Three weeks to go

Guten Morgen meine Freunde


Prost!  Proost!  Salut!  Egészségedre?

"Cheers" is a word I like to learn when visiting new countries as it is a friendly word and easy to say - but Cheers in Hungarian?  Can you imagine trying to get your tongue around that one after a couple of heart starters?

With only three weeks to go, a friend freshly returned from her European river cruise, has offered me some hints and tips for my trip. 

“The train trip from Paris to Amsterdam is brilliant and the Mozart concert in Vienna is a must.   But do not take the coach from Budapest to Prague!  The stinking concrete road and the bang, bang, banging over 200km of expansion joints, make it the worst trip ever!”  

 “Monet’s garden and house outside Paris was an absolute highlight.  The tour guide was sensational and imparted her knowledge with such passion that she could have been Monet’s daughter herself.” 

She relates the comical tale of partaking in a guided walk through a German university town.  The young female guide escorted the slightly bewildered bunch of Aussies through the town, unaware and unfazed by the disturbance created by the annual Father’s Day celebrations.  In Germany, Father's Day is called Mannertag (Man’s Day), a day when men get as drunk as humanly possible whilst walking from village to village pulling beer-stuffed carts.

“Rowdy, intoxicated, boisterous, rude, inebriated and downright crazy” were just some of the words which sprung to my friend’s lips.  And the naïve young female tour guide just carried on with her script.  She did not deviate from the pre-planned route, where nervous middle-aged tourists mingled unwillingly with drunk, obese German men who seemed to spring raucously from every ancient cobblestone. Common sense should have told her to change course. Tunnel vision, however, meant she unflinchingly delivered them, unscathed but slightly unnerved, at their final destination.  The deafening, disorderly pub, overflowing with ill-mannered Manner in the centre of the town.  Prost!!!

Back in the safety of their riverboat that evening, the group calmed their nerves with some delicious German beer of their own, knowing they would never think of Father’s Day in quite the same way again.

Are there any innocent Aussies caught in the middle of this drunken throng?

What's with the balloons?

French Lessons

Bonjour Mes Amis

In preparation for my Splendours of Europe adventure, I have started taking a crash course in French.  I know I will only be in Paris for three days.  But IT’S THREE DAYS IN PARIS! 

Eight middle aged women warm up the cold and deserted TAFE building each Tuesday evening to laugh and learn some conversational French from the calm and patient  Jake from Ile Maurice.  Mauritius. 

Marion, a school teacher, recounted her experience in France when she asked a local lady for directions to the post office.  The derisive laughing response from Madame when Marion asked “Ooo ay la post” guaranteed that Marion’s future questions would always be in English.  Jake assures us this will not happen after practising our accents with him.  I hope he’s right.

Jake teaches us the words we will need for shopping in France.  Acheter - to buy, l’echarpe  - the scarf, la chemise, les chausseurs, la boucle d’oreille – the earring.  He makes us recite the numbers every week to ensure the prices come easily to mind.  He knows his audience well!

Our homework is to prepare conversations in French for presentation to the class.  Initially, it was a simple dialogue – Bonjour, je m’appelle Julie.  Ou est Le Moulin Rouge?  Asking directions.

Next, it was booking a table at a restaurant and ordering food.  Bon Appetit! 

Maureen and Linda met at a local coffee shop this week to prepare their latest script about their fictitious trip to France.   They argued and laughed raucously about every little detail.  The cost of their hotel – 895 Euros par jour.  Trop cher!  Does it have a view of La Tour Eiffel?  Should they go to Fontainebleau (because Madeline went there) or Versailles?  The verbs, the pronunciations, the masculines and feminines.  The patrons at the café eventually approached them, curious to know what all the frivolity was about.  What could possibly keep two women entertained for four hours, with so much laughter and no alcohol?

Why, French lessons of course!

From backpacker to flashpacker - the countdown begins...

Hello travel enthusiasts

In a little over four weeks I will be embarking on the trip of a lifetime, travelling from Paris to Prague with my Mum.  I am so excited to have the opportunity to share my experiences in discovering and re-discovering some of the ancient and modern splendours of Europe.

First port of call will be Paris, which I last visited as a twenty four year old.  Twenty seven years ago.  Back then my sister and I were on another "trip of a lifetime", arriving in the City of Light after a kind Parisian offered a lift to two Aussie hitch hikers in the German countryside.  La Tour Eiffel, Le Louvre, Le Champs Elysees, L'arc de Triomphe, Le Palais de Versailles, Centre Georges Pompidou - how we immersed ourselves in this wonderful city and loved every minute of it!

Robyn and I had begun our European odyssey two months earlier in Athens where we formed a travelling party of five lively twenty-somethings eager to experience ouzo, sun, beach, frivolity and more ouzo.   We made many new friends along the way, including an elegant American ballerina called Kim, who lived with her US Diplomat parents in Paris and who was taking a short break on the beautiful island of Santorini.  When we parted company after ten days, we exchanged addresses and promised Kim we would come and stay with her in Paris. She was eager to return our friendship by showing us around her adopted city in a style which far exceeded our backpacker budgets.

Once in Paris, Robyn and I were excited to find our way to Kim’s address and were amazed at the affluence. Oh, to have such important parents!  How different her life must be!  When I asked the concierge, in perfect (high school) French, for the name written on our scrap of paper, he did not know this family.  I asked again, thinking it must be my rusty French accent that he could not understand.  Non, he insisted, no-one by that name living there.  I showed him my scrap of paper to prove we had the correct address.  Then Voila!  The moment of realisation hit him!  We followed him to the top floor of this opulent building and were led down a passageway where the lavishness morphed before our eyes into destitution.  Votre amie habite ici – your friend must live here!  And then he was gone.  We were left in a dark passage with a hundred doors, paint peeling with dirt and grime which had accumulated over many, many years.  The servants’ quarters.  We knocked on a couple of doors – we naïve Catholic girls could not quite believe that “our friend” Kim could have deceived us.  The vacant looks in the eyes of the occupants and the slovenly conditions we spied beyond the doorways told us we had no business being here.  We left hastily, deflated.

Now, at the age of 51, I hope I won’t be so naïve when I visit Paris this July.  However, I know I will have plenty of youthful excitement and will be ready for any new adventure that comes my way.  I can’t wait.

Til next time...

Julie