Travel Diary, Episode 3: Follow the Sun

I seem to have sent the sun ahead of me. Everywhere I go people have been saying: "It was really cold and rainy for the last few days, but the weather has been great since yesterday. They say it will get bad again in a couple of days, so you're really here at the right time..."

It's probably churlish of me to complain about sunny, warm weather wherever I go, but I had been told to expect it would be unseasonably cold and I had prepared accordingly. I have plenty of clothes for cold weather, not so much for hot weather. I've been carting this stupid jacket around with me from pillar to post, and it has been an average of 32 degrees wherever I go.

It was stinking hot on Rügen, and my "luxury" hotel room had two big windows facing the afternoon sun, no airconditioning, no fans, and nothing on the bed apart from duvets. I cannot understand Europeans. Duvets are not a year-round bedding option if you don't have airconditioning. That's why God invented sheets and light bedspreads.

Okay, maybe they actually evolved over several generations of textile production, but I'm pretty sure God inspired their evolution.

So far, I have not slept in a single bed that had anything to offer apart from a bottom sheet and a duvet (and some really uncomfortable pillows). Even if, for some unfathomable reason, the people in this continent were unable to understand that you could put two sheets on the bed, rather than just one, surely they have some awareness of the fact that duvet covers could be used separately from the duvets, and things would be much cooler that way...

Speaking of God, hotels and Rügen, I have to have to dedicate a "thank God!" moment in this episode.

I was under the impression that my hotel was in Sellinn, so the plan was to take the train into Bergen auf Rügen, then catch a couple of busses into Sellinn and try to find my hotel from that point. As the train was going through Rügen it ran beside a few roads for a while, and the thought occurred to me that, if I was ever going to try driving in Europe, this would be a good place to do it. Country roads, and all that...

So, in Bergen auf Rügen I made some enquiries about hiring a car and was directed to the Europcar in the town. The kind man behind the counter didn't have any cars available, but managed to find one for me anyway.

I had a brief moment of freaking out on the way to Sellinn. I had turned up a sidestreet I wasn't sure about, I was driving a manual for the first time in years, I was on the "wrong" side of the road in a place that turned out to be quite busy after all and I hadn't eaten anything for several hours. Oh, and it's been so long since I had driven a manual that I didn't know you push the gearstick down to get into reverse in modern cars.

Thankfully, another nice man (a passing Belgian) stopped and helped me figure it out. He also gave me an apple, for which I was incredibly grateful. It's a lesson I seem to keep learning over and over again - if you have the choice to "eat now" or "eat later", you should eat now. Later always ends up being much later that you expected.

When I got to Sellinn, I couldn't find the street I was after on the map. That's because my hotel wasn't in Sellinn. It was in Göhren. A nice lady gave me a map to take with me and showed me how to get to the town where my hotel was actually located...

Except the booking was wrong. When I got there, it turned out that my travel agent had managed to book me in for the three nights previous, and now the hotel was completely booked up and I had no where to go. The nice man behind the counter phoned around a few places and, on his fifth try, managed to get me into the last available room in another hotel. That would be the "luxury" suite, which was considerably more expensive than I had hoped.

This actually worked out quite well, though, because I decided to only book in for two nights and spend my third night at a hotel back in Bergen on Rügen, in a place near the train station. This meant that I had a car to get to all of the places I particularly wanted to see (and could take my time without worrying about bus or train timetables), and I could get the car back the afternoon before I left, rather than trying to negotiate my way through the town at some ungodly hour of the morning.

So thank God for looking out for me on this one. Between a spur of the moment decision to hire a car and a bunch of really nice people, I managed to have a good time instead of a series of disasters.

It turns out I didn't miss much by not staying in Sellinn. I saw everything I wanted to see in a morning. Göhren had even less to offer. I have no idea why there were so many people there. I didn't even take a good look at Binz, although I've been told it was one of the more popular sea-side resort towns. Considering how many people were in Sellin and Göhren, I can't fathom what Binz would have been like.

Sassnitz, on the other hand, was fantastic. I spent most of one day there, and probably could have stayed a little longer. It had a rather crappy beach, but you could walk straight from the town into the national park, and the parts of town I saw where so very... "porty". It's like what you imagine a European fishing port/sea-side holiday village might be. And there was this really funky pedestrain suspension bridge connecting the town proper with the harbour. Very cool.

And the national park was fantastic. I could definitely spend more time there, but I had to visit Hitler's holiday camp before heading back to my stinking hot hotel.

Prora was interesting. I don't really know what's there apart from one of the ugliest non-Soviet buildings I've ever seen and a really nice beach with a brick wall inexplicably in the middle of it... It was fairly late when I got there, and I particularly wanted to see the building. The Hitler connection didn't interest me so much as the sheer magnitude of the thing. I had seen pictures of this massive structure, and found the concept of such a huge, ugly "holiday village" incredibly fascinating. In the end, though, it was just another ugly building.

The beach was really nice (much nicer than the one at Sassnitz), but it was clothing optional, and I felt I would be out of place if I stayed around for too long without at least taking off my shoes. I like to opt for clothing, myself - everything I take off is just something I have to put somewhere or carry around with me, and then I just have to put it on again later... Much more convenient to just stay fully clothed in the first place - but it does make you look a tad over dressed when everyone else is either wearing a skimpy pair of togs or nothing at all, while you are wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt and shoes and socks...

Would I visit Rügen again? Maybe, but probably not at this time of year. There are just so many people, and it's quite warm, really. Too warm. Well, hot. It's hot.

Travel Diary, Episode 2 - There's a Bear in There...

I can see why members of my family have a habit of moving to Berlin "for a few months" and staying there for the next four or five years. It seems like a very livable city. Funky, yet sophisticated. On one side of the massive park you have the hippies, on the other side you have the yuppies. Somewhere around there you also have normal people, and they all seem to be mixing quite happily.

I love a town that can be easily navigated by rail, and between the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn I managed to get to nearly everywhere I had a mind to go. I wasn't there for long, though. Next time I'll have to actually visit Berlin, rather that just stop over for a few days.

But, fortunately, some good little holiday fairy wispered the words "bike tour" in my ear, and I managed to see most of the big sights in my first day.

I can thoroughly recommend Fat Tire Bike Tours as having a nice mix of toodling around the city and getting a bit of a history lesson (plus, they take you to a beer garden in the middle of the park for lunch - so very German).

My tourguide was a Kiwi, and I quite enjoyed his sense of humour. His face wasn't bad, either. My heart will always belong to Peter-From-NYCe-Wheels, but Francis from Fat Tire Bike Tours can turn my head whenever he likes.

There are a lot of bears in Berlin. Fibreglass ones. They mass produced them at some point and every other business seems to have a luridly painted fibreglass bear out the front. This, in spite of the fact that I couldn't find a European bear in the zoo. Asiatic bears and polar bears, yes, but your typical this-may-kill-you-if-you-get-lost-in-these-woods bear? No. Maybe it was there somewhere and I just missed it.

For some reason, zoos and gardens are always on my list of must-see places when I visit somewhere. I'll also try to see a museum or a gallery if I have time, but if I don't, then it's the gardens at the top of my list and zoos somewhere around second. I don't know why, because I'm actually a little bored with zoos.

"Oh, yeah. It's a lemur. Again. And, look - there's another elephant..."

I was a little weirded out by the way the Berlin zoo put animals from different parts of the world in the same enclosures. I can understand putting ostriches in with African ungulates, but emus? And why were there kangaroos right next to capybaras? There didn't seem to be much logic to the layout - which is probably why I couldn't find any European bears.

However, it must be said that the park next to the zoo - the massive park in the middle of town - totally rocks. The Tiergarten is massive, and so very woodsy and parksy. I didn't see any animals (apart from a dead mouse) in the "animal garden", though, which seemed a bit of a shame. It did have naked people in it, but that's Germany for you. For some reason, if you give them a patch of grass or sand and some sun, they feel compelled to expose as much skin as possible. Between sun exposure and smoking, it's a wonder Germany isn't a cancer factory.

Fortunately there seems to be some sort of pattern to this and you won't see naked people at every park or beach. You will probably see boobs, though. Mostly on the women, but no guarantees...

Travel Diary, Episode 1 - Off to a Flying Start

So, I really hate flying. This is something I know, and have known for some time - yet unfortunately travelling to Europe kind of involves a couple of rather long flights. Seven hours from Australia to Singapore, and twelve hours from Singapore to Helsinki (then two hours to Berlin, but more on that later).

Both flights involve rather large planes, which I hate especially. I actually don't mind flying in the small planes (like Dash 8s), but the big ones just make me feel stiff, sore, headachey and nauseated.

I managed to survive the flight to Singapore without too much incident. It was a day-time thing and I was sitting somewhere where I could easily get up and stretch every half-hour or so. It all started to head down-hill after I hit Singapore.

I had a four-hour wait for my next flight, hanging around the airport trying to keep myself conscious. This was made somewhat difficult by the soothing music they were piping through the airport. Some kind of tinkling piano thing that seemed far too soporific for the occasion. I ended up pacing back and forth through the airport and climbing up and down the stairs several times while humming ABBA's On And On And On in my head in order to keep myself awake.

I'm reasonably certain the security personnel thought I was nuts.

Then the next flight came into action, and whatever was stopping me from getting travel sick on the first flight completely wore off. You know what the trouble is with throwing up two hours into a twelve hour flight? You still have to stay on the plane for the next ten hours.

Oh, and I actually threw up twice. The first time it was whatever I'd eaten during the day (most recently, and least digested: rice), the second time it was the water I had taken to settle my stomache and rinse out my mouth after the first time. That lead to about eight hours of not eating or drinking anything at all until I thought it was safe to try a small bit of water again.

Suffice to say I was feeling seriously dehydrated by the time I got to Helsinki...

About that. I had a six hour stop over in Helsinki because I was booked on a Finnair Flight that must route through Henlsinki come hell or high water, but when I was getting off the plane in Singapore (after my first flight), I noticed a shorter flight direct to Frankfurt was leaving in a couple of hours. Why, oh why couldn't my travel agent get me onto that one? Especially since I'd asked for the most direct flight with the least amount of time involved?

I did get to spend four hours trying to find bland food and water in Helsinki (and saw a few sights and a market while I was at it)... aber, Mensch! Es war sehr ermüdend.

And, of course, it was at this point that I realised I had booked myself on a series of bus tours. The one thing that makes me more nauseated than flying is travelling in the back of a bus. This could be a huge exercise in "my goodness, Sharon is an idiot".

Trippin'

"So, I expect you'll have some stories to tell."
"Not really, I'm going to be too busy getting from one place to the next to do anything too interesting."
"Yeah, but you're the kind of person who would find something."
"What?"
"I can see you deciding to say 'Oh, what's down this path?' and go off the beaten track, or something."
"Oh.  Okay..."

I'm never quite sure how to take it when someone points out I have a reputation for being, well, chaotic.  I don't think I deserve it.

Okay, sure, there was that one time when I accidentally went for a two-hour bushwalk in a national park near a town I wasn't even intending to visit, and as a result I missed a party where I was supposed to be reciting "To A Haggis" to a haggis*...  But in my defence I had mixed up my dates, and the craft fair I went to see wasn't on that weekend, so I had to do something to make up for the fact that I had driven halfway across the state for nothing.

And, well, yes, maybe I have (on more than one occasion) climbed up some mountain just because I drove past a sign saying "Mountain Such-And-Such Turn off in 500m".  They were always little mountains and I always stayed on the well marked tracks.  And maybe I once decided to buy a $1000 print and have it shipped back home just because I visited a gallery on a runners' high**.  These things happen to everybody.

Or, at least, they should.  I don't regard myself as being particularly reckless or unpredictable.  I just see interesting things and go for a closer look.  What do other people do?  See interesting things and sit quietly?  What's the point of that?

I think I'm one step above boring.  I keep myself amused, that's all.  And yet, every now and then someone makes a comment that makes me think everyone must see me as the town eccentric, or something.  Like that time when someone introduced me to a visitor as "our local eccentric".

Anyway, I'm leaving the country this weekend.  My big European holiday is upon me, and I'll be spending a couple of Saturdays on a plane (travelling from Australia to Europe is weird, time wise),  and hitting Helsinki and Germany for a bit before taking a language course in Estonia.  Then there are a couple of bus tours through Switzerland and Italia before chilling out in The Eastern Empire*** for a few days.

Far too much movement to get into too much trouble.


*It's traditional to recite Burns' poem "To A Haggis" whenever serving haggis at parties.  I wonder if there are other foodstuffs that also require poetry.

**Yeah... don't do that.  Sure, I still love looking at the print ("Jam I" by Karen Wood), but I still regret spending that much money on something I wouldn't have bought if I'd gone to the gallery before going up the mountain rather than after.

***Austria.  The "real" name of the country is Österreich, which means "Eastern Empire" - which sounds totally cool, so I'm going to call it that from now on.

Vehklemine 3

Correction!

I previously said the target area for Foil is the head and torso, but I was wrong.  It's the the body (minus limbs and head) from the neck down.

I do believe this makes Foil on of the only combative sports where the head is out of limits, but the groin is perfectly legit.

Women's Things

Everytime I think of using tampons (which is, admittedly, not very often), reading the instructions freaks me out and I decide I want nothing to do with them.

I know thousands of women have been using them for years.  I know there are instances in life where they would be entirely appropriate and practical.  They still freak me out.

I mean, you are inserting a foreign object deep into the cavities of your body - so deep that you can't actually remove it yourself.  You need to pull it out with a piece of string.  A piece of string!  What could possibly go wrong?  And you do this knowing full well that, should you be unable to remove this object due to either string failure or some structural flaw in the object itself, you will die a slow and painful death unless you have some medical person of some description go in after it.

This is a possibility that exists every single time you use one of these things, so multiple times a day you are putting yourself into a situation where you may end up having to chose between death and an invasive procedure.  If something goes wrong, there are no other options.

This sounds like something civilised people do (risking embarrassing death for sake of convenience), but it doesn't sound like something smart people do.

You wouldn't (or, at least I hope you wouldn't) insert things so far into your nose or ears that you couldn't remove them without medical assistance - especially if you might die of toxic shock as a result of not having them removed - so why on earth would you do it with your hoo-haw?  It makes no sense to me at all.

Today I learned...

... that World War II is not over:

Medvedev Indifferent to Japan’s Reaction on his Kuril Visit

04:46 05/07/2012 Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday he is indifferent to Japan’s reaction over his trip to one of the Kuril Islands earlier in the week.>>

Other news of the day

So, technically, Russia and Japan are still "fighting" WWII? How does that work?

I think disputed border territories ought to have some sort of time limit imposed. They can only be disputed for, say, 50 years? Is that reasonable? After that point I think you should take a poll of the people who live there and ask them who they'd rather be (Russian or Japanese, Russian or Georgian, Russian or Estonian, Turkish or Armenian, Turkish or Cypriot...) and let them decide for themselves.

This isn't too extreme a suggestion, is it?

Dirigable

Tell me how it is that, in this day and age, we still don't have the technology to create personal dirigibles.

I've been thinking about those old competitions people used to have that involved a single person, their crazy, mad-cap contraption and a long drop into a body of water.  All those attempts to make personal, one-man airships...  Why have none of them ever lead to us being able to take our dirigibles out for a spin?

We have motorcycles, ski-doos and jet-skis.  Why can't we have personal dirigibles?  How hard can it be to make a little one-person airship? 

Sure the practical applications of dirigibles have long since disappeared, but surely they are ripe for entertainment possibilities?

It's not like they would to go particularly high to be worthwhile.  If they can clear the trees, then great.  If they can't, people will just take them to parks, fields and beaches to play with them.

Oooh, I just had a vision of a dirigible park.  Can't you imagine it?  A wide open space full of people swooping around in personal airships...