Catwees, from Tallinn!
Well my fine friends, I am writing to you from the cold, sex shop riddled, partly medieval city of Tallinn. I should start from where I left off though… This may take a while.
Friesland- northern Holland, full of big, kind people and Friesian cows. I went to a quilt shop on a farm and watched the ever so slightly fly-blown cows being milked. There has been torrential rain through most of Northern Europe, and Holland was no different. Flat, windy and green. I’ll buy a vowel for 2 points. Those old vegan sentiments stirred up in me as I watched the cows, especially when we moved into the nursery and I was feeding some calves. The farm owners told me they were going to the big sausage factory in the sky (because they were male and very little use to dairy farmers).
In Den Haag I went to this American bookstore and on the bargain table was this really cool old Finnish book about monsters, and the end parts had these brilliant line art pics. Needless to say I bought it, and there is this picture I found worthy of a tattoo. Yes. I also endeavoured to cut my own hair. It doesn’t look too bad. (No, it looks much the same really).
After some debacles involving missing cars, weird departures and poor signage, Lili (that’s an old NZ uni friend of my dad’s who is defacto’ed to a stressed out, bald Dutchie named Andre. Actually he’s not bald, he shaves his head- as is the fashion I’ve noticed in these northern European countries. Also Army fatigues… Hm.
Anyway.
We drove to Nurnburg in the South-West of Germany where my dad and Andre saw the F1- we ended up getting so lost that we couldn’t find accommodation and slept in the car. I also went through Luxembourg and Belgium on my way there. From Nurnburg we moved on to Rothenburg- fairly picturesque with quaint little villages, old wooden houses, rolling green hills etc. Too bad about the stinging nettles (BEWARE: when pissing in the bushes, avoid STINGING NETTLE). And salad fingers.
We drove along the Rhine and moved on to Stuttgart and the Porsche museum- that was a two hour waste of my life. From there we went to Potsdam and Berlin, where the young people were so trendy I couldn’t stand it. We roamed about the city on foot, saw the usual things from tourist guides- wall, square, monument, bridge, east and west. The new S-Bahn station where I purchased some earplugs for blocking out my dad’s avalanche worthy snoring. Actually right now I’m pretty fucking pissed at him because he’s acting, once again like a petulant child. If things continue like this I may very well bugger off on my own. Besides my personal aggravations Germany has probably been my favourite place so far, along with the Netherlands. I do love a good pasture.
Then there was the land of Po- it was a fairly grim place at times. The buildings were sort of sad and the people looked hardened- ACTUALLY it sort of reminded me of rural Australia. But it was juxtapositioned with lavish houses of worship, endless fields and forests. On telephone poles sat fat nests holding white storks, floating in the sky. We camped in Bison country- and lo the mosquitoes. I am truly bitten. We saw wild Bison, wolves, deer, moose, boar, reindeer, horses and a lynx at Bialowieski Park Narodowy. I bought some ‘Bison honey’ and I’m fairly sure the honey isn’t secreted from the Bison’s glands or anything. You know, Bison grass…
As for food I must tell you that so far I have indulged in pickled herring with raw onion (never again) woodland mushrooms (I think they’re called piffling or something ridiculous to that extent), Latvian ‘meat dumplings’ in sour cream and a fair sampling of the local chocolates. There is this weird one with bits of crystallised toffee in it. This probably sounds terrible but we’re travelling with a dog and about half of every food item I purchase ends up in her stomach.
Then we moved to Vilnius where we played 500 with a young Dutch couple who were fairly switched on. The campsite had this Sunday dinner where they served up a free bbq and drinks and everyone got into this great cultural mixer. There was also this devastatingly handsome man from Sweden who I later found out to be cycling around Europe because his cerebral palsy made him extremely shy around groups of people and he wanted to break down some barriers. What a champion. I’ll be going back to Vilnius in a few days for the KGB prison tour (it was closed when we were there).
We moved on to Riga where my tent got rained into and I ended up sleeping in the back of our old Mercedes station wagon with dad. Hm. Riga is a fairly enterprising sort of place, but Andre was in a rush and so I hope to go back there on our way back as well.
Right now I’m in Tallinn listening to dad huff and moan about how sore his back is. I’m going to pick up a few things at the local supermarket with Lili and escape the ogre’s wrath. We're in moose country at the moment and it’s relatively cold, but I suppose I’m relatively close to the North Pole. Estonia has the funniest linguistics; yesterday I saw a sign for CATWEES.
So! I’ll be heading back to Riga, Vilnius, Krakow, Wielikza, Zakpopane and then Budapest. From there it’s Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, France, England, possibly Scotland, Ireland. Coming to a theatre near you.
Oh PS. We stopped at this place on the road called HESBURGER (Estonian McDonalds for truckers) and I bought a bottle of vodka for the equivalent of 8 Australian dollars. Should be interesting.
Friesland- northern Holland, full of big, kind people and Friesian cows. I went to a quilt shop on a farm and watched the ever so slightly fly-blown cows being milked. There has been torrential rain through most of Northern Europe, and Holland was no different. Flat, windy and green. I’ll buy a vowel for 2 points. Those old vegan sentiments stirred up in me as I watched the cows, especially when we moved into the nursery and I was feeding some calves. The farm owners told me they were going to the big sausage factory in the sky (because they were male and very little use to dairy farmers).
In Den Haag I went to this American bookstore and on the bargain table was this really cool old Finnish book about monsters, and the end parts had these brilliant line art pics. Needless to say I bought it, and there is this picture I found worthy of a tattoo. Yes. I also endeavoured to cut my own hair. It doesn’t look too bad. (No, it looks much the same really).
After some debacles involving missing cars, weird departures and poor signage, Lili (that’s an old NZ uni friend of my dad’s who is defacto’ed to a stressed out, bald Dutchie named Andre. Actually he’s not bald, he shaves his head- as is the fashion I’ve noticed in these northern European countries. Also Army fatigues… Hm.
Anyway.
We drove to Nurnburg in the South-West of Germany where my dad and Andre saw the F1- we ended up getting so lost that we couldn’t find accommodation and slept in the car. I also went through Luxembourg and Belgium on my way there. From Nurnburg we moved on to Rothenburg- fairly picturesque with quaint little villages, old wooden houses, rolling green hills etc. Too bad about the stinging nettles (BEWARE: when pissing in the bushes, avoid STINGING NETTLE). And salad fingers.
We drove along the Rhine and moved on to Stuttgart and the Porsche museum- that was a two hour waste of my life. From there we went to Potsdam and Berlin, where the young people were so trendy I couldn’t stand it. We roamed about the city on foot, saw the usual things from tourist guides- wall, square, monument, bridge, east and west. The new S-Bahn station where I purchased some earplugs for blocking out my dad’s avalanche worthy snoring. Actually right now I’m pretty fucking pissed at him because he’s acting, once again like a petulant child. If things continue like this I may very well bugger off on my own. Besides my personal aggravations Germany has probably been my favourite place so far, along with the Netherlands. I do love a good pasture.
Then there was the land of Po- it was a fairly grim place at times. The buildings were sort of sad and the people looked hardened- ACTUALLY it sort of reminded me of rural Australia. But it was juxtapositioned with lavish houses of worship, endless fields and forests. On telephone poles sat fat nests holding white storks, floating in the sky. We camped in Bison country- and lo the mosquitoes. I am truly bitten. We saw wild Bison, wolves, deer, moose, boar, reindeer, horses and a lynx at Bialowieski Park Narodowy. I bought some ‘Bison honey’ and I’m fairly sure the honey isn’t secreted from the Bison’s glands or anything. You know, Bison grass…
As for food I must tell you that so far I have indulged in pickled herring with raw onion (never again) woodland mushrooms (I think they’re called piffling or something ridiculous to that extent), Latvian ‘meat dumplings’ in sour cream and a fair sampling of the local chocolates. There is this weird one with bits of crystallised toffee in it. This probably sounds terrible but we’re travelling with a dog and about half of every food item I purchase ends up in her stomach.
Then we moved to Vilnius where we played 500 with a young Dutch couple who were fairly switched on. The campsite had this Sunday dinner where they served up a free bbq and drinks and everyone got into this great cultural mixer. There was also this devastatingly handsome man from Sweden who I later found out to be cycling around Europe because his cerebral palsy made him extremely shy around groups of people and he wanted to break down some barriers. What a champion. I’ll be going back to Vilnius in a few days for the KGB prison tour (it was closed when we were there).
We moved on to Riga where my tent got rained into and I ended up sleeping in the back of our old Mercedes station wagon with dad. Hm. Riga is a fairly enterprising sort of place, but Andre was in a rush and so I hope to go back there on our way back as well.
Right now I’m in Tallinn listening to dad huff and moan about how sore his back is. I’m going to pick up a few things at the local supermarket with Lili and escape the ogre’s wrath. We're in moose country at the moment and it’s relatively cold, but I suppose I’m relatively close to the North Pole. Estonia has the funniest linguistics; yesterday I saw a sign for CATWEES.
So! I’ll be heading back to Riga, Vilnius, Krakow, Wielikza, Zakpopane and then Budapest. From there it’s Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, France, England, possibly Scotland, Ireland. Coming to a theatre near you.
Oh PS. We stopped at this place on the road called HESBURGER (Estonian McDonalds for truckers) and I bought a bottle of vodka for the equivalent of 8 Australian dollars. Should be interesting.