The sly allusion in the second-last paragraph refers to Megan. More on Megan when we get to Budapest, but for now: I met her in Gdansk.

Right, I’m going to try and write slightly less in these, as heaven knows you’re all busy people – especially this time of year, what with all that buying presents and eating cake.

So, since I left Vilnius I’ve spent the last two weeks or so Poland. First port of call was Warsaw, which is a very odd city to visit. Warsaw has been talked down to me so many times that I was prepared for the worst – dull, dirty and depressing was the impression that I had, and I was quite happy to believe it. I n the event, I was happily surprised. Part of the pleasure, of course, was that the city was buried under a chunky couple of inches of snow, which could only delight the child in my soul. But besides that, the city itself is quite interesting. The overwhelming majority is large and modern – almost ultra-modern, in fact, as Warsaw was clearly and obviously far wealthier than many of the other European capitals I had visited so far. At the Warsaw Uprising, towards the end of WW2, Hitler basically numbered the buildings of Warsaw in order of their cultural importance to the Poles, before detonating them with teutonic efficiency; thus, most of Warsaw has no truck with any of this ‘classical architecture’ malarky, giving the casual visitor the slightly unsettling feeling that he or she has wondered accidentally into some transported American or Australian city centre. There is a reconstructed Old Town, which has actually been rebuilt with a degree of sympathy, which is quite refreshing.

Some other things about Warsaw: it’s slightly post-Soviet, it has the largest outdoor market in Europe, and does a zesty business in illegal gun smuggling.

From Warsaw to Gdasnk, which used to be called Danzig until the Australians got to it (“G’dansk, yer flamin’ gallah!” It’s a bad pun but I won’t apologise). Gdansk is a nice place. It’s very pretty, very peaceful and quite boring. That last is unfortunate – Gdansk is attatched to all sorts of important historical happenings (it was the seat of the Hanseatic League, housed the Knights Templar, and was more recently the birthplace of Solidarnosc, the trade union movement that was probably most directly responsible for the downfall of the Soviet Union), but none of them are really in evidence there. Most places tend to wear their histories on their sleeves, but not so Gdansk. I’m reading Gunther Grass’ The Tin Drum right now, which was set in Danzig, and am finding it far more interesting than actually visiting the city itself was.

One other thing about Gdansk: you can fly there for 1p + tax with Ryannair. Many British people do this.

So now I’m in Krakov. I was going to stop for a while in Poznan on the way south but didn’t for numerous reasons, some of which are pragmatic (I’m running out of time and money, and Istanbul is still a long way away), some less so (but a gentleman does not talk of such things). I’ll be here for a week, in which I hope to see Auschwitz and the Salt Mines, plus many other things, while hopefully not getting totally rained on.

Hope you’re all well and funky!

Two things: I was unfair to Vilnius here, and I never found out what happened to Matt the Australian. Oh, and I’d forgotten about the Navy SEAL guy! That night was so awesome. Oh, one last thing – Girls Aloud are still awesome. FACT.

So, since my last email, I’ve nearly been mugged, helped an Australian with his love-life, joined in a celebration of the overthrow of the Soviet Union and, for the first time since leaving England, lost something. Read on!

The reason why this update has been so delayed is because I wanted to do an overview of the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As I leave this evening for Gdansk in Poland, this seems like as good a time as any to get that done.

The first stop on this leg of the tour was Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. Tallinn is a city that is basically schitzophrenic. In the centre is the Old Town, a perfectly-preseved monument to Estonia circa the fifteenth century. Preserved is perhaps not the right word; Tallinn’s Old Town is not really preserved at all, in as much as the crumbling walls and condemned derelicts are still very much in evidence. In many respects it felt to me more like the Spanish and Portugese towns that my dad took me to for family holidays when I was younger. My overwhelming memory of those towns was they they, too, were old and decaying; not so much through caustic neglect or malice, but just because the focus of the world had moved on to other places, and neither the time, nor the money, nor the inclination existed to stop the rot. But Tallinn shouldn’t really be subject to that reasoning. Since it seceded from the Soviet Union, sometime between 1989 and 1991, Tallinn has been a boom town, as is evidenced when you cross into New Town. The change is marked enough that it could be delineated by a line. On the other side you find the shopping malls, sky scrapers, the teams that made both Kazaa and Skype, and the hoards of financiers, innovators and tourist board officials that have given Estonia the fastest-growing economy in Europe. Personally, I like their approach. By seemingly choosing not to artificially extend the life of the Old Town, but concurrently refusing to overrun it with modern developments, Tallinn’s city planners have managed to retain a kind of authenticity that is utterly absent from, say, Paris or Brugge. On the other hand, this status quo won’t last forever, which is one reason why I feel fairly privileged to have seen Tallinn now. Which I suppose was the point.

But, yes, while I was there, Tallinn did end up with one thing in common with Paris – it was a city in which I nearly got mugged. As I was just entering a museum, a pair of skinhead yoot’s accosted me and asked me for some money. When I refused, the more articulate of the two said “Well, what if we rob you?” “What?” I said – because that’s always a good thing to say when you’re stalling for time – “What if we rob you!” he howled, while his friend behind him pulled a chain taut in his hands and waved it menacingly. I gave them my best look of scorn and derission – the raised eyebow, sneery mouth, the works – then just opened the door and went into the museum. What were they going to do, follow me in there? Or maybe pull me back out, bodily? They were absolutely the shittest muggers ever. They were only about 15 as well. Poor dears, I can believe that they didn’t even want the money for drugs, but rather just to boost their Pokemon card collection. They were rubbish.

While there, I randomly bumped into Matt, and Australian guy I had previously met in Stockholm. So I basically hung out with him and this other Canadian guy called Peter. One night we went out to a restaurant – a traditional Estonian restaurant – run by this guy who had done just about everything. He had been in the US special forces (his family fled Estonia for New York in the 50s), had written a book, was a prolific painter (Jimmy Carter had had one of his painting on the wall in the residence of the West Wing), and led his own band, covering fifties and sixties rock ‘n’ roll, which played most nights in this restaurant, which he owned, along with a farm outside of the city, which he tended to himself by hand. He was married to a ballett dancer. So we spent the evening chatting to him and at the end he gave us a CD of his music, whoch basically consisted of Estonian translations of Janis Joplin and the like. I still have it, purely because it contains an Estonian language cover of Gampie’s classic smash hit “Alice? Who the f*** is Alice?”, potentially sung by a bunch of old dudes on accoustic guitars. That would be hilarious.

Well, after a few days, Matt and I decided it was time to leave Tallinn. As we were both headed towards Riga (Latvia, yo) we decided to join forces and form a super-awesome coach-travelling rock team. A couple of words about Matt: he’s tall, Australian and had been in Tallinn for nearly ten days (I got bored after three) because he met a girl and didn’t want to leave. The most he got for his trouble was a ‘frenchie’ (as we used to say, classily, in high school), but she was apparently on the rebound and – hey, I didn’t really care about the details, I can’t believe you do either. I mention this only because it was all he talked about between Tallinn and Riga. That’s a five hour bus trip, so after about an hour I decided that the delecate vocal harmonies of Girls Aloud was probably preferable to any more talk of Tiine and suchlike. I’ve decided that What Will The Neighbours Say was actually a really good album, and should probably get Chemistry when I get back home. Pop-tastic!

Riga is the opposite of Tallinn. It is a city that makes no distinction between old and new whatsoever. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Riga is my least-favorite Baltic city, simply because it appears to have no identity of its own. It has precious few musea and art galleries, a below-par selection of historic buildings (although those that did remain were lovely), and an altogether too high incidence of English stag parties. I was, however, lucky enough to arrive in Riga just in time for Latvia’s Independence Day, which is held every year on Nov 18th, the day on which Latvia formally became independent of Imperial Russia in 1918, and became a republic for the first time (although the more recent independence, in 1991, also comes under the remit of the festivities). There were fireworks and parades and such, and generally a good atmosphere, in spite of Latvia having a 30% Russian population. So I hung around for that, but not much longer.

After Riga, Matt and I parted companies. It took me three or four days but I finally pursuaded him to go back to Tallinn and see if his ‘thing’ went anywhere. I did this for two reasons – firstly, because the romantic in me sincerely wishes for him to succeed, settle down in Estonia and raise a hoard of unnaturally tall half-Australian kids, and secondly because the cynic in me finds the entire situation to be utterly comical, and realises that the story would not make for a good anecdote unless he hurried back to declare his undying love. Does this make me a bad person? Not that I really care, I’d just like to be clear on the subject.

Sooo, I left Riga, and realised that I had LOST MY SCARF. This irritated me to no end as I really liked that new scarf, and had, contrary to all expectations (my own included!), failed to loose anything at all on the trip thus far. So I bought a new one. Uh, sorry, I guess that’s not interesting. Move on!

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and it’s a little bit like bacteria, in that it may seem unpleasant at first but then it grows on you. Unlike Tallinn and Riga it is resolutely un-modern; in fact, it seems to have progressed very little since the Soviet era, despite being the first of the three to overthrow the yoke. It is still very religious; on a Sunday, the streets are empty, apart from those housing one of the (many) Russian Orthodox churches, which are never large enough to house all those who want to get inside them. Strange to think that this was a country that once had an empire that stretched from the Baltics to the Black Sea. While I was here, I also went out to a town called Siailuai, near which is a monument called the Hill of Crosses. During the Soviet occupation, the Lithuanian peasants would leave crosses on this hill, commemorating the dead, deported and disappeared. Come the day, the Soviet forces would bulldoze the crosses, but at night the Lithuanians would come back, under the cover of darkness, and plant more. Since the end of the occupation, there has been no-one to bulldoze the crosses any more, but the Lithuanians still keep adding to the collection; now, the hill and surrounding countryside is covered in thousands upon thousands of crosses, dense-packed one atop the other. It’s unlike any other monument I’ve ever seen; there are no souvineer booths, no tickets, not even any toilets. To get there, you must travel three hours from Vilnius, then take an (irregular) local bus ten miles out of town, to this patch of rural farmland ungraced by either building or animal; THEN you have to walk for twenty minutes, and unless you’re driving, that walk in unavoidable. All this because it’s not an ‘attraction’, per se. It exists for the same reason as it always existed, for little old Lithuanian grandmothers to hobble along the path and leave a cross, remembering those who are gone – and, now, to be greatful that their sons and grandsons won’t be taken to someone else’s arbitrary war, that their husbands won’t be kidnapped for political dissent, and that they will probably have enough food to feed themselves in the morning. It is a humbling place, but it highlights the difference between Lithuania and the other two: it is still attatched to its past. While the other two have forgiven their history, and have modernised to meet the future, Lithuania is still busy mourning for its past.

I should point out that, while I have spent a lot of time in ‘Resistance’ musea over the last few days, I’m trying to avoid getting too indoctrinated in the anti-Soviet bias that historical documentary takes here – despite whatever the previous paragraph may suggest. It seems relatively certain that a great many atrocities took place, but alas, I’m not going to be able to make it into Russia – getting a visa is just too damn challenging – so I can’t really get any kind of balanced view on the subject. Lithuania has had a troubled past either way – it was historically very important, but has dwindled into utter obscurity, and t-shirts bearing the legend “I’ve been to Lithuania! … Where the f*** is Lithuania?” are sold with a touch of bitterness. Caught between Russia and Germany was never a comfortable place to be. It is a resolutely depressing place. I’m glad I came but will be equally glad to leave.

I suspect that I may have rambled long enough. As previously mentioned, Poland is the next port of call, and hopefully the next update will be delivered in a more timely fashion. Hope you’re all well, and look forward to hearing any news you may have.

Scandinavia was beginning to bore me?! Good lord, whatever next.

Well, it seems that the drizzle in one Baltic country is the same as the drizzle in any other Baltic country. The drenching I got in Oslo seems to think that it’s funny to follow me through Sweden, Finland and now even to Estonia, where the sky remains resolutely grey and morose.

But enough of that – I’m in Estonia! This is delightful for two reasons: firstly, Scandinavia was starting to bore me, I felt like I was getting bogged down, and wanted a change of scenery, ex-Soviet style; and secondly, I can get an all-you-can-eat lunch here for roughly one pound twenty. Hoorah, I can once more afford to eat!

So, what happened after my last email… I spent a couple of extra days in Stockholm, a city which I’ve decided to marry if ever it becomes legal to join oneself in holy matrimony to a metropolitan sprawl. I didn’t do much else, to be honest – took a couple of photos that had been previously denied to me when my last batch of films ran out, ate with people I met at the hostel, and generally relaxed and recuperated. On the evening of the second day I caught the ferry to Helsinki.

Now, I’m not a fan of boats at the best of times. Hell, truth be told, I have a peculiar aversion to most forms of long distance travel, but there’s something about boats, especially those massive ocean-going liners, that really strikes the dread into me. And this ship was BIG, let me tell you, rising as high as nine or ten stories out of the water, which itself was a reason for worry; I’m no marine architect, but I’m pretty sure that when something’s height exceeds its width by such a vast amount, its stability can basically go bye-bye, and even if that ISN’T the case, then surely it would need a bigger draw under the water to compensate? And how deep is the harbour, anyway? So it couldn’t have been THAT much… these, friends, were the thoughts that were going through my head as I boarded this monstrosity. They left as soon as I was on board, though. From the moment I got on board until the moment I left, I was thinking only about how I would escape in the event of a disaster, how much time I would have, and whether it was sensible to go to sleep or not. It was a 16 hour overnight journey, so the answer was definately “yes,” but in the event it was academic. My cabin (free, “thanks” to Interrail) was on Deck 2, the bottom deck – and, coincidentally, the deck on the exact level of the waterline against the prow of the ship. And, as my cabin was against the hull at the front, I heard every wave – and when a November wave in the Baltic Sea it’s the prow of a ship, it does not do so with a gentle little ‘swoosh,’ oh no. It goes: BANG, BANG, BANG, I WANT TO GET IN THERE AND MAKE YOU DROWNDED, BANG! So needless to say, sleep was not an issue for me that night, and very glad I was to see Helsinki the following morning as well.

Helsinki is a nice place. It reminds me a lot of Copenhagen – it’s slightly bigger, not quite as pretty, but probably more interesting at night. It does have a very interesting set of island fortresses protecting the harbour, built back in the day to protect against the oncoming Russians, but which are now marine training facilities and UNESCO listed Heritage sites. It also had some amazing buildings, displaying the range of its influences to the fullest extent. While there was an obvious degree of Soviet intervention in many of the buildings, there was also an interesting mix of modern Scandinavian and classical Slavic construction on display as well, and all arranged in a fashion that was quite unique. Interestingly, the city seemed to have grown around its docks, rather than its train station. Those with longer memories will remembered how upset I was that Brussels didn’t seem to have a river; cities, in my experience, tend to all observe certain rules, regardless of location and political affiliation, and one of them is that they are always built on water. Another, more modern one, is that the train station is always the oldest, and usually the poorest, part of town; it is here that you will find most of the people, but also the kebab shops, the sex shows, the slums. Not so Helsinki – this was a city defined by its docks, and the area around the train station was actually quite gentrified. While it was a nice place with a lot of charm and character, it didn’t have much by way of diversions, so I stayed there for a few nights then moved on.

As if to prove that I am a man who seeks to face down and conquer his fears, I took the boat from Helsinki to Tallinn, and while I did indeed fret for a lot of the way, the worst thing that happened to me was that I lost my lunch due to the choppy seas. Tallinn seems like a lot of fun, if slightly odd. In many respects, it feels like a mediterranian city – Spanish, maybe – and of all the cities I’ve seen, it most embraces its medieval, fortress past, while lurching brakeneck into the globalised, capitalist future. This is just a first impression, though. I shall see how it looks again in daylight.

Sister Sash tells me that the Ice Hotel is a no-goer, as it’s all booked up like whoa. This is a blow, for two reasons – firstly, for its own sake, as I was really looking forward to it; and secondly, because it means I miss out on Northern Scandinavia, which I had intended to do seperately when I came back. But such is life – I intent to return to Norway on a hiking excursion anyway, so I’ll get my opportunity, I’m sure. Now I just need to find something else to cash in my birthday credit for. Decisions decisions!

Right, gotta go eat. Keep well, and let me know your news!

This is another one of those “Josh was grouchy so he made a place sound worse than it was” posts. Ignore that guy; Bergen and Oslo are both wonderful places.

I have not had a good few days.

Let’s begin at the end – I’ve just spent the last 26 hours hanging around Oslo train station. The reasoning behind this is that the night train I was supposed to get on Saturday night was cancelled, and this saturday night also happened to be the night that some football cup final fell upon, so all the city’s hostels and cheap hotels were full of beered up Norwegians. So I got to Oslo at 6pm, took about seven hours to come to the conclusion that I was not going to be spending my night comfortably, and took stock. My Game Boy and iPod had both run out of batteries on the seven-hour train journey from Bergen, I didn’t want to withdraw cash as this was supposed to be my last hurrah in Norway, and my only book was The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevski, which I’m really enjoying but can be kinda dense after midnight has been and long since gone. The internet cafes all closed at midnight; I made use of them as much as I could before they did, for warmth as much as entertainment.

For those who are interested, the blue team beat the yellow team by a conclusive margin. I know this because I had to sit in the drizzle watching them do what football fans do at 3am, as the train station itself was closed between 1am and 6am. Yeah, that was amusing. Feh – I’ve had to sleep rough before, but never in a city I didn’t know, much less a city in a foreign country miles away from anyone I knew, and never in anywhere quite so fucking cold.

Still, I suppose the situation had a certain gloomy inevitability about it. And at least I know what to do next time it happens (i.e. get a night train to anywhere then get another train back in the morning – that’s what the Interrail pass is for, dipstick). Tonight I get the sleeper back to Stockholm, and I’ll probably spend a day and a night in Stockholm recharging batteries – Game Boy, iPod, and me.

So, back slightly further, to Bergen, where I ostensiably celebrated my birthday. Bergen’s indescribably beautiful and utterly dull. It is a city that hasn’t quite gotten over being a fishing village, which is admittedly part of its charm, but it’s no good whatsoever for celebrating a birthday in. Still, we got some hiking in (despite almost constant rain – I managed to get through three pairs of trousers in one day, which I think is some kind of record) – on the day of my birthday we actually went up into the hills for a good seven or eight hours, which was a lot of fun, although my knees are really feeling the benefit just now.

It isn’t all doom and gloom, though. For the train journey from Oslo to Bergen, we were blessed with good weather, and were thus able to get a good look at what is undoubtedly the most beautiful chunk of landscape in God’s creation. The train track wends its way 1,222 meters above sea level, through the cloud cover and up into the mountain peaks; the entire route is dominated by perfectly still mountain lakes, fast river rapids, tiny villages and even, at one point, a glacier so close that you could wind down the window in the train and hit it with a rock. The one problem with the whole experience was that I could only experience it from behind a sheet of glass, in a train. I wanted nothing more than to get out and get my boots dirty; run my hand through the water, climb the ice-carved rock peaks, and see how deep the snow really was between the trees. Watching it all through the window of a train was maybe slightly better than looking at a photograph, but not by much. Perhaps someday I shall have to come back, during the summer maybe, with some decent hiking boots and a tent. That would be something.

The city of Bergen itself has everything and nothing. It has a leper museum, which I went to for the simple reason that I will almost certainly never find another leper museum anywhere, but it was quite dull. It had a lot of old churches and buildings that you couldn’t go inside. It had a fish market that sold fish, and I didn’t want any fish, so I saw it through and left. I’d love to live there – despite the 300 days of rain per year – but it’s not a great town for touristing.

Oh, and Norway is HELLA expensive. I can’t wait to get to Estonia, which is hopefully where I will be by next weekend, and where I can probably live comfortably for a day on the price of a Norwegian cup of coffee.

OK, that’s enough bellyaching for now. The next update will be less bellicose, I promise! I shall go to Helsinki with a soul full of optimisim and a song in my heart. The song will probably be something like Unwell by Matchbox Twenty but it is the thought that counts!

Hope you are all well and happy.

I met some great people in Stockholm, including a bunch of Americans teaching English in France. Still one of my favourite places in Europe.

Two months in, woo!

Strange to think that I’ve been living like this for, um, one sixth of a year. Actually, no, that’s not weird at all, but time has been doing some funny things since I left. Belgium seems more recent than Berlin, for some reason, and Copenhagen seems like a decade ago. One thing that is in perspective, however, is London, which receedes a little more with each passing day

So, I’m now in Oslo, a city whose defining characteristic is drizzle. It is a good museum city, actually – partly because it has taken London’s lead and instituted the very sensible policy of making things free, and partly because they offer protection from drizzle, which becomes a very important factor after any length of time here. Today alone I visited no less than three museæ (+10 point correct pluralisation bonus SCORE) – the Modern Art museum, the Edvard Munch museum and the Nobel Peace Centre. Of the three, the first was probably (and surprisingly) the weakest – a couple of interesting bits and bobs, mainly installation and photography, but apart from tat just the usual morass of breasts and freshly culled deer’s blood. Edvard Munch, on the other hand, has long been one of my favorite artists. Not so much for “The Scream” or “The Kiss”, both of which suffer, inevitably, for over-exposure, but for paintings like “The Sun” :

and etchings like “The Sick Child” :

So that was also good to see.

The Nobel museum was also great. It was supermodern, which itself bamboozled the senses, but there was a ton of information there, so I spent a happy hour re-educating myself about the Middle East conflict, the collapse of Apartheid, the work of the Red Cross, the goings-on in Myanmar and Guatamala, and all those happy kinds of thing.

The Nobel Award has, naturally, been something of a theme for the past week or so, as Stockholm inevitably had its fair share of Nobel floorspace. I spent a good week in Stockholm. As mentioned in the last email, my ex gf, Katie, joined me for much of that week. What I was too polite to say last time was that I anticipated disaster, and while it wasn’t quite as bad as that it certainly wasn’t quite fun. The problem with Katie is that she’s both a sociopath and someone who is used to the finer things in life, so what she expected to get out of a youth hostelling trip (where people are plentiful and conditions are squalid) is beyond me. Her stay culminated in her dragging me to Ikea (who the fuck goes all the way to Stockholm to go to Ikea? It’s flat pack furniture for heaven’s sake) then ditching me in the foyer for two hours. I say two hours – I don’t know how long she left me there for because she actually disappeared without telling me, and got onto her flight back to England without so much as a goodbye and thanks-for-having-me.

So, I tolerated her BS, mainly because she was only there for a few days and I could always stay later and do my own thing, but it kinda put a crimp on the week. Couldn’t ruin it, hough, because Stockholm is possibly the nicest city I’ve been to so far – only Copenhagen can compete, really. Firstly, it’s undeniably stunningly gorgeous. Built on an archipelago, it has a certain Venician quality to it – all rivers and waterways, wending through neo-classical architecture and busy cobbled streets. But it also has modernity and energy; parts of the city felt almost Blade-Runner-esque, with streets running over and under each other beneath neon signs and vast, glowing monuments to god knows what. The people were uniformly freindly, if disappointingly unattractive. A rather amusing group of American people I met claimed that this was because winter in Sweden was a six-month hibernation period for sexy time, so only the ugly Swedes still walked the streets. I don’t kinow whether this is true or not, but I have also been informed that all Swedish men have shaved scrotæ (+10 more points, go me!), so it seems that the Swedes are gathering their own sexy mythology. And more speed to them!

Of intrest in Stockholm was the Vasamuseum, a vast museum dediated the the warship Vasa, which sunk mysteriously in the 16th Century and was only excavated 300 years later; the Nobel Museum, which I expected to be ruthlessly narcisistic but, fortunately, gave far more floorspace to the winners than the selectors, the Swedish Parliament, which is intresting but amusing (most of Swedens politicians are part-time, and seem more obsessed with making sure that the deomographics of the parliament match the demographics of the country exactly than, y’know, selecting he right person for the job – but then the population of Sweden is smaller than the populaton of London alone, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter); and, ohhh, a whole host of other things besides. Seriously, just stop reading this and go to Stockholm yourselves, You won’t regret it because it’s ace. Just don’t go in winter because winter is sexy time.

There.

Also, I took a night train from Stockholm to Oslo. It was actually quite good fun!

Right. Tomorrow morning I’m going to Bergen, which appartently has rain for 275 days of the year, and I’ll be there for three days. Following that, I will EITHER head north to Trondheim, Bødø and Tromsø, OR I shall head straight for Stockholm and take the ferry to Helsinki. There are two factors to this: 1, I am spending money at an unsustainable rate, and long to get to Estonia and Poland where I can live on 30p a day; and 2, I’ll be back in Sweden in December, as several of my more awesome family members have clubbed together to get me a night in the Ice Hotel ( http://www.icehotel.com/).

So. By now you must have had enough of my blather, so I shall leave you for another short while. I hope all is well in your collective lives and hope to hear from you all soon.

Much love.

Ah, that’s a bit fairer to Copenhagen, I think!

Hello, you lucky people!

Well, it’s been a week and a half and no mistake. Copenhagen is one hell of a city. It is compact but dense – everything that’s worth seeing is within twenty minutes walk, easily. You can cover the entire city in a day, but then realise that the amount of stuff you miss is bewildering. I kept on having to extend my time there; there were roads I’m sure I went down six or seven times, but kept on finding new things on. It was amazingly beautiful, if a little on the chilly side, but had such a variety of things to do and see that, if I’d known the extent of it beforehand, I would probably have been intimidated. The tiny suburb of Christiania was worth a day in its own right – Christiania is an area of Copenhagen which is basically lawless and self-policing, does not pay taxes, is not covered by the police, and is ostenisably an experiment into a kind of hippy-utopian model society. It is as politically controversial as you’d expect from that description – while the city continues to consider it a ‘social experiment’, recent years have seen a number of police raids over drug offenses – but it is still an extremely interesting place to visit, if only because it has developed a distinct culture and atmosphere of its own.

The hostel was a bit utilitarian – no curtains, three-high stacked bunkbeds, no-power showers – but it did have a nice communal area, and, shock horror, free internet! I met a whole bunch of awesome people there, and could probably fill another one of this on that topic alone, but eventually I decided that the time was right to move on to Sweden. As it was, I timed my run a little early – I could probably have stayed an extra day or two – but you live and learn. Of all the places I’ve visited so far, Copenhagen is one of the few that I will definately come back to.

So I made my way to Malmo, which entailed train ride across a massive bridge over an ocean, which seems like a bad idea to me, but then I’m no engineer. Malmo itself is a horrible city; it’s utterly soulless, being dominated by two massive shopping streets and nothing even remotely resembling an atmosphere. I was quite happy to leave it behind me, and so headed to Gothemburg with unseemly haste.

The journey to Gothenburg was fun – a combination of delays, breakdowns and bus replacement services that would impress Railtrack – but I met a couple of American guys along the way so it wasn’t too bad. Gothenburg itself is a charming city; a little on the dull side, as, like Malmo, it lacks any kind of culture, but at the very least there was a little bit of excitement about the place. Sweden is a funny place; the people really seem to struggle to get out of work mode, and concequentially Gothenburg on a drizzling Saturday night was bordering on terminal. The stereotypes are pretty unfounded, in general; yes, it’s pricy, but still nothing on London or even Paris; and yes, the girls are pretty, but I really struggle to appreciate them. It’s hard to forget that, up until the late 1970s, Sweden had an active policy of eugenics – which is to say, everybody looks *exactly the same*. It’s a little scary and I fear for the Swedish gene pool.

So today I arrived in Stockholm, and the little of it I’ve seen so far looks stunning. I’m avoiding taking in too much of the city today, as I’m probably here for the best part of a week; tomorrow I shall be joined by the lovely Katie, who many of you will remember as an ex-girlfriend from a few years back. She’s come out, ostensiably for her birthday, but really to keep me company, for a week or so, following which I’ll be heading on to Oslo in Norway. Wending my way up the Norwegian coast is a prospect that fills me with particular glee, but first I must buy some gloves. Dear God I fear for my extremities! There is snow on the ground in southern Sweden already and it’s not going to get any warmer.

I hope all are well and that London, or indeed any of the other various places where this journal is read, is not too drizzly.

I ended up dating Maria for a short time when I got back to the UK.

Also, woah there on Copenhagen. I really had a good time there! It was a nice city, full of character and charm. Also, I met another girl who I really liked there, called Lise; we never really hooked up, due to going in opposite directions and suchlike. She ended up moving to London to be with another boy, who she is still with. We talk occasionally. Man, these were clearly my wild days (Such as they are…)

Sorry for the extended delay! I was trying to write one of these every five days or so – if only because they help to break up the time – but the last week has been kinda hectic. A lot of fun, but busy busy busy.

Booo, I think we left off in Berlin. From there I headed north to Stralsund, a tiny town on the North German coast, which was extremely pretty. The weather was still good, and the views across the Baltic at night were stunning. From there I went to Rostock for a night, which was a pretty but dull town, but had the distinction of having the most awesome youth hostel ever – instead of being a building, it was a boat, and my €15 bought me my own cabin for the night. It was probably the one and only time I have ever literally lept with glee.

So those two were nice, if a little bland. I was intending to spend another few days on the coast – Lübeck was my next port of call – but I guess I missed city life a little, co I decided to spend my last few days in Germany in Hamburg instead. I’m very glad I did, as well – it’s an awesome city. It’s probably the only German city that’s actually growing, and as such feels very modern and cosmopolitan, but it also has the distinction of having escaped both war and occupation relatively unscathed, and so has a lot of its history intact. I met some great people there, including an English girl called Maria, who was working there as a translator. It was one of the few places I’ve
regretted not having more time to stay in.

From Hamburg I took the train to Copenhagen. That was fun; for a part of the journey the train has board a ferry, so I even got to take in a mini cruise on the way. There was one panicy moment when I realised, as the train was leaving, that my Interrail ticket had actually expired three days previously. Had I been caught, it would have been hefty fine time, but happily I managed to distract the ticket lady with a carefully-timed, but appaling, boat-based pun (“You look pale. Are you OK?” “Yes, I just don’t like boats.” “Seasick, huh?” “No. Afraid of assault and bateau-ry!” Hey, don’t knock it, it worked). I’ve been in Copenhagen for a few days now. It’s a nice city, but somewhat lacking in the youth hostel department; a lot of them close for the winter, and the ones that stay open seem to be on the
utilitarian side. That was one advantage of Germany – it has great youth hostels.

So, I’m here for a few more days, then I’m headed into Sweden – first Mälmo for a day or two, then Stockholm, where I shall be joined for a few days by a friend from home. I’m not planning on spending long in Scandinavia – a few weeks at most – but there’s still a lot to see.

Incidentally, my mobile phone is dead. I shall probably be making do with phone cards from now on. The old number is thus defunct!

Anyhoo – hope you’re all well. Let me know any news!

Much love.

The brevity of this suggests that I was knackered. Also, boy did I ever undersell Eisenach here. One of the nicest places I went to – beautiful surroundings, and the Wartberg Castle was something else.

Hey folks.

Slightly less dramatic entry this time, although you do have the result of the Choose Your Own Joshventure to look forward to at the end – no skipping forward!

So the time since the last email has been spen in Eisenach and Berlin. Eisenach was a pretty town, with a big castle and a lot of history – Martin Luthor retreated there after the Emperor, Charles II, retracted his support, and spent nine months there translating the Old Testament into German. His cell in the castle (complete with a whalebone-vertibra footstool!) has been a draw for pilgrims for centuries. Reading the graffitti is always interesting, but in this place Franciscan monks had been carving their names into the walls since 1750, so there was a real sense of antiquity.

The town was on the edges of the Thungrian forest, so I got some hiking done as well. I did, however, suffer for not having a stick. Conventional logic would suggest that they’re everywhere, and that finding one of suitable walking length would be childishly simple, but it appears almost not to be the case. Perhaps they’ve all been stolen by unscrupulous walking-stick salesmen! A conspiracy looms.

Based on the looming termination of my interrail ticket, I cut short my meander through the rubbish little towns in Germany and headed straight for Berlin. Man, have I missed city living! I wouldn’t want to be stuck here for more than four or five days, but it’s been great just to be able to find someone to talk to every night. I’ve met a whole host of interesting people. The first couple of nights I spent with a pair of Americans called Joe and Elena, a brother-and-sister pair who were travelling for the laters birthday. After they left for Poland, I hooked up with a pair of English guys called Trevor and Owen, then last night I went out to a club with two Israeli girls (Keren and Rotem), two other English guys (Ian and Andy), and a girl who’s just from everywhere (half Brazilian, half Italian, living in France, fluent in Greek and Russian, called Maria). So my evenings have been occupied once again. Over-occupied, in fact; I got back to the hostel from last night about three hours ago. I’m mainly writing this as an excuse not to have to do anything meaningful.

The days have been pretty well spent as well. Berlin is pretty much a building site; it has developed uniquely of all Europe’s major cities, for all the obvious reasons. It does contain a stupid amount of history and culture, though, and there is a certain enrgy about it that was entirely missing from Paris. Standing in Berlin gives one hope for the future of Germany. Of all the cities I’ve been to, there are very few with as charged an atmosphere.

Anyway. Tomorrow I’m going to the North German coast for a few days, then, in accordance with the majority vote, heading towards Denmark and the North. As things stand, I’m redrawing the route to avoid anything west of Prague; I’m planing to see Estonia and Lithuania, then Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc, then Croatia, Greece and Turkey, before hopefully heading into Israel and the Middle East. I don’t yet know if I’ll head into Russia, simply because visa proceedings are going to be tricky to arrange, although I would love to go to St Petersberg and Moscow – Moscow has always been a dream to me. I may miss it this time, however, simply because I want to give Russia the attention it deserves at some point; get the Trans-Siberian railway and taking the whole sweep. We shall see.

Anyway – I think I may shamble back to bed. Hope you’re all well.

Option 2 ended up winning, although I never made it to Russia.

Also, I was way harsh on Munster here. Munster is a fine place! But, yes, slightly dull. (The exciting Martin Luther stuff is an Eisenach.)

Right, this time I’m going to do something slightly different. I’m not going to talk much about what I’ve done over thew last few days, because frankly they’ve been boring. Synopsis: two days forced in Dortmund (dull), two days in Münster (pretty but dull), two days in Eisenach (nice but ongoing). There you go – up to speed.

I bet you wish these posts were all like that, huh?

No, this time I’m going to introduce a note of democracy into the proceedings. Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? It’s like those. (Those books were awesome for getting kids to learn how to read. I expect they’re single-handedly the reason why literacy rates are so high in the English-speaking world. Let’s face it, everybody who now reads regularly – e.g. everybody reading this – read them at some point. Actually, that’s probably really depressing if it’s true… although, having said that, no more so than Harry Potter for this generation. Digression ends!) Yes, I want input on what to do next.

The plan was always thus: Month 1 – Paris, Belgium, Luxembourg, half of Germany. So far so good. Month 2 – other half of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czek Republic if we’re speedy. However, a new plan has arisen, and I need to decide now.

So, option A is the original Month 2.

Option 2:, I’ve been pretty good with money over the first month, and have thus decided I want to go to some contries I previously thought too expensive – Norway, Sweden and Finland, then approach Poland via Estonia etc, maybe take a swing at Moscow or St Petersberg if I can afford the visa. This is all well and good, but it does mean missing out on a lot of Germany, potentially including Hamburg, and may also leave me short at the end of the trip – the Turkey, Croatia, Greece and of the holiday, which I’m quite looking forward to. Also, I may have someone temorarily joining me at the end of October, and I don’t want to be somewhere completely antisocial.

OK, so it’s not a terribly interesting dilemma, but a tricky one nonetheless. In the morning I leave for Berlin, where I must decide whether to head North or East; anyone with a strong feeling either way, let me know!

Peace out.

I dealt with Aachen pretty harshly here. It was a nice place.

Me again!

I’m still in Germany. So far I am somewhat disappointed, for a variety of reasons. Chiefly, though, it is that the cities largely lack character. I cannot complain too loudly about this; the cities lack character because they had to be rebuilt after 1945 because we bombed roughly 80% of them into itty bity fragments of dust, so moaning about it now would be like me burning your house down then complaining that you don’t have any sandwiches.. The 20% that remains is spectacular, however; Kölner Dom, the main cathedral of Cologne, is one of the most imposing structures I have ever seen, grand on a simply breathtaking scale, and there are several similar examples elsewhere.

So, three days spent in Frankfurt, of which at leats two were a waste. Germany shuts entirely on a Sunday and, bizarrely, a Monday (“economic problems? What economic problems?”), meaning that those two days were spent mostly meanding about trying to stay warm, as Autumn is most definately proceeding in Central Europe right now. Tuesday was fun though – I got to see the Museum de Moderne Kunst – kunst is German for ‘art’, a fact that gives my peurile mind no small amount of pleasure. The main thrust of the exhibit in aforementioned gallery is a continuous exhibit of objects brought through related keywords on eBay, and was interesting as a meme, if not especially worthwhile as an art desplay.

I also met a trio of Australian guys and two Danish girls, with whom I ended up spending the evening; the six of us wondered around looking for a restaurant, then wondered around looking for a bar, before finally wondering around looking for a nightclub. We did find an amazing bar on top of a tower in the city centre, but the prices were as high as the altitude, so we didn’t stay for long. Frankfurt is a very pretty city, but very sterile.

It’s the banking capital of Germany, which I’m sure is no co-incidence.

Yesterday I up’d sticks again for Cologne, which is a nicer city, if barely more interesting, although I did manage to fill a day for once. Thus far my days have been largely solnambulent; my routine is to wake around 8, eat, shower and ablute before heading out around 9.30ish, do something until 1, eat lunch and read in a park for an hour or two before heaidng back to the hostel around 4 or 5, then out again at 7 to eat. Yesterday kept me on my feet for the better part of 8 hours, though, which was far more impressive.

First port of call was the aforementioned Kölner Dom, which just looms over the city, less like a church to the glory of God and more like a giant punk cockroach. Climbing the spire took about half an vertiginous hour, but yielded some impressive sights, and I did get some good photos from across the river.

After that I headed into the Museum Ludwig, which is massive and deeply interesting. The bottom floor delt many with modern art – Andy Warhol and his ilk predominated, and while parts were interesting I generally find conceptual art to be quite frustrating. The upper floors were better value, however. The top floor contained a massive collection of Picasso originals, which occupied a happy hour or two, but the real treasure was a heterospective (he’s not dead yet) of George Brecht.

How to describe George Brecht? As a conceptual artist, he was heavily involved in the Fluxus group, a group which was known for playing the the established form of art, and specifically with causing the audience to ingest its art in new ways. Certainly, that sounds very much like a broad-brush definition of conceptual art, or even modern art, as a discipline, but it’s hard to peg down what made this so interesting. George Brecht’s approach was almost one of gamesmanship; he would arrange musical scores for car controls, which were ‘conducted’ by a randomly thrown deck of cards, and which would be ‘played’ using car lights, windscreen wipers and the like. The nature of events were also of interest to him. He would create decks of cards describing events (“Near to an insect”, “On a white chair with a scarf and a walking cane”); his art returned to the themes of adding arbitrary meaning to common events and objects, often with a touch of playfulness – indeed, the format of the game as a social activity, the formalism of created rulesets, and the release of the audience from the ‘rules’ of art (one piece was a medicine cabinet from which items could be removed, or added, by any member of the public at any time) were his chosen method of communicating his art. The ideas he pioneered can still be seen in modern theoretical sociology (such as the work of Peter Suber – much of Brecht’s work can be seen in the intellectual make-up of Nomic).

All of which may hold limited interest to many (most?) of you, but it interested me, so there’s a paragraph on it. Nyer.

Back to travelling, today I took a day trip to Aachen, which is a pretty nice old University town, but generally lacked enthusiasm. This area is failing to inspire me, unfortunately; I’m here tomorrow, but may move on to Münster sooner than expected.

Anyhoo. Hope you folks are all well and looking forward as usual to hearing your news.

Hello all.

It’s been an interesting few. You may recall that my last email was from Luxembourg; I spent a few more days there and remain impressed. The city itself is like something out of a fairytale, especially at night or in the early morning fog, and the youth hostel itself was pretty good form as well. Outside of the city, the towns are pretty basic, but for such a small country it had one unexpected treasure – possibly the best collection of photographs ever assembled, the Family of Man collection (http://www.moma.org/research/archives/highlights/06_1955.html), which has made its permanent home in the castle of a small Luxembourg town called Clervaux. The collection itself was both stunningly well-presented and very moving, so, uh, if ever you find yourself at a loose end in Luxembourg, it comes recommended.

I then moved into Germany, with the intention of spending a night in Trier before wending my way up the Mosel. Trier, however, was unexpectedly full; despite having no major festivals, all three of its hostels were pasked out, and even the owners of cowsheds were unsympathetic to my claims of incipient immaculate conception (apparently, these days, the policy is No Guiding Star, No Manger, and a lot of them are athiests anyway). This forced my hand somewhat, so I instead made tracks for Koblenz.

Koblenz is a decent-sized city, notable for the fact that it stands at the meeting point of the Mosel and the Rhine, two of Europe’s most important rivers. Alas, like many German cities, it was totally destroyed by the Allies during the war, and never really recovered. The youth hostel, however, is in the privileged position of occupying the citadel overlooking the city, and consequentially has stunning views. I stayed there for a few nights; it may not be much of a city but it is very nice to look at.

I spend the days roaming the area. The Rhine Valley is a ridiculous, although admittedly gorgeous, kind of place. The river has dug a pretty deep trench into the dense forests of the region, but the slopes on either side play host to another castle literally every half-mile; it’s fair to say that at any time you have at least three of them within easy walking distance. The town of St Goar has probably the most spectacular – a labyrinthine beast that demonstrates just how lucrative taxation and piracy on the Rhine really was. It was spectacular, but all I could think of was how awesome it would be to play Hide and Seek in. When I’m rich, I’m paying for us all to go to St Goar and play Hide and Seek in the castle. This is a promise, guys. Don’t let me out of it.

I met some cool people there too – a pair old old American dudes called Dan and Bill, who apparently come to Europe every two years, and a couple, also American, called Jimmy and Katrina; Jimmy showed me the ring he was going to propose to Katrina with, which was cute, although to be honest they were a pretty weird match, he an ex-dopehead second hand car salesman, she a finance graduate with a decent brain. Hey, perhaps there’s a shortage of guys like me in America. A niche to be filled! Haha, let’s finish dealing with Germany first.

So after a few days of that, today I made for Frankfurt. Again, no crib for a bed – apparently it’s the famous international car show, which means that the youth hostels are jammed out. Wait a second! International car show? International! Car! show. You guys should be in hotels, not taking hostel space so that backpackers like me have to trek from city to city just looking for a sodding bed. If you can’t afford a hotel then you’re definately too poor to be at something describing itself as an international car show, right? Gah.

Yeah, sour grapes, I know.

Anyway. I’m now in Mainz, which is nonedescript (although it does contain two of the last remaining Gutenberg bibles, which I will probably seek out), and tomorrow I’m heading back to Frankfurt for another try. After a few days, from thence to Köln (Cologne), probably for the best part of a week, as I really want to explore that region – the Reformation is probably my favorite period of European history, and a lot of it happened there, particularly the short-lived Anabaptist theocratic proto-socialist revolution in Münster. None of the Germans I meet believe me when I tell them that I’m avoiding Munich until much, much later. I look forward to deserted youth hostels in Dusseldörf, at least.

That’s all to report; as usual, feel free to hit me back with any news or gos.

Re-reading these is a blast. I’d completely forgotten about the 14 year olds.

It’s been an eventful few days. I ended up spending three days in a town called Namur, which is more or less the political capital of the Walloon region of Belgium. It’s basically set in a clearing in a forest at the junction of two rivers, and is a very beautiful city. Another University town, it boasts a very modern, cosmopolitan atmosphere, but still has many of the features one would expect of an ancient medieval city; it’s citadel, for example, which is perched on a deeply forested promantory overlooking the town.

I was very fortunate, however, to arrive in the town on the weekend of the Walloon Festival, completely by chance. The annual festival is a four-day street-party celebrating the history and culture of French Belgium, complete with live music, a massive boat that pumped out music from the middle of the river, and seemingly stupid amounts of booze. The Youth Hostel was overrun, but I was lucky enough to be sharing a room with an English guy called Matt and an Australian called Brad, so the three of us mainly stuck together for the weekend. We took a half-day out to explore some of the outlying towns – Rochefort in particular, which has caves – but spend most of the rest of the time enjoying the carnival.

It was a shame that we could only be there for two of the nights, but Matt had to get home, I had to move on to Luxembourg, and Brad was running out of time to see Brussels; and besides, the Hostel couldn’t squeeze us in for another night. On the first night, I had to duck out early, but Brad and Matt apparently had a good time – they came back with stories of how lying about their ages had secured them the attentions of two French 17 year olds – but I did manage to make it out for the second night, and I’m pretty glad I did.

For the first hour or two I struggled to get into the proceedings. The event seemed mainly designed to allow 14-year-olds to get wasted and-slash-or pregnant, which seemed to amuse them but didn’t do much for me. I did meet Matt and Brad’s 17-year-olds, who I swear were no older than 15 – I had to remind them that teenage girls ALWAYS lie about their ages, especially to drunken foreigners, but fortunately they hadn’t done anything stupid so we moved on. On one of the main stages, a woman vocalist was looking increasingly distressed as a group of gay guys ground against each other and gradually undressed in front of her; she brought her set to a close early and the gays presumably got a room, clearly uninspired by the act that followed, a middle-of-the-road guitar rock band with a bassist who must have been eighty.

Getting into the back alleys of the city, we soon found was where it was all happening. The main stages were simply there to draw away the kids, but the back streets thronged with entertainment, and were mercifully clear of both the stalls selling five random shots for 5€, and the teenagers they attracted. We saw an awesome percussion collective, specialising in Cuban and African drums; the three of us must have stood there for an hour listening to these guys, along with many others, they were simply that good.

At about 11 I headed back to the hostel; Matt and Brad, both pretty juiced, wanted to get laid so I (fearing the 14 year olds) decided to leave them to it. I was pretty lucky; on my way back, I found the river-road to the hostel closed for the centrepeice of the evening, the firework display. I pretty much had a front row seat: The music boat had been turned into a gun-boat, firing off pyrotechnics no more than 100 meters from me; more fireworks came from the citadel in an utterly spectacular hour-long display, one which I had come across completely by chance in a festival I didn’t know about in a city I’d never heard of. I guess I was pretty lucky.

Brad and Matt didn’t get laid, although they did almost get into a fight with a French Goth.

So yesterday I moved on to Luxembourg, which is an amazing city. The town centre is tiny – a ten-minute walk across, if that – but is surrounded on all sides by deep gorges, forested ravines, and fast rivers; meaning that the rest of the sizeable city is seperated from “historic” Luxembourg by a series of bridges. The city began life as the fortress of Seigfried, a German robber-baron, and, after being re-fortified by the Germans, Bulgarians and Spaniards who occupied it over the centuries, it came to be known as the Gibraltar of the North, an impregniable city-state protected by 4 walls, 18 kilometers of caves and a 50 foot drop on three sides. The city and surrounding land was declared neutral in the 19th Century and many of its armaments were raized, but there’s still a lot to be seen here; Luxembourg is one of the richest countries in the world, the birthplace of the EU, and has some dramatic – almost dangerous – geography in the heart of it’s city centre.

The rest of today will be spend in Luxembourg City, as – probably – will much of tomorrow. Wednesday I plan to see some of the other towns in the country, which is tiny enough that I can probably see most of it in a day; then on Thursday I’m heading into Germany. Until then, dearies, I hope you’re all happy and well.

Hello folks.

It must have been cliche day in Ghent on Sunday. I ended up sharing a room with a large, blonge Norwegian called Magnus, a hairy Spaniard called Carlos and a German biker called Hans. And then there was me, a bookish, polite Englishman; had I been forewarned, I would have changed my name to Henry or Dicky, just to avoid spoiling the picture.

Since we last spoke, I have left Ghent and moved on to Bruges. First, let me say that I love Ghent. It is possibly the most beautiful city I have ever seen. It’s a university town, probably not much bigger than Norwich, and almost completely overlooked by tourists. It is also absurdly well-stocked with architecture; the square-mile city centre has no less than six cathedral-scale buildings, any one of which a city like, say, Leeds (I don’t know why I picked on Leeds) would be proud to lay claim to. It is delightfully modern, for an old city – it has all the amenieties necessary for a University town (decent public transport, a decent shopping strip, suchlike) which avoiding betraying its medieval roots. Furthermore, it’s intergrated – the ancient, beautiful Dutch architecture is clearly and proudly on show, and while the cobbled streets have been smoothed to allow easy traversing while not having been outright removed. The residents, frankly unused to tourists, were universally wonderful, and – joy of joys! – there wasn’t a Starbucks. What there was, though, was a number of cheap and excellent restaurants – one of the main worries on the trip so far has been eating properly, which is very hard to do in any city on a budget, but not in Ghent, where even the supermarkets are reasonable. In short, I left a small part of my heart in Ghent, and could quite happily live there.

I stayed in Ghent a few days, trying to put off leaving; I found myself unable to get bored of the place. But yesterday I decided that the time was right to move on to Bruge. I was a little apprehensive of Bruge, simply because it’s the tourist capital of Belgium, and it turns out I was right to be; it’s a hideous city, truth be told – every other building is a chocolate shop, the pubs serve 300 types of beer and pedestrians are menaced by horse-and-traps carrying obese Germans. In the 13th Century it was a large port, a trading capital of the Low Countries, but when its serving river dried up it was more or less abandonned; thus fossilised, it survived as a relic of a working medieval city. Which would have been fine, but it was also largely destroyed in the various wars that Belgium endured at the start of the 20th Century, and was rebuilt ‘in the style’ of how it must once have looked; as a result, the city feels fake, like the Hollywood version of how a medieval Belgian city should look, and the Belgians seem to agree, as virtually every soul within the city walls is a tourist – and by God are there a lot of them, mainly Australians and Americans, and it’s a shame, as the ingredients are there for a beautiful town – it’s built on a series of circling canals, and has some lovely suriving townhouses – but alas, market forces seem to have claimed to place. Sometimes the raized should not be raised. Yes, I know, I also crack myself up.

So today I escaped Bruge and headed to Antwerp. Antwerp is a grower. It is a city with a very bad attitude; it is the fashion capital of the Low Countries, famous for its design school and the series of wold-famous fashionistas is has produced, and the culture of snobbery has permeated the populace, making it feel very Parisian. Of course, the way of dealing with this is the same as it is with Paris; you can’t join them, so beat them. It has the oldest cathedral in the Low Countries, home to four Rubens’ and some nice stained glass, but don’t let the locals clock you there – they’re unfailingly rude to tourists, even the barmen and waiters. Instead, the best place to head towards is MoMu, possibly the coolest museum in Europe – so cool, in fact, that it changes its permanent exhibits once every six months, let alone its exhibitions. In other words, enjoy Antwerp, but only if you’re either Belgian or beautiful, or if, like me, you genuinely don’t care what people think of you and are capable of conveying that fact in the universal langauage of distain.

So! Tomorrow I leave Flanders for Leige. Like most countries with a French-speaking minority, Belgium is a schitzophrenic country – Flanders, to the north, in flat, Flemish-speaking and steeped in history, which Wallonia to the south is culturally and economically stangant, forested and mostly French. So for the next few days I’ll be frollicing in the trees, and if all goes to plan then the next communique should be coming to you from Luxembourg.

Much love to all.

Oh! Before I forget. Firstly, Spoon are playing in Bruge on 1st October, which I may cut back for, as Spoon are awesome. Second, I found an English bookstore, which although extortionately expensive has yielded unto me The Famished Road by Ben Okri, which has simultaniously both restored and broken my sanity. Thirdly and finally, a script submitted to the BBC before I left got a no, but a very encouraging one, so I’m working hard on a few new script projects for when I get back. There you go, the email kids didn’t get this paragraph. Betcha feel special, huh?

Not much commentary to add here, except to say that Ghent remains one of my favourite cities in Europe. I always tell people off for trying to go to Bruges. I just don’t understand why they would.

Tut, the longer I stay offline, the harder these things become to write.

So, I’m now in Belgium. Since last we communed, I have regained control of most of my essential bodily functions, which is a bonus. I have also spent a few days in Belleville, which is a pretty scuddy part of Paris, three days in Brussels and am now in Ghent, a small-ish Belgian city between Antwerp and Bruges.

To wrap up Paris: I kinda get it, now. To get the most from Paris you have to basically not be a tourist – avoid the gaudier sights, look down your nose at the Americans and just sit outside the cafes or in the parks watching the world go by. Yeah, it’s nice for a day or too. I don’t think I’ll bother going back, though.

The main reason for that is Brussels, which totally won me over. The pace of life in Brussels is insane – tiny, cramped streets all hella teeming with people – but the city is undeniably stunningly beautiful. The one thing it lacks (oddly, for a European city) is a central river. This may seem like an odd thing to notice, but a river does a lot for the psychology of a city – it tends to give the throngs a place to sit and repose, and Brussels really lacks that. It doesn’t have much by the way of parks, either. All in all, not a terribly relaxing place, but a much younger city than Paris, and – in my opinion – a city with far more personality and energy.

I’ve been in Ghent for a few hours and so far I love it. It’s a lot quieter than Brussels, and equally well endowed in the cobbled-street-and-gothic-cathedral department. It also has possibly the best youth hostel in Belgium (the three main ones in Brussels all suck), and a lot of cheap eateries. The one major problem with travelling on a budget is that foodies, such as myself, can rarely indulge; happily Ghent accomodates us, with a number of very hip, very cheap and very good cafe-bar-restaurant-dives.

Belgium is my kind of place, it must be said. Its cities are stunning, its food phenomenal and its people friendly. As I’m still in the Flemish north, and my Dutch is slightly rusty, the locals have been largely patient with me, which I’m certainly grateful for.

So, I’ve got another day in Ghent, then I’m taking a day trip to Antwerp before heading south to Leige French Belgium. I’ll spend a couple of days exploring the Andennes before crossing into Luxembourg for a day or two, and thence into Germany.

Hope you’re all well; as usual, feel free to drop me an email with any news!

Much love to all.

PS, On a different note, I have already finished Q by Luther Blissett, The Accidental by Ali Smith and The Rebel by Camus. I’ve only been gone just over a week! I only have two books left! Help!

Some commentary:

1. I was younger and, apparently, crasser. Not much crasser, though.
2. I still don’t like Paris, but I would be less scathing about it in retrospect. It lacks a certain ambience that I look for in cities; a sense that it would continue to exist even if all the tourists went away. I’ve described it as a museum of a city and I stand by that.
3. I have lost my fear of mass transit.

I am not a well boy.

Its the end if my first calendar week abroad. I’m writing this from what is probably my favorite spot in Paris so far. It’s a little ledge on the river that runs around the Ile de Saint-Louis, and the reason why I like it is because the sun virtually never hits it. The sun and I are not friends at the moment; it wants to be some thirty-degree-centegrade sillyness and I want it to be raining.

Unfortunately, I also seem to have every disease ever invented ever; a cold that I brought with me, a fever (complete with delerious nightmares) and diarrhea c/o Mr Sun and a nasty stomach bug thanks to Paris’ dirty tap water.

Paris is very old-fashioned compared to London. From a distance, I didn’t realise that it’s roughly one-third of the size of London, and that even France as a whole – despite occupying twice the landmass – has a smaller nose-count overall than the island I call home. This does give Paris a kind of personality which I suppose London lacks, particularly to an outsider, but does make the city feel rather hollow. While it is certainly both beautiful and eccentric, it’s clear that it is, for example, ill-equipped for commerce; the driving system is a glorious chaotic mess and there doesn’t appear to be a sizeable commercial district at all. Which shouldn’t bother me, as a tourist, but for some reason it does.

Also, for an allegedly first-world country it can be quite backward. I mean, honestly Paris – I at least expected clean tap water.

It’s also expensive. Budget-bustingly so, in fact. I’ll just have to try and make it up once I hit the Low Countries.

So. I spent the first couple of days in Monmartre, which was nice – that hostel I stayed at was literally in the shadow of the Basilica de Sacre-Coeur, and the view out of my window was amazing. Thurday evening was sensible – bearings then food then bed. Simple.

On Friday, however, I seem to have decided to be silly. In my wisdom, despite having had no sleep and being unable to retain solids, I decided to walk to length of the city twice. From my base in Monmartre, I headed towards the Moulin Rouge in Pigalle, and was amazed – minge in the windows! I then headed south towards Opera, which is the absolutely jaw-droppingly stunning French national Opera house, then onto – and around – Le Louve, which was probably also spectacular but I was flagging a little by this point. For some reason, I then decided that it would be a good idea to walk to Bastile – it wasn’t, as obviously there’s nothing there but a big roundabout, although the walk alongside the Seinne was nice – after which I was more or less obligated to slog along the Rue Magenta towards Gare du Nord and Monmartre.

I could, of course, have spared myself all that at any time by simply jumping onto the Metro. UNFORTUNATELY I have a mild (yet bizarre) fear of unfamiliar public transport systems – it took me the better part of a week to get onto Tokyo’s metro, and here as there I found that the more tired I am the less inclined I am to face my peculiar issues.

Thus, Saturday was pretty horrible. I’d barely slept, I couldn’t eat and my body was still giving me hell for Friday’s stupidity. I moved hostels to one near Pont Marie, although with the larger pack on my back I bit the bullet and lost my Metro cherry while my brain was still functioning. My new hostel is pretty grim – swelteringly hot, badly built and no air conditioning, or even fans, which only goes to reinforce my opinion that Paris is a 15th Century city pretending to be a 17th Century city. I tried to get some compensatiory sleep, but couldn’t because of the heat; tried to eat but threw up; was generally useless. I ended up not doing much apart from feeling sorry for myself, which is something I’m quite good at.

Today has been better. I got some sleep this morning, and even ate a bit for breakfast and kept it down. The wind in my sails, I headed toward the Eiffel Tower to see if it was worth the fuss, and, yeah, it’s big and it’s go views and stuff. I almost carried on for the Pantheon, but I was feeling a bit rough after Eiffel’s stairs (1665, fact fans!), so I took Friday’s lesson to heart and mooched back to the hostel. So here I am, writing this with a baguette, so camembert and cherry tomatoes and orange juice, in what is, now, no longer my favourite spot in Paris – as a French man has just reached into my bag, pulled out my swiss army knife and mimed stabbing me. I think I’m going to move on now – tonight I’ll probably head towards the Arc de Triomphe, which I hear is also well-endowed in the views department.

If I seem slightly negative about Paris, then that’s because thus far I’m genuinely underwhelmed. Perhaps it’s the fugue state talking, and perhaps I’ll be more receptive when I shake my various maladies, but it seems like a very superficial city – more like an installation or sculpture than a real, living city. Which isn’t to say it isn’t beautiful – which it is – or that it is somehow lacking in life or energy – which it certainly isn’t. More to say that, between the stunningly pretty girls, the glorious Gothic architecture and the bohemian chic lies only filler, and not a real city at all.

That said, the one thing that has impressed is the Metro. Not only is it cleaner, fatser, quieter and cheaper than the tube, it has also provided the definitive Moment of the Trip So Far. London Underground, as many of you will be aware, has designated, Carling-sponsored busking spots for hairy men to sit in and play bad pop-rock, accousticly, so that we can all ignore them. At first I thought they were a kind of containment, stopping these people from roaming the streets, but no – apparently they’re still allowed to do that. I tend to just ignore them.

I digress. The Moment occured when I rounded a corner in Concorde station and encountered nothing less that a twelve-piece brass and accordian band, who were actually (and surprisingly) really good. They even got some change out of me, which is a rarety; I would have bought the CD but frankly I didn’t want to lug it around Europe only to discover it it was actually pap when I got home. So I guess I passed on that; nevertheless, it was the first time Paris had actually delighted me.

Right, I have to go now. Sorry this was so long, they’ll probably get shorter as I get bored-er of keeping a journal, but for now the novely’s fresh, so enjoy it while it lasts. Much love to all.