Motetus

Am back from Budapest and Vienna! Not that I was ever that far away from LJ because I did have some internet access, and good thing too seeing as how productive my beloved little Eagle fandom was last week. ♥

The good: Budapest was gorgeous at night but it was Vienna I really, really loved, even if it did make a mockery of my intended budget. But I was good! I did not buy either the giraffe-skin coat nor the outrageously expensive but delicious-looking chocolate truffles. I got my fill of museums there (maybe not so much art as I would have liked, but Wife is trying to talk me into going to Florence later this year for a long weekend), got to see the Venus of Willendorf, and visited a very lovely little Roman museum where I squealed audibly at all the Mithras carvings.

The not-so-good: My god, the weather. TOO HOT. "No Wife, Istanbul is going to be far too warm this time of year! Let's go somewhere in Europe instead, I'm sure it will be much cooler." Ahahaha. At least the Turks know what air-con is; the B&B in Vienna didn't even have a fan, and lying in a puddle of your own sweat listening to the drunk people on the street below and your neighbours having very loud, very enthusiastic sex, while amusing, isn't that much fun when you find yourself doing it at 3am.

Also, and I blame this on the heat making me only able to think GET INTO SHADE FIND BEER/ICE-CREAM, I lugged the beast of a camera everywhere yet I took exactly 27 photos, none of which I'm particularly proud of, so you are all spared the tedium of my holiday snaps. I think from now on, for city breaks I'm only going to take my smaller and lighter film camera. God, I sound like I'm complaining way too much. It was fun, really!

Oh wait, I lied. Here, to prove I haven't entirely forgotten about this meme, here's another of those 30 photos things. Totally fake tilt-shift photo of the view from Budapest's St. Stephen's Basilica (boring photo? JUST USE PHOTOSHOP), and believe me when I say that after a full day of non-stop walking up hills, climbing a million steps is not the best way to cool down. Nice views of the city though.



P.S. I will spare you all my ranting because I think you may have heard it all before, but I would like to point out my new tag. ARGH.

- temve and shrieking_ell's wedding was the BEST WEDDING EVER and they really are a ridiculously adorable pair. Thank you both for such a wonderful evening, I enjoyed myself so much that I may have even committed dancing (dancing! I never dance!). I also had a lovely time getting to know lea_ndra, raina_at and spes_unica who before Saturday I've only ever known as names on other people's LJs and were really awesome people. franzi1981, I am so embarrassed that my introduction consisted of me blurting out hello and then stumbling away. If I had been more sober, I really would have tried harder!

- goblin_dae and I managed to successfully navigate Frankfurt for a few days and avoided getting into too much trouble. We even escaped the human trafficking trade! (no really, we were in line for train tickets to the airport when this guy asked us if we wanted to share a car with him to somewhere like Essen, and our first thoughts really were - Taken!) Aside from going through a lot of awesome German food, ice-cream and beer, we visited the archaeological museum, a Roman fort with the_little_owl who makes the best ever tour guide/translator, and the zoo. I won't bore you with all my zoo photos (and the Roman ones are all ones I only took for more Eagle art references), but here is ( a thoughtful-looking gorilla )

- Also this weekend I found out that a) it is not advisable to put contacts in after chopping up a massive amount of bird's eye chilies, and b) neither should you try to rinse your eye out with what you thought was just normal saline contact lens solution, but was actually the stuff with hydrogen peroxide in it. OW. I'm surprised I still have eyeballs left. But if you're trying to come up with a 28 Days Later zombie costume on the cheap, it's very effective.

- Dear Germans, please feel free to take over the UK whenever you want. Häagen-Daz cafes at train stations? YES PLEASE.

- Goats! I love goats and I GOT TO PET GOATS. What lovely animals they are with their adorable beards, little butty horns and precious bleating noises. WHERE ARE MY GOATS goblin_dae, I WANT MY GOATS, AAAAALLLLL THE GOATS.

- The wife reminded me just why I tolerate him and baked a huge chocolate cake for me to return to. ♥ ♥ ♥

The last batch!

At the heart of the medina is the Djemma El Fna, the main square and marketplace. During the day the square doesn't look busy or impressive at all, just orange juice stalls and people trying to earn money by posing for tourist photos - water sellers in their traditional red costumes, snake charmers and men dragging about chained Barbary apes (who got a very curt response from me when they tried to get me to pose with them). I hate being pestered for money (and I never seemed to have any coins on me), so I didn't try to take photos of any of them. At night though, the place really starts to get lively. Food stalls are set up and the square gets filled up with storytellers, beggers, henna artists, dancers and musicians. Who also harass you for money if you look at them, let alone take photos.


( The Djemaa El Fna and the souks )

Uh, so when I said my massive photospam was almost over, I neglected to mention that I took the camera along to the Lake District this weekend, and we actually had really nice weather (though I don't have a huge amount of photos, because some people were more interested in beer than long walks). You'll have a short breather of a few days while I attempt to master Photoshop's HDR function and try to produce photos that don't look as if I do my post-processing while taking LSD.

Not too far out of the old city is the Majorelle garden, a pretty little place designed by a colonial-era French artist and once owned by Yves Saint Laurent. It's small but very peaceful away from the noise of the rest of the city and is filled with yellow and cobalt blue pots, and a blue art deco villa. Also enjoyable if you've got a cactus fetish.


( Lots of planty things )

Here's the first lot of photos - I'm going to be that boring relative at family reunions who insists on sharing their thousands of holiday snaps, I'm afraid.

I'm a little disappointed by the photos I took - or rather, didn't take. The most interesting subjects weren't the buildings but the people there, but because I don't have the balls nor the charm required for street photography (and I took just my Giant Vacuum Cleaner lens, which is has neither the long focal length or the size to be stealthy) I didn't take any portraits. And judging from the response of the locals to other tourists sticking their cameras at them, I'm glad I didn't try to.


( The medina - the fortified old city )

What I should be doing is looking up what to do in Marrakech, but no, I've decided I want to go to Syria instead.

( Some reasons why )

Who wants to come along with me? I'll pack sandwiches.

Well, feeling much better and back to sleeping normally (now that the holiday is mostly over, har). I'm doing what Singapore is best for: eating masses of food, lazing around waiting for the next mealtime, then eating masses of food. I am going to have such painful cravings for hawker stall food when I go back.

The final wedding party is over and done with, hurrah. This one was probably the least fun of them all - the most entertaining part was watching my very drunken brother (currently a rancher on a cattle farm in Australia, soon to be a trolley dolly for British Airways - interesting career path) try to hit on my cousin's underage friend. That was certainly better than when he started telling me about his other sexual conquests in graphic detail. What is wrong with my family?

( So, onto the obligatory photo part of this post. )

...where I am bored out of my mind. I hate doing nothing on holiday, and my camera is sulking because I've only taken it out once this week. But we've spent enough time with family now to be able to escape - tomorrow we'll take a train down to the city and spend it wandering around, taking photos and trying not to keel over and fall asleep in the street.

Ah yes, sleep. Bloody jet lag, a week should be long enough for it to go away and leave me alone. Mind you, the wife and I didn't exactly help by taking a nap this afternoon, sleeping through the alarm and waking up four hours later. Tonight should be fun.

Oh, and I've discovered I'm allergic to something at the house we stayed in in Singapore, and the symptoms are still hanging around after a few days in Australia. Which is odd, because I've made it to 25 without ever being allergic to anything.

Anyway, here's a couple of photos from our wander around Singapore's city center. I could do without the heat there (winter in Australia is lovely however, but I do wish I had packed at least one jumper) but the food makes it worthwhile. I introduced the wife to roti prata and he now fully understands why I've been bitching about not being able to get it in the UK for the past 6 years.



(not pictured: her older German partner who was wearing the most amazing pair of lime green trousers. Wish I'd got a photo of him, he was quite impressive)

( 3 more )

P.S. A very happy belated birthday to sue_chose_this! Hope your day was lovely.

(it's nearly over, I promise!)

( Cappadocia )