Snow! ... The adventure in Scandinavia continues

I come to you from sunny Oulu, Finland. By "sunny" I mean occasionally blue and sunny, but mostly overcast with grey-white clouds that produce this white fluffy stuff that lands on the ground and is cold. That's right: snow! Snow in October! And snow that even lands on the ground and stays there, not melting, for some time - the parking lot outside the window was white when we woke up and has slowly been revealing its true colour (grey) over the course of the day. We are on the fourth floor though, so we get a nice show from the large flocks of birds(migrating apparently) and squirrels playing in the trees. And snow! Still novel enough for me to ignore the fact that outside it's kinda cold: a balmy -2.2 degrees C. But inside it's toasty warm. And I have been enjoying many a cup of hot tea or coffee.

I am staying in Oulu with my long-time good friend Marnie, who is doing an exchange at the uni here. It's very nice to be staying at someone's place, after so many hostels! No more snoring roommates or communal kitchens or revolting toilets or door slamming in the middle of the night - less of that and more of leisurely sleep-ins, balanced meals, the afore-mentioned cups of tea/coffee, listening to music (oh, how I've missed listening to the Cure! Nice, also, to reacquaint myself with Missy Higgins and The Cat Empire for a bit of a Melbourne fix!) ALSO, Johnny Depp. He's her flatmate! ... ! ... Ok, that's a lie. But he was here last night. In 'Sleepy Hollow'. Which we watched while eating Czech Oplatky (wafer thin wafers) and 85% Lindt dark chocolate. Now there's a combination for you ...

[I pick up this post after some time has passed since writing the above.] We just had a traditional Finnish dinner with Marnie's friend Hanna and her family. Delicious: home-smoked salmon, karjalan piirakka (yummy little pie things: made with rye flour with a "salty rice porridge" filling - yummier than that makes them sound!), salad and cheese and Finnish rye bread, and then Arctic Cloud Berries - which are these incredible yellow-orangey sweet Finnish berries. Delicious! All of it. I am now so full. Then we came back here and had to eat the lemon tart that Marnie made during the day, so we enjoyed that while chatting with two of her Italian friends here - I now have contacts in Florence!

Ok, I should tell you about Stockholm, eh? Just briefly, before I fall asleep. Stockholm itself is made up of a whole series of islands - 14 I think, but I could be pulling that number from the air. I was staying on the island of Skeppsolmen which is right in the centre - so quite conveniently close to everything, but you still have to cross bridges and walk round bits of water (sometimes biggish bits of water too!) to get to places. Well, namely the place I wanted to get to was an incredible vegetarian restaurant called Herman's. If ANY of you get to Stockholm, you really must go to this restaurant; carnivore, herbivore or whatever you are! It has an amazing buffet of vegetarian dished: curries, rice, salads, all yummy yummy yum stuff. Oh baby, I'm doing a Pavlov's dogs just thinking about it! And they have a great selection of scrumptious looking cakes, but I was too full after my vegetarian feast to try any of these. But next time I'm in Stockholm. (Tell me if all the italics are annoying - I've only just worked out how to do them!!)

Aside from eating, I also checked out the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art) which made me happy with it's massive Matisse cut-out picture called 'Apollo' (the size of a wall and gorgeously colourful - I thought about buying a postcard of it but the postcard does not do it justice). And also some Picassos, always enough to make me happy, which included some giant Picasso sculptures in the gardens - great slabs of stone with sketches of the giant figures on them: my favourite one was the giant woman with great pendulous breasts. On the grounds there were also some Tinguely sculptures (the machines that do things, remember my post from Basel way back in August?) and also many colourful ones by Niki De Saint Phalle. And all these surrounded by beautiful Stockholm Autumn trees with their leaves turning yellow and orange and red and then defenestrating themselves in the most graceful, poetic way possible.

I also went to the Historiska Museet (Historical Museum) and saw a whole lot of Viking stuff, like runes and skeletons (human and horse) and gold. In fact, they have a whole room called The Gold Roooom - not just Viking stuff but lots and lots and lots of gold from all over. Though I didn't get gold fever like I've heard some people get in such museums (...Rachel!?). Also there was no mention of Viking cats, so I have no new information to report to one Norwegian Skogkat back in Melbourne about his Swedish ancestors. I also bought myself a Picasso poster (of a faun!) which, in hindsight, will go very nicely - because it's blue and yellow - with the Rolling Stones poster I got in Paris (which is blue). Because, did you know, I'm being followed by the Rolling Stones.

Being followed. Or following. It's a fine line ...

;-)
xxx

(PS. I took a sauna! A first in my life. And so relaxing ... and then a glass of Aussie wine ... Ah!)

Three trains, four countries later ...

Hello all,

I write from the land of beautiful people and asymmetrical haircuts. That´s right: Sweden. Stockholm is beautiful in Autumn. Utterly gorgeous. And I´m staying on a boat! (well, I was last night, but had to move rooms tonight and am on land again now). So I could imagine I was a pirate for a bit, or at least some sort of seafaring folk (a Viking maybe?) Now, where has my cabin boy got to...?

Before that I was in Prague, which I guess is what I really should be telling you about. Prague, also, is beautiful, and like Stockholm, I really want to return. Best of all perhaps, is that I made a friend, a travelling buddy (hello Jo, if you´re reading!) so it was great to hang out with someone and chat - especially someone I had so much in common with (from a love of cats & Don DeLillo, to Middlesex, to Lynch & Lars von Trier...) So for a couple of days we wandered Prague and went to museums. We eventually found the modern section of the National Gallery, but only had 2 hours to take it in - not long enough for all 4 floors. We also took in the Sex Machines Museum, which was, ah, fun. And funny. Spanish porn films from the 1920s come to mind - naked women but the fat hairy men fully clothed just with their "bits" out.

Ok, will have to wrap it up here because internet could disconnect me at any moment. Also some more stalking of the pretty Swedish people becons me. I mean, not *stalking*... The title of this blog refers to my journey from Prague to Stockholm, via Berlin - in case you´re interested.

xxxx

Slightly mysterious bruises ...

Hello all,
I'll try and write a less crazy gummi bear obsessed blog this time. ("Try" being the operative word!) I am right now in Prague and kind of exhausted after 6 hours travelling and 4 trains! What is with travelling and mysterious bruises? I can't explain it but my right thigh (only the right, mind you) looks like some sort of impressionist painting if you squint at it in the right light. As I said, mysterious. (... or it could just be the way my case hits my leg when I lug it up stairs.)

I will now try to give you more of a picture of Salzburg that my last entry, even though I was only there for 2 nights so I can't really claim to be an authority (or even remember how to spell authrotihy.) Parts of Salzburg of really cheesy and kitsch and touristy - all Sound of Music-this, Mozart-that. It is where the former was filmed and the latter was born. I did go to the Mozart museums at his birthplace and where he lived for the first 24 years of his life (to think, someone will do that for Nth Fitzroy and Carlton for me one day! Maybe...) and I saw the little violin he played he was a kiddie and his concert violin - so that was rather cool.

I also spent some time hanging out at the Mirabell gardens which are beautiful and no doubt feature in the Sound of Music somewhere, if you want to look. The gardens and nearby palace were built by some prince-archbishop for his mistress (Wold Dietrich=price-archibishop, year=1606, the Lonely Planet helpfully informs me. Mistress=no name given=Mirabell perhaps? ... I still wish the Lonely Plant was, in fact, the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, a la Douglas Adams, and it would talk to me in Stephen Fry's voice!). I want someone to build me a palace and gardens! Do you think I'll have to be someone's mistress first? Or would just changing my name to Mirabell be enough?

I also partook of a very nice stoll around the old part of town and then walked up the 400-something steps to the fortress on a hill above the town, then walked across the hill, though some rather delightful woodland and quite by accident navigated myself a nice round trip, ending up back in the old town where I picked up a studel for my lunch. Which I ate by the river while reading Pride and Prejudice. Did I mention it was lovely and sunny and perfect temperature - not too warm, not too cold. Very very nice.

And now I am in Prague, at a a hostel called Sir Toby's which so far seems to be utterly wonderful (thank you Julia & Erin for recommending it!). Hopefully it will provide me with the most important thing: a good night's sleep. So then I'll have the energy to explore Prague over the next few days. Tons of Aussies and Americans here - but so far that's not a bad thing. Also a Pom, and an Irish lass who I had difficulty understanding when she spoke.

Take care my pretties. Email me, leave comments. I miss Melbourne, home, friends, family, my cats, fresh veggies, my own bed. But apart from that, I'm happy. ;-)
xxx

Austria - No Kangaroos

´elloo. Tis I, in Austria, which keeps informing me "no kangaroos in Austria" - but only in English, so I think it`s meant to be appealing only to Aussie tourists (like me - it was funny the first time, but after about 200 times...) and to bitter Austrians sick of being mistaken for the tanned, bogan, beer drinking piss-heads who make it here from Down Under. Or something. Am I missing the point? I don`t know.

As I was wandering the streets of Salzburg today, alternately composing a blog and trying to get the song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" out of my head (they played it at the hostel last night and I think it even featured in the soundtrack to my dreams in which I was organising trains and booking hostels!), I thought I would mention a mental note to myself which I had been trying to put into practise. Which is: Lay Off the Gummi Bears. Since my week of crepes (last week), I have left the land of crepes behind (the land extending from London, via Paris, to Basel where I made some crepes with my sis), and have since taken up to eating gummi bears left, right and centre. Oh the joy that is the gummi. I blame Marnie! Anyway, so in the spirit of advice such as Lay Off the Adverbs, I thought, Lay of the Gummi Bears. And then I walked past a gummi bear devoted shop, which could have been all well and good, except they had posters out the front of gummi bears in so-called amusing situations, one - or maybe even more than one - of gummi bears, ah, "getting it on". Doing "the sex". As much as gummi bears can - the picture, thankfully, didn`t go into that much detail. Or else that was on the back - I don`t know, I didn`t look. It`s one thing to reenact an abridge version of David Lynch`s Lost Highway using gummi bears (red one for Patricia Arquette`s brunette, white one for Patricia Arquette`s white-hot, hypersexual-ganster-mole blonde, orange I think for Bill Pullman and and yellow for Balthazar Getty, green for The Mystery Man. Then red one with a green head for when Patricia Arquette appears to Bill Pullman in bed with the Mystery Man`s freaky face instead of her own.... you get the picture. And if you don`t, ask Marnie about it, as it was all for her benefit!) That`s all well and good and part of the normal course of events should one be in Berlin in August drinking beer and eating gummi bears on a sunny day. But POSTERS of gummi bears having sex! That`s too far - it`s not on. It´s just not cricket. As they say...

So I think that rant in itself has cured me of my gummi bear obsession. And/or put people off reading the ravings of a gummi-overdosed mind. So I will endeavor to be more coherent and even informative next time. I am off to Prague tomorrow - very excited about that. I anticipate, whether rightly or wrongly, cats! And maybe less gummi bears, but I should really eat the packet in my bag otherwise it would be a waste...

"This is not a blog"

Hey chaps,

Thought I`d update again - because I can! But now in Switzerland again, with my sis, and hence the crazy keyboards are making it more difficult to type than expected. Hmm...

Anyway, Julia, further to the "forwardness" (if such a word exists) of French men, I have figured out it`s because the French women are such ice queens - most of them could very easily fall into a Hitchcock film and look totally in place - hence the men have to be extra-extra opportunistic to even get a word out of them, let alone a smile and a conversation, or more. I want to be a French woman! No, that`s a lie. I want to meet a French woman! Like, say, Juliette Binoche. Or Emmanuel Beart. Or Johnny Depp. No, hold on - he`s not...

So, where was I? Or in fact, where am I? Oh that`s right, Basel. I went to a gallery yesterday: The Beyeler Foundation. Basically modern art, to fit with the theme of the week: Tate Modern in London, Pompidou in Paris, Beyeler in Basel. And I have decided that I love Picasso. Can`t get enough of it at the moment. I think particularly it`s the playful, colourful ones that I love the most. Also, Mirò. Love him too. There was a Rene Magritte exhibition which was cool. If you like Magritte. Which I do. "This is not a blog." (I would write it in French, but you know, my French is - just - well - too - ah - hm.)

Anyway, the sun is shining and I should push off - make the most of it. Drink coffee. I`ve become an expresso drinker - mainly because it`s cheaper! Funny thing though, I introduced Nadia (my sis) to Sudoku and she keeps saying how stupid it is, but she can`t stop playing it! Ooh, lunch! What should I have for lunch?
xxx

Paris

Bonjour! What's this, I hear you mutter, 2 updates in the space of one week, she really is pushing it. Ok... well, maybe not - seeing as Julia appears to be the only person reading this - Hello Julia!!

Anyway, yes, I am now in Paris which is lovely and, well, Paris. But I've got to say, before I say anything else, that the air quality here is SHIT. Total crap. Even London's was better and isn't London the one with the reputation? Today I was sitting on second-to-top level of the Pompidou Centre, having my picnic lunch of brie and baguette and it took me 10 minutes to realise that I was actually facing the Eiffel Tower! Not that you could see much of it - only the base really and the faintest outline of the some of the tower itself. So that is disappointing. Is it like this always or just autumn? It was never like this when I dreamt I was in Paris - in fact, in my dreams, the distinguishing features were a.) the wide streets (check) and b.) the blinding sunlight (ahh...) Oh well. It's still Paris, isn't it? Yes.

So I went to the Pompidou Centre today (museum of modern art) which was utterly wonderful. Matisse, Picasso, Basquait, Pollock... etc etc. Loved it. The picnic was good too (despite the lack of views!).

I felt quite naked here yesterday, not wearing a scarf. All the French women wear scarves. All. of. them. So I had to wear my scarf today, but I think they could still tell I was an imposter. The French are funny in their rudeness. Most people I have said 'Parlez-vous anglais?' to have either been nice and spoken English to me, or said a flat 'non' and then understood everything I have said in my combination of English and very broken French, and then replied in English! ... Though I find the French men really, ah, forward. I have had at least half a dozen (and a baker's dozen at that!) men just start talking to me on the street, in parks, on the metro, wherever; continue the conversation in Frenglish after my now standard 'parlez-vous anglais' and invite me to sit, join him, walk somewhere, drink something. Eek! Is it just because I am a sheila, alone, in a big city and I look like I need a protective hairy French arm around me? And they are all OLD-ish men. None of the young hotties I have seen around. Like the chap on the metro today who was wearing trying to be a French woman by wearing a scarf, and then he took out his knitting! (another scraf I think!)

Ok, well, should push off. Got to find a crepe that somewhere has my name on it. Have had no vegies since... pizza in London? No, the spinach in the Camden crepe in London on Sun night. Who needs vegies anyway? Not I! I can live on a diet of dairy (brie mainly) and crepes alone! Oh, I should also pain au chocolat it up before I leave tomorrow. Leaving tomorrow! So sad. I will be back though... in November maybe.

Au revoir.
xxx

Rain, crepes and more kitten action!

Hello chaps, Tom "the scab" says hi! I am right now in London, but not for very much longer as I'm off to gay Paris tomorrow. Enough of this English-speaking bizzo and there are way too many Aussies in the UK, London especially. It's like they're shaken Queensland upsidedown like a salt shaker and all the 18-30 year old idiots/yobbos/bogans have fallen out and landed here. And now, since Rachel left about a week ago, and Marnie (who was over here from Finland just for the weekend) left tonight, and -dare I say?- once I leave tomorrow, the Average Collective Intelligence of Aussies in London will drop dramatically. I'm surprised the Poms can stand it, but I guess it gives them something more to whine about! (Hee hee! Xenophobic AND un-patriotic me!)

So anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Since last I wrote, I been completely, utterly and pointlessly drenched in Glasgow. Which was kind of fitting, seeing as it was my last day in Scotland. It didn't help that in an attempt to avoid a small lake of a puddle in getting back to my youth hostel, I took a different route and ended up getting lost. I wandered round for a while, cursing my pathetic and increasingly failing sense of direction, the wind giving my previously trusty H&M umbrella a beating, and my jeans getting a free wash. Oh, did I mention it was raining? Eventually, I startled a kind Scottish postie who, once having realised I wasn't a walking drowned person, pointed me in the right direction - a new rival for my affections against the Scottish ferryman perhaps!? I got back to the hostel and within the hour it had stopped raining. If only I had stayed in the cafe/library at the bottom of the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art for another 3 hours on top of the 4 I'd already spent there and done even more Sudoko! Ah well, that's the price one will pay for lack of weather forcasts and forward planning. And for being in Scotland. And for not wearing one's trusty flasher-esque plastic Mack. *sigh* If only I had been planning some flashing that day...

Anyway, from Glasgow I went to Manchester to visit Rossage the Sausage who lives in a very nice terrace house where I felt right at home. His housemates are cool but cooler still was that while I was there, they got a kitten - a tiny, little, black, slightly fluffy kitten who they called Audrey, after Audrey Horn in Twin Peaks! She was so utterly tiny and cute and first timid and then playful... Perhaps this trip is a tour de kittens, rather than the tour de crepes I originally predicted?! No, I had crepes today and I will have nothing but crepes in Paris! Crepes AND kittens perhaps? Anyway, then in Manchester we all went out for Ross' housemate's birthday after having downed roughly a bottle of red wine each, then danced (to at least one Cure song!) and drank lager and then stumbled home in the rain, and then I woke up with a massive hangover and vowed never to drink again... which I sustained for roughly 48 hours when here in London we had some Baileys. And also beer. So a sad and sorry hungover me caught my superfast swish Virgin train to London - catching it with only 5 mins to spare! - gradually recovered enough to digest solids and got to London, where I have been staying with my buddy Karien who lives in Wimbledon. Marnie made a flying surprise visit on us and we went to the Tate Modern (which I loved), Borough Market (where we ate so many yummy cheese samples), and today I had a repeat performance of the famouse Hampstead crepes. Which were well worth the 50 min trip on the tube there (then 50 mins back), and the 50 min queue for the crepes themselves. Parisian crepes have a lot to live up to!

I should really leave it here because it is kind of the middle of the night and I have to catch a plane tomorrow and want a little more than 5 mins to spare this time! Plus I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally need to sleep.

Hope everyone is bonza. Please write me and tell me what you're up to.
Love, E.
xxx