Professional

I'm a travel professional, didn't you know? I do professional things, like in the last few days I have both a) placed my big suitcase in front of the doors of the train, sat down and filled my lap with random things to organize so that I was unable to jump up to grab it as it fell out the doors at the first station we arrived at, and b) just the next day lost my boarding pass for my flight somewhere after checking in. Travelling like a boss. Oh and I didn't check my visa properly so the UK immigration told me that if I didn't change my flight date back into the country I would be denied access and sent back to where I came from. Oops.

I am only 3 days into my trip. Positive start.

No, what actually makes me a travel professional (I feel like a jerk using that term, but it sounds good for the post :P) is that I don't panic when these things happen. As we can clearly see holidays don't always go to plan and you have to be able to go with the flow. Deep breaths, a sense of humor and a smile are your best assets here. And of course it helps if you don't have too much riding on the mishaps that happen. I used to stress but Topdeck has helped that. A mishap such as losing a bag of food out a door may not be a matter between life and death but it is a matter of being fed or not fed which is pretty close. And my mistakes affect a lot more people than just me. Topdeck taught me how to stay positive and work through things like this (as well as how not to make the mistakes in the first place). The first time something really went wrong was early into the training trip when in Barcelona (after one and a half hours sleep) I found that I did not have enough lunch for everyone. I was seven short. When I told the trainers, the dark looks and scathing words caused me to withdraw into a shell where I stayed for much of the day to come. I was scared of doing anything, of suggesting anything, incase that also was wrong. My review for that day was terrible, less so because of the lack of food and more because of how I handled it. Their words of warning made me realize how much of a problem this reaction was and made me assess how I could have dealt with it better. The next time something went wrong, on an actual trip when I realized that I hadn't bought anything for dessert that night for our 30 passengers, I just quietly talked to my other crew to let them know that the next few service stations we stopped into, they should look out for cakes for sale. And a very small crisis was averted. It might sound small but before the training trip, that situation would have caused some panic for me.

Luckily this time a kind stranger grabbed my bag as I tried to shuffle things off my lap, a smile and a sincere apology procured me a new boarding pass after a while, and I just have to shrug my shoulders and buy a new flight that suits my visa requirements. The other thing that helps is remembering where you are. Hostel wont check you in this early and you are just exhausted? Chin up, you're in London, find a pub, get cozy and enjoy a pint whilst listening to the cool new accents. Lost your train ticket and have to buy a new one? The train is going to Prague, I think it's worth it. Deep breaths and smiles, the best tools of a travel professional.

The Importance of Being Ernest

Before leaving home, I mentioned to mum that I felt like I should re-double my efforts this year when it came to communication with friends. I am pretty good at regularly skyping, emailing and texting some people and with others - nothing. It isn't through lack of wanting to talk to these people. It's a mixture of our times not meeting up, me being terrible with sending postcards and the like and both of us being busy. A big one is also that sometimes it feels hard to contact someone without writing out a saga of what you have been doing. A nice thing about contacting my parents is that both of them send me little snippets, sometimes just a link to an interesting website that makes our contact very casual and easy.

 

This is as far as I got on any postcards last year

So I said to mum that I would try to be better with postcards (something I have never been good at) that I would tee up more Skype dates on purpose instead of leaving it to chance, and send more personal emails. Her reply both relived me (because subliminally I knew I wouldn't be able to uphold these aims) and rang true. She reminded me how time after time I had said something similar to this and it had not come to pass, and that it didn't matter. I was away, I was busy and that was ok. Skype when I could and write on this blog to let people know what I was up to. Most importantly she said that I each time I did report on what I was doing, make it sincere. Her words were something like 'Not like some of those accounts on Facebook where you only see a one-sided perspective of who and how they are'.

That is the essence of communicating. Be sincere. When you are travelling it is so easy to spark jealousy in those at home and whilst that might be fine for a certain amount of time, It can become tiresome (unless that person REALLY loves you, or has to love you, like your parents). So tell them when you are having a hard time, homesick, stomach sick, stressed or tired. Don't complain, nobody likes that, but admit  when you are having a down day. 'I'm really loving all the markets in Barcelona, but I'm finding it hard to talk to people in the hostel, I haven't been going out in the evenings because I can't seem to make friends with any of them'. Let them know when they can help you 'I'm missing everyone, tell me what you did for the weekend'. And some advice I could actually use myself, when you think of them, let them know. It is very little effort to post a picture of something that reminded you of them on facebook and say 'hey this awesome kombi van made me think of the ones we always planned to buy!  what have you been up to?'

So although I may not be in constant communication whilst I am away,  I promise that when I am, I will be sincere. And no one should ever be shy about reaching out to me with a newsy message out of the blue, however long it's been since we have spoken. All my love from the very beginning of my journey (Beijing airport), Gemma Xxx

The Seven Deadly Sins of Travel

Disclaimer! I didn't write any of this, I was reading the Sydney Morning Herald's Travel section (an activity I am greatly going to miss) when I sprung across this article on the seven deadly sins of travel and I loved it! Written by seven different authors, each sin is something travelers can relate to on some level (great or small) and the best bit? These sins are not condemned! Which ones do you see lurking in yourself?


PRIDE
By Jamie Lafferty

I met a traveller in an antique land, who said: "I'm only on Facebook to show off to those bastards at home." It seemed like an ugly statement at first but, well, aren't we all? I'm proud to tell you that this happened in Guayaquil, Ecuador, just before I flew to the Galapagos (prouder), a few months after being in Antarctica (proudest) in the middle of an 18-month round the world trip (umm, what's beyond proudest?).

Backpacking is essentially an international arms race in pride. You feel smug compared to the people you've left schlepping in the office, and when you meet other travellers, too often it degenerates into a boasting exchange. Where have you been? What did you do? Where are you going ...? And most importantly: how does it compare to what I've done?
Personally, if I met a boastful backpacker, I always had some aces up my sleeve with which to shoot them down. "Oh you went to Siem Reap? What hostel did you stay in?" They'd ask. "Hostel? Oh no, I stayed in Raffles," I'd say with faux modesty, "I was writing a thing, you see ..." Of course I'd edit out the part about how after the free nights dried up I had to move to a $3-a-night hostel.

Compare and contrast - you've only visited how many countries? Photo: Alamy
 

Even after several years as a travel writer, the cruise to Antarctica (also on a series of commissions) was a stern test of my credentials. I may travel for work, but the majority of the people on board were 30 years older than me - and generally very wealthy. They'd been around. However, I was part of a tiny group which, when we made landfall, was able to pose for a photo with a sign that simply said: "Seven." We lucky few had been to every continent on Earth. I was 27 years old. Pride overload.
Just as I took my place at the front and made wide my grin, we had to pause - there was one more for the group. A Canadian ... a mere boy of 23. I was crushed.
 
And further so when I later found out that after Antarctica he planned to cycle all the way back to Toronto from Antarctic jump-off point Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego. I didn't envy his journey, but it hurt my pride. And as I found myself wishing him darted by a lost tribe in the Amazon, or kidnapped by a cartel, or, just as he thought he was home, gunned down by a redneck Wisconsinite, I realised that being a prideful traveller is precisely the worst way to be. I vowed to leave it to my mum to be proud of my travels.

Airports, guaranteed to induce wrath. Photo: Reuters
 

So three years on I find myself more relaxed about it all. Though once in a while, when I find someone who feels the need to boast of where they've been I still can't help the urge to throw my passport on the table and cry: "Look upon my stamps, ye mighty, and despair!"

Gluttony - nothing else to say. Photo: Getty Images


THREE TIPS FOR THE PROUD TRAVELLER
1. Go to extremes: the highest, lowest, most remote places. The more unusual the less chance others will have been.
2. Check weather forecasts at home; unleash your best beach shots on Facebook when it's most grim.
3. Say things like "Well I've been to XX counties but more if you count Antarctica/Easter Island/Greenland, which isn't technically a country ..."

                 'I'll give you $10 for three' - necessity isn't the issue, greed is. Photo: Getty Images
SLOTH

By Julie Miller
"What shall you do all your vacation?" Louisa May Alcott's beloved character Amy asks her sister in Little Women. "I shall lie abed and do nothing," replies Meg.
Yes, Meg, I'm with you.

     Only human: envy exposed. Photo: Alamy
 

Doing nothing is the perfect way to spend a holiday - particularly if it involves a hammock, a beach and a cocktail, whipped up in an exotic locale.
How could sloth possibly be a sin, in the context of travel?
Surely a vacation, by its very definition, invites laziness - clearing the mind of clutter, catching up on sleep, avoiding any form of effort ... zzzz ... sorry, lost my train of thought there ...

         It's all around: Lust - leave the holiday romance on holiday. Photo: Getty Images
 

Of course, as with any sin, it's the extremes that defile our travel experiences. An apathetic tourist - one who refuses to move from the confines of their resort, for instance - may be missing out on the cultural offerings of their destination. Or not.

I mean, who needs another shell necklace, a wooden carving or a display of indigenous dance?

Why waste time at a local market or a religious site when you can be idle by a pool (preferably one with a swim-up bar)?

A tan, after all, is a far more covetable souvenir than any mere trinket.

A sluggard is also likely to avoid any form of physical activity during their vacation. There's a mountain to climb?

Bah, it's not going anywhere, it will be there next time. Hiking, parasailing, scuba diving, kayaking - is it really worth the effort, just for bragging rights on Facebook?

Maybe. If you're staying in a mediocre hotel, which has few amenities to encourage lingering, a walk through a rainforest may seem appealing. But as with most vices, those guilty of indulging in sloth tend to be either the extremely wealthy, or those with absolutely nothing.

Imagine the most indulgent of five-star resorts, with a bath filled with rose petals and the services of a butler. Who could blame anyone for choosing to stay in their room, ordering room service and watching movies, champagne on ice? This is an experience in itself, and certainly memorable.

At the other end of the scale is the simple bungalow by the beach, where soft breezes and the sound of crashing waves lull you into a stupor.

Forget the good book you've brought to read: Can't. Open. Eyes. Perhaps later, in a moment of redemption, you'll stagger from the hammock to the water. Then stagger to the bar. Before staggering back to hammock. True bliss.

And if that's a sin, then let us rot in hell for all eternity.

 

THREE TIPS FOR THE SLOTHFUL TRAVELLER

1. If you want to sleep in during your holiday, that's fine - you probably need it. But try to rise by noon; brunch, after all, is the best meal of the day, and should take you through till cocktail hour.

2. Rather than stay in bed all day, move to a daybed by the pool, or a hammock - they provide much better photo opportunities to impress your friends.

3. A local-style massage (Thai, Balinese etc) is a good excuse to catch up on sleep in the guise of a "cultural experience".

 

GLUTTONY

By Jill Dupleix and Terry Durack

Gluttony is your friend. It opens doors, fills plates, invites people in to share new experiences. One must go forth boldly to meet it, stomach proudly in front, suitcase behind.

Why travel if you're not greedy? Stay home if you're comfortable with your lot and want no more. The glutton will always keep moving; because serious greed is not so much about eating every macaron in the box in front of the telly, but a deep, gnawing hunger for something new.

The glutton plans trips accordingly. Paris for the croissants, Montreal for the poutine of chips, gravy and cheese. Tokyo for ramen, and San Sebastian for the tapas.

To Florence for the gelato, and Naples for the pizza.

To Vienna for the pastries, and Madrid for the hot chocolate.

Following this plan, it's quite extraordinary how many cultural sights one can inadvertently take in along the way.

Gluttony presides over the hotel breakfast buffet, the cheese market stall, and every patisserie, boulangerie and fromagerie in Paris, roaring with laughter at any attempt to be moderate.

It's even on the plane, squeezed into the seat next to you, looking greedily at the microwaved tinfoil sachets of food on your tray.

At home, you wouldn't look twice at grey beans in mystery gravy.

"But you're on holidays!" it whispers in your ear.

"You deserve it!" It's right, though perhaps not about the grey beans.

Listen to your inner glutton and you will have many magical moments that wouldn't otherwise exist.

You can drink a beer or eat a taco almost anywhere on the planet - but to drink a Guinness in Dublin or eat a taco in a Mexican market is a rite of passage, a homecoming of sorts, an act of worship; not gluttony.

Besides, are you ever going to make it back to Rome in this lifetime?

If that's a no, then have the pasta, not the salad; order the red wine, not the orange juice; and pig out on gelato afterwards.

The sin of gluttony is closely related to that fear of missing out that drives the true obsessive.

Not just of missing out on the last cronut (half croissant, half doughnut) from creator Dominique Ansel's bakery in New York, but of having lived life without tasting a cronut at all.

We say: go for it.

All too soon, you'll be back at your desk, yoked to the plough, watching your weight, saving your money.

Don't leave gluttony locked up at home; it's the best travelling companion you can have.

 

THREE TIPS FOR THE GLUTTONOUS TRAVELLER

1. Be a glutton for quality, not quantity. Eating too much of one thing is merely repetition.

2. Stockpile, stash and hoard foodstuffs upon your person and luggage at all times. You never know when you might find yourself at least a kilometre away from the nearest lunch.

3. Be elegant. Don't pile your plate high at a smorgasbord or hotel breakfast buffet, but create a multi-course degustation dinner by working your way through a series of small plates.

 

ENVY

By Max Anderson

We know travel is a desirable commodity because it's the thing we pledge to do when we retire, win Lotto or become Miss World.

It's desirable because it's expensive and because we can't afford the time to do it.

Enter envy, the green-eyed monster that Thomas Aquinas described as "sorrow for another's good", a sin so deadly that it strikes us down even while we're supposed to be at our happiest - when we're on holiday.

So! You're being flown to the other side of the world using technology that was unimagined three generations ago. But someone has a better seat.

You're in a grand hotel in an exotic city. But someone has a better room.

You find a gorgeous hand-crafted souvenir and you bargain the impoverished seller down to a buck. But, up the road, someone gets the same souvenir for 50 cents.

Sadly, the sin of envy exposes human beings for what we are: crap.

But in our defence, the travel industry has harnessed the extraordinary dynamics of covetousness and we are powerless to resist. They've been doing it since the beginning, when the P&O liners sailed from London to India, and if you could afford "Port Out Starboard Home", your cabin was spared the worst of the sun.

Half the boat stayed cool, while the stinky, sweaty other half sailed in a state of constant peevishness, vowing that next time they too would travel POSH.

Personally speaking, my travel envy becomes a tangible thing when I meet guests at my hotel, resort or lodge who joyously declare, "Oh, you should have been here last week!"

Last week the beach weather was perfect instead of evoking scenes out of The Piano. Last week the Victoria's Secret models were in residence and held an after-shoot pool party. Last week this exact same peaceful herd of gazelle (grazing for hours - and hours - and hours - under a scorching African sun) was visited by a pride of famished lions.

But the sin of envy is at its most lethal in that moment of travel when your holiday is over and you're leaving a sunny place of dreams and magic - the moment when you make your way along the sandy path under the palms to the waiting launch ... and here comes the newest arrivals.

"You'll love it here!" you call out cheerfully. ("You bastards.")

 

THREE TIPS FOR THE ENVIOUS TRAVELLER

1. Pay more money than anyone else. It is the root of your particular evil.

2. Wear brown contact lenses. It'll hide the green.

3. Remember, however bad your seat may be, however eclipsed the view is from your room, however reluctant the local lions are to smash into that dullsville herd of grazing gazelle - someone is always envious of you. And that's the poor sap still stuck in the office.

 

WRATH

By Lance Richardson

Phileas Fogg makes an incredible wager in the Reform Club of London: That he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days. And he does so, Jules Verne would have us believe, by crossing the Mediterranean on steamer, India on elephant, and part of America on a wind-powered sled, all without breaking so much as a sweat. Well, I don't buy it.

The travel part is fine - stranger things have happened - but Fogg's equanimity in the face of missed connections and drunken porters is highly suspect. "He was so exact that he was never in a hurry, was always ready, and was economical alike of his steps and his motions." That describes no traveller I've ever met.

The truth is, wrath is a constant spectre on the road, haunting one's every footstep. The man in the seat next to you has pointy elbows. A hike in the Andes is beset by torrential rain. The entire cruise ship gets food poisoning from lobster thermidor.

Any one of a million things can go wrong - does go wrong - derailing exquisitely laid plans.

Then the traveller must confront that darker part of themselves that likes to scream and cry, or write strongly worded letters.

The internet has only exacerbated things, too: Now wrath has an ever-attentive audience, egging anger on from the peanut gallery of TripAdvisor.

Indeed, I have found that nothing pushes my buttons like a disaster while travelling. Or even just a mild inconvenience, because outside the familiar setting of home I lose all sense of proportion.

Once, in Canada, I snapped at a concierge who had interrupted a nap to ask me to leave the hotel.

It was on fire. Another time, in Costa Rica, I was defeated by the last steep hill - after a 65-kilometre bike ride - and I reacted by throwing my helmet across the road. This is appalling behaviour and I have no excuse except to say: I was travelling. Surely you understand.

Some things in travel seem designed to encourage wrath: The India visa application process (tiresome), Kenyan punctuality (nonexistent), or It's a Small World at Disneyland (horror).

Jose Martinez was recently awarded thousands of dollars in a lawsuit after being stranded on the ride for half an hour. He deserved more.

And then there is air travel, the granddaddy of wrath-inducing activities, with its security lines, turbulence, chronically overbooked flights, poor service, and last-minute cancellations. Having recently been stranded in Los Angeles - thanks polar vortex! - I have seen firsthand the face of Fury, and it belongs to an American being told their flight is delayed until tomorrow.

At moments like that, a little wrath is more than understandable.

 

THREE TIPS FOR THE WRATHFUL TRAVELLER

1. The best method of neutralising a bad experience is to use a pair of sound-cancelling headphones. Close your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else.

2. Wrath of the "hanger" variety - hunger-induced anger - can easily be avoided by always keeping a protein bar in your backpack.

3. Embrace your wrathful energy, and sublimate it into dancing, or karaoke.

 

LUST

By Julietta Jameson

Fiction is awash with celebrations of holiday lust and from Grease to Eat Pray Love, they all end happily ever after.

Even by the end of the novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, this sin is given the sanctity of relationship status, despite the book being the story of a high-flying Chicago lawyer lusting after a gorgeous young Jamaican resort staffer and for the greater part of the narrative being a pretty good illustration of the pitfalls involved in taking that holiday hottie home.

The awkward introductions to friends, parents, colleagues and the school drop-off crowd are just the start. The hottie's introduction to the real Stella - not hotel-bathrobe-clad Stella but suited-up Stella - is where things go really pear-shaped. And that is why I don't trust holiday lust. It has no basis in reality.

Mine doesn't, anyway. Travel takes me away from my usual context. Unfettered by everyday obligations, I'm still me, but a friskier me. The minute my floaty sundress is unpacked at home, the holiday flirt is packed away until the next trip and the me that has to get on with life takes over.

I've met a couple of lovely gents overseas with whom I had real chemistry. But for the reasons outlined above, when it came time for me to depart the place in which I met them, I decided to leave any yearnings where they arose.

Because lust can also make us all a bit lacking in common sense. Exhibit A: a female friend who was recently in Bali. "I love the attention I get there," she said. "One man stroked my arm and said, 'Mmm, big. Too many Bintang.' I just love how Balinese men go 'mmm' in admiration." Imagine if an Australian bloke stroked her arm and said, "Mmm, big. Too many VB." My bet is she wouldn't be focusing on the "Mmm" bit. (Ketut has a lot to answer for. )

Of course, holiday lust can turn into love. A mate did marry the man she met on vacation in an exotic city. But that's an exception. Mostly, like a sunset across a beach, the best holiday lust is an impermanent perfect moment, the recollection of which can transport real-world you back to a friskier, freer time and place, even as you go about your day-to-day drudge.

My advice? Snog that handsome stranger but don't expect happily-ever-after. Travel insurance does not cover broken hearts.

 

THREE TIPS FOR THE LUSTFUL TRAVELLER

1. Pack protection. And by that I mean condoms, not capsicum spray.

2. Ducking down that dark Roman laneway for a quick pash may seem romantic. It's also stupid. Personal safety still matters abroad.

3. Ageing lotharios and cougars, listen up: no one is ever too old for holiday lust. Go forth and flirt.

 

GREED

By Nina Karnikowski

"I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket," warbled Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. A horrid little so-and-so she was, and yet she spoke my language.

The language, that is, of one who knows it is simply not enough to have journeyed to 56, 82, or even 114 countries in a lifetime.

There are 196 of them in the world, and until they have all been scoured, the greedy traveller refuses to rest. Case in point: I might have just spent eight months travelling the length and breadth of India, skipping through temples, ashrams and monuments with the speed of a competitor in the Amazing Race.

But I want to go back. I want to go back now.

Not to any of the places I fell in love with, of course, I simply don't have time for that now.

Not when I have all these other places I heard about while whizzing around the country to get through: to meet the Buddhists in Bodh Gaya (or just take a pic of them, who has 10 minutes for a meet and greet when there's so much to see?), to explore the Andaman Islands (preferably in a jet boat to save time) and to camp in the desert in Jaisalmer (I actually detest camping but a stranger I met had done it and now I have to do it too).

For the sin of covetousness dictates that one must look forward, not back, covering more ground, seeing more monuments, having more adventures than anyone else, well, ever. The greedy traveller has boxes to tick, gazillions of them, and never enough time in which to tick them.

Avaricious travellers are, by their very nature, excessive, and are therefore truly in their element in the bazaar and the marketplace.

They can most often be spotted - freshly purchased suitcase in one hand, gleaming Amex in the other - having a bit of a stall trawl, reaching, grasping, haggling mercilessly for exotic treasures.

And, as we all know, greed has no limits ... and no shame.

"A coin necklace for $30? Pfft! I'll give you $30 for five," I heard myself utter at a particularly low point last year. Not that I needed five, or wanted five. Not that I would even be able to fit five in my already-bulging suitcase. But one is never, ever enough for the greedy. And besides, we travel Hoovers are the ultimate masters of self-deception. I told myself I'd bought those five coin necklaces for friends back home.

Yet here they sit upon my neck, the entire quintet all at once - mine, all mine - and a slightly shameful reminder of the greedy traveller's most wicked trait: their inherent inability to share with others.

 

THREE TIPS FOR THE GREEDY TRAVELLER

1. Bring a few suitcases - preferably empty with expandable zips and a few dozen space bags stuffed inside - to maximise the amount of booty you can lug home.

2. The hop-on hop-off bus tour is your friend. What better way is there of ticking off an entire city in less than one hour?

3. Consider cutting that fifth credit card in two. Bankruptcy can be so embarrassing.

Green in my eyes

With St Patrick’s Day tomorrow, thoughts all over the world turn towards the emerald isle. Ireland is so universally loved that once a year people in English speaking countries all around the world don green and claim Irish heritage and the right to sit in a pub and drink loudly and jovially with friends.

I am unashamedly one of them. Although claiming my Irish heritage may be stretching it a bit as those relations left Ireland in the 1800’s, I have an Irish mother who has claimed me as her foster daughter, so I guess that makes me a ‘foster Irish’. It’ll do me!

I went to school in County Tipperary for a short 9 months when I was 16 and since then have been back and forth and all around the island many a time. I am heading back again in just under 2 weeks and would love to point out a few of the place that I think are under the ‘you would be silly to miss them’ category in a country that is full of ‘must sees’.

Bright colours in Dublin

 

Dublin: It’s a city that in no way rivals the great European cities dotted over ‘the continent’ to the east. It is small and it is quiet but it’s made for tourists. Packed tightly into a small space, it is walkable and full of treasures. From the GPO building on O’Connell St where you can still stick your fingers into the bullet holes created during the 1916 uprising when the rebels used it as their headquarters, down the street to Trinity College where their beautiful library holds the Book of Kells, widely regarded as the best illuminated manuscript in the world and around a few corners to the statue of Molly Malone wheeling her barrow of cockles and mussels (no longer crying ‘alive alive o!’)

The library in Trinity College

Kilmainham gaol is another sobering piece of history. Walking the empty corridors where the Irish Rebels last walked makes you realize why the Irish are so proud to be separate from England. A lot of work went in to making it so.

Hurling

Art galleries and traditionally decked out pubs abound in Dublin but for a real feel of Irish pride and passion head to Croke Park during the Hurling season. Hurling is a sport created and played solely by the Irish (as is Gaelic football but it’s just a little too similar to rugby to spark my interest). The teams wear helmets like those in cricket and carry a wooden bat (or Hurley) most related to a large hockey stick. It is the fastest field sport and the players hit the cork and leather ball (or sliotar) up and down the pitch or run with it, balancing and bouncing it off their Hurley. The aim is to get it into goals that resemble a cross between football and soccer posts. It is a dangerous and loud game with the crack of sliotar hitting Hurley ringing around the stadium and the roar of the crowd sparking passion in even the most confused of foreign viewers. Check out some hurling here or here, then tell me it doesn’t look like fun!

Newgrange

Newgrange. This Neolithic passage tomb’s claim to fame is that it is roughly 5200 years old, that’s older than the great pyramid at Giza. Just above Dublin in County Meath it sits in the Boyne valley, home to many other ancient structures. Hidden for centuries it had passed into myth, stories of fairies and burial places for ancient kings were associated with the area and when a local land owner in 1699 ordered his workers to clear the land they initially they refused, claiming that the fairies there were known to seek revenge on those who disturbed them. When it was eventually cleared, large stones covered with carvings were discovered in front of a long passage leading to what seemed to be a burial chamber. Since then many other Neolithic sites have been discovered in the area and it is now a UNESCO protected site. It is an awe inspiring site at any time but its true magic is felt on the 21^st December each year, the European summer solstice. Around this time a ballot is held and only those few that have their name drawn out are allowed down the passage to experience the sun creeping down it to light the end chamber on the longest day of the year and the only time the sun reaches all the way inside. It is an amazing engineering feat from those who had not even advanced to using metal tools and truly one of the wonders of the world.

Murals in Belfast

Belfast: This is a place which foreigners associate with unrest, and a visit there will show that the feeling of unrest is still one that is predominate in the city. Sure all seems fine in the city center, large, clean, public gardens are filled with workers taking lunch breaks and kids playing soccer. Public buildings like the Town Hall are open for tours and when I last visited the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic was impending and pride of their part in the story was palpable in the large public displays dotted around. However a short ride in a public bus took me to the outskirts of the city where nationalistic murals covered walls, flags and signs proclaiming their independence hung from windows and kids looked up from the pavement in public housing allotments with defiance, like they had been brought up fighting even though they didn’t understand what for yet, it was in their blood. In a bar that night this unsettlement was almost forgotten amongst the sound of the fiddle and people dancing to it. That is until a song was requested which had to be politely turned down ‘you know we can’t play that here’ they said and the gentleman looked slightly embarrassed. The next day the recentness of the history that has happened there was brought home to me. Whilst wandering slightly blindly to find the most famous of the murals my friend and I ran into a local man.

Claire deciphers a mural

We were standing looking around and deciding where to go when he noticed us, “Do y’ want to see the murals? Come with me, I’ll show ya.” He introduced himself as Sam, just back from 3 years in Australia and told us about the area, including the bombings he had experienced. He told us about a time when he was in the street when it happened. “I saw a body, lyin naked. Y’ know how all the clothes come off with a force like that? And she was face down, with cuts covering her body from the shrapnel. I thought it was my ma an I ran over to cover her with my jumper. But when I went to turn her face toward me my fingers went straight through her skull, shattered it was, and she was dead. It wasn’t my ma but the horror was still there. But y’ know what haunts me more? What comes back to me at night? It’s the screamin, all those children screamin, for their mothers and their fathers and cryin at the sight of the ruins”

Murals in Belfast

The bombing he was talking about was the Shankill Rd Bombing in 1993 and was the most devastating bombing the area had experienced. Just a few days later our train down to Dublin was replaced with a bus when we got near the Republic of Ireland border where there had been some political unrest and the rail line was considered unsafe. Yep, memories of struggle are still very fresh in Northern Ireland but I still think it is a place that needs to be experienced.

Inishmore

Galway and the Aran Islands. This little western area of Ireland has got to be my favorite and would top my list of must see’s if you asked. Starting in the city of Galway a small area of land has a variety of delights to offer. Shops full of arts and crafts, jewelry and clothing. Markets where the bustle of people and the smell of fresh bread and soup mix with the colours of newly cut flowers to give a wonderful example of what olde tyme village markets may have been like. It is very touristy, but it doesn’t bother me, it means that it is not hard to find a pub playing good traditional music in the evening. In fact there are so many it is like all the craft stores of the morning are moonlighting as pubs! It is also a student town and the university across the river populates the local area with artsy types who play their own music in smaller hidden pubs found generally by opening your ears.

 

Inishmore

The Aran Islands are a short ride by bus and ferry from Galway’s city center. Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer are three breakaways from the mainland which to the naked and untrained eye look like three slabs of uninteresting rock in the ocean. Get a little closer however and an Irish gem has been discovered. I have only been to Inishmore, the biggest and most popular of the three, however I have visited 3 times, needing always to show the next person their charms. On the islands, Gaelic is still the language of the community, one of the few places in Ireland where it is primarily spoken. On Inishmore a few hotels, food stores, bike rentals and souvenir shops huddle around the port where the ferry docks into but just a walk of a few hundred meters and you are out in the rural barren island. So what do you do here? Hire bikes and explore.

Houses on Inishmore

Have you ever wished that you lived back when much of the world was undiscovered? Me too. This island allows you to feel like you are discovering it all anew. The main attraction is Dun Aonghasa, a ring fort perched on the edge of a cliff. There are no barriers to stop visitors falling (or being blown) off into the navy foam specked sea 300 feet below and every time it both scares and delights me. Now that you have ticked of the main site, follow road signs (in a mixture of Gaelic and squiggles), your map (which doesn’t actually match with the roads you are riding on) or just have fun bumping over fields or slogging up hills until you find something that interests you. I have found stone domes and naturally occurring swimming pools in this fashion and you are sure to find something to make all the pedal pushing worth it.

So there are a few of my ‘you’d be mad to miss them’ sites of Ireland. There are so many more (and I have left out Munster mostly because I haven’t done a whole lot that is touristy down there, I have had great times, but they were mostly at friends’ houses, walking in hills or camping in caravan parks…) but if I had to recommend just a few, these would be them. Enjoy your St Patrick’s Day and pledge to make your next trip to the Emerald Isle!

 

 

 

Dining Solo

A young and very attractive lady was dining alone on a cruise.

It had been noted that she often dined alone and one night a waiter approached her whilst she was sitting at her dining table. He had a note from the captain requesting that she join him for dinner that night.

Her eyes swept the note and she delicately folded it up and handed it back to the waiter.

He looked at her expecting an answer and she tossed a reply over her shoulder;

‘Please inform the Captain that I do not intend to dine with any of the hired help

for the duration of this voyage!’

Breakfast alone at the Hans Brinker in Amsterdam

 

Dining alone is a dreaded thing for some people. The thought of looking lonely or friendless worries us on some deeper level and most people will never have dined out solo before because of it.

Often there is no need to, at home there is almost always a friend or family around to check out a new restaurant with you or the sole reason for dining out is to be catching up with friends. When you travel it is different, you are often dining alone from necessity. Solo travelers may be a hardier breed, used to their own company and happy being the odd one out in a crowd, but it can still be an uncomfortable experience when done wrong. It can also be a great experience if done right. In my travels I have eaten alone breakfast, lunch and dinner and had many great and memorable meals alone, and not memorable because they were unnerving! For future solo travelers, or for those wanting to step outside their comfort zone, here are a few tips.

·         Start with having breakfast alone. The morning is a time when you will find many people grabbing breakfast by themselves no matter what city you go to. You are almost expected to be quiet and introverted, poring over a newspaper as you savor a coffee and croissant. Cafés are also easier to be solo in than restaurants, they have more booths, armchairs and small tables for one person to claim as your own.

·         Choose your restaurant wisely. When you are dining alone you get to choose exactly what you want to eat, no compromises needed. So search for the Mexican you are craving, google where the best sushi in this town is, pound that pavement until the restaurant with just the right décor calls out to you begging you to come in. Start your meal with being happy with your location choice.

·         Don’t be introverted! Sure you are alone and may spend most of the meal inside your own head but you don’t need to be like that the whole time. Start by being friendly with the waiters. Tell them you only need a table for one and don’t feel the need to justify it. Then have a chat, ask for their recommendation off the menu, enquire about words you don’t recognize, ask them to surprise you. If others in the restaurant catch your eye, smile at them, you are there by choice, enjoy your choice.

·         Choose your seat wisely. I like to sit outside if possible because the life on the pavement will give you an endless supply of entertainment. I was once lucky enough to get a table at a tapas restaurant in Barcelona that was next to where they were filming a movie. The flurry of camera crew, machinery and actors was something everyone was watching, not just me!  If there is entertainment inside, you could try to sit near that, or failing these I look for somewhere out of the way enough that I won’t look like I am sitting in the middle of a restaurant alone but in view enough that I won’t be forgotten about by the waiters.

·         Bring entertainment. Whilst I think it is best if you are able to entertain yourself enough by people watching or listening to the music, it is not always the case. A book or a notepad for writing are my distractions of choice. I feel rude on my phone, to the point where I don’t even like to read an E-Book!

·         Enjoy your meal. So often we go out to eat and are too busy talking to really taste what we are eating. Take eating alone as an opportunity to experience your meal to the full. Savor every bite, ask the waiter what it is that you are tasting and pass on your compliments to the chef.

Some of my dining alone experiences have been my favorites. Sitting in the middle of a buzzing city observing it with no distractions is a great way to get under its skin. Ordering off a menu is a great way to practice the language. And if you are solo and flaunting it, maybe you will meet someone else doing just the same.

The beat of a city

Music. God I love it. If had to decide which temple I had to bow down at it would be hard to choose between music and travel. (Or books but that’s another story). It brings meaning into situations, it gives words to things I thought were unexplainable. It is a way to feel more potently.

If I am feeling happy, listening to a song that that gives words to that happiness is like giving the emotion a channel to run through and enter into the world, rather than letting it bottle up inside. Of course this is particularly relevant with sadness or confusion or any negative emotions, music gives them a release from being bottled up inside. And it doesn’t have to be the lyrics that that give sound to the emotions, of course it can just be from the melody itself that meaning can come from.

I once fell wildly for a boy and played Taylor Swift’s ‘Mean’ on repeat (hey, I never said anything about good music). The lyrics were about how mean guys can be and how she didn't need them. The words were irrelevant to me and I barely heard them, but the melody leapt and dipped and danced like my heart was doing at the time and so I played it.

Another way that music is important to me is in creating memories. Lee Kernaghan and Garth Brooks are my childhood. Guns and Roses, Thin Lizzy and the soundtrack from ‘Rent’ are Ireland and the time that I spent there on exchange. Just the first few notes from The Kook’s ‘She moves in her own way’ and I am transported to a grassy cliff on a sunny day watching waves roll in to Bantry Bay. I can even hear my friends singing and clapping along in the background.

On a 4 week road trip through America, Claire’s friend gave her an iPod loaded with 100 songs and a book he had created detailing at what point each of the songs were to be played and why they were relevant and what to listen for in each of them. It is still the most thoughtful gift I have ever seen and it made a huge impact upon our trip (I think for the most part I only insisted on interrupting it to make sure The Killers were played very loudly as we drove through Las Vegas). He knew the power each song had, especially when played in the right situation.

 

My music player is full of playlists named ‘Espanya’ ‘Eire’ ‘Zeeland’ (I was embarrassed recently to read a post on ‘how to know if you’re a vagabond traveler’ or something, and see that naming playlists after places was a horribly clichéd thing to do. Oh well.). Each of them is filled with songs that I listened to whilst in that place, ‘Espanya’ is bright and cheerful, peppered with Vampire Weekend and Australian hip hop. ‘Eire’ is soft and calming, think Angus and Julia Stone and Mumford and Sons. Some connections you don’t even have to try to make. I’m sure I’m not the only person who will connect Avici’s ‘Wake me up’ with the European summer of 2013 and I didn’t even once press play on the song myself!

On Topdeck trips we make a conscious effort to connect each trip with a song so that the passengers will be reminded of their once-in-a-lifetime-European-adventure every time they hear it. The trip leader chooses a song (usually something popular and in the charts) and plays it every time we come into a rest stop (about 3 times a day) to wake up the passengers and let them know to get ready to get off. It will also be requested at all the clubs we go to and without a doubt it will be received with roars of delight.

In opposition, the Topdeck Training Trip was almost music free. The use of music players of any kind was banned and music was played on the coach for us in only the most specific of conditions. We grew hungry for a melody and our solution was to sing. The very first week in the Netherlands the cooks were banned from singing after our harmonies in the kitchen were judged too raucous and not to the theme of training trip at all. After that we had to resort to underground music and illicit singing. Emily and I played a few select songs in the morning as we got ready in our hotel room in Switzerland, Laura taught me an almost silently sung ditty at the back of the coach. We belted out Tom Jones whilst walking through Krakow and Paris and ‘Not giving in’ (Rudimental) became my mantra after pounding up and down hostel corridors with it plugged into my ears on repeat.

 Coming in to a new city I would never dream to lock myself away behind headphones. So much can be learnt from listening to the sounds of a place. Ambulance sirens sound different, the music playing from shop fronts is different and of course the chatter of the locals is going to be different. There is so much to be learnt that I have to keep my ears open to experience it all. But after a week or so I will be ready to experience the place in a different way, through music. I have said before that listening to music and looking, really looking and seeing, is a great way to experience your own home city in a new way and it is the same overseas. Happy, dancing music makes me smile and look up, I see different high up frescos and strangers smile back at me. Soft music sets me dreaming and imagining the place in times gone by.

I am excited to be going back to Rome soon to spend some serious time there, 5 weeks or so, and I am already thinking about what tunes would suit a city so stuck in the past yet indignant and rowdy and demanding that they be recognized now. Any recommendations?