Vagamundo New Zealand-friends: October 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A very funny response from my friend in the Hawkes Bay..worth a bigger audienceH

Dear Vagamudo Blogger,

What the hell are you waffling on about in Brugge?Giving Jamie Oliver a run for his clothes.Have you started a new blog ___ food & crims .Europe/come.!!!?*%*3#.

God you're hard to keep up with,what with muggers,bag snatchers,gourmand delights,leather boots- if only Agatha Christie could still put pen to paper it would be moreTitilating than training on Her Orient Express.

Busy organising Maori Haka at Mangere on your arrival Tama Iti (Activist),Buck Shelford (Sportsman),Charles Royal( Chef),Tariana Turia (Politics) nb:Cross section covering all bases!! are hoping to be there so hope you will be wearing your Promote NZ T shirt,Jandals and dark shades so we recognise you.

Having fun in the sun sipping cool Hawkes Bay Viognier & munching olives,figs & cheese.

When do you hit NZ shores as Powhiri takes a bit of organising!!

Love (Kiwi Semi -Naked Chef)

Joce

Train journy reports....swine flu??

Guten morgen

From a frikken train still! I am feeling like my life is on a train. Prob cos I have spent 18 hrs of last 36 on one!

Flying through the night to Manheim, starving, as bloody useless boy has not brought me the menu. He is scared of English and also thick and new. I heard the guards talking when I waited for the loo. I finally got my Spanish red vino, thank god.
I change trains to Bonn so hopefully can get some real food. The breafast place said on a sign "please do not take food away", so that stopped me taking a snack away for train.

The train feels like it is going a million miles an hour, backwards into time. Maybe I should sit going forward?
Probably going 300 km again but no speed dial this time to confirm. On ICE you get power so my iPhone is running songs in my head and I am doing this. Too tired to write up rest of today Got 15 contacts into data base before I gave up.

It is compulsory to have a lap top in this cabin!

And to talk loudly into cell ph mentionning Afghanistan, New York,Lucern, whatever... Fascinating.

Finished my jersey and to celebrate I wore it off the train to the platform!!!

Not sure about the collar yet. I doubled it over and sewed it.

I have to look into a mirror. Thank goodness I had the pins with me!! My novel may be called "A dozen pins and a pair of needles.

........

Absoluely every bugger on these trains has a cold and is either sneezing or sniffing. I refused to shake hands with, and blocked my nose, as one of the organizers of WEBA said loudly he was sick "but don't worry he had not been attacked by a pig."

I am seeing swine flu everywhere. I turned around and this guy was behind me and he looked like he was bloody dieing of swine flu. Of course the news us full of the football game cancelled because of 3 cases of swine fllu in the team, which then led to riots btw the opposition supporters

Now in having dinner and a huge sneeze from man and an equally loud "gazunt heit" ( can't spell it) He has kept sneezing as I write this andy nose is itching so I have come to the conclusion it was the pepper the guy opposite was applying liberally.
..........

In a darkened cabin and lights reflecting off the Rhine and every few minutes another castle that is lit up, flashes by. Oh yeah, I am flashing by.

Tooooo much today to soak it all in. The view leaving Zurich was one of the best I have ever seen. Matterhorn dusted in snow in background. I don't think I have seen that view before. The views prior equal to all the best before eg Gt Wall, Iguazzu, Himalayas etc Wow

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Brugge

Munich train station extract from client blog

Arrived in Munich eventually...meant to be midnight but thought for myself and saw I could jump on an earlier train compared to the one the ticket office had printed off for me.

I chose a quiet zone in the very front cabin and was able to prop my legs up on a shelf and knit my neck of the jersey I need to wear the minute it gets cold again. It does help to eat into the hours. In between I finished reading book number 3 of the trip "A Woman in Berlin." Anonymous. Harrowing first hand account of the rapes by Russian soldiers at end of Second World War. A bit of light travel reading..not. Black humour is part of their mechanism for coping. All very interesting and leaves me gazing out windows musing over the meaning of life, condition of humanity etc.

I feel like I am a hermit living at the station as I am also eating there, but yummy food like smoked eel on fresh bread, pretzels, fresh fruit smoothies, fruit salds, creamed rice and fruit to take away. Poor beautiful Munich is not getting visited by me.A 100 meter circle here.

Always dodgy around the stations however ...some slimy old codgers were crawling around half pissed whatever late last night. one guy literally looked like he had crawled out of the guttter/sewer and people were giving him a wide berth. A couple of crazies in doorways mumbling. Plenty of police about so feels safe enough.

More gazing out window wondering about humanity.

Belgium -history lesson from Skippy and Marike

From Rotterdam I trained to Menen, on the border with Belgium and France. My sister had lived in nearby Brugge for 20 years so I visited her friends.

The business Sandi and her husband Lode set up is still running and is called Quasimodo tours. I was thinking of being a mystery shopper for them (as they are still majority share holders). However Skippy and Marike kindly offered to show me the fields of Flanders themselves so off we went for my compulsory history lesson. We visited the Messen gate during the day and also for the last post at 8pm (played every day). We also visited the Tyne Cot cemetery (the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world) for fallen soldiers.

The colours were all muted autumn and the wind was chilly but the whole morning was very interesting. In the afternoon I wrote up my notes from Thailand which took ages because I had met so many people.

I am here until Friday morning when I will train to Aachen for an appointment and then down to Munich for a fair for students but I will be doing another guerrilla attack and meeting agents.

In the mean time I am writing up my Holland visit and also making more requests for appointments etc. Had a big hassle today about the hotel bookings for 9 rooms in Milan for the rugby event. Grrrr

Holland –attempted robbery boarding train in Rotterdam.

As I was catching the train in Rotterdam to Belgium I had 2 or 3 guys try to rob me as I boarded the train!! They were so good at it, I was not even sure it was happening. Tidy guys came one in front, 2 behind and ‘helped me’ onto the train with my 2 wheeled bags (only around 15 and 10 kilos). As they were ‘helping me, they tugged hard, and the third was trying to pickpocket my purse. I looked sternly at him, said THANK-YOU and then grabbed my bags (having never once let go) and turning left into 1st class and they disappeared into 2nd. I think they were trying to grab my briefcase bag plus pick pocket. I will have my hands free purse not only dangling inside my jacket from now on, but the jacket done up, plus I will only board with no-one behind me, and in the middle of 1st class. Lucky for them I was not entirely sure they were doing what they were doing until they actually took off as I was very likely to lash out with my sharp toed boots and scream blue murder. Ask my husband next time about a similar incident in Denmark or when the guy tried to take my park!!!

Happy family times in Holland

HDM Hockey Club Den Haag

My original international student is Ana Marguiret, an Argentinean married to a Dutchman.

She is now a teacher, hockey coach and Mum just as I was when she came to NZ for a year in 1996. I stayed with her and her 2 kids in The Hague, and went with her to her hockey game. Her husband is a trainer for hockey and a coach for cricket. He played and coached cricket for 20 years, all over the world, until finally settling down back home.