Paul’s Ramblings

Every red-blooded male derives a certain amount of pleasure from devouring the flesh of a dead bovine; I am no exception. Florence has a big reputation for doing a great steak and I can vouch for that personally. Whilst training from Bologna to Florence we met a nice bloke, who makes a living selling antique watches, and he recommended us a good restaurant for steak. Unfortunately it was closed for August, like most of Italy, but the owner of a neighbouring cafe was able to direct us to the next best kept secret in well-trodden Florence.

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Whilst dining at Ro’ Cocco’s in Bologna I took the liberty of creating my own pizza, in collaberation with the the helpful kitchen staff. This pizza is simply tomato puree, fresh porcini mushrooms, parma ham and mozzarella cooked, of course, in a wood fired pizza oven. After one bite I dubbed it Pizza San Paolo, because it’s so lush it’s worthy sainthood.

Emilia-Romagna has to be one of the prime destinations for lovers of fine cuisine. This region is home to such wonderfully aged delicacies as Parma-Ham, Parmigiano Reggiano and traditional balsamic vinegar. The thing that makes these products so special is that they are all aged to bring out amazing flavours and textures that one has to experience to believe. It’s just a question of time before I return.

Non-geeks stop reading NOW. It turns out that our hotel on the border of France and Switzerland is also next door to what is, arguably, the biggest, meanest, most expensive piece of scientific equipment on the planet: the CERN Large Hadron Collider. That big thing behind me is NOT the LHC, it’s just a sculpture, the real thing is burried 100m underground, runs underneath a number of towns and straddles both Switzerland and France and has a circumference of 26km. My main reason for visiting is really just symbolic, it’s also home to some of the most significant computing power on the planet and is a Mecca for an amazing thing, simply called The Grid.

We made for the mouth of the Loire river to begin our tour of the Loire Valley and discovered this amazing concrete structure from the second world war. Constructed by the German Navy, it served as a protective fortress for the construction and safe harbour of German U-Boats. The Allies tried to take this place out by aerial bombardment but only managed to erase the nearby town, one look at this concrete monster and you’ll see why; its roof is 8 metres thick! I recognised it immediately from playing Enemy Territory online

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As mentioned in a previous post, I have taken to retro-shaving and decided to make the arrangement more permanent with a visit to specialist supplier of such goodies in Berlin; The Different Scent. Their range of straight razors and safety razors, brushes, creams, soaps and other accessories was outstanding. Nicholas did a great job of helping me select the bits of kit that were right for me and now, for the first time in years, shaving is a pleasure.

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I absolutely love some of the major architecture and city planning that Berlin has to offer. Berlin has seized the opportunity of post-war reconstruction and evidently has not looked back. Potsdammer Platz has to be my most favourite modern city square; it’s expansive, bold and modern. Potsdammer Platz gives you a sense of urban enormity yet it feels open and you can see the sky.

If you haven’t heard me say how much I would love a litre of real milk then we probably haven’t talked in the last 12 months. Let’s just say that the milk in Ukraine … HAS ISSUES. But after many months of abstenance, broken only by some French long-life I acquired, I am pleased to be back on the real stuff: fresh, full cream milk. Let me just say for the record; the difference is like Diet Coke to Champagne! I know I’m not imagining things, this stuff really is FANTASTIC!!!

Believe it or not, I’ve taken up jogging now that holidays are are here; who could resist getting out and about when there are lovely places like this to enjoy? The above photo is my first attempt at high dynamic range imaging, a method of bringing more life to a photo.

They’re yellow, abundant, crowded and they’ll get you anywhere in Kiev for less than 50 cents, they are the Mashrutky. The most common variety is the smaller mini-bus, although the newer, larger kind are becoming increasingly common. Why am I writing about buses? I needed a subject for some photography practice so I decided that for once congested roads and overcrowded buses should work in my favour.

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