Get A Six-Pack (Bucket List #75)

Maastricht, The Netherlands • June 2011 • Length of Read: 1 Minute

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“You’ve not changed a bit Crobs,” beamed Steffi as she rounded the corner. Her brown shoulder-length hair still sat in its thick bob and the pearl earrings enforced on her by a regal grandmother were pinned in each lobe. “Actually, perhaps you’re a little bit skinnier than before. Have you stopped going to the gym?”

“With no Julia around anymore, the motivation has kind of dwindled,” I laughed.

It was the summer of 2016, and I hadn’t seen my old ERASMUS exchange buddy in five years. Steffi had lived in the flat above me in our student accommodation throughout our semester-long tenure at Maastricht University in 2011, and knew all about my gym obsession at the time. Whilst there, I’d developed such a severe crush on our German abs instructor that it led to me attending five classes per week just so I had an excuse to chat to her.

‘It’s almost beach season,’ she would coyly purr as we entered our final rounds of crunches, giving me all the motivation required to finish the sets purposely. Whilst in the plank position, she would wink at me in such a seductive way that I was sure my shorts would be able to hold me upright without needing the support of my arms. I had a schoolboy crush on this girl who was the same age as me, and to my disappointment nothing more came from these flirtatious gym sessions than playful teasing.
“You never did get anywhere with her, did you?” laughed Steffi, giving me a hug.

“After four months of chasing, all I had to show for my vain efforts was a well-defined six-pack,” I chuckled. “And as quickly as Julia exited from my life, so did my washboard flat stomach disappear.”

 

Open Water Kayaking (Bucket List #128)

Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand • January 2017 • Length of Read: 3 Minutes

With a half-day to spare in the Abel Tasman National Park before getting a bus to Westport, a small surfing town on New Zealand’s prominent headland of Cape Foulwind, Jake, David, Gadams, and I found ourselves signing up for a three-hour open water kayaking course. Incidentally, this headland is said to have received its unusual name from a historic joke that it is the closest point in New Zealand to Australia and that the horrible scent of the Aussies can be picked up in the breeze.

After one-and-a-half hours of useless tuition, where we were told how to hold a paddle and apply sunscreen so that we didn’t get burnt, we eventually pushed our two-man kayaks into the ocean. Gadams and I were sharing one, he operating the rudder at the back and I steering with my paddle at the front. Jake and David followed in hot pursuit in the yellow plastic vessel of their own. Our instructor, and lead guide, was a strange woman called Lisa who seemed to take a shining to Gadams’ Scottish accent and perpetual profanities. Struggling to navigate our kayak for the first ten minutes, and falling behind everyone else despite hitting a good tempo and rhythm with our paddling, she cruised back to explain that our rudder had been out of the sea the entire time. The expression ‘fish out of water’ has rarely been so apt.

Dropping it, we raced to catch up with the pack, Lisa asking us all sorts of question about Scotland that I had no answers for. When someone asks you about your home country, you feel that you should be able to educate them with a flourishing response. Scottish history is so rich, however, that even scratching the surface can exhaust your brain cells. I apologetically nodded to her and then fluffed a few responses that wouldn’t have stood up long if put under police interrogation.

We all paused at a geographical feature called Split Apple Rock for photographs, binding the kayaks together so that everyone could hear our instructor explain how this wonder of nature came about. It was a big spherical rock rising up above the ocean which had been perfectly sheared into two pieces, remaining faintly connected at the base. It looked like a Pac-man facing skywards, or a split apple in that regards. I imagine that’s how it got its name, anyway. It was pretty cool, but at the end of the day, it was just a rock that had been a victim of thermal expansion, like every rock before it and every rock since.

“How do you guys all know each other?” asked Lisa as we continued cruising on up the coast. She was intrigued as to how David, Gadams, Jake and I were so friendly.

“We’re all members of the International Dutch Rudder Society,” replied David in deadpan sarcasm, referring to the act of men holding their own penises whilst another man moves their arm up and down. This means they are both wanking themselves off, whilst not actually wanking themselves off, at the same time. I.e. No Homo.

“Ah really? What does that involve,” she said, clearly having not understood the meaning behind David’s joke. We burst out laughing in response whilst we continued to paddle further and further, getting frustrated at the lack of structure to the tour and the inability of some other kayaks operators to follow instructions.

“Come on you pricks,” screamed Gadams out loud, his voice a caustic foghorn out at sea.

“Calm down bro,” I said, bursting into hysterics. “There are small children in our floating party.”

We rounded a final bend in the coastline and the beach which our hostel was situated on eventually came back into view. Pulling the kayaks up the sand and loading them onto the back of a waiting mini-van, we were delighted to finally squeeze out of our life vests. Open water kayaking had been a bucket list item which was now crossed off, but I wouldn’t be back in a haste for a second paddle. That’s what a bucket list is, though. A list of things that you want to experience in your life before passing on regardless of how awesome they actually are. In life, I suppose, we really only regret the things we don’t do and the opportunities that we don’t take.

 

 

Visit Hobbiton (Bucket List #61)

Hobbiton, The Shire, Middle Earth • January 2017 • Length of Read: 5 Minutes

“What is the full address of Bilbo’s house?” asked Rolo, tapping me on the shoulder. We were sat at the back of a tour bus hammering its way along the single-lane highway that cuts down New Zealand’s North Island, and heading towards a rather special location if you’re a big The Lord of The Rings fan. As we got closer and closer to our destination, it was becoming more and more apparent that my travelling companion was just that.

“Easy,” I chimed. “Bag End, Hobbiton.”

“Wrong,” he jibed back, immediately. “The full address is actually: Bag End, Bagshot Row, Hobbiton, West Farthing, The Shire, Middle Earth.”

“Someone’s done their research,” I said, as we passed a sign directing us to the film studios.

“I’ve been looking forward to this more than anything else in New Zealand,” he replied, a coat hanger-wide smile across his face. “I’m a self-proclaimed LOTR nerd.”

This huge fan soon lit up like the sky during a fourth of July fireworks display as our driver pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the 1250 acre sheep and beef farm where the studio’s reception was located. Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, discovered the Alexander farm in September 1998 during an aerial search for suitable film sites, and immediately knew that it was the perfect location for the fictional village of Hobbiton. After reaching a contractual agreement with the owners of the land, the Alexander family, site construction began in March 1999. Initially, this involved heavy earth moving machinery provided by the New Zealand Army, who built a 1.5km road into the site and undertook initial set development. Thirty-nine Hobbit holes were then created with untreated timber, ply and polystyrene for use during filming before being deconstructed once it was complete.

Following the success of The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson signed with New Line Cinemas to then make a prequel Hobbit trilogy. He went back to the Alexanders and requested use of their farm again for the filming. In the period between these two projects the farm had been restored back to its ordinary use, but that had not stopped keen nerds of the books and films constantly passing by, snooping around, and asking to be shown where Bag End had been located. Therefore, when the set was rebuilt in 2009, it was decided that the structures be made out of permanent materials, including an artificial tree which was made out of steel and silicon. The entire reconstruction process took two years, but the set is now expected to have a life of 100 years and is open all year round as a permanent tourist attraction. We had signed up for one of their tours, and after buying our tickets and getting a quick bite to eat in the café, we were led by our guide, Candice, into the magical world of Hobbiton.

“Filming for the original trilogy commenced in December 1999 and continued for three months,” said Candice, leading us along the hedgerow-lined path which young Bilbo famously ran down shouting, ‘I’m going on an adventure’. “At its peak, four-hundred people were on site, including Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Sean Astin (Sam), Ian Holm (Bilbo), and Martin Freeman (young Bilbo).”

We gazed in awe at the scenery unfolding in front of us. It genuinely was like we had been transported into a different world. On the surface, Hobbiton is really nothing but a very well kept garden, but the attention to detail of the whole area gave it a mystical air.

“As you may have read in the pamphlet you received alongside your ticket,” continued Candice, “the New Zealand Military was brought in to help construct the original set as volunteers, and they worked painfully hard for nine straight months in order to get it completed in time for filming to commence. For all of their hard work, Peter Jackson offered them each a role in the film as a thank you. Can you guess what characters they played?”

“Orcs,” shouted out Rolo, confident in his answer.

“Correct,” said Candice. “The entire orc army was made up of members of the New Zealand Army. This was good for Peter Jackson in two ways. Firstly, he was able to use locals which, as a born and bred Kiwi himself, he really wanted to do. Secondly, they had all already received combat training as part of their jobs, so there was no need to spend additional time and resources teaching a bunch of extras how to fight properly. There was just one small problem with that, though. The military men, being as they are, took their roles slightly too seriously, and when they were let loose to fight with the cameras rolling they got a little carried away and actually started to punch one another for real. Peter Jackson had to call ‘cut’ before anyone got seriously hurt and a fair few black eyes had to be hidden by the hair and makeup department for later takes.”

We stopped in the main clearing to take it all in, the hobbit holes littering the hillside above. Only two of them actually opened and could be entered, but every single one of the forty-four homes were used in filming. Everyone got happy snappy with their cameras, but getting a photo without other gawking tourists in the background was near impossible, especially considering that we were being shuttled around the set so fast I almost got a stitch. Capitalism always prevails, and the number of tours that were being run simultaneously meant that the paths more resembled the queues at a stadium rock concert than peaceful dirt tracks. Each tour was only scheduled to last for two hours, and Candice may well have had a bloody stopwatch on us. We were soon being told to get on our way again, and everyone was getting a bit pissed off with her. We’d paid a decent wedge of money to visit Hobbiton and wanted to take it all in at a more leisurely pace. Thankfully, though, she managed to redeem herself with more great anecdotes as we made our way up the hillside path towards Bagshot Row. Every single fact she threw out, mind you, made Peter Jackson seem one step closer to belonging locked up in Bethlem Royal Hospital for the mentally insane. Side point, this is where the word ‘bedlam’ originated from.

“The large oak tree that overlooks Bag End was cut down and transported from nearby Matamata,” she said, pointing skywards. “200,000 artificial leaves were then brought in from Taiwan and individually wired onto the tree. They are the only fake pieces of foliage on the set, and each of them was hand-painted a specific shade of green. During pre-filming, however, Peter Jackson was testing his equipment and decided that he didn’t like the colour. Instead of compromising that it would have to do, in a diva-like moment he ordered every single leaf to taken off and repainted. The tree was in the film for a total of ten seconds.”

“Definitely a psychopath,” I whispered to Rolo, giving him a nudge.

“He also went to extreme lengths to ensure the authenticity of the set,” continued Candice, shuffling us along like sheep in a pen. “A professional roof thatcher was brought over from England to make the roofs of all the houses using rushes from around the farm, and a woman was paid a whole month’s wages just to walk back and forth between the hobbit hole entrances and the outdoor washing lines so that a natural footprint trod in the grass would be present.”

“A complete nutter,” nodded Rolo.

Reaching Bag End, Bilbo and Frodo’s home and one of the most iconic spots from any of the films, Smudge had a moment of embarrassment. Pulling a pose to get his picture taken, he complained to Rolo when looking at the resultant photograph that he’d failed to take one without the ‘no admittance except for party business’ sign that hung on the gate, failing to realise that it was actually a prop from the film as opposed to a warning for tourists to keep out.

“We have to keep going, folks,” said Candice approximately ninety seconds after stopping. “Otherwise you won’t have time to get a free mug of beer at The Green Dragon pub at the end of our tour.”

With a heaving sigh, we trudged back down the hill and to the field where Bilbo’s one-hundred-and-eleventh birthday party was held. In order to audition for a role as a hobbit in one of the films, you had to be no taller than 5’ 2”, or 158 centimetres. For the party scene, however, Peter Jackson rightfully thought that a more authentic atmosphere would be created if the family and friends of the Hobbit cast members were brought in to make up the additional necessary numbers. Again, however, as with the colour of the tree leaves and the brutality of the New Zealand Military, Peter Jackson noted a problem. It was all a bit wooden. He needed the cast members to loosen up a bit, get into a more jovial mood, and let their hair down. It was time to introduce some alcohol into the proceedings. Understandably, though, he didn’t want his cast getting completely hammered, so Peter Jackson paid a visit to a local brewery to see what they could drum up. The result was a 1% beer made exclusively for the movie set, which gave the party a proper atmosphere but without the resulting slurring speeches and hammering headaches.

As we reached The Green Dragon and the end of our trip, it was a relief to find that we would not be being served any of this watered down variety, however, but a proper ale. Sitting around a table in front of a large smouldering wooden fire, the team all toasted to Hobbiton and for our own future adventures to be even one-tenth of what Frodo and Bilbo got up to in their respective journeys.

 

The Incredible European Weekend City Break That You Never Knew About

Brno, Czech Republic • July 2017 • Length of Read: 8 Minutes

Starter for ten: What is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, with approximately 400,000 inhabitants; is the historical capital city of Moravia; is included as a stop on the annual Moto GP circuit, and recognises noon at 11 am?

If you answered Brno to the above question, then congratulations, as that’s more than I knew as I found myself racing through the Czech countryside on a two-and-a-half train journey eastwards from Prague towards this fairy-tale city. I’d agreed to meet my old housemate Lukas for a weekend city break, and the only reason we’d chosen Brno as a destination was that it’s fairly equidistant between Prague, where I was situated at the time, and Vienna, my Austrian friend’s hometown. Little did I know then that I would fall completely in love with everything about the place in just a short two night’s visit.

Each year in Brno, the government sends out a survey questionnaire to the city’s residents asking them to identify what areas and aspects of the city they feel could be most improved. These responses are then analysed and used to democratically decide how to split the annual spending budget. As a result of the most recent answers, the main train station was closed for renovation, so I found myself disembarking just out of town at a smaller replacement station. Stepping down onto the platform and into the red warmth of the setting evening sun, I laughed at where I found myself. A vast expanse of nothingness lay before me; rolling fields covering the landscape like crumpled bed sheets and not a building in sight. There wasn’t even a bridge over, or a tunnel under, the two platforms, and we had to queue up until our train continued on its way towards the final destination of Budapest before being chaperoned across the tracks by a podgy uniformed female railway conductor; blowing her whistle with the authority of a referee at a football World Cup match. It was like when our train had reached 88 mph we’d time travelled back into the ages of horse-and-cart rural farming communities. Oh well, I was there now. Slinging my bag over my back, I mapped a route to Hostel Jacob, where I’d booked a bed for the evening, and set on my way.

Passing through the giant shopping mall that links the train station to Brno’s Old Town, I suddenly felt myself catapulted back to the present day; every large fashion and cosmetics brand seemingly having fought for retail space there. The hands on the large clock in the exit hall indicated that it was a hair after 7 pm, and as I entered the cobbled, tram-tracked, roads of the Old Town itself, it seemed like the whole city had come out to celebrate the end of the working week.

Lugging my bag across the main square, which actually forms the shape of a triangle, the colourful yellow, pink and white buildings bordering it ushered me into the heart of the city. The variety of architectural styles in Brno is a visible timeline of this city’s history, with communist-era blocks standing alongside grandiose buildings from the Habsburg Empire, modernist designs, and jaw dropping gothic cathedrals and churches. For being one of the most atheist countries in the world, the Czech Republic sure does have a large number of religious buildings; a reminder of the protestant and catholic eras the country went through in the twentieth century.

Continuing along, I found myself swerving around the hundreds of patrons spilling out into the street from the packed, quirky, bars. The al fresco summer drinking culture found in continental Europe is something that the British weather and alcohol temperament of its locals has never permitted. Brno has an extremely large student, and therefore young, population, and the variety of hipster cafes, restaurants, and pop-up drinking establishments found in the city is a testament to this. A makeshift fake-beach had been constructed in the main ‘triangle’; a Gatsby-themed cocktail bar stood on the next corner; and, as I rounded this into St. James Square, which my hostel overlooked, there was a beer stock exchange that would make any drinker feel like a would-be Wolf of Wall Street. It had eight beers on tap and the price of each changed every minute based on levels of consumption, with a NASDAQ-style board keeping track of the movements.

According to the friendly camp guy at the hostel reception, St. James Square never used to be that special. A few years ago, however, a bar called Standing Up opened on it and people began flocking to what was soon ranked the best pub in the whole of the Czech Republic. As he showed me to my room, violin music and the laughter of the crowds wafted through the open windows. Whereas in the rest of the city it is prohibited to drink in the street after 10 pm, the rules were relaxed for this particular spot, and you can buy beer and chill out on the kerbs or by the fountain with friends until the early hours of the morning without being hassled. I grinned. If they tried to do this in Scotland then a riot van and armed police would have to be waiting in anticipation of the trouble that would inevitably break out. Dumping my bag, I headed out for dinner and then joined them for a cold half-litre of micro-brewed beer.

I met Lukas in a museum café the following morning, and over a breakfast of Norwegian smoked salmon we caught up on life. It had been one year since I’d last seen him in Vienna, the events of which are depicted in my second book We Ordered a Panda, and in that time he’d quit his job as a lawyer; travelled through Asia; become a pizza delivery driver; applied for medical school, and found a love for beach volleyball. Brno’s residents proudly admit that they spend many hours sitting in cafes during the day, relaxing and people-watching. Many of them act as all-day hangouts and it’s not surprising to find concerts, improve-theatre shows, exhibitions, or even debates taking place in them from time to time.

Paying our check, we took a wander down to the main ‘triangle’ and the controversial Brno clock. A free walking tour of the city leaves from here on a daily basis at 11 am, or what is known locally as ‘Brno noon’. Called the ‘cock clock’ or ‘erection at the intersection’ by the locals, this piece of modern artwork is meant to be shaped like a black bullet, but everyone knows that it more resembles a giant twenty-foot high dildo. It is apparently a reference to the year 1645 when Brno was besieged by the Swedes. Legend has it that the Swedish general, Thorstenson, boasted that Brno would be conquered by noon otherwise his army would leave and fight elsewhere. Struggling against such a powerful army, the good people of Brno knew that they wouldn’t survive until then, so in an act of trickery rang the bells of Petrov Cathedral an hour early, at 11 am. The Swedes fell for this cunning trick and left, saving the city. The cock clock now stands on the ground where the cathedral used to be after it was demolished to put the tram network in place. The locals openly admit that they don’t really know how it works, either, but every New Year’s Eve they are given a chuckle when the phallus shape is wrapped in a huge condom-like cover to protect it from errant fireworks.

As our tour began, we were taught loads about the history of the region of Moravia, the city’s status under the Austro-Hungarian rule, and its political landscape. We were also quick to find out that the cock clock was not the only piece of thought-provoking artwork in the city, which went as far to include a giant oversized statue of Jost of Moravia on his horse complete with massive balls and penis. There were also several smoking pipes and traffic signs which, unless you were told that they were meant to do that, would appear to be definite safety risks. Instead of contacting the council, however, locals began ironically worshiping these as monuments and, according to some, they show that Brno’s dragon is, to this day, still resting in its underground lair. Wait, did you just say dragon? Yes, reader, that I did.

A long time ago (nobody really knows when) a dragon was brought into Brno by Crusaders. The beast decided to make the city its home and threatened the citizens and all of their livestock. As a result, merchants stopped coming to the city to sell and women stopped going to the market. Plans were made as to how the dragon could be killed, but nobody has the courage to actually do it. That is, until one day a butcher travelling through the region got very drunk at one of the bars and volunteered. Taking a sack made of sheep fur, the butcher filled it with lime and placed it down by the river where the dragon was most frequently spotted. It took the bait and, eating it, became so thirsty that it kept drinking until its stomach expanded with the lime inside and burst. With the beast killed, the citizens celebrated by having the dragon preserved and hung in the Old Town Hall. A replica still exists there, and one can’t help but see that the so called ‘dragon’ looks an awful like a giant crocodile.

Following our tour, Lukas and I thought that we better make up for our not-so-local breakfast by having a stodgy traditional Czech dinner. Taking a recommendation from our guide we went out of town to a place called Hostonec U Seminaru and, taking in the décor of interwar Czechoslovakia, we ordered up a feast of duck liver pate, sirloin in cream sauce with dumplings and cranberry, and pork slices with black beer and honey roasted potatoes. Washing down our food with Pilsner beers poured from tanks instead of barrels, I raised a glass to Lukas and thanked him for such a pleasant weekend.

“There’s still plenty of Brno to explore,” he said, smiling. “I’ll definitely be back here. And sooner rather than later.”

‘Likewise,” I nodded. “This city has completely captivated me. I just can’t understand why I’ve never been recommended to come here before. People need to know how awesome this place actually is.”