The 'American Bicycle' - 'Irish Heritage District' South Buffalo, New York

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There's nothing particularly wrong with South Buffalo. It's a collection of average looking houses on average looking streets in an average looking American town. With silly Gaelic street signs so plastic paddys can pretend they're Irish not American (actually I have seen some black guys with ginger hair though !)

But thats the tragedy - it is American....sooo American, and in every wrong way possible. The people are generally very nice, but I'm flabbergasted daily by the wholesale accepted ignorance of the populace in little slices like of the western world like here, where it seems the past 30 years just slipped by without any change whatsoever (except their diet, of course) Anyway heres what's been happening this week...

An 'American Bicycle' yesterday in the supermarket 

Travel Smart! - I walked into the bank down here yesterday, and the teller had never seen a foreign passport (or been overseas.) She had to spend 20minutes looking over it in detail with the bank manager to check I wasn't one of those ther 'Al Queedas' you hear about on the TV.

Nutrition Concious! - Tonight, as I was starved and food options are limited here, I ate a pizza in 'Wise Guys' Pizza. An enormous fat guy waddled in and waddled out with a box the size of a small car, quite possibly all for his own consumption. There are more vegetables for sale in a Glasgow Chip Shop than down here, believe me. But sadly it seems there are no proper restaurants (unless you count Macdonalds, Taco Bell, or dodgy looking faux Irish Bars.) I really have no idea why only two thirds of the American Population are overweight - where the hell does the other 1/3 eat to stay normal ?? (what an awful statistic though)

The infinitely more sophisticated cuisine of Buffalos 'East Side'

Bike Friendly, how progressive! - And if, you have the impudent cheek to cycle around, especially at night, even if you have a helmet and lights, every third car peeps their horn at you, as if to say 'Get off the f*n Road!'   Haven't these guys down here seen bikes before? I suppose it is Friday night after all so obviously they're in a rush to drive home from the bar to beat their wives.

Anyway, I'll take a proper cycle round the neighbourhood tomorrow and along the 'Seneca Bluffs' and see if i can find an oasis of non-corn syrup monsanto'd up food somewhere, although i'm pretty doubtful since i'm not quite sure if the internet even got here yet.

American Culture

If American mass culture could be summed up in 3 words, it would be 'How are you?'

I've gone through the stages of saying 'fine', which basically means a waste of breath, to just making up something amusing like saying. 'I have 2 days to live' or coming back sarcastically with 'I'm Greeaat, how are YOU?'

And then as despair sets in, a smiling 'do you really want to know?' (which confuses them of course, because they really don't care how you are, but another part of them believes that they are sincere good people so it ends up in a 'cant' compute' loop)

And finally now, I've sussed it - I simply look, smile, and totally ignore the question.

Thats the only way to stay sane in even the most functional city in the dysfunctional dystopia which is the inanely distracted, nero-esque farce which, sadly leads the western world in mass hypnosis and cancer giving 'food'.

But enough of politics for the time being. At least in Europe I don't see gay black 'baristas' prancing around to Proclaimers Im gonna be (500 miles) on a sunday afternoon in 'Coffee Culture'. (By the way bravo, Buffalo for having nicer local coffee chains like that above, and 'Spot' Coffee,  with well priced drinks and grub, so i can avoid Starbucks (although i couldn't turn down free coffee in Macdonalds last week)

And finally, apologies for the lack of posts this month, I seem to have hit a 'writers block' with regards to travel writing for the moment, but fear not, I plan to travel round Scotland in November, to some strange and haunted places, all of which i'll write about....

Hamburgers and running

HERE's a link to my sports nutrition blog, and an article on running in Hamburg i just whipped up while sitting in Macdonalds....


http://slackersultramarathon.blogspot.de/2012/08/hamburgers-and-running.html

Glasgow in 'Not Raining' Shock

It has emerged today that rain has not fallen in Glasgow for over ten hours. Emergency Services have been put on standby and shocked residents have been covering up and staying indoors.

In a more sinister turn, locals and conspiracy theorist alike claim to have seen a large bright orange yellow ball of fire in the sky. While this is the first time the object has been known to appear in Glasgow, it had been known to have appeared regularly in other cities, and was ominously known as 'the sun'.

Strange Days Indeed (all credit to a random website/photographer who is better than me)

The existence of 'the sun' had been previously dismissed out of hand by the majority of the local population.

 Experts claim the problem could well continue right up until about 8pm, after which rain is again forecast.
Local umbrellas salesman Hughie McHughie commented 'Aye it'll be good to be back to the rain again. People get stressed and don't know what to do when it doesn't rain. I've seen people become  disorientated, drinking alcohol, and even eating vegetables - a sight unheard of in these parts.'

Back to normal. Glasgow in the rain. Yesterday. Or was it the day before.

Hamburg and Hamburgers

So after my brother ditched me in Hamburg, I decided to check the city a bit. Luckily I’ve a friend here who introduced me to the place and her friends, and Hamburgs friendly heart took me in and got me an Astra Beer.

Its all about the 'Wanderlust' - Yes, this is the print thats been up in my hallway for the last 15 years, and i finally found its in Hamburgs Kunsthalle

I’d say cities are either one thing or another – either they’re all about knowing where to go (like London, New York, Tokyo) or you can just turn up and you’ll probably have a great night anyway…(like Las Vegas or Tallinn)

Hamburg definitely seems a ‘know where to go’ city, especially if, like me, your German is limited to ‘Achtung Himmel’ and ‘Die Englander Pig’ (Yes, I read war comics as a child)

But if you have a local, then suddenly you see that here’s a free rock concert here, a place where you can get shots for 50 cents there….

'Wreck in a Sea of Ice' - another KDF classic in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg

In the daytime, there are a few interesting things to do. Kunsthalle, the main art gallery is a whole spiritual home for, as it happens, my favourite kind of people, the 19^th century German Romantics, headed by the main man himself, Kaspar David Fredreich. Strangely enough, my pretty much favourite all time painting was sitting there – ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ or just known as ‘The Wanderer’.  You know these strange moments where you look for something for years and suddenly, you turn the corner and there it is!

The shopping area is around there too, and a good (and popular) running/dog walking path around the main lake.  At the end of the shopping street, there is a kind of cute touristy area, centred around the ‘Rathaus’ (it’s the town hall, rather than a house full of rats)  and a very lovely white colonnade going out to the lake (which makes you think…ah wait a minute, yes Hamburg is by the sea after all…

On the right is a WW1 memorial, but this is a lovely part of town across from the Rathaus.

Contrary to what they teach in American Schools, Hamburg is not by the sea. Just so you know. Also, dear friends in USA. It’s not the capital, Iranians are not Arabs, and going to Cancun does not count as ‘travelling abroad’.

St Georg is a kind of more laid-back nightlife area. There’s a street full of quite average Italian restaurants and some bars, and lots of middle aged gay guys walking around with bags of dry-cleaning.  I understand from a certain friend that if its toothless drug addicted prostitutes you’re after, you can find them a few streets south of there.

Talking of which, the guys/girls showed me around the famous ‘Reeberbahn’ in ST Pauli, at the weekend. They say its ‘the main red light area.’ – I mean what kind of city of 2m people has even more than one??? But it seems to me that prostitution is the main occupation in this port city – when I went out to Scheezel, there were even camper van brothels lining the laybyes in the posh suburbs (‘for the truck drivers’ I’m sure)

But now Reeperbahn and the surrounding streets have pretty much become the centre of the cities nightlife – you could barely move on Saturday night when we went out. One street has rock bars, one has hip hop, one has football bars and skinheads, all mixed between tranny bars, casinos, and 12 storey brothels, mixing up into a cacophony of weird things to gawk at (if you’re a tourist like me at least)  There is a street that is ‘men only’ except for the Amsterdam style  ‘red light’ windows. Actually it looked pretty dull if you ask me. There was a sad looking bar in the back which I was told is on some kind of S&M street. The guys in there looked more M&S though really.

This bar had an old lady poledancing

The general neighbourhood has an interesting history though. St Pauli even has its own football team with famously ‘left wing’ supporters, to allegedly counter the other ‘right wing’ football fans. Personally I think its all a lot of rubbish- In Germany, left wing people all seem like anarchist/libertarians to me, and right wing people act like socialists. Maybe we need to give them some books on politics so they can actually make some logical opinions for once.

Here's the site of the 'Star Club' (since burnt down) where the Beatles alledgedly got their first break (There are no bands whatsover from Hamburg, it seems)

However, I digress….

If you seek an altogether more wholesome drunken night out, a new ‘shoreditchy’ type area has sprung up around the ‘left wing’ squats in an area quite nearby and also near the Uni, called ‘Sternchanze’ (translate as Star-ski jump or something similar) - there’s an S Bahn takes you straight there, and it’s full of cheapish food and drink places, and had a great atmosphere when I was there. Unlike the Reeperbahn, the girls tend not to be prostitutes, which is a real plus.

The ‘Mexicana’ drink, which is used all over Hamburg, is a spicy tomato soup shot which is sold for about 50c-1 Euro and actually (unlike the Estonian version, Mili Malikas) tastes quite nice.  This and ‘Vodka Ahoy’ is my excuse for making lots of new friends at the weekend - thanks to you guys in Hamburg for helping making this accidental holiday a good one!

A lot of the city was bombed, so there is a lot of concrete. I have no idea what is going on in this picture though.

Tallinn to Glasgow Roadtrip part 3....THE END

Day 4

So we bought some brake fluid, after coming off the boat at 7.30am, which didn’t work at all, and a policeman showed us to a garage who could maybe fix our brakes.  The garage guy muttered something like 'sheizer' in German and shook his head and sent us on our way. And strangely the policeman, who knew we had no brakes, smiled nervously and wished us a safe journey on the ‘no speed limit’ autobahn.

The middle of Sweden, the other day

This is probably the most dangerous part of the trip, as Latvian juggernauts roar down on us on the autobahn. I already had to pull quickly into the hard shoulder as a vodka riddled slav blasted his horn because he was about to ram us and couldn’t slow down in time. 

We’re crawling along now though and sadly have to miss breakfast with my pal in Hamburg, since we’ll be struggling to catch the ferry checkin at Amsterdam at 4pm.

About 11.20pm 80km from Bremen, something pops and we have to go onto the hard shoulder for real. It’s the axle wheel bearing.  Luckily there’s a service station a mile up the road so we limp in there and the guy suggests to us the ‘yellow angels’. On the phone the angel says its free for him to come out (strange?)  But anyway, I’m waiting for them as I write this, with 4 and a half hours to get to Amsterdam for checkin.

…..And its gone….The German ‘Yellow Angels are towing us to a garage in Oldenberg, as its probably too dangerous to go on with the wheel bearing broken as it is. We’re going to try to blag it for free here, as my brother is a member of Green Flag, so lets see how it goes. If they can fix it today, we can change the ferry time and have the weekend in Amsterdam. If not…well….lets see what Oldenburg is like at the weekend….!

Birthplace of The Hoff

The end of the road...Scheesel, a small village in Germany

Some time later......

These ‘angels’ towed us to a rip off garage in Rotenburg, who are connected to them. 320 Euros later (Green Flag didn’t bother answering the phone and our membership of the local place didn’t cover transit plates, they say)

Rather than get fleeced for 500 Euros for a 50 Euro fixing job, we went to the normal locals garage across the road, who had the parts we needed, but after 2 hours decided that the van was too rusty to put on their ramp so just gave us the parts and sent us on our way to find another place in Bremen, which hopefully will make our van roadworthy. They kindly gave us the exact wrong directions however, and our wheel bearing finally snapped off (luckily) outside a garage in a small village somewhere not near Bremen at all.

And so it sits there to this day, full of furniture, and with a wheel half hanging off, until Monday, when I’ll rent a van to take the furniture to storage and scrap the van.

The lesson of this, dear friends is – Don’t expect a 600 Euro van to get you 1000km a day for 3 days solid. This is not big and not clever. That being said, we had a great adventure, now I get to stay in Hamburg for a few days (which has a whole load of Caspar David Fredriech paintings on show, I can't wait!) Also i found out last night that old ladies do striptease in the Reiperbahn but more of that later....

Driving from Tallinn-Glasgow (part 2)

Day 2

So since the registration etc is a bit dodgy, and we plan to leave the country never to return today, we opt for the ‘transit plates’. The vans engine is sound but basically nothing else. We need to leave the passenger window open in order to get in and and out, otherwise we have a flex tied to a chain connected to the passenger door that you open from the back door of the van.

After getting all the papers right (surprisingly, the sale docs related to the drunk were correct and not a scam), my friend gets us a good deal on the 6pm ferry to Stockholm (missing out all the dodgy countries like Latvia, Lithuania and Poland where a van full of junk and no locks will deffinately be stolen.) We race to put roadworthy tyres on the van, and try in vain to get someone to fix the brakes , then fill the van up with my worldly belongings and make it just in time to the boat for check-in. Also spending nights on boats helps on the security front.

The boat is fine. Of course the wifi doesn’t work so we can’t book our onward ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle (that’s the plan at least) but maybe we won’t make it alive so we’re saving money this way.

The plan is to hook up with some friends in Lund, Sweden and Hamburg, Germany that I haven’t seen for a while, so we have a motivation to not crash (having no brakes is not really a recipe for not crashing mind you, but if you put your foot right to the floor they do slow you down a bit at least)

I can say I’m absolutely exhausted after todays efforts, but bravo and thanks for the help, Andrew and Karin so far….

Our door opening 'system'

Day 3

Our plan initially was to drive to Hamburg, but then after some time we realized that since we can’t go faster than 80km an hour, so wouldn’t get there until 4am. So now we’ll drive to Lund and meet Frida for dinner, and get the 10pm boat to somewhere beside Lubeck, which is beside Hamburg, which is beside my other friend Kristin, who we can hopefully see tomorrow instead of waking her up at 4am.

The brake issue is more prevalent in the cities but luckily we’re on a motorway and we’re the slowest vehicle in town, so no one is in front of us. It’s entirely possible our brakes not working will be quite ok for today. The other good thing is that if we get this boat (its not guaranteed at all as we don’t have a ticket) we miss out all of Denmark. It’s not that I don’t like Denmark. I have some good pals in Copenhagen, and an ex who I think probably still hates me after I locked her out of the house once.

We’ll also miss out Lolland, which actually would be interesting to drive through. I was there about 18 years ago to see a girl I met in Spain. What a place (Nakskov) basically there is nothing to do except get drunk and sleep around, so everyone in the whole town seems to have children with everyone else. Also I believe they have a lot of pig farms. Great. Anyway Sanne Poulsen from all those years ago, I hope you got out of there and did something better with your life.

Actually what happened is that we were so slow, we couldn’t stop for dinner (sorry Frida) and barely made the boat. Towards the end of the day our brakes stop working 100% so we used the reverse gear for brakes. (Actually we only worked this out after I careered into the air pump in a petrol station forecourt)

The options now are really to either arrange some kind of emergency pickup service, or fix the van.

Fortunately there is a great sauna on the boat (and even a cinema!) and a distinct lack of cheesiness that you get on the Tallinn-Stockholm Kareoke-fest.