Austria (August 2009) Diaries - part two
Monday, September 14, 2009

part one here... (essential to read before this part, obv)
holiday photos here...

Tuesday 11th August:

• NB to Monday - how could I forget Rhythm of the Rain by Jason Donovan? It occurred to me last night when there was heavenly torrential downpour and illicit tipsy activities were undertaken like stealing a parasol from a cafe bar and running home under it. Then there was thunder. All through the night. Did not see Jesus in the morning light as promised by Prince (possibly due to now being criminal element)...
• Forgot to mention that have been reading (now finished - Poppy and Kwame 4eva, etc) Diary Of A Snob with my thumb positioned over the S, thus drawing withering glance of STRW from plane and loud titters of chav family in fake kappa "trackies". Oh dear.
• Went on ANOTHER forest hike today and was soon "sweating buckets" from steepness of The Climb (miley cyrus). Decided to turn back after an hour as path was becoming less and less pathlike and due to thinness of air, I was having an out of body experience and thinking I was in Lost and was sensible doctor, Jack...
• I was sensible doctor Jack mixed with other Matthew Fox(y) character Charlie, from weepfest Party of Five (now airing on Hallmark channel fact fans). Darren was actual Charlie from Lost (but with clearner fingernails and no drugs stuffed inside Virgin Mary). Nice Austrian woman at edge of forest/civilisation was crazy Russo and her husband chomping on his pipe was Smoke Monster. It took 2 raspberry jaffa cakes to bring me back to reality.
• After 2 hour exhausting trek and gently mosey around village, sensible thing to do seemed to be to go to hotel gym. MP3 player still DNR so I did 40 mins of laps in quite chilly pool (due to be quite high altitude, in clouds and outdoors) while singing every track from seminal 1989 Electric Youth...
• Including all the acoustic and campfire mixes of songs I'd already sung.
• Was going to do a gentle walk in the early evening up to Russerhof or Rasselheiner or something, but both sounded like strange lovechild of tv weirdies Elizabeth Hasselback or David "Call Me Hoff" Hasslehoff, so gave up on idea and played scrabble instead...

• How is it Wednesday already? Week is half over (celebrated American "hump" day with traditional dazpaz British hump this am) which means only a few days until I am back battling the rat race with the rest of the hoi polloi/wage slaves. The indignity of it all.
• Am being adventurous today and crossing Austrian border to Germany today. Didn't even need passport, that is how free and liberal border control is nowadays. Not like when I cam back from Toronto to NY and had left a lollipop wrapper stuck to passport. Long story short, large borders control man Greg mistook it for a "tab" and poked his finger up my bum-oley looking for heroin whilst waiting for lab results on lollipop wrapper to prove my innocence...
• Went up 6000ft mountain to Eagle's Nest, which was apparently a present to Hitler from the Nazi party in 1938 (hardly a party were they?!). What no HMV vouchers that year? You go up to it in this lift at end of tunnels dug into a mountain. Can't help but feel it was a bit of a crap gift as looney Hitler was claustrophobic, scared of heights and suffered from altitude sickness...
• "Say what you want about the Nazi party" said chubby z-lebrity John from tv's Coach Trip (who was tour guide for the day) "but they were geniuses at engineering and architecture". Yes absolutely. That makes up for the slaughter of millions of Jews then - brilliant architecture.
• Whole place is now a restaurant so was up there 2 hours with not much to do, though some quite nice mini hikes and pretty views. Didn't try the Schnitlerzel at the cafe, but the Eva Brownies were a culinary triumph :P
• Also went down some cold damp bunker where Hitler hid from the air raids. Tour guide told us that if we felt through the gaps in the wall you could feel the original ceramic pipework. Excuse me for being a party pooper, but I ain't fingering Hitler's mouldy old hole for love nor money (excellent Debbie Gibson song title btw).
• Have become absolute social butterfly in hotel dining room as now know all the guests including miserable old coot who complains about the price of strudel daily. Flit from table to table regaling them with brilliant anecdotes from the day. Eva Brownies was particularly beloved...

• Woke up moody from continued kippus interruptus and continued mourning of MP3 player. Luckily have bought 3 books with me (finished 2, so just rereading The Deathly Hallows) and a plethora of magaines so have kept myself entertained and educated with my early morning risings...
• Unhealthy addiction to cinnamon toast crunch cereal soon perked me up as did post brekkie dip in pool. Today I chose to sing every track from brilliant 2008 album "Pop" by Same Difference. Except Breaking Free which is now rendered redundant by We R One.
• Forced Darren to go back to bed after swim as was very fatty-gay.
• (*forced as in whined incessantly about his rubbish mattress and how tired I was, not forced in a rapey way!)
• Did not want to waste whole day in bed (that is for the newly relationshipped and unemployed) so got back up just before noon and hiked up the quite high actually Kimmel Waterfalls. Is very steep trek so probably needed Sherpa, but footpaths and handrails were all I got. Was very pretty indeed even if spray-mist permeated every fibre of my being.
• This of course meant thata sun tan lotion has run all down my face and I did not notice white streaky marks everywhere until I got to bottom (2 hours and passing multiple people later). Looked like an extra from Cum Guzzlers 3: Farm Hand Studs (Excellent movie by the way, great plot)...
• Though am not a stud at moment. Feel old and fat. Must be psychological as when I breath in and look in the mirror, I look quite presentable, nay even do-able. Must be an R-Kelly thing (no, not sex with minors (ALLEGEDLY etc), but a "my mind's telling me no, but my body, my boooo-dy" etc)
• Got back just before another torrential downpour. Stood on balcony watching all the people on street below running like crazy people. Tried ever so hard not to feel smug, but is very hard when you are a non-parasol stealing, law abiding and dry citizen...
• Citizen! Reminds me of the 60s batman tv show reruns ("Citizens of Gotham!") ~ Robin was well alluring in his heyday. Pity he aged horribly.
• Which is actually what people say about me so I am reminding myself that it is inner beauty that counts and there I am a stunner!

• Realised today that finding interesting and "witty" things to write about in the very laxidaisical St Johann on a daily basis is actually quite a feat. Am now quite proud of my observational skills as there are only so many ways that you can write "went up a hill" and make it scintillating.
• Although we did actually go up another hihll today and it was ridiculously steep. Practically vertical (not horizontal as I mortifyingly and accidentally told a couple at dinner. No wonder they looked unimpressed). It was quite hot again as well, so once again the sweat glands were working overtime. Or as my possibly racially and gaybo intolerant old aunt used to say "horses sweat, navvies perspire, but ladies and poofters merely twinkle"...
• Which is quite lovely and poetic in a twisted sort of way, I feel...
• I better have lost weight on this holiday - have hiked and biked everywhere and not really had desire to stuff face. Although I did have a white Magnum ice cream the other day, and haven't actually "been" to the toilet since I got here, so it's no wonder that I feel a bit doughy...
• Also noticed that in photos this week, my face is very liney, like lovely Sean from Same Difference. I am of the ilk where I like to think lines add a bit of character to my face whereas Darren will do everything in his power to eradicate his. Maybe I should be a bit more diligent with the L'Oreal for Men Wrinkle Decrease though...
• Because I'm worth it too :)
• Time to go home now. Thanks for having me...

Posted by Paul 7:06 AM 0 comments  

Austria August 2009 Diaries
Sunday, August 16, 2009

Saturday August 8th:

• Usually I enjoy the people watching of the airport, but I was surviving on 4 hours of sleep and a 3.30am wake up call so most of it passed me by. I do remember being vaguely outraged that there is no longer a Starbucks at Birmingham airport, merely a (prepare to shudder in horror everyone) Costa Coffee. How hideous :/
• The plane flight was a brisk 1 hour and 45 minutes - just enough time to get stuck into one of my holiday reads, Diary of A Snob by Grace Dent. I do not think these things out. It has a bright pink cover with a lipstick on it and it drew a withering glance from Snooty Times Reading Woman (STRW) next to me... (I realised why later in the week!)
• People don't half get dead excited by the food on the plane. It was sausage and eggs breakfast and I truly think that people believed a guy called Ed in a chef's hat had scrambled the eggs over a hot stove at the front on the plane. Ninnies.
• Ed had clearly scrambled the eggs with evil because they tasted like baby vomit (and I would know, my nephew once threw up in my face). Darren said the sausage was nice, but I am choosy and I wasn't about to gorge on Ed's meat after his sloppy evil eggs...
• STRW prayed to mother nature over her vegetarian option (seriously - God knows why because there was nothing natural there at all), but then thought better of eating it and just pocketed the prepacked muffin into her "fannypack" (ooer, etc)...
• Miracle of miracles - our bags were (specifically) 2nd and 5th off the conveyer belt and we were soon directed to our hotel by holiday rep Peter - the gorgeous Hotel Dorfschmidt...
• Not the Hotel Dogshit as some common as muck on the bottom of the Primark flip flops family tittered behind us on the coach. Savages...
• Hotel was actually very gorgeous - incredibly old, like Madonna, and set at the foot of the Kitzbulehorn Mountain range so we had a view of those dusty peaks wherever we looked. Our room was quite boutique chic (massive walk in wardrobe) with a ginormous (love that word) balcony covered in delicious smelling flowers...
• Of course this means that wasps are drawn to the balcony like a moth to the flame drawn by the fire so while Darren ignores them, I am pirohuetting around all over the place like Billy Elliot (only less graceful and without the Tonys) every time they come near. This means I barely get through a page of Diary... or even Entertainment Weekly (the one with abtastic Ryan Reynolds on the cover)...

Sunday 9th August:

• My much needed boutique chic sleep was rudely interrupted. Monsieur (or Missure as someone at work spelt it in an email the other week! Lumme!) Dazricht of Panteloonemheimer's mattress creaked noisily every time he moved, which was quite often. I tried burying my head in the pillow but the creaks or his snoring (like a sailor on shore leave) soon wafted through. Booooo!!!
• And then my mp3 (Archos) player died - completely kaput. This is obviously a tragedy of gargantuan proportions as it plays movies/tv shows too and I was halfway through an episode of Buffy, where Giles and Buffy's mom eat lots of candy and canoodle with each other.
• And does no one remember that before the hugely overrated Twilight existed (yes I know I liked it initially, but i've seen through the smoke and mirrors now ta very much and tedious plotting and writing is tedious plotting and writing), Buffy had the best vampire love story ever with hunky brooding Angel (who btw would beat Edward Cullen to a pulp)?
• Went to the welcome meeting where Peter Holiday Rep was very pleased to see us. Perhaps he gets very excited to see people not wearing lederhosen because he was soon assuring us that if we required ANYTHING, we could call on him anytime day or night. ANYTIME! Blimey luv, calm down - you might spaffle. I was fingering my ring at the time, so I think he got the message...
• As it was boiling hot (not literally - I didn't boil), apparently the sensible thing to do is go on the keep fit jogging trail up through the forest into the mountains. It was almost treacherous with little "stop drop and give me twenty" exercise signs everywhere. Call me lazy, but i'm not doing star jumps on the edge of a muddy ravine...
• ... so when we got back to the hotel, we made use of the gym and pool. I did some cycling. On a stationary bike. Inside. In austria. If you do not get the irony of this (and my slight misuse of the word irony) then there really is no hope for you is there?
• The pool was nice though. Then we played mario party on the DS, which unlike gargantuan tragedy of my ka-put mp3 player (did I mention that?) is not broken. I was winning as Peaches right until the end when Darren/Yoshi practically molested 2 stars out of me. I don't think that little princess will ever recover :/
• Sat with some nice people at dinner. I regaled them with stories of my office's broken sewer pipes. They were so enraptured that not one of them finished their schnitzel. Awww...

Monday 10th August:

• Made the non-german speaking mistake of buying sparkling water last night from the local Spar (ooo how provincial). Went back this morning to get the one with the different label as assumed it was still. It was not still. Sparkling again! I am completely bamboozled.
• Went up to Rattenberg and beautiful Lake Archanssee today (by cog powered railway Pete Waterman fans). Rattenberg is famous for some nun called Notburga who threw a sickle in the air and it never came down. Personally I think her name is a marketing person's dream, her creaky old bones on display in a church, not so much...
• The lake (set up in a mountain) was proper pretty. It was quite cold as we were right in the clouds. Darren and I bought a value chocolate bar (Spar again) and walked round the like, but after about 6km, I was sick of being attacked by giant butterflies (they are terrifying) so we hiked back and went on a boat trip instead.
• We sat next to a proper noddy on the boat trip though - he kept saying things like "the velocity of the water crashing down for thousands of years has created the most amazing rock formations. Sarah, take a picture". I swear I didn't mean to say "really professor Frink" out loud - or at least not out loud enough for him to hear ;)
• It rained quite a bit - here are 5 songs about rain (in no particular order of brilliance) that I sang to an unappreciative Darren: Rain (Madonna); Naked In The Rain (Blue Pearl); Kiss The Rain (Billie Myers); Come On In Out of The Rain (Wendy Moten) and Here Comes The Rain (Eurythmics).
• The day started with hearing the brilliant Martika's Kitchen, was punctuated by a Tyrolean radio station playing Jolene and La Isla Bonita and ended with a man at the hotel playing Black or White on a zitha. Don't ask!
• Foodwise, the day started with Cinammon Toast Crunch (never had them before, utterly delicious - americans, please send box loads now as not available in England. I will email you address :P) was punctuated with that value chocolate bar and ended up chatting to a lovely family over some barbecue beef. When we asked their son what music he liked and he said "Enter Shakiri", I misheard and said "ooo I like Shakira" before I could even stop myself :/

Part two coming soon! All holiday snaps here!

Posted by Paul 5:34 AM 1 comments  

Labels: austria 2009

THE NYC FILES - Part Two
Saturday, February 10, 2007

Hurrah! First full day of NYC adventure. Dressed in warm clothes, we patiently waited for the lift down to the lobby. And waited. And waited. As 2 of the 4 lifts were broken, they were in full demand and the man in front of us refused to get in anything resembling crowded. now, obv. I have the patience of a saint, so didn't push past him, but as the 3rd lift came and went, enough was enough and DazPushy and I bitchslapped his ass out of the way and began our day :)

Now I thought yesterday was cold! My nipples popped out so quickly when I walked out the door, that I had to check where DazPickle's fingers were ;) As we hurried to Starbucks, my warmblooded little fella (darren not the other little fella!!) was telling me I'd get used to the cold and he didn't need a scarf or hat. As we came out of starbucks with frozen snot in our noses, we bustled back to the hotel to get him a scarf and hat. It was lucky I tells ya that I was wearing my scarf wrapped round my face as I had a very smug told you so expression on my face! we decided to head towards rockafella plaza and enjoy the view from up there. Darren is not a heights man, but he was a brave little soldier and enjoyed the stunning views across NYC.

The NBC studio tour was ok, interesting to see the inner workings of tv! There was one dude on the tour who felt he knew the answers to all the questions so never gave the tour guide the opportunity to five their rehearsed answers. In retrospect, it may have soured the atmosphere a bit when after one buttinsky to many, I snapped " for gods sake no one was talking to you" but i ultimately feel they were glares of apology shooting my way. Thank heavens for the no weapons sign the guide kept pointing too...

Looking round Radio City Music Hall with a former Rockette was bloody bonza ripper. Doing those eye high kicks on an empty stage, looking at the costumes and designs and seeing the dining room where Vincent Minelli planted the seed of Liza in Judy's er .... well i'm sure they flirted there... was a great way too spend the afternoon in a gorgeously stunning art deco setting that positively crackled with theatrical history.

In the dusk of the early evening we did some more rooftop sightseeing from the top of the Empire State Building before heading home from our 11 hour day for pizza and snuggles. Marv...

Posted by Paul 11:58 PM 0 comments  

THE NYC FILES - Part one

After a delicious night of romp and relaxation in our posh upgraded room, it was time to get up and kill a couple of hours in our posh upgraded bathroom robes until we needed to leave for the airport. My attempts to seduce darren by trying to make the terry towling outfit look sexy by swinging the girdle around like a baton were hopeless. But i like to think i did my part in bringing sexy back! Anyway, i perservered and I like to think that any and all sexual favours subsequently provided were because of my hotness and not to "stop any more insane behaviour"...

And then it was off to Heathrow airport to check in and hang around for a couple of hours before we can sit around the gate for half an hour or so before we are allowed to board the plane and sit around waiting for takeoff. So in all this time, naturally the starbucks card was abused but i did get to listen to just jack's new album and some new songs i hadn't gotten around to checking out so it was all good.

the plane flight to nyc was actually ok. I read my book (The Road to Inconceivable - amazon search it, but it's only ok), a couple of Entertainment Weeklys, watched The Queen which was surprisingly touching and gorge and a much better than expected John Tucker Must Die (great soundtrack). I even managed to get some stuff down for my novel. Very productive.

Of course this being me, I had to be surrounded by freaks. Behind was an elderly gentleman whose middle aged son explained everything in annoyingly minute detail to him. Except plane etiquette as he kept stretching his leg up by my arm rest so his pongy foot was right near my face :( Once it may have touched my Jack & Jones top which clearly now i will have to boil. Grrr. And in front was seizure girl. She had her chair back which i don't begrudge at all, but she moved around so much it was like sitting infront of a washing machine on full spin. I was grateful when she nodded off and just the sound of her bulldozer snoring and pungent halitosis breath filled the air....

Arrived in NYC!! It was vair vair vair nippy noddles. I thought i would die from shock from the cold but rallied by thought of three starbucks right by hotel (which is near all theatres and one block from Times Square). V tired now so zzzzzzzzz.

Posted by Paul 12:11 AM 1 comments  

last days in vegas nov 2005...
Saturday, February 03, 2007

LV ~ Days 4&5 Gimme Solids or Gimme Death!

Posted by Paul 9:27 PM 0 comments  

Return To Los Angeles/Las Vegas - Nov 2005 Day 7/8/9
Thursday, February 01, 2007

Day 7 - entering vegas

So we bid adieu to a rather rainy and grey LA and zoomed down the freeway to Las Vegas. We made pretty good time and I now know the bette midler sings peggy lee cd pretty well now too We arrived at Mandalay Bay and instantly got upgraded to a premium room with a stunning view of the strip. I like to think it was beause of my cool LV band The Killers t shirt and the way I gently batted my eye lids at the check in guy, but more likely it was because they were out of non smoking rooms...

The room is absolutely cavenous - with a huge bathroom and sunken bath with lots of gorgeous little toiletries that will so end up in our guest bathroom. I don't usually care what my hotel room is like but this one is pretty stunning :)

FIND! Darren and I were looking around and found this charming little bookstore and the woman behind the counter and I were chatting about Wicked and she showed me a ltd edition coffee table book on the making of the musical. I so have to buy... rest of evening spent gambling and not doing particularly well...

Day 8...

Darren and I love to shop Its a big part of our reason for coming here so we get all excited about going to the Ceasars Palace Forum Shops. The toy store there is brilliant - it is so huge you can get lost in it for ages. And we did...

There were these particularly brilliant and slightly lavendar two young men dance playing the giant floor piano with their feet. I have to say it made me alittle jealous and I have now added foot playing piano dancer to my list of dream professions (others include working at the gap, owning a book store and published author ) ;) Sadly, Darren's fave shoe shop is no longer and the best Virgin Megastore in the world is no more which is particularly tragic cos they had every dvd and cd you can think of. Now i will have to hope i can find somewhere else that will stock the new madonna cd ;)

Can i just comment on how festive Starbucks is right now? they have these adorable little chrismukwanzamas cups, the loveliest gift sets and an adorable reusable wooden advent calendar. Comment over!

We spent the evening at a gay bar called Gipsys which was rather brilliant until i almost simultaneously strained my groin and punched someone in the ear whilst trying to dance like in the last part of the Hung Up video. oops and ow! my groin!

Day 9...

Went down to visit the Aladdin and Paris hotels (so hurrah Nick Carter not the only one to be in Paris ). Ho ho. I had slept funny on my arm so it was totally dead all day and it flailed around independently of what I wanted it to do. Boooo! And it was kinda painful. Luckily I was a brave little soldier and only mentioned that it still hurt to Darren every few minutes. And then i got a cup full of bitterness added to that when I asked some woman to take a picture of us. AND SHE SAID NO!! I mean I guess its perfectly ok for someone to say no in rudesville but how rude is it to not take someones pic in a tourist spot!?! I would have taken her pic if i hadn't been scared of the camera lens cracking Thats just the bitterness talking - she seemed perfectly lovely except for the rudeness and some weird spot thing on her chin, but i digress...

The Aladdin and Paris are lovely inside and the themed areas are really pretty. The Aladdin even has an indoor thunderstorm over the the fountain area. We found a really good game store and bought this game called Blokus which is kinda like tetris if it were a board game and if it were two people competing to get the shapes on a board with only touching the corners of their own shapes. So nothing like tetris then... We were really tired so grabbed a megadog (there is something so gay about putting that much meat in your mouth!! ) and decided to order a Jerry Springer show on the hotel tv. I haven't watched in a while and it was hilarious "I hate your bridesmaids dress" (takes it off) "And my bra is itchy too" (takes it off) So lots of girls getting naked to beat the crap out of each other! Jerry must be so proud It made me want to watch Oprah...

Posted by Paul 4:43 AM 0 comments  

Return To Los Angeles/Las Vegas - Nov 2005 Day 5/6

Tues and Weds just sort of went by in a blur of LA traffic and theme parks so here are some key magic moments...

*Darren singing solid as a cock instead of Rock at starbucks and being completely oblivious to how loud he was or what he was singing
*Seeing a Maury show where a woman tested 9 men to see who was the father of her baby daddy and then me being completely bewildered when the audience booed the guy for not being the father
*Seeing Aladdin The Musical at disney - seriously get this on broadway now. The Genie manages to be hilarious despite his somewhat hackneyed quips: "Snap! Oh no you di'n't gurrl"; "You're Fired!" and my personal fave "Jasmines not the only one to marry a street rat - look at Britney Spears!"
*Darren nipping to the bathroom only to be driven out by the loud explosive gases from the cubicle next door! Too many churros?
*Getting soaked on the grizzly rapids but laughing my arse off at Darren who got bitchslapped by a wall of water before it drenched him
*Leaving Disney for the last time and feeling quite sad
*An all new episode of Lost. RIP Shannon

Posted by Paul 4:38 AM 0 comments