EATING ORANGES IN VALENCIA

I love London, but sometimes I just need to GET THE HELL OUT.

Being homeless and jobless was getting on my nerves. So one fine (meaning: cold/wet/grey) Tuesday, at about 8:30pm, I decided to start looking for flights and accommodation so I could spend a few days in Spain. Twelve hours later, my plane took off from Gatwick and I was on my way to Valencia, Spain. God I love Europe. 

I cannot recommend last-minute getaways enough. My previous record had been deciding to go to Portugal on a Tuesday and flying out on a Friday. This time, I'd barely left enough time after confirming the tickets to pack and sleep. That's a good thing. I think it's best to get out and away before you have time to change your mind and do something more sensible with your time and money.

Beautiful scenery...

This trip was the best idea ever. Spain was warm and sunny. The temperature ranged from 25 to 35 degrees. The wine cost less than two euros per glass. I ended up extending my original two-day trip by another two days so that I could see all that I wanted to see.

My first priority upon landing: eating some paella! Valencia is the home of paella, and should a traveller not happen to know that before arriving, they would surely pick it up quickly from the profusion of fridge magnets, t-shirts, and other tourist paraphernalia proudly proclaiming the fact. I had a hot tip from a local about where to find the best paella in town, and navigated my way to a little place tucked in the corner of a beautiful paved square. It was quite early for lunch, and the only other customers in my part of the restaurant were two priests having an animated discussion and sharing an enormous pan of paella. And I really mean enormous. The base of the pan was probably the size of one of those gigantic New York pizza trays. It. Looked. Delicious.

...Funky cafes

I hadn't eaten since waking at 4.30am to catch my flight, so I was really, really looking forward to this paella. Flicking through the menu, my heart sank as I realised that the enormous pan that the priests were sharing was the only size available. Nooo!!! I checked with the waitress as well, but no - that was it. Hungry as I was, ordering an entire paella pan only to discard three quarters of it just wasn't an option. I was gutted. I sadly ordered a couple of small tapas dishes to fill the gap and a glass of wine to console my disappointed taste buds.

By the time the wine arrived I'd managed to cheer myself up again and put it all into perspective. Twelve hours earlier I had been sitting inside a tiny London apartment watching the rain fall against the window outside; now I was sitting in a taverna in Valencia watching two priests chat to each other in Spanish while I sipped on wine and read a book. Life really was good.

After delivering my wine, the waitress went over to check on the priests. They had an in-depth conversation, with the waitress looking over at me a couple of times. I had no idea what was going on. She eventually walked to me to explain. Apparently the priests wanted to offer me the rest of their paella.

What What WHAT???

They had both eaten their fill, but still had about a third of a pan left (I told you they were big pans). Oh my lordy lord. I nodded gleefully, only to realise a split second later that only one of the four varieties of paella on the menu was suitable for my vegetarian tendencies. To be so close to glory and then to lose it would be heartbreaking. I crossed my fingers and asked the waitress which kind it was......VEGETARIAN! Spain became so very awesome at that point.

Off to a spectacular start, Valencia just kept on delivering. The two glasses of house white that I drank with lunch turned out to cost just one euro fifty each; the small salad I'd ordered more out of curiosity than anything else was mouthwateringly delicious (mango, prawns and cheese - who'd have thought it?); I met some fellow travellers and joined them for an epic four hour wander to and from the City of Arts and Sciences (photos below); and before heading out to dinner we found the location of a supermarket where Spanish wine was priced at only one euro fifty per BOTTLE. Good, good times.

 

The next day brought more wandering and touristing. Exploring the Catedral de Valencia, I was creeped out by their collection of relics (which included a skull, a pile of bones, and a withered old arm) before being surprised to find that one of the chapels within held the Holy Grail. Literally, THE Holy Grail. Vatican-endorsed, so it must be true. (Speaking of which, have they done anything about the whole 'infallibility of the Pope' thing yet?). A better advertising campaign by the Cathedral would have saved Indiana Jones and Monty Python a hell of a lot of time and effort in searching for it. 'The Grail' was nicer than the one that Indy found in his Last Crusade - it had handles and everything. I texted my grandma to tell her that I'd seen the Holy Grail, and she was suitably impressed. Hopefully it made up for not getting to see the Pope when I was at the Vatican last year.

I just can't emphasise strongly enough how much I loved Valencia. After four days of exploring, there were still things I didn't get a chance to do/see/eat/drink. I spent only one afternoon strolling on a sandy beach by the Mediterranean sea, but could have spent days. Even two weeks wouldn't have been long enough to get my fill of sitting in cafes overlooking beautiful medieval squares and watching the world go by.

Spain. Good.

HOMELESS BUT HOUSE-SITTING

I love finishing contracts. I love travelling without being constrained by a return-to-work date. I love having no rent to pay - except for storage costs -  and having all the time in the world to explore and relax and discover what really makes me happy.

I hate returning to London with no home, no job, and sod-all money in the bank. Reality sucks.

 

I'm very lucky, however, to have fabulous friends who took pity on me when I first returned and let me stay in their spare room while I recovered from jetlag and tried to get my job-hunting head screwed on. 

 

Since then, I've spent time cat-sitting in Southwark while a mate took a short trip back to Australia, and am now house-sitting a lovely apartment on the riverside in Vauxhall for the delightful SR. SR is travelling for the next month or so, and though she doesn't have cats that need feeding or plants that need watering, she's very generously offered her home to me while I try to find a rental property that doesn't smell like socks and have mould growing out of the wall. Just doing her part to keep down the number of hobos living on the streets, I guess. Thanks S!!

SINGAPORE

I'm not entirely sure that my three-day stopover in Singapore on my way back to London is really deserving of its own blog post. My stay there consisted of little apart from eating and sleeping. And then eating some more. Singapore knows how to do cheap and delicious food remarkably well.

I had spent the last couple of days of my Australia trip dreaming about how great my first laksa in Singapore was going to taste. As it turned out, I didn't have the chance to eat a laksa until my very last day, when I had it for breakfast. But that's only because I was so busy shoving as many other divine delicacies into my mouth as I could.

I stayed at a really nice hostel in Chinatown, which was situated directly over a dim sum restaurant. Yum. There was also a food center directly across the road, so it was quite an effort to promp myself to move further than 20 metres every day. For those who aren't familiar with Singapore, food centers are like a food court, except instead of McDonald's and Oporto and crap, you have  informal hawker stalls. It's like Singapore picked up all it's street food vendors, and plonked them indoors. In fact they may well be the actual origin of food centers. I was too busy eating to do any research.

When I wasn't eating, which wasn't often, I explored the rest of Chinatown, walked to and around Little India, and discovered some very trendy boutiques on Haji Lane in the Arab quarter. Well, I wasn't eating while I was walking, but I have to admit that I did sample some Indian food in little India and middle-eastern food in the Arab Quarter. It would have been rude not to.

The closest I got to a shopping centre was a trip to the famous Mustafa Centre in Little India. Known as "the shopping mall that never sleeps", it offers twenty-four hour access to just about any piece of crap that you have the urge to buy. I hate shopping, so I don't know what possessed me to enter the maze. I got out as soon as I could afterwards, having purchased only two things that I didn't know I urgently needed until I saw them.

This was my third or fourth trip to Singapore, and once again I didn't get myself over to Sentosa Island. Oh well. Next time Gadget, next time.

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.