Back in London

Well the last leg began where the adventure started, and we furiously tried to cram in all the last minute things I couldn't do last time.

On the advice of Smee and Pooey, I bought and ate a Waitrose roast chickent. It was good, but not enough to make me want to eat the whole thing.

I met up with Emichang and we had pho (for her) and bun bo hue (for me). Viet food in London continues to disappoint.

I really like the works of John Singer Sargent and I really regretted that in Great European Trip 2004-5 I didn't purchase the catalogue to an exhibition because it was bulky and I'd already done some serious damage with books. But I've always really regretted it. Really. So I went to Tate Britain to find it again! It wasn't there anymore (or in any other bookshops I checked - boo) but there was a really good Millais exhibition! Pretty much all his well-known works were in there. In fact, Lydia was put-out because his famous Ophelia painting was in the exhibition (where you had to pay to get in). Since I had arrived early and had to be evacuated during a fire alarm (it was sooooo cold), we considered dirtying her in. But we didn't.

We also then met up with Pooey, Grand Empress Katie, Bao and Ray, and two of Pooey's friends for dinner and then Avenue Q. Avenue Q rocks! Kind of like if the characters of Sesame Street were followed into a post-college life, we're of the right age to appreciate all the jokes, format and various references! Watch this clip of song *It Sucks To Be Me* and *Special* from Royal Variety performance.http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sxqz7-CGIc4

I also posted back 7kg worth of books. It set me back £40. Now before you all have heart attacks, I nearly got gypped into paying £100. It was only my knowledge that students get a discount for posting books that got me the reduced price.

Dirty Roy then joined us for goodbye drinks on Friday night. My mojito was good, but too much ice - it kept melting all over the table.

Saturday we finally made it to Borough Markets for lunch and portugese tarts and then scooted over to Kings Cross Station to visit Platform 9 3/4 before heading to dinner with Cousin Susan and Anthony.

Book review - The Devil Wears Prada

Before I get to the final bits of The Great European Adventure 2007, I'm just going to have a few words about this book which I read on the trip. I hated this book, in fact I believe that if I read the book prior to seeing the movie, I would have refused to watch the movie. Similar to my feelings about the Da Vinci Code. So why did I hate this book? It's because it failed on the ultimate level - none of the people to whom we're supposed to sympathise did anything to make me want to care for them.

1. Okay, Andy works for the boss from hell. But so does Emily and all Andy does is ridicule how Emily puts Miranda on a pedestal. Well, if Miranda has the ability to make or break someone's career in that branch of publishing, then it would be in Emily's best interests to not get on Miranda's bad side - Andy does state that the sole reason why she hangs around is that Miranda's former PA is now an EDITOR. In addition, Andy sure doesn't do herself (or the readers) any favours by swanning around the office thinking about how foolish everyone else is for wanting to work in fashion. I don't know about you, but I'd sure hate if I were working with someone who didn't bother to hide how much better than me they might think they are.

2. Andy's friends are unsympathetic to both her situation and, by extension, to me. They all complain to varying degrees that Andy's been ditching them for her work. Her work is her livelihood - if she didn't do what is expected of her, she'd be fired and then she really wouldn't be able to see them. Two particular parts really annoyed me.

1. Andy's Best Friend (whatever her name is) gets angry that Andy keeps hanging up the phone when she's hunting for an apartment. I don't know what fantasy world she's living in, but if Best Friend thinks people who work in offices can just sit around and make personal phone calls, she's dreaming. Best Friend then follows that up by getting drunk and not being able to move in because she's got a hangover. Real mature.
   

1. Andy's boyfriend expresses his annoyance at being unable to spend time with her by taking on more responsibility at work and then chews Andy out when she fails to spot best friend's spiral into alcoholism. You know what my friends did when I had my boss from hell? THEY TRIED TO FIND ME REPLACEMENT JOBS. Boyfriend could take a page out of their books. As for the alcohol, okay if she'd been around more, Andy could have spotted that. But Best Friend is (allegedly) a smart person and an adult - Andy is not responsible for her behaviour. And if he saw it coming, er....couldn't he have stepped in or had a word to her earlier?

In terms of writing style, this is miles ahead of the Da Vinci Code. However, you can write the most perfect book prose-wise but if the contents fail to elicit the right emotions from the audience, you may as well write something just as stupid as Da Vinci Code. The tone is meant to represent Andy's snarky look at fashion publishing and while it starts off entertainingly sarcastic, after a while I just found her bitchiness about her co-workers obsession with fashion and beauty to be smug superiority commentary.

Honestly, having read it now, I don't see what all the hullabaloo was about when it was first published. If it was an expose on the supposed ridiculous demands of a so-called fashion editor, since I can't see which parts are fact or fiction, I guess it works. But as an exercise on how to write a book where we are supposed to feel bad for the protagonist for all that she's put through, it's a complete failure. Quite frankly, this was an annoying book on many levels. The movie might have only got 6.5/10 here, but that's a masterpiece compared to this dross.

If you're interested in fashion, go watch the movie. If you want a bitchy expose book, go read The Nanny Diaries. I don't recommend this book to anyone. I almost feel sorry for the person who picked it off the desk in Florence where I advertised it as being *free* for anyone.

Playing dirty in The Vatican

Now, people talk about the fabled back entrance to the Roman Forum where you can get in for free. The Roman forum is free, but you have to pay to get into the Palatine Hill and Trajan's Forum. But how many people can say they dodged their way into St. Peter's or the Vatican Museums?!

Anyone who's been a tourist in Rome knows that the Vatican Museums are closed on Sunday (except for last Sunday of the month) and the queues are horribly long to get into St. Peters. Not so! Just walk up to were the gates begin, mingle a bit, and voila! You'll be in the Basilica in no time!

The queue ends near the second colonnade

We decided to climb the cupola and if say you'll walk it (500-something steps), it allows you to jump the queue to get into the elevator. But the elevator stops after 200 steps and if you want to go to the top, you have to walk the next 300-something steps anyway! This bit we couldn't dodge because the staircase is about as wide as I am. But if you're brave, you can write your name there.

The guard working really hard (on his PSP)

When Pooey finds she can't squeeze her way through to the balcony, I try a different method.

Pooey works her way up

The Vatican gardens

The view of piazza from the top

We did a bit of dodging to get into the Crypt where nothing dirty happened, unless you count the guard who told me off for showing too much cleavage than is considered appropriate (my cardigan came undone!).

I don't have dirty advice to avoid the queues into the Vatican Museums other than to get there early. Assuming it was going to open at 8:45am, I got there at 8am and proceeded to wait two and a half hours because they decide whenever they want to open. But we were very close to the head of the queue and we didn't have to wait long to get in! Once inside, Lydia and I split to go to the Student queue. Now, this next bit is for real. The girl in front of me showed her ISIC card to the guy in the ticket booth who then asked her how old she was.
"I'm 25"
"You mean, you're eighteen"
"Oh yes, I'm eighteen!"
Being the smarties we are, when caught on pretty quickly and when it was our turn, we showed out student cards and then with a raised eyebrow...
"How old are you?"
"I'm eighteen!"
"Here's your ticket!"
And in doing so, we saved 5 euros on the entry fee. That ticket guy, so dirty!

You're not supposed to take photos of the various frescoes inside, particularly the Sistine Chapel, but turn off your flash and sound and those guards won't kick you out!

Raphael's School of Athens

Sistine Chapel

I love these fake curtains

And that's how it's done!

Rome - silly photos

Since she was only going to be in Rome for 2.5 days, me and Pooey knocked out the obvious things she wanted to see and do like:

Eat gelati

See some famous fountains

Go to the ancient ruins

Mission accomplished.

Rome! (if you want to)

I have really good memories of the last time I went to Rome, despite all the sexual harassment, but it seems a lot of people don't feel the same way as me. For example, Spuey said that while the city had a lot of cool things, he reckoned it wasn't worth the hype. Pooey said while she enjoyed it, she probably wouldn't go back. Lydia was getting tired of religious iconography and was so paranoid about getting robbed, she wouldn't ride the metro or the pickpocket express (no. 64 bus).

But I don't feel that way! I mean sure it's dirty, smelly, crowded and many other things I hate, but how can I hate a city where wearing a skirt can quite literally stop traffic?! Okay, the trade-off is all the sexual harassment but I got into a relaxed mode about it when I decided to just treat is as a kind of national sport. Like football. My enjoyment probably is fuelled by my appreciation of baroque art though, particularly Bernini - I'll give everyone that. I happily spent time hunting down some favourite pieces all over various churches and palaces.

Bernini and Caravaggio from Santa Maria della Vittoria, Santa Maria del Popolo.

Since I was unable to organise accommodation with the nuns again this time, Lydia and I were staying in a B&B run by an oldish lady named Maria, or as I preferred to call her, Nonna. Nonna wouldn't let Lydia wash dishes and she'd make us ultra-sugary breakfasts in the morning. At first I loved it, but soon I felt my pancreatic cells crying from all the sugar. It was quite a large apartment - I got the feeling that Nonna had kids who had since moved out and she liked to keep a full apartment - there were two other groups of backpackers there during the duration of our stay.

Our apartment and Nonna with the anthurium we gave her as a thank you present

Pooey also came along to Rome for a few days and we naturally got up to some mischief. But that's for another blog.

Florence - really good proscuitto

Nothing particularly interesting happened in Florence now that I'm reading back over my travel journal. It mostly reads something along the line of
- Woke up
- Went to gallery/church/Market
- Had lunch
- Went to gallery/church/Market
- Had dinner
- Slept
Maybe the renewed access to internet meant that I didn't look as hard as in Paris and Venice for entertainment.

The only really interesting point of note was when me and Lydia went to the San Lorenzo market to get some food for the day. Throughout Italy, we mostly ate a combination of bread, cheese, proscuitto, gelati, and a nice restaurant for either dinner or lunch. One day at the market, a guy at the smallgoods store gave us a platter of things to taste. I had a piece of proscuitto and it was sooooooooo good I encouraged Lydia to eat some and we ate it all.

We were fully going to buy it when the server guy chuckled and proceeded to say this:
You have very good taste in food. That proscuitto is very good - it costs 85 euros/kg.
For me, it's a proscuitto for very special times. Not an everyday meat. I don't know for you. This might be a special time for you! After we picked our jaws off the floor, Lydia and I decided that while it was good, it wasn't the equivalent of $AUD100 and bought something else for our lunch instead.

But it was damn good proscuitto.

Florence

I was a bit at loose ends in Florence. While my last trip was extremely quick, it was thorough and I saw most of the main sights. This time, I decided to take it easy and go see some of my faves and anything I missed out. This involved getting up at the crack of dawn to go to the Uffizi.

Long time readers of this blog may remember that last time, I had to do the entire place in 90 minutes because I had at train to catch. This time, we gave it the entire day and planned to get up bright and early at 6:30am, arrive around 7:30, thus beating the usual queue . The best laid plans...out sleep was first thwarted by a crowd of rowdy Americans who were staying next door, and then by some incredibly horny cats. Anyway, we did managed to get there around 7:55, but this was the queue outside the doors.

Lydia is actually standing at what was the end when we arrived, about 1-200m away from the door. It got longer too!

But a good time was spent inside - about three hours!

We then went to a restaurant that seems to be widely regarded as the best in Florence by many guidebooks/articles etc. We had the specialty - bistecca all Fiorentina, 900g of T bone steak, seasoned with herbs and lemon and grilled over an open flame. Ooooh yeah. Both of us ordered it and the waiter seemed very distressed that two little asian girls were going to have a first course followed by that giant hunk o' meat.

This was how it started out

And this was the result after I'd been through it.

It was great - medium rare so that pink juices flowed out when it was cut. The meat, so soft and tender. I totally would have chewed the bone if I were at home. As it were, I just had to be satisfied with the amazement of other customers.

Then I went home and passed out for a few hours.

Venice loves and loathes

Loves:
Our hotel room. It was in a separate annexe so it was like having our own apartment! Ok, we paid through the nose to have the convenience of being right behind S Marco, but it was right behind S. Marco! A few times me and Lydia would let ourselves in from the street and you'd hear someone go *ohmigod, did you see that girl go into the door? I'd love to have an apartment right here!*
The views. It still looks like like any painting you've seen of the place. I went to a Singer Sargent exhibition of his Venetian watercolours - those places were downright recognisable.

The signage is (almost) completely useless, somewhat comically so. It's possible to be in an alley or square and see signs pointing to S. Marco/Accademia/Ferrovia in completely different directions.
My favourite sign is this one with an arrow pointing in opposite directions.

Loathes:
The tourists. Didn't get a photo of that but I feel kinda sorry for the people who have to live there.

Getting lost. At first its amusing, but then it just mutates into megafrustration. On the first day, Lydia got so lost, she swears she passed the same beggarman three times. I got so lost once when I finally conceded defeat and looked on a map, I found out the area I was in wasn't on the map and then I got sunburn trying to find my way back. On another night when we were going to dinner, we heard someone yell out *OH WHAT?!?! WE'RE HERE AGAIN!!!!* Okay, that last bit was pretty funny.

The pigeons. They are DISGUSTING. You've got to literally wade through them to cross S. Marco.I don't understand how people can stand there and let them crawl all over them. They're like rats with wings.

Lovely, lovely Venice

Ah Venice. That wonderful, melancholy, smelly, beautiful city. It's supposedly not sinking anymore, unless you were taking the Venetian guy on the bus to Beauvais seriously - he was telling the Scots that every morning he had to bail out his kitchen and that he could go fishing from his bedroom.

We arrived there pretty late (past 10pm) and took the good ol' vaporetto to our hotel. Since there were no restaurants open, Lydia and I had gelati for dinner before going home so that I could provide that sugar as a meal to the mosquitos in our room. Days were spent trying to avoid the tourist hoards - ohmigod there were so many tourists they blocked other bridges in their attempt to get a view of the Bridge of Sighs. My favourite (relatively) tourist-free spots were the Giardini where the Biennale was on (but I got a bit sunburnt walking all the way there) and Zattere dei Gesuati.

Giardini

Nasty looking cat down at the Giardini

View of the lagoon from near Giardini looking towards St. Giorgio, St. Marco and Redentore

The view down each end of Zattere from some bridge

Yes, I sure look happy here!

Admittedly Zattere is where the Hilton drops off their tourists, but there's a really good gelati shop down there where you can watch the lagoon and tourists dropping in and leaving.

The Scottish Invasion

Scotland invaded France while we were in Paris. And hey, why not? It's the land of cheese-eating surrender monkeys! No no, it was really for the World Cup Group Match on September 12.

But really, over the time we were there, there was an increasing presence of grown men in tartan kilts and sometimes the whole kit proudly striding around Paris. And then they started singing around Paris. And then they set up a camp near our hotel with a giant banner saying *Tartan Army*. I didn't get a pic of that, but here's a video of some of them at Trocadéro.

They seemed kinda dirty and smelly and singing and drunk, but I got to talking to some on the bus to Beauvais after one of the young Scots girls loaned me her Gameboy to kill the boredom. They were really nice! And funny! And great parents - I think it was really nice of him to take his teenaged daughter all the way from Edinburgh to Paris for a few days.

So while they clogged up the Métro, vomited in the streets, sang through the night, and were a bit of a nuisance, the Scots get the thumbs up from me!

Last days in Paris

Well, all good things had to come to an end. On the last few days in Paris, I introduced Pooey to the joys of crepe avec nutella et banane (although she wanted hers avec crème aussi), which we got from a street stall in Bastille. Nums!
We also took the elevator up the Eiffel tower and further dumb shots at Trocadéro.

After Pooey left, I got back to work and went to visit a lab. My recent correspondence was one-sided, to say the least, to the extent that when I actually turned up and reported myself to building security, security said the researcher wasn't expecting me (WHAT?!?) but since I had travelled all the way, come on up! I had prepared a short talk to give to them, but seeing as they had nothing planned for me, I just gave it in his office only for them to interrupt me a few times so they could gather even more people to listen. Eventually there was about six of us crammed in there. I got to meet some other students and we compared results/techniques and other geeky stuff before I headed off to congratulate myself with a new pair of shoes.

Lydia and I had morrocan food for dinner, and then a traditional french one where we ate a bunny. It was delicious!

Getting ready to dig into the delicious bunny!

And then after one last visit to the markets for pate, cheese, baguette, and two euros worth of incredibly great green salad, we were off to the next stop on European Tour 2007 - Venice!

Paris - Stupidity in the Louvre and the Best Value Meal in the World

Lydia bypassed the opportunity to see the Louvre again so that left me and Pooey to treat such revered works of art with our usual family brand of stupidity and imitation.

*Now where is the entrance...?*

Since we were in France, we decided it was best that Pooey finally meet our French relos, namely Alix. We met up at Place de la Concorde - Alix did the doublekiss that Pooey was soooooooo not expecting, hilarious! - and met up with Alix's friends for and then to Pont de l'Alma to meet up with a friend of friends. Shame on me, I can't remember any of their names but friend of friend looked a bit like Cillian Murphy or Gaspard Ulliel being tall, thin, darked haired with very pale eyes, and smoked like a chimney. I thought he was hot. Pooey found him scary. I chalk that up to him doing the doublekiss on her which she totally wasn't expecting either. Hehe.

With Alix and something in the background

We all went to a cafe which had the Best Value Meal Ever. I wish I wrote down which street it was but basically they were offering a baguette, a dessert, and a drink for only....5 euros. That's about $AUD8. YOU CAN'T GET THAT KIND OF VALUE!!! I had chicken baguette, creme brulée and a fanta. Pooey had chicken baguette, tarte au citron and water. I can't remember what Alix ordered but he got a mille feuille. Num nums!!!

Pooey with her tarte au citron and Cillian/Gaspard in the background

Trying to eat the mille feuille

Enjoying that creme brulee

Afterwards, we went and blew a lot of money in the shops.
But that's for another time.

Paris - Touristy days with Pooey

Due to Smee's hatred of Paris, Pooey has been waiting for the francophile me and Lydia to arrive to make her visit more pleasant than Smee's.

We kicked it all off with a good French lunch - a trip to various stores to get baguettes, two different cheeses, some mousse de canard and a whole lot of fruit in Place de Vosges. The food was nummy-nummy-num-NUM!!!! She doesn't look too happy in this picture, but take my word for it, she was pleased.We also met some really cute French toddlers. I think its their clothes that make them so cute. Particularly this little girl who kept coming towards us and our fruit, then running away. But she did eventually take our offer of a strawberry and Pooey has photographic proof (above)! As Lydia has been to Paris many times before, we split up and I took Pooey on a walk down to Rue de Rivoli to Notre Dame where tourists were allowed inside, even though there was a full on service going on at the time. Doing our best Catholic impersonations, we took photos of the various altars and went to climb the bell tower...which we ended up not doing because the queue was really long and even worse, not moving. So we took a pleasant walk down the banks of the Seine to the Musee d'Orsay to see Impressionist works.

The Hotel de Ville (town hall) where gendarmes searched our bags

Naughty photo of he Notre Dame service - should have at least kicked the tourists out during it!

Pooey with a Monet

Fun with the polar bear!

Lydia rang to say that she was at the Tuileries and did we want to drink chocolat at L'Angelina, a chocolate shop on the Rue de Rivoli that's been selling cakes and drinks since the 19th century, complete with decor. As a review on Tripadvisor says, 'Hot chocolat oui, service non'. While I understand that the waiting staff are to memorise the entire order rather than write it down, the waitress forgot my chocolat a l'ancienne! And they ran out of the specialty Mont Blanc cake that Pooey was really looking forward to enjoying. Ah well, c'est Paris - c'est la vie! But a highlight was the very cute doggie that was sitting only a few tables away from us.

Enjoying my substitute apple tart

The happy dog

Yes, they do allow doggies into Paris cafes.

That night, we went and did something that Pooey has been craving for ever since she went to London - finding good, authentic Pho! We went down to the 13th arrondissement and joined the
queue to get big steaming bowls of pho dac biet and a pho bo for Lydia.

Where we had our pho

Asian Maccas!

And all continued to be well in the Ville Lumière (a.k.a Paris).