Panos

Panos from the years:



These are all put together using Autostitch.

(And yeah, that's right, my first post in months, and I don't write anything.)

Artsy

The Tate Modern has a new installation in the Turbine hall, which (for those of you who have never seen it) is a massive, open concrete space in the former power building.

Previously, it's been home to thousands of white boxes as well as slides. Based on those two alone, you can imagine why I get the urge to go back whenever they have something new.

So this is what they've done this time... they've cracked the floor. Or more precisely, some artist has. It's supposed to represent something about racism and divided society, but I just think it's cool.


As did the hundreds of visitors there. People were generally using it as one big photo prop, taking shots of themselves straddling it, lying down next to it, or jumping over it. Kids treated it like a toy, dancing around it and sticking their feet in the wider bits.


There's a warning sign near the ticket desk, warning people to watch where they step. Art than can hurt you (or, at least your ankles) -- now that's good times.

In other artastic news, Shannon and I went to go see the Turner Prize Retrospective at Tate Britain. The actual Turner Prize is temporarily in Liverpool this year, so they've gathered up a bunch of pieces from the last 23 years and crammed it in a few rooms.

As a show, it's not great. Some pieces seem to have no explanation whatsoever. And, generally, I'm not all that happy with Turner stuff. But there was a pair of Chris Ofili paintings, which are awesome, and the Damien Hirst cows in formaldehyde, which was cool to see, if a bit gross. I really liked this one video, too, by Gillian Wearing of police arranged in a group portrait and then filmed for an hour while they just stand there. Really cool and surprisingly enjoyable to watch.

Post-Tate, Shannon and I went in search of Starbucks -- mmm... gingerbread latte, I love you -- and happened past Trafalgar Square, where there's a new statue up on the fourth plinth. It doesn't have a permanent statue, so they rotate a new one in every 18 months. The last one was a gorgeous statue of a pregnant woman with no arms or legs... I wasn't sure about it at first, but it def grew on me.

Now, there's this:

It's called Model for a Hotel. It looks a bit like cheap shelving from Ikea, but it certainly is bright and colourful, and London can always use a bit of colour. But it does look rather out of place among all the military statues.

Halloween and Fireworks

End of October is always a fun time in London, not so much because they're big on Halloween here (they're not) but because the local neighbourhood children make it sound like a freaking war zone, setting off fireworks constantly.

But while the UK is only just growing in affection for the whole Halloween thing, I'm somewhat of a long-time fan (as those of you who know me know, I put a little too much effort in.) That said, I haven't had a proper Halloween here yet. The first year, we did a Jack the Ripper walking tour. The second year, I was at a party, but I had about three minutes to throw a costume together, so while the party was good, my costume kind of sucked. And then the next year... another walking tour.

This year, though, we had a proper party at the flat. I couldn't decide what to be, not least because we'd originally planned a Mexican-themed party earlier in the month, and I was having some issues combining themes. In the end, I dressed up as a murdered tourist -- I think it worked pretty well. Lots of blood, socks with sandals, and even a fanny pack/bum bag. Good times. (More photos here.)

Party was good -- we had our own fireworks that night, and lets just I learned two things. 1) I shouldn't be trusted with these things. 2) The neighbour's garden is not half as flamable as it looks.

Then, later that week, we had a party for work at some hot-shit club. The theme was Saints and Sinners, so I went dressed as a devil in a blue dress -- not that anyone got the reference. I also dyed my hair red, just temporarily mind you, but liked it so much it's now semipermanent.

Anyway, good times. I'm off to another fancy dress/costume party this Friday -- starting to get kind of sick of them, y'know? Not unlike the fireworks, lighting up the sky outside my window...

Went to a fireworks display over the weekend, all part of the Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes thing. They didn't burn parliament in effigy, but there was indeed a bonfire (no naked chanting and dancing around it, which would have been fun or something) and fireworks. Some more pictures here.

Malta

I went to Malta at the end of September for some work thingamabob. I had to look it up on a map first (thanks, Google!). I knew it was Mediterranian, but exactly where I did not know. Anyway, it's apparently smack in the middle of the Med, south of Sicily.

Because of this, it's hella warm and sunny -- which probably explains why it's so crowded. It's about 7km long, but home to 400,000 people, making it one of the most densely populated places in the EU.

And, because of its handy location -- south of Italy, north of Africa -- it's got a cool mix of Southern Europe and Arabic culture, which shows in the language and the architecture.







Right. So the conference thingamabob was held at a posh hotel on a bay on the north side of the island. For some reason, when I checked in, they decided to give me the ambassador suite: two bathrooms, massive bedroom, sitting area, dining room, two seperate balconies -- and a rooftop patio overlooking the sea. I honestly considered barricading myself in that room and never, ever leaving.

And yes, I did use both bathrooms. I alternated.

Aside from listening to people ramble about ethernets, the group also travelled to the medieaval city of Mdina for dinner one night. Built on top of a hill, this fortress-town is actually still lived in -- but you've got to be descended from royalty to live there... and have a lot of money.

I had the glory of staying in my lovely room for just two nights. On the Friday, however, as the conference was over, I had to leave (or pay more money than I was willing in order to stay).

Me and a few other journos -- one of whom, like me, hadn't bothered to book a room for the weekend -- cabbed it to the capital city of Valetta. I figured that as this place is a pretty big tourist destination, finding a hotel/hostel would be easy. I was wrong. Accomodations in Valetta are few and booked months ahead of time.

After calling all the hotels and guest houses listed by the tourist office, I found one room in a hostel, handily around the corner from the hotel of the journos with better planning skills.

This place was a step down from the resort, however (anything would have been, mind you, but this was of the mind-your-step-b/c-it's-a-big-one variety). It had two twin beds, a shoddy dresser and a toilet in the hall -- but its window opened up into the historical old town. Looking out the window, down the steep street, with laundry hung out of buildings, and cats lounging on the stairs, it was hard to be too concerned about the quality of the bed.



Valetta is the "old town". All the buildings look ancient. We wandered down one side and up another -- it's a whole kilometer in length -- marveling at the steep hills and looking out over the harbour. Then we did what journos and PRs do when they get together -- we drank. Beer.

At one point, walking down the street, we came across a religious procession -- people in pope-like garb, leading a group of guys carrying a huge statue. Chanting and singing. On a Friday night. Down the main street. This place is rather religious.

The next day, my roomie John and I took one of the hilariously old-school Maltese buses south across the island. We stopped off, unintentionally, and saw some ancient ruins. Much older than Egypt's pyramids, our tour guide from the Mdina night had lamented that they weren't as popular. She suggested this was because Egypt is a bigger country. I suggest it's because these ruins are a pile of rocks, and the pyramids are marvels of engineering.

From there, we walked along the road to the sea, which was our actual destination. We were looking to take a boat trip to the Blue Grotto, a seaside cave with ridiculously blue water. Hopping onto our seven-seater motorboat, we bumped along on top of the water, past the little town, along the cliffs -- where Italian teenagers sunbathed, and seriously hardcore fisherman climbed down in order to set out their poles.

The water along the cliffs was a dark inky blue. It looked middle-of-the-ocean deep, despite being just feet from the shore. But once inside the caves, the water turned crystal clear, a blue like you'd see on a stone on a cheap ring. Along the edge of the water, the stone was purple and pink.

All that, while exceptionally pretty, had nothing on the water further down. There's a strange algae in the water, which makes it really insanely blue, and when the light hits in the right way, it's electric looking. Really wicked awesome. (Video here and here.)

After that, we bused it back through the little winding streets that cover Malta, and hooked up with the other two for drinks, dinner and more drinks.

The next day, John took off to catch his early flight, and Matt wrote stories (downsides of freelance), so Hillary and I wandered Valetta. We attempted to shop, but most of the stores were closed Sunday, as this country is very Catholic. We did attempt to wander a market, but it was so crowded -- with people and utter shit -- that we left to wander the town some more.

It was freaking hot out, and our energy waned as the day went on and we trekked up stupidly steep streets. We eventually found the palace, wandered in, and then were kicked out, because it was closed. It was a lazy, aimless day in the sun -- perfect way to spend holiday time, as far as I'm concerned.

I headed back to London that night, catching a RyanAir (it's like a bus, that flies!) flight that arrived at Luton at midnight. The queues for passport control were weirdly long, and then I missed my train, so had to take the coach back into Oxford Street, where it was (of course) raining...

More Malta pics are here.

Vegas, baby!

In the continuing saga of random places PR firms and their tech clients send me -- see: Malta, Dresden, Miami, Seattle, Prague, Amsterdam -- I spent a week in luxury at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Strip in Vegas.





What a weird place, Vegas. It’s like Disneyland for adults. Everything is fake and sterile and commercialized… but hey, it's still hella fun.

The first day I arrived, I barely managed to leave my hotel. It was pretty big, okay? I stumbled jet-lagged through some random mall over to the Luxor, which is pyramid-shaped and Egyptian themed. It’s cool looking, no doubt. But I’m not sure I’d want to stay there – the slanting interior feels weird and the echoing chamber a bit cold. Then again, what do you expect when you theme your luxury hotel on a tomb?

Anyway, there were banners up everywhere promoting Nicky Hilton’s birthday bash (the night before, shame I missed it) at the Luxor’s club, LAX. Amusingly, in small(er) print at the bottom of the banner, just underneath the number to call for tickets, the promoters advised that anyone with a Luxor room key had automatic free entry – wow, exclusive, that.

Right. The next day, as the conference hadn’t really started, I took a stroll down the strip, passing all the ridiculous hotels – Luxor’s take on Egypt, Excalibur’s take on mediaeval England, MGM Grand’s take on Green. It’s all very tacky in a luxurious sort of way. It’s like Britney Spears – rich yet cheap.

I eventually made my way most of the way down the Strip – it’s about an hour walk – where I found the Fashion Show Mall, so called because it’s a mall which has fashion shows, which is rather brilliant. The shite dollar meant my pounds went twice as far as normal, so I could actually afford to buy things. Things which cost money. This hasn’t happened in a while, so it was exciting.

Looking to extend my sterling even further, I hopped the amsuinigly named Deuce bus to an outlet mall, which wasn't really worth the $5 travel card, but killed a few extra hours before I headed back to the hotel, where I must have gone out for dinner, but don't remember. I was jetlagged then, and still am now. At some point we ended up at the top-floor bar, with a view out across the strip, which was pretty awesome. But that might have been Sunday. I really am confused.

Monday, the conference started, which kept me busy all day. I didn't even leave the air-conditioned hotel (again) until dinner, when we went to the Harley Davidson Cafe for food. I'd like to think it's just a stereotype, but servings really are bigger in the US than the UK. I got about half way through my burger before calling it quits.

Tuesday -- again, no going outside until post-work, at which point I met up with my aunt, uncle and cousin. I had three sets of aunts/uncles in town, and managed to meet up with one (my phone was being weird.) After that, we (journos, etc) headed to some bar called Pure, where we'd booked their rooftop area. It was pretty cool... until our time ran out, and they made us leave. I guess we weren't cool enough to overstay our paid-for welcome. After that, we hotel-bar hopped from some divey-Irishy-thing to the Venitian, where we drank to much and nearly fell asleep at the table. Getting back to the hotel, one journo named Tony wandered off to the casino, and showing a marked resemblence to Calgary-Tony, won $200 at poker.




Wednesday, more work. (Noticing a trend?) I did get a spare half-hour to go look at the hotel's aquarium... they have sharks (video here). And a turtle. Maybe more. The evening event was intriguing, however. It was the conference's big gala dinner, where they got all 4,000 attendees into a big warehouse room (made me think of grad at the Big Four) to shovel food into our faces, before pushing us off to a ballroom to take in the glorious sounds of none other than grammy-award winners Hootie and the Blowfish (video here and here). This really, really amused me. After actually watching all of Hootie's performance, we went to the casino. I was up $13 on a $1 bet, but lost it all after an american tried to pick up on me. He was cute, but clearly unlucky.



Thursday, after doing some writing, I did something I'd been wanting to do all week: go to the pool. Mandalay Bay's pool area is ridiculous. They have sand! and a wave pool! and a fake river, with a current! And, best of all: sunshine -- sweet, sweet sunshine. After a boozy lunch, a few of us headed off to the airport, where we sat for three hours, waiting for our delayed flight. I love air travel.

After sitting through a ten and a half hour flight next to a very attractive, incredibly stupid couple, we reached Gatwick, where the plane had to land on autopilot because the weather was so shit and foggy that no one could see. Ahhh, England.

More pictures are here.

Amsterdam with Tony and friends

Right. So I’m hella behind on my blogging. I owe posts (yes, I feel like I owe you, I care about my readers, all six of you) on the rest of Orkney, Amsterdam, Malta and whatever else I have sitting on my camera/in my brain. So here’s what I remember about Amsterdam, in just over a thousand words…

After staying up all night drinking shit vodka (it shouldn’t freeze!) with Kris, and on just two hours of sleep, I hopped an EasyJet to Amsterdam-Schipol to meet up with Tony, Meru and Kristian (who I’d travelled to Ireland with two years ago). It’s a good thing it’s a nice airport, as I ended up there for a while. My flight was late taking off, so I texted Kristian to say I might be a bit late, but would call as soon as I landed, so they’d know when to come meet me.

Ha. That worked. I waited at an airport bar, drinking Heineken, randomly receiving calls from Kristian that they were late or had missed the bus (with Tony yelling in the background to let him speak.) But you know what? I wasn’t bothered. It was the first time I felt really relaxed in a while. I had no where to go and nothing to do until they showed up, an occurrence which was out of my hands. So I sat, people watching and reading, sipping my pint, feeling pretty good despite my general exhaustion.

Tony finally showed up, and I’m always happy to see him, so that just added to the general feeling of GTs – and we weren’t even in Amsterdam yet.

Once we tracked down Meru (wandering in departures, inexplicably) and called Kristian (jogging around the airport, inexplicably), we caught the train into town, had some shitty KFC before finding some shitty tourist bar out of the rain where we had an overpriced shitty drink. It was awesome.

We wandered about through town, trying to find a coffee shop or pub that was still open. At some point, one of us asked a guy standing in the street for directions. Bart, as he turned out to be called, turned out to be a homeless guy, who gives tours of the red light district for hostel cash. He found our coffeeshop (it was closed), gave us directions to a beer pub (closed, but we returned later), and eventually found an open place – but not before taking us on a tour of the red light district. He took us down one hidden alley, just a few feet wide, with red lights and windows lining the sides. While women catcalled from open doors, British men (overwhelmingly) leered and cut deals, their sweaty skin and bald heads shining red in the light. Exiting that alley, we turned along an old church down a less busy strip, where Bart and I had this exchange:

Bart: The women on this street cost less.
Me: How come?
Bart: Because they’re fat. Do you want to see where the transvestites are?
Me: No… I think I’ll pass.

After running the gauntlet of prostitutes, Bart took us to a pub. After giving him all our change and a couple of five euro notes, he joined us for a pint (offering to buy his own, now he had enough cash, which I thought was rather sweet.) Anyway, if you ever go to Amsterdam, go to the zoo, as it came highly recommended by Bart.

The next day, after moving our gear from tents to a cabin, I rented a wobbly one-speed bike and we all rode into town for pancakes. They do weird things to pancakes in Amsterdam. Mine involved apples and bacon, and damn was it good. Afterwards, we did some beer shopping and aimless cycling – they have proper cycle lanes in this city, and I love it. There’re bikes everywhere. If I were mayor of London, my goal would be to make it like this. Forget cars. Forget trams. Get everyone on bikes.

I don’t really remember what else we did, but it probably involved drinking beer and cycling home and getting lost and possibly hot-boxing the cabin, but probably not.

On the last day, leaving Kristian behind in the cabin (possibly to hot-box it, possibly not), we took the bus and the metro into Amsterdam, stopping to sort out some travel-related stuff for the guys, before heading to the museum district, where we toured the Van Gogh museum. Pretty cool stuff, and I fell madly in love with one painting (as I tend to do). Tony ditched (as he tends to do in museums and Guiness tours) and we all arranged to meet up at the pub later that night. I finished with the museum, did a little shopping and headed to the flower market, which was pretty boring. It used to be a row of barges hawking flowers and bulbs, now it’s just some floating tat shops. From there, I walked back into the centre, shopping and photo-ing sex shops along the way, getting to the pub much too early. Which was fine by me, I gotta say.

So this pub. Tony noticed it the first day, the Old Nickel, because it had a sign up outside advertising 60 (or so) different beer. These are the things that catch Tony’s eye. The first night, it was closed – or so we thought. If you know the right people and what to say, it stays open past 4am… And now we know. The next day, we used it as a meeting place, and had a few pints from their rather impressive selection before moving on.

The last night, however, we parked ourselves at the bar, and Tony and the Bartender became best-friends-forever. Sensing a kindred spirit (maybe), the bartender started pulling out bottles of specialty beers, handing us books about the subject and showing us where it was made on maps. This man knows his stuff. After going thru a few bottles of beer – including a Laphroigh-like smokey beer – we cracked open a big bottle of Chimay, which tastes differently depending on the size of the bottle. The 20 euro one is pretty awesome, let me tell you.

We had dinner there, and Tony and I maybe or maybe not went to a sex show, which maybe or maybe not was hilarious and maybe or maybe not involved bananas. Maybe. Maybe not. Mmmm… potassium.

As I had a flight the next morning, Meru and I hopped a bus (sadly, not the right one) and trekked back – me, incredibly grumpy and tired – to the cabin, somewhat expecting Kristian on his bike to beat us there. Yeah, he didn’t. But he did have the key. I didn’t get much sleep, but enough to hop a flight back to London-Luton… and straight to work. Yeah, I was productive that day…

For a trillion more photos, go here.

Orkney Map

Can't be bothered to read my rambly posts? I don't blame you. But this is cool:


View Larger Map

Click the blue tags for pictures and details.

Stromness and the West Mainland

Note of warning: As Kris well knows by now, I'm having some difficulty wordsmithing this trip. So this be a bit rambly, yo!

Right. So after arriving in Kirkwall at 11pm, we hopped a bus and went to our hostel, which was in an old army building behind where Emily's dad used to work, before he moved and they tore down his office. I don't think the two events are connected, however.

The next morning, we hopped another bus across the Mainland. Now, Orcadians have a funny way about them. For example, the Mainland to them is not Scotland, but the biggest of their 70 islands, as tho Scotland has nothing to do with them.

Anyway, after wandering aimlessly for a bit, we managed to find our hostel in the town of Stromness. It's very cute -- nearly the entire town is within a block or two of the shore, and it's all grey buildings with stepped roofs. Despite such endearing quaintness, we rented bikes and headed out of town.


First stop was a 5,000 year old tomb called Maes Howe. Time and nature have done their work, and it now looks like a rather perfect small hill, but it once looked more like a small pyramid. The only way to see the interior is on guided tour, so we did just that. No photos allowed inside, sadly, but I'll just use words to paint you a picture (ha ha ha ha.) Or go here for pics.

The front passageway is a short (in height), long (in length) tunnel. You have to duck and shuffle along to get through, and if you raise your head at the wrong time, the stone ceiling doesn't not hurt. I followed a disabled girl in, and she was clearly not quite sure about the whole thing. She was crouched, shuffling along like all of us, but going quite slowly, and I don't blame her, as her mom was at the other end calling out: "Keep going, just come toward the light!" I wonder if that's what dying is like, and I certainly hope not.

The interior houses three burial chambers, all empty. But from the inside, you can see how massive the flat stones are that they used to build it. And, you can see Viking graffiti. Apparently some Vikings found the tomb and broke in through the ceiling way back when, and left behind runes, carved into the white stone with their axes, bragging about treasure and making saucy jokes about local women. They also carved some rather intricate animals, including a dragon and walrus, into one wall. Another wall features a cross -- the tour guide suggested crusade connections.

Like the Chichen Itza pyramid, this one's got solstice significance. Looking out the front passageway, there's a perfect view of the two hills of Hoy, an island to the south. On the solstice, the sun cuts between the hills, past a standing stone, and up the passageway, illumniating the interior of the tomb. Pretty cool.

From the outside of the tomb, you can see the two sets of standing stones. Because of all the super old shit in such a tight concentration, this whole area is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Anyway, we next stopped at the Stones of Stenness, which are older than Maes Howe. There's only four left standing; the rest have dissappeared, probably into local buildings. The cool thing about Orkney (well, one of the many cool things) is that these sites are so low key. Maes Howe had an entrance fee and small interpretive centre, but the standing stones have none. If you want access, you just push open the gate and get as close to the damn things as you want -- very different to the tourist setup down south at Stonehenge.

From the SoS, it's a short cycle on a single lane road between two lovely lochs to the Ring of Brodgar, which makes me think of Tolkien. This ring of stones is more complete, but slightly younger. It's a couple dozen massive rock slabs surrounding a field of purple heather. Very pretty. And again, you can get as close as you want -- hell, lick the damn things if you want. They've been there for millenia, it won't hurt the stones. Might hurt your tongue.



After that, we pedalled over some hills (Over the hills and far away -- I miss Sharpe, Natalie) past a ton of sheep and cows -- with Emily giving me strange looks as I baaa-ed and mooo-ed at them.

A few miles down, we found Skaill Bay, home to a big manor house and an ancient stone village called Skara Brae. It was discovered by the Laird of the manor after a storm washed the top soil off of it. What's cool about it is the furniture was also made out of stone, and much of it remains. So you can walk around where they've excavated it it, and see how their houses would have looked 5,000 years ago. Now, to me, the green grassy bits, white sandy floors and numbered sites made it look like a minigolf course.

We took a walk through the manor as well, but it was a house. Yeah, awesome. Seen enough of those with Mary. We also hung out on the beach, which is perfect white sand with scattered stones. Whether inspired by the standing stone rings further back or the stone houses they'd just seen, people had stacked the stones up in strange shapes all across the beach.

From Skara Brae, we headed north, out of Norse territory and onto a more personal hunt: the town of Twatt. Why? Do you really need to ask? We cycled along a bird observatory -- lots of those in Orkney -- and came to the right spot on my ordnance survey map, but there were no signs designating the town name. Disapointed over the lack of funny picture opportunities, Emily pointed out a church... could it be? Could it be the church of Twatt? Indeed, it was. And we laughed very, very hard.

Then, we turned back for Stromness. And the wind picked up. Gale force, right into our faces. Stop pedaling, and you start rolling backwards. I was having difficulty, and I cycle daily. Emily, in her black dress and gold tights ("there's no reason not to look fabulous") was making an admirable effort, but it did really suck. (Tho, clothed like that, on a bike in a strong wind, she did put me in mind of that scene from Wizard of Oz...)

By the time we got back to Stromness, we were both exhausted and not exactly in good moods. Ditching the bikes, we headed back to the hostel to change, before making our way to the Stromness Hotel, home that night to a local beer fesitval. After several pain-numbing pints of Scapa Special and whatnot, we wandered out into the Stromness night, and on the way back to the hostel, I got into an argument with a cat. Look, he had it coming. No reason to mouth off like that... Bad attitude on that one. Seriously.

More pictures are here.

Ferrying

So, as you may or may not be aware, Orkney is a collection of islands -- and archipeligo, if you will -- off the northern coast of Scotland. Because of it's water-logged geography, we had two options to travel there, flying or ferrying. We chose the latter because we're cheap. The least expensive route took us from Aberdeen to Kirkwall, the largest city in Orkney with some 7,000 inhabitants, via ferry in about 6 hours. There are other, shorter ferry routes, but they required us to get further north in Scotland, to Inverness or Thurso or John o Groats -- which cost more.


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Right. We had sleeper seats for both trips, but weren't very tired at 5pm when the boat set off. Instead, we started the trip at the back of the boat, watching Aberdeen pass and eventually disappear as we got further into the North Sea.

It quickly got dark and windy -- which didn't stop us from going top deck to see if we could get blown overboard (sadly, didn't happen).

That all left us with about 5 and a half hours to kill. Right. So we wandered the ferry, checking out the facilities. It had two bars, a fancy restaurant and a cafeteria, as well as rooms of video games and VLTs. There was a shop (or course) and a movie theatre showing three films, as well as little sitting areas with televisions.

Guess where we started? After a quick trip through the shop, it was off to the bar. Because when you feel slightly seasick, the best thing to do is drink beer. After a few bottles of Orkney's finest brew, we had dinner... and at this point, with four or so hours to go, I started to get antsy.

We sat in one of the bars drinking and reading for a bit. I was trudging through the Orkneyinga Saga, a tale of the Earls of Orkney written about 1200. Apropriate reading, but hard to focus on when one's excited and bored at the same time. Eventually, the ferry starts rumbling in a way that suggests we're about to arrive (leading to my stomach rumbling in excitement -- or maybe that was the food?) and we pass Kirkwall, the small city's lights twinkling and reflecting in the water, and finally park at the pier, where we're the only passengers to catch the bus into town -- save one dude, who talked about his post-divorce child custody case with the driver the whole trip... Either way, we were walking up the street to our hostel by 1130pm, rather needing to get some sleep.

. . .

The trip back departed Kirkwall at 11pm. We got on a bit early, so Emily could claim a seat near a socket to recharge her phone. Me, I found my sleeper seat, got as comfy as possible... and woke up at 6:30am the next day as we neared Aberdeen. Not a bad way to travel, I've gotta say...

More pictures of Aberdeen and the ferry are here.

Aberdeen

Our Orkney trip started with a night in Aberdeen. The ferry didn't leave until 5pm on the Thursday, but we flew up from London on the Wednesday in order to hang out with Emily's cousin Ian.

We arrived 9ish, and stood outside the airport trying to decide whether to take a cab or the bus. We wandered over to the cab stand, and this lady taxi driver says something. What it was, I have no idea. Gibberish, for all I knew. I look at Emily, wondering if this was some hardcore Scottish accent which she'd understand, but she's as dumbfounded as me. The lady grabs at my bag, and I understand she's trying to take our luggage. So taxi it was, then.

So we drive into Aberdeen in some comfort, passing a sign for the original Banff, listening to Barry White's "Let's Get it On." How's that for a sexy start?



Anyway... Aberdeen's town centre looks a bit like a bigger Banff to me. There are no skyscrapers but a lot of gothic-y looking buildings in stone with touristy storefronts (and the best-ever Primark... ever.) Little sidestreets amble off further out of town or down to the harbour (where we'd be ambling off the next day, to catch our ferry to Kirkwall in Orkney.)

The most notable aspect of Aberdeen architecture is the colour. Every building is grey sandstone. Matched with the concrete streets and cloudy skies, Aberdeen looks like a city with all the colour drained out of it, like the victim of a vampire. Now that's a strange simile to just throw in there, you may or may not be thinking. But it makes perfect sense, given the two pubs we visited.

After ditching out gear at Ian's, we headed to Union Street to hit up a pub of his choosing called Frankenstein's. This rather inexplicably themed monster pub has all sorts of movie and book related paraphernalia, as well as quotes painted on the walls and monster-themed food (we didn't eat there, but the menu was hilarious.) Why this monument to Mary Shelley's monster? Apparently, the author lived in Scotland for a couple years, before writing the book... but that's about as strong a link as I could discern. Very strange. But either way: mmm... beer.

The next day, Ian headed off to go camping somewhere, while Emily and I wandered Aberdeen before our ferry's 5pm departure. While wandering, we passed a rather lovely church -- or what I thought was a church. Upon further inspection, I noticed a sign reading "Slain's Castle." Weird. A castle that looks like a church, in the middle of a city... but no. This was not a church (not any longer, at least) and not a castle, so much as another monster pub. This one was edifying Dracula -- in a former church! -- and had all sorts of random haunted castle paraphenilia. And, cheap sandwiches. And, beer.



Is Aberdeen obsessed with monsters? Or did we by some strange coincidence stumble into the only two in the city? I have no idea.

Anyway, we also did some shopping (at the aforementioned Primark, as I'd not brought much of a sweater) and stopped in at a pharmacy. My tonsils had swelled up the night before, and were red and sore, so I thought I'd get some sort of drug. I went in and found some extra strength lozenges, but thought there might be something stronger behind the pharmacist's desk. So I asked the pharmacist if I'd be better off with the lozenges (which I place on her desk) or with one of the stronger sprays on the shelf behind her. Her response: "Why don't you just buy those?" Indeed. How helpful. So I did.

This is the sort of "customer service" one gets in Scotland. They're not really rude, they just get on with things and don't suck up. As long as you don't expect a smile or a "have a nice day" or, y'know, help, you'll be fine.

Anyway. Emily and I (sucking on a lozenge, which actually quite did the trick) did a short walking tour of the city. Because Em is Scottish and was born in Aberdeenshire (not the city itself) I kept expecting her to know something about the city. Therefore, we had a lot of exchanges which went like this:

Me: Ooh, what's that?

Em: I don't know.

After our non-guided walking tour, we found our way back to Ian's, and after taking about half an hour to figure out how to unlock his door, reclaimed our stuff and headed back to the harbour to catch our ferry. We were a bit early, so had a pint in a dockside pub, before heading to the ferry...

Tour de France... in London?

Inexplicably, the Tour de France started in London last weekend. I say "inexplicably" because it's the Tour de France, after all -- and last I checked, London has not been invaded. (Insert "cheese-eating surrender monkey" joke here.) Apparently the TdF starts 's outside of France from time to time -- this is the 16th time that's happened.

Anyway, I thought the thought of watching people cycle would be overwhelmingly lame, so wasn't going to go watch any of it, but Shannon talked me into it, and it was sunny last Saturday, so I went to go watch the time trials in Hyde Park.

Holy massive thighs Batman, it was hella cool.



The time trials are to decide the order of the race, which set off the next day, on Sunday. The 8km track ran from near Trafalgar Square through the park and then back again, so areas around that were all blocked from traffic. Cycling down the middle of Westminster Bridge, past Big Ben, I thought this was quite cool. But by the time I hit Hyde Park, the crowds were so thick I had to get off and push. Took me an hour to get from Waterloo to the spot where Shatrick waited north of the Serpentine. (There is an event planned for September where the city's going to close a bunch of roads to cars, which should be hella cool. As long as the pedestrians stay out of my way...)

Anyway, once I arrived and drank two canned G&Ts, I relaxed a bit, and started to really enjoy the race. They go bloody fast. I know that sounds like an obvious statement, but photographing them proved nearly impossible, and video wasn't much better. We were sitting in front of a giant tv screen, and according to the commentator dudes, the cadence of the cyclists -- how fast they pedal -- was a hundred times a minute. So they're moving their legs in that little circle more than once a second. I counted it out as they went by, and indeed they were moving that fast.




One dude hit a side barrier and wiped out. I jumped and instinctively covered my face with my hands when it happened. At least I wasn't going that fast when I bit the pavement.

The fastest time came in a few seconds under 9 minutes for the 8km track -- so roughly 54km/hr. On a bike. The winner was ridiculously faster than the rest of the racers, beating the second place dude by some 12 seconds (or something like that). The commentators commented that the escort motorbikes actually slowed him down on a few corners.

After all the racers finished, we hung out and waited for the crowds to thin before heading over to Kensington. I took the opportunity going there and heading back home to cycle down the track -- essentially just roadways around the park, lined with temporary fencing and banners. I wasn't the only cyclist out pretending to be Lance Armstrong, and despite going about as fast as my little commuter can go, was still being passed by show-offs in spandex on road bikes.

The next day, Emily -- despite multiple protestations against sport of any kind -- and I met up near Tower Bridge to see the racers do their warm up ride before the race's rolling start in Greenwich (ending for the day some 213 km away in Canterbury). There was a weird ceremony at the top of the bridge -- for the jersies? -- before all the cyclists rolled past us in about 20 seconds. It then took us 20 minutes to get off the bridge, because of all the crowds.





It surprised me a bit -- given the rather boring nature of watching cycling -- that so many people came out, but the crowds apparently were in the millions both days. Will it spur Londoners to take up cycling? One hopes not, as the roads are crowded enough as it is... As I shall explain in my next post... (don't let the suspense kill you.)

More photos here, more videos here and here, and here are some panos:

Public Art

Free museums are by far one of the best aspects of London. All the art and history and whatever sitting in the National Gallery, the Tates, the British Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum -- and all for free.

The National Gallery decided to take it one step further, and put paintings -- reproductions, anyway -- out on the street. They've hung 45 clever copies -- not just the art work, but mocked up frames, too -- in various side streets of Soho and the West End.

So there you are, innocently meandering along St Martins Lane, and you think, hey, I'm gonna go look in shop windows around Seven Dials. You turn up Shelton, and this catches your eye:

Rather stunning. Such a brilliant idea. Whoever thought of it deserves kudos and a pay-raise and even a pony, should they want one.

The "art" has been stuck on London's walls for a week at least now, but none of the pieces we saw was graffitied. One looked like it'd been rubbed by a van, and others were showing the effects of the weather, but only one was missing, likely stolen by drunken thieves, I would guess. Tho maybe it was tourists, claiming one hell of a souvenir...

Aside from the aforementioned Whistlejacket, I also really wanted to see the street version of Monet's Water Lily Bridge. I found it on the map and wandered up Neal Street. I found one painting, but couldn't find the Monet. I looked at the map again and was clearly in the right place, but the painting was missing. It's a popular one, so maybe it had been stolen. But no -- some dude selling Bansky knockoffs (ironic?) had put up his stall directly in front of the Monet-fake, completely blocking the view. On purpose? Surely.

More street art here. I haven't found all 45, but I'm getting there...

Dresden

As I got back from Dresden today, lugging my bags down the road to my house, a pirate ship was sailing down the Thames. Cool. I mean, Arrgh! Avast!

Anyway, I went to Dresden for some decidedly non-pirate-related work stuff, namely the launch of a high performance computing (HPC) server thingy, and then the start of the International Supercomputing Conference.

As the crazy-ass PR people flew me in too early, I actually got to see a bit of Dresden. Superficially at least -- as I didn't see all that much -- it's a lot like Prague, which isn't really surprising, given they're rather close together.

I didn't know much about Dresden -- and I still don't, to be honest -- other than the bombings in WWII. And all I knew about that was that the British flattened the place, killing 35,000 people. Now obviously the Germans weren't exactly innocents in that war (something about a holocaust, picking a fight which killed a generation of young men, that sort of thing) but turning a city to rubble from the air is such a horrible thought that it's really rather captivating, especially given how proud the British are of surviving the Blitz. I'm not really sure what my point is -- I guess I just find the damage done to the other side rather intriguing after hearing about it from the victors so often. Then again, maybe it's just my Eastern European ancestry speaking up...

Anyway, much of the city has been rebuilt, altho weirdly only in the past few years. I guess the Soviets weren't really up for it?

The Frauenkirche, which I amused myself by calling the Frankenchurch, was almost completely wiped out in the bombings. Rather than reconstruct it postwar, the Soviets left the rubble either a) as a monument to war or b) because they were cheap. So the pile of rocks, bits of statuary and whatnot sat there. No one took anything. Some people started organizing and numbering it, apparently (according to wikipedia). It stayed that way until 1992, when they finally started to put it all back together (not my photo, obviously):




Anyway, I knew none of this when I walked past it. It looks pretty cool from the outside, and I happened past at 6pm, when the bells were ringing. People were streaming into the church, so I thought hey, what's going on and went inside. I'm a follower I guess, but not of the sort that were walking up the stairs. I realised upon entering that a service was starting and wanted to take a better look at the interior, so I plunked myself down into a pew and enjoyed the show.


It's a protestant church, and very different from the gothic cathedrals and anglican spires I've seen so much of. To start -- and maybe this is a function of when it was really built -- but the interior is marble... but it all looks fake. Like someone painted the pillars to look like marble. The decorative bit behind the altar is green and pink and shiny gold while the second and third floors of pews curve in soft colours. Basically, its all fluffy and soft -- is it supposed to make people think of heaven? I don't know. But it's pretty, in a slightly tacky way.


The organ was amazing though and the service started with some music. I've never heard an organ that large played before. The range and depth of the sound is amazing -- easy to see why it's so common in churches. The rest of the service was, obviously, in German -- which probably helped, actually.

I also spent a bit of time wandering the Zwinger Palace, which is home to their Old Masters Art Gallery (more on that in a separate post), and walking through the old town. I won't go into it; just check out the photos.



Of course, the thing with these cities is to try and see more than just the old parts, so I did wander to the north side of the river to look around a bit and walked around my hotel's neighbourhood (much further north).


Dresden, like much of the Eastern part of Germany, has high unemployment. It's obvious this isn't a healthy city from the boarded up, graffitied buildings. The places along the street between my hotel and the tram were half abandoned.

I was walking down the street at one point, and one building had boarded windows, the next was a clean, nice-looking, functioning office, and then the one after that had smashed in windows and spray-painted walls. I saw a rather well-dressed girl walk up to the building after that and open the door with a key -- it was her apartment. Can you imagine that in Calgary, with it's real estate boom? Apartments next to derelict buildings?

Cinder block: for when boards just won't do...

Aside from the perfectly efficient trams, many people seemed to use bicycles to get around. Despite the unemployment rates, a lot of bikes were not locked up and the ones that were had just flimsy cord locks, often not locked to anything but looped through the wheels. Can you imagine that in London, with it's theft rates? Leaving a bike just lying around?

Anyway, I woke up at 6am in a different country. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Sorry if this post rambled. More pics are here.

Miami

So I've spent the last few days in Miami. And by Miami, I mean a suburb-ish place called Doral, at a resort called, appropriately, the Doral Resort.

This was all for a conference -- I was working, a'ight? -- about image capture/digital documents.
I flew in on Sunday and arrived completely exhausted -- not a surprise given a rather violent lack of sleep and a delayed transatlantic flight. After having dinner (fantastic red snapper, so good) with fellow journos/PRs/analysts, I crashed in my room.

The next few days pretty well consisted of going to sessions, sneaking away to the pool, and drinking with random people. Not bad, although I never actually left the resort -- no trip to Art Deco South Beach for me.



Although the weather was a bit shite -- they got the rain they've been needing -- it was natuarlly a billion times better than London. I may actually have gotten a bit of a tan...

Anyway, while I would have been quite happy to spend the next few days bumming around South Beach -- which I never got to see -- I then flew off to Seattle/Bellevue, for a Microsoft thingy...

More photos here.

Paris avec la DarNat

So here's what we actually did in Paris, in more detail than is strictly necessary... But really, this blog is more for me than it is for you.

DarNat were travelling with Daorcey's parents (Colin and Jannose) who were chaperoning a school trip around war sites in France and Belgium. As they had three days in Paris at the end of the tour, I figured I may as well hop the Eurostar and go for a visit.

As noted previously, we met at the Eiffel Tower, where we ditched the 20 teenagers (leaving them with their teachers and the tour guide) and headed to the Arc de Triomphe where we watched the mayhem that is the massive traffic circle (video).

We then trudged/metroed back to Bastille, where Daorcey got us lost looking for their hotel before heading to a supremely shit dinner (green beans!). Such a shame to have a bad dining experience in Paris... So we got a bottle of wine, and headed back to DarNat's hotel, where Daorcey and I got drunk and talked about media while Nat fell asleep -- but not before the return of Private Obvious. I returned to my hostel and crawled into bed in my darkened room, trying not to disturb my dutch roommates unnecessarily...



The next day, we again ditched the tour group, opting to walk to the Louvre along the river rather than go on a bus tour with the teenagers. The Louvre (video) is as it always is: frustratingly crowded and not worth the fuss. Amazing collection, horribly presented. Such a shame. But we did get to see Napoleon coronating himself this time... (which really deserves a post of it's own) and we did get to see the flying spaghetti monster (video).


We then rejoined the kids for an hour in Montmartre (video1, video2). If you've been there recently, you'll know all about the annoying dudes with the bracelet scam. If you haven't, and you plan to go, don't let anyone make you a bracelet. Anyway, some dude tried to get me to go along with his scam, and this exchange occurred:

Me, loudly: No, no, no.
Him, abrasively: You should go to Iraq and get your throat slit.

Excellent. After that, we were off to dinner at a crazy Greek restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where the waiters tried to get their hands all over the cuter girl teenagers, and where natalie confused one kid by telling him: "Love between two men is the purest form of love there is." This was prompted by a decorative plate illustrated by two men engaged in uh, love. Then we took the boat tour (video).

The next/last day, we were off to Versailles. Annoyingly, the employees of the palace had decided -- being French -- not to work for the first hour. Some sort of work to rule campaign. By the time they stopped striking, the lineups were massive -- but they were less lineups and more scrums. Scrums of European teenagers with mullets and skinny jeans. As you can imagine, it didn't take long for me to lose my temper.





We eventually got into the building, speedwalked through some very fancy rooms (video) to the other Coronation of Napoleon painting and then ditched out to the gardens... After opting to not go back to Paris with the group, we rented bikes and cycled around Marie Antoinette's crazy town, got yelled at by French police (apparently, being English isn't an excuse) and then trained it back to Paris, where we walked around the Latin Quarter -- andI finally got to look around Shakespeare and Co, the most amazing bookstore ever; none of the books on the top floor are for sale, but you can hang out and read them -- before going for dinner near Republique.

And then we tried to go to bed, while the teenagers tried to get drunk. We both eventually succeeded.


More pics live here and videos live here.

Shakira, Shakira

I haven't posted in ages because I've done nothing since returning from Prague, owing to a very violent and angry illness, which my boss refers to as an Eastern European Lurgi.

Anyway, Emily, in her awesome ticket-getting goodness, managed to get a pair of freebie tickets to see Shakira last Sunday. I'm not really into pop divas, but damn, who would pass that up?

To sum up the show in three words: Bitch can dance. I mean, maybe that seems obvious, but really, it's phenomenal. She can even move her breasts around without moving the rest of her body -- a bit creepy, but she must have awesome pecs. Sadly, didn't get video of that. But really, her crazy hips make Britney's porn star act look school-girlish and Christina's platform-shoed prancing look silly.

Throw in the cat-like screeching and ESL lyrics, and it's all good. Add in the coked-up (maybe I stereotype?) Colombian girls falling down the stairs and nearly taking out the beer girl, and it's even better.

What I really liked about the concert was how laid-back and sweet Shakira seemed. The entire show she did barefoot, and while she did prance around in a sparkly bikini top for a large part of the show, she wore these baggy black trousers the entire time -- even under skirts. That's the sort of thing I'd do for a costume party when I was an insecure teenager.

For a few songs, her clothes were flashbacks to the early nineties: the aforementioned big, wide-legged trousers and a tiny baby-tee (also things I used to wear, way back when).



There were no red pleather body-suits a la Britney a few years back (when she was still hot). She did come on stage in a crazy-ass dress with massive flowing sleeves for one song, and dressed in Indian costume for another, but even with sparkle-encased boobs she never came off as slutty. Maybe I'm getting old, but I kind of like that. The not-sluttiness, not the sparkly boobs. Actually, hell, I'll admit to both.

Videos live here; crappy photos live here.

Prague

So last week, I spent three days in Prague -- not instead of work, but as work. Yeah, sucks, eh? Unlike with Amsterdam, I actually got to see quite a bit of the city, which is very pretty.


Not unlike most European cities, it has an old town, lots o'churches and a castle. It also features cheap beer (no wonder Bailey liked it) and a crazy-ass bridge with massive religious statues (the view seen in the panoramic above -- thanks autostich! -- is that bridge on the left and the castle/church on the right).

The first day I wandered along the river, crossed the Charles Bridge and then climbed up to the castle, which is more a bunch of palace-type buildings set around a massive gothic cathedral -- like Notre Dame wrapped in Versailles.


The next day, I was trapped in the hotel listening to the wonders of virtual networks -- which I've got to say actually is a business model which rather makes a lot of sense, but I won't bore you with the details. We then had the usual dinner and drinks, which is exactly how you'd imagine it: tasty and drunk. I won't bore you with the details on that, either.

The third day, after peeling myself out of bed and my contacts off my eyes -- gotta stop falling asleep with them in, cause it really doesn't feel great -- I set off in the general direction of the Old Town Square, got lost (as I tend to do), went shopping (as I tend to do), and then found the Old Town Square:



I then realized I'd lost my bank card and frantically used another journalist's mobile to sort that out -- I'm sure he thinks I'm an idiot, as I couldn't figure out how to use his phone, and I'm a technology journalist, so yeah. Not impressive on my part.

No more work travel planned for the moment, so next up is Paris with DarNat... again. Daorcey better let me eat this time or I'm going to send his office photos of Captain Obvious...

More pictures here and some random video of a clock tower going off here. Oh -- and the Czechs drink Kubik juice. Nasty.

More Maella pics!

Just in case you were wondering, Maella's still cute:

(Yet) more pictures here.