Author Archives: Ben Gould
Warsaw and Berlin/Capital to Capital
I arrive at Warsaw Modlin with three mates. We meet another in my hotel room and drink the night away, random bar to bar, the heavily accented rejection “Not tonight, lads” a frequent leitmotif. This pattern continued the following two nights; no historical sites or culturally relevant landmarks were sampled.
I emerged with a ghastly unexplained bruise on my shoulder, and lost three jackets and a phone – someone is enjoying the plethora of life-changing memes on that phone (hours of work). I therefore have no photographic proof to provide evidence that I was in the Polish capital so I’ll just sign off by saying that Warsaw was … alright.
To Berlin Hauptbahnhof on the 1400 train in a lovely First Class carriage. A porter chucks us bottles of water. At Poznan, a middle-aged Chilean couple join us. They speak very eloquently about the fight for the Republican nomination. Donald Trump dominates the chat. I’m a bit ashamed of myself for not nipping that topic in the bud.
Berlin got a bit X-rated on occasion, the most subdued episodes nightly trips to Last Cathedral bar just north of Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. A self-described ‘Horror Rock Bar’, we shot the proverbial shit in the atmospheric haunt, discussing Game of Thrones and East German historiography in hushed voices.
Nothing touristy was done; walking tours were jettisoned in favour of lengthy hangover-induced lie-ins with Alka-Seltzer and YouTube. This was not a conscious decision to take the apostate route and ‘be different’ by embracing the anti-tourist modus operandi. It was merely a case of being too ill to leave the hotel before 7:00 p.m. Moreover, I had been to Berlin before, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on much daylight happenings.
What I did take from Berlin was a sense of the possible, a wander in an evolving maze. I see no uniformity to Berlin save its randomness. The city feels like it was endearingly designed using the paint program on a Windows desktop. The locals seem content with this, chilled, unencumbered with appearances.
A few salient memories remain: Zooming past the Berlin Wall in a Mercedes-Benz in a dash to the airport, smoking Cointreau from an e-cig, guzzling from a litre-bottle of Smirnoff Ice in Matrix club and convincing myself I was a hip-hop artist, a chat with a verbose pub bouncer about the Stasi, and insouciantly munching sushi off a bin like a glorified hobo.
Once upon a time in the noughties, alcohol didn’t dominate holiday proceedings. I’m not sure when I’ll fully exercise a bit of nostalgia and hit a city teetotal, but when I do I’ll frequent the museums and stuff.
The Great Outdoors.
Ardgartan, a secluded little village by Loch Long in Argyll and Bute, was a charming wee haven, an idyllic getaway from the mechanised racket down south.
It’s solitude up north, a place to gather thoughts, ruminate, recharge the proverbial batteries. I often listen to the devastatingly dramatic music of Richard Wagner in these moments, and think of ways of taking over the world. It’s never going to happen, but one can fantasise.
Highlights:
Laziness.
I’ve always been more into looking at scenes of natural beauty than … climbing up them. I therefore gazed in admiration at the surrounding hills with their snow-topped peaks, and took a few photos of the beasts. Neglecting any extended adventuring, I did manage to crawl out of our liquor lodge estate and ramble around Loch Long to the Village Inn and back.
The swing.
I’ve not been on a swing in decades. Nostalgia kicked in. Other estate guests offered some concerned facial expressions my way. Perhaps I should have jettisoned the Jack Daniel’s bottle.
Bug Hotel.
Even travelling insects need their comforts.
Dublin Craic (again).
Another ad hoc bar crawl in Dublin. Lots of Guinness, Jameson, muffled conversations over live music, and the occasional tumble off a wooden stool.
Impressions/Thoughts:
Temple Bar.
Temple Bar is a shower of shite. It’s world renowned and I don’t know why. Two pints of Guinness and two shots of Baileys = 27 euros. Nothing distinguishes this particular craphouse of a drinking den save its almost anachronistic talent for making one feel like a fool.
Mission: Impossible.
It’s (almost) impossible to get ejected from a Dublin bar. You slur your words and just barely manage to point at the whiskey bottle of your choice yet the bartender serves you up. It’s comforting.
Fisticuffs.
A group of women, rather scruffy lookin’, wailing and spitting at each other outside of what I think was a job centre. It was a horrific sight, albeit slightly surreal.
O’Connell Street.
Wow, a casual stroll down this boulevard made me tingle. Peppered with cracking little bars, it’s a keeper.
Guinness Storehouse.
I greatly enjoyed its alluring view of the city from the rooftop bar. The rest was the expected corporate paradigm, but then Guinness is a global brand so why shouldn’t it be. Nevertheless, I did feel perplexed at times during my Storehouse ramble. A tour guide eloquently waxed upon the dimensions and parameters of proper Guinness ‘tasting’ to a room of us, each clutching a small measure; it was like he was describing a surgical procedure. I downed my tipple whilst playing with my phone, nonchalantly disregarding his recommendation that I sniff it (the Guinness, not my phone).
Outside, stood in the freezing cold, are poor bedraggled horses waiting to tug tubby tourists back to their hotels for 40 euros a carriage ride. Gruesome.
The Zoo.
There is a zoo. I wonder if they sell booze on the premises. It wouldn’t surprise me.
Fresh air.
Dublin smells nice. It smells mostly of booze. Sublime.
Coca-Cola cans.
Bar managers aren’t fond of clientele bringing their own mixers in. You still don’t get chucked out, though.
Dublin Airport.
Security staff have always puzzled over cans of tuna chunks stored in my carry-on luggage. This airport is no different. It’s a can of tuna, mate. Treat it with the respect it deserves.
Voyage to Italy
Milan.
Milan didn’t feel like Italy for me. It is indeed in Italy, and is full of Italians, but I never felt like I was rambling in the Land of Amaretto. Locals (admittedly fly) buying clothes and walking slowly whilst carrying bags of flashy clobber. I have no interest in clothes. I have a personal detestation of slow walkers. The bars were lifeless, the streets listless. I did climb the stairs of a cathedral in the city centre, but it knackered me and the heat perplexed my senses. Anyway, it was alright. I was gonna see the San Siro but decided to drink Grand Marnier on a bench instead. Farewell, Milan. Take care.
Venice.
Venice blew my socks off. I crept in by train under the auspices of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, visions of Dirk Bogarde and a murderous dwarf in a red jacket dominating my hangover. I’d heard icky tales of the sewage and the rats; I couldn’t smell the former nor see the latter, though I don’t mind rats. I had one, Rambo, as a pet. Now I just picture Rambo en masse. The city is a belter, another world, a hinterland of frozen memory, a breathing anachronism untouched by time. I loved the place, and didn’t even mind getting lost (constantly). Thank the heavens for Google Maps, for without them I would have slept on an illegally commandeered gondola every night. I was crestfallen upon leaving. I struggle to fathom why Marco Polo left, but understand why he eventually returned.
Rome.
Rome was pissing it down for much of my stay. I don’t think Rome liked me very much. Nevertheless, like Quasimodo, I was stricken with unrequited love. The Colosseum already had me at Gladiator (2000), but being there, up close, I could almost detect the baying chants of the Roman mob, the bread and circuses. It’s an antiquated football stadium scene, essentially. Proceeding via Piazza Venezia to the Vatican, I was once again reminded of the fact that I grimace daily at my residential surroundings back home in Edinburgh, and struggled to locate the reason I continue to operate there. Depression can arrive from the most serene origins.
Irish Bars. Every city on the planet has or desires one. I’d like to imagine folk congregating in a relatively quiet district of Baghdad for a Guinness and a lamb stew. The Scholar’s Lounge just off the Piazza Venezia is just sublime, an authentic, not-too-pricey liquid hideaway with staff from Dublin, Cork, Waterford, and Shannon. There’s nothing quite like an inordinate volume of Smithwick’s and a live-screened football match after a day of trudging around the Lonely Planet’s must-sees. I got reeking off Guinness in there, my only memory past 10:00 p.m. a 30-minute chat with a skater bloke from Oakland, California about the improbable rise of Donald Trump.
A note on selfie sticks: these things do my tits in. They were omniscient, from the folk selling them to the sniffers swinging the apparatus about with careless abandon. I certainly wouldn’t want to look at a photo of the Trevi Fountain with my mug dominating the snap; that’s not the sweet life. The pursuit is another bizarre evolution in the travails of the human species.
I now seek out Sicily and Naples. Soon.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 