Knocking about in Europe

So trip number 2 has begun!! I hope you're all as excited to hear about it as I am doing it. Here's the first couple of weeks in a nutshell:

I left London on the 21st April, jumped on a coach at 8 o'clock and headed in the general direction of Amsterdam. Met a couple of nice people on the coach, and had a bit of a chat on the way to the channel crossing. Turned out we were taking the Eurotunnel, which was a lot less exciting than I envisioned, but one of those things that I have now ticked off my list Got a fair amount of sleep on the coach on the rest of the journey, so when we arrived in Amsterdam at 6:30a.m. I was feeling nice and fresh.

On the Coach to Amsterdam. I look excited because I am!!

Caught the metro into town with a couple of people from the coach, they checked into their hostel and I wandered in the general direction of central station. Got my laptop out on a street corner and managed to find some wireless to contact Rob and Lally via facebook, as attempts to do so by phone had proven fruitless. I assumed (correctly) that they wouldn't be on facebook at the time, and so just decided to wander towards the campsite. Went to a supermarket first and grabbed some B&C (bread and cheese for those of you unfamiliar with the “cheap as you can” travel lingo) and headed off. Luckily I knew the way to the campsite they were staying at, as it was the same one we stayed at on the coach tour last year.

Had lunch in a park on the way, well, it was breakfast really) and got to the campsite at around 11. Had a chat to the receptionist, and managed to find Rob and Lally’s van, so I set my tent up next to it and chilled out for the afternoon in the sun. Got a call from Rob at around 5ish saying they were going to a live art show at a coffee shop in town, and so I made my way back in to catch up with them. The live art show was cool, consisted of an asian guy with a permanent marker along with a dj providing some atmosphere.

The First Bread and Cheese of many

The next few days in Amsterdam were spent mostly chilling out in the sun, we got some amazing weather, and it was just good to be out of London and work and what not. Helped Rob build some van furniture, and played a bit of music. Also met up with Jay, an Irish guy I met in a hostel when I first got to London, which was mint. The other cool things to come out of Amsterdam; I am going to catch up with Rob and Lally again after Nice, probably head to Bordeaux and the west coast with them for a bit before my hike; and, after the year of travelling is finished, I may end up in Cornwall working with Rob on a music project of some sort. So I’m quite excited about that one.

Playing Music with Rob at the Campsite

The 27th April spelt the end of Amsterdam, and I jumped on a coach to Antwerpen. Arrived at around 1ish, and made my way to the small town of Terhagen, which took about an hour on the local bus service. Hung around in a small bar for about half an hour, before meeting up with Bianca, the girl who is organizing the Swedish hiking adventure, and heading back to her place. That night another Belgian guy who is coming on the hike came around, and we went and got some pizza, and talked about how excited we were about hiking.

The next morning I woke up and checked my emails to find a message from Chelsea, the girl I was planning on staying with in Paris for a week or so. The message said that she was very sorry, but she had been fired from her job, and flown back to Canada... and in the confusion of it all had forgotten that I was coming to stay. So I had a coach to Paris the next day, with nowhere to stay, and hence not a lot to do for 8 days. I decided after much deliberation that instead of getting on my coach as planned, I would hitchhike from Antwerpen to Paris over the week, and stay in a few places along the way. After far too much planning that morning, I decided I needed to do something with my life, and so jumped on a bus into Antwerpen to do some sightseeing, and try and find a music shop for a new capo to replace one I lost in Amsterdam.

Antwerpen was a pleasant surprise. The city is actually really nice, enough history and folklore to be interesting, but not so much that the streets are swamped with other tourists. I would go as far as to say that it is one of my favourite cities in Europe so far. That night I cooked Bianca a meal as a bit of a thanks for having me thing, and we went to her Accordian band practice. Bianca plays in an accordion band, which consists of around 20 accordian players and a drummer. Was really cool. I sat and drunk Belgian beer while listening, and felt very Bavarian. I’m not quite sure why I associate accordions with being Bavarian, but I do. So deal with it. Haha.

The next day I didn’t do a lot, just made sure I had a place to stay in my next stop, which I decided would be Lille, and went for a bit of a walk to the neighbouring town of Rumst. That night Bianca returned the meal favour, and cooked me a meal with a traditional Belgian vegetable called Chicory. Then it was early to bed, as I was heading off on my first ever hitchhike, and I wanted to give myself as much time as possible.

Up at 6, and out of the house by 6:30, so managed to get to Antwerpen by around half 7. Then I walked around about 7km to the outskirts of town and an onramp to the motorway. 7km was further than it looked on google maps the night before, but I managed it alright. And then, the tricky part was over. I had guessed that I would take a little while to get Lille, and it would consist of at least two semi substantial rides. But I was picked up within 5 minutes from my spot by a very nice Belgian guy who turned out to be an off duty cop, who had done a bit of hitchhiking before. He took me 2 minutes down the road to a truck stop on the motorway, where he said it would be easier to get rides. Got out at the truck stop, and the very first truck that came past (I was there for maybe 30 seconds) picked me up, and took me all the way to Lille. I don’t know why more people don’t hitchhike places...

The trip down was interesting, the truck driver was Portugese, and spoke Spanish, Italian and Dutch, but hardly a word of English, and just as little French. (I can speak enough French now to get by and hold a very basic conversation if the person on the other end knows a little English to cover for my lack of vocabulary) So we spent the 2 hours or so on the road to Lille using outrageous hand signals and drawing diagrams to try and communicate, which was fun.

Anyway, so the ease of hitchhiking meant I was in Lille at 10:30 in the morning, and so had to fill in time for the whole day before meeting my couchsurfing accommodation at 5. I wandered down to the train station and checked my bag into a day storage thing so I wouldn’t have to lug it around, and went for a walk around the city. Lille is also a really nice town, again, about the right size to be interesting, but not so big that every man and his dog turns up to crowd the streets. I had found out in Antwerpen a couple of days before that my camera had decided to die on me... damnit... but anyway, went to find a replacement, cos it turns out sightseeing is almost a complete waste of time unless you have a camera to record what you saw. Spent my weeks budget on the cheapest digital job I could find, and then ended up doing a bit of busking to try and make some money so I could eat that night without feeling like I was spending too much.... haha. Made about 4 euros, and a couple of people took photos of me, which was nice.

At 5 I grabbed my pack from storage, and wandered down to where I had planned to meet Aurelie, (my couch surfing friend for the next couple of days). We went back to her place, which was a student residence hall, and chilled out for a couple of hours before heading out to a birthday party in one of the other rooms. Had a cool time meeting a whole lot of international students who were mainly studying French in Lille, and having a few drinks. And apparently I can now drink tequila again without throwing up all over myself, which is good to know.

Me, Aurelie (my couchsurfing host in Lille) and Maxime

The next day I went for another wander around town, did a little more busking, and saw a few more sights. Wandering through the old town would frequently find myself in eerily quiet streets with absolutely no one else around, and then would walk down a small alleyway to come face to face with a huge church out of nowhere, and swarms of people. Was cool.

Huge Churches appearing out of nowhere

Cooked a meal that night for my host, and the next morning was off again. Waited for a little longer for a ride this leg of the journey, but still managed one alright, the first pickup was from a couple that lived in Bethune, which was nicely on the way to my next destination, St Omer. They were rather eccentric, and didn’t speak a lot of English, so I got to practice my French a bit which was good. They ended up inviting me back to their house for a coffee, and I played them some of my music, and then they very nicely dropped me off at an onramp to the motorway, only about 20 mins drive from St Omer.

The ride to St Omer was uneventful, arrived and had a wander around town. St Omer is really nice, quite small but has a huge public garden that’s almost as big as the rest of the town. Very cool. Next I found a pub with free wifi to contact my host for the night. Managed to get hold of him before my phone died (I just found out I left my charger in Amsterdam) and he said he would come and meet me at the pub I was in. I had a drink and waited. And waited. 7:30 rolls around, and I’ve been sitting in the pub for 2 hours, very quickly realising that my host wasn’t coming. So I left him a couple of phone messages, and went to plan b, a bit of rough camping.

So I wandered out of town a bit, and managed to find a nice little spot beneath some trees next to the motorway, was council owned land so I wasn’t going to be bothered, and was far enough from the road that I couldn’t be seen. Pitched my tent, and sat and had a bit of a strum on the guitar and some bread and cheese before retiring for the night.

The Rough Campsite in St Omer

Woke up to rain (albeit soft rain) and so hung around in my tent for a while in the hope that it would let up, but it didn’t, so I had to pack up in the rain which was a bit annoying.. And then by the time I had walked into town the sun was shining!! Damn it. Haha. Sat in the pub again for my morning coffee, and worked out where to go next, deciding on Dunkerque, as I had a couchsurfing reply from an American girl there. So I wandered out to the highway yet again, and stuck my thumb out.

Arrived in Dunkerque at about 2 in the afternoon, and I had arranged to meet my host for the night at around 6, so I had a bit of a walk around. Ended up at the beach, and sat down on the boardwalk to do some busking... managed to make 18 euros!! So my most successful busk since St Ives, and by far the best one with the little guitar :D Had a chat to a few people who were interested in my music as well, so was cool. Then at 6 I headed towards Hillary’s place.

Jamming with Hillary (Host in Dunkerque). I wish I could share some of the music with you, cos it was excellent, but I got nothing...

The next couple of days in Dunkerque were cool, chilled out on the dunes for a bit, shared some Flight of the Conchords with some French people, and had a couple of nights on Belgian beer. (That stuff is rather strong...) Hillary plays the cello, and we have had some epic jam sessions in the last couple of days. She played a bit behind some of my songs, and made me wish I had my little recording mic with me. Was also going to do some land yachting, as there is a club down the road where you can get an introductory 2 hours for 26 euros, but the aforementioned Belgian beer from the night before made this seem like a very large effort, so I took the lazy option. I think I will return at some point though to do it, cos it looks like a lot of fun. I also went on a bit of a day trip to Bergues with Hillary, which is a cool walled city about 15km away from Dunkerque. And now I’m typing this for you all. \

Bergues. These walled cities are impressive, no?

So that’s the trip up until now. Tomorrow I head to Paris for one night, and then to Nice on the overnight party train to catch up with Amandine and Jessi Lloyd. From there will be to Lyon to meet up with Rob and Lally and their van again, and then I begin the journey to Sweden (via London) for my big hike!

I hope you've enjoyed reading... it took me a long time to type, so you better have!! 2500 words! I feel like I'm at uni again.

Right, last time I left you I was waiting for a recording mic It came obviously, and I'm sure you've all heard some of the results.. if not then head to www.myspace.com/adamlucasnz to have a listen. Nothing else too interesting has been happening since then, just been working and saving money, and luckily I'm well on target to be leaving on or around my Birthday.

I've taken to wandering down to Battersea Park with my guitar, which is about 20 mins walk away from the pub, and sitting down somewhere quietish (although not so quiet that no-one will hear me... haha) and playing my heart out. Three times now, and had very confidence boosting comments every time. Second time I met a couple of guys that told me I should be playing in front of thousands of people, and invited me to some acoustic nights somewhere, so I gave them my number... however after talking to them I don't think anythings gonna happen until after I leave. Last time I started talking to a family who forced some money onto me, and said that they would really like my services playing at some sort of function, and told me they wouldn't let me do it for free, so I may be playing a paid gig in the not too distant future. Hopefully before I leave :D

So thats the main excitement I've been having for the past month or two. Other than that I've been starting to plan my travels for the summer, and have spent a bit of money on some stuff to help me along. Plan is to head to Amsterdam first and catch up with the couple Matt, Steph and I met in Barcelona, they have a van and are currently working there for a while. Then I'm gonna head down through Belgium to Paris, and on to Nice to catch up with Jessi Lloyd who's flying in on the 5th May. I've got a couple of other people to catch up with in Nice, and then a bit of time on my hands before hopefully being back in London to catch Jo Peal when she flies in for her coach tour.

Now the next leg requires a bit of explanation. I signed up to a website called www.couchsurfing.com the other day, heard about it from another guy we met on a beach in Barcelona. It was designed to be a site you can contact people who live in the cities you are traveling to, and request to sleep on their couch. It also has various message boards on the site where people post up activities or travel things that they are doing, asking if anyone wants to join them.

Through this I managed to find a girl in Belgium who's planning on hiking the northern part of the Kungsleden trail in mid June. It's a 10 day hike from Abisko to Saltoluokta in Sweden, and is located above the arctic circle, so at that time of year we will be getting 24 hour sunlight. The hike goes through "One of Europes largest remaining wilderness areas" and passes by the highest peak in Sweden. Google "Kungsleden" for more info if you want it.

So all going to plan I will be jumping on a coach to Stockholm in mid June, and then on the train up to Abisko to start 10 days worth of hiking. And I'm looking forward to it like you wouldn't believe. Spent about 150 quid on stuff for the hike that will also do me very well for my backpacking part of the journey... bought a 1 man tent for 20 quid that barely fits me in it but only weighs 1.5kg, as well as some nice hiking boots, a sleeping mat, and various other things that I need, including a sleeve for my laptop so I can chuck it in my pack rather than lugging around a massive laptop bag (obviously not gonna take that on the hike though..) The best thing is, I chucked it all in my pack this morning to see what kind of weight I'm gonna have to carry around, and through me realizing in Spain just how little clothes I can get away with, I'm sure it's actually lighter than what it was when I came over here. I'm now slightly regretting buying such a big pack!

So thats about the deal at the moment. I should be outta here on my Birthday (20 April) and off to some incredibly green pastures. Will be good to get out of this work thing. It's well overrated.

Hope everyone is doing well back home, and I'm making you jealous enough to come visit me!!!

Adam

Right, where to start... After getting back to London I managed to find a job (and a place to live) in a pub in Westminster called the Gallery. It's an old style pub, right next to the Pimlico tube station, and Tate Britain. Gets a lot of tourists in as a result and the regular crowd is a good mix of old and younger patrons, so it's good fun. The first night I was working I met a girl in the pub called Emma, who I've subsequently been seeing up until a few days ago... but thats another story, and I won't bore you all with the details.

Other than working, I bought myself a full sized guitar, and managed to get along to an open mic night in the West End, which was cool. Really good atmosphere, some amazing performers, and I feel as though I did well enough for my first performance. The last little while I've been playing and writing quite a bit, I think the combination of the new guitar and having a bit of my own space has really helped.

Now Christmas and New Years. I had planned to go and hang out with the people I had been staying with in Acton for Christmas day, and probably New Years as well. I had from the 24th to the 2nd off from work, and so had a bit of time to knock about. However, Christmas eve I rang to check everything was still on, and apparently it wasn't. So I ended up going and jumping on the last train down to Dorset, where I ended up spending Christmas with Emma and her family. This ended up to be a really cool experience, got to see the Dorset Coast, and although it was cold, (and it was incredibly cold) the sun was out most days, and so at least everything looked good... haha. Came back to London for New Years, which ended up being quite a non-event. Spent the evening with Emma, she felt quite sick/tired for various reasons, and I ended up heading into town to watch the fireworks from the London Eye. Found myself climbing a couple of fences, wandering along the beach (for lack of a better word) on the banks of the Thames, and watching from under a bridge with a group of people... till the cops came and evacuated us because apparently the tide was coming in. And I didn't even know the thames was tidal, or that it had 'beaches' on the banks at low water...

Started work again on the 2nd Jan, with a new work/flat mate, and have pretty much just been working for the past few days. The thing with Emma ended a couple of days ago (as I know you're all dying to know) because of the whole me not hanging around forever, and it was starting to get too serious for us to have an end date. But we managed to leave it on pretty good terms.

And so now the latest is I'm waiting for my recent purchase of a semi decent recording microphone/audio interface for my laptop to turn up in the post. I will be spending the majority of my free time in the coming weeks attempting to create some music with it, which hopefully I will be able to upload to myspace for you all to hear. So watch this space. (www.myspace.com/adamlucasnz)

Cheers for reading, and keep in touch!

Adam

I'm gonna start by saying this.. Ibiza was completely different to what I expected, (I think better to be honest.) To put it in perspective, we went to Ibiza and we only went to one club, for around 5 mins. But hey. Plenty of time to go back.

Right, we arrived in the morning at some point and caught a bus into our hotel. The first thing we noticed was the seemingly deserted streets we were driving through, but thought little of it. Checked in and business, then went for a bit of a wander into town to get ourselves some B&C. (Thats bread and cheese for the uninitiated of you.) We were pretty happy to find that the food and alcohol was all substantially cheaper than in Barcelona! And we'd been told it would be expensive...

Don Simon, €1.21 a box!

The next few days were pretty uneventful, we went for a few walks around town trying to find people that spoke english well enough to befriend, but were unsuccessful, and went for a massive trek down Platja d'en Bossa (the main beach in Eivissa town) checked out some kite surfers, and then wandered back through the club district, which had all been closed since September. We did stumble across this huge department store thing in the middle of nowhere, that sold a really weird combination of stuff, and had a huge off season sale on the go, but that was about that. I bought some jandals.

The beach in front of our Hotel

The weather was good though, and I was quite enjoying the chilled out nature of the stay after the sangria fueled hangover that was Barcelona... haha. We even managed to go for 2 whole days without touching a single alcoholic drink! Thursday rolled around, and we were joined by Canada and Rob from Barcelona, and things began to pick up in excitement a tad.

That night, me and Rob were sitting on the beach playing guitar and waiting for the bar to open so he could head into Canada's room and crash without paying for it (don't worry, it makes sense to me), and this dog comes over and starts barking at us. We then strike up a conversation with the owner, and he's an English guy that's been living in Ibiza for the past 3 years. Turns out he's a bit of a muso, and he produces techno music in a home studio just around the corner from our hotel. Now Rob has done a bit of recording himself, he's been gigging etc in Cornwall for a while with his own stuff, and one thing leads to another, and next thing we know, we're heading to Andreas' house a couple of days later to do some recording. Namely a song that Rob has written while travelling and he has ready for recording. By the way, check out Robs myspace page for interest if you want, it's www.myspace.com/RobFoulsham. More on this music business later..

The Friday was our clubbing experience, however brief. We chilled out on the beach for most of the day, had a meal in the hotel restaurant, and then proceeded to get into a few drinks in our room.

Ice + Beer + Sink = Fridge

Played a few drinking games which ended up in me running down the stairs, through the reception and down the street in my undies. Twice. I'm an unlucky bastard. We headed into this club called Somni just after midnight. Walked in, it was dead, and the drinks were 9 euros a pop, so we walked back out again.

Back at the hotel we cranked a bit of music, and continued with the drinking. At about 2 oclock, the night manager comes up to our room without warning, knocks on the door, and then proceeds to start shouting at us in Spanish. "Habla Inglese?"
"NO, NO INGLESE!" and then more Spanish shouting. In his defence, we were being quite loud, but if the guy had come up and told us earlier, quietly, then we would have headed outside to the beach or something. But anyway, we got kicked out for the night, and Canada had his sound system confiscated. So we thought, maybe the club has picked up, and headed back along. It hadn't, so we went home, and to bed. luckily we got let back into the hotel.

The next day was a bit of a hangover day, so not much got accomplished. When evening rolled around we headed along the coast a bit and up onto a point to check out the sunset with a few beers. Probably the best sunset I've ever seen from up there. On the way over we were stopped by a guy outside a bar right opposite our hotel, he saw my little guitar and called us over to tell us that he had a live band playing that night, and we should come check it out. After the sunset we headed back to the hotel for a few drinks with a plan to head there and then onto a club of some sort.

Mint sunset from the cliff top.

More sun setting

A few drinks turned into a fair amount of drinks, from a makeshift bowl of sangria we made up... we didn't get to this bar until about half an hour after the band had finished. But the bar was really cool, it seemed like it was a family owned place that was opened purely to provide a place for the owner and his mates to have a few drinks on the weekend.

Bowl of Sangria anyone??

We bought a few drinks, and had a yarn to the other people in the bar, and then proceeded to have free shots poured for us. Then I decided, for some reason, that I wanted a whiskey and dry, but there wasn't any dry, so I had it on the rocks. The owner proceeded to free pour me about half a bottle into a glass, and charged me 4 euros. This was the end of my night.

The next day was pretty uneventful, we kept it pretty quiet after the night beforehand. The day after, we were planning on heading over to the other side of the island to check it out. Looked into a couple of options, and it turned out that to hire a car for the day was only gonna be 40 euros, so we went for that option. Europcar provided us with a Seat Ibiza (nice one!) and we headed over to see a few sights. Heres some photos for ya...

k, didn't quite take as many photos as I thought we did on the drive day. Too bad, you'll have to come see for yourself...

We got back about 5ish, and me and Rob went to meet up with Andreas to do some recording. We were there for about 4 hours, and I learned a heap about the kind of equipment you need, the capabilities of software, a few different methods etc. We also recorded a couple of my songs live just so I could hear my voice through a set of good mics, and this also taught me heaps. If you want to hear it, I set up a myspace page with the recording on it... I'm still a little undecided as to whether I should be telling people about it, but screw it. www.myspace.com/adamlucasnz
It's pretty rough, cos it was live and the first take, and I think the guitar could be a bit louder, but it was a learning process more than anything else. Exciting stuff for me though.

Anyway, the last day we went for a bit of a trek through the old town, a big walled city just above the cliff where we watched the sunset. Was a real cool place, highlights included condom hill, a hill with a little track through it that was just littered with condoms, and crack hotel, which was an old building that had been boarded up and had a whole lot of junkies living in it... haha.

Crack hotel

And then we flew back to London, and here I am. How depressing and cold. haha. My plan at this stage is to look for a live in bar job for the winter, and save up for some more sweet travel next year.

And thats all folks! for now..

Spain started with me wondering whether or not I should actually go. Was in London, thinking that I was running out of money, and that maybe I should just get a job and push through the winter months, and get places next summer. But I checked out the flight details on Ryan air anyway, the flights were cheap, and so me being the impulsive person that I am just booked the bastards. Good choice.

Two paragraphs are needed before we get to Spain. The first one is me bragging about my incredible packing skills. I managed to last 3 weeks with only the 5 litre day pack that attaches to my rucksack full of stuff... with my sleeping bag inside. (of course the travel guitar came along as well). Thats right... I'm awesome. And it saved me 24 quid on check in luggage.

Look! my bag is smaller than Matts sleeping bag!

Number two brings me back down to earth a little. On the day I left, I had it in my mind that I was flying out at around 6ish, because my flight said 1855.. of course thats closer to 7 but my mind is weird like that. So I left the flat in Wimbledon at 1:30, after catching up very briefly with Stu Weir, and headed to the airport. I was planning on doing a few things along the way, and so allowed myself plenty of time. As it turned out, I didn't end up doing any of those things, and so got to the airport at around 2ish, and proceeded to wait for around 5 hours at the airport by myself. Well done me. Also, it turns out that airport food is quite expensive. Who would have thought?

Anyway, enough of me being stupid. Got to Girona at around 10:30 local time, and caught the bus into town. Matt and Steph came and met me at the bus station and we walked to the hostel. Hostel was average, but the location was absolutely amazing. The blurb on hostelworld had said it was right on the beach, but being a hostel, I was thinking, "right on the beach... i.e. you can see the beach from the top floor." But... the bottom floor had a cafe that opened out onto a big courtyard, right next to the boardwalk. Amazing.

Steph on the beach with the hostel in the background.

So the next week or so of being in Spain was spent waking up, heading downstairs and eating breakfast in the sun next to the beach, and then not moving until the sun went down and Don Simon arrived.

Don Simon. What a friend. And only €1.50 a box.

Alright, the main highlights of Barcelona... We managed to find a place just down from the hostel that hired out chopper pedal bikes. We hired them for 3 hours one afternoon, and just cruised the boardwalk... seriously the most fun you can have on a bike. I felt like a little kid on his first bike, just casually carving up the sidewalk.. haha.

Choppers!

Number two, we walked up the hill to an awesome castle thing above the port, which had amazing views of the whole city.

Up on the castle on the hill. I don't know what it's called, so don't ask... haha.

When we arrived in Barcelona, I hadn't really liked the place. It seemed kind of a mess of old and new buildings, a whole lot of modern art sculptures that weren't good modern art sculptures, and had just not really suited me that much. At the end though, it was quite sad to leave. We had been there for around 10 days, and met some awesome people at the hostel, and had just gotten used to the place. However, I had purposefully missed my flight back to London a few days earlier to follow the Needhams to Ibiza, and we had acquired a couple more tag alongs as well, so there were more good times to be had.