Ranking my experiences in 20 countries – #7 Uruguay

Posted on March 15, 2019 by lukemalkin

What’s going on here? I’m ranking my experiences in the 20 countries I’ve been to so far. Nostalgia is going to drive these explanations a bit further than #20 – 11. From there on, each country gets its own mini expose starting with #10 – France, #9 – Brazil, #8 Czechia and now it’s…

#7 – Uruguay

Visited: Montevideo, Colonia

If Bolivia falls apart and I want to stay in South America, look for me in Uruguay.

Montevideo seems to run at the same speed that my thoughts do. In some ways, it would suit me even more than Santa Cruz Bolivia does. Mid-size, well-planned, culturally bolstered cities have a way with me. Good climate, progressive politics, live and let live mentality. It’s got a coast, it’s got 2 world cups. It nestles nicely as one of those countries you don’t forget because you’ve heard of it (probably because of those world cups), but it’s not really a country that springs to the front of your mind either. That’s a good thing. Too much attention can ruin something pretty at times. This way, it’s left to just run in what looks like a pretty sensible but not overly bureaucratic manner, and that seems to suit it perfectly.

Now that’s a huge generalisation coming from someone who only spent a week there but you have to say, it’s a hell of an impression to come away with. Admittedly, a better view would be supported by a few more conversations with locals. Really, this wasn’t a social trip like so many others have been. I was traveling solo and was in a relationship at the time so there are no tinder adventures here. (Sorry if that’s what you’re here for). I was just happy to breathe in Uruguay and, it’s that live and let live mentality again, Uruguay was perfectly happy for me to do that.

Uruguay is peace more than joy. Its walking tour wasn’t lively, just insightful and interesting. There’s no grand museum, but I think I bounced through 6 pocket-sized museums in montevideo in a day. In fact, the only time Uruguay attempted to force happiness on me- at a museum of happiness no less- it fell flat. The drag guide who took me around a house set up with some pretty half-assed set pieces and material really, really struggled. She definitely did not have a good show, but perhaps her task was made even more of an uphill struggle than she wanted just by going against this calm grain that Colonia was exuding. I left that museum feeling very strange, as if I’d failed at happiness really. That was supposed to be an easy win but still. However I took a walk around the cobbled streets covered with old cars with greenery planted in them and I got back into the groove again. Stop trying so hard to enjoy yourself, I thought. Just inhale it.

Uruguay is a plucky underdog of a country. I thought it was brilliant, and anyone else who has been shouldn’t be surprised to see it sneaking into my top 10.

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Ranking my experiences in 20 countries – #8 Czechia

Posted on February 24, 2019 by lukemalkin

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#8 – Czechia

Visited: Prague

A bit of recency bias here, as I visited Prague in January 2019 with a good friend of mine. Prague edges Brazil because I was there for a snippet longer.

For me, the beer is the best in the world and it’s not even close. Readily available, cheap and focused on flavour over alcohol content, it’s a great foundation to have really got right.

I came into Czechia by train just as the light was fading and a light snow had begun to fall. I appreciated the honesty of the ticket-seller who advised me against taking the metro to my hostel because it was close enough to walk even with a small bag. I made my way out towards St Wenceslas square amidst its winter market sights and sounds. The snow had picked up a little and a street performer was tinkling a piano to a small crowd. I was going to like it here, I thought.

The piano was the theme of the evening. My friend had reserved our particular hostel because it had a piano within, a piano which he is more than capable of making sound good. I used to be/am in a music group with this guy and soon we had the hostel going open mic style.

Later it was time for our new group to head out and just down the road was a seriously cool site called doggbar. It’s hard to describe really but it’s a set of cellars the other side of a cage door. The mesh of chain and stone and high-up seating was just incredible and we followed from room to room to the distant sound of something resembling that song Casa de Papel (Money Heist) made famous last year.

The guitarist was insanely talented and the crowd were very into everything he was doing. A new friend asks him if I can sing and he asks me if I know the words to Hotel California. Erm…you mean the most famous song of one of my favourite bands and the song I must have sung personally at my own gig nights about 50 times by now? Yes. Yes I do.

But this isn’t just an average-at-best-Luke-Malkin-performance of Hotel California. This is him hitting all the accents from the Hell Freezes Over Hotel California that I have yet to even dream of playing that well. My jaw hit the floor. I started singing. I looked across and he nodded and smiled. To my joy, I’d passed his initiation. Everything else just flowed out for what is thankfully a pretty long song. I was loving every second.

We get to the end, the people have enjoyed it (everyone likes Hotel California, or at least can very easily pretend to) and I get back down. Then he hits Sultans of Swing. What? You mean one of the most famous songs of my actual favourite band. You have to be kidding me.

That was just night one. Every night in Prague was great. I just felt like it constantly had another trick up its sleeve. Our second night saw us joining a pub crawl with a really diverse crowd, who I wish I’d saved some contact details from.

My final night a meeting in a jazz bar led to me playing piano over breakfast in the Peruvian embassy. I would never have predicted that, and you can fill in the details here.

The days were great too- we weren’t just sleeping off hangovers. The walking tour was great, the technical museum was different and interesting. The sex machines museum was fun, even if the Victorian pornography downstairs almost made me vomit. The communist museum was…yeah it was fine too, and there was still clearly a lot left unexplored.

Prague is, by and large, a very easy city to be a tourist in. And it felt like after many years of visiting places that are much more difficult to travel in, my friend and I could really make the most of an amazing place.

Interestingly, we were reminded of the pitfalls of travelling while in a beautiful local restaurant a friend had recommended. The table wait was quite long so the two ladies ahead of us asked if we wanted to share a table for four. We did.

They hated Prague and couldn’t wait to get out of it, but their story was just one of bad travel decision after another. They’d changed their money with the first person they met at the train station (and got $3 of Belarussian currency for 200euros). They they wasted their whole day trying to get it back from various police stations.

Travelling is a skill you develop through experience. We were too nice to say this at the table, but if you’re not careful you can easily ruin your own holiday. It sucks, of course it does, and bad things always happen, but at the very least- learn from your mistakes and put yourself in a position to enjoy yourself. It has an alarmingly high success rate.

Ranking my experiences in 20 countries – #9 Brazil

Posted on January 20, 2019 by lukemalkin

#9 – Brazil

Visited: São Paulo

Brazil at #9 is the first of two quick-fire short trips that completely smashed expectations. I was only there for a weekend, but it made a huge impression.

This trip was a sort of pilgrimage for me. I’m a lifelong F1 fan, and I grew up watching the old season review tapes and playing the video games. My favourite circuit? Interlagos, São Paulo.

São Paulo Brazil is nothing like Santa Cruz Bolivia, so this was the first big city in South American city I visited. Everything was new and unexplored, then I rocked up at the circuit in a country I’d been in for less than 24 hours and I knew exactly. where. I. was. It was such a weird and wonderful feeling. I’d driven this track virtually hundreds of times. It was a weird homecoming,

Add to this the feeling of my first live F1 experience. Interlagos is a great circuit to visit for F1 because you get to see pretty much the entire track (F1 fans, I was on the grandstand on the long straight after the Senna Ss). Well worth it.

But Brazil doesn’t take #9 just because a multi-national event visits every year. No, it takes #9 for the series of fortunate events that took place as soon as I arrived.

I posted on facebook asking for São Paulo recommendations before I flew, and to my surprise, an American friend I’d met in Tanzania happened to be traveling and couch-surfing at that moment. Did I want her to ask if I could stay with the same hosts if there’s a problem with my hostel? Well, yes I did. Especially when upon landing I found my hostel had indeed canceled my reservation last minute. Brazil basically tore apart my novice-level plans and rewrote my holiday better than I could have imagined it.

I made my way through the concrete jungle to their location and found myself in a cool arty flat with three Brazilians who could not have done more to make me feel welcome. “Oh cool you’re here for the race, yeah come stay with us. We’re catering a party tomorrow night after the race- want to meet us there?”. Yes. Yes, I did. That party turned out the be a hipster takeover of 3..or was it 4 floors of an old flat. Redecorated like an antique shop, roof terrace, my hosts catering up great food for everyone, and everyone inexplicably spoke English. I didn’t get much chance to see the city, but I had some landmarks pointed out to me from the rooftop. I couldn’t have planned it better.

Brazilian friendliness didn’t just run in this crowd either. A local on the metro wanted to make sure that I knew where I was going when I really didn’t think I was giving off a distressed look. The taxi driver to the airport may have weaved all over the road and I have a strong suspicion he was half-blind, but he kept conversation going all the way. The taxi driver in the city, even though we couldn’t speak a word in common, got me where I wanted to go smiling.

I haven’t yet been back, and part of me thinks that it’s because a new holiday would have to do a lot to match this first one. When you consider how massive Brazil is and how it borders the country I live in, it can’t be long until I start thinking about it again.

I’m doing a 30 before 30 challenge. One of the targets was to take my country count up to 20 and I thought I’d mark that with this list of my experiences in the places I’ve traveled to. Here’s the whole list if you’re interested.

Ranking my experiences in 20 different countries #10 – France

Posted on January 16, 2019 by lukemalkin

What’s going on here? I’m ranking my experiences in the 20 countries I’ve been to so far. Nostalgia is going to drive these explanations a bit further than #20 – 11. From here on, each country is getting its own mini expose starting with…

#10 – France

Visited: Paris, Strasbourg, Tours, Various towns and cities as a child

Hopping on the ferry across the English Channel was the first border I crossed. It’s still the border I’ve crossed the most. The de facto Malkin family holiday when I was a child was to drive across some nice French countryside, stopping at a theme park on the way to a quiet gîte for the week. It’s also a place I’ve revisited a few times as an adult.

Yep..my dad was a sandals and socks guy…

These holidays were characterised by long car journeys listening to cassettes of ABBA and Dire Straits as we rolled through French countryside. Biking to the boulangerie for croissants in the morning and making friends with neighbourhood dogs. Going to Versailles and found that the only running water that day was in the public toilets. Listening to my dad fail gallantly trying to use the reflexive, and that one time in the restaurant when I showed him up by knowing how to say green beans in French when he didn’t. These trips inspired me to take French at A-level actually. I don’t think I ever understood the reflexive, nor much else in French for that matter, but I do love the language.

Despite living next to Alton Towers, I’ve never loved a theme park more than Parc Asterix, and a couple of visits there have to be my French highlight. The rides, the characters, the shows. Absolute magic. That theme tune rings happiness through me even to this day. Eurodisney is great too, don’t get me wrong, but never overlook a plucky gaul.

Strasbourg is worth a mention while I’m here, a solo trip there was the first place I took myself to completely independent of anyone’s advice while taking advantage of cheap European flights. I’ve been to a beautiful wedding in France too. On the way back from that wedding I dropped in on a friend in Paris whom I greatly admire for the way she carved out her own corner of La Ville-Lumière with a cozy high-up flat.

Paris is a beastly kind of gorgeous. There is a recognised medical condition for disappointed Japanese tourists who don’t find Paris lives up to their lofty expectations and I can totally see why that exists but for me, the Eiffel Tower isn’t even overrated. I adore its balls-out audacity, especially when you consider the time it was built. What even is it? Why does it it exist? It shouldn’t exist, but it does and somehow it immediately justifies itself. Like London or Beijing, Paris has been one of these constantly relevant powerhouse cities for so long that it’s no wonder that you can bounce from world-class this to world-class that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ugly in parts and I’d never live there, but I’m a world away from checking myself into any Japanese clinic anytime soon. Vive la France.