Waves of Change

Humidity and sailing?

2011-05-12T05:18:00.000-07:00

The humidity has hit Macau. We're back to the 80-95% humidity and choking midday 30 degree sunshine days. The cockroaches are thriving, some weeks ago I was walking 2 blocks away from my apartment and I lost count of the amount of cockroaches skittering away from me as I pass a dark back alley which seemed, upon a hasted inspection, to be where the nearby restaurant kept its refuse bins.

Nevertheless, I like it. Last year upon arrival in Macau it dawned on me how much I had grown accustomed to this climate, and how 8 years of british weather had taken its toll. Winter was the toughest and I equally lost count of the amount of sore throats and common colds, like those cockroaches...

So anyways last weekend I participated in my first keel boat sailing competition on the lovely "Katie J", a 49 year old Van der Stadt. She sailed beautifully into 3rd place (out of 9 competitors in division 2) in 2 legged classic boat rally organized by the Aberdeen Boat Club in Hong Kong. It was a thrilling experience!

Having completed the RYA Competent Crew course 2 weeks ago and spending most of my weekends sailing Topaz dinghies with MYSA (Macau Yacht Sailing Academy), I'm getting much needed experience to one day fulfilling my dream of crossing either the Atlantic or the Pacific ocean (or both!).

And that's that...

Diaries of Oslo

2011-03-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

One of the most precious possessions I have with me in Macau are my diaries.

brunost cheese - it will melt your face

The 2 books I have span from January 2010 when I was still in Portugal all the way to this present time. I really love to just flick through them now and then and roll my eyes across pages of lyrics and music ideas for uniform lounge, sketches for guitar bike racks and hobo stoves, random doodles, the way the ink is sometimes blue, sometimes black, sometimes red or sometimes a faded pencil line. The "to-do" lists of some stale winter sundays, the crooked paths of the text and the changing font size. Peculiar when the pages begin to run out. Writing such minuscule letters the pages become wonderfully flooded in fountains of words and punctuation.

I find it easy to start posts with location, position and when travelling: whether there's enough stock of water followed by enough food to last the next morning. As a city dweller I don't think so much about that, surprisingly. If I do "follow" the rules then when reading it back I get that one step closer to a flashback into the moment as the words were written. Like that feeling one gets when smelling a cologne worn in childhood, or when hearing that song of summer 2006.

In that spirit of providing my future-self said flashback (hello future-self!) let me begin by setting the time travel portal:

11:46am, Sunday 27/03/2011

Laying on my bed. Got back around an hour ago from the beginning of a stupid day. Having not checked my sailing schedule I thought I had a lesson today so I woke up at 9 and headed to the Macau marina, after sitting in the boat for a while I rang a friend who told me the lesson wasn't on the schedule for today. Great. So that's my day's plan totally effed up. And it's raining.

So I guess I'll take this chance to carry on from where I left off...

Scandinavia

3 days in Aarhus to prepare for the trip to Lithuania. Not sure if I've posted anything about this yet but whilst in Portugal a couchsurfer (Giedre) contacted me to show her around Porto for a day, it turned out to such a coincidence that she knew someone who had gone to the WWOOF farm I was intending to go at the time (which was so awesome I think you should check it out if you're ever looking for a unique, fun and free paradise in Portugal). Anyway, the cool part was that she invited the uniform lounge (distant teenager screams) to come and play in a festival they hosted in their hometown city of Kaunas, Lithuania. Unfortunately André and Hugo couldn't come so I ended up deciding to go and do a solo gig. When else was I going to have the chance to visit Lithuania and play in front of 600 people? Appart from when I'm super famous and comercial that you'll want to puke and shit at the same time, of course.

So there I was in Aarhus, spending most of my time sleeping and trying to fix my cold which had turned into somewhat of a gnarly chest/throat/abdomen infection. Trying all these different brews of cinnamon, lemon, ginger and what-not kinds of spices and herbs to fix it in record time. Meanwhile in order to get to Kaunas - stopover in Oslo. Whilst in Denmark I tried to find a couchsurfing host and it was really hard, but worked.

The experience in Oslo was pretty nasty, nothing wrong with the place I think it's beautiful, but it just happen that the clouds were destined to float above. While landing I thought my head was going to explode because my sinuses were blocked and the changing pressure really fucks you up - word of advice, NEVER FLY (or dive for that matter) WHEN YOUR SINUSES ARE SO BLOCKED - don't tell me I didn't warn you! My health had deteriorated to the point I was starting to lose my voice. At this point I just focused on detaching my mind and imagining the comfort of a home, so easily taken for granted and paralyzed in a non-appreciative 'normal' kind of life. My host didn't trust me. After sleeping under 5 hours that night I was already sleeping in the kitchen by 8. I thought to myself: "Well, at least there's a roof on my head". I really struggle to understand this comment on my diary. It takes me a while to put things into context. I was a bum in student halls. Yet having really pushed a limit to get to Aarhus, I was very much aware that I wasn't equipped for the encroaching wintery days, and any roof is a blessing in those conditions.

I decided to head out into town and see what Oslo had to offer.

The highlights of my day were:

- Sleeping in front of a memorial in the fort/castle and getting awoken by a guard looking like he just came from a really boring costume party.

- Sleeping further down the park.

- Taking the picture of some tourists.

- Sleeping on top of the opera house.

- Watching Portugal get its ass kicked by Norway in the wc qualifier.

- Going back to sleep in the kitchen for my final night.

oslo opera house

Now my next problem was I was meant to have another night in Oslo on my way back from the festival, my current pseudo-host was weirding out on the spirit of cs but luckily some of her flatmates offered as replacements. Those ended up being face-splat bails which left me in a bad-turns-to-good situation but I was only going to find this out a day before leaving Kaunas.

'cepelinai' - An awesome traditional Lithuanian dish

There's a funny quote in my diary from this part of the trip, it reads: "I'm quite hungry now but don't want to spend more money in this country, would rather wait to eat in Lithuania where I'm sure it will be more affordable and enjoyable". Damn right! When I arrived in Kaunas I was greeted by Darius and Giedre, and hence the start of the Lithuanian adventure!

2:38am, Monday 28/03/2011

For what started as a stupid day Sunday was actually quite an alright day. Saw some friends, got facebook raped and a cardboard box to make some designs for DIY porta-booth, something that looks something like this - nicknamed a portabooth. It's meant to solve most of my reverb issues when voice recording, not sure how much it will work though. One of the things I began to do here in Macau is to build a little home studio, like version 2 of what I used in Portugal for the Uniform Lounge stuff. But with some lessons learnt! Johnny came around with his electric guitar and we rigged up the place, it's sounding good! Still need to find some acoustic foam or suitable alternative around here. Studio night tomorrow!

but Sleep time now!

zzZZZzzzzz

Rome to Aarhus by bike

2011-03-13T06:24:00.001-07:00

There might as well be dust on my screen when I see the browser flick into this blog. I've been postponing this moment for ages. Well, to be precise (and here I cite the website I quickly googled to calculate the figures about to presented - http://www.easysurf.cc/ndate2.htm), it has been exactly 266 days, or exactly 38 weeks. Which is nice I guess because it is a round number and round numbers are hip.

At this moment I am wondering how many blogs exist which at some point feature their author moaning about their laziness to post which turn days into weeks, weeks into many weeks, then weeks into years. And whether if each one of them was represented by a cubic meter box, if we could stack them up to go to titan, the largest moon of Saturn. By the way, if you enjoy ted talks then after your leisurly read go here to watch this video.watch the video below. It is also very hip.

I'm guessing moaning is a common way to restart once you've had writer's block, or really just a gradual accumulation of events which turned the backwards reciting process so cumbersome that I let it snowball. Well, in those 266 days (also known as sexy 38) a lot has happened and a lot has changed.

Shortly after my last post, in the month of July, I flew to Rome with Sally (my bike), guitar and gear and met up with Meng. We did the whole touristy thing in Rome then Dave joined us about 2 days later. This was the start of my third euro-velo trip... I wish I had my maps with me but for reasons that will become clear later refer to here for a rough trace of the route we took.

Rome to Aarhus by bike

Italy

We totally underestimated the ride from Rome to Florence. In fact, we had planned to take it easy in Italy so we could spend more time in its wonderful cities and generally just go easy on ourselves before the swiss alpine marathons. What was meant to be a breezy 3 day ride to Florence, turned out to be a sizzling hot struggle into off-road hills and sketchy sleeping in abandoned houses with bats flying over our heads. On the second day we were already off our bikes pushing them up these ridiculous hills we came across. I think we only got around Viterbo when we decided to take a train up. Bad start.

When I show my friends photos from the trip they laugh because most of the travelling pictures from Italy and Switzerland we're on a train. Which in itself was a mission because we had to constantly hop on and off regional trains with fully loaded bikes! But still, we got enough time to see Florence, Venice and Padova where the 'cesca and her lovely friends hosted us for a few nights.

To be fair most of the train rides were planned, since we had to get up to Davos, we did a bit of Alpine cycling near the border with Italy and Switzerland. But to get up to Davos, we had to take a train. It was the best train ride of my life (from Tirano to Davos). The ride goes up the mountains, around bridges that snake up and into tunnels, then over the top of forest canopies where you can see the glaciers further ahead. The ride is incredible and I instantly feel in love with the place. I've never been much of a mountain boy, having grown up in a smoggy city and only gone skiing once as a kid (when I left copious traces of diarrhea and vomiting on the snow and was run over by a snowboarder), the whole experience was fairly new to me. I mean these were real mountains!

Switzerland, Germany, France and Luxemburg

We arrived in Davos a day before Jerome, our 4th member to join for the marathon runs. We had underestimated the fact that there was little to no accomodation in Davos since the town was overrun by ubber fit ladies and gents from all around the region and some world. Anyway, we ended up going up to the forest and camping there for the night near a weather laboratory. I had a tin can ready to make a hobo stove because our gas canister was running extremely low. Luckily this wasn't necessary, would've been very hard to find dry wood as well because it had been raining. Once Jerome arrives he extremely kindly offered us to crash in his hotel room, just in time to go running the following day. Dave and Jerome ran the 78km (GEE-ZUS!) with a total ascent and descent of over 2000m I think, just so crazy I still can't believe they made it. Meng and I, in quite shocking contrast, "only" did the half-marathon of 11km with about 600m ascent and descent. I ran with the Portuguese flag strapped around my kneck and hanging back like a superman cape which was quite amusing joke around with when running through the crowds of cheering locals, "HUP HUP HUP" they went.

Dave was incapable of walking later at night, and the next day he had to go catch a flight to Croatia, which marked the end of his trip. I think in total he only rode his bike for 2 days. I can't wait for the next time when we gather again to laugh about this!

So after the marathon day Meng and I hit off on our bikes. We cycled 2 days down a long valley which took us all the way to Zurich where we stayed with a friend of Dave's and he took us rock climbing (my first) and other shenanigans. After Zurich our next friend stop was in Brussels. To get there we cycled non-stop to Basel, then up along the French-German border (french side) to Strasbourg, where we met a sweet anarchist couple from Leipzig who we busked with. Oh yea I haven't mentioned that this whole time I was carrying a guitar on the back of my bike, although it already had a small hole in it, ouch! After Strasbourg we had a cheeky coffee with Chris and Jess who were passing by then went up to Luxemburg and then through to Belgium...

Manneken Pis (Belgium) and the Netherlands

When we finally reached Brussels we were greeted by the wonderful Weisserth family and Fried who treated us like their own. There was wonderful food, beer, chocolate, fries, bbq, music, sightseeing, risky risk and YAHTZEE! We really had a great time there! :) At the end of those few days it was Meng's turn to say goodbye, and my turn to follow suit in my solo ride up to Denmark. Within 2 days I was already in Holland and for the first time I experienced what so many people had said to be the land of the cyclist. And it was true. Although those constant traffic lights were a bit annoying and there was a lack of lush greenery, it was still very easy to be cycling there. It didn't take me long to get to Amsterdam where Meng had decided to catch a train to. So we met there along with his friend Steve and Ron, a fellow cyclist who I met on the ferry to the northern part of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was a pretty magical place. There is a certain vibe in that city which I find it hard to describe. The unexpected is expected, and particularly one incident created ripples in the fabric of time/destiny whatever you want to call it. Ron and I had became good friends in those few days and he had decided to join me up towards Germany for a leg of my trip. I was really excited to have someone to cycle with, even if the prospect was just for a few days. But on our last night in Amsterdam, everything changed. We were out in a main square, having just joined a small group of spanish people, i laid my bike first against a post nearby and Ron followed next to mine. Moments later we were sat on the beach talking and the next thing we know his bike had disappeared. Ron's reality shifted, and in that moment I lost my cycling partner. I stayed with Ron for another day while he got some time to reorganize his plan for the rest of his trip, that last night we snuck into the university compound and slept out of sight under a clouded sky, in the middle of the city. At dawn we parted ways and I pushed onwards towards Germany.

I am a Hamburger

The way to Hamburg went pretty smoothly, I had some incredible hospitality from a turk in Germany, despite virtually not speaking a word of english. I guess I must be incredible at German. MEIN STUHL IST KAPUT! The fella worked in a chicken factory and his shift started at 4am, so I had to start before dawn. Problem was it started raining, I was tired, and had no idea where I was. And thus I slept for the first time in a bus stop. I rode for moments in the rain, pitch black, then when I saw the sheltered bus stop I figured that was a much better place to be in. And so it was! I didn't sleep for long, the sun was up soon after that. And a few days later I was already in Hamburg. But the idea of the bus stop stuck...

In Hamburg Tim and his family took great care of me, we went out partying and I had time to recharge my batteries. The day I left their house it was pouring it down with rain, I still rode into town to have breakfast with Louise who I hadn't seen in a while, she offered me to stay so I could escape the rain but I wasn't too intimidated by the rain. Plus I was excited about my last leg of the trip, up to Denmark! Mistake 1...

Hej Denmark!

I had no idea that what followed was a stretch of nearly 5 days with non-stop rain. Sometimes lighter, sometimes heavy. It felt like an eternity of rain. All my clothes were wet, my tent was wet, the humidity in the air made the salt in my condiments box stick and my sleeping bag was wet. And by this point I had traveled a considerable amount of latitude north, so the hot boiling days of Rome were well gone. Instead the wind was starting to pick up and I was beginning to debate whether the flip-flops were still a good idea. I had to be careful with my footing because my feet kept slipping, and it was starting to get cold. To make matters worst I lost my compass and I no longer had any bearings except for a very low resolution map of Germany. I began to make extensive use of the bus stops for shelter at night. Surprising how nice some of them were in this part of the world, and it was certainly better then having to pitch up my tent in the rain.

I remember when the sun first broke out after that long period of rain. I had just eaten an early dinner, in preparation for surrendering the day. The rain had stopped but the clouds were still up. I was riding along a quiet country rode when up ahead I saw the ray of light. I was so excited I began racing after it, when I reached it I stopped and looked up. And I let the rays hit my face. I think I even lol'ed I was so happy. I took my jacket out and let the sun hit my skin, hoping it would dry me off. That night I slept in a forest and the rain had finally stopped.

By the time I reached the border with Denmark my throat was starting to get itchy. There was a lot of "oh no..." in my head. Despite hitting the landmark of my last border crossing. I still had about 500km from Flensburg to Aarhus. By the afternoon I was already rolling in the hills of Southern Denmark. I say rolling, it was more dreading my life! North is the most infrequent wind direction in Denmark. That northernly wind was the last thing I needed! I had to cover my throat with a scarf to minimize the wind chill but still the air going in my mouth affected my throat. Also having a scarf around my neck didn't help the sweating! It didn't take long for me to call food break on an unsuspecting bus stop (oh yes again the bus stop!) with a nice glass wall between the wind and I. To top it off it the sun was out so in the windshield it was actually quite a nice place to sit and eat. I took the chance to unashamedly hang my wet clothes and underwear along the bus stop rails to dry. Much to the surprise of local passerby's. When I was ready to go I got up, moved my bike and ops, puncture... Big sigh of "what next?"... Well, what happened next was that 2 fellow tourers passed by the junction about 30 meters down and saw me, just as I saw them. We waved, as most cycling tourers do to each other, I turned and got back to my problem at hand. Moments later bike wheels roll up to me and I hear a "Need any help?" in a german accent. Those two fella's turned out to be Konrad and Richard (aka. Harry Potter and Gimpox). They were two best friends from Dresden who were on their way to Norway to go rock climbing, we talked and they offered me some snacks while I fixed my bike. Then since we were going in the same direction we decided to cycle together. Those guys turned out to be my saviors. I was so depleted of energy yet they helped me out with cooking feasts at night and making hot tea to try and soothe my throat. They became great company with their jokes despite my deteriorating condition. We found a beach in Denmark (yes...) where we decided to crash for 2 nights, sleeping in a pagoda style altar and chilling in the sand. After that we made a final push towards Aarhus and on Thursday 2nd of September 2010, I finally arrived! Us three went to Chris' house where I was supposed to crash until I found a job, gimpox and harry stayed for a night a went on towards Norway in the morning.

In total I clocked 2,416km on the bike.

End

That's it for this post. Next time I'll catch up on what happened after Denmark, how I slept in some student's kitchen in Oslo before heading to Lithuania to play in front of 600 people in Lithuania and how I ended up back on the other side of the world in Macau!

Hopefully it won't take 38 weeks! :D

Chronicles of my trip around Portugal

2010-06-20T17:21:00.001-07:00

King of the hill!

I'll start with the map...

The trip can be dissected into 3 parts. The first was south with Dave. The second was on my own back up to a farm near Tábua/Coimbra. Then the third part was the 1 day push back home.

First day: we got on our bikes and the rain decided to piss on us. Towards the end of the day it cleared up and we made it to a campsite, nice dinner, nice shower, mmm bed and BAM, from midnight onwards a festival next door blasted out a continuous stream of hardcore electro beats! Sleep was futile. The electro gods were determined to punish our souls until the morning. When we got up (the music was still going), it was a great relief to cycle away from what I could only describe as ear rape, the throbbing sound fading as we made haste. Lesson learnt. ALWAYS CARRY A PAIR OF EARBUDS!

On the second day we started to meet some pilgrims on the road, heading the same way as us (towards Fatima). It was pope week and the pope was going to mark his royal popely presence in the most pope friendly city of our pope loving country. We ended up in a village where the army was setting camp for the pilgrims to sleepover and we bummed our tents next to their site. Popetastic!

Fatima

The third day was a nice day (no rain!). We got past Fatima but we still saw a lot of pilgrims, this time heading the opposite way to us. There were a few shout-outs to us like "It's that way!" or "You're going the wrong way!"... To which we replied - "Pope off!" We met some fellow touring maniacs (Hernani and Gonçalo) from Lisbon who I met on a cycling forum and we wild camped somewhere near Santarém. They were awesome company and that night cooked an equally awesome "feijoada" with wine and even expresso at the end! (Hernani has a portable expresso machine that looks a bit like a bike pump and is perhaps the coolest thing EVAR!)

Camper's "feijoada" with Hernani and Gonçalo

Fourth day was an "uh-oh" day... The four musketeers decided to stopover a café to have some commemorative beers (big uh-oh here) and snails (big yum yum here)! They realised they couldn't catch their train connection further south due to a strike so me and Dave had to go "duo" again and cycle another 90km after those beers... never ever ever cycle 90km on a hot sunny day after you drank enough beer to make you light headed. Not nice! We finally made it to the camping site at the end of the day but were so exhausted we had to go out for dinner, what a shame... ! :)

Fifth day was an "oh shit... ahh" day! The day before we had a look at Hernani's altitude plot for our route on his netbook (yes, netbook AND coffee machine! oh the good life..). It seemed like taking the IC1 to the algarve was the less hilly option, However, this is a very busy, fast road and we no likey busy fast roads so as soon as we realised the bugger we got ourselves into we took a detour. And thank pope (ok last pope reference promise!) we took it! The detour took us to the N2 road which is the longest road in Portugal and perhaps the nicest stretch of road I've been on to cycle in Portugal. Most of it is flat in the Alentejo region, no cars, and beautiful landscape. One big downside (quite big in my opinion) is that the landlords of the vast expanses of land in this region have decided to fence of every square inch (millimetres if you prefer) and it feels like you are riding in a big long corridor. I'm talking a 150km long corridor where you can either go forwards or backwards, except for when you hit the towns/villages... This makes it very hard to wild camp (I suppose it is the point of it), but mostly it feels a bit claustrophobic. Anyway we cycled and got to Castro Verde, the best camping site we went to that cost us next to nothing.

Day 6

More rolling plains and the heat creeping in. We hit the mountain range "Serra do Caldeirão" which was absolutely stunning, I loved cycling through this bit. Despite de nearly 500m climb (lots of up and downs) it was worth the effort. This is where I felt people were the nicest, the road was perfect, the scenery was spectacular and the countless natural water fountains invited us to stop and take an exploring detour into the dirt tracks (which we kindly rejected). This was the opposite of what I thought the Algarve would be and I was really impressed! Having said that we weren't far from the crowded beaches :/ We found a restaurant that let us camp in their backyard and we took the opportunity to have a lovely meal with our hosts! What a shame...! ;)

camping behind a restaurant

Day 7

Arrived in Quarteira, Algarve. The first thing that went through my mind when we hit the shore was "Yay we made it!". Quickly followed by "Oh dear what a shithole!". Quarteira is not nice, a tourist shanty town with a few run down buildings along the seafront near the market. I think we chose the worst spot to arrive because soon after we headed east a bit to find some grub and it got a bit better (relative to context!!). I had a quick celebration by diving in the water and then we settled for lunch. We met Carolina at her place where we were going to stay for a few days... It was so good to have a bed to sleep on!!

And so that was the way down. The next day we went for a road trip to Sagres, which is the furthest south-western tip of Portugal. Really beautiful, windy place on top of a cliff. Proudly holding a fort-museum type precinct which aimed to take you back to the era of the "descobrimentos" and transport you into the mindset of the people who thought that was it. The end of Europe. The end of the world.

"ships ahoy captain!"

Dave and I parted ways the following day, a sad moment for me because I hate to say goodbye to someone with whom you share a voyage, journey, trip or whatever you want to call it. From now on I was on my own (except Carolina was actually right there next to me)

dave, carolina and me

--------- Part 2 + 3 ---------

I stayed another full day before leaving. This time heading up on my own.

The days were starting to get hotter and there was a heat-wave that week which made the cycling particularly tough on certain days. Cycling on your own is an interesting experience. If you're the type of person who has to be around someone all the time, or if you can't bare spending too much time without hanging out with your friends. Then I don't recommend it to you. Also if you get bored easily then also forget it. I found a variety of ways to entertain myself. By this point I was paying a lot of attention to the plants and trees around me (Dave said I was going nuts), I took my survival book with me which has a section on plants and I was constantly trying to identify them, with the purpose of eating them! When riding I would sing a lot as well, although mostly on downhills. Speaking of which they were amazing (always are), and incredible how the downhills brought so much cheer to me. In contrast the uphills could be quite hard and demotivating, I found myself saying to myself"don't stop, don't stop, don't stop..." a lot of times. On 2 occasions I had to get off my bike and push, some of the hills, combined with the heat just took it out of me. On the hottest days, around 11/12 pretty much every 2km I would have to get off and scurry under the shade of an olive, pine, oak, cork or eucalyptus tree.

Sheltering under a tiny bit of shade...

I didn't wild camp by myself, mainly because it was really hard to do so on the roads I was on, but also because at the end of a day of lonely cycling I could really do with a nice warm shower to cheer me up. On one occasion, when I arrived at a campsite in Tomar, I rode around the site looking for a decent spot to set my tent when all of the sudden this German couple who were sat outside their caravan started to clap and cheer for me. Pretty random I thought, I figured they must've seen me on the road. Later as I was setting my tent the guy came over to me with a chilled fink brau (beer). It tasted like heaven in a can, and I interrupted my tent setting to sit and enjoy the moment. I thought he would at least strike up a conversation about where I was coming from, or at least enthusiastically retort at my attempts to strike up such conversation. To my surprise, he didn't. He literally just cheered, came over, offered me a beer (given the situation, not just any beer) and went back to his caravan. That right there is an example of how to earn some serious life points...!

Beeeeeer!

But anyway I eventually made it to Retiro no Rio (not before getting lost). And there I spent 2 amazing weeks, working and enjoying the life in the very remote riverside. I met some amazing people, failed miserably at fishing, and fell more in love with nature.

River Mondego and Retiro no Rio, seen from a vantage point

It's been exactly two weeks since I got back from my bike trip around Portugal. I'm sitting in my often adopted awkward crossed-leg position in front of my two monitors, there's a buzz in the background from my computer to which I've grown accustomed to and occasional tip tap toes on my keyboard, then click click clicks...

Tonight I am not in the graceful company of nature's symphony of sounds. Croak, chirp, hum, buzz, mew, squeak, hoot and maybe Brita's and Xisto's occasional bark... Or maybe one of the cats poking at my tent!

I remember the first night I arrived at Retiro no Rio it took a considerable amount of time for me to fall asleep because of the noises around me. Despite the exhaustion from 6 days of continuous cycling (13 since the start of the trip). The area where I camped was about 15 meters from the river bank, there was a minuscule bay where the water became slack. Truly a beautiful sight by day, and by night an earful treat. An army of frogs cloaked amongst the vegetation would present themselves at night with what I guess is the equivalent of a human moan with the aim of seduction. That, was very loud! Now I miss it.

River Mondego by sunrise

I also remember the night I returned home, to my bed, and again it took me a while to fall asleep. It was the silent vacuum. Audible nothingness which filtered through my ears. I was back.

-------------- The End -----------

If you've bothered to read this until the end give yourself a tap on the back. I've sped through some parts of the trip because it is simply too long to write it all down. I like to think of this as a complement to the bits I wrote on my diary through the trip, so someday I can read this and, for a moment, live it all again in my head. Hopefully it will inspire you in some way!

One thing I did do this time was to write statistics of the cycling at the end of each day. So here are a few of them...

--------- STATISTICS ----------

Longest distance travelled in a day: 147.13km (Tábua to V.N.Gaia), 10 hours

Total Distance covered: 1391km

Total Time cycled: 89 hours and 53 minutes

Total days cycled: 14

Max Speed: 57.18km/h

Items lost: 1 t-shirt, 1 towel (hand towel, it was a good one), 2 elastic ropes

Damaged goods:

Tent ripped by dog, food stolen by cat, Tent mosquito net chewed by I don't know what (ants?), chain needed replacement, 2 punctures, saddle slight rip (fixed by sewing), front handlebar bag elastic ripped by dog, 1 bike computer dead, 2 elastic ropes ripped, flip-flops nearly dead.

Other: Bike guitar rack survived!!!! (and so did guitar!)

-----------------------------------

Facebook album links: Part 1, Part 2

Blogs: Hernani and Gonçalo's blog (both portuguese)

Much love,

The Compact Hobo Stove!

2010-03-09T10:48:00.001-08:00

In preparation for my forthcoming travels, I decided to run through my gear requirements. The two main items I need to deal with are: 1. TENT (more on this next time) and 2. KITCHEN... in particular the stove!

Last year we relied on Dave's new Optimus Nova. A wicked multifuel stove that can run on alcohol, kerosene, diesel (not recommended!), jet fuel and so on... Worked really well for us, I think we only had to fill the 1L canister in petrol stations twice. This in itself was an event as we got some funny looks when trying to pay the 1 euro we owed at the till.

So the dilemma this year is that I'm going solo in the Portugal tour (much to my mum's disapproval)... and because I get high on DIY, I decided to build my own stove!

At first I had a go at a penny stove. An alcohol fuelled stove which can be made out of a coke can (depending on the design). I have to say I failed quite miserably at my first and last build. But then I decided that I would prefer to use wood as the fuel (since in theory I won't have to carry the fuel with me!). That's when I found several designs of hobo stoves and decided to have a crack at it. So... 1 tin can of pineapple slices + knife and BAM! I present to you...

My first (compact) hobo stove!!

Sleek AND stylish!

This is a really simple piece of kit you can make and it weighs next to nothing! Cut some holes (triangles) around the bottom of the can - air gets sucked in through these vents thus creating an upwards draft. Do the same along the top so that it doesn't choke when you put a pan on top. Then cut a rectangle where you can feed wood in. I found a little grill in my kitchen cupboard that fits on the top of the can quite neatly but you can just as well get a wire coat hanger and cut bars to make a grill by threading them through the holes!

I say wood, this stove basically works on twigs or any small bits of wood you can find... Then with just a bit of kindling (bits of paper are easy to find along the rode when riding) and a spark you can get a fire going!

I went for a ride today (beautiful day) and went to the beach to pick up a bag full of drift wood (twigs)... When I got back home I had a crack at it and was surprised. I cooked a bowl of pasta in about 10 minutes. And I only used a handful of twigs!

My first meal! Mmm pasta!

It's quite a neat bit of kit if you just want to get a little fire going to warm up. Also if you place it on top of rocks when cooking, these will heat up and you can use them to warm your hands in a cold night!

The drawbacks with this thing is that if it rains during the day it'll be a bit of a mission to find dry wood! Not impossible though if you know where to look... In this case a small alcohol stove is quite useful as a backup and you can use the tin as a windshield.

But you'll always find excuses for backups!

Peace on you ;)

Portugal Tour 2010

2010-03-07T16:40:00.000-08:00

Dates are settled! Leaving on the 7th of May and returning on the 9th of June! With a few days stopover in the Algarve and working 2 weeks in a farm!

The route is rough since the itsy bits are decided on the cycling day but it'll look something like that!

it's the newwwws!

2010-03-06T17:20:00.000-08:00

Bike guitar frame

Bike guitar frame rev 2 (with ubber cool bike!)... A bit different from sally though...

A great friend of mine (Ollie) warned me about the aluminium (aluminum for americanos) weld process. After getting in touch with the metalmonger (??) he told me he didn't have the facility to do it... I looked around the hardware store for a solution and have decided to go for a stainless steel L shape bar which will allow me to build the thing a bit like a meccano set. I'm yet to see if the structure will slip but in worst case at least I can get it welded...

Portugal Bike Tour!

So this is something I've been promising myself ever since I got back to Portugal... But since winter was fast approaching I thought I'd wait until the first signs of spring to come for me to blossom this idea.

Pretty simple really, cycling my way down from Porto to the algarve (should be 7 days at most), first along the coast, then avoiding lisbon and going through the heart of Alentejo, then back up... Can't really call this a tour since I completely miss out on the furthest region to north (minho)... but it's good enough!

I'll definetely see Portugal through a different pair of eyes. Something I'm particularly keen on doing... As my opinion of the country/people has been somewhat beaten down by the recent months of city life, and gradual discoveries of the symptoms affecting the otherwise good progress the country could make...

I got in contact with an organic farm in the coimbra area who have agreed to take me in as a voluntary worker... The work is done in the mornings and is a bit of everything: tending olive trees, working on the vegetable garden, a bit of construction work and so on... then we get the afternoons off! I'm yet to settle the date with them but I'm really excited about the prospect, I'll probably stay for 2 weeks or so.

Music

I've been really bad with getting more songs done, mainly due to the fact that Thursday and today I played in a local bar... The experience has been interesting, because of the licensing issue I don't have any amplification. This limits my repertoire (pretty much cancels out all my own songs)... Since the bar is usually full of people talking, even though it's fairly small, I have to play songs where I project my voice more... I can't say the reception has been great, but at least it's helping me build some confidence and character. And the bar owner gives me beer so hey, who's complaining?

But really, I ought to get some songs out... need to find some oozing inspiration!

And that's that...

Apart from a failed attempt at building a penny stove (warning: mcgyver theme tune soundtrack!!!!)... Which I've now abandoned and decided to go for a more caveman-type wood (more like twig) burning stove.

Ciao!

p.s. next post might suffer LONGER delay if my house gets burned down.

Death by Cultural Sufocation

2010-02-28T09:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday night I went for a drink with a friend in a local bar. We stayed until closing time, and when we finally got up to the counter to pay I took the chance to ask the owner if he would be interested in having me play some music one night.

What followed was a 30 minute long discussion about the ridiculous state of portuguese legislation when it comes to music licensing.

You see, in Portugal 2010 when an establishment (cafe, bar, disco, restaurant and even your wedding) wants some music to entertain its guests, whether it be recorded or live, it needs some form of license. I suppose this is the case in some countries. The UK government is proposing exemption of such license to small live music venues. I think this is a great step in the right direction so I hope it all goes ahead.

Today I tried to read up on the rules the landlords must obide to. And the conclusion? Well, as in most cases when I read up on legislation, it's a fucking mess.

If you own a bar, and want to host a one-off live music show. You need a license. My impression is it has to be done for every single show, but it might just be a monthly or yearly deal. It gets really complicated when you're dealing with recorded media like if you want to put some ambient music, since pirated cd copies and even dubious mp3 sources are pretty widespread. But I don't want to go into the whole copyright war discussion, I'd rather just touch on the unrecorded topic - i.e. live music.

First of all, I don't see how this license benefits the wider community, not to mention the performing artist. To me it's just another way authorities have found to tax the working people, yet this time it's having a direct consequence on an essential element of human culture - music.

If the artist was a local bob dylan tribute genius, then he (or the bar owner) would have to write a letter to the portuguese author's society (SPA), fill in a form and state EXACTLY what songs were going to be covered. Then pay for that. This is ludicrous!!! Surely, if anything the tribute guy is helping promote bob dylan and the good name of folk! Making people remember what a genius he was and perhaps even triggering them to purchase a "blowing in the wind" track when they get back home! Personally I'd look it up on spotify but whatever.

I shouldn't even be making a monetary point. This isn't about money. This should be about music, art, creativity, culture, sharing of a passion within your community.

Oh and I forgot to mention, prior to all of this of course you would have to get your premises and equipment checked by IGAC, who decides whether or not the environment, neighbourhood, and equipment is suitable...

During the conversation I had with the owner of the bar he told me that he had possession of all the licenses required at one point in the past. However, the effort and cost of such outweighed the benefits of having live music. So he stopped bothering. The location of the bar seems to be propitious to frequent hassle from inspectors and so it is not even something worth risking.

You would think that, in the world we live in, musicians, poets and artists alike would be allowed to provide some ambience or life into an environment. To share their art without being suffocated by the red tape of burocracy - designed for a select few to leech their livelihoods from the sweat of others.

So, the final question... Am I or am I not going to play in this bar?

Well, yes, I am. But don't tell anyone.

You win some, you lose some...

2010-02-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

Last week I had a great time in a local bar called "Breyner 85". They hold jam sessions on Sunday nights and I went there to check it out... Everything kicked off around 11.30pm (typically late for portugal), and the place quickly got packed. The groove was mainly blues, jazz and a bit of funk... It was all about improvisation and countless artists came on and off the stage to play several different bits... The standard was pretty high from what I'm used to in the open mic sessions I've been, but not much folk music... There was piano, drums, bass, guitar, sax, clarinet, harmonica and a number of singers... It was a really fun night that lasted 'till 6am! The manager came on stage towards the end and even announced a free round of beer for the late night survivors! sweet!

The only minus was the amount of smoke in the room... it got unbearable and I don't think my brewing flu liked it either because the next day I started feeling v rough!

On came all the medication and every effort to recover in time for the metro audition, which to a certain degree I did. I had a last minute change in song and decided to play "Strange kind of feeling" instead of covering pink floyd...

The audition was pretty cool, lots of interesting artists around and I did my bit. Had a bit of a mind blank during the first verse but somewhat managed to blablabla my way through... Overall I was satisfied with the performance but just a moment ago I got an email saying I didn't get chosen... so I guess that's that.

Tomorrow I'm having surgery to get my wisdom tooth out because it's a bit infected and it's not the first time this happens... quite relieved I'm getting this done it's been doing my head in for a while.

Meanwhile the plans for the bike trip this summer are starting to take shape... We have decided to start in Rome, around the 20th of July, and head up towards Denmark... I'm planning on settling there for a while but it's a bit of an unknown at the moment... Either way i'll be saying goodbye to portugal!

I wanna take my bigger guitar with me this time but in order to do so I need to get a bike-guitar-rack, which I can't find anywhere to buy one... So I've decided to make one... This is the first sketch I made of the rack, I think it's gonna be made out of lightweight aluminium tube, which I will cut out and get someone to weld the bits together. The rack will fit to the back of the bike, the topside will be secure where the lights are, there are 2 neat holes I can fix it to, I'll relocate the lights to the neck brace so that they are visible. The only bit which I haven't accurately drawn yet are the bottom arms which will attach to the bike. I haven't figured out the best way to fix it to the existing bike rack yet... Don't really want to weld to it so I'll look for some kind of ring coupler or something along those lines... This is what it will sort of look like I hope...

Laterz!

Bike Tour FILM ready!

2010-02-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

The short film for the bike tour we did last summer is ready! You can watch it on the link below!

the return of... well, me!

2010-02-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

Hey blog,

So I've been postponing this for a while now, I had a draft written when I got back from Norway with a mini-essay about how it was and all that... I even prepared some pictures to put up but as the days rolled by I gradually fell out with the draft and we ended up having a fight and now I found out it (?) was cheating on me with another draft from an anonymous blogger so we have since split ways. What a bitch.

Anyways, I'm over that.

So really I guess I'll try and get back into the rhythm of things by highlighting a few things that have happened since I last wrote.

Christmas

There was christmas, yay. Norway was cool (both "hip" and cold), I enjoyed it very much. But I have to say, travelling/holidays with family is a remarkably different experience to when you're on your own. It was lovely to see my nephew and our latest norwegian side family.

Bye bye 2009, hey there 2010

New year! Throw out the old calendars and unwrap the 2010 ones! Unless, you (reader) have managed to escape the shackles of the gregorian calendar. In which case, tell me where you live.

Vrooom Vrooom!

Perhaps one of the most exciting bits of news for me is that I recently passed my driving test!!! For those of you who know the (long) story, I hope my celebration has somewhat infected you and you are now doing a little finger dance on your keyboard. Otherwise, just know that it has taken a while (gross understatement) to do it. But now I'm finally free!!!! Yay!! Like a genie from its lantern! a slug from it's shell! a kinder toy from it's egg! One of the main things I came back to portugal to do is finally done. Now it's a bit like a door lock has clicked and I can start pushing it open and explore what other doors are there to go through...

Tour guide

I recently had a handful of friends visit me, it was pretty intense because everything seemed to happen in the space of 2 weeks. But it was really really great to have them over, and show them my "home"-town... Even though I didn't know my way around it so well, having them over kind of forced me to learn. We were also blessed with the weather and I had some great days at the sunny beach just frolicking around the rocks, looking at starfish, picking up a crab, playing lots of guitar and singing. Somewhere in the middle I went to concerts and even saw a michael jackson dance tribute in a casino nearby... A bit bizarre but it was a good show! I've found new ways to enjoy this city and am slowly starting to swing to its groove, a bit more in unison, rather than stepping on its toes...

Metro Busking

This is my next big target.

I recently discovered that the Porto metro is starting a new initiative. Basically, they're holding auditions for bands/soloists for the first time, to issue licenses that will allow them to play in the metro. I was really excited when I heard about this and this morning I sent of the application. The scheme is just to get music on the streets, specifically at 3 of the stations. They are going to allocate 2x 3-hour slots during weekdays at each of those stations. The auditions are going to be in just under 2 weeks and if chosen you essentially become a licensed busker. A bit like the london underground, except you can't accept/ask for money. That bit doesn't really bother me as I am just keen to get out there and play. So fingers crossed! I might get to start playing next month!

(R)ecorations

The main renovations to the house have been done, today was the first day since my friends left so we are back into full days working at it. It's mainly decorating it now. Although since most of the furniture are antiques, and they have been sanded/waxed/varnished, we're having to put it all back together... A thought kept striking me today, as I spent hours twisting my wrist, trying to force an old rusty screw into a thread-worn hole. "Furniture technology has come a long way since the 70's/80's!".

By now I'm convinced everyone has at least 1 thing from IKEA in their houses, and if you don't you're not allowed into Sweden. But seriously, the stuff we were dealing with today feels light-years away from what you get nowadays in typical flat-pack furniture. Ok, let's begin with the assumption that they have provided you with enough screws to put the damn thing together. I dare you to put together an antique cupboard, then an IKEA cupboard in an afternoon. I bet that by the end of the day you are going to have new-found respect and admiration for those quick & easy screw fittings... I'm talking about the cam lock screws they come with... if I was a tool I'd screw that!

Despite all that, there is a certain character that you get from antique furniture. No matter how pissed off you might get when you're fitting the hinges back on and you realise "DAMMIT, they aren't the same size or shape" and "DAMMIT, the carpenter cut the wholes specifically to each hinge and now I don't know which one belongs were and... AHH FUCK"...

yes, despite all that there is still something about them... it's a bit of a love-hate relationship in the beginning but when you work it out it's really sweet...

---------------------------------------------------------------

I'm gonna leave it at that.

Another long day tomorrow...

Much love

Music, interviews, facebook... and Norway!

2009-12-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

Hey blog!

So here we go again...

Last weekend was quite an eventful one. Early on in October I applied to a job with siemens here in portugal, just to see what happened... Had no real expectations of it, but alas, last friday I was on my way down (Lisbon) to my 2nd "group dynamic" interview... play on!

That same evening I got back home and received an e-mail calling me for the final interview on Monday (wohoo?). At this point a lot of questions popped up, and I was facing the biggest of them all, did I REALLY WANT THIS? Conversations with myself, friends and family ensued... The conclusion was that I would leave all my cards dealt until I was sure I would be selected... So then came Monday and off I was down to Lisbon again. Into the complex, hand shake and 10 minutes into the interview I came clean. I could no longer fool myself and others. The manager seemed a swell guy to me and I had the impression he liked me (after he repeated that a few times)... To sum it up, the interview ended with the following question "If I called you tomorrow to come and work for me what would you say?" - "No". Hand shake, door slide, bus, train, home.

Decision made, I'm not going to Lisbon.

Meanwhile...

2 weeks ago I finished a new song and have been itching to put it up. I felt it led up to another song "idea" which I had so I decided to try and get that second one done as well...

Getting increasingly fustrated with it, and changing it several times I have finally decided to hammer out a recording of it and leave it at that. I've taken the chance to use my looping pedal for the first time, something I intend to use a lot when I hopefully start hitting some shows... The setup is still really, bad... no mic stand, a weird strap I "engineered" (see? not quite retired yet) and a headset instead of headphones... I've also been playing a lot in standard tuning but down 1 semi-tone... And have been wanting to shift that a bit because the pitch doesn't quite suit my voice I think... But annyyyyyyway.... here is the link to my myspace and the new facebook fan page I just made (hmmm still warm!)

http://www.myspace.com/theuniformlounge

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Uniform-Lounge/337675450303?v=wall

Finally,

Tomorrow I'm going to Trondheim (Norway) to spend christmas with my brother and his fiance and MY NEPHEW!!! wooho!! Really really looking forward to it!

xxx

Midnight blues

2009-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

I've just had a failed attempt at an early night.

Moments ago I had a tiny shot of adrenaline as I fell onto the floor, half on my guitar, a quarter on the bedside table, and the rest on the floor... I suppose I can tick this experience off my bucket list, not that there was an entry for such.

Lesson learnt - stacking 2 inflatable beds on top of each other, then sleeping on it WILL (!) lead to a fall (of the leader - leader). The once clever feat of pseudo-civil-engineering will, in fact, result in a kodak fail moment. You WILL realise it is too late to do anything about it when you have moved that one inch further into the side of the structure, you'll begin to feel your balance swaying that familiar bit too much (like when you know you're about to fall off your bike). Your innocent slumber turned into your worst nightmare (queue hitchcock distant scream).

And so it was.

Meanwhile, new song on myspace! woo! you know the address (wink wink).................... it's www.myspace.com/theuniformlounge by the way...

I'll try and update this bloggidy blog with some songs actually.. sometime in the near-ish future

lovelovelove

Eureka!

2009-11-25T05:10:00.000-08:00

Hey!

Last couple of weeks have been pretty busy, I had a job interview in Lisbon which was ok, took the chance to see some of my best friends from Macau, some of which I hadn't seen for over 10 years! It was really nice to catch up with them and it really inspired me to head east at some point and re-discover my roots...

Yesterday I had a driving theory test which I passed! Wooo! It was a scrape but thank god that's out of the way...

Apart from that I've been working on some new music and sorting out my "recording studio"... fixing some stuff which was well overdue... I still need to hit the music store to get a mic (or two) stand, at the moment I'm using a weird wooden frame I made for a usb fan (geek alert)

and this morning I finally had some time to work on finishing some music (notoriously difficult for me) and yea....

i've also set up a myspace and put up 3 songs on it which are worth checking out!

http://www.myspace.com/theuniformlounge

peace xxx

The Uniform Lounge

2009-11-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

Hey! So, I'm back with a new "musical" start... this time I've started a little project called "The Uniform Lounge", a name I'm giving to a 1 man band which I hope will get some collaboration from different artists (friends) I know and so on... meanwhile it just involved me, a guitar, and my wind pipes (the vocal kind)...

I've set up a youtube channel and posted 2 videos... one of them is pretty poor in sound quality but I've fixed that as of the second video... That one suffered of some video quality but was just coz I was in a rush and compressed it in a shabby format... So yeah... Enjoy! And stay tuned for some new material!

PART 2 - Route map and photos

2009-10-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

as promised, here is the route map (you might need to install a google earth web plugin) and a slideshow of a "selection of photos" from the trip, it's still over 400 pictures long!

ROUTE MAP:

The route map shows a pretty accurate plot of the route we took, I think except for serbia (where google gets a bit confused for some reason) most of the routes are spot on. There is an "S" tag for the spot where we slept for the day, if you click it it should have a mini-description of where we slept and which day it refers too... It took a fair amount of effort to do this map and I got to the point where I was adding pictures to those tags but decided that it was overkill... Anyway the points where we slept are also pretty accurate and it's actually really cool to see them from a bird's eye point of view, there's also a few extra tags... Feel free to stop the tour, click around and explore!

SLIDESHOW:

There are over 400 pictures and it includes some of the time spent in Berlin preparing for the trip (= drinking beer), they are all in chronological order... Enjoy!

This is it! (it is?)... well yes... it is... PART 1

2009-10-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

This is it!!!!

Hello again blog! It has been a ridiculous amount of time since I last wrote anything here. So fuck it, here we go...

First of all, I guess I should write a little about the cycling trip in the summer. In short, we made it alive (with all our limbs)! In long... well I could write forever about it but I can't be bothered so here's the medium rare version...

A total of 2670km, 10 countries and 25 days of cycling (which included 1 full day of rest in budapest and 2 half days, one in belgrad and one on the coast in turkey). At end I still had 2 full days to visit Istanbul which was great! For those of you who voted "No way!" on the poll I say "Ha!", if you laughed then I fart in your general direction... For those of you who believed in me, you're my new best friends! :) and the one's who don't know me well I feel sorry for you...

So yea, bike trip, probably the best, most epic thing I've done in my life so far, definitely something I would like to do again (more on that later, if I don't forget). I did the trip with Dave (http://www.tour-de-world.org/) whom I knew from boarding school and Onkardeep Singh his ex-housemate who I met once.

As you can tell I didn't have much internet access (or time!) to write updates on my blog except for that one day in bratislava. On a given day we would cycle at least 100km, sometimes 120km (I think the max we did was around 140km). This is about 6 to 8 hours of cycling per day, as soon as the sun was up so were we (most of the time!) and on some days we even got up before the sunrise (we saw some BEAUTIFUL sunrises, it is incredible how many of these we miss when living the "city life"). As a general rule an hour before sunset we would start looking for a place to camp, an hour wasn't really enough and meant that we had a few dinners eating in the dark (with headtorches on).

We shared a 3 man tent and everyday we would wake up in an almost robotic routine, Onka would be the first up and out of the tent, then dave, then as both of them packed up outside I would be folding the sleeping backs and matts and putting them inside their casings... We never changed this routine because we got pretty good at each of our tasks and this meant we could be out in a flash (more like a broken strobe light flash), we would usually do about 15km to 20km a day before having breakfast, which usually consisted of bread (from the previous day) with jam, chocolate spread, honey, cheese, ham and not much else... Those were the basic staple foods for breakfast and lunch, by lunch time we would usually stock up on food somewhere and maybe buy some milk, yoghurt and other goodies...

On a trip like this you learn how some of the basic human necessities make such an impact on your mood, if any of us was thirsty, hungry, cold, wet, sleepy or in need of the toilet for some time the symptoms on your morale were almost immediate. In contrast, meal times were perhaps one of the most joyful moments of our trip, the simple act of eating gave us so much happiness. At night we would always cook a hot meal (a warm meal makes a lot of difference!), this would usually be pasta (half a kilo between the 3 of us was not enough on some nights!) with vegetables. Onka is a vegetarian and so we would not have meat at night, being quite fond of meat I was a bit worried and the very few times we stopped in a restaurant I would always be excited about eating meat, but, to be honest, I was quite indifferent afterwards and felt that my body couldn't use the fuel as well...

The 10 countries we went through (in order) were:
Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia (then back to Serbia), Bulgaria, Greece and finally Turkey.

I spent about 3 weeks in Germany preparing for the trip with Dave, of the countries we cycled through Serbia was my favourite. This is based on the experience we had on the people, as well as the scenery, cities and countryside. The danube area in Serbia known as the "Iron gate" was one of the most picturesque places we passed through. The highest altitude we climbed was 1430m in the Bulgarian mountains of the Godech region. It took us something like 4 to 5 hours to climb it, on lowest gear with only 1 tiny stop to eat a chocolate bar (major energy boost). You could feel the change in temperature up there, by the time we were at the peak (i.e. the highest point for the road not for the whole mountain!) it was late and we had to look for a place to free camp, of course, being a mountain there weren't many flat places around to set camp... a BIG dark group of clouds was gaining on us and hunger was starting to kick in, somehow we found a path which led us to this flat opening on the back of a hill, from this spot we had the most incredible view which at the same time was completely hidden from the road, it started to chuck down with rain just as we set camp and got the stove going, it eventually cleared up to give us the most beautiful clear starry sky for the whole trip... the first and only time I ever bothered to get my glasses out!

But that was about it for Bulgaria, it didn't score very high in our country list... I should mention that these opinions are all subject to the experiences AND people you meet... It just happens that in Serbia we met some of the sweetest people, like a family who invited us for coffee when they saw us sitting in the rain on a bench in their small town. Or the elderly couple who let us camp in their tiny Utopia of a farm with all kinds of vegetables, herbs and fruits. Maybe its just chance that these good or bad things happen... Anyway.

So what else? Well believe it or not after the 1st day I ditched my socks and shoes into the bottom of my pannier, and swapped them for flip-flops and that is how I rode for the rest of the 2500km... I was so surprised at how comfortable they were, no blisters, and specially no wet socks... just a funny V shaped tanned line haha... you might ask, "but what about when it rained?" Well, the thing is, if it rains, you're gonna get wet, period. And after the rain is gone, i'd rather have my feet dried by the sun, instead of having them in damp socks... bleh just the thought makes me cringe...

Ok I'm starting to turn this into the long version... Need some sleep... tune in for part 2, I'll post a map of our route and a link for the photos... Ah and also some new music will be coming up but that's a surprise so shhh

Ciao,
jc

Day 7...

2009-09-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

Just under 700km clocked in so far and we crossed from the austrian border to slovakia today... Just passed Bratislava and camping outside a hotel to have our first shower in about 3 days and internet since the beginning of the trip! Dozens of stories to tell so far... Today my Sally nearly died on me as my back tyre ripped and the inner tube kept popping out and getting punctured. This was only at 10km of today's ride, we managed to patch it up with some tape and swap it with the front tyre so it wouldn't strain so much with the weight and cycled another 10km towards Malacky in Slovakia where we arrived just after 12pm and all the shops were closed... Desperate for solution we walked around town for half an hour already pondering a train into bratislava... we were facing losing 2 days of cycling because tomorrow is sunday and obviously everything is closed... But that was not to be, we found a closed bike shop were I went and knocked, from inside came a shadow and as he approached the glass I put my hands together and almost got on my knees for him to open. It didn't take much for Gustav to let us into his shop and soon, with miraculous enthusiasm and passion he started work on my sally. By this point my bike stand was broken, one of the brake pads was off (to reducing rubbing on the tumoured tyre), as well as the front mudguard.. Finally all our bikes got a proper patch up and we were again on our way! Gustav was a godsend... someone really is looking out for us!

1 day left

2009-08-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

1 day left in Berlin, we head back to ferch this afternoon and then onwards to Istanbul tomorrow... Last couple of days have been awesome! Cycling around pretty much the whole of Berlin (and getting lost a few times!), going to the lake, meeting old friends from school and university, checking out the beach bars by the canals and playing basketball in an empty swimming pool... will miss the city!

Berlin!

2009-08-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ren-o-vater

Fixing bikes today

My Sally!

My little Sally!

Bitch slicer we found on the way to the lake

ELFENLAND!! The best board game ever...

"Brain theft" Random monitor in squat bar/club

One of the corridors covered in graffiti

Beer!!

Paint!!

More beer!

No beer :( but arrived in Berlin with happy weekend ticket guys!

Christina couchsurf host in Frankfurt

Hello Pavel!

Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since I have been in Berlin. Well, most of it has been spent 50km away from it in Ferch, a little town near Potsdam... It's a small village, situated by a lake called schwielowsee and surrounded by forests... you could technically swim to berlin from here, but around here there isn't much city life to break the sweet countryside silence and star glittery nights.

The majority of the days in Ferch have been spent helping Dave's dad renovate the "yellow house", mowing the lawn (6 hours if you do it alone), being taught german words by dave's lil brother max and sister lisa, going to the lake for a swim, playing ELFENDLAND(!!!) and huddling around a bonfire at night. Only today and yesterday have we started to pack and test our equipment for the journey!

We've been hopping to and from Berlin throughout the past weeks and I haven't had much of a chance to do the tourist sightseeing ritual, most of the time we've been running around shopping for the stuff we need for the trip. One night we went out to a famous squat that was turned into a bar/club in Berlin. The place was incredible, you walked into a sandy backyard which was once a communal yard for the surrounding buildings, there you had a load of kiosk type bars, sofas and chairs of all sizes, shapes and colours dotted around the landscape. As you turn around you look up to a run down 5 story building with something happening on every floor... We soon made our way into the building and inside the walls and stair case were covered, I mean literally covered in graffiti of all kinds, all the way to the top. I lost track of what was in what floor but you'd have a club in one, then a bar in another, then a room full of people crashed out in sofas, then another with a handful of artists and what I supposed were their works of art on display around the room. The atmosphere was very chilled, it didn't feel like it was my traditional notion of a club, although there were designated dance floors. I was just amazed at the amount of stuff written on the walls, amazed at how old some of it must've been and the amount of people and stories that must've gone through them... this place had character!

The first night in Berlin was spent at the beer festival with dave, his brother and their friends, arina from bhh (!), and 2 guys I met on the train on the way to berlin... mmm beer

Meanwhile....

I have a bike!!!! wooo!!! We spent around 3 hours in a sports store choosing a bike for me and Onkar... The store was pretty cool because you could try them and they have a sort of test track bit where you can ride it up and down ramps and over bumps... anyway, the bike! Since then we also got pretty much everything we need for the trip (its a long a list - which I'll post at some point!)... We've ridden to and from berlin a few times, a nice 50km ride which takes us about 2 hours, but only because the roads are so nice to ride on, something we don't think we're going to get much of! On the way to Berlin there is a really nice 2km bit of road which has been designated only for cyclists and rollerbladers but even the rest of the way there are good bike lanes to cycle on... We also went for a ride in Berlin on Thursday night and ended up in a park singing happy birthday with a group of portuguese students, then onto a famous bar along one of the canals with some floating platforms (not recommended after heavy alcohol consumption, bring towel)...

Today and yesterday we spent testing, checking and going through ALL the equipment, making sure we got everything... I got my first puncture on the way to Ferch and had to fix that today, as well as install my odometer and bottle holders, dave had to do some maintenance on his and install a lousy mirror which was bent the wrong way lol... Tomorrow we need to repack everything and print out some of the lists we've made and probably work on the route from Ferch (starting point) to Prague - the first stage of the trip! I'll post more details about the equipment and itinerary later, but at the moment it is looking pretty tight... We definately won't have enough time to take a day off in every major city we go through, at the moment we have a place to couchsurf in budapest so we are definately staying there for a day, but apart from that maybe only 1 other city on the way there... We are making Istanbul the main goal and it would be nice to arrive with a few days to visit and enjoy the city!

Later this week I will visit Berlin properly! :)

Peace and love,

p.s. I forgot the biggest news... I am now an uncle!!!

Frankfurt!

2009-08-08T13:07:00.001-07:00

So here I am in Frankfurt, it's been an amazing trip so far and only 2 days have gone by! Christina, the girl I'm couchsurfing with has been really nice to me and the accomodation and friendship is so much more than I expected!

The day I got here I walked around town and 2 hours later I already had a guitar in my hand... I couldn't resist! I popped into a guitar shop (cream music) and they showed me a "Guitarlele", which is a 6 string guitar but the size of a ukelele.... SWEET! So now I can definately carry it around on my bike! I sat at some platz which I'm yet to figure out the name of and played it for a while then pavel and his girlfriend came over and we had a nice chat, turns out pavel is a full time busker/performer and just got to frankfurt that day and was looking for a spot to busk...

Today I went to a flea market in "schaumainkai" which is along the south bank of the "Roonerberg" (spelling?) river... the market is HUGE, and it was really busy! I walked around for a bit looking for stuff that I could potentially buy for the portuguese markets (I have afterall been initiated into this now) but don't really want to start adding weight to the bike trip!

I eventually found aldi (woo!), got some backpacker's food (something cheap and cheerfull) then sat playing my new baby by the riverside... I'm getting the itch to do some proper busking as I've seen some average buskers make some nice cash moneys but I've decided I need to find a cowboy hat first... And since I'm off to Berlin tomorrow it might have to be done there! I just rang some random guy about sharing the happy weekend ticket which should bring it down to 10 euros although its going to take 8 hours to get there AHH! Maybe I can busk the train lol

ok I'm off now, post some pictures when I find a cable (forgot to bring mine! doh)

XXX (non sexual)

eins, zwei, drei... (Ich spreche kein Deutsch)

2009-08-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

My summer trip starts tomorrow. I arrive in Frankfurt around midday and am couchsurfing there until Sunday. Hopefully see a bit of Frankfurt on Saturday as I've heard so much about it! Then on Sunday I head off to Berlin to stay with Dave until the 29th, which is the day we head off on our cycling trip to Istanbul... It's gonna be tight because I already have a flight booked back to gatwick on the 25th of september from Istanbul. Leaving us 27 days to travel an estimated 2500km... That's about an average of 92.6km per day...

These are all rough estimates as we haven't planned out route yet, hopefully start doing that next week. But by now already some people have cast their doubts on us managing to complete the journey on our bikes... The plan is to get some form of public transport if we see that we're not gonna make it. But I'm determined to complete the damn thing on a bike. So I've set up a poll. Go ahead and vote!

Oh and here are some pictures... oh and I added a new video from jootube (on the right further down) of us playing yellow by coldplay...

Romulo - Our black cat

Cat with a frying pan smacked face

Fire spitter at "Santa Maria da Feira" medieval fair

Show me da money!

Love, peace and all the grease...

Picton quotes

2009-08-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

At 13 Picton Street we used to have a bit of paper in the kitchen board which we used to write silly quotes that any of us would come out with on brief moments of stupidity... Here it is in digital form!

Fabiana:

"Give me the Granooles."
"When you configurated the computer of my sister."
"Oh man, I am so oxidated. (i.e. rusty)"
"You are putting mouth in my words."
"We have to chronometrate... (i.e. we have to time it)"
"Everything is practicity in Sweden."

George:
"(George)- Whoa, Nice car!!! (TV Clarkson, Top Gear)- ..But you wouldn't want to buy it!"
"(Tv ad) ..Cheerleaders! (George) Yeah!!!!! (Tv ad) And yes they are MEN!"
"(George talking about Rush Hour film) ... Imagine that a man is approaching, 5 foot 6 medium build.. medium rare.."
"She's had the life of her time."

Carlos:
"Get off the lakebine!!! (i.e. bike lane)"
"I want to put a guitar on my string."
"(Carlos refering to the Brighton bomb protests) No! they are always proctesting."

Classic...

I'm trying to help

2009-07-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

These shots were taken in a room which has never been used before. The "estores" (window shutters used in portugal - obg carolina lol) were down and the sun was in such a position outside so that light rays were coming in and forming these white bright spots on the floor. The loped off bit at the bottom left was caused by the varanda from upstairs which blocked those particular rays. You can tell from the darker shade on the top of the shutter (top right). I then went low and took shots of the spots on the ground... The result:

Called this one "I'm trying to help", a line taken from a song by Aesop rock - None shall pass .

love

Lost in translation...

2009-07-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

We recently went to a restaurant called "locanda". They have a firewood oven and do some amazing pizzas and the famous "francesinha" dish (I have a friend who has dreamt about it twice since he came to Portugal on holiday... it's that good!).

After waiting for our turn we finally got directed to our table and presented the menus. Behold, the selection of dishes was described in portuguese and english. It didn't take very long before I got my camera out and started snapping at the menu, at the expense of looking like someone who was trying to steal some menu ideas for his own restaurant. Some of these got me laughing in tears... In the famous words of my dreamy friend - "Brilliant!". Enjoy!

Children selection...

The pasta selection...

The starters...

"The grills are served by a garrison to the choice: rice, chips popato to the slice, potato to the punch or puree of potato."

Some chapters...

2009-07-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, some time to sit and update this... So here's what's been going on!

Chapter 1: Someone shot my music in the face

Having spent over 14 days away from england spotify has blocked my account! I have spoticravings real bad and am having to go cold turkey now which really sucks... a part of my music cosmos has died.

Chapter 2: You've been jootubed!

Finally convinced Sumeet to put some druid videos on the tube of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3VyZtovrxo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiQE-IkYt5g&feature=channel_page

Chapter 3: More markets

Last sunday we went to another market, this time in a place called Vila Nova de Cerveira which is right at the border with Spain in the north... It is a beautiful little town that is very well kept, with river Minho separating it from Spain.

Chapter 4: SUMMER CYCLING TRIP!!!

The big one! Originally I was meant to go to Norway and visit my brother in Trondheim because of his newborn due in August (I'm gonna be an uncle yay!). But, change of plans, and I'm not going to Norway now. Instead I have a flight booked to Frankfurt on the 7th of August! Hopefully stay there for 2 days then get the train up to Berlin to visit Dave and get all the bike equipment ready. Then on the 27th me, Dave and Onks will start our cycling trip to Istanbul! I'm not sure how I'm getting back home from Istanbul yet but am playing with the idea of doing it via the mediterranean sea. Either way, getting to Istanbul should take us about a month and we're hoping to get there by the end of September (my birthday!). Much planning ahead.

Chapter 5: Very aquatic

Many of my days here have been spent catching up with friends and family. My dad came to visit for a fortnight with my lil' sister and we spent a few days at the beach, swimming pool and even went to the new aquarium in Porto which is run by the same company that runs the sea life center in Brighton. I finally got a wetsuit + some fins recently and I've been spending my mornings bodyboarding at the beach as much as weather permits. A great way to wake up and start the day! Am yet to take some nice pictures at the beach...

Chapter 6: Home

Just ending with 2 pictures of a spark and a view from my new home for inspiration!

Big love!

Markets

2009-06-30T04:10:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was market day and we went down to cais de gaia to sell at the antiques market. The picture above is of our stand...

There was a stage further down from where we were and at one point a traditional folk group performed and I got a few shots...

Apart from that I've been busy unpacking my stuff (still)... better get back to it!

Oh yea I got fed up with the previous blog layout and changed it, the links and the song have disappeared but I'll put them back up once I get busy recording some more songs...

Portugal!

2009-06-27T18:42:00.001-07:00

My first post in Portugal! Actually it's my second as the previous post was done a few moments ago but that's just a technicality.

So around 4 days ago I got here and it's been pretty eventful already. The weather was beautiful on my last day and the sky was pretty clear. I was sat next to the window so I took the chance to take a few shots of the view...

The Needles - Isle of Wight

Ponte D. Luis - Porto (North side), Gaia (South side)

The day I arrived was the 23rd, on the 24th is São João. In Portugal this means we start the celebrations on the 23rd and then we get the day off on the 24th and recover from hangovers. So 3 hours after I rolled my suitcase into my room I was already out of the door to go to a party. Coincidentally João is my first name, which I never use in England (it's what everyone calls me here). For most of the night the music played was traditional folk with themes for São João, then there's the thing that it is actually quite a common name... I heard my name so much that it has made up for 8 years of being called Carlos. I do miss that alter ego though.

Lots and lots of food as you can see... There were grilled sardines and then a variety of cakes and sweets (all accompanied by nice wine)! It is really a matter of time before my trousers no longer fit me...

Then there were fireworks and paper balloons which have a wick inside that gives it thrust to rise...

After a good amount of teamwork your party gets a balloon that flies off into the dusk/night sky, possibly accompanied by the hundreds of other glowing balloons which are also set of by other parties around the city...

Oh, bless the solitary balloon... Then suddenly, the wind blows a bit harder and...

You get a fireball falling from the sky that hopefully won't land on your face or start a fire next to it...

The rest of the night was lots of fun, with lots of laughs, eating, dancing, more eating and occasional moments of realizing how things around me have changed.

Till next time!

Last Brighton Shots

2009-06-27T18:12:00.002-07:00

Some shots of my last few days in Brighton.

1. Shoe tossing - My little contribution to the secret society of shoe tossers in Brighton.

2. Sussex University logo - taken during the product design exhibition for master students.

3. Me and Johnie - taken on my final night at the druids head, johnie embodies the "druid" in that pub and is a really nice guy with some fascinating stories to tell for those who care to listen.

4. Nasty seagul encounter - Was walking through the level when I saw 2 seagulls behaving a bit oddly then suddenly one of them bites the other one and catches it in the eye, ouch!

5. Brighton Burnt down West Pier - This shot was probably taken a million times, not surprising...

Love,

Last post in Brighton... for now!

2009-06-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hey!! So it's 2am and I'm sitting in my room waiting for tonight's photos to get imported into my library on the pc... It's the last thing I got to do before packing up the computer for collection tomorrow, along with 3 other boxes... In total I'm sending about 100kg worth of stuff back to Portugal, that's just under the weight of 2 fat baby hippos - nice! (That just reminded me of the hiphoppopotamous vs rhymenocerous rap by flight of the conchords... worth listening while reading this!)

Got quite a few pictures done in the last couple of days but I haven't got much time to touch them up so I'll just put one up of the midsummer night party there was on friday at the northern lights. There was a karaoke going on and I managed to convince Harri to sing a finnish song with me. We ended up singing a finnish song called "Varrella Virran". Just listening to it now makes me laugh! I say sing, but I was rather just mumbling words, luckily the chorus was quite repetitive :)

ok i'm gonna put this thing away now..

See you in Portugal!!!

xxx

Characters of Brighton

2009-06-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

Trolley woman

Musical touch

Just wanted to add 2 more pics from quirky scenes which you can get in Brighton sometimes...

The first is of an elderly woman (aka trolley woman). I've seen her a few times around brighton parks from the church down to the steine. She carries a trolley full of bread and feeds masses of seagulls and pidgeons. I personally think it's a pretty cool thing, maybe one day I'll have a go a trolley man...

The second photo is just an inspiring moment I caught. Worth sharing...

Enjoy!

1 Week

2009-06-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

Dave in deep thought...

Finally I have some time to sit down and write an

update! Last week I did my penultimate open mic night at the Druids Head with Sumeet, who's leaving back to Barcelona today. We got back from football and wrote a song in just over 1 hour, our first complete song! We did everything in time to perform it at the open mic and it wasn't too bad...

Then on Saturday I went to London to meet Dave and Selina, we spent the day wandering around. Sat in Hyde park for a bit next to a gathering of naked cyclists (it was naked bike ride day) then went along the thames river towards the london eye where all the buskers were performing. I took the chance to take a few shots...

Houses of Parliament

Bark at the tree

Let me through

The day was followed by a great evening with friends and finally with 4 brave souls who powered through the night to the tune of Ellen Alien at Fabric. Perhaps the best club I've been to in England. With a mind blowing sound system that will literaly make your whole body shake because the bass resonates so much on the dance floor. An amazing feeling - if you manage to ignore the fart smell which is fast becoming a ubiquitous odour in clubs since the introduction of the smoking ban.

So that was London...

Sunday was pretty much a write-off, having not slept much I had to catch up! But yesterday I went busking for my first time ever with Sumeet at the pavillion gardens, we didn't actually make any money though... Maybe because it was quite late and there weren't many people around at all... We did get a few smiles! And then we got kicked out of a restaurant. All in all I'd like to think we achieved something...

1 week left in Brighton. I need to start packing!!!

xxx

Georgios

2009-06-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

Georgios Efstathiou

I'd like to dedicate this post to a great friend. Someone who can make tzatziki that will make you stink of garlic for the rest of the week but at the same time make a frappe that will put starbucks to shame.

Aside from his culinary feats george is an (old) man with a young spirit, during the last 4 years (specially the last 2 as housemates) george felt like my "younger" older brother. I could always rely on him for knowledge which you can only get from someone who has obviously lived life with an enthusiasm to understand how to get things done. Like how to crack walnuts with your bare hands, weave bracelets, pull a laptop COMPLETELY apart then putting it back together, keeping your room tidy (work in progress for me), and many other random tricks... I always admired his attention to detail and patience when doing things, specially when putting up with me on one of those hyper day (most days)! The thing I probably liked the most was that with George there would be no bullshit, if something was wrong or bothering him then you would know immediately. Something I really appreciate in a character.

Tonight George left to Athens for a friend's wedding, I won't be seeing him when he returns for his graduation as I will be long gone back in Portugal for good by then. It all happened so quick, one minute we were having dinner then the other he was rolling down picton street in a taxi, the rain starting to fall as if given the cue. It had been a while since I felt the involuntary swelling of my eyes. I've said a few goodbyes before. We all have I guess but it never gets easier does it?

I'm confident we'll meet one day, and hopefully it will be with some time to spare so we can share some more memorable moments!

Farewell my friend!

Uni visit

2009-06-08T12:09:00.001-07:00

At the bottom with an orange slice

Today was Zoe's birthday (happy birthday!) so I went to sussex university to meet her and celebrate with some friends... Took the chance to visit the sussex formula student team and then decided to walk all the way back home.

Can't be bothered to edit too many photos today so I've only done the one above, which is probably my favourite of the day.

Enjoy!

Photography starts here

2009-06-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Wine accident at Sainsbury!

Mr.Whiskers at Andrea's house - bbq night!

Last roast with housemates - chocolate fondue!

Unnamed bean game played with Harry

George on meat duties

Playing around with depth of field

This weekend I finally got myself a camera! My good friend chris menzel gave me an awesome crash course in photography and I have since been on a shooting binge. Above is a selection of a few shots I like...

Despite the poor weather the weekend was pretty eventful! BBQ last night at Andrea's house with some visiting italian friends, the non-italian speakers were severely outnumbered but at least I learnt that the term "figa" in italian can have more than one meaning...!

Today my housemates cooked one of the most amazing roasts (with homemade tzatziki, baba ghanoush and humous!), then to top it off we had a chocolate fondue with strawberries and grapes - it doesn't get any better than this!

Oh yea me and chris toured the brighton arts exhibition for final year students (which is now finished) and then to a gallery exhibiting madonna nudes from 1979 (?)... Some of the stuff in the gallery was really bizarre, there was a cat that looked like it came from a stuffed animal but instead of a nose he had a vagina... and then there were these shuttle cocks with the ends shaped as a tip of a penis... I get the puns but oh dear...

The gallery is called impure art and it's worth checking out if your around the south lanes!

That's all for today!

Ciao

My 2nd post...

2009-06-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one...

I've just added a song I wrote a few weeks ago and links to a few live videos, you can check them out on the sidebar!

Enjoy!

My 1st post

2009-06-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

The story starts in Brighton, UK. It has been exactly a week since I left my job as an engineer at Paxton (http://paxton-access.co.uk/) and in 18 days I will be leaving england... A wild 8 year chapter that will now step aside for another to turn over.

Everything feels like a dream at the moment. I take my time strolling through Brighton, frequently stopping to gaze at sights which I would otherwise glance at. Inhaling the air in a desperate attempt to capture my last moments in this town. I've been enjoying my freedom in the lovely weather we had recently, writing songs and playing guitar as much as I can. Last night we had a table football competition in which I was crowned king (haha sorry harri!) then after that I played a bit on the open mic at Druids. It had been a while but i was glad to hear some friends felt it brought back a nice dose of nostalgia!

I'm getting a camera soon to "illustrate" my world here but for now enjoy a picture of a cake I got on my last day (thanks Dave!). The picture was taken 3 years ago at the Sussex fresher's fair and the handsome fella on the right is Eddie, a remote controlled skull!

Lots of love,
JC