March 15, 2013

Where Am I?


A few days ago I began a long trip involving planes, trains, automobiles, and quite a bit of walking, too.

Twenty-four hours later, I arrived somewhere, but with all of the connections, I've sort of lost track of where I am, so maybe my readers can help me figure that out. Here are some photos I snapped while wandering around in a daze yesterday.

The strangest thing is that I nodded off somewhere along the way and dreamt I had a beer in a pub with gonzo Ozzie journo Buff Staysail. He bent my ear about how he writes all of the posts for world-famous travel blogger, Captain JP, who Buff claimed is not an actual person at all. The peculiar things that extended travel does to one's mind.

This must be the debtors prison. It has big fences and walls all around it and everyone was saying that none of the prisoners have worked a day in their lives.



The prison is very heavily guarded. The guards wear funny hats and march around a lot. They must not be very reliable guards because they are constantly being changed out for new guards.




This is a place of very sly irony and understated humor. The gates of the debtors prison are elaborately decorated and covered with gold - which must have been paid for by people other than the inmates, none of whom, remember, have ever worked for a living.



More gilded irony in front of the debtors prison.



They have the world's laziest pelicans here. Most pelicans have to work pretty hard for their dinner, tracking fish and diving down quickly from great heights to catch every single fish they eat. These pelicans just open their mouths and expect someone to throw food in. But, they were close to the debtors prison, so maybe they've learned how to feed themselves without working from the prison inmates.


The people here must not have a very good sense of time. They've had to put up this enormous clock tower with a loud, annoying set of bells that ring - get this - every fifteen minutes. I have a cheap, Chinese clock at home that plays the same song. You'd think if they were going to the trouble of erecting such a big clock tower that they could have come up wih something more original for the bells to play.


Everywhere you go here, there are monuments and statues of dead people. I think whenever someone dies, they immediately build a monument and put up a statue.

They seem to like fancy bridges and peculiarly shaped buildings here. I have no idea why, but I've been here only two days, so still have a few things to learn. Buff Staysail didn't explain everything to me in that dream I had.



If anyone has any idea where I am or why everything is so strange here, I could use some help.

And oh, I almost forgot - you're not going to believe how they drive here, but that's for another post.



22 comments:

  1. Blimey!

    You are only a small and pleasant walk away from the Magic Roundabout.

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  2. I see the inmates in their yellow vests. Are they on litter detail? They seem to be tethered together so as not to be tempted to make a run for it.

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    1. Those are not the inmates. No one ever sees the inmates walking about in public. They are very carefully guarded. Occasionally, they will appear from a high balcony and wave their hands. That is the only exercise they are permitted.

      I think these are the children of the other people who pay for all of the fancy gilded gates. The children must start work at a very early age to pay for all of the gold on the gates. And then, for every pound (uh, I'll explain that later) that they pay for almost anything, they have to pay 20 per cent more to pay for, uh well I don't know what that pays for. It must be for even more gilded gates.

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    2. The gilded gates are a good investment. Every year, they attract millions of American tourists who love to photograph them and write snarky blog posts about them.

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  3. No wait, that should be an easy and pleasant walk from your small hotel to the Magic Roundabout.

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    1. How did you know that we've been walking round about (round about is two words, I think). It's almost impossible to get anywhere here by walking in a straight line. The streets are very crooked, change names all of a sudden, and never go where you think they're headed.

      It's almost as if this started out as a bunch of completely different little villages and was then strung together by some drunken road builders.

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    2. That's why you are should use the Tube. As you can see from the map, all the lines are perfectly straight.

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  4. I know! I know! (waving hand to get teacher's attention)

    BTW Sassi is, like, totally gutted not to meet you guys

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    1. What, JP? You think you know where I've landed?

      Could it be a semi-precious stone set in a silver sea somewhere? Nah, thats too much alliteration for anywhere.

      BTW, tell Sassi that she was in my dream, too, but my wife sometimes reads this blog and I thought it best not to mention that.

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    2. I hope you guys can meet up for a pint or two, I mean you've gone all the way over there............wherever you may be.

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    3. And hey JP, isn't about time you get yourself one of those abattoirs instead of that generic orange B?

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    4. Do you like my new abattoir?

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    5. I noticed that. A rarity

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    6. Yup, Baydog, mine was a pint of Youngs and the O'Dockers had Grolsch, in a surprisingly well hidden pub just round the corner from Sloane Square.

      O'Docker: fair enough, means I won't have to reveal what Buff dreams about (YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW)

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  5. Lager? Dutch lager? In the real ale capital of the world? Are they American tourists or something?

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  6. An honest mistake.

    Six consonants and one vowel - I just assumed it was Welsh.

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  7. The O'Dockers were blending in: the locals rather like European lager

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  8. Does it say "arbeit macht frei" on those gates?
    I like the picture of the leprechauns wearing safety vests. You are very lucky indeed to catch them with your camera.

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  9. Umm... the odd shaped buildings are the result of using too much of a good thing. If you had shot them with a regular tourist camera that doesn't have such a wide-angle lens, they wouldn't look tilty.

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    1. You may be on to something. This could explain my tilted perspective on many things.

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