Into the Abyss: An Anthropological Study

November in Paris

scigwen — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:23:00 GMT

OK, so I thought I would update you on what's been happening here in France instead of stressing about my reams of homework. It's good, because it gives me the illusion of doing something constructive. That is, I'm communicating with all the lovely people who I miss so much in Australia but without making the effort to write you emails individually... if I've been remiss in replying to your emails, I'm really sorry! I'm a terrible correspondent at the best of times, and when I'm busy I often go into “shut-down mode” and cease all communication with the outside world.

Number one thing to bring to Paris in winter: a good, warm coat. I'm so happy I have my lovely bright blue coat to keep me warm. But I'm wearing it with leg-warmers, two pairs of socks, boots, a jumper, a skivvy, a scarf, some gloves, some ear-muffs and a hat. It's freezing! But it actually snowed a bit this week which kind of made me think it was all worth-while. Snow is so beautiful. It's not sticking to the ground yet, because the temperature is only really averaging about 0-3 degrees during the day, and there has been little precipitation. But I'm assured that it won't be long before I get to make snowmen with childish glee.

I've been more or less happy with all my work so far. The few grades I've had back so far have been good, and the topics are all interesting. Right now, I'm writing an essay for tomorrow about racism and politics in Britain, a dissertation for Friday about the importance of Einstein's theories in Parisian avant garde art, and an oral presentation for Tuesday about cartography in the Soviet Union. I can't believe how non-dry I am finding these topics. Parisian intellectualism is so much more accepted than its Melbournian counter-part, that I can start up a conversation with just about anyone on these topics and they'll have something interesting to say. Having said that, I'm not exactly hanging around in the banlieus (outer suburbs) but with wealthy, young bourgeois kids who visit art galleries on the weekend and try to score Opera tickets with the same determination we might use to get into the Falls Festival with a boot full of beer.

I met a bunch of interesting people last night. My housemate, Maud, has become active in a radical anarchist feminist group and helped to organise a night-time march from the twentieth arrondissement to the Hotel de Ville, just on the other side of the Seine from our house. The idea was to reclaim public spaces for women and object to the normalisation of violence against women. Yeah! It was an almost entirely female crowd of about two hundred people, mostly young but also some older people. Maud's mother came with us with coffee in a furnace, which I thought was pretty cool, although she was pretty scared she was going to be arrested. I can't tell you how bizarre and fun it was to march, chanting slogans, directly through the Place de la Republique on a Saturday night. We had a police escort and pissed off a lot of commuters. We only got out of the way once, for an ambulance, which I thought was pretty decent. There was zero violence, and the police seemed to be sympathetic (or at least, they're so used to that sort of thing that it wasn't a big deal). It was freezing, but we were well dressed and marched relatively quickly half-way across the city. Afterwards, Maud invited the protesters back to our place... fortunately, only about 15 people turned up or we would have had serious space problems. Still, it was awesome to talk to people and play hostess. Maud made a couple of enormous pots of hot wine with cinnamon and lemon, which made everyone exceedingly cheerful. They even cleaned the place up before they left, which, as we remarked to each other, no boy would ever have thought to do.

What else is new... I went to the menagerie in the big gardens near my house recently. There were interesting animals from all over the world. I was particularly excited to see some exceedingly rare Mongolian wild horses, which were beautiful and of which there are only a few dozen left in the wild. I felt very sorry for the kangaroos though, because their habitat was out in the cold and they were kind of just huddling for warmth. It was a bit sad.

I must admit I haven't done too much touristy stuff since I've been here. I've climbed the Eiffel tower and been inside Notre Dame, but I still haven't visited the Louvre or Sacre Coeur. I think I'm getting a much more interesting view of France from the ground up, even if my accent forbids the true local experience. My language is definitely improving though, and Maud's grandmother even said that I have lost my English accent, which is encouraging, I think.

Bed-time, I shall try to update again soon.

Rainy Tuesday in Paris

scigwen — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:39:00 GMT

I am writing from the polished stone floor in a Sciences Po corridor. Today, the students of this great institution don't know what to do with themselves. All the libraries have been simultaneously closed for some reason, and it's very wet and unpleasant outside. So we are all strategically huddled in groups on the floor around powerpoints. The culture of going to class and studying is very different here. The library has pretty good computer facilities, so ordinarily a large percentage would be seen hovering over desks, standing near people who look like they might have nearly finished with a desktop. But pretty much everyone has a laptop anyway (90% of which are macs). Unlike at Melbourne Uni, though, there aren't many organised spaces in which to use them, or indeed to just sit and study with good old-fashioned books. There are a few student lounges which are always packed, but they are essentially cafeterias and lack power outlets. Nevertheless, between classes people usually study there, regularly breaking off to buy steaming 50c cups of coffee or hot chocolate from the machines. And they are studying. Usually when I say I'm studying at uni, I'm actually hanging out at the Rowden White Library, reading comics or snoozing in a bean bag. I get very funny looks when I bring out a novel in a student lounge. Yesterday, I couldn't stand the strain of making it through a day without my nap, so I found an empty bit of carpet, used my handbag as a pillow and fell asleep, and people looked at me like I was crazy. Fair enough too, given that I was 20 minutes late to a class as a result.

While the continuous rain of the past week has made going into class quite arduous for me, the Frenchies seem to handle it with equanimity. They are used to it and have developed coping strategies. Even the lecturers have come up with ways to alleviate the stress of constant rain. For example, in my art history lecture which has a scheduled break (un pause) the professor always seems to be keeping one eye on the weather, so she can pace her talking in accordance with the rain. In this way, the break can take place in a period of as little rain as possible, so that the legions of students can all duck out for a smoke. The pause is also an important coffee-obtaining time, so it's important to leave your seat immediately and be the first to arrive at the machine, otherwise you run the risk of waiting for ages in a queue. Fortunately, I don't have to stress about finding food or anything like that. Sciences Po has a “CROUS” program, which basically means a cafeteria system, where you can buy really cheap, delicious, huge baguette sandwiches. The only problem is that I'm getting sick of baguettes.

I have started getting in a pattern for walking to uni, which is complicated by the rain. Today I brought with me:

An umbrella

My winter coat

A scarf

Two pairs of gloves, one fingerless and fingered

Socks

An emergency back-up pair of socks

Leg warmers (for when the bottom of my jeans get soaked from puddles)

Hat

Emergency back-up hat

Using the bicycle system is less tempting when it rains. Fortunately it's not too much more dangerous, due to the absence of tram tracks. But it is exceptionally wet. It takes a special sort of courage to sit on a very wet bike seat and risk riding the potholed streets full of puddles. Parisians seem to agree with me. There are more cars on the roads and fewer bikes.

My uni work is becoming genuinely interesting, but still not genuinely difficult. The teachers here require nothing less than complete and total dedication to their subjects to the exclusion of all other activities, but nothing more than a fairly low baseline of intellectual curiosity. I think I've said this here before, but I'll say it again: the point of French education is to learn things, not to understand things. Of course you can't generalise. I have met some truly amazing people while studying here. But I am often struck by the behaviour and attitude of French students. They are more big children than young adults. They need organised and specified programs of study and don't have much interest in self-directed work or research. They expect to put in a lot of work, but only in the areas that their teachers prescribe. The administration also treats people more like school students. Maybe it is simply because the French bureaucracy has to deal with so many more people than in Australia, particularly in universities, but everything is much more controlled. However, typically of France, the high level of control does not lead to a corresponding high level of organisation.

Things are good at home. Arguments are kept to a minimum because we have a cleaner come once a week to do the more onerous chores. Plus I'm pretty determined to contain my natural untidiness to my bedroom and keep communal areas nice. Maud is an awesome housemate. The only problem is that if I had a horrible housemate, I would probably go out more and see Paris. I'm experiencing a bit of guilt because so much of my time is taken up simply by living and studying, and I so rarely have the energy to go out and explore the city. I suppose, though, that that is the natural consequence of actually living in a city. I still haven't visited the Louvre or seen the Arc de Triomphe, but I did those things when I was a tourist when I was younger. The real French culture I'm experiencing is located in interactions with waiters, wandering down Boulevard Saint-Germain and trying to buy clothes without essential vocabulary like “size” and “fabric”. In that respect, Paris is starting to feel like home. I'm doing better with the language too. My reading skills have improved dramatically since I bought a copy of “Harry Potter et le Prince de Sang-Mele”, and I make sure I learn at least one new word a day. I'm still having problems with my accent, but I feel like it's a bit better, and I'm finding it easier to string more complex sentences together. I owe this principally to the help of my friends, who seem to know that I need both correction and positive reinforcement.

A quick note. I feel I can finally admit this. I'm not doing fencing. I epically failed at organising it. More bureaucratic problems. But I'm certainly more active than I was in Melbourne. I can't imagine having a car now, and most things are located within walking distance of my apartment. The only time I miss my car is when doing shopping. There are heaps of little supermarkets around my flat, but the best is Monoprix on Boulevard St-Michel, about 500 metres away. I always, always overbuy and end up nearly in tears by the time I get home, trying to massage life back into my fingers. But at least there's a lift in my apartment building.

Anyway, enough procrastination! I have to get back to analysing the role of Einstein in Parisian avant garde movements, and evaluating depictions of homosexuality in post-socialist Europe. Later dudes.

Sunday afternoon

scigwen — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:29:00 GMT

Sunday afternoons in Paris for me are like little holidays. Friday and Saturday, although I have no classes, tend to be pretty busy, but Sundays are just lazy days here. Nothing is open apart from galleries and flea markets - it's like heaven. Today there was a market up the street selling books for 5 euros per kilo! So anyway, now that I've got my bank account open (finally) I have a credit card with a chip, so I can use the Velib' system. That's velo (bike) + liberty. It's the coolest system in the world.

You pay 5 euros per week, or 29 euros for a year, and you get access to bike stands all around the city. There is one literally right in front of our apartment building, and one literally right outside the biggest Sciences Po building. So I can type in my code and just take any of the bikes sitting there, and as long as I don't go over 30 minutes it's all paid for. The only thing I have to expend is nervous energy. Bike riding in Paris is scary. It's recommended that you wear a helmet, but the bikes don't come with them, and no one wears them. Combined with the insane traffic and unpredictable abundance of one-way streets, I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands. Parisians ride bikes on busy streets like it's the easiest thing in the world. They talk on their phones, I even saw a woman holding her baby while she was riding. Me, I need 100% of my brain power and both hands.

But Sundays are a little different. The whole city slows down. People are either hung over or enjoying the weekend with their family, or both. So today I rode down to a little florist nearby and bought a big bouquet of eucalyptus leaves. I know it's silly, but it makes me feel somehow more secure.

Right, enough soliloquising. I'm writing the script for my expose tomorrow.

OK, I'm playing a video game.

September in Paris

scigwen — Fri, 8 Oct 2010 14:08:00 GMT

While sitting today on the sunny but chilly balcony outside our living room, I started to reflect on the last month in Paris and how things have been going so far. Now that the initial excitement has worn off, a bit of homesickness has set in and I have a few criticisms of Paris that are totally rational and non-crazy:

The birds sound different here. No magpies serenading me in the morning.
There is a distinct absence of overhead tram wires. It's just wrong.
There is hardly any traffic on the roads in the centre of Paris.
What cars there are on the road appear to be driven entirely by lunatics. Red lights are more or less optional and the best way to cross the road is to fix a driver with an intense, penetrating stare and attempt to trot across the road while retaining one's dignity. Also, the acceptable distance between parked cars is so minuscule as to be as close as possible to 0cm.
There are very few hideous skyscrapers. The buildings here are too nice!
There seems to be a special code for pedestrians that I have no yet been able to figure out. In many parts of the city centre the pavement is exactly wide enough for one person and one dog. The best place to walk quickly seems to be in the bike lane.
On dogs, there is dog crap everywhere. A recent survey revealed that only 60% of Parisians bother to pick up after their dogs, so trying to avoid the piles and the haughty French people hogging the pavement armed with umbrellas takes on the quality of a death sport.
Another fun death sport: trying to negotiate your way up six stories of stairs in pitch darkness while still looking good enough to enter the party once you get up there.
The best place, according to French people, to converge and stand in large groups is wherever the tightest bottleneck in a given thoroughfare happens to be. Seriously, people seem to go out of their way to stand exactly where they will be the most inconvenient to passers-by.
Everyone smokes here. Everyone.
The trees here are wrong.
People don't understand how anyone could possibly like rain. Coming from a city where we've tried everything short of rain dances to cause water to fall from the sky, and where storms of rain are exhilarating and rare, I can't get used to the near-permanent drizzle and people saying “oh, no! It's raining!” I've even taken to using an umbrella, and it's even a good idea to carry one around if it's sunny. Rain falls without any big, showy spectacle to announce its imminent arrival, it just kind of drops from the sky in what I consider to be a rather conceited and obnoxious fashion.
French people are, of course, very keen on their language and want foreigners to do them the quite justifiable courtesy of bothering to learn a few phrases before arriving. But they seem to prefer a rather passive-aggressive sentiment in this direction. Even when I know I'm saying something a. grammatically correct and b. polite, most of the time people will look at me with scorn and reply in English, or, occasionally, refuse to speak to me at all and call over their specialist anglophone friend/coworker to deal with the ignorant foreigner.

I don't want to give the wrong impression. I love this city. Now that I can walk to the Centre Pompidou, to university, to the Tuileries without getting lost, I feel I can really appreciate the ambience and the cultural differences that make the place so charming for an anglophone. I also love its imperfections, the social problems that make it so easy to compare it unfavourably to my homeland. For example, the government is trying to implement a scheme whereby Roma (gypsy) people are deported if they commit even a minor crime. Many Roma are, of course, French citizens and no longer live the lifestyle of their ancestors. It's 2010 and they're scared of gypsies. They also don't like working. There are huge protests that periodically grind the city to a halt and block off large areas around my home because the government has proposed extending the working life of French citizens to age 60. There was also a protest outside my local supermarket by employees who resented being asked to work on Sundays. I have learnt not to expect anything to be open ever. I was prepared for things to be closed on Sundays, but most of the supermarkets, banks, shops etc are closed on Mondays too, or, it seems, whenever they feel like it. There's also usually a lunch hour of about an hour and a half which takes place at an apparently arbitrary time. The shop selling readers for my classes was only open for 30 minutes to an hour every day, meaning that a person halfway back in the enormous queue might well wait for an hour and then not be able to buy their books. Fortunately I arrived 30 minutes early and didn't have to wait as long, but it still had a Soviet feel to it. I have learnt several important words vital to my survival in France, for example, citron vert (lime), epilation (hair removal) and gendarmes (riot police). I am also trying to learn a few pieces of slang and a few words in Verlun, the language created in the outer suburbs for the express purpose of being incomprehensible. Fortunately, the language is mostly comprised of words spoken backwards, for example, femme becomes meuf, but it's still confusing. I would equate it to attempting to read the comment board of a Kanye West video on Youtube in another language, written entirely by people with defective space bars.

I blame most of my current malaise on the absence of paid work, and therefore having much more time on my hands than I am accustomed to. No wonder Western capitalism is structured in order to make people work as many hours as possible, without the mindless toil of 8 hours in a projection booth every couple of days I have become entirely too observant and cynical.

* * *

Aaaand we're back. Apologies for the brief interruption caused by a few days of illness, but I'm feeling a bit better now. Anyway, my classes are going pretty well. My main stress at the moment is having to do an expose for almost every subject, that is, a super-formalised oral presentation on a given topic. I have done one so far and it went fairly well, but I have one on Monday too which is a bit more stressful because I have to do with two other human beings, and it's on the Bauhaus movement, something I'd never previously heard of. But apart from assessment everything is going well. My favourite class so far is Sacred and the Profane, mainly because the teacher is really engaging and doesn't mind the occasional diversion. However, I think I'm getting a bit sick of being a student. Something about being in classes with a bunch of 18-year-old second year students makes me want to escape. What's more, with the exception of a handful of international students, almost, everyone expresses completely conventional and non-interesting opinions. Like “communism is a really cool philosophy, but it can never be properly implemented.” Or “people should be able to express whatever faith they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.” I don't mind people holding such banal opinions, as long as they don't talk about them at length. My cultural experiences are more promising. I went to an opera last night! Actually, I was hanging out with this guy Matthieu who is doing a language exchange type thing with me. At 7:10 I expressed a desire to see an opera. At 7:30 we were climbing the stairs of the metro two at a time and arriving at the Opera Bastille. Wagner's “Phantom vessel” (? I don't know the English translation) was on, which is a hugely popular show, and the tickets were sold out, and besides would have cost 80 euros. So by affecting a casual manner we managed to insinuate ourselves past the ticket collectors and found a space to sit down on the edge of a box, almost looking straight down into the pit. I was amazed. It was a Wednesday night, but the enormous room was packed! They really love their opera here. It was pretty good, if I'm any judge. On Saturday night I experienced culture in the form of an all-night modern-art orgy. The evening began with dozens of other exchange students, drinking wine on the Pont des Arts, followed by us all stumbling, crocodile-fashion, in the direction of various modern art installations. It was Paris's Nuit Blanche, and the inner-city was packed. Thousands of people! The highlight was gradually forcing our way through the crowds on Ile de la Cite, where I finally saw inside Notre Dame cathedral. There was an incredible light show set to music which lit up the stained glass windows. In summary, things are pretty good. And things that aren't pretty good are getting there. Now I must finish this up and find some vegetables to eat that I hopefully won't throw up. Urgh. Oh, and by the way, at this moment I'm wearing black jeans, a black turtle-neck top and a black beret. Sartre stylez.

Paris in August

scigwen — Wed, 8 Sep 2010 11:19:00 GMT

So it's been a while since I updated. Last time I left off I was leaving Prague for Berlin, then going to Luxembourg, Bruges and Amsterdam. I would be lying if I said that I hadn't had time to update. On the contrary, I've had plenty of spare time. My trouble has been finding things to say that a. weren't really boring and b. I would be happy for my future employer to hear about. Suffice it to say that the last part of my trip was really fun – really fun – and Nat, Alex and I had a great time together. We were in Berlin for 4 days staying at the best hostel I've experienced so far. Proper beds, plenty of hot showers, free tours and a decent bar. We amused ourselves in Berlin with a bar crawl the first night we were there (a Saturday) in which we experienced a few of the city's “alternative” night-time venues including a painfully cool live-music place and a slightly terrifying goth bar. For me, Berlin was a fascinating experience. I'm so interested in the scars that are still so visible all along the city centre, and how the vast metropolis has somehow reformed to become a vibrant cultural centre. Most of the young people now live on the Eastern side because of the availability of low-rent buildings when the Wall came down, and consequently that's where most of the night-life happens. We ventured out of the city centre to some of the random trendy areas, including one memorably frightening suburb where I managed to direct us down a completely dark cul-de-sac in search of a bar that turned out to be shut. I think I managed to redeem myself slightly, however, by finding the most kitsch bar in Berlin, the walls, ceilings and tables of which were entirely covered in glittery, pink crap. I was also happy to try a “Berliner weisse”, or a German beer with a fruity syrup in it to make it more palatable to those of us with a less developed palate. We met some random Berliner men who invited us to “share a dreenk with uz”. All in all, a lot of fun. Naturally we also had proper touristy experiences. We did a tour of the city centre and saw Hitler's bunker, the Reichstag, the remains of the Wall, Checkpoint Charlie etc. I also wandered through the excellent museum of film, where I was overjoyed to see some of the props from Metropolis.

We parted ways after Berlin, the girls went to Koln then Brussels to see friends, while I took a rather random trip to Luxembourg. As I've already mentioned, the train trip was somewhere in the area of 8 hours, but it was a lovely trip, rocketing through the green fields and mist-covered mountains. Finally I arrived in Luxembourg City and found the enormous YHA hostel. It was a good hostel with an excellent free breakfast, but for the roughly 200 people staying there was only ONE washing machine and ONE dryer. I ended up waiting until one in the morning to use it, so desperate was I for clean clothes. But I met some really cool Scottish girls who had just come off their own epic train journey from Paris and were staying in my room. I only really had one day in Luxembourg, but there wasn't anything I was particularly desperate to do. I got up at a reasonable hour and went off wandering into the town centre, which involved scaling a roughly 40 degree slope. From the hostel you have to walk through a patch of untamed wilderness interspersed randomly with, say, the bridge for the international railway, or a gorgeous falling-down old castle turret. From the city the view out over the valley is of a perfect European countryside with a backdrop of green, dewy mountains with ancient structures cut into them. Luxembourg is almost unique amongst the cities I have visited in that it possesses an effortless, unpretentious charm. Don't get me wrong, I'm certain the streets remain cobble-stoned mostly for the purposes of the tourists, and my clumsy French was often answered by an irritated no-nonsense English, but the beauty and splendour of the tiny capital aren't something that can be faked, packaged up and sold piece-by-piece to mindless tourists. I seriously recommend visiting Luxembourg for a break from the soul-destroying whorish quality of Europe's capital cities and the seemingly inescapable concrete. I hope one day to return and properly explore this tiny nation.

From Luxembourg I hopped on a train to Brussels, then straight to meet Nat and Alex in Bruges. The less said about Bruges, in my opinion, the better. Granted, it is a beautiful old town, and I was fascinated by the architecture and planning of the public spaces, as it reflects a truly Medieval lifestyle, but you can't concentrate on any of that stuff because there are SO MANY PEOPLE. For anyone who has ever visited Chadstone with me, you will understand how much this bothered me. We went on a boat-trip and ate chocolate, and did a little shopping, and experienced some of the local beer (I had another fruity beer perversion – it was AWESOME). We stayed at a really good bed and breakfast with, in my opinion, the best breakfast of the trip.

Then it was on the train to Amsterdam. What can I say about this city... it was even more Amsterdam-y than I was expecting. True, we were staying in the middle of the Red Light District. True, we relished the opportunity to experience quite a lot of what that great city has to offer. True, we stayed in a real party hostel and most of the trip is quite hazy for me. There is probably too much for me to say here that will prove compromising, but I will tell you briefly about our pub crawl experience. We got free T-shirts (yeah!) and had quite a lot of free alcohol poured down our throats from a squeezy bottle (I think we estimated we had each had about 4 free shots, in addition to our drinks, before even leaving the first place). Randomly, the Scottish girls from Luxembourg were there! In the way of drunk people everywhere, the six of us immediately became best friends. It was a very, very fun night and we got along famously. With apologies to my travelling companion, I must say what happened to them the next morning. They had decided, the day before, to go on a tour of the Dutch countryside, starting at 8am. I politely declined to participate. They were not well at all. But, to be fair to them, my evening had ended with me lying in a random boat in a canal.

We didn't do too much high-brow sight-seeing, but I did go check out the Van Gogh museum. I was happy to see the famous paintings of boots which, in their original form, reduced me to tears. There isn't much more I can say about Amsterdam, but I'm sure the more, er, interesting exploits will be recorded elsewhere. I stayed on for a few days after Nat and Alex hopped on their planes back to Australia. I hung around a few Pride events around the city centre and met a nice girl, and saw the amusing canal parade. By the time it was over, however, I found myself afflicted by an overpowering lethargy. This was the first time I felt truly homesick. My week of binging had taken its toll, and I wanted to go home. It took me 24 hours to turn up at Jane's door after leaving Amsterdam via a very roundabout and expensive route, but I have never been happier to see someone in my life.

I must admit to not having done much after getting back to Jane's. I seem to have caught some nasty Foreign disease, or developed narcolepsy, or something along those lines, because I'm sure I was sleeping about 16 hours a day, including a nap in the afternoon. The slightest bit of activity wore me out entirely. We decided it was probably because I'd been running on adrenaline for so long, my body was having to catch up on sleep. All the same, we checked my glands to make sure I didn't have chronic fatigue syndrome. After a week of blissful rest and recuperation I braved the Eurostar to Paris to see where I would be living. I met my new housemate, Maud, a lovely 20-year-old Parisian girl whom I've been getting along with really well, and her mother, my land-lady, who has been amazingly supportive. The house is in the most ridiculously good location. It's about 50 metres from Notre Dame Cathedral, 30 seconds from the Seine, in the heart of the fifth arrondissement. My favourite pastime is still just stepping outside my door, picking a random direction and wandering around the historic Quartier Latin. Of course, in August, the place was swarming with tourists, and it's still a really expensive place to have a drink, but with Shakespeare & Co just around the corner I'm not complaining. One of the streets nearby appears to be the nerd hub of Paris. There are about a dozen comic book stores and sci-fi specialists. I bought a few Tintin books to read in French which, if you can get past the inherent old-timey racism, are very fun and easy to read.

My room is simple but gorgeous. There is a nice, comfy queen-sized bed and a nice big desk. There is also an old bricked-up fireplace and a modem. Upon opening the big double-windows, you can see down the six storeys of the building to a tiny courtyard below which connects to several adjoining buildings. You can stare out a decent distance upon the panorama of Paris, and to the left is the imposing Cathedral. I can hear the bells chiming softly from my bed each morning. The apartment has a cute little kitchen with – yay – a dishwasher and the bathroom has a combination washer/dryer which I have now used twice without difficulty. The living room has a big wooden table and little sofa, and a bookcase stacked with various philosophical works, all in French. I have tentatively examined some of these but I still haven't sufficient courage to seriously attempt one of them. Maud is very cute and bubbly. She is studying nearby this year and is a very proficient musician, playing guitar, viola and singing. She is a great conversationalist and very friendly, and we have plans to do lots of fun stuff this semester.

After settling in, I returned to Auntie's house after managing to miss a bus to Edinburgh. Still overcome with lethargy, I decided I couldn't be bothered making the long, painful journey to Scotland which, besides, would have meant parting company with a lady clearly in need of supervision (just kidding). I tried to make myself useful, sharpening pencils and moving boxes and the like, but I was pretty much a mooch, still sleeping ludicrous hours and trying not to be too annoying. But I got to see Martha this trip, which was awesome, for her 21^st birthday. It's amazing how she's so different yet so exactly the same as I remember. I hope we get to hang out more this trip. I also made some inroads on becoming friends with Jane's cat, Minim, who has been a bit standoffish. But by becoming the designated door-opener I think I have won her trust at last.

I returned to Paris a few days before the start of the Welcome Programme for international students. Maud was in the countryside, so I had a few days alone in Paris to sort myself out. I still can't figure out how to connect my iPhone to the internet, which is really the only annoying thing I still have to deal with, but it's not such a big problem. Even Wifi doesn't seem to work for me here, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. Orientation began on Monday at the ridiculous hour of 9:30am. We had a day of mostly sitting around being told stuff. I joined the BDE (bureau des eleves) the BDA (bureau des arts) and started trying to pick a sport. I have decided to join the fencing team. Yes, I know, I'm going to get killed. I have little doubt that I'll be terrible at it, because I've been terrible at every activity requiring dexterity in my entire life, but I figure that being in France, I should try something I won't be able to experience in Australia. I've always been interested in fencing, so I'll give it a go and if I really suck at it, well, I can make the other fencers feel better about themselves.

From Tuesday to Saturday my little group of students – Groupe “Luxembourg” - had four hours of classes every day. The first two hours were pretty easy, just French lessons in which we brushed up on some of the finer points of grammar. But the last two hours were on Sciences Po methodology and were conducted in rapid French. We were all exhausted after our first class, and I'm pretty sure we all wanted to go home. It was an important class, because the prof taught us what would be expected of us in our assessment tasks, but I had to do a debate against another Aussie girl, in French, on the subject of American superpower status. Public speaking doesn't bother me, but I still have little confidence in my French speaking abilities. My accent is atrocious and I've lost a lot of the little phrases and words that make meaningful conversation possible. Fortunately, it was a pretty low-pressure affair in the end, and each time I speak I realise that I'm remembering more and more. Nevertheless, after class each day I felt utterly exhausted, so that it wasn't possible to go out every night and Make Friends. I met some cool people in my classes, but it wasn't until the weekend that I really went out. On the Saturday night we all got a free ticket for a bateau-mouche ride on the Seine (like, a big boat with an open top). I hung out with some cool people for the hour-and-a-half ride which cultimated with a beautiful view of the Tour Eiffel all lit up. The next day, Sunday, I met my buddy, Sophie, for a little picnic. We had a pre-picnic with her other buddy, Ella, another Australian girl, and a lot of Sophie's friends who were in Melbourne on exchange with her, and their buddies. Everyone brought food and we hung around in the Bois de Vincennes eating and chatting and drinking wine. Then we had to find the main Official Picnic at which we were duly organised into groups with cute gastronomic names (I was in “Truffles”) and I met a dozen or so international and French students. There were literally hundreds of people there, so I guess it's good they organise us like that so you're not overwhelmed. We played some rather lame but requisite games which broke the ice and I chatted with a few nice people. Then the whole picnic began a mass exodus in the direction of the pub. This meant about 800 young people streaming through the streets of Paris and all trying to get through the turnstile of the Metro at the same time. Eventually we made it to the Place de la Bastille where we took over a street full of bars and started getting drunk. I had so much fun! I have met some really lovely exchange students, several from Australia and a few from other random places, and a bunch of Sophie's friends all of whom were really cool and fun. I'm pretty sure that future Welcome Programs should abolish all other activities and just have piss-ups, because everyone was really cool and in the mood to make friends. I really hope the French girls let me hang out with them again, even though I'm a lame anglophone requiring frequent translations.

So I was already happy this morning when I woke up, with a full “social” bar. Then, joy of joys, I checked online and found that I had been enrolled in the subjects I wanted, at last! I have a pretty good timetable – I only have to go in Monday, Tuesday and Thursday – but they go pretty late as a matter of course. My subjects are:

Art, history, gender

Social history of the United States

The sacred and the profane

Self, culture and society

Images of the New Man after WWI

Age of the Avant Garde in Paris

Screening socialism and post-socialism

I'm so excited! I can't wait to start studying, even though I'm certain it will be a tough semester. They told us during orientation that we could expect to have to work really, really hard just to pass, and attendance at all classes is compulsory. An American girl asked “what do we do if we're having trouble with our studies? Is there a tutor program? Can we drop subjects?” This earned her a very scathing look from the lecturer who basically replied that if we're having trouble with our studies we need to study harder.

But I'm not worried about it yet. I'm here to enjoy myself. Since I'm no longer working 20 hours+ a week, I think it will be easier to balance study and socialising. I'm definitely going to make the most of my time here – studying, perusing the vast politics library, checking out the various Quartier Latin cinemas, reading Henry Miller in French over a cafe au lait, visiting the outer arrondissements to sample some of the exciting ethnic food markets, and, of course, drinking a great deal of cheap wine: all experiences I have yet to have in Paris. I can't wait to further explore this amazing city.

Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Prague

scigwen — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:27:00 GMT

Well now. It has been a while since I wrote, mainly because I've been busy Getting the Most Out of Each Day. It's feel as though I'm short-changing myself if I don't experience a city's Culture during the day and its night-life until after midnight, given how much I'm spending on travel and accommodation costs. But it's more than that, too. If you are one of the many who have contacted me online and haven't received an answer, I sincerely apologise. For some reason it has become almost too hard to use my down-time to keep in touch. This is perhaps because I can't think of anything in particular when I'm not sure where my next low-fat, delicious vegetarian meal is going to come from (a real challenge! I crave tofu sooo badly). I suspect that once I'm chilling out in a city for more than a few days it will become easier. At the moment, I'm on a high-speed intercity train from Berlin to Luxembourg. It is 8 hours, which sounds like a long time, but truth be told I enjoy train journeys. It's the only time I get to feel really bored.

Anyway, I when I left off last time in this tale of misguided cultural studies, I believe I had just left Munich for Vienna. Nat and Alex went off to Salzburg and had what sounds like a lovely time, not least because they got to do their best Julie Andrews impression on an idyllic Austrian hilltop. I opted to go firstly to Vienna, and then to Bratislava, and we arranged to meet again in Budapest. I stayed at Wombats in Vienna, which, I think, turned out to be a good idea. I went out by myself to sample the local night-life, and found the people friendly but largely disinterested in becoming bffs (and who can blame them?). But encouraged by the Wombar's special that night (“Fizzy Vodka” - a shot of vodka with a packet of sherbet) I became friends with a cool group of Finnish guys. I discovered something really important: I'm so much better at pool when I've had a few drinks.

The next day I checked out one of the art galleries in Vienna (for the second time this trip I found the Vienna natural history museum was closed) and learnt about Tishon. Then I went to the very silly Freud museum. I did get a giddy thrill, being in the great albeit misguided man's rooms, but it had “tourist trap” written all over it and a gift shop nearly as large as the museum. Sadly I spent my last cent on the entrance fee so although I was tempted by the Freud action figure I didn't buy it. But I enjoyed looking at the originals of Freud's works and standing next to the industrial air conditioner, which slowly dried me out. I wandered back into the city centre and did a tour of the Hapsburg palace, including the vast plate-and-cutlery exhibit and Empress Sissi's apartments.

That night I arranged to meet up with my new Finnish friends who invited me to the Danube island. I had wanted to go swimming for days, so I set out to try to find them and ended up walking around the island in random directions for the next hour and a half in the sweltering heat. Twas all good though, because I found them eventually drinking next to the canal. We went back to the hostel and they introduced me to a thick, black aniseed-flavoured liqueur with an unpronounceable Finnish name. Whatever it was, it was effective, because I taught them how to play my favourite drinking game (sadly, the name is unprintable).

With an epic hangover the next day, I set out for Bratislava. I managed to find the hydrofoil dock and paid an exorbitant fee for them to take me down the Danube to Slovakia's capital city. It was lovely though, and relaxing, and the trip only took 75 minutes. The hostel in Slovakia was another too-cool rambling building with a deliberately boho feel to it. It's a good strategy, because in places like that you expect to be in a sweltering room with seven other people and no fan. The first night was not much fun because I was in a room with 5 rambunctious teenage British boys, one of which put shaving cream in the beds of all the others, but I had a dinner of amazing gaspacho soup for 2 euros and a 63-cent glass of wine. Over the next couple of days I met some very cool people. There was a great common room and kitchen, and we were allowed to drink alcohol in there, so I stayed in every night with a small group of fun people and drank vodka that cost 3 euros for 750mL. We played I Never.

I did an excellent free walking tour with an Australian guy who was living in Bratislava (you can't bloody escape the Aussies). He gave a great tour and a very impassioned history lesson on his adopted city, none of which I had known previously. He took us to the site where the Prague Spring uprising was viciously crushed by Soviet tanks, and where the famous photo of a man baring his chest to a tank's gun was taken (the uprising began in Bratislava, despite its name). We also heard the story of Slovakia's reluctant alliance with the Nazis in the hope of gaining independence from the Czech Republic and the efforts of a few brave people to get thousands of Jewish people out of Slovakia to safety. After the war, the little country was used like currency between the world's superpowers and it was “given” to the Soviets and fell behind the Iron Curtain. It's got an incredible history.

I also went to the museum of viticulture and paid my admittance without really knowing what it was. Since so few people speak English even in the touristy parts of town, I saw the word “museum” and “2 euro” and went in. It turned out to be a reasonably interesting exhibit, followed by a tour of the “palace”. It was good, especially with the audio guide, but I was the only tourist and about 7 different women followed me around the whole time I was there. In case I stole something? They spoke no English and didn't return my smiles, and I felt awkward listening to the audio guide at each exhibit while they were hovering, looking like they'd much rather be doing something else. But it was still interesting.

In the afternoon I gave up and simply sat in the common room hoping for air conditioning, or death, or both. The ice cream vendors in that city sold some very questionable ice cream – too high a sugar-to-cold ratio – and of course I was guessing at the flavours by their colour. And dinner was a kind of dense potato gnocchi covered in poppy-seeds and icing sugar, by far the strangest local delicacy I've sampled so far. It was strangely tasty but had a vitamin content of 0. But the next day four girls I had met and I went to the lake on the edge of the city. It took ages for us to figure out the immensely complex bus system, but it was worth it to get there in the late afternoon and dive into the water. There were about 1000 people there, I'd say, mostly getting a tan, or children enjoying the water. I had my first nude-bather sighting – just one very aggressive exhibitionist. We hired a pedal boat and had fun tooling around on the water. One of the girls who I went with turned out to be a Christian missionary from Vermont, and a gentle debate began when we had lunch that day and she asked what was on my necklace. I told her it was an Archaeopteryx, the “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds, which is my personal symbol of science's victory over a “God of the gaps” theory. Becca was really lovely, and she was by no means uneducated. She had what I considered to be an informed view to back up her convictions, and we had the kind of philosophical debate that I really enjoy. It went on for hours. I think the other girls we went with thought we were really weird. But we have a fundamental difference in the way that we think. I don't want to misrepresent her, but I think she finds immense comfort in her belief in the divinity of Jesus and believes implicity in scripture – and she was well-versed, not only in the Bible but all kinds of philosophical writings. I told her that I would love to believe in God, to believe in a higher plan, but that it would be a lie to myself, a betrayal. I have to believe that I don't do things just because a book tells me to. It was a great discussion and one of the most interesting experiences I've had so far. Ooh, I also met a cool forty-something guy who was there for the AIDS conference. He used to be a plastic surgeon but is now a volunteer doctor for children with AIDS, living off the money he made making rich people look more identical. He has been to space and gives lectures on how to be happy, staying in hostels or couch-surfing around the world. I told him all the places I wanted to travel and experiences I wanted to have. He asked me: “So why not do it now?” I didn't have an answer. I tried to sleep in my bed that night but gave up quite soon, and went to lie on the common room sofa and slept there next to the open window. Unfortunately, I had been unable to find any mosquito repellent (seriously, not even in pharmacies. They've never heard of it.) and when I woke up I was covered in literally hundreds of bites. I know that some people say “literally” when they mean “figuratively”. But I'm not exaggerating. Every inch of exposed skin was covered in little red bumps by morning, apart from on my face. There was even one on my ear. The damn things still haven't faded.

The next day I hopped on the train to Budapest with two British girls and a Canadian guy from the hostel. We sampled the Slovakian train service – no air con in the incredible heat. There was a gauge painted on the wall with a lever that could be pointed to “cold” or “hot”. I assume that it was there as a sort of placebo. I got to the hostel a few hours ahead of Nat and Alex and took the opportunity to revel in the luxury or a fan in the common room, and I soon fell asleep, waking up only once they got to the hostel.

Hungary is pretty cool. We did a walking tour and I was astonished to learn that 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain it is still very much a post-communist country. Apparently the average wage is 500 euros per month. The government employs far too many people and pays them peanuts, and so the country has some astonishing social problems. There were far more homeless people than I had seen elsewhere, and the streets were grim and filthy. But the people tended to be friendly, despite our inability to pronounce even the word for “thank you” (which, by the way, is the best phrase you can learn in any country. People respond well to it). Did you know?: Hungarian is ranked the fifth-hardest language to learn in the world and is classed in a linguistic group with Finnish; it has little in common with German. They also have yet to adopt the Euro, and 1 Australian dollar buys nearly 200 forints. We found it difficult to wrap our minds around this and often had to whip out a calculator to check prices. It's a bit harrowing, at the end of a small meal, to hear that you owe 10,000 of anything.

But the stress relief in Budapest comes from going to the baths. We went our first night and paid the high 3000-forint entrance fee. It was with some horror that we stepped into our first bath, which turned out to be a toasty 38 degrees. We then realised that the bath next door was a chilly 26 degrees, and spent several hours alternating between the two, revelling in the sensation of being cold. The baths come from thermal springs and spurts out into the pools from fountains around the edge. You can stand in front of one and get a pretty decent back massage. There was also a current pool that causes you to revolve extremely quickly around the circumference of a circle. We stayed until closing time, 10pm, and went back again in the morning, this time getting access to all the indoor pools as well. There were dozens of pools of different temperatures, shapes and depths, the coldest being 20 degrees (Alex somehow got in to her waist) and the hottest 40 degrees. It is an incredible feeling to go from one to the other. I believe I got a lot of the accumulated grime out of my skin. They had some rather oppressive saunas there too. Coincidentally, we ran into the two British girls I had been on the train with who were also enjoying the baths, which was pretty cool, and we had a nice chat. Afterwards, Nat, Alex and I went to a rather too-posh restaurant on someone's specific advice and had some amazing local pancakes. They were quite, quite delicious.

We met some cool Belgian guys who were staying in our room at the hostel. They turned out to be really nice. I talked Nat, Alex and the three boys into coming with me to “Memento Park”, a spot in the middle of nowhere to which a lot of the Soviet statues were brought after the country regained independence. I very nerdily bought the little book they sell there and played at being a tour guide for my less-than-enthusiastic comrades. I loved it :) especially seeing the famous Stalin's Boots, a gargantuan pair of lower legs which stood after rioters sawed the rest of him off during the 1960s. Nat, Alex and I then spent several hours trying to find food as we were looking for something “authentic”. We ended up going to a food court. Being hungry as a backpacker is stressful!

That night we went out with the Belgian guys and drank a moderate amount of beer. We went to a ruined bar, or a former abandoned building converted into a cool beer garden, complete with graffiti, fairy lights and cheap drinks. The Belgian guys were really nice and I think Nat and Alex are hoping to meet up with them in Brussels.

In the morning we packed up our stuff for another day on the road and made our way to the train station. We got on a busy train to Prague but managed to find seats together. It was a 7 hour trip, made slightly longer because we had to avoid Slovakia (in which the Eurail pass is not valid), but was an OK trip. We had surprisingly delicious sandwiches with warm plastic cheese and, for the girls, room-temperature ham. But we were in the same carriage as a group of girls that were extremely annoying, because they took up several booths in which one or two of them were lying each, while we had to sit bunched up on opposite sides of the aisle. We had to get Czech kroner (25 Ck = 1 euro) out of an ATM and they contrived to get in line before us and took ages to each get out some cash. We saw them on the street the next day being obnoxious and I was pretty keen to do something unpleasant to them, but I decided that I should pick an English-speaking country for my first police interrogation. Anyway, we had an apartment in Prague which was rather nice, because it meant we could self-cater. I was a bit pathetic and Nat did most of the cooking; I tend to pass out after a day's hard touristing, which made me feel a bit bad. We had three full days in the Czech Republic. We did a paid walking tour the first day which was expensive, but included lunch and a nice river cruise. The tour guide cheerfully informed me that the Czech people's favourite vegetable is pork. I ended up eating what he derisively referred to as “student food” - deep-fried gooey cheese. I ended up having this two days in a row as it was often the only vegetarian thing on the menu. It's hilarious when it's served to you – it just looks exactly like a plate of food that is missing a hunk of meat.

We walked up to Prague Castle and saw inside the cathedral. We saw a lot of the sites of Prague that first day. We went on a rather sad ghost tour that was free with our 6-hour tour. We soon found out why it was free. The guide would tell us an interesting albeit silly ghost story and shortly after we would be accosted by another guy wearing a scary mask. It got quite surreal when the guy turned up in a skeleton outfit and just hung around, pretending to be drunk. It was very weird. Afterwards, to regain our nerves, we stopped in at a nice little bar where we shared two enormous daiquiris. I also had a glass of “grog” - 50% vodka, 50% black tea. It was really horrible.

We decided to hire a car the next day, a surprisingly uncomplicated affair given that the person who lent it to us spoke very little English. We were hoping to get a Skoda, but she ended up giving us a Renault that Alex, as a previous wrong-side-of-the-road driver, had the honour of driving all day. She did remarkably well against the horrendous Prague traffic, and we headed East to Kutna Hora. We had some tasty pancakes there for morning tea and went to my main priority for the trip, the Ossuary. When I upload the photos, I encourage you to check them out. It is basically a church filled with human bones artfully arranged. The decorations on the walls are made of bones, as is the huge chandelier. Skulls are everywhere. From what I could gather, they were mostly plague victims or people killed by the Hussite invaders who, after a while, were dug up to make more room in the cemetary. The bones were piled unceremoniously next to the church until a nearly-blind monk with nothing much to do decided to get creative with them. It was quite bizarre.

Next, we headed South for Cesky Krumlov. We took a rather, er, roundabout route. Apparently in the Czech Republic signs don't show you where to go on a roundabout until you are right next to the sign. What I mean is that if a sign says to turn right, you don't turn right until after the sign, instead of going the direction that it is pointing when you first see it. If we had known this earlier we probably would have arrived a couple of hours earlier and wouldn't have met so many non-English-speaking irritable Czech people. But we also got to go off the beaten track and see the countryside. The girls pulled over at one point so that I could run around in a meadow and a wheat field. I saw a bunny. And lots of interesting insects. It was really fun until I remembered that snakes exist, then I became rather paralysed by fear and they had to convince me to come out one step at a time.

By the time we got to Cesky Krumlov the sun was setting, but we still got to be enchanted by the little village. It is a medieval town which, sadly, is now swarming with tourists and tacky souvenir shops. A t-shirt that says “I <3 Cesky Krumlov”? Who wouldn't want that? It's just so original. We took lots of lovely photos and had a nice dinner by the beautiful river, flanked on one side by quaint old houses and on the other by a sheer rock cliff into which various structures had been built. We had ice cream for dessert, then Alex drove us home. I tried, unsuccessfully, to stay awake to keep her company, and we got back after 1am and had to drive around for ages before we found a parking spot. Fun times. It was a lovely day and I highly recommend it to any groups of backpackers who are sick of being in either cities or trains.

The next day, after we returned the car, I went to Czech out (bazinga) the Kafka museum. Not recommended for non-Kafka fans, but as a bit of a literature nerd I really enjoyed it. It presented an interesting hypothesis on the way the city of Prague shaped poor Franz's writing. I also went and saw his birthplace but didn't go inside; it appeared to be a gift shop to which they charge admittance. Nat, Alex and I met up later and went shopping. I can't believe how cheap clothes are here.

We had seen a shop selling absinthe ice cream a couple of days before, and that night Alex and I set out to try to find it again. It was only about 100m from our apartment but we ended up getting utterly lost in the rain. I got fed up eventually and hailed us a cab. I'm sure the absinthe ice cream would have been disgusting, but we were very sad that we didn't get to have any.

We left on the train for Berlin the next day, which was completely packed and we couldn't really find seats for about an hour and a half, after which we got our own compartment. I love train compartments. We had managed to find peanut butter in Prague (the find of the trip, in my opinion) and I ate several sandwiches with gusto. Thankfully, the obnoxious girls were nowhere to be seen.

That was only, er, four days ago, I think. I'm doing better, right? But it will have to wait for another time because the train is nearing Luxembourg (I hope). The sun has set and I'm travelling through the idyllic vineyards, forests and secluded villages of Western Germany. I shall update again when, y'know, I can be bothered.

Peace.

Ireland, Munich

scigwen — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:07:00 GMT

I have reached the point where I can't stand traipsing through yet another palace, learning about yet another building's founding date, or visiting yet another Greek and Roman antiquities wing. This is not to say that I'm sick of travelling, on the contrary, I'm still loving it and I'm starting to relax a little more. I was nervous about parting ways with Nat and Alex after Munich, because tourist traps are always less hilarious by yourself. But while travelling by myself I have met dozens of fascinating people, as well as lots more people who are only briefly interesting.

When I left off last time, I had just left for Ireland. I got to stay with the lovely Bec, who took me out on the first night to an Irish pub where we watched the World Cup. I had some whiskey for the look of the thing. It was fun, but clearly Dublin now has these sorts of pubs for tourists who think Ireland is still populated entirely by drunkards and leprechauns. But Dublin is a great place to visit. I visited the natural history museum and got to learn about giant deer, which was one of the things I really wanted to do on this trip. And at the museum of archaeology I learnt about human sacrifice. Irish history is cool! I went to see the Book of Kells. Saw it. I did the obligatory tour of the Guinness storehouse, culminating in a free pint. I learnt here that no matter how perfectly poured a pint of Guinness may be, it is still a pint of Guinness and therefore undrinkable.

On the second day, I got to see some truly magnificent natural wonders. The horribly named "Paddywagon tour" nevertheless ran a well-organised excursion to the West coast. Photos of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren can't quite express how incredible Western Ireland is, because only once you're there do the landscape and the history meet you in the middle. I was amazed in particular by the extent of the famine walls, built in the 1840s by the oppressed and starving Irish afflicted by the potato blight, and forced by the English to build pointless, rambling walls in exchange for a bowl of food per day.

On July 8th I Ryanaired to Munich and met up with Nat, Alex, Lauren and Lauren's friend Mary. Sadly Mary had lost her voice, but we still had an awesome time! Beer halls really are as ridiculously huge as you think they are, and people really do drink 1L steins of barley beer. The first night there, the four of us went to Augustiner Keller and all managed to finish our one glassful, all the while repeating the mantra "beer is delicious, I love beer, beer is not at all horrible". It gets a bit depressing to see German girls drinking them as easily as I would drink a glass of punch. That first night we got to see a live band perform "99 Luftballoons", which seemed far too hilarious to be real.

The next day we went on a tour to Neuschwanstein castle on the Austrian border (otherwise known as "the Disney castle"). We started off with a bike ride to the idyllic Swan Lake (not the Tchaikovsky one) where I greatly relished the chance to swim in the clear, cold water and observe the fish and dragonflies by the shore. The other four left early because they decided to go jump off a mountain.

It was tandem paragliding, but I'm sure it was nevertheless terrifying. I didn't go because I know my own mind, and I certainly wouldn't have appreciated it. Also I was starting to feel pretty unwell and was keen to stay firmly on the ground. So I just got the fun of looking up and trying to guess which spiralling figure was which, and worrying about the tensile strength of the fibres of their parachutes. Fortunately nobody died, although they looked a bit shaken when they landed. It sounded amazing, but to be honest my idea of flying is floating on the surface of a mountain lake.

After a mediocre lunch, I went on the alpine slide, which was pretty fun. Then we went up to the castle itself. We had a choice of taking the 1.6E bus or hiking up the mountain. Of course, we chose the cheaper option.

Oh horror of horrors! I am not fit at the best of times, and near-vertical inclines have never been my strong suit, but add to that a churning and demanding stomach and acute dehydration and you have me wishing fervently for the sweet release of death. It was all worth it at the top though, because Neuschwanstein really is beautiful and the surrounding countryside was nice to walk through, even if at the time you only have a strong desire to throw yourself into the churning river. The tour was made fun by the creepy tour guide whose memorised speech did a not-quite-perfect job of giving the impression that Ludwig II was "eccentric" rather than gay, and died in "mysterious circumstances", rather than being probably murdered by his Parliament. Anyway, the interior of the castle was breath-taking and the hike back was downhill.

That night we went to the Hofbrauhaus and experienced some overstated Bavarian culture. I didn't do so well on my beer, what with my stomach constantly complaining, but I did get a delicious giant bagel. It looked and tasted exactly like a giant pretzel.

The others all went to Dachau the next morning, but I lay in bed groaning and clutching my stomach. I didn't want to go to a place like Dachau while unable to think about anything but my own discomfort, besides, I'll hopefully get to go and see Auschwitz. Lauren and Mary left that afternoon, leaving Nat, Alex and I to hang around and watch the World Cup match of Germany vs Uruguay. Alex and I went out for a bit afterwards and met some bfs, but there wasn't as much dancing in the street as I had expected.

The next morning we went on an excellent free walking tour of Munich. The free tour guides work only for tips, but they must rake it in. We gave him 10E each but it was worth much more. It's a good system, I think, and I'm considering learning how to do it myself. Anyway, we learnt about the Beer Hall Putsch and the incredible history of Munich. All the old buildings, cobblestoned streets and old-timey feel are artificial. The place was almost completely flattened in WW2 but recreated so that anyone would think otherwise. One of the few remaining buildings contains the gorgeous glockenspiel.

After the tour, we acquired a friend named Marna and went to the Deutsches Museum. We didn't have much time there, but it was still fun. Then we wandered over to the Englischer Garten, a huge public park where the river has been manipulated to create a surf "beach" and a fast-current pool for the adventurous to go swimming. We had forgotten to bring our bathers, but it was still amazing to watch. We went to the huge beer garden in the centre of the garden and watched the world cup while eating more mediocre Bavarian food and drinking the more palatable wheat beer. The thousands of people there were very excited, but mostly supporting the Netherlands, so it was a little anti-climactic. But the atmosphere there more of the night was electric and exciting. We met a local guy who bought us each little bottles of Schnapps and downed his in one gulp. I tried to copy him and nearly threw up. It was like fire! I only managed a third of the bottle and it felt like my oesophagus was dissolving. He said it's "good for the digestion".

Anyway, after an eventful few days I parted company with Nat and Alex and took the train to Vienna. I was nervous to be travelling alone again, but also pretty excited. But I'll write about that more later. It's 34 degrees here and extremely humid, and I've finally found some people prepared to come with me to the lake and go swimming. Funtimes await!

Oh, also, please feel free to comment, I like to have feedback :)

Sofia, Britain, Morocco

scigwen — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 23:59:00 GMT

Briefly, because we both have better things to do.

Sofia was fun. Depressing because of the architecture and the poverty. Flying in over the top of it is so different to flying in over Vienna. The inner buildings are all grey concrete, bleak and utilitarian, surrounded by more modern orange-roofed residential areas. And in many ways Sofia is full of contrasts. It is here that I had the most trouble making myself understood. Particularly because they reverse the way your head moves - a nod for "no" and a shake for "yes". It feels really wrong, so I got into the habit of saying "da" and shaking my head, which at least felt less weird. Apart from that, very few people speak English. Most places there was at least one basic English-speaker who could communicate with me, but particularly when trying to find vegetarian food things were a bit of a struggle. The Cyrillic alphabet makes everything harder. It means that even though I had a map I got lost extremely often. At one point I asked a polizei how to get home and he sent me in completely the wrong direction (although, to be fair, I couldn't understand a word he was saying).

It was fun doing cultural activities, and particularly since I was by myself I was able to Nerd It Up to an extreme degree. I went to the Natural History Museum. In my opinion it should probably be renamed the Museum of Bad Taxidermy. The grinning ostrich was a particular treat, as was the chimp holding a banana. And they had put the copepods in with the nemerteans! Those poor Bulgarians! I also went to the art gallery and the ethnographic library. I was particularly moved by a painting called "A Dragon Loves Me, Mother".

I was staying at the painfully boho Art Hostel for three nights. On the third day I went to the heavy metal concert and saw Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica. During Megadeth it started to rain, to my great surprise. There must have been a memo sent out, because everyone, at the same time, pulled out their ponchos. I tried to keep warm in the middle of the crowd in my T-shirt, but the freezing rain turned into painful hail prompting a retreat and hurried beer purchase. I sat there freezing for about an hour until the rain stopped and I could go back and mosh for Slayer. Although moshing might be the wrong word. I would call it... a war, where you're fighting everyone else. I've uploaded some videos onto Facebook. I nearly fell over a couple of times and thought I was going to die. By the end of Slayer I got a few rows from the front and got to see Metallica close up. I won't try to describe it, simply that it was awesome. The crowd was much more docile. I met a new bf, Nikolai. His hobbies include: listening to Metallica, going to Metallica shows and getting "Metallica" tattooed all the way across his back. I eventually ditched him when I started to die of thirst.

On the 24th I went to England. I had a lovely time with Aunt Jane and Miss Minim the cat, of whom I took many photos. I watched a lot of Green Wing. Then I also stayed with Uncle Robert and Caroline and saw Anna and Nick, which was really nice. They have some pretty awesome ducks which eat out of your hands! Robert also took me to a safari park after I got back from Morocco. I saw some awesome rhinos and bongos and stuff, and took lots of photos. We had a lunch on 3rd July with Jane, Robert, Anna and Rick. Jane made an amazing meal with a DIY aspect (make-your-own-crepes) and this amazing raspberry meringuey thing which I'm still dreaming about.

Anyway, Morocco was good too. At least, I thought so. There was at least vegetarian food, and I got to practise my French (although mostly it was "700 dirhams? C'est ridicule! Je vous payerai 100 dirhams!"). It was stifling hot, and even the copious amounts of cheap, fresh orange juice didn't really help. I stayed in a room with Elliott, Eamon and Louise and we did a bit of sight-seeing together, despite the fact that Eamon was navigating. We got a bit tired of Marrakech after a couple of days. The constant hassling of the shopkeepers, particularly of Louise and I, got a bit wearing, and the heat was getting to us. Plus we are not used to being woken up at 4:30am by the next-door mosque. And there was hardly any alcohol. We found ourselves wondering why on earth we had come.

So we went to Agadir for a day, which was ok. We went swimming in the ocean at least. But I went out shopping by myself for the first time and had an Incident with a rather friendly shopkeeper, my new bf Hassan. His hobbies include: luring unsuspecting Westerners into his shop, feeling them up, then asking them out. In general, ladies, you should not go out by youself, and if you do, don't talk to anyone too much and don't go into buildings. I felt pretty unsafe the two times I went out by myself.

But I'm glad we went, if only so that we can say we've been there. I wouldn't go alone, but with other people it was pretty fun. And it was certainly a Cultural Experience.

I left England for Ireland on 5th July. I'll write again soon, but now I have to save this story!

Photos: Ireland

scigwen — Thu, 8 Jul 2010 06:28:00 GMT

Dublin and the West Coast

Photos: Sofia

scigwen — Sun, 4 Jul 2010 07:17:00 GMT

20-23 June 2010

Photos: Vienna first time around

scigwen — Sun, 4 Jul 2010 03:34:00 GMT

19-20 June 2010

One Day in Vienna

scigwen — Sun, 4 Jul 2010 02:41:00 GMT

I've been a bit lax with keeping people informed of what I've been doing, and I'm sure that some of you are wondering whether or not I'm still alive. In fact, I have a very good reason for not having updated this blog (I couldn't be bothered) but I do apologise and I'll try to write more in future. Also, I want to present this in the form of easily-digested stories rather than vast analytical monologues that take hours to read, so with that in mind I'll just cover the first couple of days of my journey in this entry.

I left Melbourne on 18th June at 23:00, destination Vienna via Qatar. Just to point out how organised I was, I only got a guy to pick up my fridge at 18:45 and then headed straight to the airport. It started off exciting before I even got off the ground, because I spent so long in a line waiting for tax money back on my headphones that I got called over the PA system and had to make a mad dash. Notwithstanding the glares of the flight attendants, however, twas all good. I got a pretty decent amount of sleep simply by taking a Mersindol night strength, putting on my noise-cancelling headphones and eye mask, and pretending to be somewhere else.

I first became aware that I a hoodie, scarf and warm furry hat might not have been the best attire once I landed in Doha. It was 5:30am and 35 degrees. It was only a two-hour stop-over, but I still managed to get hit on by a creepy Indian massage therapist headed for Moscow who gave me his card. It turns out that this was simply the start of a rather irritating trend, but more on that later.

A 6-hour trip on a little Airbus got me to Vienna, where I began to feel that something had been lacking in my packing decisions. I had neglected to pack several bilingual Germans happy to carry my bags for me. But in any case I made it by double-decker train (!) to the centre of Vienna. A person of indeterminate sex smoking a cigarette in the train station seemed to be saying "Welcome to Europe!" The first Australian I found was beating up a would-be thief, who hurriedly gave back the guy's wallet. So proud.

I managed to figure out the unconventional Viennese train system. By "unconventional" I, of course, mean "good". Friendly coloured lines on each train and at each station showed me exactly where everything was and how to get to it once I had achieved some degree of orientation. A friendly English-speaking Austrian lady explained that I was travelling in the wrong direction and showed me which lines to take. I wasn't sure how to explain that I'm not used to a train system this easy to use, and that I interpreted the simple instructions as a sort of trap. Every time I used the trains there was an exact five-minute interval between each one and they were never more than a few seconds late. It was inexpensive, clean and reliable. I began to feel quite homesick.

After wandering aimlessly for a while I found the A&O hostel and gratefully deposited my stuff. I tried to rest but got bored and restless, and at 16:00 on 19th June I set out. There was, of course, absolutely nothing open, but it was nonetheless a delight to wander the beautiful streets, take photos and make it clear to everyone that I was a tourist.

Using what I privately think of as the "Emily Smith" principle, I wandered around in the knowledge that I would eventually find something completely ridiculous. After about half an hour I found it! A parade was slowly weaving through the streets: five or six cars pumping terrible dance music with what appeared to be the entire alternative youth population of Austria following them. At first glance it appeared to be demanding an end to such outmoded concepts as "nation" and "religion" but I eventually realised it was mainly about getting drunk and pissing off the extremely conservative older Viennese. Of course, I had no choice but to join in.

I acquired a new bf named Sunny. His hobbies include: holding hands, drinking warm beer and dancing his "special" dance. I cheerfully pretended to be interested until he bought me a beer (from a cafe fridge!), then "lost" him. I followed the parade until the front car broke down in a ridiculously residential area, then lost interest and staggered off to find some English-speaking food service professionals. I slept extremely well.

The next day I didn't have much time to see the sights, but because I woke up early I wandered about again a bit and took some nice photos. Then I negotiated my way back to the airport via a train and prepared for Sofia. The best thing about the airport at Vienna was getting a photo of the sex shop in the terminal (seriously, what would you need to buy so urgently that you couldn't wait to get it at your destination?). I look forward to going back to Vienna in a few weeks, I suspect that there is plenty more chance of lulz.