Parisian Dust

When a friend of mine, who had travelled to Paris, said he didn't like the city, I thought "but Paris is the most beautiful city in the world". My friend said it was dirty, not very friendly and ultimately he had expected much more.

Still Paris to me seemed to be the city of love, where romance was born. I had seen the image below on my aunties wall for years and had been consumed by Parisian dust.


The Kiss

Parisian dust is the term coined by two friends I met in the hostel I stayed in. Both had been very dissapointed by Paris and we had all admitted that at some stage we had felt like crying and going home. Alex, the very passionate Brazillian had actually admitted that he had sat at one of the hostel tables crying his eyes out. But he also had relationship issues.

I had two very tramatising experiences in Paris one involving a small black boy being dragged back into a store and pinned against the wall for stealing a tube of smarties. The other was a guy in my hostel room, so drunk from a night out vomiting all over himself then the floor then waking up the next morning to find it all over the floor.

The areas of Paris are quite poor and my friend was right it is a very dirty and sometimes miserable town. It also seems like everyone goes out of their way to be as unhelpful as possible. The metro ticket machines would only accept coins as payment and the store keepers would not give change even when you bought something. It became a struggle just to do the smallest of things like get internet access without having an arguement. All in all Paris felt like the older kid in the street, a bit of a bully who doesn't want to hang out with you and will charge you 30 euros for the priviledge of walking to your house.

The one redeemable aspect of the four days in Paris were the people I met there. All tourists like me who were so open and ready to give helpful advice. There was the large group of Australian exchange students, who we had shots with at the bar and told us about the Australian bar where you could get Cooper's and meat pies. They were really good to be around on during Australia day. Then there was Alex and Anneska, two very lovely Americans one from the south and one from the north.


Having flamming shots on Australia day

They got me out to see many sites and sit down to enjoy some nice Parisian food. It's amazing how good company can change your outlook. I'm very thankful that I met them both for so many reasons but mainly because I would have no idea just how better this trip could get...


A very beautiful Church we found

London Called, again

Update: I'm a little behind on these entries. Sorry mum! I can't begin to explain how much it has sucked not having access to a laptop. In every hostel they have free internet - the whole travelling community have brought laptops. I now too have a travel laptop. It's so cute! Anyway I'm in Madrid now but I'm only up to London for obvious internet issues.


London is very good at placing signs to help travellers get from one area to another. Some of the major attractions are signposted from the tube station to the site so I never actually used a map. I got straight off the tube station and walked directly to my hotel without asking directions, that is unheard of.

I arrived at the Enterprise hotel in Earl's Court quite late in the evening. Though I choose the hotel for obvious science fiction reasons, they did not beam me up on arrival. I dragged my suitcase up the stairs. I have one major question for the continent of Europe. Why do you dislike the people who live in you? You will find at any major airport, train station, bus station or street corner a person/persons in varying states of duress trying to lug suitcases, prams or trolleys up stairs. I really don't understand how the most metropolitian centres have some of the worst facilities in the world.

Anyway into my hotel at least there was an elevator. Got to my room and by jove there is a set of stairs inside my room. I'm not talking one or two but a decent seven or eight stairs.



Stairs in my hotel room


I settled into my little hotel in Earl's Court, became a master of the tube and travelled round the most important sites of London, according to Lonely Planet.

London Museum
Tate Modern
National Art Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (got ripped off on 11 pound ticket to see Beatles to Bowie exhibit - my dad's album collection is much better)
Portebello Markets
Wicked the Musical

Science Theatre
I'll only make a quick reference about the Science Theatre from the places I visited because it was definatley the best of all. Even just walking around the outside of the building is an experience, it's majestic. Inside you are greeted with a life size skeleton of a massive plant eating dinosaur. I wish I could say what kind but there were masses of school children surrounding it so I didn't get a look at the description. Onwards the exhibits get more fascinating with fossils and specimans, working ant colonies, a whole section on the human body (we are disgusting), the chronology of monkeys to modern man, conservation and so many stuffed animals it must of been a taxidermist's dream. In particular there was an intricate model of a tree which contained every type of humming bird. They looked so happy in their frozen state of glide, perch and sing; though in reality they probably wouldn't be sitting in the same tree... because of trust issues. Sometimes I wish humming birds weren't so racist.



Some not so racist humming birds

Most importanly a statue of Darwin the father of modern science smiled down on the school groups pushing, shoving and screaming; the tourists flashing their expensive cameras and the young red haired lady tripping up the small children.

The most fun was the dinosaur section. You begin by crossing a bridge where you can see the exhibits below and real and I mean real dinosaurs are perched on the top moving and snarling at you. Okay they were mechanical but so cool. I was behind some kids when we came up to the velociraptors and one of the kids yelled "they can open doors" coolest little kid ever. And then we came up to tyrannosauraus rex and I had such a Dr. Alan Grant moment. I can't even talk about it now.


The king

There are so many more amazing things to see there - like the blue room which has life sized versions of just about every animal in place. Whales, dolphins, elephants everything. But the most amazing thing was the giant sequoia tree cross section. It was felled in the early 1900s and was a seedling before the birth of Christ. Along the age rings it hard markings of major events in human history. It was massive. All in all it was such a good day I couldn't stop smiling. I also managed to find an average sushi place which is rare in London, so it magically turned into a spectacular sushi place.


Giant sequio cross section

Scotland - back with a vengeance

Approximately five years ago as a slightly arrogant 20 year old, I donned four layers of clothing, stood in the windy Scottish moors with my fists raised and yelled
"You've got nothing!"

Scotland regrouped, worked out to many a montage and came back five years later - with the heaviest dumping of snow it has had in fifty years.



Scotland brung it

My week in Scotland was awesome! Beautiful, picaresque, breathtaking, awe inspiring -pick your word because all of them suffice.

It's funny that when I first arrived in Edinburgh I was feeling really down. I'd spent 12 hours on an uncomfortable bus and dragged my suitcase through the dark, slushy streets of Old Town but then I arrived at the Haggis office to a very friendly "hello" and my spirits were lifted. What was that familiar twang? Could it be?

Apparently every Australian expatriate is in Edinburgh right now and all of them were on my tour. More Aussies than you could poke a stick at and a couple of Kiwis thrown in for good measure. We were set for our laid back - no loud Americans - tour of Scotland.

The countryside had been pavlovard * in snow. We trudged up mountain sides, slipping and sliding through sherberty** powder, to discover the views which I have attempted to document.



Cairns of Clava (c. 1500B.C - 2000B.C)



One of the standing stones



Memorial to Battle of Culloden - last stand of the Jacobites



Loch Ness Monster



Loch Ness



Harry Potter Loch (movie four)



Hamish the hairy coo
(Many more photos on Facebook).

I learnt many things about Scotland's fascinating and completely brutal history, the most interesting of which were the talks on Scottish domestic life and a whisky appreciation group. (Getting pissed on single malt whisky at Morag's Hostel).

A few interesting facts were:

1. The highland man wore his kilt the whole year round. He only removed his garments during summer when it was soaked in urine to minimise tics, mites and other nasty parasites.

2. The mountainside life would plummet to -20 degrees during winter and still the door of the house was left open (probably because all the farm animals were brought into the house and smelt pretty bad, including the family of ten to twenty people and the above mentioned urine soaked kilts).

3. Apparently if you look at Google World you can see a mysterious dark shading in Loch Ness, which could be evidence of the shy Loch Ness monster.

4. Clans had more competition and bloody rivalry with each other than they did with foreign countries - see the Campbell/MacDonald incident online for more information.

The icing on the cake that became my unofficial birthday, was hanging out, eating Haggis, at the World's End Pub with some friends from the tour. Haggis is really nice - quite spicy. The pub was named the World's End because during the time when it cost money to leave Edinburgh, the pub was firmly situated on the boarder - for many people unable to afford the price of travel, it actually was the end of the world.

* This is a very accuarate description of the snow fall - so thick and deserty *** Sometimes I would climb over a small mound of snow only to discover it was a sharp bush.

** Sherberty is not a word but should be.

*** Deserty is also not a word and I can't stop with the food analogies. Oh and had the best cheese and leek bridie in the Isle of Skye

Definitions of cold

If you weren't aware, from living in Australia with it's tropical winters, there is more than one definition of cold in the UK. Upon my arrival I was registering about a ffffuuuucccckkk on my cold scale. Bear in mind this is the heighest setting on my scale, from times spent at Threadbo and early mornings in Canberra for a year 6 excursion to Parliament. Actually the first three days were a mild four degrees. My brother laughed his arse off at me while I prayed my genes would kick in, during a walk of Burbary Castle and its Neolitic ridgeway. They did not. I may be the wimpiest white person to ever come to the UK. I caved bought some extra winter layers including thermals and am trying to mentally prepare myself for a trip around the highlands of Scottland, where it has been easing at an average of -4 degrees.

But I should write about Swindon and the quick trip to Oxford. Swindon the home town of my brother Warren, and the competent branch of the Office series is a small southern town about an hour outside of London. It developed along railway lines and played an important part in train production of the early 19th Century. Train memorbila can be found throughout the town including artworks in the outlet shops, I wanted to take some photos but I realised it would be the equivilant of taking photos at DFO factory outlets in Australia. Despite my brother's assertions that Swindon is an ugly town, I managed to find some pretty areas around the park and original houses built by the train company for its railway workers.



Swindon Park

I also took a small trip to Oxford with Warren. We visited the tourist centre, I bought a really "cool" library bag with Alison in Wonderland talking to a Dodo and lamely carried it around the streets of Oxford, to the amusement of passers by. We tried to join a walking tour but unfortunately they were booked out, so we bought a little tour book and walked around ourselves.

Oxford is a town dripping with student life and academic influence. We passed monuments to matyrs of the Protestent Church executed under orders of Bloody Mary and we went through the halls of Christ Church College, paying a ridiculous £6 entry fee. Can you imagine paying at UNSW to take a tour of the Roundhouse? Well this was, I realised, somewhat cooler as we walked past portraits of Henry VII and Elizabeth I. In each of the Churches I lit a candle and marveled at the stain glass windows, which photos can't do justice to. Before coming home to Swindon we happened by a bookstore which sold £2 books. I went a little crazy, coming out with a Dickens, book of poetry on World War One and a biography of an academic suffering multiple personality disorder called A Fractured Mind.

This New Year's Eve I will be going up to Old Town for a few drinks with a couple of seasoned English drinkers. I definately won't be going drink for drink.



Christ Church College courtyard



A butcher in Oxford



Shopping in Oxford



The windows are much brighter and detailed in reality

Leaving home

So on Christmas Day I headed down to the airport after a nice family Christmas lunch to catch my plane to Heathrow. I couldn't believe what had happened to the airport. I used to think we had the nicest terminal around but now all the carpets have been ripped up in favour of cheap tiles and the duty free looks like it has been dipped in Franklins juice before being installed in the departure section.

Once on Singapore airlines the air hostess graciously told me that my seat was taken by a couple who insisted they should sit together because "Well, we're together". Now I didn't book my seat nor did I actually care where I was sitting but at that moment I stuck at my chest and said "Actually I do want to sit in the seat I was allocated". I don't know why it annoyed me, maybe because I was an usher for years, or because I worried about being pushed around this early into my trip, needless to say the bloke next to them moved and I felt triumphant in my window seat ... till about 5 hours in when I became suddenly ill.

With just two hours left till Singapore I meditated the rest of the way and managed to avoid getting up to go to the bathroom. I felt awkward asking the people next to me to me to get up and down constantly when we had already had the seat swapping incident. Finally Singapore came into view looking like a darkly sparkly jewel and after many polite "no, no after you" I spent quite some time getting to know the Singapore toilets of the entire airport. The rumors are true they are quite nice. There are also lovely prayer rooms which I thought about using to ask Jesus to intervene and stop my chunder train. He must have listened because suddenly I was okay.

Going from Australia to Singapore was a nightmare - it was packed, the turbulence was frightening and the passengers were seat stealers. Going from Singapore to Heathrow was awesome!

I got into my seat and waited for the other passengers who would be seated next to me. They never came. In fact the entire plane had about one person to each row of seats. We excitedly looked around at each other knowing what this meant and as soon as the seat belt sign went off everyone rushed around finding an empty bank of seats, throwing up all the arm rest and lying across three or four chairs. I slept for nine hours - maybe the most anyone has managed to sleep on an economy class flight.

Finally after 13 hours of air travel bliss I got a glimpse of London by night. Where Singapore was intricate, organised and perfectly manicured from it's aerial view London looked like a mass of tangled gold chains. That's okay though as it is London town and it has other redeeming features.

I grabbed my bags, hurried through customs, saw Warren waiting for me, got in the car to Swindon.



Singapore aerial view.



London aerial view.