Ollllllllympics!!! The Opening Ceremony :D

I love the Olympics. So many amazing people trying so hard, making their countries proud, flags and anthems and surprise victors coming from behind. And this time around I'm right in the middle of it all!

We had a table booked at a bar near London Bridge with a huge projection screen to watch the opening ceremony, so I turned up there at 6pm to find that one of our party had managed to scrounge a ticket to the actual ceremony. So we all complained about that for a while but decided that we'd probably get a better view, what with the cameras showing it all in close detail. I found a drink on the menu called a Pan-galactic Gargle-blaster, which was chocolate rather than lemon-flavoured and tasted like someone had shaved dark chocolate into it, though it looked like white wine. The bar also had a really good vegetarian platter with mozzarella and olives and sundried tomatoes and risotto balls which were absolutely delicious.

The place began to pack out and we fiercely defended the space in front of our chairs when people tried to block our view. At last the countdown started.... Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight... We were very impressed by the visuals for each of the numbers, and the air was tingling as everyone shouted the countdown along with the screen. There were at least two hundred people inside, and more outside. You could hardly hear the commentators for the noise.

And then it was happening! I loved the dance moves from the men in top hats, and the huge chimneys rising out of the idyllic farms, and all the cameos from famous Britons. When Daniel Craig arrived at Buckingham Palace everyone was muttering 'please let it be the actual queen, please let it be the actual queen' and a huge cheer went up when it was. We sang along to the songs, clapped when Mary Poppins vanquished Voldemort and oohed at the fireworks.

And then came the teams!

There are an awful lot of teams. I love the opening ceremony procession, because everyone looks so proud to be representing their country, so happy to be actually at the Olympics after working so hard for so long, and so hopeful - everything is still to come, and anything could happen. I decided quite quickly that New Zealand should legally change its name to Aotearoa (see? Then we'd be almost first) but finally there was Nick Willis with the flag, and everyone behind him marching into the stadium to the roar of the crowd. Then we still had to wait for the other half of the world until Great Britain's entrance, which was pretty deafening in the middle of a crowd of English people.

It was awesome. I quite liked the fact that they said everything in French first, because I could understand most of it and I knew what was happening before everyone else did (heehee). I also liked the oaths from the representatives, some of whom looked extremely nervous as they did it and so relieved and proud afterwards. The lighting of the cauldron was beautiful. Hey Jude was the perfect song for the end, because everyone can sing along even if they've never heard it before and don't know the language (though I did think there were about four too many hey Judes...).

The whole thing finished at about one o'clock, which is usually too late to catch the tube home (stupid tubes finish at 12.45) but THEY ARE EXTENDING THE TUBE HOURS FOR THE OLYMPICS. This is amazing. They should do it every weekend. I'm also enjoying being able to grocery shop on Sunday evenings, which is usually impossible because everywhere shuts at 4 - but not during the Olympics!

It's the small things.

Margaret Mahy, the Olympic Torch and Horsies

This will be a double-topic post, catching up from the one I meant to do in the weekend but never really got around to.

I was very sad to hear of Margaret Mahy's death earlier in the week. My copy of A Lion in the Meadow has a very good picture of a lion drawn in by the lady herself, and I remember standing before the Wellington Library steps as a small child, entranced by her rainbow wig as she read aloud. I loved her picture books, especially Seventeen Kings and Forty-Two Elephants, and her books for older readers of which my favourite is Alchemy.

I keep hearing about how much people love The Changeover, and wondering whether I've read it or not - I thought I had, but maybe not. I must investigate further. I think I might have to have a go at reading all her books... And watching Maddigan's Quest and Kaitangata Twitch, which I never managed to catch for some reason. She will be missed! If you've never read any Margaret Mahy, go and find some now. It should be pretty easy in New Zealand, but you might have to search a bit elsewhere. She was incredibly prolific, so there should be something for everyone :)

Last Saturday saw the Olympic Torch relay come near me, so I woke up early and stared at the live video of the torch making its way through Greenwich, aghast at all the people who'd got up before seven on a Saturday to see it go past. Their commitment inspired me in the end and I dragged myself out of bed and out the door.

I wasn't quite sure where to go to see the torch, so I just ended up walking until I found the route and then walking a bit further until it seemed like I had a good spot. There weren't too many people at first, but there were quite a few kids waving torches they'd made themselves and lots of police stationed or coming past. My spot was right outside the entrance to the Royal Artillery Barracks, and I didn't realise how good this was until the horses appeared.

Horses! A huge procession of them, pulling carts with guns on them! Horsies with guns! And soldiers all dressed up in red uniforms! The procession strung out along the yard and the horses stamped and fidgeted a bit as we waited in the early morning sun for the torch.

First past were the sponsors, singing and dancing and giving out free drums and the smallest coke bottles I've ever seen (250mL). That was amusing, and I tried to decide how I feel about sponsorship. On the one hand, I think it's slightly evil that these huge conglomerates get to brainwash people all along the way, but on the other hand, they're running a business and they are making the Olympics happen, and I appreciate that. After the sponsors came the traffic jam of normal people who were just trying to get around on a Saturday morning. After that was a bit more security, and then the runner with the flame and his bodyguards!

Everyone cheered and waved flags and snapped away with cameras, and then ran to follow as he went past. There was a changeover right outside the Royal Artillery gates, with lots of good photo opportunities while they passed the flame from one torch to the next. The torches are very sparkly.

The next runner set off, and the Horsies with guns followed dutifully behind, along with about half the people who'd been watching (including me). It was a great atmosphere, and I can't wait for the opening ceremony which I'm sure will be even better.

Gridlock London, Spider-man and Comic Books

I know, I know, I haven't done a blog post in a while now. I have been trying to figure out the best way to get to work when they close half of a major tunnel for the Olympics and it backs up the traffic so that my bus takes twice as long to get to the tube station. The transport for London people were kind of helpful - they've supplied us with walking maps of the area - but even with the traffic I think walking would take longer than the bus. I could take the train and change to the tube at London Bridge, but London Bridge is pretty much my most hated train station and they've made it even worse at the moment by closing off the direct route from train to tube. Now you have to go out onto the street, around, and back into the station if you want to get on the Underground.

Ha. Rant over.

Another reason I may not have posted recently is that I have been watching Spider-man. I really like this movie. I have seen it in 3D, 3D-moving seats, and er, twice in 2D. It's free, okay?

I get like this with some things. You may remember my Merlin posts from last year. So I've been trying to figure out what I like about it. Secret identity? Check. Good acting? Check. Minimal plot holes? I think I've found them all now, and they don't bother me too much. I prefer the oh-we-can't-be-together ending in this version much more than the Tobey Maguire ending, which I thought was a bit unbelievable and faintly annoying (oh, I love you so much I'm going to stay away from you out of the amazing moral awesomeness of my heart. Come on. It's cliché). I also liked that Peter Parker wasn't that stereotypical geeky guy who always gets picked on - the character development was great. You can really see that pre-spider bite Peter could become Spider-man.

My slight obsession with the movie got me thinking about comic books, and why I love comic-book style stories but not comic books. Or manga or graphic novels. I feel I should like them. I like art, and I like stories. Graphic novels have both. So why can't I get into them?

Maybe it's because I feel I have to study the pictures in depth and really appreciate them and so I never get into the flow of things. Maybe I miss the description of books, and my brain isn't satisfied with pictures (though I did love the Hugo Cabret book, which is half in words and half in pictures). Whatever the reason, my brain just doesn't click with them. It's the same with video games. I like driving games and the flying bits in Spyro and Harry Potter, but anything else and I get bored.

I guess lots of people can't get into books the same way I can't get into graphic novels.

Oh, and by the way, if you can get to watch Spider-man with moving seats, do it. It's awesome. I thought it would be a bit distracting, but I missed it when I watched it again without the seats. I kept expecting to feel the explosions or rock back when Spider-man's swinging, and was disappointed when it didn't happen.

Is there a particular medium you get bored with?

 

Countdown to that big sports tournament thingy

It is becoming more and more apparent that the Olympics will be on in London in less than a month. All important tube stations have pink signs up advising which way to Olympic venues, which is very helpful in a vague sort of way, considering I am much more likely to be trying to get to work or home than Horse Guards Parade for the beach volleyball. I found out this morning that Bank Tube station has changed the direction of some of their escalators so that they ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE. This means I am less likely to get stuck in Bank Station for months wandering round and round, every so often catching sight of signs saying 'Way Out' but never quite getting there.

The Great Olympic Fence of St James's Park

Piccadilly Circus tube station was announcing everything in Italian the other day, which was rather jarring, and an enthusiastic young policeman tried to force an oyster card holder on me as I came through the barriers. Hmm. I wonder if it was a special Olympics one. maybe I'll take one next time.

I was on the Underground at 6.30 this evening, later than normal, but it was still completely packed, so much so that sometimes people couldn't get on. You also hear lots of foreign accents and languages.the tourist and athlete and support staff influx is beginning...

I received my Olympic ticket in the mail this morning from a very cheery postman. It includes my ticket, an all-day travel card (very handy... Now I have to figure out how to time it so I don't pay for my oyster card on that day), some cardboard punchy-outy things and information about taekwondo, the sport I'm going to see. It makes it seem a lot more real and close.

Not long now...

A week of books and movies

Hello all! I thought you might like a bit of time to read all the Turkey posts, but I'm back now! I've been having an entertainment-filled week, so I will report on that.

First, Rock of Ages. I went in with low expectations due to reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was amazing. I felt like dancing out of my seat but thought it might annoy the people behind me, and also considered hands-above-the-head clapping, but dismissed it for the same reason. My flatmates also liked it, and we shared our guilt over the fact that none of us have been to the stage show, which is probably better and has been showing in the West End for a while (this is a common conversation, also undertaken after seeing War Horse and Mamma Mia). The story of Rock of Ages was perhaps a little well-worn, but it's a feel-good musical, people, and the songs were pretty awesome. And the dancing. Especially loved the Alec Baldwin/Russell Brand duet.

Next up was Snow White and the Huntsman, which I enjoyed though found myself distracted by outside thoughts every so often and had to remind myself to focus-on-movie. It's a very pretty movie, though I thought the Snow-White-as-chosen-one thing was a bit random. Was this because she's not so much a chosen one in the original story, or some other reason? Do I just have a thing against chosen ones? I like Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker. Is it a boy/girl thing? I hope not. I get the feeling the chosen-one stuff was weighted more towards the end and not introduced properly, though that might just be because I didn't notice it towards the beginning. Anyway, I didn't mind too much, and enjoyed the motion-master effects of the seats in front of me, especially the explosions (they have motion-master seats in my local theatre!).

Final movie of the weekend was Men in Black 3, which I loved. They have so many little by-the-by jokes in their world building so you're laughing much of the way through, and then there's a twist at the end that I thought was really well-done but won't say anything about. Definitely recommended.

And in books! I finished Garth Nix's A Confusion of Princes, which was hilarious and addictive. I loved the voice of the main character, and the fact that the MC is already guaranteed (and feels entitled to) an extraordinary destiny rather than the normal-character-finding-extraordinary-destiny trope that you see a lot.

I think I am using too-many-dashes.

Moving on to the next book (yes I have seen/read this many things this week. I am catching up on my entertainment): Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star. This is a Jack the Ripper ghost story set in modern London, and seriously freaked me out, especially as the next door neighbour has recently started making loud banging noises in his back garden at 11 o'clock at night which may or may not be the sound of bodies being dismembered. I really enjoy reading books set in London while in London, because sometimes you know the places you're being shown and get a little thrill of recognition (this happened with the last Cassandra Clare Infernal Devices book too - she describes an alley that I walk down almost weekly!). Anyway, The Name of the Star has lots of awesome things to recommend it: ghosts, London, murder investigations, evaluation/criticism of the media, boarding school, brave heroine, secret lives, disguise, the Tube... So, yes, it's good. Go read it :-)

Have a good week!

Turkey Days 7 and 8: Pamukkale, Night Buses and Istanbul's Grand Bazaar

I'm back in London now, and it's about twenty degrees cooler than it was in Turkey. Back to work tomorrow...

The day after Ephesus and our Turkish bath, we got a shuttle to the train station for our train to Denizli, a town further inland famous for cotton. The train was very full and we took a while to find seats, and once we did I spent the remaining three hours sleeping, or looking it the window at the tall hills and fields and towns. From Denizli we took a bus to Pamukkale, which is famous for its white terraces.

When I was tiny, we used to get pizza from a place with a poster of the terraces displayed proudly on the wall, and I always wanted to go there. I was very excited when I saw it was included on the itinerary, and it was just as amazing as I'd thought. You can see it as a white section of hill as you approach, and then as you get closer the white resolves into cliffs and terraces and tiny dots of people moving up and down. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant where the owner performed dramatic caricatures of each of our nationalities (including an attempted haka), then reapplied our sunscreen to every bit of exposed skin and walked up to the terraces.

At first it looks a lot like a ski slope, but when you get right on the travertines you feel the rough calcium beneath your feet and see the rivulets of water and patterns in the stone. I decided the texture was most like dragon skin, and if anyone ever needs to take a plaster cast of a material for a movie or some such thing, they should go to Pamukkale.

In the eighties the terraces had hotels built on top of them and a road following them up (actually on the travertines. Can't quite believe it) but when they became a World Heritage Site they demolished the hotels and replaced the road with artificial pools. The pools still look particularly man-made, but I guess they're a lot better than the road and the hotels. You're still allowed to walk on the travertines as long as you don't wear shoes, but you're not really supposed to swim in the pools because it contaminates the water that should be forming the travertines. Lots of people do, however, and I wondered if they had some kind of system in place so that the water is directed over the natural travertines when the tourists aren't there, and over the man-made parts (which don't matter so much in my opinion) when they aren't. The natural pools didn't have any water running over them when we were there, so hopefully they're doing something like that.

By the time we reached the top my feet were a bit raw and everyone was very hot. There are ruins of the ancient city of Hieropolis at the top, as well as a swimming pool with real ancient columns in it and a place where you can have Doctor Fish 'give you a pedicure' (eat dead skin off your feet). Five of us tried the Doctor Fish and spent the first few minutes squealing and clutching at the sides of the tank as all the other customers sat looking sophisticated. It got better after that, and after the fish and the Turkish bath we were confident there was no dead skin anywhere on our bodies.

We wandered around the ruins a bit and then made our way back down the travertines, which I think was better than coming up with the whole white expanse spread before you and the plains below and the mountains in the distance. Absolutely incredible.

We had our last group dinner on the roof of a hotel beneath grape vines and left the Aqueduchess to continue her journeys in Cappadoccia, where they filmed the cave-house bits of Star Wars. The rest if us took a bus back to Denizli before getting a luxury night bus all the way to Istanbul. I managed to sleep about half the way, but by the time we got to Istanbul I was very tired. Our airport shuttle didn't leave until 1pm, so we spent the morning wandering the Grand Bazaar and using up most (or in my case, all) of our money. I think I got some good deals - best was 75% off, but that was more because I didn't have the correct change than because of my skill in bargaining.

It was sad to say goodbye to our group, but I think we'll stay in touch. Glamgirl and I were on the same flight back to London. We ate far too much free sample Turkish Delight in Istanbul Airport and searched for chocolate and Swiss army knives on our stop in Zurich airport. I found chocolate in the shape of a Swiss army knife, and then we boarded the plane with the least hassle I've ever encountered - no lines, just scan your own ticket, show your passport and walk onto the plane where everyone was very calm and reserved. I was amazed by the flight attendants' ability to switch immediately between French and English and German.

Now considering a trip to Barcelona. Hmmm.

 

 

Turkey Day 6: Ephesus, Selçuk and a Turkish Bath

I think my body is now about thirty percent sunscreen.

We got into Selçuk around noon and had lunch on the terrace roof of our hotel, looking out over the town and up to the medieval castle on a hill in the middle of the city. Again, lots of beautiful mezze and then a choice of fish, beef or chicken. The beef came on kebabs stuck artistically into half a tomato. We spent the afternoon wandering around Selçuk looking at the Basilica of St John, taking pictures of the one remaining column of the Temple of Artemis and visiting the museum, which has artefacts from Ephesus including lots of statues of Eros, most of which I found very creepy (little wise winged baby staring at you? Creepy). I especially found a gigantic emperor's head creepy, because it was carved to look like a baby's face. Lots of beautiful ancient jewellery and glass bottles and weapons, as well as marble upon marble upon marble.

At four o'clock it was cool enough to go to the ancient city of Ephesus, it being only about 32 degrees Celsius. We entered from the top and wound down through the valley, passing fields of columns and huge stones laid out for cataloguing as well as the smaller amphitheatre built into the hill. When you stand in the centre of the amphitheatre you hear your voice echo around.

We walked along ancient marble-paved streets, saw a bath house and a public toilet and lots and lots of cats who were very happy to pose for us.

At the bottom of the valley stands Ephesus's great library, which was the third biggest of the ancient world with 125,000 scrolls. They have done a lot of restoration work on it, and you've probably seen a picture of it with its tall pillared facade.

Inside there are two shafts that you can take flash pictures down and get back glimpses of the tomb inside. From the great library you walk through to the wide expanse of the agora market place with its double columns on all four sides, and then up to the grand amphitheatre where Bono's sung a concert. They're still restoring the amphitheatre, so I'd love to see what it looks like when it's all finished. Today you're allowed access to the bottom set of tiers and the stage with its incredible acoustic. The wind would have blown off the sea and carried voices even farther two thousand years ago, but the sea's now around eight kilometres away because of silt build-up.

Dinner was to be at a hotel up on the hill. Our transport arrived: a van and an open jeep. Glamgirl, the Aqueduchess, Pistachio Girl and I claimed the jeep and clutched the roll bars as we hurtled up the hill between houses and rugged fields. The hotel had a terrace with a view over the whole city, and a swimming pool. Within five minutes we were floating in the pool with drinks and taking in the scents of the barbecue.

The setting sun lured us out to take pictures, and then we had a beautiful dinner in the gathering dusk while three tiny pet dogs scampered around our feet. Our guide taught us some Turkish dances, one of which was a Turkish take on musical chairs where I came second. We all agreed that it was the most incredible place to have a meal, on the terrace looking over the city with its basilica and castle as the sun set behind the hills and the stars came out.

But the day was not yet over! We still had a Turkish Bath to go, an experience that many of the group viewed with trepidation. The atmosphere in the waiting room was thick with nerves, and many jokes were made about tea towels (the attire we were to wear into the bath house, though we were allowed togs/swimsuits as well).

The bath house itself is a domed room with shower stalls along two walls and a circular marble platform in the middle. The air is hot and humid, so much so that you need to take a cold shower at regular intervals. After about ten minutes of lying on the hot marble, the production line was put into motion: first the right-hand side marble bench, where the man scrubbed you down with scrubbers and exfoliated half your skin off in rolls, and then the left hand bench where another man soaped you up, slung you around the slippery marble and poured cold water over you. We had an extra oil massage after that in another room, with olive oil, and then got back to the hotel around 1am. A long night, but it was worth it.