37b(k)

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T+167: UTRECHT

left paris on the overnight train bound for nice where i would catch a nice cheap flight to london for the weekend to see you am i at islington academy. the weather, as expected, was very clement and i wandered the promenade which commands the waterfront of nice and generally got the lay of the land before heading off to the airport and london. i was pretty early for my flight but it turned out to be a good thing because the check-in lines at the easyjet counters were absolutely enormous. but, i made it to london and met up with rich, his new girlfriend rachelle, and andy camps at a little bar nearby. camps, i must say, was looking very austin powers on this evening and they had apparently been there a little while already as rachelle was a wee bit tipsy (read: hammered) by the time i showed up. rich wound up having to take her home and leaving me and camps to the rest of the wine. the walk home, i found out the following day, was fraught with peril as rachelle's shoes would not cooperate with her feet ;)

saturday morning, i had a heart-attack special at a nearby restaurant and then headed to the mac store in regent's street. i was toying with the idea of perhaps getting a new laptop for myself with the certain & fairly imminent demise of my old faithful ibook looming so i wanted to have a look at the latest and greatest and get some info. a reconnaisance mission only, i swear. only to look, not to touch, honestly. however, the recent frustrations with the french keyboards coupled with the undeniable atmosphere of money being spent conspired to weaken what little resolve i possessed and i walked out with a rather large smile on my face and a brand spanking new macbook under my arm. for the small "g" geek, there is no joy like a new computer. how sad.

unfortunately, no time to geek out as it was off to filthy mcnasty's (now with free wifi), haunt of nick cave & shane mcgowan, for a few drinks before the show. they, nick & shane, were not there of course but we had a good time anyway. headed to islington and the gig was absolutely packed. didn't get backstage, but we did have great spots right up front and i got a ton of shots (which are up on the photosite now, although a lot of them are kinda naff). you am i put on a fantastic show and reminded me somehow of the kinks meet crowded house, although that could be because i kinda have the impression that the singer looks a bit like ray davies. i did have quite a lot to drink that evening, it should be pointed out. after the gig, we proceeded to dance our tiny wee arses off to some very excellent selections, i must say.

unable to sleep late, unfortunately, due to checkout so headed to rich's hotel to partake of the free wifi and start enjoying my new computer. oh, how i love it so :) both rich & rachelle were fairly subdued as well as we all three lounged about waiting to leave at our respective times. once again, i headed to the airport a wee bit early, remembering the easyjet queues at nice but was pleasantly surprised to see none. there were, however, gigantic queues through security which stretched almost to the entrance doors. luckily, they opened another security gate and i was able to scoot over and get thru in almost no time.

ASIDE: as i am writing this entry, i am very much enjoying podcasts of the russell brand show off bbc 6 music. funny, funny shit. can, i think, best be described as derek & clive meet captain jack sparrow.

needless to say, i was a wee bit tired from the weekend of carousing in london, and i also had a minor cold so my time in nice was spent relaxing about the promenade, enjoying coffee and visiting a few sights. unfortunately, the nice weather did not hold so i headed back to utrecht on friday instead of going to lyon. i still had 3 days of travel left on my railpass so in utrecht, i checked the weather forecasts to try and find somewhere nearby with decent weather and saw that berlin had a decent 3-day forecast so headed there on sunday. at last! germany! after being thwarted on two separate occasions already, i had despaired that i would see germany at all but this time, it looked like i was going to berlin. woohoo! sunday morning, i headed to the train station, grabbed a coffee and about 8:30, i headed off to catch the 8:42 train. when i got to the platform, the train was already there so i got on and settled into my seat. at 8:35, the train pulled away from the station. hmmmmm. trains, if anything, are late, not early. this doesn't look good. perhaps i am not going to see germany after all. in fact, i was enroute to 's-hertorgenbosch (who starts the name of a city with an apostrophe s??) which is, of course, in the opposite direction of berlin. suffice it to say that my 6-hour journey wound up taking me 12 but finally! i made it to berlin. and luckily, i had a full ipod and the john peel autobiography to while away the many hours (question: can it still be called an autobiography if the second half is written by someone else? would it not them be a semi-autobiography? or maybe a demi-autobiography? discuss)

first order of business on the first day was to take a tour and figure out where everything is. i took an 'insider tour' and was not disappointed. the weather started off quite cold - i even had to break out the toque! - but the sun broke through around 11am and warmed up nicely for the walking tour which hit all the high spots and included a rather gripping description of the fall of the berlin wall. after the tour, i headed off to find the location of "white trash," a club that had been recommended to me in berlin and see what bands were on the agenda. a quick look at tuesday's offering was all i required to know that i had not packed enough black nailpolish and eyeliner so my best bet would be tonight's gig, lampshade. headed to an internet cafe to find out a bit about them: a swedish pop outfit who, among other things, had been chosen by mojo magazine as one of the bands to record a slew of beatles' covers. don't get me wrong - i really do like the beatles but really, do we need an album of 100 covers by different bands? that being said, i did very much enjoy their cover of good day sunshine, as i did the rest of the set. think arcade fire influenced by early cure and with bjork singing. and the club was very hip indeed.

and now back to utrecht where i have let a flat for 6 months. my niece (actually, my cousin's daughter which, i think, may be a first cousin? not really sure how that whole geneaological scheme works) will be learning baking & pastry from saskia so i have rented a flat near the shop for us to live and from whence i will continue to travel in europe. i am very excited by the thought of completely emptying my suitcase! i will have to think of a name for my utrecht chronicles. not, obviously, 'the utrecht chronicles.' suggestions welcome :)

T+159: OUR STORY THUS FAR. ALMOST.

i've managed to get myself another computer, but more about that later. all right children, are you ready? good. no talking now. let's see, where did we last leave our heroine? ah yes, stranded in france sans computer and at the mercy of internet cafes and strange foreign keyboards. and yet, the intrepid bad karen valiantly plodded on through the etrange french landscape armed only with a baguette and a bottle of very tasty yet reasonably priced french red. and so, our story continues ...

made it to paris safely and spent the day wandering around, tracking the elusive wissam. at last, towards the end of the day, i spotted him at his hotel. 'aha! you are trapped!' i exclaimed, with triumphant glee. 'ya got me, pardner,' said he resignedly. no. i tell a lie (moi?!?) it wasn't like that at all. hugs & kisses all around. it was so good to see him after 3 long years since we had the goodbye party for him at stamps landing. he comes to paris a good deal apparently so he introduced me to a fantastic restaurant in montparnasse that he frequents. speciality of the house is canard (duck) and may i say, they do it extremely well. we feasted like kings and although my dish was very tasty, i do wish i had copied wissam and had what he had. he goes there often and always has the same dish and he is not a stupid man, let me tell you. yum! yum! tum! and apres diner, we wandered down for a spectacular view of the eiffel tower at night :)

next day, more wandering around the city in desperate search for free wifi (€8 per hour at his hotel). i swear i had seen a cafe with free wifi near to the hotel but after much wandering, and a massive blister for wissam, we couldn't find it. finally found something and although the signal wasn't strong, we were able to use it to locate another nearby cafe with a better signal.

and the following day, wissam was gone, as mysteriously as he had appeared. i will keep searching though. i have heard reports of him in southeast asia, but i am sure he will return to europe so i will await him here ... in the meantime, i spent another 2 days wandering thru the city of lights. paris is such a huge city that i was kind of overwhelmed by it in an 'information overload' kinda way so didn't do anything significant. i wandered through montmartre which, at this time of year, was almost devoid of tourist action. weather was a little crummy as well. and, of course, as i was packing to leave, that is when i managed to break the tip off the computer charger connector leaving it trapped inside the computer and thus rendering my valiant laptop useless.

and so, armed now with a 5-pound paperweight in my luggage, i headed for brittany and the coast. first stop was rennes, the capital of the brittany region, where i spent one night (and also confirmed my suspicions with the local apple store that it was not financially feasible to fix my poor compadre) and rented a car and headed for the coast. rennes is a fairly charming city with surprisingly big-city amenities yet keeping a small-town atmosphere with its half-timbered buildings, etc.

but i am a coastal girl and i needed the ocean so i headed west without further delay. unfortunately for me, i was rear-ended by a frenchman in a roundabout shortly after i set off. great. i haven't been behind the wheel of a car in 5 months and not even 5-hours into my rental period, i'm involved in a car accident. fortunately, the fellow was very nice about it and although there was really no damage aside from some minor scratches, he helped me fill out an accident report to give to the rental company so they wouldn't charge anything to my credit card as the accident was his fault.

first stop was carnac, home of asterix, obelix and the menhir. there are unbelievably huge fields filled with these ancient megaliths dotting the countryside of carnac. it's also quite a tourist resort in the summer but again, blissfully unpopulated at thsi time of year. after my harrowing day, i booked myself into a nice hotel and bought myself an incredible dinner at a little restaurant beside the sea where the seafood was incredibly fresh and delicious.

the following day, the destination was dinan in the northern part of brittany where i found a nice b&b run by an english-speaking couple originally from jersey. they were great hosts and although i can speak passable french (so i feel less like a complete moron in france than i have in other foreign countries), it was great finally to be able to converse normally without having to be translating constantly and dredging up bits of french vocab from the recesses of my mind. the b&b is an old 18th-century watermill and although it is within walking distance of the town, it feels like it's miles away.

dinan is a great base from which to explore other parts of the northern coast. my first stop was the incredible abbey at mont st. michel. the weather was, unfortunately, grey and slightly damp which, once again, kept the tourists at bay and, as i was inside touring the abbey, mattered not at all to me. mattered not, that is, until i left the abbey when it started to spit. no matter. i come from a rainforest, after all. i can handle it and my car is only a 5-minute walk thru the parking lot. 2 minutes into the walk, the rain became a little more insistent so i put up my hood and 1 minute later, i was forced to run to my car whereupon reaching it a couple minutes later, i found i was soaked through - but only on my right side thanks to the driving wind. my left side was dry as a bone which, i suppose, was something. anyway, i sheltered away in my car and waited it out. after my adventure with the frenchman in the roundabout, there was absolutely no way that i was going to even attempt the french roadways (populated, as they are, with french drivers) in poor weather! fortunately, the downpour disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and i was on my way back to dinan, dry clothes and even drier wine in no time.

the next day dawned spectacularly and i headed to cap frehel and fort la latte. the weather could not have been more perfect for a day of traipsing around the rugged pink granite (can something be rugged and pink all at once?) cliffs of northern france. fort la latte, for those minor film buffs, was the location for the kirk douglas/ tony curtis epic 'the vikings.' ODIN!! i could fairly see them, cavorting about in their skimpy animal skins and flailing their swords. *sigh* after wandering about the fort, i headed to a likely rock on the headlands and enjoyed my pique-nique of baguette, stinky french cheese and salami. no wine due to my capacity as driver :(

the moon that day was just shy of full and meant that it would be one of the highest tides of the year at mont st. michel so i planned my day accordingly and headed back to the abbey to watch the tide come in. this time, i parked my car at the end of the causeway and walked in because during high tides, the parking lots get flooded. when i was there the day previously, i had inquired about a hotel room for tonight but they were completely sold out due to the weekend and being high tide. that being said, there still seemed relatively few people and although there were spots where there were crowds, it was still relatively easy to find a spot to myself for the event.

i had heard the incoming tide described as galloping horses and as i approached the island, a small wave did indeed come in and march up the river bed; however, i would classify it more as a gaggle of geese waddling up a lane than galloping horses. interesting and curious to be sure but hardly the great drama i had anticipated. the rest of the event can, i think, best e described as an insidious seeping and creeping as the sea slowly but surely and irrefutably claims the sand flats surrounding mont st. michel and separates it from the mainland. of course now, it remains connected to the mainland by the causeway but in the old days, you would be totally isolated without a boat. the causeway is apparently causing environmental problems so the plan is to replace it with a bridge within the coming years so that the tide action is not disrupted.

i had found a nice secluded spot to watch the sun sink and the water rise as the crowds dispersed to their dinners or whatever. imagine my surprise when i finally got up to leave the island and found the entrance covered in 4 feet of water. WHAAAT!! soooo not what i was expecting. luckily, there is another exit that they use when the main exit is flooded. oh how i had laughed at the poor soul with the renault in the parking lot who rescued it at the very last moment, just as the sea was sucking at the rear wheels. if he could only see my face now!! and of course, i was no longer so cocksure of the safety of my own car now. was that spot really so safe? had i actually parked far enough away? nagging doubt plagued me as i hurried along the causeway. luckily, my car was totally fine and i had indeed been a smaaaaht lady in choosing my spot. i took a last look at the beautiful mont st. michel, by now lit up in the gathering dark and with an almost full moon off to its right. perfick :)

i said my goodbyes the following day to denis and elsie at the b&b and set off for rennes to return the car and catch the train to tours. i had two options, both connecting through reddon and figured i would take the slower train. since rennes is only maybe 40 mins from dinan, i figured i had plenty of time to get the car gassed up and dropped off and enjoy a leisurely cafe latte before hopping the train. approached rennes right on schedule and passed a gas station near the highway exit figuring there would be one closer to the train station. after about 40 mins of driving around rennes, i stopped in a cafe to inquire and was told 'oh non, madame. there aren't any stations within rennes.' all tolled, i wound up spending about 90 minutes trying to get gas and drop the car while it had taken me 40 minutes to drive from dinan to rennes. oh, and a large portion of the 90 minutes was spent screaming obscenities in a rather loud voice and banging the wheel of the steering wheel. ah well, safely on the train enjoying a cafe and the very pretty french countryside enroute to tours and the loire valley.

booked myself into a cheap but very surprisingly cheerful hotel in tours and the following day took a tour to a couple of the loire valley chateaux: chenonceau and st. amboise. first up was chenonceau which is sometimes called the chateau of women since women have been the driving forces behind all aspects of the construction and politics surrounding it. the first mistress was truly a mistress: diane de poitiers, mistress to henry II. the second mistress of the chateau was actually a wife. henry II's wife catherine de medici who unceremoniously evicted diane de poitiers upon henry's death. these were the two key figures of the chateau's early history and still very much in evidence, each with their own gardens on opposite sides. among the other women associated with the chateau, madame dupin stands out for saving it from destruction during the french revolution owing to her role as a patron of the arts and having turned chenonceau into a salon for writers & philosophers. the current owners are the menier family, chocolatiers who bought it in 1913. during WWI, m. gaston menier installed a hospital at his own expense and during WWII, the gallery which spans the cher river was quite unique due to the fact that the southern door provided access to the 'free zone' while the entrance of the chateau was in the occupied zone.

second stop: chateau royal d'amboise which seems more of a castle or a fort and has a definite defensive air about it, standing tall on a hill overlooking the city, whereas chenonceau was a secluded country house. the tour de minimes (who knew there was more than one mini me and they had a tower?) is famous for its spiral ramp which allowed horsemen to ride up with provisions. along the ramparts is the chapelle st. hubert, believed to be the final resting place of leonardo da vinci. he certainly died at amboise and was buried there, but the chateau was damaged somehow and bones discovered during reconstruction were assumed to be his and re-interred in the chapel.

after tours, i had planned to go to bordeaux but instead headed back to paris to meet up with richard stewart who was in town on business. i got checked into my hotel and had just walked out to go to his hotel to meet up with him when i bumped into him heading to my hotel. tabernac! we headed immediately to a cafe for a couple of beers and a little catch up. we wandered around some, had some dinner, and then jumped into a cab to try and find some jazz since the st. germain district seemed really dead. well, €20 later, we figured out that we had just been taken for a ride as paris just seems to shut down completely around midnight.

the next day, it was off in search of the catacombs. it was a little unclear where exactly they were as there was no real street address given but we figured 'how hard can it be?' turns out that it can be quite hard, especially if you only look in one direction and you wander about for quite a while until you return to your starting point and look across the street .... DOH!! sooo anyway, we descended down the small, very winding and seemingly unending spiral staircase into the depths of paris. it was slightly vertigo inducing, especially if one is vaguely hungover. at least, i imagine it would be. at the bottom, there is a small exhibit outlining the history of the catacombs and then a loooooong walk through some tunnels before you actually reach the ossuary. as we approached the ossuary, water began dripping from the ceiling which was kinda creepy and rich bumped his head in one area where the ceiling became lower. ow. and eeeeuuuuwww. finally, we made it to the ossuary and i was quite staggered by the sheer volume of bones. i guess i had always imagined that the bones were stacked up right against a wall but they are actually sort of 'vaults' which go back quite deep. and the aisles of vaults go on and on and on. it is quite staggering to think of the individual lives represented. we wound our way through to the end but, unfortunately for rich, not without further mishap. yes, he still hadn't figured out to keep his head down and smacked it once again on the ceiling. didn't this guy used to work in subs?? and this time, he drew blood. and probably had quite a good headache which he refused to admit to.

after the catacombs, we headed to centre george pompidou but as we got to the door, we were turned away as it seems there was suddenly some kind of job action or strike or something so they were turfing everyone from the building. on to the louvre then it is. of course, not really such a hardship and there was blissfully hardly any queue outside the i.m. pei pyramid. joy! we were in in a flash :) such a huge museum & such a lot to see but we did manage mona & venus as well as the egyptian exhibit and napoleon's apartments before we'd had too much.

i had only planned to stay the 2 nights in paris and go on to nice via overnight train while rich was going to stay a few more, so i checked out of my hotel and headed to rich's where i found that he was making arrangements to leave to go to boston for work. so much for his vacation :( i helped him make the arrangements, put him in a cab and went to the musee d'orsay for the rest of the day. i gotta say, aside from the art of course, i wasn't so impressed with the musee d'orsay. it's a former train station which was vacant for about 40 years and in danger of being torn down before it was turned into a museum in the 80's. there are some terrific architectural elements but a lot of it, imho, seems like the temporary walls that get put up to hide construction. just didn't work for me.

and from there, i went to nice to catch a plane to london to see you am i at islington academy. but more on that later. suffice to say for now, great gig and great weekend.

T+153: 5 MONTHS TODAY :)

and still going. i am safe and sound and although i am in france, was nowhere near the big train crash. i am back in paris again after spending a week touring through brittany and the loire valley. i was going to go to bordeaux after the loire valley, but i got an email from richard stewart saying that he was going to be in paris so i changed my plans and came back here and have been hanging out with him. went to the catacombs and the louvre yesterday and tonight i will take the overnight train to nice where i will catch a plane to london for the weekend to meet up with rich & steve and see a band (you am i). then, it's back to nice for a couple of days and from there, i think i will go to spain. am borrowing rich's computer to write this post so must dash!

R.I.P. MON AMI

it seems vaguely prophetic that my revious post mentioned funerals because it seems that my latop is no more :( it still clings to an almost fully charged battery but once that is gone, my faithful traveling companion will be no more. it seems that the end of the power supply tip has broken off and can be heard rattling around inside. a death rattle, some might term it. i must conserve the precious battery life (lord knows that even fully charged, it only lasts an hour these days) for transferring data to a new one later so until then, posts will be briefer, fewer and further between as they must come when i can find internet cafes. as i have discovered in various countries along the way, keyboard configurations can vary which can be challenging. one expects such differences, especially in countries that have different characters in their alphabets; however, i am very surprised by the keyboard layout in france. it is almost the same in many respects and wildly different in others, forcing me to resort to the 'hunt and peck' typing method. for example:

1) you must use the caps lock or shift key for all number keys AND the period key. ok, numbers i can get over, but how much of a total pain in the arse is it to have to use the shift key when typing web addresses??

2) and speaking of zeb qddresses, the z, q, a, & w keys are all mixed up. every time i go to type a web address, i automatically type zzz because the z key is zhere the w key is.

i long for the english qwerty keyboard but am saddled with the french azerty keyboard.

oh, and i know you are wondering about the song that will play at the eventual demise of my trusty ibook. i'm not quite decided yet, but i'm leaning towards 'video killed the radio star'. discuss.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

what passes for news these days sometimes astounds me; however for those of you who may be even mildly interested, here is a link to the top 10 songs that i absolutely forbid being played at my funeral: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5398266.stm

T+140: ONLY IN HOLLAND YOU SAY?

thank goodness, i say! and yes, you are reading correctly. this is the 'lady pi' which i strongly suspect has nothing whatsoever to do with pythagorean theorem or squares of hypotenii and is pronounced "pee" and not "pie" as it should be. i've experienced the famous squat toilets of turkey (and curiously, milan) but have mercifully spared you, gentle reader, of my experiences with these marvels of sanitation for the nations, but this absolutely must be shared! i burst out laughing when i entered the stall. well, truth be told, first i backed out and checked the sign on the door to make sure i was indeed in the women's toilets, and then i burst out laughing. this female urinal-type contraption was in the bathroom of a rather nice restaurant that saskia, greg & i went to on my last night in utrecht. i was still laughing when i came back to the table and greg immediately sent saskia back in with the camera phone to take photos so he could see exactly what it was as well. it sort of makes sense in theory but really, a couple of handles that you can hold onto while you hover above the seat really make much more sense. ok. enough potty humor.

the thursday night i arrived, greg, saskia & i went into amsterdam to a party being thrown by a friend of greg's from school at some pub or other. when we arrived at the pub, it was full of track suits and loud, thumping hip-hop and greg's friends had retired to a restaurant across the way so we headed out to find some other pubs. at this point, we were a bit parched and headed immediately towards the first guinness & kilkenny signs we saw and found ourselves in an irish pub being serenaded by two dwarves playing irish jigs. slightly surreal, but the pints were good so we had a couple before moving on to another pub and then headed back to the train station & utrecht as saskia had to get up early the following day. arrived just in time to miss the train so checked the schedule, as you do, and being past midnight on a thursday, went with the friday schedule for the train which meant platform 8 instead of platform 4 and dutifully waited the 30 minutes for the train. it's not surprising for trains to be late so we were unconcerned when it wasn't there 29 minutes later, until greg came running up the stairs and told saskia and me that we had to run to platform 4 because that's where the train was sitting. we hoofed it to the platform just in time for the train to pull away - and to hear the laughter of 4 NSB employees: 'oh, you just missed it! hahahahahah.' clearly, the dutch are a pretty hilarious lot. and perhaps the worst of it - insult to injury, if you will - was that the next train came to the platform we had been sitting at. ah well, home by 2am. poor saskia :(

turned out rich was also in amsterdam thursday night but busy with work stuff, so i met him at schipol for a couple of drinks friday afternoon before he caught his plane back to manchester. saturday night, greg, saskia & i went out and met a couple of greg's friends from school, a german called martin & and an austrian called roland at a little bar called stockholm and then went to a pretty cool club called ecko which reminded me heavily of luv affair, complete with stage. the music was 100% 21st century but quintessentially luv affair-esque. oh, those heady days. *sigh* greg had gotten quite friendly with an amusing little rosé at stockholm and the beers at ecko weren't helping. the austrian had left after stockholm and the german was patrolling the club, stalking prey from high atop the stage. quite something to see really. perhaps the most amusing thing was that at one point a girl got up on stage and cast her eye into the audience and immediately reeled in a rather tasty fish while poor martin couldn't seem to catch anything all night. we didn't stay too much longer and saskia had quite the adventure getting greg back to the barn. he suffered heavily the next day from his dalliance with the rosé, including an abrasion or two. 'i no need help walking!!' indeed.

while greg suffered through his sunday, saskia and i ventured into amsterdam to do a little shopping. i've gotten seriously tired of my wardrobe the past 4+ months, as you might imagine. i had the usual disaster trying to find jeans so resorted to the default position and bought some 501's, although they are seem to have a wider leg in europe for some reason. headed back to utrecht where greg had almost recovered and had a quiet sunday night. spent the next few days taking it easy and doing some planning before heading to brussels on thursday morning. i had been in touch with a former business colleague in brussels to get together for some drinks but unfortunately, he was called to germany so i wasn't able to see him. regardless, i prowled around brussels, ate some good food, saw some great art, and most importantly, enjoyed some great beer.

today, friday, i am onboard the thalys high speed train from brussels to paris in search of the elusive wissam eltibi. stay tuned! :)

[the thalys high speed train, btw, really is the only way to travel. well, first class is anyway. i can't comment on plebian. i've just finished my (included) lunch of cod fillet with peppercorns and spinach vinagrette, spinach farfalle, showpeas & carrots, cheese, accompanied by a celightful crisp white wine and followed by, of course, coffee & chocolate fingers. well, actually, coffee & chocolate dome with vanilla creme. but you see my point.]