I went to Europe for five weeks earlier this year, and so I thought I would follow in the footsteps of a legion of uncreative writers and document my experiences. Read it or don't, the choice is yours.
****
"How was
Europe"
"Pretty good; full
of wogs though"
****
Europe seems an austere
place, in more than one sense: apart from the obvious, fiscal meaning, it is
not for nothing that antipodean continents such as America and Australia are labelled
young countries compared to the home of Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Beethoven and
Churchill, inter alia.
So it seems the obvious
destination for a second-year journalism student, at one of the leading
J-schools in the country, to take five weeks off from everything (albeit during
a semester break) and in the words of his dear, beloved grandmother, "Have
a look around".
I could write this piece
in a fashion similar to my primary-school recounts of how I spent the preceding
two-week school holiday: a list detailing how I spent each day, replete with
photographs proving, if the reader for some reason decided to be particularly
pedantic, that, yes, I actually did see the Arc of Triomphe and they do in
actual fact make gelatos in Rome just like anywhere else - i.e. quickly, on the
cheap and with very little patience.
But there is no need to
bore the hypothetical reader or even myself.
****
The airport, as the start
and end point of a journey, allows for so many experiences: the carting around
of insanely heavy and uncomfortable pieces of luggage; the acquisition of cheap
cologne and liquor (au contraire, George Costanza, the duty-free store
is not "the biggest sucker deal in retail"); the ability to put
your own objects on the dangerous goods conveyor belt and explain hastily what
that obscure cord is - one wonders why more of us don't do the Edward Snowden
Travel Package and just stay in an airport for a month.
Look, airports suck
(except for the whole duty-free thing). You arrive there three hours early, get
paranoid about the weight limit and then meander around before coming to a halt
at your gate where you sit on lumbago-inducing chairs next to Loud iPod Man and
Extremely Lax Parents and Their Children. Those who know me and are, for
whatever reason, reading this know I'm not a sweary person but I seem to have
come back cursing "Rort!" constantly, which I blame on airports and
their associated asinine qualities.
Writer Alain de Botton
spent a week at an airport, documented in a book called A Week at the Airport. Full of
effusiveness and endearment, which can be explained only through the fact that
he himself was not flying, de Botton wrote:
Had one been asked to take a Martian to visit a
single place that neatly captures the gamut of themes running through our
civilisation – from our faith in technology to our destruction of nature, from
our interconnectedness to our romanticising of travel - then it would have to
be to the departures and arrivals halls that one would head.
Sure, the work is full of
projection, but we shall forgive Monsieur de Botton because he managed to
articulate just how damn necessary the place is.
The fact of the matter is
that Melbourne International Airport, whence this writer departed, is a
shambles that really ought to be improved on. Why? The simple reason that there
is no train line there is a joke, and one that indubitably pleases the
operators of the rort-worthy car park to no end. Even Athens, a city that
doesn't even have safe drinking water from the tap and a place that badly needs
to lrn2finance, has a train line direct.
The simple answer as far
as Melbourne is concerned (Tullamarine, really, and the only people happy about
where the airport is located are my good friends in Sunbury and Broadmeadows,
and not even they are happy about having to live in Sunbury and Broadmeadows)
is to just buy out the taxi lobby so they can stop whingeing about actually
doing their job (you can't actually make people take longer journeys than they
need to) and spend more time picking drunkards off King Street.
So I don't like airports that much, except for the duty-free shops, obviously.
****
[It
may be helpful to you, dear reader, and me if I hereunder reminisce about the
countries I visited in the order that I visited them]
Malta: Landing at Luqa
Airport just outside the capital, Valletta, I was ready to start the trip of a
lifetime after 20 hours spent listening to David Bowie and a Flight of the
Conchords mockumentary and watching, among other titles, Fourth Estate, a jernalism
movie that seemed to drink the Kool-Aid a bit much.
I don't know how many
airport scenes from '70s films that you can remember off the top of your head,
but imagine an airport where you can park basically outside the departures
before waiting for your guests to arrive - an impossibility at Melbourne,
Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle and JFK, right? Not at Luqa, albeit it was Sunday
afternoon and it seemed the majority of Maltese people were at the beach.
[A funny story about
Luqa: when checking in at Melbourne, I was questioned as to which airport in
Malta I wanted my bags sent to. Naturally curious as my itinerary, which I
presented, clearly stated Luqa as my final destination, I was informed that
there was a heliport in Gozo, a half-second of enthusiasm passed through me (a
closer final destination, not bad) before I was again informed that this
heliport had closed down, who knows when. Good stuff, peeps at unnamed airline.
Oh, and also my bags nearly got sent to Maitland airport in the US, in
whichever state, because of the similarity of airport codes. A fun start to the
trip.]
I stayed in Malta for two
weeks with my family (which makes sense given that I'm half-Maltese) in Gozo, a
hop, skip and a jump away from the Maltese mainland and about 4km from Sicily,
according to my uncle, who says "on the line" à la Vince Vaughn from The Interns.
Gozo is... interesting.
If you've expected fun and gay abandon, you've come to the wrong place. If
you've expected sites of historical significance, you've come to the wrong
place. (Although in an unexpected instance of Euroirony, you can loiter at a
place called Ġgantija (meaning
"gigantic" although the thing-in-itself is actually quite small; yes
I know the G with the dot above it looks weird – Maltese is a weird language,
get used to it), a stone dwelling thing apparently predating Stonehenge or
something.)
What can one do there? Maybe go to the beach; not sure really. There was one
beach down the road from where I was staying, and when I mean down the road I
mean walking down (and back up) an almost vertical slope (I don't know the
grade, get a surveyor for that) to San Blas beach, and it's arguably not worth
the effort. Small and without proper hygienic facilities, the authorities
haven't done themselves any favours by cordoning off the sea after about 100m
to make more room for the rich bastards on boats. Sure, you can just slip under
the rope, and it's not like any lifeguards will be there to stop you from doing
so, but it's the thought that counts and in this case annoys me.
As far as nightlife goes, my time in Gozo wasn't the highlight. Usually it
consisted of going for ice-cream and a beer (Cisk Lager, which is very much
worth your while if you're in the vicinity) with my aunty, as my cousin was
flustered from work during the day and my uncle was watching TV (?) or napping
(?). I don't mean to sound ungrateful as I was fed, sheltered and had my clothes
washed for two weeks for the price of being a family member who comes to visit
who hasn't been seen for a long time. So, basically, nothing.
[I know bars are meant to have stupid and unthinking names and I know Malta has
a major England fetish but one venue I remember passing by was the Glory of
England bar. Plenty of Kool-Aid served in there, I imagine.]
Touristy thing in the morning, lunch at home, San Blas beach, then out visiting
somewhere at night: that was my routine in Malta. Routine on holiday is
interesting: it can help to guard against anxiety, but it can stifle
spontaneity and the freedom that comes with being somewhere you've never been
before.
I spent two days in Valletta, both of which with my Mum, who spent a week with
me in Malta, which I enjoyed so
much. Two days is about as long as you need to see Valletta, but the
irritating thing was the length of time it took to get there. To understand the
problem, consider the following: my aunty was perfectly happy to drive about
Gozo, but didn't want to drive on the mainland. (Her dislike of, or uninterest
in, the mainland and Valletta in particular was so apparent that, on arriving
in the capital she handed me a touristy map (you know the ones) and told me to
tell her and Mum where to go, in a nice way of course.) So after the ferry
(which took half an hour and had an unnecessarily loud safety message) we
caught the bus, which took an hour and a half to arrive in Valletta.
(Notwithstanding the fact that public transport is a virtual monopoly in Malta:
the (very) necessary ferry between Gozo and Malta and the (not quite as)
necessary bus network is run by the same company. There are no trains, which
were apparently decommissioned in the '70s for reasons that I am unaware, but
probably had something to do with, y'know, lack of space. Plans to build a
bridge or a tunnel or something between Gozo and Malta have apparently been in
fruition since the '70s, which makes me reflect that not only were the '70s a
highly creative period due to the fungi that was flavour of the month at the
time but also that were one constructing a history on Maltese public transport
in the twentieth century – a highly absorbing prospect, indeed – one would
concentrate on the '70s as a central point of the narrative. It also makes me
reflect that the (fantastic) idea to build a bridge (a literal one, obviously)
between Melbourne and Tasmania, as raised on one particular episode of Q&A and praised effusively by
panellist David Marr, will literally never happen.)
So Valletta was all right. A few particular moments stick in the brain: one was
getting the fantastic concept dish of "pizza pie" (a pizza, but in a
pie!) for lunch (it shows how noteworthy the place was) and, during a demonstration of ancient cannon at the Upper
Barrakka Gardens, how many times the demonstrator kept plugging Tour Advisor.
Publicity is one thing, but really, this guy kept going at it. A few museums, a
few tours, a few churches: that's about it for Valletta.
One night in Malta itself with more extended family, most of it spent losing
money at a casino that requires to sign up to a seven-year membership card on
entry, before literally getting up before dawn the next day to head thence to
London.
****
London (yes, I know it's not a country but it's not like I went
anywhere else in the UK): Two weeks with family while on holiday is enough for
anyone to long for the company of reasonably like-minded and like-aged people.
The best I got in this regard was my brother, Douglas, and his girlfriend,
Jade.
The plan was to meet up at the hotel in Lancaster Gate (opposite
Hyde Park, but more on that next paragraph) because of our different flights to
Heathrow (I was flying from Malta, obviously, while D and J flew from miserable
Melbourne because of D's exams, which I, fortunately, did/do not have. God save
RMIT, for once). While I waited in my room watching crappy Sunday arvo telly
(so many channels, including one dedicated to showing old game shows, but most
of the content seemed ripped off from the Beeb), I had the Bejesus scared out
of me by the "hotel", with a sign in the room saying a series of
thefts had occurred in the last few months and guests were advised to store all
valuables with reception. I would have stored my whole suitcase, but the
receptionist (arguably from somewhere on the Continent) bargained me down to
passport and non-GBP cash.
Hyde Park, as previously mentioned, was in the vicinity and I took
partially-full advantage by strolling in the summer sun. Families lounging,
couples bird watching, an amateur soccer match being played and a random archer
practising: all seen in one of the biggest parks in the world. I visited the
Kensington Palace museum, then holding an exhibition on Queen Victoria; a place
that would be known the world over a few weeks after that as the home of new
parents the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (the palace itself and not the
museum, obviously).
A few thoughts about the little I got to see of Britain:
authorities tend to spell out public service messages, although, even though I
don't see it myself, a British friend informs me we do the same thing at
home.
On a different note, it seems Australians, inasmuch as they still
look up to the "mother country", are aspiring to a false image.
London, and maybe not the whole of Britain, seems more European than British,
if that makes any sense. What I mean is that far from being in "splendid
isolation", London looks to Brussels and farther east (a sore point for
many) instead of itself for inspiration. I tender that how Australians relate
to London is different, and vastly so, than do Londoners. Then again, when one
is half a world away (a notion surprisingly quaint in this world of
near-instantaneous communication) from something, one tends to have false
perceptions of that thing.
Other London quirks: Trafalgar Square was holding a Canada Day
(which had round-robin matches of grass ice hockey) on the day we visited; if
you can find Greek Street (near the West End and next to Bankruptcy Street),
check out the abysmally small cheesecake shop that reputedly has the world's
best cheescake shop that, in reality, was all right; and, I got hay fever from
travelling around all day. Poor me.
****
For the next 17 days, I
went on a tour of a decent amount of Western Europe with Contiki and D and J in
tow. This tour, shared with 50 others, while ostensibly starting in London
really kicked off in Paris and ended, for us, in Athens. Yes, there was alcohol
and a spread of (airborne) communicable diseases (which was a sticking point in
my post-tour evaluation - the communicable diseases, that is, not the alcohol,
obviously), but, eh, a good time was had by all, including yours truly, which
is a rare occurrence to the point of being almost extinct. Oh, and Dover, lift
your game next time so people can actually see your White Cliffs instead of
being all foggy. (As if to prove my point, heavy fog was blamed for a recent Kent pile-up involving 120 cars.) Anyway, gay
Paree is where it really started.
****
We were caught up and lost in all of our vice
The theme song to my 17
days on a coach with people at least as equally crazy as I, as hard as that may
be to believe, "Pompeii" serves adequately (damn pop music etc.) as a
memento of my time with many Aussies (most from Sydney, some from Perth, a few
banana benders plus several from Radelaide and several Melburnians, including
one who, while a few years older than me, lives in the same suburb and went to
the same primary school as I), some Canadians (who obviously are more awesome
than Americans), two Saffas (both of whom smoked about a million darts a day)
and a pair of Brazilians. So, my cosmopolitan credentials have been proven,
obviously.
Not to sound ungracious
(again; it may be easier if I drop the pretence altogether), but part of the
attraction that this tour had in my mind in the days and weeks before departure
was the possibility of leaving Australiana. It's not like I could anyway: downtime
at aunty's house in Gozo, when admittedly it was too hot to do anything
productive outside, was usually spent on her laptop checking out the news from
Oz (especially when #Ruddmentum Mark II hit the fan), so it was not like I was
isolating myself from my home country, however much my ego wanted me to.
In any case, I was
reminded of Manolis, a Greek migrant, from Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap. The reader is
informed that, to his inestimable frustration, the elderly Manolis "had
left his damn village a lifetime ago, sailed across the globe to escape it, but
the village had come with him". This doesn't make Manolis a wannabe
hipster - his frustration has more to do with a completely justifiable wish to
escape the parochialism and provincialism that comes with staying in one place
for an extended period of time. Further, when he has the chance to
"escape" his hometown - in the suburbs of Athens, perhaps, or near
the Corfu waterfront – when he becomes one of so many to undertake one of the
most significant mass migration schemes in recent history, he discovers to his
abject horror that the lottery of life has thrown him in Melbourne's outer
suburbs, not with austere and aloof Britons or frisky Frenchmen, but instead
with cousins of cousins from Igoumenitsa and friends of acquaintances and
acquaintances of friends from Sparta and Lesbos, respectively.
Oh well. At least I had
some people to talk about the AFL with. And I do remember a somewhat inebriated
critique of Channel 7's footy commentators, of which even a brief summary
posted online could see me slapped with a defamation suit.
One thing I will say is
that Contiki managed to keep up the good cheer on the coach throughout the
trip, due primarily due to a game that the tour manager came up with called
Coach Karaoke. The mechanics of the game were simple enough (anyone who arrived
on the coach late had to sing a song off their MP3 on the coach mic but with
earphones on) and one which I was fortunate enough to avoid (except for a lousy
rendition of "Come On Eileen" during a slightly anarchic game of
Coach Olympics that included, among other things, a bra, the 1980 Olympics and
the TV show, "Frasier").
****
Paris: Interesting place,
not my most enjoyed. One reason I feel this way is everyone seemed a little
tense – Paris seemed to be the calm before the storm permanently. This probably
had something to do with the Francophone’s frustratingly frumpy attitude to the
English language – no native there speaks English [obviously, if I knew how to
write "speaks English" in French – and I'm not trusting Google
Translate for a second – I would have done so] and I recall that even in Malta,
as dear mother and I were touring the island of Comino, which was my To the Lighthouse moment,
Mum encountered a French woman and started speaking to her (my mum would
probably make small talk with Jack the Ripper) before the interlocutor hastily
replied, "Français, Français." The conversation would have been
comically incomprehensible had I not been there to translate the comments. I guess half a
millennium or however long it is of mutual loathing tends to put a stopper to
learning of the other culture. But, Anglo people learning French is not
uncommon at all, so I don't know.
The other reason I didn't
totally enjoy Paris is that ATMs (or Bankomats, as they are known throughout
Europe, yet again showing Europe's legendary and formidable anti-Anglo bias)
are highly scarce, which kind of sucks when gypsy credit card-scanning
criminals are everywhere, or maybe I was being a little paranoid. But the point
still stands.
I did all the touristy
things, simply because I didn't have time to do anything else. One memorable
moment was a boozy afternoon tea on the Champs-Élysées with D and J to celebrate D's birthday and another was seeing
a cabaret show at Le Novelle Eve, a cheapo version of the Moulin Rouge, which
basically was similar to the end sequence in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life,
with the after party at an Irish bar, funnily enough.
One other thing to note
is the amount of hawkers in Paris and other touristy spots. Being a
particularly equanimous soul, I was not disturbed by them, but I thought their
concentration to be somewhat distracting. The fact of the matter is they were
to be found only in Paris, Venice (especially St Mark's Square), Florence and
Rome. Part of the problem is that in these places, there is no need for
regulation of these bastards. How many millions visit the "City of
Light" or "La Cittá Eternale"
in spite of these "criminals"? (That's a self-quote, by the way.) Therefore, the
governments of these respective cities have no need to lock up these people
when the tourism dollar is assured anyway, because of the Eiffel Tower and the
Colosseum etc.
After two days and two
nights of suchlike fun, it was off to Lucerne.
****
Lucerne: Easily the most
scenic of all the places I visited. Lush mountains surround hospitable towns,
and Lucerne is definitely hospitable. Even one night there has more serenity
than Bonnie Doon or a stress-relieving saying.
Also on the itinerary was
a climb up Mount Stanserhorn, located in the town of Stanserhorn. For me, this
meant a walk around the town of Stanserhorn given that I was perhaps too
spontaneous in packing for tour, which led to my forgetting to read all the
guides about clothing from Contiki that got sent in the mail and are probably
online as well. Oh well. Stanserhorn has a nice, um, clock tower and the waiter
in the café spoke Italian, which was a nice
surprise to a rudimentary parlante d'italiano such
as myself, given that I was in a German-speaking canton. And I bought some nice
letter openers: for myself and as a belated birthday present for D.
****
Thence we made our way
towards Munich via Liechtenstein. Lunchtime in Vadur, the capital of
Liechtenstein, made no promises of enjoyment and so the highlights there for me
were, in the space of half an hour, chicken schnitzel, abstract sculptures of
horses and hearing from the tour manager that the prince of Liechtenstein holds
a party for all 33,000 of his citizens at his castle. Great.
****
Munich gave us way more
value than the one night we stayed there for. Most of the night was spent at a
beer hall, so it's good I still remember it. Because I rushed out of the hotel
to avoid Coach Karaoke, I forgot to bring my map, so I also remember dashing
madly through the streets of Munich, because I'd lost everybody at this massive
hall, trying to find the coach back to the hotel. I seemingly found a Contiki
bus, but, alas, it was not to be the right one. Our tour manager had advised us
to look for the coach with a stuffed koala on the dash (apparently named after
a previous tourist for possibly defamatory reasons), but when in a panic and
more than a little inebriated, it didn't help.
It also was, for me at
least, the most dynamic city of the tour. Why? A trip to Dachau concentration
camp brought firmly to mind a few men's unfeasible hatred of and inhumanity
towards other men, women and children, simply on the basis of religion. This
was in the afternoon on the road to Austria, while the morning saw an amiable
bike tour of the streets of Munich and the English Gardens - during the latter
of which our North American hosts prompted us spontaneously to strip off and
"swim" (more like hold on for dear life to the nearest bank) in the
fast-flowing river therein. Not to complain, but this was possibly the cause of
a nascent cough that turned into fever later in the trip.
****
Austria and The
Netherlands: the twisted sisters compared to the maidenly Germany. It was only
the former that I visited (much to the annoyance of a recent interlocutor, who
chided me for not going to see the latter barely five minutes after I met him)
but there is something derivative in visiting non-Germany Teutonic countries,
in the same way, I guess, derivatives exist in visiting non-Britain English
countries.
Anywho, we were staying
in a place called Niederau in southern Austria, very much the European
equivalent of whoop-whoop.
It wouldn't totally
surprise if a support group for people inconvenienced by my actions has formed.
Entry would be open to people who have had the misfortune to be in the same
peak-hour train carriage as me, students sharing my tutes, and other poor souls
who have had to periodically associate with me for an extended amount of time.
And after my recent adventures, there would be cause for an Austrian chapter of
the support group to form.
The cause of all this
stems from a bike tour up some random mountain. Within the first five minutes
my bike broke, arguably because my gear-changing wasn't top-notch. I got away
with it in Munich, mainly because the ride was short and more or less flat, but
when the chain snaps off the bike on a ride up a mountain, you had better hope
you do it pretty much near a storage shed full of bikes with unsnapped chains.
Which is what I did.
In so doing, I pissed off
to no end one of the hosts, apparently named Niels but who to my mind looked
more like a Klaus, which other people agreed with (they could have been
serious). I don't know what it was, but this Niels/Klaus character had that
kid-who's-left-too-long-in-the-basement look about him (the same as a few
teachers at my secondary school). I made it to the top, not exactly King of the
Mountain but thereabouts. Another guy in the group was struggling with his bike
as well, so at least my schadenfreude was well-placed for
once. I came out of the ride confirming my relative fitness as well as a
new-found confidence in changing gears manually that extended to doing so in
cars. Given the only time I've ever controlled a manual car in my four-year
driving history is during an extremely controlled environment (with a driving
instructor in a dual-controlled car in suburban streets during the middle of a
weekday), it was a good thing I didn't come home with that rather irrational
belief. It must have been the thin mountain air, or something.
The afternoon was spent
at Salvenaland, a theme park of sorts that happened to be near us. The main
attraction was the freshwater lake, replete with, um, fresh water and
inflatable stuff.
Let's be honest, beaches
are over-rated. Sand is so annoying and pebbles are even worse. And then you
have to deal with salt water? And that's considered leisurely? What, for
masochists? How extraordinary!
It is noteworthy that the
final evening in Austria delivered some Melbourne-like weather. I, and most
others in the group, planned to chill after the previous night's festivities.
Doing so meant the splendid task of sink-washing clothes and drying them on the
balcony. The plan seemed foolproof, except no one (at least not me) had counted
on a short downpour drenching said clothes while we were all at dinner. In my
defence, it was sunny and since I was away from Melbourne, it should have been
logical to expect non-Melbourne – i.e. non-variable – weather. Well, I was
wrong and the price I paid was the grand sum of three euros and waiting about a
million hours for my clothes to dry from the one hotel dryer.
Oh well. At least I got
to hear a funny story from one of my fellow travellers about the extremely
dodgy hotel owner.
It would be amiss of me
to not mention the Swarovski museum in Wattens, roughly 45 minutes away from
where we were staying. Described by the tour manager as an LSD trip, the
exhibits seemed only tangentially related to anything to do with crystals. Let me quote the abstract for the exhibit designed by Brian
Eno:
One day Painting met Music and they fell in Love.
They had 55 million crystal children, all
different from each other.
This work grows out of a place halfway between
painting, which stands still in space, and music, which changes in time: it is
an experience of change in four dimensions.
Always slowly changing: never quite still.
This is reminiscent of de
Botton's rendering of a menu item, at his airport hotel, into haiku form:
Delicate field greens with sun-dried cranberries,
Poached pears, Gorgonzola cheese
And candied walnuts in a Zinfandel vinaigrette.
The Swarovski museum was
fun overall, and even better still I just made it back in time to avoid Coach
Karaoke.
It was thenceforth to
Italy.
****
I have spent 12 years learning
the Italian language. All right, some years were more important than others,
but what I'm trying to do is build up the message that I've spent a fair amount
of time communicating, or trying to communicate in the Italian language. As
intimated previously, I tried to milk my knowledge, or more accurately what I
remembered after one and a half years of not learning Italian, for all it was
worth. This included when I was almost delirious with a cold in Rome (c/o that
English Gardens cough) and at a bar outside Venice. Alcohol and a predilection
for showing off never works out.
I spent six days in
"Il Bel Paese": two near Venice, two in Florence and two in Rome.
****
Venice: Not the
Californian locale, I found this place moderately enjoyable. We stayed just
outside Venice in a place called Mestre, which apparently is a bit seedy – not that
I experienced anything.
Of course I went on a
gondola trip, and with five others we shared three bottles of prosecco during
the ride. The person with whom I was sharing "our" bottle hardly took
a sip and so I, brave soldier that I am, finished most of it. They say Venice
is one of the most pick-pocketed cities in the world and I was more than a bit
fortunate to retain all of my stuff, including my faculties.
I was a bit enthusiastic
during the walkabout tour (again, to show off my Italian to the diminutive
French tour guide) and the glass-blowing demonstration but it's not like I had a
swim in the Rialto or anything.
Time-wasters included the
Carlo Goldoni museum and making a mess at a gelato store. Dinner that evening
was slightly special, due to the tour manager's instruction to buy genuine
mass-manufactured Venetian masks and the tour manager herself giving an a cappella performance of
some Italian song or other.
Also memorable was the
inter-Contiki mini-confrontation that was had on the ferry between Venice and
Mestre, like between the hero and the villain of a video game. Most of it is
shadow-boxing and saber-rattling, and rarely does it become serious. I wasn't
at the epicentre, but from reports apparently a few people on either side got a
little testy – God knows what about. There were a few more sequels later on.
****
Florence: Definitely my
most-enjoyed city, and definitely the place where I would choose to have a
working holiday, if I were lucky enough to do so.
The only slightly dodgy
thing about it was these weird afternoon showers that happened on both days of
the tour. The sample size is of course far too small to make anything of it,
but I do blame the inclement weather for damaging my camera, somehow.
The culture vulture in me
lapped up the art and the history: hearing about the cradle of the Renaissance from
a guy named Niccolò was almost
too much to bear. I spent the best part of the afternoon wandering a
decently-sized museum (not the Uffizi because I'm a cheapo) after some veal for
luncheon.
Florence was definitely my shopping town: leather
belts and boots (the latter with a 10% discount, after possibly pleasing the
sales assistant with my half-decent Italian instead of being an lazy
monolingual English speaker) along with souvenirs for friends back home made my
credit card work out. The boots came after confusing a salesperson - whom I was
asking for directions - when I confused the words for boots and scarves:
"scarpe" and "sciarpe" respectively. I would be confuzzled
too if someone asked me, during summer, for directions for the place where they
sell men's scarves. If you happen to visit Florence as part of a Contiki tour,
do see the Old Florence Leather Factory near the Santa Croce Church for that
discount. The Santa Croce Church again stepped into the limelight when I told a
beggar there (an old woman, but nonetheless to be regarded with suspicion) the
Italian equivalent of "Bugger off". She probably put a curse on me or
something, but whatevs.
On both nights in Florence most of the Contiki group went out. The first night
was to a pseudo-karaoke bar. I use "pseudo" because the place had
this absurd set-up where the karaoke happened on a platform where the DJ was,
next to the dance floor.
Sure, I'm bitter and jaded because I didn't get the chance to expel my lungs,
but only because what I hazily recall was a policy of no guys being allowed to
sing.
Again, there was an inter-Contiki rendezvous, which my brother informed me was
the best chance of accruing romantic dalliances. Obviously, nothing happened,
which I blame for somewhat inebriated emotional breakdown later that night that
also had to do with my burgeoning quarter-life crisis. Anyway.
The next night was more emotionally stable, with a group photo that, for me at
least, is strangely symbolic of Salinger-esque alienation, dinner at some rural
restaurant and then "dancing" back in town at a disco. The fact that
Europeans use "disco" in a non-ironic sense was not lost on anyone in
the group, and it certainly wasn't lost on American comedian Nick Kroll in his
sketch show, Kroll Show.
There, I happened to encounter two lovely girls, originally of Radelaide,
apparently, who in my mind were named Judith and Lucy. I say "in my
mind" because the main ingredient in fostering connections in clubs,
alcohol, or more specifically, vodkas with Red Bull, caused me to make the
connection with their names and the comedian, namely Judith Lucy. They giggled
when I stated this connection to them, so I could have been completely right or
completely wrong. After a brief prelude where I introduced them to the members
of the Contiki group – cue awkward nods – we went upstairs, to the second dance
floor, where they disappeared into the ladies' bathroom.
I remember waiting what felt like half an hour for them to return. They
didn't.
This was all to the good, however, with this event providing material for a
joke next morning, viz.,
said girls were from, not Radelaide or even Adelaide but Badelaide instead. The
joke didn't create the cacophony of laughter I expected, probably because
everyone was too hungover.
It seems germane at this juncture to clarify some points. Given all the
drinking I've mentioned – this is Contiki, after all – you, dear reader, have
probably marked me down as an alcoholic and you probably will endeavour to get
my name on the lists of recruitment agencies blacklisted. You will probably
start a social media flame war designed to trash my good name on account of the
fact that I had more bevvies than you in a 17-day period in July this year.
Read the following paragraph so you don't have to waste valuable time and
energy in doing so.
Let me be clear about the extent of my drinking: a) not once did I myself wake
up with a hangover (and thus never considered "Hangover" by Taio Cruz
ft. Flo Rida ft. not a lot of sense as an appropriate theme song for life (why
is it that "Hangover" is so loud? Surely it would make sense for a
song about a condition opposed to loud noises to not conceptually contradict
itself. But that's pop music for you)) and b) not once did I wake up in some
foreign place that I wasn't to be in, i.e. Romania instead of the booked hotel
in Florence.
Stuff that up your windpipe, puritans.
It was thence to Rome, either "the eternal city" or "the open
city" depending on your choice of referent.
****
It is literally impossible to avoid doing all the touristy things, or it is if
you are in reasonably good health. I was not, due to a cold that I think came
from a mixture of the swim in the English Gardens and the fact I was traveling
in the same coach with the same 50 other people and breathing in the same air
as them for an extended period of time.
The first day was not too bad, mainly because it consisted of short tours. I
did feel messed up on the coach back to the hotel, and rounding up dirty clothes
for the hotel service wash was more strenuous than it should have been.
I had signed up to two tours the next morning, and our starts were fairly
demanding, if only for the fact that a lot of money had been paid for a
chockers tour - I can't recall anyone making a major deal of a lack sleep
besides the usual grumbling.
I had planned to get up around 7am to avoid rushing, but my illness, which
included a bit of moaning, according to my brother, meant I slept in 'till 10
and so didn't get out 'till 12. This is without any sort of meal, by the
way.
The cool thing about Rome is that it is, I would tender, one of the few, if not
the only, city in the world where you can take a trip by bus to the city of
another country in around half an hour. I did, anyway, and I still remember it
was the number 49 bus that took me to the Vatican City. There are no
checkpoints or border guards along this trip, and so it feels a little bit
devious and transgressive to travel between two countries with such ease.
For such a religious place - it is the home of Roman Catholicism, by definition
- it is unsurprising enough that the Vatican City definitely puts one in mind
of a higher being. Sure, the Sistine Chapel, the tour of which I missed out on
due to aforementioned illness, and St Mark's Square are holy enough, if one is
inspired by those things, but one needs the patience of a monk to deal with
hawkers in the Vatican. They are surprisingly prevalent there, notwithstanding
religion's dictums on the intersection between faith and commerce.
The clash between the needs of the now and the needs of the hereafter have been
made manifest ever since Christ lambasted, chastised and castigated the
money-keepers at the Temple, and were He to return today, his main point of
criticism would be churches that charge people to get in and admire what they
perceive to be its beauty. Moreover, churches exhibiting this practice exude a
lack of confidence in what they profess to be a virtue: charity.
Christ would also curse the hawkers, like what he
did to the barren fig tree.
But back to the here and now, or the there and then at least, and eager
tourists with objectophilia lined up at the post office of the Vatican – more
of a caravan – to rub their worldliness in the faces of family and friends. I
can't say anything, I guess, as I'm doing the same thing with this
memoir.
The reason I'm snarky is I had no palpable plan to spend the afternoon. I mean,
sure, being able to update my uni timetable was good – even though it opened at
midnight the night before in my time zone, I was still able to get a better
schedule than those stuck in Melbourne – but my holiday wasn't meant to be
productive. Caeteris paribus,
all things being equal and in this case, all things being shit, I decided to
spend half an hour in an internet café run by a guy with a look that said he's
seen it all before. What that "it" is is unclear even to me, but
intuitions shouldn't be ignored because of a fixation on rationality.
I had planned an early night, but a glass of grappa after
dinner persuaded me otherwise and so it was off to the courtyard of the hotel
to farewell some early leavers from the group. From my point of view it was
fairly low key – someone from the hotel was hosing down the surface the next
morning, but the night was hardly Bacchanalian – but one certain person did his
best to change that, providing a couple of memorable lines – the subject of one
of which was to do with a subset of women on welfare benefits either fellating
or being ordered to fellate this person. It's not like alcohol turned him from
introvert to extrovert, but he said he was an arts student, so he should have
been able to handle his liquor better.
****
Pompeii was next on the agenda. Its main
attraction is its status of a living museum, which is due to the neighbouring
Mt Etna's smothering of the town in ash way back when. We were guided by a
humourous tour guide, who was suitably deadpan when we came (nudge, nudge) to
the brothels of yore; the beds seemed rock hard (wink, wink) just by sight.
It is worth mentioning that there pervades, especially in the touristy sections
of Italy, a quiet adulation of the penis. Postcards (not just in Venice) parade
the member with a mask on.
I don't find the penis disgusting and I don't
think the graphic graphics have anything to do with Europe's more liberal
attitude towards the body. From an aesthetic point of view, and remember, we're
dealing with something Kryten, the cyborg from Red Dwarf, criticised as having
a look that resembles "the last chicken in the shop", it doesn't
actually look that great.
I also recall the guide informing the group about how the ancient people of
Pompeii and elsewhere in the Roman Empire paid a tax on urine, because of the
ammonia within which that could be used as a cleaning agent. He quipped it was
the only tax that Italians today don't pay. I found it funny and half-laughed,
at least out of sympathy.
In one of his many television series, Jamie
Oliver visited Italy to discover the national cuisine, called La Cucina Povera – the Poor Kitchen –
because of its emphasis on simple ingredients and traditional ways of cooking
and eating. Indeed, the Slow Food movement, designed to achieve these ends in a
world of fast food, was created by an Italian.
Anywho, the crux of the show was to point out
that, in contrast to the soulless school kitchens of England, Italian kids got
proper food on a consistent basis. The knowledge that i bambini possessed of
obscure vegetables was enough to demonstrate the Italians' love of food.
This famous love of food was not on display at a
cafe the group haunted after the Pompeii tour. It was food, but not as I had
known in the previous few days. Sure, it wasn't a restaurant, but even the
service stations on the sides of motorways had better stuff. The chicken
schnitzel I chose (or maybe it chose me) was your standard Anglo microwaved
affair. Worst of all, the guy behind the counter insisted on correcting me on a
minor error in Italian. Take that, ego.
The best part of the Italian trip, however, was
yet to come.
Due to the vagaries of European driving law, the
coach driver had make it from Brindisi – the port from which we were to embark
a ferry to Igoumenitsa, in Athens – to Barcelona in 36 hours. Google Maps
informs me the journey is exactly 1,917km (it also informs that the trip passes
through tolls, which is fair enough, but also that it passes through France,
which is self-evident enough if one has spent more than five seconds studying
geography, so one feels a little disconcerted as to why this needs to be
mentioned at all). Google says the trip can be done in 17 hours, which I’m not
sure includes breaks, but if we assume the journey is to be done in 36 hours,
then that’s 53.25km/h. If we apply a similar ratio to a trip from Melbourne to
Badelaide, which can be done in eight hours (but European driving law would
stipulate that it be done in 17 hours) then the 727km of that trip would be
done at an average of 42.76km/h. It’s not a trip down the lane, but it’s hardly
a horror story.
This is a long-winded way of pointing out that we
got to Brindisi at a rather unsavoury hour – midnight – where we would wait
three, no make that five hours due to the ferry not knowing what a clock is.
Europeans, I had always felt, were practical
creatures divorced from a stuffy Anglo bureaucracy. This sentiment has proven
erroneous, for a number of reasons: a) the word “bureaucracy” is derived from
the French word for “desk” b) Europeans apparently have this weird work-to-rule
fetish going on.
It was in this vein that we discovered the
terminal to have its air-conditioner on, even though it wasn’t stuffy or warm
or anything. It led to the absurd situation where it was warmer outside than it
was inside at 2am. A few clever dicks brought blankets so they could sleep in
comfort while whiling away the hours, but excuse me if I wasn’t prepared for
this situation.
So, on the cusp of being ready to kill each
other, we boarded the ferry to Greece. Being an inanimate object, the ferry
could not evince any sort of regret for its tardiness, and were it to do so, it
would still not make up for the trip.
Given that the ferry is one with cabins, it would
have been designed to make it convenient for people to stow luggage in said
cabins. Installing one, and only one, elevator does not go any way at all to
accomplish this end. In lieu of
the elevator, we carried luggage up six levels – twelve flights of stairs –
before I sank in my bed.
With a hatred of humanity – or at least a hatred
of poorly-designed and tardy Greek liners – rivalling that of Mick Malthouse’s
family, I thus slept, forgoing the slightly discounted breakfast offer we had
received. I broke my fast instead with a tin of Fonzies – the Italian
equivalent to Twisties.
Disembarking was a Greek tragedy, with all the
requisite pushing and shoving that is the cause of 50 people with luggage and
pensioners taking their sweet time. Again, there was the walking down the
flights of stairs, which was more madcap than it needed to be due to very tight
scheduling with the ferry from Igoumenitsa to Corfu, our next
destination.
Next time a ferry is built, all I ask is that
more than one elevator is used, especially if it is a ferry hopping between
countries. I understand the Greek economy is in a bit of bother at the moment,
but it could be the Keynesian stimulus the country needs.
****
Corfu was heavenly, from the ocean to the hotel
to the ferry with the cheap drinks and toasties that did wonders for my stuffed
nose.
It's worth mentioning the story of George, the
owner of a leisure boat who was, as the girls would say, a bit of a
creeper.
The majority of the group spent the majority of
the day swimming in the waters off Corfu c/o George's boat. He was versed well
in the art of making innuendo – giving us a doodle to play with, he invited us
to play with his "long thing" etc. Of course he endeared himself to
the group, not only because he was manoeuvring the boat, but also he had on board Vergina
beer, which didn't taste at all how I thought it might have.
George's boat was also the occasion where Icarus
syndrome hit me. After a spot of parasailing, where I did fly reasonably close
to the sun (as well as reasonably close to chafing), I took it upon myself to
try wakeboarding for the first time. Given I handed over a fair amount of cash
in the process, it would have been expected that I wakeboard for a measurable
amount of time, especially as a girl from the group had been drafted in to take
photos. She ended up relaying messages from the captain that became
increasingly frustrated, as I unnecessarily flouted my lack of co-ordination.
Like someone looking to be euthanased, I eventually swallowed the pill, making
my way back to the boat minus a fair amount of good PR.
There were two dinners in Corfu, one of which
stands out. Not only was it one of those places where the house wine, labelled
"home wine", got better as the night wore on, but also the
post-dinner celebrations included this fascinating little Greek game I'd never
heard of. Basically, the gist of this game is to insert a potato between two
people's foreheads so that the people face each other. The aim of the game is
to keep the potato aloft while performing various manoeuvres.
Suffice to say, I was never going to win, but since I was with a woman who knew
what she was doing, we finished a respectable third.
****
Finally, then, on to Athens. 16 days of touring,
partying, making acquaintances and adding to the list of people to avoid in the
near future were done, with one day to go.
In vino veritas was proven true at farewell drinks that night, with my self
proving to be rather gentlemanly for a change, notwithstanding my acquisition
of ouzo as a drink of choice.
(An ouzo- and media-related joke, thanks to one
wag in the group: what is a journalist's favourite drink? An ouzo! Hint: say it
quickly.)
The next morning saw a quick tour of Athens'
historical centre. Of course, the Acropolis et
al was great, but the Greeks
seem to have a historical sore spot.
On the descriptives around the Acropolis, they
list the history of what is a damaged building. The two main highlights are a
Venetian army bombing the Acropolis as part of some obscure war and Lord Elgin
taking some bits around the edges back to Britain.
The Greeks find Elgin's theft more offensive for
some reason. Were it not for a lack of funds, which of course has nothing
whatsoever to do with the Greek government, the Elgin Marbles would be back in
its native country in a flash.
The train ride to Athens International Airport
was a chance for reflection. I had seen a lot in a short period of time and yet
more was to come. D, J and I were to advance to Croatia, staying in Zagreb for
one night and then three nights in Osijek with family.
****
I thought entering my ancestral homelands would
have had some sort of spiritual effect on me. Maybe the fact that my ancestral
homelands are Malta and Croatia, out of all places, has something to do with my
lack of spiritual enlightenment.
So Zagreb happened. Most similar to Lucerne, it's
one of those places that can be best described as "modern". Its ATM
facilities are not modern, with a travellers’ credit card of mine being chewed
up by one of those pesty Bankomats. Sure, I have no idea why I chose that
particular machine when the bank was across the road, but I was still sick and
probably more than a little fatigued. Cue more ranting about criminals
D and I went to the bank the next day, and I
tried to explain what happened, through a stuffed nose and a borrowed Lonely
Planet phrase guide, to the poor manager. I was promised an email as soon as
they destroyed the card once they took it out of the ATM. To this day, three
months later, I haven't received anything. I have remaining money from the
trip, but I wonder if I should have had more.
We tripped through the Croatian capital. My
personal favourite experience with bureaucracy was when we went to the central
railway station to book seats to Osijek. The attendant told us of the next
departure of the relevant train. Not being satisfactory, we requested the train
after that. The attendant released this profound sigh, which to my mind had
more to do with a general unease and discontent with life.
The human life is hardly pleasurable at all stages,
but for a person to be so heavily displeased by being asked to glance to her
left and look at something that surely has been her mainstay throughout all her
years of experience on the job indicates a disenchantment with life that the
modern philosopher would be hard pressed to reverse.
We made it to Osijek all right in the end.
****
The concept of extended family is extraordinary.
These people, because they had the same surname as D and I, felt obligated to
feed us, shelter us, wash our clothes and provide us with amusement. They did
all this without knowing our particular vanities, our (my) neuroses, our flaws
and our indiscretions. Will I do the same?
The relationship was tested somewhat by the lack
of Croatian or English fluency on both sides. We got by fine.
Incidentally, we were staying in a place called
Brodançi, just outside Osijek, so we really were staying in Bro'town.
To be fair, the highlights were more provincial
than other places, but I will admit that Vukovar held a fair amount. That place
still feels the scars the War of Independence in the '90s, especially given
Serbia is just across its river. We visited a few memorials, including a pig
farm where the invaders performed a mass execution of the local residents. It's
pretty surreal considering the farm still functions today, a hundred metres or
so down from the audiovisual memorial.
Also noteworthy is the afternoon we spent at
Copacabana water resort. I wrote above about the unthinking nature of bar names
– the same applies to water parks, it seems.
The opportunity cost of attending said water park
was a chance to swim in Osijek’s river, the Drava. Notwithstanding my encounter
in the English Gardens, I was a little bit disappointed about not being able to
swim in another natural body of water. Given that everybody else – including my
young cousins or cousins of cousins or something – wanted to do otherwise left
me with little choice.
The end was nigh. I received a few gifts to take
home – the most intriguing of which, apart from the food and drink products
that Europeans are renowned for providing in excess (my great-aunts or
something presented us with a salami measuring probably a foot long and a
similar width, which had not a chance in hell of making through Australian
customs), was a sting on my elbow by a bee. Cue yelping and dancing akin to a
Saturday night on the tiles, which must have done wonders for perceptions of my
sanity, or lack thereof.
Arriving at Zagreb International Airport, I fell
into a deep malaise, which grew as the minutes pointed to my inevitable
departure from this fascinating continent. The duty-free store, weeks earlier a
wonderland, seemed shallow; the Twitter stream on my wi-fi enabled phone was
comprised of Tweets about Q & A,
the live “town hall” meeting consisting of public notables. The show had lately
been considered a bit of a joke and so it was hardly lifting my spirits.
****
I’m hardly known for my sociability, so it was as
much a surprise to me as it could have been to anybody when I got chatting to a
young Brit on the flight home.
It all started at the departure gate of Doha
airport, which is cordoned off for Anglo departures, on the shuttle between the
gate and the plane itself.
(Unlike Malta’s airport, the situation at Doha is
only temporary.)
Given that the flight was Doha to Melbourne, I
thought it safe to assume most people were Melburnians, which, again, was a
little bit depressing.
It was in that vein that I made a joke to my
neighbour on the flight that the intervening shuttle trip was as crowded as a
peak time trip on the Melbourne metro.
He seemed bemused, and when I at last picked his
British accent, the penny dropped.
Fortunately, he had visited the land of Oz before
– he was staying in Heatherton, of all places, this time, for a funeral – and
so at least he could say he’d accomplished all the touristy things already.
We talked, we chatted, we nattered. And then we
parted ways, this fine anonymous gentleman becoming one of many who left my
life as quickly – as faultlessly – and as unceremoniously as Richard Parker
left Pi Patel in Life of Pi.
The epilogue to my travels came in the form of a
minor medical emergency whereby the plane made an unscheduled stop in Badelaide
due to what sounded like a horrendous illness that a poor kid was suffering
from. I don’t know his or her name, or what the condition was, but I do wonder
if everything turned out fine.
****
So I returned to miserable Melbourne, with Mum
choosing to have a go at me seemingly because I was going back to the car too
slowly, notwithstanding the fact that I hadn’t slept properly for more than 24
hours. In actuality I think it had more to do with the fact that she couldn’t
locate the parking paystation at Melbourne International Airport. Bizarre,
isn’t it?
Welcome to the wonderful, wacko world of my life.
****
I immediately returned to
university. One of my first classes was for my feature writing course; in it,
the very cosmopolitan lecturer centred his discussions on the importance of
memory.
I had missed out on the
first week of semester, and the exercise in that feature-writing tutorial was
to pick out three objects from a wallet, bag etc. and write on the story behind
those seemingly inane objects.
Had I been present for
that class, I would have written about mementos of my time in Europe: the Roman
bus ticket; the Maltese casino card (valid for seven years) and perhaps my one
remaining travellers’ credit card.
But, here’s the thing: I
was elsewhere. I was in a place so contradictory to Melbourne – culture-wise,
behaviour-wise and of course weather-wise – that it would have been folly to
regret missing out. Because, for once, I wasn’t missing out.
Europe beckoned me away
from the harsh mistress that is Melbourne, for five weeks, before Melbourne
stole me back.
I’ll spend the rest of my
life making my way back to Europe’s welcoming arms.
