La nostalgie - Dublin in spring

Blue sea, green grass, red blood, and yellow sun. If only every day was like (that) Sunday.

To Moskva!

T-minus 36 hours...

The Quick and Easy Guide to Pissing Off Your Housemates.

(1) Constantly complain about the house, missing no opportunity to air your desire to find a new home.
(2) Be offended when your housemates don't share your enthusiasm for living further away from the city, nor for paying 60% extra rent for that privilege.
(3) Inform your housemates by e-mail that you've given the landlord your month's notice, although you could have said it in person at our shared dinner the night before.
(4) Make little effort either to secure a new home or to assist in finding a replacement. Go on holiday for two weeks.
(5) Decide while on holiday that you might actually want to stay, but not bother to tell anyone. Meanwhile, your housemates are running ads and giving up several evenings to show the place. After a lengthy process, your housemates offer someone the room. She accepts with pleasure and pays the deposit.
(6) Return late from your holiday, and call the landlord to say you might like to stay. During this call, you suggest to the landlord that if he's willing to provide better beds, it would be perfectly acceptable to increase the rent by €100 per person, per month. The landlord, naturally, thinks this is a fantastic idea. The housemates remain unaware of this entire conversation.
(7) Seven days before you're due to move out, inform your housemates of the above conversation.
(8) React with fury and insults when your housemates tell you that someone else has agreed to move in, that they object to your proposal to the landlord, and that you can't just go around breaking promises. You grudgingly accept, with flecks of contempt, an offer to let you stay for up to a month while you search for a new home. You accuse the housemates of a conspiracy to evict you.
(9) Stomp loudly, blank your housemates, and create a maelstrom of noise any time you're in the kitchen.
(10) On Saturday evening, after agreeing to let your housemates invite friends over, your plans for the night fall through. You come downstairs, reduce the music, turn on the TV, and crank the volume up. You ignore both your housemates and their guests.

Am I wrong to be infuriated by this person, whom I would previously have called a friend?

Beneath the willows.

People don't take enough time out in this city. The hectic pace of work hours seems to continue through the rest of the day and week. I suppose business and busyness are close cousins; thus by escaping from one, I hope to moderate the other. (I'll speak of that soon enough.)

On Charlemont Street Monday evening, my cheek winced at the light tap of a raindrop. I've taken to walking this way recently, as it lets me stroll a short stretch of the Grand Canal (sometimes Gross Gutter), a prettier route than my old haunt of South Richmond Street.

On a bright summer evening, taking the south bank is a pleasure, as the sunlight warms my face and my mood. That time, the increasing patter and stacks of grey cloud signalled a full downpour was imminent. Thus I decided to walk the north bank, hoping to shelter beneath the willow trees that curve across the canal, protecting the old tow path. When the sky cracked a minute later, the rain came down in torrents. People scuttled for cover... yet hardly anyone made use of these beautiful natural umbrellas. Even the few that did got frustrated after little more than five minutes, and decided to brave the rain in order to get moving. I was alone in waiting out the storm for twenty minutes. It didn't feel like lost time; instead, I quite enjoyed watching the strange habits of people in rain. For instance, two lads in their twenties emerged from the flats behind the canal with fishing lines. They explained that the height of a storm is one of the best times to catch fish. I'm still a little sceptical, as they reeled in only junk and weeds.

When the rain cleared and sunlight returned, I naturally moved off. Despite the drips of rain that made their way through my cover, I'm quite pleased I was caught outdoors in the downpour. It was a thoroughly enjoyable wait beneath the willows. More and more, I'm learning to appreciate the trees in my neighbourhood.

He does have news, though he's only a little less coy than normal.

And the internet is gone again. I seem to have a knack of picking apartments in broadband black spots. This time, the absence may be permanent, after our already-useless ISP decided to downgrade their local transmitter, putting us completely out of reach.

My master-plan is proceeding smoothly. You may know what it is, but if not, it's not difficult to extrapolate. All my applications for September were accepted (a fine ego boost!), so now I have the luxury of choosing the most challenging option. Once that's trained my mind and bloodied my soul, I shall take the rare (and welcome) opportunity to work in the US. So in less than 18 months, I plan to be living and working in the US. That ought to be followed by a proper jaunt across the Pacific, taking in New Zealand, South-East Asia, Central Asia, and finally, the Middle East. Of course, I'm at complete liberty to amend that itinerary. I'm almost as likely to head east and take the Trans-Siberian. After that? Perhaps a Ph.D.; perhaps not. I'm aware of my constraints, but I treat the world as my oyster, and I'd like to sample every last bit before going on to master it.

Budapest

The interior of St. Stephen's Cathedral.


The plaza outside the cathedral.


The upper front exterior of the cathedral.


The Gang of Four fellow explorers from the hostel, representing Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands.


My urge to jump was tempered by the knowledge that the barge was en route to Bratislava.


The (dirty) Danube, with Buda on the left and Pest on the right.


Crossing the Chain Bridge.


Peeking across the river at the Parliament building.


Looking across to Pest.


That wall was wonderful to laze on. Let's not mention the vertical drop on the other side.


I like the colour in this picture. It was taken from Buda's Castle Hill.


Sunshine breaks on Fisherman's Bastion.


Budapest, if you haven't noticed already, is frequently beautiful.


The stupendous Parliament building bathed in sunset gold.


Moonrise over Pest.


Two travellers stand above the centre of the Danube. You may recognise the skanky, dishevelled backpacker on the right...

My route across Europe

In case you're curious, here's a list of all the inter-city journeys I made as I crossed Europe. And I wonder why I'm still tired...

• Dublin - Rosslare
• Rosslare - Fishguard
• Fishguard - Swansea
• Swansea - London
• London - Bruxelles (Brussels)
• Bruxelles (Brussels) - Liège
• Liège - Aachen
• Aachen - Köln (Cologne)
• Köln (Cologne) - Mannheim
• Mannheim - Basel
• Basel - Interlaken
• Interlaken - Luzern (Lucerne)
• Luzern (Lucerne) - Bern
• Bern - Spiez
• Spiez - Interlaken
• Interlaken - Lauterbrunnen
• Lauterbrunnen - Stechelberg
• Stechelberg - Mürren
• Mürren - Stechelberg
• Stechelberg - Lauterbrunnen
• Lauterbrunnen - Interlaken
• Interlaken - Bern
• Bern - Zürich
• Zürich - Wien (Vienna)
• Wien (Vienna) - Budapest
• Budapest - Суботица (Subotica)
• Суботица (Subotica) - Београд (Belgrade)
• Београд (Belgrade) - Ниш (Niš)
• Ниш (Niš) - Димитровград (Dimitrovgrad)
• Димитровград (Dimitrovgrad) - София (Sofia)
• София (Sofia) - İstanbul
• İstanbul - London
• London - Dublin
  

Switzerland: The Bernese Alps

Aya Sofia!

If ever a train ride was worthy of the label "ghetto", that was it. Fortunately, I lost only 5 euro, 7 dinar, my English-Bulgarian phrase notes, and some of my Western prejudices and standards. I also acquired a marriage proposal, a short time in true squalor, a glance into deep poverty, some sketchy companions, two unsuccessful muggings, a knack for paying bribes, and a few really good stories.

Now I'm in crazy Istanbul. More to follow.

Alarmist?

The trip has been amazing so far. Budapest was especially fun. Right now, I'm chilling on my last night in Belgrade, Serbia. Ever wondered what a bomb site looks like up close? Ever been morbidly curious to see the sick devastation wrought by a cruise missile? Come and have a look around; you'll have plenty of spots to choose from.

On Saturday, I'll be in Istanbul, and I'm really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, to get there, I may have to endure the sketchiest 24 hours of my life. I'll be travelling by train from Belgrade to Sofia to Istanbul... and I haven't been able to reserve a cabin or sleeper of any kind. I'm told that it may be possible once I reach Sofia. There is no way I'm going overnight through Bulgaria in a regular seat; the daytime journey will be unpleasant enough. The "trains" I saw in northern Serbia were Third World at best. I never expected to see bare metal boxes without doors, air-conditioning, food, water or toilets, and people clinging onto the sides, pass as inter-city transportation in Europe. Then again, if you'd seen the camps and shanty towns that pass as regional cities in these parts... And beyond the seating conditions, the stories and warnings I've heard from fellow travellers are giving me the jitters.

If the first leg of the journey turns out to be repulsive, I may take the emergency option of an overnight bus from Sofia to Istanbul. Yes, it may well be nastier than an overnight Greyhound, but I've been told it's less dangerous than the train.

In all my travelling, I've never been so apprehensive. I hope my worries are overblown.

Really!!!