The Egham Chronicles

Athens in all its Glory

2010-05-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

Day 12

Athens

Good morning! Today, we were up bright and early to have breakfast and be ~~kicked overboard~~ escorted off the boat. We had to find a way from the dock to the our hostel which were quite a way from each other. Looking up there was a sign that said a taxi from here to the city centre was only about nine Euros – great! We get in a cab, drive to the city centre and are asked to pay something ridiculous like... 27 Euros – “what? How does that work?” I said. “Well” said the money hungry taxi man “you had to pay extra for the two suitcases and more because its daytime and more because you are girls and more because you are wearing blue and more because I have a tooth missing...” and so on and so forth. He had a lot of lame rules that we only found out about... after we arrived. Typical. So we paid the poo head and went on our way.

We arrived at our hostel and were too early to check in so we helped ourselves to their wireless internet and collapsed onto their couches. The receptionist told us that there was a walking tour starting at ten and that we should go on it to kill some time. Good idea, we thought. The only problem was I needed to pay and I only had a fifty Euro note. So we went looking for a cafe or shop where I could break it – you know get the change not destroy my money you silly reader. Anyway we went into this little store and I picked something up and went to pay with my fifty. Dear god. I will NEVER try that again. The woman went from complete shock then silence to IMMA KEEEEELLL YOU!! Needless to say (but I will) we walked around trying to find somewhere else and I can never show my face in that place again.

On to the walking tour. The lady that was taking us around was really funny. She was brutally honest about everything and admitted she does this every day so nothing was super exciting for her anymore – just like how I will feel about Brisbane (my home town) when Miranda comes to visit. Not that I do walking tours here – too depressing. Anyway she showed us the Temple of Zeus which has a few remaining columns. When asked what happened to it – expecting a story of natural disasters – she said calmly “Greeks like to destroy their heritage. In about the 18th century the people thought it would be a brilliant idea to break up the columns, melt them, and use them as foundations for all the crappy apartment buildings around the area.” That and acid rain. Yep.

Oh - here is another interesting fact (maybe to me only) but when the discus was first invented... they use to do it backwards... it was much harder - as you can imagine. Just thought you might like to know.

Next stop was the Olympic stadium! This thing holds... drum roll... 60 000 people! It was funny because Miranda got in front of it and did this pose...

And then I did...

And then basically the rest of our tour group did! Miranda set a trend...

We were told that originally only men were allowed to compete in the Olympic games – no surprises there... and then came the race that changed it all... the race where one athlete won the race and had their clothes fall off... revealing them as... A WOMAN! They should have been suspicious from the beginning given that this random very feminine looking guy wanted to compete in clothes unlike the rest of the athletes that must have bobbed all the way down the track... I mean if you think about it... which I am now trying to stop – ARRR GET OUT OF MY HEAD! So from that moment on women were allowed to compete – in their own separate games of course...because the men couldn’t hack it when they lost to a woman... huh.

Next stop was the Royalty Gardens. Okay I think this is right but let me know... recently there was a king and queen put on the Greek throne. The only problem was they were from Bavaria and therefore had no Greek blood and everyone hated them for that. So this pair took off and fled to London where they still reside and are not allowed to ever come back to Greece because they betrayed ‘their’ country. Oh another interesting tale I learned that there was a famous Prime Minister in Greece who decided to take firm action against the amount of starving people in the country. Or rather he took action to help them... not against them. Anyway he took a boat to Spain, filled it will potatoes and brought it back for the people of Greece who then made it one of their key crops. I always just assumed potatoes were one of their signature dishes – like lemon potatoes – but no, they were introduced... man I am interested in the most random of topics – nudity and potatoes... dear me. This Prime Minister is one of the favourites of the nation... sad thing was that he was murdered. He was shot. Not very nice.

Then we were showed the Parliament house which was guarded by the goofiest looking guards I have ever seen... Seriously LOOK at them... pom-poms on their shoes and skirts. I’d think I was going to get a juggling performance rather than a bullet in the head if I were accosted by these fellows. The pom-poms are meant to hide the daggers on their shoes... and the skirts have 400 pleats which represent the 400 years of oppression that they had. And then there’s the walk they do! This is their British equivalent changing of the guards...Oh my goodness... waving their legs around and everything! I tried to upload the video but it isn't working so... too bad.

We were shown the main shopping street and warned that shops would all close from 2:30-5:00 so everyone could have a siesta! This place is AWESOME. They totally get me... We stopped in at this little church and it was meant to be all holy, silent – you know what I mean? That was until I heard this stupid guy talking really loudly on his mobile whilst lighting a candle... Don’t you think you’re giving mixed messages to God? Continued walking and saw Hadrian’s library, the Roman Agora – very old marketplace and saw the man locally named “crazy pistachio” guy.

I kid you not. He has this little wagon filled with nuts that he sells and to advertise it – he raves. His little wife was there and watching the two was like watching a slap-stick comedy show because she was quite round and he was skinny and they were raving away...I didn’t buy any pistachios though. We did buy a big bag of cherries that were like... 2.50 for a kilo or so!! This may not shock some of you but cherries, in Australia, cost about 20 dollars a kilo... this was luxury. Miranda and I hiked our way onto the mountain called Aeropagus and could see a view of the whole city – it was amazing!

The only problem was it was unbearably hot and we had to stop and rest. Looking at the city was breath taking and we were told that when the city was formed they had a choice between two gods to be the patron god of the town. It was a toss-up between Athena who would give them wisdom, culture and education and Poseidon who would give them trade, war and safety on the ocean as well as a bag of Doritos (just kidding)... if you can’t guess who they chose you can go far away from this blog and eat a lemon. So after they chose Athena Poseidon got so pissed off that he flooded the whole town. Damn. They thought. So they quickly built him a big ol’ temple to calm him down – which worked.

We then struggled up the hot hill to get to the Acropolis which is the furthest point of the city and the most important site in the ancient world. It was funny because walking up that beast of a hill made us so tired that we sat in a shady spot just outside the Acropolis for a good while. Here we were admiring the view when the most important site of the ancient world was sitting right behind us! Oh, by the way, there are lots of stray dogs around here and today there was one just lying asleep near us. One of us joked that the dog was all like “Don’t wake me unless you have gelato”. Then this Australian family sat behind us and ruined my day and made me not want to go back to Australia more than ever... “Why was this thing built on a hill?” DUH! That and this stupid girl said it with a really Australian accent and I really wanted to throw her down the stairs. But I didn’t. Miranda was shuddering because of Americans on the boat, I was shuddering because of Australians off the boat. Oh then there was this other family that came and sat to have their photo taken but one of the kids kept scowling and not wanting to so the dad was like “we are NOT leaving until you do this RIGHT” – so the family forced a smile and headed off.

We finally went in to see the Parthenon but it was strange because we had already seen most of what it had to offer in the British Museum – except for the building itself which was amazing. I tried to keep from melting and slipping over as the stones which made the path had been worn smooth and I almost took a couple of spills over the course of the day.

We were making one of our dancing video segments in front of it when this woman (Barbara) wasn’t looking and walked right into our shot – hilarity – because the husband was going “Noo! Barbara! BARBARA NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” in an American accent. Good times. Barbara will make an appearance once I post the video.

We went down to get a better look at the ancient agora and met another stray dog. After that we got some lunch (yummy gyros) and set out to shop – that’s what we DO okay? As we were walking along looking at the markets this other random dog (which we named Raoul) who followed us all the way along. So we decided to test his loyalty. Miranda goes “Hey Raoul I just want to look at this shop. Can you wait a minute?” And he stopped. And waited. And then we all continued. He became our canine guide.

We went back to have nap at the hostel (neither Raoul or our initial guide were with us any longer just to clarify) and then ventured up to the rooftop where there was a ‘bar’. We had a cocktail each and met this Canadian and Australian guy – neither of which were actually staying at our hostel... they just liked the ‘bar’. Typically this Australian guy was from Brisbane (AHHHHH!!) and both of these backpackers began to tell us about how they were into weed and cocaine. Yay. It was really nice sitting there, despite them, because it was sunset and the Acropolis was all lit up and beautiful. The horizon was a bit hazy and that’s due to the pollution and acid rain... which is a bit sad.

That night we actually ventured out – after dark! This is the first time because we haven’t really felt safe before... but there were lots of people bustling about and we had a delicious dinner of pita, tzatziki and Greek salad. Back to the hostel for a well deserved sleep – we get a lot done in a day! Oh and for one more random thing... one of the other women staying in our hostel room said that they had just finished visiting Spain and they complained about how much ham was on EVERYTHING. The reason was because during the Spanish Inquisition there was only one real way to prove you weren’t Jewish – eat pig. I thought that was a really interesting little note but she went on to tell us how they ordered a ham sandwich and it had, like, a mountain of ham on it – bleh who could eat that anyway? Random note to end on but stay tuned for Delphi!

The Day Miranda Drank a Volcano.

2010-05-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

Day 11

Crete/Heraklion – Santorini

Today our boat stopped at the island of Crete and I was pretty excited. I mean, in all honesty, this would be one of the first places we visited on this cruise that I actually had heard of. When I think of Crete I think of wrestling minotaurs, walking through various labyrinths and leaving a trail of string. The reality of the situation was a lot less interesting. We got off the boat only to be given a map which had the street names in English when the signs where in Greek. Great. Miranda and I tried to find one interesting sight but ended up walking up a huge hill for ages so eventually we turned around and went back. I guess the labyrinth side of the journey was true enough... but other than that Crete gets a big waa waa from me. I didn't really take any pictures of anything here... so here's a photo of me walking in Crete. It's better than nothing, right?

After that barrel of laughs we relaxed on the ship for a while. I must say every meal is three courses and I’m getting use to it! They’re going to have to roll me off the ship at this rate. As it was one of our last days on the boat we had to pay for any extra drinks we had throughout the trip. Whilst waiting in line Miranda and I overheard other people on the boat paying hundreds of Euros for their extra drinks – HUNDREDS! I mean it explains all the drunken adolescent tools staggering about the ship but – hundreds? We got to the front of the line and paid for... one drink each. That’s it. No exciting extravagance from this humble blogger I’m afraid... Unless of course someone wants to sponsor me to travel, drink and blog? Actually I don’t know how coherent and witty my blogs would be after several cocktails... probably something like this – “OMGGGG i totally went to this place today and it was AWSOME!!!!!!! I never seen anything like thisibfoiasbvolnsvnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn” and that’s where I pass out on the keyboard. Any takers? No?

One nanna nap later we arrived in Santorini. So on this cruise you can pay to have extra guided tours and we ended up going with the trip to Ephesus and this one – to an active volcano! That’s right... I willingly walked and played around and in an active volcano. We took this jaunty little boat out there expecting leisurely swimming with a hint of education. What we got was a long ass hike. I had worn sandals given the aforementioned assumption... What I got was a whole lot of little rocks and dirt flipping in and out of my shoes and the sun beating on me like a sleep deprived toddler. It was very interesting... the only problem was our guide for the day has decided to lead the way, walking first, and had thought it necessary to wear the shortest most polyester-ish pants she could find. And she was not a young lass either. It’s hard to concentrate and what the woman was saying when her behind is waggling and peeping out of her shorts every five seconds. I did manage to catch that the earth we were standing on was about 95 degrees Celsius. She dug a little hole and all this steam came out – which was neat. She also said that they have radars all over this beast and it erupts every fifty years. She went on to say that it was about time it had another go and a nearby town needed to practice their evacuation tactics... yeesh.

Apparently, the story of Atlantis is based on either this volcano or any volcano... I can’t actually remember what she said – the pants – remember?

It was a lovely view and a good little journey but I was hot, tired and grumpy by the time we got back to our now not-so-jaunty looking boat. Sorry to disappoint but I don't have any photos of the volcano errupting or lava... here's me on fire instead. Imagine it was volcano related.

They piled us on the boat and drove around to the part where we could go swimming and the ocean was crazy! Water was spraying on either side of the boat and it was going up and down relentlessly. It dipped and rocked so much, at times, I really thought we were going overboard! I just hoped that there was a little mermaid in the Mediterranean that would drag me to shore and sing to me. So we get to the swimming spot or rather the “hot springs”. I feel that the guide needs to define “hot” and “springs” as the water was lukewarm at best (which is where the springs are – the water we had to swim through to get there was FREEZING) and there were little bubbles. After our initial whinging and stepping on various squishy and unpleasant plants Miranda joked that the guide should yell “it’s not a f****** Jacuzzi!” Tee hee. Cursing is fun. As we were swimming someone pointed out that there were a bunch of mountain goats clip clopping there way about the sheer cliff face OF A VOLCANO. WHY were these goats here? Of all the places they could have lived – some grassy knoll or even cliff that wasn’t going to erupt and lava their asses... They seemed cheerful nonetheless. The ground was all muddy and the hilarious (sarcasm) teens figured it must be therapeutic to rub it all over themselves... at least their insides matched their outsides if only briefly.

There was a sign on one of the rocks which read “call my mobile if you need help” with no number. Brilliant. Those goats are screwed. After Miranda had drunk most of the sea water we swam back to the boat. The water was filled with sulphur so our bikinis are all stained and which is why I look seriously tanned in this photo – don’t be fooled!

One death defying boat ride later we got on a bus and were driven up, up and away! To Santorini which is on a big cliff face – okay seriously people... this is NOT the best place to settle... is this another oracle’s influence or what? We were told that Santorini is known as the place which has more wine that water as they get little rain but use all their land for growing grapes. Some may call that noble. I’m not really a wine fan... but I do enjoy a good grape. It’s strange that the grapes thrive here as there is little water and the heat is intense... so they grow underground – as you do. We rushed about the little town – it was GORGEOUS. Everything was blue and white and it was just like a postcard... the whole town was immaculately beautiful...

We took the funicular (is that the right spelling? The little vertical train thing...) down to the bottom but not before we got in a huge queue. It was funny because this whole posse of French tourists decided to push right in and jump the queue – no. You may get away with that in your country (as I learned) but you do not push-in in front of a bunch of Americans. They went OFF. “You can’t DO that! Git to the back! We have bin waitin’ in line and ya’ll just push in!” Slight exaggeration on the accents there but you get the picture. By the end of it the whole international queue was united against these French pusher-in-erers. We got on eventually and it freaked me right out. This train thing just goes straight down for hundreds of metres.

Yeah... I was freaked out as I don’t like heights or the feeling of falling – thank you Miranda for capturing that on film...

We saw a beautiful sunset – it was red! And then caught our last little boat back to the ship to have our last buffet dinner... sad times. We decided that as it was our last night we could go up to the “crow’s nest” which was the ship’s nightclub. I didn’t know if it was a theme or this thing was built in the 70s (probably the latter) but there were lame carpets, disco lights and poor hideous furnishings as far as the eye could see. We had a cocktail – or two – and decided to get our dance on... but first we just watched all the lame kiddies gyrate on one another... Seriously at one point there was like five guys and one girl sandwiched in the middle. I don’t quite get it... I mean sure the guys closest to the girl feel lucky but what about the guys... holding the other guys? Or maybe that makes the guys in the middle even luckier? It didn’t seem very manly to me... which is what these little boys were all about. After several lame hits I requested a song from the charismatic DJ... It went something like this... “Do you have Britney Spears’ Circus?” DJ nods. Pause. “Can you play it?” DJ nods. Pause. “Err...okay thanks” Phoebe makes a quick shuffle back to her table. Don’t judge me for my request, by the way, it happens to be a great song to dance to and was a breath of fresh pop music given the crap this guy was playing before. Everyone agreed given that when the song came on practically everyone got up and danced. Miranda and I did some sweet dance moves and shimmied well away from the lame crew. Then off to bed for one last sleep in our dark den.

I've Travelled Many Rhodes... well...one.

2010-05-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

Day 10

Rhodes

Oh my goodness sleeping in is SO GOOD... one of those things you take for granted... This morning we slept in so late that we weren’t woken by the tour lady but by the housekeeper! Our bad. We were only visiting one island today – not five or more like we usually did so it was very relaxed.

We dined on a buffet breakfast and then arrived in Rhodes. I foolishly wore a dress that day and it was SO WINDY walking from the boat into town... oh well... at least I look somewhat cute in all the photos. Whilst walking around Rhodes, Miranda and I discovered a new feeling which we labelled “boating”. It’s the feeling you get when you are on a boat (the rocking and swaying) without being on the boat. This led to use gently swaying and being incapable of walking in a straight line for most of the day. If it weren’t for our bright eyes and generally quick wit people may have thought we were intoxicated.

Rhodes is this lovely medieval style town which is surrounded by big stone walls.

It’s known as the Knight’s Palace and Miranda made a new friend. We went in and immediately made for some food. Calamari and Greek Salad! Unfortunately, the aforementioned “boating” made eating food a little less pleasurable. One thing I learnt about Greece is that they love to give you bread at restaurants whether you ordered it or not. Then you have to pay for it whether you ate it or not. You just can’t say no! Crafty Grecians...
We took a stroll around the town and managed to get nice and lost at one point. It was a pleasant detour and we managed to find our way back to the shops – yippee! The marketplace is beautiful! This is where I bought my pretty ring and – poor Miranda – it took me so long to choose one. There was only one that was just right and it was very expensive... but I couldn’t find any others that I liked so... I wear it a lot to make up for the price tag! It has a blue opal – which I’d never really seen before – and is the exact colour of the Mediterranean. We walked to the water and dipped out toes in. It was a really magical experience. This photo is one of my favourites of our entire trip and Miranda and my time together – at least until we meet up again at a later date!
We hopped back onto the boat and went to the elegant dinner that was on. I found a dressed I’d hastily packed so Miranda and I squeezed in to what we thought was the dress code. Wow, let me just say, there seems to be a huge disparity between what I see as elegant and what others see. We had baked Alaska for dessert and they were parading them all around the room until they set it down. It’s the only way to display dessert I feel. The crew came back to sing to us like the previous night and decided to call themselves “the spice boys”... dear lord...

We went back to the room to have some quiet time only to be interrupted by the adolescent morons in the next room. I thought girls were the bitchy ones but apparently these boys were all up in arms about one guy on the dance floor who was “such a buzzkill”. Then in-between farting they decided to bitch about Emma – that Emma – dear me... she sounded like a skank. At least that’s what they were implying.

I remember there was this one guy at reception on the boat who was always really lovely and helpful to the other passengers but when it came to Miranda and I he was a complete douche canoe. After another short nausea inducing shower it was straight to bed! Another lovely day!

A Turkey in Turkey (that's me)

2010-05-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks! I’m guessing you all thought I died (in Greece) as I haven’t blogged about the remainder of my journey and its been several months. Well – I did not die in Greece. I am now presently ~~rotting~~ residing in my Australian home. I figured that blogging is an excellent procrastination technique from university work – plus it’s much more productive and interesting (for me at least – I don’t know about you) as opposed to playing pointless computer games (Mystery Case Files – pointless? NEVER) or watching re-runs of... well... anything.
So let me begin by taking you back in time... back to my life abroad... back to June 16th 2009...

Day 9

Mykonos - Kusadasi - Patmos

I don’t know if I mentioned it but the room Miranda and I had on the ship was at the very bottom – almost with the sea life – but not quite. Not only that but we had to windows and no way of knowing what time it was in our little room of solitude. Suddenly, an overly enthusiastic voice interrupted our silent abyss “Good Morning! Passengers travelling to Kusadasi it is 5am. Please make your way to the lounge.” 5am. Wow. Somehow Miranda and I scrambled out of bed and into clothes and made our way – bleary eyed – to the lounge. Eventually, we were shipped off our boat and ordered to go in a bus with our sticker number on it. Our number was 20. Turns out we were on bus 32. Brilliant. Excellent organisational skills all round.

But hey – we were in Turkey! Our tour guide was really lovely though he very much enjoyed making lame jokes comparing his land with America... Like... he would say “there is an event which happens here every year and everyone gets very excited about it... it’s like your Super Bowl” and so on. YOU WANT TO BE AMERICAN – WE GET IT. He was lovely though.
We drove around the countryside and finally landed in Ephesus (ancient Ephesus). In the time it takes to go from the bus to the gate of this place (about 20 steps) I was harassed by various market people. The lies they come up with are genius! “Buy this coin it belonged to my great, great grandmother who was queen of the ancient world and use to wrestle bears despite having no limbs...” and so on. This whole section of the trip is a bit of a blur given that I was so gosh darn tired after that wakeup call – and a restless night trying to sleep and not think about the fact that we were rolling about in the ocean.
Anyway – Ephesus! First, it is full of cats. You couldn’t turn around without seeing one.

The guide blamed Cleopatra. Seriously. You may scoff and say "Bah! Cleopatra? Ridiculous - she has no relevance to this blog at all! Good day Madam!" Well, as a matter of fact...this city was a hangout for Marc Antony and Cleopatra in the days of old. Here is a photo of them/us being them – you can decide who is who...
So this city is in ruins (obviously) and was part of the Roman Empire. It was the second largest city at that time (Rome was the first) which is rather impressive. The way this town was founded was because an oracle told a bunch of important characters (let’s call them Phil and Ted for now) that they would be told where to settle by a fish and a boar. One day Phil and Ted sit down and have some dinner. Ted says “Man, I could really go for some delicious fish right about now” to which Phil replied “I agree... though I did have all that fattening cottage cheese at lunch so maybe I’ll just have some dry crackers”
“Don’t have crackers – oh my gosh you’re waist is TINY!”
“Yours is!”
“Yours is!” Laughter. Yeah – that was the conversation – verbatim. Anyway they cook some fish but it flips out of the pan and scatters fire all over the surrounding bushes. Suddenly, a boar runs out and Phil and Ted realise that this is the place to settle their town (the place on fire, I might add) so their symbols became a fish, a flame and a boar – neat.
This place is HUGE and it’s really stunning. There are columns and walls and outlines of buildings everywhere and the guide was explaining to us how clever these people were. To keep the cold out of their houses they had a little gap between the tiled floor and the ground which they would keep hot coals in so the floor of the houses was warm – pretty tricky. All these stone things have this one pattern on them called the Meandros which mean meandering river. This is because the sea (or river) changes making the earth beneath it and around it constantly change. I bought a lovely ring with that pattern on it that I am wearing as I type.
Next stop was looking at the toilets. Not the public tourist toilets but the ancient ones. Apparently all the blokes of the city would poop together whilst talking about important politic issues like... that game last night and that new girl on the block. To disguise the noises of... well... poop they had musicians playing – what a crap job! Pun intended.
Next was the library which is a place of wisdom and knowledge. A place of learning. A place of bettering oneself and getting a greater understanding of our world, history and culture. It’s also a great subterfuge as there was a tunnel underneath it which led to a brothel. Charming.
The final stop was the theatre – this thing held 25 000 people! I wanted to test the acoustics but neither Miranda or I could be bothered walking all the way to the top of that thing and back down again. Instead we goofed off – as usual. Other noteworthy parts of Ephesus was that it used to have Amazon women. The reason they were called Amazon is because it Turkish ‘mazon’ (or something) means breast and the Amazon means ‘no breasts’. In order for a woman to master a bow and arrow they needed to remove their breasts so as to fire an arrow correctly. You can see the people at Marvel or DC or wherever had some artistic licensing calling Wonder Woman an Amazon given her... endowments.
We then left Ephesus and travelled into town. On the bus, though, there was this other tourist guy and he said this one phrase which left me in stitches for the rest of the day (much to Miranda’s surprise as it wasn’t that funny). The people here try to sell you things and give you “good price”. So this guy on the bus just mimics one of them and goes “You wanna buy bookmark? I give you good price – just 400 Euros.” Okay I’m chuckling away about even now and I know when Miranda reads this she’ll be like “Oh yeah that’s right – what the heck was with that?” Ha Ha... 400 Euros... HA!

In to town! We were taken to this shop where they specialised in handmade silk rugs. Now I’ve never been particular interested in carpets but these were gorgeous. It was like a show! They showed us how they get the silk from the silk worms, weave it (by hand) and make these carpets. The guide explained that the prices of these carpets depends on how long they take to make. So a small carpet might cost much, much for than a bigger carpet because it has smaller intricate knots and took twice as long. One carpet can take up to four years! Imagine if you finished it and someone spilt red wine on it – you would want to strangle them A LOT. It is a tradition in Turkey that a woman weave five carpets before she gets married as a dowry and also to learn patience – which she will need as a wife. Patience with all the red wine spilling they’re going to do! Our tour group was led into this big open room with chairs all round the outside and then four big men promptly began rolling out huge carpets, one by one, for us to look at and stand on!

We were encouraged to take off our shoes and feel how lovely they were – whilst sipping delicious apple tea (this place is AWESOME). By the end of the show there so many carpets I couldn’t see the floor and it looked like Aladdin’s den. So we did the only mature thing... pretended to be Aladdin.
One other little tidbit that I learnt was how the Turkish were involved with the invention of the croissant. When the Europeans defeated the Turks they wanted to make a delicious snack which presented their victory. So they made a croissant which is shaped like the crescent moon on the Turkish flag! Learning is fun. We were then shown the city and got to shop around for a while. This market place was hilarious because we were inundated with people begging us to look at their shops. One guy just straight up said “My shop is better than his”. It was a lovely market but we were very pressed for time. Everyone was really lovely and I really want to go back and visit Turkey again to gain a larger experience.

Back on the boat for lunch and a well deserved nap. Our room was penetrated by that voice once more telling us to move our booties because we had arrived in Patmos. We got on a little boat and were jostled to the island. We shared a cab with these other girls (both called Kristy I think...) to the Sacred Grotto – the Church of Apocalypse/ St John’s. This cave was supposed to have a big crack in it from when God was speaking but Miranda and I were craning our necks all around town and we couldn’t see it. So we sneakily tried to watch what the other tour guides were pointing at (though they were speaking in another language – I think we found it eventually). Our taxi came back and we drove further up the hill to the Monastery. This monastery is hundreds of years old and it is the monk’s duty to preserve the frescos – the only problem is they are all black because of over extensive incense use.

For nine centuries these monks have been praying (not the same ones obviously) from 3am to 6am every day – that’s a whole lotta prayin’ goin’ on.
We then went and got ice-cream and walked back down the hill. This other tourist stopped us (she was quite large) and asked us how far the monastery was. “91 steps” we said. “91 steps? Is there a cafeteria?” No joke. Then she waddled off.

We shopped for a little while in Patmos and it was really lovely. The weather was perfect and the sunset set the mood. It wasn’t as pretty as some of the other towns but it was most pleasant. Hopped back on the boat, had a quick ~~roast~~ sunbake and scooted to dinner. There is nothing better than Greek salad, the boat crew singing, the dress code being blue and white and a whole lot of napkin twirling to the music!

I Heart Mykonos

2009-08-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

Day 8

Athens – Mykonos

Woke up – SO EXCITED. It’s funny because Miranda and I have been so excited about this cruise from the minute we booked it. We would be on the top of the Eiffel Tower going “we’re going on a Greek cruise!” then in the Duomo going “we’re going on a Greek cruise!”. Pretty good that it was the last stop on our trip. So we walked to the cruise ship at Port Piraeus and got in a line to board. They made us fill in forms asking if we had swine flu and so on – no one looked like a swine so our bags were scanned and taken to the ship. In the line the various crew members were asking people questions and so on and they would just switch languages to suit everyone – they’re amazing! French, English, Russian, Italian, Greek and Turkish! Probably more... We got to the gang plank and as one guy was going up he yelled out “I love you all!”. It was a pretty exciting event. We found our room – at the bottom of the boat – it was the cheapest and it had no window... only one bed – hey we’re on a cruise okay? We were just unpacking our things and I started really noticing the rocking of the boat – turned out we hadn’t even left yet – things were going to get rather interesting ... nausea wise.
Afterwards, we headed to the top of the boat (big walk) to see it take off. Damn it was windy. It was funny because we hadn’t even left yet but there were all these old woman and men who had got their clothes off and were sun baking – come on people! We haven’t even left yet – pace yourselves!

We then had to practice a safety drill – I’m not joking – and wear our life jackets into the dining room as if it were a real emergency. Can’t say Miranda and I were paying a lot of attention... I just thought the whole situation was hilarious – life jackets at the dining table – latest fashion statement DARLING. It was about this time I looked around the room to realise that Miranda and I were amongst the other 15 or so people NOT on a tour group and that the other tour groups mostly consisted of really loud American teens. One of these teens started screeching to her friend at the other end of the table that she “had FIVE martinis, Katie. FIVE. KATIE! I had FIVE martinis already” Five. Wow. Go home. They started making Titanic jokes as well which was lame because Miranda and I made the same jokes eons ago – oh yeah... they’re well behind.

After our life jacket fandango we went up to the top deck to have lunch – buffet. It was perfectly fine as we waited in line but then as soon as we sat down it was SO WINDY. HOLY SMOKES IT WAS WINDY! I’ve never been in such a gale. Food was being blown off my fork before it even reached my mouth! My slice of ham was whipped off my plate and was bobbing about in the pool... oh well. After our windswept lunch we decided to take the advice of the oldies and sun bake for a bit. And bake I did – my poor little leggies got toasted and were rather sore. We learnt our lesson the first day!
It was really nice being in the sun and relaxing though. I felt pretty self conscious though with my English tan and all these bronzed/handbag people around me. Some of the older people looked like leather works because they had just cooked themselves over time – probably weren’t much older than me... ha ha just kidding. In our relaxed state we went back into our dungeon room and had a nap. Because we have no window it is pitch black in our room and the concept of time is completely revoked. When we woke up the boat was really bouncing around... it wasn’t bothering me too much but Miranda wasn’t feeling too great. We had arrived at the island of Mykonos so we got off the big boat onto a smaller one and were bounced all the way to shore.
OH MY GOODNESS.
This island is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL place in the world. You know how various places are depicted in movies and they look amazing? Well Paris is picture looking amazing in films and you get there and – yeah – it’s nice but it’s not as good as the films make it out to be... Mykonos, however, is like a postcard – like a movie set it’s just stunning. Every corner we turned was perfection. Miranda and I decided walking all over the little island that this would be our new home and we weren’t going to our respective countries – so thanks everyone but this is my home now.
Cobblestone streets, few cars, white walls, flowers and pink pelicans! Really – these pelicans are one of the main features of this island and just walk about as if they own the place. They would come up above my hip so they’re pretty big and Miranda almost tripped over one coming out of a shop! And, yes, they are pink – just slightly. One guy was walking beside it patting it on the head. Made me laugh. Another great site of this island is the windmills. They are these really old windmills which I don’t think are used now but are pretty neat. I was more impressed with the general splendour of the island and the colour of the ocean! It’s a beautiful greeny blue – clear and breathtaking. There are just so few words to sum up this beautiful place... I can only really show you a whole bunch of pictures because I need a thesaurus. We had chicken souvlaki for dinner and hopped back on the boat – bye Mykonos! I WILL be back... I swear.
On the cruise ship we decided to be entertained with a stage show called “New York to Paris”. All I can say is – thank god we had strawberry daiquiris. It was the most cheesey and terrible thing I’ve seen. It really made me laugh though because the performers looked like they were enjoying themselves. Especially this one guy in it who was so focused and perfect in his movements despite wearing sequined chaps. They sang songs in various languages across the different countries and did dances too... rather amusing. I can still see the hilarity in my head... There was a sweet part – before the show the musicians were doing their thing and this old couple got on the stage and started like jive dancing – it was so sweet! Everyone applauded them... they certainly gave the performers a run for their money.

After the ‘show’ we went back to our room and were being thrown from wall to wall the boat was rocking so much. It wasn’t so bad – the worst part was having a shower! I don’t know why but the water and the rocking just intensified the nausea and also the nervousness that I might cut my leg off shaving. Trying to sleep was kind of difficult and there was that up and down squeezing in my stomach... managed to sleep though only to be woken up at 5am the next morning... (in Turkey).

How to Achieve Cardiac Arrest.

2009-08-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Day 7

Naples – Milan – Athens

This morning we awoke to the racket of the downstairs market... people selling fake designer handbags, wallets and sunglasses as far as the eye could see! We felt the need to have a browse so filling our socks, bras and pockets with cash we set out. Miranda is an excellent haggler and managed to get some guy down from 10 Euros for a wallet to 5. She was like “Well there was a guy around the corner selling them for 4 so...” then she pulled out a five saying that was all she had – brilliant! Back to the hostel for “breakfast” and some really weird juice that was like blood orange juice or something... more like cordial. We got our bags packed and made the short journey from the hostel to the bus stop crossing the roads with ease – you just go – forget the consequences and just move.
On the bus – at the airport – and it was pretty empty – good o. We had to check our bags which was daunting because we had a connecting flight which means we had to fly to Milan and then catch a flight to Athens. The woman said she would put the bags through to Athens so we shouldn’t worry. Okay... then she tells us that her little conveyor belt thing was busted so we had to leave our bags in this random corner with all these other people clustered around. My bag didn’t even have my name on it so I was freaking – what if we got to Athens with no luggage? We were getting on a cruise the next day – we needed clothes! So this man wheeled our bags into the corner and Miranda goes “Bye bags... forever”.
We thought that was the main part of our worries – oh no – it gets better – and by better I mean much, much worse. Just to set this up – this day goes on record for the most stressful and gut wrenching day of my life. So keep in mind while reading this that every second I was ready to puke and cry at the same time.
We were waiting at our gate for our plane and given that we were supposed to bored in ten minutes and there were no flight attendants or planes nearby we started to wonder. It wasn’t until minutes later an official-type woman comes up and announces something in Italian. Just because it was in Italian doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on – looking at the really angry faces of the other passengers kind of gave it away. One woman translated saying that the plane hadn’t even left Milan yet! Come on! How did they just realise that? There was another woman who had a connecting flight to Athens so she was in the same rubbish boat as we were. Given that our connection left 45 minutes after we should have arrived in Milan – yeah we definitely missed it. The people of Naples airport said there was nothing they could do about our Athens flight and we would have to wait until we got to Milan. Nervous faces all round...
Now that I look at that photo... Miranda doesn't look so much nervous as... err...special? Makes me laugh! But we were both very panicked...
Today we dealt with a lot of escalators and let me explain something to you all – Miranda and I like to keep ourselves entertained in these situations by imagining that on the escalator we are running “at an incredible rate of speed” so we are standing still, pumping our little arms and it looks like we are running... Especially when there are two escalators side by side – as seen here – like I said – kept us entertained!
On the plane to Milan. I mean – finally – small victories... We were both really relaxed on the flight – as soon as it landed though we realised we still had a whole lot more worrying to do. Did we even have a flight? Would we miss our cruise? These were all serious worries going through our head. Miranda and I did some sweet team work at this time though – we split up as I managed to wrangle our bags back and she got new tickets – yes – we’re going to Athens! We had to queue for a million years though because the poor man at our counter was alone and said that this should have been sorted out in Naples – poor guy. Then there was this girl in the queue who was trying to push in front of us inch by inch and kept sighing dramatically and tutting every five minutes! Miranda and I were ready to hold her down and punch her in the throat. She did tell the girl that we were next in line “RIGHT?” and she timidly agreed and moved back – we were in NO mood for people being annoying – I mean we all missed our connections. Oh then there was this other woman who was convinced that if she didn’t get back to Athens tonight she would die. Literally, she was saying that her blood pressure medication was in Athens and if she didn’t get it tonight she would have to go to hospital and started shrieking the place down – soon as she got to the front of the queue and got her tickets she seemed quite fine – hmm. As I was saying I had to get the bags and I managed to get through security really quick and have all these people be really nice to me as I put on my sad concerned look – the world is then my oyster. My puppy dogs eyes got our bags back and peopled stepped aside as I hauled them to the new check-in area. Everything was okay again! Hallelujah!
In the airport we were surprised with a giant lego Hagrid... and that Twisties here are called... Fonzies...Ayyeee...
They put us on a way nicer plane than the one we paid for so that was awesome. We were with Olympic airlines and on the side of the plane it read “Hellas Jet” meaning HELL YEAH we’re going to Greece! We were served a meal consisting of Greek food served by Apollo himself – holy smokes this flight attendant was SO ATTRACTIVE – he was a Greek god – I’m sure.

We arrived in Greece! Hooray! Praise – whoever the Greek flying god is – Hermes ... I... guess. There was no way we were taking a bus to our hostel because a) it 11pm and b) it was really far away. So we got a cab – it ended being about 50 Euros but that didn’t matter because we just wanted to arrive safely and get to bed. It was a really long drive to our hostel because we chose somewhere near the port so we could walk to our cruise ship the next day. I started getting a little nervous given that the driver was a chain smoker, had two mobile phones and a condom rattling around in his middle compartment thing – eep. He was really nice though and gave us pamphlets about Athens and we arrived. This hostel was fine – own room – the only thing was that you couldn’t put toilet paper in the toilet! EW!

Hey Hey it's Pompeii!

2009-07-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

Day 6
Naples/Pompeii

Woke up and met up with Geoff. Sadly there was no free breakfast – no cornflakes for me... don’t know if I’ve mentioned but the corn flakes in Europe are literally that – flakes of corn. They don’t taste like the cereal but rather as if someone has whittled a corn cob into flakes and served it... strange.
We walked to the train station – not the one we knew but one that the guy at the hostel suggested. Glad he did because the stop he sent us to was the one before the stop where all the people get on meaning we each got a seat. Thank goodness because the train was packed... it was a weekend which meant that the people of Naples all haul ass to the beach. The train was like a disco! All the people had brought boom boxes and were playing techno music and clapping... it had everything a disco does – especially body odour. Miranda and I like to find signs that are warnings with people doing various things and making them into dance moves. This train had a sign with a person getting stuck in the door which meant the dance move would consist of gyrating with the door. Most entertaining. Geoff thought we were quite mad but laughed along as thought the train was making Transformer noises and soon we would transform and run to Pompeii.

We made it! Our newly formed trio... Audio guides were a rip off so instead some other tourists gave us the extra little guidebook they had and we audio-guided one another. Miranda was mistress of the map and Geoff would read the descriptions of what we were seeing. Navigator and narrator were very helpful as the place was HUGE! I didn’t realise how big this place was until we had spent several hours in there and not seen everything. Oh in case you don’t know – Pompeii is this town that was hit with an awful earthquake in 75AD. The Pompeii-ens being the optimistic people they are figured that this was the worst thing to happen and they could only look up from here. No. In 79AD Mount Vesuvius erupted and the entire city was covered in volcanic ash in minutes. Sad for them – but for the history junkies this meant that a really old city was perfectly preserved. And it is SO preserved... all these beautiful tiled houses and frescos – painted and still perfect on the walls! The whole place is mind boggling and completely worth risking your life in Naples for... One of the tiled houses has a tiled picture of a dog and then the words in Latin “Beware of the dog”. Sound familiar? Well this is where it was invented! Pretty cool...
The only downside of Pompeii is that there is little shade and it was a very hot day... so hot we kept making jokes like “it’s so hot I feel like I’m being smothered in volcanic ash” and so on. On the main street there were loads of different little areas with tables that had big holes in them and the guide/Geoff said that these were like snack bars and this was the high street! How cool is that? I played the role of the gelato vendor “What flavour do you want? I’ve got pebbles and dirt”. Made us laugh. Also was this shop which had this symbol outside. Either it was a restaurant or a shop that sold tridents. I’m going with the latter.

We saw the vineyard which had some very unripe grapes that Miranda and Geoff tasted. We saw the coliseum... the theatre... the temples... the houses of important people – they wrote their names out the front of the houses so people walking by would know who lived there! We also stumbled upon the brothel... it had all these paintings on the wall which served as a ... menu of sorts... and the beds were still there too – mattresses would be put on top of them obviously... I’m trying to look like Kate Winslett in Titanic by the way...When I got up I had all this dirt on me which I thought was “volcanic ass” given the building. We went into the massage house which is NOT the brothel again – seriously people get your minds out of the gutter... Every place we went was covered in random dogs! They were everywhere just lying in the shade – seemed like a good idea to me... Also whilst we saw these various buildings we kept wondering what it was like on that day that the volcano erupted... on one side of town some guy was like “what flavour would you like with tha-AHHHH!” on the other side was someone being like “has anyone seen my dog-AHHHH!” and so on. It was a fun day. The sad part came when we found the preserved people. Eurgh. The guy who uncovered the place realised that the ash had formed pockets around the bodies so he filled them with plaster and so you can see the people’s expressions and fear filled positions... You can see their bones and teeth. That was sad but the sadder part was seeing this poor dog that was preserved... I didn’t take a photo because it made me too sad... There were also children – it was haunting.

After many, many hours we went out to have some lunch and I had the best orange juice and sandwich of my life. It was SO GOOD. It was funny too because the guy that ran the little cafe thing had a hose and was just hosing everything... the road... the tourists and so on. It was weird. We went into the ‘town’ area and looked at the souvenirs which mostly consisted of – drum roll – doodles! What is with this country and doodles? I mean really. Does anyone really want to bring home a plaster doodle for their grandparents as a souvenir? No. At least I hope not. There was also a shop there giving out samples of limoncello which is this lemon liqueur that is delicious... glad that I got to taste some real stuff in the country... Back on the train. We decided to go to the Castle Nuovo which is the main palace of the city. It’s mostly a military castle which was really weird. Each floor had random art – abstract, 18th century and so on – it was the most eclectic mix of stuff. It did have a good view though... and a random staircase that seemed to go nowhere. It was SO HOT... we managed to find the best thing about this castle - the air-conditioning! In that same room was a freaky glass floor with skeletons that had been excavated in the foundations... Again - very random place.

Afterwards we went and had delicious gelato – okay this was really good... it rivalled Madrid because I had this flavour – Ricotta and Pear and it was AMAZING. Delicious. Back to the hostel where we said our goodbyes to Geoff – thank goodness he was there... we didn’t get hardly any cat calls with him there... no more comments on Miranda’s “beautiful eyes”. We had a rest and then went to get some dinner. We went just down the end of the street and I got a slice of pizza which I thought was ham and pineapple. On my first bite I then deduced that it was not pineapple... but chips. Chips on pizza? What the HECK? It was gross... We had a different girl in our room that night. She seemed to unpack and repack her bag a million times and her belongings seemed to consist only of plastic bags... she was nice enough though. Off to sleep because tomorrow holds Greece! Yippee!

The Armpit of Italy

2009-07-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

Day 5
Florence - Naples

This morning we woke up, packed our things, said goodbye to the convent and moved off to the train station. We had bought tickets the previous day (rather pricey might I add – 67 Euros) so we just waited for a train. And waited. And waited. It took a while but we got on and to paint a picture for you of the public displays of affection here in Europe – the couple sitting on the other side of the carriage from us were fully making out across their table! Bleh! Lip smacking gets tiring because they then fell asleep. They do this all throughout Europe it’s acceptable to do this in public... wouldn’t surprise me if other Europeans went up to the couple and patted them on the back. Weird. This was only a three hour train ride but it felt like forever given the annoying people sitting all around us. Every two second someone’s annoying ringtone would go off and everyone had their own specialised one didn’t they. OH MY GOODNESS. The woman sitting right next to me was friends with people on the other side and a nice person would kindly ask is they could switch seats so they could talk to one another. No. She just talked really loudly OVER me... and then they started swapping items out of their bags as they passed them right over my lap – jees people! By the end of train ride I wanted to slam that woman’s face into the table... But mostly I got sick of having people walking down the aisle putting their butts in my face.

All that aside we made it to Naples! Luckily, the Australian girl in our room in Florence had just come from there and stayed in the same hostel so she warned us that it was a dirty little hole. Thank god she did. On further research Naples is known as the armpit of Italy which is about right. The only reason we came here was so we could go to Pompeii – which we did the following day. On arrival in Naples we were bombarded by all these guys wanting to give us taxi rides – whilst dodging them we wanted to find out about how to get to the airport and all these people kept transferring us somewhere – no one knew anything. Very frustrating. We left the train station and in the four minute walk to the hostel I learnt a lot about Naples... To cross the road you just wait for other people to do it and then follow them – they can’t hit us all! No one obeys any road rules so just shut your eyes and run. Also the residents of Naples like to pick their noses in public. Nice. Various men made leering comments at us and eventually we waded through the mess to get inside our hostel. This is the mess. They have a market outside our hostel everyday and at the end of the day they just leave everything behind and let someone else clean it up – charming. This means that the only time the street is clean is at night – with no one about. We were warned not to go out at night because it was pretty dangerous and thievery is high. The man running the hostel gave us a whole run down of what not to do - you couldn’t take a handbag because they target people like that so we had to stash money down our socks, shorts, bras etc. He was a really lovely man and told us where there was a good cheap pizza place – hell yeah.

All afternoon though we hid in our hostel for fear of going out! The bathroom in our room is something worthy of mentioning. Look at it... there’s all these random pipes sticking out held together with duct tape... and the shower was just a cubicle of mould. The nice guy running the place made up for it thought... so did the free internet. We met this nice guy Geoff from Florida who was going to Pompeii the following day so he would come along with us – yay protection.
Eventually, we plucked up the courage to go out and get something to eat – linking the arms the entire time. We found the pizza place – Da Michele – and had amazing pizzas and Coke from glass bottles – what a novelty.

We then decided to have a look about the shops (getting bold now that we were out) and learnt that a) everything is cheap here and b) you can’t try anything on in the stores except for pants. We went into one store where Miranda found this top she really liked and she asked the woman politely may I try this on? “No”. Firm. In the end Miranda bought it anyway after resisting the urge to punch the girl hovering around us – seriously they just wait for you to touch something so their eyes can widen and they can shout at you. Goodness me. After we walked out of the shop – so did the crazy girl! Did she even work there? What the? Walking about we were also offered an iphone to buy – clearly this guy had just taken it out the back of someone’s pants and was selling it.

Back to the hostel where I managed to make the crazy shower leak all over the floor. Sigh. We had a tv and decided to entertain ourselves with crazy Italian shows. We watched an American movie with Jennifer Aniston – it was all in Italian – but Miranda still knew what was going on and how it would end... amazing talent. In the ad break was an ad for sun tanning lotion – fair enough – the camera panned up a bronze looking woman only to reveal she wasn’t wearing a top! Yay boobies! That shocked us a bit... made me laugh a lot though... After a while another girl in our room showed up telling us that she had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch a plane – fine – we said only to have her – the next morning – at 4am leaving the alarm ringing! It went off and she just sat on the bed with it still ringing whilst Miranda tried not to throw herself at the girl and go for the jugular. What joys will tomorrow bring? Stay tuned.

Man Bits = Culture

2009-07-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Day 4

I don’t know where to begin... very long day - saw many, many things. We set out early because we had a lot to see today. We arrived at St Croche church and I remembered that they didn’t like people going in – well, didn’t like they denied you firmly – if you’re shoulders weren’t covered. What I didn’t realise was that they didn’t like shorts either. Damn. We had to speed walk all the way back to the hostel and change then walk all the way back to the sights we wanted to see – off to a bad start. Grumble, grumble. It was funny though because Miranda was saying that it’s not a holy place given that God is everywhere – I mean if there is a tortilla with Jesus’ face on it you don’t say it’s a holy tortilla you remember the holiness of Jesus. Apparently, bare shoulders and shorts offend Italian Jesus – whatever.

We decided to pop inside the Duomo (it was closed the previous day) to have a look. You remember how impressive the outside was? Let me refresh your memory...
Okay... now here’s the inside. Pretty dull really. Lucky it was free! We spent a grand total of a few minutes in there because it really wasn’t that exciting... it was like an inside out English or French church – pretty on the outside not the inside.

Next stop was the Bargello which is a little sculpture museum which holds the statue of David – with a hat. Ha! Got ya. David with the hat (we never learnt the real name because this was far more entertaining) is the inspiration sculpture for THE David statue that we all know and love. So this is Donatello’s David (not the ninja turtle) and it’s meant to be super androgynous which you can tell... he/she also has sweet lanky hair... The museum cost seven Euro to get in and there much else in there of interest... To get inside they had x-ray machines and said you couldn’t take in any liquids – I drank my water bottle inside – they don’t really care. I mean the worst thing someone with liquids could do is make the statues look briefly shiny given that they are doused in water – I had no urge to do this. I do now though... Oh there was one statue that made me laugh (more than David with a hat) and that is this one.
Yeah – there are loads of paintings and statues with women squirting various liquids from their breast... One painting in Spain had this statue of Mary squirting it, a good couple of metres, into this guy’s mouth. I assume it’s meant to look holy and amazing but we thought it was just a touch silly.

We were running a bit behind schedule so we shuffled hurriedly back to Santa Croche and were allowed in – success! We decided that Santa Croche was named after the holy Saint – Saint Crotch who would sleep with people to heal their sickness but eventually died of an STD as thus sainthood was acquired. Heh.
It was a pretty impressive church but there wasn’t much oomph in the architecture. I prefer the outrageous gold churches of France rather than the Italian style which is more relaxed and less in your face. Sadly there was all this construction going on so one wall was covered. But we did see Michelangelo and Dante’s tomb – pretty neat. Then – randomly – there was this really awesome leather workshop out the back of the church which we bought leather purses from and they put our initials on them for free! Brilliant! Before we left the church we decided to show them how was boss and flash our shoulders real quick – ha ha!

Off to our next destination and on the way – oh man – there was this guy selling various junk and we walked on by not wanting anything when he goes “wait, you dropped something” we turned “my heart”. Seriously. Miranda gave the best response. She just turned away with a huge laugh and we walked off. Brilliant. Is that how they get girls here? Anyway our next stop was the Uffizi which holds some amazing works – Botticelli baby! Luckily we bought our tickets online so we didn’t have to wait very long because if we didn’t we would have had to wait about two hours to get in! Bleh! When we were in the queue this stupid bald guy just wangled his way in front of us and then acted as if it were his right to be there. Even more annoying was that we kept seeing him throughout the gallery – pushing in front of other people obviously. It was really awesome seeing Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” – it’s huge! I never realised that it was really big... Many other paintings I thought were lovely but overall the whole place didn’t take us very long. I didn’t feel like we were rushing either... That whole place was kind of weird because when you think of art galleries you think of high ceilings and white walls everywhere... this place, however, had this strange foyers that had portraits all along the top of the wall so that you couldn’t really see them... maybe they were covering the pipes – who knows.

Lunch time! Delicious calzone... keeping with the androgyny theme of this blog in the cafe there was this couple getting friendly – or rather the guy was trying to get friendly and the girl just wanted to leave and looked embarrassed. The “boy” I mentioned actually looked like a girl... I was confused. After lunch we took a stroll to see the markets – lovely things to buy – gorgeous leather handbags! Had to stop myself given that my mum had bought me a leather handbag from Florence a while ago and it was waiting for me at home... Sigh. Also everything in Florence is rather pricey... I hardly bought anything.

Next stop (I told you this was a big day) was the Galleria Academia. We actually got there early but they just let us in anyway (again thank goodness we bought tickets online because the queue was way long and in the sun – too hot). We burst inside to soak in the excellent air-conditioning and just sat near David for ages chatting. We had had a big day and needed to sit down. Forced ourselves onto our feet and – WOW. THE David is every bit as impressive as people say. It was incredible. Perfection. From all angles – you never get to see the back when they show it on tv so I made it my business to see... David’s...business... cough. You weren’t meant to take photos but – again – Miranda’s finger slipped!
I really loved it – easily my favourite piece of sculpture. Michelangelo was a very clever man and when you look at the statue from afar you can tell that his hands look too big and he is out of proportion but – being such a clever sculptor – he knew that people would be looking upwards so they seem bigger so that standing right near him he looks proportioned. Hope that made sense. It just amazes me – how can they get dumped with this huge piece of stone and make something so amazing? What if they made a mistake? As for the rest of the museum it was kind of boring. Obviously, the Galleria Academia was losing support so they threw David in there to get more tourists.

End of the day... sun setting... 10pm – love that. Last night in Florence so we had pizza and ice-cream! Delicious gelato. My gelato defeated me though because I foolishly chose the “tiramisu mousse” flavour thinking it would be ice-cream flavoured like tiramisu mousse. No. It was mousse. Not ice-cream. I was basically eating a large scoop of creamy butter with tiramisu flavour. Oh my goodness... it defeated me... never thought I would have to write that but it did... it was either eat it all and barf or not eat it all and be saddened. Back to the hostel where the American girl from the previous night had been replaced by this American boy. It was really awesome because the four of us just chatted for ages. The guy said he’d been travelling around without an itinerary and was just going from place to place and he had slept on the streets many times because he hadn’t found any accommodation! Yikes! Ha – he also said in primary school he didn’t like doing sports so when the teacher was around he would fake a limp to get out of it. It wasn’t until the teacher saw him playing later that he got in trouble. Made me laugh. A very busy and rewarding day. All that was left was to take a shower in the exhibition shower (the shower curtains were see-through we blue bubbles placed randomly so if someone came in you had to manoeuvre yourself so that the bubbles were covering your important bits) and onto what I learned today!

What I learnt about Italy

Italy loves the wang. There’s no other way of putting it. There are male genetalia on EVRYTHING here – especially the souvenirs. I could have bought a calendar of statue doodles but I didn’t deem it a necessity. In fact, the Italians love the wang so much that they pinch them off all the statues. Many sculptures were missing their doodles and some might say it was a religious thing and a conservative priest didn’t like it but I think it was the general population...

Firenze...

2009-07-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

Day 3
Madrid – Florence

Urgh. Interrupted night sleep. Interrupted at 4am when this guy that was staying in our room (the first boy in our room – eep!) would twitch his foot in his sleep and that would knock and clank the bunk beds. Very annoying. We ate some complimentary muffins that the hostel provided. They were mini muffins and they tasted like Kristen Stewart’s acting – bland and monotonous. We arrived early to the airport (no rushing and dashing this time). It’s a really groovy airport. When we were checking in our bags we asked the guy if we could take them on as carry-on to which he replied “Aren’t they too big?” “We’ve done it before”
“Okay”
Yeah he really didn’t care about his job – which suited us! Though being able to take our wheelie bags on the plane really annoyed the guy in line behind us. He had this hate of Miranda’s bag and she was trying to get on the plane whilst the flight attendant was arguing with him (in Spanish) we assume about Miranda’s bag being too big and he was having a cry about it. Jealous. The flight was delayed by an hour which was lame but it was very smooth and I didn’t get too freaked out as we watched Star Trek on Miranda’s ipod touch. The movie and the guy farting next to us took my mind off the scary flight. Fare well Spain!

We wangled our bags out of the overhead locker with the help of some strapping Spanish/Italian man. Off the plane and through customs – or so we thought. Miranda accidently left her passport on the plane! Eep! No one was panicking but us though as this must happen a lot and the flight attendants getting off the plane found it and gave it back. The man giving it to Miranda leant it wanting a thank you kiss but Miranda feigned innocence laughed – then we ran. Jolly good! By the way we went through all that to get the passport back and they didn’t even look at them when we went through the ‘customs’. I love Europe.

After asking tourist information we found a cheap bus that took us right to the city centre. Very handy. As we were walking to our hostel I got my first taste of Italian men. We were walking along... he was on his vespa (yes vespa) when I noticed that his doodle was just hanging out of his shorts! Nice. Must say I was a little taken aback. But the show must go on... hopefully with less male anatomy though...The hostel was a convent that had been converted. I use the term converted very loosely as it still looked like a convent giving the scarcity of the furnishings throughout the building. Our room is four beds and there were two other girls in there – one America and one Australian! How about that! Miranda and I are getting pretty sick of doing the whole “I’m from America she’s from Australia. No we didn’t meet travelling but on exchange in London”. We should have just worn signs around our necks.

Anyway – hello Italy! I’m back again to see what you’ve got this time. Last time I was in Italy I went to Venice – it was pretty cool but I want MORE! We started with seeing Il Duomo which is like the church of all churches and is decorated all along the outside! Coloured green marble and stone decorate the church so it’s really quite amazing from all angles. We climbed the bell tower and 419 extremely steep and never ending steps later we made it to the top. I love how you can tell the difference in places by the landscapes and the foliage. Different types of trees. It sounds weird but it really interests me. That and I like trees, okay? Excellent view – excellent breeze.

Bit peckish by this time so we surveyed the Duomo one last time only to see Miranda’s bag hater! That same guy... freaky! Off to find some delicious Italian pizza! One the way a very cute waiter boy said “Ciao” to us – FINALLY – a cute one! Amazing pizza – every bit as good as everyone makes it out to be. Followed by waffles and you’ve got yourself a winning meal.

We decided to do what we do best and shop. We went to the Piazza Signoria which has the fake David. It’s just a replica and we will see the real one eventually. Next stop was the Piazza Pitti which is on the top ten things to do in Florence – no idea why. It’s just a big plain square with a building in the background. Maybe inside is the good part but outside were just these giant lips.

Last stop for the day was the Ponti Vecchio which is a lovely bridge that just has jewellery shops all over it. It was once the butcher bridge but one of the royal people decided to kick them out and get in jewellers as they pay higher rent. This photo on the bridge took eons to get as this one woman just took her sweet time getting her boyfriend to take her picture. She knew we were waiting and took longer. Her boyfriend realised and was trying to hurry her along but she wasn’t budging. Which leads to me to my learning segment.

What I Learned About the Italians

You’re always wrong. And in their way. If they are taking up the whole sidewalk and you want to get by - you have to go around them. Unbelievable. Really started to annoy me after a while and I just wanted to shove their stubborn asses.

I also learned that to cross the road in Italy. You make a mad sudden dash preferably with your arms flailing about the place – most effective.

If you ask someone something in English they will respond in Italian. When you make it clear you don’t speak Italian – they speak Italian louder at you thinking that this will somehow translate the words.

Overall, a good day. Tiring but rewarding. Tomorrow holds more – everything!

Madrid = Mojitos

2009-07-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Day 2.

Woke up from the most relaxing slumber... I think all that stressing on the plane wore me well out. We took a while getting out the door today – through no fault of our own – the other two girls in the room decided they would take really long consecutive showers which meant we couldn’t go to the loo! Grrr... We still managed to get out and down to our first stop – the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) by nine. Sadly, it didn’t open until 11 which gave us some time to take a stroll and survey the surroundings. Here are some general pictures of the area. It is so beautiful here! I had no expectations, whatsoever, of this town but – wow – it’s amazing. I love Madrid and can plainly state it is one of my favourite cities in the world! Take that Paris with your French folk and your iconic structures! The Spanish have friendliness and Uncle Pepe! Yeah!

We bought our tickets and decided to get an audio guide. This is where the rubbish part of the day began. We waited for about an hour to get an audio guide because no staff member could be bothered to hand them out! I was ready to swing my legs over the counter and do it myself! I mean we’d all paid we just wanted the damn things in hand and in ear. After a surge of relief as we got them in our hot little mittens – Miranda’s broke. Sigh. Miranda went back to change hers as I started my way through the palace. This palace is AMAZING. Despite, the annoying effort of the staff (it gets better – and by better I mean worse) I love this palace. I really think it gives Versailles a run for its money because this palace is just as opulent and elaborate but it isn’t as touristy which means you can take your time wandering through the rooms. I really really loved it. Unlike Versailles you couldn’t take photos inside and if you so much as thought about maybe, perhaps touching your camera some staff member would strut up to you, wag their Spanish digits and yell “NO PHOTOS”! Miranda still did manage to get some excellent sneaky shots...
There was one room that was my total favourite which was called the Gasparini Suite. We didn’t get a photo but here is a picture I found online.
The whole room is crafted with marble and various colours and I mean every inch of this room – the floor, the ceiling, the walls – everything. Breath taking.
This palace also had a real liking for clocks (as they had only recently been invented at the time of decoration) which meant that every room had a clock ticking in it more ornate than the last so depending how long you took in each room you would get a lovely serenade of various chimes.

When we finished in the palace we went back to the ground floor and saw another courtyard out the window. We started walking over to the window when this guard woman was like you can’t go there. So Miranda asks politely “Can we just look out the window?” “No”. Just no. Wow okay. That had us laughing for a while. “Could I use the rest rooms?” “No” “Can I breathe the air in this room?” “No”. And so on.
The palace is on top of a big hill so the view is really awesome.

On another note the policemen here (at least I assume they are authority figures as they have guns) wear plastic potty type things on their heads. I suppose when they yelled “Freeze!” people would do so only to get a better view of their toilet hats.

After the palace we walked to the Museo del Prado which is the big art museum of Madrid. We, somehow, managed to work out the very confusing maps and saw many famous artists such as Reubens, Brueghal, Goya, Bosch, El Greco, Botticelli, Raphael and Carvaggio. Most impressive. I thoroughly enjoyed it in that place. Especially when Miranda and I started giving the paintings subtext. There was one painting that had this man praying at the bottom and this bird flying above him holding what looks like a donut. So the subtext of that painting was “Dear Lord – please deliver thou a donut”. We also played “pants on, pants off”. Not sure if I’ve explained this one but basically we look at all the sculptures and busts then decide – based on their appearance (I mean how much personality can a bust have? Don’t judge us) and then decide if we want their pants on or off. Pretty straight forward. Rather hilarious when we would differ greatly and then relentlessly mock one another. It was a BIG museum so needless to say we were getting pretty tired. And to mark this sleepiness here is another photo of Miranda looking pooped in a gallery...YAY!

Because it was such a beautiful sunny and warm day we then took a walk to a lovely park called Parque del Buen Retiro. On the way we found this wall with all these bricks sticking out and we thought if you tapped them correctly the wall would open directly into Diagon Alley. No such luck. Anyway the park was lovely and had these excellent trees which looked like brains. We walked past the lovely lake which had a lovely old arch with people boating all around it. It was LOVELY. Now where’s my thesaurus? We then felt the need to buy delicious ice-blocks and Miranda foolishly chose a “Perulo” or some such Spanish “treat” as she put it in her mouth – it froze – she ripped it out and doing so pulled off most of her lip. EW. It was way more gross than it sounds because I had to look at it. Poor Miranda though it was all bleeding and nasty. Funny looking though. She even took a photo of the lip bit on the ice-block which I will not show you. Throughout the trip we would look over our photos and then BAM frozen lip would come on the screen. Bleh.

After the lip fandango we walked to Puerta del Sol and saw the most famous monument of Spain. A bear wrestling with a tree or something. It’s on everything here. I guess it’s a big deal. We did our final spot of shopping and then headed out for dinner. Given that we wouldn’t come back to Spain for a while we decided to have delicious Paella again. To add to the traditional food we had mojitos as well. WHOA. Mojitos in Spain are deadly. They were so strong that every sip we took we would uncontrollably shudder and pull attractive faces like these...
We did finish them though! Let it be known. Rather giggly on the walk back to the hostel... We were going to see Flamenco dancing that night but it was too expensive. We got ice-cream and it was easily the best ice-cream I’ve ever had and I’m talking EVER. Better than Italy – take that! It’s funny because when we arrived in Spain Miranda read in the guidebook that Spanish men are very complimentary of beautiful women and that’s just normal over here. After getting no compliements we started to feel pretty down. Then we managed to get two crazy sleazes calling out to us... BLEH. One of them was in the ice-cream shop and was going “ooohh yeeeah...baby...awww” and so on. So I guess that’s something...
Fare well Spain I love you very much and look forward to returning and seeing more of you! Especially the South. Because tomorrow – it’s onto Florence!

Europe AGAIN. (8th June)

2009-07-17T02:21:00.000-07:00

London - Madrid
Day 1.

Today we woke up at the crack of 5am... *shudder* My alarm did go off today – thankfully we didn’t have a re-run of the last trip where I rolled out of bed, into my clothes and out the door. The annoying thing about this beginning was that our plane left from Gatwick airport – not Heathrow. Gatwick is pretty much the crappy airport where all the crappy airlines fly from.
So we walked all the way through Egham to the train station, changing trains and finally arriving. We got there – ready to check-in – going to take our wheelie bags on as carry-on just like last time but OH NO. We just had to get the crazily efficient staff member of EasyJet who demanded that our bags had to fit into this little cage. Now I measured my bag – and it was fine – but these cages have really thick bars so they take off a good couple of centimetres so – of course – our bags didn’t fit. This meant we had to queue and EasyJet being the bloodsucking airline that it is charged us each 16 pounds to check the damn bags in. Because of all this we had to get through security as fast as possible because our gate was closing! ARGH! My purse got inspected because I think the staff were afraid of my umbrella in the x-ray. Miranda didn’t have a plastic bag for her liquids and was told she had to go all the way back to get one. Miranda then pointed at three bags lying behind the woman and asked for one of those. The woman slowly turned, sneered and said “You got lucky”. Sigh. Airline travel is such fun.
Anyway we sprinted to the gate – made it – PHEW – and watched other poor people be harassed by this efficient woman. “You’re only allowed ONE piece of hand luggage” and forced some poor man to get his little camera case into his backpack which is promptly pulled out again after he got by her. Ridiculous. Don’t worry everyone – it gets worse.

Once we were on the plane everyone sitting around us had really bad gas. This became a bit of a trope for our trip as every flight we had without fail had some really gassy individual nearby – and, no, it wasn’t Miranda. Whilst, inhaling the poo smell of all those around us we experienced the bumpiest flight of all time. The plane never levelled and that constant squeezing feeling made me more and more nervous eventually resulting in me having a minor panic attack. The people on the other side of us had a good old stare whilst I burst into tears of fear and the flight attendant came over and tried to calm me down but it was Miranda’s singing of the “Sound of Music” which made everything alright. Maria Von Trapp’s “favourite things” really do the trick. Thankfully, we made it alive and arrived in sunny Spain! Here is our first picture – looking as tired and shiny as we did on the first arch!

Miranda noticed that the landscape of Madrid looks dry and dusty – just like both of our respective homes! Of course Miranda came into her own with her e with her excellent Spanish speaking (she still won’t admit it).

We got off and had a huge long wait for our bags – damn EasyJet – easy MY ASS. This flight made me realise that you’re better off paying more for a flight rather than getting this cheap-ass one and then paying for EVERYTHING separately. From then on we referred to EasyJet as SleazyJet.
Changed my lovely pounds into Euros once more and went through customs. I told them I had some apples to declare and Europe being laid back as ever said that I should just “eat them” and it would be fine. Done and done. We caught the lovely clean metro (that’s right Madrid had a clean underground train system – it is possible!) to our hostel and “winceslas” all round. Remember loyal reader, that winceslas is Miranda and my code for when people are staring at us. We realised it’s because we were so pale... everyone here is very tan.

Got to our hostel and it’s very nice. Private bathroom which was going to be a mixed room of four but we managed to be with two girls. Of course – they were American. We did the whole introduction thing and, I don’t know if I’ve told you, but these girls would ask “where are you guys from?” to which we’d each reply “America” “Australia”. The people would then turn to Miranda and ask “Oh wow where in America?”. Australia is not important to anyone else. This happens frequently throughout the trip so just imagine.

We went out to explore the town and see what it had to offer and my goodness. Madrid is my favourite place. It’s BEAUTIFUL. The weather was lovely and the everywhere you look is just... really nice. Flowers, lovely buildings and I just felt really safe the whole time. We went shopping and the best part of Madrid was how reasonable the prices were! Whilst shopping Miranda realised that she was totally at home in Spain... though the fan's spelling was a bit off... close enough... I got yelled at my a shop lady because Miranda took this photo... I was confused - what was the mannequin pointing at?

Our hostel is in the Puerta del Sol which is close to the Plaza Mayor which we then walked to.

It’s this lovely big square with buildings all around and loads of buskers... the most impressive buskers I’ve ever seen all lined up. One was covered in wet sand and not moving (I assume he or she was alive) one was just a head on a fruit bowl and another was dressed as a goat! We stopped and had delicious churros and chocolate! It’s like donuts with warm dipping chocolate.
Then it started absolutely pouring with rain. Remember the lovely weather I was just talking about? Yeah... it was rained on. And thus it became the coldest day on this trip.

We walked back past the Opera House and had traditional paella for dinner! Paella is like a fried rice type dish with delicious seafood all through it. It also had “sweet peeper” which we assumed was “pepper” and not some guy that perved on you from afar whilst you ate... we didn’t notice anyone... You've probably noticed that I look pretty much the same in both the churros and paella pictures... Well... food is good. What more can I say? Also I managed to wear the same shirt in both the beginning of this trip and the last one I think... I guess if you were really keen you would have noticed that.

Back to the hostel for an early night. Hands down. I love this city. It is amazing and I can’t wait to explore more tomorrow!

Farewell Founders - Forever.

2009-07-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

Before I go I just want to write about Founders. It’s sad to write but this is the last time I’ll walk down this musty smelling hall... Last time I’ll shower in a cubicle covered in the hair of strangers. This all sounds delicious – and it is – but this place has been a home to me over the past several months. I got my own little room which was big enough with a sink, desk, chair, mirror, wardrobe and heater. This room represents the first time I lived out of home and by myself. It was pretty neat. I mean this building looks like a palace but is a dump on the inside but I will miss it eventually – eventually...
It is amazing architecturally and though it is the second most flammable building in Britain (it was the third but the second burned down – comforting – this is because it is insulated with straw and flammable liquid) which meant there were way too many fire doors and fire alarm tests at all hours it is a lovely building. The furniture in my room is actually the original furniture from the 19th century. There are old photographs of when it first opened and behind the girls in fancy frocks is my desk and wardrobe... Spooky... What has that furniture seen in its time? Dare I think...
Looking at the plumbing you would think that is original too given that there was an actual toilet with a chain to pull! Anyway I’ve gone on long enough but – farewell 337 – you’ll always be in my heart. Miranda and I both got a bit sad saying goodbye – we were either crying about our rooms or the fact that we were awake at 5am again. We're also saying goodbye to Royal Holloway! I won't ever take another class here or anything... That's pretty sad but I've had a good run... It has been really great meeting people here and I will miss this place... Goodbye Royal Holloway!

Summer Ball!

2009-06-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

Today is the ball! We’re so excited! The day pretty much consisted of us packing up our rooms and then beautifying ourselves!
Here is the final product!

It was a really fun night – good to see everyone from class again. Miranda and I had some drinks and pretty much boogied the night away! I’m not writing much because I have to surrender my computer but I thought you would all want to see how we looked so here is a montage – enjoy!
I’m off for another European adventure through Spain, Italy and Greece tomorrow so I’ll be out of blog land for two weeks! But I will return – for more! Bye!

Romeo wherefore art though? The Globe? Cheers.

2009-06-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

We’re back in England! It feels so weird! But relieving... Tonight we are going to see Romeo & Juliet at the Globe Theatre in London! How very English of us... this whole week is pretty much dedicated to saying goodbye to London... Given that when we get back from our next trip we will pretty much be booted onto a plane that takes us to our respective homes. Sigh.
On the train ride there we got in the Shakespeare mood!
Then we just started taking candid photos of each other. Or rather we started taking photos of one another taking photos of the other person. It’s very confusing but hilarity ensued as I do rather hilarious things when I think no one has a camera. Like adjust my hair...
We arrived, saw St Paul’s much to Miranda’s delight, and then crossed the good ol’ Millennium Bridge whilst eating ice-cream. It’s crazy because I remember crossing this bridge a couple of months ago and I couldn’t feel my toes or face it was so cold and now I’m in a skirt eating ice-cream!

Arrived at the Globe – it’s really awesome – I highly recommend seeing it and taking a tour because it’s so interesting plus it has a really great gift shop. A gift shop where Miranda and I bought little badges and hers says “Capulet” and mine says “Montague” – we took sides. We got pretty good seats and I’m so glad I rented a cushion because sitting on the wooden pews for three hours can be a bit of strain on the old bum-bum (not the ice-cream). It was a really amazing performance and I was so glad we went because Shakespeare is SO much better when you see it than read it... makes you feel smart because when they are acting out the lines you actually know what they are trying to say. It’s funny because in the part where Juliet is deciding whether or not to drink the potion she lists off all these pros and cons and by the end of it I wanted someone to shout out “just drink it!”. Overall, it was a great performance and the best part is all the costumes, set and everything are as they would have been in Shakespeare’s time. The costumes are all made of materials available in that time meaning there was no Velcro to help the actors get them on and off – that’s it. Rather awesome.

The next day we took a jaunt to Hampton Court. Miranda, very kindly, took me even though she had already been twice and I hadn’t gone yet. It was a pretty cool palace – but – again – palaces have nothing on Versailles. You can really tell from all the architecture and so on that it’s England. Dark wood panelling and very little light in the rooms – means you’re in England. There was a tour going when we got there and the tour guides were all dressed up in proper costumes. They made us choose which tour guide to go with – either the noble lady (if you were a noble) or the other guy. Obviously, we went with the noble lady and got to do the best thing in the world – wear costumes AS WELL! We each got a long velvet vest. Mine was green and Miranda’s was red. We were lamenting earlier that we didn’t bring warm enough coats and these did just the trick – I miss mine now.
The tour guide gave us a run down of Henry VIIIs life as today was going to be his wedding day to Katherine Parr. It was funny because she told the story as one would in a gossipy manner. She told us that Henry was with Anne Boleyn but also Mary Boleyn to which she added “but who hasn’t”. She told us that Anne of Cleves was shunned by Henry not just because she was ugly but because, apparently, she was really stinky! Ha ha!

Eventually, Henry and Katherine appeared in their finery and we had to all bow and saw “god save the king” when he entered and exited the room. It was really fun! The kind of stuff you get a kick out of when you’re a) a child or b) a lame-o like me. We looked around the palace and had more fun whipping our cloaks about. I still miss my cloak. The people in our tour group must have handed theirs back because we seemed to be the only people wearing them about the place and all these people kept giving us smiles like “aww... what a sad pair”.

Miranda and I finally had cream tea! It only took us six months but FINALLY we got around to having it – and it was delicious. We kept looking around and I realised my cloak could look more like a robe... what do you think?
We were going to try and waltz out with them on as if this was our everyday attire but as we went into the gardens a security guy asked us to leave them behind – DAMN! Oh well... That night we went to see “Angels and Demons” with Leonore and her little sister who had returned from their trip through France. Very nice.

During the film (it stars Tom Hanks who played the voice of Woody in Toy Story) Miranda and I joked that we should yell out quotes from Toy Story like “Somebody poisoned the water hole!” and “There’s a snake in my boot!”. So it would be like “Robert... the pope is dead”“There’s a snake in my boot!”
“B-but what should we do about this global crisis?”
“Reach for the sky...”
Brilliant. The following day Miranda and I went into London to do some final shopping and I got my hair cut – BOO HOO. It’s AWFUL. I came out of the place – Miranda saw me and I burst into tears! Urgh... I seriously look like Maria Von Trapp... sigh I better start eating cheese I guess...
Nevertheless... tomorrow is the Summer Ball! Yippee!

Goodbye Europe! For a bit...

2009-06-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

Day 16.
Munich -> London

Today is the last day of our Europe trip! Part one mind you. But still it’s coming to an end and that’s sad...
We decided to take a FREE walking tour around Munich. The girl that came to pick up at our hostel was studying in Royal Holloway – how weird is that? We RoHoers plague the Earth. We went back to the glockenspiel and met Matt our tour guide for the day who told us about the characters within the clock. The top part (which moves first) is a wedding story of Wilhelm V and his French wife. There are jesters and jousters that turn around and the jousters are representative of the bride and groom’s respective nations. Given that this clock is in Munich – the Munich team wins. Then below that is another window which has a bunch of guys in red coats twirling about. They are dancing the Coopers Dance. Coopers are the people who make barrels and when the plague was pillaging Europe people wouldn’t go outside for fear of catching it. One day the coopers decided to go outside and dance about because they didn’t catch the plague. So this dance became popular and the king of the time said that it was so such a sweet dance that they must do it every seven years for eternity. And they still do it too! Behind the dancers on the clock is this jester guy who was doing a sort of party thrust behind the coopers. Apparently, he was the guy who entertained the children by painting their faces and so on. I was concerned about this guy for two reasons. 1. He was thrusting the children and 2. Because the paint he would have used was lead based – so the people of the town would encourage the children to play with a paedophile that would poison you.
Matt said that the Glockenspiel is the #2 most overrated tourist site - #1 is the Astrological clock in Prague – I still think they’re both cool.

Next stop on the tour was the Frauenkirche Church. There is a legend with this place which is called the Devil’s footprint. The people of Munich started to build this church and the Devil popped by, saw it and decided that it was the coolest thing he’s seen. So he went in the front door and noticed that there were no windows in the church and really liked it – being the Prince of Darkness and all – so he found the architect and said – Architect, I love this place and will get my minions to help you build it in record time as long as you don’t add any more windows. The architect agreed and 27 years later the Devil came back. This time he went through the side door and notices that the sides of the church were covered in stained glass windows! “Architect!” he shouted “you promised no more windows and look at these! Your soul is now my property” the architect shook his head and said “no Devil, these windows were here all along but you came in the front door and didn’t realise that they were blocked by the columns holding the church up” The Devil was pretty pissed that he got tricked so he stamped his foot, leaving a mark, and vanished. Here is that footprint (keep in mind the Devil was wearing Birkenstocks at the time). No, not really, the footprint is the architect and that was his way of signing his work. It’s a pretty cool church though – see the trick?
Sadly, this was one church that got majorly damaged in WWII. In fact, 90% of Munich was destroyed and the people of the town had photographed and drawn the town before it was destroyed in case of situations like this so they could re build. This means that pretty much the whole town of Munich is less than 70 years old – pretty amazing stuff.
Also sadly, today is a Catholic holiday! All the shops were closed again! Fie! Fie! They almost didn’t let the tour guide and us in because of this... almost.

The tour guide then stopped us and gave us a quick run down of WWII. He was SO KNOWLEDGABLE. I would have just loved to have lunch with him and just listen to everything he knows... It was really great. I mean I knew about everything he was saying but he made it really accessible. He said that when Germany was suffering from hyper-inflation one US dollar would by about 54 trillion German marks – WHOA. Money became so worthless that the ink printed on it was worth more and that children would play with money and not toys. People would burn money because it was cheaper than wood. Wow.
Another interesting note he made was that in 1997 or so this information came to light that when the Nazis started pillaging Jewish places of business – their uniforms were made by Hugo Boss! Makes you think twice about designers...
All the memorials in Munich are really small – random segue there but they are in existence – they are just quite small. He then showed us this awesome looking market but because of the darn Catholics it was closed. Munich is on my list for places to return to in the future.

He then led us back to my favourite house – the Beer Hall. He told us that this was the hall where Hitler started the Nazi party. Inside the men’s toilets it also has a vomitorium. Again – lovely segue. It’s all modern now – Matt said – and it’s motion activated which is handy... The thing is there isn’t one in the ladies toilet because ladies don’t vomit. Huh. The beer house didn’t use to have any bathrooms (and women weren’t even allowed) there was, instead, a big canal running under each row of tables and the men would simple pop open their lederhosen and whizz away. Very nice.

We then stopped at the Residenz which is the main palace of Munich and each part of it was built in a different style due to different kings wanting different things. After WWII there was just around one fifth remaining. Yeesh.

And now to Hitler. If you don’t like hearing about him or it offends you then scroll on because I learnt a lot of interesting things. Hitler came to Munich to become an artist but the academy denied him because he was rubbish at drawing people. He thought that one way he could take power of Germany was to stage a coup. Violence, however, didn’t work and Hitler was in big trouble. The coup was staged where politicians of Germany were having a meeting (in a beer hall that no longer exists) and Hitler came in and tried taking the three main guys as hostages. Long story short – the hostages got away. Hitler had planned for his whole group to march towards the main square but the road they were taking was blocked by police (that the escaped politicians had called). We actually walked down this road where Hitler’s bodyguard jumped on him and took 11 bullets – can you imagine how history would have changed if just one of those bullets had of strayed? Hitler made a run for it, hijacked an ambulance and fled. When he got in power this story was fabricated and they stated that Hitler actually saw a little girl, scooped her up and drove her to safety. Huh. During this coup 15 Nazis, 4 police and one innocent bystander were killed. When the Nazis erected a memorial for this occurrence they wrote that 16 Nazis had died – after all they would never kill an innocent bystander – he must have been a Nazi as well! How noble! The memorial isn’t there anymore and when it was people walking by would have to salute it – note – you can’t heil in Germany, it’s illegal. There were guards always watching the memorial and if people didn’t salute it they could be heckled and beaten! So there was this little alley just behind it which was labelled “Dodger’s Alley” where resistant Germans would go to get round the memorial and not have to heil. There are only some golden cobblestones on this street to commemorate this. Like I said Munich had small memorials – but they are there.

The tour was coming to an end and he told us one more story about some students who were trying to silent protest the Nazis by distributing flyers and pamphlets. It was illegal to distribute these so these students would leave them all over the ground outside classes so if individuals just happened to pick these up then it was nobody’s fault. Until one day the students were caught. This was called the White Rose Resistance and each of these students were decapitated as a warning to anyone who wanted to resist the Nazis. Yikes.

After our tour we went and had a look at the view on St Peter’s church. It was pretty nice. The staircase up and down had all this graffiti on it and I tried taking an artistic type picture of Miranda with it... at least Miranda looks nice. My skills, however, are... yeah... sentence...trail...off now. When we were in the tower the bells went off and that was pretty cool. I felt like I was being bounced out of there with sound. It was scary but neat. We also found these lion statues – there are four of them and one of the other tour guides was telling us that if we touched three of the four we would get lucky either in love or financially. If you touched all four you were being greedy!

We said our goodbyes to Munich and Europe in general as we caught the train to the airport and then had to sit around and twiddle our thumbs for about two hours. I had another ice-cream sandwich and for some reason they were playing Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” on the television – which I love.

We got on the plane and came back to London! Good to see Founders again – very excited about the ball. Overall, an excellent Europe trip! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it – there’s another whole trip to come so I’ll keep you posted!

Munchen = Beer Hall.

2009-06-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

Day 15.
Salzburg -> Munich

Urgh – woken to the sound of what I thought were elephants trundling about the room when in fact it was the other girls packing up. Urgh. I’m always quiet when I”m packing and someone else is sleeping! Jees – consideration people!
We checked out and went on the computers to check mail one last time and only a few of the many computers were working – they were free! Tee hee! Then this really annoying Australian girl came in and, in what I now hear as a really thick accent, said “this is ridiculous – I’ve been waaaiiting for aaaaagges” Shudder. Do I really sound like that? It’s funny because being on this Europe trip Miranda and I have really been disliking those that come from our respective countries. After a breakfast of a soft chocolate and nut pretzel (we’re blending in pretty well) we went to the train station thinking that we would spend some time in Salzburg town before heading off to Munich. We took a spin around the train station, found the few things that existed were closed and came back to the train station. This took about seven minutes. Off to Munich then!

The train ride was only about two hours so we arrived in Munich and found our hostel which was average. Everyone had written all over the bunk beds “so and so was here 07” and such so I wrote on mine “Beyonce Knowles wuz here 09” We figured people would get star struck because at the height of her career she’s really be staying at a hostel in Munich – made me laugh. These bunk beds make me nervous because my top one is bolted into the wall and has no posts supporting so I was worried all night that it was going to break if I rolled over and crush Miranda – wounding me in the process.

We then began to explore the town. Miranda has been to Munich before so she had a good idea as to where we were going. We set off towards Marienplatz where we were going to watch the glockenspiel go of at five. Before we got there we were just walking along talking, in English, when some guy near us says something in German. Naturally, we don’t think he’s talking to us so we don’t pay any attention. Then he comes right up next to us and starts talking really loudly in German. We started to get a bit panicked and walk off but he came in front of us and says (in English this time) “Is there something wrong with your hearing? I ask you three times, very politely where the English Gardens are and you just walk off!” to which I replied “we don’t speak German”. He did apologise but – yeesh – why do we attract crazy people? We then dubbed this guy English Garden Bastard. We got to the clock and it was a pretty cool clock – I thought. There are little characters that spin around and the clock chimes various little tunes. I liked listening to the sea of tourists going “oooo!” and “ahhh!” and then clapping at the end of it.
We tried to find something else to do but everything was closed because it was a Sunday. Even all the big clothes shops – thou shalt not have new rags on the Sabbath!

Next comes one of my favourite things of our trip. The Hofbrauhaus. BEER HALL! I’d been looking forward to this for a while and was excited to try one of these big ass beers I’d heard so much about. Outside the Beer House were all these guys in matching lederhosen singing along to a guy playing an accordion and collecting money out a giant spoon. Yep. It seems that bachelor parties are HUGE in Europe – we’ve seen several about the place. A bunch of guys (or girls) in matching outfits roaming about the place collecting money. Talk about effort...

Inside we got this really grumpy older waitress who Miranda asked very politely (in German) if she spoke English to which we got a forceful “Nein!”. Whoa okay... I guess if I were her age and in a wench outfit I’d be pretty cranky too...We ended up gesturing to an empty glass on our table and holding up two fingers. And there it was – my Everest – a litre of German beer. Now I’m not a big fan of beer – but this beer was really tasty. We’d just started drinking when some traditional music began to play. The whole atmosphere was pretty awesome – we bought real traditional pretzels which were way too salty for my liking. Miranda ate most of mine. See the pretzel in the photo? See that I’m halfway through the beer! I’ll get there... Then we got approached by these Americans sitting near us (as a matter of fact ALL the tables around us had Americans at them – including mine – so much for a German experience) who asked where we were from and were playing some drinking game where they pick random people to take photos with. Suits us! Here they are! Random folk and beer – what more could you ask for? After a while some people sat down next to us who were from Switzerland. Close enough to a German experience – I mean they could speak German. They were very nice and they congratulated me whole heartedly when – eventually – I FINISHED MY STEIN. That’s right everyone reading this should be in awe because I finished that darn thing even though I could barely lift it to my lips! I’m so proud of myself... We went back to the hostel – noticing all the lederhosen shops – we are in Bavaria... and I know what you’re thinking – that I was totally drunk but I wasn’t. Just ask Miranda. I was just very – merry. Tomorrow we go back to London and we are both pretty excited for that – having our own rooms, no more bunk beds, English everywhere and using pounds again. There were some other girls in our room from America who were really nice. That night I went to have a shower and walked in on some girl – who was in the middle of the shower foyer – completely nudey doodey! I thought I had gone into the wrong place, walked out, no..., walked back in and was like... “err hi!” and she was just like “hi” completely cool with that fact she was sans clothes. Don’t think I’ll miss that...

Okay - NOW the Hills are Alive...

2009-06-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

Day 14.
Salzburg

Last night no one was in our room but us! Hooray! I had breakfast (which wasn’t free – lame) and they always offer bread rolls. Sounds rubbish but they are always freshly baked and these were still warm... mmm... It’s sad how much I write about what I ate... Well there’s more to come today so get ready.

Today is our Sound of Music tour! We were very excited last night going to sleep – usually when Miranda and I are going to sleep we just chat and laugh really hard about random stuff. We worked out some really annoying laughs that we would do whilst on the tour. Should the guide make terrible puns we would break out our annoying laughs – it’s going to be amazing.

Our tour guide, Peter, is hilarious. He enunciates and makes dramatic pauses as he talks and it’s very amusing. He also yodels = First stereotype of Austria – check. Peter, we noted throughout the tour, was very obsessed with the bus driver – Verner. He would always make notes about the sights and then somehow relate it back to Verner. It was quite odd... like “that house over there is rather large, like Verner’s house”. We were waiting for him to say something like “that building on the right is the same colour as Verner’s boudoir”.

The tour started and he began telling us some of the history of Salzburg and that the city was founded in around the 6th century. He was also telling us of some Archbishop in history who liked to play tricks on his people. He commissioned some chairs to be made with little holes on the seat where hoses were connected. His chair had a dial which he could turn so that the water would spray peoples’ pants. First he would get them drunk and then spray their pants so they would worry that they had wet themselves. The best part was in this time the guests could not stand up unless the Archbishop did! I thought that was pretty funny.
He also was telling us that everyone in the world loves the film but the people of Salzburg – don’t. This is because there was a film made about Maria Von Trapp’s life that wasn’t a musical and the “Sound of Music” changed events which upset the Austrians. Also they didn’t translate the film into German until about 11 years ago!

Oh – here is a picture of our tour bus. Peter said the picture of Julia Andrews singing looks like she’s sneezing so Miranda and I thought we would join in on the fun.

I’m glad we did this tour today because it was FREEZING. It’s easily the coldest day we’ve had and it felt like England months and months ago. Getting off the bus to see the sights was a little bothersome as the bus was nice and warm. Looking at the variety of people on the bus – young, old, very old and all different nationalities – it’s clear that war wouldn’t occur if everyone watched “Sound of Music”. So this bus took us to see where different scenes in the movie were filmed. First stop was the back of the Von Trapp house – they did use two different houses – well this one was the back. This is the Leopold Crown Palace.

Next stop was the glass gazebo which a couple of very important scenes happen in. First, the glass gazebo was originally near the first stop – in those gardens – but the people who owned the house got sick of crazy fans jumping the fence and invading their garden to see it. So they relocated it to where it is now. You can’t go inside it anymore because some 80 year old tried to jump from bench to bench, like they do in the film, and broke her hip. But here it is. And it’s a lot smaller than you would think. That’s because this one was only used when they needed to film outside the gazebo. They had a bigger one made on a film set back in America for the inside scenes. Miranda said that during the filming of the “I am 16 going on 17” song the girl who played Leisel put her foot through the glass and if you look closely you can see a bandage around her ankle. While we were looking at the glass gazebo Peter came up to us and was chatting to us about the film when he suddenly asked us if we were ready to be married and have kids! He said “the longer you wait the dumber the children get”. Wow. What the heck.

Back on the bus and this time we set off to have a look at the Austrian countryside (which I was most excited about). While we were driving we could buy drinks from their mini-bar which included a random Austrian soft drink called “Almdudler”. It’s delicious. We tried one just to say that we did but it was so yummy! It’s like ginger beer mixed with apple juice and very tasty. We even made up a jingle for it that goes “Almdudler... the dudler that alms!” Catchy. We got off and had a look at one of the many lakes in the area. It’s so beautiful! Good to see the Alps again even if they are partially obscured by clouds.

Peter was telling us that he had a girl who was 19 on his tour a couple of months ago who was crying. He asked her why and she said because her life ambition was to go on this tour because she watched “Sound of Music” twice a day since she was five. What a nutcase! That’s six hours out of your life everyday! Holy smokes. He also told us that the real Maria Von Trapp died of a cheese overdose. I kid you not. Apparently, all she would eat was cheese and because she never got any roughage her stomach pretty much folded in half and she got gangrene! Miranda then said to me “Ahh Maria Von Trapp... she died as she lived – eating cheese”.

We got off the bus in this little town called Monsee (Moon Lake) where we could see the church that Maria, in the film, gets married in. It was pretty cool. Even more cool was the fact that there were loads of townsfolk in LEDERHOSEN. 2nd Austrian stereotype – check.

Here comes stereotype number three – after the church we went and had apple strudel at this little restaurant – check. It was so delicious! It had vanilla custard type stuff and it was really tasty. It was such a cute little place with little chandeliers and loads of various pastries to choose from. It was a cute town altogether – look at the colours of the houses. Very darling.
Back on the bus and we are almost done with the tour – darn this bus lark is so good. They put on the soundtrack from the film and people started singing along. Peter said we should given that “we’d never see these people again anyway”. Fair enough. He then started talking about the Edelweiss flower. He said that the flower only grows on high peaks way up in the mountains. When a young man wants to court a young woman in Austria he would give her an Edelweiss flower to prove his love to her. The population of Salzburg is only 150 000 and this is why... haha not really. Peter also said that they use to give out Edelweiss seeds to the people on the bus as a gift but Australians kept getting arrested going through customs when coming home! How true! Man we are so crazy about all that – not looking forward to going home. We finished our tour and Peter told said goodbye or rather “I hope you both find rich husbands” – weird.

We continued the tour of Salzburg and went to the Mirrabella Gardens where more of the movie was filmed – see if you can guess the scene.
Then we wandered about the town of Salzburg and it’s so lovely! Stone houses and footpaths, under crofts – it’s just really sweet. I’d like to go back to Salzburg some day and see more. We went to Mozart’s birthplace – I saw his wig and violin – I was happy. It was a pretty cool place but the last three rooms of the museum where SO WEIRD. There were no signs so we figured that the rooms must have been representations of his operas? Neither of us really know the plotlines of his operas so... it was weird. Maybe YOU know the answer. There was one room with a piano, a cardboard cut of a guy with a gun and a cardboard dog... Anyone? The next room was completely upside down – all the paintings, lights etc. The final room had dresses looking like they were going out a doorway and the room had his letters all over the walls. Anyone? Are you as confused as we were? It was odd.

After confusing land we went to a restaurant for lunch called Zum Mohren which was like a dungeon because it was all underground... It said on the menu that Mozart and Handel dined here and that the main wall dates back to the 13th century. Wowee. Several calls of “Wenceslas” later we left and kept exploring. It started peeing down with rain so we sought dryness in this huge church. I’m not sure which church it was but it was really awesome. It had all these dark black outlines around the carvings and looked very Tim Burton. Obviously, everyone had the same idea as us because the church was pretty full. We sat under the awning outside and ate our – giant pretzels that we bought! Yes! Giant soft pretzel – which was pretty much a big donut... but we were happy. It was so big though that neither of us wanted to finish it but we felt obligated. Then we waddled back to the hostel for some internet and sleep.

The Hills will be Alive Shortly... with Music Sounds.

2009-06-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

Day 13.
Prague -> Salzburg

Urgh... last night’s slumber was disturbed by morons being loud in the hallway – it’s like being back at Founders! We had to get up early to get our train only to get there and find that it was 25 minutes late... the announcer kept coming on being like “this hi-speed train has been delayed” “hi-speed?” I cried. The irony. Anyway Miranda went and asked someone about the train because we were worried we would miss our connecting train... so she asks the guy “Excuse me, are we going to miss our connection?” “Oh yes.” Concise. Helpful. Crap.

Eventually, the train pulled in and we got in any carriage not knowing where to sit because we actually didn’t need a reservation this time – yay! We got in one of the carriages which looked like the ones out of Harry Potter and we were joking that soon the Dementors would turn up... they sort of did as this crazy ticket man started telling us, in Czech... well something – I don’t speak Czech but he didn’t seem to understand that. So the logical thing for him to do was to speak LOUDER. Yeah, buddy, we’re not deaf... He started gesticulating and we eventually worked out that we couldn’t be in that carriage for reasons unknown. We hauled all our stuff to another spot and sat down. That sounds easy – but it was not. There were these huge crazy gaps between the train coaches and everyone we crossed I was waiting to slip through and live out the rest of my life as a spot on the train tracks. I’d be dead do that doesn’t really make sense but basically it seemed like a life threatening journey... It was then I realised shortly after we had sat down that the carriages we were just in – were no longer attached to the train. No idea where they had gone or when but instead of seeing the other carriage through the window I saw scenery.

This was another long train ride. Sigh. We managed to keep ourselves occupied... The newspaper Miranda looks like she is reading – is in Czech. There was an article on the new Terminator movie and that’s all we grasped... At least it was warm. No... wait... actually this train wasn’t – I remember it was freezing. Prague, the city, is not what people expect when the go to Eastern Europe because it’s so beautiful and modern... when you look at the transit system – wow... that’s backwards. The toilet emptied onto the train tracks! Bleeeeh! Unlike all other trips our tickets were checked at least three times... and our passports where checked when we arrived in Germany – no stamp though.
This train ride was a train ride of “Wenceslas” because the women next to us wouldn’t stop staring... it was weird...
Because our train was delayed we had to wait in Landsut for another one. This is in Germany but we managed to find some magazines in English to pass the time. It’s good to go back to German speaking countries because at least we know some German to get by... I feel bad from Czech Republic because didn’t even try to speak it... Sorry Prague!

Our train arrived and it was only about three coaches long and therefore crammed full of people. That and it smelled like a horse’s ass mixed with the smell of someone having gone to the bathroom in their seat. Very pleasant. We assumed that everyone on the train was going to Salzburg to do a Sound of Music tour like we were... Our assumptions were confirmed when they started singing.
We got to the station and were in Salzburg! Yay! I needed to use the bathroom so we went looking... At train stations you always have to pay to pee but the door was open so I went in... the only thing was the door had some weird coin-operated mechanism which meant that people could see through the gap... the cleaning lady ended up seeing me but at least it was free! Also the door locked itself and I was trapped inside the cubicle for a bit... Still – FREE WEE!

Got to our hostel and were in a six bedroom female dorm. It was a pretty swish place. It said it had been remodelled in 2008 and you could tell given the key cards and fancy goings on.

Prague Part 2.

2009-06-06T05:44:00.000-07:00

Day 12.
Prague

Today we went to the church that had the infamous arm – the Church of the Severed Arm as we fondly call it but St Jacob’s Church to everyone else. It was just around the corner from our hostel and I wondered if the arm got down from its little post and walked about the town at night – like Thing from the Addams Family. I’m getting off track – what’s new – so we went inside and – wow – this church is incredible! How has it gone this long with so little recognition? I mean it was ornate and there was gold, statues, carvings, candles, paintings and the works! It was amazing but, sadly, you can’t take photos inside so you’ll just have to imagine. Then we walked to the entrance of the church and saw the arm. Way up high on this little pike was this twiglike thing and there is no way you would know what it was if you didn’t know the story. It seems strange... all these people coming to pray here, tourists doing their touristy thing – meanwhile there is a severed, embalmed and really old arm literally hanging to one side. Weird. It was up really high on the wall too – we needed a hand seeing it! Ba ha! Get it? Puns... they’re great.

This hostel denied breakfast so we decided to go to Starbucks (don’t you judge) and give the serving staff false and hilarious names. Miranda then became Ableth and I was Wendlah. I went second and the girl asked “where are you guys from? Canada?” and I was like “errr...” think damn you, think! “no, I’m from Australia my mother just really hates me...” we grabbed our hot chocolates and bagels and ran! Laughing all the way.

We then walked to Prague castle (yes, walked... we do a serious amount of walking and then at the end of the day admit that “our dawgs are barkin’” – sore feet). In case you didn’t know – Prague castle is on a really big and steep hill. Sigh. I remember this from last time though the walk this time was a lot easier... I guess because I’m taller, my legs are longer and therefore less steps... Makes sense in my mind.
So we got to the top and saw the lovely view of the city – have a look this time.

Off in the distance there is this building which looks remarkably like the Eiffel Tower which is NOT possible given that we were nowhere near Paris... I think they built it as a joke for dumb tourists... There was a changing of the guards ceremony going on and people excitedly crowded around watching the soldiers doing their thing – it was no Buckingham Palace send off – I mean they didn’t even play “that’s the way, uh huh uh huh, she likes it” so you know... inferior.
We bought tickets to the castle and were kind of bemused by the money tricks the ticket booth tries on you. They try to make you rent an audio guide because the whole castle has no signs or descriptions! How ridiculous is that! Not only that but the audio guide itself was double the price of the ticket! We didn’t rent one and decided that we would make our own history.
We queued up for St Vitus Church and while we were doing so we were sort in the middle of this tour group consisting of loads of younger teenage girls. Miranda was looking at her map of the castle when this map just leant over and pulled it away from her, had a look and gave it back. Meanwhile, the gaggle of girls giggled away and Miranda and I were most confused. So we decided to get our own back by coughing and saying “man, that swine flu is really catching up on me” “oh I know, Mexico was lovely, but the diseases! My oh my...” At this point one of the girls right in front of us slowly turned and stared at us. It was brilliant. Eventually we got inside the church and I got to see this stained glass window which was made by one of my favourite artists – Alphonse Mucha. It’s pretty darn beautiful. Also featured in the church was the grave of Good King Wenceslas. “Wenceslas” then became our codeword if people were staring at us (which they do A LOT). So if someone is staring we say “Wenceslas”. Oh we also had a codeword when we were in our hostels. To alert the other person if someone was in our hostel room with us we said “code”. Creative – I KNOW.

We then walked around the old palace and because the rooms were bare and dull we mostly just kept going to the window and looking out at the view. Given that there were no signs and nothing of interest aesthetically the palace was pretty lame. There are crown jewels you can go and look at but Miranda and I were pretty turned off by this point and saw a picture of the jewels and were like “well... there they are...” and left. Next up was the jail – you would think the jail/torture chamber would be a touch more interesting – but no – it really wasn’t. There was a story about some guy who was captured and locked in there who could supposedly fiddle really well and people would come from miles around to hear him – fiddle. When I say fiddle you think I mean on a violin – this is the myth – by ‘fiddling’ they actually mean confessing and after being whipped and locked in a cage you would fiddle pretty well too.
There were these tourists taking photos everywhere around the castle so we thought it would be funny if we took a photo of nothing special and see how many people do the same, thinking that’s something important. Here is a photo of me with a random cracked wall. It was holy in my mind...

We walked back down the hill and over the bridge and on the way we saw some nuns and had to really resist the urge to start singing “Climb every mountain” to them. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of beggars in Europe which is kind of sad...
Saw Gelato Bastard again and did our whole muttering profanities under our breath until we passed him. We caught the underground and when we were getting off it was really packed and this guy came up to us and kept saying something and showing something he was holding to us. We assumed he was trying to sell something and were trying to ignore him when he went “tickets?” He was the ticket inspector – oops. No problems apart from us feeling a bit sheepish. This underground had one of the largest and longest escalators I've ever seen so it waranted a photo... Ignore the foolish girl ruining the shot...She's blocking the moving stairway which could possibly be going to heaven... hmm...

This huge storm started showing itself so we hid in this shopping centre which made us feel like we were back in London again given that it had a Marks & Spencer, Topshop and H & M. It seems that our streak of good weather is coming to an end... lame. Similarly, it’s really warm and sunny back in London right now! Grrrr...We then had dinner which consisted of delicious noodles with chicken – they were SO GOOD. I was most impressed. We then went back to the hostel for a little rest because we were getting seriously worn down by this point and wanting to wait for the rain to die down.

We headed out again a little while later so we could dispose of our remaining Czech money given that changing it again would just lose us money. We found some great souvenirs but still had money remaining. We joked that we would just go into a glass shop, put our money on the table and ask how much glass we could guy for that and then smash them then and there in the store. Would have been great. The walk back was pretty funny because we were just giggling at everything because we were so tired. On the walk we spotted this random piece of Czech public art... yeah that’s a statue so don’t worry too much...
And now we have a photo of me doing what I do best – play Mario Kart. This is what our evenings before we went to bed consisted of... Good times all round.

And, yes, those are indeed Elmo pajamas... Off to Salzburg tomorrow!

Czech us out - we're going to Prague!

2009-06-05T07:40:00.000-07:00

Day 11.
Berlin -> Prague

Urgh. Morning again? Neither of us wanted to get out of bed... they were so comfortable and we were like bears in our little warm caves – how appropriate an analogy for Berlin given their bear obsession. When we did get up we were very excited to be going to Prague because it is BEAUTIFUL. One of those places that doesn’t get much credit but it is amazing. It’s a beautiful city and another one that I have been to before but love.
As you’ve probably worked out today was a train day. This meant watching the rest of “Sound of Music” which I really enjoyed! I was very much looking forward to our tour. We then felt the need to listen to some pop hits and cranked it up on Miranda’s headphones and grooved about in our seats. We’re cool.
We arrived in Prague and had to change money because Prague doesn’t want to be like everyone else on the Euro – no! They need korunas. Or whatever.

We managed to get to our hostel – private room again not too shabby – and everything today went surprisingly smooth. No unexpected obstacles arose so we were in very high spirits. The best part of our hostel was that it was just about a block from the main centre of the town where the Astrological clock is! Good to see that thing again. It doesn’t move around and do a whole lot of stuff like the one in Munich does (which I will see later in the trip) which none of the other tourists realised. The only thing that happens on the hour is that the little skeleton rings a bell and the twelve apostles go past the little windows so you watch the tourists faces and they’re all like “is that it?” Ha ha... tourists! Anyway the clock itself is amazing just by what it does – it keeps Babylonian time, the solstice, the sun and the moon’s whereabouts, the zodiac as well as the time. They’re could be more – it’s an amazing clock. The four figures above the clock represent the four perils of the time in the 15th century. These include – a Turk (this is what it is... people in this time were afraid of people from the Middle East so I’m sorry if that seems offensive), Death, Greed (which was actually the figure of the Devil aligned with a Jewish person but, again, this was offensive so they changed it to be just the figure of Greed – why didn’t they change the Turk one?) and Vanity. This clock was broken for 100 years at one point. Do you want to know the story? Apparently, the man who made the clock was rumoured to be making a bigger and better clock for a different city. This really annoyed the major and politicians of Prague so they decided to send some guys dressed in black to break into the clockmaker’s home and gouge out his eyes. Yep. Whether or not the clockmaker was going to make another clock is anybody’s guess – bit rough if you ask me. But the clockmaker got his own back when he went to visit his Astrological clock. He went inside the mechanics rooms and (because he remembered it all) took one of the little cogs out and disappeared. This caused the clock to stop working and for a hundred years no one could understand the complicated mechanics to get it working again – thus the clockmaker’s revenge! Pretty cool huh?

After seeing the clock again we went to the old Jewish Cemetery which had the most confusing payment system. “Why do we need to pay to see a cemetery?” – we cried. So we paid. We also paid to go into the lame museum and all this other gumph before we could get to the cemetery and there you weren’t allowed to take photos without paying more money. We may or may not have had permission. So appreciate the lengths we go to for you people! This cemetery is so full there were few spots of grass poking through because of all the tombstones and it is estimated that there are twelve layers of bodies in the ground – whoa. There were a couple of tombstones that people had left coins and little bits of paper (which I assume were prayers). I assume these were the tombs of someone important. It was still a pretty cool cemetery though.

We bought some ice-cream from this guy who tried to rip me off. He was a real jerk. Miranda got her ice-cream and was like “mm very good” and the guy muttered under his breath “yeah f****** very good”! What a jerk! Then he didn’t give me the right change and tried to make out that I’d paid for both our ice-creams when Miranda had already paid! Bah! Don't think we're stupid Buddy - cos we ain't! From then on he became known to us as Gelato Bastard. He was right on a main street so we would have to walk past him several times so every time we did we would mutter bad things under our breath until we got past him. Silly man.

Then we walked over Charles Bridge which was under construction! Damn Olympics! They’re responsible for everything. It was still lovely seeing all the statues and little vendors. We had a nutella crepe was old time sake and had a squiz through the souvenir shops. They have a huge glass trade here in Prague and my goodness every store is covered with glass and Miranda and I joke that we just want to go in and smash everything.

Because we finished early for the day we decided to take a ghost tour. We didn’t want to take the later one so we started at 7 and it isn’t exactly spooky when it’s daylight but oh well. The tour guide was wearing a top hat and cloak. In the end it was only Miranda, me and the tour guide because no one else showed up. I felt kind of bad for the guy but oh well – we got full attention. Turns out the tour guide was from Surrey – which is where we live in England! He told us that there were catacombs underneath the grounds of Prague! Man they need to get those safe and get some tourists down there because that would be amazing. We tried finding the catacombs in Paris but no one seemed to think they existed which made me think I was nuts because I’ve been in them!

He led us to this church which was St Jacobs and contained a severed arm. No, you read correctly, a severed arm is hanging from the wall of this church. The story goes that in the church a long time ago was a statue of Mary covered in gold. One night a thief snuck in and began chipping off the gold when suddenly the Mary statue grabbed his arm. Naturally, he began to freak out and scream for help and woke up all the priests. They couldn’t get his arm out and called the executioner who chopped off his arm. The Mary statue then went back to normal and the thief’s arm is hung in the church as a reminder to people not to steal. We go in that church tomorrow!

He told us another story. We got to this square where, it’s said, the ghost of a woman in a wedding dress wanders about. The story goes that there was a beautiful woman who lived in a house around that spot many years ago who every man wanted but she wanted any of them. Until one day a very handsome Turkish man came along and they fell in love. At this point I interrupted and said that it was Aladdin. As we gathered from the clock – the people of Prague were pretty against the Turks – so they’re love had to be hidden away. So Aladdin (the tour guide called him Aladdin from this point) said he had to go back to his homeland and would return in three months time and would she wait for him? She said yes and time went by. Two years went by and he still hadn’t returned so she decided to marry some other guy. On the wedding day of her and this other dude Aladdin returns and is outraged that she is with someone else. They meet in the cellar of her house – which was their usual meeting spot – and he tells her that he got caught up by robbers and so on and that he can’t believe she didn’t wait for him, pulls out his sword and stabs her! He then hides the body and flees. Eventually, her body is found and that’s why her ghost is seen in a wedding dress! I was more outraged to the fact that Aladdin would never do that so we confirmed that it must have been his evil twin Baladdin. Damn Baladdin.

Next story! There is this one building in the main square of the city that juts out and breaks the line of the square. There was a man who was very rich and wanted a grand house that would make a statement so he commissioned so men to build this house out of line with square. So the builders build away knowing they will make loads of money when the house is done but every day the foundations and bricks they laid the previous day are cracked and broken. So they go to the pub. When they’re in the pub they hear an old man mumbling and saying that they mustn’t break the unity of the square or else Satan will come out and get the lot of them. The builders don’t know what to do and ask the old man’s advice. He tells them that they need to seal the ground with the blood of an innocent child to prevent Satan from getting through. Thinking nothing of it the builders go out to an orphanage, adopt a little girl, and kill her on the foundations of this house – burying her there. They then build the house. To this day people no longer live in the house because they heard the sound of a crying little girl. Some say that it was actually Satan disguised as the old man so they would kill an innocent child. Pretty spooky.

The tour came to an end and it was very pleasant. We started going out separate ways when we realised we hadn’t paid him so we rushed back and he said “oh thank goodness you came back! It’s people like you that keep my faith in humanity” Too true. What good citizens we are.

After that we went back to the hostel for some more free internet – and crazy Czech keyboards where the letters all in different places. We got confronted with some more pushy Americans, had a lovely shower and hit the hay!

Berlin Part 3.

2009-06-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

Day 10.
Berlin

Today we had to change hostels because this one was supposedly full so we packed up and set off on our ways. The most amazing thing about today was the weather! It was so HOT. We were both in short pants and sleeveless shirts it was really refreshing not having to wear more clothes! We both felt like we were home.

Just before I write about what we did next... on the way to the train there is a little line of bricks that run across roads and everything and this is marking where the wall actually ran so I'll add that too because Miranda took such a lovely photo. Plus it's cool jumping from East Berlin and then to West Berlin. Maybe 'cool' is the wrong word...

On the way we stopped by the Kaiser Wilhelm Church. It’s a pretty standard church with a big dome and what not. The interesting thing is that half of the dome is missing. In case you hadn’t guessed this was a lovely memento of WWII. They were going to rebuild the dome but decided that it would act as a reminder of the destruction caused. It was pretty cool. The lame part was some fool in the 60s built this tall glass building right next to it so it’s hard to get a good photo of! The extra building is supposed to compliment the church when all it does is bombard it – which is lame.

We got to the second hostel and it was really lovely. The area was a bit livelier than the last and by livelier I mean there wasn’t person within five metres of me as opposed to 25 metres. The hostel was a little quiet place that contained the most comfortable beds, best showers and an entire decor as dictated by IKEA. Pretty swish. We got into our room (we hadn’t paid... the lady didn’t deem in a necessity...Though she did ask for a password. We were like... “Err... what?” “Passport?” “Oh right”) and we just flopped onto our beds loving the warmth when it started raining! There’s nothing more reminiscent of home than heat and rain at the same time. The smell of hot ground getting wet... it was so nice listening to the rain – not the hopeless drizzle we get in England but actual rain drops. Miranda and I just wanted to have a long nap but realised we should get out and do things – I mean we didn’t come on this trip to sleep we can sleep when we’re dead! We did feel obligated to more than things than motivated to – we felt that Europe was forcing itself on us.

After we each had a delicious chocolate spread packet (remember I swiped them? They kept me going for a couple of days) we set out in the rain to go to Charlottenburg Palace. On the way we had a traditional German bratwurst. I liked it except for the mustard which was excessive and strange. It’s nice in Berlin because everything is much cheaper than in Paris – though that’s no surprise.

Anyway, Charlottenburg Palace is the Home of Sophie Charlotte – who I mentioned yesterday. Sophie Charlotte was the first Queen of Prussia which is why she has this sweet crib. The only problem was she died at thirty-seven so never got to see most of the palace finished. It was a lovely palace – not as lavish as Versailles but still really amazing. There was this room that had Sophie’s collection of Chinese porcelain in it (it was her favourite thing). Wow. The guide said there are over 2700 items of porcelain in there. Then there was the Queen’s antechamber that had mirrors and green walls running all around the room with big windows on the opposite side and the idea was that the garden outside would be reflected into the room thus keeping nature present in their palace which I thought was cool. They also did this in the Oval Ballroom with jutted out from the rest of the palace and had big bay windows that would open directly onto the garden. It was a really great palace. Had to be my favourite after Versailles. No pictures are allowed inside though - bummer.
All throughout the palace (and all the other palaces we have seen) are paintings of the nobles and elites of the time. They are all so unattractive... I mean the audio guide was saying that Sophie was renowned for her beauty and she wasn’t bad looking but the rest of them – bleh. Miranda said it was because they were all so inbred – no wonder they would skive off with the hired help... There was also a painting of none other than one of the Brothers Grimm! How spacey is that? You never think of the Brothers Grimm as real people who wrote these stories... It was pretty cool.
The most amazing thing was seeing the pictures of this palace – that we were in – after World War II. Wow. Most of the top floor was destroyed and they decided to build it fairly neutrally afterwards. It was crazy. War just wrecks everything! This trip really made it touch home for me... what with Anne Frank’s house and everything it just – I still boggle and what went down...
The palace was really awesome and the history was incredible. I love going to places and getting a real understanding of their culture and history because my schooling was focused on the history of England and so on.

We went outside and found these little cell type deals next to the gates of the palace which must have been for the guards to be stationed in. We laughed and decided this is where would live – in a beautiful palace but the room was rubbish – much like our room at Founders! A real dump in a lovely building.
We had a walk about the gardens which were nice and designed by the same gardener as Versailles but it started raining some more so we went across the road to the Berggruen Museum which housed works by Picasso, Matisse, Kilm and Van Gogh. It was cool but they were lesser known works which usually means less interesting. Also the gallery itself was pretty weird... I mean when you think of an art gallery you think of high ceilings, large space and no windows. This had the opposite of everything I just said.

We then decided to get dinner and had a cheap feed of lasagne with tiramisu for dessert – wrong country but oh well.
Then this massive storm rolled in and it begun absolutely pouring down with rain – heavy, heavy rain. We had to wait out the storm for a bit at the train station because we only had one umbrella between us.
We got back – partially dry – and used the free internet only to have this group of Americans come up to us and ask us in a really commanding and superior tone “um... how long are you going to be? Because we need to check flight times” Whoa. Just because I’m on facebook doesn’t mean I’m doing something wrong. This was about the time on the trip when Miranda and I started to despise our own nations’ people. Pushy Americans...
Then we watched half of the “Sound of Music” as I’d never seen it and when we get to Salzburg we are going on a tour because that is where it was filmed and set. Off to Prague tomorrow!

Berlin Part 2.

2009-06-05T03:34:00.000-07:00

Day 9.
Berlin

We actually awoke this morning to the sound of the alarm and not the sound of various other girls making too much racket as they packed up. And now you can all have a look at Miranda’s daily ritual – grooming... I saw this every morning for sixteen days so I figured I’d better take a picture... I was bored okay? Plus now you can understand why Miranda looks so good in every photo – because she actually put some effort into her appearance whereas I rolled out of bed, onto the floor, wiggled into some clothes and crawled out the door.
Cold meats, cheese and chocolate for all! For free – again! Whoopee! Then we set out to the underground and went to go and see the Pergamon Museum which we thought would be packed as we were running a bit late that morning. But no. Apparently, no one goes to museums or Berlin... not sure. Anyway this was pretty cool but very small as we were done in less than two hours or so. It houses some pretty cool stuff despite its size and one part that I enjoyed most was this exhibition of Greek sculptures and their mythological stories... Mmm I love all that stuff – it’s so interesting. The guards in this place were pretty weird though – I mean we were just wandering between rooms and suddenly a guard would run in and watch our every move – what did they think? That I came to a museum to kick all the sculptures over? Who goes to a museum to do that? If you didn’t like museums and their artefacts then why would you pay money to go inside?. It was very weird. Here is a lovely statue of Aphrodite that I liked.
Also in the museum was the gate of Ishtar which is the eight gate to the inner city of Babylon and built about 575BC. So it’s real old. The gate is beautiful and was excavated and rebuilt in this museum and it took yonks because there were so many little pieces of brick. One hell of a puzzle. The other amazing thing was this huge altar that Berlin, I guess, had managed to pinch from the Acropolis in Greece... It’s strange because everywhere we’ve been has been sort of leading up to our second arch when we go to Athens! Even though we were in Europe at that time we were still having bouts of excitement thinking about our Greek cruise (you heard correct). Anyway this is a huge altar all reassembled and amazing. I was listening to the audio guide and it goes “press the green button to hear why this altar was created” after pressing the green button I hear “no one knows why this altar was built but there are many theories” pfff I don’t want theories! Skip. There was also this room in the museum that is a room from a Syrian house in about the... 16th century? It’s perfectly intact despite its age and is all painted and lovely. You have to be thinking what an eclectic mix this place had and, yes, it really did. Finally, there was one room that had all these little statues behind glass who were all doing – what I thought looked like – a thrusting motion... so I joined in.

By this time we had seen basically everything so we moved on and went to the Berliner Dome. WOW. This thing is incredible. It was one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen – which is really saying something. It was more beautiful (in my opinion) than the chapel in Versailles which is really saying something. We just sat on the top gallery in silence and in awe of the whole place. A service started and the only this I understood was “amen” because the rest was in German. They played the organ which reverberated around the place and just sitting there in this huge space... I always feel so insignificant – which I guess is the idea. We then headed up to the top of the tower up what I call the creepiest tourist route in the world. There were about a million doors, few signs and no one around so we had to guess where the heck we were going to get to the top. The view was very nice from the top (and this is going to sound snobbish) but once you have seen a view of one town they all start looking alike. Breath taking as they may be I bet if I lined up all my view photos you couldn’t really tell the difference... except for the big landmarks but whatever. On the way back down Miranda and I felt the need to sing the score from “Phantom of the Opera” which seemed appropriate given the creepiness of this passageway.
To continue with creepy with headed downstairs to the crypt which was really freaky. I mean crypts usually have elaborate tombs surrounding by fences and statues and so on right? Well this crypt had all these very real coffins and loads of children’s coffins. Bleh it was really weird. I mean I guess in England and everything there was a huge infant death rate but there aren’t so many child tombs. This place, however, had heaps. There was one that was really beautiful. That sounds weird but it was in its own room and must have been fairly recent (last 100 years or so) because there was a painting of some more modern type figures crying over the tomb and the tomb itself was white and had all these flowers carved into it and woven all over. It was very pretty but very sad. We also saw the tomb of Sophie Charlotte who we will learn more about tomorrow... Getting out of there we decided to guy some yummy ice-creams and so began my addiction to Neapolitan ice-cream sandwiches.

Next up was Checkpoint Charlie. Again this is related to the wall and everyone should understand what I’m talking about. We were walking up to the sign which says “you are leaving the American sector” which I felt Miranda needed a photo in front of when this guy in an army uniform poked me in the arm and went “peace!” I chuckled and moved in, slightly weirded out... it wasn’t until we walked back past him that he poked Miranda but when we looked at her arm he had stamped her with a stamp that said “Checkpoint Charlie”. I wanted one too! He only poked me! So I went back and demanded one by pointing at the stamp and pointing at my arm. Him being hilarious started poking my arm again. So I made a disgruntled noise and pointed at my arm again – he made the same noise and poked arm – eventually I got my stamp and here they are. Then this really nice man asked if we wanted a photo of the two of us and started going all fashion photographer on us being like “just move back... oh no the light wasn’t right – how about in front of the sign this time?” Miranda said “thank you that’s fine” a lot and we managed to get away. He was a very friendly chap though. I didn’t really have any expectation of the German population but they really are very, very nice people. They really made Berlin for me... because there weren’t a huge lot of sights to see as by this time we had walked to the Reichstag and had run out of things to do. It was only 4pm. We felt that we had stayed in Berlin too long as we had another day there tomorrow and really wanted to just move on to Prague but oh well. It was nice and warm at least.

We had lunch at this little side vendor and he was selling wieners and an ice-cream called a “bum-bum”. What a world. Bum-bums are now a running joke between the two of us being like “excuse me, kind shop keep, do you have a bum-bum I might enjoy this fine afternoon?” Hee hee hee. You can also buy beer everywhere. Including in Disneyland which weirded Miranda out.

We also went and saw the Brandenburg gate which was quite impressive. There was a man there who was stamping peoples’ passports! You would pay a Euro and get any type of stamp you wanted. We both chose the Checkpoint Charlie stamp which he put today’s date on which was pretty neat – hooray a stamp after all! I really want to know if it is the same stamp which my Mum and Dad got when they went to Berlin. I rang my Mum when I was sitting on the grass (in the sunshine!) in front of the Reichstag and she said the last time she was in Berlin the wall was still up which is MIND BLOWING. I mean that wall has been down as long as I’ve been alive so it’s all pretty crazy. Looking at Berlin you wouldn’t really know the historical stuff that’s gone down.

We took a stroll to a lovely park and ended up getting some dinner (delicious sushi) and going to see a movie! That’s right! We had so little to do we went and saw a film. And, no, the film was not in German it was all in English with no subtitles or anything – the whole cinema was in English I think. I guess the Berlin tourist people figured people could get down with the sights of Berlin in one day and they needed a back-up plan to keep people around – thus the cinema. They started showing the commercials before the film started and they played this ad for this type of ice-cream. So the add plays and then the lights come up and this usher walked in, with the ice-creams that were in the ad, and goes “who wants one?” It was so random! Eventually, they started rolling the commercials again and they played an ad for beer and Miranda and I just waited for the lights to dim again and that guy to come back with some beer. It was weird coming out of the film because I had to stop and remember... oh right I’m in Germany...

Back to the hostel for some sleepy time.

Burrrr-lin

2009-06-05T03:21:00.000-07:00

Day 8.
Amsterdam -> Berlin

Sadly, today, 24th of May is MY one month going home anniversary... and yet there’s still so much to see and do! After a yummy breakfast at the hostel and me taking/borrowing/pinching a bunch of chocolate spreads we set off to the train station where we expected a battle between us and the rails of Europe to begin. We waited at the little booth and explained what we wanted to do and the lady told us that the woman in Paris was tripping because the railway works weren’t until the following week so we were fine to take a direct train to Berlin! Too easy! We pretty much got down on our knees and thanked this woman profusely for actually knowing what she was talking about (in English and everything). So we got on a train! Yippee! This is pretty much what our train rides look like... Me playing my Nintendo and Miranda listening to her ipod or playing on her ipod touch.

It’s a lovely relaxing time. Well, it would have been a relaxing time if it weren’t for the infant behind us... it had this tendency to just squeal at the top of its lungs at random intervals. Meaning that it would be like quiet, quiet, gentle German mumbling, quiet, qui- EEEEEEIIIIIIIARRRRRRRRGGGGG! Pleasant I can assure you – not. We would jump out of our pants every time it did which was a lot of times. Stupid baby. It would stop being a pest when it was carried about the train but these parents were just lazy and kept sitting down – gees people... work the child in shifts!
Many, many hours (six and a half) of this ritual later...
We arrived in Germany! The loudspeaker announced that now we were in German territory the Germans would look after us – Miranda and I looked at one another – we could only imagine what that meant.
It meant nothing as, once again, our passports weren’t checked and hence - we arrived in Berlin! We left the train station (not before making reservations for our next train – we got very good at this... in the end we were glad the whole Paris shenanigans had happened because it helped us be prepared for the rest of the trip – though it did make Paris look pretty bad) and set out to what we thought was towards our hostel. The only problem was we took a three mile detour in the wrong direction and got rather confused, grumpy and frustrated. We made a joke about it though saying that we had taken the scenic route and highlights included the hospital and the toothless derelict that tried talking to us in German. So we ended up retracing our steps and went all the way back to the train station and started again. This time we couldn’t be bothered walking about caught the underground train to our hostel. We had to walk a bit but eventually arrived. First impressions of the city are that it’s very bare. It’s a very sterile atmosphere as everything is spacious and there isn’t a lot of life going on... it’s hard to explain but it was like the town was running efficiently but no one was living... Weird.

When we popped out of the underground we were met with parts of the wall. If you know anything about Berlin then you will know by what wall I mean. It was really amazing that this thing was responsible for so much oppression and segregation... I guess segregation is given what with it being a wall and all... Anywho it was very awesome seeing it as it had graffiti all over it and is was pretty neat graffiti too. Have a look. Here is another place where people keep talking to me in their native tongue... not only do I look French but apparently German as well as many people kept coming up to me and talking to me in German. Eep. It makes me nervous because when Germans speak it just sounds like they are swearing at one another...
Also all around Berlin are these bears statues... they have all been painted with various pictures on them but we worked out that the bear is on the Berlin flag. Still weirded us out seeing these life size bears everywhere.

Something else fun - look at the pedestrain lights! He's wearing a hat! A necessity for any road crossing individual...Anyway we got to the hostel which was big and efficient (these Germans are very much so – friendly and helpful too) and the guy wanted all these details – much more than any other – he wanted to see passports, take a deposit, fill out forms and so on and so forth and I almost blurted out – it ran through my mind – “jees you guys are real Nazis about this huh?”. WHOA PHOEBE, WHOA. WRONG COUNTRY. Close call... Anyway we managed to score a private room at no extra cost and eagerly spread all our belongings about the wrong – loving the temporary freedom. It was pretty late by this time and we were hungry so we walked back to Potsdamer Platz for dinner. No much around really so we had to settle for Dunkin’ Donuts for dinner. Mmm bagels. And of course donuts. Feeling much better we went back to the hostel to try out their internet facilities which were surprisingly reasonable in price. Dear god – this is why – it just wouldn’t load pages, was so slow and in the end I got absolutely nothing from this. I wasted two Euros and got NOTHING. I was so angry... Miranda was angrier today when we took a detour but internet and computers not working? That’s what really grinds my gears... In the end we made a big joke of it – as we always do – and Miranda began shaking the screen being like “come on!” and then mock sliding it off the table. We have this joke that when you are done with something you just throw it on the floor and walk away – that’s so what I wanted to do – just slam the stupid thing into the ground. The girl next to us looked concerned as we got up and Miranda hollers “thanks computers – for a sh** load of NOTHING! Nobody use the computers – the computers have gone bad”. It was hilarious and I was literally gasping for breath as I hauled myself up the many stairs to our room.

I told Miranda and my almost Nazi slip up and from then on we’ve begun making terrible jokes under our breath. One was about the showers. It was like the shower has excessive pressure but out of those tiny little holes so it was like being in a firing squad – I apologise for our crass nature and no offence is meant at all.
Back to sleepy byes – which really became our favourite part of the day because we do SO much walking in a day.

Clogs, Red Lights and more!

2009-06-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Day 7.
Amsterdam

Okay. Today was a big day. We did a lot and there is a lot to tell you. So hold onto your pants (oo-err) and get ready for some sweet story telling.
We woke up and had a really good free breakfast at the hostel – the first of many breakfasts containing chocolate, cheese and cold meats. Did I mention our hostel is situated in Vondlepark? Which we like to refer to as Fondlepark. We jumped on a tram and rode to Anne Frank’s house – one of the spots I could not wait to see. Her story gave World War II a human face – one of life and ultimate suffering. She was an amazing little girl and seeing the house is so emotional. Everyone seems to agree with me because the queue to get in was around the block and we were waiting for an hour and a half in which time Miranda and I realised that we could get further in Bejeweled if we worked together – level nine anyone? Once again we joked and sang in the line and had people turn and stare at us to which we then whisper to one another “xenophobe” which makes us laugh. This happened A LOT throughout the trip. Lot of us goofing off and a lot of people staring xenophobic - ly.

Okay enough of the queue we made it inside! The tour starts with a video about Anne Frank and there are quotes from her diary all over the walls – she was such a clever little thing and she had such an understanding of big issues like war and yet made them accessible... she’s seriously incredible. You go up some stairs and then there it is – the doorway into their secret annex – hidden behind a bookcase is the staircase. As Anne said in her diary you needed to jump and duck to get inside which is exactly right as there is a big world map above the door to eliminate all suspicion. Just entering the space made me a bit misty but it goes on. We went into the room where her parents and sister, Margot, slept and on the wall were pencil markings which kept a record of the girls’ height as they grew up in this annex. It’s just so real. I mean reading the diary was intense but it’s so hard to fathom it really happening and in the very space where I was standing! Then came Anne’s actual room. The little dear had glued all different posters about the room to make it “more cheerful”. Black and white photos of royal families and celebrities spied me as I inspected the empty rooms. The museum states that Otto Frank (Anne’s father) wanted the rooms to always remain empty. They had a lot more room than I expected in this faux tree house but it was so dark! They had covered the windows just as they would have when Anne was there and it would have been terrifying just being there. Waiting for impending doom to strike. And one day... it did. There was an anonymous phone call made to the police about Jews living in a secret annex and to this day this tipster remains unknown. In the attic of the house were all these television screens with an interview of a woman who had seen Anne for the last time before she died, in a concentration camp. She said she saw Anne just after Margot had died and Anne cried that she had no one left and nothing worth living for. This woman said that if Anne had known that her father was alive maybe she would have survived. If she had of lasted for just three weeks longer she would have been free. Seeing her journal was amazing as well. It’s the perfect example of a young girl’s diary with the little pictures, underlines and various squiggles – oh I’ve gone on and on about this but it was really special and one of my favourite things to see both in Amsterdam and the trip.

The awe struck feeling we both had was shaken off as we walked to the big “I Amsterdam” sign as the town has public urinals about the place and we just happened to see some guy using it. Keep in mind these things get full, burst and leak all over the pavement so remain vigilant!

Next stop was the Van Gogh museum where we saw the “Potato Eaters” and “Starry Night” which was pretty amazing. Though, in all honesty, I found that “Starry Night” was a bit underwhelming – don’t get me wrong – it’s beautiful and I loved looking at it right up close – I figured I’d never see all these people again so I stood right in front of it and inspected the brush strokes. You know how people say the Mona Lisa is underwhelming (which I totally disagree with) this is how this painting felt. Nonetheless it was great seeing it. At the end of the exhibition there is this great quote by him which reads:
“the sight of stars always makes me dream, in a simple a way as black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream. Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France? Just as we take a train to go to Taraswin or Rouen, we take death to go to a star”
Pretty deep. And all coming from a guy who never sold a portrait in his lifetime and only had one ear. Woot. He painted a lot of self-portraits I noticed. Each of them with him wearing a different hat – apparently seeing himself in the mirror wasn’t enough.

We then went to Bloememarket (Bloom Market AKA flowers) And by flowers I mean tulips! Of every colour – including black and blue! We had a walk about the town and lamented the fact that this was our last day in Amsterdam and wanted more time. We did find some excellent clogs that Miranda and I considered buying given they looked so fetching... what do you think?
In the end we decided to complete the evening by taking a tour of the red light district! We were both really curious as to what it was like but no way in hell were we going to walk through their by ourselves. Miranda was nervous about this tour but when we arrived we were relieved as it was a big group including some older couples. Though we were in a big group Miranda and I linked arms and didn’t let go until we got back to the hostel hours later.
Now the tour guide we had was this mad Irishman called John who would give us different reasons as to why the red light district is red – and why they use the colour red. As he would tease us with different reasons throughout – I’ll do the same. The first theory is that in the story of Jericho God told Joshua to take over Jericho and in order to do so they needed a spy – so they chose this prostitute called Rahab. She didn’t want to be killed once they took over so she knotted a red scarf around her door so they wouldn’t kill her! That’s theory number one. By the way I’m sorry if I got that Bible story horribly wrong – I do apologise.
Continuing with the tour! We started at a spot where Chet Baker fell out of his window and died on the pavement. Fun beginnings. John (the guide – don’t forget) said that Chet did loads of heroin and had all his teeth fall out so he couldn’t play the trumpet anymore and then got false teeth and played his best ever according to several fans.
Moving on! He pointed out this church that was built in the 1440s and had a skeleton carving above the door which he figured would remind the people of this time that “life was shite”. Too right. He then talked about how prostitution came about and he said maybe in prehistoric times where cavewomen would offer themselves so they could have some delicious dinosaur or whatever – you get the idea. He also pointed out this pub (he was all over the place) where a sailor turned up, spent all his money and couldn’t pay his tab so the bartender said “never mind, pay me when you get back”. So the sailor does all this again and the bartender says “that’s okay”. The third time the sailor turns up and says “well... I don’t have money to give you but I do have... this monkey”. The bartender accepts this monkey as payment and word gets out that this guy will take monkeys as payment til the whole place is full of monkeys and today the pub’s walls are lined with monkey pictures. This is how the Dutch phrase, translated being “in the monkey” came about meaning owing money with no way of paying it – I thought that was a cute little story.
We walked down the oldest street in Amsterdam which is called “vegetable” street though everyone, today, calls it fruit street because all the gay clubs and what not are on this street. Also on this street was the Condomerie – sorry if you thought this blog about Amsterdam was going to be about... well... clogs and windmills. In this place are all these novelty condoms ranging from Big Ben to a scuba diver to the entire Simpsons family... Holland is weird.
Time for red light reason no. 2 – In the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, he and his troops were in Holland and his men had a good time – as you can imagine – but loads of them died from various sexually transmitted diseases. Hence forth Napoleon demanded that every prostitute be checked and have her health card displayed on the door outside. Now what colour was this card? That’s right – red. So that’s theory two.
We rounded the corner to actually see some of the windows where the women were displaying themselves! She seemed bothered by the passer men as she was on her cell phone which I thought was pretty funny... Now what’s next to these windows in the heart of the red light district but a ... kindergarten! That’s right these people are so open about their sexual history the children know too. There was a television crew who asked the children (who were about five) what they thought the women in the windows were doing to which they answered “selling kisses”. Awww...?
John then told us we were lucky to be in Amsterdam at this time because in just two years all the windows are being replaced with fashion boutiques and the red light district is outta there. You heard correct – Amsterdam wants a better class of tourist so they are ridding the city of this reputation so if you want to see it then you better haul ass to Holland.
This was about the time in the tour when John started relaying way too many personal anecdotes about his time in Amsterdam. The tour was so awesome up until this point... We were really enjoying the history and everything – why did he have to start telling us about his weird friends and so on. Urgh there was this awful guy on our tour who was just hanging off the tour guide’s every filthy word and was begging for more stories. Bleh. I’m surprised our tour guide didn’t get beaten up actually because he would verbally insult all the drunken men folk who stumbled past our tour group. Funny story – he said there was this man who kept following him on his tours and one time told him that he had seen this mushroom lamp and wanted to buy it and did John know where it was. John shrugged and told him to buy from where he saw it. This went on and on and was quite amusing.
Theory number three – The red light district is near a train station and men working on the trains would go and visit these women in the night taking with them the lamp lights they used at the train tracks – these lamps were red. Soon you’ll know the real reason – hang in there! I know this blog is long but a lot happened!
John took us to this particular place that finds the loophole in the law that states that the women must stay in their windows or else they’ll be arrested. This particular place had a slight roof that hung over one of the footpaths thereby being classified as inside meaning that the women were all in there walking about nudey dudey. John invited everyone to go in – they all did – except Miranda and I. Why would we want to see naked ladies? I mean... we both bathe. Yeesh.
Anyway the tour came to an end – 45 minutes later than expected because John had so many tales he just had to tell – we’re scarred now. Miranda and I had had dinner before we went on the tour but after walking around the red light district smelling nothing but marijuana – we were ready for dinner part two – quite amusing really. We would joke that everything in Amsterdam was laced with weed! Including the water! Amsterdam is a small town and we managed to walk from one end to the other quite easily. Back at the hostel Miranda and I noticed that the other girls in the room weren’t as coy as we were about getting changed and thus we have come to the conclusion that we saw more nudity in our hostels than in the red light district!
Oh yeah! The final reason about the red light – I’m sure you’ve hung on this far without just scrolling through all my hard work – seriously typing this has taken more than an hour. Okay so the actual reason why a red light was chosen – really boring and practical reason – because red light makes you look really attractive. It covers acne, scars and various other physical problems. There you go. Pretty straight forward!

Windmills and Prozzies...Welcome to Amsterdam

2009-06-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Day 6.
Eurodisney -> Amsterdam

Today, the 22nd of May, is the one month anniversary of Miranda going back to America – Boo! I know all her family and friends reading this will disagree with my call but I don’t want her to go home! We’re moving to Moscow together and that’s all there is to it!

After a long journey of bus, train and then metro which featured a man having a rather excellent conversation with himself and his other forty personalities we made it to the main train station. He was laughing away and what not... Ahh Paris... ...See ya! Anyway at the station we had to wait in line forever and a day to validate our Eurail passes – the heavens seemed to be on our side as we managed to rush up to a train which would leave in just three minutes – only to have the guard tell us that we needed a reservation and may not get on the train – the next one was in two hours. Sigh. This meant that we had to drag our sorry asses back to the queue of eternity. After about a hundred years of working out what the hell was going on with train times, reservations and so on – the woman behind the counter knew nothing but at least she was trying to be helpful which is something I can’t say for the entire French population. She said that we would have to take a later train when in Amsterdam because they were having construction done on some of the tracks – fine, whatever – booked our seats for the train TO Amsterdam (33 Euros!) and FINALLY got on the train. Sadly, we had to miss having lunch in Brussels because of this whole debacle so we maintain that we window shopped Belgium – we saw it all through the train windows – we drove through the station. So there.

It was about five hours on the train which consisted of Miranda and I playing various electronic devices – ipod, Nintendo – and was the rest we really needed from all our Parisian frolicking. There were two younger girls sitting over from us and I overheard one of them saying she spoke five languages! Boy, do I feel inferior or what?
Before we arrived the train passed a windmill! Hooray! First stereotype of Europe and subsequently Holland has been met! The train pulled into Amsterdam station and we had arrived... and no one looked at our passports. This was a big shame because we were really hoping to get a stamp for each country but it wasn’t to be... if you want to jump the borders and what not in Europe – just take the train!

We walked from the station to our hostel and those first few steps outside really opened my eyes. I mean there were these posters on the lampposts that read things like “sex with prostitutes could result in STDs” and “STDs tear families apart”. Yikes. The actual town itself was really sweet. So many little bridges over the canals with various darling little boats bobbing along. I almost died a million times in Amsterdam because they drive on the wrong side of the road AND there are a million bicycles on top of that so every time we came to a road I would wait for Miranda to go and then follow her. I didn’t die so you know she did well.

It was hard wheeling our bags through the town because it was so busy! People everywhere bustling about doing who knows what. Oh wait I know they were probably milling around trying to pluck up the courage to go into one of the various sex museums or sex shops which are littered about the place. Just to clarify - we never went into any of these "attractions". Seeing this small aspect of Amsterdam (we see the red light district tomorrow) made me really pity the residents of this city because it seems to be the place where groups of male tourists go to behave like real tossers. Sad times.

Our hostel was really nice though this time we were in an eight bed female dorm which was fine – the beds were really comfortable. We were a bit tired and grumpy after all the train nonsense of that morning so we decided to do what grown-ups do and have pancakes for dinner! We went to this little shanty restaurant next to one of the canals and asked for tap water only to receive tap water – in a can – because apparently this restaurant was temporary and had plastic pipes... Weird. Tap water in a can? She explained this to us because everyone in Amsterdam speaks English. I feel bad for their culture once more... The pancakes, on the other hand, were amazing which leads me to another trope of our European tour. We seem to take a lot of photos when we are queuing and eating. Keep an eye out for more food photos – because we ate a lot of stuff in a lot of places.
After our healthy dinner we had a swan about the town which is like a maze because we got a little bit lost. We started walking back when the shops were closed and got back to the hostel by about 10 – it was still light. Sun was just beginning to set. Freaks me out to this day.

Disney's just like a Bucket O' Dawgs

2009-06-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

Day 5.

Eurodisney

Today, is another Disney day - Hooray! Out we set, eagerly waiting for the bus to arrive - waiting - and waiting - and waiting... so we asked the hotel reception who slapped their foreheads and cried "oh yeah today's a bank holiday no buses are running". Gee thanks. Instead, we caught a cab which was nice - being in a warm car... It freaked me out driving on the other side of the road though... every time a car would pass us on the other side of the road I'd mentally prepare for a collision... anyway we made it.

We started the day in the other park that is linked with Disneyland - the Studio Backlot - which has some rides but a lot of shows and stuff like that. Miranda was really excited to go on the Tower of Terror ride which I outright refused... I mean I faced my fears of upside-down and everything but this ride jolts up and down and I cannot stand the feeling of falling - bleh - makes me queasy thinking about it. So I waited in line to keep Miranda company and then waited at the exit for her to come out. Her photo came up on the screen. Minutes went by... other people came out - some laughing, some crying... there were some seriously traumatised kids coming out of there... waiting some more... ten minutes go by... I ask an attendant

"Excuse me? Do you know if the ride is stuck?"

"Stuck?"

"Broken? My friend hasn't come out for ages"

"Oh don't worry... I don't know." Okay... helpful... another ten minutes go by and Miranda's photo disappears. I ask again "Do you know if the ride is stuck?"
"Stuck?"

"Broken"

"Oh I don't know. I'm sure it's fine. This is the only exit"

By this time I'm beginning to freak out that the ride broke and Miranda is in a million pieces... More time goes by and I start panicking with other anxious looking people (their families eventually showed though... Miranda didn't)... Still waiting and I'm almost in tears when Miranda comes out looking frustrated and ticked off. Apparently, the ride got stuck and was about a metre away from the platform but they wouldn't just let everyone jump the gap - protocol I guess - so they had to sit and wait until eventually someone pointed out some stairs and they were let out - sigh. Once again - Happiest place on Earth?

To boost my adrenaline for the day we then went on the Aerosmith rollercoaster. That's right - Aerosmith really have nothing better to do than be the face of a rollercoaster - and might I just add... Steve Tyler's face? Bleh and Argh! The ride itself was awesome fun but another really fast one, in the dark that whips you around upside-down and in corkscrews and such meanwhile it plays "Dude looks like a lady" which was pretty cool. The only problem with these is once your head is jangled out of the holder your neck is pretty much loosey goosey as you get thrust through the rest of the ride so the next little bit was spent with cottonmouth (from extreme screaming) and a sore neck. I loved it though. It was awesome.

Then we went to the Moteurs Action Stunt Show which is a car show and it was INCREDIBLE. These cars were doing awesome stunts! Dodging around one another and it was really mind blowing. There was this one part where the cars would drive onto a little platform and be driving through various obstacles on their side - which no one really applauded for! Miranda and I joked that the French audience were all like "Driving on the side? Bah! We drove here today on our side!" It was a really great show - one of my highlights. The cars they use in the stunts are all made of fibreglass and weigh only 750kg! Bit of an interesting side note there. They also brought out Herbie! Herbie the fun little beetle and Miranda and I shouted out "C'est Erbie! Bonjour Erbie!" and the woman next to us stared. It was great.

After this we toddled into another show which was Art of Animation where they just showed this montage of various Disney movies. It made me really teary eyed! Jees I sound so lame but they showed all these really sad bits like Dumbo drying and Bambi's mum having just died... boy oh boy... It was nice though. Ha ha after this show we went to the Animagique show which, again, is another thing that Miranda and I laugh about hysterically and it probably won't seem very funny now but oh well here goes... The show is pretty much a black light show with people dressed as the characters like Mickey and Donald Duck and they sing all the Disney songs. At the end they had a finale song which was like "Animagique! Animagique!" and King Louis and Baloo from the Jungle Book are there and Baloo goes "Anima-joke?" and the rest respond with "No!" and continue singing the song. We, however, joked that when Baloo says "Anima-joke?" the lights come on and the rest of the characters confront him and go "Animajoke? Really Baloo? You know what - you're a joke! You do this every time... you're whole career is a joke!". It's hilarious and thus "animajoking" became a common phrase throughout the trip.

We went outside only to be confronted with a - shudder - High School Musical show and they were singing the songs... Miranda started dancing along so I wandered off and pretended not to know her... Ahh friendship... Sadly, because today is a bank holiday the queues for everything were really long so I had to forgo having a photo taken with Donald Duck as he was far too busy being molested by many children under the age of five... ahh well. We did get a photo with Sulley though!

We decided to head back to Disneyland and have another swan around there. Miranda made it a rule that there was no swearing allowed in the Magic Kingdom which I found rather difficult. Especially when Jack Sparrow turned up! Holy sh**! He was a pretty darn good looking Jack Sparrow impersonator too... he was getting photos with all these little kids for ages and eventually he turned and caught our eye, pushing the wee ones out of the way and embracing the two of us asking where we were from... Oh yes... it was love. If you look at the photo Jack looks much cosier with me and the photo would be better if Miranda were just photo shopped out right? She disagrees but whatever... When we walked away I said to Miranda "Man... he was all over us like a bucket o' dawgs". Miranda had to sit down she was laughing so hard.

Then we went into the Alice in Wonderland maze and we managed to get to the middle pretty easily - all those mazes in England made excellent practice! After we got out we went on the carousel and did all these elaborate hand waving gestures to everyone and they gave us back - concerned faces... bah! We're young at heart! YOUNG AT HEART! I saw that there was a railway around the park so we lined up and ended up being there for AGES. Seriously, it took forever to get on this gosh darn train. We manage to keep ourselves entertained in lines by singing and laughing and we realised we must really annoy people around us with our noise. I think they should be grateful and cheered by our high spirits and girlish charm! At one point we were both singing a song from Pocahontas and this little girl in line just stood and stared with her mouth open. Another thing we did was take another round of "bucket o' dawgs" shots. And yes, before you ask, the guy behind me in line did do the rabbit ears on me - we were lifting the spirits of the surrounding tourists!

Let me just say that during our Europe trip we got really good at queuing... it seems on the things we did most... so here is a picture of us with our queueing faces - oh yeah... boys we lining the block...

It was getting late so we had delicious fajitas for dinner, rode the Pirates ride one last time, and I had to walk down Main Street saying my goodbyes to Disneyland for a time... Very sad... I am planning to visit Miranda next year and seeing Disney again! And Miranda too... of course... tee hee! We got a cab back to the hotel and all the way the cab driver was having a heated argument with someone on his cell phone and would keep hanging up and it was all very intense. Sad to leave this lovely hotel... Next stop - Amsterdam!

Eurodisney!

2009-06-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

Day 4.
Paris -> Eurodisney

I literally had trouble getting to sleep the previous night because I was so excited about coming to Disneyland for the first time in my life. I've dreamed it since I was a child and it only took me 19 years... Good thing I still have a childlike imagination! Whoopee!

So we checked out of our hostel, took the metro to the train and took the train to the bus - the bus that never came. Back to the train and then to DISNEYLAND! We were pretty mad that the bus didn't show because we wanted to leave our bags at the hostel so we rang them (no the pay phones did not take coins - seriously) waiting for them to say "no you can't check in later" but they said "oui oui!" Hooray! Things were going our way.

We scooted inside the gates and dumped our bags in a locker and I entered - the Magic Kingdom. I think I need a moment to remember the warm fuzzy feeling that I had. Aaaand I'm good. There it is! The castle! Cue "hallelujah". Oh it was really awesome. Enough of that. On to rides! Miranda knew the layout of this place like the back of her hand - given that it is basically the same as the one in America which she has been to many many times.

First up was Frontier Land which is a Western style land (what it's doing in France I'll never know... Guess they're not too creative or inventive... Maybe it should have been Wine Land? Cigarette Land?). We started the day – getting our adrenaline pumping – by going on Thunder Mountain – which is like an old style train which rockets about a fake mountain – pretty darn fun. Throughout the ride Miranda and I were screaming with excitement and it was so funny because Miranda would give me a running commentary of the park whilst screaming. So it went like this “Ahhhhhhh! There’s Phantom Manor! Ahhhhhh! There’s a cactus! I’m home! Ha ha! AHhhhhhh!” It was great – the ride was too. Because Miranda knew the park we zipped around the rides with the greatest of ease and not having to wait in really long queues.

Next ride was Phantom Manor which they have in Disneyland in America. The whole ride was in French but because Miranda knew it she could relay what the heck was going on. So there was this couple and they were engaged and the girl had to go back home to visit her family before she got married. Meanwhile, the boy would build her a beautiful mansion for them to live in on her return. The only problem was he built it on a graveyard (or something) and thus an evil ghosty phantom appeared and killed everyone including the groom-to-be. Girl returns and is forced to marry the Phantom. Grim times – Happiest place on Earth? Hmm... It was really cool. The ride is basically where you get in little cars and see all the various scenes and Miranda said it’s much scarier than the one in America which has friendly looking ghosts whereas the French just want to scare everyone. Miranda would literally jump every time when the Phantom showed up – he would appear right next to the carriage (skeleton – with a top hat) and be laughing. It was a pretty awesome ride – a lot of animatronics and what not. That being said the ride – without fail – would break down – all the time! Apparently, it does this in both Disneys in America which is interesting. Luckily, we never broke down near the Phantom.

We then shuffled off to Adventure Land which is where the Indiana Jones ride was. It was just a normal rollercoaster that the stuck Aztec statues and little tents about and called it Indiana. Oh well. It was pretty cool. The was a pretty amazing and ground breaking moment for me because I have never EVER been on a rollercoaster that goes a) really fast and b) upside down. This had both. And it was AWESOME. I felt so proud of myself! I barely even noticed we went upside down.
Continuing in this land we went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride – the ride which started the whole Pirates movie series. Miranda said the one in America had been changed to go with the movie more but this one was like the original which was good to see. Once again animatronics doing their thing... It was pretty neat. The whole movie was based on this one brief display in the ride that Miranda pointed out – a skeleton on the boat steering wheel in the moonlight. That was the inspiration. It was cool. Also the ride had these unexpected slopes in the dark so Miranda and I panicked a bit thinking it would be a big drop (it wasn’t) but the photo they took was priceless. We look terrified. Next time round we were ready and had our pirate faces on.

Moving onto Fantasy Land we went on the Peter Pan ride which is Miranda’s favourite. It’s a really sweet ride where you are in little boats that fly all over the story of Peter Pan. The room that was dark but with all twinkling lights with the sky was my favourite bit. It was kind of lame that the queue was the longest we’d been in and the shortest ride – ah well. It was cute. After that was a similar ride but with Snow White or rather “Blanc Neige et les Sept Nains” awww LANGUAGE BARRIER! We were going to then go on the Pinocchio one but given that we both feel that Pinocchio was lame – we didn’t.
Sleeping Beauty’s castle was next which is THE castle of Disneyland. You can go inside this one but you can no longer go in the one in America which is weird. It was really pretty and had stain glass windows of the scenes in the film. Down in the gift shop was this... souvenir which – probably won’t seem funny to anyone reading this but it still gets Miranda and I into hysterics and I’m laughing right now, typing this, just thinking about it. I found this little plastic container that had little plush toys of various dogs that were in Disney movies so I showed Miranda this “bucket of dogs” I had found. She then put on a really Southern accent and said “A bucket o’ dawgs?” and thus hilarious history was made. Now we use the term “bucket of dogs” for pretty much everything. It can be used in any context given that the delivery indicates the meaning. For example, I ride could be “as good as a bucket o’ dawgs” or “it was no bucket o’ dawgs”. Use this wisely. I will and already am. Featured are the various faces you are permitted to make when saying "bucket o' dawgs"...

Then we were walking to the other side of the park when one of the shows started. “Are you ready to party with Mickey?” “Erm... sure” Then all these dancers come on and Mickey pops out in a glitzy silver sequin ensemble and starts squeaking away in French! There is nothing funnier than a French Mickey. Throughout our two days at Disney we witnessed this show every time we walked down main street – so at least eight times. Every time we would hear “Do you want to party with Mickey?” “NO! Dear God NO!”

We had lunch and then went to Discovery Land which is like a futuristic land and decided to go on the Space Mountain ride which Miranda said the one in America was pretty tame – didn’t go upside down, wasn’t fast – Oh boy. We got in the queue and got on the ride pretty quick. Sat down and the ride shot us, really fast, into this cannon thing which looked like it went up. We thought nothing of it – or the countdown in French from five until it shot us at full blast up this slope and down, down into the (supposed) dark abyss of space. Holy smokes this ride was intense. Miranda and I were screaming for all we were worth given that neither of us knew what was going on and if we were the right way up because I’m pretty sure we did a series of loop-the-loops and corkscrews. Wow. The ride stopped and we just turned to look at each other – pause – “That was NOT the same as in America... let’s do it again!”. So we did and it was awesome. Though after the second time we had to sit down for a bit.

We then went on “It’s a Small World” because I just had to. It’s a must see. Terrifying little children sing the song at you from various parts of the world. Big cardboard cut-outs of the various scenery appear and Miranda and I enjoyed pointing at all the places we were going and had been. I enjoyed seeing the tiny little spot they reserved for Australia consisting of someone wearing khaki, an indigenous Australian and a kangaroo. Yep... they got it right on!

Then the parade started! I got to see all the princesses and it was so lovely... so magical seeing them come to life... I really want to work at Disneyland. Esmeralda also randomly turned up and we got a photo with her. We told her that we had seen Quasimodo at Notre Dame and she looked at us like “How old are you?” Good times. There was this other parade that we saw twice which was supposed to Minnie Mouse's train parade or something - despite the obvious problem that Minnie wasn't even present! We dubbed this train the "lame train" which featured Disney's lesser characters like Tigger, Eeyore, Smee, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. "All aboard the lame train!"

Then we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride where you get a ray gun and have to shoot targets to get points. Miranda whooped my ass but I had more fun lasering the lady in front of me’s head. I did manage to get to level four though..

By this time we had pretty much done all the rides we set out to do so we had a roam about the park enjoying the details and having a squiz at all the merchandise. The great thing about Disneyland is that everything, down to the smallest detail, is beautiful and decorated. Even the lampposts had little Tinkerbells on them.

Overall, it was an awesome day and the weather was too. We took a train back to our hostel which turned out to be a hotel and was SO GOOD. Private room with twin beds and an en suite as well a television! I haven’t seen television is ages so I didn’t care that it was in French. Plus – this is one my highlights of the trip – they did a Michael Jackson top ten countdown so we had an excellent time bogeying down to all the hits... It was a really great day. I love Disneyland.

If I was a Rich Girl...

2009-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

Day 3.

Paris

More "breakfast" thrown our way as we headed out to see Versailles - the palace of all palaces. Everyone was waiting at the platform expecting the train to take up the length of it - it didn't and we all had to sprint to the other end to get on it before it shot off. It was pretty funny because no one expected it. The journey was pleasant as it was a double decker train and there was a man playing on the accordion as we travelled - how Parisian!

We arrived at Versailles only to we welcomed by another very, very, very long queue. Sigh. We met another nice American in the queue though! Tourists/Americans stick together! We tried to weasel our way in for free trying the whole studying-in-London trick but to no avail and we got charged with a 25 Euro entry fee! I could have cried. It was okay though because it gave us an audio guide and we got to see everything we wanted to in the whole place. So one a half hours later we made it inside to the palace!

I've been to Versailles before but it never stops to amaze me - the French knew style and opulence. My goodness every surface is covered with intricate carvings, gold or both! Everything is perfect and designed to impress. Most people know this place as the residence of Marie Antoinette which it most certainly was and it made all excited inside last time and this time to see the little secret door in her bedroom that she escaped through the avoid instant death - later to suffer a more instant death - decapitation... I said the French were renowned for their style not their mercy. I also found out that the Queen's of this time were forced to have public births so that the public could rest assured that this was the true heir. People in the olden days have all this talk of modesty with long dresses, gloves and what not but then they allow women to display everything for everyone. Seems a little bit of a contradiction...

They had an exhibition of clothes that those in this time period would have worn and it was AMAZING. They had these stunning dresses with trains that went on for days and would have fitted half of me inside them. I still get freaked out by how small people were back in the day. Tiny little hands, feet and bodies - how has the human race survived given that these women don't look like they could handle lifting a fork to their mouths let alone birthing a baby and living to tell the tale (though I suppose many didn't). It's funny because the audio guide that we were listening to would have very long pauses so you would be standing in front of a display, wait, turn away and then "then in 1765..." Whoops, turn back. Miranda and I noticed one another doing it - they made the descriptions too long! You only listen to all the audioguide talks out of obligation... I mean really.

The best room in the place, though, is the Hall of Mirrors - every guide book will tell you - but I'm telling you now so pay attention. It's AWESOME. And it's exactly what it says it is - a long room with walls lined with mirrors and windows opposite so it's very bright with huge chandeliers and candelabras everywhere and the most beautiful painted ceiling! Yeah - I'd live here. The whole day I took to talking like, what I think a noble would talk like, saying "this pleases me". This room pleased me.

We then ventured into the giant gardens which go on for days! We desperately wanted to take the mini train around the garden but we were strong! We could walk! It was lovely weather and throughout the gardens they were booming classical music so walking along with all these beautiful marble sculptures and classical music it was very lovely - I mean - it pleased me. We saw the Petit Trianon and the Grand Trianon - much smaller palaces for when the royals just wanted to get away from extreme pretension. These "little" ones were still mansions. I'd get spooked living in such a giant house... It was weird going from the most amazing palace to these little ones - it made them seem really rubbish - which I felt bad about given that they were so huge. The most awesome part of the gardens is the mini village which Marie Antoinette had commissioned when she was 13. It's an entire little village that she would play in and pretend she was a shepherdess and play with sheep (sheep that had been perfumed and washed beforehand mind you). It was SO COOL. The town seemed like a normal little thatched roof cottage town with a windmill and all that except that it was just slightly smaller than a normal town. That or people were just really small as I was discussing earlier. I really wish they would have let us play in all the little houses - Miranda and I chose which house we would have. Needless to say we had some fun...

After spending six hours at this place we were ready to go. We decided to take the metro back to the Eiffel Tower to have one last look in the sunlight - blue skies again whoo hoo! This was our goodbye time to Paris. We bought little pasta salads from a supermarket and ate it on our hostel room's little balcony. It was really lovely until I confessed that I was scared that the balcony would break - that spooked us both out. A different girl stayed in our room that night who was from Argentina - and spoke Spanish. Miranda can totally speak Spanish though - don't listen to her when she says she can't - she's being way too modest. Miranda could hear the girl and talk back but the girl then would just rattle off long sentences to her and expect her to understand right away. I was entertained as a bystander. The showers on our floor decided to break so we had to troop downstairs to bathe - hot water though!

We tried going to sleep but Miranda would keep making me laugh and vice versa until we both admitted we were really excited about going to Euro Disneyland the next day. Also the pipes in this place are wack and there would be this water noise and then BAM pipes off. So we would joke that the pipes were like "water, water, wat- THAT'S ENOUGH". We were very tired. All in all the day pleased me.

Paris - Culture Coming out the Whazoo

2009-06-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

Day 2.

Paris

Today, I forgot to set my phone to Paris time so we shot out of bed after sleeping in an extra hour. Oh well. Free breakfast at the hostel which consisted crazy cleaning lady firing bread rolls and orange juice at us. After recovering we set out to see the Place de la Bastille. Miranda sung me lovely renditions of all the various Les Miserables songs as we then went to see Victor Hugo's actual house! Pretty cool stuff. You can't really tell in the photo but there is a plaque there saying that it is his house - we didn't just find a random house... Or did we? ... No.

We then walked to go and see Notre Dame and visit Quasimodo - I hear he gets lonely given that Esmeralda ditched him for Phoebus. Lame. On the way we spied the Napoleon Bridge, the Conciergerie and Saint Chappelle. Around Notre Dame there was this "Fete du Pain" or bread festival as I decoded and inside these marquees they had all these various breaks cooking - YUM. Oh my goodness bread in Europe is the most amazing thing in the world. You wouldn't think that bread could be perfect - but it really truly can. We took a quick squizz inside Notre Dame and then decided to join the very long queue to go up the tower (which I hadn't done before due to said queue). But we waited! And waited... and got a hot chocolate... and waited... ate a sandwich... met the nice Americans behind us... waited and into the tower! Hooray! The Americans behind us were very nice though I notice that when we do introductions (and this continues throughout the entire trip) that the Americans will swap places and when it comes to my turn and I say "Australia" they quickly switch back to Miranda and go "So where in Arizona?" Alas I will never belong. Anyway the American guy had completed a marathon the day before! And he was climbing up all 400 steps! Madness! The view was really spectacular. Even though I saw the view of Paris yesterday at the Arc it really varies depending where you are. The gargoyles hanging out on the side of the tower greeted us but I think Quasimodo was just popping out to the shops when we went because we didn't see him... Take a look at the gargoyle in the following photo - tee hee!

Back down thousands of stairs and outside we saw a man feeding the birds (tuppence a bag - not really) so I was trying to feed them too with some old bread crumbs I found in my handbag. The birds were far too interested in this old man so he came over and offered whatever he had (I think it was a madeleine biscuit) to Miranda and got her to only hold it with two fingers. The birds were all over her! Then it was my turn and I held it with two fingers, like Miranda, when the Frenchman indicated that I didn't have to because my nails weren't painted. It seemed that Miranda's red nail polish would frighten the birds off or confuse them! Pretty cool. The old man would show off my putting bits of cake on his tongue and having the birds eat them out of his mouth - Bleh! That had to be one our main highlights in Paris - it seems lame just feeding some birds but it was really neat.

Next we set off to walk around St Michel which was so lovely because that's where I stayed last time I was in Paris. It was really awesome knowing where I was... my brain had all these directions stored in my head - what else is it keeping from me? Intelligence apparently...

Next stop - the Pantheon. Once again it was free! Hooray! It was all up hill and, sadly, at some point the map fell out of Miranda's pocket which got her down - though it needn't have because - hey - we were in PARIS. I don't remember if we took the metro or walked but the metro lines are all colour coded so we thought we would make up our own names for the lines which basically consisted of Miranda and I saying "so we take the poop line and change at the urine line and when we get back we take the jungle line to the fanta line? No wait to the asparagus line". It keeps us entertained. Anyway the Pantheon was pretty cool it had Foucault's pendulum in it which swings in a very slow circle everyday and we didn't really get it until there was this educational video explaining it - 7 minutes and 38 seconds later we discovered that the pendulum is swinging in the circle that the earth is making... so it's like the earth is moving and the pendulum is staying still - or something. It was pretty neat.

We stopped in at McDonald's for some free internet and I had a frappe! McDee's is fancy here - you can even get mousse! I ordered my drink in French, thinking I was doing well, only to have the serving individual read back my order and the price in English. Sigh. I am trying. Though all in all I think we did pretty darn well getting through Paris despite the several grumpy frogs telling us "Non non non".

After this we walked back down the street and did some slow and relaxed shopping which was really pleasant. I bought my dress for the Summer Ball! Miranda has excellent finding eyes when shopping so if you ever get the change to shop with her DO IT. Everyone! Now!

Next we went to the Grand Poo Bah of Paris - the Eiffel Tower. Last time I was here I remember walking up most of the way because the queue to the lift was way too long but this time everyone was made to take the lift. Darn that thing is high. We got to the top only to see this massive storm rolling in and devouring the landscape. We were at the very top hoping that the tower didn't topple over though Miranda's Europe book said it only ever leans at a maximum of 7cm. Her book also said there was some tailor who, many years ago, strapped on a cape and threw himself off the top expecting to fly - he flew... down. We stayed on the second level and decided to wait out the storm by having dinner there - pizza and waffles! This is living the high life - literally this thing gives me vertigo. We took the lift down to the bottom and were in the lift with all these little French children who kept staring at us - quite openly - so Miranda and I began to put on our most stereotypical and strong accents to freak them out - it worked though it had them staring more. By the time we got down to the bottom the storm had passed and we got to the tower all lit up and sparkling! It's so magical and romantic - once again Miranda and I only had each other for company... C'est la vie! The magic is sort of tainted by the scary army dudes walking around the bottom of the tower with their huge rifles and... berets...

On the metro ride back along - the regal line? (It's blue) - we wondered if anyone would be in our room that night. We estimated an 80% chance that there would be no one - it was full. One girl from Japan and I don't know where the other one was from - she didn't say much. Hot showers though! What a miracle... I discovered that there was a switch to turn on the hot water - we're learning!

What we have learned:

1. Paris is not London (tube wise the London one is much more efficient and less confusing)

2. You can't do what you want to do in Paris you must do what the Parisians tell you - In Notre Dame we had two people who we assumed worked there who would stop us going up or down the stairs until it was clear or something. We were a little confused as the guy who told us to stop going up just left. He walked out! Did he even work there?

3. There is no way of predicting the weather and how to dress for it

4. Tourists stick together - we all take one anothers' photos knowing that we won't run off with them.

I Have Returned!

2009-06-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

I'm back and bursting with stories and photos to share with you all. All three fans. Ahem.

The past sixteen days have been jam packed with history, culture, language and a lot of laughing on Miranda and my part. We had some seriously hard and frustrating times but we got over them and had a really amazing time and I'm getting excited just thinking about writing it all down to remember it all over again. So... here we go!

DAY 1.

London -> Paris

I can't say that I kicked off our trip very easily as our flight left at 7:25am, I had to be up at 4 and my alarm didn't go off. Good times. I couldn't really sleep all that night because I was too excited and nervous about the following day (or rather the few hours that separated this time) so when Miranda knocked at my door at, what I thought was much too early, fully dressed I went "Oh crap!" and somehow managed to rouse myself and get out the door in about three minutes. We got to the reception and the taxi pulled up so everything then went smoothly. It was nice being a car. Just a little extra note there.

For reasons unbeknowst to me when taking an international flight you must be there either two or three hours before the flight to get through security and what not. No one checked our passports and we flew through security. Right. Found some benches and had little naps before boarding the plane to our great adventure!

We arrived! Here is our first photo of the trip and don't we just look... well... tired and red mostly. But cheerful! Might I just say that for one of the most lovely cities in the world... Paris has a really rubbish airport. I mean Charles de Gaulle airport didn't have enough toilets, the tourist information section wasn't actually for tourists as we were shovelled about various desks to get answers and at one point there was this message that kept coming over the intercom saying "would the person who left the package in front of the photobooth please remove it". Later, the police blocked off the area. After much confusion and trying to work out a) how to get out of the airport b) buying tickets at the metro (they don't take notes ANYWHERE - madness) and c) finding our hostel AND listening to this crazy jingle they would play at the stations when there was an announcement which to Miranda sounding like the beginning to a rap song - wow this sentence is getting long - long and short of it - made it to our hostel - YAY. See my happiness? Now off for sight seeing!

We figured since it was raining and cold that we would go to the Louvre and hang about inside for a while. I'll never forget how big that darn place is. I've been there before and I said to Miranda that you can't feel guilty for not seeing everything because the place is TOO BIG. Apparently, it takes two weeks to see everything. Once again - not seeing everything. We managed to get in for FREE as well. Because we are studying in London they considered us to be somewhat European citizens under 26 - Booyah! The Louvre is so lovely. It has everything a nerdy person like me could want - sculpture, paintings and beautiful ceilings! Ceilings have become my strange obsession... yes... indeed. Saw lovely old Mona once more. Glad to see how she's getting on... Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, Peter Paul Reubens room, Napoleon's apartments and various other things along the way. Oh and the inverted glass pyramid - have actually read "Da Vinci Code" this time so I get it. Meh. Needless to say after several hours this place is rather exhausting...

Next stop - Champs-Élysées - where Miranda and I were approached by some American girl who thought we were French (despite our obvious cameras) and started babbling to us in French. This is not the last time this will happen. But we felt flattered and very French at this point so let's continue. Walked down there, had a delicious smoked salmon sandwich and came to the Arc De Triomphe. I didn't go up it last time I was here so it was lovely seeing the view from this angle. I read a while ago that the roundabout surrounding the Arc is the one place that no insurance company will cover because there are so many accidents here. I had fun waiting for one to happen - it didn't - but yikes people came close!

This is the photo of me when I grew in size and terrorised the town. Well... I terrorised the model of the Arc... and the other tourists. This is also not the last time this will happen. We went to use the bathroom in this place when this crazy old French woman jumped out of nowhere and stood guard in front of the door and started burbling in French. We took tentative steps towards the door only to have her grab hold of the handle and just block our way. It was weird. We left. Back down thousands of stairs... Once again - not the last time - I must really have thighs of steel now...

We then went to see the Moulin Rouge (I wanted to see a show but they were WAY too expensive) which is surrounding by loads of sex shops - this may not be surprising but the people with kids playing in the area was! Children on little scooters zooming between perverts going into the various sex shops and sex cinemas - argh! Up the giant hill to Sacré-Cœur where the view, again, is most impressive. Blue skies encouraged us to stay there as long as possible though the wind picked up and it started to get a bit chilly.

So we went back to our hostel (no idea how we managed all this in one day given that we were up at the crack of dawn) only to be yelled at my another crazy French woman. This was the cleaning lady who forced us into the waiting room so she could finish mopping the floor. Reasonable enough except that we couldn't find a spot where she wasn't mopping so it became a cat and mouse game about the foyer. Crazy woman. Up to our room (5th floor, no lift) and the lock on the door was broken. Eeep. We figured anyone who wanted to hike themselves up all those stairs was welcome to our belongings... This was the worst hostel we stayed in for the whole trip... though we didn't really know it then. We had had a long day and poor Miranda came out of the shower looking very upset because the water was cold. Spirits were low as we went to sleep but we remained optimistic! At least no one else was in our four bed room.

In conclusion for today!

What we learned about Paris:

1. Paris guys are creepy - we had some guy with rotting teeth ask us something in French on the metro... Bleh

2. Paris women are nuts! In case you hadn't already gathered this.

3. Nowhere accepts notes. It's money isn't it? Yeesh.

4. To find anything in Paris you must take a chance and just go one way without thinking about it

5. Europeans (unlike the English) notice our dancing.

6. Crepes with Nutella are amazing. I am glad to be reacquainted with said crepes.

Wiccy Wiccy Wild Wild West

2009-05-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

You would think after all our Hever frivolity that the three of us had had all the fun we could have. That was until the Student Union decided to throw a WILD WILD WEST night! Oh yes. The three of us marched down to Egham and went to the local junk store to buy cheap cowboy hats. We were messing with fate as the hats were made - shock horror - in Mexico.

UPDATE: None of us has swine flu.

We each dressed up as Western cowgirl-ish as we could get given that this kind of took us by surprise. It's funny because this is the first Union night Miranda has been to and it's a Western night - ha ha.

These things start at 10 but no one usually arrives until 11 or so... so we hung around Leonore's and had a delicious dinner of lasagne and mars bars ice-creams for desserts! Then Miranda said something I never thought I would hear "Umm... when are we ... going to ... drink the... ... alcohol?" Whoa! This is going to be one heck of an evening. That day we bought some interesting flavoured cider and some Cactus Jack apple schnapps (quite appropriate). Okay... so when we were buying the drinks the guy in the supermarket asked to see our IDs. So I got mine out and showed it but he didn't accept my international student card - sigh - okay here's my driver's license - he's thinking - he gets his manager and asks if the license is okay. The manager nods before turning to me and going "That's not the most flattering picture of yourself". Or words to that affect. I cannot believe I was shamed by a guy who works in a store called "Ice land"! Of all the injustices - who was he to judge? Damn Ice land man...

Anyway - despite that hiccup in the day - we watched some TV and added the final touches to our outfits. We decided that we would have Western names and characters for the evening - this included us talking in Southern accents all evening.

Here we have the three Southern sisters - Betty - the sweetheart...

Played by Miranda... Next we have Mary-Lou - the alcoholic ...

Played by Leonore and finally me... playing Sarah-Beth - the skanky one... Yeehaw! And here is their family photo ... Heh heh heh... Cactus Jack helped the creative process... Onto the Union! Because you have to pay to check coats in we all walked through the gale that is England. Rain was whipping us with the aid of a cruel wind and it was rather chilly. Luckily there was no queue as we were there early. So early, in fact, that the dance floor wasn't even open yet! Boo! More drinks needed.

It was past 10 so I didn't think we were that early but they opened the dance floor and it was awesome because there were few people dancing so we could take up as much room as wanted. And we did. The DJ was wearing a vest and a cowboy hat and the whole stage was tarted up with what the English think is appropriate Western-ness. There was a teepee, totem pole, rooters, cacti and a sign that read "Rattlesnake Canyon". Miranda was home! We got our groove on and danced the night away. Or rather danced as long as the people around us would let us. Good grief some of the kids here were behaving in a very silly manner! Listen to me - I couldn't get a single move out because of these rapscallions! I was actually shaking my fist then... so you know. So yeah after a while more people turned up and the dance floor was packed so we started getting tired of being elbowed in every body part or accosted by pairs getting rather physical on the dance floor - yuk. We were just about ready to leave feeling sad because they didn't play "Single Ladies" by Beyonce until... "all the single ladies! All the single ladies..." Yay! The evening was complete as we grooved to this excellent tune. Overall, a very fun evening had by all. Oh I forgot to mention but during the evening some guy came up to me (drunk as) put his arm around me and angled the three of us in a photo with him! Some random took the random photo. Thus the evening was complete... that girl will be flicking through her photos an go "wait - who are those girls you're posing with?". Success!

It saddens me to say that this will be my last blog for a little while because as of Sunday Miranda and I are going on our trip around Europe! Trip number 1. We're going to Paris, Eurodisneyland, Brussels, Amsterdam, Prague, Berlin, Salzburg and Munich. I'm taking a notepad and will write blogs for my trip when I get back here to Founders on June 1st - in the mean time - ... err ... bye!

Hit Me Hever One More Time!

2009-05-16T09:22:00.001-07:00

And now... what you've all been waiting for... Another video of me and my friends behaving like loons in historical places! Ha-zah!

In case you hadn't realised (we actually hadn't until... a little while ago) that our videos take inspiration from various decades... "Waterloo" was 70s, "Total Eclipse" was 80s and "Four Minutes" was 00s... which means that THIS video is inspired by the 90s! And what better song than Britney Spears' great hit "Hit me Baby One More Time"? Once again we take all our inspiration from the actual video clip so watch that to get in the mood... Enjoy!

Just in case the writing is too hard to read:

On the long train to Hever Castle - the childhood home of Anne Boleyn...

... one reflects on the destructive romance between Anne and King Henry VIII ...

... How Anne's obsession with Henry drove her crazy ...

... and cost Anne her head ...

... how was Anne supposed to know ...

... that something wasn't right.

Hever - Hip Hip Hooray!

2009-05-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

We FINALLY made it to Hever Castle! My goodness all last week Leonore, Miranda and I were debating when to go - where we up to it today? - what about next week? etc etc. But today we went! The weather forecast was rainy which means miserable. Nevertheless we put on our happy faces, armed with umbrellas and caught the train. A simple statement "caught the train" but this was a major event of the day. Every time and I mean EVERY time we go anywhere we plan to get a train, plan a time to meet and then on the home stretch to the train station it flies past us. But today - for the first time - we got the train we wanted! Happy dance!

We had had to change trains twice because this castle is basically in the middle of nowhere. It seems that those who visit this castle are on tour buses because when we got off the train there was no one around and no signs. Great. Luckily, Leonore had packed some directions so off we set into this overgrown town. I use the term "town" loosely given that I saw a few houses on the way there but mostly trees and such. This place (for some unknown reason) has no footpaths so we had to walk on the road and come face to face with death given that the few cars that were around would go roaring around blind corners in this small town - what clever occupants.

But - we made it! Hooray! In case you didn't know Hever Castle was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. The castle was surprisingly small - how modest - but the gardens were pretty big and there was a hedge maze and a water maze - oh this gets good.

First, the hedge maze. Sadly, there was a sign that said the hedge maze was being given "surgery" as the type of hedge takes hundreds of years to grow. This meant that when we walked through the maze we could see straight through it. Oh well it didn't stop us getting lost. Miranda boldly went first - into several cobwebs. We didn't think this maze was so underused given that there were loads of kids on school trips running about but then we realised - school children are quite short and these cobwebs were getting us in the face. Yum. We each took turns and I had taken to walking through the maze as if I was miming wearing cloak with my arm out in front of me. Eventually, we made it to the middle! Thinking there would be an awesome fountain or statue or something in the middle as a reward - we were greatly disappointed as there was a stone block where a statue or something should have been. Brilliant. We improvised.

Jolly good. The trick to getting into the middle of mazes is to put your hand on the left wall and just follow your hand. Seriously, that's how we made it.

Out of the maze and onto the grounds. Very lovely. I can imagine Anne strolling through these gardens with small defined steps plotting how she was going to ensnare Henry VIII in her womanly clutches. The gardens led to a huge lake where you could hire boats. It was all very grand. Take a look.

The funniest thing about this place are the ducks. They were masses of them! And no matter where you go in the place - a duck will surely follow. They came right up to us and quacked for food. We tried tricking them with leaves but they weren't having any of it! Miranda foolishly put her bag on the ground and three ducks waddled up and tried to nibble away the strap of her bag.

Now comes the water maze. This maze is the coolest thing ever. There's a big rock in the middle with waterfalls coming out on all sides which is where you have to get to. To get to it there are stone paths all around it (in maze form). The stones have water in between so you have to watch where you step - they even had an attendant on hand in case you managed to slip off and knock your head - he was reading and didn't look up the entire time we were there. Given that the maze had loads of signs around it saying "be prepared to get wet" we thought - surely it can't be that bad. We even though that after seeing many soggy children. We didn't know what to expect until (thank goodness) there was a group of people in front of us who rushed onto the maze which was when we all realised that when you step on certain stones the weight of your body sets of jets of water to spray on you - tricky! After following the certain path of the other people we made it to the middle, learning that if you walk really slowly onto the stones you can trick them into not squirting you. We still got somewhat wet though. Nevertheless - VICTORY!

Wow - I haven't even got to the castle yet! Well that comes now so let's go. Into the castle. Here's what it looks like...

Yep there's a drawbridge. And a moat! With really really big fish in it. I mean these fish could eat a duck in one go - that's how big they were. Inside we went and - boo - no photography allowed inside. Well... we'll see. The castle was pretty neat inside except that the Astor family (rich peeps who own the Waldorf Astoria and so on) renovated the castle in 1905! Why do they do this? I got to go into Anne's bedroom - yep - it's a bedroom. Then we got to go into the room that Henry VIII would have stayed in when he stayed in Hever. Don't get me wrong I'm not liking Henry over Anne I think it was AMAZING that I got to be in the place where they were hundreds and hundreds of years ago - breathing the same particles that they would have breathed. It's pretty cool. There was another room where behind the panelling in the wall there was a catholic chapel so the occupants of the house (not entirely sure who this was at the time) could pray without fear of getting bumped off by Henry VIII. By this time Leonore and I were lost in a flood of small boys and girls who all clomped into the room shouting things like "CORRRR look at this SWORD!" "No, no look at that BED" before leaning over things and smelling them - ? Strange. This one woman who ran the place kept telling the children to use their inside voices. We went upstairs (despite looking small this place had a lot of rooms) and found that they had got wax models of Henry and all his wives. Miranda knows this clever rhyme about his wives which is "divorced, killed, died, divorced, killed, survived" - how true. Miranda really wanted a photo with Henry so we waited until the lady ran off to remind the children about their indoor voices once more and took the shot! Ha ha! Take that Hever.

Another room contained all these war things like suits of armour and old swords and stuff. There was one thing that caught my eye. This thing. And do you know what the plaque read? "Man trap" Ahh it's what every girl needs... Maybe that's how Anne got Henry... Watch out boys of Oz! I'm bringing this knowledge home...

Out we went and started our walk back to the train station and long journey back to Egham. It's funny because all throughout our trip home we kept getting further and further in our idea for a new children's show called "Kitties on Bins". Seriously. That morning we saw two cats sitting on two different rubbish bins and throughout the space of the day we came up with - names, new characters, obstacles, place, accents and plot development. Brilliant. So whenever there was a silence, really, we would just cry "Kitties on bins!" Patent pending! Not long til Miranda and I jet off to Paris! But there will be more blogs before we go... maybe a video even? Hmm? Anyone interested?

A Day of Royalty ... and cup cakes.

2009-05-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

Hello one and all!

Today (Saturday) Miranda, Leonore and I trained our way to London once more. Miranda hasn't seen the changing of the guards before and neither has Leonore so off we set. I've seen it before but the guards were in their grey winter coats and that's no fun. We arrived half an hour early thinking that this might give us a slight advantage. No. We were forced through the crowds like mince in a mincer. This is bringing up images of Pink Floyd... Hmm...

Anyway Miranda found us a really good spot where we were only a couple of people from the front of the gate. At first we couldn't see anything but eventually (once people became sick of standing up) we wangled our way in. The three of us were making jokes about how to get to the front by coughing loudly and saying "Oh man... I never should have gone to Mexico" and "I've got swine flu? - Again?" The woman next to us had a chuckle. The guards marched in with the band in tow. I never realised before that it is actually a changing of guards from the guards who look like ice-cream men to the ones with the fuzzy hats. The different posses stand opposite one another and I said to Miranda "they're going to start dance fighting any second".

They marched about, saluted, stamped - the whole nine yards - and then the band started to play once more. Band playing - meh - we don't even know this boring song-- wait -- the band started to play "that's the way, uh huh uh huh, she likes it, uh huh uh huh" I kid you not. We looked at one another and began to boogie along to this hip medley of songs. It was so random. The Queen wasn't in today (her flag wasn't up) so I guess the band pretty much just do whatever they want.

An hour later the 'show' finished with a whole lot of guys in metal, roman style armour and helmets with swishy bits clip clopping down the street (they were on horses by the way - not in high heels). It was very elaborate and I'm glad I got to see it again to actually make sense of it all.

Then Miranda led Leonore and I through Kensington Gardens where we saw the Peter Pan statue which was actually financed by J.M. Barrie. It's pretty cool. We continued on, grumbling at the weather, to Kensington Palace. In case you were wondering the weather all day would be freezing as soon as a cloud blocked the sun and then boiling once it emerged. The whole day was spent in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not the jacket came off or stayed on.

Kensington Palace! The childhood home of Queen Victoria and also home to Princess Diana. They had this whole exhibition about the last debutantes as well as a bunch of Diana's dresses. Pretty random match up but I think they're designed to keep old bitties interested - I was. The tour starts by explaining the debutantes. So basically the elite were so good that when their daughters reached a certain age they would put them in a fancy frock, stick some ostrich feathers on their head and boot them in front of the Queen so that all the other blue blooded boys could choose their future wives. Sadly, this cattle exchange stopped in 1958. It was mostly because WWII was over and women were more independent but I think it was mostly because the Queen couldn't handle seeing anymore of these curtsying fools.

They had a bunch of hands-on activities like walking with a book on your head as a debutante must be poised. Way too easy. I would like to say that it was easy because I'm so graceful but more likely because the top of my head is flat. On the floor they marked out the steps for a waltz and the important of never making eye contact with your partner (romantic much?). Some old couple in front of us were arguing and stepping on one anothers' feet so Miranda and I stepped in and picked it up right away! I've never waltzed before so I must be a natural. All the old dears behind us were complimenting our sweet skills. They also taught you how to curtsy properly as that was the main part of the ritual. They were stories of girls being so nervous they fell over or got their heel caught on their dress and one girl even dacked herself! Ba ha ha! That'd be the girl I'd chose... the one with no skirt.

After learning about the elite meat trade we continued on into the State rooms of the palace. Wow. Pretty ritzy place - I'd live there. I saw actual bedroom of Queen Victoria which was restored with all her original stuff! Pretty amazing. The audio guide reminded me that Kensington Palace wasn't a lovely and happy home for all those who resided within it. Queen Mary died of smallpox there after having 18 children - none surviving. Yikes.

All in all Kensington Palace was pretty cool. After this we had a look at the Albert memorial. Man Queen Victoria sure did love her husband...

After that we went to this AMAZING cupcake shop that Leonore knew about and I had a Nutella cup cake. I've tasted heaven - who knew it was in cup cake form? We're planning another visit... a day of cake. Mmm...

We managed to work out how to get home because pretty much all the tube lines were down in various ways. Some were closed altogether whereas others were only running between various stops or only going west or some such nonsense. We made it home though! Stay tuned because Miranda only has one more exam to go and then it's party time! And by party I mean we're going to Hever Castle. We are such nerds.

Life Without Exams

2009-05-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog, alone, will be angering some people I know. Heh heh.

As you can guess I've had a pretty relaxed week of sleeping in until all hours and eating too much as I watch TV on my laptop. On Tuesday, however, I had the great honour of finally being put in a Holloway Players show! Yippee!

All Tuesday I wasn't feeling very well with nervousness. I kept trying to relax, then remembering and worrying that I wasn't funny enough and I would be booed off the small, yet daunting, stage. Managed to get some dinner in and set off to set-up and warm-up. There isn't really anything you can do to prepare for a show of improvisation - considering that that would defeat the purpose. So we played some warm-up games and set-up the stage ready for people to come and watch. Not many people showed up. I mean it wasn't nearly as full as it usually is when I'm watching - but that didn't matter. Miranda and Leonore even took time from their busy study schedules to come and watch me! I was very pleased. Especially when the MC read out each of our names in turn and when they said "Phoebe Black" I heard very loud "WOOOOOO"s coming from their direction. : ) That's right. I typed a smiley face emoticon. It's how pleased it made me.

The show began and I was put into various games. I got up to do puppets where other people move my body and I have to try and justify the actions they are doing while carrying on a scene. It's funny (for everyone but me) that whenever I play this game the other person in the scene with me is this guy, Josh, and we always end up touching one another - thank you puppeteers. The audience loves it so... there you go. Felt pretty good after that. I also played genre replay where I play out a scene and throughout the scene the MC yells "freeze" and gives us a new genre to continue the scene. It was quite amusing when we got called to do Cirque du Soleil which involved me waving my limbs about, wailing and saying random made up words in a whispery voice like "carpaggio".

All in all it went rather well and people were praising me afterwards so I had a very good evening!

As for the rest of the week... Miranda and I went to Staines and I bought a carry-on size suitcase to take on our Europe travels. We finished booking our first European arch and it's very exciting! We keep saying things like "this time in two weeks we'll be in Paris" or whatever. It's very exciting. Another day Leonore, Miranda and I went to Staines to see a movie. I dare not speak its name but I won't lie in saying we knew it would be rubbish and we enjoyed it just the same. It was "17 Again". Don't judge.

The three of us also went into London yesterday so Miranda and Leonore could see the Victoria and Albert museum. It was lovely as ever and I got to see more of it this time so that was good. We also ended up going to (my favourite place) Primark. The cheapest and therefore best store in London. I needed a belt and, well, let's just say I left with more than a belt.

Today, Miranda had lunch with her friend Carla and then we finished booking our second European arch! We're going on a Greek cruise! I cannot wait. It will be AMAZING. It was also really sad though because we get back from Athens on the 21st of June and Miranda leaves for Phoenix on the 22nd! I don't want to say goodbye. We almost had a little teary thinking about that over dinner. People probably thought we were upset about the quality of the food and thought nothing of it.

Tomorrow we are going into London to see Kensington Palace and the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace - I want to see them in their red coats this time! Last time they were in grey coats for winter. Maybe I'll pop in and see the Queen as well. I hear Her Madge has excellent tea ... and corgis.

Jane Austen's Stomping Ground

2009-05-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

Okay - I've been very slack and I am so sorry. Note the italics - that means I'm emphasising those words.

So not much has been happening this week... Really not much... Leonore, Miranda and I went to see "Wolverine" on Wednesday in Staines and we all drooled, simultaneously, at Hugh Jackman's amazing man body. Other than that I've been hanging around just recovering from my week of assignments... Today, however, I went to Winchester.

Today is Saturday by the way. Okay so Winchester. We caught the train there and at some point in the day the three of us must have really angered the transport god because no matter what type of public transport we were after - it hated us. We were either just missing it, waiting for ages or it was cancelled. You will understand as I go along.

Anyway we got to Winchester and had a look around the town which was so lovely. It was the prettiest little town. Every single thing was in its right place - flower gardens and vibrant bright green leaves shaded us wherever we went. Then we went to some ancient ruins of a castle built 1000 years ago. It was quiet and peaceful with the blue sky above us and birds singing. Outside the ruins was an ice-cream van so we had ice-cream and ruins in one sitting! Brilliant!

The weather today was really sporadic as one minute the clouds would cover the sky and it would be cold and then the sun would pop out and we'd all shed our jumpers. After contemplating buying another ice-cream (I didn't) we carried on through the little town to the house where Jane Austen died (we did her life in a funny order so just bear with me). This house was the house she lived in for the two months before she died. Apparently, they moved her here for her health in thinking that by being closer to the hospital she would heal better - she died. Oops. But this is the house and the poor thing was only 41 when she died! She was the first of her family members to kick the Victorian bucket. Shame. The house had a sign in the window saying "this is not open to the general public". They must get a lot of people knocking on their door asking to see the room where she died.

We carried on admiring the well dressed school boys - it sounds weird I KNOW. But they are wearing suits to school. It's a nice change from untucked T-shirts with sauce and various other stains as a uniform...

Next we went to the Cathedral where Jane is buried. We went inside and were told there was a tour starting at one that was free - jolly good show. Bought our tickets - "Did you know there is a tour at one?". Went inside "there will be a tour here in about five minutes". OKAY. Miranda later asked one of the employees where the bathroom was waiting to here - "well it's outside round the corn- did you know there is a tour at one?". ANYWAY we got to her grave and Leonore told us to stop and just remember that we were in the dead presence of one the greatest female writers in English literature. It was pretty cosmic. Now for those of you who know me ... I'm not the biggest Jane Austen fan in the world. I have studied her and I appreciate and admire the hard work she put in and also the excellent writing but it's just not my cup of tea. Which is why I did this. Love ya Jane!

The cathedral itself was quite spectacular.

After that we were a bit peckish and decided to get a traditional pasty for lunch. We sat outside and watched the people go by. This had to be one of the highlights of the day. Next to us is this giant spire looking thing (very old) which seemed to be the popular hang-out and meeting place for pre-teens. Sad. So the three of us came up with dialogues and plots for the pre-teens. There was Starving Artist kid (he had lanky long hair and was very gaunt) who was sitting next to Nerdy Girl who was sitting next to Frowning Boy who was sitting next to Forgettable Boy in the Brown Shirt. Nerdy Girl is secretly in love with Frowning Boy who wanted to be more than just friends but she is the girl that he confides his liking of other girls so she can do nothing but be saddened and hopeful. It went on and on as our pasties were steaming hot so we needed to occupy ourselves while we waited.

After laughing profusely at our hilarity we walked up the high street to go to see the table of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. Seriously. We went inside the big castle type building and looked around for the table. We found this plain round wood one and assumed this could be it.

It wasn't. It was just some old table someone had left in there from what looked like IKEA. This is the round table...

Pretty big! I think they mounted it on the wall to stop loons like us recreating a knightly scene and staging a duel. Makes sense. After seeing this we took a walk back the other way to get a bus to Chawton which is where Jane Austen's house is. This house is the one she lived in before she moved to the one you saw earlier. So this is her alive house where she wrote several of her novels. Here is her house - I'm sure the sign saying "Jane Austen's House" wasn't there when she was around. Maybe it was. At least then she wouldn't forget which house was hers.

Here you can see her actual bedroom! Yes I felt the need to pose like a fool every time. I was in a Jane Austen type mood.

This is her actual writing desk. This tiny little thing is where she wrote Pride & Prejudice - how mad is that? And this is in her garden. Her surroundings were much nicer than that of the Bronte sisters I must say.

We wanted to have cream tea (tea and scones) to celebrate our jaunt but the shop was closed. Instead we found a park and played on the swings. We headed back to the bus stop to wait, for what seemed forever, for the bus. We began to get desperate when the bus wasn't showing up began to discuss the possibility of starving in the middle of nowhere. Luckily I remembered we were next to a giant roundabout and in the middle is an island with many rabbits bouncing around. We wouldn't starve - we would go hunting in Bunny Island. We amused ourselves by playing various singing games (no one was around thankfully) until finally the bus came over the rise and we scrambled to stand up "hooray"ing all the while. We got back to Winchester and then went to the train station where our train was cancelled. A different train arrived which was going to Egham but just the longer route so we made it home. Not without having some random teen boys coming up to us - are we magnets for them?? Two of them sat down next to us and said "Hello. How old are you guys? We're 17". Miranda goes "Well I'm 24". To which Leonore added "So keep walking". They left us alone whilst yelling and jostling one another about how "drunk they were". Sad, sad little boys. We finally made it back to Egham.

I was looking forward to a good night sleep but this wasn't going to happen. The people in halls have been SO GOOD lately there has been no noise. But now I have another problem. The boy in the room below me has a very... ahem... vocal girlfriend. 3am. Not the first time either. What am I supposed to do?

It's Over!

2009-04-29T01:30:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen of the world. I have now finished my semester at Royal Holloway University of London.

I had been waiting for this day for so long and now it's here... it's weird because it feels as if time has flown by but at the same time as if it's taken ages looking back on all the things I can remember of the term.

I met up with Tamsin and Liam - so good to see them after the Easter break - and we went to hand in our assignments. This was the first time I ever had to hand in assignments online as well as hard copy so that was a new experience. The hand-in room was buzzing with people excited to be finished, moaning how bad their assignment was or moaning about upcoming exams. I did a happy dance. As you can see... I'm just a blur of excitement.

Then we all went to the pub. I don't know if I've mentioned this but (one of) the university pubs is called the "Monkey's Forehead". This pub was full - of drama students. Because none of us have any exams all my classmates were in there drinking and laughing - really good to see them after the break. I ended up having several drinks (I don't need to say anymore) and had a very enjoyable, yet fuzzy, time. Tamsin had to go to a meeting so Liam and I went to see the Players show. It was extra funny given our state.

After that I went back to my room to recuperate before dinner with Miranda! She's back! Yay! Actually after I wrote the last blog she turned up at my door and it's been SO GOOD catching up with her and her German adventures. We are almost done planning our Europe trips which I am very excited about though nervous given this swine flu nonsense... She has booked her flight home on the 22nd of June which means I will be home around that time too! I'm starting to miss home a lot given that I'm now just hanging around in my room without assignments to do which is a bit sad. Online Monopoly can only entertain you to an extent.

It's kind of nice having all the girls back in halls - they are being quiet! Yay! Consideration yippee! I do miss having the bathrooms and showers to myself. Blocked drains and hair everywhere have returned but at least my footsteps don't echo freakishly as I walk the halls.

Miranda, Leonore and I are planning a day trip somewhere on the weekend so, hopefully, my next blog will be much more interesting - and educational - but mostly hilarious.

It's Almost Over!

2009-04-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

Wow... could this be the longest I've gone without blogging? I hope so because I've actually had a valid reason.

Assignments killed me.

Okay so I'm exaggerating. But they did a pretty good job at killin' the ol' soul. Literally for the past five or six days (I've lost all concepts of time) I've been stuck in my room eating and breathing these assignments. I mean the only time I've been outside this room in the past week as to go grocery shopping and to the library. Good times. Take a look at the space I was working in... pretty depressing...

But I'm almost done! Yay! I'm just changing fonts and jazzing up the final product to hand in tomorrow! Yippee! Then I'll be finished my courses at Royal Holloway.

I'm so glad I got the bulk of them done yesterday because there were all these boys staying in my corridor. All the girls that live here are on Easter break, as you know, and these teenage boys were here for some event or something like that - a mini marathon I think I heard? Anyway here I am the only girl wandering the halls. My goodness every trip to the bathroom or pantry was a worthy anecdote. I'd open my door and hear cat calls and all that rubbish as I stretched my legs. Ugh... teenage boys. One kid tried blocking my path by doing the moonwalk into me. How sad. And I'm not joking either.

Later that night I went to the bathroom before I went to bed and some of cool kids (I use the term cool here loosely) were defying their teacher or whoever by standing in the halls in the pajamas and chatting after "lights out". The only problem was their pajamas were just underpants and out I come in my elmo pajamas trying to keep looking straight ahead. The boys started laughing at their attire and when I came back from the bathroom one of them was waving a plastic sword around. A plastic sword?! I ask you? Why would you bring a plastic sword with you? More importantly where did he pull it from??

This morning they were up and screaming at 5am! FIVE! They could have been quiet but this one kid just keep yelling "Rise and Shiiiiiiine!". I was ready to walk out there and punch them all in the face, one by one. I didn't. Eventually they left and I was to be interrupted two hours later by a cleaner who wasn't just jiggling the handle of my room - I hear a key in the lock, lock turns and I go "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!". Stupid guy. He said sorry but it was a bit late for that. After ambushing me he started actually knocking on the doors. Stupid guy.

Some of the girls have arrived to restock their rooms with posters, cushions and ... booze. You know necessities? Hopefully tonight the Founders dining hall will be open. I never thought I would be so excited about their food but after living on soup, microwave dinners, noodles and crackers anything will suffice. Still waiting for Miranda to get back though... sigh...

Au Revoir Good Times!

2009-04-21T02:49:00.000-07:00

This blog starts with Sunday - my last full day in Switzerland - boo hoo! I didn't write about Sunday in a blog of it's own because I didn't take any photos and I don't like posting blogs without photos because... photos are nice. Yes. Nice.

Sunday! I woke very late to the sound of Jun's other Australian friends in the living room. Julie and Nicole had come from their respective exchanges to here. We're all Australian but studying all over the world Jun - Switzerland, Phoebe - England, Julie - Germany and Nicole - Ireland. So we decided to have a picnic. The four of us set off to find the perfect spot which ended up being miles and miles away. We walked through Jun's university campus which is so peaceful. Most likely because the students weren't there as it was a Sunday but also because the campus is slap bang in the middle of a little forest. There are trees rustling and the constant sound of cowbells. Jun's campus figured why paying money to hire someone to mow the grass when you can get sheep and cows to do it for free? Yep. Cows and sheep roam the campus grass lands with their little bells jingling all the time. Jun said it's hard to concentrate in class because of this farmyard symphony. Fair enough.

We got to the spot (eventually) and sat next to the lake to eat the delicious spaghetti Jun had made earlier. It was a bit colder today so all of us were sitting on a bench with our hoodies up. We looked like some sort of gang. The lake was lovely and it was foggy so the mountains were eerily present in the background. The water melted into the skyline once more and I felt like I was in Valhalla or some such place. We then ate a block of chocolate (can't get enough of it) and waddled back. Jun and I didn't get up to much for the rest of the day because everything is closed on Sunday. It's not like home where the hours of places are restricted on Sunday. Here, EVERYTHING is closed. Literally everything. It stinks.

Monday rolled around and we got up early so I could have a good look around the city centre of Lausanne. Catching the metro into town was the first time I bought a ticket. And I got checked. Lucky! Hee hee! The Swiss Lady Luck was on my side. The city of Lausanne and all the shops are situated on the most extreme landscape. The whole city centre is mounted on undulating terrain and these aren't just little hills these are practically vertical ones. A real beast when you're carting your suitcase around. Well Jun was kind enough to carry it. Thank you Jun! We walked all the way to the top and I had to take a couple of minutes to take in the view. The landscape is really what makes Switzerland. There aren't many sights to see but the view wherever you go is awesome. Back down the hill. JUN: Grumble grumble.

We walked to the other side of town (not a huge walk it's all quite small keep in mind) and I found my Swiss souvenir - a new pair of pants! Yippee! By this time we went to the train station and I said goodbye to Jun. Thank you Jun, once again, for having me!

Took the train to Geneva airport and eventually got on my plane (it was delayed). When I tried getting through British customs, my goodness, the woman really wasn't going to let me into the country without a fight. Luckily I had all my documentation - people thought I was mad being so over prepared but I was right! Ha ha! I gave her my offer letter to prove I'm a student visitor and even though it said on the sheet in front of her when my dates of coming and going were she goes "When does your semester finish?"

"Umm...I think it's around June 15th?"

"Says June 12th here."

Pause

"Err...Okay."

After writing numerous amounts of detail she stamped my passport and I was finally free! Got my bag and caught the bus back to Founders - Hall of Doom. It's funny how I missed my little room all until I went to sleep on my awful mattress. Stiff necks all round. Now comes the worst week of my life - writing my two demon assignments! If you don't hear from me I've become buried in boredom. Plus I won't have much to write about anyway unless you're interested in facilitating a Dramatherapy session? Anyone? No?

I'm just popping off to France for a bit.

2009-04-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

Woke up pretty late this morning. I use the term 'morning' loosely. Jun cooked some delicious pasta for us to eat on our journey and we set off to Evian. The name Evian may be ringing bells in some peoples' heads because it's a very popular brand of bottled water. Well guess where it comes from? Evian, France. Which is where we were headed.

We arrived at Ouchy to catch the ferry which only takes 35 minutes. 35 minutes to travel from Switzerland to France! What a luxury. No smelly planes. That's the Swiss flag flowing next to me, by the way. The weather was beautiful and later on that day I actually got sunburnt. Can you believe it? I only had to travel to another country to get sunburnt. It's only light but it's there! So on the boat and marvelling at the lovely town of Lausanne getting smaller and smaller as we swim across the lake. It's funny how much different the town of Lausanne looks to Evian. Just the architecture of the buildings is quite interesting. We pulled ashore at Evian, getting our passports out, ready for inspection - but there was none! If you want to skip the border and enter into France illegally - do it here! The Europeans' are so relaxed about all this is really nice. So trusting.

Jun and I walked along the lakeside (in France - can't say that enough) and this little town is so beautiful! Nothing is out of place here. No rubbish or stray leaves on the grass. Every hedge is cut into perfection. Flowers everywhere with big bumble bees buzzing (lot of 'b's there). It was so nice. I was feeling ready for another ice-cream (I had already had one before we left Lausanne) but Jun and I realized we didn't have any Euros! Whoops. Totally didn't think about that. We were stuck with our Swiss Francs. It didn't matter because Jun had made delicious pasta for us to picnic on so we sat looking over the vast lake and ate lunch. It was so good sitting in the sun (though later I was burnt) feeling warm and full just relaxing. We were sitting next to a mini golf course so people would putt putt past us muttering in French. I'm not doing so badly with the French side of things. I mean Jun asks for most things but if I were here on my own I can manage the basics. I know basic words to get me by - who would have thought I listened, to some extent, in French class?

After this we kept pottering about the town and were trying to find the actual spring where Evian water comes from. We walked up and down the high street and then found an alleyway that led further up the hill. The whole town is on an inclining slope - doh. We heaved ourselves up and found the spring! Well it's just a little spouting tap but it has a plaque and everything and was found in 1786 or so. This is where the water comes from and the whole town here uses this water. It's free and we had to wait in line whilst the little old ladies of the town came forward with their 12 big bottles to fill up. I don't think anyone here pays for tap water considering they can get it all for free here. I think the shopkeepers of the town buy empty Evian water bottles, fill them up here for free and sell them to unsuspecting tourists. I would. After waiting in line for a while I got to fill up my one little bottle. Okay it was worth the wait. The water is so good! I mean water is pretty standard but this was cool, crisp water. This water tasted nothing like the awful health water at Bath. Jun and I agree that it's the water of immortality so we're going to be living forever. So far so good.

We climbed up to the very top of the hill to look out over the town and lake in its entirety. Great view. Sat on the grass for a while and just relaxed. It was 5 by this time and it still broad daylight. It still freaks me out. We walked the other way along the river while we waited for the ferry to arrive and then said our goodbyes to France. I'll be back! Don't you worry!

Back in Switzerland once more... we walked back to the bus stop and caught the bus back. I actually tried to buy a ticket this time but the machine wouldn't accept my coins so it's fate telling me I don't need to buy tickets for public transport. So there.

Jun made a delicious dinner of sweet chili stir fry and we settled down to watch X-men and hit the hay.

This town is tres jolie.

2009-04-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

I was very nervous about waking up this morning (not that I could prevent waking up but you know what I mean) because I didn't want there to be any repercussions of yesterday's illness. I was okay though! I just get sporadic painful stomach cramps which come go away pretty quickly. I'll be fine!

Today, Jun and I got up and went to do some grocery shopping at Aldi. Most of the Swiss people don't shop at Aldi because it's German and they don't like it. Strange. Jun was telling me that it's so weird here because meat is really expensive because Switzerland doesn't import any meat from the various surrounding nations. Switzerland is pretty small and there aren't many cows so meat is very expensive and there is no fresh milk in Switzerland. Seriously. You go into the supermarket and it's all UHT fresh forever milk. Bleh. Again, this is because they don't want to import anything which would be why their economy is so strong. Is having a strong economy worth disadvantaging the population? I guess so.
So we went grocery shopping and got back to Jun's and had a delicious stir-fry. We then went to visit Jun's friends Allison and Kimberley. Allison is Americana and Kimberley is from Sydney - Aussie Aussie Aussie!

The girls were a bit busy at first so Jun and I went and had a look at the lake. WOW. This is one heck of a lake. The sun came out and the lake sparkled and on the other side of the like is... FRANCE. France was sparkling at me. There were swans floating about in this serene crystal water and it was very picturesque. The horizon couldn't be found because the sea was the exact blue of the sky so the landscape looks like an incredible painting. This is all framed by dark blue mountains in the distance sprinkled with pure white snow. It's a breath taking place.
We sauntered back to Allison and Kimberley's house and dragged them out to go have a look at Ouchy which is further up the riverbank and Jun described as "like South Bank". Keep in mind 'Ouchy' is pronounced "o-shi" not "ow-chi" as I like to call it. I could actually wear my sunglasses and marvel at the cleanliness of this place. The blue of the sky and sea is offset with a multitude of colourful flowers dotting the walkway.

We then rented a paddle boat and had a paddle around the lake which was awesome. I so wanted it to be hot enough to swim because then you could relax in your bathing suit and jump into the water if you wanted. Some of the paddle boats had slides on the back of them for this very reason! Today, however, it was a bit nippy and the water was freezing to the touch but it was so lovely paddling about on this giant lake. I said we should just hijack this boat and paddle to France where we would be out of their jurisdiction! Ha ha! We would start a new life as pirates and raid other boats. This all happened in my head as no one else was too keen. It was funny because we were paddling in sunshine but over where France was there were major storm clouds that were black and consuming the landscape. The boat rental guy said "beware the tempest that's coming". Seriously. But in French. After a paddle around we went back in as it was getting rather windy and the oncoming "tempest" looked pretty grim. You can see the dark looming clouds behind my head...

We hopped out and decided to go back to Kimberley's house for chocolate pancakes and hot chocolate. The Swiss really know how to do a good chocolate anything. The instant hot chocolate is amazing and they don't sell chocolate bars here they only sell blocks of chocolate because this is Switzerland and they do everything chocolate related properly. They also have excellent cheeses here which I will feast on very soon... This means that all the clichés of Switzerland are true as there is chocolate, cheese and I saw a cuckoo clock shop in Geneva yesterday.

After our chocolately dinner Jun and I headed back at around 8 (it was still very light) and sung the elephant love song medley from Moulin Rouge on the walk back from the bus stop. Good times. I'm probably going to jinx myself but so far I have only paid for one train trip and that was from Geneva to Lausanne. Everything else - the metro and the bus - I haven't paid for because there are no daily tickets it's just 3 Francs for every trip and I can't afford that. Keep your fingers crossed that I won't get in trouble! If I do I'll just talk in English and start crying. Jun will act like he doesn't know me. The system works. Jun says “Hi everyone”.

Salut Switzerland!

2009-04-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Okay. I'm here in Switzerland and it's lovely... the trip to get here, however, was not so lovely. Let me set the scene. The night before I left I got my bag packed and everything ready to go so I wouldn't stress too much in the morning. Went to bed. Woke up and was extremely ill. I could not believe my bad luck. I haven't been sick my entire time of being here and illness chooses to strike me now? Why? WHY? I ran to the bathroom and was violently ill. Managed to get back to my room where I got inside the door before collapsing onto the floor clinging onto my bin hoping I wouldn't puke again. What a lovely blog this is turning out to be! I had a raging fever and was sweating my life away as I lay on the floor thinking "No! No! I have to fly to Switzerland today!". It gets worse. I was going to have breakfast with Miranda's parents that morning and I had to call and cancel - I felt SO BAD. I just wouldn't have made it up and down the stairs without blacking out. Dreadfully ill. So I lay down and tried to sleep for half an hour. Woke up and had another hurl. Felt better. I gave myself a pep talk throughout the getting-dressed-and-ready-to-go process which consisted of "You're doing great, Phoebe. Just put this in the bag and you're all done. You can do it." Which helped. Managed to get to the bus stop and waited there for an hour because two buses decided not to show. Throughout the bus ride I kept a plastic bag in my handbag in case I needed to be sick again - that's commitment to this trip. On the bus there was a full-on argument between passengers as the bus driver didn't stop at one of the stops and the woman wanting to get on ran up to the bus and started tapping on the door. But he drove off. All the other old dears on the bus began arguing with one another in loud voices:
"What a rude man! Mean man!"

"He was doing the right thing! He can't let someone on at a round-a-bout!"

"She wasn't at the round-a-bout. He didn't stop!"

"She didn't signal him!"

"Yes she did! The bus driver should be more concerned about his passengers given that we pay his salary!"

And this went on and on and each woman who got off would give the bus driver a piece of her mind. It was all very amusing.

I arrived at Terminal 5 and took some deep breaths in order to get off without gagging. Checked in my bag and then got the full treatment from Heathrow security. They must have had the x-ray scanners up super high because I set it off! First time ever. One of the security people took me aside and I was frisked up and down by this woman... Oh my... quite an experience.

Everything was fine and my flight was on time and I made to Switzerland after managing to keep a whole muesli bar down! Things were looking up. Flying into Geneva was AMAZING. It's so green and beautiful with mountains covered in snow falling as the backdrop to this green wonderland. It's like England but SO much prettier. And warmer. Hooray!

Jun met me at the airport and we decided to bop around Geneva and get dinner before heading to his hometown of Lausanne which is a 40 minute train ride away. We walked down to the lake and it was stunning. I was so glad it was sunny and blue sky because it had been pouring with rain that morning and the forecast for the weekend was bleak. I saw the main monument of Geneva which is the giant fountain, Le Jet d'Eau, which is one big fountain. I can't say it's a very flattering photo of me given that I'm still a faint shade of green but you can see the lovely jet of water. Makes me think of the fountain in our lakes at UQ back home! Just being here is breath taking. Using one of Jun's terms - being in the beauty of this place just makes you want to die because when you go away from this place you'll miss the beautiful landscape too much. I'll be dying a lot this weekend.

We tottered around the town for a bit and settled on... sigh... McDonalds for dinner. Don't be thinking that after all my illness I went and did a stupid thing like eating a burger and fries because I didn't. I had a really delicious salad. Who would have thought? The only catch - being in Switzerland - was that the salad cost 7.90 Francs which is about 10 Australian dollars. Whoa. In McDonalds? My main thought for this short journey was - "Eep!". Kind of concerned about my funds at this point...

We caught the train to Lausanne (25 Francs) and went to Jun's student flat which is very nice and met his very nice housemates. Once we got to Jun's I was pretty tired so I took a shower and we watched a film. Glad I arrived alive is all I can say!

Palace of the People

2009-04-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter Monday everyone! Today we went on a little trip around the town of Glasgow itself and went to the People's Palace. It's this lovely old building that houses the history of Glasgow from 1750 and it's surrounding by green rolling gardens. I don't know why I wrote that they're rolling... but they are. We went into the green house first to warm up because we didn't bring our coats as it's not too bad today! You walk along these paths about the green house looking at the various plants and the signs alongside them that say "Do not touch/climb/look at the plants". The path was built out of these thin wood slats which bent dramatically as we walked on them and I was ready to smash them to smithereens and plummet to my death. I didn't. Don't panic.

Then we went to the top floor to work our way down this fabulous museum. I was hilarious. Every information board would state how crap Glasgow really is. There was literally nothing good to be said about this town, statistically, which is a shame because I quite like it. Here you can see Julia's responses to "Glasgow still being one of the most unhealthy cities in Europe" and "Today, 30% of Glaswegians live below the official poverty line".

Another thing I learned from Julia (and The Guardian) is that the life expectancy in Iraq is 67 and minutes from the town centre of Glasgow it's 54. Yippee! Viva la Glasgow!

They had a section on crime and punishment which had a jail cell and a short video about executions. The last person they hung publicly drew a crowd of 88 000. Fun for the whole family! Literally children were dragged along to these things. The last hanging in Glasgow took place in 1965! Eep! This video showed the place where they were hanged and because the criminals' bodies belonged to the state they would be buried inside the prison grounds. I learnt that the most common type of crime in Glasgow's history and including today is theft. I also learnt that 1 in 30 criminals are women. Go us.

Right next to the crime section was the dance section. Weird. I mean I was reading about beatings and suddenly there was a pink dress in front of me and a smiling woman. Had to back track. Anyway they had these footsteps on the floor marked out which were the steps to some dance so Christine and I started jigging about and Julia acted like she didn't know us. Then there was a section on holidays and the beach so Julia and I got an appropriate picture to mark this.

Next came the war section - they REALLY need to work this place out in a more logical way. There was a story of a soldier who was shot but survived because he had a bible and a mirror in his pocket. They actually had the bible and mirror and boy they were wrecked. The mirror was made of tin or something because it's all warped where the bullet went in. Then he tripped over a land mine and died. Just kidding! We had a little rest in a bomb shelter listening to air raid sirens and a recording of a very Scottish family talking about being in the bomb shelter. There was a sign explaining the war and how it affected the Scottish public and title read "Bombed Oot". Too true. Downstairs came the modern Scotland which was the 90s. Julia and I agree that the 90s cannot be considered history because we remember it!

In one section of the museum it was talking about how women died a lot in childbirth because they had rickets and their bones were too brittle. I found it hilarious that people got rickets because they built they're houses all too close together and there's no sunlight in Glasgow. Today it was cloudy. So Julia and I got rickets. If I hadn't explained this picture it would just look like Julia and I really need to find a bathroom. That's probably what the passer-bys thought.

Just outside the palace is the Doulton Fountain which is one impressive fountain. Queen Victoria is on the top and she came to have a look and was very impressed. The fountain was all run down and rubbish until 2004 when they spent a million pounds restoring it. Before it was restored it didn't have any water in it and Julia would ride her tricycle around inside it - keeping in mind she was very young.

We then went home and watched another football match (not Celtic) over a homemade chili dinner. Julia is a really good cook and I'm not at gun point while I type this I swear. There were all these chilies in it so it was quite hot and the football was serenaded by a sniffing symphony.

Tomorrow is another day locked in the law library while Julia supposedly studies and I try to write my awful assignments. Bleh. It's funny because up until the time we have to leave we watch as many episodes of "Sex and the City" as possible. I guess we need to pluck up the courage to do some work when we are supposed to be on holidays.

Wednesday I head back to Egham and then the next day I jet off to Switzerland! Yippee! The fun never stops. Except when the library intervenes. So long!

Thar Wee Toon ov Inverary

2009-04-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone! I didn't think I would get anything this year but lo and behold I scored! And when we went out into the car Christine found another egg for Julia and I! Yippee! After a traditional Scottish cooked breakfast (vegetarian) consisting of beans, has browns, toast, eggs and potato scones I thought my heart would pack it in. But it didn't and we motored off to have a look at the lovely Scottish countryside. No heather but lots of daffodils. We drove past Loch Lomond and Loch Fyne. We stopped at a little town called Inverary which was very sweet. It had all white old buildings and the sun was out so I didn't need a coat. You know what sunshine means... ice-cream! After ice-cream we went and looked at the Inverary jail which was complete with hilarious wax figures. Here is the guard of the jail. Note that he's really looking at Julia... ...and so this resulted. I guess the jail really makes you think about what's important. Kissing wax figures? Not just kissing... I got lucky too... ...sexual harassment lucky... No idea what the figure was supposed to be doing. I'm just very creative. Anyway we went inside the jail and found more hilarious figures in want of hilarity. And so it would be. I find it funny that I've come all the way from Australia (convict town) and I get to Scotland and I'm imprisoned again! My ancestors could sympathise.

The jail tour begins with tales of torture from the past. My goodness they were ruthless! Women who committed adultery would get their hands cut off and hanged. Most men would get their ears nailed to the gallows and then eventually hanged. Fun fun. They were so awful hundreds of years ago. I mean there was no consideration for human life. Bleh. They were brutal.

Inside the place they had a real life court room with figures in a frozen trial and a recording of the transcript. I walked in there and had to really check which of the figures was wax and which were other tourists! Try and guess in this photo...

Most amusing. Because we were mucking about we got punished. Julia asked this guy for a photo but he just locked us up. Shame. I was having such a lovely day.

He was quite determined to keep us in there. This was an exercise cage so he made us walk up and down for a while. We were laughing and joking but he kept a straight face. There weren't many people in the jail (tourists) so this guy's job must have been pretty boring. Unless he wasn't paid... he was just... dressing up sneaking in and locking up young women... hmm... Onto the old jail! There are actually two jails in this place. The old one was built first (in the 19th century) and is the epitome of hell. Overcrowding, disease, insanity, starvation, asphyxiation and that's all in one very small room! There were women and men in the same room which didn't go down too well for the women I assume. They even put children in jail for theft. One little girl of seven was thrown in this place for a couple of weeks because she stole a turnip. As you've gathered this old jail was so awful that they built a new one years later and made the old one for women only. Charming.

This new jail was one of the best in the land. Talk about opposites. It was so much better than the other jail that I decided to take a nap in their luxurious hammocks.

This jail seemed awfully proud of its bathroom facilities. Every level would boast a working WC. Some of them flushable others 19th century style boxes. They would also explain the bathing habits of the inmates. They would only bathe every two weeks! Here's one now...

I guess Julia is helping. I found some guy on one of the impressive loos.Hehehe. I think he was a wax figure... In this jail people were saying that the prisoners had too much of an easy time so they made them do pointless tasks. These weren't even tasks that gave back to society. These were pointless tasks. There was a crank that prisoners had to turn a certain number of times a day. It wasn't easy to turn so they got a workout. There was another one that was a giant wheel and several inmates could be on it at once. It was like a rat exercise wheel. Which served no purpose. If they didn't do their pointless tasks they would be whipped. It was mostly little boys that would be whipped in their several day sentence. They had a photocopied book of all the records and there was only one 15 year old boy - the rest were younger! They never whipped girls but Julia felt the need. It was funny because when we walked into that room there was a big fat white guy on the table and some little woman whipping him. He was squealing and the onlooker was laughing. It was quite weird. I was hesitant to get on that table with them still in the room...

My jail sentence had been served so we let and had a walk around the town and found a lovely soap shop and a lovely sweet shop! Both of which were packed with people after we got inside so we set the trend. We took a walk along the lake and marveled at the sunshine and the pretty lake/loch. Here it is... Loch Fyne...

After this Loch we drove back and passed Loch Lomond and then stopped in Luss. Luss is the town where Julia wants to get married some day. There was this little souvenir store where they were giving away the most delicious short bread I've ever tasted. Looking at this picture Luss looks at lot like Loch Fyne but trust me it's a different location. After this pit stop we went and had dinner further down the track. It was delicious and then we went home and to bed. I was yawning all the way home and I couldn't work out why because the sun was still up. It was 8! No wonder I was yearning for my pajamas. Hope you had a good Easter!