But that is an EU building in the EU district of Brussels. Now I’m all for a good glass and steel building, but there’s something about the scale of these things, and knowing how many people must be behind all those windows, all leeching off the rest of us, that’s quite ominous.

Round the corner from there is this place:

How tedious. Apart from the ice cream, obviously. Thankfully no-one was there doing any of these things.

Maybe I’ll get to travel in space yet — I’m thinking a moon of Saturn would be well worth a visit.

People here really do say, “feck”, and otherwise sound a bit like characters from that sitcom. They’re also friendly and helpful (I remember reading a letter in a magazine complaining that the token Irish person in Coronation Street was too stereotypically nice). I really enjoy taking taxis in Cork because the taxi drivers are so much fun to talk to.

The roadsides are plastered with placards for various upcoming elections.

I haven’t noticed any Euro-campaigning in the UK so far, but I haven’t really been looking for it, either.

Anyway, watch Father Ted.

I took my driving licence. It got me past check-in and security, but on landing, the man behind the passport desk did not like it because place of birth on my driving licence is shown as Germany. He said it was no good. It was lucky I also had my passport.

Now I feel a bit hard done by. I’m a UK citizen and my taxes pay for the foreign office and the embassies and all that. But by a quirk of fate I do not get the benefit of the agreement made between these two countries. It’s not fair!

As always, I have questions: Was the passport man telling the truth or was he just trying to make life easy for himself? Does the Irish government really trust the DVLA or whoever issues “international student cards” to tell them whether or not I’m a UK citizen? Am I left out by accident, or is it a deliberate decision to exclude me from this scheme for pragmatic reasons? What can I do about this in practice?

Some weeks later, I showed some photos around at work, including this one:

Cherry Lee

When he saw it, my friend Steve said, “what?! I know this girl!” It turns out she’s his friend’s sister. I accused him of knowing all the Chinese people in the world (he also knows an ex-flatmate of mine, completely coincidentally). By the end of the afternoon everyone involved (me, Steve, the singer and her brother) were all talking about it on Twitter.

Michael Jennings joined in, pointing out that this sort of thing happens a lot when you travel enough, especially with people who know people you know, and that you remember it more when you’re abroad.

So thinking about it, it’s not quite a huge coincidence. I know quite a few people, and they know lots of people. People in my social circle obviously share similar interests, do similar things and go to similar places. It would be odd if I didn’t bump into them occasionally. If I’d bumped into Cherry Lee in London it wouldn’t have been so remarkable, and this was a bar where lots of tourists go all the time.

But it’s still cool when it happens. And Steve does know all the Chinese people in at least the Southeast of England.

Long Way Round, Up and Over Norway: Intro from Rob Fisher on Vimeo.

That’s just the introduction. If it stutters on your computer you can turn off the HD for slightly lower video quality. All 8 episodes are available as an album on Vimeo, or if you prefer a playlist on YouTube.

There’s music, narration, and animated maps made in Microsoft Live Maps. Thanks to Magnatune for some great royalty free music, including some nice Bach.

It was all shot in 1080P HD on a Canon HV20 with a Raynox wide angle adaptor. My bike is a Suzuki SV650 and Dad’s is a 1200 Bandit. Enjoy the video!

In Barcelona, shops and metro stations have up escalators but no down escalators so you have to walk down.

Table service exists almost everywhere, which is nice. Except at the places where there is no table service, and often the only way to find out is to sit there until you realise you’re not going to get served. But even if there is table service, the prevailing culture seems to be that waiters do not bother the customer. All well and good, except that it is taken to extremes: ignore the customer; don’t make eye contact with the customer; and especially don’t take any notice of the fact that the customer has been sitting there with empty beer glasses for the last ten minutes. The game of getting the waiter’s attention gets tired fast. They’re equally reluctant to give you the bill, often disappearing completely and leaving you trapped and contemplating theft.

We took a boat trip. The sea was quite rough. There were no safety announcements and few signs. How refreshing! You can’t get on a train in England without constant safety harassment. We rented a scooter. The man wasn’t interested in seeing my driving license and just asked me to ride round the block. In the UK, you have to take a day’s compulsory training to ride a scooter. Maybe all the safety nonsense we put up with in the UK doesn’t come from Europe after all, or maybe Spain just doesn’t stand for it.

Royal Mail make it as difficult as possible to look up a UK postcode while on holiday. My phone’s 3G data worked just fine, but its web browser, which normally copes with anything, did not like it at all. I suspected Javascript, but having looked at the site I’m not sure. Something non-standard must be going on. So much for the web site, but the phone line is a premium 09 number that doesn’t work from within Spain. There is an international helpline, but they just told me they weren’t allowed to put me through to the postcodes line, so tough luck. Eventually I discovered another 08 number for postcodes, but this is only open two hours every evening. It’s all very frustrating — but then, they’re the monopoly provider of that information.

I had lunch with the same colleague from LA as yesterday, and we talked about current events, mostly the uselessness of the UN.  Koffi Annan has no credibility with most Israelis.  Her son had just come back from serving in the IDF up North, but luckily he didn’t have to cross the border.

On the trip to the airport I had the same taxi driver who’d taken me from the airport last week.  He pointed out some of the same places he’d pointed out before, telling me again about the Arabs making a lot of money from the Jews visiting their restaurants.  But it didn’t seem so surprising to me this time: you see so many different types of people in Jerusalem and everyone seems to get along — and what better to help people get along than shared business interests?

The road from the office out of Jerusalem followed the rim of a valley, and the views were spectacular.  The road to Tel Aviv is straight and good quality, with not too much traffic.  I arrived at the airport three hours before my flight, not quite sure what to expect with the already high level of security in Israel and the supposed terror plot in London.

Tel Aviv airport is a fantastic airport.  It is spacious and un-crowded, clean, well signposted, and has gorgeous steel and marble architecture.  The security check comes before check-in.  The security personnel are courteous and even smile at you.  I had a letter from my company and was only asked questions about where I’d been working and staying, before proceeding to have my luggage x-rayed.  The check-in queue was short, and before long I was in the lounge.  This is another expansive area with a huge steel and glass lattice affording a view over part of the airport.  Planes taxied and trains of baggage carts busied around but again it looked as if there was plenty of space and everything kept moving.  It all looked so *efficient*.

I got a smoothie made with crushed ice, oranges, bananas, mango and even *dates* and sat on a stool by the window to drink it.  It was very refreshing and relaxing.  Next was the main passport check.  The passport checking girl was the first person I’d encountered at the airport who was grumpy – but then again she has to sit in a tiny booth all day.

After security was a large marble rotunda with a fountain in the middle and shops all the way around.  It was this that I’d first seen from the mezzanine above when I’d arrived.  I looked in an electronics shop, but couldn’t really fathom the prices.  Somewhat bizarrely they sold washing machines.  That must add a bit of excess baggage to your fare.

The wait at the gate was long because I was so early, but the flight was pleasant, and empty enough that I could move seats to have two by the window to myself.

Arrival at Heathrow was a contrast to Tel Aviv – grim, narrow corridors, a huge bundle at passport control, and signs telling me not to assault the staff.  But it didn’t take too long nonetheless, and it was good to be home.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day; exploring the city; first day.

I the evening I met up a my friend from India who I bumped into at work yesterday.  We took a taxi to the Israel Museum.  On Tuesdays it opens late, and there seemed to be all kinds of things going on.  There were lots of children flying kites, live music, a bread fair, and various food being served from stalls.

We were mainly there to see 1:50 scale model of the city in the time of the second temple.  At that time Jerusalem was walled, but bigger than the old city is today.  The model was great fun, and the audio guide explained about what life was like there.  The site of the museum itself is impressive — there seem to be several buildings laid out in gardens with sunken areas leading down into other exhibits.  The Dead Sea scrolls exhibit is actually underneath partly of a large fountain.

We also had a look in the main museum building that contained artefacts from various ancient cultures, and some pretentious modern art by the Zik Group or someone.  The Little Israel exhibit was more modern art but a bit more fun.  There was a scene made out of toy people and cars, showing police holding back the crowds while toy bulldozers knocked down toy houses.  Presumably this was a comment on the Gush Katif evictions.  I took a picture of it but was told off for taking pictures, so I’d better not publish it here.

We grabbed some food from the food fair, which was more complicated than it sounds.  There were large queues — and I learnt that Israeli queues are not orderly and polite like Britsh queues — and you had to queue to buy a coupon and then queue again to buy food.  What didn’t help was that all the menus were in Hebrew, so I didn’t know how much what I wanted cost.  I solved this problem by buying the most expensive coupon, which was only 20 Shekels anyway.  Then the girl serving the food didn’t speak English (most poeple in Israel do, but she was quite young) so I pointed at what I wanted, and had to resort to sign language to explian that I didn’t care that my coupon was worth more than what I’d ordered.

In any event, the cous cous, veg stew and meatballs was quite tasty despite not being very hot.

We walked back to our respective hotels, and I went for a nice cold Goldstar.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day; next day; exploring the city; first day.

I did bump into a friend from India who I met in LA — not quite as unlikely as you might think as we work for the same company.  She’s been here for months it would seem, and it was good to go for a coffee and catch up.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day; next day; exploring the city; first day.

I went for a swim, read my book, went for another swim, read my book, it got cold, I went to my room, fell asleep, woke up and went down in search of dinner.

Once again the cafe and restaurant were closed.  Argh!  I went to the desk.  Is anywhere open for dinner?  “Dinner?”  Some conferring in Hebrew.  “No, we don’t have dinner.  Are you in a group?”  No, it’s just me.  “Oh.”  More conferring in Hebrew.  “The dairy restaurant is open in an hour, but only the dairy one.”  Phew!  I like the diary food, and this might mean that Shabbat is finally over.  Everyone will stop joyously celebrating and I can look forward to a reliable supply of food.

Update:  I went down and had a nice dinner of broccoli quiche covered in a cheese and tomato sauce, and the best strawberry milkshake ever, with chocolate sauce smeared over the inside of the glass.  I’m always going on about how good the service is in America, well in Israel it’s awful.  One friend even recommended a place to me on the basis that it was traditional, complete with terrible service.  Tonight the waitresses sauntered around taking their time, and at one point one even walked past my foodless table, looked right at it, and sauntered on by.  At least I got what I ordered and it was good.

Afterwards I went for a beer in the lounge.  It’s quite comfortable, there’s a pianist, and it’s good to have people around when you’re travelling alone.  Each table has two two-seater sofas.  I was reading my book alone when an entire family came and sat round me and then left as quickly as they’d arrived.  Soon after an older guy appeared and sat opposite me.  He said something in Hebrew.  I said that my Hebrew was a little rusty and that started off a conversation.  We chatted for about ten minutes before I left with him wishing me a good flight home.  I’m getting to like the culture here:  people are very rude and abrupt and will barge into the lift without giving you a chance to get out, and they’re simultaneously very friendly and willing to chat to strangers, and to be honest, I can live without false politeness.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day (exploring the city); next day; first day.

It was about a half-hour walk through the suburbs with wide roads and trees and parks.  We — or I should say I — took a couple of wrong turns, and while I was looking at the map and complaining that there are no signs with road names in Jerusalem, Animesh would enthusiastically accost a passer by and get directions.  So it was that, hot and thirsty, we found civilisation in the form of a tiny convenience store on the edge of the town centre and finally got ourselves some water.

A couple of blocks later and we were properly downtown, at the intersection of King George and Ben Yehuda streets.  We explored around looking at shops.  It’s quite a European looking city apart from the buildings which are all yellow limestone.  It was bustling with activity and commerce, but not too crowded.  We looked in a few shops, explored some side streets, and discovered a few possibilities for lunch.  I spotted a girl in a green uniform stood on a street corner with an M-16 rifle.  I had heard that there would be young people around on military service carrying their rifles, but this was the first one I’d seen.  I asked her if I could take her photo and she just smiled.  I took a picture and explained that we don’t see many girls with rifles back home, and she just smiled some more.

For lunch we found a tiny falafel shop with chairs and tables outside and umbrellas to shelter us from the midday sun.  We both had falafels with salad, humous and spicy sauce.  A small boy came up offering to sell us pens.  When we said no he looked all sad and pointed at our food and at his mouth.  He reached for one of my falafels and I shooed him away.  He tried the same trick on Animesh who relented and gave him one.  Ten minutes later he was back.  I glared at him and he just grinned at me, walked up and snatched one of Animesh’s falafels right off his plate and ran away grinning.  I suppose that proves you get more of what you reward — in this case small boys trying to take your food.

After a brief detour for a McBathroom break (I had to get my bag searched by a security guard outside), and stopping in a sweet shop to buy exotic treats, we set off down the hill in search of the Old City.  This is a walled area, the original site of the original Jerusalem, but mainly rebuilt in the Ottoman days of 15-hundred-and-so.  I was a bit nervous about visiting it as it’s the one place that seems to be a bit risky.  The foreign office website warns travellers to “maintain a high level of vigilance” there, and one of my Jewish colleagues said that I should “be a bit careful” there.  It’s divided into Jewish, Christian, Armenian and Muslim quarters, and it’s easy to imagine there might be trouble there from time to time.  So I didn’t quite know what to expect and worried that we might be the only tourists and therefore easy prey for any dodgy elements.

Sure enough, as soon as we walked through Jaffa Gate we were accosted by an Arab guy vhemently recommending that we take him up on his offer of a two and a half hour tour.  He said he could tell us all about the history, show us the Muslim area (“You are Christian?  You should see other side of things”), and even take us up on the roof of “the hostel I work for, over there”, for a view over the city.  And all for a mere 300 Shekels; about £40.  We somehow managed to get rid of him and headed for the information office, which was closed.  I was wondering whether his offer might have been worth it.

We walked down the main street.  The streets were narrower here, the buildings older, there were more Arabs and less Jews, but there were lots of tourists and it didn’t seem that bad after all.  The first major building we came to was the Tower of David.  We decided to go in.  Imagine the Tower of London, but smaller, browner, and with no Beefeaters.  There are walls, ramparts and towers to climb over, and inside some rooms are exhibits detailing the history of Jerusalem.  The first thing we did was climb to the highest tower — the Phaseal Tower — for a fantastic panoramic view over the city.  I was glad we hadn’t taken the expensive tour now, because a good look over the city was what I wanted, and I’d got it for a tenth of the price.

The rest of the museum was well worth it, too.  I learnt a lot about the different stages that Jerusalem has been through.  That’s how I know that in the 16th century the Ottomans rebuilt the walls that had fallen to ruin.  Apart from that the rooms with exhibits were air conditioned, a respite from the heat worth 30 Shekels several times over.

We stayed for a couple of hours, then managed to find a Slush Puppy type drink in the little outdoor cafe there, which we were just in time for as it was closing.

After leaving we walked around some more, and headed down a tiny alley that was bustling with little shops.  This was a proper Middle-Eastern shopping experience.  I’d been told that the Old City was the only place you have to barter, and now I understood.  All the time walking down that alley shopkeepers who stood outside their shops would try to get you to come in and buy things.  My strategy was to smile politely and then ignore them.  Animesh engaged them a bit more, asking how much things cost.  They would then invite him in to look at other wares, and when he walked away they would start lowering their prices.  “It’s okay, I was only asking the price.”  “No, no!  How much can you pay?  30 Shekels?  15 Shekels?!”  It was a little alarming at first but we eventually got used to it and took it in our stride.  And I don’t want to over-generalise: not all the shopkeepers used these tactics.  Some were happy to just let you browse.

The alley seemed to go on forever.  Every now and then we would come to a side alley that also stretched on forever and was equally bustling with shops.  We resolved to just keep going in a straight line or else we would get hopelessly lost.  There were a few T-shirt and carpet shops, but most of the shops sold the same trinkets:  ornamental knives, vases, key-rings, various Jewish paraphernalia, thimbles…  Thimbles!  I have an aunt who collects thimbles with designs and place names on them.  I bet she doesn’t have one from Jerusalem.  I asked how much.  10 Shekels.  Animesh was all, “no, that should be only 2 Shekels.”  The shopkeeper wouldn’t budge.  We tried the walking away trick and this time, when I actually wanted to buy something, it didn’t work!  They must be able to read my mind.  I ended buying the exact same thimble from another shop for 10 Shekels.  In fact, all the prices seemed pretty uniform.  All the T-shirt shops were selling T-shirts for $1 or 5 Shekels.  All the shopkeepers seem to know each other anyway, and probably form into little cartels or at least, working in such close proximities, don’t want to antagonise their neighbour competitors.  They weren’t poor, though: the guy I bought the thimble from was chatting on his mobile phone.

When we reached the end of the alley, we turned around and went back.  Actually, we didn’t ever reach the end of the alley, it just reached a T-junction and went left and right forever, but it was mainly more of the same.

I was pretty exhausted and had seen enough.  We probably could have spent several more hours exploring the rest of the Old City, but there comes a point when you just can’t take any more in.  We got a taxi, which Animesh tried to barter down the price for but I undermined him by settling for the drivers second offer.  We were probably, technically, ripped off because of this, but £5 each for a taxi ride home with a relatively cheerful driver was worth it to me.

I’m now back at my hotel.  The Jewish Sabbath — Shabbat — started just before sunset and goes on until just after sunset tomorrow.  The shops all closed really early.  The hotel lift is in Shabbat mode so that it stops on every floor so that you don’t have to press buttons to operate it.  For some reason the doors beep before they close — I speculate that this is a warning that the anti-crush-you-in-the-door sensors are disabled as triggering them would constitute operating an electrical switch — and I can hear this incessant beeping in my room.

I fell asleep in my room and when I went down in search of food everything was either closed or being used for a Bar Mitzvah.  I could have paid $40 for a dinner, but it would have been a proper “sumptious” Shabbat dinner (shalosh seudot) and I’d rather just have something light, and I don’t know, I feel kind of out of place with all these Jewish families around having their celebrations.  Luckily I have some supplies in my room.  Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get some lunch, although all the Jews will be having another sumptious meal so I don’t quite know what to expect.   I should probably get over it and go and join them!

More Jerusalem Travel:  previous day; next day; first day.

My colleague is a volunteer in an anti-terror force.  He openly carries a handgun at work which is only remarkable because of the fuss some of my British colleagues make about it when they see people doing this for the first time.  I think many British people think that if you have a gun you might randomly shoot someone in some kind of uncontrollable spasm.  Eric Raymond has some insight on that front.

Over lunch we chatted about current events as one does.  It turns out we read many of the same blogs, and we compared notes about the way the media is reporting the conflict.  He put me on to a website comparing IDF women with Hezbollah women.  I’ll get in trouble for saying so, but there’s something about a cute girl holding a big rifle…

He told me that he’s a volunteer medic and spent the weekend up north working in an ambulance crew.  Although luckily no-one was hurt and they didn’t need to go on any calls, it was still pretty scary, and he saw a rocket land not far from where he was near an ambulance station.

I worked late and ate at work.  Again the dairy food was good:  some kind of vegetable pie type thing.  The dairy food is always better than I expect.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day; next day (exploring the city); first day.

In the evening the boss took us out to dinner to a stekia (approximate spelling) in the centre of town.  We had to park a couple of hundred yards away and I really enjoyed the walk up the street.  It was the first time I have been somewhere other than the hotel or the office.

Jerusalem is very different to any city I have been to.  It seems to be a cross between a European city and a Middle-Eastern one.  All the buildings are of the same yellow limestone.  The area of town we were in had quite narrow streets and the buildings had a kind of ramshackle look to them — all the more charming for not being slick and modern.  The streets were quite crowded with people and traffic.  Shops and restaurants lit the place up.

At the stekia we were first served a selection of about ten different salad dishes with pitta bread fresh from a traditional looking oven — so hot you couldn’t touch it and thing enough to tear bits off and dip in the humous, eggplant and salads.  Each dish was made with different herbs and spices and each was very tasty.  There were also Morrocan cigars which were I think beef wrapped in a crispy batter, and some kind of egg shaped minced beed coated in breadcrumbs thing.  It was tempting to fill oneself up on these but the main course was various types of meat on skewers and marinaded, and rice with lentils mixed in.  There were other kinds of main course available too — I was tempted by the Jerusalem mixed grill, but on learning that this was various kinds of offal (or “inside bits” as the waitress helpfully warned me) I chickened out and went for the less adventurous option.

The drive from work to the restaurant and back to the hotel finally gave me some bearings and a sense of scale.  The boss helpfully pointed out various local landmarks, too.  Jerusalem is relatively compact and I should have no trouble walking around and exploring at the weekend.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day; next day; exploring the city; first day.

The most disconcerting thing about Israel to me is all the Hebrew writing everywhere.  Sometimes things are helpfully translated into English, but mostly not.  I’m the kind of person who reads all the signs, and when most of the signs are in a script I can’t fathom it makes me feel kind of illiterate, which is unnerving.  People are helpful and understanding, though.

One of my colleagues asked how I felt about coming to Israel what with current events.  I told him I wasn’t bothered.  He commented that everyone is being encouraged to act normal, even though there is a war on.  He said that he has been coping by ignoring the news lately.  I suppose people react to things in different ways.  I suppose I would react differently if rockets were landing on, say, Southampton.  But as far as I can tell, life goes on as normal in Jerusalem.

The same colleague was not at all horrified at the thought of me wandering around sightseeing at the weekend, though, which is encouraging.  He gave me directions and said I should walk — it is a long walk but there are plenty of things to see on the way.  He said there would be lots of other tourists — well, maybe not so many now.  The plane over here was nearly empty, I had an entire row to myself, so it will be interesting to see how many tourists there are.

More Jerusalem Travel: previous day; next day; exploring the city.