These could be the best days of our liiiiives.

The more astute of you would have realised that I have been back home for a while now. Up until now, I haven't really found the effort to write about it. But here I am, backstory and all explaining why I've taken so long to do what I'm about to do.

Right into it then.

Hong Kong was fun. Saw some relos, which is always a good experience, given that I see them about once every half a century. Or something. I also bought far, far more than I should have, mostly because stuff is so cheap there, but also mostly because stuff is a lot more cooler over there.

By stuff, I mean clothes and stuff. Hey, I never claimed to be a wordsmith.

The trip as a whole was absolutely amazing. Yes, there were difficult moments. Yes, it was a long time to be away from home. Yes, it did cost me a fair bit. But you know, it was all in the name of learning and having fun. And all of the experiences I had, all the stuff I learnt, all the places I visited, all the sights I saw, all the fantastic people I met, all the tan I got, made all the minute difficulties worth it.

I am, however, glad to be home. There's nothing quite like going overseas to strange countries (I'm looking at you, Poland and Lithuania) to make you realise how great Australia really is. I also got a bit sick of living in hotel rooms, not driving myself around, and just generally being semi-beholden to what fate/mischance had in store for me.

I also missed people back home. Friends, family, etc.

And Melbourne water. That stuff is heavenly. They should export that stuff. Especially to Poland, where the water is acidic and filled with mercury. Or something.

Coming back home, however, means dealing with all the homie stuff. You know, assessments, thesis, losing my tan, readjusting to actually having to do work, remembering to not start speaking Polish to people (I'm pretty much fluent in Polish now, it's kind of like my mother tongue, except my mother isn't from Poland), readjusting to the fact that people aren't surprised at the fact that I speak English, and reverting back to not enunciating clearly when speaking with strangers. Not all of that is necessarily bad, but I'll let you sort out which is which.

Thesis is killing me a little bit. I'm still trying to figure out which direction I'm going to take it in. Urgh.

And because I didn't get enough of England (or lack of sleepness) on my trip, I'm going to do a pre-dawn wake-up to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games, which, for my friends who dwell under rocks, is in England this time around. I'll see you online tomorrow morning then.

Word of the Day: Back

Surprise Song Sunday: Coming Home - John Legend

It feels like I've been everywhere,

But someday I'll be coming home.

In case you didn't know, I'm back! 

More on that later.

Word of the Day: Home

Eine kleine Berliner gutentag.

I really liked Berlin. It was a smooth, smooth city.

The greatest thing about the city is that basically everything important in the 20th century happened there. The more astute of you would know that I really dig 20th century history. So yeah, good city.

Last night, we managed to find an awesome rooftop bar called Solar.

It was fair good, in that you could talk, and you had an amazing view of Berlin at night. Had a few rums and cokes, and whatnot.

I left slightly earlier than intended, as Caitlin wanted to leave, and one does not simply let a girl walk home by herself, especially in a foreign city. Kind of wanted to go anyway, so no worries.

On a slightly related note, I've rediscovered that I get jealous exceedingly easily.

So I'm now in Cracow/Krakow, chilling with my food and people in stuff.

Word of the Day: Exceedingly

Of idiocy and beauty in Florence, and travelling with uni.

This morning, I did something that was simultaneously fun and ridiculously stupid in Florence.

In the words of Boromir, it was folly.

I was going to have a nice quiet one, visiting the statue of David, and not visit the Duomo, because I figured it would be much the same as every other Duomo. Also, I had slept about four hours because the Italian people partake in traditional car honking celebrations after their team wins a football match.

Of course, I ended up at the Duomo, and not seeing David.

Why?

The line for David was just not moving. Because I am an ultra-patient person, I left after 10 minutes of queue inaction.

I went to the Duomo, expecting maybe just to walk around inside, take a few good photos of stained glass and whatnot, and go home.

What I ended up doing was scaling a bazillion stairs, not knowing where it would stop, because I had no idea what people generally did at that place.

What people generally did was climb to the top of the place. By climbing the aforementioned one zillion steps.

The view at the top, however, made the trip almost worth it.

(I'll upload a pic a bit later maybe)

Truly breathtaking.

The way down wasn't as bad as expected either.

So after that, long story short, I more or less stumbled towards Prato and uni people.

So we haven't done much so far, except for wandering around Prato. The two people I was wandering with, Jamie (Melbourne High old boy - saw it from a mile away - seriously) and Louise, were quite swell, and the wandering was fairly good bonding time. Met a few more cool people at dinner, which was all good, and I look forward to doing more of the same over the next few days. Off to a good start already. Not that I expected anything less.

Word of the Day: Folly

Venetian decadence + Rome-ing

So yeah, Milan, didn’t manage to do a whole lot there. Basically saw the Duomo, got lost on the way back, found my way back to the hotel eventually, then left the next morning for Venice.

Venice was quite nice. The architecture, the wateriness, and music, and all that was lovely.

The prices of things, however, were definitely not nice. Certainly not for the faint-hearted/poor. Patrick  shouted me, to repay my shouting of the Bordeaux dinner, what is, if not the most expensive coffee in the world, the most expensive coffee I've ever had. 5,80 euro (they use commas instead of decimal points over there, dontcha know - culcha) for the live music charge (there was live music played - it worked out to be about a euro a song), plus about 9 euro for the coffee itself. It did, however, come with complimentary chips and water. And they did play 'La Vie En Rose'. You know, that song by Rachael Leachar (lololol I just mocked mX readers). Yippee. Cheers Paddy.

Also, everything there seemed really manufactured. Even the skies the next morning when we were leaving looked manufactured, and they were to a certain extent. They had those planes spraying white lines in the perfectly clear blue skies.

Everything seemed to exist purely to suck money away from tourists. There were very few, if any, organic sort of businesses that exist to serve the needs of everyday citizens. This may be because there are very few ordinary everyday citizens. I don’t think I saw any locals apart from those sucking money from tourists. A very nice place on the surface, but quite cynical underneath I think.

So as I write this up, I’m sitting in the hotel lobby of my hotel in Rome. A very nice hotel, but a relative age away from anything worthwhile.

I don’t want to sound like I’m Rome-bashing, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot here, despite its size. It’s much the same as everywhere else, except less good. The tourist attractions (Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps) were nice, but the city itself, by and large, is not very beautiful. It’s a bit run-down and old, crowded and busy (especially the trains. Can you believe they have two train lines to service the entire city? Bizarre).

The highlight for me was probably Vatican City. A very nice place, and it had a great ambience to it.

The weather was also really hot. It’s only 30-odd degrees, but it’s sweltering from about 9am in the morning, right through to God knows when at night. I think it seems hotter because during the Melbourne summer, it usually only starts to really heat up at around midday, rather than pre-breakfast.

So now I am a nice shade of brown, and I travel to Florence in the few hours. Kind of wish I’d made the train earlier.

Word of the Day: Organic

Leaving Paris + Bordeaux good times.

As I write this, we are in a car in Bordeaux, rocketing towards the biggest sand dune in Europe, and apparently a beach as well.

While I enjoyed my time in Paris, especially towards when we left the place, Bordeaux has been nothing short of amazing.

First, the Boyé family, with whom I have been staying, have welcomed me with, quite literally, hugs and kisses, and, somewhat contradictingly, with open arms. They have been amazing tour guides, hosts, and friends, and I could not have asked more of my stay in Bordeaux.

The Boyé family minus Marie and Simon. Great people (including the missing ones).

Second, the city itself is amazing. The architecture is beautiful, and amazingly unified, kind of like Bath in England. Matthieu has been kind enough to give me a tour of the place by both night and day. Very charming city.

By day.

By night.

The people also seem to be quite a bit friendlier than those in Paris, despite me being a minor minority here.

Visiting the countryside was interesting, despite it being more or less as expected - that is, full of wineries.

-------

So a bit of time-lapse magic, and I'm now on the train from Milan to Venice. A bit about that later.

Back to where we started, and then a bit after.

We scaled the epic sand dune, known as the Dune de Pilat. Going up was ok, because there were stairs. Going down to the other side was also ok, because it was just sliding down sand.

Coming back up the sandy side was absolute hell. Walking up a steep mountain of loose sand for what I think was 1km was just slightly exhausting. I was extremely pleasantly surprised when my legs didn't hurt one bit the day after. Must be the magic in the water.

The water that I fell into after wading in and tripping on a submerged rock.

Despite the physical pain of both the climb and the fall, a fun time was had, and it was beautiful there. An amazing experience that money probably can't buy.

Me on the top of Dune du Pilat.

While Matthieu and I trekked back up the dune, he imparted some of his many fun facts on me, which he had been doing during the whole stay, some of which include:
- French people enjoy breaking rules, and Germans will hate you for it;
- the two important elements in how good a wine is are the earth, and the year in which it was made;
- life without coffee is not really a life a all;
- people in Madagascar are very resourceful;
- the wealth of Bordeaux is built on both slavery and wine;
- colonialism was bad;
- despite his frequent disregard for timeliness, his children are puzzlingly continually concerned about the issue of punctuality.

Anyway. Enough of that. After trekking back up and down, we proceeded to Arcachon (driving, thankfully), a nice beachside town. We had dinner while watching the sunset, which was quite a perfect last night in Bordeaux.

So now I'm on the train to Venice, still missing Bordeaux.

I did pretty much nothing in Milano except visit the duomo, and managing to get myself lost. The duomo was nice, as was the hotel. Yeah, end commentary.

So Paris, my favourite places were the Louvre, and the Luxembourg Gardens. The Louvre was amazing for what was in it as well as the architecture. The Gardens were very serene, beautiful, and relatively people-free. I also quite liked Versailles, although I thought it would be bigger.

In Bordeaux, I'm fairly certain my favourite part was everything. Just sitting around and eating, shooting the breeze, sightseeing with The Best Tour Guides Ever, and experiencing how people actually lived in a non-Paris part of France.

I don't mind Paris, but I definitely love Bordeaux.

Word of the day: Dune