Category Archives: Travel

Challenge, Learning, Life, Travel

Backpacking Bed Bugs: How To Rid Yourself Of Them On The Road

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Bed bugs. Ugh. the one thing that sure fire knows how to ruin all travel. For me, I am allergic to them. The sheer number of times I have woken up to slapping one on my leg and catching it in the act of feasting on me is numerous. The bites from there swell up into giant circles an inch in diameter and make me shake. The insomnia I experience settling down to sleep after an attack can last weeks and it is always never far from the back of my mind when I set down into a new place.

On the internet you will see all kinds of tools to help deal with this problem and most involve using a dryer. But I put to you, what does one do exactly when they are in the middle of nowhere in the tropics in wet season and there is not a dryer to be found anywhere? So here are my tips of the trade. How to avoid the pesky pains… and if you do have an encounter, things that you can do to get rid of them.

Avoiding Bed Bugs

The rules of the land are as such. Never ever enter a room or move your luggage in until you have inspected the mattresses and surrounding wooden areas for bed bugs. I don’t even need to tell you that if you find one, hightail it out of there quick smart.

The most tell tale signs on sheets, mattresses and bed frames are small brown spots. Where they basically have had their feast and passed it on through. For heavy infestations you will actually find clumps of eggs together in the corners of the mattresses and bed frames and often you will find the bug. My gut will tell me quite frequently whether they are there or not. It is like I am so well honed these days I can smell the creepy things. Anyway, even if you have the slightest feeling they are there, get the hell out and go somewhere else.

What To Do If You Are Exposed

Treating Your Bites

One morning I woke up after spending the night on a sleeper train in India to find that my entire face had been mauled by bed bugs. I had about 7 bites in total each about the size of an American quarter.

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They can be some of the most sore, itchy and persistently lasting bites that you will ever manage. I recommend hauling arse to a pharmacy to get the following to help….

  • Antihistamines – these will not only help you to calm down and sleep better but will help take the itch out of the bite.
  • Cortisone cream – a secondary measure to the antihistamine if you can get it is a hydrocortisone cream such as betamethasone. Use only a tiny amount on each bite and it will help to reduce the localized swelling, pain and itch.
  • Tiger balm can also help. I had one morning where I woke up still drunk in Thailand shaking from being bitten by bed bugs across my back and a lovely Thai woman sat and rubbed tiger balm into my back to try and calm me down whilst I sat shaking and jittery and refusing to go back into any room sleeping. “It’s OK honey, it’s OK”.

If at any point you are in a place like I was in Malang and there is no other place to sleep but this hostel then there are certain things you can do. I for one refuse to sleep in the room if I have been bitten in it. I have slept on the floor or couch of a hotel lobby 3 times now because I refuse to go back in. If you are in a place where you can’t find any and yet your gut suspects they are there you can set your bed up like this:

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The best thing to use is a giant plastic shower curtain made out of smooth and slippery plastic. They can’t walk on smooth plastic.  If I have no shower curtain I have been known to put garbage bags taped together over the bed and tucked on at the sides and then use a sleep sheet on top.

To protect your luggage while in this situation either put it in a garbage bag or sit it on a sheet of plastic or garbage bag on the floor making sure all of the parts of your bag are on the plastic.

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Getting Them Out Of Your Luggage Before Moving On

The most difficult thing for a backpacker to deal with is getting rid of them if you think you have them. Which of course is all well and good when you are in a country with industrial dryers. But when in Indonesia, India, Malaysia even, this just wasn’t happening. So then we have to come up with creative means with which to solve the problem.

My tools of the trade are

  • Black garbage bags (must be black)
  • 90 percent rubbing alcohol. 70 percent will work but the more alcohol the better.
  • A brush. Dish brushes or this solid brush I have in the photo is good.
  • A packet of wipes
  • A can of bug spray containing permethrin, allethrin or any other chemical known to kill bed bugs. In developing countries these are easier to get your hands on than in the first world as many of them are controlled substances here.

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If you are in a place that is ridiculously hot, the aim is to get the bed bug’s core temperature to 50 degrees celcius for over an hour. This will be enough to kill them. Loosely tie all of your stuff made out of material in separate garbage bags. If they are crammed too tightly packed then the temperature won’t get through all of the stuff in the bag and the bug won’t get hot enough to die.

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Any of the stuff you have that is plastic or has smooth surfaces wipe it over with 80% rubbing alcohol or alcohol wipes. Also if you have books and electronics check in the nooks and crannies and especially all of the seams of the books. I have found a hatchling in a book of mine before. Freaked the hell out of me. Got rid of that thing quick smart.

I also take to my bags and in all the creases with a can of permethrin. This stuff will kill any bug on contact. It will not kill the eggs, so you will need to find a dryer in coming days or wait until it gets hot enough to put the bag into a black garbage bag for a day or two in the hot sun.

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Do all of these things and you should be fine. Remember, the best defence is checking before you even get a problem. If you do have a problem, your best weapon is the plastic bag. Anything that has a chance of being exposed, including your clothes goes straight into a plastic bag until you have time and space to deal with it effectively. After all of this stuff, if you get the opportunity to throw your stuff into a dryer, definitely take it, because the last thing you want to be doing is taking these little bastards home!

Happy killing spree and ridding your stuff of these awful vermin… and remember, goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!

 

 

 

Learning, Life, Travel

Shit I Learned In Serbia

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Serbia was one of the first countries I travelled in my trip around the Balkans and it was probably a good idea that I went to Serbia first. I think if I had have gone there last and heard some of the things come out of locals mouths that I heard while I was there I may have just slightly lost my shit at them. For the most part, Serbians are very lovely and passionate people. However it is an interesting place to travel if you want to see just how far government propaganda and media can place some of the most nonsensical and ridiculous ideas into a people and have them believe that these notions are true. Today the Serbs still fight for their pride despite losing the war and face in front of the world at the hands of Slobodan Milosevic. On the other hand, the Serbs also faced massive atrocities at the hands of the Turks from the Ottoman period and their five hundred year occupation. Add it all together and you have an interesting country that should be observed with a critical eye.

Here is some super trivial shit I learned in Serbia….

  • The Novi Sad staple diet must consist of popcorn and ice cream because I failed to find any other form of food while I was there. (Maybe this happened on purpose.)
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Sunset over the fort at Novi Sad
  • I learned to read the Cyrillic alphabet. Hooray!
  • The name ‘Belgrade’ comes from the Serbian ‘beo grad’ which means ‘white city’.
  • During the NATO bombings of Belgrade, the animals in the zoo got out and were roaming the city. This includes the elephants and tigers…. shame they didn’t find and a) stomp on or b) eat Slobodan Milosevic.
  • Serbs are unimpressed with nudity. So much so that this statue was shunned and removed from the town centre to where it could not be seen by the public.
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Naked man…tehehe…..
  • Nis was home of Constantine the Great. It was where eventually build his house the Medijana.
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Constantine’s mosaic floors
  • Back in the days of the Ottomans, the more windows you had on your buildings, the more taxes you had to pay.
  • Nikola Tesla is apparently Serbian…. he seems to be claimed by many different places around the Balkans, but his ashes rest in Belgrade’s Tesla Museum despite him never actually visiting Belgrade when he was alive.
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Getting electrocuted at the Tesla Museum
  • There is a sign in the city centre which has an arrow pointing to the moon so that when people get super drunk on rakija they still know which way is up
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The moon is up apparently
  • Tito was a cool guy who was loved by many and had a rule of communism that was way less harsh than that of many other communist regimes of the world….
  • The Yugoslavian National History Museum in Belgrade is a joke and gives no insight into anything that happened in Yugoslavia except for the fact that Tito was an ‘awesome dude’.
  • And of course my glorious tour guide told everybody that it wasn’t Serbia’s fault that Yugoslavia broke apart and that everybody else decided to leave because of ‘religious differences’ and whatever anyone else tells you about it is false. She was also fairly adamant that NATO had no right to be in Serbia and couldn’t understand why it is that they bombed a few buildings because they were all innocent. Again, it was lucky that I hadn’t yet been to Bosnia or I would have been enlightening her with a few facts about say, the genocide at Srebrenica…. but anyway, I guess I learned that ignorance and propaganda reign supreme.
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A destroyed building from the 1996 NATO Bombings

Despite some of the negative emotions that I had towards the Serbian government and the ignorance of some of the people that live there, I did find the local Serbians to be an incredibly generous and lovely group of people (well unless I was trying to by Bulgarian money at the exchange – the Serbs don’t seem to like any of their neighbours). I enjoyed my time here and wished that I had more time to get out into the countryside and explore further.

 

Learning, Life, Travel

Shit I Learned In Lithuania

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In my half term break from school I decided to go visit the Baltics and from when I decided this was an excellent idea in March until when I went in late October, I still thought this was a fantastic idea. Then I got there and froze my arse off because it was so cold. At one point I was chasing snowflakes around outside with my tongue hanging out for entertainment to forget about how I couldn’t feel my face. So the first thing I learned here was this.

  • Don’t go to Lithuania after September.

Here is some other random shit I learned whilst I was making my way around the wondrous Lithuania:

  • You cannot buy tinned soup in Lithuania

I tried. I failed. When all you want when you are sick and snotting all over the place is a large can of chunky soup and all you can find are Maggi sachets, life is going to get a bit disappointing.

  • You can be polite sneezing here.

The word for thank you is aciu, pronounced ‘achoo’ like the sneeze sound. Also a plus when you are sick.

  • There is an independent country within Vilnius

There is a country within the city of Vilnius known as the Republic of Uzupio. They have their own constitution and it is hilarious. “A dog has the right to be a dog”, “everyone has the right to be loved, but not necessarily”. Amazeballs….. anyway, everyone who lives here has a passport and they have an independence day party every year.

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The constitution of Uzupio
  • Other countries love occupying Lithuania.

There were the Danes, the Swedes, the Poles, the Russians, the Nazi’s and again the Russians….. pure ridiculousness. In 1989, whilst under the occupation of the Russians towards the end of the Cold War, over 2 million people joined hands on the road that stretched from Tallinn to Vilnius in one massive straight line to demonstrate unity and a want for independence. This is the longest human chain recorded in history. They had to wait a few years, but they eventually came out from under the Russians to claim their independence and have been their own country ever since.

  • Religious pissing contests are funny

Under the reign of the catholics, no other buildings were to be taller than the catholic church in Vilnius. So as an ode to ‘screw you’ the Jewish decided that if they couldn’t go up, they would go down. So they dug out two floors in the basement to make sure that they had the “tallest” building in city. Cheeky shits!

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Stunning gothic church in Vilnius
  • Lithuanians love basketball

I mean they are totally obsessed with basketball. Any other sport that would otherwise be played here falls to the wayside compared to the Lithuanian love of basketball.

  • Churches are not just useful as churches

When the French arrived, this particular church was turned into a storage facility for Napoleon’s guns. Then after the French departed, the Germans spent a stint here changing all the shapes of the windows so they could get the bells out and melt them down to make more guns. Then after that the Russians came in and banned any religion whatsoever and it commissioned to be an ‘atheist museum’. What do you even put in an atheist museum?? Odd.

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The church where Napoleon kept his guns
  • You can get baptised more than once.

In fact, to encourage people to become baptised upon the arrival of the religious folk into this area and the shunning of the pagan folk, they used to give all people being baptised a woollen t-shirt. So good and warm was this wool that many people went back to get baptised a good three or four times so that they could get more woollen t-shirts.

  • The first massacres of the Jews in World War 2 started in Lithuania

When I was travelling in Kaunas, I went to a very sobering place known as Ninth Fort. It was originally a part of the fortification structures in the area but during the Russian occupation and the Nazi occupation, the place was used as a prison. It was here that the first of the massacres of the Jews began by the Nazi’s in World War 2 after they were bought over from Gdansk. You can still see the bullet holes in the walls. There is a monument to remember these people by that is quite haunting and beautiful.

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The memorial at Ninth Fort
  • There is a Devils Museum

It is full of different statues and paintings of the devil doing all kinds of wicked deeds and is in fact, quite cool. Devils pouring vodka down the throats of helpless individuals, fornicating devils, international devils, devils having an all round great time.

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Cheeky devils!
  • Zeppelins are the bomb

The local food is like a giant ball of potato with meat in the middle that is then either boiled or fried. It is served with a sauce and bits of bacon. It is amazing and super good for the cold months. And it also sits like a bomb in the bottom of your stomach once you’re done eating it.

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A tasty traditional lunch

Well hopefully this was interesting. Based on my adventures with a cold whilst roaming around outside trying to catch snowflakes with my tongue I did actually managed to learn some stuff in my pharmaceutical induced state. Until the next!

 

 

Life, Travel

What I Reckon: 10 Types of Inconsiderate Hostellers

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Now I  am not entirely sure whether this extends from my genetic predisposition to have zero patience for morons (thanks Dad!) or whether I am just getting way too old for this shit,  but the people I am meeting in hostels of late are doing my goddamn head in. And there are particular categories of offenders that I can throw out there that are up there with the worst. Here are 10 kinds of people that shit me.

The 6am packers

In what fucking world did you grow up in where it is OK to turn the light on while 8 other people are still sleeping at 5 or 6am so you can screw about packing all your junk into a bag because you have an early flight. Here’s an idea! Pack the night before so you don’t need to wake everybody up and piss everybody off while you are trying to fit everything in your bag. Nuff said.

The 2am shaggers

I get that you’re drunk. I get that you’re horny. But hostel bathrooms are there for a reason. Not just for showering and doing your hair. Be a gem and disappear now because I am pretty sure that most people don’t want to be subjected to your too loud moaning or your bed rocking. Especially the bed rocking. This also applies to masturbation. One time in  El Salvador I woke up with a shocking hangover and thought I was in the middle of an earthquake. After 2 minutes I thought to myself “hold on a minute?? They don’t usually go this long” then got up to go puke only to discover the moron in the bunk above me was jacking himself watching porn….. hello! Anyone can walk in at any moment and I am right there!!! Have some dignity! Shake that shit elsewhere.

The food stealers

There is nothing worse than coming home a) hungry b) drunk c) hungover d) broke or e) all of the above to find that some arsehole has decided to take it upon themselves to steal whatever lovely snack you had set aside for yourself in the fridge all and eat it all for themselves. In a land where few of us actually have a lot of money, this is the lowest of lows. God help you if I ever catch you because my hangry self will probably krav maga your arse back to the supermarket to buy me another dinner you tight arse lazy fucker.

The plastic bag rustlers

There is nothing more grating in this world than the sound of a million rustling plastic bags while you are trying to sleep. Now I am all for plastic bags because they are useful. But fifty million of them!?! All on the go between 11pm and 7am. Are you fucking kidding me. Control yourselves. Organise your shit. Stop being a disturber of the peace.

The loud fuckers

There is jovial.  And then there is just too fucking loud. Two days ago whilst lying in bed with a sinus headache I was subjected to a fucking hyena laughing her head off in the bedroom at 8am whilst drinking her tea in bed. You know what?! Nobody cares to listen to you talk shit at this time of day and laugh about it. Who the hell is this fucking happy in the morning anyway? Maybe if you’d have done us all a favour and shared whatever drugs you were on I may not have had such an issue with your ear piercing ridiculousness. Better yet, just take it outside.

The ‘Wayyy too drunks’

Now we have all been here at some point in our travels. Even I will admit to being somewhat of a menace at 5am coming home to find an equally drunk fucker in my bed, getting disoriented and trying to figure out if I was in the right room and then having a cry about Goldilocks being in my bed and the pizza all being gone (granted, the guy was blonde. And the pizza was my tasty snack left by my sober self on my bed in foil for my drunk self. He managed to throw it on the floor and the cats had gotten into it.  You can understand why I was upset here….) anyway… I am getting off point (always good in a rant). The point is, we will allow for this on some occasions. What is at all times completely unacceptable are the following. 1. Puking on people, beds, or on people’s luggage.  2. Same goes for urination. 3. Climbing into bed with strangers. I had to wake up to a guy doing this. I shoved him out on the floor. Serves you right shithead. 4. Doing this every night of the week when you are the only person in your room doing it. If you are going to be a menace in a quiet hostel, book into the party hostel down the road. Don’t be an arsehole.

The complainers

I don’t know if you noticed. But I’m enjoying myself right now.  I’m having a great time. If you are not, remove yourself from people who don’t really care how shit your day or your life is. I’ve just met you. I don’t care.

The comparers

If everything at home is more awesome than it is here, why the hell are you here? Either shush, enjoy yourself and the new experiences or stay at home. Same goes for food. I don’t care if they don’t have a tofu burger with fries in Vietnam. Eat a goddamn noodle for fucks sake and enjoy it.

The ‘I know everything’s’

There’s being helpful, then there’s being a fucking know it all. Nobody likes a know it all. Even if you’ve been to a million countries and the rest, you don’t need to weigh your expert opinion in on every single conversation had in the hostel. Stop trying so hard and actually listen for a change and maybe you’ll learn something new. Like the fact that you don’t actually know everything and that other people have interesting things to say too.

The unwanted sexual advancers

Here’s a novel concept. We’ve just met and that means your hand should not be attached to my arse. Or my waist.  Or any other part of me. And I don’t give a shit if you don’t understand my language. No is pretty easy to understand. As is me removing your hands from me and glaring at you like you’re a fuckwit. Get the hint.  Not interested.

Anyway, I think that is my rant just about covered. But if you have anymore that you would like to add, please sign them up in the comments box below. Peace out!

 

Learning, Travel

Shit I Learned In Milan

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I went to visit Milan for the weekend. And of course shit was to be learned. Unlikely shit to learn in Milan, if I am to be honest, but here goes.

Animal related learnings

Kangaroos can swim

I am Australian and I had to find this out from a Venezuelan dude that works behind the hostel desk…. Probably because I have never seen it happen because living in drought country doesn’t really lend itself to there being loads of water.

Mosquitoes are arseholes

I go to sleep. The high pitched squealing of these bitches are buzzing around my head and I can’t sleep. At some point, because all of the rest of my body is covered with blanket, the mosquito decides to bite me on my eye socket. I awaken with my eye swollen shut. Excellent. So the following evening I ask for fly spray. Spray the room. Go to sleep. Wake up to find that my other eye has now been bitten and that this one is now also swollen shut. Fuck you mosquitoes. So much for looking pretty in pictures in Milan. I tried most of the time in my make-up-less state to not look like a victim of violence. The Venezuelan and I decided that the only thing on this planet that mosquitoes are good for are feeding spiders.

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Covering my swollen bitch eyes with sunglasses…. so damn cool

Etymology

The glorious guide I had on my free walking tour, Marco, was an incredible wealth of knowledge, if not slightly unhinged. I watched this outstanding bad ass ask the masses if we mind him smoking then proceed to pull out and chuff on a cigar around the city, no hands. Anyway, he has this thing about etymology. I am unsure whether any of the following is true but they are entertaining so here we go:

Serendipity

In the 1500’s the country now known as Sri Lanka was called Serendip. The king of Serendip, being an all round conquering wench of the time, sent an army to India in search of gold to make him rich. The did not find any gold. However they did discover that glorious thing called ‘tea’. The tea ended up making the king more money than he would have made finding the gold. Thus serendipity – finding something you weren’t looking for that is of greater value to you than the thing you actually were looking for.

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The bone chapel of Milan, where the walls are decorated with the bones of plague victims

Gadget

Upon the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty in New York, a company was contracted to make miniature souvenirs for people to take home. The company making them was a French company who was owned by a man named ‘Gaget’, pronounced ‘gah-zhay’. Anyway, as we like to do in the English language, we took this work and Anglicised/butchered it to its current pronunciation ‘gad-get’. This is still the word used in Italian to describe souvenirs, however through the progression of the times, we have now come to use the word to describe electronics.

Bankrupt

From the Italian, ‘banca rota’. When a merchant in Milan was in massive debt and unable to pay that debt back they would repossess all of his things and have a sale to get all of the money back. At the end of the sales, they used to break his desk – the thing he would use for selling his merchandise. This breaking, ‘rota’ being the word for ‘to break’ became a tradition. The banca rota. Which again, when Anglicised/butchered, becomes known as ‘bankrupt’ in English.

Other random shit

The Visconti family had the emblem of a viper snake eating a man, despite the fact that vipers are small and cannot eat a man. It is believed that they stole this from some family they conquered somewhere else in the world. Anyway, this is now the symbol of the city of Milan and can also be found in the Alpha Romeo car logo.

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Vipers eating humans??? Just a bit odd.

One family in Milan back in the day who’s name translated into ‘testicles’ decided that their family coat of arms should just consist of three testicles. And so it was.

Oh and while I was there I also saw a guy making music by running a violin bow along the sharp edge of a saw used for cutting wood.

And so, as my tour concluded, the tour guide took us to the most provocative piece of art in the city located outside of the stock exchange. And it was there that both he and the stock exchange, gave us the finger and stole our money and left. THE END.

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Milan! I salute you!

And that shall be the end of the shit! Enjoy your week!

Learning, Life, Travel

Murphy’s Law #1 – The first 48 hours of my holiday

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We have all heard it and as the age old adage of Murphy goes “what can go wrong, will go wrong”. On top of this there is even the amendment “if there is a possibility of several things going wrong, then the thing that will go wrong will be the one that will do the most damage”. And then there is the other variation of where everything just goes wrong with the first of course being “the worst”. So with that in mind, let the story of my first 48 hours of holiday begin (that bitch Karma is totally not getting a Christmas card this year).

Getting to the Airport

I had a 2.30pm flight. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes according to Maps for me to to get to the airport. So I left home at 11am….

After hustling to try and get a ticket for 20 mins and getting the train to Luton I sat with a truckload of other impatient and cranky passengers whilst getting the entertainment of the year. This flamboyant gay guy covered in glitter proceeded to give everybody on the train an entire run down of his last night and pretty much his life whilst on the phone to his friends. Majority of people however couldn’t suppress their historical laughter as he proceeded to inform everybody that the other night he went out and did 14 shots of sambuca, blacked out and woke up with 23 Daim bars from Tesco. At this point I was optimistic and getting geared up for a good holiday.

Then the shit started to hit the fan… traffic was so bad on the highway that it took 45 minutes for a bus that would normally take 6 to ferry everyone to the airport. It is 1.30 pm. I have an hour until departure. I am full blown flipping my nut at this stage….

Checking In

Because Wizz Air are a disorganized cluster fuck of an operation, when I tried to check in online 2 days earlier it told me I couldn’t and needed to call customer service. So I called customer service. They told me to go and check in at the counter and it would be free.

So as I get to the airport there is a line bigger than Goliath and I was like “fuck this” and pushed through priority queue. I managed to get seen fairly quickly on the proviso I had no checked luggage because their conveyor system had shat itself and left everyone unable to check in.

It was at this time I was told that I was a “standby” passenger for the plane as they had overbooked it. Fury! I booked this flight 2 months in advance to attend a dental appointment the next day. I was getting on a flight one way or another or heads were going to roll. Their massive screw up lead me to this situation so they could fix it.

Standing By

While “standing by” I met a guy who was also on standby. He was graciously nonchalant about the situation because his boss was having a flip out. If he didn’t get back to the Formula One in Budapest to move a piece of equipment that only he was authorized to move by midnight the company would be fined 50,000 pounds. The guy says it serves his boss right for booking a cheap shit flight with 15 people on standby at the last minute.

Thankfully there was space and we got on the plane. But this wasn’t the last of the stand by… we sat there. Then sat there some more. Then I had a nap. Sat there some more. Read 75 pages of my book. And then sat there some more. After about an hour and a half of sitting on the tarmac going nowhere we were informed that the passenger manifest did not add the same as the number of people on board. So they had to figure out who the passenger was and then find their luggage. At some point a guy got irate on the plane and the cops had to be called to come and get him. The kids were even more off the show running up and down the aisles and hanging from the rafters like a pack of monkeys. One even tried to eat the apple core I put on the floor earlier because there was no bin. So shit was getting crazy and I had another nap and read some more….

5pm rolls around. We have been on a plane grounded for 2 and a half hours when Wizz Air tell us that they will be kindly making food and drink available for purchase. Riotous carnage then ensued and within five minutes we were allowed a free “snack or drink”. By the time I got to the end of the queue that whole thing had gone out the window and people were just taking whatever. I wound up with a sandwich, snickers bar and an orange juice. Eventually at 6pm, things got sorted and after 3 and a half hours of being on the tarmac we took off with a mass eruption of applause from everyone on board.

Touchdown

9pm Budapest time… finally arrived. Four hours behind schedule. Made my way to the hostel.

Midnight Snack

After checking into the hostel I had a chat to few people and went to bed. Dentist in the morning and I was just relieved to get there. It was hot, the window was open and I set about trying to sleep. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being gnawed at however and figured if it was on my toes it was probably mosquitoes. Within 3 hours my suspicions were confirmed and I caught a bed bug between my fingers and killed it. I took it out to reception and put it on the guys desk.

“I’m allergic and I can’t stay in there or any room where this is a risk” I told him. I took residence upstairs far away from any room with my stuff and slept (I use the term sleep loosely here) in the beanbag on the floor.

The following day he tells me that what I put on his desk wasn’t a bed bug and that my 9 glorious welts must be from a spider or a mosquito. I got angry. “I put that bug on your desk and you are going to make me out a liar?” He says “but I looked online and the bites don’t show up for a day or so”.

“Not if you’re allergic” I told him. But at this point I had to go to the dentist.

Dentist

You know you are having a really shit day when the most positive aspect of your day is the fact that you only needed 2 fillings when you assumed you would need up to 6. With a half dead mouth, an incapacity to smile and a slightly happier wallet that I anticipated, I got on my bike back to the hostel to go fight with the manager.

Captive Passport Negotiations

 Upon my departure of the hostel in the morning, the staff told me that I had to pay 2 nights accommodation or no passport. I had ‘slept’ there one night. And refused to pay the second. Apparently I need to give them 24 hours notice. And I am like “not when I am in an antihistamine-induced half-coma because of your establishment.

Despite having physically presenting them a bug, I had to deal with the manager berating me like I was a child who knew nothing. “Do you even know what bed bugs look like?” I said to him “Yes. I have dealt with them up to 15 times now and I know what they look like and how my body responds to them.”. He told me he was going to have to “respectfully disagree with me” in his condescending arsehole tone and then gave me my passport back without me paying a cent. After getting my hands back on my passport I told him I didn’t appreciate being spoken down to and called a liar and that regardless of whether he “respectfully disagrees” it is in his best interests to do something about it and then I left.

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The current state of a portion of my lower back

I then spent a good hour wandering around trying to find somewhere to stay that wasn’t full. And I did. For one night at least. But I still have to move the next night. I now lie here in my gloriously bed bug free bed (I hope) tired, covered in giant welts and cortisone cream still shaking and unable to sleep from my allergic reaction and hoping that the rest of my Balkan’s Adventure doesn’t keep this tone. If it does I might have to hang up the travel shoes for good and become a hermit.

Learning, Life, Travel

10 Steps To Doing Life Like That Awesome Dude Charles Darwin

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My friend and I trekked on bus and train to get to the far reaches of the town of Downe, UK. The historical importance of this place is that it was home to Charles Darwin and was the place where he not only sat and wrote his famous book ‘On The Origin Of Species’, but where he did a load of investigations for the book and where he raised his family. What I did not expect was just how much of a freakin’ awesome dude Darwin was in his life. So here is some shit I learned about that Darwin guy and why we should all be doing life like Darwin. Here are the steps to immortality and awesomeness:

  1. Get born into a rich family

So the key thing you need to do is get born rich. Both of his grandfathers were incredible in their own rights. On the paternal side there was Erasmus Darwin who also wrote his own theories about how all life is linked and was no doubt an inspiration to Charles. As a doctor and investor, he was also loaded.

On the other side of the family was the Wedgewood’s. These guys were super loaded from making the famous Wedgewood pottery. Rock and roll, a life of luxury and not having to work for a living, all set to go!

2.    Become a gigantic obsessive compulsive fruit loop.

Of my favourite stories of Down House is of Darwin in his youth collecting beetles. Being the obsessive compulsive guy he was, he was hunting beetles in the back yard and found 3 new species he didn’t have. One for the left hand. One for the right. And oh shit! What am I going to do with the third one??? I know! I’ll put the one in my hand in my mouth, pick up the new one and we’re all good. Except we are not. Because the beetle in my mouth just did a very acrid shit in my mouth and I had to spit it out and lost all my other beetles in the process…. oops.

We shall then rinse (mouth and process) and repeat obsessive collector behaviour some more because it is fun and what will see us to becoming lodged in history for all of eternity.

3.    Drop out of the most prestigious university in the country

Darwin originally started attending university in Scotland for medicine. And flunked. Then he went to the famous Cambridge University to study to be a vicar. Not having  a keen interest in study and basically not really giving too much of a shit, he dropped out of that too. Dad was pissed, obviously, but you know, these things happen.

4.    Get your uncle to convince your dad to foot the bill for your gap year sailing the world

When Darwin dropped out, he was all ‘what am I going to do now?’ Then along came the opportunity to go on the HMS Beagle as a companion to the captain so he didn’t get so lonely and top himself like the last captain. By doing this he paved the way for the millions of teens in this century by deciding on taking a few ‘gap years’. And like all children on a gap year, they go to their parents with hand out and say ‘can I have some money? I’ll pay you back’. And Darwin’s dad says ‘hells to the no! You shall not go!’

So of course he then goes and gets good ‘ole Uncle Jo to help and he is all ‘let me deal with Dad’ and all of a sudden Charles is allowed to go on his round the world sailing trip and Dad pays for it. And off he sails into the sunset to go chill out with turtles and all kinds of fun plants and animals to make discoveries and to do all those things that people did on 19th century gap years.

5.    Make a pros and cons list about marriage

Everybody gets to that point in their life where they don’t know what to do with themselves next. When Darwin finished his massive gap year, he came home and contemplated getting married. He couldn’t decide what to do. And so he made a massive pros and cons list that is still to this day displayed in his house and decided that the pros won out. Then he married his cousin, Emma Wedgewood. Unlike loads of very unromantic and excessively ‘civil’ marriages of Victorian England, these two seemed to love each other and actually spent time with each other hanging out and doing stuff like playing backgammon. Way to be awesome to your wife, Darwin. More men should take a leaf from your book. Except for the whole marrying your cousin bit.

6.    Move to the countryside cause its cheap and pop out a few kids

Because it was cheaper than inner city London and still is, it is advisable to do it like Darwin and move to the country and get a big property with lots of space to chill out in. Then you can have a garden to investigate plants and worms. You can also pop out a few kids with your significant other and let them have fun running around the lawn and helping you out with your investigations.

7.    Be the most awesome and fun Dad in the world

To be the most awesome Dad in the world like Darwin, you have to spend some time with your kids doing stuff.  It is also advisable to build a massive wooden slide that you can use to slide down the staircase on the inside of the house. You need not be one of these stiff upper lip Victorian types who shows no affection. It is advisable to show affection and love to your kids and play with them outside and then you too can be like Darwin.

8.     Hang out with worms

Cause all of the most coolest and humble people in the world love a good worm. His last research projects were on the humble worm and their contribution to the ecosystem and processing nutrients. Not at all afraid to get his hands dirty! What a guy!

9.     Write an awesome book

After twenty years in the making of a theory, you will then receive another scientists work in the mail for observation, freak the hell out when you realize that is the same theory as yours and then go into total meltdown. You will then spend a year summarizing your findings and release a book that will be shunned by the entire Catholic Church that you were supposed to become a vicar in and be only truly appreciated for your genius by half of the scientific community. Well at least for now.

10.     Become a scientific icon and get buried with famous people

After all of the years of ridiculousness and hoo-haa, you will eventually become very sick at a ripe old age with heart disease and pass away in the company of family. Then because you are so awesome, people will not allow your wishes to be buried at home to be fulfilled but instead they will petition to have you buried in Westminster Abbey with that good old bloke Isaac Newton so you can be scientific tomb buddies for all eternity.

So there you have it! Ten steps to being the most awesome dude ever like Darwin. I am pretty sure that he is up there with my most favourite of scientific heroes. Its a shame that more people can’t be as smart and kind as Darwin. If the world was full of Darwin’s, I think it would be pretty damn awesome!

 

 

 

 

 

Adventure, Learning, Life, Travel

Shit I Learned In Cambridge

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Of course being a scientist lends to me being a total nerdball when heading to the land of Cambridge. And being the grand educational facility that it is, I obviously learned a bit of shit.

Nobel Prize Winners

  • The first bit of shit I learned is that there have been 90 Nobel Prize winners that have come from Cambridge. They boast more than Oxford so they win that grand rivalry, and these are more interesting to me because majority of them are in science related fields.
  • One such Nobel Prize was won by Watson who discovered the double helix formation of DNA in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and then headed on down to the Eagle Pub to tell everyone about his discovery. We of course went in here to have a drink where all the great minds of science got smashed since the 1500’s. This pub is also full of RAF names, stickers and photos from those that went to serve in World War 2.
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The plaque on the wall outside The Eagle Pub declaring this is the place where Watson first announced his discovery of DNA double helix
  • Other Nobel Prize winners to come out of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge are Lord Rutherford for his work on the radioactive decay, Lord Rayleigh for the discovery of Argon and a whole bunch of physicists. Of course, I love the chemists more because that is what I trained to do, but the brains that have passed through these buildings are unsurpassed.
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Outside the Physical Laboratory at Cavendish. Where all the action takes place.

Cambridge Shenanigans

  • With the amazing minds of the world gathering here, there had to be some kind of mischief during the downtime. Favourite past times of many of the students here involved free climbing buildings. At one point during Christmas some unknown pranksters decided that scaling the famous church at King’s College and placing Santa hats on the spires would be funny. This was accepted as being comical. The following week when they decided to put a fluorescent orange traffic cone on the spire instead it was not well received by the college. So after putting all of the scaffolding up to safely take the traffic cone down, the pranksters of course rescaled the building and moved the traffic cone from where it was to the other end of the building that didn’t have scaffolding. Lol!
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The church at King’s College with the spires that have been home to Santa hats and traffic cones
  • As impressive as this was, I think my favourite shenanigan involved the statue of King Henry VIII at the entrance of Trinity College. He used to have a golden sceptre in his hand…. then of course somebody free climbed the building and replaced the sceptre with a wooden chair leg. Nobody found the sceptre. The chair leg is still there. At some point somebody took the chair leg but there was such an outcry to have the chair leg put back that they replaced it a couple of days later.
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King Henry VIII holding his wooden chair leg
  • Another feat of the minds of physics was achieved when they managed to put a car on top of the Senate building in the middle of the night with pulley systems. The engine was removed first so that the load wasn’t as great, but still a pretty impressive achievement. This somewhat reminds me of some kids in my brothers year level at school mounting their MDT teacher’s car on a stump next to the school parking lot. Maybe they weren’t worked hard enough. Too much time on their hands……

Getting Exam Results and Graduating

  • It is unfortunate for the slackers, but all of the results for Cambridge University students are put on display in a whole bunch of showcases for the entire public to see. Even worse than that is in mathematics, whose faculty decided that they would publicly read out exam results in front of everybody and bestow a massive wooden spoon upon the worst grade holder for them to carry for the entirety of the year. Ouch.
  • And with all of the amazing parties that they have at the end of it all, there comes, with great engineering, the float down the river. But instead of using the punting boats, they have to make their own from cardboard boxes. I would imagine that some of them would have had quite a good shellacking.
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Normal people attempting ‘punting’ down the river. This is where the cardboard boxes go too.

Trinity College Awesomeness

  • The most incredible mind to attend at Trinity College was Sir Isaac Newton. While his gravitational ideas were actually conceived of somewhere else, it is said that the tree currently outside of the college is planted with a seed from the apple tree that led Newton to his theories.
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RAF memorabilia on the walls of the Eagle Pub
  • And of course then there is Prince Charles. Who attended Trinity College with his two bodyguards. Upon completion of his courses, his bodyguards requested to sit the exams too as they had sat through all of the lectures. Apparently they both got better grades than Charles. Rumour. But hilarious.

Well, that is all from Cambridge! Til next time I learn some more shit!

 

 

 

Adventure, Learning, Travel

Shit I Learned In Madrid

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I was recently fortunate enough to get some free time from yelling at kids and doing work to spend some time in the amazing country of Spain. I started my time in Madrid, the capital of the country. Madrid is an incredible city and the amount of shit that I learned while I was here was a great way to kick start the trip!

City Facts

  • Madrid was founded by the Muslims and was named “Magerit”, meaning “place of water”.
  • The citadel walls were originally made of flintstone so that when weapons hit the wall it would spark. Thus making it the city ‘build on water with walls of fire’.

Food and Drink

  • We can all thank the poor drunks of Spain for the glorious invention of Tapas. It turns out that when faced with the awkward decision of either ‘eating’ or ‘drinking’ with not enough money to do both, the people of Spain chose to drink. This of course was not great for productivity in the workforce and as such King Alphonse (the 10th I think…) passed a law stating that a small snack should be served with each beverage. This law is still in place in Granada and I spent most of my time there drunk. I was embracing the life of the poor commoner you see and when faced with the option of 3 euro bocadillo or 2.50 euro wine with free tapas, the poor person in me chose the wine!
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Mmmm…. sangria and croquettes
  • The name ‘tapas’ did not arrive on the scene until Alphonse the 13th. Apparently whilst sitting in a windy bar, with dirt blowing all over the place the server at the bar was so stressed about dirt getting in his drink he placed a piece of ham over the king’s drink. When the king asked what this was, the server in a panic responded that it was a ‘tapar’ which translates to ‘a cover’. And now we have tapas everywhere! Hooray!
  • During the Spanish Inquisition where they were killing all of the Muslims and Jews, they would carry ham around in their pockets and hang ham in their doorways to show that they were in fact “Christian”.
  • The oldest restaurant in the world is in Madrid. It is called the Botin and was actually opened by a French person. Hemmingway apparently ate here. Another restaurant in Madrid’s claim to fame is that “Hemmingway didn’t eat here”. Total get around he was!
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The oldest restaurant in the world
Royal Tidbits
  • Carlos the Second (who apparently came at the end of the “Carlos Felipe sandwich” via which there was King Carlos, then Felipe, then Felipe, then Felipe, then Carlos 2nd) anyway, he was apparently so deformed from the incestuous nature of the royal family that he had a special member of staff that was assigned to chew his food and put it in his mouth for him… just like a mama bird.
  • Speaking of Felipe’s, the Philippines was named after King Felipe the second of Spain. It was previously a Portuguese territory until Felipe the second conquered Portugal.
  • Felipe the fourth thought so highly of himself he commissioned a statue of himself on a horse. The catch is that unlike any other statue of a man on a horse at the time he wanted the horse to be only on it’s hind two legs and rearing in the front. There were of course issues with the weight distribution of the horse as it kept snapping off at the legs due to ridiculously unstable weight distribution. They managed to solve this debacle by employing the amazing Galileo… who of course suggested making the hind legs solid and the rest of the statue hollow. Genius. Anyway, after it was finished Felipe was still not happy as the statue looked nothing like him. So they cut the head off and added another one in for good measure.
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Felipe the fourth on his two legged horse despite not being killed in battle
  • The position of the legs on a horse for a statue of a person posthumously indicates how they died. All four legs on the ground means they didn’t die in battle. One leg off the ground means that they were injured in battle and died from later injuries. Two legs off the ground means that they died in battle.

Alrighty then…. a whole bunch of interesting history stuff. I promise that next week when I get to the next instalment I will hit you guys with more of the funny shit I learned in Spain! Til then, adios! 🙂

Adventure, Learning, Travel

Shit I Learned In Hamburg

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My time in Hamburg was fleeting. I literally arrived off the overnight bus from Copenhagen, had a nap in the hotel lobby and then went on a walking tour. That is where I learned most of my shit in Hamburg. The rest of the shit I learned on a drunken night out with my new friends from in the dorm room…..

  • The first law that was passed in the constitution for the City of Hamburg is that it is illegal to burn down the town hall. This was after the Vikings did it more times than one can count to get back at the town folk and establish their awesomeness.
  • The organ in the crypt at St Jacobi’s church was played by Bach. During the second world war, the whole entire organ was disabled and put in the church basement to try and prevent damage to it. While the rest of the building was bombed to smitherines and everything else inside destroyed, the organ surprisingly survived under the ground and was eventually reconstructed.
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The organ at the St. Jacobi’s Church that was played by Bach!
  • As we have discovered in our travels of Central America earlier, the same word for calling an inanimate object hot, ‘caliente’, when used to refer to oneself also means ‘horny’. This same issue also arises in German when a person uses the word for ‘cool’. It also means ‘horny’ in German…. I can’t remember what exactly that word is….
  • I would rather walk outside of the door of a church where they are asking for money in their donation box, tell them no, and then hand the money to a homeless guy. The church is rich enough as it is.
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A metal sculpture sitting on a pile of bricks weeping over the tragic loss of lives during the destruction of buildings in Hamburg during WW2
  • The great fire started in a cigar factory. Unfortunately, there was an alcohol store next door to this. Even more unfortunate was that the alcohol shop owner was stupid. In a panic that his shop would be destroyed, he started pouring out all of the alcohol out of his shop window into the river. The river that was barely running because there wasn’t a great deal of water in it. When the fire trucks arrived and started pumping water out of the river to wet down all of the adjacent buildings so that they wouldn’t catch fire as easy, the opposite effect was observed. The entire row of buildings went up in flames as they had just been doused in alcohol. Good times all round….
  • The Beatles have a record shaped place called the Beatles Platz with artistic statues in the Reeperbahn. I learned later in the evening that the Reeperbahn is pretty much the ‘red light district’ of Hamburg. I had a very interesting night out here where I learned that DJ’s are incapable of finishing a song past the 1st chorus, that pizza is very awesome, and that hangovers are horrible on planes.
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The Beatles jamming at the Beatles Platz in the Reeperbahn

Not a great deal learned, but I guess it is quite a bit for the 24 hours that I was there. I definitely think I will be needing to spend some more time navigating German cities 🙂