November 30, 2002

[i've had to process]

a couple of weeks ago, when i was in munich, germany, i had the privilege of visiting the dachau concentration camp memorial site.

it's taken me a while to process the things that i learnt while i was there.

dachau was not an extermination camp such as auschwitz or berkenau, it was a concentration camp, like the gulags in the former soviet state.

germany, 1933. an attack was made on the reichstag building. the newly elected national socialist government passed a fire bill. it allowed them to arrest anyone who was seen as a threat to the regime.

at first it was mostly communists.

then, jehovah's witnesses, priests, gypsies, compulsive criminals, jews.

once someone was arrested, they didn't have access to lawyers. not that having a lawyer would have helped, you were just locked away in a camp for political prisoners such as dachau. without trial. without the access to justice that we take for granted.

the words "you are either with us, or against us" and "department of homeland security" seem even scarier now.

Posted by pipstar at 04:49 PM | Comments: *

 

nanowrimo II

i wrote 1800 words. in the first two days. that's 48,800 off the target word count.

i should have:

had an idea.
had a plan or story line.
actually been really motivated.
not attempted to write my first novel without a computer, while i'm travelling.

Posted by pipstar at 04:11 PM | Comments:

 

How do you plan to

How do you plan to keep learning, trusting and believing in a world that changes and challenges us all?
See the world while it lasts. Technology is infectious. Every time an antenna is raised in a remote village, another local culture becomes extinct. No society is equipped to withstand the onslaught. Every satellite launched, every cable laid, the death of every elder, hastens the end of cultural diversity.

If you are 25, it will disappear during your lifetime. Forget about stopping it; you can't. Instead savour every chance you get to absorb a passing world, to experience as much as you can before it fades into a big version of anyplace.

Each and every culture, no matter how small or remote, represents a vast body of experience-of wars and adventures and art, of medicines and music and hairstyles, of living with parents, living with nature, playing, dancing, kissing. Together these cultures are the culmination of millions of years of practice living on a precious, fragile planet.

Go now. Go for the people, not for the weather. Go to learn. Pass along to your friends and later, your kids, the things you learned, wherever you went. Use the technology you have to record what you find. Take pictures, tape music and stories, make videos. And leave nothing behind. When you go back home, take things away in your head, not in your suitcase.

Courtesy of Colors Magazine

Posted by pipstar at 03:50 PM | Comments:

 

November 28, 2002

a list

buy nothing day - 30th november

buy nothing christmas - some alternatives to buying gifts

wwoof - willing workers on organic farms

make your own dubya speech

Posted by pipstar at 03:53 PM | Comments:

 

November 27, 2002

things i've learnt

in america they sell bacon with the rind off. in czech, the bacon comes in a giant unsliced block.

uh oh, lea anna is from california and didn't know about rind, and she volunteered to chop up the bacon. we didn't realise that she hadn't removed the rind until we'd added it to the risotto.

chewy.

Posted by pipstar at 02:46 PM | Comments:

 

slaughtered

i stupidly drank two absinthe, 3 beers, and a vodka and redbull in a very short period of time last night.

ouch.

luckily the headspins from the absinthe were distressing enough to prompt me to "purge" myself early on. so i'm a little dizzy today. but not hungover.

thanks to amy, amanda and lea anna for looking after me on the walk back home!

the actual act of preparing the absinthe is cool, even though the drink tastes something like a cross between listerine, lighter fluid and rocket fuel.

you fill a teaspoon with sugar, dip it into the absinthe so that the sugar is soaked in absinthe, light the alcohol / sugar mixture, wait until the sugar begins to bubble and caramelise and then quickly stir the sugar into the rest of the absinthe and then pow! shot the coolant looking stuff back.

Posted by pipstar at 02:41 PM | Comments: *

 

November 26, 2002

expect me when you see me

the money situation is close enough for critical that i had to ask my mum to lend me some cash so that i can get through the next couple of months. luckily i do have access to some funds with which i'll pay her back on my return.

i'm currently in cesky krumlov staying at krumlov house. life is easy here. i could easily spend a couple of weeks just sitting around drinking tea and occassionally going off on a walk to smell the inside of the botanicus store.

i also went for a horse trek today. and we saw wild deer in the distance.

when we walked up the road i saw a dead porcupine. well i saw its guts and i saw its spines so i guessed that it had once been a porcupine.

Posted by pipstar at 04:58 PM | Comments: **

 

November 22, 2002

through a lens darkly

the nato conference might have scared the majority of tourists and czech residents from the streets, but it means that a whole bunch of political celebrities are in town.

sitting next to me in the globe bookstore internet cafe is rossano manischalchi, the official us embassy photographer for the nato summit.

today he photographed dubya and colin powell. tomorrow he will photograph madelaine albright. and he just showed me an email from ray manzurek from the doors.

Posted by pipstar at 04:48 PM | Comments:

 

still in prague

i've spent the last day umming and aahing over how to spend the next month and how to include all the places i want to go...

copenhagen, berlin, vienna, budapest, cesky krumlov

and i'd decided on a route of

prague > copenhagen > berlin > vienna > budapest > cesky krumlov > prague (again) > krakow / warsaw to meet aidan.

but my plans were foiled by a lack of accomodation in copenhagen for the next week.

it stuffs up my use of the superexpensive interrail pass which i bought whilst in switzerland... as i really didn't need to buy a pass for eastern europe and i'd like to get as many german trips in as possible.

so now it looks like i'll go to budapest on monday, then up to vienna, berlin and copenhagen and down again to either prague or budapest before going up to poland.

Posted by pipstar at 04:01 PM | Comments:

 

November 20, 2002

city links

list of official tourist boards for european cities.

Posted by pipstar at 05:38 PM | Comments:

 

prague

with some kind of uncanny timing, i've managed to turn up in prague for the same week as the NATO summit.

half of the sights aren't open. helicopters are buzzing overhead. the day before i arrived, my hostel had two sudden passport checking raids. and hardly anyone is around.

spooky.

i have been to see the alphonse mucha museum. that was very beautiful. and has started me off on a potential collection of beautfiful playing cards.

and i've eaten a lot of gulash, and drunk a lot of beer.

i also went on a very wet walking tour of prague.

bye bye nicole and torri!

happy birthday amanda! a package should arrive soon for you and lue!

Posted by pipstar at 05:02 PM | Comments:

 

November 18, 2002

$?

i think it could be because of my recent realisation that i have very little money left, or maybe because i'm now halfway through my trip, but i'm not just making and then lists...

but i'm now beginning to think seriously about what i'm going to do and how i'm going to live when i get back home.

i'm trying to work out what subjects i'm meant to be studying next year. this research has provided me with the discovery that i have a four subjects in second semester and only about 2 in the first. i hate being reminded that i would be finishing my degree in july next year if i hadn't decided to take this semester off.

so, first semester; component engineering and a couple of first year subjects i never took, and possibly computer systems architecture.

i'm hoping to take computer systems architecture instead of intelligent systems technology in second semester. learning the basics of assembly code seems much more useful than the horrible language lisp.

and then database technology, secure and high intergrity systems and professional computing.

it seems that the first thing i'll be doing when i get back home is organising a big meeting with one of my course coordinators so that i can work out what i can and can't do.

and yes mum, i now know that i should have worked that out before i left!

and i've been writing lists of money that i'll owe (credit card and money to mum...) and things that i'll be wanting to save up for.

a new computer (super important), some new stereo components, a couch, a washing machine and eventually, a new car and a house deposit. but more importantly, new clothes(!) and of course enought money to go overseas again as soon as possible.

which led me to writing out a list of places i could get work at / would like to work at whilst still studying.

which led me to do a couple of websearches for jobs in adelaide. just to see what the market's like.

eek. it don't look good.

Posted by pipstar at 11:50 PM | Comments:

 

yay for prague!

wicked!

i'm finally in prague! it's one of 'those' towns which everyone always raves about.

they're right.

we (myself, torri, nicole (who i met in salzburg)) got off to a late start today. in fact, nicole was feeling sick so she didn't really get to start at all and stayed in bed all day.

but one of the things torri and i did was to have lunch at obecni dum.

another highlight was seeing an exhibition of photographs of the recent flood catastrophe in prague.

Posted by pipstar at 06:38 PM | Comments:

 

November 16, 2002

$

i've just hit the halfway mark in this trip. and i'm way, way more than halfway into my money.

luckily at least one of my three remaining months is going to be in thailand.

and tomorrow i head to prague. and i've bought an interrail pass, which means that for the next month i don't have to pay for trains.

and i just booked a ryanair flight from brussels to london for the day that my flight leaves for thailand.

€0.01! but i had to pay airport taxes and a credit card fee which brings the total to €15.

but aside from some food and transport from stanstead, into the centre of london and then out to heathrow, i don't have to spend as much of the pound as i would if i had to spend a night in london.

eek. there is a 15kg checked baggage limit though. i'm going to have to wear a lot of clothes!

but the point is. i'm feeling poor again.

luckily i already have some czech and hungarian money.

i don't think that i'll be going back to switzerland though!

Posted by pipstar at 07:01 PM | Comments:

 

November 11, 2002

the books, the plans

i just bought my interrail pass and it turns out that i only get 50% discount when i'm leaving switzerland.

so i'm going to head straight to salzburg tomorrow. it's a 9 hour train ride, but i have charged batteries in my discman and the rest of war and peace to read.

i've taken to reading huge, brainiac novels while i've been travelling. i figure that i'm a captive audience - because i don't have access to endless books, i have to finish a classic, and i need a huge book as i read far too quickly.

so far some of the big brainy books i've read are foucault's pendulum, anna karenina and swann's way.

so war and peace doesn't seem intimidating at all. in fact i find tolstoy's work really easy to read.

but enough about how completely fantastic i am.

it's down to the plans.

rather than send my big backpack back to adelaide unaccompanied, it's going to be cheaper for me to store it in bangkok at a hostel.

but will it be safe for me to go to thailand? or in fact anywhere in asia?

that's not the type of thinking that i should be doing. if i wanted to be cautious, i shouldn't have caught a night train from paris considering that 12 people died in a fire on a sleeper car from paris to munich.

more importantly, should i spend a couple of days in london before i fly out to thailand?

if i should then it might be best for me to book a ticket from frankfurt to london now on ryanair (€2.59).

or do i fly from the netherlands or belgium? that way i get to go to amsterdam and possibly brussels. i spend less time in london (i could fly into london the same day i fly out to thailand) and i'll save at least aus$300. (based on my last visit to london).

Posted by pipstar at 01:35 PM | Comments: **

 

November 10, 2002

the plans

i'm in interlaken at the moment and i'm planning to go to zurich in a couple of days and then on to austria, hungary,
slovakia, czech republic, denmark, sweden, finland, estonia, poland for christmas, germany for nye, holland, uk, thailand and then home!

i've held off buying a railpass, but as i'm travelling through switzerland, germany and eventually the netherlands, (i hadn't been planning on going to these places), it's beginning to look very worthwhile. and i'm now only spending about 10 days in each country, so i'll be moving around more and more.

eek. 289 euros in one go! but just getting from interlaken to zurich is going to be about 45 euros!

austrian railways
swiss railways
german train timetable (lists all of europe)

Posted by pipstar at 02:00 PM | Comments:

 

interlaken

yesterday i was able to see and touch snow for the first time!

when i arrived in interlaken i walked around with my jaw dropped, looking at the snow on the mountains around the town.

snow! real snow!

i went up to lauterbrunnen, a town about 15 minutes by train from interlaken and i picked up the snow from people's gardens. and then i put it down.

it's not a lie, but snow is cold. it's not fun holding it in your bare hands.

as anyone who knows me will tell you, i get cold really easily. the next couple of months are going to be a big test for me.

i'm still looking forward to seeing snow fall. and i don't mind walking around in the cold. i just need to get some waterproofing solution for my shoes, jacket and gloves as i seem to be continually damp.

particularly as i had to walk around in the rain in lauterbrunnen for about an hour.

my whinging finished, switzerland is beautiful. the people are friendly to you, and it isn't as expensive to stay here as people say it is. i'm paying 17 euros for accomodation with breakfast which is very good anywhere in europe. and the hostel, balmer's herberge, is very friendly. i haven't been down to the bar yet, but that's one of the things which make the hostel so recommended.

Posted by pipstar at 11:33 AM | Comments:

 

November 08, 2002

i bitch about men in internet cafes

last night aidan wrote a post about the dregs of humanity who seem to reside in internet cafes (aside from email hungry travellers).

because i am filling in over 3 hours in easy everything tonight, i am getting to experience them all. the loud music players. the gaming geeks and the porn addicts.

unfortunately i'm seated in a row of terminals which happens to have a couple of the porn addicts on it as well. every now and then they look creepily at me and the other girl in the row and then back at the one terminal they're all using.

in turkey all the internet cafes outside of istanbul and goreme seemed to be populated by men downloading porn. in australia you just get so used to people downloading porn on home computers, and not within two metres of you.

at least in turkey they'd realise that a woman was there and they'd pretend to look at something else.

Posted by pipstar at 09:06 PM | Comments:

 

the unicorn tapestries

there are two different series of unicorn tapestries, the lady of the unicorn, at musee de moyen age and the unicorn tapestries in the met, new york.

my mother has a print of the unicorn in captivity (new york). it is probably the first image that i can clearly remember.

Posted by pipstar at 07:59 PM | Comments: *

 

8 mile

[i'm desparately trying to kill time before i go to catch my train to switzerland so i'm geeking like i did in madrid when i was unhappy.]

an interesting review of the eminem movie, 8 mile.

i'm fascinated by eminem, and i actually wouldn't mind renting this video out when i get back to adelaide.

Posted by pipstar at 07:48 PM | Comments:

 

the louvre

some of my favourite pieces from the louvre (it was really very exhausting):

The Turkish Bath

The Mona Lisa

it is a very nice painting. overrated. but still very good. there was another da vinci portrait that i preferred.

the lacemaker

Louise Brongniart, Aged Five Years

this clay sculpture was very beautiful.

Mercury and Psyche

this was sexy.

Posted by pipstar at 07:05 PM | Comments:

 

the sound of silence

when aidan said good bye to me in granada, he warned me that after you farewell someone for a long time the room feels very silent.

in granada i didn't know how long it would be until i was able to meet up with aidan again. the room in the pension was very quiet, as i'd just said goodbye to aidan's brother james as well and it was only about 7am outside and noone else was awake.

so i listened to kid A. and felt very sad.

today on the metro we could both feel the silence come on. but this time it wasn't so oppressive.

i have overcome the initial shock of travelling by myself, and i'm now becoming aware of why i'm doing this.

i know that in about six weeks i'll be seeing aidan in poland for christmas. (!) and i know that i travel very well by myself.

so the silence wasn't so oppressive. but despite the sounds of paris around me, it felt a little quiet and i felt a little sad.

so i chose to listen to the hiphop show stream via triple j. i needed some aussie accents.

and tonight i can listen to my new ryan adams cd!

Posted by pipstar at 01:42 PM | Comments:

 

the paris list.

in a little while i'm going to head off to the louvre avec mon sac a dos grand et mon sac a dos petit. hopefully they'll accept them in the bag check.

then i get to go to the louvre until 6pm and then i have to fill in 3 hours looking after my pack without spending much money.

here's what i did in paris:

saturday and sunday

monday: walked around the marais and went to the pompidou centre, caught the metro back to the apartment, ate pasta, read and slept

tuesday: a chilled day of doing nothing and not having to go anywhere much until dj shadow! i sat around in my pyjamas, drinking endless cups of tea and read the french ikea catalogue. i have not been able to do that for the last three months!

and then i went to montmartre, thought of amelie and sat in sacre couer until i met up with aidan before the concert.

wednesday: went to the musee des arts et metiers and then the maison europeene de la photographie. had a pizza for dinner in bastille and we then went to a very beautiful club called barrio latino.

thursday: went to the musee de moyen age (musee de cluny), bought a ticket to switzerland, bought stuff for dinner, met up with aidan, rushed through the beautiful musee d'orsay and then finally got home and made a yummy risotto.

friday: left my rugs, first travel journal and some souvenirs with aidan, repacked my pack, listened to the amelie soundtrack, ate an omelette, drank some tea, caught the metro with aidan to st lazare station so he could catch a train for a weekend in normandy and caught the metro to st michel for recuperative internetting (i felt lonely being left in paris without aidan)

Posted by pipstar at 01:25 PM | Comments:

 

i fill in some time

the 26th year: an american in belgian

this blog looks kinda interesting. and this poem captures occassional travel feelings.

Posted by pipstar at 12:53 PM | Comments:

 

November 07, 2002

apres paris

tomorrow i'm going to got dump my pack at gare d'est and then i'm going to look at the louvre.

then i'm going to head off to interlaken on a train which arrives in berne at 04.15! and the connecting train doesn't come until 2 hours after!

(i'm going to be so freezing!)

Posted by pipstar at 03:14 PM | Comments:

 

america v. americans

one of the most frequent conversations that i have with americans i've met whilst i've travelled is whether i regularly get to see kangaroos in my backyard.

but surpassing that conversation is what i, my family and friends think of america.

to which i reply "well, there's america and then there are americans...".

this interview with author Mark Hertsgaard (The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World) covers a lot of the same things that i speak to my american friends about.

you aren't america, but you are an american. take a step back and look at how and why the world regards you in the light it does.

Posted by pipstar at 03:03 PM | Comments:

 

November 06, 2002

touch wood

it is with confused feelings (pride, fear, amusement) that i now announce that i survived a pickpocket.

last night aidan and i were buying a drink after seeing dj shadow play, a weird looking little french guy came up and started demonstrating a tackle made famous by zidain, a french soccer player.

it's a tackle designed to throw the opponent off-balance, and as i was thrown off balance, the pickpocket started to tug my wallet from my jeans pocket.

luckily i caught him, and i was able to put two words from my french vocabulary into use.

<< non, non, non monsieur! >> elle dit tres forte.

[sorry, i think that my tenses and possibly some spelling may have been slightly incorrect... but you get the idea.]

Posted by pipstar at 07:35 PM | Comments:

 

email read

hi all,

i've finally been able to check my new mail by geeking up and running ftp through internet explorer.

unfortunately i can't reply to you yet!

so mum, please can you pay the $220 for me, thankyou very much,

and thanks to both you and ed for the letters. if i wake up early i'll give you a call. (it's actually cheaper for me to ring you).

karah... oooh goss! so interesting! that's was very strong of you. on the other hand, one shouldn't be afraid of reverting to physical violence if necessary.

sarah et al. if you want to send me a package right now (today or tomorrow! or maybe monday next week (111102)) i can pick it up in Prague. the address is...

BUCHANAN, Heather
Posta 1 (Hlavni posta)
Jindrisska 14
Prague 110 00
Czech Republic

tell me if you do send me something so that i can go and pick stuff up!

i'll email you all later. (if my mail server ever gets working!)

Posted by pipstar at 02:23 PM | Comments:

 

adelaide's metro is a sexy place

in response to pete's challenge about public transport in adelaide, i decided to check out the transadelaide website.

imagine my surprise when i entered www.transadelaide.com and was barred access by easy everything because the website contained the barred word sex!

someone back home, could you go check out the link and tell me whether there is indeed sex on the "other" transadelaide site? am i right in guessing that the public transport system of adelaide is staffed by transexuals and transvestites?

Posted by pipstar at 01:19 PM | Comments:

 

in time and in tune

aidan bought me a ticket to go see dj shadow play at elysee montmartre last night. it was a slightly late, but very welcome birthday present.

i'm not sure if it's because i've been away for live music for about 3 months now (i knew that i missed seeing people play, and i've even missed going out to real clubs where there's just mixing, but i didn't realise that i'd missed it that much.), but even for me, it was one of my best live experiences.

he had two cd turntables, two technic 1200s, a sampler, a keyboard and an amazing video display.

occasionally he'd put in samples of other peoples' beats (eg. blackalicious) and as it was dj shadow, there were many video samples. but he was pretty much doing live remixes of all his work (old and new) and mixing various tracks in together.

and the video display! he had this guy c.o.d. working with him, it was in time, and when there was a video sample in the track, you saw the visual of the video as well.

you wanted to dance, but at the same time you wanted to just stand and watch the absolutely sweet technique!

and at the end... well that's a pretty cool and funny surprise.

Posted by pipstar at 01:01 PM | Comments: *

 

November 04, 2002

life in france

i've already read this and you might have too, but humour me and read "life in france" by david sedaris.

Posted by pipstar at 01:17 PM | Comments:

 

and THEN...

aidan and i keep on swapping stories of how improved our lives are going to be when we return to adelaide...

aidan: i'm going to be so organised and that will mean that i'll be able to relax and have free time when i need it.

and THEN, i'm going to use alternative forms of transport, like the bus system and walking and my bike.

and THEN, while i'm on the bus i'm going to be able to use it as thinking and reading time.

and THEN, i'm going to rediscipline tristan (aidan's dog) and i'll train him out of all the bad habits my mum's let him relapse into.

pippa: i'm going to do all the things that i've always wanted to do, but have been too lazy to actually start and finish. i'm going to walk up mt lofty regularly with pete and i'm going to go to yoga once a week and i'm also going to try to swim once a week.

and THEN, i'm going to catch public transport too (as my car's getting sold) and ride my bike places.

and THEN, i'm going to make a patchwork quilt with mum and setup a darkroom and take photos all the time and have regular crafty sewing days.

...

both of our lists are extremely long winded and full of hope about how cool and perfectish our lives are going to be.

my list also includes:

• learning to play the piano again, or start learning the guitar (and practising regularly)
• taking a girls only class in surfing (so many people have asked me if, as i'm australian, i know how to surf. i feel that it's my australian duty and i've actually always wanted to learn i'm just too much of a woos and...)
• i'm also going to get a campervan and i'll fix it up and if i can surf it means i can take my surfboard to places like byron bay (on top of said campervan) and potentially even use the surfboard to surf.
• joining a choir
• learning a foreign language or actually improving my current french knowledge at the alliance francaise
• i'm going to bake bread at least once a week and i'm also going to regularly handmake pasta

the list goes on and on. most importantly i'm going to wake up earlier and take shorter showers. that way i'll have more time to do all this stuff.

oh, and i'm also going to get a new job (possibly not directly related to computing, my skills are a little too stale at the moment) and i'm going to kick ass at university and get good enough marks so that if i felt like it, i could do postgraduate study. but first i have to finish my current degree.

maybe a postgraduate degree in architecture?

:::...

nanowrimo went well for the first day (in florence). i made my target 1600 words, but it should be noted by y'all that those 1600 words didn't make much sense. i was using the first person and switching tenses all the time and it seemed like a glorified rewrite of my journal.

so on the 2nd i wrote nothing.

instead i spoke for hours with aidan about my last two months, and he spoke about his last two months, and i marvelled at the teeny tinyness but well put together apartment that he's staying in. (his flatmate szanja has the best taste in stuff and reminds me at different times of luella, karah and amanda. even better, she works at the louvre and in a teashop.)

and THEN we metroed into town and walked through a very rainy but cliched paris (the seine! notre dame! joan of arc's statue in notre dame!), and ate chicken and baguette under a shop awning while drinking beer.

and THEN we went to a club called battyfos which was in a barge on the seine. we couldn't decide between leaving before the metro closed (00.20) or staying up until the first metro (05.00) so we ended up walking through the rain to catch a night bus.

and yesterday (the third), i slept in, and managed to write about 200 words for nanowrimo!

and we also took the metro across paris in the search for an exhibition which was closing on sunday, we never made it, but i saw some amazing double rainbows across the sky in front of the super modern buildings of la vilette.

which was followed by a movie (the bourne identity) with two of aidan's paris friends.

and to today... will i ever leave the internet cafe, let alone visit sainte chapelle, the pompidou centre and take a stroll around le marais?

will i sit down to write some more novel?

possibly.

the way i see it, if i can write 25000 words (half of the nanowrimo target) over the next month, that is a pretty cool effort. i don't have chapter summaries or even a list of things to write about, but i see nanowrimo as an opportunity to write something apart from my journal, this blog, or a university paper.

Posted by pipstar at 12:44 PM | Comments: *

 

November 02, 2002

come pick me up

my favourite new musical find while i've been away has been ryan adams (i downloaded some songs while i was doing my pre-travel cd burn sessions).

i cannot say enough about him, his songs make me want to sing along, out loud... (oh for my car and a long drive home)

and now i find that he's touring europe while i'm here! but it seems like our dates don't coordinate....

ryanadamstourdates

Posted by pipstar at 04:42 PM | Comments:

 

je suis sur paris!

i'm finally in paris!

it was never part of my plan to come to paris on this journey, but with aidan changing his place of study from uppsala to paris, there was no reason for me to not go (especially as i'd now have a cheap place to stay).

so here i am. last night i caught a train from florence (via milan) and made my way through darkness.

immediately i was put to the test as i'd been given a couchette with three french speaking people. none of them seemed to own a watch, so i was desparately trying to remember my numbers in french so that i could tell them the time.

it's raining in paris. but i was expecting that and arrived decked out in the cool green leather jacket and red leather gloves that i'd bought in florence.

aidan has taken me on a mini walking tour of the city and i've had a panini (the french equivalent of a toastie).

[ judge a book by its cover ]

and books! during my time in turkey i was starved of bookshops. even if the books aren't in english, i still like looking at them. in italy and now in france i am overwhelmed at the many well stocked bookstores all over their cities. not only are their translations of english language authors, but so many exciting looking books by non-english language authors!

and here's a link especially put in for luella and pete, may it make your future travels easier...

vegan in japanese

Posted by pipstar at 04:30 PM | Comments: