Contiki Chronicles, Day 9: Nice is... Nice.

Right, so this was the first full day on the French Riviera. Also, coincidentally, the last full day on the French Riviera.

We started off with a trip to a perfume factory - the brand produced here is called Fragonard (or something similar), and they claim to be as good as most of the top-name designer perfume brands around, but cheaper because you're not paying for a famous brand. Or shipping. Or other similar stuff. Not being an expert on perfume I wouldn't know, but after the very brief tour of the factory I bought an extra large bottle for like €56 as a Christmas present for Mum. Don't tell her though, because I shipped it home and it hasn't arrived yet. How about that.

So after all that was dealt with, we went on to Nice for the day. Um... That's Nice as in the city. Pronounced neece but spelt differently. Like the female child of your sibling.

So yeah, with that hopefully unnecessary pronunciation guide out of the way, what is there in Nice? Well, the entire French Riviera area is practically a massive vacation/retirement spot for fairly wealthy types. Thus, it's an incredibly prosperous area and it also has a pretty nice beach. Which is where I spent most of the day.

Anyway, I didn't get any photos of Nice itself, but here's some of the general area, so maybe you can see why it's so popular. (Apologies, I took these from the bus, so there's a lot of window glare/reflections in some of them.)


Um... I'm unfamiliar with Blogger for iOS, so I'm not sure if those photos are in the right place. Also, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to display a photo from a URL, so I had to do a bit of a workaround. So sorry if there's a drop in quality, as well.

Oh, okay, so the photos are down the bottom now. Stupid google can't make things user-friendly...

Anyway, in Nice I realised that I'd lost my towel in Pamplona somehow, so I had to buy a new one. I found the biggest mall in the city, looked in every store for towels, and then finally found some for like €10 in a shop five minutes walk down the road. I then promptly went down to the beach, where I was freshly accosted with the horror that is European stony beaches.

See, because much of the European coast is in some sort of bay or something, there's a significantly less amount of tide action. The result? Less erosion on the shores, meaning you get rocks instead of nice fine sand. And this is a problem for a couple of reasons. Firstly, IT IS NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO SIT COMFORTABLY ON A BEACH MADE OF ROCKS THE SIZE OF YOUR FIST. Secondly, when you decide to get up for a swim, WALKING ON THOSE ROCKS IN BARE FEET IS INHUMANE TORTURE. Thirdly, because of the way the tide works with rocks instead of sand, the actual ground drops of ridiculously quickly. So you can be eyeball-deep I'm salt water about five metres from the shore. And that doesn't sit well with me because I prefer to be able to know where the ground is when I swim. And also when you get out you literally have to climb over a pile of rocks to get out of the waves. AND THEN YOU HAVE TO WALK ACROSS THOSE ROCKS WITH BARE FEET AGAIN. AND THEN TRY TO GET COMFORTABLE AGAIN ON THOSE SAME ROCKS.

I think we're spoiled for beaches in Australia.

So after a somewhat mixed day on the beach, we dried ourselves off, went back to the campsite, got changed, ate food, and then got back on the bus again. Our destination this time? Monaco. Yes, that's right, the world's second smallest country, the city of which is practically its own Formula One race track, the country with only two industries: Gambling and Real Estate. The home of our source of entertainment for tonight: the Monte Carlo Casino.

Now let me just say, if the French Riviera is the home of rich people, then Monaco is where the richest of them all end up. Apparently, the country has the lowest poverty rate in the world, and also the highest number of millionaires and billionaires per capita. And if I had any photos you might be able to see why it's so popular. But unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries, so I couldn't take a photo from the amazing viewpoint we went up to just before we went to the casino.

Actually, interesting thing about the Monte Carlo casino: we were told to dress nicely, and act calm, and even then we wouldn't have much of a chance of getting in - apparently Aussies and Kiwis are a bit too rowdy for their liking, and they'd be checking passports at the door. Well, not only did they not even bat an eyelid at any of us as we walked through, but they didn't even stop us to look at out ID's! Still, I felt pretty cool all suited up walking in there. I bought a ridiculously expensive cocktail (€16!!) and then proceeded to lose €30 between the roulette and the video poker machine. Fun times.

So after an hour or two in there, we went back to the campsite, some drinking probably occurred, and I went to bed. Tomorrow we leave for Florence. Yay!


Oh, and here are those photos now:

Words and Emotion

So, some stuff has happened over the last week. Week and a bit, if you want to be specific. Anyway, I thought I'd share my, uh... thoughts.



"Discuss" is an interesting word. It seems to me that the word itself is misused a lot, or at least in my eyes. To me, the word implies polite, level-headed discourse, and is the cornerstone of any reasoned conversation. And yet, too often, a discussion turns into an argument. My Dad, in particular, is fond of euphemising these as "heated discussions" or a "robust conversation". To me, that, is not a discussion. Raised voices and insults just result in more raised voices and insults. Remarks made under the guise of civility just result in hurt feelings. No. To me, "discuss" is possibly the most powerful tool we as a species can wield (not to be with discus, although I suppose one of those could be potentially lethal in the right hands). To advance as individuals and as a group, we must master the art of peaceful discussion, and never let heated emotions colour your voice.

Emotions are tricky things. Too often, they threaten to consume us, resulting in words spoken or actions taken that we might not ordinarily say or do. And once these things have been put out there, it's nigh impossible to put them back. Sometimes this is for the better. Most times, it's not. Which is why controlling one's emotions is one of the key skills in human communication.

But there's another thing that emotions will taint. Not only the words which are sent out into the world, but also the meaning which is recieved. Anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment - all of these can and do erode away our ability to listen.

This last point is important. Because just as discussion is the most powerful tool we possess as a species, the ability to listen is the skill required to operate that tool. It is this crucial skill, to listen to reason, that allows us to respond with reason when it becomes our turn to speak. But without listening, without hearing what the other person has to say, we are effectively dooming ourselves to a fruitless conversation.

So, what? Emotions affect listening, so they have no place in conversation? Of course not. One should control their emotions, not destroy them. Emotions are what let us enjoy life. Discussion, in the long run, is what hopefully keeps it enjoyable. With that in mind, it is crucial that one is mindful of both they're own and others' emotion. While you are not responsible for you're own emotions, you do have complete control over how they manifest. In a similar vein, it is not up to you to be aware of every hypersensitivity that others possess, and yet if you wish to continue with reasoned discussion, you have a responsibility to never, EVER be intentionally harmful to another's emotions.

So that's it. Listen without bias, and respond in the same manner. Don't let your emotions overwhelm, but don't ignore them, either. Maybe if everybody follows this advice, we can start moving forwards.

My life is amazing

Okay, so I fell asleep. Turns out whole bottles of wine can do that to you.

To make up for it though, here's an account of my day (sober, unfortunately).

Preface: There were two things I was planning on doing today: The first was drinks in Central London for someone's birthday, the other was the I Fucking Love Science bar crawl in Camden this evening. I wasn't really all the fussed about the first one, but I made a sign and everything for the second one! See:

Anyway.

I woke up at twelve, and was surprisingly un-hungover for the entire day. I then played Pokemon until I got out of bed at two, for the sole reason that I was fucking starving and needed to go down to the shop for food. Which I promptly did, buying some microwave meals and a large packet of Chilli Heatwave Doritos, along with a jar of salsa. I got about halfway through using the Doritos as a tool to shovel as much salsa as possible into my mouth, when I pretty much just crashed. So I lay the fuck back down and started playing Pokemon again. I ended up doing neither of the two things I wanted to do. I can only assume that the crash was caused by the unbelievable amount of awesome for today. It is now 9:44 and I plan on watching Battlestar Galactica on the computer which I've snuck into the school for.

I know you all want a piece of the day-to-day awesomeness that is myself, but please, contain yourselves.

Hmmm...

Nope. Not drunk enough. Check back in two hours.



...I was going to do a drunk blog post, but I'm only two thirds of a (pint) glass of wine in, so it's not going to happen quite yet. Still, I wen to all the effort of signing in to blogger from my iPod just to say that much.


You guys better appreciate all the things I do for you.

Hiatus? Hiatus.

I love Hiatus. It's like, the perfect excuse for being lazy.

Except it's not cool when you're forced into hiatus. Well, sometimes it is because it means you don't even have to have an excuse for being lazy.

Anyway: Hiatus. Yeah. For the last couple of weeks I've been in a state of severe computer deficieny, and will likely continue to be so until at least the end of the year. So.. yeah.

Hiatus.

Contiki Chronicles, Day 8: France again

So on day eight, we headed once again out for another travel day. Today we were off to Antibes, in the French Riviera, and we stopped for lunch and a look around in a small(-ish) town by the name of Arles.

Arles is a small town down the far south of France with not enough shade and some nice views. In fact,  this was where Vincent Van Gogh made his home and painted a fairly large number of his paintings. On top of that, the region is apparently famous for its lavender, and also has a large amphitheatre, left over from when the entire area was occupied by Romans. It's also on a river of some kind, which constitutes my entire lot of pictures of our stop there:

There's also a picture of the amphitheatre on the shot glass I bought there, but I wouldn't put a lot of faith in it's accuracy.

So we stayed there for a while, had lunch in the form of baguettes bought just off the main square, sold to us by a girl who was cute enough that I regret accidentally not giving her enough money... I think. The math made sense at the time, but after we sat down in the shade I began to think it through a bit more.

Anyway, soon we were off again for the town of Antibes. We arrived at the campground, and were promptly greeted with what I'm fairly certain were mimosas, for what amounted to no apparent reason. Maybe to celebrate our first week of tour, or something. So anyway, we didn't do much for the rest of the day, although the guys went down to the beach (which was a lot farther than we thought) in the evening to play some touch. Of course, since the entire beach is all pebbles, we made the executive decision to instead play in the car park where, despite it being about 7pm and quite dark, we had to make way for cars on at least ten separate occasions. On the way back, we stopped by the town's resident theme park - the aptly named Antibes Land. And then I think some drinking happened and then bed.

And that's it for today. These travel days are always so easy to write. I'll get day 9 up... at some point.

I actually failed this time.

Dear Kat,

See post title.

Regards,
Fuddle

P.S. Okay, I'll make a compromise - Weekdays only.

Contiki Chronicles, Day 7: BarceloNA? How about BarceloYEAH!

I promise I'll stop making puns on city names soon.

So today was the day in Barcelona. Which, by the way, is a really nice city.

We were dropped off in the middle of the city at the top of La Rambla, which is kind of a big long street with lots of shops and whatnot. Having seen the outside of Gaudi's church - La Segrada Familia (or The Sacred Family), we then decided to head off to see the inside.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

We took the metro to the church (and here's a good time to point out that Barcelona's metro system is surprisingly easy to use. Although that's to be expected. if it were hard to use, nobody would use it), and when we arrived, well... Take a look:

This is the outside of the church from the walking tour around it the previous day:

Actually wait, first. A bit of an explanation. As the name implies, La Segrada Familia is a church dedicated to the family of Jesus Christ. However, that's kinda irrelevant to the point I'm getting at which  is the fact that the outside of the church is divided into three facades, each representing a different part of Jesus' life: The nativity, the passion, and the glory - birth, death and resurrection, in that order.

So here we go, starting from the Nativity facade, and working our way anti-clockwise through the facades:

The Nativity Facade:

The Back. Nothing much to see here:

The Passion Facade. This is the side that has the ticket booth for entrance to the church:

Aaand the Glory Facade:

Did I mention the Glory Facade is still under construction? It's going to be the biggest and well, glorious of the three facades, and it still isn't complete despite the fact that construction started on the church in 1882.

So there you have it. you have four sides, each with a wildly different architectural style, with the Nativity opposite to the Passion, and the Glory at the front.

So here's the sight we saw when we came out of the metro station:

That's one the side of the Nativity Facade. Remember when I said the ticket booth was on the Passion Facade side? Yeah. that's the same line. 

So we then decided to head on back to La Rambla. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good €2 worth of metro ticket, we decided to take the opportunity to walk back. Noting to ourselves that this particular Barcelonian (Barcelonan? Spanish.) monument was actually off the map we were given. So we promptly got ourselves slightly lost (but not too lost!) and ended up back where we started with little gained but some exercise. Which we promptly remedied by eating lunch at McDonalds.

So with our bellies full and balance restored to the universe, we - 

Wait, I've forgotten something.

BEFORE we decided to waste our time at a church we didn't get to enter, we were taken on a nice little tour of Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. it's a nice place - lots of winding streets with narrow passages, easy to get lost in. We walked past the place where Christopher Columbus first unveiled American Indians to Europe, and sooner or later ended up in a very nice little square somewhere.

It was a very nice square:

Peaceful, even:

Well, that is, until you saw the bullet holes:

Turns out this particular tiny little square was the site of a brutal scene from the Spanish civil war. Unarmed civilians were lined up against the walls of the church, and shot in cold blood. The height of some of the bullet marks suggest that even some children were present that day. Although the height of the others suggest that they just weren't very good shots. Or perhaps some soldiers intentionally aimed high to avoid having blood on their hands. I'll probably never know.

So back to the present, and we are now walking down La Rambla. It's an incredibly busy street (and you'd better keep a close eye on your possessions) but for some reason today there weren't quite as many street side stalls as there are. I mean, there were still a lot, but I wasn't accosted to buy something or other every ten steps.

We ducked out of the street for a bit to look through a bunch of covered markets, and for a while we just wandered around in there, looking at everything there was:

It was while we were here that we were stuck in the middle of a very Spanish peculiarity: Siesta.

Now don't get me wrong. The idea of Siesta is pure genius. Have lunch, close the shop, go the fuck to sleep for two hours, wake the fuck up, and get the fuck back to work. What more could you want?

Well, at least, that;s the point of view from the people actually taking the Siesta. As a tourist, all you get from this experience is two hours where you can't buy anything, and the slightly odd felling of standing in a crowded market, and suddenly realising that not only are three quarters of the shops around you now closed, but there is suddenly a lot less people around. Like so:

No wonder their economy is so messed up.

So we walked out from under the covered markets (without buying anything on my part) and casually strolled down to the beach, where we spent the rest of the afternoon. The beach in Barcelona is one of the rarest sights in Europe: An actual, proper, SANDY BEACH.

Well, scratch the "actual" part, because the beach is entirely fucking FAKE. 

Yes, that's right, it's an entire fake beach. They opened most of the beaches in Barcelona when they hosted the Olympics in 1992. They also ship stupid amounts of sand from somewhere each year to replenish the sand lost due to storm erosion. Of course, it's all worth it because of the ridiculous amount of people that go to the beach every day.

Take a look:

If you look closely (or at all) you'll see that there are more people on that beach than there is actual beach. It's insane.

So we chilled out there for a while, went swimming for a bit, and pretty much everything else that happens on the beach. I should point out that it is a REALLY nice beach, with amazingly clear water - warm too, and the only problem is that the biggest wave is about twelve centimetres high. But you learn to deal with it.

...Aaaand then we went home, after several hours of the beach in which I got more sunburnt than I can ever remember being. Which was kinda stupid on my part. I was peeling for weeks.

Oh yeah, and on they way back, I saw this sign, which kinda cracked me up:

(I'll make it big so you can actually see it)

With that note, I'm off. Tomorrow is another travel day, to the French Riviera!

I failed.

Dear Kat, 

I failed. 

Well, that is to say, I would have failed, had I not decided to write this post telling you that I failed.

Life's weird that way. 

Regards, Fuddle

 In other news, I'll probably get back to the typing and the clicking and the blog posting soon. And by soon I mean tomorrow.

NOT the Contiki Chronicles!

Well, it looks like I made it to 8 days. That's a personal best! But.. yeah. Sorry for not continuing on with this. I will finish the Contiki Chronicles, I just, uh... had to go on hiatus. Yeah. an impromptu, unexplained, unplanned and indefinite hiatus. That'll do it. "Hiatus" is like a general cover-all for laziness, isn't it? So I'll be back. When I feel like it. Which could be very soon, but probably won't be. See ya!

Contiki Chronicles, Day 6: Some things that happened in Spain one time

So yeah. The next morning we all shook off our raging hangovers and ended up driving West, towards Barcelona. Before we got there, though, we stopped off in the town of Zaragoza (or Goya, I'm actually not entirely sure which). Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot there, but I got some photos anyway:

My entire time spent in this town consisted of walking up a street, buying some Churros, walking a bit further, walking back, buy a shot glass, and then going back to the coach. Good times.

After a bit more driving, we arrived in Barcelona, our stop for the night. And also the night after that. It was kinda late, but we still did some things, like went up the hill to get some pretty nice views of the city:

We also walked to, and around La Sagrada Família, which is a big-ass church. But more on that tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, that's it for today. These travel days aren't really all that particularly interesting, are they? Well, day 7 is tomorrow. How about that.

Contiki Chronicles, Day 5: Surf, Sand, and BULLS

Oh boy, now THIS was an interesting day. It rained again in the morning, but after breakfast we were once again on the coach and on our way.

We stopped in the town of Biarritz, on the coast near the Spanish border. And let me just say, it has a rather marvellous coastline (and one of the few sandy beaches we found in Europe). Take a look:

Pretty, huh? There was also some kind of church:

After a swim, some lunch, and a game of touch on the beach, we boarded the bus again, and left for our final destination for the day, across the Spanish border: Pamplona.

Now, some of you may know this, but Pamplona is the city where one of the worlds most famous (and dangerous) festivals is held: The Festival of San Fermin, better known to the rest of the world as The Running of the Bulls.

I mentioned yesterday that today would be Bastille Day? Bastille day is Sunday 14th July. The Running of the Bulls is a week (and a bit) long festival, beginning on the 6th of July and ending on... the 14th. That's right, we were there for the final day of the Running of the Bulls.

Of course, we arrived far to late to compete in any of the running, but we were there for the much safer and much better part of the day - the afterparty.

Before I get into that, though, a couple of words on the Festival of San Fermin. While most cities in Spain do indeed celebrate Saint Fermin, Pamplona has by far the wildest festival. The origin of the Running is kinda unclear, but it's known that during the festival, the farmers would run their bulls through the city streets to the bullring, where they would eventually be killed off by a matador, and the bulls could then be used for food. At some point, though, people started running with the bulls, and this grew and grew every year until it became a major part of the festival.

There are a few restrictions on competing: Firstly, you must be over 18 years old, you have to run in the same direction as the bulls, not incite the bulls, and not be under the influence of alcohol. Ultimately, this means that for a heard of stampeding bulls, it's surprisingly safe. Of course, that's all relative. Since record-keeping began in 1924, only fifteen people have died: All of them were Spanish, save two, and all were killed by goring save two (a different two). Those two were killed when one was suffocated by being pushed up against a wall by the crowd in 1977, and when the other was hit bull the horn of a bull (which somehow constitutes being different from goring, according to Wikipedia) in 2003.

Even so, the bull running is a major part of life in Pamplona. On one of the main streets, coming up to the arena, they've even erected a rather disturbingly gory statue of the bull running:

(That's me on the back of the bull.)

So that's the history over and done with. And now, on to the main attraction: The massive piss up/street party that was the afterparty for the Running of the Bulls.

...Well, I'd tell you if I could remember it. Truth be told, my rationale for that particular evening was that A LOT of predrinking would be required. So in the hour or two before we got on the shuttle bus into town, I drank a litre of Sangria (fruity-type wine, about 7% alcohol), drank a bottle of red wine, and about half a bottle of white. The rest of the night was kinda a blur. After we got off the shuttle bus, I remember falling over backwards and fucking up my wrists (they still hurt a little bit) and breaking another bottle of wine I had in my backpack. I remember swapping hats with a lot of people, to the point that I lost my favourite hat EVER. I remember randomly dancing on the street in front of a club with a new hat in front of me, on the off chance that I'd make some money (I made 50c). I remember having a swig of absinthe that I'd bought in Biarritz, before realising how disgusting it tasted and passing it off. I never saw the bottle again. I remember going into a random souvenir store and buying a shot glass (which I didn't discover for about four more days). I remember ordering a JD & Coke from a bar, having about twi sips, and the putting it down. I remember breaking off from the group, walking about on my own, and eventually meeting up with them again in the main square. And I remember most of everything after that, including what were, at the time, THE WORLD'S GREATEST KEBABS. And, among other things, I remember eventually taking the taxi back to the campsite, and passing out in the tent.

It was a good night.

Tomorrow is day 6. Is anybody excited?