Tag: Travel

Narcissism, Vanity, Selfies.

2

plotting world travel

I promise, I’m not about to fall in a pond and drown or anything.  I got bored of just plotting further travel and decided to take some self-portraits.  At the moment I’m the only person who’ll pose for me, so I’m the only model I can practice on.   And right now, I like being curled up on the bed reading, so that’s my modelling location (also, right now I seem to only like photos with only bits of my face in – clearly full-frontal portraiture is not my thing).  I have Jasper Fforde’s newest, Shades of Grey, and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point on the go.    I’m also reading the Lonely Planet Encounter Guide to Berlin.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. BERLIN.

OK. Shrieking done.

I have just over two months left in Germany before the lease on the apartment is up/the scholarship money stops coming in and I have to head back to the Cornwall (where I plan to carry on exactly the same way I am now – writing, job hunting, and taking photos, except with less wurst and more roskilly’s ice cream).  So I’m trying to make the most of it.  I’m going to Trier for a couple of days at the end of the week to see Roman stuff. Trier’s nearly three hours by train, so a day trip is pushing it, giving me an excuse to stay overnight, hurrah.   Then, before I finally head home the Maternal Unit is coming out to visit so that we can go down the Rhine to Mainz, the Loreley and Koblenz – and so that she can give me a hand yanking my hefty suitcase on and off the trains on the way home.  Aaaand, Berlin.  Read more...

: Photography,Travel
: , , ,

back at work [cough]

0

I just came back from California, so I really need to be getting on with writing some stuff about the trip/editing photos/working on my article-in-progress.    However, I got back on Saturday and woke up jetlagged on Sunday to find that it had snowed in Cologne. I promptly put on the wrong pair of trainers and headed out to church, first getting my shoes, socks and feet wet and then sitting in an Anglican church for two hours. It goes without saying that church was cold. All Anglican churches are cold, thems the rules. I think you’re supposed to get so used to it that you become even more afraid of hellfire, because it would be Too Hot.   Anyway, I now have a streaming cold and I don’t feel like doing any of it, so I’m just faffing around, mainlining Fisherman’s Friends and working my way through a box of tissues and several lemons with a lot of honey.

For the time being, take it that I had a great  trip, the conferences was really good, and that exploring the snowy bank of the Merced looking for the spot from which a flickr contact of mine takes his killer El Capitan shots was a highlight.  I’m not sure if I found the right spot (yes, no, maybe they were his footprints from the previous weekend that Iwas stepping in) – but I did find snow, reflection and a good view of the rock, and got this, which I’m really really happy about.  Read more...

: Photography,Travel
: , ,

Mid-Week Skiving

0

I can’t remember exactly why I decided that skipping out on a day in the library to go to Aachen was better than waiting to the weekend, since there wasn’t any rugby to watch at the weekend (I’ve found an Irish pub in Cologne that shows rugby, and I’m very excited about the possibility of seeing the autumn internationals – or I was until practically the entire England squad ended up in the hospital).  I suspect it was to do with the weathe – that I decided that I didn’t see the point in day-tripping in the rain, and so picked the first not-rainy day to go hop on the train.

Aachen is a wee city (well, wee-er than Cologne) near the border, and it is where Charlemagne had his palace.   It’s busy developing a Charlemagne trail at the moment, which could be fun.   I mostly wanted to see the cathedral (which is home to Charlemagne’s throne) and go spa-ing.  I also fancied seeing the cathedral treasury, but in the end I passed up on it to go spa-ing, on the theory that I would be going back to Aachen, hopefully with the brilliant @Sunsetmog if she can make it out here, and could go to the Treasury then.   In the end result, I probably should have gone to the Treasury instead, spa-ing was fine, but just not quite as unwinding as it should have been, due to – well, cultural differences/personal hang-ups.  I just don’t do  mixed nekkid saunaing.  I find this not relaxing.   I also like my spa-baths to be not two flights of stairs away from my saunas. Carolus Thermen is big and swish and all, but it’s actually too big for my tastes.  Well now I know – next time I will go for Mediaeval Treasures.  Read more...

: Photography,Travel
: , , , ,

Oooh, teh shiny…

0

I have finally finished my photobook of Tanzania.  It’s mostly photos and just a little bit of travelogue (as the vast majority of the travelogue was either me listing all the different animals and birds, or spitting about Kennedy, and that’s no fun for anyone) – but I am proud of the photos.  Have a look.

000000; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; position: relative; width: 240px; height: 120px; background-color: white;">
a7a7a7; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 116px; vertical-align: middle;" src="http://www.blurb.com//images/uploads/catalog/65/497865/903874-997ca9c0322aa330ddaa46123dd440a9.jpg" alt="Tanzania" />
fd7820; text-decoration:none;" href="http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/903874?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=280x160">Tanzania
By Hannah J. Swithinbank
fd7820; line-height: 15px;">Book Preview
Bookmark and Share
: Photography,Travel
: , , , ,

Afternoon Out

0

explorationing

Today I did actual sightseeing stuff. I went to the Römisch-Germanische Museum, which is home to all the fun ancient things that have been dug up around here.  Mostly it’s too late for my tastes, being AD – although I have learnt to identify a bust of Augustus at 20 paces.  Teaching archaeology and running around Roman museums has done that much for me.   I really need to take a tame archaeologist with me to the museum, in order to properly appreciate all the stuff that’s in there – because it is clearly a really good collection that properly illustrates Roman life in the Germanic provinces. I just don’t know anything, really, about that (except that some of the Imperial family hung around up here fighting battles), and I can’t properly read the explanations, as my German isn’t that good (and my imperial archaeology isn’t good enough to guess).   Then I think I will get much more out of it.  That said, the two big mosaics (the Dionysus and the Philosophers) and the reconstructed Tomb of Poblicius can’t fail to impress even *this* Republican philistine.  They really are stunning – and beautifully displayed.    I invested in a year’s pass to the Cologne Museums (it covers all the major beasts), which at €50 for students was an absolute steal.  You’d comfortably spent €20 visiting three of the eight or nine covered, as a student, and I have plans to go to all of the ‘big three’ (the Römisch-Germanische, the Ludwig, and the Wallraf-Richartz) more than once. And I’m only here for six months.   Even if you’re not a student, the year’s pass is only about €68, which is still worth it.  Read more...

: Life in Koeln,Photography,Travel
: , , , , , ,

Sorted?

0

German phone number. CHECK.
Sends messages outside Deutschland. CHECK. Though apparently not to my mother’s phone.
Registered as a furrriner living here for more than three months. CHECK. That one took some time, due to not being able to read the signs very well. Furrrriner fail.
Bank account so I can get my scholarship. CHECK. Easiest bit. Nice bank lady who was happy to speak English to me.

I live here now.

I’m working up to the bit where I do some work.

After yesterday’s adventure to find the International Office was done, I explorationed into the city centre and saw the cathedral (quite stunning but v. busy due to something called Domswallfahrt – I may venture thence for Vespers or Evensung tomorrow though) and meandered a bit, and had my first proper Köln brewed beer, and it was all very civilised.  I spent this morning running around doing busywork, and then pootled back into the Neuemarkt where I had spied a Habitat, for I needed pillows.  Don’t do your household shopping in Habitat, ye godes.  I whimpered and fled from the one-person €30 coffee presses and €50 towels towards a nice department store called Karstadt, where I spent about half the amount on a pair of pillows, a towel and flanel, the fluffiest blankey you ever did contemplate snuggling up in, and a coffee press.  Mmmm. I can have coffee tomorrow morning.  Read more...

: Academia,Life in Koeln,Travel
: , , ,

Arrival

0

So, I have arrived in Cologne. It was a loooooong day of trains. Left St Erth at 0700, and arrived at Koln Hofbahnhof at 2115, by way of London and Brussells. Did I mention it was looooong. And my big suitcase was superheavy (which was partly why I got the train), and now my arm is so tired from pulling it that I can barely hold a pen to write a list of all the things I need to do tomorrow.

But my new landlord met me off the train, and brought me to the apartment, so I have a very hazy idea of where I live, except that it’s about 10 minutes walk from a direct train/tram (seriously, it starts as a u-bahn, and ends up overground like a tram) into the city centre, and that there’s a nearer stop if I don’t mind changing once along the way.  I know that there’s lots of shops on a street that we walked up, including a supermarket that opens at 7am, which is good, as I will need breakfast tomorrow (having had a cereal bar and satsuma for supper). I know that the university is vaguely ‘up-the-way’, and I’m going to trot off there tomorrow to find the international office, who were supposed to be emailing me about an appointment for tomorrow, but haven’t – but I have been invited to a concert and drinks, and to a reception by the mayor, and a city tour, and offered shiny public transport deals, so I guess I can go find them about the other stuff, like police registration and banks. My German appears to be coming back – at least, I can understand a good deal, but I don’t have the confidence to talk yet. My default foreign language is still Italian, so I need to crack that habit. Tomorrow I think I will be writing lists of conjugations and declensions, and pinning them up around the apartment to help me out.  Read more...

: Life in Koeln,Musings,Travel
: , ,

Is Back Home

0

Sitting in front of the tennis watching Federer and ignoring Robson (who isn’t doing herself any harm with her performance, even if she does go down to Hantuchova). I have seventy thousand photos to process still, but that’ll happen (slowly), and seventy thousand words to edit. I have a print out of the thesis-so-far and am wielding the pink muji pen over it to try and sort out the two problem chapters to the soothing sounds of tennis balls being hit too and fro (and this is why I won’t be watching much women’s tennis – the grunting, it is NOT soothing).

Tanzania ended in a Battle Royale with Kenedy (albeit with less blood) which we finally won. Fortunately, Zanzibar is such that it’s appeal can survive even his awfulness in the memory. Dar not so much – but then there is so little to do, and it’s horribly humid, so it’s not so appealing. We spent our last day on the Msasani Peninsula relaxing at Sea Cliff Village. I got very excited because there was a Spur, which I know from holidays in South Africa, and so we ate amazing steak, and waffles and ice cream, whcih meant there was no room for plane food at all, fortunately.  Read more...

: Musings,Travel
: , , , , , ,

Not quite at the beach yet. But nearly

2

Am on Zanzibar. I hereby refuse to recommend Safari Planners as a safari organiser, ‘cos they are not organised, and the director flat out lied to us last night when he said he had our names down for the ferry today, and would bring our tickets in the morning. This morning, we drove down to the ferry, and then he took our names and nationalities, and went and bought our tickets. Still we got on the ferry, and got here, and his guy on Zanzibar is far better organised and personable than he is. We may have been screwed out of a bit of cash, but we are in Zanzibar and we have a nice hotel in Stone Town (with a TV and Setanta Sports no less, so we caught up on the Lions injury list whilst cleaning up after the ferry). Tomorrow we are spice touring, and on Friday off to Jambiani on the east coast for a couple of days on the beach. Today we have been for ice cream and cake on the waterfront, and browsing the shops to get some ideas of prices for haggling, and work out what we want to buy when we come back to Stone Town on Monday. Epic numbers of shawls, and Barack Obama kangas are on the list.  Read more...

: Travel
: , , , ,

Still Here…

0

Internets in Arusha are Rubbishes.

Had an amazing weekend in Kilimatinde, of which more later when good internets. But my old kindergarten is still going strong (and they have uniforms now, very exciting), and some of my old KG kids are in the secondary school now (way to make me feel old), and it was wonderful and brilliant, and kind of sad, in the way that going back to old places can be, because nearly all of the people I knew there have left to go and do new things, and I don’t know when I’ll get back again, but there’ll be even less of them then… But it was beautiful and ace, and so worth the 8 hour bus from Dar to get there, and the 13 hour bus to Arusha to get here. And tomorrow I am off on safari-times. Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. I have 16 gigs of memory cards. I think that is enough.

Bookmark and Share
: Travel
: , , ,
Page 1 of 212»
Calotropis theme by itx