Wardy’s Travel Blog

Rocking the Kasbah … Marrakech

This was a favourite song of mine when I was growing up and I remember dreaming of how amazing this place must be.  Little did I know that I would have the opportunity to check it out for myself.

So when we booked the flight I was excited to see that the hotel we were staying at was in the middle of the Kasbah! Check out the hotel here: http://www.slh.com/morocco/marrakech/hotel_marsul.html

http://www.lasultanamarrakech.com/# (Click on Marrakech)

And what a place… The sounds of horns beeping, the 5 calls to prayer from the Imam, the smells of lamb cooking in the myriad of herbs they use, the thousands of people wandering around… It was amazing!

Myself, my fiance (Rachel… more about her soon!), and Rachel’s parents spent 4 wonderful days roaming the streets of Marrakech and haggling with the local shop owners.

And did we haggle…  I was not so strong on this but I did enjoy the time doing my little bit.

I will relate some of these stories:

- When I was looking at Leather jackets I didn’t want to come across too interested and said that I was only looking to shop owner.  He said “Brother you must come over… You have no obligation to buy but you do have an obligation to try!”.  What could I do…  I went over and tried on a couple great jackets.  In the end I got a great leather jacket for a very nice price…

- Rachel’s dad, Winston, was a great haggler and set a great benchmark..  His favorite saying was “It may be worth that to you but it is only worth half that to me!”…  And generally he ended up getting it for close to that price!

We also did a day trip up into the Atlas mountains.  And to our surprise when we pulled into this village we were ordered onto muels for a 3 hour ride through the hills.  We had mint tea in a berber home, dinner in a local trekking hotel overlooking a valley and a stones throw from the snow capped mountains… Then muel rides back down into the village.

I must admit that I was very nervous about going because of stories about pickpockets etc.  But I must honestly say that we all felt very safe and looked after.  The Moroccans were very friendly and hospitable and made our stay an incredible experience.

Anyway… need to get back to work now, so have a great New Years!

Amster Damn… it was wet!

Last week I managed to get to the city of red lights, women in windows wearing little and where the coffee shops sell products to let you mellow out.

Amsterdam…

The only problem is that the weather spoilt the show. It was pouring with rain so the ladies just closed the curtains and went home. Except for the really BIG girls that looked like they could curdle milk just by looking at it!

So myself and an American colleague went in search of a restaurant that served decent meat. We stumbled across a restaurant named Gaucho’s. Here you order your steak and the chef slices it the half a chopped cow in the kitchen (which is in the middle of the restaurant), slaps it on the grill and hey presto, you are eating the most delicious 300g of Argentine steak available… YUMMM!

It certainly ranks in my top 5 steak meals… But that is a story for another day!

Bye bye to my friends

It is always sad when someone says good-bye… Especially when they are good friends and they are heading back to the other side of the world.

My great friends Drew and Liz are about to leave these wet and dreary shores for the sunshine and warmth of Melbourne.

During my 26 months here they have been two of the most supportive and thoughtful friends anyone could ever wish for. I shall miss them dearly but I know that one day (soon-ish) our paths will cross again.

Well for Drew and I it will be next weekend as we head off to Lyon (France) to watch the Wallabies play Japan in the Rugby World Cup… Then the weekend after when we head to Cardiff in Wales to watch them play the Welsh…

i suspect that this time will be fuelled by many beverages and laughter… As always!!!

Le Mans(oon)

Last week I ticked another thing off my list of things I wanted to do.  I went to see the 24 hour race at Le Mans, France.

The journey started at 5am on Wednesday the 13th and our three car convoy embarked on a journey that ended some 9 hours later.  Along the way we caught up with some friends and multiplied our convoy to nine!  Check out the picks… we went rally car style and called our team “Le Rosbeuf Invasion 2007″

Le Mans is an amazing experience… lots of Ferraris, Lamboghinis, Porsches, Aston Martins and if you were lucky enough… a car made to look like the Back to the Future Delorean! Pretty wicked stuff!

The only downside was the weather… 5 days of almost total unrelenting rain.  It was teeming down from a great height.  And despite it being the middle of summer it was bloody freezing… well it got as low as 3c.

Our tent village was never a dull moment and the night playing on the xbox 360 was one of the hightlights.  We camped out in style!  Xbox, sattelite receiver, projector, 3 fridges, and aircon units (which never really were needed).

 I have taken a swag of photos and hope to put them up soon… along with the photos of my new set of wheels!  I am now the proud owner of a loan for a BMW 325ti Compact (Mystic Blue colour, 2.5L straight six).

 Anyway it is late now and I must be off to sleep…

Ciao..

Ian 

Corfee in New York!

Hi all…

This week I had the pleasure of going to New York with Drew, Liz and Bec for 5 nights and days of sightseeing, shopping, eating expensive steaks and corfee.

NYC is an amazing city! It is stunning actually. Wide city streets, friendly people, nice buildings and last week, some bloody cold weather! Minus 21 at times. Brrrrrr…. Thankfully I had been through similar before (Sweden at xmas) but this was a first for the others and I did feel sorry for them.

The one thing about NYC that amazed me the most was the friendly people. Everyone was willing to help if you looked lost. In London you don’t see that so it was very reassuring to see.

The next highlight was the HUGE T-Bone that I got for dinner one night. Just to put this into perspective… it has been almost 3 years since I have had a decent steak. Anyway… I realised how much the Americans love their food when everywhere we ate there was a guide on the wall on what to do when people were choking. Does this mean that people there love their food so much that they throw it down without chewing????

The rest of the time there was spent:
- Shopping at the world’s largest factory outlets! What a place!!!!
- Seeing Monty Pythons Spamalot on Broadway
- Wandering around Times Square
- Watching the New York Knicks lose by 1 point at an NBA game at Madison Square Garden
- Trying to work out the correct and appropriate tip for everyone for anything
- Gazing over the city from the top of the Empire State Building - chose the coldest and windiest day to do that
- Walked half of Brooklyn Bridge… started heading back when I couldn’t feel my legs anymore
- buying new toys for my camera at the world’s largest camera shop… lurve that place!
- Paying respects at Ground Zero
- Staring at Libby from Battery Park
- Chilling out at Strawberry Fields
- Making sure someone had dollar bills so we could tip someone
- Being sickened (apparently, I was a bit drunk so I was somewhere else) by a stand up comedian (?) at a comedy club - we left during the show and they didn’t get a tip!
- Walked chinatown, Greenwich Village, Wall Street
- Buying stuff so that we got dollars to tip someone

In the end… NYC is a place that I strongly recommend everyone try to get to. I will definitely be going back. but in the meantime check out some of my photos!

Cheers
Ian

Drunken night out with welsh lesbians

Well… the title says it all. A georgeous woman walks into the bar and sits next to me. I am thinking ” woohoo my luck is in!” only to find out that she is interested in women. But these girls are amazing!!! I had a wonderful night with a tonne of laughs and ended up being promised a big night out in Cardiff next year for the World Cup (oh yeah, i have tickets to see Japan and Wales in the rugby world cup next year). To ensure I keep in touch I got their business card and email and phone number. What a wonderful night!!! oh yeah… they paid for the evening as well!!!

Edinburgh… Wallabies, Castles and a spooky side

Last weekend I went to Edinburgh in Scotland for the first time. What a beautiful place! It reminds me a lot of Stockholm with its architecture and layout… The castle is stunning and overlooks the whole city but it really comes into its own at night.

The purpose for the trip was to watch the Wallabies play Scotland at Murrayfield. Thankfully we won the game (44-15) and finished the season on a high. But they better pull their finger out if they want to be there at crunch time at next years world cup!

I also did a tour of part of the underground city of Edinburgh… This is an amazing story… Parts of Edinburgh actually are built on 5 layers. They think. Not really sure but they know of a couple. I will write at some stage about the history of it all but I will just say that the short trip we did was pretty creepy. No lights, paranormal activity and images of torture tools…

Anyway… on a brighter note I will put some photos up soon so don’t forget to come back for a look!

Frankenfurter!!!

I am off to my current second home, Frankfurt, for another week of work. Frankfurt is the German finance capital and quite a lovely city. There is a bit of the old town still around (after it was pretty much flattened during the war) but the new buildings look great.

After that I go spend the weekend with the Paddys in Dublin… To watch the Wallabies!!! Let’s hope that the buggers win!

Oh… yeah… they are predicting snow in Frankfurt on Tuesday! Keep those fingers crossed!!

Angry mobs, pyromaniacs and pyrotechnics

Guy Fawlkes is with us once again and the traditional angry (?) mobs paraded past the front door of my house today. What a sight!!! And what is one to do but grab the flaming torches and join the procession.

And what a great show they put on… There was a 30 minute fireworks show that kept the hordes of flame bearing mobsters entertained and refrained them from torching the town!

Shame it was soooo cold though. Everyone was shivering by the end of it!

Can’t wait for next years one now!

No sex please… they’re British

Anyone between the age of 20-38 and planning to come to England to sow their oats better think again. If you are single that is!!! According to a report from the ONS (Office of National Statistics) there is almost a 40% chance that you will not succeed.

Click here for more details: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20648266-13762,00.html

Funny reading…