Paris, France

 

Paris: a must-visit according to everyone.  To be honest, I didn't want to go to Paris.  Or France in general really.  I feared we would suffer Italy-itus where everyone we meet regards us like that horrible fuzz on your teeth after not brushing them the night before.  I agreed to Paris because of bullying.

We arrived in the morning and had several hours to kill before we could check into our AirBnB apartment in central Paris (about a 10 min walk from the Lourve).  At this point we were both starting to get sick…sore throats with fevers & buckets of mucus not far away.  I was paranoid about pick pockets (pick-pocket-ers? Pocket Pickers? The correct grammar alludes me here) because everyone keeps warning us about them…so I was fairly busy asking Isaac if he still had his wallet and phone.  We managed to find the right trains to our apartment (without getting pocket raped) and further managed to clumsily order some lunch at a café. 

There wasn't a lot of English around on signs, but shop staff seemed to speak the basics if you needed it (staring dumbly at them after they've told you the price usually leads them to repeat it in English for dumb tourists/us).  But as usual, you seem to be able to get by if you can say Hello and Thank You (Sorry is a good one to know too) – so Bonjour and Merci (and Desole) saw us able to buy what we needed during our stay.  We found that French is a lot easier than other languages we've encountered when it comes to staring at signs etc and trying to deduce the meaning. 

We only had 3 nights in Paris and our sickness hit us fairly hard during our time there.  We didn't do anything on the day we arrived, the next day (our sickest) we managed to get to the Louvre only (and we were cranky and exhausted by 3pm), but we pushed through on our last day and saw a bunch of the most famous tourist sites.  There is soooo much to see in Paris, but being sick, the crap tourists we are, and only having 3 nights there….well.  You know.

Ok so first, after traveling around the most touristy city in the world (I made that up, but it could be true) mainly on foot and completely paranoid about pocket-feelers and not speaking a word of French (except for our 3 words mentioned above), our experience was pretty great.  We didn't have Italy-itus at all.  I was very surprised that the city dwellers didn’t treat the tourists which plague their beautiful city like vermin, well, like vermin.  Everyone we met was quite chillaxed, friendly, and almost welcoming.  Paris itself is actually really beautiful; it’s like someone has taken a giant paintbrush and dipped it in a bucket of history and architecture and then set the brush aside and poured the bucket all over the city.  Things are just old, older than stuff in Brisbane.  It’s quite weird and fascinating to look at.

The Louvre was fairly fantastic, massive though, and our ailing bodies gave up on us before we saw all of it.  We saw the Mona Lisa (well, sort of…see the pictures below), the Venus de Milo (Gummy Venus), and a bagillion other amazing paintings and sculptures.  We also saw some real live mummys including some mummified kitty cats that looked like adorable bread sticks with cat heads.

We saw the famed Notre Dame cathedral – awesome display of ‘shit-hot-building-ness’, which by the way, had gargoyles on it.  Gargoyles!  Our friends would know that we have been trying to see Gargoyles for years..so we were pretty happy.  We then walked to the Musee d'Orsay art gallery which among other things had a lot of Van Gogh paintings.  We didn’t get to see Starry Night as hoped, that’s actually in New York, but we saw a popular version of his self portrait as well as a bunch of his earlier works which tended to be quite dark – we really liked these.

We walked towards the Eiffel Tower and saw the "Love Lock" bridge , which is the bridge that everyone buys an overpriced lock from a street vendor which they in turn purchased from a hardware store for a fraction of the price.  Said people then write a message on the lock (usually something original like ‘name heart name 4 eva’) and attach the lock to the bridge and throw the keyinto the river.  A lot of people are super original and pre-purchase their own unique lock and have it engraved.  The bridge is pretty much covered in locks like fleas on a mutt.  Boards have been put up over much of the bridge to stop people putting locks in particular spots (we guessed because there are just too many locks in those places?), but people then just put their lock on the other side of the mess.  People attach their locks to other peoples locks, who have attached their lock to someone else's…and so forth.  People even put bike chains on the chairs in the middle of the bridge and put their locks on that.  The boards covering bits of the bridge are graffiti-ed with un-inspired tags, and parts of the bridge are breaking under the stress of so many locks, so the mesh is coming away and locks are falling off.  I saw a bum braking a bunch of locks off and kicking them around, and then he yelled at people looking for a spot to attach their lock. 

Oh it’s so romantic!  *yak*  However, I will say that it’s a very interesting spectacle, particularly if you dig locks, and it makes for great photo opportunities for those with great cameras and a hipster attitude.  I especially like the people who just happen to be there and get inspired, and pull their own bike chain off and just attach that with no further embellishment.  Romance got the better of me thieves, you now deserve this bike.

We continued walking to the Eiffel Tower.  It’s um..well…it’s just like a big radio tower or something.  Amongst all the beautiful stone buildings of Paris is this big pointy bunch steel.  It didn’t look like it fit in at all, and we thought it was a bit of an eyesore.  But whatever floats your boat.  It sells key rings that’s for sure.

We continued walking to the Arc de Triompe..which I’m sure has a rich history but we don’t know it.  It’s basically a big ‘gate’ or entryway, European cities seem to love this sort of thing.  I thought the one in Berlin was better.  We’re ignorant crap tourists, we know.

On our last day we packed our bags and headed straight to our next Helpx host, with naught in our wallets and sandwiches in our hands.


Berlin, Germany

 

Berlin.. just wow.  It was different to what we expected (not sure what we expected actually, but that wasn’t it) and it is also surprisingly different from anywhere we have been.  It’s grungy, if I had to describe it.  Some parts real grungy, others slightly less so.  The feel of the place is one of ‘we’ve been through hell, so now we are going to do whatever the hell feels good’ which seems pretty much mimicked by the government and law enforcement too.

We didn’t know much about Berlin’s history until we got there.  We had no idea that the Berlin Wall only came down in 1989, and that most of the city was destroyed during the various wars that it always seems to find itself in the middle of.  Today, well it’s kinda like someone got a mixing bowl and added a handful of rubble, squirted a bunch of spray paint in, churned it for a while then poured it over a scale model of a nice new city.

There are reminders of the horrific past everywhere, from the sections of wall, watch towers and checkpoints, but there is also a lot of new life flourishing amongst it, like the trendy cafes and clubs filling entire suburbs, and the weird cutting edge architecture used in the newly rebuilt areas.   

Oh one thing – clubs are so weird here!  We didn’t go clubbing cause we don’t really swing that way anymore, but it’s the done thing to go out at 9am on a Sunday morning and start getting trashed!  Big drug culture too, but you'll find that in most big European cities I think.

The people living in Berlin are hugely diverse; there are a lot of punks and hipsters, and a lot people we passed weren’t speaking English or German.  There is litter and graffiti carpeting most areas, and every third person is drinking alcohol openly in the streets and on the trains.  There also isn’t any English around on signs which is slightly alarming for the ignorant traveler.

Admittedly, if we’d arrived here and didn’t know anyone we would have been pretty standoffish and reluctant to venture out.  However if you can get past that initial feeling of ‘AHHH!’ it’s actually a pretty harmless and relaxing place.  We are so so lucky that we have our really good friend Ben living here.  He met us at the airport, helped us buy train tickets (then got accosted by a bunch of other tourists who needed help), took us to our apartment, ordered coffee for us, played tour guide, helped us with everything…we would have been so lost without him. 

Ben, seriously, thank you for making this edgy place warm for us.  If we could speak German we’d seriously love to live here for a while.  I feel the language is a real barrier, but maybe it’s not as bad as we think because we never really had to try too hard since we let Ben hold our hands.  Oh and food & booze is cheap.  Living in general is pretty cheap but so are the rates of pay.

One night we decided to check our finances.  A bad idea to begin with.  Our findings – even worse.  The panic set in – we needed a host, like, right now, because we couldn’t support ourselves for another week.  We had 3 nights in Paris booked, but apart from that we were on our asses.

Surprisingly however, the universe took care of us and we found a host in France who wanted us straight away.  Staying in France meant saving a packet on flights, so it all seemed logical.

We could breath again, and enjoy our 1 euro litre of beer.


Brussels & Bruges, Belgium

 

Oh sweet sugar-scented air – Bonjour Belgium!  We stayed in Brussels for 4 nights and visited Bruges during our stay   French is sort of the dominate language in Brussels, and Dutch is sort of the dominate language in Bruges.  We could sort of get the gist of written French (like at the train station and on menus etc), but Dutch is just gobble-dee-gook to us ignorant white swine.

One thing we really noticed in Brussels - they love their giant open unusable spaces.  Hey, here's nice s[ace, let's turn it into a big fuck off courtyard.  Hey, I like this road, lets make it 100 meters wide.

We stayed in a loft/apartment which we had booked through Airbnb, and it was great.  Loads of room & privacy, and we saved money by making all our own meals including sammiches for lunch.  We found the people to be generally nice, not overly, but then again Brussels is very tourist heavy.  It was a bit of a combination of Prague and Venice – old town + tourist town.  The buildings were seriously amazing, the waffles equally so, and the chocolate shops.. oh man..just plug it into my veins!

Bruges was great, very touristy, loads of cobble stones and old buildings.  It had some canals too like Amsterdam.  I had my very first whole bottle of beer here, in fact I had two bottles – ground breaking stuff.  I admit that it was girly beer (called Pink Killer); it had grape juice in it.  But still.  I drank beer.  I know Jess & Victoria will be very proud of me.

Eurotrip!

We have come to the part of our trip where we cast off the wafer-heavy shackles of our seriously chilled part-time employers and head off on our own into the wilds/tourist vistas. 

'Hang on' I hear you say, 'but you two are the worst tourists on the planet! How's this going to work? Tell me!'. 

For a start, it's our holiday, not yours.  We enjoy sitting in a cafe for hours.  Yes, we will certainly fail to see all the things that people tell us that we simply must see in a particular city.  But hey, we are soo sorry if our holiday disappoints you.  Calm your tits.

We are flying to Brussels next Monday for 4 nights, mainly with the purpose of checking out Bruges after seeing the movie In Bruges.  We are then heading to Berlin for 4 nights to see our buddy Ben, and then we'll fly to Paris for a few nights.  The plan then is to head to Barcelona and Portugal..and then probably back to the UK.

We are going to give Airbnb a go and rent a whole apartment for our stay, it seems to be cheaper than a hotel room as well as nicer.

Our next post should be in about a week & a half once we are in Brussels, hopefully munching on brussel sprouts.

You may now continue your internet browsing.

Pencoed Growers - A land bursting with flavour & bunnies

 

We are in our second week of our newest Helpx host: Yvonne & John of Pencoed Growers in Pencoed (about half an hour from Cardiff in Wales).  John & Yvonne are lovely, are great cooks and are looking after us very well.  They grow organic veggies and some fruits, as well as Xmas trees.  They also sell veggie boxes (just like Aussie Farmers back home).  We help them out with all sorts of bits like packing the veggie boxes, weeding, planting, and picking raspberries & other veggies for sale.

Now, I’m well known for being a wee bit of a veggie nut.  You all know that.  I happily munch whole carrots for snacks as well as entire meals.  Shit you not, the veggies I’ve had here are the best I’ve ever had.  The cherry tomatoes are so flavourful they make you weep. 

There must be something in the soil, because rainbows grow in the form of salads here.

The only real pests are the bunny rabbits, who, I have to say, are very welcome in my eyes.  THEY ARE JUST SO CUTE!!!  Have you ever seen one sitting in a French bean patch munching on flowers?  It’s enough to make a grown man collapse with knee-weakening love of all things cuddly.  Luckily for you, we managed to get a photo of said bunny wabbit.

The carrots grow in all sorts of amusing shapes, yes, they have willies!  It’s highly, highly amusing.  Also they smell amazing when you’ve pulled up a wheel barrow full of them.  Carrots, not willies.

They grow herbs (basil, dill), fennel, eggplant, cucumbers, salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, capsicums, French beans, runner beans, carrots, potatoes, beetroot, artichoke, raspberries, garlic, spring onions, spinach, broccoli… I know there’s more.  Much of it is done in polytunnels – basically a plastic tube to increase warmth & protection.  Incidentally, we get to wear Wellies (gum boots) and water proof trousers which in fact act exactly like your own personal polytunnel leggings.   Humidity pants, if you will.

We’ve spent some time checking out Cardiff city, as well as a nearby castle called Caerphilly Castle which is probably the best castle we’ve ever seen.  We also bought some whisky & ginger fudge, which was a pretty good decision..

Enjoy the following pictures of the best veg in the world which you will never have: