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).