By this Author: vagabondvoyager

I had trouble sleeping last night - I kept waking up, every so often. I eventually woke up on my own at 6:00 AM, 15 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I sweated like a pig again last night, despite the cold room. Weird.

I walked over to the train station - there appeared to be an extra train to the airport that wasn't listed in the schedule. Woo hoo! That means I can arrive at the airport earlier and begin to think ... about ... going ... home ... wait a sec ... that's not a good thing ... Anyway, I just made the earlier train and arrived 7 or 8 minutes earlier at the airport than I had planned to. On the train, I ate a banana and some juice that I purchased last night. The juice was pretty bad - Del Monte orange/apple/passion fruit. No flavour. The check-in was amazingly quick, and the next thing I knew I was on the plane. The on-board magazine had a world map of all the destinations that Monarch Airlines flies to - what better way to get over the depression of going home than to start planning the next trip for this summer? I've always had a long term plan of how I wanted to tackle Europe - I figured I need 5 more trips to finish it all off. There are still the Nordic countries, France/Germany, Turkey/Greece, Eastern Europe (Bosnia/Herzegovina/Serbia/Montenegro/Bulgaria/ Macedonia/Albania - this will be a tough one to pull off!), and the UK. But given what I've seen of the UK on this trip, I might not do a separate trip for that and simply finish it off while in transit to the other European nations. With all of the cheap flights from the UK to mainland Europe, I can easily check out Ireland, Wales, and the rest of England a little bit here, and a little bit there. Of course, the logistics of re-visiting certain countries I have already visited still need to be worked out. I'd love to see more of Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Holland, Poland, and the Czech Republic (and of course, SPAIN!!!). I also need to find a way to see Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, if only to be able to say that I went to these postage stamp-sized countries. Maybe I can combine northern Germany with the Scandinavian countries, and maybe work in Denmark. The beauty about Germany is that it's a big transport hub, and there are direct flights from Calgary, making it easy to fly into London and then out of Frankfurt, eliminating any backtracking. And what about Corsica? I could probably fit it into a France trip by taking a night ferry from Marseille. Madeira and the Azores? Kind of out of the way, so who knows if that'll ever be possible. I'd also like to return to the Balearic Islands in Spain ... somehow, someway, I always seem to go back there! Hee hee, and maybe I'll start planning the next Christmas trip - maybe I could hit Tunisia (but it might be tackily touristy like the Canaries), Morocco, or Malta. They'll all be relatively cool in the winter - Malta might be a waste since it's more of a diving destination, and I don't know how that would be in the winter. Or maybe Israel, Egypt, Australia, Cyprus, or an African safari? Winter time might be a good period to visit South America. Our winter would be their summer, so maybe Patagonia wouldn't be completely frigid. Perhaps I can finally achieve Spanish fluency if I hang out there for a while. There are just too many choices - how can a guy decide? I've filled roughly 7 pages in my passport with stamps, and have about 12 more to go! I guess it's unimportant how I go about that. Anyway ... enough about travel. Breakfast was pretty blah - OJ, a cheese/tomato/lettuce croissant, and a dry walnut muffin. The apple breakfast bar had a bad artificial flavour to it. Holly McNarland's "Beautiful Blue" came on as I ate - that song definitely has a different meaning when heard on a plane, soaring through the stratosphere, amongst the clouds! I also listened to one of my favourite songs from the past year or two - Blue October's "You make me smile". I love listening to this song while traveling because travel makes me smile!!! They played another episode of "Top Gear" - I am starting to love this show. They tested the Jaguar XKR and compared its ugly front end to a "stubbly, Coulthard-y chin". Pretty funny if you watch F1 racing, because David Coulthard is renowned for having a big, ugly chin. One of the hosts got to drive a car outfitted with a jet engine - 5000 Hp!!! 10,000 Hp once you fire up the after-burner!!! He managed to take the car up to 340 mph on his first run but on the second, he had a tire blowout at 288 mph, resulting in a massive crash and some pretty severe injuries. Even sliding sideways, the car was still traveling at 240 mph. The show was filmed after he fully recovered, but the funny thing was that in the actual footage of him racing the car, he was making all sorts of jokes about crashing the car, etc. His co-hosts couldn't help cracking up every time he alluded to a crash in the footage. Watched the "Bourne Ultimatum" - one of the few movie franchises that I would love to see more sequels from. It's refreshing to see the gritty, rugged action scenes, and I especially love the shrill music they play at the end of the Bourne movies. It gives me goose bumps! Dinner was pretty suspect - a sour, mustardy potato salad that was almost wasabi-like with the way it burned, and the grains in the mustard were almost like masago, those tiny fish eggs you can get with sushi. A few shreds of romaine lettuce helped dull the burn of the mustard. The cheese and crackers were probably the best part of the meal - the cheese package read "Red Leicester", but I'm not sure if that was the brand or type of cheese. The main course was a creamy chicken and leek type of stew with mashed potatoes, carrot balls, and peas. It was almost like Chicken a la King, but it definitely wasn't fit for royalty! The dry bun wasn't too terrible when I used it to mop up the creamy sauce. Dessert was an orange meringue with graham cracker crumbs, topped with chocolate shavings and whipped cream. It had obviously been prepared several days before, but it still didn't last long with me - most desserts never do! I finished off with a small piece of Lindt chocolate - this reminded me that I didn't consume enough chocolate on this trip!!! Later on, one of the female passengers onboard passed out - turned out to be nothing major, but that's got to be a scary thing for her family to see at this altitude, and so far from any medical help. So ... the Canary Islands weren't quite what I expected. I knew it would be touristy, but I never expected it to be this bad. Seeing as there are hardly any guidebooks for the Canaries, I suspected that there might be some good off-the-beaten-path spots. But there are probably no guidebooks available because anyone that goes there just wants to stay at an all-inclusive resort, and who needs a guidebook for that? Those purpose-built tourist resorts are pretty bad ... there's very little that is real about them. It's like they took a piece of the UK and plopped it down in a tropical island. I really see no appeal in traveling somewhere, only to expect it to be exactly like how you have it back home - from the food, to the drinks, to the bars. There's something nice about letting go of everything you know and immersing yourself in something different. Travel is an escape, a way of getting out of your comfort zone - how is that possible if all you want is a slice of home, with the only difference being that it's in a nicer locale? Then it's like you're in a bizarre parallel universe, where you sit in a foreign paradise and wonder why instead of beautiful bronzed Spanish beauties, all you see are pasty/sun-burned Northern Europeans. Why? The Canaries are a lot like a beautiful woman that has been scarred by unnecessary plastic surgery and excessive much make-up, spoiling her natural beauty that lies beneath. What a shame ... it's completely unnecessary! But still - there are some real places around. If you strip away the artificial aspects, there is still something beautiful underneath. Would I ever go back? At first thought, no - but there are still two less-touristed islands that I missed out on. And I really did like some parts of the Canaries - perhaps if I ever happened to be in the area again, but given its location, that really isn't feasible. Scotland and England had their moments on this trip - but I'm not in a big hurry to return to the UK. But I know that I'll be there again soon, because it makes so much sense as a transportation hub. So, this ends another trip. As always, there is definitely a song that became the soundtrack for the journey. There were several contenders - perhaps Nelly Furtado's "I'm like a bird" could be the song, with its title being a bit of a pun for the Canary Islands, and also a reference to me always taking off? Or perhaps one of the songs that was quite popular and all over the radio while we were traveling? "Bleeding love" by Leona Lewis, or a Spanish song, "Cuando me vaya" by Melocos (featuring Natalia, from "La Quinta Estacion") are also good candidates. Or how about Massive Attack's "America"? But none of these songs fully encompass the spirit of this trip - to find an appropriate song, we must look to a classic Spanish-language song - La Cucaracha. What better song is there to express what we experienced on this trip? The cockroaches in Corralejo were scarily gargantuan, but they also are metaphoric - they represent the horrible scarring and destruction of these beautiful islands by over-development, like cockroaches on rotting carrion! So I leave you with the lyrics - adios! La cucaracha, la cucaracha Ya no puede caminar Porque no tiene, porque le falta Marihuana pa' fumar The cockroach, the cockroach Can't walk anymore Because it doesn't have, because it's lacking Marijuana to smoke

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Chatted briefly with the old timer before having breakfast. Had some peach melba yogurt - I can't say there was any melba in the yogurt, only tiny little bits of unidentifiable matter. Perhaps in the UK, melba means "little bits of insects". Had a bun instead of toast today - a little stale. It was the same breakfast crap as yesterday, yet I somehow managed to overeat again, and felt like crap once more ... As I finished up breakfast, I glanced down at my watch - 9:30 AM ... my plane home would be taking off in exactly 24 hours ... sigh ... Off to the train station - I was a little disappointed that I never actually got to say goodbye to the old timer. It was raining hard outside - my strategy of hanging my towel on the exterior of my backpack to dry only works in warm, sunny countries. When I arrived at the train station, my towel was wetter than it was after I had dried myself after showering. And like my towel, I was soaked when I arrived. There is some pretty poor signage at the station - I couldn't find the WC for a while and almost soaked myself once again ... It's a good thing that the UK train system isn't as efficient as its French or German counterparts. I thought I had just missed the train, but it ended up being late, giving me just enough time to hop onboard. I noticed a very cute and proper British girl sitting across the way. Who knew that a beautiful girl eating a crappy pre-packaged sandwich could be so mesmerizing? Probably only to a guy that is easily mesmerized by the now-famous "Toledo Spanish Hottie Lookaway Maneuver" (I named that myself - you like?). Such a tiny girl ... so how could she eat such a big sandwich? "Home" by Michael Buble started playing on my iPod and for a moment, I actually felt homesick. That feeling soon went away after I started bashing my head against the chair in front of me to regain my senses. The cute sandwich girl looked a little bit concerned for me until she realized "At least that creepy guy is no longer staring at me while I eat my sandwich." Manchester - I wasn't sure what to expect because not many good things are said about this city. It didn't help after talking to those two Manchester students yesterday - "What's there to see and do in Manchester?" "Uh ... nothing?" The hostel was closer to the train station than I expected, even though I went to the sister hostel first, by accident. I was able to check-in early and then go sightseeing. The Northern Quarter near the hostel is pretty interesting, with a funky, alternative vibe to it.

The Manchester Art Gallery had an interesting piece entitled "Wish you were here". Visitors are encouraged to fill out luggage tags with a destination of their choice, and attach them to some old suitcases that were stacked up against a wall. The more interesting tags were "Robin Hood is gay" and "Her bottom is itchy because she didn't wipe it properly". On my tag, I wrote "Anywhere but home!!!" There were some neat paintings at the gallery - check out the pics for details. Manchester is a gritty-feeling city. My only previous experience here was a long layover two summers ago (see Euro 2006 blog entitled "6 hours of hell" http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pwong/europe_2006/1153134000/tpod.html) - my experience this time was far better. I went for a nice stroll - Manchester's library is located in a very cool building, and the Urbis is a very modern-looking building. That particular area is mostly steel and glass, and looks more like Berlin than the UK. The Urbis turned out to be one of the best things I have seen or done in a while. It had a cool elevator that was half-elevator and half-funicular. The top gallery showcased works by some art students - that was only OK. The gallery devoted to the best in advertising and design was pretty amazing. I found the exhibit pretty engrossing and ended up staying far longer than I had originally planned - check out the pics for commentary. The final exhibit was devoted to the "Hacienda", a famous Manchester club. It wasn't a big deal to me, but I'm sure it was a pretty special exhibit for people that were into the music scene back in the day. I skipped the Gallery of Arts and Crafts because the guidebook description didn't sound all that great. Did some shopping at the Arndale Centre, a large and modern mall. They had some pretty big sales, but I couldn't find anything that I liked - it was mostly sport and street wear. I did find a good deal on a pair of sneakers - the salesgirl asked to see my driver's licence because my name had rubbed off of the back of my credit card. Her reaction upon seeing my photo was immediate and priceless - "You look like a thug!" Granted that the photo was taken during my shaved head/goatee days, but it was still far from a compliment! I finally caved in and went to Subway. Their big advertising blitz in the UK is their "Sub of the Day" - a different 6" sub everyday for only 1.99 GBP. Today's selection was a meat ball sub - it was actually pretty good and a decent value, but I regretted it later on when I had a stomach ache. There were a few Asian places I could have tried instead - I was tempted earlier by some roasted duck. I also noticed an Asian girl eating a bowl of soup noodles that was almost as tempting (both the bowl of noodles and the girl ...). Back to the hostel to drop off my newly-purchased shoes and daypack. I left for a walk and forgot my umbrella - that was a bad mistake as it poured later on. I was completely soaked, but I guess I deserved it for my stupidity! Manchester has been way better than I expected, but it's still only worth a short daytrip or a stop en route to elsewhere because it's a working city, and not a tourist city. It wasn't a great way to end the trip (kind of like Frankfurt this past summer), but necessary to get home. Chatted with a Japanese bunkmate - he's been studying English in nearby Hattersfield for the past 16 months. It was company-sponsored because they are trying to expand into the UK from Japan. Apparently, Hattersfield is total crap. Though I had Subway at 17:00, I still needed a light meal to finish off the night, but nothing too heavy since it was 21:30. Well, it turned out to be a big meal anyway - I went for a kebab. This time, I asked for a knife and fork because I knew it wouldn't be the kind you could eat with your hands. Given the price (much less than in York), I thought it would be a smaller one - wrong! I took it across the street to the hostel and when I opened it, I actually said aloud "Holy sh*t!" It was at least 25% bigger than York's already massive kebab! They didn't give me a knife and I didn't want to use one of the hostel's and have to wash it after, so I went back to the room - I usually keep a few plastic ones in my daypack. As I walked into the room, I immediately noticed a cute brunette right in front of me. I said "Hi" and looked to her left and saw her tall blonde friend, partially unclothed - I got a free show! Tri would've liked this girl ... I apologized and offered to leave, but they declined. I'm not really sure why I said sorry - because they only thing I was sorry about was that it wasn't the cute brunette that was partially unclothed! I went back to the TV lounge and choked down the kebab - I left half of the kebab's pita behind and felt sick after. There was WAY too much food for me, even if I had skipped the earlier meatball sub. It was brutal - I had to alternate bites of kebab with sips of the 1 L orange juice I picked up earlier at a grocery store. There was too much meat and not enough garlic sauce. This episode reminded me of the time I was in Columbus, Ohio and ate at Chipotle, a Tex-Mex type of fast food joint. The food is actually good there, but I ordered this giant burrito that I couldn't finish. The thing was the size of a small football and even larger than tonight's kebab. Anyway, even at 3.40 GBP, the kebab was a pretty good value because it probably could feed two people. But I'm not digging the wraps they are using - bad taste and texture. I ate as I watched "Dave" again - I think it's the UK equivalent of the "Spike" channel in North America, though it's not quite as geared towards men as "Spike" is. I watched some more of those improv shows. It's a quiet hostel, which is good since I need to wake up very early for my flight home tomorrow. I tried to sleep at 11:00, but couldn't fall asleep until well after midnight. The guy above me had a strange odour ...

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There was a very good selection of hot foods at breakfast today, but none of it was any good - so why did I eat so much of it??? I think I even oinked like a pig a few times at breakfast today! But it was still WAY better than the average hostel breakfast. They had some sickeningly-sweet fudge yogurt, orange/apple/grapefruit juices, coffee, and tea. The selection of cold cuts and cheese was decent - ham, and some kind of wurst. In my unemployed backpacking days, I would've made myself a sandwich and smuggled it out of the dining room for later consumption. Buns, toast, and pains au chocolats were also available - but they kept their pains au chocolats under the heat lamp??? What a way to ruin them! They weren't that great anyway, so maybe it didn't matter. I didn't touch any of the fruit - I didn't feel like having grapefruit or prunes that had been badly picked over. The scrambled eggs were pretty strange, and the sausage had an odd flavour. The deep-fried hash browns were pretty oily and soggy. I went to the tourist office to try and get on a free tour of York. The volunteer tour guide asked if we still wanted to do the tour since it was so rainy - we all replied that it was no problem. The other tour members included a couple of students from Manchester (Turkish and German), and a couple from Bath. They had the cutest little daughter - always smiling and laughing. The mother was half-Scottish and half- Spanish - she confirmed that while I have an accent while speaking Spanish, it definitely WASN'T Irish! Vindication!!! We walked atop York's walls - that was probably the highlight of the tour but overall, the tour was kind of boring. There seemed to be gaps in the information, but that could've been due to my short attention span! I spent a chunk of the afternoon over at the Castle museum. I tried using an internet café, but a couple of people were totally abusing the Wi-Fi connection by doing some massive downloading. I couldn't even load up my email after 3 or 4 minutes, so I decided to come back later. Went back to Mr. Sandwich for a snack - I asked for a ham/cheese/salad sandwich, but he gave me a chicken salad sandwich by mistake. It was pretty huge and tasty with some nuts, raisins, lettuce, and tons of mayo. Back to York's Minster for the evensong service - it's a pretty impressive cathedral, but it was strange that there were no benches in the nave for people to sit on. The Chapter House was neat - it had some very intricate floor gratings and some creepy carved faces on the pillars. Entrance to the Minster was free because I attended the service, so I didn't want to loiter around too long since I had already scammed the system! I watched some snooker as I ate a kebab at the hostel - Stephen Hendry now sucks! I used to be a big fan back in high school, but simply got bored of the game. Got to chatting with an old timer from nearby Yorkshire. He's here for a short getaway for cycling and walking. Though he's in his 70's, the guy usually walks 8 miles per day! He also loves Spain - my guess that it also has something to do with the women. It was neat talking with the old timer - I guess his wife was a former Olympic cycling champion. I went up to the TV lounge to see what was on - I caught the credits of "Chariots of Fire" then watched some repeats of the improv shows I watched a few days ago in Edinburgh. It was another quiet night and an early bed time for me.

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At breakfast I met Giuseppe, the other guy staying at the B&B. He's a Ph. D student originally from Milan, but is now living in Southern Italy. He doesn't like Milan, either - I don't think anybody does! He's back in Durham for graduation. I started with some canned grapefruit, mandarins, and mango, all topped by a single maraschino cherry - a pretty filling start! Next was eggs Benedict - the hollandaise sauce was a little tart, but OK. The yolk wasn't runny enough. I finished off with some multi-grain toast, served in the quirky little English toast racks. Some OJ, tea, and then I was off to take some pictures of Durham. It was a VERY filling breakfast. I walked along the river until the library opened up - free internet, baby! The town was still pretty quiet, being a Sunday morning and it actually felt a little warm outside. I'm having camera problems again - the lens sometimes won't retract, but I've learned to simply push it back into place.

I grabbed a quick hot chocolate at Costa Cafe - it tasted pretty rich, but I wondered if it was instant hot chocolate. I've had way better elsewhere. I regretted not going back to the café where I had an awesome latte yesterday - I wanted to try something different, but it didn't work out. Back to the B&B to grab my bag. I walked quickly to try and catch my bus - I was sweating like a pig by the time I got to the station and just missed the bus by seconds after paying for my ticket. There was another bus scheduled to depart 4 minutes after, but for some strange reason it was scheduled to arrive at York 35 minutes after the one I missed. I tried to sleep on the bus, but it was very difficult - the bus driver selected the most annoying radio station ever! It improved slightly later on - I think they were replaying a top 40 list from the 70's. I arrived in York - I planned on taking the river path to the hostel, but the recent storms left the path covered in mud. I backtracked and took the main road to the hostel. It's pretty blah - far from the centre, but it will do. They serve some relatively cheap meals here. Off to the city centre to sightsee. There are a number of nice and reasonably-priced cafes in York, but they were all still more than I wanted to spend for dinner. Instead, I picked up a sausage roll, some chocolate goo cake, and milk before heading back to the hostel. The sausage roll pastry and the meat inside both tasted pretty bad, and the cake was like a chocolate brick with biscuit pieces embedded inside. It was too sweet - I should've tried the other rice krispie-like thing that the bakery had. Overall, a it was a pretty bad meal - that's the problem with trying to travel so cheaply! As I ate, I noticed a young kid eating a big block of brie with Ritz crackers - talk about mixing high class with low class! But I shouldn't laugh - I used to eat Ritz crackers by the handful when I was a kid. Mmmm ... I should buy some Ritz crackers when I get back home ... I relaxed and watched MIB 2, and Planet of the Apes. There are a lot of school groups staying at the hostel - I felt like I was in high school again! I laughed at the hostel's bar - on their information board, they tout their bar as being a great place for a cheap drink and to meet people. There was exactly one customer in the tiny bar all night long! Seeing as the bar was far too wild and crazy for me, I decided to read a bit of the Spanish-language newspaper I picked up in the Canaries and then went to bed.

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I had some time before my train so I stuck my bag in a locker and went for a walk. Leaving the hostel, I noticed a huge line-up of people checking out - glad that I managed to check out before all of them. I was also glad that I booked my train ticket online - it only cost me 10 GBP, but could have cost me 50 GBP if I bought it direct from the ticket office. I tried going to the Museum on the Mound, but it wasn't open yet so I took a quick walk down the Royal Mile and went to the Museum of Scotland again. Its terrace is supposed to have great views, but it was closed yesterday due to the weather. And again ... it was closed ... I picked up some fruit and juice from Tesco for the train ride, then headed over to Pizza Paradiso again (the place I got a pizza on my first night in Edinburgh). This time, it wasn't as good - I had the capricciosa, with ham, mushrooms, green peppers, and olives. I asked for no olives and the rude chef seemed pissed off about it. He also got into a bit of a pissing match with another customer, but they were speaking in a foreign language so I can only guess at what they were saying. The chef was a bit of a pizza nazi. Anyway, the pizza dough was mushy. Pretty blah, overall. I drank some of the juice I bought from Tesco - a tropical juice that was thick like a nectar. Kind of blah, like the pizza. Maintenance is being performed on some of the train routes so I had to take a train to Newcastle and then a bus to Durham. I was feeling a little better today because I haven't done much of anything, and I had lots of rest on the train and bus. The countryside was quite beautiful - like something out of a postcard. Sheeps grazing, farmhouses, green fields, and lush foliage - pretty neat! I arrived at the TI and tried to book a room - the cheapest they could find was 35 GBP!!! It was a twin room, but the owner agreed to give me the single price. It was a nice B&B, owned by a super-friendly couple, Martin and Liz. It's almost comical how nice they were - as I left to sightsee, Martin chased me out the door. I was expecting him to tell me that there was a problem, but he actually just wanted to tell me about a shortcut to town! Durham has a very cool cathedral. Unfortunately, the choir is on vacation so there was no evensong service tonight. I took a walk through the town market just as it was closing - it could've been pretty interesting during its peak busy hours. I grabbed a quick potato/meat pasty for a snack - crappy, but cheap. I stopped at a café for a very good hazelnut latte with a very good almond biscotti. Though the coffee drinks were reasonably priced, the alcoholic beverages weren't. A pint of beer was 3 GBP and a Kir Royal was 8.30 GBP!!! I hid from the cold awhile and wrote in my journal. I read in the newspaper that a twin brother and sister were separated at birth, adopted by different families, and in a cruel twist of fate married each other!!! Bizarre! Now it's opening up a huge debate about privacy laws - do adopted children have the right to know about their birth parents, in order to avoid situations like this? I'm not sure that this particular case is a good reference point since it's a one-in-a-million type of situation. I continued walking and finally found a reasonably-priced pair of jeans! Unfortunately, they shrunk quite a bit when I got home so they were a bit of a waste And I gotta say, there are some cuties in Scotland and Northern England. Still not Spanish-quality, though! Got to chatting with Mike, an amateur photographer taking shots of the Cathedral. He gave me some tips, but I doubt any of my shots will turn out as well as his will! Durham is a cool little university town - tons of women were out tonight, dressed to kill. There were also some cougars on the prowl. These women must be freezing - despite the cold night, there were lots of booty-short sightings, but I'm not complaining! I grabbed a quick dinner at a fast food joint. The staff wasn't terribly helpful - they gave me my food without any napkins or ketchup, and it took forever for me to get their attention to get any. Painful moment of the night - I accidentally snorted some Fanta up my nose. Dinner was pretty bad, but relatively cheap. I've decided to skip Hadrian's Wall tomorrow - without a car, it sounds like an awful lot of trouble just to see some Roman ruins that I probably won't even care about. Back to the B&B - "Shallow Hal" was playing. I need some rest so that I can fight off this sickness.

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