Started working towards this on and off since @orbific and I talked about it after he had workshopped a quick scribble of his own Gantt chart type timeline some years ago.
Posts published in “Travel”
Wanted to draw some maps myself but needed something to go off so came up with this little tool. Making use of the Google Maps API and AI Studio to create a ‘hand-drawn’ version of any place you like.
Enter your place name, click locate and it’ll come up with some major landmarks in that area (if you want). Choose your drawing aesthetic and paper size go to Draw Map and hey presto.
Bombed down the Wales Friday night just gone, stayed in Merthyr. Wow, now that is a very special place. Really friendly people though, bloke in a bar (we took the weekend off Dry Jan) called VNU insisted he bought us a drink. Then he got ejected for fighting. And everyone hates the English, all good bants, mainly about the rugby but what with the area being the heartlands of their old mining industry, even Thatcher got a mention.
Drove up the road to the Storey Arms at the foot of the hills and made out ascent. About a 2.5hr round trip taking in Corn Du and Pen-y-Fan (we were later corrected that it’s pronounced Penivan). Excellent to get amongst it once again.
Then over to Aberdare for a Bowie tribute band that evening where we were well looked after by the locals there too.
Love love love that part of the world. Love Wales. Love the Welsh. Boyo.
End of November we headed back down towards the Black Sea for a long weekend in Moldova, Transnistria and Ukraine. Landed, drove straight out of Chisinau (pronounced Kiss-shin-yav), along the R2 via a drink pitstop, through the town of Bender (!) and into…Transnistria border control. “Border control?” I hear you say, “but it’s not a country!” Except it is. From there we went into Tiraspol centre, stayed one night, excellent, mahusive oysters. Picked up the train down to Odessa (not easy when cards aren’t accepted and you don’t have the cash to pay). Did the border control on the train into Ukraine, ate cake, did a lot of moseying around town including the Potemkin Stairs and found a good bar showing this Fatboy Slim video from my home town. Stayed a night there before taxiing back to Tiraspol the next day, picked up the hire car to drive back to Chisinau which to be honest was nothing to write home/ a blog post about.
Getting back to Transnistria though (over the Dnister River)… Not officially ‘recognised’ by the UN but is in a club of about 5 other breakaway states who recognise each other. What makes a country? Sovereignty seems to be defined as:
- A defined territory
- Permanent population
- Passport
- Currency
- Its own government
- The ability to enter into relations with other nations
It’s this final one which seems to be the most important or the blocker to births of new nations but from my experience travelling through it; passport control, customs, different number plates, different currency (Moldovan not accepted) plus also a different language, a different alphabet but moreover: The ‘feel’ changed.
Transnistria is without a doubt its own country.
25.03.2014: Asleep by about 2am. Remembered to switch the headlights off by about 3am. Found the seat reclining lever by about 4am. Woke up at 6am to the realisation that I was in quite an active bus station. I looked at Mike Tyson’s face on the side of my Black Energy drink and swigged large. Turned Radio Crim on to find them playing Tetris, that europop version. I switch Radio Crim back off again, for the final time. This new dawn.
Just as an aside: Leisurewear. It’s still massively, massively in vogue out here. The two piece tracksuit seems to have held its appeal like no other garment. It speaks volumes about the wearer: I am street; I am a contender; I am ready to get athletic at any given second; my logo’d brethren and I belong to the same tribe and we care not for taste.
Well anyway, I had to return the car by lunchtime so unfortunately most of the day revolved around that and therefore having to hang around the railway station until my 17h10 overnighter. Just before I made the train, I wanted to load up on food and drink for what’s going to be the next 14 hours. First two machines weren’t taking my card then I noticed other people struggling to take money out also and there was a queue coming out of the bank over the road. Was this what they call a ‘run on the banks’? Never one to miss out on a decent queue I went over to join them where smugly, my money was offering itself out. So because no one else could get any cash, I somehow thought I should stock up on their behalf. I now have several hundred hrvina that I will need to change up when I get back to Gatwick. Tit.
26.03.2014: So I came to Crimea straight after it fell back into Russian hands and from where I’ve been standing, everybody down there seems pretty cool about the situation, in fact more than cool, I get the feeling that the vast majority of Crimeans are actually pleased about the annexation. It’s only Kiev (and the rest of the country?) that isn’t. When Cornwall goes, will I care? Yes I think I would actually, but I like the idea of union not division (although that could be an argument for Putin), which is why I’m pro-Europe. I refer you to my former comment: Why can’t we all just get along. Come on guys, let’s go down the pub.