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 21st
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.
