Wilkommen in Holland!

Yes, I have left it a bit late again but here are some photos of Holland... finally! Despite my broken foot I grudginly left London to face the windy late Spring of Holland, and also to practice my Dutch! Starting off in Groningen I visited my friend Anja but walking around the town proved somewhat difficult and tiring in my Air Boot... here is Groningen Rail Station.

I walked towards the town square and look what I found on the way... as you can imagine, I was extatic!! I have never seen one before :)

I met Marco two days later and we fought the peak hour traffic from Amsterdam to the eastern part of Holland where we visited a tiny little town called Pieterburen. I tried a Grunn's Goudhaantje which is a Kölsch style beer, it was one of the best beers I have ever tasted! Very fresh, not too fruity and not too bitter, I wish I could buy some outside Holland but I don't think I can!

Anyway, in Pieterburn there is quite a large Seal rehabilitation program, they call it a Zeehonden Creche! The seals were SO adorable! They take in orphans and ill seals to get them better and then they release them back into the wild. Some of them were really sick.

Then off we went over the Afsluitdijk, the big windy man-made dike over the open sea to North Holland. We went to Volendam which was a pretty little sea-side town where I drank some Wiecke Witte Dutch blonde beer, not as good as Hoegaarden but good enough!


And we had to see some windmills! One was open so I climbed up and down all the scary narrow steps! Here a picture of me - notice the boot!


On the way to Limberg we stopped in Den Haag to visit the amazing minature city of Madurodam. It is much bigger than I expected!


And then it was off to Limberg to see some friends. And also a visit to a Belgian Beer Wholesale shop... I was in heaven!! So many names I hadn't heard of and I found some Hoegaarden beers that aren't exported. And even Hoegaarden was in the cheap no print bottle here with a different label.

Then it was off to the Stad Amsterdam. We walked to the Central Square to have a look around.

And then it was off to the Leidseplein for a drink. There was a skating rink there but I couldn't skate because of my foot :(

And then it was off to the dirty red light district for a sex show before heading home the next day! It wasn't really what I expected and wasn't as good as the Crazy Horse in Paris! But it was entertaining nonetheless.

Happy Days - Ireland in 6 days

I planned to go to Ireland in the first three months of my trip but never got around to it, but I finally went last week! Starting off on Sunday afternoon by myself in Dublin, I was pleased to find this building standing prominently on the banks of the River Liffey!

I went for a walk to the Temple Bar district for some first impressions of real Irish music in a bar, then to the Viking district -

Leaving first thing Monday morning our first stop was in Drogheda to look at Oliver Plunkett's unpreserved, undecomposed head at St Peter's Church. It was quite black which I found surprising but I suppose it is 326 years old. I found this on the road... It is a Water Service Control access point. I thought it was really pretty for a boring services lid!

From there we headed for Derry (or Londonderry depending on who you talk to). That night I went to the local pub for some craic and some traditional Irish music - wonderful!

Next stop was the Giant's Causeway, a volcanically produced set of square rocks all naturally produced.

And then a short stop to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge just down the road.


I had my first hot whiskey at lunch that day - it was really nice - hot and sugary and lemony with cloves - it really warmed me up!

We arrived in Belfast early enough to take a Taxi ride to the housing areas of Belfast so we could see the murals of the Republicans and the Loyalists alike and see the way they live. They are so vividly drawn. It was quite disturbing for the views to be so current in their way of thinking.


For the rest of the afternoon I went for a lovely walk in Belfast and found Queen's University, it is very beautiful. I also found a Starbucks near the university :P

We didn't have time or much else other than dinner and more drinking and music - yay! I even tried some Irish dancing - a very cute Irish girl tried to teach me but not very successfully!!


From Dublin it was to Galway - the University young people's town. We stopped at Sloga for lunch which was quite a big town. Each day there was not much time for doing much else so again we dined and this time after the music I went clubbing with another two girls to see what the scene was like... well everyone was extremely drunk before going in and the guys were very sleazy as they too were drunk! Ha! Oh well!

The Glencar Waterfall -

The Cliffs of Moher -

We stopped at the Stone of Fertility on the Dingle Penninsula, where most of the girls wriggled their behinds on the stone! Here is the group of girls -


We saw a lot of cemetaries with celtic crosses. The extra circle of the Celtic Cross is the symbol of eternity.



Murphy's Pub in Kerry, Cork onthe Dingle penninsula where we stopped for lunch. There is a dolphin called Fungie, living there by choice, he keeps coming back!



While in Killarney we took a horse and carriage ride to the Killarney National Park, it is really huge - 25,000 acres! And very beautiful but we only saw a little bit.


We stopped at Blarney Castle in Cork and most people kissed the Blarney stone in an attempt to achieve the gift of eloquence. I, for one, did not kiss the Blarney Stone!



A Blarney Castle doorway, my they were short back in 1446!








And lastly a short visit to the Guinness Brewery, and the best part was the free pint at the end! :)

We spent the final night in Dublin with a few people from the tour as it had officially ended. A pedestrian bridge over the River Liffey at night -

Discovering Dalmatia...

This was our sailing route while on the Dalmatian Coast. The six of us arrived at Split airport and had to get a bus (which cost us 30 Kunars each - equivalent of £3!) all the way into the town/port of Split. Then it was sailing the next morning off to three islands along the way; Brac, Vis and Hwar... Click on the map to see detail. Photos to come later I'm afraid! But I can tell you there was a lot of pivo drunk every night - and by that I mean Beer!


We arrived in Split and got a local bus to the marina. The mountains surrounding the Dalmatian Coast are beautiful.

Day 2 – Left marina on sailboat Siesta. Passed Bobovisca town. Docked at Milna on Brac island. We hired a scooter here and drove up into the mountains. Very pretty areas! Nice little town, found Tomislav pivo, a type of bock stout beer. Very tasty. After dinner there was a youth rock concert in town – don't want to be rude but they weren't very good!

Day 3 – Anchored at island near Hwar and had to get a boat taxi to Hwar as the port on Hwar was a little too open to the elements. Hwar was quite a touristy town and a large town. Had dinner in a historic little step alley.

Day 4 – Passed Vis island and berthed in Komiza. There was a severe storm on the other side of the island, you can see from the darkness of the clouds here...

Day 5 – Arrived and anchored in Stari-Grad.

We had dinner in a restaurant and you could buy a tube of beer! It could hold 5 litres! There was quite a lot of Bavaria available on the islands we visited which I preferred but the best Croatian beer I found was the Laško Pivo Slovenian beer.

Day 6 – Passed Povlja and berthed in Pučišća. This town's main income is from it's stonemasonry as there is a stone quarry very prominently visible as you enter the port. See here. But there were only two restaurants and a few cafes as it was a very small town. Our beautiful sailing boat the Sietsa outside the town's church...

In the window of a school I found this. It is a model of a kitchen made using small bits of stone from it's quarry. It was so sweet!

Day 7 – Via Brac towns to arrive at Split. The six of us had dinner in town at nice Italian place. Discovered Malibu is nice with apricot nectar!

Day 8 – Left the Siesta and off to our self ciontained apartment in Luciceva, uptown Split. Went to dinner in marina on west side of island and to Tribu for a drink. Realised that all cafe bar drink menus are almost exactly the same for the entire Dalmatian coast where we had travelled! Discovered Orahovac, a walnut liquor which is really nice with Coke. It was very cheap at £1 for a shot and £1 for the coke. It was really hot in Split, 30 - 35 I think and very still.

Day 9 – Sunday... everything closed!! so had to eat, drink and walk in the heat all day. Saw the fantastic 4 with Croatian subtitles in the local town cinema for £4. Sick of eating out so cooked at home!

Day 10 – Walked to forest and a very long walk at south-west of island. Had lunch at the square where we found Hoegaarden! yay!

Day 11 – back home via local bus to the airport where there were no more seats to the airport, it was quite uncomfortable sitting on the floor in a bumpy bus!

Below Zero

I went to the Absolut Icebar in London last night - it was pretty cool! (that wasn't deliberate by the way) and yes it was very cold at -8.8 degrees celcius. We had to wear thermal ponchos and gloves to keep us warm. The vodka cocktails were good and we were served in ice cubes with holes drilled in!

See here.

However it is probably crazily energy inefficient to keep a freezer running all the time for the sake of a bar!

Yes it's a map of the tube!!!

The Twelfth Night

Last weekend I went all the way to Chichester to see Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The main reason for going was that Patrick Stewart was playing the character of Malvolio. Needless to say, he was quite brilliant! So were all the other actors, it was a very rounded cast overall. For more details see here. I recommend it highly, very pleased to have gone!

Muddy Glastonbury...

Yes it was unbelievably muddy! The photos don't do it justice!


175,000 people attended so you can imagine there were quite a few tents.

I had to find mine by going to the fourth red flag on the right and looking for the Fosters shelter!

The Pyramid tent was the big one where Maximo Park, The Killers, the Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian played.

And here is the Jazz World tent and you can see Medieval Punditz on the stage. They were the best act I think and attracted a very large crowd! The other stages were too big.

After all that I was happy to go home, take a bath and watch the Manic Street Preachers on digital tv in my lovely warm house :)

I don't think I'd really want to go again but I'm glad I found out what it was all about after all these years of wanting to go. The whole thing started when Pulp headlined Glastonbury in 1995 when I first started liking Brit music.