toilets.

that night we caught an express train to dehli. alex was not so well, and we were looking very much to getting back to mumbai.

jaipur

we arrived in the pink city very early in the morning. much to her disappointment, alex had caught fleas on the bus. we spent the morning sightseeing around the city palace - the maharajah of rahjastan still lives there. our favourite place was jantar mantar, a ye olde astronomy/astrology centre. below you can see a giant sundial which is accurate to 2 seconds. stylish, but slightly larger than the average seiko.the shadow in this picture shows what astrology sign we are in from the markings on the marble (pisces, my birthday is only two days away!)

we enjoyed a delicious giant rajahstani thali for lunch, and then went home and ramsey quite wastefully threw it up. the next day we walked up to naheranga fort and then took a rickshaw out to the old city and amber fort. it was very beautiful. it seems our guide enjoyed using ramsey's camera and insisted that he take many photos for us. back in the day, the maharajah's wife wore an excesive amount of heavy jewellery and had to be carried around by four eunuchs.

later in the day we caught a bus to agra (home of the taj mahal).

jaisalmer

at jaisalmer we stayed inside the fort (constructed in 1156 AD), which rises out of the desert. from this town you can do camel rides into the desert. we decided that the desert was best seen from our balcony. see ramsey pointing to our room:

and a picture of the fort from some distance:
and the sunrise view from our room.

we decided that in the spirit of indian culture we should try a bhang lassi. we spent the afternoon in a reflective mood, melting into our chairs and contructing tree digrams to expain why a beer may be bubbly. the venn diagram didn't work.

in the desert museum we met mr. sharma. he was a lovely man who explained to us a bit about desert culture and hindu lifestyle and the caste system. he taught us the importance of marriage, and explained that the karma sutra is about education and not pornography. however he did share with us that sometimes people have 'secret relations', between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, and sometimes in isolated desert villages, man and animal. we reacted with a suprised 'ooo'. we bought a traditional desert folk music cd. peter reacted with a suprised 'ooo'.

here are some interesting slogans used to sell blankets and clothes in jaislamer:

on the road to jodhpur

note to fellow india travellers: don't take public transport. apparently goats ride for free on wednesdays. although the trip was arduous, we met some new friends who were also canadian sisters. carolyn and jen were also suprised about the goats on the bus. all of us stayed at a very nice place in jodphur - ramsey and i in the penthouse which had 12 windows. see us all having a beer with meherangarh fort in the background. and the view from where we are sitting in the above picture (outside our room).

ramsey and i both got headbutted by cows. a guy who ran the internet cafe (who knew the lineup of every cricket team, and who talked very very loudly in an attempt to make sure we understood him) asked ramsey out on a date after telling her she looked like steffi graf. i've never used that strategy before. although the effort was commendable, it unfortunately didn't work well in his favour. the following picture is the view from our room.

and jess at the fort.

pushkar

on the same day as monsoon palace we caught a bus (outfitted with hindu idols and elaborate glass light fittings) to ajmer, and then a somewhat overcrowded taxi to pushkar (population 15 000) in the rain. in pushkar (a holy brahman city), there is no meat, alcohol or public kissy kissy. or eggs. we quickly realised these were some of our favourite things, but still decided to stay two nights for a bit of a rest. unfortunately our rest was hindered by erratic cacophonic very very fast (perhaps in quadruple time) organ playing in the evenings.

in spite of this the city was beautiful and serene. the following picture is the view from the rooftop of our hotel. the next day we climbed the hill to the right, which puffed us out slightly - 230 m high, over an 800 m track length.

there is a temple on the top of the hill, where we reflected upon why we had purchased flowers at the bottom of the hill.

apparently they were for the monkeys.

in pushkar we also got ripped off by some 'priests' who sold us happiness and good life.