10 latest experiences http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine en-us The adage 'leave only footprints, take only photographs' doesn't always apply to Uluru. Apart from not leaving footprints on the rock itself (see post on Staying grounded at Uluru about the climbing situation), you'll also encounter signs at some sections around the base that ask you not to take photographs of various points of the rock. Aboriginal culture has some intricate ceremonies and rituals that are male or female only, and the sacred sites where they take place can't be viewed by the other sex. So the request for not taking photos is to make sure that the pictures don't end up in the wider world, where those who aren't supposed to see them encounter them by accident. (Anywhere without signs means it's fine to snap away.) Beyond that, the other thing not to take from the rock is, well, the rock itself. The idea seems innocuous enough - like collecting shells on the beach. But here's the thing: every week, the National Park office receives packages from visitors returnin... Yulara, Australia Catherine Sun, 10 Jun 2007 16:21:08 +0100 http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine/experience/156 http://www.hereorthere.com/experiences/156 With 750-odd breweries, Bavaria is a beer-lover's paradise. And for carnivores, with its street-corner bratwurst stands sizzling with pork sausages, it's surely some kind of utopia. But it hits home to me that being vegetarian in Bavaria is an oxymoron after stopping at a pub with a German mate, just across the road from the Levi Strauss museum in the little village of Buttenheim, where the jeans creator was born. My mate's very excited about this pub, because it serves, apparently, the best dumplings for miles around. My mate also knows I'm vegetarian, so I'm thinking that I may actually not starve this particular night. The dumplings arrive on the table: flawlessly textured... and drowning in gravy. "It's alright," my mate says. "There's no meat." I look from them to him and back to the submerged dumplings. "See," he says, "Only meat sauce." This is a problem because it's a cultural taboo to waste food in Bavaria. So I try to excavate the few non-gravy-drenched sections of t... Buttenheim, Germany Catherine Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:30:27 +0100 http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine/experience/139 http://www.hereorthere.com/experiences/139 The first thing that's screeching in Newfoundland is my car. This battered little Mazda was in bad shape when I bought it a few months earlier from a dodgy dealer in the backblocks of Miami, and since then I've driven a fair chunk of the length and breadth of the continent. But despite churning through more oil than petrol, I'm determined to hit kilometre zero of the Trans-Canada Highway, in St John's, Newfoundland, next to North America's easternmost point, Cape Spear. Newfoundland is what you'd imagine it to be: a place where people don't lock doors. (Example: I meet a couple of European backpackers who give me the number of an off-the-books B&B in Twillingate. I ring the owner about staying the night. She tells me she won't be home, but that I'm welcome to stay; and after turning off the main road "it's the big white house with a blue truck parked out the front". I find a lamp glowing in a guest room that's been set up in the attic. The next morning, there's still no sign of t... Twillingate, Canada Catherine Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:07:22 +0100 http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine/experience/137 http://www.hereorthere.com/experiences/137 Ireland is synonymous with great Guinness and fantastic craic, so chances are you'll be spending a fair bit of time in the pub. But for the uninitiated, the local lingo can be baffling. Expression: In fairness. Really means: I'm too polite to say this flat-out, so I'll cushion it. Example: "In fairness, Joe, you're an idiot." Expression: Your man/your woman. Really means: The man/woman being spoken about, even if you've no connection to them. Example: "Your man Joe is an idiot." (And you're thinking, "I don't even know Joe".) Expression: Stop. Really means: Go on (usually to oneself as part of a monologue - even if you haven't interrupted). Example: "...the barman locked the doors and we kept drinking. Ah, stop. And then we're all pouring pints. Ah stop! Then we crack open the Baileys, and by this time the sun's coming up. Stop, stop! And then..." Expression: How long are you here? Really means: ?! Do they mean how long *have* you been here, or how long *will*... Galway, Ireland Catherine Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:00:37 +0100 http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine/experience/133 http://www.hereorthere.com/experiences/133 I've spent the last few days braving the stinging rain walking around Belfast's centre, and warming up with pints in the cafes and bars on Botanic Ave. Then on my last day here, I hop in a black taxi. When I book the taxi tour, I'm assuming it'll be impartial. It starts out that way as the burly guy at the wheel, with a shaved head covered by a beanie, drives few blocks west to the Falls and Shankill roads. He points out the high-rise apartment building, the top floors of which were occupied by police as a watch tower, and where residents from the other side of the political divide lived without fear of attack. And points out the tri-band colours painted on the gutters (green, orange and white stripes in the Republican areas; red, white and blue in the Loyalist areas). Then slows down alongside murals starkly portraying the Republican sympathies with Palestine and the Loyalist sympathies with Israel. We come to the huge, 12m-high walls running through the residential streets:... Belfast, United Kingdom Catherine Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:10:01 +0100 http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine/experience/131 http://www.hereorthere.com/experiences/131 Whichever way you approach Uluru, you'll have travelled a hell of a long way to reach it. And the first glimpse of this enormous red rock in the middle of the desert literally stops you in your tracks. Many people who make the trek here have one goal in mind, which is to climb it. But what a lot of tourist brochures don't tell you is that the Traditional Custodians, the Anangu people, ask that you don't. This, of course, seems at odds with the bloody great chain trailing up the rock face - which is at odds with the signs at the base that read: 'Please don't climb'. And so, many people figure by this point that they've travelled all this way and they're going to ignore the signs and climb anyway. The chain is a legacy of the conditions that were laid down to the Anangu for the land to be returned to them in the 1980s (at which point its name reverted to its 40,000-plus-year-old name, Uluru, instead of the colonialised Ayres Rock). And why the signs not to climb? There are tw... Yulara, Australia Catherine Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:03:22 +0100 http://www.hereorthere.com/members/catherine/experience/128 http://www.hereorthere.com/experiences/128