Morocco- Xmas 2009

Aaahhh Christmas- Mulled wine, snow, Christmas trees & presents... not quite for us in 2009. For Christmas we headed to Morocco a country that do not drink alcohol (let alone mulled wine) and don't celebrate Christmas. Why you ask... well it is one of only a few places in the northern hemisphere handy to London which ticks 2 criteria; its warm and it is not on the Euro currency so it wont cost you a fortune.

We flew out to Marrakesh on Christmas eve with some fellow antipodean Christmas orphans Amruta & Suso & stayed in a flash riad (shared house) for 2 nights.

Above- With the lack of a Ranfurly Shield to hand I find a replacement....

Above- when we arrived in Marrakesh we were lead down some random side streets, including the one above on our way to our Riad. Once you arrive to the big door you don't know what to expect but once we opened up we were pleasantly surprised by what we found.

Above- Inside the Riad, where you can relax beside the pool and sip on Berbers Whiskey (Mint Tea) and contemplate your surrounds.

For Christmas dinner we were treated to 4 courses- Soup to start followed by salads as the entree, main course was 2 types of Tajine (choice of Beef or fish) with cous cous and finally followed by a 3 types of dessert. Needless to say we were completely full!

For Christmas day we headed into the Medina (ancient city walls) for a spot of shopping. There are 1000's of stalls similar to above called souks where you can literally buy anything! Bargaining is like a sport in Morocco so you need to send in your best negotiator as things should cost c.40%-50% of the first price they offer you (depending on how gullible you look, maybe even 20%).

Above- Nadia looks at yet more candle holders! No issues if the power goes off in our house I can tell you as we have enough candles to light our place up like a Christmas tree.

Above- within the Medina there is a large square by day you will find snake charmers, guys with monkeys and all other sorts of people looking to earn your hard earned Dirham (local currency). By night however it takes on a new look. They set up 100's of food stalls- the food there is cheap and delicious! For Nadia it was a hand sanitising disaster zone though!

Above- the winding road over the Atlas mountains

You can expect to be sold things everywhere in Morocco even at this picturesque spot 10,000 ft up in the Atlas Mountain range.

Above- our crew cross the river to get to the Casbah (Moroccan fortress or castle). I took this photo from behind these guys on my manly horse. I think the Moroccan guy taking us over thought I may have been a bit too large for your bog standard donkey.

Above- the view from Casbah

Nadia, Suso & Amruta

Lamb Kofta's- tasty!

Milan, Italy Nov'09

Twickenham. Tick. Murrayfield. Tick. Millenium. Tick. With the All Blacks tour of the Northern Hemisphere now apon us, it was time to knock over another sporting destination & what better place than Sans Siro stadium in Milan against the ever improving Italians. 16 of us flew out on the Friday night after work and returned on Sunday evening. Our day got off to the perfect start when we woke up to see playing on Italian TV the All Whites beat the well reknown giants in soccer, Bahrain to make it into the World cup. Unfortunately the rugby game was not as exciting as the soccer game & the weekend will probably be more remembered for some dodgy sausages outside the stadium pre game 'sausage factor' which resulted in several crook kiwis over the weekend!

Above- Showing our support for the mighty AB's outside Sans Siro

San Siro is typically home to the local football teams AC & Inter Milan. The game was sold out with an attendance of over 80,000 people which is the most they have ever had for a game of rugby in Italy.

Above- The crew from left to right; Jo, Juliette, Cam, Ed, Becs, Amy, Neena, Richard, Nadia, Tom, Kathryn, Hannah & Todd. Because we had bought our tickets from a company dedicated to getting ex pat kiwis AB's tickets we were sitting with a number of other Kiwis.... including a team of 20 who were there on a 30th Birthday party dressed in full body black lycra suits aptly titled the Spand (dex) Blacks- Im not sure what was more entertaining, them or the rugby!

Unfortunately we played out 'B' side for this outing- some noteable omissions from above were DC (Carter) and Hardcore (McCaw). Above- Duomo di Milano from the square

Above-Galleria Vittorio is over 130 years old it houses all the big names Prada, Vuitton etc so Nadia was allowed no where near it.

This is the building where the controvesial painting by Leonardo Davinci (The last supper) is held. People are shown through in 15 minute blocks as you are lead through no less than 3 tiny rooms which helps ensure the air in the main room is maintained to ensure minimal deteriation.

Northern Ireland October'09

Belfast City

Everything about the centre of Belfast looks normal, it is the same currency, the same time zone, the same shops and the people all speak the same language as you. It is not until however you go out of the city centre a little way that you start to see that Belfast has some very serious issues.

We did a black cab tour which takes you out of the city centre somewhat and from here you will see the issues come to the fore. Literally on one side of the city you have the Catholics (the Falls) aligned with Ireland and on the other you have the Protestants (the Shankle) who align themselves with England.

It was clearly not enough to have them living on different sides of the city so they have also erected a massive wall (the peace wall) to keep them apart. In each of the respective parts of town they have painted murals reaffirming their respective allegances (as per the image below).

Each side of the city has to be treated the same by the city council so it is costing them a samll fortune because if for example they wanted a new swimming pool they would need to make sure that there was a pool on the Catholic side but also the exact same facility on the protestant side. There has been a lot of violence in Belfast between the 2 groups over the years to the point where the English police only left in 2008.

Above- Nadia signs the 'peace wall'

Above- The gates that seperate the 2 sides are locked on weekends from 7pm on Friday night and dont open again until Monday at 6am.

Below- Back to reality in the centre of Belfast
The Giants Causeway

Our tour for this did not start of too well when the tour company Paddywagon tours forgot to pick us up! Unpreturbed though we got on another tour and headed out to the Giants Causeway which is a cool rock formation which is entrenched in myth and legend.

The shortened version of the legend suggests that the causeway was created by a giant man named Finn MacCool who created the path by throwing some of the mountains in the water to get to has adversary in Scotland. When the Scottish giant came over to Ireland to attack Finn was very tired from creating the causeway so he thought of a genius plan. He dressed himself in babies clothes and sat in a cot. When the Scottish giant arrived Finns wife said that he was out but to wait for him as he wouldnt be long. The scottish giant saw the size of the baby in the cot and thought if this is the size of Finns baby then how big would the father Finn be! He ran off scared all the way back to Scotland tearing up the causeway along the way so that Finn couldnt follow him.

We got very lucky with the weather on the day we visited the Causeway, Nadia was always going to need to wear the 'puff' jacket though.

Giant shadows!

Krakow- Poland, October'09

I will not try and dress it up... Krakow is a depressing place. We were there just for the weekend & just about everything about the place was gloomy & depressing (even the KFC was not great!). It was in stark comparison to the sunny Greece holiday we had just had, the big difference being, that this was a 'cultural visit' & history and culture is one thing Poland is not short on.

In this respect Krakow (with Auswitz & Birkenau) is a must see destination.

The entrance to Auswitz- The writing says 'work will set you free'

Above- the square in the centre of Krakow

Above- Wawel Castle
We went out for some local fare, with mixed results....
Above- Nadia uninpressed with her Pear compote (you can see why)

Below- I am defeated, there is only so much purple cabbage a man can eat

The Wieliczka Salt mines

This sounds random, but it was actually really good. It is listed as a UNESCO world heriatge site for good reason. Our tour incorporated this with the trip to Auswitz as it is located between Krakow and Auswitz and if you get the chance definately go for a look.

The salt mines lie 180 metres below the ground, there are stairs you have to go all the way down on and then thankfully a lift for on the way back up. The main attraction in the mines are the huge halls that have been dug out by hand and intricate statues made from pure salt crytsals. One interesting thing about the mines was that the salt air is said to be very good for the lungs & they often send people down to the mines who have respirtory issues.

Auswitz and Birkenau

Auswitz & Birkenau are the most famous of the concentration camps. Auswitz is located about 1.5hrs drive from Krakow. Be prepared for a shock when you visit this place, the barbed wire fences everywhere, the gas chamber etc but the thing that made it the most real for me was a huge room all filled with human hair which the Nazis used to make jerseys from (also on display).

Above- The end of the line... lieterally. It is on these tracks that all prisoners arrived to Birkenau. The train first stops approximately 500 metres up the tracks from this photo and the healthy prisoners are taken away for work. The less suitable workers stayed on the train and were disembarked straight from this point, into the gas chambers.

Above- The memorial erected on the grounds of one of the gas chambers. The artist who designed the momument intended that its meaning be interpreted by the observer.

Above- the shooting wall- If you were lucky enough to miss the gas chamber, it is likley that you either died of exhaustion whilst working or were executed by the firing squad above.