History in Hampshire

The video above pretty much covers us up to this very moment.  The only thing I'd consider adding is that the trains in England are awful.  We booked tickets online (to get a better price) and our train was cancelled.  We found that out that morning, so had to run to an alternative station about 45 minutes away, cursing the public transport system all the way.

When we finally arrived at the station, we had to get the tickets printed.  While Dad was doing this, our train arrived.  Unfortunately the tickets were on a different platform to the train, so we blocked the doorways until Dad could reach us.  He didn't rush, because he didn't think the train was the right one.  It was a little confusing since the digital timetable on the platform read differently to the one inside the train.  We probably go on and off the train at least ten times before an announcement came over the train's loudspeaker to reveal it was, in fact, the correct train.  So we got on.

Getting back on the castle scene more than made up for this little bit of excitement, though.

School shootings and gun control

In light of the recent tragedy in Connecticut, I feel the need to do something a bit different.  I want to talk about gun control, mainly as a way to reason through for myself why things like this continue to happen.

School shootings are, of course, nothing new.  What makes this shooting different is the age of many of the victims - elementary school children.  The question is whether this extra layer will have any impact whatsoever on gun control laws in the USA.  I suspect the answer is no.

Let me explain that rather pessimistic point of view.  It can be summed up in three letters: NRA.  A group of individuals, ones with a great deal of money behind them, willing to allow children to die in order to protect their right to carry around a death stick.  Of course, they won't admit to this fact.  They delude themselves with the fantasy that these tragedies are inevitable, are a product of the arts (film, videogames etc).  They look to other scapegoats.  They offer other solutions.  They say, yes, this is tragic, but it could have been prevented if only one of those five-year-old had been packing.

Of course they aren't really suggesting that toddlers should be carrying assault rifles.  Instead they say we should have armed guards at all schools.  Brilliant!  Fill the schools with more guns.  Turn our educational institutions into battlegrounds.  That makes much more sense than putting in place legislation intended to keep guns out of the hands of crazy people.

I would like to now link you to a column written in 2007, weeks after the Virginia Tech tragedy, by Sandy Froman, a past president of the NRA.  She has also been on the board of the organisation for a very long time.  In an ideologically corrupt, sickening diatribe, she argues for the second amendment.  Her arguments display a moral pessimism that are the heart of why I don't believe that even this tragedy will have the impact necessary to make long lasting change.

She has three reasons for protecting people's 'right' to bear arms: giving people the ability to defend themselves against a criminal; creating an army out of the American population; and giving the people the power to overthrow their government.  The intrinsic ideology and fear-mongering in each of these prevents serious discussion of gun control.

Let's start with protecting oneself against a criminal - if you have a right to own a gun, so do they.  I suggest that it is more important to prevent dangerous people from being able to kill with ease than have a reactionary measure that may or may not be of any assistance.  Also, although guns aren't prohibitively expensive, by linking one's right to defend oneself with a marketable product, personal safety is turned into a consumer commodity.  In a stunning display of capitalistic bastardry, Froman is suggesting that those who are able to afford more powerful, user-friendly guns have more of a right to protect themselves than those who are unable to afford a firearm.

With regards to having the American population as a possible army... I hope the stupidity of this is obvious, but I guess I will have to spell it out.  The second amendment was enacted in 1791, when the difference between one gun and another was not huge.  When war actually consisted of people shooting at one another until one side fell over.  Nowadays armies consist of drones, smartbombs and war fighters, none of which a consumer firearm will do much against.

The final reason Froman gives is that citizens need the ability to overthrow their government.  I agree.  People need to have the ability to remove a government that no longer represents them.  However, it is extremely depressing that the only option Froman gives is a violent insurrection.  Her suggestion that people will need guns in order to enact any kind of revolutionary action sidelines all the incredible peaceful activism that occurs.  She is irresponsible in promoting violent revolution over peace.

I think that this idea that brute force is the only defence is somehow ingrained in the American (and possibly other) psyches.  As tragic as all of these shootings are, they are not going to shake these ideologies, and this is how we can see crime after crime of this magnitude with not even the hint of legislative change.

Introducing Portsmouth

Today is my fifth full day in Portsmouth.  The video above talks about some more general aspects of the city, but it's probably worth giving a bit more detailed account of my activities over the time I have been here.

MONDAY

Dad had mentioned a historical trail the day before, and seeing as I was in, you know, the Old World, I thought it appropriate to spend the day checking out the history of the place I was staying.  It turned out to be quite an interesting walk, though I tended to forget all the information presented on the trail's boards as soon as I turned away from them.  I got the main points though - old stuff, docks, pubs and navy.

This squiggle succinctly sums up the
relationship between England and Australia.

There is a link between Portsmouth and Australia that stood out in my memory.  Turns out this is the place the first fleet departed from, and a small square by the seafront contains a number of monuments dedicated to the ties between England and Australia.

Having walked through the old town, with its cobbled streets, pubs, and bizarre tram tracks that lead nowhere, I continued along the seafront hoping to come across more "seaside" that I could poke fun at.  There was plenty of it.  After a short walk I came across 'Mozzarella Joe's Beach Bar and Grill', which sported an empty and rather sad-looking patio area for people to "enjoy" the "sunshine".

Actually, I have to be fair - the sun was out that day.  Though I still don't understand how you can call a pile of rocks a beach just by virtue of it bordering the ocean.



TUESDAY

Oh God, Tuesday.  Tuesday was the day that my body said, "Hey, buddy, remember all that bollocks you've been putting me through?  Well, take this!" before kicking me (and by extension itself) in the nuts.  I had a splitting headache and nausea all day and really, really regretted the fact that I had not taken Monday as a recovery day.  Fortunately I had a Tesco's curry for lunch AND fajitas (which dad managed to over-microwave) for dinner.  They were scrummy, which was actually a little surprising seeing as they were the equivalent of supermarket microwave dinners.  Actually, no, they weren't the equivalent of that - they WERE supermarket microwave dinners.

I also watched a bit of TV that day, discovering that the UK has a LOT of channels.  Most of them were utter garbage.  One of them had a Heston Blumenthal program, but I fell asleep.  Damn it!

WEDNESDAY

I got a few funny looks photographing this building.
Apparently it isn't as important as it looks.

Wednesday was my attempt to see the other bit of Portsmouth that I had missed on Monday.  Unfortunately I hadn't quite realised that the 'other bit' of Portsmouth was actually pretty much the entire city.  I started off checking out the naval base before wondering into a park, finding a large public square and exploring the university quarter, where there are a number of cheap student pubs and clubs.

The park contained yet another nod to my home country - an aviary containing a number of cold and miserable Australian birds, including lorikeets and budgies.  It also had ducks, a peacock, rabbits and some rather large guinea pigs.

Having wandered around aimlessly for about an hour, I suddenly found myself in Southsea, which is the area where the piers are that I had visited on Monday.  This kind of surprised me, as I thought I had been going in the opposite direction for the majority of the walk.  The layout of Portsmouth is a bit like one giant optical illusion, where you will be walking in one direction and suddenly pop through an interdimensional portal to the other side of town.

This made walking around a bit bizarre, as every now and again I would arrive somewhere I had been before from a slightly different direction without realising I had even turned back on myself.  It was especially weird when I attempted to return home, using the towering Spinnaker Tower as a guide.  I would see it on the horizon for a moment and head in that direction.  Then, after walking along a narrow, windy street a short way, I would come to a clearing and discover the tower had changed position.  When I eventually reached the tower, I was surprised to discover I had been approaching it from the opposite direction to which I thought.

That night we went out for dinner to a poky little place called the Thai Cafe (in a surreal twist they also do all day English breakfasts).  The decor wasn't anything to write home about (though that is exactly what I'm doing... hmm) though the food - especially Lin's Special Sauce with Pork Spare Ribs and Chicken Wings (messy) - was tasty.  We also had a Massaman Beef Curry and Phad Thai.

Our final stop for the evening was Garage Lounge, a somewhat hipsterish cafe that felt like it belonged in West End (for all you Brisbanites).  I overdosed on chocolate there (they did chocolate shots, which I didn't partake in, though I had a shot poured in a glass of hot milk - the pure shot can come later).  Dad and I managed to stagger home again, stomachs filled with chocolate.

THURSDAY

Didn't really do much.  There was some kind of Christmas market on downstairs from the apartment, and various pop songs wafted up (I spent the day enjoying such masterpieces as Call Me Maybe and Gangnam Style.  Of bloody course.)  I did go down when a brass band started playing Christmas music, but they were actually a lot more boring to watch than to vaguely overhear from the comfort of the warm apartment, so I went back inside.  They did wear santa hats though, but all that did was make them look like a bunch of grumpy Santas playing the tuba.

Mum and Katrina returned from their epic journey through the German Christmas markets on a ferry from Le Havre, so Dad and I went to pick them up that evening.

That gets us up to today, the specifics of which I might leave for a future time.  Until then, then.

The Flights of Doom

It's a tad difficult to make flights sound interesting.  Dedicating an entire blog post to what basically amounted to sitting in a chair failing to sleep for 24 hours might be overkill, but I am nothing if not overzealous.

Having packed my bags that morning, I was concerned that my large backpack was going to be over the weight limit (I was bringing two harddrives with me, which I thought were quite heavy).  My backpack is a pretty cool device - it includes an attachable daypack which is very practical if a little dorky.  My plan was to use the daypack as carry-on, and check in the main pack.  This meant the main pack had to be under 30kg (Emirates has a pretty lenient weight allowance) and the little pack under 10kg. 

Big brother and little brother

I wasn't really concerned about breaching those two limits.  The thing I was considering was my future Easyjet flight, for which my checked baggage will have to be under 20kg.  Nan and Grandpa took me to the airport and watched with concern in their eyes as I wobbled around with the bag(s) on my back.  The concern turned to scorn once I actually weighed the bags - 13kg and 4.7kg.

I had already made my very first mistake of the trip by this point – I wore the very clothes I planned to wear on the plane.  My logic was sound.  I didn’t want to leave any unwashed clothes lying around for 4 months, and I certainly didn’t want to carry them around in my bag.  I needed to wear something suitable for both the English winter and the Australian summer.  As no such outfit exists, I compromised with something suitable for neither.  I ended up walking around in stinking hot weather, carrying things up from my dirty, spider-infested garage all day wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and jeans.  They were very good at absorbing sweat, turning it to pure stench.  This was before I’d even looked at a plane.

Grandparents thinking they can get a photo of me as I
walk to my gate.  I got my own back.

Plane stink is quite different to sweat stink (more stale), and by the time I reached England I was a fine example of both.

Brisbane airport has an exciting new metal detector.  Actually, metal detector probably isn’t the right word.  It’s like a cross between the Total Recall x-ray machine and Star Trek’s space engines.  You walk inside a glass container, which twists to shut you inside.  You must then raise your arms over your head as a space-age spinning thing spins around you, buzzing.  You are released and shown a screen containing an outline of your body.  If you are trying to smuggle something through, a box flashes over the place where something suspicious was detected.  How do I know this?  They detected something in my shoes and on my wrist (not sure what was in the shoes, but the wrist was my watch).  I wanted to get a photo, but felt it might be a tad inappropriate with all the security people.

The first trip was a 14 hour behemoth from Brisbane to Dubai.  For some reason I was tired before we even started (it was only 8:45pm when we took off).  I tried watching Beasts of the Southern Wilds but, to be honest it made no sense to me at all.  Then I watched Moonrise Kingdom, which made a bit more sense.  Somewhere around this time we were fed dinner.

I’m a real fan of airline food, not because it tastes good, but because it’s so organized.  The way the meal is divided into very specific portions, packaged neatly upon your tray, excites me in ways that are illegal in some countries.

So very, very organised!  Heaven.

The meal itself was actually alright – the curry was thick and creamy and had a good spicy kick to it.  The tuna salad entrée had a lot of dill in it.

The rest of the flight was weird.  It was one of those flights that starts and ends in darkness.  The plane had lights that simulated nighttime and sunrise, but as they only used the sunrise one to signify the serving of breakfast (rubbery omelette) they didn’t really help simulate the passage of time.  I tried watching a few foreign films, but reading the subtitles was becoming more and more difficult.  I ended up sitting in a stupor watching A Bug’s Life.  While watching one of the French films, I noticed something a bit weird.  Some of the subtitles has been blurred out and rewritten over.  One example would be when, in a high stress moment, the main character calls the supporting character “you irritating individual”.  I wonder what they blurred out?

So we reached Dubai airport.  Yet another trip through security (took me fifteen minutes as I had to take out my money belt, pants belt, hat, wallet, watch, shoes, backpack, laptop and hidden wallet) brought me into the main duty free area.  It was 4:30 in the morning when I got there, and the airport felt empty and closed.  That isn’t to say it actually was empty and closed – in fact, it was a bustling metropolis of eager shoppers swarming through the long street of shops (15 minutes walk from one end to the other – I timed it).

Found this in Dubai Airport.  I thought it was funny at the
time...  Not sure why though.

One other thing I noticed in the Dubai airport was what I dubbed ‘Pee & Pray Stations’.  These were basically just the toilets, but each public bathroom had an Islamic prayer facility (behind a huge metal door) right beside it.  I know how they feel – coming off those planes, you really get the urge to thank a greater power once you’ve unleashed your load.  Whoever designed the urinals in Dubai airport really understands men.  They were individual, but each one took up almost an entire wall!  Missing was impossible.

Dubai airport is a roughly symmetrical dumbbell shape.  What’s weird about it is that the symmetrical portions are almost the exact opposite of one another.  Where one side has a McDonald’s, the other has Burger King.  Where one has an ice-cream parlour, the other has a bakery.

My next flight was to be on the Airbus A380 (!), relatively short seven-and-a-half hours across the pond to Heathrow airport.  I had been lucky with my tickets, being placed in the aisles for each flight (I prefer the aisles since I hate asking people to get up so I can go pee, especially when they are enthralled in the latest episode of Two and a Half Men or whatever).  Unfortunately a mother had been split up from her daughter, and they were looking to get seats together.  To start with they asked another lady if she could move, but she refused – she wanted the aisle seat too.  Being the nice fellow I am, I agreed to move.

Actually, the karma from this move did me wonders.  Firstly, I managed to hold my bladder the entire journey.  Secondly, when breakfast started to be served, I wanted the Arabic Mezze Platter option, but so did the lady next to me.  There was only one left.  However, knowing that I had given up my seat, the lady let me take it.  I did, and it was awesome.

Chickpeas, cheeses, flatbread... This is an airplane meal?

Emirates has a neat little feature in their entertainment system.  Cameras on the plane’s base, front and top allow you to watch the exterior of the flight at different angles.  The previous flight had offered up different angles of complete blackness, but this flight promised a little more variety as it would be bright the whole way, flying over countries like Romania, Germany and The Netherlands.  I had some hopes I might get a glimpse of the Alps.  Once we were up, I switched to the channel to see… complete whiteness.

“Wow!” I thought.  “That’s a lot of snow!”  Then I realized we were flying over desert at that point.  It was cloud.  The cloud remained complete all the way to London, and when there was a gap, the 12km altitude combined with the low resolution of the camera conspired to present me with a blurry grey fuzz that basically just looked like cloud.  Regardless, having had no sleep for 30 hours, I spent the last hour-and-a-half of the flight watching the various shades of white slide past beneath us, waiting for the landing, which promised a bit more excitement.  That was probably the most intellectually stimulating thing being watched in my row.

When we arrived at Heathrow, we were informed that the terminal was a bit full, so we’d need to fly around for a bit and wait.  I had booked a coach to Portsmouth, giving myself 90 minutes from the scheduled landing time to the coach’s departure, so this news concerned me a little.  Half an hour after we were meant to have landed, we landed.  60 minutes remained.

As soon as I stood to get off the plane, all of the urine that I had been carefully storing so as not to have to disturb those seated beside me rushed down to my nether regions.  I would have to make a toilet break as soon as possible.

But first I had to get off the plane.  I had forgotten how long it takes.  Fifteen minutes after the plane had come to a halt, I was off.

45 minutes remained.

Now for the toilet.  That wouldn’t take long, I thought.  Ha!  All those seven hours of pineapple juices and coffees was to catch up to me.  I unleashed a devilish fury the likes of which that poor urinal had never seen before.  Fifteen minutes later I left the bathroom.

Fortunately, customs was a cinch.  I just slid my sexy e-passport into a slot, looked at a screen and was allowed through.  Weirdly, the e-passport stalls were manned by officials, who looked at the screen to make sure our face was as sexy as in our passports (mine was a bit sexier, but they were still able to recognize me).  No interaction, just look at screen, press button, open gate.  Clearly these were the socially awkward customs officials, then.

I claimed my baggage went through the green gate with nothing to declare and thought to myself “FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!”  I may have also said that out loud.  But I was not quite home and dry (well, I was nowhere near home, but fortunately dry despite my bladder-busting toilet adventure).  First I had to walk through what looked like a departures gate, complete with desks and metal detectors, that had been abandoned in some kind of zombie apocalypse.  Passing through this, we reached a shop or something where a uniformed man approached me.

“Oh man,” I thought.  “Why am I the guy that gets the random bag inspection?”  This was not what I needed with only twenty minutes to find the bus stop.

“Train ticket!  Need a train ticket?” the guy asked.

I think my dumbfounded, open-jawed facial expression was response enough for him, as he briskly sidestepped me and approached the next sap.

Eventually I found the bus stop.  I had to venture down into the tunnels beneath the terminal.  Luckily the British hate walking, apparently, and there were travelators all the way along the tunnel, which sped up my journey considerably.  The bus arrived late (though not very) anyway, so I don’t know why I was worried.

At the bus, I was met by a giant Christmas bauble on legs – the bus driver.  He was a very sour-looking bauble.  The bus left the station and I waved goodbye to planes until next time, as we rounded the corner and entered…

…another Heathrow terminal.

Leaving this terminal, I saluted my goodbyes to the receding landing strips, thankful I would not have to return for some time.  We reached a roundabout, heading towards a sign for the famous M25.

We then passed the sign, continued round the roundabout and stopped at another airport terminal.  By the time we left, I was very glad to see the back of that bloody airport.

It was about this time that the bus started talking to me.  Nothing terribly interesting, just “wapawapawapawapawapa” incessantly.  I tried asking it politely to stop, but a lime-green pumpkin rolled down the aisle and told me to leave the bus alone.  At this point, I thought I should probably take a power nap.  30 hours without sleep does strange things to you.

When I woke up the bus was crushing pedestrians against an impressive medieval stone wall.  We had reached Winchester, and the two-way streets were about the same width as the bus, and had footpaths on either side.  I don’t think I would have had the balls to walk down those footpaths.

My first meal in England.  Fitting.  Chips were a bit stale -
I should have put more vinegar on them.

After an extraordinarily surreal bus ride of constant five minute naps followed by a startled awakening as I fearfully checked the time in case I had missed my stop, checking the unchanging drab grey-and-brown landscape for any variation (I saw a deer at one point), I finally reached Portsmouth.  Dad was there, we had a pub dinner, and I slept.

Today I’m going to explore Portsmouth a bit.  It’s already almost 11am, so I have maybe five hours before it gets dark.  Off I go!

The Itinerary

The following is subject to almost constant change based on my disposition and how much I sleep in for early trains.

(NOTE THIS STARTS AT THE END OF 2012 AND ENDS IN 2013).

8 December - Leave Brisbane
9 December - Arrive Heathrow, bus to Portsmouth
9-22 December - Portsmouth and travel north through England
22-29 December - The Tower of Hallbar in Scotland
29 Dec - 1 Jan 2013 - Edinburgh for Hogmanay
1-6 January - Travel south toward Portsmouth
7-10 January - Lisbon
11-14 January - Madrid
15-19 January - Barcelona
19-21 January - Lyon
21 January - Geneva
21-25 January - Bern
25 January - Transit day through Swiss Alps
26-29 January - Rome
29 Jan - 1 Feb - Naples
1 February - Transit day across Ionian Sea
2 February - Transit day through Peloponnese
2-3 February - Corinth and Mycenae
3-7 February - Athens
8 February - Transit day through Bulgaria
8-11 February - Plovdiv
11-14 February - Sofia
15 February - Bucharest
15-20 February - Brasov
21-26 February - Budapest
26 Feb - 1 March - Zagreb
1-3 March - Ljubljana
3-9 March - Vienna
9-11 March - Bratislava
11-16 March - Prague
16-20 March - Munich
21-26 March - Berlin
26 March - Hamburg
26-29 March - Copenhagen
30 March - 3 April - Amsterdam
3 April - Antwerp
3-6 April - Bruges
6 April - Brussels
6-10 April - Paris
10 April - Plane leaves for Brisbane in evening.

Dates given are when I arrive to when I leave.  Where the arrival date is different to the previous departure date, I am taking a night train.  Arrival and departure dates do not necessarily represent actual tourist time in a given location - if my train arrives at 11:59pm on January 1, for example, I would list January 1 as the arrival date despite having only a minute of that time remaining.

If you see an opportunity to meet up with me, or have ideas for things to do in any of the places above, you can email, twit, facebook or whatever me.

Email: travelercuz@gmail.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Travelercuz
Twitter: @travelercuz

In Medias Res - Money money money

About three months ago I finalised a draft budget.  It was perfect, giving me a 10% buffer for the entire four month trip, 50 euro spending money every day for the 3 month backpacking portion and an amount put aside for accomodation.

This morning, it being the first morning I've not been rushing out of the house in about a month, I decided to get the prepaid travel card that will be my lifeline for the next however long, and I discovered the first few cracks in my perfect budget.

Firstly, tax.  Despite the fact I am well under the tax threshold, try telling the tax department that.  I will be.  Unfortunately, I will be telling them at the end of the tax year, a good two to three months after I finish my trip.  So from the very beginning I'm a good $750 down on my expected income.

But that's alright.  I mean, that's what I had a 10% buffer for.

Then along comes currency exchange.  My only weakness, besides fire, bullets and chocolate.

I looked at the numbers, not really understanding whether they were good or not.  In the end, it was about 1 cent per dollar off what I was expecting.  "Well, that's alright" I thought.  Then I did the calculation.  I was likely to lose about $80.

"I guess this is what my buffer was for," I nodded sagely to myself.  "And that just accounts for their 1% commission."

I go to the next page where they tally up the final cost.

It's 1% higher than the previous page.

"Oh, guess that didn't account for the 1% commission."

There goes another $80.

"Thank God for my buffer," I muttered to myself as I calculated how much I had left over.  Turned out my buffer had gone into the red about $150.

There go my dreams of being an accountant.

On the plus side, who really wants to go on a balls-to-the-wall backpacking venture with plenty of money, right?  Injecting a little risk into proceedings will make things far more exciting.

The moral of this story is making a budget is pointless since it'll just make you feel bad when you don't keep to it.  Oh, and screw exchange rates.