21- Belgium: Breaking news from Brussels

A couple of months of work was more than enough for us so a break was required for a couple of days. We’d forgotten how tiring this “real world” stuff could be! A quick look at flight websites showed you could get pretty cheap flights in and out of Belgium for a weekend so off we went. A weekend of tourism was what we planned but it turned into something else altogether.

We arrived early Friday evening and had a lovely night strolling through the city- nice food and a few drinks. We had seen lots of soldiers with guns on the streets but hadn’t taken much notice as this was the EU capital and neither of us had been to Belgium before so didn’t know what was normal or not. We’ve been to a number of countries where having soldiers with guns on the street is just a regular day!

The next morning we headed out for breakfast and a walk. We arrived back to the hotel at lunch with a view to then moving onto do more touristy things further afield. When we got into a Wifi zone (the hotel) messages started coming through- “is all OK”, “what’s going on over there?” “what are you up to?”, “have you been able to leave your hotel?”. Oblivious as to what was going on, we checked the news sites and saw that Brussels was apparently on lockdown due to terrorist threats- this was coming a week after the Paris attacks so it wasn’t totally out of the blue but was definitely news to us. The more we read, the clearer it became that we’d be best to just stay in the hotel. The safest place to be. better safe than sorry and all that. As the day progressed and we continued to get news updates, the city continued to close down more and more things as the search for people involved in the Paris attacks intensified. - no trains running, the mayor had told all bars and restaurants to close. Not much we could do really. All very disconcerting but at least we were nice and safe in our hotel.

That plan went well for us until about 2am when my wife woke me. “There’s lots of noise outside our door, will you get up and check what it is?”. As a good husband I got up and did what I was told so we could both go back to sleep. I looked through the peephole in the door first to check if I could see what the noise was. Surprisingly I could see quite a lot through that little hole! What seemed like the entire Belgian army (or at least ten to fifteen of their SWAT team) along with their large rifles were outside our room and coming and going out of the room across the hall from ours. This was not what I was expecting! I continued to watch for a few minutes and they all seemed relatively calm so I took the step of opening our door……….. very slowly. Straight away one of the plain-clothes policemen was over to me saying “No issue sir, go back to bed, no issue, just routine”. It’s like that phrase- nobody has ever calmed down after been told to calm down! This may have been a lot of things but routine was not how I would describe it, not with that number of soldiers and at this time on the fifth floor of a hotel that they’d need keycard access to get up to.

So step two of calming our nerves was to ring reception and find out what was really going on. The answer we got there was equally unsuccessful in calming us down. “Just a routine ID check sir, no issue”. Really? At 2am? Really? That sounds like the most non-routine ID check we’ve ever come across. So what could we do? We couldn’t leave our room- we had a whole division of the Belgian army outside our room- sure, we’re as safe here as anywhere! Surely they’d evacuate us if there was a real issue. What else was there to do but sleep?! Well for me anyway, my wife spent the rest of the night reading news updates and trying to book flights back to Dublin on Sunday morning to no avail. I guess we’re stuck here until check out.

So the next morning, with one of us well rested, and no more walkie talkies in the corridor outside the room, we said we’d go for a stroll around just to see what was going on. Couldn’t stay in the hotel any longer- going stir crazy.  Walking through the streets, it was clear everyone else had the same idea. How long can you stay indoors when nothing is actually happening outside? There were naturally lots of army on the streets but lots of people too milling around too. As we walked, the happiest people we came across were a few British TV reports who we overheard congratulating each other on a good job finding a nice quiet street to report from! It’s all about how you frame the story after all. Hundreds of people were walking in the street parallel but they were filming on the street where nothing was open. It linked to well to a photo one of the news webstes had used overnight showing Brussels being deserted due to the terror alerts. Only issue my eagle eyed wife spotted with the photo was that there was no sign of the 50 foot Christmas tree that was sitting in the middle of the square. No idea when the photo was from but it certainly wasn’t from that weekend.

Brussels isn’t a big city to walk around so it wasn’t long before we were retreading our steps so we were wondering what we should do for the rest of the day- original plan of a trip to Bruges was obviously not going to happen. As we walked, a large amount of police and army vehicles began mobilizing down the street and a few of them began clearing taxis from a rank. They clearly had some sort of information and we didn’t stay around to find out what that was. WE collected our bags and headed for the airport four hours early. Certainly wasn’t the place we wanted to be but we figured it was as safe a place as any in the city. That day it was safe but sadly after the attacks on the airport in March that thinking has now been proven false also.

Brussels, or what we saw of it was lovely, beautiful buildings, great beer, super chocolate. Obviously it was disappointing that we didn’t get further than a kilometre from our hotel but maybe next time.

So that was our weekend away- definitely could have been better but given what’s gone on before and since, it could have been a lot worse too.

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Belgian trip

Route

Fly Dublin to Brussels, fly back to Dublin

20- Spain: From the frying pan to the flames

A few more flights, a few more steps closer to home. You know you’ve been travelling for a long time when your reflex in the bathroom is to look for the bin to put the toilet paper in! You mean we can throw stuff in the toilets again? Wow. And can we drink the water that comes out of the tap? Yes? The wonders of the world. How we forget how the other half lives! And with that introduction we arrive to the tap water drinking, sewerage working, toilets flushing utopia that is Spain. Welcome to paradise! 

First stop in lovely Espana was to the coastal town of Calpe, an hour from Malaga. We were there to bear witness to the phenomenon that is “two accountants who trained together in Deloitte Cork, then moved to Australia and then came back to Europe to get married”- these two certainly sound like they tick all the boxes! Good on them. We had a lovely couple of days relaxing and de-jet lagging around Calpe before the big day which was nice. The day itself was super as we were shuttled around the area and treated to a wonderful day and night out.

After the hospitality of the wedding, it was time to don the backpacks once again, or wheel them whichever you prefer, and head north as we hopped on the Spanish high speed train, the Ave (as in Ave Maria!) and headed to Barcelona. It’s a really super train system. Similar to Japan and definitely the best we’ve come across outside of there.

Barcelona itself is a very funky city and certainly lives up to its huge reputation as one of the coolest around. With heaps of arty monuments and buildings, as well as a wide variety of food, there’s a huge amount of things fighting for your attention. All of the cities highlights are well worth visiting with Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia cathedral, La Boqueria market and the Nou Camp all being great entertainment. The Nou Camp, the home of Barcelona FC is a good few hours. We’ve done a few tours like this before. This one took the mythmaking to whole new levels as they really pushed all their players past and present to deity level. Amusing the propaganda that’s written around the place- North Korea would be proud of some of it. I suppose somebody has to be employed to write the stuff. I was very impressed though when you get to the pitch they’ve actually covered over a bunch of seats for the summer and built a pitchside bar/ café. Having a coffee pitchside was a nice cherry on top of the tour.

Heading to the Boqueria market was a right treat. So much gorgeous food, I came very close to drowning on my own drool. Thankfully it didn’t come to that and we just had lunch instead!

It seems incredible that Barcelona has a population of just 1.5million people but attracts 7.5 million tourists a year. That’s 5 times the population, incredible. In comparison Ireland as a whole got 7 million tourists last year. Popular spot indeed.

From the Catalan capital we moved across to the official capital, Madrid to enjoy a few days there and celebrate one year of marriage. It’s being a pretty hectic year all things considered; amongst other things we’ve visited 21 countries in 12 months- not a bad return. We’ll be hard pressed to keep that pace up!

Madrid was great for the few days. It’s a royal city so similar to London in many ways with loads of palaces and royal monuments. Good to stroll around but the real delight we found was the tapas tour you can do. Madrid has a huge amount of tapas bars, so many that it is an appealing pastime for tourists to make their merry way from one bar to another, for a night getting merrier and merrier while doing it! A great way to spend some time sampling different tapas and pinxtos in various cafes while washing them down with some cheap Spanish drinks. What’s not to love about it.

From the royal capital we moved to the Catholic capital and got to Seville where we began to realize that the thermometers in Spain must be broken. It was very hot in Barcelona and Madrid, in Seville we began to realize why the Spanish invented siestas! The mercury was rising and so was the number of rest stops and drink stops we were taking just to get some shade. The delights of a Spanish summer.

Seville was quite a revelation to us. A really gorgeous city, lots of cathedrals, beautiful buildings, super food. Oh the food. Spain as a whole has a given us some of the best food of our trip. Just beautiful. It would be the number one reason why we’d go back there. 

Our final stop of the eight months was to the frying pan of Spain, Cordoba where we were the weather gave us a volcanic-like greeting and my sister and her family gave us..... a wonderfully warm welcome! 45 degrees to hit while we were. Amusing to be around the city in that temperature and realise that the only people out and about are tourists! All the locals are far too sensible to be anywhere outdoors in that temperature.

So after eight months on the road, we come to an end. We left our Australian family in October and our final stop was to our Spanish family- a fitting end and one that we arrived at reluctantly. 

"Are you sure we can't go on? Ah go on, just another few months?!?! Are you sure? Last chance....."

Our trip from Melbourne to Cork with many, many stops along the way is at an end. It’s been the most amazing adventure, one that we will never forget and hopefully one day we’ll hit the road again and add to these stories.

With heavy hearts we end our trip but we have many memories, over 12,000 photographs and 20 blogs with us for company, it’s time to unpack those boxes we shipped………

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Spanish trip

Our route:

Fly to Alicante, trains to Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Cordoba, fly Malaga to Cork

Our overall route:

Australia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong & Macau, New Zealand, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, USA, Spain, Ireland

19- America: Welcome to Chi-town

I haven’t looked up the exact definitions but I’ll make a guess and say that our arrival to Chicago signaled us returning to first world countries for the first time since New Zealand in February- apologies South and Central America if that’s not true. It definitely signaled our return to English speaking first world countries, how about that? Funny how many times we were in Chicagoan cafes or restaurants and without thinking said “gracias” to the wait staff! It becomes reflex and sure who’s really to say that we’re not part Mexican or Colombian!?

Chicago is a really cool city. It was our choice of stopover on the way back to Europe to visit friends, Kyra and Peter, who’d emigrated there so they provided us with swanky accommodation in a 46^th floor city centre apartment. Sweet as. There’s a lot to do within the city itself and we were kept fully occupied for the five days.

Our introduction to Americans came at the airport where at passport control we were talking to an Officer Ramsey- I’m not going to say he was a stereotypical American but he certainly managed to turn himself into some sort of clichéd version of what foreigners think of Americans. Why would any American officer of the law have a problem with two law-abiding citizens such as ourselves? Well, the problem stemmed from the fact that we hadn’t lied on our entry form- we were asked to list where we had been beforehand on this trip and included Cuba in our (longwinded) answer. Officer Ramsey was none too impressed. The general gist of the conversation went as follows:

Ramsey: You know it’s illegal for American citizens to go to Cuba?

McCarthy: Yes, but we’re not American citizens

Ramsey: There are 12 reasons for American citizens to be allowed to enter Cuba and you have to go through a strict process in order to be allowed to visit that country

McCarthy: Yes, but we’re not American citizens

(at this stage he began looking over both shoulders for someone to assist him, presumably to confirm to him that there are in fact people in the world who are not American citizens)

Ramsey: This is going to be a problem

McCarthy: What’s going to be a problem?

Ramsey: It’s illegal for American citizens to go to Cuba

McCarthy: Yes, but we’re not American citizens

(continues to look around for help. At this stage he still can’t find anyone so  flicks through all the passport stamps)

Ramsey: What do you do for a living?

McCarthy: We’re accountants

(He seemed disappointed, not sure was this a trick question where he was hoping for “Communist sympathizer” as the answer)

Ramsey: I suppose I can let you through because you’re not American citizens but you’re going to get a lot of hassle from the Customs guys

McCarthy: Why?

Ramsey: Have you brought stuff from Cuba with you? Cuban cigars, rum etc

McCarthy: Yes, but per the US Customs website we’re allowed bring $100 worth of goods into the country

Ramsey: I KNOW THE LAW

(At this stage I looked over my shoulders to confirm I wasn’t on a TV show and then relook at Officer Ramsey to see if he’s auditioning for a scene in “A Few Good Men”!)

Ramsey: When did you look up this website?

McCarthy: Yesterday

(Not sure if he thought that non-American citizens spend significant time reviewing old US laws but anyway….)

Ramsey: Well you’ll have to prove how much they’re worth. Do you have receipts or credit card statements?

McCarthy: No they’re from Cuba. They don’t really do receipts or credit cards.

Ramsey: Well that will be a problem for the Customs guy. The Customs guys will take everything out of your bags and ask you loads of questions because you’ve a lot to explain. They’re really going to grill you.

McCarthy: That’s fine, they can have the cigars if they want them.

Ramsey: Right, go ahead to Customs

(Stamps passport)

We then proceeded to walk through customs without anyone looking anywhere near us! Happy days, the Cubans cigars are in the country! Thankfully we didn’t meet any more Officer Ramsey’s and had a lovely time with all the other Americans we met and even more so with the Irish Americans we were visiting! 

After the meet and greet was done, we set about exploring the city, a city I didn’t know much about but you get a sense of déjà vu when you walk around either because I lived here in a past life or it features heavily as a backdrop of so many TV shows and movies. Even if we didn’t get to meet Dr. Mark Green from ER or any other characters, we did get to see the L train and the tracks which weave in and out of the city, above ground, below ground, through buildings, over roads, over rivers, over bridges. It’s really amazing to see it. So while the L is a main character weaving around Chicago, its what it weaves around is the real highlight- skyscraper after skyscraper. The best way we found to get to know these skyscrapers was by taking an architecture tour through the city. The tour is two hours and is a boat ride down the river to Lake Michigan while taking in all of the amazing buildings all round. Really different to any other tour we’ve done and well worth it.

Speaking of amazing, the picture shows "Cloud Gate" which is a sculpture erected in Millennium Park in Chicago in 2006- more affectionately known as "The Bean". On a sunny day like we had, you can spend ages walking around or under it, as the reflections of the city bounce off it. Very cool. Lots of time to be spent trying to get that perfect photo! 

Another touristing highlight of the city was a day spent cycling around it. They have the city bikes which cost $7 for a day and once you switch bikes every half an hour that’s all you get charged. Very flat city so easy to do and gave us a chance to visit lots of other areas of the city around Lake Michigan including Lincoln Park, Navy Pier and Soldier field football stadium. They have a really good zoo inside in Lincoln Park too which was a nice bonus- loads of really cool animals inside and things are always better when they’re free!

One thing that still confuses us having left the country is how to navigate your way through eating or drinking out in America- so fricking confusing:

• You add on tax to what was on the menu
• You must add on a tip
• What should we tip though?
• I’m positive 15% was a good tip last time I was in American, now it’s 20% minimum. Weird
• Is the same for all meals? How about drinks?
• So should the tip be calculated before or after tax?
• Does the standard of service even matter?
• What should we be getting for this 20%?
• How much do wait staff earn? They seem to get an awful lot of money for doing very little
• Does the restaurant, café or bar pay these people anything? What an amazing business model on their part- genius altogether! 

All very confusing, basically it means that until you hand over the cash you’ve no clue what you’ve spent! How they could possibly think this is a good system is beyond me!?

We had good timing in our arrival to Chicago with their ice hockey team, the Blackhawks, playing in the Stanley Cup final. Great atmosphere around the place with posters up everywhere, buildings lit up in red at night and obviously the bars full for the games. Last night in Chicago, the four of us headed to Second City comedy club- highly recommend it as a stopping point. Sketch after sketch for a few hours, absolutely hilarious. It’s a famous club because a load of celebrities started their careers here- Dan Ackroyd, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, Bob Odenkirk (Better call Saul), Mike Myers, Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson himself) and load of others. Should be very high up on any to do list for Chicago and was a great way for us to finish off our few days.

Great hosts certainly help to make a visit to any city worthwhile and with great accommodation so centrally located along with more food, drink and tour information then we knew what to do with, it all helped to make for a great few days. 

And so with the Windy City visited, clothes for the wedding in Spain purchased, it was time for one the penultimate flight. With heads down, we got through airport security without meeting Officer Ramsey one more time. Better to be safe!

On we go, Vive Espana…….

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Chicago trip

Our route:

Fly to Chicago, fly to Alicante, Spain