Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 6, Venice by Moonlight

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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 5, Barce-Loner

Awoke alone and lay cosy in the dorm a while. Dragged myself to get ready, checked out and caught the bus across the city to Park Güell, as I wanted to catch the views in the midday sun.  Entrance to the park’s centre is ticketed, and I was given a slot around midday. To kill time, I hiked up the hill behind the park and sat in the sun enjoying magnificent views of the city, it’s soft edge square blocks of rooftops and terraces, viridescent mountaintops beyond, and at the end of it all, sparkling ocean merging with the horizon. Continue reading

Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 1, Paris

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It’s just after 7pm, and it’s been a strange sort of day. I feel like I’ve done a huge amount, and yet due to my exhaustion none of it feels real. I’ve been dreaming.

After waking in Berlin at 4am, I landed in France at 8.30 this morning and got the train into Paris. I got very confused and lost in the station, and finally arrived at my hostel around 10.45, and tried to check in. The girl looked at me like I was a half wit. Check in isn’t until 2, of course. I took my backpack and slunk off into the city. I decided the Louvre would be first. Continue reading

The Berlin Diaries – The Wizard’s Lair

 

Thursday I braved the snow and lashing winds and headed down to the Bürgeramt in Wedding. ‘What is the Bürgeramt, Dan?’ I hear you plead. The Bürgeramt, my friend, is a frightfully dull bureaucratic building, an official government site where you have to sort out all your throat-slittingly boring paperwork, registrations, documentation, whatever. After three months living in the city, I have finally moved into a flat where I am able to register – which is a crucial part of moving here, as it allows me to get a bank account, get health insurance, get paid, you name it. The German word for this kind of registration is Anmeldung, a term which now boils my blood every time I hear it. Continue reading

The Benefits of Ridin’ Solo

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ESdn0MuJWQ&w=560&h=315]

Listen to the immortal lyrics of master songsmith Jason Derulo, from the 2009 hit single ‘Ridin’ Solo’, in which he vividly recounts the new-found benefits of the single lifestyle, and the dizzying pleasures that can accompany the sudden revelation of newfangled emotional liberation.

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Post Cuba

Actually no, that title’s shit. Need something edgier.

Cuba: A Look Back In Anger

No that’s wank.

Reflections

Jesus.

Erm.

Dan After Cuba

Oh forget it.

So. Assuming you have now read all 15 days of my diary (God bless your patience), you will now have an idea of why I find it so hard to sum the country up in a nice little manageable sentence. Two weeks after the first manic taxi ride took me plunging into the jaws of the mysterious communist island, Cuba belched me back out again, shivering and bewildered and wondering what the hell I’d just been through. Continue reading