Le retour

Ok, so I've been incredibly slack on the blog and haven't written since September so here is a brief update. We managed to fit in a few more little weekend trips after our trip to Mexico. My aunt Shirley and Mum were busy dragging their well loaded suitcases around Europe on a 3 month trip so we met up in Venice for a weekend (thanks Mum!). Venice was just as I remembered it only about 4 times more crowded, those little winding lanes just aren't made for tour groups of 40 people!










Then not long after Venice Joris and I popped down to Agen (near Bordeaux) to his fathers country house for another weekend away. It is a really nice old stone house, an old moulin (windmill) in fact. Very cute but 20 mins drive to the nearest supermarket. A very nice break from the hustle and bustle of Paris though.

Following Agen we headed to Prague for yet another weekend away (gotta love Easyjet!). And
after being woken at 4.30am by a girl walking into our 'private dorm' who was under the distinct impression that she was staying there too (reception had moved her bags and not told her that she was in a different room!) we decided that our backpacker hostel days might be coming to an end. Still, Prague was cold but lovely and we had a nice weekend of wandering around the town.





This left us with just enough time to fit in one last weekend away... Morocco. I've been dying to go and finally we got the chance, even if only for 3 days. So we popped off to Essaouira and enjoyed wandering around the medina, eating fish and crab right next to the fishmarkets and trying to find enough space amongst the 40 or so football fields (soccer to all the Aussies) on the beach to go for a walk.




After some fairly restrained shopping (given the quantity of handmade leather bags and shoes for sale I think I was very controlled!) we sadly left behind the sun and 23 degrees in Morocco and headed back to Paris where we were greeted by clouds and -1degree temperatures. Lovely.... However we didn't have to put up with the lovely Paris temperatures for much longer.
We hung around just long enough to enjoy New Year celebrations with Alex and Daniel and birthday celebrations with Adam and Holly before heading to Thailand (which is quickly becoming my home away from home) where we enjoyed a few hectic days in Bangkok before discovering beautiful Koh Tao.

This gorgeous, not overdeveloped, island was a little piece of heaven... wish we could have stayed longer.

However Thailand was unfortunately just a stopover on the way back to Aus so 10 short days later we touched down in Sydney where I was greeted by my family and a garage full of boxes awaiting packing and sorting. So most of our short 3 day stay in Sydney was spent going through things I haven't seen in years, let alone used and culling and repacking in preparation for our move to Melbourne... yep, we're going to give life a little bit further down under a go. Joris got an Inter-company transfer from his Paris office to Melbourne so here we are. We're staying with friends at the moment, but think we might have located a flat (competition seems as fierce here as in Sydney, we've been turning up to inspections with around 20 - 50 other people each time), so once we lock down accommodation I'll be turning my focus to finding a job... again. If anyone knows of any opportunities or contacts in Melbourne please feel free to send them my way :)

Hola!

So while most of my French students spent their holidays in the French countryside, alps etc. I ended up in... Mexico. Makes sense huh! I thought so too. But first there was a little trip to Barcelona to warm up the 3 words I know in Spanish... I haven't been to Barcelona in 9 years and wow has it changed, either that or I'm losing my memory (a distinct possibility I know... you guessed it, the 3 Spanish words I know are cerveza, sangria and tequila).

So after a delightful 6am flight which involved getting the bus from my place at 3.30am (yay for cutprice flights huh) Joris and I arrived for the weekend. The weekend pretty much comprised of wandering around checking out some of my favourite Gaudi sights, drinking beer and sunning on the beach and moving from tapas bar to tapas bar.

Now that is my ideal way to eat... cheap little plates of stuff so you can try as many things as you like... including the fried chillies, so much yummier than expected, and nowhere near as hot... but avoid the fat juicy ones! Lesson learnt there... The Spanish also know how to make a killer cup of hot chocolate, take chocolate and cream, melt, blend together and serve...so thick your spoon almost stands up but man is it good!

So after realising that my 3 words of Spanish were far from sufficient to communicate with the locals,I steeled myself for Mexico and hoped that the close proximity to an English speaking country and vast amount of tourism that the country attracts. Oh could I have been more wrong! If I was hoping to find a warm and welcoming country accustomed to tourists then Mexico City was definitely the wrong place to start! I'd heard mixed reports about Mexico city, some saying it was wonderful and full of culture and sights etc and others saying it was dirty, crowded, loud and not worth visiting. After spending 3 days there (probably 2 too many) I am inclined to agree with the later. The charming behaviour of the locals certainly didn't make me feel any warmer about the place... I have never felt more unwelcome or been treated more disdainfully than I was here, eye-rolling, grunts and sighs.. almost everyone we dealt with made it clear they wanted nothing to do with us.

Luckily as we headed away from Mexico City further through the Yucutan peninsular the people got better and a couple were even nice to us. We left the city for Oaxaca on a night bus and here I was definitely impressed. Travelling around Mexico by bus is comfortable, easy and well organised. Wherever we wanted to go there was a direct bus at a time that suited all organised through one central booking agency with clearly listed prices, no haggling, being ripped of or running around to find the best deal... it was heaven.

Oaxaca was a much nicer town with a lively central square and colourful streets. We started off on a tour of the nearby ruins, but after an hour of driving around in circles it turned out that access to the site was blocked due to a protest by the taxi drivers... so no cigar there.

The ruins of Palenque

From Oaxaca we headed out on a tour to Palenque, a Mayan ruin site. After debating and gathering information on whether to try and get there by ourselves and hire a guide or go with a tour we opted for a tour, which seemed the easier option and better value. At least it would have been if we hadn't been woefully misinformed.

After spending more hours than expected visiting a couple of nice but not spectacular waterfalls we arrived at Palenque with only 1h45m to check it out before the place closed. Nor were we happy to find that after asking about whether a guide was included in the tour and being told no, that there was indeed a guide... in Spanish, which was fantastic for everyone else in the group except the Aussie and the Frenchie. The guide also spoke French but didn't feel like helping us out there, so left us standing at the gate gapping at the Guide pricelist with a starting price of $60USD... so having decided against a guide we raced around the boiling hot site trying to cover as much of it was we could before the place closed.

We managed 2/3rds of it before the imminent thunderstorm and site closure forced us to give up. Still, even though under-informed about the history of the place I was amazed at the scale of the ruins and their beautiful location.

From there we headed to San Cristobal de las Casas, which is a really cute little town with stone paved streets and more colourful buildings set in the mountains. More time was spent wandering the streets and avoiding the rain in a great little jazz bar, where I had one of the best cocktails I've ever had... huge, green, lethal and delicious. Wish I'd written down what was in it...

After SC we moved on to the most anticipated part of the journey... the beach! And finally some sunshine... what a relief after the disastrous Paris 'summer'. Thankfully despite only being an hour south of Cancun, Playa del Carmen is developed but not overly so. 4 lovely days were spent swimming, sunning, strolling, snorkeling, relaxing, eating and drinking...the typical beach vacation.

The already missed Playa del Carmen

Bidding a sad farewell to the sun and sand we headed on to Chichen Itza, where we learned from previous experience and opted for DIY over the tour group. And happily so, the buses worked out perfectly and we lucked out and met an English speaking couple who'd just hired a guide and wondered if we were interested in joining in and splitting the cost...hell yes we were. Definitely worth it... the site was so much better with an explanation of all the details, fascinating! From the shadow of a snake that appears on the main pyramid twice a year to the sound of an eagle that occurs when you clap we learnt so much.

The new wonder... Chichen Itza

The zocalo of Merida at sunset (yep, I went a little panorama crazy, I know)

And then that was it, on to Merida for a day before heading back to Mexico city to fly out to head back to Paris and back to work :( Luckily there's more travel planned to look forward to Bordeaux, Venice and Prague here I come.

For anyone interested in seeing more photos you can check out my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7620750@N03/

Sunset in Merida

a la Francaise

So... have been a complete slacker and haven't blogged in ages, my apologies.

Donc, quoi de neuf? Pas grand chose....things have been going well, time is flying by very quickly and I'm pretty into the swing of life here now. 3 months has gone by in a heartbeat and unfortunately I think I've learned about 3 new French words in that time... and they're all names for cheese :)

I'm up to a full-time teaching load, so my days are spent discussing topics such as bonds, hedge-funds, inflation, global warming, politics, commodities and mergers with my students... and surprisingly that can actually be more interesting than it sounds sometimes. I've certainly learnt a lot and had some very interesting discussions. I've made a few friends and am spending time getting to know Paris, which I am loving more and more as time goes by.

I've also ventured out a couple of times (sometimes I feel the need to see the sea and breathe clean air.. Paris is gorgeous, but dense!) and had a weekend in Girona, Spain and just came back from a weekend in Brittany.

Girona was cute, it's a little medieval town with some nice buildings, so I spent most of my time wandering around the old walled city and stumbling across the odd sexual deviant in the back gardens of the cathedral... obviously the locals are lacking in alternative entertainment. Either that or he was making some kind of anti-religious protest, it was a Sunday after all.
Brittany is also beautiful, very rugged coast and dramatic landscapes. We went the whole hog with seafood platters and champagne at a coastal restaurant, unfortunately the luxury lifestyle didn't stretch as far as accommodation and after an entire night of non-stop rain we were almost able to turn our tent into a life raft. Mussels grow everywhere here and damn are they good... even though they're tiny little suckers they give the NZ ones a run for their money..mmmm. Yes, so the weekend pretty much revolved around food and several types of galette were also sampled.

So... that's about it, not very exciting, but am planning a few more trips so will hopefully post more soon. In the meantime here are a couple of cheesy shots of Paris....









PS: The froggies are holding these guys hostage... but not to fret a covert rescue operation is underway and they'll be eating Vegemite again in no time.

Oh, and the stereotypes are true...there are scary little rat like dogs everywhere and hence dog shit abounds on the pavements. Between the rat like dogs and the vast flocks of rat like pigeons the pavements can get a little hazardous at times.

Settling in...

Wow, it's been 3 weeks since I arrived in Paris... and yet it feels more like 6, it's hard to believe it's been so short. In that time I have been for multiple job interviews and ended up deciding on 2 part-time jobs (the first of which I started 4 days after my arrival... talk about a running start). Whilst the 2 part-time roles mean a little less security I am hoping they also equate to a bit more free time and more money, so we'll see how it goes. Hours are starting to pick up and by the end of April I should be into the swing of a full working week (have vague memories of what that feels like :)

My French is still appalling... and is even more noticeable when my students get stuck on a word and look to me for the translation of a complicated French business term (especially as I am so intimately acquainted with the world of hedge funds and market derivatives... not). However, my comprehension is definitely improving and I only have to give people the completely blank 'huh??' look about 50% of the time now. Shopkeepers have started speaking to me in French, rather than reverting immediately to English the moment my first few French words come out. So progress must be being made... not that it feels like it.

In addition to jobs I have also secured myself a room for the year and am happily (at least as happily as a person who hasn't received a paycheck yet can be) buying myself curtains and sheets etc and tacking photos up on the wall. Following a year of movement where the longest I spent in one room was 6 weeks, it is a wonderful feeling to know that I'll be here for a while and don't have to put a backpack on!

Next items on the list are getting myself a bank account, social security number and my temporary work permit... all of which will hopefully be well on the way to sorted by next week... oh yeah, and have to learn the language!

I have unknowingly moved into the 'little Turkey' area of Paris and am surrounded by many familiar elements. My street is full of Turkish men hanging around tea shops and smoking, posters of cheesy looking Turkish singers adorn the walls and Turkish restaurants and kebap shops abound. There is baklava, simit, ekmek and I have even spotted Midye Dolma (my Turkish favourite - mussels stuffed with rice), although it is on the menu of a classy restaurant and not being sold by a 12 year old boy on a baking hot street corner. Without the risk of serious food poisoning I'm not sure they'll taste at all the same...

My spare time (of which I have plenty at the moment) is spent walking around Paris, weather permitting, getting endlessly lost. I wandered around many strange streets in many cities last year, but none find me quite so baffled and disorientated as the streets of Paris. Any time I think I am heading straight I am certain to be heading along a diagonal street and where I end up is never quite where I expected. Thank god for the metro... I just keep, either intentionally or unintentionally, getting lost and walking until I stumble across the next metro stop where I pause to figure out where the hell I am. So far so good, always manage to find my way home and am stumbling across some great little back streets, markets, shops etc... not that I'll ever be able to find them again, but hey!

I've added some photos and videos to the blog for anyone interested. Hope everyone is well!

Cutie

Awwww....

Ain't this just the cutest! This is the baby moon bear in action and yes, the noise is for real... one of the strangest sounds I've ever heard.

Heading home...

Brrrr....

So, after a brief return to Sydney to sort out my visas and undertake something fairly abhorrent to me (work!) for a little while, I repacked (my bag is like an inverse tardis, things just keep expanding and not fitting back in!) and set of on the road again (and yes, that song keeps playing over in my head every time I get on a plane or bus... 'On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again'... so sad, I know) Thus, cutting it extremely fine on the weight restrictions for British Airways, I winged my way to Bangkok from whence I took an overnight train straight to Chong Mek, the southern border crossing with Laos. From here I crossed through one of the most rambling and disorganised borders I've seen yet into Laos and onto the southern town of Pakse. Over a couple of days in Pakse I explored the Angkor era ruins of Wat Champusak and the waterfalls of Tat Fan. Both of which would have been covered in a single day trip in most countries, however, I learnt the hard way that things go very slowly in Laos, especially the public transport, and that the organised tours, which I prefer to avoid, save a lot of time and headaches. Wat Champusak was 38km outside of Pakse.... not far you would think and so I thought... and yet it took me 2 and a half hours to reach by public bus, stopping numerous times along the way to pick up a bucket of fish from someones house or drop off some thatched roofing at someone else's house. All whilst squeezed amongst 20 or so Laos people in a 'bus' that was the equivalent of a covered ute with bench seats, all staring at the blonde farrang stupid enough not to take the much quicker organised tour with the rest of the farrang. Anyhow, got there in the end and was lucky enough to get a much faster ride back in a tuk tuk with a charming old german gentleman who was talking to his Laos guide about how he was going to pay him....with women - delightful. From Pakse I headed north to Vang Vieng via overnight bus... lovely. Using a squat toilet on a bus whilst ricocheting around the bends of windy mountain roads was added to my list of experiences - definitely under the 'never to do again' column though. Judging by the smell I wasn't alone in finding using the facilities challenging, which made having my bed directly above the toilet even more of an experience. Vang Vieng was lovely though, even if far more touristic than most places and full of bars with travellers laying back watching endless reruns of 'Friends' and 'The Simpsons'. The mountains were lovely scenery and I was smart enough this time to join a tour of the caves with Kayaking and tubing. I obviously hadn't completely learnt my lesson though, as the next day I decided to hire a bike and head out to one of the better caves in the area, something the guidebook assured was easily done. Or not, first mistake was not hiring a mountain bike, which made riding along on unpaved roads (and at one point a patch which I am certain was actually a pebble river bed) feel more like operating a jackhammer than riding a bike. My second mistake was being a gullible twat who, when unsure of which direction to take to Phu Cham cave, asked locals and actually believed what they said. Thus, having taken several wrong turns and paid for entry into two caves which were decidedly not Phu Cham, despite claims from said locals that they were, I finally arrived at Phu Cham hot, dusty, sweaty and sunburned and about 3 hours later than expected. It was worth the visit though, an amazing huge cave with a lovely blue swimming hole outside - into which I jumped fully clothed in preparation for the long, dusty ride back. From Vang Vieng I caught a VIP minibus up to Luang Prabang - I don't want to know what the ordinary buses would be like, the VIP was experience enough. Luang Prabang was lovely, great old buildings, night markets, there was just a really nice feel to it. The first day I signed up for two half day tours, the first to Pak Ou caves and a weaving village - nothing terribly exciting there, but a nice trip down the Mekong all the same. The second was to Tat Kuang Si, which was a gorgeous waterfall with a series of swimming holes at it's base. Very pretty.

On the second day I ventured out on a bike again, to visit a second waterfall, Tat Sae. Yep, not only had I not learnt my lesson, I had managed to talk another Aussie girl into going along with me. I had seen the turn off to Tat Sae on the way into town, therefore knew where it was and knew the road was paved and fairly easy going all the way. So we hired mountain bikes (had learnt that lesson) and headed out there. It was hot sweaty work, but much easier on the paved roads with good bikes and we covered the 15kms pretty easily. We took the turn off, headed through the small nearby village, parked our bikes and paid the boatman $1 to cross the river to the waterfall.... to the completely dry, not a drop of water left, full of leaves and bugs, waterfall. Yep, that's right, the guidebook said it can run a little low in dry season, but didn't happen to mention that it completely disappears. Still, it was a good ride and on the way back through the village we caught the attention of a bunch of kids at the local school so had fun showing them photos of themselves, so it was a worthwhile trip.Then, after getting up early the next morning to watch the monks collecting their alms (man those guys walk fast! Perhaps to avoid the hordes of tourists trying to take their photos?) I boarded a slow boat for a 2 day trip up the Mekong to Huay Xai. And no, that's not fog in this picture, it's smoke - the effects of slash and burn agriculture. You pretty much can't see more than 100m into the distance in most of nothern Laos and Thailand at this of year. From Huay Xai I headed off on the 'Gibbon Experience' - 3 days and 2 nights of walking through the forest, zipping along flying foxes and sleeping in treehouses. This was, without a doubt, the absolute highlight of my trip - muchas gracias Lee for the recommendation! After walking a short way into the forest we were harnessed up and clipped on to the first of 3 very long flying foxes - about 300metres long. Wow, I have had issues with heights in the past and was fervently not thinking about what I had signed myself up for.... and luckily it was all good. Yeah, it was high, you're about 40 metres above the forest floor and above most of the canopy for that matter, but what a rush! And the view! Too good for words, it was just amazing and yes, my legs were shaking a tad from the adrenaline rush afterwards, but nothing to be scared of.

This is the final zip line and was definitely one of the highest and it took us straight into our tree house where we were to spend 2 nights. This is Andre, one of the guys in the group, who just liked to go partway along the line and 'hang'. And no, I definitely did not give this a try, zipping along at speed is one thing... the moment it looked like slowing down or stopping... I'll skip that thanks!

Below is our treehouse. It had fantastic views and one of the most noticeable things about being out there in the forest was the birdsong... it was constant and lovely, they even sang right through the night. Unfortunately we weren't lucky enough to see any black gibbons, but we did get to hear them singing on the second morning, quite a unique sound. Despite my past reservations about heights I felt quite comfortable in the treehouse - perhaps with the exception of the toilet... a ceramic squat toilet covering a hole and placed right next to the railing of the house and swarming with large bees (without stings, but still, more company than I usually like when using the toilet).

On the trek back to town at the end of the trip we passed through a hut where many of the Gibbon Experience workers stay and here I had the amazing opportunity to play with a baby moon bear, who had been rescued from poachers. To be able to pick and hold a normally wild animal like this was absolutely amazing. Because it was still so young it was trying to nurse on anyone who passed by, frequently sucking at ankles of people standing around, or in this case my arm. I ended up with a couple of nice big hickies after this! I have a video of it which I will try to get online, but he made the most amazing noise whilst sucking, kinda like a vacuum cleaner.

Anyhow, enough on Laos. From there I headed off to Paris, where I am now sitting, shivering, reminiscing about what sunshine and warmth felt like. Have been interviewing madly for jobs and hope to have something finalised by early next week after a couple more interviews... and then on to finding an apartment. Didn't expect that to be harder than finding a job, but it's proving to be so. Oh yeah, and then the small matter of learning French... piece of cake eh!

Sorry, very long blog, but it's been a while... that's enough for now.

İs it a mosque? İs it...

a temple?...Wait, it's a cathedral! İ don't think we're in İstanbul anymore Toto...

After a month of dealing with cranky students who were unable to eat or drink anything from sunup to sundown during the October Ramazan, we got a chance for a rare break from teaching over Ramazan Bayram, the holiday to celebrate the end of fasting. So we took the opportunity to pop across the border (translation - 10 hour bus ride) to visit the seaside town of Varna in Bulgaria.

For a group of people who had been teaching from 9am to 10pm on a regular basis, living in a lojmen (teachers housing) with curfews and alcohol bans Varna was a veritable oasis in the desert. A large beer cost $1, a tequila shot was $1.50 and a bottle of wine at a restaurant was $6... it was heaven. Especially when we discovered a restaurant around the corner with four cheese pizza and blue cheese salad... after longingly eyeing off the exorbitant ($14 for 300g) packet of blue cheese in my local Turkish supermarket for months, İ finally had a chance to go to town on cheese and red wine in Bulgaria.

İn addition to food and alcohol, Varna was a pleasant change to the crowds, chaos and pollution of İstanbul. Varna has stumbled across garbage bins and actually uses them, marvelous inventions that they are. There were far fewer people and it was possible to walk a block in less than 10 minutes... although the Bulgarians are obviously feeling a lack given their neighbours abundant popluation and seem to be doing their best to catch up. İ have never seen so many babies in my life. Most young women carry handbags as accessories... in Varna it seems you wouldn't be seen dead without a stroller or baby on your hip instead. İt was not unusual to see a line of 5 or 6 strollers in a row, being pushed by 'yummy mummies' in tight jeans and knee high stiletto boots, coming towards you down the central boulevard.

All in all it was a fantastic trip, dirt cheap, nice friendly hostel, good service and the men didn't stare at us all the time or try to chat us up. Every now and again we managed to see daylight as well, as you can see we actively took in some of the tourist attractions....

However all good things must come to an end and after a nice 4 day break it was time to get back to work... but not for much longer. İn 4 more weeks İ will be winging my way to Thailand for a short holiday and shopping trip before heading back to the land down under... to turn around fairly promptly and head back to France again. İt' seems İ just can't get enough of this flying caper....

Working girl

Had to happen, after 2 months of travelling and 'working' hard on the cruises İ have finally started to get into the swing of full time work.... getting out of bed before 10am, oh, the horror!

Teaching is going well, am learning more about grammar every day (yes, that is as exciting as it sounds!). They have started me off on the higher levels, so İ'm having to work hard to keep one step ahead of my students for when they ask me those lovely curly questions.

Otherwise İ am settling into İstanbul, drinking Efes with my fellow teachers, becoming a backgammon fiend, attempting to aquire Turkish and ignoring the stories of muggings, deportations and injuries that keep making the rounds.

A few tips for the intrepid visitor to Turkey:

1) Don't trust anyone, no matter how sincere they sound, unless you fancy a 1000 dollar beverage, in which case go for it.

2) Watch where you walk. The roads are full of gapping holes... or are the gapping holes full of road?

3) The more you love meat (regardless of what part of the animal it comes from), the better. Especially if you like to eat it for every meal, including dessert... mmmm, burnt chicken breast pudding. Delish!

4) Bring a giant pack of wet ones, store bottles of water in your room... or learn to live without showering. İ have a new appreciation for that marvellous little gurgle and subsequent gushing forth of water from taps now.

5) There is but one god and his name is Attaturk... no, wait... Allah.

6) İf you can't be bothered with an alarm clock, just move in next to a mosque. The call to prayer will rouse you at a reasonable 5am each day. Or do as I have done and move in next to a school, where the delightful murmur of adolescent voices and the playful tossing of basketballs will gently wake you each day.

7) Turkey is the best country in the world, İstanbul is the best city in the world and Turkish food is the best food in the world... at least according to my students.

8) Beware the cats, they may look cute, but they do attack. Want a pet? You'll find a kitten in most garbage piles, bushes, under tables, under parked cars, on steps, in carpet shops... anywhere you look really.

9) We've been wrong all these years, bread is the most important food group and should form the base of the food pyramid.

10) İf you happen to be an ex-rally car driver then by all means give driving in İstanbul a go... you might just have a chance at coming out in one piece. For the rest, forget it and be content as a passenger, knowing that even this will take years off your life.

11) Those stripey bits on the road, know as pedestrian crossings to us, mean nothing to Turkish drivers. Cross at these only if you want a better chance of survival by having other soft bodies surrounding you for when, not if, a car decides to plow through while you're crossing.

A few pics of İstanbul for you:
















İstikal Caddesi - Just around the corner from where İ am living. Huge street of restaurants, cafes and shops that is packed with people day and night.







The Golden Horn at Sunset.

And this is what happens when you ask a friend to take an inch off your hair... and İ thought Americans used the imperial measurement system! This is what İ ended up with after İ headed to a hairdresser to fix the bob that İ somehow ended up with. Now that İ have gotten over the shock of such unexpectedly short hair İ am rather liking it. Time for a change and all that jazz...

Med Dreaming

It's a tough life if you can get it, well don't ask me how, but I got it... have been working as a tour leader on a cruise boat on the Turkish mediteranean coast for the last couple of weeks. I landed a teaching job in Istanbul starting in September and needed something to keep me afloat over August and I found it, literally! Here are a couple of snaps from the 'office'....

It wasn't all smooth sailing, there was a surprise wedding, a few dramas here and there and a big fight between the crew and a few passengers resulting in 3 of them being kicked off the boat at 3am... with me in the middle trying to calm everyone down and sort things out, but other than that it was a great couple of weeks and I met some fab people and had some great laughs.

Am back in Istanbul now and have just moved into the teachers lodjmen (appartment) in the Taxim area where I'll be spending the next 3 months. It's a really cool spot with heaps of bars, tea cafes, restaurants and shops which will keep me busy with exploring for the next few months, in the spare moments I get off from teaching.

That's it for the Turkish adventure so far, will write more as it unfolds.
Gulegule until then...

Dervishes, dancers et al

Wow, what to say about Turkey, except it was amazing. We had such a great time there. Firstly we started in Antalya where we began to unwind from work with a couple of days of relaxing on the beach before moving on to Kas, where we spent a few more days, you guessed it, unwinding and relaxing in the Mediteranean. The water was gorgeous, beautifully clear and the perfect temperature. The people were also fantastic, we'd been warned that we would be hassled to buy a lot, but after Vietnam with the standard greeting was 'Hello, you buy something?', I was far more entertained by the variety we were approached with in Turkey. Lines included 'How can I help you spend your money?', 'Hello, you dropped something... in my store.' and even 'Hello Jennifer Lopez!' (which Talulah took to be a comment about the size of her bum).

After a couple of days of sunbathing and chilling we gathered enough energy to go Kayaking over sunken city ruins, which was awesome. Here is a photo from castle ruins on the island where we stopped for lunch.

From Kas we headed to Butterfly valley, which was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We stayed in treehouses, ate the best vegetarian turkish food of the whole trip, trekked 400m down steep cliffs to reach the beach where we spent the day relaxing before going on a waterfall hike and spotting some of the Butterflies for which the valley is named.

After stopping through Fethiye and Bodrum for more sightseeing, cruising and shopping we headed to Selcuk where we checked out Epehsus, which was amazing... so large and so well preserved. To think it has been standing for thousands of years.

After Selcuk we headed to Cappadoccia, where we spent 4 days seeing the sights - underground cities, Love, Honey, Rose and White Valleys and Fairy Chimneys. The landscape here is amazing and the number of houses, churches and pigeon caves in the area is mindblowing. We went through one underground city which was enormous and was one of 20 such cities known of in the area. I can't imagine what it would have been like to live in one of these....

Having climbed endless hills and tunnels and taken hundreds of photos of rocks we headed to our final port of call, Istanbul. Here we took it a little easier, shopping at the enormous and hugely tempting Grand Bazzar, drinking and socialising with new friends at the hostel, and in between shopping and socialsing we checked out the Blue Mosque, Aya Sophia and the Palace and Harem.

All in all a brilliant trip. The people were fantastic, lovely, friendly and trustworthy. We made friends in each stop, both tourists and Turkish travellers and locals. As for where to next... well, I'll let you know as soon as I've sorted that out myself ; )

Au revoir...

Well, here I am in the ranks of the unemployed again (and still loving it). I just finished up my contract with Amvil yesterday and I am getting ready to head to Turkey for a couple of weeks.

Amvil has been fantastic, completely exhausting and physically and mentally demanding, but also extremely rewarding. Working roughly 15 hours a day with a half hour of time to yourself if you're lucky and a regular weekly diet of canned, frozen and reheated food makes for a tough 3 months, not to mention having the same conversation with 9-15 year olds every single week (which do you prefer? what is your favourite ____? etc ad nauseum) but there have been so many entertaining moments that it has all been worth it.

From kids showing me their milk teeth which have fallen out at the dinner table to confiscating cigarettes from 14 year olds and stopping punch ups it has covered the full spectrum for me. Not to mention allowing me to act and dance and sing in public, something I never thought I would do! I have videos to prove it, which I will try and get online at some point for everyone to see. When I applied for the job I never thought I would end up sitting in front of a bunch of teenagers pretending to be a fire with a full painted face and torches sticky taped all over me, but hey, even when it rains a campfire must be had! But if I never have to do the macarena ever again it will be too soon!!!

Apart from the work I have had a blast with the people I have been working with. We have laughed till it hurts many times and I have heaps of memories to take with me.

So, after a 2 week holiday in Turkey, where I will enjoy relaxing and getting to choose what I eat each day (yes, there are a list of foods I plan not to eat for a very long time including instant mashed potatoes and beetroot) I will be back to looking for work again and figuring out where to go next..... watch this space : )

Ola....

So I figured that trying to learn one language wasn't a big enough challenge and that it was time to pop off to another country for a week, hence a fun week was spent in Portugal - a country I had never really thought of visiting and knew next to nothing about (apart from their pastries thanks to Sweet Belem in Petersham....mmmm! And Alex, Sweet Belem still has the best Portugese tarts I've ever had)

Taking advantage of the beautiful proximity that Europe provides Chad, Andrea, Marlys and I jetted off to Lagos in the south of Portugal for a week of beach bumming. On the train there we were approached by a lovely guy who offered the 4 of us a flat in his building for €15 each a night, so we had our own flat complete with kitchen, veranda and rooftop....

We met a great guy from New York, Jon, on the train. He fitted into our little posse straight away and became the fifth member of our little band of travellers. While most of our time was spent wandering along the cliffs from one little beach enclave to the next and enjoying home cooked meals and copious quantities of extremely affordable local wine at the flat, we also managed to fit a day trip on scooters to Sagres into our busy schedule. The south-western most point of Portugal, Sagres was at one point thought to be the end of the world... and it felt like it, it was freezing cold and blowing a gale, but absolutely gorgeous.

The ride along the coast was stunning and even better from the passenger point of view, we had a fantastic day driving along, stopping at beaches, swimming, eating and then motoring on a little further (after spending ten minutes trying to get all the bikes started).

However, the week of fun and frivolity eventually had to end and I'm now back at work. I'm currently at Petit Bois in Cosne d'Aller, which is apparently the 'bellybutton' of France. Halfway through my Amvil stint and the work is starting to become a little repetitive (don't get me started on the food) but every group of kids is different, so I'm still having fun (apart from having a kid throw up on me and then showing me a piece of half chewed candy with his tooth stuck in it the next day). The site here is based in an old chateau with a tree lined driveway full of crows. The chateau is supposed to be haunted by the philanthropic owner who left the chateau to the town and who apparently is a friendly ghost with a sense of humour... no sightings yet, but will keep you posted....