Lauca National Park

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

What Lauca National Park lacked in oxygen it made up for in wildlife.

The first llama I saw in South America looked dejected despite its bright little hat and Aymaran drapery. It reminded me of a sad clown. It was being led around by an old man selling photos with it, in Parque Quinta Normal in Santiago. My sympathy for this undignified creature made me all the more eager to see proud llamas in their natural environment.

In Lauca wildlife clearly have an edge. While our lungs struggled to extract oxygen from the thin climate, baby vicuñas galloped comically alongside their more gracious parents.

Vizcacha among the rocks groomed nonchalantly as we took photos, pulling their bunny-like ears over their eyes.

Alpacas and llamas intermingled amicably in the bofedales, as the highland swamps are called. They nibbled at tender vegetation emerging from the shallow water, distancing themselves if we got too close, but otherwise unperterbed.

There were some exceptions, such as a llama which spends most of its time with the Carabineros, the police, who have a strong presence near the borders of Bolivia and Peru.

Her name is Loli. You can meet her in this video.

Parinacota

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

For us, a big attraction of the north of Chile was the Altiplano. Santiago is interesting as a city, but it wasn’t what I expected from South America. I wanted llamas, mountains and colourful garb reminiscent of the Incas. Patagonia is freezing at the moment, but up north it’s warm enough to go surfing (with a wetsuit) on the endless beach at the frontier of Chile and Peru.

So up we came, with one adventure firm in mind – visiting the Altiplano. I was apprehensive, however, because the majority of my travel woes and general maladies result from pressure and balance challenges. Flying offends my sinuses, while rocking boats or winding roads distress my inner ear to the point of nausea. Thus I anticipated altitude sickness.

I Googled the altitude of past sickness-free mountainous trips with self-deceptive optimism, but French glaciers and Canada’s high lakes were more than a thousand metres lower than the Altiplano would be.

I prepared with natural and mildly pharmaceutical remedies. Plenty of garlic meals and clove tea to thin the blood the week before our journey up, plus aspirin on the morning. In the wisdom of my late twenties I’ve finally found a cure for my motion sickness: fresh ginger. When my powdered ginger tablets last ran out I realised I was paying more for a less potent form, which is harder to come by in foreign-language pharmacies as well. But I’ve found ginger itself universally available and unmistakeable, so I need only point or pick it up at the market. So on the bus ride up I had ginger in my pocket, an edible talisman to fend off the spirits of sickness.

This worked a charm for nausea, but not for the thinning air. As the bus ascended by hundreds of metres our drink bottles swelled, popping indignantly upon opening. We began yawning; I drank more of the expanding water in attempts to fend off headache.

The bus, destined for the dizzying heights of La Paz, reached Putre, our point of departure. We tumbled out with our bags into the sunshine and crisp rarefied climate, which seemed more translucent than at sea level. I felt I could touch mountains far in the distance if I reached out enough, my arm perhaps becoming more translucent and lengthening as it stretched. I stretched some more, boldly defying advice to move as little as necessary after ascent. But after being cramped in the bus my muscles demanded release. I slowly, cautiously, stretched my head down to my knees, breathing deeply, as yoga taught me. I felt triumphant. I was well! My body hadn’t betrayed me!

I sat on the bus stop bench, and I realised it was good that I had. Things were not quite right. My body was fine, but my head was light. I realised I was shaking a little, the stretching had exerted me more than it should have, at least in the air it was used to. I took another gulp of water and looked out again, my head swimming.

We waited some minutes before our guide arrived, in a car full of young blonde women. I’ve grown used to what’s normal here, so I felt startled and curious by the foreigners, forgetting that I too am foreign in the same way. Three Dutch girls jumped out onto the highway, nonchalant, tanned in that northern European way from the UV-rich mountain sunshine. The driver of the car looked anxious and ushered them to the side of the road.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” he asked. They laughed and assured him, confident in their trinity of youth and blondness. As a freight truck destined for Bolivia approached they stuck out their thumbs; the Andean driver put on his breaks, slowing in wonder. The three Dutch girls danced up to the driver and chattered in Spanish. It was the stuff of dreams – who needs cocaine to keep you awake when three exotic young women appear, as if stepping from a magazine cover, to keep you company on the journey? They departed.

My triumphant feeling of adventure had already vanished with my light-headedness and now was further muted; our adventure, a conventional bus trip and a conventional B&B, outdone by the hitch-hiking Dutchwomen. However with my system muted I felt recovered. It was true; exertion brings on altitude sickness.

Later in the day I discovered just the exertion of digesting lunch brought it back with a fierce thumping in my head. Our host suggested perhaps I go to the clinic to take some oxygen; stubbornly and proudly I insisted that I sleep on it and hope for acclimatisation by the morning.

I took some more aspirin, but the headache remained. As I lay on our comfy bed (where did the hitch-hikers sleep?) I thought about how we take for granted the oxygen at sea level, except when we dive below it and then come up for air. This was the same air, but too refined. Like watery powdered milk for starving babies without mothers, it lacked the nutrients to keep my system glowing.

I realised I was breathing shallowly. It occurred to me that perhaps it was little coincidence that yoga flourished in the kindred heights of the Himalayas. I practiced breathing deeply, fully, using my diaphragm. The bed covers rose higher and crumpled deeper with me. I resisted the urge to breathe in again immediately after exhaling, willing myself to lengthen the moments between whole breaths. After fifteen minutes my headache dissipated, and my mind sparkled with the feeling of learning something for oneself; the glow of understanding what had before been just words of wisdom. There was enough oxygen in this air, if you know how to use it.

I fell asleep content already with my trip to where the Inca shadow is long and Spanish is a thin veneer over proud, ancient cultures.

On Saturday evening we happened to be on the main street of Arica, 21 de Mayo, when we saw a suspicious number of people wandering around in intricately sequinned outfits or with feathered hats. I was compelled to ask a lady about half my height, but with a feathered hat that made us equal, at what time they were parading.

I knew there would be a parade because there are parades almost every day in Arica, as you might have seen if you keep an eye on my photostream. Sometimes it’s hard to discern what they’re for, though of late they’re mostly related to the World Cup.

The tiny lady with the large feathered hat confirmed that they would be parading in “about ten minutes” this can mean anything from in fifteen minutes to in a couple of hours, in reality. So we strolled along the main street anticipating a parade at some point.

We were not disappointed. Rather than a half hour flash in the pan as happens most days, this festival involved people dancing for four hours down the main street, and then dancing for late into the madrugada (Spanish for 1-5am). I’ve never seen so many astounding costumes or so many colours.

On Monday I discovered it had been an Aymara winter solstice festival. However it wasn’t just Ayamaran dancing (the Ayamara are one of the indigenous communities in the Andes near here). We also saw Tinkus, Marinera and even some African dancing. But these words will mean little to those outside of the region – here are some photos that will give an idea of the different styles.

My favourite was the Tinkus. It reminded me a little of Maori hakas but much more colourful and a bit less scary. But if I’d been a conquistador coming across some of these guys it would have been pretty intimidating.

This experience was my biggest South American cultural education so far, and it was completely free as well as hugely entertaining. South Americans know how to party and celebrate their heritage better than anywhere I’ve been so far.

We’ve been in Chile almost two months, so we’re starting to settle in. We’re enjoying exploring the beaches in front of our apartment. Playa Chinchorro takes us into town, while Playa Las Maches takes us to the edge of Peru.

I took this photo on our sunset walk tonight as we were returning home.

In case you haven’t noticed, the World Cup is happening in South Africa. Over here on the other side of the world, Chileans are so happy about it they’re parading in the streets here in Arica.

Mind you, people here parade in the street for no apparent reason every few days (not apparent to me, anyway), so this is not extraordinary.

I’m not too optimistic about Australia’s prospects, so I’m happily pledging my devotion to the local team. I changed my Spanish lesson on Monday to start at noon rather than eleven in the morning so I can watch the Chile vs. Switzerland game, which starts at 10am here. I’m planning on wearing blue, so it’s clear I’m not there to support the Swiss team, as otherwise my blondeness might suggest otherwise.

So thumbs down to Santiago for being so polluted. Thumbs up, however, to these awesome places that made my month in Santiago lots of fun, despite the smog. I intend to visit all of these places again next time I’m in Santiago, and if you happen to be in town I recommend you do the same. I’ll start with my local neighbourhood and fan out from there.

Providencia is a great suburb (‘barrio’ in Spanish) for strolling through parks and enjoying some of the best food Santiago has to offer. I took this video in Providencia one morning, in the park next to Baquedano station. This park stretches from one end of Providencia to the main art gallery in Bellas Artes.

There’s a cute little literary cafe in Parque Baquedano. It took us a while to get the courage to go in, because they have a membership system and we didn’t know if we were allowed. However the draw of sipping expresso in their leafy cafe area with its scholarly ambiance was strong enough that we braved potential humiliation at being turned away to venture inside. W got an espresso for about a dollar, and were able to sit and peoplewatch as long as we liked. They didn’t ask us for membership cards or look at us strangely. In my imperfect Spanish I translated from their site that you can donate a book instead of paying for yearly membership, which appeals to me.

At the other end of Providencia, near Pedro de Valdivia station, are some great restaurants and shops. One of my favourites is El Huerto – a must visit even if you’re not vegetarian. It’s worth seeing its great sunken dining room with a mural of Patagonia and wooden beams overhead, and if you’re craving Indian they have a few things on the menu to sate your appetite before another few weeks of guacamole and quinoa. We had our farewell dinner in Santiago with a group of friends in their sunken dining room. For something more casual I really liked Shot Cafe on Avenida Providencia. They make great coffee, which is organic and biodynamic. I enjoyed the cheap daily specials and they had excellent salads and sandwiches, which they happily modified for the vegan. You could probably make do just with English there, too. Maybe. Another reason I like Shot Cafe is they had a great sound system which could have been playing from my iPod, with a bass-rich mix of Massive Attack and some peppier Beck as a backgound for our peoplewatching.

Lastarria is probably my favourite suburb of Santiago though, with a cool mix of cafes and local designer shops and the must-see Cerro Santa Lucia, my photos from which are locked on my camera. The cord to connect said camera to my computer is on the way in a package from Australia as we speak, so they should be up soon, Australian and Chilean postal systems permitting. A friend told us that medieval sword fighting goes on beneath the castle atop Cerro Santa Lucia on Saturday mornings, which we weren’t organised enough to verify but is tempting enough to be worth a morning visit next time we’re i town.

Barrio Lastarria is organised enough to have its own deservedly funky website, which is worth checking for the latest goings-on if you’re in town. There’s a super-cool clothes and accessories shop called Hecha in Chile – Made in Chile. Despite having a “don’t buy anything for the first few months” policy I couldn’t help but buy two dresses, and a hoodie for Tim there. In fact, the only shopping indiscretions I allowed myself in Santiago were all in Lastarria. If you prefer local designers to chains then this is your stomping ground.

On the other side of Providencia from Lastarria, Bellavista is also worth a visit, but I put it further down my list because it’s in every guidebook and on all the tours and so is a bit hackneyed. At night the main street, Pio Nono, is pretty feral with its crass bars and drunkards. But if you go to the end of that street during the day you can get the cheap furnicular to the top of Parque Metropolitano de Santiago – South America’s loftier answer to New York’s Central Park. If you head up several hours after rainfall you’re treated to a view like this. On your way to or from the park, diverge from the main street a little to visit La Chascona, one of Pablo Neruda’s homes. There are tours in English or Spanish, or you can just sit, relax and enjoy the cool architecture and vibe over a coffee in their upstairs cafe.

A couple of my favourite places in the centre of town are the La Vega fruit market, behind El Mercado Central, which is really just a fish market, unlike my home town’s Adelaide Central Market which has everything. I found the central market here to be too cramped and sleazy; lots of men trying to coerce me to dine at their establishments. Not cool at all. La Vega, however, it great fun. I’m going to write a separate entry about it when I can download my photos from there, which will give you more of an idea. The centre also has another favourite of my cafes on Calle Esmerelda, La Boa Torio. The name is a play on laboratory, thanks to their alchemy-inspired looseleaf tea mixes and presentation of spices in test tubes. What really rocks about this place though is the upstairs sanctuary. Climb a tiny ladder and you find possibly the cosiest place to sip tea in South America.

Santuario de la Naturaleza del Arrayán

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

I’ve noticed that Chileans have a thing for sweeping. I have vague recollections of the same thing when I was in Seville, so my feeling is it’s more a Spanish culture thing than Chilean per se.

Everywhere there are people sweeping. When I look out from our balcony, maybe once in every three times I can see someone on another balcony, sweeping. Yet to where do they sweep? The balconies are contained. You can’t sweep stuff off the sides. And why? We’re on the 22nd floor, there are no leaves. No mud should be trekked in from the doorway as balconies are on the other side of the apartment.

In the parks people are sweeping. It’s autumn, there are gorgeous brown leaves everywhere. Except on the paths. The leaves are swept off to the side of the path, so they no longer crunch beneath our boots, rather they sit in sad, damp piles, decomposing. Sometimes they’re swept into Hessian sacks, which sit on the sides of paths all the same. Swept, but left lingering.

On the footpaths people sweep. Council workers with brooms, sweeping the same five square metres of pavement for half an hour. Perhaps it’s Zen, like raked rockeries in Japan. Perhaps it just keeps unemployment down.

When we were in the mountains I saw a woman sweeping outside the perimeter of her rickety house. You can see a photo on the right. How futile, sweeping an ocean of red dust! Why does she sweep?

I don’t want to conclude that people are just passing time; surely they sweep for a reason. Surely?

This might horrify some readers who enjoy building a romantic picture of my travels in mind, but rather than give you a detailed account of the day in writing I’m going to share a couple of videos.

I ate some fresh ginger before we departed upwards; my remedy of choice for motion sickness. Why pay money for a dried, powdered form of something you can get fresher and more potent from the market?

I find it easier going upwards than downwards for some reason, but for me the killer is going side to side.

Thankfully perhaps, my friend Emma who preserved some of my ABC broadcasts in Port Lincoln didn’t preserve the one in which I did a live cross from a tuna boat. It was all I could manage not to throw up on the microphone.

Either thanks to the ginger or the lack of sideways motion, or both, I was fine on the bus ride into the Andes. So fine in fact that I filmed some of it. Thanks to Sony’s image stabilisation technology it doesn’t actually look as horrific as it was, so if you’re game you can watch here:

Once we arrived Tim and I departed the group for a bit of a hike in the fresh morning air. It was such a relief to get some fresh air after a week in smoggy Santiago. Pine-scented air accompanied by the sound of cascading water was even better.

We had a fantastic lunch with some Chilean red wine organised by Expats in Chile, who even managed to cater for the vegan despite no prior notice. Then we ventured off again, the two of us, up a different trail.

The trails were divided by a river, so you needed to choose early on which side of the river you wanted to spend your trekking time. We tried both sides, but after starting our afternoon trek on the opposite side to the morning we realised the trail was now entirely in shadows.

The Andes looming over us meant that although it was 3 in the afternoon our walk of choice would have no more sunshine. So we decided to turn back and return to the river crossing, where we could opt instead to trek on a higher path that caught the afternoon sun.

On our way back we came across a smaller point in the river were a group of Chileans were crossing with children:

It was an impressive operation, but one I wasn’t game to try.

I think at least once a week one of us says “you would never see than in Australia!” Whether it’s wet mops carelessly left on supermarket floors, or giant potholes in the footpath with no warning. But in this case I’d say you wouldn’t see this on an Australian school excursion. If you were hanging with the Irwin family it might be another matter.

South Americans give brazen Aussies a run for their money.

There’s something captivating about living under mountains. Here in Santiago, the mountains are shrouded in smog half of the time. Yesterday was such a day, but it rained last night.

Tim and I had been out at a bar with some new friends and walked home in the rain through the park around 1am. Here rain is a good omen, signalling that the next day will bring clearer skies and cleaner air. So I awoke and left Tim sleeping to venture out towards Cerro San Cristobel, in Santiago’s giant metropolitan park, for some photos.

We’re conventiently located within walking distance of the fine restaurants in Providencia, like El Huerto, where we went for dinner last night, the bustling nightlife of Bellavista and the funky designer shops around Lastarria. I find the names of these suburbs in Santiago as charming as their streets.

However the highway at the base of our building is an unfortunate distraction. If we move back to Santiago later in the year, when the worst of the smog season is over, I think we’ll move to the tiny suburb of Lastarria or nearby Bellas Artes, aptly named with its many galleries and museums. Alternatively we’ll move closer to Pedro de Valdivia in Providencia, among the wide, tree-lined boulevards filled with cafes and restaurants.

But all of those places are within 20 minutes walk from where we live now, so the Chilean consulate in Australia, who recommended I live around here, certainly gave good advice.

In a couple of weeks we’re moving up to Arica, at the northernmost tip of Chile, for two months. It’s cheaper up there, and warmer, with clean air and good surf. We’ll both work on our laptops and live cheaply for 2 months, with some side trips to the Atacama desert and Peru, before returning for a month of the very expensive snow season in central Chile, then perhaps skiing in Argentina for the start of Spring.

Budgets permitting… we’ll see how our international work goes over the next two months!

For now, I’m still enthralled by the breathtaking mountain views here in Santiago.

Parque Balmaceda

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

We’ve spent the week exploring our local neighbourhoods, Providencia and Bellavista. It’s a ten minute walk half through park and half along highway (what a contrast) to the hubs of both neighbourhoods, in either direction.

On our first morning in Providencia we stumbled unexpectedly upon the local market, where they sold all the fruit and vegetables I could imagine, along with several I’ve never imagined before. We’ve become fond of a fruit that sits alongside the apples in supermarkets but is more like a small melon. It’s mottled white and green on the outside but on the inside is like a small, but sweeter, honeydew melon.

I love the way they handle pumpkins here. Rather than sell pre-wrapped portions, or opt for some dwarf variety, most market stalls and even supermarkets have one giant pumpkin. A customer asks for however much pumpkin’s desired and the grocer lops a chunk off with a giant knife there and then.

There’s also a bewildering array of grains and pulses. I was thrilled to get a bag of quinoa for about a dollar at the market, given that it’s typically several times that at health food stores in Australia. They also have puffed and honeyed amaranth as a breakfast option.

South America is lucky to have these excellent, whole-protein grains to call their own. So it could be a health food paradise – except fast food chains probably have more of a grip on the local population than traditional staples. As well as the typical Macdonalds and KFC there’s a fast-food chain called Schopdog, which sells hotdogs and revels in United States kitsch. Here in Chile guacamole comes with everything; hotdogs are no exception.

Guacamole or avocado salsa comes with everything because avocados are abundant. Tim was thrilled to discover you can buy them for a dollar fifty a kilo at the supermarket. Given we use avocado instead of butter (especially with vegemite on toast – try it!), having this staple so readily available is a one of those little things that make living in Chile worthwhile.

They eat late here, with breakfast nearly non-existant and lunch the main meal after 2pm. This took a few days to get used to, and one day we were hungry at 1:30pm after wandering since 11. We were in the heart of Providencia’s restaurant area but everywhere we asked said they didn’t start serving until 2. We resigned ourselves to eating at home, so walked back to our apartment with growling stomachs, imagining what we’d concoct with what remained in the fridge.

We reached the base of our apartment building and, still in the spirit of wandering, peered down the lane alongside. It was filled with upmarket cafes! Somehow we’d missed this every time we’d left and returned from the apartment thus far, as from the street the lane looks like it could be just a service entrance. I blame the jetlag on our lack of attention to detail.

Fortuitously it had just passed 2, so there was food and service galore. We sat down at a table where we could bask in the afternoon sun, where I had a vegetarian pizza (which was average, but I was hungry enough not to care) and Tim had a tofu and betroot salad, which was excellent. We also had fresh mint and pear juices served in beer glasses, which was a delightful combination I intend to repeat at home.

The best value vegetarian food we’ve found so far turned out to be right under our noses.

I was still alarmed by the fast traffic that zipped past. Evidently highway proximity doesn’t have the same negative real estate effect it does in Australia, as we were opposite the Hyatt and next to a five-star hotel, where men in top hats and red coats were escorting people out of their vehicles.

We crossed a pedestrian bridge and arrived where our landlord recommended we have breakfast, which turned out to be a giant shopping mall, similar to but plusher than those found in Adelaide or Calgary. It began with a large plaza where about a dozen restaurants were open for breakfast. These were no cheap Latino eateries, in fact it was hard to find a word of Spanish. There were half a dozen named in English, while the rest were a mix of French and Italian. I was flabbergasted; we may as well have been in North America. For our first breakfast in South America I had a crepe and Tim had a panini, both with espressos.

We discussed cultural imperialism over breakfast, but perhaps it would be fairer to say globalisation. As much as it seems easy to blame the United States, the restaurants were generally Italian, French or Japanese inspired. Australia has a similar lack of distinct cuisine; our culinary strengths come from multiculturalism. I wonder if foreigners visiting Australia are disappointed by the lack of a distinct local cuisine? I’ve always appreciated living somewhere with such variety, enjoying visiting places like Italy and Vietnam where reliably distinct dishes dominate, but inevitably tiring of the homogeneity. Yet finding such variety here after expecting cultural immersion was unsettling.

After breakfast we wandered the mall for a while, where my surprise continued. They have Zara and Topshop and United Colors of Benetton! I needn’t miss European fashion either. This is certainly not a developing country like most of its neighbours. Granted, thanks to a mixup by our landlord we were in one of Santiago’s ritziest neighbourhoods, so this is not typical of Chile. But it is Chile nonetheless. I’d reassured wary older relatives that Chile was a first-world country, in the OECD, safe enough. I’m not sure I really believed it, but I do now.

After wandering we returned outside only to stumble upon a Boost juice. If I was shocked before I was floored now. This business founded in Adelaide had extended to Santiago! How could we not support a local business gone global? So we sipped our juices while looking in the window of the Quiksilver shop next door.

I was rather relieved we were only in Viticura for one night, because as Tim observed, we hadn’t flown halfway around the world to do the same things we do at home.

Our taxi driver sped along the highway bopping to his latino radio, squeezing between buses with not an inch to spare, braking often as other drivers changed lanes without indicating. I gazed out at the billboards, traffic and palm trees and couldn’t help but think of California. We’d noticed the smog already from the airplane windows, a brown haze laced among the mountains.

The Andes were a shock. I’ve lived beneath the Italian Alps and Canadian Rockies. Either it’s been too many years since I’ve lived beneath mountains, or the Andes are simply more stark. Small hills dotted with bushes, reminiscent of Adelaide’s southern wine region, suddenly give way to massive jagged peaks. I imagined it in the winter; the double black runs surely outnumber the blue ones.

Like Los Angeles, the smog and traffic will be what makes downtown Santiago a place I don’t expect call home for that long. Driving through neighbourhoods towards the city centre, I got the impression the income inequality also mirrors Los Angeles. As if to confirm my comparison, Tim spotted a Hollywood-esque word spelt out in white on the side of a mountain, just visible through the haze.

We arrived at our apartment building on Avenida Providencia; the taxi driver pulled Tim off the road before he got hit by a bus. The ‘avenue’ is a highway with speed limits to match. Despite this, there’s a park in the middle that apparently comes alive like those of Tokyo on weekends. We could see across the street the statue that watches over the city from Cerro San Cristobal, in South America’s version of Central Park. Finally I felt like I was in South America. Catholic statues lording over cities may be guidebook cliché, but at least it was something to differentiate here from North America.

We were five minutes early for our apartment handover, but I failed to explain what exactly we were doing in my garbled, jetlagged Spanish to the man at reception, who opted to call the local number on the piece of paper I had with details of our apartment and landlord. He put me on the phone to our landlord who warmly welcomed us but said she was running late. So we settled on the big chairs in the impressive foyer of our apartment building, watching Santiaguinos coming and going under the stone gaze of the Virgin Mary on Cerro San Cristobal. After more forty minutes we tired of this, jetlagged as we were too; luckily our landlord arrived right then.

We lugged our (my) substantial lugged up in the elevator, only to discover the landlord didn’t have the right keys to the apartment, one of several she managed. Any anger we might have felt at being messed around was diffused by her genuine warmth and many apologies. Frustration abounded however. Luckily she had another apartment free in what Lonely Planet describes as Santiago’s plushest suburb, hence we ended up spending our first night in Santiago not in Providencia, but Viticura.

We piled our luggage into her tiny car and headed up above the smog line, to a darling little apartment with mountain views on both sides. She apologised further and promised to pick us up the next day when she had the right keys for the apartment we’d paid for. We farewelled her with hugs and cheek kisses, then explored the apartment. It had proportions similar to the country of Chile – long and narrow, with the bedroom at one end and kitchen and terrace at the other. We speculated as to whether it cost more or less than the one in Providencia. Then we slept, well before sunset, felled by jetlag.

I’ve booked a flight for end of April to move to Chile! 

After my taste of the Spanish speaking world based near Seville in 2007, I’ve been itching to get to South America. I made a pact with two girlfriends that we’d go on a trip there in 2009, after our Spanish holiday together, but it fell through, as we each were busy with our own projects in Australia. So I’m going it alone! Or rather with Tim, who I met in February and who is working on a comic book for a French publisher, so has the luxury of working from anywhere.

We’ve got 18-month round the world tickets, which means we have a year in South America, followed by Tim’s book launch and some time in France, then some time in Thailand on the way back home.

In the meantime, I’m planning to move to Chile delve back into the world of freelancing as I did in the UK, the payment for which should go a lot further in Chile than it did in England, if I’m working for international outlets.

At the moment I’m getting together the documents I need to get the Australian Government’s letter of government support to allow me to apply for a Working Holiday Visa there. I called the number for the Chilean embassy listed on the Australian immigration site to ask about how to apply for the visa, but they told me to call the number of the Chilean consulate in Melbourne.

While there’s no information about the Working Holiday Visa on the site, when I rang to ask, a friendly woman took my email address and said she would send me the details. Both Chilean consulate offices were quick to answer the phone, in contrast to the British and Canadian ones, which probably reflects the number of young Aussies who want to spend a year in their country. I’m looking forward to being a little more off the beaten track this time.

However the email from the consulate hasn’t arrived yet, so I might have to be more persistent. My experiences getting residency visas for Canada and the UK mean I won’t hesitate to follow up, as it seems to be the only way things get done.

Fingers crossed! Now back to the thesis.

I head over to Melbourne once a year or so, mainly to catch up with friends who have moved there, part of the Adelaide to Melbourne migration so common for twentysomethings.

This time was similar, but now I’ve reached the latter half of my twenties there’s a pleasant change. No more sleeping on matresses on the floor in the living room; suddenly everyone has space! I stayed with three people whilst there, two couples who’d bought houses and another friend with an apartment to themselves. Interestingly, everyone’s consolidated into the same part of Melbourne, after years of having people spread across the city. Hence I spent my time largely between Fitzroy and Flemington, and most significantly on Brunswick Street.

My only friend who lives elsewhere in Melbourne laments that she’s too corporate for Brunswick Street. She doesn’t have the right vintage clothes and arty attitude. It certainly sums up what Adelaideans move to Melbourne for. The laissez-faire bohemian vibe, festive feeling seven days a week, and bottomless range of food and funky wares.

It’s what a Melbourne holiday is all about.

Mooloolaba surf rescue

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

I headed up to Mooloolaba on Queensland’s sunshine coast for my friends’ wedding. It seemed like bad timing, because there was a hurricane a couple of days before, so the beaches were closed at first, and the weather was grim. I was worried for a while that my flight would be cancelled – some guests who were arriving earlier suffered this fate.

My friends must have accrued some good karma or something, because after days of climate suspense their wedding was heralded by a perfect blue-sky afternoon.

The wedding was actually in Alexandra Headland, just north of Mooloolaba, where they’d hired a magazine-worthy house for the ceremony and reception. The views were sensational, while the possoms descending from the power lines kept guests amused at dusk.

I can see why so many people move to the Sunshine Coast. The surf is excellent, the food is good, the lush tropical environment is enchanting. Really, I don’t have anything bad to say about it. It was awesome.

DSC07508

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

For the new year break I ducked over to the Eyre Peninsula, where I used to work as the ABC newsreader. I stayed with my old colleague Emma Pedler and had a blast.

The highlight was on new year’s day when I went to a barbecue on a private beach (pictured) with the locals. The lifestyle on the Eyre Peninsula is awesome. If it weren’t for the sharks, it could be paradise. I sometimes think that if I get sick of travelling I could settle over there.

Another novelty was at one of the Tumby Bay pubs, when we got complimentary meat pies and mini pasties with our beer. It reminded me of getting tapas everywhere when I lived in Spain. Aussie tapas. Nice.

Me + elephant

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

While up in the mountains I also stayed at the Elephant Nature Park, because I have a friend who’s been heavily involved in the project.

It was awesome. I’ve since recommended it to another friend who stayed for a whole two weeks. The staff were really friendly and clearly cared about the elephants, who were mostly rescued from abuse such as at the hands of street vendors in Bangkok. The surrounds were tranquil – it’s a rainforest as well as elephant conservation park and the food was good.

It was such a positive and uplifting experience – with the exception of watching the video about why it was set up, which is a bit distressing hearing about the abused elephants before they were rescued.

If you’re going to Thailand and want to have an encounter with elephants don’t pay for a ride or a tour, unless you know the elephants won’t be bludgeoned with hooks and are treated well. You’re much better off doing your bit for conservation and putting your tourist dollars into supporting elephants in their natural environment. You can still have closeup encounters, as this photo demonstrates!

Buddhist statues

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

After cavorting around Europe I stopped over in Thailand on my way back to Australia. I opted to go up to Chiang Mai as I’d heard great things about it, and I had some frequent flyer points with Singapore Airlines I needed to use up, so it cost me nothing to get away from Bangkok.

It was definitely worthwhile. As something of a Buddhist, I found visiting Wat Phra Thart Doi Suthep high in the mountains breathtaking, though the throngs of tourists clanging the gongs was unsettling. If I were to go on a meditation retreat I think I would choose somewhere more secluded.

It is absolutely stunning though, well worth the trek up the steps.

Bicycle at the nude beach

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

My friend thought it would be entertaining to take me to a Norwegian nude beach. This was a bit of a misleading plan, because it was not much of a beach, and there were not many nudes. There were more surf life savers and bicycles than bathers, but that was okay by me.

Here I made the mistake of buying liquorice, despite my friend’s warnings. Unlike our soft and sweet liquorice, liquorice sold at Norwegian nudist beaches (and elsewhere in the country I’m told) is hard and salty. An acquired taste. I think of it as Scandinavian vegemite.

From Denmark I headed up to the Norwegian capital to visit one of my friends from high school, who is now an engineer there. I went to Hafjell in Norway for the first time for my birthday in 2007 and absolutely loved it, so was keen to check out the capital. Norway is a country I would like to live in for a while at some point – if I can afford it!

One of the few things my friend who lived there hadn’t yet done was visit the new opera house. It was very stylish – but on the top, in the middle of summer, roasting hot, with so much white and metal and glare! There are lots of ‘watch your step’ signs because the surfaces and angles are a bit treacherous (kind of like the Australian parliament but with cement instead of grass).

Formalities

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

After the conference I crossed the bridge from Sweden to Denmark, leaving Malmö for Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a pretty iconic city, between The Little Mermaid and the royal family. Given that Princess Mary is Australia’s own, I was chuffed to get a glimpse of her in a purple coat at some military celebration, pictured. We asked a Danish guy standing near us what was going on, but I forget what he said. I googled to try and figure out what celebration it was, in August ’08, to no avail. If anyone can enlighten me, it would be much appreciated!

Most of the conference was at the university in Malmö, a town most notable for the oddly shaped tower, pictured (with a colleague who I managed to persuade to jump for the photo, despite strong reluctance).

Malmö is certainly no Stockholm, and is in the process of redevelopment. But it has a beautiful old town centre that is pretty happening of a midsummer evening, as well as the aforementioned twisted tower, portside.

pre-conference_at_nobel_museum

Originally uploaded by pcstmalmo.

Here we all are outside the museum (courtesy of the event organisers).

Another thing I would highly recommend in Stockholm is the Nobel Museum.

But I know I’m heavily biased, working in science communication. Also, I was there through work, and part of my awesome memory of there involves meeting two inspiring Nobel laureates (notably Peter Agre, who had the guts to go on The Colbert Report).

Unfortunately Nobel laureates don’t spend all the time admiring their own profiles in the museum, so there’s no guarantee you’ll have the same experience.

But I’m pretty sure that – as long as you have some vague interest in discoveries that have changed our lives – you would find visiting the Nobel Museum worthwhile.

Stockholm is a typical Scandinavian city. Beautiful. Clean. Efficient. Almost disturbingly so. Brutally expensive. But lots of fun.

We went into an adorable chocolate shop – a chain in fact – the name of which I don’t remember unfortunately. But the girl behind the counter was brilliantly friendly, going so far as to recommend a place we should go for dinner and calling to make the booking for us. The place she booked us in was called Grill, which in Australia would sound a bit feral to be honest, so we weren’t expecting much. Though the fact we couldn’t get a booking until 9:15pm should have suggested otherwise.

We rocked up for a pre-dinner cocktail and were blown away by the interior design. Stuff everywhere – prams and great white sharks dangled from the ceiling, candles and furry wallpaper mingled perilously. The ambience was awesome. The prices were astronomical… one cocktail was more than a whole dinner in Australia.

But the thrill of going to a funky bar in central Stockholm was worth it.

I’m back in the East of England.

I was in Cambridge on Tuesday afternoon (pictured) for the Queen’s College garden party, Darwin literature garden party (or something) and fireworks on the river, and will be back on Friday for the Darwin College May Ball. At the moment I’m in Norwich.

People in Cambridge and London may be derogatory about Norwich but I really like it. It’s a bit like Adelaide in relation to Melbourne or Sydney; great lifestyle, culture and research facilities. Locals prefer to keep quiet about how great it is, to avoid the price rises and onslaught from more famous cities.

If I were to move back to England I would move to Norwich (and go to Cambridge for May Week every year, and the odd formal hall).

(not going to happen though)

in Harlem

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

New York is, needless to say, a very big city. There’s no way three days is enough to see everything – I barely scratched the surface. It was enough time to appreciate one thing decently (namely Central Park) and get a taste of lots of other things.

Several of my friends plan to live in New York at one stage or another; some are working towards that now. I’m not sure if I’d want to live there. I loved visiting, it was sensational. A big part of that had to do with my two wonderful friends who showed me around; I’m so thankful for these inspiring people.

But there were times I found the crowds frustrating and the noise disturbing. I think New York is more raucous than London or Tokyo. On the other hand, wandering through SoHo on Sunday afternoon I definitely had a sensation of affinity.

Most New Yorkers I met were super friendly, against the stereotype. I didn’t feel unsafe very often, no more than in London anyway. We found plenty of funky cafes and restaurants – no need to resort to Starbucks.

I think if two more of my friends moved to New York that would tip the balance in favour of me wanting to live there. In the meantime, it’s an ideal place for a summer weekend.

So I’m off again… let’s just skip forward about six months, now I’m in New York for the weekend, staying with a friend from Cambridge who’s now living here.

The awesome thing about staying with locals is you get to do local stuff. Being part of a flash mob isn’t your standard weekend in NY tourist activity. But somehow I got embroiled in a flash mob water fight between a bunch of Columbia University grad students vs. a bunch of high school kids, with a bunch of other random types thrown in.

It was a hot and humid summer day; the water fight was the perfect antidote for my jet lag and general wretchedness after my first night out in NY.

Curtain fig panorama

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

Maybe we were the only Australians ever to go there on a package tour (everyone else were European backpackers), but we went to the Tablelands on a tour with On The Wallaby. I haven’t been on many tours (the day I go on a Contiki tour is the day I stop loving Europe), so I don’t have much to compare it to. But as someone who is skeptical about tours, this was fantastic.

We went to one of the official (beware! There are many unofficial ones!) travel information services in Cairns, who recommended On The Wallaby. Great work, information people! We did so many things we wouldn’t have been able to do just traveling on our own. Our guide was great, with all kinds of useful insider knowledge, so we went on local, unpublicised trails through the rainforest, and pumped through a 12k bike ride that finished with a dip in a crater lake.

We stayed for two nights –we were the only people then who stayed more than one night – which was part of what made it so great. We got to relax at the beautiful hostel in Yungaburra, see platypuses at a nearby waterhole, and share a BBQ with staff and other guests.

I went to Far North Queensland as a kid and going to the Tablelands wasn’t even on the radar. I won’t make that mistake again. It’s a must-do.

We landed in Cairns from Tokyo. When I’d booked my round the world ticket my itinerary was from Tokyo to Sydney, but with a stopover in Cairns. I asked the travel agent if I could just get off in Cairns – who would turn down a trip to Far North Queensland!?

So we spent about 10 days up there and it was AWESOME. I was worried after travelling in two continents we’d just want to be home in Adelaide (if it still felt like home…). But I’m so glad we stopped up there. Cairns is definitely only a base for things beyond though. One night was enough.

A woman sent me a message through my old blog on travelpod:

Dear Cobi,
I am trying to arrange travel plans for my daughter who is
studying abroad in the UK. She and her friend want to
travel a little but are on a budget. In doing some
checking, because of our devalued US dollar, it’s making
it very difficult. You had mentioned staying with a
French family in the south of France. Do you have any money saving tips? Also how
did you come about hooking up with the family that helped
you? Thank you so much for your
time, your travels look great!

I usually stay with friends, as I had on that occasion she referred to (travel becomes self-perpetuating because the more you travel the more cool people you meet and the more people invite you to stay in different places). But there are two sites I would suggest for people looking for cheap, rewarding accommodation on a budget:

http://www.hospitalityclub.org/

I’ve never actually stayed with anyone through this, but I’ve showed a couple of people around my own city as a host, and one of my friend’s spent a week with a lovely couple in Colorado that she contacted through the site.

http://www.wwoof.org/

Again, I’ve never volunteered on a farm myself, but my friends have had great – and terrible – experiences through this.

If I were travelling somewhere that I didn’t know anyone or had time to kill I would use one of these organisations to figure out where I would stay.

A guy asked me though Flickr:

I noticed you just recently went through the fish market in Tokyo. Did you have any problems getting in, or taking photos? I heard they’ve been cracking down lately on tourists going in there. Anyway, any suggestions/advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

John

I had no idea they were cracking down on tourists in the Tokyo fish market, but since John mentions it, in fact the shops within the market were downright rude. I’m not talking the fish mongers or sellers (they were indifferent) or those in the streets around the market (they were desperate to get our business), only the ones actually within the market itself. Most of them actually had ‘Japanese people only’ in their windows.

This was most unfortunate as I’d dragged my partner up at 5am to go to the markets when he was maybe still a little drunk from the night before. On the train in the heat he was getting nauseous – when we hit the market with its fishy aromas he was not going well. So we were looking for coffee and some type of breakfast.

Amongst these rows of downright hostile shops there was one that had the word ‘coffee’ (in English) on the window, so we thought we could go inside. We did, there were a few old Japanese guys having breakfast in there. The old lady behind the counter ignored us for a while until it became clear we weren’t planning on going away empty-handed. Places like this our complete lack of Japanese language skills hurt. Thankfully the guy next to us was having coffee and toast and with some help from our phrase book and gestures she understood we wanted the same thing. It came out, and we were charged some exorbitant amount. We were frustrated but in situations like that you’ve just got to pay tourist prices.

With no longer empty bellies we ventured out into the market, gazing about, taking photos and generally getting in the way of people going about their business.

I was kind of surprised going to the Tsukiji Fish Market is in all the guide books because it’s not an easy thing to do. It was exciting and interesting but certainly not pleasant. On a couple of occasions I almost got fish guts and blood all over me, with people rushing about. And we almost got run over by a few trucks too.

That said looking back it’s one of my highlights of my trip to Toyko. Seeing sushi being cut out of the fish is pretty cool.

Schoolgirls at Sensoji Temple

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

Ian made a great choice, booking our place to stay in Asakusa. I was really looking forward to visiting Tokyo for the first time, but expected after a few days I’ve feel overwhelmed by the bustle and bright lights.

I think partly because we stayed in the more chilled-out, old part of town, and partly because we’d come from near London, rather than straight from Australia, I was underwhelmed, in a good way.

It was not as crazy as I expected. (Ian even deemed one of my outfits put together especially for Japan to be ‘too crazy for Tokyo’).

It was not as foreign-feeling as I had expected (Vietnam was much more exotic to me).

It wasn’t as big as I expected (but the one thing I didn’t do that my friend had recommended was go somewhere to see the city-scapes that blew her mind every time).

It wasn’t as busy as I expected – even at peak hour I think the Tokyo metro is more dignified than the London tube.

Not to say it isn’t any of these things – just not as intensely so as I expected. There were plenty of crazy outfits to admire (though unfortunately people in exceptional outfits hide from cameras – damn you trendspotters for ruining my happy snaps!). The coffee was certainly exotic – in a bad, expensive way. The awesome ramen and tempura well made up for that though. It was certainly big – in our week of sightseeing I think we covered about 20% of the city. It was certainly busy – we had to balance our overflowing luggage and stand up for the first half a dozen stops on our way back to the airport on the metro. But after a week I was not sick of it, as I’d expected – I would have quite happily spend another month in Japan, at least. Maybe more.

I had decided to stop in Tokyo for a week on the way home because my best friend from university was working as an English teacher there. Unfortunately, the company she’d been working for went bankrupt a few weeks before I arrived, so she was no longer there to host me. Lucky for me, Ian had gone to great lengths to book the same flights as me, since mine were the return leg of my round-the-world trip and his were booked much later. Otherwise I would have been in Tokyo for a week on my own (at least until I found some hostel mates) Because of Ian’s effort it was even more excrutiating that he (through no fault of his own) missed our flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo.

I arrived in Tokyo at 6am, alone and tired after not sleeping at all on the 8 hour overnight flight, because of worrying. I worried about Ian finding a later flight and arriving safely, then me finding him. I worried about tracking down the name of our hostel, which Ian had booked and printed the reservation for. My 8 hours of worrying meant I had a solid plan in place on arrival in Tokyo, so despite a couple of challenges I got to our hostel in Asakusa around 12:30. By the time I could check in at 1pm I was deliriously tired, so much so I had trouble pulling on the hostel’s fitted sheet so I could collapse on the bed and sleep. I woke up at around 8pm upon Ian’s arrival.

We went out for dinner to a ramen restaurant recommended by the friendly hotel staff, as somewhere likely to be serving by the time we left the hostel at around 9:30pm. It was packed – there were only a couple of tables free, and a couple blocking our way using the smoke machine next to the counter. Through gestures and the odd word in English we established that we had to use a machine to order our food off a menu that thankfully had pictures. By now the couple blocking our path had been seated, because it turned out what we thought was the smoke machine was the machine we ordered our meal from.

Ian advocated a random button-pushing selection. Luckily I was more picky as some of the buttons were the soup base, some were fillings (like dumplings or veggies), some were drinks. Had we mashed the buttons we might have ended up with a pile of drinks and veggies, or more likely be drawn into an even more confusing attempt at communication about what we were doing wrong.

The chefs were super friendly, after we were presented with our bowls they were quick to ask in broken English if we liked it, with big grins on their faces. We raised our eyebrows enthusiastically and nodded vigorously, engrossed in noodles.

I reached the monument square with Gaudi’s famous benches, where a couple of tourists were trickling in. By 10am tour groups had arrived. Potential photos were obstructed by oblivious old Korean men gazing down into their video viewfinders as they shuffled, zombie-like. The sounds of birds were echoed by Americans trilling obvious observations.

Had I not worried about stashing my stuff securely I wouldn’t have reached the park until 10. I headed back to our Poble Sec podroom, pleased that my fears, though groundless, resulted in a better last-day-in-Barcelona experience.

I reached the park, still eerily quiet, and wandered amongst the cacti towards the three crosses. I ascended the tower at the same time a guy descended, my first park companion who had been there to take photos of the sunrise. We greeted each other.

From this high point I surveyed my surroundings. I saw several people doing things people do in parks in the morning; walking dogs, running with iPods. I was surprised there were just a few locals and no tourists. My fears of Barcelona muggings proved unfounded. The few people about said ‘bon dia’, nodding their heads as they passed with their dogs. The exercisers paid no attention, focused on their heaving chests and burning muscles.

Barcelona is Ian and I’s temporary parting point. He has to fly back to London to get on the same flight that I’m getting in Frankfurt, for stupid reasons. Hence I had my last morning in Barcelona to myself. Since Ian had proved unimpressed by Gaudi’s works around the centre of Barcelona, I left Güell Park for my last morning in Spain, alone.

I was planning to check out, leave my bags at the hotel and go to the park. Then my Italian-reared fears of Barcelona surfaced and I decided I couldn’t take my credit cards and passport and other valuables with me to the park because I would get mugged and be left stranded in Barcelona, within a day of leaving the continent. I reformulated my plans, so I would visit the park before midday (luscious late Spanish checkout times), allowing me to leave my valuables in the safe at the room.

I saw Ian off at the metro station and went the opposite direction to the park. It was about 8am. In London the metro is overflowing at this time, but in Barcelona just a few sleepy people were propped up on the seats. It was just past dawn. I got off the metro and marvelled at the outdoor escalators that would take me up to the park. It was quiet, I was the only one around. I circled the first escalator entrance like a wary animal. Peering beyond the steps to the cloudy sky it looked like an entrance to the heavens via purgatory. I decided to take the stairs alongside instead.

I’ve been waiting to visit Barcelona for five years. When I lived in Italy in 2001, I had the choice of going either to Barcelona or Sicily. I chose Sicily partly because I’d heard so many bad stories about Spain, about how Barcelona particularly is full of thieves and muggers. Stories about unsafe and mafioso Sicily is proved false for me (ask me about how I accidentally left my handbag in my friend’s unlocked scooter for an afternoon in Cefalù). Equally, the stories about dreadfully dangerous Barcelona proved unfounded, in my experience.

Don’t get me wrong, Barcelona is no Cambridge, where you can flit about at worst worrying that someone will steal your bike, or perhaps you’ll fall in the river Cam while drunk at night. There were a few dodgy alleys in Barcelona we avoided, and I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable walking around at night without Ian by my side. That said, when I struck up a drunken conversation with a possibly dodgy young bloke who murmured the usual ‘hola guapa’ as he passed by, while Ian was talking on his mobile phone, the guy turned out to be a pleasant Argentinean who worked at a nearby hostel. First impressions can be deceiving.

In Barcelona, there are a lot of unusual things. It’s not just the Gaudi architecture. It’s the pet stores set up like market stalls along Las Ramblas. It’s the fact that people walking around Barcelona airport in flash suits stand out as unusual, whereas people with quirky hairstyles or colourful pants blend in.

Ian got his haircut just before we left Seville. They gave him a fullet (a front mullet). I chopped it off in our hotel pod in Barcelona. It’s a pity, because it made him look more Spanish. At least now he looks presentable for when we reach Japan.

I’m getting ahead of myself. If you follow my photo streams as well as the text, you’ll have noticed that words arrive sometimes weeks after pictures. It all depends on when I have a spare hour to write (such as now, waiting in Barcelona airport, where I’ve found a cosy armchair next to a socket near the VIP lounges). Before I started my last week in Seville, I spent a day there on the way to the Cadiz beaches, from our mountain base. Ian and I made time to see the Alcázares Reales de Sevilla, essential since Rosie’s recommendation.

I’m going to put it out there: the Alcázares in Seville is better than the Alhambra in Granada. Let me qualify: I paid the base price for both (roughly five Euros each). This only allowed us to see the gardens and some buildings at the Alhambra, while at the Alcázares we got to see almost everything for that price. Ian even got in free, with his student card.

I like that in Spain, the Alcázares, a royal residence, is open to the public. I overheard a tour guide point out that it is owned by the state, not the royal family, therefore the public have as much right to enjoy it. Is the status of Buckingham Palace different? Wandering through the Alcazar I was astounded by layer upon layer of intricacy, a characteristic of the Arab architecture I’ve come to love. Not just in individual stone carvings, but in the structures: walls, halls, tunnels. I could have spent a day wandering there.

My favourite bit was the cellars and underground tunnels, some of which is set aside for piles of pottery, another part of which is a seemingly endless pool framed by lit arches. It has that smell of clay I love, like a good wine cellar.

I can’t believe it took me nearly 2 weeks in Seville to get the Alcázares. It should be top of the list.

Flamenco

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

I am sitting on the top floor of the terrace building which houses my flamenco school, called Taller Flamenco. I’m lucky that the school has free broadband in the study room, which I can use while periodically gazing out of the window to see what’s happening on the street below. Soft November sun streams in the terrace windows.

Behind me in the study two guys practice flamenco guitar. They are clearly not beginners. Their fingers dance across the strings through melodies, resting on the frets while they wait their turn, each inspiring the other.

Live, spontaneous music is a much better backdrop for design work than my ipod.

When I committed to doing freelance editing work for a company in England during my European travels I was taking a bit of a risk, assuming I would be able to find suitable places to work so I could meet my deadlines.

This is more than suitable. This is a dream.

I was expecting Lagos to be bigger. It seemed to me there were just three parts: the pretty, pastel-walled old district, the inviting nightlife district, and the sea.

Perhaps residential Lagos is much bigger, but walking around we came across just these three areas. Breakfast in the old district, an afternoon on the beach, followed by a funky bar at night. The perfect combination for a weekend away.

We were destined to go to Portugal, living so close for months. One weekend 3 Aussies and one reluctant Spaniard crossed the border, destination Lagos, via Tavira.

Tavira is a pretty, tumble-down town, with crumbling corners and fading facades, like a gingerbread house sat in a sunny bakery window for too long. We wandered around on Saturday afternoon, along the riverbanks then up the old castle walls. Portugal is cheap, the castle was free.

Towns in the Argave are small and elegant like wealthy old Frenchwomen. I liked the intricate chimneys and awnings, which I soon learned were stereotypically Portuguese.

My mind settled into Portugal, then we parted for Lagos.

Medina Sidonia is a town sat atop a mountains in the Cadiz countryside, reputedly the oldest in Spain. We ducked in for a Sunday afternoon on our way back to our mountains behind Seville. We drove around the narrow, undulating streets until we found what seemed like the only car park in town. We thought we were lost, but turned a corner to be confronted with the town square, which was alive. Old people sat on benches watching children rollerblading, skipping and playing football. People sat outside cafés sipping their cortados and eating tostadas.

Medina Sidonia is well sign-posted for tourists, so although the tourist office was closed, we were able to make our way amongst the significant old buildings, and found the town’s jewel, a church that stands atop the mountain, alongside castle ruins and cactus groves. The sun shone, warming our skin in the crisp mountain air. Spanish tourists milled along the paths.

After taking in the views and strolling amongst the ruins we headed back to the main square. We popped into an artisan soap shop, where the charming saleswoman recommended a place for lunch. We sat amongst the Sunday afternoon action in the town square. Being a high-walled mountain town the sun was quickly gone. I had a jacket, but Ian was cold. The soap shop lady walked past, and noted that the place she recommended had fallen into shade. She draped her jacket around Ian’s shoulders, saying it was no problem, she was ducking into a nearby house for a few hours, Ian could borrow it.

Who needs a tourism office when the locals are so considerate?

Ian and I deliberated over whether to relax on the Spanish coast, or make the effort to travel across the sea to Morocco. Morocco was ahead until it became clear that Tangier is considered an absolute mess, so if we were going to make the effort, we’d want to get down to Fez. This added a lot of extra travel time, so in the end we decided to make the most of the last of the Spanish sun and relax on the beach, rather than spend our days off in transit, with the odd awesome Moroccan experience as punctuation. I was also a bit worried about getting sick and missing the start of my flamenco dancing course the following Monday.

We ended up going all-out lazy tourist, staying in a resort on a beach near La Barrosa, just past Cadiz. We spent days mooching happily around our cardboard-cut-out apartment, travelling to a charming town called Conil de la Frontera when we craved Spanish culture. The resort-ville where we stayed, with a multitude of roundabouts and wide roads designed for cars not horses, made us realise we’re going to miss the closeness of Spanish life when we go back to Australia.

The beach, reputedly one of the best in Spain, also reminded me of Australia. Flanked by sand dunes marked for conservation, the beach stretched to the horizon, white sand nearly as soft as flour. Small, crisp waves rolled in. We bodysurfed contentedly. I could have been at home.

We moved from our grand country residence into a small flat that was straight out of a 70’s porn flick, complete with wall-to-wall mirrors, orange and green glass vases and lamps that pop out of the cabinets, for last-minute mood lighting requirements. It had little hot water and no internet. After a few days it became apparent I wasn’t going to be able to do my work from there, so I started considering alternatives.

Around this time we ended up in a flamenco shop in Zalamea la Real one evening, where as the only foreign female present I was obliged to get decked out in head-to-toe flamenco gear. I felt ridiculous and could barely walk (it didn’t help the shoes were a size too small), but I appreciated the dedication and passion the store exuded. The flamenco bug is pervasive and persistent. A couple of days later I booked a week’s flamenco dancing and Spanish lessons, and another apartment in Seville.

Our friends Rosie and Chris came to visit us in Seville. I wanted to be a great host, but there were a few things working against me:

1 – We weren’t actually living in Seville but in the mountains. When I was in Seville I was studying 9-5 every day, so I didn’t get to see that much. I didn’t have much of an insider’s view itinerary planned.
2 – Ian had to work lots.
3 – I had not been very organised with booking accommodation, so instead of having a nice apartment we ended up lumped in a 4-bed room (with ensuite at least) in a hostel. Finding even this involved much drama and trauma that is better forgotten.

At least I could speak the language okay by now.

Nonetheless Rosie and Chris were uber-appreciative of the supposed hospitality I eked out in a city that I knew relatively little about, and it was so awesome to catch up with our good friends from Cambridge. Mel, our translator friend that Ian works with, took us to an amazing Flamenco show on Saturday night, and we found a great little café where we had breakfast most days.

The benefit of Ian’s work was it gave us a reason to travel into the mountains and I finally got a look at the caves at Aracena, which were breathtaking and well exceeded my expectations. It’s not called ‘Gruta de las Maravillas’ for nothing.

On their last day Rosie and Chris had to head back to Seville unexpectedly early due to mountain travel arrangements. This turned out well, because they ended up going to the Alcazar, which I hadn’t had the chance to do. Rosie told me it was an absolute must-see before I left Spain.

And I was supposed to be the one showing them all the best places! Such is life.

I went back to Málaga for another weekend. I wasn’t that excited about going back to somewhere I’d been before, given I’m only in Spain for a couple of months and want to see as much as possible, but my friend Sarah could get a cheap flight from Madrid to Málaga, and it’s not that far from Seville so is pretty convenient for a weekend destination.Graham and I drove down to Málaga on Saturday afternoon after a relaxing morning in Seville, in which I turned in the keys to my apartment and Graham got a haircut at the peluqueria of Mr Spain, or so the sign claimed. I went into the RENFE office in the centre of Seville, where I was able to buy in advance my train ticket back from Málaga to Seville for the following Monday, when Ian was due back in Spain, post-Chilean adventure. Ian and I had spent hours lining up for our last-minute train tickets at various stations, so being able to just walk in and buy my ticket seemed like something of a minor miracle. Hence a lesson: pre-purchase your high-speed train tickets in Spain, you’ll save time buying as well as travelling.

When we eventually hit the road to Málaga we had another transport miracle, in that we didn’t take a wrong turn the whole way. We cruised into the port city pleasantly surprised by how laid back and relaxing our travel day had been. We landed a great park right next to the Alzacar, then stumbled upon a secondary tourist office that was empty despite being a Saturday, where we stocked up on maps. Then we happened upon a particular Irish pub which was serendipitous for reasons too complex to go into here.

It seemed Sarah had sacrificed her daily luck allocation to us, because she missed her flight. After a few panicky text messages we resigned to meeting her at about 10pm, when her bus arrived from Madrid. Graham and I contemplated the irony of our pleasant trip to Málaga, planned around Sarah’s ill-fated flight, over afternoon beers and then dinner. We had the most succulent bull meat I’ve ever tasted, with a dark and complex bottle of red wine that, while heavy on its own, was the perfect red meat compliment.

Needless to say, by the time Sarah arrived I was smashed, and she needed some drinks to get over her ordeal.

I would tell you what happened after that but I can’t remember so much… same with the rest of the weekend.

I like the way side streets in cities like Seville and Aracena combine residential with quirky commercial. My apartment in Seville was a couple of streets back from the Museo Bellas Artes, amongst a mix of old terrace homes, churches, bars and artisan shops.

This little hat shop was a few doors down from my apartment. It was literally a window into a Spanish life.

When I went to school at 9 in the morning the shop was still closed, the window was dark.

When I arrived home for late lunch the woman who owned (made?) the hats might be tending to her treasures, dusting and fussing over their placement.

When I came home in the late afternoon she might be charming a lone client who would be immaculately dressed, proper for hat shopping.

Between 7 and 9 the shop would be alive and humming like a beehive, full of adoring women and bored husbands.

Thanks to Seville I now like fancy hats.

After a couple of weeks my conversational Spanish was decent. My grammar, on the other hand, was nonexistent. Though I strongly believe immersion is the best way to learn to speak a language, sitting in a classroom and learning the rules should follow, so you can write as well.

So while Ian ducked over to South America for a conference, I went to Seville to give my Spanish some structure. I couldn’t really be bothered doing research on what school would suit me best (there are lots to choose from in Seville), so when a woman from CLIC posted a comment on this blog I decided her school would do nicely. I paid for a week’s intensive Spanish, staying with a host family. My mind harked back to sharing a room in a tiny apartment on the umpteenth floor in a northern Italian metropolis, then being cast out into Italian suburbia where public transport was long and sporadic, when I went on exchange as a teenager.

I found myself again in a tiny apartment (this is Europe, after all), but with my own room, with not so much a family as a host grandmother, a sprightly 80 year old woman who made great paella and scolded me for walking around in bare feet when I had a sore throat, like all respectable old-fashioned Spanish mothers would. I had two host sisters, one American and one Japanese, who were studying Spanish as well. This meant I got to my school easily on the first day, accompanied. It also meant I got lost every time I tried to get there myself afterwards, as if not navigating myself the first time rendered me incapable of memorising my route thereafter, like some lobotomised rat.

When I did finally make it to school in the morning I was in a class with half a dozen other students. I was pleased that my conversational Spanish efforts meant I started at the level above beginner (elementary, dear Watson), but this means that, like in French, I will probably never be much good at counting to one hundred or reading the alphabet.

Then after a quick lunch (which is not at all Spanish) I had another class in the afternoon, with two other students and a hilarious teacher called Adrian who was newly married, as we all knew because he proceeded every one of his corny Spanish-guy-jokes with ‘but don’t tell my wife’.

The school had a packed cultural programme that ensured I didn’t pine for Ian the evenings, including a flamenco show featuring both a female and male dancer, and a guided tour of the Gibralta tower

At the end of the week we were all quite disconcerted to discover we had to do an exam. A 60 year old guy studying on vacation with his wife said “this is the first test I’ve done since I was at university 40 years ago”. Despite the shock I kept my act together and managed to ace my first Spanish exam! Mostly A’s, with a B for writing, because as with my French tests, I accidentally wrote 15% in Italian (first second languages die hard).

But I passed with flying colours! I can now say with some authority that I speak (elementary) Spanish!

When in Madrid I found my favourite art museum in the world. That’s the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. I’ve never been so inspired by a museum before, nor so interested in the art.

Partly it’s because the Reina Sofía has a lot of Dalí and Picasso, including some pieces I studied in high school, like Picasso’s Guernica. I found the stuff about Dalí‘s life interesting as well. He and his crew were pretty crazy. The reports of their escapades reminded me of some of my friends in Cambridge.

But I also came across a whole bunch of artists I’d not heard of before that I liked, including Joseph Cornell, Man Ray, Joan Miró, Angel Ferrant, and a heap more I wrote down in my diary in case I should I ever find time to pursue my artistic interests.

If you’re a fan of surrealist art then the Reina Sofía is a must-see.

I had planned to visit Sarah in Madrid without knowing it was going to be Spain Day on Friday. This meant it was a bit of an effort to get accommodation. I ended up booking a bed in a boy’s dorm room in a (in)famous Madrid hostel, then hastily emailing the hostel to explain I was actually female so would prefer a mixed/girls dorm, but that option wasn’t available for booking on the site.

Then I worried for a couple of days I was going to spend all weekend in a dorm with stinky, farty, rowdy guys. After our crap hostel experience in San Sebastian I was anxious. It turned out to be fine, when I arrived at Cat’s in Madrid they found a bed in a mixed dorm for me, so I dumped my gear with relief and set out into the city with Sarah.

Madrid is a cool city. It reminds me of Melbourne. Madrid is not as showy as Barcelona (or so I hear) in the same way as Melbourne is Sydney’s less flashy but more cultured sister. It also has good public transport system.

For the capital of a European country Madrid is very small, you can walk around it in about half a day. But then you can easily spend another half a day at the Reina Sophia Museum and another half strolling around Parco del Retiro.

Or, if like me you go during festival, you can spend what feels like half a day (or night, rather) dancing along the streets of Madrid in one of the Fiesta Nacional parades, which featured half a dozen stages with acts covering hip hop, Latino Americano and traditional flamenco music. Sarah and I decided we liked the Latino Americano groove, so slotted ourselves in amongst the crowd between that float as it performed its way through Madrid’s streets.

After a couple of hours I was getting sore feet and was getting fed up of the group of Peruvians who were yelling whatever the equivalent of ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi’ is in Peru, every two minutes just behind us. I felt like a piker wanting to leave already, because in Spain children do everything their parents do, so although it was around midnight there were dozens of children trekking through the streets. I worried they might get trampled if the crowd got out of control. Their parents didn’t.

I chilled out, there was no point feeling fed up and anxious because there was no way we were getting out of the parade, since it was dozens of people deep and moving. I just went with the flow.

I’m staying in a small town called Minas de Riotinto, a town like many in outback Australia that thrived through a mining boom (a gold star if you guess the name of the mining company that benefited), but is now atrophying quietly and sadly like a loveless elderly person. A big difference between Australian ex-mining towns and this though, is that Minas de Riotinto is on the side of a mountainous national park and is an hour from Seville, which makes it arguably a lot more exciting and accessible than Broken Hill, for example. The town is also home to the regional hospital and a few other places of employment, so the 15 or so restaurants and variety of local shops continue to scrape by.

Despite its current misfortune Minas is quite a popular tourist destination for Spaniards, who come via Aracena or Seville to visit the mining museum and look at the eerie alien landscapes worthy of NASA research, then look at the beautiful mountain sunsets while listening to goat bells and birds in the valley below.

The town has a mining heritage that dates back to before the Romans invaded, so with all the digging that’s gone on it’s an interesting archeological site. For me though Minas de Riotinto has been a unique cultural experience, because of the English Club.

Last century when the English came to make a lot of money from the mineral-rich land, the town overflowed so they built a new town next to it, to accommodate the extra workers. Hence now there’s the old town with typical Spanish architecture, adjacent to the English ‘new’ town. Here is the only place outside of the Commonwealth I’ve seen English architecture classed as culturally significant. The ‘new’ town is heritage listed and there are signs and plaques around the area, with little maps of how an English house looks, in contrast with your typical Spanish place. These cultural curiosities are just like the home where I grew up. I found it strange reading historical information describing my own culture. The coast of Spain has survived invasion after invasion over the centuries, resulting in beautiful Arab and Roman architecture. Though the English didn’t make Spain a colony they had their own form of invasion nonetheless. Surely a turn of the century English cottage doesn’t deserve recognition like the Alhambra? In Minas de Riotinto it does.

Then there’s the English Club. After a year in Cambridge where I had free access to lush grass courts as well as a plethora of surfaced ones, I’ve been feeling a little tennis deprived here. I discovered in the centre of the English village there is an expat social club, complete with a big swimming pool (only open in the summer), billiard room and 4 tennis courts. This is about a 5 minute walk from where I’m staying. It sounds ideal, but it’s been a long time since this town had a big expatriate community, so the club has been taken over by a faction of locals. Considering Spanish time frames, it took me almost two weeks to establish who could give us access to the tennis courts, and where we could borrow four rackets and some balls.

This achieved, we set out one sunny Autumn afternoon to play tennis. The courts are worse for wear after years of neglect. They’re so rarely used that when we started playing a group of Spanish boys abandoned their football game to come over and watch us through the fence. Unfortunately it was difficult to put on a good exhibition match because the rackets were also from the 80’s. The grip on the racket disintegrated a little more each time I hit the ball, leaving my palm black. After five minutes of his powerful serves Ian had blown strings on two of the rackets. He then resorted to using the two rackets more like a lacrosse stick, catching the ball in his basket of strings and flinging it back over the droopy net.

Shortly after we gave up on tennis and resolved to stick to sports that the locals know. I don’t want to be a cultural relic in Spain.

We decided to stop for lunch in Cádiz on Sunday, on the way back from Rota. Cádiz is a city on a peninsula, as easy to access by ferry as by car. Given it’s surrounded by ocean it seemed a good place to have my first paella.

We were charmed by the plaza in front of the cathedral in Cádiz, or more specifically the children cavorting in it. Although there were plenty of restaurants catering for tourists (best to avoid), there were also a bunch of local kids running about, perhaps after going to church. There was a boy and his little brother playing bullfight, the youngest one holding his fingers on his head like horns, running at his older brother who got to be the matador, bopping his little bro on the head.

Less uniquely Spanish but equally as charming were a brother and sister who were being whirling dervishes. The twirled enthusiastically, so much so the girl fell flat on her face from too much momentum. She just got up and kept on twirling. They were oblivious to the world beyond their whirling, with a few near collisions as people walked around them.

Deciding the view was worth the tourist prices we sat. At the same time a huffy German couple got up and said ‘you’ll be waiting for service forever’. It was a busy Sunday and they were right, so after about 20 minutes of waiting we abandoned our table and found a restaurant in a less touristy area.

By now we were hungry. We ordered some tapas and then came the paella de marisco, a big platter with spoons for us to each take our own serve. It was delicious. There were mussels and prawns and calamari, in rice with a creamy orange sauce. Yum. Paella goes on my learn how to cook list.

After an afternoon swim and a siesta we headed out to see the parade. By a stroke of fortune our hotel was by the corner where the parade started, so we joined the lines of families and old couples in anticipation. Rather than blocking the streets altogether, the police revelled in their authority, whistling angrily at disobedient traffic, then thrusting an open palm to families spilling onto the street, who fell over each other in their efforts to stop suddenly, so buses could rumble to life and continue their journeys. People on the buses to other destinations were glued to their windows, absorbing the gathering floats and bands with their eyes, like toddlers at a candy store.The parade started with a trickle of police and a man with a fistful of shiny balloons. Unlike Australian parades, where security staff strictly guard yellow lines, children here cascaded onto the road in their eagerness for inflated cartoons and sugar.

Then came the giant jungle complete with sounds, which sent the children skittling back into the safety of their parents’ arms. Each jungle creature hid a man in a cage with leavers, like the Wizard of Oz. The man at the heart of the giant rhinoceros decided to mix things up by making his shell do a 360, and the rhino’s bum came careering towards Graham, who was distracted by the looming giraffe and snake. I grabbed him moments before collision, as children squealed in delight and terror. The young lad in the giraffe decided to follow suit and the giraffe arced around the road, skimming traffic lights. The police watched on, unperturbed.

The jungle was only an appetiser though, because this was the night of the Damas. It seemed every young lady of a certain age has been dolled up in white and put on a pedestal, or at least a float of some description. There was the queen of the parade who evidently got the title on looks alone. She was given packets and packets of streamers to throw out. But it seemed she didn’t realise you’re supposed to hold the inside of the tube and throw so the streamer curls out pleasingly. Instead, she was pegging them, furled, at the audience. This could be forgiven if she were on an early float, as the audience could then unfurl the streamers over the oncoming parade. But she was the end of the show, so more likely just lacking intelligence. Or perhaps she had some vendetta against her home town that she had found the perfect opportunity to settle.

Before the queen of the parade were a broad selection of young ladies in white perched on floats of all descriptions, some with cherubic youngsters throwing confetti ahead, others intermingled with cartoon characters. If I were a debutante in Rota I would have been unhappy to be stuck on the Shrek or Simpsons floats, as a dozen girls were.

After some quick tapas we funnelled into the crowd following the parade to the centre of the old town. There we had some more tapas before realising the crowds had moved on and we may be missing the action. Heading towards the sea we discovered a massive outdoor concert starring some Spanish pop stallion. The plaza was packed, so we stayed on the outskirts, were a bar was selling drinks in takeaway glasses. There we stayed, overlooking the vast crowd. At the very front were the Damas, stripped of their glamorous aloofness, teenagers again, screaming and swaying their white-gloved arms at the pop star. It was like the town’s most eligible women were scrubbed up and served to him on a platter. He crooned to them, in response they waved their gloved arms excitedly, like whitewater in a river. The pure illusion of the Damas was broken.

On Saturday morning we wandered into the old town of Rota, where my engineer companions were intrigued by a cement mixer churning something different, which people were spreading onto the street. After some minutes of observation and questioning we uncovered that the locals were grinding salt and mixing it with dyes, to make coloured salt which was being spread in chalked outlines on the pavement, like a colour-by-numbers book.

This was intriguing. We then tried to discover why this was happening.

It turned out that we had found ourselves in Rota for the weekend of the Fiestas Patronales. This meant that as well as plenty of sea and sun there would also be a bunch of free parades and concerts. Needless to say, we were stoked.

We arrived in Rota unaware that it was festival weekend, content with the long beach and its fine white sand, reminiscent of Australia. After checking into our hotel with a grander pool than the cost suggested, we descended into the street, drawn to the foreshore.

It was dinner time in England, but here in Spain in October the dusky hours precede eating. Lunch is a huge meal, the late dinner more to line your stomach for drinking than anything else. These dusky hours are my favourite in Spain, the perfect time to explore new places, with charming light and an ambience of relax and release after the working day.

It’s particularly perfect for exploring the Costa de la Luz around Rota, because the sun sets spectacularly and audaciously, like nature’s Moulin Rouge, flashing colours and exposing the sky’s naked beauty.

The shore at Rota is flat, stretching deep and long. One sand-drenched end is perfect for bathing, the other a pleasure for Spain’s water birds – a cove inhabited by seaweed that was more like Rastafarian dreadlocks than slime. It proved good for walking on, springy and slightly coarse like a gym mat. At the peak of dusk the seabirds, small and community-minded, raised their twitter to a crescendo, like a round of applause for the bowing sun.

Then twilight took over quietly, blanketing the landscape. With the show over we wandered inland, in search of food.

I’m living in a small Spanish town somewhere between Seville and the Portuguese border for the next month. As well as editing a bunch of books I’m going to learn Spanish. I’m off to a pretty good start because at the moment (due to the nepotistic rental market) we’re staying in a lovely rural residence owned by a very enthusiastic and interested middle-aged couple who don’t speak much English.

This morning I had a few missions. I wanted to find out whether I could do the laundry myself. The answer was no – but I may be allowed to handwash things, I was a bit confused by her response.

I wanted to get directions to the supermarket. Instead, I’m getting a lift to the supermarket this afternoon, which is nice – though it would be good to wander around the town to get a sense of place.

I wanted to ask if we could keep some salt in our bathroom for Ian to gargle with as he has a sore throat. That’s not the kind of sentence you learn in basic Spanish classes. This is why I’m not sold on formal classes. In this digital age I think it’s much better to get somewhere and learn by immersion, with the help of internet resources. Between Babelfish and this intuitive dictionary, I learnt to say everything I needed. Understanding the responses is a different matter, but hopefully that will come with time.

I found that with tricky expressions like ‘hand wash’, googling is better than using a crude translator, as someone else has probably written it somewhere online. So, in case people are googling things I learnt this morning, here are some phrases:

¿Puede darme direcciones al supermercado? = Can you give me directions to the supermarket?

Ian tiene dolor de garganta. ¿Podemos mantener un poco de sal en el cuarto de baño para él hacer gargaras? = Ian has a sore throat. Can we keep some salt in the bathroom for him to gargle?

Éstas son las palabras que he aprendido hoy. = These are the words I’ve learnt today.

We had one night in Madrid.

I made sure we had a night in Madrid because one of my oldest friends Sarah is living there. Sarah lived in Germany when I lived in Italy, but before that we went to school together, all the way through from junior primary. She had the cutest Cindy pigtails. We used to jump on trampolines together, little blonde curly frogs.

Now she is an au pair in Spain, while I am an editor-at-large. ‘Now’ by our standards is a few months. It’s reassuring catching up with someone whose life is as varied as mine, in contrast with those who are buying houses and having babies and settling in for the long term.

We met at Gran Via, then went to Museo del Prado, which is free on Sunday afternoon. If I hadn’t been with Sarah I wouldn’t have known that. We looked at Goya and Patinir while Ian limped around in his new flip flops. I gave him bandaids and he perked up.

Then we walked to Parque del Retiro where we listened to people drumming with fervour across the lake. We sat with cold beers in the warm evening, eating sunflower seeds as night fell.

In case you haven’t guessed, I like France a lot. My French is at a level that with a bit of immersion I improve consistently, so I enjoy using it. Hence I was sad when we crossed the border into Spain. I was back to square one again, with a smattering of knowledge that falls short whenever trying to have a conversation with anyone. I will be here for a month, so hopefully I’ll look back on this and think “gosh I’ve come a long way”.

At least I was crossing into somewhere nice and, spiteful as it sounds, where other people have language problems too. Crossing from Biarritz to San Sebastian took us in the heart of Basque country. The Basque have their own language that’s about as similar to Spanish as Welsh is to English. It seems to have a lot of x’s. To give you an idea of how different they are, the town we arrived in, called San Sebastian in Spanish (and therefore English and French), is actually called Donostia by the locals. We were lucky enough to be passing through during the Donostia Zinemaldia (that is, the San Sebastian Film Festival).

We knew this was around the time we would be there, so on arrival Ian asked our taxi driver in broken Spanish whether the film festival was still on. He responded in an incomprehensible Basque accent, but also thrust the newspaper towards us and pointed at the picture of Demi Moore posing on the local red carpet. In case we didn’t get it, we then passed a colossal sign advertising the festival.

Though I do think planning your travel is overrated, in some circumstances, such as during festivals, I recommend it. We had booked our hostel (which was too crappy to merit naming here). It would have been clever to book tickets to something during the festival, but we hadn’t. So there were tickets left only to one English-language production. It was about 5 euros each so we thought ‘what the hell’, festivals are about not being able to base your decision on reviews anyway because you’re the first to see it. So we went and saw ‘Berlin’, which is a doco about Lou Reed’s final concert. It sounded like it could be cool, but we walked out after 20 minutes. Lou Reed may be a great musician, but calling it a doco was exaggerating. Someone had basically just filmed the concert and called it a doco. After four songs we were bored and left.

Emerging from the theatre I saw there were clearly a lot of other people doing things besides attending the festival, because the narrow, high-walled streets were packed. It was about 10pm and of course in Spain on a Saturday night, this is early. Kids were running amok, playing street hockey and elastics (a blast from the past for me). We wandered amongst the bars, having cervazas and tinto de veranos and of course tapas. They have some freaky tapas there. There were some awesome bruschetta (excuse my Italian) with jamón (cured ham) and pimientos (peppers) and excellent squid. I was intrigued by a bruschetta that appeared to be covered in fried worms. We asked the barman what they were and he said they were from the sea. I wasn’t game. Eating jamón while looking at the festy pig leg it came from hanging from the ceiling is adventurous enough for me. Maybe another time, once I’m more adapted to Spanish cuisine.

Biarritz has an amazing assortment of beaches. There’s the little swimming beach, tucked amongst columns and salt-sprayed restaurants. There’s the Grand Plage (pictured), indeed grand with its sweeping promenade, framed by a lighthouse and viewing platform. Then there’s the surf beach, where hundreds of longboarders descend to appreciate the vast lines of waves, rolling in one after the other like a conveyor belt.

I ached to surf, but given we only had an afternoon we settled on bodysurfing. This resulted in Ian getting his head surfed over in his determination to catch a particularly good wave that some surfers were also eyeing off, but after a year in Cambridge he can afford to lose a few brain cells.

Surf is of course variable, so perhaps we just caught the Biarritz surf beach on particularly good days. But I suspect the crisp, glassy curls that seem to fondle the surfers as they tiptoe towards the front of their boards are characteristic waves for Biarritz. For me, this is ideal surf.

I thought fondly of my South African longboard that sits neglected in my mum’s shed at home, too long to fit in cars for most surf trips in these days of fuel efficiency worries. I bought it from an English guy who was trading to a shortboard halfway through his round the world trip, who brought it into the surf shop I worked in as a teenager. Since then it’s had some traumatic experiences like being whipped in a Glenelg storm that landed it in board hospital, and being the subject of a custody battle with my ex boyfriend.

I vowed that, if I win the lottery (or perhaps get a good enough paying job down the track), I will buy a place in Biarritz and take my longboard there, where it can live amongst its kind and serve me well on my annual trips to France.

We arrived in Biarritz after an uneventful night in Bordeaux. The air smelt fresh like the sea. In comparison with the Cote d’Azur, I found le Pays Basque more laid back and less pretentious.

Biarritz is my kind of place. It’s a combination of the European sophistication I love about France, and Australia’s ‘life is good, why waste it inside?’ attitude. I feel at home here. I grew up by the beach, immersed in Australia’s surf culture, so Biarritz merges my positive memories of growing up with my fondness for European ideals.

We felt even more at home because France is hosting la coupe du monde de rugby, which by some twist of fate I worked as a reporter for in Australia in 2005. This means I have a passing interest in the sport, as opposed to the others played exclusively by guys, which I find more tedious than dealing with accountants.

There was some cultural mishmashing. I get all worked up about the UK’s disregard for the Pacific, so I found myself in a French bar eating Spanish Tapas, going for the Tongans versus the English. The UK has been good to me, but the Tongans are more worthy of support from Australia.

Perhaps it was because of the rugby or perhaps it’s just a welcoming region of France, but in Biarritz the locals were chatty. I asked a man to take a photo of Ian and I overlooking the bay, which led to a conversation that finished with our French photographer saying he was sorry to say it would be a final between France and England but he felt for us in our looming loss. He said this with a wincing, empathetic expression and his hand on his heart. I graciously thanked him for the photo and his condolences.

Something else I thought Ian should see while in Paris was the Moulin Rouge. I’d been to look at the Moulin Rouge, with its garish lights and suggestive posters, other times in Paris. Most of those times I’ve been a skint backpacker, so entering the boudoir had been out of the question. But after a year working in the UK, with my guy in tow, seemed like a good time to fork out the extravagant cost of an evening show. By the time this plan occurred to me we were far from Montmatre base, closer to the heart of Paris. So we went to a nearby tourist office and asked for tickets for le spectacle ce soir.

“Non”, the lady shook her head, “you can’t get tickets for the Moulin Rouge at the last minute, it’s too busy.”

“Mais nous sommes ici seulement pour ce soir,” I lamented.

She gave me a look of sympathy and a shrug, but whipped out a brochure and called the number. She spoke in much more rapid French to the lady at Moulin Rouge. She looked surprised.

“You have good fortune! There are two tickets left for tonight!” Then she glanced at Ian’s ridiculous ‘sports casual’ T-shirt.

“But you need to dress up, eh? You cannot enter the Moulin Rouge in a teeshirte,” she explained. I silently praised myself for packing a dress and some less practical but more elegant black shoes. Such decisions are hard when backpacking.

So several hours later we descended into the Moulin Rouge. We were seated, squashed into the far left corner (as happens with last minute miracle tickets), next to a Scottish couple. The waiter brought our obligatory bottle of champagne.

I was delighted that the Scottish bloke was wearing a kilt. I wish Australia had an outlandish national costume that passes as formal wear. I only noticed that when we left though, because for the two-hour-long show I was dazzled by the costumes on stage. The bare breasts kept Ian enthralled, while I was amused by the fuzzy tomatoes that flipped into lips and then tails.

The Can-Can was classy, but to be honest the rest of the show was more comically Eurovision than what I expected from the posters. There were some awful 80s space-age costumes accompanied by bad English singing (why? Why? I thought the French were too proud to sing in English!? For good reason!), and unflattering hooped clown outfits. It was definitely the Moulin Rouge though. I’ve never seen a clown with bare breasts bouncing around before.

We arrived in Paris with nothing planned but our hotel in Montmartre. My last few times I’ve stayed in the same hostel, La Maison, in a dorm room, but with Ian in tow and their phone number not working we decided instead on Calaincourt Square, which was tres Parisien and in a great location.After an evening in Montmartre, wandering around the district of my favourite church (thus far) in Europe, the Sacre Coeur, we spent the next day strolling through Paris towards the Eiffel Tower, via the Louvre and Champs-Élysées. It was Ian’s first time in Paris after all.

We were feeling peckish, so luck smiled upon us when we passed some ladies in pink handing out promotional tubs of yoghurt. They offered one to me and I accepted. Ian looked eager. The lady asked if he wanted one as well. “Oui!” he said enthusiastically.

We sat in the garden of a nearby church to consume our yoghurts and read the accompanying promotional material (good French practice). It turned out this yoghurt was unique in that it was ‘bien pour la peau’, the first yoghurt to enhance women’s beauty from the inside, thanks to added nutrients. “Every woman wants to look more beautiful,” it said. We understood why the woman had been reluctant to give Ian some of the pink yoghurt.

I don’t see why men can’t want beautiful skin as well.

It’s my last night (early morning, rather) in Cambridge – in several hours we leave for Paris.

Rosie and Chris cooked a fantastic last supper, with Goldie providing last-minute backup and transport services.

Our apartment is nearly empty, except for a few forlorn objects nobody wanted and bulging backpacks ready for departure.

Thanks to everyone who’s made my year in Cambridge so fantastic – it’s been one to remember!

I’m ready for the next adventure.

Last week I was in London to report on the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s centenary conference, called, ‘Meeting the Millennium Development Goals’.

Professor Estambale from the University of Nairobi talked about whether preventing malaria in schoolchildren helped them learn better (you can read my story on it here).

He talked about the design of the study and his results. In explaining his figures for why not all the children recruited to receive treatment were tested afterwards, he said matter-of-factly, “three of them died”, and continued to explain why other children were not in the final figures.

I had one of those stop-life moments. Three of them died! Here was a man in London explaining his scientific results, just like so many other scientists, but he had to factor in that some of his study participants died. And this was in the group that received treatment! There were more in the placebo group. The deaths weren’t anything to do with his study – it’s just that in Africa, children die, for all sorts of reasons.

Of course we all know that children in Africa die all the time, but it was one of those moments that brought it home to me. I imagine all of the people I know working in science in developed countries who design studies, worrying about so many different factors, trying to recruit enough volunteers – imagine if some of them just died? Halfway through your study, they die for completely unrelated reasons, which you then factor into your results.

I guess it was also shocking because I associate African children dying as flyblown toddlers suffering from malnutrition, not school-age children, ready to sit tests at the end of the term so they can move on in life. I’ve never been a starving toddler (good work mum), but I have been a primary school kid cruising along through childhood, like the kids in the study.

It’s unimaginable that school kids could ever just die matter-of-factly in Western Europe. Needless to say, we have to stop it happening in other parts of the world.

In case the picture I’m painting of London is too rosy, let me set things straight. London is a vibrant and remarkable city, wonderful for weekend visits. However, there are some things about London that are awful.

One of those is the overcrowded transport system.

When I first moved to Cambridge I was considering a couple of jobs in London. After some peak hour travel I decided I would take a slightly less exciting job in Cambridge, because the commute into the heart of London is brutal.

If you get the 7:15 train you’re lucky to get a seat – this is despite paying around 40 Australian dollars a day for your ticket. People have to earn roughly £4,000 more – that’s more than 10 grand Australian – to justify working in the capital, with a season pass.

Then you still have to justify the minimum two hour daily commute.

We met up with Dave and had a few pints of cider and beer standing outside a pub in Soho, as the English do in summer.

We dawdled through Hyde Park and along the Serpentine. I marveled at the artsy deck chairs and wicker elephants while Ian was recruited by other tourists to take photos.

We discovered there was a big music festival happening in part of the park that day, but we were kind of glad we didn’t have the time to go because the queues were huge.

The Saturday after our theatre experience turned out to be a beautiful day in London. It appears England has gone tropical, and after a monsoonal summer we’re now enjoying a sunny autumn.

Rather than hide ourselves indoors we decided to spend our day outside. First we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and relaxed in the garden there. There were fantastic, awesomely comfy seats designed to be like water lilies, designed by Brazilians. We lounged about on those, watching the juggler entertaining families and kids paddling around the fountain/pool.

Whenever I move somewhere I have grand plans to see everything and do everything there is to be done. I lived in Europe in 2001, and though I explored a lot then there was still much to come back for. I thought in a year in the UK, I’d be able to see everything I wanted to see in this grey but charming country – not likely. I haven’t been sailing near Somerset, had beers with friends in Bristol, celebrated New Years in Yorkshire, and so many other things we had planned that never transpired.

Such is life – I like to have reasons to come back to places.

One thing I’d almost given up on that we managed to do in the nick of time is go to the theatre in London’s West End.

Ian’s a very good lad. Before dashing off to Spain for work he announced that he was going to take me to stay at a five star hotel in London and go to a mystery show, because I’d been wanting to go to the theatre all year. Needless to say I was thrilled, and we went.

We stayed in a nice (but, dare I say it, not five-star nice) hotel with an intelligible and unmemorable name starting with A, opposite Hyde Park. I had to work on the Friday so we rushed down and had a kebab dinner standing up, before arriving at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. There it was revealed we were seeing Wicked – the untold story of the witches of Oz. It’s lucky Ian didn’t wish to keep it a secret right until the curtain opened because the theatre was decked out in green, elaborately prepared for the musical.

I had seen dozens of posters for the musical on the tube in the past year, and based on the posters I thought the play might be a bit lame. I was wrong. It was fantastic. Dianne Pilkington was sensational and hilarious as Glinda. I was incredibly impressed. It’s quite fitting, too, because one of the only memories I have of theatre from my childhood is seeing a performance of Wizard of Oz somewhere in Adelaide. I remember thinking that Toto was a well-trained dog.

I can’t overstate how impressed and appreciative I was with Ian’s organisational efforts. Of all the things I wanted to do this year, I would be least likely to guess that Ian would plan to take me to the theatre in the West End, because Ian hates musicals. He really does. Even if a show that he likes, like Robot Chicken or Scrubs, has a song in it he gets bored and complains. So for Ian to actually decide to give up his Friday night to take me to a musical is a pretty big deal.

I think also Ian now appreciates musicals a little more. Because they’re not about TV shows. They’re about the awesomeness of having 20-odd people singing in harmony on stage. They’re about making eye contact with a star during their finale. They’re about the crazy sets and over-the-top costumes.

During the intermission Ian said he was having a good time, so the producers of Wicked should be pretty happy with themselves. But don’t worry, I’m not going to turn around and start dragging Ian to more musicals. That would be asking a bit much.

The Netherlands is not a place I associate with the beach. Certainly not The Hague. But Fabi thought it would be cool to go to this all-white bar on the beach in The Hague, so that’s what we did – and it was cool.

It only took about an hour to get to The Hague from Amsterdam. As an Australian I delight in Europe’s close proximities, so it was a novelty to visit two cities in one weekend. The Hague was unspectacular, but pleasant.

The white bar on the beach where we nursed hangovers was like the set of a James Bond movie – all glamorous diplomat’s daughters and aloof Russian couples. The place had bad seafood salad and loud dance music, but great chips with mayonnaise.

The beach in The Hague was very windy, which was irritating for us but a boon for the kite surfers, who were out in force.

I was trying to imagine what it would be like growing up in the Dutch capital and going kite surfing every weekend, then hanging out in plush bars on the beach. I guess it’s not that different from growing up in Adelaide and going surfing on weekends, then going to pubs on the esplanade. It seemed very exotic though. The culture was more different than I expected.

Dutch beer is good. The language is difficult. When the two mix, Australians get it wrong. The Netherlands is home to some of the world’s best beers, such as Grolsch (pictured, modelled by Ian).

In Australia we pronounce it pretty much how it looks, but the c is silent. In Amsterdam though when we asked for a Grolsh we got a strange look from the waitress.

“Oh! You mean Hhrolssc?” she said.

We thought it was a safe bet that was what we wanted and said yes. We got two pints of Grolsch.

Now I know.

Last weekend I popped over the sea to Amsterdam. A friend recently moved there, and though we’re about to embark on a few months of intense traveling, the Netherlands is one of the few places that’s easily accessible from the East of England.

We only had a weekend, but as Fabio kept pointing out, the Netherlands is very small and it doesn’t take much time to get around.

It’s always more fun to visit friends. Fabi is a great example of why, because he runs a wine company. Hence our Saturday was oriented by the food and wine fair where he was based. We sampled lots of Dutch (and Italian, thanks Fabi) produce and roamed amongst Amsterdam’s charming canals and indulgent artists’ residences.

In the evening we went to a typical local pub, where we had satay – which is apparently quite Dutch – and of course some great beers. By the time we were planning to go clubbing though I had a splitting headache and felt like I was coming down with something.

The next morning after blowing my nose and feeling much better, I realized it was because I’m now used to smoke-free pubs. After just a month of no smoking in England’s bars, I reacted horribly to the passive smoke in Amsterdam. I found that pretty surprising. But I was relieved, because it meant I wasn’t actually getting sick at all, and could enjoy the Netherlands (smoke aside).

It was great to see another part of England. Great Yarmouth is one of the most deprived areas in the UK, despite (or perhaps caused by) having a vast beach and heavily developed foreshore, with gaming machines and fried food outlets galore. I thought Glenelg’s old Magic Mountain was hideous – that had nothing on the moulded foam monstrosities at Yarmouth.

Entrance to a club was included with our tournament pass, so we went clubbing on Saturday night – the place was huge despite the town’s small population – no doubt a relic from the time when Great Yarmouth was one of the UK’s posh beach destinations, before the advent of Ryanair made holidaying further afield accessible for the English masses.

Yarmouth has problems with crime, so when we left the club there were police everywhere, keeping an eye on the groups of youths waiting to get into places on the warm summer night. It was a contrast to Cambridge, where the biggest problems are bikes getting stolen and people trying to scale old buildings in ball gowns.

Despite Yarmouth’s problems, wandering away from the glittery promenade towards our camping ground there’s a spectacular, vacant beach flanked by sand dunes.

Though the beach is empty the ocean is not – about a dozen wind turbines spin in the sea. My main concern about wind farms is the noise, but offshore the swishing is muted by the lapping of the water on the sand. It was quite beautiful.

Shortly after my last post about the beach in Salobreña, my French friend Delphine pointed out that I was generalising when I said that all European beaches are either grey or the sand is nonexistent.

“As you already noticed, Europe is very diverse. Go in the Landes (south west of France), Colioure (east French mediterranean coast), Erquy in Bretagne, or Algarve in Portugal and none of them look like each other,” she said.

She is, of course, completely right – and I had proof a week later when I went to the Great Yarmouth Beach Classic 2007. At Great Yarmouth the beach is long and wide with a good proportion of yellow hued sand. Unfortunately there are still a lot more rocks that I’m used to – certainly for a volleyball tournament – which meant my shins got shredded when diving for the ball.

I’ve been playing for Rhinos Volleyball Club in Cambridge over the last year. In summer, indoor volleyball teams tend to disperse into small groups who travel around doing beach volleyball tournaments – that’s what we did.

Our team won the mixed 4-aside tournament, which was nice – though the competition was underwhelming by Australian standards. Still, I have a plaque to show for my efforts. Though our competition was unspectacular, it was great to be able to watch one of the UK’s three Grand Slam beach events (the final is in Brighton this coming weekend).

European beaches are so unlike Australia’s rugged, vacant coastline. The sand is grey or nonexistent. If you lay on your towel or the beach itself you seem like a pauper, because of the array of deck chairs and umbrellas on offer.

In Australia, children are put through Nippers so they can survive the angry surf. In Europe, children are thrust into the sea with floaties, pool noodles or on giant pedalling slide contraptions, and many never learn to swim properly, despite the annual beach holiday. Hence on the day there was actually a bit of swell in Salobreña we suddenly found ourselves alone in the water.

I love beaches, and although, of course, European beaches don’t live up to Australian expectations, they have their moments. I was charmed by the beach huts that have developed along the Salobreña foreshore, which appear to take advantage of the sugarcane fields that flank the coast.

Tapas are a glorious invention. Why shouldn’t people get free food every time they order a drink? The United Kingdom could fell its drinking problems in one blow if you got good, free food whenever you ordered a beer. Of course, sometimes this works in reverse… some days in Salobreña we probably started drinking a bit early so we could fill up on tapas before siesta time.

We quickly learnt which places had good tapas and which had average. There were some places that served a kind of potato salad, which was okay. There were some places that did chorizo or anchovies on fresh crusty bread – that was okay too. There was a place that basically served seafood extender with mayonnaise – what, did they think we were English? We didn’t go back.

The best place for tapas was a café bar Ian and Kim discovered, next to the fish market, owned by a guy called Frank. Frank spent 20 years working in Ibiza before opening his bar at the market, and he maintains the party-loving, friendly attitude one hopes to find on a holiday island. But as well as pumping out the tunes and having some swish bottle-twirling skills, he also makes the best tapas and churros con chocolate I found.

This picture is of Frank stirring our chocolate with his exceptional churros on the foreground – but if only I’d taken a photo of his sardines. Oh! The sardines! You haven’t lived unless you’ve had fresh Spanish sardines grilled with salt, which you get free as tapas! Glorious.

His prawns were pretty awesome too.

We arrived in Salobreña, got the keys to our villa, and starting going up.

Salobreña is a popular beach destination for Spaniards, rather than English, which was part of the appeal for us. It isn’t overrun with imposing beachfront hotels. Instead, we were staying in a villa in the old part of the town – a whitewashed jumble of buildings atop a steep hill.

Luckily we had Ian ‘don’t worry, I’ve driven in mines’ Cawrse as our driver, because the gradient combined with the narrow, walled streets and two way traffic were a challenge none of the rest of us were willing to take on – particularly in continental Europe, where automatic cars are like hen’s teeth.

Staying in the old town meant a steep daily trek that gave even my friend Sarah, who met us after hiking in Kashmir, deep burn on the back of the calves.

This daily exertion was probably a good thing, because it meant:
- we had spectacular views of the mountains from our rooftop terrace, which we made use of in the mornings and evenings, when the heat wasn’t too searing
- I didn’t gain weight despite excess consumption of tapas, tinto di verano, cervezas and seafood.

I like to stroll through old cities without aim, allowing the flow of the day to dictate what I see. As Ian and I were drifting towards the cathedral I saw some grand gates opening onto a garden.We wandered in, to find ourselves in the University of Granada’s botanic gardens. The fountains and greenery were a relief from the heat, and the descriptive signs were a good way to practice our Spanish.

After wandering for some minutes we returned to the gate, to find it padlocked shut. Ian was concerned, but as a resident of Cambridge I’m used to having the right to wander through universities at my leisure. So we went into the building, to find more wealth of Spanish architecture.

It’s a shame that in Australia so many universities have been boiled down to educational factories. Some, like the University of Adelaide’s main campus, retain the charm and detail that inspire deep thinking and wanderlust. But newer campuses, like University of South Australia’s brutal City West campus, are lifeless and anti-inspirational.

I’m used to Cambridge, but had considered it a kind of special anomaly. (Many within Cambridge encourage this perception.)

Discovering the University of Granada made me realise this is how universities are supposed to be.

Graffiti is not a sign of recent discontent in Spain – Granada’s famous cathedral, gated from the masses now, has its share.

It charms me that the graffiti on the church is muted and stylised, as much as part of the historic city as the pebbled walkways.

As we wandered around Granada what struck me were the contrasts.

The city has a wealth of stunning architecture, lovingly preserved and revered. Then there are building sites and ruins neglected, abandoned, disrespected by the authorities.

Some of these areas are embraced by the disenfranchised, who take abandoned walls and bring them alive with colour. I spent time translating poems graffitied onto walls, as well as gazing up at flags and ornate towers.

I can imagine northern Africans drawn to Spain in search of a better life filling in their time adopting part of the city unloved by anyone else, leaving messages of hope and despair as their contribution to Spanish culture.

It may not be the Alhambra, but I appreciate it.

We arrived late in Granada by English standards, but the city was just starting to come alive. Our flight was fine, but our confusion over the Spanish autovias saw us take the scenic route from the airport, through Santa Fé.

It was 9:30 and driving through the historic town centre it seemed everyone was on the streets. There were crowds of tanned young men lolling about in the squares, a discreet distance from the groups of segnoritas in light singlets, waving fans like women did a hundred years ago.

It seemed so foreign, so different to England, I felt a little nervous. This is Europe! I thought. Don’t be ridiculous. But Spain is very different to countries in the north west of the continent.

We drove on, returning to the autovia, and quickly reached Granada. As we were arriving late for one night only, we’d booked a fancy hotel in a mystery deal through lastminute.com. We parked in a no parking zone, anxious fresh from England.
‘Don’t worry, the valet will come in 15 minutes, it’s fine’ the concierge reassured us, after we waited for half a dozen airline staff to check in.

Reaching our room, Ian wedged a business card in the key slot so we could leave the airconditioning on while we went out for a late dinner. I hurried him, anxious to get onto the streets before restaurants stopped serving.

I need not have worried. We chose a place tucked away on a side street, our strategy for avoiding tourist traps. We descended on the one free table; a jovial waiter appeared with a torrent of Spanish. Although we’d both been learning, it was late, everything was new, and after a couple of Spanish stumbles on our behalf he cheerfully converted the conversation to English. I was part disappointed, part relieved.

We had a plate of tapas with beers, mostly olives, excellent. We had jamon (of course, the only fitting first meal in Spain, the waiter said), and peppers stuffed with fish. The beer was cold, the glasses iced. We felt at home after months of tepid beer in England. The Spanish climate suits Australians homesick for the weather.

Like France, but rawer and more welcoming, we concluded on first impression.

A few nights ago my friend Lorisa suggested we go to the Kingston Arms for dinner. It’s a typical Cambridge pub, tucked away in a residential area, a bit of flair to differentiate it from a house on the outside, a fine beer garden out the back. There was a mellow old man band featuring a double bass playing. It has really good cider, my beverage of choice for the English summer.

As tends to happen, having been introduced to the Kingston Arms one night, I ended up going there by coincidence again in the same week, despite never coming across it during my year in Cambridge thus far. We were there with a bunch of friends about to depart for places like Nigeria and New York, so there was that heightened appreciation for friendship in the air associated with farewells.

The night was over far too quickly. The big downside of English pubs in residential areas is that they close around 11pm, a tradition apparently established during the First World War, in an effort to keep wartime factory workers sober.

Last Wednesday just when I was about to finish work, my mate Goldie invited Ian and I to formal hall at Queen’s College, because some other people had pulled out at the last minute (may good karma go to you people whomever you are, thanks for the tickets).

I was slaving away at my publishing job and a lush Cambridge formal hall was just what I felt like. I rode like the wind over to Queen’s and we sat down to a great meal in Queen’s Old Hall – one of the most gorgeous halls I’ve seen yet. I’ve been to a few formal halls now but clearly I have a lot to learn, because about five minutes into the three course meal I got pennyed. Wikipedia can give you the details but essentially it meant I had to scull the whole glass of wine. Luckily it was a very small glass, because I was then subjected to a pennying attack. People were very generous with their wine, which I appreciate – but as soon as it was refilled I was pennyed again. I tried in vain to protect my glass, covering it with my hand and even the butter dish, but as soon as I took a sip and forgot about it – plop, I was hit again.

Needless to say, it was very funny for everyone else but I can’t for the life of me remember what we had for dessert, or much else between about 8 and 10.

Even though it was a weeknight and I’m beavering away in an office again during the day, in my post-pennied state when Goldie suggested we all go punting in the dark I thought it was a brilliant idea. So Ian and I dashed down the Spar and grabbed some beers, and a bunch of us punted along the Cam in the still dark. It was stunning. Cambridge was quiet, apart from Goldie’s drunken singing and our occasional laughter.

The water slapped gently on the side of the boat as we passed ancient colleges, dim apart from the odd lit stained-glass window. The occasional white swan passed like a ghost. We snaked through the dark green gardens, eerily empty. Quayside, normally busy with spruiking punt workers and tourists milling about, was silent, the boardwalk lit like an empty stage.

It’s a Cambridge I’ve never experienced before, which I won’t forget.

I’m still quite chuffed with the quality of the photos it took, even if Hayley’s and Kim’s are higher resolution.

My camera phone is my friend.

One of the best things about having people stay with you when they’re travelling is the chance to see where you’re living through the eyes of a tourist. So it was nice to have our good friends Hayley and Kim stay the other day, I got some great photos of King’s College Chapel in more detail than I’ve bothered before, and we chilled out by frolicking in the meadows by the river at Grantchester, which I wouldn’t have taken the time to do without the excuse of company.

Hayley and I went to see the Royal Harpist, Claire Jones, play in an old English church. She was utterly charming and British (Welsh, in fact). As we wandered around Cambridge I tried to share any interesting pieces of information I’d eked out during my time here.

Something I find quirky and amusing is that the Marks and Spencer in the centre of town has to be spread over two sites, because space is at such a premium and buildings are so poky and ancient. So if you want to do your grocery shopping as well as buy some household goods, you have to walk through a graveyard and a garden.

As I was explaining this walking alongside the graveyard, a squirrel started nibbling seeds in the tree above us, while a bumblebee bumped fuzzily along the ground. Hayley and Kim whipped out their momentous cameras – Hayley works in photography professionally, so it’s to be expected, but it made my camera phone look measly in comparison.

I’m very busy at the moment, finishing off various projects and starting new ones. There’s also the underlying stress of not knowing what’s happening next, like the subtle but irritating hum of Ian’s laptop.

Sometimes the best thing to do when you’ve got too much to think about is nothing. This is precisely what Helena and I did the other day. Helena is someone I met last time I was in Cambridge, who’s subsequently moved to London and is coordinating the London Design Festival. It’s coming up soon, so she’s understandably stressed also.

So we got together in London the other day with the intention of a quick lunch, which ended up being a long lunch (at the best Vietnamese restaurant outside of Vietnam), then some more drinks, then some tapas and more wine, then a journalist’s party I was going to in the evening. We spent some time putting together a good journalistic alias for getting her into the party (something about novels and National Geographic), but it turned out nobody cared.

Sometimes, that’s what I like about London.

Take a deep breath of fresh air – England has gone smoke free! It’s great. No more throwing clothes in the laundry basket in disgust after an hour in the Darwin Bar because they stink. No more avoiding The Eagle for dinner because the air in the RAF bar is so thick you could stick a fork in it.

I’m very glad this has finally happened. It’s been a long time coming! And pubs genuinely seem to be taking their new responsibilities seriously – I haven’t seen someone smoking inside yet. Of course, the same can’t be said for outside. If you walk down the pub-filled streets in Cambridge in the evening you’ll be lucky not to get a cigarette burn, there are so many people huddled in doorways, cantankerously sucking on their ciggies. Okay – perhaps burns are an exaggeration – but it is hard to avoid the fumes around doorways. Even at Addenbrookes Hospital it’s hard to dodge the trails of smoke at the entrance, despite the whole site supposedly being smoke free.

Still, it’s a great start. I think England handled it well. Apparently it was planned for July 1st to coincide with summer, so people won’t get so grumpy about getting turfed outside to indulge in their dirty habit. Of course, the rain rendered that plan a bit futile, but the ban’s working nonetheless.

They’ve done a much better job of it than the poxy ‘no smoking a metre from the bar’ law in South Australia. Really… why bother? It’s crap. You see people stretching their ciggie arm out (right into other people’s faces) to get closer to the bar for a drink. Plus if the bar is in a skinny room the law doesn’t even apply! How lame is that? It’s pathetic.

I can’t wait to see how the French go at banning smoking next February. The continental addiction is much more severe.

But stranger things have happened yet.

It’s like clockwork – every day at around 5 o’clock it starts to rain, just to bother people ready to walk home.

Of course, this isn’t isolated – it also rains in the morning often, in the evening sometimes. We just had the wettest June on record, even though it’s been slightly warmer, apparently.

Just my luck.

So, this Cambridge summer is about catching the patches of sunshine as they pass.

I hope July is better. It’s looking that way so far. Fingers crossed.

On Friday night I went to the May Ball of my unofficial college, Darwin. There was no crazy dress on this occasion – the May Ball is all about getting frocked up, or bow tied up if you’re a guy, and making the most of your pricey all-you-can-drink-and-eat ticket.

It costs about the same as the Big Day Out in Australia, but it’s just one evening. And that’s just for relatively impoverished Darwin – I know the more lavish Clare, King’s or St John’s tickets were double that.

The cost and effort getting dolled up was worth it – it will be one of my excellent memories of Cambridge.

The theme of the Darwin ball this year was Il Milione, the travels of Marco Polo. Hence we had Venetian gondola rides (ie. punting), a Chinese dragon and drums, a kind of harem room with big pillows, Turkish delight, baklava, nougat and muffins (bit of a cultural mishmash really), a Monaco-style casino room, and all sorts of other entertainments.

It was well done. There was a constant supply of alcohol and food, as well as water bottles, so people were merry, not disgusting.

Somehow I’ve been here long enough that even when I lost my core group of mates amongst the fairylike Darwin gardens I came across someone else I knew, which is always a good thing after a couple of drinks.

No doubt due to the constant supply of entertainment, edibles and amigos I managed to make it through to the survivor’s photo, taken at a rather tame 3am.

The photographers, rather foolishly I thought, arranged for the photo viewing to happen on Sunday. Hopefully someone was perky enough to get a copy of our survivors shot – I’d like to see it.

Even the English are complaining about how cold it is for summer. There’s flooding in England, just as there’s been in Australia recently. Ian and I are lucky if we get enough dry weather to get a game of tennis in.

But I don’t mind. Perhaps it’s because I’m happy to be a hermit in my house working on editing projects, and rain outside suits obsessive productivity.

Perhaps it’s because it makes me more of a night creature, and summer in Cambridge is good for that, what with all the garden parties and May Balls (don’t ask me why they’re in June).

I don’t think you can tell, but it was pouring with rain when I took this photo of fireworks over King’s College – we were all huddled under an bar’s awning with our jackets on.

Back in Canada in 2004 I wrote about how one of the challenges… and nice things… about moving to a new city is getting used to it. One of the challenges is finding equivalents, or substitutes, for the things I like to do. I’m not able to go skiing or surfing in Cambridge, that’s obvious.

I’ve adapted to typical English activities (the type that you can easily ditch to go to the pub if it starts pouring with rain). I’m playing tennis a few times a week, and football once a week. Football, as in soccer football! Who would have thought!?

Even more astounding is that I actually willingly watched a cricket match the other day!

Those who know me well know how much I hate cricket. Not even the lure of free corporate box seats at Adelaide Oval tempt me. I detest it, it’s so boring.

That said, I do really like picnics. So when our mate Chris was playing cricket the other weekend it seemed a good excuse to have a picnic and use one of the pitiful disposable alfoil barbecues the English seem to think are adequate (they’re not).

We even mucked around and played a bit of cricket ourselves after the game. I was more interested in doing handstands than fielding, but it wasn’t that bad.

I deliberately have separate professional and travel/personal sites, because I like to keep things separate. But they’re merging! I want to talk about something that will also appear on my professional site in a few days.

Last night I went to London for an event by Advance, who have been promoting themselves around Cambridge through the Cambridge University Australia and New Zealand Society.

I dragged Ian along, because I thought he would also be interested to hear Tim Flannery talk about climate change, and associated things. It was fantastic. Ian was equally as satisfied.

I got to interview Tim before his talk, outside the Great Hall at King’s College, London. We sat on a bench. He was jetlagged, but very amiable and inspiring still. The interview didn’t take long – we were done well before he had to go on stage. We got chatting about how Adelaide is going, how great the Central Market is, what we were both doing in London (he was there to launch his books in paperback in the UK). Talking about what I was doing there led to me telling Tim about my various career options and what I might be doing next year, and he gave me some great advice.

Like me, Tim did a degree in humanities (English in his case) before moving into science. That’s good to hear. Realising that great people like him have the same humble beginnings as me was very motivational. Getting career advice from someone so successful who started out in a similar way is invaluable.

I feel very privileged to have properly met our 2007 Australian of the Year, I think he well deserves the honour. Thanks Tim.

Brad is making a habit of taking photos of me eating in an unladylike manner. Others I have chosen to ignore. This one reminded me of the good things about Strawberry Fair, so I’m recording it here for posterity.

I went to Strawberry Fair on Midsummer Common on Sunday with a bunch of Aussie mates also living in Cambridge. It was free, which is great, as I would have been a bit disappointed had I paid for it – but since it was free I was very content. The weather was absolutely stunning, it could have been a summer festival in Australia, if it weren’t for the muddy patches under the trees, the rowers on the river and the ancient buildings as a backdrop.

It was certainly a unique Cambridge experience. In place of academics cycling in their robes, there were goths with giant boots and black lace parasols. Instead of haughty undergraduates with their collars turned up, there were men with three huge dreads running down their backs.

We did typical festival things – ate donuts and watermelon, listened to the inescapable thumping bass, wandered the stalls that were selling everything from 5p healing crystals to organic fair trade decaffeinated coffee.

It’s the first time I’ve had to wear sunscreen in England.

Summer arrived in Cambridge as it should, with stunning weather. I love Europe in summer, long days, warm nights, more opportunities to relax and bask in all the good things Europe has to offer. Tomatoes smell like they should, and taste even better. Even unreliable rockmelons (or cantaloupes if you will) are generally worth the effort.

Cambridge is an exceptionally good place to be in summer. The abundance of time-rich students means a mélange of social opportunities, whatever your taste. Yesterday afternoon I played social football on Parker’s Piece, followed by some basking in the sun, followed by a play at the ADC Theatre, part of the Pacifika Styles festival happening this week. The football was great fun – you can read more about it courtesy of Joan Ko here. The play was also fantastic, one of the best I’ve ever seen. If you get the chance to see Niu Sila in your neck of the woods I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow is Strawberry Fair on Midsummer’s Common – the first of many laid-back summer celebrations I love Europe for. Bring on the summer.

On our second day in the Loire Valley we awoke to rain. This was not that surprising, it was forecast, but was nonetheless disappointing. Luckily we’d chosen a region that had more than adequate leisure alternatives. We traced itineraries amongst the artisan wine cellars and medieval chateaus, which seemed all the more grand and ancient amongst the rain and grey clouds.The weather was temperamental, and we had plenty of respites in which we dashed into the villages, weaving around the skinny streets.

The cold evenings gave us the perfect excuse to stay in our log fire cabin, eating fresh baguettes and soft cheeses, drinking red wines and playing cards. Given we were flying with the infamously stingy Ryanair, we decided to err on the side of caution weight-wise and drink most of the case of wine we’d bought at our favourite winery – that of Jacky et Fabrice Gasnier. This meant we overdid it a little and Chris and I in particular were worse for wear the day we flew out.

Luckily we had time to stop at a boulangerie and buy some satisfyingly fatty French-style pizza slices on the way to Tours airport, otherwise the flight home could have been quite messy.

Over the recent May long weekend we went to the Loire Valley in France, with our good friends Rosie and Chris. We stayed in a cute cabin on the Lac de Rillé, which was within a half hour drive from most of the gorgeous villages and, more importantly, wine cellars and vineyards that the Loire Valley is famous for.Staying on a lake in one of these outdoor adventure-type resorts, we had all sorts of grand plans as to the adventures we’d have. We had windsurfing and horseriding, canoeing, bushwalking and mountain biking to look forward to.

Our first day was gloriously sunny, and we soaked it up. We were virtually the only guests in the resort, so we frolicked around our own lake and bushland blissfully. Rosie teased Chris about his ornithological interest, but then we were all humbled when we stumbled upon a bird watching hut alongside the lake at sunset, which is, at this time of year, about 9:30pm. Gazing at the blazing colours listening to frogs croak and birds flutter on the water’s surface was enchanting.

Since I’ve already bloated my carbon footprint with long haul flights this year, and intend to do so at least twice more, it’s only fair that I make an effort while at home in Cambridge, and traveling around Cambridgeshire where the public transport is half decent.I did an interview at Melbourn, a village in Cambridgeshire, accessible by train and bus from Cambridge. I tested out both – train there, bus back – train was better, even though the bus left from directly in front of the science park there, while the train left me with a 15 minute trek through a smelly field.

I still think rural England is strange – rural in the loosest sense of the word, given you have cows grazing next to science parks, and porsche showrooms nested in ancient villages.

Melbourn is a cute little village – the type of place I would have no reason to visit if it weren’t for work. It’s nice that my work allows me to get into the corners of England tourists don’t see.

Sometimes I feel particularly lucky. I felt lucky yesterday when I was paid to go to Ely to interview a woman. As a freelancer I can pick my hours, so I allowed a half hour before to wander around the village, and the famous cathedral, and take photos.

Ely is gorgeous. This photo was taken from the tea rooms, overlooking the cathedral. I didn’t take tea because of time restraints, but now I plan to take guests staying with us for a few days out there for tea and a meander, it’s utterly charming. Plus it’s less than half an hour from Cambridge.

It’s nice to be back in green Cambridge after smoggy Los Angeles, even if it is a bit rainy. The plush parks around our flat continue to entertain me. Now it’s well and truly spring, cows are grazing on Sheep’s Green, the parkland between our house and the centre of town. It seems strange, in the high-tech hub of Cambridge, to have cows wandering around nonchalantly. While walking I saw a boy trying to rouse a cow with a piece of red cloth. The cow was disinterested.

I can see that LA would have been nice 50 years ago. I couldn’t live there now – not unless someone paid me an awful lot of money (which, of course, is quite common there). I couldn’t live there because the traffic is appalling, commute times are intolerable, and the pollution is out of control.Rachel has a small, efficient, practical car. It doesn’t use too much fuel so doesn’t cost too much, it’s all she needs – but she’s looking at upgrading to a larger model for safety reasons! I was astounded by the dreadful driving I saw on the freeways. I completely understand why she doesn’t feel safe in her little car, competing against semi trailers and giant SUVs driven by people blatantly talking on their mobile phones. How are we supposed to reduce carbon emissions when people aren’t safe to drive economical cars? Not everyone can afford a hybrid vehicle.

The freeways are omnipresent. LA is not a city – it’s a series of enclaves surrounded by monstrous roads. It looked to me like there was more land covered by roads in LA than buildings. Parks are a rarity. As nice as some of the beaches are, as appealing as some of the sights may be, I think LA is a horrible city. It’s ruled by cars and asphalt. Arnie has a lot of work on his hands to try and make it sustainable and pleasant.

This photo was taken from a Starbucks overlooking the famous Hollywood sign in the hills. Unfortunately you can barely see it because of the smog. I was reading in The Economist that LA is more polluted than London or New York. That doesn’t surprise me.

From my experience this time, my favourite place in Los Angeles is Venice Beach. So much colour, so many bizarre things, such a vast esplanade of impromptu entertainment.I highly recommend hiring bikes if you’re not fortunate enough to have friends with a bevy of bikes available, so you can cycle leisurely along the foreshore, amongst the rollerbladers and strollers, taking in the sights.

On the way back from Australia I visited my best friend from High School, Rachel, in Los Angeles. It’s ironic that Rachel moved to Los Angeles last year, because when I moved to Canada in 2004 I vowed I would never enter the US again. This is because I went through LAX (Los Angeles airport) and got grief from immigration who thought I was going to stay in the country – even though I was only transferring to a flight to Calgary, for which I had a student visa! I wrote about it back then here.

So I made my vow, refusing to go to Seattle when my friends went down from Vancouver, in protest of US immigration’s arrogance in thinking that young professionals, from ‘friendly’ countries even, are going to put up with that kind of hostile treatment. You don’t want me even passing through your country? Fine! I won’t.

Of course the powers that be transpired to undermine my ‘never’ statement by putting someone I love in tantalizingly easy reach on a Sydney to London voyage. I give in. I feel somewhat justified given the US has just launched the E-3 visa for professional Australians to work in the US legitimately. So, I reason, they’ve changed their stance, I’ll change mine. It just so happened one of my best friends moved there at the same time.

So, I went to LA and stayed with Rachel and her lovely new husband Keith, an American stuntman-turned director/producer/scriptwriter. It was a great experience. I went to California when I was a kid and did the touristy things, so I told Rachel I wanted to do the things that made LA a nice place to live. So I went cycling on Venice Beach and surfing at El Porto Beach, hung out at lots of Starbucks (the coffee there is good in comparison to the average American cup of joe) and sung karaoke in a bar.

I met some great people, Keith and Rachel’s friends Layla, Eric and Mike, who lent the cycling and surfing gear. Thanks guys! I really appreciate it – you helped make my stay in LA one to remember.

I had a great family day today. Relatives came down from rural SA to say hello and goodbye, before I head back to the UK for at least another six months.

I got to see my little cousins – who aren’t so little anymore, being teenagers and all. We left the ‘adults’ to their coffees and headed down the beach to the Magic Mountain replacement, the Beach House, where they went on the dodgem cars.

I asked various strangers to take photos of us on the way (click on the photo at right for the album), then on the way back returned the favour by offering to take photos of various tourists otherwise taking photos of each other. I also took a few on my own camera of random beach characters, such as this guy and his dog.

DSC00154

Originally uploaded by cobismith.

Yesterday I took mum to lunch at the great new burger bar in Glenelg (Adelaide’s tourist beach, and my local).

I’m usually not one for burgers, but the Goose Gourmet uses local produce like Angus Beef and Kangaroo Island eggs, coupled with a great selection of South Australian wines. It’s just the kind of place I like to visit when I come back to South Australia for a couple of weeks.

A neighbouring chain restaurant was a little lacking in service staff evidently, allowing the pigeons to have a field day on an old meal. I found it entertaining, though some fellow diners said “are you going to send those photos to the health inspectors?”

It’s a sign of Glenelg’s cosmopolitanism that the seagulls have been usurped by pigeons.

After Melbourne I popped over to Canberra for a couple of days, to meet with the ANU about future planning and catch up with some friends.

By coincidence Adam and Jo live about two minutes from the university which was handy. They’re great hosts, between Adam’s great cooking and Jo’s Italian-bred hospitality. Thanks guys!

On Sunday Jo and I went to a couple of exhibitions and I went to the top of Parliament House for the first time. I took some more unusual photos of Canberra’s icon.

The ANU meeting went even better than expected, so if Ian can find some way to occupy himself there’s a good chance we’ll end up in Canberra or at least the East Coast of Oz in the next couple of years.

I spent a week in Melbourne for the World Conference of Science Journalists, which was fantastic. I met so many great people doing such fascinating things and learnt so much.

The conference was sponsored by all sorts of research institutes and governments, so we had great food and some great venues. I will definitely go again.

Thanks so much to Sarah (and her housemates) for letting me stay.

It’s nice to see my home town with fresh eyes. Rather than hurrying along the beach to get to Glenelg as usual, I stroll and look around.

Skimboarding is the big new thing in Adelaide. Five years ago the first surf shops started stocking boards. Now, because of all the recent shark attacks combined with the lack of good surf beaches within an hour of Adelaide, it’s taken off so much that you can’t walk in the shallows without watching out for a teenager skidding into you. If I were 14 again I’d be right into it.

I also noticed less obvious things, like this dog on a canoe at sunset.

When I finally arrived in Adelaide and had to fill in my Australian immigration card I got confused.

First I checked the category, ‘Australian resident returning home’. Then I realised that was not accurate, because I’m now a UK resident, so I checked ‘visitor’, here for a conference, because that was the closest to the truth.

I’m not a visitor! Adelaide is my home. Just because I earn money and pay rent somewhere else doesn’t stop that from being true!

Glenelg is my home. This walk along the Glenelg Esplanade is my walk. It always will be, no matter how far away I am.

I didn’t realise I had a 15 hour stopover in Singapore until I arrived at Changi airport.

As entertaining as the airport in Singapore can be, I decided it would be more fun to go into the city. So I got a shuttle into town and jumped onto their hopon-hopoff tourist bus.

I spent the day on Singapore River, then in Chinatown, where it suddenly starting pouring with rain (see photos), then in the botanic gardens.

It was a nice surprise visit.

I’m not a fan of flying anymore. No inflight entertainment system or free beverages will cajole me. But I’m Australian, I live in the UK, taking three weeks off work is a stretch – how else am I supposed to visit home? I wish someone would hurry up and invent a teleporter. I don’t think having my atoms torn apart then reassembled would be that much worse than how I feel after a long distance flight, and it would save time.

My main problem is disease. Nearly every time I take an international flight I get a respiratory infection. There are many obvious reasons for this, from the horrible recirculated cabin air to the variety of people from all over breathing into this air. Yuck. That combined with jet lag is a recipe for sickness. I cope with it better than I used to due to wonderful ‘frequent flyer’ nasal sprays – but who wants the person sitting uncomfortably close to you on a plane snorting tea tree oil? It’s gross. I don’t want to inflict that on fellow passengers.

But I will, because now I have another reason to be apprehensive. I was reading in last week’s New Scientist about XDR-TB, an extremely drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis creeping around the world. In South Africa it’s almost certainly fatal. There’s a strain in Italy impervious to all known medicines. A few cases have now been reported in London. It’s an airborne disease, and New Scientist says “it is possible that simply sharing a long-haul flight may be enough” to catch it.

Governments should be putting as much money into avoiding biological threats as they are terrorism. I’m all for added security measures to prevent terrorism (well, most of them), but disease kills a lot more people! And it’s more preventable! Why haven’t we eliminated TB, let alone polio? It’s disgraceful.

In this century I think all weapons development should be stopped and money should be put into environmental security measures. What are we going to do, nuke the country that incubates the next pandemic? I don’t think so. That said, people with XDR-TB are being forcibly quarantined to prevent it spreading. At least with terrorism you have to do something bad to get detained (once again, mostly). If you innocently catch a disease while travelling you can get locked up indefinitely, without the political outrage associated with being in the position of David Hicks. Plus you have to deal with an agonising illness eating away at your lungs. It’s brutally unfair for victims.

These kind of worries are why it’s nice to live in places like Adelaide, Calgary or Cambridge, rather than Sydney, Toronto or London. Yes, Sydney’s been unscathed so far. Australia is a pretty remote island after all. Toronto or London are both tarred in my eyes due to security risks.

A few years ago I was due to move to Toronto, I had a partial scholarship to go to Ryerson University to pursue my broadcast journalism studies. Then SARS happened. I was meant to leave around the height of the epidemic, I decided to put off my exchange for another semester, to be on the safe side. There were other factors involved, but that was a big one. I got a full scholarship to Calgary the following semester, and I went having never heard of the city before – but it was fantastic, fuelled my love of snow sports and interest in development issues, so I’ve never looked back.

In 2005 I went to a conference in Scotland, flying via London. This was roughly two weeks after the first London bombings… I never considered cancelling my trip (would I have if London had been riddled with disease instead?) as lightning doesn’t strike twice, as the saying goes. I was wrong, kind of – I flew in just after the disrupted bomb attacks in which an innocent Brazilian guy was killed by police. The city’s public transport was shut down so I got a bus to Cambridge, deciding I shouldn’t tempt fate and hang around the capital.

It never occurred to me I’d be living in Cambridge a couple of years later – but here I am. Now London still spooks me a bit. I go there every couple of weeks. Whenever there’s a major delay on the tube and people are crammed in without explanation, I wonder, has something happened again?

I know it’s not that likely though. I know it’s much more likely I’ll get sick with the amount I travel. The funny thing is I don’t worry about getting sick in places like Vietnam or Samoa so much – I take some precautions, use mosquito nets where possible. What worries me more are these potential pandemics in population centres. I wonder how many other people have avoided huge cities for the same reasons? I wonder how many other young professional couples with high earning potential are shunning international hubs in favour of regional capitals?

Being a freelancer is stressful the same way being a student can be stressful, but more so. Not only do you have that weighty feeling that you should be doing something all the time – when freelancing you always feel you should be doing something for someone else. Not for your own personal development.

That said, freelancing also has some massive benefits. If I look out the window and the sun in shining, I can take a break to go play tennis, which I’ve been doing increasingly since we have a free tennis court in the park just across the road from our flat. (Tennis and afternoon tea, how English).

I also love freelancing because it means I can do different things all the time. It’s great living in a foreign country. Every week I’m visiting a new town or research institute. I enjoy that.

This week that place was Madingley. Not far at all from Cambridge, an hour’s walk. I considered getting a taxi, but it was a beautiful day so I decided to walk and take some photos.

We’ve been in the UK almost six months, and are here for at least that again… but what are we doing after that? We’re now starting to contemplate our future once Ian’s finished his course. I have so many opportunities here – Cambridge is the perfect place for science communication, London for media. It’s not just about me though.

The weather reflects our indecision. Daffodils are everywhere, but it snowed last week. The weight of the snow forced the spring flowers to bow down, as if they were embarrassed they’d emerged too early.

Ian saw ducklings… a lady observing said “poor things! They’ll freeze to death”.

This photo was taken on a recent frosty evening, clear enough to see smoke furling. I like the crisp, clear conditions – I don’t mind cold, it’s damp that I hate!

I’m coming back to Australia for a few weeks next month for work and catch-ups, stopping in Los Angeles for a few days on the way back! More adventure. Hopefully when I return here the last of the winter weather will be well and truly behind us… I can’t wait for another European summer!

A couple of years ago my friend Lorisa introduced me to Darwin College in Cambridge. Given my initial experience of Cambridge was almost entirely through associations with Darwin College, my view of the university and city was warped.

I’ve learnt that Darwin is exceptional – many other colleges and facilities typify the pomp and self-importance you’d expect.

Now, I live close to Darwin College, which often results in me ending up at the bar around closing time. Running into characters like this is not unusual in Darwin bar late at night.

Darwin is a more progressive college… so progressive it’s the first place I’ve ever been to a 90’s party (80’s is like, so 20 years ago).

Spring has arrived in England. It’s gorgeous. As much as climate change might have ruined the Australian snowfields, they’re making the East of England unusually pleasant! Although temperatures are a little lower still, this is the first week since I’ve been here that more sun is forecast in England than Australia.Daffodils are popping up everywhere while trees are in blossom. This photo was taken in Grantchester, a tiny town close to Cambridge, accessible via a bumpy path that my Aussie mate Luke and I traversed on bicycles last weekend. Ian was in London, watching one of the guys from his course, the Master Chess player of Jamaica, and more Cambridge crew take on the Oxford chess club. Cambridge won, of course.

I never thought I’d see the day that Ian would choose to watch a chess tournament rather than go to the pub and enjoy beers in the garden on a beautiful day – but there you go. Cambridge has that influence on people.

I vowed before going to Norway that if there was no snow, I was giving up snow sports for good. After a disappointing lack of snow during trips to the French and Australian Alps recently, I decided that if Norway didn’t have powder in peak season, climate change had beaten me, and I would have to give up.

Norway has given me new inspiration. It was incredible. The conditions were perfect – dry sunshine on the Friday, consistent snowfall on the Saturday. We went to Hafjell, near Lillehammer, which is a lovely little resort; it reminded me of Sunshine, my regular resort in Canada.

Also it was surprisingly affordable. I’d been cringing in anticipation of the Norwegian krone, which is a currency even more devastating to the Australian dollar than the English pound. Though the food was expensive (which is understandable due to the climate), the ski rental was much cheaper than in Australia, France or Canada, and given that ski passes were included in our package, it was much cheaper to be on the slopes than in the pub!

This was the first trip I’d done in a while where I didn’t speak the language, which was no problem at all. All the Norwegians I met were so friendly and welcoming, most had flawless English, and those that didn’t were so apologetic it felt like they were in my country, not vice versa. After a day, during which I gave locals my usual barrage of language questions, I felt that if I were to live in Norway the language would be comprehensible within a few weeks. I don’t think it’s so different to other European languages.

On the Sunday we opted to stay in Lillehammer as we were flying out in the late afternoon. After a couple of evenings in the town we were somewhat familiar with it, and in any case Norway quaintly closes most shops on Sundays. So rather than wandering, the concierge recommended we visit Maihaugen, the nearby open air cultural museum and exhibition space. We did, which gave me an insight into Norwegian life, as much because of the activities going on as the artefacts. Sunday appears to be family day so there were Norwegians everywhere, bobsledding, skating, building snowmen, drinking varm saft and eating sausages in flat bred.

Between the fabulous skiing and the friendly Norwegian culture Ian and I found Norway magnificent, so much so that we started to talk about moving to Oslo in a couple of years… time will tell.

You can view more photos I took in Norway here.

Unfortunately for our predominantly white Western group this meant being served last as the trolleys meandered amongst the tables. It reached the stage where we were flailing our arms as trolleys sailed past pleading ‘please, please give us dumplings’!? Eventually we were sated, then wandered amongst the crowds, buying jars of sauce and enjoying the deafening Chinese firecrackers.

It’s a very auspicious year for me, as I was born in the Year of the Pig, and here it is again! Cheers to auspiciousness for all!

You can live the experience through photos here.

The ‘beach’ in Brighton is just a bunch of rocks really, though the smattering of boats on the foreshore make for an interesting wander. I went to a French restaurant next to the Old Ship Hotel, home to the best meal I’ve had in the UK so far! Unfortunately the fish and chips from a nearby takeaway were as average (and expensive) as I’ve come to expect over here.

Still, if you have a few bucks to spend, Brighton is wonderful! You can see more photos here.

Although it happened a week late, Ian’s Birthday slash Australia Day party at our house in Cambridge was a resounding success. Though Triple J’s Hottest 100 got drowned out in the hubbub, the lamingtons, Anzac biscuits, vegemite sandwiches and snags when down a treat. The range of nationalities topped my Canadian celebrations, with representatives from every continent except Antarctica!

You can see a bunch of photos from the event here.

It took me an hour and forty-five minutes to get to work the other day, just travelling across Cambridge, because a series of accidents, combined with more people in cars because of the foul weather, resulted in gridlock on the arterial road from the centre of Cambridge to my office. It made me grumble that I may as well be working in London – though of course people actually commuting to London were even more ensnarled, with lots of trains not running at all as a precaution.

Though freezing conditions and possibly snow are forecast next week, today has been a reprieve. A blue sky morning motivated me to cycle to work, which gave me the natural high I’m using to get through the winter. To make me feel even better in a sadistic kind of way, I discovered courtesy of ABC online that parts of South Australia are being flooded by record rainfalls – and that’s in the middle of summer!

That knowledge staved off any pangs of homesickness I had lurking inside me. I’m also buoyed by the anticipation of another overseas Australia Day, which I enjoyed thoroughly in Canada, and intend to celebrate with equal enthusiasm here.

It looks like we’re not going away for Ian’s birthday after all, because after booking delays prices skyrocketed, so we decided on a bigger, better ‘joint birthday’ trip in about six weeks. The upside is we will be in Cambridge for Australia Day, so can rally our Aussie friends together and celebrate with the amplified nationalism one develops overseas.

It’s not yet wet, but the dark grey sky suggests it will be.

So far I’ve managed to escape seasonal affective disorder, that lethargic and depressed feeling that accompanies a lack of sunshine. The exercise I get cycling and walking everywhere despite the weather keeps my mood up.

There are limits though.

On Saturday Ian and I made our usual trip to the market to stock up, extra important since we’d been living on the dregs of the kitchen since returning from our holiday. It was pouring outside, so Ian was hesitant, but I convinced him to rally against the weather.

We set out each with an umbrella in hand, and tried to juggle bundling fruit and veg in bags with one hand while holding an umbrella in the other. We got wet.

After two hours of steady rain the water had soaked through my boots into my socks. Finally we had a brief reprieve, when the rain settled back to a light spray, like in a glasshouse, so we folded our umbrellas and stocked up both arms with bags, trudging home. I pulled off my boots and collapsed on the bed.

I’m a trooper though – Rosie and I had agreed to go sales shopping, so I got up, put on a different pair of shoes and set out again into the foul weather. The sales wait for no woman!

We woke up to our first morning in La Plagne early despite our long day before, keen to hit the slopes. After dealing with a couple more Crystal stuff-ups with our lift passes we eventually got out there, both on snowboards for the first time since Canada.

I realised that the better you get at something, the harder it is to try something else. Having not fallen down on skis for a couple of years, it was a shock having to get up again and again after falling over on the snowboard. It was lucky I was wearing my new helmet.

I quickly got the feel for snowboarding again, but given the less than perfect conditions I was hesitant to do more than leaf (the basic, safe snowboarding technique), fearful of getting overambitious and ending up with an icy nosebleed. So I wasn’t getting much speed up, and it wasn’t as exciting as snow trips should be.

I found La Plagne a pretty challenging resort for snowboarding, as there are a lot of uphill bits linking the runs, which make me fall over. I get a little bit of speed up, then see I’m coming up to a flat or uphill bit. I start thinking ‘okay, just keep balanced, keep going, just don’t fall over, because then you’ll have to get off and walk and that sucks…’ and will promptly fall over from concentrating too hard. Then the only option is to remove your bindings and skate along, while skiers zip past, or even worse if it’s uphill take your board off altogether and start trudging.

Some time in the morning I fell off coming off a ski lift and absolutely caned my leg on a pole (once again, thanks to the helmet), but the final straw towards the end of the day was when I was doing the aforementioned cruising along a flat bit, hit a rock and fell forward, skidding along the ice until my face stopped me.

I lay there for a while, gathering energy, then got up and vowed “that’s it! This sucks! That really hurt. I am not snowboarding any more unless there’s more snow!” So I packed it in, taking my snowboard back to the rental place to swap for skis, which luckily is free in La Plagne.

There on in it was smooth sailing, or skiing rather. There was no more snow so I skied the rest of the week. I zipped around, waiting patiently when Ian had to take off his board or skate, elegantly disembarking from ski lifts, able to ski right to our door, and most importantly not falling over.

Snowboarding in Europe is not the done thing, like in Australia or Canada. 80% of people ski, and 10% who were snowboarding two years ago have moved on to the next big craze, snowblades, which are the really short skis, as good for terrain parks as the slopes.

We did spend a lot of time on the slopes but there were other highlights. Many involved food. One was Ian’s first proper fondue, at a cute cabin-like restaurant at the base of Belle Plagne. Another was the constant supply of fresh, crusty baguettes and other bakery treats. Unlike in Australia, being in the middle of a mountain resort does not mean paying through the nose for fresh food. There is a bakery in Belle Plagne that has a line at all hours of the day, and it was charming watching people walking through the snow with baguettes in their hands. We indulged in French cheeses like Roquefort, and bought so many saucissons we had to take some home.

On the Thursday Ian hurt his shoulder falling over, as snowboarders do, and on Friday didn’t want to risk further damage, so we opted to return our gear early and set out for a mountain hike instead. We got the aforementioned foodstuffs together for a picnic, along with several beers, and set up the mountain (Ian carried the food of course).

We were rewarded with a sun-drenched peak with a view of Mont Blanc, where we sat and ate and drank until dusk. The food was a little less tasty than usual given it was half frozen, but the experience was worth it. We vowed next time we go on a snow trip to take a day off the slopes to do for a hike and picnic again, if the weather permits.

We were flying from Stansted to Chambery, which was fortunate, because flights from most other London airports were cancelled due to fog. Of course we didn’t escape unscathed – the chaos and diversions from other airports infected Stansted and our flight was delayed by three hours.

We were shepherded into the aircraft after nearly two hours of waiting. After everyone settled on board, the captain announced that our departure slot actually wasn’t for another hour, but sometimes if planes are ready earlier other slots come open, so we might be able to take off sooner. There were sounds of dismay from passengers, who after already waiting for four hours (including the two involved in checking in), were now facing another, stuck in a confined spot going nowhere.

Luckily I’d brought a lot of reading material, and Ian had his DVD player. I can only imagine what the mothers with small children would have thought.

We were flying with Titan Airways, which is a small charter company that does UK to France runs specifically for ski package companies over winter. My theory is that the big, regular airlines get priority for flight slots, because we sat on the tarmac for the full hour before taking off.

The flight was okay, but when we arrived in Chambery the tiny airport was in chaos, given that the majority of flights were to London airports, to which flights were cancelled. Thanking our stars that we were arriving and not leaving, we found our bags and eventually found our bus, after tracking down representatives from the package provider, Crystal, who was meant to be transferring us.

We got a prime seat on the bus (I suffer from motion sickness, so this is important) and set off. We were informed we would have to transfer at Aime, which was met with more groans from passengers. After a couple of hours we arrived in Aime, which is at the base of the Alps. There we were split up into minibuses for our respective resorts. Once again we were among the first on board, which was good, because soon the minivan was overflowing with people.

Our driver spoke no English (which was fair enough) and didn’t seem to care that the bus was overloaded. Two girls tried to squeeze into the seat next to Ian, asking if we could squeeze over a bit. Thankfully before the bus driver got too much momentum a Crystal representative came up and forced some of the people to get out and go into another bus. Two groups were split up, which caused a bit of consternation.

By now I realised that contrary to the promises of making things simple and efficient, Crystal just hired a bunch of teenagers who had no idea what was going on and sent them out to deal with customers problems, of which there were many.

During one of several delays, we chatted to the young guy who was our Crystal rep. He unashamedly admitted he spoke no French and was not at all familiar with the resort we were staying at, and had only been in La Plagne for a couple of weeks since finishing his training somewhere else.

We eventually arrived in Belle Plagne, the village in La Plagne we were staying at, where the check-in staff tried to charge us, even though we’d paid for the package in advance through Crystal. Her English was worse than my French, and she didn’t or chose not to understand when I said ‘nous avons deja achete, nous avons deja paye…?’). Calling over our Crystal representative didn’t help at all of course, since he spoke not a word of French. Luckily the same drama was happening at the other check-in desk with another group who had arrived with us, and somehow Crystal and the hotel sorted it out.

After lugging our gear uphill through the car park we finally arrived at our room, which was in the highest apartments of the resort. .. great for skiing in at the end of the day. We opened the door and were confronted with a dinghy studio… with no double bed. Two twins, obstinately split, and a bunk bed. We decided to haul the mattresses off the bunks and put them between the twins, which were also kind of our living room couch.

After doing a bit of nesting, it was time to go out for dinner. We’d been up since 6am and it was now 9pm. Ian pointed out that after all of my raving about how great Europe is because it’s so easy to travel to different places, with all the delays it took us the same time to get from Cambridge to La Plagne as it did from Adelaide to Falls Creek. It was a depressing thought.

Nevertheless, we’d arrived finally, and we were going to have Ian’s first ever French meal! We went to leave our apartment and the lock wouldn’t work. We then discovered the phone line to reception written everywhere didn’t work. After a fair amount of swearing we decided Ian would stay in the room while I walked back down the slope to the reception area and got them to deal with it. It turned out the door has a particular locking mechanism involving lifting the door handle while turning the lock, which of course no one had told us about. I also complained to the guy I summoned that we’d tried to call reception. He looked at me incredulously and said ‘but 9 isn’t the reception number, it’s 5900!’ I wanted to throttle him.

Another half an hour later we got to go to dinner. Thankfully the French eat later than us, so at 9:30 the restaurants were still serving. I got a salade au chevre chaud, after my gloriously memorable meal in Montpellier, while Ian got a not-so-French calzone. After trying my salad he vowed to order proper French food for the rest of the week. The aperitif and Belgian beer calmed us and by the end of the meal we were excited and happy about being in the French Alps.

Happy festive season, wherever you are!

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which I’d never heard of before my Finnish friend Ilona took me there. It was fantastic – as well as a sensational collection of vintage clothing they had this intriguing light exhibition in the courtyard.

But the next time a brit says something about deviants in the outback, I’m going to point out they don’t have a great track record themselves.

The dead women in Suffolk story has been slowly gathering in the British media, and with two more bodies found the storm has hit.

Geographically speaking, this killer is closer than any of the Australian ones were, but differing population densities mean Ipswich seems as close as Broome. So we’re safe as houses here in Cambridge.

The third sentence is “the study of great tits reveals that not only are they more raucous than their country cousins but will experiment with new sounds and arrangements.”

The story is about how bird calls differ in country and urban areas… of course.

I used to denigrate the the Adelaide Advertiser for its sexing up of science for publication.

But I take it back. Stories in the UK are much worse. I haven’t even read a copy of the Sun yet, Murdoch’s infamous London tabloid.

I’m trying to get used to this humid but cold weather. It’s the worst of both worlds.

Calgary in Canada was freezing, but so dry that the second I left the cold I thawed out in a fiery flood of blood to the peripheries. There’s something satisfying about that kind of dry cold.

Here it’s cold – but damp. Some kind of orange mould grows on my cleanser bottle. I suppose I’m glad it’s not full of toxic chemicals, but it still seems like an oxymoron.

When I shower condensation in the bathroom battles with the frosty exterior, and water courses down the window panes like clear blood from a severed artery. Our toothbrushes and mouthwash on the windowsill live in an inescapable pool of runoff.

I appreciate Adelaide’s Mediterranean climate like never before.

This morning was humid and windy. So humid it seemed that I almost didn’t need my gloves and scarf over my coat, until a gust of wind and leaves hit me in the face, reminding me of the unpredictability of the weather here.

I cycled from my house to the bus stop along the River Cam, as usual. But today the river wasn’t clear and sparkling and there were no swans to greet me. The river was muddied and stagnant. I wondered if the gale winds the Met Office had been predicting had swept through overnight, dragging up sediment with it.

Reaching another part of the river I was stunned to see the punts grounded and abandoned, a few ducks puttering about in the mud, metres below the water line.

It occurred to me that perhaps this was normal – perhaps regularly in winter nasty weather comes along and decimates the River Cam. I’ve been lulled into a sense of familiarity with Cambridge over the last couple of months – perhaps there’s still much to learn.

Or perhaps with the changing climate it’s something long-time residents will have to confront as well.

Arriving at work, I asked if anyone knew what had happened to the River.

“Oh, some guys missing so they’re draining the river,” one of my colleagues said. I looked in the local paper and there was the story of the Jesus College graduate who went missing at 1am on Sunday morning, without a trace. His bike had been left locked up in town, his phone and wallet haven’t been used since then. Of course, he’s fallen in the river, so it’s being drained.

Never mind the ducks and swans, never mind the fish and other wildlife. A Cambridge graduate is missing!

“I hope it’s fixed by Saturday because I wanted to take my friend punting,” my colleague said.

In Australia getting more water in the river has become so critical it’s become political. Here a drunk lad falling in on Saturday night means the river must be dismantled.

It reminds me that in Europe people have been messing around with nature a lot longer than we have back home.

I’m not making this up. On TV the other night I saw Helen Clarke, New Zealand’s PM, defending against accusations that kiwi fruit lead to global warming through being flown around the world. She pointed out that kiwi fruits are generally shipped, not flown, so the whole flying/global warming connection was redundant.

Then I read an article the other day in one of the big papers about kiwi fruit’s inferiority to apples. It said that while in England there are more than 2,000 apple varieties, kiwi fruits are derived from a single cultivar. The English love their apples – I even went to Apple Day at the Botanic Gardens a couple of weeks ago, where people could bring their apples from home to be identified as one of the aforementioned 2,000 varieties.

So, fair enough, English people should eat good English produce like apples, rather than foreign food like kiwi fruits. But why target the kiwi? Why not pineapple, or mangoes, that seem suspiciously cheap at the markets here?

I am Australian, and we’re fond of a bit of kiwi-bashing ourselves. But over here I feel like defending our antipodean little brother.