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Dutch courage

/ stew_jam

After a week of wining and Rhining we headed to the Netherlands to be exposed to, but not partake in, some slightly stronger legal drugs (seriously not sure if the diplomats roaming the streets or the crockery coming out of Delft are more baked around here) and spend time with some very good friends who live there. We spent 4 days in Den Haag (pron: “Den“ and the sound you make when you realise you‘ve just swallowed that wasp that was hanging around your beer, “aaaaaakgh!”. You also have to be slightly aggressive when you say it, a “we know it‘s a horrible sounding language but it‘s ours!” kind of thing).

Although we only stayed Den Haag we were able to see all the sights of the Netherlands in one morning, thanks to the awesome miniature replicas at Madurodam (we assume meant for kids). Kind of like Tassie‘s Tudor village, but much, much better and actually often visited. The highlight, for Lea, was seeing James get squirted on by a dyke. There was a game (we assume meant for kids) where this dyke started leaking and you had to stick your finger in it to plug the leak. Then a leak would spring out elsewhere…and so on. While I never quite managed to succeed, I was reasonably confident I knew what was needed to finish, but I could never put my finger on it.

Other than just hanging out, we also visited an incredible castle (one of the best we’ve seen!), the beach, the Escher museum, went for a big ride through town, and went to a street party. Then, after James got over the shock that after having reclaimed almost their entire country the Dutch were still not satisfied and had now started making China, we potted around Royal Delft…and after a couple of non-driving-day-morning-mimosas I was a bit more like a bull in a China factory. Delft was a lovely little day trip. We had been a bit apprehensive at first, as our experiences with Dutch ovens haven‘t ended well, so the idea of a Dutch kiln was truly terrifying!

Netflix et chill

/ stew_jam

After  a winter wondrous 11 days in the UK it was time to F off to France and complete our FUK’ing trip in Paris.  We were expecting to be surrounded by high viz gillets jaunes and fires burning in the streets, instead we were met with an eerie since of silence on the chilly Parisian streets. A silence only broken by trying to touch a piece of cheese in our “friendly” MOF fromagerie.

With so much of our time in Paris spent (fr)omage to baby cheeses, it must have been thanks to him that NOTHING happened!! And it was great! The nearest we came to danger was on the Tuileries Christmas market when we saw a horror ride themed around Michael Jackson in a Santa suit…now if only he was to sing from fiddler on the roof???

We stayed at the same place as last time, for the first time ever! Still an incredible location, but we started to realise that maybe the romance of last time overlooked a few essential amenities like soaps, comfortable bed, oven…but realised our priorities were straight when our make shift cheese, croissant and baguette bag rubbish was placed in makeshift bins from bottles of vintage Veuve, Moët and Pommery.

New activities in Paris: we went inside Notre Dame (no euphemism), found the falafel in le Marais (no euphemism) and watched Netflix…cos we could. 

Merci toujours Paris! If only we could start every year in you (no euphemism).

The Stewarts do Edinburgh

/ stew_jam

With James powering through a cold and feeling excited to head to Scotland, albeit with some trepidation that blocked ears might not be the best thing to have when trying to understand the locals,  Lea put any worries aside:

Lea: “How are you feeling?“

James: “I‘m fine!!“

Lea: “Ok, but you sound more like Nanny Fine.“

We took a beautiful train ride through England and along the Scottish coast to Edinburgh where we stayed through the Hogmany festival with our friends from London.

Much of our time in Edinburgh revolved around searching for an appropriate amount of items made of Stewart tartan to take home. We walked up and down the Royal Mile, surprised by the amount of cinnamon sticks burning, perhaps to cover up the unusual smell of the old town. It left us wondering if there was more incense in the Royal Mile than in the Royal Line.

Shopping success was had with a scarf and a bow-tie, but there was disappointment as no Stewart undies could be found. This isn‘t overly surprising as it turns out most clan tartan undies are actually invisible.  Info that would have been useful in London when I didn‘t have my bag. The highlight came when Lea had to hand over her email address on buying the bow-tie and the giggles that came when the salesman realised we weren‘t your ordinary tartan buying tourists (each stocking up on more fabric than went into Idi Amin‘s final kilt), we were far sadder than the ordinary.

Lea, desperate to do a whisky tasting, found us a good one, where we got 5 different drams each. James knew he didn‘t like whisky, but went along anyway. Lea, one sniff in, “I cant drink any of these…“ Man flu aside, James stepped up to polish off most of the 10 drams within the hour, along the way confirming his dislike for young and smokey ones. Which is a little strange, as Lea was young and smokey when we first met!!??

We loved Edinburgh, and felt at home in the castle where our tour guide made his daily joke about asking tourists what time we thought the 1 o‘clock gun might fire (these are my people!), however the 500 year old portraits of James Stewarts in the castle, and being surrounded by 60000 kids pissing in the street to ring in the new year, left us feeling a little…auld.

Christmas really is…all around

/ stew_jam

After delay upon delay, including a missing pilot at JFK, to get us home from the US, we were looking forward to an uneventful start to our next trip. And as luck would have it, it was indeed uneventful…for the first 6 hours. Then we actually had an aborted take off in Singapore, in an A380 half way down the runway quickly changed our luck. Another 3 hours on the tarmac ensued as they somehow managed to fix the mechanical issue and we waited for the brakes to cool down!

On arrival at Heathrow we could breath a sigh of relief and awaited our Love Actually style greeting, before lining up for 2 hours to then find out my bag had been lost. This was actually perfect as after the aborted take off I was confident my undies still had a few more days in them. After 2 days, Lea started offering me to try hers and it took all my powers of persuasion to convince her this hadn‘t been a 15+ year elaborate ruse of always packing my undies in one bag hoping for this moment to come. And besides, these ones were starting to grow on me..actually.

Anyway…I don‘t want to bore with tails of woh as the troubles of travel are short-lived, but include them because it‘s Christmas…and at Christmas you tell the truth. A tradition dating back to the first Christmas and the immaculate conception. “Honestly, Joseph, it was God!“. And one that continues to this day through Santa.

After a lovely greeting and lunch with our gracious hosts at their lovely home in Greenwich where we were presented with awesome Christmas jumpers (taking the numer of jumpers James had access to to one…so don‘t judge the photos, it‘s half necessity and half Christmas spirit…who am I kidding I would have worn that everday anyway), we were treated to a Panto at the local theatre. It was a traditional Christmas performance of Robinson Crusoe and very quickly we could see why so many Aussie stars from Neighbours and Home and Away travel to perform in Pantos, for a lesson in subtlety. The shows are aimed at children, but certainly entertain the adults. There are 4 shot cocktails on offer, that you can take into the theatre, and more overt sexuality in a children’s show than in the last rendition of tie me kangaroo down…

On our second day in London, we travelled into town to see the Borough markets where Tones asked James if we should get some brandy ‘n‘ cider. James was aware that the English aren‘t renowned for their hygeine so wasn‘t sure if he was offering the girls the latest in brandy based disinfectant, but when he received the mulled cider with an extra shot or two of apple brandy things became much clearer…for a bit. James and Lea continued over Tower bridge, with more brandy ‘n‘ cider, toured St Paul’s and went to Harrods before we all met up at Winter Wonderland in Hyde park. An incredible set up for young and old, with the highlight being a carousel tuned into a bar!! Which Lea described as…horseome.

Day 3 included a walk from London Bridge to the Tate Modern, where we saw a busker dressed as Santa playing “If I were a rich man“. James thought it was strange that a Santa would choose to play Jewish songs, but even stranger for any Santa to be playing Fiddler on the Roof. At the Tate, there was a fascinating movie playing called “The Clock“, in which each short scene included a shot of a clock/watch from other movies that counted along in real time. It was amazing, not just to watch, but to think of all the time spent researching looking for clocks. Unless they used some sort of facial recognition software…Other than the Tate, we got out to Kensington to see the Natural History Museum and back up he British Museum where we saw the Rosetta stone and so many Egyptian mummies that were just…petrifying. After all this we went to Covent Garden and Leicester Square for more Christmas markets, which was by far the best bang for buck Xmas hit in the heart of London.

Day 4 was Christmas Eve!!! We were treated to a sky high breakfast bubbles in the xxxx tower with an absolutely fabulous view over London. Our first double decker red bus ride took us along the Strand to Trafalgar square, where we then walked to Hamley‘s toy store in Sohoho. At Hamley‘s, Lea, who had forgotten she was wearing a jumper saying “Mrs Claus“, was accosted by an elf demanding, “why aren‘t you at work!!! Did you get the day off??? Very lucky…VERY LUCKY!!!“ Unfortunately, for this brilliant improving elf it would be some time until we realised what she was wearing and appreciated his true genius and the energy to keep in character, which took real elfort.

On Christmas day we were spoiled with as good a turkey roast as you could hope for…having never really hoped for a turkey roast, accompanied by goose fat soaked potatoes…… amazing!!! After having waited in line at 7am on Christmas Eve to pick up the turkey, Lea delerious with Christmas joy decided to impose an extra challenge on our hosts by purchasing a jar containing at least the body fat of a dozen geese and enough calories to feed a small African nation. Christmas lunch was worked off with a post sunset walk (5pm) through the Greenwich gardens to the observatory where we stared up the lights of the city and straddled the meridian line and James learnt that GMT didn‘t stand for a drink for the undecided, having (hopefully) thought prior that it was Gin and Mmmm Tonic??

Having spent Boxing Day exploring the many o‘ pub in Greenwich as well as the South Wharf Christmas, our final day included a trip back to Westminster where we explored the Mausoleum turned wedding venue of Westminster Abbey. If you look past the fact you‘re in a church, it is a truly humbling experience to simultaneoussly stand where the mortal remains of Newton, Darwin, Hawking, Farraday, Rutherford, Kelvin, Dickens, Chaucer, Kipling, Churchill and so many others. You‘re literally standing on the shoulders of giants to see further, but actually to write a crappy travel blog.

 

Au Canada

/ stew_jam

From British Canada, where they pretended to tolerate the French side of the dual linguistic nature of the country, to French Canada where it was entirely ignored. Although, having said that, it’s amazing how many of the citizens are fluent in both languages, particularly the younger generation. So much so that it’s actually worse trying to speak French because they can tell you’re not a French speaker just by looking at you (or probably Lea). And you might need to be rescued and get your accidental order of ‘almond’ latés changed back to ‘small’ latés…I still can’t work out how that happened. Or lose all your hair by walking into the dozens of barbiers, that were neither bars nor served any biers.

It really was surprisingly difficult to get a drink in this town. But while there, we were told that it was even harder to get a joint, as 2 days in to their legal weed experiment…the country had run out. That’s why you can’t leave the government in charge of weed supplies, bunch of dopes.

In Montreal we finally managed to try the very French Canadian dish of poutine. It may have been the sound ‘poo’ in the name along with the faint hint of horse crap in the air that didn’t really make this dish seem appealing. Or maybe it was the fact that it’s made of soggy chips covered in cheese curds and a strange gravy. Or maybe it was the similarity of the name to the word ‘putain’ (pardon my French). The difference here is one’s a ‘gros mot’ and the other is just gross.

This was just a very small bite of French Canada (proportional to the size of the bite Lea took of her poutine) and one of the most amazing things to us was the strong tie to French France. We’d tasted incredible wines in BC, but it was tough to find many non-French wines in any restaurants, half the restaurants were French themed (at least in the old town) and the other half seemed Portuguese, which is probably more culturally relevant to Montreal these days. In stark contrast our experience has been that the French French couldn’t give a ‘poutine’ about Canada…nor I guess, anyone. Maybe that’s the egalité they’re always on about.

PS- Despite not having any close encounters with wildlife or anything funny happening in Montreal (see above), it snowed on us for the first time!! So I guess it is kinda cool. Lea also managed her first full cheese dinner for the trip, giving her that sense of being in little Europe and James the familiar feeling of needing to carry a couple of Euros in his pocket in case he needed to find a train station dunny.

Of Meese and Men

/ stew_jam

So it turns out that the plural of moose isn’t in fact meese as one Canadian lady who tried to take advantage of us in moment of sheer terror would have you believe…I’ll explain later, but other possible post titles included: “The Rockies and Bullwinkle” or “Are you a man or a moose?”

Having worried about the drive into the Rockies for months, we were confronted with picture perfect driving conditions so all of a sudden had absolutely nothing to worry about!! That wouldn’t last long….

Before heading to Lake Louise, we made a few stops along the way. The first was a pretty, little walk along a river through the trees. We were completely alone when James pondered whether bears would be more likely to eat a human just before hibernation season so we decided to cut it short, as risking our lives for a trail named “Skunk Cabbage” didn’t seem worth it, despite the obituary material it may provide.

Our next stop was the mirror-like Lake Emerald. So inspired by the beauty were we, that we decided to hike around the lake without checking a) how far it was, and b) what to do when confronted by wildlife. We remembered from our time in Yosemite that if you see a bear or a mountain lion you need to stay still for one of them and run from the other…just not sure which for which animal.

The walk started out being lovely. The scariest moment came as James, pushing for the perfect photo for the readers, walked a little close to the lake and started to hear cracking underfoot. Not having walked on ice this thin since the beaver jokes in the previous post he backed away carefully. I’m sure there’s a gag in there about crack and ice, but I’m not clever enough to…roll it all together…is that how you do ice?? No? How about: James-1, Ice-0, stick that in you pipe and smoke it..I really don’t know how to use drugs.

A little later / further away from help, we heard what we thought must have been a small waterfall into the lake, so we wandered over to investigate. Upon closer inspection we thought, “it must be people swimming”, then we saw some faces and thought, “oh no…it’s actually horses, how weird??” Then the panic set in as we realised it was a group of 4 moose (not meese)…3 “babies” and one big horny father walking in the edge of the lake. Unfortunately we were only ~2m from the edge of said lake, where we acted like snow and froze…apart from James’ shaking legs. We had no trees to cover us from their sights as the babies freaked and ran away. As the daddy then passed by, any thought James had to get out the camera to get a selfie with this magnificent looking beast were quickly quelled by the picture of what those horns could do with my burger bloated belly. The Canadians that later took this piss out of us, told us how lucky we were to have seen them as they were 60 and have only ever seen 2 wild moose! They then looked very relieved when we told them how close we were, saying we were lucky again, with a slight different intonation and adding “that’s a little too close eh?” NB: The photos of the moose below were supplied by these guys. What followed was another hour hiking around the lake, trying to take in the beautiful views rather than focus on the moose footprints on the path and the parting words of our new friends, “we’ll send you guys ahead in case of bears eh?”

Comparing notes afterwards, Lea and I both agreed this was as scared as we’d ever been in the wild. Not even being stranded in an open top jeep in Zimbabwe in the middle of the night listening to the lions on either side of us while waiting for help that was coming ‘just now’, or being stuck in a canoe in 4” water on a creek in Zambia staring simultaneously at a lion, a hippo and a herd of elephants as they all stared back was quite as scary. Lea commented that was safe because the guides had guns, James confirmed to Lea that they might have had guns, but they certainly didn’t take them in the boats. It’s hard to judge retrospective fear, but maybe the canoe situation might be number 1 for Lea now. NB: scorpion to the face is clearly number 1 in fear factor, but not considered in the wild…as it was really in tents.

We then spent 2 days staring at the incredible Lake Louise from the comfort of our room or the bar (taking too many photos…sorry). Ie. back to normal holidaying. Our last night in the Rockies was in the surprisingly stunning Banff. A gondola up a mountain to take in 360 degree views of more snow capped mountains, lunch at the strange, wonderful Banff Springs hotel and a night spent ‘chilling’ out in front of yet another gas fireplace.

BC 2018 AD

/ stew_jam

After a week in the US it was finally time for us to head off alone and explore Canada eh? We were very tempted to stay in the States, but if we didn’t go to Canada we’d need to redo the title of the blog and we ain’t got time for that.

First stop, Vancouver, one of the ‘most liveable’ cities in the world and it’s not hard to see why…everyone on the streets seems very much alive. That’s unfortunately only half true, there seem to be more people living rough here than we recall seeing on our first trip to San Francisco, and significantly more than our trip to Monaco.

October is generally the 4th wettest month of the year in what is a VERY wet city, so, of course, with our luck, we didn’t see a cloud the entire time we were there. The downside to this was that we felt obliged to engage in some of the many outdoor activities, such as: Wandering the impeccably maintained Capilano suspension bridge and park grounds (even more unfortunate were the incessant calls to ‘squeeze me, honey, honey…’) and catch the gondola up Grousse mountain. A mountain so good it was named by my sister in the late 80s. It could so easily have been “Choice mountain” (early 90s) or “Tattslotto Mountain” (late 90s). We partook in one of our favourite sunny day activities of drinking while taking in the view, and got to see two grizzlies frolicking in what seemed a rather poorly constructed enclosure. Lea, desperate to contribute, described the scene as ‘unbearably cute’, which will go down as one of the lowlights of the trip…only because of my feelings of guilt, what have I done to this poor girl.

We were lucky enough to see the bears, but didn’t manage to see any beavers. However, this didn’t stop the Vancouverians from using the beaver title almost everywhere, from the name of lakes, parks, creeks, etc to its common appearance on menus. I’m sure some of the dishes, such as beaver stew etc, didn’t use real beaver. But if they used some faux beaver surely they should call it “murkin stew” to be clear?? And with so many menus dedicated to beaver, I’m surprised nobody was clever enough to offer up a surprise palette cleanser, or an…amuse bush…

Vancouver impressed us greatly, with everywhere playing easy listening from the 70s, 80s, 90s and the now (ie. James and Lea’s home playlist) and gentle waft of dope, wait that’s not cool, let’s say marijuana cigarettes in the air, there were just a couple of things that we found strange. Long lines at bars and restaurants even through there were an abundance of free tables (just not enough servers for the host to assign extra tables too!) and the fact that everyone stared at us a little more than usual. Lots of ‘heys’ and even one high 5 for James makes us sure he must “bear” (Lea again) a resemblance to what we hope is some current superstar for the Canucks or Roughriders, but a more likely is to a retired curler who’s let himself go.

Lea made the mistake of commenting that we’d had more Caesar salads than burgers on the trip (pre-BC, 2:3). So we sure made up for it here (post BC, burgers 6: Caesars 3, see photos for proof). In Vancouver, Lea had an incredible burger with truffle aioli on the side which she said was the best so far…and that’s the truffe!!!

After Vancouver, we somehow managed to find ourselves in another wineland, a mere 6 hour drive away! #chasingthegrape #raisindetre We only had 2 days to explore, day 1 was enough for Lea to say, “..this is without doubt the prettiest wineland we’ve visited…this year…I mean this financial year…”. By the end of day 2, we conceded the full 2018 was beaten. I guess we only went to 7 in NZ.

After wine, we headed to the mountains, with our final base camp in Revelstoke. <Revelstoke paragraph>

Chasing the grape

/ stew_jam

After a massive weekend on the booze in Palm Springs, we needed a break. So we flew to San Francisco (aka San Fran, aka Frisco…aka queue looks of disgust from James O) so we could head to wine country. The cause of and solution to all our problems. NB: If you’d ever wondered if a flight through a desert valley over a windfarm would be bumpy, I’d recommend you to stop reading now to avoid anymore head scratching…But since you haven’t I’ll continue.

In Palm Springs, Heather had enlightened us of a new phrase, which both “justified” / explained / described our existence and has become our new mantra…or at least our answer when people ask “what do you do?” When last in Sonoma they had met a much more interesting couple than us describe their, now retired, existence as “Chasing the grape”, ie. travelling from wine land to wine land…THERE ARE MORE LIKE US!!! I’d probably say for us it’s more than a mantra, perhaps a “raisin d’être”…

In an incredible feat of dedication to our ‘new’ raisin d’être, we (Lea, Dave and I [or ‘me’…wine seems to blur the proper use of first person subjects and objects]) managed to catch our first grape at ~10am (it turns out grapes are quite slow and no match for our drunken stumbling through the vineyard or our collective collection of primary school athletics participation awards). This first visit just happened to be at the winery where our friend, Sally, (Dave’s wife) was working for vintage. Quelle coincidence!! (Sorry not Canada yet, translation: “let’s get pissed in the morning!”). A much appreciated complimentary tasting thanks to Sal (although the super ripped server spent more time checking out his own guns rather than dishing out compliments to the Geophysicists and Reservoir Engineers present…and Lea), was followed by a private tour of the winery, where Sally told us how cultured she’d become before showing us the special “kill room” where she’d spent the last two months breading yeast…

We had a great drive along the ironically named Russian river, which was barely moving, tasted so many wines that Dave ended up commenting how one tasted ‘purple’ <insert photo of Ralph Wiggum that only James remembers> and visited Francis Ford Coppola’s winery where there were by far more disabled parks than abled, and only slightly fewer for horses… I guess it takes a brave horse to visit Francis’ place, and an even braver one to request a sleep over. We walked the impressive building and grounds with sprawling palm trees and lush vines, but didn’t do a tasting as it was getting late in the afternoon and we love the smell of palm in the morning.

Other than Chasing the grape, our next favourite phrase of our two days of tastings came from the last person you’d want to hear it from. On an amazing, James O organised tour, a lovely man introduced us to what he described as a “Porch Pounder”. Once we realised what he meant by an “easy, approachable, white, with a good nose and great body that you’d smash on your balcony after work”…was in fact an easy to drink ‘white wine’, we felt much more comfortable.

Mrs Saigon

/ stew_jam

The final stop in our brief tour of Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh City. If you were confused as to whether you’re in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City, then the towering propogana posters around town would soon set you straight. This is Ho Chi Minh’s town now, despite most people still calling it Saigon…actually I’m still very confused.

We started with a pretty rough landing, after sitting in a cloud-high holding pattern for some time, we bounced back to a few thousand feet after first touch down, leaving skid marks in places other than the runway. Then we weren’t taken by the city straight away, much bigger, slower, ex-patty, far more expensive (we would have spent more in 2 nights here than the entire rest of our trip) and in general people seemed a little more complacent and lazy than in the North (maybe an influence of their longer interaction with the West…). But as we explored more, we once again fell in love with another part of this amazing country.

Lea’s braving of the traffic and her first time on a “motorbike” helped us see much more of Saigon than we would have on foot or in taxis and showed us some of the best seafood we’ve had (anywhere) on the back of vintage Vespas. We walked 12km’s in 35C that feels like 45C weather and had the only meal in my life where I walked out weighing less than when I walked in, having excreted a significant part of my body weight through my pores (and other orifices) over our final Pho. (Pho-nal?? Sorry, that’s perhaps a bridge too… Pho...) We thought about getting something different, but ended up both just getting the same soup…homo-phos? (Ok that’s it, but you can see the reason pho the original…banh. Ok that’s really it.)

We saved a small photune (sorry) by drinking our now infamous special “waters” by the rooftop pool, looking out over the Reunification Palace, had a wonderful final dinner and, Lea, perhaps delusional from not having visited a single wine region or sick of drinking 20c beers in the gutter, suggested we visit a couple of micro-breweries…James reluctantly followed.

Cảm ơn Vietnam. Thank you for everything. It really was truly was unphogettable. However, Mum told me to tell you, “maybe it’s about time to put up your prices”.

On the Hué to Hoi An

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We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the North and feel like we left a little piece of us behind…perhaps a little piece of our behinds behind at least after the final northern Pho liquidising all of James’ internals in the hours before boarding our first flight to Hué.

Hué is the former capital of Vietnam, the home to the last imperial family and what remains of the Citadel that was heavily bombed over two wars with the West. We only had one night in Hué, but we loved touring the Citadel, Pho-bidden city (see addendum) and ventured out to see the Pagoda after our first Asian Uber drive!

We didn’t realise at the time, but apparently there was only one Uber driver in Hué and trying to find someone to get us back turned out to be a little tricky. Luckily by now we were expert barterers so when approached by the many boat operators who could have taken us on a leisurely ride back to our hotel, we knew what to do (knowing that an Uber would be about 60,000…but not yet knowing we wouldn’t be able to get one). The lady approached and offered us a ride for 200,000 each!! This is where calm heads really kick in. As a reaction to this exorbitant opening bid (just over $10 per person…) we yelled back, “ok…how about ZERO…take that!!”, panicked and walked away. The price came some way down to maybe 100,000 per person but by this stage we were committed and had already started our fruitless attempts at getting an Uber, so we kept walking as a sign of power in all negotiations…7km’s later we made it back to our hotel.

Along the…Hué…James was able to put his know well honed skills to the test. After getting a great price on street beers, 15,000 (about 80c) each at the 2km mark of our other negotiation, the 3km beer people were in for it. Having regularly being paying 20,000, there was to be none of that today. I walked in and DEMANDED beers for 15,000!! To which the lovely man replied, 10,000!!! SOLD!! I’ll take 2! I then handed him 30,000 by accident. He smiled and gave 10,000 back. That’ll learn him.

From Hué we drove to Hoi An, stopping at an incredible lagoon, the Hai Van pass over the mountains (which cars can also use) and explored the marble mountains near Da Nang. Along the way you couldn’t help but notice how utterly horrifying it must have been to fight so much of the war in this jungle and mountain laced terrain and that the bravest thing I’d done here was eat a Pho in a white T-shirt. And that I most certainly wasn’t brave enough to test out the white undies.

It wasn’t great timing, but as we reached the trickiest bit of the drive (which was like the great ocean road, but raised hundreds of metres…and in Vietnam), I think I realised why our driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt despite the clear and present dangers that faced us. So as we climbed and descended the mountains all I could think about was it better to crash without a seatbelt or with one and wait hopelessly for help that would never arrive…good times. Lucky you can drink beers in the car.

Hoi An was a very different experience for us, throngs of tourists (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) descend on the town at ~5pm every day to see the town lit up with glorious lanterns on the buildings and in the river, to pay small fortunes for items that may well come from their own countries and to ride through the lanterns on a boat. Not for us, as we were still boat shy and besides that mixture of wooden boats and burning lanterns didn’t sit too well…we hadn’t felt that uneasy since getting in our lift in Hué and seeing a pot of burning oil in the corner.

Despite the tourists (we’re well aware that’s what we are), Hoi An was a great place to see a bit of the best and worst that Vietnam has to offer. We did an awesome cooking class, spent a day by our rooftop pool (drinking “water” from the hotel water bottles that were totally not filled with G&T’s made from cheap street hooch to avoid paying poolside prices), drank more “fresh” beer, bought some silk scarves (putting those haggling skills back on show) and generally had an awesome time. However, while on the Japanese bridge (which it looked like they’d returned to claim) someone on a bike actually rode into Lea and bruised her arm in almost the exact place as New Zealand. It was a little bit of a surprise as everywhere in town people seemed to know and love Lea as they came running down the street waving at her, yelling “lady, lady, lady!”…ok…maybe they don’t know her that well.

We called Mum from Hoi An to show her the sights and tell her what the future of Vietnam would be like, which Mum said she’d predicted years ago in a statement that took me back to my childhood. We would always go out for Vietnamese food, Mum would fall in love with the people running the restaurants and eventually tell them to put their prices up, then they would and we’d boycott them for the restaurant down the road.

The highlight of the trip and maybe our lives happened while drinking beer next to the river. One of the street food sales lady people managed to hook onto an American couple and explained how everything she had was home made from scratch, to which the nice young man replied, shocked, “you make….peanuts??“, in a way that you hope he was being cynical, but in another, far more hysterical way, you hope he wasn’t.

Addendum

Due to popular demand the pun moratorium has been lifted, and by popular I mean one nameless person wanted more. I’m not saying who requested it, but I’ll give a cryptic clue (because he likes cryptics). Q: He who passes wind on hidden explosives in Germany. Too cryptic?? A: Mein Vater. Still don’t get it? Let’s just call him…”Dad”.

Anyway, here are some sure to be classics that didn’t make the last post…no pun intended that time.

  • Courtesy of “Dad” during his request, I’ve adjusted it slightly: I hear that during the war some were forced into cannibalism. It must have been difficult to tell who was friend or Pho…
  • When we were in Hanoi, our tour guide was explaining to us the 3 different meanings of the word Pho and the different accents used to give different pronunciations. I guess it was a lesson in Pho-netics…
  • What do you call a fake noodle soup? A faux-Pho?
  • How do you ask if you have a faux-Pho? Is this Pho real?? Pho sure?? (NB: This was also adapted from “Dad” request)
  • What do you call a noodle soup you’re not allowed to eat? Pho-bidden
  • What do you call it when you ate a noodle soup that was phobidden? A Pho-pas
  • What’s the name of the soup that’s won best noodle soup 10 years running? Pho-middable.
  • What do you call it when you take a selfie with a noodle soup? A Pho-to.
  • What do you call an Italian guy eating noodle soup? Pho-nzie…

Ok I think we can all agree that’s enough.

UnPhogettable

/ stew_jam

Welcome to Vietnam!! A land where:

  • Honking your horn replaces: using your indicator; changing your mind after accidentally using your indicator; saying you’ve stopped in the middle of the road to text; or haven’t stopped to text so watch out; or to just let the world you exist and have a way to let everyone else know about it;
  • The strange people are the ones not in a spontaneous dance competition;
  • You wish you had more vices to indulge apart from street drinking;
  • Zebra crossings are used ironically to give tourists a false sense of security;
  • Dogs are unbearably cute…probably because the know they have to be. It’s better to be cute than tasty;
  • The alarm clock is redundant thanks to constant construction (or reconstruction) and destruction, honking horns (see above), street roosters and babies crying (I think their tears are used to give their Phos what their colonial rulers would have called their ‘I don’t know what’…);
  • The healthy diet is offset by the addition of condensed milk to coffee…and almost everything else;
  • There would be need to constantly fear electrocution as most of the exposed wires are overhead…except that overhead in Vietnam is about 5’4″;
  • Cafe Melbourne coffee is at Melbourne prices, but here (unlike Perth) that doesn’t mean it’s cheap;
  • Cafe Bong isn’t what you’d think it is, but neither was Cafe Tit, and that’s ok because you’re happy not everything is literal, otherwise handing over a bunch of Dong for a night on a Junk boat could have been a very different experience;
  • There are way too many other puns that can be made but are best left alone, after Lea commented how she found the wait at the airport very…Hanoi-ing, but was later moved enough to comment “Hanoice is Hanoi…” and we then moved to a Hlong to Ha Long bay competition that made us both sick, thus kickstarting the great pun embargo;
  • You are somehow instant friends with all other Caucasions even if they’re degenerates drinking beer in a gutter…next to you;
  • The first Aussie you meet in the gutter is shaking more than you and the five 20c beers you both knock back does a lot more for your shakes than his as he might need something a tad stronger…like coffee with an egg and condensed milk;
  • A healthy fear of chairs (when pushing towards the best part of 100kg) turns to acceptance as your arse drops 4 feet to plonk on tiny plastic chairs designed for…Vietnamese;
  • Shoe shiners work two jobs as the spare sets of thongs they carry to lend to customers appear double up as mushroom farms;
  • The police’s most important job is to take vendor’s chairs off the footpaths, put them in their trucks and then sell them back…repeat;
  • A beer with free chips isn’t as it seems… the chips come in the glass (that was Lea again…I thought we said no more puns!);
  • The fakes are so well done they’re almost indistinguishable apart from the name, but ‘Moet and Chamdon’ is too clever not to buy;
  • You get the chance to choose hotel rooms by weighing up a room with a balcony or one with ability to flush toilet paper #thirdworldproblems;
  • Pho is pronounced more like ‘fur’ and with beef it’s like ‘fur ball’…which is fine, but slightly uncomfortbale because you’re sure some menu items really do come with fur balls…
  • English sarcasm fails to translate;
  • Remembering how to say ‘thank you’ sounds like “come on” can get you into trouble as actually saying ‘come on’ might sound like shut up so it’s a fine line between being polite and offensive #theJamesStewartStory
  • You’re not sure why they keep lighting fires in the street…until you think of every time you’ve lit a match in the toilet…
  • Our tour guide to Ha Long bay could have been right at home giving relationship advice with my Father in Law at our wedding as he talked of his only adventure sport being arguing with his wife and how the bay is like a lady as it’s beauty changes with it’s moods…
  • A five dollar upgrade got us a room on our boat 5 times as big as the others, including a toilet you could flush paper in after having had a poo with a view;
  • After worrying about every little thing that probably won’t happen back in Australia, because something will clearly go awry here you somehow stop worrying (acceptance: just like the fat tourist breaking chair acceptance);
  • If you made it to day 4 before your first uncontrollable bowel movements you’ve done well…I did well!

It was difficult arranging these random thoughts into a coherent story of our time in the North (I assume, I certainly didn’t try). But all ‘jokes’ aside, we loved our 3 nights in Hanoi, a mind blowing amalgam of 8 million locals and god knows how many tourists, and were so lucky to have a perfect night in Halong Bay. The people work so hard and are fiercely patriotic in a way you only see back home in conjunction with radical racism. But here they are so friendly to us despite the fact our faces must remind some of them of those that caused them to lose their place in the world in less than a century only a short time ago.

No Foos and Weeze

/ stew_jam

After a week on the beautiful South Island and a forgettable flight through ex tropical cyclone we were finally in Auckland, gateway to the Bay of Islands, Waheike island and other stuff, but we were in Auckland.  Having never been so happy to be on “solid” ground (as solid as the ground can get in NZ), there was nothing Auckland could do to make us not love it there, but it tried.

We stayed out of the CBD, having not realised until told the flat taxi rate from the airport only counted to the CBD and not to an inner city suburb, somewhat closer to the airport (had it not been so wet and James not been so shaky it would have been cheaper to catch a fixed rate cab to the CBD and another one back to our place), in a great area called Ponsonby.  This was the place to be in the rain, full of awesome restaurants and bars, it was the perfect location for us to put on some extra kilos after all the shredding we’d done ex-streaming down South.

There was one break in the weather, however, and we made the most of it, taking the ferry away from Auckland to the stunning island of Waheike.  We were hoping for a day of getting back to nature, to really appreciate more of the flora of this spectacular country so set off tramping over the hills it a direction James chose completely at random.  You really wouldn’t believe the surprise on our faces when, not 10 minutes later, we stumbled across a cellar door with views back towards the city!!  And what’s more the one up the road happened to have a reservation under our name not 40 minutes later!  (NB: Grapes count as flora.)  What’s even better is there was a bus that could pick you up from one winery and drop you at the door to another, what??  Having worn heels and a dress to go tramping, Lea decided this was the better option, and James reluctantly tagged along.

Our final night in NZ was all set to be huge as we’d cleverly booked tickets to see the Foo Fighters and Weezer months ago!  However, our small break in the weather didn’t last long and it bucketed down all day leading up to what we discovered was an entirely outdoor concert.  Neither of us wanting to be the first to call it quits and thereby being the one blamed for missing the concert if the sun came out, we just drank at bars on the docks and awkwardly stared at each other in a strange game of chucken, constantly chicking both the weather and how much the tuckets had cost us.  (I’ve got another confession to make…after a guy in a sailor’s hat near the buses to the show spewed near my feet in the rain on my last day of holiday…there was no way I was going to go sit in the rain for 8 hours before getting on an early flight with a temporary carrier. But there was no way I was going to give in first!!)

Finally, after realising, no amount of footos would help improve the weather, we made the call and headed back to Ponsonby to drink with our new besties from Madrid.  This coincided with the moment the rain stopped.  Stressing over our wines at a cool little music bar and feeling totally fooked over, we trawled the webs and managed to find people to offloading tickets up to $400 for free, news that they’d run out of ponchos for sale and photos of hard-core fans lining up one by one at security (flat out confiscating umbrellas) in the rain for what must have felt like for everlong!  How happy these photos made provided a shocking insight into our humanity.  I guess it really gave us foo for thought.  We ended up having a great night, content in our decision and happy we didn’t have to sit through the irony of Weezer opening their set with “Island in the Sun”.

And we’ll need to be Royals…

/ stew_jam

After having been told by so many that the beauty of the South far surpasses the North, we jumped on a plane from Blenheim back to the North island…a 20 minute flight over the Sounds (seated 1A and 1B thank you, not keen to hang out with the riff raff back in rows 2 to 4) in what I had expected to the the most harrowing flight of the trip. In retrospect I wish I knew then what I know now and enjoyed it more. A healthy serve of potato gems in the lounge and we were back in the air, destination Queenstown!

En route, as we counted our dollars on the plane, it was a perfect day to see the South island (so good that James was too distracted and left his iPad on board meaning the world would be deprived of hearing about some duck’s holiday for a few more days), culminating in Mount Cook (tick) and Lake Wanaka (tick) before the spectacular approach into Queenstown. A town so named because it was once thought that only royalty would ever be able to afford to stay there. DINKS having not yet been invented. You’d expict the kiwis to be pretty good at fleecing, but this town takes it to a new livel! It made me glad I don’t have access to our credit card to be able to see the damage. Normally this kind of lux just ain’t for us, but we thought we’d live that fantasy.

Having said all that, we loved it and packed as much into our 2 days as possible. We took the gondola up the mountain not just for a glass of wine but, craving a different kind of buzz, we rode the luge!! The views from the course were so surreal, you could almost say they looked like an i-luge-ion…Afterwards, perhaps in reaction to me making that ‘joke’, Lea tripped down the stairs on the way out! For real, but the angry looks I get when we tell people she fell down the stairs when explaining an ever increasing number of bruises are palpable! At best I can only hope they think we were filming a Once Were Warriors sequel.

We had one of the most amazing experiences ever on the Shotover river in an incredible jet boat. With only 6 passengers in sometimes less than 2 inches of water the skipper (a mere child who was previously the bus driver) went nuts and damaged the boat in the process. It was ruduculously brulliant! Having a Fergburger just before, however, wasn’t the best idea. As the old agage goes: “never eat within 30 minutes of a dozen 360 spins in a jetboat over rock”. The night before we’d been on a slower paced cruise on the lake’s 105 year old steam boat. A real life working steam engine was open for viewing! Although this time the kid shovelling coal into the furnace didn’t seem so stoked to be doing his job…but so Watt. Afterwards we even had time to catch some of the ladies tennis, where we got to see shorts so tight they gave new meaning to the term “player’s box”.

The best quote of our time in Q-town was from Lea as we sat at a bar, gazing over the view: “I like it here, let’s get a bottle”. It sums up our trip/life, but I’ve included it as a reminder to self to get this printed on a T-shirt for her, and would have used it as a headline had I not included so many ‘Royals’ references.

From QT we set of for a long drive to Doubtful Sound (in a Corolla, but we don’t care, we were drivin’ Cadillacs in our dreams). With so many Sounds to choose from and only one night allocated, it was super difficult for us to choose which one to visit (given we can’t choose a restaurant if we have more than one choice), so Doubtful seemed the most apt selection. There’s not much I can say about the night on the water, the photos say plenty, but still not enough. I guess it can be summed up by them naming the ship’s bar after me, “JAS’s bar” (see pics for proof). We swam in the 26 degree water, kayaked and we even had 5 munutes of silence to listen to the water, trees and birds and get an understanding of why they call these bodies ‘Sounds’**.

**Fun fakt: the sounds in the Fiordland national park are not really sounds, but fiords, carved out by glaciers back in the ’80’s.

Following our time on Doubtful Sound we rented a small, stone guest cottage on a winery in the Gibbston valley, a picture pretty valley just outside of Queenstown. We went to the Gibbston wide renowned Tavern, sat on the grass outside our place watching the moon rise over the mountains and went cruisin’ down the highway in the hot, hot sun listening to “How Bizarre” and visiting the wineries. Wanna know the rest? Hey….buy the rights.

After an amazing moon rise on the first night in Gibbston, we were very excited about watching the eclipse on night 2. Unfortunately, however, we managed to find ourselves covered by our second ex cyclone in almost as many weeks. Unlucky as the whole valley is pretty much a desert. I guess it only rains once in a super, blood, blue moon….

Not only did the ex cyclone ruin our moon, but most of the next day also as we were due to fly through it from Queenstown to Auckland. And as they say at Air NZ: “Wi’ll whither the wuther whativer the wuther wither ewe like it or not…”. As we sat at the airport, flight after flight was cancelled leaving us wondering if we were scheduled on the only Super cyclone proof plane they had available? We weren’t. Just a normal aluminium tube hurtling through monsoonal clouds at right angles, dropping 100’s of feet at a time before seeing any clear air at cruising altitude 40 minutes later. 30 minutes of normal cyclonic induced turbulence, then repeat the take off experience while landing. On the bright side, James’ bowels were cleared pre-flight in expectation of what was to come, so no troubles on board…apart from squeezing Lea’s hand so hard she lost feeling in 2 fingers…no bruises though.

The Marlborough Man

/ stew_jam

After a number of amazing nights on the North island, we took the ferry from Wellington to Picton, through the Marlborough sounds. It was a three hour journey on a really bug shup, where they were so proud to announce their ‘world famous scones’ over the PA for only four fuffty and, adorably, ran a colouring competution for the kuds.

We had an interesting experience picking up our car in Picton, the struggling Fijian lady, who took as long to sort out one customer as her contimpories dud sux, finally got us into a car after being schooled by Lea while James stood back waiting to chip in with “you’d think they’d have the ‘Picton of the litter’ to choose from here…hahahahhahaa” But, thankfully, it didn’t come to that.

A short drive from Picton and we were in the Marlborough wine region, where the plethora of wines in their neat, sweet, petite rows make you feel like the world is safe and organised again…and winey. We stayed at a bnb which ended up to be on top of our own winery (after 5pm at least…a blessing which turned out to be a curse), where we spent the majority of our time looking over the view of the region.

Stunning location, stunning view, stunning wife, everything was going swimmingly when Lea decided to take that a tad more literally. We’d hired bikes and had vusuted many lovey cellar doors before Lea made the brave call (5 wineries in) to head 10km for Saint Claire, for little reason other than we’d had a strange experience with their wine at a Perth restaurant in 2007 and would never return again, but we won’t name names (unless you ask… it starts with the last and first letters of the alphabet…then ‘feranos’)…and we’d managed to find our way into a personal tour of the winery from a winemaker earlier in the day. Make sense?

Ok, slight digression there, but now we’re back on track…or at least Lea was for a minute. But then as she tried to change the song playing on our speaker, she took the idea of streaming to a new level and managed to ride into a creek** next to the cellar door. She survived with several big bruises, that people secretly blame on her husband anyway.

This biking day was also Australia Day and was on track to be the bist one ivver…until we managed to lock ourselves on our balcony. And by ‘we’ I mean the ‘we’ that had previously noticed the balcony’s door to tend to lock itself, so smugly took our keys out with us to watch the sunset. After resampling many of the day’s wines and solving the issue of world poverty (but being too drunk to remember how) we noticed the door had, as anticipated, locked us out. HAHA!! Stupid door, we have the keys, uddiot……but as it turns out they were keys to every other door than the balcony and everyone downstairs had gone home. Classic NZ humour.

In typical Stewart style we didn’t panic. Instead we crawled into fetal positions, cried and debated about who was keen to jump over the balcony..with ExStream Lea being first in line…yep, same girl who had, a few bottles earlier, managed to ride off a flat, bitumen road into a creek, was now almost insistent on jumping off a second storey ledge as if there were no more conceivable solutions. Luckily it didn’t come to this as we used our 2% phone battery to call our bike hire man to come and rescue us, our very own Marlborough Man.

In true Kiwi style, we can dufunutely say that of all the beautiful wine regions in the world we’ve vusuted, thus was surely the most recent….

**Lea would like to add the word “almost” before “riding into a creek”, but I thought it would spoil the flow, which is almost impossible to read as is, and based on the sounds I heard behind me, the bruises and, dare I say, sheepish look on her face, I’m not sure I’m convinced of the almost’s requirement.

Lady and the Tramper

/ stew_jam

Wilcome to New Zuland, Australia’s siventh and most choicest state! Almost…they could have bun, they may as well have joined, it’s so eerily familiar that we’ve been all ‘suxes n sivins’! They’re dollar is sumular, the cash notes, the roads, the North island scenery, the Draconian alcohol laws, the ANZAC memorials, pavlovas and smashed avos are all virry famuluar. So much like home we even drove past a Mountain named ‘Bruce’.

The only difference so far is the comedic accent they’re all sticking wuth to great iffict! But everyone is just so lovely that it’s hard to find anything to write about. And besides, taking the puss out of someone doesn’t quite sound right and we don’t want to come across as ducks.

It’s really only a minor difference in the accents (a lot of people have assumed we’re locals, or at least ‘Willingtonians’), but what a dufference! I have no idea what they thunk of us when we walk into a winery and order a ‘six pack’ to take away or when you spill wine on your lap and ask if they have any chux out the back to help clean it up. Make sure you answer correctly when you’re asked if you think the wine your tasting is ‘bitter’ than the last one and be careful describing your chardonnay as being ‘buttery’. Lea also pointed out that they must have had the least confronting of the punk movements over here, with the youths of the time struggling to choose between ‘hot punk’ or a more ‘pastel punk’.

Another difference is that all the fush n chups restaurants seem to be attached to Chinese restaurants. One can’t help but wonder which came first?? Did it start with a few dum sums and escalate from there?? Or vice versa? I guess it’s a bit chucken or the igg. (NB: ‘Chicken’ is what you do before boarding a plane over here.)

We flew in to Napier first, over the rugged country side, a patchwork of mountains and rivers that had cut beautiful valleys into the land. I’m not sure what they are called, but I think they’re gorgeous…

Napier is a cute seaside town full of art deco buildings ‘thanks’ to being razed by an earthquake in the early 30’s. And it didn’t take long for us to start enjoying the sumple pleasures in life, like screaming with delight when ‘Slice of Heaven’ plays on the car radio and the many pre-midday wine tastings being socially acceptable.

We caught up with the lovely Asha, vusuted some stunning wineries, had great dunner and tramped drove to the top of the Te Mata peak (not sure how that’s pronounced, but I guess you say tomato…I say Te Mata) before lunching in the Craggy Range vineyard below.

Next stop was Martinborough, a tiny country town surrounded by vineyards all within walking distance. Thus doesn’t really sound like our kind of town so we weren’t sure if we would like it there, but as it turns out, we dud. We perficted our own form of tramping as we drunkenly stumbled from winery to winery while watching others do the same on bike. We had’t seen this many ‘puss hids’ on bikes since….Rotto I giss??

Final location for North Island take 1, was The Wundy Sutty of Willington. We really enjoyed our two nights here, a thriving mitropolis with more cafes and restaurants per head than NY NY. And I thunk we managed to vusut thim all!!!

There are also more sheep per man in NZ than anywhere else in the world. And it’s noticeable! And to be fair to the stereotypes, they are quite pritty.

Fun fakt: the term “you beauty” actually started in NZ as “ewe beauty”, traditionally exclaimed by a farmer upon finding that spicial mimber of the flock. The phrase leverages the other famous exclamation of “eureka’, the dufference being instid of a fat guy yelling while inside a bath…he’s in…NZ…and there’s a sheep involved.

Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish Ladies

/ stew_jam

Absolutely smashed by Barcelona (and the fact Spain has more bars than the US!), and while praying to the patron saint of hangovers, St Ruggling, we jumped on a train and headed to Toledo. We had a short stop along the way in Madrid to change trains, but didn’t have time to achieve much other than the essential act for any European holiday: paying to use the dunny in a train station. As usual, you can only pay with 1s or 2s. #repeatedjokes

We only had a short time in Toledo, but that’s all you really need. We’d heard the Cathedral was one of the best in Europe so thought we’d get Lea her church fix and went for a look. Totally awesome Cathedral, but, thanks to Lea’s research, and no thanks to the staff not telling us, we discovered our hotel had a rooftop bar and Holy Toledo! What a view we had of the setting sun over the former capital of Spain.

Very early on, Madrid was off to a great start (NB: we saw the Prado, Royal palace and Guernica and all that other stuff while in town) our first European pillow!  Madrid was also home to our favourite walking tour for the trip, but still reeling from the effects of the Spanish flu, James was very careful not to be peer pressured by the guide to rub any of the many bronze statues to avoid getting next plague.  Fun fakt: The plague was actually spread by people touching statues for “luck” all over Europe, hence its original name of the plaque, subsequently mispelled over various outbreaks.  Despite these great efforts of will, James very quickly submitted to peer pressue by sharing a glass of wine with some random old guy in a market straight afterwards.

Most of our time in our final city was spent soaking up the amazing tapas culture of Madrid, better than Barcelona and potentially challenging that of our time in Andalucia. Some jamazing jamon was had as well as our first chorizo con sidre, or in Engish: sausage in cider…

Thank you Madrid for an incredible last adventure for PS2017.

PS-we’ll be back….or hasta la vista…Spainy.

Friends for life…

/ stew_jam

…but not straight away. In fact, for a moment we weren’t sure we’d even make it for just a spring.

After a flight from Porto to Barcelona, a couple of metros and a walk through an interesting neighbourhood to our confusing AirBNB, we finally got to head into town to smash some pintxos. We pretty much just needed anyone to not be a total Barce-hole. Being in a town with “bar” in it’s name, we thought this should be easy, but our first few experiences managed to set the…bar, pretty low.

Ok, firstly…we did later have the best dining (and almost best anything) experience of our lives in Barcelona. 31 courses of delight, intrigue and phenomenal-ness, but nobody wants to hear about that, so I’ll just stick with the rant about our first night in BARcelona.

Bar 1, El Doucho: The guy pretty much refused to pour us a glass of wine to go with our factory pumped out snacks, despite remembering everyone elses order…so you can imagine how much we liked him.  If there’s one couple at the bar to remember the wine for!

Bar 2, No Abierto: Next attempt was a bar that came highly recommended…but was closed on Sundays, as of this week, ie. today.

Bar 3, No Dos: A cool looking bar without obviously looking touristy, but we were told we could wait outside for an hour because they didn’t want tables of two at this time.

Bar 4, Vermouth Nazi: Totally awesome looking local bar! Hooray! Everyone was drinking the same aperitivo type thing, so we approached excited, but apprehensive (because Spain). I tried to order the same thing as everyone else as politely as possible, trying to sound as least like someone who stole Cuba from them over 100 years ago, but we were told there was “no space”. When a lovely local tried to make space and pointed it out to the bar-keeper (who looked like he’d been drinking this stuff in the sun for 60 years) we were told “there’s no space, it’s not possible, NO VERMUT FOR YOU!!”, before he started laying into the other guy for being nice. On the plus side, we now knew they were drinking vermouth and we’d stopped singing “Amigos para siempre” in our heads. On the negative, I started singing “American Boy” featuring Kanye West in my head…so, welcome to BARcelona.

Bars 5 & 6, Trapos do Tourismos: We finally found a couple of nice semi-tourist traps, and really loved the pintxo lifestyle, despite getting the feeling some of the locals might have been dropping the occasional toothpick on our plate. Either that, or given we’d been (or tried to be) to 6 bars by now, we may not be the most reliable witnesses to what we’d eaten.

Bar 7, Catalano para siempre: Another, very local recommendation was open until late in the night, so with a bit of Spanish courage (I doubt that’s actually a thing), we gave it a go. Rough start again…tried saying, in Spanish, “sorry, we don’t speak Spanish, I know nothing, I come from Australia”, to which the bartender replied, in some Iberian dialect, “neither do I, I’m Catalonian…”. We know that’s what he said because a lovely man, who gave us his place at the bar (making him new favourite Spaniard…sorry, Catalonian), told us…as well as telling us the guy speaks English!! Aye carumba!!! How did anyone from this town ever think they could get a job at a BnB on the English Riviera?

Anyway…despite the various difficulties and ensuing rant that took up most of a post, we loved Barcelona, and got on so well that it felt as though I’ve known it forever, so well that the lifestyle broke us over the three days. On the day we had the 31 course meal, we also went to the markets and then got force fed house cava and tapas at Bar 2, now abierto (open). Of course, even though our AirBNB place had plenty of towels, that were grate, and doubled as exfoliators, we only had 2 rolls of TP and these happened to run out on the same day as our foodathon. I knew it wouldn’t have been a fun experience anyway, so was happy to wait for the next town…sort of like, delaying mortification.

We did much more than just visit bars in Barcelona, we also took in the sights and did our own min-Gaudi tour. Park Guell and his buildings were beautiful, but the still unfinished Sagrada Familia was spectacular. Even despite Lea taking us on a wrong turn up one of the towers, causing us to climb part of it twice! In this case I didn’t mind at all, because I got to say, “this seems a little…familia…” #2gaudy4gaudi

Thanks Barcelona, something happened when we were together, but there has come the time when, darling, we must say goodbye.

Quinta-sential Portugal

/ stew_jam

Fact: Port “wine” gained its name from the Portuguese tradition of only drinking with their left hands. British sailors ferrying the stuff to the motherland witnessed these “port drinkers” and the name stuck. Ok, so that’s totally not true, however, they did first invent the wine in order to have something else to use all their cork for. As if cork shoes, cork hats, cork raincoats, cork postcards, cork sanitary products, cork prophylactics and cork cocktails weren’t enough already! Ok, so that’s obvioulsy not true either, but it’s to address such rumours as these that we headed to the home of Port, the stunning Douro Valley and the town of Porto.

After some truly, horrific driving (the roads were horrific, not the skills of the fingernail-less driver) into the Douro Valley, we stopped off at the first Quinta we could find for a tour. No expense is spared in these old Quintas who’ve made their fortune from selling a perfectly marketed product, despite there being very little reason for its existence. Whenever I asked, “why do you choose to ruin what could have ended up a perfectly good wine, by adding alcohol to make it almost intolerably strong but also sickeningly sweet?”, the answer would be , “it’s not a choice…it’s the terroir…”. “Oh ok then…thanks for the explanation, but what makes the wine in this region so perfect to be kept sweet and alcoholic?”….”….terroir…”. I should have seen that one coming. 

After the tour we savoured a number of their wines while looking over the postcard valley of the Douro. Well worth the visit, even if the wine’s not to your taste. At that point, as in Jerez, James handed the keys to Lea for the final drive to our Quinta, as we figured the best way to learn to drive on the other side of the road in a manual car is a narrow, 2-way, windy, mountain road, after a couple of port tastings where a small mistake would mean certain death.

We made it to Quinta Nova! Slightly damp through panic sweats, but we made it and we’d never felt so alert! The pictures don’t quite capture how incredible this location is, but we tried so take a look anyway. The Douro is vying for top spot in the list of most beautiful wine regions we’ve visited…and we’ve been to a couple. We even lucked out with our choice of Quinta as this one only made 10% Port (not the Port strength, but the volume of grapes destined to be fortified) and some wonderful table wines, having obviously hired a wine maker that had taken on the roads to actually get out of the valley and work somewhere else for a season or two.

Our final night in Portugal was in Porto. After visiting four of the famed Porto cellars for tours and/or tastings, and really boosting our…portfolio, we jumped straight on a boat to tour the river, passing all of the 6 bridges connecting either side of town. 6 bridges in about 2kms! Come on Portugal.  One (built by Eiffel) was no longer in action, so at least they finally realised that was a bridge too far.

Lea made the mistake of forcing James to pick a place to go for a drink, so of course, we ended up and the dingiest, dankest, but closest pub. James had Port (surprise) and Lea had a vinho branco (white wine), which she didn’t even finish!! #firsts  In fairness, I did try it, and it really did put the ranco back into Branco. Luckily, Lea chose everywhere else so we ended our time in Portugal on a high! And a glass of Port…it’s not that bad…

Just in cases…

/ stew_jam

Not knowing what to title a post from Portugal, we went with a shout out to Love Actually and our last minute attempt to learn some of the language…just in cases. The only Spanish we’d really learned was husband and wife (that’s English), which is Mujer and Marido…and given they sound a lot like Mohair and Mojito we had completely forgotten the proper pronunciation and didn’t feel confident in using them anwhere…a mojito for my mohair?…etc…

We didn’t, however, realise how closely the Portuguese language seems to resemble Russian, or at the very least it resembles my Mum impersonating a Russian accent, (and nearly led to a further musical title: “Back in the USSR??”), so we, obviously, struggled. So much did we struggle that we could barely even speak English properly (relative to normal). In one town, the home of Ginjinha (a cherry liqueur, not ginger beer with a shot of gin or jin), I was constantly asked probing questions by the ladies on the street (PS-we’re not up to the tarts yet), “Ginjinha…Ginjinha??”, to which all I could muster was: “Yes……is being my answer….to the question…you are asking…”  #onlysevenmonthsuntilwewatchloveactuallyagain. Subsequently, and to my disappointment, I found out the Portuguese scenes in Love Actually were…actually…filmed in France (fair enough as it would have been much easier to budget for…prices vary by +/-1000% on either side of the street in Portugal …and are also time/language dependent).

Given the only other title I could come up with was “My Portu-GAL, no Portuguese tart”, we’re sticking with what we’ve got.  Long intro over!!  PS-we’re in Portugal.

While Portuguese is definitely the least romantic of the romantic languages we’ve heard so far, we also didn’t get off to a flyer with the people. So much so that upon hearing from a guide that the Portuguese introduced the concept of thanks to the Japanese (hence Arigato being very similar to Obrigado), we had to call BS… not true…as in Lisbon, at least, it seemed nobody really knew the meaning of Obrigado…I think that as they lost their rule of the world and now had to deal with idiots like us, their understanding of thanks is waning a little.  Or maybe something was lost in translation??  But, wasn’t that also in Japan first?  Ok, longer intro now definitely over!

Thankfully…we had a ridiculous hotel room with a panoramic view from our balcony over the city towards the castle, and unsurprisingly this is where we spent most of our time in Lisbon recovering from our colds and eating the best jamon and cheese of the trip.

We did venture out to the neighbouring town of Belem, one of the least crappy suburbs, to try the world famous pasteis de Belem…a tiny custard tart. While tasty, it was clearly invented to hide how dreadful the suburb really is and somehow drag Lonely Planet readers to it anyway. We did get to catch on old ‘W’ class tram back, past the Lisbon version of the Golden Gate and had dinner at the new Time Out markets, which was great…despite the Lisboans who were working there. On day 2, aside from our walking tour, where we covered almost 2kms in 3 hours (helping to burn off those tarts), we took a stroll through the old suburb of Alfama, which was not destroyed in the great Earthquake of 17-something…something, but I’m sure nobody will mind if it is detroyed in the next, imminently expected, quake. (Another San Fran similarity, along with the bridge, hills, trams, prices.)

As a final farewell from the locals, when we picked up our rental car, we were again presented with a free upgrade to a station wagon and then berated, in Russian or Portuguese, for complaining as this was a “normal” car for them (again lost in translation as normal must mean “one of a kind”). Our emotional outburts won our over their…awfulness…and we were rewarded with a Renault Clio, as we drove off, triumphant, we soon realised it only had just over half a tank of fuel…Obregado Lisbon. Tick.

Now with a (small!!) car, we could do some real exploring of the country. First stop Sintra to check out the incredible Moorish castle, with it’s vomit invoking heights, lack of hand rails, slippery stones, vertigo and supremely stunning views. As well as the fairytale-like Pena palace, built by a contemporary of Ludwig (of Neuscwenstein fame).

With things picking up in Portugal, we went to spend the night in the tiny hillside town of Obidos (the Ginginja town). When Lea said we were going to spent the night in a fortified town, I was picturing something far different than driving around walls, through tiny gates, along tiny-er cobbled streets into a town packed with tourists, who you “tried” not to run-over, but who you could hardly see through the tears and clutch smoke. But, post drive in and pre drive out we had a fantastic time! Ginginja on tap (literally) and poured in small chocolate cups! We stayed in a Pousada, which was a renovated 15th-ish centruy castle….and probably still is.  Basically you pay a small fortune, to live in a dungeonesque room built to hold 2 people far smaller than 21st century Australians. I think the ensuite was still with original tiles so you could actually catch the same tinea used by the old soldiers to slowly end there tedious, smelly lives over hundreds.of years.

We had dinner at the top of the castle, with a table overlooking our peasants in the fields below, but Lea got quite a shock when she thought she was reading from the kid’s menu only to realise all the meals actually had kids in them!! The were cooking with children, not for them!! We’re not kidding! Needless to say, James ordered a goat dish, and Lea (who’d not yet been able to find a Nandos) ordered the chicken. Afterwards we went to our favourite bar in town (favourite because it was open) for more Ginginja, where we sat and watched groups of girls come in only to go in to use the toilet…all at the same time. Mind boggles, but the bar keep looked at us and just said “tour de toilet”. When we asked if it happended often, the response was, “Unfortunate, yes…is being my answer…to the question…..”. The castle also gave us our first mimosas of the trip, tick, and a glimpse of the Atlantic…tick.

Obidos was our first really touristy town for a while, so it was great to get back in the habit of old European pastimes of stopping at the end of a stair case for no reason and the much loved, standing in doorways…for NO reason.

Our next stop was Coimbra, and here we had another balcony with a view of the former capital and now University town. Room was tiny but the view and the fact we had a selection of pillows made up for it. However, we couldn’t decide between the Climactic of Cervical options?? But, it was in the streets where we saw something we thought society will never invent. Countless students walking around with a shopping bag, purpose made to fit ONE, single, sole beer bottle…I’m not sure this will catch on in Australian campus culture. How would you carry the funnel and tubing?

Coimbra was beautiful, we even lined up for a dinner down some dingy side alley with dozens of people and by luck we managed to get in to the top 16 who managed a seat at the first setting. We were last in that group though so got the worst seat in the weirdest house in the smelliest street…so only way is up! I did sit right on the flimsy, steel cover to the basement, so I guess it was still a…grate spot. Amazing, gut-achingly, butt-breakingly, tasty, rich food, including some insane pork belly* unlike anything I’ve had, served with rice soaked in olive oil and…something else tasty. *Yes, Lea lined up for an hour to eat pork!…even if she didn’t know it.  Afterwards we took in a local Fado show, we weren’t sure what to expect, the way people talk about Fado here it really seems to put the cult part of cultural, but we loved it and will totally go again…next time we’re in Coimbra.

Camp Granada

/ stew_jam

Hello Muddah, hello Fuddah…here we are in…Camp Granada! It is very…entertaining. And we’ve spent our time outside ‘cos it’s not raining.

Thus concludes a self imposed challenge of musical post titles from Andalucia, including one opera and three American songs from the 60s, representing 3 of the 4 songs that have been stuck in my head the whole trip. The fourth is slightly more obscure (even more than Hello …), but when walking around the centuries old masterpiece that is the Alhambra all I could think of was Lady Gaga. Alle-alle-hambra, alle-alle-hambaraaaa…just me???

Granada is another stunning Andalucian location, with the Alhambra and the valley leading down from the snow capped sierras and perfect spring weather, combining to make it super toasty in the sun and freezing in the shade. So much so that Lea almost put her shoulder out adjusting her emergency cardies.

One main road for tapas was Calle Elvira…so not for the first time we managed to get smashed on Elvira Street and wake up with jackhammers in our heads. Although in this case the jackhammers were also in the building next door, but we got a BARGAIN price. #peoplepleaseelaborateinairbnbcomments

In Granada the tapas are served for free with every drink order!!! Quiz: This can be dangerous because A) it encourages alcoholism to get free food, or, B) glutteny by force feeding you when you drink at a highly developed Australian pace? Either way, given we were suffering from both, we forged on undeterred.

The quality of some of this “free” food was questionable from time to time, which led to Lea’s final night comment on our last tapa, “that wasn’t terrible!!” In all fairness, poor Lea had eaten her fair share of mystery meat over the last few days. One plate we had wasn’t a mystery at all, it was clearly an assortment of what looked puppy penises. And they were as good as we remember…

So as little nutrition was to be had from our potato and “meat” based free food (we had too much fun to actually order anything off a menu) that we both caught a cold near the end of our time in Granada…or perhaps, Spanish flu?  In order to get something other than mystery meats, Lea suggested we go for churros and chocolate sauce for breakfast, mmmm…strangely we still haven’t recovered (now in Portugal 4 days later!)

We think we may have got cut off at one of our favourite tapas bars (whaaaaaat!!), where we thought we had a friendly relationship going with the staff (read: while they make fun of us while we smile and politely say “grassy-ass”), they said something about “cuatro” (4) and then followed with jogging motion, that was simulated for us by 2 of the bar staff….we were either being told we’d be cut off at 4 drinks/tapas so we were sober enough to walk down the mountain, or so we didn’t get so fat we’d have to go jogging! Either way, we said “grassy-ass” and moved on to our second favourite bar…

My main gripe (or wipe) with Granada was the bins in the toilets for soiled toilet paper…and I promise I didn’t want to go down this path again. I feel I’ve been up and down the road of toilet jokes so much there are skid marks to prove it…but back to the used TP bins.  The added problem of standing, while also ducking below the rafters to pee is you can’t really look away from them. And you can’t stop but wondering, “is that where recycled toilet paper comes from?”

It was made very difficult to complain about being cut off our free tapas, when we had been so very well warned of the potential danger for tourists and witnessed second hand after a poor German lady came over to us, with blood all over her to warn us of a guy going around on a scooter who ripped her camera off her arm, cut her badly and utterly ruined her holiday. We are so very lucky that the only thing we were worried about was that the overeating of free food would make us look so much like little piglets and that it would result in the locals amputating our legs to cure for the next tourist-tapas season….Jamon de James perhaps??? We’ve been so lucky to have never lost our camera, but we did come to a realisation, after many failed attempts, that Lea and the camera just don’t click…

We finally did our first “free” walking tours of the trip in Granada!!! Whaaat, you waited this long to hang out with a bunch of tight arses from ESL countries to be told by someone pretending to be a local to go to bars where his mates work hoping you might give them a tip??? I know, free tours are great!!

We again arrived slightly late to the first one, but were told it’s still 5 minutes from starting…as 5 turned into 8, it dawned on us that they were using a similar exchange rate for time as they were the Euro! We were actually lucky to get on to the first tour as they couldn’t find our booking on the back of their meticulously prepared cereal packet. A little hungover, I didn’t want to point out that there was another Lea on the tour, Lea Zeng. Being several people that may have fit the Zeng surname I was desperate to ask them if their name was pronounced Lea or Lea!! To my disappointment we realised the booking was indeed for us…Lea 2 ENG.

On our self guided tour of the Alhambra (don’t call me Ronaldo) we got stuck behind an extremely slow group of tourists (so many bloody tourists everywhere), which prompted Lea to ask “are they Russian?”, to which, of course and will continue to do so, I replied, “Russian? They’re hardly moving!” #mighthaveusedthatonebefore. But in all seriousness, Alhambra was the best monuments I’ve visited, almost perfect, except they forget to build a wine cellar…

We even saw our first/last Flamenco show in a cave while in Granada!

After an exhausting and illness building three days, on our final day, I actually heard Lea say, “that was enough for my church fix”??? Is this how we travel now?? I actually think the highlight of her day was when she managed to break a 50 to help her nefarious cheese habit which requires smaller notes…

Part B: Part mezquita

After an epic 3 days in Granada, and no way to form a musical reference from Cordoba for a separate post, we went to Cordoba.

The only reason for our visit was to see the candy-can arches of the old Mezquita and, as usual, I think Lea was quite taken by it…I guess you could say she loved Cordoba because this was the one Mezquita that didn’t bite…

Our time now done in Andalucia, we couldn’t work out if all these amazing places were built by the Muslims, Arabs or the Moors. Each name was used differently in various locations, and each came with a different sentiment towards the previous ruling inhabitants. We didn’t want to rock the boat, but being solely educated via 90s American television, we were pretty confident who they were. I’m sorry….the card says Moops. #bubbleboy

Thank you Andalucia, the more we saw of you, the more we wanted. I guess that’s because you’re a little….Moorish??

Sherry Baby

/ stew_jam

After a brilliant 3 nights in Seville, our next adventure began with us locking ourselves in our building, getting held up in a bakery (which is usually factored into James’ timing estimates), going to the wrong place to get our car, having a first dayer do our hire paperwork, get stuck in traffic in the outskirts of town, and arrive 20 minutes late for our first Sherry bodega tour in Jerez!! Luckily it’s Spain…they were nowhere near ready to get going. In fact they insisted we go and move our car, and remove an signs of life from it. They were not the last in Jerez to frown at us when we said we’d parked our car…didn’t matter where. This pretty much sums up the town of Jerez, but the Sherry was really cheap so everyone’s a winer (sic)!!! We stayed in a hotel, which was nice and had a toilet that was far easier to use, however, the shower was almost impossible. So difficult, that I had to wonder if I’ve ever been taught to shower properly, or was the skill lost when our forefathers migrated to Australia?

We thoroughly enjoyed the bodega tours in Jerez, but struggled to find anywhere decent to eat. How much did Hames hate his hamon in Herez?? Heaps. (All H’s in previous line, were intended to be pronounced “hhhhhkkkkkhhhhhh,,,”, but 3 are actually spelled with a J instead of H…can you guess wjicj ones??)

The drinks still flowed the same, because by the time we actually found a half decent tapas bar, Lea came out with some pearlers. Firstly, upon arrival of some beef dish, “I wasn’t expecting this much meat…”, if I had a Euro for every time… And secondly, upon receiving a quite nice chicken dish…apart from being pink in the middle, Lea explained: “they didn’t ask me how I wanted the chicken cooked…”. Thus opening herself up to a lifetime / marriage time (whichever comes first, odds have probably changed after this) of “how would you like your chicken cooked tonight dear?”

At one Bodega, where our booking had been lost, we ended up with a private tour…followed closely by 200 Germans…and also a tasting of 9 glasses of Sherry and brandy for James and 4 for Lea James.  With Lea the only one having completed her RSA training, this shone through as she stared me down, eyes saying “this is what we’re in this crappy town for for, step up!” and voice saying, “NO WINE LEFT BEHIND!” Lea, did try some of the wines, and ended up liking the Cream Sherry the best…surprise.  Next we’ll be adding rennet, a starter culture and making Sherry Camambert (patent pending!)

We got stuck with Aussies at 2 of the 4 bodegas we visited (do we all sound like that??), who all used the same excuse as us for not buying too much of anything anywhere: “oh…you see we have these, um, strict import regulations in Straylia…”  One of the bodegas was great as there was a shed with all their old horse drawn carts, presumably used for transporting their product around town.  I guess one for the dry and one for the sweet…one dry chariot, one…sweet chariot??

The Boozer of Seville

/ stew_jam

Not long after arriving in Seville, we realised there was almost no market for barbers as so many people seemed to wear full length robes with pointy hats, thus avoiding the need for dedicated hair stylists and validating James’ decision for the $23 pre-trip-trim.

Being Semana Santa, the time where everyone dresses like they’re in the KKK and men carry floats of Mary and Jesus on their shoulders to make up for a year of misigony and adultery, Seville was extremely busy, but we did manage to score an AirBNB close to the centre of the old town. Good enough apartment, with the toilet the only draw back. First time we’ve stayed somewhere where the toilet is located slightly under the vanity top. Easy to get used to I guess, kind of like riding a horse…side-saddle. The larger you are, the tougher it was to use, but it beckons the question that if you’re small enough to fit under the bench, then surely the ability to swim is your main concern when stepping up to the seat…literally. So to use it you need to be small, but if you can use it you run the risk of being flushed…kind of like a catch 20-loo…….Anyway, we still don’t know how to use one, but the need for an optimally placed bidet must vary proportionally with the difficulty of in using the main event, as our bidet had full 180 degree swing room. So I guess the design made sense…

Sorry, that’s way too much potty talk. Let’s move on to floaters.  With so many processions around town, it became diffcult to avoid them and actually get a drink. People running all directions to see their favourite float and thus being annointed the name “floaters”…by Lea. Giving rise to the new business opportunity of an app to find out where these zealots were so you could get to your tapas bar, something like “pass the floaters” or “floater tracker” or “iFloater”.

The very food we were learning to avoid was the very first food we ended up trying: Anchovies. This awful food, elsewhere in the world, was made amazing by the fact the Spanish consider the terms Essential Oils and Essential Salts to be food groups used to enhance the flavour of anchovies, rather than ways to stop your house from smelling of…anchovies.

We loved Sevilla, with it’s Tapas bars and party atmosphere. We didn’t have many must sees, but wanted to see the Jesus float on Good Friday, which we totally nailed….

One tapas bar, which we obviously frequented too often, began to serve us shots of home made caramel vodka, then something that tasted like Throaties and then limoncello. I don’t know how he presumed to know us so well, but he’s now our favourite person in the world.

We saw the sights: the amazing Alcazar, the Cathedral, the Plaza de Espagna, Triana, the mushroom building thing, other stuff, and the Golden Tower. Not a typo, and not touching that one. However, sadly (??), we didn’t make it to the bull fight.

We went past the bull ring several times looking to buy tickets, when finally they were open, we hesitatingly went in only to be told, “SOLD OUT”. I’m totally serious. No bull. Given the ticket booth was open and there were 4 people working, I think they may have meant: “Sold out of tickets you mono-lingual peasants can afford”. Note to self: remember to next time pack a shirt with obscenely large horse, faun pants, sepia sunnies and proudly display gut rather than hide it. Because the best I could do was put on a red t-shirt and start walking the streets looking for our own bull.

Thank you, Sevilla, and your wax covered streets. You’ve set a standard that the rest of the trip will struggle to live up to! If any town surpasses you, just remember, revenge is a dish best served cold…just like your tapas.

The plane to Spain was worse than the train

/ stew_jam

We made it! Two flights, three trains and four pairs of undies later we’re almost in Seville. We managed to talk our way into the Qantas lounge in Perth, despite flying with Etihad, based purely on confidence!!*

*If “confidence” means months of meticulous planning, changing credit cards to Virgin, consolidating points as a family (2 is still a family) and purposely booking Etihad flights from the Virgin Aus website to give ourselves the best chance to get in and then almost fail to even go in out of embarassment…then confidence it was!

The flight to UAE was uneventful, but the next leg over the Arabian peninsula was something else. While most slept, James (a terrible flyer since his late teens when he joined Uni and realised any idiot could study engineering) spent the first 2 hours cold-sweating from pores he never knew he had as the plane bounced above the desert, changed course every 4 panic attacks (each one coming with the usual bargaining with a deity, however, despite the occasion being the wee hours of Good Friday, given the location and TV screen pointing out Mecca, most was done with Allah rather than Jesus or his Dad), which eventually allowed us to fly over Cairo at night, where we got to see the city lit up, the outline of the Nile delta and tried in vain to see the pyramids and the Sphinx at 2am. NB: I don’t think it was ironic, but it certainly is a strange conversation in your head when you’ve been working one muscle in your body so hard, that you start thinking if it’s a coincidence it’s name is so closely related to noseless, stone cat.

We finally settled into a more comfortable routine on the train to Seville, with Lea sleeping next to her kindle while James drank beers and wrote a crappy blog entry. While trying, unsuccessfuly to take a nice photo the 100s of kms of olives flying by.

Anyway, we’re here in Spain, in a train on the plain (I hope it doesn’t rain while we’re here otherwise I’ve wasted the first blog title of the trip) as we head to Seville to watch parades and floats of Jesus and some chick called Mary (if she’s the Mary that designed Lea’s special breakfast tomato juice, then I can’t wait to join in the praise!) and I’m sure we’ll make this Good Friday a Great one!!**

**Not intended to cause offence (#perpetualdisclaimer), the forementioned sphincter-shpinx relationship got us thinking of why Good Friday is called GOOD Friday (yes, we SHOULD know, but I should have also known what a sibilant was and laughed when Lea suggested a good blog title for Seville would be “there’s one Sibilant in Seville” referencing the ‘v’ in Spanish being similar to a ‘b’, but I didn’t…until I googled “sibilant”,  when I still didn’t laugh, but you’ll just have to wait to find out if I use it!!…wait’s over, totally not using it), when the Sunday should at the very least be called Better Sunday when he woke up. And more importantly does Jamon count as meat??? And if we accidentally had some, how many bloody Mary’s and how’s-your-father’s do we need to make up for it?  

It’s déjà-vu all over again

/ stew_jam

Here were are back sitting on a Paris balcony in the Marais, one day short of a year since we last arrived in this most beautiful of cities.  There was a small, and important, difference this time…we caught the train in. A much more Seine move given last time we literally didn’t speak to each other for 24 hours after driving in.  Just picture 2 people with natural BRF*, who don’t usually talk much, but now trying to actually look angry and remain purposefully silent. If it wasn’t for Paris being Paris, then it might have all been over at honeymoon #4. Which is why we love it so much and are here for honeymoon #…let’s say X.  (PS: That’s Roman numerals not algebra.)   *If you’re not sure what BRF is, then either google or I’ll post a pic of Lea’s Passport photo.

Desperate not to try and repeat the amazing time we had last year, we started out by squeezing into our “nice” clothes and heading to an obscure opera at the Ganier Opera house…just as we did last year.  And we almost lasted through all 3 acts! It didn’t quite live up to the heights of Platee from 2015, but with plenty of lutes, harps, harpsichords and…an unrequested sex scene to kick off, at least we knew what continent we were on.  There was something about a guy using a Hymen for protection, someone playing with marbles in Lesbos, and then a bunch of young male dancers in loin cloths with aluminium foil for hair for no apparent reason.  Although the reason did become apparent as they started grappling half naked (which half you wonder?) young female dancers and performing simulated…acts, that by the look of these poor boys probably had them holding their breath.  This end to the first act was just enough to get us to come back for the second, but, unfortunately, the hooters at the end of the second act didn’t help as giant owls started running around on stage.  We can only guess how the third ended…because we were drinking Champagne on our balcony chez nous.

To get us off (pardon) our balconies…and away from the Marais, we went on a food tour of Saint-Germain.  The highlights being: a lovely American lady who got so drunk on 2 glasses of wine she forgot her brother’s name, but then justified it by saying it was just her brother-in-law, which allowed James to finish off all the bottles with the reasoning he could still remember the names of his brothers-in-law…as long as you include nicknames; James (with the pre-wine shakes) knocking over glasses and dropping the cheese board, but catching the cheese with his knees…before Lea went on to eat said cheese (post wine); and the look on Lea’s face when she realised she’d eaten a pig’s snout.

We’ve been out for a lovely dinner; sat on our balcony eating croissants and drinking mimosas (a couple of times); accidentally went to another Michelin star restaurant for lunch where James decided to start cutting down on the food intake and left a single salmon roe egg on one of his plate to be delicate, and Lea struggled through the biggest lump of sweet breads (that were neither sweet nor bread) that you’ve ever seen, before shaking in terror when presented the short breads for dessert…AND we scored 4 glasses of free Champagne because they accidentally changed the order our desserts came out, which was amazing as we firmly believe desserts should just come out when they’re ready; jumped on a train with 3 half empty (or full??) bottles of bubbles and wine to go watch the Eiffel Tower from the Trocadero and wander the streets of the city of lights on Friday night with our “walkies”; and we plan to do absolutely nothing on our last day in France.  There’s cheese and 3 bottles of Champagne in the fridge.

If anyone is judging our Paris bludging, back off! In TWO weeks we’ve been to: Paris, Bordeaux, Pauillac, Saint Emilion, Cognac, La Rochelle, Amboise, Saumur, Angers, Mont Saint Michel, D-day beaches, Bayeux, Camembert, Livarot, Honfleur, Rouen, Giverny, Versailles and PARIS!  I think we need a holiday.

PS-turns out we did do something on our last day, we went for a walk and found ourselves in the middle of a rave along the banks of the Seine.  It actually worked out well as we had planned on covering our shoes in urine just before packing our bags anyway.

From Rouen to Riches

/ stew_jam

Apologies again for the title…it was either that or “Show me the Monet!” To cover our drive through Rouen, Giverny and, finally, Versailles.  I don’t actually have anything to say for what was a day trip, just really liked the 2 potential titles, but, as it turns out, the one chosen is quite apt.  The town of Rouen, famous for burning Jean d’Arc (so not an overly great reason to be famous in French history), had an amazing Cathedral (quelle surprise), but was otherwise a little underwheling.  And Versailles, looks as if it was built by someone who thought of himself as the Sun King.

After Rouen, we headed to Giverny with high hopes, low expectations and one of us had an overwhelming desire to never drive again.  However, Monet’s former home and gardens were more than worth the visit…if such a phrase even has any meaning in English.  I guess in French, you would say it’s “impossible”.  As in you cannot give 110%, that is 10% more than you can give, any more is impossible and not even worth trying, and please go away thank you,  it’s siesta time from 12 to 16 heures…but please use exact change before you go.

Ok…where was I? Francesomewhere… .Rouen, Givnerny, got it.  After ten days of driving, James finally dropped that car off in Versailles without a scratch! And at the same time, dropped Lea’s phone without a scratch completely smashing it to a billion pieces.  No matter………I don’t mind doing something stupid…haha…everything’s fine! 🙂 Will totally grow my nails back in the last 4 days.

We checked into  an incredible hotel near the Trianon, where we were kindly offered to upgrade our room to one with a view of the gardens for the very low price of purchasing an extra room, seeing as the hotel was almost empty.  Upon saying, “sorry, no, that would eat into our immense wine budget”, we bonded with the lady at reception, who shared the same birthday as Lea and had been to Perth, so we were very excited as she handed us the keys saying, “here are the keys……to the worst room in the hotel…if you can call it the hotel, you need to walk across the gardens to the shack on the otherside”.   If they upgraded us it would have contradicted their rule to only upgrade those who are old enough that they could never possibly return, and are unlikley to have any friends left to recommend them……

If it wasn’t then we realised we were in a…let’s say H**** owned hotel or if that’s too obvious let’s just call it a Paris Hotel (seeing as we’re in France), it certainly sank in when in our room (that for extra impact had somehow been dug in below the dirt line to ensure the only view was of their ant farm) we noticed the usual sign of “if your fingerprints are found on the mini-bar, we assume you’ve licked everything and you must pay. Enjoy your stay with the … group of awful hotels”.  We thought of dropping in Conrad’s name, having watched every episode of Madmen we felt he would have been reasonable, but, instead, went and drank along side the Grand Canal looking towards the Chateau.  And jokes on them, we were able to climb out our window and turn the dirt into a balcony.

Anyway…the awful commercialisation of the … chain aside, Versailles is ridiculous.  The buildings, the canal and the gardens, which almost made Lea laugh as James suggested they would be arborous work to maintain (NB: of course she didn’t laugh, as won’t you, the readers).  I think all the readers agrees that democracy simply doesn’t work, and Versailles is proof.  We had an amazing time, accidentally ate at a newly crowned Michelin starred restaurant, where our Franglish helped make it one of the best meals we’ve ever had, and most importanly…dropped off the car….which had 201km’s on it when we picked it up and now had over 2000km’s…however, we failed to mention that the clutch may be due it’s 100km service.

PS- If anyone’s wondering, James’ shaver broke…which explains the face.  The extra chins are for a very different reason.

Normandy, let’s get some Camembert ‘n’ Cider!

/ stew_jam

Sorry about the cheesey title.

From Angers, we had a massive day ahead of us as we set sail for Normandy (in a Polo), with our first stop planned for Mont Saint-Michel. Along the way we passed through many a cute town where Lea was teased by old men holding their baguettes.  She was taken aback by the size and quantity…James only had half a 2-day old stale baguette and we were struggling to find that elusive boulangerie.

Mont Saint-Michel is spectacular.  It jutts out of the landscape like some kind of giant Cathedral, built on a lonely, rocky island, amongst otherwise flat tidal plains.  We were there in off season. If you haven’t been yet, GO NOW! Or be happy that to drive past it is about as good as it gets.  It’s a tiny town, on an island, with a restaurant that has a sister restaurant in Tokyo.  Get it?

From MSM we headed to the D-Day beaches, we visited Pont du Hoc and the US cemetary and the horrendously scary and intimidating beaches at Arromanches.  If we weren’t already feeling like the luckiest people in the world…there’s not much to say here.

Our first night in Normandy was in Bayeux. A sleepy (read: dingy) town with a tapestry, a (way too big for the number of inhabitants) Cathedral and…let me just check my notes……uuum….ooops…sorry, no that’s it.  But all “jokes” aside, if there’s one thing I know (and there probably isn’t), it’s definitely tapestries! And this one is definitley in the top two I’ve seen!  In Bayeux, James had foie gras again, in attempt to boost his own liver suplies, used his best Franglais to find THE ONLY PUB IN FRANCE OPEN ON A SUNDAY NIGHT and woke up with his first big headache of the trip (surprised? I am).  But, after totally blaming all the local cider for the head throbbing and lack of eyelid movement abilities, he was forced to apolgise to Normandy as he woke to realise that the “water” he’d been consuming during the night was in fact a sneaky Loire Rosé…

We toured around the surprisingly beautiful area surrounding Camembert, including a tour in the aptly named town of Livarot…and stayed the night in the pretty port of Honfleur.  The majority of the tourists there certainly helped put the Pom in Pomme.

Ooh la Loire

/ stew_jam

After a relaxing 6 days or so it was time to get serious and realise we’re not here to relax and we needed to get moving!  The first, of many long driving days to come, helped us remember the subtleties of European driving such as, using your hazard lights to say something like, “I’m breaking the law here, but I’m owning up to it so it doesn’t count…”, rather than in Australia where you may be saying, “please don’t honk at me, I’m already embarassed enough, my fuel tank’s empty, I was waiting for my next youth allowance payment and prioritised beer over petrol…”  Of course I’m too scared to use the hazard button, having it drilled into me from a very early age, until my late teens, that it was in fact the ejector seat button.

Our first location in the Loire (or rather, beside the Loire), was the highly recommended town of Amboise, and a highly recommended B&B. We stayed in a stunningly renovated, ~million or so year old house run by the Americo equivalent of the Fawltys…had the Fawltys continued to stay married into their old age and had Basil completely chilled out.  The eccentric lady of the house was more than happy to send her husband off to run around fetching James more wine as he lit fires all over the place (the fireplace that is), so it worked out pretty well!

The other guests in the house were also good for a few laughs (although keeping the other guests from hearing our laughs was quite a challenge).  Perhaps the plastic covers under the sheets might give you an indication of the target market (not toddlers)…old Americains.  The one day I caved-in to a request from Lea to wear my boots, we sat next to a lovely couple from Seattle who proceded to tell us how much they hated Texas…kicking off an interesting debate about boots, electric cars, awful coffee, Frasier and how generally unfairly they are treated around their travels.  We were tempted to let them in on the trick to identify as Aussies.  But, didn’t, instead.

Much of our time was spent looking through the amazing Chateaux in the area, Chambord and Chiverny first, but then there was one that completely Chateau’d all over the others, Chenonceau, and not just because of cave au vin.  James’ tested recipe for making any Chateau better is to just add water.  We also saw Clos de Lucé, where da Vinci spent his final years, and learned that Leo was actually a vegetarian!  We were completely suprised as we’d always thought he liked a sausage from time to time.  And we had some awesome dinners at the recommendation of our helpful hosts, including one where James had foie gras three ways…I guess a ménage à trois à foie gras, as tasty as it sounds…the poor goose probably had it worse though.

We drove along the banks of the river, tasting wine in a real cave in a real mountain, eating cheese and drinking wine in the vines by a Chateau looking over the Loire and the town of Saumur, exploring the homes of the troglodytes and admiring the very well fenced off, yet still radiant, nuclear plants as they added something extra to the terroir (I would say a little je ne sais quoi to to the terroir, but used the same joke for a graveyard this time last year) of the vines that were right next door.  That’s French confidence, but I guess they’ve been doing it that way for millenia.

Our time in the valley ended with a night in Angers, next stop Normandy!

La Rochelle…Rochelle

/ stew_jam

A “young” girl’s, strange, “erotic” journey from Milan Saint Emilion to Minsk Amboise.

Only a short drive from Saint Emilon is the musical cars town of Cognac (Ed: written when drunk <as per plan>, expect musical chairs is reference to sparcity of vehicular, docking stations).  We were so well organised for this visit, and, of course, when we say organised we mean we had brunch from the boot of our Polo.  Stale bread and mouldy cheese.  Lea assured me that’s how the cheese was supposed to be, but this came from a (beautiful 🙂 ) lady who believes that walking past a boulangerie (in France…) is an act of God!

In Cognac, I managed to drag Lea on tours of the house with the largest market share, the oldest house and the two smuggest houses in town.  (Totalling two tours…). The main theme of the day was make sure your consummation is in moderation.  I think that was meant to refer to the alcohol and not honeymoon behaviours.  The message was consitent  when seeing James swirl brandy all over his T-shirt, then sneakily stealing Lea’s tastings and the incessant (and incestual) talk of passing on Savoir-Faire.  Which, in this circumstance, meant children following their Dads (let’s assume he meant and/or Mums) around the cellars tasting what they taste…before our Oxford schooled guide backtracked and blamed his perfect English, what he meant to say was “smelling” because of course they can’t taste until 18 years.  And then, in MODERATION.

Anyway, due to being so well moderated…we (James) couldn’t manage to get drunk in Cognac and thereby usurped Lea of her first opportunity to drive.  So to pass the time between tours, we reverted to “boot wine” (a new form of “<insert noun> wine” for us, which was from the boot of the car, not out of James’ boots which had so far done stuff all), on the street outside Martell.  Having no idea where to spend the night, the red wine / carbon monoxide rush gave Lea the brilliant idea of having a “Toin Coss” to decide where to go next!  However, completely bereft of toins, James instead offered up a coin and 2 cosses to zero, it was confirmed we’d travel hours out of our way and head for La Rochelle.

We actually had a great night in La Rochelle, snagging a room in a 2 star hotel with a view of the Dubrovnik-esque harbour, watched (what Lea called) our first sunset looking West, at the best beach we’ve seen in Europe (kind of like a really bad Australian  beach), had a lovely meal ordered 100% in French (I’m not sure what happened apart from I know ordered off the “Hors menu” and was more than surprised to receive smoked fish), and “je voudrais deux vin rose”‘d our way through the streets to finish another lovely day in France.

Pardon my French…

/ stew_jam

…but Saint Emilion is fffffffffffffffff…formidable!!!!

After 3 days of partying or whatever that was… we all stumbled on to a tram, crossed the tracks and literally watched as the city changed from un-molesty to much-more-molesty looking, en route (French…who cares anymore…) to the rental car location, nicely hidden away in rue des Touristes DuMass. Craig and Hanlin left in their frog car (not racist, it actually looked like a frog) after Hanlin’s breath ensured all tourists in the shed would end up over the limit due to consuming his very own Angel’s share…maybe archangel’s share at least (hang on, wasn’t Michael an archangel?? Or was that a Travolta movie?). We got into our lovely, tiny Polo, let’s call it the Stewart car…or maybe the ‘S CAR‘ and it was time to GO…apologies to all, but I (hope) my Mum might have just lost her wine at that one…assuming she’s drinking wine right now…<insert many reasons for previous leap of faith>. 

It was so lovely to hit the road and to finally see some of the real Bordeaux. A 1000 year old, UNESCO listed, holiday and wine purchasing town…where 98% of the population has been pushed out to make way for rich, new world tourists.  Vive la France!  We fell in love with Saint Emilion immediately. And, after being upgraded to a room with balcony, Lea had the cheek to ask to have it for an extra night as well!  This was the second time in a day Lea had (somewhat) soberly asked for something extra or un peu plus, after having scored prime seating at a totally fancy-pants restaurant, with the reasoning: “if we’re going to be treated like Americans, we may as well act like them”. Wow…Like, so proud right now.  Right?

To get in the spirit of the town we did a tour of the catacombes. It was incredible, albiet with slightly more adrenaline than we usually care to go for on our holidays.  The tour guide spent an hour telling us about the frequent collapses of the caves, over the last few decades. (Insiders’ note: as I noted this random titbit on my iPhone, I also got an extra heart-starter as I wondered if this would be the last thing someone would read on my phone following the next collapse, only to end up on a news cycle as an “odd spot”.)

To lower our cave-tour stress levels, we ventured to more familiar caves that provided grapes in the form of their fermented juices. Where you get to hear how millions of years of limestone formation, mixed with perfect soil conditions, pruning, no watering (for..no sensible reason at all) and corrupt politics go in the terroir and make the best wines in the world. Storing them in the, current, 35 degree cellar conditions for 4 months over peak season to flog to stupid tourists (us) apparently has no effect on the quality.  Which bodes well for our cellar cupboard at home.

We had dinner on our balcony, before walking the streets with glasses plastics full of the local rouge…maybe taking some inspiration from our neighbours in Bordeaux (the prossies)…walking the streets with red…?  I give up.  Being close to the town of Bergerac, I’m sure there’s a Prossies-Roxanne-Cyrano de Bergerac three-way connection in here somewhere (which now sounds dirty, but I thought was actually quite clever and cultured when I thought of it…)

Our bonus day in St. Emilion involved Brie, Bordeaux blends, Baguette and Balcony…much like the previous day. However, we did go for a walk to a wine tour, which was amazing, and included the only chandelier we’ve ever seen on a fermentation floor (giving a certain je ne sais quoi to the terroir I’m sure), and then walked to another tasting, while sampling the purchases we had previously made along the way.  In retrospect everyone has 20/20 vision (whatever that means, I like to score things out of 100), but I probably should have called it quits after the first tour, having watched Lea walk into a parked car only to spout out, in her finest French accent, “pardon, Monsieur…desolée!”…or maybe she said “pardon, voiture…”, I’m not sure which is worse.  (Ed (Lea)’s note: that’s slight misrepresentation, I wasn’t even drunk, how come we don’t add stories of you being parapaletic (sic) in a fountain?) (Author (James)’ note: I don’t really remember Bordeaux).

We spent the night watching a storm roll in from our room, had a meal other than cheese and bread, and had the best time in Saint Emilion! Bring your loved ones some day! Or, peut-etre, your family!

The Frog Prince

/ stew_jam

Our first three nights were spent in Bordeaux, with a friend we see every year or so, Craig (or Ferret to some readers), and another we see every time we step into Northbridge (NB: we walk through NB* everyday), Michael (or Hanlin, Handbag or “suit guy” to some readers…although he may not be aware of that particular nickname).

*NB: NB doesn’t usually stand for Northbridge, except the one place I used it in above, so please revert to custom Latin anagrams from now on.

Although, physically and emotionally affected by jet lag, we had a nice start with a cruise (although lack of booze being not so idillic) and a lovely dinner together, in a beautiful restaurant, with lovely hostess…albeit well aware of the contrast that was about to show itself in the form of suit guy and the ferret who turned up at 10pm and 11.30pm respectively.

Waking peacefully on our first morning, after a lovely sleep on European pillows, which are as useful as…….a stupid pillow…on a bed…(I’m too tired to come up with similes!) to the sound of of “workers”, who by now we know only “work” on Sat mornings from 7-9am in Europe, we couldn’t help but think, “thank <insert deity> we’re not running a marathon today!”  Well, three of us got to think that at least.

Congratulations to Hanlin, he actually ran a marathon. It doesn’t matter how much wine, beef and oysters were consumed en route (French), he finished within the required time, which is more than any of you have ever done…apart from those of you I’m well aware have done…and more. BUT, did you do it drunk, in green face, with a crown and some form of adult ADD?? Maybe, I didn’t see you do it, but it sounds somewhat unlikely.

Oh…it turns out not only didn’t we see any of you run a marathon, but we also didn’t see Hanlin do it either. We missed the train. After a sprint of our own along platforms 1-9 looking for platform A, only to see the sign at #9 indicating A, B and C are just before #1, I could almost hear the “hor hor hor”s of the French transport workers who meticulously designed the station just to confuse foreigners.

So with literally no other options, other than hope and a 200E taxi ride, we were forced to accept that we wouldn’t attend the climax of an event that was sure to be awful for spectators anyway…and foreigners…particularly those with a fear of red vomit, French or marathon runners. So the three of us, instead, parted ways, Craig “my favourite pub is the one I can see right now” went to the closest pub he could find with rugby, soccer and all the accompanying elements you’re currently picturing, while the Stewarts went to the Cite du Vin…quelle surprise (French). Where, after 2 days in Bordeaux and a wander around what should have been his favourite ever museum, James finally got to taste a Bordeaux blend. And it was Chinese. Qu’est-ce qui se passe! (French) WTF (English). It seems we’ve done something seriously wrong to upset Dionysus.

After a quick beer at the Austra pub (the only semi-Australian pub in town, which must have been the closest pub to Craig at the time) with Craig, we all had dinner with the Frog Prince…a position you need to be careful of being in here, all the frogs are legless and the Princes headless. Although, it could be said that at least one of those is an apt description here.

James and Lea passed out, missed many a phone call and were awoken by Craig in a panic trying to avoid the prostitutes downstairs…yep.  We couldn’t help but think of the poor lady downstairs, whom we assumed worked at the bakery write something about yeast and/or buns and/or ovens being fed up with the AirBNBers upstairs banging (sorry…I won’t touch that…eww…or that) on the door every night and running away scared.

The following day started with James telling Lea, I don’t think today will go to plan (with slightly different wording), with Lea laughing back with, “I’ve known that for weeks…idiots (French)”. After missing out on a root above a (potential) brothel, we almost very nearly missed out on a drink in the largest wine region in France

An hour on the train to a French town, on a Sunday…somehow the plan didn’t work out. One person wasn’t surprised. We managed to find ONE cellar open for tasting of TWO wines per person! Because anymore is “IMPOSSIBLE”, despite the plethora of glasses, open bottles of wine and thirsty-willing-to-pay tourists

Anyway, without commenting on the French’s ability to say “impossible” about the simplest of tasks halting their progress over the last few hundred years, we went away with wine and, more importantly plastic cups (alas no toothpicks to help budge the Medoc tannins) to drink in the bleachers of the rugby field next to the train station.  In a very Grease, meets Breakfast Club, meets rugby move (Invictus? Maybe not) meets a bunch or unorganised idiots in the Medoc moment.

After some train drinking (which in France gets smiles from the conductors, an interesting contrast to Australia where it’s the last remaining Capital Punishment) we had “lunch” in a beautiful square in in Bordeaux. James had only recently started a regime of skipping meals, to ensure his clothes lasted the full 2 weeks, which was made a lot easier at the chosen “restaurant”. Particularly when the confit canard (French) resembled a rubber ducky out of luke warm child’s bath and made you question whether it had been used to make a reduction that went into the Canard bottle in the bathroom.

After lunch, 2 went for naps and 2 had a drink at home…and then went to find more drinks and play in a fountain drinking 9% beers. I won’t tell who, but there ends my memory of Bordeaux. And the other is pretty obvious. It wasn’t Lea…or Craig.

James and the giant….flying ant??

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We left Vic Falls for Zambia, and only 9 short hours later we made it to our camp. After hearing so many times that we’d be leaving “just now” it made me wonder whether my iPhone is actually taking the piss out of me. When it shows emails “updated just now”, does it mean “now now” or whenever it feels like it? Or is it just about to start handwriting all the messages out instead?

Our first stop in Zam was just outside the Lower Zambezi national park. With a beautiful river front location and a head of catering so lovely and so hot, we couldn’t possibly tell her how god awful the food was, Sometimes all inclusive doesn’t work out…especially at the awkward moment at the end when they present you a bill and you realise they’ve tracked every drink you’ve had for 3 days. #awkward.  But, TIA, so when you show a piece of paper with printed type that says “all inclusive” you get a “sorry, my fault boss”. Boom!!

With a determination to make the most of our last days in Africa we tried all the Activities. From the standard drive, to a walk, canoeing, and we even went fishing…twice! Lea, fishing, wow!

On the drive, after seeing many anti-poaching Rangers (and still feeling guilty about the eggs Benedict), I asked our guide where they stored the tusks of elephants that die naturally. Apparently they have a massive storage shed, which makes sense as we all know that a country with lots of ivory is less likely to hurt elephants than a country whose ivory supplies are low.

We watched two male lions snooze under a tree before driving several metres away to have tea…because you simply can’t get out of having tea. While tea…ing we saw the vultures start to circle and perch in a neighbouring tree. A return to the vehicles and investigation later we tracked marks to find dead Impala in the bushes. And just as we did, the lions turned up looking for the same thing, having just wandered trying our “safe” tea spot. WHY SO MUCH TEA!!? We watched them try to climb the trees in search for the kill and it was completely enthralling.

Our walk made us realise that you shouldn’t waste time driving around looking for elephants, because as soon as you go out on foot they’re EVERYWHERE!! Luckily one guide was wearing camo and had a gun and one had a massive stick…I guess I was to rely on impressing any would be attackers with my lovely Seamaster or repelling them with my recently soiled undergarments. Two hours in to the walk made us realise that a two hour walk means two hours out, then head back. Only 100 elephants to hide from (again), but I’m sure we’ll be back…just now.

The first fishing trip (on the Zambezi!!) was stunning, but fruitless…or at least fishless as we had lemon in the G&Ts. We couldn’t even catch jungle fever. The second time out we were much more lucky as even James with only one hand (you’ll find out why) brought in a couple of 6 pound tiger fish.

The canoe ride was breathtaking and we can highly recommend it, although just a tip: take it easy on the all inclusive as you may regret it slightly when your canoe bottoms out just as you pass a giant hippo jumping out of his bed and curious lion on the banks.

On our final night around the fire, an ever so slightly intoxicated James mentioned something had bitten him on the arm. Never mind let’s just sleep it off. Queue the 5am “holy crap, I can’t move my arm” panic attacks. Having seen Lea stung by a scorpion I decided it was high time I got some attention from what may or may not have been the elusive flying ant…an ant. An ant paralysed my arm. Having explained to Lea the symptoms she can confirm it was actually a scorpion…a MASSIVE one.  Scorpions 2, Stewarts 0.  As much pain as I’m in, I can at least be happy it wasn’t on my face. And now I know if I ever really need a brain challenge and can’t find a sudoku or crossword, going to the loo and wiping with the other hand is a good way to get those neurones working.

We’re now at our final location just up the river. Two more nights left, Lea’s having an undeserved nap, while I’m on the deck, watching the hippos, bashing a keyboard with one hand (because trying to dictate what’s going on up here would be a nightmare) and having an undeserved  G&T. We don’t have a private pool this time, we have a private camp! Just the 15 odd staff and us.

Hopefully this is the last you’ll hear from us…because we’d be very happy to have the next two nights as uneventful as possible.

Thanks for listening,

James and Lea

PS-our final stop is amazing, we just had dinner over the river with champagne cos it’s our honeymoon.  I hope we find another amazing excuse to come back to Africa.  If not maybe we’ll just go away on a whim…a whim away….

Two grand old ladies

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We finally made it to ‘Babwe. The scene of the event we’ve been waiting for, the wedding of Scott and Katherine. A country of such generous people that not only was I offered an exchange rate of ZIM$250 billion to US$2, I was quickly given twice as good a rate just because it was my “lucky day”! From a stranger who was now “my friend”! A land of GIfts, Fortunes, Beautys and lovely Memorys…and those are just peoples’ names.

But before the wedding we had 2 nights down in Hwange National Park.  If we could plan it all again, we probably would have started the trip with the wedding, as adding 8 days of all inclusive food and open bars into a suit already bought 7kg’s ago wasn’t a great idea. We were lucky enough to share the camp with fellow wedding attendees and even true honeymooners, Dave and Sally. I hope they would also say they were lucky to share their honeymoon with us.  To be on safari with fellow Perthites was truly bizarre…

Hwange was beautiful, but not quite as bountiful as Botswana. We spent a number of drives just looking at birds. And by now we’d seen enough of all these flocking birds everywhere. Having said that, we did get extremely lucky on our first afternoon drive when we managed to see two lionesses with cubs just as we got back to camp. Then, on the late night drive, we went looking for the male we could hear in the background. He was Jericho, who previously had an alliance with Cecil. We didn’t find him, instead we saw that the lionesses had left their cubs alone…and then our car proceeded to break down, including loss of radio comms, between where they were and where he was…with a guide who’d previously said she managed to get lost, without water or petrol in the Kalahari…queue an hour of hysterical, petrified giggling from 6 pickled Australians as we waited for rescue in the pitch black jungle.

We did manage to see Jericho on our final night drive, and it was worth it. Majestic, beautiful, intimidating with just a touch of cuddliness. He gave us a mighty roar and if we never see lions again, we’ve done pretty well. There was also an incredible experience with a cheetah who likes to hang out next to the camp. We watched him watching us watching him from only 10m away.  Apparently not a threat to humans due to their meagre 30kg being no match for our…kg.

It was in Hwange, getting attacked by mozzies, that we realised the problem…. The more repellent you put on, the more disgusting you feel, and the more likely you are to rub it all off when someone hands you to a cold, wet towel with tongs…which is like every 5 minutes.

After Hwange, it was a case of farewell Liam Sutherland and welcome James Stewart as we checked in once again at the grand old lady, the Vic Falls Hotel. Having previously (in 2010!) confirmed there’s nothing more confusing to an African than an unmarried girl booking a hotel room under her own name, it was nice to finally be James rather than Liam.

The falls were in full roar, the hotel was immaculate, and the wedding setting spectacular. The bride and groom were beaming and gorgeous as always. It was their day so I won’t spoil it by publishing any details or too many photos. However, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts for including us and giving us the chance to be back on this amazing continent. Having organised a wedding in Tassie from a distance, and having tried to order G&Ts from the staff in the bar at VFH, we have the utmost respect for what they put together.

The wedding weekend also included a luxury “all inclusive” sunset cruise on the Zambezi, where for some reason, all the groomsmen dressed up like they were being interviewed for a vacant position in the Jo’berg airport newsagency.  This was followed by a feast for the tastebuds and ears as we dined at the Boma in an attempt to keep the local warthog population down.  Our final night with friends in Zim was spent watching an African sunset with elephants (that either coincidentally or suspected appeared on queue) and a sunset cocktail, which ironically turned up closer to sunrise. TIA.

With B to Z complete, it’s now off to Z….Zambia, to hear why the falls are better viewed from their side.

—————————–

It’s with an extremely heavy heart I write this, the other grand old lady to whom I refer in the header is my grandmother, my father’s mother, Mrs Marion (Doddie) Stewart. This incredible journey we’re on was put into greater perspective as we learned of her ill health and subsequent passing while staying in the Victoria Falls Hotel.

She taught me everything I know about: cupcakes, custard, butter, cinnamon soldiers, marmite soldiers, mahjong, rummy, patience, cats, magpies (the birds…she was a fervent Essendon girl), mini golf and hankies. She was a tough lady, born into a world war, a child through the depression, married as another world war broke out, was widowed far too young and stayed as such for more than half of her life.

She was a lioness of a mother, a devoted grandmother and great-grandmother. I’m not sad for her, she’s where she wants to be. I am, however, so desperately sad and sorry not to be with and supporting my family at this time. We wIll continue on our adventure with a renewed appreciation of these incredible experiences that she, and most others, never had the chance to do, despite over 98 years on earth.

RIP Mrs. M M Stewart (Doddie), 1918-2016

There’s no road kill in Africa

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After an incredible experience in the delta, including numerous sightings and two near death experiences we arrived in Chobe where we quickly informed our guide he had his work cut out to top what we’d just experienced.  He didn’t seem worried.

We shared our guide and vehicle with a brother and sister (in their forties) from Israel, who’d brought their parents over to go to. 90th in Cape Town. The siblings were lovely and the parents…..the parents made you realise that stereotypes exist for a reason. It certainly made it a bit awkward for James to order bacon at breakfast, but Lea had no qualms when talking about Perth finally opening shops on Sundays, because what backwards place would ever shut things down for a day over the weekend!?

The sister did question our guide on why they bothered having artificial borders separating the countries, what’s the difference anyway? Why not just have one big country called Africa?? Why can’t everybody just get along!!!??? Did we mention where they were from? I think she might have been high on soda stream……

Anyway borders were the least of our troubles. The father didn’t even know what country were in…which may help to explain that when less than two metres away from a real, live lion he decided to start growling at the thing!!! Not only that, after being told off for attempting to kill us all, he started clapping at them, BECAUSE HE “JUST WANTED THEM TO LOOK AT ME!!!” Then…then the Mother’s phone started ringing…after a few rings, and several glares from the lions she decided to get it out of her bag….no, not to turn it off, but to pass it around, still ringing, to see if anyone wanted to speak to this potential murderer of 7. Oy vey!

Right, moving on eh? Because I don’t think we did stereotypes any good either. Being the only ones drinking and sitting around the fire at night again. Even our house cleaner left us a note to PLEASE drink more water after cleaning up all the empty mini-gin and Amaretto bottles.

We had a truly special time at Chobe. The lodge was pure luxury, looking over the spectacular Chobe river, we had our first outdoor shower of the trip, Eric spoiled us / got us smashed every meal, the staff organised a bath covered in bubbles and flowers with Champagne to be ready when we returned from one of our sunset cruises for our…honeymoon, we ate Impala, kudu and crocodile, my girl got use of her whole face back, we watched a troop of traveling dancers and, obviously, we saw more lions.

Not only did we see the lions, but we saw them eating a buffalo, then later we saw a jackal come in for a taste, then we saw the vultures circle and pick the bones, then that night we came back to see the clean white bones, then the next day we came back to see nothing. A ginormous animal completely gone within 24 hours. It was such a ridiculous experience, that on our return it even had the Israeli father comment, “when’s lunch?” And the mother, “not so much with the bumps next time…”

We also saw a bazillion elephants, which included a parade of elephant, a dazzle of zebra and a journey of giraffe all together in the one shot and watched a hundred year storm roll in over the river, so big that not guests or staff managed to sleep…except us, thanks to Eric. I’ll let the photos do the rest and just stick to international diplomacy.

Thank you Botswana, we’ll be back. But now, it’s off to Zim!

Scorpion 1, Scorpio 0

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After an amazing day with the elephants, we had left any further expectations of the Delta at the door…imaginary door…there are not doors or gates. But our subsequent game drives included: hyenas including their babies as we raided their den after dark…while they chewed on the front of the vehicle (we assume the Japanese at Toyota have designed hyena chewing in), more giraffes, heaps (the correct collective noun) of zebra, ostrich, a showing-off fish eagle and three wild dogs that our guide found in between a split “group” of those ever evasive impala (after he asked if we minded if we drove through the bush for a look and I made sure not to ask if he was barking up the wrong bush…) who we followed for about 25 minutes.
Oh, and while we watched the dogs, we heard the impressive sounds of lion in the distance and then spent a couple of hours tracking them down with no success. Apart from when we found a pride of 19 just lion around! I promise we ain’t lion (there you go Mum, two for you). You spend so much time looking for them, then once you’re several inches away…you’re ready to leave!!!! Thankfully, despite it being early afternoon, they were quite dozy….I somehow had the impression that in the jungle, the lions sleep at night…unless that’s just the mighty jungle.

At dinner, our chicken loving guide almost had us as he offered up the pre-eating sentiment of “ba boonup a tree”… Welcome to Africa, the birthplace of sarcasm…only fair, his name is Adam.

Anyway, it’s tough to imagine a better lion viewing experience. In fact the last Pride we saw on this scale was a parade in Hyde Park with lots more rainbows. I’m still not sure which was more scary. Either way, in both cases it’s good to always remember they’re more scared of you than you are of them.

(NB: most of the above was written under extreme intoxication…when Stewarts read “all drinks included” things can go terribly awry. I realise now how I must appear when inebriated and the only thing to do is apologise to the female of the species in general…and also for the horribly unfunny, self-indulgent travel blogs…)

Here we get the awful part this blog’s titled for. Or for which this blog is titled, if you’re the grammar police, of whom we know not one.

Unfortunately my poor, beautiful wife is of course a Scorpio. But lucky that she is, these weird and wonderful people seem to have somewhat of a tolerance to being stung in the face. Except that the tolerance they have is in fact zero. After a lovely swim and an incredible day, Lea was offered first shower by her caring, considerate, lovely husband. Completely unaware the towels were set up for a game of pass the parcel with a scorpion as the main prize…until, of course, hearing the screaming from the “bathroom” and seeing a somewhat squashed attacker in Lea’s towel…along with seeing sheer terror elsewhere.

Lea has always been the protector against the little terrors, but she’s never taken it to the extreme of using her beautiful face to end their annoying lives.

A (this) husband may tend to overreact to such things as he took the dead beast to the staff (as directed by the possibly dying wife, who still in control of a horrendous situation)…however, the overreaction seems justified as the camp manager came sprinting from his office and ran straight towards our tent…clearly not as hindered by just wearing a dressing gown as some of us were.

My brave traveler, not brave enough to be dragged naked through the camp by her cohabiting panic monkey, was left in too much pain to be able to go on her much awaited mokoro trip as the lovely manager fed her full of pain killers and antibiotics…and James full of gin. She did agree, for some reason, to go on a late, short game drive where all we saw was rain bucketing in to her face for an hour. Lucky we could think of the old saying when you’re hurt of, “just chuck some African water on it and you’ll be sweet as…eeeh rrra?”  We did actually see a little hare, who was getting ready to deliver chocolates the next day…Yay we saw a rabbit…

18 hours of facial paralysis later, Lea still agreed to go on the morning drive. And thanks to her pain tolerance we were able to track and finally find a leopard, although a brief glimpse the whole experience is what makes off track seafaring in the Delta truly incredible.

Not long post leopard, Lea’s facial paralysis was soon put in perspective on out flight from Timbukthree to Foknoosweir, as about half way through the second leg we plummeted ~100ft in half a second, nose first. Long enough to think “I knew I was going to die in Africa”, but not quite long enough to look at each other to say “I’ve had a wonderful life with you.” Our two “pilots” put a stop to their flirting and “water” drinking and actually put their hands off the controls to level us out with nothing more than a raised heartbeat and thankful we had free washing of pants at our next camp.

The next camp started interestingly as we were instructed to make sure we shake out our towels before use…………….thanks #scorpionface. But what an amazing camp, overlooking the Chobe River and Namibia. We started straight on lunch, served by a lovely young man named “Tray Knee”…well at least we thought he was, until we learned his name was Eric. Somewhat used to a darker skinned Eric getting us drunk, we soon fell in to old patterns as Lea passed out, both sides of her face asleep, and James drank a G&T in the outdoor shower…..  I think this place will suit us just fine.

More stories from Chobe to come.

Good Maun-ing from Botswana!!

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Here we are, less than one full day in Africa and we already feel at home thanks to the beautiful people everywhere. But it’s not a surprise as, according to Merryl Streep, “we’re all Africans really…?” Really.

As soon* as we arrived we were whisked away on our first game drive. A lovely first glimpse of the flood plains, we saw plenty of Pumbas, a journey of giraffe and a herd of buffalo were the highlights. Dinner was a braai, cooked on the outside, we all sat at a long table after having been serenaded  by and then dancing with the many staff. When we asked, our guide informed us his favourite of the vegetables was the chicken.  Sitting around the fire after dinner one of our new friends (about 5 out of 9 guests seem to be teetotallers, meaning we only had 4 people to talk to) who must have been a muso (and a vegetarian from Munich…so double weird) was desperate to find a guitar without luck.  Having just met these people, I refrained from musing “surely with all these elephants there must at least be a piano somewhere?”

The expected highlight of the trip was thrust upon us on our first morning in the Okavango delta. Our elephant experience. Months of preparation, ie. Getting into elephant-like shape and character, didn’t prepare us for what will always be a high point in our lives.  In fact Lea even went as far as to say it was…”elephantastic”.   Hope she hadn’t been waiting long to use that one.

The morning started slowly, as we weren’t going on a safari, we could sleep in until 7…if you could sleep with all the amazing noises outside the tent…Lea sure could. We then had a lovely breakfast, Lea had her eggs scrambled and I had mine in omelette form…neither of us were game to order our eggs poached on our big elephant day.

I think the photos should speak for themselves, but let’s just say we had a couple of drinks at lunch and got a little trunk.

We also, unintentionally, had meat for lunch…on Good Friday. Sorry Jebus.  I think someone really needs to come over here and teach these Africans about Christianity.
*Of course by soon, we mean a quick shower and a double G&T…which you quickly work out becomes your standing order. No singles for you!

Are you taking the pith???

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We’re currently the most overdressed people at Perf international (a feat that’s difficult to achieve…unless of course you wear sleeves made from anything other than ink) as we’d hoped to fool the check-in staff to think we’re cultured enough to get an upgrade. Well…holy crap, the full moon or maybe the sacrifice of our Saviour has finally paid off!!  We don’t know if it was the pith helmet, slacks, dress, boots or boobs, but who cares we’re in!!!!

What a way to start our next honeymoon!!! Doing some things we never haaa aaaaa aaaa aaaaa  aaaaaave dum du dum da da da daaaa #toto

Now, don’t call me yellow…(fever)……even though one of us was too scared to have any pre-trip needles. We are instead relying totally on aeroguard and G&Ts (taken separately…we asked about that) to battle the mossies. Unfortunately the same fear also led us to taking typhoid tablets instead of a jab, which, we later found out, come with a 90% chance of violent diarrhoea…and worse still (as confirmed by an unfortunate friend) are not 100% effective. So expected outcome, for ~92% of people, is violent diarrhoea. Sweet.

Somehow we BOTH beat the odds and were absolutely fine. So of course, being a former mathematician, I’ve calculated the chances of that occurring to be: really fu…very bloody lucky. All we can deduce is Lea has a sadistic doctor who wanted to scare her into getting the runs. Which James wouldn’t have minded too much, some help in getting down to peak travelling weight…rather than the actual peak mass situation he’s found himself in.

But enough about poo. Let’s talk prophylactics. It’s time to pop the first of our hallucinogens and hit the skies!  Fist stop Jburg, then to Maun, we’ll be coming in 12.30 flight…

We’ll try to keep in touch, as I’m sure our tents are fully wifi 4G enabled, after all This Is Africa…NOT AUstralia…

Amsterdam, there’s something in the air

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We’ve reached the ‘A’, Amsterdam. Our train stopped for an hour on the way here, which we assumed was all of Europe trying to stop us from leaving…especially seeing as they chose not to stop the bar, but alas we made it. Dam it. Our final destination is the land of tulips, clogs, dykes, windmills, red lights, a tasty breakfast sauce and Dutch ovens. There are also a plethora of coffee houses, but when you go in and try to order a flat white or a long black they send you to a different part of town???

We didn’t have much time here, but still managed the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken Experience. Which is not a brewery tour, but an Experience! Willy Wonka of beers, if Willy Wonka only made one product. The Dutch are amazing how they can preach responsible use of their product, just before telling you to skull and get out before the next group.

We managed a few laps of the oldest red light district (a few more than Lea would have liked, a few less than James would have liked), but spent more of our time in the beautiful suburbs. A lovely city, but we’re glad we started in Croatia and did Z to A rather than A to Z. We’ll never forget walking through the gates in Dubrovnik to start this incredible time of our lives,

That’s it, the honeymoon is over.  Goodbye Europe.

Thanks for watching.

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And most importantly, thank you to my beautiful wife for this life changing adventure. Eight weeks together and I’m more in love than ever. I can’t wait to be back in our home…when’s our next holiday?

 

 

Belgium, Brussels, Bruges, Belfries, Beers, Beef

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The pesky wasps have now been replaced with B’s, a sure sign we’re getting closer to that once so distant ‘A’, which will signal the end of this incredible journey across Europe from Z to A.

We caught the train from Paris to Brussels, because we’re certainly not willing to ever drive in Paris again. If you’ve ever been to both these cities then you’ll know this probably wasn’t the right order in which to visit them. Paris is a dream, like being serenaded by Edith Piaf while swimming in a pool of wine, butter and cheese, whereas Brussels is more like being punched in the face by Jean-Claude van Damme.

After a week in Paris, we were finally able to get some real culture in Belgium, achieved through drinking as many different local beers as possible and thus many different cultures…Al and Tones came over from The Hague to stay with us, which meant more time was spent on our rooftop garden drinking and looking over the construction site next to us, towards the lovely Turkish quarter, than was spent wandering the filthy streets. We did at least manage one breakfast with (deconstructed) mimosas on a balcony (we miss Paris), had a Flemish stew at a tourist trap (which sounds even worst than Dalmatian stew and…was), saw a little boy and girl peeing, passed by a bar that was a haunt of Karl Marx that is now the most expensive restaurant in town (hilarious), worked up the energy to go on a walking tour of all the good bits, which only covered about 500m, but took 2 hours (I guess because the guide waffled on a bit…), Lea had mussels in Brussels, we all had amazing frites, Tones and I did a beer tasting for science (because scientists look out for each other) and woke up after a bender with what felt sledgehammers ringing in our ears…which turned out to be from the sledgehammers next door, so at least our hearing is still ok.

Although Brussels wasn’t all that bad, it did have us both a little worried about moving on to Bruges. We needn’t have worried. So perfect to be in another fairytale town at the back end of our trip. All you can do there is drink beer, eat waffles, decorate stuff with lace and wander around the canals through the amazingly preserved medieval streets. And that we did…apart from the decorating. We had our first brewery tour of the trip (I’m sure you’re supposed to do more beer tours on honeymoon) complete with unfiltered, unpasteurised beers for breakfast (to sit on top of the previous two-steak-day), we saw a young man suffer morning sickness outside the beer museum, which we took as a sign and promptly entered to see if we could learn about the cause of his illness…James did, as they “shared” all six “tastings”.

Apart from waffles, we also ate a quiche, sitting on the footpath, in the rain while locals and tourists alike crossed the street to avoid being asked for a coin, to help with our next meal. Although, we would have had to sit there for quite some time to cover the next meal, as it was at our only Michelin starred restaurant of the trip. I don’t think climbing the 366 stairs of the Belfry or our walking tour quite covered that meal, as you soon realise why they call them Michelin stars, leaving with your head seeing stars and a few extra tyres around the middle.

After two lovely days in Bruges we had a night in Ghent.  Probably what Bruges would be like if it were still a real town.  Nice, but not Bruges.  We did manage to have one of the most fun and tasty dinners of the trip before hitting up the Pink Flamingo (which I also don’t think is a euphemism, but might be / should be) to help get through a respectable number of the literally* millions of beers they have in this country.

*Totally not literal.  But I think there are over 1000 and “we” probably only tried ~30.

Paris, nous t’aimons

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However, the relationship did get off to a rocky start. The first Parisian site to be seen by the now well travelled “newlyweds” was the Bastille monument.   Unfortunately this view came as they were entering the lovely round-about surrounding said monument and as they say: “if you’re driving in Paris, stop it”. To quote James, 2015.

Seemingly oblivious to the near death experiences and effects on relationships (between all three parties, including Paris), Lea and James hit the road again…on bikes.  Misinterpreting the “Fat Tire Bike Tours” name, they provide wide tyre bikes, rather than cater for those who are exhausted and have overindulged for six weeks, we found ourselves riding through Paris on a perfect Friday night.  Lea describes herself as a “Rotto rider” (where your only obstacles are quokkas, not crazy, driving, riding and walking Frenchmen) and strongly identifies with the balance issues of newborn babies, but despite this, Lea, James and Paris all fell in love…and almost off the bikes, after getting drunk on a boat cruise (part of the “ride”).

With so many grand plans for day trips to: Versailles, Giverny, Rouen, Fontainebleu…Paris turned on its charm and a remarkable run of weather that saw our balcony and the copious amount of public parks become overwhelmingly attractive.

We knocked off some of the biggies though. La Louvre: saw Mona Lisa, who could barely rustle up a smile for us, and Venus de Milo whose attraction has always been lost on us so we were a bit nervous, but she turned out to be pretty armless. We also went to L’Orangerie for a Monet fix and drank wine from coffee cups on the lawn in the Tuilleries.  La Musée d’Orsay: worth going for the building itself, a van Gogh collection that houses every VG painting an art ignoramus (James) would have ever seen in a book, so many Degas’ that would have come in handy in Champagne….pop…and an interesting temporary exhibit on prostitution, which, surprisingly, was free to get in to… Le Tour Eiffel: the oldest, temporary structure we’ve ever seen and we were surprised by how blown away we were at the top, and not just because of the wind…it gives a breathtaking view of this beautifully, perfect city.  Arc de Triumph: another surprisingly impressive monument that soars above the flat surrounds, and with the city mostly closed to traffic, in a cute attempt at being green, we were able to dodge the traffic on the round-about then walk along the length of Les Champs Élysées, sans voitures. A once in a lifetime chance.

We also visited the Rodin museum (really makes you think), Pantheon, Pompidou, Picasso Museum, passed Notre Dame a couple of times, picnicked on Île St Louis, funiculared to Sacré Coeur and Montmarte, walked past the Moulin Rouge (I’m sure the view inside is a lot better than outside), ate crepes in the Latin Quarter, drank in the Luxembourg gardens and wandered the streets at night drinking wine outside Notre Dame, on the steps of the Louvre and in the Tuileries …so we did get around a bit.

The standout of the sojourn in Paris, was a night at the opera. We booked well in advance to make sure we got in to see the building, not being fussy over what was on show. A Paris regular and regular Woodsider also managed to get cheap last minute tickets, which help to slightly offset the cost of drinks inside, but if you have to pick somewhere to drink €70 Taittinger after not being paid for five weeks, then this is it!  Just tearworthy, stunning beauty in every corner, we now know why people were bad mouthing La Scala (you know who you are). But we agree, La Scala sucks.   The opera itself, Platée, was incredibly entertaining.  Hilarious acting, amazing soprano and the best choreography we’ve ever seen in an opera.  The first opera we’ve seen for a while without regular use of a muff, although we did get close, as one of the ladies (not the fat one) was dressed in red lingerie for no apparent reason, nobody was complaining.  To be fair to all, we also saw: three entangled men in two piece lingerie, random frog people, multiple acts of domestic violence (to the laugh of the crowd), breakdancing, sadomasachism, girls with six foot long legs and a mesmerising ceiling by Chagall that seemed perfectly out of place.

However, most of our time in Paris really was spent like locals (who don’t work and can still walk away smiling after putting up with the genuine Perth prices…in Euros…of our local store) on our balcony, drinking champagne, eating cheese and breakfasts of mainly croissants with incredible heirloom tomatoes and cheeses.  We had flirted with the idea of including mushrooms…as James was desperate to call it a breakfast of champignons. Utterly indulgent, time wasting, life changing breakfasts. So ridiculous in fact that when toasting to our ménage á trois with Paris (who I’ve heard is actually gay? So bad luck Lea), a butterfly appeared from nowhere and circled our bubbles before returning to the bright blue sky.  We also got to watch a SUPER, lunar eclipse from our balcony…vraiment, Paris?

À bientôt, gay Paris. We’ll never baguette you.

 

 

Pop!

/ stew_jam

After a quick stop in Troyes (which was “c’est Troyes bien”) we arrived in Épernay, staying on the Avenue de Champagne…which seemed like as good an address as any to start.

Unfortunately, somehow, the previous meals of French classics such as “dix-sept fromages avec pain” started to catch up with James (who remains vigilant at not using the same joke in sequential posts by mentioning the ‘pain’ bit must have been in English) as he swelled up to a size that would have been enough to inspire the Montgolfier brothers.

Deciding it was only fit to be full of gas in Champagne, the honeymooners hit the streets (or at least the one aforementioned avenue). They (James) burped and farted their way along the Avenue like something out of a Willy Wonka movie, without inheriting any of the amazing Châteaux, and managed to get to two cave tours and three more tastings in their short time. All the while somehow avoiding aiming at the annoying Brits asking (“so how do they get the bubbles in?”…even though they accidentally discovered it) and declaring, in my best French, “I fart in your general direction.”

A nice dinner of more meat followed (to try and unclog those bowels…where James did order a salad to start!!  Who knew that would mean a bowl of potatoes, bacon and cheese with a shaving of lettuce?), before heading to a tour of the impressive Veuve Clicquot cellars the next day in Reims (another classic honeymooners spot..veuve=widow in French).

POP!!! Pop…pop pop…