Tall but not Wide

I am not a giant, well I don’t think I am. At 6 foot 4 inches (194cm) I don’t find this to be freakishly tall. After travelling Europe though I think now that I might be.

The problems I have whilst travelling just to name but a few.
Doorways – often low requiring me to duck constantly
Low ceilings – especially in the old houses, the people must have been shorter then
Shower heads – always coming up to my neck or chest
Short beds – often requiring me to sleep foetal when there are bed ends.
Plane/bus/train seats – more on the low cost air carriers, the person in front cannot recline due to my knees being there, causing them to get angry at me.

Not being wide does have its advantages. It has allowed me to fit in showers, often very small in width ( the high does have a disadvantage here as the showers aren’t big I struggle to wash my feet as the room to lift my knees is very limited). Getting up the narrow and winding staircases of the old castles and buildings. I have no idea how the fatties squeeze up them

I often wonder how the tall native people cope with these living conditions as I  struggle. I don’t want to complain and I love the travelling life, I just needed to vent and let the world know of the struggles of the tall and not wide.

For your enjoyment I have added some images of these struggles.

World of Kebabs

Having travelled the for the last 4 years there is one thing that I usually eat, well have to try in each country. That is the kebab (doner style), it has many different names in each country but always from the same big slab of meat on the rotating spit. Having sampled this food in many countries here is my ratings on them and in no particular order as its all a person choice on what style you like. Starting with the kebab I grew up on and the best way I like them.

[note: this are from my experience and the places I have had them, they may vary from regions in said countries, also my accounts may not be 100% due to the nature of eating a kebab after a few beers]

Australia (Sydney)
Bread – Large flat pita bread
Filling – Meat of choice (beef, chicken, lamb, or mix of all) lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, Tabouli and sauce of choice.
Style – The bread is laid flat on top of aluminium foil, sauce on top, then all the salad and the meat. The bread is rolled (folding bottom up first then the sides) up in the aluminium foil then placed in a sandwich press for 30secs – 1 min before being placing in a paper bag with aluminium lining and handed to the customer.

United Kingdom (London)
Bread – small dry pita, cut in the middle
Filling – meat (chicken, lamb), onion, tomato, cabbage (sometimes lettuce) sauce of choice on top (usually garlic or chilli), some places a whole chilli on top uncut
Style – cut the pita down the middle making a pocket. Add the meat then the salad filing on the top, adding the sauce over the top of the salad, cupped in paper and a fork added to the top before handing to customer.

RockWerchter (Belgium music festival) Known as a MEGA pita
Bread – Giant Pita
Filling – (beef, chicken, lamb, or mix of all) lettuce, onion, tomato sauce of choice
Style – A giant pita cut in half and just stuffed with everything. Memory a bit hazy but it was huge and the sauce was from a giant pump bottle that they covered it in. After a full day of drinking this thing was tops.

Spain (Barcelona)
Bread - tortilla
Filling – (beef, chicken, lamb, or mix of all) lettuce, onion, tomato sauce of choice
Style - The bread is laid flat, sauce on top, then all the salad and the meat. The bread is rolled (folding bottom up first then the sides)

Greece (Islands) named Gyros
Bread – small pita
Filling – meat (pork, lamb, chicken), Tzatziki sauce, lettuce, tomato chips (hot)
Style – bread laid down, Tzatziki spread over that, then add the filling with the chips on top. Roll bread in a cone shape and wrap in paper, hand to customer

Germany (Berlin)
Bread – small dry pita, cut in the middle
Filling – meat (chicken, lamb), onion, tomato, red cabbage, sauce of choice on top (curry is recommended)
Style – cut the pita down the middle making a pocket. Add the meat then the salad filing on the top, adding the sauce over the top of the salad, cupped in paper and a fork added to the top before handing to customer. You can ask for a rolled kebab.

I would love to have some photo evidence of me chowing down on these but they don’t last very long in my grip. There have been more countries than these listed. These are the major changes in the way we eat them.

I find it fascinating that of all the countries that the kebab can bring a culture of its own from the country that makes it. They vary so much but the base ingredient still comes from the same slab of meat.

Please comment and let me know of your kebab experience

Glen

UPDATE: 03/07/2011
I have just been to Romaina and had thier kebab or shaorma as they call it. They are very similar to the Greek kebab of a gyros with the chips in the middle.

Bread – wrap

Filling – meat (chicken), Lettuce, may, ketchup, and Gherkins

Style for those of you interested mine was made in a wrap with mayo and ketchup on the bottom a layer of lettuce and then a few hot chips added in, next went the chicken from the kebab roll. Then onto the chicken went some gherkins and it was all rolled up. It was alright but a bit of a disappointment  the flavour just was not there for me. Not sure what it was but this on lacked something. I doubt i will give it another try but this has not been my favourite kebab.







Update 9/7/2011
We have been to the home of the Kebab – Turkey. Where we will be spending 2 weeks travelling around. I started this amazing 2 weeks with of course a kebab. First I had a chicken kebab meat on a bread roll with salad. We also had the classic shish kebab and then a kebab opened on a plate. I know before the end is up here I will have a rolled kebab and then be a happy man.

 

Copenhagen – Denmark 28-30 August 2010

Another long weekend in the UK and we decided to head off out of London. This time we were off to Copenhagen in Denmark. We might even get a chance to have a cuppa with Princess Mary and Prince Frederick.

Getting up super early to catch our plane on the Saturday morning we were up at 4:30 to get our taxi at 5, we had a 6:50am flight. Surviving the 1.5 hr flight, sleeping almost the whole way, except to get our free food. We touched down and made it through immigration and into the country with relative ease. Our first queue was to get a ticket for the train into the city. The machines only took cards and I only wanted to use cash. This turned out to be a good thing as we ended up getting return tickets and saved ourselves almost £5 in the process. I will apologise now as I may bang on a bit about how expensive it was to do or buy anything in Denmark.

We got out at central station and headed to our hotel. Yep that’s right we were staying in a hotel. Living like kings us, well not really we booked the hotel using a voucher Kieran got from her work. This meant we had free accommodation, thinking it was wise to use it in an expensive city. We dropped our bags off, sorted our selves out and then headed into town. Our first stop was a hop off hop on bus stop to see the sights and have a nice bus ride around. We had free vouchers from the terrible service we had in Poland. We cashed in our vouchers and boarded the bus for the red line all the way around town. We like to take a full loop first to see where we want to get off. Taking the whole red route we finished and had out lunch pit stop. We had KFC! Not having eaten KFC in years and being in a foreign country it wasn’t our first choice but it was close and cheap so we just took it and ate there. When we got out, we had our new fried energy in our bellies we took to the green route. It was halfway through this route that Kieran was starting to crash so bad that she feel asleep. It was time to head back to the hotel and check in for a nana nap.

Struggling to wake up an hr later we headed out and saw our first proper tourist attraction that is the round tower. Pretty much it’s a round tower attached to a church. The tower has no stairs but a spiral ramp going all the way to the top. This was much easier to get up and down than steps. Going to the top of the tower we took in the sights of the whole city. It was well worth the walk and I can recommend it to anyone even those who hate heights. Making out way down and with the sun setting it was time for dinner. Wandering the streets and heading to Nyhavn (New Haven) for a look for some restaurants we quickly walked elsewhere as there was no way we could afford to eat at theses places with their main meals all in the £20 price range. Walking and looking at a lot of restaurants and cafes we finally settled on a vegetarian buffet. Gorging ourselves we rolled home for a night in.

Sunday
Heading down to the hotel restaurant for our breakfast we were pleasantly surprised to see the spread of food they had. Needless to say we stuffed ourselves stupid especially on the thing they are famous for Danishes!

After our bus rides the day before we knew what to tackle on the tourist route. First on our agenda was the Kastellet. Taking the hop on hop off bus back to this spot. When we arrived we found that there was a walkathon taking place. With thousands of people in the fort we had a quick walk around and then left as we couldn’t see much due to the crowds. We did have a think about taking part in the walkathon but there was a time schedule to keep to. From the fort we walked to Amalienborg Palace which is where the Queen and her children live. No one was home when we were there L sadness no offer of a cuppa tea from Mary. Here we waited for the changing of the Guard. Purely a functional role with a bit of ceremony and history but no marking bands or flashyness that the English have going on. There was marching and all that although it took about 10mins for the new guards to walk out. The crowds grew tired and many had left by the time the whole thing was over.

After the changing of the guard we went to Christiania the hippy town. This was a squatters paradise essentially. People had moved in in the 70’s and never left now it’s a tourist attraction and many people still live there. There were loads of people smoking pot and selling it freely on the street. Although we were told that it was illegal. Not enjoying this place as I am sure many people do, we found it to be a dead beat place with mostly men just selling drugs in a seedy area. You are not allowed to take any photos in here.

We left Christiania to find some food and ended up in a cafe where all we wanted was the hot dog meal (yep Danish has loads of hot dogs) but we couldn’t get that so we settled for a burger and milkshake. Ohhh man it was good. It was huge too; we both could not finish our lunch and had to leave the chips and even some of the bun! It was an expensive burger but given its size we were happy. We ended the day with a walk around the shops and wandering the city. We didn’t have any dinner as a product of the giant burgers we ate.

Monday

After checking out of the hotel and rolling down the street with our bellies fully of breakfast, we went on the hunt for tourist souvenirs. We found what we wanted and headed to the Tivoli park. Tivoli is a park with rides in the centre of the city. It is pretty much and amusement park. There are loads of rides and nice areas to just sit. We got ourselves unlimited ride passes for 300 Kroner each and headed in. We got there 15mins before the rides were to start. We had a nice wander around and found what we wanted to go on. We started small and made our way to the big ones. We ended up on a few kiddies ones by mistake. We went on the worlds largest (so said by a person who works there) chair swing at over 80meters high. We got a great view of the city from up there. Kieran was a bit to worried to enjoy the view. We also went on a plane ride which spun you around and gave you up to 5g’s it was an awesome ride. There were a few rollercoaster which were good fun. A cool thing they had in the park was a Hans Christen Anderson ride which was a gentle rollercoaster taking you through parts of his books and telling you the stories it was very cool.

When we had accomplished all the rides and were about to start eating lunch the heavens opened up an made us and everyone else run for cover. By the time we had finished lunch the rain had stopped so we went back to one last ride on “The Daemon” yep just like the one in Australia’s wonderland it had the loops and all. As we got off this ride it started to rain again. Thus ending out time in Tivoli and Denmark. Off we headed to the airport to make our way home.

Copenhagen is well worth the visit, although it is pricey for food and accommodation it is still worth the look as the city has some cool stuff on offer. Especially for the rides. After experiencing the city for only a few days we realise why Mary was happy to give up her life in Aus and settle here. It would be very easy to do.