London, Paris, Berlin.

Onward from my soggy London travels to Paris by underwater train.  Last trip I got excited because for some reason I thought that the side of the tunnels would be thick glass and we’d be able to see whales. Last trip was 4 years ago, not when I was 4, you read right.  In hindsight this seems like the stupidest idea possible for a number of reasons, but at least this time I was prepared and so not disappointed. I got on the train fine, right time, right place, right day which was good, as my travelling now seems to come with a strong sense of anxiety that I’ve got it wrong, again.  Three times, three wrong flights, too much money fixing it- you’d hope I’d learnt my lesson. I got Erin to help me book it. Haha.

Marie picked me up at the station as she lived only 10 mins away in a place called Jaures. We walked down past about 4 bars called ‘bar Lafayette’, where I made a few True Blood references until I found out it was the name of the street, not just an overly popular name for a pub. We went out for cheese, baguettes and red wine, and then returned to her place, stayed up listening to the Beatles and drinking whiskey with her friend and flatmate. I was stoked to be there and it felt like I got to experience a real Parisian way of life. Last time I was in Paris was with my best friend Erin when she lived there for a year- so we visited amazing places she’d discovered and wanted to share with me, including the Eiffel tower and the touristy stuff, plus local places she’d found. That time, I got shouted at by a stupid lady who attacked my crap French, despite me only ordering a baguette, however this time I OWNED IT.  You should have seen me, ordering coffee and basic things that don’t require any response from either side. Winner.

The next day Marie went to work and I wandered around Montmartre, enjoying the scenes and locals, loving being in a city on my own.  I sipped espressos and felt well cool.  Montmartre is well-known for streets full of people asking to draw your portrait.  I avoided them as I needed to watch my budget, but was eventually approached by a guy I haggled down (as much as you can, anyway) who agreed to draw me. As he drew, we chatted a bit, about him going to painting school, having a mentor etc, and then his friend approached, joined by a fellow painter. All three of them chatted quickly in French while looking back and forth at me and the drawing.  It was a bit awkward at first, knowing they were talking about me but then I heard them say ‘belle’ so I was like, ‘cool, they think I’m beautiful, I’m cool with that” and left them to it. Eventually the older, seemingly eccentric man looks at me and says (and I quote) “I’m sorry, how rude of us- here we are talking about you and you don’t understand. What we are saying is that you are an artist’s dream- you are so beautiful and we would love to draw you naked. Not in a funny way, but that you have a perfect body and would be so wonderful to draw with no clothes on”. Stifling a laugh, I thanked him and saw that he wasn’t being creepy, though it was a fine line.  To make the story even better; the drawing LOOKS NOTHING LIKE ME. Honestly, it’s more like Bella from Twilight, just a plain, normal looking girl; he didn’t even draw my curly hair! I reckon he has a generic girl that he draws to maybe flatter people. I just laughed and left. Such a funny experience.

Walking home with Marie, I saw a real black market. I was pretty excited but tried to play it cool around Marie, who had obviously seen this before.  These guys had lifted up the drain cover by the road and stashed it with cigarettes, which they only opened to sell.  That’s the end of the story. Guess you had to be there. Though Marie was…and she wasn’t excited.  Unfortunately their house was almost broken into (locks broken etc) so we went to the police station in the morning. Marie kept apologising but I enjoyed the local experience. Maybe I’m a nerd. We wandered for hours, eating awesome strawberries and spending loads of time at an amazing coffee shop set up by Aussies…I think. Amazing coffee and I got an awesome coffee print designed by one of their baristas. We visited Pompidou, an awesome looking art gallery (you should wiki it) and had a coffee, before heading home to a rocking party.

That evening Marie had organised a “Catherine is the greatest” party, or something along those lines, that was it, though, I’m sure. She invited friends from heaps of different places who were all so interesting and different from the rest, trying to speak English with me as I said “oui, cava’ as much as it sort of related to conversations. We drank red wine, ate more cheese and everyone chain-smoked. I tried one of those really thin and long French cigarettes, but it’s just a cigarette that’s long and thin. Who would have thought? We listened to music, talked, danced, sang until the early hours of the morning, it was such a fantastic night. The Parisians know how to party.

Marie cooked me a special French meal that I didn’t recognise the name of.  She bought the ingredients that she said were duck but she didn’t know what part of the animal they were from.  They were sort of marinated and stewed in oil and herbs and we round and dark red. I asked her if they were testicles; she said no. I googled them and found out they were gizzards. I did try them, they weren’t bad to taste but the texture was really odd, kind of like a slimy stewed beef- though that description also doesn’t fit. I let Marie finish mine because I’m such a kind a generous person. We hung out with Marie’s flatmate who is an awesome Jazz singer (Marie writes, directs, produces and acts in movies – Google trampo films) so their flat was an awesome Parisian cliché. I missed out on seeing her flatmate perform by a day which was disappointing, but keep an eye out for her, I’ll post a link. She’s just finished a tour.

From there it was onto Berlin in Germany to visit an old friend Niko. He met me at the train station and we walked back to his apartment, which was amazing. Top of the apartment, spacious, awesome house.  In Germany (and in Paris too, I found), apparently landlords don’t care what you do. Niko had covered his walls in red and grey stripes, put up a hammock, paintings, photos, everything. It was such a cool flat. But you can’t see it so you probably don’t care. Just take my word for it.

We met his gf Tulli, who was Finnish, (Niko is German) so we all spoke in English, which I totally won at. Yussss. We went out for Turkish, which is a staple in Berlin, and came back to his place to watch Keinohrhasen, a German movie I had watched 4 years ago. He remembered that I’d watched it and hadn’t understood all of it due to lack of subtitles, so got it for us to watch. What a sweetheart.

The next day Niko had to go and cycle 120kms (as you do) so I wandered around the area, searching for markets and good coffee. I spent a couple of hours looking for markets that weren’t on, had a terrible coffee then an amazing one, plus it was up and down a lovely canal, so I wasn’t too worried.

Berlin finished his cycling, showered and was good to go, which is crazy to me. I would have lain down and died after riding 120kms, but he just walked a little funny then was fine.

We walked for 5 hours, to Berlin Gate, The Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and many tourist shops with terrible postcards. We had currywurst, I ate Pretzels, and life was good.  Berlin was cool; they have bits of the Berlin wall throughout the city and heaps to look at. I was only there a day so will definitely do all I can to go back this trip. We spent the evening at a local pub near his house catching up and being excited about our new relationships. Just like old times. Only there a day, so I left the next morning to Dresden on the bus, where I slept the whole way like a nana.

Stay tuned for Maike, more Germany, Prague and other exciting destinations.