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For the love of football

September - October 2018
One man's quest to watch his beloved Spurs play live. Read more
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  • TravelerFor the love of football

    Countdown almost complete

    September 19, 2018 in New Zealand ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    We're in the final straight now, under starter's orders, poised and ready to launch...and any other cliches you can come up with about getting ready to leave. We are now at T minus 1 day and counting. Please stay tuned for further glorious updates..Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    Day 1

    Haere ra Aotearoa

    September 21, 2018 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    After fleeing the heaving metropolis of Napier we have arrived briefly in Auckland. Lots of renovations going on there and it's a bit of a maze. Of course the highlight was getting a rub down from security, to check for drugs. He started with my bag and I was getting twitchy when it looked like he'd dab me as well, but luckily it was just the electronic wand. Crisis averted. About to board the flight to the home of vegemite and the beer spelled with just one letter. See you all soon.Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    Day 1

    The land of Oz

    September 21, 2018 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    A flying, literally, visit to Oz where hopefully their sandwiches and bakery goods aren't as prodigiously priced as the ones at Auckland Airport! Less than a day and I'm already on a rant. Lol. In my defense $10 for a simple sandwich is having a laugh. I told the mugger, sorry person serving me, that the bread must have been baked by Jesus himself to cost that much. She didn't laugh. Anyway now it's time to hurry up and wait until check in for our Taipei flight opens and then I'm going to swan into the Business Class lounge like I belong there.Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    Day 2

    It's business time

    September 22, 2018 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    We were the first in the queue for our China Airlines flight from Sydney to Taipei, and because we were flying business class we were invited to the lounge and even given an express pass through customs and security. This all went smooth as butter, as we got through the line and full body scanner in no time and had almost made it to the promised land of the departure lounge. But then I must have emitted another Pablo Escobar vibe, because the guy with the magic wand zeroed in on me like I a fat girl at a buffet spotting free shrimp. A quick swipey swipey, rubby rubby later and the machine flashed up green, of course!

    Eventually free of Australia's wily border force we sauntered down to the business class lounge, where I proceeded to eat one of everything. Not because I'm greedy, but because I felt I was representing New Zealand and it was my patriotic duty to join cultures through food.

    Three house later I waddled out and made the taxing 100 metre walk to our gate, where we were waved past the plebs and wafted into the sanctuary of the business class section of our A350-900. Time to stress test my lie flat bed. Taipei is 9 hours and 7000km's away, what a hardship.    Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    1
    Day 2

    A magic carpet ride

    September 22, 2018 in Taiwan ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    Let me get this out of the way early. China Airline's Business Class is exceptional. Delicious food, exemplary service from slim, attractive flight attendants, (take note Air NZ) and a lie flat bed that had enough controls to keep the geek in me gleefully happy. I even got some good sleep, which is highly unusual for me anywhere, especially on a plane. Some 'other' unnamed people on this flight had even more sleep than me. In fact at one point there was a symphony of snoring. Initially I thought two untuned tractors were having a race though the cabin, but it was two other passengers. One whom I know very well. We landed in Taipei just after 5am and it was already 27 degrees. This may be a toasty kind of day. Next stop central Taipei.Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    1
    Day 2

    Look up, and up, and up

    September 22, 2018 in Taiwan ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Caught the high speed train into Taipei city, which took about half an hour, so I'm glad we didn't take the regular speed one. Seriously though, Taipei is a massive urban sprawl, intermixed with dense foliage covered hills.

    Our one and only reason for dipping our toes into the city was to see Taipei 101. Wow, what a structure. It punches into the sky, towering over all other buildings and giving a stunning view of Taipei, amid the smog. Very impressive, especially the lifts which fire you up to the 89th floor in just over 30 seconds.

    After gazing over the strange mix of old traditional Chinese structures and futuristic skyscrapers we caught the bullet lift back to ground level and caught the MRT back to our airport hotel. A few hours sleep and a refreshing shower, it is 33 degrees here, and we're off to the airport. A few more hours in the business lounge doing it tough then we board our bird bound for Vienna.    Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    Day 3

    Ohhhh...Vienna!

    September 23, 2018 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    What an eventful last 24 hours! The first 13 were spent enjoying the excellent China Airlines service between Taipei and Vienna. This was pretty standard except for one odd moment. As I was waiting in the galley at the front of the plane to use the facilities, a middle aged Chinese lady emerged from the toilet, took a look at me and launched herself towards me. Before I knew it she was attached to me, giving me a vigorous hug. Fortunately the flight attendant was onto it and managed to pry this stranger off me. I still don't know what that was all about. Maybe they shouldn't serve alcohol on intercontinental flights?

    Anyway, having composed myself once more I finished another movie and watched the lights of Vienna emerge from the darkness. We touched down on time and made our way to border control expecting fingerprinting and forms to fill in. Less than 30 seconds later we were on the ground side of the airport wondering what just happened. Austrian efficiency at its best is what. This efficiency continued as our bags arrived within minutes, another perk of business class, then we strolled through arrivals and down the escalators to the City Express train which of course left dead on time. There was even free on board wifi.

    On reaching Wien Mitte station we got an Uber to our hotel, which of course we couldn't check in to until 3pm. We were there before 7am, curses! No worries though as we had our Vienna Hot Rod tour booked for 10am. To kill some time we decided to walk the 3k to the Hot Rod headquarters. However some time remained alive as we got there more than 30 minutes early. While standing outside looking hopefully in we struck up a conversation with an older couple. Turns out they were doing the tour with us and they were Aussies. Anzac Hot Road championship duel activate. After some high speed, high powered hot rod instruction we hit the roads around Vienna central.

    I thought I'd seen some beautiful historical cities before, but Vienna takes the Gold, gives the other cities a wedgie and then leaves with their girlfriend. It is flooded with grandeur and is standing room only from one amazing historical monument to the next. Simply unmatched. Of course we first saw these eye popping gems from 6 inches off the ground, hurtling along at up to 60kms an hour. The Hot Rod tour was fan- bloody- tastic. Dominic our guide did an impeccable job guiding us through the streets around the Ringstrasse and keeping us alive. I had been really looking forward to this opportunity and it totally lived up to the hype. Hopefully there will be video from my video glasses to come.

    After the tour we had a drink with our Aussie compatriots then took the hop on hop off big bus tour. This time we travelled at a speed that allowed us to see more of the sights. Finally we made it to our hotel room and we were very ready to crash out.

    Tomorrow, more of incredible Vienna. To see what the hot rods were like in action visit https://youtu.be/p7J_SNvKcVE or
    https://youtu.be/V2iN43PPLXc    Read more

  • TravelerFor the love of football
    Day 4

    What a challenging hypothesis

    September 24, 2018 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Another glorious day in Vienna, apart from the weather, which makes Invercargill's look positively settled. It jumped from gale force cold winds to still and warm, then back again, faster than I could change cellphones. Still there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing, and I had plenty of that.

    The day started with Jean and I repeating our trek from the previous day past the Hauptbahnhof, Karlskirche, the Opera House and then turning left to visit the incredible Hofburg. It seems that Austrians didn't do small scale, not when they had an empire anyway. The Hofburg is so large it makes the word colossal feel self-conscious. We had a good wander around the buildings marvelling at the intricate detail and how difficult it must have been to get a WiFi signal to all parts of the residence. Well I wondered that, Jean just admired the marvellous stonework and estimated the double glazing cost.

    After pondering both of these age old questions we decided to bite the bullet and visit one of the museums. Being a student of the globe I opted for the Weltuseum Wien. Now although in English that sounds like a history of people's swollen bits, in German it means 'World museum' and it was predictably impressive. It seems that Austrians were quite the wanderers and collectors back in the day and brought many artifacts back with them. Whether this was ethical is questionable, especially when I got to the room devoted to the Pacific. I heard it before I entered, a haka pounding out full throttle. They had the prow of a waka, some patu and mere, a korowai and other Maori artifacts. However the bit which unsettled me was the section where they questioned the ethics of collecting human remains. The museum used to have many of these, including Maori heads. To their credit in 2015 they returned these via Te Papa to the descendants in New Zealand and this was documented as part of the exhibition.

    After leaving the Weltmuseum we sauntered through the museum quarter for an hour or so and left feeling immediately intellectually ripped. I don't want to boast, but it's quite possible after that knowledge power workout that we are now what the locals would term 'ubermensch'.
    Finally we decided we could do no more and started the hike back to the hotel. This took a little longer than expected as we had been drawn deeper into the heart of Vienna city centre and the walk back was a vigorous 4 to 5 k. Whatever the true distance it's true that by the end of it Jean's dogs were barking and we had racked up 29 thousand steps for the day on my Fitbit.

    Right now we are lounging in the OBB (Austrian Railways) business class lounge waiting to board our overnight sleeper train to Rome.

    Tomorrow it's Viva Italia and Forza Juve!    Read more

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