nothing is sacred

In the next two weeks, I have :

– a presentation on Hidden Champions : Industry & Innovation in Europe
– a written interrogation on European economic and social history
– a presentation on the results of a simulated company we directed in class
– a presentation on the selection process in Human Resource Management
– a report and presentation on the crisis in the 1920’s

and I don’t remember what else … (it actually doesn’t sound like that much when I write it all out :D)

I also had a French exam today which was extremely sadface. And one of my teachers told me on Monday that he is SCARED FOR ME …..because I’ll be doing the same exam as all his other French students and he probably thinks I suck 😦

Hahahahaaa.

How the hell do people from other countries do this when they come to Australia ! Or even the Erasmus students here who are doing classes in English ? Is English a really easy language to learn ?

Or maybe it’s my fault ‘cos I somehow managed to squish everything in two weeks – the two weeks just before Grace and Ashlee come to spend the weekend chez moi 😀

Butttttt  . After my final presentation, it will be off to Rome ! : D And then possibly Vienna for Christmas.

Hooooraaaay.

And I will get around to updating about Amsterdam/London/Lyon soon ….yes sooooon (don’t worry Ashlee aka babeofbeaches)

I’d say out of all the cities I’ve been to over these last two and a half months, Milan has probably been the most architecturally beautiful for me.
Strange, because I know a lot of people can probably pick a whole lot of other cities that are much more breathtaking, but for some reason, Milan just did it for me.

Duomo, a gothic cathedral in the middle of Milan’s city centre
You can explore the top of the cathedral and get an awesome view of Milan!

Philippe & I went there over the long weekend, and it rained for three days! So we spent ages getting drenched and walking around and being sick (for me, anyway) which made me a terrible travel companion, but luckily I had somebody to look after me ❤

At Brunate, a small town 500m above the ground and above Lake Como.

What is behind me isn’t actually smoke, because we’re up amongst the cloudsss !

Gorgeously picturesque (which is more than I can say for the oh-so-renowned Lake Como …which IS just a lake, right ? :\)

Rainy days => Clouds => Terrible Views !

Just outside Parco Sempione, on one of the rare sunny days – and I have had a growth spurt 😀 hoho.

“Happy hour” in Milan: pay around 5€ ($7AUD ?) for a glass of wine, and get a free meal or free buffet . …somehow, I think the culture of that happy hour should spread beyond just that one city

For me, however, the food left little to be desired, despite being incredibly cheap (gourmet pizzas from five euros!) …but I fell sick on the first night and subsequently lost my appetite 😦 I think over my worst two days I ate half a salad, a few grapes, and a savoury croissant.

Throes of people lining up for a panzerotto, a calzone-shaped Milanese snack that actually originates from Puglia !

I’m amazed that that many people actually line up for it every day …

The shopping is also amazing …but I guess that’s one of the main reasons of going to Milan, eh.

One of the shop windows in the city centre.

So devo I didn’t take more photos of the shopfronts 😦 Which were gorgeous ! ..It was impossible to find a store that WASN’T the size of a mansion and at least three stories high ..and we didn’t even make it to the outlets ! 😦

Not to mention the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store ….the Europeans sure love Americans ! It’s like a nightclub inside, with topless models at the entrance, girls decked out in A&F gear dancing at the top of all the staircases (with authentic American accents :\), and plain shirts going for 80€ a pop (you can get a nice coat from Zara for an extra 20 euros !…granted, it isn’t a luxury brand, but neither is A&F).

An LV store opposite a “haute couture” McDonald’s …I guess that’s how the Italians roll.

Came back and my place smelt like a pigsty because I forgot to put the rubbish in the dumpster before I left. 😦 Sooo disgusting, but I aired it out during classes yesterday, so by the time I returned home again, it was all gone ! 😀

Also epic sad, because Phil did my grocery shopping for me last week (tehehh ..should become a regular task!) and bought some bio broccoli, but we didn’t get a chance to eat it before we left for Milan.
Five nights later, and it had gone all yellowy and mouldy :(. Saaaad.
Was craving vegetables tonight but aside from the broccoli, the only other vegetables I had in my fridge were potatoes (in the form of frozen chips), so I decided to eat that instead. 😦

Going to Amsterdam next weekend for five days ! By bus …should be goood (not the bus part, yuck!)

And now it’s 5.15am so I think I should sleep yiiikes.

First week at Dauphine (and in Paris without a real Parisian to hold my hand and take me everywhere …literally) consisted of:

– getting an Algerian stalker who called me at least twenty times over three days

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– finding the stunted Parisian version of the Sydney Harbour Bridge a few minutes’ walk from my place

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– discovering that some restaurants in France seduce you into waiting for available tables with complimentary glasses of sangria before you even know what’s happening

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– getting free entry into the Centre Pompidou under the pretense of being a French student – and therefore, an 18-25 year old European citizen – thank you, student ID card 😀

finally in the awesome escalators of the Centre Pompidou !

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becoming part of the permanent exhibition in the Centre Pompidou

– coming home at 6am just because hailing empty taxis are so incredibly hard in Paris

– after dropping my friend off at the metro in my pyjamas, getting propositioned by a man who first suggested 1am pyjama party drinks, and then asked if he could stay at my place for the night (all within not even five minutes of meeting him -_-)

….err, no thanks.

I also have ample admiration for those who go travelling by themselves.
I was suffering from severe lonerism after spending my first few hours alone on the Sunday night before uni started ..but I guess that’s what happens when you spend every night of almost 2 months in at first the company of a gorgeous, waif-like, Oriental model with an affinity for peaches and vegetables, and then a tall, black, faux Frenchman with a snout for a face (not to mention the exotic, sun-kissed Greek goddess, the Chinese-turned-Dutch partyboy with a tendency to vomit into steins and wear ladydresses, and the dirty Croat, whose connections seem to place him with lodging in practically every corner of Europe).

Luckily enough, I have had company every night since to quash my fears of being lonely – resulting in a complete lack of sleep. : (

Also ! An interesting coincidence: after watching the second episode of Gossip Girl Season 4 today, I realised that that the bar Chuck was working at is only a five minute’s walk left of where I live ! Must viiisit !

I also cooked noodles tonight 🙂 My first ever home-cooked-meal-by-myself in Europe (ignore the fact that they were instant noodles gifted from a friend on Monday night). And because I opened my window since my room smelled like instant noodles, I got bitten on the ass by a mosquito.

Greaaaat.

It is 3am in the beautiful city of Nice, an area in the south of France located in the French Riviera, on the Mediterranean Coast. I can hear guitar music and chortles from out on the street, and below me are the flashing bright neon lights of a brothel

…so perhaps they are not just ‘chortles’, after all.

My darling honeymooner (who has now transformed into a pretty red caterpillar/bug and is peacefully slumbering next to me) and I have been travelling the French Riviera for the past week, picking cities at random and spending 2 nights in each.
The journey has been Toulon -> Marseille -> Nice (where the Greek goddess joined us !) -> Cannes tomorrow ! And then we shall depart for the epicentre of romance and degustation (mamma mia, Italia !) on Monday.

Today was spent doing the laundry and paying 5 euros to get Internet, which perhaps condemned our experience of Nice to the confines of this pretty hotel room …but we did manage to book hotels and tickets for our next few destinations.

the pretty hotel room, after my snugglepie had been living in it for not even a day (and no one was even sleeping on the bed in the far right hand corner)

One might be inclined to call the day a waste, but for Christina, who spent the day soaking up rays on the gorgeous Promenade des Anglais and eating banana and chocolate crepes by the water.

Blue Beach, the absolutely gorgeous beach lining the Promenade des Anglais that this photo does zero justice for

I thank my lucky stars that our arrival in France still allowed Grace and I a glimpse of the beautiful promenade – I’ve never seen water before that was so clearly three different shades of blue – although the sun in the below photograph kills it all.

My Cote d’Azur lovers

Not only is the scenery (or what I saw of it) amazing, but so is Vieux Nice, a street just east of the promenade where amazing Italian delicacies can be found.
Walking along the street you can find a smorgasbord of Italian pizzerias (surprisingly all with the same menu and all belonging to the same chain), as well as four Pinocchio ice cream stores with the most fabulous tasting ice cream ever !
Despite Europe making my pants fall off (literally), if I could eat here every day I would ! The world’s most amazing pizza, fries, salad and pasta can be found here –

Salad Mexicaine – although guacamole is not really my cup of tea, would you take a LOOK AT THAT PRESENTATION ..

And who could forget the amazing amazing ice cream shaped like a rose (which can be found in Paris also, but I didn’t try it there, so who cares !)

Cornet a la Rose

Oh, my darling Nice, you are but a stone’s throw away from Marseille, and yet she quivers in your shadow of bright, sunny people, and cheap, Italian-esque food.

Marseille was a blur of sleazy French men asking for phone numbers, ‘Bonjour’s, what-are-you-doing-tonights, and offers to accompany us to our non-existent night plans to visit non-existent female friends. …not to mention the plethora of toothy grins we received from wrinkly old men hiding in the depths of various Marseille pubs and bars.
If there is another female in the lovely town of Marseille, please step up and quell the thriving hormones of your male counterparts !

We were greeted in Marseille on our first day with a fishy-smelling port (in line with our expectations of the best-tasting bouillabaisse in the world !), 30-degree heat, and the most orgasmic-tasting milkshake you could ever think of.

The orgasmic tasting milkshake – four scoops of mango ice cream and God knows what else for six euros !

We also found the city to be filled with art and culture: from pillars with free books for the taking (and giving),

a woman emptying her reading stash

to random globes depicting various artworks that represent the fight against climate change.

Near the entrance to our hostel !

Ow-stray-lee-arhh

First night also led to my second Chinese meal in three weeks – and I’m sure that Grace’s expression adequately describes how delicious the meal was.

The second day was spent sleeping until 2pm and walking five hours (partially on an empty stomach) to an unknown destination, which ended up being the Notre Dame de la Garde, a church only a five-minute bus ride from our hostel.

All class, no ass – going to the toilet dressed in a curtain at the beginning of our five hour journey on foot

A fish sign outside a restaurant advertising bouillabaisse !

My facial expression is only a glimmer of our emotions that day – Starving our butts off, little did we know that restaurants in Marseille spend all their money on signs advertising their space, but they forget to hire waiters that actually open the damn restaurant =_=

“OMG ! I see a restaurant sign ! …oh wait, no, that’s closed too”

Sustenance !

It was several hours until we stumbled across a Petit Casino supermarket that wasn’t filled with a half-dozen old men with come-hither smiles, where we could load up on peaches and chocolate biscuits. We find a packet of petits ecoliers, which we devoured in approximately five minutes before realising it was 5pm and we hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

You will be amazed at how much more pretty scenery becomes when you actually have food in your stomach

Notre Dame de la Garde

After three hours of walking, we sight this in the distance and decide to name it our destination ! Although there is not really much else I can say about it other than:

a) the view here was gorgeous

b) it was a long walk, but completely worth it !

c) It takes us an hour to walk what a bus can do in a minute

Anyway, the hippo next to me just groaned and smacked her lips in her sleep (probably dreaming of me again), so it is time to go !

Goodnight my lovelies !

It is currently 10.30am and a bright sunny morning in the beautiful city of Valencia, Spain !
Or I can only assume it is a bright sunny morning as there are thick green curtains blocking out any hints of sunshine and I dare not draw them open for fear of arousing the quietly sleeping dragon princess lying next to me. ….although the lack of telltale sleeping sounds tells me she has already awoken.

—

‘Excuse me, do you know where Platform 9 and 3/4 is ?’
The request is greeted by a blank stare from a Londonian tube cleaner, who then advises us in his Cockney accent to go and ask a tube worker, because he has absolutely no idea what we’re talking about and secretly thinks we belong in a mental asylum

So the story was, is that there is a hidden Platform 9 and 3/4 in London’s Kings Cross station that was proving impossible to find …..’but you will be more fulfilled if you find it yourself with no help’, says the Internet.
The quest to be fulfilled would have been all well and good had London not been home to three different Kings Cross stations, and two platform 9s (one belonging to the train and the other belonging to Eurostar).

Kings Cross station, gateway to Harry Potter, butter beers, and Dobby the elf

Further images of Monopoly street signs waylay us from our quest to find Platform 9 and 3/4

The cavernous tube escalators

Half an hour later and we’re feeling suitably tired, and our stomachs are calling for a one hour pit stop on one of the benches outside Kings Cross tube station. And so who are we to (ever) deny the call of our stomachs ? After a highly unsatisfying meal of Marks & Spencer’s Red Leicester and Spring Onion (the equivalent of our good old cheese and onion) crisps, and some rather tasty Super Sweet Plums and Nectarines, we are ready to return on our quest !

Note to self: Never eat M&S brand of sea salt and vinegar unless you like eating Vegemite-on-white-bread flavoured crisps

We find the space between platforms 5 and 6

3 and 4, and 7 and 8. But where is platforms 9 and 10 ?

This quest is becoming extremely difficult and not at all fulfilling.

The expression on her face exudes the pain of searching on foot

Unfortunately everything looks all the same

Thank goodness for escalators

The big issue with London is that their tube stations are and are not epically confusing at the same time. There are signs everywhere and arrows everywhere and GENERALLY you can get around where you want to go (even someone as GPS-reliant as me feels like they have a sense of direction), but sometimes …….(like when you want to find Platform 9 and 3/4) everything just falls apart and you can’t find anything at all.

Eventually we wander outside and – lo and behold ! – we find once more another sign directing us to the streets of London, saying that the long awaited platforms are outside !
OOOOMG.

Our Sign – although why train platforms would be outside is beyond me

Whaaat ? I thought we just were in Kings Cross station …

OMG ! It is 9, 10 and 11 ..!!

Faced with the decision to wander down either Platform 9 or 10, we choose 9. In hindsight, a platform that is 3/4 should really be closer to the tenth platform, but fate would have it that to our right (and in between platforms 8 and 9, it seems), behind a barrier that has been closed off, Platform 9 and 3/4 has materialised before us !

Thank goodness we arrive just as a guard is passing the barrier as well, and we quickly scramble through.
Do you have tickets ? No ? …Quickly, quickly ! I’m not allowed to be doing this, I’m on camera !
It appears that at 11.30pm, all train barriers would be closed.

I’m off to see the wizard Lord Voldemort Harry Potter ..!

Photo whoring is what we live for

Oh no ! I’m Stuck !

…and after 2 hours, it would appear that our Quest to be Fulfilled has been Fulfilled !
Was it worth it ?

Well, despite the grumbling and both of us wanting to quit several times, the answer is yeeeeees 😀

Catch the Hogwarts Express, my loves, and if ever you go to London in search of Harry Potter land, here, have a hint:

a) It’s the TRAIN platform 9, not the Eurostar platform 9,
b) and Harry Potter caught a TRAIN to Hogwarts, not a TUBE.