Half way through

At around the half way point of our time here, spring has well and truly hit Malmö. The sun is out (most days!), and the snow has finally all melted. We had our first rainy day since arriving yesterday, but apart from that, the weather is lovely. Us nursing students have just come to the end of our big 8 week placement at the hospital. I think we all enjoyed it a lot, but 8 weeks is a long time and it will be nice to have a change to the routine this week (no more 5.30am starts thank goodness!). I was on a general medicine ward, with a lot of heart failure patients, and I learnt a lot. Have now mastered the elusive skills of taking blood and cannulating, and I got many many opportunities to practice new skills. The language barrier was quite challenging, with most of my patients been older and speaking little, if any, English, but that makes it all the more rewarding when you do manage to communicate with them! There are lots of differences between the hospitals in Australia and Sweden, and I think that the general consensus is that we are better in some areas, and Sweden is better in other areas. It has been great to see different ways of doing things and has opened my mind to questioning why we do things certain ways. We were allocated to one nurse to spend our entire placement with, and we followed their shifts. My nurse, Carmen, was ultra supportive and always happy to help. Compared to some placements at home, I found this one to be far more supported and directed at helping us to really learn. It was a really great experience. The next few weeks we will spend at uni, which will be a nice change, and give us a chance to catch up with our Swedish classmates. A few of us went on a bit of a trek last night to one of their houses for a bit of a party. It was really nice to be invited into someones house, and once inside, it felt just like an Australian home! Mum and Dad are currently waiting at Melbourne airport for their delayed plane to London, and will be in Malmö this Wednesday, before we head off to Norway together for the weekend. And lucky Ali now has the house to herself for a month!

Summer (?!) is coming…

Today was a lovely sunny day in Malmö. I started off with an African dance class at the gym (yes, I joined a gym, therefore I am a local). The classes here are quite, different, and African dancing was the strangest that I have been to so far! It involved putting together a dance routine that in the end involved us dancing as a bird, a monkey and an elephant. The class was all in Swedish of course, so that is just my interpretation of what we were doing!

I spent most of the rest of the day working on some homework. Though this trip does feel like one big holiday, reality does come knocking now and again and a fair amount of uni work is involved! I try not to let my life revolve around it here though, as I probably would at home. In Malmö, the focus is on the fact that, I am in Malmö!

A few of the aussies went out for Thai tonight. The novelty still has not worn off of riding our bikes everywhere we go, which includes riding to go out for dinner! Malmö is totally flat, and I ride my bike pretty much everywhere, apart from the odd lazy day when I catch the bus to work. For awhile we were catching the bus a lot, as it was so snowy and icey that it was almost impossible to ride. Now that the snow is pretty much all melted though, there is really no excuse, and it is a great way to fit in at least a little bit of exercise every day. I have a really cute little (literally, little!) bike that is perfect for me, and as I ride to go grocery shopping, to go to the gym, to the hospital, it constantly feels novelty and is a reminder of how cool it is to be actually living over here.

It is warming up, though warm is a very subjective word, and my current definition is around zero degrees, possibly a few above! Tonight I didn’t wear any thermals under my jeans, and though it was a bit chilly riding home, it was very bearable! I wore just my tights to the gym this morning, with no trackies over the top, and you can almost get away with no hat now. Up until recently, there is just no way that you would go outside without thermals, hat, gloves, scarf, a couple of pairs of socks. It is still very cold, but the sun is out, and if you are just going to be outside to get somewhere, it is not totally necessary to fully layer up. It will be nice when I arrive home in the middle of winter though and can go outside with just trackies on (ie. not 3 layers underneath!).

Anyway that will do for now, I have homework to do and a downloaded movie to watch tucked up in bed. Good morning Australia and good night Sverige!

I am still alive – and I’m in Sweden!

So I am far, far behind in my travel diary, and I think that the best explanation is that I have been very busy living this fantastic experience, so I have not had time to write about it! I think the best bet is just to continue on from here. I have been in Malmö for almost 2 months now, and am having an amazing time!

I have just today returned from the most AMAZING TRIP OF MY LIFE to Lappland, which is up in far North Sweden, above the Arctic Circle.

My Lappland is…

One step onto hard snow, and the next step been knee deep in snow – Roofs covered in a foot thick layer of snow – WHITE – Walking on water, or a frozen river to be more precise – the elusive NORTHERN LIGHTS, WOW – Testing out snow shoes (which supposedly do not sink into the snow) on the deep snow, and finding myself waist deep – breaking the barriers of the naked sauna, and then running naked into the snow to cool off and make snow angels – beautiful, beautiful scenery, picture blue skies, snow covered mountains and white trees, all towering over a frozen lake – dog sledding, driving my own sled with four dogs through the mountains, where all you could see for miles was undisturbed snow – falling OFF my sled and then chasing after my dogs! – reindeer baguette – the Ice Hotel, kept at a balmy -5 degrees, and people sleep in there! – a moose on the side of the road – many, MANY layers of clothes, -20 degrees is cold – imagining the lives that the locals up there live, it is like ANOTHER WORLD – total disbelief that I got to experience this, it was so SO fantastic.

Back in Malmö, the snow is melting and it is a balmy zero degrees. I have a busy few weeks ahead with uni and am looking forward to a visit from Mum and Dad soon. I am adding words to my Swedish vocabulary every day, have joined a local gym and am generally leading a pretty normal, busy life, apart from the fact that I am in SWEDEN!

Hogmaney NY

After a pretty big day wandering the streets of Edinburgh, we decided to pick up some pre-drinks and nibbles to have in the comfort of our room before heading out to see in the new year. We found a good little place near our hotel and picked up some aussie champagne and Swedish cider, some camembert and biscuits, and a few other little goodies. We had a great time with our feast of yummy stuff, though the camembert was a flop, and went in the bin. For Ali and I to throw out camembert, it must have been bad! We drank our champers out of coffee cups, put some music on and watched a slide show of photos of our trip so far. It is amazing how quickly you forget things, and we had many a ‘remember that!’ moment.

 With Kate’s warning of ‘the coldest I have ever been’, we got seriously layered up for Hogmaney. I wore:

Tights with feet

Thermal pants

Jeans

2 x long woolen socks

Singlet

Long sleeve thermal top

2 x woolen long sleeve high neck tops

Long woolen cardigan

Woolen jumper with big neck

Fleecy jacket

Woolen longer jacket

Gortex rain/wind coat

Fleecy headband over ears

Johns big furry ‘where the wild things are’ hat

Glove liners, gloves, and woolen mittens

Woolen scarf

I think that’s it! Needless to say, we looked and felt humongous, but were nice and toasty all night. In fact I ended up taking off my hat and all 3 layers of gloves, and felt a bit warm at times. It was a freezing cold night, but it didn’t rain or snow, and in the crowds their was plenty of body heat to go around!

We arrived at the entrance to Hogmaney just after it opened at 9 and walked straight in without having to wait at all. We weren’t really sure what to expect… The street party took up a large section of a couple of the main roads in central Edinburgh, which were obviously blocked off. At each of the ends of the street party there were big stages set up with either bands or DJ’s playing. There were strobe lights going everywhere, bars, food stands and lots of people standing around, dancing and checking out the scenery. We walked around for a while to check out what was on offer, and found a stage that had some cool sounding bands playing on it. The crowd was massive, but we of course like to be amongst it so got up pretty close to the stage. There were a few rough little patches, but mostly everyone was just having a great time! When the crowd moved, you moved with it, and don’t drop anything, because you will never find it again!

We decided to stay around this stage for the night, as we both much prefer bands to a DJ, and the music was awesome. One local band, the Frightened Rabbits, was particularly awesome, and I am on the hunt for their CD. I may have to get with the times and log onto iTunes though, as they are apparently up and coming but not yet big enough to have their music in the commercial places that a non-local like me is likely to come across.

As midnight crept around the crowd kept getting crazier, and as the clock striked everyone cheered and fireworks erupted over Edinburgh castle. We had been warned that everyone kisses everyone at midnight at Hogmaney, but we did not realize it was quite so literal! Ali practically had to run away from a few persistent guys, it seems that by returning the greeting of “happy new year”, you are giving any old stranger the ok to come in for the kiss!

We escaped the kiss fest un-scathed though, and were very happy to be again living in the same year as the rest of the world. A bit of music later and we happily walked home to our snug beds. It was a really fun night. Hello 2010! I have a good feeling about this year!

Scotland

Day 1 - Today, after spending hours waiting at the airport for our plane, we almost missed it! We had checked in and were waiting in departures, doing our own thing, when we realised that it was what we had been told was boarding time, or just after. We had not heard a call though, so Alice went to check the board. It said ‘final call’, but we were still not too worried, as according to what the check in lady told us, boarding should have just started, and there are always such long queues. So we packed up our stuff and walked up to the gate. Their was only one staff member standing at the gate though, and no passengers, so I went up to ask when we were boarding, only to be told that we better hurry up, as the gate was about to close! Apparently London City Airport is a ‘silent airport’, and there are no calls, you just have to watch the screen! They must have boarded early though, because we were there within 10 minutes of what they said boarding time was. The lady quickly checked our tickets, and down the stairs we went to go out to the plane. It seemed like they were about to shut the plane, and as though they were unaware that their were still passengers to come, so I’m not sure what would have happened if we had not shown up. Surely they would not just leave without calling us when they have our luggage! Anyway, we walked out to our plane, and realised how they had boarded everyone so quickly. The plane was tiny! There were only 12 rows of 3 seats, a real little country plane, taking us to Scotland!

We arrived in Edinburgh just over an hour later, and on exiting the plane, were immediately inundated with tartan! The shops were full of it, and all of the little kids seemed to be wearing it! We made our way through the airport, collected our bags, and caught a bus out to where we are staying. We managed to find the place ok, except we kept ringing the bell and knocking, and no one seemed to be home! Someone did eventually come to the door after about 10 minutes, I think they must have been asleep, though it was only 6ish! It seems like a really nice little place, where we will get a cooked breaky tomorrow morning, and though we share a bathroom, we get our very own basin in the room, what a luxury!

After unloading our stuff, we set off again out into the cold to find some food and some action. We just followed the signs to the city centre, though it did seem to be taking a long time to find the crowds. I was expecting everywhere to be absolutely packed and for their to be things going on everywhere, but from what we could see, there really isn’t. We did eventually find what we later realised to be Princess Street, and the Hogmaney Market, which is basically just like a town show with lots of rides and food stalls. We also spotted the Edinburgh Castle up on the hill overlooking the city centre.

We decided to keep walking, as I had heard that tonight there was some special fire display on as part of the Hogmaney Festival, on Royal Lane. After climbing the longest staircase ever, we found Royal Mile and the crowds of people. The fire display was pretty cool, and it was not just one display but integrated into the whole street. They also had a cool techno music guy performing amongst it all. It got a little scary when the wind picked up and there were ashes flying everywhere, but really it just added to the show!

Having had enough of that, and with the rain/hail/snow starting to come down, we went in search of some food, and found a very full and popular looking pub, so gave it a go. We had to wait a little while to get a table, bit it was worth the wait, as the food was awesome. We both had roast lamb, just what the doctor ordered! Lots of veggies, carrots, beans, potato, cabbage, yum! I tried to order a drink to go with it, but for the first time on the trip, was asked for ID. And in an annoying coincidence, it was also the first time on the trip that we had left out passports in the hotel room. We thought it might be safer considering the time of year. Turns out that Scotland has a new law though, which dictates that the only acceptable forms of ID are a British drivers license or a passport. So it was on to the Irn Bru for me, and we were just glad that we found out about the passport rule tonight and not tomorrow, NYE!

Day 2 – We were up in time for our first cooked breakfast in awhile, which I admit was really nothing special, but exciting all the same! Our hotel was a lovely little place with a dining room for breakfast where a very friendly Scottish man comes to take your order and then cooks your food.

We planned to do the New Europe Edinburgh walking tour this morning, and on our way passed a clothes shop that we had been into in Bath, and which had a dress that Ali loved. They didn’t have her size in the colour she liked though. But they did have it in Edinbugh, and we hence made our first Scottish purchase! It is a very pretty navy blue little lacey number!

Their was a massive crowd for the tour, as would be expected on NYE in Edinburgh, and we were split off into smaller groups of about 40. Really we were closer to around 50, but we stopped counting after 40, as apparently anything over 40 is considered a ‘parade’ and requires a permit! With good timing, during our tour break the snow started to really come down, as heavy as I have seen it, and I think our group size halved. The weather improved for us though as we got back on the road! The tour was again really good, though I’m not sure if it is because we have done a few now or the guide just didn’t know his stuff as well, but it didn’t keep me quite as entranced as past ones have. Still well worth it though, as how else would you get such a good overview of the city and its history?

A few good stories came out of the tour. We spent a bit of time in a graveyard, and actually saw the headstone for Tom Riddle (hello Harry Potter fans!). We also saw the café, just nearby, that JK Rowling sat in and thought up the idea of Harry Potter. She evidently spent some time wandering the surrounding areas as well! Apparently there are a fair few names from the books throughout the graveyard.

We heard about the grave robbers from back in the old days, and two men in particular who took it a step further and sped up the process, killing the people as well. Their incentive was the local medical schools lack of bodies to use for anatomy class. They only received one body per year, but extra bodies were pretty sought after on the black market.

With all of this grave robbing going on, people used to have cage like things built over their graves to protect themselves. Poorer people who could not afford this would have family guard their grave for a good few weeks to protect it. Hence the term ‘graveyard shift’.

Another story was that of a lady who was sentenced to death by hanging for giving birth to a baby by a man other than her husband. She was hung, but as her body was been carted off to be buried, she woke up! She had survived the hanging, and it was determined she could not be hung again for the same crime. As a result she lived happily every after with the real love of her life.

The big finale story of the tour was that of the STONE OF DESTINY. Okay, I have no idea what the significance of the rock is, but it is Scottish, and somehow it made its way to England, and the English refused to give it back for many many years. Then some time in the 50’s, a couple of Scottish college students decided to steal it back! So on Christmas eve, they drove through the night, to Westminster Abbey, where the stone was kept, managed to break in, and dragged the stone out to their car. They also managed to break the stone in two in the process! They got away, but the missing stone was discovered pretty soon and all borders were closed. So they drove around England and found a bare hill to bury it in for the time being. They eventually did collect the stone and got it in to Scotland, leaving it on the steps of a church. Unfortunately, as soon as it was discovered, it was whisked straight back to England. Pretty impressive effort I thought though! It sure demonstrates how far security has come as well. A few years ago, in return for the promise of a political vote, the stone was returned to Scotland, and now resides in Edinburgh Castle. 

Carrie moment

We caught an early train to London on Wednesday in order to have plenty of time to catch a 3ish place to Edinburgh. The train trip was potentially exciting for Alice, as after we realised on the way to Bath that the train goes through and stops briefly at Reading, she conned Dheepan into getting up early (i.e. before lunch time) and coming to see her as we passed through. He was very obliging and was at the station at the same time as us, but unfortunately could not get through onto the platform. So close, yet so far!! I was pretty relieved I admit when, after the train pulled away from Reading, I got up and found that Alice was still on the train, and hadn’t run off into Reading in her excitement!

We made it to Paddington station around 9am, with plenty of time to get to London City Airport. We started off slowly, as just as we were getting off the train, I noticed my earrings on the train floor under my seat. I had put them, along with my new French ring, in the pocket of my handbag the night before and forgot to put them back on. I stupidly left the zip open after getting something else out, and the earrings fell out. I was so lucky to spot them, and for them not to have rolled down the carriage! I was not so lucky with my ring it seemed though. It was not in the pocket, and after a pretty thorough search, until the train man came and kicked us off (not before kindly helping us to search I should add!), it appeared to have rolled into unknown places of the train. I persisted though and was in the middle of Paddington unpacking my pack, emptying out my handbag, I really did not want to have lost that ring! Don’t worry Mum, it sounds bad, but I was been careful! Anyway, after much persistence, a thought came to me, and I had a true Sex and the City moment. I emptied out the pocket of my handbag, stuck my hand in, and low and behold, there was a hole in the lining! After a bit of tricky manipulation, out come another set of earrings, a pen lid, and my ring! Yes! Just like Carrie with her Carrie necklace, it gave me a new lease on life!

Crisis averted, we headed down to the underground and, while I guarded the bags, Ali spent close to an hour negotiating the mahem of the ticket line, and eventually got us some train tickets, which took us quickly and easily to the airport. We had quite a long wait at the airport, and a long time before we could even check in, but entertained ourselves with free wifi and food!

Bathing in Bath

We arrived in Bath Sunday lunchtime, and before we even left the train station we knew that we would love it! Bath is a beautiful scenic place, with the very English looking homes, a river through the middle and lots of cute little boutique shops.

We found our hostel and dropped our bags off in the pub that acts as reception, and then went out for a wander. The hostel was in a great location, right in the middle of everything, and as soon as we walked out the door we found ourselves in the middle of Bath.

First stop was an ‘award winning Cornish pasty’ shop, which we stopped at, not so much for the queue out the door, which surely indicated great pasties, but more for the free wi-fi advertised on the window! You do become quite dependent on the net when it is your main form of communication with home, and after a few days without it, we were both keen to reconnect with the world! So we had our Cornish pasties, which were, by the way, very nice, and sat in the warmth and went on the net for a little bit.

We then continued to meander up the main street of Bath and quickly came across the Roman Baths, the central tourist attraction of Bath and a prominent setting in Alice’s favourite Jane Austen books. We figured that there is no time like the present, so in we went for a look around the Baths. We had audio guides, but I admit that I tend to tune out of those things after the first few stops, and by the end tend to not even bother turning them on! I prefer to look…

The baths were very interesting though. There is one main outdoor bath, which was quite murky looking, but we were assured it was crystal clear in it’s hey day! The steam was rising off it and despite its murkiness, in the cold Bath air, it was very inviting. Nobody swims in these baths anymore though of course, in fact they do not like you to even touch the water. When we heard that the reason for this though was that the water is dirty, not because we, the people, are dirty, Ali and I snuck a feel, and it was lovely and warm. We walked all though the centre and saw tidbits of the remains of these baths and heard how people would come from far and wide to be ‘cured’ by these healing waters. At the end of the tour we were able to drink a glass of the bath water, and I tell you, it was not how you imagine such nutrient rich water to taste. It was warm and yucky.

By the time we finished at the Baths, we had worked up a bit of an appetite, so we decided to check out the local Waitrose, which is the English supermarket chain that Jo and Phil use. We got ourselves a few snacks for whilst in Bath, and also managed to find some of the yummy custard that Jo and Phil had had for with our chrissy pudding, and thoroughly enjoyed a little too much of that for afternoon tea!

We then checked into our hostel, which was just across the road. We claimed our beds etc, retrieved our bathers from the very bottom of our bags and headed off to the modern day baths, where people do get to get into the water! These baths are called ‘Thermae Bath Spa’ and are pretty pricey, but we went on Gran (Thanks Gran!) and it was well worth the money. A nice change to endless days of walking, this was a two hour ticket into 3 separate rooms of luxury. Up the very top is the roof top open air pool, which is naturally warm, in fact it actually needs to be cooled down. The water in these pools fell to the ground 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, and has taken this long on its journey to make it back to the Earths surface. When it does come to the surface, it is a toasty 50 degrees. It is cooled down to around 35 degrees for the bathers.

By the time we got up there it was dark, so we had a lovely view of the Bath lights, in particular the lit up abbey in the centre of Bath. The water was nice and warm, though Alice and I did think that they could have turned it up a few degrees. You have to stay really low in the water, because the air is icy! They had lots of noodles in the water and everyone was just floating around.

Downstairs, on the middle level, are the steam rooms. There is one big room with hot pressure showers in the middle, around the outside of the room there are big stones to sit on with foots spas built into them, and then within the room there are four smaller steam rooms, each with a different scent (lavender, mint etc). Alice was a bit apprehensive about this initially, but it was really nice, and so warm! Just getting from the rooftop pool down to the steam rooms was enough to make you pretty cool, so it was a lovely warm relief.

On the bottom level was the Minerva pool, which is a big warm pool that they call a whirlpool, but which just has light pressures that will float you around the pool if you let it. It was again very nice, but like the rooftop pool, very coupley! I’m sure Ali and I weren’t they only ones not there with our partners, but it sure felt like everyone was floating around in pairs, as one! There was also a section of this pool that bubbled up like a spa intermittently which was nice.

We did all three levels twice, finishing in the Minerva pool, and though we had initially thought that two hours would be heaps, we certainly didn’t want to get out at the end! A number of times over the next few days as we wandered around in the cold, we wished we could go back. The warmth was such a treat in the cold weather.

By the time we were showered and dressed afterwards, it was 7.30 pm and we were definitely ready for dinner. We found a nice looking place, I had English fish and chips, served with mushy peas (and that is how it was described on the menu!), which was yum, and Ali went for a burger.

Monday morning, after a yummy breakfast of cornflakes and vegemite toast, we went for a walk to look around Bath, and in particular to see the Circus and the Royal Crescent. These are two of the biggest of a number of circular buildings located in Bath, which are made up of many 5 storey apartments, but are designed to look like one palace. Very wealthy people live here, and in fact we found out later that Nicholas Cage recently bought one of the apartments in the Circus for around 4 million pounds.

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and we had heaps of fun strolling through parks, just as the Jane Austen characters did! There were lots of people out taking advantage of the sunshine, though it was still very cold and the grass white with frost.

Afterwards we headed back into central Bath to buy tickets to a Jane Austen walking tour. We did this, but around 15 minutes later they announced that the tour would not be running today. To make up for this, we instead visited the Pump Room, which is where the ladies of Jane Austen used to ‘stroll, arm in arm, discussing their confidences’! Today the Pump Room is a fancy tea house with a string quartet playing, so we had morning tea. Ali had apple juice, a bacon and tomato Bath roll and a pot of coffee. I had pear juice, buttered crumpets with jam and a hot chocolate, and we also sampled a Bath bun with cinnamon butter. All delicious and left us feeling very full!

Later in the afternoon we met a group for a free walking tour, which took us all over Bath and gave us a bit of a history. It turns out that a lot of Bath is made up of facades. The Georgians were a little superficial and liked things to look nice, but didn’t really care what was behind the façade. For example, some important guy did not like the view from where he sat to have his cup of coffee, so he had a castle built up on a hill in his line of sight. This castle can still be seen from Bath, but if you were to actually go to the castle, you would find that it consists of only the front wall! This same man also had a particularly attractive bridge over the river in his view. This bridge also still exists and is nice to look at. If you walk over and view the bridge from the other side though, it is decidedly more ugly!

The architectural style of the Georgians is all about symmetry, so you will see buildings with a very neat spread of windows. If you look closely at one building, you notice that there is a chimney directly above the central window. If you then look closely at the window, you will realise that you actually can’t see through it, as it is just there to look like a window, with a frame and glass over the wall. In actual fact, behind it is the chimney pipe! The ‘window’ is just there to maintain the Georgian style.

In the old days, they also had a window tax, meaning that the more windows you had in your house, the more money you had to pay. Hence a lot of buildings have bricked out windows, done to save some money. Some important person eventually abolished the window tax when he wanted to have a palace or something with lots of windows built, and it was going to cost him a ton of money in window taxes.

After our walking tour, it was getting dark, but we walked back to the hostel via the old homes of Jane Austen. Ali knocked on all of the doors, but Jane was not home unfortunately.

Tonight it was Thai for dinner, the answer to Alice’s prayers! We had spied a busy looking place at lunch time so planned to head there, but then just as we were leaving, a guy in our room said he had been there and had not been impressed! That put a skew in our plans, but in then end we ended up going there anyway, it was a public holiday so the choice was a bit limited. It was good food too. The wait was a little bit ridiculous, but in the end it was really nice and a warm place to hang out for a few hours!

Their were a few of us hanging out in the room later on that night, so we ended up having a bit of a games night, 2 aussies, a Canadian, an Israeli and a Korean. It was really fun! First we played Trivial Pursuit due to limited choice, and Ali and I laughed our way through it, while a few of the guys took it a bit seriously. The funniest part was, that in the end, do not ask me how, Ali ended up winning! We helped each other out a bit, and the rules were altered a little, but she won none the less! We managed to find some cards after that and headed upstairs for some card games, one of which I managed to win, again I have no idea how, as I really wasn’t paying attention. It was funny that by the end of the night ,we had all managed to win a game except the Canadian, the most competitive of us all!

The following morning it was raining, but Ali and I went a walk across the bridge to the other side of the river regardless, and did manage to find a few cute little shops along the way! We personally compared the bridge from each side, and it definitely is much nicer to look at from one particular side! We went and had a look in the Bath Abbey afterwards, which had some lovely stained glass in it and also an Australian Flag for some NSW founding guy who died in Bath. I thought that best part of the abbey though was its decorations on the outside. On either side of the main entrance, there is a ladder going right up to the top of the church, with angels ‘climbing up to heaven.’ Very cute.

We visited Sally Lun’s house, which is the oldest house in Bath, and now famous for the ‘Sally Lun Bun,’ which is just a big sweet bun that you have with butter and jam. It was a cute place with lots of stories and a narrow little staircase.

Our ticket to the Roman Baths also included a ticket to the Fashion Museum, so we headed up there for the afternoon. It was pretty cool, with lots of fashions on display, from way back in the days of the corset, right up until this current year. The best part of the museum was the room in which we actually got to try on a corset and the skirt thing which gives shape to the big puffy dresses. I think it was a bit if a modern day version as the corsets had plastic clips on them, and really wouldn’t go on that tight, but it was novelty and we got some good pics out of it!

Next stop for the afternoon was the Jane Austen. We were first given an introduction spiel all about Jane Austen’s background and her family. She had quite a few brothers and only one sister. Neither of the sisters married or had any children, though her sister did go and help her brother out when his wife died, leaving him with 11 littlies! She wrote her books from when she was quite young, but many were not published until after she died at the young age of 41. No one is really sure what the cause of her death was. Jane used to come here for holidays, and then after her father retired, they moved to Bath and she lived here for 5 years. She apparently did very little of her quality writing whilst living here though, as she did not like the restrictions of town life, missing her country home.

The museum had replicas of the types of clothes she would have worn, excerpts from letters she wrote to her sister, and their was one actual original letter on display allowing us to see her handwriting. Alice also purchased another of her books, ‘The Watsons’, which is one that she did write while living in Bath, though never finished. 

London

We did make it to the London Eye yesterday, Boxing Day, but unfortunately it was closed due to ‘technical difficulties’. We saw it moving at one stage, a ‘test run’, and it looked perfectly fine to us, but it didn’t get up and running in the time that we hung around for. So instead we walked across the river to visit Westminster Abbey, which is a massive big cathedral where they hold all of the royal funerals etc. It was a lovely church, but not at all what we expected, as it is full of tombs! We were expecting the great big hall like what you see on the telly, but most of the abbey was taken up with tombs and monuments. The best part of it I thought was the beautiful stained glass windows.

Afterwards we walked back across the river and found a little café to have lunch at, just near the Eye, which was still not running. Jo, Phil and Ara then headed home, and Alice and I went off to explore London a little bit. After a night of less sleep than normal, Ara did very well to walk around for so long, especially in a not overly interesting church! She had gone to bed on time Christmas night, but was awake for ages, and after a few hours, Phil went up to see what was happening up there (we could hear her footsteps), to find her sitting in her bed, in the dark, painting her own face with her face paints!

Alice and I headed back over the bridge and managed to see a few sights, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street and Bond Street. We hopped on to a red bus to go to Oxford Street, but were a bit scared to get off once we got there, as the crowds were so enormous for the Boxing Day sales! We did eventually get off and had a bit of a look around, before finding our way on the underground back to Jo and Phil’s’ without too much trouble.

We (sort of) taught Ara to play Trouble, before she headed off to bed, exhausted after a napless day. Jo, Phil, Alice and I all had a nice dinner together and then occupied ourselves with some mind bender puzzles that Phil’s parents like to give him, and of which we managed to solve a few together!

We were all up early this morning to pack up and make our train to Bath. After our last bowl of cereal (a nice change from the pastries!), we said goodbye to Jo and Ara at their house, and Phil caught the bus to the train station with us, which is lucky, because I don’t know if we would have found it without him! Our train to Paddington came just as we arrived, and then we sat around Paddington for an hour or so until we caught our Bath train, which we are currently on. This is just a short trip, and we should be in Bath in less than an hour. We have just been through Reading, and Ali stared out the window hopefully, but we did not see Dheepan, maybe on the way back! We only found out this morning that we go through Reading so didn’t have much time to let Dheepan, who would still be asleep I am told, know to come down to the station.

The scenery we are passing through is beautiful. Very green with lots of fields and cute little houses. Ali is very excited to arrive in the home of Jane Austen, and it looks like the sun is coming out, so will hopefully be a lovely afternoon exploring, and possibly going to the baths, at Bath! I’m hoping to get some wifi on my laptop soon, as I have a massive backlog of blogs to upload. There will be an influx of new entries when I do!

Winter (but not white) Christmas

The night of Christmas Eve, we were busy putting out food for Santa and his reindeers, and of course all had to be in bed early so that Santa could come! We were not too worried that he would turn up though, as Ara has been sure to be a very good girl the last few weeks! We spoke to everyone in Australia just as we were going to bed, and as they were waking up on Christmas morning. A quiet day with a seafood lunch was planned at Port Stephens, and mum was very pleased and surprised to now also be able to class herself as a ‘mac girl’! Dad is feeling a little unsure about his ‘relaxation massage’ that Ali and I got for him and Mum, but there is a clear consensus that, if he is not going to enjoy it, then Mum should just go twice!

Christmas morning in London, we woke up and, low and behold, Santa had been and eaten all of his food! He must have been very quiet, as Alice and I were sleeping right next to the Christmas tree and did not hear a thing! Ara did apparently hear him, but was sure to go straight back to sleep! We all had a nice breakfast together, and Ara was very restrained in waiting to open all of her presents until Grandma and Grandpop arrived around 9.30am. They had to take a taxi from their hotel, because in London on Christmas day, all public transport, including the entire underground system, shuts down! Very strange!

Santa spoiled Ara this year, and she received lots of cool things, including an umbrella, some big bottles of paint, some face paints, lego, her first Barbie from Grandpa, which has been a great hit, some books, cookie cutters and ‘Trouble’ from Julie and Jonathon, a lovely green vest from Great Gran, and some ‘soft stuff’, which is yet to be brought out, but I think it is like play dough. Ali and I found a few little things for Ara in Paris, an apron for when she is painting with all of her paint and cooking cookies with her cookie cutters, and a little wooden train that has the letters of her name on each carriage.

Lunch in London was one of Kath’s recipes, coq au vin, a yummy chicken and wine dish a la Phil, potatoes, salad and garlic bread. Followed by delicious pudding and custard, yum! We were all very full afterwards, and after Ara went off for her nap, we had a few quiet hours, after a game of Trouble of course!

Ara, Alice and I had a busy day testing out all of her new toys, especially the face paint! Ara is very good at it and has turned herself into a fairy a number of times! We also tested out the dominoes, built some lego, read a few books and searched for the elusive treasure hidden around the house somewhere! Ara is now tucked up in bed, singing, as she often does, and it will be soup or something like that for our dinner tonight. Tomorrow we are hoping to go out again on Gran and ride the London Eye, but it will really depend on the public transport been up and running again! Hopefully we will get out and see a bit of London though. 

It is too cold for the Eurostar

We originally booked in to take the eurostar from Paris to London for Christmas. They were having some problems with it though and it didn’t run for a few days. All of the news was in French so I don’t really know what the problem was, something to do with the temperature difference between outside and in the tunnel apparently. Seems pretty strange when they have weather like this every year, but then again, apparently they have problems like this every year!

Eurostar said to come to the station and they will put us in the ‘next available seat’, but who knows how many hours/days we could have been waiting for that!
So we booked ourselves onto a bus, as Eurostar will give a refund to anyone who doesn’t travel. And although we were expecting mayhem at the bus station as well, with many peoples Christmas plans left in ruins, it was very civilized and easy! The bus was very full, but that’s not a problem, we had a seat and we were on our way to England!

The bus trip was very uneventful. It was again white outside and Ali and I occupied our time by making our way through a reasonably sized bag of maltesers. The most interesting part came when we got to the border, or the edge of the English Channel. We drove into the official customs area and all of a sudden had to be off the bus, with all of our bags and luggage from below. We were slowly shuffled through French customs, got a stamp in our passport (!), and had ours bags scanned. Then back onto the bus, forward a few metres, and then off again to go through UK customs! We didn’t have to take our bags this time, and the customs lady was very nice. And in a pretty big small world moment, the lady had spent about the last 5 years or so working at the hospital in Reefton, NZ!

After we had finally all cleared customs, the bus waited in line for ages, waiting for what, we weren’t really sure! No one seemed to really know how we crossed the channel, I had heard rumours that the bus went on a boat, or maybe you can drive under the English Channel? But no, neither of these options was right. Instead, we suddenly found ourselves driving into a very narrow tunnel, and by narrow, I mean about a foot of space on either side of the bus! I initially thought we were going to drive all the way to England in this tunnel, but turns out that the tunnel was actually a train! So the bus stopped, and more buses and cars filed in behind us, and eventually the train took off. You really couldn’t tell that we were moving though, only if you looked out the window and could then see through the little train window. You were allowed to get off the bus to go to the bathroom a few carriages up, but we were comfy so stayed put. Initially when we realised what was happening, a lot of people were feeling a bit claustrophobic, but I found it best just to not think about it too much, and before we knew it we looked out the window to light, and had exited the tunnel in England.

After waiting around in customs for so long, we were sure that we would be late arriving into London, but in the end we were right on time. We found our way to the underground, and almost spent 38 pounds on a ticket out to Jo’s, before we found the correct ticket machine and got our tickets for 8 pounds, much more friendly on my bank account! Phil met us at Northfields Station and we walked home to Jo, Phil and Ara’s house, through typical English streets, in typical English weather, in the rain! Ara was awake late that night to see us, and gave us a very thorough tour of her new house, showing us every inch and cranny. She then proceeded to explain to us what buses we need to catch to go everywhere in London, what we can play with in the morning and just generally everything we could possibly need to know! After she was done, she went off to bed and we very much enjoyed a home cooked meal for dinner, Phil’s special spaghetti bol.

Gran sent over a very nice chrissie present for all of us spending Christmas in London, shouting us a day (or two!) out in London. So on Thursday (Christmas Eve), after a busy morning playing in Ara’s tent, and reading stories, and riding a magic carpet, Jo, Ara, Alice and I set off to go ice skating! This was Ara’s first time ice skating and caused much excitement! It was a lovely outdoor rink that we went to, and was full of lots of excited kids on school holidays. The skates were initially a bit too uncomfy and strange for Ara, but she eventually came out for a few laps of the ice. She skated between my legs, with me holding her up, and it was apparently a funny sight, with Ara’s legs going like crazy, and me hunched over just trying to keep us both upright! We did manage to get around a few times though, and got up a little bit of speed, which Ara loved. We (me!) were pretty exhausted after all of our ice skating, so we took the underground back to Northfields and went to a Crepery for lunch. The crepes were awesome, and just as good as the ones in Paris. Ara and I both went for chocolate and strawberry, and they also did a very good milkshake! 

J’adore Paris

We woke up on our first day in Paris to some sad news from home, which left us in a bit of a daze. Here we are in Paris, but really we just wanted to be at home. Not really sure what to do with ourselves, we took a bit of time to get ourselves going, and then headed out in search of some nice Parisian food. Food always holds the answer, for these two aussies at least anyway!

After a bit of a search, which involved wet snow (not as fun as the soft fluffy stuff), we found a little restaurant that had the typical French breakfast we were after. We had been looking for a patisserie, but do you think we could find one when we really wanted one! So our breakfast and first real French food – a baguette, croissant, hot chocolate, bowl of what they call soft cheese, but to me tastes like sour cream, jam and French butter. It was verrry nice.

Afterwards we went walking, in search of an Internet café so we could chat with home. We found the address that it was supposed to be at, but no Internet cafe! After wandering around searching for a while, and asking for directions and been sent to a computer shop, we eventually gave up. We walked around for a while longer, and seemed to be in a pretty cool little area, but ended up finding a movie theatre and seeing a movie. It was a good thing to do when we just wanted to get that day done and start again tomorrow. The movie was in English (bonus!) and was actually pretty good - it was called ‘Away we go’.  The theatre was funny, it was really little and narrow, and the seats actually sloped upwards, so the front row was the highest up. Sounds strange, but it was actually really comfy and worked well!

After the movie we had a quick dinner at a little French café, one of those ones where the seats are lined along the footpath, and it was good food, though a con of sitting outside is that you are eating with all the smokers, who seem to be everywhere in Paris. I had a croque monsieur (I think that is what it’s called), which is basically a toasted sandwich, except the cheese is on the outside of the bread. We have gotten quite used to the cheap food around Europe, but here in Paris, it is so expensive. My crepes that I intended to live off are often 4 euros each (about $6-7), and pastries etc are always at least 2 euros.

Our second day in Paris we started afresh with the hotel breaky, which was not as nice as the day before but still a pretty nice way to start the day! We had a few spare hours before the tour we intended to do, so we went off in search of the Picasso Museum. We found it, but turns out that it is actually been restored, and is closed, until 2012! So instead of looking at artworks, we did what we always do and found some food, this time a yummy baguette to share, and what I call a ‘snail’, of the pastry variety! It was so nice, and Mum, you would have loved it. We ate it at a main square in Paris and finished in time for our tour.

This was another one of the Sandemans tours, and was also really good, taking us around to all of the main sites in Paris. The most interesting fact that I learnt from the tour was about the statues of important people on their horses. Depending on the position of the horse in the statue, you can tell how the person died. If all four of the horse’s feet are on the ground, then they died of natural causes. If one front and one back foot is on the ground, then they were murdered, and if the horse is reared back with both front feet in the air, then they died in battle.

We also saw a bridge that is adorned with all of these concrete heads pulling funny faces. Apparently, a man had all of these heads made impersonating the faces his friends were pulling after a big night out! Every single face is different, and they are pretty funny, slash ugly!

We walked across the lovers’ bridge, which is where the last scene of Sex and the City was filmed. It is also tradition to go there with your lover and attach a padlock to the fence, which will ‘lock’ you together forever (or until the council comes through and cuts them all off anyway!).

We were told about the French Institute, whose main function is to preserve the French language from the perils of English! So when words such as ‘computer’ and ‘weekend’ were invented, they quickly needed to invent a French equivalent to preserve the sound of the French language. They won out with their word for computer, but we won with weekend, and the English version is still what is used the majority of the time. Our tour guide was telling us about a recent issue they faced, with the invention of the ’iPod’. Should the iPod be ‘la iPod’ or ‘le iPod’, feminine or masculine?! After months of consideration, the iPod was declared a boy.

Tonight was an exciting night, as we had tickets to the Moulin Rouge! After heading back to the hotel briefly to spruce ourselves up a bit (‘elegant’ attire is required at the Moulin Rouge), we caught the underground to the red light district of Paris. We (or really me, but Alice got dragged along for the ride) decided that tonight, as well as being Moulin Rouge night, should also be the night of the snail, and this time, I am referring to the creepy crawly variety! So we found a cute little place to eat with pink seats, and ordered pina coladas, coke (to wash down the snails), six snails, chicken and a salad. We decided that snails didn’t count so ordered a bit much!

We had to be shown by the waiter how to eat our snails (you use a special clamp thing to hold the snail while you scoop the meat out with a skinny fork), but once we extracted them from the shell, they really weren’t too bad! They were cooked in yummy garlic flavours, and were a bit chewy, but apart from that, quite nice! It was really only knowing that they were snails that made it a bit strange! I made it through four, Alice only one, but I am impressed that she managed that! The rest of our food was yummy (and pricey, but worth it!), it was just a shame we had to rush through it a bit to get to our show!

Next was the Moulin Rouge, just up the road. From the outside, it is just as it looks in the pictures you see, with the big windmill on top. Apart from that though, it does sort of blend in to the street. It is pretty small from the outside and just on an ordinary road. Inside, you are led to your table, which for us was towards the back, but with a perfect view of the stage. I don’t think there would be a bad seat in there. We were on a table with two other couples, and each pair of people is brought a bottle of champagne, which is included in the ticket. You can also go for a three course meal before the show, but that adds a LOT to the price, and I have heard the food isn’t anything to get excited about. We had a really nice meal before hand for less than half what we would have paid at the Moulin Rouge.

Anyway, the show started pretty much straight away, with a stage full of dancers in sparkly outfits. The dancing was fantastic, and so mesmerizing. Throughout the show there were a lot of different dances performed, all with new costumes, and I think a story was been told, in French though so I have no idea what it was about. It did involve some Egyptian type outfits though, and at one stage a pool rose out of the stage with a great big snake in it (real), that a dancer proceeded to jump into and danced around in, twirling herself with the snake!

In between dances, they had a few other sideshow type acts, which were good quality. First was an amazing juggler. Second one was a clown act, and this was fantastic. They did all sorts of awesome acrobatics, and at one point the female was left balancing on a thin pole, and then suddenly the pole was gone and she was standing straight up and balancing on the male clowns outstretched arm!

The third act, and probably the best, was a ventriloquist, who started out with some puppets, and then had a real fluffy dog who was having a bit of a whine, and then he got four members of the audience up on stage and turned them into puppets! It was so funny, they were from all different nationalities, and he took on each of the stereotypes. There was a deeply spoken Russian, a giggly blonde from Netherlands, a middle aged French man and a Japanese. Every time he squeezed their hand they had to open their mouth, and it looked so believable, like they were making the noise. I think in actual fact they were just laughing!

The second half of the show was more can-can style, with, like the first half, a lot of nudity. It was very well done, and it took me a little while to even notice that the majority of these dancers were half naked. They looked so classy with their g-string leotards and jewels draped over their breasts (no sarcasm!). It seemed that the more senior role they played in the show, the more skin they had to show. So I imagine the excitement they must go through the night that they premiere their breasts, as that would mark their first big show it would seem!

Afterwards we got the obligatory photos out the front, as well as a crepe, and jumped back on the metro. The metro is so good here, during the week it runs until around 1am, and who knows how late it goes on the weekend. Moulin rouge was an expensive night, but well worth it I think, it was fantastic. 

We had a busy third day in Paris, where we visited the Notre Damn (impressive, but not up there as far as churches go for me I don’t think), some cute little local markets with lots of cheese, jams etc and where we ate strawberry tart and chocolate éclair (GOOD!), and then headed out to Montemartre to visit Sacre Coeur and wander the streets of what is apparently the arty area of Paris. In Montemartre we discovered lots of cute little shops which had some stuff that was finally different to the repetitive tourist stuff that we see in shop after shop around the French tourist areas. I may have had a bit of a splurge and bought myself a few little French mementos! We were also on the pressie hunt and managed to find a few little goodies around the place.

As it got later and we felt that we were stocked up enough for Christmas, we headed to the Eiffel Tower to see the light show and take the obligatory photos! It is an amazing sight every time, and though we only hung around in the slushy grounds long enough to get a few good shots, it was a worthy trip!

A bus and 2 trains

We always anticipated our Prague to Paris trip to be the most challenging, as after we decided that that is where we wanted to go, we discovered that it is apparently not a common route with a straightforward connection. We began with a bus to Nuremburg in Germany, with a 25 minute gap to make it to our first train. No problems, the bus was five minutes early and we found the platform easily enough. Phew, that is the one we were worried about! The train from Nuremburg to Stuttgart (also in Germany) then left on time, but before we had really moved anywhere at all, it seemed to just stop, I think due to the weather - it was a very white winter wonderland outside. The train remained stationary for about an hour! We had a one hour layover between this train and the one which would take us to Paris, so we were now cutting it pretty fine, as each station we passed had signs up saying our train was running around 60 minutes late.  As we pulled into Stuttgart, one hour late, we were waiting at the door ready to jump off the train and run for it, and hoping that ours would be an easy platform to find! The doors finally opened about 3 minutes before our train was due to leave, and, luckily for us, when faced with no signs and two possible directions, we chose the right one, found a sign and our platform was right in front of us. I swear we must have jumped onto the train right as it was supposed to leave, but of course it didn’t leave on time, not too much later though! We found ourselves in the first class section of the train, and eventually found a little half carriage section which was second class. It was a bit squishy, but there was no way that we were going to get off the train in order to walk down one carriage to hop onto the main 2^nd class section!

We had a few interesting characters in our little 2^nd class carriage, mostly people with 2^nd class tickets who had taken the liberty to make themselves comfortable in the 1^st class section, and then been promptly delivered to our carriage by the ticket inspectors! It was quite funny, one lady in particular, who was a very sophisticated frenchy looking lady, came in with her furry handbag, matching furry scarves and gloves, a little too much leg showing for a lady of her age, and a fluffy dog in her designer handbag.  She insisted that Ali and I move over so that her dog could have his own seat, and then proceeded to spread herself out over the seats with all of her designer get up, while her dog wandered the carriage. She spent the first half of the trip arranging herself and reading fashion magazines (which she kindly shared with the exuberant stereotypical French man sitting across the aisle, also kicked out of 1^st class), and the second half of the trip doing her makeup, hair etc in the window reflection, and then of course wrapping her pooch up in his own little jacket!

           

According to the people I booked the train tickets through, this was supposed to be the ‘fast train’, though it really did not seem to be going that fast, and in fact, towards the end of the trip, when we would have expected to be almost in Paris, it came to a complete stop in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, it was dark outside. And then the lights in the carriage dimmed. And then they completely went out, and we were sitting in pitch black! They eventually came partly back on, and after awhile a man came to the carriage, and from his little spiel in French, I picked up ‘technical difficulties’ and apparently he said we would be 15 minutes. Which we were, and we eventually made it into Paris around 2 hours late, and after 14 hours of travel. But we did make it and that is the main thing!

I love Haagen Daas, regardless of the weather!

On the recommendation of our tour guide from the previous day, we spent the morning of our second day in Prague wandering through the Jewish synagogues and museums. As the tour guide said we would, I found the museum to be very confronting. It is just a small building with high ceilings, and inside, all that there is to see is thousands and thousands and thousands of names written in tiny handwriting, covering all of the walls. They are the names, and birth/death dates, of those taken during the Holocaust. Because of the scarcity of the museum, it is completely empty apart from all of these names, it is quite a stark image.

Upstairs of the museum is another very reality setting display. A collection of drawings are shown, which were done by children in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. While the adults held there had a horrendous time, for the children it was even worse, and apparently many people worked together to try and give the children a little bit of light in their days. One lady in particular gathered any paper and tools that she could and got the children to express how they were feeling through artwork. The pictures give a disturbing insight into the terrible things these children went through and how they were affected. A lot of the pictures represent just everyday things, like not been allowed into playgrounds, or missing the family home.  Apparently for many of the children, these drawings are the only evidence that they ever lived.

A part of the museum pass was also to walk through the Jewish Cemetery, which, for a long time, was the only Jewish cemetery in Prague. It takes up only a small area, and apparently parts of it have up to 11 layers of graves.  It was a very snowy day when we were there, and with the thousands of now haphazard gravestones surrounded by white, it was quite a sight.

As a reward for all of our history trawling (and because we are both getting sick and needed some proper food!) we found a decent looking restaurant for lunch. Food in Prague was really cheap, so we managed to have a good meal for not too much. Ali went for the good old spag bol, and I had the specialty, pork ribs, which were SO GOOD. Ok, so still not the healthiest, but at least it was some meat!

With not much planned for the afternoon, we went wandering and eventually found ourselves in the botanical gardens, which were, of course, white! It was continuously snowing on and off while we were in Prague, a really nice snow, not wet at all, just little flakes that seemed to settle overnight and left a nice solid layer of white everywhere! It was quite novelty for us to wander through the snow, to discover how SOFT it is, but then also how COLD it is if you are silly enough to remove your gloves!

To warm ourselves up after a snowy afternoon, we headed to Haagen Daas, the ice cream shop! I had spotted it earlier, and remember how good this ice cream is from trying it in the DR. It didn’t disappoint either, and silly as it may sound, we actually did get to warm up as they had a nice little warm upstairs section to sit and relax, which had a great view of everyone freezing out on the street!

It was exciting that night to have our first Skype conversation home. I haven’t really used Skype before, and it really is like you are sitting right there having a conversation with someone! We were even able to point the computer out the window and show Mum and Dad the snow and the Prague Castle. Very novelty!

For our last day in Prague, after Ali survived a trip to the train station to buy bus tickets to Germany, we went and checked out the ‘cubist café’, a café inside one of the cubist style buildings in Prague. Czech architects are apparently the only ones to have built this style of buildings, and it did look pretty cool! Everything, down to the wallpaper and lampshades was cubist.

We also went on a tour of the Prague castle, though unfortunately did not get quite as much out of it as we would have hoped, and will definitely have to visit again if we are ever in Prague again! It started off well, and before it felt like we had even started we had a pit stop at the Monks brewery to test out their Christmas brew! Yes, around 30 monks still live in the castle, and among their many hobbies, they brew beer, and developed a Christmas one this year, it was quite nice too! It was good fun and a good chance to meet some fellow travelers whilst defrosting from outside.

By the time we left the brewery, it was starting to get dark and was very very cold. We wandered through all the different parts of the castle and were given the historic lowdown on each, but it was just so so cold, that by the time we got to the end of it, I don’t think too many people were focused on what the guide was saying, we were more concerned about the quickest way to get the hell out of the cold to defrost! Anyway though, I guess just been out in that sort of weather is a good experience to have been through, and we did learn some interesting stuff, I just can’t recall any of it now!

After the tour, we were luckily quite close to our hotel, so practically ran there and stuck our feet on the heater. After a bit of warmth we were ready for food though, so headed out for a quick feed from the Christmas markets, and then some more Haagen Daas for dessert. (Oh, did I mention the Haagen Daas we got before the castle tour as well?? No, we didn’t eat ice cream three times in two days in minus 10 or some ridiculous temperature! It was very good ice cream though!). 

First day in Prague – Saturday Dec 19, 6pm

Alice and I took full advantage of having our own room, by getting a good sleep and sleeping in a bit, and by doing some much needed laundry and then hanging our underwear all over the room to dry! When we did eventually decide to leave our own little haven, it was just in time to do the first free walking tour of the day. For any future European travelers, there is this great company called Sandemans Tours, and they run free walking tours all over Europe, working only for tips. They run the free Prague tour twice a day, every day, and it was a great way to get an overview of the city and to see what parts of it deserve more of our attention!

We made our way across what we later discovered to be the Charles Bridge, a big Prague landmark, to the main square where the tour started. It was a very cold morning, and before the tour was over, we were walking through snow! Prague is a city full of beautiful old buildings, statues, cobble stones and the odd tower. It all goes together to make for a lovely looking place. And the snow really did add to it, I must say! The people who have grown up in the snow do not seem to find it exciting at all, but it sure made it exciting for us, trying to catch the snowflakes and all!

Our tour guide was a New Yorker who has been living in Prague for a few years, and he really knew his stuff, but was also really funny, making a three hour long history tour much more bearable! As per usual, the majority of the info went straight over my head as I took in the sights, but there were a few funny slash strange stories that I will try and remember for you!

First of all, there is a tower in the main square, which has two tall spire type things on it. One is slightly taller and wider than the other one. Prague proclaims this to be on purpose, as the towers are representations of ‘Adam and Eve’. According to our tour guide though, someone just stuffed up!

Another feature of the main square is the Astronomical Clock. This is a complex structure, which, every hour, does a little performance (and by performance, I mean that the four figures on the clock make some small movement, like a head nod, or an arm going up and down). People gather to see this though! Although in this day and age, the clock really is not very impressive, when it was created, it really was. Our tour guide described it as the iphone of its day. In fact, it was so amazing, that some people in Prague did not want to risk a greater one been created elsewhere, so they took the clock maker to the top of the astronomical clock and, as thanks for his wonderful creation, gouged his eyes out! Of course, the clockmaker then went on to place a ‘curse’ on the clock, and it did not work for 100 years. Interesting stories that these old cities have!

This clock is apparently a source of much information, but as far as we got in learning how to read it is how to tell if it is night time or not. Another part of the clock is a circle with 365 names around it. These are apparently the only Czech names, and each name corresponds with a day of the year, and hence everyone has a ‘name day’. People like to keep their name day a secret though, as it is tradition that you buy everyone else a drink on your name day!

For a long time (don’t ask me when!), the majority of people living in Prague where completely illiterate. Therefore, instead of having street names and numbers, buildings were identified by a statue on them. For example, the black Madonna, or the violin etc. A lot of the statues are still around, and it is a quirky little thing to look out for! They say that Prague is the European city with the most statues in it. Having been to Rome though, I really find that hard to believe, but whatever they say!

There is a statue on the Charles Bridge, and it is apparently representing the story of a man who was thrown to his death from the bridge, for refusing to reveal his affair with some lady of importance. There are two little plaques either side of this statue. One of them, you are supposed to rub, and it will bring you good luck. Beware though! The other plaque, the one with the dog on it, is BAD LUCK to rub! We saw so many people rubbing the bad plaque, I just hope they rubbed both of the plaques to at least cancel out the bad luck! It is easy to find these plaques, as they have gold patches on them from been rubbed and polished so much!

And for my last little history re-tell, the story of Prague’s’ liberalization! I really don’t know my world history at all, but regardless, this is a pretty cool story! Apparently, once WW2 was over and the allies and Soviets were working their way through Europe liberalizing everyone, Prague got a little impatient, as the Soviets were still around 5 days from getting to them. So they decided to take matters into their own hands. The signal that they used to let all of the Czech’s know that it was LIBERALISING time, was to say the word six in German instead of Czech over the radio. Once the signal came through, all civilians poured out onto the streets with their kitchen knives and ancient revolvers and began to attack the Nazi’s. The Czechs managed to back all of the Nazi’s into a corner, but before too long, the Nazi’s backup arrived with fresh ammunition, and the fight seemed lost.

Meanwhile, there was a group of traitor Soviets fighting with the Nazis’. With the Soviet army only a few days away though, they realised that, if found as traitors, they would either be killed on the spot or tortured for life. So they turned themselves in to the allies, in the hope of a fair trial. As they made their way to the allies, they dumped all of their weapons, leaving them free for the Czech civilians to collect.

Now, with proper equipment, the battle between the Czech civilians and Nazi’s was a bit more even. As the Nazi’s realised the imminence of the Soviets arrival, they sat down and made an agreement with the civilians, that in exchange for a free walk out of Prague, they would leave the Czechs alone. And in doing so, the Czechs liberalized themselves! The Soviets arrived the next day though, and in sacrificing nothing, took all of the credit. And the allies handed the traitor Soviets over, and they were tortured for the rest of their lives. They played a key role though in allowing the Czechs to gain power and free themselves from the Nazis.

After a lunch of soup and a big plate of steamed veggies (yes, it is true! We are ready for some healthy stuff!), we headed back to the hotel via a supermarket, and cracked the vegemite for vegemite bread for dinner, yum! After a big day of foreign history, there is nothing like getting back to your roots!