Entertainment while a-travellin'

OK so on the eve of my jumping on a plane and returning home, I leave you with the first of four end of trip postings- one on Paris, one on KL and a summary to come. This post is devoted to how I've entertained myself while travelling especially on LONG train trips and the music/TV that others have inflicted upon me during my travels.

Movies

At home, I'm a snob and I tend to only stick with films that are independent or in a foreign language or by a cult director and so on. I rarely go and see the big commercial films. While travelling though, the films I'm forced to watch on planes aren't that bad (last time- Zodiac and The Darjeeling Limited among others; this time- Inception and 500 Days of Summer (granted I'd seen them both before and own 500 Days of Summer on DVD)). I, then, tend to find average films to watch when I feel like going to the cinema while travelling (last time- The Golden Compass (not great and Nicole Kidman was miscast) and Beowolf (OK but not brilliant and the evil Jolie was in it)). This time, I excelled myself with the badness of film choice- Harry Potter 7 Part 1 (OK I always watch HP films and they are never brilliant so I knew what was coming there), The American and, worst of all, The Tourist. One word reviews in order, average, dull and lacking. Still trying to figure out how The Tourist  was nominated for multiple Golden Globes- thank goodness it didn't win any.

Be warned people if you feel the urge to watch movies while travelling, you may not be able to find cinemas showing the kind of films you want to see and unless you want to watch rubbish, plan your trip to the cinema, don't just show up and hope that something good is on (this is why I wound up watching The American and The Tourist in the first place).

TV

OK so when staying in hostels you often have little control over what you watch on TV and sometimes you can't avoid it as the TV is in the only room with comfortable chairs and internet access, or the dining room. This means that travelling in UK and Ireland will almost certainly result in the watching of both Emmerdale and Corination St. Just try and block it out or it will melt your brain.

In Germany, I saw a vaguely entertaining variety program and lots of football (of the kind that is played with your feet). In Spain, it was film clips for mostly terrible songs and more football. Thankfully I could avoid the TV in other hostels, if there even was one.

But what about when I did have control? Well in Venice, there was little choice that wasn't in Italian so I flicked between MTV (occasionally not in Italian) and BBC World (who showed the same news report was shown at hourly intervals)- the watching of MTV meant I saw Jersey Shore for the first time and can I say 1) ewwww and 2) who in the hell is watching this; even compared to other reality TV it is scum and that is saying something. In KL, there has been more variety but much of it bad. I don't know if the people of Malaysia really like reality TV but I've watched a lot of True Beauty, Top Model (Canadian, British, Australian and American), and, just beause I couldn't sleep, The Bachelorette- I've also seen more ads for American Idol then is strictly neccessary (I'm seriously it is EVER ad break and the channel has taken the tagline "Home of the Idols"). Thankfully I also found Castle, How I Met Your Mother and Leno so there was some good to be had. Aside for the amount of reality TV, the other thing about KL TV is the repeato factor- the same episodes of reality TV shows have been screened at least three to four TIMES since I've been here. Currently watching the repeat of the Globes even though I already know who won- nothing else is on. Can't wait to have control of my remote in my flat again!

Music

I have whinged long and loud about the quality of music I've had to put up with on this trip. Top 40 rubbish with occasional additions of odd classic rock/pop- though props go to the guy from Berlin YHA who listened to Triple J, one of the mix tapes played at Prague Traveller's Hostel, and the people responsible for the music at both French hostels. By and large though, it has been a wall of Rhiana, Katy Perry and the like. The top three songs that have driven me nuts on this trip are:

1. Only Girl (In the World)- Rhiana (if I had heard this one more time, I swear I would have had a massive rage fit ala the Hulk)
2. Forget You - Ce Lo Green 
3. Firework- Katy Perry (as a sign of how much mush the musical side of brain became at one point, I started to kind of like this song- thankfully I woke up to it being trash again quickly)

Just to show how Top 40 iliterate I am, I actually had to look up who actually sang all three of those songs. 

My iPhone has been my musical refuge though it contains very few of my CDs. For people with more taste, the top 3 CDs that woke up the musical part of my brain and proved that music could be good:

1. Narrow Stairs- Death Cab for Cutie
2. Seventh Tree- Goldfrapp
3. Infinite Arms- Band of Horses

Books

OK so no one forced me to read anything and I steered clear of the "take a book, leave a book" walls at the hostels- I glanced at them in three hostels and found the traditional mix of Dan Brown (in Nice four books, two of which were The Da Vinci Code...urgg), airport lit, chick lit, travel guides for weird countries (i.e not the one you are in) and stuff in foreign languages. So have a brief review of the books I've read on the trip:

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh- delightfully funny case of mistaken identity and a brilliant satire of the world of journalism

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan- so heartless, so cynical, so bitter and so well written. 

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby- hilariously funny, full of Nick Hornby's typical brand of obsessives. I think this may have been my favourite book I read while travelling- I couldn't put it down and finished it in like a day.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami- beautiful, sad and wonderful. Having read a Murakumi novel in the past, it wasn't what I was expecting but it profound none the less.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka- very funny, though maybe not best read while in Eastern Europe, I kept seeing women who cruelly reminded me of the scheming gold digging wife from this novel

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris- Shameful that I read this. Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books are guilty pleasure books back home but the train station in France didn't have the only one of them I haven't read in English when I was searching for guilty pleasure reading. This isn't even the first book in Harris's Harper Connelly series so I had to catch up a bit not having read the earlier ones. Not brilliant and not as good as the Sookie books, but could be quality guilty pleasure reading for some.

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald- Brilliant and sad.

Metamorphsis by Franz Kafka- in all seriousness it was in a book of Kafka short stories and it was one of only two I read. Harrowingly great story of isolation.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen- Now I understand what the fuss is about, wow! Funny and sad and visionary.

Left for the plane, I have The Castle in the Pyrennes by Jostein Gaarder and Barrack Obama's The Audicity of Hope (I needed a break from the fiction).

The books I am carrying around

For the closing word on entertainment while travelling, it may not work out as you wish even when you have control of it, but just take it in your stride. Though maybe don't cart around as many books as I did.