Paris - The city of light....

Just another nice building in Paris

St Michael s Notre Dame

big copper carved pillar thing

The Louvre Museum

Kids playing with boats in the park

The church on top of the hill

carachature artist at work, after his hard work the couple rejected it, poor guy

one of the entertaining buskers

Mmm... smog

Ah Paris....
On returning from Taize we were very blessed to have a place to stay for the last of our days in Europe. We were staying in a wee apartment off to the side of Alex's (who we stayed with in Barcelona) parents house. It was a tricky place to get into though and when we arrived we had to call Alexs sister Emilie when we were outside and she would let us in, this was what we had done the last two times we stayed in Paris. This time however our cell phone was out of money and not worth topping up, so I left the sick Sharon siting outside all forlorn in search of a phone box. I found one but our two phone cards were out of credit or expired (we hadnt really used them so i dont know how they were out of credit).... So, i returned to Sharon and got us through the first gate because we had remembered the pin but then we were stopped by a gate with spikes that we needed a key for... Our only options were to sit outside the gate till somone left or I could try and climb in and knock on the door. It seemed easy enough so I hopped over the gate and wandered down and knocked on the door... Emilies mother was watching television downstairs and looked very alarmed to see a strange man knocking on the door, she opened up and seeing the look on her face I stammered out who I was and asked if Emily was there (untill now we hadnt realised that the whole family lived there as Alex had only mentioned Emilie), she yelled upstairs for Emilie and then asked how I got in... I avoided saying I climbed in and just said that I had the pin already so could get in the outside gate, but then I had to explain that I had climbed in...awkward!!! I could see that she was not impressed! Luckily Emilie came down and seeing the prdicament I was in whisked me away to go and get Sharon and then we could retreat to our little apartment.
Sharon was feeling very ill with fevers, body aches and sweats, along with clogged sinuses and a sore chesty cough and I wasnt too flash either (thanks Taize). We decided to take it easy and try to recover before our long haul flights at the end of the week. That night Emlie along with her younger sister and brother brought us down some blackcurrant pie as a gift from their mother who said she was sorry for the way she was to me, mmm it was really good and made things a bit less awkward.
We didnt venture out at all the first day and then tried a 2 hour excursion on the Tuesday to see the famous Notre Dame, it was good to get out but very tiring for both of us. The next day Sharon was finally showing some improvement so we went out again this time for 3 and 1/2 hours, (phew that one was hard!) to see the outside of the Louvre art gallery.
On our last day after we finished packing we went to watch the sunset from a big beautiful church on a hill overlooking Paris with some olives and brie and crakers to finish our Eurotrip :-( Crowded on the steps going up to the church were a bunch of men holding bracelets in their hands, luckily we had been prewarned to watchout as these guys would act all nice and try to tie the bracelet around your wrist but so tight you cant get it off and then you have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it. The first guy we had to walk past wanted me to bonk my knuckles against his and was being all chummy about it, I said no thankyou and carried on walking, seeing that it wasnt working he got stroppy and forceful and was shouldering me trying to not let me past, hehehe, he didnt expect a sick and therfore stroppy Sharon to come in with the shoulder from the side so we got past... there was a throng of them but they saw the pissed-off look in our eyes and no one else bothered us.
The view from the top was great, you could really see how smoggy a big city gets but it made for great colours with the sun. There were also big crowds of people and lots of buskers which made for a neat atmosphere and we sat down watched the sun set listening to music and watching the buskers entertaining, a nice way to finish our trip. Once the sun dropped below the horizon it cooled down very quick and we headed home for our last dinner and bed.

Thanks Europe you have been great! We have had the best time going everywhere, visiting friends and meeting new ones... We will be back!

A week at Taize

Prayer and worship service

cute wee church in a nearby village

The Taize church, the monks sit on the wee stools up the middle

that will do for breakfast thanks... very healthy and nutritious

We decided to take the advice of a couple of friends and spend our second to last week in the Taize community. The community is a monastery that was started in the Second World War by Bother Rodger (a Swiss protestant monk) as a place of refuge for political prisoners, especially Jews. Taize is the village where it is located. Bother Rodger strongly believed in inter-denominational relationships between Christians and so gathered around him like-minded brothers from different denominations to live in an ecumenical community with him. Brother Rodger had a passion for young people and wanting them to also value inter-denominational relationships he began to invite youth from all over the world to share a week with them in Taize. Now the community has around 100,000 visitors a year to share a week with the 100 brothers reflecting on life and discussing life’s issues with other young people from all over the world…. Pretty amazing!!!

A typical day at Taize consists of morning prayer then breakfast (one dry 6” baguette a block of butter and two sticks of dark chocolate, and bowl of cocoa or a tea-ish like drink). After breakfast you either have a session with a brother or you do work duties, then there is a mid day prayer followed by lunch(one slice of baguette some bland pasta or rice dish flavoured with bay leaves and overcooked and a piece of fruit) then a session in the afternoon for those who did duties and then a workshop in the evening if your lucky, followed by dinner (similar to lunch, however pasta is sometimes substituted by mushy, previously frozen or from a powder vegetables) then evening prayer and bed…

Our days at Taize however were comprised a little differently… I, Sharon was lucky enough to be in the same dorm room as a German girl who liked to set her alarm an hour and a half earlier than one needed to just roll out of bed to get to morning prayer, and then she would keep pressing snooze for the next hour until she finally decided to get up and do goodness knows what, and still get to prayer meeting later than me who got up 10mins before… So begins our day, we have prayer, which consists of chanting in different languages and hearing scriptures from the brothers, and then breakfast (see above). Andrew and I were unfortunate enough to get a job that only needed to be done at night and so after breakfast we had nothing to do except for mid-day prayer and lunch until 3pm. This would have been fine if the weather had been good, but being not so good we ended up being holed up in Andrews dorm room in our sleeping bags going stir crazy with nothing to do, this by the way makes Andrew a very grumpy person!… At 3pm we finally have our meeting with one of the brothers who would talk about a topic for a while and then we would go off in groups of our own age and discuss the topic further, my group would then have a session with ‘brother click’ the coffee machine while Andrews group (who’s leader was slightly more serious about life) talked on and on. Andrew and I went to all the workshops in the afternoons and then there was dinner…yummy… And after dinner we were responsible to change toilet rolls, yay! Actually much better than cleaning the toilet and it gave us something to do between dinner and evening prayer. Next was evening prayer and then one could go and buy a beer at a wee shop over the road until 11pm then head off to bed to begin another very similar day…

Our experience of Taize was sadly tainted by the fact that one week before we were due to arive the weather turned bad and the temperature dropped well below what our meagre belongings allowed. So when we got to Taize it was at about 0 degrees, with a cold northerly wind blowing and misty rain (even with all our clothes on, it still did not cut it)… this weather continued for the next couple of days and since there was not many places one could shelter, Andrew became unwell and was not a happy camper… Things did improve (apart from the food) as the weather got better and we met some good people to hang out with and chat to… I must mention that we also arrived at a time when there were not many other travellers like ourselves, due to it no longer being summer in Europe. So therefore the camp comprised mostly of German and Dutch school children, so it took a bit of work and some poor English to find friends who spoke English well and also were our own age… We did however enjoy the brother’s insights into life and our discussion groups even if at times our view on things was quite different from our very conservative Catholic group members (my group comprised of 9 Dutch, 1 American and myself (Sharon) and Andrews was similar)! And with prayer and singing services 3 times a day we left feeling very holy and sadly ‘unfortunately unwell’ once again. I myself seem to have managed to catch the dreaded ‘swine flu’ whilst Andrew has gotten off more lightly with a dry cough and being a bit clogged up…

So advise on Taize…. Even though in this post I may sound a bit bitter and twisted (due to ill health), I do recommend it…. However it is not worth getting sick for, and would be much better with more people from all over the world… I mean there were only a hand full of people from outside of Europe and WE were the interesting ones “Oh so you’re the Kiwis!...Yes have heard about you!...wow your from sooo long away”.... So if you want to go, go in summer, and I think anyone would enjoy it . Oh on that note there are also adults who go (anyone over 30) and they too enjoy it too with their own special rooms, toilets and even food, jealous much?!

Beauvais

The sinking Cathedral

The countryside in the north of France on a miserable day

The Eiffel Tower light show

From Tours we headed to Paris for one night then carried on north to visit a friend who worked out at the caves in NZ ‘Maxime the French’. We arrived at 11am, but he was studying so couldn’t pick us up till 5pm so we had a lot of time to explore the really small town of Beauvais. Beauvais has a huge Cathedral that is sinking, a neat tapestry exhibition and a Mc Donalds with free WiFi. Seeing as summer had fled the north of France after a brief visit of the cathedral and tapestries we retreated to the warmth of Mc Donalds and had coffee and a hot chocolate with our free internet.

Maxime lived a bit further north in a tiny village with his parents on their dairy farm. His parents were lovely and really looked after us, after having a tour of the farm we had the first of a few feasts, mmm that French cuisine is really hard going sometimes.
The next day the weather really crapped out, but we braved the icy cold rain and went for a 2 hour bike ride in the country side, the landscape is really flat and all cultivated land with tiny tiny villages dotted around. We attempted a loop but after getting lost a few times had to double back the way we came, it was nice to get out but not much more as it was very cold and dreary.
The next day was a Saturday and Maxime had to organise a little soccer tournament for the local teams of 7-9 yr olds, Maxime’s girlfriend Lisa gave a us a wee tour of their campus and then we headed to watch the little ones brave the foul weather, Maximes team he coaches came a valiant second, losing only one of their five matches. That evening we headed back to Paris, we arrived at just before 8pm and were dropped off near the Eiffel Tower.

We had heard about a light show that happens on the hour every hour so rushed off to the bottom of the tower to watch. The tower was deceptively further than it looked but we arrived just in time to see it. It was neat but we expected a bit more, all that happened was the tower was covered in hundreds of tiny lights that flashed really fast and made the tower sparkle. We ticked it off the list and headed back to the apartment where we were staying.

Tours

Old town and its old houses

Cathedral

Autumn light

11th century church

The old brown bear

Flamingos!

Nice garden to sit in the sun and eat...

CAKE!!!!

Ultimate cheese!

From Bordeaux we headed further inland toward Paris to Tours. Pronounced ‘Tour’, the French seem to have a thing about not saying the last letters so Paris is said ‘Pari’ and Tours ‘Tour’. Tours is said to be the place where the purest French in the world is spoken, they say that because it is in the middle of France so doesn’t have a north accent or a south one… so it must be the purest! Besides that it is a town that is used as a base to explore the Loire Valley which is full of stunning Chateaus, but unfortunately of which we didn’t see any.
To keep up the good form Andrew wandered for over an hour to find the hostel, although this time it was not a problem of street signs just an issue of left and rights and written instructions, oops. The hostel when we did find it was pretty crud and is a part of Youth Hostelling International, and as we weren’t a member we had to sign up for an extra fee to be allowed to stay. So in the last hostel we stay in we become year long members to be able to reap the benefits of discounted accommodation around the world… sweet deal! Only a little too late to be of any use.
We had just two nights so spent our time exploring the town which was actually really pretty, with a nice river running through and some really old houses and big cathedrals. The hostel we stayed in housed a bunch of international students studying French at the local University (being the best place for French), after playing a crazy version of snap with them they told us a few things to check out around town, namely the Botanic Gardens where they said there was a bear and flamingos!? I was a little dubious as to what would really be there.

That morning we woke up to a chill in the air, the beginning of the end of the nice warm summer, or actually more like the end. We rugged up and headed out, we found some neat little shops and scoped out some presents, and found one of the cathedrals with a nice garden which we frequented in our short stay. Wandering a back street after lunch we found a little cake shop with the most amazing cakes and goodies really reasonably priced so we justified a treat and took a rich chocolate mousse cake back to the garden we found, mmm it was too good!
After a cup of tea in the hostel we headed off to find the Botanic garden. Wow it really did have a bear and flamingos! The garden itself was not anything special but it was more like a zoo. It had an old arthritic brown bear in a sunken concrete compound, he didn’t look too excited about life and it was a bit sad to see. There were also wallabies, emus, the biggest variety of ducks we had seen, turtles and tortoises, goats and a donkey and flamingos! It really was true.

The next day we had a bit of time before our bus came so we managed to go out and buy the presents, visit our garden and also sneak in a bit more cake, this time with photo evidence.

Bordeaux.... once again in the beautiful land of France

Mysterious Sharon

Oh no, two of him.... how will we cope?

Pretty fountain

Fun in the fountain

Huge ferris wheel in the carnival

The biggest candy floss ever.... and we had even picked the smallest size!

Fun fair!

People on the bridge looking down on a huge screen showing a video montage that was a part of the art festival.

Our first stop back in France was Bordeaux. As we drove into town on our bus we had to stop for a troop of musicians sitting in baskets on the front of bicycles who were crossing the road and we thought 'where exactly have we found ourselves?' .... As it happened they were a part of an art exhibition that invloved the whole town of Bordeaux and was starting the day we arrived! There was also a huge carnival on at the same time to add to the fun and excitement of this crazy exhibition.

We had arrived at mid day and so after a wee rest (due to Sharons terrible habit of feeling sick when travelling) Sharon headed off to a laundry mat to do some much needed washing while Andrew paid for the accomadation. Luckily for Sharon a kind French man (who happened to speak no English) helped her work the mashines which had instructions that were very helpfully only written in French and which on her own she actually would have got all wrong due to an inexplanibly complicated set up for payments.... maybe it was good that Andrew was not there....

After paying Andrew picked Sharon up and headed into town and a very pretty town it was. We did a bit of window shopping and then worked our way back to the laundry mat picked up our washing and hung it up in our room (yes we are too cheap to pay the four Euro drying cost)! Once again we headed out this time in search of a supermarket and we were soon to find the supermarket that beats all others.... This supermarket had everything one could desire, on three huge levels of a massive building. Over the next couple of days a few hours happened to be wasted here! After a bit of exploring we bought our dinner and headed home for a night in watching BBC, (the first TV we had watched in months) as this was the only English channel.

The next day we further explored the town and stumbled upon the most chaotic, crazy and roughest market one could find. The stall holders where all of Arabic and African origin who yelled at the top of there voices things that I swear even if one spoke French you would not understand and the buyers flocked to these different stalls in stampeding rhino style... goodness forbid anyone fall over, as they would surley be trampeled! Andrew and I braved this market for a while enjoying the sheer scale and crazyness of it all, brought a huge bunch of silver beet and lunch then breathed a sigh of relief as we both made it out the other side alive! We ate our lunch in a garden beside the incredibly brown river and were joined by another couple who thought it was ok to eat each other alive in public, I might add this is not uncommon in Europe :/. After lunch we had a little seista (something one gets easily used to when in Italy and Spain) before heading out for an evening stroll through the carnival before a late dinner and bed.

Our last day in Bordeaux was reserved for checking out the main shopping street and local art festival. Much to my disapointment and Andrews glee the shops were all shut (I still maintain he planned this) as it was a Sunday in Europe! So we headed further afeild to explore the art around town. The art included a huge bridge built accross two roads and half way over the water, some tin shapes that made screeching noises (Andrew especially enjoyed this one), wrecked cars, light shows, trees made into crazy shapes and other oddities, most of which we were at a loss to understand... maybe its a French thing? We also discovered a fountain that was designed to reflect anything that faced it or was on top of it (see above photos) and also let out mist intermittently. We spent a long time watching people from all walks of life play together, young, old, hippy, metro, city, rural, local, tourist and all nationalities enjoyed this fountain!

Next we walked along the river boardwalk and came accross a very popular, and much more civilized market. It seems on Sunday the whole of Bordeaux buys their lunch from this market. Lunches mostly consisted of a bottle of rosè and freshly shucked oysters for the whole family to sit around on the ground and enjoy. Andrew and I both do not like oysters but felt the need to join in all the same! We carried on along the walk stopping for a whlie to watch some very young and talented roller bladers at a skate park, and then further along to watch some street preformers....

After a very plesent day we headed back to our favourite supermarket for some more dinner before heading out on our last night to check out the night life. Firstly we went through the carnival watching all the crazy rides and getting in the spirit by buying some huge and yummy passion fruit flavoured candy floss. We then watched an outdoor concert with African preformers before finishing the night with a drink in one of the many cute little pubs.

San Sebastian

Beautiful San Sebastian
The far end of the bay where the surf was before it died

Jesus on top of the hill

Fishing boats at night

a forgotten monument to English soldiers who helped fight Napoleon

After a whole days bus trip we arrived into San Sebastian.
This was to be our last stop in Spain and one i had been eagerly anticipating as i had heard mention of a surf beach.
Once again we were thwarted by the street signs when it came to finding our hostel. The signs here were written in Basque but the directions i had written down from google maps was in spanish! After an hour wandering round and round the very small old town we finally found our hostel on the street we first thought it was on! We had been looking for a sign outside (as you would expect) but they only had a small 15cm x 4cm sticker! Despite this bad start the hostel was really cool, we were in a 6 bed dorm but the owner let us have it to ourselves for the first two nights. The hostel also had 2 surfboards for hire :-)
That evening we had a wander to the beach to check the surf, it was 2-3ft with a nice righthand point break at the far end of the beach and a nasty beach break along the rest. It looked good but a rough count gave over 50 surfers out. I decided to try it early in the morning. We went back and cooked some amazing brie and chorizo omlettes mmmm, a nice change to our one pot wonder pasta, rice and cous cous dishes.
I got up at sunrise the next morning and jogged barefoot across town with a pink miny mal in my boardies and a polyprop top. As i got into the not so balmy water i counted 26 surfers already out and the waves were smaller and less frequent. I stayed away from the crowded point break and got a few small rides and in the long wait between sets nearly froze! after 30 mins in the water i hobled back to warm up. it was nice to be in the water with waves again but not the best spanish surfing experience, after this the waves completely died away so i was glad i got out when i could. I managed to get the board back before anyone official turned up to the hostel and they never charged me for using it even though i told them later.
San Sebastian was a very nice really relaxed small city. It had great shopping and Sharon once again scored a few bargains! and my grip on the wallet tightened. We spent our 2 days on the beach and wandering around town and up a hill to see Jesus (a huge statue looking over town).
Our last night we went out for some famous Spanish Tapas (or pinxtos in basque) with some canadians we met in the hostel. They were really tasty and a great social meal but could make for an expensive meal as they are just bite sized morsels and to be full you need to have a few. The deal is you buy a drink and get a plate and then all along the bar they have plates of tapas which are like orderves, you go along and grab as many as you want and they just write it down somewhere, there are no prices so you have no idea how much you are raking up.

All in all Spain was a great trip, we loved the relaxed atmosphere and nice parks and hope to return someday.

Valencia and Madrid

Bull Fighting Arena
Interesting architecture

This was a playground for kids, i think?... its huge, thats 3 photos right there!

Valencia is the most lighted up city in the world

The post office and our bus

Valencia at night

Sharon in the park

This wee girl had a random mother who talked to us in spanish and motioned for us to take a photo of her... so i did poor girl some stranger poking a camera in her face... but she was cute.

After running through the dark early morning streetsof Barcelona in the rain with our heavy packs, we arrived at the meeting point and waited a half hour for the bus which of course was running late! We were amazing though, we were told to catch a taxi as it would take 40 mins but we did it in 20!
We then drove for half the day in pouring rain to arrive in Valencia just as the rain subsided, perfect! Having only two nights here we dropped our stuff in the hostel room (a sweet one with like 12 beds, hurrah!) and headed out to explore a bit of town. Valencia is slightly confusing for navigation as the maps are written in Spanish and the signs in Catelan... go figure! Despite this we found our way to a bull fighting arena where we were told there was a free museum. We are not so sure about the whole bull fighting thing but as it is a big part of the Spanish culture we thought we would learn a bit more.
The museum was very small and empty, so we walked in to two very bored looking receptionists, one gave us our own guided tour of the arena which was cool, especially as it was free. Then we were left to browse the museum ourselves. It was really interesting, it is a very brutal sport and not really the nicest way for a bull to go. They know this as they are always trying to brush it over by saying that the bull has 2-6 years of cushy life on nice farmland beforehand and then they donate the meat to orphanages (i can only imagine how tender it must be!). The fights are now being met most of the time by anti-bull-fighting demonstrations and the stadiums have red paint splashed all around the outside.
The next day we did a free tour (they are called free tours but you kinda have to pay a tip so its not really free!) It was okaybut not the best we have done but it did show us some things we could go and look at afterwards like the old silk market, a beautiful building with an amazing wooden roof that has been designated a UNESCO world heritage sight. Like Barcelona it has some crazy architecture that is very post modern looking, inpressive but different. Near any historical building they have made little bronze replicas that have a brail description so that blind people can feel the shape of the buildings. A really neat idea but our guide told us that in mid summer when its over 40 degrees these little models made out of dark bronze get ridiculously hot and burn your hands!
The city used to have a river running right through it but after a massive flood they diverted the river around the outside of town and planned to turn the old river bed into a motorway, the citizens didnt agree and protested by planting thousands of trees. The council gave up and now the city has a really nice park running right through.

After 2 nights of little sleep in our 12 bed dorm we headed for Madrid.
The trip took us through some amazing and beautiful desolate landscapes that looked hot dry and dusty with very sparse vegetation and as it got a bit greener we arrived in Madrid.
Madrid was a bustling city with some great art galleries and a lot of nice cheap shops for Sharon to get her shopping on! The art galleries were free after 6pm so we did two rushed visits seeing some of Picaso`s major works and many more amazing pieces by artist whose names i cant remember.
Like the other Spanish cities Madrid had a bunch of really nice and spacious parks. We were there over a weekend so the parks were full of families and buskers and had a really neat atmosphere, so when not shopping or looking at art we were chilling in the parks people watching.

Barcelona

Parc Guell (the Gaudi park)

Parc Guell (the Gaudi park)

some of the crazy architecture

Human towers

cute little Mathius with our rock collection

fountain in the central park

Bug band in the park

Gaudis unfinished Sagrada Familia

Gaudis unfinished Sagrada Familia

Gaudis unfinished Sagrada Familia

The biggest port i have ever seen, 7 ships waiting outside

Tower in the Olympic Park

We were very keen to get into Barcelona and meet the very famed `Alex and Olivia,' family friends of Andrews parents who we had not met, but heard loads about... We arrived at our drop off point and Alex was there to pick us up. He instantly recognised Andrew as `he looks so much like Anne' and met a cute shy little 2 and a half year old boy named Damien who, when he was a baby had been dedicated by Philip in NZ. We squished our excessive amount of baggage into a small car and headed off to meet the rest of the famous family. After some speedy driving and a few wrong turns we arrived at the apartment building. We hopped out of the car and Damien, no longer shy ran around the car and attached himself around Andrews leg and did not let go of his hand before arriving at the apartment 8 floors up! They say he had never done this before and thought that maybe he remembered something of NZ?!

We then met Olivia and Mathias (the cutest 1 yr old with the biggest smile), and we begun to realise why they were so highly spoken of. Every night we enjoyed our eating and drinking till late into the evening with great company, conversation and food and french wine.

We were lucky enough to arrive in Barcelona on a festival weekend for their patron saint. There was a brilliant atmosphere and lots to see and do. We spent our days wandering the streets, seeing street artists, clowns, parades, crazy floats, fireworks, and everything from live lizards to tacky souvenirs for sale... Andrew was upset that we did not meet the famous so called `elephant man' who wears nothing accept a tattoo of leopard print underwear on his behind and elephant ears on each thighat the front... hmmm...

We walked around the crazy Gaudi Park, which the famous Gaudi architect designed with loads of weird and wonderful designs, he also designed many other buildings around Barcelona and is one of their biggest icons. We marveled at many buildings including the massive Olympic stadium and its impressive fountains and weird tower.

One of the days we were able to watch Olivia swim in an ocean race (none of this way too easy pool racing for her!) and then headed off to see the human pyramid competition famous for this festival... This was one of the most crazy and scary things we had seen. All the regions from around Barcelona enter a team of human pyramids. These teams compete by trying to make the most complicated as well as tallest pyramids. On the bottom are the strongest and biggest people and this progresses upwards with the top only having a small child... brave (or crazy) mothers! Mostly these towers are successful but we saw one which fell down at its highest point(we saw it go 8 high but it does get up to 10!!!) and the small child went flying, to be saved by the crowd below... so safe (ish) for the child...

We really enjoyed or stay in Barcelona and were sad to leave, we enjoyed the wee family who happily took us in, the great atmosphere, and all the amazing and different sights to be seen, along with some more great markets.