Sunday the 10th of August, 2008 – Brussels is our friend.

Dear patron, prepare for a new direction for this here ´travel blog´!

I have declared the previous format of ¨and then we did this and then we did this¨ to be wildly uninteresting for both reader and writer, and so from now on it will be a little more ephemeral and snippet-based.

If you´d like to read about exactly what the three of us did each day, you can consult the blogs of my siblings, who write in such comprehensive detail that I can´t help but admire their commitment and consistency.



So, to Brussels.

Brussels is neat.
If I was a city, any city, I would be Brussels.

It is small, laid back and confusing. A constant contradiction unto itself (two official languages, mixed in with at least five others; beautiful architecture against horribly plain buildings). It´s inhabitants pride a strong sense of irony and favour the casual over the hipsters (their term for ´trendy´ is used a criticism). Everything is closed on Sundays, Mondays and during a segment of the afternoon, and noone seems to care. Everything is art-and-design-y, and there is a legacy of a comics culture that is literally painted onto its walls.

More than that, the locals always seem quite guarded and stand-off-ish at first but once you get into two minutes of approaching them, they turn out to be the loveliest, helpful people with a great sense of humor.

When we got here, in the evening, our eyes widened, glossed over with joy as we decided that we loved it so much that we may as well move here. I started scheming in my head about living costs and liabilities.



Also, there is wonderful beer, chocolate, waffles and fries. My thighs grow round already. Not cool. Actually,maybe I probably should not move to Brussels then. At least in London, the normality of everyone's´ eating disorders keeps you on your toes.



But oh! the Belgian chocolate is so good.
And I am completely infatuated by the trappist beer – particularly the kriek variety, which is brewed with cherries and traditionally drunk by girls. So, so tasty. My first experience with kriek was at my first Pukkelpop in 2006, when Sam, Shannan, Cam and I happened upon Mort Subite Kriek Extra in the ´special beers´ tent.

Since then, I couldn´t keep it out of my mind and was anticipating our reunion.
It did not disappoint.

Friday the 1st of August – Paris is done and I never did get my croissant.

Josh, Emm and I:

- checked out of the hostel without any breakfast or coffee,with the intention of getting a croissant and coffee at a café at the train station,
-took bloody well ages waiting in a cue for train seats at the station,
- so then had to rush to check-in for my Eurostar back to London
- and said goodbye, sadly,
- and I never did get my croissant in Paris.

Who goes to Paris and doesn´t have a croissant?

I will be on my death bed as the reaper stands over me and cry Oh, remorse! For I have not truly lived!

But I digress.

I took the train back to London, on which I ate a rather disgusting melted cheese sandwich, dropped my backpack off in my room, had a shower and went to pick up my pal Stacey from her hostel by Russell Square.

This has been my blogging of Paris.

Wednesday the 30th of July, 2008 – Paris contains museums.

We got up to leave early to beat the lines at the Musée d'Orsay (the other day had frightened us off). Emm and I had to change from our eight-bedder room to another, so we checked out at the desk and left our bags on Josh’s bed until we could check back in later that afternoon.
We got to the d’Orsay, sans lines. There was room upon room of art from all over, everything from the Impressionists to Post-Impressionists, the Classics to the Neo-Classics. We spent quite a while there.

Oh, there were also tourists taking photos of the paintings.
WHO TAKES PHOTOS OF PAINTINGS AT A MUSEUM?

I mean, because - y’know - why settle for a glossy reproduction in any number of art books when you can have your very own poor-quality, shadowed and improperly angled on your digital camera. Morons.

Anyway, I was taken back to my days of year 11 and 12 art history at school. Like Emma, I was trying to remember all the significance of each symbol and brushstroke, and why they shocked and astounded and seduced each particular society.

Lunch was at a cafe not far from the museum, with quiche for Emm and I (hurray for quiche!) and pasta for Josh. We all had salad.

Next was the Centre Pompidou, which I was obviously very excited about. I’ll say this now: I prefer the Tate Modern. How’s that for home-town spirit?

The building itself was fantastically whimsical – all exposed escalators and block-coloured pipes - and contained a great little product design orientated gift shop on the first floor, which we could have spent all day at. We went to check out the main exhibition ‘d'jour’; a large and winding existential/ teological exhibit focusing on the exploratory relationship of artists to the concept of God. It was called Traces de Sacre.

Ok, so it was good and all. But really...do you really need to rely on Damien Hirst that heavily? Oh and also, I didn’t think too highly of the curation – they seemed to want their patrons to follow a particular path through the works but it just didn’t work out. People were scattered all willy-nilly, confused and scared. It really took me back to my course unit on the Philosophy of Religion that I did back in uni. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, as I thought some of the commentary was quite theoretically advanced and therefore, inevitably confusing. And monotonous. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the exhibit over all, but I had my doubts.

Then the most amazing thing happened: we went for a picnic on the canal. Fabulous.

On the menu of items that we bought from the marche:

- a ring of soft goats’ cheese (Josh was getting annoyed at the length of time it took for Emm and - I to select a delicious cheese at the marche),
- a tin of sun-dried tomatoes,
- a tub of tabbouleh (yum yum),
- a bottle of Lychee liqueur, and
- a bottle of Sprite.

It was so lovely.

We ended up so exhausted by food, sun and good times that, after spending some time attempting to socialise with some stereotypically uncouth and uninteresting Australian tourists at the bar, we watched the entirity of Fight Club in the chill out room.

Then sleep.

Tuesday the 29th of July – Paris is hot.

Woke up and went down to the complimentary breakfast. Pleasantly surprised by the continental ´buffet´ available and took advantage of all of it, ie. bowl of cornflakes, baguette with butter and two cups of coffee. We planned out the rest of our day, starting with taking the metro to Basilique de Sacre Cur. Which we then did, took photos, etc. etc. Discovered how fantastic ´jumping´ tourist shots really are. Decided that we would use them heavily from then on.

We were lining up to get tickets to climb up the tower and there was this group that consisted of 2 small children chaperoned by 3 old French ladies AND FOR THE LIFE OF THEM THEY COULD NOT WORK OUT THE TICKET MACHINE and we were all waiting there for a good 10 minutes and the line was building up. Eventually one of them jumped over the ticket gate – I kid you not. Old French granny yoofs they were. We made our ticket machine transaction in a flat-out 30 seconds, after which Josh beamed at the line behind us and led an impromptu applause.

As I climbed up the tower, I filmed the whole 9 and a half minute ordeal with the time-lapse function on my camera (which Josh just showed me existed -note that I will be obsessed with this for the near future).

We climbed down, etc etc.

We went to Montmartre, bypassing the Moulin Rouge and promptly declaring it to be too expensive. Then we sat in a café named after ‘Le Chat Noir' where the waiter wouldn’t serve us - so we promptly got up and left – heading straight into its neighbour: the Musée de l'Erotisme!

I would say that I´ve never seen so many penises, hoochies or boobies in the one place in my entire life but that would be a lie – not to forget that I inadvertently caught the London naked bike ride going down Oxford St last year. It was alright, except the main travelling exhibition was about contemporary Japanese art. It consisted of 80% art that contained some pretty graphic themes about violence against women – something I felt extremely torn about. My inner feminist was reeling. We finished touring the museum and left.

It was definitely worth it, if for nothing else than for our Gran ringing Emma’s mobile while we were watching a porno from the silent film era, and her explaining that we were in “er, a museum right now, can’t really talk, oh yes it’s very interesting...”

For lunch we picked up three different vege quiches (or tarts) from a patisserie and ate them on the steps of a church.

We walked to the Centre Pompidou but – alas! - it is closed on Tuesdays. The bastards.

Instead, we got some amazing gelato and walked to the Dorsay. Amazing gelato is as good as, if not better than, modern art. Actually, they were pieces of modern art in themselves: one flavour enclosing another to form a delicious, icy rose.

Then when we got to the Musée d'Orsay, there was an epic line. THE BASTARDS.
It was so humid too.
We then walked a million and one kilometres along the Champs-Élysées up to the some arch (for the record, the Arc de Triomphe). We were dehydrated and dire. Tensions were rising. We didn´t even talk to each other along the way. We were melting. The rubber melted off my sandals as I dodged tourists up that long road, leaving black tar in footprints on the Parisian sidewalk. Then the ground opened up and the metro sucked us in, and we retreated back to the hotel.

Cue shower and refreshment. Cue cider and internet on Ozzy (real name Ozymandias), Emm and Josh’s brilliantly tiny computer. I still find it weird to type on this thing.

Back in our room at the hostel, we realised that the funky smell coming from the bunk below Emma was some smelly cheese left out by some guy who was sleeping there. Some pretty smelly, blue cheese. Oh, it was awful. Our roommate Michelle put it by the window to get some air.

All a little tipsy from just one pint of cider – thanks for those genes, Mum and Dad – we walked at least one hour until we settled on some food at a misc. Asian restaurant. (please note that we stopped in, sat down at, and read the menu of three other restaurants before settling on that one). Travelling with a vegetarian must suck balls. Sorry you guys.

Having already had rose’ aperitifs at one of the attempted eateries, then more complimentary of the same at the Asian, we walked back along the canal feeling quite tipsy. The colourful lights hit back at us from the water. We checked out the hostel’s bar to see if there was anything happening, then settled on a midi of lager each and watching the last ten minutes of Fight Club in the ‘chill out room’ downstairs,

Then sleep.

Monday the 28th of July, 2008 - Gay Paris

So I get to the Eurail station at St Pancras International, right? And I assume that I got there with plenty of time to check-in for my 11:05 train to Paris and I’m trying to walk through the automated ticket gate but it won’t let me, and I'm thinking “why is there always a problem with anything I do!”. So I go to the desk with the man and he informs me that this is July. I'm like “uhhh I know it's July...”.

Then he shows me my ticket.
My ticket for the 28^th at 11:05.
My ticket for the 28^th at 11:05 in August.

Ba-bow.

Cue shock! Cue horror! Cue cursing myself under my breath and dashing to the Eurail ticket office, where a lady very kindly booked me on the next train (12:30) for no extra charge (it could have been 300 pounds).

Honestly, I am such a douchebag sometimes.

The worst part is...this isn’t the first time this has happened for a Eurostar train (may I remind you of the London-to-Brussels-for-Pukkelpop fiasco of ´06? The one that Sam and I swore we never tell anyone about but then proceeded to tell everyone about).

But I catch my train and all is good. While travelling, I dog-ear pages and circle items in my Time Out ´best Paris listings´ guide (I always trust those folks at TO; hereby referred to as TO for the duration of this post).

I get into Paris Nord and Emm, Josh and I have our little excitable triplet reunion. It’s hot in Paris in the summertime – much, much hotter than London, even on its good days. I’m wearing jeans and I’m schvitzing as we walk the four kilometres to the Hostel, catching up along the way. We get there and it’s this delightfully huge modern monstrosity, one big hulking cube of trendy exposed wood panelling – our hostel St Christopher’s Inn (one of a chain) and the adjoining Holiday Inn Express. I was pretty impressed with it though: all very clean, all very new. No unavoidable and scary odours. No urchins loitering in the hallway. Just a lot of Australians and Americans.

Emm and I were booked into a 6 bed down the hall from Josh's 10 bed room. We threw our backpacks into the lockers under the bed, changed and head out. We walked along the canal that our hostel is banked on and it all was so lovely and Parisian. We tried to find a bar that TO recommended but after 40 minutes, found it and decided that it was too early. We walked for quite a way before settling on a random café nearby for three ice cafes and a slice of apple pie to share.

From there, we wandered past a bar called Cafe L´Absinthe and thought ¨awesome¨ obviously, and ordered three absinthe aperitifs. It was so charming and cool, so we stayed awhile to chat and get tipsy off just a shot of absinthe and sugar painstakingly diluted into the cool water.

After that we walked to Bastille, did the tourist thing, and decided that it was probably going to rain. Which it then did. A lot.

Oh, summer! Humid rain! How lovely you are!
We would have just walked through it but we wanted to go out later and would have had anything to dry us off, so we hid in doorways and under shopfront curtains along the length of entire length of street. It was great, actually. We laughed the whole way.

It eventually stopped raining and we found our destination: a hole-in-the-wall crepe restaurant that TO had recommended. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

So good. The sweet, middle-aged lady who served us was so delightful. We drank a litre of their specialty of dry cider from special cider bowls´ before and during our crepe feast. I had the gruyere, egg and mushrooms, Josh had goats’ cheese, and Emm had Camenbare and walnuts. Then, even though we were fully sated, we just had to share a crepe suzette doused in Ramble.

We decided that we go out to a bar another night – we were pretty beat – and took the Parisian Metro back to our Hostel. There were snorers in the room and various other noisemakers, but we slept fine.

And that was day one of Paris. Thank you.

We’re superconnected.

Orrright, so in half an hour I’m going to leave for the train station.
So that I can meet my brother and sister.
In Paris.
France.

All I have left to do is post this, make my bed, ring some stupid courier company about a redelivery, dry and straighten my hair, and smear some makeup on my face.

I have this kick-ass motherfucker of a backpack (50L, yo) sitting on my floor, all ready to go.

Things I will miss over the next four days:
- my ukulele (I’ve been playing it for a while every day and even wrote some neat little songs on it),
- my little cousin Aiden (because he keeps getting better every day), and
- our messy kitchen.

So long for now, Bethnal Green.

Learning how to make the most of your life after twenty-two years of being out of practice.

I’m finally going to “go traveling”.

Honestly, I’ve been in London with my EU passport for over two years and I’ve only left the country three times – and only one of those was to go to Europe – and that was only for a few days for a music festival. (For the record, the other two trips were back and forth to Perth.)
Everyone else goes traveling all the time. All I’ve done since arriving here has been working, mostly full-time, and studying. And faffing around and being discontent about faffing around, doing nothing particularly life-affirming.

So it’s time, dammit.

So here is what of have of my schedule for the next couple of months:

July
23^rd – 26^th = Michael and Kate as house guests
28^th = Train to Paris
28^th – 31^st = Having good tourist times with Emm and Josh

August
1^st = Train back to London
1^st – 7^th = Being awesome with Stace as my guest roommate
8^th = Emm and Josh come back to London
9^th = Field Day (festival) with E+J, among others
10^th = Train with E+J to Brussels
10^th – 12^th = Being tourists with E+J in Brussels
13^th = Train to Pukkelpop (festival)
13^th – 16^th = Pukkelpop with Emm, Josh, Michael, Kate (I think?) and whoever
17^th = Leave Pukkelpop, cry, train to Barcelona
17^th - ?? = Barcelona, then various Spanish places

September
1^st – 5^th = Amsterdam with Stace and Basia
11^th – 15^th = Possibly End Of The Road (festival) - I hope.

Then back to London, where the next semester of my CSM graphic design course starts on the 30^th of September.

Awesome-o.