Travel 3: MOAR

There's nothing inside this big pyramid (Memphis, TN).

I'm a bastard who likes to travel. I believe it broadens the mind and teaches you things about the world. This year I returned to one of my favourite cities, Barcelona. BCN is great because it is full of weird shit. Everyone who goes there will remark on the abundance of strange and wonderful things to be found on every corner and in every street.

Raval es mejor barrio.

I like the way that someone's shredded jeanshorts were nailed up here. As a warning? Centrepiece?

Here is an Ashley Madison themed parking garage. Note the addendum (topical at the time the pic was taken), which reads "fuck off, you cheaters".

This was a skull I liked.

Moreover, this is a very exciting and exuberant city because of its active populace and strange rituals. You will never be short of things to do and see.

This is something people do in Barcelona when they're bored. They spin these things with sparks shooting everywhere and you get in like an open air mosh and you try to not get burned (but if you do, even better).

On alternating occasions, Barcelonians parade giant birdcage fairy people around.

And here is a sassy giraffe. Not sure if rad or kind of degenerate.

You saw nothing.

Travelling the world is one of the best things you can do. Research that I can't be bothered to link to suggests experiences are a better investment than things, because they last longer. We should all enjoy the opportunity to travel while we can and see the sights before the clouds break and our civilisation is lost in a tsunami of horror forever.

Finally, I found my new home.

Yes.

The British rail network is a joke.

Video: a train recently leaking. Britain confirmed for third world country.

The rail network in Britbongistan is the oldest in the world and runs like it hasn't been updated since. Delays of anything from half an hour to several hours are considered normal, carriages are generally overcrowded, and there's always some old hag reading the Daily Mail. It's getting so bad that this generation of Britbongs don't even know simple rules of Bongish etiquette, like never sit next to or opposite someone. When I were a lad (I were never a lad), up to two thirds of a carriage's inhabitants would stand to avoid the terrible awkwardness of sitting next to someone. Diagonal was acceptable, but still frowned on, as it should be.

I was at a station recently where we weren't sure which of two late trains would arrive first, and on which platform. When we asked a worker which way we should gamble, she said "stay at the top of the stairs, and whichever one gets in first, run for it".

Do you remember when people in the 20th Century thought the 21st would be like the Jetsons? But instead, it was like the Flintstones.

I think we should add up all the times trains are delayed, and for every twenty-four hours of delay-time, we should keel-haul Richard Branson behind one of his shit-ass trains for ten minutes. I think this would see a dramatic improvement, but the government has yet to reply to my letters :(

Moar phun with travel.

Many years ago I wrote a piece about how travel broadens the mind (and Warrington kills it). Looking back through my travel pix I noticed more unusual things worth sharing, so here it is.

This is literally the equivalent of show and tell, using the stuff you find in your pockets. I'm so burnt out :(

Sideways DVDs on sale in Spain.

So far as I can tell (after literally some research) this is only happening in Spain, and perhaps Spanish speaking countries. Why make sideways DVDs? Well, why make vertical ones? And for that matter, why put the North Pole at the top of the map? Why not the bottom, or even the side? And then it hits you: in the whole wide universe, which way is up? The way our magnetic north faces? But why? And then you picture rotating the universe on its head, just because of a weird promotion in a Spanish mall. When I said travelling expands your mind, I meant it in the drugs way.

Things I learned from Berlin:

-Their little green crossing man wears a hat

-At least one mall has a toilet that rotates and cleans the seat

-There's a man dressed as the Predator (or the Predator himself) outside the Brandenburg Gate:

The best clock in the world: as the man's sword arm drops, the globe rotates, leaving the monkey pointing to the current hour.

See that strip of green in the distance? That's the fabled Green River melon fields.

Every year in September Green River, Utah, hosts a Melon Days festival, during which the town swells to literally thousands of people. Highlights include a large carved effigy of a melon slice being carted through the town as a float. I was so sad I couldn't make it this year that I went to the movies instead.

The toilets in Sun Studio are shaped like guitars.

This is so cool, it makes me want to spend even more time on the crapper, preferably reading Tim Gautreux and listening to "Walk the Line" or "Mystery Train". Goddamn I love America (srs).

France loves me!

I'd like to give a shout-out to my French fans. Even though I've spent a total of about a day in France when I was too young to remember much (last night), it's good to know I've made an impression. I've always been a fan of you guys' rousing yet fucking terrifying anthem about blood and violence (La Marseillaise), and your policy of keeping hunchbacks in the towers (just kidding hunchbacks; I know you're my main demographic).

I feel confident in saying French universities teach an advanced qualification in me, which is a considerable honour (source). Plans to rename the Eiffel Tower "The Bastard Tower" in my honour are expected to be rolled out in the new year, by at least one person.

Why does France love me so much? Is it because I smell like onions? PLEEZ ANSWER BEFOAH AI DAI.

Travel broadens the mind (Warrington kills it).

Ever since the womb, I've hated flying. Flying is when you wait twelve hours to get shoved into less space than a bus, between a great big fat person and the one window seat that doesn't have a window, only after getting molested by jackbooted throwbacks who used to beat you up in school. I'd rather travel by Cuban refugee boat: seventeen twigs held together with rubber bands and prayer and a crew of wild-eyed desperadoes paddling with their dicks. The good news is, flying can take you to places in other countries, specifically that aren't Warrington.

Vans around the world: New York and Barcelona. Note that in Spain, Garfield bears the eight-pointed Star of Chaos.

Everywhere I've been around the world has had something interesting to show, except Warrington. Some have thought-provoking art and history, others beautiful scenery, or unique culture, or wildlife, or even inexplicable craziness like this:

Berlin statues, left to right: Boy staring melancholically at armadillo; holy shit!

Dicks on sale in Barcelona.

Even cool things can be found in unexpected places: Green River, Utah, which is basically a truck stop, five houses and two joggers (source) has a sweet cool museum about John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Confederate Civil War veteran who mapped the Colorado River, losing nearly all his crew in the process. This is exactly the kind of thing you could drive past and never know.

Pictured: Green River + entire population.

The great mad bastard himself.

Warrington is the worst place on Planet Earth. In a survey of over 100 squirrels, not one person recommended Warrington as a tourist destination. The only recognisable picture of Warrington you'll ever see is of these big gates:

Looks impressive...until you go there, and there's nothing to either side of them. Spread the word: Warrington crops.

Warrington's top attraction.