Gone baby gone

Sad faces everyone, my European adventure is almost over. 

My last stop was Paris.  The last time I came to Paris I was sure I wouldn't think much of it, but I had the best time ever so this time my expectations were high. 

Paris is a great walking city.  Most of the major tourist spots are walking distance from each other; Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumphe,  Sacre Coeur, Montemartre, Moulin Rouge, Notre-Dame, etc and there are lots of parks and trees and lovely old buildings.  The river is wide and bright and a lovely colour (not like our dirty old brown Yarra).  Even decrepit old buildings in Paris have a certain charm.  

 

So Emily who I just been hanging out with in Belgium was heading to Paris to meet Jenni, our friend who is studying in the Netherlands.  Our friend Katy, Jenni's sister was over for a visit & Jenni's friend Mark came to Paris with them too. 

They had a nice little apartment they had found on AirBnB which was decorated with about a thousand Eiffel Towers; you know, just in case you forgot you were in Paris.

So we did a lot of wandering about in the daytime, punctuating our walks with regular stops for lunch or beer.  And back in the apartment there was a lot of wine drinking and snacking.  Snacking French with lots of baguettes and cheeses.  And snacking Aussie with mint slices and twisties which Katy had brought over for the girls.

One afternoon we went to the Eiffel Tower and did as many locals and tourists do and sat in the park below the tower for some drinks on the grass.  It was a beautiful warm Spring day and we lazed around in the sunshine soaking up the atmosphere and the wine.

 

 

 

On my last day I went to see Notre-Dame which is pretty impressive.  Afterwards I went for a stroll and found a nice little park by the river.  The sky was blue, the grass was green and the cherry blossoms were drifting from the trees like pretty pink snowflakes.  Paris springtime a great inspiration for artistic pursuits so I planted myself on the grass, took a few photos and got out my laptop to do some writing.

Later I got up to leave and was like 'hmmm, something is missing.'  It was my camera.  It was gone!  I had taken some photos and sat it down right next to me so I could take some more later and it was gone!  I don't know how it got pinched, but I was not happy.  I loved that camera. 

So off I went to the police station to report it and get a statement.  Obviously this happens a lot, they barely asked a question.  Just got me to fill out the 'I'm a tourist and I got shit pinched' form which they then typed up and that was it.

Oh well, good excuse for an upgrade I guess :)

I heart Tintin

So I’m just going to put it out there, say it straight off.  Brussels is a bit of a hole.  Ok so maybe I wasn’t in the best area of town – Brussels Nord station smells like piss everywhere except in the toilets and on the 5 minute walk from the station to the hostel you would pass at least a couple of hookers.  Although in saying that, it was only a couple which is no worse than wandering down Grey St in St Kilda.  I also went to the touristy areas and while there were some impressive old buildings, everything still looked dirty and decrepit, and there was a lot of rubbish in the streets, that kind of thing.   In comparison to other European cities it’s a bit shit.  It's funny, even in the tourist brochures they’re like we know our city is a bit crap, but we like it and if you don't - leave, we don't care. 

Brussels

mmm chocolate

My friend Emily is studying in Leuven which is about a half hour train ride out of Brussels.  We had a bit of a walk around the town there, it's way prettier and cleaner than Brussels and has a nice big square where all the bars and restaurants are.  We had dinner at a pizza place with a couple of her friends and somehow ended up telling ghost stories.  Someone was like ‘oh we’ll all be too scared to sleep tonight’ and I said ‘well at least I’ll have the comforting sounds of seven other people snoring in my room so I won’t be scared.’ and Meenal replied, ‘Yeah until you turn on the light and realise you’re alone!’  I got goosebumps; she totally creeped me out!  

I also took a day trip to Gent.  It's a lovely town for walking around, like Leuven cleaner and better maintained than Brussels and it had a great castle.  The kind of castle that you could totally imagine living in.  It had a fireplace so huge you could stand in it!  I stopped for a nice lunch of beer and waffles as any good tourist does.  I had 3 different beers in my stay in Belgium, which means there's at least 1997 that I haven't tried!

 

On the first Sunday of the month the Thai Buddist Temple in Waterloo has a Thai food market.  I went out there with Emily and a few of her friends who were all really nice, especially Alex & Niells who not only gave me a ride out there, but stopped off at a few tourist spots on the way home for me!  The food was absolutely yummo and we spent ages there eating and talking crap and then eating some more. 

So one of the best things about Belgium besides the colossal beer menu is Tintin!!  Those of you who knew me in high school may remember I was a bit of a Tintin fan.  I almost became a journalist because I liked the cartoon so much; instead I became a programmer because I wanted to be like Penny from Inspector Gadget and have a computer book.  Anyway, it was good to get out to the Herge museum.  Perhaps it would have been a little better if I read a bit of French though as although the audio guide was in English there were a lot of original cartoons and they were all in French.  Still a cool museum though.    

 

 

Cloud 9

From Ellmau I moved on to Innsbruck, one of Austria’s bigger towns.  With about 100,000 people it’s a bit bigger and busier than Ellmau, but still a nice little place surrounded by mountains in all directions.  This whole mountains in all directions deal is a pain in the bum.  At one stage I walked out a laundromat (yay for clean clothes!) keen to head back to the hostel.  I saw the mountains and was like, oh yeah, if they just stay on my left I’ll be back to the hostel in no time.  Der, wrong mountains and I ended up half way across the wrong end of town before I realised!

Innsbruck has a really lovely little tourist strip of old buildings, winding alleys and a place called the Golden Roof.  The roof is made of over 1000 gold tiles and was built in the 1500’s.  One thing I noticed in Innsbruck is that there are a lot of beggars.  Clean, well-dressed beggars.  And a lot of women too.  I really don't understand begging in first world places, especially when it's not drunks and drug-fucked dicks who have done it to themselves.

Not sure what these shifty buggars are up to, but one is holding a beer so it must be a super plan they're scheming

      

 

One of the touristy things you can do in Innsbruck is go to the mountain-top via cable cars.  It actually takes 3 separate cable cars to get you to the very top, but it's well worth it, the view is spectacular.  At the top of the second cable car is a ski, a bar and some deck chairs.  There wasn't much snow, but enough for some tricky-dicky's to be doing some jumps and stuff which was cool.

 

Another thing I did was go out to Krystalweltten.  For some reason, I think maybe because a lonely planet guide said take a jumper, I thought the place was like an ice sculpture place.  It wasn't, it's the Swarkovski crystal museum, still pretty cool if not a little bizarre and had the most expensive gift shop ever.  12,000 euro crystal dragon anyone?

 

How now Ellmau

I went to Austria with the intention of getting a couple of snowboarding lessons and becoming the next Torah Bright.  There seemed to be a few flaws in this plan:

1.       No lessons; as it was the last week of the ski season in Ellmau all the ski schools were shut.

2.       I lack any form of natural agility or co-ordination; therefore it takes me a long long time to get less bad at anything that involves physical activity.

As there were no lessons I figured I would stick to what I know and just ski for a few days.  That plan seemed to be flawed too by the fact that I had forgotten I am the worst skier ever.  On the first day I could remember how to stop.  That was handy.  So I snow-ploughed my way down a few runs.  For some reason I was having trouble turning, but in true Zoolander style was only having trouble turning in one direction. 

But glad to say I did get better.  By the last day I was getting down the mountains without losing my shit and skidding down the run on my arse.  I was also starting to get some speed up and turning - In Both Directions.  Champion!

 
Ellmau, the town I was staying in, is a really cute, little, postcard-perfect, ski town.  I bet it’s pumping during the ski season, but when I was there it was pretty quiet.  Literally, I had the entire hostel to myself the last couple of nights.  So of course I entertained myself with nudie runs up and down the stairs.  The town has this little church right in the middle and surrounding the church is a cemetery.  And it’s just so lovely.  It’s like a garden.  All the plots have flowers planted and it’s all very pretty.

On my last day in Ellmau I went for a bit of a hike up into the mountains.  The mountains are spectacular.  When skiing you could see out over the valley and the mountains.  The valley was all wide open fields of green grasses.  The town, like tiny toy buildings wound their way down the centre of the valley.  The fields fade off into a darker green of the forests which lead up to immense steely peaks, jutting out against the bright blue skies.  The air was so crisp and clear you could see every crack and crevice in the mountains. 

However on the day I had my camera it was overcast and grey so the contrast between the mountains and the sky wasn’t quite the same.  It didn’t have that look as though the mountains are so close you can almost touch them.  Still impressive though. 

Hiking up into the mountains is great.  The forests are like fairy tale woods.  Tall trees with little undergrowth.  And quiet.  So so quiet.  At one spot I saw a fallen tree trunk, and upon the trunk someone had laid out small piles of stones.  Suddenly the lovely Hansel and Gretel forest became a creepy Blair witch forest.  The tranquil silence became an eerie silence and the pretty dappled sunlight on the forest floor changed to wavering shadows at every step.  I was like, uggh don’t get me witch!

Big fat bumbly bee

Hansel and Gretel forest

Sure, I totally know where I am

 

Apple strudel and a mountain view

 

 

PS. The nudie runs was a lie.  Just checking if you’re paying attention ;)

PPS. If you haven't voted for my blog in the blog comp, voting closes 5th May. So Click here to vote and you'll need to click through the survey until you get to last page T-Z where you will find my blog 'Where in the world is Kelly?'

Old stuff and daffodils

Going from Iceland to Ireland is like going from Winter to Spring.  From bleak but beautiful landscapes of muted colours , alien-like lava fields and icy glaciers to green hills, cultivated fields and small windy roads enclosed by hedges and rocky fences.

 

I like Ireland.  It has a real ‘homey’ feel to it.  I’m not saying that it feels like home, but more a comfortable feeling, like hot soup on a cold day or a warm fire when a heavy rain is battering at your window.

On my first night I checked into a hostel, but it was pretty quiet and I found a brochure for a Musical Pub Crawl so decided to head along.  It was really good.  It was run by two guys, one had a guitar and sang the other had a set of Irish pipes.  They would play and sing and then stop to chat, giving us a bit of a history on the instruments and the musical culture in Ireland and then we’d go to another pub and do a bit more of the same. 

At the end of the night a few people were keen to kick on so the guys suggested McNeills.  A pub that had a session going on including someone who is great on the flute.  The people who I went with were an American couple who were lovely and four American women who were annoying as shit.  On the way there the girl from the couple was saying how she was looking forward to seeing the flutist.  And this other woman corrected her ‘It’s a flautist’ and the first woman was like whatever and continued to say ‘flutist’ and every time she did the other woman would correct her but was getting shitty because the other one wouldn’t say it right.  So I was like, ‘I just call them flute dudes.’  The ‘flautist’ woman was not amused.  Turns out I was wrong anyway - it wasn’t a dude.

So the session was really good.  There was the woman on the flute, a couple of old fellas, a couple of younger guys and the music was great.  There was another young guy who sat at the bar for about an hour sucking on his beer before he just suddenly burst out with a number – gee he was good too. 

I was perched at the bar when the barman comes up and says ‘Your friends left without you’ and sure enough the American women had left; got huffy about something and just walked out without so much as a goodbye.  I said to the barman ‘They’re not my friends.’ and he said ‘Thank fuck for that.  I didn’t think so.’ and then the whole bar was like ‘Thank god they’re gone!’ Then the bar man went and locked the door.  So for my first night in Dublin I ended up having lock-in with the bar man, a few locals including one old fella who was singing up a storm and a Puerto Rican web developer called Ricardo.  Good times.

On Paddy’s day I headed into Dublin to check out the parade.  So the parade started at 12.  I rock up about 11.30 and was like ‘bugger didn’t think that one through’.  The crowds were seven people deep everywhere.  People were perched on bins, statues and climbing street lights to get a view.  There were men setting up ladders for their kids and every second person in the seven people deep crowd was wearing a foot long green hat.

So needless to say, I didn’t get the best view.  I could see the floats which were pretty cool even if I couldn’t figure out what the hell they were about and some of the brass bands were quite amazing.  One did the tequila song and Gangnam style which had everyone laughing.

After the parade I went and met up with Greg, a guy I used to work with who was in Dublin for work, for a beer.  We had a beer or two, a pizza and ended up at McNeills again.  FYI - First and last time I drink Guinness. 

A big surprise waking up after Paddy’s day was the fact that I wasn't too hungover which was great because I got up and jumped on a bus to Ennis to meet Aoife.

Ennis is in county Clare and is about a 3 hour bus ride.  Aoife and I stayed with her parents who were lovely and Aoife took me to the Cliffs of Moher and as she put it 'to look at old stuff'.  Getting out into the country is so much nicer than in Dublin, it's all rolling green hills and daffodils.  And the old stuff; it's everywhere.  You're just driving along and there in the paddock with the sheep is half an old castle or some random wall just sitting on a hill.

The cliffs were pretty cool.  A bleak and imposing view.  And the wind, god almighty, it was strong.  At one stage we were coming down some stairs on a trail and my legs were literally blown out from under me and I landed on my arse.  Then a bit further down the track it flattened out and ran along side the drain.  Poor Aoife got blown over and almost ended up in the drain!

After Clare I caught another bus down to Cork to meet Mags (Down is that the right direction Mags? My geography of where I went is pretty shocking, I really should look at a map occasionally.)

 

I stayed a couple of nights with Mags in her home town of Cork.  With Mera as well we checked out the Cork nightlife, ate a lot of late night pizza and visited some little beach towns.  The weather was a bit crazy and unpredictable, but we did see some sunshine and blue skies when we got to the beach which was nice.

 

We also stopped off for a lunch in a lovely pub and I had a really tasty scallop risotto.  So yummy.  Aoife took me too a good lunch pub too.  The food has been tasty here but I think we all know the best Irish food is found in Melbourne anyway ;)

 

Big giant thanks to Aoife and Mags for having me and showing me around.  I had a great time and had fun catching up with you guys as well as with Mera and with Annette and Barry in Dublin.