Moving, not travelling.

Memories and Forecasts is moving! I’ve decided to combine my travel and food writing into one neat package at TheCrazyIsCatching.com. Come visit me at my new abode, no airports or train stations are needed.

When you put it like that..

 

via 'I Can Read'

It’s all very well and good to write about places I love, places I’ve been and places I think you should visit. There is some merit in recommending a great place for hot chocolate or the best spot to eat All You Can Eat Chinese food in Las Vegas. People are interested in that and by offering suggestions I can help, in some small way. But what about the other part of the world? What about the sizeable portion of the world, the inhabitants of the imaginary village nobody wants to read about, what is their place in all of this? While writing this I keep thinking about Voluntourism.

At present I know of a few people helping build schools in parts of Africa and South America. Their plans are typical of others who have given up their time to do the same: work hard for a few weeks, experience life south of the equator, be shocked by how hard people have it there and how easy we live and for the remaining fortnight or three weeks of their trip head off white water rafting, climbing, touring or just make a quick exit to the nearest “civilised” city and have fun. Does this sound cynical? It should. Many of these people organised quizzes, barbeques, auctions and other charitable events to get them where they are now. They asked me and you for money to pay for their flights and accommodation because at the end of the day they were going to Africa (the dark continent that rarely gets a country-specific breakdown) to HELP CHILDREN.

My problem is not why they go but rather how they go about it. Why do you not fund the trip yourself, sacrificing nights out and superfluous clothing for a few weeks? Why not attempt to join a recognised charitable organisation working in areas of real need for a few months instead of calling your three weeks in Kenya your good and everlasting deed for humanity? If the call of charity is so strong for these people why must their first foray be in a country thousands of miles from their own while several at-home charities waste away due to lack of volunteers?

I say all of this from an outsider’s perspective. I have never engaged in charity work outside this country and, sadly, have no immediate plans to do so. I sincerely applaud the work, the hard back-breaking work, of those people who give their lives, their time and their skills to changing the lives of those less fortunate. I am not so blind, however, to see that the majority of my peers who “go to Africa” for a month to “help build schools” are doing so in a flippant and selfish way. Helping people should not be an album in your Facebook photos; it should be something more than an anecdote to tell at dinner parties. Flying to faraway lands with the intention of helping them is not tourism, it is work: hard, difficult and hopefully rewarding work. The sooner people realise this the sooner real problems might actually begin to be solved, not temporarily fixed by the band-aid of voluntourism.

 

 

My Milan: no criticism allowed

Now seems a good time to begin my series on Italian cities. I’ve seen a few owing to a year studying in Bologna and numerous trips with my family. Today is the turn of Milan, the city the Italians, and almost everybody else, love to hate.

 

Piazza del Duomo, Milan © Ciara Norton

 

Milan is not as pretty as Florence. It is not saturated in ruins and history and religion like Rome. The food’s okay, but it’s no Bologna. I’m told it’s under sea level so it’s most assuredly not Venice. Milan suffers from comparisons drawn with every other Italian city and it is in doing this that visitors make their first mistake. Forget everything else you’ve seen of Italy and embrace the city, it’s the only way you and Milan will  get along.

I say this with love and experience. I believe the reason I forgive Milan so much is because it gave me my first taste of Italy. My Dad was working in the city and we visited regularly during that time. Our initial contact was a week spent there after a week skiing in the north. We spent our days touring and seeing most of what the city has to offer a family with three teenagers. Hours were spent in and around Piazza del Duomo and in the nearby castle and park. We arrived just before Ash Wednesday and witnessed streets thronged with men, women and children celebrating – if that’s the correct word to use here –  the beginning of Lent. As we walked through the streets that day, our clothes and hair ruined with silly string, it became obvious to me that this was not a city that worshipped tourists; Milan tolerates but does not bow to tourism. The Milanese are too busy doing other things to stop and try to sell you anything; you have to make and find your own fun here.

The highlight of that trip was a day in the San Siro stadium watching AC Milan demolish Catania. The tifosi were out in force despite the tame nature of the game itself. Flares were thrown, massive flags unfurled and voices worn thin by screaming, supporting, admonishing. Getting the metro home that night it felt like we were spending a week living in a real Italian city, a city where people – including my Dad  -worked, lived and played.

Since then I’ve always loved Milan. During my year in Bologna people would stare in disbelief as I tried to defend this city. “Ugh, it’s so industrial“, “It’s ugly” they would say. I forgot how to defend it because it was an industrial city and, unfortunately, the buildings tended more toward functional than frivolous. But no, I could not forsake Milan. There was a part of me that saw past the greyness, the so-called industy ( a dirty word for those people who feel that industry should be hidden from their delicate Art History Major-ed eyes) and fought for a city that housed the Last Supper, was home to the magnificent Duomo (even better now it’s been cleaned outside) and is at the centre of that most beautiful and daring of industries: fashion.

Scott Schuman, also known as The Sartorialist, says of Milan,

Milan gets a bad rap as Italy’s industrial city but I think that’s dead wrong. If you get out of the city centre into some of the neighbourhoods it’s just as beautiful as Venice, or Florence. It still retains its old-world charm – waiters still wear beautiful white jackets in a lot of the most traditional restaurants and bars – but Milan is not trapped by its history like Rome or Venice. It is a thriving modern city and Italy’s centre of fashion and design. Still, it has some of the most beautiful and serene museums, trattorias and courtyards in the country. Milan has tremendous cultural influence on the rest of Italy, Europe and the World.

That says it all, really. It’s a wonderful city. In the last few years I’ve gone on weekends and daytrips and it continues to surprise me. For every time I’ve been caught in the rain by the Navigli [canals] searching in vain for an open pizzeria there are multiple trips to Peck to ogle the most amazing food ever, walks around the streets teeming with designer boutiques and hours of getting lost in my own thoughts as you people-watch from a café’s window.  If you are going don’t listen to anyone but yourself. Milan is a great, great city that will show you more of Italy than a trip on a Venetian Gondola or a day’s pounding the many pavements in Rome.

- I’ve written about Milan’s bike rental scheme, BikeMi, here

Smitten with Barcelona

Standing in Antonio Gaudí’s Parc Güell, you can see across the city of Barcelona to the Mediterranean. This view can tell a visitor more about this city on the sea than anything else.

Straight ahead are the skyscrapers and cranes working towards modernising the city, pulling it into the 21st century. To their left is the Sagrada Família, a half-finished temple intended to dwarf everything else when complete.

Beyond that is the Barri Gòtic, or Gothic Quarter, its winding streets untouched by time and commerce. Nearer the water is the Olympic Village, a reminder of Barcelona’s brightest moment in the sporting sun, and the Camp Nou stadium, the venue for countless crazy nights of soccer glory.

Inside La Sagrada Familia © Ciara Norton

The capital of Catalonia, Barcelona prides itself on its heritage and dedication to the language and customs of the Catalan people. Most people speak Catalan as well as Spanish, streets signs are in both languages and many shops and restaurants advertise only in Catalan.

It is this distinction from mainstream Spanish culture and language that lends Barcelona an offbeat air that permeates the streets of the city. Gaudí began the architectural revolt against straight lines and uniformity when he started his career in the city, and it is obvious that his spirit of adventure lives on in the people and the buildings.

Viva Las Vagueness

This past week I listened to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie. My week involved a lot of time travelling: an hour on a bus here, 20 minutes on a ferry there. When I travel I like music that doesn’t demand a lot of me and, as I have listened to every Death Cab song an inordinate number of times, I feel safe when I press play knowing I can concentrate on the scenery or a long-overdue nap. The reason I ramble so about my music choice was that a song on The Open Door EP, ‘Little Bribes’ reminded me of a week my friends and I spent in Las Vegas. You can watch the song performed live here, or listen on the band’s Myspace here.

Vegas was our holiday from a holiday. It was our last hoorah before we had to pack our backs and return home after a summer in San Francisco. It seemed wrong to be so close (40 minutes flight time) to this famed city and not partake of the crazy so we went.

Excalibur's giant slot machine and Me

Our hotel “The Wild Wild West Gambling Hall and Hotel” sounded like fun.* We joked in the taxi on the way there that the hotel would be shaped like a cowboy hat and the bedrooms themed like saloons. Arriving at the two storey motel-esque joint so close but yet so far from the strip we were nothing if not a little disappointed. But it was cheap and close enough to everything we needed. Now I know that hotels in Vegas are generally cheap and that you can stay in one of the huge casinos for about as much as we paid for our old gambling hall. We didn’t know that then so we made do with the aging decor, the hard towels and the kidney shaped puddle they called a pool.

Stilled Life

I have been remiss with my shiny new blog, perhaps because writing about travelling when you’re staying still is harder than I thought it would be. Tonight I will remedy that with a few posts. But first a picture that is what my last trip was all about: coffee, sun-filled mornings, a lake and food, lots of.

If, perchance, I do go to Paris..

© Haven in Paris

I would like to stay here, at “Haven in Paris”. These are self catering apartments in Paris that are so utterly pretty and beautiful I am doing all I can not to search for cheap flights and go now. And while they’re not cheap they’re not too expensive either. If you fill the apartments to full occupancy you’ll pay far less than you would in the confines of a stuffy hotel room.

Chilling out here versus chilling in a nasty hotel bar? © Haven in Paris

When away I’ve almost always stayed in self-catering. Having the facility to keep drinks cool, rustle up a sandwich when you’re the only hungry one in your group and stay in with simple food and takeaway wine on a quiet evening is so convenient. And while I live for morning coffees on the piazza, boozy lunches and dining al fresco in the evening I also like keeping my options open.

Staying self catering also allows me to indulge my love for supermarkets, odd I know.. I like seeing what others consider staples and, but of course, checking out how much cheaper everything is when you’re not in Ireland. In Spain you can find Oreos coated in milk chocolate and Sangria in a carton for less than a euro, both definitely worth the supermarket trip. And while wandering the aisles of yet another chain store may not get your blood pumping I find it a useful way to acclimatise yourself to a new city and neighbourhood, that and having a ” we don’t speak the same language but we’re trying our best” conversation with the lady in the local bakery. You’ll come out with nothing you thought you wanted and everything you need to know for the journey ahead.