Melbourne

So, I'm home, and so's Nick. Since the 13th. Below are the updates on the rest of my trip since Amsterdam.

Nick's plane stopped in Singapore, and mine in LA, so together we circled the globe.
When I got off the plane in LA I left my iRiver on there, which had the only copies of most of the photos from my trip on it. What a complete fucking moron, eh? I got it back though; United Airlines were very helpful.
Got some decent sleep on the plane, too, thanks to some sleeping pills I scabbed off Anna.

The big night came, we surprised a bunch of people, the play was awesome, and I had an incredible night.

I'm planning to put up a webpage full of photos some time soon.

London

I got to London (where I was met with miserable weather, of course) on Thursday evening and made my way to my aunt Anna's swish apartment in the affluent Notting Hill, on the hip Portobello Rd, across the road from the famous Electric cinema, restaurant and bar. She and her boyfriend Eric took me out for a curry and a pint and then back to the apartment to drink (home being the only place you can drink in London after about 11pm). It was awesome catching up with Anna.

The next day the weather was, shockingly, fantastic, and would remain so till the day I left. Eric kicked my arse at chess and taught me some openings.
Anna had been offered four tickets, with a total value of £100, to a play called Vegemite Tales and generously offered two to Nick and I. It was pretty funny, and it's been very successful, which isn't surprising given the massive audience there is for a play about Australians living in London.
After the play finished Anna and Eric went home and Nick and I met up with Dhondy and Thush, both of whom it was awesome to see again. We got a couple of drinks somewhere, then London closed. We wandered around for a bit, contemplating lining up for one of the clubs that stay open till 3am, but eventually Nick, Dhondy and I decided to hop on a bus to Camden where we could get some bud. We chilled out by the canal for a while, and walked quite a distance through some parks, and chilled out some more.

On Saturday, Nick and I went to Camden market. This has to be one of the coolest places in the world. I wish I'd gone there before the end of my trip so that I could have afforded to buy some of the fucking sick goth, rock and rave clothes. A pair of New Rock boots would have been awesome. I did get a Thundercats t-shirt, though. And a hair cut. After over a year of living with my poorly cut mohawk, it's no longer embarrassingly thin at the back and unbearably so on my crown.
That night I went to the apartment that Kalan, Adrian and Andria were sharing, and where Nick was staying. Kalan was miserably sick with glandular fever. We smoked a joint and watched A Knight's Tale.

On Sunday we convened at Speaker's Corner, where every Sunday people will bring a soapbox and speak about the evils of capitalism or white people or muslims or black people, or about any damn thing they want to talk about, and other people will come to listen to and argue with them. It's such an awesome place, and we need something like it here. I listened to a guy talking about Marxism for a while. It was a fitting thing to do before Nick and I caught a train out to Ipswich, where we met Rory and Silvia (the couple we'd met in Barcelona). We thought we were going to visit the famous Weed Shack and talk about the revolution, but instead we were driven half an hour into the countryside to the birthday party of a guy we didn't know, held in garage that had obviously been painted by it's teenaged occupants during past parties, gatherings and band rehearsals. It you've ever seen Blair's room, it looks like that.
We had a really good night. We had no booze because we didn't know we were going to a party, but we were supplied with a few cans of Fosters (they're always surprised to learn that Australians don't drink it) and some vodka, and we had toots. Toots are like bongs, only they don't have a shotty or a cone piece... you just stuff it in the stem, and you either leave half the smoke in the chamber or suck so hard you get bongwater in your mouth. Kinda quaint.
The night ended with the birthday boy coming back to the party from bed, in his boxers (this had been predicted early in the night), still bearing the backwards "J" that had been shaved into his chest, to try and break a pretty solid piece of wood over his head. Around 4am Sylvia drove five of us back to her house, where we got to chill out in the weed shack a bit before bed. Nick and I got to sleep a cool little spare room in the loft above the kitchen. We hung out for a bit in the morning before heading back to London.

This was around the time my chest pains started: stabbing pains along the bottom of my ribcage. I blame the London air, which is blatantly some of the shittest, smoggiest, most poisonous air in the world. Also: cigarettes. Nick was starting to feel a bit sick too, and we were both very worried that we'd be sick on the plane and wrecked and useless by the time we got home, which would have put quite a dampener on our welcome home party (the Alice: Nightmares in Wonderland afterparty). The final night before Nick and I left for home we said our goodbyes to Kalan, Adrian, Andria, Laura and Thush. We went to the pub for an authentic british pub meal, which was actually pretty decent, and a bunch of beers. I would occasionally have to stop in the middle of sentences and wait for the pain to subside. Fortunately Kalan was feeling a bit better and had the energy be her evil self for a few hours.
The goodbyes were extremely emotional.

Paris

When I got to Paris I met some nice policemen who had a beautiful black labrador. The dog really liked me, so the policemen wanted to talk to me. We chatted for a little while, and I told them a bit about about myself, and showed them all my stuff. They took something of mine and sent me on my way.
I got to the hostel at about 11am and wasn't able to check in till 3pm, so I left my bags and wandered around a bit. After getting some lunch/breakfast, sussing out where the hell I was (the red light district), checking in and having a shower I still had hours to kill before Nick would get there, so I picked up a litre of white from the supermache. There were a bunch of kids in black hoodies and eyeliner lining up in front of a music venue, so I went and asked who was playing: Wednesday 13, who is the singer from Murderdolls. I was told the music is like Motley Crüe meets Misfits. I hate both of them, but I decided I'd come back later and try to get into the gig.
I wandered around more and drank my wine. Eventually some guy asked me if I speak English, and would I like to buy some cigarettes. He was Polish, and he and his friend had driven from Warsaw to Paris with many cartons of cigarettes to fund their trip, for the duration of which they would sleep in their car. I bought a carton and we chatted. They offered me some of their wine, but I had my own... it was running out, though, so I went and bought another litre. I hung out with those guys for a bunch of hours chatting, while one of them called out at passing femmes "Ey, bella! Caio bella! Siete bei, sonno con me! ... "
Eventually Nick arrived, and I told him to come meet me and the Polish dudes. He brought a kiwi (who I'd met at the hostel) and a russian dude with him. I made the kiwi go buy me a third litre of wine. We hung out in the street like that for a while longer (my memory's getting hazy here) before I remembered at about 10 that I wanted to go see that gig. It was a couple of minutes walk away, so we went there, expecting to be able to get in and maybe catch the end of the support act.
When we got there the gig had finished and everyone was out the front. I knew I wanted my mohawk redone, and that one of the punks there would have clippers, and I went around the crowd shouting at people "Parlez-vous anglais? Someone shave my head! vvvvvvv*" After a little while, Nick said he and the russian and the kiwi wanted to move on cos they were cold, but I politely asked him to wait a little longer, and please step aside so that I might ask the people behind him (who I'd probably already asked, because there weren't that many people there).
None of them had one, or at least none of them were willing to take a drunk Australian guy back to their house to shave his head.
Nick had gotten sick of me and left, so I talked to the people some more. I was chatting to some some really cute goth chick (at least, I think she was really cute... like I said, my memory's a little hazy), and I bought her a rose off one of those guys and made out with her for a few seconds before getting distracted: The band was hanging out as well, between their bus and the venue: Wednesday himself was lapping up the attention of the girls in black, and the drummer was there. I formulated a plan to get on the bus with them a catch a ride to Brussels. Step One: I approached the drummer and told him that I thought the show was great and his playing occasionally reminded me of Chris Pennie from Dillinger Escape Plan. He laughed, but I kept a straight face, and I was his friend after that.
So, we hung out a bit. Wednesday and the drummer and some groupies and I went to McD's and got on the bus and sat around. The band disappeared upstairs and a bunch of us were kicked off the bus, and I figured that was the end of my night. I turned around and leaned back inside to say something and balanced on a bench and accidentally knocked over a bottle. That inspired me to knock everything else off the bench and shout "You something fucking blah blah. You guys are gonna be supporting me one day! Blah blah blah..." Then I left, and started walking back towards the hostel. But the drummer ran up behind me and was like "Hey man, chill, I like you. I just wanna go fuck these groupies for twenty minutes then we'll hang out."

That night lasted a few more hours, but I had a joint and don't remember much of it. Suffice to say I didn't get on the bus and go to Brussels, where I would have been stranded with a shitty horror punk band.

The next day I was in no state to go see the city with Nick. The Eiffel Tower's lame anyway. It would have been cool to see the Arch de Triumph, though.

The day after that I went to catch my train to London (and had to pay €70 even with my Eurail pass... it would have been €200 without it... outrageous!), and spent the last Euro I would spend.


* That's a razor sound. It came with a head shaving action.

Fireworks in Valencia and Mogwai in Madrid

Taking trains in Spain sucks, because you have to pay for the seat reservation as well as the ticket, so even wih my Eurail pass I had to shell out a bunch of euro to get to Valencia. It's a really pretty town, and good god, it has the most beautiful women I saw anywhere on my travels.
At the hostel we met a bunch of cool people who were to live in Valencia for the next 6-12 months studying. While we hung out with them on the balcony a the back of the hostel there was what we assume was military weddings going on at some kind of army-associated church (the Ministry of Defence, perhaps, haha teehee) across the road from the hostel. Occasionally our conversation would be completely derailed by the terrifying thunder of firecrackers, which echoed through the concrete cavern we were in like gunfire (which Nick is convinced it was, but I know better). The final salvo came with fireworks, which are always fun.
In particular we hung out with two girls from Brussels who had met there and were moving in together. They were quite a pair: one, Saar, was a stereotypical daddy's sheltered little princess, and the other, whose name I cannot recall, was a cynical, sarcastic angry girl who dressed in black and often rolled her eyes at things Saar would say, and who wanted to be a linguist and a translator.
They were Flemish, so of course I pulled out my "Roken is dodelijk" tobacco packet and spoke about how much I love Dutch. Angry girl was shocked at this, and said that Dutch is one of the ugliest languages she knows, especially the way the Dutch speak it.
We went out for dinner with them, determined to get tappis, which is a class of dishes that I gather are supposed to be served with your beer at tappis bars. We had a hard time finding a place that wasn't packed, and Saar suggested that we could just get "American fat burger", but eventually we found a table. Nick and I agree that it was one of the best meals we'd had on our trip: amongst other things, we both got a plate of that calamari that's just whole little octopi. Yummy!
Then we went with a group of people to hang out in a public square and buy cheap beers and hash off sexy anarchists and watch the improbably large number of gorgeous girls walk past.

The next day we left for Madrid, and I had to buy a first class ticket to get there on time. When I got to Madrid a bird shat on me. Nick and I had gone there to see Mogwai, and so that's what we did. I downed five shots of Absinthe and rolled a couple of joints before we left the hostel and we caught a cab to the Riviera. The venue was pretty cool, and big, and I managed to get my water bottle in there easily, which is handy.
I had expected not to be too into the gig, cos I don't have the attention span for post rock these days, but I had forgotten the incredibly experience-enhancing effect of my beautiful green lady... um, green ladies, in fact. Nick and I were disappointed that they only played one song off Rock Action, and that it was not Take Me Somewhere Nice, but we both had fucking awesome time. The light show was great, and even when they made feedbacky droney noise for 10 minutes they had me captivated.
After the show we walked home, which was a really long way to walk, and hilly. It was good to see the city, though, because it was the only time we were going to spend there.

And that was Spain. Me gusta.

Barcelona

When I got Barcelona Nick met me at the metro stop near our hostel, and the joyous reunion that occurred caused a tear in the eye of more than one looker on. I apologised for injuring him so severely and he apologised for being such a baby. We got beer and caught up.
That night me went out with a large group of people from the hostel: an American couple, a French brother and sister, a Portuguese girl and a British couple, the boy half of whom - Rory -is one of the funniest people I've ever met. It was a really great group of people. We went to a bar on Las Ramblas where we could get- on tap from a wooden barrel - jugs of Sangria, which is an awesome kind of punch made from red wine and fruit and sugar, very sweet and packs quite a punch.
We were lucky enough to get table to fit us in the smoking section, right under a fan. I figured this would disperse the smoke, but what it actually did was blow all the smoke into our eyes. After an hour (and a couple of jugs) our eyes were all red and watering. I talked mostly to the American girl, Eliza, who looked like Deborah Messing and had two of the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. She and her boy James are from Salt Lake City, the mormon capital, and live in a commune and go to Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower shows. I could hear Nick, Rory and the Frenchman talking about communism, with Rory getting extremely into it and shouting about the revolution.

The next day we went to the Sagrada Familia, the most awesome cathedral in the world. It was started in 1882 and is not finished. It looks like to other building you've ever seen... there's crazy statues all over the front and back entrances and the pillars are based on tree trunks and split into branches as they near the ceiling. We waited in line for half an hour to take the lift up one of the spires. I haven't been very afraid of heights for a long time, but the combination of the claustrophobic spiral stairs and the clear views down to the ground shook me up a lot. There were some awesome views of the city and the cathedral, though.
Then we went to KFC and ate to much and sat outside saying "no me gusta" and watching an italian television show being filmed.

That night we went out again with pretty much the same group of people, with two additions: the Portuguese girl's cousin, who Nick and I both fell in love with, and an American dude named Florian.
Nick had hung out with Florian before I arrived in Barcelona, and had told me about him: an electronic music producer, multi-instrumentalist, really cool guy and total wanker with his head up his arse. I was wearing my Idiot Flesh t-shirt and he passed me and said "Hey, Idiot Flesh. I guess you know Sleepytime Gorilla Museum." Of course I had a fit, hugged him and hung out with him for a large part of that night. After the pool hall we wanted to go to failed to open at the time it was supposed to we went back to our Sangria bar and found our sight-destroying table to be free again. Sangria was drunk, good times were had, tears were shed, and even entire conversations were had with closed eyes... the smoke seemed to get to us quicker and worse than the night before.
The night ended on the steps of the hostel, with Florian and I locking horns over whether cello should be considered a bass instrument (I claimed that Bush - Glycerine does have bass because it has Cello). He got really passionate about it. Just as he was going to drop it Nick tried to take the piss out of Florian by making some ridiculous comment in support of his argument, but Florian took him seriously and got riled up about it again.
I really really like that guy but I find his existence offensive. What a wanker.

On our final day in Barcelona we went to see the Magic Fountain. What a cool fountain! We got there in the late afternoon, before the fountain started running, and chilled out for a while, discussing and missing the people at home. Slowly, parts of it started running: the waterfall running down to the main fountain, then the fountain itself, which would change the direction and height and patterns of the water jets every couple of minutes, then the jets lining the street we were on, then, when it got dark, the lights in the main fountain came on, and they would change colour with the changing water display. So cool! At about 9:30 an announcement came over the loudspeakers in Spanish, and then classical music played, and the fountain would change with the music. So magical!
It was then that Nick and I, having discussed how we were running out of money and energy and how we were planning to come back and live in Berlin in a couple of years, realised that we would both be going home soon, and that Alice: Nightmares in Wonderland was starting soon, and that it would be one of the coolest nights ever if we came to the last show and surprised everyone, and then went to the afterparty.

Amsterdam to Barcelona is a really long way.

My itinery was Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris-Bacelona, but I failed to wake up to my alarm. I woke up about fifteen minutes before my train was scheduled to leave. I quickly got dressed and grabbed my stuff, and despite my promise to myself to never run again while wearing that enormous backpack, I ran to the station and got to my platform just in time to see my train leave.
According to my handy Eurail timetable (which has the timetable for all the intercity trains in europe), if I caught the next train to Brussels I should still make my connecting train to Paris. And it would have worked, if my train hadn't stopped in the middle of nowhere for half an hour. So I had to buy a whole new set of tickets. I did get to see a little of Brussels, though, which is a really nice looking city.
I wound up in Paris in the late afternoon, and was chilling out at the train station when a homeless british wino named Moore came up to me and started talking to me. When I told him I was Australian he started playing air guitar and singing some folky tune. I asked him what he was singing and he kept singing. This went of for far too long before he finally broke out of it and said "It's the Seekers." He would occasionally start his little concert again throughout our conversation. He offered my some of his €2 bottle of red, but I declined. When he tried to turn the conversation to sport I told him I had no interest in it, especially cricket, so he decided to tell me all about two british "pacemen" from the 1930s.
Eventually I'd had enough of him, but he had inspired me, so I went and bought myself a €2 litre of white, and drank it. That always makes overnight train trips more barable.
I woke up in Porto Bello, where I changed train for Barcelona.