Mads and Marg's Excellent Adventures

A Highland Tour

2010-11-07T10:01:00.001-08:00

Okay so I'm a big liar - I never spent those sunny beach days writing blog entries, but if you'd been there, you wouldn't have either.

But I stayed up last night to tell you about Scotland.

There are some places in the world that hold a certain mysticism for me. I've read about the Scottish highlands, stuff of fancy and folklore, and I have this picture in my mind blurred by my imagination of what I'd find there. Somewhere at the edges was a kilt-wearing, sword-wielding man on a black steed, but at the very heart of it were wild moors and poet-inspiring heather.

Since Ella has always dreamt of marrying a Scotsman, sword-wielding or otherwise, and I'd just plain dreamt, as travel companions we suited each other very nicely. After purchasing a road map of Scotland we took to the Lowestoft library and spent an afternoon poring over guides and mapping our route. Or at least Ella did. First of all I flipped through the newspapers and then I flipped through the books with pictures of beaches, imagining sun-drenched days and window-wide-open warm nights and then I noisily ate a packet of tic tacs before suggesting we go to the beach or some pretence of being warm because I can't concentrate when I'm cold. As travel companions we suited each other very nicely because by the time that afternoon was over, Ella had planned the whole thing.

As to the nightly accommodation, camping was brazenly put forward but after some serious consideration we decided that erecting tents in the rain might not be as fun as the scouts advertise. Ella's proposal to hire a Wicked Van took care of both our sleeping and travel arrangements, since the van is outfitted with everything one needs for sleeping and creating rudimentary cuisine.

We collected our Doctor Who-themed vehicle from the Dundee train station car park (all the vans are themed in some way, so we were hoping for something cool – since Sunday Night Dinners at the Holmes' often ends with a Doctor Who viewing this was rather appropriate) and after a quick lesson from Glynn on which button does what we were off. Initially there was some minor confusion about road signs, and there was some fuzzy incident involving our van being driven down a pedestrian-only strip.

We travelled west along the A82 to the Weeping Glen (or something of the like)and in the evening light, passing by mountains and riding the water's edge, I could imagine terrible men acting out terrible deeds but since my main concern was whether we should pay more for a loch view, this was a mere passing thought.

Invercoe Caravan and Camping Park was perhaps the fanciest place we bedded down for, unlike the rest, it boasted an undercover area for meal preparation – oh, such a simple thing, an Australian might think. Every town in our country has a park with a sandwich-making shelter, even the towns not worth visiting, even the bloody towns people don't visit. We build a park, someone sticks a roofed building of some variety on it. Scotland builds a park, and maybe someone remembers to signpost it.

We were up before the dawn had cracked craving a cooked breakfast. I'm not sure if our eagerness was at fault, or if the damned cooker was plain damned, but what occurred next was of an extremely alarming nature.

There are some things I know with absolute certainty, one of which is that gas bottles aren't supposed to catch on fire – when faced with a flaming bottle and the real prospect of our tardis becoming airborne, I'm afraid neither of us showed any real talent for fire fighting. It was rather fortunate that two elderly campers swooped to our rescue to save us from probable bankruptcy and singed eyelashes.

The rain fell in earnest (and I do mean this, I'm not just using the word willy nilly; it couldn't have been more earnest in its pursuit to go to ground) as we drove on to Fort William, an uninspiring place that only improved when we found a camping store to replace our deceased cooker. With such poor weather we saw little point in climbing Ben Nevis since visibility was zilch. We were advised by a keen tourist centre attendant to walk on to Shean Falls instead. The rain had lost its urgency, which was most pleasing since we were passing through Harry Potter Quidditch Match Country (honest, the guide book said so). It was a get-your-shoes-muddy route up along a river that broke out into a series of small falls, and after half an hour of steady walking the path rounded a corner in to a large clearing hemmed on either side by walls of rock and trees, and at the far end a reward for our persistence: a grand rushing waterfall. The huddle of tents near the path told us we weren't the first to come this way, but we shared the clearing with just one other walking couple. A wire suspension bridge stood in the way of the falls but that, and the mad mud scramble at the other side, didn't stop us from getting close enough to see the water spitting.

The ferry to Skye from Mallaig was brief – enough time for the sun to fall beyond the sea – and then we were at the foot of the Cuillin Mountains setting up base at the Sligachan Campsite. I'd heard about midges since arriving in the UK. People would mention them from time to time but I always thought they were something that could be fixed with swatting, not so. They're like vegemite on toast, they stick to your skin like they belong there. I didn't have midges in my hair, I had hair in my midges.

It was my birthday the next day and we woke to rain, hard heaviness that pushed us on to Portree where the sky cleared long enough for a loch side breakfast of porridge with freshly-picked blackberries. Despite the day's marked importance, it rained for the rest of it so we cleared Skye, tripped through Hamish Macbeth's Plonkton and made camp at Lochcorron. I use camp loosely since we spent the night in a car park overlooking the loch. We had the most delicious birthday feast at the local pub: pan-seared fish in a rich butter sauce and the stickiest sticky toffee pudding drowned in custard. Then we cleaned our teeth in the bathroom and snuck across the road for bed.

In dawn's light we drove the famous Applecross way, through the mountain cattle pass to snake our way northwards up the coast. We had lunch at Big Sand, a gorgeous stretch of rose-gold, where a seal stopped by to say hello. Minor hitch when the car window mechanism failed but some huffing and puffing worked where the manual failed. That night we made camp just out of Ulapool at Ardmere. I've always considered the art of skimming a boy's right, but that night on the rocky beach I was holding a lucky hand. Not two skims, not three or four or even five, but that special seven. It was marvellous: I raised an arm, soft weight cradled in my palm, then a quick twist and release, and there it goes, its dark shade just visible in the twilight tripping across the ocean's skin. Then, as it tends to do, it began to rain and we retreated to our sanctuary and pulled out our books and head torches. I'm indulging in a Bryson fest and am nearly done with A Short History of Nearly Everything: an excellent read but it's turning me into a paranoid mess. Did you know how overdue we are for an apocolypse?

Out driving the roads the next day, we came across a full car park and felt compelled to stop and see what all the fuss was about. The fuss was Stac Pollac: a mountain with the most satisfying views I could ever hope to see, every way you turn is a rush for the eyes. Ella powered up while I dawdled, camera in one hand - see, this was a big ben and my thinking was that the slower I walked the more chance a big gush of wind would come pass and knock the top off, shortening my climb. We stood there, just looking out across the land, and I don't think Mounty Lofty will ever be satisfying again.

Our guide book assured us there was a campsite at a small place called Sheigra, which looked ideally situated on the map, so we drove till dusk and till the road came to a gate with a sign saying to please put 4 pound in the honesty box. Our muddied track led out to a small cove that we shared with one other campervan, some soggy sheep and the circling sea birds. We climbed the rocky peaks and sat on the top of the world watching the birds until they weren't there to watch any more, then we climbed down to cook dinner under the back bonnet as the rain did its best to get us wet.

The rain stayed overnight and travelled with us the next day as we drove to the top of Scotland, through Durness where we stopped briefly to take in the waters of Smoo Cave – and the most ferocious waterfall I've ever seen and while I may not have seen many in my lifetime, I don't think I'll ever see one like this again – across to the badly named Tongue where we veered right down the long road to Invernesss. Every so often the rain would fade and I could wind the window down to take in the colours of the earth and heather and wild moss and lock them up tight in my memory so that I'll dream about them when I find myself home again.

Out of Inverness we swung east and toured the Black Isle. A romp in Fairy's Glen stretched our legs and then it was back in our van to search for another nighttime resting spot. We found one just out of Inverness at Bunchrew, the best camping spot we encountered for the proprietor told us we could drive anywhere we liked and we did – to the showers, the washing area, the laundromat, back to the bathrooms. We drove muddy circles into that grass.

We spent our last proper morning searching for Nessy before turning to easier finds: we drove south in the direction of Fort William and then swung round specifically to visit the house in Monarch of the Glen, which we saw distantly across the loch. I don't know why we feel compelled to visit such places when they inevitably lack the magic they have on screen. Our last night we stayed at Blair Athol Campsite, whose list of rules spans two pages. We strolled the Red Squirrel Walk and spied a recluse foraging for dinner. Our route took us past Blair Athol Castle, where we dawdled and sighed as the sun lit up behind. The sorry state of our vegetables meant dinner at the pub across the road: comfort soup with warm buttered bread, and a goodnight, sleep tight serving of sticky toffee pudding.

The elusive sun woke us up the following morning and stayed around while we hightailed it back to Dundee to give back our Tardis to Glen. No kilt-wearing, sword-wielding men, but wild moors and inspired heather, and all the world's rain – oh yes.

Two Ladies in London

2010-10-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

It had been eight months to the day that I'd last seen Ella – and Adelaide in fact – so you can imagine my dancing feet the day I met with her in London.

We had an empty Islington apartment at our disposal for a week, and we were determined to see all the big city had to offer (yes, I had visited a fortnight earlier but, trust me, it's not the same when you have a fellow explorer). Our first night we spent catching up on those odd 240 days while playing a mean game of scrabble ( the use of an online dictionary meant quite a few words would not be snuff enough for a true scrabble connoisseur but it did mean we finished the game with no letters spare).

It was decided that a picnic in Hyde Park was in order so we met with Ella's Melbourne friends and spent more than a few hours sprawled on the lawns eating and squirrel watching. The first animal sighting drew enthusiastic shouts from the picnic-rug crowd before it was noted that the animal in question was a rather overweight rat-variety rodent. I can't pronounce it a rat with any real surety as none of us agreed on the object in its mouth - apple, bread, or twig. Our sightings were so varied, we may not have seen anything alive at all. Anyway more exciting perhaps was the romantic lunch on the neighbouring hill: gentlemen had arrived with rug, champagne bottle and picnic lunch in wicker basket, and was dashingly dressed in a buttoned up white shirt.

Since we humans have to eat frequently, we met up with our picnic companions at an African restaurant in Brixton, where E and I enjoyed the most satisfying spicy meat with lemon pancake. We actually got to eat with our hands and I'm still not sure if that concept was more fun than the meal. I can't convey the magic of the food in great detail because every time I try to imagine what it was like to roll a piece of meat in pancake my mouth starts to salivate. We danced the night over at Hootenanny's – a live music venue that was, to say the least, extremely cool.

Since vintage-clothes window shopping tends to brighten moods and real shopping was out of the question, we bussed our way to Brick Lane and spent the afternoon imagining what our lives would be like if we wore that dress with that hat and those shoes, and when these imaginings stopped to let hunger in we realised what the time was and made a mad dash to Royal Albert Hall because we had a date at the Proms. A deliciously nice evening even if we did have to lean over at ninety degree angles to catch glimpses of the orchestra. At least we had a wonderful view of the ceiling and the very appealing, if highly unusual, white pie-shaped objects floating in the sky. If I ever go back, I'll buy a standing ticket, which, though the name suggests otherwise, doesn't actually mean you have to stand for the duration of the evening. In fact, one can spend the whole evening on one's back with a pillow, like the fortunate gentlemen in the tweed coat.

Our outing to Brighton was dampened by poor weather (hard rain and figure reshaping winds) but we managed a beach stroll and were able to fit in some free deckchair lounging on the pier before the sun gave up completely and went home. I located a secondhand book shop and for 2 pound scored a beaten up copy of Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue and a homemade bookmark: a 1994 receipt for a kettle. Since we were in a beach-y frame of mind we finished the day with nothing-can-beat-us fish and chips at the marina.

No trip to London is complete without a visit to those grand buildings of free admission. We set about tackling the National History Museum, and spent more than enough time in the children's area playing their games. You'll be glad to note that my spacial awareness is better than that of a four year old. We tracked down Jane Austen's portrait – a tiny weeny sketch of disappointment – were satisfied with Charlotte Bronte and Edith Wharton, and found much to amuse ourselves with the royal family's ancestors and their poor taste in trousers.

If I were to give up my ordinary day-to-day life and move to a castle, I would relocate to Eltham Palace, even if the train ride did seem overly long and then there was the matter of walking up a hill. A great deal of my wish to live here is to do with the palace's Art Deco stylings and my potential boudoir with its curved ceilings and gold-tiled bathroom walls - part of it is to do with the previous owners, Ginny and Steve, who owned a pet lemur and had tea parties on the lawn, but a smaller though equally important part is that anyone who visited me would have to wear blue plastic bags on their feet (as we did) and I think I'd enjoy my dressed up guests with bag-covered shoes.

When I was a little girl I read books about other little girls who went to Sadler Wells, a famous ballet school that churned out the most marvellous dancers the world had ever seen (this was a world that only really cared about ballet and not much else). What I didn't know was that this particular place was in fact real and that it was just down the street from where we were staying.

I didn't read books about shoes but that doesn't mean my love for them is any less great than for those ballet stories, so it was with much delight when I spied a poster for a musical dance production titled Shoes being performed at the Wells and that tickets were a mere ten pound. Even better, Kate Miller-Heidke was singing, and nothing was keeping Ella and me from attending. A night of delights for less than a price of a book is worth some punctuation marks at the very least!!

After much research we discovered that the only way to get into Westminster Abby without parting with money was to attend Evensong. We were five minutes late and it's rather hard to stop you shoe's tap from echoing about even when you're tiptoeing. Signs told us that under no circumstance were we allowed to take photographs but it really didn't matter as the singing was more special than the interiors and that couldn't be captured by photography - I do worry though that my memory isn't a worthy recorder.

Our last day was spent at Greenwich where Ella was determined to have her picture taken on the Meridian Line since her favourite Doctor Who character has stood on the very spot. Such fierce determination has nothing on a hundred excited camera-carrying Japanese tourists and with a sad look E turned away from the snaking queue and headed towards the exit. The exit takes you back inside the building where the line is marked in brass on the floor and so I pointed out to Ella that despite the fury of No Photographs signs this was a perfect opportunity for her portrait, and since I didn't mind disobeying rules in the slightest, I snapped.

The final page was high tea in Covent Garden – two girls and a three-tiered tray of cakes. Not a crumb was spared.

A prologue

2010-09-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

Now don't get too excited - this isn't a blog, merely a note to let you know I haven't abandoned my duty. I'm just moving rather slowly these days. I blame it on the weather. The good news is that Ella and I are heading for Morocco, land of SUN, and after a mad stint in Marrakech we have a date with a beach for one full week. That's right, plenty of time to get my head around our recent activities and report back all that's happened this past month. I will leave you with this tidbit: we almost blew up our car.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A Free Weekend

2010-09-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

After a few days of being back in the real world I decided it was time to reacquaint myself with London. Fadia and John's son, Fred, has an apartment just off Liverpool St Station and right near where Jack the Ripper took his first victim, and since Fred was holidaying for the weekend I was offered the key.

With my Youth Rail Card I managed to procure a first class ticket for twenty pence more than a general seat, which meant I could stretch my legs as far as they would go, which isn't very far but it's nice when nothing obstructs them.

I had in mind a holiday of free activities and was determined to see how far I could take this. Of course, since I'd planned to see Dirty Dancing on the West End, this didn't start till the weekend: I thoroughly enjoyed it but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the biggest movie fans as there is better to see.

Saturday morning I made my way to the Portobello Markets with every other tourist who had a copy of Timeout's When in London (it's not really called that but you get the gist). Two miles of shuffling near did me in – and only a almond croissant could revive me – not free, I know, but at one pound you can't go wrong. I did see some shiny silver spoons but they were four lanes of bodies to the left and there was no going near if I wanted to get out alive.

I toured the Tate Modern in the afternoon (discovered under free activities in my When in London), found a lot to enjoy, a lot to puzzle over, and a space on the wall to hang my stick figures.

Sunday I popped over to the Spittlefield Markets since they were just round the corner and decided that the days of unearthing a treasure for a bargain seem to be long gone since the prices there were more hefty than in the neighbouring shops.

The British Museum was next on my list, a place too big and full with artefacts to attempt in one day so I set about tackling the ground floor. Two hours later I was exhausted so made a note to come back one day and attempt the left wing of the second floor, and moved on. I'd read about the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park and decided to walk in that direction but was rather disappointed with the current display. Half the photographs were stuck to the walls with sticky-tape; I've progressed beyond sticky-tape when decorating walls so I really feel that galleries should too.

Monday I wound up at Victoria Bus Station where I bought a ticket to Cambridge. This sounds quite spur of the moment but it was always part of the plan.

I arrived in Cambridge just as the rain did and hid under my umbrella while it barrelled down causing the relocation of many ants. I was staying in Jesus College but as I knew only that it was within the town's borders I made for the tourist information centre to see what I could unearth. As a rule, tourist centres are the most useful places for the new kid in town, and it's where I go first, but like with everything else here, it was set up to relieve you of your money. Sixty pence later I had a map and vague directions to the college and a supermarket, where I stopped for dinner supplies. I also ducked into an Oxfam shop and came out with a Harry Potter – the rain had let up briefly but the weather looked rather dicey so it was likely I'd be staying in for the night and frankly Harry never fails to entertain.

Jesus College sits off Jesus Lane, behind a red brick wall of defence. I called in at the porter's lodge to collect my key and ducked in and out of two courtyards to my room. Just before going inside, the skies cleared of cloud and the sun threw a bewitching light on the grounds making me want to dump my stuff as quickly as possible to explore. In my haste I locked my keys inside so had to shuffle back to the lodge in hope that they had a spare.

By the time I'd done a circuit of the college the rain was back in fury so I retreated to my room and by morning was determined that what I needed was to live in a place like this, either that or in a Harry Potter-type school.

The weather was mostly agreeable in the sense that it declined to rain. Since I had no intention of parting with money to take a tour, I removed the route map from the 20-pound-per-person bus tour pamphlet and set out on foot.

Cambridge is a town full with bikes, to the point that there are signs everywhere warning cyclists that they may not park their bikes in that particular spot. Since bicycles don't tend to be put in the eye-sore category I can only deduce that when students are allowed to leave the bicycles in places they do so in such great numbers to obstruct access.

My favourite college is Trinity because they let me wander around the grounds for free, not on the grass mind you, but since everywhere else is charging an access fee I didn't mind sticking to the paths in the slightest. I delighted in doing so and took not one but three turns around the lawns.

Even the Botanical Gardens charged an entry fee of four pounds, money I refused to part with even though I trekked halfway around the earth to get there. I made my displeasure known, eyeing the information board with distaste, and shunning the ticket girl, and then decided to poke my head in people's front yards and view their flowers since I wouldn't have to hand over any money to do so.

This took me up till 4 when I boarded the train back to Lowestoft. My determination to be stingy mostly defeated by pesky little necessities like transport, food and reading material.

p.s. Only a week until I meet up with Ella!

p.p.s. I know this is late coming, and I've since met up with Ella so I have some adventures to share with you but it'll have to wait a week because we're heading up to the Scottish highlands where such things as wireless Internet don't reach.

xxx

The Last Cinderella Days

2010-08-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

On Tour

On the notice board in the passage between kitchen and servery is a Mountain Goat brochure with a fifty per cent staff discount sticker. I'm a sucker for discounts and I've had a hankering to see some country beyond Bowness; each room in the hotel is named for a lake and I've been wanting to meet them for a while.

Mike picked me up at 9.25 and, together with 12 tourists from China and a lovely Indian couple, we went exploring. I don't mean to imply the Chinese travellers weren't lovely but since none of them took my photo (the scale to which I measure loveliness) I never had the opportunity to find out. We drove past the largest lake in England, Lake Windermere, which I see daily from the hotel windows and where I have on occasion dipped my toes. Don't be too impressed for lakes in England aren't terribly big to begin with. Next was Rydal (rather small but ideal for swimming, or so I've been told by fellow staff) before we set our sights on Brotherswater (named for two brothers who had the misfortune to drown there some 300 years ago) and Ullswater (which has the worst bathroom in the hotel to clean).

We stopped on Chestnut Hill to see the 4000-year old Castlerigg Stone Circle, its significance lost eons ago but still worthy of daily troupes of visitors - rather impressive for some misshapen rocks.

Guide Mike offered tidbits of local gossip, most of which I lost somewhere after Derwent Water and before Thirlmire, but at the time I was thoroughly entertained and so sure of remembering it all so I could entertain others that I didn't bother to note them down. I'm afraid you'll actually have to trek out to the Lakes and take the tour with Mike.

We had our lunch hour in Kewsick (and had to be back at the bus at 12.45 sharp or would be left behind) and the rain soon followed. It was market day and I found a jar of lemon curd (lemon curd with natural yoghurt is my current staple) to go in my backpack. Part of the tour was a boat ride around Derwent so we piled on board and all made for the cabin to seek shelter from the wet. We stopped along the way to pick up walkers and deposit them further along the shore. Dressed in wet-weather gear, they collectively sneered at our cosy cabin and opted for the seats outside instead, something I was exceedingly grateful for as I had little desire to share my dry seat with a wet walker.

The afternoon ended with a drive through a mountain pass so steep and the road so narrow, that our driver needed to have a break to relax his nerves. Most fun had all day, especially when a stupid sheep decided to wander onto the road causing a traffic jam. I alighted the bus determined to go on another tour, partly to discover why the company had chosen goats as its preferred animal when the countryside is wool-packed with sheep.

On Tour Again

I'd convinced Monika, my Czech friend with a rather limited understanding of English, of the merits of Mountain Goat tours, so yesterday we set off to the Yorkshire Dales. It's hard enough persuading Monika that dogs 'woof' (and in fact I haven't managed this; I can't even translate the Czech version of dogs barking into something you'd understand) so when our bus driver runs off on linguistic tangents – do you know where the words 'junk' and 'crackpot' come from? Because I now do - translating back to her becomes a far more complex journey than mere sight-seeing.

I love the Dales with their wild moors and a sun that shines far longer than it does in the Lakes, and even more I love the oddities we come across like the buttertubes, rock formations twenty-five meters deep where long-ago farmers stored their butter after returning from markets. Can you imagine if they did that today? I certainly wouldn't be going to the supermarket to pay for butter.

I also discovered rockeries, mostly because the bus driver told Monika and I that we had to get off the bus rather than an instinctive urge on my part to see what was behind the wall, but I'm glad I did. I'm assuming you already know what these are so I won't bother explaining - but they were new to me.

The day ended with a visit to the cheese factory in Swaledale where Monika and I sampled all twenty cheeses and ended up buying ice cream instead, which might be of interest to those people who worry about things like sampling and the effect on consumer spending.

A Walk in the Countryside

It's hard seeing beyond the exhaustion of split shifts but I put on my walking shoes the other day and hopped on a bus to Grasmere – the village, not the lake - a place I've become almost familiar with. I ate lunch in the small square opposite the bookshop where I bought a copy of Bluestockings, a curious account of the first women to attend university.

It's a nice feeling, pack low on your back, seeing other walkers crisscrossing farmers' fields ahead of you, walking in twos or threes, or, like me, going solo. You walk across a few paddocks alongside a thin stream, and all around you are pairs of black and white lambs. Then begins a rather mild climb that brings you to a small waterfall and the entrance to the tarn, a stretch of clear water that on a sunny day might have prompted further scrutiny but today with the grey skies beginning to leak warranted no more than a passing glance and a quick snap as I scurried across to the other side. I had more important things on my mind, like retreat.

On my way back, jumping from stone to stone to avoid the mud (such bothersome stuff), six jets flew overhead – and, since I'd been thinking about Meg Rosoff's How I live Now – an excellent wartime story set in the UK – it made me think what it would be like if those jets, rather than bringing curiosity, brought fear. As luck had it, there were some large bushes to my left so had I been wandering about the country side in wartime I could have dived headfirst into their muddy depths and out of sight – the problem with walking alone is that my mind has too much spare time.

A Bite in the Apple

It was the teaspoons that did it.

We got a new set the other day, causing great excitement among the staff. Such explanations as have you seen them? Well, I never. How shiny – they're really much nicer than the old ones could be heard if you were walking past the kitchen. It was the same with the new sponges the week before, and the glass cloths before that.

I couldn't help but get caught up in the fervor. It was when my pen started to note their existence in my diary that I knew it was time to move on. There are greater things in life than new spoons, no matter how shiny they might be - and by gosh, they really were ever so shiny.

My final evening in the Lakes I went with Matt and Simon, and Kathy and Small Jane to Grasmere for a last walk up the Lion and the Lamb, so called because at some point in time a person in the village declared if you squint this way and that it looks like a great lion resting atop a lamb.

It's a steep climb and if you happen to meet a walker descending, there's a moment of confusion as one wonders how to navigate around the other. Since there's no rule book about such happenings I've decided that lone walkers get right of way and have been doing my best to educate the Lakes District's ramblers.

At the top we sat on the Lion (the Lamb's rather small and doesn't offer as good views), looking out at the three lakes of Grasmere, Windermere and Coniston, and predictably it began to rain, water whispers that barely dampened our shoulders but still brought out irritated grumblings and rain coats.

A rather awful pub meal in Windermere completed the day and I returned to Lindeth Fell for the last time.

I'm thrilled about the prospect of being on the move again – I meet with Ella in just under twenty days and we've Scotland in our sights – but, as is the way, it's sad leaving people behind. I've been here just over two months, a bite in the apple, but given the friendships I've made it feels like far longer.

My Cinderella clothes are packed away, I've farewelled the cleaning cupboard and closed the laundry door, glanced once more at the silver spoons and now I'm done and it's time to catch the train back to Lowestoft where I'll be practising the art of sleeping in for a week or two.

The Rainy Season

2010-07-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've got lots to say so prepare for a few installments.

Part One

There's a run in the sky above the Lakes District, not unlike the one fraying a hole in my stockings, and it's been leaking water for days. I don't think the English should be allowed to declare a season summer just because the rest of us do.

The leakiest day came when Jayne, my restaurant manager, and I decided to take on The Old Man of Coniston, a sky-high Fell (you get yelled at if you say hill) that you can see from the dining room window, and one I've lost many moments contemplating (fell gazing is an acceptable waste of time, whereas leaning against walls is largely frowned upon). Locals refer to it as Coniston Old Man and it's the highest in the Furness Fells - and, after some quick Googling, the 12th most prominent mountain in England.

Jayne drove us there in her yellow convertible, whipping about the skinny roads like we were chasing the lost sun. If you live in the Lakes District, it is your right as a citizen to own a convertible, without one you are like a Maddy with no book.

I had new waterproof walking shoes and was tied up tight in my pink and grey raincoat (the boys say this raincoat is a deterrent to possible liftgivers when we trek home up the hill from gym as it makes me look like a person who wants to walk). Honey and jam sandwiches neatly wrapped up next to my banana sat at the bottom of my backpack, camera on top.

We parked in the village of Coniston, and began to climb a road so steep I was almost on my knees. Ten minutes later the road flattened and we took a turn leading up to a car park where the sensible walkers bring their cars. It began to rain - light stuff that wet my knees through my pants and made me wish I’d worn shorts.

C-O-M was some way off and water was already puddling on the wide track. A few other walkers were visible in the distance and the odd sheep grazed at ferns. After a steep row of steps the track seemed to vanish, and Jayne, long legs striding to the left, announced she could see the path further up. Some mad scrambling followed and we came across forgotten rail tracks tumbling over the cliff’s edge. We scurried back down the hill, warning a group of walkers off Jayne’s path and righted our course. C-O-M is covered in slate, and there’s a mine still in operation, so much of the walk was spent avoiding injury by sharp rock. Two hours in we came to a lake, a gorgeous pool of water hiding in the hill, and I could only wonder at finding it on a hot summer's day.

It took thirty minutes longer to climb to the top, where a pile of stones awaited us, and with each minute we lost another snippet of visibility. The ladder in the sky widened an inch more and the water almost washed Jayne and I down the mountain. I was wetter than if I'd had a bath. At the top is a tree of stones that grows taller with the arrival of each fell conqueror, and my stone, chosen near the start of our walk, went on top. I think the wind blew it right off again, but somewhere up there in the clouds is a piece of my walk.

The Art of Housekeeping

2010-07-07T03:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't left the blogosphere, but I'd understand if you were beginning to wonder of my whereabouts. I've begun this many times, at the worst moments – and this is probably one I'll regret tomorrow. I've just finished my evening shift. It's past eleven and I'm tired yet wide-eyed, and my feet are too sore for sleep. I work two shifts a day and all my spare time is scheduled to the minute.

(Oh, dammit, it's already another day, so I fear this will seem disjointed and lacking in proper information but if I don't send this now, you'll never get it.)

When I left my brother gave me Dr Seuss' Oh, The Places You'll Go! that has the lines: All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone will be something you'll be quite a lot.

And that's been me quite frequently. When I first arrived in Bowness I felt like that last kid at the school gate waiting to be picked up. Then I met Matt and Simon, two 19-year-old kids from Zimbabwe, whom I want to bring home with me, and now I don't feel alone at all.

I'm living in a pipsqueak room in a tiny four-room cottage, steps away from Lindeth Fell Country House Hotel, my new place of employment. Down the drive and across the road is a field where three ponies are kept and beyond is Windermere Lake. Sometimes when I walk home from Bowness, the sun sits in that perfect spot, and my corner of the world lights up and I could stand face upturned to the warm air for ever.

Bowness-on-Windermere is 2km away and whenever I walk there I encounter tourists; there seem to be more hotels than homes, and every hour ferry boats shuttle the travellers around the lake.

I've been spending my days learning the art of housekeeping. Want your pillow plumped? I'm your girl. Towels draped perfectly over the bathroom rails? Just call my name. Bed turned down for the night? My name's in the dictionary definition. I'm less able with glassware but I don't want to peak too soon.

The other part of my day is spent practising dining room etiquette, which provides countless opportunities to do stupid things in front of strangers. I'll save these moments for another blog but I'm keeping a log in my brain. I've been asked out to afternoon tea by no less than three elderly Irish gentlemen so if you're keen for a date, Ireland's not a bad bet.

In all, I've had six days off – and I've been exploring, map in hand, flag of Maddy ready to mark new territory. I went walking in Beatrix Potter country, freely trespassing farmers' fields and getting acquainted with the local farm life. Signs ask if I can please shut the gate – gate catches here are remarkable specimens: clever, functional and aesthetically pleasing designs where Australian catches are rather boring in their sameness – which irks just a little because if nothing else Enid taught me the importance of closing a gate.

I've visited Ambleside and Grasmere, once home to William Wordsworth, and walked the Coffin route that connects them both. I've been to Keswick and Kendal and today I'll cross off Barrow on the maps I've pinned to my walls.

I have more, so much more, to say – so I'll try again soon. We have rainy days ahead, so I'll have time to update you on the adventures.

Love to you all. I hit the six-month mark a few days ago.

xxx

Just Call Me Cinderella

2010-06-08T05:37:00.001-07:00

I caught the bus to London and lost my lucky Japanese coin, won in a game of rock, scissors, paper in Barcelona. An accident on the motorway caused us to detour and we arrived at Victoria Coach Station an hour and a half late – I still had eight hours until my next trip.

It bordered on hot and Londoners wore as little as socially acceptable; I had on jeans and boots and felt like I'd turned up to the party overdressed, some summer clothes shopping was deemed necessary.

The overnight bus ride wasn't awful, and insomniacs would have enjoyed themselves. The sun woke at 3.30 am and there was something special about sharing it with only the driver – seeing as all the other passengers were able to find that position which allowed sleep.

Joy – Dad's sister's husband's sister; my cousin's aunt; my aunt's sister-in-law; or my mum's husband's sister's sister-in-law – met me at the Dundee bus station and took me to her home, Balfour farm. I spent the afternoon catching up on sleep so my stay officially began the next day.

Balfour Farm is a lovely place to stay, a big old house with hide-away rooms you discover days after you've arrived. Scotland is awash with green, and Joy and Sandy's garden is a marvellous place to wander. Sometimes their dog Meg would lead me down through the twisting avenue of trees out back to where the Christmas trees grow. No longer a working farm, their land is leased to a Christmas tree company and if you count them, you'll find 800 thousand trees in regimental lines.

I haven't yet managed to see the Loch Ness Monster or any Scottish monster at all. I have been in the wrong part of Scotland, but that hasn't stopped my efforts and I do feel that had there been a monster to be seen, he would have flown from the depths of the Loch and made a trip to Balfour farm, so I must deduce that there is no such monster to be found. For the record I've spied countless rabbits, one red squirrel, two hare, two deer and various Scottish locals. Joy says deer snack on the Christmas trees but Meg and I only saw one, which ran away to the snapping of Meg's teeth.

I've had a car at my disposal and I'm reminded of when I first got my license and that overwhelming sense of independence. Of course there's independence in travelling solo but it's restricted in that I could only ever go places where my feet or public transport would take me, and it's not like I could say to the bus driver, excuse me, do you mind taking the next right because it looks awfully pretty down there and my map says there might be a castle, or hey, we just passed an entire field of baby bunnies, can we turn around so I can go and play with them (which would have been a complete waste of time because as it turns out baby bunnies don't want to play with Maddy).

In my borrowed car I visited the ruins of Edzel Castle, where there is still a winding stone staircase you can climb three storeys high and gardens just as they once were. I went to the much lauded blue door found beyond the town of Edzel, which opens up on to a sigh-worthy walk along a river where the salmon swim.

A few miles from Balfour farm sit two Iron Age forts on neighbouring hill tops. I climbed both, the air so thick with wind I walked with heavy feet in fear of being blown away. I could see further than the eye's spectrum, the sprawl of the land beyond the distant bens clear in my imagination.

A young couple, friends of Joy and Sandy's daughter, came to stay for a few nights and so we went bike riding, minus Sandy, Saturday morning. I dimly recall relaying to you the hills I came across in Suffolk, mere roughs in the roads compared to the mountains we climbed. I honestly thought I was going to fall in to a ditch, dead of exhaustion. Thankfully, Maree's back wheel was highly susceptible to punctures so I got a few rest breaks.

Later that week I went in search of J.M Barrie's hometown and found his grave; it's a nice plot with a gorgeous view of the town and surrounding countryside. I doubt he appreciates it but I imagine the hoards of visitors do. J.M stands for James Matthew; I wonder if you knew that. I didn't.

Another time I drove through Montrose and up the coast to Dunnottar Castle. Its ruins sit on a cliff's edge, bordered on either side by coves. Mary Queen of Scotts and King Charles II are marked down as visitors. You walk a thin path dipping down to almost sea level and then climb the stairs to the castle's entrance. The size is astonishing; an ambitious build, parts carved into the land's rock. It's the perfect place to explore on a summer's day, and with so many nooks I can't help but want to play hide and seek – a drawback of a solo traveller; I could hide but there wouldn't be anyone to find me and I think I'd get hungry and I wouldn't want to miss out on Joy's stewed rhubarb.

My last day in Scotland came rather suddenly and I spent it at a garden show in Edinburgh with Joy, an exceptionally fun afternoon of flower browsing.

Another overnight bus ride and I'm back in Lowestoft, but only for a very short time. I leave tomorrow for Bowness-on Windermere in the Lakes District where I've got myself a job as a general assistant at Lindeth Fell County House Hotel. So I'll be in Beatrix Potter and Swallows and Amazons country for a while cleaning rooms and waitressing. Just call me Cinderella.

p.s. I did try to put up some photos but the application refuses to behave.

BECCLES: 3 MILES

2010-05-23T05:45:00.000-07:00

The sun turned up unexpectedly on Wednesday so I set out on John's bike with adventure in mind. Beccles, a quaint town I've seen three times from the window of a bus, is nine miles from Lowestoft, and even though I didn't say it aloud, that was where I wanted to go. My explorer's kit: two maps, one compass, one banana, two chocolate bars (thoughtfully provided by Fadia), one fully-charged camera, one bottle of water, sunscreen and a phone in case of disaster.

First glance at map occurred half an hour into journey. Second glance – five minutes after first glance. This is when the first stranger, an RAA English equivalent, approached with an offer of aid. I'd been spotted both times, nose in map, so he thought he'd better stop before he saw me for a third time, puzzled on another corner. He turned me around and said if I went right I couldn't go wrong.

The lanes here are narrow, wide enough for one car or a wandering bicycle. I saw horses first, fields of them and they looked at me as if to say, isn't it a nice day for a ride. If I don't return home, it's because I've been gaoled for horse theft. I briefly considered a career on a horse farm but that would have been the Maddy who got those riding lessons as a child.

I saw birds, emerald-necked pheasants fleeing from me, one unidentified rodent on an errand and a Peter Rabbit, activities unknown, its ears peaking over the hedge row.

I could smell the blossom trees arching above and the wild flowers growing in the ditch between road and field, mood-brightening whiffs that I wish I could pocket and take home with me. John tells me we are in the flattest part of England but my roads would dip and rise in time to the turn of my wheels. At one point, coming over a hill, I arrived at the motorway with its roaring cars, so I chose a bypass instead that took me over a farmer's bumpy field. I stopped under the lone tree with its shaded log and feasted on my banana. I checked the map, as much for appearance's sake as locating my position because by this time my internal compass had shut down. Back on the bike I kept encountering signs heralding, BECCLES 3 MILES, then half an hour later I'd see another BECCLES 3 MILES. Once I came across a BECCLES 4 MILES, horrid moment, and I began to imagine an ever-changing landscape where towns shifted at whim and cyclists roamed endlessly, lost in a rich green wonderland. All very nice but one must eventually eat.

I did find Beccles, and food, some three hours after I'd set out, so chained John's bike to a seat, cast an eye around to see if there were any potential bike thieves about, and set out to explore by foot. Beccles, though rather small, has, at least, six charity shops – one specifically for cats, which I found (childishly) funny but I'm sure the cats appreciate the effort. I bought a helmet for 2 pound. These aren't a legal requirement here, and it's a delicious feeling riding about with your head free, but my road safety education has obviously left its mark.

As much as I'd enjoyed the indirect ride to Beccles, I didn't fancy riding for another three hours so I pulled my map out again and waited for a local to approach me. This time my rescuer was a man gardening his plot. He gave me three names: Ellough, Hulvar, and Mutford. It so happened that I'd passed through all these places on my way, just not in the right order. Getting back took considerably less time but here ends Dad's dream of his daughter becoming a professional cyclist: a) I'd never complete the course because I'd get lost b) I'd want to stop and get something to eat c) I dislike hills immensely and d) probably most telling, I couldn't sit on a bike the next day.

We were having a sunny streak so at John's suggestion, and Dad's recommendation, the next afternoon I caught the bus to Southwold, a small village on the coast. We took roads so thin the bus sat snug on either side and every so often we'd clip the hedges or prune the trees and leaves would fall in through the open windows to carpet the bus floor and the inside of my handbag. Southwold is a very agreeable town, a place where the clocks tick more slowly, and if you fancied, you could dawdle across the road or stop for a chat in the middle: I've already picked out the cottage I'd like to move in to. The beach is lined with cheery-coloured huts that have bizarre names like Doris, the Goddess of the Wind.

John tells me these sell for forty thousand so I think I'll pass on the wind goddess and make do with the sun and sand.

I found a wonderful antique and collectibles shed behind the high street, but time constraints prevented me from lingering and stopped any rash purchases of tea sets or picnic hampers or 1930s ball gowns (I might have to go back).

Yesterday my adventuring continued, this time with John and Fadia. We drove past Southwold to a small village, Westleton, with a curious bookshop where you're advised to bang the tin with a stick if you want service. We wandered on to the village green and sat with other Saturday afternoon visitors, all of whom were feeding the ducks bread – and fresh bread too! Not even stale bread, Fadia exclaimed – much to the dismay of the sign that read, please don't feed ducks. There was a quartet of ducklings – mother absent – and one of them was a bit of an idiot and kept getting left behind while the others did a ring of the pond, but I couldn't help but worry about it and its missing mother and the possibility of a bird of prey swooping in for a light meal – which John tells me wouldn't be unlikely.

Briefly considered logistics of a duckling travel companion but I'm not good at sharing and I probably couldn't afford to feed it fresh bread daily like it's become accustomed to. Afterwards we went walking around Dunwich, where the coconut-smelling, yellow-flowering gorse bushes grow, and at one point, it was thought necessary to examine the map.

As I was sitting in bed last night, a sound out my window interrupted my reading and going to investigate – I had hopes one of those Farthing Wood animals was tapping on my window for a visit – I saw the sky light up and birds, or bats, fleeing into the night. A fireworks display just for me, or so it felt like as I stood nose flattened on the glass. The day's icing.

Tomorrow I go to Scotland. I travel first to London by bus, then at exactly 11.45pm I shall catch another bus that will deliver me to Dundee at 10.25am, Tuesday morning, if anyone wanted to know the particulars.

x

And Some More Photos

2010-05-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

The rococo garden at the bishops' Summer Residenz, unknown town, out of Wurzburg

The Summer Residenz. I wish I had a Summer Residenz.

On the boat trip to unknown town

Wurzburg Fortress

Gardens at Wurzburg Residenz

More Photos!

2010-05-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Mum and a view of Heidelberg

Mum on the Philospher's Walk - see how steep it is? And how far behind I am?

We jump to Freiburg, perhaps our favourite town. I dragged Mum bike riding and this is where she made us have a rest.

Our lodging in Wurzburg. We had our own patio!

Wurzburg Photos

2010-05-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

This was the house in Wurzburg I described - see, an upturned wheelbarrow! That wasn't artistic license after all.

The view from the fortress in Wurzburg. This is a church Mum and I always meant to visit and never did on acount of its position on a very high hill

Me sitting on a trough at the fortress

Mum, I bet she won't appreciate this, having coffee and cake - we were sharing that cake - in Wurzburg.

In the gardens of the Residenz

A Jane Austen Moment

2010-05-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've spent the past fortnight ensconced at number 58 The Avenue, Lowestoft, the most easterly point in England. This is the place where all the winds of the earth are travelling to – my hair can attest to this so don't dare argue with me. Charles Dickens once visited here, the Germans bombed it to smithereens and it used to be a hot spot for the fish. That's all I've uncovered so far.

I've become excellent at sitting in one spot – I was rather good at this before I left home, but travelling doesn't allow one to practise this under-appreciated activity. During my sitting time I discovered Special Topics in Calamity Physics (which isn't actually about science, but is a rather intriguing murder mystery), something I think Margs read years ago but I wasn't paying attention. I'm also reading Roger Deakin's Wildwood, since Dad claims it's his favourite book (but he has many favourite books he insists I read so I wonder about his definition of this word or perhaps, like I can be with food groups, he's fickle when it comes to books). There's been a few other books on my bedside table, but none memorable enough for a mention.

I have ventured outdoors on the odd sunny occasion. The weather is unbearably unreliable. I look out the window and spot sun so go hunting for my shoes and before I've laced them it's pouring with rain. Once the sun came and stayed so I went riding down country lanes – I imagined, which shows how narcissistic I can be at times, a bird's eye view of me, a modern Jane Austen figure, cycling through thickets (have doubts about what these are but I'm sure they're in all good English stories), passing the occasional fox (I still haven't seen one; Fadia (whose house I seem to have moved into) claims she saw one the other evening, but, well – I'm the one who watched endless hours of The Animals of Farthing Wood (beloved television show, circa 1990s for those puzzled readers) surely if one was going to appear, it would appear for me. Anyway zoom back in on me cycling, wind-swept hair, setting sun in background - honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised had a Mr Knightly (ha, not so predictable, am I? You were expecting the other Mr) arrived on horseback, or motorbike , and with him, the swelling sounds of a classical theme song. Instead I encountered Postman Pat's red van, which was being used by a family with two dogs. Alas.

I also, and this may surprise some of you, have persisted with running. You may not realise that if I were given the power to remove a word from our vocabulary it would be 'run' and all its various forms, so I say, with a great deal of pride, that I ran 6 km yesterday (I did considerably less today but my toe was sore).

At one point I even went as far as London (not running, I've moved on – keep up, readers). I stayed with my aunt's friend, the very welcoming Jo and her two cats, who didn't seem so impressed by my presence and would sit watching me through the window. It was all rather disconcerting. I went to the V&A, saw a wonderful Grace Kelly exhibition – which wasn't my best decision since it gave me dress envy and led to a rather impractical summer dress purchase in the Camden Markets. I spent hours trawling the book shops in Charing Cross Road – only surfaced with two finds, which demonstrates amazing restraint on my part.

Yesterday John, the other owner of the house and whose bike I borrow – I only just fit as he's very tall – dropped Fadia and me at a car-boot sale. This was rather exciting as I imagined myself digging about and finding that bargain (the one they find on those antique TV shows) – this didn't happen, but I did get a copy of that neat little grammar book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, and a wind-up gaudy Swiss gold watch (I paid 8 pound, which John pronounced too much), but I think it looks very dashing.

I'm currently job hunting; I have my sights set on Cambridge, but I'm not sure the eye-balling is reciprocal. Next week I'm taking a jaunt to Scotland where, if the mood strikes, you might find me Loch Ness hunting.

p.s. What's a blog without a food mention? I'm living with my favourite cook in the world. Fadia's a genius in the kitchen and I'm spoiled at every meal time so I hope you're all jealous of me.

A Very Long Blog with a Happy Ending

2010-05-02T04:20:00.000-07:00

Since I’ve neglected the blog of late, I have suspicions that this will be long.

Heidelberg

At each new city we collect six brochures (one good one in English, the other five utterly useless), three of the same map, and at least two theatre programs in German, which are puzzled over and invariably end up in the bin. This isn’t going anywhere - I’m just setting the scene.

So there we are pamphlet laden, desperately hoping that this hotel will be better than that hotel, packed on a jerking bus with hoards of school children, heading further and further way from the city.

Heidelberg Hotel is satisfactory in every way except that it lacks a kettle. It sits in a peaceful suburb where old ladies of five and eighty cycle along on old-fashioned bicycles, and the only noise is the rumble of the occasional tram as it shunts across the corner intersection to its resting spot.

That first afternoon we tram back to the Aldstadt (tram is much nicer than bus travel since it doesn’t run past any schools), and trek - yes, I do mean trek - the almost two-kilometre pedestrian boulevard, which is lined with all manner of shops, including one selling only Christmas decorations.

We have an early dinner, sharing pizza at a quaint little Italian café in a back alley still lit by sun and then trek back to the tram stop for home.

Since hockey season has started back in Oz I felt compelled to go for a run so took off down the road, looping around the green fields (we‘re practically in the country), down a path lined with blossoms that I shared with a few sheep and a weary-looking goat, and back past the old cemetery, which had more than a few evening visitors.

A large ruined schloss sits atop a hill overlooking the town and as our Heidelberg Card offered free access we went by funicular - cable car - and toured the courtyard and the German Pharmacy Museum housed in the few still-intact rooms, which had a curious assortment of bits and pieces, including the innards of odd-looking animals.

Over the river we tackled the Philosopher’s Walk, a series of steep steps that run back and forth at angles so that you walk far more than you should. We followed a red squirrel, nut clutched firmly in mouth, who was most exasperating in his refusal to hold still for photos. It must be said that more puffing and huffing and resting took place than philosophising and really the walk isn‘t at all conducive to thinking deep thoughts and should be renamed.

We went by boat to Neckersteinach, a small medieval town famous for its four castles - the ruling four brothers had a falling out so each built their own fortress. (Have doubts this would be an achievable solution in my family.) The weather was perfect for boating; the sun illuminated the small mountain villages, monasteries and castles that dotted the hillsides, even the birds were tweeting. Everything was going swimmingly well when the sun decided to depart for the day leaving behind a fast, cool wind and dull skies. We retreated inside our boat and home to our hotel, where we ate pick-me-up corn beef and mood-cheering penne pesto, and thick chocolate with tea from the travel kettle Mum had obtained.

Our last day in Heidelberg was gloriously sunny so we caught a bus up to the King’s Seat and choose trail number five to walk down the mountain through the Black Forest, which was not in fact black at all. Trail five turned out to be rather elusive and we ended up on the better-signed nine, though there was an awful lot of logging going on so five’s markers might have been in the wood piles we kept encountering. We found a suitable-sized rock for an Enid-Blyton picnic of biscuits, holey cheese, smoky ham, tomato, red apples, chocolate and tea. Somewhere, when we weren’t paying attention, trail nine swung a left so we ended up miles and miles from our destination, which meant we probably set a record for the amount of walking done in one day, and really deserve a trophy or even, say, a cash prize.

WURZBURG

Mum’s got a knack for picking accommodation close to the train station and in Wurzburg we only had to walk across the road and we had arrived. At Babel Fish hostel we had a room with its own kitchen and a balcony bigger than the room itself. One of the nicest things about our stay was that we could cook our own meals - there was a food market in the old square where we got ingredients; the Germans adore white asparagus so we got hold of some and had asparagus crepes with prosciutto, and Camembert sauce.

It took us a day to warm to Wurzburg - where all the previous towns had distinctly old quarters, here was a blend of old and new architecture, and in the main square shiny new department stores abutted antique treasures. Yet some long-dead poet once announced that were it possible to chose his birthplace he would have named Wurzburg.

We went for a walk to the large fortress across the river and by chance took a left and found ourselves on a garden path leading up the hill. It was like stepping into Peter Rabbit’s world and I could almost see Ms Potter’s animals behind the flora, more content here than in England. Narrow green hedges ran alongside and every so often there would be an opening where other hedged paths beckoned the walker astray. Daffodils bloomed a rainbow and magnolia trees arched overhead to shadow passers-by. We walked by tiny cottages with neat little garden beds, one with an upturned wheelbarrow - to the other side a path broke off and down, leading to a fountain and more paths. Silver birches stood straight and tall, and one lone squirrel nestled beneath a bush.

I think I fell in love with Wurzburg here on this path, even before I learnt, on reaching the fortress, that the entire town had been levelled in 1945 and then rebuilt - hence the odd arrangement of building styles. The fortress was grand, with high walls and a deep moat running its length - though it looked ancient it had been finished just ten years before. We were there on ANZAC day, a strange occasion as Dad had found in the paper an Australian soldier’s account of bombing this very town.

We kept making new discoveries. The splendour of the Wurzburg Residenz - the bishops' palace - where five great halls with their glorious frescoes and stucco features survived war-time fires by an innovative ceiling design. One day we took a boat ride to an unknown town. We had an hour’s wait for the return trip so ambled towards the zentrum, took a right, then a left, another left and there, behind a high wall, was the most unexpected yet marvellous sight. The bishops’ summer residenz, ignored in our guide book, with its never-ending rococo garden of statues and ponds and perfectly straight lines.

I didn’t want to leave Wurzburg because our next destination was Frankfurt and the last stop before Mum went home.

FRANKFURT

We’d slowed down by the time we reached our final port and spent our last two days poking about. I found a decent bookshop and got Scarlett Thomas‘ latest Our Tragic Universe, which oddly has some connection to what I did yesterday (which I won‘t write about in this blog, but isn‘t, as the novel‘s title suggests, tragic, nor have I, Margot - since I‘m assuming you‘ve gulped this book down, started to see strange beasts; anyway, it‘s not really important, just curious, but I‘ll tell you later). We went on another boat ride - we do like our boats - and enjoyed the warm weather that lingered late into the night. Saying goodbye to Mum was awful but we’ve had a lovely time - and now I’m in England, home of my mother tongue, so everything seems aligned once more.

LOWESTOFT

I had to take a plane and two buses - the first bus I was fifteen minutes late for as my plane’s departure had been delayed; I was so sure it would have left and I had no idea how I was going to get to the next point, but there it was in bay 13 and if I hurried, the man at the information desk told me, I’d catch it. I did and on boarding learnt the reason for its tardiness was an accident on the motorway; all I’d felt was relief at seeing the bus and then I didn’t know what to think - it’s odd to feel such a strong sense of relief when what you’re grateful for might be the cause of someone else’s downfall.

At the moment, I’m sitting on my bed at the Cotter’s house in Lowestoft where out my window I can see a grey sky of thick rain-heavy clouds. And I’m perfectly happy because there’s something about England and rain and the cold that seems just right; I'm sure I read it in a book somewhere.

p.s. It was dreadfully long, wasn’t it? Next time, I’ll condense everything and write something like: all is well, weather’s cold, went walking, sat on boat, saw Queen, run out of things to wear, pondering what to do next, think it shall be sunny tomorrow.

Love to you all.

xxxx

Two Corners of the World and Some Very Important Announcements

2010-04-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

Before I get down to the adventures, I have a few announcements to make.

First, let’s start with cheese! I think it deserves the exclamation mark or, at least, the German variety does. Wonderful stuff, especially the gouda we partnered with apple for lunch today.

Second, bugs. They’ve arrived in force. I’ve had three blissful bug-free months and the world seemed fine without them - nothing fell apart, the birds went on singing, the sun still rose. Are they really that important?

Thirdly, some of you may recall that fateful day when Margs and I set out and I lost my toy elephant (no need to ask why he was coming along); anyway, would you believe, I found an identical elephant!

And lastly, when I announce, friends, Dad, brothers (Darcy, if you even bother to read this, I still haven‘t had an email from you and now everyone knows this so you‘d better get cracking), that I shall have no Internet access for a while I do not expect you to consider this time-off from emailing me …

KONSTANZ

We arrived in Konstanz by a train that circled the lake and took us past fields of caravans, tiny villages that don’t seem large enough to warrant their rather grand castles (does it not seem unfair that Germany has a trillion castles and Maddy, who is so well suited to the castle life, I’ve heard many people say, has none?), water birds: white swans fishing with necks tucked, ordinary ducks and others with coats grander than anything I own, and bevies of boats that sit still on flat, endless plains of water; we arrived to a warm sun blanketing yellow light across the city and the day couldn‘t be more perfect.

That warm blanket was soon ripped off, replaced by a sheet of rain and grim skies of grey. Not wanting to linger in our average room, we donned coats, and, armed with umbrellas, tackled the walking tour we picked up from the tourist office for one Euro.

Konstanz is an old city and around every corner and under every rock there is a place of note, which might be lovely on a day bright with sun, but with rain rolling off the umbrella on to a map too large to handle well, our combined mood was not cheery.

It was decided rather optimistically that perhaps it wouldn’t be raining on the other side of the lake, so we traipsed down to the harbour and caught a ferry across to Meersburg, a town of five thousand with two castles - an old and a new, which the bishops of Konstanz used as summer residences once upon a time. The rain did finally dissipate so we ambled up the steep cobble-stoned streets to Altes Schloss, one of Germany’s oldest castles, which is said to have inspired the Grimm brothers. Since you can’t move without tripping over a castle I can’t attest to the validity of this claim.

On Thursday we caught a train and then boarded a bus to the Unesco World Heritage site Richenau Island, a place where everyone owns an orchard and a boat and leases space to hives of irritating insects. We walked all over, following the signs of men with walking sticks that led us through front yards, down narrow roads with no footpaths, around old churches - though I seem to have lost track of old - and along the calm waterfront. When two bus drivers wouldn’t let us on their buses, we walked to a café and walked inside to the counter where the proprietor let us have waffles and coffee and seats so we could have a break from all the walking we‘d been doing. Really, I’ve done so much walking, I could retire from it.

FREIBURG

We moved on Friday, and two trains and a rather stressful trek later we arrived at the very awful Hotel Sonne; in fact, it depresses me to describe the awfulness of the place so I won’t - just imagine that hotel you wish you’d never been to and that’s where we were.

Freiburg is just the prettiest little town; blossoming magnolia trees dot the sidewalks, the Dresiam River runs near our hotel and on her banks the locals sprawl, baking in the sun’s glow, and it’s been glowing a skin-warming 22 degrees. A streamlet follows the narrow boutique-and-café-lined streets; it is the Bachle and folklore says that if you step into these waters, you’ll marry a Freiburger.

After visiting the markets in Munsterplatz, where we finally had the famous German sausage, we journeyed to Schauinsland and caught a twenty-minute cable-car ride to the peak. This ride offers up gorgeous views of green meadows and wooded hills, and when you reach the very top, you can look down on the Rhine Valley and across to the still snow-capped Alps. Up high the air was cloudy with remnants of the volcanic ash that has the European airports in a tizzy.

On our return we stopped in the city centre where, like the Pied Piper’s children, we followed the glorious sounds of a gypsy family singing on a street corner. The largest crowd I’ve seen buskers draw was ringed about them, engrossed in the performance. They were so marvellous I wanted to get my extended family together, knock out some of the older women’s front teeth, give the men some walking sticks and cowbells to bang, and set out on a grand travelling choir adventure. Only, other than the odd few, none of us is that musically inclined, and not even in my wildest dreams - and I can’t seem to stop dreaming these days - would we ever sound like they did.

For our last day in storybook-pretty Freiburg, we hired brand-new bikes and set off along the river, riding out of town to green meadows where Freiburgers take their dogs for walks and play strange games with wooden blocks. We circled back and traversed the empty streets; Mum was in charge of directions and turned corners at whim until we’d left the map far behind. We eventually stumbled across a tram track and followed the number 5 back to the centre. Afterwards, we walked across the city to the guide-book recommended Reis Garten, where we had wanton and vegetable soup, so delicious my mouth watered after every bite, and tasty ginger beef with cashews. It was still sunny late in the afternoon when we wound our way back to the hotel to commence packing for the next leg of our journey.

Mum and I are in Heidelberg but my fingers are too tired to go on, so whoever is out there reading will have to wait a few days for the next instalment.

From Munich, with Love

2010-04-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

It’s our last night in Munich and for the past hour we’ve been packing, and I’ve been discarding. Living out of a backpack is easily the worst thing about travelling. Mum thinks she’s cracked the code to fitting as many things into a pack as possible, and the result is a funny parcel of clothing but it does work and my zips seem happier.

Since I’ve a book I really want to get to, I’m going to rush through the events of the last few days.

Friday: We arrive in Munich and 500 metres later, we’re out our hotel (memorable for its buffet breakfasts). Three-hour walking tour follows; midway through tour a cyclist stops to tell us our guide is telling us lies, which is plausible but less fun. Dinner we have at a traditional beer hall. Mum shows reluctance but we are served delicious goulash soup and she is won over (which bodes well for future dinners).

Saturday: We trek a very long way to Nymphenburg Palace and take a turn around the rooms (which involves much peering over guard rails, and Mum being yelled at in German for using the flash I forgot to turn off). In the afternoon we track down an uninspiring flee market and learn a lesson in trusting Internet sources. Visit English bookshop (one purchase) and the proprietor recommends a Thai restaurant around the corner for dinner, where we baffle the waitress with our request for two plates.

Sunday: Art museum day - I learn that Germans have funny tastes in paintings but excellent ideas about design. After pretzel and banana lunch on a wintry cold bench, we stroll through the botanic gardens, where the river there has a man-made wave and the mad German surfers, of which there are ten, take it in turns to surf this wave. I drag Mum to a guide-book recommended pub where we have Bavarian potato dumplings with smoked ham, onion and scrambled eggs.

Monday: hopping-say day.

We have no Internet at Konstanz, our next destination, where we’ll be until Friday if anyone is curious.

Love to you all; have almost vanquished cold so next post shall be more thrilling, I promise - in words if not deeds.

The Sounds of Salzburg

2010-04-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

Mum and my cold arrived at roughly the same time so I can’t have been a very good child.

I was at the airport to collect her at 9, and after we’d dropped off her bags at the hotel (did you notice the missing ‘S’!) we set out wearing our adventure caps. Just down the street, a block on from the ice cream parlour with two kugels for only 1.50 euro (a bargain as if you keep going a kugel is more expensive and the more kugels the better, I say), is Mirabell Garden, made famous by the scene in the Sound of Music, where Maria is teaching the kids to sing - Salzburgers detest this movie, which is a shame as I had hoped to see a few re-enactments; I think there’s a lot of money to be made here - so Mum and I posed for the obligatory photos, and told a wonderful water-colourist that we‘d return to buy her paintings, and then promptly forgot our promise. We pressed on, across the river and up the hill to the fortress, Festung Hohensalzburg, which we detoured around (entry cost was ridiculous) instead wandering the park’s paths behind, winding our way in a full circle.

Thursday morning is market day in Salzburg, so we mingled with the locals, emerging heavier for the brown paper bag of strawberries, a chunk of seeded rye bread, walnut and capsicum dip and an almond pastry cake tucked away in our bags. We purchased Salzburg cards, which gained us free access to a handful of places and meant we were in for the busiest of days. In an effort to squeeze all we could from these cards, we visited Salzburg Museum, caught a cable car to Festung Hohensalzburg, actually went inside said fortress - hugely impressive being the largest of its kind in Europe, perused the catacombs in St Peter’s cemetery, took a very slow but picturesque boat ride (the river is 17cm shallow in some places) then bus ride to Schloss Hellbrunn, a 17th century baroque villa built to relieve boredom and monotony through use of trick fountains that squirt water on passers-by. Mum and I were more excited by the rotunda from the Sound of Music than the fountains, which we found tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner. It was locked, so neither of us could jump from seat to seat in homage to that song.

By this time my cold had taken over and I was about ready to be guillotined, so we stopped by an apothoke, and I bought my first German medicine. Brilliant stuff and felt better almost immediately after taking. This meant a trip to the grocery store where Mum found tiny bottles of cheap French wine and other goodies for pre-dinner snacks. Dinner was Italian - Mum’s reluctant to try German fare, but I mean to make her in Munich, which is tomorrow by train. Here in Salzburg we’ve had average food, which is unusual as I couldn’t praise European meals enough.

We’ve had gorgeous weather in this city normally known for it’s rainy days, but weather reports tell me our luck is about to run out as rain is predicted for the coming week. Our umbrellas are at the ready.

Love Mad & her mum

xxx

Bits and Pieces

2010-04-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

Part One

I’ve had a lazy time in the mountains, my existence punctuated by the odd walk with Wally and dinner. Climbing the hill behind the Ginger Monkey and looping around takes an hour if I dawdle, which I often do to throw planks of wood and rocks - Wally has odd tastes. There have been only six guests other than me, and only four at one time. This means I have had a room to myself, an unexpected pleasure.

My hosts, Sean and Jess, are unusual. You would swear that Sean is Irish, but his pronounced accent is a by-product of learning English in the company of Irish folk. His passport says he’s Israeli, but while I was there his mum received a letter that might change this. Because he’s been away travelling for five years, the government want to take away his citizenship. We live in a world, a time, fixated with borders. So where does a person with no borders fit in? He’s still puzzling this over.

Jess, an Oxford graduate, works for a company called Oxbridge, which employs Cambridge and Oxford alumni to write essays for students. They produce ‘model essays’ and there’s some contract the students sign to keep it above board, but basically it’s a service enabling people to buy degrees. You wouldn’t believe the pay, though, or the scope Jess writes about. She says she hardly retains any of it, but after hearing her talk, I think she’s just being modest.

I see the other hostellers during the day. We watch movies together, episodes of the Office always seem to be running, but it’s at dinner when everyone is about. The first three evenings Sean cooked, but the last two nights we spent down the road at two of the two local restaurants. Thursday night it was goulash in a small wooden hut where we were served by a tight-lipped Slovakian man through a dirty window. Friday night it was pizza. Though Sean and Jess had heaped praise on this place I was sceptical. After all, we’re in the Slovakian outback. But I was wrong to be wary - Slovakian sheep’s cheese and sausage are marvellous pizza toppings. The cheese is amazing; tasty beyond belief and thick without being chewy.

Meals are advertised in weight, so you know exactly what you’re paying for and how much you are eating. The hostel has a pizza-eating challenge. Eat the XXL - 50 cm in diameter - and you get a chalk mark next to your country. It might please you to note that Australia is in the lead, but not by much. I did not contribute to our tally but I watched an Irish attempt fail at the last two pieces.

It snowed my last night in Zdiar, after I was so sure we’d seen the last cold weather.

Part Two

Back to Vienna for Easter, which was fun and familiar, though everything, except restaurants and cinemas and Easter markets, was closed. I went to Schobrunn Palace on Sunday, grabbed a chocolate waffle from the market in the courtyard, and strolled around the grounds. Sighted first European flowers and pushed the Slovakian snow out of my mind.

I met an English girl at the hostel who shared her gingerbread cake with me, and made me think of English boarding school stories. Discovered that Mum had got her dates mixed up and would be arriving on the Wednesday and not Tuesday morning, which, though disappointing, meant I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to meet her in Salzburg.

Sorry to be brief and behind, but I've been terribly busy and unfairly, I think, sick with my third cold in three months. Mum and I are now in Munich after spending two days in sunny Salzburg, which I'll tell you about soon.

xxx

Bratislava and Budapest (in the wrong order)

2010-04-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

The view of Bratislava from Hrad Castle's grounds

Hrad Castle, Bratislava

Inside the Natinal Theatre in Bratislava where I attended the ballet. Terrible photo, I know, but I'm sitting in a box exactly like you see opposite on the ground floor.

Oh, this was a fantastic Indian meal I had in Budapest at this very cheap Hari Krishna restaurant, which I thought I'd share with you

Another average photo, but this little square had the most fabulous stalls; I came here for lunch and dinner, and see the busker? He's bowing in thanks to a passer-by who put some money in his case. This is where I was mistaken for a Hungarian. I think at the time he was playing 'Hello, Dolly', which I found rather amusing.

Photos - Finally!

2010-03-31T04:21:00.000-07:00

View of Parliment House, Budapest, from the Buda Castle

View from the grounds of the oldest church in Szentendre - you can see the Danube river

Me in the castle at Visegrad

On Margrit Island: this vehicle has astonishingly sturdy wheels; you wouldn't believe where Zsofi and I drove it.

If You Fall, Remember to Relax

2010-03-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

Another day, another train ride. From Bratislava I went to Poprad Tatry, and from this small town I went to an even smaller one named Zdiar, where the tiny grocery store closes at 3.30, and the ride up the mountain is in a ready-to-be-retired bus that has the same petrol smell as the old trucks I took rides in once on my grandparents‘ farm. Along the way I think I spy a man pulling a car; as we draw nearer I see that it is a home-made trolley for wood with a car door on either side to keep the contents orderly. The bus is filled with noise, everyone seems to know everyone - that, or this is an incredibly friendly mountain. I sit right up the front so that the bus driver won’t forget me, clutching my pack to keep it from sliding off the seat as we round bends and pass up and down slopes. I go to exit the bus and with a downward swish of his hand the driver has me sitting once more; he drives closer, the reversal hand gesture meaning I’m to get off now.

I arrived at 3.15 so am able to dash to the tiny grocery store for supplies. The offerings are meagre, but I uncover orange juice, yoghurt and chocolate - foods I‘ve been craving. I met Australian Andrea on arriving and learn she is about to attempt the two-hour river walk with the resident dog Wally so I join her, and spend my evening trying to avoid mud, snow and ice, and fail miserably: my boots will never be the same, but another gorgeous memory is installed in the library of my brain. The High Tatras still have snow on their peaks (and at their base too) and the beauty of this mountain range is wondrous. We sit for a while on the dry grass staring out and marvelling at the magnitude of these mountains - we are only seeing them through a small window. I trace them on a map and they seem to run on indefinitely. Briefly, I pretend that Heidi was actually set in Slovakia and not Switzerland. There are ski runs ringing circles around us, but the snow isn’t as thick here and only in patches, so there are no skiers, though Andrea says there were some on the weekend. Wally has gone off out of sight.

Back at the hostel I eat dinner with Andrea and our hosts, Jess and Sean, who cook the biggest pot of stir fry I‘ve seen, and as I sit in the kitchen it feels like I’m sharing a meal in someone’s home - always a special feeling when one is living in hostels.

My brief encounter with a fellow Australian will end tomorrow as Andrea moves on; there are two other guest in the hostel, though I haven’t sighted them yet as they’ve been out in the mountains trying to snowboard (seeing as I don’t know them, I can’t attest to their snowboarding skills). I think I’ll leave snowboarding alone - I had enough trouble staying on two feet during yesterday’s walk. Andrea who, in one career, cared for old people, advised, if you fall, remember to relax. Falling isn’t on my agenda but I do intend to spend this week relaxing, and I couldn’t have picked a more perfect spot.

The Problem with English

2010-03-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

As I was sitting on the train to Bratislava, the person sharing my compartment - a Lebanese man living in Slovakia - asked me which languages I spoke other than English. He spoke four. It’s hard not to feel ignorant, uneducated even, when I meet people who collect languages like my mother collects handbags. And I have to wonder, or perhaps I can safely assume, if it would be an all together more thorough experience if one could converse in the language of the land one is in. I often feel as though I’m standing in front of a locked door with the wrong set of keys. Hand and face gestures only communicate so much.

It’s easy enough to think I’m going to learn another language - but even if I did go to the effort, it would be months before I could actually hold a proper conversation where both parties understood what was being said, and I have serious doubts about my language skills as it is. All those years of Japanese and French at school, and all I can really say is hello and goodbye. So I decided that the next best thing would be to pick up a book written by a local author and read myself past the language barriers, which was an excellent plan only I’m still reading Polish authors and I was in Poland two countries ago. In fact, I'm on to my second Ryszard Kapuściński, who writes about his own language difficulties, though he spoke more than one, on his travels.

Last night I went to see Serenada and Raymonda, and while it might not break down the great wall of language, everything seems better at the ballet. The woman in the box next to me was having the same experience I was, that she was having it in Slovak and I in English didn’t seem to matter so much. (Yes, you read that correctly - I did say box! I bought my ticket at the door moments before the performance began and the usher asked me - sweaty (I’d been running, sprinting actually, all over town in search of a square with a theatre) jean-clad, frizzy-haired me - if I would like to sit in an empty box.) Unfortunately this is not a sustainable experience - it’s not like I can attend concerts every evening. So I’ve reached an impasse - I guess England and my mother tongue aren’t too far away; actually, speaking of, my mother will be here in less than ten days so I’ll have someone to talk to who understands me - a thrilling prospect.

In other news it was the Slovakian marathon today so as I was walking the tourist route - sipping thick hot chocolate in a cosy cafe, ambling through Hrad Castle’s grounds, roaming the cobble stone streets sighting churches and convents and cathedrals - lean, fit bodies (young and old) were breezing past me. Dark clouds threatened heavy rain, but for once the weather was generous and this afternoon was delightfully sunny.

Bratislava is unexpectedly small (I feel I’ve conquered her in a day) and Slovakians are unexpectedly nice, the friendliest Europeans I’ve encountered so far, so I’m glad I have six more nights in this country. Tomorrow morning I travel to Zdiar in the High Tatras where you will find me relaxing in a mountain cabin and doing my best to read myself another layer of this fascinating continent.

I Think I'm Turning European

2010-03-26T13:05:00.001-07:00

Fickleness knows no bounds. I seem to have more than a handful of favourite cities. Well, add another finger to the fist - Budapest is the new Krakow.

I went from Poland to Hungary by bus, a more relaxed way of travelling than train: you know you’re in the right seat, no part of the bus will break off in a new direction, and did I mention the free hot chocolate served on the hour?

I was lucky enough to have my very own tour guide for the first three days. I’d met Zsofi briefly in Barcelona, and she’d offered to show me round her home town. We conquered the highest point in the city, toured the Buda castle, explored the underground cave system, feasted on a Hungarian meal all on the first day. The following afternoon we met up to explore Margaret Island, which we did by four-wheeled bike - very fun, if shockingly hard (the peddling as well as this driving on the right side nonsense).

On day three Zsofi took me and Timi, whom I also met in Barcelona, on a road trip through the neighbouring towns. We visited Szentendre, one of those cobble-stone street villages lifted from the pages of a book, then Esztergom, which sits against Slovakia with only the Danu as a border, and on the return trip we stopped at Castle Hill, Visegrad, in Duna Lploy Nemzeti Park, where we were given free entry to explore the castle: to gain free admission one must stand around looking anxiously at the price list. This attracts the attention of kind elderly gentlemen who lets us through the gates. An excellent day’s work.

Yesterday was my own, so I decided it was time to visit one of Budapest’s famed baths and see what all the fuss was about. Two hours of soaking in 36 degree waters has me ready to join the fuss brigade. A truly excellent way to spend an afternoon, and even if we didn’t talk, I had the company of a seventy-year-old Hungarian who had lost his elasticity some time ago.

One of the many good things about Budapest is that even though it’s a foreign language city, most people speak English or can point to some one who does. In part this is because to graduate from university, students must pass a second language exam. Can you imagine if we tried this at home? We’d have perpetual students or none at all.

Today I planned to tackle the Esceri Markets, an English second-hand book shop if I could locate it and my biggest challenge: navigating the inner workings of an Hungarian post office. I achieved the latter two but the former proved too far away so instead I roamed Falk Miksa where one finds antique shops in droves, and middle-aged shop attendants who treat customers (or me) with a good deal of suspicion.

I think I’m turning European - this afternoon as I was sitting eating my Hungarian pizza and listening to a saxophonist play show tunes in the square, a tourist came up to me and asked if he could take my picture to which I asked, why, thinking perhaps I looked like his second cousin or something and he wanted photographic proof. Instead it was because he wanted a photo of a Hungarian enjoying life. And I am enjoying this nomadic existence if, on that rare occasion, it seems to lack purpose. But then I discover a new food and I'm back on track.

Tomorrow I go to Bratislava, so goodbye until Slovakia.

A Room with a View

2010-03-20T01:19:00.001-07:00

I’m staying around the corner from the Krakow Philharmonic Hall, and the 10th century Wawel Castle, home to royalty for 500 years, is practically in my backyard. Every one said that Krakow was a beautiful city but I wasn’t expecting a view like this from my window.

An hour away by bus is Auschwitz, which I visited yesterday: probably the last thing I wanted to do. When the bus pulled up outside the museum, I was ready to return to Krakow. I left only two hours into the three hour tour. It is the saddest place I have ever been, though I don’t know how you could come this close and not visit - perhaps visit isn’t the right word but I'm not sure what is. I can’t fathom a job as a tour guide. It would be heartbreaking.

On Thursday nights at my hostel a free dinner is offered. There are two parts of the hostel and dinner was in the other building, a ten-minute walk away. Never one to turn down free food, I trekked over at 8 o’clock in search of company and found Columbians, French and Turkish travellers, plus the resident Poles, two kilos of pasta and a smidgen of Polish vodka.

Today I walked down Ul. Kanonicza, the oldest street in Krakow where most of the houses were built in the Middle Ages - and one was home to Pope John Paul 11. I strolled all around Kazimierz, the Jewish district, and across the Wista river to a bench in an unnamed park where I sat in the sunshine. I could taste spring in the air - the high of 13 today had me leaving behind my usual winter armour of coat, gloves and scarf.

Just a few other things to add: you know how at home if there are road works blocking off half the road, we have men in vests who direct the flow of traffic? Well, Poles don’t have this ...

And I forgot to tell you about the food theft in Warsaw - how I forgot, since I was feet stomping mad, I will never know. Twice! I fell victim to food thievery in my hostel. Not satisfied with just taking my orange juice, they came back a second time for my whole bag of food supplies I’ve been carting around. Just writing this makes me mad. At least the jar of nutella was almost empty. Still, a pox on those who stole.

Envious that Margs will get to see all of you so soon, but the excellent adventures shall continue on.

Love Mad

Supernatural Salzburg

2010-03-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well while Mad has been freezing in Poland, Ive been freezing in Austria, although today is unseasonably warm. I suspect the weather man knows I'm on the verge of leaving. Fortunately I haven't had much time to wander around outside. My first day here I did a bit of sight seeing, including dancing around the gardens where they filmed 'Do Re Mi' in the sound of music. The conference was meant to run a tour that evening, but when no tour guide showed up me and Scott (fellow conference delegate and former private investigator turned academic) went and had a look around one of the old castles, discussed focault while throwing snowballs, and set out on a self devised tour of salzburg's pubs.

Before the conference began the next afternoon I went with some of the other delegates on a tour of the st. Sebastian church and cemetery, where perecelcius (not sure I've spelt that right) is burried. Grave yard wad very creepy--lots of hourglasses with batwings, snakes sliding out of skull eyesockets, etc. It was, however, eerily beautiful to watch the snow falling on the tombstones.

The conference itself was great. There were papers on everything concerning magic and the superntural from ancient Greek sourcerers, to alchemy, to witchcraft, to Harry Potter, Narnia and Terry Pratchett. I was a little concerned that there'd be a whole lot of people there who believed themselves to be practicing witches and magicians, but there was only one guy who, rather amusingly, kept insisting magic was real. Although I did have my tarot cards read with rather frightening accuracy one night after dinner.

There was a really strong focus on 'networking' (which apparently translates to everyone getting sloshed at the hotel bar the minute the lat session of the day finishes) and I've met some amazing people that I'm very much going to miss.

There are, however, people I'm missing even more, and that's all of you. So I'm packing my bags, and tomorrow I'm starting out on the very long journey home. Am sooooo excited to see you all when I get back!

Love,
Margs
xo xo xo

P.S. I think my paper went okay : )

A Room of One’s Own

2010-03-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve been riding clouds since I made it to Warsaw: having a room of one’s own is mood uplifting - the best thing a girl could ask for. It turns out that being on the third floor isn‘t so great, but all the climbing I’ve been doing can be overlooked because I also had my very own bathroom, and that just might be the nicest thing that’s happened this trip.

In a peanut’s shell, Poland is colder than the Walkerville IGA in winter. And here ended my love affair with snow. Every time I stepped outside, the sun was shining, the skies were blue, and I knew it would be a perfect day. And every single time I had this thought, I would arrive back to my hostel icing white, my teeth a perfect match for my new winter’s coat.

I spent as much time knee deep in snow as I did eating - and that’s saying something.

Milk Bars. Now my guide books had nothing complimentary to say about such places, other than that they were cheap (words that clung to the fluff of my brain - milk, bar and cheap rolling around and around until I knew I must visit). These places are left over from the communist era, diners where at one time most of the meals were milk based, hence the name. Now I have no idea if this still holds true as the menus are in Polish, but my faith in guide books has taken a downward spiral. I ADORE milk bars. Not only are they cheaper than a bus fare but they also offer cold-weather-comforting food.

Through a guessing game where finger pointing is key, I ended up with a big bowl of hearty - or as close to hearty as food’s likely to get - mushroom soup and potato dumplings, and on another day, pancakes with onion, potato and quark, and then the next day I had a plate of spinach with my soup, as the girl who sat opposite me had a plate of spinach and some type of body-cleansing beans, and this scene made me think that perhaps some vegetables, as opposed to dumplings, weren’t such a bad idea.

But, though you may doubt me (and I‘ve given you good reason to doubt; this seems to be more a food blog than a travel one), I didn’t spend my days in Poland just eating. I paid a visit to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which was achingly sad. Dates, facts and names drilled into your memory during high school history lessons only outline the story; the colour comes from walking Warsaw’s streets. The Stare Miasto -
the old town quarter - was completely levelled during the War and has since been restored brick by brick to replicate the original - as if to prove that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men really could put this place back together again.

I spoke to a girl over lunch at the milk bar, who, besides wanting to know all about my travels, wanted to know what I thought about Polish people. I said those I’d met had been genuinely friendly - nice - helpful - a true, if hollow-sounding, description. What about sad? she asked. Do we seem sad? To which I said: not that I’d observed - even amongst the older generation.

Perhaps I haven’t been looking closely enough or in the right direction, but the resilience of these people astonishes me. I would have been born mad had I been born Polish.

Looking for some lighter entertainment, I decided to trek 10 kilometres to Wilanów, home to historic Wilanów Palace (the Polish Versailles) and home to my destination: the acclaimed poster museum.

The sun was shining, the skies were blue and I knew it would be a perfect day. Eight kilometres in I hopped on a bus as my footpath appeared to have run out, cut off by the merging of new roads, and snow was beginning to tumble down and I was feed up with the wind’s whipping of my hair. Then the snow really started to fall: the museum was closed for an exhibition change, a fact some one had failed to disclose on the website.

Now it’s when I’m all alone, grumpy and wearing wet socks that I make rash decision. The problem with backpacking is that you can only shop for ephemeral things: when the cold pushed me in through the nearest set of doors, I emerged in the hair dye section of one of the biggest supermarkets I’ve been in yet. I didn’t want a hair-changing experience, just brighter, happier-looking hair, like what was promised to me by the model on the packaging. She looked ecstatic and her hair was awfully pretty; I wanted what she had. Unfortunately a combination of Polish instructions and me not paying attention to the clock has ended with my hair being the nearest colour to black you will find - which doesn’t make me a brighter, happier-looking or even ecstatic person. Lesson learned.

I went across the river a few times to visit Praga, the only district untouched by war, but other than the really old vodka distillery, which gives the impression of being maintained, all the buildings are hard done by, as if they know everyone has given up on them.

I also did my tourist duty - followed the trails mapped out by the guide book, took photos of the statues and the buildings, wandered through the parks until my feet refused to wander any more. And before I forget, I found a terrific English second-hand bookshop, right around the corner from my hostel so I’m fully stocked up.

I made it to Krakow - grey skies all around - and after a harrowing bus experience, I’m sitting in what just might be the nicest hostel room I’ve seen. If I can work out how to put photos up, you might get to see just how nice.

Love to you all - I hope none of you has done anything silly like dye your hair black.

Mad xox

Fragments from Italy

2010-03-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

Righto, I'm back online. I have to just start out by saying I totally get Mads's train issues. The overnight trip from Paris to
Rome was hands down the worst bit of the trip for me. I was squished into a compartment with five other people, none of whom spoke English. One was a little crazy and kept talking to himself and another took out the world record as the stinkiest man alive. Trying to enter a disassociative state, I dived into Patricia highsmith's strangers on a train. Dumb idea. An eternity later when I was finally nodding off to sleep, havingfoused my scarf in perfume and draped it over my face like a shroud so I could breathe and feeling more than a little jumpy from reading about psychopaths plotting murders on trains, the police burst in, wake everyone up and prompty arrest the stinky guy and drag him from the train.

Needless to say, by the time I met up with my tour group I was in need of a stiff drink. Fortunately for me, heavy drinking is pretty much compulsary on contiki tours. I remember raising my glass to toast the group on the first night then everything got a little hazy until I found myself rather hungover and on a train to Salzburg this afternoon.

A few memories have resurfaced: I had a wonderful roomate on the tour, Becca, who was from London and worked for a fashion company. There were some rather attractive Italian men in the nightclubs. A very gorgeous medieval town in the Tuscan hills where new moon may or may not have been filmed (there was some confusion about this). wine tasting in the chianti region. Amazing traditional four course dinners in each of the cities. A romantic gondola ride in Venice. Belinis at harry's bar. Being blasted with black eyed peas 'meet me half way' (our official contiki song) every. Single. Morning. A LOT of churches. And heaps and heaps of pretty scenery.

In terms of aesthetics, Italy has probably been my favourite place and I definitely want to go back! Though I've thought that about most places.

I've now got a day to recover and turn my paper into a presentation for the magic and te supernatural conference on Monday. Hostel in salzburg us lovely and there's a few conferences run by the same group and all the younger delegates seem to be staying here, so we're all frantically working on our presentations together.

Exactly a week till I'm back home! Can't wait to see you all!!!
Margs

xoxoxo

Ahoj! Mluvite anglicky?

2010-03-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

It’s strange. Some of Prague could be the setting from my favourite fairy tale, then I turn the corner, duck under the bridge – even though there’s no need to duck as I’m not six feet tall, the looming concrete causes my chin to tuck to my neck every time – and I leave fairyland behind. My hostel is in the poorer district of the Bohemian capital but there’s no need to feel sorry for me. Despite the worn, depressed state of the architecture, or perhaps because of it, the fare on this side of town is kind to a backpacker’s budget. A block of chocolate is 50 cents cheaper. An hour’s massage will cost you $26 Australian. Other items, less important in my scheme of things, are at reduced prices.

And it’s only a ten minute stroll to the genteel part of the city, where I’ve spent the last week in constant exploration. It is the Art Nouveau buildings that draw me, though there are many other architectural gems around, and my hand is forever reaching for my camera to snap just another memory. Thank god for computers as my brain has limited capacity.

I’ve been sick this past week - for those of you who haven’t heard my complaining from all the way over here - so I was moving in slow motion those first few days. I’ve been living in an 11-bed room, which could have been horrid but was saved from being so by the people I shared the space with (even if some of them didn’t believe in showering). Most of the people I’ve met are solo travellers and there seems to be this innate bond, as if we’re all sharing the same experiences, so when I come home after a day’s sight-seeing there’s always someone to chat to or share a meal with or complain about how darn sore my feet are.

On my second night I thought I was attending a contemporary ballet performance – the girl selling tickets at the National Theatre Box Office assured me it was an excellent show, incorporating dance and film so just imagine my excitement and expectations as I trotted off to the theatre. Can you picture me? Now then, imagine my feelings of utter betrayal after watching an hour’s performance by an amateur theatre group of which three members could passably dance, but really shouldn't have bothered.

Determined to see the real thing I tried again, this time booking tickets for the Tsar’s Last Daughter: Sleeping Beauty at the Opera House. It was a magical evening and if someone could only have explained the presence of the shiny blue couple, who appeared on several occasions to dance and bow, I would have been utterly content.

I played tourist most of the week, following all the routes my guide book laid out: the Museum of Contemporary and Modern Art was excellent, five floors of paintings, sculpture and decorative arts, as was the little coffee shop across the road where I was served better-than-Enid-Blyton-descriptions homemade cake for 8 Koruna.

I loved the Mucha Museum, though it was tiny and parting with that much money caused some sharp pains to shoot up my arm. Prague Castle is staggering on the skyline and walking around the grounds took an afternoon, even though the gardens were closed for winter. But my favourite place, the spot I’ll forever remember and yearn to return to, is, as seems natural with me, a food palace: Klub Architektu. Within skipping distance from Old Town Square, this cosy haven is tucked beneath a church and design shop, and each day offers a lunch special from 12 to 4. I liked it so much I think I must have eaten there five times. Chicken, lentil, potato soups, special bread dumplings, dumplings with strawberries and sweet cheese, potato dumplings with smoked meat and sauerkraut, steamed broccoli with cheddar cheese were just some of the meals I absorbed.

I also went on a FREE tour, which was rather good. Tipping was optional so I did a runner, which left me feeling both guilty and happy, and had me pondering my moral compass. I am ever skeptical of tours but it did provide me with some valuable information, like, did you know that contact lenses were invented in the Czech Republic as were plastic explosives?

The oddest thing just happened - I'm sitting on the train to Warsaw and I'm sharing my compartment with five other people, all of whom are playing with their phones, and I thought back to a time when I was attached to my phone and on trying to draw its image from my memory came up blank. Isn't that bizarre? Two and a half months is all it takes to wipe something from my memory. Isn't that scary? I have less than a two and a half month memory recall!

Speaking of trains, now I've completely deviated from my blogging task, I suffer travel anxiety, obviously inherited from my mother. (Also note the jump in time - I write this a few hours later as my battery died.) After having my ticket checked on boarding this morning, the attendant told me that I would have to move to the front of the train by 2pm as these carriages would be separating. So I had at least 4 hours to relocate myself and belongings up front, and I honestly tried to wait it out. I was very comfortable; I even had a little table all to myself. But after 15 minutes I was practically running to get to the right carriage. And it didn't let up: what if I missed my train stop, what if I got on the wrong bus, what if I didn't get off where I was supposed to - this constant litany of nervousness bothered me until I arrived at Tamka Hostel, Warsaw, where I have my very own room, my very own bathroom ALL to myself, which is a delight. I can't wait to explore tomorrow as the nighttime glimpses I caught of the city were promising.

Before I go, I read a terrific book on the train this morning. Eva Rice's The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets. Rather an odd reading experience as I'd previously listened to this as an audio book while travelling to Melbourne with Rach, so I had the narrator's voices in my head - which might sound awful but it wasn't as the reader was as a good as the book.

Good night, must go collect my laundry - I didn't have to pay to do my washing! Luxury.

I hope you are all well - or at the very least are eating good food.

Love Mad xxx

The Great Train Debacle

2010-03-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

The strangest thing: I could completely disappear (let’s just ignore that I've been blogging my whereabouts all over the Internet); no one has checked my passport since leaving Spain. I went through no checkpoint at the Vienna airport and on arriving in Prague, I could have been invisible.

I spent my last days in Vienna with an insatiable appetite: I mulled over the great art collections in Kunsthistorisches, confirming my feeling that I don't like Brueghel’s or Rubens', or even Rembrandt's (though I have read a terrific book titled Rembrandt's Daughter). For all those horrified people - I look at these paintings and think, these boys sure could paint, but nothing echoes inside of me, nothing compels me to stand for hours staring in wonderment as it does others. I do like Greek statues and carvings, however, and while I want to run away from Egyptian mummies, I covet their jewellery and marvel at their ingenuity.

I went to the opera to see Medea with American Dina and just as I was beginning to loathe the whole experience - standing for an hour hemmed in on all sides by great beasts of human beings with scissor-sharp elbows - Dina had the brilliant plan to venture to the top floor and see if we could commandeer spare seats. Not only did we find these empty luxuries, we also uncovered the light-shedding English translation machines. I suppose I shouldn't complain about standing: we only paid 4 euro whereas the people in the front rows, according to the program, parted with 240.

I had lunch with another of Doris' friends, the incredibly friendly Katrin, who took me to a Chinese restaurant for a buffet lunch, where we tested the all-you-can-eat theory, and I discovered some of the best Chinese food around. I also went to the famous Hotel Sacher for the Sacher Torte (thank you, Trav). This establishment is the very height of opulence. They demand (very very politely) that you take your coat to the cloak room (a cost of 1 Euro to retrieve item) and then you are seated in a room where gold and crimson colours blind you with their brilliance. The coffee is served on a silver platter and the torte on a plate that rivals the room for shininess. I left some time later so spellbound that I didn't take note of the price I paid to play princess.

I liked Wein so much I'm going back for three nights over Easter; I have to be in Austria then as I'm meeting Mum in Salzburg! and needed to be in throwing distance so I could compete with the hoards of Europeans travelling the railways over the holiday.

In my eagerness to avoid calamity I was an hour and a half early for my train to Prague. I made it to the correct station (number 7) and at 12.43 (the train was due to depart at 12.33 but was running ten minutes late, the board told me) I boarded a train leaving from said platform. It still baffles me that I boarded the wrong train, heading to the south of Austria. According to the very nice man who helped lift my whale of a pack to the top shelf in the cabin, the main train station in Vienna is under construction and so all the lines are being diverted to Meidling, where I boarded, and one of these diverted trains made its way to my station just before the Prague train arrived.

Still there are worst fates than being lost in the Austrian countryside, and one (small) block of chocolate later I wasn't too anxious. I was redirected to another train at the next stop, easy enough, but on boarding this I learnt that it was a reservation only train. The conductor assured me this was fine, as I could buy one in the Czech Republic for 50 euro! or get off at the last stop before entering the country to catch a later train - which at the time seemed an excellent, if stingy, idea. Thankfully, it turned out that I could stay on my train for a mere 8 euro, a happier prospect than waiting 4 hours on an ice-licked platform for the next train (at one point I'll look back and curse this decision: 8 euro, what on earth was I thinking - that's a book; that's my week's washing, that's a day's meals). We travelled at high speeds through storms of snow - I saw animals fleeing for cover – but Prague seems empty of the white stuff, for which I am thankful. It’s cold enough.

I finally made it to my hostel, bag and all, and decided to head out again as I'd noticed a Thai massage place on the corner, and my back and rest of self has been in a perpetual state of soreness. After being manipulated into every conceivable position - she sat on me, stood on me, pulled my arms and yanked my legs this way and that way - my body feels remarkably better if my head does not (I'm getting a cold and I have that niggle in the throat). Any one that knows me well knows how much I complain when I get sick and how much I like to complain so having no one around to complain to is very hard indeed. I must have known that I’d fall sick as I've booked seven nights here so I have plenty of time to be sick and still explore the city.

Love to you all – I hope none of you have a niggle (I have American Chad to thank, who from the bunk opposite me must have projected his germs into the air currents, lovely thought).
Mad xox

2010-03-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie to say hi before I board the train for Rome.

Last couple of days in Paris have been pretty hectic, but in a good way. I met some Americans and a fellow Aussie at my hostel and have spent my evenings swapping stories and sharing a bit if wine with them. Yesterday I caught up with Ella's friend, Ali, who is pretty much the nicest person on the planet! We met up at notre dame and she showed me where she's studying at the uni here, then we tackeld the metro to have coffee in the square where Victor Hugo lived before spending the rest of the afternoon iceskating, which was awesome. There were lots of tweenagers showing off who almost got us killed on multiple occassions, but we didn't stack it once! Go us!

Today I toddled down to musee d'orsay: an art gallery hosed in an old train station showcasing some of the most famous works from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and which, just quietly is so much cooler than the louvre.

For the next week I'm on a contiki tour and don't know whether or not I'll have access to the net, so, devistating a it may be, you may not hear from me again until I reach Salzburg. Don't worry, Mum, I'll text you every day!

Well, time to once again shoulder my pack (I hate that thing so much and am considering burning it when I get home) and set off for the train!

Much love to you all,
Margs
xo xo xo

PS - Very excited, the family have picked out a new puppy, a black lab. We're naming Moet. They get her a few weeks after I get back! So excited!!!

In Wonderland

2010-03-02T13:11:00.000-08:00

I said goodbye to Barcelona for the second time, leaving behind the now familiar city. These last few days have been fairly understated; since Margs and I had already played tourists I busied myself with mellow activities: street strolling, market visiting, park-bench reading, hostel friend making. I went to the Harlem Jazz Club with some fellow hostellers and witnessed a sublime show: Latin American jazz and a singer with a dreamy chocolate-smooth voice.

I left on a cold morning and had to navigate my way from bus to plane to bus to train to tram, by which time I was feeling the weight of my pack. Vienna looked dreary and tired Sunday evening, matching my mood when I arrived at 10 Myrthengasse. I was dismayed by the outer shell of my hostel: a worn building with a dark, dank entrance hall, one end covered by a sheet, and by the time I’d climbed the curving staircase I was beginning to wonder if I’d been duped.

But light and heat beckoned me inside and I discovered the cosiest of nooks. There are only two bedrooms: one with four beds and the other an eight-bed room made spacious by a loft dividing the sleeping area. The first floor beds are set up like a ship’s cabin, and the beds are deliciously soft and warm, making for the best sleep in weeks. Each guest is assigned an alphabet letter and has corresponding items that belong to him or her. I have a D towel, a D locker, a D umbrella and even a D cupboard in the spice-and-pasta-stocked kitchen. If I put my laundry in a little drawer, the laundry fairy will deliver me fresh clothes the next morning.

I took off my first night determined to find a supermarket, even though Argentinean Emmanuel assured me nothing but the small deli across the road would be open. My determination failed and I arrived back at the hostel, 8 euro poorer – jipped of my money by the kind old lady at the nearby deli. Then to my horror I discovered my over-priced soup was in fact liver dumpling flavoured, and after a tentative sip down the drain it went.

Monday morning, in defiance of the previous day’s gloom, was gloriously sunny so I set out, spring in my step, in the wrong direction. Half an hour later, spring slightly deflated, I righted my course. I had decided to walk the Ring roads, which cut a square out of the city’s centre, and this route took me on the prettiest sight-seeing tour imaginable. The range of architecture - Baroque, Art Nouveau and Deco, Renaissance and Gothic - bewitches me and makes me feel like a fairy tale character.
By midday I was at Naschmarkt, which is smell paradise, snacking on a spinach strudel and lemon pastry. I walked on to Scholl Belvedere and toured the gardens, finally settling down to read on a sun-drenched bench.

As you walk the city you come across parks specifically for dogs - fenced in squares that are curiously designed so that you can relocate your dog to an outer square if it doesn’t get along with a particular inhabitant, which from ten minutes spent watching dogs socialising, occurs quite often. This made me wonder if cats were given the same consideration, but so far I haven’t actually sighted a Viennese cat, which made me wonder about the fate of cats in this city and then, as I don’t particularly care for cats, I washed them from my mind and began to wonder about times when these magnificent palaces were fully functional and how extraordinary it was that certain individuals called these places home, which caused me to wonder about a social experiment involving me calling a palace home - by which time it was time to return to my lodgings.

Back at the hostel I met up with my friend, Russian Olise, and we set out on a dinner mission (strangely enough a couple from Adelaide had checked in). After mood-warming goulash we wandered over to an Austrian fairyland: the most awesome ice rink I have seen – instead of your typical oval shape, this rink winds its way through the park giving the impression of a race car track. Backdropping this icescape is the Rathausplatz, the town hall – a building directly from a Disney princess movie – which is lit up with colour-changing lights.

Today I spent at Scholl Schonbrunn, examining the gardens at length and I proclaim them perfect and suitable for my social experiment. I also managed to locate my wayward Eurail pass, which had been lost in the Viennese postal system. So was in a particularly cheery mood when I set out to meet Gerlinde, a lovely Austrian woman who works at the University library, who through a strange chain of events was elected my tour guide for the evening. My dad, as well as being a parent, is also part-social coordinator and sent out a call to workmates for information on Vienna, which put him in contact with Austrian Doris, which put me in contact with Gerlinde who met Doris through the gym.

Gerlinde was the best introduction to this city. She named all the beautiful buildings I’d admired but not really understood, and showed me where the National Library was (which was particularly exciting) and how to buy standing tickets for the opera, and even secured me a pass to a museum exhibition night this Thursday with free drinks. The best part of the evening, though, was when she took me to a Viennese coffee house and I tried for the first time the famous apflestrudel.
Much love to everyone back home; if it was possible to successfully post food home, I would.

p.s. latest book recommendations: The Elegance of the Hedgehog (brilliant) and the thought-provoking Bee Season.

2010-03-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead. Thought I should put that out there. According to some very worried texts from mum, Paris has been gripped by a storm that has so far killed 45 and is said to be getting worse. I was sitting on my balcony this morning, soaking up the sun and thinking that I was enjoying the best weather of the trip so far when I got mum's paniced text. There was some rain last week, but horrific, city-destroying storm? No.

Yesterday actually marked the first official day of spring. To celebrate, I found what my guidebook promised was the best patisserie in Paris and spent the afternoon reading and munching macaroons in Parc Monceau, yet another of Paris's gorgeous public gardens. I've really fallen in love with all these gardens, they've been my favourite places to visit in Paris so far. I've got some good photos too, but am still having to use my phone for the Internet, so unfortunately can't upload any of them : ( Today, a little drunk on springtime, I decided to take in the mother of all these parks, the gardens at Versailles. Sprawling lakes, mazes of trees, rolling lawns and clipped toperies, I was, without a doubt, in heaven. I spent about three hours just wandering about gawking at it all before stopping to enjoy a coffee at the little cafe overlooking the main lake. Honestly, I think that coffee has been the best bit of the trip so far. Just being in those gardens being waited on by waiters in black tie makes you feel like royalty!

The palace itself was also pretty amazing. The excessive luxury France's monarchs lived in is just incredible! Unfortanately thousands ofother people seemed to think so too, the place was packed with tourists and school groups making it very stuffy and often difficult to see much of the rooms, but it was still pretty awesome to find myself standing in the hall of mirrors where they signed the treaty of Versailles and in the king and queens bed chambers!

Yesterday morning I also did the touristy thing and finally worked up the courage to tackle the louvre. That place is damned intimidating, but definitely worth it! Highlights for me were the Greek and Roman statue galleries and the hall built for louis xiv where the crown jewels are housed.

Other than that, I've been getting a bit of reading in. Finally braved Virginia Wolfe, as, apparently I'm teaching mrs dalloway this semester. I'll be honest, I didn't think I was going to like it, and didn't think much of it to begin with, but ended up totally digging all the modernist melancholy. I'm now back on my highsmith bent with The Cry of the Owl, and enjoying muchly. Very inspiring stuff, I've replotted the entire second half of my novel since I started reading it. No one does crime like her. In fact, I'm itching to get back to it, so I shall bid you all goodnight!

Margs
xo xo

Sun, skates & sexy men

2010-02-28T10:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I stepped out of my hostel holding my umbrella before me like a shield. I almost dropped the umbrella in confusion: something was different. There was something warm and vaguely familiar on my face, something I hadn't felt for a long time. Sun. There aren't words for how good it felt to find the world lit up with natural light. And the light is different in Paris. It's paler, more delicate than it is at home. It was dancing off the Seine and making the buildings glow. I suddenly understood why all those poets get so gooey over Paris in the spring. It was a city utterly transformed.

Naturally, I spent the day out doors, frolicing in the jardin des plantes (paris's first public park) and the parc de bercy, next to the cinematheque francaise. I took a stroll through bercy village, a seers of old warehouses that have been converted into shops and trendy restaurants, and went to a braisserie for lunch and ate overlooking a pretty market sqaure. Also stopped by the biblitheque national and sat reading on the sun deck.

I was so excited about the weather I felt the need to share my joy and befriended a group of Americans over dinner and a few bottles of wine. We took some absinthe and headed to a bar where there were bras hanging from the ceiling and the all-male staff wore nothing but underware.

Somehow we dragged ourselves out of bed this morning to visit europe's biggest flea market, which was actually kind of disappointing. It was all fake handbags and rip offs of American clothing brands. But the afternoon more than made up for it. I've been missing my skates like crazy since I left, so I got in contact with the Paris rollergirls and they invited me to their training session this arvo. Unfortunately the skating itself didn't last too long as they train outdoors and the rain made a comback today. But we retreated to a nearby cafe and spent an jor or so chatting about derby! There was also a film maker who came to watch. She's making a doco. About women in sport, so it was very cool to have a chat with her too!

Think that's pretty much me for the last couple of days!
Missing you all muchly,
Margs (aka Or Elsie, my new official derby name as if last week!)
xo xo xo

Gothic Paris

2010-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I woke up, took one look at the gloomy sky and decided that, yes, it was the perfect day for exploring Gothic Paris. The day began well, as many Gothic narratives misleadingly do. After much time spent in front of the mirror attempting to make myself appear vaguely Parisian, I stepped out into the street feeling, if not entirely stunning, then at least mildly confident in my new dress. I had a wonderful time promenading my way down the boulevards (Parisions don't walk, they promenade) pretending I was a part of the glittering world of Parisian chic. Then I reached my first site of Gothic interest: the catacombes.

At this point I ought to point out that, while I can handle and rather revel in any amount of terror on the page and screen, in real life the sight of blood turns my bones to jelly and the mere idea of a corpse has me quaking with terror. In short, I'm a big fat fraidy cat. So deciding to explore the catacombes in my lonesome probably wasn't such a flash idea in retrospect. There are the remains of thousands down there, twenty metres below street level. What's worse though, is how their displayed: walls of neatly stacked thigh bones with skulls interdispersed to make patterns, and plaques bearing quotes about the nature of death. Oh and there's a nice display board of pics from when the corpses were originally stored whole. They were lovely. And the tunnels are never ending, stiffling and humid with the smell of damp and rot, the ceiling so low I had to stoop, and dripping. Ten minutes down there and I wanted out. I could almost feel the walls closing in and I could see the headlines: 'Australian tourist burried alive in catacombes collapse!' by the time I reached the base of the spiral staircase that would eventually deliver me back up to the street I was almost running. But emerging, gasping and out of breath into the natural light, I was far from a happy ending. My descent into the catacombes had served as the literal descent into madness in my little Gothic narrative. I was disoriented, the catacombes did not end where they began and I couldn't get my bearings. The geography on myap seemed to alter everytime I opened it and I couldn't seem to match it's directions with the streets I was walking. Worse still, where the day before all Paris appeared blissfully bilingual, yesterday no one spoke English and I could not seem to make myself understood. When I tried to order lunch the girl behind the counter got her friend to come laugh with her at my garbled french until I wanted to yell at her that I was Australian, not stupid and tell her to go choke on a baguette. Harsh, but like I explained int last blog, these guys are all preternaturaly beautiful, and having pretty people laugh at your incompetence is pretty much the kiss of death for your self esteem.

Oh, and it was raining again, did I mention that? The kind of downpour that laughs in the face of your umbrella and soaks you socks to spite you.

I was originally planning on following my trip to the catacombes with a visit to the nearby cemetery where lots of famous people are buried, but wandering alone, brooding, in a cemetery, in the rain is really only considered romantic behaviour if one is a character in an Anne rice novel or has 'byronic hero' firmly stamped across their forehead. For me, I feel it merely would hav looked a little pathetic, and besides, I couldn't fond the damn thing.

Instead, I decided to improve my mood with a little retail therapy an prompty set about buying the perfect damsel in distress outfit in hopes of attracting a knight in shining armour to turn my Gothic into a romance. Outfit purchased, my knight quickly followed: Leo di caprio stared heroicly out at me from dozens of shutter island posters. The prospect of hearing my first heartthrob speak English for 2 1/2 hours was inately appealing. I found a cinema an bought a ticket.

A note on French cinemas: they're insane. At 4pm on a Thursday there were hundreds of people crammed into the foyer with a dingle usher trying to order everyone into the right lines, in French.
Merde. I eventually persuaded one of the ubber gorgeous young men to translate for me, which he did, then gave me a lopsided smile dripping with arrogance and superiority (like I said last blog, I'm in the land if Cullen clones). I wanted to slap him, or at least mess up his too-perfect hair.

But by the end of the film it was mr who was smirking. Even with my limited French, I could tell the subtitles were a poor translation and I'm sure I was the only one who had any idea what the film was about, well that's what I told myself anyway.

Stepping back into the street I felt revived, oriented. There us nothing like a good movie to cheer me up.

Today was much better, there was even sun this afternoon. I saw the Eiffel tower ( though with the sun the line was several hours ling, so will have to go up another day), went to a cool contemporary art museum, wandered along the seine, had my first taste of French wine and cheese and sampled more delicious desserts!

Paris, j' ai teme! (no idea if that's how you spell it!)

Margs
xo xo

Bicycle Diaries

2010-02-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

(I know, I know, how much did she want to write? Shall condense it next time.)

This week's confession: I've been ripping pages from books. One book, actually, and it is mine and, well, only a guide book but a book nonetheless.

My first Valencian night wasn't parade worthy but things picked up the next day. One of my liberated pages pronounced Valencia a true walking city so I decided to test this and see how far and wide my backpack and I could go. Before the true adventure began I ducked to the bus station to change my return to Barcelona to Thursday rather than Saturday and hurried of an email to Alessia begging a bed for two extra nights.

I decided to visit the Valencian food market and see how it compared to Barcelona's offerings. The markets are housed in an architectural marvel with dome-shaped ceilings and stained-glass windows that draw the sun in. Not as large as Barcelona's but the fare was comparable. I found Spanish pasties for 90 cents, which were so good I went back everyday for lunch. I walked through the centre of the historical district to the bull fighting arena and though it was free admission, I viewed the stadium from the outside as bull fighting disgusts me, no matter what tradition says.

Choosing streets at random I zagged and zigged my way until I found myself at Jardines Del Turia, a boulevard of gardens that stretch its way to the sea. Here I met Iddriss (693683561) expert mobile phone repairer, newly arrived from Africa, who, like me, knew no Spanish. Unfortunately Iddriss didn't know much English either so our conversation was brief. Also as nice as Iddriss probably was, I was too busy worrying about the location of my wallet.

I kept walking and came across a pool of water fountains framed at one end by a series of columns; I picked one and spent the next hour reading in the sun. Dinner back in the empty hostel kitchen, wishing futilely that someone would materialise and be my friend - was my lowest point.

Tuesday was reserved for Monasterio de san Miguel de Los Reyes, a monastery that was being used as the national library. To my dismay, it was only open for school children visitors and nether I nor the girl at the hostel desk thought I could pass. Instead I caught the bus out of Valencia, through Albufera National Park, to El Palmar, a tiny village that until the 14th century was an island. Apparently this central meeting place for all the world's wind currents, served as the inspiration for some of our great writers. If I seem skeptical it's because, frankly, I am. It's pretty, to be sure, and I dutifully spent forty-five minutes strolling around admiring the architecture, which was nice enough but nothing screamed, or even yelled, inspiration for great works of genius. Back at the fountain (bus stop) I encountered the petite old lady who had travelled out with me and after learning I didn't speak Spanish, she took my arm and walked me over to stand between the two orange cones, which was very nice of her but really, was the bus driver going to refuse me entry because I'd chosen the shade of the fountain to rest by?

I visited the free Museu de Bellas Artes (museum of fine arts) that afternoon and after two floors of religious works discovered the true Spanish gems on the top level. By this time I was hungry so decided to walk in the general direction of Plaza de la Reina (of which my hostel is located). I spied a small cafe with tables offering the perfect street viewing of a busy junction and to my delight discovered their Menu del Dia had paella as the second dish; I'd been meaning to try it as Valencia is the birthplace of this famed Spanish meal. I think I shall have to try it again in Barcelona as am afraid, while I enjoyed it, I wasn't about to open every conversation with 'gosh, isn't paella the best thing you've ever had?'.

Wednesday was my favourite day; I love bikes. Not the most common sentence combination, I know, but exploring a foreign city by bike is possibly the most fun I've had. Especially when bike riders are practically lawless. The guy whom I hired my wheels from put it best: how do you say when a car is travelling one direction and you are travelling the other? Me: in opposite directions? Guy: Yes, exactly, that is allowed; everything is allowed.

The sensible part of me knows that helmets were invented for a reason, and a darn good one, but there's something liberating about being hatless with the wind dancing your hair like streamers. My bike and I went to Museo Valenciano de la Ilustracion y la Modernidad (museum of enlightenment and modernity) not for scholarly purposes but because I was curious about what you displayed to represent enlightenment and modernity - bike riders with helmets, perhaps? Unfortunately the sole exhibition, a session on modern thought, was in Spanish and my curiosity only extended so far. Never daunted I rode on to IVAM, the institute of Modern Art, which lauded itself as presenting the most avant-guard artistic proposals. I viewed the three exhibitions and came out feeling puzzled and every time I think back that puzzlement returns.

I took my bike through the Turio gardens; the sea was my ultimate destination. Discovered eating lunch on a bike is like putting shin guards on while driving a manual car: achievable but not recommended. Owing to construction my path came to a stop so I wasn't able to follow the gardens all the way to the waterfront. Instead I zoomed along the streets (true use of zoomed; the wind was so powerful I didn't need to peddle or do anything except hold on as I was propelled forward) driven by the scent of sea in the air. I passed the Royal Marina, home of the 32nd America's Cup, and then made my way along Malvarrosa, the seafront promenade for some reading in the sun.

On my way back I decided to visit the monastery I'd hoped to see the day before. It is the perfect home for a library; a Renaissance formation with a domed church rising from the centre. I parked my bike and was leaning over the railing with my camera when a guard materialised next to me and questioned me in Spanish. Hastily explained I didn't speak Spanish (in Spanish) and then followed with my English explanation that I was just looking. He disappeared and returned a few moments later with a brochure. He would prefer I look in the book.

Turning my bike around I found a side lane and rode down in hope of peeking in the grounds. No luck but to my surprise I came across open fields and people working, hoeing crops. In my intent to find the library I hadn't noticed the landscape changing - and realised that I was seeing how the poor Spanish lived. Back on the street, near the monastery, ribbons tied to the balcony of dilapidated abandoned buildings caught me eye and it struck me as odd that someone would bother decorating such worn-down empty dwellings and then I realised that it was washing and that people actually live here, and my tourist feelings of enchantment dimmed a little. I'm staying less than ten minutes away in the nicest area you could imagine and it's sad to think that such niceness can't extend for ever.

I ended my Valencian adventure with a dinner of churros, Spanish donuts that are long stick-like mouth-joys, which you dip in a cup of thick hot chocolate, at Horchateria Chocolatina cafe just near my hostel. I also finished at roughly the same time Scarlett Thomas' The End of Mr Y - I haven't mentioned books since I arrived in Spain, purely because I've been too busy to fit reading it. Shall have to rectify this as still carting small library around and getting sick of this extra weight.

Am back in Barcelona at my favourite hostel - travel to Austria this Sunday, hooray!

A little fall of rain

2010-02-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

Bonjour mes Amis!
I've been in Paris three days, and though it's been raining on and off, I've refused to let this interfere with my explorations. This morning I was determined to pay hommage to victor Hugo and thus marched resolutely into the downpour in search of notre dame. Even with my umbrella I got drenched, running into the church screaming, 'sanctuary! Sanctuary!' a la Esmerelda. The interior took my breath away. I'm not religeous, and no building is likely to covert me, but if one could, it would be notre dame. It's just so huge and ornate and ancient, it's pretty hard not to be blown away.

After that, I blasted some Les mis on my iPod and headed through the student quarter to the pantheon, where Hugo is buried. I swear I soaked up a few iq points just by being in there! Points to Paris for having a building dedicated to great thinkers!

Well, that pretty much filled my education quota for the day, so I headed for a stroll in the jardins des Luxemburg before lunch then hit the shops. I'll be honest, I showed little restraint. But I feel it was necessary. Parisians are just so beautiful and exquisitely dressed (imagine a city filled with close relatives of the Cullens) so you can imagine how I've been feeling with my seven weeks of regrowth and travel-weary jeans and hoodies. Yeah, not good. But infinitely better now I have new clothes : )

There is mystery beneath all this beauty, however, as there are more pattiseres than people, and yet, everybody reamins skinny. I honestly don't understand. At first I thought that maybe all the sumptuous looking treats might actually taste horrible, but I've sampled the nuttela crepes, the pain au chocolat, chocolat chaud and macaroons, and I can honestly say Parisians make the best desserts everywhere. If my room wasn't on te sixth floor and if I was more inclined to spend money on metro tickets rather than clothes, I'd be making an elephant look like a lightweight by now!

Well, am very tired from walking off all the food and REALLY need my beauty sleep (looks up as guy who makes Edward look almost ugly walks past, and sighs with longing). Also, need to be up bright an early: have declared tomorrow )
gothic day and will need my wits about me to face all the catacombes, crypts and cemeteries!

French kisses,
Margaux

An australian in paris

2010-02-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

Remember the opening scene from moulin rouge? Replace the suave Ewan mcgregor with a rather dishevelled image of me weighed down with luggage & in need of a shower & sleep after a 12 hour train ride & you have my morning. Like baz luhrmann's pennyless poet I also have an attic room in montmartre with it's own little balcony that seems to be specifically designed for one to stand upon looking wistfully down the street for sightings of the muse. Unfortunately I clouldnt check into my room until 4 & my train got in at 9, so I stowed the hermit shell that is my backpack & set off to explore montmartre with the enthusiasm of a kid on their first day at hogwarts. I started with a traditional French breakfast: a crossant & chocolate chaud at a funky little cafe halfway up the hill to sacre-coeur (all right so I couldn't make it up in one go, that hill is damn steep!) then I got into some serious sight seeing. First up sacre-coeur, which is pretty impressive as far as churches go, but for me the interior had nothing on the views of the city offered outside, you can pretty much make out all the major landmarks, it's really breathtaking! Next I wandered down to the Dali museum, which I've been wanting to see sine I watched hitchock's Spellbound when I was 14. This was probably the highlight of the day for me, they had over 300 of his works on display! I particularly liked his Alice in wonderland series. After that I made my way to the cimetiere de Montmartre, and let me tell you, I thought the folks down in new Orleans romanticized death, but they've got nothing on the Parisians! The crypts looked like mini cathedrals, and some of them aren't all that old. For fans of the Gothic cimetiere de Montmartre is the mother ship. I was feeling a little gloomy after looking at all the graves so made my way down to the covered passageways for some retail therapy. Didn't buy anything, but had a yummy baguette for lunch & killed some time sipping coffee and trying to look incredibly Parisian chic while reading in a cafe (side mote: finished halucinating foucault & absolutely LOVED it!) after that was finally able to check into hostel! While my room is a writer's dream with aformentioned balcony and a little writing desk, my shower floods the bathroom & my computer doesn't like it here, so this work of literary genius has been typed on my phone! Am now absolutely exhausted from sightseeing & attempting to communicate with the little vocab I picked up in yr 9 French. Hopefully a goodnight's sleep will restore me; tomorrow I take on the opera district! Au revoir mon Amies & a kiss for each cheek! X & X
margs

Going Solo

2010-02-21T12:32:00.000-08:00

What's the point in a blog if you can't whinge a little?

Getting pulled back into reality land isn't always pleasant. After a too-good-to-be true week in Barcelona at my dream hostel, I say goodbye to my wonderful travel companion and board the bus to Valencia. The ride is uneventful and I arrive, as usual, late. My hostel has instructed me to walk out the exit of the station and board bus number 8, which will take me to Placa de la Reina - this does not happen(at least, not the Placa de la Reina bit; I walked just fine).

Phrase book in hand I tell the driver where I want to go. He responds with a nod and says something I don't understand but presume it means he will let me know when I need to exit the bus. I take a seat right near him so he can direct me.

After a while I begin to wonder if I'm even on the right bus as it wasn't supposed to be a long journey and just as I'm about to ask him again, he points to another traveller to get off; she asks him something and she tells me in English that I should have got departed four stops ago. How I envy multilingual people. I'm given instructions to walk in a straight line, which proves impossible owing to large buildings and curving streets. After numerous, useless conversations with Spaniards, I finally see a newspaper stall and decide it must have a map: it does and I get another instruction to walk in a straight line. I do and once again, the streets hinder me.

But I must have found the hostel as I'm using the Internet, you think. This is true; I do find the hostel one horrible hour later. Nothing else to report except I'm sharing my tiny four-bed room with two guys who snore - I know this as they managed to fall asleep while I was unpacking my bags. I'm sitting in the freezing kitchen, drinking soup and wishing myself back in Barcelona, which is where I will be next Saturday at 2.30, probably 2.45 if the bus is behaving normally.

So I have to keep myself entertained for 5 days - that shouldn't be so hard, right? I'm in Europe, aren't I? Stop complaining, Mad!!

I shall keep you posted on Valencia; no doubt I will find something to occupy my time here. I really do wish one of you was with me - if only so someone else could suffer in that horrible room. Thank god for ear plugs, right?

xxxx

The Rain in Spain

2010-02-20T08:51:00.000-08:00

It´s the only bad thing about Barcelona. Last night the streets were practically flooding. The water soaked through our jeans and shoes and we spent the night partying in wet socks. But there have been many, many good and even more great things about this city.

Most exciting, for me, was celebrating my birthday here on Wednesday. When the date clicked over till the 17th we were still out at dinner. Alessia had used her connections to get us a table at a funky tapas bar, much to the annoyance of the other customers who´d been waiting in line for forty minutes to be seated. The food was amazing, made even better by copious amounts of wine, and at midnight everyone sang ´Happy Birthday´to me in their native language and the waiters brought our plate of desserts with candles in it as though it were a cake.

On my birthday proper we checked out the local flea market and had lunch at a little cafe where the hot chocolate was served in the traditional style (basically a lump of chocolate melted into a cup) and all the food is made in a local monistary. We spent the afternoon browsing in the shops in the Gothic Quarter and went on a Gaudi hunt, finding three of his buildings, including La Familla (not entirely sure how to spell it), his famous church that´s still under construction. That night Mirco cooked us all a fabulous chicken dish for dinner and the most delicious birthday cake I´ve ever tasted (not sure if I mentioned it in the last blog, but Mirco is a former master chef and has run two restaurants, so you can imagine how good his cooking is!) Two more Australians, Patrick and Amy, checked into the hostel, which was good because our friends Mikey and Anna were checking out the following day. And two Sweedish guys also checked in, one used to be a popstar and we had fun youtubing his clips before we all headed out for a night of live music, tequila, absinthe and sangria.

Surprisingly, we didn´t do much the next day. The hostel was like a graveyard until lunchtime, and the things that began emerging from ther rooms about this time certainly bore more resemblance to the undead than to the people they´d been the night before. I had some bad news that day, I went to reserve my tickets for my train trips and found that Lisbon took up too many days on my pass because of their stupid rule about overnight trips departing before 7pm counting as two days, so Lisbon´s out for both Mads and I. The silver lining? My six nights in Paris has been extened to eleven!

Yesterday we continued our Gaudi hunt and hiked up to Parc Guell. Note: If you´re ever in Barcelona and plan to visit (which we highly recommend you do), don´t walk. Take a bus, catch a cab, or pay someone to carry you, cause it´s up hill all the way. It was worth it in the end though: the views are spectaucular and the park itself is like something out of a fairy tale. It was originally designed to be a self-contained village, but the project flopped, so dotted along the cloistered pathways are mosaic benches and rotundas. At night we continued with the fairytale theme and went to a bar with Amy and Patrick designed to look like an enchanted forrest. One of the rooms was done up like a child´s bedroom and the rest was like something out of A Midsummer Night´s Dream, obviously meant to be what the child was imagining. There was even a mini waterfall! Hands down, coolest bar ever!!! Before that we went and watched some traditional Flamenco dancing, which was very intense and lots of fun!

Today we packed a picnic and journeyed with Partick and Amy up to Mt Tibidabo, which offers amazing views, the most ornate church I´ve ever seen and one of the oldest theme parks in Europe!

Now, after all that, I´m pretty exhausted! Tomorrow´s going to be another big one, as Mads and I say Adios to Barcelona and to each other. She´s off to sunny Valencia and I´m catching the overnight train to Paris!

Missing you all, and very sad to miss the Fringe opening!

Love,
Margs

xo xo xo

More New York!

2010-02-19T09:05:00.000-08:00

Some pretty pics of all the snow, iceskating in Central Park and the Rockafella Centre, and inside the New York Publice Library.

Yale

2010-02-19T08:53:00.001-08:00

What can I say, love Flinders, but I WANNA GO HERE!!! The big cathedral-like building is the main library. The interior shot is the foyer in the library and the many, many books are just a sample of what´s in their special collections´library--which is in a different building.

New York, New York!

2010-02-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, time to catch up on some pics! Here´s a few from NYC: Times Square, the Chrisler building, my first snow ball, me in front of the castle in Central Park, and Kats the hundred-year old Jewish diner featured in When Harry met Sally and where they make AMAZING burgers!

2010-02-16T10:50:00.001-08:00

Greetings from the Continent!

Today has been our first full day in Barcelona, and being 8pm, the day is far from over. We are very much enjoying the Spanish way of life: sleep late, hu-uge lunch between 2-3, light dinner around 9-10, then off to the bar. It´s like being an undergrad again, without that pesky study business!

We set off this morning eager to explore. In the nineteenth century the city underwent a major expansion, so a lot of the architecture is from around then and is very similar to that in the French Quarter in New Orleans (there´s only three French buildings left in the Quarter, the rest are Spanish), and we love it! We started our wanderings this morning on Las Ramblas, which is like a nineteenth century Spanish version of Rundle Mall and has a big produce market with fruit, meat, bread and chocolate stalls, and makes our Adealaide markets look a little small by comparison (although it doesn´t have Lucias, so clearly not as cool). We then made our way down to Ramblas del Mar, which is the walkway along the harbour, where there are hundreds of boats moored.

We stopped for lunch at one of the many little restaurants dotted along the very narrow, maze-like streets and sampled Menu del Dia, where you get two main dishes, bread, dessert and a karaffe of wine for around 10 Euros--which is incredibly cheap.

This afternoon we visited a chocolate Museum, where the entry tickets were bars of chocolate and then we browsed the shops, where I found a birthday dress! (This is very exciting as I have been wearing rather ugly pants every single day since we left!)

Tonight we are heading out for tapas with Mikey and Anna, which should be great, Alessia has recommended us a few good places to try!

We´ve only been in Europe a few days, but absolutely loving it. Spain is like nothing I could have imagined, and I think we´re going to have a hard time leaving Barcelona at the end of the week! The language thing is a bit scary, although most people in Barcelona seem to speak English, which wasn´t really the case in Malaga. It´s very strange and slightly unsettling to be walking down a street and not understand a word anyone around you is saying, and stranger still when you can´t make yourself understood!

Love,
Margs

xo

Saint Madeline

2010-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

So I'm going to let you in on a secret and I don't know whether I should because I like hoarding secrets.

Margs and I have found the best hostel in the world. Big call, right? It's true.

Let me explain: we arrive - gorgeous apartment on wonderland street front - did I mention the location? Because we're right near the centre; I saw a Gaudi building just around the corner.

As we're putting our bags away in our brand new room (this place only opened Friday), Alessia (part owner) comes in and says, have you had dinner yet, girls? Jimmy, another guest, is looking for some people to eat with - I'm just taking him down to the printer's and we'll be back in fifteen.

Sounds promising - did you get that bit about the printer's? Where do you find service like that?

So while we wait we meet Mikey and Anna, American and Finnish, respectively, two extra-nice students studying in France.

Alessia and Jimmy, lovely Englishman here for a conference (as a side job he caters at England's Womad) return to hostel, and we learn Alessia and Mirko, her partner, are taking us out to a favourite Spanish restaurant for dinner. They used to own a restaurant - Mirko is a chef - voted third best in Barcelona so they know their food.

We eat cod salad, octopus, ribs, veal, a creme caramel-like dessert (sauce has alcohol, Dad; might be something to try next time), homemade rum-raisin-type ice cream, coffee and wine for under ten euro each. Is that even possible?

We listen to Alessia (Argentinian) and Mirko (Italian) - learn of their wonderful adventures in New York and Europe. I want to be a traveller just like Alessia - she's been everywhere.

They drive us home - Margs and I retreat to our room to scream in glee. Lovely hostel with too-good-to-be-true-hosts and fellow guests. What on earth have we done to deserve this?

I must have been a saint in a past life.

p.s. I'm keeping the name a secret for now.

The Grand Tour Begins

2010-02-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

Mads and Marga are in Barcelona, Spain, Europe.

The flight to Frankfurt wasn't that awful. Margs and I got to sit in a double row and not next to any of those horrible high schoolers we ended up near in the airport. The food was actually decent, much superior to United Airlines, even if it was strange to have dinner and then five hours later breakfast. We had to fast forward seven hours and arrived in Frankfurt at about 6am and then had to hang around, and stay awake, until 2 for our Malaga flight.

I found some newspapers in English and read a fascinating article about the dodgy airlines. Ten years ago a flight from point A to point B would take, say, 2 hours, but is now listed as a 2 hour and 45 minute flight. This is because airlines assume that there will be delays so account for them rather than fixing the problem. So I spent about half an hour being angry with airlines and then discovered the free coffee machine offered by the nice airline who understood I didn't want to part with my brand new euros and three mochas later (no sleep = desperate need of caffeine) that anger went away.

We left Frankfurt late (we had to wait for a machine to come and wash away the ice) but arrived on time (!) and had an easy trip catching one bus to the hostel. Our instructions for walking to the hostel were bizarrely complicated, but as it turned out the building was just around the corner from the stop. Certainly not the nicest hostel we've been to but as it was for one night only and the lights were dim enough to hide anything we didn't need to see I shan't complain too much. We were told nothing was open on Sundays but managed to find an Italian place for dinner. Somehow managed to order a pizza with nothing but different cheeses and vowed to find a phrase book at next opportunity.

As we hadn't slept in twenty-four hours I had the best night's sleep imaginable and woke to a breakfast of stale cereal and bread, and warm milk. Rain, tourist attractions being closed on Mondays and my sore heel (my heel hurts!) meant Margs and I got to the airport five hours early (the sort of thing my mother would do) for our flight to Barcelona.

Have arrived at possibly the best hostel known to man, and couldn't be happier. Since we're about to leave for dinner, I shall end here because at 9.45pm, food is much more important than you lot.

Bye Bye, USA

2010-02-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

The eve of departure: Margs and I are frantically trying to do the impossible and pack all our goodies in the most uncomfortable backpacks of the known world. If only I were Maddy Poppins. Another trip to the post office is in order.

The last Boston days have been busy. Thursday I went to see the Broadway production of Dream Girls, oh-my wonderful, and the theatre, built in 1906, was gorgeously turned out in red-patterned wallpaper and gold fixtures. With the theme music whirring around my head I skipped back to our hostel (YWCA not YMCA as I stated in my earlier blog – though, either way, it’s full of old people) where I met up with Margs, who had been on a Eurail mission, and we went to a FREE jazz concert at the New England Conservatorium.

Matt Sheens, a family friend whom I haven’t seen since Deep Creek camping days – thousands of years ago - was playing and invited us along. Truly excellent music; Margs and I were most impressed and wish for more free things of such high standards.

We organised to meet up with Matt and his friend Lauren, another visiting Adelaideian, Friday morning for a walking tour of Boston. The sky was conveniently blue with nary a cloud in sight. Tour guide Matt took us to the Rundle Mall and Alexander Ave of Boston and then the Adelaide comparisons ended. We met some squirrel pals at Boston Common – squirrels, it turns out, are quite dumb and if they think you might have bread in your rolled up mitt, they will come to inspect. After How to Talk to Squirrels 101, we went and viewed The Most Important Building in Boston, which had a spectacular golden roof I wish sat on the residence of 11 Cooper Place; I can’t for the life of anyone remember what this building's importance was.

We then visited Beacon Hill, home to wealthy Bostonites and the first of the graveyards – Boston has quite a few – where, if the sign is to be believed, Mother Goose of nursery rhyme fame is buried. MG, Mrs Vangoose, and family are all buried here and her grand-son-in-law, a newspaper owner, published the Mother Goose nursery rhymes. All this we did before lunch.

Boston has a large Irish quarter, so we headed that way and stopped at the Best Irish Pub in Boston where I finally tried a Rueben sandwich; don’t actually think this is Irish but has been recommended numerous times on trip and now I can recommend it too - was mmmm-delicious. Then, and of course there’s a then, we followed the Freedom Trail (a red-brick path through downtown Boston that leads the walker to sixteen significant historical sites) to Mike’s – an Italian patisserie in the Italian quarter (not a significant historical site, but it should be).

Margs and I had actually stumbled across this place a few nights ago, not realising it was famous. Matt, Laruen and I opted for their specialty, the ricotta cannoli Florentine, and Margs choose the peanut chocolate cookie. Then another graveyard visit; This site, with its sea views, was reorganised in the 1830s by the cemetery committee who declared that all tombstones be arranged in neat rows – so Here Lies the body of the beloved Nathanial Potter is a big fat lie.

After some discussions on tombstone robbery and the difficulties of moving that slab of stone past customs we walked along the sea, back up to Beacon Hill for tea, and then our truly excellent day was all over.

Tomorrow we fly to Malaga (first a pit stop in Frankfurt). Then the following day you’ll find us partying in Barcelona – if only you could be there with us.

Only eight days till the joint-adventure ends, then it’s solo travel time.

Much love, Mad x

Something Wicked

2010-02-10T15:22:00.001-08:00

Weather update: We're snowed in. Schools have shut down and shopes
closed early. They get bad weather over here and everybody gets the
day off, a policy I think we should definitely adopt in Australia. It
started out okay, the snow was all light and fluffy and pretty this
morning, in fact it was the first time the flakes were big enough that
you could actually see the patterns in them, which I was, briefly,
very excite3d about--until the solid flakes became more like slushy,
very cold rain soaking through my coat, hat and scarf and makig the
side walks very slippery. Now, curled up in a big armchair by the
heater, it all looks very pretty again.

Before the weather decided to confine us indoors we did manage a brief
trip out to Salem this morning (Jo, your art prac was way better than
the memorial they put up, they have 19 stone chairs with the victims
names on them). Like Concord, the town itself is entirely postcard
worthy, and definitely not the sort of place you imagine as the site
of one of the darkest stains in America's history. The town itself, I
think, would rather forget the witch trials of 1692, where 18
townsfolk were hanged for supposedly being witches, and another was
crushed to death with stones for witholding information. The video
they screen at the Visitor's centre brushes over it pretty quickly
stating: 'in the puritans' defence, they did actually believe these
people to be witches' and 'we've benefitted from the incident, as it
taught us a valuable lesson in tolerence'. They made similar remarks
about the cloth mills run several centuries later, citing them as
shining examples of the American work eithic...one in three of the
workers died working at those mills...

So ol' Salem's got a pretty sketchy past, in fiction, as well as fact,
as it turns out. While yesterday the good folk of Concord did their
darndest to claim Nathaniel Hawthorne as their own, Salem is equally
keen for the priveledge. Personally, I'm giving that one to Salem, if
you ask me, Concord is a bit greedy on the author front.

Hawthorne was actually born in Salem and the House of Seven Gables is
just off the main drag (yup, it's real), though, unfortunately by the
time we discovered this the mushy rain had set in and I added treking
through sleet to the list of things I won't do for the sake of
literature.

We did find yet another amazing book shop though, after the Strand in
NYC, this has definitely been the best. All the books are staked in
precarious piles that have a tendancy to topple over at random, and
bad luck if you wanted the title on the bottom, or in one of the
stacks behind the staks. And it was uber cheap, all 50% off and if you
bought 4, number 5 was free.

As you've probably gathered, we've been a bit book focused this week.
And I feel I've been particularly lucky; I haven't read a book yet
that I haven't loved. I want to talk a little about the latest two,
they've had me so excited!

First off, I finished Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise last night.
Wow. It's a toss up between that and Gone with the Wind for the
bestlast line ever award. I'll admit, I don't think I'm quite mature
enough to really 'get' a lot of it yet. I'm going to have to come back
to it in about twenty years. But it was so beautiful, tragically
beautiful, romantic, melancholy and bursting with youthful arrogance.
My favourite chapter was the story of Amory and Elenor. She's a
fabulous charcter.

I was pretty sure, having sat and stared out into nothing for some
time with the last page open on my lap, that whatever I picked up next
would be a disappointment.

I was wrong.

I picked up Tim Bowler's Frozen Fire on a whim, and I'm only halfway
through, so it could still go either way, but the first half, wow! I
only got through the first few pages last night, but they had me. You
know that freeling; your eyes feel like they're locked onto the words.
I hadn't been gripped like this since The Hunger Games.

The premise actually sounds a little lame. A girl, Dusty, who's
brother mysteriously disappeared two years earlier, gets a mysterious
phone call one night from an unknown caller who seems to know a lot
about her brother and who tells Dusty that he, the caller, is in the
middle of a suicide attempt and doesn't want to be saved, he just
wants someone to talk to. Yeah, I know, sounds very angsty. It's not.
I couldn't sleep last night. I was terrified. Bowler's way with words
had brought all my adolescent fears to the surface and I was afraid to
close my eyes. I also wanted to keep reading. The plot is really
fast-paced and exploding with suspense. I'll keep you updated as to
wether the second half manages to keep it up! Incidently, has anyone
read any of his other stuff? Can recommend anything similar?

Well, I'm starting to get hungry. Time to suit up and venture out into
the snow for some grub!

Miss you all. Rach, if you're reading, give the dustball a big cuddle
from me, reading a book with a character called Dusty is making me
miss her so much!

Love,
Margs

xo xo xo

Snippets

2010-02-09T18:07:00.001-08:00

Ongoing conversation concerning traveller's woes:

'My feet hurt.'
'So do mine.'
'And my neck.'
'Uhuh.'
'I'm crippled.'
'Me too.'
'I don't want to get old and be like this all the time.'
'God, no. How perfectly awful.'

Handwritten note posted in the lifts, hallways, bathrooms and dining rooms of YMCA Berkeley hostel, Boston:

'Bianca left her lavender coat in the laundry last night and who so ever has it can they please leave it at the front desk?'

Conversation on leaving Alcott home:

'I had no idea Little Women was so autobiographical. I mean, I knew parts of it were based on her family life but I didn't realise to what extent.'
'I can't believe we actually saw the desk where she wrote it, and that everything has been preserved - how is it possible all that furniture was saved?'
'I know - how incredibly fortunate. We should make sure someone saves our stuff - so that when it comes to putting together our museums they don't have to fabricate anything.'

What was wrong with that magical book:

'I still think Jo should have ended up with Laurie.'
'Me too. What was Louisa thinking?'
'What did the video say? She didn't want her readers to think that marriage was everything, some feminist notion.'
'Hmm, I'm an enlightened reader and I still would prefer a Jo-Laurie ending.'
'Of course, especially seeing as Christian Bale played him in the movie.'

Conversation on visiting graveyard with its 'ridge of writers' section:

'Oh,I found the Alcott's. There's Louisa.'
'Beth's here too, isn't she? She must be the E - only 23. She was younger in the book.'
'They were all younger, weren't they? Oh, look, Louisa has a civil war marker.'
'Why didn't she write a book about her experiences?'
'Jo's father fights in the civil war.'
'True, but it's not the same.'
'No, it isn't, I suppose. I wouldn't mind reading her collection of letters. Look, the Emerson family are here - there's Ralph.'
'Can you see Nathanial Hawthorne?'
'Not yet - how lucky Louisa was to grow up with all these writers coming in and out of her life. And how exactly is it, that they arranged to have all the writers buried in the one place?'
'Maybe they relocated the graves or perhaps they got together before they all died and said, frankly it would be easier for the tourists if we were all lined up nice and neat.'
'They could have thought a bit further and asked, do tourists want to trek up a steep hill?'
'They were only writers.'
'Ooo, it's cold. Cupcake?'
'Yes, please.'

Conversation had while exiting the train station:

'I think it's colder than yesterday.'
'That's the wind.'
'No, really, it's definitely colder.'
'What's the point in the sun being out when it doesn't do anything.'

Conversation had on way to dinner:

'I think the first bookshop was my favourite.'
'Mmm, I liked the third one - I did get 5 books for $14.'
'Actually that was pretty good. I'm going to have to send another package home soon.'
'Uhuh, me too. I have way too many books. Hey, is that a Borders across the road?'
'Wanna go in?'
'Of course.'

What occurred when walking back to Berkeley St after China Town dinner:

'Boy, I could go a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie or even, say, a donut.'
'Yeah, me too - it's not like we haven't earned it.'
'True - we must have walked miles today. Not as much as yesterday, though.'
'It's winter - you have to eat more in winter or you might die.'
'Oh, definitely.'
'Besides those Eskimos eat whale blubber to keep warm - this weather definitely rates a donut.'

We got into Harvard...what, like it's hard?

2010-02-08T19:40:00.000-08:00

I am broken. When I bend my fingers the skin over my knuckles cracks open and I bleed. My feet are blistered, new wounds bubbling up where the old have not yet healed. My shoulders, my back, my neck, my legs, my arms, everything aches. My lips are sandpaper. They may never be kissed again. And my eyes, I can barely hold them open. You see, we have been walking these last two days, between cities, through fierce winds and bitter cold (yeah, I know, we've been walking the whole time, but not like this). What could make us sacrifice our bodies in this way, twice (yup, we've walked there twice)? Harvard. Holy grail of the Ivys. Okay, admittedly we could have caught the train from Boston to Cambridge, but then we wouldn't have got to experience crossing Longfellow Bridge and seen the wide expanse of the Charles River frozen below, or spent many happy hours exploring the bookshops and cafes of Mass. Ave and Harvard Sqaure...that and since discovering doughnut flavoured muffins, we reallyneed all the exercise we can get.

The campus is pretty awe-inspiring, as you can imagine. I was kinda lugging my jaw along on the ground behind me as the tour guide pointed out the sights: the gate that Samuel Johnson donated; Memorial Hall, which has the most stained glass of any non-religeous building in the world; the main library (there are many, many libraries) houses over 15 million books and is growing at a rate of six books an hour. All I can say is, thank God for document delivery.

So all this hanging about in Harvard Yard and reading with a look of practised, pensivity while drinking coffee on the Square, has turn my thoughts to literary matters.

While we were lucky to find a hostel in the centre of Boston, that was cheap and provides a great free breakfast, it's not exactly a hive of youthful activity, in fact most of the guests seem like they might have fond memories of the nineteenth century and the place has a nursing home vibe going (tonight the place is buzzing: it's bingo night), but on the plus side, we're getting A LOT of reading done. I've just started F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, which I'm really enjoying, but haven't read enough to comment on in any depth yet. Before that I sank my fangs into Robin McKinley's Sunshine, a vampire romance (oh, the irony!). Yeah, turns out not even Harvard could cure me of my love for the suckers. For those of you out there who share my guilty pleasure, be sure to get your hands on this one, if you haven't already--Jess, I especially thought of you when I was reading it. The main character (the girl, not the vampire, obviously) works in a bakery making cinamon scrolls for a lovably quirky cast of regular customers by day, while being drawn into the vampiric underworld by night. The heroine spent a lot of time consuming baked goods, drinking, lying around in pools of sunlight and being excorted out of danger and tucked up in bed and watched over by the terribly well-spoken, gentlman-like, yet still totally mad, bad and dangerous to know, vampire hero. And while the feminists among you are more than justified in wanting to stake me for it, after all these weeks of being cold, literally taking on the worldand being all independent and responsible, days of tea, cinamon buns and warm sunlight and a vampire wanting to get all broody and protective over me, is VERY appealing (oh, come on, it's a vampire romance, you just know he's going to need to puny human to save his arse in the big battle). A real hot chocolate read!

Right, now must get back to being engrossed in This Sideof Paradise before one of the Harvard people catches on that I'm going gooey over suckers rather than writing an incredibly profound response to something Fitzgerald wrote!

Tomorrow we're off on a day trip to Concord to contuinue our American literary adventures!

Love,
Margs

xo xo xo

Farewell, New York

2010-02-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

I no longer feel sorry for small New Yorkers: yes, they may not have large backyards, or any backyard for that matter, but they do have Central Park - and who could ask for more? Today I saw a pack of them tearing madly about with a soccer ball and to the side beneath the trees were hay bales! Who needs to play kick the can when someone is laying out hay bales under trees for you.

And with no connective thread, I move on to the subject of heavy doors. I found it odd, in a nice way, that men would stop and hold the door for me. Not just once, but all the time - it got to the point where I'd forgotten how. Then I came to New York and started going to girly places where men don't frequent so they aren't around to hold doors open when you want to pass through and I learnt why they bothered to in the first place: America has the heaviest doors known to man. I could lean into these doors with all my body weight and have nothing happen. I can't fathom what the doormakers were thinking - all I could come up with was they must all be men.

And again I jump about: my first Broadway experience was wonderful. I went to see Memphis, a musical about race relations in the 1950s. Warm, funny, heartbreaking with dance-around-in-your-bedroom music that was composed by a member of Jon Bon Jovi's band (thought that might interest you, James and any other once-were fans out there). The box office attendant took pity on me and put me in the front row; I was close enough to see the flying spit and the loose hem on the lead's dress. And as a bonus, I have never before seen a more attractive sigh-worthy male cast.
Yesterday, as Margs said, I was on a Europe organising mission, so we went our separate ways. By mid-afternoon I was restless so decided to go on a treasure-seeking outing. My aunty Vick had sent me a list of places to visit so I dutifully entered them in Google and made my map.

First stop: Zabar's. I've gone on a lot about food, I know, but nothing compares to this place. It's a food palace; you walk in and the smells get you straight away. There are teetering stacks of cheeses; row upon row of deli meats; freshly baked bread, pastries, cookies, bagels,muffins, donuts, brownies, baklava, pie, croissant; baked goods I can't name but could identify again based on smell alone; food from every conceivable country; strudels, knish and puddings and curries; salads and sushi and dumplings; a coffee aisle that smells better than chocolate tastes. I left with a bag of goodies for dinner, desperately sad I wouldn't be able to visit at will.

Across the road, I pretended not to see the BOOKS sign and turned into Filene's Basement, a discount designer store my aunt promised would hurt the budget. I truly intended to have a quick look only, skirt the edges and be on my way, and walked out the proud new owner of a cashmere jumper. I jumped on the subway down Broadway and got out on 18th street. There I found my last stop, the poorly named ABC store. I was skeptical when Vickie had suggested this as it conjured up Play School images, but she had described it like an Aladdin's cave and it was. I wanted to be like Aladdin and find a genie and then sensibly wish all these goodies straight home to my bedroom. I finally pulled myself away but only because I had a movie to get to - a romantic comedy set in New York, so was fun to point out things to the stranger next to me and say, hey, I've been there!

Today, our last proper day, was again, surely you can't be surprised, dedicated to food. I dragged Margs back to Zabar's where we got goodies for a picnic lunch - mmmmm to the almond croissants, then we walked back to our hostel, where we had to change buildings (that's another story) and then we walked down to Greenwich Village for dinner at Katz's, made famous by When Harry met Sally (or is it the other way around - either way, I've never seen it). Best cheeseburger I've ever had and stomach agreed. Went in search of dessert and ended up back at Magnolia's for a So Long New York cupcake.

I've made myself hungry with all these food talk but shall have to wait until morning as I'm off to bed. We depart for Boston tomorrow - if we make it to the bus stop with our heavy loads, that is. Fingers crossed. Good night all.

'Splorin the City

2010-02-04T22:27:00.000-08:00

Today Mads decided she needed a break from all the rushing about to try and organise stuff for Europe. I probably did too, but I'm like a school girl with a serious crush on this city and when it beckons, I run out into the street to meet it. So, wanting to do something Carrie-esque, I arranged a date with New York City.

I wondered, if Mr. Big or other suitably attractive male asked me out in NYC, where would I want him to take me? We started with a pretzel in the Park. It wasn't too cold today, in fact, there was even a little sun, but there was still enough snow around from the last few days to make the park very romantic.

Next stop was the Museum of Modern Art, where they had an exibition of Tim Burton's work and five floors of uber-famous works. The highlight for me was Van Gogh's Starry Night. I have a love hate relationship with this work since 'help replicate Starry Night to 9x4m' turned up on my to-do list when I was working on the set for The Popular Mechanicals at Wildy a few years back. The result was a little like comparing my rendition of Catherine with Scarlett Johanssen's. But very exciting to see the original, and it's tiny! Also saw my frist original Dali (eep!), and I'm hoping to visit the Dali museum in Paris (it is in Paris, right?), 'cause I am a hu-uge fan.

Looking at all those paintings made me hungry, so next up NY and I stopped off at the Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes and took them and a Starbucks down to the Rockafella Centre to enjoy while we watched the iceskaters.

To me, it wouldn't be a perfect date without pandering to my innerbookworm, so full of cupcakey yumminess, we made our way up to the New York Public Library, which is hit-the-floor-with-your-jaw amazing. Everything's marble, and there's chandelliers and grand sweeping staircases and big desks to read at. Sigh.

But there was no time to read today. By the time I'd finished drooling over the library and we'd taken a stroll through the Fashion District (I even saw the apartment building where the Project Runway contestants stay), it was dinner time. NY took me to a lovely little Italian restaraunt where we enjoyed a fabulous meal of eggplant fagottini with a walnut cream sauce (seriously, it's p[ossibly the best meal I've ever eaten, and considering some of the stuff I've tasted over here, that's saying A LOT).

Of course, it wouldn't be a perfect date in New York if it didn't end with the bright lights of Broadway, so we finished up by seeing Mary Poppins. It's coming to Australia, and you've all definitely got to see it! I mean, it's worth it for the set alone, which is a mechanical wonder. Although, it's very different from the film, and they did change/leave out a lot of my favourite bits. But still awesome.

So that was my date in/with New York City, and the only thing missing was a good night kiss. but honestly, that doesn't seem like much of a let down. And what's more, I think I'm in love.

Margs
xo xo

A (Wicked) View from the Bridge

2010-02-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

It's okay, I'm not standing atop the Brooklyn Bridge having melancholy thoughts, quite the opposite, in fact. Yesterday I treated myself to a Broadway double bill. I'd been hearing great things about the latest production of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge (in which Scarlett Johanssen is making her Broadway debut), but all the evening shows were soldout, so I didn't think I would get to see it. However, Thespus must ahve been watching over me because I managed to get a ticket to a mattinnee through the last minute discount ticket place in Times Square an hour before the performance started.

I've always wanted to see A View from the Bridge, not just because I'm a fan of Miller and of deeply depressing 20th century American tragedies in general, but because (way back in the day when I was still flirting with a career on the stage) I read the part of Catherine for my Drama Centre directing audition. Obviously that didn't go too well, but I really liked that piece (if you're familiar with the play, it was the scene from near the beginning of Act II where Catherine tries to explain to Rodolpho why she can't hate Eddie) and to see Scarlett Johanssen perform it on Broadway was one of those real WOW moments. The whole production was incredibly moving. I cried through the entre second half and the bows, only just managing to pull myself together (after giving myself a stern talking to in the bathroom after the show) as I stepped back out onto the street. While Scarlett was great, Liev Schreiber (who fans of the Scream trilogy will remember played Cotton) was 0the real standout as Eddie. In fact, the entire cast were just in a class of their own.

After that though, I needed cheering up (picture me moping around Times Square, occassionaly wiping away a stray tear). Fortunately, I'd planned ahead and bought a ticket to the evening performance of Wicked, which I couldn't afford to see in Aus. because I was saving up for this trip. It was worth the wait. I mean witches, a boarding school and a romance all thrown together in a musical? That is a bonified recepie for AWESOME! Like A View from the Bridge, it was a show that hit close to my heart. Think of my Twilight obsession. It's pretty bad, right? Well, that's got nothing on my childhood obsession with The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz (best sequel ever btw--if you haven't seen it, you must it's completely messed up). My parents and Jess can testify to this. The only other obsession I've had that's come close was my obsession for witches. Mum, Dad and Jess can also testify to this. So I was always going to like the show. And I did. I mean I ABSOLUTELY FRICKIN' LOVED IT!!! The minute I get to Boston, I'm getting the book (I'm on a self-imposed book buying ban until we leave New York--Mum, there's two boxes headed your way). I mean, the sets, the singing, the dancing, everything was fantastic. My only criticism of the whole show was Fiyero. Fiyero. What kind of a name for a hero is that? I wasn't impressed. It's almost as bad as Rhett. I've still got a bone to pick with Margaret Mitchel about that, that and her snapping eyes.

But Wicked wasn't just fantastic and wonderful, it was a little bit sad too. They kept saying Oz, over and over. Oz, Oz, Oz, Aus. By the end I was ready jump up on stage, steal the ruby slippers and click my heels together three times because the show let that thought creep into my head, the one that must be kept at bay at all costs: there's no place like home. New York is the last place I thought I'd get homesick because I love this city, really, really love it, but last night it felt about a bazillion miles from where I wanted to be. Yes, we're having the time of our lives over here, and no, I wouldn't give up this opportunity for anything, but I want you all to know that I'm thinking of you, I miss you, and I wish you were here with us.

Love,
Margs

xo xo xo

Kicking Cans and Capturing Flags

2010-02-02T22:07:00.000-08:00

Now that I am far from Australian shores I confess that with few exceptions I prefer American literature to ours. Not such a great surprise if you browse my shelves. I'd always thought, though, that it didn't particularly matter as there were other things I liked more about home, like children's games.

Kick the Can and Capture the Flag were two of my favourites, taught by my cousin to my siblings and I when holidaying at the farm, which I then taught all my friends in hope that among my peers I would have a greater chance at victory.

But now I have reason to doubt the origins of these games; I have reason to suspect that they aren't in fact true blue Australians but immigrants, come to our home from far of places. I'm reading Annie Dillard's An American Childhood and have discovered that Annie also engaged in such activities as a kid. Which got me Googling (off topic but seeing as no one was inclined to feed my laziness: a mountain must be higher than a hill, which according to one (possibly unreliable) source must be smaller than 305 metres and anything considerably smaller than a hill is a hillock - our hostel rests on a hillock) and all I discovered was that neither one was Australian, both could be American and possibly European, depending on whom you choose to believe, and that there are other Googlers out there wanting answers.

Yes, I realise I'm in New York, a most exciting city where the origins of children's games shouldn't be taking up blog space, but I couldn't help but notice, in this most exciting city, that there isn't any room for such games, unless of course you're a Mary Norton character.

I also like American TV shows and Gilmore Girls is a favourite with the women of our household. So I was tickled by the idea of visiting Rory's haunts at Yale. Margs and I took a tour, which was very entertaining - did you know the Frisbee was invented at Yale (so also not Australian) and that New Haven is home to the first hamburger? - but our tour guide did not care for GG so was not forthcoming with any 'and this is where Rory ate or sat and read or walked to class' moments; was slightly disappointed. But not with Yale itself, the college is gorgeous. This is a university where I would have bothered to attend all my lectures; it has an underground library, an underground rock-climbing wall, an underground tea room. Uhuh, you heard me right, this place has everything.

It's bedtime so I'll sign off abruptly - next time I'll provide a more comprehensive guide to our daily activities but probably not till after I complain at length about the weighty doors that annoy me so. Obviously exciting stuff to come. Much love to everyone; you've survived a month without us. x

p.s. if there's time after tomorrow night's broadway show (we're thinking Mary Poppins) a game of Kick the Can might take place on our street.

Prep

2010-02-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer: it's almost midnight, and it's been a full-on day, so this is going to be full of mistakes, but I gotta get this down. I'm absoluetly buzzing.

First off, minor excitement: it snowed tonight! We emerged from the subway and it was coming down, very light, very soft, but very much there. (I'm going to try for a poetic description in a minute, but firstly you should know that rather thaqn mereley observing the experience, I was wandering down the street with my mouth wide open to catch the icy pricks on my tongue and laughing like an idiot at the excitement of it all). By the time we reached the diner where we were stopping for dessert it was dusted all down the front of my coat, like I'd been eating beignets and making a mess of myself with the icing sugar. They say snow is exciting the first time you see it and a pain in the arse everytime thereafter, but I'd be happy to showel driveways every year for the rest of my life for the experience of seeing snow fall that first time. It was absolutely magical. Everything it touched looked as though it were covered with millions of tiny crystals, especially when the streetlights hit it, and it falls so silently. It's not like rain, which patters or splatters, depending how heavy it is, and there's something eerie and enchanting about that quiet, even with the blaring horns of New York taxis all around.

Okay, now the major excitement (for me, anyway, and you gotta remember I can be uber nerdy when the mood strikes me, as it did today). We went to Yale!!! Second stop on my thus-far highly successful Ivy League lecture series, and I gotta tell you, they seem far more impressed with my academic standing over here than they do back home, I mean, they were that concerned for my safety (you can imagine the throng of faculty and students clamouring to meet me), that they even arranged for a police escort to see me safely from the campus. Impressive, huh?

It really was pretty amazing though. The campus is stunning. A lot of it was actually built around 1935, but the architect designed it to look much older, to the point of shattering window panes and reparing them and using all kinds of bricks in the walls to make it look as though there'd been all this restorative work done. And the library (oh the library!) is designed to resemble a cathedral inside and out. I'll try and get some pics up soon. The central desk looks like an altar and there's a shrine to Lady Yale, who bares uncanny resemblance to the Virgin Mary.

I should probably interupt my gushing at this point to explain a little about my enthgusiasm for spending my intermission seeking out libraries and campuses. Sadly, I realised a few days ago that I had to cut my side trip to Bennington College in Vermont(where Donna Tartt wrote much of The Secret History and upon which the fictional Hampden College is based (for those of you who don't know TSH is one of the major primary texts I'm using in my thesis and also the book that started my obsession with American college life)). To this point I'd always thought I'd do almost anything for my thesis, but it's easy to make such lofty claims from the warmth of a cozy library. Turns out the only way to reach the campus, or the surrounding township, if you don't happen to own a car, is to hitchike. And that's my limit. I will not hitchike when it's -12 and snowing. Just not happening. So channelling all my nerdy excitemnt into the Ivys instead. And boy are they awesome so far! After we took the campus tour we went to a nearby cafe and it was full of students discussing set texts and projects they were working on, and they all sounded so smart! We also hung around to have dinner in one of the many book shop cafes (eep!) and on the train ride back I just felt so invigurated. I did a whole heap of unrealistic goal setting in my journal when we got back to the apartment, and I'm all like, 'Yeah, I could totally become a tenured professor at an Ivy League school in the next fifty years! I'm gonna become an article-publishing machine when I get back, read every book ever written, make the next draft of my novel kick-ass, understand the major cultural theorists (to this point I've got my hands on copies of Kristeva's Power's of Horror and some pretty hardcover talking about Lacan's take on Freud and applying it to crime fiction), and generally become some kind of literary/academic wunderkind...oh, and I figure I'll do away with sleep too. Of course, it's all too easy to ride this inspirational high whilst wandering through the snowy quads of Yale, about a zillion miles and several months away from having to think a scholarly thought or write a coherent, grammatically correct, creative sentence. But for now, I'm chosing to remain convinced that these things are indeed possible.

Ooh, while I'm briefely re-visiting the world of academia: have been asked to chair one of the sessions for the Magic and the Supernatural conference (they just randomly selected people), which I know isn't a big deal, but freaking out just the same! And, Ash, if you're reading, I've seen the draft program and there's a Lord of the Rings session! I will, of course take notes, and they're going to put all the papers up online before hand too, so I'll send you the link as soon as they're up!

Ooh, and Tully and Ash and other other 21st Century Lit. course people: just finished Stephen King's Lisey's Story and there were SO MANY paralles with Ellis's Lunar Park! Though not actually sure which was published first, Lisey's Story was '06 I think and can't remember when Lunar Park was. But there were Daddy issues, blurry lines between fiction and reality, ideas about writers and their interactions with their work, horror (duh), even a lot of similarities with the way each text uses language, making innocent, child-like saysings and objects really creepy. Would make a great comparative study.

Right. I need to stop now. Tomorrow we take on Broadway!

This is uber goober (Margs) signing out!

Biting into the Big Apple

2010-01-31T19:30:00.000-08:00

For me, when we set out on this trip, New York was one of the bright stars outshining all but Paris and New Orleans on our list of destinations. The last time I came here, I promised myself I'd be back as soon as I could save up enough for the air fare, but over the past few weeks I've fallen for small-town America. My love for the rushing, buzzing anonymity of big cities has given way to a love for lazy afternoons reading in sun-dappled, tree filled parks; searching for deer tracks in snowy woods; and the oh-so-friendly townsfolk, with their tales of boo-hags and ghosts, who go out of their way to make you feel right at home. In the face of these new found pleasures, the New York of my memory had lost its sparkle. On the eve of our departure from Belvidere, NJ, I would have been more than happy to swap New York for a few more days curled up by the radiator with Lisey's Story (did you really think I'd pass up the opportunity to read Stephen King in a small, East Coast town?).

I was also very sad to say goodbye to Lou and Harriet, we both were. They were so wonderful to us, showing us around and looking after us for a whole week, oh, and making sure we ate double our body weight in food each day (Mum, trust me, you don't want to know)!

Despite my reservations, the train doors opened onto Penn Station and it grabbed me: that fierce, raw energy unique to New York. Those of you who've been here will know exactly what I'm talking about. Those of you who haven't, I don't know that I can describe it. Such a dense, diverse range of people have lived in these buildings, ridden these subway cars and pounded these sidewalks that everything is coated in millions upon millions of layers of personal histories. More than that, most of those people weren't born here, they came here. A city of dreamers. People come here with their heads full of lofty ideals, and that excitment and hopefulness has rubbed off on the city. It's not really like the rest of America; Manhattan is an island unto itself.

We are staying in the world's smallest apartment (my bed is in a kind of loft over Maddy's and my head knocks the ceiling evrytime I try and sit up, but I love it) on the Upper East Side, and sitting here typing this late at night, I feel a little bit like Carrie Bradshaw (sans endless queue of boys and world's most amazing wardrobe, but tomorrow is a shopping day, and maybe the boys will follow).

Our Getting to our apartment, however, was no easy feat. We had to take three subways and walk about ten blocks with our packs in -12 degree weather. The wind felt like a pack of sadists attacking my fingers and thumbs with blunt knives, my face was so numb with cold my speech came out all slurry, and by the time we finally reached our apartment, my spine had become a burning rod of pain. So after settling in we rode the subway down to China Town to find a cheap massage parlour and a steaming plate of sesame chichen (our new fave Chinese dish). What we also found (after hiking up Broadway for a bit) was the world's best bookshop. (Lou and Harriet, I can just imagine you groaning to read this: not ANOTHER one!) Fellow biblophiles, I tell you, we stumbled on the Holly Grail and it's name is Strand Books. Imagine 18 miles of stock. 2.5 million individual books. All. Heavily. Discounted. Needless to say, we stayed until close then went back this afternoon. We'll probably make a third trip, and possibly a fourth and fith before the week is out.

Today we also toddled down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is hu-uge and choc-a-block full of pretty piuctures and statues and things (we're talking ancient tombs, relics from the last 2,000 years and rooms full of Degas, Warhol and Van Gogh). I took a bunch of happy snaps, which I'll put up soon (you can probably tell I'm getting a wee bit tired and may actually fall asleep typing this).

In fact, I think that's me done. Provided the people on the other side of the wall stop howling in ecstasy at some point in the near future (yup just like Gossip Girl, this blog delivers an exclusive insight into the scandalous lives on Manhattan's elite), I'm going to see if I can't find my way to the land of nod.

Margs

xo xo

Princeton

2010-01-31T19:17:00.000-08:00

Look, what can I say? When the Princeton English & Creative Wrtiting depts. found out I was in the area, they asked me to stop by and say a few inspirational words to my fellow collegians. I don't like to brag, but picture if you will the Dean of Humanities begging on his hands and knees, muddying up his academic robes...I really couldn't refuse. You've all had the priveledge of reading my creative genuis, perfect spelling and grammatical prowess right here on this blog, so I'm sure you can understand why the Dean was so moved.
Also, a farewell snap of Lou and Harriet (really we can't thank you guys enough for everything you did for us!) seeing us off at the train station as we set out for New York

Going on a Bear Hunt

2010-01-31T19:09:00.001-08:00

After Washington Lou and Harriet took us to their mountain home in New Jersey, just out of Butzville, Bear Country. Only, the bears were all hibernating. Slightly disappointed I didn't encounter one in the woods as was hoping to see which was the superior creature: Mad or the bear. Have small suspicion I would have triumphed.

The snow had arrived before us so it was all around - perhaps it wasn't the thickest coating of snow you've ever seen but in our eyes it was perfect. That afternoon we made the trek to High Rock (with Harriet's cousin Merna, who also took us to see her log cabin - one day I'm going to sneak back there and stay a few days), the highest point on the mountain (what qualifies a mountain, I wonder. Can anybody out there tell me as I'm too lazy to Google it), and the views were worth the hair-dishevelling winds. The woods are a wondrous place: tall bare trees stretch mile high to the sky, and my favourite rust-coloured leaves compete with the snow and hickory nuts for ground space. We saw some fleeing deer in the distance - it's still hunting season so they were probably running for cover.

We took a tour of the neighbouring towns the next morning, and Lou and Harriet are the best guides you can ask for (seriously) - not only do they know all kinds of useful things like, there was a mammoth found in that lake, and if you have a lake on your property you don't have to pay as much on your fire insurance, but we also were privy to local and personal history like, Harriet's parents where stationed at this crossroad as fire wardens during the war, and the man living in that house farms strawberries and is also the mayor, and can you see that house there - that's where Lou was born.

If I ever make a lot of money - enough to have an American home as well as one back in Australia - this is the kind of place I'd like to live. As you drive through the small towns (not really realising that you've left one behind and you're in the next) every store has a friendly name: Leo's Pizza, Rita's, Johnny's, Luigi's - the fire department is called Good Will Fire Comp. What more could you want? Maybe a sign saying, 'watch us make our peanut butter'? They have one of them too.

They also have some of the best diners around so if you're ever travelling through New Jersey and want a good breakfast, I can whole-stomachly recommend the Thisilldous diner in Belvidere and its scrumpsious ginger nut pancakes.

Lou and Harriet are terrific company and it was awfully sad to say goodbye as we've just had the best week. They've been incredibly generous and welcoming, and we're so lucky Marg's mum had the good fortune to meet them!

We're in New York now, and if we thought we'd already seen the best book shops America had to offer, we were wrong.

Belvidere Part Three

2010-01-31T19:09:00.000-08:00

A not-so-great pic of the Deleware (River) Water Gap (a gap in the mountain carved by a glacier during the ice age); icicles on the cliff face where the water froze comming down the mountain (the last couple days have been a nice and toasty -12, folks); Lou: mad, bad and dangerous to know with his icicle sabre; an example of the Victorian houses in the town centre; and one of the town's mini falls.

Belvidere Part Two

2010-01-31T19:01:00.001-08:00

A few more from our hike, including the view from High Rock; Merna's big red barn (put this one up for you, Mum); and a couple of snaps from the Crossroads Diner, a real old school diner with juke boxes on the table and endless cups of coffee.

Belvidere and rural New Jersey Part One

2010-01-31T18:52:00.001-08:00

Okay, I'm going to have to put up a few post of Belvidere photos because it was just so breathtakingly beautiful. I absolutely fell in love with the place. And there was snow! These were taken as we hiked from Merna's (Harriet's cousin) family's hunting lodge, through snow dusted, deer filled woods up to High Rock, where we could see out over the township and frozen lake below.

Annapolis

2010-01-31T18:40:00.001-08:00

A couple of snaps of this oh-so-pretty little seaside town, Mads joining in with some statue storytelling, and a snap of the building where George Washington was sworn into office.

Washtington, D.C.

2010-01-31T18:27:00.001-08:00

The Capitol Building (not the White House, like we originally thought), some other impressive building on the main drag (pretty much the whole city is full of buildings like this one and are designed to make you feel very small), Mads and I beneath the bust of JFK at the Kennedy Performing Arts Centre, another one of Mads and I at the Kennedy Centre, and one of the many gorgeous fountains in the National Art Gallery.

Maryland and Virginia

2010-01-31T18:17:00.000-08:00

Again, no idea what order these are going to pop up in: Lou and Harriet's gorgeous house in Laurel, Maryland; the first time I ever held SNOW!; the King family, who were kind enough to have us over for dinner (that's the Virginia bit), Maddy on one of Laurel's pretty tree-lined streets; and Lou and Harriet, our wonderful, wonderful Maryland hosts who we just can't thank enough (although this one was taken in Belvidere, NJ)!

Atlanta

2010-01-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

Here we've got Mads and I sharing a drink that the bar tender bought us at the Hole in the Wall, Mads holding up her salt-seasoned coffee (Mmmmm), the best cafe IN THE WORLD, and our wonderful hosts: Tisha, Kayla and Joslyn.

Savannah

2010-01-31T06:56:00.001-08:00

Not sure what order these will pop up in but: Mads in one of the many garden squares in the town's historic district, MORE CUPCAKES!!!, the giant fountain in Forsyth Park next to which we spent many a happy hour reading, a replica of the famous Bird Girl statue from the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and Jim Williams' house (the Williams Mercer House) from the book.

Charleston

2010-01-31T06:48:00.001-08:00

The best things about Charleston? There was a Starbucks on every corner (mmmm chai lattes) and we dioscovered Amnerica's growing cup cake industry. This pretty port town was also packed full of gorgeous old houses and creepy grave yards.

Orlando Photos!

2010-01-31T06:33:00.001-08:00

Here's the first in a whole lot of photos I'm going to stick up here (we have a fabulous computer in our very funky but cramped NYC apartment). In no particular order we have the famous fairytale castle in Disney World, Mads riding the tea cups in the Magic Kingdom, my copy of Jonathan Strange in the reading nook I was raving about at the back of the motel and our highway motel. More to follow and details of our unfolding adventures in NYC!
Love Margs
xo xo xo

Romancing the Tree

2010-01-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've been touring America with rose-coloured glasses; every city is more exciting than the one before; every meal is better than the last; every book shop a tad better than the previous; every tree more beautiful than its neighbour - there's something magical about America's trees. And I know, you're thinking, she's gone mad (or has run out of things to write about); it's not like Australia's a treeless country. All she has to do is glance out the window here and look, see, there's a bloody tree. But not these trees, I'd say to you, nothing like these trees.

Why on earth are you going to America? my brother asked - for the trees, James, for the glorious oaks and hickory, loblolly pine, ash, adler, birch and maple, trees that even in winter's midst, when most have no leaves to speak of, are the rainbow's end of treasure.

And before you start saying to the computer screen, what's wrong with this person - if she's going on and on about trees and comparing them to rainbows, Margot must have slipped something into her hot chocolate - I'll move on to the facts.

After our first day's adventures, what with conquering Washington and all, we were understandably fatigued so it was lovely to be able to visit the King family in Vienna,Virginia, and enjoy good company and a delicious home-cooked meal (I really would like that zucchini and tomato recipe, please). My dad and Ken King went to university together way back in the distant past, and we see him and his four daughter every so often when they visit Australia. We left with full stomachs and a jar of Marmite that the wonderful Alessandra (an excellent cook too) gave us, which, if not Vegemite, was pretty damn close.

Day two was capital business: we had the Air and Space Museum to look over, then there was the small matter of lunch in China Town, which was followed by a return trip to that Barnes and Nobles bookshop we like to frequent.

Afterwards it was off to the ballet. Lou and Harriet took us to the Kennedy Center where we saw a mixed repertory program from the American Ballet Theatre: Birthday Offering (Ashton/Glazunov), Seven Sonatas (Ratmansky/Scarlatti) and the Brahms-Haydn Variations (Tharp/Brahms). The whole time I was thinking of that song from Chorus Line. You know (and I'm sure you all do know) that one about being happy at the ballet? It's true. The moment I stepped through those doors and on to that red carpet I was happy. Happy in an 'I won pass the parcel' kind of way or 'I got to go home early', or even an 'I had a block of chocolate to eat and I didn't have to share it with anyone if I didn't want to' way. That kind of happy.

Harriet told us that when she and Lou first came to the theatre thirty-five years ago, women had worn long evening dresses. So I was happy that times had changed, because even when I was thinking how pretty, how glamorous, how gosh-darn gorgeous it must have been, I was also thinking how I'd forgotten to pack that evening gown in my backpack.

I enjoy the end of the ballet as much as the dancing. When everyone, from the principal dancers to the conductor, make their bows and the audience claps, keeps clapping, for all the world looking like they enjoy clapping when inside they're thinking, my hands are so sore and please won't the person next to me stop so I can stop and I'm sure we've already clapped her and does he really deserve that many claps, and they have to keep clapping because now that man or that woman, depending on which side the dancer is standing, comes out with all those flowers - and where do those flowers come from? It's the middle of winter, for christ's sake - and the dancers all look surprised wearing that who-me expression as if they weren't expecting the flowers, even though they know that we know they were expecting them, because that's what happens night after night. I really enjoy that part.

Today we've been in Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, which is found in the Chesapeake Bay area (home to so many books Margs and I love). I've been mishearing this as Minneapolis and actually thought we were going there, and thank god we weren't because it's minus fifteen degrees in Minnesota today.

Lou took us in his vintage (this seemed an appropriate word as I have no idea the exact year) jag so I could almost picture us on the front cover of the USA Lonely Planet guide. The sun made a visit after days of cloud-coated skies so it was perfect walking weather. We strolled the streets, passed by buildings of great historical significance, finally had those famed crab cakes followed by a banana and chocolate chip cake, which if it isn't already should be as widely praised as the crab cakes, and took a turn of the United States Naval Academy with its magnificent buildings and grounds.

I could picture myself there - resplendent in the navy-coloured uniform, gold buttons gleaming, hat perched jauntily on head - engaged in sailory activities and had already in my head moved in to one of the dormitories overlooking the bay. On leaving the pretty town, I saw a group of energetic runners practically sprinting in their haste to be as fit as fit can be and on closer observation I discovered they were all students at the academy and so decided I didn't really want to be spending my afternoons running and promptly moved out of my imaginary dorm room.

Lou took us past a secondhand bookshop on the way home, big mistake, and Margs and I went a little (lot) crazy. I came out clutching my nine-book loot and Margs added five more to her tally. We really must send some home soon.

So now you're up to date with my state of mind as much as our daily activities. From Washington and Maryland we go to Lou and Harriet's house in New Jersey where we can be found until Saturday when we go to New York.

I'm hoping every one of you will immediately go down to your local plant store and purchase an American tree or three and plant them around Australia so that when I come home I can find some magic there. xox

Washington, D.C.

2010-01-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

That's right. The American people have made the fatal mistake of letting Mad and I into the capital. Don't know if it's reached the papers back home yet, but we've taken over. Am writing this from Obama's computer in the White House. He does not appear to be impressed.

In addition to our political exploits we've managed to conquer the National Art Gallery, the Natural History Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, and we,re also single handedly supporting Barnes & Noble (I managed to buy four books between galleries, and that was just today). We haven't seen a lot of museums and galleries so far, as we've found a lot of them really expensive, but most of the ones in Washington are FREE (more money for books buying)! Personally, I loved the modern art wing at the National Gallery, where I got to see a lot of the works we studied at school (they have an entire floor of Jasper Johns back-up work and heaps of Litchensteins), and original Picassos, Van Goghs, Degas, Toulouse Latrecs (appologies if these aren't spelt right) and truckloads more. So exciting!

The best thing about Washtington so far though (aside from taking over a global superpower, but that kind of goes without saying), has been staying with Lou an Harriet! They met us at the train station when we arrived and took us back to their lovely home in Laurel, where Mads and I each have our own rooms! Their backyard supports a population of squirrels and blue jays, which Lou feeds from the back door (I still squiel with delight everytime I see a squirrel). And last night we had a roast dinner with caramel flan for dessert (our first homecooked meal since we left Australia), and ohmigod it was delicious!

We have also seen snow for the first time (I'm not sure that it counts whne it's from an airplane window). Admittedly it's only been a few muddied clumps left over from the blizzards, but it's SNOW!!!

Ooh, this is totally random, but have to include it for all my fellow Twihards, and all those who take such joy in mocking us. I discovered a book today, titled Defining New Moon. It's a study guide to help students with the vocab. section of the SATs in which Edward, Bella and Jacob help you learn the meanings of all the oh-so-complicated adjectives and adverbs from the Twilight saga that might pop up in the SAT test. I mean, thank God someone's done it because I had to look up every second word in the OED. I'm tempted to go back and get a copy just to prove that such a thing exists.

While on the subject of all things literary (Ben, that's merely a segue, not an ooportunity for you to raise an eyebrow at me using 'literary' and 'Twilight' in such close proximity), I have finally almost finished Gone with the Wind (and about time too, seeing as we've moved up North and my head's stil in the South), and have absolutely loved it! More than that, I've had all these people coming up to me and telling me the stories of when they read it. The characters are fantastic (Scarlett is my new favourite heroine and the men! *swoon*), and I love the dialogue, learning about the history of Atlanta and the Civil War, and the descriptions of Tara and Twelve Oaks. In fact, my only criticism (and this has annoyed me quite a bit) is that everyone's eyes are always snapping and flashing with anger, malice, indignation, etc. How do eyes snap? It's like Edward with his crooked smiles. What does that even look like? Oh, and one more sardonic smile from Rhett and I will throw the book across the room. The rest of the writing is so good! But, I guess a couple of bad phrases in over 1000 pages is pretty damn good!

Before I start reviewing though, I should probably finish reading the book. So I bid you all farewell from the Empire of M & M, formerlly the United States of America.

Margs
xo xo xo

Savannah to Atlanta to Handkerchiefs

2010-01-23T17:12:00.000-08:00

It's not just you; I haven't been writing in my diary either. Not so much a case of too much fun (though that's going around) as not enough time. Savannah rivaled Charleston for prettiest city on the east coast and our hotel's free breakfast of Krispy Kremes was something to roll out of bed at 7 for.

Best beds so far; if you ever go to Savannah, make sure you spend your night at the Thunderbird Inn. Since Orlando Margs and I have become obsessed with food and the South hasn't let us down (was just interrupted by my mother on skype who commented on our food preoccupation so will stop writing about it right now).

Margs and I were at our walking best in Savannah and we knocked off all 24 squares in one day. The historic district is laid out in an almost-perfect grid so it's virtually impossible to get lost, though we did have some trouble locating one of the town's three bookshops. We visited Lafayette Square both days and had some quality reading time by the fountain (James, we make sure we've seen all the sites first.)

I'll have to be brief as I write this in an Atlanta Borders store across the road from the Amtrak station. We're waiting for our train to Washington and, as seems to be the theme of this adventure, it's running late. So on to Atlanta.

Our friend Tisha, niece of my parents' friends, who was in Adelaide to work over her uni holidays, lives in a gated community across the road from Emory College where she's in her third year of study. It's a four-storey building and we were on the top floor. On the second day I woke to find my calves aching. As Tisha is busy with Rush Week, a soriety initiation process, Margs and I took off to explore the shopping districts and - a brief, but necessary, food reference - discovered 'the Full Cup' a small cafe that reminds me of something you might stumble across in the Adelaide Hills. Not only was my chicken tortilla soup superb, but the bread, which they specialise in, was the nicest I've ever had. Some of you might know that my dad fancies himself a bread connoisseur so it's fair to say I've sampled more than a few loaves in my time; this stuff beats everything he's enthused over hands down. AND they ship anywhere in the US. It's so good Margs actually bought a loaf to cart around, and that says something because backpackers don't add weight to their loads lightly.

We ventured out that night on our own to a place on Peachtree called The Hole in the Wall. Tisha had soriety duties and there was talk of us meeting up. Before we split we met some more of her friends, were offered some homemade cupcakes and tasted raspberry cider, which I've fallen for. The Hole in the Wall, not actually a hole in the wall, was memorable for its bartender, who bought us drinks, and the woman in the restroom, who handed out paper towels and squirted hand soap on your hand and sat on a stool, smoking, with a tip jar in her lap.

By 3am we had conquered the dance floor so made our way across the road to Ihop (I think, memory is quite hazy), a 24-diner, where our tipsy minds fancied sampling some crepes. Got back to Tisha's at 4am and discovered the door locked with no way of getting in. After some furious pounding on the door, countless phone calls, stone throwing at windows, attempts at breaking in through the garage door, we resigned ourselves to a night on the doorstop. I've never been so cold in my life and I feel for homeless people who do this night after night. After commandeering the neighbours' doormats we shielded ourselves from the wind, tucked away in a small alcove. At 6.30am we got hold of Tisha's roommate, New-York accented Kayla - hooray! Had horrible thoughts of losing foot to frostbite - who stumbled out of bed to let us in. Will forever be grateful to Kayla for opening that door.

We didn't get up till late afternoon the next day and when we did it was felt that we deserved to go book shopping: Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Celia, I've been searching for this my whole trip! but until now every bookshop had sold out so I hope it is worth it), another two of McKinley's (Lys, you really must read her when you get home). On the way back from this expedition, we discovered a (oops food again, just a passing reference) falafel shop that satisfied my mind as well as my stomach.

We didn't do any typical sightseeing as museums and art galleries were too expensive for the budget, but I would visit again. Atlanta was unexpectedly pretty when we were expecting a more industrialised town. In fact it didn't feel like a city at all; there are trees everywhere and though we're in winter, shades of autumn are all around. For every ten trees that have lost their leaves there is one which is doing its best to keep hold of them. Houses, big two-storey houses, are sprawled on large blocks and, though the rainy weather is keeping people inside, I imagine these are friendly neighbourhoods as there are few fences to divide them.

And to end, my quest to find a handkerchief - yes, there is a quest - is not going at all well. Since Vegas Margs and I have been on the hunt and I'm still empty handed. So if anyone knows exactly where I can obtain one, please let me know. I'm desperate.

2010-01-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie. We had a wonderful, albiet wet, day shopping in Atlanta. Maddy needed a Northface jumper to brave the weather we're heading into and we both caught the retail bug, buying a few clothes and accessories that we deemed absolutely necessary (Abercrombie and Fitch had a sale, reseistance was futile). I don't care if it sounds horribly materialistic, but after three weeks in the same two pairs of pants, tshirts and jumpers, to be wearing new clothes makes me unspeakably happy!
It was also great to talk to Lou today! We're both very excited (and so so grateful) to be staying with you and Harriet when we get to Washington! We're planning on catching the Amtrak train that arrives in DC at 10:10am on Sunday morning. We've travelled with them a couple of times so far, and while the leg room is the most incredible luxury compared to what you get on a plane, they're not the best at running on time. I'll have my phone with me, and if we're going to be late, I'll try and let you guys know exactly what time we're really likely to get there!
Well, apparently we're going to a few clubs tonight in honour of pledge week (Jo, Rach and other Greek fans, we'll let you know if it lives up to the series!)

Much love,
Margs
xo xo

Belles, Beaux and Bayonettes

2010-01-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been MIA for a while, this is partly due to my computer having a crack up and partly because I've been distracted by the likes of Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes. Yup, I've stuck with my original plan of reading Gone with the Wind (I'm only halfway through, so don't tell me how it ends!)while we travel through the South, and I think it's been one of the best things about the trip so far, learning about the Civil War while travelling on the roads and railways the Confederates and Yankees fought so hard for. History teachers take note, romance novels are way more interesting than lists of dates and names of battles. I also highly recommend ghost tours if you want an entertaining version of a town's history (I've done three so far and had a ball on all of them).
I think last time I posted we were in Orlando. Since then we've been to two of my faveourite cities so far: Charleston and Savannah. Both are mainly college towns, so as you can imagine geeky me was in my element. In Charleston we checked out the pub scene and I ned up in the beer garden with a buch of lit students talking shop. And Savannah has the Savannah College of Art and Design, so there are all these boys in too-tight jeans and colourful hairstyles and girls in men's shirts and paint splattered shoes wandering around with their sketchbooks. Both these towns are absolutely gorgeous (if, after I've got the Dr. in front of my name, there's an opening in the Charleston College lit/creative writing dept. I will be on the first plane back). Both have cobble stone streets (thank God for my sensible shoes). Charleston is full of beautiful old houses with mossy courtyards and the streets in Savannah are built around these gorgeous grassy squares with fountains, statues, box hedges and big shady trees hung with Spanish moss. During the day we've been spening our time wandering these peaceful parks and streets, then I've had that sense of beauty dashed at night, learning about the bloody history of these towns by taking ghost tours (and with the Revolution, the Civel War, pirates and the evil streak in human nature these towns have long and sordid histories).
We've now moved on to Atlanta to visit Tisha, and last night our arrival was greeted not only by Tisha and her friends, but a few frat boys and sweet tea vodka served in the big red cups thry have in the movies. Very excited about Atlanta!
Love Margs
xo xo xo

Charleston Days

2010-01-19T17:44:00.000-08:00

We left Orlando at 2pm prepared for the eight-hour train ride to Charleston. To our delight we found the train spacious, not like the Harry Potter carriages I'd hoped for but far roomier than bus and plane.

No Harry Potter-like characters on board but across the aisle from us was an odd couple: a 45-year-old-lady from Uruguay (a tired, big-eyed gypsy who got off at each stop to smoke), and a slow, plain man with a sing-song southern slur. Noticeable because they stopped being strangers after the first minute and talked for the entirety of the trip.

For a short while the scenery outside looked like it could be home. Then we moved to unfamiliar tree territory. Sometimes tall silver trees neatly organised but mostly the country was thick with all manner of trees and plant life puzzled together. We passed over rivers and through small towns, and there is an uncountable number of old farm blocks with junkyards like you see in our country, only people seem to have more junk here. The rain came when we pulled into Jacksonville and didn't let up.

Margs and I arrived in Charleston late as the train had to wait for a passing, larger, train and rain continued to soak the state. We finally organised a cab and made our way to the historic district, on the way passing several accidents. Cab driver's response to this was, 'Shit (head shake), some people just don't know how to drive in the rain,' which I think meant that he did.

We've been incredibly fortunate in our hostel selection so far and the Notso Hostel was no exception. Have been introduced to nutella and bagel pairing. GENIUS. Also discovered that if you eat two, it's very likely that you won't be hungry again until about 4pm.

Charleston is a beautiful city. At least the historic district is gorgeous, which is where we were based; big old buildings, brick and weatherboard. As old as those in New Orleans' Garden District, but friendlier and more approachable as none had intimidating fences. You can walk right up to these buildings and put your hands on their walls (if that's what you fancied doing).

Our hostel sits on the border of the district and our street is shabby, like they ran out of paint at the store. But once you turn the corner on to King (the main street), you see where the paint has been put to good use. The streets were empty of people our first morning out, which was slightly worrying (and had the makings of an art house movie) but then worked out that everyone was at church and by midday the sidewalks were busy with well-dressed people.

First duty was bookshops and so found four books (T.C. Boyle's The Women, Becoming Jane Eyre - Bronte sisters bio - Robin McKinley's 1982 award-winning, but plainly named, The Blue Sword (Lys, you would love this), and fun urban fantasy by Karen Chance) more to lug around; Margs also added to her collection.

The previous day's rain had departed so we were free to trespass the streets under sea-blue skies. No systematic approach for us, lots of back tracking and walking in various-sized circles. At lunch we met an owner of a bar who was with his son, a little boy selling fundraising chocolates (and thus ending my chocolate-free week) who convinced us to agree to attend his Karaoke fundraiser for Haiti. We heard Hades and were sure we were attending some Greek god-themed party, only realising the truth when we saw the posters later. Rather disappointed.

Margs and I discovered the most scrumptious cup-cake shop where I sampled chocolate and lemon and then (the next day) lemon and blue berry. Icing was as high as the cake.

Charleston is a university town and when students aren't in class, they're running. EVERYWHERE. Really. You blink and a runner will glide past. And yes, they do glide. No one's running to get fit here.

This city is also home to a prestigious military academy and where ever we went we saw boys in these funny felt uniforms and hats. We saw one uniformed girl at the station (girls have only been allowed to attend recently).

Margs did another ghost tour that night and I met up with her to attend Haiti benefit, which isn't worth writing about and neither is the Irish pub we moved on to. We did, however, meet some federal agents (even if they were really old) but, no doubt, Margs will elaborate as she found them.

Next day we had to stop by O'Malley's (Irish pub) as Margs had left Gone with the Wind there; thankfully, but hardly surprising, it was still waiting for her. We then made our way to the wharf, hoping that we would be able to catch a ferry to Fort Sumter, but missed it by ten minutes so instead we wandered back to the centre of the historic district and caught the Martin Luther King Day parade, which was a few marching bands, a few floats and lots of tooting cars (many of which were representatives of the different churches).

Have to end here as sitting in a cafe in Savannah writing this - hotel's Internet is not working and they don't show any inclination to fix this - as Margs has shown up from yet another ghost tour so we're off to dinner. She promises to write soon; her laptop is playing up.

Much love xox

Lilterary Orlando?

2010-01-16T20:44:00.000-08:00

Orlando is a city of ten lane highways, cheap roadside motel, glaring billboards, vast concrete car parks and outlet malls. It is not a city generally hailed for it's literary repuation. John Green's Paper Towns--the story of the enigmatic Margot Roth-Spiegleman, who mysteriously stops turning up to school, Q, the love-struck boy who sets out on a romantic road trip across America to find her-- is the only book I can think of set in Orlando (at least, I'm fairly certain it is, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend). So I was rather surprised when it was in Orlando that I reached my first literary milestone of the trip: finishing Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (the 1006 page epic I presumptuously boasted I would have knocked off by Vegas). How did I finally come to achieve such a feat? Well, we were meant to visit Universal Studios yesterday, but Mads had a cold so it became our first designated reading day.
Initially I was not thrilled about this. Our motel, which greatly resembled the ones they're always staying at in Supernatural, with the rooms on either side of the car park, traffic wooshing past on the highway out the front and nothig to sit on aside from white plastic lawn chairs, did not apear the kind of place set up for the kind of intense literary contemplation I had in mind. However, wandering around the back of the motel in search of better surroundings, I came across a quite different and altogether morepleasing setting. There was a large lake or swamp (I can't tell the difference anymore) with reeds and tall grasses swaying gently in the breeze at its banks, giant old trees hung with grey moss, and a little pier with benches just made for spending lazy afternoons reading on (Dawson's Creek fans: it was pretty much as though I'd stepped into Capeside).
This was the highlight of Orlando for me. We went to Disney World the day before, but that turned out to be a little underwhelming to be honest. It was like Vegas for children, and there were soooo many children. All the fun rides were closed too, which didn't help :(
But away from the depressing and back to books!!! For those of you who have Jonathan Strange somewhere on that never ending list of things you eventually want to read, bump it up to top spot, especially if you're interested in early 19th century history or literature. The story is rather complex (and at over 1000 pages you kinda want it to be). It's the turn of the 19th century and magic has returned to England. Mr. Norrell, a somewhat stuffy, pedantic chap, and Jonathan Strange, a whimsical impulsive fellow out to impress his sweetheart, are the only to magicians who know how to weild magic. The growing competition between them influnces the Napoleonic wars, the poetry of Lord Byron, and captures the attention of a partiularly malevolent fairy who would rather keep the secrets of magical history for himself. Awesome stuff.
As we head away from sunny Florida and into the South, I've begun epic number two: Gone with the Wind. I shall keep you posted as to how it goes, but I have a sneeking suspicion I'm going to LOVE it, if the first 50 pages are anthing to go by!

Love,
Margs
xo xo xo

P.S. I don't have spell check or a dictionary, so I appologise for the numerous mistakes sprinkled through my posts!

Give Way to Publix

2010-01-16T20:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have for you a mishmash blog of roundabout bits and sugared pieces from our Orlando stay.

At present I'm concerned with two things: American road rules and SUPER-markets.

From what Margs and I have observed traffic lights are at best suggestions for drivers, something to treat seriously only if you're in a serious mood. So when the white person (rather than the familiar green) appears, indicating that it is safe to walk, we know now to view this with a good deal of suspicion and some 360 degree head turning.

Occasionally a sign appears: motorists must yield to pedestrians. Fine of $80. To whom, we wonder, does this $80 go to: us or the state? And then I finally stop wondering at the excess of billboards advertising lawyers dealing in accident claims, and I start triple checking when I cross the street.

Another oddity: scooterists don't wear helmets. Neither do cyclists. At all. Not even when competing for road space on the furious highways crisscrossing America's states.

Our accommodation in Orlando, a commonplace motel on the side of one such highway, sits opposite the most magnificent supermarket Margs and I have ever come across. I'm not normally enthused about food chains, but Publix yanked at my heart strings. Aisles of never-before-sampled products, feasts prepared daily in the deli, racks of packaged smoked meats, sugared pastries, fat-filled glazed donuts, chocolates in cartons (CARTONS! which ended in my declaring a chocolate free-week), salads of fruit, egg and sun-dried concoctions, and then there was the cereal aisle. Oh, my. OH, MY.

We did very little in Orlando but eat.

We did pay a visit to Disney's world, but I, suffering a cold, remember very little except the many tiny people in princess outfits. Mostly we sat around our motel, ate, did some more sitting in various locations - Margs discovered a lake and our very own jetty - ate some more and ate.

We're currently on the train heading into Gone with the Wind territory. So if you want to read about what we're up to, it's under M for Mitchell, Margaret. Get ready for some hoop skirts, damn Yankees, more than a few exclamation marks and a flurry of batting lashes.

(Just arrived in rainy Charleston) xox

Nocturnal Revels

2010-01-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

Amy, Leon and Lloyd at Jazz on South Beach Hostel before we headed out. Samara and Joe sharing a giant slice of late night pizza. Some random guy who game me his hat, me and Lloyd at Twist. Michael Jackson tearing up the dance floor. The whole gang at Duce (where smoking is still allowed inside (hence the supernatural effect). Good times.

Miami!!!

2010-01-14T16:38:00.001-08:00

Beautiful sunny beach! Mads reading on said sunny beach (it wasn't actually that warm, only about 16, but it felt like summer after New Orleans). Me with my sex on the beach cocktail, yum, Yum, YUM! Hemingway's writing studio for all you literati out there. Mad and I terrified about being driven back from Key West by woman who resembled crazed, grinning chipmunk from Hell.

New Orleans

2010-01-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

A few spooky ones in here. The night shot is Louis and Lestat's house from Interview with the Vampire, the house with the car in front is Anne Rice's house (that one's for you Ash!), the Lafayette Cemetery, Mads and I at Jackson square (main square in the French Quarteer, and an example of the beautiful buildings in the Quarter.

Grand Canyon

2010-01-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

These really don't do it justice at all, but they'll give you some idea. This was the most AmAzInG experience ever!!!

Vegas Photos!

2010-01-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, not so easy to get the photos up here, but we'll try and post a few highlight shots! These are a few from Vegas: Paris (our hotel) all lit up, the famous Belagio fountain, Mad beneath a Vegas street sign and Mad and I on the bus after seeing The Lion King on our last night!

Miami Vices: Drink, Ink and Drag Queens

2010-01-14T14:52:00.000-08:00

Note: Mum, you might want to skip this one.

So we tripped the light fantastic out of New Orleans, although at the time there didn't seem to be anything light or fantastic about it. Three days of vampire hunting in sub-zero temperatures, nothing but beignets for nourishment, and next to no sleep left me battling against the mother of colds. That, coupled with the fact that I absolutely did not want to leave, did not make me a happy chicky.
The next morning, however, after a good (although freezing) night's sleep--our hostel ran out of blankets, so we had to sleep under our coats--and drinking a cocktail as big as my head, I was feeling much more optimistic about Miami. On our second day we made the pilgrimage down to Key West to visit Ernest Hemingway's house. They still have his writing studio set up the way it was when he used it, and fellow wordsmiths, I am so so so jealous. It is a huge, airy room full of bookshelves and recliner chairs on the second floor of the pool house overlooking a garden full of palm trees. AND (this is my favourite bit) Hemingway had an iron catwalk built from his bedroom to the studio, and that was the only way in or out, creating a totally private writing haven in the middle of a tropical paradise. While at the property, I also had the pleasure of meeting the great great grand kittens of his infamous six-toed cats, which are said to bring good luck.
Now Hemingway was as serious about having a good time as he was about his writing, and I decided that while in Florida, I should do as Hemingway did and promptly set about finding a party to crash. Fortuanately, I needed to look no further than our hostel, which was just one block back from South Beach. Did Mads tell you her analogy that our New Orleans hostel resembled a school camp? Well, our Miami hostel was like school camp where the students have mutinied, locked the teachers in a broom cupboard and got their hands on copious amounts of alcohol. I bumped into fellow Aussie, Samara, in the hallway and she invited me to join some of the other backpackers for drinking games, and we stayed up rather late playing a fun mishmash between Kings' Cup and I Never. I got to know some really cool people: Samara, whom I've already mentioned; her friend, Amy (also equally cool); Leon, an Israeli just finished military service, and an excellent chess player; Joe the Swede; Bill of the Mid West; a couple of German guys whose names I've sadly forgotten; and Lloyd, who, being fair haired and blue eyed, I at first thought was cute, then I found out he had an English accent and I got a little doe-eyed, and then he casually picked up a guitar and started playing and I practically fell off my chair in a dead swoon.
On our last night in Miami our little group decided to take its revels beyond the hostel. Not quite sure how it happened, but someone knew a Michael Jackson impersonator, who performs at the local gay bar, Twist, and who had been drinking with us earlier in the evening. Much to the boys' horror, we decided to check out his show at Twist. MJ scored us free drinks, Samara found some foam swords and we took over the dance floor. After the show (and after the boys had been sufficiently freaked out by a particularly CrAzY drag queen) we went to Duce and started an England vs. Australia pool tournament (and, Hell yeah, we beat the Brits!). We finished the night with giant slices of pizza and watched the sun rise on the beach.
I only got two hours sleep, and we were all looking a little sorry for ourselves at breakfast the next morning, but it was worth it! I HEART MIAMI!!!

Love Margs : )

Miami Adventures

2010-01-13T18:30:00.000-08:00

If it was possible to steal houses, I would settle here at Miami Beach and one by one remove all those on the Art Deco strip.(We've only really seen the Miami Beach area, so the rest of the place could be an utter dump.) Margs' affection for the architecture in New Orleans is rivaled by mine for these beautiful buildings. I've got many, many photos on facebook so I won't go on for paragraphs describing them. I'm also mad on the out-of-my-price-range jewellery and am coveting some 1950s sunglasses that, no matter how many times I do the sums, won't fit in my budget.

Up until now we've been moving in fast forward, eager to fit as much as we can in our 16-hour days. Here the warmer weather (comparatively warmer if not true warmth) has reflected our daily activities. Mostly we stroll along the beachfront and eat. We even ventured out on to the sand to read in the sun.

Our first day we treated ourselves to lunch at a delicious cafe where they serve cocktails in bucket-sized glasses. I had the yummiest pesto pasta that doubled as lunch today too. It was washing day so we had to hike to the nearest coin laundry, a new experience for us, where we sat for two hours before trekking back to the hostel, happy that we would be waking up to a clean outfit the following day.

Definitely made the right decision on changing hostels: free pancake breakfast each morning, clean rooms and nice people.

Day two was tour day. I was slight disappointed by Key West. The four-hour bus drive down was gorgeous: on one side the Atlantic Ocean, on the other side was the Gulf of Mexico. Imagine driving on water, every so often tripping over an island or 44, and that's what it felt like. We were let off in the historic part of town where the word 'historic' was synonymous with 'dilapidated'. At one time the population of Key West boasted the wealthiest people in America, though by the time Hemingway made it his home the average wage was $7. Now the place is set up for tourists, and Margs tells me cruise ships dock daily. While she headed up to the Hemingway museum (his former home) I opted for a more comprehensive experience and visited the Historical and Art Museum at Custom House for half the price. I got caught up on local history, which is very interesting but unless I receive specific quests I won't bore those who couldn't care less! Margs and I met up and took a stroll to the bookshop we'd spied on the way. No special finds, but still marvel at the hardcovers. We eventually found our way back to the meeting place (we had four hours of exploratory time) where we found, to our small-minded amusement, our bus driver stuck in a tight situation, which was getting tighter with every turn of the wheel. After much tooting, some reckless reversing and, I'm quite sure, a whole lot of luck, she got us out and on our way.

Last day in Miami today. We journeyed to the only bookshop in Miami Beach and I picked up another book, Julie Hearn's YA Ivy, as I finished Nancy Werlin's Impossible (which I wouldn't recommend, despite the terrific reviews it's received) on the bus trip the day before. Dad, still searching for American Journey but no luck yet. I also finished The Diary of a Provincial Lady, which I would recommend if anyone is searching for some reading material.

Shuttle bus to Orlando was an hour and a half late so both have decided that we aren't tipping. Cannot wait to visit Disney World.

Haven't been at my best the last few days, courtesy of a small carton of orange juice drunk on the way home from coin laundry (last time I ever buy something for entertaining packaging) so haven't experienced the Miami nightlife like Margs has (even though my bedtime averages midnight) who didn't get in till 6am this morning so prepare to be entertained by her accounts.

Hope everyone is enjoying the heat - we didn't get that promised twenty degrees but my not-so-trusty weather site declares it will be 21 in Orlando tomorrow. We'll see.

xoxo

Daytime New Orleans

2010-01-11T06:19:00.000-08:00

Since Margs has filled you in on all that goes BUMP in New Orleans' night times, I thought I'd give you a brief run-down on our day-to-day activities. We are currently on the plane to Miami - both of us are exhausted - so I'll do my best to be coherent, and Margs has a cold, so is feeling miserable. She is still persisting with her Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, 650 pages in.

Between the two of us, we have eaten 15 beignets at Cafe Du Monde, which are delicious french donuts heaped with icing sugar, so light it feels like the taste is just in your mouth and hasn't made a bit of difference to your daily food intake. You can tell who's been a recent visitor of the cafe by the icing-stained clothing. To give you an idea of the place imagine a two-roomed spacious building filled with tables, overflowing with customers and busy with petite women busing tables. To the entrance side, big blinds have been rolled down to keep out the cool and I can picture them rolled up on a hot day, people and beignets spilling out on to the sidewalk. Outside a big black man trumpets his music, occasionally stopping to sing a few verses or to engage in conversation with passers-by. Pigeons stroll beneath our feet, tracking bird prints on the sugar-coated floor. Though billed as a tourist must see, I imagine the locals would be by daily too. I have sent Dad the recipe, so I would like you all to pester him and make sure he practises on you so he will be an expert by the time I come home.

We must have walked the same streets in the French Quarter a dozen times as we go round and round in squares: I wouldn't be surprised if Margot decided to make this place her permanent home. McGoverns, expect an email asking for all her possessions to be shipped as soon as humanely possible. It is a beautiful, if tired, place; the buildings sit snugly next to one another and all are two storeys high. Though I find this city delightful and a refreshing change to Vegas, I'm not in agreement with Margot. For one, I would quickly find myself fat, as Cafe Du Monde would be an everyday event. The other reason is that this is a tourist town: half the population work in tourism, so I imagine I would feel like a permanent visitor.

We found two wonderful bookshops: the first, a secondhand shop, has, strangely enough, the warmest restroom in town so we endeavoured to visit once a day. The selection of books wasn't too shabby either as each of us picked up a paperback. Mine is Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady, which I've just begun having finished Claire Tomalin's The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens ( which I strongly recommend. Rach, I think you would enjoy this as the Ternan family are an acting one and it has a lot to say about women in the theatre in the Victorian era). Margot picked up Dunker's Hallucianting Focault.

The second bookshop is reputed to be the home of William Faulkner. This was a place reserved only for hardbacks, with some of the most beautiful covers I've ever come across. We could have browsed the shelves for hours. Much to Margot's dismay, they didn't ship back home.

Though it sounds like we only ate donuts we did sample some of the local fare. On our third night we ate in a cosy dim-lit cafe named Napoleon's. Margot tried the gumbo and I, not feeling as adventurous, had the Mufuletta, which despite, I assume, its Italian origins has become something of a local speciality. It was delicious.

Going in back in time to that morning we visited the New Orleans Art Gallery mainly to see the Disney exhibition: Dreams Come True. On display was the artwork from a dozen films, including the latest Princess and the Frog, which is rather important, especially here, as Tiana is the first black Disney Princess. Both of us are loud proud Disney fans so it was a fun morning.

Our hostel was decent if not equipped to deal with the record cold spell the city is having and it is also right near the street car stop, making it easy to travel around. There is a water stain on the fireplace in the common room where it flooded after Katrina, but that is the only remnant we saw of that disaster. Had we been inclined, we could have taken a tour to the worst-hit areas.

We're looking forward to Miami and hoping for some warmer weather. We have been promised it will get to 21 by Wednesday. yay! We changed our hostel accommodation at the last minute after reading some horrible reviews of our original booking, so fingers crossed we made the right decision. No doubt you'll hear about it soon.

Hope all is well back home. Over and out. xox

Bon Temps in Gothic New Orleans

2010-01-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

T'was a dark and stormy night when we flew into New Orleans through thick cloud and fog on Thursday. In Adelaide we may pride ourselves on being the murder capital of the world, but we've got NOTHING on this city (they've got more churches than us too). It may have been unseasonably cold -- the coldest few days they've had in over twenty years, but I was as happy as a clam and prompty set about getting my preternatural geek on. As I doubt many of you have failed to notice, I'm a bit of a vampire buff, and on Friday night Mads and I took one of the French Quarter's ghost, vampire and murder tours. If any of you ever find yourselves in New Orleans, these tours are the best way to learn about the city's soridid and tragic history. Mads and I had spent most of the daylight hours happily traipsing around the French Quarter taking snaps of all the pretty buildings and were rather horrified to learn that they were actually (apparently--though not sure how credible some of the stories were) the sites of some rather grizzly murders (Medical experiments conducted on Negro slaves, jealous lovers chopping their beloveds into little pieces, copy cat vampire attacks). For details try Googling Lalaurie Mansion and the Old Ursuline Conven). By far the most chilling stories though had nothing to do with the supernatural, but of the supernatural fans. Following the release of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire and the other Vampire Chronicles, New Orleans aquired a large population of people practicing vampirism (paying thousands of dollars to get artifical fangs put in, bleaching their skin and drinking human blood). We went to a pub that during the late 70s and 80s actually added real blood to their bloody marys, and there's still an active vampire bar called the Dungeon. At the most recent election these guys petitoned to have the electricity wires removed because they were interfering with their flight patterns! More disturbing than these delusions though, these 'vampires' have been responsible for a number of murders in the city. Apparently there was a guy in New Orleans for a conference in 2003 who decided to check out the Dungeon. He ended up going home with three goth chicks who proceeded to slit his throat, skin him and drink his blood out of dixie cups. The girls were charged with murder, and two are in jail; however, the other one has now been released on probabtion. (Don't worry Mum, I may love my vampires, but only in fiction. We stayed well away from the Dungeon.)
We did, however, visit Louis and Lestat's house (one of only three of the original French buldings in the Quarter that hasn't been destroyed by fire or flood--most of the architecture is actually Spannish), and I did drag Mads along with me to check out the Lafayette Cemetery and the Mayfair Witches house int he Garden District.
Spooky stories aside, I have to finish off my bit by saying that I have fallen head over heels for this city. The French Quarter is gorgeous, with gas lamps for street lights and shuttered windows everywhere, little gardens peeking out from alley ways and iron lace balconies, jazz musicians busking on the pavement, and cafes and restauraunts everywhere you look. All of it is just a little bit shabby, porches slump and paint peels, yet it still retains it's former charm and beauty. I really don't want to leave. If you don't hear from me again, I've somehow scraped together the deposit for a town house in the Quarter and am happily lounging on my new balcony with a bienguet (think that's how it's spelt) and a mug of cafe au lait, writing ghost stories!

Margs

P.S. We don't have spell check and I haven't read over this, so appologies for the shonky sentences!

Las Vegas

2010-01-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here's how it works: Mad's covered Sunday through to Monday and Margs catches you up to date on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Day One: Sunday 1
So I lost Truck, my driving companion of the past four years, a hand-sized elephant, somewhere on the floors of Sydney Airport. And that was only the beginning of Rain on Maddy's Parade Day. In the time it took for the train to pick us up at the domestic terminal and shuttle us across to the international terminal, I managed to misplace my ticket and was thus stuck on the wrong side of the gate. Margot had to swoop to my rescue. Then, I didn't have the proper paperwork to receive my boarding pass (I swear on Truck's tiled grave that this was not my fault) and when I remembered my photocopies, I found the lock on my bag was shut fast and no amount of pulling was going to change that. I eventually got a boarding pass and Margot found me a replacement toy and, after being the recipient of a half-arsed pat down (if you want to smuggle anything, stick it in your bra or the bottom of your socks), we got to hop on the plane.
Flight was uneventful. I'd convinced myself that the reason I couldn't open my lock was that I had picked up someone else's bag by mistake so didn't manage any sleep and neither did Margot, who was wedged between me and someone she didn't want to be sitting next to. Then there was the child a few seats in front of us who, on the hour, would scream that she didn't want to (still not sure what she didn't want to do). If only duck-tapping the mouth of another person's child was socially acceptable.
Day 2: Sunday 2
Margot and I made it through customs and passed by all the gun tottin' officers without incident. We had an easy flight to Vegas, where I was relieved to find that my pack was indeed mine, resplendent with ribbons, and that someone had removed the lock – which was obviously defective – saving me the awkward, and rather suspicious, request of a lock-breaking tool. First tipping experience with the shuttle driver went okay, though neither of us could quite work out what exactly we were tipping for.
Finally got to our hotel, the Paris, on the strip, and spent some quality time stretched star-jump style on our double beds. Our rooms are nice, nothing fancy, but we have an actual bathtub, which seems a luxury that shouldn't be wasted. Between us we average four washes a day.
Searched the hotel-provided guide for a cheap meal and came across a Mexican place at the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel, which only had one $ next to it, so we figured it a safe bet. It was, and the food and sangria were giant sized. It gets dark here at 4 pm so at the end of the meal, 7 pm, we were ready to go to bed. Did a quick explore of the Strip: Vegas has a certain grandness to her (it's a gaudy grandness, to be sure) in sheer size if nothing else. It's a very imposing city with its row of towers competing for sky space – but there's a stubborn layer of grime, like the saccharine cigar smoke that's infused itself into her casinos, which, for all their scrubbing, the daily cleaning crew can't mop up. It's a fun place to be, an energetic place, but (and here's my so-not-cool admission) I don't think I could stay here longer than our four nights.
Went to bed early and spent 10 hours lying horizontal. YAY!
Day 3: Monday
We were out of our hotel by 8.30 am the next morning and it seems few people here, other than locals who work, get up that early because we shared the Strip only with the men and women who pick up rubbish and hose the pavement clean of the night before: tidying up after each night is a big production; we even saw women cleaning the escalators. No one, however, bothers with the scores of naked-women cards (no naked-men cards – an issue that should be addressed) littering the pavement, which are passed out by fluro-shirted men who click their cards at you as you walk by. Neither of us have taken up the offers of which there have been many: the two of us must look like card-collecting ladies.
According to our guide the cheapest buffet breakfast was at the Gold Coast, which turned out to be a 5km-round trip, and provided enough food to warrant skipping lunch.
We'd already allocated our first proper day in Vegas as shopping day, so once back at the hotel we got (not very good) directions from the concierge for the two outlet malls in the city. We ended up getting off the first bus and using our compass! to walk the rest of the way.
No luck for me at the first outlet – I was only shoe hunting – but Margot fitted herself out for ridiculously cheap prices. At the last shop of the second outlet I found some shoes for the price of two books and Margot came away with some inexpensive boots too. If only we didn’t have bag-size constraints.
We found a little faux-Paris diner at our hotel for dinner and had pay-per-slice pizza for tea. We then had another jaunt down the Strip to visit a handful of the over-sized hotels. The MGM is supposed to have lions but both times we’ve gone down to see them they haven’t been in their enclosure so we’re beginning to doubt their existence. No wedding bells yet, but we've only been here a day and a half.
Over and out.
Mad xox

Day 3 (Tuesday)
Began the day with a cup of coffee, my first since leaving Australia. Smokers, drug adicts, vampires and fellow uni people will understand the infinite joy contained within that first drink (which was doubled by the fact that American coffee has cream instead of milk, which is ohmigod amazing). So the day started well, and only improved from there. After two days exploring the Strip, I decided to get away from the neon and venture out into the Mojave, deciding that the best way to do this would obviously be via helichopter. We set out from Vegas flying over Boulder City, Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam and a supposedly extinct volcano peopled by Indians, to land at the bottom of the Gand Canyon. It was phenominal. I was sitting up the front of the chopper, which is pretty much all glass and feels like you're flying in a clear bubble.
I've never seen anything like the Mojave. Unlike our deserts (or what I've seen of them anyeay), the land is all rock with big craggy mountain ranges rising up all over the place. And it's epic. I mean incomprehensibly huge. At first there were no artifical landmarks to compare it to, and it all looked pretty managable. Then the pilot pointed out the Hoover Dam (which is by human standards, very big), a tiny little blemish on the dge of Lake Mead. No wonder everything in Las Vegas is so ridiculously oversized (the cocktail glassed come with neck straps to help you hold them, and Mad and I repeatedly failed to finish a single meal shared between us), the city is suffering from an extreme case of little man syndrome.
I was really interested to learn a bit about the area, and here are some fun facts imparted by the pilot: Boulder City was established to house workers building the Hoover Dam in the 1930s. Alcohol and gambling were illegal, as the government wanted the workers to be focus on the job at hand, but the bans only inspired the workers to take their earnings into Las Vegas. The workers squandered their money and were unable to support their wives and children, so the government ended up paying them in half US dollars and half Boulder dollars, which had to be spent in the city. Alcohol remained illegal until the 1960s and gambling is still illegal. 112 workers died building the Hoover Dam.
The Canyon was by far the highlight. We'd been flying over the desert for nearly an hour, when we went over what looked like just another rocky crest and the ground just fel away. The canyon is over a mile deep and has been forged at a rate of two inches every thousand years (you can see all the lines of sediment on the cliffs). It is this huge ancient thing of terrifying beauty, by far the most spectacular thing I've ever seeen, and possibly will ever see. We flew right down to the Canyon floor and had a champagne lunch by the river, where I got to know some of th eother passengers (mostly from the UK and US) They were all very excited about the hot Vegas weather (about 16 degrees) and when I told them it had been in the 40s the week I left home, they couldn't believe it! They wanted to know if our cities just shut down on days like that.
After I got back to Vegas Mads and I went to the Planet Hollywood Hotel to see Hitzville, a Motown revue (and our first Vegas show). We had to wait in about six different queues to get in, which was a pain, but we got free cocktails (yum!) and the show was worth the wait. The theatre was very small, and the performers came out to greet the audience afterwards.
Day 4 (Wednesday)
Vegas is like nothing else you can imagine, Baudrillard would have a field day. One minute you're in Paris, then you cross the street and you're in Ancient Greece, and everything is covered in neon. Cards of naked women litter the footpath, there are vending machines selling porn on the streets and the air reeks of cigar smoke. At first, it's dazzling, but by our final day, Mads and I were desperate for fresh air and natural light, so we braved the public transport system (Mum, if you're reading, I'm kidding, we caught a very safe taxi) to Springs' Reserve, where we were told we would learn about the history of Las Vegas. Upon arrival we discovered that Springs' Reserve is actually the kind of place tourism boards build to torture unfortunate students on school excursions. We saw such thrilling (and rather hilarious displays) including: different types of lawn favoured by Las Vegas home owners, various types of paving favoured by said homeowners, and the different brands of BBQs availible to them (We have photos, don't worry).
Back on the Strip we decided to do something big with our last night, and bought tickets to The Lion King. The show was absolutely spectacular! The characters were all done with puppets (Wildy girls, think back to the Chalk Circle, but imagine something a tad more extravigant) and the ensemble were fantastic (and yes, I cried). I wish I could say the same for the audience. We had to chnage seats at interval because they guy next to Maddy snored through the entire first act (we're talking thunderstorm volume here), then the people behind me in our new seats talked all through the second act. Very irritating!
We're currently on our flight to New Orleans, which I'm super duper excited about (voodoo and vampires and witches, oh my!). Missing everyone back home, especially Mum, Dad, Jo, Rach and the Dustball. Don't worry Mum, we're keeping safe!
Margot xo xo

Final Days of Pre-trip Countdown

2009-12-28T23:53:00.000-08:00

If you're reading this, congratulations! You've tuned in to what promises to be the most exciting thing you read this year; a thrilling adventure story starring Mads and Margs, novice explorers trekking their way around literary America.

It seems like we've been planning this trip fooooorrrrreeeeeeevverrr, but now with less than a week to go the days are zooming past and there is still heaps of stuff to do (Margot is particularly disorganised).

For the few of you who don't obsessively keep tabs on our every move (FB stalkers, we know who you are), we jet off this Sunday at 9:30am, destination: Las Vegas. Bat country. Setting for numerous cool gangster related films and the subject of a Katy Perry song. There's a high chance we may end up married, part of a chorus line, or filthy rich. Whatever happens, it will definitely be super-exciting, so watch this space!