Russian Revolution

Time to update again; this time from Russia, went with Carl, Yoko, Kellie and 23 other fellow member of our tour group. Our guide from St Petersburg to Vladimir and finally Moscow was Ang, a well travelled local girl. Initially the concerns was getting the visa, and then making sure our bags arrived via the new Heathrow Terminal 5, but in the end it all went without a hitch. Our first stop was in the outskirts of St Petersburg in some kind of business hotel which dispensed god-awful brown stinky hot water everyday that we were there. The first night was spent in the hotel where we started a competition of 500 and samples of Russian vodka and Baltika (numbered 1-9 all different local beers) which was to last the entire trip.

First day in St Petersburg was on a sort of hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. On this day we managed to see the Smolny Cathedral, Sheremetetyev and Marble Palaces, among heaps of other beautiful buildings around the city. I think we decided that most of the buildings in St Petersburg were painted yellow with the rest other bright shades of lime, orange and blue. We also made a stop by the Church of the Spilt Blood which was a preview to the famous twin Cathedral of St Basil’s in Moscow. The afternoon was spent wondering around the halls of the Hermitage museum, an experience not dissimilar to visiting the Louve in Paris. The evening was spent on a canal cruise, which was unfortunately in Russian but at least we got to see the city from a different vantage point. The second day was spent visiting the St Isaac Cathedral inside Peter and Paul’s Fortress where a number of Tsars were laid to rest. After a lunch of beef stroganoff and more vodka, we headed out of the city to the Pavlovsk Palace which we toured, and the grounds of Catherine’s Palace, both of which were summer palaces of the Tsars. The evening show was provided by traditional Cossack dancers and singers followed by yet more vodka and caviar canapés.

The next day was a free day where we roamed the city fairly aimlessly but really getting the last view of St Petersburg before we bundled onto an overnight train to Vladimir, the ancient capital of Russia. The ride was pleasant except where we got caught by the train guard drinking spirits…vodka’s banned but beer isn’t, go figure. Anyway, some sweet talking from Kellie got us out of trouble, before our group got told to shut up and go to sleep by local teenagers at the other end of the carriage.

Arriving into Vladimir early the next morning, we spent no time dumping our gear in our little village “resort” before heading out to Suzdal for some sightseeing. On the trip we learnt that Suzdal was famous across Russia for two things…it’s a retirement town of 20,000 which boasts some 30 churches/cathedrals and the best cucumbers around. We even got tips of how to grow the best cucumbers, a secret that I’m not going to tell, you’re going to have to go there and find out yourself. At mid-day we all headed to a bunya, which is essentially a sauna…I’m sure everyone’s seen the image of these people running out into the snow and beating themselves with branches…yup this is pretty much what it was, less the snow. I pretty surprised just refreshing it was really, our thermometer read close to 120 deg Celsius of dry heat. That evening we remained in the “resort” entertaining each other with drinking games and probably getting funny looks from the wedding reception in the adjacent room.

Our trip into Moscow was a lot easier than we all thought, avoiding all traffic. Ang managed to organise a night tour of the city for us which was fantastic, getting our first glimpses of the Russian capital under lights. The next was a walking tour of the Red Square, where we once again saw the Kremlin and St Basil’s Cathedral. This was followed by a photo trip around the Moscow Metro circle line, where we jumped on and off at each stating marvelling at the marble statues, mosaics and frescos mostly depicting soviet themes. This first evening we ended up having dinner in a pub behind the former KGB HQ where there was a cool live band and spirited dance floor.

The second day was spent in the Kremlin, walking around inside the grounds. Luckily we managed to get into the Armoury where treasures such as Faberge eggs, State jewels, crowns and carriages were kept. It was amazing to see these items given that we had been getting an education about the Russian Tsars such as Alexander and Catherine the Great, Ivan the Terrible and many others. That night Carl had arranged for tickets for Swan Lake at the world famous Bolshoi Theatre. Thank goodness for the programme at the intermission because I was getting pretty lost in the plot. In our final couple of days in Moscow we spent some time in Gorky Park, shopping for souvenirs and a half day in the ridiculously lavish Soviet Exhibition Park, VDNKh.

In summary, my glimpse into Russia was awesome, expensive but I’d gladly do it all again and look forward to a return trip to see another part of the largest country in the world.

2008 Easter Morocco Trip

Thursday: Start in Marrakech

Easter time again and I’ve managed to find myself on another trip to see more amazing sites of

Europe, well North Africa this time. I shared my trip with a number of friends that I’ve met in London, similar to myself, they’re also aussie who are also working/living in London. I left London before the main group due to cheaper flights that I found. Arriving in Marrakech, I had to first find my way to my riad (traditional house) that I was supposed to spend the night. Little did I know that the streets were planned my some madman with a fetish for mazes, with a little lighting and street signs. Eventually with the help from a helpful teen I managed to find my hotel and check in without too much problems. Luckily the riad was close to the Djemaa-el-Fna (main square).

This square was amazing, there were numerous stands serving all sorts of food, unfortunately they were fairly repetitive after a while. The feel of the square was not dissimilar to the night markets in Taiwan, with the exception that all the vendors were very pushy in getting your attention to buy stuff. There were story tellers, musicians and other street performers as well, all surrounded by big groups of people. After trying some snail soup, chicken tajine washed down with some super sweet mint tea, I called it a day.

Friday: Explore Marrakech / Meet group / Skoura

Getting an early start on the second day, I headed towards the tall minaret that I saw the previous night, but not before I got a photo with some snake charmers on the main square. From the mosque I headed through the souks (markets) and managed through to ramble through it to find a couple of additional mosques towards the north of the medina. Meeting up with the group, and our driver Hussin, we headed through the Atlas mountains via Ouarzazate. Our lunch break, and first real Moroccan meal for the group, was in a roadside diner with during lamp carcasses hanging in the entrance. Back on the road, towards the peak (2650m or something), it started to snow all around us, it didn’t last long though was we wind down through the other side along the valley. I think we were all very surprised with just how lush the valley floors were. Sam managed to arrange a lovely accommodation for us in what appeared to be a small farmstead and the end of winding roads through the village.

Saturday: Through Dades Valley to Sahara

The next day we started driving through the Dades valley towards the Sahara Desert. The first stop was in a gorge, where we saw villagers still washing cloths in the stream shared with goat herders coming down from the hills to water their flock. Bryce and I found a small cave halfway up the cliff walls and decided to climb up and have a look. Little did we know that everyone else was waiting for us to get a move on. That slight delay and the extremely slow lunch service meant that we missed our sunset camel ride towards the campsite in the desert. Instead we rode out under moonlight on camels with names such as Barry White, Jimmy Hendrix and Heartbreak Hotel. I think after a whole day cramped inside the land cruiser, Sam was a little stiff and found the camel ride to be very uncomfortable. It probably didn’t help that the rest of us managed to find some kind of rhythm with the ride and ended up laughing Sam with his groans and moans at every bump.

For some reason our evening meal had rice, a tropical wet climate produce. The desert was incredibly cold, which wasn’t that unexpected I guess. The stars above were amazing, but due to the full moon that we had, we didn’t quite see as many as you might have away from city lights.

Sunday: Sahara through Draa Valley

Early this morning, Colin and I woke up just before the sunrise and climbed the biggest sand dune that we could see. Climbing up loose sand was incredibly hard, especially towards the top when you’re absolutely knackered and your boots sink into the sand. It was well worth it though; the colours and shadows cast by the nearby dunes were amazing. It didn’t take long for others to join us, but unfortunately the remainder of our group didn’t manage to make it to the summit before our camel drivers called us down for the return ride.

After breakfast, we packed back into our four wheel drive before heading back towards Marrakech via the Draa Valley. Unbelievably, we had to ask for couscous at lunch, an ingrediate that we thought was a staple in Morocco. That night we stayed in a Kasbah (desert palace) not far from the Ait Benhaddou.

Monday: Marrakech

The final drive back towards Marrakech was fairly uneventful, as most of us slept through most of it due to the late night card session back in the Kasbah. Those that did stay awake took photos of the valley at an incredible rate (Maria/Sam averaged 60 photos in an hour). There were a few opportunities to get out and stretch our legs, the first on a stretch of the path were it was easier for the land cruiser to go ahead with out us, the second in a historical Kasbah, which used to be the residence of a local pasha.

The limp back into the city was a big surprise to us all, who have now spent the past few days in the wilderness. The hustle and bustle of the city was overwhelming, many of commented that it resembled the busy streets of South East Asia. We spent the evening eating and shopping in the main square. My personal highlights being the stewed sheeps head, a gingsing tea and chocolate sweet and my jedi robes.

I’d like to thank Sam for organising this trip and the others in my group for such a fun time in an exotic location.

Red Bull Air Race and Mike & Dani's birthday

....couple of place markers, more text to follow, links to photobucket still works.

Holiday in Basque not Spain

Hey guys, long time between updates. At the start of July 2007, I was once again on my way to Fiestas de San Fermin in Pamplona. First, we had to stop by Bilbao for a couple of days, where Wei Yang and I would meet up with Mike and Tom. The first evening was pretty uneventful, with Wei Yang and I arriving in town late in the evening, so all we had time for was beer and tapas. The hostel was ok, located slightly on the outskirts of town, by pure chance the world inline hockey competition was been held across the street and many of the referees were staying our hostel. The next day we slept in and took a lazy morning in the Guggenheim museum and a walk around the old town for lunch. In the afternoon we decided to head out towards the beach on the northern part of the city. It was pretty windy and we were not really prepared to go out to the beach. Mike managed to drag Wei Yang up to the top of the cliffs for an amazing view of the beach and ocean around us.

Mike had hired a car and drove us towards Pamplona for the festival. On the way, we stopped by in Alsasua, a village where we had organised our accommodation for this part of the trip. We managed to get into Pamplona in time for the “running of the nudes” which was a protest against the cruelty to animals in the up coming bullfighting. It wasn’t much of a run more like a parade, we had plenty of time left over in the afternoon to get familiar with the city. The day of the opening ceremony was incredible. Everyone dressed up in their whites and crowded into square in front of the town hall. There was champagne, sangria, tomato sauce being thrown everywhere, and the people in the balconies were also getting in on the action down below by throwing buckets of warm water. Rockets were launched to signify the start of the festival, at which point we headed towards the Mussel Bar. Mussel bar is a funny statue, it’s about 10-15’ tall and every year, drunk tourists (antipodeans mainly) would climb to the top of the thing and jump off, faith that their friends below would catch them. Every year there are serious injuries as a result of this, “unfortunately” this year we didn’t see any. We met up with a couple of students in the main square later that afternoon, with whom we caught up with for the rest of the time we were in Pamplona.

The first day of the bull running was again very similar to what I remember from my previous trip in 2005. The streets were still filthy from the parties the evening before, people were picking themselves up either to head home from sleeping in the park all night, or to the next party. We headed to the bull ring, where we managed to get really good seats (7 from the front) for the upcoming show. The bull ring is the end point for the run; bulls would chase the runners through the city between a guided track towards the arena. Once the racing bulls were all safe in their corrals, a baby bull would be released into the ring, to chase the runners around the ring. While very energetic at the start, the bull quickly tires and then the handlers release a much larger but tamer bull which would collect the baby bull and take him back to the corrals. This is repeated for a number of times for the amusement of the spectators and runners. The rest of the festival basically consisted of eating, drinking and generally making merry with the locals. I had an awesome time but the return to London was definitely welcome as it was simply too tiring to continue partying so much.

O2 Festival

up date to come

Cambridge

In an attempt to get out of the M25 (ring road around London) this May bank holiday, which I had forgotten to plan for, I copped out and did a day trip to the university town of Cambridge. The weather was foul in typical English fashion and hence a short trip like this suited just fine. Cambridge is located in East England, about an hour on the train out of London. The main inspiration for Cambridge (rather than Oxford, which is a slightly older uni) was the fact that UQ was modelled on Cambridge...in particular Trinity House. The town isn't very large and I was able to walk around pretty easily, unfortunately, either due to the weekend/bank holiday most of the colleges were shut to the public. The most famous of these colleges are:

• Kings College, where the boy's choir is broadcast every year around the world
• Trinity House, the richest and largest of the colleges. It is said that one could walk from Cambridge to London without leaving lands owned/associated with the college.
• St John's and many others

My main target was the great court of Trinity House, where the traditional race made famous by the film "Chariots of Fire" takes place. when I did see it however, it doesn't really look like UQ's Great Court, that's when I found out the movie was actually filed at Eton college in Windsor. Anyhow it was a great day out...even in the wet.

France in Easter

Wow, so late with this update, just over a month ago Carly and I got a head start on our Easter break by heading to France. Keep reading to find out how we (well Carly mainly) drove over 1,500kms and explored across a significant portion of the country. On the Friday afternoon we both left work early to catch the train from London to Dover where we did the ferry trip over to Calais. It was my second Channel crossing by ferry and once again, the English weather was foul and we didn’t manage to get a good look at the famed white chalk cliffs. By the time we got to Calais and found where we could rest our heads on the first night, Carly was knackered and got an early start on sleep while I went for a quick walk around the block.

The second day we picked up our little Renault and when I got my head around driving on the “other” side of the road and a little impromptu tour of Calais ferry port, we started our holiday in earnest. I should mention that whilst we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see, the only things that we had confirmed on this trip was the ferry trip, the car hire and the flight out of Nice in 10 days time. For our first stop we headed towards the coastal town of Dieppe where we arrived just in time for lunch. Refreshed, we made our way inland to Rouen, where we saw the first of many cathedrals to Notre Dame. The town of Rouen was heavily bombed during the war and this was very evident in the many scars on the buildings. Of course, Rouen is famous for another religious woman for this was where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy. At the plaza where a church to commemorate the saint, we found a strange piece of 1970s architecture. After this side trip we tried to head to the coastal rock formations at Etrat but unfortunately a heavy fog sets in on route and we abandoned this destination. The fog frustrated both of us as we drove around on poorly signed French highways looking for Pont de Normandie. Eventually we find it and found our second night in a delightful little harbour town of Honfleur.

The next morning we rewarded ourselves with a sleep-in and a slow start exploring Honfleur. The town was fantastic, lots of narrow cobbled streets with cafes, galleries and little shops. Late morning we headed towards the Normandy beaches where Operation Overlord was carried out on D-Day, some 60 years ago. Carly and I made our stop at the code named Sword beach, one of three, where British, Canadian and other non-American allies made their landfall. It was a strange feeling being there on a sunny but cold windy day, on a site that had seemed so horrific decades ago. Driving along the coast, we saw a number of memorials left to commemorate the losses. The next destination was a brief stop-over at Mulberry Harbour; a harbour built using concrete caissons to enable the deployment of troops, armour and supplies for the war. The caissons were large boxes constructed in England, and towed towards Normandy then sunk deliberately as a part of Operation Overlord. After all this modern history, we headed towards Bayeux where an amazing 1,000 year old, 70m long tapestry illustrating the invasion of England by William the Conqueror. It was incredibly well preserved and the embroidery was still very clear after all these years. With plenty of afternoon light we headed towards Brittany where we would stay at the start of the causeway to Le Mont Saint Michel.

We decided to get an early start on Mont Saint Michel before all the tourists arrived. The abbey was just as I remembered it, from when Eddy and I visited almost 2 years ago. Carly and I got separated when we were touring the main abbey, so after running through every room, including starting the tour again I found a smiling Carly waiting for me in the gift shop…somehow I had missed her in my frantic search. At least I had been through the abbey previously. We got a few more photos outside on the meadows, with me terrorising the local sheep trying to get a “postcard photo” with the sheep in front of the citadel. After a quick lunch break, Carly took over the driving duties and brought us to Blois a town in the heart of the Loire Valley. We managed to find a warm converted chateau for the night across the road from the main Blois Chateau.

On the fourth day, we started our Chateaux and winery tour of the Loire Valley. The first stop was Chateau Chenonceau, which was a beautiful palace constructed over the Cher River. During the drive, I managed to catch glimpses of a number of other smaller chateaux just off our path. Chenonceau was amazing, sitting on beautifully manicured grounds; the palace itself was no less decadent. The second destination was Chateau Cheverny, or otherwise known by Tintin fans as Marlinspike. On the way we stopped by local vineyard and had the most delightful white wine, and we just had to pick up souvenirs. Unlike the first chateau, this one was much more homely, the trappings of an aristocratic life were still in each room, furniture, toys family photographs. There is a pack of hunting dogs on the estate, unfortunately when we were there the dogs where merely napping in the midday sun. You’d think that Carly and I would have been tired of castles after these but we had saved the best for last, in fact Chateau Chambord is supposed to the grandest of chateaux in the Loire Valley. When you think that its’ original owner was almost the king of France, and the central double helix staircase of the palace was designed by none other than Leonardo da Vinci, you can be sure it’s pretty cool. In the afternoon, we returned back to Blois and had an early night as we had a big drive down towards the French Riviera the next day.

Bridge Day! I woke Carly up early as usual…not really intentionally but I did but we managed to get on the road before the traffic started. Today we would be driving more than 650kms south through France, actually Carly did all the driving I merely held the map. We know the day would be filled with all sorts of funny sights as one of the first traffic lights we pulled up to, we saw a kangaroo sign...the kind that you see in oz. Well I kept my eyes open, I didn’t see Skippy. We drove down the middle through the volcano region, it wasn’t the French Alps, but when we got driving through the mountains and the rain turned to sleet then to snow, it was really beautiful. Driving 120km/hr through falling snow also had a really cool effect, for those that haven’t done it before, the white snow flies past you, and the effect is similar to going lightspeed in Star Wars. The little Renault went through fine and in no time we were driving through the steep gorges of the Tarn Valley towards our first major bridge of the day. The Millau Viaduct almost came upon us by surprise, unfortunately in awe at seeing the bridge; I missed the turn off to the specifically designed look out. In fact we actually pulled over on an emergency stop to quickly take some snaps. What we didn’t count on was the speed that the French highway police would turn up and tell us off. Well after much kissing ass and playing up the tourist thing, we got off with a warning. We pulled aside at the next turn off to try and take the photos that you see now. After some lunch and a break, Carly was feeling much better and we headed towards Nimes where we found our second famous bridge of the day. The UNESCO heritage listed, 2000 year old roman aqueduct built by Marcus Agrippa did not disappoint at all. I had mixed feelings when I found graffiti carved into the stonework…but dated 1839…so is it still vandalism or part of the heritage value? Our final push for the evening took us into the fortress town of Avignon. Luckily we found a motel without too much trouble, the hotelier was the funniest guy. When we made our standard inquiry of “parlez vous anglais?” he responded in perfect accent free English “no, but can you speak French?” After the long day that Carly and I had, that just cracked us up to no end. We finished the evening with a late supper and wine on the square.

After a sleep in for a change, we headed towards the town centre for a brief look-see before continuing our travels. Avignon was very different from the Loire Valley that we had just left. Instead of lavish palaces for dandy French aristocrats, this town was surrounded by a massive block stone wall and even the Pope’s palace looked very imposing and fortress like. Just outside the palace we saw the most delightful busker, who was able to brighten up the bleak place. The other attraction of the town is Le Pont D’Avignon, which is now is only part of the original bridge, the rest of was washed away hundreds of years ago. On leaving Avignon we decided to head towards Arles where Van Gogh painted some of this famous works, unfortunately we took a wrong turn on the highway and headed to Aix-en-Provence to see works by Cézanne instead. Aix-en-Provence was very much a student town; while we had lunch near a fountain we finally took a break and watched people walk by for a while. We did find a gallery for Cezanne, but it was still being constructed and they were yet to secure works of the original master nevertheless it was still an enjoyable cultural afternoon. The last destination of the day was to be the port city of Marseille, where we stayed at a youth hostel near the beach. That evening we got to know Carly’s roommate who was from Montreal and had fallen onto a mishap earlier that day.

The next morning started with a short stroll on the nearby beach before catching a ferry to Chateau d’If. Whilst we were waiting for the ferry to arrive we checked out the fish market by the harbour. Some of the fish were so fresh that they were still alive and flapping around in the shallow basins, we also watched an octopus crawl all over an annoyed stall owners produce. The trip out across the bay was pretty uneventful, when we arrived at the chateau though I could imagine why Dumas chose this location to set his novel “Count of Monte Cristo”. This place is a fortress jail on an island…pretty secure, all you need is sharks or mutant sea bass with laser beams to stop escaping prisoners from swimming away. We paused for a quick lunch before a steep climb up a hill to see yet another cathedral to Notre Dame. There was such a panoramic view of Marseille at the top however which made it all worth while. Later that afternoon we began our drive down the coastal road around Cote d’Azur. We headed towards the little town of Cassis, unfortunately we were unable to find suitable accommodation in the town, but luckily found a roadside motel seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Another early start today as we realised the previous night we had a lot of ground to cover before getting to Nice. The coastal drive was fantastic, much of the coastline was different coloured cliffs falling in to a bright blue ocean. In no time at all we found ourselves driving into the trendy town of St Tropez. We decided to have a break for a coffee along the marina, pausing to look through paintings by local artists. Afterwards we pushed on along the coastal route, breaking briefly to have a picnic lunch on the side of the road. In the afternoon we headed towards Grasse, where we learnt all about perfume making and how this little town in Provence plays such a important on making everyone smell nice. In the evening we checked ourselves into a Nice hostel (hehe) which was converted from a chapel.

Sleeping in for a change, we visited the flower markets where we all tried fresh sea anemone before heading for a day trip to Monaco. I had the feeling that I got more out of our trip to Monaco than my travel companions, I guess having worked on a major project off the coast of Monte Carlo helped pique my interest. We saw all sorts of cool stuff, like the famous Monte Carlo casino…and the numerous expensive cars parked outside, the Grand Prix track (well it’s only a road race anyway, but I’ve been on it now), the grandiose marina with all the super and mega yachts. I went for a bit of a walk down this principality’s newest toy; a 300m long floating breakwater extension to the marina, which is also a 4 level carpark, built in one piece in Spain and transported and anchored just in 2005. Sounds geeky, but for a maritime engineer, it was really cool. We spent a few hours exploring the amazing aquarium which was smaller than London’s but had better critters. Outside, we walked around the palace and the old town on the top of the hill which is so exclusive that only cars of the residents are allowed there. The trip home was a bit of a killjoy though, as Carly battled through crawling traffic for hours all the way back to Nice.

On the last serious day of the holiday, I decided to explore Nice on foot in glorious sunshine. In an attempt to get cultural, I hoofed it to the Matisse museum, unfortunately my trusty Lonely Planet failed to inform me that the museum was closed for most of the year. Well, not deterred I changed direction towards the Chagall museum instead. For a artist that knew nothing about, and all thanks for Carly for the recommendation, I thought the pieces were pretty interesting. On a roll I thought I’d try the museum of Modern Arts, but once again the Easter break defeated me. The rest of the sites of Nice were well pretty cool (ha got you there). It was a funny feeling, little bit of loneliness almost, going around on my own like I usually did on these types of trips I guess I got used to having Carly’s company. I ended the afternoon with a stroll along the promenade above the pebbly beach before heading back to the hostel to pack for the return trip to London.

In retrospect it was an amazing holiday, with Carly. It was definitely a very different way for me to travel, before this, I hadn’t done such a long trip with a friend before. Whilst I’m sure I bugged her with my incessant rambling about engineering she managed to break through me and in turn I learn a lot about myself and our friendship in return. I had a great time and despite the pace of the trip…I can now confidently say that I’ve explored a significant portion of France.

Denmark vs Socceroos

Another friendly at Loftus Road, this time Socceroos vs Denmark. I guess everyone was pretty pumped until we all realised that morning most of our international team were not coming. Still I thought it was a pretty good game with fantastic goals. This was helped by the fact that we were sitting just 5 rows back behind the goals and were able to have an awesome view. These guys came with me to the game Mike, Anastasia, Jason, Ian, Troy and Daemo.
For those that don't know, the Socceroos lost the game 3-1.

We had a couple of drinks afterwards at Defectors Weld in Shepards Bush to drown our sorrows.

2007 New Years Eve: London

It's late, but hey at least I did it. 2007 New Years Eve celebrations were pretty unorganised, given that I had just came back from Prague over Christmas. In the end, Margie, Vaughn, Ian and I headed down to Embankment, opposite the London Eye (coincidently along with hundreds of thousands of Londoners) to watch the fireworks.

I was really impressed, the eye was lit up with flashing lights on the lead up to the big event, and when it hit 2007, fireworks were launched off it and river barges. Unlike the fireworks in Brisbane, these were not syncronised to any music what so ever. Like all London events, once the fireworks ended the crowd rushed towards the nearest public transport (tube, buses). Luckily the public transport was free for the night, just crowded. Horray for 2007.