Where is Paige today?

Tag: Travel

Heeeeeeeeey, it’s a party in the UK!

Okay, I’ll admit it, I was looking forward to returning to somewhere where people spoke English (yeah, yeah, lazy Aussie traveller award goes to me). Oh, and, for context, this all happened in late July/early August. Yeah, I’m behind, I know.

After possibly being distracted by my last fabulous breakfast at my hostel in Lisbon, I was kind of worried I was going to miss my plane, but I shouldn’t have, since I was flying with RyanAir. RyanAir, you may or may not know, are pretty much eternally delaying/cancelling/mysteriously rescheduling flights. So after my first Macca’s since leaving Australia (hey, no judgement – there’s nothing else to eat in Lisbon airport and I had a long trip ahead!) and a strange, unexplained RyanAir delay where we were all ushered into the hallway where you normally board your plane (the flight staff had checked our boarding passes and everything) and then ended up sitting there for 40 minutes on the floor, we eventually made it to London!

Now I say “London”, but what I actually mean is “Stanstead”, which is billed as a London airport but is actually a flibbityjillion kilometres away. And, although I didn’t know this until I had booked my bus from London Victoria to Cambridge, is actually closer to Cambridge than it is to London. So I was in for a lot of very repetitive scenery today, and a LOT of time spent in transit. But eventually I found my merry way to Cambridge, where I was meeting up with Max. Max is a friend from home who, due to his smart-cookie status, was doing a summer course at Cambridge University, and had graciously offered to host me secretly in his dorm room for a while.

Now, travelling is great, don’t get me wrong, but after 2 months of it, I was ready for a holiday from my holiday. I was ready to talk to someone with whom I could be grumpy or judgemental or lazy without worrying about being judged or rejected, and I was definitely ready to have a movie night (or 7). Don’t get me wrong, Max and I clocked some tourist time – we went to market square, visited colleges and college gardens, spent hours in heritage-listed bookshops and shopped (well, Max shopped. I, thanks to low baggage limits and low funds, mostly just told Max how cute he looked in various cat shirts), but it was also nice to just eat junk food and watch Cougar Town and complain about boys. I spent two weekends with Max, and then a day in a hotel room in London (Thanks, Max’s mum!) with him before he got his flight back home.

This worked really well, because it meant I got to spend weekdays in Cardiff and Liverpool and a very hectic 48 hours in Edinburgh while Max had classes, and then we could both take breaks together. It was nice. What wasn’t nice was sharing a single bed for a week and then finding out that you can actually get a second single put in your room by the college, no questions asked, for five pound. WHY DID WE ONLY FIND THIS OUT AFTER I HAD TO SLEEP IN A NEST MADE OF CLOTHES BECAUSE MAX AND I BOTH SCREWED OUR BACKS FROM SHARING A SINGLE. WHYYYYYYY?

Plus, you know, the fact that THIS was the view from his window was pretty cool too. Just a bit.

Pretty much Hogwarts

As I mentioned, I also visited Cardiff. Awkwardly, when people ask me why I wanted to go to Cardiff, the truthful answer is “I wanted to know about Wales because nobody ever talks about it and DOES IT EVEN EXIST and also do people still speak Welsh there and what does it sound like because no language should have that many consonants”. But, you know, that’s kind of a mouthful, so mostly I just said it was because I was curious. But Cardiff is actually really lovely – it’s really easy to walk around there, and it’s full of museums, ranging from the community-run “Cardiff Story”to the gorgeous national art museum, which actually has a very impressive impressionist collection, thanks to some very generous private donations. Oh and my FAVOURITE museum was St Fagans, which is basically a huge stretch of land to which they have relocated heritage buildings from all over Wales to form an oldy-worldy village, complete with butter churning demonstrations and buildings from pretty much every century dating back to the 1100s. The city is full of parks, and, relative to the rest of the UK, is pretty affordable in terms of food and accommodation. And shots. There were 1 pound shots. That was pretty great. And we went to the beach, which, for a beach in a country where it rains 99% of the time, I have to admit was pretty darn lovely, with grassy hills and soft sand (although the sand was kind of a strange colour. But you can’t win them all, Wales. You tried.). I think I even got sunburnt!

Look at you, Welsh beach. You did good, kid.

Onward to Liverpool! Liverpool, although freaking freezing (DAMN YOU ENGLISH WEATHER – IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SUMMER), is buzzing with things to do. After being awarded the honour of EU Capital of Culture in 2008, Liverpool has really tried to live up to the title, installing new museums, running with their “home of the Beatles” fame (and running HARD. Seriously, if I hear one more karaoke singer singing Yellow Submarine I will drown myself. Using a yellow submarine), and building Rundle-Mall-esque open, pedestrian spaces. I also met my first Adelaidians since leaving Adelaide (Sorry Max, you don’t count), and they happened to be med students, which is always very exciting for me, since I think I hang out with more med students than most med students do. Tijana, one of the Adeladians, and I became dinner buddies, and made some pretty inspiring couscous one night, if I do say so myself. Running out of oil so cooking the chicken in peach juice instead? Genius!

The Liverpool docklands are really the place where everything happens – from museums to music to great people watching, this is the spot to be in Liverpool. I saw A LOT in Liverpool – the Tate Liverpool (twice), the Museum of Liverpool, the Piermaster’s House (3 times – oops! But there were actors demonstrating life in wartime! I like actors demonstrating things!), their beautiful city library, the Walker Art Gallery, the Liverpool Museum (WHICH HAS A KARAOKE ROOM. And no, I did not sing Yellow Submarine.), the cathedral, and, best of all, the Bombed-Out Church. The Bombed-Out Church, like much of Liverpool, was brutally bombed during WWII, and, instead of being re-built, it’s just kind of lingered in the streets, growing wildflowers and being overtaken by vines and moss. Now, the space, with it’s glassless windows and bomb-crafted skylight, is used for yoga and meditation, as well as for performances and community gardens and the like. I would have loved to see or perform in a show there – it was such an atmospheric space.

Seriously if it didn’t rain 99% of the time in Liverpool I would spend all my time here

So Liverpool was lovely. After Liverpool, I came back, spent the aforementioned night in Max’s fancy hotel, ate a hotel breakfast so big I couldn’t eat all day and wasn’t even really that hungry the next morning, and hit the town of London, which never disappoints. I went to the BFI and used their free mediateque to finally see BBC’s Pride and Prejudice (okay, everyone, you were right – it’s pretty darn fab. Although it’s no Lizzie Bennet Diaries 😉 ), I explored the Southbank Centre, which is a huge arts centre in London that just happened to be hosting The Festival of Love! This meant love-themed shows, free love-themed film screenings, fabulously-gaudy heart decorations and just a really lovely (haaaa, get it?) atmosphere. The festival also had, on loan from the larger museum in Zagreb of the same name, its own little Museum of Broken Relationships, to acknowledge the fact that love doesn’t always go the way we want it to. I must admit that this one hit a little close to home for me, but it was still super interesting – people sent in artefacts from their own broken relationships (letters, jewellery, CDs etc), with a brief description of their breakup. It’s amazing to see how mature some people are about break ups. And, you know, the opposite, too. That’s also pretty amusing.

Anyway, after that I took a leisurely stroll along the Thames, before having to hop another night bus (one of many many many night buses I took in the UK) to take me to Edinburgh!

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I get a little crazy come Fringe time, both in terms of free time (i.e. I have none, because I’m out reviewing 3342345 shows every night) and in terms of general excitement. I love Fringe. I love the way the arts take over Adelaide for a month and run amok with our streets, our parks, our theatres and our populace. So, of course, I wasn’t going to miss a chance to see the only Fringe that is bigger than Adelaide’s – the Edinburgh Fringe, even if I had to pay a schmajillion dollars for accommodation (shoutout to Mum, who actually helped me out with the price of accommodation – you’re the best, Mum! Without you I would have had to choose between Fringe and food. And then, you know, starved).

For more info on the shows that I saw and the differences I noted between Edinburgh Fringe and the one back home you can check my other blog, but basically, I was in town for about 40 hours, and managed to see four shows, and to polish off a walking tour, and to rendezvous with the lovely Hannah, whom I met in Madrid, and who was running an excellent gourmet donut stand with her brother in one of the Fringe hotspots of Edinburgh. Anyone who happens to be around the UK, keep an eye out for Teadough! I’m sure you’ll be hearing big things about them soon. Anyway, so Edinburgh was crazy, but it reminded me why I love the place; I’d been here once before on tour with the Australian Girls’ Choir, and, although I’d forgotten a lot of the gory, quirky history of the city, I’d remembered that I loved it, and now I know why – the atmosphere, the literary heritage, the total artistic chaos (of course, that’s more specific to EdFringe than it is to Edinburgh year-round)… it all just kind of grabs you.

I was really sad to leave so quickly, but I was also super excited to start my long pilgrimage to Istanbul (via London, with the rejuvenating hospitality of the lovely Matt and Rose – thanks again for letting me crash, guys!), and to one of my closest friends from back home.

Stay tuned for the next post, which will be about Turkey and Greece and will feature the lovely JBo!

September 7, 2014
The rain in Spain (and Portugal) falls mainly in the…

…Nowhere – it’s summer, silly internet! Well, it did rain one time in Barcelona, but I was asleep so it didn’t count.

My trip to Spain actually started quite eventfully; after hopping a plane from Toulouse to Barcelona, I made my way to the train station to catch an overnight train to Granada. Now, I wasn’t that worried about communicating in Spain, because clearly getting a HD in the one semester you took of Spanish two years ago means that you’re permanently fluent, right? Turns out that a) No, and most of the things you do remember are flirtatious words you heard on American sitcoms like “caliente”, or words from Dora the Explorer (not that I watch Dora. At all.), like “vamanos!” and these aren’t really as useful as you think and b) In Barcelona they speak Catalan, not Spanish. To an extent, this was a relief, because it explained why none of the signs made any sense even to an expert Hispanophone like myself, but it also meant that, for the first time this trip, it was “Point to things and smile hopefully” time, rather than “speak the language” time.

Anyway, after getting stuck in the toilet at the station and getting the maintenance guy to help me (suitcases were not meant to accompany us in toilet cubicles, guys. Let’s just write that down and put it on the fridge and never forget it), I was pretty ready to chill on my couchette for the night and wake up in Granada. Unfortunately, it was not to be! Well, I DID wake up in Granada, but the chilling was not to be.

In my compartment (which was NOT as much like Harry Potter as I anticipated, guys. It was WAY smaller and nobody comes around selling magic chocolate frogs.) there were three lovely women, but between us there was a bit of a gigantic language barrier. There were two girls from South Korea who spoke a teensy bit of English but no Spanish, a very elderly Spanish woman who only spoke Spanish, and me, who technically speaks both of those languages but doesn’t really speak Spanish enough to, you know, do anything. Now, even though the other three had no way of communicating between themselves, they seemed to have some kind of unspoken thing going on because without me knowing, they appeared to have an election, electing me Boss of the Compartment and Communication and Bedding. At first it was great – we had a whale of a time, the elderly women and I, trying to pronounce my name (we got as far as Paigggghhhhhhhhhhhie and I decided that was adequate and gave up) and I managed to ask her some questions in Spanish with the help of my phrase book and my ailing Spanish vocabulary, although I couldn’t, you know, understand her answers or anything. But whatever.

After a while, our conversation transitioned from me asking her questions about how many children she had and nodding and saying “si, comprendo” a lot (even though actually no comprendo. At all), she started gesturing and saying something about las camas (the beds). Now, to get the folding beds down, you need to get an attendant to help you – they come around and do it for you at a certain time, but you can ask earlier if you want, which is what I think this poor lady was getting at. But, since I had no idea how to ask the attendant to get the beds down and was also wedged under a billion suitcases, I wasn’t really in a position to help, and I also wasn’t sure that that was what she wanted because really the only word I understood was “cama”, and then when I asked her in broken Spanish if she wanted the beds folded down I would receive, rather than a simple yes or no, some rapid Spanish paragraph answer. That may have been because it turns out I was actually saying “Do you like beds going down?” and not “Would you like the beds taken down” and maybe she thought I was hitting on her or something, but regardless, it went on for a really long time and the Korean girls kept asking me what was going on and not understanding my answers, so it was really just a chain of language confusion. But eventually the attendant came by and pulled the beds down and we slept and it was all good in da hood.

Now on to actual Spain! Granada was beautiful, and had the same hot, dry climate that you expect of Australia (oh how I missed you, weather-that-everyone-else-hates!). I wish I could have been in Granada for longer, actually, but I had fun with the time that I had – I did a walking tour and found out that left-handed soldiers rarely died in Granada because the entire fortress is designed so you can’t defend yourself with your sword in your right hand and your shield in your left (take that, lefty haters – we ARE good for something!), I ate ridiculously cheap and delicious food (3 euros for a glass of sangria, two tapas and some paella? WELL OKAY THEN IF YOU INSIST), went on a tapas crawl, and, of course, did the famous Al Hambra. I was actually quite worried that I wouldn’t be able to do Al Hambra, after being told you often have to book weeks in advance or get there reeeaaaallly early. So I tried to get there reeeaaaalllly early, but for me, really early ended up being more like 9:30. Oooops. But luckily, there was almost no line for tickets and I got a pass to the castle at the perfect time! I also met a stray kitty who lived in Al Hambra (highlight of my day? Maybe a little), and a little girl who, upon hearing me Speak, asked (in Spanish) “Do you speak English?” and when I said yes, replied with the proudest “Me too!” I have EVER heard in my life and it was adorable. And, you know, Al Hambra was good too – centuries-old castles and jaw dropping architecture and a totally unique Islamic-Christian mix of restorations. All that jazz.

Al Hambra! Does it make me super uncultured that whenever I say that name I think of Alejandro, the song by Lady Gaga? Probs.

All too soon, I had to board my first of about a billion Spanish buses, this one from Granada to Malaga. Malaga is big, and cosmopolitan, and has a huge fortress similar to the Al Hambra, although nowhere near as grand. Picasso spent some of his childhood there (and trust me, Malaga won’t let you forget it), and there’s some beautiful architecture. Don’t get me wrong, this is all fab, but the highlight for me was something that probably didn’t draw many international tourists, particularly those whose Spanish vocabulary is pretty similar to that of a three-year-old – Les Miserables! Or Los Miserables, technically, but same diff. I was off on what seemed like the world’s longest ATM search, and what did I stumble upon but a) the largest theatre in Malaga and b) the touring truck for the Spanish tour of Les Miserables! Anyone who knows me knows that the fact that it was in Spanish would hardly be a deterrent, seeing as a) I know the English score off by heart so could always follow the story and b) I totes speak some Spanish. Enough to know that ‘Chicas Guapas’ was the Spanish version of the song ‘Lovely Ladies’, anyway. And really, do you need any more than that?

Sitting in the absolute nosebleeds, but it was worth it.

On to Madrid! Other than that it was the capital of Spain, that my mother enjoyed her time there, and that the area I was staying in might or might not be “sketchy” (thanks random guy in my hostel room in Toulouse for scaring me about that), I came with very little knowledge about this city. I learned a lot though. I learned that Madrid has the third highest pickpocketing rates in the world (after Rome and Barcelona), I learned that El Museo del Jamon (the ham museum) is a real food chain in Madrid and you can buy awesome sandwiches there, although it’s not actually a museum dedicated to celebrating ham 🙁 I met the lovely Hannah (who will also feature later in this blog so WATCH THIS SPACE) and Cara, and saw the Reina Sofia, the Prado, and El Parque del Retiro, which is an amazing park, bigger than Central Park in NYC, with boats and restaurants and art installations and crystal palaces (which, okay, is actually just a big glass building, but they CALL it a crystal palace. Those sneaky Spaniards).

My favourite things in Madrid were the royal palace (NOT the one made of glass in a park), where the art, architecture and artefacts were stunningly beautiful and opulent, and the Teatro Real. This theatre is actually incredible because (I hope this is all true, because these factoids are testing my memory a little bit), although it was destroyed various times, often because of fire, they insisted on keeping the original design, even as productions became bigger, sets became more complex, and backstage space became a necessity. The stage there has no wings, which makes set changes, at least the kind we see most commonly in Australia, impossible. To cope with this, the theatre has been built up vertically – sets are kept below the stage and brought up to the stage at the right time (usually during an interval) using a kind of wheeling motion, which is run by crazy gears. Even if you’re not a giant theatre nerd like me, I’d recommend doing a tour here, and, if you can, seeing a show. If you’re under 26 and you book at the last minute, the tickets are something crazy like 90% off, so really you’re SAVING money (this attitude to theatre/food may or may not be why I am broke).

Madrid Palace! Chilling with the royals

OH and I went to the last night of the Pride Festival in Madrid and we got alcoholic milkshakes and crazy donut burgers (which are basically regular burgers but they use donuts instead of bread).

So delicious but so heart-attack-inducing

Barcelonaaaa! I had been so excited for Barcelona for so long, partially because I had heard great things from everyone who had been, and partially because I was about to be reunited with Sarah, my theatre-soulmate who I met in London at the start of my trip, who very graciously invited me to join her on the last leg of her trip. Sarah is a kickass individual, a Shakespearean and classical actor, and… did I already say she was kickass? It’s very, very true, anyway. Barcelona has some amazing things to offer (although I must admit that Sarah and I were lazy and didn’t necessarily see them all). We DID however do a walking tour, an opera house tour (the Barcelona Opera House is another must-see – it has the highest seating capacity of any in Europe, and its original private funding means it’s incredibly over-the-top and glamorous – although I think it often gets overlooked in favour of Gaudi architecture and beaches and drinks where they offer you free shots.) Honestly, thanks to a few creepy experiences with fairly insistent members of the opposite sex which made it difficult to go out at night, I didn’t enjoy Barcelona as much as I expected, but there were plenty of things that I did love – the beach (although they import their sand! Leave Egypt’s sand alone and get your own, Barcelona. Jeez.), the aforementioned opera house, and the incredible fresh food market, where you can buy everything from icecream to complete, made-before-your-eyes-from-fresh-market-produce meals, to delightful pastries, to pretty much every variety of fresh juice ever in some very pronounced colours that I don’t think are possible in the natural world. And of course, spending time with Sarah was a blast. We swapped national delicacy stories (I now REALLY want to try poutine), went to nationally-premiering operas in accidentally matching ensembles and looked like the cutest couple ever, and I introduced Sarah to churros! I am very lucky to have met her.

Are we not the CUTEST couple?

After Barcelona, I said goodbye to Spain, hopefully not for the last time, and headed to Portugal. Portugal was the first location on my trip where I didn’t speak the language at all (although, as mentioned previously, my Spanish isn’t, you know, great at the moment). I taught myself the basics (hello, thank you, excuse me), and hoped that what I’d read about the Portuguese having exceptional English was true, even though I hate being the “Um, excuse me, DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!” tourist. Honestly, I don’t know if the Portuguese speak better English than anywhere else, but we got by, which gave me a new confidence in my mime skills (seriously, people underestimate that skill. It should be a Year 12 course or something). My hostel was tiny, and hidden away on the third story of a run-down apartment building, which made me nervous, but it was actually a charming place, with the best hostel breakfast I’d ever seen. Seriously, the day I left, I stuffed like 4 mini-muffins in my bag. But they were so nice! And individually wrapped! They were basically ASKING me to swipe some for the road.

My first full day in Lisbon I spent doing a quirky, lovely walking tour with a woman who, in telling me how to get 1 euro sandwiches (they’re made with pork and called Bifanas, and they really hit the spot) and where to find the best chocolate cake in Lisbon, won me over completely and easily, and this tour was also where I met a bunch of other travellers, one of whom had a birthday to celebrate that night! And what better way than with 3 euro cocktails? In Portugal it’s legal to drink on the street, and, when all the bars close at 2am (this is when the clubs open), the promptly kick you out to do just that. With everyone drinking on the street though, the street BECOMES your bar! Only there are no bathrooms, so watch out for that. Drug dealers are also REALLY forward in Lisbon; generally I think I give off a pretty powerful goody-two-shoes vibe, but here people were offering me drugs left, right and centre! It wasn’t scary, because it was in populated areas in the middle of the day with policemen nearby, but it was definitely an experience. Is this what non-goody-two-shoes people feel like all the time?

The best chocolate cake? With a little more whipped cream it would have been life-changing, but as it was it was pretty damn good.

Anyway, this blog is getting absurdly long, so to summarise, I also visited a beach town near Lisbon for a day trip, went to MODA, their fashion and design museum (which, I’m just saying, had a LOT of chairs that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen at my crazy grandma’s house), ate about 6 catrillion custard tarts (it’s LISBON guys. If you’re not eating nata, you’re persona non grata. I think that’s in the national anthem there.), browsed at some supercute vintage shops but didn’t buy anything because RyanAir will sell my soul to the highest bidder if I exceed their 20kg baggage limit, and saw the world’s most expensive chapel with the world’s most excitable volunteer to insist on explaining all the information panels to me (even though they were in English. But still, thanks guy!

And so that was Spain and Portugal! Stay tuned (hopefully not for too long this time) for a painfully-detailed recount of my second UK excursion. I’d promise to make that one shorter, but we know I won’t keep that promise. Can I just promise to throw in some light comedy to make the length a little more bearable? And to keep capitalising important words so you can just skim the blog and tell me you read it to protect my self-esteem? Bueno.

August 25, 2014
France-ing with Myself (and others. But, you know, puns)

So yes, it’s been a while since my last blog post. In my defence, I’ve totally been working on it! In fact, I’ve been working on TWO blog posts, so don’t judge me, internet.

That said, I’m totally going to start posting more often to avoid the mammoth post that I assume I am about to write.

Okay, so France! The land of cheese, and striped clothing, and baguettes, and smoking, and tiny, tiny dogs EVERYWHERE. I legitimately thought most of these were exaggerations or stereotypes, but it turns out that noooooope. Especially not the tiny dogs thing – I saw so many tiny dogs in fancy clothing stores that I started to wonder if the French had secretly worked out how to create doggie-cashiers (or cashuahuas) and just didn’t tell anybody. And piano accordians! When I was living in the old town in Nice, there was an accordianist who would play to the patrons of the bar under my window every night. Does it get more French than that? Nope. Am I a little bit sick of hearing Hello Dolly and Que Sera Sera? Surprisingly not. But like, maybe a little break from both of those songs couldn’t hurt. Just for a little while.

I spent a month in Nice, studying French with the Alliance Française, which was heaps of fun, despite an awkward experience that involved assuming “preservative” in French was “preservatif” (it’s not, for those of you playing at home. ‘Preservatif’ means ‘condom’, although if anything I think condoms are meant to be STOPPING you from preserving anything, but whatever. Anyway, the sentence was about not wanting to eat preservatives in food, so it still works.Pretty much. Nobody wants condoms in their food.).

But the great thing about living in the French Riviera is that, no matter where you live, all the other little towns along the coast are just a skip, jump, and 1.50 euro bus away, so I actually saw a lot more than just Nice. So, voilà! The Paige Mulholland Guide to the French Riviera:

Nice
Nice is beautiful, and has totally awe-inspiring views of the port and the city if you head down the the Colline du Chateau. And if you’re willing to embrace the possibility that you may never have use of your legs again after climbing EIGHTY BILLION STEPS.

This view was almost worth losing the use of my legs

It also has beautiful beaches, although they’re pebble beaches. Pebble beaches have their plusses, including not getting all sandy after your trip to the beach and never being blinded by sand as it’s disturbed by children or rambunctious youths running past, but they also have their minuses, including sitting up with rock marks all over your legs after lying on the beach for an hour, and, you know, the INABILITY TO WALK AS ROCKS MAKE TINY HOMES ON THE INSIDE OF YOUR FEET. And the Nice beach (as well as, I think, all the beaches along the riviera) are topless, too, if that’s your kinda thing. Warning, though, 99% of the topless people on topless beaches are precisely the people you don’t want to see topless. But hey, you still have like a 0.00001% chance of happening upon a topless celebrity or something, so it might be worth it.

Let’s be honest, though, Nice is a tourist city. And while this is great if you don’t speak the language or want to take a tour or see a show, it does mean that it’s super duper expensive. But you know what’s not expensive in Nice due to competition so excessive I’m pretty sure there’s at least one of these stores for each citizen? Ice cream. Seriously, especially in the old town, every second store is a “glacerie”, offering flavours ranging from Nutella (of course – it’s Europe) to Basil and Tomato (… a little less obvious. But like, I’m sure it’s a valid and completely un-gross flavour. Probs). And if you decide that you can’t live on icecream alone (this is a poor decision, but in true journalistic style I will give you unbiased information even if I think you’re wrong) then there’s a fab Spanish bar called La Sansa’s, with easily the most affordable drinks I found in Nice. And food. Probably. Not gonna lie, I was more focused on the 3.50 euro margaritas than the food. But I feel like there was food.

Cannes
I feel like all anybody really knows about Cannes is that one month a year there are a bunch of celebrities there, but there are other things in Cannes too! There’s a beach with a crazy little bridgy thing that you can balance-walk across through the water to get to a little rock island (it was pretty much just me and a bunch of small children who wanted to do it because i think all the fuzzy mossy crap on the bridge put the adults off, but it was totally the funnest thing on that beach so they missed out), there’s an old town with more spectacular views (and more stairs and more Paige-complaints and more blisters, but whatever), and there’s a beautiful fresh market where not only do most of the vendors not speak English (this wasn’t a problem because we were speaking French) but they also don’t speak French (this WAS a problem, because we were speaking French.). They said they spoke Arabic, but a girl in my group then began to speak fluent Arabic to them and they didn’t understand. So I don’t know what they spoke. We might have been better off with Cashuahuas.

My favourite thing that happened in Cannes was using the produce we eventually managed to buy from the aforementioned market (and, okay, some sneaky biscuits and 2 euro wine from a supermarket) to have a picnic in the park, and running into a little girl from Manchester who, apparently, had been begging her parents for a picnic for her ENTIRE holiday. So of course, we invited her to join our group, which consisted of my Australian self, Medena from Canada, Samara from Mexico and Alessia from London. Now this little girl, of course, had no trouble understanding Alessia as a fellow Brit, or Medena, because her accent sounds like a Disney Princess or something, but with mine and Samara’s we may as well have been speaking French to her. So there was a lot of “How old are you?” “….” “Paige is trying to ask how old you are, sweetie” “Oh! I’m four.” going on. On the plus side, worrying about the comprehensibility of my English was a nice break from worrying about the comprehensibility of my French.

What? No, we didn’t want to take the children and bring them home with us. Much.

Villefranche-sur-Mer
Villefranche was actually my favourite place on the French Riviera, despite knowing nothing about it before actually arriving there. In addition to, as is a common theme in this part of France, having a beautiful and breathtaking (in that I couldn’t breathe after CLIMBING ALL THE STAIRS), old town and views of the sea, the beach here was incredible. Sandy, with clear, calm blue water that gets deep so quickly that ten steps into the sea I couldn’t touch the bottom even if I dived. But also probably you shouldn’t dive, because a friend of mine got stung by a jellyfish. Being from, you know, a normal country, she was like “Oh, that stings. Bummer. I’ll just sit in the sun for a while”, but being from Australia, my response was “Oh, do you think it’s a deadly jellyfish? They have those, you know. You might die”. Which, you know, probably wasn’t the best thing to say. So in the end Alessia had to take her and explain to the cashier at the local kiosk that Medena “had a problem with a jellyfish” (whatever, guys, we might have an ‘Advanced’ level of French according to our certificates, but “stung” isn’t a word that you learn that often. Neither is “jellyfish” actually, but we googled that.)

Medena and Samara, pre-jellyfish attack

St Paul de Vence
Super duper pretty! I just realised this post is exploding to lengths out of all control, but luckily, St Paul de Vence is simple – gorgeous views of mountains and valleys, and a charming little town with beautiful art galleries and artists everywhere (art is to St Paul de Vence as ice cream is to Nice. Except it’s not that cheap). That said, probably don’t dedicate a whole day to it, which we tried to do. Otherwise you’ll end up impulse buying a bunch of expensive biscuits like this:

Samara, our lovely biscuit wench

Eze
Eze is not coastal, but I feel like it’s still part of the Riviera, because you could still SEE the ocean, it was just that to actually get to the ocean you would have had to jump off the jagged mountain. And you would probably die. But anyway, Eze! Possibly even MORE stairs than the other places, but still very nice. We did a tour of the Franongard factory (for those who don’t know, this is a super fancy cosmetics/perfume brand), and they let us smell all their base scents, which are surprisingly hard to identify when you’re smelling one after the other really fast, because your nose kind of just freaks out and goes all, “I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS PASSIONFRUIT OR STRAWBERRY, BRAIN, PLEASE STOP MAKING ME SMELL THINGS”. Eze also has a medieval fortress and an old town, and a beautiful botanic garden although, word to the wise, “botanic gardens” in France are pretty much just cacti, because for the French it doesn’t GET more exotic than that. Oh but there are little chaise-lounges where you can sit at the top of the cliff in the gardens and enjoy a spectacular view of the cacti/French riviera bay.

Seeing this while lying in a botanical garden chaise? It’s a hard life

Monaco
The fact that you can board a metro bus for an hour, pay 1.50 euro, not show your passport and end up in another country is mindblowing for me. I mean, I think Monaco is technically a principality and maybe not a country, but still. And, as you get off the bus, you definitely feel like you’re in another country – suddenly the pedestrian lights make sounds like in Australia, the streets aren’t all called “Victor Hugo” or “Notre Dame”, and, get excited, THERE ARE FEWER STAIRS! Like, still lots to get to the palace and stuff, but fewer. Instead, they have public elevators set into pretty much every hilly area, and they have little shopping centres set into some of the mountains, so when you get out of the elevator you’re sure you’ve accidentally entered some super villain secret headquarters, but then you turn the corner and see a supermarket. We also went to the zoo (which was like 60% Australian animals, weirdly. But still, flying across the world just to see more kangaroos is still good fun. And there were also giant bunnies!), the royal palace, which I actually thoroughly recommend, and the botanical garden, which is meant to be one of the most beautiful in the world, but, I admit, still just looked to me like a bunch of cacti.

Does this look like a supermarket to you? No? SEE WHY THIS WAS CONFUSING?

Antibes:
Ah, Antibes. In a series of expensive, touristy towns, Antibes is like an Australian beach – cheap, sandy, with toilets that are free to use, albeit totally disgusting (who knew France still used squat toilets?). It was nice to be at a beach that was simply that – a beach, with no pretension, exclusive areas or postcard stores in sight. Also the fact that Antibes is a cove (or something similar, anyway. Geography was never my strong point, you can ask my Year 12 teacher), means the water is beautiful, clear and calm.

Oh yeah, this happened too

Toulouse:
Okay so technically this isn’t on the French Riviera and you can’t get here on a 1.50 euro bus, but putting it here made more sense than putting it in my next post, which will be about Spain. I flew to Toulouse, and, after getting to my hostel and finding nobody around to talk to, I was feeling a little lonely, which, as I’m sure many solo travellers would agree, can pretty easily turn to homesickness. Luckily, then came my knights in shining armour, bearing not only scintillating conversation, but free dinner! Well, free bread, cheese, wine and meat, which is totally a legitimate dinner if you are in France. I met Mark, Dan, Danielle and Leon, and we somehow ended up at a hole-in-the-wall jazz club that, although I had to sign some form that may or may not have sold me into slavery/meant that I have to eventually give up a kidney or something, but then I got 1.50 euro wine! Worth it. Plus there was a crazy lady who kept trying to take sips of people’s drinks, and who eventually kissed a member of our party who shall not be named (Mark) on the head! I’m hoping he gets some kind of crazy lady superpowers like if you get bitten by a radioactive spider, but nothing of that nature has happened yet, as far as I know. Anyway, the next three days included museums built in converted monasteries, failed attempts to go to garden music festivals (it was RAINING, guys. And the hostel was all warm and cosy), and emergency handbag shopping trips after mine tragically fell victim to a horrid zip incident, and many a good chat about culture, travel and Daniel’s life on his little farm in the south of France, which, on a side note, sounds like the most freaking pleasant thing to ever exist. Ever.

So that was France! I promise the posts will be shorter from now on. I’m currently on a bus from Madrid to Barcelona, which is an insanely beautiful drive, but, admittedly, my butt is definitely starting to feel the 8-hour drive. But more about that next time!

July 13, 2014