AUSTRALIA: WEDDINGS, PARTIES, ANYTHING

The end of another contract presented me with yet another opportunity to strap on my backpack and hit the road. Wanderlust is such an expensive affliction. This time, I was heading downunder.

It had been almost two years since I was granted my most recent UK visa and escaped...I mean, departed...Australia. My experience down there during my exile hadn't been great: I'd had a family medical emergency that resulted in the loss of a loved one, and I'd felt depressingly powerless and trapped by the whole visa application process. As such, my memories weren't that fond and even two years later it was with some reluctance that I embarked on this trip. I was excited by the prospect of meeting my two nephews for the first time, and of seeing my good friend get married, but overall my sense was of trepidation.

Fast forward one month and I'm feeling kind of weird about leaving! Not that I don't want to, mind you, but this trip turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected. Though I didn't get to meet one of my two nephews, I absolutely ADORED the one I did meet, plus I reconnected with a lot of friends that I hadn't seen for years. My four week trip took in five cities: Brisbane, Rockhampton, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. I met five baby humans who didn't exist when I was last in Australia, and an even larger number of grown up people who I love to bits. Oh, and I met three famous people. More of that later, though. Let's start at the very beginning. (And I must warn you, this post covers a whole month so it is LOOOOOOOONG).

Brisbane
I feel a little bit sorry for Brisbane, I never really give it much of a chance. I frequently end up using Brissy as a base to recover from (or in this case, exacerbate) jetlag. Even though I have a number of wonderful friends in Brisbane who very generously offer me a spare bed or sofa whenever I visit, I always make it a point to stay at a hotel or hostel my first night after landing. I'm really poor company when jetlagged: I have trouble stringing coherent sentences together, lose my sense of humour, and tend to nod off in the middle of conversations. I made the mistake this time of choosing a hotel that had a backpackers bar next door, so instead of having an early night to help adjust my time zone from GMT to GMT+10, I went to the bar, met a friendly group of twenty-four year old lads and partied the night away with them.

The next morning - which was actually the next afternoon or, according to my body clock, the previous evening - I decided that I'd stay at the hotel longer rather than inflict myself on a real human being that I actually wanted to remain friends with. That first day was spent wandering around in the sun, willing my body clock to snap into Australia time. Brisbane seemed to be a lot prettier than when I lived there in the late 1990s. I noticed a lot of new construction and public art installations - most of them aesthetically pleasing. The new Roma Street Parklands were a welcome green space in the middle of the city.  They'd also built a Gallery of Modern Art, which looked interesting enough that I felt bad about skipping it in favour of an afternoon nap. There were no evident signs of the floods that had torn through the city a couple of months earlier - at least not anywhere that I went - and the city looked all new and improved and shiny.

Some evidence of the Brisbane I remembered was still there though. I was a little bemused, and then just plain amused, by a sign I saw on a local bus (see right). Any city whose problem with people spitting whilst seated inside a moving bus is sizeable enough to warrant its council investing in signs and DNA Kits is somewhat unlikely to scale the reputational heights of Paris, Milan or New York.

I enjoyed the few days I spent in Brisbane. My jetlag was almost, but not completely, under control when I set off for my next stop...

Rock Vegas
Good old Rockhampton: Beef Capital of Australia. In flicking to my journal for notes to help me write this post, I noticed that I'd failed to write anything at all about the time I was there. In fact, the following entry starts off by noting the same thing, and I had excused the omission by writing (and I quote):

You know how it is, I was so busy (catatonicly bored) that I didn't have the time (inclination) to record everything I was (not) doing.

Charming.

I did have some good times in Rocky, though. The hands down highlight was when I met my two year old nephew for the first time. He's the cutest, sweetest, happiest little toddler this side of Alpha Centuri. (Apologies to any of my readers who have their own children of that age. I'm not apologising for any offence caused, mind you, I'm just sorry for you that your children are so vastly inferior to my nephew). I also met up with the few childhood friends I have who still live there, spent time with my grandma, and managed to win third place in a pub trivia quiz in a team consisting only of me and my mum. Damn we're good. (And yes, there were more than three teams in the quiz).

All in all I had quite a good time. I never want to live there again, but it's where most of my family are which makes it a good place to visit. For very short periods. Which is not too different from the way I felt about the next place on my itinerary...

Canberra

This brought me to the entire reason for my trip to Australia: I was to be a bridesmaid at my friend's wedding. T and I shared a flat about ten years ago when she was finishing university and I was working as a Graduate Trainee at a government department. I'd lived with her again the last time I'd been in Canberra, when I was doing contract work to help me secure a new UK visa, but it had been two full years since we'd seen each other. And I'd yet to meet her soon-to-be husband.

Luckily, he turned out to be a really cool guy. (I shudder to think how awkward it would have been if I'd thought he was a knob). T was the best bride that a bridesmaid could ask for. She was completely relaxed about the outfits - giving us a colour and no other restrictions. In fact, she was completely relaxed about pretty much everything. Apparently she drew the line at her fiance's request that he be carried head-first down the aisle to the Superman theme, but I wouldn't say that counts as being overly-demanding. On the morning of the wedding, a time which I imagine many brides are stressing out and worrying about how they look in the dress, T was chowing down on some leftover roast meat she'd pulled out of the fridge. Damn I wish I had that girl's metabolism.

The wedding was lovely. Her dress was amazing. I don't even like wedding dresses, so when I say it was amazing I really really mean it! I gave a speech at the reception, which was actually quite fun. I'd written notes the morning before (procrastination: a lifelong affliction) and ad libbed a bit on the day. I can't remember a lot of what I said, but strangers were coming up to me later saying how much they liked it so whatever my panic-stricken brain blurted out mustn't have been too bad. T is very artistic and had made most of the wedding decorations herself, which was incredibly cool. It made the event seem so much more personal than an off-the-shelf table setting. And as an added bonus, it freed up more money in their budget to spend on the food. Mmmmm. That food was de-frickin'-licious. In fact, writing about it now is making me hungry. Time to move on.

Although I didn't have much time outside wedding obligations to catch up with many of my Canberra friends, I did get to see a few. And three of my best London buddies happened to be in Canberra at the same time as me. Two for a wedding (not the one I went to, that would have been TOO awesome) and one to visit his folks. Even after having a really good few days in Canberra, the next stop was one that I was  looking forward to...

Sydney

The view from my sister's room

My most recent Australian hometown. I lived in Sydney for the two years before I flung myself across the planet to London, and my sister had moved here from interstate just weeks earlier. She was crashing with one of our London buddies, L, who had relocated to Australia and only been in Sydney a month or so herself. I was really looking forward to showing them both my favourite parts of town.

Bondi Beach. Der.

I arrived on a Friday, so while my sister and L were at work, I was wandering along Bondi Beach, visiting cafes and bookstores, eating expensive but delicious food as I gazed over the sandy expanse of the beach below. The next few days were spent showing my sister and L my old haunts, meeting friends and playing with their children, and generally enjoying the sunshine, open space and familiarity of Sydney. Eating, drinking, and catching up with old friends had definitely been the theme of my trip so far. And I suspected it would be no different at my next stop...


Melbourne
I've never lived here, but if not for my unexpected love affair with London this is the place I'd be. Melbourne is brilliant. I had six days to spend here, timed to coincide with the fantastic Melbourne Comedy Festival.

By now it will come as no surprise to you that I spent many of those days meeting people, eating food and wandering the streets. I picked up some factory outlet bargains on Bridge Street in Richmond, and finally got to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen since they left Vietnam seven or eight years earlier.

On my second last day, I was in St Kilda with E (the sister of the groom at that amazing wedding in Italy) and mentioned that I hadn't been able to get a ticket to see my favourite comedian, Danny Bhoy, perform that evening. E suggested that I pop into The Arts Centre anyway, and ask if they had any returns. So I did as she suggested, but the woman at the box office confirmed they were completely sold out. Oh well, at least I tried.

I went off to..ahem..use the facilities, and when I stepped back into the foyer I saw that same box office woman waving me over. This looked good! She'd been looking for me, and was about to give up (come on - I didn't take THAT long in the Ladies). She said that one of the promoters had just released a seat for the show tonight, which meant that it was one of the best seats in the house. Yippee!!

Oooh! Ossie Ostrich!

I raced home to shower and get changed, making it back just in time for the show. I love Danny Bhoy. He's cute and Scottish and funny and travels a lot - what's not to love?

Afterwards, I joined the crowds having a post-show drink at the bar outside. Part of me was hoping that Danny Bhoy would stroll in too, so that I could walk up to him and introduce myself without sounding like a blubbering lunatic. I probably didn't write about the time I met him after a gig in Newcastle, did I? I hope I didn't. It was SO humiliating.

Danny Bhoy didn't show, but I ended up having an unexpectedly huge night and met three other famous people. It all started because I decided to pop my head into the Hi-Fi Bar before going home. The Hi-Fi Bar is where all the after-hours comedy festival action takes place. It wasn't yet open when I got there, and as I was desperately hungry I decided to find somewhere to eat instead. The only option nearby was a 'greasy spoon' selling crumbed fish and chiko rolls out the front and serving standard spaghetti and chips on plastic tables inside. I had just ordered a piece of fish to eat out of its soggy, grease-lined bag, when Mark Watson walked past and sat down inside.

Mark Watson! He's an English comedian and a familiar face on a few of the better British panel entertainment shows. (He looks like this). I really like Mark Watson. He sat down alone and so, emboldened by a mere two glasses of wine, I walked over and asked if I could join him. Without a trace of stalker-fear flickering across his face, he said yes. So we sat and chatted while he ate his spaghetti and I finished my soggy fish-in-a-bag. Jeez he's a nice guy.

Once I'd eaten my fish I got up to leave so that Mark could finish his meal in peace. He was very sweet and asked for my name, saying that we might bump into each other in London. Not bloody likely, but very sweet all the same. By now the Hi-Fi Bar was open, and as I was chatting to the doorman trying to get a sense of whether it was worth going inside, Rich Hall walked past and down the stairs into the bar. It's so weird to see people you only know from television in real life, so I kind of a did a double-take. The doorman just shrugged and before I could open my mouth to ask if that was who I though it was, Arj Barker walked in too.

Sold.

I went in to the venue, bought a beer, and went downstairs to catch a few of the comic performances. After Arj Barker's slot I decided to check out the upstairs bar. Here I bumped into Hung Le, a Vietnamese Australian comic who I'd seen at an illegal gig in Ho Chi Minh City in 2002. I knew there was no way he'd remember be, but I don't really like being in bars by myself so I bowled over to say hello. He was completely and utterly off his face, but very talkative and quite friendly. A few minutes later, a big group of festival comics came up to say hello to Hung. Because he and I had been deep in conversation, they all assumed that Hung knew me from the comedy circuit and that I was a comedian too. Brilliant. It was through hanging out with these guys that I later met Rich Hall and Arj Barker. To be fair, I only exchanged a few words with each of them. Rich was gruff, but not rude; Arj was wasted and almost fell over. But I still met them both so that totally counts.

I rolled home at 4am, then struggled through the next day. I had lunch with friends who I'd not been able to catch on previous visits, and was pleased to learn that they too were suffering from last night's indulgences. So no pressure to be too chirpy. Phew. A couple of us continued on to a lazy Sunday DJ session in the city, but I bailed relatively early so I could drag myself home to pack before my obscenely early flight.

So that was it. My time downunder was all over. Little did I know then that I'd be back in Australia two more times before the year was out.

NIGERIA

I knew there had to be an up-side to dealing with the tedious bureaucracy of working for an international organisation. And there was! Travel to Africa!

I had two trips to Nigeria as part of my work for an organisation that I will not name. They were both quite full-on in terms of workload, and my policy of not identifying myself on this site means I can't even tell you about the type of work I was doing there. Alas, you'll have to be satisfied with looking at some pictures instead. They were all taken in the capital city, Abuja. I realise that none of them are particularly good, but I was busy working and didn't have time to be artistic and crap. Leave me alone!

Oooh, and I forgot to mention that both my trips took place during the British winter, which made my impression of Abuja so much more positive.

Aso Rock in the background

This is just a dirt road...but it's IN AFRICA!!

Actually, it wouldn't feel right to post a blog about a new country I've visited without mentioning the food. The food consisted of a variety of starches (maize, cassava, yam, plantain) and a whole lotta meat. None of these suited my..er.."refined" palate, so I wasn't overly impressed with the cuisine in general until I discovered one notable exception: Jollof Rice. Oh my god, almost too delicious for words. It's rice fried with lots of spices and onion and tomatoes. Okay, so it doesn't sound that delicious when I describe it, but it really really is. Here's a photo that looks nothing at all like the stuff that I ate but hopefully makes you think that I could be telling the truth about the extent of its deliciousness. Which I totally am.

Outside the Wuse Market

Hmm, I'm not actually doing that well at giving you a text-free blog post after all. Oh well.

I think this building looks like a giant coffee table

I know Abuja is not at all representative of the rest of Nigeria, let alone West Africa, but I still feel pretty pleased about finally setting foot on the African continent. Now I need to arrange a proper trip there. And to learn how to cook Jollof Rice.

Yum.

THE FORTUNE COOKIE OF DOOM

Fröhliche Weihnachten & Gelukkig nieuwjaar !

(For those without the energy to click on Google Translate, that's Merry Christmas in German and Happy New Year in Dutch.)

(I hope.)

Christmas in Berlin 
Another year, another white Christmas.Yay!

After making a drunken promise at my mate's wedding in Italy to spend New Years and Christmas with two Aussie girls I'd only just met, we all surprised ourselves by actually following through with the plan. J was living and studying in Amsterdam, and already had plans to spend Christmas in Berlin visiting friends. E was living in London, not too far from my place, and like me was up for a spontaneous adventure, so we decided on Christmas in Berlin and New Years in Amsterdam.

J had organised a Berlin apartment in the very trendy area of Freidrichshain, and was already there to greet E and me as we arrived from London. It had been snowing on and off in London for the past month (a hyperventilating British media were calling it 'The Big Freeze'), but that was nothing compared to what awaited us in Berlin.

PROPER SNOW! It was gorgeous, at least a foot deep in most places. Despite our being Antipodeans - and thereby most charitably described as 'a bit useless' in snow - it proved no deterrent as we hit the streets to explore bars, check out squats and visit the usual tourist hotspots. We also spent half a day on a brilliant free walking tour that showcased Berlin's vibrant street art scene. Despite my outrageously poor choice of footwear (note to self: wearing gumboots in deep snow will turn them into mini freezers) I thoroughly enjoyed this walk and would recommend it to anyone interested in street art and the cultural history of Berlin.

The Holocaust Memorial from above...

...and from inside

On Christmas Day, we went to a local restaurant to feast. It was lovely and atmospheric, candlelit and wood- panelled. We felt very happy with ourselves for finding such a gem. This happiness was shattered about twenty minutes later when my earmuffs burst into flames.

Perhaps I should explain.

I love(d) those earmuffs. Only a day earlier I had been talking about how wonderful they were, making the other girls try them on so they too could experience the warmth and toastiness that only my very special favourite earmuffs could deliver. Walking into the warm restaurant, I placed my earmuffs on the table in front of me while we perused the menu. One minute my earmuffs were fine, they were having a good time, soaking up the Berlin scene, as you do. The next minute...well, do you remember how I said the restaurant was candlelit?

Somehow my earmuffs migrated close enough to the candle to catch alight. J was the first to notice it, and started flapping her hands in front of her face and saying "oooh, oooh, oooh" while leaning back in her chair to create distance between herself and the burning earmuffs; E gave a little squeak of surprise, but otherwise remained still, captivated by the increasingly impressive flames in front of her; while I just stared, open-mouthed, my heart sinking as I witnessed the demise of my most favouritist winter wardrobe item ever.

Luckily for all of us, a quick-thinking waitress standing nearby reached over E's head, picked up the flaming earmuffs, and ran into the kitchen to extinguish them under a tap. A minute later, she returned to present me with the charred remains of my beloved. It was a very sad sight to behold on a wintry Christmas day.


I must say, the girls were very supportive in my time of bereavment. And, adopting the classic tactic used by parents across the world after the loss of a loved pet, they went out the very next day and bought me some extremely-similar-but-not-identical earmuffs. The new ones were purple instead of blue, so I felt that I could wear them without betraying the memory of my original earmuffs. RIP, little blue earmuffs, RIP.


Who needs art galleries, when you have stuff like this around the corner?

Roa

Despite the flaming earmuff debacle, the trip to Berlin was absolutely fantastic. I was now questioning the wisdom of having agreed to spend New Years in Amsterdam (a city I'd already visited twice before) instead of soaking up more Berlin goodness, but onwards we went.

New Year's Eve in Amsterdam

After having such a great time in Berlin, it was somewhat reluctantly that we boarded the train for Amsterdam. Still, the fact that two of my very best London buddies would be joining us there had me excited and enthusiastic again soon enough. And, as I should always have expected, we ended up having a great time.

We went to two places I'd managed to avoid on my previous trips to Amsterdam: the Van Gough Museum (culture schmulture) and the Anne Frank House (too depressing to visit alone, and my Dutch friend wasn't keen to go a second time). They were both fabulous in very different ways. The Anne Frank House is haunting, and quite confronting. I defy anyone to go in there, really pay attention, and not have tears well up in their eyes. It's shocking.

When it came time to see in the new year, we tagged along to a house party with J (who, if you remember, was living and studying in Amsterdam at the time). The house was amazing, with wooden floors and big glass windows overlooking one of the main canals. The party was fun, but by golly gee those Dutch sure do go mad for the firecrackers. The streets were full of people, rugged up in their winter clothes, igniting these loud and flammable devices from well before midnight until quite a while after. At various stages of the night, people from the party went downstairs to get a closer look at the merriment and, not wanting to be too much of a spoilsport, I eventually went down too.

Now I'm not a huge fan of firecrackers. As a young whippersnapper I took very much to heart the warnings of adults about the dangers of firecrackers and their tales of children who had blown off arms and/or legs when attempting to light them. In fact, firecrackers were illegal in my home state and even when I moved to  places where they were allowed I had absolutely no desire to get anywhere near them. So it was with trepidation that I succumbed to peer pressure and followed my friends downstairs, out onto streets full of dozens of people shooting off firecrackers in all directions. I was being very brave, and trying to get into the spirit of the festivities, but I'd still jump and back away every time I heard one go off. Which was roughly every 60 seconds.

So I was naturally feeling jumpy, when suddenly somebody threw something at me from behind and I felt it bounce off my jacket. I turned around but couldn't find the culprit. That was all it took to send me and my nervous disposition scurrying back down the street and upstairs into the relative safety of the apartment (I say 'relative' safety, because even the people at the party were letting off firecrackers out the window, and one of them had already blown back inside the apartment. You can perhaps see why I was so nervous?) It was only the next day, when I grabbed my winter jacket from the back of a chair, that I noticed a hole had been burnt completely through the thick hood and part-way into the layers of jacket beneath it. Using my amazing powers of deduction, I realised that the thing I'd felt hit me the night before had been a goddamn firecracker! Two inches from setting my hair on fire! Aaaaaahhh! What was it with me and flammable objects on this trip?

On the first day of 2011, my London buddies and I wandered around streets that were blanketed with paper from exploded fireworks. We discovered a very cool place in De Pijp for a leisurely Prosecco-enhanced brunch, and met the girls in the afternoon at another funky cafe for more eating, drinking, and relaxing. The next day, it was time for four of us to set off on our train/ferry/bus trip back to good old London town. Despite the memory of my flaming earmuffs, and having almost being set alight myself by a firecracker, it had been a marvellous New Years. And, as I noted most ineloquently in my diary, it "sure beat the hell out of New Years 2010 in Glasgow."

Happy New Year everyone!!!