Day 21 – Marseille
Like I said in my last post, my travel plans from Barcelona to Marseille ran into some timing issues, so after spending an unplanned night in Montpellier I eventually made it to my original destination the next day.
On the beach at Marseille
My host in Marseille – a Slovakian girl name Zuzana – gave me some easy directions to her place and I arrived in the late afternoon. She and her boyfriend Benoit have a nice flat about 10 minutes from one of Marseilles beaches. Without much planned for that night I decided to just go out for a walk down to the beach and check out it out. It was a nice town and the beach was pretty, although I’m reliably informed it’s not the nicest one in Marseille. It was just fine by me though.
When I got back to Zuzana’s I chilled out with her a bit and we talked about France (it’s always good getting another foreigner’s perspective) and I had a quiet night.
Notre-Dame de la Garde from the opposite side of the harbour
The next day I struck off to do a walk around the town. I caught a bus near to the centre of the town and walked the rest of the way, making up my route as I went along. The harbour is really nice, lined on both sides with cafes and full of yachts. After stopping for lunch I jumped on another bus from the centre of town and made my way up the nearby hill to check out the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica.
The view from the basilica
It’s a beautiful old church on the highest piece of land around Marseille. The views from up there are amazing the basilica itself is pretty impressive inside. It’s Catholic but with a distinct nautical feel, which I guess makes sense given that the port at Marseille was founded in 600BC and it what the town was all about.
Afterwards I got back down from the basilica I went to check out a museum called La Vieille Charité which used to serve as housing for poor and homeless people. There were several rooms dedicated to archaeology and anthropology from around the Mediterranean but also had some interesting things from South America and Oceania, too.
Inside the basilica. You can see model ships hanging from the roof on both sides of the shot, and a painting trireme-looking ship over the altar
They had a particularly cool Egyptian exhibit with sarcophaguses and mummies, as well as little statues and other bits and pieces.
After I had been to all the places I wanted to check out I headed back to Zuzana and Benoits and we headed out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. The food was great and then we moved on for a few beers at a nearby bar.
Egyptian artifacts
All in all my visit to Marseille was fairly low-key in the end, but it’s a picturesque city and I never once got the feeling that I was in the second largest city in France. After a few exciting nights in Barcelona it was nice change of pace and it was good to visit some historic sites rather than bars!
After two nights it was time to move on though. Next stop: Czech Republic.
Day 19 – Barcelona! (sung to the tune of Oklahoma!)
I’m not on a train this time! Instead I’m sitting in a hostel in Montpellier, which came as a bit of a surprise to me since I was supposed to me in Marseille tonight. There were some issues with trains and what not, so instead of arriving in Montpellier and travelling on to Marseille and arriving at a reasonable time, I’ve turned up in Montpellier at 9pm. By the time I get to Marseille it would have been close to midnight – a bit too late to bother my hosts, I think, so I’ve pushed my plans back a day.
Because of the unexpected turn I hadn’t arranged accommodation either. After walking to about 10 or so hotels around the train station and getting the point after seeing as many “COMPLET” signs hanging in the window I decided finding somewhere a bit further away from the centre of town. Luckily my iPhone came to the rescue. I tracked a place down and after hopping on a tram and a short hike afterwards I arrived at my accommodations at about 11.30pm.
But wait a second – this is supposed to be about Barcelona. Note that I have supplemented my own pics with some shots I stole off the internets because my little compact digital couldn’t do some scenes justice.
The view from my hostel room
I encountered a similar issue with finding hosting in Barcelona that I did with Paris – a big, popular city with more surfers than hosts during the high season. With the help of my trusty Lonely Planet guide I got a tip for a good hostel in the La Raval district. I made my way there and checked in.
The hostel was in a great location – in some nifty quietish back streets about a 5 minute walk from Las Ramblas which is the main drag in Barcelona that leads to the harbour. In all the streets around it were bars, cafes, Mom & Pop fruit and veggie stores and take aways.
The two lanes of La Rambla are divided by a large concrete island which at all times it seems was packed with food stalls, street performers and people. Lots of locals too, though, not just tourists.
My first full day there I rose and headed down to the waterfront to meet up with some people from the tour group I’ve been shadowing for the last couple of weeks. They had arranged a bus tour around Barcelona that I decided to get in on. It was a bit touristy, I guess, but I’m glad I did it because the sites we visited were great.
Sagrada Familia
Gaudi’s Sangrada Familia is incredible. The sheer amount of detail that was in every square inch of it blew me away, and I can’t imagine how they managed to build such an organically shaped building using the methods of the time. Unfortunately work on it is ongoing and there was some scaffolding over parts of it, but I got the idea.
Then it was off to Park Guell which is just one of the coolest places I’ve been in my life. You can explore it for ages and keep seeing something new. Some of the paths and grottos they’ve built are amazing to stand among. Even though it is the high seasons for tourists, once you leave the main path and wander off on your own you can be alone for ages. I must have walked around for about 10 minutes before I even saw another person passing by.
On Saturday I went and did some more exploring, this time in the gothic quarter where they have some very claustrophobic narrow streets with buildings that either slant or literally bulge out and almost touch the adjacent ones.
Saturday evening I hunted around for somewhere that wasn’t too packed to watch the football game between Spain and Paraguay . I ended up at some Irish pub (it was the only placed I could find a seat) and struck up a conversation with a couple of Scottish guys who, it turns out, were also in town to see the race the next day. We stayed at the pub waaaaaaay after the game concluded and kept drinking. I stumbled off back to my hostel about 2am, got lost in some back streets, fell asleep in the doorway of some shop that was closed for the night for about 2 hours, woke up and then found my way home.
Park Guell
As with Assen the weekend before, I would learn to regret having a big one on the night before the race. I woke with a start at about 9am the next day, hastily had a shower and made my way to the nearest metro determined to luck my way to the track. Normally I would at least establish a rough idea what subways or trains I would need to catch the night before but obviously I was preoccupied last night.
In the end I just ended up following all the people with either 99 (Jorge Lorenzo) or 26 (Dani Pedrosa) on their shirts and made it to the track in time to find my spot for the Moto2. Boy am I glad I did, too, what a race!
There was a massive first corner pile up of about 9 bikes, one of which ended up bursting into flames. Iannone who was the race leader copped a ride through penalty because he overtook during the yellow flag period after the opening crash and on the final lap a rider named Morales (who I’m unfamiliar with) was sprinting to the finish line at full speed when he clipped the back tire of the bike in front of him, got thrown up in the air, ragdolled down the straight at full speed and to add injury to injury, his bike bounced off the top of him. After the race they declared that he was “okay” but frankly I was just amazed he lived.
Park Guell
The MotoGP itself wasn’t quite as exciting, but I guess a race like the one I just saw would be hard to top. Lorenzo won his third race in a row (I must be his good luck charm) followed by Pedrosa and Stoner. Pedrosa had a ball-tearer of a race having run deep on an early corner from first place and fell back to 12th. I’d have thought his race was over right there but it only took him about 5 laps to get back up to 4th and no telling how he might have gone if he managed to stay up front.
Cool little street in the gothic quarter
Catalunya is a great circuit though, easily my favourite so far. The Spanish are all nuts and went crazy with Spaniards coming 1st and 2nd. In fact it was a good weekend to be in Spain given that they won their World Cup match, the MotoGP AND Wimbledon.
That night after the race I joined up with the tour group again for dinner at a restaurant down on the harbour. The food was delicious (the sirloin steak with white sauce almost made my face EXPLODE in ecstasy) and I got chatty with a couple of Czechs who were in the group and got some advice for my visit to the Czech Republic that was coming up. They recommended I skip Brno (unless I was going to go to the Superbikes, which I’ve decided not to) and check out a town called Cesky Krumlov instead.
Day 15 – A certain… I don’t know what…
Zeupiter is the most casual God ever. He's all like "Yeah... just holding some lightning..."
I arrived in Paris and sought out the hostel that I’d tracked down online the night before. Contrary to you what you might expect, it’s actually harder to find a couchsurfing host in a big, popular city than it is in the smaller, less visited places. From discussions I’ve had with other hosts from Europe, in a city like Paris your typical host might get 10 – 15 requests per day during the high season. After a week or two contacting people fruitlessly in Paris (they were all booked up) I decided it would just be easier to hostel this one.
The hostel itself was quite cool, situated on Avenue des Gobelins about 20 minutes walk (or a quick metro ride) south-east of Notre Dame. I got in fairly late in the afternoon so I didn’t do much else other than grab a shower, have a wander around and have dinner.
I strolled around the immediate area for about an hour checking things out before stopping at an Italian restaurant for a great carbonara.
When I got back I met my bunk mates at the hostel – two girls from Seattle who were travelling together and another from California. This would have been the first part of my journey where I would have been “alone” in that I didn’t have a host or a friend waiting to greet me when I arrived in the city, but it didn’t take long before we had a rapport and were swapping travel stories and they brought me up to speed on what they’d been doing in Paris for the last week.
Having only two nights in Paris I knew I would have a big day tomorrow so I turned in before midnight.
The next day I hit the street and began walking up to Notre Dame cathedral… and then I went to the Eiffel Tower… and then the Arc De Triomph…
Oh, who am I kidding. I thought Paris sucked.
Sure it’s got some of the greatest landmarks that exist in the world today, and more culture in one square kilometre than there is in some entire countries, but for me that’s more than amply negated by the masses of tourists, the constant badgering of hawkers, beggars and scammers and also by the Parisians themselves, who as it turns out, were frequently as arrogant and superior as the classic stereotypes would have you believe.
Note that I am talking only about Parisians here, not the French as a whole, who in my experience are awesome.
Let me relate this example:
I went to the post office to box up and send some things I’d accumulated over the course of the holiday that were beginning to take up too much space. Not long after initiating a conversation with the 50-something year old lady at the post office and struggling to make myself understood in French I asked if we could switch to English. She was by no means fluent but her English was certainly far better than my French. At one point during the interaction she chided me with the comment “this is France… you should speak French…” but what she really meant was “fuck you for making me speak your filthy peasant language”.
It was the kind of thinly-veiled insult that someone says in a seemingly off-hand way while they’re concentrating on something else and then lift their gaze from what they’re doing to your face, but only to see if the insult registered, all the while maintain their patronising, insincere smile.
I did my best to articulate that I had learned the essentials which didn’t cover the vocabulary I’d need for the bureau de poste and that by her logic for the sake of this trip I would have to become semi-fluent in not only French but also Dutch, Spanish, German and Czech but she either didn’t understand me or didn’t care. Probably the latter. All I really felt like doing was punching her face in, but I wanted my post to reach its destination even more, so I refrained.
The Louvre
Something I did enjoy though was my visit to the Louvre. It’s a beautiful museum and I must have wandered around there for about 3 hours and still didn’t see everything. The Mona Lisa was much smaller than I thought it would be. For me though the highlight was standing in front of Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa which is a painting I’ve loved for years and years. It’s got abject despair, death, misery, futility and forlorn hope all over it. And what’s more it’s based on a very compelling true story. One for the kids.
The Raft of the Medusa
So after I had spent a lovely afternoon looking at the sights and avoiding being scammed out of money by some arsehole or another at every single fucking turn I headed back to the hostel and went out with the two girls from Seattle for dinner and then on to a bar to have a few drinks.
A girl copying a painting at the Louvre
Maybe I’m being a little too harsh. I was only there for just over 48 hours, after all, but I’m certainly not basing my opinion on just one or two awkward social encounters. I think as a city, Paris has a reputation that it can’t possibly live up to, and despite what attractions it has to recommend it, there are too many negative aspects conspiring to spoil your fun.
Sometimes I think maybe I just missed something really fundamental to liking the place because people always rave about Paris, but I’m beginning to wonder if they’re not just excited to be in Paris because they’re in Paris. Since, you know, that’s something we’ve always been told would be totally rad. And then they come home and say “Paris was amazing!” because that’s what everyone who goes to Paris says and so the possibility of not liking it hasn’t even occurred to them.
You may argue that two days isn’t enough time to form an opinion, but then I’d make the point that by then I didn’t want to spend any more time there anyway.
By midday the next day I was on a train to Barcelona. Thankfully.
Day 12 – Hup Holland Hup!
The harbour at Hellevoetsluis
It was my last day in Groningen and I was about to set off for Amsterdam in a few hours. I had arranged a host in Amsterdam but they had to cancel at the last minute. No problem, though – I could just hit the interwebs and find a hostel for the two nights I was going to stay there.
Then I remembered something.
I had recently received a friend invite on Facebook from a guy named Richard. I knew him better by his IRC nick Guarrand. About seven years ago I frequented an internet forum dedicated to a game called Homeworld and used to talk with the guys in the chat room. Among that crew was a Norwegian guy I gamed with in Brisbane when I lived there and a few years ago I went to a Big Day Out with an English guy, both of whom I’d met on the forum.
Richard was another one of these guys I used to hang out with online, and suddenly it clicked. He’s Dutch and he left me a message on my profile just a couple of days ago to the effect of if I’m ever in Rotterdam I should look him up for a beer.
With only an hour or two before I was due to leave Groningen I sent him a message on Facebook, but unsure as to whether or not he would see it in time I began my internet stalking.
It’s quite scary, really. In about 15 minutes with just his name and the knowledge that he lived in or near Rotterdam I had found out his home address, his work address and phone number and his private mobile phone number. It turns out he lives in a town called Hellevoetsluis which is about a 25 minute drive from Rotterdam.
I called him up and told him I was thinking of coming to Rotterdam but only if he agreed to have a beer with me. He was surprised to hear from me but was keen so I said goodbye and was about to head out the door when he called back and suggested I just come and stay at his place instead. Champion!
He met me at a station in Rotterdam and drove me back to his place. I met his cool girlfriend Vera and was advised that we’d be drinking beer and watching the football that night. Sounded good to me! If I recall correctly it was Argentina vs. Mexico. Dinner involved fries and lots of mayonnaise.
The next day was an important one – the Netherlands were playing Slovakia in a knockout game at 4pm. Richard, Vera and I went down to the mall to get lunch and do a little shopping and then we drove down to the lake and he showed me the harbour before we made our way to a pub in the old town and took up a table right in front of one of the TV’s they would be showing the game on. We were about three hours early for the game but had a great spot so we decided to pass the time by having some beers. (Woe!)
Richard, our hero, Vera
At one point Vera expressed a concern that she hadn’t dressed for the occasion. Richard offered to run home and grab an orange shirt for her. I asked him to bring my Netherlands shirt and scarf I bought in Groningen as well. About half an hour later we were primed.
By 4pm the place was packed with locals covered in orange. There was even some huge dog with an orange shirt laying around and the next 90+3 minutes of football was awesome. I had a great time.
Afterwards we stopped off at the grocery store to grab some ingredients for dinner and Vera whipped up an awesome Mexican feast. Then Richard and I went upstairs to screw around with video games for a while before ending up back downstairs and watching episodes of Big Bang Theory until we all turned in.
Huge thanks to Richard and Vera for not only offering to take me in at short notice but also for showing me such a great time while I was there.
The next day Richard dropped me off at the bus stop so I could get back to Rotterdam and catch my train to Paris.
Day 10 – Orange is the new black
I’m on a train! No surprises there. I was heading to Paris from Rotterdam but have been delayed at a platform in Brussels for an hour because of a breakdown on a train they were testing further up the line. Personally I don’t mind though – I’m in first class, the seats are comfortable as hell, I have access to a power point for my laptop along with free wifi and they just keep bringing drinks. Here’s hoping our train breaks down next. Anyway, that’s what’s happening now. Let me recount to you what’s happened over the past 5 days or so.
Well, the first three days of those five days. The other two will come later…
Martinitoren clock tower in central Groningen
I arrived in Groningen from France with no hassles and was immediately surprised by just how awesome the Netherlands is. I mean, sure I expected I would like it, but I never imagine I’d fall in love with the place the way I did. That expression – “I fell in love with the place” is used a lot, but in this situation it’s most certainly true. I love the Netherlands, I love the Dutch and I love their lifestyle.
Groningen itself is an old university town and the students come from all over so the population is generally quite young and have very diverse backgrounds. While I was there I stayed with Parisa, originally from Iran, who I located on Couchsurfing. She lives in a very cool modern flat with her housemate Durba (from India). I arrived in the early evening and Parisa showed me to her place and before long we were heading out again to a pub in the town centre to watch the Netherlands play Cameroon with some of her friends. There I met Manuel (from Portugal) and Daniella (from Germany).
There was a great atmosphere and Netherlands won which made the crowd even happier. Heading home I broke off from the main group along with Manuel and Daniella to go have another beer or two at a different pub and got back to the flat at about 2am. After having an entertaining chat with a couple of drunken Dutch revellers downstairs I went up and drifted off into a fitful sleep having been up since 6am that morning for a car ride to Lille.
(l-r) Durba, Manuel, our hero, Daniella and Parisa
The next night Parisa and Durba decided to invite their friends around for a barbecue in the courtyard outside their flat. Manuel and Daniella returned and we had a good meal and then settled inside where the girls insisted we help them make some space on the liquor shelf by finishing off all the bottles that were mostly empty (and there were a lot of them!). We started playing drinking games and ended up finishing off a few bottles that weren’t that empty as well. It was a really fun night with lots of laughter and carry-on.
I eventually got to bed at about 3am despite having to rendezvous with some people to get a lift to the Assen race track for the GP the next day at 7.30am. Before falling asleep I texted them a message informing them to go ahead without me and that I’d figure out my own way to the track, despite not really being sure just how I’d do that.
Thankfully it was a piece of cake! This is one of the things I came to really like about the Netherlands (apart from the bicycles, the cheese, the fact that everyone speaks excellent english and the abundance of attractive wimmenz).
When I finally set off it was about 10am and the main race was commencing at 1am.
I got a bus to the local train station from practically outside the place I was staying, got on the next train to Assen and stumbled into a shuttle coach from the station to the circuit. Within 5 minutes of arriving at the track I had met with the guy who had my tickets and I within 10 minutes I had taken my seat in the grandstand, just in time for the Moto2 race.
The Moto2 race is as exciting in person as it is on TV, partly due to the rule changes this season which have led to an increased starting grid of around 40 bikes, but unlike on TV having that many bikes (most of which are in new livery so I can’t identify riders at a glance) does make it hard to follow without the aid of commentary and so on. Luckily I have no such trouble with the MotoGP where there are usually only about 16 bikes on the grid and many riders have been in the same teams for a couple of seasons.
Despite it being a hot day and not having any shade in the grandstand I thoroughly enjoyed the races and the vibe in Assen, although the circuit felt a little more “restricted” than either Silverstone or Phillip Island. Both of those races had a carnivalé atmosphere, with lots of side attractions, markets, displays and a large paddock to wander around in. However I didn’t really investigate the entire circuit and perhaps rather than being spread around the place those kinds of attractions were all grouped at the other end.
After the Moto2 and MotoGP races I made my way home as quickly and as easily as I got to the track. I ended up only being at the track itself for about 2 hours, owing mainly to the heat, sun and especially to feeling crook from the big night I’d just had. I’m not disappointed though – the racing itself was great and I still have Catalunya and Sachsenring to look forward to. Hopefully I’ll be in better shape for those!
The beer trolley!
More art than science
After a quick shower I ventured back into the town centre to rendezvous with some people from a Pole Position Travel tour group who were taking a beer trolley around the town centre. What a brilliant contraption! There were ten of us sitting on stools either side of a bar on wheels with a beer tap. At the bottom of each stool is a set of pedals and a driver sits in the front. We peddled around for about an hour, drinking beer and generally getting cheers from all the people we passed. We began pouring beers and holding them out for bicyclists and pedestrians to grab as we went past.
We had two vacant stools, so about 10 minutes into the trip we invited some random people on to join us, which despite their surprise, they did!
We finally pulled up back where we started but hadn’t tapped out the keg yet, so we just hopped off and chilled out there. I took over the bar tending duties and we continued drinking and doling out free beers to whoever happened past. It was hilarious fun the whole time.
When the well had finally run dry we made our way to an Italian restaurant for some fantastic antipasto and pizzas.
I had a bloody awesome day!
Cheers!
Day 7 – Northern France
Gildas met me at the ferry in Calais and rushed me off to his second job where I would wait for Virginie to finish her work for the day and take me home. His second job is in a gym and pool at a hotel (his first is a fireman) and although I was invited to enjoy the pool and sauna while I waited for Virginie, I ended up drinking with a group of English customs officers who were hanging out at the bar. Not long after they departed, Virginie arrived and picked me up.
The crowd for the music festival in Calais
Rather than heading straight home we went out for dinner in Calais. It turned out there was some kind of music festival on that night and all up and down the main street there were stages with bands performing various types of music.
We chose a café and settled in for a meal when it turned out – much to my delight – that the band right outside played only covers by The Cure and Midnight Oil. A strange combination, I know, but a band whose renditions of Lullaby and Beds are Burning are equally faithful is obviously going to get a thumbs up from me.
The singer himself styled himself after Robert Smith and did a passable vocal impersonation. Discussing it with Virginie, we concluded that the best analogue in French for “Robert Smith” would be “Robert DuPont”. So that became his name.
Gildas and Virginie’s place was lovely and has a huge back yard full of trees, bushes and flowers. It was a peaceful place to stay and when Gildas got home we enjoyed a beer next to the fire outside and I turned in.
Gildas & Virginie's back yard
Over the next two days I spent some time relaxing in their home and going out with Virginie to take a look around the surrounding area. We went back to the coast to visit the beach and drove around the surrounds.
For lunch on my final day we cooked a little barbecue out the back and I tried black pudding for the first time and liked it! That night Gildas and Virginie invited their friends around for dinner. I met Sebastian, Jeremy, Virginie #2 and Paulina. The men had a game of pétanque in the back yard and then we sat down for what is possibly one of the most awesome things I’ve ever had in my life – raclette. Never had it before, nor even heard of it… but MY GOD. I’m going to get a raclette grill when I get home. And then die of a heart attack in my thirties.
Gildas and Virginie were both awesome hosts and it was good to see them again. It had been around two years since I had hosted them in Darwin. Virginie was as much fun as I remember and I was especially happy that Gildas’ english had improved a lot (which is fortuitous since obviously I’ve been too lazy to learn any French!). When we first met he barely spoke a word of english so I never really got the chance to talk to him, but we were able to talk this time and I was glad to find out he was as friendly and warm a guy as I had always suspected.
Me with Gildas & Virginie
Earlier that evening when Virginie and I called on her parents house so I could use the internet we learned from her mother that there was a rail strike in France the next day. I was a bit worried, since I had to catch two trains within France the next day to get to the Netherlands, but the actual extent of the strike was unclear.
Luckily a friend of her mother’s was also wary about the state of rail travel the next day and was driving to Lille instead of commuting by train as he normally would. Virginie made a representation on my behalf and he agreed to give me a lift as far as he was going. That was one trip taken care of.
Upon arriving at the train station in Lille I was relieved to learn it was only the station staff who were on strike but that the trains themselves were running. Since I already had my ticket I was fine. I got to Amsterdam with no dramas and jumped another train to make my way to the town of Groningen, only a short trip from Assen where the next MotoGP was being held.
Day 4 – Farewell UK, Bonjour France
The first leg of my trip has wrapped up and again I find myself writing this post on a train. This time I’m on my way to Dover to catch a ferry to Calais. I decided to go for the ferry instead of taking the train all the way across the channel because, well, a boat ride sounds nice!
The dinner on Friday night in Whittlebury was great. The hall it was held in was reasonably posh (for a bunch of people in town for a motorbike race, anyway) and I got to meet the British 125cc and Moto2 riders that would be racing at Silverstone on Sunday. The evening was hosted by the guy who runs the tour company and a British former-racer and current motorcycle journalist who took questions throughout the evening.
I spent the time drinking and feasting with my Welsh-mates-for-the-evening Rob and Jason, the latter of whom had his arm in a sling after an unfortunate high-side while riding his Blackbird last week. They were funny, gregarious guys who knew a bloody lot about motorcycles.
Saturday I slept in late and rose to watch Australia play Ghana on TV and was well impressed with the result after our particularly shit effort against Germany. Hopefully we can beat Serbia and Ghana manage to beat Germany in the final game. That should be enough to get us through to the next round if my sums are correct.
My couchsurfing host Dave, an ex-pat Kiwi, was incredibly generous with his time and took me to see a lot of interesting places around the midlands like Salcey Forest, the canals and other sites of interest. We dined out a couple of times and spent a lot of time just talking. He’s a very open guy who is well travelled so has lots of anecdotes from the road and a very interesting personal history.
Conveniently, he also knew some people who were going to Silverstone on Sunday for the MotoGP race and was able to arrange for me to get a lift. I went to Bugbrooke to meet Roland, whose son Dave was treating him to the race for father’s day. Roland and his wife Maria had a really nice home with a fantastic garden and I ended up being glad that Dave was running a bit late so I got to hang out there for a while.
Silverstone itself was a lot of fun. The circuit looked great and the weather was sunny but cool. My grandstand seat had a nearly 180o view covering about 4 or 5 corners so I could see plenty of action and when the bikes were out of sight there was a large screen just across from me so I could keep track of what was going on.
All in all my experience in the UK has been great. The countryside around Northampton is lush, green and absolutely beautiful: trees, fields and rolling hills as far as the eye can see. I’ll be returning to the UK at the end of my journey to head home and will spend a day or two in London, and if it’s anything like the last time I visited London I’ll have a ball then as well.
One thing that has been throwing me this whole time though is that it didn’t get completely dark until about 10.30pm at night. I’d be wandering around thinking it was about 5pm and wondering why I felt so damn hungry and tired only to look at my watch and realise it was almost 9pm.
In a couple of hours I’ll be meeting Gildas and Virginie in Calais who will take me back to their place in Boulogne. They’re couchsurfers I previously hosted a couple of years ago so it’ll be good to have some familiar faces for my first time in a “foreign” country on this trip.
I don’t have any plans at all for my stay in Boulogne, but no doubt they’ll have some suggestions. I’m looking forward to spending at least one day not doing anything at all though!
I’ve got some pictures to upload but due to the cost of using broadband while roaming overseas I’m trying to stick to only uploading text at this point. Next time I’m staying somewhere that has wifi I’ll start uploading my pics.
Day 1 – Mind the gap
Northampton
As I write this I’m sitting on a train from London bound for Milton Keynes to meet up with Dave, my first Couchsurfing host for this trip. Dave lives in Northampton but works in MK and he’s going to give me a lift to his place when he knocks off work, which he’s offered to do early once my train arrives. I think I’ll be arriving a little too early for him to reasonably do that though, so in order to help him spend a more respectable amount of time at work I’m going to find a pub to park up at for an hour or two when I get there.
I’m a good bloke like that.
The flight from Australia was surprisingly merciful. I slept through pretty much the entire first international leg from Sydney to Bangkok and then after an hour or so layover I was on my way to London which I slept through again (this time with the aid of my friend Stilnox). I obtained a ‘script for the Stilnox back in February when I was having trouble sleeping during the election and managed to ration it so I’d have some left over to help me get through the flights over here and back later in the year.
I’m glad I did, too – I’d say the trip from Australia to the UK was more pleasant than the return flight I took from Adelaide to Darwin for Ryan’s birthday earlier this month.
Another thing that helped was the excellent book that Gracie loaned me – Superfreakonomics. I’d read the first book (Freakonomics) some time ago and spotted a copy of the follow up laying on the kitchen counter at his place while I was in Darwin. I pointed it out and mentioned how much I enjoyed the first one so he suggested I take it. So I did. Both books are a fantastic read and I can recommend the bloody arse off them.
It kind of seems a shame that no sooner have I arrived in London that I’m buggering off to the midlands straight away but I should have a couple of days here at the end of my trip when I arrive from Munich on my way home. I’ve already seen all the touristy stuff on a previous trip anyway.
I’m looking forward to getting into Northampton and taking a shower to get the road grime off. Later this evening I’m heading to a village called Whittlebury for a pre-MotoGP dinner organised by the touring company I bought the tickets from.
I’m making a note to myself here to write more about Couchsurfing and Stilnox in a later post.
For the record I don’t necessarily intend to update this blog daily, but I’ll try to keep it somewhat regular. We’ll see what happens.
I’m going to go back to reading Superfreakonomics now, although being on this train is making me regret that I didn’t install Sid Meier’s Railroads on my laptop before I left home!
Dan’s Excellent Adventure
MotoGP race in Mugello, Italy
This time tomorrow I’ll be waiting at the airport and beginning my big adventure.
For five weeks I’ll be travelling around Europe following the MotoGP and in the meantime trying to squeeze in as much of the local culture as possible.
When the idea for this trip first popped into my head towards the end of last year I looked at the provisional MotoGP calendar for a block of back to back races that all took place in Europe. There was a satisfyingly large chunk of six potential races in the first half of the season so I took at that as my starting point.
The only criteria I set myself is that I wanted to attend at least one race in either Spain or Italy. In the end I settled on the races at Silverstone (UK), Assen (Netherlands), Catalunya (Spain) and Sachsenring (Germany). As an added bonus the races were all very close together, with the first three being on consecutive weekends which is rare for the MotoGP since races often have three or four weeks between them.
I’m pleased to say that each race has something special about it:
This is the first MotoGP race to be held at Silverstone – a storied track that has hosted the British Formula 1 for many years and will now add premier-class motorcycle racing to its history. I’m more familiar with Donington Park track which has hosted the MotoGP for the last 20 or so years but I’m looking forward to being part of the first race of the Silverstone era.
Assen has long been one of my favourite tracks in MotoGP for its fast, flowing circuit and chicane just before the finish line which has many times been the final, decisive point of a hard fought race-long battle. The circuit was redesigned in 2006 and while I preferred the old layout a little bit more I’m still looking forward to visiting “The Cathedral”.
As well as having a lot of history in its own right, to be honest the main reason I’m looking forward to Catalunya is just to be a part of the craziness of Spanish racing fans. Like Italians, the Spanish are mad for the sport and their celebrations are world famous (although when it comes to Spanish and Italian sport fans these antics are hardly confined to motorcycle racing). They’ve been known to rush the track and start setting off fireworks at the end of the race even before the last rider has finished. The celebrations will be especially crazy if Spaniards Jorge Lorenzo or Dani Pedrosa win.
Finally there’s Sachsenring with its perpetually winding corners that see riders twisting and leaning for the first eight corners before plunging them steeply downhill from turn 11 and later coming back to the main straight with a sharp left and steep hill climb.
So my journey begins in the UK, and as I make my way from race to race and visit the countries that play host to them I will also pass through Belgium, France, Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic in my travels.
All I need over the next 24 hours is for the volcano to remain calm, for British Airways staff to stay off the picket line and to avoid catching the cold that both of my workmates are grappling with and I’ll be sorted.
*knocks firmly on wood*
