Oh Viennaaaaa!

First and foremost, I'll try not to make this as exhaustive as my last few posts...

Bratislava

After a great few days in Budapest we got back on the travelling wagon- destination Bratislava, Slovakia. We had been warned by others that Bratislava is somewhere you would ideally only visit for a day, something we later found to be very good advice indeed.

I do feel a bit sorry for Bratislava though, it's a relatively new capital city which is full of English due to its cheap beer and nearby Ryanair airport. After only sleeping for a couple of hours the previous night we were in no fit state to wander round the city enthusiastically with our heavy rucksacks, oohing and aahing at various sights, so headed to a bagel café to slob out for a while. Spent a long time watching Glee in Slovakian in the café (fascinating, especially when everyone burst into song in English), before dumping our bags at the station which was one of the most depressing places I have ever seen (we thought it was derelict).

Blue Church, Bratislava. Closed on Sundays incidentally.

It's not that Bratislava is dirty/boring/unsafe/small- delete as appropriate, it's just there's nothing there that we hadn't already seen before in Krakow and Budapest. No wow factor. Like most capitals in Eastern/Central Europe there IS a castle on a hill and cute squares and a gorgeous little blue church which was ironically closed on Sundays. The few hours we spent wandering the Slovakian streets were enough. After a huuuuuge Slovakian sausage (no- no that kind) we boarded the train for Vienna, Austria.

Bratislava is a bit like Ke$ha- a bit scrubby and nothing you haven't seen before. Hope you liked the double negative. SNAP.

Slovakian haute cuisine

Vienna

I spent the 3 nights and 2 days we had in Austria's beautiful capital with Ultravox in my head. Oh Viennaaaaaaa!! Thanks Midge Ure. I know why he was wailing so much- Vienna is FAN-tastic.

The Viennese adventure got off to a shaky sight as it took us the best part of 2 and a half hours to find our CouchSurfing hosts' apartment. Nevertheless, we arrived at Martin and Doris' bedraggled and knackered. Must have been quite frightening for them in retrospect- Doris and Martin were 21 year old students, originally from Salzburg and absolutely lovely. Gave us useful tips- from where to eat schnitzel to how to negotiate the complicated transport system and even ordered midnight pizza for us all one night! Can't get better than that!

Vienna is one of those cities where you can amble around for ages without actually doing anything. Due to the weather (not a cloud in sight for the 2 days we were there), I did a lot of ambling. Met up with Emily, one of my friends from uni who's living in Vienna this year (lucky girl) so had my very own personal tour guide! We wandered round looking at impressive museums, libraries and such before a well earned rest in a café for hot chocolate so thick you had to eat it with a spoon. Nice.

Everything in Vienna is beautiful. Point.

We spent the afternoon catching up, visiting the Kunsthaus (mind how you say that) and riding the tram before meeting up with my fellow travelers for some traditional Austrian food in the Centimeter bar (where the beer you order is priced by the Centimeter!). Here's my meal...

Schnitzel and potatoes in balsamic vinegar. Tasted AMAZING. Shame I couldn't eat it all.

After that, met up with Clemens and Hanna, a young Viennese couple I met whilst working in Brittany last summer (they kept me company in the lonely hostel I was working in for a few rainy days). Went to AltWien, a bar famous for its grumpy waiters apparently. Definitely can confirm that.

My second day in Vienna started at the Schloss Schönbrunn- home of the Habsburgs (think of it as the Austrian equivalent of Versailles). It was beautiful! Just a shame spring hadn't really kicked off yet as all the gardens were bare. Climbed up through the gardens to get views of Vienna, before heading back into the city for some wine fun....

Beautiful!

Just outside Vienna is a little place called Grinzing, famous due to its viticulture. Naturally Emily and I caught the tram to try some Grinzing wine! The 'excursion' to Grinzing made a nice change from the city- although still classed as part of Vienna city, it feels like you've stepped back in time in Grinzing. Yes, it's touristy but it is quaint and tooooo cute! Went for lunch and tried some of the wine- came in a small beer jug and cost less than 3 euros! Wahey!

Grinzing

Our stay in Vienna was rounded off with a night at the opera. How bourgeois of us. Loved the fact that everyone else was dressed to the nines whereas we were wearing jeans/trainers and looked a bit of a mess really. Jackie found some cheap tickets for 3 euros (!), ever the bargain hunter. Thing is these tickets were standing. We had a great view but standing up for 3 hours watching Mozart's Magic Flute in Austrian German was pretty fatigant I've got to say. Still, it was a great experience- made all the more sweet by our cheap tickets.

A night at the opera

Soooooo Vienna. Just go and see it for yourself. The buildings are grand, the architecture impressive and the food portions are huuuuuge! Ride around on the trams, casually check out the opera and eat schnitzel and strudel. Your figure might betray you, but your heart definitely won't. Midge Ure was definitely onto something good...

I left my heart in Budapest.

I fear this blog has turned into a long exhaustive travel account. Meh. Read on at your own peril...

After a 7 and a half hour bus journey which took us through the beautiful mountains of Slovakia, we arrived in Budapest not knowing a word of Hungarian and with no money. Finally found a cashpoint and negociated the metro system and before we knew it we were at our hostel! A strange kind of hostel, I've got to say- it was like a big house with no locks on the doors and the people in the room next to ours had to walk through our room to get out. Still, it cost a mere 10 euros for two nights so we couldn't complain.

We had high hopes for Budapest. Everyone we knew who had already visited didn't have a bad word to say about it, so we decided to spend 4 nights there. Definitely worth it. Our first morning in Budapest was a bit drizzly at first as we met in one of the main squares in Pest (pronounced Pesht) to start our free walking tour. The tour showed us the main tourist spots in downtown Pest, full of ugly buildings from the Communist era before crossing the Danube on the famous Chain Bridge and heading up to Buda, the old part of the city.

View of Buda! Rub the knees of the statue for good luck.

If you go to Budapest, you have to do the walking tours! They're fantastic- our guide was highly informative, approachable and funny. She told us cheap places to eat and places to go to avoid tourists, plus some useful words in Hungarian. Hungarian is a bit of a language isolate really as it is not an Indo-European language and completely different to the Slavic languages spoken in surrounding countries. It is similar to Finnish and Estonian, and bloody hard to learn I can tell you. The only words I have managed to remember are Egészségedre (cheers)and Tíz sör, pronounced 'T-shirt' meaning 'ten beers'. The two most important words= memorised!

Our walking tour ended in a Hungarian cantine, akin to the Polish milk bar we visited where food and drink is dirt cheap. Coincidentally got talking to two people from the tour who turned out to be English language assistants in Nancy-Metz (Verdun)! Small world...Anyway Hungarian food is better than Polish food in my humble opinion- it's got spice! Paprika is the symbolic spice of Hungarian cuisine, added to everything, giving everything more oomph. Michelle and I loved the delicious paprika pork and dumpling stew that cost a mere 3 euros!

After fuelling up, we wandered over to Fisherman's Bastion in Buda- a terrace on Castle Hill with great views of the Hungarian Parliament and Pest. We climbed a statue of a horse, a tradition here in Budapest. According to our tour guide, if you climb the statue and cop a feel of the horse's bollocks, you will do well in your next exams. Plus you will have good sex. Either that or our guide just wanted to make naive tourists act like idiots....

Statue climbing, all in the name of good luck.

Later on we ended up walking by the Danube and up to Gellért Hill, home to the Lady Liberty statue. It was a long climb but definitely worth it for the panoramic views of the city. Amazing. The Lady Liberty statue was first erected in 1947 to celebrate the liberation of Hungary by the Soviet Union. After the transition from Communism in 1989, the statue was covered over with a plastic sheet for 3 days, in order to 'purify' it from Communism and the Soviet Union.

Liberty statue, all the way up Gellért Hill

The rest of the day was spent wandering round Budapest's Central Market- believe me, you will never see as much paprika again and cooking a nutritious meal of eggs and kidney beans. Not. We ended up going out with some people from our hostel- Budapest is famous for its 'ruin bars'- here's a better description than anything I can write...

Budapest now has several very interesting places called ROMKOCSMA (literally ruin pubs). These are pubs installed in the courtyards and gardens of empty houses. You don’t see anything from the outside (except people drifting with their plastic beer glasses and sometimes a beefy guard who is there to make sure people don’t get too noisy, as these places are usually in residential areas..), but once you get in the inner courtyardt, it is something else! There is music, alternative exhibits, some have films, and they are open until at least 4 A.M.…. Definitely a must. The crowd there is young and cosmopolitan!

Went to Szimpla, one of the most famous ruin bars- was packed out so we only stayed for one, before moving on to a club which played dubstep and decent electro. Made a refreshing change from all the crap music we hear in Nancy every time we go out.

Our second day in Budapest started slowly, as you can imagine. Headed to the Central Market for langos, a deep fried flat bread (Hungarian speciality). I opted for the cheese and Hungarian sausage topping, looked like a pizza, grease central. Felt like I never wanted to eat again after it.... After waddling up Váci utca, Budapest's main street (home to Marks and Spencer!), we went in the House of Terror. The building in which the museum is housed was the headquarters of the Communist government and the basement was their torture chamber. The museum was pretty boring in parts because everything was in Hungarian, which is impossible to understand for 99.9% of the world's population. Good one. The basement was pretty sinister- you can enter former torture chambers- see ropes where people were hanged. Uncomfortable, but v. interesting....

Langos from the Central Market!

One of the highlights of the whole Central European trip was to come that afternoon at the Szechenyi baths. Budapest is famous for its thermal spas, so when in Budapest, make like the Hungarians and go to one! Some of the baths are very expensive, some aren't, most are single sex only. We opted for the mixed Szechenyi as we had heard great things about it from friends, plus it was cheap- around 11 euros for a day pass! The baths have around 30 pools which vary in size and purpose. There are hot cools, warm pools, cold pools (went in one for literally 4 seconds before jumping out like the big coward I am), medicinal pools, sulphur pools, saunas, steam rooms. It was a perfect afternoon! My favourite was the outdoor heated pool but all of it was relaxing- it was the perfect antidote to the previous day of sightseeing and clubbing. Felt like we were really on holiday and not just sightseeing.

The Szechenyi baths, pure paradise.

After dragging ourselves away from the baths (it had to end sometime....) we went over to our new CouchSurfer's flat. Reka was a fantastic host- upon our arrival she presented us with a traditional Hungarian stew made from pork, dumplings, potato, and yes, you've guessed it, paprika! All that was washed down with some Hungarian wine and a shot of Becherovka- a spirit previous 'Surfers' from the Czech Republic had brought to Budapest. After originally thinking it was going to be a quiet night, we ended up being treated to a night tour of Budapest from Reka and her boyfriend, going to a bar for Palinka- Hungary's traditional spirit which is distilled from fruit (very strong, I couldn't taste the fruit personally...). Ended the night in a Hungarian folk dancing club- watched as mainly young Hungarians danced the night away. Was so interesting to see, more to come on that later....

Palinka

Our final full day in Budapest was a blinder. After stocking up on much needed Activia and bread in Spar, we headed to Szimpla (remember- the ruin bar) for a quick coffee and wandered round Budapest's Jewish District. The synagogue is the largest in Europe, I'll have you know. Then went in the cathedral, headed across the Chain Bridge over to Buda, took a LOT of photos in the sun and ate in a Hungarian café which was recommended by our hosts. Finished the afternoon with the Communist walking tour which was so so soooo interesting (I realise I sound like a bit of a history geek but go to Budapest and you will be exactly the same!). Our tour guide lived under the Communist regime, so was telling us lots of stories about her life as a child in Hungary.

We found out that

• Hungarians used to have two passports- one for travel to countries East of Hungary and one to travel West. It was relatively easy to travel East but virtually impossible to travel West. Our guide travelled West once, to Vienna in Austria. Upon arrival at the Hungarian border, officials told her family they couldn't take bananas they had bought back into Hungary. Said she never eats bananas now because they ate as many as they could manage at the border.
• The education system was good. Foreign language learning= Russian.
• Old people are nostalgic about the Communist era because the television was decent! And it was cheap to go to the theatre/opera. Nowadays it is too expensive.
• Even today Hungary is pretty corrupt. A number of people told us that virtually anyone official takes bribes. Quite sad really.

Our last night in Budapest was spent in the Hungarian folk dancing club with our hosts! The club also did AMAZING red wine that tasted like grape juice, and at less than one euro for a massive glass, it was guilt free! The dances came from Transylvania (home of Dracula) and pretty much EVERYONE in there knew how to do them. Arg. Still, we joined in- it was a lot harder than it looked though. There was a live band playing the hurdy-gurdy, the violin and the guitar. Felt like we had gone back in time. Apparently, a lot of young Hungarians are sent to dance camps in the summer holidays in order to practice and perfect all the national and regional dances, the culture is completely different to my own. The night ended with us eating Hungarian pork (from a pig the couple had killed 2 days earlier, can't make this stuff up) and trying a very spicy Hungarian pepper at 3 o'clock in the morning. Finally went to bed at quarter to four and after an 90 minutes of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed ready for the bus to Bratislavaaaaaaaa!

Rub his belly for good luck...

My high hopes for Budapest were thankfully not dashed. We definitely had the Hungarian experience, burning the candle at both ends, sampling as much cuisine as possible, dancing traditional Hungarian dances (thank god no one took a video) and learning learning learning about Hungary's fascinating history. They sometimes call Budapest the Paris of Eastern Europe- perhaps that's why I fell in love with it?!

Egészségedre!

Krakow- cold, crazy cats and Communist canteens.

Our Central/Eastern European adventure began not in Krakow but Paris. After a 4 hour Covoiturage (9 strangers in a big white van watching Jamie Foxx film 'Ray' (in French, of course) must have looked hilarious to other motorists), we arrived in the city of dreams. Luckily Jackie knew some CouchSurfing hosts in Paris so we dumped our bags at their flat and had a play with Dégage, their adorable if not slightly annoying kitten. Literal translation of 'Dégage'= clear off, go away. Very fitting! After a quick cuppa we headed to the Moulin Rouge, Montmartre and to the Café des 2 Moulins, made famous by Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). Was a bit of a let down to be honest, lots of tourists (predictable) and high prices. Our afternoon/evening in Paris was a bit of a failure- headed to the Musée d'Orsay which had already closed, ditto the Louvre. Still, had time for some comedy pictures outside the world famous Louvre glass triangle.

I love how blasé I have become about going to Paris. It's a nice attitude to have. Still the favourite I think.

After wandering around rainy Paris all day, we got one of the last RER trains out to Charles de Gaulle airport, which shall forever be known as the airport where I had to spend a night sleeping on the floor. And when I say sleeping, I of course mean not sleeping. We had to kip in the airport because our flight to Krakow was so early that there was no public transport to get us there on time, plus we didn't want to fork out on a hostel in Paris for a mere few hours. Upon arrival around midnight, we settled down on the floor outside a cafe. It was really nice of the airport personnel to switch off the heating around 2am. It made for an even more pleasant night.

Can you tell I'm joking?

Anyway, the important thing is we made it to Krakow! After taking a train into the centre, then negotiating Krakow's extensive tram network we arrived in Nowa Huta, where our lovely CouchSurfing hosts lived. This was my first experience of CouchSurfing and it was a great introduction! Dominika and her boyfriend were 23 year old engineering students who had been together since they were 16. After giving us a while to settle in and have a shower (we were pretty disgusting after pulling a nuit blanche), we sat down to a traditional Polish meal of pork, potatoes, pickle and vegetables. Dominika had also kindly made Piszinger (pronounced pishinger)- a traditional dessert from Krakow made up of wafer and chocolate. Trop bien!

I should also mention the couple also had a cat- Roman, quite possibly the most mental/ fluffy cat I have ever encountered. He made for great entertainment, chasing bits of foil round the room and running after a red laser Dominika's boyfriend was shining all over the living room.

.

Roman, I still miss him.

Instead of exploring Krakow that evening, we stayed in Nowa Huta getting to know our hosts who were seriously cool. They both spoke perfect English, spent an Erasmus year in Spain in 2009/10 and told us lots about Poland, Krakow and Nowa Huta- things we would never have known about had we stayed in a hostel. CouchSurfing really is a brilliant idea.

Nowa Huta

"Come visit historic Nowa Huta, where George Orwell's dark vision of a perfect industrial metropolis was executed with stunning precision. Until, that is, the workers rose up and overthrew Big Brother" - Brian Whitmore.

The couple's flat was situated in Nowa Huta, often classed as a separate city to Krakow as it is so large- home to around 200,000 people. We discovered that after 1945, when Poland became Communist, Nova Huta- a 'satellite industrial town' was created to correct the 'class imbalance', i.e. to attract people from lower class backgrounds to move closer to the city. We learned that Nowa Huta is full of old people who moved in after 1945 (there had only been one previous owner of the couple's flat) and that underneath the community's main square is an air raid shelter big enough for 3000 people. Why? The Communists were preparing for WW3.

Ironically today Nowa Huta is fiercely anti-Communist. The statues of Lenin and streets named after Stalin have long gone, but the buildings remain. History is still alive. It was a privilege to stay in an area where there were no tourists and no signs in English. The trip had got off to a very good start...

Krakow

Let me say that despite the freezing temperatures (it was around minus 7 every day), Krakow was lovely. Smaller than I imagined, most of the main sights can be seen in a day. We started off doing a free walking tour of the city- looking at churches, monuments, hearing anecdotes from our tour guide. What we didn't know is that we accidentally crashed an Erasmus tour- awkward moment when someone asked me to take a photo of the group with my camera and post it 'on the Facebook group'. Oops. Most major European cities offer these walking tours and I cannot recommend them enough. We walked round the main square and up to Wawel hill, whereupon lies Wawel Castle, saw Krakow's famous flaming dragon statue down by the river and saw the Pope! Well not really, we saw an image of John Paul 2nd waving out of a window. We also saw Oscar Schlinder's factory (made famously in the film Schlinder's List) and wandered around Kazimierz- Krakow's Jewish quarter. Hardly saw a soul- went into a synagogue before wandering over to a bar...

Don't let the sun fool you, it was bloody freezing!

Naturally, when in Poland you have to 'profiter bien' from all the food and drink that is available at such cheap prices! Out of the 5 countries we visited, Poland was definitely the cheapest food-wise. We had read about 'bar mleczny'-milk bars that had been established during the Communist era, selling cheap food and milk. The government subsidised the milk bars to ensure that even poor workers could afford to eat out. This meant that everything was, and still is super cheap. Naturally we ended up visiting twice. As the menu is solely in Polish, you either have to point to something that's on show or choose a random name off the menu and take your chances. It definitely made eating so much more exciting/ worrying not knowing what we had ordered! Anyway, I had a 2 course meal of soup and meat/potatoes/vegetables for around 2 euros. The milk bars may not be the most cheerful of places, but they're certainly cheap.

An Obwarzanki seller.

Another local delicacy which went down very well was the Obwarzanki- bread rings that vendors sell on just about every street corner of Krakow. These bread rings come in various flavours- sesame seed, normal cheesy and cost 1 zloty 50- around 40 euro cents. The perfect breakfast. We also discovered a little bakery where we had a huge slab of cake and a coffee for just over 2 euros and a pierogi restaurant that served only pierogi. Pierogi are fried dumplings filled with various things- usually cheese, cheap meat, cabbage or a mixture of the three. I opted for the Ruskie- pierogi with cheese. Needless to say this was another cheap eat!

On the drinks front, it would have been rude to go to Poland and not try its vodka. During a jazz evening we went to with our CouchSurfing hosts we tried Bols vodka- pretty standard really. The day after we went to a bar and after I managed to spill my pint of beer all over myself (clumsy as), we tried some vodka shots. I had a lemon vodka shot which wasn't as nice as it sounds, as the rim of the glass was lined with garlic. Perhaps a cultural taste I just will never understand...

Auschwitz

One of the reasons why we went to Krakow was because all of us wanted to visit Auschwitz, probably the most notorious concentration camp where over one and a half million people, mainly Jews, were put to death between 1940 and 1945. Obviously this is not the kind of thing one can take lightly- we felt numb the entire time we were there. We had a guided tour, something I'm glad we did as we heard a lot of personal stories and learned a lot about the camp. After a tour of Auschwitz 1 where we saw torture chambers and the like, we took a shuttle bus to Auschwitz 2-Birkenau where we saw where the prisoners lived and later died. It was horrific. Looking back I'm amazed we all managed to survive the day without bursting into tears. It felt surreal whilst we were there though. Although I took a few photographs, somehow it doesn't feel right uploading them all onto the internet in the name of tourism. One definitely suffices.

If you ever get a chance to go then go. It's without a doubt one of the most important places you can ever visit.

That concludes the Krakow diaries. It's a great little city, I learned a lot and more importantly, I was very well fed. Next stop Budapest!

C'est la vie!

Hello, hola and bonjour!

Je suis back! From 16 amazing days in Central/Eastern Europe. Had a blast as we galavanted through Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic, stories to follow bientôt. After a fortnight of no rain, we stepped off the train in Nancy on Sunday afternoon to....yes,you've guessed it....RAIN! Bof.

However the rain did not last. This week it got up to 17 degrees, a first for Nancy I think. Spring is here, but it's almost time to leave. Just under 6 weeks left in France. It's going to be good, starting with St. Paddy's, Nancy style.

Ca y est!

My week

Helped Jackie celebrated her 23rd birthday. Made birthday breakfast. Worked. Had people round for Jackie's birthday. Worked. Tutored. Worked. Cooked. Did 'Bagel Wednesday'. Worked. Drank with people from work. Went to a jazz concert. Shopped. Bought stuff. Procrastinated.

All packed up and ready for Eastern Europe! Hopefully I'll return with plenty of traveler's tales.

My guilty pleasure

The whole series is on YouTube, profitez-bien!

Goodbye world wide web, see you in 16 days...

Tchin Tchin

I’ve got it bad. That feeling that time is slipping away and there’s nothing I can do about it. Vive la nostalgie! It’s hard not to think about ‘the end’ now- as one assistant drunkenly said to me the other evening ‘It’s too sooooon!’ Only 8 weeks or so to go until I will leave Nancy with only a crappy Dunlop suitcase and great memories from a great seven months.

Friday night was hilarious. I was invited out for drinks with two of the teachers-Nathalie and Valérie from school. I often help Nathalie out with her SEGPA students- students so academically poor they have separate classes from the other students. They’re a handful, it’s not an easy job teaching them I've got to say. After helping in one of her lessons on Thursday, Nathalie invited me out for drinks on Friday night. We met up in Opéra, a nice little bar just behind Place Stan. Spent a couple of hours speaking lots of French (not that easy in a loud bar when you keep having to say ‘Pardon? J’ai pas entendu'.) Love how open the French are about their relationship history- I learnt that Valérie, originally from the South moved to Nancy for a man who later broke up with her. Also learned that Nathalie spent two weeks in Manchester when she was my age and was basically a massive slag. Love it.The most hilarious moment was perhaps the advice they gave me ‘Il faut manger local’ meaning ‘You must find a French hottie’. When in France, and all.

While we're on the subject of 'manger' i.e. food (when am I off this subject?), I went for lunch again this week at Anne’s house- an English lady who’s been living in France and Belgium for the last fifty years or so. Had soup, salmon (as my closest friends will know is the key to my heart) and chocolate mousse. Once again Bouba, her chihuahua was sat on my lap for the entirety of the afternoon. It’s been so nice to swap living abroad stories with Anne- we often talk about the differences between the French and the British. Two of the main ones we found;

· The French don’t let many people get close. In England, I’m used to talking to little old ladies at the bus stop about the weather or the news or some other topic that binds us together for a few minutes. Then we’re off. In France you don’t talk to anyone. You stay silent, don’t make eye contact with anyone and when the bus arrives it’s a free-for-all. Takes a while to get used to.

· The French are very reluctant to invite you into their homes. I get on well with lots of the teachers at school, but am yet to visit any of their homes, even my responsable who lives a mere 3 minute walk away from chez moi. It’s strange. Luckily I have a big group of assistant friends and French students to keep me occupied, but it would have been nice at the start to have been invited for a meal or an aperitif at someone’s house. It’s not easy, packing your life up and moving to a town in foreign country where you don’t know anyone. My first week here just felt surreal- nowhere near as tough as I was expecting but I just felt like I was living in a bubble, that everything I did was just a dream. I still feel like that sometimes- I have plenty of ‘Oh my god I can’t believe I live in France’ moments. When you are invited into someone’s home for a meal, like I have been with Anne it's great. The French spend hours eating a meal, discussing, debating- there’s always an aperitif and a cheese course between the plat principal and dessert. This is my kind of life! I just wish I saw it more often!

A week from now I will be in Krakow, Poland, knackered after having spent the night camping out in Charles de Gaulle airport. Niiiice! I can’t wait to explore a part of Europe whose language I cannot speak for once. Can’t wait to buy local food using different currency and, of course, Auschwitz. It'll be awful, but what else would it be? Moving on to Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and Prague- it'll be knackering, but I’m sure we’ll have the time of our lives. Protitez-ing bien we are spending next Saturday in Paris, starting with the tourist trap that is the Café des 2 Moulins, Amélie style...

As Humphrey Bogart says in Casablanca, "We'll always have Paris". Mais oui.

Here's to the next 2 months.

Cheers!

Wish I'd Brought My Sunglasses...

Time is creeping up on me. Every weekend I want to explore and last weekend I did just that, armed with a mini army of Geordies to escort me. For those who don't know, 'a Geordie' is an affectionate term for anyone who hails from Newcastle upon Tyne, possibly the greatest place in the world and my university city incidentally (or not...). I digress.

Why do ticket inspectors never check tickets?

Dan, my Geordie friend (and fellow language assistant) and I met up at Nancy Gare at 12pm last Friday morning armed with Lidl cereal bars, crap home-made sandwiches and Orange KitKats. During the course of the weekend we travelled from Nancy- Colmar (2 ¼ hours), Colmar-Basel (40 mins), Basel-Strasbourg (1 ½ hours) without our ticket being checked. Bof!

Bit of geography for you.

Ticket was finally checked 3 minutes before arrival in Nancy (Strasbourg-Nancy 1 ½ hours) the following day.

Ahh the French and their 'I don't give a shit so it's not my problem' attitude continues...

Colmar

The Petite Venise area of Colmar

I admit it, before coming to Nancy I had never even heard of Colmar, a small city halfway between Strasbourg and Basel. However literally EVERYONE at school has been telling me to visit ever since I started in October. Unfortunately, had no time to visit during the Christmas markets, reputed to be some of the most beautiful in the world.

The February afternoon Dan and I spent in Colmar was B-E-A-utiful weather wise, bright sunshine, etc- luck was definitely on our side. It became apparent early on that everywhere in Colmar is beautiful, there's no shabby shite end- even around the station was pretty. If you've ever been to the Petite France area of Strasbourg, you'll know how beautiful it is. Colmar is like this partout. I wonder if the cute twee houses ever get on the inhabitants' nerves, whether they want a bit of grime and dirt à la Brussels.

Food was also a high point of our trip to Colmar. Had a Forêt noire- i.e. a black forest gateau. Heaven. And after meeting up with our assistant friend (and Geordie) Sian who is spending her year abroad in Issenheim, a tiny village close to Colmar, we headed out for pizza. It would have been nice to try some traditional food from Alsace- sauerkraut or something like that but pizza is always a winner.

Granted there is not a great deal to do in Colmar. Walking around 'oohing and aahing' at pretty buildings is the main attraction, although there are a couple of museums and a museum dedicated to Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi- the guy who designed the Statue of Liberty (of course, he was from Colmar). Maybe if the weather had been awful, I would have come away with a different impression. Yes I was lucky, but come rain or shine Colmar is a place not to be missed.

God I sound like I'm presenting 'Holiday' or something. Désolée.

Basel

After realising it would only cost another 10 Euros or so to get to Basel, we figured it made sense to kill two birds with one stone and visit Colmar/Basel in the same weekend.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Basel was to tick another country off the ever expanding list of ‘Places I have been to’. However I also wanted to play around with Swiss currency (dangerously akin to Monopoly money) and leave the ‘safety’ of the European Union for the first time in nearly 6 years. Not nearly as dangerous as it sounds, Switzerland is about as bad-ass as Tom Cruise. I didn’t quite know what to expect from Basel but was pleasantly surprised.

Went to the Botanical Gardens, attached to the University of Basel, the oldest university in Switzerland, had a 12CHF meal in McDonald’s (about 9 euros, Switzerland is EXPENSIVE), spent a LONG time in a beautiful chocolate shop and saw the (very red) Rathaus, or town hall for those who don’t speak German.

Basel is a city of trams. So much so that ‘death by tram’ is probably the greatest risk to your health. Nearly got mowed down by 3 of them- they’re almost as bad as the street cleaners inNewcastle (incidentally, just why are there so many in the toon?!). Thanks to the tourist office, we found out that Line 16 is the picturesque route, showing tourists all the sights, slowly weaving its way through upmarket neighbourhoods of Basel. Great fun!

After our kitsch little tram ride we headed towards the banks of the river Rhine, desperate to catch some rays. Seems like everyone else in Basel had the same idea- the banks of the river were packed, so much so that there was no room for us! After eventually finding a comfy place to perch, we proceeded to sunbathe for almost an hour. IN FEBRUARY. Extraordinary. Weather hit around 14 degrees Celsius, but felt warmer in the sun. Brilliant atmosphere anyway- lots of students, families, young professionals. Switzerland is effortlessly cool, no wonder Roger Federer bought a pig farm there with his winnings from his first Wimbledon title. Oink.

Just an average February afternoon on the banks of the Rhine

After a quick stop in H+M (we had to use up our Swiss Francs somewhere...) it was time to leave Basel. It had been a brilliant day and a great introduction to Switzerland. Hopefully I'll return soon, sunglasses in tow next time....

La danse continue.

My current obsessions

Rastamouse- quite possibly CBBC’s greatest invention. Tells the story of mice with Jamaican accents who sing and investigate crime. Any mention of the word cheese can and should be interpreted as 'weed'.

Antoine Dodson- can’t help myself. Type in 'Bed Intruder song' on Youtube and you shall see why.

Désolé by Sexion D’Assaut. Song by French rap group that has been in my head since working in Brittany last summer. Amezzin’

Munster cheese: cheap as chips in Lidl, another current obsession...

BBC weather. We have a love-hate relationship. I stop by often, only to find out rain has been predicted.

Waka waka. Can’t stop playing it. I own both versions. Ouch.

Life is chugging along quite nicely, I've got to say.

I’ll leave you with this- did a ‘Holiday’ themed lesson with my 3èmes (15 year olds) yesterday. One of their tasks was to write a postcard using verbs in the past tense.

Here’s what one of my students wrote….

For those who can't read it: I went to Jamaica, I smoked The weed with Snoop Dogg, a star American. With Snoop, I bought a gun for the gang. I met 2pac and I visited his house. I went in America and seed The Game and 50 Cent and we drank.

The future’s bright…

Quoi de neuf?

For the first time in a while the answer to that question is pas beaucoup. After spending the last two weekends in Nancy, the thumbs are starting to twiddle I’ve got to say. Last weekend I was a little (shock, horror) BORED! Vrai dat, vrai dat.

As Billy Ocean once said ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’. I didn't exactly 'get going', but I did get off my backside and profité-moi-d bien from Nancy’s coffee shops and bars.

France is famous for its café culture, yes. But this culture is based on brasseries, not little cosy cafés where you can buy a cuppa and a scone and read The Guardian (oh, England). Brasseries were first set up in this part of France due to the sheer abundance of breweries (and proximity to Belgium-potential beer capital of the world). So brassed off (I do amuse myself sometimes) with brasseries, it was time for a change....

It was bloody brilliant to discover Kensington Coffee, a Canadian coffee shop that sells BAGELS. With smoked salmon and Philadelphia cream cheese! And proper cookies and muffins! Spent an hour or two in there last week with some other assistants, whiling away the time (my weekend did commence last Wednesday after all). The owner of the café (who would fit in well in a low budget, indie movie) told us he lived in Toronto for a few years and found that coffee shops like the ones in Canada (and every other English speaking part of the world) didn’t exist in France, particularly the industrial North-East. Et voilà! He opened Kensington Coffee!

This week I visited Kensington Coffee, le Phenix (standard Irish bar affair) twice, a café on the corner of Place Stan which does an afternoon deal of dessert and a drink for 5 euros (winner) and an Italian restaurant for an assistant’s birthday in which 3 hours of our evening was spent. 3 hours for a main course and dessert. Car-azy! Still, what else would I be doing??

Saw the new French blockbuster Rien à Déclarer at the cinema last week- about a French guy and a Belgian guy who are forced to work together policing the Franco-Belgian border. A bit slapstick, but highly entertaining. However made Belgians out to be complete nutters/ a bit racist towards the French. Also saw The King’s Speech, the British film that’s up for all the Oscars, which was amezzin’ (plus got to see it in original version thanks to the Cameo cinema just down the road, woop!).

The Rien à Déclarer trailer, for all you French cinéphiles.

Won’t be twiddling my thumbs this weekend as I am off to Colmar, which (if I’m led to believe) is one of the prettiest towns in France. Meeting up with a fellow assistant and going to Basel on Saturday too. Expect photos.

Another country to tick off the list. Tis a hard life.