What's Going On In Lion Town

It's been a couple of weeks now since I've written. I suppose it's because things aren't as exciting as backpacking around central Europe with Wendy. Back home now and back to the ways things are. It's so lovely to have Caro back home. We've done a lot of late night hot chocolate drinking and American TV show watching. 

I had a slight crisis a little while back with school. It was to do with subjects, poor communication and disorganisation at university here in Lyon. I had a little freak out, made some hurried emails back home and to Melbourne and now I think that things are starting to come together. I've started up a few classes at the political sciences university, Sciences Po. It's amazing. I was there this morning and it's CLEAN! It has proper tables without graffiti and even a TV in most rooms. Trust me, after having spent a semester at a university that couldn't afford projectors or proper heating... Or proper professors for that matter, I was on cloud nine.

Last week I trekked back up to Paris for a couple of days to see my little cousin, Saskia. I say 'little' cousin, as she was always my baby cousin... Though we're only 2 years apart in age. She's here in Europe representing the Model United Nations team for Australia (yeah, I already know how great and talented she is). After searching for her hotel for an hour, we found each other (thanks Mr Taxi driver)! It was particularly nice to see her, as we hadn't seen each other in a year... And as well as that, it did do some good to have a member of my pretty family present in Paris with me. We then made it to Les Tuileries gardens, strolled past Place de la Concorde and made it onto the Champs Elysées. Here are a couple of pictures

We then went to the town hall, past Notre Dame and straight into one of the world's most famous bookstores, Shakespeare and Co. We had a mooch around and then I believe that Sas bought a book by Hemingway. We ate at a Moroccan place for lunch and then we ran away to Musée d'Orsay. It's AMAZING there. Everyone who goes to Paris should go there and soak up how amazing it is... How amazing art is.... We finished our little Parisian excursion off with some obligatory shopping. We both found bargains at Naf Naf. It was a rather perfect day. 

I stayed with Chloé (lovely to see her again of course) before running back home to work out my studies.

Also I caught up with Harriet at some point. Harriet is a friend I met at one of Tom's gatherings a couple of years back. We got on really well and kept in contact (she's a Sydney girl) and now she's here studying in Lyon. It's fantastic! We had a lovely day full of views and chatting and walking in the park (of course with an obligatory hot chocolate at the end of it all). 

In other news, we have a kitten! Well... Caroline has a kitten. She's adorable. Her name is Mela (which means apple in Italian). Caro actually wanted to name her Apple in English... But I thought this was too strange. We opted for something a little more name-sounding. Here is her picture

This evening the children from across the hall came to play with Mela. They chased her around, they picked her up... They had a fantastic time (and scared the poor creature half to death). They were simply adorable speaking French though. At first when I hear babies speaking French I am always so impressed... It's as if I forget that it's their native language or something. Here's a video of them... So gorgeous!

I also received a wonderful gift in the mail from Nicole yesterday. Beaten into a weird shape due to air travel (but together and oh so crunchy), arrived a gigantic tin of Milo. The winter just got much, much easier now knowing that I can drink the stuff to my little heart's content.

This picture doesn't do my beaten Milo tin justice... It was REALLY beaten up, though the Milo was entirely in tact. That's all that really counts!

Over and out from the Milo drinker who misses cheddar cheese,

Alice

Central European Delights (and some chilly weather)

So – two hours to kill in an airport without internet… A seemingly excellent opportunity to write. Where did we let off? Oh yeah, we were in Salzburg. Wendy and I left the beautiful mountains of Salzburg and caught a train to Vienna. Feeling tired and not so motivated, we trudged to the hostel and settled ourselves in, before heading out to a museum that used to be the summer palace of a former king of Savoie. It was very beautiful…. Though we weren’t feeling too inspired by the dark clouds looming overhead. We were able to admire works by Gustav Klimt, in particular ‘The Kiss’. It was all very beautiful and cultured. Here is a picture of Wendy being excited about the museum:

We fought against the icy winds on our way back to the hostel and then made some delicious risotto. The impolite Parisian girls that we met in the kitchen were totally jealous. The next couple of days in Vienna didn’t consist of too much. As I already said, we weren’t feeling too motivated – the weather being a large factor of this. I’m actually very glad that it hasn’t snowed. I think that 2-3 degrees with wind was really enough for Wendy and I to deal with. We enjoyed strolling around the city and looking at the beautiful buildings and lacy iron exteriors etc… Though the chill factor did lead to our huddling in several cafés.

I was honestly dreading the 5 hour train ride to Prague, but surprisingly it turned out to be really nice. Wendy and I had our own compartment thing… We killed 3 hours talking and then converted the place into a cinema (I had my laptop and we flicked the light off). Wendy was slightly nervous, as we were in Eastern Europe… but the Czech Republic isn’t really in Eastern Europe.

PRAGUE

I was pleasantly surprised by Prague. When we arrived at the hostel, we were upgraded to a private suite because the dorm had been overbooked. There we had a view of the castle AND our own space. It was fantastic and really a kind of relief not to be in a room with a snorer and an all-night partyer.  We had fun exploring and walking over Charles Bridge into the very old part of the city… Even though it was dark and grey in Prague, we felt very into exploring and venturing into all that historic city wilderness.

The first day that we spent in Prague we took a free walking tour. We grumbled a little bit when we saw that it was an Australian leading this tour… But quickly bit our tongues when she said that she had lived there for 20 years (and we can all guess why). The tour was fantastic! Not only did we then have a good sense of our surroundings, we were equipped with 700 years of Czech history! It was pretty sweet. We really just enjoyed walking around Prague and enjoying everything that was going on around us.

We went to a Jewish synagogue where the names of 250,000 people were printed on the walls. These of course were those who fell victim to the Nazi regime in the Czech republic at the time. In the same place there was an exhibitions of childrens’ drawings. The drawings had been done by Jewish children from Prague who had been deported to a ghetto. An Austrian artist who had studied at the Bauhaus in Berlin had instructed these children to draw pictures of their hopes and dreams, but also record their feelings of deportation and life in the ghetto. The pictures were stored in suitcases in the attic of one of the buildings in the ghetto, and were discovered after the war. Had this not have happened, the names of many children who perished would have been lost.  So that was very interesting and moving. We also made a point of going to a famous wall, known as 'The Lennon Wall'. Here people would write the lyrics to Beatles songs to gain a sense of hope and release during the times of communist oppression. It was really interesting to see this and we also made our own contributions to the wall. 

During our stay in Prague, we stumbled across a lovely tea house where we spent quite a bit of time. We also treated ourselves to some local Czech sweets and paraded up and down the Christmas market that was on a road leading up to the museum. By the time we left Prague, we felt that we’d had the time that we needed. The weather was bringing us down again and it was time to move.

BERLIN

We caught the bus to Berlin on Tuesday night. The following day we did an alternative walking tour of Berlin, which included looking at lots of Street Art. It was cool, but very long. Eventually I felt a bit disappointed, as I really felt that most of it I could see in Melbourne. It was still cool to see parts of the city that otherwise we wouldn’t have explored. Everyone on our tour was Australian. What’s up with that? I swear that I heard more Australians in Prague and Berlin than I have since I left home six months ago. I found myself channelling my inner Australianness…. I was blurting out phrases like ‘I’m totally bummed about the lack of merch’. Wendy and I both had some fun with this. But really, why are there so many of us here? It’s so far away and Australia isn’t even that populated. 

We visited Sachsenhausen, what used to be a concentration camp. It was very haunting and we were given a very detailed tour. Of course we left disturbed, cold and not so jolly in spirits… But felt that it was important thing to do. That night we went for doner kebabs. They fix all dark moods.

I flew back to Paris on Friday night (as is suggested by the beginning of this post) and then Chloé and Baptiste treated me to crêpes at Montparnasse. I then stayed the night at Chloé’s new studio apartment, which was cool. Back at home now, which is a big relief… We have a KITTEN! And I’m going to rescue the apartment from disarray this afternoon.

Hope you’re all doing well. Love,

Alice

London's Calling and the Hills are Alive!

Last Thursday saw a sad goodbye to Denmark and finding myself feeling excited about going to London. I never really imagined that I would feel the level of excitement that I had to go to England. I suppose it was a mixture of being pleased to go to an English speaking country and also to catch up with familiar people.

Old friends greeted me at the airport and as we drove onto the freeway (of course sticking closely to the left-hand-side) I immediately felt at home. A brief trip to the local supermarket where I saw products I’d see at home was a funny feeling. Even the buildings looked like they do at home. It’s bizarre how it’s possible to be so far away yet at the same time feel such familiarity.

I had a really nice time at the Cowley’s place. We were able to catch up on what everyone’s been doing and we also made some great trips. The day I arrived we went to a quaint little English town with a cathedral and pedestrian shopping strip. The following day we went into London. London is amazing. We did a bit of shopping, had some lunch and then eventually met up with my friend from JCH, Wendy. Wendy’s been living in London this semester. As entering Westminster Abby costs roughly AUD $40, we decided to attend Evensong – as this way we’d be able to go in for free (thanks Adam Chong for this excellent suggestion). It was fantastic… So beautiful and so much history. Big Ben greeted us as we walked out and then we strolled across Trafalgar Square on our way to the opera. That night I watched The Nutcracker ballet at the opera house with Maira and Vicky. Probably the best theatrical experience I’ve ever had. It was simply phenomenal!

On Saturday morning I headed back into London to Wendy’s place. We had a nice walk look around town and she took me to the market place near where she lives, Borough Market (J. Oliver did his groceries there). We had fantastic halloumi burgers and bought some fancy olives before hitting the Thames and strolling on by past Shakespeare's globe theatre. We may have also squeezed in some obligatory phone box pictures and poses by the Tower Bridge.

As it grew darker we stumbled across Harrods' and London's Natural History Museum, which made for some beautiful post-Christmas snaps and the interior of the museum was beautiful.

That evening I cooked up a ratatouille and we had some of Wendy's friends round. We then went down to the river Thames again for the New Years' celebrations that were supposed to be taking place. We fought the crowds and scored ourselves a nice place at the sides of the river. This feeling of contentedness was however later shattered as Englishman Harrison pushed through trying to bribe us for our spot, before informing us that he, quote 'had to take a piss' into the river below. We tried to fight back for a while, but this was all too much. We were surprised when he later did give us back our spot... though felt disgusted. This feeling later returned as someone pushed through to be sick. Classy, London. My sense of British pride that I had felt throughout the day was shattered. Our lack of firework view wasn't great either.  Some boys even climbed up into a tree at some point. We still don't know where Mr. Plod was hiding out. Health and Safety... London is lacking! It was the atmosphere though, I guess. We were in LONDON for New Years'. That's not something that we could boast every year.

Illegal behaviour = sweet artsy snaps

The next day we tried to do some more visiting after I'd been to church in the morning... though England's horrible weather wasn't exactly inspirational or practical for this. Here is an exhibit of the 'Buckingham Palace' experience:

With wet feet, enough was enough. I then decided that I'd enjoyed my taste of London and that I'd be back with bells on... in May... or even June. That evening we went on the London eye which was kind of cool.

On Monday of course we woke up to a blue sky and a sneaky sun. "Why does this always seem to happen to me?" I said to Wendy as we dragged our belongings to the metro station. I'd also lost my voice completely at this point and could only whisper. We caught up with a friend of Wendy's at a good ol' English pub which was good fun, before we boarded the bus to the airport. 

SALZBURG

I was very relieved to make it to Salzburg alive. We'd caught a flight on a budget airline and flown through wind and rain - and for those of you who know me well, you'd know that flying and I are not a match made in Heaven. We don't really 'mesh'. We were happy with the hostel etc etc 

Our first day in Salzburg had me jumping up and down and miming 'I have confidence' from the Sound of Music (I had no voice, remember). We were greeted with bright blue skies and a warm sun which was a nice change from the cold, winter weather.. though it hasn't been as cold as it SHOULD be.. Is this good or bad? We waltzed through the garden where a part of 'Doe a Deer' was filmed, then made our way across a bridge, soaking up the mountain scenery into the older part of town. We hiked up to the old castle and enjoyed views of the city and alpes. We ate schnitzel and crisp apple strudel (because these are a few of our favourite things) and just enjoyed being there.

The next day we did the Sound of Music tour (which had been my dream since the age of six). I was almost in tears as I saw the gazebo that features in the film, the lake, the abby... We also made a trip through the mountains where we saw a snow-coated town where the opening scene of the film takes place (the arial views etc with the lake) and walked through the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp are married. The only thing that got us down were the tour guide's cynical comments and negative attitude towards my favourite film, and probably the greatest film ever made. We decided to give the Sound of Music puppet show that we'd booked a miss... It was all a bit too much. 

When we left Salzburg we were happy - though mutually decided it's really a summer town. Hiking in the surrounding mountains and lake swimming are definitely on the cards for future holidays (in mid-July). We then made our way to Vienna (as it was waiting for us). 

GOD JUL (Merry Christmas in Danish)

December 22nd called for a morning flight to good ol' Copenhagen. Toke and Dorte met me at the airport, I arrived home and was so relieved. I played with Asger and Johan and later that night had a haircut (FINALLY). The 24th was the day, though. That afternoon we went to the local Danish Orthodox church (it was small, cosy and beautiful). The boys were very well behaved too. We then returned home and ate our huge Christmas dinner. It was very different to back home, but it was really interesting and even more so, as I did think a lot about my Danish ancestors and the way that they would have celebrated Christmas.

After dinner we rushed into the living room and shoved the dozens of presents we had underneath the tree. Afterwards we lit the real candles (in Georg Jensen holders) on the fresh Christmas tree. We crowded in there all together and danced around, singing traditional Danish carols (well.. Except for me. I just giggled at how funny these sounded while sort of skipping). Asger was so SO SO excited.

We opened our gifts and I was thrilled to receive some warm gloves and ear warmers too... a good book, a beautiful journal and some 'room shoes' from my parents.... It was also an even better kick watching the kids open their presents. They were just so excited and so overwhelmed about it all.

Time in Denmark was wonderful. I was really happy to have some time at home and some time with people that I love. It doesn't even bother me that I don't get out of the house often. Micha and I went into Copenhagen one day and saw a film and did some things. It was nice. Very cold though.

As I left I found myself to be really excited about going to England, which I didn't think would happen. I'm always sad to leave my Nordic home though. I'll be back there in May, I hope.

In England now. Soggy London thoughts from a girl who has lost her voice somewhere near the Thames.

- Alice