Croatia

A few weeks ago Daniel and Sue (friends from Sydney) came and stayed a few days with me in Paris, and then we went to Croatia together for a weeks holiday on a boat in the Adriatic Sea. Dan and Sue arrived on a Wednesday, and I was working for the rest of the week, so I only saw them at night and since they were trying to squeeze as many of the sights of Paris in 2 days we didn't really go out partying at all, but we did go out for a nice dinner and drank plenty of French wine and just hang out and caught up on all the gossip (including their recent engagement!).

On Saturday morning we flew to Dubrovnik where we stayed one night in a cute little apartment with a gorgeous view over Gruz harbour. Unfortunately it was at the top of about 300 stairs and our very unhelpful (read lying bastard) cabbie, dropped us off at the bottom and told us it was just one flight up (if you look at the view from our apartment in the photos below, we climbed up stairs from basically the water level). So, unable to hail another cab when we realised his mistake (deliberate lie), we had to drag our bags up the stairs ourselves (much to the amusement and sympathy of the locals living on the hill), which took over an hour and resulted in Daniel getting mild heat stroke!

The next morning we went to the old city of Dubrovnik and walked the city walls and then strolled around the city and eat lunch in a cafe by the sea. The old city is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen and the views from the walls are amazing. The old city is almost entirely paved in marble and has numerous churches and gorgeous stone buildings, beautiful squares and fountains and little streets lined with shops and restaurants. The city is surrounded on two sides by the sea and visitors can walk all the way around on the walls, which offers great views of the city, and out over the sea to the nearby islands and up and down the coast.

In the afternoon we check-in on our boat and met up with Daniel’s friends that were on the trip as well.. Unfortunately as I had booked late I was in a below deck cabin that was quite hot and stuffy, and a bit cramped but I didn't spend much time at all down there except to sleep so it didn't bother too much. We ate dinner on the boat with the other (20 or so) people who would be on the trip with us then went back to the old city to a very trendy cocktail bar looking out over the water. It was full of beautiful people, and was beautifully decorated with pink and purple beanbags, huge couches, and very trendy lighting. We spent several hours there before heading back to the boat for our first night aboard.

For the next week we spent each day traveling from island to island, with numerous swim stops along the way usually at smaller deserted islands, or little coves along the coast. We ate breakfast and lunch each day on the boat and each afternoon we arrived at a different island where we spent a few hours wandering around and the evenings eating and drinking at the bars and restaurants. The coast was gorgeous and the water was super clear and on most days warm enough to stay in the water for hours at a time. The weather was perfect - warm and sunny but with a nice coastal breeze.

The main islands we went to were Korcula, Hvar, Mljet and Sipan. The first day we went to Korcula, which was quite big, with a cute little town and a pretty old city, and some nice restaurants and bars. In the evening we went to cocktail bar that was atop an old tower accessible only via a ladder, so our drinks were winched up via a lazy waiter sort of thing from the bar below.

The next days was Hvar (the most touristy island) whose harbour was full of million dollars yachts and is apparently very a popular holiday spot for the rich and famous at the moment, and quite a party destination. The island was full of trendy bars, cafes and nightclubs. That evening we had a fabulous meal and then numerous cocktails, finishing up at a famous bar called Carpe Diem.

The next day we headed for Trstenik, a tiny village of less than 100 people. We had a bit of a look around and then spent a fairly quiet evening as we were all very tired from the night before. The next morning we went to Mljet, which was my favorite island. We had nearly a whole day on Mljet, which has a large national park which includes two large lakes. We spent the morning swimming in the lakes, which are super salty - thus very floaty. In the afternoon we rented quad bikes and zipped around the island, through a few cute little fishing villages, through the forest and along the coast. In the late afternoon we caught a boat out to an island on the largest of the lakes, where there is an old monastery.

The next day we headed for the last of our islands - Sipan and spent the evening in another small town, drinking cocktails and playing cards. On the last day we went back to Dubrovnik where we had the afternoon to look around again, and spent our last night eating a huge meal, and drinking in our favorite cocktail bar we discovered on the first night.

The next day everyone else left early in the morning to catch flights but I had another night at Dubrovnik as I had booked an early flight for Monday morning. So I spent my last day at the beach in Dubrovnik, which was quite nice - but super touristy. The next morning I had to get up at 4am, and flew back to Paris and went straight from the airport to work.

Croatia

Bordeaux

When I returned to France after 7 weeks in Australia I was expecting to return to work pretty much straight away but as it turns out I couldn't start for another few weeks. I had to have a "welcome to France" interview and a medical exam first, which was scheduled for mid July. So in the mean time I went down to Bordeaux to stay with a friend of mine (Sandrine) whose parents live down there.

Apart from being one of the main wine growing regions in France it is also a really nice city. Apparently until a few years ago it was a dump but it has been done up (all the beautiful old buildings have been cleaned) and it is a really nice small city, with lots of little pedestrian streets lined with shops and cafes and quite a few gorgeous old buildings in a similar style to Paris.

The first few days I spent just walking around Bordeaux and hanging out with Sandrine. In the evenings I ate at home with her family and then went out with Sandrine and her friends in the evenings. Her family was really friendly and very nice tome - cooking lots of vege food (which I am sure they are not used to doing) as well as delicious pies and desserts! Later in the week Sandrine and I went to St Emilion which is a gorgeous medieval village known for it's wine. We tried some wines and walked around the town that was situated on a hill over looking the vineyards.

Another day we did a wine tour of Medoc, which involved visiting some chateaux as well as getting a bit of history of wine making and a tour of the cellars before tasting the wines. I wasn't that keen to do a tour but the wineries don't do the cellar door thing over here, so you have to be on a tour to do wine tasting, and in the end it was actually quite a good tour.

On the last day we went to the beach. It was my first French beach experience and I really enjoyed it. First we went to Dune de Pilar - Europe's largest sand dune, which was huge!! The beach on the other side was fairly quiet (for a European beach) and we spent a few hours swimming and hanging out at the beach. Afterwards we stopped off at Arcachon, which is a famous beach holiday town. It was a cute town but the beach was packed and very European, with boats and people, balls and toys everywhere, children’s rides along the beach, and stands selling ice cream and junky souvenirs. It was quite kitsch but I am glad I went.

The last night was Sandrine's birthday so we all went out to dinner to a lovely French restaurant and had a 6-course meal. They even made special vege food for me - I had fettuccini with truffles as a main. It was the first time I had tried truffles and I loved them!

Here are the photos. They are a bit mixed up between all the places I visited:

Bordeaux

So since then I have had my welcome to France thing and have started back at work. Not a lot has been happening (Paris in august is completely dead). I have just been hanging out with my friends and getting back into Paris life - ie hanging out in Cafes drinking wine. But tomorrow Daniel and Sue arrive (friends from Sydney) and on the weekend we are going to Croatia for a week. So stay tuned for more news and photos from that trip!

China

I am now going to go backwards in time and fill in some of the gaps of what I have been doing in the last few months. So i'll start with china.

As I wrote ealier there was a bit of drama getting my visa for china sorted out, but I did finally get my passport back and and made it to Hong Kong. Unfortunatley I didn't have any onward ticket booked due to the last minute date changes. I tried to buy a ticket at the airport in hongkong but this turned out to be just extremely expensive, so I ended up catching the train into Hong Kong and then getting an international train to Guangzhou - a large city a few hours from Hong Kong but inside mainland china. From there I bought a ticket to Biejing which turned out to be very cheap - so it was worth the effort.

I finally made it to Beijing where I stayed for a couple of days with Sitt. I had already been to beijing before and done all the touristy type stuff so I just spent my time there hanging out with Sitt, meeting his friends, going out to dinner and bars and that sort of thing. I did spend one day walking around a traditional chinese area, with a nice lake and some of the last traditional housing left in the centre of Beijing, which was pretty cool.

After a couple of days in Beijing Sitt and I headed down to Chengdu , in Sichuan province, South western china, which is famous for it's spicy food, it's tea houses and the world's largest panda reserve. Although it is a huge city (9 million people) it is actually quite chilled out. The people are calm and friendly, and there are some nice parks and cute little tea houses everywhere.

We meet up with a friend of Sitt's (another Rebecca) and her sister down there and the four of us stayed at a lovely, but noisy, hostel together (which had two very cute piglettes as pets). We hired bikes from the hostel and spent most of our time there biking around the city, checking out temples, parks, drinking tea and just hanging out. It was great to be there with Sitt and Rebecca, as they both speak mandarin. It made life a lot easier and we got to speak to a few locals, and try out some local food and do some stuff that would have been impossible if none of us could speak the language. One day Sitt and I went out to visit a "museum" of Maoist paraphenalia run by an old local man. He was hilarious and the musuem itelf was just the back section of the guy's house, which was stacked full of pictures, statues, old ads and propaganda posters and everything else with Mao on it.

One evening we all went to see a Sichuan opera which was excellent - having seen a Beijing Opera last time I was in China I knew what to expect - it is not much of a opera - more like a show of costumes and acrobatics with not much story. But it was extremely well done and the costumes were amazing.

One the last morning before I flew back to sydney we went to the panda reserve. It was huge and there were heaps of pandas around - several babies and a large number of adults. They were so cute. And they ate so much. They eat up to 40 kg of bamboo a day and just while we were watching a group of 4 pandas demolished a large area of bamboo!

China

French Residency

This is just a quick update to let everyone know what has been going on. I will try to go back later when I have more time and write more about my holiday and put up some photos and stuff like that.

Basically I went back to sydney (via china - more on that later) to sort out all the paper work for my french residency and to apply for my visa. The hard part was supposed to be over - I already had the permlission to work in France (My company applied for that in March), I just had to get a visa. It was supposed to take 2 - 3 weeks and I should have been back in France by the 1st of June but my file was held up in Paris and I didnt end up get my visa until the end of June.

I finally got back to France and thought I could start work straight away but as it turns out I had to have an interview and a medical exam and sign a contract with the french government promising to integrate into french culture (very similar to the "australian values" crap John Howard is trying to introduce in Australia). Anyway I was given an appointment for 17th July and I couldn't start working before then. So in the mean time I spent a week in Bordeaux staying with a french friend of mine (Sandrine) at her parents place (more on that later too).

So Yesterday was the day of my "welcome to france" and I spent several hours at the department being shuffled around to watch a video about life in france, have a french language test, an interview and a medical exam. In the end I finally got my certificate to start working, so here I am back at work two and half months after I left.

I still have to go to the prefecture next week to apply for my residents permit, and in september I have to do a full day of "Civic Training". But basically I now have the right to live and work in france for pretty much as long as I want to.

Travel Karma

To be honest I don't really believe in Karma but up until now I have been very lucky in all my travels. I have never missed a flight or lost luggage or really had any kind of major problems, and I have done an awful lot of travelling. Unfortunately this time I haven't been so lucky. But after much stress and drama I finally have my trip home all planned.

First of all I still don't have a definate answer about my french working visa. The department of employment rang the HR girl from company a few weeks ago to say that there were no particular problems with my application and that it was progressing (whatever that means) and that they would ring her back in a week with more information but we haven't heard from them since. Apparently after the Department of employment gives my company the premission to hire me, they send my file on to another department who decides if I am a suitable person for france (i think this involves checking if I am a criminal and stuff like that). After that it is sent to the consulate in sydney where I have to apply for the visa. I don't fully understand the procedure nor does the HR person at work and the only information I have been given has been from her, in french, over the phone (as I am a consultant I don't work at the offices of my company). So it is all a bit hazy but it seems, if all goes well, I will have my visa by the end of may. But as I mentioned before I have to actually be in australia during the final stage of processing and as far as I could work out that should begin around may 10, although this is uncertain as the department of employment was supposed to ring us with a date and they refuse to take phone calls about the status of visa applications.

I had been putting off planning the trip back to australia until I had more information about my visa and what dates I was expected to be in sydney but since that didn't happen I decided 2 weeks ago to go ahead and book things anyway using the guestimate of may 10. My work visa finished on May 1 so I decided to stop of in china to visit Sitt (my best friend, who lives in Beijing at the moment). The planning was left a little bit to the last minute as I was waiting to hear about the date for my french visa, but two weeks ago I left my passport at the chinese embassy in Paris to get my visa (this in itself was a bit of a drama as they didnt know if they could process a non eu citizen at the paris consulate but they finally decided it would be ok) and they told me I could pick it up last friday, which was also my last day of work. Friday morning I woke up with food poisoning. I was violently ill all day and since the visa must be collected before midday and by 11am I was still in no state to go to the embassy I decided not to get my passport on friday but to pick it up monday morning. Since I didn't fly out until wednesday afternoon I thought that would be fine. I arrived at the embassy on monday morning to find it locked with a note stuck to the door saying the embassy was closed until thursday due to chinese public holidays.

Since my flight left wednesday afternoon and they had my passport there was nothing I could do but change my flight from Paris to thursday. Luckily there wasn't any particular problem changing the date but unfortunately I had already paid for a non-refundable ticket from hong kong to beijing, so I have lost that money, and to make things worse the flight the next day was booked out. After many phone calls, website checking and sending sitt on a mission to local travel agents I was still unable to book a flight. The cheap airlines won't issue e-tickets and there is not enought time to send the tickets to me, and the only other available tickets are outrageously expensive (several hundred euro each way) and also mean I have to wait 9 hours hong kong airport. So I have decided to fly to hongkong without a onward ticket and try to book one at one of the counters at the airport. It should be OK as there are many airlines and flights but they could be very expensive. My back up plan is to catch a train 2 hours to guangzhou and get a flight from there as they are much cheaper and less likely to be booked out. Since I arrive at 7.30am I have plenty of time to sort something out but it could turn into a bit of an adventure.

So now all that is left is to get up early tomorrow, pick up my passport and go straight to the airport for my 2pm flight. I am praying that all will go well tomorrow and there won't be any problems with my passport or visa. I can't wait to be sitting on that plane! The whole thing has been such a drama.

I am flying from hong kong to sydney on May 10 and heading down to ulladulla for a few days to relax and catch up with my parents. I should be back in sydney on the monday where I will probably spend the next 2-3 weeks doing paper work and catching up with friends, and depending on what is going on with my visa I should be back in france and back to work by June 1st.

So for all of you in sydney I am looking forward to catching up with you all. And everyone keep your fingers crossed that there are no more flight/passport dramas and also that my french working visa comes through.

If there really is such a thing as karma, I think I must be even by now.

Amsterdam

I think I mentioned last time that I was thinking of going to Amsterdam over Easter with Nick and Pauli. We left the booking a bit late and had a hard time finding accomodation but we did eventually find a fairly nice hostel in central amsterdam. We had wanted an appartment or at least our own room but we ended up in a four bed dorm which turned out to be fine. The girl we shared with was quite nice and we didn't actually spend much time at the hostel anyway.

I arrived late friday night so that night we just had a few drinks at a nearby bar. Then next day Pauli planned out a list of places to go and see. We started out the day at the Van Gogh museum, which was pretty good, but was missing many of his most famous pieces. Nick, who complained about not wanting to go, ended up spending the most time looking at paintings and it was Pauli and I that got bored! After that we went of to get lunch and after huge pizzas and a few beers, we never really made it to any of the other things on Pauli's list. We wandered around a little bit more and then finished the evening in a coffee shop.

This came to be a regular pattern - Pauli would plan a list of things to see, we would visit the first on the list and then end up in a bar or coffee shop and not see anything else on the "the list". But we had a great time and ended up seeing most of the things Pauli wanted to see. We did a nice boat ride through the canals and visted the Heineken museum (which was packed, and consisted mostly of advertising material and stupid little "rides" and games - but at least we got a few beers).

Amsterdam has some of the worst food in the world. Everything is deep fried. One of the most popular food chains is called Febo which is basically deep fried food vending machines. You put coins in and can choose from a wide variety of deep fried stuff (deep fried cheese, sauerkraut, and various unidentifiable meat products) adn also hamburgers. I tried the deep fried cheese option and it was kraft singles style "plastic cheese" wrapped in pastry and fried. I felt sick for the next hour as did nick and pauli who tried some of the meat versions. All the bars sell "deep fried snacks" and the staff are not sure exactly what it is them. And the huge paper cones of chips smothered in mayo are famous. We tried some of the various deep fried snacks but mostly ate in italian/asian/other restaurants which were not too bad.

We spent alot of time wandering the streets and along the canals, which are gorgeous, and we were lucky to have really nice weather. We spent most afternoons drinking beer in one of the many squares, and the evenings sitting in bars and people watching. We spend a few evenings hanging around the red light district - fascinated by the behavour of some the girls in the windows, and more so by the potential punters. Definately a good area to people watch.

Anyway we had heaps of fun and really liked amsterdam. Next it is my turn to go visit Nick and Pauli in Leeds as they have already visited me twice in Paris. But first I have to get my french working visa! I still don't know whether I will get it but I should be getting the news this week, so expect another update soon.

Amsterdam

Madrid

As usual it has been a while since I last updated this blog and a fair bit of stuff has been happening.

A few weeks ago I went to madrid for 4 days. It was a bit of a last minute decision. I just realised I had a weekend free and plenty of RTT days (kind of like flexi days) available so I decided to take a couple of days off and go to Madrid.

I spent most of my time in Madrid wandering the streets, checking out the beautiful parks, squares and buildings and eating tapas and other local specialities like churros. I really loved the big squares and the architecture is great - a real mix of styles, which is a change from Paris. The metro is really good, and it is nice, clean, easy city to get around, and the central part is really quite small.

I also went to two fantastic museums - Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza. Both of which had large modern art collections including works by Dali, Picasso, Miro, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and heaps of others. The Prado is supposed to be one of the best art galleries in Spain, but I decided to give it a miss as I am not too interested in classic art.

The hostel I stayed in was gorgeous and right in the middle of Madrid and I met some friendly french girls there there and we went out to a few bars together.

Madrid

Last weekend an old friend of mine, Bec, and her husband Peter came to visit me in Paris. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm (you know you are living in Europe when you refer to 15 as gorgeous) . Bec had never been to Paris before so we spent most of the weekend walking around showing off the sites of Paris and hanging out in cafés and eating gorgeous food. It made me realise all over again that Paris really is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It was really good to catch up with Bec and Peter, they have just moved to London after several months of travelling through north and South America, so it was great to hear all their stories. While the weather was great from wandering around Paris, unfortunately it wasn't too good for photos but anyway I have included all the photos from the weekend here, as Bec and Peter had a problem with their camera so they wanted to copy some of them.

Bec and Peter in Paris

Apart from all that, I have been just hanging around Paris as usual. Hanging out a lot with VikiLee, and my other friends here. I am planning to go to Amsterdam for easter with Nick and Pauli (other friends from Australia who live in the UK now) but we haven't book anything yet so that could still change.

Other than that I don't have anything else planned as I don't know what is going to happen with my visa. My dossier for the visa is finished and has been lodged with the appropriate department, so now I just have to wait for a response. If all goes well I have to go back to Australia to get my visa (it is a crazy rule but I have to return to Australia to get it) , so I am planning to go back to Australia in early may for about 3 weeks or so and also hopefully go via Beijing to visit Sitt on the way over. But all of that depends on my visa and how long it all takes, and I probably won't know for sure until a week or two before I am supposed to leave. So everything is a bit up in the air at the moment and it is kind of hard to plan anything.