Spanish TV

I've watched a little Funniest Home Video in my time - mostly it's kids falling off trampolines, dogs falling off trucks and cats falling off tables. Not in Spain. While we were in Barcelona one night cooking dinner, we witnessed a little of the local version and it's a hoot. For at least half an hour there was only one theme - people being gorged by bulls.

Yes, the annual Running Of The Bulls in Pamplona apparently gives the producers of Spanish Funniest Home Video enough material to last a full season. Too funny.

DM

Colosseum, Rome

Colosseum, Rome
Originally uploaded by Leden.

All roads lead to Rome. What a big, wonderful city. Great weather, incredible history, great pizza, probably a little too much walking and all-round a good time. Except if you do not have a bed to sleep in, but that is another story.

DM

World Tour Itinerary [Updated]

For those of you who are tracking our where-abouts in the world (i.e. our 3-year-old nephew, Eli, whose latest interest is a world map), here's where we've been and where we plan on going...

April 7-10 Brisbane, AUSTRALIA

April 11-14 HONG KONG

April 15-May 7 INDIA
15-17 Delhi
18-20 Jaipur, Rajasthan
21-23 Jodhpur, Rajasthan
24-26 Bhavnagar, Gujarat (meetings with CSMCRI, a research entity of the government of India, who are doing great reasearch into Jatropha and biodiesel)
27 Ahmedabad, Gujarat
28-30 Udaipur, Rajasthan
May 1-3 Nimach, Madhya Pradesh (meetings with Jatropha seed sellers)
4-6 Agra (Taj Mahal!)
7 Delhi

May 8-18 GERMANY
8-10 Frankfurt
11-12 Stuttgart (best hostel in the world!)
13-15 Munich (most beer drinking in the world!)
16-18 Berlin

May 19-22 Paris, FRANCE (mmmm...frommage and baguettes) (p.s. I think I've kicked 10 years of lactose intolerance!)

May 23-25 Barcelona, SPAIN

May 26 20-hour ferry from Barcelona to Rome (our train from Barcelona to Nice and then to Cinqueterra was nixed due to a strike by the railway workers of France)

May 27-June 8 ITALY
May 27-30 Rome
May 31 Pompei
June 1-3 Cinqueterra
June 4-6 Florence (meeting up with Tessa as we cross paths half-way around the world)
June 7-8 Venice

June 9-12 Interlaken, SWITZERLAND (right in the middle of the country and known for "extreme sports")

June 13-15 Vienna, AUSTRIA

June 16-18 Budapest, HUNGARY

June 19-26 CZECH REPUBLIC
June 19-23 Prague
June 24-26 Cesky Krumlov (small town in southern Bohemia known for its beautiful castle and views)

June 27-28 Krakow, POLAND

June 29 Berlin, GERMANY (lay-over on the way north)

June 30-July 3 DENMARK
June 30-July 2 Copenhagen
July 3 Odense

July 4-6 Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS

Then we fly to London on July 7 for 10 days visiting Kira and our Aussie homies, Chris & Allie. On July 18 (the day after my birthday!) we fly to New York, where we'll spend 4 days in DC and 5 days in NYC. Next we're off to Seattle for the wedding of one of my oldest friends and six weeks with my family. Before heading home, we'll also get to visit my grandma in LA and my father in Arizona.

Finally, we'll head back to Brisbane mid-September, just in time for our third summer in a row!

Happy mapping, Eli!

Cheers,
AM

Barcelona is warm and friendly

Barcelona has been a blast over the last few days and I really look forward to coming back - a short trip just isn't long enough. Today we went to the truly remarkable La Sagrada Familia cathedral, designed by Antoni Gaudi. La Sagrada Familia is his masterpiece and has been under construction since 1882. They're half way through building it now but it could easily take another hundred years to complete. I've seen some remarkable architecture on this trip but nothing comes close to this one, Gaudi's an evil genius!

Yesterday we went to the beach (right in town like Sydney) and cruised around the main street of Las Ramblas. Siestas have also been on the menu with lots of snoozing mixed in with the great food and balmy weather.

I'm hoping we'll get a chance to head back to the beach but the siesta may win :)

DM

Notre Dame, Paris

Notre Dame
Originally uploaded by Leden.

We had a great stay in Paris, dampened only by the incredibly variable weather. Paris makes Melbourne look mild.

Highlights of our stay included going to the Louvre just hours after seeing The Da Vinci Code movie (which starts in the Louvre) in a cinema on the Champs Elysees, having a picnic complete with baguette, meat, cheese and wine at the Eiffel Tour; attending a huge (and clearly very important) mass at the Notre Dame cathedral, and going out with Alyse's friend Alex.

Bayern crowd empties beer hall

Yesterday Bayern Munich soccer club played the Bundesliga (German national soccer league) final and Munich was awash with red and white as their fans poured into the city. Bayern Munich were held to a 3 all draw by Borussia Dortmund but the result was not enough to stifle the celebrations as the Bavarians received the Bundesliga trophy for the 20th time. Apparently they won the title based on their season's win-loss record.

I tried explaining to some locals that the score from my football team's game this weekend was 180 to 62 but I don't think they quite got it.

Marienplatz was turned into a huge, outdoor party for the Bayern fans complete with beer stalls and big screens which had the unexpected result of partially emptying the biergartens around town. Alyse, Paige and myself headed for the famous Hofbrauhaus beer hall for dinner and had a fantastic time eating traditional Bavarian food and drinking steins (well, I had a couple although Alyse stuck with the tried and true white wine).

At the table beside us was a bunch of young, Swiss guys who apparently come down to Munich for three days every year to drink, drink and drink some more. They were great fun and introduced us all to the wonderful world of sniffing snuff. One of the guys, Killian, had a menthol variety on hand which when taken was like shoving a cough lolly up your nose. The whole custom of singing a song and calling out "breeze" before snorting up the brown dust off your left hand (because it's closer to your heart) made the experience a lot of fun though.

The Swiss guys managed to corrupt not just our party with their snuff, but two girls from the U.S., two more from Australia and a party from China as well. They were in fine form as they lustily sang along to the oom-pa band's traditional tunes and tried to down eight or so 1Lt steins of Munich's finest.

Today is a rainy day, good for doing washing and catching up on some reading online. I think we'll have a wander around a little later once Alyse manages to get out of bed (for the second time).

DM

Rockin´ around Germany

As I sit here in a smokey internet cafe in Munich I´m trying to sum up my thoughts about Germany so far. Firstly and most obviously the ´z´and ´y´ keys are swapped on the keyboard which is slowing this process down greatlz ;)

Secondly the countryside is just beautiful; rolling green hills, forrests of every hue of green and cultivated fields alternating between light brown ploughed rows, green crops and bright yellow fields of rapeseed. We have travelled by train from Frankfurt to Stuttgart to Munich and enjoyed every moment.

Everyone has been really friendly and helpful which has made our journey so far that much easier and in many respects the contrast with India could not be greater. On our first day Frankfurt I was absolutely struck by how clean the streets were; how clean the air was; how few people there were; how peaceful it was to not be accosted by auto-rickshaw drivers and others; and lastly how much cooler it was than Delhi.

Frankfurt is really nice if not a tourist destination. Stuttgart, where I had a business meeting has a few more sights and its picturesque location in a valley rimmed by hills on all sides is on full show from the incredible youth hostel. Stuttgart´s youth hostel is quite simply amazing - stunning location matched with recently refurbished rooms (we were in a "dormitory" of just two beds with its own ensuite) and a 5 star hotel style four storey glass elevator entry.

Munich is the number one tourist destintion in Germany and it shows; a short trip to Marienplatz in the city´s centre today left us battling crowds even as we took some happy snaps and grabbed a sausage on a roll (yum!). We also visited the Nazi concentraction camp at Dachau today which was the original concentration camp upon which all the other Nazi camps were modelled; truly a sobering reminder of very recent history.

Tomorrow is more sight seeing with us safe in the knowledge that the first of our Eurail trips are booked. Over the next few weeks we´re training it overnight to Berlin which should see us safely out of Germany before the Football World Cup hysteria completely takes control. Then on to Paris followed by Barcelona and Nice. After that we´re planning to take in Italy in a more leisurely style.

We´ve had some great luck finding that one of our room mates here in Munich is an Aussie girl, Paige, who we´ve enjoyed meeting and hanging out with. Her family lives in Brisbane, she lives in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, and of all things, she´s a dragon boat racer. What a small world! Paige is also heading to Berlin next (we´re sending her up as an advanced scouting party tomorrow) so we´ll all get a chance to cruise around the German capital together.

Some observations about Germany:

* I politely try to remember to always ask someone I approach if they speak English instead of just assuming that they will and the response is universal, "a little." In fact everyone seems to be almost fluent so perhaps this is just an example of German modesty. Almost all tourist oriented signs have both German and English anyway so its super easy to get around.

* Where was the famed German efficiency as we entered the EU though?! Having flown from India where we had walked around rural areas no doubt infected with some pretty nasty agricultural pests and diseases, there was no customs or quarantine when we entered the EU. Just a 10 second stamping of each of our passports and we were free to wander off without even being asked where we had travelled from, either verbally or by form. Hopefully a four hour layover in Heathrow dislodged the suspect soil from our shoes sufficiently that we won´t cripple the local farming industry.

* Similar to the Czech Replublic, you can buy beer just about anywhere. I just wish our beer budget was a bit higher :)

Now I´m off to rustle up some coins for the beer vending machine in the lobby of our hostel...

DM

Defining Delhi

We have come to a conclusion about Delhi - it is the L.A. of India.

Enough said.

Alyse rides an elephant!

Alyse on an elephant
Originally uploaded by Leden.

We finally found one! For something so big elephants can be surprisingly elusive. But fate was smiling on us as we left the Taj Mahal and Alyse fulfilled a dream and rode an elephant in India.

She looked like a queen up on its mighty back as I scrambled along side trying to capture the moment as half a dozen persistent children tried to sell me pens. One pen purchase and many photos later Alyse has a trip to remember.

DM

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal
Originally uploaded by Leden.

The Taj Mahal. What can you say? Its the most remarkable act of love I've ever witnessed - built by a Mogul to remember his favourite wife. It took 20,000 artisans something like 20 years to build and the incredible thing is that I'm amazed they built it so fast!

Its hard to get the entire Taj Mahal into a photo and still portray just how huge it is. The darker dot at the bottom middle of the central arch is an eight foot high door.

Overwhelming, but stunningly beautiful.

DM

Home Cookin' in Neemuch

Almost as often as we've heard "What country [are you from]?" and "What is your good name?" we've been asked what cities we're visiting in India. The locals nod along as we rattle off the usual tourist destinations of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Agra. They look a little surprised when we get to Bhavnagar (an industrial city with no real "sights"; we went there to check out Indian government research on Jatropha cultivation and biodiesel production method). And they look shocked and confused when we finally get to Neemuch. It's kind of like saying you're traveling to New York City, Miami, San Francisco, and Toledo. Or Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Ipswich.

"Neemuch?! Hot! Dry! Nothing for tourists!"

Well, I beg to disagree. We headed to Neemuch to meet with Jatropha seed suppliers, as Neemuch is India's number one trading center for wholesale herbs and spices. Our expectations were low for memorable moments, but we were so wrong.

Over the past two days, we've been treated to four home-cooked vegetarian meals, taken to two Hindu temples, offered a blessing (and several tasty snacks!) by a Hindu priest, ushered through India's largest grain and seed market, met with an influential district politician, and taken photos with seemingly every member of a 26-person family and 99-person family. Whew!

The three things that struck me most were: 1) the cooking in each home was quite different (the style of cooking depends largely on what region of the country the wife is from; we've now eaten authentic dishes from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh); 2) the food keeps on coming (soups, fruit, curries, breads, rices, chutneys, salads, crunchy snacks, mango desserts, and finally digestive-aiding juices) and the only way to stop them from giving you seconds, thirds, and fourths of everything is to turn your bowls upside-down; and 3) a LOT of time (two hours per meal) and effort goes into cooking these elaborate, fresh, meals two times a day for incredibly large families (extended family members often live together in adjoining homes all served by one kitchen).

The families we visited were so generous and eager to show us their homes, their family photos, and offer us anything but the kitchen sink if they thought we'd like to take it with us. We're trying to keep our packs light, but we couldn't say no to a bag of home-made hard mango candies, a few vials of pure aloe vera extract, a tube of aloe vera moisturizer, and a variety of after dinner sweet seeds.

While Neemuch may not rate highly (if at all) for independent tourists, we can definitely say that our two days there were a highlight of the trip so far. Indian hospitality rocks!

AM