Ross Alexander 7/16/18 Ross Alexander 7/16/18

Bingham Cup 2018 - Amsterdam

I recap my time spent with the Berserkers during our trip to Amsterdam for the 2018 Bingham Cup. Includes quite a few match breakdowns, but also videos and pictures from our time on tour!

The Hermits Join The Pack

As I am sitting down to start writing this, it is the day after the Berserkers have returned home from Amsterdam, following a week of early starts, cramped and sweaty rides on public transport, injuries and allergies. Many of my team-mates have returned to work straight away, and I'm quite sure that a number of the ladies team will have had to explain what rugby is to their own horrified co-workers, given the number of black eyes I saw amongst them.

Of course, nobody gets into a sport for the injuries. This has also been a week of team-work, bonding, learning, improving, laughter and love. As someone who speaks often of my love for my fellow Berserkers, this tour was an amazing opportunity for both Kara and myself (two introverts who happily put themselves into social exile back in Scotland) to spend a lot of time surrounded by some of our favourite people.

Readers of this blog will recall that we Alexanders travel with some significant anxieties, with many of them brought about by our tendency to "eat from the kids menu" and our need for flexibility and calmness. I knew going in to planning this trip that I'd be uncomfortable and that I'd need to step outside of my comfort zone, but when Kara said that there was no way she was going to be alone in Stockholm on her birthday while I was in Amsterdam, I knew that we had to take steps to mitigate the discomfort that a strictly regimented training routine would place on us. Months ago, Kara and I organised an Air BnB, Kara planned to stay and relax in Amsterdam a little longer and we were going to make sure we had some control over our routine.

It wasn't to be, however. The week before we were due to travel, Kara found out that our Air BnB had been cancelled and that we had nowhere to stay. Understandably panicked, we started considering our options. This gave us our first instance of Berserker generosity on this trip, when Andrew and Danny invited us to sleep on the living room floor of their Air BnB, situated just around the corner from the "StayOkay" hostel that held the rest of the team. Cue a mad dash to Ikea and Rusta to find airbeds, travel blankets and the like, and we were ready to travel.

Day 1 - Raiding Party Sets Out For Amsterdam

Spirits were high as we spotted the cluster of Berserkers, gathered in Arlanda's terminal 5. Stockholm had been blisteringly hot for the past week, and temperatures were now just starting to settle back into the lower 20s. As Kara and I started hugging and greeting our friends, I smiled as I saw that almost all of us were decked out in our new Berserkers kit, which had just arrived the weekend before. A bold, brazen, boisterous bubble of red and black stood out amongst the suits and ties that filled the airport, and as we started our first "team manoeuvres", the bubble turned into the long procession of almost 40 people that wound its way through the airport.

As we passed through airport security, the mood seemed relaxed and happy. I discussed Hogwarts houses with my small group as we waited to put our stuff onto the conveyor belt. After a little bit of food, our head coach; Danny gathered us around to outline a few rules for the tour. Now, those of you have never traveled as part of a rugby tour may be unfamiliar with the traditions of cruel and unusual punishment that tend to accompany a trip to foreign soil. My favourite example of this is from the 2012 Lions tour, where one player was punished for an infraction by having to make a phone call to their club coach back home, demanding a shot at the captaincy.

A few rules were outlined to us:

"Buffalo Rules" for whenever we were out drinking.
A sparkly, glittery "hair clip" must be kept on your person and be visible at all times.
The team's two mascots "Bosse The Berserker" and "Pippi Longstockings (Långstrump)" were to be protected at all times by their guardians; Harald Petterson and Emma Kullberg. The other members of the team were tasked with stealing said mascots and taking selfies with them, uploading them to Instagram. Every successfully tagged picture would result in citations for the guardians.
Our 2018 Bingham tour shirt had to be worn at all times when not actively taking part in rugby. (This rule was actually instituted later on in the evening, when we were having dinner.)

Kullberg resorts to strapping Pippi to herself like some kind of perverse Kangaroo.

Harald's hand becomes a claw of sorts, gripped around poor Bosse.

As we lifted off, I settled in with a movie and relaxed, knowing that the next week was going to be an intense time. I wouldn't be in control of my schedule, my personal space and time would be limited and to top it all off, I'd be mentally and physically exhausted. This assessment was correct, but I also found a lot of comfort in knowing that I'd be in the company of some of the best people I know, playing the sport I love.

When we arrived in Amsterdam, we benefited directly from Kullberg's time living in the city, and getting around. We lined up to buy our train tickets, and I saw the first example of the facial expression I saw a lot on Dutch faces when our raiding party in red got in line for the train, tram or bus. The "Oh christ, never mind. I'll take the next one." look. We also ran in to a guy named Derek, who had traveled from Chicago to play in Bingham. These chance encounters with other Bingham players would go on throughout the week.

Luckily they have big buses in Amsterdam.

After a warm and busy train ride to "Murder Port", the procession of Berserkers rolled in to the StayOkay hostel, getting their first glimpse of their quarters for the next week. Andrew and I went ahead to scout out the Air BnB and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had windows that opened wide, a high ceiling and a living room floor that would fit two air mattresses. It would be cosy for the 4 of us, but it wouldn't be too uncomfortable.

While the majority of the team was getting settled in: Maja, Matilda and Danny had left us to speak with the media about their participation in the Bingham Cup. This year would be the first year that women would have a tournament to take part in, and our ladies were one of only 4 teams that made up the inaugural women's competition. This was not the last time that our ladies would be interviewed.

After a late dinner at a Thai restaurant near the hostel, we all returned to our dorms, preparing ourselves for a long week of rugby ahead. Kara arrived on a later flight, and when we got to our apartment, we set about blowing them up, without a pump. This led to some stifled hilarity, as we didn't want to wake our gracious hosts, but seeing my wife blow up a giant airbed like a party balloon is going to stick with me for a while.

Day 2 - Even The Air Is Trying To Kill Me

After a shaky night's sleep, where Kara didn't enjoy the cooler temperature in our makeshift bedroom, we grabbed a bus and started making the long trip out to the training pitches that Bingham had set aside for us. Before we'd even left the apartment, I knew that it was going to be a rough day for me. My hayfever symptoms suddenly came to life, and I spent the start of the day in extreme discomfort, standing on a packed bus, raking in my bag for a packet of tissues and desperately hoping that I'd have enough to last the day.

After a 90 minute journey to get out to the pitches, we found a spot in the shade of some large trees and began warming up for our first time handling the rugby ball on tour. One of my favourite things about this tour was the change-up that was made to our warm-up schedule, so it now incorporated a lot more stretching and yoga, led by Maria (or "Face"). This sort of stretching was probably responsible for me surviving the tour, and hopefully we will use it more often in the future. This first training session was a good chance for us to shake the cobwebs from our team playbook, and we finally started using the call system that our coaching team had introduced back at camp a few months back. It was a bit iffy at first, but I am confident that by the end of our time in the Netherlands, we all knew what we were doing.

Not content with the discomfort caused by the heat and my hayfever, I made sure to spend plenty of time getting my knees and elbows nice and scratchy by placing them on the grass. It is a little bit ridiculous to be a rugby player that's allergic to all of the elements involved in rugby, but I guess that sums up my current approach to the game. "Perform, in spite of your current situation." (Maybe that sounds more poetic in latin?)

Clip check on the way back from training on day 2.

After this session, we got back on the bus and headed back into town. With a little refreshment and after a cold shower, we all went to the hotel Casa for player registration. The atmosphere in the hotel was very positive, with the lobby and exterior being filled with volunteers and other players. I got a little chance to say hello to the "Caledonian Thebans"; an IGR team representing Edinburgh at the tournament. After signing up, we got our Bingham "goodie bags" and went to grab some lunch.

The latter part of the afternoon was spent crossing Amsterdam with the team, piling on to public transport and wandering through the busy streets in the baking sunlight. As we left a metro station and ascended into the sun, I discovered that one of my team-mates has the photic sneeze reflex, which was something I'd heard of, but never actually seen. During this journey, I also discovered that a couple of my team-mates wanted nothing more than to go AWOL, so that they could hunt for KFC. This behaviour would manifest in a much more noticeable way later on in the tour. After a short stop, where the fairest skinned amongst the team sheltered from the sun, we walked on to our first "team building exercise" of the tour.

Simon was just one member of the "KFC Crew" in the team.

In a nutshell, we took part in a "CSI" style walking tour, where we were tasked with solving a murder while walking around some of the old parts of Amsterdam. Our group was split into smaller teams of around 6 people and we were given a briefcase with clues. After scattering into the city, we ran into each other quite often, taking pains not to talk too loudly about our findings and generally trying to work out just how in-depth we were meant to go into investigating. I genuinely walked in to one of the shops that were marked as a crime scene on our map and started taking pictures. The old boys outside seemed to be ok with it, though.

After a pleasant afternoon of walking around, solving puzzles and taking pictures, Kara's team ended up winning the prize of a bottle of sparkling wine. Our group got the right motive and murderer as well, but Kara's team had a more complete timeline. I was happy for Kara, and expected nothing less, as she has recently been binging on podcasts about murder and the macabre.

Following on from the CSI event, we walked a short distance to our first big team dinner, where we had yet more time to chatter amongst ourselves. While we were sat at our table, I couldn't help but smile as I got to know some of my ladies team players a little better. The conversation came to a triumphal climax as one of our newest, youngest players was accidentally able to make water shoot out of her nose, earning her the less than flattering nickname "Snotterfall". Once dinner was over, the men and ladies parted ways, with the ladies disappearing to a night at a local club, celebrating the ladies Bingham cup. The men's trip back to the hostel was uneventful right up to the point where all but one of us disembarked at the tram stop. Simon had been too slow in climbing off the tram, and had left himself open to the near-constant mockery that would follow him all the way up to the kangaroo court at the end of the week.

After a relaxing evening of buying groceries, relaxing in our apartment and chatting with my team-mates, I welcomed Kara back in to the apartment upon her return from the club. She told me stories of uplifting responses from the Bingham cup village as the ladies passed through it, with spontaneous applause and an outpouring of support and gratitude from the male Bingham players. Kara also told me that the night club they were partying at had featured some extremely graphic adult movies, which had been something of a surprise to one or two of our younger, more innocent players. (This innocence was rewarded appropriately with a lewd t-shirt prize at kangaroo court.) Suffice it to say that our ladies (and the ladies of the Ottawa Wolves, ARC All Blues and World Barbarians) felt a warm welcome from the male players, and came back to base feeling the love.

Day 3 - Bingham Officially Begins

Day 3 started with yet another early trip across the city to our practice area. Some of our female players were called away to speak with camera crews who were following the ladies team throughout the campaign. As Face led us through our warm-up, I spied a cameraman circling around the group, taking some sneaky shots as we groaned and winced through stiff joints and tired muscles. The training session was good fun though, and after a team run, I felt like we were ready for the following day.

Bosse's guardian finally loosens his grip, just long enough for some pictures.

Harald still has the shield for consolation, though.

After a relaxing afternoon, the team got suited and booted before heading to the Bingham village to begin our team parade that ended in a club called "Escape", where the opening ceremony was to be held. It was at this event that I saw the scale of the event we were to take part in. Hundreds of people filled the street, decked out in their club colours. Many were wearing something similar to our white shirt / club tie ensemble. The procession was quite short, but as we passed people on the street, many of them would turn to look. As we piled in to the venue, the stifling heat mixed with loud music to create an all-too-familiar nightmare scenario for me; the dreaded "club".

Definitely selfie time while we're all so dressed up.

After spending most of my teens and early twenties talking myself out of visits to clubs, it was refreshing to be at one that was filled with people I knew I had something in common with. The majority of my team quickly got to work, pushing the limits of the 2 drink limit and enjoying the company of their friends. Despite my dislike for clubs, I couldn't help but smile as I watched my friends bouncing around, laughing and joking with each other as we waited for the ceremony to begin.

The ceremony was hosted by a friend of the Amsterdam Lowlanders, an American man who was dressed like a lost member of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Every team was introduced, and while the tone of the show did swing dramatically at points (including a strange anecdote from Mark Bingham's mother about the persecution of puritans and Holland), most of the show featured somewhat predictable tongue-in-cheek jokes and double entendres. By the end of our time at the ceremony, most of us were sweaty and uncomfortable, wanting nothing more than to head back to base and unwind. Tomorrow was a game day.

Johan and Matilda enjoy the party atmosphere at the opening ceremony.

Day 4 - "Switch On, It's Game Time!"

Day 4 was an early start for the team; one that made me grateful that we had returned to our quarters to rest relatively early the night before. Our first kick-off was against the team that was touted as our group's favourites; the London King's Cross Steelers (C-Team) at 8:30. That meant traveling across the city to the match venue for around 7:30. When it came down to it, I was getting up at 5:30 in the morning. Bleary eyed and woozy, I was delighted to see that the start of the tournament had brought cooler weather and an easing of my allergies. Despite my tiredness, I started our first tournament day feeling better than I had done since we arrived.

Men - Game 1: KXS (C)

When we got on to the pitch, I had no idea what to expect from either us or the competition, but I was confident that we would make a good show of it. From the start, our gameplan had been to utilise our carrying forwards to roll the ball forwards, maintaining possession and hopefully grinding down the Steelers before passing it out to our backs. Fortunately, this gameplan worked, and we were rewarded with three trys that came from the back of close play, including a lovely contested finish from Evan after Jamie tried a sneaky blind-side dart around the maul that was formed from a lineout. Our scrum was stable and strong, and Jamie was able to set up yet another try, sending Danny in right next to where the forwards were untangling from the scrum. I got my head up just in time to see him go over. To top it off, I was able to take advantage of some strong rolling forward play and carried the last few meters with a pick & go that took me almost uncontested over the try line to score my second Berserkers try.

Ultimately, this was the game that settled my nerves and allowed me the confidence to play the kind of forwards game I like to play. Strong carries with reliable support play and rucking ensured that while it didn't look glamorous, we were able to see our work on the training grounds pay off. This style also set the tone for the rest of our tournament. Going in, we had a drastic shortage of back substitutes, and as the tournament started to take its toll on the players, we had to adapt our gameplan to make use of our strengths on the bench. The pressure on our forwards was only to intensify, as we lost two of our fastest players in the first game. Our fullback Harald had been nursing a hamstring injury that erupted again, and our openside flanker Johan injured his ankle, meaning that after just our first game, we were lacking speed in both our forwards and backs.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 19 - 5 :London King's Cross Steelers (C)

Evan opens scoring on day 1, capping off a team effort and a drive to the line.

Good pace and link up between Jamie and Danny send Danny over for try 2

I break through to score my first and only try of the tournament.

Ladies - Game 1: Ottawa Wolves

Our ladies team, including Kara, Kullberg and Rebecka, who couldn't play, but helped immeasurably.

Our ladies team is made of troopers. The Swedish ladies league pits the Berserkers against teams that have years more experience, more physically imposing players and much more in terms of resources and support. The result of this is that our ladies are often on the end of unflattering scorelines that fail to show the resilience, mental fortitude and bravery that they show every time they play. The ladies tournament at the Bingham cup was made up of two IGR teams and two non-IGR teams, including the local ARC All Blues. This first match-up against the Ottawa Wolves would be a much more evenly fought battle than our ladies were used to, and I was keen to see how it went. Much like our men's team, the Berserker ladies have had to hone their defensive capabilities, and while I had the utmost confidence that they could shut a team out, I wasn't sure how we would do in attack.

The game started with a bad omen. Our #8, Patrice went down early, clutching her knee and making sounds that scared the daylights out of me. Fortunately, the damage doesn't seem to be as bad as we'd originally guessed, and Patrice spent most of the rest of the tournament as a supporter, hobbling around or getting piggybacks from her fellow players. Just before half-time, another one of our players went down and didn't get back up. It turns out that our winger; Izzy had taken a big knock to the face. The next time we saw her, one cheek had swollen up to a ridiculous degree, making her already winsome face resemble a chipmunk's from the right angle. At half-time, with neither team having scored, I was forced to stop watching, as we had to prepare for our second game against the Newcastle Ravens. As we completed our warm-up, one of our rookies and rising star of the tournament; Alicia appeared at the edge of the pitch and caused spontaneous cheering as we discovered that the Berserkers had edged the Wolves out by a single converted try.

Patrice enjoys a bespoke ferrying service throughout the rest of the day.

Our extremely sophisticated medical facilities.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 7 - 0 :Ottawa Wolves

Men - Game 2: Newcastle Ravens

Our spirits buoyed by the first game, I felt a bit more settled against Newcastle. Our playstyle would likely match their own, as they had a more physical, aggressive pack that liked to carry the ball. I started the game by pissing off the opposition #8. He was lying on our side of a ruck, and feeling confident in my chances at rucking over, I planted my foot and began to drive forward. Little did I know that I was in fact raking over the Newcastle player's thigh. As the ruck was breaking apart, he was pretty vocal about his distaste for how the ruck had gone. As a fun twist to this story, it also turned out to be his birthday!

As with our first game, we utilised our forwards extensively, attempting to punch-up into the danger area and make use of our forwards-heavy bench. I felt a lot of pride as a forwards coach while we turned over almost every single scrum, which must have been a huge drain on morale for Newcastle; knowing that even if we knocked on, we'd have the ball back in no time. Physically, Newcastle had a big, beefy pack, but I think our work on scrumming technique paid off, and that's what won us that forwards battle.

No video footage exists in the Berserker archives, but I know from my own scattered memories and some asking around that Danny and Senior scored our tries in this game, with one being converted and Danny slotting over a penalty in the end to seal the deal. All of our pool-stage matches were played on the same pitch and so my memories start to blend together, making it difficult to tell which game they are from. I do recall that we left a couple of tries out there that day, with a few handling errors and mistakes in judgement leaving us with a less flattering score than we could have had.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 15 - 5 :Newcastle Ravens

Ladies - Game 2: ARC All Blues

The ladies had the men supporting them from the start to the end of their second game, with our work being done for the day. With 3 wins from 3, morale was high and we were hoping for a 100% success rate to cap off day 1.

The ARC All Blues were one of the two non-IGR teams in the ladies competition. Physically imposing, technically capable, experienced as a team and playing on home soil; they were always going to be the toughest team to beat. That morning, they had shut out the 4th team in the bracket; the World Barbarians had failed to score even a single point against them.

The game started disappointingly with our ladies showing hesitation in moving forwards to shut down the opposition. A lot of passion and frustration was being displayed, and our attacking play was consistently rolling forwards, but the intensity of the All Blues side was proving to be a challenge. As we rolled forwards, they would constantly be looking to disrupt our breakdown and turned us over quite effectively on a few occasions.

In the second half of the game, we came out with a fresh intensity that set a much better tone for the remainder of the match. Our forwards recognised the need to stabilise the rucks and our defensive line worked hard to put more pressure on the All Blues. Where they had run over us in the first half, they started to meet resistance that forced them to push the ball wide. Our attacking game also improved, and with a slow and gradual build up, we were able to keep punching the ball up, into the opposition half. Making it difficult for ourselves (as is the Berserker way) we spent a lot of time in the All Blues' 22 before we were able to commit enough of their defenders, opening up a gap for Face to slip through for some well-earned points. Unfortunately it was a consolation try, with the first half allowing the opposition to put some major points on the board.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 5 - 41 : ARC All Blues

Consistent pressure from the Berserkers opens up a gap for Face to spring over the line.

With some bumps, bruises and a concussed ladies scrum-half, we regrouped, taped what needed to be taped and headed back to base camp at the hostel. After a substantial wait at the edge of the sports fields for the bus back, it was nice to be able to eat some food and relax in our own space. The pitches that we were playing on were technically grass, but the conditions were extremely arid. Dust and grit seemed to underlay the topsoil, which was mostly torn apart by all of the games being played on top of it. This meant that every time you tackled or were tackled to the ground, you'd have to clamp your eyes shut to avoid the dust cloud. So much sand went up my nose during this tournament that had my hayfever struck, I would have caused a sandstorm.

I think Astrid was enjoying her first Bingham Cup experience!

Day 5 - "Didn't we do this yesterday?"

Ladies - Game 3: World Barbarians

Day 2 of the competition started just as early as the day before. We packed into the busy coach from the hostel and arrived at around 7:15 at our tent. The ladies had another warm-up and before we knew it, they were taking the field against their last unknown foe in the tournament; the World Barbarians.

For those unversed in rugby, a "Barbarians" team is a squad that do not normally play together as a team. At a professional level; they are made up from top-quality players who are not obligated to play for their club or country. The quality of the players goes a long way to making up for the fact that they will probably only have a week or two to practice together before they play against an experienced, co-ordinated side. In the case of this Bingham tournament, the ladies World Barbarians mostly seemed to be individuals or small groups from teams that weren't able to send 7 people, nevermind 23. That being said, the ladies Barbarians were a physically imposing side, with an inclination towards forwards. The game that followed showed that where the pros will gel and co-ordinate, these ladies decided to take advantage of their size and some sorely lacking refereeing.

This game was brutal and physically draining for our girls, who were already largely held together with tape and pluck. Our co-ordinated efforts to play our game were constantly dashed by dirty play from an opponent who seemed to be completely oblivious to the illegality of their own tactics. In a game of shocking referee oversight, two instances stand out. On one occasion, a Barbarian player knocked the ball on about 5m, in front of the linesman and at least 30 fans who lined the side of the pitch. It was so blatant that it looked liked a basketball bounce pass, and the referee missed it entirely. The second and most egregious occasion was when Matilda (acting as scrum-half) was hit late in the ruck by a player coming in offside, far too high and with no attempt to wrap her arms. The upshot of this was a shoulder-charge that broke Matilda's cheek-bone, ending her tournament. The Barbarian didn't even receive a yellow card for a tackle that would draw a red card in any professional arena.

After losing Jo-jo following another head-knock, it was increasingly clear that we weren't able to play the game we wanted to. Our phases looked solid, and had the opposition been forced to play by the rules, I'm convinced that we would have put at least two tries past the Barbarians. As it stood, we never took our chances against a team that looked sloppy and in disarray most of the time. The Barbarians scored 3 tries against us, consistently putting us under pressure around the breakdown. As with our last game, we stood-off from contact a little too much, and while we were able to put some phases together, we never moved forward with the same intensity and hunger that I've seen us play with at our best. On the plus side, we contested well at line-out time, and despite our smaller size, we dominated the scrums as well. In terms of technical abilities, I was very proud of how our forwards handled the pressure.

One of the most frustrating games of rugby that I have ever watched; game 3 was by far the worst refereeing that I have ever seen at any level. The women's tournament had been poorly served by Bingham's organisers, with trainee referees being used for all but the final 2 games, but this referee was almost comically inept. I know that it's gauche and unsporting to comment on the refereeing decisions made in a game in some effort to make excuses, but the conditions that our women were forced to play in were not only unfair, but extremely unsafe, resulting in our captain having to pull out of the tournament with a broken cheek-bone. Watching from the sidelines literally drove some spectators to tears.

With this result, the ladies team were now locked-in to play the Ottawa Wolves once again to decide the 3rd and 4th places in the inaugural ladies Bingham Cup tournament.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 0 - 15 World Barbarians

Men - Game 3: Northampton Outlaws

The last game in our pool stages, Northampton were by far the most physically imposing team we had in our group. With a center who was even bigger than me, and a large but slightly aged pack of forwards, I wondered how our direct forwards-heavy (pun not intended) approach would would against them.

As it turned out, it was nowhere near as effective. The Northampton boys hit us almost as hard as we hit them in the close game, and it became increasingly obvious to us that we needed to utilise our back line and try to stretch them. For the majority of the game we did just that, pulling them in and throwing the ball out to our backs who consistently made yards. Danny wasn't afraid to use the boot, and we often found ourselves chasing and making good yards.

Late in the first half, we went on a short emotional rollercoaster. After a beautifully weighted pass to the wing, Victor took the ball at pace and hit a gap in the Northampton defensive line. He broke through, and was brought down on the try line. The nature of his dive caused a cheer to erupt through the Berserkers and it was only after a few short seconds that I realised the referee had not blown his whistle. In his frenzy to score his first ever Berserkers try, Victor had misjudged his landing, causing him to brace his landing one on arm while being tackled. This had resulted in him putting too much pressure on the arm, causing his elbow to dislocate. Our fears of a knock-on had become concern for our team-mate. Maja was called from the sidelines as she nursed her ever-injured ankles to help Victor get his arm sorted, and he was clapped from the field.

Victor comes painfully close to scoring his first Berserker try.

Victor grabs some consolation time with Bosse.

Due to our heavy reliance on forwards, Matthew "Twinkletoes" Ritson was called up from the pack to fill in at inside center. Our switch to put the ball out wide paid off when Ritson burst through several tackles to touch down towards the end of the first half. The middle section of the game was ours, with constant pressure leading to Danny dotting down, and another try going begging after a misjudgement of the dead-ball line caused a try to be disallowed.

Moving Ritson to center has its benefits, as he tears through Northampton’s defense.

Northampton took their chances, though. And after I gave away a stupid penalty, we allowed them back into the game. Two tries came towards the end of the game, with their captain slotting a perfect dropgoal conversion at the death to tie us 12-12. The team's morale had taken a huge knock, and it was telling that after dominating for so much of the game, we felt like we'd lost it all, just by allowing the opposition to draw. We had won our group and were undefeated, but we knew that this was only the beginning.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 12 - 12 :Northampton Outlaws

Ladies - Game 4: Ottawa Wolves (3rd Place Decider)

Bruised, battered and bloody; the Berserker "Shieldmaidens" took to the field one last time to decide their placement at the end of the tournament. Unable to field a team of 15, we reduced our numbers to 10 and played a kind of rugby that is even more taxing and tiresome than 15s.

It was a scrappy start for us, with us giving away silly penalties around the ruck. At first I put it down to the fatigue that we were all feeling, but as I kept watching, I noticed that it was barely bridled aggression and determination that was causing us to leap in and make bad choices.

The ladies got a handle on that aggression, and in a display of forward momentum that was beautiful to behold, we carried, shoved and dragged the ball up the field. To cap off the move, Jo-jo shot the ball out to Face, who accelerated into the space and added to her tally, as she touched down with an excited flourish. We maintained the same pressure and looked good in attack throughout the game, with Julia making a bizarre and wonderful carry where she successfully convinced the Wolves not to tackle her, while she jogged forwards. We made about 40 metres, but sadly the offload didn't work out and we knocked on, just short of their line. Ottawa responded with their scrum-half sending a well judged kick deep into our half, followed by a great chase. With the game being close, I was a bag of nerves until Astrid came out of nowhere to throw herself down onto the ball, snuffing out the immediate threat and securing possession.

Face finishes off a period of strong, aggressive forward carries.

Astrid also put her skills to good use at the other end of the pitch, finding the line and scoring a try after a solid set of phases and carries from our back line. With the last 20 minutes being spent containing the Wolves in their own half, our ladies had stamped their authority onto the game, with Jo-jo and Astrid especially putting in some monster hits, causing Ottawa to spill the ball out of the tackle.

Astrid pushes through after a solid set of phases.

When the game ended, it was an emotional affair for everyone involved. The ladies had gone through two days of tough rugby and had come out with 2 wins and 2 losses. The floodgates opened as that last whistle blew, and the men rushed in to join the ladies in their victory. It was exactly the morale boost that the men needed as we immediately set off to mentally prepare for our next game.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 12 - 0 :Ottawa Wolves

Men - Game 4: Columbus Coyotes (Tier 2 Quarter Final)

After graduating out of our group undefeated, the Berserkers men's team discovered that due to our relatively low-scoring games and the draw against Northampton, we wouldn't be promoted into the competition in Tier 1. We would be staying in Tier 2 to fight for the top-spot. Morale had been lifted by the ladies victory, and spirits were generally quite high around the Berserkers camp, but as Danny and I took a moment to discuss the team-sheet for game 4, it was increasingly clear that we wouldn't be able to play with the style that we had trained for in the lead-up to the tournament. Between the players lost through injury, our forwards-heavy subs bench and the fact that we were all sporting an injury of some description, we had dulled our "cutting edge" in the back line. With players out of position and a gameplan that can only be summed up as "making the best of what we had", we were resolved to keep playing the physical, aggressive brand of rugby that had been wearing us down.

There was a lengthy period that afternoon where we didn't know where the game was going to be played, or who we were to be facing. When we finally found out, we had just an hour or so to quick-march the team about half a mile across the complex to find the "far-away" pitches. We'd never played out here before, but just like with the main pitches, they seemed to be lined with canals and thick, overgrown nettles. With a quick and slightly unfocused warm-up, we squared off against the Columbus Coyotes.

The first thing we noticed about the Coyotes was the size of their forwards pack. They had a lock that looked to be at least 6ft 8, and a big, gruff front row. It didn't take long for us to feel the pressure as the Coyotes did a great job of keeping the ball and gradually moving the ball up the field, forcing us to move our tired bones to cover. We gave a good account of ourselves, though, and it was the Berserkers who eventually drew first blood, with Danny taking the ball standing still, yet being able to find the pace to dive over the line. After a relatively easy conversion, we went back to soaking up pressure. This culminated in possibly my most vital action of the whole tournament; anticipating their number 10's dive for the line off the back of a ruck. Instead of targeting him, I went straight for the ball and as he fell for the line, I was able to get just my hands underneath the ball. All credit to the referee, as he called it straight away. No try, the ball was held up.

Danny scores the deciding try against Columbus.

I took myself off for the second half. Limping and struggling to chase the ball around, I stalked the sideline and cheered on the team. The second half was spent mostly trading blows, much as the first half had been. The Coyotes came perilously close to scoring on a few occasions, with our back line doing a fantastic job of pulling them down before they could equalise. A lot of last-ditch, hail mary tackles were made and we were clinging on by the end of the game. Just before the final whistle, Danny went down. With both myself and Danny unable to steer the game, our more experienced players stepped up and were able to shut out the Coyotes just long enough. When the final whistle blew, we were ahead by a narrow margin that we were very lucky to have.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 7 - 0 :Columbus Coyotes

We make a little break in open play.

Day 2 of the competition had been grueling, without a doubt. Injuries were whittling us down, and our last game had been played in very hot conditions. We were exhausted, but we were also happy to have made it to the last day undefeated. We knew how close we had just come to defeat, but it felt good to know that we had a night to rest and recover. We boarded the bus and headed back to basecamp for some dinner. The ladies had a party that they were invited to attend, now that their tournament play was complete. I laughed when I saw how upset the ladies were at the prospect of being invited to a party, when all they wanted to do was relax and sleep. "Welcome to my world" I thought, but I sympathised.

That night, I had a lengthy chat with one of the coaches from the Swansea Vikings team. They were staying at the same hostel as most of the team and we just sparked up a conversation when I asked how they'd performed that day. This was one of my favourite things about the tournament; just how friendly and familiar people were. I think the fact that we all knew that we were there for the same reason and shared a passion made people very open and affable. Knowing I'd need to be up late to let Kara back in, I stuck around the hostel for a while, chatting with the team and taking a little time to de-compress. It was one of the few moments of real relaxation that I had during the entire trip.

At the end of day 5, the team pulls together to save Astrid from a swamp, after she goes in looking to rescue a beachball.

"Boobs to the sky!"

Day 6 - "A Shot At Glory"

As the last day of the competition dawned, the team reveled in the slightly delayed start to proceedings. With the first game being played after 11, we enjoyed our first day of tournament play that didn't begin with waking up at 6 or earlier. With a breakfast to see us through, we packed on to the bus and made our way out to the pitches.

Our warm up was unusually unfocused for us on this trip. We had been doing a good job of doing the same basic drills for so long on this trip, and we were seeing a lot of dropped balls and mistakes being made. Unsure if it was the pressure of the upcoming game, the injuries that were scattered throughout the team or the morning sun's heat, we pushed on until we had to make our way to the pitch to play our 5th game against the Dallas Lost Souls.

Men - Game 5: Dallas Lost Souls (Tier 2 Semi Final)

As we made our way to the pitch, I overhead some chatter that suggested the Lost Souls were a team that didn't enjoy having forwards run at them, and much preferred a more protracted backs battle. I quickly began to doubt this as we caught our first glimpse of the opposition in their white and green strips. Their forward back looked tough, and I got the feeling instantly that this was going to be just as physical a confrontation as any other we had that weekend. I wasn't to be disappointed.

As the first half got underway, we learned that not only do the Lost Souls deal well with establishing a solid close-game defense, they are also very capable ball carriers. They had several players who carried well and brought them over the gain line almost every time. During this game, I put a tackle in on one of them, bringing him to ground in a manner that made both of my arms go numb for a moment. As I attempted to place my weight on my right arm to get up from the ground, I realised that it wasn't capable of taking my weight. Unable to understand what had just happened, I rejoined the defensive line in time to make a tackle as we had conceded a penalty very close to our own try line. Unable to get my arms into a good position, I tackled far to high and was bounced. Within a phase or two, the Lost Souls had broken our defensive line and scored a try. With a conversion to match, I left the pitch unable to lift my arms above my head and the Lost Souls up 7-0.

Watching from the sidelines, I observed us soaking up a huge amount of pressure, in a way that reminded me a great deal of how our games often go back home in Sweden. Our defensive game was good, as we adapted to cover the wings, with both Fredrik and Fuego putting in massive shifts to bring ball carriers down. Closer to the ruck, Evan was also showing his true quality as a rugby player, making massive tackles, getting up and making another straight after. I was immensely proud of how the team performed in this game. Despite this defensive display, we conceded a second unconverted try, putting us 12-0 behind.

With some instances of solid progression up the field, we ended some solid pressure on the Dallas 5m line with a knock-on that sadly allowed them to clear the danger before we could turn the pressure into points. Once again, this was an instance of us missing the back line speed and cutting edge that a team normally relies on to break that line. The majority of the game was played in the central part of the pitch, but our heads never went down. Knowing that there wasn't much in the contest kept us going, and we were rewarded after Danny sent a clearing kick long down the field, with Fredrik and Fuego in hot pursuit. With Fuego closing down the wide run for the winger who had dropped back to receive the kick, he was forced to pass back inside. What he didn't realise was that Fredrik hadn't slowed his run, and came charging through the gap to intercept the pass. With the sidelines screaming, Fredrik touched down to put us back in the game.

Despite this late score, we never found the second try that we needed. With all of the hard work we had put into shutting Dallas out, we had absolutely exhausted ourselves. As the final whistle blew, the Berserkers tournament ended and we lined up to congratulate and shake the hands of the Dallas boys who had played the best game of rugby I'd been a part of that weekend.

We expressed the sentiment that Dallas had better win now, because we don't want to lose to the losers of the final. They went on to face the team we played right at the very start of the tournament; The King's Cross Steelers C side. It still stings slightly to know that our biggest victory of the tournament was against a team that ended up competing in the final, but it still felt good when comparing our little team, from a nation that is still very early in its love affair with rugby, to the British and American teams we played on the way to the semi-final. As it turned out, Dallas did indeed go on to win the tier 2 tournament, and we cheered them on throughout.

Result: Stockholm Berserkers: 7 - 12 :Dallas Lost Souls

We steal a lineout and come painfully close to scoring a try after a valiant charge upfield.

Fredrik reads the game incredibly well, while Fuego puts their winger under pressure.

The rest of the day was spent in the stands, watching the finals. We had chosen a good spot, right in the grandstand, with plenty of space for both our men and ladies. As mentioned, we cheered on the Dallas players as they took down KXS (C) and as players continually arrived with beers to share around, a real party atmosphere began to permeate the team. The weight of the competition gone from my shoulders, I stopped stressing about my injuries or the upcoming games and was able to relax and hang out with some of my favourite people on a beautiful day in Amsterdam.

With the games over, the team forms a huddle of red, drinks beer and cheers on our chosen teams.

After Dallas won tier 2, we settled in for the Bingham Cup final, the tier 1 match between Sydney Convicts (multiple-time cup winners) and the Gotham Knights from New York, who were going in as underdogs. With the heat really climbing, it was a true display in athleticism and sporting prowess to watch these two teams really going for it. After playing the same amount of rugby as us, these guys were still on-point, sprinting full pace and hitting hard. I couldn't comprehend playing at this level as an amateur player for even a single 80 minute game, but these guys had managed it for 3 days straight. I was even able to cheer on a fellow Avalancher and former Berserker who I never got a chance to meet during the competition, but we had a little chat online where I was able to express my support for the Gotham Knights. Sadly it wasn't to be the Gotham Knight's day, and Sydney ended up winning the cup.

With the games now over, I had time to reflect and really consider just how special the Bingham Cup is. The fact that the event is an inclusive tournament for people who want a chance to not only enjoy their favourite sport, but to do it without fear of ugly encounters and ignorance is a massive factor of course, but all I could take away from the contest was the overwhelming feel of community, friendship and pride. I am still very new to the gay community and its inbuilt politics, having only been playing with the Berserkers for less than a year at this point, but I was lucky to be able to take part in an event that welcomes all. On multiple occasions, I'd just start chatting with people about how their games had gone, commiserate when it had gone badly and compliment when it had gone well. During my time as a young rugby player in my teens, I had attended tournaments, but nothing on this scale and certainly nothing with such a positive atmosphere.

The closing ceremony was a hot, sweaty affair, but with a great party atmosphere.

Apparently a wig started doing the rounds.

At the closing ceremony, the atmosphere was similarly triumphant and jovial, and while being trapped in a space with hundreds of other people and insufficient air-con was a personal nightmare of mine, it was very nice to see the teams receive their prizes and watch my team-mates dance away. The music left a lot to be desired, but I do recall laughing heartily at a music video on the screen that depicted a romance between men on the rugby pitch. It looked like the most ridiculously contrived porn movie set-up I've ever seen. I recall reading the phrase "Rugby is my sexy time" and I would love to share some of the comical but SFW video, but I am only willing to google it and when I couldn't find a reference to it, I refused to dig any deeper. Suffice it to say that it was ridiculous, hilarious and I don't recall the video actually involving much rugby at all.

The Stockholm Berserkers Enjoy A Little Dancing

Day 7 - "Oh yeah, we're on holiday, aren't we?"

I have often joked with Kara that when we go on holiday, I am not a good person to go with if you want to relax. Ever conscious of time constraints, opening hours and Kara's tendency to wilt in hot weather, I become a timekeeper. Some kind of militant tour-guide, dragging Kara onto public transport in 30 degree heat, so that we can visit a historic site or a museum. On our last proper day in Amsterdam, I was so very glad to not be steering our particular ship. Our Bingham events committee had arranged a nice little outing later in the afternoon.

Back on the bus, we headed into town and piled off next to one of Amsterdam's quaysides. Nursing our injured players down the steep steps, we all climbed aboard one of the tour-boats and I made sure I found myself next to an open window to keep me cool. As we took off down the waterways, I was soothed by the happy, cheerful chatter of my teammates and friends as we took in the sights. Between the many bridges, slanted houses and lavish looking townhouses, I enjoyed a historical tour of Amsterdam. I even saw the site of the Guerilla Games studio, from the boat, but I was too slow to snap a photo.

Johan approves of this bridge! Or maybe it was just the cold breeze.

Andrew's face suggests "Oh yeah, this happens all the time!

Before the drinking started. The smiles would remain, but my belief in their ability to stand next to the canal without falling in was tested afterwards.

After our peaceful drift through Amsterdam's waterways, we disembarked and travelled onwards until we found ourselves at "De Biertuin Prinsengracht"; our venue for the Kangaroo court that evening. As we entered, I was very confident that the beer connoisseurs in the team would enjoy what was on offer. I bought myself an Old Mout passion fruit cider, if for no other reason than it was the only alcoholic thing in the place that I would drink that didn't cost 9 euros. Hanging out with the entire team for so long in peaceful conditions felt very strange, after almost a week of shouting commands at training, screaming support from the touchlines and marshaling people for buses. This surreal peace and quiet was not to last, though.

After our dinner, Andrew, Ritson and myself looked over the charges that were to be brought for the Kangaroo court while Danny disappeared to get into character (and costume). Despite being one of the more vocal and confident rugby players out on the field and at training, Mr Ritson has a fear of public speaking. This meant that he was our best pick for defense lawyer. As with most kangaroo courts, the charges listed varied drastically in scope and severity. They included but were by no means limited to...

Fashion faux-pais. (Especially harsh, considering the judge's taste for socks and sandals.)
Showing off knowledge of the Dutch language.
Having the gall to leave early to attend a graduation.
For being injured. (Some of these injuries were received months in advance of the tour.)
Mentioning football at any time.
Phoning loved ones back home at any time.
Drinking daiquiries.

Yours truly was given the role of prosecution, and as nervous as Ritson was about being a defense lawyer, I had to point at people with game-ending injuries and tell them they were selfish assholes for getting themselves injured. Fortunately, I think I found just the right level of sass, and was able to keep it jovial without letting anyone off the hook. Oddly enough, I think I was the one who got away with the most, especially after having given Kara my hair-clip on her birthday, as she had lost hers.

Fuego looks to be a labcoat away from playing a mad scientist in a cartoon.

Izzy is delighted to grab some Pippi-time

Most of the punishments involved drinking copious amounts of beer and shots, but some of the non-drinkers received forfeits of ridiculous costumes, including a purply pink plastic wig for Kara, a clown mask for Linnéa with her clown phobia, and a fetching "cock-nose" pair of novelty glasses for Izzy. As the night went on and people drank their forfeits, the pantomime began to take hold, and the volume rose to a point where the bar staff had to ask us to keep it down. A task that we didn't really do a great job with.

Kara makes me wear her forfeit wig as it was irritating her, and Ezther tells me to look "fabulous". I don't disappoint.

After the Kangaroo court was settled, we spread throughout the bar, forming pockets of Berserkers, chatting away and challenging each other to drinking competitions. In another moment of reflection, I looked around the bar and noticed that there wasn't a single group that I wouldn't happily join in with. Once again, I was struck by the realisation that the Berserkers are truly something special. A team that once started as a gay men's team back in 2011, I was lucky to have joined a group of friends who are truly accepting of everyone. Regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender, everyone is welcome to play rugby with us. Hell, you don't even need to have played a sport before. It was in this mindset of merry wonder that I spent the night, surrounded by friends I've known for less than a year, but have a bond with that was forged in teamwork, making us close in a way that is difficult to find amongst most social groups, even within sport.

The team take the tram home after our final night in Amsterdam.

As the night went on and people got more chatty, I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to sit and chat some of our players. I found myself letting them know how happy I was to see them perform on the field, as well as expressing my excitement at the prospect of where their rugby careers might go. We have some tremendous talent in the team, and I was keen to point out individual moments of skill, determination or bravery amongst the players I've been coaching. I was also far too sober to be receiving any sort of kind remark in return, but that didn't stop some of my teammates who seemed to be oblivious or actively delight in how uncomfortable it made me. All in all, I really felt the love in the room that night, and it's a set of memories that I hope will never leave me.

It was a trip that was both physically and mentally draining, but I'm already excited to do it again with this amazing group of people.

Astrid's elusive beachball still haunts her.

Ross Alexander 7/3/17 Ross Alexander 7/3/17

Settling In

I take a look back on three months in Sweden, as well as waxing lyrical about summer in Söder.

A view of the meditation area at Skogskyrkogården.

It's been a little while since I checked in, and figured that passing the 3 month mark was as good an occasion as any to give an update regarding how things are going with Kara and I. It's incredible to think that we've already spent a quarter of a year over here, and we're still uncovering the secret little treats of just our little island of Södermalm.

The last month or so has been brilliant for showcasing how the Swedes react to summer. They embrace it and make sure to go out, taking advantage of Stockholm's beautiful open spaces. My theory is that this is to make up for the notoriously dark winters that Scandinavia is known for. Personally, this has been a great summer for me, as my hayfever has been held at bay so far. Most people who know me will wince as they recall the creature I transform into during the spring and summer months. I often describe myself during these seasons as a "human snot volcano", which is an evocative phrase, even if you don't believe me. The fact that I only have Sweden's warm summer days to complain about may cause some of you to roll your eyes, but I feel like while many older people move to southern Spain for their arthritis, I can see me permanently settling in Sweden for my sinuses. Still, that's a decision for another day.

We found a Tri-force on one of our recent walks. It was fitting that Kara was wearing Zelda shoes at the time!

Kara and I have been taking advantage of living in the center of Stockholm's trendy (is it untrendy to use the word "trendy"?) part of town. Södermalm is hipster heaven, covered in tattoo studios, unironic ugly shoe shops, technology companies (such as Avalanche, Paradox & DICE) and barbers that purport to be all Victorian aesthetic, but have a PS4 in the corner. It's also covered in very cool bars that we will probably never go to, but that hasn't stopped us from appreciating the beautiful traditional spots that we've found around the island. We have been working our way around the island's edge, visiting it by quadrant and taking in the atmosphere.

Söder has many of these wonderful red brick buildings, especially along the waterfront.

These wanderings have shown us old boats from all over the world, turned into quirky, beautiful and often luxurious-looking house boats. They bob gently next to docks that see regular maintenance and usage. Many of the older ones come with plaques, denoting the origins and original function of the boat. Some of them are former American military boats that were used in the D-Day landings. There are also a few larger boats that have been converted into restaurants, hotels and even a delightfully tacky pirate-themed one, featuring a fiberglass shark dangling from a rope, and some weather beaten pirates with unconvincing comb-overs. It's a little bit like if Madame Tussauds was an attraction in Blackpool that someone had fished out of the sea.

Stockholm continues to delight pretty much every time we go walking, with so many little streets and hidden surprises. On one of the nights when summer was beginning to really blossom, we rounded a corner to find a large open square, roughly 300 square feet, that had been allocated for dancing. And it was packed. People lazed on the grass, waiting on their turn to dance, watching the cyclists, joggers and walkers passing by. I've never been summer's biggest fan, but seeing how much it meant to the Swedes to go out and claim their city was something I found really endearing.

Kara and I have also ventured outside of our immediate neighbourhood, most memorably travelling out to Skogskyrkogarden; a UNESCO world heritage sight and by far the largest cemetery I've ever visited. While Kara normally enjoys looking for the more elaborate or macabre headstones, I think we both enjoyed the peace and tranquility that permeated the area on the beautiful day that we visited. It was eye-opening to see just how many people are buried there, but the trees and landscape are something to behold.

I have been attempting to get "back on it" at the gym. This is hopefully the beginning of me getting back into rugby, which is a hobby I haven't indulged in for over 12 years now. I miss the game, and while I'm out of shape, I'd like to think that I still have some of the old instincts. That doesn't count for much if I can't run the length of the pitch without collapsing afterwards, so I'm hoping to get in a decent state in anticipation of the next year's season. Kara and I went to watch the two teams I'm considering play against each other, and I am yet to make up my mind. One team is made up of ex-pats, while the other is a more Swedish team, but both extol an ethos of inclusivity and friendship. One of them plays in green and white hoops, which is a colour scheme that makes me wonder what my dad would say if he was to see me wearing it.

Arsta Rugby Center in Stockholm is a surprising find, given Scandinavia only recently taking up the sport.

As we enter July, it becomes startlingly clear that I am about to exit my twenties. Age has never really been a significant worry for me before, but since my Dad's passing and my further analysis of my progenitor's related health issues, I do find myself with a more healthy awareness of my own body reacting to the passage of time. I don't know how much of this is exiting the normal teens and twenties "I am invincible" mentality and realising that the aches and pains you've felt the last six months aren't necessarily going away. That being said, I am very well placed for someone in their thirties. I have a beautiful wife who I just accompanied into her thirties, I work in the industry I want to make a career in, surrounded by talented and supportive colleagues, living an adventure in a city that doesn't look likely to run out of excitement in the next few years. It's a good time to be in Sweden.

Some awesome pixel art at Thormildsplan.

Walking up to the meditation area at Skogskyrkogarden

A small part of Skogskyrkogarden, with Greta Garbo's grave at the far end.

Ross Alexander 5/4/17 Ross Alexander 5/4/17

Our First Month of Nordic Living

A little update about how things have been going in Stockholm. Spoilers: I am enjoying Swedish living!

From Rain to Snow

At the time of writing this, I am sat at my desk in our little flat in central Södermalm, enjoying the feeling that comes after the first warm day of the year. Today (May 1st) also marks the end of the first month that Kara and I have spent in Sweden. My sense of time is distorted, as I feel like we've done a lot in the past month. We have been tourists, I have been acclimating to my new job at Avalanche, and we've both been working to find the daily routine in our lives. While we have lived in the west-end of Edinburgh before, we've never lived in a city as big as Stockholm, and the options for things to do can be a little bit overwhelming. This is a good thing though, as it's allowing us to go out and explore the city piece-by-piece.

My "Welcome Package" that was awaiting me on my first day at Avalanche. Look at that fancy embossed notebook!

Our first week here, it seemed that the weather was much the same as it had been in Scotland. Of course, it would be churlish to complain about cold weather after moving to Sweden, but even the locals were upset that spring was taking its time to show up. In-fact, we had numerous snow showers in the first fortnight here, which made for a nice setting, even if the snow didn't stick around for long. But I digress; nobody is interested in the Swedish weather.

Out & About in Stockholm

During our first month here, we have done our fair share of exploring, with most of our recent adventures all being done on foot. Stockholm is a busy city with a lot going on and an expansive metro system, but Kara and I have found ourselves wandering across Slussen and into Gamla Stan to explore the sights, sounds and even the tastes of the old town before walking back home. One major source of concern is the shop "Science-Fiction Bokhandeln" which contains pretty much everything we want in our home. Fortunately we are behaving ourselves until we have a steady two-person income. Our neighbourhood is very well placed, with numerous supermarkets and public amenities close-by, and during a recent timed exercise, I was door-to-desk in 6 minutes. My recent commute from Perth to Dundee involved over an hour each way of commuting, so it's really nice to have so little wasted time making my way to work. That being said, I am really struggling to fit in all of my podcasts, now that I've lost my commute!

One of the beautiful shop fronts in Gamla Stan. This is a sweet shop!

I don't even want to know how long it took to arrange it...

Our first "day out" was of course; the trip to Ikea to supply ourselves with all the essentials a Scottish couple needs. Naturally, this involved me buying a £12 potato masher, which is expensive, even by Swedish standards. It does appear to be the king of all potato mashers, but still, if it wasn't for Kara's pleading, I don't know if I would have buckled. Our apartment in the city is small, so I know we don't need to worry about buying a lot of furniture. Truth be told, it's quite refreshing to know that our next house move won't involve begging family members (sorry Doug) to help. Both Ikea trips that we've taken so far have involved utilising Stockholm's expansive (and a little expensive) transit system. We've been to cities with Metro systems before, but that was as tourists. It felt utterly bizarre to be sweating under the weight of two flat-packed chest of drawers as we sat in a busy carriage home.

That's right, kids. This masher has a spring action and two layers! That means twice as much "lolly" at the end of mashing.

On the 14th of April, Kara and I decided to take a walk out of our way to explore the western side of Södermalm. We ventured out and discovered "Tantolunden"; a large park with an impressive open-air sports area, including a couple of football pitches and a basketball court which has a surface that doesn't look conducive to the bouncing of a ball. It was impressive to see such wonderful facilities were wide open the public, with a distinct lack of vandalism that one might expect elsewhere. If Kara and I wanted to play a quick game of football (I'm sure that me thinking it just sent a shiver up her spine) then we easily could have. We walked onwards and up quite a large hill to find a "light" blizzard, and allotments that put any I've seen before to shame. Almost all of them looked like they'd fit in The Shire, with quirky designs and paint schemes. Bearing in mind that only the daffodils appeared to be blooming at this point, it's impressive that most of the allotments looked like someone was still tending to them at least every week. Despite the weather, I have pleasant memories of the trip, seeing how well respected the public spaces seem to be, even if there was a little graffiti on some of the bins.

A nice little arrangement on a Tantolunden allotment.

As luck would have it, Kara entertained some friends as they visited Stockholm, leading to her having visited the Vasa Museum without me! This was the utmost betrayal, as I was fascinated with the concept of a warship that was designed by the king and sank before even leaving the harbour. Still, Kara made it up to me by proposing a trip to "Skansen"; the world's first open-air museum. We took advantage of one of my three bank holidays (or "red days" as they're known in Sweden) that I've had in the past month to travel into the city and visit this amazing arrangement of preserved farmer's cottages, shacks from the Norwegian wilderness and an impressive range of animals, including brown bears, grey wolves and a pair of lynx. We visited on a day where a "master folk musician" married couple were putting on a show which involved an impressive range of instruments and a small history lesson. Kara took advantage of Facebook's "LIVE" functionality to transmit a short concert to some of her friends, which was cool. As we wandered around some of the more modern buildings, we decided that if we buy a house, we'd like to paint the outside to look in the colourful traditional Swedish way. There were numerous old farmsteads that were honestly like going back to the world of the Witcher or something. It did occur to me that as much as I refer to Kara's home town as being like Skyrim, I'm now living in one of the countries that inspired the setting of Skyrim itself. I can't wait to get outside the city.

One of the MANY impressive buildings that are part of Skansen.

On Saturday 29th, we decided to head out into the city for "Kulturnatt"; or "Culture Night" where the city's museums open their doors to the public for an evening of exhibitions, including some of the royal family's personal collections. I spent a couple of hours planning the most efficient route for us to see everything and in the end, I forgot about one of the exhibits I really wanted to see, but in the end, we did see some cool stuff. Unfortunately, my love of history and museums was overcome by my dislike for crowds, and of course on the night when everything is open for free, the crowds are crazy. After a wander around a floor of the royal palace, a tour of their armoury museum and tagging onto the tour at the Medieval museum, we called it a night. I'd come to the conclusion that I'd rather pay some money to wander around at my own pace, instead of being unable to read the plaques due to a constant stream of people. I'm not entirely sure what part of that last sentence makes me sound more like an old man...

The design for some kind of cyber-horse...probably.

Old Swedish kings loved guns like modern American nutters do.

Since we got here, Kara has been giving me not-so-subtle hints about the boat tours that tourists can go on, allowing for quite a great deal of sightseeing, as Stockholm is built across a series of islands. Because today was so warm and sunny, I decided to relent and we went on the Stockholm "Ocean Bus". Kara was giddy as the bus pulled up to the stop and after the last tour disembarked, we clambered aboard. The experience of driving around in a bright blue truck that has been sealed at the bottom and converted into a bus on top must be like the experience of driving around in a limo with loud music blaring. As we looked out of the window, people stopped and stared, some even took photos. The fact that the front of the bus had been painted to look like a shark's mouth probably didn't help. The stares and picture taking was only amplified when we approached the side of the water and the driver charged in (to the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean). Kara had such a massive smile on her face as the bus transformed into a boat and we powered on into the water. The tour itself was pretty good, due in no small part to the tour guide; Paul. His playful snipes about certain aspects of Swedish culture and Stockholm itself were nicely interspersed with interesting facts about the sights as we passed by. Facts such as "Södermalm is composed of 90% hipsters. Does anyone here live on Södermalm?" of course, as I sheepishly raised my hand, he said that my beard was a dead giveaway. I thought that was a little unfair, as I wasn't even wearing a plaid shirt...at that very moment.

His tour did briefly mention "Kungsträdgården" with its many cherry trees, which Kara and I arrived in time to see blooming. It's a beautiful open space, with water fountains and on a hot day, it's packed with people just chilling out and enjoying their city. We actually walked through it a few days beforehand, after we had taken a trip to the "Skatterverket" or the Swedish tax agency, so that we could begin the process of getting our personal numbers that will allow us to settle in the country on an indefinite basis. Despite our worries about the time-dragging power of bureaucracy, we were in and out again within an hour or so.

Adopting Hygge

Ok, so technically "Hygge" is a Danish concept, but it's a big thing throughout Scandinavia, where the concepts of being professional and being comfortable are not mutually exclusive. The boss wears jeans and a polo shirt to the office, shoes are often swapped with sandals or birkenstocks, or (and I have genuinely seen this at my work) some people wear big fluffy socks and jogger bottoms to work. Now I'm not saying that I'm going to be showing up to work in my PJs, but Sweden has definitely got things going in the right direction. Between the flexible and fair timekeeping schedule, a generous supply of hot drinks including a range of teabags that's making me wish I liked tea, free (and encouraged) massages, after-work social events, and a workplace full of friendly, happy people; I've definitely got a workplace Hygge going on.

Of course, it helps a lot that I only have a little five minute wander home, ensuring that I'm not in a bad mood from dealing with delayed trains, rude commuters or the simple act of hanging around train stations for longer than is absolutely necessary. I am glad to say that Hygge has also followed me home. We're both "nesters" you could say, so we always make a special effort to make our living space more enjoyable and practical. We have an absolutely massive couch, so we can enjoy movies or tv shows together while being super comfortable. We also now have our own little work spaces on each side of the living room, so as I am typing away here, Kara is doing the same behind me. We haven't been here long, but I feel like we're already making this the kind of place we want to be.

Another incredible contribution to our living arrangement is the discovery of the Scandinavian Double Duvet System which is wonderful for Kara and me, as I am normally a furnace at all hours and will end up kicking off covers as I sleep. This is no longer a problem, now that we sleep with two duvets. I would heartily recommend it to anyone else.

That's all for now. It's most definitely bedtime for me. I am looking forward to getting back to updating my blog, and hopefully playing some games that I can talk about in the next installment. I've been on a bit of an indie rampage of late, so I have some games to talk about, including Jazzpunk, This War of Mine and Oxenfree.

All that and more, coming soon.

Ross Alexander 12/21/16 Ross Alexander 12/21/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Days 7, 8 & 9 : Celebrating a Year Together

A somewhat abridged version of what Kara and I got up to during our last few days in Catalonia. We visit an impressive pair of Cathedrals, eat some good food (and some not-so-good) and I recap on our second trip abroad together.

Tuesday 1st November, 2016 - Girona

It's been a hell of a year for Kara and me, with a wedding that was quickly followed by us getting back to work, then Kara's career really coming into its own, followed by my career hitting a major bump in the road, along with the end of the plan to move to the USA. To add to it all, just before we went on holiday. I was able to find a good QA job that paid well and allows me to continue learning new skills, but unfortunately it meant moving away from my home and the woman I love. It's been a tough time so far, but I feel like I may be starting to settle into a routine. With all of these factors at play, it meant that little bit more to wake up in a warm country with Kara next to me. The old adage of absence making the heart grow fonder may be true, as I miss Kara every day, to the point where I feel like I text her as frequently as I used to when we first started dating.

With the setting of our nice comfortable flat, Kara and I spent almost all the daylight hours just lazing around the place for the most part. We got some laundry done, but we mostly relaxed and ate food. While I did step out of the house to get supplies, we didn't properly leave until around 4pm.

Girona's streets were packed (and I mean packed) with trestle tables covered in art, sculptures, hand-crafted good such as wooden spoons and even little whittled characters. We couldn't even get out of our front door quickly, as a sculptor had set up his pottery wheel just beside it. Kara and I wandered the streets, expecting the stalls to eventually end, but the entire district seemed to be given over to this market, where local artists and creators came together to sell their works of art. It was really beautiful, as there was such a variety of work on display, with the crowds stopping to look over work while the artists chatted amongst themselves. I immediately thought of my mum, who is an artist and would likely appreciate to be in an environment where artists can meet and relax in a warm and beautiful urban space, with the chance of selling some art or maybe picking up a commission.

As we wandered, lost in the city's winding narrow streets, made narrower by all of the stalls, we realised that it was getting dark. After a bit of a climb, we came to the courtyard at the bottom of the stairs that lead to Girona's Cathedral. It was quite a beautiful space, and although Kara couldn't find a good way to get a picture of the Cathedral on our old-fashioned polaroid style camera (which is meant to be our anniversary tradition) we did get a few nice shots of it at night. We made a mental note to come back the next day, where we could visit and get some better light.

We Both Loved Girona's Narrow Old Streets

By this point in the trip, I think we both felt a little guilty that we'd come to a new country and eaten burgers & pizza. We decided to go to Girona's premier (possibly Girona's sole) Indian restaurant; Taj. I think we've probably been spoiled by the quality of the Indian food we get in Britain, but Taj was certainly passable. We enjoyed our curries in a pretty quiet atmosphere, across the narrow restaurant from another couple. Kara and I have celebrated previous auspicious dates with Indian or Chinese takeaway before, so it almost seemed appropriate to spend our first anniversary dinner eating Indian food. Afterwards, we had a nice relaxing walk back to the flat, as the stalls were being packed away into vans and taken out of the streets.

As I fell asleep that night, I was once again warmed with the reassuring feeling that I'd married the right girl.

Wednesday 2nd November, 2016 - Girona

We started the next day by making good on our plan to visit the Cathedral. We wandered up the old cobbled streets to the foot of the stairs, where fans of the TV show "Game Of Thrones" may recognise elements from the show in the architecture. Of course, there's a lot of set dressing and CG that goes into making Girona into King's Landing, but it was very cool to be able to spot the landmarks.

An old villa at the opposite end of the courtyard has been converted into a museum, where there was a showcase of the many movies and TV shows that have filmed in and around Girona. It seems to be a bit of a favourite, due to its narrow, old gothic design; with winding streets and faint air of mystery. The courtyard on the bottom floor was displaying numerous canvas depictions of scenes from Game of Thrones that were shot in Girona. They included some pretty hefty spoilers, so I won't post any pictures. It was very cool to wander around a pretty old building, admiring the lengths they'd gone to in making a varied and interesting document of Girona's cinematic contributions over the years. They even had some cool (in a pretty naff way) props and replicas, including a sickly "White Walker" from GoT, which are already supposed to look pretty emaciated.

We ascended the enormous staircase to reach the Cathedral and went inside. While the streets were full of tourists, we had a pretty relaxing and quiet time inside. The building itself is impressive in its own right, with the second widest nave of any Church (22m). Construction originally began in the 11th century, and due to its geographical location, it's swapped hands between Catholics and Muslims over the last thousand years or so. The courtyards tell the stories of genesis through carvings in the stone pillars that mark the boundary of the cloister. There are a range of heraldic seals that are etched into the stone floors, and the whole building has a real feeling of "history", much like one would expect from a church that's so old.

On the way back down into town, we had a little stop-off at the post office to mail our postcards and visited "La Bombonera" in Independence Plaza. We walked slowly back to our side of town, via Pont Ferro; a bridge that was designed by Gustave Eiffel, eating our ice cream and taking in the beautiful old city. We wandered into a record shop called "Moby Disc", where the records are sold alongside an impressive array of nerdy statues, collectibles, clothing & games. It was much the same experience as visiting Forbidden Planet over here in the UK; mostly it made me feel sad and only served to remind me that I needed to start considering christmas presents for others upon my return.

It was our last evening in Girona, so we decided to follow our hearts when it came to dinner. Of course, this led us to a pizzeria on the old town's main street. "L'arcada" made me a great pizza, which I would heartily recommend to anyone. The restaurant was quiet as we visited quite early. I got the feeling that they keep the place open for tourists and the locals don't show up until later on. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed our dinner!

When we got back to the apartment and finished packing up everything we wouldn't need the next day, I had a feeling of melancholy. I had enjoyed Girona immensely, mainly for the rest and relaxation that we got while we were there. We're not "beach" people, and sitting around for too long tends to make me feel really bored, but with the beautiful surroundings and perfect company, I knew that I'd remember Girona fondly.

Thursday 3rd November, 2016 - Girona to Barcelona

Our return to Barcelona was a much more peaceful affair, with the two of us leaving with an hour to catch our train. By the time we wheeled our clicking, rumbling luggage across town, we still had half an hour to wait before we boarded. Kara pinched my 3DS again and I was satisfied with reading my book and glancing out the window at the Catalonian countryside as the train shot towards Barcelona. We arrived into the city and stowed our luggage before grabbing the Metro towards our last proper stop on the holiday: The Sagrada Familia.

It's with the utmost shame that I admit that it was my influence that pushed us to eat at a KFC that sat at one of the corners of the square that the church dominates. I had come to the realisation that due to the region's propensity for making all of their food from beef or pork, I hadn't had chicken in over a week. This meant that I hankered after chicken more than anything else, so we ordered at the busy counter and went to eat up the stairs. My already "hangry" wife didn't account for the weight of the tray that she was carrying and proceeded to soak a massive part of the upstairs restaurant with orange juice. My concerns faded away as I ate and looked out of the window at the imposing cathedral across the road. The only worry I had was the massive throng of people that wandered around the outside.

I don't think I'll ever forget approaching the Sagrada Familia, walking purposefully across the road to join the queue of people waiting to get in, craning my neck to look upwards at the most impressive cathedral facade I've ever laid eyes on. During the trip, I'd become quite enamored with Gaudi's works, with his unique aesthetic vision and the ergonomics that blended seamlessly with it. The other works of his that we'd visited are unique and beautiful in their own way, but the Sagrada Familia is grand in a manner that defied my own expectations of catholic architecture.

In short, I feel like Gaudi has made no compromises in his design and construction. The building itself is a masterpiece of modern architecture and engineering, with choices that seem utterly at odds with the stuffy, sometimes creepy or macabre nature of catholic adornment. While I've always felt that christian places of worship have a tendency to only celebrate the life of their venerated saints; Sagrada Familia seems to me like a celebration of the concept of life. This is despite some very traditional stories that are told through the sculptures that tell the story of "La Sagrada Familia" or "The Sacred Family".

The first thing that the guides tell you about the building is that it's been under construction for over 130 years, and it's still got a few years to go. Estimates place the completion at around 2026, with more towers and adornment to be added to the outside, further symbolising aspects of Jesus and his life. Despite its status as "work in progress", the building is stunning from the base of its heavy metal doors, adorned with leaves and insects, cast in bronze, to the tips of its 170m tall towers. This height is capped by Gaudi's belief that no work of man should exceed the works of God. I think I just internally rolled my eyes at that when I heard it.

Kara was as impressed as I while we took in the impressive sculptures and marveled at the worksmanship on display. The bronze doors were designed by Etsuro Sotoo, and were only added in the last year or so, but they fit so well into the building's aesthetic that they didn't seem out of place at all, despite the anachronistic nature of building a cathedral over 140 years. It wasn't until we stepped inside that Kara became truly enthralled. The audioguide directed us to consider the supporting columns, designed to look like trees in a forest, giving the impression of being amidst nature, and at one with God. It's not my thing, but moreso than any other place I've visited, this seems like a place worthy of pilgrimage.

We arrived at the Sagrada Familia just as the sun was beginning to dip, hanging low in the sky. This caused the most incredible cascade of multi-coloured light to fill the nave of the church, bathing the sandy coloured stone and everyone inside in a kaleidoscope of colours. Kara's pictures are impressive, but I don't know if anything can do it justice. The glass in the windows is sublime, with incredible clarity and definition that is largely due to its age, but the choice and variation of colour leads to the most amazing patterns that make the place seem truly magical. Kara and I just sat at one of the many benches lining the nave and stared up at the windows while the sun traced lazily downwards.

The rest of the tour is a bit of a blur, really. We saw a glimpse of the crypt underneath the main floor of the cathedral, and I personally enjoyed the modern angular designs of the sculptures on the opposite side of the building, but the light show had really been dazzling. I stood there and recalled it while Kara wandered around the gift shop, picking gifts for folks back home. My reverie was broken quite often by pushy tourists and my own inability to find a peaceful place to stand. Kara seemed upset that I didn't buy anything for myself on the trip, so I got myself a nice magnetic bookmark of one of the cool sculptures outside.

We departed Barcelona's city centre with night falling upon us. We got the train out to the airport and after a little bit of a scare and a couple of phone-calls to the hotel, we boarded the shuttle to our hotel for the night. After accidentally wandering into the gourmet restaurant, dressed like typical tourists, we fled to the "cafeteria" and had a somewhat disappointing dinner, tormented by some persistent flies. It was the most stark installation of a class system I'd seen outside of the UK and it added to the melancholy that we were flying out in the morning. Fortunately, we had a nice evening after pushing our two single beds together to watch "Silver Lining's Playbook" on my little tablet and eat snacks in bed.

We flew out early the next morning, so we wandered around the terminal for only a short while, spent the last of our euros on our travel card by buying an industrial sized box of Lindt and Kinder chocolate. It was a satisfying end to the trip, and although it was grey and cold when we touched back down in Edinburgh, the thought of going back to work or not being on holiday any more wasn't the thought weighing most heavily on my heart. I just wanted to spend another week with Kara, as although absence makes the heart grow fonder, I find that spending time with Kara only serves to reinforce how she is the one person I want to spend (almost) all of my time with.

Ross Alexander 11/26/16 Ross Alexander 11/26/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 6: Accidental Discoveries

We spend our first day in Girona relaxing, but also going on a long walk without even meaning to.

Tuesday 1st November, 2016 - Girona

Eesh! We have gotten so lazy since we got to Girona. It's been great, sat on the couch in our cozy little flat, playing 3DS and watching Brooklyn 9-9 before going out for tea. It does mean that I am now two days in arrears for the journal, but it's been nice to relax a bit.

The first day we had in Girona started with the usual morning ritual; Kara stayed in bed while I went out hunting for food. I followed the instructions that the local guy gave me the night before. After a bit of an extended outing where I overshot my target and found myself wandering in alleyways, I brought home more bread and chocolate croissants. I also had spent a long time attempting to track down a can on Heinz beans for Kara, fearing that a croissant wasn't going to cut it, but with no joy. I had a nice breakfast with my fresh cheeses and sausage along with the fresh bread I'd bought.

Breakfast of champions! (We split these, I should state for the record.)

Girona is full of quirky little places like this creperie with a van parked inside it.

Once we were ready to go out, it was past noon, so we ventured out into the old city part of Girona. Our first stop was at a church hall on the cobbled streets leading up to the cathedral that has been featured in Game of Thrones. Inside the hall was an exhibition of model soldiers, but the strangest thing was that alongside the brilliantly pained miniatures of Napoleon and Spanish soldiers, there were Star Wars dolls, models of Asterix & Obelix, as well as an entire Warhammer fantasy Skaven army. It was quite surreal to find them in a church hall. It turns out that this exhibition was our first glimpse at the festival that takes place in Girona at this time of year.

It was utterly bizarre to find this collection inside a 12th century church.

As we proceeded through the old town, we found ourselves at the start of the wall that enclosed the medieval town. Without meaning to, we'd set out on quite a long walk, surrounded by other tourists on a very warm afternoon. The view from the wall gave us some spectacular shots of the town and the surrounding area. Girona is way bigger than I thought it was!

Views of Girona from the wall are brilliant!

After a quick descent through the University area, we found some snacks for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out in the flat. While the food we've had in Barcelona was very good, our reluctance to try Tapas has hurt our options in Girona. We've been "playing it safe", sticking to Italian and western cuisine, and Girona has an understandably thin range of decent eateries that cater to our "child's menu" palates. We set out to go to "Marylin's Diner" and when we arrived, I was already getting the feeling that the food wasn't going to be great. It was basically a burger van where you go in and sit down, but at least we didn't have to pay too much.

The night picked up on the way home, as we walked back via and enormous fun fair that was set up for the festival. I had noticed a giant ferris wheel from the wall in the morning, but the trees had covered the rest of the amusements. The fair was set up along boulevards, with a police presence to deal with traffic. Besides the (often copyright infringing) rides, there were weird lottery or bingo stalls that had the tackiest crap for prizes. There were also shooting galleries, pizzarias and churro stands. To make up for a disappointing dinner, we shared a pizza and tried churros for the first time. They taste quite bland, but they have a nice and crispy texture. I think we'll stick to crepes.

As we chilled out in the flat that night, we heard bands nearby, saw drumming processions and just before bed, a horde of cyclists flew past, ringing their bells and singing. It looked like Girona wasn't such a quiet little place to visit after all.

Girona really was the turning point of the holiday, with Kara and I just deciding that we'd still see all the cool things we could in Girona, but the pace could slow, allowing us to relax and not do very much at all, relatively guilt-free. Of course, this meant sleeping in, watching Netflix & generally just lounging around, but on our first day, we really just wanted to "get a feel" for Girona.

It seemed that we were on the right side of the river, as we were close to the "old parts" of town, with the modern shops and things being across the river. Kara was still quite exhausted from the previous day, and I was at the mercy of my stomach, so I went out for quite a long time to explore the narrow, cobbled streets of the eastern side of the river Onyar. It was a nice sensation to be able to wander around, not looking to buy anything but breakfast (and maybe some Heinz beans) and just get to know the area. While Barcelona is a metropolis, the area we were living in was conveniently placed next to some little shopping marts, as well as little bespoke shops, owned by local artists etc. It was nice to walk along a high street that didn't make me think of the homogenised high streets I've seen so much of on my travels. Girona has personality in spades, and that made the act of just randomly wandering seem much more enjoyable. I know I would have spent longer walking around if it wasn't for the language barrier that stopped me looking in book shops, as Girona has some lovely ones!

I had read quite a few tourist guides that had recommended the city walls as a good thing to view while you visit Girona, and with me being a fan of nice walks and historic sites, it seemed like a no-brainer, but Kara was wearing footwear that wasn't cutting it, and by the time we realised we were on a long walk, as opposed to just a recce around the town, it was too late. It's probably just as well as we saw the wall when we did, as the weather was nice, and although it was quite busy with lots of people milling around, it was never that uncomfortable. The pictures above really speak for themselves in how beautiful and well maintained the wall is around the town. We got very close to parts of the cathedral, including the other side of a curious door half way up a wall, which we eventually got to see the other side of when we visited the cathedral itself a few days later.

The evening was a great experience, with us being quite ill-prepared for the festivities that Girona was putting on. We wandered over to the other side of the river to find food, and discovered that the market stalls extended way past the Placa dei Indepencia, with so much foot and road traffic present just outside the immediate centre of the city. We continued walking towards a loud and well-lit area to discover that there was an enormous fun-fair that had set up across a considerable patch of land. It was much the same sort of thing that you'd get at "the shows" in Scotland, with naff teacup rides, dodgems, haunted-houses & quite a large number of air-rifle and darts-based games.

Prizes at the fun-fair were suitably naff.

Despite a rubbish dinner, we enjoyed wandering around the fair. It actually made me think of American teen movies, where the guy and the girl eat at a diner and then go and do something free and cheap. I don't know if it's the weird hormones they pump into whatever animal I'd just had a burger made from, but I recall being profoundly satisfied with things, just wandering round a strange town with its traditions that I didn't know with the woman I love. When the time arose, Kara decided to try churros, and I decided to buy a pizza from what was presumably a band of travelling folk who set up a three-sided booth where you can see them roll out the dough and make the pizza in a wood-fired oven. It was quite a unique sight, so I decided to give it a go, having my second dinner and firmly underlining how much I was eating on this trip. Still, it didn't matter, as long as I was spending time like this with Kara, I was happy.

Ross Alexander 11/22/16 Ross Alexander 11/22/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 5: Home Away From Home

A frantic morning and afternoon in Barcelona gives way to a relaxing and peaceful evening in Girona.

Monday 31st October, 2016 - Girona

So I missed a day, but I was so tired last night that there was no way I would be able to stay awake and write. Yesterday was a bit of a mess, all-in-all, so it explains why I was so damn exhausted by the time I made the mistake of lying down on the bed last night.

My back pain woke me up at around 6:30am, and I could tell that my constant turning to relieve it was disturbing Kara's sleep, so I was fully awake in our apartment, with nowhere to comfortably sit and relax as I didn't want to disturb her any further.

With an early start and shower, I headed out into a grey Sunday morning in Barcelona, looking for a bit of breakfast. It was very quiet, and so I had to hunt for a short while before I could find a place that was open, so that I could buy some pastries. So far, I've started every day in Spain with a chocolate pastry, and I'm pretty happy with that. We've done so much walking that I don't feel bad about how well (un-healthily) we've eaten on this trip. While most people on holiday will spoil themselves by drinking beer or wine, I've been enjoying drinking proper Coca Cola without guilt. I'm sure the guilt will kick in once I get home, but for now, it's all good! Kara is still really enjoying the peach iced tea that seems to be popular in mainland Europe.

Because yesterday was our last morning in Barcelona, we took care to pre-pack as much as we could before we left to see the Barri Gotic's sights. Our suitcase and bags were good-to-go by the time we stepped out, and it's just as well this was the case.

On the Cathedral steps, a Catalan folk band.

As we wandered down "Laietana", we noticed that the police had blocked off the whole street. We knew that something important must have been going on, as the street had previously been super-busy. When we entered the plaza that holds the main entryway to the Cathedral, we noticed that a small crowd had gathered around a little band of musicians. They were playing what sounded like traditional Catalonian folk music. After a few minutes of watching them play, we followed the crowd into Barcelona's Cathedral.

Some lovely old fountains in the courtyard.

Just got to fight through the crowd to get in

Ever since visiting Rome in 2014, I've found most churches to be a bit of a let down. The only exception to that rule is the "Sagrada Familia" in Barcelona, but we're hoping to see the building properly on our last afternoon in Barcelona on Thursday. The Cathedral was just finishing mass as we entered, and as it was a Sunday, there seemed to be a large number of the faithful, but the horde of tourists easily outnumbered them. The courtyards around the building were especially lovely, with working water fountains and geese wandering about. One odd thing we spotted was that instead of "lighting" a candle, visitors put money into a machine that would turn on a light in a box of LED candles. While it's more energy efficient than real candles, I found it odd that an institution that relies so much on theatricality would do this.

After a short ramble around the courtyards, we went in search of "Manna Gelats", an ice-cream parlour in the old city that I'd read about for its great flavours and catering to allergy sufferers. We found it and Kara fell in love with their dairy-free chocolate sorbet. I had an ice-cream that tasted like a Kinder Bueno, as well as a scoop of a somewhat disappointing milk chocolate. I love milk chocolate, so I was quite surprised to find myself not enjoying it as much.

Our next stop was the museum of the history of Barcelona. This place was fantastic, with most of the museum being an audio-guide tour through walkways that overlook the remains of the old Roman colony of "Barcino", telling the story of the city's development and evolution from Roman to Visigothic culture and the introduction to Christianity. In traditional Kara style, she told me that her favourite part was a spot where excavators had found a pair of bodies. I was not surprised to hear this.

After our trip to the museum, we visited "Dunne's Irish Pub" so that Kara could get her "fix" of gravy and potatoes. Food service was a bit slow, so we had to sit through quite a lot of an English crowd shouting at the Premiership football on the TV. That showed Kara's devotion to gravy and mash! After lunch, we went to pick up some gifts for family back home. I had read about "Cageners" after hearing the guys on The Comedy Button talk about them. These extremely tacky and poorly made figures are a take on traditional Catalan nativity sculptures that depict a shepherd with his trousers down, taking a dump. The shop we went into had a wide range, from Donald Trump, Lionel Messi and Fernando Alonso to R2-D2, Mario and Darth Vader. We picked some out and I almost had a heart attack at the price. If you ever receive one, count yourself lucky, as they are super expensive for a joke gift.

Between our long wait for lunch and the grumpy guy in the Cagener shop taking ages to serve us, we were running late when we returned to the flat to grab our stuff. Kara's been suffering already after all the walking and daily trips up and down the stairs. I carried a bunch of stuff, as well as our large suitcase as we set out for the train to Girona; the town where we'd be spending our actual anniversary. Between our slight lateness, our slow pace and the labyrinth of "Catalunya" and "Sants" metro stations, we arrived at our platform gate bang-on when we were supposed to depart, only to find an enormous queue of people. I was disgustingly sweaty, having carried our luggage at a marching pace as soon as we got off the metro. As we stepped into the line, our train disappeared from the board, leaving us stressed, standing at the back of a long line of people who didn't speak fluent English, making it hard to listen in to see if they were having the same problem. Despite all the stress, when the guy took our tickets, he just waved us through, allowing us to board a train I'm fairly certain we weren't meant to be on! Despite someone else being sat in the seats that our ticket indicated, we found some seats and nervously glanced around, hoping we'd just get this one as a freebie. Girona was the next stop, so we knew we didn't have to hold on for too long, but I was anxious about being hit with some kind of fee or fine. Fortunately, we made it to Girona without any troubles; in fact I played Zelda OoT almost the entire journey!

After another luggage-laden march through Girona, we met "laura" in front of our apartment in a busy street, teeming with tourists. She led us up a mercifully small number of steps and opened the door to our home away from home for the next week.

What a lovely surprise we got! Arriving just before the sun went down, we found the flat warmly lit, clean and with a gift of a bottle of red wine waiting on us. The bed was soft, with extra pillows and a desk beside it. The place is so tastefully decorated that it feels so wonderfully cosy compared to the functional but bare setting we had in Barcelona. It really feels like the kind of place you want to just settle in and relax, which is the change of pace that we'd been looking for.

After a quick and refreshing shower, we headed into the part of Girona where there's a large number of restaurants; just across the river in the "Placa dei Indepencia". We had a pretty mediocre meal at a place called "Dolce Vita" which was a surprisingly large Italian restaurant. The food was reasonably priced, but not great. Kara's bolognese was mostly tomato, while I made the mistake of trying Roquefort cheese for the first time. The pungent cheese totally overpowered any other flavours, so it was hard to tell if my pizza was any good or not.

On our way home, we walked through a pop-up market, full of stalls selling cheese, meats, breads and jams. I bought a pepper-crusted sausage and some cheeses to enjoy for my breakfast. One cheese is a "Bufala" much like mozzarella, while the other is a goat's cheese. Both are really creamy and mild, but they're both very tasty and distinct.

It was dangerous to have a Creperie across the street. We behaved...mostly.

As we returned to our flat, we stopped off at the creperie across the street; "Crepdeque?" While we waited to be served, we spoke with a local about the local festival and where to get the best food. He recommended some places, one of which I visited this morning and was very pleased with his recommendation. Upon my return home, I ate my nutella and coconut crepe, before collapsing onto the bed, putting it beyond all doubt that I was going to sleep before I even considered opening my journal.

There was definitely no way I was going to stay awake for long after day 5. Between the early start, stressful journey to the train station and time spent hauling a suitcase around, I was so pleased to find that our accommodation was a: only up two flights of stairs and b: cosy and comfortable.

It's weird that we waited until our last day to visit Barcelona's Barri Gotic, but I guess that ties into what I've said about me stressing out about "not seeing enough" while we were there. The Gothic Quarter is full of old buildings, some are beautiful old churches and cathedrals with impressive facades and wonderful artwork inside, while many are simply old residential buildings with the ground floor given over to tacky tourist shops. I can only imagine that living in those buildings must be like to living in the flats at the top of the Royal Mile, with constant streams of noisy tourists coming and going through the day. While I was sad that we only had half a day to see this part of town, I feel like we made the right choice in the end, as we saw just how busy the streets get and how much of the area is just shops selling "hand-made" shawls, hemp bags. beads and earrings. While it wasn't quite as "copy-paste" as Milan was, I was happy to skip right past them to look at some old stuff!

The Museum of the City of Barcelona was more focused on the Roman history of the city than I'd expected it to be, but that was fine. It was very cool to wander around the largely underground complex, with the audioguide telling me about what each room was used for. The brickwork was surprisingly well maintained, and didn't look like it had been tampered with much. Speaking of audioguides, this was the first holiday I've taken where I've spent a lot of time (and a fair whack of cash when you add it all up) on the audioguides for places. Casa Batllo, La Pedrera & Sagrada Familia all use them, and I was happy to be educated as I walked around. As someone who always "reads the plaque", it suited me to just listen to someone tell me the history behind a certain area or object. It can throw off your pacing a little bit, though. I found myself moving faster than I was intending to, then cutting back to look at something again once the voice had stopped telling me about the room.

Once we left the museum, it really was a bit of a stressful afternoon. From a long and football-filled wait for (an admittedly satisfying) lunch to being fleeced by the grumpy Cagener selling guy and sweating like a pig to get to the train (just) on time, it was definitely one of the low moments of the trip. Fortunately, it didn't last long as we got onto the next train and after sitting in what I assumed were someone else's seats, we relaxed once the train set off for Girona. I took advantage of the time to play some Zelda, which Kara had become interested in on the trip. I think the combination of an N64 game (on my 3DS) and having some spare time with few distractions was the perfect set-up for Kara, so I happily let her play for a while.

The sound of our suitcase wheels rolling along cobbled streets and pavement was definitely one of the themes for the holiday, and while at first I was a bit embarrassed to be disturbing so many people with the noise, I was so glad that I didn't have to carry or drag it in the same way I had to in Italy. It was also bright blue and yellow, making it as conspicuous as hell, but it did help both of our AirBnB hosts find us, so I guess that's a positive! Once we'd met Laura and set up in the place, I was so relieved to discover that we had a comfortable place to stay that wasn't just somewhere to sleep and eat. With all its toys and doo-dads tastefully presented around the place, it felt like our home (which is absolutely full of toys and doo-dads. In the end, we did spend a lot of time just chilling out in Girona, which was exactly the change of pace that we needed.

The market in the Placa dei Indepencia was just our first experience of what Girona was going to show us during our time there. It felt like a farmers market, much like we have in Perth or Edinburgh, with local producers coming from nearby farms to sell their cheese, wine, cured meats etc. I spotted that some of them had some from France, which made sense as Girona is quite close to the border with France. I was already feeling guilty that our culinary experience in Spain was limited to "burgers and pizza" which was largely due to us not wanting to spend a bunch of cash on a meal we might not like, so it felt like buying local cheese, sausage and bread was a good way to dip a toe into the local cuisine. Even Kara said she'd try some of the Bufala cheese.

Judging from the line of tourists and locals outside Crepdeque?, it was a sure sign that we'd be visiting them for some after-dinner treats. The art of the crepe seems to be going strong in Girona, with many places offering sweet and savoury pancakes. Our flat had two creperies right outside it, and while I felt sorry for the other one, which was mostly empty, I felt pretty good when we tucked into our pudding. Flakes of coconut and nutella are a great combo!

In the next blog, my timing is a bit all over the place. Kara and I committed to vegging out, which included not keeping a journal as regularly as I did in Barcelona, so it's going to get a little bit all-over-the-place from here, but I will do my best to recap when it comes to it. Suffice to say that we love Girona and want to go back. Read the next blog to find out why!

Ross Alexander 11/20/16 Ross Alexander 11/20/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 4: Multidisciplinary Nerd-dom

I get an early start to go look at comic books and games (surprising, I know) before we have a day of wandering around Barcelona's amazing Gaudi exhibits.

Saturday 29th October, 2016 - Barcelona's Old Town

So it's our last night in the center of Barcelona, and we've been celebrating with burgers, as has been our tradition so far. We called in an order to La Central once again, so I got to skip the queue and ran home to enjoy my "Iberico". Kara was not as impressed with her "El Tona" burger, made with mozzarella, pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. We have both sat down to let our creative juices flow while "The Dark Knight Rises" plays on my new tablet. It's been very nice to set up our little home away from home, with a little TV and a table to sit and eat our meals.

The two of us started at a different pace this morning, with Kara hanging out in the flat while I took a couple of hours to do some exploring on my own, knowing that we wouldn't get a chance to go otherwise. The plan was to visit the "Nerd Triangle" near to the Arc de Triomph, where I quickly found that "Norma Comics" and its many nearby comic shops don't open until at least 10:30am. It was yet another example of the strange cultural asynchronicity that exists on the continent. Getting up early doesn't really mean that you'll be able to do more, it just means that you will be waiting outside, staring in at awesome collectors items and books you can't read as they're in Espanyol! I used my extra time to visit the Triumphal Arch, which was certainly impressive, but there was a distinct lack of information to let me know why it was built, or by whom. It had some very cool bat gargoyles, but not much else going on.

When I finally got back to Norma Comics, I spent about ten minutes just gazing at the expensive collectibles in the entryway. They had some very impressive stuff, but ultimately, I felt quite depressed about not being able to afford the cost or suitcase required. I did make a mental note to look up "3rd Edition" when I get home. These guys make books about famous games and their development process, and they're working on translating some of their books on FF7, Zelda & Dark Souls. They're lovely looking hardbacks, so they'll be nice collector's items.

After a little bit of browsing, but not spending any money, I made it back to the flat with some bread and croissants. We enjoyed some lunch before we set out to enjoy some more culture. We started with "La Pedrera" or "The Quarry"; the block-sized apartment building designed by Antoni Gaudi. We had deliberated over the idea of pre-booking a slot to visit, as all of the online reviews had recommended that we do so. We were worried that by booking timeslots, we'd have no flexibility to our daily plan. We got pretty lucky, only having to wait for about half an hour or so to get in, but I read anecdotes about two-hour long waits. Maybe visiting in October was a really good plan!

One of Kara's panoramic shots from the roof of La Pedrera

Some of the impressive chimneys on La Pedrera's roof

The attic museum was cozy, but full of interesting displays about the building.

La Pedrera was great, with ornate styles that are such integral parts of the building, it seems that the building would be unique, even without the vibrant colours that cover so much of Gaudi's work. His design is so multi-faceted, it's amazing. From how light is distributed to the hand-sculpted door handles and incredibly stained-glass windows, he had an aesthetic and practical reason for everything he did. Of course, this trip wouldn't be complete without a trip to an old-fashioned museum, and I was lucky enough to visit the museum of Egyptology. It was a little odd to discover that one of the best collections of Egyptian artifacts are housed in a Spanish museum, but we were pleasantly surprised by a relatively cheap, quiet and peaceful museum with a myriad of wonderful and truly ancient artifacts, including mummies, 4,000 year old stone tablet and even some mummified animals, such as crocodiles and cats. I didn't discover anything new, but it was all still super-cool!

From there, we wandered over to "Casa Batllo", where I expected to have some time before we got to the front of the line. This expectation led me to order a hot sandwich with two pork chops, bacon and cheese. I returned to the line to find us almost at the front of the queue, forcing me to inhalte a hot sandwich in about 4 minutes, right in front of a bunch of people. I must have looked like some kind of pig/man hybrid.

Even the stained glass is designed to balance light, depending on time of day.

The tiles of the lightwells are darker at the top and brighter at the bottom, balancing the light as it gets dimmer further down.

Ceramic mosaic is another theme that Gaudi uses extensively throughout his work.

We left to see the building lit up. The balconies remind me of eye sockets on skulls. That may be Kara's influence, though.

The Casa Batllo is similar in a lot of ways to La Pedrera, with Gaudi's distinctive elements of natural influences and amazing practical and ergonomic embellishments. The unique design comes more from the way each building feels like an entire entity, with the design being consistent across every floor.

This was a good day. It felt a bit strange leaving the house in the morning without Kara, but it was also nice to spend some time wandering the Borne district's narrow streets with very few people out and about, given that it was very early by Spanish reckoning. Kara got a bit frustrated with me on this holiday, as I was stressing over the fact that we weren't squeezing the most out of our time there, trying to see everything we could, waking up really early and being productive. I know that's something that a lot of people want from their holiday, but I also knew that we should be relaxing and that I should stop trying to control how our days went. I think that part of it was that I'd become quite tired of our no-oven, top of a building, mattress on the floor apartment, and I just wanted to be out and about. By the time we got settled in Girona, I certainly felt a lot better about just lazing around like a proper holiday.

Norma Comics is really very impressive, much like the big flagship Forbidden Planet stores over here in the UK. There were lots of cool collectibles in the cabinet, including Metal Gear Solid V statues and some very cool feudal Japanese/Star Wars cross-overs, but by this point, we'd blasted through so much money, just in the course of seeing all the cool stuff, so I was hesitant to spend any more on myself. The comic books were just a tease, though. Some very cool stuff that I couldn't read and I just took notes of so I could look them up back home. One thing I noticed is that the comic book shops in Barcelona all share a deep love of TinTin. I was always more of an Asterix & Obelix fan, growing up, but there were some really nice (and expensive) TinTin models in pretty much every nerdy shop I entered.

The two Gaudi museums we visited were incredible, and I am not one to gush over architecture, especially when it's from the last century, but his work is out of this world. The first thing I noticed was that for every visually striking feature that you see (such as the strangely shaped windows, doors or chimneys), there's always a practical reason to compliment the beautiful design. The second thing I noticed is that the buildings contain a consistency that never breaks you out of the reverie that you feel as you admire the futuristic designs that feel as ingenious today as any modern piece of architecture. I guess Gaudi's idea of starting with the designs found in nature and extrapolating them out into architecture makes sense, when you consider that so much of natural evolution is based on efficiently performing essential tasks. Even the door handles were incredibly ergonomic, looking like half-finished sculptures, easily cradling the thumb and fingers as you open the doors.

The Museum of Egyptology was a real treat for me, as this day had been spent surrounded by tourists in warm buildings, trying to read a sign over the shoulders of people who were stood in front of you. The museum was quiet and cool, with a few people roaming around, and a very small cover charge at the door. While it wasn't the reason to come to Barcelona, I'm a fan of learning about ancient cultures, and the chance to be inches away from a real mummy that's thousands of years old is an enticing prospect.

This entry into the journal ends a little abruptly, but I think it was because I was starting to mentally prepare for leaving Barcelona behind. Much like Rome in 2014, I enjoyed my time in Barcelona, enjoying the sights, seeing unique and enchanting works of art and sculpture, but I am a person who like seclusion and privacy, making the crowds and constant noise a bit of a frustration for me. Combine it with my own awareness that it was silly to be frustrated about crowds in a major city, and I was ready to head off to somewhere more "peaceful". Girona beckoned.

Ross Alexander 11/19/16 Ross Alexander 11/19/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 3: Sleeping Cats & Circling Sharks

We spend the day looking at wildlife, from a sleepy cheetah to happy looking stingrays and a sad white rhino.

Friday 28th October, 2016 - Barcelona's Old Town

So we started off today with a plan and it actually seemed to pay off. Despite getting out the door around 11, we got a full day of being stereotypical tourists and it was a great day!

I started with one of my new favourite pastries; a "Caracola" which resembles an ice cream cone with chocolate and sprinkles at the top. It is a great way to start the day with two types of chocolate!

A chocolate "Caracola" ie: part of a "nutritious" breakfast for me in Barcelona.

Kara was falling apart almost as soon as we started today, so we got the Barcelona Metro a couple of stops to reach the Zoo. It was an inauspicious start, as we took a wrong turn and ended up walking all the way around the Zoo itself. We saw some really good graffiti, as well as some that was bloody awful.

It was a bit strange to see political graffiti in English.

Some very cool artwork, with an almost polygonal style.

The Zoo in Barcelona is a very impressive arrangement of buildings, covered areas and enclosures, with a very diverse range of animals. As soon as we entered the Zoo, we spotted a bunch of Zebras, just hanging out, eating hay and poopin'. I immediately recalled that at Edinburgh Zoo, you have to climb a giant hill to get a glimpse at a Zebra. It only got better from then onwards, with a sea world - style show where Sealions performed tricks for bucket-loads of fish. We watched a Komodo Dragon sun itself, a brown bear snoozing, a sleeping tiger...ok so there was a lot of sleeping animals, but we also got to see an elephant get a grooming, a family of gorillas playing, orang-utans swinging around and a Chimpanzee couple having a very intimate grooming session while another ate its own poop. It was..."unpleasant". The range of animals we saw today must have rivalled the likes of San Diego. We even got to see a sad and lonely white rhino, which just made me wonder what it would be like to be a member of a species on the brink of extinction.

This komodo dragon was completely unfazed by our presence.

The orangutans had 4 or 5 adorable adolescents and babies.

It was great to see a white rhino, but he looked so sad.

We also ate our worst meal of the holiday so far at the Zoo. They were able to screw up something as simple as a hot-dog and fries, but the worst bit about it all was the flocks of pigeons and pea-hens that milled around, making us nervous about what kind of animals had walked across the table or what was about to brush against my legs.

As we wandered around, we noticed that there were a bunch of families driving around in golf karts. We found out at the end of the visit that you could rent a kart to get around the whole Zoo. It's unfortunate that we hadn't considered this before, as it would have saved Kara a lot of walking. On the other hand, we were very happy to discover that Barcelona has the same system of fountains in public spaces that Italy had. It makes sense, as "Barcino" was an old Roman settlement, so it shares some cultural origins with the Italian cities that we visited in 2014. The Zoo was peppered with the small fountains, and I took full advantage.

I haven't seen elephants for years. It was nice to see the keepers looking after them, checking their feet for sores etc.

One of the zoo highlights had to be seeing the family of gorillas playing together. We stood and watched for 15 minutes.

After we finished up at the Zoo, we took a trip back to Port Vell, the quayside where the Barcelona Aquarium is located. We decided to make today all about Zoology, so we finished off the day with a trip to the Aquarium, which was in the midst of decorating for Halloween. Kara enjoyed the slightly mesmerising view of Sand Tiger Sharks and Stingrays lazily drifting around in their giant tank.After a day at the amazing Zoo, I was a little bit underwhelmed by the Aquarium, but it was still very cool to see.

This seahorse was the most amazing colour. It looked like it was electrified.

Obligatory tourist selfie by the massive tank, containing scores of sharks and rays.

Kara was very excited to see the sand tiger sharks as they patrolled their tank.

After a busy day on our feet, we walked back towards the old town, towards the restaurant I'd planned on going to yesterday for some top-notch Italian food. The name "Sports Bar" was a bit worrying, but I will overlook a bar's aesthetic if they have a proper wood-burning pizza oven.

"Sports Bar" do fantastic pizzas. Even the plain dough of the crusts was delicious on its own.

Fortunately, there was no football on the TV, and we were rewarded for our long walk with the best pizza I've had in a long time. From what I could tell, the place is owned by a family from Naples, and all the staff are native Italians. This gave me a chance to swap my non-existent Spanish for my conspicuously absent Italian. The pizza was a great combo of slightly burnt dough, wood fired and misshapen, with a light but flavoursome sauce that gave me a meal so tasty that I even ate Kara's crusts without a second thought. That means we've eaten great food every day since we arrived, and that makes me supremely happy. Tomorrow, the plan is to head North to Sagrada Familia, but it's the weekend, so God only knows what sort of crowds we'll be dealing with.

This was a great day for us. It was so exciting to see all the rare and exotic animals that live at Barcelona Zoo. We were a little bit dubious to hear about a "sea-lion show" given the "Seaworld" vibe the name had. I haven't seen Blackfish, but I would rather never be able to see an animal outside of documentaries than know that the animal is suffering just so I can see it through a pane of glass for five minutes. Because of this, Kara and I spent a bit of time googling to see what Barcelona Zoo's reputation was for this kind of stuff, and we were pleased to see that (like most modern western zoos) they take conservation and animal welfare very seriously, beyond the need to keep animals healthy for entertainment purposes. The sea-lions were very entertaining, performing tricks, diving into the water and moving so fast, it's incredible to think of how slow and lumbering they could be on land. Their trainer also had a pair of boxes, filled with small fish, that she used to treat the sea-lions when they'd performed well.

The layout of the Zoo was pretty good, too. A lot of the more "impressive" animals (sorry birds) were in the central area of the park, but there was always something cool to see, just around the corner. I think my personal highlight was the great apes. Seeing chimps, orangutans and gorillas was such a treat, as they behave in such a familiar way, and unlike many of the other animals in the park, they were active and interacting with each other, as opposed to sleeping!

The reptile house was also very cool, with snakes, turtles, caymans & even some small crocodiles to look at. There were some carp swimming around in with the crocodiles and I found myself thinking "they must be on constant lookout" because there was nothing between them and a hungry croc.

The Aquarium was good fun, but Kara was beginning to get quite sore and tired from all of the walking around. She hung around in the gift shop while I went to find the ticket kiosk and buy our way in. It was already getting fairly late by the time we got in, but it was still quite busy, especially as the staff were busy putting together some decidedly amateur but well considered halloween decorations, including a creepy corridor with a flickering TV showing static reminiscent of Poltergeist (which was the movie Kara and I had a late-night feast to the night we got married).

Of course, I end the journal by gushing about how much I enjoyed my pizza. The "Sports Bar" may have a very different vibe at a time when they're showing sports, but from what I could tell, their evening crowd is couples who want to drink wine (or in our case - fizzy juice) and eat amazing Italian food. The staff are lovely and friendly and the food is reasonably priced. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants Italian food in Barcelona.

Ross Alexander 11/17/16 Ross Alexander 11/17/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 2: On The Buses

We get out and see Barcelona from the top deck of a bus. A reconnaissance mission, you could say!

Getting Our Bearings

Thursday 27th October, 2016 - 21:00 - Barcelona's Old Town

So today felt a bit more like a "holiday". We started the day at a respectable hour, waking up at 9 or so and getting some food before our first proper day of "adventure". I tried my best to have what I recalled was a "proper European breakfast". This basically means "bread, cheese, sausage and something with chocolate in it." Upon trying to warm up my pain au chocolat, I discovered that our oven doesn't bloody work! This somewhat diminishes the good feelings I had about our "home-base". It feels like this place with its 6 flights of stairs, bed on a stack of wooden pallets, broken oven and the smallest shower I've ever turned off with my back, may be a bit of a disappointment. That being said, it has air-con and wifi, so it's swings and roundabouts!

A curious pigeon, and the narrow streets criss-crossing the old town.

We started today with a trip to a small bakery, so that Kara could eat a little "Tarte Poma" before we boarded the bus. We perched on a bench in Placa de Catalunya so that Kara could eat in comfort. I took in the open square with its many statues and pillars. Barcelona's open spaces often seem to be saturated with beautiful embellishments that make the most of the space and exist in a widely diverse range of styles. When we got to the bus stop to board the "Bus Turistic", we realised just how popular the service was going to be. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the front of the line, but once we were aboard, it was a very pleasant experience, as we cruised down Passeig de Gracia, the audioguide speaking about the incredible "Modernisme" inspired buildings, as well as the marvellous lamp-posts, which were designed by Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi's influence is undoubtedly prominent throughout the whole city. Our first bus trip took us along a street with many Gaudi-designed buildings and features, past his magnum opus; La Sagrada Familia, which is the biggest church I have ever seen. I am very much looking forward to seeing it in more detail, but I'm not sure what day that'll be.

A strange and upsetting tradition of throwing your tour headphone away.

Gaudi's Lamp-posts lining the Passeig de Gracia.

We finally stepped off the bus and ascended the hill to "Park Guell", originally designed by Gaudi as a residential area set amidst a British styled garden complex, the park is quite a striking feat. It's a maze of criss-crossing stone paths, set amidst palm trees, cacti and numerous other exotic plants. We didn't end up going into the Gaudi museum there, as we had started quite late and wanted to get as much done as possible while we had the bus ticket.

Gaudi's designs seem natural and unnatural at the same time.

Park Guell is as surreal in its design as any other Gaudi creation.

On the way down the hill, we stopped to get an ice-lolly. There are small stalls and cafes that sell these fantastic lollies, made from 100% fresh fruit juice. I had a multi-coloured lolly, made with kiwi and mango. The kiwi segment still had the black pips in it! Fresh fruit and veg seems to be a prominent part of the cuisine in Spain, with markets and stalls all over. I have read that the supermarkets are seen as an expensive alternative to eating fresh produce. This is something I'd love to see making it across to the UK.

We rejoined the bus tour after a short wander around Park Guell and continued on to "Monestir Pedralbes", but unfortunately it was closed for the afternoon. After a quick tour of the 14th century facade, we rejoined the bus tour and finished up at the bottom of the Barri Gothic, where we left to go and seek our dinner. We are most definitely still getting used to the schedule that Spanish shops and restaurants keep, especially when it comes to feeding time. Since we'd eaten out at a burger place yesterday, we had set out to eat at a place in the Barri Gothic. The place is somewhat ominously called "Sports Bar". Our timing was off by at least 2 hours, it seems, as we arrived at 5.30 and found the staff cleaning up in preparation for the late shift. We decided to take a wander around the old town for a while, and I was disappointed to find that it's often the same copy and paste design, with places selling tacky souvenirs, overpriced hippy clothing, shoes, belts and handbags.

After a somewhat disappointing ramble, we decided to stop at a bakery that had been calling to us for a while, called "Macxipa". According to the paper bag that the food came in, the company has been baking since 1903, and our experience suggested that they've put the time to good use. The food was very cheap compared to the other bakeries that we'd seen, and it's super tasty. I brought a chocolate croissant style pastry called a "Caracola" home for breakfast, and it's tough to resist it. I feel like it will become a frequent stop as it's virtually on our doorstep.

Kara's burger from "Little Bacoa". Her favourite burger of all time.

Kara didn't feel like walking to Sports Bar, so we decided to go to "Bacoa"; a burger bar that I had read loads of reviews for, and I was quite happy for a chance to compare it to La Central. We bought it and brought it back up to enjoy. We are 2 for 2 when it comes to tasty burgers! I can definitely recommend anywhere that makes a burger that Kara will finish without ketchup.

Tomorrow will possibly involve a trip to the Aquarium and one or more of the museums in the Barri Gothic. With any luck and a bit of planning, we'll have another exciting day and lots of great food.

Yes, yes. I know I talk about food a lot, but as someone who doesn't really drink, I find myself enjoying the simple things, instead of local wines and beers. The food in Barcelona is great, especially the burgers we had. It wasn't all good eatin' on this trip, but the first two times we went out for food were great. It really is a big deal for Kara to eat an entire burger sans ketchup, so we'd both really recommend Little Bacoa. La Central was still my top-pick from Barcelona, but that's enough talking about burgers for now.

The bus might be a stereotypically touristy thing to do, but Barcelona is a big city, spread out over a large area. The bus helped us realise where major streets meet, and how we were placed in relation to a lot of the places we'd planned to visit anyway. At 28 Euros for a ticket, it's not cheap, but if you're smarter than we were and get up early enough to make the most of your day ticket, you can take in a lot of sights without worrying about the time slipping away. I was quite sad to have missed out on seeing the Monestir Pedralbes, but the outer building was still gorgeous, and it was nice to have a little bit of peace and quiet at the edge of the city before we boarded the bus back in.

I'm glad we had the respite, because on our bus that took us around the hills, we had to share a confined space with a little English kid who was yelling questions back to his parents who were sat three rows behind us. At first it was kind of endearing, but it quickly became so irritating that I just wanted to get off the bus and wait for the next one!

This day was also our first experience of Gaudi's work, with a drive-by of Casa Batllo, La Pedrera, La Sagrada Familia and a trip to Park Guell. I was impressed by the surrealist visions that jumped out of his work, but this was just a taster of what was to come, later in the trip.

Ross Alexander 11/17/16 Ross Alexander 11/17/16

Ross & Kara's Catalan Adventure - Day 1: Mucho Gusto Barcelona!

Kara and I set off on our anni-moon, or is it our honey-versary? Either way, we are excited to escape together for a while.

Pausing For Breath

So anyone who's read the last blog or has spoken to me in the last few months probably knows that the latter half of 2016 has been a real kick in the butt for me. I have been able to get a toe-hold on life by grabbing a job that I am still learning the ropes at, but beginning to enjoy. The downside being that I am only seeing Kara for around a day or so per week. This really sucks, but it meant so much to me (and hopefully Kara too) that we got time to escape things for a while. All the money that we had been putting aside for our trip the USA suddenly became our honeymoon/1st wedding anniversary fund, so we decided to book Barcelona and the small city of Girona in Catalonia as our destination.

Anyone who read my travel blog for Rome will be familiar with the format. I kept a journal of our time in Barcelona (and most of Girona) so I could put together a travel blog that was an accurate and timely representation of our time over there. I will post what I wrote at the time, then add some notes or thoughts that I had while I reflected on our time abroad.

Wednesday 26th October, 2016 22:00 - Barcelona's Old Town

"So we're on the road again! We've planned this trip months ago, and given the amount of stuff going on at home, I'm so pleased that I've had the chance to escape with Kara. Between feeling like the world is slipping away fro me as I hunt for a job and not being able to live with Kara, I've felt so out of my comfort zone that being away from home seems like the last thing I want to do. Fortunately, it seems that it's more important to be with Kara than in our own home, so I am looking forward to leaving my concerns behind as we explore Catalonia.

It was a super-early start this morning, but everything ran very smoothly, and after a taxi, train and tram; we were at Wetherspoons, eating a big breakfast in preparation for a day of travel. We flew out with Norwegian Airlines, who had a plane at about 35% capacity. This left Kara and I with a row to ourselves, and we were also given the "emergency exit" row, meaning that I had the space to stretch out, lean my chair back and play Ocarina of Time on my 3DS. I doubt I'll ever have such a comfortable and relaxing plane ride ever again, unless I become a millionaire or we get bumped up into first class. I was playing my game all the way up until the wheels touched tarmac!

Barcelona was pretty grey when we touched down, and I got the feeling that we'd be dealing with moderate heat and high humidity. It actually feels like a cloudy summer's day in Edinburgh. I feel clammy (what else is new?) and I'm not even getting the benefit of some sunshine. But it's us! We don't travel for the weather anyway, we like spending our time in nice restaurants, museums, galleries and cool pieces of architecture. Today has been a little bit slow in terms of excitement and exploration, but unlike our first day in Rome, we have eaten and we have food in the flat. I'll take a slow first day with food over a tumultuous welcome to a city on an empty stomach. Of course, the holiday tradition of carrying the suitcase everywhere is being honoured, but at least we have a "home-base" that's a bit closer to the city centre than we did in Rome!

We got the train from the airport to the middle of the city; a stop called "Passeig de Gracia". As soon as we stepped out of the station, we spotted one of the many Gaudi buildings; "Casa Batllo". We didn't get a great look at it, as we wanted to meet our host, Rosa. We had a short walk along the busy streets of Barcelona and were happy to see that despite the suitcases, we weren't the most obvious tourists! The number of overweight Americans with "sport team" t-shirts was surprising, but it was great to feel just a little bit less like the big fat "gringo" that I am.

We met Rosa by another architectural hot-spot; the "Palau de la Musica Catalana". I hope to get a better look at it later, when I'm not heaving luggage around. Rosa seems to be super-friendly, talking about the local area's attractions, complimenting my (piss-poor) Spanish and apologising for her English. This is a theme we found in Italy too, with us being apologised to for not speaking the local language. It mostly just makes me feel guilty for not being a font of Spanish-speaking knowledge. Kara has delegated all social interaction to me, which is actually something I thought she might start trying to do while we were just hanging out in the UK!

With our "home-base" established, we took stock of our surroundings. I had to recover from hauling our 18kg suitcase up 6 flights of stairs in the narrowest old stairwell imaginable. With a quick refresh, we headed out to find a market and a place to eat. Of course, the market closed twenty minutes before we arrived, so we went on a mission to feed ourselves. We ended up at a burger place called "La Central", where the staff and the menus are bilingual. Holy cow, the burgers are good! Kara got a bit of chicken so big that it was bigger than the bun! I get the feeling we'll be visiting there again. It's nice to have a bit of a budget for this trip, as it means we can have nice meals. Unfortunately, the € is now almost at parity with the £, making everything seem hella' 'spensive. Still, it's our "anni-moon", so we've got license to spoil ourselves.

Tonight, we are just chilling out. I am writing while Kara draws and Netflix is on. There's a surprising amount of English content in Spanish Netflix. With any luck, we'll be catching the "Bus Turistic" in the morning, giving us a good view of Barcelona and inspiring our travels over the next couple of days."

Reading it back, it's comforting to know how comfortable Kara and I are with just a peaceful night in, having seen a little bit of the neighbourhood and getting excited for what the next few days will bring. I only briefly allude to it in my journal, but the building we were staying in was renovated/rebuilt in the late 1700s, so our flat was at the very top floor of the skinniest stairwell. It was like an old castle's stairwell, winding round and round with barely any room to swing...well...I didn't need to swing a blade on this trip, but I did have to lug a giant suitcase up the steps. The stairs were so narrow that I actually felt a bit dizzy after coming down them at speed, as it felt like I'd been spinning around so fast. Having our location be so central was great of course, and despite the group of "youths" that hung around at the junction beside our "close" door, I was convinced that nobody was making that climb to rob someone.

I know I've been dwelling on it a lot recently, but my head was still a little bit all over the place for most of the trip, but I found the experience of being with my lovely wife in a pair of beautiful cities suitably distracting and comforting, enough to let me enjoy myself. Don't worry, this isn't a downer of a holiday.

Also, given how heavy the focus on gluten-free dining was in my Rome journals, the eagle-eyed among you will notice that Kara is back on gluten. Our eating habits become more of an issue later on, but at least we knew that in a pinch, we'd be able to get Kara burgers and pizzas if needed.

roguester47 10/28/14 roguester47 10/28/14

"Tombs, temples & time travel" - Days 7, 8 & 9: Rome - Edinburgh

A retrospective of our last few days in Rome before we head home.

So this post won't take the form of the previous ones, as it's going to be a retrospective on our holiday. As I mentioned in the previous post, I just didn't have the time to keep up with the journal when I had to cook in the evenings. So I stopped writing after describing the Colosseum at night. It was unfortunate that it wasn't fully lit up, but I guess there wasn't much we could have done about it.

Day 7 had a very busy itinerary, including visits to...

The Trevi Fountain The Pantheon The Palatine Hill & Forum Complex The Crypt of The Capuchin Monks

We managed them all, though. I am glad we did, but by this point the incessant heat and the 8 til late days with a diminished food intake was really starting to weary us both. I was also missing my beloved CPAP machine, as it really helps me to get a good night's sleep. The first stop we wanted to make was the Palatine Hill & Forum as the ticket for the Colosseum included them as well. We wanted to make sure we got in before the ticket expired.

One of the temple remains in the Roman Forum.

The first mistake we made was by going via Circus Maximus. When we visited Rome, this area was under some serious renovation by the looks of things. From the street beside it, all we could see was a dusty field. What this route also did was put us on the wrong side of the Palatine Hill. After a little bit of confusion with the city map, we'd been out in the baking sun for well over an hour before we were back on the right track to get in. It wasn't a great start to the day, but it got a bit nicer when we found ourselves at the top of the Altare Della Patria, which we had seen from lower down the night before. It was quite ostentatious, but I was just happy to find a water fountain to fill our water bottle from and cool off slightly. From up here, we were able to navigate to the entrance to the Palatine Hill.

There is very little cover on the hill, and it's well...a hill. This made it quite hard going for Kara who darted between the shade like some kind of diurnal ninja. While it was nice to be amongst some of the ancient Roman parts of the city, it was difficult to relax with the heat and the endless throng of tourists that was busy taking pictures of themselves next to things. I'm not one for picture taking, if I'm being honest. Kara is the one who took all of the photos you'll see in this blog (except the ones of her, I would have taken those) as she is much more of a "visual" person, while I enjoy writing down my thoughts. I subscribe to the notion that if I'm busy taking a picture, I'm not really there enjoying the view. As ironic as it sounds, coming from someone who assumes that his thoughts will be read, it annoys me to see people taking selfies with beautiful landmarks before moving on, not bothering to really appreciate what they've taken a picture of. It just seems a little conceited, is all. Anyway, the peddlers were all selling selfie sticks, so I guess that should tell me something about what tourists get up to on holiday. Each unto their own, I suppose!

The Forum was quite impressive, with some old temples and tombs, including one for Julius Caesar. It's a strange notion as a history nerd, to be standing close to something that was built to commemorate a character from thousands of years ago that you've been reading about since you were a child. The only other time I've felt like that, I was in Dunfermline Abbey at my best friend's wedding. I was the best man so we were milling around, waiting on the guests to arrive, so I was lucky enough to get into some of the areas that most of the public do not. Underneath the pulpit, lies the tomb of Robert The Bruce; one of Scotland's most famous historical figures. Gave me shivers just thinking about it, and it was already a nervous day for me! (Truth be told, I was more nervous than the groom seemed to be on the day!)

So our morning had been a bit of a bust, but we had been able to do what we'd wanted to do. From here, we jumped aboard the metro and headed up to the Spanish Steps, which was not only close to our next site, but we also had some business to attend to in this part of town, printing our boarding cards for the trip home on Wednesday! It was here that we spotted some amazing graffiti of the Pope, that we didn't snap a picture of, but I found an image of it online.

Graffiti of the Pope in the Spagna metro station in Roma.

Once that was done, and with Kara running purely on gluten-free cereal bars and a couple of kinder chocolate bars that I was force-feeding her, we entered the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks. Now, the museum itself is quite interesting. It shows the origins and some of the distinctions of this particular branch of Catholicism, which extols many of the virtues that many priests don't seem to stick to as much these days; such as poverty and humility. My understanding was that their sect spends a great deal of their time and resources helping the poor and needy, following the footsteps of Saint Francis Of Assisi. As a real bonus for Kara, there was a Caravaggio painting in here, although there are conflicting reports on whether the one in there is his original or not. I will stick some pictures from google in to show you all what the crypt looked like, as we were not allowed to take pictures.

One of the chambers in the Capuchin Crypt.

It's a morbid place, as you'd expect. I've never been anywhere quite like it, but my obsession with ancient cultures prepared me for coming (almost) face to face with real mummified remains. Kara is obsessed with skeletons and skulls in particular. She is a tattoo artist and we have a definite "dead stuff" motif in parts of our house, which is quite funny when you consider that the other parts are Star Wars and comic book prints. Part of me wonders if it would be funny to invite Jehova's witnesses into the house just to see their faces when they see all of the semi-satanic imagery that adorns our walls; snakes, skulls, goat's heads etc... Anyway, the upshot was that Kara was fascinated with the display on offer here. I was just trying to picture the kind of psychopath that would literally nail vertebrae into the roof and walls to make the patterns that we witnessed. Kara and I did two passes on here, while Kara soaked it all in. It somewhat kills the ambience when you reach the end as there's a gift-shop, selling notepads and the like.

As we stepped out into the sunlight, I was glad to be back in the modern age. Skulls and skellingtons don't bother me, but the message of the crypt is to emphasise that time is fleeting. They have a tombstone in one of their rooms that reads...

"What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be..."

So, feeling a tad drained, both spiritually (yeuch, I hate to use that term but it feel right in this context) and physically, we headed off to get lunch. We found a place called Pizza Ciro and found the food to be ok, but the service wasn't great, and it was quite pricey. Still, it wasn't too bad, and it was nice to not have to worry about food until we got home.

From lunch, we wandered on towards the Trevi Fountain. This was even more disappointing than Ponte Vecchio, but not because it looked boring. The whole fountain is under renovation. Quite considerable renovation, judging from the scaffolding and dust sheeting that was in place. There were bits of Oceanus that could still be seen, but other than that there wasn't much. There is a small replacement "fountain" that is just a pool of standing water, where people who want to throw a coin into the fountain can do so. The superstition is that those who throw a coin into the fountain will return to Rome. Kara and I threw a coin into the little pool, but it was a real disappointment. The Pantheon was next on the list, and fortunately it isn't too far from the Trevi Fountain. It's also free to enter, which is nice.

As with all of Rome, the piazza where the Pantheon sits is packed with people all the time. The Pantheon is a beautiful old building, and I was very excited to see inside. The exterior is gorgeous, with all of the massive pillars and traditionally Roman architecture that one would expect. The interior is quite nice too, but I was disappointed to find that the Pantheon, like many other ancient Roman buildings, has been converted into a space for Catholic prayer and all of the ancient Roman iconography has been replaced with christian imagery. I just wanted to go outside to see some more of the exterior, as it represented the ancient Roman past that is harder to find in Rome than one might think. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but I was happy to have visited.

From here, we headed back home to have dinner and figure out what to do the next day.

Day 8

We had toyed with the idea of visiting the Vatican. If you've read the previous blogs, it's easy to see why this might have stuck in my craw. We were really having to watch our finances and it didn't look like The Vatican would be cheap. We decided to take my Aunt and Uncle's advice and take a day trip to Ostia Antica. Knowing it was our last day before leaving for home, we knew we wanted to at least see the outside of St. Peter's Basilica, so we took a little metro ride to the Vatican, before fist bumping as we saw the massive queues and considered the high price of entry. We were harassed by admittedly, a mixed bag of tour guides, ranging from dodgy as hell to quite charming, as we approached the square where the Pope normally addresses the public. It's a lovely open space, but not when it's filled with a winding snake of tourists, waiting to get in. Kara took a few pictures and we set off for an afternoon in Ostia Antica.

An ancient slab with Roman enscriptions. Ostia Antica.

After a 20 minute train ride, we were right outside of the city and it was a nice feeling. Kara is from a very small hamlet in rural Perthshire and Edinburgh is the biggest city I've ever lived in. We are not "city people" really. We don't overly enjoy many of the benefits that living in the city offers, and Rome is humongous. It was refreshing to be back out in the middle of nowhere, which looking back; is something that I appreciated about Maranello. People do say that when visiting Italy, it's important to see the little towns as well as the big cities. They're absolutely right, and Ostia Antica turned out to be a real treat for both of us.

By day 8, I had acclimatized to the heat somewhat, while Kara was still having a really hard time with the heat. Ostia Antica has many old ruins and intact walls, but it's largely open streets and little cover. We had a bit of a hard time while we were there, but there were lots of water fountains and we were able to find the on site cafe, where we ordered Kara some potato wedges. At this point, I was making sure we had sufficient bus-fare to get to the airport the next day, so Kara got food and I tried not to stare at the plate and lick my lips. I wasn't sure how long it would be before I was seeing passers by as giant walking turkey legs, like in Tom & Jerry cartoons. I was saved by one of Kara's more interesting food habits, which anyone who has eaten in her company will be familiar with. The infamous "potato cull" where even the slightest discolouration or "defect" will lead to a "rejected pile" which I hungrily gobbled up.

The floor mosaic from the temple of Neptune. (I think.)

I really don't have words to describe how incredible the location is. Ostia Antica is an ancient harbour town that used to supply Rome. It has a naval history, plus the site contains remnants of many of the buildings that most Roman towns had back in the period the town is meant to have been at its peak. (400BC - 200AD) There are some incredible building remains that have been uncovered by archaeologists on the site, including bakeries, temples, tombs, houses, baths and I'm guessing the gigantic amphitheater didn't take a lot of digging to discover. This place was everything I wanted from a visit to Rome; a reflection of an ancient culture, with no doubt that what you were seeing was a genuine version and not something that was assembled in the 17th century. There was no graffiti and the sheer scale of the town really shows the layout and function of the place. There are mosaics that I'm guessing operated as advertisements for different shipping companies, while other depicted sea animals and elephants, presumably to emphasize the exotic nature of their expeditions. I think Kara could tell how much I was enjoying the place, as she persevered despite feeling really bad out there in the sun. We didn't quite finish seeing the whole place, but we were there for hours. There really is so much to see, and if you are a history nerd like I am, it's definitely what you're coming to Rome to see. It's cheap to get out there and visit, so do it.

The inside of a tomb in Ostia Antica. The little alcoves would have held ashes.

We took the train back home and I did some cooking, before we did some provisional suitcase packing and got an early night. The train to Ciampino got us there on time, and despite a fairly significant setback, we arrived at the tiny airport terminal on time and in one piece. From here, the only other point to mention is that if you get a window seat on the right side of the plane and you're flying back to the UK from Ciampino, you get an amazing view of Rome from the sky. We were able to pick out so many of the sights that had seemed to huge from the ground, including the Colosseum and parts of the Vatican City.

So that was our trip. We arrived back in grey, chilly Scotland a few hours later and I was so glad to feel that cold breeze. We faced issues that were predictable to a point, especially feeding someone who has real trouble with finding food even in their home environment. I don't think gluten-free dining on its own would be particularly tricky in Italy, although it definitely pays to be prepared. It's also very expensive to feed yourself in Italy, even if the quality and quantity of food seemed to be better than in the UK. Just research the gluten-free options and you shouldn't have too difficult a time, although be prepared to have a regular meal that just happens to not include pizza or pasta, just in case you can't find a place. (For all we know, Milan has no places that do gluten-free pasta or pizza!)

I hope you have enjoyed reading this travel blog as much as I have enjoyed recounting our adventures. It's largely a personal project for me, but it's also nice to be able to passively describe our trip to family and friends! From here, it's likely that this blog will take a left-turn into nerdy territory, but I hope some of you might stick around for that.

Arrivederci!

-Ross

roguester47 10/26/14 roguester47 10/26/14

"Murder, mayhem and mozzarella" - Day 6: Rome

We tour the Colosseum and Kara finds her dream pizza.

Journal Entry 11.00 pm

Apartment in Roma

As we've been going at full-speed to do as much as possible this holiday, we decided to slow down this morning to plan our day and take advantage of the laundry facilities. At the moment, our flat is strewn with (clean) underpants and socks while our less personal items hang in the courtyard outside. The neighbours seem nice enough, even if my snoring probably keeps them awake, worrying about what animal sacrifice I am making to some dark power. I am sans-CPAP for the trip and I can feel myself becoming more tired as my quality of sleep deteriorates.

I took a walk to the local corner shop today, as Kara had only eaten junk food since Florence and I was beginning to worry. Despite a fair bit of confusion and feeling bad about my "Italiano", I was able to buy some bananas (green - the way Kara prefers them) and some potatoes. If there's one kind of food I know will be appreciated, it's potatoes. I snagged myself some bread and salami, as well as what seems to be Parmesan dairylea. After an approximation on a "continental breakfast" I hunt out the washing while Kara wrestled her hair into place. After discovering how to work the air-con, I was quite happy with the morning.

We stepped out and into the hot sunlight and I could've sworn I heard Kara hiss her disapproval. We wandered up and down via Casilina, looking for bus tickets. Our expreience today has taught us that people just get on and don't care for actually buying tickets. This bus had air-con! Never before have I been so comfortable on a packed bus. There is a couple that we saw at a restaurant last night, as well as on the bus into town today and on the far side of Rome at the end of the day. It's kinda creepy.

From the bus, we went shopping at Termini. Not the best idea as it's hella expensive, yo. We did find some snacks for Kara as well as the basis of some gluten-free dinners, so that's a weight off my mind. Sun-tan lotion was €20 so we resolved to find it cheaper, somewhere else. I hope they do factor 1,000,000 for Kara. She hates the idea of tanning.

After a short stint aboard the Roman metro, we arrived at Colosseo! The Colosseum was one of the biggest factors in me wanting to come to Rome and it's an impressive building that demands your attention as soon as you climb out of the metro station. A quick check online before we left the apartment meant that we had reserved our tickets. I was very glad of this, as the line to buy a ticket looked hellish. We went the wrong way round the Colosseum at first, just trying to glimpse parts of the building that were truly ancient or perhaps catching a minute of an English-speaking tour guide as they described what they were looking at. Many of them seemed to be obsessed with the ancient Roman toilets.

After a little while, we got going in the right direction. The Colosseum hosts some fantastic museums, showing finds from the excavations nearby, as well as descriptions that help to bring the place to life. The place was understandably mobbed, though. It was sad to see such a beautiful old place covered in graffiti. Much like at Giotto's bell-tower, I found myself getting pissed off at other people's ignorance and lack of respect. During the visit, I discovered that the Colosseum was consecrated as a mark of respect for all of the Christians "martyred" there.

As we entered the predictably tacky gift shop, Kara started to feel overcome by the heat and a lack of food. We decided to take a trip to the other side of the Tiber to look for "Mamaeat"; a gluten-free pizzeria. On the way, we passed a great and impressive monument called the "Vittoriano" which is the largest monument in Italy. It is enormous. We found it just as the sun was starting to dip, and the white marble that covers the entire area shone beautifully. We crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Palatino and found ourselves in narrow but busy streets that reminded me of Firenze.

Mamaeat is not particularly easy to find, but if you're a coeliac in Rome, it's a place you have to visit! Kara exclaimed "It's like eating real pizza!" I don't think she'll forget it soon. With the sun setting, we decided to find a spot to see the Colosseo lit up at night. Sadly, it didn't happen. We spent most of our time telling the string and selfie-stick peddlers to go away. It's breast cancer awareness month so a section of the Colosseum was lit in pink, with a large pink ribbon displayed on the side.

The somewhat abrupt end to this journal entry is due in no small part to my transition to becoming the chef for our trip. Our apartment kitchen was tiny, but I was able to prepare a few meals for our later days in Rome. Sadly, this meant that the journal was forgotten as it was late by the time I'd eaten. So from this post onwards, I suppose it'll mostly just be a retrospective as I try to remember the rest of our trip!

Our apartment was quite nice. On our first night, someone had let off fireworks for a full five minutes and it sounded a bit like gunfire. Kara and I were a tad nervous, but the area didn't seem too bad. Rome is covered in graffiti, and our street was no exception, but I don't think it strictly means a rough neighbourhood. Our little apartment complex had three small houses next to each other, sharing a courtyard with a lovely tree in it. The opportunity to do some washing was definitely appreciated. The heat and humidity on our trip had really meant that we were quite gross and had to quarantine some of our clothes in the suitcase. (I say we, but it's mostly me, let's be honest.) It was also refreshing to not be getting up at 8am to rush out of the accommodation, as we had been on the move during the whole trip. Finding out how to work the air-con was like figuring out how to turn the lights on in terms of morale and significance. I suddenly felt so much more comfortable.

Public transport in Italy is very different to over here. The buses in particular were some of the worst experiences of the whole trip. If there's a minimum capacity for a bus, we definitely overstepped it by quite a margin in Italy. It's literally elbow to elbow on there. If you can fit in there, go for it. I saw people trying to navigate towards the exit, only to be blocked by people who wanted to help but couldn't move themselves. Quite a stressful scenario to be involved in! The metro is quite similar, but I guess the London tube is similar. It's not nice to be the sweaty tourist in that scenario, though.

The Colosseum deserves its place in the list of the world's most recognizable buildings. It's an imposing sight, even amongst the many incredible examples of ancient architecture around the city. The only thing that makes me less enthusiastic about looking at it, is knowing that it's been renovated and put back together on numerous occasions over the years. It was very exciting to see little notice boards that told you to look at certain features so you could see that a

particular area was indeed ancient Roman. This included parts of frescos and yes, the toilets. The tour-guides were very enthusiastic to describe how Rome's old sewerage system worked and this made the ancient Roman toilets very popular. This led me to believe that perhaps they were one of very few sections that were relatively untouched since ancient times. The place is wonderful, though. Despite the massive number of tourists and the graffiti all over the place, I still had a great time looking at what the Colosseum had to offer a history nerd like me!

"Mamaeat" is a "must" for coeliacs in Rome. The pizza looked and smelled incredible, with the gluten-free pizza looking the way you'd expect any regular pizza to look. I just had a regular one, but I would never have guessed that Kara's was gluten-free too. Kara tells me that Mamaeat's margherita pizza (she doesn't really do pizza topping either) was the best she had on the entire trip, which makes it the best pizza she's ever had. This is high praise from a very discerning customer.

I will cover the rest of the trip as a retrospective, but don't worry; there's only two days left.

roguester47 10/26/14 roguester47 10/26/14

"Ciao Roma" - Day 5: Florence to Rome

We take a break from art to visit a couple of science museums. Then it's on to Roma!

A statue of Perseus outside the Uffizi galleries.

Journal Entry 11.00 am on day 6.
Apartment in Roma
Our last day in Florence was nearly a disaster. We thought that the station had a luggage deposit area, but it turned out that the travel site had lied! We were able to keep our stuff at the hotel, fortunately. We started off by heading to "Star Bene" once again, where Kara stocked up on cake. We didn't even make it to the end of the block this time, before Kara was tucking in. She made some quite distressing animal noises, but she looked very happy to be enjoying some breakfast cake. We then made a bee-line for Accademia, but the queue was the worst that we've seen so far on this trip. Sadly, we knew at that point that we weren't going to see David on this holiday.
Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we headed on to a museum that housed models made from study of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks. It was a bit stuffy, but it was cool to see all of the models to scale, including his tank and gliders. He also liked to build robotic suits of armour. After the Leonardo museum, we headed for the Galileo museum, along the bank of the Arno river. While fascinating and educational, there was a lot of repetition in some of the later sections. The astronomy areas were great, though.
Ponte Vecchio was rubbish. It's packed with tourists, but lined with jewelers. We had hoped for kitsch, tacky souvenirs but it was all just necklaces and earrings. We got a gelato on the other side and walked to the front of the Pitti Palace. It was enormous, with lots of tourists out front, but we weren't too fussed about going in.
On the way back through town, we stopped for a late lunch at "Hostaria Il Desco", just a few minutes away from Ponte Vecchio. Kara was delighted with her gluten-free pasta, while I got left with the "backup" in case she didn't want to eat what she'd chosen! They brought out an all gluten-free bread basket for Kara, which included the nicest breadsticks I think I've ever had.
After lunch, we picked up our luggage and chilled at the train station, waiting for our train to Roma. Upon leaving Florence, we only had one real regret and that was that we didn't see the statue of David.
Our first night in Roma was...not great. Met off the bus by our apartment's owner, we were informed that everything was closed and because it was a Sunday the next day, we were likely to struggle to feed Kara at all. Much to my eternal shame, our first meal in Roma was from a knock-off KFC establishment called "Chicken Hut". Their motto is...
"We know how to deal with chicken."
...which sounds a bit menacing to me. I immediately pictured a chicken who hadn't paid his protection money, being thrown into the fryer with a breezeblock tied round his ankles. Coupled with the heat and language barriers we encountered, day 5 ended on a bit of a downer.

A mercifully short journal entry for you guys, there. The plan was to cut our food costs in Rome by cooking everything for ourselves. It meant that we had really not planned well for eating out in Rome as I had somewhat naively expected to be able to eat much as we do at home. This turned out to not be the case, but on the first night in Rome, we really did struggle. We went to one place that was still open and turned out to be a restaurant/Karaoke bar. I understand if some readers think that sounds like fun, but as a former bartender, the word "karaoke" still gives me horrific flashbacks. We both wanted somewhere to chill out and eat, and that wasn't it. We also went to one place that our apartment owner had suggested, but it was definitely a place for locals, as everything was in Italian and there were no prices. We tried to pick up a bit of Italian on the trip, but with Kara's food issues and a lot of uncertainty, it ended up being a no-go. It was quite depressing for me too, as so far I had been able to get by on my barely passable Italiano. We also discovered that Italian chefs do NOT do substitutions. If someone says it comes with a side, it comes with that side, nothing else. "Patati" is the Italian word for potato, I believe. (If it wasn't, I was just spouting gibberish) I said it quite a lot on the trip. Kara often refers to me as her "second love, after potatoes". In almost 5 years with her, I've never seen any evidence to contradict that.

The Palazzo Vecchio, taken from a balcony on the Uffizi galleries.

"Chicken Hut" actually didn't taste too bad. Kara just had fries that I'm fairly sure would have had some form of gluten-based coating on them, but it wasn't enough to cripple her. We were a bit overzealous in our order, which left us with a lot of fries. It was well after midnight, so it was time for bed.

Not seeing Michaelangelo's statue of David was a disappointment, certainly. It was also the only thing that we'd planned to see that we ended up missing during our trip. It was unfortunate, but we'd have wasted at least half a day waiting in the queue. The two science-themed museums that we went to were fantastic, though. Being a bit of a total nerd does extend backwards as well as forwards, and finding out more about Italy's contribution to the modern world was an exciting prospect. Florence was at the center of the Renaissance, so there were many fascinating things to see in the Galileo museum. Leonardo Da Vinci epitomizes the word "genius" for me, as he was not only a visionary and a scholar, but he was able to take these concepts and follow through to the point where he had an apparatus that was fit for experimentation. The Da Vinci museum contained many different contraptions of his that looking back now, it's easy to see the flaws, while the foundations of concepts such as the helicopter, the glider, the tank and the automaton are present. The museum was mostly filled with recently made wooden models that allowed visitors to see right into the design, often stripping away panels to show how things worked. I think if you had a smart kid, you could probably explain how something worked to them using the models here. The Galileo museum isn't really focused on Galileo himself, but Italy's contribution to science over the years. It displays some of Galileo's telescopes and measuring equipment, as well as a few of his partially

preserved fingers. (I have no idea why, and I have no idea why Kara didn't get any pictures of them for me to show you here.) The exhibition shows equipment from all facets of scientific experimentation; from astronomy to electricity. It's an inspiring and ridiculously peaceful place to visit amid the hustle and bustle of central Florence.

Ponte Vecchio really was quite disappointing. It's a bridge. That's it. It happens to be lined with jewelers. I have no idea

Ponte Vecchio, taken from the bank of the river Arno.

why it's a tourist spot. Still, it certainly seemed quite busy. Maybe the jewelers are really reasonably priced or something. The Pitti Palace and the "Boboli Gardens" behind it were on our list of places to visit but we were really worried about missing our train and these sites are on the opposite side of the Arno and the city from where we were departing from. It was certainly very warm, so the ice cream was pleasant! It was around this time that we really started to tighten our belts, as it was becoming abundantly clear that if we wanted to keep our spending in check, we were going to have to just go an have the look at the front of things for free, instead of paying €15 to go inside.

Kara really enjoyed her lunch at Il Desco. The surroundings were really nice too, with a cozy feel. The waitress that seated us seemed to be referring to one of the women who worked the till as her mother, so it was most likely a family business. It's always nice to see that you're not just supporting a massive chain restaurant. To be fair, there weren't many places in Italy other than Mcdonalds and Burger King that seemed like big chains. Funnily enough, I don't recall seeing another "Chicken Hut". That motto still makes me wonder if it was some mafia front!

A statue of Hercules and a Centaur, outside the Uffizi galleries.

roguester47 10/25/14 roguester47 10/25/14

"The Patron Saint of Gluten-Free Dining" - Day 4: Florence

Our first full day in Florence.

The fresco on the cupola of Firenze's Basilica Santa Maria di Fiore.

Journal Entry 10.00 pm
"Hotel Castagno" - Firenze
Firenze continues to impress us both. Not just the layout and beautiful surroundings, but the atmosphere and "feel" of the city is laid-back, with an undercurrent of intensity. That might seem contradictory so let me put it another way. It feels like everyone is in a rush, to get to the pub or a cafe. Much like Milan and Modena, Firenze is packed (often bumper to bumper) with scooters, motorbikes and tiny little city cars. We've seen quite a few weird looking single seaters, as well as "Mr Bean" style minis and Renault "Twizys". The streets are virtually single lane, but buses, taxis and bikes all tear along at breakneck speed, giving credence to my theory that all Italian drivers want to be racing drivers.
It's been a tough day for both of us, but Kara especially. We have done a lot of walking today and it's taken it's toll. We're both in "Pigiami" and ready for bed, really. On the other hand though, it's been great day. Let's start at the beginning.
Another crappy night's sleep. I am covered in what I assume are mosquito bites. I kept hearing them fly next to my head in the night. A damned shame as the bed is quite comfy. Breakfast was the usual Italian "continental" affair; croissant, yoghurt etc. It's pretty nice to have what is essentially cake for breakfast and not be judged. Speaking of "breakfast cake"; we went to "Star Bene" so Kara could get something. She walked out with two cakes and we'd barely crossed the road before one was gone. As we walked into the central part of Firenze, we stopped at two unlikely spots: a "Mail Boxes etc" (Kara works at one over here in the UK) and an Italian "pound shop". *sighs* To be fair, the halloween section was much better than most back home. I will get some naff gifts for the guys at work in there tomorrow!
After our pit stops, we went on to Firenze's "Duomo". While less impressive from the outside than Milan's Duomo, I enjoyed it considerably more. The distinct lack of pushy salesmen and string may be a factor in this. The inside was quite something, too. A fresco that covers the roof of the cupola is astounding, while the crypts underneath speak of an era of history that has only been hinted at so far on this trip. The crypt is built into the bones of an even older church that was falling apart and was replaced by the present church in the early 1400s. Tombs of knights, saints and popes ( I believe) are present. It's very impressive. I will need to read up more when I return home.
The activity I had been dreading was Giotto's "Campanile" or bell-tower. It was a hell of a climb as a "broad man" in very tight spiral staircases. We climbed the first set of stairs and were surprised at how easy it had been. There were three more flights to go, of course. The view of Firenze from the top was incredible. You could see out for every direction as a terrace ran around the top. Sadly, people with no respect for history or craftsmanship had scrawled in pen or carved into the marble, "A ned was 'ere 2014" (I'm paraphrasing slightly here.) Utter twats. One did make me smile, mind you. It just said...
"Russian Hooligans, 2014."
After the bell-tower, we went hunting for "Deanna's gluten-free cafe" to see if we could find Kara some lunch. We found it but the menu wasn't great for Kara. The guy behind the counter was great, however. After apologizing to two bumbling tourists because his "English was bad", he annotated a map with two or three GF places we could try. He is now Kara's patron saint. We went for lunch at one of these places; a little restaurant called "La Gratella". It was very nice, but Kara was still a little short of finishing her bowl of pasta. Italian food isn't cheap, but it's good quality and you get plenty of it.
After a visit to an amazing indoor foodmarket called "Mercato Centrale", which was like a mall foodcourt if Harvey Nicols ran it, we visited "Santa Maria Novello" as it was nearby and on our list of places to visit. It was nice and old, in a Catholic churchy kinda way. I feel like I have been spoiled by the Duomos. I honestly think I should have worked up to them, as I wasn't so impressed here. Just in case we hadn't seen enough pictures of Jesus, we decided to go to the Uffizi gallery. Now I'm no art critic, but the clasical themes of "The life and deaths of JC" are bloody boring after a while. It's like going to read an Avengers comic and finding out that it's just page after page of Hulk dialogue. It's something that warrants some time spent on it, sure, but change it up. Eventually, Jesus images should show him doing cool shit like...smashing helicopters out of the air. I guess Marvel comics were hard to find during the Renaissance.
Ridiculous comparisons aside, the gallery was quite nice. I observed some "HD images" including Boticelli's "The Birth of Venus" and Caravaggio's "Frickin' awesome severed head of Medusa on a shield" (I think that's the correct name, at least.) Kara was quite distraught for a while as it seemed like the Caravaggio exhibits were closed. It all turned out to be fine though, and we had a wander through the town on the way to "Accademia" where the statue of David is. We found a "Scottish Jock" bar that is ran by a Chinese couple. We spoke to a pissed up American woman who told us how good the whisky was, before telling us she'd been drinking Jameson. Urgh.
By the time we arrived, Accademia had closed for the night. We resolved to come and see David tomorrow and went for dinner at the "OK Bar". The name seems apt, as neither Kara nor myself were too impressed with their pizzas. It was fairly cheap, though.
Kara is in bed now, having pushed herself quite hard today. Tomorrow's plan includes sending postcards, topping up the cash-card (Italy is hella expensive, yo.), eating breakfast cake, Galileo's museum, Leonardo's museum, David and the Accademia, Ponte Vecchio and hopefully safe travels to our last city on the trip: Roma!

Definitely a marked improvement from our time in Milan and Modena. Florence is probably my favourite place that we visited. The people are almost universally beautiful, everyone seems friendly, the architecture and city layout makes all of the street seem like back-alleys but many of them are bustling with activity and almost all of them end with piazzas that are filled with some of the most incredibly beautiful buildings and sculptures I have ever seen. The history nerd in me loves that as you walk along, you never know what's around the corner. I know it's cliché but it's a city full of hidden surprises. I have learned to appreciate this aspect in Edinburgh and wished we had more time in Florence to explore all of the nooks and crannies.

There's certainly an intensity to Italian culture that is reflected in how they do things. We saw so many sharply dressed businessmen and women driving around at high speed on scooters, with 1950s racing style helmets on. It was pretty cool, and there's definitely a foundation for the stereotype of the well dressed Italian, showing up on a scooter. As the social hermits that Kara and I are, it was a little bit jarring to see how sociable and outgoing Italy can be. We like to stay in, and while I would like to think that I cook good food for us, we have functional meals then enjoy our free time in a different way; perhaps with a snack and a little drink of juice. Italian eating habits lend themselves to meeting up at 5 for a little bite or a coffee, then sitting outside talking until midnight. It's a romantic notion, but considering Kara can't drink and I barely drink, as well as being on a deadline and trying to stick to a budget, it was never going to be something we did.

Star Bene, at the northeast end of Viale Spartaco Lavagnini, close to Piazza Della Liberta is now Kara's favourite bakery, hands down. We went here again the next day, and Kara raved about this place all through the holiday. It's not cheap, but everything looks good and the range of food runs to savoury tarts too. (Not that it was enough to sway Kara, of course.)

I feel bad that I wasn't able to get anyone any gifts from Italy. We were both living out of a medium suitcase and we were beginning to appreciate that it was going to cost a lot to see everything we wanted to on this trip. The Italian "pound shop" had some cool little halloween things, but at this point we were still buying bottles of water regularly, just trying to keep hydrated due to the heat and the walking we were doing. My Aunt had told us that there are water fountains dotted throughout most major Italian cities that dispense cold, clean water. Milan had one or two that we found, but it was in Florence that we really started to come across them regularly. We saved a lot of money and time, not having to find bottled water to drink all the time. Many of the fountains are quite plain, with a steady flow, while other look hundreds of years old and are works of art in themselves. A great element of travelling in Italian cities.

The Firenze Duomo (Basilica Santa Maria di Fiore) is gorgeous, as well as old. The sculptures and frescos really are something else. It's a strange feeling to be looking at something and thinking to yourself that not only is this painting beautiful, it's also hundreds of years old. The crypt underneath the church was impressive, housing sarcophagi that put me in mind of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. I don't think they would have been too happy if I'd started prying off the lid to take a pencil rubbing of the shield of the knight that lay inside. There was even a spooky little alcove that looked like it may have been an ossuary as it contained a skull in a case. Kara was immediately interested of course. The floor of the medieval church that had become the crypt was preserved in parts, with mosaics that were basic but still very nice. Parts of the original architecture were preserved, but it was clear that it was very old. It's nice that the church have chosen to preserve what used to lie in here, as many other sites (especially in Rome) speak of them destroying or misappropriating that which they found "heretical".

A mosaic of a peacock in the crypts of the Basilica.

Edinburgh is a gorgeous city that I would recommend to anyone to visit, but it comes to life at night in my opinion. It sometimes feels a bit like Gotham city; dark and mysterious. Florence, in contrast, is gorgeous during the day and almost seems lit by fairy-lights at night. There are old street lamps that light up the roads in the older parts of town, with the buildings often being soft pastel shades of ochre. The red rooftops that I ran around on top of as Ezio from the "Assassin's Creed" series of videogames dominated the view from the top of Giotto's Campanile. After climbing 414 steps, Kara and I enjoyed the blustery breeze at the top, as well as the view. It's quite a beautiful old city, with a much prettier skyline than Milan. I was disappointed to see the graffiti at the top, but I guess I should have expected it. We visited the Battistero across the courtyard after coming back down. It had several statues accredited to Donatello. Upon seeing them and knowing that we were going to be visiting the Uffizi later, I resolved to complete my "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" collection by seeing a painting or sculpture by Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Donatello. Even if this is a travel blog, it's difficult to keep the nerd factor at bay.

Mercato Centrale is an amazing place. It's like a modern version of an old food market. It's full of lots of little bakeries, restaurants, organic food shops, butchers, fishmongers, bars and greengrocers. There was nothing specifically gluten-free here, just a really nice market. I was somewhat glad that we'd both just eaten, as everything looked amazing.

Hamfisted similes aside, I really did find myself getting bored of seeing pictures of Jesus in his different states. I know, I know, it's from a time where the church paid a lot of very good artists to create artwork for them, while wealthy patrons tried to buy their way into heaven by decorating their homes with christian artwork. It's just quite repetitive, with scenes such as the nativity, crucifiction and the resurrection being depicted time and time again. The Medusa shield is incredible, though. The colours seem so vibrant, despite the age of the piece. It's no doubt abundantly clear that I am not the most reverent when it comes to art, but I did enjoy myself at the Uffizi, especially in the small section of ancient roman artifacts. There was a very cool sarcophagus that depicted the heroic acts of Hercules that was exciting to find.

roguester47 10/24/14 roguester47 10/24/14

"Forza Michael" - Day 3: Modena to Florence (via Maranello)

We travel to Florence, via the home of Ferrari.

Kara in front of the Schumacher panel in the hall of victories.

Journal Entry 00.20 (technically day 4)
Hotel Villa Il Castagno - Firenze
So, I finished the last post with a note on how good the crisps were in Milan. I guess my love of crisps and Kara's boundless enthusiasm for potatoes made it "low hanging fruit". I had intended to continue writing but it all went downhill after the last words in the previous post. The train to Modena was a bit jumpy and the general mood dropped when we saw our room. Kara had warned me that it didn't look great in the photos, but it was cheap. The people were nice, but the room had flaky paint and a generally dingy look. The upshot is that I didn't really get a chance to write last night.
Our walk from Modena Stazione to "Hotel San Geminiano" was somewhat hurried, as it was very dark, with many "youths" around. Last night I found myself wanting to just hail a cab as I am sick of hauling the suitcase behind me. I feel like we are "backpacking" as we are always smelly and unkempt. So we had another "Prima Colazione" where Kara had to sit and watch me eat. No parma ham for me this morning, but I had a nutella filled croissant and all was well. Kara didn't sleep very well, sadly, so we were a bit sluggish on the way out the door. After a power-march through downtown Modena, with Kara in full "tifosi" attire, we arrived at the bus station two minutes too late. Disappointed, we sat down and waited for the next one. During the wait, Kara and I discussed how even the students dress better than us! As well as fashion, we also observed a march, relating to the Gaza bombing/occupation etc.
After an uneventful bus journey, we arrived on the outskirts of "Ferrari-town": Maranello. The heat had begun to climb into the twenties by this point and the weight I was dragging was making me cranky. After a short hunt, we found "De Museo Ferrari". Now, I'm neither a Ferrari fan or a long time F1 fan, but the place is impressive. Everything in the town is Ferrari, from the modern Ferraris parked up, waiting to be test driven to the tarmac itself in the carpark of the museum.
Kara was clearly excited and once again, it was great to see her light up at the sight of the Maranello test track from the bus. The museum was spectacular, showcasing elements of the history of Ferrari in F1, modern F1 telemetry and technology, multi-discipline racing cars and a mix of new and classic Ferrari roadcars. We also took a trip to see the "prancing pony" sculpture but we couldn't approach it without running over motorway. The heat had continued to rise and Kara struggled with it. I sweat a lot, but I can go on. I worry what Roma will do to us both.
I think the highlight of Maranello was seeing Kara in the "hall of victories", next to a range of championship winning F1 cars. 40-50% of them said "Schumacher" on the side. I know the reminders of him upset Kara, but I think pride won out in the end. Ferrari have a pit-board in the museum lobby that says...
"Forza Michael."
After almost missing our bus back to Modena, we returned in time to catch our train to Florence. Still a little "ripe" from a day in the sun, we sat in first class, next to a very nosy woman who just stared at Kara's tattoos. I made the mistake of wearing my jacket on the bus to the hotel. I have never sweated like that outside a sauna, gym or fever. Not fun.
The hotel is not too bad. We have a wet room, which is nice. It's still very warm here, so I hope we will sleep ok. We stepped out for dinner, after preparing the maps for the next couple of days. Florence is all narrow streets and beautiful people, much as I imagined it would be. We found three gluten-free spots for Kara and went out. The "Clubhouse" had no gluten-free pasta or pizza, but Kara had steak and (surprise) potatoes. Despite a slightly better diet today, Kara left 1/4 of the meal to finish. I was happy to oblige.
It's getting late. Time for bed. Buona notte!

So that post covers quite a lot of geographical distance. From Modena to Maranello, then back to Modena again so we could catch our train to Florence. We arrived in Modena late and left early, which made it difficult for me to feed myself, never mind someone with Kara's eating habits. I have absolutely no gluten-free recommendations for Modena I'm afraid. The journal doesn't mention the little cafe where we were able to find Kara her breakfast/lunch, which was right next to the Ferrari museum. I was very relieved when we found out that we could do grilled chicken fillet for Kara, as I knew that she hadn't eaten a proper meal since Cookwindow the day before. I'm fairly certain that at this point, she was running on these Nairns Oaty biscuits that I once jokingly referred to as "Lembas" (one for the Lord of The Rings nerds out there) as she only ever seems to manage one before I'm asked to hold onto the rest of the packet. Funnily enough, despite plenty of hunger on Kara's part, we still came home with a packet of them. Anyway, the cafe is just across the car park from the museum and has lots of cool F1 memorabilia on the walls.

The hotel in Modena wasn't that bad. It was just a very sparse 2 star establishment. The people who worked there were very nice and helpful and the breakfast was something that drove home just how much Italians love to have cake for breakfast. It was on this day that I searched for the meaning of the term "La Dolce Vita" which translates as "The sweetness of live" or "The Good Life." During my trip, it became obvious to me that Italians value their free time in a way that lends itself to eating cake, drinking wine and really perfecting what they like to eat. It also became abundantly clear that they will put Nutella in anything. Kara doesn't like hazelnut, so sadly she was unable to join in, but later on in Florence, we find gluten-free cake that made her make animal noises as she ate it. The night that we actually stayed in Modena was pretty rough for us though, with Kara being very hungry and all but the corner shops being closed. She went to bed early, while I went out into a strange town to look for food. In the little corner shop, I spied bread. It would have to do, but what to put on it? It makes me nauseous to think that I went with "Kraft cheese slices" in the absence of anything resembling sandwich meat or cheese. I couldn't eat it. That's when I reached into my bag to pull out two little sachets of Nutella that Kara had mocked me for taking from our breakfast table that morning. Nutella - breakfast and supper of champions.

Kara gets dressed up in Ferrari gear for most big races, and the cap she's had since she was a very young girl is on for every race, but following her through Modena, she was dressed all in scarlet with her Ferrari tattoo on show. You'd never have guessed she was starving. I am normally being berated for walking too fast, but with the suitcase holding me back, I was trying to stay on Kara's heels as the lure of Maranello must have been calling to her. Missing our bus was a pain, and in the end it gave us some stress as we were very short of time in Maranello, but I am so glad we went. The whole experience was very fun for me, despite the baking sun, heavy case and feeling the after-effects of having tried espresso for the first time that morning. (I'm still not convinced that Coffee is as amazing as people say). I have only started enjoying F1 in the last two years, as I thought it would be nice for us to share one of Kara's hobbies. One of the reasons that she's never left the country is that her family would go to Silverstone for the British GP instead. Having visited her family home in rural Perthshire, I struggle to see why you would want to go anywhere else to relax, mind you. The nerd in me was excited to see the mechanical and technological elements of the Ferrari museum, while I knew that I was also going to visit a place steeped in F1 history. As someone who has been watching F1 for much longer than I have, as well as being a Ferrari fan, I can only guess at how special it was for Kara.

One of Maranello's many Ferrari roadsigns.

The museum is a showroom of sorts, with a progression from Ferrari's early days, through to the modern era. It contains a theatre that shows many known instances of Ferraris in the movies, and has a somewhat creepy Enzo Ferrari statue, sat in his office. There is a cool little display, showing the evolution of Ferrari's F1 cars in miniature form. There's also many concept and prototype cars that look almost space-age. I don't know which one I liked more, as they were all so beautiful.

Me studying the telemetry systems that Ferrari use to monitor their drivers and car performance.

A display of the evolution of Ferrari F1 cars.

The reason we were there was to see the F1 exhibit. The "Hall of Victories". It was spectacular, with a semi-circular dais that displayed several of Ferrari's driver and constructor championship winning cars from the last 15 years or so. Schumacher, Massa, Raikkonen and Barichello all had at least one of their cars there. The back wall was taken up with just some of the silverware the team has won during their time in F1, with a display case below it that had a little section for each of their championship winning drivers. Each driver's picture was there, with their helmet on a little plinth inside the case. There was also a small chamber where visitors could stand inside and select specific F1 car noises from particular periods. It was sort of the opposite of a sensory deprivation tank, being assaulted by the sound of these amazing machines. For those reading who might not be aware of why reminders of Schumacher might be upsetting, he is Kara's sporting hero and almost a year ago he sustained a massive head injury which has meant he hasn't gone in front of the public since. Despite no longer being a Ferrari driver, the "Forza Michael" sign in the lobby is just one way of seeing how deep his connections are to Ferrari. He is beloved by Ferrari fans.

Part of the Ferrari "hall of victories".

The travelling to Firenze wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad either. The cabins were air conditioned and Italian trains are a fraction of the price of British trains. We travelled from Milan to Rome by train over the course of the trip and spent around £60 for both of us. I don't think £60 will get you a return to Aberdeen these days. Italian trains are pretty good.

Ok, so lastly, the gluten-free section of this post. The Clubhouse (Via Dè Ginori, 6, 50129 Firenze) in Florence might well be my favourite restaurant we visited in the whole trip. It's difficult to judge the gluten-free offering as they were all out of both pizza and pasta when we visited. All I can tell you is that my pizza and Kara's steak were delicious. I would not say I'm a big fan of pizza unless it's done properly, and that means the place must have a log-burning oven. This place not only has a log-burning oven, but it has a specialist pizza chef or "Pizzaiolo" that made me an amazing pizza. It's a bit on the premium side, with all of the little extras costing around €5 or so. We spent around €50 in there on our first night, but I think it would have cost more in the UK to have food of that quality. So yes, I mentioned pizza again. I assure you, it's going to come up before this travel blog is finished.

Next up, our first proper day in Firenze. One of my new favourite places.

roguester47 10/24/14 roguester47 10/24/14

"Pizza Hunters" - Day 2: Milan to Modena

The hunt for pizza is on. *Spoilers* We find one! Also, contains some pretty mild bashing of religion. Read at your own discretion.

Journal Entry Day 2: Milan to Modena
08.52 - "Hotel New York" - Milan
Not a great night. It seems that the hotel ran out of pillows to we got slabs of granite. Pretty loud outside too, with the Centrale Stazione right there. Italian driving is something else; they don't hold back on the horn and it's just constant bedlam. Also, pedestrian crossings are more risky over here, as it's more of a "go for it" mentality for both driver and pedestrian. Breakfast was delicioso, but we had to settle for a couple of sweetened peaches for Kara. Here's hoping today's outing goes better.
17.50 - Centrale Stazione - Milan
So we've seen the Dumo and some more of Milano. The Duomo is impressive from the outside and quite lavish on the inside. Many of the features inside are geared towards tourists, but there is a confessional that was in operation during our visit.
As well as still being an active church, there are two embalmed bishops/cardinals that lie in one of the corners of the church itself. There was also the remains of a 16th century saint, interred in a crypt underneath. It was a bit odd; walking past an old glass coffin with a dead guy in it. The whole thing is somewhat tarnished by my views on the Catholic church, as there was the traditional "collection for the poor" while they charge for everything. I understand that it's not free to keep a church in good repair, but it bothers me to see such opulence next to such poverty.
We rode the Milan metro to get into town, after yesterday's fiasco and a bad night's sleep. It was pretty damn toasty, what with Mr Jesus' "no shorts, no shoulders" rule taking effect. Kara and I also went into the Ferrari shop, as it just didn't feel right not to. We both looked at lots of very expensive stuff, as well as quite a lot of utter tat...which was also quite pricey now that I consider it.
Milan seems to be a city under renovation. So many crane arms can be seen in the skyline, while many older buildings are covered with dustsheets and scaffolding. We saw a fair amount of Milan's skyline and despite a few steeples, it's mostly boring office blocks and highrise flats. Even the roof of the Duomo is being fixed and it's easy to see the "new " and "old" bits as they are positioned right next to each other. I think I was most impressed from the street level, looking up at Il Duomo. Every sculpture is exquisitely crafted, the doors themselves being works of art.
After Il Duomo, we headed for "San Bernardino Alle Ossa": an old church with an ossuary in the wings. Kara was beside herself with joy at the sight of what must be 1,000 skulls. There are what looks like arm and leg bones in with them, and they form a macabre but impressive sight. I think Kara was able to move Milan from "not for me" to "OMG!", at least for a little while.
We also were able to find Kara gluten free pizza. Sadly, after yesterday's stomach shrinking food shortage, she wasn't able to finish it. I tried to help, but to no avail. After a wee walk on the grounds of the Castello Sforzesco, we took a train back to Stazione Centrale, where I am writing this. I was in the mood to experiment, so I paid €6 for an "aperitivo". Basically, you buy a drink and get a free buffet. I had some amazing antipasti and reminded myself that I don't like beer. Kara looked folorn and hungry, so I went to pick up some crisps so she could pinch them from my plate. They looked just like kettle chips, but they were these incredible hand made gourmet crisps. There was a moment when we both into into a new batch to discover they were still warm and we just locked eyes and went "mmmm!"

Ok, so I apologise that I am complaining about a bad night's sleep. For the sake of a blog, it's not strictly relevant, but it was very much on my mind at the time. The point about Italian driving being a crazy free-for-all certainly holds true throughout all of the cities we visited. I will mention it in later posts, but Italian drivers are all auditioning to be racecar drivers. This extends to the motorbike and scooter riders who whizz past buses at full speed, often with pillion passengers. It makes crossing the road a potentially terrifying experience. A red or green light doesn't mean quite the same over here. It's more of a "if you're gonna go, go now" or "for the love of God, do not even attempt to cross now" kind of deal. This applies to both driver and pedestrian, so you need to be assertive but cautious when crossing the road. For the first few days, I still had a hard time trying to predict Italian traffic, partly due to them driving on the opposite side to the UK, but also because they have tiny little offshoot roads, and Milan seemed to have places where the road was actually two roads next to each other (as in traffic going left, right, left right if you were looking from one pavement across to the other).

I suppose I should elaborate on my thoughts regarding the Catholic church. As we booked our flights and trains etc, I knew that many of the sites we'd want to visit were owned by the Catholic church. My criticisms were undoubtedly nothing that your average Catholic hasn't heard before and I don't want to upset anyone who's reading this. It boils down to me being a cynic about the goings on behind closed doors. I don't think being a Catholic is bad, and I don't universally condemn religion, but the real-life outcome is brought into sharp focus when you visit a country that still feels very Catholic. While we were visiting, we were able to gleam a little bit of the debate in the news regarding the Catholic church's stance on homosexuality. The outcome didn't seem particularly positive, but I suppose it's good to see that the current Pope (who becomes a much more prominent figure once we get to Rome) is trying to discuss it publicly, giving it acknowledgement. I think my cynicism really came to a head when I saw the juxtaposition of the poverty on the streets of Milan, paired with the Duomo's "poor box" right next to the "restoration of the Duomo" box, while we were charged just to climb some stairs to the roof. It just seemed to coalesce with the stories of priests who drive Ferraris but extoll the virtues of modesty and a simple life to form a picture that gets under my skin. I know it's my choice to go in there, and I know there are good and bad examples for every faith (or atheism for that matter) but looking up at the astonishing Duomo and knowing that I was about to give money to an organisation I neither trust nor support gave me pause for thought.

The shops of Milan are many, but from my point of view, there's only maybe 5 or 6 major themes to the shops. We weren't really interested in any of them, as we were on a pretty tight budget (which we only really appreciated in the last couple of days) and we had little to no space at all in our luggage. It felt like walking around a procedurally generated videogame world, filled with the same storefronts. You have gelato counters, bars/restaurants, super-expensive designer clothes that mostly seem to look like they're for old ladies, slightly less expensive clothes shop that sell leather everything (which is ironic, as all of the people in there looked like they had leather skin), sandwich shops that taunted my girlfriend that just wanted a gluten-free cheese toastie and last of all; shoe shops. The only one of these we were interested in was the gelato counter, and Kara's lactose-free diet meant we were looking out for those that sold sorbet (or "granite" in Italian).

San Bernardino Alle Ossa was incredible. Creepy as hell, mind you, but a real marvel. Italy's churches don't hold back the macabre elements of the faith they teach. From the hundreds of skulls on display in the ossuary to the entombed bodies we saw at the Duomo, it's evident that the death element of Catholicism is not overlooked in the slightest in Italy.

One of the walls at San Bernardino Alle ossa

The place we went for lunch in Milan was a restaurant that was a little out of the way called Cookwindow at Amatore Sciesa. Kara was pleasantly surprised with her first taste of Italian gluten-free pizza. It gave us some hope for our future travels.

By the end of this day, we had travelled to Modena as well, but for reasons that will be fairly apparent in the next post, I wasn't able to address them until what was technically day 4. I guess the outcome of our trip to Milan was that we made the best of it, and that if you are eating gluten-free then plan ahead for Milan as the city centre makes no accommodations for coeliacs.

roguester47 10/23/14 roguester47 10/23/14

"But I've been places!" - Day 1: Edinburgh To Milan

We fly out to Milan. It's...not the best part of the trip.

Journal EntryDay 1: Edinburgh To Milano
10.36 PM - "Hotel New York" - Milan
A red letter day! Kara's first ever flight and my first time abroad in almost 15 years! Kara was visibly bouncing with excitement as the bus approached the airport. Seeing the planes taking off and landing appeared to be too much for her.
Once we got to the concourse, I was hit in the face with the smell of perfume. I'm guessing that it's the smell of "international air travel." After today, neither Kara nor I smell like perfume! At security, Kara's excitement transformed into anxiety as she was faced with rules that were new and scary, but I guess that after a short while, she was fine. Her shipping job has prepared her for this kinda thing.
Once we were aboard, the excitement returned. I was happy just to watch Kara bounce in her chair. She got the window seat, so she had her face stuck to the glass, watching other planes take off. When it was our turn, it was great to see the grin on her face. I had forgotten how it feels to lift off like that. The flight wasn't too bad and we arrived about twenty minutes early. We went through passport control but to our disappointment, we didn't get our passports stamped. Kinda sad about that one. Kara exclaimed "But I've been places!" Still, we're here in Milan now.
So the bus from Malpensa to Milano was kinda depressing. It's very industrial and modern, with lots of factories. Not particularly pleasant. We found our hotel and it's not too bad. It sort of overlooks Centrale Stazione; where we'll be leaving for Modena tomorrow.
Milan itself is...not great, at least for us. We came to Italy for food, art, history and architecture (and Ferrari, some might say). Today's main "quest" was to feed Kara and Milan was extremely disappointing in that regard. I was reminded of the evening early in our relationship where we traveled over most of Edinburgh to feed Kara. Despite the setting, we didn't have a romantic a time as I hadn't eaten since breakfast and Kara had only eaten junk food. We were eventually saved by a young girl who showed Kara she could have...and I'm not joking here; roast beef and potatoes. This is an improvement on the plan that Kara had originally, which was Burger King fries. Milan is a mother-hubbard for coeliacs.
Personally, I had one goal food-wise in Milan: Panzerotti from "Luini's". I achieved that goal...twice! It's a bit like someone made a pizza croissant then fried it. Bellisimo!
While I'm sure Milan has some great art, (The Last Supper is in Milan) I don't think we're going to see it, sadly. I am a tad worried that we never will, as I have no great compulsion to return. As for "history and architecture", the Duomo in Milan is incredible. It is enormously impressive and beautiful. Sadly, it is under renovation in parts which leaves it with scaffolding all over it. To be honest, this pales in comparison to the huge banners for designer shops and perfumes. It's disappointing to see it on such a wonderful structure.
Another unfortunate aspect of Milan which we will undoubtedly encounter again on our trip; is the con-artists and shysters that prowl around the scenic parts, preying on unsuspecting tourists. The like to sell little bits of coloured string by forcing you to take one, then charging you for it. One of them equated me not wanting to take a bracelet to me "hating Africa". The other told me that Glasgow Celtic is his favourite team. I struggle to believe that.
We're back at the hotel now. Kara is trying to sleep so I guess I should too. It's off to see Il Duomo tomorrow, then perhaps a graveyard or a tomb? (Kara would be a curious, if somewhat squeemish Tomb Raider). After Milan, it's Modena as a little "pit-stop" before Maranello. (See what I did there?)
Signing off for day 1. Perhaps I will dream of Panzerotti!

So that was day 1. Looking back now after the trip, I am a tad disappointed that we had such a bad time in Milan. We only ended up visiting as our cheapest flight landed in Milan and we wanted to do something while we were there. I'm glad we went in the end, Il Duomo was beautiful as were some of the other sights that we glimpsed in Milan. We don't have many pictures from the first day, as we were supremely paranoid (and perhaps justifiably so) of someone snatching an iphone or camera from us. I know it makes us sound like typical sheltered tourists, but I want to stress that the worst and most aggressive con-artists we encountered in Italy were working in the square beside Il Duomo. One of them forced us to engage with him by placing a piece of coloured string on Kara's shoulder, meaning she could either shake it off onto the floor or use her hand to pick it up. Before we knew what was happening, the guy had clipped two onto her wrist and was essentially begging for money. These guys hang around in big groups and it was actually impossible to stand still for more than 30 seconds without being harassed by these "string salesmen" as we took to calling them. Combined with a lacklustre dinner and the feeling that eating in Italy might not be so easy, I wrote this journal piece quite downtrodden.

On the other hand, it was nice to reflect on Kara's first flying experience, as well as encountering someone with enough of a brass-neck to claim that Celtic is his favourite football team while he's standing in the middle of Milan (my limited football knowledge tells me that Milan has good football teams) and expect me to believe him. He was from Senegal, apparently. The other positive from day 1 was Panzerotti. Sweet baby Jebus, that is some good food. I did feel bad eating it, especially as Kara was very hungry and we were both in quite a bad mood by this point. When I found this location, I knew I was going to have to stop to have one. Panzerotti is like a miniature calzone, but the ones I had were made from a buttery dough, like a croissant or an Aberdonian "roll". The usual pizza toppings take up the inside, and they taste amazing. Kara must have hated watching me pull away big strings of mozzarella with every bite. I wolfed them down like a starving man.

Apologies that the first post is a bit of a downer, but I promise, things do get better!