Life Lesson #48 - Never Look a Belly Dancer in the Eye

Today, for the second time in a month, I ended up naked in front of my entire tour group and an ensemble of assorted strangers. Well, almost naked.

It was this woman's fault. I'm going to call her Jezebel.

After being entertained by her display of belly flexibility, I think nothing of it when she starts pulling out random men from the audience. She gets to about five, then puts them all in a line.

I’m looking straight at her, when suddenly I realise she’s returning the gaze. Apparently five men isn’t enough. I do the obligatory “who, me?”-face-of-sweetness-and-innocence, but it’s too late. She already has an evil gleam in her eye.

Seconds later I’m onstage. And she’s tugging my shirt upwards. Awkward giggles are exchanged as the other men suffer the same indignity. 

Then, she’s back for more. With her finger and her thumb, she expertly undoes my pants and whips them off. Good thing I didn’t go commando. 

Next, she pulls out a hanky-sized strip of fabric and ties it around my waste. It’s pink. And covered in bells. Of course it is.

“Now dance, white boys!”

She doesn’t actually speak, but that’s what her eyes are saying.

If there’s one thing my time at High School taught me, it’s that there’s only one way to keep your pride during moments of humiliation. Go one up on them. Turn the other cheek, if you will. So, I stand there with a big grin and wiggle my hips like Beyoncé’s androgynous cousin. Then I try a shimmy for good measure. And a booty shake.

Once we’re all decked out like a hairy harem, she cranks the music up and starts teaching us moves. Shimmy around, roll your arms, stick out your bum, then belly roll. Now she makes us do it alone, one by one.

Determined to beat the shame by over-delivering the ridiculous choreography, I tart the whole thing right up. I may feel like slitting my wrists on the inside, but outside I’m smiling! 

After a few more rounds of belly rolls, she starts eliminating men. And it’s down to two of us. I was never introduced to the other guy, but he looks to me like the sort of bloke who would be a plumber from Essex named Phil.

But hang on, the eliminated guys get to put their clothes back on. No fair! And what’s she pulling out of her bag of tricks now? That would be the top half of the outfit. It’s purple. And also covered in bells.

Oh, and a wig.

Oh, and lipstick. Bright red lipstick.

“Now dance, white trannies!”

She doesn’t actually speak, but that’s what her eyes are saying.

I feel excruciatingly ridiculous. I have no idea how to sexy dance, but I give it a shot. When I’m out of moves I progress to the chicken dance. The only think keeping me from jumping off a ledge is the realisation that Phil the plumber is far, far more uncomfortable, and far, far worse at this than I am. It’s a sick world where schadenfreude, rather than solidarity, brings comfort in the most mortifying moments, but there you have it.

After what I could swear is 20 minutes dancing alone for jeering crowds (who can’t quite believe their eyes), suddenly Jezebel returns, grabs our hands, bows with us, then laughs at us and kicks us off stage.

I put my clothes back on and return to my seat. Everyone’s laughing, saying I was hilarious. I’m a little confused... clearly they weren’t watching the humiliating series of events I just participated in.

Shortly afterwards, Jezebel leaves in plain-clothes. I start to feel self-righteous. Where is my prize? Surely if the evening’s entertainment is to laugh at me, I deserve some sort of remuneration?

With Jezebel out of the building, I have only one option, and make my way up to the bar. I deliberately pick the girl with a kiwi Mr Vintage tee, and explain the gross injustice of my plight.

She laughs and pours me a shot. It’s blue and smells like raspberries. My indignation evaporates.

Belly dancing? Pffft, it’s not so bad.

Life Lesson #46 - Left Luggage

I'm proud of my suitcase.

The only mementos of my travels are plastered all over it. When you travel as often as I do, collecting 2D souvenirs starts to seem as desirable as it is practical.

And, when I'm bored in a queue at an airport, I do love being able to stir pleasant memories just by looking at my luggage.

But the best thing about my heavily stickered case is that it's clearly mine. They don't come more unique than this. This is the Lady Gaga of carry-on wheelie cases.

I find it comforting to know that nobody is ever going to pick up my case by accident, and that if I ever lose it, it will be easier to spot in a line-up than a one-legged pirate in drag.

When Emily and I step off a train in Basingstoke, I get my first chance to test this theory. About thirty seconds after exiting the carriage, I suddenly realise how remarkably free my arms feel. Because they aren't pulling anything along behind me.

I've left my suitcase on the train!

We're going camping up north, and without my case I have no sleeping bag, no clothes but the ones I'm wearing (more stylish than thermal), and no toothbrush. Also none of the delicious snacks I bought for the journey.

We sprint back, but the train has already left. We find a station manager and tell him what's happened. He rolls his eyes.

Emily's friend Chloe is driving us up to Lincoln and offers to swing past Winchester on the way - the train's next stop. We beg the station manager to rouse some initiative and radio Winchester with details of the carriage and case, in the hope that someone will be able to run on and rescue it. They promise to.

Then, we hightail it to Winchester. Knowing the train will already have passed through, I try to google a phone number, so we don't have to bother going to Winchester if they weren't able to get it off.

National Rail's website delivers me two dead numbers for Winchester station direct, so eventually I just call the main call centre. I'm on hold for 10 minutes listening to eight bars of Clair de Lune repeating endlessly. When finally someone answers, I ask him to put me through to Winchester station. He asks me to spell it. After repeating it a few times at decreasing speed, he finally understands precisely which station I want to speak to.

"Sorry sir, we have a policy of not transferring anyone to speak with stations directly".

Clearly sensing my exasperation, he says he'll speak to them for me. Back on hold. Halfway through Clair de Lune, I'm cut off.

We're nearly at Winchester now, so I don't bother calling again.

The station manager at Winchester looks at me with the expression I reserve for strangers who blow smoke into my face at bus stops.

"Yeah, sorry. It was really busy. There was no way I could get through all the people to grab your case".

He's clearly forgotten that we were just on that train... we know exactly how many people were on it: about half a dozen. He just couldn't be bothered trying. Which would have been vaguely ok if he hadn't said he would, when we radioed from Basingstoke before driving all the way here.

Part of me simply wishes he was a better liar, and had said he ran on but couldn't spot it and wasn't willing to hold up the train.

So, I give up and we continue north to Lincoln. An hour or so later I'm able to confirm that my case has arrived at the end of the line - Portsmouth. I arrange to pick it up from the left luggage factility at Waterloo later in the week.

It's a great feeling when I'm finally reunited with it, as we're off to Rome a few days later and I'd had visions of carrying my life in plastic bags.

Though when I open it up, I'm bemused to find that all the edible goodies have been removed from inside. Clearly my case was delivered by Santa!

Life Lesson #45 – Something Fishy

This is the part where I should mention that I’m allergic to most ocean creatures. I’m good with fish, but shellfish, squid and most crustaceans make my throat constrict and my stomach bloat like I’m carrying triplets.

So, at a seafood restaurant, I’ll always order the fish. But a lifetime of avoiding all other seafood has developed in me an aversion to the idea of consuming any dish where the entire animal is served on my plate. To me this is grotesque and not terribly different from eating it alive. Allergies aside, I’d just as soon eat a grasshopper as a shrimp – no matter how delicious you may claim them to be!

Laughable as it may be, you can imagine my horror when this turned up on my plate at an expensive traditional Cypriot restaurant in Northern Cyprus:

I’m always one for ordering the cultural specialty, but clearly I missed the memo about Cypriots preferring their fish whole, with shrivelled scales and milky eyes.

I could barely look it in the eye. Well, that was the problem. I could look it in the eye!

While it smelt delicious, the cooking process had peeled and coloured the skin somewhat, and my overactive imagination screamed that I had been served a rotting corpse. Sea roadkill.

By the time I’ve finished my side-salad, Paul’s made it through almost his entire meal. That never happens. He’s having trouble staying composed as he witnesses my hilariously pathetic revulsion, and my determinedness not to let these two tiny foes defeat me.

Eventually he helps out by removing the heads and tails. This makes it worse. Now I have dismembered corpses scattered around my plate. So, while no-one is looking, he tosses the unwanted parts over the balcony as far as he can.

Though I still have bones, scales and flippers to contend with, at least the contents of my plate now more closely resemble a pair of fillets.

I carefully peel the carcasses, and try as hard as I can to enjoy my meal. The cooked flesh is delicious.

Part of me wanted to be a total convert, newly obsessed with the hunter-gatherer joys of eating creatures whole. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite what happened and the only way I’ll repeat the experience is if it again happens by mistake. (which is not going to happen anytime soon!)

But I’m still glad that I bit the bullet and ate it, if only in the same way as I’ve been glad I tried other unpalatable ethnic delicacies in the past.

Have you ever been surprised by what turned up on your plate, or had to overcome revulsion to eat a meal? Tell me about it in the comments below.

Life Lesson #44 - The Waffle

Today I learned never to eat local cuisine on the street. At least, not unless you're sitting down.

This is especially true if you're somewhere really cool, like Belgium, where they have a really awesome national food, like waffles.

If you do have to eat something really delicious on the side of a beautiful cobbled road, don't get it with strawberries and cream. At least, not if you really love strawberries and cream.

Because then you may cry when this happens:

That is all.

Life Lesson #43 – Mad Dash

You can call me Usain.

This is me. For real.

When you fly Ryanair on a non-EU passport, you have to get a visa-check stamp when you arrive at the airport, before going through security. Every other airline does it just before you board. This means that if you’re silly enough to forget to get one, you’re pretty much screwed unless you’re Usain Bolt.

Which I totally am.

This kind of rookie mistake should have cost us our trip. But, with lightening speed and a flash of a smile to the security people who aren’t supposed to let you back out, and the check-in people who aren’t meant to stamp a passport for a flight that’s leaving in 2 mins, we made it all the way through Gatwick airport and back to our gate in a flash.

The gate had already closed. But the guard was so shocked to see us again that he tipped his hat to us by reopening and allowing us to board!

I was puffing and panting the whole way to Stockholm. I haven’t felt so exhausted since Fourth Form cross country (after they foiled my plan to see the school counsellor at that exact time in order to get out of it).

I guess, unlike the other Usain, exercise doesn’t agree with me. Endorphins Schmendorphins.

Life Lesson #42 - Close Shave

If you’ve had the misfortune of running into me this week, I’ll forgive you for thinking I got into an accident with a lawnmower.

I’ve been sort of growing my hair ever since I left New Zealand. Well, the top anyway. It got to the point where my fringe reached the bottom of my nose. This became so high maintenance that it only looked good for bursts of approximately 30 seconds. And my morning routine started to require over a minute of hair-related activity, which is just excessive. I’d make a useless female.

You can call me Rapunzel.  

So, I made up my mind to cut it around the one year anniversary of leaving home. But not just cut it a little; we’re talking radical departure.

Determined to surprise everyone, I didn’t mention my plans to anybody. I bought clippers on eBay, and for some unknown idiotic reason set about attacking my scalp in the half hour space I had at home between work and Norway.

It all went very smoothly. With a large mirror to help me, I clipped all my hair off using the longest setting on the clippers - 21mm.

I cleaned the clippers, then quickly checked to make sure I hadn’t missed anywhere. I had. There was a patch towards the middle of my scalp that was a few millimetres too long.

Zzzzzz... off it goes. (No that’s not sleeping, that’s clipper noise).

When cleaning the clippers I had bumped the length down to the lowest setting. 3mm.

I was too horrified to take a photo of the result. But it looked something like this.

So, I did the only thing I could do: made like a member of the KKK and introduced my entire scalp to the sunlight, or at least within a few millimetres of it.

Within ten minutes, I’d gone from the longest hair of my life to the shortest. I’m pretty sure I came out of the womb with more.

Then I did the only other thing I could do: put on a hat.

I didn’t take the hat off until hours later in our hotel room, when I scared Paul half to death by whipping it off.

But it got worse.

When I showed him the back, he laughed so hard he almost farted, then took a photo to show me what I’d done:

 

Yes, that’s right. I shaved a finger sized spot right in the middle of the back of my head completely bald. My head is doing the fingers.

When we got back to London he tried to touch it up. But there wasn’t much that could be done. I now look like a moth bitten fur coat. Only with shorter hair.

 

At least it will grow, I guess.

Life Lesson #41 - The Court Jester

Today I learned what not to wear to court.

It all started in June last year, when a rude official knocks on my door saying we haven’t paid our TV licence (who knew there was such a thing!?).

I explain that our landlords are responsible for it, to no avail. We automatically fail the test, because he can see a TV behind me. So, I show him that it doesn’t work. He barges past me into the bedroom and points at the TV in there. I turn it on to show him it has unbearable reception, which is why we’ve never watched it.

He disagrees; “it looks fine to me”.

“Would you really watch this?” I ask incredulously.

“Yes, of course”.

Not his first lie, and not his last. We throw him out.

Fast-forward seven months. I receive a letter from the West London County Magistrates’ Court. It says “FURTHER STEPS NOTICE” in big bold lettering, then goes on to tell me that I have been fined £250.

I call the next morning, the moment the office opens. It’s about the TV licence. Apparently because I moved house, I missed about a hundred demand letters telling me about my impending court date. Somehow, they tracked down my new address 7 days before obliterating my credit rating permanently.

Would I like to pay with MasterCard or Visa?

She sounds irritated when I tell her that there’s been a series of mistakes and I’ve never actually failed to pay a TV licence, telling me I need to call another court for that.

I call the other court. They have no idea what I’m talking about and abruptly tell me to call another department, then hang up.

I google the other department, but their phone number is disconnected. Luckily I discover there’s a government helpline for people in my pickle.

I am cut off immediately, and an automated American voice says “the other party has ended the call” on loop.

I try again several more times over the next few weeks with the same result.

Eventually, I write a letter outlining my plight. Before posting it, I decide to call one last time.

Finally, my call gets through. Someone very helpful tells me that I must make a statutory declaration to say that I was unaware of the proceedings against me. This will invalidate the previous case, overturning the conviction and withdrawing the fine. But it’s not all over – the TV Licence people are free to start all over again (and probably will).

To make this statutory declaration, I must show up to the court in person between 9:15 and 9:45 on any weekday. I’ll fill out a form and sign it, then be on my way.

Luckily I have a very understanding boss. She is happy for me to go the next morning, and tells me she was in a similar situation a few years ago. All I’ll have to do is fill out a form and swear on a bible.

The next morning, I head to the courthouse for 9:15 sharp. Being casual Friday, I’ve dressed down. I’m wearing brown corduroy trousers, scuffed grey shoes, bright aqua socks (which are visible), a pale grey jean jacket, and the loudest T-shirt I own. It’s bright orange. Basically I look like either a confused hippy or a colourful hipster.

I fill out the form. I sign my name. She hands me my paperwork back. Great, all to plan.

“Ok Mr Allen, you’re in courtroom one”.

The blood drains from my face. I feel faint. Say, what?

But she’s moved on to the rioter behind me.

I find my way to courtroom one and sit down by the door.

An hour later, I still have no idea what’s going on and nobody has gone in or out of the courtroom. I decide to seek help, and eventually find a security guard.

He offers to check to make sure that I’m on the courtroom schedule, and pops inside. When he comes out, he tells me to go into the courtroom. Apparently I’m up next.

To muffle noise from the corridor, there are two doors to get to the courtroom. In-between them, the guard pauses and says to me “I should probably tell you that this judge is a real bulldog. He’s the meanest one here. Just thought you should know”.

Super.

In the courtroom, the guy who was ahead of me in the statutory declaration queue over an hour ago is standing in the box, quivering before the magistrate. He’s wearing what I would assume is his only suit, and his white shirt is transparent with perspiration.

Bulldog was an inspired metaphor for this judge; both for looks and character.

After daydreaming about Law & Order for roughly five minutes, I am snapped back to reality by a nasal voice calling “Allen, Mr Andrew James”.

I assume this means I should approach the witness box. Is that what you call it? Am I walking too fast? How would an innocent person walk? Perhaps I should have left my bag on my seat. But someone might have nicked it. This is a courthouse, after all.

The magistrate is holding my entire file (both pages). He glares at my orange T-shirt and says nothing. He doesn’t have to.

After a pregnant pause, he starts barking questions about the form I completed downstairs. He makes fun of me for writing “February 2012” in the field ‘date learned of court proceedings (approx)’

“Awfully specific, aren’t we Mr Allen”. Why did it say approximate next to the question then!?

I explain that I don’t know the exact date I received the final notice letter off the top of my head, but I can find it if he’ll give me one moment to refer to my sent email folder.

I take his eyeroll as acceptance and start furiously scrolling through emails on my iPhone, looking for the one I sent my former landlord the day I found out (who of course denied all responsibility).

While I do so, he scans the paperwork in front of him.

“You’re lying.”

“Pardon me?”

“May I remind you, Mr Allen, that everything you say here will be checked out by the court, and I am empowered to charge you with perjury and hold you in contempt of court.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I have your court records in front of me. You rang on the 24th of January.”

Obviously the cow who hung up on me actually bothered to record the call.

“Oh, that must be the date I got the letter then!”

He doesn’t look amused, and just stares at my shirt.

I apologise for getting the date wrong by one week, and explain that I wasn’t aware I needed to supply the exact date – because the question said 'approximate'.

He still says nothing. I button up my jean jacket.

I point out that the case against me was several months ago. Whether I found out about it on the 24th of January or in the month of February doesn’t change the fact that I was unaware of its existence until after it had concluded.

He glares. Everyone else in the room is staring at me open-mouthed. I’m not sure if they were more shocked that I talked back to the judge, or that I wore orange to court.

“I’m going to sign it” the bulldog announces, abruptly.

“But if I find one word of your testimony was false, I will come down on you with the full force of the law”.

It wasn’t a question, but he seems to be waiting for an answer.

“It’s all true, your honour”.

“This removes your previous conviction. However, don’t think you’ve gotten away with it. You will receive another summons to a new court date. And may I suggest that you don’t rip it up and throw it away. This time.”

He should write a lecture on condescension.

I assure him I won’t, grab my bag, and hightail it out of there – orange shirt and all.

Life Lesson #40 - The £5 Couch

I just bought a new life on eBay.

When we found out our bid for the new flat we wanted in King's Cross was successful, I went OCD fast. There were lists. Within hours, I had saved hundreds of bargain priced fridges, rugs, vacuum cleaners, microwaves and couches to my watchlist. Each time I won an auction for something big, I added it to my map for moving day. Before long, there was seven hours worth of driving to do, picking up everything we needed.

The highlight was a £5 couch.

When moving day came, I got up at 7:30 and caught the train to King's Cross to pick up the van. It was just casually -6° at the time. Then I got lost for 20 minutes in East London while the GPS figured out I wasn't still in Italy, crossed just about every bridge straddling the Thames, was briefly caught up in a film shoot on Vauxhall Bridge, and eventually picked up a fridge in Chelsea.

By 11:00, Paul and I had loaded all our possessions in the back of the van, in a three dimensional puzzle around the fridge. We did a final idiot check, bade farewell to our home of five months, and continued on our way.

Drove back across town. Picked up keys in Islington. Got call from Virgin when we were 5-10 minutes away; "we're on our way to connect your broadband, we'll be there in 5-10 minutes". Drove faster. Beat Virgin. Couldn't unlock door. Rang landlord. Used correct key. Let ourselves in less than 20 seconds before Virgin arrived.

Our broadband was up and running before we had a single box inside. Beats the five week wait we had last time!

We got a workout getting all Paul's books and the fridge up the stairs. No prizes for guessing which weighed more. Before we had the chance to sit down, we had to keep moving because we were already running late for all the eBay pickups I'd scheduled.

At 4:00 we picked up the TV, about an hour west of London. At 5:30 we picked up the £5 couch, about an hour south of London. It came from a beautiful old enormous country manor, still dusted in snow. The father who helped us load it into the van said he was going to miss how comfy it was.

At 6:00 we picked up the microwave, just over halfway to Brighton.

At 7:00 we drove past Costco and decided to go in on a random masochistic impulse. At 7:10 we left Costco, too overwhelmed to try.

At 7:30 we arrived at IKEA. At 10:00 IKEA closed. At 11:00 we finally left IKEA. At 11:45 we arrived home, feeling like we'd sold our souls to Swedish elves wearing perfectly starched blue and yellow aprons.

It didn't fit.

Try as we might, our comfy £5 couch was too wide to squeeze up the stairs.

So we did what any tired antipodeans would do under the anonymity of darkness. We gifted our £5 couch to the city.

Unfortunately, our night wasn't over yet. We still had to fill up the van and return it. Not too difficult, considering the car hire place was less than a kilometre away. Except London is very busy at 1am on a Saturday night. And the first petrol station the GPS sent us to was closed. The second was cash only. The third looked abandoned. On our way to the fourth, somewhere in St John's Wood , we finally drove past one. I broke multiple road rules swerving in, determined not to let this one get away too. We bought a ribena sipper bottle to celebrate.

By the time we got home to our new flat, it was well after 2am. Exhausted doesn't scratch the surface. Surrounded by boxes, we unwrapped the new mattress we'd picked up from IKEA for our landlord, and slept on the floor.

Leo in London: Part II

I've heard about nothing but da Vinci all week. Ever since missing out on tickets on Saturday, Paul's been miserable.

But he's got a plan.

eBay. Where everyone's a winner.

We agree on a top price and only get into one argument during the bidding. I even pause Glee to find out if we've won.

I'm a little disappointed when we find out that we have. I’m sure my first car cost less than these tickets. A bargain at only three times face value.

eBay. Where winning isn't really winning.

But we go. And they let us in despite the fact that neither of us looks much like a 'Shahzad Malik'.

And, in the understatement of the century: it's great.

Leo in London: Part I

They’re calling it the greatest exhibition in history. More Leonardo da Vinci works in one place than ever before - including during his lifetime.

Of course, it sells out in record time. The National Gallery opens extended hours for three months and still sells all the advance tickets in less than a week. We miss out.

But there’s a glimmer of hope aside from the scalpers on eBay.

800 tickets per day are still available. In America they’d have a lottery. They believe everyone should have a chance. In England, they believe whoever puts in the most effort should end up on top. So they sell these tickets on a first come, first served basis.

Which is why Paul arrives at 7am, three hours before the ticket office even opens.

By 7:30, he’s been informed that he’s in the ‘maybe’ zone. He prays that the several hundred people who arrived even earlier are all nuns and widowers who won’t use their plus one, leaving his own entry within reach.

He sets about making friends with those around him. There’s a couple from Manchester who caught the train down just for this exhibition. None expected that 7am would put them so far behind the crowd.

The line starts to leak as people give up in favour of a hot coffee or a toilet break. Paul and his posse soldier on, blinded to their inevitable failure by an attempt to show solidarity.

The gates close around 1:30pm. The tickets have sold out about 20 people ahead of Paul. The group have waited for six and a half hours together and can’t bear to leave so soon. So they keep waiting (for some unknown reason).

A guy approaches Paul.

“My friend can’t come anymore. My ticket is for right now. I know you’ve been waiting for ages, so I don’t want to make any money off you. Just give me face value and it’s yours”.

Paul has no cash.

He comes home.

Life Lesson #39 - Taking the Long Way Home

Today I learned never to fly overnight and expect to go to work the next day.

It seemed like a flawless plan, except for the part where I had to set my alarm for 2:45am. Ironically, with the four hour time difference, this was actually 10:45pm London time. Yep. I was up and moving before most of my friends and colleagues went to bed the night before!

The only part I was worried about was getting through immigration. I was warned in advance to keep my head down and walk quickly. The scary people must have been home sick today, because we didn't have a sniff of a problem.

We took off about half an hour late because the plane had been covered in snow and ice overnight, so they had to wash it off with antifreeze.

We were in Munich for two hours, then boarded on time for our flight to London. We sat on the plane for over an hour before takeoff, without any explanation.

Our scheduled landing time came and went, then the time we should have landed based on when we took off came and went... we had no idea why we weren't at Heathrow yet.

Then the pilot came on and said "bad news, folks. We're being diverted to Stansted!" The one time I get to fly out of a decent airport, and I get rerouted to the worst one. Wicked.

When we landed, the pilot came over the intercom and said "I have zero information, and there's nobody here to help us". An hour and a half later, he still had zero information.

When we were finally able to get off the plane, Paul noticed that they didn't appear to be refueling or offloading any luggage.

After an hour of waiting for our bags (the one time we fly with bags!) with the other 150 passengers, we were getting restless.

Finally a guy appears and says "we'll have your bags out soon".

We hear this many, many times over the next four hours while we're stuck between passport control and customs with one snack machine, no water until 3pm, and 150 other grouchy displaced travellers, most of whom had missed connecting flights all over the world.

There was nobody from the airline present, nobody from Stansted gave a toss because we weren't one of their flights, and the phone helplines didn't know a thing about it.

I started to feel like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

By the time we actually got our bags I was completely wired. I still wanted to go to work just so my day wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

So I did. I arrived at 4:30pm, just 18 hours after I left my hostel in St Petersburg. I could almost have got to work in Auckland in that time!

We're trying to get compensation for lost wages and displacement from Lufthansa... emphasis on trying. Let's just say I won't be travelling with them again anytime soon!

Oh well, I guess it could have been worse...

Life Lesson #37 - Globetrotting Roast

On our last night in London before Christmas, we had our friends Rose and Rowley over for a massive turkey roast.

As always, there was loads of food left over. But I had a plan.

I'd been warned in advance that Austrians celebrate on Christmas Eve even more than Christmas Day itself.

"Everything will be closed", warned a friend. "You'll go hungry if you don't take food to Salzburg with you", advised the blogosphere.

So I did. I packed up a dozen potatoes, a quarter of a turkey and a few Yorkshire puds into a massive Tupperware and took it with me to Salzburg.

The problem was, they were all wrong. Everything was open. And what's more, it never occurred to me that we'd need to eat long before we could check not our hotel and use a microwave at 2pm. So, of course, we bought some German pastries from a bakery and ignored the roast.

But I didn't want to throw it away.

We could't eat it the next day because we were on the Sound of Music tour. So, it accompanied us on the overnight train across the Italian border to Venice.

We didn't eat it in Venice either.

We arrived home with a dozen unrefrigerated potatoes, a quarter of an unrefrigerated turkey, and a couple of unrefrigerated Yorkshire puds.

I was home alone the next day (frantically processing photos so I could blog about Salzburg before we flew out again, as it happens).

When I unpacked my suitcase, the five day old roast looked mighty appealing.

So I ate it. Almost all of it. Even the turkey.

And I didn't get sick!

So the moral of the story is, if you want to take your Christmas dinner to three countries before eating it, you'd better be in the Northern Hemisphere!

The same roast on the same table, five days and three countries later!

Life Lesson #36 - The Swiss Grift

Today I learned that you can’t lie to a Swiss train guard.

That they are humourless is no urban myth.

I'm ashamed to admit that it was a calculated decision... because everything is so expensive in Switzerland that we brought all our own food from home, and could only afford to sleep in a prison cell. The price for a single ticket from Zurich Airport to Lucerne is more than I made in a week when I worked at Countdown Lynfield. (Admittedly, I was on $6.46 an hour!)

When we arrived in Lucerne, having taken two trains with nary a ticket inspector in sight, we both immediately believed we had outsmarted the Swiss train system.

“We’ve still got two unclipped tickets!” I whispered as we left the station, taking care to ensure nobody could hear.

“If we pretend to be hapless tourists, we could use them on the trip back to the airport on Sunday!” responded Paul so quickly that I knew he’d been plotting too.

“We probably won’t get checked anyway. It’s worth the risk!” we agreed.

Apparently the new Swiss train fare evasion penalty system took effect today. The Aryan inspector who told me this through clenched teeth about five minutes after the train left Lucerne had discarded my pitiful whimper of “we must have accidentally bought tickets in the wrong direction” without even looking up from his shiny new penalty fare payment machine.

I’ve always been a hopeless liar. Not wanting to appear guilty, I continued to protest my innocence as he barked for my details.

If I’d realised I’d have to keep up the charade for so long, I’d never have bothered. He couldn’t figure out how to work his little machine and ended up in front of us for over 20 minutes, most of them spent with the tech helpdesk feeding him step-by-step instructions on how to work it.

Meanwhile the whole carriage is looking at us like heathen criminals, so I loudly discuss with Paul "how on earth has this happened?" and "is he sure the correct tickets aren’t in his bag" and "we know the guy’s only doing his job but this is so unfair because we did pay for our tickets" etc.

Unfortunately, Paul’s as bad at improv as I am at lying. The first rule of improv is to run with it. You go along with the story your scene partner comes up with, however stupid it may seem.

My scene partner didn’t go along with it. Instead I was met with a ‘don’t bother, no one believes you anyway’ look and, to the ticket inspector, “don’t worry about him, we’ll pay the fine now”.

So I shrank into my seat and hand over my credit card. The penalties have doubled since yesterday. They’re  now three times what I used to make in a week at Countdown Lynfield. And he makes us buy tickets as well.

I always seem to learn Life Lessons the wrong way. Today I’m just glad ‘thou shalt not lie’ isn’t one of the Ten Commandments!

Life Lesson #35 - Kiwis and Frogs Don't Mix

Wandering the streets of Clapham on a chilly Sunday morning, we couldn't figure out why none of the bars were open. It's the sporting event of the year - enough even to rouse me from slumber - and yet everything was closed.

Eventually we found somewhere. Called 'The Frog'.

"Odd name", thought I, "but at least it's open".

And open it certainly was, at least 150 people with pre-booked tables were bursting the seams of an otherwise nicer-than-most-bars establishments.

I must confess that I know nothing of rugby. My dad took me to a game when I was a kid and I fell asleep. So, I always take my cue from the people around me. It's the next best thing to a guy with a sign that says "cheer".

Except, eventually I realised that I, prompted by everyone around me, was cheering even when the guy running with the ball wasn't wearing black.

Suddenly the penny dropped and I properly took in my surroundings. The nasal accents. The coiffed hairdos. The over-excited guy with cracking red white and blue face paint.

Unnerved by sensationalist media portrayals of sports fans in England, feared for my life. For a split second I even contemplated closeting my true affiliations.

But then I noticed that their faces were as pale, their teeth as nervously bitten, as mine.

It was a tense game for both sides, and from that came a strange respect and camaraderie

The frogs all left as soon as the game was over.

We stayed to watch the fireworks over home as the kiwis took the trophy.

Definitely the most* memorable sporting event of my life.

*only

Life Lesson #33 - Delayed Off

Navigating the backstreets of a Spanish island in a manual hatchback with no map should be a recipe for disaster.

I was perplexed to rock up at the terminal hours early without so much as a missed turnoff. There was that gnawing feeling that something was about to go wrong.

EZ8634 - DELAYED.
They put it in red so you can't miss it. I'm already through security, and luckily I had the foresight to swap my sandy jandals and damp togs for fresh clothes in the handicapped loo.

NEW BOARDING TIME - 01:20.
The original flight time was already a stretch. "Will we be ok at work if we get in at 2am?", I remember asking Paul. Then, a month ago easyJet bumped the flight back another hour. "How about 3am?" I said in a slightly high pitched voice when I got the email.

And now this - a delay of almost three further hours. Paul asks when we'll get home. I do the maths, factor in the hourly train from Gatwick and the night bus to our place... "about 5:30am" I realise aloud.

EasyJet give us vouchers for the inconvenience. I get a Whopper Jr meal from BK. The guy thrusts the tray at me and I watch in slow motion as my Large Coke No Ice hurtles off the tray, landing Glee-style square in the centre of my formerly-fresh shirt.

He shrugs and hands me a single napkin.

Everything takes longer than they tell us it's going to. About eight hours, six queues, two airport buses, one shuttle, one train, a London bus, a brisk walk and a patdown later, we arrive home. It's almost six o'clock. The sky is lightening. I can hear birds I've never heard before.

A few short hours later, I arrive in the office before anyone else. Turns out my boss is stuck in New York, after his week long trip was trampled all over by an earthquake and a hurricane. He's in JFK with thousands of other stranded travelers and has no idea when he'll be home.

I decide that my night really wasn't so bad, and head to the coffee machine.

My chest is still sticky.

Life Lesson #32- The Trip to Nowhere

I've been looking forward to this weekend for ages. Like any self respecting theatre freak, I find myself drawn to the the Edinburgh Fringe Festival like a mozzie to one of those lights that zaps them.

If only I had made it.

I planned the weekend to a degree of precision I believe they call obsessive compulsive. There were spreadsheets.

I settled on Last 5 Years, Margaret Cho and Spring Awakening. Two shows and a comedian that I have adored for years and never had the chance to see.

 

Last night I couldn't sleep for excitement at seeing my very first Jason Robert Brown.

If only I had remembered my passport.

By the time it crossed my mind, our easyBus was 10 minutes away from Stansted, and all I could do was hope that my drivers licence would suffice - given that it's a domestic flight.

Not so. While most other airlines follow the government guidelines accepting photo ID for domestic flights, Ryanair's stingy policies don't stretch.

So, after trying as hard as possible, I find myself glumly heading back on the Stansted Express while txting Paul instructions for how to pick up tickets when he arrives in Scotland without me.

He ends up convincing me to shell out a bomb for another flight, and I locate one leaving Heathrow in two hours.

The express is not so express. Luckily, it arrives to Liverpool St Station, which has three direct underground lines to our nearest station.

Guess which three underground lines are closed for maintenance today?

Two tubes, a bus, and 40 minutes layer I sprint in our front door, grab my passport (and a few of the lollies we nicked from the waiting room of our hotel six weeks ago in Germany), then run back to catch the tube to the Heathrow Express - which leaves from Paddington.

I arrive in the nick of time to sprint through the closing doors.

When I arrive at Heathrow, I race straight to the British Airways 'help' desk. (Yes, I put fear quotes around the word 'help' on purpose).

A bored looking man with a comb-over and glasses like my dad had in 1991 sluggishly informs me that check-in has closed.

"But I have no luggage!" I exclaim.

"The flight doesn't leave for nearly 40 minutes!"

"I busted a gut to get here!"

"I only booked it an hour ago!"

"I paid top dollar for it!"

"I've already missed one flight today!"

He glares.

"It's for a funeral!!"

Heartless man just stares into me with his beady little eyes. I can't stop staring at his sweaty forehead.

He brushes me off and tells me to go to customer service.

I'm greeted by an 18 year old with a loose mousy ponytail who looks like she's trying not to smile.

By now I've given up on all hope of making my flight, so I use another tactic: lies.

"I've missed my flight and they told me to come hear for my refund".

Her eyes widen. She starts laughing. She calls her manager over. He's about 4"8. I repeat my desperate plea.

His eyebrows raise. He starts laughing too. They glance at each other and laugh together.

After five minutes of groveling, they send me on my way with a "good luck at getting a refund online" and knowing looks exchanged.

I get back on the train again and head back into town to see The Inbetweeners movie with our new friends.

I'm not sure if I should feel happy or sad that Paul ended up stuck on the bus so long that he missed the first show too. And Zoe was in the right place but unable to do anything without the tickets.

Oh, and I went to completely the wrong station for the movie and arrived 15 minutes after it started - on the other side of town. By the time I got back to our home station it was two and a half hours since I'd got on the train at Heathrow, and my ticket had expired so I had to pay a £10 penalty fee.

Murphy's Law, I guess.

Life Lesson #30 - Undercover Catholics

Today, in Rome, we went to see one of the greatest statues ever carved. Art Historians have heaped praise on Bernini's The Ecstasy of St Teresa for centuries.

We knew it was inside a church, Santa Maria della Vittoria, so we were surprised when the door was unlocked.

Until we walked in and realised we'd interrupted Roman Catholic mass.

Still wanting to see the statue, we took some seats on the aisle and kneeled to pray with the Italians.

We knew we had our chance when they started the Eucharist. If we joined in, we'd be able to see the statue while we were standing at the altar.

Wordlessly, we rose and joined the queue of nuns and assorted Italians with rosary beads. Paul, being the good little St Peters boy that he is, was just fine. I, on the other hand, started to have a freak out of papal proportions.

"Do I have to share a cup with everyone?" "Will the priest be able to tell I'm not a Catholic?" "Is it wrong to partake in the communion of another faith just to see a work of art?" "Is everyone looking at me?" "Is it hot in here?"

I get to the front of the queue. The priest looks straight through me. I hold out my hand for the little wafer disc. And open my mouth at the same time. He cocks his head a little to the side, gives me a confused look, mutters something including the word "Christo" and shoves the cracker in mouth.

It tastes like plastic. I grab Paul, who is sharing in the ecstasy of St Teresa, and we walk straight out the door.

Once outside, my St Peters boy informs me that the Catholic faith considers partaking in the Eucharist before having your 'first Catholic communion' a very serious sin.

I feel like a puppy who just ate a whole block of chocolate.

Life Lesson #29 - Don't Wear White Undies in Monaco

Next time you're in Monaco, I recommend you take togs. And failing that, take a change of underwear. Or at least wear dark ones.

Because if you don't, when you see the crystal clear waters and are possessed by the urge to leap in, you will have to strip down to your nice white ink'd briefs to do so. And people will think you are strange.

And, as anyone who has ever entered a wet t-shirt contest can tell you, the shame doesn't really start until you get out again.

But if you do happen to ignore my advice, promise me you will only swim off the pier, and that an hour later when you spy a beautiful little bay you won't jump in a second time.





Because if you do, when you squat on the rocks like gollum trying to get dry modestly, your nice white ink'd briefs will get rock all over them.

And as soon as you get off said rock, the rock on your pants will lose its context. And everyone will think that you went swimming in violently soiled undies. And people will stare. And someone will take a photo.

Life Lesson #28 - The French Way

I love our accommodation in Nice. But I wasn't sure I would when we first arrived.

The hostel is located across the road from the local Hippopotamus bar. When we walk in, we find ourselves in a dark, humid restaurant. A cockroach munches on crumbs on one of the tables.

A niçoise woman in her 70s who really should have been wearing a bra rushes up to us with gleaming eyes and missing teeth shrieking "Nouvelle Zélande, Nouvelle Zélande?".

The first thing I notice are the festering sores on both her arms. The second is the piles of paperwork she's just stood up from. Dozens of handwritten bookings on plain A4 paper scattered over a small desk with a faded green manilla folder marked "internet". So that's where my online booking went.

I'm feeling uncertain about the sanitation of a twelve bed dorm in this place. Which is when she mentions the studio flat they've got for an extra €8 a night. "oui, parfait" I hear myself saying, before worrying that it's some scam I haven't come across before.

As soon as we agree to the private flat, she leaps up and locks the restaurant, giving the keys and a short explanation to some surprised outside diners.

Then, she leads us around the corner, up the road and down another street. We get off the rickety elevator at level 3, then walked down to level 2. I would have known this in advance if I hadn't forgotten what the French word for 'broken' meant.

When we arrive, I decide quickly that it's perfect. It's so French, unlike the cookie cutter hotel rooms we get so sick of.

Large shuttered windows at one end of the room open facing a courtyard filled with fighting pigeons. The tiny bathroom and kitchen are at the other end, and a loft style bedroom is up a ladder on top.








There's even half a bottle of cognac on a small shelf for no apparent reason. This is the real thing, and I'm so glad we're here.

Life Lesson #27 - One Man's Trash...

All antipodeans become insomniacs when they first arrive in London. For most, it gets better after a few days when their jet-lag subsides. But not for me. I couldn't sleep for a whole other reason.

I would rather sleep outside than spend another night on the bony sack of nails our incompetent landlord had the nerve to call a mattress.

It was about 20cm shorter than my legs, or the base that it came with. The middle was the saggiest you ever saw, bowing so much that you couldn't actually rest it remotely flush against the wall. But the worst part was the springs.

Decades of insomniacs before me had clearly obliterated any foam or padding that had existed in its former life. This beast was nothing but spikes with a bit of material on top.

You couldn't lie on your side, it was too painful. You had to stay on your back so your surface area could share the load around. That's the same tactic they use on beds of nails. I laid on one of those once. It was bliss by comparison.

It took us over a month of daily complaints to get a new mattress, but finally we did. The landlords didn't take the old one away, so we left it up against the side of the building hoping someone would take it away.

Evidently, someone did. A few nights ago, I was walking along our street when I spied a homeless man lying by a dumpster, on... you guessed it.

This morning, I decided to grab a photo of him. When I went back there, I saw him lying in the same spot, but on the concrete.

The mattress was poking out the top of the dumpster.