The Blue Lagoon: Heavy In Your Arms

The heavenly waters run from the factory nearby - cause steamy water output is what we're really talking about; only it's a geothermal power plant, the water is healthy, regularly renewed and its minerals offer a great antidote to your psoriasis.
So, all the snob ladies ready to send that bragging picture with your best "Icelandic geothermal spa" pose - uh-uh...
What really gets you high, though, is that fantasy lies within your freaking grip; and it's dirty with earth (or dried lava), not exclusive. It only takes some smart eco-thinking and it's right there ready for ya. Simple as that. And that realization is, simply, cathartic.

As Florence & the Machine put it: "I was a heavy heart to carry. My beloved was weighed down...And he took me to the river, where he slowly let me drown".
But, then, you come out of the sulphur and... whoosh, all trouble is gone - and the beloved wears sexy trunks.

Soundtrack: Heavy in Your Arms, by Florence & the Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_eOmvM-4zc&feature=related

Copenhagen: Let's Talk Museums

On one hand, there's the famous Black Diamond - where you'll dive into anything from historical books to Danish cartoon art via modern photography (and that is a good thing). In your break from all the above, you'll drink one of the hippest coffees in the capital (and that is not really a good thing). Cool, yeah, and it sits for a great photo...

...On the other, there's Erotica, the museum where you'll freely stare at all the uninhibited, educational, stylish porn along with giggly sailors that bear an uncanny resemblance to Take That. I guess I 'm cheap and I'm ruining the Diamond's world renowned preciousness but, hey, look at that mask - and Erotica's brash and sassy mood (obviously) rocks. I'm sold.

Soundtrack: Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKiMbC6s2k&feature=fvw
...or
Justify My Love by Madonna
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt6_EfbMqt8&feature=related
(a cultural contradiction of the kind demands equally contradictory music choices)

Around the world: Surrender to the road

There are tracks that play in an obsessive loop, every time the AT car hits the road. The compilation begins in optimism, sure (just enough to get you outta town), and gradually sinks into the abyss. The way AT see it, as the scenery plays the pretty vacant, pain and sensibility complete the 360 degrees experience.

1.Feeling Good, from Feeling Good: Best Of - Nina Simone
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJA69C6SlRk)
2.Sweet Surrender, from Greetings from L.A. - Tim Buckley
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-qNBxXjbI4&feature=related)
3.Cities, from Fear of Music - Talking Heads
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W6ZemyWd50&feature=related)
4.Interstellar Overdrive, from London 1966/1967 - Pink Floyd
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emlJKhLZOh8)
5.Pleasant Street, from Goodbye and Hello - Tim Buckley
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK2AeJd-D50&feature=related)
6.Janitor of Lunacy, from Dessertshore - Nico
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JHS35c-K6U)
7.Brother Fear, from Angelfish - And Also the Trees
(http://www.we7.com/#/song/And-Also-The-Trees/Brother-Fear)
8.Dance of the Knights, from Romeo and Juliet - Sergei Prokofiev
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyyoSc9HRZw&feature=related)
9.Popplagid, from ( ) - Sigur Ros
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VesUJqm5rss)
10.Ulalume, from Closed on Account of Rabies - Jeff Buckley (spoken word)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VesUJqm5rss)

Jökulsárlón, Iceland: Batman was here

Lara Croft and James Bond both passed by here (and Batman did too). But there's something way more magical about Jokulsarlon, (south eastern) Iceland. You can taste history by taking a lick (and hopefully not a leak) of ancient ice from the tons of free-traveling mini icebergs around, or simply give yourself defenseless to the claws of absolute serenity. Either way, Sigur Ros (or Kira Kira, or Amiina) are playing at the back of your head - and you now know where all that damn heavenly magic is coming from.

Soundtrack: Hjartao Hamast by Sigur Ros
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwoD2RytTp4

Iceland: The Thorsmork rite

It's a bumpy ride to the land of God Thor - through freezing water and unyielding rocks. Near the end, it's not magic that awaits, but a melting iceberg, courtesy of the Greenhouse effect.

Till all beauty melts away, a gig now and then by the turquoise blue waters and a landscape as intense and primitive as it can get.

Thor(smork) is king.

Soundtrack: "Break the Black Ice" by Death in June

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgtfL25WrPk

Arizona: road is the word

"It is the day, my body's weak. I'm gonna run, no time to sleep. I've gotta ride, ride like the wind to be free again."

Driving through the Arizona desert only rock(s) and Saxon come to mind.





To feel so free should be illegal - oh, and it (almost) is! "Kill 'em All" by Metallica should play next...

Cruising Arizona is a life lesson - singing in hardship.




Soundtrack: ...Ride Like the Wind (Saxon version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX6TUIKAFzw

Greece: ...and, wonders, you may cease

No wonder Greece is almost entirely known for its' past (oh, yeah, there's also that present mega-debt... My bad). That ancient, monumental past that keeps weighing everything (and everyone) down, no matter (and I don't wanna say because of) its' massive, sprawling glory. It weighs its children (those utter bon viveurs) into unreal, turquoise waters it does, but they find it still hard to breathe.
It's divinely comfy to rest on your laurels (the archetype of laurels) if you can spend a lifetime without them, well, wilting. But how about getting on your funky... vintage feet and playing something other than the (brooding on its' immature successors) last standing pillar of ancient civilization?
Where there's ruins and where there's debt - and where there's, also, a great canteen by the infinite blue, that goes super with your foamy ice-coffee (no argument here), that's when it's time to stand up. To your classical period fame and to your boring stiff present. Now is the time to give birth to something new. Like, say, your own present...
Which, for now, is contrastingly (and uniquely) interesting because of its' chaos (in this blog, chaos is complimentary - like kitsch and tramps). Courtesy of the rebels who try to maintain a strong political identity against a sickening power that waltzes with impunity. 
Most people are just happy to copy (Greece's past, international star system's present) instead of getting off their butts and beefing up individuality (that stranger). Maybe that's the only thing they've been taught - well, how can you really compare, maaan?
Well, you don't really have to. Just stand up and do your own dance, I say. Start with something jumpy by the (bad-dy) holly Guy Deborians. So long as it's not sirtaki (stuffing yourself with spoonfuls of moussaka at the same time). Just because you already know it works...
There are great modern-day (heeey!) gigs playing, to complement your drinks after a long day in the time-capsule. Thumbs up to the tons of struggling (with their guitars and the state, mostly) punk bands in hiding (from the trend-setters) - all of you into glorious decadence, there's nothing like the anger, the irony and the... riddle-to-your-ears accent of Greek punk lyrics. Modern art is also (kinda...) trying to pave the way - but this writer speaks music (let someone else give it a try)...
Inland Greece, by the way (of trippin'), has a lot of cool things going for it, which hold their own in modern history (think the Nazi invasion monuments up North). And even though, yeah, I forgot to mention the corrupt, brainwashing, medieval spell of the Greek church (who wants to remember?), Mount Athos and Meteora make for a breath-taking trip in the AD years. And Mani's rocky castles, in the South of the Peloponnese, too - an echo to Scotland's Highlands (a little closer to the Equinox). Hardcore stuff.
A nice, tasty politics-art-history-travel salad.

The Temple of Olympic Zeus: Amazing grace - just go hang and eat a sandwich...

Soundtrack: Agglotsoliades by The Guy Deborians
http://www.myspace.com/theguydeborians

Utah: True colors

I walked through the Valley of Gods - and it was a hell of a bumpy, muddy, mad-dy ride. The other side of America is magical, lonely, heavenly ignored.
In your face.

Soundtrack: Personal Jesus (Johnny Cash version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVAZYI6IDTM

Greece: Athens is a jungle

...Athens (Greece) is pedestrian. Athens eats green alive. Athens cooks a glorious alchemy of garbage, smog and cement and trips on urban acid. But, it's moments like this - a leisurely walk in the National Garden that makes it worth... not spitting.

Soundtrack: Reverse Mouth
http://www.myspace.com/reversemouth/music

Astral trips / reality check

Yet another travel blog (as if I checked)...
Here, trips - and tripping- are not just an organized leap into another world. We organize, yes, but - I'll actually speak for myself now, only those aspects of the voyage that will make me feel more free, as I go appropriate the most intriguing elements of this new world.
I can't, unfortunately, escape geeky snapshots in goofy loose shorts, a  messy hat conspicuously hiding sweaty  hair (I once even braved last minute Tinkerbell sunglasses from the super market in the corner, in order to face the unforgiving desert sun - but not spending a fortune!) and a camera in hand, curiously annoying locals trying to get by just another day at work. I can escape, though, relying exclusively on written and oral guides to help me get around, without exchanging a word with those above mentioned locals (and by "exchanging" I don't just mean information concerning the nearest burger palace or public loo); cruising the subway instead of walking real life neighborhoods off the tourist neon maps (taking the bus doesn't really cut it either); expecting to have good money before I check the local cuisine - there's always another customized version of a good old hot dog in a canteen in... some corner. If you see that's what the other (hopefully) knowing passersby do (and you're a safe distance, let's say, from burning corpses in the river Ganges, or other gastronomically disreputable hot-spots in India), just dig in.
And you should definitely drop in for a $ 6 manicure down a basement in New York's Lower East Side,  carefully done by a group of Asian youths giggling all the way through their incessant and (deadly cute) incomprehensible gossip, or get a stylish updo by an alternative coiffeuse in Berlin, as she comments on the current problems of political squats (you lucky big guys, you can always roam the hoods I wouldn't easily venture on my own...).
That's what makes me trip, anyway...

Eyes over Berlin

Soundtrack: Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUntj4z3v0w&feature=related