Since Facebook still has those scam ads and after their last attempt to take ownership of everything you put on their bloody site , I have decided to take myself off facebook as much as possible and thus need a place to put all my details so I don't have to type it again. Thus this is a good a place as any.

Fav TV shows: Foreign Correspondent, Tin Tin, Azumanga Daioh, Eat Carpet, Quantum, Futurama, Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Full Metal Alchemist, Nerds FC ...

Fav Movies: Chungking Express, Brazil, Apocalypse Now, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, OldBoy, In the Mood for Love, Ran, Rear Window, Mononoke Hime, Hero, Ikiru, Being John Malkovich, 12 Angry Men, Tokyo Godfathers...

Fav Books: 100 Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Crimson Petal and the White, Lolita, Catch 22, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Handmaid's Tale, A Tale of Two Cities, Crime and Punishment, 1984, Brave New World, Wuthering Heights ...

Fav Quotations: I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld.
When I die, they will put my body in a box and
dispose of it in the cold ground.
And in all the million ages to come, I will never
breathe or laugh or twitch again.
So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity?
The universe has spared us this moment.
-Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri


http://theblackforge.net/alterego/alterego

You get used to cockroaches crawling from under things, the first time was hard, the 15 that came crawling out after I lifted the Modem Router was quite a shock, my whole body shook as my senses were momentarily disabled. I've spent the last few days cleaning my place, the place was quite a mess, dust and particulates, probably originating from Paramatta road had congealed and stuck onto the tiles in the bathroom. The toilet was a interesting combination of black and orange and the roaches, o the roaches. I cannot eat in this place, thereby explaining why I am so hungry at the moment, its just unsanitary and the thought of it stimulates my vomit reflexes. I have so far unblocked two sinks, deodourised the carpet and organised my mountain of stuff. I lost something dear to me too, some calligraphy my grandfather wrote for me on a piece of paper is nowhere to be found, I held the plastic wrapping in my hand as I looked around the strewn room feeling a tang of grief and sadness. I hope it turns up somewhere, it was precious to me.

But all I have to do is soldier on, after three days of waking up at 5am, probably from the jet lag, this morning I rose at 9. I reckon there would be at least three days before I finish my cleaning but I am already feeling the place to be quite comfort0able again. What I fear most of all is the heat, I am glad that the weather of late has been overcast and rainy, my place becomes an oven when the temperature goes above 30 degrees so I face that looming prospect with some trepidation. Otherwise I am glad to have seen my friends again, I think the main reason why I love Australia so much is the people that lies therein. God bless.

As I'm fighting back exhaustion from the damn jet lag, I write here half awake and halfway to planting my head on the table. I thought returning would feel like a whole new world, but it turned out to be like a familiar glove being put back on my hands and that I only left yesterday.

I woke up at 5am in the morning and was unable to get back to sleep, it was crap, I'm sure it was like 12pm London time or something, when I usually wake up, but I think the worse thing is the feeling of being back. The time I was in Europe I felt I was totally free, independent and most of all finally alive. Like stuff would happen and I'd have to deal with it, just me and if I screwed up, I screwed up and there's no limit to how screwed I could have been. I would meet people with no responsibilities or obligations cause I know in a few days I won't see them again, I can escape any issues that arise just by jumping cities and every day is something new and refreshing. That the whole world was contained in the green and purple backpack that I had on my back that was slowly curving the arc of my spine. Now that I'm back I feel like a falcon in flight that was rudely interrupted and I fell straight down from the sky, that wonderful short fantastic dream, dragged down by the chains of responsibilities, considerations of the future and the things I do actually having consequences.

For example I can no longer act as a dumb tourist, I can't sneak myself onto trains without paying like I did in Germany, I can't just (my mum is now nagging me, I totally lost my train of thought). Anyway what was I saying, damn it I was going to have a wonderful little rant before I was interrupted, ummm, yeah I can't just have recurring thoughts of stealing things (from a Uruguayan friend apparently they're pretty lax on foodstuff theft in Italy, but he got caught not validating his train ticket, there goes a whole lot of pesos, or whatever they have in Uruguay that's equivalent to 70 euros). I just can't swear at Moroccan men confident in the knowledge that they didn't have enough English to know what I was saying (I was signing it out so they didn't know the horrible things I was saying about their mother), I just can't sneak into the girls level of a Christian hostel and then quickly check out before they kick me out and take my 15 euro deposit. I can't open doors in whatever building and sneak in behind tour groups to take a look inside the modern L’Opéra de la Bastille and feel like I can definitely get away with it. Sigh.

I feel like after years of slumber I was finally alive, I finally felt like life was real, immediate, tangible, like it was electrifying every hair on my skin (that might have been the cold), that life was exciting and that I could do stuff people would actually bother reading about. Apparently people are actually reading my blog which is pretty cool, I really hope, that even after the fact that I am back, I'll continue to do things worth reading about, and that this whole Europe trip made me the better. We'll see.

Anyway I'll keep on whinging that I miss Europe for the next few days, that I miss seeing beautiful and amazing things, like the Colosseum, Leaning tower of Pisa, Salzburg, London Bridge, David and the like. It was good.

I didn't actually do much in London, the highlights were the two musicals I went to. Now if you are not too into musicals or only saw a few plays and revues in Sydney as I have, musicals are a spectacle within itself, musicals are something special entirely, they can amaze, entertain, entrance and you'll find yourself singing the tune a long time afterward. This is of course London musicals, I think there was an intangible quality that was ever present in both Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. The singing was fantastic, the production was divine and it was just basically an incredible ball. I would recommend that anyone going to London to go see musicals, they're fantastic.

'... do you hear the people sing? Sing the song of angry men ...'

I saw the ol' Bailey, St Peters (go in the evening to avoid entry fee), tower bridge (London Bridge), Whitechapel (that was a sight in itself), Big Ben and so on. Which in comparison isn't that much. The reason for this is that I was planning to go on one of those free tours but kept on procrastinating, it starts at 11am in the morning but I kept finding myself waking up in the afternoon. I guess its because I was staying at my cousins place and the place was way too comfortable and I wasn't really in the hostel atmosphere so it was as if I was just back at home. I could have stayed in London for another month had I the time and money and that room to myself.

Anyway London is an interesting place, during peak hour in the rain there are lots of people and they're rarely nice, or around long enough to tell because they're always popping off somewhere. I'm not sure whether the city chooses dark paints, whether the sun doesn't get through or whether people just like to wear black, but the city feels dark for some reason and I've had a few days of good sun and snow. London is extremely like Sydney, except more people, grander, more sophisticated, culturally and generally better. But it also lacks the warm friendly laid back down to Earthiness that Australians have a plenty, so I guess its a comm si comm ca situation.

Anyway I'm leaving the bluddy country now and there's like 30 minutes before the gate for my flight to Abu Ghabi opens so I'll just sit back and relax. I also had enough time to see Waltz with Bashir which really screwed around with my mind. Otherwise see you soon!

My week in Germany, o my, my week in Germany. Where should I start, I saw the wall first off, pretty non intimidating whats left of it today. Visited the former gestapo building, Luftwaffe headquarters, saw where they did their book burning (now its the place for Berlin fashion show pffft), visited museums and saw the face of Nefertiti, Brandenburg gate, Reichstag, Jewish memorial, Jewish museum, stasi building and the Jewish synagogue which I had the unfortunate luck of being closed.

But the highlights must involve currywurst and beer. There was this shop in Berlin called curry 36 which served the most amazing currywurst and thus the best sausages I have ever tasted in my life. The sausages in Berlin are quite above average yes, but damn, these ones I am sure with repeat eating (which I did) will give me a nasty curryworst addiction. Also there was this sorta organic beer in the Dresden hostel I was staying at that was absolutely divine, this is the only time in my life where I sat there and resolutely TASTED the beer, as if that was the most important part of it and that the getting drunk was just an added benefit. Sure it cost 4 $AUS a pop, and I drank so many I was deadfast drunk by 3pm, but heck I had no hangover the next morning and I kept on going. There was like no brand to it because it was locally brewed, it had to be kept at less than 7 degrees and all the markings it had was a little tag on top with some German words. I also had a pint of Guinness, oh my god I had never tasted glorious Guinness like that before, I never really understood why the Irish would drink that stuff until the smooth malty welcoming smooth taste went down my lips, this was after four of the locally brewed beers I was telling you about before so that was probably the best beer day of my life.

I also had the chance to go to the Opera in Dresden, I saw a rendition of 'Elektra', of course this was in German which made everything just a tad difficult, but this was my first Opera ever and the sight of a full symphony was enough to get the blood pumping. I also had the great opportunity to ride along the Elbe (river in Dresden) right after fresh snow fell the night before, it was truly magical and snow riding was something special. Sure the ice made everything slippery and there were a few falls but that ride in Dresden was damn worthwhile. This is added on top of the fact that Dresden by itself is beautiful.

I just want this opportunity to say how much I hate the Spanish language, Spanish just sounds like some dirt language, it feels like drunk man slurring his speech except the drunk man isn't drunk but machine gunning out words that grind alongside your ear drums. It feels like the guy who created it decided to create the most slothful, lisping, slurring, coarse, base, unrefined, downright ugly tones he could find and strung it together in such a way as to make you feel like your testicle is being beaten by a stasi baton while you are listening to it. Anyway that was just because some Spanish speaking girls just walk past, sigh.

Berlin is pretty cool, I had a great time and the hostel I was at was absolutely wonderful, its called EastSeven and if you are ever in Berlin make sure you stay there, I have a huge sticker of theirs that I will stick over my bed. Also Berlin has very stringent recycling rules, say you go to the supermarket to buy beer, which often is cheaper than water, that beer will cost say 50 cents, 25 cents, yes, 25 cents, will then be added on as the deposit, which you get back if you bring the bottle back to the supermarket. Imagine that a bottle itself being worth 0.5 $AUS, that's why I heard that hobos establish territories to collect bottles and they will fight in order to retain their territory. HOBO Fight! Anyway the supermarkets have these machines where you put the bottles in and you can get your deposit back, its all a bit surreal.

Anyway I'm at Berlin airport now and I've heard that London has been snowed under so I'm looking at the board with some trepidation hoping I can get back, but heck, if easyjet gives me another 5 star hotel I will not be complaining. Though I have already booked my return bus from Luton, anyway we'll see.

Anyway I went to the stasi museum and I have to say that that bit of town really felt quite soviet, it might of been the architecture, it might have been because I was in the Stasi museum, but it gave me a taste of the dystopia that was the DDR. I was then filled with a sudden urge to jump the country, which is why I am in Berlin schoenefeld airport.

It's funny I totally forgot about Chinese New Year. I didn't have the good idea of popping over to London Chinatown in order to join in on the festivities. I was there the day before but that wasn't the same. However on Australia day I decided to go to a walkabout an have a Fosters. Firstly I was unhappy with a five pound cover charge, secondly Fosters just tastes like watered down New and I proceeded to drink away the night on VB and blowing away the last of my pounds.

Now its the morning and all I have to show for it is a nasty hangover from just a few cans of exceptionally overpriced VB. But to tell the truth I had a good time, it was a while since I appreciated the foul odour of Australian beer so it did remind me a little of home. Anyway just like my thanksgiving in Paris, I got myself an Australia day in London. I wonder what next. Easter in Pakistan?

Just as a tip, if you want to go into St Peter's Cathedral in London for free, make sure you go outside the opening hours cause you can just rock up and pretend to be in a service.

I drank at least 3 litres of water in the space of an hour that night out of Amsterdam and napped on the couch for an hour or so. The plane ride back to London was uneventful and immigration let me in without much problems even though my throat was shot, my eyes blot shot and I could hardly keep a conversation. I couldn't go straight to my cousins place, where I was staying cause he was at work so I had to visit the British museum to keep myself occupied, I was so tired every time I sat down I fell asleep. After the naps I went out to see some stuff, I wandered into Westminster abbey and confused Westminster tower with London tower and Westminster bridge with London bridge, luckily I had a map so I knew my mistake. I also stumbled upon Trafalgar square and Chinatown, it was all a bit cool but it was alot of walking.

After being invited to the pub and three pints later I once again fell asleep on the bean bag. I finally got into bed and there I stayed for a day, eating up all the accumulated food, which included some pretty horrible cheap (I mean really cheap) Belgian Chocolate. Apparently lychees and berries are really cheap over in Benelux so make sure you exploit that when you are over there.

Anyway today was a rest day, I got back on track with my blogging, back on track with Battlestar Galactica, saw two movies and now I think I'm almost right with my sleep, heading off to Berlin soon so pretty happy with what's been going on so far.

Delph was a fantastically small quaint village to visit, it had its charm and it was quite beautiful. I think it really added to it that we were in a high class hotel with excellent decor and best breakfast ever.

---

It's sorta funny the kind of things I get up to. Right now I'm sitting in a Christian hostel in Amsterdam, I had just smoked the most amazing pure weed joint in my life and had the best mellow high. It only cost 10 Euros and my friend Jerico who I met in Paris rolled me the biggest joint ever. The weed was amazing, it went down so smoothly and it really really got me stoned. I could not lift my arms and it felt like I was sunk into the chair. I really wanted to do mushrooms too, but I got a flight in the morning so I didn't.

I also took some speed and consumed quite a bit of alcohol so I'm just a little bit gone at the moment, I also have to go catch a flight quite soon so I'm just wondering whether the English border security will give me a hard time. I did not sleep this night either, having been out all night, I think I started homeward bound at about 4am and walking the street at night alone in amsterdam was interesting. There was one guy who asked me for money cause his wallet was 'stolen', although I think he was for real. Another guy was asking for money from a person was withdrawing from an atm, and there I was trying to find my way home. By the time I got back, even though its been a few hours the weed and the speed hadn't worn off. It's an interesting feeling, you're mellowed out by the weed but your hyped out by the speed. My heart rate was intense and yet I was on the border of sleep. There was a couple of times where I thought I'd lose it and have some sorta heart palpitation but in the end I made it through.

---

Gent
Bruges
Brussels
Antwerp

There is a multiplier effect involved when you are traveling with other people, you do things you normally wouldn't do and if your lucky, you get taken round the place because they're good with the maps and organisation; traveling without the hassle of thinking, just the way I like it. So the last week has been pretty much a fantastic blur, filled with beautiful Belgian buildings, chocolate and food. O god the food was divine, incredibly divine.

Gent was the most amazing city, the night time view of the canal was truly breath taking and since it was the first big city we've seen since getting out of Morocco, it was truly a breath of relief to get back to civilisation. I could not remember much of what happened, but thats only because I was happy.

So happy.

Marrakesh, the city most people visit, it was good, we had food in their big famous square which was a big hectic jumble of fun. I had ginger cake and ginger tea, some fantastic couscous and saw the snake charmers. But by that time I was way passed being sick of Morocco, I just wanted to get out.

---

It's a funny thing when you're worst fear are realised. The previous Easyjet to Paris was delayed for 6 hours and I had the nerve to enjoy the passengers displeasure when they said 'non!' in front of the information screen. Now I am here hoping to god that my plane to Madrid isn't canceled, apparently in Europe it's like the coldest cold snap in a while and the city is blanketed in snow and I'm stuck in the god forsaken country of Morocco.

...

Woe is me, I stink, I haven't had a fresh pair of undies for a week and I'm pretty much a hobo with a backpack. Funny thing is that I'm looking at the plane that's supposed to take me and hoping that snow storm or no snow storm they take me anyway. I don't care if I die, I'll die anyway if I stay here an longer.

Morroco is a country of dichotomies, thats the best way to put it, dichotomies. It has the best and worse of mankind rolled into one. The thing that gets to me though is the tipping, they expect you to tip, I only tip if I like the service. Alot of tourists are free with their money, I'm not. Take for example the toilets, every toilet in this goddamn country has a person standing outside with a dish asking for money. There is no requirement to pay but there is an unspoken agreement in the air that you should pay something. I don't like to pay for toilets, its just weird and I hate being put into the situation where I have to deal with two conflicting expectations.

People here are also nice, but they also expect to be paid, a child walked up to me and was really nice, I was nice back, at the end of the day they asked for dirhams, this happened a few times so I stopped being nice to kids. What kinda country is there that you have to be mean to children so that they'll leave you alone and not ask for money.

Being Asian is also a novelty for the people, everytime you walk down a small street at least two people would ask if your Japanese, I was at first amused, then I got annoyed, then it got tiring and stressful, you do not want a conversation with everyone you meet on the street, you do not want to buy something from every store or restaurant you pass.

I am now eating biscuits because I have not eaten anything the whole day, I have no water because they do not allow them on the plane. I will be hungry and thirsty yet. I have just worked out that the word retarde means delayed, I have hope that its not canceled.

There was this cafe that I loved in Marrakesh, the prices were great and the staff were nice, at least the first time. Then the second time we went our original server refused to serve us, the third time the second server refused to serve us. We realised it was because we didn't tip, I stopped going even though I liked the place so much, you can only stomach so much death stares.

I was walking in casablanca one night and a man started kicking my leg, I touched my front pockets because that's where I keep my valuables, nothing was stolen, I walked on. Later he gave me back the Madrid maps that I had in my back pocket. If they were Euros I wonder if he would be so nice to return them.

I was stuck in the Sahara desert with food poisoning, indefatigable diarrhea and near hypothermia. Needless to say that shitting liquidy shit in the desert in the middle of the night because you couldn't reach the toilet in time was not the most pleasant experience I've ever had.

Just get me out of this hell hole.

---

I am in dream land, a couple hours from nightmare in the airport, I've had the first bath in however long I can remember (the amount of crap that was in the bath, well lets just say I shed my extra skin). I've just ate a most hearty (and it certainly looked like a most expensive) meal in a while and some crazy pastries, I'm by myself in a posh really high class hotel room, on the back of the door it says it costs the equivalent to 120 euros a night (jesus). I'm eating some mandarins and BBC news is pumping out on the TV. Something about this situation is incredibly surreal, I can just imagine someone coming into the room and saying that a huge mistake has been made, and here is your bill. I cannot believe, I cannot believe easyjet will put us into the most posh crazy, amazing hotel, I only paid like 45 euros for this and just this night I've made it all back and more. Of course I have to be awake until I get onto my 4am flight, but heck, that bath was worth it.

---

My good mood was ruined when my departure time was changed from 1am to 5am, if they had told me then I could have actually had a good nights sleep, but alas I stayed awake for most of the night. On the way out the immigration officer added Chinese on the end of my Australian nationality, like it was impossible for me to be just Australian, nice way to say goodbye you racist bastards, luckily I won't be coming back again.

However I did meet an awesome Moroccan, he was smart and funny and he worked for his own tour company. He spoke seven languages and I think we forgot my name because he kept calling me Jackie, which was fine by me because I forgot his name. I truly admire his intellectual agility and his indelible charm, I swear I could learn a thing or two from him.

Essaouira was by far my favourite city by far, the first night we went to a sea food grill which was really nice cept we got ripped off on the Tiger prawns (five australian on a tiger prawns is outrageous according to Moroccan standards). The hotel lady was also trying to rip us off by getting us to pay her friend to cook a meal for us when we simply asked her directions to a nice restaurant. You could tell the second when the thought entered her head that she could make a quick dirham after the friend told her that he could cook it and charge us for it. They also lied to us saying that all other restaurants only had frozen seafood that was in the freezer for months, even thought this was a seaside town. The expression on her face was unmasked unparalleled greed and delight, it even haunts me to this day that expression, I couldn't even look at her at the time, it was really scary. That fat bitch obviously did not get a tip, well I never tip much anyway but I remember that twisted expression, hope she grows a brain and learns not to give it away so easily because you can't trick tourists when your face gives it away.

Well after our meal we ended up at an apothecary that sold expensive spices, we asked where we could buy some hash and somehow we ended up smoking a joint in the shop, the hash wasn't the best quality but I could feel its effects, it was nice and I really enjoyed it.

The next day we decided to visit the Jimmy Hendrix castle, apparently he was there a while back and it motivated one of his songs. I decided not to take the horse there, which I still regret, riding on the beach on a horse would have been so amazing, alas an experience squandered. However I did walk to the castle and climbed to the top of it, this was not a great challenge because half of it was in the sand but there was a significant jump down that did not help my knees. Anyway I decided to walk over a small stream on the way back, this was not the best idea because the rocks I was standing on were moss covered and the mud was so thick that I could not move my feet out and there was no friction so I nearly fell a couple of times. Well I somehow got to the other side without dying, it could've ended badly. Afterwards I decide to climb a sand dune and had a fantastic view of the beach.

I have to comment on why I love this city so much, it was very touristy which was good cause the locals didn't harass you, but there was also a very bohemian atmosphere to it as well and I think the hash made everyone pretty relaxed. The shopping was good, I bought myself a cheap and not that fantastic wooden box, but the real jewel of a souvenir was a cheap hand carved wooden head which I thought had the most amazing sad expression. I can't wait to hang it on my wall. Did I mention there was also an incredibly good and long beach, did I also mention you could ride camels and horses on it, and did I mention that it was just a cool place to be?

It was Christmas, Christmas in Morocco, what a boring affair. Gary, my room buddy, god bless, got us to sing Christmas carols, which made it actually feel like Christmas. On Christmas eve we celebrated by having a half bottle of while which was quite expensive and tasted like shit but you don't expect wine of French standard in a country with a religion that prohibits drink. On Christmas day we had some cake, it was all quite a low key affair, I wish I was still in Spain.

---

My time in Morocco has been an extremely emotionally and physically draining one, it may have something to do with the company and something to do with the country. I think one of the biggest reasons is that they're not used to Asians, because every place I bluddly went there'll be at least three 'hey Japon' or a 'Jakie Chan' or a few 'Koniji Wa's. It sorta takes the life out of you when you're being stared at every day and people shout at you every day. Because its all French or Arabic, you never know when a person is speaking they're talking to you or not. I also met the most fiendish, selfish, commission getting, condescending, pathetic piece of human trash in a rich tour guide called Ha-keem.

An explanation might be in order, I had joined an organised tour by the company Intrepid. The tour itself was good and cheap but our tour guide and that aforementioned local guide were less than quite as expected. Our tour guide was quite apathetic so it made everything just lose its tinge of excitement and you could tell he was quite calculating so I was always uncomfortable with him. With regards to Ha-keem, she was just some bitch who took us out for a day. She took a whole ten minutes to show us around the tourist sights, then the rest of the day was visiting shops. At each shop she would show us the wares, get us to buy while she sat and drank tea, and take her 50% commission and then we would move onto the next shop. This was in Fez by the way and by god I did see the best leather jackets imaginable but they were also the most expensive, of course the shop she took us to were like 5 times more expensive than tourist prices if you went alone.

I hope the gold coloured silk threads on her expensive dress spontaneously combusts and causes her to drop her designer hand bag so the poor can have a chance at all that tourist money.

---

Stuck in the Sahara desert with chronic food poisoning and severe diarrhea is not exactly what I call the best experience ever. I had to go three times in the night, once on the sand because I could not make it to the dingy toilet. I had eaten something bad, it could have been the spoon that I used for street fare, it could have been the off fish I had that was masked by an over abundance of vinegar, it could have been anything, but at the end of the day I was in the shits. Where shits had more meanings than one.

I almost caught hypothermia too, unable to eat I had no recourse to produce heat so I nearly froze, I was feverish, I was scared, I was somewhere I did not want to be in a situation I did not think I could easily get out of. Alice got me through she did, I was whining pathetically telling her not to leave as I struggled to produce any heat. My brain was slowing down, I could not concentrate or think, if I was alone it might have been the end of me.

I was already struggling on the camel ride, there was no bar to hang onto so I limped on the saddle like a rag doll, my constant thoughts were a mix of vomiting and shitting my pants, my greatest fear was that I would lose bowel control and my only set of pants would be reduced to a set of fecal covered fabric.

It was the middle of the night and I needed to go, I had multiple dreams of going to the toilet and the pain in my stomach and intestines was unbearable. I slowly put on my clothes in the freezing desert air and was welcomed by the cachophony of stars shining brilliantly in the sky, I struggled forward, feeling my way through the darkness, unable to see, barely able to breathe, the pain and pressure was becoming unbearable, I could not contain it. I wretched over into the cold sand and quickly undid my belt buckle. The forcefulness was intense and the pain extreme, there I was in the desert, butt cheeks exposed, shitting foul liquid into the sand in every direction. When the spasms stopped I wiped my tears. I did not make it to the toilet, and now, I had no idea how to get back, I limped slowly around for a while, losing heat, getting chilled to the bone, I was not sure whether or not I was going further or closer and I needed to get back soon. Suddenly I saw the last dying ember of a fire not too long gone and I crept slowly towards my tent. Inside I took off my clothes and lay shivering for a while. I wanted to die there and then, but the fates did not allow me. I was alive for another day.

Dry retching, nothing quite like dry retching in the morning.

---

New Years was just a small affair, a few Moroccan guys with drums, some deplorable wine and the recovery of food poisoning. I missed an excellent hike and a visit to a village because of the food poisoning so I lost much because of it but there's not much that can be done. If you ever get food poisoning in a non first world country, its always important to bring rehydration salts, as I soon discovered because dehydration is not a good feeling. Also start eating rice because everything else has the risk of being suffering from poor hygiene or will seriously upset your stomach. My new years eve meal was some rice, probably the most low key meal I've ever had. But it was good, I danced, we even had a countdown according to Berlin or Turkish national time because we wanted to go to sleep and couldn't stay up to celebrate according to Moroccan national time.

The guy charged me 40 Dirhams (8 Australian dollars) for a bowl of rice, I conveniently forgot to tell him the other stuff I ordered when we settled the bill.

---

I nearly didn't get into the country. On the internet they said that Moroccan immigration could refuse entry if you looked bohemian, but what happened to me was that they just wanted to be assholes to asians and black people. My immigration officer didn't even take a look a me and sent my passport to some other officials who checked my passport five times to make sure it was real. The bastards also had the audacity to 'test' my english even though my english was ten times better than his. Apparently they don't really understand the idea of there being Asian Australians so the concept was pretty novel. Either that or they just enjoy being racist cause the bastards did it to a black lady who was infront of us. A Canadian Asian got through though, maybe we just had back luck in getting the pms immigration officer.

So we were there for about twenty minutes wondering if they would let us into the country or not and whether we'll lose all that organised tour money, but they let us in after all, but although I was pretty philosophic at the time, when I look back I was not very impressed.

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These last few days in Morocco have been a culture shock and an over stimulation of my senses. Landing in such a foreign land with such difference in just about everything has been so terrifying and exciting at the same time. I have thus far eaten snails, given free bottles of water, a banana, followed by little children because I accidentally said the Italian scusi instead of excuse me, ripped off by a taxi driver, tasted the most delicious seafood in my life, greeted most of everywhere I go, been racially slurred against, detained at the airport because they didn't believe I was Australian, been welcomed in the morning by the sounds of Islamic prayer, got lost in the nice part of town, and feared for my safety.

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Moroccan people are incredibly nice, at least the ones who don't speak English and don't try to rip you off just because you are overseas, I've seen such an eagerness to please and they really do try hard with directions. I've also seen the worst in trying to exploit tourist in such a way that the con artist in Italy would be proud. Morocco, or at least Casablanca, contain the most amazing people, is the most different city that I have ever known and I feel such emotion being here that's all I can say is wow.

But the sad thing that I've thus seen, not personally is the oppression of women, my traveling companion has suffered numerous instances of abuse and I can honestly say that traveling by yourself, especially if you are woman is not safe in this country. It is also really sad to see only men in public life, even though in the evenings they mostly go to a cafe and watch tv, and although you see the modern Islamic woman, rarely do you see her by herself in the old part of town where there are small alleyways and an overbearing constant threat.

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These last few days have been amazing, rarely do I think I will have many days like it.

We somehow ended up climbing up to the roof of a cathedral. When we went in the door was unmanned and to our surprise we ended up being in a stark white Christian cathedral with Moroccan style fresco stained glass, there was some sort of music playing in the background and the cathedral was deserted because the country was Muslim. I'm not religious man but the first five minutes of walking into that door I felt I had touched the hand of god, the cathedral was totally empty, there were no chairs or pews, the place was surreal, I could not explain it, the feeling was amazing, this was the coolest church I had ever visited, it was divine. But afterwards as we were going out we were accosted by a man who told us we could go up for a fee, so I bartered the price to half and then walked up rickety stairs that creaked with dust with every step I took. I doubt it could hold the weight of the both of us so we went up one by one, the stairs were covered by pigeon poo and there were no railings to speak of to protect us from a fall in the middle of the stair well. When we got out, we found ourselves on top of the buttress of the roof and there was a magnificent view of the city, we sat there for a second admiring the majesty of the view and the situation we found ourselves in.

Afterward we felt that the situation was a little dodgy and demanded tourist documentation to prove he was as he said cause the whole thing was just a little dangerous, he didn't have any and we refused to pay. But once he figured out we were just confused tourists he let us go on a good note.

Further on I tried to join a game of soccer, unfortunately the kids only allowed me to play if I paid them money, on which I told them to fuck off, except I doubt they understood me.

I also helped some kid catch a bird.

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Madrid is a beautiful city that give it a special something, it has a festive feel and its not just because its close to Christmas. A great deal of things have happened so far, most importantly I bumped in my new friend David who hails from Arizona. David has good insight into things so the conversations are usually quite interesting, he also has an added sense of adventure, above and beyond that of myself and he is also a good cook. We met on the free tour of the city and then walked around and went into the Prado museum. The next day we went to Segovia where the highlight was finding some caves and going deep into the darkness and coming out somewhere on the cliff side looking over a well. Luckily he had a light as my phone light quickly drained the batteries. We saw one hibernating bat, a whole lot of spiders and walked through a good deal of cave, we sorta found two, which was extra cool. The next day we went to the palace which was cool, but afterward we went to the last sunday mass before Christmas and he gave a pretty good explanation of the Catholic ceremony. I hope one day to attend the opening ceremony of the Turkish bath that he plans to open in Arizona, I am also now more knowledgeable about the growth rate of ferns and that Americans don't include tax in their price tags.

Another occurence of note is that the person sleeping under me in my hostel room had sex. I was trying to go to sleep when they started making funny noises, I was curious to what they were doing until the creaky bed frame started shaking. Now this being a unique situation for me, I had no idea what to do cause I could obviously no longer fall asleep unless they were done. I wanted to tell him to finish up in the bathroom but decided the shut up and wait for them to finish. After a while of 'please I don't want to do anal' and 'when was the last time you had sex' the guy, who had pretty good stamina finally finished and the girl went off to where ever she came from. The guy disappeared in the morning so I have no idea what he looks like or who he is, all that I know was that he was Australian and he wasn't the kind of person that looked like he was going to get action, this being second hand information. Since the fucker took what was supposed to be my bed, I have to now sleep in their consecrated bed, as someone else took mine while I was away. I hope he gets an STD.

I am currently in Roma Campucino airport, as per usual I am about a couple of hours too early and have nothing better to do. My time in Rome has been a good one, the first night I decided to tag along with two nice American girls, one of them being an arts history major. I was like so happy about that, thinking that I would get little gems of knowledge and the such, but she like didn't know everything but what she did know was Bernini.

Bernini is awesome, that guy kicks ass and is almost as cool, if not as cool as Michaelangelo, she took me to the Bourgesie [sic] and I saw some of the coolest statues ever. Other notable sights include the Colosseum, which was just a run down stadium of bricks, but it was pretty cool looking at the place where they killed so many people. Palantine hill was nice, birth of the republic, estate of the emperors, but all that were left are ruins. Pantheon was smaller than the Parisian one. Trevi fountain was pretty awesome, I threw a coin in so apparently I'll return to Rome. We also visited a catacomb but it was like a Christian one so it was pretty boring and no bones. Sistine chapel does indeed kick ass, your neck sorta gets strained after staring at the ceiling but what a ceiling it was. I'm still curious who that guy is being sent off butt exposed by angry god.

But I did visit this bone church where crazy christians used people's bones to make patterns, shapes and altars. I don't give a crap that its in a church, I still think its pretty fucked up so thank god I was never a 15/16th Century Italian friar cause its their bones that are making up the lantern hanging from the ceiling. I met up with these funny Australians and had a blast on my last day, that was how I found the bone church. They informed me that you can get a calendar of hot priests and some of them were quite nice looking.

I also go bed bug bites, the place I was staying at didn't have sheets for the blankets and the only set I had, I used to cover the cum stained bed. The front desk guy was really nice so I'll still probably give them a good rating. We played poker the last night and a Canadian girl won, I got kicked on the river by a two pair when I slow played a pair of aces, ah well. Anyway I have the quite tedious wait for my plane to Madrid, I have about an hour left to wait, I'm far too tired to do anything cause I had to wake up at 5 today so hopefully I can have an afternoon nap in Madrid although I think it is one of those with a lockout. A nun is playing sudoku next to me, hehehe.

I got ripped off today, a street vendor sold me a poster for 10 euros, I could have easily got it for 5 but he started bidding at 50 euros (those evil crazy motherfuckers) so it was easy to forget what it is your buying and just try to knock 80% off the starting price. Anyway you lose some money and I hope to take the lesson to prevent future catastrophes. I also now have to carry a poster half way round europe, but thats for the future me to worry about.

But the most important thing I have to say today is that I met David, yes David himself, and you really need to see the bugger in person, he is the most beautiful statue I have seen and I've seen the Venus D'Milo so hes pretty fucking beautiful. Michaelangelo managed to make stone into flesh and a really beautiful man flesh too, you sorta forget he's 5m and made out of marble everynow and then. Florence is pretty nice.

Siena is a beautiful town, all the more so because I have never hear of it before I actually went there. It's a medieval town thats not a bad day trip idea from Florence. However the real reason I remember this place is that I got lost, its the not the lost that you get when you're in Venice where its like, 'wow its so beautiful, I'll get the map out when I need to get back.' I did not ask for a map, after seeing the success of just winging it in Pisa, I was like I'll just follow the crowds, this totally worked getting there, but getting back there was no crowds. So the reality of it was I was stuck in Siena for about two hours walking all over the place looking for the bus back to the station. I could not say that I wasn't concerned, but the idea of being in some medieval city, far away from one's hostel on the other side of the world was not the most enticing of thoughts, especially the fact that night was coming on and I could no longer see the street signs.

Luckily, luck decided to intervene and I remember I had my lonely planet and my lonely planet had a map, being a man and refusing to ask my way out of trouble, this was the perfect remedy to get home. This is especially noticeable because I had to decide in the morning whether to bring the book or not because it was heavily and it was just as fortunate that I did. Eventually I got back after narrowly catching the train. Actually, I was doubly lucky because I did not validate my ticket as you need to in Italy and I could have been charged with a 50 euro fine as had happened to my new 18 year old Uruguayan friend, if the conductor checked my ticket. Now that I think about it, the conductor on the Pisa trip did take my ticket and I had not validated it then; I am glad he just took it instead of the fine.

O yeah do you remember that time in Vienna when I was like, the old guy smelled of hobo, it turned out that was actually me, I was smelling like hobo. I think it became a significant problem after I saw the look of disgust on the cute Argentinian girl I was talking to. So in Siena I went to the 99 cent shop, as you do, and got a can of deodorant. It was either evil homme or avin homme, I think its the latter but its weird cause I think thats French or something. However it was a really nice smell (to me) for 99 euro cents, so now I've bathed my clothes in it. I now smell like a scent thats the cross between alcohol, industrial cleaning liquid and essence of black panther.

I met an American girl from Idaho that epitomises the problem that there is with Americans. She was a third year philosophy student so I tried to create conversation by giving my insights into issues of her field; of morals and stuff. I was of course wrong, but the way she shot me down and exasperated like I was an idiot, and said 'No your wrong' was very rude and even enraging.

Sorry miss, I didn't do three fucking years studying the subject, I might be wrong on this, but fuck you for shitting on me for at least being interested. We then proceeded to have a debate on American health care and she was all like 'America has the best doctors', 'poor people are treated suitable by the state' and I'm like no they're not theres not enough funding and I don't care if the rich gets the best doctors, upon which she replied, 'No your wrong'. I tried to tell her that shes young and she goes to a nice school, so she probably doesn't know the issues and problems of the private health insurance system, but she assured me there was nothing wrong with American health care and that she was pretty sure and promptly dismissed immediately everything else I said. So that was probably the most frustrating conversation of the year and I still hate her guts. So I hope she gets hit by both a truck as well as a large bill, because after she was dragged along the gravel by the truck, her health insurance company will refuse to fully reimburse the facial reconstruction surgery that she desperately needs. I also had half a bottle of wine, so I was pretty pissed off in both sense of the word.

Funny enough on the same night I met a nice American girl from Oregon and we got along really well, we spent the next day together and she took this awesome shot of me climbing the leaning tower of Pisa, she also caught some other awesome shots and I'm waiting for her to put it up on facebook. O by the way, the leaning tower, it fucking leans, like it looks like its not doing too well, it really leans. We then spent the rest of the day walking around Florence, she was so nice and it was such a shame that she had to go but go she did and I shall hope that sometime in the future our paths might cross. Otherwise I wish her the best.

Venice, o Venice, how art thou imputed with such beauty. No! Beauty be not the word that suffices here, if it were that the word that does thou justice was stamped, crumpled, thrown in ye ol washing machine and sprayed with the juices of a fresh sneezed on tissue, then then that word would then become the equivalent of the word beauty. Venice is a beautiful place and walking around and getting lost and looking at the beautiful buildings really made my day, it helped that the weather was perfect and everything had an extra bit of colour.

I met an Australian in my dorm, or should I say converted hotel room which had extra beds. We then proceeded to enjoy Italian wine, I must say that Italian wine is quite easy on the taste buds and after having drunk 3 bottles between us, I proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach on the side walk. Considering that we did some drinking the next night, I both chundered and pissed on Venice in the few nights I was there. I do not say this with pride, but it was quite fun and Italian wine is to be commended for, though I could not tell whether it was better than French wine, except French wine was slightly cheaper so I'll say French wine was better. My friend however did not follow my good example and chundered in the hotel room right next to me, luckily for me I was well asleep and enjoyed a well earned rest and it was only in the morning that I finally appreciated that the lingering smell of vomit was not conducive to sleep.

I missed out on many of the star attractions because it seems in Venice, the student prices were only for EU students and I could not bring myself to pay the extreme adult prices. I however did not mind at all a stroll in Venice and getting lost in Venice really was a fun pursuit. It was however quite quite quite cold, I'd say even colder than Austria because the fog gave the cold a multiplier effect. Confirming my hypothesis that all parks benches near buildings had unsecured wireless access points in range, I made the mistake of sitting in a Venetian park for a prolonged period of time just for Internet and had to duck into the supermarket in order to ward off hypothermia.

I also met a good Chinese man during my time in Venice, he was the bartender at the bar that we drank all that Italian wine, he was a very nice and decent man and he told us that the neighbourhood was quite seedy and that he did not enjoy the company of his patrons. As we were offered hash by one of the patrons and propositioned on a street corner, I think that his opinions were correct. Poor guy has to work in this tiny bar everyday, I hope him better fare in the future.

Italian people are also really nice, like for instance today, I was staring at a guy that looked a little like Hitler, suddenly we both entered a really big smile, he said 'chow' I said 'bonjourno' and like my day was so much the merrier. I did however have a relapse, I can't believe I still have one of those, but I got over it quickly and went back to Venice. O, I was also asked by the police to see my passport, they actually do ask the check your passport, I asked to go to the station just to make sure they were genuine, and they said everything was in order so I got myself a photo.

Vienna is a beautiful city, so Beautiful at Christmas that one is overcome by the grandeur and feels an involuntary want to swoon. The Austro-Hungarian empire really knew how to build buildings and build buildings they did. I only have one day in Vienna but I took in the old town as much as I could, I went to some church which had an elevator to the dome so I had a new appreciation of churches this time by looking down and fighting the feeling of vertigo. Churches tend to be quite large.

I also went to the Museum of natural history, where I saw the primitive venus, the one with the big breasts, it was quite tiny that little thing, otherwise the museum was child orientated so there wasn't that much to see. The Christmas markets here were good and there were a great deal of things I wanted to buy but couldn't and walking round on the streets really made you feel like you were in some foreign city of grandeur.

Alas, not all was well, for sleeping above the bunk of mine was an English nutter called Courtney. That guy was fucking insane but so glad I was to speak to someone in English I spent the evening trying to convince the motherfucker that killing all of humanity is a bad idea, that being racist is bad and that just because your fucking old and don't care does not mean you win the argument. Btw he was also a stamp collector and mind you was not very liked in our dorm. There I was evincing my good rationality to a crazyman and I never had to good sense just to go back to sleep, however that being said, his fragrance was a mix of old man and hobo and I awoke to find that my sweater had sucked in some of his brilliant scent and spent the rest of the day fighting random urges to puke.

I met another englishman, this one was of the nice variety, but our humour differed so I was never sure if he was having a go at me or joking around, but he took me to this exhibition where engineers built new and interesting ways of disseminating alcohol. One of the most notable was punching holes in a card and then putting your cup under a mannequin, or rather the mannequin's penis and then drinking the result. If my phone was not out of battery I assure you I would have had a picture. Another was drinks that corresponded to keys on a piano, if you are ever in Vienna I would say that Playing Bach's prelude does not give you a very alcoholic drink and you would be better off playing something else. The piano was off tune.