Hogmanay

I wandered around Edinburgh yesterday. For most of the time I was part of my first real tourist tour, which was fine but a little soulless. My guide was lovely, the sights to see were vaguely familiar, the stories interesting or morbid or both, but the group meandered like a nebulous and disinterested group of cows.

So when we were released I retraced my steps somewhat, and found an exhibition at the National Library on Robbie Burns. So, Scottish. And in Scotland. That was more of the type of thing I was looking for rather than tourist shops full of discount Cashmere tartans, beanies and scarves.

But the most interesting thing I found was completely by accident. I'd seen signs around all day for something called "Hogmanay", and I walked back down the Royal Mile from the castle at what I presume was the time of the day for these things to see vikings strolling the streets. With axes. To the strains of several hundred pipers.

Apparently every new year the Scots have a viking long-boat burning to get rid of all the evil from the last year. Taken from the time that they used to get a fairly thourough beating from their neighbours to the north.

These days they hand out torches (of fire) to the entire population of Edinburgh, and march down through the streets to the park, where the longboat is waiting to be reduced to cinders.

Although, you have to remember that I knew very little of this when I was confronted with pipers and barricades and crowd control people and viking warriors. I was helped instead by a lovely group of locals - two small Scottish children, their mother and her aunt and uncle - who had come to watch the parade. As the torches were lit and the crowds bellowed at the vikings and cheered on the pipers in procession, they went down the stairs to the long boat and I sprinted for my train.

In a town

... not too far from me, but perhaps rather far from you, there is a castle called Garth.

The castle that gives Newcastle it's name was new about a thousand years ago, and it's called Garth. Bless.

Ferry Crossing

On the ferry yesterday I met a librarian from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, who lived quite close to the friend that I stayed with there. We played bingo and ate the unused cocktail decorations because the ship was practically empty of passengers.

And I had a berth to myself.

More Christmas

I thought this morning as I was on the ferry that I would miss being in Europe, or continental Europe I suppose. So I shall. It's been fun.

I will miss the sense of age and history that I've read about but now seen. I will miss the people I've met there. It's such a ways away.

Christmas

Since most of those who read this ought to be on Australian time, Merry Christmas! I hope this is a great time for you to be celebrating our saviour's birth.

For those of you not in Australia, Merry Christmas, it well may come tomorrow!

England feels strange to be in. It's like the place that most Australians have inherited a little. We might love America but we've still got our British hangups. And the accents are amazing to hear - the lady at the docks this morning crying out "Anyone would think it was CAWLD" in true Geordie fashion. I half thought they put these things on for the movies.

England

Is where I am. In Newcastle. Being in England is a bit weird after all these places where I'd have to use a second language. I'll tell you more about it later.

Bubbles

The day before yesterday there was a group of girls playing in the street below the appartment. It was so windy that they needed only to stretch out their arms for the wind to blow the bubbles for them.

All we could see were bubbles floating by the second storey. And hear the laughter of children.

Elsewhere in Holland

I've found that with very few photos to spare, when I leave my camera somewhere I end up wanting it but when I take it with me to different places I don't use it.

My memory ought to sustain me for a while enough. One of my favourite teachers in high school would tell us about how every time one revisits a memory, the memory is changed in the mind. So you never really remember things exactly the way they were.

So let me tell you about the light this afternoon before I forget it properly. It was like the kind of light you'd use if you were reminiscing about something - beautiful and golden and fading to a deep vermillion in the sunset. It lit up our faces and our hands as we sat and talked over apple spiced tea.

Failings

The English language needs a word for the regret you feel right after eating something amazing. Like the Mega Chocolate Fudge Cake currently sitting in ruins on the dinner table.

And it also needs the word that the Dutch have for something that is good enough to go out of your way for (in no other sense than on your bike). Omfiets in the sense of Omfietswijn, meaning wine you would take a detour for. Only if you were on your bicycle at the time.

More from Holland

I played indoor soccer (sorry, football) with the group my host usually plays with. The Dutch are certainly passionate about their football, but everyone was really nice about my inability to kick with any kind of aim.

We also went to Amsterdam, where I paid a full museum price for a view of only a few works the Rijksmuseum had up. And we found an extremely cheap copy of Jamie's "Ministry of Food", from which we have been eating for the last few days. Yum yum yum yum yum.

Speaking of lovely things to eat - the best apple pie in Europe is found at Dudok, a cafe in Rotterdam. If you want to challenge me on that, go right ahead.

Rotterdam

In the Netherlands! I still love to read such an old-fashioned turn of phrase in the country's name. It's the first place that I've been that I didn't know I was going to, so that's exciting in its way - especially because I'm staying with a friend from l'Abri - but I don't know much about it. Not really the history, or culture - I've been reading my guidebook (I must be a tourist) and as I find something familiar, such as M C Escher or the fact that Descartes went to university here, you'd hear if you were here a cry of "really, that's here?!".

Dutch is impossible for me to read out loud. Now I can see where Indonesian was encouraged in its tendency to use more vowels than are called for. As well, 'g' does not exist so much as has been transformed into a kind of clearing of the throat sound, which since the rest of the language sounds a bit like singing is strange to hear at first.

Still, the Dutch are lovely as a group and individuals. I love the bikes and cycling around. I am perplexed by yoghurt that comes in milk cartons (but it's runny enough here so I suppose it works). I love that the metro driver shrugged an apology as he pulled out and we came down the stairs.

In Bruges

And, yesterday I was in Bruges. It's beautiful, if full of tourists. It's also cold this time of year - I threw a pebble into the canal to see how the flow was going. It went "clunk" and stayed on the surface. It's a strange world.

Elsewhere in Brussels

So that I can catch you up to date as well as tell you of fine things, here are two interesting things that I did in Brussels -

Firstly, I went to a private viewing of an exhibition by three (almost) former graffiti artists from Holland, which was sponsored by a beer company and thus had free beer on offer to sip while regarding things to be regarded. It was full of people that you'd love to know if you could; Artists on the alternative scene in Brussels, including a few local artists who were good friends with my hosts.

Secondly, with my second host in Belgium, a free concert (free, that is, for me) given by Severin von Eckardstein and a pianist from Uruguay whose name I have forgotten but who wasn't quite as good a player as dear Severin. My hostess, a jazz pianist and chanteuse is good enough friends with him to have been invited with a ticket to spare to attend the concert (or recital, or benefit thing, there was a man explaining things in Flemish, French and English but I wasn't paying attention). I have kissed the cheeks of greatness! He he he. Google him if you, as I previously, don't know who he is. His playing is absolutely marvelous, and the fact that he has played with Valery Gergiev made me like a little fangirl.

So there you are - two great things that I have seen that I never would have if I'd stayed in a hostel. And just so you know, if the recession eases any I'm thinking of outstaying my visa.

Last of Berlin

In the event, as in actual fact, that you are several days behind what I'm up to through my erratic internet access, I'm going to have to summarise quickly.

In Berlin, I saw some things.

Too concise? I saw the East Side Gallery - the bit of the wall that the eastern Berliners where more than happy to paint all over before it came down, the area that my grandfather grew up in, the Jewish museum in all of its disconcerting architecture (by the way, if you go, take a whole day to do it in. We only got to see half of it because we realised that it had taken us almost 3 hours to see the history up until the 16th century), Prenzlauer berg and the cool bit and some lovely people.

My host in Prenzlauer berg took us to a bar, tiny, crowded and the most fun I've had at a drinking establishment because at this particular place the main activity is ping pong. The bar itself is far too crowded to get to, one try at elbowing our way through for a beer and a rented bat was more than enough, the DJ was playing amazing stuff, and all the while a universal rotating ping pong game was going on. You've played it before if you don't know what I'm talking about - if more people than four want to play you just keep hitting it over the net while walking around the table. The last two still in have a contest to 5 points and then the game starts again.

It was easy to pick the keen players, and equally easy to shed the more inebriated of the crowd with a well placed ball.

There were mostly locals there too, which I liked. Aparently some guidebook or another had included this establishment as a great place to go to, and while I agree - as the tourist contingent grew we squeezed ourselves out into the cold Berlin evening.

Last of Dresden, first of Berlin

So this may be long to make up for the very little amount of posting that has happened recently.

To begin, then, I absolutely loved staying in Dresden - my host took me to any number of wonderful places including a musical advent calendar, a friendly Christmas gathering and hiking in the woods near Dresden.

The musical advent was the best idea I have seen so far for the Christmas celebrations that I've witnessed in Europe. It involved large silver numbers being posted over the doorways of various shops and venues in the Neustadt, and as the night corresponding to each number fell a local band would appear from behind the door, play a set or two and then wish everyone a merry Christmas. While my host had seen jazz and other genres in the nights before our entertainment then was a generic slightly punk rock band that he'd never heard of. Small children bobbed on the shoulders of their fathers as they watched it.

Then we walked on to his friends' apartment through the rain, to find several welcoming couples and corresponding offspring in a tiny little room, eating potatoes and talking about philosophy and politics. Not the children, who were bundled off to bed as conversation continued and the owner of the house kept on crying out, "We must speak English for the minority!" (or, as more bottles where emptied, "we must speak Serbian for the minority! Russian! Flemish!") Which they didn't always remember to do as the arguments became passionate about musical tastes or Angela Merkel, but I really didn't mind.

The next day I walked through more rain to some castles build along the Elbe by businessmen of the 19th century. I suppose when you've earned enough the final thing missing is a castle, but we walked around them and were thrown out of one - turned into a 5 star hotel and restaurant, apparently our attire was not appropriate. Then back through the woods in time to be late for my train to Berlin.

So, I sat. And deleted messages from my phone, remembering all the while the people and places that were involved at the time. On the train I was hailed by a lady slightly drunk on glühwien, with a cry of "Australia! You're from Australia! Are you making a holiday here?" Thumbs up indeed, and thanks Pen for the flag patch!

One final thing for this post, the main train station in Berlin is the oddest place I've been. Had I not been warned that the place that I needed to be would be in exactly the opposite position in the building that I would find myself I can imagine wandering around there like a lonely cloud for quite some time. Picture a shopping centre that also has signs for trains where you might elsewhere find the sign for Best and Less or the toilets. Then find me next to the S-bahn.

St Nicholas

Today is St Nicholas's day, and in Germany they celebrate it by making children clean their shoes the night before and the next morning there are supposed to be presents inside. Apparently it used to just be nuts or chocolate or oranges but these days, of course, you're more likely to find cds or an mp3 player.

And so, to make a little St Nicholas happiness, one of the more active members of couchsurfing here in Dresden held a little 'spread the love' event, making little parcels of lollies and chocolate and fruit and giving them to nurses and firemen and even to people who I assume must be social workers, working at an amazing playground and petting zoo and counselling place in the Neustadt called Panama. It was great, and really fun to do, even though most of the time I didn't understand what was going on because German really isn't what I know.

So, learned things - couchsurfing with actual strangers rather than sort-of-kind-of ones is a good way to meet people and have fun, German would be an awesome language to speak, it's legal to graffitti in the Neustadt and people have become really creative in doing so, I would love to have had a Panama near me when I was growing up.

Trains and such

Both the beginning and the end of my trip to Prague have taught me the real reason the Prague metro system exists - it's to keep people in the city and not let them leave. In the meantime you become distracted by the sights to see and the things to do and it's only when you want to get out and the map is telling you the wrong direction and the train information man is telling you that there are in fact two stations from which international trains leave and the one you're in just won't do that the whole thing makes you want to give up and stay.

Then when the station is found, the platform certain, the right bit of the platform in order to board the train in the right spot cleverly worked out - the train itself is 20 minutes late.

However, the Dresden city council have been clever enough to plant a Christmas market at the exit of the main train station - so the second you walk out there are brass quartets playing carols, cheesy carols being piped through speakers on poles, cinnamon and cloves and ginger in the air, alongside a healthy chill to the fingertips you can forget all that nonsense, take out a city plan and absolutely conquer the transport system of the new town.

I hereby crown myself the queen of transportation.

Souvenirs

The actual word, in French, means more or less "memories". So here are some memories that I'll have from Prague -

• The old, thick set man in the pub wearing an impossibly furry hat and fake vampire teeth playfully biting the waitress as she said goodbye.
• The idea that every good homewares store stocks swords and medieval kitsch.
• The lovely meandering old alleys.
• The city at night.
• The fantastic tea-houses.