Posts about Travelling (RSS, JSON)

3PM — I first visited Sydney ten years ago when I spent a lot of time in or close to the city centre. I went to posh bars with rude bouncers and moronic bar keepers who correct your pronunciation of drinks. It’s Tooheys not Tootheys; there’s not extra “T”. The city beaches were full of fake-tanned women and men on steroids, arriving and leaving and beefed-up convertibles, blasting Eurodance hits from three years ago. All very plastic, superficial and pretentious, a southern-hemisphere Miami.

I went back to Sydney after Christmas. I stayed north of the bay this time, an area that is suburban but lively. Yellow sand beaches where children learn to surf, beautiful rock pools where seniors swim laps with graceful technique. The pine trees lend the are a northern-Californian vibe.

The walk from Bradleys Head via Chowder Bay and Middle Head to Balmoral leads through dense canopy. Oftentimes all you hear are birds. It’s so green you easily forget you’re only twenty minutes away from the bustling city, if it wasn’t for the spectacular views of Sydney’s harbour and the never-ending supply of million-dollar homes so big you start to question your life choices.

Kandinsky and Louise Bourgeois at the Art Gallery NSW were worth visiting but not impressive. Kandinsky, whose time teaching at the Bauhaus made him a local hero where I grew up so we covered his work ad nauseam. I had seen a lot of his work before, except his later stuff, which could easily pass a contemporary graphic design. And Bourgeois is just not my jam, way too conceptual.

I’ve changed my mind. Sydney is nice. It has things to do for adults. It has leafy neighbourhoods with nice pubs. It has functioning public transport. Even in suburban neighbourhoods there’s frequent bus service. There is live on the street during the day.

Melbourne on the other hand feels more and more like Berlin. A place that is popular with the young and hip, lauded for its art scene and sprawling creativity. But its streets outside the inner city are deserted between 5am and 10pm. It’s a place that very desperately tries to be a city, but it’s really just a small town that is only big because of its sprawling bland suburbia.

4PM — All of my visits to Heidelberg are the same. I arrive, see friends, hang around their houses, we go for dinner, have drinks. Wake up a little hung over. Repeat until I make my way to catch train to go somewhere else.

I lived in Heidelberg for three years until I left for London ten years ago. This was my first visit since where I actually spent time in Heidelberg, walking around, visiting familiar places, taking in the place.

The university campus where I used to work has, in its centre, a group of connected, concrete office blocks that were build in the 1960s. They look like the perfect set for Netflix production about soviet scientists from the 1980s. Great for taking photos but an eyesore for many and one local pointed out.

The architect’s brief must have been to build a dystopian answer to Heidelberg’s picturesque old town; sandwiched between the river and green, steep hills, the castle throning over the town as a constant reminder not to mess with the French.

Visiting Heidelberg evokes similar contradicting feelings. I liked living here, I made good friends, many of which I still speak to regularly. But I never arrived, I never considered it my home.

7AM

Lisbon is a strange place. Tourists love its picturesque hills and the cobblestoned alleyways meandering in-between old, beautifully tiled buildings. It’s the perfect Instagram holiday destination. But Lisbon is too small for all those people coming off the cruise ships. It’s narrow roads are too crowded, people everywhere trying to avoid stepping in dog shit and dodging the rumbling trams and cars. So many cars on so little space. Lisbon could be the perfect walkable city if only it was pedestrianised beyond the innermost parts of the city. Still, it’s worth visiting—only to enjoy octopus for dinner, Ginjinha for desert and overdose on pastel de natas during the day.

7PM — “Tech Is Allowing Businesses to Overcharge You in Tips.” As a European, tipping in the US was always different. You don’t tip for good service; you tip because that’s how people in the service industry make a living. But during a recent trip to the US, I noticed tipping is now expected everywhere, even in a bottle shop, where I took a pack of beer from the shelf, carried it to the till and walked out after paying. And at one lunch place, the staff member even selected a tip instead of me doing it.

Another related convenience with electronic payments quickly turns into an annoyance: You provide your email to receive an electronic receipt and automatically subscribe to the shop’s marketing emails. I now receive countless emails from coffee shops, lunch spots and restaurants.

7AM

New York is one of the places, big cities usually, where you need to know where to go. You either have good plan or someone to guide you around. If not, you naturally end up where everyone goes: The shopping districts that look the same everywhere, whether you’re in North America, Europe or Australia. The tourist traps with its gift shops, overpriced chain restaurants, and selfie opportunities. And the places that are made to look cool and exciting, like markets in industrial settings that sell overpriced street food and trinkets that collect dust at home. When I arrived in New York for a one-day visit, I stumbled around like an absolute tourist and ended up in precisely those places.

Large parts of Manhattan are devoid of any character now. I watched too many movies set in the New York of the 60s and 70s, and today’s New York—naturally—is very different. It’s now full bland modern buildings that have replaced the architecture I’ve come to know from these movies: Red bricks, art-deco features and fire escapes. Change is inevitable; I’m sure some people didn’t like the Empire State Building when it was completed in 1931, towering over Manhattan and dwarfing everything else.

If you’ve lived in a big city, you build a tolerance for these things; they are part of the city’s ever-changing nature. Still, when I go to New York, I want to feel like I’m in a Woody Allen movie.

2PM — Blogging has been this week while I’m in Washington DC for work. Normal service will resume at the end of next week.

5PM — I had a toy Boeing 747 as a kid, and I was well excited when I boarded one for the first time on a trip to the US in 2005. I was surprised to learn this week that they have been building 747s until now. The last jumbo jet ever to be built took off from Everett yesterday, where it was built, to fly to Cincinnati. On the way, the pilots took a little detour.

Queen of the skies.

If you want to experience what air travel was like in the 90s, you should fly a 747 with Lufthansa while you still can. There is hardly any space in the overhead lockers, the seats and the entertainment system—everything really—feel like they are from a different time, and everything is shaking and squeaking during take-off.