Hermano Pedro's Finger

There's a lot of churches in Antigua.  Loads of them. As there's very little else to do in town and we're not leaving until this evening, I've ended up visiting quite a lot of them. Religion's weird, isn't it?  I saw a dead man's finger just before lunch.  It was in a display case with gold trim.  And a lady tried to sell us rosary beads to kiss whilst looking at said dead man's finger. I really wish I understood.

We climbed a live volcano this morning (Pacaya since you asked). Now that's something that I understand - rocks and pummice and steam rising through cracks. Noone told us until we were at the top that you can toast marshmallows in the vents. Rubbish. Failed to see molten lava though, booo.  Guess that's one that stays on the bucket list.

AntigWaaaaah

Right, in Guatemala. Weird Travelling. The holiday begins now.

We managed to escape from Miami, never really did find anything to do.  Apart from a bit of self discovery - apparently I´m now too high maintenace to use a shower that someone´s vomitted into.  How I have changed...

Planed into Guatemala City - it looks big and sprawlly and a little bit horrible.  Think we will try and avoid that.  Instead we are in Antigua (pronounced AntigWaaah, so you do not confuse it with that there island thing) which is a tiny ramshackle colonial town with more churches than you can shake a stick at - unless you have a stick which is designed for the purpose, obviously.

The City Where The Heat Is On

As all of you know, if there's one thing that I always try and do it's follow Will Smith's advice - I'll go with the flow and not fight the feeling. If I see a hot summer mix that isn't broken, I'll think WWWD? And then not try to feel it.  I even went for three months getting chicken with everything, until I'd realised I'd misheard - So it was only natural that in Miami I should party on the beach til the break of dawn. I can only assume that Mr Smith was a lot less jet-lagged than I was - barely made 11.

Miami is a funny place.  Miami Beach is exactly as you'd imagine it: lots of massive shiny cars with massive shiny wheels all going everywhere at two miles an hour. Lots of opportunity for people watching.  Not a fat lot else to do other than sit in a bar or sit on the beach.

We're staying in the Art Deco Historic Quarter.  Art Deco is soulless isn't it?  Feel like I'm stuck inside a box of fondant fancies.

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Things I've recently learnt: 

1. You can get seatbelt extendors on planes - they are bright orange so that everyone knows you're a fatty.
2. It's very easy to lock yourself out of your own Facebook account. Apologies anyone who's using that to contact me - you may want to try email instead...

It Is On...

Holiday time again:
I wanted to go to Guatemala;
TR wanted to go on a big, fat, stupid walk.
We managed to combine plans.  This could result in my most ridiculous adventure yet, which is saying something as I've adventured in quite ridiculous ways.

I've replaced the batteries in my head torch, hired a donkey, impregnated a mosquito net, stocked up on hypodermic needles, deet and Immodium. It is on.

Come on adventure, you gnarled, old flirt.  I'm ready for you.

Groove is in Den Haag

For the second time in two weeks I found myself in a foreign city that I'd been aware of since I was a kid but still know next to nothing about. This time it was the turn of Den Haag, The Hague, a city with no discernible centre that seems to exist purely as a very trendy Dutch Lakeside.

Given that The Hague is so very trendy it was a bit of a surprise that it was attached to Scheveningen, an especially tacky sea-side resort.  I thought down-at-hill seaside chintz was a purely British thing, but evidently not.

I ate me some raw herring - that's pretty Dutch, right? It had a tail and everything. Raw herring = good.

Rounded off my Dutch weekend with a visit to the newly opened Stedelijk gallery in Amsterdam. All the other galleries around were closed so it was full to its overflow pipe and, being a scathing cynic as I often am, there just didn't seem to be the art to justify the crowds or for that matter the shiny new building.

Right in the Gulags

Warsaw is one of those cities that I've known of for about as long as I can remember, yet I know almost nothing about it.  Turns out, having spent a weekend bimbling around it, I still know pretty much nothing about it - still, it was a most pleasant place to bimble.  I genuinely would like to say more than that about it - I feel like its stature in my mind deserves more - but there's just not much more to say that's in anyway interesting.

I try not to comment too much on current affairs - mainly because I don't really understand anything, ever - but Pussy Riot have been sent to the gulags and that doesn't sound like a fun day out.  I don't really know what a gulag is but I'm fairly sure that they don't have ferrero rocher there. And that was just for singing a song in a church, I went to a wedding the other week - I sang three songs in a church - in your face Putin.

But really, between that and those Italian geologists who have been convicted of manslaughter for not being able to do the impossible I can't help but think that the world is somewhat unreasonable.

Hiphop Karaoke

In my limited experience of hiphop karaoke one thing I've found is that I don't actually know the words to any raps.  I think I do but what I actually know is the sounds, consequently if you try to read said lyrics it will say something ridiculous, like "Muggs is a funk fest" which just confuses you.  In the end it's a straight choice between making sort-of-right sounds at the sort-of-right time and trying to recreate what's actually been written; I'd suggest that the second option is the first step on the path to karaoke disaster.