Der Himmel über Berlin

A good friend of mine from Wales was back in the homeland a few weeks ago, and brought me back a fecking huge lump of cheddar cheese - a dry, crumbly variant, by far my favourite type. It served me well over the last weeks, but today valiantly gave its last to complete a tasty turkey and pesto bread roll.

I shall miss you, Welsh cheddar.

When I was in Switzerland the other week, I made sure to pick up some frightfully smelly mountain cheese. The sort of stuff that makes you recoil slightly when you open the package for the first time, and leaves your hands mildly stinky for the rest of the day regardless of how often you wash them.

That brave soldier met his demise sprinkled lightly over some peppered scrambled eggs last Friday.

So now it's back to Gouda, the only widely available cheese in Berlin that isn't irritatingly expensive. It's blubbery, it's bland and has no redeeming features, other than the fact that it is cheese.

I'm off to Lithuania on Thursday, I wonder do they have something to keep me ticking over til I go back to Ireland for a weekend in November...

I was in Berlin's Botanical Gardens a while back, and these cacti really reminded me of something. Not saying what though.

Any guesses?

If I am bored doing mountain updates, I can't even imagine how bored you lot are with it. Last two coming up!

Days 7 and 8
It's a pity that the role of Harvey Twoface has been filled for the new Batman movie, as I would be a shoe-in in my current state. Only the right side of my face has been affected by the sun and the skin is now peeling off in huge chunks. I would post a picture, but it is truly repulsive.

The storm due later today will be more severe than orignally expected, so no-one will be attempting Mont Blanc. Instead the group will be splitting up, some doing ice-climbing, some rock climbing and others, myself included, will be taking off on a nice long hike at around 2000m.

Going was good as we weren't high enough for snow. We got to watch the clouds from the south gathering ominously over Mont Blanc and the other high peaks. Our guide was really chatty, a welcome break from the monosyllabic mountain men that we had had until now. He had a story from almost every slope and peak that we could see - an informative history lesson as well as a highly enjoyable six hour trek.

Kinda glad I wasn't up there in the middle of that...

Decided to sit the last day out, since I didn't really really fancy hiking in the rain. I also didn't want to put any more strain on the dodgy ankle - hiking through snow was no problem but yesterday's outing on rocky paths left me feeling a little tender. Interesting to note my priority shift - playing football on Sunday is more important than hiking at this point.

Myself and Alan spent the day watching DVDs and trying to avoid other members of the group. They're nice and all, but I simply can't put up with constantly being around the same people for a whole week.

It was a low-key ending to the week, but somehow fitting. It's not as if there was anything to celebrate, after all. It feels odd that I planned and trained for this for nine months, only to fail without even setting foot on the slopes of Mont Blanc.

I won't be trying again anytime soon. I don't want my life dominated by something for quite a while. A difficult ask for someone with a mildly obsessive personality, but I'll try. That said, myself and Alan are already planning a 2009 hiking expedition - Poland's highest and Germany's highest in the space of a week. Achievable enough not to obsess about.

Well, one can hope...

Day 6

There were plenty of alternatives to choose from on our last day of fine weather. Myself and Alan wanted something low key-with minimal technical work. Imagine our surprise, then, when our guide, Thierry, sent us off down this incredibly narrow ridge to the valley below. It was frightening. Very, very frightening.

You can't see the 500m cliff to the left, or the wide open crevasse at the bottom of the slope to the right, but that's probably for the best.

Down in the valley, we relaxed in anticipation of a simple endurance trek. Thierry, on the other hand, had another plan. A plan he divulged to us in phases, with very short notice. Notice like 'hike up that sheer slope'. Or 'Jump off this cliff. Don't worry, I've got the rope'. Or 'climb up this snow-covered rock face'.

I would have been a lot more frightened during the latter had Alan not been whimpering like a little girl all the way up - I thought that at least one of us should attempt to show this bloody Frenchie that not all Irishmen were pathetic little scardeycats. As the laughing Thierry said at the top "I couldn't see you, but I knew you were safe because I could 'ear you". Enough said.

Despite the large amounts of fear that I had felt at various points in the day, it was really really fun. Managed to get terribly sunburned again. The snow doubled the effect of the beating sun and cut through my two layers of sunblock with consummate ease. My earlobe was the worst effected. And I have another helmet stripe. Sexy.

Day 5

The promise of an easy day after yeasterday's eight hours brought us up the cable car from Chamonix to l'Aiguille du Midi, which offered spectacular views of the side of Mont Blanc that was hit with the huge avalanche a few weeks back. Still though, our guides informed us that avalanches are quite predictable and that big one came as no real surprise to them.

Did a lot of technical climbing work, the details of which I won't bore you with. Suffice to say that I didn't feel particularly comfortable being stuck on a 50* ice slope with nothing bar my own cramponed feet, an iceaxe and a rope tied to three other guys keeping me from plummeting into a crevasse 50m below.

On the cable car back, I got stuck with a very odd French guy who spoke no English but a little German. He was alone and all dressed in leather. He knew the heights of most of the peaks around us, to the metre, and spent a long time pointing them all out to me.

Suddenly he stopped lecturing and started scribbling frantically on a scrap of paper pulled from his rucksack. His name, address and phone number. Shit. I knew what was coming next. So when he asked, I gave him the address of where I used to live with my ex. I wonder if she still has my name on the postbox and will he actually write like he promised? Or will he just show up at the door, all in leather?

He followed me to the next cablecars, thankfully significantly bigger than the two-seater we had just been in, positioning himself beside me each time. Double shit. He actually stepped on the strap of my rucksack to try and stop me from moving away. Triple shit.

Returned to the safety of my group back down in Chamonix, where our guides hit us with the news that due to the weather forecast predicting a storm on Thursday afternoon or evening, our chances of being able to climb Mont Blanc were around 5%. Decision time for us - we had to individually decide whether to take that 5% and risk being stranded in a hut for two days, or to stay in the valley and maybe hit some smaller peaks.

For me, it didn't really require much thought. The fact that I had struggled with today's activities and that there are so many other wonderful trails to sample made me decide not to go. To be honest, I'm not hugely disappointed. I know I'll do it at some point in my life and frankly, I don't feel quite ready for it now. Physically it wouldn't be problem, but I am not psychologically ready for the responsibility one has to accept to be roped to two others at 4000m, where one wrong move can have very serious consequences for all concerned.

Still though, four of the ten of us will be heading up on Thursday morning in the hope that the storm will come early and allow them to ascend very early on Friday morning.

Best of luck to them.

Day 4

Does anyone else feel bad about disturbing fresh snow? I know I do. However, when it is 0600, I am roped to three fellow luntaics and there is a peak to be bagged, I feel somewhat different.

We weaved in and out of the gaping crevasses in the glacier, guided by headlamps and an 'airy Frenchman called Mathieu. The clouds stubbornly refused us the Alpine sunrise that we were so desperate for, and battered us with freezing wind which had the delightful habit of whipping the now not-so-innocent snow into our faces.

It was indescribably wonderful.

I say 'indescribably' as a cheap and easy way of not having to describe it - you either, like me, think it's wonderful, or, like most people, you think we are masochistic freaks. Well you're right, but what I do at weekends is my own business.

To cut a four hour story short, we made it to the top, 3,544m, a new personal high. The route involved hauling ourselves us a short 80* slope with the help of ice axes, followed by thirty minutes of climbing through loose rock, which was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. I think I might have develped a couple of new addictions.

From the peak, Mont Blanc was visible, but only for seconds at a time as the cloud played games with us until finally clearing for the descent.

On returning to the hut, I was sporting a fashionable pink face, caused by the sun that had replaced the coulds with aplomb. The best part of all was the clearly-defined white stripe caused by the strap of my helmet. When I get back to Berlin, this new trend will really take off.

Day 3

Apparently my boots that caused me almost immesurable discomfort in lugging all the way from Berlin are not suitable. Fantastic. Hired new ones, along with other gear and spent an unmentionable amount of money in Chamonix on other necessities.

It always confounds me how, once people get into groups of about five or more, that the simplest of tasks end up taking fecking hours. This, coupled with my desperation to finally, finally set foot on a mountain (even an invisible one, which was lucky as there still wasn't any other kind) made me a very impatient and frustrated young man by the time we were getting on a chair lift at about 1500. Impatient to the extent that I forgot to put down the safety bar and nearly fell out.

Our ultimate destination was Cabane d'Orly, a cabin at 2,831m, from which we will tomorrow morning be able to assult the peak of Aiguille du Tour (3,544m). It was an easy trek through moist cloud, which cleared once for about a minute to give us a very brief glimpse of a sweeping valley, sheer cliff faces and, in the distance, luxuriously snow-capped peaks. What more encouragement could a frustrated mountain lunatic need?

Made the cabin in plenty of time to see the cloud disperse for a stunning sunset.

Worth the wait.

Day 2
Every time I stay in a hostel, I wish that I was a really heavy snorer, just to give the other snoring bastards a taste of their own fecking medicine.

However, if I were a snorer, I would get a single room since I am not an inconsiderate prick like the guy I shared with last night.

In other news, the mountains are still absent and I am beginning to suspect that they packed their bags for sunnier climes, and that over the coming days I will get a self-satisfied postcard from Mont Blanc as he suns himself on a beach somewhere.

Made it to the hotel in the village of Les Houches, allegedly at the base of Mont Blanc, and met the eight other adventurers that my mountain buddy Alan and I will be spending the next week with. I am pleased to report that a number of them certainly appear to have not been training as hard as either of us over the last months. Still, one of them looks like he could climb it walking on his hands while juggling me with his feet. So I'm not getting complacent just yet.

Being ignorant and not particularly caring about getting to know any of them, I retired early in preparation for tomorrow's foray into the Alps. If they haven't returned from holiday by then, well, we'll just have to dig several big holes and climb in and out of them for a week.

I am back... got a lot of mountain blogging to do over the coming days.

Day 1
My birthday is two days before Christmas. Birthdays are, as far as I am concerned, fantastic. Don't quite make it to the Christmas levels of greatness, but great nonetheless. As a kid though, my enjoyment of my birthday was always tempered by the big Christmas tree in my face, not to mention the tantalisingly wrapped and almost irresistable presents beneath it. Resist them I had to though, for two whole unending days.

After looking forward to it for almost a year, I finally arrived in Geneva.

It is alarmingly flat.

Where the feck are the mountains?

I took off for a stroll to try to find them despite the irritatingly persistent rain.

I found them at the waterfront, tantalisingly wrapped in cloud. As they will be for two whole, unending more days until I finally get my boots on and into the snow on Sunday morning.

So, Geneva. It's pretty I suppose, but isn't going to do anything to change the overriding feeling of 'meh' that I get when visiting most cities. There's a fountain and a funny football flower clock.

I did have an outstanding spinach and chicken crepe though. Then I had an equally outstanding lemon sorbet one, with lashings of cream. I was going to have another but decided against it, in order to postpone the massive heart attack that it would cause from 'immediately' to 'halfway up Mont Blanc'.

Why are there Hotel Bristols everywhere? I mean, the town of Bristol hardly lends itself to the idea of luxury and decadence that its hotel equivalent provides. I think they should all be renamed 'Hotel Colchester' or 'Hotel Scunthorpe', just for fun.

For a city that doesn't have any visible mountains, Geneva is pretty anxious to push the Mont Blanc connection. Rue du Mont Blanc. Ponte du Mont Blanc. Toilette du Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc. Mont fricking Blanc. Where the feck is it then? When I get back to Berlin, I am going to start campaigning for everything to have the suffix 'von den Himalaya'. I think it's exactly what Berlin needs, a bit of exoticism. We'll just blame the smog and excessive cloud cover if anyone actually wants to see mountains. And then distract them with endless ads for little red knives with little white crosses on them.

I am full of crepe tonight, as you may or may not have noticed. Off to snuggle up in bed with my DS and Zelda. Tomorrow: meeting my climbing buddy and then a bus up to Chamonix, where hopefully there will be at least a small amount of evidence of the existance of mountains in some shape or form.

It is simply NOT HEALTHY being this excited.

I am off to Geneva, Ginevre, Genf or Genève, depending on where you come from.

Naturally, I like Ginevre best and may insist on Italian just to show the silly Frenchies that I'm not going to fall for their tricks.

I have lots of pens and paper with me, so updates will follow when I am back in a week. Unless I have interwebnet access up there.

In almost exactly seven days time, I'll be at the highest point in Europe.

All my gear is ready and I have been holding myself back from packing my bag already for the last few days.

I have been touched by the amount of people who are really worried about the potential of me not coming back.

Apparently, if caught in an avalanche, swimming and spitting are the best things to do. I wonder if they knew that?

You know when you spend such a long time looking forward to something, you begin to resent it for occupying all your thoughts and end up just wanting to get it over and done with so normal thought processes can resume?

Well, I'm sure that feeling will be replaced by proper, undiluted excitement once I land in Geneva on Friday afternoon.

So, like I said, I don't like travelling.

I found this out about five years ago on a standard issue trip around Eastern Europe. Yeah, I had some fun, but mostly it was miserable and I spend most of the time looking forward to getting home. Snapped pictures of the things I should snap pictures of, went to the places my guidebook told me to go to and met the people that made me fail to realise that the whole thing was just a big waste of time and money.

I just don't see the point in seeing cities. It's very rare for me to visit a new town and think, wow, this place is kinda nice. Usually I'm thinking, meh, let's drink until I can get home to my own nice comfy bed.

There just seems to be something fruitless about the whole thing. Who cares about seeing buildings? Or lying on a beach? Or taking pictures to bring home instead of seeing something that's worth bloody remembering?

I made a resolution a couple of years back to only ever go travelling for two reasons: to climb mountains or to visit someone I really want to see. I have remained faithful to this decision and I have noticed that my enjoyment of the places I visit has increased significantly as a result. Of course, this also coincides with taking the types of holidays that most people don't, so I don't have to put up with tourists.

Another reason is language. I am reasonably good at languages - I speak English, German and Italian. I think it's because of this that I feel like a useless, selfish prick when I ask someone change language for me. I should bloody well speak theirs if I want to spend time in their country. I realise how terribly stupid this is, and I realise also that it's largely down to not wanting to be mistaken for some of those 'speak English louder and slower' tourists that, frankly, should be never be allowed to leave their own country.

I realise also that these problems will all become irrelevant for my trip to India - I'll be visiting my sister, they speak English there anyway and I'll be there for long enough to have a base and not have to do so much travelling if I don't feel like it.

This, however, leads me to the reason why I have never left Europe.

I have a debt to society. A fucking enormously spectacular one that, once I start repaying it, will probably take most of my life to assuage the guilt. Luckily, however, living in Europe makes it easy for me to ignore this.

I live a wonderfully easy life here, working as much or as little as I feel like, simply and solely because of the language I was born into. What did I do to deserve such an easy life? Why me? Why wasn't I born into poverty in India, facing a struggle every single day just to make it into the next?

I think once I actually see poverty up close and personal that I will start repaying the debt, and I fear that I won't be able to stop.

I think I'm still going to go though; it's about time.

Aagh!

Contact lens has disappeared under my eyelid!

*scrabbles furiously at eye*

This feels odd - kinda like there's a little alien living behind my eye. Maybe being pregnant feels like this, but on a larger scale. And down a bit more.

*scrabbles some more*

Yesterday, I was biking down a hill on a small residential-access slip-road that runs parallel to a large, busy road. Coming to a very small intersection, I slowed down significantly, clearly checking to make sure that there was no cars coming from the right.

There weren't. I accelerated and continued on my merry way.

That is, until a policeman jumped out of police van directly in front of me and flagged me down.

He seemed to take a lot of pleasure in informing me that because I didn't come to a complete stop and put my foot on the ground that I have to pay a €10 fine. My protests that I clearly looked and there were no other vehicles anywhere nearby fell on deaf ears.

Since I refused to pay on the spot (after the €100 debacle I learned never to hand cash to a policeman), I had to wait for fifteen minutes as he ponderously rambled around his van, speaking to his two colleagues who stopped two other cyclists while I was there.

Found it incredibly difficult to resist the temptation to ask him why he has nothing better to do that stop cyclists on a tiny road where there is no traffic and no pedestrians.

When chatting to a student later, he told me that a friend of his was breathalised while cycling drunk, was brought to trial, fined €3000 and banned from driving for a year. She can still cycle whenever she wants though.

Now I know there are a few bloggers here who have, shall we say, no love lost for cyclists - from what I have seen on the islands that seems quite justified.

Here, however, there is a relationship of mutual respect between road users, and although I cycle aggressively, I cycle safely, as do the majority of the other cyclists I share the road with on a daily basis.

This makes it even more incomprehensible that the police would park in the remote suburbs and send three officers specifically to catch cyclists on a downhill slope at a rarely-used intersection, and also punish someone who made the conscious decision not to drive a car while drunk.

Rant over.