Greener Pastures

Before yesterday I had no idea that “Niall” was even a legit name…  Or that Zayn is half Pakistani (and I learnt another new name).  I knew that Harry had been knocking about with some older chick for a while but  I didn’t know that Liam had had an issue with his kidneys… and hey, I don’t even have a fact for Louis!  (And who am I kidding, I had to look up that bit about Liam on Wikipedia!)

One Direction fever has hit Sydney with a bang and I for one have no idea what’s hit me.

Hearing the constant screaming is almost (though ever so slightly less) bad than the wailing of a vuvuzela right in my ear.  Seeing that desperate look in the eyes of young girls everywhere reminds me of… well, let’s just say it reminds me of a time long ago.  I had often heard the band’s catchy tunes on the radio but no longer religiously watching MTV, I had no idea what these people looked like.  Now I know vaguely with bouffants and skinny jeans aplenty, what the boys from One Direction look like.  And yes, I agree.  They’re good looking lads!  They throw out some pretty cute harmonies too.

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I have been following the PostSecret project (www.postsecret.com) for some time and in October 2011 when I purchased my iPhone, I discovered that there was an app available for it.  I downloaded it and like manh others soon developed an avid interest in what I had become a part of.  The app’s users seemed to feel a very close connection to what quickly became a community of anonymous friends who would pull each other through times of darkness, share their happinesses or just to feel that little bit less alone.

I soon discovered that a lot of people took the community very seriously.  There were some that credited the other users with saving them from suicide while others admonished their fellows for bullying and causing other mental stress.  People used the app to tell the world their deepest darkest secrets while others used it to share random thoughts.

I took the point of reading PS every day.  I would read it when I was waiting for the train, the bus… or as most users did, I would read it just before going to bed (and thereby delaying my sleep time).  Recently there had been some controversy floating around the community… hatred for people posting images that were graphic and plain horrific… the moderators were having difficulty keeping up.  I’ve been on vacation for the past 2 weeks so haven’t been able to log in as frequently though recently I’ve been managing to check every second day.  Yesterday (Jan 1st 2012) I opened the app and could not access any of the pages.  The app froze which is not unusual but after checking my connection and restarting it several times, I was still getting a loading signal…. I knew that something was up.  Finally, after attempting reload for the upteenth time, I saw just one secret remaining…. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprisingly, the main attraction in Victoria Falls is…. Victoria Falls! I really wanted to upload a picture I took of it from the plane as we were about to land in Zimbabwe for the first time. Amazingly, you could see them steaming away in the far horizon because the plume shoots up so high. But yeah, unfortunately I seem to have done something super idiotic with the picture.

I have recently come to consider myself quite the expert in Waterfall Visitation after having visited Iguacu Falls last year and thankfully too! Banking on my years of experience, I wore my swimmers to the falls. If you don’t do this, I’d get a poncho. There were times when even standing at the top of the falls, you couldn’t see a thing for all the water plume clouding the sky and other times when you would be forgiven for thinking that it was raining… heavily.

Victoria Falls is the hub for all adventure activities offered by the various tour operators in town. One of the tallest bungies in the world is over the Devil’s Boiling pot on the Zambian side. They offer helicopter and “micro-flight” rides over the falls. The white water rafting happens at the the base (when in operation) plus a host of other things are available to do here.

All in all, Victoria Falls are amazing. When you see them for the first time, there’s nothing you can do but gasp. It truly is a spectacular sight to behold.

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So. Two of the biggest attractions in Victoria Falls are the “Lion Encounter” aka “Lion Walk” or the “Elephant Safari”.

What is a lion walk?
See my post on lion walks for more information

What is an elephant safari?

I didn’t actually do this but from all accounts, this is what happens… Each person rides an elephant and goes for a walk around the plains on the elephant’s back. You hardly see any wildlife though you’ll probably see a few impalas and stuff. The main draw card of this activity is to experience the closeness to the elephant.

The main issue here is that I’m totally torn between the uniqueness of these activities (therefore wanting to do them) and the issue of whether or not it’s right (therefore NOT wanting to do them). The tour providers have their stories prepared as to where and how they obtained their animals but I still don’t know what to believe.
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We finally arrived in Victoria Falls after two entire days of planes and airports. What was my first impression? Honestly, it was that a) the toilets in the airport have a deathly, tear inducing stench (and I didn’t even go inside) and b) things are sloow in Zimbabwe. Both of these impressions came from the same experience of standing in line for immigration at Victoria Falls airport.

By this time we were both of course absolutely shattered with the one million changes in time zone we’d experienced over the past few days but instead of running straight to our room and crashing, why not get out there and attack our first Victoria Falls experience?! The thing that we both knew we absolutely wanted to do was to walk with the lions. Luckily our hostel had an activities booking service and the girl who ran that was actually there at the time we arrived and before we knew it, we were on our way to meeting our first lions.

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Gosh… Feels like only yesterday I was trippin around everywhere but here we are 6 months into the sensible world of the workforce… and *my* how much the life I lead today is different to the one I was living exactly one year ago to this day. I’m not unhappy. In fact I’m quite content with what I have right now. But oh my goodness…

NOSTALGIA!!

Reflecting on what I did in those 3 months or so, I did SO MANY things for the FIRST time. Can’t say I would do them all over and over again but it definitely was fun at the time!

RIDING IN A CESSNA

OMG. Never wanted to spew so much in my life. I could barely concentrate on looking at the lines. Just kept trying to tell myself to think about the fact that I was getting to witness something special. JUST GET THROUGH THIS but did they REALLY need to do TWO spins PER geoglyph?? I am just so proud of myself that nothing came out. I did so well!

PARAGLIDING

Can you believe I went paragliding?!?! Not just anywhere, but over the Other Side of the Pacific Ocean (in Lima, Peru). I like the symmetry of that. I’m amazed that I even went paragliding at all… Jane and I went simply on a last-minute-lark. After a late night out celebrating our last day with our tour group, we were down to 8 left in the group. Adventureman Justin fell into a conversation with a paragliding hawker and soon sparked English James’ interest. The more people that took the ride, the better the price would be. Jane and I made a snap decision and we were in! It was exhilerating and ill-inducing at the same time. AMAZING VIEW… after the clouds cleared. I swept down low over the roof of the Marriott, it felt like my feet were going to scrape along the top. My guide also took me for spins over the ocean which SHOULD have been awesome but actually made me feel a bit ill LOL. I appreciated it though.

RIDING A MOTORCYCLE

HEEEEEEEEE. This was FUN! Riding the motorcyle taxi up the favela in Rio. Scary as all hell with the way they ride but the first time I’d ever been on a motorcycle. I only wish it had lasted longer.

DRIVING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD
In France! My first experience was heading out of the car rental spot in the MIDDLE OF PARIS. I may or may not have hit another car’s side mirror… =D. Nothing got damaged though! I SWEAR.

DRINKING COFFREE

Look, ok. I know this is not a big one for MOST people… but I don’t drink coffee! I drank my first ever cup of coffee for breakfast on our last morning in Barcelona. It was actually good. I liked it and drank coffee again when I got home but it was… not so good. El Sigh.

After leaving Park Güell, WE WERE SO HUNGRY. But had so little time! There were so many things to see! And sooo… no idea what we were doing or where we were going!! So we decide to just head towards the area with the highest concentration of Xs on our map. One of those was something like “la blablabla” which apparently had a nice view of the city from the top… worth going in before sunset as Marina (from Mambo Tango) had told us.

Neither of us was in a very alert mood so map reading kind of went out the window that day. We first head towards the *student district* which we had been told, had a great atmosphere and good food for reasonable prices but after wandering around aimlessly there for a little while, we discovered a lot of places were either closed or uninteresting.

Hunger++ by this point. Now it’s just like GET TO A MAIN ROAD! Which we eventually did, ahhhhhhhh, thank you Passeig de Gràcia.

There’s LOTS of food here! Oh look! There’s a Starbucks! But it’s all so touristy and PRICEY. We just keep walking… and walking… and eventually pass this odd building. I thought, “gee… that’s kind of random… all these typical citylike buildings down the street and here is this… random… strange building. WTF IS this?!” To be honest, I thought it was a tad on the ugly side. It looked like a weird piece of coral with dried seaweed bits hanging out. After some head scratching, we figured out that this was indeed “La Blablabla” or… “La Pedreda”. Turns out that it was a Gaudí building as well. OK, now that explained a few things.

Before heading in, we had to satiate our hunger. Pity there was nothing but touristy shops around. We went to the closest one, somewhere selling simple baguette sandwiches and pieces of pizza. Something should’ve alerted us to its dodginess when there weren’t any price signs up but we thought hey, this can’t be any more expensive than the other places around (which were just… ridiculously priced!). And we were wrong =). In the short time we were sitting at our table, we saw at least 3 or 4 groups of people come up to the counter, talk with the lady and walk out. I caught a couple of the prices she quoted and they seemed different every time. The little vaca was making them up as she went along! *GULP* It was too late for us now though. We were committed. 14 Euros later (say about $30) we also felt superbly ripped off.

*Sigh*. At least we still had La Pedreda.

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Whilst we were in Park Güell, we came across a house that Gaudí apparently had lived in towards the later part of his life. It is now a museum and is apparently furnished the way it was in the time he lived there. It was here that we discovered the furniture and home fittings that Gaudí had also designed. Not surprisingly, they too were very organic and exquisitely styled. I’m not normally a fan of Art Nouveau but there was something magical and a bit Elvish about these creations. I could almost imagine them sitting in Galadriel’s palace in Lothlórien.

Oh my god, I’m such a nerd.

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Before reaching Barcelona, I had previously heard of Gaudí but I knew very little about him. When we saw our first creation of his, it did ring a bell somewhere in the depths of my mind. Perhaps I’d studied him briefly in art. I’m sure it was one of those that we did in a brief lesson in year 10 when we were doing other Spanish and European artists so they could throw dozens of works at us in the exam and force us to name them all along with the artists.

Anyway, as I was saying in my earlier entry, I really enjoyed (re)discovering the works of Gaudí. They’re kind of fantastical and there’s really nothing like this anywhere else in the world. They’re somehow quirky yet amazingly beautiful, organic but imposing, profound and quite ingenious.

If you were to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona, you would see many of the famous Gaudí sights in the background. If you already have, you may recognise some of my pictures.

The first place that we went to was the Park Güell. 
It was like Candy Land in there with its colourful tiles and crazy shapes. It even had its own gingerbread house.

OK, well, I suppose that’s not what it really is, but it sure does look like one.

At the park, it was definitely not a case of love at first sight. My initial impression was “errr… this is sooo (ironically) gaudy!!”. And no, I didn’t know I was looking at one of Gaudí’s creations (you’d pronounce his name like gowDEE). After spending some time there, the place started to grow on me and its strangeness started to take on a more wonderous feel. You began to feel like you were witnessing and indeed being part of something quite special.

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I was expecting to like Spain more than the rest of the countries we’ve visited since leaving France, but I wasn’t expecting to like it so much. I had no idea what to expect from it really. I knew nothing about what was there and we didn’t really have time to get into the guts of it all but I liked what I saw and it makes me want to know it better. Sure, we’ve only scratched the surface of most of the places we’ve been, but I’ve rarely gotten the feeling that I care about what I may have missed out on. I get that with Barcelona.

I don’t really know *what* exactly it is that I liked about the place. All we saw was a bit of Picasso, MACBA (the contemporary art museum) and Gaudi to the max (I never knew much about him before, but his stuff is really quite the amazing. More on that later). The food didn’t blow my mind, though we had some really nice stuff there including a great Paella in La Barceloneta and some GOOD and CHEAP food made from local produce at some place called Origens near the Picasso museum (known in the Lonely Planet as Origin 99.9). I had a duck stew there and Jane had rabbit. Good stuff. So yeah, really not sure what it was about the place that got to me. Maybe that’s the kicker.

Anyway, Spain had chips shaped like frikkin footballs! What’s there not to like about that?? And fridges dedicated to their football team! Smeg no less!

It even has crappy puns (in ENGLISH) in places that don’t even make sense!

WTF?!

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