Life in Indonesia: Taking a big spoonful of guilt...

I am most definitely someone who is prone to thinking about the future and things I would like to achieve. The general gist of my thoughts are: What countries will I go to in the future? Where will I live? What job do I want to do? Will I buy a house? So it goes.. 

Quite a few years ago, I had a realisation that these type of thoughts were the privilege of a tiny majority of the world; namely, people with disposable income. Living in Indonesian only rams home this point.

It's easy for me; I guess for all of us, to get wrapped up in our own problems without considering how very lucky we are. We can also neglect the bigger issues of the world.

Indonesia has an incredible wrap-list of problems which I will write about in a different post. These issues aren't at the top of the priority list for many Indonesians and this becomes easier to understand when you consider one of the most fundamental needs for human beings: food.

Napoleon is famously supposed to have said: "An army marches on its stomach." I feel the same holds true for a populace. Indonesia is a developing country. How can someone put energy into saving the environment and stopping corruption when they are worried about putting food in their stomach?

Recently one of Jakarta's major daily newspapers had the headline: "117 Juta Orang Indonesia, Sangat Miskin" (117 Million Indonesians Very Poor).. It takes about five seconds walking a typical street in Jakarta to confirm how commonplace poverty is.

The very poor of Indonesia come in many different forms. There are those who sit on street corners with their hands out including children carrying babies, old people with no teeth and amputees.
There are those who sell drinks and other goods at small stalls and people who collect rubbish for a pittance. What they all have in common is they make between 10,000 and 30,000 Indonesian Rupiah a day (between $1.20 and $3.50 USD).

On my campus at the University of Indonesia there is a group of about 10 boys aged between 8-15 who sell newspapers. All of them have left school already and they sell the newspapers for about 25 cents each. They want to make money and be independent but without an education, they will probably be destined to a life of menial labour. It is common for them to work six days a week, 12 hours a day.

The problems of who to give to, how much to give, and how to make a difference can at times be overwhelming. Directly across the street from my apartment is a narrow alleyway that leads to my University. There is a boy aged around 12 who always wears a black T-shirt and camo-coloured shorts.

The first time I saw him he was crying his eyes out, wailing.  It was a distressing sight. I asked him what was wrong.. "Aku lapparr" (I'm hungry) he said. I asked him where his parents were: "Nggak ada" (I don't have any) he murmured. I told him that if he had any family members I would call them for him. He just kept crying so I just gave him a bit of money and was on my way. Since then I've seen him a bunch of times and sometimes give him a bit of food or small change. He is just one of millions.

I found out that there is a bit of an organised crime element to the beggars, much like what you see in Slum Dog Millionaire. I watched as a very impoverished looking beggar who I'm used to seeing as he was handing over a small wad of notes (probably just a few dollars) to a guy who I can assume was the boss of the area.
As for stealing for a living: people who rob here and are caught are usually seriously beaten or killed by the people (seemingly anyone) who catch them, so it's not a safe option for people who are starving.

Some of the poorest people I've ever met are warm, humble and friendly. They have a very tough life though.

It's incredibly cliched' to be young and idealistic but I at least hope in my life I can do something that makes a meaningful difference to some people.  Giving some poor Indonesians a bit of money isn't going to lift them out of poverty but I'm sure some of them will use the money to buy food and that, at least, makes me feel a little better.

Questions and comments welcome

Getting Deep in to Thailand's Sex Culture

One of the main streets in Patong

I spent three weeks in Thailand in September last year during my round the world trip. For a traveller, the country is paradisiacal. It's cheap, the food is delicious, the people are friendly, there are many beautiful tourist spots and the weather is great. It's got everything you could want from a travel destination including... sex.

I don't wish to adorn a moral superiority hat but a theme that dominated my trip to Thailand was the sexual culture that is everywhere you go. I should say that I think prostitution should be legal but it's not for me.

  First of all - the stunningly obvious: many, many men come to South East Asia and particularly Thailand for sex.

My first couple of days were spent in perhaps one of the sleaziest places on earth: Patong Beach, Phuket.
I'm told that only Pattaya in Northern Thailand rivals Patong for lady boys, prostituion and general in-your-face sleaze.

To give you a picture of an average night on the streets of Patong beach; strolling down a road packed with neon-lit bars and restaurants.There are extremely confident lady boys strutting their stuff up and down the road. Sometimes it's completely obvious they are packing a dong under their skirts, other times you're not so sure which is a bit disconcerting. You are approached by dozens of Thai's thursting leaflets with lurid photos and telling you "Want to see a ping pong show Mister?"

I didn't have any desire to attend nor did my girlfriend but I was told by a German guy that it was pretty disgusting. The girl on stage (who didn't look to be enjoying herself, said the German) will use live fish, birds and cigarettes in her nether regions for the presumed entertainment of the crowd.

You see stuff like this all the time

Patong is a 24 hour party destination so people  from age 18 up to 70 are strolling the streets, often dressed in costume, with painted faces and often utterly pissed.

It's not that I overtly dissaprove of a bit of debauchery - I'm pretty liberal when it comes to people doing what they want.

I guess what I didn't like was the sense of entitlement that a lot of Westerners who travel to South East Asia have. It's like "I have money so I can do whatever the hell I want."

Some Western men will brag to you about how easily they can land girls and most times I would be thinking: 'Well it's not for your looks or personality, buddy.'

I spoke to a British guy who ran a bar in Patong and he said that recently a number of drunk Irishman had entered his bar. One of them started groping his bar staff without hesitation and said to his mates: "This ones only got small tits." (The bar owner also told me that American sailors and Italians had an unusually strong liking for lady boys).

On the train to Chang Mai I got speaking to an old Texan who had been in Thailand for ten years. He still had a distinct drawl and said that he can find women in his home town of Pai "like that" (with a click of his fingers)..

I went to Tiger Bar with a group of people and there would have been five prostitutes to every one guy. I was with my girlfriend but still mobbed by girls asking did I want a good time.There was a grotty old Spanish guy, around 65 with his belly hanging out of his shirt and a very young Thai girl on one of his arms.

Patong also offers beaches like this, but it's not the primary pull for tourists

Somebody tried to explain the way things work in Thailand: "You have to look at the way things are as a mutually beneficial arrangement.. the girls get paid good money and the guys have a good time. It works out for everyone."

My girlfriend and I stayed with a cool Mexican guy who had been running his own business in Patong Beach for a couple of years.. He had really enjoyed the lifestyle and a cousin of his who was staying with Jose at the same time as us said: "Jose wouldn't have stayed in Thailand for as long as he has if he wasn't fucking his dick off with so many different women"..

Jose told us that he preferred to go with Thai girls who had Western boyfriend over in Europe. "They are less jealous than other Thai girls" he told us. "They don't get crazy when I sleep with other girls".

Patong Beach

One of his short flings had ended with him nearly getting stabbed by a woman and her friend. They turned up at his house in a howling rage and brandishing a sizable knife.. Jose and his cousin had to manhandle the women from the property and barricade the door.

Among many Thai people, there seemed to be an attitude that prostitution has always been, and will always be, a part of the social fabric of Thailand. It's officially illegal but in practice it's nearly everywhere you look.


I guess I took the view that the power dynamic is so stacked in favour of Westerners who visit Thailand. By virtue of being born in a Western Country, we have more money that the average Thai and a life of prostitution is an easy choice for a lot of Thai woman. The woman who enter the trade seem to know what it involves and it's not my place to say they shouldn't be doing that. I don't like to see people as commodities but the same can't be said for a lot of travelers that frequent that part of the world. If you can buy cheap food, why not have a cheap lay on the side? Prostitution is much the same in every country - it's never a very glamorous business.

I had a chat with one Thai "party girl" who said that some of the time she enjoyed her work. Just the previous night she had been partying with an Australian couple in their mid thirties. She had showered with the wife while the husband watched and said of the experience: "It was a bit weird"..

Lady boys - kind of disturbing huh?

Thailand has a different atmosphere to Indonesia (which also has sex tourism). I think a big part of that comes from Thailand being a Buddhist rather than a Muslim country. It's not that Muslims are any less sexual, it's that the religion constrains the impulsues to a large extent. The sexual culture of Indonesia is a bit more hidden. Plus plus massages are big here but you don't have people handing you flyers and encouraging you to get there.

If people want to party and have a good time, I totally encourage them to do so. I just think that there should be a bit more respect in the whole dynamic between SEA and Western countries so that countries like Thailand don't serve as a sort of country-wide sexual maid service to satisfy the sexual cravings of Westerners.

A question I have is would so many woman be working in the sex industry if there were plenty of good paying jobs available in fields like hospitality or retail?  I'm not so sure..
Rates of prostitution are certainly lower in New Zealand and Australia than in Thailand or Cambodia. 

For the moment - Thailand is serving as a fantastic place for tourists and a favorite spot for hedonists the world over.

A very interesting guy I met while travelling Europe!

It's difficult to categorise people in order of most to least interesting: you don't want to appear dismissive of someone because they didn't come out with some incredible story or demostrate an incredible ability.

On my trips around South East Asia and Europe I did encounter a bunch of people that I would unlikely have met had I stayed in New Zealand.

One guy in particular did stick out though.. our meeting was brief, just six hours. And even though he's done some incredible stuff in his life, you've probably never heard of him: he's been to nearly every country in the world, by running!

Jamel Bahli
So it was quite a weird little encounter with Jamel. I was going from Paris to Lyon and used a French car sharing website to organise the ride. He collected me in a humble white station wagon and appeared to be a rather typical French man.
He was wearing a beret, dressed in a black and white striped shirt, was smoking and had several loaves of french bread beneat one arm.. His accent was nearly incomprehensible (oh no wait, that's a my French stereotype).

In truth, he had short curly hair, wore glasses and was a rather terrifying driver. His gear changes were clumsy (I suspect he usually drove automatic) and a few times when we were on the highway going 130kmph he was looking at his cellphone and driving with his knees.. I asked him to please concentrate on the road and he said that New Zealand (one of the few countries in the world he hasn't visited) must be a strict place.

It was only about an hour into our six hour drive that we started talking about travel.
Turns out this guy is the most worldy fellow I've ever met. He has travelled to all but about 30 countries on earth. And what's more: he ran across them.
America, Australia, China, Africa.. you pretty much name it and he's been there. Just him, a small backpack and his running shoes.
I asked the very obvious question: "So you're a bit like Forrest Gump?" He sighed - "No, Forrest Gump is not real and in the movie he ran for no reason and for five minutes. I run in real life, I run for a reason."

These days Jamel gives talks to audiences around France and other places about his travels.. A bit of an inspirational speaker type thing.. He also works as a photographer and journalist and spends about 9 days a month in a new country. He had just returned from Egypt where he had photographed the revolution but said it was already difficult to find buyers for the photos.."News moves fast", he said.
He told me that he could still have a lot of time for travel despite his young family because his wife knew that it was part of his life when they met. "Family doesn't have to be a prison", he said.

He spends at least half of every month in his home town in  Northern France with his wife and children.

Although Jamel is now used to being behind the lens of a camera, when I tried to snap a pic of him for posterity, he wouldn't allow it.
He said that people had a perception of him as a runner and it wasn't in keeping with his image to have an imagine of him driving a small car, wearing glasses (heaven forbid!) when people were more used to seeing his figure eloping across a desert or atop the great wall of China..

 Running was initially an answer to Jamel's question of how to escape society (something I can certainly relate to). He continued running because he found it was a great way to discover different countries.

His favourite running surface is tarmac and on his journeys he would usually run next to highways  (he's got free running shoes from Nike for the rest of his life) highways. Although he sometimes runs 120 km in a single day and he spent about 20 years on his treks, he's never been injured.

He said his least favourite country where he travelled was China (because people were very unfriendly to him) and his most favourite place in the whole world was Istanbul.. He awoke a deep craving for me to visit Turkey and it's now at the top of my list for my next trip to Europe in 2013.

Surprisingly this guy isn't very famous but that's because he says he's never really sought fame. He has had an Audience with the last pope and is known in the Ultra Marathon Running scene and in France.

For a guy now in his early fourties he's in incredible shape. We stopped at a supermarket to pick up some snacks (cheese and coffee) and he bounded up and down the aisles. He speaks with passion and was quite inspiring in general. He dropped me off in Lyon and that was that.

I was a bit awestruck afterwards because he's already been to so many places I wanna go and he did it in an original way.  I hope I can find a way of incorporating my travels into my job or even better, making money from travelling.

I did met some other very interesting people on the road, not to leave them out. Jamel just happened to stick out in my mind.

Who is an interesting person you've met while travelling?

Reflecting on a year since I quit my job = good decision!

I'm trying to beat the laziness monster and at least write something every now and then. It's a little bit of catharsis.

One year ago, I had just quit an internship at a big media outlet after just two months employed with them. It was a big decision but one that now sits comfortably with me.

Since then I've met a whole bunch of young people in similar boats to me. Those who found themselves annoyed and frustrated in their new jobs and quit. 

I guess my heart wasn't really in the job from the start. Once I got into the role and found a whole mountain of negativity and burnt out workers I felt like quitting was a sensible option. I already had some savings in the bank and I started to think: "why am I here?" It wasn't as if the pay was fantastic. I made considerably more in a temporary job in Australia in a job that required no qualifications and two weeks training.

My main desire after finishing my degree was to travel. In my journal when I was 18 I wrote that my main ambition was to be traveling when I finished and four years later, that's what I was doing.

The amount of things that I've done in this last year that I wouldn't' have otherwise done is incredible.. This is not meant to be a braggathon but here's a quick summary:

I travelled around New Zealand, spent a few months back in my home town catching up with my family. Went to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia and revisited Jakarta. I worked three months in Perth and saved money for my European trip.

In January I lived in Italy for a month, got to see Rome and Venice and live with my girlfriend and some cool flatmates. Then I went to Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Britain, Italy again, Spain, Ireland and have just returned to Jakarta for language studies. I encountered many languages, cultures, museums, bars, people(I will write about the most interesting of them very soon), landmarks, climates, political situations and foods. I tanked up an enormous travel bill and have a much bigger carbon footprint than I'm comfortable with.

You can't really capture everything that happens in a year in just a few paragraphs..
It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops. Some days it was a grind and I certainly could have done with more sleep on the trip.

There were times when I was worried that I had made a mistake quitting so quickly, right at the start of my career. Did I throw away a great opportunity?

When I was in Europe I met heaps of people in their mid twenties still studying and still not sure what they were doing with their lives.. That, at least made me feel like I've still got time to make the most of my youth and see a bit of the world.

I've been very fortunate to be in a position where I can afford to travel..

I still wonder whether I would return to a journalism job.. I haven't applied for a single journalism job in the time since I quit and you start to worry. "Will I be able to get something this long out of the game?" My journalism lecturer did warn me that the longer I left it, the more graduates I would be competing with for jobs. He also said I had to prove my "hunger" for the job and I don't know if I've done that.

I would hope that someone can appreciate a bit of worldliness but that will remain to be seen. If I'm unlucky in that venture then it's back to Uni for a masters and I wan to do that anyway..

I've learned that it's best to make the most of your youth cause I remember and older journalist telling me that once the ball got rolling on her career, ten years passed by and she never travelled and had children.. Having a family isn't a prison and neither is a job but four weeks annual holiday on average makes long travels quite difficult.

 My path wouldn't be right for everyone. There's a lot to be said for building contacts, getting a rep and getting experience. It would certainly make some people more employable. We're all dying someday though right? So - for me at least, it was liberating to just be free from Uni, from a job for 10 of the last 13 months.

There's no point in reflecting on other roads I might have taken cause this is it. I'm happier than I was this time last year and my eyes are that little bit more open than they were before.

If you hate your job, and you have some other options on the table, quit.. Life passes by too fast to be dissatisfied and as idealistic and cliched as it sounds, there is so much out there in the world to explore, new perspectives to be gained and different insights to be garnered.

I'm still not sure what job I'll pursue but I just hope it's something I like. Perhaps I'll start my own business? Still plenty of time, right?

On being stuck next to nuts and eccentrics on public transport..

Here is a groundbreaking blog to mark my 23rd birthday, dedicated to Wimmy

 A recent encounter with a harmless but equally brainless English lad aboard a bus to Coventry made me ponder the issue of weirdos on on public transport.

I am sure that many, many people will have come across the same thing at one time. If you use busses or trains regularly you are eventually guaranteed to encounter someone who is very hard to sit beside.

One of my earliest such experiences was taking a bus home from school when I was about 13. My parent´s home is quite near a psychiatric hospitality and some patients are given day release because they are reasonably stable.

A young, attractive woman across the aisle from me sat quietly and showed no immediate signs of lunacy. Looking at her, I could never have predicted what would happen next..

She put a sock (ordinary sock, not a puppet) on her hand, pointed it at herself and started saying in a loud, aggressive voice, "You're ugly, you're useless, you're pathetic" over and over again

I can only guess this lady was heading back for dinner at the hospital.

Why are encounters with strange people a hazard on public transport? Because most of the time you are in close proximity to these people and there's no escape until you arrive at your destination.

When I was in Perth catching a ferry back from work, a young woman with the beginnings of a mono brow, a trashy track-suit ensemble and a cap came and sat right next to me, in spite of a litany of empty seats throughout the ferry. Almost immediately she launched into a tirade about men. In her nasal, ocker accent she said; "You know my boyfriend just left me and..."

Approximately what the girl looked like

 After about a minute I said. "Excuse me, it's very strange to just sit next to someone and randomly bombard them with your problems."

She seemed a bit taken a back, mumbled an apology and moved away for about 47 seconds before boomeranging back.

"I think you´re Irish? You have blue eyes.. Irish have blue eyes. I met an Irish guy once..¨

I glanced across the ferry looking for a helpful face only to see a group of people who worked for the same company as me laughing and winking as if to say "She's your problem buddy"..

When we arrived at the port she ran to some unsuspecting guys sitting having coffee and started another breathless account of her life.

I'm going to assume this girl was off her nut. I didn't know how to handle her. I could have just said ¨Leave me alone! but that would have been harsh. Extremely un-receptive body language, it seems, does not deter your hardcore annoying bus commuter.

 The inspiration for this piece was aboard a bus from Bristol to Coventry.  He was about my age, wearing a smart looking suit, sporting a slick hair cut and looking fairly bored.



I think I´d slip into a coma if I was stuck next to Palin

From his attire I assumed he was a businessman of some sort. I offered my paper to him read, which he accepted and we started a conversation.

It took me all of thirty seconds to start to wonder.. ¨WTF?¨ 

He tried telling me what he did for a job but the way he went about ït was incomprehensible. He pulled words from the air at random. Mangling sentences, decapitating predicates and annihilating grammar. A bit like George Bush or Sarah Palin.

I ascertained that he was in some sort of government work program and I can only assume that he dropped out of school early.

His accent was understandable and the individual words were legible but what he was saying just didn't make sense:

"So, news is always happening, all the time, you know? It's just like crazy how stuff is always happening if you think about it.."

Words plopped from his mouth like dung from arse.

I'm pretty sure this guy wasn't drunk or high and he wasn't mentally ill so my conclusion is he might have been a few cans short of a six pack.

 I felt like I had to explain things to him like he was seven years old. I told him that the settlement of New Zealand and Australia were very different (he asked if the first settlers were convicts) and some of the first Europeans to arrive in New Zealand were missionaries.

"So they were on a mission then?" he said.

I abandoned conversation shortly after this with the old open your book routine.. But sometimes a book or music can´t save you.

 Usually headphones are a barrier to unwanted communication, right? Well not in this case.

Last year I was on a bus from Dunedin to Christchurch. It was quite empty and we were some way into the six hour journey. I was listening to Daft Punk and a woman who looked to be about 30 came over and asked if she could listen to my iPod.

Seriously, who the hell does that?

She was holding a bottle of budget cola in her hand which her and her boyfriend (who had a died red mullet and wore a sleeveless denim jacket) were swigging back the whole trip. By the calibre of their conversation, they were not the freshest french fries. No more than a few words would pass without an f bomb hurled in.

The woman had violated the basic "please leave me in peace" which wearing headphones implies. If someone needed help, sure, but this was just weird. So I let her listen to my music (frankly taken aback) and she starts bopping to the music and says ¨I love this song.¨

I did feel a bit sorry for her cause she seemed nicer than her boyfriend, who was clearly a bit of a bastard.

He called across the aisle "I hope he knows that you're with me".. I felt like yelling "As if I'd be interested" but thought it would be wasted breath. She returned to her seat and a massive domestic ensued.. He was calling her a fat whore, she argued back but started to cry and I promptly moved to the front of the bus. For the remainder of the trip they were arguing and the rest of the bus sat in quiet compliance.

Clearly this is not one of life's major issues but if this ever happens to you. You will try to think of a way to get away as quickly as possible. 

Would be curious if anyone has any crazy people stories to share?

Wunderbar!! Impressions of Berlin

Lucy and her unhappy cat

The forces of lethargy have so far been winning the war against my productive urges. 
I'm going to make an effort to write more about the different places I've travelled and thoughts I have because it's good to get the creative juices flowing. More updates about other countries soon. F

Already on this journey I have seen and experienced a lot of stuff. Some cities and towns charmed me instantly while others grew on me and there were a couple that I thought were a bit crap (Paris underwhelmed me).

Kunsthaus - a cool area where Artists hang out

Berlin falls into the first category. I would go as far to say that its the best European city I have yet visited.

First thing to know; It is MASSIVE. Seriously. It would take many, many hours to walk through all the districts.

The public transport is excellent and rarely inspected (which suited me ;) so you can get around the place very easily.

Here is why Berlin rocked my socks....

Dynamic mix of old and new:


In the newer parts of Berlin such as Alexanderplatz you have giant, open squares packed with ultramodern buildings and trendy industrial art..The museums such as the Jewish History, Stasi (former  East German secret police), Deutsch History and Pergammon are all awesome. If you are a cultural buff there is plenty to get your teeth into.

 Move into some of the Eastern districts and you find something different altogether:

Some street art on a shop's doors

Grungy, dirty, fascinating streets.. Berlin is well known for its street art. The art is most common in run down areas and is beautification as opposed to destruction. I took an alternative Berlin walking tour today and was amazed to discover a side of the city I may have otherwise missed.

Street Art

Graffitti in the city comes in many varieties.. There are the stock standard scrawls "X was here" "Berliners eat cock" "Z loves Y" and so forth. But there are also much more juicy offerings.

 At the Eastside Gallery

A cartoon girl called Little Lucy (see picture at top) is dotted around the city in various outfits. In each scene she kills her cat in a creative way.. Down an alleyway near some distinctive pubs there is a giant painting of a polar bear smoking weed (as an aside, Berlin zooś famous Polar bear Knut died at the young age of 5 while I was in Berlin :( .
Banksy, a famous anonymous street artist from Bristol, had down a few pieces around Berlin but apparently his works are now so desirable people will actually chisel out the bit of concrete the grafitti is on and sell it..

Once someone points out a particular artists work to you, you start to notice them everywhere. If I had much in the way of artistic ability perhaps I would be inspired to try some of that action.

Cheap.
As a traveller, how much I enjoy a place partly depends on how much money I have to spend to do basic stuff. Fortunately Berlin is one of the cheapest European capital cities. You can pick up a meal for between three and six Euro. The living costs are low too. You can find yourself an enormous room in a decent apartment for just 200 Euro a month.

Berlin people:

There is a real multi-cultural cosmopolitan mix here. Most native Berliners were friendly and their English ability is pretty good. It feels tolerant too. People can drink alcohol on the public transport and long time residents told me that they walk the streets at night and feel safe.

World War Two History.

Some Nazi propaganda from the German History Museum

Another aspect of the city that smoked my tyres was WW2 history. Berlin was obviously a major centre of Nazi operations during that era so I enjoyed seeing the various locations of significance and rereading the stories behind them.
I saw the location where Hitler's bunker once stood. In a strange twist, the land above where the bunker once sat is now a children's playground. There are no signs to acknowledge the location because Germany prefers to commemorate the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Second World War. The bunker was collapsed in on itself and the concrete was reused to make the soviet-style apartments that now surround the area where the bunker once stood.

Pergamon Museum where I dropped my camera

There are a lot of sombre exhibitions outlining the horror of the Nazis.. The former location of the the SS was one such place. To be in locations that I had previously read so much about and try and imagine the terror of the Nazi regime is very sobering. I didn't feel I could truly comprehend the terrors of that time. It's just too awful.

A view of the city from the river

Tributes to the Berlin Wall are also thick on the ground. I stayed in East Berlin and talked to a few Germans about what it used to be like before the wall came down. Strolling along next to the East Side Gallery, which is a giant section of the Berlin wall preserved as a monument that has been beautified by artists, I tried to picture what it must have been like living in divided Germany. Many people tried to escape from East to West and some were shot trying to escape.

The East German state was pretty much big brother personified with every aspect of the populaces life  under observation. In the Stasi museum - you could see the lengths the secret police went to spy on their people including all manner of spy objects such as briefcases, ties and even tree stumps with concealed cameras. Most of the people responsible for human rights abuses in the East German regime never saw justice after 1989, which is a shame.

Night Life:

Berlin is quite famous for its nightlife and you can find pretty much any type of club you want. There are even leather fetish clubs that are known for giant orgies if that's your thing. I hit a few clubs in an industrial area near hackescher markt and enjoyed strolling through run-down warehouses that are packed with interesting people, artisans and grafitti. There are some smoking bans in bars in Germany but they are weakly enforced so people puff away.

No city is perfect, parts of Berlin are pretty dirty and it certainly can have a heaviness to it from all the horrible things that happened there, but overall, awesome.
If you get a chance, go to Berlin! I will certainly return there one day.

Post script:

At the time of writing, I have been living and traveling in Europe for 11 weeks. Moving between places can wear you down but I keep meeting great people that energise me for some more. For me, travel is far more about that people you meet than the things you see. Couchsurfing is an excellent aid to that end because you get to actually live with locals. My couchsurfing blog will come soon.

Questions or comments welcome!

Life in Italy..

I´m still messing around a bit and have decided to give myself the start of the year to just travel and enjoy life. Career stuff can wait.

Having been in Italy for just under two weeks, it would be presumptuous of me to claim any deep knowledge of the culture, society etc. Nevertheless, these are some of my initial thoughts about Perugia, Italy etc.

Perugia is a very ancient city. It's in the Umbria region, about two and a half hours North of Rome by train. It has a population of around 170,000, although you wouldn't know it because the central city is quite compact.

A fairly typical street 

This is my first time in Europe and I'm already struck by feeling that I'm in a place full of history. Everywhere in the world has a history I guess but Italy brought the world the Renaissance, the Roman Empire, Da Vinci and the Mafia! Would we have had fantastic gangster movies such as The Godfather and Goodfellas were it not for Italy? These days Italy is well known for many things including Berlusconi in all his baffoonery, fashionable clothing and food. 

The centre of the Perugia is perched atop a hill and at the highest point of the city you have a stunning vista of the surrounding valley. It's winter now, which was a shock to my system after being in roasting 38 degree heat in Perth.

These days Perugia is known as a University city, with a number of language schools established to teach foreigners the Italian tongue.

Some thoughts:

Italian: a musical language with hand gestures galore:

We've all seen the stereotypes - Italians are passionate people and they flap their hands about a lot.

A view from the top

When you walk the streets and see and hear them talking you get the impression whatever they are chatting about must be important. Even if they were talking about collecting laundry there appears to be a gravitas to what is being said. The New Zealand accent sounds very pedestrian in comparison.

Narrow streets lined with houses:

Most of the streets in the city are scarcely wide enough for two lanes of traffic. The average road is lined with multiple story stone houses that are joined to one another. The cars are mostly European, which I guess is no surprise and they are a lot smaller than say on Australian or New Zealand roads. Wimmy pointed out that most Italians don't wash their cars. As strange an observation as that is, it's quite unusual to see someone driving a new BMW or Mercedes that is filthy. 

Wimmy and I 

Beautiful architecture:

There's a grandiosity to the Churches and buildings around the centre of the town that you've just gotta love. The intricacy of the brickwork or the detail of the statues, roman aqueducts, crumbling walls.. just great. Perguia is a maze of a town with little curling alleyways, steep streets and stairs everywhere. 

Wine flows like Water:

So far I haven't seen too many drunks roaming the streets but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

You can pick up a bottle of quite tasty wine for less than a Euro, beer is similarly cheap. I've heard that the Italian attitude to drinking is a little less "let's get fucked!" and a bit more "how about some alcohol with dinner?"

Cost of Living:

The Italian economy is pretty rubbish at the moment. They have very high unemployment and a typical wage is 5-7 Euro for basic jobs such as at a bar or in retail. Electricity and gas are pricey so a lot of Italians are reticent to turn their lights or heating on. Room sharing is common.

Food is cheap, most items at the grocery store are around one euro or less, so you can do a decent shop for about 20 Euro (35 NZD). 

 Ridiculously attractive women on TV

Not just in the terrible soaps but presenting serious news.. Berlusconi owns a large chunk of the Italian media including news stations and if you know anything about him, he likes attractive women. Most of the women presenting the news wear revealing tops.. (so what you say?) Well - I certainly don't get offended (quite the contrary) but as a British man said of living here "sometimes you wouldn't know the feminist movement had happened."
 

Rather silly business hours:

They say when in Rome... Right?

Most businesses open at 9am and then close at 1pm. They have three hours lunch break and reopen for an hour at four. The exception is cafes and restaurants. Apparently this comes from a time when a woman would go home at lunchtime to cook a meal for her family. That's nice and everything but a bit difficult if you are trying to get things done. Italians REALLY love their food.

Damn multilingual bastards:

While Italians may not be the greatest at English in the European Union, most of them have a basic grasp of the language. Having dinner with eight Europeans and an Indonesians reminded me of my own linguistical inadequacy and how many Westerners only speak English. I can speak about one and a third languages. The average at the table was three.

Delicious Food:

No surprises here, right? Pasta features heavily but so do olives, tomatoes, olive oil, delicious sauces, cheeses, breads etc... Wowww. I spent three months in Australia eating a staple diet of baked beans, tuna, eggs, plain pasta and microwave food (because I'm a lazy cook) and this is a welcome change.

The birthplace of fascism and a bloody legacy.

I haven't discussed this topic with any Italians as of yet but I find it intriguing that although this country was part of the Axis in World War 2 and had their own brutal dictator in the 20th century - Benito Mussolini, it doesn't carry near as much stigma as Germany. Under Mussolini, Italy was a police state. Mussolini and Hitler had a lot in common (such as ruling out other political parties, heavy use of propaganda, killing opponents, wearing military uniform all the time, hand salutes etc). Near the end of the Second World War, communist partisans captured Mussolini and his mistress and shot them. Their bodies were taken to Milan where they were hung upside down from meat hooks at a gas station and crowds threw rocks at the bodies.. A bit of crowd justice aye? 

So this is just some stuff I've thought of in my first week. Hopefully I'll get a much deeper understanding as I live here for a longer...

I´ve still got Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice and Naples to check out!

Future blogs will look at
: Berlusconi
Amanda Knox Murder Case
Rome
Venice

EXTRA STUFF::::: 

                                                                                  
Recent Murder in Perugia
Remember the Amanda Knox case?  This was huge international news in 2008. 21 year old Merideth Kercher was murdered at the end of 2007. Kercher and Knox were flatmates both learning Italian at the Universita Per Stranieri (University for Foreigners). Kercher was raped and stabbed in the throat in her flat and Knox and her Italian boyfriend (a medical student) were accused of the murder. Another African guy was convicted of the murder and testified that Knox and her boyfriend were playing some sort of weird sex game with Kercher.

The Knox case was featured in international media (even on Oprah) and there is a mix of opinions over whether she is guilty or not. Knox has appealed and her family accuse the Italian police of being corrupt and tampering with evidence. Whatever the case, Knox's has been in prison for a couple of years already.