Month: July 2011

These last few weeks I disappeared in more ways than from this blog. I’ve tried to put my finger on how it happened. It happened so slowly that like a frog in hot water, I came to realise it only at boiling point. It was too late. Some essential part of my “self” had gone.

Was it the incident in Krakow that led me to question my job in America? Did the massive cloud of uncertainty change everything I thought, felt and did?

Was it travelling with my best friend from high school? Did I return to the old clumsy insecure 17-year-old version of myself?

Was it that peak-time travel in Europe takes away the spontaneity factor? Booking and planning in advance sucks!

Was it my secret hopes that this trip in Europe might inspire a sequel to my South America book? Which, by the way, is still in editing, but slowly slowly getting closer to publishing 🙂  Was it the disappointment that The Universe didn’t bring me an exciting plot like it did last time?

Was it the death of my laptop – something I’ve become attached to this last four years? Leaving her behind in Rome was like losing my best friend. I knew the time was approaching, but without her I feel lost.

Was it the other aspects of bad luck that have taken me by storm – bad luck with credit card fraud, bank cards being cancelled, bag zippers breaking… little nuiances that add up to an air of downward spiralling negativity.

Definitely my accident was the cherry on top. Flying from a bike and ending up in hospital on one’s first day in the Greek Islands is enough to scare the life out of anyone.

As you can see in the photo, I am ok. Day by day I feel my strength, my “vi”, my life-energy returning.

Physically – my wounds are healing.

Mentally – my mind accepting the fate of my holiday (no sun and hence very little swimming), the fate of my leg (impending scars) and still various aspects of confusion about my life and what the heck I’m meant to be doing with it.

And hopefully soon spiritually. My “free-spirited self” that my best friend noted was missing from my facebook posts and photos, hasn’t returned yet. I’m hoping it’s on its way.

I think (hope) my recent dose of bad luck is about to change. My bank card that had allegedly been cancelled magically allowed me to withdraw cash. I received an email about the release of new Macs, so it was good I didn’t buy a new one yet. I’m alone (Lisa, my travel buddy, has gone back to Sydney), but I’m strangely happy to have total freedom and not be burdoning anyone else with my ailments. I moved to a new hotel in a nicer part of the island with a community-like feel and my own little balcony.

I am still having my moments where I feel down and depressed, exhausted, homesick, and impatient about my wounds healing. These are being balanced with moments where I feel relaxed and happy, enjoying the scenery and reading books. It’s an emotional roller coaster ride and I’m holding on tight hoping that, unlike my scooter ride, I won’t fall off!

Photo:

Nico – the dude in the picture with me – was the manager of our hotel. He was in a scooter accident the day after mine. We moped around together complaining but a few days later both felt a little better. Maybe it’s the rough roads, the lack of servicing, the lightness of a 50cc motor and smaller wheels, but scooters in Greece, I have learned, are not to be trusted.

I love Barcelona. I love it, love it, love it! The arts, the energy, the colours, cerveza, cops on scooters, the boys, the beaches, the bumble-bee taxis, tapas, the sunshine, the shopping, the street music, the dancing, the people, paella, pick & mix candy shops, live statues, the language, the list could go on.

Last time I visited I wanted to live there, and this time I had the same feeling.

“Dos noches es muy pochito. Barcelona es mas grande. Minimum tres noches,” insisted the passionate cleaner of our guesthouse-like hostel.

She was right. Two nights is not enough. I knew that when I booked it, but with plans to spend a couple of nights in Nice, Rome and hopes to spend a week on a Greek Island, two nights was all we had.

Paella:

Street music:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrdTaR0oVv0[/youtube]

A city tour on one of those open air buses gave us glimpse into Gaudi’s fine works & other architecture points of interest around the city.

Shopping around town, through small and big cobblestone streets, I came across Desigual – hippyish clothes full of positive affirmations, bright colours and quirky shapes. I went nuts, suffering the consequences when it came to closing my backpack the next morning. I also found a camera shop and bout a 18-200mm Tamron lens to replace the one that broke in Paris. Undecided as to whether its as good as my 18-105 Nikon, it would do the trick.

By the time I got to the beach it was 6pm. The sun was still strong. I had one hour to bake before meeting Lisa for more food, drinks, shops and to watch Midnight in Paris from 10:20pm till well after midnight in Barcelona. You don’t get movies that late in Oz. And at 5 Euros a ticket, the cinema is another thing to add to my list.

Of all the cities I’ve visited in Europe, Barcelona is easily my favourite. In every city I go I try to get a magnet. For the second time I forgot to get a magnet in Barcelona. A sign I will return? I hope so.

It was my 4th visit to Paris. The city of lights. Allegedly a city of love. Just not my love.

On my first visit, as 2006 opened, my five-year relationship ended. In front of the Arc de Triompf. Champs de Elise will always carry memories of that moment.

My second time in Paris, a few weeks later, carries the opposite type of memories: new beginnings, “finding myself”, feeling naked and exposed with my shaved head I magically found my dreams  found myself living in a model flat in the 16^th district, looking at the Eifle Tower’s lights, strolling the Seine, running through streets and metro tunnels from casting to casting, job to job, café to café. I have fond memories with friends at the top of Sacre Cuer, fondues, parties, nightclubs, free dinners, free drinks… my brief glimpse of Paris’ glitz and glam.

Toward the end of the year I returned for another season of shows. This time with new head of hair, and an evolving sense of who I was and what I wanted to do in life.

Five years have passed. Five years! Where did those years go??? Time. It passes too fast.

My fourth visit, now, in 2011, it was good to create some new memories. I took Lisa to my favourite places, ate my favourite foods…

I caught up with some old friends and played “spot the difference”:

I added a long-awaited bridge-post photo to my series.

We took a “trip” to Disneyland with our Amsterdam doggie-bag.. enough said…

It seems an appropriate place for me to share an Alan Watt’s quote:

‘For Disneyland exists “as a mystery and a sign,” the land of the fake and the home of the bogus, prototype of the world to come. Even the birds in the trees are plastic, and sing through their hinged beaks with tiny loudspeakers. Plastic deer, bears, elephants, and bunny rabbits stand along the banks of artificial lakes and rivers, monotonously wagging their mechanical heads. Tourists, traveling by river boat through simulated jungle, have the thrill of seeing a plastic hippopotamus shot with a blank cartridge, and a varnished papier–mâché replica of the Swiss Family Robinson’s tree house which vibrates perpetually to the recorded music of an oom–pah–pah band (on a loop tape) going “Pom–pitty bom–pitty pom–pitty bompitty” for ever and ever. Though it takes hours to go through all the “shows,” a decent restaurant—let alone a bar—is nowhere to be found, since this is strictly sodapop–culture, where one must subsist upon hamburgers, hot dogs, ice cream, popcorn, or Fred Harvey–type meals.'[1]

I have had a few other bridge-pose photos lined up in my head for a while: on Champs de Elise, along the Seine, and the Eifle Tower by daylight with the background out of focus. When the day arrived my lens decided this wasn’t to be. A bad rattle sound. A plastic thing in the middle of the shutter…

“Maybe you would have broken your back? Maybe it’s a good thing?” Lisa tried to cheer me up.

Quite possibly I’d have gotten run over on the Champs de Elise – the spot where I wanted to take the photo was a little dangerous –  where Lisa sits, between the traffic.

The Eifle Tower shot I wanted would have involved a bridge on top of a stone wall. Maybe I’d have fallen.

The shot along the Seine would have been ruined by people and the smell of piss. Maybe I’d have caught a disease.

They’d have been great shots, if I’d survived them. Little did I know at the time, the death of my lens was the first of a string of bad luck to come…

[1]

Amsterdam greeted us with wide-open arms. The sun was shining, the people smiling, “coffee shops” inviting.

I immediately felt a sense of belonging. I guess because my mum is Dutch. Elderly women reminded my of my Oma, elderly men reminded me of Opa, and the language – while I don’t understand a word – reminded me of home.

Of all the destinations we had been this was the first I was visiting for my second time. Last time it was a last-minute decision inspired by Frank, a fellow Aussie on my train from Munich, who remains to be one of my closest friends. That time I stayed at “Bob’s Hostel”. This time we walked down the cobblestone streets, over a number of sparkling canals and rang the doorbell of my friend’s new family home.

In the three years since I last saw Nicola, she had fallen in love, got married, and brought the most beautiful little girl Zea into this world. There is something magic about that. And now, after living in New York for a few years, she had moved to Amsterdam. Her and Mike had created a list of wants, and the universe brought them everything on that list. Their apartment was HUGE. Three bedrooms, two massive living areas, a big park, pond and ducks across the road, and a roof-top terrace on its way. An example of “The Secret” in action. They were an inspiration.

Zea brought out a clucky side of me I didn’t know I had.

The two of us went to the park and I felt an insight into what my life would be like had I made different choices in my past or what my life might be like, depending on my choices, one day in the future.

Feeding ducks

Roar!

Smelling flowers

Playing in the sand

We went out, we stayed in, we cooked, we babysat, we ate brownies, we rode bicycles…

We planned to stay three nights but ended up staying four and I had my 29^th birthday doing all of the above. Thank you Lisa, Nicola, Mike and Zea for making it a special day full of fruits, fun and surprises.

Student life in Germany is another world to student life in Sydney: free travel, small fees, and for the most part a rent and allowance paid by one’s parents. At least that was life for my friend and his student friends. No part-time job and no living at home – lots of time to and party. Sounds good to me…

More benefits of being a student in this part of Germany include legal drinking on the street, go to a nightclub in the castle basement university’s library, and the free October-Fest-like-event-in-July a massive carnival of rides and fun…

It was a good time to visit my friend Marco. I first met Marco at a hostel in Rio de Janeiro and 6 months later gave him my “overseas friends Northern Beaches tour” when he was in Sydney. Now it was my turn.

In every city Lisa and I have tried the traditional cuisine. In Frankfurt this translated to sausages including those made out of blood, music cheese that has a squeaky factor and is smothered in finely diced raw onion, and apple wine that kind-of tasted like a watered down vinegar.

I liked the locally brewed beer better.

Joined by a group of Marco’s friends from university and the social groups of his seven flatmates, we started drinking in their large and impressively clean flat, and walked only 100 metres down the street to the carnival with “wib beers” (roady drinks) in hand.

Now I know why my friend married a German – they throw a GREAT party. Awesome music, awesome people, and while we could have easily kept dancing I wandered back for a few hours sleep around 4am, bringing to close an awesome night.

Next stop: Amsterdam.

I hadn’t heard of a “micro-nation” until I got to Dresden. As you probably guessed, a micronation is a miniature nation within a bigger nation. Apparently I’d visited one – Cristiania back in Copenhagen. And “New Town” in Dresden was my second – well had I been there 20 years ago it would have been.

On a pub-crawl “night-tour” of what’s known as the “new town” of Dresden with Danilo, a slightly odd but insightful and entertaining who taught us about the town’s crazy past:

Mickey mouse money was the currency, seriously!

Unfortunately after a very strange herbal shot, much of what I learned got lost:

I do remember that the night was extraordinarily random. Party food at the top of church look out point:

The night closed at the Metronom-Bar with Danilo trying to tell us about the proletariat of today’s neoliberal system – the”prekariat”. I didn’t get it but a follow up email clarified a few things:

We talked at the Metronom-Bar about an new name of the proletariat
Since exist the capital system,called the lower class "proletariat"
Now, we have since Reagan and Thatcher a development of the capitalist
system, what is called "neo liberialism system" now.
Here makes not a work the money, money makes money - investors are mostly
not interest about the situation of the working class, they are search to
make money in a very short time.
Just since this periode exanges the livestyle of many workers, artists,
owners of small companies, groups of peoples with an sickness,academics
and others.
They have an precarious situation.
So is developed a new name of this class of peoples.
They have work, but can not survive on the free market, like before.

This class called now "Prekariat" - precariat( lat. precarium ).
80% of the german artist living with the support of the State.
Also more than 60% of the temps in Germany for example get support of the
State.

I didn’t really get what Danilo was talking about. According to wikipedia ‘the word precarity literally means “precariousness“, but is now used to mean existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. It has been specifically applied to intermittent employment, sometimes plus a precarious existence.’

I’m a little precarious I guess. Am I a Prekariat?

Ok, so I still don’t really get it. At least the Mickey Mouse money was cool.

For more, or if you visit Dresden, check out Danilo’s tour and enjoy the ride: www.nightwalk-dresden.de