Super Slovakia

Jeez, it’s been a busy few weeks, with a wedding in Slovakia, Ngaire’s visit and my 30^th birthday. It’s been really good, but I must admit that we’ve enjoyed a nice quiet weekend hanging
out in London.

One of the consequences of being so busy is that blogging has slipped down my list of things to do a bit. So I thought I should do a catch up, starting with the wedding.

Slovakia is kind of the Burkina Faso of Europe – if you don’t live in the region, you probably haven’t heard of it. It also has the misfortune of sounding almost the same as fellow European semi-obscurity, Slovenia. Which is all a shame, as it’s well worth visiting.

I was in the country for the marriage of Marty - a friend from uni - and Janka, his lovely Slovak bride. I landed in Bratislava, the capital, a pleasant city in the now familiar Eastern European mode – pretty Old Town with a main square and narrow streets, castle on the hill above the river, ugly Communist outskirts. The Communist architecture was brilliant – either outstandingly hideous or wonderfully bizarre. Or both. Fellow wedding guests Chris, Gareth, Daniel and I had a lot of fun exploring the place.

The national radio centre - Slovakia's answer to the Pyramids.

The lads do their best Communist impression.

"Just what I like in a woman - biceps strong enough to crush capitalism!"

Then it was off to Banska Bystrica in the centre of the country. To be honest, I thought it would be a bit of a backwater – after all, it’s not in the travellers’ Bible (Lonely Planet) – but it was gorgeous. Surrounded by forested hills, it has a recently repainted main square that is my favourite in Europe. The likes of those Prague and Brussels are more splendid, but have a zillion more tourists.

The nuptials were, of course, the highlight. Marty and Janka met in Germany, so it was a multinational affair, with people coming from Romania, America, London, Germany and New Zealand to be there. I doubt there’s ever been a reception featuring a haka, the groom carrying the bride through a giant heart cut out of a sheet (a German tradition), Slovak plate-smashing (the number of pieces of crockery left over after the couple sweep up is the number of kids they’ll have – about a dozen are in store for Marty and Janka) and everyone doing the Chicken Dance. It was most excellent.

The past year in numbers

As of last weekend, Tane and I have been away from New Zealand for ONE year. This is the past year in numbers:

NINETY FOUR: The number of bites counted on Tane in Bergama, Turkey.

TWENTY SEVEN: The number of flights we have been on.

TWENTY: The number of countries we have visited in the past year - Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Austria, United Kingdom, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal (Lauren only), Germany, Luxembourg, Hungary, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, France, Poland, Egypt, Slovakia (Tane only).

Lost on the very first day of our trip in Hanoi, Vietnam

FIFTEEN: New country patches Tane has been able to sew on his backpack.

THIRTEEN: Airlines that we have flown.

TWELVE: Day trips we have done from London.

Arundel - a lovely day trip AND a castle!

TWELVE: Castles we have seen.

ELEVEN: Guide books and phrase books we own.

TEN: The number of war-related sites we have seen. Sounds kinda geeky when you put it like that ...

NINE: Months we have been settled in London.

EIGHT: The number of pairs of shoes we have bought. I refuse to say how many pairs were mine as opposed to Tane's ...

SEVEN: Countries in continental Western Europe Lauren has yet to see (Spain, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland).

Luxembourg: one of the smaller and prettier places we've seen

SIX: Times we have been on the lovely Eurostar.

FIVE: Foxes Ngaire and Tane spotted the other evening.

FOUR: Incidents of Delhi Belly. Although none of these have strictly occured in Delhi but you get the picture ...

THREE: Species of beast we have ridden - donkey, camel and elephant.TWO: People that are slightly ashamed of the size of their carbon footprint.

ONE: House deposit we could have afforded had we stayed home and spent all that money on a house instead. But then, we wouldn't have had half as much fun.

Ngaire takes on London

As I write, my sister Ngaire is sitting in the middle of a pile of clothing attempting to re-pack for her trip back to NZ after two weeks in Western Europe and one in London. In a moment, she will top off her week here by going down near bye Fox Lane with Tane in the hope of seeing a fox, the one thing she has missed out on while here. It's been great having her visit (in spite of us getting lost in Primark while shopping and not finding each other 30 minutes and 60 million piles of cheap clothes later), as it has allowed Tane and I to see London through someone else's eyes, not to mention also getting all the bags of of NZ lollies that my family sent over with her. Mmmm.

These, though, were the 5 main highlights of her visit:

1. The Lion King musical. This was amazing. To quote Ngaire "everyone should see the Lion King before they die".

2. Giving the lions in Trafalgar Square a good riding with Stephen. Hehe.

3. Making it up the London Eye, accompanied by a token Englishman that was also able to take us to an excellent restaurant afterward. And only after we had eaten told us the story of how rats were known to fall from its roof in the past. Lucky the food was so good we didn't care.

4. Ngaire meeting Prince Harry.
5. Going to the pre-industrial and very very cute Cotswold Villages, a few hours from London.
It's been great having her visit, and I look forward to the next time someone comes to stay. I have learnt my lesson and won't be introducing them to Primark, but look forward to more visits nonetheless! Especially is the person visiting brings a suitcase filled with NZ lollies.

A small windy island

Last week, Tane and I went to Ireland for a few days. It was an excellent trip, during which Tane turned 30, we put in over 800km of road in our rental car, and saw lots of stunning scenery that reminded us of New Zealand as well as plenty of piles of rocks in paddocks that really didn't.

Ring of Kerry: Stunning, and reminded us of home. Random neolithic stone circle: reminded us that we really were far from New Zealand after all

The highlight of our time in Ireland, apart from driving for the first time in a year, was a day trip to the Aran Islands off Galway in West Ireland. After hiring a couple of bikes, we spent fabulous day cycling around the strange but eerily beautiful and stone-covered Inishmore Island. There were so many rocks on the Island that that there is an overabundance of stone walls. It seemed a little odd, until someone pointed out that it was probably all that could be done with the giant rocks just lying around all over the place. The island reminded me of Father Ted, as the locals had such strong accents it was sometimes hard to know if they were speaking English or Gaelic. The weather was a little chilly and the skies grey, but the island seemed to suit the weather. I note though that Tane was crazy enough to go for a swim in any case ...

Inishmore Island is a must-see for anyone in West Ireland, and I thoroughly recommend it as a place to visit. The next day I really wished that I'd had padded cycle pants (ow), but loved going there nonetheless.

Happy 30th Tane!

Yesterday, we helped Tane celebrate the last 5 days of his 20s. Happy 30th, Tane!

1. Tane with his cake - Before


2. At the Beer garden - During
3. Letting the age get to him and turning in after a drink of milk and a plate of cookies (*cough*) - After

Battle of the titans

Federer vs Nadal, the Wimbledon final, 2008. What a match. It was one of those very rare occasions when you could reach for the box of superlatives and tip out the lot, without exaggerating. The tenacity, the skill, the power of both men was - well, reach into that box and pick out whatever you want. If you like tennis and have not seen the match, sell your house, your liver, your grandmother, if you have to. You must watch it.

I watch very little tennis, so I can't compare it to other classic matches, but it was possibly the greatest sporting contest I've ever seen. How often do you get the top two teams or individuals in a sport clash in an encounter that's consistently entertaining, immensely skilled and so nailbitingly close?

A few contenders spring to mind:

In football, there was some cracking games in this year's Champion's League and Euro 2008, but - tense as the Chelsea-Manchester United final was - not between between the best teams in the world. The only match I can think of that might compare to Federer-Nadal was the thriller between Holland and Brazil in the quarter-finals of USA '94.

In cricket, I sadly didn't see the famous 2005 Ashes Series and only caught the very end of the tied 1999 World Cup semi-final between South Africa and Australia. While I've seen a few riveting Black Caps matches, not when they could be considered a truly great cricketing team. That heartbreaking 1992 World Cup semi-final loss to Pakistan might have been up there, had it been a shade closer.

Rugby league had the ever enthralling State of Origin - the Graham Lowe-coached and Wally Lewis-led Queensland team's victory in 1991 sticks in my mind most strongly.

And rugby? Two Wallabies-All Blacks games: the 'Gregan tackle' match of 1994, and the match in 2000 won by a last-minute Jonah Lomu try.

What about you? What are the greatest sporting contests you've seen?

Oxbridge

Tane and I are lucky to have friends that live in both Oxford and Cambridge. That way we can visit them both, get a local insight to each of the two cities, and hear about why each of the "Oxbridge" University towns are better than the other.

With David and Holly in Oxford earlier in the year

Now, don't tell them we said so, but on the face of it they don't seem all that different. They both have fabulous architecture, stone buildings, impressive colleges, and a high hit- rate of overhearing a really plummy accent. They do have differences. Oxford has a smaller river, but a lovelier centre. Cambridge has a great river for punting. But, in general they are very similar, and both worth a day trip from London.

Oxford

We went to Cambridge last weekend, which was a fabulous day out. As well as having a good look around the city, we went punting. I don't know who thought up punting - it's a strange water activity, cruising down a river at about 2 km an hour with a giant stick and a boat that is hard to steer and prone to getting in traffic jams. Tane got the hang of steering fairly quickly.

Well, mostly got the hang of it.

I, on the other hand, could only go around in circles, and decided that it was much more fun to sit in the punt eating strawberries rather than make an effort. It was a great day out, and I recommend punting. My only regret was not getting a photo of Dean when he fell in the water. But, unfortunately, I was too busy eating strawberries to reach for the camera in time.

With Dean and Deborah in Cambridge

The perfect sporting storm

Poor Lauren. She's been a sporting widow for these last few weeks, as Tane's perfect sporting storm came together. Down at the pub on a Saturday morning to watch the All Blacks thumping England, obsessively trying to find out the score in New Zealand's cricket tour of England, spending almost every third night in front of the tv watching the greatest tournament I've ever seen - football's European Championships. Well done the Spanish! Nice to see attacking flair come out on top, for once. And nice to see the horribly dull, defensive Italians leave early.

It's been great. I've done much male bonding while swilling beer, scoffing chips (or crisps, I should say) and playing armchair critic. The highlight though was been some actual live sport - Wimbledon!

It was one heck of a memorable event - even for the queueing alone. We arrived at 9.30am, and got into the ground about 1.30pm. We queued for a queue card, then we queued for tickets, then queued to watch an actual game. Crazy. Fortunately, this was the first year that organisers had decided to start the queue in a nearby park. So most of the wait was, almost literally, a picnic.

Lewis and Johnathan chill out in the queue.

The English take queueing very seriously indeed. Surely only at Wimbledon would do you a guide to queueing, as well as an official queue card. Mine was number 9482. Yep, that's a lot of people waiting.

Fortunately, we managed to get to a court in time to see the end of up-and-coming Kiwi Marina Erakovic's third round match. It was a tight and entertaining third set, but sadly, she lost.

Marina Erakovic gives it her all on Court 11.

The next game on that court was a thriller. This was the first time I've seen top quality tennis up close, and it was amazing. They're sooo fast. Even the women hit with enough power to make my forehands look as strong as wet noodles. Especially scary giant Russian Davina Safina. Her arms were like my legs.

Wine without cups. We were the classiest people in Wimbledon.

After a couple of sets of that, it was off to "Murray Mountain", where thousands were watching the new British hope, Andy Murray. He won, to much cheering, but today lost to Rafael Nadal.

Then, as the evening wore on, we rounded out watching some doubles and men's singles. What a great venue, what great sport. I'll be back again next year - and with Lauren. Sporting widow becomes sporting wife!

Why aren't we going to New Plymouth?

For those of you on Facebook, you'll be familiar with the "Cities I've visited" function. This is one of my favourite parts of Facebook, as it allows you to map places you've visited all over the world. The other day Tane and I were having a look and discovered that you can see the top 20 places that my Facebook friends have been, as well as the top 20 places all users of Facebook worldwide have been. I know that this is not exactly a great sample group as Facebook users are more likely to be English speaking and under 35 than any other demographic group, but taking that into consideration the top 20 destinations were:

	Where my friends have been	Where Facebook users have been
1	Auckland	London
2	London	Paris
3	Wellington	New York
4	Paris	Orlando
5	Sydney	Amsterdam
6	Christchurch	LA
7	Rotorua	Rome
8	Amsterdam	Las Vegas
9	Melbourne	San Francisco
10	Taupo	Barcelona
11	Florence	Washington DC
12	Rome	Venice
13	LA	Chicago
14	Hamilton	Toronto
15	Napier	Florence
16	Prague	San Diego
17	Singapore	Miami Beach
18	Venice	Boston
19	Vienna	Brussels
20	Barcelona	Berlin

Tane and I have been to 9 of the top places Facebook users have been, and of the list of where my friends have been I have been to 17 of them, and Tane 15.

The thing that struck me the most about these lists was the fact that in the list of places my friends have been so many NZ destinations were much lower in the list than European cities. What's that about? Why have so many Kiwis visited London, Rome, Prague, Vienna, and Amsterdam when they haven't even been to New Plymouth? Not to mention Dunedin, Palmerston North and Nelson. And how on earth did Hamilton get to number 14? Was bribery involved?

Travel around the world is fabulous because you experience so much variety. Travel around NZ, though, is great as well as you see variety within your own country. In many ways small NZ towns like Ruatoria, Murupara and Te Kao have given me more of an insight into a different way of life than Paris, Rome or any other European city that is crawling with tourists. Is it because of cultural cringe that Kiwis travel around Europe but not NZ? Or is it because they think NZ is boring? I have mentioned this list to a few NZers in the last little while, and at least three of them blinked at me before saying "Um ... I've never been to New Plymouth."

How many of the cities on the lists have you been to? Have YOU been to New Plymouth? If not, why not?

A shout out to the parents of the world

Right at the moment, it seems that half the women we know either have recently had, or are about to have, a Zorg, a Tiny, another Jardine-Langston or mini Margenau - in short, a baby. Not that we've had the pleasure, but as the elder children of large families, we've seen plenty of maternity clothes, pooey nappies and bleary-eyed, short-tempered parents. It ain't easy.

So a big shout out to the new and about-to-be-new mums and dads. You guys are awesome.

Inconvenienced by the Luftwafe

As a rule I think that the tube is fantastic - it gets me pretty much anywhere I want to go in London, and is a public transport system that I think should be replicated elsewhere to cut the New World reliance on cars. When antipodean Londoners complain about rising petrol prices, it's because the cheap flights to Europe are going up in price, not because they are struggling to drive to work or supermarket. That is largly because of the tube.

Living in London, however, you get accustomed to tube delays. Signal failures, passenger alarms being activated and engineering works often conspire to make me late for work. On the weekends in particular it's not unusual for trains to be delayed or stations closed because of people throwing themselves on the tracks.

Last week, though, I was late to work due to an unexploded World War Two bomb being found in East London. Apparently it started ticking so a tube station was closed until it was removed, causing delays to the entire District Line. I hadn't realised that over 200 unexploded bombs are still in East London, and that these are being discovered as the London 2012 Olympic site is being prepared. This one was in particular was 5 ft long and known as a "Herman", named after the stout Luftwaffe head, Goering.

I always thought that I was born 35 years too late to be directly affected by World War Two, but now I can say that the Luftwaffe made me late for work. Heh.

Relaxing in the shadow of a Norman castle

Summer is here, the sun is out, and pubs suddenly have outdoor beer gardens that I never noticed before. After spending a glorious day in Arundel (West Sussex) with friends yesterday, though, I think we have found one of the best places within 2 hours of London to relax yet. Glorious.

Travellers in an antique land

There's two main reasons why Westerners go to Egypt - the ancient ruins, or the beaches in the Sinai Peninsula. Geeks that we are, we were there for the former - though as Lauren wrote earlier, turns out when the temperature headed upwards from 30 the appeal of lazing around by and in the water became a lot stronger!

But anyway, the history. It's awesome. Our tour began in Cairo, with the step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, the oldest standing structure built by humans. Hearing that made me tingle with history geek happiness.

Saqqara, where the ancient Egyptians developed the most amazing technology of all - making Coke with zero sugar.

Next up was the step pyramid's most famous descendants. We've already stuck up a bunch of pics of us and our faithful camels Michael Jackson and Moses, but I couldn't let this entry go without putting up this.
After getting our fix of big triangles (and the Sphinx, which was a bit underwhelming. Asterix comics led me astray on how big it is.) it was down to Aswan in the other end of Egypt.

The overnight train was ... memorable. Kind of like a long haul flight, but with Arabic ringtones and a guy with drinks coming up and down the aisle every quarter of an hour or so. The words "chay, chay, coffee, tea, Cola Light" will haunt us forever.

Outside the train, Egypt passed by. Palm trees, mud brick houses, the domed pastel tombs of imams. Men and women in grey or brown robes tending fields of stubbly grain. Skinny cows, oxen, the odd camel or horse. Donkeys. Many, many donkeys. The desert. And, of course, the Nile.

Looking out the window, you realised just how utterly crucial the river is. It's all that keeps the country going. Beyond the river and the tiny belt of fertile land it supports, there's nothing but stone, sand, dust and heat, all the way to the sea.

One of the other things to hit you in Egypt is how poor the place is. There's plenty of wealthy people there, but the glory days are long past. It's worst in the slums of Giza, right next to the Pyramids, where kids watch over flocks of goats grazing on rubbish dumps. Everywhere you see piles of rubble, and the ugly, unadorned apartment blocks, that are the next generation of wreckage. The countryside is usually prettier - all those palms - but not much richer. Aside from the pickup trucks and sattelite dishes, things probably looked much the same in the days of Saladin.

A country village

Egyptians seem a cheerful, friendly lot - appreciating their sense of humour is crucial to spending time in the markets without biting someone's head off - but when you look at the future, I'm not sure how much there is to smile about. Simply put, there's too little land and too many people.

Still, there's always that history to take pride in. From Aswan we headed back up along the Nile to Cairo, stopping off at various awesome temples along the way. There was Kom Ombo, then the best preserved one in the land - Edfu.

Spot the guy in the Netherlands football team shirt.

Luxor though is the ultimate for ancient Egypt addicts. Our guide said it has one third of the archaeological sites in the world. Bliss. The highlights were:

Luxor temple

The painted walls of the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and Temple of Hatshepsut. These really gave you an indication of how beautiful the other temples must have been before the paint wore off.

Best of all, the stupendousness that is Karnak. Man, those guys thought BIG.

All the temples and ruins in the desert brought to mind one of my favourite poems, Ozymandias. Especially Abu Simbel, one of Ramesses II's many monuments to his ego.

Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

But two of my favourite memories of the place have nothing to do with old stone. First, there was watching the European Cup Final in a coffee bar with our guide, three tour friends and a horde of young Egyptian men. Talk about atmosphere. I've never been anywhere where they yell Allah! Allah! when someone misses a penalty.

Mohammed, Juan and Juliana enjoy a quiet sheesha before the game.

The other is when I wandered away from the main bazaar in Cairo and found myself in a market where only the locals go to shop. The traders didn't depend on tourists, so there was no hassling to get you to buy some cheap souvenier. People asked where you are from, with no motive other than curiosity. Everyday life. I hope they have more to smile about soon.