A not so grim Lille

Recently a friend of mine and The Boy's (let's call him Mr P) suggested a last minute trip to Lyon - something which turned out to be impossible but evolved into a wannabe spontaneous bus trip to Lille, a French town near the Belgian border.

Attempt number one saw The Boy and I drag ourselves out of bed unreasonably early -for us that is- after a shift at the pub and dash around the 16th arrondisement hunting for anywhere that would let us print our bus tickets on a Sunday. Obviously we failed.

Nevertheless we dragged on our backpacks onto our exhausted bodies and set off with Mr P to the bus station and the first experience of French bureaucracy we've ever experienced in living here. Sent from counter to counter, to a printer and another counter we were swearing loudly and ready to stow away on any bus to any destination with its baggage hatch still open. Again, we failed. Ten minutes after our bus was due to leave we were still running from one end of the station to the other trying to find out what we had to do to be allowed on the bus.

Cue pleading to be allowed to change our tickets followed by a metro trip to Rue de Lappe in Bastille where we proceeded to eat and drink our sorrows away.

One week later and the three of us set out again, a little hesitant to return the site of so many bad memories but a little more prepared for what lay in wait for us.

A balk at the entrance to the bus stop by The Boy, and only two counter changes later and we finally had our precious boarding cards in our hands. Three hours later we jumped off the bus into a chilly and grey Lille; realising too late that the town is pretty much deserted on a Sunday afternoon.

We walked the cobble-stoned streets trying to find something, anything, to do, and failing that another place to eat and drink. Here we had success, and stumbled out of our restaurant into the beautiful streets of Old Lille (Lille Vieux) with full and happy bellies, making it home.

Needless to say I woke the next morning hating the world, and especially the cleaner who kept knocking on our hostel room door to wake us up I walked out into Lille with my cranky pants firmly in place. But I made my first wonderful discovery - in Lille it's possible to get a large takeaway coffee with milk: the kind that would see you strung up in Paris. And fully caffeinated I made my second discovery - Lille is a beautiful city.

Walking the streets of Old Lille

The main green. Ironically also home to Cafe Oz

According to my trusty Lonely Planet guide (yes the one I swore I would hide at the back of my cupboard) old Lille was built in the "Flemish style". I don't actually know what that means but walking the old town the streets were narrow and cobble-stoned and the buildings looked like they were straight out of Medieval times. But they played home to chic clothing boutiques, coffee shops and patisseries, restaurants and even pubs.

Breakfast and two coffees out of the way the three of us trundled out of town towards the Citadel, built by King Louis XIV, only to discover once we got there that it was closed for renovations and also played home the Europe's Fast Response Military Unit. But the walk in the grounds surrounding it was amazing. Green and lush, full of ducks and ducklings - it is spring after all - swimming in the marshy moat and most exciting of all for me rabbits. But my calls of "bunny" and dashes towards them went surprisingly unappreciated by the poor animals. The Boy and Mr P were also in their element and spent their time inspecting every trail into the foliage we passed.

Garden walk near the Citadel

We emerged a lot muddier and thirstier than when we arrived, and sought out a funky pub where even the bartenders were drinking champagne behind the bar and a tree made out of wine bottles greeted you at the door to have beers before setting off in pursuit of our final few sites, dinner and finally the bus stop for the trip back to Paris.

The main square of the city

Final verdict? If you ever find yourself in northern France, or France in general, or hell even Europe go there. Lille is awesome. Just don't catch the bus.

A blog about caca

After 9 months of living in Paris there are still days when I am very much a tourist here.
And now that tourist season has well and truly descended on the city of lights I've discovered on my daily walks and exploration of the city that there is one very obvious way (beyond the tell tale sign of a camera hanging around the neck) of picking out the tourists from the natives: simply watch out for who watches their feet while they walk.

Like many other heavily populated cities the majority of people in Paris live in an apartments. Consequently it also seems nearly everyone here owns a small dog - and the evidence of their existence is left all over the city. But combine this with the distracting beauty of the city and you have a disaster just waiting to happen - because the streets here are quite literally paved in shit.

And like so many others who come to Paris I had to learn the hard way to not be distracted by the beauty of the city and to watch my feet as I walked. Hence the trend: newly arrived tourists walk the streets ogling the sights around them and so can also often be spotted wiping the soles of their shoes on the kerb while cursing loudly. Regular visitors or those who have been here long enough to know better are the people who charge down the street with their eyes fixed firmly on the pavement, the better to dodge the bombs left behind.
But it's the true Parisians who amaze me, strutting down the street (more often than not in heels) playing on their phones or chatting easily with what I can only presume is an in-built radar allowing them to side step the mounds lying in wait without a second's hesitation.

During my first few months here I was disgusted by what I considered to be blind disregard for fellow citizens. Wouldn't simply picking up after their dogs be better for everyone concerned? But then The Boy and I began to embrace the mess and became child-like, jumping over the mounds or yelling out "poo", or even better "caca" - the French for poo -  at the top of our lungs as we strolled along the boulevards.

Even better, thanks to a sick dog in our apartment building we even have our very own caca spot on the interior stairs up to our apartment which has been well and truly embraced. Living on the sixth floor means regularly having to huff and puff up more than 100 stairs, and being lazy backpackers we are The Boy and I normally curse the whole way up. But once the initial smell disappeared this spot became loved as a mark of the fact we were nearly home, and huffed poo calls would echo down the stair well to each other.

In a similar way we've come to accept the fact that our regular streets will always be lined with caca, and if that means we get to hop, skip and jump around Paris while yelling out like children then these days that's just fine with me.

Until the next time I get bombed that is...

You say goodbye, I say hello

A few years ago when I was busily over-packing my suitcase for my first big trip to Europe I had The Boy, already a seasoned traveller, give me a piece of advice: when travelling I would make so many friends and develop intense friendships-but I shouldn't be surprised if they lasted just a week.

He went on to say that after this time inevitably one of us would move on and in the excitement of discovering a new place and meeting new people our contact would probably fall away to the occasional email or Facebook message, and in some cases completely disappear. Only a special few would develop into true friendships which last.

I remember being shocked at this and thinking it was unusually callous for The Boy, as we're both people who still call friends we made in high school our besties. So I set off certain he was wrong and discovered as travellers are wont to do that shared kitchens, common rooms, dorms and overnight trains inevitably lead to making friends left, right and centre.

Throughout that first 4 month jaunt across Europe I met so many amazing people but I eventually came to realise that The Boy was in fact correct. Not that these friendships weren’t real or intense, but more because each of us were on our own journey. We travelled together and wondered at the sights in front of us, shared meals and stories and were essentially attached at the hip. We came to know nearly everything about each other.

But then, yes the time would come when one of us would move on and despite swapped email addresses each of us would again be lost in wonder at discovering the next new city and meeting new friends again and contact would dwindle a little.

But far from being depressing I came to embrace these friendships wholeheartedly, just like The Boy said I would. Because one of the best parts about travelling is meeting new people, hearing their stories and tips, having alcohol and food-fuelled deep and meaningful conversations, or just laughing about stupid things, until the sun comes up. What's more the world, which can at times seem big and lonely when you travel by yourself, becomes infinitely smaller and exciting when you're sitting down to breakfast with Canadian buddies, having afternoon drinks with a few POM before heading out dancing with Italians. And, even better, it's easier to believe that there really are good people out there in the world.

Eating home made paella on a roof top at dusk, racing to hot springs in Granada with my travelling bud and some new friends, eating proper Italian pizza until I was nearly sick (although that may have been the accompanying bottles of Chianti) in Florence and dancing the night away on the top of a boat on the island of Mljet. These are the memories I treasure most from my previous jaunts, and the ones I look forward to making at the beginning of my next trip.

But not to contradict everything I’ve just written I do have travelling buddies who I still count among my close friends, and there are even closer friends whose pockets I've been living in for the past 8 months.

But the time has once again come when we are all beginning to move on to the next step in our journey be it to a new country or the long trip back home. And although once again contact may dwindle during our next adventures but I've gotta say, these guys and gals are definitely keepers.

Keep those spare couches kids, you'll be needing them!

It's a long way home

Once upon a time in a fairy tale land a young girl clicked her heels three times and said "there's no place like home". In this case she was trying to leave land of Oz but recently I was wishing I had me a pair of those ruby slippers to get me back to Oz.

I’ve discovered in recent months that when people realise I’m Australian the inevitable response is that they’d love to visit Oz but it’s too far to travel. After all who’d want to spend 24 hours sitting on a plane? 

My stock standard quip, while trying to supress an eye roll has become ‘well why do you think we all travel for such long periods of time?’ (Another observation they generally make).

But today I’ll swallow my pride and admit it; all those people I mentally rolled my eyes at in the past are right.

In the past month The Boy and I packed our bags and prepared to jet off home for the wedding of the Bestie and my Bro, but due to obligations here in Paris our trip was to be a flying one – a grand total of 10 days including our travel time. When I’d booked the tickets months earlier I’d arrogantly bragged to myself that we’d both done this trip a few times already, it’d be easy peasy, a cinch, there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Clearly it hadn’t clicked in my head that in the space of a week I’d be spending a whopping 52 hours sitting on my ass reading or watching movie after movie while being force fed plane food – and I challenge anyone not to struggle with that. Not to mention that waiting for me on both ends was a crippling case of jet lag.

But still we did it and excitedly planned out our Oz days while sitting on the bus to the airport and riding through Paris on a sunlit afternoon  – beach, family, beach, friends, beach BBQ, beach and then a wedding to top it off. And if we had some time in between, we’d spend some time at the beach.

By the first stopover in Dubai a mere 14 hours into the first plane trip we were already bored. By the second surprise stopover in Singapore hours later we were like robots muttering ‘beach, beach’ over and over to ourselves as we passed through customs yet again. 

By the time we landed in Autumnal Brisbane at 1am we were delusional. Greeted by The Parents dressed in cardigans and jackets The Boy and I were stripping off layers and dancing around outside exclaiming about how warm it was (to be fair we had come from an early European spring so it probably was).

Waking a mere four hours later to a steamy morning it dawned on me, the last two times I’d done this trip I’d been so excited about what lay at the other end that I’d somehow blocked out the torture of the flight, to the point I’d willingly undergone it again numerous times, and I was left with only vague recollections of struggling to stay awake in the afternoons and bouncing around in the pre-dawn light.

But this was the important thing for me. As sappy as it sounds the crazed non-sleeping state of early mornings and the zombie-like afternoons were still worth it when I was sitting around a dinner table full of lovelies, having an early morning cuppa with The Parents after a morning walk, an afternoon swim at the beach or, best of all, watching The Bestie and a Bro get married.

And Oz was still Oz. Paris might be able to boast thousands of years of European history and stunning architecture but Oz is lush and has a natural beauty that can't be rivalled.

But it was with my tail firmly between my legs and more than a little dread at the end of the week I returned to the airport for that flight back to the land of wine and cheese with weeks of jet lag- or even double jet lag if that's possible -  ahead of me again.

So the next time I have someone tell me that stock standard phrase of they'd love to visit but it's just too far to get to Oz I'll suppress that eye roll and simply smile and say "yes it is, but do you know at the other end there is a beach?"

Oh, and these lovelies...

Paris in the spring time...

Jardin du Tuileries

The Boy imitates Venus

Lazing in the sun

Enjoying the 5pm sun

Montmartre turns green

A glimpse of Sacre Coeur

 Pardon the pun, but it's bloomin' marvellous.
I've never experienced a proper flowers blooming, tree budding, golden nights and everything coming alive spring before.
I'm in love