Some pictures from Prague

Here are a few photos from our weekend in Prague. I'll try and put more on my Facebook page over the weekend. The full album will consist largely of humiliating photos of me, looking variously pathetic and idiotic, together with a selection of photos of Meredith looking beautiful and gracefully poised. And there will be some nice scenery from Prague, too.

HOT or NOT?

Any excuse, as they say, will do for a holiday. Last weekend Meredith and I conjured up a variety of excuses, from me being deadly quiet at work, to Meredith having recently finished a second-last round of exams and Easyjet having a sale on flights to central Europe. The result: a delightful weekend in Praha (aka Prague), capital of the equally delightful Czech Republic. Planning for the trip involved a close study of Jetsetting Joyce's excellent travel blog, a tribute to which I now present below in the form of "Praha: HOT or NOT?"

The Czech Inn - HOT

The Czech Inn (maybe not the most original of names, but still cute) is an amazingly well designed and constructed youth hostel situated close to central Prague (only a short trip on the number 22 tram from the centre of town). Set in a beautiful old building, the hostel is a modernistic marvel, with beautifully preserved period features and vaulted ceilings mixed with polished cement floors, blinding white walls and streamlined design. The service was amazingly friendly and helpful. Our room was large, clean and beautiful. The highlight though was an awesome bar / cafe, which proved to be a great venue for long breakfasts at the cheap buffet and a couple of bouts of chess over cheap Czech beer. Highly recommended.

The Triton Restaurant - HOT

"Is this hell?" I asked Meredith on arrival in the basement restaurant of the Triton hotel. Well, we were about 20 meters below ground, a world away from the very-commercial and slightly-trashy Wenceslas Square near which the Triton is located and a three-headed Cerberus-like dog was peering over us along with a man dressed in a toga, grasping a book with one hand out-stretched and his mouth open in a scream. Actually, it was far from hellish down there. In fact, it was amazing and the setting of our favourite meal in Prague. Apparently the Triton has been a stalactite-filled cave since 1912. What was it before then I wonder? I'm not convinced the stalactites were real, but that didn't detract from the charm of the place. The strange statues and wall-sized aquarium added to the ambience and the service and food could hardly be faulted. The atmosphere was refined and elegant, though Mez and I did our best to lighten the mood by perfecting our signature handshake. After dinner, the cognac-trolley laden with VSOPs and XOs was calling to me. But we had to scram because we had a date at a jazz club ...

U Maleho Glena Jazz Bar - HOT

For some reason, Prague is well-known as a jazz hotspot. The old town and Jewish quarter are full of smokey little underground cafes pumping out trumpets, saxophones and jazzy electric piano. However, we decided to head over the Charles bridge to the other side of the river to sample the delights of the well known U Maleho Glena. Down a steep set of stairs and past one of the coolest bars I saw in Prague, was a tiny smoke-filled room that sees live jazz seven nights a week, all year long. On the night we were there the band didn't get going until past 11pm, but when they did they busted out some of the best jazz I've heard ... although I haven't heard much. Mez, a much more experienced aficionado than me, concurred that it was excellent, particularly the bald-headed guitar player, who gave a virtuoso performance. The atmosphere of the place couldn't be beaten and we enjoyed the performance from our wobbly bar stools, drinking long pints of pilsner and excellent bloody marys, with muchos gusto.

The Franz Kafka Museum - HOT

I'd heard about Kafka before going to Prague, but have never read any of his books. I had a vague idea that he was like Proust, Tolstoy and Joyce in the sense that everyone agrees that he's a giant of literature without ever having the guts or patience to try reading any of his work. Anyway, young Franz was obviously a troubled character, but sufficiently brilliant to justify his own museum in his loved and hated home-town. The museum itself was wonderfully moody and disconcerting, with floating images, strange sounds and eerily dark lighting. Even though I didn't get a clear narrative of Kafka's life, I picked up enough of the themes of alienation, frustration and existential crisis to get a sense of his work. And I could associate with Kafka's sense of displacement and his uneasy relationship with office bureaucracy. Even though I've yet to read any of his books, I do intend to give them ago. In particular, I was intrigued by the sound of The Trial and The Castle. I think I might also hang a Kafka poster on my office wall - just in case my employers haven't yet identified my growing loss of motivation at work ...

The Orient Cafe - HOT

The citizens of Prague love a bit of cubism, not only on their walls but in their architecture too. Apparently, Prague is the only place in the world where you can find cubist architecture. With good reason too, I suspect, for why would you want all the windows on one wall, all the doors on the ceiling and carpet on the walls? Anyway, the Cafe Orient is situated on the first floor of The House of the Black Madonna (which for some reason reminded me of Allo Allo and the painting of the Madonna with the Big Boobies, but that's probably explained my lack of maturity), which apparently the finest cubist building in town and also home to a cubist gallery and art shop. It's a very pretty little spot and our meals were nice and simple - smoked salmon and a cheese and ham gallette. To top it off, we found seats on the balcony and were serenaded by a group of guitar-wielding buskers on the street below. We were having a great time, although the people walking below us may not have been having as much fun, as a prolonged moment of clumsiness on my part led to a shower of lettuce falling over the balcony.

So that's the end of a short list that could be much much longer. A lot of HOTs on that list you say? Well, that's true, but it was hard to find too many NOTs in Prague and we were throwing strikes all weekend. Loved it.

Better than never

OK, so this post is a little late, but please refer to the title before getting too critical. Anyway, as regular readers of this blog would know (there must be a few out there), I love life in London. The last year has been one of the best in my life, though it seems to have raced by. When I first arrived in London I was too excited to feel homesick, though I expected that would soon wear off and I would start to miss my home town a lot. Wrong. I have to confess that I generally haven't missed Melbourne that much at all, despite starting most of my stories at work with "Well, that's OK I guess, but in Melbourne we do things much better". I miss my friends and family of course, but I address issue that by encouraging them to come over and visit me here. So, well, come on, where the bloody hell are you?! Anyway, given the lack of strings tugging at my heart, I was actually quite surprised by how much I enjoyed my two week break in Melbourne back in September. I headed back primarily to attend the wedding of Brian and Dilshani, two of my best friends. The bucks night on the first Saturday (which I won't blog about for fear of doing harm to what is still a very new marriage) and the wedding on the second Saturday were the only events I planned ahead of time. So I had heaps and heaps of spare time on my hands to just hang out and enjoy Melbourne. As it turns out, I managed to fill pretty much every day with visits to see old friends and rediscover old haunts. I caught up with a bunch of people from high school and was happy to see them all doing well. I went into town to catch up with some work mates and was happy to find that we didn't waste much time talking about work. I cruised around the south-eastern suburbs and bought a milkshake from Donut King in Dandenong Plaza and lunch at the food court at Knox City. I saw lots of babies, and one toddler with a great memory for dinosaur names. I did some bar hopping in China town and ate salt and pepper fried squid and stuffed tofu at the Supper Inn. Basically, I just had an awesome time. And the weather cooperated too - we had a series of glorious sunny days. Melbourne in spring time is a sight to behold. Driving down St Kilda road, in the middle of the city but surrounded by trees - brilliant. Oh, and I dropped by the Ian Potter gallery in Federation Square too - the collection of aboriginal art on the ground floor is stunning and a must-do if you're in Melbourne. So, yeah, this is turning into a pointless post. Or, technically, it was a pointless post from the start and hasn't gotten any better since then. I promise to finish soon. And I'll finish with the wedding. A truly picture perfect day as far as the weather was concerned, the ceremony and reception were both held up at Tatra Hut in the Dandenongs, in a stunning garden setting. The ceremony was fantastic and memorable, with an amusing speech by the pastor "If your wife is hungry, you must feed her." (I should have taken notes), tears shed by the groom (I pocketed 10 bucks as a result) and two long and sober vows that made a realistic forecast of what married life would be like (it won't be a fairy tale and bad words may be used). A magnificent day all round. It certainly reminded me what an awesome place Melbourne is ... but it wasn't quite enough to make me want to return. Not just yet anyway.

Turning 28

I really enjoy celebrating other people's birthdays, but I've never been all that comfortable with my own. Basically, I don't deal well with being the centre of attention. It's one reason why my career as an after-dinner speaker never really took off. Anyway, until a couple of weeks ago, I had planned to let my 28th birthday just sail past without any real event to mark it. However, I really hadn't counted on Meredith turning out to be the world's best birthday celebrator. I now know that she is a one-woman birthday party machine who can convince even a birthday-grouch like me to lighten up and have a good time.

It seems that the birthday excitement was building in camp Beaumont well before the "big day" arrived and by the night before I think Meredith was about to explode with anticipation. To avert disaster, she arranged to start celebrations early with a trio of events on my birthday-eve. First, we started off with a meal in a really delightful old pub by Liverpool Street Station - it was all wooden floorboards and wood-panelled walls and served delicious food, including a plate of figs and parma ham, which I loved. From there we ran through the rain to one of London's swankiest bars Vertigo 42, which is situated on the top floor of what used to be the city's tallest building. It may be a bit of a gimmick venue, but we had an excellent time sipping champagne and looking out over the rain-drenched city. We were there after sunset, so the city was all dark streets and bright lights, which made it look very exciting and almost gothic in a Gotham City-like way. Very cool. From there, we moved on to another bar in a beautiful enclosed courtyard, which I would never have found if it weren't for my birthday guide. It was a cool venue, though it was winding down by the time we got there late on a Wednesday night. It was, however, funny to observe a bunch of drunk office colleagues obviously getting set to pair up and head home together though. Kids, please remember that too-much-alcohol and work parties don't mix!

The following day, I went to work still a little sleepy from the night before, but somehow managed to scrape through without doing too much work (except, of course, for an important teleconference that was unhelpfully scheduled for 5.30pm and lasted until about 7pm - much to my frustration). Anyway, straight after work, I jetted out the door to dinner at the Beach Blanket Babylon in Notting Hill. I'd had drinks there before and I like its quirkiness a lot (much more than its sister venue in Shoreditch, which is just pretentious without any real sense of fun). But I was a bit apprehensive, because Huy had given it a very big thumbs down as a place to eat and hang out. As it turns out, we had a great meal (sure, I just had a steak, which is hardly cutting edge cuisine, but it was really perfectly cooked and the handcut chips and veggies were also excellent) and the service was friendly, professional and not at all pretentious. The only thing better than the food was the long list of presents that Meredith gave me in between courses. I won't list them all here for fear of making you all jealous, but it should suffice to say that I will have to lift my game if I am to hold my own in the present-giving stakes this Christmas and on future birthdays.

Overall, I have to say that my 28th birthday was my best one yet and, despite myself, I'm even looking forward to the 29th. Thanks Mez! And thanks also to all my other friends for their kind birthday wishes and gifts. It's nice to know that you all care.

Norway

Last weekend the usual suspects took full advantage of the Monday bank holiday and headed off to Norway. This was my second visit to Fjord-land and it made me wonder at how I managed to survive my previous visit 8 years ago, when I was travelling on a student's back-packing budget. As the expenses mounted, I cast my mind back to the days of buying stale bread at local supermarkets and living on no-brand peanut butter, bananas and canned ravioli in tomato sauce. Thankfully, these days I can afford to see Scandinavia in (a little) more style. Though the rate I ran through the krone was worrying at times (£2.50 for a bottle of water!), I had a great time in Norge. Highlights were numerous, but a few are listed below:

• Smoked fish - Norwegians are a straight-forward people. When they find something they like, they stick with it. For example, they're quite into light fittings and seemingly delight in coming up with different ways of making darkness go away. Not that touch-sensitive lights in your kitchen add much convenience compared to, say, your traditional garden-variety light-switch, but you still have to admire the ingenuity. Anyway, I digress. Smoked salmon abounds in Norway and it's delicious. It's served practically at every meal (or at least it is by tourists such as us) with crackers and potato salad. It's delicious, and along with the prawns and mackerel, makes Norway a seafood lover's delight. I gorged myself senseless at the buffet dinner we had in Flam on Saturday night (hey, when food's that expensive, you've got to make sure you get good value) and don't regret a minute of it. Of course, those used to greater variety of food may get sick of the salmon-heavy diet quite soon - it took Huy around 18 hours from landing in Norway to decide he couldn't handle any more smoked fish.
• Swimming in ice-water - Swimming in glacier-melt water sounds like a crazy thing to do, but no one's ever accused a Scandinavian person of being sane (quiet, maybe, but mistaking quiet for sane is a mistake that you don't often get to repeat). Strange then that the person urging us to swim in glacier-melt water was not Scandinavian but was in our kayaking guide from Catalonia. Having clambered up a steep Fjord-bank to stand below a thundering waterfall, our guide convinced the stupider members of the group (including me) to remove shoes, socks and shirts and get wet. It was a great, though cold, experience during which I was caught on camera looking like a pale-skinned Norwegian yeti / mountain gorilla clambering around under the raging torrent of water. I did myself no favours by screaming uncontrollably on hitting the water proper in a pool a little way down the hill. If you listen carefully you can probably still hear the echoes of the mountain gorilla's call bouncing around the hills of the Sognefjord.
• Souvenir shopping - I'm not sure whether Norwegians really love souvenir shops and novelty gifts, but they sure think that the rest of the world does. Nothing else could explain the fact that all the shops in Norway sell moose-related paraphernalia, viking helmets, aqua-marine dyed mink sleeveless vests, snow-flake patterned cardigans and mittens. We had a ball trying things on and laughing at the extreme kitsch that surrounded us - sheep-fleece back-pack anyone? It's hard to say whether or not the Norwegian retail industry is flourishing, but if it is I have very little hope for Western European civilisation.
• Hot dogs - Desperate for food and short for cash, imagine our collective delight when we discovered Norway's love for the ultimate fast/cheap food: hot dogs. Stumbling on a cheap and plentiful supply of grilled meat sangers late at night in Bergen must rank as one of the top moments of our trip (perhaps second only to Huy's discovery that for kr15 you could get 3 deliciously burnt and dry buffalo wings from McDonalds). I had the 150gr jagdtwurst (presumably a mix of reindeer, elk and other Norwegian game meats) and it was delicious. I could have opted for the 250gr version which was about a foot long, but I wasn't sure I was ready for that much oil. When they said that Norway's economy dependent on oil, I didn't realise their main supply came from fast food drip trays.
• Eurosport Olympic coverage - One of the most memorable events of this year's Olympic games came at a moment when our group of hardy travellers was practically comatose (hey, sitting on a scenic railway really takes it out of you) and listlessly watching Eurosport in our Flam apartment. 10m platform diving is a scary event that is brilliant to watch because it is so accessible to the casual viewer. After 3 dives, everyone is an armchair expert on what level of splash is acceptable on any given dive and whether or not it's better to go for a complex dive with a 3.8 level of difficulty or for a simpler 3.2 level dive that you know you can nail. Matthew Mitcham, new Aussie hero, made the right choice when he absolutely dominated a triple-twisting back-double-somersault or some such similar combination to get the highest scoring dive in Olympic history and snatch the gold away from the home nation in the most dramatic fashion. It was pure sporting drama and shook us all out of our lethargy. Nice one Matt!

New painting

After a short hiatus to refresh and regain some creative inspiration, I've started painting again. What's more, I've left dots behind to revisit my white lines phase. This one here now proudly graces the wall of Meredith's bedroom.

Investment opportunities up north

I always thought that Australia was a land of opportunity, but it's got nothing on Scotland. I was there on the weekend and to all those youngsters out there hoping to strike it rich, I say take the next train to Aberdeen via the 'Burgh and you won't be sorry. In the short 48 hours I spent in town, shuffling along Princes St and the Royal Mile, I spied a bagful of excellent investment opportunities. I'll mention just a few of them here:

• Fashion. Scottish people love clothes (they keep you warm, don't you know) but they seem to lack imagination when manufacturing them. A cursory glance along the shops on the Royal Mile illustrates this fact. Everything's made out of tartan. Kilts, sure, they're obvious tartan territory. But formal wear (including ball gowns), sleep wear, casual wear (including a surprisingly wide range of mini skirts, all made in larger sizes to accommodate the natural girth of bonnie northern lassies) and just about any other type of wear you can think of, is also sold exclusively in tartan fabric. My suggestion: open up a cloth factory and show the Scottish public that black is the new, well, tartan.
• Furniture. The dominant architectural feature of Edinburgh is a grand castle that sits on a hill overlooking the city, looking very regal and impressive. Lit up by flames at night, it's a stirring sight and a magnificent setting for the Edinburgh military tattoo. In fact, I think it's one of the most impressive city landmarks I've seen, except for one thing - the inside is pretty shit. I mean, really, we poked around inside the castle for a couple of hours without really uncovering anything even vaguely impressive. The living quarters looked particularly drab and I wouldn't have been surprised to see a 1950s TV set in the corner, with a set of rabbit ears antennas and a small plaque saying "Here did Mary Queen of Scots watch Coronation Street of an afternoon." Home renovation shows are big down south, but obviously haven't made it to Edinburgh castle yet - bring on the reality TV I say, the Scots obviously need some inspiration. I have to admit that the regimental museum of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards was a bit more impressive. In particular, I enjoyed a diorama depicting desert warfare during WWII, which showed a Scottish soldier bravely identifying and then fighting off a German tank using only a metal detector (without the detector the tank no doubt would have caught them completely by surprise). I also enjoyed reading that the tremendous wartime success of the Guards can be attributed to four qualities: (1) Communication (2) Teamwork (3) Courage and (4) Weapons. I think (4) is particularly significant.
• Children's toys. Meredith and I were the only visitors in Edinburgh last weekend that weren't part of a hen night or stag do. We were also the only ones not dressed up in costume (naughty nurses, devils and angels, escaped convicts and chasing policemen abounded). Thoughtfully, most of the hens identified themselves to the world by wearing pink sashes, halos and L plates. Equally thoughtfully, most of the stags identified themselves by drinking copious amounts of ale and marking the pavement with their vomit. During one 15 minute stretch late on Saturday night on Cowcross St, we were counting hens/stags at a rate of one per minute. Over 48 hours in Edinburgh, that makes 2880 people getting married soon. Our anecdotal evidence suggests that the vast majority of these people are extremely randy. Ergo, in 9 months there should be a proliferation of babies being born in Scotland and a consequent rush on baby toys. If you are a Scottish manufacturer of rattles, there are happy days ahead.