Day 1 - Arrival in Helsingborg

Day 1 Continued

Hi folks - welcome to the next installment in the Further Adventures of the Wandering Gaijin!

I apologise for the delay in the next entry in the blog, but, well, I’ve been having shit loads of fun... Which you will 

now get to read about.

Here is where it all really begins.

At the end of my last entry, I had arrived at Helsingborg, Sweden in one piece 32 hours after leaving Melbourne.

Helsingborg is located in south western Sweden, very 

close to Denmark.
One of the early things that I discovered about the city is 

that it has beautiful architecture. It is a truly beautiful city to look at. The roads are all small square stones roughly 3x3 inches in size, the buildings have beautiful facades and the area around the train station has a very beautiful 

modern look that ties in with the much older style of the 

buildings surrounding it.

Given how close it is to Denmark, historically it would 

have been raided by those pesky Danes, so the Swedes 

built a watch tower to warn the local populace of the ensuing danger, and giving them time to hide away their children and chickens and take up arms to defend themselves.
But, I’m sure you’re not here for the architecture or the history lesson.

As I mentioned, I was meeting up with my Swedish 

contact, Aslaug, who I met at the wedding of a good friend earlier in the year. When I mentioned that I was going to be in Europe at this time of the year, she invited me to 

visit her and join her family for their Midsummer 

celebration.

Aslaug walked me through the beautiful city to her 

apartment, my trundle bag rattling over the stones on the 

streets and reminding me how often it would tip over if I wasn’t careful. I decided to pick the bag up and carry it 

over my shoulder like a truculent child, and the going was made much easier.

Arriving at her apartment, I took in the beautiful view 

over the water to Denmark, of the castle, and the street 

below.

Being rather stinky after my travels, I had the best shower I’d had in the last 24 hours, freshened up, and joined her on the couch to watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy with Swedish subtitles.

I cooked up a tasty stir fry for the two of us as thanks for 

having me over, we cracked a couple of beers, and decided to head out to the local pub to join up with a few of her friends to watch Sweden play their soccer match in Euro 

2016.

The weather had been spectacular when I arrived - 

beautifully sunny and 28 degrees.

While we were eating dinner, the sun had come out again, but about 2 minutes before we left the skies open and an almighty downpour was coming down.

Fortunately, I had packed my trusty poncho, El Blue, so 

Aslaug grabbed an umbrella and we walked to the bar.

We had a good laugh as we were walking, about the rain, how the weather was very similar to Melbourne (4 

seasons in one day) and how our top halves were staying 

dry, but our feet and knees-down were getting wet.

The pub was a very nice little affair, very similar in 

appearance and feel to a Bridie O’Reilly’s for those back in Melbourne, and we saw a lot of people dressed like the 

Minions from Despicable Me (yellow tops and blue shorts - Sweden’s colours).

As it was an important soccer match for the Swedes, 

where they had to win to stay in Euro 2016, the bar was 

quite full.

We managed to find a table tucked away into the corner, 

but without a view of the televisions, and enjoyed our first pint of beer for the evening.

Ordering the pints, I came my first exposure to the 

multi lingual aspect of the Swedes. Yep - they speak English, but I still politely asked first whether she could speak it.

I think it was more my Aussie accent that was the barrier 

in communication.

Aslaug’s friends arrived within about 10 minutes of us 

getting there. The couple, another Aslaug (who I will refer to from now on as A2) and Heinz, were also locals, who 

ordered some dinner and joined us with beers.

A great chat was had, with lots of laughs, and I discovered that Heinz had a very mixed pedigree: He was a Swedish/Finnish mix, who grew up in Spain, moved to Germany 

when he was 8, back to Spain, then moved to Sweden 

when he was 18, but spent several years living in 

Townsville studying, so he fortunately understood the little Australian phrases I used.

I ducked out for a cigarette before the soccer started, and when I came back, I found Aslaug, A2, and Heinz had 

moved slightly to the side, and were sitting next to 2 older gents, all of them watching the soccer match, which had 

started while I was outside.

Having only watched 2 matches of professional soccer in my life, in the comfort of my own home in Australia, it 

was a completely different experience for me being in 

Europe watching Europeans getting into the sport.
I have always found it to be a rather boring sport (aside 

from the Australia/Netherlands match at the last World 

Cup), but the atmosphere in the bar was electric. The 

slightest nuance of the game elicited gasps, groans, shouts and cheers from the audience.

One of the Belgium players in the match took a dive at 

one point, and was rolling around on the ground holding his leg (before getting up and running on when he saw 

that the umpire wasn’t going to pay him a free). I made a comment about hating how players did that, and that 

Australian’s didn’t really do that sort of thing in world 

class soccer.

I received a few chuckles, and was told that was how the 

game was played.

Later on in the match, when one of the Swedish players 

gave a Belgish(?) player a rough elbow that sent him to 

the ground, one of the guys the other 3 had sidled up next to commented “THAT is how the Australian’s play”. I 

opened my mouth to defend the Aussies... But then 

realised that we are extremely competitive in sports, and 

said “fair bump, play on.”

The confused look on his face made me realise that the 

expression didn’t carry over to the Swedes, although 

Heinz had a good laugh, picking up what I was putting down from his time spent in Townsville.

The Swedes lost the game, and there was a great deal of 

disappointment in the air, although it was a fantastic 

game to watch.

After the match, Aslaug, A2, Heinz and myself had 

another drink, and then we all decided to call it a night 

and head off to bed.

When we got back to the apartment, Aslaug set up my bed and I discovered that a Pippy Longstocking doll had been placed on the pillow for me.

She told me that I had to have a Swedish babe to sleep 

with on my first night in the country.

We said goodnight, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 

opportunity to sleep on a bed, rather than the cramped 

confines of a plane seat.

** I will take this opportunity to let you know that, due to it being a couple of days since I have posted on the blog, 

and I am currently in Denmark, drinking $10 1 litre beers, I will try to get a few days of my trip posted.
That kinda makes it like downloading a series of Game of Thrones and being able to watch them all back to back.
Only there’s less people dying. **

Captain's Log, let's see how long we can stretch out the 21st of June by flying across time zones

Hey folks - here is the first update of my trip. I have found that writing these blog entries while drunk quite often 

helps with getting the creative juices flowing.

So yes, I am drunk right now.

I also apologise for the copious amounts of text - I will add photos to further blog entries.

So, my introduction would have given you the general gist of what my trip will involve - here is the first entry in the Further Adventures of the Wandering Gaijin.

Like with so many people’s trips, the final hours were a 

blur of last minute events. Basically, I packed my bags at 

the eleventh hour, hoping against hope that I would make sure that I put everything I would need into my bag 

(needless to say, I didn’t), and making a visit to my father, who is ill in hospital at the moment.

It was good seeing the old man and filling him in on what the trip would involve (for the umpteenth time), but that was not an issue. It was good to see him.

Following this trip to the hospital, the mad dash out to the airport contained all of the stresses I’m sure those of 
you that have traveled before would have been through.

I arrived at the airport, and as I was checking into my 
flight, a nice gentleman that worked for Emirates asked if I would like a seat in the emergency exit row so that I 
would have more leg room. 

I thought “why not”, so secured a seat that allowed me to extend my legs, and not tuck them behind my ears as 
most cattle class flights force you to do.

I ducked out for a last minute gasp of fresh air, as there 
are no smoking areas in the Melbourne International Terminal, and decided to head through to board the plane.

As I was about to go through the bag scanny section, one of the security staff pulled myself and a lady aside and 
asked if he could check us for bombs.

Not carrying any, I said “Ok.” Had I been carrying a 
bomb, I’m not sure what my answer would have been, but he waved his wand over both the lady and myself, and 
stuck it into the machine to test.

It came up negative, but since he swiped both of us, I have no idea what he would have done had one of us tested 
positive to a bomb scan. Does the machine display a plus 
sign on the screen?

I wandered through the ‘impulse buy’ section of the duty 
free shops, and decided to have a tactical pint of beer 
before boarding the plane.

This worked in my favor, as a family nearby had over 
ordered bowls of chips, and decided to offer me one.

Not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted 
his generous offer, consumed the chips and my pint and 
decided another pint would be in order.

I boarded the plane, which would take me from 
Melbourne to Singapore, the first leg of my journey.

I had the emergency row seat, which was great for leg 
room, but it took the lad next to me and myself a decent 
amount of time to figure out how to raise the screen from the arm rest to watch movies.

I managed to catch up on a few movies that I hadn’t seen before (13 hours, Zoolander 2 and Deadpool) on the 
flight, but ran into a few other issues.

There seemed to have been an issue with the plastic cups 
that Emirates were using - most of them 
leaked, so I ended up with a good portion of my first 
scotch and coke leaking out of the cup and onto my 
freshly washed jeans.

I hadn’t even left the country and I already stank of scotch.

Fortunately, they replaced the drink for me. This 
happened every time that I ordered a drink (without the 
seepage onto my pants), so the 3 scotch and cokes I was 
planning on having turned into 7. Plus, I think the 
Indonesian male Emirates employee had a thing for me, 
so he was willing to go out of his way to get me drunk.

After 8 hours of travel, I arrived in Singapore. I made a 
mad dash for the nearest smoking area, got to chatting 
with 2 of the people that were on the same flight as me, 
and then made my way to the gate for the onwards travel 
flight.

They wanted to put everybody through the scanny 
machines again, and I’m pretty sure they had Monty
 Python’s “Machine that goes ping!”, as their machines 
made an annoying sound very similar to what you hear in 
fast food restaurants. It made me want to order a Big Mac.

I eventually got to board the plane, but the wait wasn’t 
over. At first, there was a delay because a part of the plane needed to be replaced. “Relax” said the pilot. It should 
only take about 15 minutes.

20 minutes later, the pilot made an announcement saying that on the previous flight someone had used 2 canisters of oxygen. How, what or why for, I don’t know, but it took them an hour and a half to find replacement bottles of 
oxygen, so I was stressing about my connecting flight 
from Dubai.

Without going into too much information, I went to the 
toilet at one stage, and as I stood up I clocked my head on the sink, almost knocking myself out. God - not what you want in the toilet of an aeroplane.

This leg of the trip I spent mostly trying to sleep, and 
failing dismally - god, it is hard to sleep on a plane.

After another 8 hours, the plane landed in Dubai. 
Fortunately, I had plenty of time, so I found the 
Winchester smoking area, took a stroll through the duty 
free area, got offered a massage from one of the counters, and made my way to the gate to board my next plane.

Boarding a plane again, I was seated up near the front of 
the plane this time. I recalled that while checking in in 
Melbourne, the lady behind the counter had asked if I 
wanted an aisle or window seat. “Surprise me” I told her. I got an aisle seat, which was fine, as I was content to try to get some more sleep, and also watch more movies 
(Sirocco and The Big Short).

Shortly before take off, an alarm on the plane kept going  off, which I didn’t take as a good sign, but as the plane  landed at its destination in one piece, I won’t quibble over the details.

Arriving at Copenhagen airport, I took the long walk to 
passport control. This was probably the easiest passport check I’ve ever had. The lady behind the counter didn’t say a single word to me, just stamped my passport and waved me through.

I had a wait for my bag, so rather than standing around 
with my thumb inserted somewhere, I decided to 
exchange some money.

I had been tasked with picking up some rose wine, but  alas the duty free had none, so I grabbed my bag and 
moved on.

Heading out into the main part of the airport, I saw more Swedish flags waving than I had ever seen in my life (odd, since this was Denmark). I had one guy abusing another 
regarding assembling his group in the walk way out of the area, which made me chuckle.

The conversation went along these lines:

“My friend, do not assemble your group here. You’re 
blocking the way for everyone else.”
”No I’m not blocking.”
”Well, you’re blocking me!”

I headed to the ticket machines to buy my train ticket for onwards travel to Sweden, attempted to make heads or 
tails of the hurdy gurdy writing on the screen, but hoped 
that I had purchased the correct one.

I had a tactical snack at one of the food establishments, 
and headed outside for a tactical smoke. While out there, I saw a condom on the ground. Unsure of the back story, I decided to make one up, where a loutish Danish guy 
propositioned a lass, who turned him down, and he 
decided to throw the prophylactic on the ground in 
frustration.

Not being that much of a tight arse (and not really 
believing the story myself) I left it where it was.

Unsure where to head to for the train, I messaged one of my friends - not for directions, but to update him on the 
situation.

He told me if I was really struggling, to ask the nearest 
pretty girl I could find for directions. There were a lot of 
pretty girls around, so I felt a bit stymied, although I 
managed to find where I needed to go to.

The train from Copenhagen airport to Helsingborg was a very enjoyable one.

Early on in the trip, the train traveled over a bridge 
linking Denmark to Sweden, across the body of water 
separating the two countries.

It was quite a feat of engineering, and I suggest you look 
into it - this blog entry is already getting too long to go 
into too much detail.

When I went across the border into Sweden, one of the 
Polizei approached me and asked for my passport (she 
didn’t really single me out - she asked everyone). She 
perused my passport, and after a strip search, let me go 
on my way.

I didn’t mind the strip search - she was attractive, and she was gentle and loving, as only a 6 foot 4 inch Swedish 
behemoth can be.

The rest of the train trip took about an hour, and 
ultimately I ended up in Helsingborg, to meet up with 
Aslaug, my Swedish contact, who would be letting me stay at her place and taking me to the midsummer festival she was going to.

One last thing to mention in this blog entry was a mullet 
that I saw on the train. Not the fish kind, the hair kind.

It was epic.

Long at the back for pleasure, but instead of short on top 
for business, this was a bowl cut.

Not a cereal bowl, a large gonna-bake-you-a-cake mixing bowl bowl cut.

I’m talking Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber bowl cut.

I’ll leave you with that image, and continue with 
Helsingborg in the next blog entry.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE WANDERING GAIJIN

Well folks - it’s just about that time again - more Adventures of the
Wandering Gaijin!

It has been 4 years since I last left these great shores called Australia,
and I am super pumped for this trip.

For those of you that haven’t traveled with the Wandering Gaijin before, this blog is a light hearted somewhat creative perspective of my journey.

The names of those involved will be changed to protect the innocent
(and not so innocent) from word getting back to their prospective/better
halves.

As I will be in transit for the next day or so, if you are dying to read
further, feel free to go back and check out my previous escapades. I hope you will find them
enlightening, or at least mildly amusing.

Allow me to give you the broad brush strokes of this trip - this time
around I will be hitting up Sweden, Scotland and the United Kingdom, visiting some friends and
seeing some other getting married.

I will get to experience a Swedish midsummer festival, which (from
what I’ve heard) is the one day of the year that Sweden goes off more than any other day.

There will be pickled herrings, schnapps, erecting the Maypole (even
though it’s June) and some kind of frog dance. I’m still trying to get my
head around that one.

But getting to Sweden will be via Denmark, and I will get to travel on
their amazing bridge/tunnel that runs between the two countries through a massive body of water.

Following my inauguration as a viking, I will be jetting off to Scotland
to hit up the distilleries, see some friends get married, maybe hit up a
few more distilleries, before following in the footsteps of William Wallace and conquering northern England.

I’m not sure if he visited these locations, but the UK will involve trips to Nottingham and Liverpool to visit some friends, and then flying out of Manchester.

I’ll show Robin how it should be done, and may even visit Abbey Road
and take a photo of THAT zebra crossing.

Sadly, this is the first trip that the services of my trusty sherpa, Lapzang, will not be available to me due to him passing last January in a freak storm on Everest while trying to save a bus full of children.

You will be missed.

Vale Lapzang.

By the way - the bus is fine.

So, I will leave it at that for now, and hope you are looking forward as
much as I am to the Further Adventures of the Wandering Gaijin.

Arrivederci Frenchies

Day 30

So, this was my final day overseas.

I was filled with mixed feelings. I was sick of Paris and wanted to leave, although I didn’t want to go home just yet.

All good things must end, though.

I got up and had breakfast with Caris (one of the two other Aussies from my room whose name escaped me in an earlier post), as well as another Aussie that I had chatted with in the hostel, Arianna.

Arianna was an Aussie living in the UK who worked with children/teenagers from troubled homes. She was a lovely and wise individual who I had a number of good conversations with at the hostel. I have also had the good fortune to catch up with her since returning from overseas when she came to visit Melbourne.

After breakfast I packed my bags and checked out of the hostel. The day was starting to heat up, and I decided to head out to the airport early to avoid any of the unpleasantness that I had in Manchester or upon arriving in Paris.

The train system in Paris is very efficient, with a lot of train lines running through the city. That being said, the trains are a little old, and while they run perfectly they suffer from a lack of airflow. So, by the time that I got out to the airport I was sweating like the proverbial and had to change my shirt, and this was before I even got on the plane for my 30 off hour trip back home.

At the airport I managed to book in without any issues (I was flying Emirates again), and set myself down in the airport McDonalds to grab a bite to eat. Nothing of real note happened at the airport, so I gather that they employ a bunch of nice people for departures from Charles de-Gaul, and a pack of *&#s to work in the arrivals area.

Once I entered the airport lounge I saw that we were going to fly on an A380 from Paris to Dubai. Score! I have always wanted to see what the big deal was with the A380s.

Inside the plane, it was pretty much the same as every other plane. Not enough room, same food, same hosts/hostesses, they just manage to fit more people on the plane. The plane did have that new car smell, though, which was comforting.

On this first flight I had a window seat, and had two guys sitting in the aisle with me. They chatted away, and I was content to listen to some music and watch a movie.

In Dubai, I hit up the smokers lounge for a bit and grabbed a coffee as it was getting on to 1am local time, before wandering back to the plane.

Once I got back on the plane, the fellow that had been sitting in the middle of our row of three asked me if I would mind taking his seat. The rest of his family were seated in another part of the plane, and he had asked the person sitting next to them if he could swap, but that guy wanted a window seat.

I didn’t mind too much, so I agreed.

The plane had a delay with taking off – there were 16 people that chose not to board the plane. We sat on the tarmac for about 45 minutes longer than we were supposed to, before the captain said “Fuck it, we’re leaving”.

I had a bit of a chat with both of the guys in the row on this flight, as there was a screaming kid that prevented us from sleeping.

The flight lasted for about 8 hours, during which I got a couple of hours sleep, chatted for a bit, and watched a movie.

Our next port of call was Kuala Lumpur. I hit up the smoking lounge again while we waited for the plane to be refueled, and as I was heading back to the departure lounge I passed a café with the name “Fukyumama”. I don’t think you could get away with a café like that in Melbourne.

Back on the plane, the fellow that had swapped seats obviously went back to his own seat, so Karl (the other remaining person in my aisle) and I decided that we would use this opportunity to have a few of the included drinks and a few laughs. There were a couple of hostesses on the plane that we flirted with – Karl flirted with an Irish hostie, and I flirted with one from Moldova.

After getting a few drinks in my belly, I decided that giving her my number was a good idea. As she came around to collect the hot flannels they provide to wash your face, I threw a piece of paper onto the tray with my flannel. I wasn’t sure if she noticed, but she came back over once she had finished collecting the flannels and told me that she couldn’t give out her number, but she had my number and may have to call me in Melbourne. Sadly, she didn’t.

The screaming kid was still on this plane, and Karl and I almost wanted to join in to show the kid what they sounded like to everybody else. The Moldovan hostess walked past the kid and gave it a frustrated look. I waved her over and offered my pillow, with the suggestion that it could be used to quiet the child. She had a laugh, understanding that I meant the pillow could be used more at the front of the child’s head rather than the back.

We finally arrived in Melbourne at the bright and early hour of 3am, after our delays in Dubai and KL. It was too late to ask my folks to come out and pick me up, so I grabbed a taxi back to their place, loaded up my car and headed back home for a delightful sleep in my own bed.

Thus endeth the trip. Sigh.

The love/hate struggle

Day 29

So, I woke up with mixed feelings about Paris so far. I had had a horrible experience with the airports and travelling around, but decided to give the city a second chance.

I made a post on Facebook asking people if they had any suggestions of things to do.

I headed downstairs to grab some breakfast with Derek before he headed back to Canada, and found him a little the worse for wear in the morning. He didn’t mind, as it was still early (and not too hot) and he just had to make it out to the airport where he could pass out once he got on the plane.

After eating some breaky and seeing Derek off, I grabbed a shower and checked my Facebook. Lapzang’s cousin, Lukeyyy B, asked me if I could head to Jim Morrison’s grave and take a few photos for him. I discovered that it wasn’t too far from the hostel I was staying in, and decided to start  my day there before  walking on to see some of the sights of Paris.

It was about a 15 minute walk to the cemetery where old Jimbo was buried, and it turns out his grave is the fourth most visited attraction in Paris (after the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Notre Dam). Buried in this cemetery there are a lot of other prominent historical figures, but Jim’s grave is the only one with a barricade around it.

I checked my map after visiting the grave and sussed out where I had to walk to get to some of the main sights in Paris. It took me about an hour to walk to Notre Dam from the cemetery, but it was a beautiful morning and I was happy to walk.

On my way, I got stopped by a man who asked for directions in French. I obviously looked enough like a local (surly?) that he thought I could help him. When I told him that I didn’t speak French, he switched to English and told me that I quite obviously wasn’t a local as I had actually stopped to help. We consulted my map, and he established where he needed to head to.

On the way to Notre Dam I stopped for a bite to eat, before making my way across the Seine river to the cathedral.

There was a massive queue to get in, so I just took some exterior photos, and managed to get a good photo of the statue of Charlemagne outside with the sun behind his head.

I wandered past the Louvre next, again taking exterior photos because I was starting to get a bit tight on cash. I wandered on to the Champs d’Elysees and all the way along it to the Arc de Triumphe. 

It was mid-afternoon by this stage, and I decided to just catch the train back to the hostel.

I had a couple of ciders at the hostel, before wandering up to the supermarket to pick up a few things for a picnic that evening. Two of my friends, Tommy K and Kate D were arriving in Paris and we had spoken of having a picnic at the base of the Eiffel tower that night.

They were due to land at 6.30, and we had spoken of meeting up at 8.30 to head into the city. I suspected that this wouldn’t be enough time for them to get out of the airport, get to their hotel and have a shower and such, but still arrived at their hotel on time.

At about 8.50 I heard somebody call out my name, and I saw a taxi pull up outside their hotel with Kate half hanging out the window. Tom and Kate apologized for being later than we had organized, but I told them I had expected it after my ordeal at Charles de-Gaul.

They were pooped, so we decided to just chill on the balcony of their room with the picnic bibs and bobs I had procured. Kate’s family were staying at the hotel too, so I met her father, her sister and her sister’s partner.

We had a great night catching up and talking about my trip and their trip. Kate's dad lives in Turkey, so he and I had a great chat about his local area.

As it got late in the evening everybody except for Tom and myself headed off to bed, so we decided to go for a bit of a wander. TK and KD were staying in the north-east of Paris, right on a lovely canal that a lot of people were congregating around at that point of the night.

We headed into one of the drinking venues along the canal, sat down and ordered a couple of beers. We chatted for about 20 minutes and then decided to walk off as it was taking far too long for the drinks to arrive.

We kept on wandering around the canal until we got back to a bar next to Tom’s hotel. We stopped in for a couple of drinks, and were both amazed and disturbed by the urinals, which were in the shape of a set of large red pursed lips. They do call this the city of love, after all.

Tom and I parted ways shortly after midnight, so I wandered back to my hostel (about a 30 minute walk) and climbed into bed.

The city of loath

Day 28

So, despite the late night and a greater than daily recommended intake of energy drinks, I woke up feeling quite perky about 15 minutes before my alarm went off.

I was on the top floor of the hostel, and had my feet facing east with a window across the room from me. I had the good fortune to get to watch the sun rise on my final day in the UK. It was a very good start to the day.

I got up and showered when my alarm went off. Now, for those of you that haven’t had the joy of spending time in a hostel, one of the things that you find is that there isn’t a lot of privacy to be had, and very few areas where two people can sneak off to and have relations. When I entered the bathroom, I found (I assume) a girl’s g-string hanging off the tap.

Well played, shaggers. Well played.

The previous day I had shed a whole heap of weight from my bag, various bibs and bobs that I would no longer require. So, a whole heap of dirty socks and jocks as well as my speakers were bid farewell as I made my way downstairs and over to the train station.

I asked the man in the booth what train I needed to catch to get out to the airport.

“The one that says ‘airport’” he helpfully answered.

Right.

I bought my ticket and headed to the appropriate platform.

It was quite a pleasant train trip to the airport, watching more of the Manchurian sunrise.

When I got to the airport, though, the fates started sucking the jam out of my doughnut. No, that is not a euphemism.

I got to the airport and found that I had to walk to Terminal 3. This was a 20 minute walk literally from one side of the airport to the other.

What are you complaining about? I hear you say. You have a trundle bag with wheels!

Well, one of the great things about airports is that you quite often have to go up and down levels in the airport (and then back up again quite often), and the airport designers love putting poles at the top and bottom of escalators that make it very difficult to get through unless you are toting hand luggage sized bag.

I understand that they don’t want some idiot to push a baggage-laden trolley down the escalators, but c’mon! Surely a few more inches isn’t too much to ask for. (Yeah yeah, I hear you commenting “That’s what she said.”)

So, I finally got to Terminal 3 and the counter that I was supposed to book into. There was a very long queue, which I jumped to the end of, waiting patiently for my turn. The queue moved very slowly.

I noticed a large number of people milling around a few computer terminals conveniently located right in the middle of the queue (these were people pushing through the queue to access the computers). A lady wearing the uniform of Air France walked along the line, asking people if they had their boarding passes already.

Huh? I thought. Don’t we get our boarding passes when we check in?

No – apparently not. You are supposed to get your boarding pass from those computers before jumping in the line.

Great. So I had been waiting in the line for 20 minutes and didn’t realize this.

When the lady got to me and asked me about the boarding pass, I informed her of how brilliant a system they had here, and that I couldn’t think of a single thing to streamline their process. Well, in my head at least.

She was willing to mind my bag while I went and got my boarding pass, which was quite nice of her.

I returned to my spot in the queue, waited another 20 minutes, and discovered that Air France, being the budget airline that they are, were booking 5 flights in at the same time through 4 counters. And the conveyor belt that normally takes you bags away was broken. Sigh.

So I waited in a queue for 40 minutes to have someone put a sticker on my bag, and then be told to take it “over there” to have it put on the plane.

After that frustrating turn of events, I thought it couldn’t get any worse, had a couple of cigarettes and boarded the plane.

The plane trip was blissfully uneventful, and we arrived in Paris about 20 minutes before our scheduled time. Great. J

Or so I thought.

Right, I’m going to put this out there. I HATE CHARLES DE GAUL AIRPORT!

I swear it was designed by a sadist with the sole intention of annoying as many visitors as possible and making them as surly as the locals.

12pm. After getting off the plane, there were no clear directions on where to go to collect our bags. People started milling around in confusion, and slowly (using herd osmosis) managed to find our way up an escalator, along a corridor, down an escalator, along another corridor (back the way from which we had originally come), and to a bottleneck where too few staff were checking to make sure that people had their passports.

Then we went up 2 escalators, walked a bit more, and caught an internal train to another terminal. I must say though that everybody was looking at each other as we waited at the train platform, none of us having any idea on whether we were supposed to catch the train or not.

1pm. At the new terminal we were again forced to walk, going up and down escalators for about 20 minutes, before we got to the customs area.

1.20pm. People started queuing up in an area divided by those changeable fabric barriers strung between poles. There were half a dozen staff members standing around talking amongst themselves, until they saw that there were a whole heap of people lining up.

I think they then decided to brighten up their afternoon by playing with the barriers, letting about 12 people through to different areas before blocking it off again, then doing the same thing in another spot.

I reckon it took about 30 minutes of these shenanigans before I had a surly individual take a cursory glance at my passport before using their rubber stamp and telling me to enjoy Paris.

2pm. We finally made it to the luggage collection point. I thought that 2 hours after landing our luggage should be waiting for us on the conveyor belts. But no. We had to wait for another 45 minutes for the luggage from our flight to come out.

While we were waiting, there were 5 flights that arrived after us that collected their luggage before us.

Since I had plenty of time on my hands, I decided to exchange some of my pounds for euros.

The exchange rate was about 1 pound to 1.2 euros, but I found that after changing my money that I had started with 100 pounds and ended up with 90 Euros.

Not sure how that was supposed to work, but I could see that the girl behind the counter really didn’t give a rat’s arse so I wasn’t going to come out ahead if I decided to argue with her.

2.45pm. I finally collected my bag and headed out for a much needed cigarette. After de-stressing, I sought directions on where to find the train station at the airport.

“Just follow everybody else that way” was the helpful response I received at the information booth.

So, I followed everybody else for about another 20 minutes to the train station. There was nobody there to give you directions or help you find your way, but fortunately I had read up a bit on the train system and knew that you could buy a ’10 trip’ bunch of tickets and just jump on a train as long as you knew where you were going.

3.15pm. The train arrived at the airport, which I boarded, grabbed a seat, and prepared myself for the ride into Paris.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this particular day in Paris was 35 degrees. So not only was I out of sorts because of the 3 hours it took me to leave the airport, I was also dangerously close to breaking a sweat. And necks.

The hostel that I was staying at was kind enough to give directions in their e-mail on how to get there via the train system, with a secondary route also. Which was just as well, since when I arrived at the train station where I needed to change lines, it turned out that they were doing works on the platform that one of the connecting trains left from. I had to take the alternate route which involved changing trains twice more.

I got off at my station and sure enough started walking the wrong way. After 10 minutes I realized this and turned around.

The neighborhood I was walking through looked pretty crummy. Half of the stores had their roller shutters down, and there were several groups of people sitting around in their own urine, drinking on the side of the road. A great welcoming committee.

4.20pm. I finally arrived at the hostel. Fortunately it was nice. I checked in, dumped my bags, and headed down to the seating area and grabbed a large bottle of Bulmers to keep me company.

I was thoroughly fed up with Paris already, and I had barely scratched the surface.

About 5pm, the girl behind the counter at the hostel told me (in no uncertain terms) to go out and see a bit of the surrounding area as it was such a beautiful day out there.

Grudgingly I accepted the challenge.

And I am glad that I did. I went for a walk through a nearby park which was very pretty, lots of people sitting around enjoying the sun. I also took a walk through the surrounding blocks and made my way back to the hostel.

Upon returning, I met a couple of the people that I was sharing the room with. In a room of 6, there were three other Aussies, a Canadian and an American. In fact, I met more Aussies at this hostel than I had anywhere else on my trip.

Two of the Aussies and the Canadian, Derek (sorry, I can’t remember the names of the Aussies) decided to go out to grab a bite to eat for dinner. We were all hanging for some Asian food, so we located a restaurant further down the street.

On the way to the restaurant I stopped at an ATM to get out some money. Given that I was in France, the main language was French on the ATM. I pressed the button to make it speak English. Nothing happened.

I pressed the English button a second time, still nothing.

A third time, and still nothing. Even the ATMs refuse to speak English here!

Fortunately, the fourth time worked.

I’m sure if I had pressed “German” it would have worked the first time. Out of fear.

So, Derek, the two others and myself all headed into the restaurant, and found that the staff only spoke two languages: French and Thai. No English.

We all had a laugh and decided to play lucky dip with the menu. Some of the items had pictures, which the other two Aussies used to choose their meals, while Derek and I chose to roll the dice. Derek ordered something that was “Imperial Beef”, and I ordered something that I knew was a Szechuan dish, but didn’t know what type of meat was in the dish.

Derek’s beef dish looked pretty shmick, while my dish turned out to be Szechuan prawns. Very yummy.

After dinner the 4 of us trundled back up to the hostel and grabbed a couple of drinks to have in the hostel’s courtyard. After 2 drinks the two other Aussies headed off, and Derek and I continued to drink until the wee early hours of the morning.

This was Derek’s last night before heading back home, and his first international trip. I was glad that he had been bitten by the travel bug, and we spoke of maybe doing a big Southern America trip in the future.

Just as we were finishing up our drinks for the night, I received a text message from a friend’s wife. If you followed my previous trip, you might remember that I traveled with a couple of friends, Doolittle and Lapzang. Lapzang is my oldest friend from school.

I saw that Doolittle had sent me a message, and in my drunken state I was happy to check it out. Unfortunately, the message informed me that Lapzang had a brain tumor and was about to go into hospital to have it removed. (Note, Lapzang is now doing well, they have removed the tumor and will find out over the next couple of months exactly how it is all panning out.)

I headed off to bed, glad that I had gone out for dinner with my room-mates which saved my first day of Paris.

The Manchurian Candidate

Day 27

Well, today was to be my final full day in the UK. I got up, did the morning things and packed my bag. I still had a couple of hours until I had to make my way down to the train station, so I wandered to the nearby shopping centre, grabbed a coffee and a couple of sandwiches for breakfast, and picked up a few snacks for my train trip to Manchester.

When it was time to make tracks, I grabbed my bags, said my farewells to the hostel staff, and wandered through Nottingham to the train station.

When I arrived there I was approached by one of those guys that try to sign you up for donations to help a poor starving child in a country in Africa. I straight up told him that I was a travelling foreigner, and he thanked me for my honesty.

He then asked me why the hell I had travelled to Nottingham instead of any number of other places in the UK. We both had a chuckle, and then he let me keep on keeping on to my train platform.

I didn't have much of a wait at the train platform, only enough time to grab a blueberry muffin and eat it with a few minutes to spare.

The train trip was uneventful, and it allowed me to catch up on some other blog entries.

A couple of hours later I arrived in Manchester, which reminded me of a dirtier version of Melbourne. My hostel wasn't too far away from the train station, so I got there with a minimum of fuss.

The hostel was a tall building with 6 floors. There was a lift, although only staff could use it to take luggage upstairs, as they didn't have insurance for guests to use it.

I was a bit crestfallen when I was told that was on the top floor, but figured that I could probably use the exercise after all of the kebabs that I had eaten in Turkey.

I headed upstairs, got my bag sorted, and headed back down. I went for a wander to grab some dinner, and then stopped off at Tescos again to grab some drinks, before retiring to the common room to try to catch up on my blog entries. (The irony of that last sentence is not lost on me.)

One of the staff who worked there convinced me to join in on some drinking games that were being played, a rather interesting game where a person started counting, and then they could pick the direction of who would have to count the next number. You could change directions at any point, include actions that needed to be taken on a particular number, make rules, etc. It was a fun game, until two guys decided to pick on the guy in the middle, and they just kept swapping back and forth across him. He was already pissed by this stage, but kept on getting it wrong and had to take a drink, making him more and more pissed.

I think the guy running the game could see that this individual was going the right way to get proper messed up, and decided to call game off.

A couple of us that were still able to stand upright decided to head out for a few more drinks.

I got changed into one of the shirts that I had bought in the Istanbul Grand Bazaar. When I got downstairs, a Turkish lad that I had met threw his hands up in the air and told me that he hated those shirts and that they were a big tourist trap.

One of the locals that somebody knew told us about one particular club, so we went for a decent wander to get there. Fortunately it was open and we were able to get in pretty much straight away.

I felt quite a bit older than most of the people there, but still managed to get my groove on when one of the members of the group came across with a round of Jaegerbombs for everybody. I thought this was quite a generous offer, as there were about 12 people in our group. I shortly got dragged across to the bar by an Aussie girl, Alexandra, who was dead-set determined to lead me astray on my final night in England. She ordered a round of Jaegers for 5 of us, and I was quite surprised when she handed across a 5 pound note and got change!

Turns out the Jaegerbombs were only 80 pence each! That worked out to be $1.20 Australian. Now, since it is hard in Australia to a) find a place that will actually sell you Jaegerbombs, and b) if you do, find somewhere that won’t slug you $8 or more each, I decided to get stuck into them. I think I ended up having about 8 that night, and only spent about 10 pounds all up. Brilliant!

The hour was starting to get late by this time, so I said my goodbyes to all and told them I was heading back to get some sleep before an early night. Alexandra (the smart-arse) wished me good luck in getting to sleep after 8 shots with an energy drink in it as I headed out the door. I managed to stagger back successfully, found my bed about 2am, and tried to get some shut eye before my onwards journey to Paris.