Back In Gliwice

The bus from Paris pulled in at a bus stop we had never seen before, but luckily I had gone through the area to do some lessons at the Citroen dealership.  It wasn't very difficult from there.

The Poseidon fountain on the Rynek.

We stopped by the school to get the keys to Amelia's flat, since she was kind enough to put us up for a couple weeks while she was in England.  There wasn't enough room for us to stay with Sofia without making things awkward, and we ran into that again once Amelia came back. We thankfully had some time to recover from our travels before we had to scramble for another place to stay.

Thank the universe for Peter, yet again.

The Old City Hall

As it turns out, his former English teacher from elementary school has an apartment that she converted to single flats directly across the street from Speed.  We paid the same amount for the single room with shared bathroom and kitchen, plus utilities as we were for the one bedroom flat and utilities that we were renting from Sofia -- however at this point we were just grateful to have somewhere to stash our suitcases and sleep at night.  It was decidedly a last-minute arrangement, as we spent our last night at Amelia's asleep on her kitchen floor since she was kind enough to not leave us on our keesters her first night at home.

I agree with Peter completely.  If we come back to Gliwice we definitely need to be more on top of making sure things are more organized.  There was waaaaaay too much flying by the seat of our pants.  And far more moving of 50 lb bags up and down staircases than any of us would have liked.

We learn from experience, yes?

I wish more buildings in Western Canada were this detailed and beautiful.

 Unfortunately once we'd paid our month of rent it meant we didn't have much money to do things like enjoy our last month at home being tourists, or buy groceries.  Things got a little tight and we seldom left the flat as we spent even that last amount of time searching for jobs that just weren't there.  That's the problem with not having an EU passport -- nobody wants to pay for work permits and allow you to take the time necessary to get the work visas.  You can establish yourself as a business and contract yourself out to language schools, but that paperwork is more expensive and the whole process takes a lot longer to complete.  We did, however, leave copies of our CV's and credentials with our landlady so she could speak with a few of her contacts in Berlin on our behalf.

A secluded spot behind the current City Hall

Peter's friend Ola also tried to help us get work at one of the language schools she was at, but the commute to Piekary from Gliwice was fairly brutal and they didn't have enough hours to make living and paying student loans nearly impossible.  But that's a soap box to stand on in another post.  I learned a good many things in my travels, and most of them reflect rather poorly on the country I call home.  It's sad, but true.

Because we wound up paying more in rent than we were really hoping for and also had to buy plane tickets home, it meant we also couldn't take one final trip in Poland the way we were initially planning to -- a big thank you goes to Sarah's mother, Pam, for sending us the money to do so.  We used it to spend a few days in Krakow, which will be the next post, followed by what we did in our last days in Poland.

Sarah gave me this lock 8 months before we decorated it.

Enjoying the beginnings of sunset.

The footbridge over the Chlodnicka River, close to our flat.  Can you spot our lock?

And then you throw away the key.

Paris: Parte Deux

The string section of the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra giving a performance in a metro station.

By now we had been walking for at least 12 hours, and we were both getting hungry again.  We were tired and wanted to get to the McD's by our hotel room, but the next bus to Porte de Vincennes wasn't coming for another 20 minutes and it took us at least half an hour to get back to our part of Paris.  It was another 10 minutes before the restaurant closed and the group who was there before us got their order, but the staff refused to serve us.  Even when the other people standing there tried to argue on our behalf they refused.  By the time we returned to our hotel, we had been on our feet for 14 hours, and the last thing either of us wanted to eat was the cheese, granola bars, and oranges we had at the hotel room.  Sarah was venting the brunt of her frustration at me and I was doing the best I could with the nothing we had.  It wasn't pretty.

Stumbling upon Godot.

Neither was the next day.  We wanted to fill our last full day in Paris with interesting things, but this was apparently not to be.  Another warning for travelers: not only does the Louvre close ridiculously early, but it's not open on Tuesdays.  Strike two came when we tried to go to the catacombs, which close at 5 pm.  Because of this, people line up around the block to get in, and you have to be there at 10 am at the latest if you want to get a good tour.  We were there at two, and they were already telling people to find something else to do.  I had been getting fairly frustrated by this point, so I can imagine what it was like for my poor girlfriend, who has been wanting to go to France since high school.  Not wanting a repeat of the previous day, we sat down and tried to plan with the hopes of finding things we could do for free.  We had already wasted 4 metro tickets between us and weren't wanting to spend any more money than we had to at this point.

That's how we found ourselves exploring Montparnasse Cemetery -- final resting place for some of history's rich and famous.  The other major one is Pere Lachaise, but we didn't make our way there. 

We also found Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

This monument would probably haunt my nightmares.

Even if I had never heard of Dr. Who...

Yeah, they're real.  No idea who's grave that is though.

La Basilique Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.

A gorgeous carousel below Sacre Coeur.

Once the cemetery closed, we hopped onto the metro again and made our way to Montmartre, largely because we heard the food was good for reasonable prices.  This is actually true, but since our budget was incredibly tight we were trying to get the best deal we could for practically nothing.  First we tried to go to Sacre Coeur. We found some lovely post cards and an old-fashioned double carousel, but we also found more hustlers that wanted 15 euro for some woven bracelets made out of embroidery floss that they tried to call good luck charms.  Apparently "go away" and "please f*** off" just translates as "yes please" to these people no matter how many languages you say it in.  Before this, I was willing to run to the top of the stairs to look at the Basilica and take some pictures while Sarah sat, rested, and followed me in her own time (as we did at the Cliffs of Moher) -- but afterward I felt it best not to get separated.  Especially if anyone approached her for more shenanigans in my absence.  As we walked down (but also up) the Rue des Abbesses, we were careful to keep her purse between us for safety's sake.  There was a lot more walking and a good deal of "hanger" (pron han-grrrr) from us both before we found a restaurant with some affordable stuff.  What is a trip to Paris without French bread and onion soup anyway?

Onion soup and bread.  Quels choses peuvent etre meilleurs?

 
The rest of the night was pretty decent: we walked down to the Moulin Rouge and hopped the metro to go back to our hotel.  We had a fairly early morning and a loooong bus ride ahead of us, so preparations needed to be made ahead of time.  We were expecting many changes and frequent stops, but by some miracle we got a direct bus to Gliwice that translated into 24 hours across three countries.

This random cool place we found.

While it's true that we had a really crappy experience in Paris, I think we would have enjoyed it with more time and money.  We will have to go back.  I did feel like an utter ass every time I tried to use my rusty French on cashiers and greeters, only to find that most of them spoke perfect English.

Paris: Parte Un

If I'm going to be honest, I'd rather be writing fiction on Storium right now.

That doesn't change the fact that I still have a lot to recount, and there are still a vast number of things that I need to say before this blog is done.

It's been a week since Sarah and I flew into Vancouver, but there's still quite a way to go before this chapter of my life is done being written about.  There are a lot of experiences still to be relayed, reflected upon, and understood.

Though that last one may have to be optional :D

I know I've said this a lot over the tales of our doings in Europe, but we did not have nearly enough time in Paris -- even if we did arrive on the last day of the Tour de France.

Every step in this picture has rubble and broken glass.

And before I get to all the fun stuff we did, let me just get one thing in the open right now.  All our lives we are told that Paris is a lovely, must-see place to put on your bucket list nobody who's been there ever mentions how dirty it is.  As a born and raised BC girl, I've had it drilled into my head since before I was school aged that it was my civic responsibility to put things in trash/recycle bins in order to keep my city and environment clean.  The places we traveled to may not have had the abundance of trash barrels on the street that we're used to, but there still wasn't a lot of litter to be seen.  Even Poland, which might be considered pretty backwards compared to the rest of the EU, and Radom -- which is considered pretty backward compared to most other cities in Poland -- were cleaner than Paris.

I understand that every city has its vagrant population and corners that will always smell like stale urine (like a great many places along the Seine), but the litter is unbelievable.

But moving on...

Preparing to enter the Chunnel on a bus...on a train.

When we tried to arrange accommodation in Paris, we discovered that the cheap hostels were generally quite terrifying and tended to have horrific reviews.  Cheap hotels, on the other hand, cost the same as the more expensive hostels but had the added benefit of private rooms with locks and a shower we didn't have to share with anyone else.  Let's not forget actually having a real bed that the two of us could share comfortably.  In a month of traveling we'd missed that a great deal since we left Southampton.  The inflatable mattress we had in Edinburgh was great for snuggling, but there's only so much air time you can handle in the middle of the night when your partner is heavier than you.

The view along the Seine

The Hotel Tamaris was actually really lovely, and the staff were pretty nice.  It was also dead easy to get to from the bus station, considering it was a straight shot down the M1 (almost to the end of the line) then one block away from our stop.  We didn't really do much when we got there.  We were so tired from spending nearly a whole day on the bus -- including a couple hours on a train going through the Chunnel -- and were dead tired by the time we got to the hotel.  It was muggy when we arrived, and the metro was already warm when we got on but the crowds as we passed through central Paris made it impossible to breathe.  We were just happy for a place to sit with a cool towel and some quiet.

The first full day was spent walking, and walking, and walking.  We got on the metro by our hotel (Porte de Vincennes) and disembarked at Louvre-Rivoli to begin the day with a sunlit walk along the Seine.  We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather after the rain that greeted us once we were snug in the hotel room.  There are the usual merchant's booths you would expect to see along such a famous river -- along with a few you wouldn't -- and someone even had the ingenious idea of creating a fake beach for die-hard sunbathers to enjoy along one of the lower walks.  We crossed and began exploring the lovely Cité -- which is the oldest part of Paris -- when the sound of bells guided us to this magnificent cathedral near the heart of the island.  Unless you wish to climb the bell tower or go to the treasury museum, entry is free.  Don't be daunted by the long line-ups either: it moves faster than you think.  If you go at the right times, priests give you a guided tour in your own tongue but silence is otherwise preferred.

Les vielles cloches de la Notre Dame.

Further meanderings along the Seine eventually took us outside the Louvre, but since we arrived just as the museum was closing (6 PM) we didn't go inside to look.  Instead we followed the courtyard through some circle built to commemorate one of Napoleon's successful campaigns in Austria and into the gardens of the Tuilleries.  Disgust again took root as I looked into the fountain and noted the ducks and fish swimming among plastic bags, discarded boards, and other refuse -- but beyond that the gardens are actually quite pretty.  Even the noise from the street carnival didn't really detract from the ambiance.  By this time we were starting to get hungry and thought perhaps we could wander toward the Champs-Elysee to see what was available.  We learned 2 things:

1.  When it looks close on a map, it's only close if you haven't already been walking for hours.
2.  Almost nothing on the Champs-Elysee is cheap.

Fountain at the Place de la Concorde.

We found a McDonald's just as it was getting dark and were grateful for the fact that we had the presence of mind to carry packets of kleenex in our pockets: it saved a few women from the lack of toilet paper.  I wish to all gods that are or were that we had stayed to grab a proper meal.  We got a little nibble at a nearby sandwich shop because it wasn't as crowded, but it wasn't enough and listening to Sarah when we got back to the hotel was enough to make me regret the decision.  I'll get to that in a moment.  The Arc de Triomphe is situated at the end of the Champs, and cuts a fine figure at dusk.  At first we thought the little pin-pricks at the top were statues until they moved.  Yes, for a small fee you can take pictures from the top of the arc and there's an interpretive centre below street level.  For a busy tourist area like Paris, this museum actually closes at a reasonable time.

We went from there to the Eiffel Tower in surprisingly short order considering the day we'd already had.  As we approached, Sarah was kind enough to take a picture for someone who was looking at the tower, but what we didn't realize until he started talking to us is that he was really a hustler posing as a tourist in an effort to get the attention of nice people like us.  He actually spoke decent English, but the kind that indicated a few missing teeth.  He kept offering to take us to after-parties, and to pay for us to go to the top of the tower -- and would NOT take no for an answer every time we declined.  Even other hustlers trying to hawk souvenirs kept coming to check on us the more persistent this man became, especially one man selling statuettes who came around more frequently the more visibly nervous Sarah became.  When we tried to beg off by saying that we needed to get back to our hotel and sleep he tried to follow us with the promise of "satisfaction."

The promise of robbery and murder in our sleep is probably closer to the truth.  There are scam artists everywhere in Paris, but even the ones that refuse to listen when you tell them to go away did not make me feel as gut-wrenchingly threatened as he did.

We began to walk back to the metro stop on the Champs when we ran into a lovely young couple from the Netherlands who were trying to make their way to the tower and got a lot of useful advice for applying to work there as English teachers.  Maybe one day we'll have to take them up on it.  As we slowly trudged back, we didn't think anything else could possibly go wrong with our night.  We were sorely mistaken.



Traveler be warned: if you plan on enjoying the nightlife, the metro shuts down at 1 AM.

To be continued...

Edinburgh: Part 3

A bagpiper outside of Princes Gardens

I could be wrong, but this may actually be the last post I write about the UK.  We'll have to see.  The rest of the week was more or less quietly productive.  We looked for work, we explored, and we learned one very valuable lesson about traveling:

It's hard enough trying to find places to stay during peak season, but when you go somewhere you need to be very aware of what other events are happening in the country you mean to visit.

I'll explain that closer to the end.

Monday and Tuesday were both very quiet days.  We walked the Royal Mile and Princes street.  We handed in CV's left and right.  Over and over again we were continually told that unless we already had permission to work in the UK that we weren't hireable in spite of the fact that we were more than qualified for the jobs we were applying for.  At least these schools were nice enough to point out that we really should have been bombarding schools on the continent, since summer is actually peak season for ESL classes on the British Isles.  That's life for you.

 One chamber of many in the vaults under Edinburgh where suspected witches were interrogated.

We did do some fun things though: we spent almost an entire day exploring Edinburgh castle and enjoying the views from the walls, then went on a couple of walking tours addressing the more sinister aspects of the Scottish capital's history.  We also went to an armourer that one of our tour guides recommended to us so I could ease my rapier withdrawal a little bit.  Yes, I just compared my love of rapier fighting to an addiction and I'm not in the least bit ashamed of it.

Not sure what this bone belonged to...

The vaults continue onward.

The view from Edinburgh Castle.

I couldn't resist sticking my head into Mons Meg.

Close to the birthplace of Arthur Conan Doyle.  And delicious haggis burgers.

The sword of Rob Roy MacGregor, courtesy of Paul MacDonald (in the background) at MacDonald Armouries.

The days we stayed at the cottage were spent trying to plan our next move.  The job interviews and the lack of foresight meant that we unfortunately had to impose on Isabel and Rab longer than we had planned. 

We do very much appreciate it.  Really.  Our roof is available to you as soon as we have one.

This is why you really need to pay attention to the sporting events happening in the country you mean to visit.  We were hoping to go to the highlands and spent a couple days contacting hostels and people on couch surfing websites.  Every accessible hostel in Scotland -- whether highlands or low -- was booked.  When we called, nobody said they could understand it.  The amount of activity was unusual.  It wasn't until we were talking to a friend in Glasgow that we realized everything was going crazy in Scotland because the Commonwealth Games were happening there just when we were trying to explore.

Are we sure this is Scotland?  I thought it rained.

When we finally gave up on seeing more of Scotland (much to our despair), we decided that it was best to go to Paris since it was cheaper than going back to London.

And Sarah has wanted to see Paris since she was in high school.  I was excited for it too.

We made preparations to leave as Isabel and Rab were getting ready to go to their caravan on the border.  They were more than happy to let us remain at their place until it was time to make our way to the bus station, so in return we did a little bit of tidying before we left.  Aside from our first day and our last day, the time we spent in Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous.  We were ready for new adventures, but it was still sad for us to leave.

One day we well go back.

Edinburgh: Part 2

Time flies by like a bowl of petunias hurtling through the atmosphere on it's way to the ground.

Even though Sarah and I have largely been apartment-bound since we returned to Gliwice -- and honestly haven't been doing much -- this seems to still be the case.  Especially now that these adventures abroad have a deadline -- and it makes a very loud whooshing noise as it approaches.  To tell the truth, I haven't been very focused on writing even though I know I should get all of this written down before I forget something.  Pictures are very useful for helping one to remember.

Sarah and I at the top of Queen Margaret's Tower

When Sarah and I sat down to figure out our Sunday, Isabel offered to take us to Sterling, since it's a very common destination for people visiting Edinburgh.  However, I was the only one of the four of us who had never been there.  Also, Rab and Isabel had just visited with Ardell and Merv -- so I suggested trying to find something that would be new for the seasoned travelers in my company as well.  A thorough perusal of the Historic Scotland guide's offerings in the area gave us Linlithgow Palace: the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots.  None of us had been there before, and none had been to nearby Blackness Castle either -- so it was decided that these would be our adventure for our hosts' last day of freedom before returning to work.

Rab and Isabel at the bottom

We started the day with a hearty Scottish breakfast before hitting the road.  I have to be honest, the countryside surrounding Edinburgh made me long for home a little.  There's a great deal of resemblance between this landscape and the view that presents itself as you drive through the North Thompson...at least until you get to the twisting, rugged, caught-between-a-rock-wall-and-a-long-fall parts of the North Thompson.  By now I had gotten used to the fact that we were driving on the wrong side of the road (our first days in the UK turned me into a very nervous pedestrian/passenger), and was just enjoying being a passenger -- a luxury I almost never get back home.

By the way Sarah -- you're going to be driving more when we get home, and not just because you need the practice before you get rid of your N.

The view from the top.  Sometimes panorama shots are a little strange.

Normally when we hear the word "palace" we think of the likes of Buckingham in England, or St. Catharine's in Russia.  We think of grandeur and opulence -- but we never stop to think about how much the definition of those words has changed.  Rather than ramble, I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Queen Margaret's Tower is the highest point of the palace.

Fireplace in the lower kitchen.

Fireplace in the Great Hall.  Sometimes they would only light a fire in the middle and either read a book or have chess matches in the side niches.

We were expecting to pay our own way and had budgeted accordingly, but here our hosts foiled us again.  Since Isabel is a member of Historic Scotland, she gets entry to a lot of these places for free and has a discount on tickets for people she brings along.  So we decided we would pay her back.

The courtyard.

Nope.  That wasn't happening, apparently.  Not only did she get us entry into Linlithgow, she purchased a student deal for us that gave us a week to explore as many as three castles.  It would cover the entrance to Blackness and Edinburgh castles as well!  We tried to pay her back -- even just half -- and she refused, only taking enough to pay for our tea break later.  Please don't mistake this for ingratitude -- far from it -- I just want all of you reading this to know the remarkable couple who took us in.

The view from the parking lot.

As you can see, the palace is very similar to the average mansion in terms of size -- but it looks a lot bigger once you're inside.  We were given a tour by three young volunteer guides in period attire that completely enhanced the experience before we were given free reign on the castle.  At least as free as we could get given some of the areas were caged off for restoration work.  That's still quite a lot of palace, and far more stairs than I have ever seen Sarah willingly climb.  Sufficed to say I was really quite proud of her -- and still am.

 The chapel is one of the few places on the grounds that has seen relatively little destruction even if it hasn't always been treated with the utmost respect.  The Stuarts came here for services quite frequently when they stayed and even had their own entrance.  However, when Cromwell stayed at Linlithgow after the Reformation, he used it as a stable for his horses and you can still see holes where his soldiers used the stones for target practice.

After we finished exploring Linlithgow, we made a stop at Blackness Castle, which is built on the very edge of the Firth of Forth and is fortified on most sides by the sea when the tide is high.  There wasn't really a guided tour for this one, and it wasn't really necessary because the fortress is a lot smaller than Linlithgow and there were plaques everywhere explaining the history of it.  One cool thing to note is that they didn't do much to the courtyard in the way of paving.  All of that is just built on the rock as it is.

Prisoners were typically brought to Blackness by boat.

A view of the Firth from the dock.

You can see why  it was used as both a stronghold and a prison.  There isn't a lot of escaping from this place.

While noble prisoners were given run of the room, other people were left in the pit.

The courtyard.

View from the residential tower.

Dining hall in the residential tower.  This would be an awesome place for an SCA style feast.

Not sure why they have what looks like a random grave marker in the fireplace.  Maybe it contributes to the rumours that the residential tower is haunted.  Or perhaps -- as was the case at Linlithgow -- when they ran out of stones to build the place they sacked the graveyards.

View from the battlements.  The only thing that prevented us from walking around the circumference of the castle by this route was a wasp nest under the stairs.

After a productive day spent exploring, we stopped in Queensferry for a glass of cider and a rest before going back to the cottage.  Needless to say we all slept quite well that night.  It was definitely an amazing day.

Queensferry

Linlithgow Palace
Blackness Castle