The Emerald Isle

Growing up, whenever discussion of where we would go on holiday if we won the lottery came up, Ireland was always Mum’s answer. It’s where a lot of our relatives come from, so it was a big deal for mum and I to be the first in our family to set foot on Irish soil since our ancestors left!

We arrived at Cork airport and hopped in a taxi with a friendly driver who drove us to our hotel. Oh the accent! I could listen to it for hours. Not in a romantic way, it’s just warm and full of character.

Our hotel was a wee bit out of town (I was a cheap skate) so we walked up to the bus stop from our hotel and caught a bus in to Cork city. It has quite a city vibe in Cork and seems a little ‘built up’ but it was nice to see nonetheless, with a few quieter streets here and there.

Quieter street in Cork

We then caught a train in to Cobh, which is the last harbour the Titanic left from.

There happened to be a ginourmous cruise ship docked in Cobh on our visit, so the town was filled with tourists like mum and I, tourists from the cruise ship and rubber necked locals who wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Sleepy old Cobh

St.Colmans Cathedral is one of the main attractions in Cobh so we went for a walk through the town to have a closer look. On the way we noticed how brightly colored the houses are painted here, it reminded us of neopolitan ice-cream.

Photo credit to mum for this pretty photo of St.Colmans Cathedral

We made friends with a sleepy local cat who was lulling about in the sun near the cathedral!

Time to head back to Cork for dinner at a place called Luigi Malones (not very Irish of us!) because they had been reccomended on the internet as a great place to eat. I’ve learned from Kaushik to do food research before staying somewhere new, otherwise you often get caght out in tourist traps where the food is average and the cost doesn’t follow accordingly.

After dinner it was time to honour my Aunty Pat’s wish who gave mum $50 to buy us a round of Irish beer at a local pub! So we found a small pub which didn’t look too touristy and ordered two Murphey Stouts. Mum had hers watered down with lemonade to make it a shandy (blegh!) that’s pretty much the only way she will drink beer!

We chatted to some locals who were quite sozzled, one of which took a shining to mum and kept telling her different stories. His friend said to me on the sly “She shouldn’t believe him, he’s a nutcase”. We managed to shake them off for a while and enjoyed our first beer to ourselves. A trip to the bathroom upstairs also provided some laughs, there was a poster right down Mum’s alley!

Poster reads: Dandy Shandy

It was decided we were both ready for bed so we caught the bus back to the hotel for sleepy time.

Day two in Ireland and we set off for Killarney. It only took about two hours on two different trains to get there, which went quickly because we spent the time either playing cards or napping. Once we arrived we felt relieved because it was a much smaller town and had more character than Cork, something we were hoping for.

I booked a room at a hostel nicely situated near the station, so we dropped our bags off and then headed to a tourist info office where they gave us directions on how to get to Ross Castle. We were told it would be about a half hour walk, which turned out to be more like 45 minutes, which was fine with a few little rest stops on the way. I think what made it seem longer was seeing people glide past in the back of horse drawn carts, just sitting there with blankets over their knees and waving at you like royalty. I’m glad we walked though, it meant we got to see sights like this:

We made it to Ross Castle (built in the late 1400’s) in time for the last tour of the day where we learned the history of the castle and how it was to live in such a place. Happy snaps were also taken!

Go mum go!

Ross Castle

We took what we thought might have been a short cut through the nearby National Park to get back to Killarney, but it added an extra 20 minutes or so to our journey! It didn’t matter though, we enjoyed the walk. The scenery here is so lush and green.

Our dinner that night was wolfed down after a lot of travelling and walking that day and we thought we would have slept like babies except staying at a hostel comes with the price of noisy guests clomping around, drying their hair in the hallway at 12am and chatting outside your door. We eventually got to sleep of course, but were woken up early by the Friary next door who rang their bells at 7:30!

Having done enough walking, we decided it would be nice to rent some bikes and ride over to Muckross House. We arrived in just half an hour and enjoyed beautiful country side views along the way. Muckross House itself was nice and all, but we didn’t bother with a tour and were more interested in the lakes and forest near by.

We caved in and rented a horse drawn cart with a driver to take us to one of the lakes and waterfall, but we shared it with a sweet older couple who were visiting from the U.K, it made it much cheaper to share and was nice to have a chat along the way. The driver himself was a young guy just out of high school and enjoyed joking around and telling different stories about the area. Irish accents make any story ten times more entertaining!

The cart arrived at Torc waterfall and we were given time to look around and enjoy the scenery. It really is the Emerald Isle! Everything glows with the color green and moss covers the ground like carpet!

Torc waterfall

Back in the horse cart and our driver James took us back to Muckross House where we had more of a chat and took a few photos.

Our horse, Henry. Thank you Henry!

Cheers James!

We hopped back on to our bikes and followed a path which lead to Muckross Friary. Inside there were gravestones with Celtic inscriptions and spooky under ground rooms. Outside there was a cemetery where we found a Gleeson gravestone! I picked some flowers and laid them underneath the headstone, having no idea who these people were but it somehow seemed appropriate.

Onwards on our biking journey we rode alongside Lake Leane and coasted down a very steep hill covered in wildflowers to reach our lunch stop. We brought along some crusty bread, cheddar cheese and fresh peaches and devoured them in record time. It’s such a  nice change to earn your food!

Our lunch spot

Back on the road again, we headed back to the main town of Killarney and rode around a near by park for a while until we were hungry again and stopped off at a cute thatched tea house for berry muffins, tea and a strange conversation with a curious french man who slowly inched his table closer and closer to ours.

Tea house, yes it's real!

We also struck up a conversation with a local old man who promised us a stunning view if we followed a particular path through the park and went up a hill. Thankfully we followed his advice! There was even a wooden seat at this viewing point where you could sit and just take in the beauty and watch the long grass blow in the wind. Sounds terribly cheesy but it was stunning!

Boy were we aching! These bikes we rented had low handle bars, unlike the Dutch bikes I’m used to which allow you to sit up straight comfortably. So we called it a day and headed back to our hotel for a well earned shower. Hungry again, it was dinner time before we came across an Irish pub where they promised to have a live band and sing-along songs. We hung around for a while, drank a few beers and when the band came on stage we scored a table right up front.

I surprisingly knew a few of the songs, thanks to Mum who would sometimes play one of Nanna’s classic pub song records when I was a kid! One of the men whistled an entire song called The Lonely Fisherman which I wish I could find somewhere online, because it was quite a haunting and sad song to be heard as just a whistle.

We had been extremely lucky with the weather up until this point, when we walked outside it was absolutely bucketing down with rain! We shared an umbrella on our walk back to our hotel where we slept much better with the soothing noise of rain on the roof.

Our last morning in Killarney before heading back to Cork airport was spent keeping warm and dry in a local pub playing cards and drinking juice. We stopped off at Cork city on the way to the airport and visited an art gallery to pass some time, then caught a bus to the airport.

We took off with a great feeling of being able to tick off one of life’s “must do’s”.

Amsterdam shenanigans with mum

It was time to show mum the Netherland’s star attraction: Amsterdam! As a tourist, you visit to see the red light district and coffee shops, but once you live here you realize Amsterdam has almost nothing to do with all of that debauchery. I like it for the endless number of beautiful canals and bridges, the older Jordaan area, the Chinatown and the hundreds of old bars and beer cafes. This is the side of Amsterdam I was more excited to show mum.

Once we arrived, we went to our favorite cafe: Small World. It’s run by a guy who’s actually from Melbourne, so it’s nice to go in there and order an Australian style coffee and talk in a stupidly occa way to the dismay of other Dutch customers (although most of the customers are Australian/Brittish, I used to think it was silly when people would move to another country and then find a favorite pub or cafe because it was like one at home, but now I can totally understand.)

So we ate some delicious foccacia sandwhiches, met our friend Amanda (from Canada, living in Amsterdam) and headed over to a local food and clothing market where you can feast on small samples of cheese, bread and sweets.

At the local markets with Kaushik and Amanda, mum took the photo. Need I say, not our hats?

It was time to do a few “touristy” things with mum, so Kaushik went off with Amanda, knowing very well he would be seeing the same touristy things a few more times with other friends and family when they visit.

Our main agenda was to see the Van Gogh museum. Having read Lust For Life (a biography about Van Gogh, written in romanticized way) I was pretty excited to be seeing his largest collection of paintings. We were also very lucky because they had a special exhibition on where you could view one of his most famous paintings, Starry Night. This particular painting is often touring around so it’s often unlikely you would see it if you came to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

Let me tell you though, I feel so lucky to have seen it. Tears actually welled up when I saw it for the first time. Seeing his actual brush strokes, all at once I felt emotion and empathy for him, living such a tough life, feeling unappreciated for all the passion he put in to his work. The beauty of this painting up close in real life is immense. I looked over at mum, I think she was pretty much feeling the same.

I even took a sneaky photo of it while upstairs:

Starry Night, Van Gogh

Ok ok enough wanky art talk, it was time to meet up with Kaushik and our friends, but mum bumped in to an old friend along the way!

A shocker of me, but the only one of us in Amsterdam together

Pretty mum on a pretty canal

So we all met up at The Cotton Club which is a gorgeous old bar in Amsterdam which has live jazz bands playing. We had a few drinks there, listened to some live jazz and had a few laughs, then headed over to Chinatown for some dinner.

Adam, Grant, mum, me and Amanda

After dinner it started to get dark, so we decided to have a quick walk through the red light district. Regardless of how I started this blog entry, you can’t really bring someone to Amsterdam and not show them the spectacle of half naked women in windows!

However, having gone through this area a few times, the novelty wears thin and it becomes quite depressing. Mum didn’t need to go through a few times for it to have this dark effect on her. To quote from her holiday diary she kept:

“….suddenly the beautiful Amsterdam of daylight hours was transformed into a seedy, plastic side alley of sex & sadness. The girls standing in the doorways had faces devoid of emotion, maybe thats how they cope with the river of staring eyes that flow past their doorsteps. I was left sadly wondering what had lead them to the time & space that they now occupied.”

The good thing about the red light district set up though is the fact that the women have actual legal rights, insurance etc which you wouldn’t receive in a “normal” prostitution setting. I don’t know what will happen to them when the red light district is eventually shut down all together, which looks like is on the cards.

Gah, I don’t want to end on a dark/weird note! We had a beutiful day regardless. The weather was perfect for walking around taking in the sights and it was great for my mum to meet some of my friends.

Adventures in The Hague with Ma

The next few days after mum arrived involved lots of little day trips around The Hague. It was so nice waking up each morning to have breakfast and a cup of tea with her, discussing what dreams we had the night before, something we always used to do!

The first day was nice and lazy. We picked up a rental bike for mum (kids size, ha!) and rode around my favorite parts of the neighborhood: the little community garden patches and huts for Dutch people to tend to, a small farm area with cows and sheep and the local windmill.

I think it's a look of excitement!

The next day was more of a Hague city tour, having a look at the beautiful buildings and monuments.

Mum outside the Queen's palace

Me outside the Binnehof

Mum got photobombed by a seagull!

Us with our bikes at the deer park near central station

Afternoon tea in the local park, I made scones

That night we had dinner at Va Piano and had a few cocktails at my favorite local bar called Va Voom. It’s Tiki styled and has cheap cocktails! We then wandered outside to watch a live band play but were put off by a strange man who was eying us off while dancing like Mr Bean, so we decided to call it a day and head home.

Va Voom tiki cocktail bar

Weekend time so we had Kaushik’s company and visited the Gemeentmuseum. Had a nice browse around, but soon got the art gallery sleepies and headed over to Scheveningen for some drinks, dinner and what we thought would be a beautiful sunset….but clouds rolled in just in time to prevent us from seeing this! We had a lovely time nonetheless.

On the way to the Gemeentmuseum

A beautiful tapiastry piece at the museum/gallery

Scheveningen at night

Second day of a sunny weekend, so all three of us went for a ride to our local forest with a packed picnic lunch in our saddle bags!

Picnic time

While enjoying our lunch, a sopping wet dog came running by and took a dive in to the lake! He was fetching a stick about twice his size which was thrown by his owner. I of course was enamored by him and threw the stick back in to the lake for him several times, Kaushik captured one of these moments:

Mum comes to visit

For her first trip overseas, my mum came all the way to Holland to visit me! She arrived in the morning and after a cup of tea and some grilled cheese sandwiches (it was so unreal and lovely to be sitting at my dining room table together), she was keen to head over to the Keukenhof; an annual flower show in The Netherlands.

Big props to her, the last thing I wanted to do after 26 hours in transit was attend any kind of event which would involve social, standing and walking skills.

It was of course very beautiful as we expected, but we also got to have a peek inside a windmill! The turning sweeps (the blades) don’t look all that fast from a distance, but when you’re inside and look out the window, it’s just this constant whoosh whoosh whoosh which would cut your head off if you dared stick it out! To our amusement, there was also a man clomping around in wooden clogs who was tending the windmill, so I couldn’t resist getting a keepsake snapshot for mum.

Mum and the clog man

Once we exited the windmill, there were what seemed like hundreds of senior citizens being wheeled around by their carers and having their photo taken in front of the windmill! We had quite a giggle.

We also had fun in a petting zoo full of baby farm animals and we especially fell in love with one particular baby cow, he was just so placid and had eyes full of soul.

I could have stayed in that enclosure all day, but it was time to see some flowers!

Can you see the tiny bug?

It was so relaxing walking around in the quieter garden areas away from the big displays, we even found some toadstools which looked like they came straight out of a fairytale.

The relaxation soon turned to fatigue so we eventually decided to head on home for dinner. We had some risotto ala Kaushik along with a celebratory glass of champagne, which was followed by a bath and then bed time for mum at about 10pm, she did so well, considering!

Mum stayed for nearly 2 weeks, so I will post our adventures in small installments

Berlin (or Turkey?)

Everyone raves about Berlin and rightly so! It’s such a multicultural city, it hardly felt German (not that there’s anything wrong with Germanic places!). Among the many cultures, Turkish people make up a large percentage so the abundance of Turkish food was definitely a bonus!

So as usual we arrived in the night time and didn’t see all that much, just where we stayed which was a big factory converted in to a hotel! It was comfortable and clean, but it kind of felt like we were sleeping in a big storage room because the walls were plain white and giant pipes protruded from the ceiling.

Morning time and we ventured over to a cafe where Kaushik had read that they served good coffee, which they certainly did. Then down to the metro where we bought an all day transport card (that’s metro, trains and buses) for a measly 6 euros each. Bargain!

Arrived at Ostbahnhof station where the East side gallery of the Berlin wall is situated and walked along pretty much the whole length of this particular section of the wall.

It was quite humbling to be viewing such a pivotal part of Berlin’s history, I almost felt a bit guilty adding my own small piece of graffiti. But then again, this wall and the art painted on it represents liberation (post  1989 of when the wall was brought down of course!) and freedom to express oneself, which I whole heartedly did!

Me vandalising

What I left behind

After spending  a decent amount of time at the wall, we caught the subway to Oranienburger Strasse where there are lots of nice cafe’s and restaurants. There was also this art space called Galerie Tacheles which was formally a shopping mall in what was a predominantly Jewish district in the early 1900’s, it was then taken over due to bankruptcy and used to display electrical goods for a company called Haus der Technik in 1928.

In World War II the building was again taken over and used by the Nazi Party for administration purposes and even detained French prisoners. It was then damaged between 1943 and 1945 by allied air raids but is still standing to this day thanks to a group of artists who in the early 90’s took a liking to the building and transformed it in to an art space instead of it being demolished by the government.

Galerie Tacheles - you can see where it was bombed, except they have restored a lot of the building to prevent it from caving in!

Being at Galerie Tacheles made us feel like we came across a hippy commune in the desert! Artists have their own little cabins and caravans spread throughout the sandy grounds where they sculpt and paint. This place also converts in to a bar during the night time which I wish we had witnessed but unfortunately didn’t.

Galerie Tacheles

Outside Galerie Tacheles

I think that kids in Berlin are incredibly lucky. Why? Because on nearly every street you walk down you will come across some kind of park with hard core play equipment! Coming from Sydney, due to councils crapping their pants at the thought of possible law suits, any form of fun play equipment (ie merry-go rounds, flying foxes, long chained swings etc) have been replaced with boring, sterile contraptions which make me pity the children of today.

So yes, lucky Berlin kids, lucky me and unlucky Kaushik who soon tired of me getting excited about this particular play ground we came across! I even made an animated gif of the fun we had:

All that goofing around made us hungry (what doesn’t?) so we found a hidden away Japanese restraunt for lunch and then walked around the city a little more until we came to the Holocaust memorial. I would like to say it had a deep impact on me, but it didn’t. With people running around laughing, screaming and jumping from pillar to pillar, it was hard to get a feel  for the memorial as it was intended. When I saw it from a little further away, it did however take my breath away. The number of these pillars, all different heights and angles really did represent the large scale and diversity of people who had their lives stolen from them.

Walking further down a street near by took us to what was Hitler’s bunker where he finally died (why was he born at all?). It made me laugh because now, it is simply a car park! The final resting place of evil: now a banal every day occurrence where people curse under their breaths at the lack of spaces or quietly cheer at the triumph of finding a spot to park. All that gives away this historical place is a small sign, explaining the history of the bunker. If there were anything more, say a monument, Neo Nazi’s would probably crowd around to mourn, undoubtedly causing trouble and fear for the locals (thanks Alison for that last tid-bit of info!).

Formally Hitler's bunker where he died...now a car park!

We decided it was time to head back to our hotel to change in to something a little nicer for dinner and drinks, but we stopped at the beautiful Brandenburg Gate on the way.

Brandenburg Gate, began being built in 1788

A better view of Brandenburg Gate, minus our heads

Fresh and clean after a costume change, we headed over to a ‘floating bar’. On the way we saw some incredible graffiti:

This was HUGE!

Ok back to the floating bar, it’s actually this place with a DJ and bar (on solid ground) but the catch is you can sit on a floating dock which pretty much rocks and moves around unsteadily if someone gets up to walk around or tries to clumsily climb on board like we did!

Floating bar fun!

Dinner was calling and it had a Turkish accent, so we caught the U bahn (metro) over to Kreuzberg  which is a predominantly Turkish community. One of the first things I saw after exiting the U bahn was one of those old photo machines! In Sydney, these will generally set you back about $6 or if you’re in a slightly pretentious bar with one of these inside then you’d better have $8 ready! This one in Kreuzberg (which I later discovered are everywhere in Berlin) was only 2 euros!

It smelled like wet carpet and booze, but I didn't care

From the 2 euro photo machine

Still on the way to dinner, we came across the perfect place for desert: an entire shop full of baklava!

*inaudible drooling noises*

The sad news is that it was shut when we walked past after dinner, so we drowned our sorrows at a Tiki themed bar with cocktails which tasted like pure gasoline. Then we made our way to a club called “White Trash Fast Food” which is a popular Indie type of night. When we arrived there were girls dressed as flirty sailors sitting in the windows, using their hands like telescopes and waving people to come inside, so we did! It had 3 levels and felt like you were inside a cave or something equally claustrophobically cool. We had ourselves a great time, the DJ played a few questionable numbers but generally pleased the crowd with 90’s rock anthems and electro hits.

When we went outside to leave for our hotel, the sky decided to open up it’s bladder on us! It was the heaviest rain we had seen for a long time, so we decided to get a taxi home. Our driver was so sweet, he asked “Are you hungry?” and Kaushik and I looked equally confused while suspiciously replying “Yes” and then he pulled out a container full of biscuits with a smile “My wife, she make these, please have some!”, so we did and they went down a treat and he of course received a tip.

On to day two of Berlin which was more of a monument viewing day. We saw:

The Berlin Victory Column

Reichstag Building - This building was set on fire in 1933, arguably by Hitler who wished to cause mass confusion about the current government, thus bringing people to his side

Checkpoint Charlie - the most famous Berlin Wall crossing between East and West Germany during the Cold War. This is not the original however, and the poster of a soldier on each side is now just for show.

We also checked out an antique market before we had to head back to the airport, there I saw an intriguing dog!

So this draws an end to an extremely long post. Sorry, I can’t help it! Berlin was fantastic! Cheap transport and food, beautiful architecture, a young and fresh vibe, scars from a not so distant past; pieces of land still yet to be fixed up from the war, people from all over the world setting up home in what was once an incredibly racially dangerous place to be.

Koninginnedag (Queens Day)

Celebrated on the 30th of April, this is a day where the Dutch (and anyone else living here) get together to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (her birthday is actually on the 31st of January!).

Having said that, it’s more so a day of togetherness and fun which isn’t totally focused on the Queen.

I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this day because experienced Koninginnedag goers dub this event “insane”, “massive” and “messy”. The day certainly was those three things, but I had the most fantastic time! It’s like a giant street party with people selling their old possessions on the side of the road, buskers playing live music and DJ’s on podiums making the giant crowd dance like idiots.

Our friend Amanda had gone to the effort of organizing a cupcake and cocktail stand which made the day even more authentic. She even let me bring in some coconut lemon kisses I baked to sell at her stall! It was funny watching random people coming buy and eating my treats, nodding their head in appreciation.

Once she was done with her stall a whole group of us wandered through the streets and stopped off at the DJ podium I mentioned earlier where we screamed along to Rage Against The Machine and did the running man to 90’s songs I can’t even remember (too many curb-side cocktails were consumed).

There’s not too much more to say about the day, other than the fact that pretty much everyone dresses in orange (Netherland’s favorite color) and the vibe on the streets was so peaceful and fun. I couldn’t imagine this kind of event in Sydney without bogans causing trouble in their Australian flag capes.

At the top of a bike parking building in Amsterdam, you can see all the people streaming out of the station behind us

Even the dogs dress up in orange!

There is a bridge behind these people, it took 20 minutes to cross it!

Amanda's cupcake stall

Amanda

My coconut and lemon kisses

Party boat!

Who likes to party? I'm not sure if that old man next to me does....

Boys will be boys

Happy birthday to me

Yes, that’s how far behind I am with posting! My birthday was on April 25th!

My day started with opening presents from Kaushik in bed, then remembering my mum’s presents tucked away in the spare room. Kaushik made me a delicious breakfast and then I called mum who was celebrating my birthday with my cousin at her house, which I though was sweet. They all sang me happy birthday (mum, her boyfriend Mark, my cousin Kim, her little boy Jak and Kim’s husband Nic) to me which made me a little teary eyed hearing all their voices so far away, but my birthday wouldn’t have been complete without it!

Then it was time to pick up some bits and pieces for my party that afternoon, but not before a coffee from one of the only good places in Den Haag: Bagels and Beans!

Our friends arrived in the late afternoon so it was still nice and warm; good weather for a few coctails and champagne! Then we were off to Scheveningen to have dinner and appreciate the best sunset I’ve seen at that beach, absolutely beautiful.

At Scheveningen, from L-R: Grant, Amanda, Nikki, Aidan, Liz and Colin. We first met Colin and Liz thanks to a mutual friend of ours in Sydney who told us to hook up, then we met the rest of this lovely bunch through Colin and Liz!

That's Patrick up the back there in white, another mate of ours (we met him at Oktoberfest!)

Axel and Mar, we met them at an expat drinks get together

Kaushik, you romantic so and so

Once the sun went down it all became a little bit chilly so we caught the bus back to our apartment for more drinks and shenanigans. Colin even made a video about my party, to the smooth and sensual sounds of Ween. Ha!

Thank you everyone for making my day!

Trash for treasure

Back in Sydney, one of my favorite times was council clean up time! Mum would drive us both around and we would pull over to the side of the road when a nice pile of junk would tickle our fancy.

We even once wheeled a couch from one end of our street to our house, to the horror of a guy on a bike who stopped to help us!

Call me a hoarder but you will be pleased to know that when Kaushik and I move in to our own place back in Sydney we will have a beautiful green velvet couch, a round breakfast table with orange vinyl spinny chairs, an antique dressing table…..to put it simply I’m set up furniture-wise because of these glorious council clean ups.

Our move to The Netherlands had me wondering (among other things of course) about whether they had council clean ups here and I began having the most amazing dreams about myself coming across a giant stash of goodies outside someone’s house which would have me waking up in the happiest of moods.

I would have this dream about once per week, then a week before my birthday it came true!

Coming home from work on the bus, I eyed off a giant pile of  ’stuff’ outside someone’s apartment, just down the road from ours. As soon as I got home, I greeted Kaushik and told him of the exciting news. He rolled his eyes and told me to call him if I needed help bringing stuff home (which I later took him up on the offer).

I rode down to the apartment and saw people bringing more and more things out, so I asked them if they were indeed throwing all of this out and whether it was okay to rummage through?

“Sure, go for it. Just keep the pile tidy.”

“Of course, thanks! Doing some spring cleaning?”

“No, our aunt died. Just getting rid of her stuff.”

Oh…I felt a tad guilty, getting all excited about this deceased woman’s belongings being thrown on to the side of the road.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be going through her stuff?”

“It’s fine, it will be thrown out anyway.”

Hmm…I thought about it for a moment….but then came to the conclusion that if my lazy relatives chose to just dispose of my belongings on to the street, that I would be more than happy to have some excited young lady come along and treasure a few pieces of my life.

As another lady going through her things said to me “Imagine that, your life on the side of the road?”

I did imagine it, such a shame. She was certainly a snappy dresser, which I took advantage of. She was also a doctor because an entire filing cabinet filled with old documents and medical cards from the 50’s or 60’s was included in the things being thrown out.

I gave her clothes a wash and as I was hanging them out to dry, I noticed these little additions she made to the clothes: they were tabs of material with snap buttons on them to make it easier to hang clothes up to dry, rather than using a peg. It made me quite melancholy, this simple yet thoughtful addition to her clothes which her relatives wouldn’t have even noticed. I hope she knows that I noticed, somehow.

Here are some photos of what I scored, thank you Geertje, it was much appreciated! (Geertje is what I’ve chosen to call this lady, it’s an old fashioned Dutch name)

My pile of treasure!

A selection of my favorite pieces of clothing from Geertje

Some agendas (an open up calendar/diary) from 1959!

A letter and envelope set

I pinched a few medical cards from the filing cabinet

Prague in pictures

Our trip to Prague was actually quite some time ago, much before Paris in fact.

I didn’t get around to posting a long-winded story because the film from the trip was processed at different times yada yada then I forgot all together….so because details about the holiday are a little vague, I will just concentrate on photos for this post.

I can tell you though, it was a beautiful place. So old and well preserved, considering the wars it has lived through.

It was snowing too which added to the beauty of it all. We mainly walked around the city, crossing bridges to different quarters and taking in the scenery.

I would have to say that Prague has the largest number of beggars I have come across. They generally sit on their knees with their forehead resting on the cold ground and their hands out in front, ready to grasp any coins donated. Sadly, I got all too used to seeing this sight.

On a nicer note Prague is also famous for it’s jazz, so we visited U Maleho Glena Bar & Jazz Club on our last night there. I would recommend booking a seat because it’s quite popular! We managed to score some seats once a few people left who were strangely not enjoying the music. I don’t see why because it was a very impressive performance; fusion, fast paced type of jazz playing numbers by artists such as Coltrane and Brother Jack McDuff.

Anyway, I will let my pictures do the talking. Enjoy xx

Easter weekend in Paris

I’ve been slack again, haven’t I? Two reasons are that:

1. I was waiting for my films to be developed  2. Slothful behaviour  3. You probably don’t really care (not a reason, just a fact)

Anyway….

Netherlands is such a central place in Europe, I’m not sure if the Dutch understand how lucky they are! You are able to catch a train for about 3 hours and arrive in Paris, which is exactly what we did for our Easter long weekend.

After dropping our bags off at Hotel Vivienne (which has the world’s smallest elevator, it’s pretty much a coffin) we walked around the neighbourhood on what was a deliciously warm and sunny day. Our first stop was the square situated near the Louvre….

…and then towards Pont Neuf which has a view of the River Seine. My first sight of this river is one of the most memorable I have of Paris and I’m afraid my photo does it zero justice!

River Seine

We toddled around more, past the Notre Dame (there was a lengthy queue so we didn’t venture in) then to Place des Vosges which is a beautiful park where people sit around to chat or have a bite to eat.

Place des Vosges

Notre Dame

Kaushik had looked up a South American cafe where they roast their coffee beans right in front of you in the shop so we stopped off there for one of the most delicious coffee’s I’ve ever had.

We also spent some time shopping around for a nice collared shirt for Kaushik to wear for he had booked us a seat at an authentic French restaraunt which surprisingly had vegetarian options. The food was lovely and fresh, albeit the portions. Kaushik’s meal was fit for a small village in Botswana (needless to say Kaushik is not a small Botswana village) and mine was the cliche of a fancy French entree. Desert more than made up for my portion size: we shared an apple tartine and chocolate fondant.

The next morning we walked over to the Louvre and surprisingly didn’t have to queue up for too long to get in.

Waiting in line for the Louvre

We looked through a selection of artifacts from Greece and Egypt which included a real mummy and we also looked through the “classics” which I can only take so much of…I’m not big on neoclassical art, thankfully nor is Kaushik. However we of course had to see that one painting of a very famous lady, or is it a man? Who knows, but it’s true that the Mona Lisa’s eyes do follow you depending on which side of the room you stand on. It was quite funny to see people taking long armed photo’s of themself with the painting and then just walking away without even looking at  the painting itself properly.

Just a side note, on your first Parisian trip you literally tick off things in your head of “ok yep…seen that, what amazing famous structure/artwork/promenade will I see next?”. Well the Eiffel tower was next and I couldn’t wait.

I saw it’s beauty while exiting a nearby metro station. Walking up the stairs to the street I could see the characteristic top of the tower and with each step I got higher, more was revealed and I couldn’t believe I was seeing it for real.

But you know us, hunger was still more important than seeing the Eiffel Tower up close, so we picked up some Turkish haloumi wraps for lunch and then headed to the Park which sits underneath the tower itself. A delicious lunch with a beautiful view of the tower and a little entertainment too; we got to watch con artists at work. These particular cons are girls in gypsy type attire who go up to people, ask if they speak English and then proceed to tell a sad story of their life and then ask for any spare change. It doesn’t sound like a scam until you have read research about these women which explains they live in comfortable homes, but their husbands/fathers force them to beg because quite frankly, it works. When she approached us to ask if we spoke English, our response was “Nee!” which is of course Dutch for “No”.

So we escaped another scam (so common in touristy European cities) and went for a walk further away from the Eiffel tower to try and take some photos. As you can see, it’s hard to have a proper photo with it (especially because my old film camera is already automatically slightly zoomed in) unless you walk quite far away or take multiple shots like these:

Onwards, our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe and then a walk down Champs Elysees where we sang the theme song for this famous stretch of road.

On the Champs Elysees, with view of Arc de Triomph

We then decided to take a boat tour which stretches down The River Seine and took us past even more beautiful monuments and another view of The Eiffel Tower which I never got tired of seeing.

Now I think there must be something wrong with me because I can’t for the life of me remember what we had for dinner that night! Never mind, on to our last day in Paris. A grim way to spend the morning was in Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery in eastern Paris to give Jim Morrison’s grave a visit. Even though I’m a fan of his music,  I wasn’t overly fased and found it all a bit tacky, especially seeing people wer’e standing on other people’s graves to get a better view to photograph old Jimmy’s grave.

Onwards to a much nicer activity of visiting Montmartre; a popular city for working artists and also used to be a hang out jaunt for artists such as Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Salvador Dali. And if I had done my research properly I would have discovered that the cafe which was used in the movie ‘Amelie’ is also situated in Montmartre.

The Sacre Coeur Roman Catholic church would be one of the main attractions in Montmartre and was worth climbing all of the steep hills and hundreds of stairs to get to. It doesn’t look like all of the usual churches in Europe, it kind of reminds me of a Muslim temple.

We had one last impressive monument to visit and that was the Pantheon, located in the Latin quarter of Paris. It is used as a burial site but was originally built as a place of worship. It is said to be spectacular inside, but we unfortunately ran out of time and had to head back to catch out train home.

Now that we have the general sight seeing “out of the way”, I’m truly looking forward to visiting Paris again to soak up more of the culture and atmosphere. Parisians didn’t live up to their cliche of being rude either. So long as you start a conversation with “Bonjour! Pas les vous anglais?”  (hello, do you speak english?) and don’t just expect people to talk to you in English, then you shouldn’t have any problems. Parisians have a right to be proud of their city, it’s one of the most beautiful I’ve ever visited.