The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba

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The Mezquita-Catedral is quite spectacular a literal and figurative clash of cultures. A serene open mosque, sunlight streaming in from all 4 sides, was raped architecturally when invading and conquering Christians, constructed not one but two cathedrals inside the open plan mosque, bricking up the huge open gates from the adjacent garden. It is still something at which to marvel.

This is the bell tower of the cathedral which was constructed around the minaret tower of the mosque, so to completely hide it.

Part of the mosque

The Christian cathedral within the walls of the mosque

Beautiful mosaic tiles surround the arches

A panorama of the organ adorning both sides of the knave

Córdoba

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After a bus and Very Fast Train from Granada, we arrived at Cordoba. Here are s few photos in the early morning, whilst the typical local is till fast asleep, having probably gone to bed around 2am

Granada

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A full days travel, about 4 hours in the air and 8 hours in depressing airports. But I can still pass the time watching the gravity defying planes take off and land.

Tired and sweaty I caught a taxi to eat with Jonathan, Caryl and 2 other double reed protagonists.

Here are a few pics as I meandered Granada in the evening. Food pictures should appear in the next few days

An Overcast Vienna

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The University Vienna school of Economics and Business Administration

I had forgotten how green is Vienna with cycle paths like this

There was a black and white Hitchcock movie was there not that involved just such a Ferris wheel ?

Doubling Down in Dubai

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The B777-300ER ( for Extended Range) was brand spanking new. I decided it was an absolute necessity to take my favourite sweat stained and somewhat smelly feather down pillow in the interests of maximising the chance of several hours sleep. It is so soft although sadly not so fluffy since 3 hours in the washing machine set on “industrial dirty “ with equal parts Napisan and chlorine bleach solution. Pummelled appropriately, normally I sleep on my stomach head and neck effectively horizontal. This sets the scene for what follows:

It was moderately successful – (carrying on my personal pillow) Emirates boast their business class beds as “flat”, which is false advertising as there is an heads up incline of about 15 degrees. Pedantic and obtuse – indeed the bed was in the triangular sense and so am I guilty as charged of both accusations.

I awoke around 5:30 am Adelaide time and as I had slept from about 11pm, this was as good as it gets. But then the fun began as the motorised mechanism that allows one to adjust this very expensive aeronautical “Jason Recliner”, refused to budge. One could hear whirring noises but no movement. Whilst I am not one to complain, the prospect of eating a freshly cooked omelette at an altitude of 39000ft and an attitude of 10 degrees from the horizontal was not appealing. Should this posture happen in our public hospital system, a dictatorial speech therapist would mandate that I should be placed on a strict “nil by mouth” regimen. I meandered to the aft of this spanking new Boeing and apologetically explained that my BC “Flat bed,” was indeed permanently flat and I needed help to be upright. The flight attendant naturally assumed I was either incompetent or had dropped some sort of electronic gadget into the mechanism. In fact neither was the case and having spent several minutes on all fours without success, he left to reboot the power supply to my seat – 10F – in case you were wondering – this took another 25 minutes and was not successful. He muttered apologetically that he may be forced to find me a seat in First class, but he went away one last time, possibly to discuss the issue with ground engineers or to read the manual. I was resigned to moving into 1st class, but he returned and getting down on all fours again, he managed to find some sort of knob which slowly screwed the seat to “un-recline”. I was to remain as upright and rigid as Peter Dutton, for the rest of the flight. By this time of course, the whole of Business class had stirred from slumber to gaze in the subdued blue light at the sight of an handsome Moroccan flight attendant down in all fours with me standing astride.

In the past I have described my propensity to lose personal belongings on trips as well as the strange indeed unique anatomy of my external ear lobes, which despite Apple’s claim to the contrary, are incapable of maintaining the Apple EarPods in place. Even sleeping, most unnaturally for me on my back, as still as an Egyptian Mummy, is pointless. Ahh I hear you say, so you did stuff up Seat 10F by dropping an Apple EarPod into the mechanism! I deny this emphatically. Anyway in an attempt to make my ear buds immutable , I took along my Icebreaker merino neck warmer and placed it strategically around my neck and over the ears. The perfect solution. But sometime between the saga of the recalcitrant recliner and breakfast, I discovered that the neck warmer was not around my neck. Mysteriously and totally unfathomably, it had stretched itself up and over my head and it was nowhere to be found, not only not around my neck but not around any other possible part of my anatomy. Rather sheepishly and with significant self consciousness, as the minutest movement or groan from seat 10F, instantly drew the whole of Business Class to fix eyes on the depraved passenger, I crept to the galley and asked the Moroccan flight attendant if by chance he had unexpectedly discovered a merino wool neck warmer on his body? No he said with a knowing wink, your secret is safe with me.

Dubai international airport is doubling exponentially and in the year since I last passed through, despite an extra runway and terminal, we were informed that our B777 would be forced to arrive away from the terminal and passengers would be transported by bus. Sounds OK in theory, but the plane was situated so far from the terminal, that during the bus journey we were served breakfast then a light lunch before arriving and I was able to watch via the bus video a rerun of The Sound is Music and the first opera of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Vienna is wet today.

The Danube river along which I rode some 1000km in 2013

A Grumpy Old Grammarian

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Oh, why can’t the English learn to

Set a good example to people whose

English is painful to your ears?

The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.

There even are places where English completely disappears….

Well, in America, they haven’t used it for years!

 

Reaching Out

With the rise in online shopping and the ability to almost instantaneously communicate with others electronically, there has developed pari-passu, a new vocabulary of words, (often at times neologisms), phrases and acronyms that all generations since the Baby Boomers use with automatic ease and understanding. I am, I fear, as misogynistic and recalcitrant as Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady”. The point of this rambling preamble is to bemoan the insidious use of the phrase, mostly emanating from businesses in the United States, but sadly in the past few years as well from Australia, of “reaching out”.

“Reaching out” to someone or some entity implies to me at least, that they are in a tiny spot of bother and  need help, so you can imagine that I am a little incredulous when there is a media article along the lines of

”Apple have reported that the dingle-dongle in the latest iPhone has been reported to come unstuck and dangles, in some instances causing bruising to the customer especially if carried in the front pocket. We reached out to Apple for comment.” 

So here we have an insignificant, minor and irritating journalist suggesting that they are sympathetic to a zillion dollar company and there is in the phrase surely an implicit undertaking that the journalist and the media organisation are there to  to help! I mean Apple needs help?

I am not a zillion dollar company but have invariably received such an email when I write to a company with a question, complaint or even a compliment. The phrase is somewhat ’touchy, feely’ and it implies that I am perhaps in a consequent state of suicidal depression and that the respondent understands completely my pain and were it in their power, would pay for psychological support, which sadly is not possible as I am in Australia and they  are in Des Moine, Iowa.

There may be perhaps one situation where ‘reaching out’ to me may be absolutely understandable, indeed appropriate. 

Hi Mr Norton, – Thanks for reaching out to us here at the ACME outdoor online store. We are sorry to learn that the “Yak” snow boot crampons which you purchased last month have come adrift from the boots so to speak and that you have reached out to us, having slipped and fallen into a crevasse on the South Col of the Kumbu Glacier on Mt Everest. As you are almost 13,965 miles from us, it is you understand going to be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to ACTUALLY reach you, if that was your hope. I trust you understand. If you are able to reach up and grab the lip of the crevasse , is it possible that your sherpa may be able to reach out and grab you? We understand your predicament and once you return to Australia, reach out to us again and we will send you a replacement set of crampons 

What is wrong with the accepted and genuine response  “thanks for contacting us”?

Dresden – in transit.

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The train from Wroclaw to Dresden was a well appointment, clean electric train with individual seating and large panoramic windows, not unlike the modern metro trains in Australia. Again it was relatively empty on departure but progressively filled, especially once we crossed into Germany. At the border station, the driver and conductors all changed from Poles to Germans. Smart-arse comments will be ignored , you know what I mean.

At The Dresden Station, I turned left at the tunnel and ventured forth into sunlight, but was momentarily confused as the ‘Vienna Plaza’ , was obviously not before me, which the Apple maps app claimed it should be. I showed the map to a passing pedestrian. She looked a little bemused then suggested in perfect English that instead of turning left, I should have turned right. People who know me well recognise that by nature, I have always instinctively turned to the left.

How correct she was. Back into the tunnel and there in brilliant sunshine was a huge Plaza with the multi-storey Intercity Hotel just to the left of the square, 100m away. It was not in anyway the Dresden Intercontinental , but a large clean and basic hotel that serves as a transit hotel I suspect for local and international travellers. For me it served that purpose well. I meandered into the city along the pedestrian mall and shopping centres. I had been there is August 2013 as the setting off point for my months cycle trip along the Elbe and Moldau rivers into Czech Republic. These two photos are from that time and show that I travelled lightly! A new bike which I had pre ordered from Australia and collected from a bike shop in Dresden.

Again and possible even more so, I was absolutely overwhelmed with the awareness that this city more than any in Europe was obliterated by total and unnecessary bombing in the last months of the war by the British. So I stumbled again on the Dresden Opera House, at which La Boheme was about to start. I seriously thought about buying a ticket, but was definitely under-dressed when compared to the average Dresden opera going member of the public, and secondly Puccini in not my favourite opera composer.

I think I can safely say that in ALL of the cities and towns that I visited on this trip, in the town square there were 3 people (always 3) , members of the Jehovah Witness congregation with a stand and their literature in several languages. What reminded me about this was that in the Dresden shopping mall, there they were, but were forced to move along when a morbidly obese man sat himself down on one of the adjacent plaza seats and produced a guitar and amplifier and proceeded to sing, loudly and off key.

During my final packing today, and having as is my custom, discarded several items of worn and bleached spotted clothing as well as a pair of shoes, I found secreted amongst the various pockets and crevices of my luggage, the items of clothing that I confessed I had lost. Thus it is that I leave Europe, minus 5 shirts, 3 pairs of underpants and I pair of worn shoes, but with 4 woollen hats ( 3 more than I packed) and 3 neck bandanas ( 2 more than I packed).

The Wroclaw Railway Station – which is in a case you are wondering is No 5 on things to do according to TripAdvisor.

The Wroclaw Drama Theatre and Gardens.

A 2018 view of Dresden cathedral

Finally this is what an 8.7Kg back pack looks like minus 5 shirts, 3 pr underpants and a pair of shoes but with 3 additional woollen caps and 2 neck bandana, prior to being booked all the way from Dresden to Adelaide. I trust the Germans to get it right.