wheresphil

Six months in Europe, March 2013 – anyone interested ?

The hunt for a contract job here in London is not going as well as I anticipated, not at all well in fact. I have applied for numerous roles and with one exception have not heard anything from the recruitment agencies. The one exception did put me forward for a role that I quite liked the sound of; but I was not successful unfortunately. There has not been one job advertised in the last week that suits my skills and experience – which is pretty bad, and the economic news is getting drearier by the day.

I am going to stick to the plan I decided on when I arrived in England in early December. If I have not found a job by the time I move out of the flat in Kensington on Jan 24 then I will start actioning plan B. What is plan B ? you may ask.

Well, I have no plan B. I do have a bunch of ideas and thoughts though, which is a start. I bought myself an A4 notepad at the weekend so I could scribble all sorts of things down. From the absurd to the realistic; what I like, what I don’t like, what I want to do, what I don’t want to do, where I want to live and where I don’t. If it is my head I want to try and remember to write it down. Once I move to London Bridge I will spend some time making sense of it all and will come up with a plan.

One option I am considering is saying to hell with my savings, spend the money and do Europe instead of getting a job – and then settling down after – probably 🙂

As I said in a post a while back, I do not want to do Europe on my own. If this interests you or you know of anyone who might be keen here is my current thinking;

I will buy a vehicle and want someone to share the driving and road costs.
I aim to free camp and use campsites as much as possible, occasionally staying in guest houses. I will sleep in a tent or the vehicle if free camping.
This will be a budgetish trip.
I want to do the more out of the way places first, for instance; if we run out of time then I would rather skip Rome than Tallinn.
I like history, architecture and big landscapes over beaches and bars – though I do like those as well 🙂
I aim to do as much as possible over six to seven months, at this stage I have no time restriction.
Destinations and time frames would be mutually agreed, this won’t just be my trip.
I am thinking of starting in March/April as I want to go to New Zealand for a visit first.

I am not going to invest a huge amount of time in planning this unless it becomes a reality, so please do not ask for detail as I do not have any. If you are interested I want your input into the plan. Well sort of plan – maybe all we need is a start date, I am not huge on plans !

I want someone for the whole thing, so you will need time and lots of money, Europe is not cheap !

If you or someone you know is interested in doing this, then please email or FaceBook message me rather than leave a comment. If you do not have my details then please leave a comment with your contact details and I will contact you without publishing the comment.

As I said at the start, this is an option I am considering, it is not a definite. There is a way to go before making it happen and heck, you never know I may land the perfect contract in the next couple of weeks !

Please wait here until you are useful. Thank you.

Saturday 05 January 2013 – Hackney, Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Brick Lane – London

London’s run of not too awful weather continued for a few more days so Saturday afternoon I met a friend up in Hackney to go hunt for some of the great street art that has been made in the area.

My friend knows the area quite well so it was more like a guided walk for me and it was a lot of fun – though I will never find some of the places we visited again, I should have paid more attention 🙂

We started in Hackney Central and walked down through London Fields to Broadway Market. The market is open on a Saturday and mainly sells food and drink, I had a nice risotto for lunch followed by a really nice proper Vietnamese coffee – complete with condensed milk, yum. The market and surrounding area is hipster central. Loads of skinny jeans, short beards and checked shirts, single speed bikes all over the place. Book shops and second hand shops lined the street around the market. I loved it here, in fact I was pretty much in love with all the places we passed, I could easily live here!

Now I have described it as hipster central, my photos show other wise, always happens.

There was a Stik next to the Vietnamese coffee stall.

The next stop was Regents Canal, there is a lot art and plain old graf along the tow path, it was a nice walk down to Victoria Park, the area has a kind of post-commercial bleakness to it, maybe bleakness is a bit strong, but it is a bit run down in parts, just my sort of thing. There were an awful lot of house barges as well, which will be a whole photo essay by itself one day.

I really like these small pieces by Bortusk Leer, there are loads of them all around here.

There was also an old Eric Monopoly as well.

After stopping for more coffee at another very hipster cafe we strolled down and around Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, Brick Lane and Shoreditch – I will confess to having no idea where one bit started and another stopped as I was too busy chatting and looking around at the sights – and spotting things to photograph.

I had one of lifes weird little experiences as we walked. A couple of years ago Sam, a friend of my daughter from Bristol came and stayed at my place in NZ while he was on his travels. He has been living in London for a while now and we have talked about catching up one day. I ran into him on the street. Very nice to see him and totally weird !!

There is some really good street art here, the area around Brick Lane is especially vibrant, I liked that some of the new boutiques have not cleaned up their walls.

Unfortunately we ran out of daylight so I didn’t get to photograph a ton of good stuff, but it does mean I get to go back sooner rather than later. It was a good afternoon !

After a quite delicious Vietnamese meal we went to look at a couple of Banksy’s and saw a guy painting on a wall outside a shop. We stopped to watch and say hello and it was Paul Don Smith, I said I had seen some of his work in Portobello Rd and we chatted for a while. He had recently been doing graffiti on a movie set for a coming Brad Pitt zombie movie – World War Z and was doing a small stencil for it. It was interesting to watch him at work.

I will be back for sure. A few of my favourite pieces.

This is my favourite ! Jana and JS

Ben Eine – according to a graffiti tour guide we overheard as he was leading a tour in Brick Lane he is the only British artist to ever have work hung in the White House…

Jimmy C, there was one amazing Jimmy C that was too dark to photograph – I just need to be able to find it again. His pictures are very detailed.

More street art. [edit] Hmmm, seems WordPress has changed and I cannot do a slide show any more. I don’t like the “gallery” mode, oh well. m[end edit]

Temples of Mammon

Thursday 03 January 2013 – London.

It was another reasonably fine day so it was a day to get out and explore a bit more of London. I decided to visit Canary Wharf; firstly as I thought it would be quieter on New Years week and secondly it is the centre for a lot of big business and a potential place of any future employment . So it seemed a good time to check it out, plus I have never been on the Docklands Light Railway!

I was completely wrong with “it would be quieter” ! Maybe not completely wrong, but the mall area where the lunch bars are located was just heaving with prople and as chaotic as any mall with New Year sales on. Ugly ! I did have a very nice laksa for lunch at Eat. I have lunched at three different Eats in the past couple of weeks and had three different types of international soup and they have all been pretty good value and very nice indeed. I think I will have a go at making laksa in the next few days.

Canary Wharf is a relatively new development, by that I mean it was built in the last twenty-thirty years and houses a lot of the big banks in its glass towers. From a distance it looks pretty good and it was not too bad close up either. What I like about it the most is rather than stick a whole bunch of modern high rises in the lovely low rise centre of London they have built it a few kilometres away and left the centre with its mainly old stone buildings alone. Wonderful forethought in central planning, something that Auckland City Council totally suck at !

One of the other council initiatives I like is “Boris’s Bikes”, Boris Johnson is the current mayor of London, love him or hate him, but he is into bicycles and was instrumental in the setting up of a hire bike system in London, which is loudly sponsored by Barclays Bank. There are bike racks everywhere and the bikes are cheap(ish) to rent. This is the first time I have seen a full rack.

I had a good walk around the area for an hour or so, it is not large, but it has been well designed and there is plenty of space between the towers and it is surrounded by water, from the Thames and canals. I could work there.

The temples of Mammon !

Back to the Tate Modern !

Wednesday 02 January 2013, London.

Wow, two posts in a row in a supposed period when not much was happening. Not that I did anything particularly post worthy, though I did leave the house with the trusty Canon in my bag and that is always a good start.

I wandered along the South Bank for a bit.

Found one piece of street art, not the most likely place for it, so a pleasant surprise.

And this very cool sculpture called “under the baobab tree”.

Of course a walk along the South Bank has to include a visit to the Tate Modern, and I was pleased to see some things I had missed last time I visited, or the permanent collection had changed a bit.

There are a few nice Picasso’s here and I particularly liked “Bowl of fruit, violin and bottle”.

And “nude woman with necklace”.

While I really enjoy all the carvings and sculptures I have seen in temples and cathedrals I have never been a fan of sculpture in a museum setting. However I did really like this Matisse, I am wondering if it is because of the Picasso influence on my tastes ?

Sadly the weather had turned when I left and I had a damp walk across the Millennium Bridge over the Thames in search of soup for lunch and a train home.

It was another good day !

A new year street art hunt

Tuesday 01 January 2013, London

Posting will be really sporadic for a while, I will only post when I have taken some photos or done anything that is even remotely interesting.

I guess the rolling over of another year, especially the successful rolling over of another year when the world was supposed to end, is worth recording.

New years eve was not exactly riveting, not that the last few have been either! I had been pondering walking down to one of the bridges over the Thames to watch the fireworks, but lost interest as it got closer to midnight and the thought of a forty five minute walk there and back in the cold just was not tempting enough. So I spent the night in as usual, though I did make it to midnight and watched the spectacular ten minute fireworks display on TV.

So, it is another new year, what does it hold for me ? at this stage who knows !

The first day of 2013 was by English winter standards, lovely, clear skies and not too cold – to start with anyway. I decided I had to go out and do something so caught the tube up to central London to watch the London New Year parade. I managed to get an OK spot, though the guy next to me kept up a non-stop inane monologue to his family that finally drove me to leave – and I had headphones on, he was loud too ! As it turned out virtually all my photos were crap, I was shooting at far too low a speed to get anything good and I deleted most of them as soon as I got home. A beginners mistake and I should have known better.

I loved this wee steam truck.

On my way out of the parades route and away from the supposed 500,000 people who came to see it, I came across this marching band getting ready to merge in, they played a more funky style of music to the traditional English style and were quite good.

I had decided to walk home via Portobello Rd.

I had visited there on a rainy Boxing Day to try and find the Rough Trade record store that is a feature in a book I bought myself with some money from my mum (thanks mum 🙂 ), however it had moved. So I did the smart thing and looked up the address this time and found it easily. Unfortunately it was closed !

The second reason I visited the area was to try and find some street art, as the west of London is slowly being gentrified the street art is slowly disappearing and is quite rare. I knew there were a couple of pieces around so was keen to find them, and I found more than I expected, including this lovely wall at Notting Hill, I do not know who the artist is but I loved it.

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Up Portobello Rd I found

A Banksy, yay 🙂

A CODE FC

An Alec Monopoly

A couple of Paul Don Smiths

This one commemorating the slaying of two police women last year.

And some others.

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I enjoyed the hunt, and seeing some of these pieces as I am sure they will not be there for long !

St Albans – A day trip

Monday 17 December 2012, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.

Well, I know I sort of wrapped up most of December in one post earlier in the week and hinted that I had not actually done a heck of a lot since, but I have not been a complete bed potato – I have no couch, so no couch potatoing!

Jackie was one of the great people I met on the Cape Town to Livingstone leg of my recent Africa trip and lives not too far from London. We had arranged to meet in the historic town of St Albans for a walk around and lunch.

One of thing I hadn’t mentioned in my wrap up was I had a bad head cold for most of a week, and the start of it was this day ! I work up with a very sore throat and had to spend some of my dwindling funds on various medicines as the cold worked its way from being a sore throat, through a very runny nose and down to a horrible chest cough. One medicine does not conquer all anymore !

I got the direct train from St Pancras to St Albans, very fast and very smooth, and only twenty or so minutes. St Albans is twenty or so miles from London and, I have said this before, I cannot believe how much green space there is between the city and the surrounding towns, for such a crowded country it is incredibly rich in green space – long may it continue!

Jackie picked me up from the station and we drove into town and a bit closer to the cathedral, it is a lovely clear day but quite cool.

We had a brief walk around some of the older parts of town and stopped for a look at the old clock tower, built in the early 1400’s, I loved the side door : )

Some of the houses are incredibly old, but still in use today, I have no idea of the history of this building but I really liked the way if kinda sags in the middle – I know how it feels, it must be middle aged !

We next had a look at the old great gateway of the long gone monastery, the gate was built in the 1360’s and has been used as a monastery, has housed the third oldest printing press, was a prison for three hundred years and has been part of a school since 1871. Amazing, I just so love these things.

From there we walked up to the cathedral and spent a good thirty or so minutes looking around. The cathedral was started in 1077 (Man that is old !!!) and has been in constant use ever since, it is a stunning building with some very well preserved sections. One of the things I do love about some of these old buildings, especially the churches / temples/ mosques, is that they have never stopped being used for their original purpose and visitors are welcomed.

The cathedral is huge, and standing in the oldest section and looking up the length I again marvelled at how places like this were built before the age of large cranes and other machinery.

There was some good detail in the cathedral, including some old wall paintings that I liked as they had not been restored, though I guess they will have to be at some stage !

I really liked this eighteen century poor box – that is of course, still in use.

After the cathedral we took a walk around the outside, Jackie had recently done a guided night walk here and pointed out some of the haunted houses, like this one next to the graveyard….

After a walk up to St Peters church at the other end of town we stopped in for a drink in a pub and then lunch at an Italian place before Jackie dropped me back off at the station and I returned home.

It was a really good outing, nice to catch up with Jackie and see somewhere new.

Mono @ The Village Underground in Shoreditch

I have been a fan of the Japanese post-rock band, Mono for quite a while now and have a few of their albums. They are currently touring their latest album “for my parents” which I own on lovely vinyl – though I have seen it yet as it was delivered to my nephew in New Zealand. I do of course have the download and while it is not my favourite album, I still love it and it got played an awful lot while I was on the truck in Africa.So, I was very excited to see that they were playing in London a couple of days after I arrived.

So, on 8 December I went to see them perform at The Village Underground in Shoreditch. I arrived at the venue about thirty minutes after the doors opened and was disappointed to see there was already a good sized crowd in front of the stage, which meant I was going to be a good five rows back, which also meant it would suck for photos. This was a lesson learnt, get to a gig on time. In fact a further lesson was learnt the following week when I decided to go and see another band, Male Bonding at a pub in Hackney – it was sold out! I am glad I checked first, but from now on I will book tickets first and then get there early.

The venue itself is fabulous, I would estimate it held about three hundred, high ceilings and brick walls with arched entrances to the bar area. I loved it. The sound was not too bad at the front, but very good at the back, it was sold out.

I bought a drink and made my way as close as I could get to the stage to see the support band, “Physics House Band. There were not really my style, like Mono they were an instrumental act, but too funky for my liking. Though the drummer was phenomenal.

Mono played for about an hour and a half and a mix of tracks off of “for my parents” and the previous album “hymn to the immortal wind”. They did not play either of my two most liked songs “com(?)” or “16.12”, but they did play “pure as snow” which is close behind.

Someone who got there before me, and had his camera in front of me all night, you can see him in some of my photos. I could not get a shot of the far guitarist as there were some tall people in the way, gutting. Not bad video though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQajzFOlhq4

It was all lit in red or blue with strong down spots so I shot everything in B and W. Being five rows back and to one side was pretty hopeless, and there was no way I was going to get any closer. I took a few photos and then put my camera away after Pure as Snow and went to the back and stood on some steps and just enjoyed the music.

They were really good, a great show !

A year on the road, wrapped up.

Thursday 27 December 2012 – Kensington, London

I am pretty sure that when I started my travels twelve months ago today I was not expecting to be still on the road, at the time I remember thinking that I would be home well inside a year, even though I was planning on a two year trip. Though, I guess in some ways I am not really on the road anymore, and some could argue that I am home – considering I was born here in England. However, as the old adage goes, “home is where the heart is” and as far as countries go that will always be New Zealand. It is also where most of my family are and they are always in my heart, I miss my boys and my mum and my sisters and their families. But, I have elected to stay in London for a while, try to find a six month contract job and then a year later than planned tour Europe next summer, so yeah I guess still on the road is a slight exaggeration!

I can definitely say I have had the most awesome year, not too many lows and I won’t go into them here, but so many highs. I have seen and experienced so many things, some on my must do list and some that just happened because, well because they happened, the beauty of not having a plan.

But firstly, in case no-one makes it the end of the post, I want to say thanks to a few people….

Alex who, firstly – made me do my dive certificate before I left NZ – very good advice!, secondly – introduced me to Borneo, Malay food and really to Asia and thirdly – told me about the Thaipusam festival.

To all the people I travelled with or shared a meal and drinks with, Jay (Jerome) in Borneo and Cheeba in Cambodia. Giovanni ( who I first met at Thaipusam), Bob, Paulo, Richard and Blathnaid in Myanmar and the bug eating in Bangkok. Daniella, Laura and Mike in Pakse, Laos, David and Debbie in other parts of Laos and Catherine and Daniel on Perhentian Kecil. A massive thanks to Mike who I spent most of a month travelling with in Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, we had so many good times ! In many ways you all saved/made the trip for me, occasionally I really struggled travelling on my own and hanging out with you guys was such good fun and saved me from going crazy…

To Dan and Van for inviting me to the wedding in Vietnam, that was one fun week! Leonie for good times in HMC and Africa.

To my family in England who put me up for a few nights, fed me and listened to my stories between trips.

Emily for the week in Paris, the massive walks and all that eating.

To Ian who let me stay for so long in Spain and for the house painting work, a much needed respite from travel and much appreciated.

To Mal and Sal, the Bland family and Garry and Chris. Mal, for asking me to be the support person for his epic epic 1014km Coastal Path Run – I was chuffed to be asked. And to the others who I met and spent some considerable time with on the way. Double thanks to Tom and Garry for giving their time and resources to support me on my 50th birthday run, which was really appreciated.

To my daughter Mel and her awesome friends and flatmates who made me so welcome, and not made me feel like a fusty old man, when I went to Bristol, especially my birthday dinner- that was choice !

To Will, Brett, Ebron and all my tour mates on the good truck Malakai over my nine weeks in Africa.

To Kevin and Phil for helping me out with accommodation now I have arrived back in London.

To all the people in NZ who I think about all the time, who send me emails and messages and remind me about what I miss about home the most.

Sorry if I have forgotten anyone else, it has been a big year.

So finally to some of the highlights, in no particular order.

Diving and snorkelling – everywhere, but especially Semporna in Borneo, El Nido and Malapascua in the Philippines and Perhentian Kecil in Malaysia.

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Seeing my two favourite animals, orang-utans in Borneo right at the start and gorillas in Rwanda, right at the end.

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Plus all the other animals I have seen.

The people, Thaipusam in Kuala Lumpur, the most intense place I have ever been, especially the night session.

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The kids all over Africa.

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Coast Path run with Mal and Tom. Two incredible men doing an incredible feat – running 1014kms in 17 days.

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Achieving my own incredible feat of running 55kms for my 50th birthday, and the training in the hills above Alcaucin in southern Spain.

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Bowling with David and Debbie in Vientiane, Laos – an unexpected thing to do and a good night out.

Some of the most fabulous places,

U Beins bridge in Mandalay, Myanmar

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Bagan in Myanmar and riding bikes around all the temples.

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Never being templed out in Siem Reap, even after six days, so many highlights, Beng Mealea.

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Taking a day trip up to Preah Vehear in Cambodia, a disputed temple on the Thai border and being shown around by soldiers.

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I have even thought about the amazing working temples I have seen everywhere in SE Asia, nor the stunning mosques in Brunei and Malaysia and the castles and churches in England and Europe, crikey!

Diving in the Perhentians and the beach bum lifestyle.

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A week in Paris and seeing the Mona Lisa – from a distance..

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Wandering the alleys of Barcelona.

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Wandering the deserts of Namibia.

Running the hills above Alcaucin in Spain.

Eating everywhere !

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So many things, I am sure I have missed a hundred great experiences in this quick wrap up.

It has been a fabulous year, I have seen so much, experienced so much, met so many challenges, conquered a couple of fears and met some awesome people. My one regret was doing so much of it on my own, next time I travel I want to do it with a companion, I just need to meet one!

December, well most of it anyway.

27 December 2012 – Kensington, London, England

I have not achieved a lot or taken too many photographs since I arrived in England so I am just going to summarise the whole last three and a bit weeks in one, probably too long, post.

One year ago today I left New Zealand to start my travels, I cannot believe a year has gone so quickly – or that I lasted so long, largely outside my comfort zone. I remember telling people I would blog my travels, but to be perfectly honest I never actually expected to be writing, almost daily, twelve months later.

Until I get back onto the road again, my posting will definitely become more sporadic, unless I do or see something worth recording. I have now accepted that if there is nothing to say then I may as well not say it.

Right where was I…. Oh yep, back at the start of the month.

I had an opportunity to stay in Africa for a bit longer but I wanted to come back to England to see my daughter before she and her boyfriend went to India for three months, just in case I decided to go back to New Zealand while they away and I missed her. They left England on the sixth so I had arranged to meet them in Swindon on the fifth. I was up early on the day and looked out the window and there was snow on the ground – not a lot, but definitely snow, I was very excited !

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Though less so when I got to Dartford train station and had to wait for a train : )

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The trip to Swindon went without a hitch and I met Mel and Dickie at the station. We had lunch in a pub and then went and saw Skyfall, the new James Bond movie, which we all really enjoyed. After the movie Dickie went to a family dinner and Mel and I went to a couple of pubs and had a drink or three and some more food. It was very very nice to see her again and I am so glad I came back in time to catch them before they left. Stupidly I lugged my camera around, but did not take any photos.

The following day I met up with my friends Phil and Kevin. I am moving into Phils room in his flat in Kensington while they are in Sri Lanka until the end of January – taking a long break away from the cold – I don’t blame them. We went for a full day breakfast lunch, I soooooo miss a proper greasy spoon full English, I even ate the black pudding- which was a first!

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The next day I moved into the flat. I have a great large room, with a good working desk, as it is a basement flat I have a garden outside my window which is lovely. I also have a decent spec laptop with a keyboard I can type on, nice to not be using my little travel netbook, though it has been a faithful and fabulous travel companion, plus it had Lightroom on it, and it looks like I was editing photos from the Mono gig !

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Location wise, it is perfect – two hundred metres from Shepherds Bush tube station and an hour stroll into Trafalgar Square. Conveniently it is also close to some friends of mine as well.
I worked out a great little run up Kensington High Street, through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and back down through Notting Hill. Such famous places ! I am feeling incredibly unfit at the moment, the food, drink and sitting in a truck round Africa has certainly let me get a bit soft round the middle and the runs have been a real struggle. I can barely do an hour, and to think three months ago I did fifty five kilometres…

I have taken a few trips around London, I caught the train up to Camden markets as I needed to get a couple of bits of clothing, but nothing appealed to me there and I left a bit disappointed – mainly in myself as I suck at shopping. I loved the brothel creepers but would never where them. I ended up in the mall near where I live…

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But mainly I walk as much as I can, London is easy to walk around and I need the exercise and want to spend as little as I can. The first week was bitterly cold and a walk up through the royal parks was beautiful but frosty !

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Visited Wellington and his boots.

I wandered up past Buckingham Palace – that place is huge…

Along Whitehall

Past the Institute of Contemporary Arts (it was closed).

And into the National Portrait Gallery, where I visited a really good photography exhibition. I am not normally a fan of portraits, but some of these were excellent. The gallery is just off Trafalgar Square. There are plinths with statues on each of the four corners of the square, the fourth plinth has an ever changing piece on it – and I really liked it !

I have also finally managed to drag myself into New Zealand House to get a certified copy of my passport so I can send all the forms off to NZ to get a replacement to the drivers licence I lost in Laos way back in May! NZ house is possibly the ugliest building in historic central London.

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I also visited Piccadilly circus while I was there.

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I quite often walk up to High St. Kensington, there is an organic coffee shop that I quite like there – and one day I was sitting at a table next to Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitarist. I should have said hello! I also love the old buildings around Kensington – as well as the rest of London of course.

I love that Denton have been making hats since 1703 !!!

I have also visited the Natural History Museum which was holding an exhibition of the Wildlife Photographer of the year winners works. WOW !! I really did feel inadequate when I saw the work on display. A lot of the pictures were taken on Canon 5d MK2s so maybe it is simple as an upgrade from my MK1 – I wish!
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There was no photography allowed of course, which was cool, but you are allowed to take photos in the rest of the museum. I didn’t really enjoy it that much, lots of dead versions of things I had recently seen running around in the wild, so it was all a bit sterile. I did like the Dodo…

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And dead things in jars.

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And it was good to see an original print of Charles Darwins “The origin of Species”, and of course there was a statue of the great man himself.

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I went to the dinosaur exhibit but it was packed of children and adults wielding prams as dangerous weapons so I got frustrated and left!

I guess time passes this guy quite slowly.

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On the walk back home I passed the Royal Albert Hall.

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And I liked this house with its old and new cars.

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There are so many contrasts around here, old and new, rich and not so rich, English and foreign all mixed up in a big mess that seems to work just fine. I do love it here. When I came to England I really wanted to avoid getting stuck in London again, and damn it I think I will be, I have stopped looking for jobs outside already. This is such a magnetic city.

I was lucky to have some friends from New Zealand here playing tourist for a few days, great to see old friends after time on the road and David is one of my oldest. We went to see Madness at the 02 Arena. It was huge ! I go to lots of gigs but always in small venues, I think this was the biggest place I have been to since I saw U2 at Wembley stadium in 1986 !

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I also haven’t seen Madness since they came to NZ in the very early 1980’s so it was a lot of fun, and they really did put on a good show, marred by appalling sound where we were sitting right up the back.

Apart from seeing Mono – which I will write about separately, I have not done a lot else with my camera. The last couple of weeks have seen leaden grey skies with showers and rain so do not venture to far. I have been trying to get into some sort of working routine with getting up early and sitting at the desk working on the computer, it hasn’t always been successful of course. But it does save me money.

I have applied for seven jobs and not heard a thing from any of the recruiters, it was expected but still disappointing. I am yet to be disheartened though, I will save that for mid-January ! there is not a lot happening on the job front now until after the new year when I will hit it with renewed vigour. I have given myself until I move out of here to find a job and will then re-assess the situation then.

I was going to spend Christmas with family up in Brentwood in Essex, not too far away, but too far when there is no public transport, which is the case on Christmas Day. I was very fortunate to get invited to share Christmas with Pip and Lyall and some other Christmas “orphans” at Pip’s sister place in Chiswick. I used to work with Pip a few years ago and they live about a fifteen minute walk from me. It was a great Christmas and I naturally ate way too much food and enjoyed the red wine a lot as well.

And that pretty much wraps up the last few weeks, and almost 2012 as well.

And so ends another adventure, goodbye to Africa.

Days 331-334 Saturday-Tuesday 01-04 December 2012 – Kigali, Rwanda – Dartford, England.

I was up early on Saturday as I wanted to do a test pack and make sure I can fit all the things I wanted to take back to England with me into my pack. It’s not that I bought much, just I had exploded everything all over the truck. It did fit, just ! I donated a few clothing items to the church orphanage and all my left over travel stuff to my kiwi friends as they were carrying on all the way back to Cape Town. Part of me is incredibly jealous and part of me is happy to be leaving Africa, worrying about finding a job and what I will do in the future has been weighing heavily on me lately.

We left at 9:00 for the two hour ride back to Kigali. As I have said before Rwanda is an incredibly beautiful country.

However, it does have a tragic history. There has been a long history of conflict, primarily between the Hutu and Tutsi people. This was not necessarily a racial conflict, more political and economic, troubles escalated in the early nineties culminating in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This was a hundred day massacre of tutsi and moderate hutus buy the majority hutu populace. In that hundred days between half a million and a million people were killed, up to 20% of the population. The streets of Kigali apparently ran red with blood. The UN stood by and watched. Like other parts of Africa, things are complicated in this region and while there is no trouble in Rwanda, there is in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Rwandan government is alleged to be involved in this by supporting rebels.

Our first stop in Kigali was the Genocide Museum, where there are mass graves of those who died in Kigali. The museum is very good, very moving and tells, I think mostly, an honest tale of the events that led up to and beyond the genocide. It also had a section on other genocidal acts, including one on the Armenian genocide that occured during the first world war in Turkey. It has been largely ignored in the west, even though up to one and a half million ethnic Armenians died.

This was the last official activity of the trip and soon after lunch we were outside my hotel, Chez Lando saying good bye to the crew – Will, Brett, Ebron, Gary and the truck Malakai. I will miss them all, it was one of the best 63 days ever.

There are five us here for the Saturday night so we all reconvened in the bar later for dinner and drinks, dinner service was sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow !

Sunday
Last night we all agreed to meet for the complimentary breakfast at 9:00 so the possibility of a monster lie in was there. But sadly sleep was bad and I was awake and reading well before I needed to be. Damn my neighbour and his turning the TV on full blast at 3:30 AM. For the first time in ages I actually got my book and read in the middle of the night.

Breakfast was not bad, lots of it and scrambled eggs and meatballs was not a combination I had tried before! The others all went to Hotel Rwanda for lunch but I elected to stay behind and do as much blogging as possible. Which turned out to be none at all! I did do loads of emails and even applied for three contract jobs in the UK – at least I felt I achieved something!

I farewelled the others (Sharon, Kathy, Will, Maria and Chantil) at 2:00 as they got on the airport transfer bus from the hotel. I didn’t achieve a lot more in my day after that and went to Hotel Rwanda myself at 5:30. I intended on staying there for a couple of hours over a glass of red or two followed by dinner, but the place was deserted, the wifi was not free and the lights were so dim I could not read my Kobo. I had a wine and an early dinner and went back to the Chez Lando and ultimately an early night.

Monday

I had another lousy sleep, I am not sure what the cause is, but I seem to sleep badly when I am in a bed – must have gotten to used to the tent and my sleeping bag liner! What ever the cause I will be trying to get into see a doctor when I get to the UK and get a prescription for some more Zopiclone – though I have not used them for close to two months now, maybe a time to get some new sleep habits – who knows. Once I am settled in the flat it will be time to get diet and exercise sorted out anyway, I have been really slack for weeks, too much good food and cheap beer – again.

I must had dropped off for a snooze very early in the morning as I only just woke in time to Skype my mum and sons at 7:30, whew – it was good to see them again and equally good that they are well.

Breakfast was spent eavesdropping on the conversations of the various NGO groups that appeared to fill the hotel restaurant, I could not hear the conversations, and many were in other European languages that I do not understand, but they all seemed so earnest and I imagined they were fresh to Rwanda. Part of me was envious of their opportunity, but mostly I was happy knowing I was leaving for a while.

I spent the rest of the morning before the 11 am check out on the internet and reading my book before packing my bags and catching a ride to Kigali airport. I was an hour earlier than I needed to be, but no point in hanging around the hotel.

I flew Qatar Air, I have never flown with them before, so a new experience, but it is supposed to be a very good airline. The first leg of the flight was to Entebbe airport in Uganda.

The flight to Entebbe quite good, a wee bit bumpy but the plane was almost empty, and we had stunning views out over Lake Victoria.

2012-12-03 15.21

I was very interested in going to Entebbe, I still remember the events there in 1976 when Israeli commandos stormed a hi-jacked airliner and freed almost all the hostages, it was hugely dramatic at the time.

2012-12-03 15.45

I stayed on the plane at Entebbe as the new passengers filed in on and we were full through to Doha in Qatar. I had a three hour lay over in Doha, too long – but not long enough ! It was a very expensive airport and very busy, even at 2:00 AM. There was a lot of people marching up and down the terminal, I sat and watched them for a long while until I got bored and went for a walk around. I was not tempted by the shopping though : )

2012-12-04 00.52

The flight to London was a further five hours, I did get two seats to myself which was pretty good as again the flight was quite full. We arrived in London at 7:00 am on Thursday 4 December – and my African adventure was over – for now !

I took the tube into London and then a train up to Dartford where I was staying with my Uncle Jim again, it, it was rush hour, so no fun at all.

I did get out in the afternoon, down into town, bought a scarf and some slippers and got a hair cut. And that was pretty much it.