MustHaveBeen: To Do - Color Festival (Several places)

 

 

 

A year ago I had never heard of it and now suddenly everybody is talking about it; the Holi Color Festival. It feels like all my friends have been there and I'm being bombardised with photos and stories about this wonderful appearance. I feel like I am really missing an experience here.

But where does this sudden trend originate from?

Wiki tells me that Holo-Phagwa is an Hindu festival celebrated in spring and should be taking place on the day after full moon of the Hundu month Phaaluga (this part is clearly being ignored here in Europe). The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil and at the same time the start of the new year. During this festival people indeed throw around colored powder, but also perfume and colored water. Along with the powder comes a prayer for happiness and health in the new year. The colors represent the florishing of nature within humans. The name Holi comes from Holika, a main character in a well-known religeous Hindu story. Several regions and countries each have their own traditions and ways of selebrating the Holi festival.

This all sound spretty nice to me. But then America got a hold of this trend and introduces the festival along with color runs (every kilomer you get showered in a different color). Later it also spread to us in Europe and now people are also going mad for it. Another tradition commercialized. But is that a bad thing?

What my friends think? Most say that they had a lot of fun and the festival was great. But there were also some negative points. One friend's camera gave out because it got covered in too much colored powder. Another friend said she could barely breath or even open her eyes to look at at the poweder when it was up in the air because there was just too much. Another one said her clothes were never the same after and they ended up in the bin. Washing the color out of your hair also seems to be a problem. One friend also mentioned that they had to pay 3 euros for each bag of powder they wanted to have, adittionally to the costs of the festival itself.

So, I guess I still want to see it with my own eyes. Although I will bring a big bag of money, wear my oldest clothes and get myself a protective mask before I go.

 

 

 

HaveBeen: To Do - The Dungeons (London, York, Edinburg, Amsterdam, etc.)

Do you dare?

 

When I was in Edinburg, a promotion girl on the street convinced us to make use of a deal for something called "The Edinburgh Dungeon". Me and my friend were all about trying everything, so we decided to go. Once we went inside and I saw the decorations, I wanted to turn around and run away because I am, eh... quite easily scared. But since we already bought the tickets we were stuck. I didn't know what to expect, but it was simply awesome. A combination of live actors, video recordings and scenery made the dungeons a great experience. After going there, my new dream was to become one of the live actors. Unfortunetely I am not a very good actress so I had to let go of that dream. Instead I visited the Dungeons in Amsterdam and the one in York. The others are still on my wish list. There are some things that are the same in each dungeon, but most of the acts are based on national or regional myths and gohst stories. It is a way to find out about the history of the city in a fun and creative way.

So, there I was.

And here, I ended up.

And some of my special memories:

Edinburgh Dungeon
We got a discount couplon and paid just 9 euro entrance. In the court room (returning at all Dungeons) one boy was accused of dressing up in women's clothes and was asked if he pleated "guilty" or "very guilty". The poor boy, he clearly did not get the joke. He kept shouting that it was not true and he was not guilty. We passed some of Edinburgh's own legends, such as the story of Burke and Hare, two men who dug up corpses from graves and later even killed people to sell their body for science experiments (one of which we also got to enjoy). Later we went on a trip on a underground boat where according to the legend a cannibalistic family lived. At the end of the boatride, one of the cannibals was waiting. He told me I had a stupid name but I was too afraid of him to tell him his name was even more stupid. Next, we were brought to a room, where they were going to "hang us" in another short ride, which resulted in a lot of funny pictures. After all of this, I was hooked!

 

 

All the attractions of Edinburgh

Amsterdam Dungeon
These dungeons are a  bit special as the tour is bi-ligual. In my group I was the only Dutch person and this led to some funny situations where they asked us to get up and follow them (in Dutch) and I was to only one to do it. I because a translator for the whole group because some of the vervoices were in Dutch for a large part, and sometimes important information got lost, because things were not translated. They just changed language every couple of lines, which is even a bit confusing to those of us who speak both languages. But bedsides this, it was a wonderful experience again. It was great to see some of the Dutch history portaied this way. Especially the ride at the end was funny. I heard someone at the other side of the door tell the tour guide that they lost the key of the door. So the man told us that they had to "clean up the body of someone who did not survive the ride". Pretty creative.
We had a discount coupon (from my friends hostel) this time so we paid just 9 euros again.

All the attractions of Amsterdam

The court where you will have the most unfear trial ever

 

York Dungeon
I used to live close to York, so this Dungeon needed to be visited. I booked online of forehand and was given a 2 hour time sloth in which I had to start the tour. We paid just 7 euros per ticket this time. All actor immediately notices that my and my friend were the easiest to scare and made use of this a lot. Very funny (for the other visitors). For the mirror maze (also a returning attraction in the Dungeons) I had devloped the tactic to turn right at all times. Part of the group thought I knew what I was doing and started following me. Unfortunately there was a small circle of mirrors build in this maze, which made us walk quite some circles before we discoved (these mazees are tricky). Later, we heard the full history behind the English celebration bon fire day. At the very end, a girl was chosen to be burned as a witch, which she did very convincingly with coughing and all. I would have thought that she was part of the act if her brother had not wondered out loud where she was. But, after we got burned ourselves (this was a quite wonderful piece of creativity with hot lights and flamy curtains), we found the girl back in the souvenir shop. Pfiew. We survved yet another Dungeon experience!

All of York's attractions

I would love to visit all the other ones now!




For a full list of all the Dungeon experiences, see http://www.thedungeons.com/default-locations.aspx

Each website is available in the local language and in English. You can read which stories the tour consists of and even do a test to see if you are brave enough to concur the journey. Most locations have discounts available and pre-booked tickets are recommended to save waiting time and money.

Are you ready for the ride?

HaveBeen: Citytrip - Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Last week I went to Slovenia with two friends to visit another friend. Personally, I would never have chosen this country as a vacation destination. And neither would the people around me, judging from the questions about why I would choose Slovenia. But boy, how I was wrong! I had the most wonderful time in this beautiful country full of friendly people (and a large amount of very hot men!). We managed to squeeze a week of touristic activities in just three days and I absolutely had the best time. Let me start by showing you the capital; Ljubljana (pronouncing that was quite a toung twister to me, but it turns out to sound like; Lubjana).

As true tourists, we took a city tour. For just 10 euros you can buy a ticket at the tourist office for a 2 hour tour that includes a taste of some local food and depending on the time of day a boattrip (we had that one), a train ride or a funicular ride to the castle. The tour guide spoke English perfectly and gave us two hours full of historic facts mixed with legends and funny stories. Definitely a must do!

Our tour guide told us that men like to park their boat under this see-through bridge. T enjoy the view I guess..

 

 

 

Lost your shoe? This one made me think of the bar in Breda (the Netherlands) I once went, where they asked you for your left shoe when you ordered a drink in a nice glass so you would not steal the glass. That bar has a nice shoe collection by now.



The restaurant where we tries the original Slovenian sausage and steudel.




Ljubljana has many outdoor performances and concerts during the summer. I wish i could have stayed longer to see some.

This fountain was inspired by the one in Rome. The marmer of the statues was actually shipped form Italy.

 

 

 

This clever architect got the assignment to broaden the bridge. Insted of rebuilding it, he added an extra bridge on each side to solve the problem; original and cost-effective.

 

 

Here you can buy fresh milk 24 hours a day.

 

 

There is a law that states that all historic items found in this canal automatically belong to the city because new treasures are found constantly.

 

 

One of the wonderful facades.

 

 

 

I am in love with the pink building in the background.

 

 

 

Of course, we could not miss out on the funicular ride and the castle, so for just 5 euros we bought ourselves a return ticket, including entry to the castle and the animation movie about its history. If you like walking, you can also walk up there, but we were aiming to make the best use of out short time, so we chose to take the shortcut. The movie that is being shown in the castle shows the history of Ljubljana caste told from the viewpoint of the dragon from the legends of the city; a smart way to keep it interesting. The view from the top of the tower is great since you can see the whole city with the mountains on the background.

The view from the tower.

 

 

 
Our ride up.



 
Another view and thus mountains from another country.



For lunch, we choose to have an icecream and cappuchino at one of the coffee places next to the canal, which came in tasty flavors and good costumer service. The waiter even told us we gave him "too much" when we left him some tip.


This is what they see as "one scoop".


In the evening, we went out for an outdoor dinner at one of the cosy restaurants in the city center. We were given more seafood fajitas and wine than we could finish for under 20 euros per person.




Ehhh, YUM!


We continued on to have drinks next to the canal and discovered Radler grapefruit, the national beer that exists for 50% of fruitjuice. Next to that, we discovered the typical balkan friendliness and quickly gathered a large group of people at our table. My friends boyfriend seemed to know half of the citizens of the city and they were all very nice and fun people.

we moved on to a club that was at the top floor of a high building and found out that clubbing is not Slovenia's strongest suit. You can better keep stroling around the pitoresque streets and take some drinks on one of the terraces while meeting some locals.


 
Ljubljana by night.



The conclusion? I love sLOVEnija!