I'm doing so much walking. Friday we went to Versailles... WOW. Versailles is OUT OF THIS WORLD. So many riches. The garden is a national park - in the beginning it was 7800 hectars and now it's only a measly 800 hectars. It's huge. Walking around there was amazing. There was so much to see. We spent 2 hours just seeing the garden and then had some lunch.
After lunch we went to the actual castle... so much to see! Lavish portraits, ceiling paintings, gorgeous furniture... the history of the castle is interesting as well. We could have come back the following day - there was much more to see!!
That evening I walked around the St-Michel district and had a Pierrade - for one. Didn't quite know what it was til I got it... it's a whole lotta meat with some fries that you cook on a hot plate. mmm meat. A welcome change from all the veggies and bread I've been eating!
Saturday I parused the shops along les Champs Elysees and walked here and there. Bought a really really cool hat - which is good because my hair is getting to be that ackward length... and I can't get it to do anything nice.
Saturday night I met some nice people at the hostel, MORE Australians and an American... we polished off a few bottles of wine and talked about life. It was nice. I wanted to go out, but I'm really exhausted.
Today we went back to the Eiffel Tower so that one of the Aussies could go up. I sat around and people watched. There are these arab girls that walk around saying, "Do you speak English?" to which you answer yes and they hand you a piece of paper that says that their brother is in their country and they have no money, no food... ARGH! Perhaps this is true, but there are tons of these girls. Some by the train station, some by the Eiffel Tower... Now I pretend I don't speak English. I hate having to do that.
There aren't as many bums in Paris, but the few are really in your face about it.
I haven't stepped in any dog shit yet, but there's a LOT.
After the Eiffel Tower we were going to do some shopping but everything is closed on Sunday!! doh! So I dragged them to see Victor Hugo's house which is the really nice Bastille area of town.
I was going to leave tomorrow, but I can't seem to get a hold of Alec or Jennifer - ARGH! - to know where they live. It's a ploy, they don't like me very much.
So I'll stay an extra night to make it an even week in Paris, do some shopping... I need a scarf, I feel so out of place!! Bon soir tout le monde, je dois aller faire quelque commission avant de souper!
Le clavier est anglo... pardon! The French are great! I say thank you to someone for holding the door open and he says back, "mais y'a pas d'quoi!" so nice!
Where to begin... the beginning? What day is it today? I feel like I've been here a week. I've been here 3 and a half days. Monday's arrival, Tuesday... what did I do on Tuesday. I walked around. I walked down LaFayette Street where my hostel was and walked all the way down to the Opera area and then around where all the Uber-Chic boutiques are. I didn't even dare go in with my dirty flip-flops and jeans... Chanel, Gucci, Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Oscar de la Renta... (pause, I just looked up and there are 2 guys playing a trumpet and an accordion in the street... for no reason... i love paris!)
Anyway, walk walk walk, stop in a cafe and have lunch then an afternoon snack, walked back up to the hostel and everyone announced, we're going to the Eiffel Tower!
La Tour Eiffel est tellement belle la nuit! They light it up and every hour, on the hour it goes all sparkly!! so beautiful. So we went up... I left Jean-Guy there, he liked it up there. Well I left one of him up there. I wish I could post pictures! soon soon...
After the Eiffel Tower I went to bed but couldn't sleep because of the noise in the hostel (which is why i've gone to the Aloha hostel now, much better! Now there are 2 accordian guys and a trumpet guy! this is AWESOME!) -- woke up at 9:30am and went with some guys to the cemetary where Jim Morrison is buried. Found out that Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf and Maria Callas were buried there too!! Took loads of pictures and have decided that the French know how to be buried. Man oh man! They build houses on their tombs! crazy french! with stained glass windows and sculptures and busts... amazing.
I've decided, family of mine, that we should get a family big sculpture thing with busts of each of us carved into the stone and have poetry carved in the side with stained glass window doors that open up into a worship area... many ideas i have had of how I want to be buried now.
Then we walked to Notre-Dame de Paris. The outside is amazing! INSANE. The carvings... I can't even begin to describe it. Read Victor Hugo's book, i'm sure he describes it in there somewhere.
The inside was great, the windows were out of this world. I've been told I ain't seen nothing yet and to wait til I get to Italy. I can only imagine. I lite a few candles, one for my parents, one for my grandma... I took a cierge for my mum.
Then back to the hostel and out to a Canadian bar called the Moose where they didn't sell any Moslon products which is just wrong. It was cool to be in a place where a lot of people where Canadian. The bar tender was Canadian and he gave me a Canada pin.
Then we went to an Aussie bar and had crepes on the way. So many Australians! Then back to another club...
I'm a bit glad to be in a new hostel where a curfew exists. I don't really wanna be out til 4am... I am SO exhausted. I go to Alec and Jen's on Sunday - I need the rest so I'll be kinda happy if they're not there yet (no offense, but babies are not conducive to sleep... although I have heard mention of a nearby church bell... hm.) --
Must check out my new hostel room now, and then get more money out of the cash machine. So expensive here, but worth every dime!! (or Euro, if you will).
London's landscape is littered with cranes - fixing the old, building the new. The energy here is more than palpable, it's a smell, something in the air that makes my eyes water and makes my heart beat faster. I had no idea what a city was. Toronto could be a London suburb. They have the same feel, but here... it's more - Toronto to the power of 4.
The sky is often grey here. People don't shy away from the rain, they don't run from it, they accept it - they accept it the way we accept rush hour traffic.
I have never been to New York City. I wonder if they are the same. I wonder if the streets there feel like the streets here. I'm sitting at Shaftesbury Avenue, the Broadway of London, in a Starbucks. I feel safe in a Starbucks. I expect a friend to come by and sit with me. I'm still working by the social constructs I had in Toronto... that I could embarass myself.
I am having to depend on myself more here.
Tomorrow, in Paris, I will have no one. I'll have a hostel to call home. I'm excited to see Paris.
I forget the first time I heard of Paris - probably in a song - Fait du feu dans la cheminée je reviens chez nous... s'il fait du soleil à Paris, il en fait partout...
Paris is such a mystical place. Sidewalk cafés, endless cobblestone roads, bridges over the Seine, the Eiffel Tower, the history!
I'm sure somewhere London must have this same feel of history, but I haven't had time to find it. In London I decided to forego the history and find its' right now.
I thought the tourists in Toronto were annoying! Last night on my way to the theatre the sidewalks were insane! You could see the excitment in people's eyes, you could taste their origins... Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Algeria...
London is the centre of the Earth - or at least, the centre of tourist Earth.
I saw a canadian flag on a guy's bag today while I was eating my fish & chips. My heart skipped a beat, I smiled. I realized suddenly that Bryan Adams had come on the restaurant's speaker system, I laughed.
As the boy walked out of the restaurant with his take away, he began to sing along.
We're never too far from home.
I must take a deep breath and speak to more people. I really must come back to London - I didn't get a chance to go to Baker Street!
I hope I don't forget this trip. I hope I remember every moment, like now, sitting in a Starbucks across from the Gielgud Theatre with Christian Slater's big face starring down at me while I'm listening to Tiesto loud enough to drown out the café's radio...
Life is good. ------------
So now, je suis in Paris! I got off the Chunnel train at 5:30pm (the chunnel isn't anything to write home about, although the trains in Europe are awesome in general) and went searching for the hostel that a friend of the London boys recommended called the Peace and Love hostel. (ya.) So I found it and checked in to my "room" (which isn't even big enough to stand in and they put 5 beds in there - 2 bunks and a cot - i dislike hostels). I came downstairs and sat with some Australians... ya. Making friends only got me a hangover.
I sat down and had a nice big beer (1664) and chatted with these people. One beer became 2 which became 3... all of a sudden one of the Australian girls says, "let's go to the Moulin Rouge!" (pronounced Moolann Rwooge when you don't speak French) (so many Australians!) - so off we went. We didn't go in the Moulin Rouge (60 euros to get in) but we took a lot of pictures out front. We hit a bar on the way there and went to another and then went to a club.
My head hurts.
Ya, I won't be doing that again soon.
So I said goodbye to London. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was good. Not exceptional, but it was cool to see Christian Slater so close up. I ended up getting really good tickets! The show was sold out but since I was alone I managed to get what they call a return (which is i guess when someone cancels their ticket).
Then Sunday I walked around. It was really cool and I wrote what you see above. I was walking through a park and there were 4 old guys playing New Orleans type music... a tuba, a trumpet, a clarinet, and a banjo. So I sat there for a while...
Anyway, I don't want to spend my first day in Paris writing this... alors je m'en vais déjeuner... il est passé midi! À bientôt!
Georges asked me to describe the people here... and, well, sorry to dissapoint but they're exactly like Canadians. There's no perceived difference - at all. For example, Dave lives with 2 other guys who are just as messy as normal 20-somethings, they have the same quirks as Canadian boys do... they watch as much TV, they go out to pubs as much as we do...
The only difference is that they smoke more (the rules here are only beginning to tighten) and that they think I have an accent.
Went out clubbing last night - Richie Hawtin baby!! figures that I'd go out to see a Canadian DJ in London. The venue changed at the last minute (thank god I called!) and it was at a club called Rouge (I won't tell you how much the cab cost... so expensive!) -- aside: the "tube" or subway is very good here. it runs late and starts early. i've been taking the tube mostly, thank god, because cabs are expensive even before you factor in the £) -- anyway, so it was at Rouge, there was an insane line-up outside, but line-ups are good for meeting people, which I did. Getting in and around the club was fairly easy, except in the main room where it was just ridiculous.
Met a South African girl, a Scottish boy, some really high Australian girls (eesh! "ya! we're going to Whistler soon... how are the drugs there?" - you're an idiot), a guy from Pensylvania, another guy from Australia, and I think that's it.
Stayed up WAY past my bedtime... damn you Richie Hawtin! He's so good. The other DJs were also very good. I have no complaints as far as quality of music... and everyone knows that if the music is crap I don't stay out late. Richie was the last to spin and I stayed til the end.
Got home when the sun was up and slept til 2:30pm (tell me it's not really 2:30 - it can't be that late!!!) I wanted to go see the Matinee of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at 3pm, but I guess I'm going to the evening show. I have to call...
Saw an awesome Dali (he's INSANE) exhibit at a museum near the parliament... which means i also saw... BIG BEN BABY!! it's a big clock. woot! nothing uber-special. impressive architecture, but that's about it. They have this giant ferris wheel you can get on to see the whole city, but the line-up was long and I had better things to spend my money on.
Tomorrow I go to the British Museum and book a ticket for Paris (and I do laundry - donde esta lavandaria??!!)
Here's an interesting part of English culture: they can (and do) drink in the streets. Last night was eye opening - girls walking down the street with wine glasses, guys with pints - a LOT of falling over, a lot of peeing in corners, a lot of vomiting... this stuff is only funny when you're not them. This would make pub crawls more interesting since you can carry the booze with you from a bar to the next, you can enjoy a beer in a park... but that's all I gots G - as per your request.
Bristol, to sum it up, was cool. very pretty, fairly inexpensive, nice places to eat, good shopping, easy transportation in, out, and throughout the city... no complaints really. I was only there a week, and it feels asthough i spent a month.
Now, i'm in London!!!! I arrived yesterday and visited with Dave, Mike's friend. We went out for a few pints of Guiness. His apartment (or flat, if you will) is as good as a resort. they're right on the Thames river (in the South West end, for those who keep asking, "but WHERE in London?"), and they have access to a pool and a sauna. Since Dave's gone I have a room with an ensuite bathroom to myself. too bad i'm not staying longer!
I went to see Big Ben today... I may try to post a pic! i brought Jean-Guy along. he was a bit bored with Bristol... but once we got to London! Hello! There was a Salvador Dali exhibit at the County Hall Gallery... he's so crazy. so so crazy. like, totally nuts. very interesting exhibit. I picked up a Time Out magazine, which is the equivalent of a Now Mag in Toronto (but this one's not free) to see what's going on in Club Land this weekend. I may go to the Ministry of Sound... I'd be nuts not too. it's such an institution. I just wonder whether I should go tonight or tomorrow.
Tomorrow i'll hit the British museum, and I may see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as a play... Christian Slater is playing in it... and i've never been one to resist Christian Slater. He seems fitting in a Jack role. I'll see how much it costs.
I may or may not go to Picadilly Circus (it looks like a crap version of Time Square, so i may forego) .... i'm not planning much. i'll go over the Time Out later and see what my options are.
I am so tired. Ok, where were we? Went to Glastonbury, then went to Cheddar (yes, like the cheese) where there is a gorge (insane view) and caves. The caves were really really cool. A bit too manufactured (guided tours and the like) but the caves themselves were amazing and very interesting. The gorge was a (excuse my language) bitch to climb up. Holy Crap. I hate hills. Let it be known, I HATE HILLS.
So i huffed and puffed my way up and across this gorge... and took a crazy amount of pictures. When we got back from this long walk and long day, we were supposed to go to see Mr. Scruff in a club downtown Bristol. Suprise suprise, Ly abandoned me because she was tired... and to her suprise, I WENT ANYWAY! she loves the outdoors, the trees, the hikes, the exercise... I love the dancing, the noise, the beats... she doesn't understand. When I got to the club I had a very strong drink and tried to find the courage to speak to people. So I had another very strong drink and realized (alcool is enlightenment) "hey! i'm only here for another 5 days! i can embarass myself all i want!"
So I walked up to a guy (Dominic - he knew right away that i was french-canadian, so weird, nice guy, he quoted the Hobbit to me and i was smitten) and started up a conversation and before I knew it, he had introduced me to all his friends and we were having a great time.
By 4am I was tucked safely in my bed... because the next day (I was up before Ly at 9am) we were off to Totnes, where Ly went to school. Totnes is very very pretty. It's mostly farmland, with again, rolling hills (stupid hills!)... so we visited her friends, took long walks through the woods...
One can really understand where JRR Tolkien gets his inspiration. Walking through those woods I was under the impression that at any moment a hobbit or an elf was going to come running out from behind a tree. The moss, the ivy... gorgeous.
I wanted to address the stereotype which is Rain in England. It's true. One can never know what the weather will be like. The first two days I was here, I was told that the sunshine was abnormal. I told them that I'd brought the sunshine from Canada. They don't want me to leave. But then it started to rain... and it's been raining off and on since. This, apparently, is normal.
I'd rather have snow, me thinks.
So as you can see, I'm exhausted. I haven't spent tooooo much money, the food is actually not bad (they have this pie-pocket type thing called a Pastie which i'm addicted to) and oooo! while in Totnes, Ly and I had Cream Tea!! It was really really good. mmm clotted cream.
Another stereotype is that the English drink a lot of tea. They do. They really do. But I can see why, it's really good and a nice gentle pick-me-up. I think we steep our tea for too long. a casual steep for about 20-30 seconds is ample. add milk, and voila... mmm mmm goodness.
Anyway, my time here in the internet cafe is almost over, so I'd better get going. There aren't very many internet cafe's here. Perhaps in London there'll be more. I'll be in London on Thursday. Paris on Sunday. ;)
Well, it has been a really nice few days. Ly is a great hostess. Been doing this and that, puttering around Bristol. I'm in Glastonbury at the moment, home of the Chalice Well (got some water from it, tastes like iron, a little orange in colour, apparently healing...) and the Glastonbury Tor (St-Michael's Tower). A long hike up to the Tor (or Tour i guess) but well worth it. the view was INSANE.
Beautiful. There are all sorts of farms around, and little cities here and there. very gorgeous view.
I met Ly's boyfriend Tim. He just bought a house so we went to visit and have lunch in his "garden" which is a backyard. He gave us a little tour of the neighbourhood and he showed us the house where Cary Grant was born. I took a picture for my dad, I think he'll find that cool.
The houses are really cool and very very old. I have a busy weekend ahead! Mr. Scruff is spinning somewhere downtown and I really want to go see him. Ly, Tim and I are going to sight-see a bit more tomorrow. I forget the name of where we're going. doh!
Anyway, not going to London til Thursday... a while yet!
Saw a movie Stage Beauty with Ly. it's reeeeeally really good - i totally recommend it.
Yes dad, Bristol is a port city. There are really cool boats. I really wish I could post my pictures!! damn USB ports! Oh well, you'll all have to suffer through my slideshows when i get back. I've already taken 100 pictures... :) i'm having a great time. better go! my half hour is almost up!!
ps - these people eat a lot better than us canadians. a lot of organic food stores and stuff. my mum would be in heaven, except for the fact that everyone speaks English. ya. tata!
The flight here was ok, i guess. why do they play disaster movies on flights? they played "The Day After Tomorrow" which was really good (except for the part where they run away from the cold). the food was crap. i wasn't sitting beside anyone interesting.
what a long flight. i didn't realize the ocean was so big. we flew over the maritimes... their cute little farms... it's so cool in the air. the ocean was blue (duh) and when there were small clouds overtop it looked like i was looking down at the sky... quite surreal.
i got to London's Heathrow airport around 9:30pm. the lights! from the sky, London is the hugest city i've ever seen. it's amazing. from Heathrow (customs was very quick) i got on a bus to Bristol which is about 2 hours. it was 1am UK time when i got there. Ly and i stayed up til about 3am but it was only 11pm for me!
i felt the jet lag when i woke up this morning though! Ly woke me up and said, "i'll draw you some maps and tell you where to go today... i'll point out where i work. come have breakfast!"
it was about 9:30am and normally after breakfast i don't feel at all groggy, but not this morning! i went back to bed when she left around 10:15... woke up around noon, feeling better.
been walking around Bristol all day. it's very very pretty. Ly gets off work around 7pm, so i have to amuse myself til then. i'll probably go see some shops and then go to a cafe and wait for her there. we've got a whole weekend planned out.
i've been taking lots of pictures, but these places don't have USB ports, so i can't plug in my camera. i'll post pics as soon as i can.
it's Sunday. I leave Tuesday morning. 2 days. 2 jours. À peine 2 jours.
I'm so excited i can barely contain myself. I spent the day making CDs. yay MP3s! who knew!? I put 6-7 albums onto one CD, this is great!
I am so nervous. Ly m'a appeler pour me donner des nouvelles... this is where you'll land, this is where you'll take the bus, but don't call it a bus, call it a coach cuz a bus in England is like a city bus... I am so excited!!! forget nervous, excited is more like it.
I went to the cottage for a few days. So quiet. I re-read Le pélerin de Compostelle de Paulo Coelho.... just to remind me of why I was doing all this. I remember now. Je ne sais pas ce que j'attend de ce pélerinage. tout le monde me le demande, et je ne le sais pas.
I'm going to see if i can do this. pour voir si je peux me débrouiller...
As you can see, I changed the format. You can leave comments at the bottom of each post. The chatting thing was creating problems, pop-ups and the like. :^P that sucked.
2 days... 2 nuits... 1 jour... am i ready?
how ready can i be? i've been ready for ages.
watch me go.
i won't let the door hit me on my way out.
