5 posts tagged “new york”

MONTREAL
•    Mum and I got up at the crack of dawn (in fact, a good hour before dawn) and flew on a tiny wee plane (I’ve been on bigger tour buses) up to Montreal, where it was snowing like there was someone sitting in the clouds shredding tissues. So no white Christmas for me, but at least a white Boxing Day! It wasn’t too cold though; colder than New York for sure, but the temperatures weren’t down to freezing.
•    We got to our hotel around midday and then made our way to the underground city, which is basically a network of shops underneath St Catherine’s Street, which is the main shopping street in Montreal. It was way, way warmer down there. The shops got manic around 1.30 or 2pm (having only opened at 1), and by 4pm we gave up and returned to the hotel. A bit later, mum decided to go back and find a bookstore, whilst I stayed in the hotel and typed up some of my travel journal (seriously, you ungrateful wretches, maintaining this thing is a full-time job!).
•    After mum got back, we went out and found a restaurant for dinner. It was on St. Catherine’s Street, and done up like a retro diner. Both of us really enjoyed our meals. Then, for dessert, we got “Tarte aux Pommes Hollandaise” (Dutch-style apple tart). Apparently the Dutch REALLY like their cinnamon, that’s all I’m saying.
•    The next day we went to the McCord Museum of Canadian History, which was just down the street from the hotel. In this museum, there was no mention of anywhere in Canada except Quebec, because apparently French Canadians are a little precious about the vexed issue of being a part of Canada.
•    After that, around midday, we hopped on a three hour tour of Montreal. Our tour guide took us to famous churches, Olympic parks, and mountains, whilst also managing not to say the C-word (“Canada”) once in three hours. When we were in a park over near the Olympic stadium, there were three flags flying, which our guide identified as the flag of Montreal, that of Quebec, and “that one… I don’t know.” This last was, of course, the, oh, CANADIAN flag.
•    That evening, we went back to the same diner for dinner; although we’d planned to eat at the hotel restaurant, the diner was cheaper, and I suspect the food was better too.
•    On the 28th, I spent the morning exploring the shops landside (as opposed to underground) with a friend and bought a dress and two tops.
•    After that, we headed to the airport (mum had a flight booked back to New York for an hour after my flight to Denver via Chicago). Alas, it turned out that the second leg of my flight (Chicago to Denver) had been cancelled due to a blizzard closing the runways in Denver International Airport (DIA). Okay, after a moment or two’s discussion, we decided it would be best if I flew back to New York with Mum. They were able to get me onto her flight, and booked me onto a flight to Denver the next day, via Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), in Texas. I said I preferred to go via DFW rather than Chicago, which was ironic, given the events of the following day.

BACK IN NEW YORK (WHAT THE HELL)
•    So, we flew back to New York, and it turned out there was an earlier flight doing the same run that I was booked to do he next day, so I switched to that. It flew out of La Guardia at around midday, and I was on it, having bid a (Second) sad farewell to my family.

AND OFF TO DALLAS (WHAT THE HELL)    

•    So, the flight to Dallas was uneventful, until we began our descent and found ourselves in a cloud bank of epic proportions. We were told that there was a storm on the ground, and air traffic control wasn’t letting people land. We did a holding pattern over DFW for about an hour, and the pilot began talking about rerouting to Tulsa, Oklahoma, before the plane ran out of fuel. It didn’t come to that; there was a break in the storm long enough for the plane to land. Then, we had to sit on the tarmac for almost another hour while the lightning passed over. This was because while there was lightning they wouldn’t put the ramps down so we could disembark, because of course the ramps are metal and therefore we or the ground crews could get fried if lightning hit it. This isn’t an issue with the planes for some reason I am not absolutely sure of; I just know I saw at least one bolt of lightning hit the wing of the plane, and we didn’t even feel it.
•    Anyway, we eventually got off the plane and into the terminal. I immediately made my way to the nearest departures board, and confirmed what my suspicion was: that my flight to Denver had been cancelled. I went to the rebooking counter and asked them and they said that they could put me on standby for the next flight, and I could phone some number and try to get a confirmed ticket.
•    They also said that my bags were going to Denver whether I did or not. I had had some idea of just retrieving my bag and heading back to New York, and calling the whole Colorado malarkey a bad deal. But because they had so, so many bags on the tarmac, they pretty much laughed at me when I asked if they’d go find my bag.
•    Anyway, the only phone I had on my (that worked) was my Australian phone, which has international roaming on it, but DUDE is expensive. So I phoned mum, and they were out, so I sat down at an internet terminal and I didn’t have any American money on me, so I just swiped my credit card. The terminal proceeded to freeze, and I had to phone (on my Australian phone) tech support just to get them to restart the terminal so I could be sure it wasn’t like… keeping my credit card details. After that, I found an ATM and pulled out some money, which I used to buy a bit of internet time and e-mail Liana who I was staying with in Colorado and my parents telling them to CALL ME when they got home.
•    Then, I sat around for a bit with a bunch of other people who had been stranded there… it was around this time that I found out that they had basically closed the airport… not because of a blizzard in Denver—as near as we could tell, flights were going in and out of Denver just peachy. No, on the contrary, DFW Airport was closed… because that storm we were getting was part of a TORNADO moving across the middle of Texas.
•    It was about this time that I phoned and got ahold of mum, who’d just got my e-mail. I filled her in, and she told me I should go find a hotel, but I was threatening to spend the night in the airport. I moseyed out into the rebooking queue (even though I was on standby for the flight going out at around 10pm, I was pretty sure it would be cancelled, and, indeed, about a half hour later, it was), while mum got on the phone and booked me a hotel that had a shuttle service to/from the airport. I did feel much better knowing that I would be going back somewhere to sleep.
•    In the rebooking queue, I met a couple of guys from… Pennsylvania I think. They were brothers, and the elder’s name was Jordan and the younger’s… Ben or something? I’ll call him Ben. Anyway, they were a bucket of laughs. They were both I’m pretty sure stoned, and like five minutes into our epic wait they got rebooked on a flight via the rebooking hotline, but they hung around in the queue with us anyway until their dad showed up a two and a half hours later to pick them up (they were from Dallas).
•    Jordan, at one point, made a handmade sign that said “Approximate wait from this point: 2 Hours” and actually stuck it up at the beginning of the roped part of the queue (there was a good hour’s word of people waiting before that point), and everyone was like, “whee! It’s like Disneyland!” We were all such comrades in this queue, I swear. In Australia I think everyone would have been pretty reticent and sticking with people they knew, but we were like having a slumber party, young and old, and seriously, it took about four hours to get through this queue so it was a LONG slumber party.
•    Jordan, Ben and I also made friends with a woman named Karen who was trying to get to Florida, and she ended up booking a room in the same hotel mum had booked me into, so we figured we’d take the shuttle together.
•    Oh yes, Jordan and Ben (and this was about the time I became pretty sure they were stoned off their faces) derived endless amusement from the “don’t take this stuff on the plane” cabinet, which had like… drano, and a CHAINSAW and that sort of thing in it, and we were speculating about whether they were actual confiscated goods, like someone had actually tried to take a CHAINSAW in their hand luggage and had it taken off them.
•    Anyway, about three hours in, the brothers were finally picked up by their dad, and Karen and I had about eight people in front of us in the queue. It was by this time about 11.30pm, and the shuttle to the hotel stopped running at midnight, but we kinda thought we’d be through to the front by then.
•    We weren’t. At 11.45pm, mum rang again (and she was an hour ahead, so it was the wee hours of the morning for her), and said that the holding time on the rebooking hotline was about six minutes and would I like her to just book a damn flight for me. I said yes, and that I’d phone her if I got to the front of the queue and she’d get the call-waiting beep and know she should hang up because I’d book my own.
•    She phoned back just before midnight and said she’d got me on an 11am flight to Denver the next day. We had about four people in front of us, so I figured Id wait it out and just confirm with the desk lady and get her to print me an e-ticket so I had PROOF DAMMIT that I was getting on that goddamn flight.
•    It took another half hour to get through that queue. There were these two girls who were at the desk yelling at the desk guy for literally HOURS, and as soon as they got done, we all CLAPPED and he ran for the employees only door. I bet he was MEANT to go home at like… 10pm or something. Anyway, these girls then proceeded to another line to see if they could get their bags pulled and took ANOTHER HOUR yelling at that guy about something NEITHER OF THEM could help. So we clapped again when they finally just gave the hell up and went away.
•    I got to the front of the line and went up to the lady, and she confirmed I had a seat booked, and printed me off an e-ticket, and I said thank you very much, and about ten minutes later Karen was done and we headed for the taxi rank (it being 12.30am by now, the shuttle wasn’t running).
•    Finally, blessedly, we got to the hotel and crashed in our respective rooms—me around 1am.
•    Bright and early the next morning, I was up and had a shower and got a call from mum saying that the flight she’d booked me on, which was coming from Atlanta, Georgia, had had the Atlanta-DFW leg cancelled—I theorise this was because the, oh TORNADO that had shut DFW down the previous night had moved east. She said, and I agreed, that I should get to the airport ASAP in case I had to rebook again.
•    So, I had a quick breakfast of bagels and hopped on the shuttle back to the airport. The check-in line was HUGE, but I made the pleasant discovery that what I had thought was an e-ticket was, in fact, a boarding pass, so I got to skip that queue (my checked baggage, recall, was being held hostage on the tarmac and going to Denver whether I did or not) and head straight for security.
•    I also discovered that my ticket said I was flying first class—they must have randomly upgraded me when mum booked the ticket. I was pretty convinced at this point that I wasn’t going to get on this plane, because Murphy really had it in for me, and traveling first class seemed a bit too lucky.
•    They SECONDARY SECURITY SCREENED ME to get into the airport, and I’m going to digress for a moment to have a rant about that. I got on FOUR planes originating in the States over a two-week period. And on EVERY SINGLE DAMN ONE they did a secondary screening when I went through security. NY to Montreal, NY to Dallas, Dallas to Denver, and Denver to LA. Every. Single. One. A secondary screening basically involves their going through your stuff and testing it for bomb materials in a lil’ machine, and getting patted down, so it’s not too bad, but it’s annoying, and I hate having people in my stuff, so by the time I got to DFW I was tired, cranky, convinced I was never going to get to Denver or see my bag again, and so I got a little irritated when they yet again herded me to that SPECIAL line.
•    The guy said that it was the airline who picked the SS people—it’s actually printed on the ticket. So. Dear American Airlines: I HATE YOU. I HATE YOUR SECONDARY SCREENING. I HATE YOUR RUDE AIR STEWARDS. I HATE THAT YOU CANCEL FLIGHTS AND THAT THEY’RE ALWAYS DELAYED. OH YES, AND YOUR MEAL SERVICE SUCKS. NO LOVE, Susannah.
•    Anyway, got through to airside about two hours after my flight was scheduled to go. This account is getting quite long-winded, so I’ll fast0forward a couple hours to the point where I was sitting in the lounge watching, the news sories on which cycled between: 1. Death of Saddam Hussein. 2. Death of Gerald Ford. 3. Death of James Brown. And 4. TORNADO IN TEXAS. Mmm, yes, cheery.
•    So yes, there I am, sitting there, and the PREVIOUS flight meant to leave from our gate hasn’t gone yet. A lot of people don’t realize this and think it’s our plane, but I, being a cheery sort, immediately disillusion them. Then, miracle of miracles, that plane actually GOES. And, not only that, but we get an announcement over the PA that OUR flight, OUR FLIGHT TO DENVER, has a plane, it just hasn’t arrived yet.
•    I, jaded and beaten down by my recent experiences in American air travel, was skeptical, but sure enough, a plane taxied up and then, a half hour later, they actually called us to board! I was flying first class, so I boarded first, and then phoned my dad and said, “Um, hi… I’m on a plane to Denver, and I… think it might actually take off!” I had to get him to e-mail Liana in Colorado, because my phone wasn’t loving hers, but other than that, it was actually looking good for me to be actually going to actual Denver.
•    Of course, then I started having visions of being TRAPPED IN COLORADO FOREVER and having to like… transfer to UC Boulder, and never seeing my family because blizzards kept the airport and the roads shut 24/7. But that is a story for another heading, because despite all my fears, the plane took off, and we were bound for…

BOULDER (COLORADO).

Dude, this post is almost 3,000 words. You don’t want anymore right now.

Yes, hi everyone, I am alive and well and livin' it up in Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA WOO.

Since I am anal-retentive about doing things in order, it may be a while before you get to find out about my Canadian hijinks, but for now, enjoy the rousing tale of New York, New York, with Montreal, New York (AGAIN) and Dallas to follow shortly!

NEW YORK

•    After I flew in, I met my parents and brother at JFK, as their flight from Australia had got in around the same time as mine. They had Slight Baggage Issues, in that apparently the bags had to be driven from Australia; they took long enough to emerge onto the carousel.
•    Eventually, we got into a taxi which conveyed us to the apartment on Manhattan (W 70th St; right near Central Park). We got there to discover that the apartment had no elevator and we were on the 4th (top) floor. I was slightly underwhelmed with joy at this as Tessie (the bag, in case you’d forgotten) was had clocked in at 27kg for the flight across the Atlantic, and I subsequently had to haul her up all four of those flights of stairs.
•    We had a New York Style (or what I’m going to assume is New York style) pizza for dinner, which was huge and basically tasted like someone had spread bolognaise sauce over the base and covered it with cheese. It was frankly delicious. As soon as I get home I am making Pizza Bolognaise. Every night.
•    The following day (and it was quite late by the time we got to the apartment, so this was our first full day of doing anything, and, for those playing along at home, the 21st of December (it’s been a while since I’ve provided an actual concrete date).  Had proclaimed it for myself a lazy day, because as Elise will affirm, at this point we hadn’t had a single day off from mad touristing, and I was quite frankly exhausted, even notwithstanding the fact that I had spent three hours in the airport and eight hours on a plane the previous day. This day, in the morning, I managed to update the blog to I think Paris? Thus maintaining my admirable standard of being between one and two weeks behind!
•    After a lazy morning, however, my cohabitors were keen to be out exploring the city, and the first thing that popped up on their list was the Museum of Natural History, which was actually just down the street. I went along, avid touristing being by now hardwired into my brain, and we enacted stereotypes by splitting up along gender lines: Dad and the Bro went off and looked at animals and dinosaurs, whilst Mum and I headed for Peoples of the World and the gemstones.
•    We also watched a show in the planetarium—Cosmic Collision—which was very fancy and narrated by Robert Redford (iirc), but also made me motion-sick.
•    That night, we watched Supernatural in its home timeslot of 9/8C, on the CW (which is, imo, the most amusing channel on American TV; c.f. later comments about Yule Log!). It was a repeat, but I hee! hee!ed anyway.
•    Having had Pizza Bol for dinner the previous night, we had the more traditional Spag Bol for dinner the second night.
•    The third day (we’re talkin’ the 22nd, incidentally), we caught the subway to Chinatown and had Yum Cha (aka Dim Sum) for brunch.
•    Then we walked from there through Little Italy and down to Park (I think) Ave, and eventually found 34th St  and Macy’s, which was huge and absolutely packed, it being two days ‘til Christmas. Ihadabitofashop and bought a top and a pair of jeans, a bag, and a whole ton of toiletries since I had either lost or run out of shampoo, conditioner, cleanser and moisturiser.
•    That afternoon, I did laundry woo.

NEW YORK PART 2
(Helpfully broken up for less frighteningly long blocks of text)

•    The next day, Christmas Eve Eve, the 23rd, and a Saturday, we caught the subway down to eyeball the Statue of Liberty, which looks really kinda weeny from the end of Manhattan Island. I believe it looks less weeny if you get up close to it, but I wouldn’t know, having not actually managed that. After our touristic stairclimbing activities in Paris, I am actually quite city-panoramaed out.
•    Then, we headed back to the area around 23rd St, and had lunch in an All American Diner Whee! I had a buffalo burger not actually because I was being nauseatingly touristish and trying the weirdest thing on the menu, but actually because we had had buffalo steak way back in Madrid on the tour, and it had been delicious. I am a total convert.
•    After lunch, I bought that puffy jacket you may have noticed in some of the later photos. It was from GAP, US$29.99, and has been an absolute lifesaver, because it is so so warm.
•    Anyways, we got home from that at around 3pm, then around 4.30pm, my lovely friend Nathalie, a New Yorker born and bred, came and met me at the apartment. She took me to a restaurant called (iirc) Gyuu Kaku, which was a Japanese restaurant where you order meat and veg and sauce, then you grill it yourself on a grill in the centre of the table. Nathalie prevailed upon me to try Gyuu Tan (cow’s tongue), which was very tasty but has a slight squick factor (but was nonetheless very tasty), and I had some chicken and some zucchini too. For desert, I had… s’mores. Which, for my Australian and consequently unenlightened readers, basically comprises a graham cracker (a wheat sort of cracker that tastes vaguely like digestive biscuits but has a more crumbly texture), a square of chocolate, and a toasted marshmallow. So anyway, I ordered the s’mores, and they delivered to me four graham crackers, four squares of chocolate, four marshmallows, and a toasting fork, and I then proceeded to roast my own marshmallows over the Japanese-style grill.
•    We had to hurry along, though, because that night, the family and I were seeing…. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA at the Majestic Theatre, on Broadway. Nathalie took me back there, getting impressively un-lost.
•    The staging was absolutely spectacular (although, apparently, they haven’t actually changed it since the musical was first performed in the eighties, and speaking of which…), THE MUSIC WAS SO FABULOUSLY EIGHTIES ELECTRO-ROCK. I adored it.
•    The most notable difference between the musical and the recent film was that the Phantom was acted very, very differently. Very differently.
•    Afterwards, we waited around for Nathalie to come retrieve me again. She’d gone to a friend’s house, and was gonna come back so she could take me back to hers for the night. While we were waiting, The Producers let out across the street, and I had a minor celeb sighting, of Tony Danza, hose name you may no know, but you’d know his face (as I, indeed, did).
•    

Anyway, Nathalie came back, and we caught the subway (which became the abovegroundway somewhere after Manhattan), and her mum and uncle came to meet us at the station.
•    Then, we stayed up until all hours watching silly videos on YouTube. I showed her a couple of clips from the Chaser (the “Ad Roadtest” of the Nicorette ads… “no Gary no!” and “First in the USA”), for lols.
•    The next morning, we got up quite late (by my standards, anyway), and I played The Sims 2: Pets (because I hadn’t tried it before) on Nathalie’s computer while she slumbered on. TS2:Pets was pretty boring, so we went and had breakfast (Nathalie’s mum made PANCAKES), and then I watched Nathalie play this playstation game called Guitar Hero where the console is actually a guitar thingie and you have to try to play songs of varying difficulty.
•    We headed back down to Manhattan and met up with one o Nathalie’s friends for a relaxing afternoon of shopping and wandering and drinking of coffee and more wandering. I boughta couple of books, and then around 4.30pm we headed back to the apartment and Nathalie and I had a PHOTOWAR (hence all the pics of her I uploaded).

CHRISTMAS (STILL IN NEW YORK)

•    New York really failed me by now snowing. In fact, they had a snow free December, and the temperatures were in the balmy high 50’s to 60’s range (FAHRENHEIT not centigrade!).
•    Malcolm and I were the first up, of course, so we turned on the TV and sat down to watch the Yule Log. The CW, one of the American networks, actually broadcasts someone’s hearth with a log crackling away merrily in it for THREE HOURS on Christmas morning. With a soundtrack of Christmas Carols. On Christmas Eve I think they had a docco on it called something like, “The Yule Log: A Log’s Story”, which I sadly did not watch.
•    Around midday, we went for a good long walk, across Central Park, along 5th Avenue (the swanky bit), then down to Times Square and back around to our apartment. It took a couple hours, but the New Yorkers were out in force, and it was really enjoyable.
•    For dinner, we had turkey, then we turned in quite early, because the next morning, Mum and I had an early flight to…

MONTREAL
(coming soon!)

Since people are hassling me (shucks guys <3) and I am seriously 2 weeks behind again (boo), I'm going to be a good Suz and update. For the curious, I am currently in Colorado, under 2 feet of snow, and I saw Eragon last night. If you're considerng seeing it, don't. ;)

Anyway, two weeks ago! We went from TOURS to...

LILLE

• Which is a town in northern France, about an hour by train north-east of Paris, in the region that is called Flanders.
• We arrived around 2pm, and since the tourist office was a trek from the tran station, I sent Elise off to find us accomodation whilst I guarded the bags and continued to soldier through my Massive Loaf o'Brioche.
• The tourist office in Lille, however, was exceptional in that it would not book hotels for us, so Elise had to trek all the way there, and all the way back to the hotel she chose, which was 1* but still damned expensive, and then back to me, which took her over an hour. I, meanwhile, was sitting on my bag collecting security guards with DOGS, who wandered up and stood about ten metres away talking. There were two there when we finally headed for the hotel, casting me amused looks while their PITBULL and GERMAN SHEPHERD eyed me like dinner (yes, I exaggerate; shut up, who's telling this story, you or me??).
• Anywho, we found the hotel and then headed back to Lille's famous mall, the Euralille, to shop. It is right between the two stations, and it ain't all that. It had some of my favourite shops: Zara, H&M and Bershka, but alas, not Sfera, which was my FAVOURITE, but I think it's a Spanish brand exclusively. But I bought a lot of Sfera stuff in both Madrid and Barcelona.
• Once we were done with Euralille (and I think the only purchase was Elise buying eyeliner because I had at this pont absolutely no idea how much money I had left in either of my accounts and was consequently very edgy), we headed down a street lined with life-size fake elephants to the Christmas markets, which were swingin'.
• We were hungry, and there were a number of stalls selling food, so we had: Poelee de Noel (with a ton of accents I can't be bothered finding), a sort of curried pork stuff in bread, mulled wine, a frankfurt (me), leek soup (elise), and waffles (aka gaufres in French) dipped in ohgodchocolatesoooooogood, and a cup of hot chocolate to finish off. And I think everyone now understands why I've gained 7 kilos, yes? Then, having perused the stalls selling items other than food, we staggered back to our hotel to diiiiiiiiiigest.
• Before dawn (ie, about half past seven :p), we got up to catch a train up to Brussels, Belgium, which is actually
  

  Elise, freezing cold in Brussels
  only a half hour train trip.Everything was closed and it was BLOODY FREEZING when we got in, so we thought since we both really needed to, that we'd find an internet cafe. But, alas, even they were closed, so we spend a very cold couple hours until 10am. then headed in to the main square type thing. In the way, in the middle of a metro station, we found an internet cafe and did housekeeping things like printing off e-tickets and booking flights.
• Then we went up into the main square which I should remember what it's called but I DON'T. There was a fog over Brussels and most of northern Europe, I believe, that didn't clear up for several days. From roughly this point until when I flew out, I don't think I saw clear European sky again . Oh Europe. Anyway, Brussels was very pretty with its gothic architecture and its overpriced beer useum and no, not even Belgian beer can make me like the stuff. It is yucky.
• Finally, around 11am, the Christmas  markets opened and you know where this is leading, right? It is leading to more eating. Of a funny potato carbonara (me), a mushroom poelee thing (elise), waffles with whipped cream (possibly chantilly cream; we're not sure), halva (me) and bargain truffles.
• Then we wandered around the central district for the rest of the day, browsed shops and saw the Mannekin Pis, a little statue of a boy pissing that is, for some reason, a famous Belgian icon.
  
• Around 3.30pm, we caught a train back to Lille, where we'd left our bags, then another an hour later to ...

CALAIS

• THE MOST BORING TOWN IN FRANCE. Seriously. Both my and Elise's guidebooks were basically like, "skip it", but we wanted to catch an early ferry to Dover and thence to London, so Calais was the best place for us.
• We hunkered down for a supermarket dinner in an odd little 1* hotel we found by dragging our bags along what was I think the main street.
• Then, we went down to their restaurant (well, brasserie) on the bottom floor, which was filled with fowdy older folker. Elise ordered some wine, and I ordered hot chocolate, but the guy wa slike, "no, no hot chcolate," so I was like, "wah," but when he bought Elise her wine, he took pity on me and made me some anyway, much to the amusement of the patrons.
• In the morning, we bag-dragged back to the train station to find a bus or something out to the port, but it was All Too Difficult, and we ended up taking a taxi. We arrived 20 minutes before a ferry was due to depart and were SPED through ticketing and English customs (NOT helped by an irritating English lady going  "hurry up hurry up they'll leave without you!") and ran aboard. The ferry didn't end up leaving for like... another 1.5 hours anyway.
• I should clarify: I say "ferry", but it was huge and cushy, with a bar/restaurant and a department store, and several levels.
• The crossing took a couple of hours, then we disembarked in Dover, on English soil, wandered around a bit in a lost and confused fashion and found our way to the train station. Where a surly Engllishman sold us tickets, then warmed up enough to say, "just don't mention the cricket!" Elise and I were in despair! We'd spent ten days being mistakenly loathed in France because people thought we were British; we get to Britain and are correctly identified as Australian, and we're in the poo for it.

LONDON

• The train delivered us into Victoria Station in the midafternoon, and we headed straight for our hostel, the Globetrotter Inn, which I do recommend, even though I only stayed one night. Elise stayed longer, and I think she liked it a lot.
• Having dumped out bags, we headed into town to have a look around, walked from the Monument (erected by my main man Charles II) to the Tower, which we were going to go into but it was EXPENSIVE and I realised that the Victoria and Albert museum was free, so we went to that instead.
  
• Alas, a suspicious package at South Kensington station closed down our train line, so we had to walk from the previous station (Knightsbridge), but that was ok, we walked past Harrods and lots of other fancy shops. I really only wanted to see the costume section of the V&A, so we swung through that, which was amazing and cool, then headed back to the hostel.
  
• We had some dinner there, then went out to a bar where we met some funny Croatians and got chatting. After that, we found the Globetrotter cinema and wandered into a screening of Muriel's Wedding (of all things--did I mention the hostel was 80% Australians?).
• In the morning, dragged selves out of bed, had breakfast, and then got on the train for Heathrow (lovely Elise came with me to see me off), because I had to catch my plane to the US of A. Heathrow was a shambles (worse than usual, I mean :p) because that fog I mentioned in Brussels? Had basically shut down flights in and out of northern Europe. consequently, there were a lot of people milling around watching ther flights get more and more delayed, and for some unfathomable reason, they were putting all the big USA flights through on one check-in zone, even though the others were practically empty.
• Anyway, eventually I got through, and bid tearful farewell to Elise, my travelling partner of a month (and we did travel very well together; surprisingly well), before walking through security. Because the check-in had taken so bloody long (almost two hours once the check-in zone was announced), I had only about a half hour to wait on the other side before the plane boarded.
• And because of all the domestic flights and Europe flights being cancelled or delayed, about half the people registered for our flight didn't make the connection and the plane was half empty. I used to put a qualifier on this saying, "far be it from me to gloat about other people's misfortune..." but the weather gods have evened up my travelling karma in the last couple days, so sod it.
• Anyway, hopped off the other end in New York, made my way through immigration and the Americans generously allowed me into their great nation, and met my family at JFK Airport (they were flying in from Australia via LA and their plane was supposed to arrive about 30 minutes after mine) with surprisingly little drama (some slow luggage was about all), then we piled into a cab and made our way to our Manhattan apartment.

And that was Europe!

This is where my handwritten notes end, on about... the 20th of December, so I'll need to write up the rest and make sure I haven't forgotten anything before I continue. I may not get that done before I fly out of Denver on the 2nd, in which case you might not hear from me until the 7th or 8th when I am in Seattle/Vancouver.

It's early on the 31st here, but I gather already new year in Australia, so whether it's 2007 already or only almost, HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

Happy Christmas to all... I am taking another WELL-DESERVED rest-day, having painted the town red (well, perhaps not red, but definitely a particularly bright shade of orange) with Nathalie, my fab New Yorker friend, yesterday. Today, my family and I celebrated the Yuletide by watching three hours of the Yule Log on television (no, seriously, the CW, one of the TV networks, actually broadcasts a crackling yule log in a fireplace for three hours straight. It is absolutely fabulous), then went for a long perambulation around Manhattan.

But, if you are relying on my dot-pointy account, you are currently scratching your head and thinking, but wait! Wasn't she in Paris with her fabulous and attractive best friend? What's this about New York and a perambulating family?? Well, rewind with me... back to the 10th of December, a cool, rainy, unremarkable day. At approximately 9am, a train carrying two fabulous, attractive Australians, pulled into the Gare du Nord in...

PARIS.

• The first thing we discovered in Paris was that a Cafe au Lait (the French edition) was roughly two euros moreexpensive than a Cafe con Leche (the Spanish edition of the same). I, at least, was dubious as to whether thisextra expense was worth it, and immediately switched to espressos. Elise merely cut back her coffee intake.
• We went into town for a quick walk--past the Opera Garnier (according to "Let's Go Europe on a Budget" the siteat which the original Phantom of the Opera is set, but I am sceptical), then down to the Place de la Concorde and along to the Louvre, just to have a look at it; a bit of a recreational Parisian loiter under the pyramids (and alas, no sign of Mary Magdalene DAN BROWN YOU LIED).
• After that, we went to Les Sans Culottes, a restaurant in Bastille that was particularly recommended by "Let's Go Europe on a Budget", which served an absolutely delicious 3 course set menu which blew my mind entirely. Unfortunately, it also blew Elise's digestive system, and let's just say she reconsidered her dinner later in the night. Fortunately, since the hotel had a shared bathroom, I was able to cunningly blame the resulting mess on unknown troublemakers. Elise probably doesn't appreciate my sharing this story, but since she insists on relying on my accounts of our shared adventures, she'll just have to cope. Love ya, Princess.
• Fortunately, in the morning, she was right as rain. We were able to compare her rightness with that of the rain as it was, in fact, raining at the time. We broke our fast at one of the cafes near the Gare du Nord, then headed back to the Lou vre with the admirable intent of perusing its contents. Upon discovering that a number of the Italian rooms would be closed that day, however, we changed our minds and instead went for a walk along the Seine, through the Tuileries, and then doubled back and walked along the other side. About halfway to the Ile de la Cite (an island in the middle of the Seine on which is located Notre Dame Cahtedral), we hitched a ride with the Bateaubus, a ferry that runs up and down the river.
  
• We did a couple of loops on the Bateaubus, whipping out the Eurail map and trying to decide where we were actually going to go after we left Paris. There was some discussion of going down to Nice and Monarco, but eventually (with the help of a French Bateaubus employee whose friendliness increased exponentially when he discovered that we were, in fact, Australian not English) on a night in Bordeaux, two in Tours, one in Lille and then one in Calais before we went to London.
• Eventually we hopped off the Bateaubus at the Ile de la Cite and went for a wander through Notre Dame. Elise made me climb the towers, thus inaugrating a great Parisian tradition of touristic stairclimbing. The staircases in Notre Dame are not very much fun as they are narrow and circular and enclosed in a tower with occasional windows, thus activating my lack of fitness, claustrophobia, and vertigo more or less simultaneously.
• The view was absolutely wonderful, though, especially as our climb brought us to the top around dusk.
• After we climbed down, I dragged Elise off to the Conciergerie, which is also on the Ile de la Cite. It was a prison, where Marie Antoinette spent her last days before she got the chop, and was appropriately creepy.
• We headed back to Bastille after that, because our Friendly French Bateaubus Employee had also told us there were a couple cinemas around the Opera Bastille and we had us a fancy to see a movie in French.
  

  Suz clashes with the sculpture garden at the Louvre
• We had a bite of food, then a nutella crepe (actually, nutella seems to be a traditional food of France. Street vendors were basically slathering it across anything--crepes, waffles, funny sugared buns with banana...), then headed off to see Babel. In retrospect, this was not the brightest movie to see, as it is, in fact, not only in English but also Spanish, Japanese and Moroccan. And the subtitles for the afore-mentioned languages were, of course, in French. But, it was surprisingly good. What I actually understood of it. Highly recommended.
• The third day, we hopped straight on the train out to Versailles, that most famous of French chateaux. We strolled around listening to the compulsory audio tour, but in the end elected not to visit the grounds or the Trianons, which cost extra.
• Instead, we came back into Paris and had an overpriced but frankly delicious lunch in the region around the Arc de Triomphe.
• After that, we walked up to the Arch and caught the subway from there to Montmatre because Elise had a hankerin' to see the Moulin Rouge. The metro stop was right near Sacre Coeur, so again we found ourself enjoying a spot of touristic stairclimbing just as dusk was upon us. We ran away from the men with string, because apparently they just tie it arolund your wrist and charge you to untie it or something. We saw one guy get caught while we were there.
• After that we went to the Moulin Rouge and took the obligatory photo.
• That evening, we decided to go to the Opera! We flew back to the hotel and changed into what passes for respectable clothes in our travelling wardrobe, and caught the metro back to the Opera Garnier, which was showing Giselle. We asked a few people and they seemed to think the show was sold out, but there was a scalper selling two tickets, and Elise and I, having never been scalped, were vaguely curious as to the experience. We ended up buying his ticket for (I'll admit frankly) quite a lot more than they were worth.
• We
  

  Contemplative gargoyle, Notre Dame

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  headed into the Opera, which is worth a look, as the foyer alone is absolutely spectacular, and I had a look at the tickets (yes, this was the first time either of us had looked at the tickets, and also yes, I expect you all toLEARN FROM OUR MISTAKE) and realised they were on the 5th balcony and had "visibilité reduite" which, yes, means what it sounds like it means. So, it turned out they were pretty much the worst seats in the house, practically in the ceiling, with a view of maybe half the stage. On the upside, they were in this funny little wooden box that Elise and I had to ourselves.
• Not entirely overwhelmed with joy at the badness of these seats, I decided to go down and sweet-talk the usher on a lower level to see if they could find us better seats. Wewere in luck, and managed to upgrade ourselves to the centre balcony on the lower floor, with full, excellent view of the stage; seats which were probably worth actually what we paid for ours, so it all ended well enough. The ballet was absolutely beautiful too, I should add.
  
• The next day dawned, cool and cloudy. It was our last day in Paris, and we had failed to do a number of arguably significant Paris activities such as, oh, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. We remedied the former that morning, wandering through the Italian section, shuffling past the Mona Lisa and (me) staring rapturously at the three Caravaggios for about half an hour. We also wandered through some other sections, Elise communed with Reubens, and I enjoyed the scupture gardens in that way where it made me feel like I was in the White Witch's castle in Narnia.
• We had intended to do the Musee d'Orsay and the Pompidou Centre that afternoon, but when we emerged from the Louvre we found that the sky was clearing and decided to seize the blue sky (pretty much the first we'd seen over Paris) to climb the Eiffel Tower. We paused on the Champ de Mars to watch a take of some strange French movie about dogs in handbags, and aged people doing Tai Chi (hey, I don't know
  

  Suz, classing it up at the Opera Garnier
  either; I only describe what I saw) and then headed up the tower. It was by this time around 4pm, so we managed to continue our tradition of touristic stairclimbing at dusk; however, following this climb, I basically piked on the other two museums because it was colding and darking and my feet hurt.
• We had intended to do the Pompidou the next morning before catching our train to Bordeaux, but unfortunately it didn't open until eleven, so that was not possible. We got on the train without dramas, and thence proceeded to...

BORDEAUX.

But that is a story for another day.

It is time for Christmas Dinner!

So, I am in the USA (New York to be exact), which an English-speaking keyboard and a broadband internet connection, and my family. I bid sad farewell to Elise yesterday at Heathrow, and met up with Dad, Mo and the Bro at JFK. Which means... I can finally get up to date on the blog (seriously, after my mad month in Europe, I need a day or so of quiet time before I hit New York!).

So, when last I updated properly, I was in Sevilla. From there we went to...

GIBRALTAR

• 

  Our Taxi Tour group, rock of Gibraltar
  We had to go through passport control because Gibraltar is held by the British—yes, we daytripped into Mother England. It was very odd. They accepted Euros, but the official currency was the Gibraltan Pound. And all the signs were in English.
• We did a taxi tour of the Rock of Gibraltar; our taxi tour guy was called Ronnie. He told us he’d learned Spanish at home, but school was always in English.
• He also told us that in 1967 (ish, I don’t remember exactly), there was a referendum about returning Gibraltar to the Spanish, there were 1200ish residents of Gibraltar, and only 44 wanted to become Spanish. The next day there were 44 suitcases along the main street.
• Then, in 2003, 98% voted to stay English.
• Anyway, our first stop on the taxi tour was the Pillars of Hercules—supposedly the outer limits of the ancient world. From here, we could see (morocco), which was neat, although it was a pretty cloudy day, so the view wasn’t fabulous.
• Then we went to St Michael’s Caves, which were creepy as hell (but then again, I don’t like caves); and, actually, apparently the ancients believed that they were the entrance to Hades’ realm (ie, “hell”).
• Then there were MONKEYS (yes, the oft-mentioned monkey photo I uploaded a while back). Well, to be more precise, they were Barbary Apes, the only primates in Eurpoe. One of the girls on tour pitched a fit and refused to get out of the taxi, which the monkeys climbed all over. They were really quite cute though. And so human-like. The one that climbed all over me was called Tomas (awww).
  

  Monkey
• The view from the top of the rock was pretty spectacular, even with the cloud cover.
• Back in Gibraltar Central, we had fish and chips (well, I had chicken and chips) for lunch. I say, old chap. How very English. I also bought some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups  (incoherent gurgle), because, for some reason, the Gibraltans really liked their American sweets. We only hung around Gibraltar for a few hours though because we were staying that night on the in…

TOURMELINOS

• Tourmelinos is apparently the birthplace of Antonio Banderas!
• Our hotel was a way out, but there was a courtesy bus downtown, so we took that. The bus driver was really adorable, rambling to us in Englishy Spanish.
• We shopped a little; browsed.
• It was pouring rain and cold (well, what I considered cold at that time. We’ve been colder since).
• We found an internet café that was really cheap, but the keyboards were crappy, and there was an alarm going off next door which was… unpleasant.
• Then, we decided to go back to the hotel, so we went to the bus pickup point, but the next one wasn’t for 20 minutes, so we cowered in a small café thing nearby. Elise had a coffee, and I bought a couple of wildberry yoghurt chuppa chips (speaking of which, did you know Chuppa Chups are Spanish, the biggest national export, and the original Chuppa Chup wrapped was designed by Dali? The things you learn, eh). Wildberry yoghurt flavour is surprisingly yummy. Elise accidentally tried to skip out on the bill, lol.
• The bus driver was still love.
• After dinner, we went to Kaleido, a bar/club in Tourmelinos, supposedly owned by Antonio Banderas. It was really quite expensive, but they had sangria-stuff on tap, which was neat.
• When I got home (around 3am), I phoned mum. :D Fortunately that was like 1pm in . Elise got in an hour or so later, because she is a party animal.
• Oh yes, I shared a taxi back to the hotel with three tour peeps, one of which was a really drunk bloke. He hopped into the taxi and told the driver firmly to take us to . Fortunately the taxi driver ignored him!

MALAGA

• Is the capital of the Costa del Sol, so we dropped in there in the way to our next overnight.
• Elise dragged me through the , which was ok, but Picasso really isn’t my bag.
• I did eavesdrop on a Japanese tour group though. That was fun.

GRANADA

• Was our next stop. We got in around 3pm and Elise and I went to El Corte Ingles (THE department store in Spain), but my shopping jive was off so I headed back to the hotel for a nap.
• Dinner was delicious. After (mutter) Cordoba, just about every hotel gave use a buffet rather than a set menu, which was awesome. I ate a lot.
• After dinner we went to the and watched some Gypsy Flamenco. It was quite cool, but I (and most everyone else) was dead on my feet; literally, nodding off despite the LOUD CLAPPING STAMPING NOISES of the flamenco. We had a guide for some of it whose name was Consuelo. She was a character.
• The next day, we did a walking tour of the first of the two big hills in Granada, the Albaicin. It was very picturesque. Then we went to La Cartuja, a fairly spectacular Rococco (Baroque?) monastery. The gilded ornamentation was… excessive. Finally, we stopped in
  

  Alhambra, Granada
  at the Capilla Real—the chapel where Ferdinand and Isabella, those famous Spanish monarchs (the unification of Spain, Christopher Columbus, etc). On their death monument, Isabella’s head indents the pillow more than Ferdinand—apparently a little sculptor joke because everyone knew Isabella was the brains of the outfit. Their bodies are actually interred there and you can see the coffins. Creepy.
• In the afternoon we toured the Alhumbra, a massive fortress thing set on the top of the other big hill in Granada. Our guide’s name was Francisco (call me Frank). I didn’t actually like the Alhumbra as much as the Alcazar in Sevilla, but it was pretty amazing. I was a little disappointed that you couldn’t go up into the Harem, because that would have been interesting, but apparently the floors aren’t safe and the corridors are too narrow.
• Washintgon Irving (the Sleepy Hollow guy) wrote a book of the legends of the Alhumbra, which I’d really like to get my hands on.
• I had dinner our with the Canadians and that crew, who I became quite good friends with over the tour. We had a pork skewer and a cheese plate, and I had tira misu for dessert.