You've all just lost me to this city. I am completely and utterly wrapped up in its not-so-welcoming arms. And it's because those arms are so large, so harsh, so hairy and all encompassing that I love it. I'm being strangled. I'm calling out to the people around me; but not to be saved. To be joined.
Manhattan is more than just a city. And it's more than just an island. There is not a square inch (nor centimetre for that matter) of space that is not being occupied by someone or something. Or a story. This place is a bacterial breeding ground for one liners that you hear walking past the 1,500,000 people who live here. To give you an idea, Melbourne has about 20,000 people. Check out www.overheardinnewyork.com for examples. This just further adds to the reasons that I feel like I will be back here someday. And I'll be working in one of these unnatural constructions, for one of those social constructions. The buildings quite simply never end. Not even when you reach the shore. And then you can see the gulf that engulfs your sense of perception even more.
Because across those shores you can see the dimmed glow of Brooklyn - reflected in Downtown's late afternoon haze, but at a somewhat smudged degree.
Further up you find yourself looking across at Queens, seemingly most well known outside Queens itself as the birthday place of Nanny Fine. Again, it is so close that you can hear that nasal assault on the eardrums from 1st Avenue.
The Bronx is the next peninsula north again, although all I know about it is that my subway line is somehow more there than here. Although I have ideals of their inhabitants having those deep, vibrating voices that scare dogs and mimic the subwoofer cars that always seem to be coming down from Harlem.
Staten Island remains illusive. Not even the name has connotations yet.
And the only knowledge I have of Jersey is that I have my first winter purchase coming from a store on their shores.
This all said, when I refer to being in love with New York, I refer to the isle of Manhattan. Here, it is not a city, but many diverse cultural hubs that intermingle with each other between the wary gaze of the million eyed buildings. No matter where you are, you can always look up and feel like you are being looked down. The concept of a townhouse is foreign here. The lowest building I've seen is 5 stories. And no, I'm NOT exaggerating.
As a result, the buildings seem to lean in on you. You're so curious about all of these little worlds, and yet they seem equally curious about you. If you close your eyes and stop, sometimes I swear that you can hear them whispering.
...
No that was a complete lie. Number 1, if you closed your eyes you would be run over. Number 2, if you closed your eyes and stopped you'd be robbed. Number 3, if you closed your eyes and stopped and thought you could hear whispering voices, well, you'd probably still be saner than about 2/3rds of the population here.
Ie-
"PITTED DATES* Ingredients: Dates. *May contain pits"
"Organic Dry Cleaners"
(sign held by homeless man) "Obama isn't the only one who wants change"
(overheard in a clothes store) "Yeah, listen, I'm just at the dentist right now"
(overheard on the corner of 3rd and St Marks) "But wha do yah wanna fahkin eat fah fahkin tea mah mathafahkin nigga"
Yes he said all of that and then used the word 'tea'.
And then there was my first subway ride. I was going from Spring to 59th, and on the second stop, 5 very large, jolly, overall wearing black guys walked in. One of them began to hum, while another spoke in a voice that bubbled like champagne.
"And ah hope tha ya'll havin a lov-ah-lay mornin this here mornin. Today we's gonna give ya'll some traditional gah-sple singin. Ah hope ya'll enjoy, an give generously people".
And they started to sing in 5 part harmony. They walked up the carriage slowly, with some of the most heart-evoking smiles emitting from their faces as the melodies and the 'OH LORD'ies cascaded over their full lips, with their white teeth acting as the crest of the wave.
I was completely at their mercy mercy me. The soloist took me by the hand, pulled me out of my sticky seat and spun me around. They jiggled paper bags of coins in time to their steps and their respective beats, adding another dimension to their story. They began to clap on the off beats with their heavy fingers. The largest man reached the end of the path and twirled himself around on of the poles with cat-like elegance. And then all too quickly, the train came to a thudding halt, the doors sounded, they hummed one last resonate note, and they were gone. All they left was a carriage full of angry, caffeine-hungry business men,
and one grinning newbie.
Welcome to New York.
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Friday, 3 October 2008
Wrapping up the Loose Threads - Denmark. Again...
Sigh. No really I'm actually sighing. I don't want to write this. Because then it's going to mean that it's over. And I mean that in multifarious ways. Europe is over. Backpacking is over. Copenhagen (euphemistic use of the word) is over.
Actually, I'm going to be incredibly vague on this one. Because anyone who has been reading between the lines knows what's been going on in Denmark; and anyone who has seen or heard a Georgia rant about this subject knows TOO MUCH of what's been going on in Denmark. And also because I'm gonna draw the line between public and private here. If everyone knows everything, then the world looses its mysticism. Life shouldn't be celebrated by the things that we know, but by the things that we don't yet know.
So essentially this is what happened.
I went back to Copenhagen. To live with Nicolas.
Lottie and the Betts-Dean crew family we going to be there too, so all the less need to justify my return I guess! And I couldn't have envisaged another way to spend my last week and a half in Europe. I may not have been partying in Berlin, or sunbathing in Croatia, or gigging in Budapest, or getting lost in Glasgow. But I was surrounded by people I love.
And one that I may never see again.
And I'm sure that this will all come up again in other forms over the next two months. But I don't want to explicitly state the obvious right now! I'm quite aware that I'm an emotional writer, and I put a little bit of me into everything that I pen (or type in this case). People seem to be able to tell when I'm down, even if I don't mention the shitty times. People seem to be able to tell when I'm bursting with excitement over something, even if I think that I'm being pretty blase about it. So maybe you can all sense what I'm feeling right now.
No more words needed.
...
SO!!! Subject change!!!
This is my last post on the old times. A stage in my life has come to an end, and I'm sorry that it must happen so abruptly. It felt pretty abrupt to me too! One moment I was sobbing, alone in a foreign airport terminal; and then 24 hours later I was in a cab, driving up 5th Avenue, listening to Death Cab For Cutie's Marching Bands of Manhattan. And crying some more. But for different reasons this time. This time for excitement. This time for fear. This time for life.
And if I was crying
it was for freedom
from myself
and from the land
Actually, I'm going to be incredibly vague on this one. Because anyone who has been reading between the lines knows what's been going on in Denmark; and anyone who has seen or heard a Georgia rant about this subject knows TOO MUCH of what's been going on in Denmark. And also because I'm gonna draw the line between public and private here. If everyone knows everything, then the world looses its mysticism. Life shouldn't be celebrated by the things that we know, but by the things that we don't yet know.
So essentially this is what happened.
I went back to Copenhagen. To live with Nicolas.
Lottie and the Betts-Dean crew family we going to be there too, so all the less need to justify my return I guess! And I couldn't have envisaged another way to spend my last week and a half in Europe. I may not have been partying in Berlin, or sunbathing in Croatia, or gigging in Budapest, or getting lost in Glasgow. But I was surrounded by people I love.
And one that I may never see again.
And I'm sure that this will all come up again in other forms over the next two months. But I don't want to explicitly state the obvious right now! I'm quite aware that I'm an emotional writer, and I put a little bit of me into everything that I pen (or type in this case). People seem to be able to tell when I'm down, even if I don't mention the shitty times. People seem to be able to tell when I'm bursting with excitement over something, even if I think that I'm being pretty blase about it. So maybe you can all sense what I'm feeling right now.
No more words needed.
...
SO!!! Subject change!!!
This is my last post on the old times. A stage in my life has come to an end, and I'm sorry that it must happen so abruptly. It felt pretty abrupt to me too! One moment I was sobbing, alone in a foreign airport terminal; and then 24 hours later I was in a cab, driving up 5th Avenue, listening to Death Cab For Cutie's Marching Bands of Manhattan. And crying some more. But for different reasons this time. This time for excitement. This time for fear. This time for life.
And if I was crying
it was for freedom
from myself
and from the land
Wrapping up the Loose Threads - Benelux
Namaste/Bonjour/Hello/Ciao/G'day/Gutentag/Hai,
I would like to simultaneously say both goodbye to my epic epitaphs, and also to my new method of communication with the outside world - the blog! Instead of submitting you to reading my updates in large, fortnight long chunks, I thought it would be suitable for me to simply update this daily and you can clue in whenever you're curious to see what I'm getting up to in the world... And New York is really going to be its own bubble.
I'm sitting writing this from BAT5 (British Airways Terminal 5 in the non-backpacker speak that I have become so accustomed to) where I have a 6 hour stop over. Normally 6 hours in an airport would sound just as fun as repeatedly stabbing yourself in the eye with a broken biro, or watching Dancing with the Stars in Swedish; but T5 is a wonderland in itself. Just an expensive wonderland... £1 for 10 minutes... This is how much you know I love you!
Now my last more-whale-than-word email ended in Scotland, land of the now infamous 'Hairy Coo'. That was on the 9th of September. Has it really been that long? The past few weeks have been PACKED so forgive me if I alternate between giving too much information and not enough. I will inevitably pick and choose between whatever suits my diverse tastes at the time of writing.
So.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND to LONDON, BRITIAN 9th: The free haircut that I mentioned in Scotland went just dandy, but also just a bit boring for my eclectic tastes... 4 inches later, it's nice, but I'm going to get something edgy done when I hit to NY shores. I got in pretty late and don't think I even ate dinner and just fell asleep in my clothes on Asha's couch.
LONDON 10th: The next day I remember going back to the same heavenly scone place (sans Shakespearean actors this time), back to the same gob dropping TATE to see an exhibition I missed, and yet again, somehow managed to miss seeing the Globe... Despite the fact that I walked past it. Twice. I met up with the beautiful creature that is Tiffany (remember her from emails ago? Choreographer cum record label manager that I met in Croatia?) and we went to one of the strangest night clubs I have ever set foot in. It was part art gallery, part live dramatic art installation, part one-man-shows, part dance floor and part bar. With pinball machines. And all of this was underground beneath London Bridge station. I wasn't feeling too peachy-keen though, so we called it a night as the last trains were leaving.
LONDON to PARIS, FRANCE 11th: I caught one of the last Eurostars this day before the fire in the tunnel that I'm sure that you would have all heard about. Lucky me! (Separate lucky incident - I have heard about the RMIT student who was traveling in Dubrovnik, Croatia by herself and has gone missing. I know the club that she was last seen at and it's quite scary seeing someone else who just must have been in the wrong place and the wrong time... I thought that Dubrovnik was honestly one of the safest cities I had been too. I was obviously wrong). I made my way to Beatrice's house in a succession of French metro stops that I can neither pronounce nor find on a map, and surprisingly, for once, did NOT get hideously lost! I was greeted by Ceser with kisses on both cheeks. This is the boy that I met when I was 8 and he was 9 and naturally feel in love with purely for the fact that he was a French boy who kisses on both cheeks! And he was just the same - except about a foot taller. Then Baptiste walked in (Jack's age just about) and it was the same. Then Marie (21 y.o. journalism student who was traveling India at the same time as me) and that was EXACTLLY the same. Including the jealously. But it was when I saw Beatrice that I flipped out just a little bit. She's just like my mother, except Dutch/French, so the next few days were like a little slice of home. I slept in Baptiste's room, ate the most magnificent baguettes with salted butter that I may as well have just slathered on my thighs in the first place. Except it wouldn't have tasted quite as nice there.
PARIS 12th-15th: The next couple of days are a little hazy of which was on what day, so I'll group them all. Things that I can tick off my 'I've seen Paris' list:
- Eiffel Tower (climbed the 800 plus steps to the second tower. Sweating would be an understatement)
- Arc du Triumphe (spelt wrong of course. It was going to cost €9 to get to the top. No way, Jose)
- Notre Dame (Really stunning now that it's been restored. I have lots of fond 2005 Euro Choir memories of singing there; although I found myself looking more at the reflections of the stained glass windows on the ground than the glass itself)
- Pompidou (I was way too tired to appreciate this centre for all it was worth. I spent 4 hours there, but I have seen SO many galleries that it just seems unfortunate that when you get to the one that's supposedly one of the best in the world, all the Francis Bacons and Jason Pollocks start to look the same. Cool exterior though)
- The Lourve (I met Beatrice on her lunch break here, and she showed me her favourite areas and gave me a little history lesson. She's an AMAZING artist herself, so it was nice have a personlised tour! I continued wandering around for about 4 hours after that too. Mona Lisa's looking good considering her age. I wonder if she uses L'Oreal?)
- That park outside the Lourve (I'm not even going to try and spell it. You know the one. It was really nice, but cold and raining. But you know that I love that)
- Mussee du O'rsay (you can continue to laugh while I massacre the French language. Again, I really regretted now that I've arted myself out! I have a few memories of being there with Dad back when I was a Bubba - remembering not to sneeze on Whistler's mother a la Mr Bean for an example)
That's about it for the big tourist attractions. I really spent a lot of my time simple wandering around the streets. I had my own set of keys, so I would generally wake up in the morning once everyone had gone to uni/school/work and watch French MTV and eat baguette and butter and jam; then go walkabout and whatever I came across, I saw! Paris doesn't quite 'speak' to me in the same multitude that Berlin does, albeit it really is a beautiful city to get lost in. And lost I certainly got.
By night, this city turns into a playground. I was lucky enough to have 2 fantabulous bigger siblings who were more than happy to take me out and try to get me wasted as every responsible older brother or sister does to their kin. Cesar succeeded on the first night, as Beatrice loves to remind me.
We started off drinking at dinner; then free wine at one of his friend's restaurants that she was bored of working in; then we went to one of his friend's house where about 8 of his other friends(stunning. I am yet to meet an non-attractive, well dressed French man. Touch proverbial wood) were watching a rugby game. I fobbed my way through knowing what I was talking about as they kept refilling my glass of some lucid green liqueur that tasted like a thousand liquid extra-strength breath mints. Then we all went out to a bar where it was one of their friend's 21sts... I kind of remember ordering 20 shots for €20 with one of the girls, but I'm not quite sure where they all went... Surely I would have given some away? I also remember conga lines on the dancefloor, and EVERYONE knowing my name. Even if no one else even knew who they were. It was like being a local celebrity, sans paparazzi (even THERE I think that there was one person taking photos all night...). Anyway, the responsible kids we are, we knew that we couldn't vespa home, so instead they proposed that we ride some of the free bikes.
I hate bikes. HATE them. Psychological fear of them. And trying to ride one when I'm drunk and have even little sense of balance that what I normally do? Uh uh. Not. Good. I got home dinkying with Cesar, but not before a couple of bumps and bruises.
The next night out with the boys was a lot calmer - sitting around drinking a cocktail of Riesling, vodka, that mint stuff and beer. They were going out afterwards to a similar shindig, but I couldn't bring myself for a repeat adventure. So I went home and had a girl’s night in with tea and Garden State with Beatrice and Marie on the couch.
PARIS 16th: Warning: The next week or so is epic. I will not go into a ridiculous amount of details, purely due to the fact that I will most definitely write about this 48 hours in some sort of strange real-time short to medium length story. That's how much went on.Essentially, today was the day that I met Anna. And on top of this, today was THE day. The Wombats day. The one secure date that I had for the whole of my 3 months in Europe. And I spent the entire day trying to make sure that I didn't give myself a heart attack in anticipation, and miss the gig. (For those oldies who don't know, The Wombats are not some sort of weird marsupial troupe. They are a really funky, somewhat crazy band from Liverpool who all wear red raybans and sing songs like "let's dance to Joy Divison and celebrate the irony that everything is going wrong but we're so happy" or "I can see your interests wane my Dear. She wanted Mary Poppins but I took her to King Lear".) I met Anna for the first time since Croatia outside the Elysee MontMarte as the sun was going down over the Moulin Rouge. I was busy pretending that I was Ukrainian to a bunch of pushy French dickheads when I ensconced her in my arms (probably confusing them even more...). Her Indian happy jacket was ripped, so we shared a bottle of rose while I felt very cool sitting cross-legged in the middle of Monte Marte sewing it back up for her.
And then the concert. My god the concert. What I didn't realise when I bought the tickets 5 months ago, was that it was their opening night of their European tour. And. They. Went. CRAZY. Anna and I both had bruised hip bones the next day.
I also happened to stumble upon the details to their afterparty (don't ask me how); so we wound up a few metro stops down the line at a really grungy medium sized club in East Paris. Anna was joking about how cool it would be to meet them. And I told her that's easy - it just takes a bit of sass. Guaranteed, give me 2 or 3 minutes of my thing and I had us both up behind the decks! Murph, the lead singer, was on a bit of an ego trip and didn't really give anyone, not even his bandmates, much attention. Dan was pretty cool and reeeeally relaxed (too relaxed? Ahem?) but it was Tord, the quiet Norwegian bassist that I really got talking to. He's Scandinavian, I spent India with 9 Scandinavians, of course we were going to be peas in a pod! Speaking of pods, I wanted them to play a song, so I found it and highlighted it on my ipod to show them. Instead of putting it on, they TOOK my ipod and put it on! That was the first time that I caught Murph's attention. He had a flick through it, and then said "can we use this for awhile?". Yes you may, sir! What a privilege to have my ipod be the primary source of music for them to mix... Don't worry, I saved the playlist that they made... At about 3ish they all rolled into their tour bus, promised to see us when they come down to Melbourne (empty, I know) and off they went to Lille.
But the butter in the sandwich was this: there was a guy in a scarf Anna and I were dancing with for quite a chunk of the night. He turns out to be the bassist of the band that was doing the opening slot. Georgia's sweet talking ways and Anna's endearing presence earnt us an invite to Backstage for their gig the next night...
PARIS 17th: Lottie day!!!!!! LOLA! L. O. L. A. LOLA! I got a phone call waking me up from my groggy serious lack of sleep informing me that my best St. Kilda buddy was within walking distance from my house... And I'll avoid all the sentimental bullshit about seeing her for the first time in 6 months, because she's already heard it all and that's all that really needs to be heard. It was like stepping back into one of my favourite coffee shops (minus the good coffee. Parisians need to take some serious barista courses) and yabbing away. Which we did over crepes as so-so espressos for about 2 hours. Then it was walking and talking about everything aside from what we'd both been doing the past half year! I think that that is the sign of true friendship - when you don't need to ask 'so, what have you been doing' and you launch back into huge philosophical conversations; like Melbourne fashion style and Frankie :). We walked to Notre Dame and sat talking about our futures in the pews perhaps a little too loudly (I wanted to stick a post-it on my forehead that read I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS GIRL IN TOO LONG SO DEAL but I thought that would be insensitive so I decided against it.). Then we went wandering around the huge cemetery on the Eastern boundary for about 2 or 3 hours. This provided us with plenty of ironic quotes such as Lottie's "this is totally where you go when you die". It took us an hour to find Jimmy Morrison’s grave, and then we had the ingenious idea of taking a photo of the map and using the zoom to find our way around - of technology! How I (VERY occasionally) love you! We also saw Oscar Wilde's, which was covered with equally ironic, but somewhat more famous, quotes. My favourite was "the only this that you can't resist is temptation".
It was 3o'clock by now which is baguette o'clock. So we went and sat underneath the Eiffel Tower and had a late lunch. Just beautiful! In direct contrast to the situation that I found myself in a few hours later. I was told at the train station that not only could I not get out of Paris to Brussels the next day as promised, I couldn't get from Denmark to Paris OR Paris back to London. So I was essentially simultaneously stranded in 3 separate areas of Europe at once.
Putting this behind me and hoping for the best the next day, we went and met Anna (very late) for some drinks before meeting the band.It her time moseying around the area, Anna found the most gorgeous little shop full of everything you could never want nor need. Like individual glass googly eyes taken out of doll's heads. Or ice-skates on strings. Or a comb that looks like a miniature umbrella. And what were they playing in this 10metre square store in the back streets of Paris? The Cat Empire...
After this little slice of heaven, a fabulously messy night ensued. We met the rest of the band, and alternated from going to the bathroom to take swigs out of Anna's vodka flask and half falling asleep to get through the first band. Hopeless. I was getting worried.But then with a BANG and NOT a whimper, The Lanskies started. This band was so good that Lottie, Anna and I all have their CDs and are planning to pull our respective strings to get them distributed in Australia. They are really THAT good! We shook our bonbons until our scarves came untied and our heels began to blister and our lipstick began to smudge. Then the closing band came on and it was a repeat event. We fell out of the gig space at 2ish and followed the bands around on a bar crawl through tiny laneways and over cobblestones, venturing further and further away from home. Once last drinks had been called and I couldn't stand to hear Lottie and Anna both speak in fluent French to the boys all night (rendering me uncharacteristically silent in this situation) we attempted to stumble our way back home. It took nearly 2 hours, but Lottie and I made it. About an hour in, Anna realised that she was way too far away and instead caught a taxi. This left Lottie and I to literally skip down the deserted streets of Paris, listening to Sigur Ros and reflecting on the good old days...
I need to go check-in now, so I'll continue with Anna and I's Benelux adventure possibly through the big silver gates!
I would like to simultaneously say both goodbye to my epic epitaphs, and also to my new method of communication with the outside world - the blog! Instead of submitting you to reading my updates in large, fortnight long chunks, I thought it would be suitable for me to simply update this daily and you can clue in whenever you're curious to see what I'm getting up to in the world... And New York is really going to be its own bubble.
I'm sitting writing this from BAT5 (British Airways Terminal 5 in the non-backpacker speak that I have become so accustomed to) where I have a 6 hour stop over. Normally 6 hours in an airport would sound just as fun as repeatedly stabbing yourself in the eye with a broken biro, or watching Dancing with the Stars in Swedish; but T5 is a wonderland in itself. Just an expensive wonderland... £1 for 10 minutes... This is how much you know I love you!
Now my last more-whale-than-word email ended in Scotland, land of the now infamous 'Hairy Coo'. That was on the 9th of September. Has it really been that long? The past few weeks have been PACKED so forgive me if I alternate between giving too much information and not enough. I will inevitably pick and choose between whatever suits my diverse tastes at the time of writing.
So.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND to LONDON, BRITIAN 9th: The free haircut that I mentioned in Scotland went just dandy, but also just a bit boring for my eclectic tastes... 4 inches later, it's nice, but I'm going to get something edgy done when I hit to NY shores. I got in pretty late and don't think I even ate dinner and just fell asleep in my clothes on Asha's couch.
LONDON 10th: The next day I remember going back to the same heavenly scone place (sans Shakespearean actors this time), back to the same gob dropping TATE to see an exhibition I missed, and yet again, somehow managed to miss seeing the Globe... Despite the fact that I walked past it. Twice. I met up with the beautiful creature that is Tiffany (remember her from emails ago? Choreographer cum record label manager that I met in Croatia?) and we went to one of the strangest night clubs I have ever set foot in. It was part art gallery, part live dramatic art installation, part one-man-shows, part dance floor and part bar. With pinball machines. And all of this was underground beneath London Bridge station. I wasn't feeling too peachy-keen though, so we called it a night as the last trains were leaving.
LONDON to PARIS, FRANCE 11th: I caught one of the last Eurostars this day before the fire in the tunnel that I'm sure that you would have all heard about. Lucky me! (Separate lucky incident - I have heard about the RMIT student who was traveling in Dubrovnik, Croatia by herself and has gone missing. I know the club that she was last seen at and it's quite scary seeing someone else who just must have been in the wrong place and the wrong time... I thought that Dubrovnik was honestly one of the safest cities I had been too. I was obviously wrong). I made my way to Beatrice's house in a succession of French metro stops that I can neither pronounce nor find on a map, and surprisingly, for once, did NOT get hideously lost! I was greeted by Ceser with kisses on both cheeks. This is the boy that I met when I was 8 and he was 9 and naturally feel in love with purely for the fact that he was a French boy who kisses on both cheeks! And he was just the same - except about a foot taller. Then Baptiste walked in (Jack's age just about) and it was the same. Then Marie (21 y.o. journalism student who was traveling India at the same time as me) and that was EXACTLLY the same. Including the jealously. But it was when I saw Beatrice that I flipped out just a little bit. She's just like my mother, except Dutch/French, so the next few days were like a little slice of home. I slept in Baptiste's room, ate the most magnificent baguettes with salted butter that I may as well have just slathered on my thighs in the first place. Except it wouldn't have tasted quite as nice there.
PARIS 12th-15th: The next couple of days are a little hazy of which was on what day, so I'll group them all. Things that I can tick off my 'I've seen Paris' list:
- Eiffel Tower (climbed the 800 plus steps to the second tower. Sweating would be an understatement)
- Arc du Triumphe (spelt wrong of course. It was going to cost €9 to get to the top. No way, Jose)
- Notre Dame (Really stunning now that it's been restored. I have lots of fond 2005 Euro Choir memories of singing there; although I found myself looking more at the reflections of the stained glass windows on the ground than the glass itself)
- Pompidou (I was way too tired to appreciate this centre for all it was worth. I spent 4 hours there, but I have seen SO many galleries that it just seems unfortunate that when you get to the one that's supposedly one of the best in the world, all the Francis Bacons and Jason Pollocks start to look the same. Cool exterior though)
- The Lourve (I met Beatrice on her lunch break here, and she showed me her favourite areas and gave me a little history lesson. She's an AMAZING artist herself, so it was nice have a personlised tour! I continued wandering around for about 4 hours after that too. Mona Lisa's looking good considering her age. I wonder if she uses L'Oreal?)
- That park outside the Lourve (I'm not even going to try and spell it. You know the one. It was really nice, but cold and raining. But you know that I love that)
- Mussee du O'rsay (you can continue to laugh while I massacre the French language. Again, I really regretted now that I've arted myself out! I have a few memories of being there with Dad back when I was a Bubba - remembering not to sneeze on Whistler's mother a la Mr Bean for an example)
That's about it for the big tourist attractions. I really spent a lot of my time simple wandering around the streets. I had my own set of keys, so I would generally wake up in the morning once everyone had gone to uni/school/work and watch French MTV and eat baguette and butter and jam; then go walkabout and whatever I came across, I saw! Paris doesn't quite 'speak' to me in the same multitude that Berlin does, albeit it really is a beautiful city to get lost in. And lost I certainly got.
By night, this city turns into a playground. I was lucky enough to have 2 fantabulous bigger siblings who were more than happy to take me out and try to get me wasted as every responsible older brother or sister does to their kin. Cesar succeeded on the first night, as Beatrice loves to remind me.
We started off drinking at dinner; then free wine at one of his friend's restaurants that she was bored of working in; then we went to one of his friend's house where about 8 of his other friends(stunning. I am yet to meet an non-attractive, well dressed French man. Touch proverbial wood) were watching a rugby game. I fobbed my way through knowing what I was talking about as they kept refilling my glass of some lucid green liqueur that tasted like a thousand liquid extra-strength breath mints. Then we all went out to a bar where it was one of their friend's 21sts... I kind of remember ordering 20 shots for €20 with one of the girls, but I'm not quite sure where they all went... Surely I would have given some away? I also remember conga lines on the dancefloor, and EVERYONE knowing my name. Even if no one else even knew who they were. It was like being a local celebrity, sans paparazzi (even THERE I think that there was one person taking photos all night...). Anyway, the responsible kids we are, we knew that we couldn't vespa home, so instead they proposed that we ride some of the free bikes.
I hate bikes. HATE them. Psychological fear of them. And trying to ride one when I'm drunk and have even little sense of balance that what I normally do? Uh uh. Not. Good. I got home dinkying with Cesar, but not before a couple of bumps and bruises.
The next night out with the boys was a lot calmer - sitting around drinking a cocktail of Riesling, vodka, that mint stuff and beer. They were going out afterwards to a similar shindig, but I couldn't bring myself for a repeat adventure. So I went home and had a girl’s night in with tea and Garden State with Beatrice and Marie on the couch.
PARIS 16th: Warning: The next week or so is epic. I will not go into a ridiculous amount of details, purely due to the fact that I will most definitely write about this 48 hours in some sort of strange real-time short to medium length story. That's how much went on.Essentially, today was the day that I met Anna. And on top of this, today was THE day. The Wombats day. The one secure date that I had for the whole of my 3 months in Europe. And I spent the entire day trying to make sure that I didn't give myself a heart attack in anticipation, and miss the gig. (For those oldies who don't know, The Wombats are not some sort of weird marsupial troupe. They are a really funky, somewhat crazy band from Liverpool who all wear red raybans and sing songs like "let's dance to Joy Divison and celebrate the irony that everything is going wrong but we're so happy" or "I can see your interests wane my Dear. She wanted Mary Poppins but I took her to King Lear".) I met Anna for the first time since Croatia outside the Elysee MontMarte as the sun was going down over the Moulin Rouge. I was busy pretending that I was Ukrainian to a bunch of pushy French dickheads when I ensconced her in my arms (probably confusing them even more...). Her Indian happy jacket was ripped, so we shared a bottle of rose while I felt very cool sitting cross-legged in the middle of Monte Marte sewing it back up for her.
And then the concert. My god the concert. What I didn't realise when I bought the tickets 5 months ago, was that it was their opening night of their European tour. And. They. Went. CRAZY. Anna and I both had bruised hip bones the next day.
I also happened to stumble upon the details to their afterparty (don't ask me how); so we wound up a few metro stops down the line at a really grungy medium sized club in East Paris. Anna was joking about how cool it would be to meet them. And I told her that's easy - it just takes a bit of sass. Guaranteed, give me 2 or 3 minutes of my thing and I had us both up behind the decks! Murph, the lead singer, was on a bit of an ego trip and didn't really give anyone, not even his bandmates, much attention. Dan was pretty cool and reeeeally relaxed (too relaxed? Ahem?) but it was Tord, the quiet Norwegian bassist that I really got talking to. He's Scandinavian, I spent India with 9 Scandinavians, of course we were going to be peas in a pod! Speaking of pods, I wanted them to play a song, so I found it and highlighted it on my ipod to show them. Instead of putting it on, they TOOK my ipod and put it on! That was the first time that I caught Murph's attention. He had a flick through it, and then said "can we use this for awhile?". Yes you may, sir! What a privilege to have my ipod be the primary source of music for them to mix... Don't worry, I saved the playlist that they made... At about 3ish they all rolled into their tour bus, promised to see us when they come down to Melbourne (empty, I know) and off they went to Lille.
But the butter in the sandwich was this: there was a guy in a scarf Anna and I were dancing with for quite a chunk of the night. He turns out to be the bassist of the band that was doing the opening slot. Georgia's sweet talking ways and Anna's endearing presence earnt us an invite to Backstage for their gig the next night...
PARIS 17th: Lottie day!!!!!! LOLA! L. O. L. A. LOLA! I got a phone call waking me up from my groggy serious lack of sleep informing me that my best St. Kilda buddy was within walking distance from my house... And I'll avoid all the sentimental bullshit about seeing her for the first time in 6 months, because she's already heard it all and that's all that really needs to be heard. It was like stepping back into one of my favourite coffee shops (minus the good coffee. Parisians need to take some serious barista courses) and yabbing away. Which we did over crepes as so-so espressos for about 2 hours. Then it was walking and talking about everything aside from what we'd both been doing the past half year! I think that that is the sign of true friendship - when you don't need to ask 'so, what have you been doing' and you launch back into huge philosophical conversations; like Melbourne fashion style and Frankie :). We walked to Notre Dame and sat talking about our futures in the pews perhaps a little too loudly (I wanted to stick a post-it on my forehead that read I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS GIRL IN TOO LONG SO DEAL but I thought that would be insensitive so I decided against it.). Then we went wandering around the huge cemetery on the Eastern boundary for about 2 or 3 hours. This provided us with plenty of ironic quotes such as Lottie's "this is totally where you go when you die". It took us an hour to find Jimmy Morrison’s grave, and then we had the ingenious idea of taking a photo of the map and using the zoom to find our way around - of technology! How I (VERY occasionally) love you! We also saw Oscar Wilde's, which was covered with equally ironic, but somewhat more famous, quotes. My favourite was "the only this that you can't resist is temptation".
It was 3o'clock by now which is baguette o'clock. So we went and sat underneath the Eiffel Tower and had a late lunch. Just beautiful! In direct contrast to the situation that I found myself in a few hours later. I was told at the train station that not only could I not get out of Paris to Brussels the next day as promised, I couldn't get from Denmark to Paris OR Paris back to London. So I was essentially simultaneously stranded in 3 separate areas of Europe at once.
Putting this behind me and hoping for the best the next day, we went and met Anna (very late) for some drinks before meeting the band.It her time moseying around the area, Anna found the most gorgeous little shop full of everything you could never want nor need. Like individual glass googly eyes taken out of doll's heads. Or ice-skates on strings. Or a comb that looks like a miniature umbrella. And what were they playing in this 10metre square store in the back streets of Paris? The Cat Empire...
After this little slice of heaven, a fabulously messy night ensued. We met the rest of the band, and alternated from going to the bathroom to take swigs out of Anna's vodka flask and half falling asleep to get through the first band. Hopeless. I was getting worried.But then with a BANG and NOT a whimper, The Lanskies started. This band was so good that Lottie, Anna and I all have their CDs and are planning to pull our respective strings to get them distributed in Australia. They are really THAT good! We shook our bonbons until our scarves came untied and our heels began to blister and our lipstick began to smudge. Then the closing band came on and it was a repeat event. We fell out of the gig space at 2ish and followed the bands around on a bar crawl through tiny laneways and over cobblestones, venturing further and further away from home. Once last drinks had been called and I couldn't stand to hear Lottie and Anna both speak in fluent French to the boys all night (rendering me uncharacteristically silent in this situation) we attempted to stumble our way back home. It took nearly 2 hours, but Lottie and I made it. About an hour in, Anna realised that she was way too far away and instead caught a taxi. This left Lottie and I to literally skip down the deserted streets of Paris, listening to Sigur Ros and reflecting on the good old days...
I need to go check-in now, so I'll continue with Anna and I's Benelux adventure possibly through the big silver gates!
Wrapping up the Loose Threads - France
I would like to simultaneously say both goodbye to my epic epitahs, and also to my new method of communication with the outside world - the blog! Instead of submitting you to reading my updates in large, fortnight long chunks, I thought it would be suitable for me to simply update this daily and you can clue in whenever you're curious to see what I'm getting up to in the world... And New York is really going to be it's own bubble.
I'm sitting writing this from BAT5 (British Airways Terminal 5 in the non-backpacker speak that I have become so accoustomed to) where I have a 6 hour stop over. Normally 6 hours in an airport would sound just as fun as repeatedly stabbing yourself in the eye with a broken biro, or watching Dancing with the Stars in Swedish; but T5 is a wonderland in itself. Just an expensive wonderland... £1 fo 10 minutes... This is how much you know I love you!
Now my last more-whale-than-word email ended in Scotland, land of the now infamous 'Hairy Coo'. That was on the 9th of September. Has it really been that long? The past few weeks have been PACKED so forgive me if I alterante between giving too much information and not enough. I will inevitably pick and choose between whatever suits my diverse tastes at the time of writing.
So.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND to LONDON, BRITIAN 9th: The free haircut that I mentioned in Scotland went just dandy, but also just a bit boring for my ecclectic tastes... 4 inches later, it's nice, but I'm going to get something edgy done when I hit to NY shores. I got in pretty late and don't think I even ate dinner and just fell asleep in my clothes on Asha's couch.
LONDON 10th: The next day I remember going back to the same heavenly scone place (sans Shakespearean actors this time), back to the same gob dropping TATE to see an exhibtion I missed, and yet again, somehow managed to miss seeing the Globe... Despite the fact that I walked past it. Twice. I met up with the beautiful creature that is Tiffany (remember her from emails ago? Choreographer cum record label manager that I met in Croatia?) and we went to one of the strangest night clubs I have ever set foot in. It was part art gallery, part live dramatic art istalation, part one-man-shows, part dancefloor and part bar. With pinball machines. And all of this was underground beneath London Bridge station. I wasn't feeling too peachy-keen though, so we called it a night as the last trains were leaving.
LONDON to PARIS, FRANCE 11th: I caught one of the last Eurostars this day before the fire in the tunnel that I'm sure that you would have all heard about. Lucky me! (Seperate lucky incidenet - I have heard about the RMIT student who was travelling in Dubrovnik, Croatia by herself and has gone missing. I know the club that she was last seen at and it's quite scary seeing someone else who just must have been in the wrong place and the wrong time... I thought that Dubrovnik was honestly one of the safest cities I had been too. I was obviously wrong). I made my way to Beatrice's house in a succession of French metro stops that I can niether pronounce nor find on a map, and surprisingly, for once, did NOT get hideously lost! I was greeted by Ceser with kisses on both cheeks. This is the boy that I met when I was 8 and he was 9 and naturally feel in love with purely for the fact that he was a French boy who kisses on both cheeks! And he was just the same - except about a foot taller. Then Baptiste walked in (Jack's age just about) and it was the same. Then Marie (21 y.o. journalism student who was travelling India at the same time as me) and that was EXACTLLY the same. Including the jealously. But it was when I saw Beatrice that I flipped out just a little bit. She's just like my mother, except Dutch/French, so the next few days were like a little slice of home. I slept in Baptiste's room, ate the most magnificent baguettes with salted butter that I may as well have just slathered on my thighs in the first place. Except it wouldn't have tasted quite as nice there.
PARIS 12th-15th: The next couple of days are a little hazy of which was on what day, so I'll group them all. Things that I can tick off my 'I've seen Paris' list:
- Eiffel Tower (climbed the 800 plus steps to the second tower. Sweating would be an understatement)
- Arc du Triumphe (spelt wrong of course. It was going to cost €9 to get to the top. No way, Jose)
- Notre Dame (Really stunning now that it's been restored. I have lots of fond 2005 Euro Choir memories of singing there; althought I found myself looking more at the reflections of the stained glass windows on the ground than the glass itself)
- Pompidou (I was way too tired to appreciate this centre for all it was worth. I spent 4 hours there, but I have seen SO many galleries that it just seems unfortunate that when you get to the one that's supposedly one of the best in the world, all the Francis Bacons and Jason Pollocks start to look the same. Cool exterior though)
- The Lourve (I met Beatrice on her lunch break here, and she showed me her favourite areas and gave me a little history lesson. She's an AMAZING artist herself, so it was nice have a personlised tour! I continued wandering around for about 4 hours after that too. Mona Lisa's looking good considering her age. I wonder if she uses L'Oreal?)
- That park outside the Lourve (I'm not even going to try and spell it. You know the one. It was really nice, but cold and raining. But you know that I love that)
- Mussee du O'rsay (you can continue to laugh while I massacre the French language. Again, I really regretted now that I've arted myself out! I have a few memories of being there with Dad back when I was a Bubba - remembering not to sneeze on Whistler's mother a la Mr Bean for an example)
That's about it for the big touritst attractions. I really spent a lot of my time simple wandering around the streets. I had my own set of keys, so I would generally wake up in the morning once everyone had gone to uni/school/work and watch French MTV and eat baguette and butter and jam; then go walkabout and whatever I came across, I saw! Paris doesn't quite 'speak' to me in the same multitude that Berlin does, albeit it really is a beautiful city to get lost in. And lost I certainly got.
By night, this city turns into a playground. I was lucky enough to have 2 fantabulous bigger siblings who were more than happy to take me out and try to get me wasted as every responsible older brother or sister does to their kin. Cesar succeeded on the first night, as Beatrice loves to remind me.
We started off drinking at dinner; then free wine at one of his friend's restraunts that she was bored of working in; then we went to one of his friend's house where about 8 of his other friends(stunning. I am yet to meet an non-attractuve, well dressed French man. Touch proverbial wood) were watching a rugby game. I fobbed my way through knowing what I was talking about as they kept refilling my glass of some lucid green liquer that tasted like a thousand liquid extra-strength breath mints. Then we all went out to a bar where it was one of their friend's 21sts... I kind of remember ordering 20 shots for €20 with one of the girls, but I'm not quite sure where they all went... Surely I would have given some away? I also remember conga lines on the dancefloor, and EVERYONE knowing my name. Even if no one else even knew who they were. It was like being a local celebrity, sans paparezi (even THERE I think that there was one person taking photos all night...). Anyway, the resposible kids we are, we knew that we couldn't vespa home, so instead they proposed that we ride some of the free bikes.
I hate bikes. HATE them. Psycological fear of them. And trying to ride one when I'm drunk and have even little sense of balance that what I normally do? Uh uh. Not. Good. I got home dinkying with Cesar, but not before a couple of bumps and bruises.
The next night out with the boys was a lot more calm - sitting around drinking a cocktail of reisling, vodka, that mint stuff and beer. They were going out afterwards to a similar shindig, but I couldn't bring myself for a repeat adventure. So I went home and had a girls night in with tea and Garden State with Beatrice and Marie on the couch.
PARIS 16th: Warning: The next week or so is epic. I will not go into a ridiculous amount of details, purely due to the fact that I will most defintely write about this 48 hours in some sort of strange real-time short to medium length story. That's how much went on.Essentially, today was the day that I met Anna. And on top of this, today was THE day. The Wombats day. The one secure date that I had for the whole of my 3 months in Europe. And I spent the entire day trying to make sure that I didn't give myself a heart attack in anticipation, and miss the gig. (For those oldies who don't know, The Wombats are not some sort of weird marsupial troupe. They are a really funky, somewhat crazy band from Liverpool who all wear red raybans and sing songs like "let's dance to Joy Divison and celebrate the irony that everything is going wrong but we're so happy" or "I can see your interests wane my Dear. She wanted Mary Poppins but I took her to King Lear".) I met Anna for the first time since Croatia outside the Elysee MontMarte as the sun was going down over the Moulin Rouge. I was busy pretending that I was Ukrainian to a bunch of pushy French dickheads when I ensconced her in my arms (probably confusing them even more...). Her Indian happy jacket was ripped, so we shared a bottle of rose while I felt very cool sitting crosslegged in the middle of Monte Marte sewing it back up for her.
And then the concert. My god the concert. What I didn't realise when I bought the tickets 5 months ago, was that it was their opening night of their European tour. And. They. Went. CRAZY. Anna and I both had bruised hip bones the next day.
I also happened to stumble upon the deatils to their afterparty (don't ask me how); so we wound up a few metro stops down the line at a really grungy medium sized club in East Paris. Anna was joking about how cool it would be to meet them. And I told her that's easy - it just takes a bit of sass. Gaurunteed, give me 2 or 3 minutes of my thing and I had us both up behind the decks! Murph, the lead singer, was on a bit of an ego trip and didn't really give anyone, not even his bandmates, much attention. Dan was pretty cool and reeeeally relaxed (too relaxed? Ahem?) but it was Tord, the quiet Norwegian bassist that I really got talking to. He's Scandanavian, I spent India with 9 Scandanavians, of course we were going to be peas in a pod! Speaking of pods, I wanted them to play a song, so I found it and highlighted it on my ipod to show them. Instead of putting it on, they TOOK my ipod and put it on! That was the first time that I caught Murph's attetnion. He had a flick through it, and then said "can we use this for awhile?". Yes you may, sir! What a privelge to have my ipod be the primary source of music for them to mix... Don't worry, I saved the playlist that they made... At about 3ish they all rolled into their tourbus, promised to see us when they come down to Melbourne (empty, I know) and off they went to Lille.
But the butter in the sandwich was this: there was a guy in a scarf Anna and I were dancing with for quite a chunk of the night. He turns out to be the bassist of the band that was doing the opening slot. Georgia's sweet talking ways and Anna's endearing presence earnt us an invite to Backstage for their gig the next night...
PARIS 17th: Lottie day!!!!!! LOLA! L. O. L. A. LOLA! I got a phonecall waking me up from my groggy serious lack of sleep informing me that my best St. Kilda buddy was within walking distance from my house... And I'll avoid all the sentimental bullshit about seeing her for the frist time in 6 months, because she's already heard it all and that's all that really needs to be heard. It was like stepping back into one of my favourite coffee shops (minus the good coffee. Parisans need to take some serious barrista courses) and yabbing away. Which we did over crepes as so-so essperssos for about 2 hours. Then it was walking and talking about everything aside from what we'd both been doing the past half year! I think that that is the sign of true friendship - when you don't need to ask 'so, what have you been doing' and you launch back into huge philosophical conversations; like Melbourne fashion style and Frankie :). We walked to Notre Dame and sat talking about our futures in the pews perhaps a little too loudly (I wanted to stick a post-it on my forehead that read I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS GIRL IN TOO LONG SO DEAL but I thought that would be insenstiive so I deccided against it.). Then we went wandering around the huge cemetry on the Eastern boundary for about 2 or 3 hours. This provided us with plenty of ironic quotes such as Lottie's "this is totally where you go when you die". It took us an hour to find Jimmy Morrisons's grave, and then we had the engenoius idea of taking a photo of the map and using the zoom to find our way around - of technology! How I (VERY occasionaly) love you! We also saw Oscare Wilde's, which was covered with equally ironic, but somewhat more famous, quotes. My favourite was "the only this that you can't resist is temptation"
It was 3o'clock by now which is baguette o'clock. So we went and sat underneath the Eiffel Tower and had a late lunch. Just beautiful! In direct contrast to the situation that I found myself in a few hours later. I was told at the train station that not only could I not get out of Paris to Bruseels the next day as promised, I couldn't get from Denmark to Paris OR Paris back to London. So I was essentially simultaneously stranded in 3 sepereate areas of Europe at once.
Putting this behind me and hoping for the best the next day, we went and met Anna (very late) for some drinks before meeting the band.It her time moseying around the area, Anna found the most gorgeous little shop full of everything you could never want nor need. Like individual glass googly eyes taken out of doll's heads. Or iceskates on strings. Or a comb that looks like a minuature umbrella. And what were they playing in this 10metre square store in the back streets of Paris? The Cat Empire...
After this little slice of heaven, a fabourlously messy night ensued. We met the rest of the band, and alternated from going to the bathroom to take swigs out of Anna's vodka flask and half falling asleep to get through the first band. Hopless. I was getting worried.But then with a BANG and NOT a whimper, The Lanskies started. This band was so good that Lottie, Anna and I all have their CDs and are planning to pull our respective strings to get them distributed in Australia. They are really THAT good! We shook our bonbons until our scarves came untied and our heels began to blister and our lipstick began to smudge. Then the closing band came on and it was a repeat event. We fell out of the gig space at 2ish and followed the bands around on a bar crawl through tiny laneways and over cobblestones, venturing further and further away from home. Once last drinks had been called and I couldn't stand to hear Lottie and Anna both speak in fluent French to the boys all night (rendering me uncharacteristically silent in this situation) we attempted to stumble our way back home. It took nearly 2 hours, but Lottie and I made it. About an hour in, Anna realised that she was way too far away and instead caught a taxi. This left Lottie and I to literally skip down the deserted streets of Paris, listening to Sigur Ros and reflecting on the good old days...
I need to go check-in now, so I'll continue with Anna and I's Bennelux adventure possibly through the big silver gates!
I'm sitting writing this from BAT5 (British Airways Terminal 5 in the non-backpacker speak that I have become so accoustomed to) where I have a 6 hour stop over. Normally 6 hours in an airport would sound just as fun as repeatedly stabbing yourself in the eye with a broken biro, or watching Dancing with the Stars in Swedish; but T5 is a wonderland in itself. Just an expensive wonderland... £1 fo 10 minutes... This is how much you know I love you!
Now my last more-whale-than-word email ended in Scotland, land of the now infamous 'Hairy Coo'. That was on the 9th of September. Has it really been that long? The past few weeks have been PACKED so forgive me if I alterante between giving too much information and not enough. I will inevitably pick and choose between whatever suits my diverse tastes at the time of writing.
So.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND to LONDON, BRITIAN 9th: The free haircut that I mentioned in Scotland went just dandy, but also just a bit boring for my ecclectic tastes... 4 inches later, it's nice, but I'm going to get something edgy done when I hit to NY shores. I got in pretty late and don't think I even ate dinner and just fell asleep in my clothes on Asha's couch.
LONDON 10th: The next day I remember going back to the same heavenly scone place (sans Shakespearean actors this time), back to the same gob dropping TATE to see an exhibtion I missed, and yet again, somehow managed to miss seeing the Globe... Despite the fact that I walked past it. Twice. I met up with the beautiful creature that is Tiffany (remember her from emails ago? Choreographer cum record label manager that I met in Croatia?) and we went to one of the strangest night clubs I have ever set foot in. It was part art gallery, part live dramatic art istalation, part one-man-shows, part dancefloor and part bar. With pinball machines. And all of this was underground beneath London Bridge station. I wasn't feeling too peachy-keen though, so we called it a night as the last trains were leaving.
LONDON to PARIS, FRANCE 11th: I caught one of the last Eurostars this day before the fire in the tunnel that I'm sure that you would have all heard about. Lucky me! (Seperate lucky incidenet - I have heard about the RMIT student who was travelling in Dubrovnik, Croatia by herself and has gone missing. I know the club that she was last seen at and it's quite scary seeing someone else who just must have been in the wrong place and the wrong time... I thought that Dubrovnik was honestly one of the safest cities I had been too. I was obviously wrong). I made my way to Beatrice's house in a succession of French metro stops that I can niether pronounce nor find on a map, and surprisingly, for once, did NOT get hideously lost! I was greeted by Ceser with kisses on both cheeks. This is the boy that I met when I was 8 and he was 9 and naturally feel in love with purely for the fact that he was a French boy who kisses on both cheeks! And he was just the same - except about a foot taller. Then Baptiste walked in (Jack's age just about) and it was the same. Then Marie (21 y.o. journalism student who was travelling India at the same time as me) and that was EXACTLLY the same. Including the jealously. But it was when I saw Beatrice that I flipped out just a little bit. She's just like my mother, except Dutch/French, so the next few days were like a little slice of home. I slept in Baptiste's room, ate the most magnificent baguettes with salted butter that I may as well have just slathered on my thighs in the first place. Except it wouldn't have tasted quite as nice there.
PARIS 12th-15th: The next couple of days are a little hazy of which was on what day, so I'll group them all. Things that I can tick off my 'I've seen Paris' list:
- Eiffel Tower (climbed the 800 plus steps to the second tower. Sweating would be an understatement)
- Arc du Triumphe (spelt wrong of course. It was going to cost €9 to get to the top. No way, Jose)
- Notre Dame (Really stunning now that it's been restored. I have lots of fond 2005 Euro Choir memories of singing there; althought I found myself looking more at the reflections of the stained glass windows on the ground than the glass itself)
- Pompidou (I was way too tired to appreciate this centre for all it was worth. I spent 4 hours there, but I have seen SO many galleries that it just seems unfortunate that when you get to the one that's supposedly one of the best in the world, all the Francis Bacons and Jason Pollocks start to look the same. Cool exterior though)
- The Lourve (I met Beatrice on her lunch break here, and she showed me her favourite areas and gave me a little history lesson. She's an AMAZING artist herself, so it was nice have a personlised tour! I continued wandering around for about 4 hours after that too. Mona Lisa's looking good considering her age. I wonder if she uses L'Oreal?)
- That park outside the Lourve (I'm not even going to try and spell it. You know the one. It was really nice, but cold and raining. But you know that I love that)
- Mussee du O'rsay (you can continue to laugh while I massacre the French language. Again, I really regretted now that I've arted myself out! I have a few memories of being there with Dad back when I was a Bubba - remembering not to sneeze on Whistler's mother a la Mr Bean for an example)
That's about it for the big touritst attractions. I really spent a lot of my time simple wandering around the streets. I had my own set of keys, so I would generally wake up in the morning once everyone had gone to uni/school/work and watch French MTV and eat baguette and butter and jam; then go walkabout and whatever I came across, I saw! Paris doesn't quite 'speak' to me in the same multitude that Berlin does, albeit it really is a beautiful city to get lost in. And lost I certainly got.
By night, this city turns into a playground. I was lucky enough to have 2 fantabulous bigger siblings who were more than happy to take me out and try to get me wasted as every responsible older brother or sister does to their kin. Cesar succeeded on the first night, as Beatrice loves to remind me.
We started off drinking at dinner; then free wine at one of his friend's restraunts that she was bored of working in; then we went to one of his friend's house where about 8 of his other friends(stunning. I am yet to meet an non-attractuve, well dressed French man. Touch proverbial wood) were watching a rugby game. I fobbed my way through knowing what I was talking about as they kept refilling my glass of some lucid green liquer that tasted like a thousand liquid extra-strength breath mints. Then we all went out to a bar where it was one of their friend's 21sts... I kind of remember ordering 20 shots for €20 with one of the girls, but I'm not quite sure where they all went... Surely I would have given some away? I also remember conga lines on the dancefloor, and EVERYONE knowing my name. Even if no one else even knew who they were. It was like being a local celebrity, sans paparezi (even THERE I think that there was one person taking photos all night...). Anyway, the resposible kids we are, we knew that we couldn't vespa home, so instead they proposed that we ride some of the free bikes.
I hate bikes. HATE them. Psycological fear of them. And trying to ride one when I'm drunk and have even little sense of balance that what I normally do? Uh uh. Not. Good. I got home dinkying with Cesar, but not before a couple of bumps and bruises.
The next night out with the boys was a lot more calm - sitting around drinking a cocktail of reisling, vodka, that mint stuff and beer. They were going out afterwards to a similar shindig, but I couldn't bring myself for a repeat adventure. So I went home and had a girls night in with tea and Garden State with Beatrice and Marie on the couch.
PARIS 16th: Warning: The next week or so is epic. I will not go into a ridiculous amount of details, purely due to the fact that I will most defintely write about this 48 hours in some sort of strange real-time short to medium length story. That's how much went on.Essentially, today was the day that I met Anna. And on top of this, today was THE day. The Wombats day. The one secure date that I had for the whole of my 3 months in Europe. And I spent the entire day trying to make sure that I didn't give myself a heart attack in anticipation, and miss the gig. (For those oldies who don't know, The Wombats are not some sort of weird marsupial troupe. They are a really funky, somewhat crazy band from Liverpool who all wear red raybans and sing songs like "let's dance to Joy Divison and celebrate the irony that everything is going wrong but we're so happy" or "I can see your interests wane my Dear. She wanted Mary Poppins but I took her to King Lear".) I met Anna for the first time since Croatia outside the Elysee MontMarte as the sun was going down over the Moulin Rouge. I was busy pretending that I was Ukrainian to a bunch of pushy French dickheads when I ensconced her in my arms (probably confusing them even more...). Her Indian happy jacket was ripped, so we shared a bottle of rose while I felt very cool sitting crosslegged in the middle of Monte Marte sewing it back up for her.
And then the concert. My god the concert. What I didn't realise when I bought the tickets 5 months ago, was that it was their opening night of their European tour. And. They. Went. CRAZY. Anna and I both had bruised hip bones the next day.
I also happened to stumble upon the deatils to their afterparty (don't ask me how); so we wound up a few metro stops down the line at a really grungy medium sized club in East Paris. Anna was joking about how cool it would be to meet them. And I told her that's easy - it just takes a bit of sass. Gaurunteed, give me 2 or 3 minutes of my thing and I had us both up behind the decks! Murph, the lead singer, was on a bit of an ego trip and didn't really give anyone, not even his bandmates, much attention. Dan was pretty cool and reeeeally relaxed (too relaxed? Ahem?) but it was Tord, the quiet Norwegian bassist that I really got talking to. He's Scandanavian, I spent India with 9 Scandanavians, of course we were going to be peas in a pod! Speaking of pods, I wanted them to play a song, so I found it and highlighted it on my ipod to show them. Instead of putting it on, they TOOK my ipod and put it on! That was the first time that I caught Murph's attetnion. He had a flick through it, and then said "can we use this for awhile?". Yes you may, sir! What a privelge to have my ipod be the primary source of music for them to mix... Don't worry, I saved the playlist that they made... At about 3ish they all rolled into their tourbus, promised to see us when they come down to Melbourne (empty, I know) and off they went to Lille.
But the butter in the sandwich was this: there was a guy in a scarf Anna and I were dancing with for quite a chunk of the night. He turns out to be the bassist of the band that was doing the opening slot. Georgia's sweet talking ways and Anna's endearing presence earnt us an invite to Backstage for their gig the next night...
PARIS 17th: Lottie day!!!!!! LOLA! L. O. L. A. LOLA! I got a phonecall waking me up from my groggy serious lack of sleep informing me that my best St. Kilda buddy was within walking distance from my house... And I'll avoid all the sentimental bullshit about seeing her for the frist time in 6 months, because she's already heard it all and that's all that really needs to be heard. It was like stepping back into one of my favourite coffee shops (minus the good coffee. Parisans need to take some serious barrista courses) and yabbing away. Which we did over crepes as so-so essperssos for about 2 hours. Then it was walking and talking about everything aside from what we'd both been doing the past half year! I think that that is the sign of true friendship - when you don't need to ask 'so, what have you been doing' and you launch back into huge philosophical conversations; like Melbourne fashion style and Frankie :). We walked to Notre Dame and sat talking about our futures in the pews perhaps a little too loudly (I wanted to stick a post-it on my forehead that read I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS GIRL IN TOO LONG SO DEAL but I thought that would be insenstiive so I deccided against it.). Then we went wandering around the huge cemetry on the Eastern boundary for about 2 or 3 hours. This provided us with plenty of ironic quotes such as Lottie's "this is totally where you go when you die". It took us an hour to find Jimmy Morrisons's grave, and then we had the engenoius idea of taking a photo of the map and using the zoom to find our way around - of technology! How I (VERY occasionaly) love you! We also saw Oscare Wilde's, which was covered with equally ironic, but somewhat more famous, quotes. My favourite was "the only this that you can't resist is temptation"
It was 3o'clock by now which is baguette o'clock. So we went and sat underneath the Eiffel Tower and had a late lunch. Just beautiful! In direct contrast to the situation that I found myself in a few hours later. I was told at the train station that not only could I not get out of Paris to Bruseels the next day as promised, I couldn't get from Denmark to Paris OR Paris back to London. So I was essentially simultaneously stranded in 3 sepereate areas of Europe at once.
Putting this behind me and hoping for the best the next day, we went and met Anna (very late) for some drinks before meeting the band.It her time moseying around the area, Anna found the most gorgeous little shop full of everything you could never want nor need. Like individual glass googly eyes taken out of doll's heads. Or iceskates on strings. Or a comb that looks like a minuature umbrella. And what were they playing in this 10metre square store in the back streets of Paris? The Cat Empire...
After this little slice of heaven, a fabourlously messy night ensued. We met the rest of the band, and alternated from going to the bathroom to take swigs out of Anna's vodka flask and half falling asleep to get through the first band. Hopless. I was getting worried.But then with a BANG and NOT a whimper, The Lanskies started. This band was so good that Lottie, Anna and I all have their CDs and are planning to pull our respective strings to get them distributed in Australia. They are really THAT good! We shook our bonbons until our scarves came untied and our heels began to blister and our lipstick began to smudge. Then the closing band came on and it was a repeat event. We fell out of the gig space at 2ish and followed the bands around on a bar crawl through tiny laneways and over cobblestones, venturing further and further away from home. Once last drinks had been called and I couldn't stand to hear Lottie and Anna both speak in fluent French to the boys all night (rendering me uncharacteristically silent in this situation) we attempted to stumble our way back home. It took nearly 2 hours, but Lottie and I made it. About an hour in, Anna realised that she was way too far away and instead caught a taxi. This left Lottie and I to literally skip down the deserted streets of Paris, listening to Sigur Ros and reflecting on the good old days...
I need to go check-in now, so I'll continue with Anna and I's Bennelux adventure possibly through the big silver gates!
Aye, it's a Wee Update (email #14)
How ironic. I thought that I was going well with being in the first English speaking country in 6 months. But then I got to Scotland, and I STILL can't understand a word they're saying! But back to London for a few moments...
29th LONDON: Tagged along to my first day of work with Mum and Catherine. I've always been under the impression that it's just 'shopping', but good golly Miss Molly, there's a LOT more to it than that! I bailed and had lunch with Ally after about 3 hours... Yes, that's right, ALLY! We completely forgot that we'd be in London together! the course of the lunch time conversation went like this:
ME: Hey Al, what are you doing this weekend?
AL: Not much.
ME: Do you want to go to Scotland?
AL: Okay!
And so we planned it! We wandered around Leicester Square and found ourselves at the National Gallery for a few hours, before retreating to a cafe. 2 hours of nostalgic memories later, we parted ways so that I could meet Asha for a drink - double shot of nostalgia! Mum and Catherine met us a half hour later, and we all drank stop-sign coloured cocktails waiting for our table at Nobu to be ready. Yah huh! Nobu! The restaurant is in the same building as the hotel that Mum and I were staying at, so it was only natural that we'd try to get a table! The food really was AMAZING. Especially considering that I hadn't had sushi or any type of Japanese for a half year; nonetheless with a Brazilian fusion. After some green tea, Asha and I rolled ourselves down Regent Street to meet one of my friends from Croatia, Tiffany, at a bar. I got all the way there before I realised that of course, I have no ID! Stolen! And I'm hardly going to take my passport out with me when I'm bar hopping... But a little smooth talking and barrier jumping, we were inside the OUTSIDE section. Close enough! A good night followed, full of so many accents that it was making my head spin. I trotted off home at about 1ish.
30th LONDON:Portabello Road. Portabello Road. Street where the riches of ages are stowed. Anything and everything a chap can unload will be found in the wonders of Portabello Road. I managed to somehow spend an odd 4 or 5 hours filtering through discarded brooches and leather jackets. And of course the receipts for everything I bought are going straight to the BA offices... We're edging on Day 3, and that's when I start to get benefits! Late that afternoon, I met Tif again for some tea at a gorgeous little bio-cafe hidden somewhere near the Times-Square-esque Piccadilly Circus. That night, it was Asha's turn to take me out! So I dolled myself up in the little clothes that I had (not helpful in 'London Summer'), and met her down South. At a club that played exclusively late 80s music. Now, I may have been born in the late 80s, but I probably missed this era by a few years. And it showed! I was the youngest by a long shot, and this was emphasised with my lack of musical knowledge. That said, a few drinks later, I was dancing away to Cindy Lauper like the best of them. Went home earlish with Asha due to work commitments. Slept on a very VERY comfy couch.
31st LONDON: Met Mum and Cath at Liverpool Station to head down to Spitafields - another market, but more young-designers verses the antique orange juicers of Notting Hill the day before. Yet again, managed to spend the best part of a day wandering around markets! We later found another one called the Sunday Upmarket a little further towards Brick Lane. And then there were people on the street who were trying to sell you everything from phone cords (sans phone) to hotel shampoo bottles (empty). I split off by the time we got to Covent Garden, as I wanted to go for a run in Hyde Park. I got all the way back to the hotel before I realised that I of course don't actually HAVE any runners because Heathrow STILL didn't know where my bag was... I was more than a little pissed off by now, so I made about the 20th call to their lost baggage service. Well! It turns up that they DID find my bag stranded somewhere on the Roman tarmac. And they had sent it onwards to the hotel. That morning. At least 4 hours ago. Hmmm. Yet I still had no bag. So I went downstairs and asked the guy behind the counter if anyone from BA had dropped off a backpack. "... you're not Georgia King, are you?". "Yes...?". "... Oh...". Well it turns out that the baggage had arrived, but they couldn't find any proof of me staying at the hotel (all under Mum's name) so they had SENT IT BACK. Ahh!!!! And the next drop off was 2pm the next day. But we were leaving the hotel at 9am. Great. So I trudged off upstairs, and sat for 6 hours hoping it would turn up, ended up having a sentimental last dinner with Mum (ie- room service), and watched conspiracy theory shows on TV.
1st: LONDON: 2am. A knock on the door. MY BAG!!! Happy exhalations, and then back to sleep. Woke up, checked out (WITH my bag), only to find that I had to follow the girls to the airport to change my flight tickets to New York. Because there is no British Airways desk in London - only at Heathrow. Go figure. So my day was a little pushed around, but I was on a high thinking that I had my bag back. I spent honestly nearly 2 hours trying to find the cute little bio-cafe that Tif took me too, and got hideously HIDEOUSLY lost. Ended up eating lunch at 4 due to this fact, and then quickly popped off to see a Yoko Ono interactive exhibition piece at the National Gallery. There were 3 pin boards FULL of post-it notes. The theory was that you had to write whatever you wanted about love, and put it on the board. And whenever a board was full, they would send it to her and she's going to do SOMETHING with them all... I put my mark on the board, ran back to the hotel, then to Heathrow for 10 minutes, then to Asha's house in South London. As much as I just wanted to sleep, I had to stay up watching Asha's housemate watch TV. I couldn't kick him off his own couch, could I?
(ah!! Getting too long already. I'll try to to shorten it up...)
2nd LONDON: Easily the best day I've had in London. Got up and tubed to London Bridge in the POURING rain, sat in a tiny coffee shop at a windowsill watching the raindrops race each other down the pane, eating a scone with jam and writing in my journal. Bliss! Overheard a couple of Bard actors bitching about their director, and ended up following them around to the Globe Theatre! I didn't go in today, but I'm going to go back when I'm in London. I went to the Tate Modern instead - and in typical Georgia fashion, I lost track of time, and suddenly it was 4 o'clock again, and I'd spent another day in a gallery instead of 'seeing the sights'. I did London with Dad when I was 9, so I already feel like I've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, etc etc. I met up with Tiffany and her funky friend in the evening, and went to a Yoga class that Tif teaches. Hell I hurt the next day!!! We went out for a few beers afterwards (to counter our karma) and then I trotted off home.
3rd LONDON to EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND: Trained from Kings Cross to Edinburgh. I got in and Ally had only given me the name of the hostel and the street name - which turned out to be the size of Bourke Street. It was raining quite heavily, and I didn't want to just wander around looking for a phantom hostel, so I asked someone if they knew where it was. But I couldn't understand their answer! Welcome to Scotland. Perfect introduction. That said, I LOVE it here. So much more of a feel than London. When I do the required Aussie stint in the UK, I think I'll use my visa to come up here rather than stay in London... I found the hostel, and waited for Ally to arrive. I ended up meeting a bunch of boys from Melbourne, beat one of them at pool (yeah, I'm amazed I did too!), and then after that became chums. Ally got in, I made some dinner to warm her up, and then the group of us headed out. Wednesdays are huge here apparently. And we can vouch! 3 clubs later, it's getting light and we decide to head home as the boys had trains to catch the next morning.
4th EDINBURGH: Which they missed! Poor buggers... Ally and I gave our condolences, and then headed off for one of the Free Tours that I keep on raving about in these emails. It was a great way to orientate ourselves in what is an aesthetically beautiful city. Lots of little funny stories, but they go better hand in hand with pictures, so I won't detail them here. Early night that night due to our opening night escapades.
5th EDINBURGH: Set off for a walk to Arthur's Seat (the original! Not riding the chair lift though...). We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. It turns out it has nothing to do with chairlifts, but is instead a HUGE crag. See my photos to get an idea - it took us 2 1/2 hours! Ally was getting a free hair-model haircut that afternoon, so we strode back down the mountain to make it. (I'm trying to be extra short now, because I've got an appointment for the same free snip quite soon!). We spent the rest of the afternoon in an Internet cafe downloading photos and me organising my New York life... We fully intended to go on a Ghost Tour that night, but we missed it by about 2 or 3 minutes. So instead, we stayed at the bar in the hostel, and started drinking with the long-term-ers that live on the top floor. 7 hours later, we were still drinking. And I was STILL loosing at pool.
6th EDINBURGH: Got up extra early (ouch) to take a day trip to the Highlands to see Nessie! The opening line of the tour guy who was driving the bus was "now, please don't mind if the lights go on or off or something. I haven't driven this bus before so I'm just gonna keep hittin the buttons til I can work out how to use this thing". Great. Was actually a really funny guy once we worked out that he wasn't going to drive us over a crag face! Came out with a couple of beauties - "So basically, England is sinking into the sea and Scotland is rising, so we're gonna beat those bastards in the end". The day was filled with BEAUTIFUL, idyllic scenery, lots of Lochs (alas, no monsters), and hairy coos!! Oh... The hairy coos... We got back lateish, and had another night off.
7th GLASGOW DAY TRIP: We decided to go to Glasgow to see what all the fuss was about. It wasn't the most visually appealing of cities, but it was oozing with culture! It would have been fantastic to have spent a night there, as apparently the night life is amazing. But instead, we wandered around the Necropolis (essentially a really big graveyard on a hill) discussing baby names that we were getting off the tombstones. The paradox between birth and death wasn't realised until later! There were a couple of lines that played on my heart strings though - 'her sun is gone day while it is still day'. I then dragged Ally along to a a modern art museum! Unfortunately, it was full of Glaswegian contemporaries, so I couldn't really give her too much of a history lessons... We bused back in the late afternoon, and dolled ourselves up to go out on our last night together (again!). But by 11.30, we were having so much fun in the bar that we just repeated the night of the 5th, and drunk with all of the locals.
8th EDINBURGH: Ally left in the morning, but I'll probably see her again in London in a few days, so it wasn't splutteringly sad... It was a random stunning day, so I spent most of it reading and writing in the gardens below the castle. I went for a bit of a wander up a hill to get a view of the city in the afternoon, and that was it! A truly, much needed, relaxing day. The night was spent playing a game of 'loaded questions', which essentially sees you write down answers to obscure questions pulled out of a cup, and then having to guess who said what. We started off with the typical ones, like 'what 2 things would you take on a desert island' (an ipod, and a loop of carnivorous animal sounds) or 'what one thing do you want to do before you die' (life insurance). But soon moved to questions like 'what kitchen utensil or object are you most like' (a coffee mug), 'how would you kill a yeti' (drought/with great difficulty) and 'what flag would you like to burn the most' (India - it would smell of cardamon).
9th EDINBURGH back to LONDON: And here I am! Off for a free haircut in 20 minutes, then training back down to London...
How's home? I haven't heard updates in quite awhile! All I know is that Geelong thrashed the Saints... That's the extent of my knowledge of home at the moment :)
Xx
29th LONDON: Tagged along to my first day of work with Mum and Catherine. I've always been under the impression that it's just 'shopping', but good golly Miss Molly, there's a LOT more to it than that! I bailed and had lunch with Ally after about 3 hours... Yes, that's right, ALLY! We completely forgot that we'd be in London together! the course of the lunch time conversation went like this:
ME: Hey Al, what are you doing this weekend?
AL: Not much.
ME: Do you want to go to Scotland?
AL: Okay!
And so we planned it! We wandered around Leicester Square and found ourselves at the National Gallery for a few hours, before retreating to a cafe. 2 hours of nostalgic memories later, we parted ways so that I could meet Asha for a drink - double shot of nostalgia! Mum and Catherine met us a half hour later, and we all drank stop-sign coloured cocktails waiting for our table at Nobu to be ready. Yah huh! Nobu! The restaurant is in the same building as the hotel that Mum and I were staying at, so it was only natural that we'd try to get a table! The food really was AMAZING. Especially considering that I hadn't had sushi or any type of Japanese for a half year; nonetheless with a Brazilian fusion. After some green tea, Asha and I rolled ourselves down Regent Street to meet one of my friends from Croatia, Tiffany, at a bar. I got all the way there before I realised that of course, I have no ID! Stolen! And I'm hardly going to take my passport out with me when I'm bar hopping... But a little smooth talking and barrier jumping, we were inside the OUTSIDE section. Close enough! A good night followed, full of so many accents that it was making my head spin. I trotted off home at about 1ish.
30th LONDON:Portabello Road. Portabello Road. Street where the riches of ages are stowed. Anything and everything a chap can unload will be found in the wonders of Portabello Road. I managed to somehow spend an odd 4 or 5 hours filtering through discarded brooches and leather jackets. And of course the receipts for everything I bought are going straight to the BA offices... We're edging on Day 3, and that's when I start to get benefits! Late that afternoon, I met Tif again for some tea at a gorgeous little bio-cafe hidden somewhere near the Times-Square-esque Piccadilly Circus. That night, it was Asha's turn to take me out! So I dolled myself up in the little clothes that I had (not helpful in 'London Summer'), and met her down South. At a club that played exclusively late 80s music. Now, I may have been born in the late 80s, but I probably missed this era by a few years. And it showed! I was the youngest by a long shot, and this was emphasised with my lack of musical knowledge. That said, a few drinks later, I was dancing away to Cindy Lauper like the best of them. Went home earlish with Asha due to work commitments. Slept on a very VERY comfy couch.
31st LONDON: Met Mum and Cath at Liverpool Station to head down to Spitafields - another market, but more young-designers verses the antique orange juicers of Notting Hill the day before. Yet again, managed to spend the best part of a day wandering around markets! We later found another one called the Sunday Upmarket a little further towards Brick Lane. And then there were people on the street who were trying to sell you everything from phone cords (sans phone) to hotel shampoo bottles (empty). I split off by the time we got to Covent Garden, as I wanted to go for a run in Hyde Park. I got all the way back to the hotel before I realised that I of course don't actually HAVE any runners because Heathrow STILL didn't know where my bag was... I was more than a little pissed off by now, so I made about the 20th call to their lost baggage service. Well! It turns up that they DID find my bag stranded somewhere on the Roman tarmac. And they had sent it onwards to the hotel. That morning. At least 4 hours ago. Hmmm. Yet I still had no bag. So I went downstairs and asked the guy behind the counter if anyone from BA had dropped off a backpack. "... you're not Georgia King, are you?". "Yes...?". "... Oh...". Well it turns out that the baggage had arrived, but they couldn't find any proof of me staying at the hotel (all under Mum's name) so they had SENT IT BACK. Ahh!!!! And the next drop off was 2pm the next day. But we were leaving the hotel at 9am. Great. So I trudged off upstairs, and sat for 6 hours hoping it would turn up, ended up having a sentimental last dinner with Mum (ie- room service), and watched conspiracy theory shows on TV.
1st: LONDON: 2am. A knock on the door. MY BAG!!! Happy exhalations, and then back to sleep. Woke up, checked out (WITH my bag), only to find that I had to follow the girls to the airport to change my flight tickets to New York. Because there is no British Airways desk in London - only at Heathrow. Go figure. So my day was a little pushed around, but I was on a high thinking that I had my bag back. I spent honestly nearly 2 hours trying to find the cute little bio-cafe that Tif took me too, and got hideously HIDEOUSLY lost. Ended up eating lunch at 4 due to this fact, and then quickly popped off to see a Yoko Ono interactive exhibition piece at the National Gallery. There were 3 pin boards FULL of post-it notes. The theory was that you had to write whatever you wanted about love, and put it on the board. And whenever a board was full, they would send it to her and she's going to do SOMETHING with them all... I put my mark on the board, ran back to the hotel, then to Heathrow for 10 minutes, then to Asha's house in South London. As much as I just wanted to sleep, I had to stay up watching Asha's housemate watch TV. I couldn't kick him off his own couch, could I?
(ah!! Getting too long already. I'll try to to shorten it up...)
2nd LONDON: Easily the best day I've had in London. Got up and tubed to London Bridge in the POURING rain, sat in a tiny coffee shop at a windowsill watching the raindrops race each other down the pane, eating a scone with jam and writing in my journal. Bliss! Overheard a couple of Bard actors bitching about their director, and ended up following them around to the Globe Theatre! I didn't go in today, but I'm going to go back when I'm in London. I went to the Tate Modern instead - and in typical Georgia fashion, I lost track of time, and suddenly it was 4 o'clock again, and I'd spent another day in a gallery instead of 'seeing the sights'. I did London with Dad when I was 9, so I already feel like I've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, etc etc. I met up with Tiffany and her funky friend in the evening, and went to a Yoga class that Tif teaches. Hell I hurt the next day!!! We went out for a few beers afterwards (to counter our karma) and then I trotted off home.
3rd LONDON to EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND: Trained from Kings Cross to Edinburgh. I got in and Ally had only given me the name of the hostel and the street name - which turned out to be the size of Bourke Street. It was raining quite heavily, and I didn't want to just wander around looking for a phantom hostel, so I asked someone if they knew where it was. But I couldn't understand their answer! Welcome to Scotland. Perfect introduction. That said, I LOVE it here. So much more of a feel than London. When I do the required Aussie stint in the UK, I think I'll use my visa to come up here rather than stay in London... I found the hostel, and waited for Ally to arrive. I ended up meeting a bunch of boys from Melbourne, beat one of them at pool (yeah, I'm amazed I did too!), and then after that became chums. Ally got in, I made some dinner to warm her up, and then the group of us headed out. Wednesdays are huge here apparently. And we can vouch! 3 clubs later, it's getting light and we decide to head home as the boys had trains to catch the next morning.
4th EDINBURGH: Which they missed! Poor buggers... Ally and I gave our condolences, and then headed off for one of the Free Tours that I keep on raving about in these emails. It was a great way to orientate ourselves in what is an aesthetically beautiful city. Lots of little funny stories, but they go better hand in hand with pictures, so I won't detail them here. Early night that night due to our opening night escapades.
5th EDINBURGH: Set off for a walk to Arthur's Seat (the original! Not riding the chair lift though...). We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. It turns out it has nothing to do with chairlifts, but is instead a HUGE crag. See my photos to get an idea - it took us 2 1/2 hours! Ally was getting a free hair-model haircut that afternoon, so we strode back down the mountain to make it. (I'm trying to be extra short now, because I've got an appointment for the same free snip quite soon!). We spent the rest of the afternoon in an Internet cafe downloading photos and me organising my New York life... We fully intended to go on a Ghost Tour that night, but we missed it by about 2 or 3 minutes. So instead, we stayed at the bar in the hostel, and started drinking with the long-term-ers that live on the top floor. 7 hours later, we were still drinking. And I was STILL loosing at pool.
6th EDINBURGH: Got up extra early (ouch) to take a day trip to the Highlands to see Nessie! The opening line of the tour guy who was driving the bus was "now, please don't mind if the lights go on or off or something. I haven't driven this bus before so I'm just gonna keep hittin the buttons til I can work out how to use this thing". Great. Was actually a really funny guy once we worked out that he wasn't going to drive us over a crag face! Came out with a couple of beauties - "So basically, England is sinking into the sea and Scotland is rising, so we're gonna beat those bastards in the end". The day was filled with BEAUTIFUL, idyllic scenery, lots of Lochs (alas, no monsters), and hairy coos!! Oh... The hairy coos... We got back lateish, and had another night off.
7th GLASGOW DAY TRIP: We decided to go to Glasgow to see what all the fuss was about. It wasn't the most visually appealing of cities, but it was oozing with culture! It would have been fantastic to have spent a night there, as apparently the night life is amazing. But instead, we wandered around the Necropolis (essentially a really big graveyard on a hill) discussing baby names that we were getting off the tombstones. The paradox between birth and death wasn't realised until later! There were a couple of lines that played on my heart strings though - 'her sun is gone day while it is still day'. I then dragged Ally along to a a modern art museum! Unfortunately, it was full of Glaswegian contemporaries, so I couldn't really give her too much of a history lessons... We bused back in the late afternoon, and dolled ourselves up to go out on our last night together (again!). But by 11.30, we were having so much fun in the bar that we just repeated the night of the 5th, and drunk with all of the locals.
8th EDINBURGH: Ally left in the morning, but I'll probably see her again in London in a few days, so it wasn't splutteringly sad... It was a random stunning day, so I spent most of it reading and writing in the gardens below the castle. I went for a bit of a wander up a hill to get a view of the city in the afternoon, and that was it! A truly, much needed, relaxing day. The night was spent playing a game of 'loaded questions', which essentially sees you write down answers to obscure questions pulled out of a cup, and then having to guess who said what. We started off with the typical ones, like 'what 2 things would you take on a desert island' (an ipod, and a loop of carnivorous animal sounds) or 'what one thing do you want to do before you die' (life insurance). But soon moved to questions like 'what kitchen utensil or object are you most like' (a coffee mug), 'how would you kill a yeti' (drought/with great difficulty) and 'what flag would you like to burn the most' (India - it would smell of cardamon).
9th EDINBURGH back to LONDON: And here I am! Off for a free haircut in 20 minutes, then training back down to London...
How's home? I haven't heard updates in quite awhile! All I know is that Geelong thrashed the Saints... That's the extent of my knowledge of home at the moment :)
Xx
All Roads Lead Away From Rome (email #13)
A quick update! No really! Watch!! Watch the state of affairs declinemiraculously over the course of my tales of the past fortnight…Despite the circumstances that I am about to outline, I have neverbeen happier. Don't expect me home any time soon!
BERLIN 18th-19th: Can't really remember so I won't waffle on… Speakingof which, they have good waffles in Berlin! You eat them with gingerice cream and puree apple. And there are always plenty ofplaid-wearing Swedes to keep you entertained with their views onkangaroos as you devour them at 5o'clock in the arvo (the waffles, notthe Swedes or kangaroos. They would be too tough methinks)
ZURICH 19th-21st: Booooooooooring. It was all clocks. Not even muchLindt around. I spent the first night watching the movie Coffee andCigarettes on my tiny ipod screen in my hostel room (kudos Blair forkeeping me sane), and the second night I went to bed when it was stilllight… That said, I was really REALLY sick. Not being able to open myeyes they were so puffy, type sick. I guess my body hadn't alloweditself to fully realise the cough that it had developed into a properillness. And then I got to Switzerland. And there was nothing else Icould do but BE sick and sleep all day. So perfect timing! However,the land WAS beautiful, but when a bottle of water costs you $7 or 8dollars, you just feel a little ripped off for what it gives back…
MILAN 21st-24th: Stayed with Maria Teresa in her GOREGOUS apartment ininner Milano. For the little I had been eating (sans waffles, Danishpumpernickel bread, peaches and pretzels) and the huge amount I havebeen walking, she certainly made her best effort to fatten me up! Andthis was the beginning of what was to be Italy… A land governed by thekitchen table. But when the gelato is this good, who cares?! The firstnight we had dinner with the FABULOUS Paolo who is FABULOUSLY gay; thesecond night with her nephew, with predrinks that included snacks thatwere big enough to quantify a meal on its own; and the last night wewent a little out of Milano to a town called Modena (I think that wasit…) to Antonella's place for dinner. She is Maria Teresa's youngersister, and I swear that there were at least 5 courses… I was VERYwell looked after as a guest, and taken to art galleries (FrancisBacon retrospective changed the way I think about contemporary art –"deeply ordered chaos". Welcome to my life Mr. Bacon), concept stores(I heart 10 Corso Como), and markets (where I ate mangos like theIndians do… And got very very messy!) Unfortunately the mozzarellashop that she lives basically on top of was closed… Which was sad formy taste buds, but probably good for my kidneys. All in all, my 4 daysin Milano were like being back home with my Italian mother. I wasnurtured, fed, and allowed to stay in my Pjs til noon, drinking teaand watching the end of the Olympics. Thank you MT!
ROME (deserves a breakdown) 24th: Get into this stunning city at about6pm. Get lost, as I always do, before ending up at the hostel. Meet aCanadian, a Brazilian, and 2 Melbournians, and quickly turn into aquintet. 7 hours later, we are wandering around the foot of thecolleseum in awe. It really is breathtaking… More about this later.
ROME 25th: Wake up early wanting to go back and see the Colleseum byday. I have no money, so I go and change a bunch of my traveller'scheques in bulk to avoid a heavy commission fee. It's a beautiful day,and I'm strolling along, very content in the mid-morning sun. Andthen. And then. AND THEN. Every backpacker's constant, pathologicalfear: I was robbed. It's SUCH a long story, and I'll tell it to thosewho want to hear it, but I won't waste time here… But it was quite ashaking experience. Essentially, it all happened very quickly, and Iimagined myself running down the street, throwing my shoes at thebastards and screaming POLIZIA POLIZIA!!! But instead I just stoodthere in shock. I went to the police station, where I was surround bysleazy cops (there was 1 at the start, but by the end of me fillingout my forms, there were 5 in a semi circle around me). They tried toblackmail me into going out for drinks that night with them, sayingthat they couldn't find my stuff unless I went on a date with each ofthem... Then they took down my number from the official documents Ihad just filled out, and told me that they would call me to meet upthat night. This stuff is too good to be made up! I'm living in my ownsoap-opera, I swear! (But it's a GOOD one Jane!!). That night, Iturned my phone off, and didn't really leave the hostel for the next24 hours. I felt so embarrassed and violated and stupid andvulnerable… Just the perfect time for the so-called 'officials' to beabusing your emotions and rights… Welcome to the Italian police!!!
ROME 26th: In the morning after a sleepless night, I figured I wasalready up early and should take advantage of it. So I sum up mycourage, grip onto my bag for dear life, and head towards the Vatican.I got there at 8.30 after an hour's walk, but already the queue was atleast 500meters long to get inside… But I patiently waited, andpracticed my Japanese aural skills to pass the time. I got inside, andwas a little disappointed. I guess that I was still frazzled by theincident yesterday, and so didn't really enjoy myself. It was all alittle over crowded and over hyped… I swear that there are no Romansin Rome!! That said, the city is still BEAUTIFUL. There are honestlyruins on every corner… It is simply DRIPPING in its own historicaljuices. Then, that night, I went out for drinks with the daughter of aman who had calmed me down after my anxiety attack at Heathrow 2months beforehand (a little risqué, I know. But that's me). And. She.Was. RAD!!! Margherita and I would be super close back home. She was alittle punky, very alternative, and had a very strong anarchisticattitude. Not necessarily LIKE me, but the type of person who I loveto spend a big night with. And all of her friends that I met were verysimilar, and loved complaining about politics and the homogenisationof Italy through its position of the EU, etc etc. In English! Oh yeah,and they drove me around in vespas all night… I can now do that wholehair flip when I take off the helmet ;)
ROME 27th: Marghertia picked me up on the bike the next day, and wentto the Colleseum with her friends. They have never been – can youimagine?? They walk past it EVERY day, but they have never been! Thenagain, when was the last time I went to the top of the Rialto…? But Ihave to say that it is probably more spectacular from the outside. Theinside is a little more worn out, but you can still look around, andjust half expect a lion or Russell Crowe to peep out from behind someof the columns… It's HUGE too. You can't help but imagine what itwould have looked like, covered in marble and gold inlay in 80 AD.Yes. That's only a little under 2,000 years ago… Then that night, Imet up with Kirsten and her new fiancée, Sam! Who knew that we wouldbe in Rome at the same time?? Not us apparently… I had the joy ofbeing one of the few family members to have the pleasure of meetingthe enigma, and to celebrate, we shared a good amount of wine andpasta, before taking some happy snaps by the Trivi Fountain (which Irefuse to throw a coin in on account of me not being terribly quick towant to come back…). Then Marg called again, and told me that all ofher 'punk' friends had heard about me (apparently having a newAustralian best friend takes you straight to the top of the socialhierarchy…). So she vespaed me over to meet them. And it turns outthat punk isn't punk in Rome. It's mod. Like, MODsquad mod. Haircuts,shoes and all…
ROME 28th: And then I left to come here – LONDON! First Englishspeaking country in nearly 6 months, first decent cup of non-chai tea,and first normal keyboard… Bliss. Pure Bliss. And Mama is here toshare it with me! Plus I'm at a HOTEL (fancy schmancy… HOT WATEReven!!). It's the perfect timing, because if you think that thingswere pretty bad, they got worse today. I flew into Terminal 5 atHeathrow. And travellers know what that means. Yep. That's right.They've lost my luggage. I officially have nearly zilch possessions!!
Oh well. At least I have an excuse to go shopping ;)
BERLIN 18th-19th: Can't really remember so I won't waffle on… Speakingof which, they have good waffles in Berlin! You eat them with gingerice cream and puree apple. And there are always plenty ofplaid-wearing Swedes to keep you entertained with their views onkangaroos as you devour them at 5o'clock in the arvo (the waffles, notthe Swedes or kangaroos. They would be too tough methinks)
ZURICH 19th-21st: Booooooooooring. It was all clocks. Not even muchLindt around. I spent the first night watching the movie Coffee andCigarettes on my tiny ipod screen in my hostel room (kudos Blair forkeeping me sane), and the second night I went to bed when it was stilllight… That said, I was really REALLY sick. Not being able to open myeyes they were so puffy, type sick. I guess my body hadn't alloweditself to fully realise the cough that it had developed into a properillness. And then I got to Switzerland. And there was nothing else Icould do but BE sick and sleep all day. So perfect timing! However,the land WAS beautiful, but when a bottle of water costs you $7 or 8dollars, you just feel a little ripped off for what it gives back…
MILAN 21st-24th: Stayed with Maria Teresa in her GOREGOUS apartment ininner Milano. For the little I had been eating (sans waffles, Danishpumpernickel bread, peaches and pretzels) and the huge amount I havebeen walking, she certainly made her best effort to fatten me up! Andthis was the beginning of what was to be Italy… A land governed by thekitchen table. But when the gelato is this good, who cares?! The firstnight we had dinner with the FABULOUS Paolo who is FABULOUSLY gay; thesecond night with her nephew, with predrinks that included snacks thatwere big enough to quantify a meal on its own; and the last night wewent a little out of Milano to a town called Modena (I think that wasit…) to Antonella's place for dinner. She is Maria Teresa's youngersister, and I swear that there were at least 5 courses… I was VERYwell looked after as a guest, and taken to art galleries (FrancisBacon retrospective changed the way I think about contemporary art –"deeply ordered chaos". Welcome to my life Mr. Bacon), concept stores(I heart 10 Corso Como), and markets (where I ate mangos like theIndians do… And got very very messy!) Unfortunately the mozzarellashop that she lives basically on top of was closed… Which was sad formy taste buds, but probably good for my kidneys. All in all, my 4 daysin Milano were like being back home with my Italian mother. I wasnurtured, fed, and allowed to stay in my Pjs til noon, drinking teaand watching the end of the Olympics. Thank you MT!
ROME (deserves a breakdown) 24th: Get into this stunning city at about6pm. Get lost, as I always do, before ending up at the hostel. Meet aCanadian, a Brazilian, and 2 Melbournians, and quickly turn into aquintet. 7 hours later, we are wandering around the foot of thecolleseum in awe. It really is breathtaking… More about this later.
ROME 25th: Wake up early wanting to go back and see the Colleseum byday. I have no money, so I go and change a bunch of my traveller'scheques in bulk to avoid a heavy commission fee. It's a beautiful day,and I'm strolling along, very content in the mid-morning sun. Andthen. And then. AND THEN. Every backpacker's constant, pathologicalfear: I was robbed. It's SUCH a long story, and I'll tell it to thosewho want to hear it, but I won't waste time here… But it was quite ashaking experience. Essentially, it all happened very quickly, and Iimagined myself running down the street, throwing my shoes at thebastards and screaming POLIZIA POLIZIA!!! But instead I just stoodthere in shock. I went to the police station, where I was surround bysleazy cops (there was 1 at the start, but by the end of me fillingout my forms, there were 5 in a semi circle around me). They tried toblackmail me into going out for drinks that night with them, sayingthat they couldn't find my stuff unless I went on a date with each ofthem... Then they took down my number from the official documents Ihad just filled out, and told me that they would call me to meet upthat night. This stuff is too good to be made up! I'm living in my ownsoap-opera, I swear! (But it's a GOOD one Jane!!). That night, Iturned my phone off, and didn't really leave the hostel for the next24 hours. I felt so embarrassed and violated and stupid andvulnerable… Just the perfect time for the so-called 'officials' to beabusing your emotions and rights… Welcome to the Italian police!!!
ROME 26th: In the morning after a sleepless night, I figured I wasalready up early and should take advantage of it. So I sum up mycourage, grip onto my bag for dear life, and head towards the Vatican.I got there at 8.30 after an hour's walk, but already the queue was atleast 500meters long to get inside… But I patiently waited, andpracticed my Japanese aural skills to pass the time. I got inside, andwas a little disappointed. I guess that I was still frazzled by theincident yesterday, and so didn't really enjoy myself. It was all alittle over crowded and over hyped… I swear that there are no Romansin Rome!! That said, the city is still BEAUTIFUL. There are honestlyruins on every corner… It is simply DRIPPING in its own historicaljuices. Then, that night, I went out for drinks with the daughter of aman who had calmed me down after my anxiety attack at Heathrow 2months beforehand (a little risqué, I know. But that's me). And. She.Was. RAD!!! Margherita and I would be super close back home. She was alittle punky, very alternative, and had a very strong anarchisticattitude. Not necessarily LIKE me, but the type of person who I loveto spend a big night with. And all of her friends that I met were verysimilar, and loved complaining about politics and the homogenisationof Italy through its position of the EU, etc etc. In English! Oh yeah,and they drove me around in vespas all night… I can now do that wholehair flip when I take off the helmet ;)
ROME 27th: Marghertia picked me up on the bike the next day, and wentto the Colleseum with her friends. They have never been – can youimagine?? They walk past it EVERY day, but they have never been! Thenagain, when was the last time I went to the top of the Rialto…? But Ihave to say that it is probably more spectacular from the outside. Theinside is a little more worn out, but you can still look around, andjust half expect a lion or Russell Crowe to peep out from behind someof the columns… It's HUGE too. You can't help but imagine what itwould have looked like, covered in marble and gold inlay in 80 AD.Yes. That's only a little under 2,000 years ago… Then that night, Imet up with Kirsten and her new fiancée, Sam! Who knew that we wouldbe in Rome at the same time?? Not us apparently… I had the joy ofbeing one of the few family members to have the pleasure of meetingthe enigma, and to celebrate, we shared a good amount of wine andpasta, before taking some happy snaps by the Trivi Fountain (which Irefuse to throw a coin in on account of me not being terribly quick towant to come back…). Then Marg called again, and told me that all ofher 'punk' friends had heard about me (apparently having a newAustralian best friend takes you straight to the top of the socialhierarchy…). So she vespaed me over to meet them. And it turns outthat punk isn't punk in Rome. It's mod. Like, MODsquad mod. Haircuts,shoes and all…
ROME 28th: And then I left to come here – LONDON! First Englishspeaking country in nearly 6 months, first decent cup of non-chai tea,and first normal keyboard… Bliss. Pure Bliss. And Mama is here toshare it with me! Plus I'm at a HOTEL (fancy schmancy… HOT WATEReven!!). It's the perfect timing, because if you think that thingswere pretty bad, they got worse today. I flew into Terminal 5 atHeathrow. And travellers know what that means. Yep. That's right.They've lost my luggage. I officially have nearly zilch possessions!!
Oh well. At least I have an excuse to go shopping ;)
The East Side of the West (email #12)
I will answer all of your questions by writing a new episode! Noreally. I will reply to your emails, just let me get all of this offmy chest first…
So I've been in Berlin for 10 days now, with a briefinterlude to visit Nicolas in Denmark. So that's 2 more weeks or so ofcatch up. Fast. Maybe… I'll just say it now:
I'm in love.
...
WITH BERLIN!I adore this city. It's the first place that I've been to outsideMelbourne and New York that I can see myself living in. And I plan tonow at some point! German lessons when I get back home methinks…Speaking of which, sorry about the bad spelling and grammar. Thisversion of word is on some crazy German auto-correct thing! So.
6th: BERLIN, GERMANY – I fell in love with this city as soon as we gotinto the station. Not realising how big it is, we began to walk to ourhostel. It took nearly an hour, but it was a great introduction! Lotsof girls with big scarves and bigger hair writing in journals on theside of the road, lots of boys in jeans so tight that they don't needbike cuffs riding around the sidestreets, lots of public art, lots ofcafes… Mmmm… We were still pretty ill from the past few days inMunich, so weh ad an early night. I had an apple and a little can oftuna, and ally had a vegemite and cheese sandwich. And we drank water.And were in bed by 9pm… Hardcore!! Unfortunately, I didn't actuallySLEEP til about 4am. Thank you Trevor – the IT guy from The Can whokept me from getting some much needed sleep. It was okay though, Ijust took my diary and my pillow into the hallway and wrote in myknickers for 3 hours! (I mean I was writing in my journal. Not on myunderwear… You know what I mean.)
7th: BERLIN – Woke up early with far less sleep than what I shouldhave. We met Ally's friend from Poland, Grace, in the morning andbasically spent the next 72 hours together! Did one of those FreeTours that I raved about in Munich… Then spent the afternoon wanderingaround the West Side (so not as cool), ending up with a picnic alongthe spree! Pretzels and sausages were eaten, and lots of Becks wasdrunk… Ended up laying in a laughing circle til midnight beforecrawling off to our separate sides of the wall.
8th: BERLIN – This day ended up being a bit hellish! I think I havesubconsciously forgotten the first part of the morning (suppressionanyone?)… Short story: We split up to do our separate things. Ally andGrace wen tone direction, and I went the other. We were supposed tomeet up at 5pm. They never turned up. I went from thinking I had thewrong time and place, to being really pissed off, to being reallyfrustrated, to being really worried, then REALLY really worried… By10pm I was out of my mind with sickened worry. But they turned upeventually so it was OKAY. But only because they brought me some beer!We got dolled up, and set out to cover as many bars and clubs as wecould in the one night! Sam (the New Yorker that I met in Prague thenran into in Salzburg, and am now set for best friends with in Soho)was living here for 4 months, so he gave me an EXTENSIVE list. But wegot as far as the best falafels in Europe before we met some localsexpats from the UK and NZ and followed them instead! We drank wine ina loft sitting on toadstool chairs before going to a club that wasvery literally someone's house from the 1960s made into a club! Cuefunky wallpaper, old couches, record players, even an oldschoolmicrowave! The DJs were spinning Postal Service and Architecture inHelsinki all night, so we didn't leave until it was WAY past light…
9th: BERLIN – Slept for a few hours before going on another tour. Thisone was called Red Berlin and was all about the Cold War. Veryinteresting but won't give you a history lecture. You're gettingenough of a lecture as it is. BUT ended up going out with our tourguide! Another local expat to take us out… But before that, we went tothe East Side Gallery, which is the portion of the wall that was oncecovered in art, but is now covered in graffiti! See facebook photos…Thai for dinner, served by an Indian man! Whipped out my Hindi, butalas, no free beer… Then Wem et up simultaneously with both Brian, thetour guide, and Miles, one of Ally and Bree and Clare's friends fromMelbourne. They have both been living here, so the 4 of us went up barhopping through about 6 or 7 places until we ended up at local club –On the waterbanks!! Ended up making friends with all of the tourguides that do the Free tours. And they're all crazy crazy people! Whoelse moves here I guess (aside from me soon! Maybe.) Headed home whenit was light. Again. No wonder I've got a chest rattling cough…
10th: BERLIN – Vintage market shopping! Imagine the Camberwell marketin a place that's the size of Fawkner Park. With Germans. You have howI spent 4 hours! Came out of it with a pair of spotted high waistedshorts from the 50s, a 70s electric blue crocheted vest and a pair of60s sunnies – all for under 15 euro! Ally was supposed to leave today,but she decided to stay on so weh ad another ‚last day' together… Niceand relaxing. We met up again with Miles that night and hung outaround the city centre before saying our goodbyes and heading home forwhat I THOUGHT would be my last night in Berlin… But we now know thatit's not!
11th til the 15th: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – So I realised that I was only7 hours away from Denmark… And I never thought that I would see all ofmy Danish friends from India again, but off I went! (Geez. Rememberwhen you guys were getting updates from Udaipur?? I can't evenremember writing them!) And lo and behold, 7 hours later (and sometears saying goodbye to Ally for another 5 months) I was waiting atthe train station for Nicolas to come and pick me up. Very, VERYsurreal to see someone again that I thought I had said my goodbyes toforever on a different continent… And what ensued was… Nice Spent 4days essentially watching terrible Arnie movies and eating Danishsandwiches at his house! It was like being at home again… One night westayed in and I met his Mum, another night we went out and saw TheNational play, another night wem et up for dinner with all of the restof the people from India who were living in Copenhagen (Carina, Ashaand Kelly), and then I met all of his friends on the last night! Andno. I didn't see the Little Mermaid.
15th: COPENHAGEN (back to) BERLIN – Don't want to have to write aboutthis morning! It turned out that tonight was Miles' last night inBerlin, and I had promised to go back to Berlin to go out with himbefore I realised that I never wanted to leave Copenhagen… So to avoida sap story, I'm going to skip to being straight back in Berlin! Itwas like coming back home! I got off the train, and caught all thepublic transport to the hostel feeling like I was a local. Except forthe 20kg backpack that clearly labeled me otherwise…I got to thehostel with about 2 hours to kill before I was going to Miles' housefor some predrinks. I was feeling pretty depressed too, so I was at abit of a loss with what to do. Then I opened my dorm door and was metbe 3 tall, blonde, tanned Swedish boys who went by the names of Jens,Bjorn and Cristofer (no really!). I ended up SKIPPING predrinksbecause these boys were making me feel so much better! We ate pretzelsand drank gin and played Yatzee until about midnight, when I took themout to the club that I ended up meeting Miles at. And what a club itwas… It was called Bang Bang (reminds me of home) and the night theywere holding was called Death By Pop. And I was dancing so hard that Ican see why it would nearly kill you! The Wombats, the Strokes, Kingsof Leon, the Libertines, MGMT, Arcade Fire, Le Tigre… Ooooh it wasgood! Said goodbye to Miles and headed off home at about 4ish.
16th: BERLIN – I've discovered that I'm an emotional shopper. I spent6 hours combing through some of the most amazing vintage stores I haveever laid eyes on, and came away with far too much stuff that abackpacker can normally afford or can fit into their pack… But allgood stuff! No regrets. I'm sick of my clothes anyway. I put on a newoutfit to get ready to go out that night, but my heart wasn't in itand I was waaaay too tired… So I ended up falling asleep in my bootsbefore getting changed properly and having one of the best night'ssleep I've had in Europe.
17th: BERLIN – Up early for once! Went for a walk around one of thesuburbs I didn't know before chatting with mum for ages in a park. Onthe phone unfortuantely… Then spent the first part of the afternoon inthe Hamburger Bahnhof, which is one of the largest modern artgalleries in Europe. It took me close to 4 hours! Had some soup at myfavourite cafe, and now here I am, writing this email and lookingforward to another early night…
Next, it is Berlin for another 2 days, and then staying with thebeautiful Maria Teresa in Milan. Oh, and a quick 2 day Stop over inZurich. Just to say that I've been to Switzerland!
Such is the life, eh?
Xx
So I've been in Berlin for 10 days now, with a briefinterlude to visit Nicolas in Denmark. So that's 2 more weeks or so ofcatch up. Fast. Maybe… I'll just say it now:
I'm in love.
...
WITH BERLIN!I adore this city. It's the first place that I've been to outsideMelbourne and New York that I can see myself living in. And I plan tonow at some point! German lessons when I get back home methinks…Speaking of which, sorry about the bad spelling and grammar. Thisversion of word is on some crazy German auto-correct thing! So.
6th: BERLIN, GERMANY – I fell in love with this city as soon as we gotinto the station. Not realising how big it is, we began to walk to ourhostel. It took nearly an hour, but it was a great introduction! Lotsof girls with big scarves and bigger hair writing in journals on theside of the road, lots of boys in jeans so tight that they don't needbike cuffs riding around the sidestreets, lots of public art, lots ofcafes… Mmmm… We were still pretty ill from the past few days inMunich, so weh ad an early night. I had an apple and a little can oftuna, and ally had a vegemite and cheese sandwich. And we drank water.And were in bed by 9pm… Hardcore!! Unfortunately, I didn't actuallySLEEP til about 4am. Thank you Trevor – the IT guy from The Can whokept me from getting some much needed sleep. It was okay though, Ijust took my diary and my pillow into the hallway and wrote in myknickers for 3 hours! (I mean I was writing in my journal. Not on myunderwear… You know what I mean.)
7th: BERLIN – Woke up early with far less sleep than what I shouldhave. We met Ally's friend from Poland, Grace, in the morning andbasically spent the next 72 hours together! Did one of those FreeTours that I raved about in Munich… Then spent the afternoon wanderingaround the West Side (so not as cool), ending up with a picnic alongthe spree! Pretzels and sausages were eaten, and lots of Becks wasdrunk… Ended up laying in a laughing circle til midnight beforecrawling off to our separate sides of the wall.
8th: BERLIN – This day ended up being a bit hellish! I think I havesubconsciously forgotten the first part of the morning (suppressionanyone?)… Short story: We split up to do our separate things. Ally andGrace wen tone direction, and I went the other. We were supposed tomeet up at 5pm. They never turned up. I went from thinking I had thewrong time and place, to being really pissed off, to being reallyfrustrated, to being really worried, then REALLY really worried… By10pm I was out of my mind with sickened worry. But they turned upeventually so it was OKAY. But only because they brought me some beer!We got dolled up, and set out to cover as many bars and clubs as wecould in the one night! Sam (the New Yorker that I met in Prague thenran into in Salzburg, and am now set for best friends with in Soho)was living here for 4 months, so he gave me an EXTENSIVE list. But wegot as far as the best falafels in Europe before we met some localsexpats from the UK and NZ and followed them instead! We drank wine ina loft sitting on toadstool chairs before going to a club that wasvery literally someone's house from the 1960s made into a club! Cuefunky wallpaper, old couches, record players, even an oldschoolmicrowave! The DJs were spinning Postal Service and Architecture inHelsinki all night, so we didn't leave until it was WAY past light…
9th: BERLIN – Slept for a few hours before going on another tour. Thisone was called Red Berlin and was all about the Cold War. Veryinteresting but won't give you a history lecture. You're gettingenough of a lecture as it is. BUT ended up going out with our tourguide! Another local expat to take us out… But before that, we went tothe East Side Gallery, which is the portion of the wall that was oncecovered in art, but is now covered in graffiti! See facebook photos…Thai for dinner, served by an Indian man! Whipped out my Hindi, butalas, no free beer… Then Wem et up simultaneously with both Brian, thetour guide, and Miles, one of Ally and Bree and Clare's friends fromMelbourne. They have both been living here, so the 4 of us went up barhopping through about 6 or 7 places until we ended up at local club –On the waterbanks!! Ended up making friends with all of the tourguides that do the Free tours. And they're all crazy crazy people! Whoelse moves here I guess (aside from me soon! Maybe.) Headed home whenit was light. Again. No wonder I've got a chest rattling cough…
10th: BERLIN – Vintage market shopping! Imagine the Camberwell marketin a place that's the size of Fawkner Park. With Germans. You have howI spent 4 hours! Came out of it with a pair of spotted high waistedshorts from the 50s, a 70s electric blue crocheted vest and a pair of60s sunnies – all for under 15 euro! Ally was supposed to leave today,but she decided to stay on so weh ad another ‚last day' together… Niceand relaxing. We met up again with Miles that night and hung outaround the city centre before saying our goodbyes and heading home forwhat I THOUGHT would be my last night in Berlin… But we now know thatit's not!
11th til the 15th: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – So I realised that I was only7 hours away from Denmark… And I never thought that I would see all ofmy Danish friends from India again, but off I went! (Geez. Rememberwhen you guys were getting updates from Udaipur?? I can't evenremember writing them!) And lo and behold, 7 hours later (and sometears saying goodbye to Ally for another 5 months) I was waiting atthe train station for Nicolas to come and pick me up. Very, VERYsurreal to see someone again that I thought I had said my goodbyes toforever on a different continent… And what ensued was… Nice Spent 4days essentially watching terrible Arnie movies and eating Danishsandwiches at his house! It was like being at home again… One night westayed in and I met his Mum, another night we went out and saw TheNational play, another night wem et up for dinner with all of the restof the people from India who were living in Copenhagen (Carina, Ashaand Kelly), and then I met all of his friends on the last night! Andno. I didn't see the Little Mermaid.
15th: COPENHAGEN (back to) BERLIN – Don't want to have to write aboutthis morning! It turned out that tonight was Miles' last night inBerlin, and I had promised to go back to Berlin to go out with himbefore I realised that I never wanted to leave Copenhagen… So to avoida sap story, I'm going to skip to being straight back in Berlin! Itwas like coming back home! I got off the train, and caught all thepublic transport to the hostel feeling like I was a local. Except forthe 20kg backpack that clearly labeled me otherwise…I got to thehostel with about 2 hours to kill before I was going to Miles' housefor some predrinks. I was feeling pretty depressed too, so I was at abit of a loss with what to do. Then I opened my dorm door and was metbe 3 tall, blonde, tanned Swedish boys who went by the names of Jens,Bjorn and Cristofer (no really!). I ended up SKIPPING predrinksbecause these boys were making me feel so much better! We ate pretzelsand drank gin and played Yatzee until about midnight, when I took themout to the club that I ended up meeting Miles at. And what a club itwas… It was called Bang Bang (reminds me of home) and the night theywere holding was called Death By Pop. And I was dancing so hard that Ican see why it would nearly kill you! The Wombats, the Strokes, Kingsof Leon, the Libertines, MGMT, Arcade Fire, Le Tigre… Ooooh it wasgood! Said goodbye to Miles and headed off home at about 4ish.
16th: BERLIN – I've discovered that I'm an emotional shopper. I spent6 hours combing through some of the most amazing vintage stores I haveever laid eyes on, and came away with far too much stuff that abackpacker can normally afford or can fit into their pack… But allgood stuff! No regrets. I'm sick of my clothes anyway. I put on a newoutfit to get ready to go out that night, but my heart wasn't in itand I was waaaay too tired… So I ended up falling asleep in my bootsbefore getting changed properly and having one of the best night'ssleep I've had in Europe.
17th: BERLIN – Up early for once! Went for a walk around one of thesuburbs I didn't know before chatting with mum for ages in a park. Onthe phone unfortuantely… Then spent the first part of the afternoon inthe Hamburger Bahnhof, which is one of the largest modern artgalleries in Europe. It took me close to 4 hours! Had some soup at myfavourite cafe, and now here I am, writing this email and lookingforward to another early night…
Next, it is Berlin for another 2 days, and then staying with thebeautiful Maria Teresa in Milan. Oh, and a quick 2 day Stop over inZurich. Just to say that I've been to Switzerland!
Such is the life, eh?
Xx
The Long Version of Some Short Adventures (email #11)
Hallo! Wow I have put doing this off for so long... And as aconsequence, this will most likely be very long too!
27th BUDAPEST (HUNGARY) to LJUBLJANA (SLOVENIA): Oh this was a whileago... Oh yeah! I've pushed it out of my mind because it was a horridHORRID train trip... Train was late, then changed platforms but wasonly announced in Hungarian, then 2 hours of sleep (that I hadn't hadat all the night before) before being rudely awoken by a conductortelling me I had to change trains. Turns out that they're ripping upsome of the track, and it just happened to coincide with our train...So on a run down bus that would give India a run for its money for 2more hours, back onto a completely different train, 5 more hours andthen got in at 11ish. And I couldn't even pronounce this place's NAME,nonetheless navigate myself around it in the dark! Luckily I met 2human compasses in the form of some very gay, Chinese tenors fromCanada. They were a hoot, eh! Got to the hostel and crashed...
28th LJUBLJANA: Woke up and did the touristy thing and SUCCEEDED thistime as opposed to ending up in art galleries... Climbed a big hillwith a big castle (obligatory in every city in Eastern Europe...),walked along a river for awhile, had a coffee, bought a jumper fromH&M, you know. Normal touristy stuff. I just couldn't get over howbeautiful the city was. If you've seen photos on my facebook, you'llbe able to see why I could just wander around doing nothing all day...I took the choir boys from the night before out for salads to thankthem for helping me out, and then met up with some hostel for a drink.But I just drank coffee because I was still getting over Budapest! Hada cup of tea with 2 Scottish lads back at the hostel and was in bed by1.
29th LJUBLJANA with a day trip to LAKE BLED: Decided to spend the dayon the banks of one of the world's most beautiful UNESCO sights.Definitely worth it. Despite the fact that the movie they played onthe bus was a Russian one that is about a bus that gets blown up. Verycomforting... Read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and dared toeat local peaches. There was another big castle on another big hill,so I climbed that too. Rested and rejuvenated, I was ready for anotherbig night out. Luckily the girl who did the night shift at the hostel,Anna, was an awesome pocket rocket type person who took us all outlocal clubbing when she finished her shift! It was a club in agallery, and there was apparently some famous Turkish DJ on thatnight, so it was PACKED. Drank and danced and spoke to the locals.Even recall sitting in a circle with about 6 other people and boucninga tennis ball around! Just like one of my first days with the tribalfamilies in India! Bouncy balls transcend borders. At about 3, I wastalking to some random guy for about 10 minutes, and when he left awhole bunch of girls flocked to me squealing in Slovenian. Turns outthe guy I was talking to was the DJ that I mentioned earlier and he'snormally a social recluse! Spent the rest of the night til the clubclosed with those girls talking about music...
30th LJUBLJANA to SALZBURG (AUSTRIA): Mostly shady day until about9pm... Market in the morning, train during the day and then gothopelessly lost as per usual when I got to the translation. Walkedaround a little bit when I got in there, but I couldn't really bebothered seeing any sights. But then... I was wandering back along theriver to get an early night when a fantastically dressed man walked infront of me. And I recognised him. A lot. Well, I didn't believe itmyself for the first while, but it was the New Yorker from Prague!!Remember way back to the first email?? The group of Yankees who wereliving in Berlin that were th first people I spoke to outside India,and I tried to catch up with them but it didn't work and I ended up atthat grungy club? Well 3 weeks and 8 countries later, I end up walkingside by side to Sam. He's just about the male version of me - I don'tthink I've ever met someone who has as many of the same personalitytraits as myself... We went out for a few beers, and it turns out helives about 2 streets away from where I'll be living in NY! So he'staking me under his wing and calling me his new Australian best friend:)
31st SALZBURG: Got up early intending to see the sights. Ended up atthe contemporary art gallery. Again. Go figure. Also saw a classicalMozart, Beethoven and Brahms concert. That's about it! Early nightwhilst I could get them...
1st SALZBURG to MUNICH (GERMANY): ALLY DAY!! Was so restless on thetrain I couldn't even read. Got to the hostel (without getting lost,for once) and she was dead asleep on the bed with her shoes still on.I quietly put down my bags and pounced on her! Lots of yelling, lotsof hugs, lots of crying, and then LOTS of talking... We sat in thehostel for about 3 hours before we ventured as far as the pizza barnext door to share some dinner. As Munich is the beer drinking capitalof the world, there was a free beer tasting at the hostel bar (yes.Hostels have BARS in them in Germany) so we thought we'd tag along tothat. Well. We ended up having more than just the free beer in a nightthat was going to set the bar for the rest of our time in Munich...Became friendly with some Londoners, and planned to do a proper,organised pub crawl the next night with them. Went to bed at 1am. Thiswould be the earliest Ally and I go to bed in about a week.
2nd MUNICH: Do what is called a 'Free Walking Tour' that we'd heardabout. And it's about one of the best things I have done so far. Ifyou ever go to Europe, check these guys out! They work on tips basis,so it means that they are CRAZY!!! For someone who doesn't likehistory, I can recite to you all the ins and outs of Munich afterthat... Plenty of funny stories, like the fact that there isn't anAustralian embassy in Munich, but during Oktoberfest, there is atemporary one for 2 weeks with the presumption that there will be alot of plastered Australians loosing their passports... Climbedanother tower (my calf muscles are becoming quite angular!) beforeheading back to the hostel to meet the Poms. And then it started. 'TheOriginal Munich Pub Crawl: The Best Night That You Will NeverRemember'. Oh god. Free beer for the first hour, and then 3 beergardens that only serve litre glasses... I can proudly say that wedid those mugs justice... Met some real Aussie blokes and tried tokeep up with them. Organised to do ANOTHER pub crawl with them thenext night. This is how Munich makes it's money, I swear! Got home at4.
3rd MUNICH: Woke up surprisingly dandy, if not very very late and wentour separate directions. Ally to the Palace, and me to, yep youguessed it. The contemporary art gallery... Planned to go and havelunch, but everywhere was closed. Europe just literally seems to boardup on Sundays! You can't do anything aside from drink coffee, go tomarkets and write emails... Which is exactly what I've done today! Hada quick nap before rushing off reluctantly to the second pub crawl.Except we got the wrong meeting point plaza... So we decided to makeour own! We went to the most famous beer garden in Germany, assumingthat the crawl would end up there and we could apologise to the Aussieboys then. but we never got that far... About 3 sips into the first ofwhat was to be many litres of beer, I recognised a guy sitting about 2tables away. But I couldn't remember who he was. I just knew that Iknew him! So I went through all the countries I'd been to, and finallygot to Slovenia. He was one of the 2 Scots that I had that cup of teawith in Slovenia! I ALWAYS run back into people!!! Ally and I joinedthem and the 4 of us clicked immediately. What ensued was probably thebest night I've had so far. No clubs, no bars, no fancy outfits...Just me and Ally, two hilarious Scottish guys, my ipod speakers,pretzels and a whole lot of beer. I mean, A LOT of beer. More beerthan what I thought that could expand my stomach... And when theystopped serving us beer when they closed, we went back to the hosteland drank more beer. And when they stopped serving us beer when THEYclosed we bought a couple more and sat on the stairwell drinking morebeer... They ran off to catch a train at 4am (thus the purposefulattempt to stay up) and we went to bed. I'm going to hopefully go andstay with them in Glasgow! But not drink that much beer...
4th MUNICH: Got up really late. REALLY late. Past lunchtime type late.Again, no hangover! Ally wasn't as lucky. We heard that there was anice park in the top part of the city, so we went and sat in it. Well.By sat I mean that we fell asleep for another 6 hours! Went out forsome Thai with a French Canadian guy in our dorm. Put our weary headsto bed as soon as we could.
And I'm going to stop there for now. This is enough for you to processmethinks! All I'll say about Berlin so far is that I'm sorry if Inever come back home!!
I'll send the Berliner escapades in a few days...
Gutentag!
Xx
27th BUDAPEST (HUNGARY) to LJUBLJANA (SLOVENIA): Oh this was a whileago... Oh yeah! I've pushed it out of my mind because it was a horridHORRID train trip... Train was late, then changed platforms but wasonly announced in Hungarian, then 2 hours of sleep (that I hadn't hadat all the night before) before being rudely awoken by a conductortelling me I had to change trains. Turns out that they're ripping upsome of the track, and it just happened to coincide with our train...So on a run down bus that would give India a run for its money for 2more hours, back onto a completely different train, 5 more hours andthen got in at 11ish. And I couldn't even pronounce this place's NAME,nonetheless navigate myself around it in the dark! Luckily I met 2human compasses in the form of some very gay, Chinese tenors fromCanada. They were a hoot, eh! Got to the hostel and crashed...
28th LJUBLJANA: Woke up and did the touristy thing and SUCCEEDED thistime as opposed to ending up in art galleries... Climbed a big hillwith a big castle (obligatory in every city in Eastern Europe...),walked along a river for awhile, had a coffee, bought a jumper fromH&M, you know. Normal touristy stuff. I just couldn't get over howbeautiful the city was. If you've seen photos on my facebook, you'llbe able to see why I could just wander around doing nothing all day...I took the choir boys from the night before out for salads to thankthem for helping me out, and then met up with some hostel for a drink.But I just drank coffee because I was still getting over Budapest! Hada cup of tea with 2 Scottish lads back at the hostel and was in bed by1.
29th LJUBLJANA with a day trip to LAKE BLED: Decided to spend the dayon the banks of one of the world's most beautiful UNESCO sights.Definitely worth it. Despite the fact that the movie they played onthe bus was a Russian one that is about a bus that gets blown up. Verycomforting... Read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and dared toeat local peaches. There was another big castle on another big hill,so I climbed that too. Rested and rejuvenated, I was ready for anotherbig night out. Luckily the girl who did the night shift at the hostel,Anna, was an awesome pocket rocket type person who took us all outlocal clubbing when she finished her shift! It was a club in agallery, and there was apparently some famous Turkish DJ on thatnight, so it was PACKED. Drank and danced and spoke to the locals.Even recall sitting in a circle with about 6 other people and boucninga tennis ball around! Just like one of my first days with the tribalfamilies in India! Bouncy balls transcend borders. At about 3, I wastalking to some random guy for about 10 minutes, and when he left awhole bunch of girls flocked to me squealing in Slovenian. Turns outthe guy I was talking to was the DJ that I mentioned earlier and he'snormally a social recluse! Spent the rest of the night til the clubclosed with those girls talking about music...
30th LJUBLJANA to SALZBURG (AUSTRIA): Mostly shady day until about9pm... Market in the morning, train during the day and then gothopelessly lost as per usual when I got to the translation. Walkedaround a little bit when I got in there, but I couldn't really bebothered seeing any sights. But then... I was wandering back along theriver to get an early night when a fantastically dressed man walked infront of me. And I recognised him. A lot. Well, I didn't believe itmyself for the first while, but it was the New Yorker from Prague!!Remember way back to the first email?? The group of Yankees who wereliving in Berlin that were th first people I spoke to outside India,and I tried to catch up with them but it didn't work and I ended up atthat grungy club? Well 3 weeks and 8 countries later, I end up walkingside by side to Sam. He's just about the male version of me - I don'tthink I've ever met someone who has as many of the same personalitytraits as myself... We went out for a few beers, and it turns out helives about 2 streets away from where I'll be living in NY! So he'staking me under his wing and calling me his new Australian best friend:)
31st SALZBURG: Got up early intending to see the sights. Ended up atthe contemporary art gallery. Again. Go figure. Also saw a classicalMozart, Beethoven and Brahms concert. That's about it! Early nightwhilst I could get them...
1st SALZBURG to MUNICH (GERMANY): ALLY DAY!! Was so restless on thetrain I couldn't even read. Got to the hostel (without getting lost,for once) and she was dead asleep on the bed with her shoes still on.I quietly put down my bags and pounced on her! Lots of yelling, lotsof hugs, lots of crying, and then LOTS of talking... We sat in thehostel for about 3 hours before we ventured as far as the pizza barnext door to share some dinner. As Munich is the beer drinking capitalof the world, there was a free beer tasting at the hostel bar (yes.Hostels have BARS in them in Germany) so we thought we'd tag along tothat. Well. We ended up having more than just the free beer in a nightthat was going to set the bar for the rest of our time in Munich...Became friendly with some Londoners, and planned to do a proper,organised pub crawl the next night with them. Went to bed at 1am. Thiswould be the earliest Ally and I go to bed in about a week.
2nd MUNICH: Do what is called a 'Free Walking Tour' that we'd heardabout. And it's about one of the best things I have done so far. Ifyou ever go to Europe, check these guys out! They work on tips basis,so it means that they are CRAZY!!! For someone who doesn't likehistory, I can recite to you all the ins and outs of Munich afterthat... Plenty of funny stories, like the fact that there isn't anAustralian embassy in Munich, but during Oktoberfest, there is atemporary one for 2 weeks with the presumption that there will be alot of plastered Australians loosing their passports... Climbedanother tower (my calf muscles are becoming quite angular!) beforeheading back to the hostel to meet the Poms. And then it started. 'TheOriginal Munich Pub Crawl: The Best Night That You Will NeverRemember'. Oh god. Free beer for the first hour, and then 3 beergardens that only serve litre glasses... I can proudly say that wedid those mugs justice... Met some real Aussie blokes and tried tokeep up with them. Organised to do ANOTHER pub crawl with them thenext night. This is how Munich makes it's money, I swear! Got home at4.
3rd MUNICH: Woke up surprisingly dandy, if not very very late and wentour separate directions. Ally to the Palace, and me to, yep youguessed it. The contemporary art gallery... Planned to go and havelunch, but everywhere was closed. Europe just literally seems to boardup on Sundays! You can't do anything aside from drink coffee, go tomarkets and write emails... Which is exactly what I've done today! Hada quick nap before rushing off reluctantly to the second pub crawl.Except we got the wrong meeting point plaza... So we decided to makeour own! We went to the most famous beer garden in Germany, assumingthat the crawl would end up there and we could apologise to the Aussieboys then. but we never got that far... About 3 sips into the first ofwhat was to be many litres of beer, I recognised a guy sitting about 2tables away. But I couldn't remember who he was. I just knew that Iknew him! So I went through all the countries I'd been to, and finallygot to Slovenia. He was one of the 2 Scots that I had that cup of teawith in Slovenia! I ALWAYS run back into people!!! Ally and I joinedthem and the 4 of us clicked immediately. What ensued was probably thebest night I've had so far. No clubs, no bars, no fancy outfits...Just me and Ally, two hilarious Scottish guys, my ipod speakers,pretzels and a whole lot of beer. I mean, A LOT of beer. More beerthan what I thought that could expand my stomach... And when theystopped serving us beer when they closed, we went back to the hosteland drank more beer. And when they stopped serving us beer when THEYclosed we bought a couple more and sat on the stairwell drinking morebeer... They ran off to catch a train at 4am (thus the purposefulattempt to stay up) and we went to bed. I'm going to hopefully go andstay with them in Glasgow! But not drink that much beer...
4th MUNICH: Got up really late. REALLY late. Past lunchtime type late.Again, no hangover! Ally wasn't as lucky. We heard that there was anice park in the top part of the city, so we went and sat in it. Well.By sat I mean that we fell asleep for another 6 hours! Went out forsome Thai with a French Canadian guy in our dorm. Put our weary headsto bed as soon as we could.
And I'm going to stop there for now. This is enough for you to processmethinks! All I'll say about Berlin so far is that I'm sorry if Inever come back home!!
I'll send the Berliner escapades in a few days...
Gutentag!
Xx
Slowly Moving West (email #10)
21st: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA to BELGRADE, SERBIA – Had to get up while itwas dark to get a 9 hour bus trip to Belgrade. Didn't eat or drinkanything beforehand coz it was too early for the shops to be open. Ididn't realise that as soon as I got over the border, that I wouldhave no Serbian money to buy anything with! So I starved to Serbia,then walked 4km uphill with my pack to the hostel in 35degree heat. Bythe time I got there, I just CRASHED! Didn't end up eating anythinguntil dinner, when I went out with 4 semi-pro AFL players who atepizzas the size of a small coffee table. Try as I did, I couldn'tfinish mine – but the boys did for me! Sat up playing cards with themuntil they left to go to Greece, then had an early night. Just beforeI passed out, we heard that Karadzic, the war criminal, got caughtabout 3 or so streets away from my hostel! Woo! News doesn't reallyproperly break til tomorrow though (more about this is a second)
22nd: BELGRADE – A beautiful, rainy day! This city looks a lot betterunder the mist… It's actually quite endearing… As it was dripping allday, I spent a lot of time drinking lots of coffee and reading lots ofbooks it lots of cobblestone cafes… A nice change in the pace I'd beenliving for the last 2 weeks. That night it all changed though! Due tothe whole war-criminal-capture thing, the city went a little nuts!Admist demonstrations and riots, there were bombs set off. I'm gettingkinda used to this whole terrorism-following-me-wherever-I-go-thingnow, so instead of being scared, the entire hostel decides to go out!And what a night to go out! All of the youth that had grown up underKaradzic's oppression were out in force celebrating… We went barhopping around our area at first, but progressively ended further andfurther and further away from the hostel. The first couple wereaverage, but eventually we ended up at a nightclub on a barge! On topof that, 2 separate bunches of aussies that I had met that day werethere to. But I spent most of the night talking to a music journalistfrom Portugal – who is ALSO an orphan!! There was so much to say andask and tell that we didn't shut up until…
23rd: BELGRADE to NOVI SAD, SERBIA – 7am. Had to checkout by 10am.That hurt. Spent the morning with the wind and the rain in my hairstrolling around the castle grounds, before boarding a bus to NoviSad. Don't. Go. To Novi Sad. I got there, wandered around for an hour,went to the train station and booked the next possible train toBudapest!
24th: NOVI SAD to BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – Had a great train trip with abunch of Spanish boys who kept me amused through passport control!Also possibly loved it because I was getting out of Novi Sad…Alternated between talking, sleeping, staring at the sunflower fieldsand cutting my hair (yes, in a train! That's how busy I feel!) untilwe got into Budapest at 4ish. Got to the hostel, and fell in love withit. Turns out it's been voted one of the best hostels in Europe acouple of times… And I can see why! I went for a quick walk up to thetop of a really tall hill to get my bearings before going out with oneof the guys who works in the hostel, Harj. He came here a year agofrom Leeds, and didn't want to leave! So it was like being taken outby a local, minus the language barrier. We went to see Zion Train(kinda like Fat Freddy's Drop) at an outdoor bar. I'm not sure if itwas because it was one of the first good bass beats I had heard in 5months, but it was one of the best gigs I've seen! The beauty of beingout with a local expat is that they know where to go – so I ended upon my way to a club on an island! However, this is where the storygoes a little less than expected… There were 2 Malaysian girls thathad tagged along at the last minute, and long-story-short, they didn'tget off when we got off the bus… And they didn't know where they weregoing… And it turned out we got off on the wrong stop and didn't knowwhere we were… And no way to contact them… Ahhh!!! So we both freakedout a little… A lot! So we tried to find them, and then ran into somepeople who had just been beaten up and slashed by a crazy Hungarianthat was walking around… And we helped them call an ambulance andstuff… and by this stage we were getting REALLY scared and just neededto get somewhere where there was lots of people. So we went to theclub! But alas, the girls weren't there, and the club was shit, so weleft pretty quickly. So now it's 4am, we don't know where the girlsare, and there's a knife wielding Hungarian wandering around the area…Just to make it worse, we got kicked off the bus in the middle ofnowhere when we didn't have tickets. And were stuck about 6km out oftown. 6km and a hell of a lot of blisters later, we were home just asis was getting light. And the Malaysian girls were there and alive!Yay!
25th: BUDAPEST – Essentially spent the day retro/op shopping andlounging around in the thermal bathes with a cool Texan guy.Recovery!! Intended to do some sightseeing, but just didn't get aroundto it… That night, latched myself onto a California girl who had metsome more Californian guys that day, and went out for a traditionallate dinner. Went on to one of the coolest bars I've seen this trip –it was 2 floors, and had both a rooftop bar full of red lights andfilm posters; and a bottom area that was split into a really rad dancefloor and foozball tables! Got into bed at about 3ish. Pitiful effort…
26th: BEDAPEST – forced myself up earlish to get in a full day ofseeing all the stuff that I hadn't seen in the past 2 days. I tried tofind an antique markets in this beautiful, massive park, but stoppedpretty quickly when I realised I was being stalked. Creepy guy hissingand whistling at me, trying to cut me off my path and grabbing at me…Stuck to the main paths and got the hell out! However, when I got outI found myself outside the contemporary art gallery. And THAT wasAMAZING!! Hungarians really love the whole abstract conceptual ismthing… Very quickly changed me plans for the day and gallery hoppedinstead! I felt a little guilty at 4ish when I STILL hadn't seen anyof the touristy places, so made a half arsed attempt to see some… Butthey were all under construction anyway. Made me feel a little lessguilty. I'm now preparing myself to go out with a bunch of people fromSydney, and possibly meet back up with the Californians, beforekeeping Harj company until the sun comes up (24 hour shift, theunlucky bastard). I'm just gonna sleep on the train methinks.
And tomorrow to Slovenia! And hopefully some sleep. Maybe.
Gotta go and get ready! I'm going to really miss Budapest. I thinkit's my favourite place so far... Yes! I did just say that I like itover Croatia!! What's news back home and abroad?
Xx
22nd: BELGRADE – A beautiful, rainy day! This city looks a lot betterunder the mist… It's actually quite endearing… As it was dripping allday, I spent a lot of time drinking lots of coffee and reading lots ofbooks it lots of cobblestone cafes… A nice change in the pace I'd beenliving for the last 2 weeks. That night it all changed though! Due tothe whole war-criminal-capture thing, the city went a little nuts!Admist demonstrations and riots, there were bombs set off. I'm gettingkinda used to this whole terrorism-following-me-wherever-I-go-thingnow, so instead of being scared, the entire hostel decides to go out!And what a night to go out! All of the youth that had grown up underKaradzic's oppression were out in force celebrating… We went barhopping around our area at first, but progressively ended further andfurther and further away from the hostel. The first couple wereaverage, but eventually we ended up at a nightclub on a barge! On topof that, 2 separate bunches of aussies that I had met that day werethere to. But I spent most of the night talking to a music journalistfrom Portugal – who is ALSO an orphan!! There was so much to say andask and tell that we didn't shut up until…
23rd: BELGRADE to NOVI SAD, SERBIA – 7am. Had to checkout by 10am.That hurt. Spent the morning with the wind and the rain in my hairstrolling around the castle grounds, before boarding a bus to NoviSad. Don't. Go. To Novi Sad. I got there, wandered around for an hour,went to the train station and booked the next possible train toBudapest!
24th: NOVI SAD to BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – Had a great train trip with abunch of Spanish boys who kept me amused through passport control!Also possibly loved it because I was getting out of Novi Sad…Alternated between talking, sleeping, staring at the sunflower fieldsand cutting my hair (yes, in a train! That's how busy I feel!) untilwe got into Budapest at 4ish. Got to the hostel, and fell in love withit. Turns out it's been voted one of the best hostels in Europe acouple of times… And I can see why! I went for a quick walk up to thetop of a really tall hill to get my bearings before going out with oneof the guys who works in the hostel, Harj. He came here a year agofrom Leeds, and didn't want to leave! So it was like being taken outby a local, minus the language barrier. We went to see Zion Train(kinda like Fat Freddy's Drop) at an outdoor bar. I'm not sure if itwas because it was one of the first good bass beats I had heard in 5months, but it was one of the best gigs I've seen! The beauty of beingout with a local expat is that they know where to go – so I ended upon my way to a club on an island! However, this is where the storygoes a little less than expected… There were 2 Malaysian girls thathad tagged along at the last minute, and long-story-short, they didn'tget off when we got off the bus… And they didn't know where they weregoing… And it turned out we got off on the wrong stop and didn't knowwhere we were… And no way to contact them… Ahhh!!! So we both freakedout a little… A lot! So we tried to find them, and then ran into somepeople who had just been beaten up and slashed by a crazy Hungarianthat was walking around… And we helped them call an ambulance andstuff… and by this stage we were getting REALLY scared and just neededto get somewhere where there was lots of people. So we went to theclub! But alas, the girls weren't there, and the club was shit, so weleft pretty quickly. So now it's 4am, we don't know where the girlsare, and there's a knife wielding Hungarian wandering around the area…Just to make it worse, we got kicked off the bus in the middle ofnowhere when we didn't have tickets. And were stuck about 6km out oftown. 6km and a hell of a lot of blisters later, we were home just asis was getting light. And the Malaysian girls were there and alive!Yay!
25th: BUDAPEST – Essentially spent the day retro/op shopping andlounging around in the thermal bathes with a cool Texan guy.Recovery!! Intended to do some sightseeing, but just didn't get aroundto it… That night, latched myself onto a California girl who had metsome more Californian guys that day, and went out for a traditionallate dinner. Went on to one of the coolest bars I've seen this trip –it was 2 floors, and had both a rooftop bar full of red lights andfilm posters; and a bottom area that was split into a really rad dancefloor and foozball tables! Got into bed at about 3ish. Pitiful effort…
26th: BEDAPEST – forced myself up earlish to get in a full day ofseeing all the stuff that I hadn't seen in the past 2 days. I tried tofind an antique markets in this beautiful, massive park, but stoppedpretty quickly when I realised I was being stalked. Creepy guy hissingand whistling at me, trying to cut me off my path and grabbing at me…Stuck to the main paths and got the hell out! However, when I got outI found myself outside the contemporary art gallery. And THAT wasAMAZING!! Hungarians really love the whole abstract conceptual ismthing… Very quickly changed me plans for the day and gallery hoppedinstead! I felt a little guilty at 4ish when I STILL hadn't seen anyof the touristy places, so made a half arsed attempt to see some… Butthey were all under construction anyway. Made me feel a little lessguilty. I'm now preparing myself to go out with a bunch of people fromSydney, and possibly meet back up with the Californians, beforekeeping Harj company until the sun comes up (24 hour shift, theunlucky bastard). I'm just gonna sleep on the train methinks.
And tomorrow to Slovenia! And hopefully some sleep. Maybe.
Gotta go and get ready! I'm going to really miss Budapest. I thinkit's my favourite place so far... Yes! I did just say that I like itover Croatia!! What's news back home and abroad?
Xx
From Behind the Iron Curtain (email #9)
Hello! I know I said I was gonna stop doing these, but here's a quicklowdown on what I've been doing in Eastern Europe...
11th: DELHI to PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC. Flew into Prague after having apanic attack at Heathrow. Too many flashing lights and Starbucks!
12th: PRAGUE. First day of the tourist thing. I spent so much timebumming around cafes reading Franz Kafka that I didn't actually get tosee the Palace... Met a bunch of funky Yankees who were studying inBerlin, and attempted to meet up with them that night. Failedmiserably and I ended up in a dingy club with 40 year old men droolingat me in the corner. Was in bed by midnight.
13th: PRAGUE to ZAGREB, CROATIA. I still had my massive backpack onwhen I met some locals who were playing in one of the big centralfountains. Dumped my stuff at a hostel before spending the day with agroup of Poms. Coincidentally ran back into the same guys I met in themorning, and shared my ice cream with them. Ended up talking to one(who was actually from Denmark) on a park bench for 3 hours aboutdivine mathematics, the perception of organic art and modelaeroplanes. Went back to the local's place, sat on their roof, andlistened to Serbian reggae whilst watching the lightning.
14th: ZAGREB to SPLIT, CROATIA. Met up with Anna in Split. Turns outthat she caught pneumonia in monsoonal India is has been forbidden totravel. Should have freaked out that I was now going to be travellingex-Cold War Yugoslavia regions by myself. Decided to get sloshed withan Aussie couple that we met instead.
15th: SPLIT to HVAR, CROATIA. Took the ferry to supposedly one of themost beautiful islands in the world, intending to go on and meetpeople in Korcula (another island). Turns out the next boat was onSaturday, and the boats back to Split didn't leave until the nextmorning. I used the fact that I was stuck on one of the best islandsin the world to my full advantage. Slept in a lovely old couple'sspare room.
16th: HVAR to SPLIT to DUBROVNIK, CROATIA. A ferry (and some sunburn)and a stunning bus ride down the Dalmatian coast later, I'm inDubrovnik. And I'm staying at what turns out to be the best hostelthat I, or anyone else who was there, had ever stayed in. I get inpretty late, and still somehow end up at a bar that's outside thefloating city's walls, looking out over the moon rising at 2am.
17th: DUBROVNIK with a day trip to MOSTAR, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.Kick arse day. Started with local oyster tasting from the AdriaticSea; then went swimming and rock hopping in a waterfall (which Iunfortunately lost my haviannas at. I got back to the border when Irealised I didn't have them); then rope jumping; then went up to thehill where a couple of kids apparently saw the apparition of MotherMary; then to Mostar, where I saw locals jump 26 metres off a bridgeinto a rock-filled river; then to a cave that is actually a club thatwe had a few beers and an Turkish apple hookah pipe. Went back 'home',cooked fresh mussels, more oysters, and got kicked out by theneighbours from the balconies at about 3.
18th: DUBROVNIK. Decided to stay another day here coz it's such agreat place. Did the touristy thing in town, and happened to find aHavianna outlet store. Go figure. Got back in time to go for a dailysnorkel trip in the Adriatic rock formations. Had beer and pizzabefore watching the sun set and a harvest moon rise. Planned to goback out into the old town, but ended up with a guy from Alaska, a guyfrom Canada and 3 Irish girls in the basement playing the morpunkinstrument I got in India. Went to bed just before 5.
19th: DUBROVNIK to SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. Got up at 5.30 tocatch the early bus to Sarajevo. Painful bus trip. Got lost trying tofind the hostel, and when I did, it was shit! Wandered around townfeeling sorry for myself, and unable to find anyone who spoke English.All I can say in Bosnian is 'Tee cei yehdung magrats'. Which means'you are a donkey' so I wasn't getting very far. Eventually found outabout some massive concert, and ended up tagging along with 4 guysfrom Sweden, Argentina, Finland and Serbia. Turned out that there were70,000 people! Danced to Turkish rock til 1ish, then crashed coz I wasso tired.
20th: SARAJEVO. Writing this email! Belgrade tomorrow, then Novi Sad,the Budapest. The maybe through Slovenia to Salzburg... Then upthrough Germany to Denmark, then back down to Switzerland, then Milan,then Rome... and that's all gonna change probably!
If you want any more details (because you know me, I'd LOVE to tellyou them all...) then please please enquire! There are so many amazingthings to talk about. But I just can't in one email!
Love to hear from you all.
Bog! (yes, that really is goodbye!)
Xx
11th: DELHI to PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC. Flew into Prague after having apanic attack at Heathrow. Too many flashing lights and Starbucks!
12th: PRAGUE. First day of the tourist thing. I spent so much timebumming around cafes reading Franz Kafka that I didn't actually get tosee the Palace... Met a bunch of funky Yankees who were studying inBerlin, and attempted to meet up with them that night. Failedmiserably and I ended up in a dingy club with 40 year old men droolingat me in the corner. Was in bed by midnight.
13th: PRAGUE to ZAGREB, CROATIA. I still had my massive backpack onwhen I met some locals who were playing in one of the big centralfountains. Dumped my stuff at a hostel before spending the day with agroup of Poms. Coincidentally ran back into the same guys I met in themorning, and shared my ice cream with them. Ended up talking to one(who was actually from Denmark) on a park bench for 3 hours aboutdivine mathematics, the perception of organic art and modelaeroplanes. Went back to the local's place, sat on their roof, andlistened to Serbian reggae whilst watching the lightning.
14th: ZAGREB to SPLIT, CROATIA. Met up with Anna in Split. Turns outthat she caught pneumonia in monsoonal India is has been forbidden totravel. Should have freaked out that I was now going to be travellingex-Cold War Yugoslavia regions by myself. Decided to get sloshed withan Aussie couple that we met instead.
15th: SPLIT to HVAR, CROATIA. Took the ferry to supposedly one of themost beautiful islands in the world, intending to go on and meetpeople in Korcula (another island). Turns out the next boat was onSaturday, and the boats back to Split didn't leave until the nextmorning. I used the fact that I was stuck on one of the best islandsin the world to my full advantage. Slept in a lovely old couple'sspare room.
16th: HVAR to SPLIT to DUBROVNIK, CROATIA. A ferry (and some sunburn)and a stunning bus ride down the Dalmatian coast later, I'm inDubrovnik. And I'm staying at what turns out to be the best hostelthat I, or anyone else who was there, had ever stayed in. I get inpretty late, and still somehow end up at a bar that's outside thefloating city's walls, looking out over the moon rising at 2am.
17th: DUBROVNIK with a day trip to MOSTAR, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.Kick arse day. Started with local oyster tasting from the AdriaticSea; then went swimming and rock hopping in a waterfall (which Iunfortunately lost my haviannas at. I got back to the border when Irealised I didn't have them); then rope jumping; then went up to thehill where a couple of kids apparently saw the apparition of MotherMary; then to Mostar, where I saw locals jump 26 metres off a bridgeinto a rock-filled river; then to a cave that is actually a club thatwe had a few beers and an Turkish apple hookah pipe. Went back 'home',cooked fresh mussels, more oysters, and got kicked out by theneighbours from the balconies at about 3.
18th: DUBROVNIK. Decided to stay another day here coz it's such agreat place. Did the touristy thing in town, and happened to find aHavianna outlet store. Go figure. Got back in time to go for a dailysnorkel trip in the Adriatic rock formations. Had beer and pizzabefore watching the sun set and a harvest moon rise. Planned to goback out into the old town, but ended up with a guy from Alaska, a guyfrom Canada and 3 Irish girls in the basement playing the morpunkinstrument I got in India. Went to bed just before 5.
19th: DUBROVNIK to SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. Got up at 5.30 tocatch the early bus to Sarajevo. Painful bus trip. Got lost trying tofind the hostel, and when I did, it was shit! Wandered around townfeeling sorry for myself, and unable to find anyone who spoke English.All I can say in Bosnian is 'Tee cei yehdung magrats'. Which means'you are a donkey' so I wasn't getting very far. Eventually found outabout some massive concert, and ended up tagging along with 4 guysfrom Sweden, Argentina, Finland and Serbia. Turned out that there were70,000 people! Danced to Turkish rock til 1ish, then crashed coz I wasso tired.
20th: SARAJEVO. Writing this email! Belgrade tomorrow, then Novi Sad,the Budapest. The maybe through Slovenia to Salzburg... Then upthrough Germany to Denmark, then back down to Switzerland, then Milan,then Rome... and that's all gonna change probably!
If you want any more details (because you know me, I'd LOVE to tellyou them all...) then please please enquire! There are so many amazingthings to talk about. But I just can't in one email!
Love to hear from you all.
Bog! (yes, that really is goodbye!)
Xx
A Final Namaste (email #8)
This will be my final Namaste to all of my lovely email readers.
In 24hours I will be boarding a plane heading for Prague, and then 2 dayson, heading for one of the Indian girl's great half auntie's villa onan island off the Croatian border (or words to that effect). It isbeyond my writing ability to express what an odd thought to me thatis! I've spent 4 months of one of the most vibrant periods of my lifein a land where 'sab kuch milenge Bharat mei' (Anything is possible inIndia). And now I'm going back to reality. Because India is just toomuch of a fairytale land to be considered real.
Perfect timing! A monkey just ran past the window chasing a peacock!Point proven. I think that the thing that I will find it most hard tore-adapt to in the 'real world' will be the lack of wildlife justroaming around. In no particular order, cows sit in the middle of theroad munching down on cardboard boxes; hennaed elephants cause trafficjams; donkies keep you awake at night (have you ever heard a donkey'smating call? Or the sound of them having sex? Well, it's loud. Reallyloud); monkies feed their babies mango pips stolen from your hands;pigeons are everywhere, but what's new?; you worry more about honeybees than mosquitoes most days, and you do NOT want to see a honeybee; peacocks wake you up in the morning instead of a rooster, andthen prance round like the rule the roost; dogs lie seeminglymotionlessly on the tops of cars, until they jump at you snarlingRABIES RABIES I HAVE RABIES!!!
Well that's what it feels like sometimes anyway… A bit more eclecticthen the occasional stray dog and an abundance of pigeons.
Ooh! Another peacock is wandering by – their tails really are as bigand as beautiful as in pictures… But they sound like car horns.
So here's the final round off of the past month or so! Lucky for you,I'm being confined by the time limit that a flight to New Delhi isgiving me, so it'll be quite quick. If you want more details onanything, let me know. Because you know me, I would LOVE an excuse toescape back into my Indian mental playground while I'm in EasternEurope…
Saying goodbye to my kids was one of the most heartbreaking momentsin my entire time here. And I've seen some terrible things that Idon't even want to mention in an email. It's odd how you can see suchinjustice in the ebb and flow of the world, but it's not until you'reactually physically and emotionally connected to something that it hasa profound and unexpected effect on you.
This happened when I was waiting to board a train at Jhansi. I wastalking in Hindi to some of the beggar children that lived on therailway line, and I decided to give them a treat and take their photosfor them. Which they LOVE. You get kids coming up to you asking youfor money or 'ek chappati, just one chappati' at about the same ratioas them wanting a photo. But the 3 girls didn't ask any of this, theyjust wanted to talk to their weird white girl who could speak a bit oftheir language. I'm taking their photo when a large man comes upbehind them and begins to hit them. And I don't mean a couple ofwhacks above the head with his palm, I mean ABUSING them. The sound ofthe back of his hands across their backs and faces was one of the mostsickening dull thuds I have ever heard. It vibrated off the metaltracks.
Well. I. Cracked. The. SHITS. I completely turned on him. I wasn't incontrol of what I was doing – my feet ran at this arsehole and I beganto abuse him with the most foul mixture of English and Hindi that Icould muster. When he tried to turn away, I grabbed his shoulder andwith a strength I didn't know that I had, I pushed my nails into hisflesh and pulled him back to me. Then I held him at arms length andSCREAMED at him until Mum pulled me away. And just as quickly as I hadstarted, I stopped and I began to cry. Weep. Wail. Whatever the mostmournful word you could think of, I was doing just that. I was sittingon the side of the tracks inconsolably shuddering, letting the tearsroll down my cheeks at the thought that someone could do somethinglike that to a bunch of kids the same age as my kids back in Udaipur.I never fully realized how much I cared for those little terrors untilI saw the hatred in which this man attacked other kids their age within a different place.
But then once I had gained the ability to breathe properly back, Iran down the platform until I found them. And they ran at me at huggedme. They held onto me so tight that I nearly began crying again in thememory of my own kiddies. And their smiles made me keep smiling.
And I've been smiling nonstop the past 3 weeks! Strangely enough, Ididn't even cry when I left the house in Bedla. The last weekend tripthat we had before we left Udaipur was the best of the trip, and I'mfuming that I don't have enough time to write about it much now!
Essentially, we went to Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, which are desert townsclose to the border off Pakistan. At one point we were within a day'swalking distance from the Pakistani border, and simultaneously about100km from the nuclear testing site. Oh, and we were on camels… Whichis an experience in itself!
The 4 of us Aussie Antipodean girls went on a camel safari out to thedunes. And both sides of the experience were exactly as anystereotypical movie or book or photograph would lead you to believe.The dunes are these huge rolling masses of pale yellow sand that wewould jump off and roll down for 30 seconds until we would reach thebottom. And the camels were spitting, farting, rolling, pelvisbruising animals of splendor. Mine was dubbed 'Michael Jackson' (whichis what every touristy animal seems to be called). But I didn't likeit, so I renamed him. David Andre Alonzo. I don't really know why, butit seemed suitable at the time!
We trotted out 4 hours out to where the only light came from thestars. But it didn't quite feel right – I do miss the southern stars…I crave to look up and see the Milky Way. But the sight of the moonrising at 3am, out of the dunes, made every homesick thought I haddisappear.
Ahhh! I need to go!! But I haven't even spoken about the past 2 weekstraveling with Mum and the Barbs squared!! I might write a quicky inthe airport or something… But if I don't, here's a blow by blowaccount:
- Surprised Mum by picking her up at the airport dressed in my sari.She freaked out. Lots of tears.
- Went from living in Bedla with no running water, rarely electricity,boards with sheets for beds, straight to one of the best hotels in theworld – The Lake Palace. Literally a hotel in the Maharaja's oldpalace in the middle of the biggest Lake in Udaipur. Used the hotwater and the air con for all it was worth
- Met the Barbs. Took them around my home, and said goodbye to all ofmy friends with the promise I'd come back soon
- Flew to Varanasi. Saw lots of dead bodies either being burnt, orwhole and floating down the Ganges
- Flew to Khajuraho. Saw lots of explicit karma sutra carvings on thesides of religious Hindu temples. Possibly one of the oddest thingsI've done in India, nevertheless done with my mother in tow.
- Left the Barbs in Delhi. Awww.
- Went on to Jaipur with Mum. We bought 6 pairs of shoes in 4 hours.For under 10 bucks.
- Went back to Pushkar, which is my favourite city. Wandered aroundthe ghats and drank lots of chai and ate lots of street food in themost laid back town I've ever been to.
- Ajmer. Some huge Muslim festival that the Dali Lama was at that shutthe city down and made it really hard to do much. We stayed for 2hours and left…
- Back to Jaipur (where I am writing this now) for 20 hours before weleave for Delhi.
- Delhi – London – Prague – Croatia!!
And that's all folks! I'm closing this chapter and opening a new onefor Europe! I know I'm going to suffer some severe reverse cultureshock… I can't imagine life with showers and toilet paper, and withoutmonkies and green chillis. But at the same time, I can't wait for it!
I'm going to stop writing these long emails whilst I'm in Europe too.They take too long to write, and nobody ever writes back becausethey're too exhausted after reading the! So from now on, I'll emaileveryone individually either when you guys email me to tell me what'sgoing on back home, or when I see something that remind me of you!
So for now, thank you for being an audience to me travels through thisstrange land, and I'll see you in 24 weekends!
Daanyavard and namaste.
Love Jodha Xx
In 24hours I will be boarding a plane heading for Prague, and then 2 dayson, heading for one of the Indian girl's great half auntie's villa onan island off the Croatian border (or words to that effect). It isbeyond my writing ability to express what an odd thought to me thatis! I've spent 4 months of one of the most vibrant periods of my lifein a land where 'sab kuch milenge Bharat mei' (Anything is possible inIndia). And now I'm going back to reality. Because India is just toomuch of a fairytale land to be considered real.
Perfect timing! A monkey just ran past the window chasing a peacock!Point proven. I think that the thing that I will find it most hard tore-adapt to in the 'real world' will be the lack of wildlife justroaming around. In no particular order, cows sit in the middle of theroad munching down on cardboard boxes; hennaed elephants cause trafficjams; donkies keep you awake at night (have you ever heard a donkey'smating call? Or the sound of them having sex? Well, it's loud. Reallyloud); monkies feed their babies mango pips stolen from your hands;pigeons are everywhere, but what's new?; you worry more about honeybees than mosquitoes most days, and you do NOT want to see a honeybee; peacocks wake you up in the morning instead of a rooster, andthen prance round like the rule the roost; dogs lie seeminglymotionlessly on the tops of cars, until they jump at you snarlingRABIES RABIES I HAVE RABIES!!!
Well that's what it feels like sometimes anyway… A bit more eclecticthen the occasional stray dog and an abundance of pigeons.
Ooh! Another peacock is wandering by – their tails really are as bigand as beautiful as in pictures… But they sound like car horns.
So here's the final round off of the past month or so! Lucky for you,I'm being confined by the time limit that a flight to New Delhi isgiving me, so it'll be quite quick. If you want more details onanything, let me know. Because you know me, I would LOVE an excuse toescape back into my Indian mental playground while I'm in EasternEurope…
Saying goodbye to my kids was one of the most heartbreaking momentsin my entire time here. And I've seen some terrible things that Idon't even want to mention in an email. It's odd how you can see suchinjustice in the ebb and flow of the world, but it's not until you'reactually physically and emotionally connected to something that it hasa profound and unexpected effect on you.
This happened when I was waiting to board a train at Jhansi. I wastalking in Hindi to some of the beggar children that lived on therailway line, and I decided to give them a treat and take their photosfor them. Which they LOVE. You get kids coming up to you asking youfor money or 'ek chappati, just one chappati' at about the same ratioas them wanting a photo. But the 3 girls didn't ask any of this, theyjust wanted to talk to their weird white girl who could speak a bit oftheir language. I'm taking their photo when a large man comes upbehind them and begins to hit them. And I don't mean a couple ofwhacks above the head with his palm, I mean ABUSING them. The sound ofthe back of his hands across their backs and faces was one of the mostsickening dull thuds I have ever heard. It vibrated off the metaltracks.
Well. I. Cracked. The. SHITS. I completely turned on him. I wasn't incontrol of what I was doing – my feet ran at this arsehole and I beganto abuse him with the most foul mixture of English and Hindi that Icould muster. When he tried to turn away, I grabbed his shoulder andwith a strength I didn't know that I had, I pushed my nails into hisflesh and pulled him back to me. Then I held him at arms length andSCREAMED at him until Mum pulled me away. And just as quickly as I hadstarted, I stopped and I began to cry. Weep. Wail. Whatever the mostmournful word you could think of, I was doing just that. I was sittingon the side of the tracks inconsolably shuddering, letting the tearsroll down my cheeks at the thought that someone could do somethinglike that to a bunch of kids the same age as my kids back in Udaipur.I never fully realized how much I cared for those little terrors untilI saw the hatred in which this man attacked other kids their age within a different place.
But then once I had gained the ability to breathe properly back, Iran down the platform until I found them. And they ran at me at huggedme. They held onto me so tight that I nearly began crying again in thememory of my own kiddies. And their smiles made me keep smiling.
And I've been smiling nonstop the past 3 weeks! Strangely enough, Ididn't even cry when I left the house in Bedla. The last weekend tripthat we had before we left Udaipur was the best of the trip, and I'mfuming that I don't have enough time to write about it much now!
Essentially, we went to Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, which are desert townsclose to the border off Pakistan. At one point we were within a day'swalking distance from the Pakistani border, and simultaneously about100km from the nuclear testing site. Oh, and we were on camels… Whichis an experience in itself!
The 4 of us Aussie Antipodean girls went on a camel safari out to thedunes. And both sides of the experience were exactly as anystereotypical movie or book or photograph would lead you to believe.The dunes are these huge rolling masses of pale yellow sand that wewould jump off and roll down for 30 seconds until we would reach thebottom. And the camels were spitting, farting, rolling, pelvisbruising animals of splendor. Mine was dubbed 'Michael Jackson' (whichis what every touristy animal seems to be called). But I didn't likeit, so I renamed him. David Andre Alonzo. I don't really know why, butit seemed suitable at the time!
We trotted out 4 hours out to where the only light came from thestars. But it didn't quite feel right – I do miss the southern stars…I crave to look up and see the Milky Way. But the sight of the moonrising at 3am, out of the dunes, made every homesick thought I haddisappear.
Ahhh! I need to go!! But I haven't even spoken about the past 2 weekstraveling with Mum and the Barbs squared!! I might write a quicky inthe airport or something… But if I don't, here's a blow by blowaccount:
- Surprised Mum by picking her up at the airport dressed in my sari.She freaked out. Lots of tears.
- Went from living in Bedla with no running water, rarely electricity,boards with sheets for beds, straight to one of the best hotels in theworld – The Lake Palace. Literally a hotel in the Maharaja's oldpalace in the middle of the biggest Lake in Udaipur. Used the hotwater and the air con for all it was worth
- Met the Barbs. Took them around my home, and said goodbye to all ofmy friends with the promise I'd come back soon
- Flew to Varanasi. Saw lots of dead bodies either being burnt, orwhole and floating down the Ganges
- Flew to Khajuraho. Saw lots of explicit karma sutra carvings on thesides of religious Hindu temples. Possibly one of the oddest thingsI've done in India, nevertheless done with my mother in tow.
- Left the Barbs in Delhi. Awww.
- Went on to Jaipur with Mum. We bought 6 pairs of shoes in 4 hours.For under 10 bucks.
- Went back to Pushkar, which is my favourite city. Wandered aroundthe ghats and drank lots of chai and ate lots of street food in themost laid back town I've ever been to.
- Ajmer. Some huge Muslim festival that the Dali Lama was at that shutthe city down and made it really hard to do much. We stayed for 2hours and left…
- Back to Jaipur (where I am writing this now) for 20 hours before weleave for Delhi.
- Delhi – London – Prague – Croatia!!
And that's all folks! I'm closing this chapter and opening a new onefor Europe! I know I'm going to suffer some severe reverse cultureshock… I can't imagine life with showers and toilet paper, and withoutmonkies and green chillis. But at the same time, I can't wait for it!
I'm going to stop writing these long emails whilst I'm in Europe too.They take too long to write, and nobody ever writes back becausethey're too exhausted after reading the! So from now on, I'll emaileveryone individually either when you guys email me to tell me what'sgoing on back home, or when I see something that remind me of you!
So for now, thank you for being an audience to me travels through thisstrange land, and I'll see you in 24 weekends!
Daanyavard and namaste.
Love Jodha Xx
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