El Calafate & Perito Moreno Glacier

The bus from Puerto Natales, Chile to El Calafate, Argentina was on-time, comfortable, and inexpensive.  The five-hour journey included a fairly straight-forward border crossing.  But crossing the border was noticeable:  roads on the Chilean side were nicer, as was the immigration building, and even the rest stop on the Argentinian side of the border was a wee bit dingy.  Despite those little differences, Argentina is mostly just as nice as Chile.  The country has similar beautiful scenery, a European vibe, is very gay-friendly, and seems to have an abundance of gluten-free and vegan options touted at all restaurants.

I didn’t go to those restaurants.

The town of El Calafate was super cute.  Despite being roughly the same size as Puerto Natales, El Calafate was a lot busier.  There were more shops, more restaurants, and just more stuff going on.  I accredit this to the fact that many travellers base themselves in the town and do day trips out to the sights.  Puerto Natales, on the other hand, is more of a stopping point for just a night before travellers make their way to spend a few nights in the national park.

The most noticeable inconvenience about being in Argentina was cash.  It’s hard to come by.  Argentina’s economic woes mean that the government and financial system have implemented cash restrictions.  The maximum withdrawal I could find at an ATM in town was for roughly AU$48, plus an 18.9% fee (WTF?)  I knew this would be a problem in advance, so I brought actual cash and converted that to pesos.  USD – and even AUD – were like gold, and I got a fantastic rate by exchanging my AUD for pesos with some dude in a little room upstairs from a restaurant.

It all seemed very sketchy at first, but it was actually really easy.  What an odd place.

I arrived in the evening, and I knocked off to sleep early as the next day was a big day for me.  I was about to check-off one of my 103 Things:  the Perito Moreno Glacier! 

I booked a fancy tour with Glaciar Sur because it was a special occasion.  Not just solely the glacier, the tour also visited an estancia (ranch).  Estancia Nibepo Aike was the one on the agenda, and despite the pouring rain at the very start of the day, the estancia was truly gorgeous:  it had beautiful flowers, horses in big fields, and a real taste of Patagonia:  gauchos on horseback and border collies herding cows into a paddock.  A sheep-shearing demonstration was performed and I was shocked that they take the wool off all in one big pelt!

There were tons of historical photos to look at about the sheep industry in Patagonia, along with plenty of old photos of the family who own the ranch.  The highlight, however, was the lunch.  What must have been the best meal of my trip, they served us lamb straight off the spit, with a whole buffet of fresh salads, and the most delicious bread which seemed as if white bread had an affair with a sopapilla and out popped this deliciousness nine months later.  The most delightful malbec was supplied to wash it down, and flan with dulce de leche was served for dessert.

Fuck, it was all soooo delicious.

From there, the tour embarked to see the main event.  The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the world’s most stable glaciers – it’s not shrinking – and it’s also one of the world’s fastest glaciers, moving about 2 metres per day.  It empties out into Lago Argentino (Argentino Lake).

The tour started off with a little boat ride.  We rounded a corner to see a bit of the glacier at a distance, but then veered back into a cove to step ashore for a short hike.  The hike ended at a great viewpoint of the glacier.  From there, we re-boarded the ship and were served a bit of whiskey in a glass with glacial ice (or so they said) as we approached the glacier.

The glacier is truly spectacular.  The glacier face is about five kilometres wide, though we could only see about half from where our little boat was.  From the water level, the glacier didn’t look enormously tall, but then I noticed the triple-decker tourist ship right in front of it.  The ship – which was many times larger than the little boat I was on – was dwarfed by the glacier towering over it.  Ranging from 40 to 70 metres high, the glacier suddenly became immense.  At one point I guessed that we were 300 metres from it, but in reality, we were two kilometres away.  It’s just so enormous that it plays tricks on your mind!

After cruising on the lake for a bit, we docked and then took a minibus to the main visitor centre.  There are kilometres of viewing platforms to walk around: some way up atop a hill; others almost at lake level.  We had less than 2 hours here which was disappointing.  I could have spent all day.  But the time I did have there was amazing.  I went toward the right, which was away from the side of the glacier that we saw from the boat, and gained a whole new perspective on just how massive it was.  From the upper platforms, you can see the glacier reaching far, far back into the mountains.  It looks like it never ends.  Then, out of the silence, came a big crash and splash as a chunk of glacier calved into the lake and became an iceberg.  This happened every few minutes, though none of the calving I saw was notably large compared to videos I had seen online.

The drive back to town featured creatures that I had forgotten about after living in Australia for a decade:  skunks!  Some car hit a skunk or two in the road, and a whole bunch of other skunks were in the road mourning.  Everything just smelled terrible.

I had a whole day and a half more in El Calafate, so I visited the Glaciarium the next day.  It’s basically a museum dedicated to snow, ice, and glaciers.  It has a ton of information on the impacts of climate change (including terrifying maps of glacier recession in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field), and overall it was arranged logically and in a digestible way.  I spent a few hours there and really enjoyed it.

Aside from that, I spent quite a bit of time checking out the plethora of souvenir shops, boutique alfajor shops, and restaurants.  I even ate guanaco tacos!  And then it was time to travel a wee bit north, a bit deeper into the mountains.

But first, let me take a selfie.

Torres del Paine National Park

From Punta Arenas, I headed north to the smaller town of Puerto Natales – jumping off point to Torres del Paine National Park.  The town itself is very cute:  with nice shops, a small historical museum, and lots of colourful flowers everywhere.  Puerto Natales is built along a lake with gorgeous views of the mountains beyond and quite a few birds to see as well.

But enough about the town:  the Torres del Paine was the main event!  Torres del Paine National Park contains mountains, glaciers, rivers, and lakes, all with a very well-maintained trail network.  I was there for the W Trek – a trek that is shaped like… you guessed it:  a “W”.  The trek takes 4 to 5 days to complete, and we did 4 full days so I think we ended up skipping a wee bit of it, but we got most of it done.  I say “we” because I joined a group tour for it.  I didn’t want to have to deal with tents and sleeping bags and logistics so I just booked a group tour.  It was great to have local guides and have everything arranged for me, so I’m glad I did it, but I must say that the trek would have been just as easy doing it on my own.

The facilities along the trek were superb.  There are well-placed campsites all along the way, with dedicated camping for people who insist on carrying their own tents, pre-pitched tents available for hire, and even dormitory beds (and I assume private rooms too) in some of them.  Each site has a restaurant which serves breakfast and dinner, and they sell bagged lunches for your daily trek.  There are kitchen facilities which you can use if you insist on cooking yourself, and the bathrooms were largely clean with warm showers.  They rent out sleeping bags and towels, so really, if you have a reservation, you can rock up with your hiking clothes and a small backpack and you’re set.  You don’t need to worry about anything.  The whole operation of the national park is truly impressive, and I might even throw it out there:  luxurious.

It wasn’t 5-star accommodation, but compared to the Inca Trail a few years ago, the Torres del Paine was pretty luxurious!

The first day of the trek was by a long mile the most rigorous.  We left our hotel in Puerto Natales at an ungodly hour, but at least the drive was pretty:  with Andean condors flying around, lesser rheas (sort of like an emu or ostrich) roaming about, and guanacos (essentially undomesticated llamas with very pretty eyelashes) along the side of the road (alive, not roadkill).  We stopped at Mirador Lago Sarmiento (Sarmiento Lake Viewpoint) for our first views of the famous Torres del Paine.  “Torres” is Spanish for “towers”, and Paine means “blue” in a local indigenous language, the Torres del Paine roughly translates to “Blue Towers”.  They are three steep granite peaks which – despite the myriad of other beautiful sites in the national park – are the true highlight of the trek.

After 11km of trekking, much of it uphill, we made it to Mirador Las Torres (Towers Viewpoint).  The sky was absolutely clear and everything was gorgeous!

We had a bagged lunch for the day, which ended up being a vacuum sealed chicken burrito – and it was still warm despite us leaving super early that morning.  I was in burrito trekking HEAVEN!

After doing the same exact trek back, we had a campsite for the night just outside of the national park, at a place called Laguna Azul (Blue Lake).  My tent was just a few metres from the water, and the views were stunning.

We also got our first glimpses of some Chilean flamingos roaming about the shore.

Day 2 started with a few stops at two lovely viewpoints:  Mirador Cascada Paine (Blue Waterfall Viewpoint) and Mirador Nordenskjold.  We then took a ferry across one of the big lakes to reach our campsite for the night – Paine Grande – and to do a day trek to a viewpoint overlooking Lago Grey (Grey Lake) and the Grey Glacier.  The glacier ends in the lake so there were quite a few icebergs that had calved off were floating south through the lake, being pushed by the winds.

And by winds, I mean tropical storm force winds.  We only stayed at the beautiful viewpoint for a few minutes because the winds were literally tropical storm force.  But if that’s the worst weather we had on the entire four-day trek, then I’ll take it!

Day 3 started out from the Paine Grande campsite, ending at Los Cuernos campsite.  Unlike the previous day, the wind was completely still, which meant Lago Skottsberg was acting as a sort of mirror for the stunning scenery.

We also stopped at Mirador Glaciar Frances to see the hanging glacier of the French Valley.  The glacier just hangs on the side of the mountain, and bits and pieces fall off below with a thunderous roar.  These avalanches happened quite frequently here and at a bunch of other hanging glaciers that dot the park, but they were indeed more common on Day 4.

After spending New Years’ Eve at Los Cuernos campsite, I promptly made my way back to my tent and was in my sleeping bag by about 12:05am.  It was my fifth continent bringing in the new year – I just need to do it in Africa and Antarctica at some point!

Day 4 was a flatter, easier day, and while it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the first three days, it was still gorgeous.  After our trek – totalling around 60km in 4 days – we made our way by minibus back to Puerto Natales for a group dinner.  The rest of the group left very early the next morning to make the treks back to either Punta Arenas or El Calafate (Argentina) for their flights back to Santiago or Buenos Aires, and beyond.  I, on the other hand, wasn’t going too far.  So, I did what any reasonable person would do:  I booked in a 10am massage, then had brunch and did some souvenir shopping before catching a 2pm bus for the 5-hour journey across the Argentine border to El Calafate.

More on that in the next installment.  But first, let me take a selfie.

Punta Arenas, The Sequel

I visited the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas in 2016, and I kissed the toe of the statue in the main square.  Legend says that if you kiss the toe, you’ll be sure to return to Punta Arenas one day.  And… voila!  There I was!  The city didn’t appear to have changed too much, though they installed a big “Punta Arenas” sign on the waterfront.  I took a selfie with the view from the Cerro de la Cruz lookout point, and the biggest difference from the same photo I took in 2016 was that I grew a beard.

I do have to mention that the protests that started in Santiago had spread all the way south to Punta Arenas.  There was more graffiti, but it wasn’t as terrible as in Santiago.  I also got to witness a Friday night protest, which was more of a rally than a riot.  There was a speaker and lots of flags in the crowd from various different movements that had come together, including the gay pride flag, trans pride flag, anarchist flag (yikes), and the Mapuche flag (the indigenous people of the country), alongside the Chilean flag and the regional Patagonian flag.  It all seemed very civilized, and didn’t really have an impact on my travel.

The real biggest difference was that the days were longer and stuff was open.  I had visited Punta Arenas in June – winter – in 2016, which is very much the low season.  It’s also the season when the penguins go away, so this time I wanted to come back and see them (because they certainly wouldn’t have been impressive after going to Antarctica!)  This was pretty much the only touristy thing I did in the day and a half that I spent there.

The penguin colony is on Isla Magdalena and a group tour is required to get there.  I arrived for my reserved spot on the 6am tour to find that it had been rescheduled for 3pm due to wind.  Grrr.  Morning Phill is not a happy Phill.  Luckily, the wind calmed and the 3pm tour proceeded (YAY!) despite some rain.  I was put on a bus to a boat to travel to the island.  The boat ride there was great for birdwatching, with sightings of imperial cormorants and petrels, along with swarms of birds likely feeding on sardines just below the water’s surface.

Upon arrival at the Monumento Natural Los Pinguinos, I was greeted by 15,000 breeding pairs of penguins – many with their chicks!  Penguin colonies are measured in breeding pairs rather than by individuals (I don’t know why… they just are.)  I hadn’t really made the effort to talk to any of the other tourists in my boat – most of them were Brazilian – so I just wandered onto the island and stood there staring in excitement at the little Magellanic penguins in their little Magellanic penguin burrows!

That’s when I heard a voice.  This man came up next to me and started explaining to me how the penguins make their burrows.  I understood most of it.  Then I looked over at the stranger and there was this big, juicy hunk of gorgeousness.  This guy was tall, handsome, and talking to me.  It was odd.  He wasn’t a model or anything, but there was just something about him that was very sexy.  He was a complete silver fox, but not yet silver.  I did my best to respond, but as soon as I opened my mouth, gringo came out, and he knew it.  I had a good 20-second interaction with this delicious looking specimen before he wandered off.  More to come.

I started to walk around the island, watching the penguins frolicking about.  There were so many cute penguin chicks, and I got to observe them being fed and cleaned by their parents.  There were also plenty of seagulls in the mix, and they too had little chicks with them!  I think the seagull chicks were actually cuter than the penguin chicks, but that’s just because they were so small, and small things are generally cuter.  I was surprised that at only 3-4 weeks old, the penguin chicks seemed nearly as big as the adults!  There were also several skuas hanging around.  Skuas are nasty brown seabirds that like to eat penguin chicks.  Skuas are evil and they need to be destroyed.

A bit later on, I encountered one of our guides and started walking and chatting with him.  We were forced to stop when we approached a group of people on the highest part of the trail.   It appears it was a group filming a documentary, and the host was the hunky daddy type who spoke to me right when I got on the island!  Of course he was the host – you have to put someone that pretty on television.  His name is Francisco Saavedra.  He hosts a show called “Lugares Que Hablan” as well as a bunch of other stuff.  He’s pretty.  He’s gay.  He has a hot, younger husband.  Of course he does.

Photo courtesy of the interwebs.

For the Americans reading this, he’s basically the Chilean equivalent of Anderson Cooper.  For the Australians reading this, he’s basically the Chilean equivalent of… Anderson Cooper.  Or maybe Hugh Jackman if we can count that?  For the straights or lesbians reading this, I don’t know how to convey this to you.  But he’s a big deal!  He’s beloved in Chile.  With all of the protests and political change, he’s apparently been encouraged to run for president.  I’ve not met many famous people in my life – hardly any actually, unless you count a few Australian politicians.  Francisco Saavedra is probably the hunkiest, most famous person I’ve met, and I didn’t even know who he was until it was too late!  I missed a prime selfie opportunity.  Life is unfair.

The boat stopped at Isla Marta on the way back to land.  Isla Marta is famous for sea lions.  There were lots of them.  They were nowhere near as enjoyable to look at as Francisco Saavedra.

It was then back to the mainland to prepare for the next part of my trip:  a hike.  Details to follow in the next blog.  But first, let me take a penguin selfie!

Santiago, The Sequel

I began my seven-week trip in Santiago, Chile.  I had visited Santiago in 2016 on my gap year, and spent a good amount of time there.  I fell in love with the city:  modern and clean with efficient transport, great restaurants, world-class museums, and a level of safety likely unrivalled anywhere else in Latin America.  None of that has changed for the most part, but there have been some other events that have altered the city.

For those who don’t keep up on the news, there have been protests in Santiago and around Chile since mid-October.  The protests were triggered by a nominal hike in the price of their metro (subway) fares.  Despite being a small increase, it appears to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Chile is a very successful country, but with success has come problems, most notably a growing level of inequality.  Chile is the most unequal country in the OECD.  I have quite a few friends in Santiago, and they all seem to agree that there are problems and that many – but not all – of the protestors’ demands are reasonable, and it appears that change is on the way.

The protests, however, have often turned violent – more riots than protests, complete with looting, arson, vandalism, and several deaths.  Many argue that they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the violence, which very well may be true, though the extent of the violence seems unnecessary.  Metro stations were destroyed and buses set ablaze across the city, leaving people unable to get to work (often those who most need the income).  Other buildings have been torched and some riots have certainly gotten well out of control.

Despite all of this, Santiago remains safe for tourists, though a bit of extra vigilance is warranted.  I had ticked off many of the big-ticket tourist items on my last visit, but there were a handful that were new or that I didn’t get to last time.

Bahai Temple

The Bahai Temple of South America has newly opened since my last visit.  I had visited the main Bahai Temple in Haifa, Israel, back in 2008 and toured its exquisite gardens.  Unfortunately, it’s the dry season in Chile – compounded with a drought – so the gardens here were lackluster, but the temple itself was absolutely stunning.  It’s an architectural marvel, perched gloriously on the side of a mountain overlooking the entire city.

Museo Ralli

This art museum – which also has locations in Uruguay, Spain, and Israel – focuses on works by Latin American artists.  The collection had some brilliant pieces, and was neither too big nor too little.  I don’t know how I missed this last time around…

Cajon del Maipo

Wanting to get out of the city a bit, one of my Chilean mates – Ronny – drove my cousin and I out to the Cajon del Maipo – a gorge just outside Santiago.  The area has some great hikes, but at nearly 40 degrees Celsius, we opted to skip those.  We attempted to drive to a major dam and reservoir which is apparently very scenic, but it was unfortunately closed due to rock falls.  The restaurant we wanted to eat at was also closed, but we found ice cream so at least that was something.  I will try to visit again on a future trip, maybe in a cooler season.

Food

I had done pretty well with local food last time, but there were still some things to be eaten!  Of course, I had an empanada, and visited my favourite ice cream joint: Emporio La Rosa.  My opening meal was at a brilliant Peruvian restaurant called Sarita Colonia (Peruvian food is super popular in Chile as it’s considered the best in South America).  The décor was eccentric and fabulous, and the food delicious.  They even did a little Aussie-Peruvian fusion with a pavlova de chicha morada (a purple corn drink).  Yum!  Elsewhere, I had pollo a pil pil (a spicy chicken dish), sopapillas (which are similar to the ones in the USA but not sweet), and even a new type of wine:  carmenere.  It was too sweet, but when in Rome…

Family and Friends

I actually have a cousin in Santiago.  How random!  She and her husband moved there from San Francisco nearly a year ago and are enjoying it despite the protests.  It was brilliant getting to hang out with them every day and getting the expat view of things.  I also have a few good mates in Chile whom I hung out with:  Claudio (and his mother!), Ronny (and his mother too!), and Sebastian.  Claudio’s mom was sort of my “host mom” when I visited last time, and she continued to fulfill her duties by feeding me a full lunch (just after I had had lunch).  Ronny’s mother was also very motherly and provided some outstanding Christmas cookies!  I did not meet Sebastian’s mother but she surely would have loved me too!

Jewish Christmas

Speaking of Christmas cookies, it was indeed Christmas while I was in town, which meant traffic was heinous and the main mall was a zoo.  Lucky for me, I wasn’t on my own while all of my Chilean friends spent time with their families:  Karen (my cousin), Matt (her husband), and I (me) had a very traditional Jewish Christmas… with Chinese food!  We had Chinese on Christmas Eve (because there was literally nothing else open), and then booked ourselves into a very fancy Chinese-American restaurant on Christmas night.  I feel like the Jews of Australia don’t have this tradition – likely because the Chinese food down under is too authentic – but I was happy to keep the Jewish-American Chinese-food-on-Christmas tradition alive while with other Jewish Americans in South America.

Next stop:  Punta Arenas!  (not to be confused with Puta Arenas!)  But first, let me Claudio take a selfie.

Me with Claudio’s mother, Claudio’s brother, and (of course!) Claudio on Christmas Eve.

So, Facebook has now disabled the links to share a photo album with the public, which is really annoying.  So I won’t be sharing any more albums apparently.  Maybe I’ll switch to a Google option in the near future.  If you're my Facebook friend, you can view my photos there.

A Grand Adventure

Soooo… it’s been a while since my last blog.  No surprise there.  But I’m on a big trip now and thought I’d do my best to keep up with this one since it’s rather exciting.  With that, I will skip over all of the other trips since my gap year, but I will go back and get to them… eventually.  Just so you have an idea of what you’ve missed (because I’ve been a slacker), my last three years of travel have included some new places – Vanuatu, Sint Maarten, and Saint Barts – and some repeat visits too:  South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and London.  I’ve also done a wee bit of domestic travel, with some repeat visits to Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, and the Great Ocean Road, plus some new places:  Ballarat, Bendigo, Byron Bay, Sunshine Coast, Hervey Bay, and Fraser Island.

But for now, I’ve embarked on an adventure to rival my gap year (though, sadly, not nearly as long).  I departed Sydney just before Christmas on a seven-week trip.  My itinerary includes Chile and Argentina – repeat visits but seeing new places in both!  The highlight, however, will be my seventh and final continent:  ANTARCTICA!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will soon be embarking on a three-week expedition to the Falkland Islands (country # 73), South Georgia Island, and the Antarctic Peninsula, along with one of my most trusted travel companions, Lenora.  She and I are friends from high school and Antarctica will be our sixth continent travelling as a duo, previously visiting all but Africa together.  I’ll also be joined by my friends Simon and Alyson from Melbourne, along with Simon’s dad from the UK.

Throughout these seven weeks there will be friends, cousins, Jewish Christmas, lots of hiking, a big anniversary, a not-so-big birthday, camping, empanadas, glaciers, penguins, more empanadas, more penguins, whiskey, museums, hot Latin men (I hope!), alfajores, three of my 103 Things, and utilization of the arsenal of seasickness medications that I’ve acquired… enough to kill a horse.

It is going to be painful going back to work in February.

Details to follow as they happen, but first, let me take a selfie.

In Santiago with my cousin, Karen, and her husband, Matt.

Canberra: The Sequel

I took a little long weekend trip to Canberra last year.  It was my second trip to Australia’s capital city.  As I mentioned in my first blog about Canberra all those years ago (http://phillipdavid.blogspot.com/2013/04/canberra-nations-capital.html), many Australians mock Canberra for being a boring little backwater.  But on this second trip there, I really enjoyed my time.  The city’s population is fairly young and progressive, a new light rail is set to make getting around easier, and there is actually a fair bit to do and see (and even eat!) in Canberra.

I ticked off some of the big-ticket items on my first visit four years prior, such as Parliament and the Australian War Memorial, so I was keen to see what else was on offer.

Australian Institute of Sport

My travel companion visiting from the USA is an Olympics enthusiast and he requested we visit the Australian Institute of Sport.  It wouldn’t have normally been on my list (and it wasn’t even in the Lonely Planet guidebook), but I’m actually super glad we went.  The AIS is where many of Australia’s elite athletes come to train in advance of the Olympics and other competitions.  There’s a smallish interactive museum inside the visitors’ centre, and a guided tour takes you around to check out the facilities, including athletes’ gyms, a giant Olympic swimming pool, and gymnastics facilities.  The best part:  the tour was led by a current athlete, in our case, a super cute male gymnast from Western Australia.  Yummy!

National Gallery of Australia

The excellent National Gallery of Australia contains heaps of art from Australian artists, both indigenous and non-indigenous.  There was also other eastern and western art, including a creepy installation from Filipino artist Rodel Tapaya featuring the upper half of humans flying away with their suitcases.  I think it appealed to the traveller in me.

National Portrait Gallery

I’m so glad I didn’t visit the National Portrait Gallery on my first visit to Canberra, because it gave me four extra years of knowledge about famous Australians.  The gallery features portraits of all sorts of famous Australians – historical and current – from the worlds of politics, business, sports, arts and entertainment, and more.  There were many portraits of super famous people that I knew before hand – such as actresses Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman, and Harold Holt (the Prime Minister who famously disappeared while swimming) – but had I gone on my first visit, I wouldn’t have recognized many of the names and faces that are famous in Australia but not so famous around the world – such as Lee Lin Chin (news presenter), Cadel Evans (cyclist), Princess Mary of Denmark (who is actually Australian), Gough Whitlam (former Prime Minister), Sidney Myer (founder of the Myer department store), and more.

Royal Australian Mint

The Royal Australian Mint is where Australia makes its coins… and more!  The museum inside has great information on the history of Australian coins, details of how they make them, and plenty of fun facts.  The old 1 and 2 cent coins were on display, as well as the medals from the 2000 Sydney Olympics which were also made at the Royal Australian Mint.  Did you know that the 1 and 2 cent coins that were retired in Australia were melted down and made into the bronze medals?  How cool is that?!?  The mint also mints coins for other countries, particularly the small Pacific island nations which can’t mint their own, and some of these were on display too.

I also re-visited some places in Canberra, like the viewpoint at Mt. Ainslie and the weekend Bus Depot markets, plus new cafes and restaurants.  My favourite thing in Canberra, however, was…

Driving

Driving in Canberra is a dream.  A dream!  In the 8.5 years that I’ve lived in Sydney, the traffic has become increasingly heinous.  It used to take about 35 or 40 minutes to get out to Costco.  Now it’s well over an hour.  It’s ridiculous.  But Canberra was modelled after Washington DC, with wide lanes, long stretches of road, and roundabouts to help the traffic flow.  And by “help the traffic flow”, I really mean, “help the four or five cars flow”.  There is hardly any traffic in Canberra because it’s just not a big enough city yet.  Things are quite spread out, but it hardly takes any time at all to get around.  It’s joyful!

I took a few other trips last winter (North American summer) with my mate, Tyler, from the USA, and I’ll blog about those in the next few weeks.  Hopefully.  But first, let me take a… oh wait.  I didn’t take any selfies in Canberra.  Not a single one.  Ugh.  Here’s a picture of me at the Australian Institute of Sport instead.  I won a gold medal.  You can only guess what in!

To see more photos of my time in Canberra, follow this link:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100728387602231&type=1&l=b1f084af46

England & Wales 2016

The last time I blogged I said that I’d start blogging about more trips soon-ish… well, I’ve had like three overseas trips and one big domestic trip since then and now I’m even further behind.  But I’m going to give myself a pass because it’s been under a year so I’m going to count that as soon-ish.

I’ll begin with where I left off:  right after my gap year.  As I mentioned in my last post, I hung out in London for a few weeks trying to figure out if I could get a job and a visa.  Job: Easy.  Visa: A stern “Hell No” from Theresa and the Brexit Bunch.  Once I realized that, I made haste to try to tackle as much of London as I could.  I had seen a few things when I passed through earlier that year, but there was so much more to be experienced.  With that, here are my top five favourite attractions (in random order) that I saw in London:

1.  London Transport Museum:  Clearly my first stop, I love all things transport-related because I’m a transport nerd.  I was slightly disappointed (but not surprised) that airports were only a small part of the museum, but all of the stuff about the tube and double-decker buses was fantastic.  Also, A+ on the gift shop.

2.  Museum of London:  Outside of transport, the Museum of London was an overload of information, but in a good way.  Detailing the history of the city from way back when all the way to modern day, the museum was thorough but never boring.  I particularly enjoyed learning about London during and just after WWII.  This one also had a strong gift shop game.

3.  British Museum:  It took me three attempts to conquer the British Museum.  It’s so big and the first two times were just a bit overwhelming.  “Where do I start?  How am I going to ever see all this stuff?  I should just leave and get Chipotle instead.”  Finally, on my third attempt, I forked out some money for a “Highlights Tour” of the museum which was clearly the way to go.  The tour featured a little bit of everything and all of the most important pieces.  I was then able to go at my own pace and re-visit a few select exhibitions that really grabbed my interest.  The size and scope of the collection is just unbelievable.

4.  Tate Britain:  I like new things, so I just assumed I’d prefer the Tate Modern to the Tate Britain.  But you know what happens when you assume?  The Tate Britain had hundreds of years of British art, arranged chronologically throughout the museum.  Getting to experience the changes in art over time was brilliant, and this one goes down as one of my absolute favourite art galleries on the planet.

5.  Wellcome Collection:  This little museum contains the private collection of one Sir Henry Wellcome, and a bit more.  An avid traveller, Henry picked up some insane souvenirs along the way, like Napoleon’s toothbrush, Florence Nightingale’s slippers, a whole mummified person from Peru, Japanese sex toys, anti-masturbation devices, chairs with spikes, chastity belts, and so much more.  The museum itself isn’t all that big, but it’s one of those museums where you just have to look at each piece on display and read each caption.

Of course, I did a lot more than just these… but I won’t give my full comments on every single one because you’ll fall asleep.  But here are the brief comments, where warranted, just in case you are planning a trip to London:  Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (glorious and beautiful!), Tower of London (do one of the Beefeater Tours), The Monument (I climbed the steps to the top for my annual workout), The Royal Observatory at Greenwich (I straddled the Prime Meridian and added to my collection of straddling famous… imaginary lines), St. Paul’s Cathedral (with splendid views from the dome), the Lloyd’s of London building (formally checking off one of my 103 Things), The Churchill War Rooms (where I learned everything I needed to know about Churchill and his tenure during WWII), Kensington Palace (which wasn’t all that big but had a great exhibition on the fashion of HM The Queen, Princess Margaret, and Princess Diana),  Hampton Court Palace (which was all that big and super interesting and a must see it you have time for a day trip just a bit out of London), the Geffrye Museum (which explores British homes from 1600 until today), and the Jewish Museum London (because I’m a big gay Jew).

But wait there’s more!

I also visited the Natural History Museum (which wasn’t that much different than other natural history museums… just more British…), Houses of Parliament (because I’m a politics nerd), Westminster Abbey (because you have to, right?), the Queen’s House (not the actual Queen’s house, but like, an older queen’s house – it wasn’t furnished. Odd.), the National Maritime Museum (which had really interesting/depressing information on the slave trade and other maritime stuff), and the V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum, which had a lot of stuff in the permanent collection, and a lot of it – like, how many bowls do you need? But the temporary exhibition on underwear was super interesting!)  I also visited parks and neighbourhoods and stuff.

Outside of London:

I visited Bristol and Oxford on my first trip to London, so I had to see a few new non-London places this time too.  I visited my friend Jemma in Cheltenham (which was a super cute little city but didn’t have any super outstanding tourist attractions) and we did a day trip to Cardiff in Wales (hence the title of this blog includes Wales because of the few hours I spent there).  We visited the Cardiff Castle which was great, and the National Museum Cardiff which seemed to be half closed for renovations.  But that kept with the theme of Cardiff on a Sunday:  mostly closed.  I also visited my mate James in Cambridge where he showed me around some of the colleges and the Fitzwilliam Museum which was like a smaller version of the British Museum.

Food:

Food.  Clearly there was food involved.  Because there’s always food involved.  Except when I have food poisoning (like the Great Nepal-Malaysia Disaster of 2015) or when there’s only shellfish and pork (refer to my point above about being a big gay Jew).  I ate meat pies.  Lots of them.  I ate fish and chips.  Because Britain.  I went to the Harrod’s Food Hall more times than one should.  Their brownies are ridiculous.  I also had an afternoon tea at Harrod’s because I’m posh like that.  I went to nearly every Australian-owned cafe in London in search of good coffee and Aussie-style brunch.  I went to the Borough Market to eat the orgasmic cheese toasties from this cheese place there.  So much cheese.  So much delight.  I stayed with my mates Ross & Jon in Highbury and they were conveniently located not far from an Ethiopian restaurant, something that isn’t all that common in Australia.  So, obviously, I ate there a bunch.  The lady knew me by the end of it.  I think she misses me.  I miss her food.  And, of course, Chipotle.  London has Chipotle.  And I knew I’d be going back to Australia soon and Australia’s Tex-Mex scene is pretty piss poor so I just ate ALL of the Chipotle.  I think three times per week at the end.  That’s how dire it is in Australia.  I was relishing burritos in Britain!

British TV:

I had time to watch some British TV, and I loved it (but to be fair, I’ve always loved British TV).  One new show (well, new to me) that I just fell hard for was The Great British Bake Off – which features amateur bakers in an intense competition with crazy hosts and judges and all sorts of sexual innuendo.  LOVE.  I also watched lots of First Dates which follows people on blind dates in a restaurant (the whole restaurant is there on a blind date).  It’s brilliant and surprisingly classy unlike most dating shows.  There are international versions of the show, including one in Australia, but they’re just not as good as the original British version.  Less classy but equally as entertaining is a show called Naked Attraction where all of the contestants are naked and one person starts eliminating people based on what’s below the waist, the torso, the face, and then the voice.  They show full frontal on TV in prime time.  I belong in Britain.

Giggles:

And finally, I spent a good chunk of my time in London just giggling.  I’d giggle every time I rode the Piccadilly Line because the line ends at Cockfosters and every announcement was “This is a Piccadilly Line service to Cockfosters.” Hehe!  Someone is fostering cock!  And, of course, I just had to be staying around the corner from a pub called “The Famous Cock” (hehehehe!) which I would see every time I went to the tube station, so it was just a constant gigglefest. Because I’m mature.  So mature.

Cockfosters.

I’ll blog again… soonish.  But first, let me take a selfie (on the Prime Meridian!)

To see more photos of my time in England AND Wales, follow this link:

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