The Cradle of Civilization?

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I haven’t made up my mind whether I like Athens or not yet. It’s grimy, graffiti-ridden – a city in decay, but then you unexpectedly come across something beautiful like a church in the middle of the chaos and find yourself liking it almost in spite of itself. It’s rather disconcerting actually, but on the whole I’ll be glad to leave Athens and probably wouldn’t return except as a stop over on the way to somewhere else – like the island of Serifos where we’re heading next.

It hasn’t been the best start to our island adventure, however: Chris got pick pocketed on the train on the way to the ferry. It was quite a masterful operation to watch – this gang just swarmed Chris in the guise of helping him, and before he knew it he had been divested of his wallet. The most audacious part of it was that they stayed right next to us on the train like nothing had happened. Then, when Chris started to make some noise about losing his wallet, one of them ‘found’ it on the floor – less €50 of course – then they all hopped off at the next station. Still, at least they didn’t take his credit cards and €50 isn’t much in the scheme of things. Lessons learned, lessons learned…

One thing I do know is that I already like the island of Serifos very much indeed. More later, but for now this is where we are staying: Hotel Rizes.

All by myself

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It’s time for Sam’s European adventure take 2, only this time I’m on my own… not coz I’ve dumped Chris (or vice versa) but because he couldn’t meet me in Athens until Sat so I’ve had a night and a day all to myself. While admittedly travelling on my own freaked me out somewhat*, it’s actually been kind of cool and not having someone else around seemed to circumvent the meltdown I usually have first night in a strange city – and vodka wasn’t even involved! Truth be told, I laid down for a quick nana nap at 5pm and woke up the next morning.

In a fortunate happenstance, I seem to have found a hotel right near the main shopping drag so that took care of the first part of the day. In an effort to prove that I’m not a complete philistine, I went to the Benaki Museum to see a jewellery exhibition designed by famous artists such as Picasso. Now museums are normally Chris’ thing (there’s a limit to how many pieces of pottery I want to look at), but I can’t spend the whole day shopping. I then compounded the problem by visiting the Museum of Cycladic Art and realised that Chris would have actually wanted to see this one but too late now. It had a fantastic exhibition of nude sculptures by Ugo Rondinone. Lots of willies.

To complete the day I indulged myself with a fish spa, pedicure and massage. Rather odd to have little fishes nibbling away all the detritus from your feet but I guess a part of me will now stay in Athens (collective eww! there). I usually expect a girl to do the massage, but no, I got Andreas. A little weird, but apart from the odd breathing and waving his hands over my body to align my chakras or some such nonsense it was pretty good. Think it was supposed to be a no clothes massage but he obviously picked up on my ‘don’t touch my breasts’ vibe and told me I could keep my knickers on.

There’s a lot to be said for travelling on your own, but I’m not game enough to venture out by myself at night in this district so it’s just as well Chris arrives soon and I can start the drinking 🙂

*travelling generally does this to me anyway. As a result, Emma now thinks I need therapy – I’m just surprised it took her this long to figure that out.

The end of the line

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So it seems I actually miss Chris. I suppose the precursor to that is I’m sitting in Dubai airport waiting for my connecting flight back to Perth with my grand adventure having finally come to an end. There doesn’t seem to be much else to  do at 2am other than to reflect on what I like to think are some valuable lessons learned from my travels. Here they are in no particular order:

  • There is more than one train station in Florence.
  • Always check your tickets before you leave to make sure you’re going to the right train station.
  • Don’t fly Easyjet unless there’s no other way out of the country.
  • Try to avoid buying anything in Switzerland unless you really do have money to burn or it’s on sale.
  • Paying a lot of money doesn’t necessarily get you the best accommodation. Sometimes less is more.
  • Just because a restaurant has a good review on Trip Advisor, doesn’t mean it’s good. Then again, sometimes a good review is just a good review.
  • When hiring skis, find a place right next to the chair lift. Also, don’t assume that just because you receive confirmation online they will actually have your skis reserved for you.
  • Don’t drink the vodka at Russian karaoke/hooker bars.

So now I’m broke, I have no job, I’m too scared to get on the scales to find out how much weight I gained but I *did* have a great time and Paris is calling my name. So stay tuned for further adventures when they let me back in the country (in about three month’s time). There will be tears, there might even be dancing, but by god there will be alcohol – à bientôt!

Ooops

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After swearing I’d never sing karaoke I unfortunately found myself at a Russian strip joint on my return to Geneva belting out Bohemian Rhapsody with gusto after enough red wines at a tapas bar followed by vodkas at a karaoke bar/strip club.. At some point I found myself noticing it was snowing after landing in a snow bank in somewhat of a drunken stupor. Hmm snowflakes are pretty. Jesus, it’s only Monday night and my holiday has supposedly ended. Guess I shouldn’t drink and type… God   I hope nobody took photos.

PS: funnily enough had a really good time but it’s really hard to be coherent right now. Will I regret this in the morning?

Everything but the kitchen sink

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Louvre – check; Eiffel tower* – check; Musee d’Orsay – check; Museum of Modern Art – check; L’Orangerie – check; copious amounts of shopping – double check; holiday to recover from holiday… well that might have to wait for a bit 🙂

I just have to say that for me the L’Orangerie was the best part of the whole trip. Those wrap around Monets are incredible and the moments when I walk around with my jaw on the floor in an art gallery are few and far between. The fact that you get a few Renoirs, Gauguins, Picassos and Cezannes et al are just an added bonus. Its bigger sister, the Musee d’Orsay, had a wonderful impressionist gallery housed in an old railway station. Chris took a picture of me at the clock face but I looked like I was having teeth pulled so I’ve put up a picture of just the clock instead.

The other worthwhile stop was in fact the Museum of Modern Art. Now if you plan on seeing it, please note that there are in fact two museums of modern art in Paris. The difference is one is free, the other isn’t**. Can you guess which one I went for? Well, if you didn’t know my tightarse ways by now you should have guessed that I don’t much like spending money on exhibitions (but incidentally have no problem doing it shopping). Anyway, the City MOMA is absolutely free and has a pretty good cafe there to boot and featured such highlights as a morse code chandelier. There was also a mouse running in a  circle on one of the floors, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t one of the exhibits, though it was pretty entertaining for about five minutes or so.

I believe I have now maxed out my credit card so it’s just as well we’re leaving Paris tomorrow <sob>. Who would have thought that I’d ever have wanted to stay?

*this involved standing underneath it in the rain, looking up and thinking ‘just can’t be bothered’
**there are probably other differences too, but I would have had to fork out the bucks to see it so I guess we’ll never know.

Not another art gallery…

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Ah Paris, I love you so… There are so many interesting things to do and see – a week is just not enough. I guess I’ll just have to keep coming back until I’m done 🙂 We are staying in a fantastic location on the Ile Saint-Louis in the centre of Paris. Close to everything with a boucherie, a boulangerie and fromagerie just outside the door and on a street of restaurants. I may put on 5 kilos in Paris alone.

We went to the Louvre today <sigh>. It was pretty big (actually, that’s somewhat of an understatement) and had a fabulous collection, but I think I’m just over art galleries and wandering around seeing the same kind of paintings over and over again. I know I shouldn’t diss the Mona Lisa, but it didn’t seem all that special quite frankly. Not that the queue milling around thought the same. In fact my exposure to the Mona Lisa was actually a backward glance over my shoulder as I walked past the crowd *lol*. Please try not to swoon all you art lovers, but I’ll reserve my praise for my personal fave; Monet who is and has always been da man.

London calling

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Only two nights in London – what was I thinking? Obviously I must be mad. I couldn’t possibly hope to shop all of London in just two days! It’s hard to believe there’s an economic crisis on with the number of people in London. I did my best to boost the economy but I’m fast running out of luggage space, and I do have to save my last hurrah for Paris – and at the very least I need a new hat. Not sure I actually have any money left, but that’s what credit card debt is for. I *really* need a job fast when I get back home.

Now let’s see… there must have been something else to do in London besides shopping.  Well, we did make it to the Tower of London and got to see the hilarious Yeoman Warden of YouTube infamy.  I’m not sure why he looked at me when he was talking about women always wanting the last word? The Tate Modern was pretty awesome and chipped into shopping time in a big way. I am inspired to create something arty when we eventually buy our villa in the south of France.

The surprise of the trip though was Chris actively wanting to see a musical. Mind you, it was Blood Brothers (no happy ending here) and apart from a few well restrained sobs from me, it was very good indeed.

I feel like we’ve now visited every pub in England. I think it’s probably a good thing we don’t live in London because I’d always be shopping and Chris would always be at the pub. I would however be very well dressed when I came down to the pub to drag him home 🙂

Old Blighty

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It’s onwards and upwards old chaps. In case you’re wondering why I’ve gone all British it’s because we’re currently in the UK, pottering around the countryside of Kent. How odd to be able to speak English again – I’ve kind of gotten used to speaking in French now – or a bastardised version of it at any rate.

Everyone told me that England is miserable in the winter but so far the weather has been sunny, if a little freezing, so we’ve been able to enjoy the English countryside, so to speak. This mainly involves a lot of driving around looking at greens that Chris once played cricket on and drinking at pubs. I really don’t have a problem with the pub side of things 🙂

An inordinate number of castles are closed at the moment however, which has put a bit of a spanner in the works. As a general tip, don’t visit the English countryside in the middle of winter. Luckily Leeds Castle was open and for the princely sum of £18 each we could visit the castle and grounds (highway robbery methinks). It was a perfect Pemberley. I could just imagine Mr Darcy emerging from the lake dripping wet… hmmm… having a moment here… OK, back from YouTube now. If you think I’ve gone barmy, then perhaps you should look at this for enlightenment, or maybe this for a bit of a strange post-modern moment instead.

Just one more day around here (shopping tomorrow!) and then it’s off to London to argue over which musical to go and see. I’m not sure I can get Chris to see Mamma Mia but I’ll give it a go anyway…

Queen of the mountain

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Today I felt like I climbed to the top of Mt Everest. Well, I may as well have for I skied down a bloody big mountain. I’ll admit my expectations weren’t high starting off ski lessons this week. If I could just ski down a little hill, that would have been a major accomplishment. Well skiing down a mountain is sooooooo much better! Just think, two days ago I could barely turn and now I can ski a mountain. I even did a little bit of a red run 🙂 Mind you, small children can still ski better than me, but I’m not letting that ruin my sense of achievement.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous

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We now come to the sporting part of our itinerary: skiing in St Gervais, France. Now St Gervais is like a poor-man’s Chamonix. It’s actually a really nice town, you just don’t get rich women swanning around in fur coats carrying little dogs… and that’s no bad thing. We’re staying practically at the bottom of the ski lift so it’s all really convenient to get to the slopes.

We’ve booked private lessons and that turned out to be a godsend. Well for me anyway, as I’m a skiing virgin (no jokes please Tuss). Chris is skiing down the slopes already with aplomb, because he’s done this before, but I’m giving the 5 year olds a run for their money and I managed to ski for the whole two hours without falling over (partly due to our ski instructor ‘guiding’ me downhill 🙂 ).

The only bad thing about this holiday is that yet again there is no internet where we are staying and the places in town have time restrictions (the bastards!) so we can’t drink the bar dry while we download copious amounts of movies from iTunes. The downside to life in the cloud I suppose. Still, I guess the purpose of a holiday is not to spend your whole time on the internet although the withdrawal symptoms get worse when I know a basketball game is on. Go Wildcats!