Last Stop: London, England

When I was deciding on a title for this blog, I knew I was starting my trip in Sydney, Australia, and while my plan was to end up in London, England (as detailed by the blog byline) I was still hedging my bets with "Sydney-to-Somewhere" just in case something came up to change my final destination. As well, I was drawn by the obvious alliteration - "Sydney-to-London" just doesn't have the same ring to it. But, despite a rather vague and at times nonexistent itinerary, I have finally arrived in London.

I enjoyed my second-last day in Dublin getting a large dose of culture along with Madeline and Amy, two Trans-Mongolian friends whose travels had brought them to Dublin at the same time as me. Walking through both the Natural Museum of Ireland and the National Art Gallery of Ireland, I didn't have the time to come even close to soaking it all in, but the odd exhibit stuck with me. What I most enjoyed was learning a bit about the extensive viking culture that existed in Ireland so far into the past - in fact it was out of a viking settlement that the modern city of Dublin arose.

Back at my hostel another day, I woke up and walked across the hall to the showers, not bothering to bring along change of clothes and instead just grabbing my shower stuff and a towel. On the return trip, I could plainly see that the door that I had left open had been closed, and after knocking for a while, I realized whoever had done it hadn't done it on the way into the room. Standing in the hallway with nothing but a towel, I headed down the stairs, hoping that I would run into someone with a keycard before I had to walk into the lobby and ask for help. Unfortunately that is exactly what I had to do, and the lobby was full of a group of about thirty new faces. I feigned nonchalance and the desk clerk was quick, and I was soon hopping back up the stairs with reddish face. From the stories I have heard from other travelers who frequent hostels, walking around in a towel is often considered the height of modesty, so I doubt anyone was as uncomfortable as me.

On Monday I picked up my ticket to London, and boarded the bus out of Dublin at 8:15 PM. Apparently there are no Dublin to London services during the day, which made the overnight trip my only option. The Irish leg of the bus trip was short, but the ferry ride to Wales was considerably longer than the ferry I had taken from Scotland to Northern Ireland, and when we reached the UK I was exhausted, especially as I had started my day much earlier than I have been in the habit of doing. We all got off the bus after a ten-minute ride to customs, and then waited in haphazard lines as we shuffled past the cheery British officials. Back in Britian, I dozed off intermittently before we rolled into the Victoria Coach station twelve hours after we had departed Dublin. Yawning, I purchased a week's pass on London public transit and then made my way to my hostel in Greenwich. I stored my bag in expectation for the afternoon check-in and then walked down to the park, spending most of my time on a bench watching the clouds scuttle quickly across the sky, enjoying the rapidly shifting combinations of sun and shade on the Thames while thinking deep thoughts.

With a week to explore London and the surrounding area before heading home, I am excited to catch my flight back to Canada but at the same time I have gotten pretty used to this unsustainable habit of world traveling. A bed that will allow me to strech out and permanent access to laundry facilities are big draws, but they don't quite eclipse the allure of crossing a border and hearing another new language or sitting down for a pint with someone with a background so different from my own.

Belfast to Dublin

Getting into Belfast after a day of travel by bus, ferry and then bus again from Scotland, I walked out of the bus station and started off on the short walk to my hostel. Situated just off the infamous Sandy Row in the heart of Belfast, I couldn't help but notice the numerous union jacks and republican slogans lining the street. Later I would walk up to the start of the Sandy Row to take a picture of the two-storey mural declaring the loyalist roots of the Protestants, complete with a balaclava-clad militiaman holding a rifle. I found this brazen show of allegiance chilling, but it is seemingly par for the course in Belfast.

One of my roommates in the hostel was a Scottish guy who was in Belfast to conduct some interviews for his Master's thesis on non-governmental organizations in post-conflict zones, and talking to him gave me some insight into what the people of Belfast have been through in recent history. While Belfast is technically a "post-conflict zone," as this Scottish academic termed it, the night before I left there was a fire-bombing, and the tension in the streets was almost palpable in some places. I may have been imagining this tension after spending a couple of hours in the Ulster museum, looking through displays highlighting The Troubles, the time of armed conflict between Irish republicans and the British army, but there is no denying that The Troubles are something that you do not bring up in casual conversation in Northern Ireland if you want to make friends.

The Ulster Museum, and its free admission, was the highlight of my time in Northern Ireland, and I really didn't do much else besides wandering the streets and getting a feel for the city. Only two nights in Belfast, and then I headed south by bus to Dublin.

A number of people I got to know on the Trans-Mongolian trip that I was a part of are in Dublin as well, and it has been nice to have some ready-made friends as it were, and we have been meeting up for meals and drinks in the evening.

Dublin is the home of so many famous authors - James Joyce, Frank O'Connor, Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift to name just a few that I am familiar with - and I spent a few hours wandering through the Dublin Writers' Museum, proud of the fact that my background in English literature got me my money's worth from the displays. It is interesting that while Dubliners claim Joyce as a native son, he toiled in self-imposed exile for most of his career, writing about the city he knew from memory. One of the books I have read on this trip was Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" as well as his collection of short stories "Dubliners," and it has been interesting to walk the actual streets that Joyce's characters walk. While there are posters, a bridge, even a statue, all drawing attention to Joyce's work, I was most struck by his inclusion at the Guinness factory. The seventh floor Gravity Bar, encirled by three hundred and sixty degrees of plexi-glass allowing for panoramic views of Dublin seemed an unlikely place for literary allusions. However, I read excperpts from "Ulysses," "Finnegan's Wake," "Dubliners," and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" pasted to inside of the windows as I knocked back my complimentary pint of Guinness.

Besides the Guinness factory, the other tour that I went on was at Jameson's Distillery, and I was one of the lucky eight among the tour group that got to do a taste test at the end of the guided tour. It was comprised of three shots; one of Jameson's, one of Jack Daniel's and one of Glenfiddich Scotch. They were all half-shots, as well as being diluted with water, but nonetheless the American woman sitting beside me quickly decided I was considerably more interesting than I actually was and we chatted about this and that as her husband continually interjected with the suggestion that she might like something to eat. "I know I'm drunk, but we are having a very nice conversation," she said, and it wasn't until a bit later that he was able to convince her that it was time to leave.

I am composing this post at seven in the morning after walking a friend back to her hostel in the wee hours of the morning and realizing that internet access here is free. While the bars here stop serving at 2:30 AM, three of us decided that the night was still young and stayed up - and got to see the significantly light full-moon night turn into day. The hostel that I am poaching internet from also has a free continental breakfast which includes ham, sausage, hash-browns and a serving of fruit salad, so I think I will stay here a bit longer and help myself to the feast, that is if I don't fall asleep first.

Sunny Scotland

Off the airplane and into the brisk air of England, I thought that I might have to steel myself for the stereotypical weather of Scotland: Wet, cold and windy. That estimation proved to be far from the mark and I enjoyed beautiful sunny days during my stay in Glasgow and Glencoe.

I had thought at one point that flying from London to Glasgow would be the best way to head north, but I decided to take the (significantly) cheaper option and go by bus. My flight from Istanbul landed just after noon and I made my way into the city centre to catch the next available bus. Unfortunately my first available option was the 10:30 PM overnight bus that would get me to Glasgow at seven in the morning, so I hunkered down in the bus station for a long wait. I can't think of a better place to people-watch than a bus station, and I did just that for a while, until I struck up conversation with the old guy sitting next to me. With his shapeless felt hat and shoulder-length grey hair, he looked to be an ageing hippy, and after we got to talking it turned out he was pretty much that. The lead guitarist for Manfred Man, he had stepped out of the band after the drugs got too hard (from the little I gleaned they would have had to be pretty hard for him to qualify them as such) and is now operating a hemp farm outside of London that was passed down to him by his grandfather. "Of course, a little weed somehow slips in there now and then," he said, grinning as he told me how he was still sticking it to The Man. I thought that would be my most interesting conversation, but after - well, I never did get his name - the musician-turned-farmer left, a dazed skinhead sat down near me and tried to get me to buy a FIFA Playstation game. He had apparently blown all his money on booze and cocaine over the course of forty-eight hour rave and didn't have bus fare to get to the airport for his flight. He did have a litte baggie of coke that he checked to see was still safely tucked away his sock, but no cash. And if that wasn't enough, he had a new eight-inch tatoo on his forearm: "Cynthia." "Who's that?" I asked. "I dunno." he slurred. "But my girlfriend is not goin' to like it." When I finally caught my bus he was sleeping, hunched over his bag, apparently having given up hope of selling his Playstation game.

I rolled into Glasgow where I stayed for two nights, walking around the city and seeing the sights. There really wasn't that much happening, at least not much that I was interested in, and after wandering through the parks and the free museum of Kelvingrove, I headed further north up to small town of Glencoe where I stayed with family friends.

Vilma and John Deighton, grandparents of friends I grew up next door to in Fort McMurray, fed me to the point of bursting and made me feel so welcome that I stayed for the rest of the week. It was a great way to catch up on years-worth of stories as well as recharge my batteries for the last two weeks of the trip. I really did precious little, seeing a bit of the town and going on a hike up the glen one day, though most of the time I spent eating, reading and sleeping. Fantastic.

On Monday I caught a bus from Glencoe, then another bus, and then a ferry, and then one last bus to arrive in Belfast in the evening. Stay tuned for an Ireland update to follow.

Rockin' the Casbah!

Sitting on the west side of the Bosphorus, Istanbul is a gateway between Europe and Asia and the ancient city shows a variety of influences in its long and complex history. My flight arrived in the morning, almost due south from Kiev, and I grabbed a cab and headed into the city. I stayedin the Orient Hostel, the biggest hostel in Istanbul, and my room alone had thirty beds in it. As we drove into the oldest part of the city we passed crumbling ancient city walls as the traffic got more and more dense. Eventually I started thinking that walking might be faster and would have been tempted had I any idea where we were.

As soon as I checked in I went for a walk, exploring the city by foot - my usual mode of transit - and found my way to the Grand Bazaar. The labyrinth of shops was built in the 15th century and covers more than 54,000 square meters. I didn't make my way through the twenty-one gates or even come close to exploring the nearly four thousand shops, though I did find my way into a leather-working shop and decided that a custom-made leather jacket would make a good souvenir. I have finally started getting the hang of the constant bartering that seems to be a part of every culture except North America and managed to get the vendor down roughly fifty percent off his original price. Every time I have success like that though I start second-guessing myself, assuming that the price was artificially inflated for the purpose of fleecing tourists. Which in this case it probably was.

In checking in at the hostel, the guy at the front desk told me that there was a tour the next day on the Bosphorus and that I could get in on the group rate if I was interested. I signed up then and there and only slighted regretted the decision as rolled off my top bunk in the morning to make my way to the pick-up point at the front of the hostel. I had mistakenly thought that the group was going to be composed of solo tourists like myself, but it was actually a Dutch high school trip and I was the only one who had been suckered into the group rate discount. Still, it was a fun day as the boat picked its way north, stopping in Europe, then Asia, then back again, finally anchoring in the Black Sea where we spent an hour or so swimming, jumping off the upper deck of the boat into the cooling water. On our second stop another solo tourist joined the group, and so Hiba, a Pakistani woman, and I hung out for the day as the Dutch kids stuck to themselves.

The next day I again wandered the city, finishing at the Hagia Sophia, the famous cathedral-to-mosque-to-museum. Built in the fourth century, the building was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a century. When the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in the 1453, the cathedral was naturally changed to a mosque. An interesting mix of Byzantine architecture and Islamic scripts, it was a great experience to explore the building along with all the other tourists. Definitely not just another bloody church!

That night, I headed back to my hostel and watched the World Cup game between Australia and Germany. Every single sidewalk cafe had big-screen TVs lining the street, and everyone regardless of their heritage was finding a spot to watch the match. All of us commonwealth types - Canadian, Kiwi, and Aussies - were cheering for the Aussie underdogs as we sat around the hookah and drank our turkish draft. A very unique soccer experience, though I call it football in conversation to avoid confusion with everyone but Americans. It was a depressing loss despite our best efforts to change the fact that the Australian team were heavily out-classed, with the game ending up 0-4. I caught a few hours of sleep before heading out to the airport the next day and flying on to London, England. Three weeks of traipsing around the British Isles with no real plan to speak of - why start planning now? - and then home.

Back in the (former) USSR

Arriving in Kiev, it felt like I was back in Russia: The signs were again in Cyrillic; passerbys did not smile at one another; the women were all wearing high heels and the hammer-and-sickle was plastered everywhere. Still, I was told that if I were to mention to a Ukrainian how similar I found their country to Russia, it would be severely offensive. I never did, though I did fish for Ukrainian's opinions about Russia over a couple of beers and my ears were blistered by vehement anti-Russian sentiments.

I arrived at my hostel after navigating the metro system and, while sipping the customary free beer at check-in, was told that I had the opportunity to head out to an old Soviet army bunker. The bunker is now owned by a Ukrainian gun club and there are a variety of experiences available to anyone with a couple of extra bucks and a club member as a contact. The Norwegian hostel owner, a former NATO soldier, regularly takes backpackers out to the range, and I decided I would make the trip. While driving an armored vehicle or firing a grenade-launcher were both a little out of my price range, I was able to justify firing an AK-47. I have had past opportunities - in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Mongolia - to go nuts with an automatic weapon, and my resolve finally broke in Ukraine. There was a herd of goats that I was told I could have my pick of for target practice for the right price, though I politely refused and instead opted for a bloodless paper target. With the clip full of thirty rounds, I aimed down the indoor range at the target approximately 25 metres away. At first squeezing off one round at a time, I finished off the clip with two long bursts, quickly perforating the target despite my rather erratic shooting. There was surprisingly little recoil, or so I thought immediately after while still full of adrenalin, but I still have a slight bruise on my upper chest where I held the butt of the rifle.

The rest of my time in Kiev was a little less exciting as I made my way around the city by foot and with the use of the metro, just sightseeing and enjoyig the city. What I most enjoyed was Pecherska Lavra, an underground monastery that has been in use since 1015. The catacombs have now become crypts, housing the bodies of mummified saints, and I wasn't sure what to expect as I stooped to make my way into the white-washed tunnels. I felt like an interloper as devout Ukrainian Orthodox slowly filed past me, bending over each of the glass coffins as they crossed themselves and kissed the glass. None of the mummies' faces were exposed, but I did see one shriveled skeletal hand which made me glad of the cloth covering their faces. Grimacing saints staring up at me through their transparent coffins might have been a little too much.

While the original plan - as much as I could call it a plan - had been to head down to Sevastapol and from there catch a ferry across the Black Sea to Istanbul, I found out that there was just one problem: The ferry only runs once a week. This would have meant I would have arrived in Istanbul just in time to fly to London, so I opted to fly to Istanbul from Kiev instead. I arrived in Istanbul this morning, and in three days I take my second-last step back to Canada, flying into London from where on July 6th I will be heading home.

I saw Warsaw*

Almost completely razed to the ground during World War II, only 15% of Warsaw's infrastructure was still standing at the end of the war. Varsovians, instead of taking the opportunity to start afresh, decided that they should rebuild - in many cases creating exact replicas - what had existed before the bombings. The Old Town, very similar in looks to Tallinn and Riga, has a bit of a movie-set feel to it because of this rebuilding; the walls are a little too straight, the cobblestones a little too even. Still, granted the status of a UNESCO World Heritage site (is every town centre in Europe a World Heritage site?) the historic centre of the city, Nowe/Stare Miasto, is a beautiful place, if a little too picture-perfect for my now wordly eyes.

I spent my three days in Warsaw catching up on sleep and hunting down all the note-worth sites according to my Warsaw guidebook, covering as much ground as possible on foot in the hot summer sun. I won't bore you by recounting all the different castles and parks I wondered through, though if you do ever make your way to Warsaw I would recommend checking out the Warsaw University Library. Only university students are allowed inside, but the real attraction is the 21,000 square foot rooftop garden. Winding paths defined by trellises covered in ivy lead up and over the the library, looping around the glass cupolas, including catwalks arching over the glass ceilings. The mottled green copper-plated walls blend into the profuse greenery, and my walk overtop the library was my favorite in three days of long walks. In many cases too-long walks, but that is another story entirely.

My sightseeing took me back and forth over the Vistula River, a river that has overun its banks in many places in Germany and Poland, and while it was unthreatening from what I could see, there were still endless lines of sandbags lining the banks in case of emergency. Usually there are steps along the river, but the waters have risen even with the sidewalk bordering the river, lapping at the numerous bicyclists and pedestrians making their way along the banks.

On the day I caught my train to Kiev, I tagged along with Fraser, a Scotsman on holiday, and Eric, an American who had studied in Warsaw a few years back. We walked over to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, a rather grim reminder of the impact of German and Russian occupation (Poland has only been free of Communism since 1989) and then followed Eric as we traveled by tram, metro and bus to the Wilanow Poster Museum. This was a much more cheery and light-hearted affair than the previous cultural experience and enjoyable all the more given the free admission on Mondays.

Back to the hostel and then a brisk walk to the train station, I caught the 4:20 train out of Warsaw to Kiev where I am now after a relaxing seventeen hour overnight trip. There were no English-speakers to engage in conversation, but one of my carriage mates, Igor, a Ukrainian now working in France, made a valiant effort to scale the rather imposing language barrier. His English, significantly better than either my French or Russian or Ukrainian, still wasn't that good, but I appreciated him working so hard to hold a conversation with a Westerner. Especially one who speaks only one language. "Only one?" Igor said, before laughing at my joke. I just smiled widely and nodded. "Really, only one?" Igor's face clouded as he realized what an idiot I was. "Yeah, it's crazy," I said and he looked relieved that I recognized how handicapped I was, rapidly nodding his agreement.

*Worst rhyme (and blog title) ever

Old Towns and New Views

As the northern hemisphere quickly approaches the summer solstice, St. Petersburgians continue to celebrate the White Nights. These White Nights are six weeks worth of high culture and all-night partying by less high-minded residents as a dusky half-light is as dark as it ever gets. Sitting just south of the 60th degree, approximately 330 kilometers further north than Fort McMurray, St. Petersburg simply does not sleep. After more than my fair share of late nights, I was happy to catch up on sleep as I crossed the border into Estonia.

Exiting Russia by bus, I arrived in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia and suddenly felt very much alone. Three weeks of being told where to go and when to go there, tickets bought in advance and meals recommended had blunted my self-reliance, and when I got off the bus in Tallinn I realized I had no idea where to go. Throwing my backpack over my shoulder, I started walking down the nearest main road and eventually found a hotel where I used the free internet in the lobby, oriented myself, and made my way to a hostel. By this time it was fairly late, and while I had eaten a box of duty-free Toffifee I had bought with some of my last roubles at the border, I hadn't had supper. I found my way to a 24-hour bistro easily enough, given the long daylight hours this time of year in Tallinn, though a few degrees south of St. Petersburg, and then made my way back to the hostel.

The Gidic hostel where I was staying is situated just outside of the Old Town, and the next day I made my way past the ancient guard towers to explore the town centre. Human settlement can be traced back five thousand years by shards of pottery found in routine excavations, and as I made my way through the circuitous cobble-stone streets, I gawked at buildings that have histories stretching back centuries. I fell in with a free walking tour of the city given by students, and by the end of the tour I thought that I had never been in an older city in my life. Along the way the guide pointed out a church that allowed tourists up into its steeple, and I took note of it with the plan to climb it the next day.

The next day, with my bus not leaving until the afternoon, I made my way into the Old Town to climb St. Olaf's. Apparently the tallest church in the world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, St. Olaf's has now been eclipsed by other more grandiose testaments to God and actually stands a little shorter than its former self. After several fires, the Gothic spire is now approximately a hundred feet shorter than it used to be but the view from the top after the long climb was worth it regardless. The Old Town, hemmed in by battlements and guard towers, could be clearly seen, and while the walls no longer fully enclose the town centre and twenty of the original towers are no longer standing, with a bit of imagination it is possible to imagine what the city would have looked like a few thousand years ago. On the previous day the guide had mentioned that on a clear day it was possible to see the coast of Finland, and while I would be lying if I said I did, I imagined that the indefinable blur at the horizon line was in fact another country on the other side of the Gulf.

On the bus out of Estonia, I enjoyed the view from the window as we moved through the lush countryside at a leisurely pace, covering the 310 kilometers in about four hours. The terrain is flat, with the fields a vibrant green, and the forest, though with fewer deciduous trees than home, reminds me of Fort McMurray. When we pulled into Riga, I was fully prepared, having booked my hostel in advance, and I pulled my hand-drawn map out of my pocket and made my way directly to my hostel.

Riga's Old Town is in many ways very similar to Tallinn's, at least to my uneducated eyes, and both have been declared UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Old Town of Riga apparently has unparalleled examples of Jugenstil (German Art Nouveau) architecture, and after spending today walking along the river through Old Town and following the Australian A.B.C. mode of sightseeing (Another Bloody Church), I have to confess that I will have to take that UNESCO fact on faith. Just another moment where I have wished I knew more about art, architecture and history.

Tomorrow evening I catch a bus that will take me through Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, but I won't be stopping until I arrive in Warsaw where the plan is to from there catch a train east to Kiev, Ukraine. My flight out of Istanbul to London is on the 14th, so I will be covering a lot of ground over the next twelve days. While I had originally thought I would be able to make my way through northern Africa on this trip, skipping through the Middle East along the way, that has been exposed as a pipe dream given my self-imposed time limits. Nonetheless, a reason to come back to this part of the world without a return ticket.