On my Midsemester break from teaching, I flew into Heraklion in Crete and caught a super expensive taxi ride to a place called Maliha, which was the freakn stereotype of a ghost town, apparently the tourists don’t start coming until about may/june... all but 2 shops were closed on the main street (a pharmacy and restaurant) and whilst I sat in that lone restaurant for dinner all the town’s power supply went out… the owners had to light a few candles so I could eat my tzatziki chicken salad hahaha, at least the beer was good (Mythos, try it if the opportunity presents itself the guys were actually pretty cool to yarn to there, and told me about a bus that costs only a couple euros to hop around the whole island of crete. (better than the extortional taxi ride!) after fumbling home in pitch black to the empty hotel I reckon I must’ve fell asleep at about 8pm The next day I woke up, and caught this bus back to the main depot in the biggest city on Crete – Heraklion. From here I managed to catch another bus to Knossos. If the name doesn’t ring any bells - Knossos was the place in Greek mythology where there was a giant labyrinth with a Minotaur (half man/half bull) living inside ready to kill anyone trying to find the treasure hidden inside… and also the famous palace of King Midas (everything he touched literally ‘turned to gold’). I wandered around the palace for a bit, and didn’t find ANY treasure (or see the psycho minotaur) so i caught a bus back to the airport and flew to Athens.
Athens was an amazing city! I stayed in Athens right next to Ommonia Square, Syntagma Square (important metro stop) was only 10 mins walk away max so I was pretty much dead in the centre of the city …. After sleeping the first night I hired a car for 3 days, the first trip was westward towards Korinthos. Saw the old archaeological sites of Epidavrus and Mycenae (loads of my pics are up on Bebo/Facebook if you get a chance to have a look). Epidavrus was the site of a giant Amphitheatre and Mycenae was the famous citadel of King Agamemnon who, with his brother, sent an army to a place in Turkey called Troy (you may’ve seen a shite movie with Brad Pitt in it with the same name). Driving in Athens central city was horrible tho!!!! I almost suicided myself between an 18 wheeler and a concrete barrier on the first day but hamdulillah (Arabic for ‘praises to god’) managed to slam on the breaks and perform some sort’ve manoeuvre only gran turismo on the play-station had prepared me for but on the other hand, driving in the countryside was fantastic, after seeing barren, arid, desert terrain for the last half year, seeing green trees and rivers etc was a welcome change. The 2nd day I drove south down to Sounion (the southern most tip of the mainland), and saw the Temple of Poseidon (god of the sea). The temple only had a few columns remaining but it must’ve been pretty damn impressive when it was new, white marble standing on a huge cliff above the Ocean! The 3rd day I drove northwest up to a place called Delphi. This is where the famous ‘Oracle’ in Greek history used to live and prophesize the future etc. The old ruins of Delphi were awesome, and on the way was a wicked skiing town called Arachova, which could be one of my favourite places that I visited in Greece… I had to race back to Athens to get car into the rental place by 6pm, and only just made it in the cities horrific traffic and confusing street layout.
The next few days I spent just walking around the city, to the old school Greek Orthodox Churches, the Museum, and up the Akropolis. (I hid a euro under a rock near the Parthenon… you can keep it if you find it It was a pity that there was so much scaffolding around as it ruined my photo shots, but was a cool experience none-the-less..! I also got to stand at the foot of the Temple of Olympeion Zeus, a GIANT temple with the marble columns being a massive 28 meters high… pretty damn a

Waking up at the crack of dawn on the 6th of March wasn’t an easy feat… Especially knowing full well that the bus trip up to Dubai was gonna be a long drive… real long… 7 hours long… Thankfully, the next 2 days of music were well worth the sacrifice of a healthy sleep in

After arriving around 3pm, and finding the apartment in the city, the guys and I decided to have a wander about looking for something to keep us entertained for the first night. Finding a Burger King joint seemed like a priority for most the guys, Oman finds itself lacking in that department. After having a beverage to wash down the tasty burgers (spot the Pulp Fiction reference anyone?) we walked into a massive Virgin Mega-store. This wasn’t a good option for anybody’s pockets... The selection of DVDs and CDs here in Dubai was savagely better than in Oman, so everyone spent up large. Between us we even bought a cheap DVD player… and put it to good use that first night.

The next day we decided to turn up reasonably early to Dubai’s Festival City. After picking up our tickets and standing in line for long enough to get torched by the blazing sun, we made it inside the gates. By this time I was quite thirsty so headed straight for another tasty beverage, this one being slightly more alcoholic than the days before I was psyched… the next 36 hours were spent in a mild state of inebriation. Here’s how it went down…

Day 1

Slapshock. Philipino Rock. If I was from the Philipines, I probably would’ve thought these guys were absolute legends. Thing is… I’m not Philipino. The locals seemed to enjoy their set, but I wasn’t convinced. Every track sounded like the last one they played, so I wasn’t really impressed... maybe I just hadn’t got into the spirit yet (I was only 2 beers down by the time their set was up)
Nervecell. Emirates Metal. These local boys were a world better than the last act, and even got the late afternoon crowd spilling beers as people thrashed around in decent sized circle mosh-pits. I still wasn’t getting involved though, I didn’t wanna distance myself too far from the beer chillers. Even so, these guys cranked out some killer riffs and put on a great show. The guys and I also hung out with the dudes from the band a few times throughout the festival, and they were bloody good guys!
As I Lay Dying. Christian Metal Now here was a band I’d heard of before (& even had bought a CD of theirs ). Despite the seemingly derogative ‘Christian Metal’ term associated with them - AiLD put on a good show. They got the crowd’s fists up in the air (maybe it was the hype from the bands to follow), and the circle pits were getting bigger and bigger. As a result of this more and more security staff were beginning to sift thru the crowd in their bright yellow vests.
Killswitch Engage. Savage!!! Adam D (lead guitarist) flew out wearing a cape and cut off denim shorts (it’s his trademark, the weirdo ). As soon as the guitars fired up, I was a slave to the tide of the crowd (thus the lack of Killswitch pics, I needed both hands free to keep my head above the maelstrom of people!) The energy of the band was amazing! The highlight of their set for me was when they cranked out their version of ‘Holy Diver’, I was buzzing!
Machine Head. After the crowds for Killswitch dispersed I made my way right to the front of the left side of the stage, and what a place to witness the energy and brutal guitar shredding that Machine Head kicked out into the crowd! With their latest record (‘the Blacknening’) being one of my more listened to albums of late, I thrived on their live versions of the songs! ‘Halo’ was amazing, ‘Aesethics of Hate’ kicked ass, and Rob Flynn was half comedian, total legend on the night.


Day 2

Spoon Feedas & Juliana Down. Who were these bands? Didn’t know before the day and didn’t wanna know

Flew into Tunis on the 21st December and caught a shuttle bus to the beach resort of Hammamet. The two national languages of Tunisia are Arabic and French, neither of which I’m very proficient at speaking… made for an interesting time though… ha-ha! I had a few nights to kill here to wait until the Cosmos tour group turned up, so spent most of it swimming in the hotel’s pool, drinking the local Celtia beers or walking along the Mediterranean coastline (I finally got to see it!). Because it was the middle of winter (even though it wasn’t really cold) not many tourists were around, so the local ‘Souk’ (market) merchants were annoyingly persistent with trying to sell me rubbish clothes, jewellery etc... I was only molested twice. Gutted On Xmas Eve all 28 people of the Cosmos tour group had arrived so we set off around the country. Here are some of the Highlights from the actual tour.

Day 1: Travelled down the coast past Sousse (an old Pirate town on the Barbary Coast) and onwards to El-Djem, where there was an amazing Roman Amphitheatre. It’s the third biggest in the world (the Colosseum in Rome being the largest)! After scaling the top of it, I jumped back on the bus & continued further south to Sfax for a delicious Xmas Eve roast at the hotel.
Day 2: Xmas Day. Travelled thru Matamata and Tatooiene (where the Troglodytes live underground and also where a lot of Star Wars was filmed apparently ha-ha!), then onto Douz (which is referred to as the ‘Gateway to the Sahara’). Here 8 of us from the group jumped on some Camels and journeyed into the twilight. Half way into the journey we stopped and a local Bedouin came running out of the desert with a Coke, opened it and forced it into my hands and demanded money for it. I just gave it back and walked off as he continued to play the violin (‘this is the only way I can feed my family’, ‘But I’ve already opened it’ etc). They’re savage scam artists (and this dude actually DID fleece a few of the group of their coin). I’m dead sure the bottle had been resealed so who knows what was actually in it?! Camel-Juice perhaps? I’d hate to think ha-ha! At Nite I sat in the Hotel Bar and listened to some pretty wicked Arabic band going hardcore traditional! Makes me wanna learn the Oud now!!
Day 3: Today we had a full on day! For starters we went through an amazing part of Tunisia called ‘Chott el Jerid’. In this region is an unbelievable gigantic crusty salt lake. A lot of the pools of stagnant water are actually deep red (because of the bacterial microbes that thrive in the extreme salinic conditions), but most of the water is below the surface of the salt crust. I was the only one brave (or stupid) enough to walk across a part of it – didn’t fall through though, (See the Pic ) Continuing on thru Kebili, we stopped at some solid Dunes where I got to see a Saharan Scorpion and have that savage Falcon sitting on my arm for a few minutes! It was wicked! When we arrived at Tozeur, I took a horse drawn cart to the middle of a Desert Oasis to see how they artificially pollenate & harvest the Date Palms (a massive part of Tunisia’s economy). Might sound boring, but watching a bare footed ancient dude practically running up a giant palm tree, no ropes attached, was pretty amazing. Screw that for a job, ha-ha! In the afternoon the tour group jumped into a bunch of jeeps and headed up the mountains to a place called Chebika, which is a stones throw from the Algerian border. Here we saw ‘Le Grand Cascade’ (French for ‘Big Waterfall’) which was actually a pretty disappointing sight… on the way back to Tozeur we got a chance to have a thrash in the desert in the jeeps. Good times! That evening I went to a traditional Folklore evening, and entered the huge tent whilst some entertaining but insane nutcase was breathing fire outside. Inside was all the wine I could drink and, as per usual, this paved the way for hilario