Last Days Chez Paris

Enjoying this while we can.


France really has a thing about Arcs, de Triomphe or otherwise.

It's been extraordinary, but the long flight ocean voyage* home starts early tomorrow morning. I hate to leave, but it will also be good to be home. I wonder if Polly will remember me.

See you soon!

*You know what? I can't be bothered going into all the nautical detail I did on the way over. Instead, this time I'm just going to blog as if I were home from Tuesday evening. So far as this site is concerned, it will be as if I had found some much quicker and more realistic method of returning to Australia than sailing across the ocean; I will do my utmost to make it seem as if I have. To be honest, I doubt you're even going to be able to tell that I'm still all at sea.

Even though we all know the truth. It'll be our little secret, okay?

Still here!

France has not been consumed by a rapacious black hole or obliterated by a more localised exploding disaster.

Obviously there's still a negligible but imaginable risk for Europe when more enthusiastic colliding-type tests commence next month, but that's their problem - I'll be back in Australia. Screw you, people of Dijon who laugh at my ridiculous attempts at French! How do you like them pommes! Ha ha ha!

(Nah, just kidding, you've been great. I hope you don't get disintegrated either.)

Soaking it all in

Obviously it takes a great deal of planning and saving to voyage to the opposite side of the world. And a person who's gone to the trouble of doing that would be pretty silly not to take advantage of the opportunity to see and do on their travels all the things they can't see and do at home.

BUT.

There is a limit. And at certain points on a crazy ramble through four countries over six weeks some travellers just might hit it. Several times.

This means that, mystifying though it might seem to those at home who are expecting the distant traveller to pack their days with ancient buildings and various increasingly esoteric historical sites, sometimes they'll just want to veg. To soak up the scenery, to recharge the batteries. They may, not unreasonably, consider their trip also their holiday for the year (or longer).

And they're not evil for wanting to enjoy it. Even if that means they miss out on some stuff they could conceivably have seen if they had raced around the place. Europe, for example, is a big continent, containing big countries, with big cities, full of sights and sites with at least some interest and point to them. But you can't possibly see everything. And the more you see, the less special and unique each individual sight becomes. You can see a few things and ponder them slowly, or you can try to cram everything in and be left with a meaningless blur. Sure, you'd be able to tick all the boxes on the Things You Must See In Europe checklist and impress your more shallow friends (ah yes, I was there! Here's a photograph of me pointing at it!) but so what? Is that really why you spent 22 hours on a plane two weeks at sea?



As for me, I get a lot more pleasure out of wandering random streets in France brutally mangling the language to the horreur of passing French people than I do out of visiting another over-touristy monument.

Some may have a different approach, and that's fine - different strokes for different generations within the same family.* They're not wrong just because they have a different perspective to me. Different people have differing priorities at different stages in their lives; and they have different overall interests as well. The key concept to grasp here is that people are DIFFERENT. And travelling is about having an experience that results from the decisions the individual traveller chooses to make - not one based on simply adopting the approach of other people who've had wonderful experiences and therefore think everyone else should do exactly as they did (or, if they've had bad experiences, exactly the opposite). Far from helping, being constantly prompted to justify an alternative approach would in all likelihood instead have the effect of being a taint on the trip, and is thus a manner of communication many travellers would be wise to avoid.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to assault some innocent patissiers with what I choose to believe is a well-phrased request in French for a strawberry tart but is in reality probably an unbearable affront to the victim's entire culture.

I can't do THAT at home.

*The French don't have a word for "subtle".

Actually, we'll go first

Where would YOU choose to be if an unprecedented potentially catastrophic physics experiment possibly involving the creation of black holes on the surface of the Earth were taking place near Geneva at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, Swiss time?

As an Australian, would you choose to be on the other side of the planet, comparatively safe from all but the most globally-devastating side-effects?

Or would you instead choose to be staying in Dijon, France, a mere 150 kilometres away?



I think you may be wiser than me.

Smokers: suffer in your jocks

I've generally felt quite bad for smokers. Exiled to a pitiful little chamber at the back of restaurants, or forced outside in the cold or heat, they seemed like a miserably oppressed minority, tormented for their addiction and kept away from decent society like so many lepers. I hated seeing them suffer. What had they done to the rest of us, really, that deserved such a cruel punishment?

Having now spent a couple of weeks in lands where there are no smoking restrictions, and being reminded of what life used to be like in Australia, I have no sympathy for the selfish bastards whatsoever. Without being restrained by the heavy hand of the law, left to their own devices, they inflict their foul pollution on others, and force the rest of us to choose between cancer or exile. There's no apology, there's no effort to keep the smoke to a minimum or try to aim it so it doesn't go straight in other people's faces; they simply choose not to give a damn. You don't like my repulsive, deadly fumes? Well stiff cheddar, old cheese. They enjoy not giving a stuff about the people around them, being kings of their own little worlds.

Well, they used to. Australian smokers don't get away with it any more. And Greek smokers have another year of getting away with this before they're going to find out just what it is like for their victims. The general consensus here is that there will be much unhappiness from amongst their ranks.

I find it difficult to feel too sorry for them.

PS The above was written whilst in Greece. Now we're in France it appears that, in the words of Our Nicole in Moulin Rouge, "the French are glad to die, for cigarettes..." as well. Mais le cancerous wracking cough n'est pas sexy, mes amis.

Le francais qui n'est pas completement atroche

Back at school, instead of learning something useful like physics or something educational but pointless like classical history, I attended classes in French and Chinese for a number of years. The latter never really grabbed me (perhaps I'm a little lazy, because whilst I'm happy to learn a different spoken language, a written language that has pretty much nothing to do with the spoken language and involves simply memorising random scratches of lines in large numbers was simply one step too far), but I did enjoy the former. It wasn't ludicrously easy - although, Lexy*, it was a hell of a lot easier than Kev's Chinese, which is why people were more impressed by his efforts than yours - but it was interesting, and even taught me a lot about English and why it works the way it does that I'd never considered. (Studying the germanic Old English - the other half of what evolved into our language - at University was illuminating for a similar reason.)

That was fifteen years ago. And I've never really had the chance to use it. At University I did French for a year - which involved reading Sartre and various French novels in French - but was hopeless in comparison with the kids who'd gone to France after Year 12 and, eventually, gave it up to concentrate on Law and modern history and an eclectic selection of sillier Arts subjects. The French language part of my brain sat there, rarely used, degenerating, impatiently biding its time.

Which is why actually being in France and getting a chance to revive it is so satisfying. Sure, I'll get halfway through a sentence and realise that I have never learned the French for that particular verb or noun, and will have to try to explain it another way. (Try getting to "soap" without using gestures... it's the stuff that you use in the bath on yourself to get clean, oh bugger, what's the French for "clean"?) Or I will have known the word in the past but have to search deep for a fifteen year old memory to find it (I forgot "far" - "loin" - and took a good fifteen seconds to come up with "yesterday" - "hier").** Which might sound irritating, but actually it's a lot of fun. And I haven't really got stuck yet: pretty much everything I've wanted to say - even random conversational observations - I've been able to figure out, at least eventually. I'm enjoying stumbling my way through the language probably more than seeing the sights.

I'm nowhere near competent, of course. My grammar is way off, since I've long since forgotten how to conjugate most verbs, and have completely forgotten the esoteric rules that govern more complicated tense construction. And obviously the percentage of French words used in conversation by Parisians that I understand is much less than ninety percent (probably less than fifty) which is a lot of missed words when someone is talking to you. Even more since they say them so very fast.

But even after only two days here, it really feels like I'm learning something worthwhile. The part of my brain stuffed with previously unused and useless French is singing.

I wish I had more time.

*Has he finally quit whilst I've been away?! Awesome. What else have I missed?
**I probably should have brought a French-English dictionary, but I foolishly (a) thought it would be fun to wing it and (b) forgot.

Paris. It has an Eiffel Tower. And I have photographed it.

See? It's not a global hoax. It really does exist. And HERE IS THE PROOF:


Me at the Eiffel Tower (actual photograph)*

If you're not convinced (reality sometimes looks a little like a strange image of a puppet next to a toy that I've just blatantly stolen from someone's Flickr), here is a computer-generated photoshopped impression of what I might have seen if I had been taking a photograph of the "Tour" (those French, a different word for everything!) at the exact time I was there with a camera yesterday:


Eiffel Tower at Eiffel Tower

And this is what you get if you do a bit of "up-towering".


Phwoar!

It has some SPECTACULAR queues.


So many happy queuing memories; queuing to get to the security station, queuing to buy tickets, queuing to get on the first lift, queuing to get on the second lift, queuing to get to the edge, queuing to get back on the lift again...

And, eventually, some views.


I call this photograph "Completely Original View Of Paris That No-one Has Ever Seen Before"

Also, it has pretty lights. That sparkle.


It really does.

TODAY: Figuring out to which bit of French countryside we will adjourn when we leave Paris tomorrow.

*Pointless lie.

Franglais

Nous sommes en Paris! J'ai collapse avec l'excitement.

Les photographes, apres.

UPDATE:

It's magnificent, but it's not the railway station.

Milos: pros and cons

CON: No internet. Well, dial-up, but I wasn't that desperate.

PRO:


CON: Mystifyingly confusing signage and surprisingly overpriced seafood.*

PRO:


CON: Some extremely dubious animal treatment practices (see next post, which will be uploaded later this afternoon your time).

PRO:


We're now back in Athens. Next stop (early tomorrow morning): Paris. FREAKING PARIS. C'est difficile de believe je will finalement be la. En France! Ah weell show you ze photos verah soon, mes amis.

*Although the Tania villas at which we stayed were reasonably priced and run by very nice people indeed.

Farewell mainland Greece

We have now pretty much completed our circuit of mainland Greece - driving from Athens to Delphi to Kalampaka to Patra (over the spectacular modern engineering marvel the Charilaos Trikoupis bridge from Rio to Antirio) to Melissi to Mycenae to Epidavros and finally back to Athens. Tomorrow we will disappear for a few days off to a Greek island which probably won't have internet access.* We look forward to staying in the same place for more than one night and never having to drive on the wrong side of the road ever again. (Fun experiences from this morning included overtaking an ambulance with its lights flashing at 120kph** and witnessing other drivers overtake a police car at 40kph over the limit without any reaction whatsoever.)

We've seen some amazing sights that we intended to see, too. The ancient theatre at Ἐπίδαυρος (Epidavros) yesterday, for example, has such perfect acoustics that you can in fact hear a coin drop on the centre of the stage from all the way at the top of the seats. You really can. Similarly, a patriotic "I come from a land downunder" carries further than you'd think.


I call this: Hat Hair At Ancient Epidavros

And the little monastery of Aya Maria high on the cliffs above Ξυλόκαστρο (Xylocastro) occasioned the most spectacularly terrifying drive I've ever experienced. Now I can look at the photos and know that they were not followed by a grisly plummeting-style death, it's something I'm very glad we did.


It was at this inopportune moment that the Scissor Sisters' "I can't decide whether you should live or die" came on the car stereo.

Μυκῆναι (Mycenae) was, it turns out, less worthy of a visit - being, essentially, a pile of old rocks scattered around in the shape of what may conceivably once have been some kind of building. Or not. There's a reason the postcards only show the "Lion Gate", because that's the only thing that isn't a random pile of rocks on the ground...***


Mykenai: rocks and shit we found on a hill, yo, for which you can pay us eight (8!) euros per person (maps and useful directions not included)

As with Stonehenge, the Parthenon (twelve euros and it's still covered with scaffolding?), the Colosseum and numerous other ancient buildings modern Europeans found left behind by their ancestors and thought HEY IF WE BUILD A FENCE AROUND IT WE CAN FVCKING GOUGE THE TOURISTS, it is not entirely certain that your average visitor gets value for money from the deal.**** Still, there's only one of each of these things, so what are you going to do? Come to Athens and NOT climb the Acropolis? Don't be stupid.

Anyway, we came, we paid, we saw, and it was pretty cool. Now we're going to spend a few days doing the relaxing kind of travelling, before things ramp up again in Paris at the end of the week. See you at the next wireless access point.

*Perhaps not the first thing the guidebooks note, but important to some.

**This was in fact the speed limit, and for some unfathomable reason the ambulance was puttering along 20kph under it.

***Alright, that's not entirely fair: some of the rocks are in fact stacked on other rocks in a way you can imagine is wall-like. If you squint.

****Although if you ARE going to be gouged for something the gougers didn't build and don't intend to do anything for, make it the theatre at Epidavros - that one's both spectacular AND still works.

Differences

Other countries obviously do a few, some or many things somewhat differently to what a traveller may be used to back home. Indeed, it is often pointed out that seeing these alternative approaches is one of the major reasons to visit other countries. (Unless you're one of those pitifully one-eyed tourists who are solely interested in pretty scenery and famous landmarks and view their location in other countries as little more than an inconvenience.) And sometimes these different ways of doing things will be improvements which you'll wish could be brought back home with you; and sometimes they'll be things which make you appreciate the better way they're done at home.

Consequently, I'm bound to mention these differences whilst writing about this trip - sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, depending on the difference in question. Please note that this is not a value judgment about the decency or worth of the people living with these differences - it is commentary purely on aspects of their lives imposed on them by the particular good or poor decisions made by either the country's bureaucracy or, possibly, other citizens. It should not in any way be taken as some kind of smug mockery in the "oh how quaint" or "silly foreigners" vein.

I don't want anyone thinking that whenever I describe less than enthusiastically the laissez-faire nature of the Greek road laws or the, frankly, and I hope you won't be offended by me saying this, batshit insane behaviour of many of the drivers here that appears to be a direct result, that I am not enjoying my time with the people of Greece, or that I do not appreciate many of the wonderfully varied ways they look at the world from the background of their unique history and their place on the Earth's surface. If I mention how sick I am of restaurants and hotels regularly trying to rip us off by sneaking in extra charges (such as for bread we didn't order) and pretending not to understand when next time we try to determine the price of the meal before eating, that's an indictment on those particular institutions or particular individuals (which undoubtedly have equally corrupt and dishonest equivalents at home as well) and not the country in which they happen to be located.


This is not a carpark, this is a road we had to navigate.

Likewise I'm not going to tar Italians in general with being like the Roman taxi driver who took us to the airport AT 160KPH (in a 100 zone) whilst driving with one hand and texting on his mobile phone with the other and checking himself out in the mirror.

Because you get those sorts of people everywhere.

Now, I might in certain circumstances disagree with, and think should be changed, the government policies which have led to some of these differences - the decision not to have stricter road rules that would curb dangerous driving behaviour and take maniacs off the road, for example* - but I disagree with, and think should be changed, many policies at home as well, so that can hardly be a big surprise. I'm an opinionated bastard**. And my "disagreement" here is only relevant to this blog of opinion, since, obviously, this is not my country and I neither live nor vote here. It's not that these different laws or systems are Greek, or Italian, or Australian, it's that [what I think is] a good idea is a good idea, and [what I think is] a bad idea is a bad idea, wherever it happens to be enacted.

But as to the people - there have been lots of lovely, kind people in every country we've visited, and they have far outweighed the dodgy bastards that you find anywhere in the world.

I am loving being here - and not just for the scenery.

*Pity we can't have a happy medium between Victoria's draconian road laws and the ridiculously inflexible enforcement of same, and the perhaps a little TOO flexible approach of the southern European authorities, isn't it?

**As you might conceivably have noticed by now.

TODAY: Off to a little mountain village above Ξυλόκαστρο (Xylocastro), and perhaps pottering down to Κόρινθος (Corinth) to see the canal.

I would never mock

Other countries obviously do a few, some or many things very differently to what you're used to back home. (Seeing these alternative approaches is without doubt one of the major reasons to travel - unless you're solely interested in pretty scenery and famous landmarks.) Sometimes these differences will be improvements which you'll wish could be brought back home with you; sometimes they'll be things which make you appreciate the better way they're done at home.

And, consequently, I'm bound to mention these differences whilst writing about this trip - sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. This is not a value judgment about the decency or worth of the people involved - it is commentary purely on aspects of their lives imposed by either their bureaucracy or, indeed, other citizens, and should not in any way be taken as some kind of smug mockery.

I don't want anyone thinking that whenever I describe less than enthusiastically the laissez-faire nature of the Greek road laws or the completely batshit insane behaviour of many of the drivers here that appears to be a direct result, that I am not enjoying my time here with the people of Greece. If I mention how sick I am of restaurants and hotels regularly trying to rip us off by sneaking in extra charges (such as for bread we didn't order) and pretending not to understand when next time we try to determine the price of the meal before eating, that's an indictment on those particular institutions (which are undoubtedly corrupt and dishonest at home as well) and not the country in which they happen to be located.

Likewise I'm not going to tar Italian drivers in general with being like the Roman taxi driver who took us to the airport AT 160KPH (in a 100 zone) whilst driving with one hand and texting on his mobile phone with the other and checking himself out in the mirror.

Because you get those sorts of people everywhere.

Now, I might disagree with the government policies which have led to some of these differences - the decision not to have stricter road rules that would curb dangerous driving behaviour or take maniacs off the road, for example* - but I disagree with many such policies at home as well, so that's entirely consistent. It's not that they're Greek, or Italian, or Australian, it's that good ideas are good ideas, and bad ideas are bad ideas, wherever they are enacted.

But as to the people - there have been lots of lovely, kind people in every country we've visited, and they have far outweighed the dodgy bastards that you find anywhere in the world.

I am loving being here - and not just for the scenery.

*Pity we can't have a happy medium between Victoria's draconian road laws and their inflexible enforcement and the perhaps a little TOO flexible southern European equivalent, isn't it?

TODAY: Off to a little mountain village above (Xylocastro), and perhaps pottering down to Κόρινθος (Corinth) to see the canal.

I think Rome is showing off

I know I shocked a few Genuine Travellers when I revealed the other day that I'd made a point of having a very good look at where everything was on Google Earth before leaving Australia. The sentiment from Genuine Travellers seemed to be that this would spoil the trip, that it would take away from the surprise and excitement of seeing one of these Great Sites for the first time.

Well, it doesn't.

Obvious though the rest of this post might seem, there really is, no matter what preparation you've done, something absolutely incredible and unmatched about standing next to - or in - something truly ancient, or something that has otherwise greatly impacted history. When something you've seen hundreds of times in photographs is suddenly RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU.



Something amazing about actually touching it, or walking through it, rather than just looking at it in a photograph.



Something almost religious about being able to walk around it, or look at it from both sides, or appreciate its actual scale in a way you never could a mere picture.



Something humbling about realising that ancient people have stood in that very spot and left no trace, and that future generations will do likewise and there will be no trace of you.



Something chilling about imagining what events would have been occurring decades, or centuries, or millenia ago in the very spot on which you're standing. And that anyone looking at a photograph of you in that spot would immediately know exactly where on the planet you were.



It is, in fact, awesome.



PS I'm sorry, Colosseo, for taking liberties touching up your columns.

Unholy flesh

Women are not permitted to enter the Basilica with bare shoulders and/or knees.



And you can understand why.

The Vatican is a religious country, and comprises holy buildings in which bare female flesh has no place whatsoever.

Oh, except for all over the walls.


Brother Michael, why do you spend so much time gazing at the holy paintings in that corridor?


I don't know, Brother Jacob, there's just something about them...

And, to combine naked female flesh with freaky half-human half-wolf hybrid abominations:


There's someone who could have benefited from stem-cell research.

Vatican and consistency: you're doing it wrong.*

*Let's not even start on the issue of what the hell all that wealth is doing concentrated in the headquarters of an organisation whose claimed founder asked His followers to sell their possessions to feed the poor.

I don't, actually

Vodafone just sent me, possibly at my expense since I have to pay for things to be forwarded across to me over here, an advertising sms asking whether I "really support my Olympic team" and suggesting that, if I do, I should pay Vodafone some extra money to prove it.

Unfortunately their cunning plan to use nationalist fervour to trick me into sending a few more bucks their way was fatally crippled at the outset by the fact that I don't HAVE any nationalist fervour (although I do like our eminently sensible refusal to adopt Europe restaurants' ridiculous and dishonest extra "service charge"*, and the fact that, back home, you can buy a hat with a brim). Also, even if I did get some kind of satisfaction from the smug realisation that we have it pretty good in the country in which by good management (and not total and utter luck) I chose to be born, the "group of athletes with whom I have nothing in common but a place of birth is better than the group of athletes with whom you have nothing in common but a place of birth (and consequently I am better than you, Oi Oi Oi)" sentiment is so offensively stupid as to force me to rant about it here on the blog even though I know full well none of you want to read it.


So unpatriotic that I'm wearing an (unbrimmed) hat with ANOTHER COUNTRY'S NAME ON IT.

And Vodafone, if I wanted to receive advertising on my phone I'd have ticked some box somewhere asking for it. Which I fervently hope I haven't.

*It's false advertising: if you require that 12% to pay your staff, then bloody well don't list the food at the real price minus 12%. The only purpose of deliberately underquoting the food price is to try to dishonestly trick patrons into underestimating the price of their meal, and putting "12% service" at the bottom right corner does not in any way counter the lies throughout the rest of the menu. PS You steal my change, I'll steal your serviettes.

When in Rome

Just out of interest, do you want the photograph of the spectacular renaissance ceilings in the Hall of Maps in the Vatican* just as they are on the postcards, only less professionally-framed, or the one with my head in it?

Likewise, do you want the photograph of the enormous and imposing St Peter's Basilica** as per pretty much every shot of Rome that you've ever seen except for the ones of the Colosseum, or the one where I'm trying to look as though one of the fountains is an enormous concrete sombrero I'm wearing?

Finally, has anyone figured out why objects and places managed by people who want to sell you postcards are somehow so fragile that they will disintegrate if their light is absorbed by camera lenses? I just can't get my head around the physics.


Part of the Vatican Wall, in an anonymous shot that could have been taken by absolutely anyone any day of the week so you'll just have to take my word that it was taken by me today.

*Controversial claim for the day: the map hall was more impressive and interesting than the Sistine Chapel. (Although this might be partly because they actually let you SEE this room (as in, there's actual light) and photograph it, and because the buildup for the Chapel is so long and drawn-out that nothing could possibly satisfy you by the time you reach it.)

**We didn't actually go on a tour; we got some Metro tickets and took ourselves around. Consequently, some of the names may be approximate.

Something I probably should have thought about earlier

Weird fact about Rome: the inhabitants speak Italian, not English. True!

Surprising fact about Rome: schoolboy French is not an adequate substitute for Italian, either.

Mystifying fact about Rome: impressions of Don Homer's "Molto Bene" and "That's a nice-a donut" also do not suffice.

Fun hint regarding people who communicate exclusively in other tongues: it doesn't matter how clearly you enunciate your language, if someone doesn't know it, which they don't actually have any obligation to when you're in their country, then they're still not going to understand what you're trying to say.

Useful shopping suggestion: if you are foolish enough to leave your hat back in Australia, buy one when you're in an English-speaking country (or England, if that's the closest equivalent available) rather than waiting until after you've left it for one which isn't. It will save yourself a day of pointing at your head and trying to gesture the difference between a cap and a hat with a brim.

Independent assessment of Jeremy's preparation for and successful negotiation of his first day in a non-English speaking country: FAIL.

Briton slagging off this wonderful city

I think British academic Oliver Hartwich is being a bit harsh on London, slagging it as the world's "rip-off capital". Because from the Australian perspective, it's not just the country's capital that's trying to do visitors in.



Take Stonehenge the other day. Take Westminster, which charged £12 to enter parliament and £12 to enter the Abbey, and then wouldn't let you take photographs. I can understand Parliament, where I suppose it's a bit of a security risk - although not really, since the terrorists could just buy a postcard if they wanted to know what the place was like, and that still wouldn't really help them get through the extensive police presence - but the Abbey? Not where people are worshipping, of course, but the ancient artifacts? The ones which, like Stonehenge, they didn't make themselves and just found lying there where their ancestors left them?

And the Tower of London - £16.50 to get in, and although the big fuss is over "the Crown Jewels" (although all they mean by that is "some Crown Jewels", since the current ones aren't there and most of what is there appears to have been leant to them for advertising purposes out of the extreme kindness of the hearts of the benevolent De Beers company), you can't photograph them because they think you'll somehow "damage" them. Like they have a soul which is stolen by cameras, or like a flash will somehow melt them. (In which case the Queen is in great danger whenever she attends any public gathering at which professional photographers are present, I imagine. OMG SHE MIGHT MELT!)

It's obvious that the point is just to force you to buy postcards, and it's insulting that they expect us to buy all these pissweak excuses as well.


If they could figure out how to stop me taking a photograph of this without buying a postcard, I'm certain they would.

Talking of bargains, I was also highly amused to see them trying to sell packs of two playing card decks for FOURTEEN POUNDS NINETY FIVE. As in, 106 pieces of cardboard manufactured in China for ten cents and then onsold for the total of approximately forty Australian dollars.

However, my real problem with London - and the UK as a whole - is not the expense of tourist venues, or of buying a simply bloody fridge magnet.


This photograph has nothing to do with the post, I just thought it turned out nicely.

It's the fact they can't make chips. Nowhere in this land, that supposedly* invented the potato chip, have we been able to find chips to even the most basic Australian standard. I kid you not. They're all soggy. They're clearly made with ancient oil, so they're a dull brown. Even their KFC chips aren't seasoned. I don't understand how a nation that relies on one particular simple food as their main contribution to the culinary arts can botch it so badly.

It's mystifying. Why are they so completely flummoxed by the concept? Please, someone, for the sake of their constantly brutalised taste buds, teach our antipodean cousins how to make a chip, I beg you.

That aside, we've loved being here. Rome next... I wonder if they can do pasta?

UPDATE 19/8: They can DEFINITELY do gelati.

*According to my vague memory, and I'm not bothering to check Wikipedia. Let's just assume I'm right.

Thank god for Skype

One thing I hadn't expected about all this travelling overseas business was how utterly depressing and heartbreaking it could be, visiting usually remote family and friends.

Because the more you come to discover (or remember) how much you enjoy someone's company, the worse it is when you inevitably have to leave. Call me man who states the bleeding obvious, but I prefer the people I like not to be on the opposite side of the globe. It is annoying discovering or remembering that I like people so inconveniently located.

And this turns out to be an inevitable side-effect of travelling.

Unless you were lucky enough to have horrible family and friends who you'd be glad to leave, I suppose. Oh, to be able to leave this country with relief, glad I was escaping unpleasant or boring people I never really wanted to see again. That would be marvellous. So - damn the people I've met for being so nice and making me wish I'd done more visiting and less sight-seeing. Damn their generous, lovable natures to hell!

I hope they feel ashamed for being so awesome and making me wish I could stay, I really do.

Wales to Kent

We were in Wales. Now we are in Kent. The End.

Oh, alright, we did see some things on the way. (When the periods between rain showers and thunderstorms were broken briefly by light drizzle.)

Mountains and Sheep in Central Wales






You'll notice Welsh sheep still have their tails - our (somewhat racist and offensive) theory is that it's to protect them from the advances of lonely Welsh shepherds.

Stonehenge (IN THE FAR DISTANCE, SINCE THEY WANTED £6.50 - EACH - TO WALK IN A CIRCLE AROUND IT AND A FEW METRES AWAY*)


Hearing what they wanted to charge to see this pile of rocks shocked me into agedness

Ashdown Forest (ie A.A. Milne's forest)


Lo, the wind was blusterous.


Played poohsticks on the actual poohsticks bridge. Would have won if Eeyore hadn't floated past upside down and ended the game early.

Today we're off to Leeds Castle, Leeds the city being in Yorkshire and Leeds the castle being several hundred kilometres away in Kent.

I expect that as soon as I get my camera out it will immediately turn dark and start to rain.**

*I have to say, not a big fan of paying stupid sums of money to people who just found some ancient rocks in a field and put a fence around them. YOU DIDN'T BUILD THE DAMN THINGS, STOP RIPPING PEOPLE OFF TO GET NEAR THEM. Also, if you ARE going to charge SIX FREAKING POUNDS FIFTY to let people look at Stonehenge, mind letting them ACTUALLY get close to it? Not just walk around it a couple of metres away? Maybe you could put that money towards a guard making sure people didn't graffiti or damage the rocks that have so far withstood more than a thousand years without your protection, and then let people actually experience the place properly? Huh?

England and historical monuments: you're doing them wrong.

**England and summer: you're doing it wrong.