Lively London

26-31/5/2009

Tuesday was a bleh day due to my tooth and ear. I visited a doctor (well, nurse practitioner) who couldn't see any infections, but there was a lot of earwax. The rest of the day included doing laundry.

Wednesday I returned to the St Paul's area of London. My main plan for the day was a tour of the watchmakers guild museum led by the curator. I arrived well before the start time so I checked out a few other places to fill in the time. I started with the guild hall art gallery, which had a few nice pieces, and tucked away in the basement were the remains of the London colosseum, which were found when they were renovating the building. After the gallery I went into the guild church, which is small, and has some nice stain glass windows. Along one of the wall the stained glass was the coat of arms of various commonwealth nations.


I then walked a block or two to the London museum, and resumed my exploration with the Roman section, and then through the medieval section. This brought me to the time for the tour, so I walked back to the watchmakers guild museum.

The tour started out with about half a dozen people, and by the end there were about 15 people there. The museum was a tightly packed room full of cabinets interspersed with larger clocks. The collection of watches goes back several centuries, as does the collection itself, though not at that location. Initially the collection was kept in a trunk stored at the tavern the guild met at. The earliest acquisitions were from shortly after the guild was formed in 1631.

The curator was Sir someone or other, and I'm pretty sure this is the most contact I've had with someone who has been knighted.

Thursday was a big ticket item, the Tower of London. I bluffed my way through for a student discount, but it was still pricey at fourteen and a half pounds (not so expensive compared to most of Europe, but since so many things were free in London, it stands out). It was definitely well worth it though.

I entered the tower about 5 minutes before a demonstration of the different defenses used back in the day was about to begin. This was held on a grassy area that used to be the moat. It was quite entertaining. I got picked out by one of the presenters to be the lord of the crowd, which mostly involved crying "havoc" every now and then. I did not know the original significance of the word before then and now the line "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war" has more meaning than just sounding cool. After the havoc section of the demonstration, there was a kind of trebuchet, but instead of having a big rock as a counterweight, there are a few ropes that people pull on to send things flying. I wanted to have a go, but since I'd already had some fun crying havoc, I thought I should let others have the fun. But not enough people volunteered, so I decided what the hell and volunteered. They had a few targets set up, but a dodgy batch of water balloons meant all we hit was the crowd as the balloons exploded in mid air.


After the fun with siege engines, I went on a tour led by a yeoman warder of the tower. The tour took in the main sections of the tower, but left the ones with interesting collections inside for later. The tour finished in the tower chapel, where there are many corpses buried that lack skulls.

After the tour I went into the building that houses the crown jewels. The first room contained seats for each of the kings and queens of England back to a bit before William the Conqueror. Each chair had the names and arms of a monarch in order. It was interesting to see the progression of how the arms changed over the centuries. The next few rooms showed videos detailing the various items that make up the crown jewels, and one showing them in use during the coronation of QEII. It was a bit surprising to me, as someone who has only known the queen as a nice old lady, to find out that she looked pretty good back in the day. Then it was onto the jewels which were in cases with travelators on both sides to stop people looking at them for too long. Then it was through the vault where the jewels are kept at night which has doors that are about a foot thick.

The next building I explored was a corner of the tower and contained a collection of lesser crowns, most those of queens over the last two hundred years. Then it was onto the exciting stuff, weapons. In the central keep there was a display of arms and armour that belonged to Henry VIII. The armour makes his girth as a function of time quite clear. His collection of swords and armour were quite impressive.

After this I made a circuit of complex visiting spots I wanted to see in the short time I had left before closing. This included the execution spot of VIPs like Mary, Queen of Scots, the tower ravens, the tower walls, and some other bits that just seemed old. I did like the metal sculptures of soldiers defending the walls spread around the place. I left the tower just before it closed for the day and crossed the road to the spot where public executions were held, which was next to the memorial for the merchant marine. To end the day I walked back along the Thames to Canary Wharf for the evening.

Friday I headed out to Greenwich, home of the Royal Observatory and home of Greenwich Mean Time. It was a short walk from the DLR station. I first explored the Maritime museum, which was interesting, but nothing outstanding. Then it was up to the observatory. I stood with my feet across the prime meridian, and then went into the museum. There were various observation rooms, and of course a collection of clocks, the highlight of which were the Harrison clocks which solved the longitude problem. Very impressive. The watchmakers guild museum had a few of Harrison's lesser pieces, but to see these was fantastic. There were also a few telescopes that were used by royal astronomers over the years, which were the basis for the different prime meridians over the years (the line itself is based on the location of the observatory's main telescope, and has shifted a few times as new telescopes were installed). The view from the hill the observatory is atop is rather nice.

I went back down the hill to an art gallery that is housed in a building that was originally a royal palace, and then became a school for orphans of sailors in the royal navy. The art, of course, had a maritime theme. The person at the front desk insisted that I get a ticket, despite the fact that admission was free.

On my way back I walked to where the Cutty Sark is, but due to restoration work I could not see it. I then walked along the Thames to Canary Wharf, but as I got close to my destination it became clear that I was on the wrong side of the river, and the nearest bridges were back at Greenwich or at the Tower of London, neither of which appealed too much. I instead headed to a nearby tube station , but along the way remembered with dread that the station was one of these along the closed east city line. I managed to catch a bus to a working tube station, and eventually made it back to Canary Wharf on the right side of the river.

Saturday was another road trip, though a much shorter one than the previous weekend. Andrea, JP and I went out to Salisbury. We got to the town around 1ish, and began by getting lunch. We then went in search of the tourist office to better plan things. Along the way we saw some street performers doing some sort of upper class twit act which was rather amusing. At the tourist office we found out that there was a festival going on, and we tried to get tickets to a show called "Daleks Stole My Doctor Who Scarf", but alas it was sold out. We then made our way to Salisbury Cathedral, which is the possessor of one of the tallest spires in England, a nice baptismal font, excellent stained glass windows, and a Magna Carta. I did try to read it, but the writing is incredibly small and styles have changed a bit since those days.

Then it was onto the reason why everyone goes to Salisbury, Stonehenge. It was a lot smaller than I expected. The audioguide was saying how difficult it was to build, and then said it was built at around the same time as the pyramids, which I think most would agree are much more impressive. We circled around the stones taking lots of photos. Near the heelstone, JP noticed something attached to the fence we thought was a geocache. After Stonehenge closed we walked along the fence to the object, and when there seemed to be little chance of being noticed, tried to take it off the fence. This was a bit tricky and at one stage involved the use of an umbrella after it was dropped and landed a little out of reach. The object was a slightly cut up beer can, and we were beguiled to find a piece of photographic paper inside it with some curves on it and what might have been stonehenge on a horizon. Later investigation led us to conclude that the contraption was a long exposure pin hole camera.

We then spent a little while playing with Andrea's remote controlled helicopter in a field across the road from Stonehenge, but there was too much wind for a controlled flight. On the way back to London we stopped in at Andrea's brother's place to drop off some stuff, and ended up playing some Wii Fit and MarioKart and getting Indian takeout for dinner that was pretty good.

Sunday was an easy going day. The morning was mostly spent planning a visit to Scotland. In the afternoon I visited Camden market which is an interesting place. I saw a lot of cool t-shirts, and had thought of buying one or two, but after buying some trick cards, a book (Godel, Escher, Bach) and Monty Python Fluxx, I decided my budget couldn't stand much more spending that afternoon. I also skipped the chance to buy some juggling clubs for much the same reason. Catching a train back was complicated by the fact that to reduce crowding, they don't let people catch the train at Camden Station on Sunday afternoons, so I had to walk to the next station to catch the train.

Road Trip

22-25/5/2009

As this weekend was to be a long weekend, Alan, Andrea, JP and I went on a continental road trip. After quickly packing some stuff for the weekend on Friday afternoon, I met JP at Canary wharf, and then we caught the DLR to Andrea's place, where Alan and JP keep their car since her apartment comes with a car park. We left London around 6ish and made our way through the London traffic to the motorway, and then drove down to Dover. We had dinner at a road stop along the way, and arrived at our hotel around 10:30 or so. We had a quiet drink in the hotel bar before calling it a night.

Saturday was an early start, catching an 8 o'clock ferry across the channel. There seemed to be absolutely no customs checks on either side and soon after docking in France we were on our way. We drove through the French countryside all morning, and arrived at San Quentin around noonish and had a short look around. We saw a few churches, but only went into one, and a rather abandoned square, and had a drink at one of the few cafes still open.

We then drove onto Reims, and made a detour to stop at a town along the way. It caught our attention for the medieval looking church and town up on a hill. We made our way up the hill and had a look at the church and the view from up high, both of which were quite good. Then it was onto Reims. We got there mid afternoon.

The first order of business was to find a place to stay, which we did with the help of the tourist office. Then we had a late lunch. I had a steak and chip sandwich which was greasy but filling. After lunch we visited the Notre Dame de Reims, which is a very impressive building with a rather disastrous history, having been damaged in numerous wars. The restoration work is good, but the materials make it obvious where it's done. The outside and the inside are both magnificent.

After getting our fill of the church we went on a drive around town to see the sights. This was made a little trickier by numerous one way streets and roads closed due to the construction of a new tram system, but this just meant we saw more stuff we might not have otherwise seen. We finally checked into our hotel for the night around 6ish, and relaxed for a while before going out for dinner at a nearby restaurant (there was a whole street of them a block from the hotel).

On Sunday we started by visiting a church on the outskirts of Reims, and came across a market on the streets outside, and never actually got to the church. We bought some pastries for breakfast. The we tried to start one of the scenic drives in the booklet we got from the tourist office the day before, but due to the fact all the tourist drive signs were for a different drive, we decided to do that one instead. Along the way we stopped in at two wineries, drank champagne at one of them, ignored numerous detour signs through a town where all the roads were being rebuilt, two towns separated by less than 30 seconds of driving, and a lot of nice countryside.

We returned to Reims for lunch, which we had at the same place as yesterday, and then began the drive to Luxembourg, the nominal destination of the road trip. I believe it was during this section of the trip that JP lost his hat while standing up in the back.

When we got to Luxembourg we drove around a little to get the lay of the land, including driving through a tunnel we were destined to drive through many times. We stopped for a while at a lookout looking over a deep valley and on the other side was an impressive building that turned out to be a bank. Stealing some wifi we found the name and address of a youth hostel, but without a map had very little (no) luck finding it. After about a half an hour we went to the train station to get a map and directions. It turns out the hostel was about 5 minutes drive from the lookout.

The hostel was a big professional (impersonal) hostel, which also acted as a conference centre. We easily booked a room for four. We had dinner downtown then returned to the lookout to see the view at night, which was just as good. The rest of the night was a bit unpleasant as my tooth and ear were acting up again and the pain was so bad I was not able to sleep, and spent most of the night playing Lego Star Wars (which like Lego Batman, is designed for obsessive compulsive types).

Monday consisted of roundabout drive back to London. We started by driving through the Luxembourg countryside looking for a village Alan had been told about. We found the village which was nice. It had a stream flowing through it, a dam, quaint buildings, a tower thing up on a hill and a few other bits and pieces. Since I wasn't feeling so good, I stayed and sat on the grass under a tree while Alan, Andrea and JP climbed the hill.

After the village we meandered our way to Brussels where we had lunch and bought petrol (at the same place). We had a bit of trouble finding our way out of Brussels, but once we were out we had no trouble making it to Calais with plenty of time. We filled some of the time by going to a supermarket and buying significant quantities of french wine. After settling up for fuel and ferry fares and such I still had a few euros left, and tried to find something that was exactly the amount I had left. I was unsuccessful and ended up buying a pack of mini fruit cakes.

Getting on the ferry, I once again was graced with all the welcome and hospitality that UK immigration is renowned for, or in other words I faced another inquisition, which was made a briefer than the first by the fact that there were three other people in the car who had no problems and a line of cars behind us. Across the channel we went through extremely lax customs who waved us through without a word about the boot full of booze and then it was back to London.

Lovely London

19-22/5/2009
Tuesday I headed to somewhere I'd been past several times, the National Gallery. This is another site that takes a full day to get close to taking in everything. It has a very nice collection, although not as vast as some other places I've been to. Highlights included Holbein's The Ambassadors, with space off to the right to properly view the skull that's there just because Holbein wanted to show off, a few da Vincis and Raphaels, and a bunch of other stuff that obviously wasn't that memorable to me.

Wednesday, continuing the art theme, I went to the Tate Modern, which I did not enjoy anywhere near as much as the National Gallery. The items collected at the Tate did not appeal to me as much. A few of them were interesting concepts, but don't really stand out as art. One example of this was a room containing two tables with bits and pieces on and around the tables, much as if the artists had brought in the tables from their garage. Only on overhearing a staff member telling some other visitors did I learn the whole thing was moulded plastic and painted. Certainly a lot of technical skill went into it, but it hardly inspires the soul.

I left the Tate about 1ish, and walked along the Thames towards the Tower of London. Along the way I stopped at Wagamama for lunch, and had some excellent chicken raman (the best I've had outside of Japan). Continuing along the river I stopped in for a quick look at Southwark Cathedral (I've been informed the o and the w are silent), and opposite the tower came across the HMS Belfast, a light Cruiser that saw service in WWII, the Korean War, and around the world in peace time. Wandering through it was quite interesting, although at times confusing as they were in the process of changing the tour route and in places the signs and rooms did not match where the audio guide was saying to go. I timed my finish of the tour well, as I was heading through the last sections as they started closing for the day. While on the aft deck preparing to leave, I got to see the Tower Bridge raised to let a boat pass underneath. At the souvenir shop I bought a WWII ship spotters deck of cards and a tot of naval rum (interesting fact: a daily allowance of rum was standard aboard Royal Navy ships until the 31st of July 1970). I then crossed the Tower Bridge and walked along the Thames back to Canary Wharf, which took around an hour and a half.

On Thursday I again caught the tube to Southwark station near the Tate, but this time I crossed the river to meet up with David from Monday night who had kindly offered to let me use one of his company's passes to visit St Paul's Cathedral. With the pass I walked a few blocks to the cathedral and spent a few hours exploring it. I couldn't go all the way to the top of the dome as that was closed, but I did get a nice view of London from as far up as I could go. There were a lot of famous people buried in the catacombs beneath, including Admiral Nelson, The Duke of Wellington, Christopher Wren (the architect of the current incarnation of St Paul's) and numerous memorials to fallen soldiers in plenty of wars.

After I finished at the cathedral, I tried to return the pass to David to save having to return to this section of town again, but could not get in touch with David before my phone's battery died. After a late lunch I found the Bank of England museum and explore it for a while. It was alright, but aimed at a younger audience (specifically one unfamiliar with the concept of inflation).

Dinner that evening was at a fancy restaurant that because it lost its Michellin star had decided to offer up five course meals for 20 pounds, although the courses weren't really big. About eight of us went, and it was a pleasant evening. Definitely the first time I've had a five course meal.

On Friday I returned to the district around St Paul's to return the pass to David. After that I visited Samuel Johnson's house, which was interesting but I shouldn't have paid extra to take photos. After that I made a short visit to the Museum of London, which covers London's history from the days when mammoths and lions roamed the area to today. After going through the ancient history and Great Fire sections, I went on a guided tour which had a health and medicine theme. The most interesting item this tour showed off was a prehistoric skull which had had a hole scraped into it and the person then went on to live for several years after the procedure.

I left town early that afternoon as I had to pack for the weekends adventures.

Castlerific Cardiff

15-19/5/2009

On Friday, I left London on my own. I caught the train from Paddington station (complete with stand selling Paddington Bears) to Cardiff. I arrived in Cardiff around 2ish and checked into my hostel which was just across a canal from the Millennium Stadium. I then headed down towards the bay to see the Doctor Who exhibition. This was pretty cool, but also a bit disappointing. I was expecting a lot of behinds the scenes info and insight, but instead it was just a collection of props and costumes. It gave the feeling that all they'd done was bag and tag stuff after they'd finished each episode. After that I wandered around the bay area taking in sights like the Millennium Centre, Roald Dahl Place, the outside of the Welsh parliament, a boat lighthouse, and a few other things before heading back to the hostel. In the evening I went to a nearby cinema and saw the new Star Trek movie. I enjoyed it a lot, although I was quite aghast when they blew up Vulcan. They got a lot of the small details right, like the noises the communicators make and the earpieces they used. Also Kirk doing the Kobayashi Maru was well done.

On Saturday I spent the day wandering around Cardiff Castle. This castle is a mix of eras and is built on a site that way back when was a Roman fortress. The walls were rebuilt in the 19th century to follow the then recently discovered remains of the Roman walls. There was meant to be a pageant on the history of Wales presented by various groups of school kids while I was there, but rain postponed/relocated this event. I had dinner at a Japanese restaurant with one of the people staying in my room, and then went and saw Wolverine. It was OK, but nothing great. Back at the hostel I spend a while chatting with a Danish girl who had the bunk beneath mine.

On Sunday I got out of Cardiff and visited a few castles. The first was Castle Coch which, like Cardiff Castle, was once owned by the Bute family. It was restored/rebuilt by them in a kind of romantic style that is more what Victorian era people thought medieval castles were like than what medieval castles actually were. It was a small castle that was kind of cozy, and was located by itself surrounded by woods. While waiting for the bus to the next town I had a roast lunch at a pub which was quite good.

Next was Caerphilly Castle. This was not as well kept as the other castles, and had not been rebuilt, so you got to see more of the original castle. Caerphilly Castle was a proper fighting fortress, with multiple moats and defensive walls. This was my favourite castle in Wales. Getting back to Cardiff was a hassle, as I just missed the bus and then had to wait two hours for the next one. This was particularly annoying as part of the reason why I went to Cardiff for the weekend was to avoid public transport hassles in London. That evening I just relaxed at the hostel as the cinema had run out of movies I wanted to see (they had Coraline, but only in 2D).

On Monday I had planned to visit the history museum, but on arrival there I learnt that it was closed on Mondays. So instead I wandered around the downtown area for a little while before settling down at the train station to wait for my train. I got back into London around 6ish, and met JP and David, a friend of his, at Canary Wharf for dinner at a nearby pub.

Lazy London

10-14/5/2009

Sunday was an easy day of relaxing and laundry at JP's place.

On Monday I planned to visit two places: Baker St to see what was at 221B and the Natural History museum. When I got to Baker St station though I saw a sign by one of the exits for Lord's cricket ground. Considering this an opportunity not to be missed, I followed the signs, and about 15 minutes later found myself outside Lord's. The place was pretty quiet since there was no match on. However, on the schedule outside it said that there would be a match on Wednesday for which entry was free.

I headed back to Baker St and visited 221B Barker St, which is home to the Sherlock Holmes museum which is well presented. The ground floor is a gift shop and the upper floors are set up like they would have been when Sherlock Holmes lived there. The first floor was the sitting room and Watson's consulting room. I sat in Sherlock Holmes' chair, which was reasonably comfy. The second floor had a number of souvenirs from Holmes' adventures. The third floor had mannequins of characters from the stories.
After Baker St I headed over to the Natural History museum. This was excellent. A good dinosaur collection, a massive geology collection and lots of animals. That evening I went and saw Wicked! a musical based on the novel telling the story of Oz from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West. It simplified a lot of stuff from the book, and skipped a lot of things, but was enjoyable enough that I downloaded the cd later. The really fustrating thing was that while I was sitting waiting for the show to start, this guy came up to the couple sitting next to me and told them that since they were the two millionth customer they were getting great seats right at the front and were going to get to meet the cast and all that. If only I'd bought my tickets ten minutes earlier. Or ten minutes later.

On Tuesday I went to the British museum. It has a huge collection from all over the world. I saw the Elgin marbles taken from the Acropolis, the Egyptian collection, the Middle East collection, the English collection including the Lewis chessmen, a nice collection of clocks, and a few other collections. This filled the entire day, and I didn't even get to the South American or Chinese collections.
On Wednesday I had a a bit of a late start, and began by going back to Holborn near the British Museum. I went to a money shop (a shop that bought and sold money to collectors) that I'd seen on Tuesday to buy a $10,000,000,000 note from Zimbabwe. I then wandered around the area for a little while and then met up with Ty for lunch. We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant nearby and I had my first good katsu curry for a long while.

After lunch I made my way over to Lord's in time for the second innings. The MCC Young Cricketers were batting against the MCC in a limited overs game (30 overs). The MCC YC had a good start, then faded for a while in the middle before making a strong finish to win with a few overs to spare. It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, with the exception of the fact that my tooth got really bad that afternoon, to the point where eating dinner was quite an unpleasant experience.
Thursday then became a day with one mission. Find a dentist would would see me quickly and not charge an arm and a leg. I found one which had relatively reasonable rates, but they did not have an appointment available for 9 days. I then found one in Canary wharf which had a spot available that afternoon. I then hung around waiting until it was time to see the dentist. At the dentist I found out that I had an infected nerve beneath a tooth and that the rest of my teeth are shit. The dentist drilled in and removed the nerve and then filled the hole again. The cost of all this was 150 pounds, almost as painful as the tooth itself.

Obtuse Oxford

9/5/2009

Saturday started off with a walk around the docks area near Tower Bridge with Andrea, Caroline and JP, and then sitting in a coffe shop for a while. In the afternoon JP, Andrea and I went up to Oxford and had a walk around town including going into Christchurch College. In the evening we had drinks at two different places. At the second I had a Vespa, of Casino Royale fame, which was better than a martini, but still a bit rough to drink. We then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant called the Opium Den

Late London

6-8/5/2009

Arriving in London was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Getting to the airport was no problem, and the flight wasn't too bad. Immigration though was hell. I thought it would be quite easy, being an Australian, to get into the UK. It was not to be. After finding the non-EU line and thinking "great" since there were only two other people using that line, I got questioned for almost half an hour by the two ladies at the desk about everywhere I'd been for the last few years, how much money I had, where I was staying, how long I was staying for, what was I going to do there, when was I leaving, did I have a ticket yet, and more. Russia was eaiser to get into than that.

But get through I did, and then it was a train from Gatwick to Canary Wharf, where I met JP, who was a more than gracious host to me during my stay. I dropped my stuff off at his place and then we went out to dinner at a French restaurant with Caroline, a friend of JP's from WA, and Andrea, JP's girlfriend. It was a nice meal with nice company and a very pleasant evening overall.

On Thursday I took a walking tour in the morning, taking in a few of the royal residences such as Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster and a few other places. After the tour I met up with Caroline at Piccadilly Circus and we walked around West End towards Hyde Park and after that towards the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum, at which we arrived 15 minutes after it closed. Having lucked out there, we caught the tube back to Trafalgar square and visited the National Portrait Gallery which opened late on Thursdays. The gallery was pretty good, and I liked most of it up until they got to the 20th century. It was here I first made the connection between the start of non-realistic painting styles kind of coincided with the invention of the camera. After the gallery we had a late dinner at an English pub. (an English pub in England? How quaint.)

On Friday I took in a few museums, starting with the science museum, which alternated between gimmicky teach stuff to kids stuff and awesome collections of historic instruments of all sorts. It has the largest collection of slide rules I've come across (and I've seen a few), a great collection of 18th century scientific instruments, a clock collection, and a few historic computers. There was also a cool art thing called the Listening Post that displayed and read out messages taken in real time from forums and bulletin boards all over the web. The "I am ..." and "I like ..." movements were interesting and amusing.

After the science museum I went across the road to the V&A museum which has an interesting and widely varied collection. It has a good oriental collection, a lot of nice statues, some art, a clothing collection, an architecture display and a lot more. The clothing display featured clothes of all sorts from various eras. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that all the people I saw sketching in that room were in front of the underwear display, or the fact that this was the only display in the museum to have tables and chairs in front of it.

Livid Lisbon and Faux Faro

2-5/5/2009

When I arrived in Lisbon it was somewhat dead with very few people out on the streets. I found the hostel without any hassles, but for the first time since Vladivostok the staff didn't speak much English. I did eventually sort everything out although it was complicated by the fact that I had to change room on the second day and they had a new person on that night who didn't really know what was going on.

After bludging around at the hostel for a while (I didn't sleep well on the train) I left my stuff at the hostel and had a bit of a walk around the downtown area. I saw a bt of the bay where they had these large plastic things that were half bench, half large pot plant that were on wheels so you could always sit in the shade. I then headed back into the central area of town where I had lunch. I then went to the Guarda museum which had what could have been an interesting look at the revolution a few decades ago, but going through the exhibit I couldn't work out who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in the whole scenario. Then I waited near a big statue for a walking tour, but since I didn't realise that Portugal is not in the same time zone as Spain, I was an hour early and at about ten past I gave up waiting. I headed back to the hostel and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.

On Sunday I again tried to go on a walking tour. I had wanted to go on the tour around the historic centre of town, but the guy doing that tour never turned up so I did the Discovery tour instead, which focused on Portugal's empire period. It was pretty good. The tour finished at a bakery famous for its custard tarts which were quite nice.

For the rest of the afternoon I climbed up the hill to the old fortress which was alright. Particularly impressive was the camera obscura they'd installed in the tallest of the towers that gave a great view of the city.

Monday I accomplished the main thing I wanted to do in Portugal. I went to the beach and sat on the beach all day. I split my time between reading "The Algebraist", looking at girls, and watching the Atlantic ocean. I did not wait around until sunset as around 5 I was getting hungry and my shins were getting sunburnt (I had a hat, a long-sleeved shirt, and my feet were in the sand, so only my shins were exposed to the sun) so I called it a day and headed back to the hostel for my last night.

Tuesday my plan was simply to get from Lisbon to Faro, where I was to catch my flight to London the next day. The trip was a pretty uneventful train ride south. Faro seemed like a nice town, but between world weariness and my legs I didn't feel like exploring much, so I had a quiet afternoon in.

Brash Barcelona and Melodius Madrid

I arrived in Barcelona at a train station which due to a brilliant piece of urban planning did not have a connecting subway station. So I had to walk a bit to a nearby station to catch a train to my hostel, which was actually most of an apartment building. My room was on the 6th floor, well out of the range of the wifi. It was a pretty good place with a lounge and a kitchen that I actually made use of.

In the afternoon I walked to the Sagrada Familia. It's a pretty impressive structure. The passion facade did tend to remind me of volume 9 of The Sandman, The Kindly Ones. After leaving the church I had lunch and then headed towards one of the big hills of town that was the location for a few old buildings and art galleries, and the stadium and other buildings for the Barcelona Olympics. I visited the main stadium and the nearby sports museum. The museum was pretty good, and cheap at four or five euros (I can't remember exactly). I then made my way down the hill towards a subway station to return to the hostel.

My second day in Barcelona I started by visiting a park designed by Gaudi which was also the site of his old house, which is now a museum. The park was nice, but I don't think it would get anywhere near as many visitors if the name Gaudi weren't attached to it. Then I went downtown and walked along La Rambla, a pedestrian zone that goes down to the bay. I strolled down La Rambla, and finished by taking a lift up the column at the end of La Rambla. A nice view, but not for the claustrophobes. For dinner I cooked up another batch of just add water and heat packet mix spaghetti carbonara.

On Thursday I caught the train for my brief stay in Madrid. I arrived in Madrid around one and was checked in by two. I then walked around town for a while. I saw a statue of a bear, a cathedral, the Palace Real, some gardens with statues of kings, an Egyptian temple that was given to Spain, a beggar with a website, and other various miscellanea.

My second day in Madrid was nice, but a bit disappointing. I found out the reason I'd been unable to book a room for Friday night was because Friday was May day, a national holiday and the start of a long weekend. It also meant that all the museums and galleries were closed. I spent the morning walking through a large park that was moderately crowded. In the afternoon I had a bit of a nap on the edge of the park before going back to the hostel to pick up my bags and catching the overnight train to Lisbon.

Pantheonic Paris

Sunday was a rather busy day, with lots of small things rather than a few great acts. First I returned to Notre Dame where the line for the tower was much shorter, and it only took about half an hour to get in to the towers. The first place in teh tower you visit is the gift shop, where I succumbed to temptation and bought a quill with some "Victor Hugo" ink. Then it was up to the actual interesting bits with the grotesques and gargoyles and all that. A nice view of Paris from the top.

After descending back to ground level, I went over to the Notre Dame crypt, which is mostly underneath the square in front of the Notre Dame with a small section underneath the church itself. The crypt shows ruins from various periods that have since been built over. The earliest were roman houses and then progressed until the middle ages.

After Notre Dame I headed over to the Grand Rex, where after a quick lunch I joined the line for the Battlestar Galactica screening at about 12:45. This turned out to be a good move as by the time the guests of honour arrived the line stretched far behind me. While I was waiting in the line I was interviewed by some guys for a bonus feature on the French release of the season 4 DVDs. I don't think I was at my most eloquent, and thought up many better things to say afterwards, but alas it was too late. They started letting people in about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start.

The event began with an introduction of the three actors present, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber and James Callis, and their characters on the show. Then there was a question and answer session. The answers from Mary and James were quite interesting, and presumably some were Jamie Bamber's, but he answered in French so I couldn't tell. After that was the presentation of the awards and finally the screening of the first episode of season four. I was a little disappointed as I had translated "premiere finale season" as the premier of the season finale, whereas it turns out it meant the premiere of the final season. It was still awesome though, and the show looked really good on a big screen.

Once all the BSG was all done, I headed over to the Pantheon, which I had assumed was a very old church/temple, as is the case of the Pantheon in Rome. It turns out it is actually a Revolution era building that while originally a church is now used as a burial site for great Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen), such as Pierre and Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Louise Braille and many more. Also at the Pantheon was the original Focault's Pendulum.

I left the Pantheon at around 6ish. With most things closed I headed to the one thing that was open late, the Arc de Triomphe. This time I went up top, as entry was covered by my museum pass. The view from the top is pretty good. Not as good as the Eiffel tower, but still good. There is also one thing you can see from the top of the Arc de Triomphe you can't see from the Eiffel tower (I'll leave it to more astute readers to work out what this might be). When I arrived at the Arc it was closed as some ceremony involving the eternal flame was in progress, but it ended after 15 minutes and I was free to climb up to the top. On the way down I took the steps of the spiral staircase reasonably quickly, and was a little dizzy when I reached the bottom. Thus ended Sunday.

Monday was my last day in Paris. I started by returning to the Louvre. I took in the Egyptian collections, some other stuff that apparently wasn't too memorable, and some stuff from the Middle East. At this stage I got a bit arted out and decided to grab some lunch and head over to the military museum. Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich. I started at the military museum by taking in Napoleon's tomb, which was really big and made of stone. Then I took in the arms and armour wing, which covered at least 1000 years of warfare, and then upstairs for the last 200 years of French military history. After this I went back to the hostel to pick up my bags and head to the train station for my train to Barcelona.

Partisan Paris and Valiant Versailles

On Friday a group of us, Mattheus, Mel, Elvis, the Chilean and I, went to the Eiffel tower. We went with the short line and climbed the steps up to the first to platforms of the tower. On the second platform I bought some croissants to eat at the top. Then we caught the lift up to the top of the tower which gave us a great view of Paris. On the way down the group got separated and Elvis and Mel went MIA. Mattheus, the Chilean and I made our way along the Champ de Mars to the Musee d Army, which contains among other things Napoleon's tomb. We only went into the church there, as the others were more interested in seeing other sites. We caught a train to Notre Dame and had a look inside. Unfortunately the crown of thorns was not on display, and I seem to have missed the statue of Joan of Arc I remember from my previous visit.

After Notre Dam I left the group as I wanted to climb the towers and they wanted to visit the Louvre. I went around the corner and saw the line to climb the tower, and decided to try another time. So I headed to the Grand Rex, the venue for the Jules Verne film festival, and picked up a ticket for the Battlestar Galactica screening.

Then I headed back to Notre Dame, hoping the line would be shorter, and indeed the line was shorter, to the point of non-existence, since the towers had closed 15 minutes earlier. I then headed over to the Louvre since it was open late on Friday evenings. I bought a 4 day museum pass for €48. This was a good buy as I ended up getting at least €75 worth of admissions out of it. While in the Louvre I checked out the classical sculptures and the Italian painters hall, leading up to the Mona Lisa. It was not as crowded as when I saw it in 2003. I exited through a hall of large French paintings with a detour to see the Venus de Milo. At this point it was getting close to 9pm when they start lighting up the Eiffel tower, for which I'd agreed to meet up with Mattheus and the Chilean to watch. I caught the subway and returned to the park in which we'd taken in the tower the previous day.

I was the first to arrive, so I sat down and watched the lights on the tower brighten. Mattheus and the Chilean turned up at about 9:15, and the sparkly bits turned on for the first time at around 9:30. After taking in this nice sight we headed back to our hostel, stopping to have dinner at a nearby kebab shop, where I ended up having the rest of my dinners in Paris.

On Saturday I ventured further afield, going to Versailles with Mattheus. When we got there, the line was reasonably long, which presented a minor moral dilemma. My pass allowed me to go straight in while Mattheus had to buy a ticket. While I didn't want to wait in a line I didn't have to, I didn't want to just leave him behind. We agreed to meet in a few hours in the garden after having gone through the main palace on our own.

The palace was pretty impressive. Lots of paintings, statues and rather small beds that were still quite fancy. There were some very ornate clocks that I liked. After touring all of the palace I went out into the garden, which it turns out wasn't covered by my pass since they turn the fountains on on the weekend and it costs extra to get in. It was well worth the extra money. The gardens were cast and magnificent, even though a small fraction of their original size, and full of fountains of various sizes. They also had music from the era playing from speakers hidden in the gardens which was a nice touch.

We took a mini-train to a few of the auxiliary sites of the complex, the Grand and Petite Trianon and Marie-Antoinette's village, which was quite nice. Then we walked back from the grand lake to the palace, taking in a few other fountains off to the side. All in all it was a good day with lots of walking.

Paradisical Paris

The hostel in Paris was pretty good, in fact it would have to rate as the best I've stayed in. The bunks were very solid and built onto the walls, each bed had a light, two power points, a curtains and a large drawer underneath. The room had lots of space and was very clean. The price for all this though, was the price. €25 a night, and the restaurant downstairs was pricey too. I arrived at around 5pm Wednesday afternoon and bludged around at the hostel all evening.

On Thursday I started out by taking a free walking tour. Also taking the tour were Elvis and Mel, the couple I'd met in Nice, a Brazilian named Mattheus, a Chilean whose name we never got, and a bunch of others. Our guide was an Australian girl named Spike (it was not made clear if that was a first name or a last name). The tour started at St Michel, a fountain near Notre Dame with a statue of the Archangel Michael defeating Lucifer. We then crossed the river onto the Ile de la Cite and walked along the Seine to the Ponte Neuf, crossed the river again, continued down the Seine a bit more to the artist's bridge which we crossed and then entered the Louvre complex. We passed through the Louvre and onto the Palace Royal, followed by one of the fancy shopping streets. Needless to say, I did not buy anything there.

Lunch was at a sandwich shop that was alright, but a little pricey. After lunch we took in the Tuilleries, the Concorde, Champs Elysees, and finished up near the Grand and Petite Palaces.

After the tour finished I went to the Arc de Triomphe with Mattheus and a few other people from South America who had gone on the tour. The Arc de Triomphe was huge. I was expecting something on the scale of the Arch of Constantine, but it was at least three times the size. I did not go up top at this time. After the Arc we went to see the Eiffel Tower. We sat in a park across the river from for a while just basking in the view.

We split up at around 5, with Mattheus, the Chilean and I catching the Metro to Montmarte for another walking tour, although this one was not free. Our guide was again Spike, and Mel and Elvis were also on this tour. The tour took in the many sites in Montmarte including haunts of artists like Picasso, locations from the movie Amelie, the work of the space invader guy, the last vineyard in Paris, and of course the Sacre-Coeur, which was close to the end of the tour. After the end of the tour, Mel, Elvis, Mattheus and I went back to the Sacre-Coeur to see the night view of Paris which was pretty good. Then we had dinner at a fondue restaurant that served the drinks in baby bottles. It was a very good meal of meat fondue and cheese fondue.

Me in front of some metal contraption.
The lovely tour guide Spike
Sacre-Coeur

Nice Nice and Monarchial Monaco

I arrived in Nice Sunday afternoon and checked into the hostel, the Villa St Exupery, named after the author of "The Little Prince". It was a pretty good place, with nice rooms, a large bar/cafe that served good meals, a great number of computers for guests use, en suite bathrooms, a large kitchen, travel advisers at breakfast and more.

I was in a 12 bed dorm. Also in the dorm were an Australian couple, Elvis and Mel, who were traveling around Europe after having worked in London for a while and as it turned out had also booked the same place as me in Paris. There was also a British couple and a Canadian whose names I did not catch, and a few others who I didn't talk to much.

On Monday I went to Monaco, land of fancy casinos, fancy hotels, high police to citizen ratios and fast cars. I caught the bus from Nice which took about half an hour. I got off close to the big casino. It was not yet open, and at any rate I wasn't going to pay €10 just to look in the door. I did go in to one of the less exclusive, regular people casinos nearby, and almost had a go on the Star Wars slot machine, but it would not accept coins and I wasn't willing to put more than €2 into the thing.

Next I took a ferry across the harbour and climbed the hill until I reached the Oceanography museum. While I didn't visit the museum, it was here that I boarded a mini-train tour around town. The tour finished where it started and I continued up the hill stopping in along the way at a church where the royal family are buried, and then on to the Royal Palace. I visited the palace and the adjacent Napoleon museum, which had in its collection some of Napoleon's hats and other knick knacks, a number of historical documents, the evolution of the uniforms of the Monagasque forces and more.

I then walked down the other side of the hill and visited the numismatics & philately museum, the car collection of the Prince numbering 100+cars, all expensive in their day and ours, and the maritime museum which was a tightly packed collection of model ships. Having had a full day I headed back to Nice and the hostel.

On Tuesday I walked around Nice. Nothing really exceptional to mention. My plan shortened when I reached the beach, which was entirely devoid of sand, and instead being made up completely of stones. I sat on the beach a few hours just watching the ocean.

Grandiose Genoa

New entry, almost a new country. The train has been stopped for a while, which suggests that we are on one side of the Italian/French border. My last stop in Italy was Genoa, the third of the old Maritime Republics I have visited (the others being Pisa, Venice and Amalfi (I hadn't heard of this one either)). Genoa, like Pisa, has a few great sites, but I wouldn't recommend more than two days there. The place I stayed was the first hostel I'd been to that didn't have free wifi, or indeed any wifi. I made do by stealing wifi from the nearby apartment blocks. To the owner of the wifi network named Sitecom, thank you.

On Friday I kind of followed the walking tour on the back of my map, but kept going off the track as I went to look at other things. I took in, in no particular order, a church whose name I don't recall, the Piazza Principe from the outside only, a port building, an old sailing ship, the outside of Europe's largest aquarium, which is dwarfed by Osaka's aquarium and for which I thought €17 was too much, an old church that was frequented by pilgrims back in the day, San Lorenzo, a cool church with a lot of alternating black and white stripes and its attached museum that contained amongst other items a large, green, hexagonal bowl that was believed to be the Holy Grail, the Ducal palace, a few parks, a museum of oriental art that closed at 1pm, half an hour before I arrived, Genoa's via Garibaldi (every Italian city has one), another church museum that I could get into with my ticket from the San Lorenzo museum, and the house of Columbus.

On Saturday I walked out to the lighthouse, which is around 500 years old and a symbol of Genoa. Next I went to the Galata Maritime museum, which was pretty good, but a bit pricey at €10 (by comparison entry into the Vatican museum was €14). After the museum I walked around the harbour area for a bit before heading back. On the way back I passed a cafe called &Sigma p_i log p_i, which I would have gone to if it had been open at the time on the strength of the name alone.Then I passed the museum of St Augustine, which was housed in an old convent. There were some really good statues in the collection, although I wasn't really excited by the exhibition of blue tiles, but it was the only section to also provide information in braille. As I left this museum it was a bit after 5, so I called it a day and headed back to the hostel for a dinner of beef ravioli.

I have started to look forward to the end of my travels. I've looked into cheap flights from Portugal to England and they do exist, although they don't leave from Lisbon. It looks like I'll be reaching England around the 6th of May.

Panoramic Pisa

On Monday I caught the train for Pisa, which required two transfers. It was while on this journey I, for the first time since I left Korea, was, however briefly, somewhere I had been before. Firenze Santa Maria Novella, the main train station in Florence. I was there for only about twenty minutes, enough time to find out what platform my next train was on, buy some lunch and get on the train. I arrived in Pisa about 4pm, and made my way to the campsite I was staying at (they rent out their cabins by the bed) which was just under one click from the leaning tower.
On Tuesday I spent the day in the vicinity of the tower, splurging on the tickets to visit everything there (the tower, the church, the baptistery, the cemetery building thing, and the two museums, €25, of which €15 was for the tower). Climbing up the tower was great. You can feel the tilt as you go up the spiral staircase. The view from the top is pretty good. The Piazza dei Miracoli is the standout feature of Pisa. My second day in town I wandered around town looking at the other historic buildings which weren't anywhere near as impressive.

Serene San Marino and Radical Rimini

Today I'm on an intercity plus train, which doesn't seem all that plus to me, from Pisa to Genoa. We seem to be following the coast, as when I looked out the window I could see the ocean. This is presumably the Tyrrhenian Sea, as I'm on the western side of the Italian Peninsula.

Last time I wrote was on the way to Rimini, which I wasn't going to for itself, but because it is the closest Italian town to San Marino, the other country inside Italy. Rimini is right on the Adriatic coast, and as it happens was hosting the annual world frisbee championships, which I didn't get around to seeing. Rimini seems like it's somewhat of a party town, what with condom machines on the street and a sexy pantie machine in the hostel.

The first day there I visited San Marino. I caught a bus there which took about an hour, climbing up the mountain for about half of that. Once there I followed the main path up the hill as it folded back upon itself several times as it approached the top. I visited the Public Palace, the main seat of the Government of San Marino, the biggest church, which was closed, the vampire and werewolf museum, which was just a collection of mannequins dressed up like famous vampires. It would have been a bit better if there was information in English, but it's not like I'd have learnt a lot I didn't already know. Then I visited the three towers, starting with the largest, which has great views, then the middle one, which included an antique arms museum (antique in the case being pre 20th century as they had a decent rifle collection) (I also passed a modern arms museum that was, alas, closed). The third tower was the smallest and while you could walk up to it, it was not open to the public. After that I had a look at the museum of curiosities, which was a Ripley's believe it or not sort of thing. About a third of the way through I was tempted to start making notes on the grammar mistakes on the displays.



I had lunch at a restaurant on the edge of the mountain which had a great view. I finished my visit by taking in the National Museum, St Francis' museum and the church of St Francis.

While in San Marino I tried to acquire some San Marino coins. Initially I tried making a few small purchases using notes, but this did not work although I did get a €2 from the Netherlands. I ended up buying some coins, a 50 and 20 Eurocent for 3 Euros. This is obviously a lucrative industry for San Marino as even after throwing in a few cents for the backing paper and plastic sleeve, it's still about a 300% profit margin. Even better for the merchants is the set of 1, 2, and 5 Eurocents that goes for €2.50, a profit of about 2000%. The more official looking sets that had one of each coin was €28.

Also on sale in San Marino were a lot of replica swords and guns. I saw quite a few swords from movies including Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings, Highlander, Conan, and more. The guns tended to be airsoft weapons, which I think is a less messy form of paintball.

That night the hostel I was at had a pasta party which meant a free dinner, which was good because I spent too much money in San Marino.

On Sunday I explored Rimini, taking in most of the sites in the historic centre, such as the arch of Augustus, a few churches, a statue of Caeser with a quote about crossing the Rubicon, a 2000 year old bridge and the local museum, for which entrance was free on Sundays.

Ruinous Rome and the Vainglorious Vatican

Tuesday was back to the Colosseum and today I went inside. But first I went to the Palatine hill and the Roman forum, which were interesting but a bit lackluster. The audioguide wasn't so good as the locations weren't clearly marked on the ground and a few bits on the suggested route were closed off for restoration, which didn't help. After the forum I went into the Colosseum, which is awesome. There was an exhibit on the Flavian emperors who the the ones who built the Colosseum that was quite interesting. Walking around the Colosseum was amazing.

Wednesday was V day. I went to the Vatican museums. They must be huge, but you don't get a feel for it as you follow a twisting path up and down, so I guess it's a high density museum. The Raphael rooms were incredible incredible, although overshadowed by the Sistine Chapel, which had the angriest guards I've seen, constantly telling people to be quiet and not to take photos (I discretely took two photos). The Sistine Chapel is one of those things everyone knows of, but seeing it in all its glory is great. I think always seeing just the bit with God and Adam makes you forget there's a whole lot more to the place. I could have done without seeing God's ass though.

I had lunch, sent two postcards (the two family member's whose address I know off the top of my head), and then left the museum. I checked the time once I got outside and was shocked to find it was almost 4. I had thought it was round 2-2:30is. This means I spent about 6 hours in the museum.

Then it was into St Peter's Basilica, which is, quite frankly, huge. It took a while to get inside, but well worth it. It is a building on a grand scale. I know I'm repeating myself, but the place is big. After looking around inside, I went underneath it into the crypt where more of the popes are buried (a bunch are upstairs in the church itself). I'm pretty sure this is not appropriate music to be playing on your ipod when down there. There was a small crowd in front of John Paul II's casket, and a few flowers on that of John Paul I. On the way out I got a photo of a Swiss Guard in uniform.

On Thursday I went back to St Peter's as I wanted to go up to the top of the dome, but after joining the very long line (much longer than the day before), I learned from someone offering tours of the Vatican museum that the church was closed for another 90 minutes because there was a mass on, which seemed to be verified by what was being shown on the giant TV screens around the piazza. I decided not to wait around and went to a few sites I'd yet to get to including the Circus Maximus and the Lateran Cathedral, which was also closed. I passed up an opportunity for a plenary indulgence by climbing some stairs on my knees (available every Friday in Lent and one other day of your choice each year). Back at the hostel I cooked for the first time since January, if you consider adding a packet mix of risotto into a pot of water and applying heat.

Regal Rome

Next on the itinerary was the eternal city Rome. Rome, the city founded by Romulus and Remus, the city that ruled most of the known world in its day. The city with a country inside it.

My hostel in Naples and Rome have been different than most of the places I've stayed at so far. They were both a bit out of the centre, about half an hour bu public transport. this had the effect of making me spend more time away from the hostel and have longer days of sight seeing. This combined with a late sunset (7:30ish) meant even on slack days I was doing 5-6 hours of walking around (I noticed on the train I'm a bit sunburnt now). I checked in about 1 o'clock and headed back into downtown Rome around 2ish. I first visited a church which had an exhibition on Galileo The exhibition kept bringing up the fact that Galileo was not an atheist, which I wasn't aware anyone was claiming to be the case. Then I kept walking until I got to the Spanish steps, where I saw some guys offering a free walking tour starting in about 15 minutes, so I went along on the tour. It took in a few squares, went past some churches, the column of Marcus Aurelius, the Pantheon and finished at the Trevi fountain, where I duly threw in a coin to ensure I would one day return to Rome. After the tour I called it a day.

On Sunday I explored the area north of the Colosseum. This took in a few of the forums, Trajan's column, the monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II, the 1st king of Italy, which shows the Italians haven't lost it when it comes to building grand elaborate monuments, a few churches (of course) and later headed up to the Pantheon again to see it slightly less crowded (the day before the tour got there just after a mass had finished) and then on to the Piazza Navona where I bought Mum's birthday present.

Monday I stayed at the hostel until noon as I stayed in to call Mum up to say Happy Birthday. In the afternoon I crossed the Tiber and caught a few sights along the river. I had lunch just in front of the St Peter's, then followed the Tiber south and finished the day by circling the Colosseum

Absolute Athens

So I've been slack keeping things up to date. I last wrote while on the train to Athens from Istanbul, before entering Greece. It was definitely so because I did not mention the hassles I had on that train after the border. When I bought the ticket I was told I'd have to change trains at Pythion on the Greek side of the border and I'd have to get a reservation before boarding. What wasn't mentioned was the fact that it would cost €6.50, nor that the station would not accept Turkish Lira, US dollars, bank cards of any kind and it did not have a bank machine. I and a Spanish guy were lucky the two Japanese girls on the train (the train had a grand total of four passengers) had just enough Euros to pay for us as well. When we changed at Thessaloniki we had to pay another €8.50. Fortunately this station had some ATMs and snack bars, so I could pay back the Japanese girls and buy some food, as all I'd had to eat that day was two bread rolls and about a dozen pieces of Turkish delight. Dinner was a nutritious bottle of coke and two snickers bars.

I arrived in Athens in the morning and checked in with no hassles. The room was a bit cramped with maybe a foot or so between the bunks, which were two regular bed securely connected on top of each other.

That day I took a walking tour that took in all the impressive remains from antiquity, various agora, temples, monuments, and of course the Acropolis. On the way back to the hostel after the tour I saw a Games Workshop reseller, and popped in to buy a hand drill which has made adding coins to my chain a lot easier. I also learnt a bit about 5th ed.

The rest of the time in Athens I visited museums, one or two a day. The museums in Athens have the annoying habit of closing around two or three o'clock, as do the banks. This meant my afernoons had little to do, especially once daylight savings kicked in.

Other highlights of Athens include the Archeology museum which has a pretty good sculpture collection (comparable to that of the Hermitage) and the Antikythera mechanism, Thanasis kebabs where I had lunch for three out of five days and the original Olympic stadium from 1896 with the required statue of a naked guy in front of it.

Did I mention most of the statue of guys were naked guys. Even the soldiers. Especially the soldiers. They must have been good. I'm sure I'd at least where underpants if I was going to war.

Going from Greece to Italy was a multistep process. First I caught a bus from Athens to Patras. Then I caught the ferry from Patras to Bari. The ferry was huge with a bunch of semi-trailers parked in the garage, and giant escalators to get from the shore level to the main passenger level. My berth was small but comfortable. There wasn't much motion from the sea, but there was a lot of vibration from the engines. After arriving in Bari, I caught a train to Naples, the home of pizza, situated between the sea and Mt Vesuvius. I got to the hostel at about 6, and for dinner I got a marinara pizza from a nearby pizzeria that was really good. They have the kitchen right up the front and it was entertaining watching them make all the pizzas.

The first full day in Naples was spent around Pompeii. I started with a trip up Mt Vesuvius, which has pretty good views from the top. No lava though. I descended the mountain and after lunch I explored the ruins of Pompeii. After Greece, a 7pm closing time was glorious, although I only stayed until 6. Pompeii was great to wander through. Most stuff was pretty well conserved compared to other sites I've seen. Thank you volcano. The audio guide was pretty good, having a lot of background information as well as specific details about buildings and structures.

The second day was spent walking around the historic centre of Naples. The highlight was the underground tour of the aqueduct system built by the Greeks and Romans and since then used as air raid shelters, trash cans, winery and more. I also saw a few churches and castles, but they weren't as cool.

A Petition of Sorts

Lords of the sea and wave
your audience I crave
It has come to pass that as I roam
My journey brings me to your home
It is a place I have yet to dwell
Amid the spray and swell
Safe passage do I ask of you
Let me sail on seas of blue
The lords of wind and sky
Have always let me by
The lords of steel and rail
Have always left me hale
The lords of wheel and road
Have always lightened my load
So hear me now lords of dolphin and of fish
I beg of thee one simple wish
Lords of the deep and blue
Let my path be straight and true

An unexamined blog is not worth blogging

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to the person from Sydney who keeps looking for this blog on Google, it's "Phlebas Considered" not "Phelbas Considered". I'd think after 33 visits you might want to consider bookmarking this site.

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Finally, since some people are apparently wondering, for my purposes, Phlebas is pronounced "flee-bas".

Istanbul

As I may have mentioned previously, here is a special presentation of some photos from Istanbul, with some appropriate background music.

Glorified Gallipoli and Terrific Troy

Monday was an early start to catch a bus to Gallipoli. I got there about 12:30 and the tour started at one. Our guide Hasan took us to the Gallipoli museum which had a number of artifacts found in the area, including a collection of bullets that had hit each other in mid air and letters from soldiers, to ANZAC cove, which the Turkish government has officially renamed as such, John Simpson's grave (the guy with the donkey), Aru Buran cemetery, the site of the dawn service where they were already erecting the stands for ANZAC day, Lone Pine cemetery, one of the Turkish memorials, Chanuk Bair, a big New Zealand memorial site, the site of some of the trenches and a large memorial with a quite from Ataturk regarding the soldiers buried on the peninsula:

"Those heroes that shed their
blood and lost their lives...you are now lying of the soil
of a friendly country, therefore rest in peace. There is
no difference between the Johnies and the Mehmets to
us where they lie side by side here in this country of
ours...You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far
away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are
now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having
lost their lives on this land they have become our sons
as well."

- Kemal Ataturk

A few things really stuck home on the tour. First is that it felt like home. I'm not a sentimental type, but it did not feel like I was on foreign soil. The next was how beautiful the area is. Also present was the respect the Turks have for the ANZACs and the respect the soldiers on both sides had for each other even while killing each other. Stories of gallantry and nobility are common on both sides.

On Tuesday morning I took a tour of the ruins of Troy, the city of legend written of by Homer. Pretty interesting, but a lot of imagination is required. Pretty cool were the spots where you could see pieces from the nine different periods of Troy's history covering 3000 years. Then it was back to Istanbul and crashing in a hostel.

It was another early start today to catch the 8:30 train to Athens which will take 24 hours or so.

A few thoughts on Turkey. Russia keeps it prize for the best chess sets, but Turkey gets the prize for best chess boards, and best backgammon sets, although I'm not sure how much competition there is for that one. It was also a lot more expensive than I expected. My hostel was good, although the weekday staff were a lot friendlier than the weekend staff. Finally, Istanbul is a cat city.

Intrinsic Istanbul

Thursday was a rainy day and I visited some museums. First was the Topkapi palace, where the Sultans used to live. It was alright. There was an awesome knife in the treasure room which had a gold sheath and three huge emeralds in the hilt. There was also a collection of relics of the prophets which included Moses' rod, David's sword, arm bones in a golden arm shaped case, a bunch of Mohamed's beard (dude must have had one long beard). This collection also had someone there 24/7 reading from the Koran. An easy job if you can get it. After the palace I visited the Archeology museum and in three hours got through less than half of it.

Friday was fine weather again and I did a bus tour around town. I spent about an hour and a half walking along the remains of the city walls, which were pretty tall and would have been even taller in the day as the ground was lower then. The walls are also about 1500 years old and stood for 1000 years before being broken by the giant cannons of the Turks in 1453. I think I could have done it cheaper using public transport, but I would have missed a lot of the things along the way.

On Saturday I took a two hour cruise along the Bosporus (the choice was between a two hour cruise or a six hour cruise) which was good but cold. Quite a windchill factor. After the cruise I visited another mosque but didn't see much as it was undergoing restoration work, then the spice market where I got a box of Turkish delight (half rosewater and half a mix of other varieties) and a t-shirt. Finally I crossed the Golden Horn to visit the Galata tower, which has a great view of the city.

Sunday I visited the Azeri Military History Museum, which had a pretty decent collection, then I went to see Valens aqueduct, which n days long gone supplied the Basilica cistern with water.

Idiomatic Istanbul

At last I got to Istanbul and walked to my hostel which was about half an hour from the train station and just behind the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. That afternoon was spent wandering around the area past the Galata tower looking for the Australian consulate, which I was only a block or two from when I stopped looking. On the way back to the hostel I stopped by a tourist information centre who showed me where it was on my map.

Wednesday morning I took a tram and walked up the hill to the consulate where I was told I had to go to a website and request a postal vote, which would be sent to my address in Australia. Not much use to me since the election was to be on Saturday.

After that less than stellar effort I made my back to the Hagia Sophia. The third church on the site dedicated to the holy wisdom, it was the largest cathedral in the world for almost 1000 years, it was converted to a mosque by Mehmet the conqueror and then into a museum by Ataturk. An impressive building almost 1500 years old.

Across the way from the Hagia Sophia is the Blue Mosque, aka the Sultanahmet mosque, which is intentionally very similar in design to the Hagia Sophia, but coloured, as the name suggests, blue instead of the Sophia's red. Its condition is a lot better than the Hagia Sophia, but it has the advantage of only being about 500 years old.

Next was the Basilica Cistern. This is a giant underground watertank built around the same time as the Hagia Sophia. It's cool and damp and the lighting is quite appropriate.

Vivacious Veliko Tarnovo and the Troublesome Train

Note: This is another big entry that covers a few places, so I'm going to split it up into several posts.

I'm now not only a few cities behind, I'm a country behind. I last wrote while on the way to Veliko Tarnovo, a small town in the centre of Bulgaria. The train ride was alright. There were some nice rock cuttings along the way my grandmother would have liked.

The main attraction of Veliko Tarnovo is an old fortress that is reasonably intact. There were also a few old churches around the place and a few monuments. On the Sunday I wandered around town taking in most of these sights. On Monday I lazed around the hostel and did a little shopping for supplies.

The guests who were there were an interesting mix. On the first night there was a pair of German cousins on a road trip, a British/Israeli woman who was buying a house in a nearby village and her sister and and an Australian and a Swede who had joined up somewhere and decided to travel together. On the second night there was a pair of Chinese people from Germany. The girl was obsessed with shoes and had bought so many pairs in Bulgaria she'd had to buy two new suitcases to take them back home (I think it was around the 40 pair mark). Her friend, who was not quite so keen on shoes, was named Shu.

The train to Istanbul got off to a rocky start. While I was waiting a guy came up to me and said he worked on a nearby archeological dig and showed me some Roman coins he offered to sell me for what was left of my Bulgarian money. It's just as well I didn't as when I got on board I got some bad news. The carriage my ticket was for had broken down and been left behind in Romania, and since the remaining sleeper car was run by the Turkish railways, the guard wouldn't just give me a berth on his carriage without paying for a reservation. This struck me as particularly rough since the carriage was reasonably empty and I ended up having the berth to myself.

Immigration was also a bit of a hassle. I had to pay for a visa and had checked before and found out that they would accept Turkish Lira, Euros and US dollars. I thought I would be fine as I had a bunch of US 100s left, but they wouldn't take it as they didn't have change. I managed to change one of the 100s into Euros at one of the duty free shops (the first I've seen since Korea) and all was well, but I was worried for a little while.

Bloody Brasov and Swift Sofia

So at the moment I'm a town behind in writing down what I've done. This is mainly due to the short amount of time I spent in Sofia, about 31.5 hours. Last time I wrote I was on my way to Brasov. I was not alone on this trip. Derrick was a Canadian I met at the hostel in Bucharest and he was leaving for Brasov the same day I was so we went to Brasov together, so when I use we it's not because I've gone all hoity toity and am using the royal we.

The train from Bucharest to Brasov was very good, new rolling stock that was well appointed and even had numerous power outlets throughout the carriage, although I did not make use of them on the trip. We got to the hostel with little difficulty. On arrival we were sat down with a couple who arrived at the same time and made to fill out our booking information on paper (every other hostel has done that themselves on a computer) and received the sales pitch. First the lady who ran the hostel outlined the things to see in the area, then the tours they offered to see them all. The tours sounded ok, but a little rushed and a little pricey (40-45 Lei per person, not including entrance fees). After setting into the hostel, Derrick and I strolled around town to get a feel for the lay of the land.

The next day was the first bad weather I've encountered so far. It was raining/drizzling most of the day except when it was snowing. After it eased up around 11ish we went out walking around town to see things in the light of day and to go inside things. The Black Church was interesting and had a huge pipe organ, although not as big as the UQ one. We walked around in the drizzle for a few hours before calling it quits.

the next day was a beautiful day with barely a cloud in the sky. We caught a bus from Brasov to Bran (4 Lei) and got into Bran at 10:40 only to find the castle didn't open until midday, so we walked around for a while, but the town seemed pretty much consist of the castle, souvenir stands and pensiones. The castle was alright, but didn't live up to expectations. The attached collection of peasant houses was also underwhelming. After finishing up in Bran, we caught a bus to Rasnov (3 Lei). Here we visited Rasnov fortress, which was built by and used by the peasants of the town when attacked. It was a bit of a climb above the town though. Going up we walked up the road going up behind the fortress, as this was the only marked path. It was a pleasant walk in almost forest with some great views near the top. In fact the views from the fortress were amazing, snow capped mountains, the town, the plains, all amazing. At the highest point of the fortress you get a full 360 view which is amazing. The fortress is about 500 years old, and was neglected for a lot of the 20th century, but still intact and they are working to restore it.

To descend back to town we took the stairs from the front of the fortress, which took us down to a street we'd walked down on the way up. We looked, but there was absolutely no signs suggesting the stairs existed at the entrance of the building we walked through to get to the street.

We then caught another bus back to Brasov (2.5 Lei) where we took the cable car up the mountain right next to the town and saw there was more of Brasov on the other side of the mountain. We could also see the hostel from the top as it was close by and a bright purple in colour.

On Thursday (the 12th) we parted ways, Derrick headed to Sighisora while I made my way to Sofia via Bucharest. I had about a 7 hour wait in Bucharest so I left my bags at the station and went to an English bookstore I'd seen while walking around town. I bought a Sandman book and a book about the AK-47.

The train to Sofia was an overnighter, and I arrived at about 6:00 I walked to a hostel a few people had recommended, for the first time not booking ahead. This turned out not so great as they only had a bed for one night, whereas I had been planning to stay in Sofia for three nights before going to Istanbul.

During the day I walked around Sofia and took in a lot of the sights. During m walk I decided not to try and find another hostel in Sofia, but to go to Veliko Tornovo, a place a lot of people had recommended. I'm going to stay there two nights and catch the train to Istanbul from there Monday evening.

Really, why even bother pretending?

So North Korea just had an election. Not surprisingly, Kim Jong-Il got 100% of the vote, although surprisingly he was only running for what seems to be the equivalent of an MP. But getting 100% of the vote is pretty easy when there's only one pre-approved name on the ballot in each electorate, and everyone has to bow to a giant photo of you before casting their vote. The guys with guns probably discourage independent thinking on the matter as well.

I wonder why they even bother. This is simply a more expensive way of appointing a body and doesn't fool anyone into thinking this was a real election. Either put on a better show and make it look like you're trying to be democratic, or admit you're a tyranny and use the money you spent on the election on food for your people, or more likely a tank or two.

While I'm on the topic of North Korea, I don't believe this is really a communications satellite. The only people allowed to communicate in the country are the military, and the country's small enough you don't need to send something all the way into space to build something to provide decent coverage. They're doing it to show that they can launch something big a long way.

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Big in Bucharest

En route from Bucharest to Brasov which is about a three hour trip. The views are nice, we're going up into some mountains, the Carpathians I believe. It also looks like it was a good idea not to have posted my jacket to London yet as it's snowing outside. Maybe I'll post it from Sofia.

Bucharest had two highlights although one of them had nothing to do with Romania. The Romanian highlight was the Palace of the Parliament. This is the second largest building in the world (in terms of how much land it covers. I think tall buildings are generally more impressive than broad ones). It's about 170m on each side, a giant square with towers on each corner. The rooms inside are huge. There is a gallery that goes along the front of the building that is 150m long. Most rooms are very tall, some going up to 19m tall. No one is changing a light without a ladder here. The building has 3500 tons of crystal in the chandeliers, a fortune in gold leaf, a lot of the floors and walls are marble, and all the materials and labour came from Romania. This is the kind of structure you only get when you have a megalomaniac dictator running the country.

The other highlight was going to see Watchmen, which was fantastic. It stayed true to the book, but obviously they had to cut a lot of stuff, and the cuts they made left the main point intact, although they had to change the ending a bit as without all the stuff they cut it would have been a giant deus ex machina.

Another interesting thing in Bucharest was the history museum. They had a replica of Trajan's column, which I believe commemorates the Roman's conquest of what is now Romania. As it was indoors and they couldn't fit in vertically, they put all the sections in order around the walls so you could see them up close and follow the story, which I doubt I'll be able to do when I see the original.

I feel like I'm getting a bit blase with my sightseeing. I think that it's partly that I've been on the go for over a month, and partly that the last week and a bit have been in between places, the places en route between the cities I'm really excited about. I remember how excited I was when I arrived in Moscow, a feeling I didn't have in Kiev or Bucharest.

Living Large in Lviv

It was only while looking at the stamp I got in my passport today that I realized that today is one month from when I left Korea. And I've only just made it to the third country. I've entered the EU, but not yet entered the Schengen zone or the Eurozone. That will probably occur in about two weeks when I make it to Greece.

As has often happened in my life, I don't feel like I've done enough to fill up a month. Nine days (including today) have been spent on trains. Twelve in Russian cities and seven in Ukrainian cities. That adds up to twenty-eight.

I think I've kind of stuck within my budget on average. I had a few bumps with regards to taxis on this front, but should not repeat that as I've decided to avoid taxis and make sure I stay at places that give good direction and are close to public transport. I'm using a different website to book hostels which is a lot better than the first site for giving directions. Hostel World for those who want to know. I've used my credit card a lot to get local funds as it's usually been easier than exchanging the cash I have(at least in Russia. The Ukraine and Romania have exchange booths everywhere).I'm going to cut back on that as I have only three, maybe four more countries outside the Eurozone, so I will try and use up my US dollars in those countries, and cash in my travelers cheques when I hit Greece.

I'm on another train as I write this (no surprise there. I seem to pretty much just write these on the train). I have the carriage by myself at this point. There was an Italian couple on board, but they got off around lunch time. In fact, when the train arrived in Lviv, this carriage was not yet part of the train, which initially caused me some confusion as my ticket said I was in car 16 and the train only went up to car 8.

Lviv was a nice town with lots of old buildings. The town center was quite historic looking with lots of statues and churches and other stuff around. My first day I did a walking tour from the Lonely Planet which took in a few churches, a few vacant lots that were synagogues until WWII, Castle Hill which distinctly lacks a castle but does have a good view, a few museums that were closed that day (I tried to go into one, noticed the sign saying it was closed on Wednesdays, thought nothing of it as it was surely later in the week than Wednesday, got confused at the lack of anyone trying to sell me a ticket until one of the men I passed on the way in showed me the sign again, at which point I realized it was indeed Wednesday).

On Thursday I visited Lychakivskiy Cemetery which had many cool tombstones that I was unable to photograph as the battery in my camera died. After the cemetery I went back into town to visit some of the museums and the tower of the town hall. The museum I liked the most was the Arsenal, which as its name suggests has a display of weapons from all over the world including swords, axes, maces, crossbows, pistols, rifles and cannons.

My last four days in the Ukraine I have had dinner at the same chain of restaurants, which is a non all you can eat buffet. The food was good and cheap. I sort of liked the borscht. The soup was good but I'd leave the cabbage behind. I wonder if it's possible to make borscht without the cabbage.

The hostel in Lviv wasn't as good as the others I've stayed at. The building was old and the stairs were not level and it was a bit dank. The theme was good (it was called Kosmonaut and had pictures of Yuri Gagarin on the wall and a vampire Lenin). While I was there I was the only guest, so I had not only a room to myself but the whole place. It was OK, but I prefer the liveliness of the place I stayed in Kiev. Another plus for the Kosmonaut is that I got a free t-shirt from them.

I arrive in Bucharest tonight and will spend a few days there. Then I'll head north a bit to Brasov and do the Transylvania thing (If I'm lucky I'll get to stake a vamp or two, though I doubt it). Then I'll move south again to Sofia in Bulgaria (via Bucharest no doubt) and then onto Istanbul, the second on my "must see" list for this trip (the list includes Moscow, Istanbul, Athens, Rome, Paris and London). Other places are on the "what's cool around or between those places" list. It will probably be about one and a half to two weeks before I arrive in Istanbul. I have a plan for what I'm going to do with my pictures from Istanbul, so look forward to that one.

Come On Catholics

This case from Brazil seems a little bit of overkill. An archbishop has excommunicated a group of people who helped a nine year old girl who had been sexually abused by her stepfather get an abortion.

I think this is the sort of case almost everyone would agree on that the girl is in no way physically, mentally or emotionally ready to be a parent, and that to continue the pregnancy would be dangerous to the girl.

Frankly, if anyone should be excommunicated here, it's the stepfather who has acted in a despicable fashion

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Killing Time in Kiev

Once more I'm on a train from somewhere to somewhere. In this case from Kiev to Lviv (or Lvov or one of the many other forms I've seen). It's a daytime train because the overnight trains get into Lviv at around 4 in the morning, so instead I'm catching a daytime train which left Kiev at 11 and will arrive in Lviv at 9pm.

Lviv represents the first departure from the general plan. The plan was that after Kiev I'd go to Crimea and catch a ferry across the Black Sea. But the ferries are too flaky this time of year, so instead I'm going to go overland to Istanbul via Romania and Bulgaria.

Kiev was a nice city, although I prefer Moscow and St Petersburg. For the first time the lingua franca in the hostel was English rather than Russian, although I was one of the few who only spoke English. Without more information my hypothesis is that the common language seems to be that of the people who run the place.

Last Wednesday I got to Moscow around 9pm, caught a taxi to Kievskii station, got a bite to eat and sat around until 11:23 when the train left. I got told off by security for taking photos of some of the decorations of the station. I went to sleep soon after the train departed and would have had a good nights sleep if it weren't for being woken up by customs at about 3 or 4 in the morning. They were a bit concerned about my visa since I've got two, one of which is canceled because the embassy made two mistakes on it. In the end though, all was well and they let me into the country.

I slept lightly for another few hours before arriving in Kiev. I walked to the hostel and although I missed the turnoff (the hotel given as a landmark did not show it's name all that well to someone coming from the direction I was) but realized my mistake a block or two further and found my way in the end.

The hostel is run by a British guy named Marcus who is a bit of a wheeler dealer in the Ukraine hostel business and extolled the opportunities out there for someone with a bit of cash to set something up. The hostel was alright, my only complaint being that the base of the bed was made up of planks that just covered the width of the bed and with a sudden movement one or two might fall off.

My first afternoon I walked past the National Theater, the Golden Gate (the rebuilt gate of the old city walls), the grounds of St Sofia cathedral (the buildings were closed Thursdays), St Micheal's Monastery, St Andrew's and then down St Andrew's descent, an old cobblestone road lined with guys selling souvenirs. The ones which really caught my eye, although not for reasons that would make me purchase somethings, were the stands selling tin soldiers. Russia had some exceptional tin soldiers with exquisite detail, but Kiev not so much. The stands in Kiev would have a few large models around 7-10cm tall, and then a lot of small ones around 28mm tall. How am I so sure of that height? Well, the first stall I looked at I started to look at some goblin like creatures on squares bases that kind of looked familiar. Next to them were some elves that looked quite Tolkeinish with a lot more detail on them. The I saw a futuristic soldier in big bulky armour carrying a massive laser gun. These were in fact Warhammer models given a quick once over with some metallic spray paint and being sold for about 100 hrivnias, or about AU$20. Last time I checked you'd have got two for about AU$18, so no the best souvenir.

So far I have bought three souvenirs. Two have been t shirts, as I figure I can wear them as I go and it's a practical investment. The other is an old badge from the KGB (probably a replica, but cool none-the-less).

For dinner on Thursday I went out with a group from the hostel to a place referred to as both the hospital and the doctor bar. It was a bar/restaurant with a medical theme. The waitresses wore nurse outfits (with varying amounts of clothing underneath), the bartenders wore scrubs, they served some drinks in test tubes, they had a padded room, etc. It was reasonably priced and the food was good.

On Friday I visited the caves monastery, an old orthodox church complex that included a set of catacombs with the preserved remains of a bunch of guys and people would go down there to pray. After the monastery I went to the WWII memorial, which features a 62m tall woman holding up a sword and shield, a collection of old tanks, jets, artillery and other military hardware, and two museums (one for WWII, the other post WWII). Reasonably interesting, but not much English.

On Saturday I took a walk along the main street downtown and then up to St Sofia again to check out the inside and the bell tower. The inside of St Sofia was very good, as they left some parts unrestored so you could see the effects of time. Overall, a nice cathedral. I also saw a poster for Watchmen, which is coming out in the Ukraine on the 5th.

On Sunday, I went to the natural history museum, which was pretty good. They had a lot of dioramas that were well produced, a hut built of mammoth tusks and jaws, a collection of live reptiles and insects, some whale skeletons and much more.

On Monday I went with a group from the hostel to the Chornobyl museum, and we were lucky enough to arrive there just as an English tour was beginning. It was actually a private tour three people had paid for, but they didn't mind people following along and joining the tour. Over the course of the tour people accumulated in the group. It was not as sad as the Hiroshima museum since it was an accident rather than a deliberate act and nowhere near as destructive, but it is still a tragedy.

After the Chornobyl museum we went to a folk village where traditional houses, windmills, churches and other structures are preserved. The wooden churches have a strong smell of timber when you're inside them (not surprising) which really gave them a very different feel to the stone cathedrals I've mostly visited.

That evening I tried to but some train tickets. I managed to get my ticket for Lviv, but my onward ticket was more frustrating. I had to go to a different ticket stand at the other end of the station, which was behind a set of doors with very little signage (after days of visiting museums and such, I know the words that go on the places that sell tickets). I found the stand and the lady couldn't read the note I'd had written in Ukranian by a local working at the hostel. The ticket lady thought I wanted a ticket from Kiev to Sofia, instead of Lviv to Sofia, and as there's no train from Kiev to Sofia, wouldn't sell me one. I double checked with information I'd gone to the right ticket stand, and went back. I got in line behind the man who was being served and a few minutes later a man got in line behind me and asked if he could go before me. As I was a bit frustrated at this point I said no and continued waiting. When the man in front of me finished the man asked again, and again I said no and tried to communicate with the ticket I wanted. At this point the man stated talking to the ticket lady in Ukranian (or Russia, I can't really say which), and when she started serving him instead of me I gave up and left. (Regarding the man's actions, I think if you're in a hurry you could ask once, but if the person says no you should leave it at that. Don't keep pestering, and don't barge in front. The ticket lady was even worse, as she should not have served him.)

It is for the best though that those two vexed me. I had gotten the order of Romania and Bulgaria mixed up, and didn't actually want a ticket to Sofia, so fate saved me a big hassle by giving me a small one.